Chapter 34
After Tanik’s brush with death, he declared the training session over and led them back to camp. He and Darius both recovered their swords along the way.
The Acolytes followed Tanik up the long, gentle slope to the grassy field of the landing zone. As they crested that rise, a gleaming city of white domes sprawled out before them, arranged in a large circle with streets radiating from the center like the spokes of a wheel. The Ospreys had all been moved to a dedicated landing field to one side of the camp, along with a few squadrons of Vulture and Shrike fighters.
It looked like all of the habitats were set up at this point, and Darius couldn’t see or hear any more transports coming down from orbit. Tanik led them down the other side of the hill to the edge of camp. They passed a pair of perimeter guards and started down a street of trampled grass. A pair of six-wheeled rovers rumbled down the street ahead of them, kicking up grass and dirt. Revenant soldiers in silvery armor worked along the sides of the street planting metal poles in the ground and stringing lights between them with the ZPF.
Side streets branched off between the habitats periodically, but Tanik showed no sign of changing course. He was heading straight for the center of camp, where a particularly large habitat rose like a mountain above the others.
“Where are we going?” Cassandra whispered, finally breaking the silence.
“To the command center to get our hab assignments,” Tanik replied.
They walked on for at least two kilometers, passing hundreds of habitats along the way. As they drew near to the large habitat module in the center of camp—what had to be the command center—Darius noticed two six-wheeled rovers parked out front, and a pair of armored guards stood outside the doors. To one side of the command center, another half a dozen rovers were parked in a cordoned field, facing four two-legged mechs with nine-foot versions of the Revenants’ swords.
Darius wondered about those mechs. The Revenant version of a tank? He slowly tore his eyes away, just in time to see Tanik come to a sudden stop. He held up a hand, indicating for the Acolytes to do the same.
Darius sent Dyara a questioning look. She shrugged and shook her head. A moment later he had his answer. He spotted a group of six giant Cygnians in black armor advancing on the front doors of the command center. From their massive size and the fact that they were walking on two legs, rather than six, Darius assumed they must be Ghouls rather than Banshees.
The two Revenant soldiers standing guard outside the command center adopted a wary stance and turned toward the incoming Ghouls.
Just then, Admiral Ventaris burst outside. The doors of the command center flapped restlessly in the wind of his passing before resealing themselves along a magnetic seam. The admiral was a giant of a man, at least six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a thick chest, but the Cygnians were a head and shoulders even taller than him, and far more impressively built. They stopped a few feet away and glared down on the admiral with the four glowing red eyes of their helmets.
Each of them wore four short swords that dangled from their chests and hips, and they stood with their hands either resting on the hilts or with long, curving claws twitching restlessly beside them.
Darius cringed at the sight of the standoff, but Admiral Ventaris didn’t seem intimidated.
“Can I help you, Sentinel?” he asked.
The front most of the Cygnians tossed his head and growled in an amplified voice. “You gave orders for my people to be reassigned to the Nomad, and to make camp on a separate island.”
“That’s right,” Admiral Ventaris replied. “Is there a problem with that?”
“The Nomad is the smallest and weakest vessel in the fleet.”
Admiral Ventaris spread his hands in a shrug. “Your numbers are few. It makes no sense to give you a larger ship.”
The Cygnian hissed loudly. “Why did you reassign my people?”
“To prevent unnecessary incidents. We are preparing to threaten and possibly attack your worlds. Some of the other Revenants are starting to see you as the enemy, so the less they see of you the better, wouldn’t you say?”
The Cygnian raised two fists and shook them in the admiral’s face. “Do you see us as the enemy?”
“Of course not,” Admiral Ventaris said, smiling blandly in the face of the accusation.
“I don’t believe you. I think you are trying to consolidate us in one place so that you can kill us more easily. I also do not believe that you are planning to threaten my people. You are planning a preemptive strike to attack all of our worlds at the same time. You are planning xenocide.”
Admiral Ventaris appeared taken aback. “If that is what you think, I am surprised you haven’t already tried to rip out my throat!”
“Perhaps I should,” the Cygnian growled, looming toward him.
“You are welcome to try.” The Admiral grabbed the hilt of his sword, as did the guards standing behind him, but no one drew their weapons—yet.
Darius could feel the zero-point field crackling with tension. Like the calm before a storm, the air felt heavy with dark and violent rumblings.
“We’d better back him up,” Tanik said, and took off at a run. Darius and the other Acolytes hesitated before running after him.
The Cygnians turned to look as they approached, momentarily distracted by their arrival. The glowing red eyes of their helmets glared.
Tanik reached the admiral’s side first and fixed the Cygnians with a dark look. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
As Darius and the others arrived, the Cygnians wordlessly turned and stalked away.
“Thank you, Tanik,” Admiral Ventaris said, watching the Cygnians go. He ran a hand through his short, crew-cut black hair and shook his head. “That was about to get ugly.”
“Is it true?” Cassandra asked. “You separated them from us?”
A low, unintelligible growl sounded beside her, and Gakram bared his teeth in a fearsome snarl.
The admiral smiled thinly at them. “I’m afraid I had no choice. Several deadly fights already broke out while we were in-transit to Cratus.”
“Twenty-one days is a long jump,” Dyara said. “Some degree of tension is to be expected. You’re going to make things worse if you start separating the Revenants into groups of them and us.”
The admiral snorted. “I don’t see how things can get much worse. A Vixxon Adept on my ship had his arm ripped off by a Banshee. He nearly died. The Banshee responsible was thrown out an airlock. On another ship, a group of three Lassarian Advocates ambushed a pair of Ghouls in their sleep. Only one of the Lassarians escaped, but he later died of his injuries in the med bay. There have been several other, lesser incidents as well, that merely resulted in disfiguring scars. Under the circumstances, segregating the Cygnians is the safest thing for everyone.”
Gakram growled once more, but this time his words were perfectly clear. “What about me? Do I have to go to the other island?”
Admiral Ventaris nodded. “I’m sorry, but yes. It’s as much for your sake as for anyone else’s. We don’t want anyone trying to sneak up on you in your sleep.”
Gakram hissed. “Let them try.”
The admiral favored him with a dry look. “Yes, while I’m sure that you can take care of yourself, I’d rather not lose any more people.” Ventartis’s hazel eyes slid away from Gakram to regard Tanik once more. “Was there something you needed?”
Tanik nodded. “Hab assignments for my Acolytes.”
“Of course. Go inside and ask for Staff Sergeant Asaris. She’s the Advocate in charge of those assignments. When you’re done, come back and find me. I need to speak with you—” His eyes flicked briefly over the Acolytes standing behind Tanik. “—privately.”
“Of course,” Tanik replied.
At that, Darius heard a clamor of whispering voices, all demanding his attention at the same time. It was the same sound that he’d heard in his visions, and while waking on a few occasions. Each time he’d
heard the sound, it seemed to be a warning, maybe from the Sprites themselves, but what were they trying to warn him about this time?
Darius wondered about that as they walked through the doors of the command center. A degree of secrecy was normal in the upper echelons of any army, but Darius had a bad feeling that this was something else—something much more sinister.
Chapter 35
After receiving her hab assignment, Cassandra asked for permission to go find Gakram and say goodbye. Darius made a face like he wanted to say no, or like he was about to invite himself along, but Dyara whispered something in his ear to stop him from being such a Dad.
Cassandra smiled. She’d been abandoned by her real mother, so she didn’t have anything to compare to, but so far Dyara seemed pretty snaz for an adult.
Cassandra found Gakram standing around one of the Ospreys with the Ghouls they’d seen back at the command center. They were in the middle of what looked to be a heated discussion, but they abruptly stopped talking as she’d approached. The Ghouls turned to glare at her with their black helmets and glowing red eyes. Cassandra wasn’t sure what was more terrifying—a Cygnian helmet, or their regular faces.
“Hey, Gakram!” Cassandra called out, and waved to him from what she judged to be a safe distance.
He bounded over on six legs and growled at her in a low voice. “What do you need?”
“I...” Cassandra glanced at the Ghouls. All six of them were staring at her. She suppressed a shiver and looked away. “I thought maybe we could go down to the beach together.”
Gakram hesitated. “I have to go soon.”
“Right now?”
“Let me ask when they are leaving.” Gakram hurried back over to the Osprey. He spoke for a moment with one of the Ghouls, and then darted back to Cassandra. He flashed a fearsome grin. “I have two hours.”
Cassandra smiled. “Good enough! Let’s go!”
They hurried through the camp at a brisk pace, passing countless soldiers along the way. When they reached the edge of camp, Cassandra said, “Race you to the water!” and took off at a run. She drew on the ZPF until her legs turned to a blur. The grass rustling past her legs became a steady roar. Gakram ran by her a split second later.
“Hey no fair!” Cassandra said. “You’ve got six legs!”
He reached the beach a minute before she did. She found him seated on his haunches at the edge of the beach with all four of his arms crossed over his chest. His mouth hung open in a gaping grin. “You are slow,” he growled.
“No... you’re fast!” Cassandra panted. She collapsed and lay on the warm sand, squinting at the sun, dizzy with exhaustion. “It’s too hot!” she breathed, rolling her head from side to side. “I have to get in the water.”
Gakram padded up beside her like a giant dog. “Let me help you.”
Cassandra’s brow furrowed as she tried to figure out what he meant by that. In the next instant she felt his arms reaching under her and scooping her off the beach.
“What are you—heeeyyy!” She broke off in a scream as Gakram leapt into the air with her cradled in the lower two of his four arms. The beach fell away in a dizzying swirl, and clear blue water took its place, rushing up fast. Wind ripped at Cassandra’s hair as they fell. She had just enough time to suck in a breath and hold it before they hit the water.
As they plunged below the surface, Gakram let go, and she kicked her way to the surface. It wasn’t easy with her boots on, but she managed to compensate by drawing on the ZPF to push herself up. She broke the surface, spluttering salty water. A soggy curtain of hair hung in front of her face. She swept it away with one hand, while treading water to stay afloat. “That wasn’t funny, Gakram! I thought you couldn’t swim!” She looked around for him. “Gakram? Kak!” She sucked in a breath and dived back down. Forcing her eyes open despite the sting of salt water, she searched the sandy bottom. She spotted a dark, blurry shape up ahead, at least ten feet down, and striding along the bottom on six legs like a crab.
Cassandra kicked back up and swam for the shore. When she was still a dozen feet from the beach, Gakram’s head broke the surface in front of her. She swam up beside him and they walked out together. Cassandra collapsed in the wet sand at the water’s edge, and he sat down beside her.
“You didn’t tell me... you could breathe underwater!” Cassandra accused, gasping for air again.
“I can’t,” Gakram growled. “I held my breath.”
“That long?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how did you walk along the bottom like that?”
“Cygnians don’t float. We sink. That is why I don’t know how to swim.”
Cassandra snorted and shook her head. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked out over the shimmering water as she caught her breath and calmed her racing heart. Waves swished up the beach, tickling her hands and carving hollows in the sand around her fingers. A somber silence grew between them as they sat there drip-drying in the afternoon sun. Cassandra wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Would she even be allowed to visit Gakram on his island? It wasn’t fair.
“I have something I want to tell you,” Gakram said slowly.
She turned to him and waited for him to go on.
“It’s a secret,” he added, not looking at her. “You cannot tell anyone. Not even your father.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
The muscles around two of Gakram’s eyes twitched, and then his giant head turned to meet her gaze, his black eyes blinking and squinting. The slits in his neck flared as he sucked in a deep breath. “We are leaving Cratus.”
“We are?” Cassandra asked.
“Not you. We. My people.”
“What?” Cassandra couldn’t contain her outrage. “Ventaris is making you leave? He can’t do that! You’re Revenants, too!”
“He is not making us leave. We are leaving because we know that we must. Because we know what is coming. Perhaps the admiral does, too, and that is why he gave us our own ship—to make it easier for us to go.”
“You know what’s coming...?” Cassandra trailed off. “What do you mean?”
“The war, Cassssandra,” he replied, drawing out her name in a hiss. “The admiral is planning to slaughter my people. He isn’t going to give us any warning, or any chance to surrender. He’s just going to jump in, drop his bombs, and leave. My people are not prepared to fight Revenants, or weapons that can destroy entire planets. They have no idea what is coming. So we are leaving. We have to warn them.”
“But...” Cassandra shook her head. “Then they’ll be ready for us when we come.”
“Yes. That is the point.”
“A lot of Revenants could die, Gakram! I could die!”
Gakram said nothing to that. “That is why I am telling you. So that you know to stay away.”
“What about my dad? And Dyara? What about Seelka and Flitter!? You said I can’t tell anyone, so how do I warn them?”
“You cannot. Not if they will tell the admiral.”
Cassandra shook her head. “There has to be a better way, Gakram. Maybe we can negotiate...” She trailed off, remembering her father’s recurring vision. He’d seen her dead, killed for trying to negotiate with the Cygnians, and he was still having that vision. He never said anything to her anymore, but she’d overheard him talking to Dyara about it a few times on their way to Cratus.
“Yes, we could try to negotiate,” Gakram growled. “And that is the other reason I am telling you that we are leaving. There is an ancient Cygnian prophecy about an alien child who comes to warn my people of the return of the Destroyers.”
“The Destroyers?” Cassandra echoed. “Wait—an alien child? You mean like me?”
“You could fit the description, yes,” Gakram said.
“Why are you only telling me this now?”
Gakram’s barbed tail slapped the sand behind him. “It did not seem relevant before. Now it is. If you come with us, we might be able to convince the Old Ones to grant t
he Union its independence without a fight.”
Cassandra shook her head. “No. My dad warned me about this. I can’t go. They’ll kill me if I try.”
Gakram gave a hissing reply, “Tanik told us that visions are not always certain. And even if you are killed, does that mean that the negotiations failed? Perhaps your sacrifice could save us all.”
“If your people kill me, I think it’s safe to say that the negotiations fail. I’m sorry, Gakram. Prophecy or no prophecy, I can’t go.”
“I understand. It takes great courage to see one’s own death coming and not flinch as it approaches.”
Cassandra grimaced, chagrined by her own cowardice—if that’s what this was. She wasn’t ready to call it that. “Maybe if you’d told me about this prophecy thing sooner...” she trailed off, shaking her head.
“It is okay, Cass. I cannot ask you to risk your life for my people. That is my burden, not yours.” With that, he stood up and shook himself dry like a dog, spraying Cassandra with water.
“Hey!”
Gakram’s mouth hung open in a rueful grin. “Goodbye, Cass. I will miss you.”
Cassandra jumped to her feet. “Hang on. I’ll walk you to your ship.”
They walked back to the camp under a heavy blanket of silence. Halfway there they ran into Tanik. He just stood there on the slope, staring off into the distance, as if in a daze. Cassandra watched him with a frown. As they approached, he snapped out of it, and his green eyes found them with a wan smile. “Did you have a nice swim?”
“Yesss,” Gakram hissed.
“What are you doing out here?” Cassandra asked.
Tanik nodded to her. “Your father is looking for you.”
“So you came looking for us? Why isn’t he here? And why were you just standing there like a statue.”
“He is helping to prepare dinner. And I was just standing there because I sensed your approach. I decided to stop and admire the view while I waited for you come to me.”
Cassandra glanced over her shoulder at the view: a clumpy field rolling out to a bar of white sand and a thin blue line of water along the horizon. It wasn’t much to look at.
Broken Worlds- The Complete Series Page 56
