“Move,” Kira said, elbowing Cade aside as she spoke into the comms. “Rao, this is Commander Kira Sen. Clearance code NH-JX-one-one-oh-nine.”
There was a pause and Cade rolled his eyes. Rao Ursa, Rothanian chief of Ticus’s Watcher Corps, loved his dramatic effect.
“Verified, Commander Sen. Welcome back, sir.”
“What’s with the aggressive security, chief?” Kira asked.
“He takes his job too seriously,” Cade whispered, and Kira shushed him quiet.
“We picked up a few unusual signatures just out of range,” Rao replied. “I’m sure it’s just a passing meteor shower or some kind of floating debris, but you can never be too careful.”
“Understood,” Kira replied, her voice authoritative. “Maintain your vigilance, chief.”
“Aye, aye, commander.”
Kira plopped into the copilot’s chair. “Need me to bring us down, too?” she asked, and Cade groaned. It was the dozenth time she’d offered to drive during the short trip from Aria.
Cade took control of the Horizon Dawn and began his descent, breaking through the planet’s thin layer of clouds and mist to reveal Ticus’s snowcapped mountain range and, just below its peaks, the massive temple that anchored his home.
The Floating Temple—so named because on days when cloud coverage was low, the temple seemed to magically float in the air—was carved out of one of Ticus’s highest mountains a long, long time ago. Cade didn’t have a clue when it was built; no one did. Its first appearance in the historical records cataloged the six months Wu-Xia spent there, meditating before his final battle. The only age Cade could stick to the temple was “crazy old,” and it certainly looked the part. Its four exterior columns were so weathered by time that their once-intricate reliefs—capturing, as far as anyone could guess, the temple’s history—had been all but smoothed away. Still, the mighty columns managed to hold up the protruding awning that distinguished the temple’s entrance. The awning, like the columns, had seen better days; although, while the awning was also starting to erode one chunk of stone at a time, an epic frieze—fashioned to its western face and depicting the battle between Ser Ukosa and the Faceless Four—defied the odds and held on.
After Wu-Xia’s death, warriors from across the galaxy traveled to the temple seeking spiritual guidance, focus, and inner peace, just as Wu-Xia had. Over time, what had once been an obscure temple for a small order of monks became the nexus for people, inspired by Wu-Xia, who wanted to make themselves worthy to claim the Rokura. Tristan was the first person to yank the mystical weapon from its stasis: Every Paragon-hopeful before him, and there was no telling how many, had failed. Still, the widespread failure to remove the Rokura didn’t deter more and more warriors—from nearly every race and planet—from flocking to Ticus. With all these galactic badasses under one roof, they decided to make a pact: Even if they couldn’t seize the Rokura, they’d remain committed to Wu-Xia’s ideal of the spiritual warrior, the Rai, and uphold the peace he’d established by crushing any jerk or band of jerks—and there always seemed to be plenty—who threatened to disrupt the galaxy’s harmony.
With that agreement, the Well was born, and though Cade joked that its standards must have eroded over time—Cade was part of the club, after all—it had stood for countless years as the galaxy’s defender of peace.
Stretching out wide across the mountains—with the Floating Temple as its nucleus—was the architecture of the Well as it was now, replete with armories, launch bays, and training dojos. The Well maintained an army of ground troops and some of the best pilots in the galaxy; it was a coalition of men and women who believed that the path to peace required relentless vigilance. Though it was only in recent years that the Masters allowed their corps of peacekeepers to expand and include people who weren’t totally on board with the whole “spiritual warrior” thing. Cade understood why that might not make sense to some people. It was a little hokey even when he thought about it.
As Cade approached his landing platform, he eyed the dojo where he and Tristan had trained to become Rai. They learned to balance inward calm with controlled fighting techniques; they learned selflessness, justice, and how to come to terms with the inevitable results of battle. And now, on the dojo’s rooftop, his fellow Rai were preparing for Tristan’s memorial. All the time he spent with Tristan gazing out at the tremendous sweep of unobstructed space from the training dojo’s rooftop came rushing back to Cade. In his mind’s eye, he could see the stars and distant worlds that were so clearly visible from the dojo’s roof, and Cade remembered hearing someone say how the vastness of the cosmos made the lives of everyone beneath seem small in context. Cade didn’t buy that, though, especially not today. Tristan’s absence was felt just as profoundly as extinguishing one of those stars in the sky. Maybe even more, Cade considered, as he fought the urge to turn his ship around and flee. The idea of ceremonially saying good-bye to his brother was unbearable, and Cade struggled to find one good reason to put himself through such torture.
But the roaring of the Well’s alarms—never heard outside of testing—snapped Cade’s impulse to flee right out of him. In impulse’s place was panic—panic and terror.
Kira leapt out of her seat and shot Cade a terrified look that mirrored his own.
“Call up your scanners,” she said. “And patch us through to Rao.”
“The scanner has nothing beyond navigation,” Cade said. “And … oh man. The comms are jammed.”
“Turn this ship around,” Kira said, her voice steady. “I need visual on what’s happening.”
Cade did as he was told, though he knew what he was going to find. He knew they would come for him; he just didn’t think it’d be so soon. With the Dawn flipped to what had been its stern position, Cade spotted a scene that was every bit as bad as he imagined:
A fleet of Praxis ships was invading Ticus’s airspace.
Cade’s heart dropped into his guts. “Oh, no,” he said.
“Get us on the ground, Cade. Now!”
Cade hesitated. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Praxis drop ship and six Intruders that were accelerating toward his home. It wasn’t enough for a full assault, especially when considering the battery Praxis could have sent; if they really wanted to end their silent truce and eradicate the Well, Cade reasoned, they’d have sent warships and dozens of Intruders. Praxis wasn’t trying to destroy the Well; they wanted to infiltrate it. Which he knew meant only one thing: They were coming for the Rokura. Through all the years of conflict, Praxis never had the audacity to launch any kind of assault against Ticus and the Well. Despite the oppression the rotten kingdom spread throughout the galaxy, Praxis masked their true motivation—to become the galaxy’s ruling fascist regime—under the guise of delivering order from chaos. Those who resisted order as defined by Praxis’s rigorous definition of the term were branded terrorists and outlaws and were dealt with as seen fit. The Well, for whatever it was worth, had always stood somewhere in between. Praxian leaders were smart enough to know that any direct conflict with the Well would undermine their alleged devotion to peace, and that’s why the two sides were locked at silent odds. Praxis had too much to lose by symbolically incinerating peace, and the Well couldn’t even dream of mounting an effective large-scale assault against the galaxy’s oppressor. The best either could do was work against each other in the shadows. Until now, that is.
“Cade!” Kira yelled, grabbing his attention. “Let’s move!”
Cade flipped the Dawn back around and zipped them to the landing platform. As the ship descended, Cade armed himself with Tristan’s shido and an antique sidewinder that he kept stashed in a storage compartment. The Dawn touched down with a thud, and when Cade stepped out of the ship, the first thing he saw was Duke being dragged away by two Masters.
“Hey!” he yelled, running after Duke. His voice was drowned out by the rolling alarm, so he yelled, louder, once more, “HEY!”
Duke turned at the sound of Cade’s voice and lumber
ed his boxy body toward him, the Masters each a step behind. He had the Rokura held tightly in his grip.
“Have you fried a circuit, Duke?” Cade asked. “What are you doing out here—and with that thing, no less?”
“I’ll have you know I’ve been waiting for your return, enjoying the company of the two charming Masters you see behind me.”
“He insisted on waiting for you,” Nu Kan, the Ohanian Master, said. His counterpart, a Hesbonian named Plar, was observing his people’s annual vow of silence and didn’t say a word. Cade never felt so fortunate for such a silly ritual; though Plar and Nu Kan were skilled Masters, they each had the charisma of a sack of rocks. The less they said, the better.
“There’ve been people wanting to visit the Rokura,” Duke said. “Wanting to see it.”
Cade arched an eyebrow, and before he could say a word, Duke grabbed Cade by the back of his head and pulled him close.
“Be cautious of who you trust, Cade Sura.”
When Cade pulled back, he expected Duke to make some kind of snide remark that offset his warning, but he didn’t. Instead, Duke held out the weapon for him to take while Nu Kan and Plar waited, filled with obvious anticipation, for Cade to make his move. Reluctantly, Cade grabbed the Rokura; he was relieved nothing terrible happened when he wrapped his fingers around the hilt. At least not yet.
“Okay, then,” Cade said, feigning command. “Nu Kan and Plar, get back to the other Masters. Tell them I’m on my way.” Cade paused, watching over Duke’s shoulder as the Masters ran out of earshot. “Duke, go find us a ship that’s in better shape than the Dawn—one that could actually get us through this mess. We need to get out of here, immediately.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kira said, coming up behind Cade. “Did I hear you correctly? Because for a second it sounded like you said you were leaving.”
Cade grasped Duke by his shoulders and pushed him ahead, demanding that he go. He turned back to Kira, who looked ready to knock him out and take the Rokura for herself. “Kira, I don’t have time to explain a million things to you. Go round up your squadron and do what you need to do. I’m going to do the same.”
Kira got in Cade’s face, pinning him against the wall without laying a hand on him. Sweat rolled down his back as he took a stuttered breath. Everything was literally crashing down around him. There was no telling what Praxis would do to him if captured; there was no telling what the evil kingdom would do to the galaxy if it got its hands on the Rokura. He should have left it behind on Quarry; he should have escaped with it instead of running off for a pity party on Aria. But he didn’t, and now everything was on the precipice of somehow being even more disastrous than it already was.
“There’s going to be Praxis boots on the ground in a matter of minutes, and you’re holding the strongest weapon in the galaxy in your hands. What you need to do is obliterate every last one of them without hesitation or mercy.”
“You have no idea what you’re even talking about,” Cade yelled. “Now get in the sky and get to defending our—”
Kira grabbed Cade’s tunic and shoved him against the wall of the landing bay. “You listen to me and you listen good: I know you, Cade Sura. Yeah, I know you. And while I’m not entirely sure what happened in the spire or to your brother, I’m certain that there’s no way you’re the Paragon. So you either start kicking Praxis ass right here, right now and prove me wrong, or you tell me what’s really going on.”
Cade froze, torn between wanting to unburden himself of the truth and terrified of the judgment he’d be subject to if he did.
“Do something!” Kira said, throwing her body weight into the grip she had on him.
“What? You want me to say it? Is that it?” Cade said, pushing Kira away from him.
“Cade,” Kira spat through clenched teeth as she released her hold and took a step back. “Damn it.”
“My brother was the Paragon,” Cade said, tossing the Rokura on the ground between Kira and himself. “He pulled the Rokura from its stasis, then some lunatic murdered him. I killed that lunatic, and now the weapon is mine to deal with. I’m nothing, okay? I’m nobody.”
Kira shook her head, and Cade could see her recalibrating her resolve. “No,” she said, then she picked the Rokura off the ground and shoved it in Cade’s chest. “You’re the person everyone thinks is the Paragon, which is good enough. Now come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.”
Cade, realizing he had no other choice, followed Kira to the landing bay’s opening. She stopped at its edge and peeked her head out to check for enemies as she slammed a charge into her sidewinder.
“I don’t understand. What are we doing?” Cade stammered.
“Cade, if you die—if the Paragon dies—any hope we have of finally taking the fight to Praxis dies, too. The Masters will be more lost than they are now, and everything we’ve been fighting for will be gone. The Well will fall, the galaxy will crumble, and I’m not going to live in a world that sucks that bad. So you’re going to follow me, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do, and maybe, by some miracle, we can get out of here alive.”
Cade nodded vigorously, bolstered by Kira’s confidence and grit. “All right, okay. So, how do we do this?”
“One step at a time, that’s how. Step one: We get to my ship.”
“Are you crazy? Your ship is on the opposite platform; we’ll pass half a dozen on our way to it.”
“Those ships are garbage, and this isn’t a discussion. We’re getting to my ship, and that’s that. Now come on.”
Intruders pounded the surface with proton fire as they executed uncontested flybys over Ticus. Cade and Kira ran from the landing platform with their heads ducked down, but Cade still saw the Floating Temple get blasted by consecutive hits that erupted on its facade. Slabs of rock tumbled to the ground, and the ancient temple, its structure compromised, began to buckle under its own weight. The grinding of rock against rock was unmistakable as the top half of the temple depressed into its lower component. Cade stopped, struck by the enormity of what was happening all around him, and he was fortunate to have done so. As Kira turned around, presumably to tell him to move his butt, he heard a powerful whirring overhead—the sound of dual turbine propellers, unmistakably belonging to the massive wings of a Praxis drop ship. He grabbed Kira and dove into the adjacent dojo just as the drop ship descended on their position. They landed on the ground, hard, and neither said a word. They didn’t even breathe as their eyes remained fixed on the ceiling above them, wondering if the drop ship had spotted them or not.
Their curiosity was sated when four Praxis gunners—armed with automatic E-9 tri-blasters and protected by AI-enhanced armor, painted Praxis black and red, that formed to their body and made them very difficult to hit with conventional blasters—crashed through the dojo’s ceiling.
“Go!” Kira yelled, hopping to her feet and drawing her sidewinder. “Take cover and keep them pushed back.”
Ignoring Kira’s orders, Cade rushed the gunners, wanting to get to them before they got their bearings. His charging sprint turned into a slide as one of the gunners raised his blaster to fire; Cade slid beneath the gunner’s weapon and sliced the Rokura’s blade across his legs. The cut went right through his armor and dropped him to the ground. A firm punch to the back of his head rendered him unconscious.
Kira ducked behind a wooden training dummy, taking fire from an approaching gunner. She returned fire, but the gunner’s armor kept reshaping itself—based on all the information it self-compiled, such as blaster type, distance, and aim—to deflect each blast. Cade drew Tristan’s shido, ignited it, and threw it at the gunner, plunging the weapon directly into his back. The blow drove him to the ground. But, the moment he fell, the dojo was pounded by an aerial assault that shook the ground, violently jostling everyone in the room. Cade was thrown from his feet, and as he got back up, he heard Kira yell out behind him.
“On your left!” she said, and Cade spotted a gunner with his E-9 trai
ned on him from just a few feet away. The gunner fired, and the Rokura, without any input from Cade, jolted outward in his hand and absorbed the blast. Cade and the gunner both paused, in awe of what the Rokura had done and unsure what to do next as the energy from the blast danced at the weapon’s head. They both found out in a flash, as the energy shot back at the gunner, knocking him through the dojo wall.
“Oh, so now you want to help me,” Cade said to the Rokura, a little annoyed about it.
Cade heard a blast, and he turned to see the final gunner being electrocuted behind him. In a fit of spasms, the gunner dropped to her knees then face-planted on the floor.
Kira, blaster held up, joined Cade as they took a moment to admire their work. “If you shoot their armor’s AI control panel, they fry,” Kira said. “It’s on their right wrist. I liked your move with the Rokura, by the way. Maybe you’re not so hopeless after all.”
“Who said anything about being hopeless?” Cade asked as he ripped his shido out of the gunner’s back.
“Hm. I guess I was just drawing my own conclusions.”
Cade grunted. “So, still plan on getting to your ship?”
“No, Cade, let’s just stick around here and hope for the best.”
Cade followed Kira to the edge of the dojo and surveyed the scene outside. What had started as a small-scale invasion had turned into an all-out battle. The scent of cinders and ash wafted in the air. In the time since they left the landing bay, drop ships had dispersed dozens of gunners and sentry drones over the area, and Cade couldn’t even count the number of Intruders that dotted the sky, spraying proton fire as they roared overhead. Rao and his squad, positioned in the cannon towers spread across the Well, repelled the Intruder attacks with all the firepower they had available, but they were overmatched. Until a full fleet of Echoes were able to take to the sky and engage the Intruders, they would continue to rain down destruction on the Well.
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