Cade inched his way toward the ridge, the path’s incline rising to what felt like a straight upward trek. Tristan eagerly waved him forward. “All right, all right!” Cade said as he steadied himself. “I’m coming!”
The trees were less dense here, breaking up the overhead canopy. Hazy beams of moonlight poked through, providing Quarry with a soft glow that was like a blistering sunrise compared to the darkness of the forest Cade had just trudged through. Tristan grabbed Cade’s elbow, yanking him to the ridge’s crest. When he got there, Cade stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked hard as if trying to focus his eyes, and his jaw dropped. There, in the distance, was the spire.
Cade expected big. He was prepared for big. But the spire was so colossal that Cade questioned whether it could even be real. It was like a thing of myth come to life. Gray and auburn rock twisted, turned, and entwined into one another on its upward march, forming the spire’s daunting exterior. Its immensity implied invulnerability, an assurance that no cataclysmic event would compromise its integrity, no ruthless kingdom would breach its walls. That spire would stand, always.
“Well … crap,” Cade breathlessly said. “We don’t have to go to the top, do we?”
Tristan rolled his eyes but then smiled. “That, little brother, is where our destiny awaits.”
That’s a stretch, Cade thought, but he nodded along anyway.
Cade knew the legend of the Quarry spire inside and out, how, many generations ago—so many there was no evidence of any of this taking place, casting more than a little bit of doubt over the whole thing—a great warrior named Wu-Xia single-handedly brought peace to a war-torn galaxy. If the legend was true, Wu-Xia was so profoundly distraught by the endless wars and hopelessness that consumed every star system that he retreated to the spire and vowed to stay there, meditating in solitude, until he could discover a way to bring peace to all worlds. He entered the tower with little food or water, humbly asking the Quarrian people to pray for his continued strength. Many committed themselves to his request, praying daily for Wu-Xia’s return, even though, weeks after his ascent into the spire, most others assumed he was dead.
Wu-Xia had been gone for months, through two Quarrian seasons, when he stepped through the snow-covered mouth of the spire and rejoined the world. And he wasn’t alone. At his side was a weapon, forged of materials no one—not even Wu-Xia’s most fervent doubters—could identify. Wu-Xia claimed that the weapon materialized before him when his spiritual odyssey plunged him deeper than he’d ever been into the fabric that bound the entire galaxy together. Its name, Wu-Xia declared, was the Rokura.
Conveniently, no details existed of what the Rokura could actually do. Shoot lasers? Cast plagues on planets? Transform despots into cute baby bothos? No one had the slightest clue. The legend only boasted of Wu-Xia’s power, Rokura in hand, to destroy or cow the dark forces of the galaxy and deliver peace wherever there was none. In short order, any wide-scale aggressions ceased, and things were pretty much okay after that.
Years passed, and with the galaxy no longer in jeopardy, Wu-Xia declared that it was time for “the corporeal phase of his life to come to an end.” Which, as far as Cade was concerned, was a nice way to say that he decided to take a one-way rocket to the beyond. But before he did, there was one final duty for him to perform: He had to return the Rokura to the spire. It would remain there, he told the people, and could only be removed when the galaxy’s peace was once again threatened by a great darkness. Then someone worthy of the mantle would rise to take the weapon. “They will be the best of all people, the ‘Paragon,’” Wu-Xia said, his final words before disappearing into the spire forever.
And now, here were Cade and Tristan, on a mission to sneak into the spire under Praxis’s nose to see if Tristan could accomplish what no one had been able to do in recorded history: remove the Rokura from its stasis. The Masters and other Rai at the Well seemed to think he could, and they were the experts. While the Well safeguarded peace throughout the galaxy, its primary function was to spiritually and physically train potential Paragons. For generations, its Masters adhered to Wu-Xia’s principles and remained vigilant for the time when an evil so comprehensive, so unrelenting, would arise and threaten the galaxy’s long-standing peace.
Praxis was that darkness.
Tristan was the light.
And Cade? Cade was his ride to Quarry so Tristan could grab the Rokura and blast every last vestige of Praxis into a black hole of the Rokura’s making. Assuming it could do something as cool as that. Cade knew his role in this mission, so when his brother said things like “that’s where our destiny awaits,” he knew it was where Tristan’s destiny awaited. Retrieving the Rokura wasn’t a game of chance; plenty of Rai had tried to remove it from its stasis, but none had succeeded. Not ever. And since Wu-Xia’s time, of course, war and peace had come and gone, and the galaxy had had to muddle on without the Paragon. But this time was different.
Praxis was different.
Other would-be empires had risen and fallen, but they’d crumbled under their own weight or been stalemated by other powers. And usually most weren’t what you’d call “evil,” but Praxis was staking its claim to be the worst of the worst—building its power slowly, quietly, until it suddenly burst out everywhere in the galaxy, not just looking to rule, but to lay waste to whole systems in a thirst for resources. Its crippling of Quarry and its sun at the start of their push cemented that they were looking to do what no empire had done in millennia: rule it all. And Praxis would tolerate no saviors rising on their watch.
Getting Tristan to the Rokura, though, was worth whatever consequences Cade, Tristan, and the Well would face should the mission go wrong and they were detected. Praxis had grown so powerful that not even the Well and its elite Rai had a chance at defeating the evil kingdom. The Rokura was the only chance the galaxy had left.
“All right, we didn’t come here to stand around and take in the view,” Cade said, even though he had to shake off a feeling of awe when seeing the spire. He unsheathed his shido—a three-foot steel staff studded with four blades protruding horizontally out from its head—and held it close to his side. “Let’s go have some fun.”
CHAPTER TWO
“That’s a lot of drones.”
Cade ducked behind the decaying monument that kept them hidden from the drones’ sight and handed the field scanner back to Tristan. They were positioned about a mile from the spire’s entrance in what had once been, according to Tristan, the burial grounds for the long-disbanded Quarrian Regal Guard. Huge, broken statues and other ceremonial edifices, reaching as high as twenty feet in the air, littered the grounds. The guard consisted solely of Quarrian nobility, all of whom dedicated themselves to safeguarding the Rokura after Wu-Xia embarked on his spiritual afterlife journey … thing. The Quarrian—who pretty much looked like humans save for their scarlet skin and the three braided tails that grew from the back of their heads—protected the spire for generations until one of their own spearheaded an internal coup in an attempt to claim the Rokura for himself. The mutiny was foiled, but seeing themselves tainted and unfit to serve the Rokura, the members disbanded and the Regal Guard was no more. All that remained were these monuments, ravaged by war and time.
Actually, that wasn’t all—there were also the Heemahs, a race of creatures who, for whatever reason, called the burial grounds their home. They somehow came to the conclusion that Cade and Tristan were the most interesting things they’d ever seen in their lives, and they’d been shuffling alongside them, eyeballing them, even sniffing them, since the brothers entered the grounds. Cade knew they were harmless, and he was proud of how well he’d been able to keep his cool—but as they were surveying the spire’s entrance, he felt one picking through his hair for bugs.
He slapped the Heemah’s hand away and pointed angrily in its face. The Heemah, hunched over as it stood upright on its squat hind legs, looked at Cade curiously, not comprehending why he wouldn’t want it looking for dinner in his scal
p. With its leathery blue skin, fiery orange eyes, and patches of coarse hair popping up all over its body, it was one of the grossest creatures Cade had ever laid eyes on.
“Cade,” Tristan said, interrupting his attempt to scold the Heemah, “will you focus, please?”
Cade wagged his finger one last time at the Heemah then turned back to Tristan; not a single one of those beasts was paying him any attention.
“There’s only two alpha drones, right?” Tristan asked.
“As far as I saw, yeah. I doubt they’d station more inside; the alphas’ job is to spot intruders and alert their Praxis overlords.”
“Exactly. But alphas are the only ones who have the comms range to transmit an alert back to the Praxis fleet. So, they’re the priority. We can take care of the sentry drones once the alphas are out of commission.”
Cade raised an eyebrow at Tristan. He took back the field scanner, lifted it to his eyes, and studied the scene in front of the spire once more. He saw exactly what he’d seen five minutes ago: two alpha drones surrounded by thirty-five sentry drones, broken into seven squads of five. Now, Cade had no problem shredding a squad of drones. He relished the opportunity, in fact. The problem was that there was no way he and Tristan would be able to slice, dice, and bash their way through that many sentries before an alpha could send an alert back to its fleet, which happened in, oh, the blink of an eye. Cade truly loathed the alphas. They were identical to the sentry model in nearly every way: Coated in Praxis black and red, they both had broad shoulders that stabilized the weight of the reinforced, boxy armor that hung down to cover their torsos. Where they differed was in their cylindrical heads; in the alpha, there was an optical lens that could transmit visual data via high-frequency streams, making them the galaxy’s most proficient tattletales.
“Yep, nothing’s changed. The alphas are still guarded by a swarm of sentries who, I’m just assuming, are going to get in our way.”
“We need to do something about that, then,” Tristan replied, a hint of sly satisfaction in his voice. Cade knew he already had a plan, but he was going to make Cade work for it. Tristan loved giving him learning exercises he never asked for.
Cade groaned. “Okay. Our best bet is to somehow distract the sentries. Or at least some of them. Most of them.”
“Agreed.”
“I can use my impact detonator, but even if I threw it away from the spire’s entrance, an explosion would probably be reason enough for the alphas to signal Praxis.”
“Agreed again.”
Cade rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Any distraction we manufacture will set off the alphas, and that’s it. We’re done for.”
“Then maybe we don’t manufacture one.”
“What do you mean?” Even though his brother’s unwanted tutelage irked him, Cade enjoyed seeing his mind at work. No one could strategize like Tristan, and watching him assess a situation and problem-solve never got old.
“I mean we don’t manufacture a distraction,” Tristan said, thumbing toward a group of Heemahs. “We use a natural one that’s already at our disposal.”
Cade looked at the scavengers—three of them—that Tristan had pointed toward. They were currently engaged in testing a patch of dirt for edibility.
“You can’t be serious. There’s no way we can trust these things. How are they even going to do whatever it is that you want them to do?”
“Leave that to me,” Tristan said, smiling.
“Oh, you’re a Heemah whisperer now?”
Tristan crouched down, preparing to stealthily move between the monuments. It was unlikely that the drones could spot them at this distance, but it wasn’t worth taking an unnecessary risk. No, they had to be cautious so, at this crucial moment, they could put their entire mission in the hands of the stupid Heemahs.
“I think I can get them to listen,” Tristan said as he stepped away. “Trust me.”
* * *
Of course, Tristan was right about the first part. Even without the simple language of the Heemahs at his disposal, Tristan was able to rally the beasts the same way he was able to rally so many other species around the galaxy. It was what he did. Cade could see him assuring the Heemahs that he and Cade were on Quarry to fight against Praxis, knowing that even the most primitive life-forms hated the fascist kingdom. He organized all twenty Heemahs into a pack, and he sent that pack rushing out of the burial grounds right toward the drones. More than once, Cade’s doubt in Tristan’s planning was proven wrong, but sending Heemahs on a stampede was ridiculous.
There wasn’t much of a gap between where the burial grounds ended and where the drones were positioned. Cade and Tristan stayed a few steps behind the Heemahs, remaining hidden.
“I hope you’re not setting these things up for a bloodbath,” Cade said.
“Engaging indigenous life-forms isn’t one of the drones’ directives,” Tristan replied. “They won’t know what to do.”
Cade was still nervous; if the sentries drew their B-18 blaster rifles and opened fire on the Heemahs, that would doubtless set off the alphas and elicit a knee-jerk response from Praxis. There was no way the Dawn was airworthy yet, which meant there’d be no escape; Tristan and Cade might as well make good use of the burial grounds and start digging their own graves.
As the Heemahs broke through the final line of monuments, they let out a painful howl that Cade assumed was supposed to be a battle cry but sounded more like a feral air horn. But, as Tristan predicted, the drones didn’t respond, since the Heemahs didn’t register as a threat; Praxis couldn’t risk their primary objective—to guard the spire’s entrance—being compromised by drones scattered away from their post, hunting down whatever life-forms registered on their scanners. So, at least for a moment, they were inactive. They clearly saw the Heemahs charging right toward them, but they didn’t care.
The Heemahs lowered their shoulders and charged through the enemy line, knocking sentries clean off their feet. Sentries from untouched squads came to help their mates off the ground and were also bulldozed by Heemahs, who were running wild through what was once the drones’ carefully arranged security wall. Now it was beautiful, beautiful chaos.
Cade and Tristan flanked the far side and positioned themselves behind the alphas without being detected. There was a small window for them to slip into the temple unnoticed; they could get in, grab the Rokura, and not think twice about whatever drones stood between them and their ship. But that window, Cade knew, was slammed shut once he saw both the alphas light the electric blades on their quanta staffs and move into attack position. The Heemahs were about to be slaughtered.
Tristan inched forward, and Cade grabbed his arm.
“Tristan, don’t,” Cade said, knowing there was no way he’d change his brother’s mind. Even if the justification for the Heemahs’ deaths was his opportunity to retrieve the weapon that would bring peace to the galaxy, he couldn’t turn his back on anyone in danger.
Tristan, having already taken a few steps toward the fracas, didn’t bother with words. He shot his brother a look that said “You should know better” and continued on his way.
Cade followed a few paces behind Tristan, providing backup Cade knew he wouldn’t need. Ahead, the Heemahs were still busying themselves with keeping the sentries down, almost like they were making a sport out of it. They didn’t notice the crackling sound of the ignited quanta staffs or the aggressive shift in the alphas’ stances; thankfully, the alphas moved slowly and methodically, providing Tristan with just enough time to reach the nearest one right before it brained an oblivious Heemah.
In one fluid and fast movement, Tristan used his shido to smash the closer alpha’s quanta staff out of its hands and, with the drone defenseless and caught off guard, he swiped an uppercut blow that knocked its head clean off its shoulders. Its oval dome landed with a clank right at Cade’s feet. One down, he notched, but as Cade assessed the situation and saw how far away the other alpha was, he realized they were screwed. A good ten feet s
eparated Tristan and the remaining alpha, and the drone would soon turn its ocular lens on him. It would register the intrusion, transmit, and Tristan and Cade would maybe have a matter of minutes to climb the spire, figure out how to free the Rokura, fix their ship, and get off this planet. “Un-effing-likely” was Cade’s official assessment.
Cade sprinted toward the alpha, even though he knew he wouldn’t reach it in time. But he didn’t have to.
As the drone’s head turned, Tristan activated his shido and blue-and-orange energy began to pour off the weapon’s head. He launched the shido like a spear, and it whistled across the air until it smashed through the alpha’s optical lens. The alpha stumbled around, its flailing arms trying to grab the object that was sticking out of its faceplate, but it was done for. Its head discharged a couple of electric bursts before the drone collapsed to the ground, its hefty weight kicking up a cloud of dirt and debris.
Cade changed course and rushed to Tristan’s side. “See? I’m not the only one who makes reckless decisions that—”
“Hush. We’re not clear yet,” Tristan said.
Cade was about to query his brother about how he’d enjoy walking back home should he be told to “hush” again, when he realized what was going on:
The sentries had recovered.
While their single-minded programming allowed them to be easily duped, it was that same programming that helped them quickly recover. They were coded to do one thing, and that one thing was their objective. Now they were focused on Cade and Tristan.
The sentries clicked and beeped, telling each other, Cade assumed, to “kill these idiots.” Any Heemah that still charged were downed by the butt of a blaster rifle, making a nice, clear space for the drones to fire at will on their targets.
Black Star Renegades Page 3
