Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “It would ruin your weapons, and you’d be lost to the li­quid.”

  Jolt eased her down. “Just what I thought I’d hear.”

  He turned to the golden pool. Crusty called out from be­hind them, “Boss, what are you do­ing?”

  “Mak­ing sure we win.” He dipped the en­ergy sphere of the void ray into the golden li­quid and held it there un­til the cham­ber filled with golden light. He pulled the weapon from the pool and gave Eri a mean smile, like he’d bested her in a game. “I’m not dead.”

  She swal­lowed, back­ing up. The void ray pulsed with life, buzz­ing in his hands. “And this weapon still seems to work.” He poin­ted it to­ward her with a dev­il­ish sneer on his face. “You lied.”

  Weaver stepped be­side her. “Jolt, you don’t want to do that. She’s the only one who can de­cipher the sym­bols.”

  “Who needs the sym­bols? I never liked dir­ec­tions any­way.” Jolt hef­ted the gun up higher, tar­get­ing her fore­head. “Be­sides, I need to try this thing out.”

  Fear clutched Eri’s throat with icy fin­gers un­til she fought for air. She hadn’t felt so in­ca­pa­cit­ated since she was a girl scur­ry­ing through dark cor­ridors with the ghost of Lynex. Wait a second! The ghost of Lynex…the alarm saved me be­fore.

  Eri pressed a but­ton on her locater and a high, keen­ing noise brought every­one to their knees. Block­ing one ear, she grabbed Weaver’s arm. Hold­ing both hands over his ears, he fol­lowed her past Jolt. Jolt had dropped his laser gun to cover his ears, and Eri con­tem­plated go­ing after the dis­carded weapon. But that was the op­pos­ite dir­ec­tion of es­cape, and she’d still have to fight Jolt for it. No, it was bet­ter to take ad­vant­age of the sur­prise. Drag­ging Weaver be­hind her, she bolted for the tun­nel.

  Crusty lay across the path to the tun­nel, writh­ing. Eri bent down and tore her laser from his belt.

  Laser fire erup­ted be­hind them. Jolt had mis­fired, and the beam of light ex­ploded like shrapnel, cut­ting through six of his men. In seconds, they were gone. Not even dead. Just gone. Eri pulled her­self away and ran. The mouth of the tun­nel loomed steps away with stalac­tites point­ing down in jagged teeth.

  A high buzz­ing noise grew as the photon cham­bers charged. Jolt fired an­other shot be­hind her and the stalac­tites fell from the ceil­ing. She dove for the dark­ness of the tun­nel as rocks crashed be­hind her and the wind rushed over her head.

  Eri scrambled for­ward. Her ears rang as she tore through the tun­nel, not caring if she swal­lowed a spi­derm­ite on the way out. Sound re­turned in time, dull and foggy, like she wore thick head­phones. She touched her ear­lobes to make sure they didn’t bleed. Her head felt like someone had stuck a pin in each ear and turned it over and over again.

  She checked be­hind her and Weaver fol­lowed her through the nar­row cav­ern. He shouted, but all she could hear was ringing in her ears.

  “What?”

  “What was that noise?”

  “Just an alarm,” Eri shouted over her shoulder as she jumped over rocks block­ing their path and landed in a puddle. Us­ing her loc­ator, she il­lu­min­ated the nar­row space between the rocks ahead.

  “Why do I feel like my ears are go­ing to fall off?” This time she heard him more clearly, which was a good sign. It had taken two days to re­gain her com­plete hear­ing after the hide and seek in­cid­ent.

  “The echo in the cave in­tens­i­fied the sound waves.” She hadn’t thought the alarm would work, but death stared her in the face and she had no other ideas.

  “Why did you save me?”

  She slipped against the rock and pulled her­self back up again, her heart pound­ing. “Be­cause Jolt’s go­ing to kill you, Weaver. I can see it in his eyes.”

  “What if I de­serve to die?”

  “No one de­serves to die.” Ex­cept for Jolt, maybe. She grabbed Weaver’s arm and pulled him for­ward. “Come on.”

  The laser fire pinged through the rock be­hind them. Flashes of light il­lu­min­ated the cave and sent them into dark­ness once again. Eri had stored up en­ergy, drink­ing from a wa­ter canteen and stretch­ing her muscles while study­ing the sym­bols. She wished she’d thought of the alarm sooner, but then she would have never found out about Jolt’s plan with the lasers. I have to warn Litus and Striver.

  With the weapon up­grade, the Law­less would give the team from the Her­it­age a run for their money. After wit­ness­ing their sav­age civil­iz­a­tion, she didn’t want the Law­less in charge of Refuge, even if it meant en­abling the com­mander’s at­tack.

  As Eri ran from the laser fire, the com­mander’s past flashed through her mind. Eri’s short time with the Law­less il­lu­min­ated the as­sas­sin­a­tion at­tempt in a new light. The gangs on Old Earth had killed Com­mander Grier’s fam­ily. The sur­viv­ors stole a colony ship and settled at Out­post Omega, and their des­cend­ants traveled here. No won­der the com­mander wanted them all dead.

  But they aren’t the same people who killed her fam­ily. Not all of the people on Refuge are Law­less. Striver is a good per­son. His vil­lage can co­ex­ist in har­mony with the people from the Her­it­age. If only they could be given a chance.

  The com­mander had to be stopped, and only Eri was sane enough to do it.

  She and Weaver broke through into clean air and the vast ex­panse of star-stud­ded sky. Eri looked over her shoulder. The cav­ern be­hind them lay dark and si­lent.

  They ran over the jagged rocks. Eri ex­pec­ted laser fire to erupt at any mo­ment, but she reached the nearest strand of trees un­harmed.

  “Where are they?” Weaver huffed by her side, peer­ing through the leaves.

  Re­lief spread across Eri’s shoulders. Jolt didn’t need her and Weaver any longer. Al­though he’d prob­ably revel in killing them, he had big­ger prob­lems on his hands. “They don’t have time to pur­sue us. They need to dip their weapons and meet the oth­ers for battle.”

  “Are your people really in­vad­ing?”

  Eri gave him a cold stare. What else could she say? “Yes.”

  “Are they go­ing to take over the planet?”

  “Most likely. But I have a plan.” Eri smiled. “One that had bet­ter work more ef­fect­ively than yours did.”

  “What are you go­ing to do?”

  She put up her arm and star­ted typ­ing into her loc­ator. “I’m go­ing to warn them.”

  “Will they still at­tack?”

  Eri sighed. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m try­ing to stop a tidal wave from crash­ing down on all of us.”

  Litus’s face popped up, hov­er­ing over her arm. “Eri! Are you okay?”

  She slowed down and spoke between gasps of air. “I’ve es­caped. Weaver is with me. I have some bad news.”

  Nod­ding gravely, Litus’s face hardened. “Bring it on.”

  “Jolt has up­graded our weapons us­ing the golden li­quid in the cave. Any­one who’s near the lasers when they go off will dis­ap­pear to an­other di­men­sion, never to re­turn.”

  Litus ran a hand over his mouth. Eri knew she soun­ded crazy, but there wasn’t any other way to ex­plain it.

  “You mean, they just dis­ap­pear?”

  “Yes. It has a wide range, too. He mis­fired and I saw it take out six of Jolt’s men.”

  Litus rubbed his temple with his free hand. “This will make the Law­less harder to beat.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I’ll no­tify the com­mander.” He moved to turn their com­mu­nic­a­tion link off.

  Eri held her loc­ator screen up to her nose. “Litus!”

  “What?”

  “I just saw one of our guns work with the li­quid. I don’t think the people on the Her­it­age will win this.”

  Litus didn’t seem to be­lieve her. “I’ll take care of it, Eri. I’m send­ing your co­ordin­ates to a res­cue team. When they hit down, they’re com­ing
right after you. We’re go­ing to get you out of there.”

  “Tell the team not to come out. Tell them all to stay in­side the Her­it­age.”

  “I can’t stop our com­mander’s or­ders.” Litus’s shoulders rose and fell. “I can only help our people my­self.”

  “What do you mean by that? Are you go­ing to fight as well?” Eri slammed her palm to her fore­head. Her plan had back­fired. “Litus, no!”

  The trans­mis­sion clicked off.

  She tried rees­tab­lish­ing the link, but he was already busy hail­ing the com­mander. “Dam­mit!”

  Weaver stood pa­tiently by her side. “What are you go­ing to do now?”

  “Plan B. I’m go­ing back to the ship to stop the com­mander my­self.”

  Weaver rubbed sweat from his fore­head, giv­ing her an in­cred­u­lous look. “How are you go­ing to do that?”

  Eri reached down to his belt and took her laser back. “Ser­i­ous ne­go­ti­ations.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Convergence

  Striver’s heart broke as Litus switched off the loc­ator.

  She’s still alive. She’s safe. She es­caped. And she’s with Weaver.

  The last part caused a cur­rent of un­ease to sting his gut, but she seemed to be in Weaver’s com­pany by choice, so maybe they’d worked some­thing out. Maybe Weaver had changed his mind and saved her? Who knew the depths of his brother’s heart?

  The second part of the con­ver­sa­tion gripped Striver’s stom­ach and twis­ted. He’d spent his life keep­ing tech­no­logy from the law­less, and now they faced the one evil he’d worked so hard to avoid. “Why did you shut her off?”

  “I have to no­tify the com­mander im­me­di­ately.” Duck­ing un­der­neath a branch, Litus left just as Com­mander Grier’s alto voice rang out from his arm. For the first time, Striver wished he had his own loc­ator to talk to Eri. To think, I used to hate tech­no­logy.

  “Did you hear?” Carven tugged on his sleeve. “The Law­less may have the ad­vant­age.”

  “Yes, but do we really want them to win?” Striver watched the trees for Litus’s re­turn. He raised his voice so every­one in the main square could hear. “Think about it. The Law­less would surely kill us if they won, but if we help these vis­it­ors, they would owe us their lives. I can’t ima­gine such a well-de­veloped cul­ture go­ing against a life debt.”

  “You want us to fight their war?” Ri­ley crossed his arms. “Be­cause of Eri?”

  “It has noth­ing to do with Eri.” He put his fist up to his chest. “It’s our war as well. We’ve al­lowed the Law­less to amass over hun­dreds of years, threat­en­ing our own vil­lage. Now, we have a chance to make a dif­fer­ence. If we go with Litus and fight by his side, we have a chance to prove ourselves. If we let them die at the hands of the Law­less, the sav­ages will not be as for­giv­ing. Es­pe­cially if they steal the vis­it­ors’ tech­no­logy. They’ll blow us to bits.”

  “Who’s to say the vis­it­ors won’t turn on us once the Law­less are taken care of?” Riptide tilted her head, her blue gaze catch­ing the moon’s light.

  “Be­cause Litus and Eri won’t let that hap­pen.”

  “I won’t either.” Mars stood at the back, swinging her new weapon. “You’ve got my vote.”

  “As much as I love Eri”—Riptide rolled her eyes—“what if she can’t con­vince her people to ac­cept us?”

  Striver shrugged. “It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

  “I still don’t trust them,” Ri­ley mur­mured as he shook his head. His gaze flicked to Mars sharpen­ing her weapon. “Eri’s sweet, but she has her own job to pro­tect. If it came down to it, do you think she’d give up everything she has to save us?”

  The cer­tainty rose up in­side Striver, giv­ing him cour­age. “I know she will.”

  Ri­ley’s voice fell to a whis­per. “And what about Litus? He has more power than she does.”

  “Litus is a good man and he’ll do the right thing. If not out of love, then out of moral re­spons­ib­il­ity.” Striver turned to the crowd. Most of them were already listen­ing. “Hear me out.”

  He leapt on top of a stump so every­one could see him. “I’m go­ing with Litus to the battle, and if any­one wants to come with me, you are wel­come. If you want to go to the caves with the oth­ers, then so be it. I won’t stop you. Those weapons sound power­ful, and you may not make it back.”

  As Striver spoke his fi­nal words, Litus stepped from the forest. “I’ve spoken with the com­mander. The at­tack is on as planned. She un­der­es­tim­ates their abil­it­ies, I’m sure of it. That’s why I’m leav­ing to help my people.”

  “I know.” Striver ad­jus­ted his bow on his shoulder. “I’m go­ing with you. We’ve fought the Law­less for cen­tur­ies. They are as much our bur­den as they are yours.”

  “You can count me in.” Carven nod­ded his head, his hand rest­ing on the hilt of one of his knives. “I’ve wanted to give those pir­ates some of my own medi­cine for years.”

  “Me, too.” Riptide held up her spear. “Ri­ley and I are both in.”

  “I’m with you, too.” Mars stood and the spikes on her weapon shined in the moon­light.

  A low thun­der drew Striver’s at­ten­tion. Whis­pers and ques­tions filled the air and he raised his hand to calm them down. “Listen.”

  The sound grew louder un­til it roared in his ears. A screech­ing noise keened above the din, and the earth rumbled un­der­neath their feet. Striver clung to a tree trunk, help­ing Carven stay up­right while oth­ers fell to the ground. His teeth rattled and the leaves on the trees shook like nervous ob­serv­ers. The boom­ing earth­quake stopped sud­denly, and the cries of startled swil­low wisps filled the night.

  Above them, the sky was clear ex­cept for a V-shaped con­greg­a­tion of arcs sail­ing in the dir­ec­tion of the crash. “Look, the Guard­i­ans!” Striver poin­ted to the sky, hop­ing the site would bring cour­age to his people.

  …

  Weaver gripped a sponge­wood tree as the ground shook like the planet tore apart un­der­neath them. They are plan­ning to take over. Anxi­ety shot through Weaver’s legs. “Was that what I thought it was?”

  Eri hadn’t been as quick to re­spond. She’d fallen to her knees in swamp muck. “I’m not sure what you thought, but that, most def­in­itely, was my colony ship.”

  “Why the hell would the en­tire ship land, and right in the middle of the en­emy ter­rit­ory?”

  Eri stood up and wiped off the brunt of the mud. “We’re not a war­ship; we’re a colony ves­sel. The ship is not equipped with weapons. Be­sides, she doesn’t want to nuke the planet and des­troy our new home. She’d rather take the Law­less out gor­illa style and keep the en­vir­on­ment in­tact as much as pos­sible. If Com­mander Grier wants a fight, she’s got to come to them.”

  All this talk of war made Weaver anxious. They needed to cut through the battle and reach to the ship be­fore a vic­tor emerged. The best time to take con­trol was dur­ing a period of flux. “Come on.” He offered his hand.

  “I can walk on my own.” Eri cast him a warn­ing and he dropped his hand to his side like a dead trot­ter on a string. He had to ad­mit, the more he got to know her, the more he liked her. He could see why she’d caught Striver’s at­ten­tion. As much as Riptide was gor­geous, Eri was clever, vi­brant, and spunky. She fit Striver’s per­son­al­ity like pearl ber­ries with pie.

  And I stole her away.

  Guilt dripped down his throat un­til he could hardly swal­low. Some­how he had to make it right. He’d lost his con­trol of the golden li­quid and he’d be­trayed the one per­son on Refuge who still be­lieved in him. His only chance lay in seiz­ing the ship from the com­mander. He’d con­trol everything: the tech­no­logy, the team at­tack­ing, Striver’s vil­lage, and the Law­less. He’d be the most power­ful man on Refuge. Then he could make the world what he
wanted it to be.

  “Why are you com­ing with me?” Eri’s eye­brow rose in sus­pi­cion as she wiped off her knees.

  He shrugged. “I don’t want the Law­less to win, either.”

  She nar­rowed her eyes. “Who do you want to win, then?”

  Weaver glanced down at the ferns brush­ing against his legs. Me.

  “I thought so.” Eri trudged ahead.

  Could she hear his in­ner thoughts? “You thought what?”

  “You can’t pick a side.”

  “That’s not true. I could pick if I had to.”

  “Really? Or can you only think about your­self?” She stopped and turned to­ward him. “Wake up, Weaver, and smell the swamp sludge. There’s some­thing hap­pen­ing that’s big­ger than all of us, and we have to fight for what we be­lieve.”

  She spun around, turn­ing her back to him, and sloshed ahead. Weaver fol­lowed her, speech­less. He didn’t know what he be­lieved. He hadn’t taken the time to really think about it. He’d been too in­volved in his own woes. Eri was right. I am selfish. Now he had a new emo­tion to add to the already miser­able bunch: shame.

  She kicked a clump of moss and mud from the toe of her boot. “You’re no less than Striver, just as I’m no less than any of those ge­net­ic­ally planned people on the Her­it­age. The only thing hold­ing you back is self-doubt.”

  “Self-doubt is the story of my life, but I didn’t give it to my­self, those around me—”

  “Stop blam­ing them.” Eri’s voice came out harsh and she turned and gave him an apo­lo­getic look. “When you start tak­ing re­spons­ib­il­ity for your­self, you’ll con­trol your own des­tiny. It happened to me. I used to let all those people on that ship tell me who I was, what I did for a job, and how I couldn’t have a lifemate.”

  She snorted in dis­gust. “Once I stopped listen­ing to them, I found my­self, and I found Striver.”

  The men­tion of Striver made a hole ache in his gut. Here he was with his brother’s love. Striver didn’t de­serve this.

  Eri walked to­ward him and put a re­as­sur­ing hand on his shoulder. “I be­lieve in you, Weaver. I think you can fig­ure things out and do the right thing.”