Daniel Coldstar #1

by Stel Pavlou

  The cockpit sealed shut before Daniel could say anything, and the Phantom shot off into space.

  Daniel slammed his head against the headrest. It was a holocule, not Blink! How many more times were the Sinja going to make him feel foolish?

  Steering toward Musa Degh, the Phantom kept track of in-range targets with a series of crosshairs shooting around the cockpit window, calculating and recalculating its route down to the shattered world to avoid combat while the Truth Seekers and the Sinja continued to engage in their vicious battle.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to meet you in person. I’m glad you’re okay,” said Blink suddenly. “The Truth Seekers are bad people, Dee.”

  Daniel glanced around. The commlink on the flight controls had opened. “You don’t know them the way I do,” Daniel replied.

  Blink scoffed. “Spoken like a true believer,” he said. “Have you never wondered why they call themselves Truth Seekers?”

  Daniel refused to answer.

  “Because if they knew what the truth was, they wouldn’t be looking for it. And if they don’t know what the truth is, why would you trust anything they say?”

  Daniel felt his skin crawl. He could taste bile rising from the pit of his stomach and burning his throat. There was logic to what Blink had said, and that was what frightened him the most.

  No wonder Blink was blind to the truth. What other warped ideas had the Sinja filled his head with? Until Daniel knew more, convincing Blink of anything was going to be next to impossible, but he owed it to his friend to try.

  “You’re right about one thing,” Daniel said. “I should have tried to save you. Maybe it’s not too late.”

  Blink took a long while to reply. “It’s never too late to do the right thing, Dee.”

  Blink clicked off without another word.

  The Phantom shook violently as it swooped down into Musa Degh’s hazy atmosphere. Daniel felt his ears pop as the pressure changed.

  The planet seemed even more desolate than the last time he was here. The craggy mountains were still dry and barren. A vast complex of rusting towers sat crowded on a plateau. Daniel could almost smell the oil and grease as they flew by.

  Beyond the mining complex, the Phantom flew toward an enormous mine shaft that was perhaps more than a mile across. The rocky chasm plunged so deep into the ground that it didn’t appear to have an end.

  Shwooommm.

  Without warning, the Phantom flipped down into the darkness.

  “Ouch!”

  It took Daniel a moment to realize that he hadn’t been the one to say it. It came from behind. Someone else was inside the ship with him.

  Cautiously, he peered over the back of the headrest.

  “Ionica . . . ?”

  41

  WATCH YOUR TOESIES!

  “How did you even get in here?” Daniel snapped.

  Ionica grunted as she tried to wriggle out of the compartment she’d squeezed herself into. “You don’t want to know,” she said, struggling to free her leg.

  Daniel checked the flight controls to make sure the Sinja weren’t listening in on their conversation.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving your butt. Again.”

  “They—my friend—or Sinja, whatever he is now—said they would call off the attack if I came alone.”

  “And you believed them?” Ionica replied, incredulous. “I’m glad I came.” She glanced out the cockpit window at the delicate-looking gantries and muddy work platforms clinging precariously to the face of the mine shaft, spiraling down the inside for miles.

  “Home sweet home,” Daniel whispered, watching the shaft grow darker, the mining platforms lit up with clusters of work lights, exposing glittering honeycombed chambers—the mines he and Blink had spent much of their lives in.

  How strange to be back.

  “Looks like a welcoming committee,” Ionica noted, indicating the reading on the Phantom’s forward sensors. Thirty or so figures stood on a landing platform about two miles away. “You ready?”

  “For what?”

  “Watch your toesies!” she said.

  Daniel glanced down at his feet, utterly confused. “What are you talking about?”

  KA-BLAM! WHOOOSH!

  The Phantom’s cockpit glass blasted away from the ship, thanks in no small part to Ionica’s deft touch with an Aegis.

  “Take my hand,” she said, and the two of them rocketed out into the frigid air of Musa Degh.

  They landed amid the ruins on the planet’s surface, running for cover before they were spotted by any passing Overseers.

  “Now what’s going to happen when that ship arrives and I’m not on it?” Daniel snapped.

  “Who cares?”

  “Who cares? That’s your plan?”

  Ionica made a run for it. “Come on, you want to save your friends or not?” she replied, weaving between columns and ducking into and out of small tunnel systems, Daniel closely following behind.

  Dropping down to a lower expanse, they waited, listening for the telltale sounds of approaching company.

  Daniel wrinkled his nose. “Overseer stink,” he whispered.

  Sprinting into the next corridor, Daniel didn’t wait for Ionica to catch up; he ran at the squad of Overseers who were coming right at him, raised his arm, and—

  Whompff!

  Blasted them in every direction possible.

  Ionica bounded over to get a close look at one of the bodies. “Weird,” she said. “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

  “This is your idea.”

  “But you used to live here.”

  “Right, and the first day you arrive as a prisoner, they hand you a map.” Daniel took a deep breath, looking around for some kind of landmark he might recognize—nothing.

  Ionica slid the palm of her hand through the air, bringing up a holographic display console. “Patching into the Equinox’s scopes,” she said.

  The familiar curved disk of the REPIS system in the Sphere projected out around Ionica. After a couple of rotations, a detailed map of the mines began to emerge.

  Daniel homed in on the one thing that seemed all too familiar—a series of tall, thin structures in a cave that looked like a bed of crocked nails. “The Racks,” he said. “That’s where we used to sleep.”

  “That’s quite the hike,” Ionica pointed out. “It’s a couple of miles away.”

  “Then we better get going.”

  Staying out of sight and avoiding patrols really slowed things down, but after a good hour or so they made it to a large hatch in the ground. This had to be where the Nightwatchers used to enter. Daniel heaved it open and peered over the edge.

  There they were: the filthy beds that he and the grubs called home.

  Without wasting any time, they dropped down into the Racks using a couple of quick bursts of energy to break the fall.

  The familiar creak of the rusted bed frames echoed throughout the chamber. The Racks were empty, or at least, they seemed that way until—

  A sneeze, brief and uncontrollably human.

  “Bless you,” Daniel whispered.

  A voice, distant and confused, answered, “Daniel . . . ?”

  Daniel peeked under the beds.

  “Nails? Is that you?”

  A couple of stacks away, a boy with fingernail hair lay trembling, facedown in the dirt. When he heard Daniel’s familiar voice, he glanced up in awe.

  “I don’t believe it,” Nails whispered.

  They helped him up from his hideout.

  “Did anyone else make it?” Daniel asked excitedly.

  “A couple,” Nails replied. “I think.”

  “What about Nova?”

  Nails shook his head. “I haven’t seen her.”

  “Where are the others you do know about?” Ionica insisted.

  “I can take you to them.”

  “Let’s go,” she said, breaking into a run.

  Nails ran after her, but Danie
l did not follow. He’d spotted something that Ionica had missed, and not surprisingly, since it’s not like she had ever been here before.

  When they were far enough away, he activated his Aegis and brought an entire row of Racks crashing down, preventing them from doubling back.

  Nails stopped dead in his tracks; glancing back, he spied the gleaming relic still affixed to Daniel’s chest after all this time. “You’ve been practicing,” he said.

  “Go,” Daniel urged.

  Ionica was not happy. “Daniel, what are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Get Nails out of here,” he said. “Get everyone you can find out of here. I have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Rescue my friend.”

  And with that he stepped out into the open, and to where a squad of Overseers who had been hiding in the shadows emerged to escort him back to where Blink was waiting.

  The Sinja were in control now.

  42

  HEART OF DARKNESS

  They marched Daniel through the decrepit heart of Musa Degh; a cohort of towering Overseers surrounded him, and Blink was beside him every step of the way.

  “Did anyone else survive the escape?” Daniel asked. “What about Fix?”

  Blink seemed to hesitate before replying. “Some of them had destinies that were . . . unacceptable,” he said.

  What an odd thing to say. Now that really put a shiver down Daniel’s spine. “What the heck is an unacceptable destiny?” he asked.

  “You’ll see,” Blink replied coldly. “We’re destined for great things, you and me, Dee,” said Blink confidently. “I’ve seen it.”

  Daniel had never seen this part of the mines before. It was filled with hissing pipes covered in frozen sheets of water vapor. Sizzling electricity arced from wall to wall above their heads. The air was cold and thin, but a musty smell reeked throughout the corridors.

  When they reached a dead end, the floor shuddered gently before beginning its slow rise up to the next level.

  When the platform came to a rest, Daniel found himself standing inside a very familiar cavern—the enormous armored dome he had encountered when he had first escaped the mines, with its multitude of holocules. Bolts of lightning arced across its surface, in step with the hissing pipes and the occasional breath of steam that made it seem as though it were alive—

  What was that? A movement in the shadows . . .

  All around the edge of the chamber, dark demonic figures stood watching him, their true faces hidden behind their masks—the Sinja were waiting.

  “Well done, Acolyte,” one of them whispered.

  Blink stepped forward. “I told you he’d come,” he said.

  From the shadow of a parked Phantom starfighter, its cockpit glass long gone, a hatch in the fuselage creaked open, and a great lumbering hulk of an anatom came ambling out, its single misplaced horn all too familiar.

  Hex A. Decimal made his way over to Blink and gently opened up his own chest cavity, revealing the Book of Planets that he had smuggled out of the Fortress of Truth.

  “Hex . . . ?” Daniel whispered, unsure if what he was witnessing was really happening.

  With one oversize hand and a clumsy set of pincers, Hex lifted the weighty tome out of its hiding place and clutched it tightly. “I did warn you that going down to the Vault was a bad idea,” the anatom said, refusing to look the boy in the eye.

  The betrayal burned deep inside Daniel, creating a hole into which equal parts sorrow and anger had already begun to seep.

  “You saved my life,” said Daniel, confusion tearing at his voice.

  “I saved my mission,” the vexed anatom explained. He shuffled forward, but his legs seemed to move against his will. His hands trembled ever so slightly.

  “I saved yours . . .” Daniel reminded him. “And for what? You were with them this whole time?”

  Hex glanced up, his eyes glassy, the closest an anatom would ever come to weeping. “Without you as the perfect distraction, I would never have gained access to the Fortress of Truth,” Hex explained. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bring the Book to me,” one of the Sinja whispered.

  Hex remained rooted to the spot, trying with all his might to refuse the command. His limbs stitched with the struggle.

  “Hex,” Daniel pleaded. “You have a choice.”

  But the anatom had already lost his battle. “No, I don’t,” Hex replied, lurching forward, doing what he had been programmed to do: delivering the prize to his master.

  The Sinja held the hefty tome reverently. “Vega Seftis will be pleased that the next phase of his plan can commence,” he said.

  “I’m so glad,” Daniel said. “I was beginning to worry you’d all let him down.”

  The Sinja handed the Book back to Hex. “Place it into the chronoscope.”

  The anatom did as he was commanded.

  “Do you know who I am, boy?” the Sinja asked, stepping into the light.

  Yes, he knew him, the dark Sinja he had battled in holocule form. But Daniel wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “Not a clue,” he said.

  “I am Vega Virrus,” he whispered darkly. “And I have brought you home. And to make you comfortable, I have brought the two things here that you cherish the most.”

  He meant Blink and Hex. But home? This place was many things, but it was not home.

  More crackling electricity sparked across the chamber, causing the frozen pipes to hiss, vaporizing patches of ice into instant steam.

  “Come,” the Sinja commanded.

  “Get lost,” Daniel replied.

  An Overseer shoved him roughly from behind. Daniel fell forward but stayed on his feet. He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, I missed you too,” he said.

  The Overseer went to jab him again, but Blink blocked his way. “No, wait!” he barked.

  There was the Blink Darkada that Daniel knew. He smiled to himself, but the glimmer of hope was short-lived.

  “I’ve seen my future, Dee,” Blink explained. “I’ve seen yours too. They have it all mapped out. It’s glorious! All you have to do is look.” He gestured to the gigantic metal dome, where Hex was loading the Book of Planets into its central core.

  Daniel watched, stunned, as the Book floated in a column of light, spinning on its axis, surrendering every star and planet in its knowledge bank.

  “What did you see when you saw your future?” Daniel asked, not sure that he really wanted to know the answer.

  Blink rolled his shoulders back proudly. “They showed me who I was born to be, Dee. One of the most powerful Sinja who ever lived!”

  Daniel couldn’t hide his disgust. “What are you saying? We were their prisoners, don’t you remember the mines?”

  “They were testing us. Don’t you see? They were making us stronger.”

  Daniel felt the impulse to run deep in his gut. “No,” he said, edging back.

  Vega Virrus had waited long enough. Impatiently, he strode toward the machine, signaling the Overseers. “Since you will not go willingly,” he said, “we will persuade you. Bring him!”

  The Overseers lurched forward to do his bidding, grabbing Daniel roughly by the arms and dragging him across the chamber. Daniel jammed his heels down, but it was no use. They were too strong.

  When the Overseers eventually released Daniel, despite being outnumbered he wasted no time in pulling his hand back to ready his Aegis.

  The Sinja made no move toward his own weapon. “Unwise,” he said. “Thought Detonators are everywhere. . . .”

  Daniel’s hand trembled. Was the Sinja lying or telling the truth? Only one way to find out: call his bluff—

  His Aegis refused to function.

  Daniel panicked. He glanced down; did he still even have it? Yes, there it was, sitting where it had always been, gleaming over his heart. Why didn’t it work?

  “It seems your heart and head do not agree,” Vega Virrus hissed.

  Daniel looked away. With Blink in the room, if
he attacked now he’d have to face his friend in battle, and Daniel knew he wasn’t ready to do that.

  Regardless, Daniel tried again. Without success.

  Vega Virrus turned his back on Daniel, as if to show that the boy was no threat, and moved toward the controls of the machine; what did he call it—the chronoscope?

  “The Aegis, much like the Truth Seekers, is a limited weapon. It requires total obedience. My weapon is superior. It has no such limitations.” Virrus turned on Daniel. “You should not be a slave to your limits either. You have a great destiny, Daniel Coldstar, if you will only accept it.”

  Daniel felt it in his chest first, the nervous energy that told him that his uncertainty was only growing.

  “Just look, Daniel,” Blink urged from the shadows.

  Daniel swallowed hard. This was a bad idea, but what other choice did he have? Besides, this way he’d at least have some understanding of what they had done to Blink. Assuming he made it out of this with his mind intact.

  “Show me,” he said quietly.

  Daniel took a deep breath, expecting some kind of mind-altering delusion to suddenly fill his senses, or find his soul being sucked from his body, but he experienced none of that. Instead, he heard a voice approaching from around the other side of the chronoscope.

  “Daniel?” it said.

  It took a moment to process, but Daniel realized he was listening to his own voice.

  He watched as a ghostly holocule version of himself came circling toward him, bearing a twisted Askarai on his chest, and wearing the armor of an Overseer.

  43

  BENEATH THE MASK

  “Who are you?” asked Daniel nervously.

  “Who do you think I am?” Sinja-Daniel replied. “I’m you. I’m your future.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Belief doesn’t matter.”

  “I destroyed you.”

  “You can’t destroy your future, only variations of it.”

  Sinja-Daniel tapped the power of his Askarai, sprouting huge bat-like wings, propelling himself up into the air.

  “You’re the greatest Sinja who ever lived!” Sinja-Daniel exclaimed. “Never to be a slave, never to be bullied. You will never be weak. Worlds will bow at your feet, for you are destined to be respected and feared!”