by Paul Tassi
Kyra stared down at her scroll in shock. She hadn’t spoken since Noah had entered. Her voice was soft in the tense room.
“We need to find him. He’s clearly in danger, trying to protect me somehow.”
She stared vacantly ahead.
“I can’t let him die for me. He’s all I have left.”
Noah ran his hand through his hair, which was just starting to unfreeze after his brief time outside. Ice water trickled down the back of his neck.
“We need to take this to Watchman Vale,” he finally said.
Erik shook his head violently.
“No way. Look, I’ll get us a ship, we can—”
“We can do what, Erik?” Noah snapped. “No one is whispering magic words in our dreams to guide us to wherever he is. We need help. We can trust the Watchman.”
He looked at the small, blond girl on the bed. She’d never looked so fragile.
“He needs to meet Kyra, and then he’ll understand.”
Tannon had just returned to the colony after spending time in the capital to consult with Madric Stoller on what was being called the “Lucas problem.” Stoller was firm on using Lucas as some sort of weapon, though Tannon equated the idea to trying to fight a fly with a flamethrower. You might achieve your end, but it was entirely possible you’d burn everything and everyone around you to ash in the process. They had no idea what Lucas was capable of, and poking and prodding him into becoming some sort of executioner’s axe to try and finish off the crippled Xalan army was asking for trouble.
Eventually Tannon stormed out of the capital, frustrated by watching his successor celebrate a victory over Xala that hadn’t happened yet, but content that Lucas was at least being treated well with regular visits from Alpha and Asha. It was a rare thing that Tannon missed being in power, but Stoller’s mix of idiocy and evil made him wish there was still a “High Chancellor” before his name to right the obvious wrongs happening all around him.
Tannon had told all of this to Noah the previous day in a rare moment of candor. The Watchman trusted Noah, and in turn, Noah was ready to trust Tannon with something too surreal to believe.
“Bring her in,” Noah said as the two of them were standing in Tannon’s office, having said little to him so far other than the fact that a friend needed his help.
The door slid open and Kyra entered the room with Sakai and Erik. She wore a dark forest-green tunic and her hair was hastily wrapped into a loose bun. But even unadorned and exhausted, there was no mistaking her beauty.
Tannon raised an eyebrow.
“So you must be the infamous Miss Auran,” he said. “Heard you were given quite a scare up on the spire earlier this year.”
“Thank you for seeing me, Watchman,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze.
“I thought—”
But then Tannon’s voice caught in his throat. He stood there, stunned, then suddenly weak enough at the knees to grab the edge of his desk with both hands.
“Gods. What is this?” he said, breathless.
Noah saw it in his eyes. He knew. He had wondered how long it would take him. Most of the planet only knew Corinthia Vale from Stream feeds, but Tannon had watched his niece grow from a child to an adult, and the adolescent in between.
“You’re Cora,” he said, his voice a little more than a whisper. He walked toward her slowly, reverently. He raised his hand and brushed the line of her jaw with his finger, seemingly surprised she was, in fact, real. The hard, stern man Noah knew had melted away. Tannon’s face was like a child’s, full of wonder and amazement.
But then suddenly, he was back, rigid and tense, realizing the impossibility of the vision standing before him.
“Who are you, girl?”
“I’m Kyra Auran,” she said. “Past that, I do not know. The only man who can answer your questions and mine is in grave danger.”
Tannon listened intently to everything they told him about Kyra and Madric Stoller’s quest to end her life. He had already hated Stoller for a number of reasons, but he was boiling as they finished the story about stopping Finn’s assassination attempt on the return voyage from Earth. It was also the first time Sakai had heard the full truth, and she wore a look of shock.
After cooling down with a stiff drink pulled from his desk drawer, Tannon watched Malorious Auran’s garbled message three times. On the third, he paused and eyed something suspiciously. Drawing his hands outward, he zoomed in on the frame. It was just before the end, when Keeper Auran looked to the side and feed was cut. Tannon raised his arm and the dark background grew a few shades brighter. He repeated the gesture, and suddenly a small figure materialized over Auran’s left shoulder. Kyra let out an involuntary gasp.
“What is that?” Sakai asked, poking her finger through the floating figure.
Tannon made another gesture and the resolution increased marginally. The figure was armored, and had a helmet with two vertical slits running down the length of it.
“Ah, damn it all,” Tannon said angrily. “He should have known better than to run there. He should have come to me.”
“Where?” Erik demanded. “Where is he?”
“Solarion Station. Their security forces wear those helmets.”
The room fell silent. All of them knew about Solarion Station. The whole planet knew, but no one ever liked to talk about it.
Eight hundred years ago, a small mining station owned by Solarion Corporation was built in the orbit of Apollica, a tiny scorched rock planet that sat closer to the sun than any other in the Soran solar system. The station was set to mine superheated asteroid fragments that Solarion believed could be refined and sold as a cheaper form of darksteel, a metal forged from downed comets.
At first they found some level of success, and the new alloy couldn’t be harvested fast enough. Solarion Station grew exponentially with new additions to house more and more workers. Many who had taken jobs there tried to complain about the horrendous living conditions on the station, but it was nearly impossible to broadcast messages back to Sora due to Apollica’s proximity to the sun.
Eventually, when they could take no more, the workers revolted and took over the station, halting mining altogether. Their overlords hired a mercenary army to invade the station and crack skulls until their underlings saw reason. Unfortunately, just as the army arrived, it was revealed that the company’s prized metallic alloy would degrade and become brittle in just a few years’ time. The entire operation became useless. In an effort to avoid a total loss, they converted Solarion Station into a private prison. The first inmates were the rebellious workers, most of whom died incarcerated months or years later.
The prison kept expanding, housing the most unstable and violent inmates of Sora outside of the dungeons under the Grand Palace, though eventually constant riots and corruption charges closed it down and Solarion went bankrupt once and for all. Many of the prisoners stayed, however, with nowhere else to go. Solarion became a floating free state, a haven for thieves, smugglers, mercenaries, and all those wishing to escape the law. Last estimates said that nearly two hundred thousand people called the station home, the small mining platform having grotesquely expanded over the centuries into a jagged, massive monstrosity of a city. An angry, buzzing hive orbiting a quiet planet.
Malorious Auran was far from the sort of person who’d normally be within a million miles of the station, but Solarion was notorious for its nooks and crannies where fugitives could hide for generations. Fleeing Stoller’s forces had made Auran truly desperate, it seemed.
“So the security forces have him?” Kyra asked. “Will they give him to High Chancellor Stoller?”
Tannon rocked his head from side to side.
“They’ll probably try to sell him,” he said. “In a city ruled by gangs, Solarion Security is the worst. They used to attempt to enforce the law back when Solarion might have been salvageable, but the years have turned them into something else entirely. They’re made up mostly of disgraced soldiers or
discharged law enforcement. They wield incredible power on the station, and the ‘security’ identifier is almost a sick joke at this point; every member, from commander to conscript, is rotten to the core.”
Tannon saw the fear growing in Kyra’s eyes.
“I’ll dispatch a team to the station immediately. They don’t take kindly to SDI out there, but I’ll have my men in plainclothes, and they’ll get your grandfather back.”
“When do we leave?” Erik asked.
“Don’t start with me, Erik,” Tannon sighed. “Solarion is no place for—”
“Watchman, you can send your team, but I promise you I will steal a ship the second they leave and be a hundred miles behind their engines the whole way there.”
Tannon and Erik locked eyes. The Watchman knew the boy well enough to know he would do exactly as he said. Noah could already see the resignation creeping into his face.
“Then I’ll have to escort you myself.”
Sakai followed Noah back through the snow toward his quarters. The sun was just starting to rise and the winds had died down. A fresh layer of powder covered nearly everything but the heated walkways between buildings.
Once inside, Sakai began throwing clothing into a storage crate. Noah cocked his head.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing,” she said. “It’s what, just a two-day flight? The wonders of wormhole-free, intrasystem traveling.”
Noah put his hand on top of hers as she was folding up a gray thermal suit.
“Whoa, you’re not going. No way.”
Sakai turned and glared hard at him. She pulled up her hair and wrapped it into a quick knot before turning back to continue folding.
“I’m serious,” Noah said, this time grabbing her wrist. She wrenched it away.
“You’re serious?” Sakai snapped. “Look, I forgave your little Earth trip on account of your brother being psychotic, but you’re telling me the three of you are going to run off without me again?”
“Kyra won’t stay here when her grandfather is in trouble. She needs protection,” Noah said, trying to keep calm. “Erik and I—”
“Erik and you what?” Sakai said. “I’m sorry, but Tannon Vale and his men can protect her better than you. And even so, she already has one brother attached to her, why does she need two?”
“She’s my friend,” Noah said. “I have to—”
“She’s my friend too,” Sakai interrupted. “Which is why I’m coming.”
“But—”
“But what? I’m not strong enough to protect her?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I’ve had the same combat training as you.”
“You don’t need to go.”
“And neither do you.”
They sat in strained silence for a minute before Sakai spoke again.
“Or is there another reason you don’t want me to come?”
Noah narrowed his eyes.
“Girls talk, you know,” Sakai continued. “Kyra told me all kinds of stories about your valiance, protecting her from assassins, Xalans, Shadows, Stollers. When she talks about you, she drifts away. She doesn’t even realize it, but I do.”
“Are you saying—”
“I’m not saying anything.” Sakai’s tone softened. “You’re incredible. I’ve always told you that. I knew someday you’d be a great hero like your parents; it was inevitable.”
Sakai put her hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“But when your hero starts rescuing princesses, it’s a little unsettling when they look like her. And when they look at your hero like she does.”
Noah clasped both his hands lightly around Sakai’s arms.
“When I was out there, ready to die with my bones being snapped by the Black Corsair, all I was thinking about was you. You brought me home again. I don’t know what I’d do without you. That’s the only reason I want you to stay. Not because you’re not capable. Not because of Kyra. But because I don’t even want to think about the possibility of losing you.”
Sakai sighed.
“And you think I want to lose you?” she said. “That I like seeing you attacked and injured and risking your life? I’ll go insane if I stay here. Every minute of the months you were gone, I was in constant fear the next message I received would be the worst kind of news. I cannot go through that again. I will not.”
Noah sat down on his armor crate and put his hands to his knees.
“You need to know all the combat training in the world doesn’t prepare you for what’s out there. The real world is brutal, horrible. It’s no game. Sometimes I wish I had never left this place at all.”
“You can’t make that decision for me,” Sakai said. “If we’re supposed to be this next generation of humans, the only generation, we can’t just be alive. We need to live.”
“But Solarion?” Noah said. “You want to start there?”
“I want to start with being with those I love, helping someone who desperately needs it.”
That was the Sakai Noah knew. Why would he ever have expected anything less? He knew they could talk for days, and no matter what, she’d still be coming.
But would she come back? Would any of them?
20
“I must depart,” the Archon said, his voice a freezing river pouring through the curves of Lucas’s mind. He was back in the Dubai cryotank, a tall, bleary shape lurking outside the frosted glass.
“It is too soon for you to make the journey yourself,” the Archon continued, “but Sora’s doom is at hand. We will meet again when the planet is ash and I am able to extract what I need from its resting place. Sora believes Xala wants their water, their resources, their oxygen. It is true, Xala does, but I am not Xala. Sora is only a means to an end. To eradication. And you, human, are the key that turns the lock at last.
“I work to restore your Earth, so that it can become another vessel to serve me in the coming purge. Do not fail me, and I may allow you to return to your homeworld someday. To walk among green fields and blue skies. I can allow you to imagine you never lost the life you once had, however meaningless and trivial it was. Your delusion will be more peaceful than the other’s, lost in eternal torment, tearing up ship after ship, never finding what he seeks.
“Sora is arrogance incarnate. They think they are the prize, but they merely guard it, unknowingly. I may be only a soldier, but in my millennia I have been able to rebuild weapons they can only dream of. I have fed them to the Xalans like opiates, and in turn they have never deviated from my purpose.
“This last creation, assembled in the furthest corner of black space, will be Sora’s end. I don’t trust the fools I have tasked with its completion, and must return to unveil its glory myself. When Sora falls, you will be ready. You will lead me to what I seek, and this galaxy will see its lights go out, one by one.
“The Xalans tell tales of you, human. The Shadow slayer. The monster killer. But your destiny is far greater than a victory or two. You are the spark that ignites the wildfire that will burn through civilizations like kindling. And I am the wind, the unseen force fanning the flames.”
Lucas felt power coursing through his veins. It was a dull hum, one that made him feel more alive than he’d ever been, unable to sit still in the confinement of his quarters. It was a problem.
Though he felt spectacular, he knew what it meant. Either Alpha’s treatment had failed to halt or reverse the pace of Shadow conversion, or his new caretaker, Jahane, had been injecting him with something else entirely. The latter was the most problematic idea. If it were true, than that meant—
“You have a visitor, Lucas!” rang Jahane’s sing-song voice from outside in the lab.
A vistor? Was Alpha back? Was Asha? Had he been worried for nothing?
Lucas bolted up from his bed and turned toward the metal wall he’d pummeled full of dents. They didn’t allow him mirrors on the base; they didn’t think it was helpful for his psychological recovery. Looking at the polished allium, he on
ly saw a warped, concave version of himself, merely a hint of his eyes, filled with blue flame. He stretched out his arms, and saw even more black veins snaking underneath his skin. Shirtless, he could see the blackness threading through his newly muscular torso, like black worms devouring his insides. And every day there were a few more.
When Lucas left his room and saw who was there, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t Asha or Alpha, but Theta. Perhaps not who he was dying to see, but if they were letting her see him, it meant everything was fine. Didn’t it?
Jahane had the same permanent smile plastered on her face as she welcomed Theta into the room. Most Xalans looked the same, all gray and stony, but Theta took after her mother with a brilliant white coat that would have made her a beauty on her homeworld. But raised among humans, she was shy, and there wasn’t a trace of arrogance about her. Her gold-ringed eyes met Lucas’s, though he couldn’t read her expression. He thought again of how he must look.
Even though Jahane was still beaming, she looked nervous, with tiny beads of sweat dotting her skin. As Theta approached Lucas, Jahane put a wrinkled hand on her wrist. The young Xalan towered above her.
“Sweetie, can I take another look at that clearance authorization?” Jahane said in a high-pitched voice. Lucas felt as if he could hear her pulse quicken from across the room.
“Certainly,” Theta said, and waved a data file from her communicator, which fluttered to the luminescent scroll in Jahane’s hands. The woman eyed it suspiciously and walked toward the main doors.
“Lovely accommodations,” Theta said, eyeing the expensive lab equipment all around. She was being genuine, it seemed, as Xalans weren’t generally sarcastic, but she too seemed visibly on edge.
“What brings you here, Theta?” Lucas asked, his voice masking light panic. “Did Alpha send you?”
Theta glanced back at Jahane worriedly.
“May we speak in private?” she asked.
Lucas knew there was no such thing as privacy in the base thanks to an indeterminate number of obviously placed recorders and cameras, and likely even more secret ones, but he led her around the corner into his quarters all the same. Jahane was speaking into her communicator to someone, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
