Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  The soldier she’d compromised was already swinging back at another, but this one was ready. Their blades clanged together with a harsh, metallic ring, like a gong echoing through the cramped tunnel. Then the soldier she’d turned died, slashed nearly into three pieces by two of the others, their blades flashing silver in the dim light.

  It had all lasted maybe four or five seconds. But it threw the soldiers’ approach into disarray. At the same time, the two soldiers she’d targeted outside the cave had turned on the shamans. One was already dead, but had killed one shaman and wounded another. The other soldier, though, rampaged past its fellows and tore through another group of shamans, sending them fleeing in panic.

  Panic, Morgan decided, was good.

  The hammers of water vanished. But Mister Starman knew it wasn’t over. The soldiers already in the tunnel quickly organized themselves to come at her again. Morgan lashed out with a water hammer of her own, a big one that left a cavity in the water behind it. It smashed into one of the soldiers like a battering ram, instantly turning him to a bloody pulp. The edge of it caught a second soldier, spinning him like a top and crashing him against the tunnel wall hard enough to shred his rubbery skin, white wound edges yawning like ragged mouths. Then the hole she’d made in the ocean collapsed, the water slamming back together with a thunderclap.

  Morgan reeled back at the concussion, her head ringing. The soldiers were already recovering. She fought desperately to clear the thin whine from her head, because it made concentrating harder. These Monster-soldiers were so fast—

  Magic roared back in, like an avalanche, this time aimed directly at her mind. Morgan instinctively shrugged it aside, but the effort cost her a bit more time and distracted her just that little bit more. Now the soldiers were almost on top of her. Morgan punched out, her hand suddenly wreathed in snarling blue power. She struck a warrior, his flesh turning to slimy goo where she touched it. He howled and flung himself back, and she struck at another, just as one of the hooks caught and pulled her. Morgan struck at it, this time, shattering the tough alloy of the blade like brittle glass. Another wave of magical compulsion hit her, making her gasp and cry out. Another hook caught her. Another. She doggedly hung on to Mister Starman and fought back, lashing out, flinging a bolt of raw energy into the face of one soldier, searing it away, then turning on another.

  One of the hooks yanked, spinning her. Now roaring bluish light enveloped her foot and she kicked, punching her toes out the back of the warrior pulling at her. He went limp and she spun again, trying to drive off the other soldiers closing in, trying to keep punching and kicking. But she felt her strength failing, her arms and legs starting to get heavy. Weeping at the unfairness of it all, she made to summon one last, colossal blast of magic, one that would destroy everything and kill everyone around her, then do more, keep radiating out, through the water, the air above, space beyond that.

  A wave of magical force that would just make all of the Nyctus go away, just make it so they didn’t exist anymore.

  Blue light roared like a furnace, enveloping her and Mister Starman. Another magic onslaught from the shamans pummeled her mind, but she brushed it aside in a second.

  But a second was all that the soldiers needed.

  A sharp, jabbing pain erupted from the back of her neck, then swept through her in an agonizing wave. She’d been poked with a needle, or something like it, and now painful dizziness rolled through her. She fought to keep her focus, but her brain was suddenly filled with fog. More of the hooks caught her, holding her fast. With a last, desperate gasp, she flung away the power she’d summoned in a ragged, raw burst of force. It pulsed over the soldiers clustered around her, searing their flesh away, then struck the rock and made it briefly glow red hot. The old bones vanished in puffs of charred grit. Then the temperature of the water shot up and became scalding hot. Morgan had enough presence of mind to grab the last shreds of power and make herself and Mister Starman impervious to the heat, and that was all she was able to do.

  Then, darkness.

  Morgan slitted her eyes open, wincing as a harsh, reddish glare penetrated them and stabbed into her eyeballs. She groaned and looked up. Moving her head was like lifting a heavy stone.

  It took her a moment to make sense of what was going on. She couldn’t move her arms or legs. She thought maybe they were paralyzed. She’d heard about that, people not being able to feel or move whole parts of their bodies after some terrible accident. But she could feel her limbs, she just couldn’t move them. No, her ankles and wrists were wrapped in some tough, fibrous kind of cable. She was sitting on a hard metal bench, with her legs stretched out, her upper body propped up into a sitting position.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Dark, shadowy figures surrounded her. Lots of them. Dozens of them. She couldn’t make out much about them, though, because a single, harsh light the color of hot magma shone down on her from above.

  Morgan blinked.

  Then she yanked against her bonds, and cried out. At once, a great weariness washed over her, making her eyelids droop again. She fought against it, desperately trying to summon magic to help her, but that enormous weariness prevented it. And the more she tried, the more tired she got. Soon, she’d just topple back into darkness.

  “It’s pointless to resist,” a low, gruff voice said.

  A Nyctus moved into the circle of light. It was much larger than any she’d seen before, muscular and bulky, and clad in articulated plates of glassy black armor. Two of its tentacles were encased in metal that rippled and bent with their movements. Over all of it, it wore a black harness, holding one of the curved hook-blades to its back, and several other brutish weapons hanging at its sides. Some were other types of blades, and one was definitely a gun. It moved with a liquid grace that hinted both at restrained power, and the promise of great violence.

  Morgan forced her eyes open. “Let me go. Or I’ll make all of you go away.”

  The Nyctus just went on speaking, as though she hadn’t said anything. “We’ve been making a mistake. Our shamans have been trying to break through, into your mind, and take control of you. They’ve failed at that. I don’t think that will ever work against you, no matter how hard we try.”

  The creature leaned in, and now its grating voice rang in her head. “But what they can do is keep you contained, and prevent you from using your power against us. And the more you try, the more you won’t be able to. It’s not quite what we want, but it will have to do.”

  “I hate you. Let me go.”

  But the Nyctus laughed in her thoughts. “You’re far from the first being to hate me, and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Seeker. I am the office and title, and those things are me.”

  Morgan frowned and shook her head. “What do you want from me?”

  “You know what we want. We want you to carry out your promise to us, the one you made on Tāmtu. We want you to kill Thorn Stellers. Isn’t that what you want, too?”

  Morgan glowered at the creature. She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. She hated Thorn Stellers for trying to change her, yes. But, when she thought back to what had happened, she didn’t remember any of the same sort of menace in his thoughts that she found in these Nyctus, these Monsters. There’d actually been a sort of sad kindness. It felt the same way the Radiants on Tāmtu had treated her, as though they were concerned about her. That’s because they’d been her friends.

  So could Thorn Stellers have actually thought he was trying to help her?

  The thought had danced around inside her mind for a while, but now it suddenly crystalized, as bright and certain as Tāmtu ice. The dark presence of the Seeker in her mind made it so clear. Thorn Stellers may have hurt her, but she didn’t think he’d meant to. Not anymore. He’d been trying to help her.

  “What I want is to not be here. Let me go!” she shot back.

  “That isn’t going to happen. At least, not until you’ve
defeated Thorn Stellers. Once you’ve done that, you can go wherever and do whatever you wish.”

  Morgan gave him a contemptuous snort. “You make the water taste like lies.”

  “I will never lie to you child. That is the one promise I can make.”

  His voice flashed through her mind like fire, leaving hot ash in its wake. It flooded her thoughts, and she couldn’t stop it, partly because of whatever poison they’d given her, partly because of the pressure to contain her from the surrounding shamans. But it was also partly because of mounting fear.

  “Tell me something true, then, you monster.” She tried to sound angry, but wanted to cry.

  “Very well.” A pause, then the voice split her senses again.

  “This is going to hurt.”

  20

  Kira tried to ignore the way the high collar of her dress uniform chafed against her neck. She rarely wore the damned thing, mainly because occasions to wear it were few and far between these days. But she’d never been a fan of it, thinking of the stiff, formal uniform as almost pretentious.

  Except on occasions like this.

  “May she rest in peace, secure in the knowledge that she did her part to help bring the war, and the suffering it causes, to its eventual and victorious conclusion for the Orbital Navy she made her life.”

  The minister threw a handful of dirt into the grave, where it rattled softly against the coffin. Each of those present then filed by and did the same thing.

  A Commander, a new addition to Code Nebula since Kira was last here, caught her eye just before she tossed her own handful of grave-dirt onto the coffin. “Did you know Commander Narvez well, Lieutenant?”

  Kira looked into the open tomb, at the sealed coffin. It was hard to believe that angular, hatchet face was just a few centimeters behind the lid, totally blank. No expression. No life.

  She nodded. “She was one of my instructors here, during my basic training, and my Starcaster upgrade training later on.” She nodded again. “Yes, ma’am, I knew her pretty well.”

  Kira walked on, letting others file past the grave and pay their own respects. That completed the funeral for her. Just a simple, brief ceremony, followed by the symbolic burial by those in attendance, and that was it. Part of the simplicity was how practical things were—even the act of saying goodbye. There were a lot of funerals these days. But part of it was the Starcaster Corps itself. Not attracting attention to itself was hardwired into the Corps, for many reasons. Some were sound, and some were more irrational, but all of the practices felt like dogma at this point of the war.

  At least the location was nice, a grassy hill overlooking Code Nebula. Narvez would have a good view from up there.

  Kira turned around, scanning the cemetery. And so would all of the others. Dozens of them. Some were actual graves, and some were memorial markers only, for those whose bodies could never be recovered. This hill had started out as an unofficial site to commemorate fallen Starcasters, but it had since been formalized. Now, all Starcasters who fell in honorable service were buried, or at least memorialized here. Sentinel Hill, it was now called. The name hinted at watchfulness, of waiting, as though these fallen Starcasters were still on duty, standing guard over Code Nebula and the new ’Casters that trained here.

  Kira sighed. She’d seen enough of the war to know that none of these dead ’Casters were watching anything. They were just dead.

  Unless, of course, Thorn decided to bring them back to life, but that would be—

  Kira stopped. A lone figure stood in the distance, shoulders slumped against the purple-blue sky.

  She took a breath and started to walk. She knew this was going to be tough, and just hadn’t been ready for it. She still wasn’t, really, but that lonely figure needed her.

  “Hello, Damien,” she said.

  He didn’t look at her. His bleak gaze just stayed fixed on Narvez’s grave, and the last, few celebrants now walking away from it. An autonomous digger, parked discreetly down the hill, rumbled to life, and began to climb toward the grave. It was time to finish the burial that Kira and the others had started.

  “Hello, Kira.”

  There was none of the spark Kira had become used to from Damien. None of the hinted cleverness, the sly awareness, the humor simmering just beneath it all. His tone was as flat and listless as the fitful breeze rippling the grass.

  Kira stood for a moment, trying to figure out what to say next. Where to begin? She’d read the report about what had happened, but it had been a sterile recounting of events, nothing more. An addendum to it confirmed that an investigation and inquiry had been completed, concluding that while mistakes were made, there’d been no actual negligence. Damien had been weaponized, used to kill Narvez, but he officially bore no blame for it.

  Of course, there was whatever was official, and then there was the haunted desolation in eyes that should be sparkling with life.

  They stood awkwardly for a moment in silence. Kira finally spoke just to break it.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come see you sooner, but Mol got me back here only a couple of hours ago,” she said.

  He nodded. “That’s okay.”

  Silence.

  Kira looked down at Code Nebula, gathered herself, and turned back. “Damien—”

  “Kira, look, don’t bother. I know what you’re going to say. It won’t make any difference.”

  “So you’re a Joiner now?”

  “No, I’m a diplomat. I’m supposed to know what people are going to say, and be ready with an answer when they say it.”

  “So what am I going to say?” Kira asked him.

  He gave her a sharp glance. “That it wasn’t my fault, that I was being controlled by that squid, that others were responsible for making sure things didn’t get out of control, that I was an innocent bystander.” He shrugged. “Something like that, anyway.”

  “Okay, so what’s your answer to that?”

  He turned and met her gaze squarely. “That even if it’s true, none of it matters. It doesn’t change how I feel. I killed an ON Commander, a respected officer I barely knew. I was aware of what was going on, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. All I could do was—”

  He stopped, looked away, swallowing hard.

  Kira fumbled for something to say. This sort of thing had never been her strength. She either ended up getting unaccountably angry, or she commiserated way too much.

  “You’re right, you don’t need me around to have this conversation, I guess,” was all she finally managed.

  “No, I don’t, because I’ve been having it with myself ever since it happened,” he replied, then turned and walked away.

  Kira closed the fasteners on her travel bag, sealing away the sight of that damned dress uniform. She was back in her uniform-of-the-day, enjoying its comfortable practicality. The best part was the boots. Her regular combat boots embraced her feet with firm, but yielding support, protecting them without squeezing them, or scraping against the tops of her toes. The dress boots were like wearing vac-armor.

  She blew out a breath and looked around her room. This was the first time, she realized, she’d been assigned visitor’s quarters at Code Nebula. She remembered doing oh-dark-thirty runs past this building. She glanced at it every time, bitterly jealous at what seemed to her like a veritable palace. She lived in a barracks, jammed in with a couple dozen other sweaty bodies, all tumbling past one another as they raced to get out of bed for reveille, or back into bed for lights out. These visitors, though, had their own rooms. They shared washrooms, but only one at a time, and could lock the door. They had that rarest commodity, privacy, rivaled only by sleep for scarcity.

  What it actually turned out to be was another standard barracks template, only divided into cubicles by thin sheets of plasticized fiber-board. There was privacy, sure, as much as a few millimeters of divider provided, anyway. It reminded her of an old saying, far fields are greener. Sure they were, until you got closer to them and could see all the rock
s and weeds.

  Kira hefted her travel bag and turned to leave. Mol would be waiting for her. She was going to return to the Hecate, then redeploy with her to wherever Fleet intended to send her next. She had no idea where that would be.

  Far fields are greener.

  People always think others have it better than they do.

  Kira dropped the bag back on the bed, put on her uniform hat, turned and strode out of the visitors quarters.

  Mol would have to wait a while. Kira wasn’t leaving Code Nebula yet. Not while she had unfinished business here.

  She tracked Damien down to the infirmary, where he’d just finished another examination, both mundane and magical. Fleet security protocols required that, having been subjected to Nyctus mental influence, he be tested and monitored for a mandatory period. Until that passed, he remained stuck in Code Nebula. It struck Kira that it was almost a sort of punishment, leaving someone who’d been traumatized alone with nothing but their own, brooding thoughts for ten days.

  She stopped at the closed door, knocked twice, then entered.

  She caught Damien in the act of lacing up his shoes. He actually managed a watery smile when he saw her.

  “Good thing you didn’t walk in her a couple of minutes ago, or you’d be seeing a lot more than me with one unstrapped shoe.”

  Kira just put her hands on her hips. “Finish that up, and let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “For a walk.”

  Damien sighed. “Look, Kira—”

  “It wasn’t a request. This is an ON installation, I’m an ON officer, so you’re subject to the Fleet Code of Conduct.”

  Damien stood. “Really?”