The kaleidoscopic array of color that’d poured over the shield began to dissipate, and Cade spotted the sentries ahead just getting up from the ground. They were slow to get back into formation—assuming, no doubt, that the ion had left nothing of Cade and 4-Qel but a couple of smears on the floor, ceiling, and walls. A problem for maintenance drones, not sentries.
But visions of Cade and 4-Qel’s deaths were unfulfilled, and the duo was ready to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them.
“Move!” Cade yelled, pushing 4-Qel forward. “Go right at them!”
4-Qel charged ahead with gusto, attacking the sentries with the vigor gained from overpowering the ion cannon’s blast. The sentries tried to regain their positioning and defend themselves, but it was no use. 4-Qel was too fast; he used the shield to smash sentries against the wall while he clobbered others with his free hand. Cade was a step behind, shido ignited. The quarters were tight, and Cade used that to his advantage. Not only were the sentries unprepared for 4-Qel and Cade to rush at them, they were undertrained for this kind of fight. Cade exacted his strikes to combat the most clear and present dangers: He drilled a nearby gunner with enough sidewinder blasts to knock her off her feet before she could pull the trigger on her E-9; he sliced his shido across the chest of a sentry before it could draw its electroaxe from his back; and he rolled an explosive—one left behind by Mig—right underneath the ion cannon, blowing it and the Praxis thugs who surrounded it to bits and causing more disorientation among the battalion left standing. Cade fought his way through the line, identifying threats, predicting his enemies’ movements, and delivering efficient strikes that kept the sentries down and kept him moving forward. For a second, he felt like Tristan—calm, confident, and in control. It was a nice feeling to have.
Cade grabbed a sentry and spun it around to deflect a blast from a gunner that was out of his reach; he held on to it, charging forward right at the gunner and barreled over him. By the time he drove his shido through the fallen gunner, the corridor was clear. Cade looked at 4-Qel, who was tearing a sentry’s head off its shoulders. 4-Qel, after spiking the disembodied head to the ground, also scanned the corridor and realized, just like Cade, that no one was left standing. They’d survived the gauntlet.
“Well,” Cade said, catching his breath, “that was … intense.”
“I’ve never felt more alive,” 4-Qel replied.
“You’re going to have a hard time adjusting to life when this is all over, aren’t you?” Cade asked.
4-Qel shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to raise and nurture bothos. That would be agreeable.”
As they charged through the corridor, their focus back on rescuing Mig, Cade’s comms crackled and Kira’s voice came through in patches. They were losing their connection this deep in the War Hammer.
“Wait, Kira, I can’t make out what you’re saying,” Cade said. “Repeat, please.”
Cade glanced at 4-Qel, who shared his concern. They both knew that Kira wouldn’t be calling him if things were going as planned.
“They’re smothering us with numb … hold out much longer witho … ackup.”
“Kira!” Cade yelled. “KIRA!”
“Thinning … mbers…”
“Listen to me: Evade them as long as you can,” Cade said into his comms, calmly, hoping Kira could hear him better than he could hear her. “We’re almost to Mig, but if you have to retreat, damn it, you retre—”
The communication cut out, and Cade was left with nothing but a gnawing fear in the pit of his stomach.
“They’re outnumbered,” 4-Qel said.
Cade shuddered as he envisioned the firefight happening in the space just beyond the War Hammer. Praxis would undoubtedly spare no resource repelling an enemy attack, even if they didn’t know what Kira and the Omega Squadron were up to. And, at this point, they’d probably be okay calling Cade’s bluff on the Rokura. There was no telling how many Intruders Praxis would throw at them, but Cade couldn’t stop himself from imagining a sky blanketed with enemy fighters, raining death down on Kira and Omega.
“Let’s move, 4-Qel. We have to double-time our asses and get out there and help Ki—”
“Whatever they’re trying to do, they won’t make it,” a voice interrupted, a voice Cade knew as well as anyone’s. He turned slowly and saw Jorken standing at the end of the corridor. He was alone, standing with nothing but his shido in his hand. “And you’re not going to make it, either.”
“4-Qel,” Cade said, feeling his chest heave and collapse beneath his clothes. “Go get Mig.”
“Cade, no. This man, he is your superior. He will surely—”
“We’re running out of time,” Cade said. His eyes were locked on Jorken, and Jorken’s on Cade. “Now go.”
4-Qel nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the real reason for Cade’s decision: He needed to face Jorken alone. He ran down the corridor, and Jorken let the drone blow right by him.
As soon as 4-Qel was clear, Cade rushed Jorken, who ignited his shido as Cade approached. Cade brought his shido down for a tenacious overhead attack, which Jorken blocked. Their shidos locked together as they met, face-to-face. Master and student. Cade glared at the man who’d been like a father to him, whose face was now twisted and dark. Gone was the compassion and the wisdom Cade thought were real, replaced with bitterness and, worse, conviction. Conviction was the tree with poisoned roots that ran through all of Praxis, granting its followers license to be so certain of their own beliefs that they no longer had to even consider anyone else’s point of view. Their peace was someone else’s suppression, or worse; their control was someone else’s incarceration. But as long as they were convinced they were right, nothing else mattered but the ends they sought. Control. Power. Domination. And all the dead along the way—like Tristan—had to be wrong in order for Praxis to be right. Cade saw the righteousness in Jorken’s eyes, he saw a man who had to kill his own son because it was just the thing that needed to be done.
With little effort Jorken pushed Cade back, but Cade recovered immediately. He expected Jorken to go on the offensive, but he stood where he was. Waiting, taunting.
“I never wanted this,” Jorken said. “I always hoped that, when the time came, you’d come with me. You were the only one at the Well who saw through the lies, who saw through the arrogance of the Masters.”
“You’re insane. Yeah, I think most of the Masters are full of crap, but that doesn’t mean I want to kill them and burn everything they believe in to the ground,” Cade said, his words cracking like a whip. “You murdered my brother. I’ll die before I join you.”
Cade plunged his shido forward, and Jorken sidestepped, kicking Cade’s shido aside. He swiped his own shido across Cade’s arm, slicing his bicep before Cade staggered to the ground.
“Then die is exactly what you’ll do,” Jorken said as he brought his shido down at Cade.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cade spun out of the way of Jorken’s shido, barely avoiding it plunging through his heart. Instead, it drove into the floor with enough force that its tip dug into the surface. Jorken had to pull hard to wrench it free, and Cade used that time to get back on his feet.
They stood opposite one another, circling slowly, each waiting for the other to make a move.
“Do you feel anything over what you’ve done, Jorken?” Cade questioned. “Tristan looked up to you; he did from the moment you scooped us off Kyysring.”
“Tristan’s role was to bring order to the galaxy,” Jorken replied. “Give us the Rokura, and he will have served his purpose.”
“You’re demented,” Cade spat.
“No more than you if you think you can defeat me. I trained you. I made you,” Jorken snarled. “Now give me the Rokura.”
Cade held his shido up and gripped it tightly. “You want the Rokura? You’ll have to come through me to get it.”
The moment Jorken took a step forward, Cade charged him. “GRRAAAHHH,” he screamed as he swung his shido dow
n at Jorken, a massive overhead strike that Jorken blocked. Cade had rage, he had fury, and he used them both to play the role of the out-of-control combatant. Let Jorken think his emotions were out of control; let him think he didn’t know what he was doing. Cade brought his shido down again, then again, using his strength to drive the old man back. When Jorken blocked the third strike, Cade recognized the exertion he was putting into his defense, which he knew would slow his reflexes. He used the opportunity to kick out Jorken’s knee, hard, and smash the blunt end of his shido into his face. Jorken stumbled back as blood poured from his mouth. He was on the defensive, so Cade knew not to press his attack further, but he knew his former Master was hurt. Jorken teetered back, limping, and the blood continued to rush down his chin and drip onto his tunic.
Now Jorken knew what it was like to feel vulnerable.
Jorken ran his sleeve over his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek like war paint. Cade stared into Jorken’s cold eyes as adrenaline surged through him, causing his body to tremble. Cade worked to keep his feelings of anger and disgust at bay, but nothing would change the fact that he was an emotional fighter. He wasn’t the cold, calculating tactician like Jorken, who formulated strategies to break down his opponents as he fought; Cade was led by instinct and intuition, for better or worse.
“How could you do this?” Cade asked. “All these years, everything you said, everything you taught … it was just a lie. You’ve betrayed everything.”
“No, Cade. The lie is that the Well thinks it can demand peace without fighting for it. That it can expect the galaxy to act a certain way without understanding what people actually need. The Masters have spent lifetimes expecting the galaxy to come to them and not the other way around. And that is why their time is up. They’re going to reap the consequences for their arrogance.”
Jorken lunged at Cade, ignoring the pain in his wounded knee just as Cade ignored the pain in his sliced arm. Their shidos met, clanging together at eye level. Jorken drove Cade backward, pushing a relentless attack that Cade struggled to defend. They exchanged blows, evenly matched for a moment. Cade delivered a series of swipes and jabs that he hoped would create an opening, but nothing materialized. Retaliating, Jorken shoved his shido forward, forcing Cade to draw his body inward as he leapt back. Before he could regain his footing, Jorken swung his shido high and Cade had no choice but to throw his feet out from under him and drop to the floor. He somersaulted backward, but when he came to his feet he was in no position to defend himself. Jorken was on him, faster than Cade anticipated. He swiped his shido across Cade’s chest, which Cade blocked, but Jorken landed a head butt that cracked Cade’s nose and clouded his vision.
Jorken pressed his attack, swinging at Cade’s legs; Cade leapt, barely in time to avoid having his ankles sliced open. As he came back down to the ground, he brought his shido down on Jorken. His move was defended, and when Cade tried to follow the blocked strike with an elbow to Jorken’s face, his former Master caught his arm, twisted it, and spun Cade around. He turned just as Jorken was delivering an uppercut attack; Cade dropped his shido to block the strike, but there was hardly time to position a defense. Jorken’s shido struck Cade’s, knocking it clear out of his grip. Jorken spun around, following his momentum by delivering the blunt end of his shido into Cade’s stomach. The blow forced the air in Cade’s lungs to erupt, and as he gasped to draw a breath, he felt a sharp, searing pain as Jorken’s shido struck the back of his head. Cade fell to his knees, but Jorken didn’t stop; he kicked him in his face just as he was trying to stand back up, and the blow sent him tumbling back until he hit the corridor wall and collapsed against it.
Cade fought off unconsciousness. He looked ahead and saw a blurry vision of Jorken walking toward him. He squeezed his eyes shut, pushing back against the disorientation that was clouding his vision. He could see his shido just to his left, but he knew diving for it was no use. Jorken would have his shido buried in Cade’s back before he could get even a hand on his weapon. He needed a minute to recover; he needed a minute to think of a way out of this.
“Time to die,” Jorken said, his voice sounding far away, but it got closer with every word. “But I want you to know that when I’m done with you, I’m going to hunt down your pathetic friends and kill them next. I want that to be your last thought, knowing that, had you not tried to do something stupid, they’d all still be alive. You, Cade, are the reason they’re dead.”
Cade spat blood and winced. He failed Tristan in the spire. The Rokura warned him that something terrible was about to happen, but Cade didn’t understand its message; he didn’t know that Tristan was as good as dead the second he wrenched the Rokura free. While he didn’t blame himself for Tristan’s death, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling that had he taken their journey to the spire more seriously, had he been more attuned to the Rokura, had he been better, he might have been able to save Tristan’s life. And now, with his life—and, more important, his friends’ lives—hanging in the balance, he refused to let those same shortcomings doom the people he cared about.
His vision came into focus, and he saw the crackling tip of Jorken’s shido hovering just above his face. His eyes darted over to his shido, lying on the ground just within his grasp.
“Your shido’s no good to you now,” Jorken said. “It’s over.”
Cade knew that his former Master must be seeing the end of this fight in his mind’s eye. That’s what he did best. He wanted Cade to go for his shido, he anticipated him doing just that, and then he would kill him.
Cade’s only choice was to do what Jorken didn’t expect.
Cade lunged, but not for his shido. He threw his right hand out, his synthetic appendage, and thrust it through the blades on Jorken’s shido. Jorken tried to pull his weapon back out, but Cade closed his grasp on his former master’s weapon, buying him the time he needed to reach for his shido. With his shido firmly in his grasp—Tristan’s shido—he swung it around and drove it into Jorken’s side.
Jorken gasped, a sudden, brief inhalation that abruptly cut itself off. Cade forcefully tore his hand off Jorken’s shido as the traitor began to slouch to his side. Cade rose to his feet, meeting Jorken eye to eye. Jorken didn’t blink, his face frozen in shock and agony.
“By the way,” Cade said, tearing his shido out of Jorken and holding the bloodied blades up to his face, “this isn’t my shido. It’s Tristan’s.”
The man who had once been his Master, the man who was like a father to him, crumpled to the ground.
Cade took one last look at Jorken, realizing how lucky he was to survive a battle with him. It was over now, and his first thoughts went to his friends, to helping them get out of this situation alive.
But Cade’s first step forward turned into a stumble. He fell against the wall and realized everything hurt. His head, his arm, his guts, even his synthetic hand. True, it was dulled to most feeling, but even feeling part of having an electrified blade driven through his palm was still pretty terrible. His head was swimming, and when he heard his name being called from the other end of the corridor, he thought it was a hallucination.
It wasn’t, though.
“Cade!” the voice yelled. “Hold tight, we’re coming!”
Cade looked up and saw Mig, with 4-Qel following closely behind, sprinting toward him.
Mig reached Cade’s side and threw his arm around his shoulder, alleviating Cade’s struggles to walk. 4-Qel braced him as well, and the sight of his friends, alive and well, rallied Cade to dig deep and find a second wind.
“Did you kill Jorken?” Mig asked. “Four-Qel thought you were dead for sure.”
“I said I wasn’t optimistic about your chances to best the man who had trained you,” 4-Qel told Cade. “Now, let me evaluate your damage. I’m programmed as a field medic and might as well put it to use.”
4-Qel moved to grab Cade’s hand, but Cade, having grown a little touchy about this particular appendage, yanked it away.
“I can exam
ine it,” 4-Qel said. “It looks … bad.”
“Yeah, I’m going to need a new one. Again.” Cade took a second to look at his hand and the gaping hole that he could see straight through. “Gross,” he said.
“How did you guys manage to get out of the holding area?” Cade asked.
“Oh, there’s a lot of dead things behind us,” Mig said. “Four-Qel went on a sick rampage. But I’m sure there’s more of everything coming this way, so we better move.”
Cade nodded and freed himself from Mig’s support. “I’m okay; I can make it,” Cade said. “We have to see how Kira is. With any luck, they’ll be free of the Intruders and ready to attack the War Hammer.”
Cade, Mig, and 4-Qel followed their trail back through the red corridor. Cade tried reaching Kira on his comms as they went, but the signal wasn’t strong enough until they neared the hangar.
“Kira,” Cade called into the comms. “Kira, where are you?”
There was no response. Cade, Mig, and 4-Qel all shared a look, fearing the worst but not wanting to say it.
“Kira,” Cade called again. “Kira!”
* * *
Gunners and drones were waiting in the hangar for Cade, 4-Qel, and Mig’s return, but they had no time to entertain another fight. 4-Qel used the koruvite to shield all three of them as they carved out a path to the Horizon Dawn. They all combined to return enemy fire as they ran forward. Mig grabbed one of his explosives from 4-Qel and tossed it at a docked Intruder; the ship erupted, causing far more damage than the explosive could have on its own. Praxis forces ducked for cover, reflexively, and Cade, Mig, and 4-Qel used that opening to get to their ship.
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