Broken Worlds_Civil War

by Jasper T. Scott

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, hoping that Tanik’s antivenin hadn’t been a temporary solution to the poison running through her veins.

  “I feel fine,” Cassandra said.

  “Good.”

  Dyara joined them, glancing around in bemusement at the other Revenants. They weren’t frozen as they had been before, but they seemed to be at a loss, as if they’d suddenly forgotten what they were doing.

  “Darius, are you...” Dyara trailed off, and fixed him with a suspicious look.

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking Cassandra’s hand and striding through the Revenants’ midst until he found an area clear enough to open a portal back to the Deliverance.

  “You can’t just take control of people every time they disagree with you!” Dyara said.

  Darius glanced at her. “Let’s argue about it later. Right now there’s no one and nothing stopping Tanik from infiltrating and taking control of our entire fleet. For all we know, that’s where he is right now.” He closed his eyes and used what little strength he had left to try opening a portal back to the Deliverance.

  The air shimmered in a spherical bubble, and the Deliverance’s aft hangar bay appeared. Darius breathed a sigh. The fact that he could open a wormhole meant Tanik hadn’t infiltrated the fleet.

  “Everyone, follow me!” Darius called out, while subtly nudging them to do so.

  Taking Cassandra by the hand, he walked through to the Deliverance. Leaving the planet’s gravity behind and returning to zero-G, literally felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Darius walked to the far end of the hangar with Cassandra and stopped beside the exit. Dyara came jogging over, emerging from the stream of returning Revenants.

  “So?” she prompted. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “What would you have done differently?” he asked. “Would you have rather sacrificed Cassandra’s life?”

  Cassandra looked from Dyara to him and back again.

  Dyara’s mouth popped open, but no sound came out. She didn’t seem to have a ready answer for that.

  Soldiers poured through the wormhole, flooding the hangar deck in an orderly shuffle of boots. Subduing their wills appeared to have a cohesive, calming effect on the group. Unfortunately, it was also exhausting, and Darius was fast approaching the limit of his endurance. His whole body felt like it was on fire.

  “You’re getting too used to this,” Dyara said at last. “The power is going to your head.”

  “Show me someone else who can defeat the Cygnians and protect us all from Tanik and the Keth, and I’ll gladly step aside to let them do it,” Darius replied.

  “I’m not sure the Cygnians are really the enemy,” Dyara replied, shaking her head. “Getting us to go to war with them was the Keth’s plan. There’s got to be a reason for that.”

  “She’s right, Dad,” Cassandra said. “Gakram was different,” she insisted, her voice cracking with grief. “He sacrificed himself to save me while we were on board the Nomad.”

  Darius turned to her with eyebrows raised. “One good person isn’t enough to redeem an entire species. If they’re not the enemy, then why haven’t they backed down? They’re free of the Augur’s influence, and now half of their worlds have been destroyed, yet they haven’t even tried to surrender.”

  “They’re probably too proud for that,” Dyara said.

  “Or too bloodthirsty,” Darius countered. “Either way, it’s too dangerous to turn our backs on them now that they’re wounded. Either we finish them off, or they’ll come back to haunt us after they’re done licking their wounds.”

  Dyara chewed her lower lip. “Maybe we can coax them to the negotiation table. There could be a peaceful solution. If we can find one, that would free us to deal with Tanik and the Keth.”

  “Negotiate?” Darius roared. “You mean like Cassandra tried to negotiate with them?”

  “It might work this time,” Cassandra put in. “The Cygnians aren’t all bad. They aren’t evil because they’re born that way. It’s because of the way they’re raised.”

  Darius looked from Dyara to Cassandra and back again. He could tell he wasn’t going to win this argument, but he didn’t need their support. Now that he knew how to use wormholes, he could destroy the remaining Cygnian worlds all by himself.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll withdraw the fleet to Union space.”

  Dyara smiled. “Thank you. You should also talk to the Revenants. Let them leave the fleet if they want to. Give them a choice. They’ve been forced to fight for long enough.” Dyara reached for one of his hands and squeezed. It was all Darius could do not to yank his hand away and squeeze her throat until her lips turned blue. That impulse gave him pause. When had he become so violent?

  “Tell them they’re free to go if they want to.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, glaring at her and fuming. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm of short, angry breaths. How dare she tell him what to do!

  “And one more thing,” Dyara said. “Now that you have Cassandra back, and you don’t have to fight the Cygnians anymore, stop dosing with Sprites. They’ve changed you, and not for the better. I can see them in your eyes, you know. Everyone can. You look like a—”

  “Like a what?” Darius demanded.

  “Like a Keth,” Dyara finished.

  Cassandra regarded him with a look of sudden understanding. “I thought it was just me!”

  Darius glared at his daughter. “Now she’s turning you against me?”

  “What?” Cassandra blinked. “No.”

  Darius shook his head and looked away. He was too tired to deal with this kak. Turning back to Dyara, he said, “Plot a jump to the nearest Union planet, Commander.” He nodded over her shoulder to the portal where Revenant soldiers were still streaming through. “I can’t hold that wormhole open forever, and we won’t be safe without it until we’re in warp.”

  Dyara nodded but said nothing to verbally acknowledge the order. She was still waiting for him to acknowledge her concerns, but he had no intention of giving them more attention than they deserved. Dyara and Cassandra would never understand. No one would. It wasn’t their job to single-handedly save the galaxy. They didn’t have trillions of sentient beings counting on them.

  “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my quarters meditating.” Darius turned and stormed off, eager to be rid of their accusing looks and false concern. He’d stop using the Sprites when Tanik, the Cygnians, and the Keth were all dead, but not before.

  Darius’s thoughts drifted to the flasks of living water he’d had stashed in his quarters aboard the Harbinger. They’d been destroyed with the ship, and the Deliverance hadn’t originally been a Revenant vessel, so it wouldn’t have a supply of living water. He would have to get the other ships in the fleet to send some over ASAP. He needed to recover his strength, after all.

  Chapter 23

  —TWO MONTHS LATER—

  Trista couldn’t believe her eyes. She had to walk up to the holo panels for a better look—as if a few feet could bring into better focus a sight that was hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

  “Where’s the planet?” Buddy asked.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Yuri Mathos growled as he joined them by the holo panels.

  “Are you sure these are the right coordinates?” Trista asked.

  “They are,” Yuri confirmed, while stroking the tuft of white fur on his chin.

  Gatticus came to join them at the wall of holo panels in Yuri’s quarters. “My optical sensors are detecting a cloud of dust where Cygnus Prime used to be,” he said. “Thermal and radiation readings suggest an explosion.”

  Trista glanced at the android. “An explosion?” she echoed. “You’re telling me that something destroyed the entire planet? What could do that? Even antimatter isn’t that volatile.”

  “I cannot say what caused it,” Gatticus replied.

  “No wonder the Cygnians are withdrawing f
rom Union worlds,” Yuri said. “They’ve met their match with these so-called Revenants.”

  Trista frowned, suddenly wondering whether or not that was a good thing. “What’s going to happen after they’re done with the Cygnians? We don’t know anything about them. They could be worse than the Cygnians.”

  “They’re lost children, coming home after a long time away,” Yuri said. “I’m sure their agenda isn’t to spread wanton mayhem and destruction.”

  “We have to meet them,” Trista said. “We need to know how they’re destroying planets, and what their agenda is—and if any of the rumors about them are true.”

  Yuri turned to her with his slitted blue eyes narrowed in thought. His triangular ears flicked restlessly on the top of his head. “I’m sure those rumors are all greatly exaggerated.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  Trista flinched and spun around to find the speaker. An unfamiliar man in a dark, hooded robe stood in the open door to Yuri’s sleeping area. It looked like he had a sword strapped to his side.

  “Who are you and how did you get in here?” Yuri demanded.

  The man reached up and pulled back the hood of his robe, revealing a bald head and bright yellow-green eyes. “My name is Tanik Gurhain. I used to lead this fleet, many years ago. As for how I got in here, I’ll explain that in a moment, but first, a warning: stay away from the Revenants. The rumors are all true. They’ll bend your wills to theirs without a second thought, and you and your fleet will become their unwitting slaves.”

  Yuri drew his sidearm and pointed it at Tanik’s chest. “Whoever you are, you made a big mistake to come into my quarters uninvited,” Yuri said.

  Tanik didn’t seem concerned by the appearance of the weapon.

  Yuri promptly squeezed the trigger, and a blue stun bolt flashed out and hit Tanik square in the chest. The light of the blast somehow suffused his entire body with a lingering white glow. Trista frowned in confusion. That was a side effect she’d never seen before. Furthermore, the light didn’t show signs of fading, and neither did Tanik’s awareness. He gave a crooked smile and chuckled.

  “To answer your prior question about how I got in here, I teleported here from a planet that’s thousands of light years away, on the other side of the Eye.”

  Yuri stared at his sidearm in shock, as if it had somehow malfunctioned.

  “You see,” Tanik went on. “I’m a Revenant myself, a rogue Revenant, and I need your help.”

  “Our help?” Trista echoed. “For what?”

  “To defeat the others before they enslave the entire galaxy.”

  Yuri recovered from his shock and aimed his weapon at Tanik once more. Trista noticed his finger dart up to flick the setting beside the trigger. “I don’t know how you did that, but this time it’s set to kill. Don’t move or I’ll shoot. A squad is on its way here to arrest you as we speak.”

  Tanik waved his hand at Yuri, as if he were brushing away a fly, and the weapon leapt out of his hand.

  “What...” Yuri blinked in shock.

  Tanik made a circle in the air with his finger, and the gun mimicked that motion, flying around Yuri’s head in a circle, just out of reach, taunting him. He didn’t bother trying to reach for it.

  “So the rumors are true,” Trista said, tracking the weapon with her eyes.

  “Oh yes,” Tanik said. He held up his other hand and slowly made a fist.

  The sidearm crumpled in on itself into a misshapen lump and then exploded with a burst of light and heat. Trista threw her arm up and stumbled away from the explosion, cringing with the anticipated blast of shrapnel.

  But that blast never hit. She lowered her arm and stared into a ball of orange fire, a perfectly contained sphere of heat and kinetic energy, somehow frozen. The dazzling cloud of shrapnel slowly faded and cooled before her eyes, and Tanik opened his fist, leaving the pieces of Yuri’s weapon to drift between them in a harmless cloud of debris.

  “How did you...” Trista trailed off, speechless. She could feel Buddy trembling with fear where he sat perched on her shoulder.

  “That was nothing,” Tanik said. “But just imagine what twenty thousand people like me could do—twenty thousand people who can teleport in and out of the most secure areas imaginable: bank vaults, data centers, government buildings. There’s no way to stop them from taking anything they want. No way to impose sanctions or convict them of crimes. They’ll become the rulers of the galaxy by default, and soon you’ll find yourselves longing for the days when the Cygnians ruled over you. Unless...” Tanik smiled. “Unless you help me.”

  “Help you to do what?” Yuri demanded. “You’ve painted a picture of an invincible army. If what you say is true, there’s nothing we can possibly do to stop them.”

  “Not true. There is one thing you can do.” Tanik reached into his robes and produced a clear glass cylinder filled with dancing white specks of light. “This is the source of the Revenants’ power. An alien organism, a symbiont. It’s a kind of fungi, actually. Find a way to target and kill it inside a host’s bloodstream, and you will have found a way to strip the Revenants of their powers.”

  “And I suppose we’re going to test this on you?” Yuri ventured.

  “No, not on me. You’re going to need someone with my abilities on your side.” He shook his canister of glowing water by way of indication. “You can use this to test the virus.”

  “What if we decide not to help you?” Yuri asked.

  Tanik sighed. “Something tells me you’d rather cooperate.”

  Trista nodded slowly, suddenly seeing the wisdom of what this man was saying. The Revenants were the real enemy, and they had to be stopped before it was too late. “He’s right. We should cooperate.”

  “Yes,” Yuri replied slowly. “We will help you.”

  “Good,” Tanik replied.

  Gatticus was looking at Trista as if she’d just lost her mind. “It’s okay,” she said, and placed a hand on his arm in an attempt to reassure him. “He’s on our side.”

  The android didn’t look convinced.

  “Is something wrong, Gatticus?” Tanik asked, his head cocking to one side.

  Gatticus rounded on him, blinking in shock. “How did you know my name?”

  Chapter 24

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Drake, and welcome to Tarsus,” Executor Resonda said, while holding her hand out in greeting.

  Darius took the android’s hand with a tight smile and a shallow nod.

  She went on, “The Union owes you and your fleet a great debt. Reports are just now reaching us of the devastation in Cygnian space. It’s hard to believe, but certainly welcome news. The Cygnians’ tyranny is finally coming to an end.”

  “Yes...” Darius trailed off, while making a show of looking around the Executor’s palace. They were standing in the throne room, a vast hall with gleaming marble columns and floors, flanked on both sides by massive windows that afforded panoramic views of Tarsus City. Gleaming glass towers stabbed the violet sky. Streams of air traffic flowed in orderly lines between those spires. None of the buildings were collapsed or otherwise tarnished by the war.

  “Your world seems remarkably unscathed,” Darius said, looking back to Resonda. He remembered noting the same thing on the trip down from orbit. Instead of ruins, he’d seen vertiginous cities, orderly urban parks and lakes, along with pristine forests of blue and red trees, none of them turned to charred skeletons by the flaming ruins of crashing starships.

  “We’ve been very fortunate,” Resonda agreed, smiling tightly back at him.

  Darius had seen plenty of devastation on the other planets the fleet had visited over the past two months. Unlike Tarsus, none of those worlds had been governed by androids. Androids were the Cygnians’ appointed governors, or Executors as they were called, and they were unfailingly loyal to their programming and their Cygnian masters. Darius had met one exception to that rule—an android named Gatticus,
whose memory and associated loyalties had been damaged beyond repair.

  Darius absently wondered what had happened to Gatticus. Tanik had jettisoned him from the Deliverance before the civil war had begun. It was a pity. That android had helped Darius and his daughter survive after they’d awoken from cryo. He would have liked to reward the android by giving him a position in his new government.

  A prickle of warning raised the hairs on the back of Darius’s neck. He could sense the Cygnians who’d been hiding along the ceiling now creeping into position above his head. This planet was crawling with them. The Tarsians had obviously made some kind of deal in order to stay out of the war.

  Darius nodded to Resonda. “Excuse me for a moment.” Using his ESC to activate the comm piece he wore in his ear, Darius said, “Commander, you may commence launching our troops.”

  “Yes, sir,” came Dyara’s reply.

  “What?” Resonda blinked at him. “You assured us that you came in peace! We have no warships. We mean you no harm!”

  Darius stabbed his index finger at her like a sword. “And you assured me that Tarsus was not under Cygnian control.” Darius gestured to the ceiling and pulled the lurking Cygnians down. They shrieked and wailed, struggling to right themselves and land on their feet before they hit the floor. Darius maintained his hold on them, making sure they landed on their backs instead. The floor boomed and shook with heavy impacts. That fall wasn’t enough to kill them, but it had to hurt. The Cygnians rolled over, hissing and flashing gaping mouths full of dagger-long gray teeth.

  Darius drew his sword and summoned a shield. The first Cygnian drew itself up to stand on hind legs, and shook itself like a dog. Four giant black eyes rolled out from behind thick eyelids and blinked slowly at him. Practically blind in daylight, the beast cocked its head, listening to better locate him. Darius stomped one foot and grinned. “I’m over here.” Two sets of thick arms rose from the monster’s sides, and Darius saw its legs bend, ready to pounce. Four more Cygnians prepared to do the same on all sides of him.