Not to mention Olav and the other half of the crew also didn’t trust me. I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough to earn a spot in their good graces.
“I don’t understand how killing people can fuel the Ark. Does it run on blood or something?” Casey shuddered.
“The evolved humans are like living batteries, and they explode when they’ve absorbed too much power,” I told her while I tried to ignore her grandfather's constant glaring. “The explosion event produces a large amount of power, and that’s what they harvest. Apparently, the Ark takes a lot to stay afloat.”
“Our power requirements are vast,” Alin said, and it sounded like she was trying to convince us rather than offer an explanation. The captain must have been right about the prime minister hiding something, and I was certain that this empath woman and the enforcers were here to ensure we didn’t uncover it.
“That’s weird,” Casey said. “The captain didn’t say anything about exploding people.”
“Does anything about this place strike you as normal, Casey?” Joseph asked. “I suppose you fit in pretty well, eh, Lyons?”
“Leave Nick alone, Grandpa.” The enchantress stared at him, and he scoffed but didn’t say anything else. I offered her a grateful smile, and she returned it with her own.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and we entered the city. The giant energy ball in the artificial sky had dimmed, approximating a moon’s evening glow. The streets were even more deserted than I remembered them as Alin and the enforcers led us toward the power plant. The skyscrapers glowed white with the reflection of the energy ball, and the enchanters craned their necks as we passed.
If the enchanters managed to fix the generators, then we would be saving the lives of every person inside the Den Ark. I was glad to be helping them, and I was glad our help wouldn’t come with a high price like it had on the Tachion mission.
When we arrived at the power plant, we were greeted by the two enforcers who’d refused entry to me and Dr. Lenkov. A third enforcer stepped out from the guardhouse: the one I’d lied to about the Dax fighting with the teenagers.
The man frowned deeply at me, and I got the feeling he was debating whether to strike me with his staff. “I almost lost my job because of you,” he spat.
“Uhh . . . sorry about that,” I said.
He grunted. “And now the prime minister ordered me to allow you old-racers into the plant. It is not how things should be.”
“We’re only here to help,” I said.
The man gave me a calculating gaze filled with skepticism. “I was told there was only one group coming to the plant.”
“There are others here?” Casey asked.
“A woman wearing a golden coat,” he said, and I guessed he was talking about Elle. I doubted the captain had approved the point clerk to enter the domed building, so she must have heard about our mission somehow. Knowing her penchant for uncovering secrets, I wasn’t surprised. I just hoped she hadn’t done anything stupid.
“Show us where these faulty runes are,” Joseph said as he marched through the doorway, and the servitor trailed behind him like a giant mechanical dog.
“Don’t mind him,” I whispered to Alin. “He doesn’t like me.”
The empath nodded, and Casey turned away from us.
The Ecomese engineers and technicians parted as we walked through the vast entrance chamber. We were all given hazmat suits, but I already knew I wouldn’t fit any of them with my armor on, so I kindly refused. I saw the room with the rows of Ecomese awaiting their explosive ends, and we all paused to stare through the windows.
My eyes were drawn to the pained expressions on the faces of the men and women inside the rune circles. They seemed to be enduring an intense agony, and I wondered exactly what the process felt like. I couldn’t imagine it was pleasant.
Suddenly an explosion flared three rows down, and an evolved man breathed his last.
“Whoa,” Casey said as the light flickered over her freckled face.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” Joseph commented, and I was surprised to hear the awe in his voice.
The scorched area where the man had vaporized pulsed as energy traveled from the rune circle into a battery twenty meters away.
“The generator room is this way.” Alin gestured to the corridor angling to our left.
“Let’s get these machines fixed up,” I said to the enchanters who were all still captivated by what lay on the other side of the windows. “Maybe we can save a few lives.”
“How about you wait here and fiddle with your thumbs while we go do all the work?” Joseph shot at me as he turned. “That’s a good squire.”
I clenched my teeth and wondered how Casey could possibly be related to this exasperating man. Only her placating touch on my arm prevented me from chewing half my cheek off in anger.
I waited a bit for the enchanters to go ahead, and then I followed them down the corridor. Elle was leaning on the wall outside the generator room as Alin led the enchanters inside.
“We got this, Point Clerk,” Joseph said to her as he removed a Dust-drill from his tool belt and turned it on. The chuck spun to life while he and the enchanters surrounded one of the cylindrical runic generators. He pressed the bit against the faded rune while the other enchanters took their drills and started working on another side of the generator.
Elle folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “I really don’t like that enchanter.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “So, any reason why you decided to visit the power plant today?”
The raven-haired woman smirked at me. “Probably the same reason why you’re here.”
“You’re not carrying any Dust-drills,” I said.
“You don’t have any either.”
“Touché.” I couldn’t help but feel a strong attraction to Elle, and I pushed it aside for the moment. “How did you manage to get inside the plant?”
“I have my ways,” Elle said, and the sexy smile she now wore brought me back to the time on our starship when I’d seen her naked. I was glad she didn’t share the empath’s abilities to feel emotions because she probably would have slapped me right then and there.
I put aside the mental image of her nude body and lowered my voice so the enforcers standing behind us wouldn’t overhear. “The captain told me to keep an eye out for anything strange. He thinks there might be some hidden reason as to why they need so much power.”
“Which would explain our armed escorts,” Elle said as she glared at the enforcers.
I nodded. “Have you noticed anything?”
“Other than the room filled with exploding empaths? No.”
“Those rune circles the Ecomese were standing in looked the same as the ones surrounding the jump spheres in our starship’s arcane chamber,” I said.
“They’re not identical, but very similar,” she countered. “Like a jump sphere’s runes, they increase the energy generated through magical powers. It filters into the batteries, and then they’re taken to the generators inside this room. It’s strange these people wouldn’t have any enchanters among them to fix them.”
“The Dax built the Ark,” I explained. “When they relinquished ownership of Ecoma, they took the knowledge of runes with them.”
Rune magic was highly coveted, and enchanters swore oaths to keep their knowledge secret. Even as an apprentice enchanter, I’d only known the bare minimum. To fully understand the intricacies of runes and their empowerment required an induction into what was almost a holy order.
"You sound like you've been doing a lot of learning while--" Elle was interrupted as an explosion boomed as another Ecomese human’s life ended.
Even with a chunk of metal and dozens of meters separating us from the other chamber, the floor rumbled beneath my feet. Elle hugged her arms and shivered, and I felt similarly affected by the sudden end of a person’s existence. There were not any guards keeping the people inside the rune circles, so I knew t
hat most of these people freely chose to give up their lives to fuel the Ark.
“The Ark shouldn’t need to use so much power,” Elle said with a shake of her head. “The amount harvested from the storms should be more than sufficient to keep this thing in the air.”
“It’s bloody huge,” Joseph called from within the chamber. “What’s there not to understand, lass?”
Elle quivered a little at the old enchanter’s comment before consulting her tablet. “Dr. Lenkov had me estimate the power requirements on the Ark, and it didn’t appear out of the ordinary at first. But I did some more calculations, and it’s using far more than required to sustain itself. I can see where the power is going, and the expenditure is incredible.”
“Can you determine the exact location?” I asked. I predicted it would be somewhere in this power plant, but if I knew where then I could ditch Alin and the enforcers and take a closer look.
I didn’t get an answer from the point clerk because Casey spoke up. “That one’s fixed,” she said as she slipped her Dust-drill into her prot-belt. She wasn’t meant to be wearing Runetech since she was only an enchantress, but I didn’t begrudge her breaking the rules after the pirate attack on the Stalwart.
“Used almost all our Dust, though.” Joseph stood and stared out at the dozens of broken runic generators further down the chamber. “I don’t know whether we’ll have enough to complete the job.”
Alin frowned at the enchanter and then wandered down the corridor to speak with an enforcer. I couldn’t understand their exchange since it was in Ecomese, but it ended with the man nodding and running down the corridor.
“The surge of power is coming from the upper levels of this power plant,” Elle whispered to me. “Want to take a look?”
Before I could respond, a siren blared from the ceiling, and I flinched in surprise. A voice declared something in Ecomese that sounded a lot like an emergency announcement. In response, the enforcers who’d escorted us into the power plant sprinted down the corridor.
Alin gasped, and the skin on her face was no longer grey, but a bold blue color. “You all must leave the power plant!” she pleaded.
Another declaration blared from the intercom, and I didn’t need to understand Ecomese to know the person on the other end was desperate.
“What’s going on?” Elle asked.
Something terrible had happened, and the empath seemed like she was a second away from a nervous breakdown.
“Is the Den Ark under attack?” I asked the empath. “Is it the other Arks?”
Alin shook her head, and I opened my mouth to ask her again, another round of deafening alarms sounded. The enchanters put down their tools to stare at the empath.
“Nick, we should go,” Casey shouted. “We can get answers later.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Joseph said. “We’ve been given a job to do, and we’ll bloody well do it.”
“It is not safe,” Alin said. “You must leave.” The whimsical woman had vanished, and her personality was now one of a commanding official. She flagged down a passing enforcer, and he rushed over to her. She issued a command in Ecomese and then turned to the enchanters. “You will all accompany Yerik to the emergency area.”
Joseph growled under his breath, but he and the other enchanters followed after the enforcer. I remained behind as did Elle and Casey.
“You cannot stay here!” Alin said to me as she grabbed a tablet from a wall mount and ran her fingers over the screen.
The frantic atmosphere made me consider teleporting us all out of the power plant. I hadn’t used my ability since the fight with Polgar’s warship, but if we were in danger, then I could transport us out of the power plant faster than we could run. I’d never performed a teleport with more than one living passenger, but I would attempt it if necessary.
Except I couldn’t leave Alin and the other Ecomese citizens in here. Not when there could be something we could do to help.
“You two go to the emergency zone,” I said to Elle and Casey.
“I’m not leaving,” Elle said.
Casey sighed. “Neither am I.”
“It’s too late,” Alin said as she looked up from her tablet. “They’ve already conquered the fourth ring.”
“Who?” I asked. “What fourth ring?”
Alin grabbed my arm, and fear gathered in her eyes. “You must all go to the emergency area.” Her grip on my arm tightened, and she tried to tug me up the corridor.
“Tell me what the announcement said,” I ordered the empath as I pulled my arm back so she would release me. “Translate it for me. Word for word.” My tone was demanding, and my grip was firm on her arm. I didn’t want to hurt the woman, but I was done asking nicely.
“The Watchtower requires reinforcements,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“Reinforcements for what?” I asked.
Alin closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She’d obviously been commanded not to say anything, and I figured she’d be in a bunch of trouble if she answered truthfully. But the sirens were growing louder, and I needed to know what kind of mess we were in.
“Alin, if something bad is happening, you need to tell me,” I screamed above the sirens. “We can help.”
The woman trembled beneath my gaze, and I didn’t look away. Finally, she swallowed. “An enchanter might be needed. I will take this one to the Watchtower.” She nodded at Casey.
Movement caught my eye as one of the giant robots I’d seen inside the docking station moved toward us. A tall cylinder was attached to the magnetons on its back, and my heart slammed in my chest as I realized what was inside.
There had to be at least thirty kilos of Dust within the container.
Alin must have ordered the robot to bring the arcane material when she’d heard Joseph say their supply had run out.
“By the gods,” Elle said. “I’ve never seen so much Dust in one place.”
At first, I didn’t know where the Ecomese had gathered so much Dust, but my stomach dropped when I considered the possibilities. They might have traded for the substance, but the blaring noise ringing an alarm forced me to realize the truth: there were Grendel portals on this planet. Waves of nausea rolled over me, and the muscles in my limbs twitched.
“Alin!” I shouted to the empath above the sirens. “Are there any Grendel portals on Ecoma?”
She shook her head immediately. “No. None at all.” Her answer came too quickly. “We do not have time to talk. We must get to the emergency area.”
“Then where did you get all this Dust?” Elle asked, seeming as interested as I was despite the alarms. “Did the Dax provide you with it?”
“No,” Alin said, and then she shook her head. “Yes. Well, not quite.” She ran her hands over her silver hair. “We cannot stay here! Please, you must get to the emergency zone! Before the Gren--” The empath stopped, and her face burst with blue like a giant blueberry.
Then I knew for sure that Grendel portals existed on Ecoma. It was the only explanation for the massive amount of Dust the robot had just brought us.
It might also explain why they were using so much power. They were charging weapons to fight against the alien lizard-warriors.
And I was here, on this Ark, with a mutation that could cause the portals to become more powerful.
“I think there are Grendel portals on Ecoma,” I hissed to Elle and the enchanters as fear sprang into my chest. “Every second I am here puts the citizens here in danger. I need to get off the planet.”
Elle’s pupils dilated, and I could almost taste her fear. She knew all about my mutation and how it affected the level of Grendel portals.
Pain suddenly shot through my temple, and my eyes peppered with white. I stumbled into Elle’s arms, and Alin came to support my weight.
“Uhh . . . Nick? What the fuck is going on?” Casey yelled.
I forced myself to stand upright, and I leaned onto the wall as a quivering feeling rocked my stomach. “There’s a portal nearby
. And I think I increased its level.”
Chapter 9
“What should we do, Nick?” Casey yelled above the wailing sirens.
I was torn because I wanted to help the citizens with the Grendel portal, but I was also risking affecting the gateway further with every second I spent in proximity to it.
“I can’t stay here to help,” I answered. “I’ve already increased the portal’s level once. What if I do it again?”
“You explained to me what happened every time you were near one,” Elle said as a squad of enforcers charged past her. “They only upgraded a single time. Is that correct?”
“Yeah. The last two times it increased in level initially and then stayed at that level.”
“So this portal won’t change further.” The point clerk seemed so certain, but I had difficulty accepting her words. Two experiences with my mutation weren’t positive proof the gateway wouldn’t upgrade again.
“We don’t know for sure,” I said.
“We’ll have to risk it,” Casey said. “You might be the only chance these people have of stopping the Grendels.”
“This is what you trained for,” Elle said to me. “To slay Grendels.”
They were right. I was fully equipped for battle, so I could help the natives hold back the enemy forces. I was only one man, but there was no one else.
Except for the Stalwart’s crew.
It would take them some time to get here, but I could report the situation to Captain Cross immediately. My heart pounded while I opened my prot-belt menu and selected the captain’s channel. My equipment barked an error, and the link couldn’t be established. I searched the other crew members’ frequencies and cursed when they failed to connect.
A light flickered on my belt’s holo menu, and a channel opened to Neville. I secured the link, but when I tried to speak, there was only static.
“Damn it!” I said. “The portal’s too close for my comms to work.” I closed my prot-belt’s menu, and another announcement echoed into the passageway. I didn’t need to understand Ecomese to know the person on the other end was desperate.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 13
