The Confluence
The New Dawn: Book 6
Valerie J. Mikles
Copyright © 2019 by Valerie J. Mikles
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
The story so far
The Crew
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
FREE SHORT STORY!
Premonition: The New Dawn Book 7
The Qinali Virus
Also by Valerie J. Mikles
About the Author
Dedicated to anyone who has been attacked or bullied while others stood by and did nothing. May you find safety.
The story so far
#1 The Disappeared – Oriana’s crew became the target of the Terranan Guard after a former Disappeared, Amanda Gray, escaped her Elysian prison and resurfaced. The mythological non-corporeal Elysians come screaming to the physical world as disgraced Guard, Diana Solvere, leverages her power to pursue Amanda across the expanse of outer space. In the fight for their lives, Oriana loses their pilot, Corey, and the ship crashes far from home.
#2 Sequestered – Sky and Hawk join the crew when Oriana makes a mad escape from Rocan, a dying city in desperate need of Oriana’s resources, both technological and human. In exchange for Hawk’s help, Captain Danny Matthews promises he will help search for medicine to save Hawk’s people.
#3 Trade Circle – While exploring the ruins of an ancient city, Danny and Saskia fall victim to a disease called Havara Pytr, the Jaws of the Ancestors. Sky reaches out to the nomadic tribes in the area and invites a heap of new trouble when her spirit-carrier nature is revealed. Although Oriana’s crew is offered the medicine, the demanded price of Sky’s life is too high, and they rush to save her.
#4 Hybrid – Oriana arrives in Boone expecting a technologically advanced civilization only to find a ghost town. The sole survivors of the destruction are two human-spirit hybrids, Kerris and Liza. Realizing that Hawk is a hybrid as well, Liza becomes convinced Hawk can teach her how to undo the destruction of Boone. When a nearby tribe realizes that Liza may be able to resurrect their lost family members, they force her to try, and trigger an even worse destruction.
#5 The Gray Market – Danny and Tray learn that their mother once had a business of capturing hybrids and selling their powers. In their absence from Quin, Lois Ketlin has risen to power by stealing their mother’s technique, and she is determined to destroy the Matthews brothers in the process. In the aftermath of Ketlin’s defeat, Morrigan and Chase join the crew to escape the city and start their lives fresh.
The Crew
Danny Matthews – After his stepfather rejected him, he moved to Terrana, only to be caught in a Revolution. After the Revolution, he became part of a Citizens’ Channel, transporting refugees from Terrana to Aquia. At many points, he found himself captured, interrogated, and abused by the Terranan Guard. He became captain of Oriana after reuniting with his estranged brother, Tray.
Tray Matthews – He comes from wealth, but grew up not knowing he had a brother. After a falling out with his father and a messy divorce, he went seeking family and has been clinging to his brother ever since. Tray recently found out that he has a son, and they finally reunited on his return to Quin, but disagreements with his ex-wife may yet keep them apart.
Saskia Serevi – A former Terranan Guard, Saskia joined Oriana’s crew “three captains ago” after a paralyzing injury drove her from service. She was recruited by General Santos, and he still believes them friends. She takes the mantle of the stoic warrior, but also nominal mechanic and medic. She and Tray have a blooming romantic relationship.
Amanda Gray – A former Disappeared, she has a strong connection to the spirit realm, and has recently learned that she can echo the powers of others. At some point in her captivity, she developed schizophrenia, and it has gone untreated for so long that she often has difficulty parsing her spirit-world insights from her delusions.
Douglas “Hawk” Hwan – Hawk only recently learned that his aptitude for machines comes from a hybrid nature, and he’s now learning how to unlock doors, jam weapons, and turn electrical devices off and on with the power of his mind. He worries about his children growing up with untapped hybrid abilities, but feels like he can’t go home without medicine for his people.
Sky – A spirit-carrier, she has no ability to communicate with the Seer that possesses her. She lives her life as a traveler because she fears if she stays in one place too long, Spirit will find a way to kill her and jump into a new host. Although over a hundred years old, Spirit keeps her looking young. On hearing that Janiya Coro was a prisoner, she helped the woman escape Quin.
Dr. Morrigan Zenzele – After Lois Ketlin killed her parents, Morrigan used drugs to escape her pain. Lois, the reigning drug lord of Quin, tainted her supply, and she would have died had Tray Matthews not arrived in dire need of a doctor. Morrigan killed Lois with the very drugs that were meant to kill her, and she joined Oriana’s crew as a doctor because she is no longer allowed to practice medicine in Quin.
Chase DuPlessis – Chase met Danny five years ago when they designed and built the Bobsled together. His passion for building and fixing ships drew him to Kemah to help with Oriana’s repairs. When he discovered his fiancé was pregnant with another man’s baby, he joined Oriana’s crew to escape the pain.
1
The gray moon Terrana loomed large in the forward window and Saskia Serevi watched her former home approach with practiced detachment. The dark spots marking the shadows of the lunar Domes against the gray surface were long at this time of month. It looked deceptively peaceful, but not at all inviting. Terrana had left scars on her body that would never heal. After being shot and crippled in the Terranan Revolution, Oriana became her home and gave her the drive to walk again, but she’d never regain her ability to have children. That loss hurt more now that she saw Tray doting on his son.
Tray Matthews, the captain’s little brother, spent five years trying to crack her shell. He made her laugh, and she loved him dearly. But he belonged on Aquia with his son, and she belonged... somewhere else.
Tray had only recently discovered his son, and his ex-wife didn’t want him intruding on their lives. Mikayla Wright was the daughter of a Quin a crime boss called Sikorsky, and his power over Tray’s business life further complicated things. Sikorsky had paid for Oriana’s repairs and a rival boss named Damien Coro for the fuel for this t
rip.
Floating to middeck, Saskia checked the charge on the weapons in Oriana’s armory. They had six new pulse rifles, two finger-mounted stunners, and a shock-dart. Saskia kept at least one stunner on her person at all times, but she still didn’t have a plan to overcome the two crime bosses in her passenger bay.
“Twenty-five minutes,” Captain Danny Matthews said, floating past her as he propelled himself toward the bridge. His preferred weapons were knife and pulse rifle, but he wasn’t carrying either. “Do you think we can win this?”
“I think we can get ourselves killed,” Saskia replied with only a hint of sarcasm.
“So I should cancel the mutiny?” Danny asked, the forced joke making their dire situation worse.
“It’s not mutiny if you’re already captain. We should have jettisoned them before we left Aquia,” Saskia grumbled, adding a shock-dart to her thigh holster. Tray wasn’t usually armed either, and she knew she could trust him to handle the less lethal weapon.
Danny shook his head. “Sikorsky and Coro are too strong there.”
“They’re not the only ones getting weaker,” Saskia pointed out. Four days in micro-gravity was enough to render them all helpless on landing.
“They’re going to be hit with the same gravity as the rest of us. There’s a good chance we’ll adapt first and have the advantage,” Danny said. “Is Hawk downstairs already?”
“Engine room,” Saskia said. “He’ll sit in a chair for landing if that chair is on the bridge.”
Danny made a face. He didn’t like her leaving Hawk alone with the engine, but Saskia didn’t see the danger. Hawk was a human-spirit hybrid, and he’d already proven he could fly the ship with the power of his mind. He was in his early twenties—not much older than Saskia had been when the Revolution started on Terrana.
“I told him to keep his feet on the ground,” Saskia shrugged, leaving the captain to stew and gliding down to the lower deck. She paused when she heard Tray’s voice emanating from the passenger lounge. She could tell he was arguing with the bosses, because he was using his swank voice. She’d always known he was an aristocrat, but she’d never felt the difference in their economic classes until she saw him with the crime bosses.
“You’re not going to convince a bunch of peaceful Panoptica to come out of hiding and fight your battles for you,” Damien Coro ranted, referring to the rumored colony of hybrids on Terrana. He and Sikorsky been arguing the point since the day they cornered Danny and forced this journey to Terrana.
“I’ll have you fighting on the front line once you realize the kind of man Deivon Parker is,” Sikorsky said, his voice a low, powerful rumble.
Saskia floated into the doorway, and Tray met her eye, his confident nod assuring her that he did not need her intervention. Yet. All three men were dressed formally, and their business suits looked bloated in the micro-gravity.
“Yes, I’ve always been afraid of the spiritual kind who think meditation is the key to achieving Confluence,” Coro sneered. They were half way to Terrana before Sikorsky even mentioned the threat of Confluence. There wasn’t an exact translation for the word in Lanvarian, but the notion was that hybrid powers flowed from a ritualistic channeling of spirit energy, as opposed to innate ability like Hawk seemed to have. Sikorsky was drunk that night, and Coro had been mocking him ever since.
“Parker’s not spiritual,” Tray snickered. He measured his tone, careful not to deride his ex-father-in-law. “Even if he were, Confluence is no more dangerous than any other mental exercise masquerading as spiritualism. If people could meditate their way to hybrid power, there would be hybrids everywhere.”
“Consider that Parker’s connection to that realm is different than the average meditator. By your own testimony, he is in league with an Elysian creature that teleported a homicidal Guard onto your ship,” Sikorsky said. Saskia knew he could teleport, but he hadn’t used the ability since they left Quin.
“Amanda, what have you been telling him?” Tray snapped, shooting a ceiling-ward glare. Amanda floated overhead, her glazed, green eyes following Sikorsky.
“Galen opened the door right there,” Amanda said, pointing to the middle of the room. Galen was the name of Amanda’s Elysian abductor and she had some degree of Stockholm syndrome about him. Her world was too colored with schizophrenic hallucinations to know much about Galen, but he did have hybrid power. They weren’t sure if the Elysians were different than the Panoptica Sikorsky sought, but it seemed likely they were one and the same.
“With or without Galen’s help, the embargo is a sign. Parker’s about overthrow Governor Cheoff and take control of Terrana,” Sikorsky said.
“But Quin enacted the embargo; not Terrana,” Tray argued.
“He orchestrated the conditions that forced the actions,” Sikorsky insisted. “Once Cheoff is dead, Parker will step up. He’s in position as Lieutenant Governor.”
Coro snorted in disbelief. “So he’s been biding his time for decades, convincing the general public that Elysia is a myth, gaining Cheoff’s trust, orchestrating the Revolution, arranging the embargo...”
“And now he’s reached the final phase of his plan. Bringing Elysia to the surface,” Sikorsky said.
“What makes you think that’s his plan?” Tray asked.
“Because it was my plan,” Sikorsky said. “It was mine, and he stole it from me. It helped that he had Galen.”
“I told you Galen was real,” Amanda whispered.
“He’s not helping your case, Amanda,” Tray said.
“Is Galen a soldier or an equal?” Saskia asked. After seeing the destruction of a Boone, she knew they couldn’t underestimate the threat of even a single hybrid.
“Not helping,” Tray muttered.
“I will not let Parker create a throne for himself over the most powerful beings in the solar system,” Sikorsky said.
“No, of course not. You want to sit on that throne yourself,” Coro scoffed. “That’s his plan. Kill Parker. Kill Cheoff. Set himself up as ruler of Terrana.”
“Ten marks says Galen makes him Disappear first,” Tray said.
Sikorsky drew a shock-dart and grabbed Tray by the collar. “Mock me again and your son will be talking to ashes tonight.”
Saskia’s stunner was out in a flash, but Sikorsky gloated at the sight. As long as he had a hold of Tray, the stunner would shock them both, but the boss didn’t separate toying with his prey and injuring him. Amanda’s hand slid into her boot and she drew her knife. Amanda was the bigger threat. Launching into the room, Saskia fired her stunner at Sikorsky, then spun upward in the micro-gravity, catching Amanda and taking her knife. She tossed the knife across the room, sending it flying into one of the chair cushions, and kept hold of Amanda, whispering soothes in Terranan.
“Morrigan, we need some help in the passenger lounge,” Saskia said, tapping her Feather. She glanced at Coro, but the man postured arrogantly next to the chairs they were all supposed to be strapping into.
“I’m not crazy like him,” Coro said. “I’m here for one purpose. To find my wife.”
“Twenty minutes to gravity,” Saskia said.
2
The inertial dampeners kicked in, flooding the engine room with noise and heat. The change in acceleration propelled Danny into a wall, and he grabbed hold of one of the handrails to keep from bouncing off again. Inside the engine room, Hawk flailed and flew back, smacking the ceiling and bouncing off. Grappling for the handrails, he scrambled to put his feet on the floor, muttering in his native Rocanese.
“I told you to strap in,” Danny harped.
“Saskia said I could stay here and there are no chairs to strap into,” Hawk said, doing more flips just for fun. His fine, dyed-red hair splayed around his face in a spiky halo as he spun.
“She’s not the captain,” Danny said. “Go down to the passenger lounge and strap in, Hawk. We’re twenty minutes to landing and there’s a good chance Chase will land us right side up.”
“You need
someone here in case there’s a problem,” Hawk protested, his cheeks flushing. He tapped his toes against the ceiling to slow his spin.
“Not you. I can’t have you miscommunicating with the thrusters at the wrong moment,” Danny argued.
Hawk was crestfallen by the accusation. He’d only recently learned that he was a hybrid, and that his knack for fixing machines was a supernatural ability, not a natural intuition.
“Fine. Go to the bridge and help Chase. It’d set my mind at ease if you were strapped into a chair. And you can focus all your positive thoughts on landing,” Danny relented.
“He needs your help more than mine,” Hawk said, resisting the order. “I’ve never landed the ship on Terrana.”
Danny sucked in his cheeks, but Hawk was right, and of all the battles he needed to win this week, this was not worth the fight. “Make sure you have both feet on the ground when we reach gravity,” he grumbled.
“Yes, Captain,” Hawk said, doing another backflip while he still could. “Seventeen minutes!”
The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6) Page 1
