Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One Page 6

  Chapter 6

  Several weeks passed.

  My reaction to the Prince only became stronger, though I barely saw him.

  I’d now learned that he had an entire deck of the ship to himself, and it was practically a mortal crime to go there without being invited.

  I wanted to say that I’d grown to hate him completely, but that wasn’t true. Sometimes on the edge of sleep, I would catch myself thinking about him, almost longing for him. The thought was such a sickening one that it made me want to retch.

  I went through my training quickly. Extremely quickly, according to Mark. Because the training was too easy. Too regimented. It prepared the Arterian soldiers for ordinary battle, but battle was never ordinary. Once you’re thrust into a real life-or-death situation, people do not react predictably. They do everything they can to survive.

  I was not as restless aboard the ship as I thought I’d be. The other soldiers in my unit were coming to begrudgingly accept me.

  And as I stood there in the deployment bay, waiting for my orders, I noted nobody glared at me as if I didn’t belong anymore. They barely noted my presence at all.

  That I could deal with.

  I brought my hand up and checked my helmet, sliding my fingers along the point at which it connected to my neck plating.

  It was secure.

  Though at first, my armor had felt like a coffin, now I was accustomed to it. It was like a second skin.

  Suddenly, the massive doors into the deployment room opened, and in strode Mark. He was in his full Arterian armor. It caught the powerful lights in the room and glistened.

  His helmet, however, wasn’t on.

  I frowned.

  That frown only became all the more powerful as a quick, nervous feeling sunk through my gut.

  I knew exactly what it meant. A second later, the massive deployment doors opened once more, and Prince Xarin walked in.

  Mark straightened up, an odd look flashing in his eyes as he twisted his gaze and locked it on Xarin.

  Xarin cleared his throat as he stared at each soldier in turn. His gaze never met mine, though, and he appeared to look right over the top of my head.

  I hardened my jaw. I barely existed to this man. Though he’d had the hubris and arrogance to kidnap me from my life and draft me into his army, he’d already forgotten about me. I was simply another set of hands that could hold a blaster.

  Xarin didn’t say anything, then he turned sharply to the side. He was wearing his armor, including his ceremonial cloak. It shifted over his shoulder, scattering down his back with a smooth slipping sound. He began to talk to Mark in a low tone.

  Though I couldn’t pick up the exact words, there was something about Mark’s expression that told me he didn’t agree with whatever Xarin was telling him.

  Finally, Xarin took a step back. “You have all been selected for this critical mission. You will all comply with every order I give you, before we land on the planet, once we are on the planet, and when we depart. It is critical you follow everything I say.” For some reason, his gaze appeared to lock on me.

  I clenched my teeth even harder, chasing away the flighty feeling that threatened to fly through my gut.

  My gaze flicked toward Mark again, and I picked up his angry expression once more. He smoothed it off his face when Xarin glanced back at him, though.

  “I will lead this mission,” Xarin stated flatly. “You will now board the transport. There will be no questions. All you are required to do is follow orders.” With that, he turned, the cloak swished around his shoulders.

  I caught one last glance at Mark, noting how momentarily dark his expression became. He even appeared to curl a hand into a fist.

  If the rest of the crew were to be believed, Xarin and Mark were friends. That was the only reason why a half-Arterian half-human could hold such an important position.

  But friends did not look at friends with such a dark menace building in their gaze….

  I was shocked into action as the soldiers beside me pushed off with grunts.

  I was forced to follow the group as it churned around me like a frantic school of fish fleeing from a shark. Or, in this instance, fleeing toward one. For we all followed Xarin at a distance down the corridor until we reached the docking bay.

  We filed into a short-range transport, designed to ferry soldiers from the Illuminate in orbit down to a planet.

  Suffice to say, it was not built for comfort. Apart from the pilot’s seat, and navigational command, there were two long, uncomfortable benches that ran down the inside of the elongated ship.

  I sat down, squeezed between two large Arterian soldiers.

  I was surprised to see that there was not some throne for Xarin to sit upon. I was even more surprised to see that he sat down with his men, sitting at the end of the bench, just across from me.

  His helmet was now on, and I couldn’t see where his eyes were directed.

  And yet something told me he was staring at me.

  He stared at me the entire trip down to the planet.

  We had no idea why we were going down there. Xarin hadn’t whispered a word. As he had kept repeating, he simply expected us to follow.

  We were like loyal pets. Too foolish to understand our master’s intentions.

  I stared at him the entire trip, never blinking once.

  There was… there was just something about him. Beyond the arrogance and privilege. My mind couldn’t comprehend it, but my heart could as it beat faster.

  The trip down to the surface of the planet took a little under 15 minutes.

  There were no windows in this section of the ship, and the only indication that we were sweeping in to land were proximity sensors blaring from the small cockpit.

  Before our ship touched down, Xarin rose. He didn’t bother to lock a hand on the railing that ran above the bench – as a violent tremble shuddered through the ship, his boots locked onto the floor.

  The pilot turned around in his seat. “We’ve landed. Deploying the ramp now.”

  Suddenly, a door opened up behind Xarin, and a metal ramp pushed out from a recess, cutting down to the ground beyond.

  Instantly, I was met with a dank, earthy smell. It was worlds apart from the dusty dry odor of the refinery.

  I found myself standing and craning my neck through the door, eyes growing wide as I saw the lush jungle beyond.

  We were not allowed to disembark until Xarin waved us forward with a swipe of two fingers.

  Though the move was dismissive and should have set my anger off anew, it didn’t. Instead, as I took a step forward and walked onto the top of the ramp, I gasped.

  I’d never seen a planet more lush with vegetation. It was so dense, it pushed up against the side of the transport, several massive purple and green leaves pressing over the ramp.

  We walked down the ramp in single file. I passed several clogged vines, and as the leaves brushed against my gray and black armor, they deposited condensation across the metal. It dribbled down my shins and splashed over my boots.

  It was unusual for Prince Xarin to lead a mission, Mark usually took point.

  Xarin only appeared for the truly important missions. The life-or-death operations involving the Zorv.

  As I looked around the jungle, I couldn’t see a single enemy. I couldn’t even begin to tell what Xarin thought was down here amongst the dense leaves and entwined vines.

  Xarin strode off a distance into the jungle, head tilted to the side. He leaned down to one knee and pressed his hand into the dirt, leaf matter and twigs pressing up between his rigid metal fingers.

  After a long pause, he pushed to his feet, appeared to nod to himself, then strode back to us.

  All the soldiers had now disembarked.

  “You will fan out in groups of two and search the immediate vicinity using your scanners.” Xarin gestured to the closest soldier to him, waiting until the man plucked his scanner from his hip holster. “They have been preprogrammed to detect c
ertain signals. Should your scanner beep to indicate such a signal has been detected, you will immediately contact me using your communication lines. Do you understand?”

  Every soldier, including me, saluted and grunted out a yes.

  “Very well. Move out.”

  I turned, searching for a teammate.

  That’s when I heard somebody walk up behind me.

  Someone reached a hand out and locked it on my shoulder.

  I shoved it off, reacting before my mind had a chance to catch up with my body.

  I spun, a snarl on my lips, ready to tell the jerk behind me to keep his hands to himself.

  … Which was when I realized it was Xarin.

  His hand was still in mid-air, presumably from where I’d shoved it back.

  I couldn’t see his expression – his helmet obscured it. His body language, however, said everything.

  He tilted his head to the side, the powerful blue-white headlights from the transport behind lighting up the side of his shoulder and glimmering down the side of his helmet. “You’re with me,” he suddenly said.

  I stiffened, back straightening so much it practically rammed through the top of my head. “What—”

  “That’s an order,” he snapped, then turned, waving his hand forward with a dismissive move.

  I sneered at him from under the confines of my helmet, so very glad that he couldn’t see my true expression.

  I had no option but to follow.

  We traveled down a rocky incline toward a dense area of jungle.

  This planet was completely at odds with the desert world of the refinery. The thick jungle pushed at us from all sides, mist hanging through the roots and droplets of water pooling on every leaf and blade of grass.

  Almost immediately the outside of my helmet visor began to condense up. The Prince didn’t appear to have the same problem. Then again, he was wearing the most advanced armor in the whole goddamn galaxy, wasn’t he?

  Another flare of jealousy pumped through my heart. It wasn’t enough to see me turn on my foot and ran off through the jungle in the hopes I could escape the Arterians and finally be free. No, at the very thought of doing that I almost fell to my knees.

  I couldn’t leave him. No matter how much I hated him, I just couldn’t stomach turning away.

  “Concentrate,” he suddenly snapped from my side.

  “That’s easy for you, you don’t have a face full of condensation,” I snapped before I could remind myself who I was talking to.

  There was a moment’s pause.

  Then there was a hiss as the Prince detached something from his armor. Before I knew what he was doing, he walked over to my side and crossed in front of me. He reached an arm up and clutched the left side of my helmet. If my helmet hadn’t been in place, his hand would have rested against my jaw and neck.

  I stiffened. Every single muscle seized in place as the blood beat a thunderous reprieve between my ears.

  My mouth went dry, and nerves climbed my neck so quickly it was like lightning discharging up my back.

  I tried to tell myself that the Prince was just attaching something to the neck piece of my armor, but it didn’t matter. I could not quell my beating heart.

  A second later he finished what he was doing.

  I felt a click. Then I saw something flicker over my visor. Everything changed. I was no engineer, but it looked as if it upgraded – in a matter of seconds.

  The condensation covering my helmet no longer mattered, because the external camera’s somehow adjusted for it.

  I brought a hand up and waved it in front of my face, hardly believing what I saw.

  The Prince chuckled.

  He chuckled. The man was actually capable of a moment of mirth.

  I narrowed my eyes and stared at him in surprise.

  I watched him tilt his head to the side. Before he could say anything, he straightened his back and gave a stiff nod. “You’re ready, now follow.”

  The Prince never said anything, nor did he ever suggest anything. Everything was a snapped command, an order from a member of royalty.

  I tried to remind myself of that fact as I followed him, and it helped flush out the giddy surprise of having him clutch the side of my helmet.

  You’re stronger than this. So much fucking stronger, so start acting like it, I berated myself.

  We continued to press through the jungle. I was curious as to why the Prince had asked me to come along with him, rather than one of his imperial guards, but I knew I couldn’t ask that question. Ask it, and I’d just get a snapped insult in reply, not an answer.

  So I stowed my curiosity as I kept my gun clutched in my hand.

  The Prince hadn’t even bothered pulling his weapon from his side yet, and once or twice I saw his helmet incline toward me. Soon his curiosity obviously got the better of him. “Soldier, why do you have your gun drawn? There are no contacts around here. We have already completed a thorough sensor sweep from orbit. This is purely an exploratory mission.”

  Perhaps the right thing to do would have been to holster my gun. I didn’t. I twisted my head around to stare at him. “If it’s so safe, why did you bring so many soldiers? And why have you got your Illuminate sword at your side?”

  The Prince appeared to react. Though I couldn’t see his body from under his armor, his shoulder pieces suddenly twitched forward. He even took an almost frantic step my way. “What?”

  I was dumbfounded by the strength of his reaction. I took a step back to regain my personal space. My mouth was dry, and my heart beat a little harder, but it sure as hell wasn’t because the Prince had told me off. It was because he took another step and another step until he stood too damn close to me once more.

  “Why did you call it that?” he demanded, words splitting from his mouth.

  “… I don’t know, it was just a comment. I mean, that’s what your ship is called. I guess I just…” I trailed off, because I’d lost the ability to form a coherent sentence.

  My mind was starting to ring again, and that steady throbbing sensation was crossing through my jaw once more until it felt as if it would shake my teeth from my skull.

  … Why had I called the sword at his side an Illuminate sword? I had no goddamn idea. My line of reasoning didn’t make sense. I didn’t honestly believe that just because his ship was called the Illuminate, everything onboard was called the Illuminate, too. That was idiotic.

  Yet I couldn’t explain why the word had pushed from my lips.

  The Prince appeared to assess me carefully for several seconds before taking several steps back. He nodded. “We need to continue.”

  I kept staring at him. From under my armor, I didn’t have to control my expression, and I let my eyes widen as much as they wanted to, let my lips part all the way open. I knew my cheeks were slack and pale, knew I looked like an emotional mess. Fortunately, no one could see.

  I gestured toward my blaster. “Can I keep it out?”

  He didn’t say anything. Eventually, he nodded. Then he pointed forward.

  We continued to push slowly through the jungle. The further we walked, the thicker it became. The thicker my thoughts became, too.

  There was so much I wanted to ask him. Foremost was why the hell we were down on this goddamn planet. Sure, the ship had scanned it from space, and it had confirmed there were no enemies, barely any life more sophisticated than a tree, in fact. So why had the Prince taken a full contingent of soldiers?

  What was he looking for?

  What did he really think was down on this planet?

  I found myself striding forward, pushing out in front of the Prince, even though he was meant to take point.

  My body just did it on its own.

  Though I knew from experience that the Prince should pull me up on that, he didn’t.

  We walked together in almost near silence, the only sound the soft crunch of our armored boots on the jungle floor, and the occasional chirp of an insect.

  I still didn’
t know what we were after, but as I flicked the Prince an occasional look, and saw how stiff his body language was even under his armor, I could bet it was more than a simple research mission.

  The further we traveled into the jungle, the tenser he became.

  The jungle around us started to shift, too. Every now and then I watched him bend down as he appeared to assess a misplaced rock amongst the foliage.

  It took a while for me to realize they were ruins.

  As I pushed back a massive purple leaf, I frowned down at what looked like the remnants of a stone pillar.

  As soon as the Prince saw what I was looking at, he ducked forward, and practically muscled me out of the way in his haste to scoot down to his knees and assess it.

  Unlike me, he didn’t need to pull a matter scanner from the holster at his belt – all he needed to do was wave his armored hand over the ruined pillar.

  Well, I assumed the armor had sophisticated scanners, that, or he was waving at it.

  Though that thought provided me with a single moment of mirth, it was fleeting.

  The Prince suddenly jerked up to his feet. He took a stiff step back, head lurching from side-to-side as he spun almost in a full circle.

  “What is it?” I asked, undeniable fear curling in my gut.

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t deign to as he pushed forward, swiped at the massive purple leaves that obscured the ruins, and pulled the plant out of the ground.

  He thrust it aside and continued forward, more cautiously now. I watched his neck shift as he assessed the jungle floor carefully.

  With every goddamn step, my stomach curdled. I wanted to tell myself it was just anger. Justified frustration at the fact the Prince had dragged me along on this mission without one word of explanation.

  But the further we traversed into the jungle, the more that sensation returned.

  That God awful sensation. A hand on my shoulder. That ghostly apparition that told me what to do and always forced me to protect the Prince.

  Now it was back, a trace of nerves slicing down my shoulder and into my spine.

  Suddenly, without realizing what I was doing, I split away from the Prince and jumped down an incline, boots skidding down a rocky section until I had to push into a roll and jump to my feet to avoid a ditch at the bottom.

  “What are you doing?” Xarin snapped from above.

  I could barely hear him. It was as if some unseen force had stolen into my mind and thrust a blanket over every one of my senses. All my attention focused on a single point about 250 meters into the jungle.

  Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to tear my stiff white lips back from my teeth and mutter, “There’s something out there.”

  With that, I could no longer control my body, and I thrust forward with all the speed of a shot from an ion cannon. I powered through the jungle, tearing into any leaf or branch or twig that dared get in my way. It was a surprise flame didn’t spurt out from my boots.

  Time seemed to slow down, even though I powered toward that point in the distance with all the combined speed of my desperation and my armor.

  Every moment felt sluggishly slow, every movement a true trial.

  Until finally I reached it.

  Suddenly, the path in front of me cut off. It happened so suddenly, I almost stumbled over the edge. Instinct alone saved me from falling down what looked like a 500-meter ravine. It was so completely obscured by jungle vines and creepers it was like a death trap.

  Sure enough, as the Prince came powering through the jungle toward me, he didn’t see it.

  I had to thrust a hand out, collect his arm, and pull him to the side.

  On paper, there was no way my armor was stronger than his. Yet, somehow, I managed to pull him to the side just in time.

  He skidded and fell, dragging me on top of him.

  I slammed into his chest plating, metal on metal.

  Even though I couldn’t see his body beneath the plating, I could tell every single muscle stiffened.

  That was nothing compared to my own reaction. I felt like my muscles seized so much they calcified.

  Suddenly, he thrust forward, shoved me off, and loomed above me. “What in Farick’s name—” he began.

  He stopped.

  His head jerked to the side with so much speed it looked as if someone had attached a rope to his helmet and yanked it.

  As the words died in his throat, fear rose in mine.

  I jolted to my feet, careful to take several steps back so I didn’t tumble over the precipice.

  It took me a while to realize what the Prince was looking at, but I ticked my head around and stared across a sizeable 20-meter gap.

  There were ruins on the other side. Not the sparse, broken ruins we’d come across – just a handful of stones in the jungle.

  Proper ruins. A building.

  “My god,” the Prince said. His armor could not electronically obscure the surprise filtering through his tone. It shook so badly, for a second he didn’t sound like the pompous, arrogant fool he was.

  “… What are they?” I managed through a dry throat. The longer I stared at them, the more I was beset by that feeling.

  It no longer simply felt as if a single hand rested on my shoulder – it felt like a body was pressed into mine, like someone had wrapped their arms around my neck, not in a move of violence, but guidance.

  A second later, my head tugged to the side.

  I saw something further down the precipice on our side.

  I moved to follow.

  I didn’t get the opportunity.

  The Prince jerked out a hand and grabbed my arm, the superior strength of his armor locking me in place. Hell, with the right codes, he could probably stop my armor from moving altogether, turning it into nothing more than a frozen puppet.

  I twisted my helmet to stare at him. “There’s something further along the path,” I managed, disappointed that I couldn’t hide how breathy my voice had become.

  He didn’t move, at least not for a few seconds. He just stood there, helmet angled my way, stiff armored fingers pressing into my wrist.

  Finally, he dropped it and nodded. “Show me,” he ordered.

  I swallowed the bile that always rose whenever he ordered me about, and shifted my attention forward.

  I pressed through the jungle, moving about 20 meters until I stopped. Dead. The ethereal hands around my neck suddenly locked onto the back of my head and thrust it forward. I practically fell onto my knees as my hands jerked forward and I began to dig through the dirt.

  It didn’t take long – just a few mad pats of my hands – to uncover something.

  It was a metal disk, about two inches thick, and half an inch wide. In the center it was hollowed out, several lines, almost like hairline fractures, traveling out to the edges of the circle.

  I reached a hand toward it.

  The Prince threw himself at me, locked an arm around my middle, and pulled me back with all the force of an attack.

  He thrust me to the side and let me go. I rolled and punched to my feet.

  “You can’t touch that,” he snapped. “It shouldn’t even exist…” He trailed off. His voice got a distracted quality as he pushed down to his knees and hovered over the object. It was almost as if he blocked me out completely as he spread his hands wide over that metal disk and obviously scanned it with his armor.

  I resisted the urge to leap forward, wrap an arm around his middle, and throw him to the side. Not because I wanted to protect him, but because I wanted to show he couldn’t control me, couldn’t push me around so easily.

  But there was a force that could push me around, literally.

  I brought a hand up and pressed my fingers into my shoulder, the exact point where that ghostly force always connected with me.

  I shuddered and stepped back, never shifting my gaze off the Prince.

  After a few minutes of scanning whatever that strange object was, he pushed to his feet and jerked away from it. I’d never
seen him move in a more uncoordinated, hasty way. For a man who seemed to embody the statuesque strength of a god, he now looked like nothing more than a boy in armor.

  “What is it?” I found myself asking.

  At first, I didn’t think he’d answer. Then he turned his helmet toward me. “Something that shouldn’t be here. Something that should have been destroyed in the Great War.” He pushed past me and continued back up the precipice along the way we’d come.

  For a second, I didn’t follow. Because for a second I wanted to jerk down and pick that object up. For some strange reason I wanted to draw it in close to my face and stare at it, take it all in at once.

  Before I could go through with that desire, the Prince appeared at my side once more, and he grabbed my wrist.

  He pulled me forward. Like I was nothing more than a doll or a dog on a leash.

  Though I desperately wanted to pull my hand back, kick him on the back of the knees, then follow up with a vicious blow to his head, I didn’t.

  I wasn’t that stupid. I was already skating on thin ice. Any more acts of insubordination, and the Prince would get rid of me.

  He drew to a stop along the precipice I’d found when I’d burst from the jungle. Though he could have let go of my wrist, he didn’t. He kept hold of it as he tipped his head back and stared at the ruins beyond. “We have to get over there.”

  “I probably can’t make that jump,” I said honestly, double checking the specs of my armor on my internal visor.

  “I can.” Without any warning, the Prince looped behind me and picked me up.

  I spluttered, surprise tearing from my throat, about to be joined by some well-placed insults.

  Before I had a chance to scream them, the Prince walked back several steps, then leaped. I felt for certain we wouldn’t make it. But halfway through, just when I was sure we’d drop like a rock, the Prince’s armor suddenly employed thrusters.

  It could fly.

  And fly it did. We traveled across the last 10 meters easily, and the Prince dropped down gracefully on the other side.

  He held onto me needlessly for several seconds as he tipped his head back and clearly assessed the ruins.

  Then he dropped me.

  Like a sack of rocks.

  I thumped at the ground by his feet, my weight combined with my heavy armor cracking the ancient stones beneath me.

  I glared at him, then briefly turned off the audio feed and swore at him with every goddamn colorful expression I could think of.

  Then I pushed carefully to my feet.

  I turned.

  The Prince frowned. “With me. One step behind. Don’t get ahead, and for God’s sake, never fall behind.”

  Again I heard that odd desperate tone.

  Before I had a chance to assess it and what it could mean, he motioned me forward, and I felt compelled to follow.

  There was an opening to the ruins before us, and the Prince took it cautiously, holding up a closed fist. He waited a full minute, perhaps using his tactical scanners to assess the area immediately in front of us, or relying on his intuition alone.

  When he eventually waved me forward, I was so goddamn tense, if so much as a moat of dust landed on my shoulder, I would have cracked.

  There was something about this place, something eerily familiar.

  It spoke to some long lost memory buried deep in my heart. The sensation was so intense, it almost felt as if I’d have a heart attack.

  All I could hear – all I was aware of other than the awful sensations pulsing through my body – was the Prince’s slow, deliberate footfall.

  We continued down what looked like a corridor.

  I had no idea what the building had been before.

  Now it was nothing more than an interconnected set of tunnels. All that remained was stone.

  If I had to guess, the building had belonged to an unsophisticated race. As far as I could tell, the stone had simply been mined from the ground. There were no metal struts, no circuits poking out of the floor – nothing to suggest this building had ever been more than a roof over somebody’s head.

  So why the hell was the Prince being so cautious? Why was he so fascinated by this place? Because I could tell he was fascinated. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could imagine it. Almost in perfect detail. Don’t ask me how, but his visage – those crystalline purple eyes offset by that ice-white hair – I could see it perfectly in my mind’s eye as if someone had burnt it onto my retinas.

  I blinked several times, but I could not dislodge it.

  We walked through several puddles, dank brown and green, filled with a mixture of dead leaves and a particularly virulent kind of moss.

  Plants had reclaimed most of the building, large vines descending from gaps in the ceiling, twisting down the walls, and pushing through cracks in the floor.

  The curiosity got the better of me, and I took a forced step forward, drawing alongside the Prince. Before I could crack my lips open and ask him what the hell we were looking for, he thrust out an arm and I walked right into it.

  “What the—” I began.

  He slowly twisted his head, and he stared at me. “I told you, you remain one step behind.”

  There was something about his tone. Something so goddamn officious. It spoke of his royal heritage. Of a man who’d been brought up to believe he was better than absolutely everyone else around him.

  I was goddamn sure he couldn’t see my expression under my helmet, but maybe he could read my mind, because he tilted his head to the side even further. “I’ve tolerated your insubordination thus far, soldier. I will not tolerate it further. You remain a step behind me at all times.”

  I waited for him to add that that was where I belonged.

  He didn’t. Instead, he turned around with a stiff movement and motioned me forward with a dismissive flick of his hand.

  Despite the fact his warning was still ringing in my ears, it took me a full 10 seconds before I could force my body to follow his.

  We continued down the dirty plant-covered corridor until we found a set of stairs.

  The Prince cautiously walked down them, his fist raised the entire time.

  We pressed forward for God knows how many minutes.

  Eventually my anger at the way the Prince was treating me abated, and in its place, fear churned in my gut.

  Finally, we reached what appeared to be a storage room of some description.

  The Prince told me to stay by the door. And there I waited as he methodically checked the room, waving his armored hand over old, broken, contorted metal boxes.

  Though I couldn’t see them in full, I could tell they were worn with more than age.

  They looked like they’d been blown apart by explosives. Powerful explosives. The metal wasn’t just contorted, it had obviously melted and reformed.

  The Prince didn’t say a single frigging word as he worked methodically. Nor did he pay a scrap of attention to me. It wasn’t until he’d checked the room so thoroughly it was like he was looking for a needle in a haystack, that he finally approached me.

  Again he dismissively waved me forward.

  “You goddamn fucking asshole,” I screamed as I turned my audio link off.

  He strode ahead, reaching the other side of the room before I’d gotten over my anger enough to follow.

  For a man who’d insisted I stay a single step behind me, he appeared distracted as he continued to march forward, quickly disappearing through a door.

  That’s when it happened.

  When I was approximately halfway across the floor, directly over a strange circular lip of rock, there was a single click from somewhere above.

  I didn’t even have a second to consider what it could be.

  Before the floor disappeared.

  It didn’t fall away. It goddamn disappeared as it were nothing more than an illusion.

  I screamed as I fell, arms and legs beating wildly as my body dropped like a cruiser that had been shot from t
he sky.

  It felt like I fell for a full minute until finally my body struck the floor with such a resounding impact, I cracked the stone beneath me.

  My armor kept me alive. Barely.

  It couldn’t completely protect me from the violent impact, and my lips cracked open in a violent cough, blood splattering my chin.

  My eyes were riveted open in surprise, my breath coming in hard, ragged pants as my mind desperately tried to process the pain ripping through my body.

  I couldn’t move.

  My only hope was that the Prince had heard me, and would jump down to rescue me.

  While my armor had almost been completely obliterated by the fall, I was sure his would withstand the near-fatal drop.

  I waited five seconds, then ten, then a full minute.

  Nothing.

  That’s when I realized as I tipped my head back and force my blinking, broken visor to lock above, that the ceiling had reformed.

  It was solid stone once more.

  ….

  My mind could not catch up. Couldn’t comprehend what the hell had just happened.

  While the new galactic empire possessed holographic technology, it wasn’t nearly sophisticated enough to produce a hologram that could truly fool someone.

  The floor above – which couldn’t have been real – hadn’t just fooled me, it had been solid, and supported my weight, and the Prince’s too.

  I waited. And waited. The Prince didn’t come.

  I couldn’t tell how many minutes passed. Soon enough, however, I began to realize that if I wanted to live, I would have to save myself.

  I began moving my fingers, then my toes. Carefully, one digit at a time. I had to push my mind into the action completely.

  After my toes and fingers came my hands and feet.

  One after another, I managed to move my body.

  Don’t ask me where I found the strength to push past the pain. I could be doing my already damaged body irreparable injury, worsening my internal bleeding – it didn’t matter.

  I had no goddamn choice.

  As I shifted up, finally pushing into a seated position, my chest plate fell from my body, clanging against my armored knees and practically disintegrating against the floor.

  Using everything – every last goddamn scrap of determination and power – I pushed to my feet.

  I swayed badly, feeling like a broken sail flapping in the wind.

  But with a lurch that felt as if it would tear my jugular from my throat, I began to walk.

  I clutched a hand to my chest, heaving through every movement.

  I coughed, blood splattering over my chin and lips.

  I reached up, took my helmet off, and thumbed it off with a shaking hand.

  As soon as I touched my helmet, it fell to pieces.

  I swore. Then I moved forward. One aching step at a time.

  …

  Mark

  I pushed back from the communication device, ticking my head to the side in a violent move.

  I brought a hand up and locked my sweaty palm over my face.

  Soon the anger burning through my gut got the better of me, and I balled up a hand and struck it against the wall. Without armor to protect my knuckles, they began to bleed, red specs transferring over my swollen, pulped flesh.

  I closed my eyes and bared my teeth.

  “What more do they want from me?” I spat, shrieking at the room.

  But the room couldn’t answer.

  Neither could I.

  When the resistance had approached me, I’d been too filled with hope to think things through. I needed them to be the force of hope that could finally free the galaxy.

  They weren’t.

  They were a bunch of amateurs. Mere civilians who’d been pulled into the cause by nothing more than passion and nothing less than complete idiocy.

  I ground my bloodied hand into the wall beside me, not caring as my knuckles grated up against one another, my already torn flesh getting even more of a beating.

  “You goddamn bastard,” I spat under my breath. “This isn’t over,” I said darkly as I reached a hand up and pressed a button on my arm.

  It immediately activated my sophisticated Arterian armor, and it sprang into place over my body. As soon as the metal encased my hand, it began the quick and simple job of healing my flesh.

  I smoothed my calm back into place and walked out into the corridor.

  I swore at that goddamn asshole once more in my mind, then I continued my job.

  …

  Oil refinery facility, Argoza sector

  The foreman strode across the main compound, kicking up great wads of dust with his large worn boots.

  An unannounced cruiser was pulling in to land. He hated interruptions, hated to pull people off the main pumps to get them to refuel vessels which had wandered off course and needed emergency refueling.

  There was a fuel station a sector away, and unless you were in a great deal of goddamn stress, most people could just refuel there.

  Not this guy, he’d contacted from orbit, a real nice asshole who’d demanded immediate refueling.

  The foreman brought a hand up and pressed it over his eyes as the cruiser swooped in low to land.

  Its glowing neon blue directional thrusters lit up the dying sky like a fire from the gods.

  As he squinted against the thinning light, his knowing gaze assessed the cruiser, and he quickly realized it had some significant modifications. It appeared to have some kind of retracting armored hull plating, and that wasn’t to mention the rotating ion blasters at the front and back.

  He clenched his yellowed teeth and whistled through them, a few grits of obligatory sand getting sucked into his mouth.

  You couldn’t do anything on this planet without getting a mouth full of dust.

  The foreman waited there for several seconds, tracking the cruiser until it finally hovered in to land and disappeared behind the primary facility building.

  He turned and began the slow march back to the facility.

  He didn’t reach it before his com line crackled.

  He cleared his throat and brought his wrist up, thumbing a button on a white metal band that had been grafted onto the bone.

  “Foreman here,” he said with a guttural rumble.

  “Sir—” one of his workers said.

  “Yes?”

  Nothing.

  The audio feed ended with an ominous click.

  His hackles rose as a sharp, bitter tasting fear rose through his mouth.

  He brought a hand up and quickly wiped the sweat from the top of his brow.

  He found himself hurrying, faster now, faster again, until his thick, heavy, dust-clogged boots reverberated over the ground with an ominous drumbeat.

  By the time he reached the facility, he knew something was wrong.

  It wasn’t just his thundering double-time heartbeat – it was the blood that covered the walls, the floor, too. He brought one hand up and pressed it over his mouth as he clutched at the blaster always holstered at his hip.

  He yanked it out and approached cautiously, the tread of his boot transferring great clogs of dust and dirt onto the blood-splattered floor. He barely made it a few meters before he heard something clang on the floor behind him.

  The foreman had been a hard man for years. He specialized in surviving on dirty, violent, nasty outposts just like this. So he knew what was coming long before he felt something slice into the soft flesh below his neck.

  His gaze jerked to the side, and he saw a standard dirt pick sticking out of his neck.

  He fell down to one knee but wasn’t allowed to fall to the other.

  A hand locked on the dirt pick and held it in place.

  He screamed, the noise splitting from his lips with such ferocity, he could have ripped them off.

  “What do you want?” he hollered.

  The hand on the dirt pick said nothing. Instead, it twisted and twisted until burning, hot, deadly pain snaked
into his head.

  He thought he’d lose consciousness. He wasn’t provided that opportunity.

  Something was injected into his neck. It wasn’t hard to realize what it was. A fast acting stimulant, one designed to keep him alive and cognizant just long enough.

  He pressed his blood covered lips together and cracked out an insult.

  The hand twisted the dirt pick further. “You will answer,” it said in a strange tone.

  It took his spinning mind a second to place it.

  An Arterian assassin. Legendary, the kind of stuff nightmares were made from.

  Sure enough, as a figure walked in front of him and leaned just before his kneeling, shaking form, he recognized the Arterian uniform. A purple and gold cloak hung so low over the face it obscured everything but a stiff set of lips. “You will answer,” the Arterian snapped once more.

  “Ask your goddamn question,” the foreman managed, every word exacting a painful cost from his broken body.

  The Arterian reached into their cloak and pulled something out.

  It was a slim, silver oblong disk, looking like nothing more than a circle of metal.

  They clutched it in their hand, swiped their free palm over it, then shifted back.

  A hologram appeared over the disc.

  A perfect hologram.

  It didn’t flicker, didn’t shake as moats of dust fell through it.

  It was indistinguishable from reality.

  The foreman didn’t have the opportunity to revel in its perfection.

  The Arterian assassin pushed further forward, head tilting to the side, their cloak always covering their identity. “Where?” the woman asked, speaking through pared back lips.

  Though the foreman’s brain was rapidly running out of blood, he guessed it was a she.

  From her rounded, shapely lips alone, not to mention her figure, only partially obscured by her cloak, he knew it was a woman.

  “Focus.” The assassin clutched hold of his chin, yanking it to the side and jerking his head down until he faced the hologram.

  Though his bleary eyes could barely see anymore, as the woman tugged his face ever closer to the hologram, he focused long enough to realize he recognized the image.

  One of his workers.

  “Where is she?” the Arterian hissed, her plush lips drawing so thin they looked like nothing more than red lines slicing through her chin.

  “.. Shar,” he managed.

  “Where is she?” the woman snapped, enunciating every word with a deadly tone.

  “Gone. Taken.”

  “By whom?” The woman pressed forward until she and her spinning hologram were right by his face.

  As he took his dying breath the woman clutched a hand to his chin, her fingers digging right down to the bone.

  “Tell me,” she snapped.

  He felt compelled. His dying brain could pick that up. His lips parted, the truth forming in his mind and readying on his lips. Despite the fact he fought to keep his goddamn lips closed, he couldn’t. “Space. Gone to space.”

  “Where?” the assassin’s voice rattled with so much gravitas she sounded like a god who’d fallen to earth. “Where?” She shook his chin violently until it felt as if his head would be wrenched off.

  That compelling force grew stronger until he could fight it no longer. “Arterian war cruiser.”

  She dropped his chin, took a step back, and turned the hologram off with one hand.

  With one final beat of his heart, he watched her ball her fingers around that hard metal disc and strike it against the center of his head.

  He died.

  Instantly.

  Splatters of his blood mixed with the rust-red sand and scattered over his well-worn boots.

  The assassin walked away, wiping the foreman’s blood off her holo disc and returning it to her pocket.

  …

  Prince Xarin

  She was nowhere to be seen. She’d simply disappeared.

  When I realized she wasn’t following, I doubled back, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.

  An odd sensation was pushing through my gut, alighting over my back like insects climbing down the skin.

  Fear.

  True fear. Not the hood of anxiety that covered me these days, but goading desperation that dug deeper into my stomach with every violent second.

  I ran back into the storage room, but as I pushed my onboard scanners to full, they still couldn’t pick her up.

  I ran into the center of the room, that desperation still goading at my heart. For some reason, it was even getting hard to breathe.

  … Call me mad, but it suddenly felt as if two hands clutched around my neck.

  The hands came from nowhere, just ghostly apparitions with the force of a real man.

  I staggered down to one knee, then the other, until I had to flatten a hand against the floor to stabilize myself.

  That’s when my scanners picked something up. Through the stone.

  A life sign. Waning. Getting weaker by the second.

  I lurched down until my stomach was practically pressed against the floor, flattening both hands until I picked up the life sign in full.

  Don’t ask how, but I knew it was her, just as I knew she was running out of time.

  As a scream tore from my throat, I collapsed one hand into a fist and utilized the full force of my armor.

  Then I thrust back on my knees, brought my arm back, and slammed it down into the floor.

  One strike, then another. I used my full power.

  It should have been enough to completely obliterate the floor. It should have been enough to break my way past a cruiser’s external hull.

  And yet the floor did not shift. Did not splinter. Did not even shake.

  I jerked up as I realized something was fundamentally wrong.

  I shifted backward, wary gaze locked on that section of the floor until my back jammed against the far wall.

  Without another moment’s hesitation, I activated my armor’s guns.

  Both palms suddenly shifted, metal plating furling back to reveal two white-hot pulsing guns.

  Pulling my stiff lips away from my teeth, I began to fire, not at the floor, but at the ceiling. At a single point on the ceiling far above. A small rotating metal disc.

  How I hadn’t noticed it before, I didn’t know.

  My gut lurched once more as desperation punched through it.

  Finally, my shots were enough to destroy the metal holo disc.

  It ruptured, sending splatters of molten metal spitting out onto the floor.

  Or at least it should have.

  For at that exact moment, the floor disappeared.

  It didn’t break apart. It simply stopped existing. It was nothing more than a hologram.

  I wasted no time.

  I thrust forward, pushing into a jump.

  I tucked my legs up as I sailed right through the hole in the floor.

  And I fell, and I fell, and I fell.

  100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters, then I lost count.

  It took too long to hit the stone floor below, but finally I did. I landed on it with such impact my armored boots split the ground, breaking several meters of black stones and sending fine rock chip up around me in a halo.

  I remained there with one hand pressed to the floor for a single second before jerking up.

  I twisted my head to the side and saw the blood splattering the ground.

  The chunks of armor, too.

  A standard issue Arterian soldier’s breastplate was lying by my feet.

  A few meters from that was a helmet.

  I dashed over and plucked it up, turning it up until I could see the insides.

  That’s when I saw her blood.

  It covered the inside of the visor, the electronic screen now completely cracked.

  As I jerked my head up, I saw blood-splattered footprints pushing through the room.

  I followed them.

  Again my heart beat, pou
nded in my chest, reverberated like heavy footfall.

  Don’t ask me how, but I knew she was on the edge of death, wherever she was.

  As a full member of the Arterian Royal Family, I shouldn’t care.

  What was one more soldier sacrificed to the cause?

  I’d been taught not to be precious about people.

  You had to sacrifice to win at war. And if you did not win, the effects would be ghastly. The modern Milky Way would fall.

  So why did I care so much about this one soldier?

  For that matter, why in God’s name had I brought her aboard?

  Though her skills in combat were truly impressive….

  I thrust away my warring thoughts.

  They would do me no good.

  The further I traveled, the more impressed I became. Though she was clearly on the edge of death, she knew how to push past pain.

  I’d come to this planet on a slim hope. To find more Illuminate technology. It would give me the edge I needed against not just the Zorv, but the wolves howling at my door.

  So why couldn’t I fix my mind on that as I pressed forward, throat dry, mouth feeling as though it were full of barbs?

  The only feeling I felt was clawing desperation, and with every second, it got worse.

  “I have to find her,” I found myself saying before I could press my lips closed.

  I forced forward with all the speed I could muster.

  …

  Shar

  I walked along with one bloodied hand pressed against the wall for support.

  Long ago most of my armor had fallen off.

  The only thing that was left was one arm piece and one boot.

  It contributed to a strange clicking footfall. One step would be accompanied with a bloodied groan as my bare foot struck the cold stone while the other rang out with a resounding click of armor.

  I had no idea where I was going.

  Forward.

  That was the only concept my broken mind could manage, anyway.

  I came across strangely solid patches of the building.

  I would walk from one ruined corridor into a room that looked as if it had been untouched.

  I began to appreciate the architecture. What I had once thought was nothing but old ruins constructed by an uncivilized race was actually much more.

  I continued to move through the corridors, bloodied hands locked on the wall.

  It became harder and harder as more and more fatigue wrapped through my body. Something else did at the same time.

  This burning white-hot determination. I had no idea where it came from.

  It was like a hand that always guided me. It seemed as if it came from beyond. Not just my body… but somehow… the universe.

  I gritted my teeth, my gums bloodied and sore.

  A distant part of my mind realized it was unlikely I would get through this.

  I would have terrible internal bleeding, and though I could move, I was likely only speeding up my inevitable death.

  But could I stop? Could I reason with the compulsion pushing through me?

  No chance.

  I started to mutter to myself, speak in low, quick, desperate tones. I was barely aware of what I was saying, couldn’t even recognize the language spurting from my lips.

  But whatever force was pulling me forward, did so with more and more force, until I finally pulled my hand from the wall and staggered forward with all the speed my broken form could muster.

  The further I traveled into the building, the more sophisticated the architecture became. I was now certain that this building had belonged to a once-great civilization. Though my mind was addled from pain and the fear of dying, I could appreciate what that meant.

  I, like most other citizens of the modern galaxy, knew of the empire that had come 2000 years before, I also knew that no technology remained from that time. Just sparse ruins. Destroyed buildings. Planets that had been scorched from space. No technology. Nothing useful. And yet… If I was right, and this building had belonged to the Great Empire, then….

  A compulsion welled in my chest as if someone had tied a rope around my heart. It pulled me forward with such force I staggered. I reached a set of stairs, and somehow with jerking, broken steps, managed to push down it.

  I saw a door at the end of the corridor. Ornate, made out of carved and gilded metal. It was at least 10 meters high and five meters wide.

  And it had… gravitas, this feeling of import. I staggered toward it, one bloodied hand outstretched. It felt as if I was about to knock on the doors of heaven.

  “What?” the word broke from my bleeding, white lips.

  I reached it.

  At first, I hesitated, whatever sense was left in my mind telling me to stop. But I couldn’t fight against the compulsion, and before I knew it, I threw myself at the door.

  … And it opened. It slid open without a sound, the metal mechanisms moving so smoothly it was as if they’d been made that very day.

  I entered the room. Or at least tried to. At that exact moment, my broken body became too much for me.

  And I fell.

  Crumpled, my knees jerking out from underneath me as my head struck the floor.

  For a few short seconds, I remained conscious enough to lock my eyes on what was inside the darkened room.

  Though I could barely see, my bleary gaze locked on something in the center of the room.

  A white metal plinth. And on top of that, a small handheld device.

  It was the strangest design I’d ever seen. It glowed, light blue and orange lines scattered across its surface. It pulsed, too, with a steady beat, like a heart.

  I fought to keep my eyes open. I could not.

  I slipped into the arms of unconsciousness.

  …

  Arterian assassin

  She walked along the rugged, rocky peaks, head tilted to the side as the wind tried but failed to unfurl her cloak from her face.

  There was very little technology in the entire modern galaxy that would be able to uncloak her and reveal her true identity.

  This fabric came from the Great Empire, from the Illuminates.

  So she didn’t bother to lock a hand on it as she strode forward, one hand pressed against the rocky outcrop beside her.

  Far in the distance, she saw what she was looking for. A simple, weather-beaten metal shack.

  If her information was correct, then the evil one had been born there. The one who would threaten everything, who had the power to pull down the Arterian Empire.

  The destroyer.

  Just thinking about her set the assassin’s teeth on edge, brought the bile rising up her throat, and made her clench her free hand into such a tight fist it was as if she wanted to snap her fingers off.

  It had taken a great deal of investigation to find out the destroyer’s birthplace. A lot of blood, too.

  But the assassin had been born to spill blood.

  The galaxy demanded it. You did not buy peace and prosperity with hope. You did so over the ashes of those who got in your way.

  The assassin took a strong, ringing, resounding step over the stone.

  Then she simply pushed off. She flattened her palm against the rocky outcrop beside her and jerked backward.

  It wasn’t a fatal move. As she plummeted down the sheer side of the rocky cliff, she tapped something on her arm, and she began to float. An inertia field sprang up around her form, encasing her body in a light pleasant blue glow as if she’d jumped in a tropical ocean.

  It guided her body right down the side of the sheer cliff. As she moved slowly past, she caught sight of the striations in the rock and could have almost counted the billions of years of history that had weathered this beaten planet.

  She didn’t care. The only thought that possessed her mind was the future.

  Finally, she reached the bottom of the canyon.

  She pressed her feet out, and as soon as her black heels landed on the ground, the field cut out. She strode
forward, several crackles of electricity darting over her cloak and discharging into the air.

  She walked up the side of a hill, that persistent wind still trying to pull her cloak from her body. Finally, she caught sight of that dilapidated metal shack.

  She tilted her head fully to the side, brought a hand up, and tapped her plush bottom lip.

  The destroyer had been born to a single mother, a survivor from a colony war. The mother had died a little under two months after giving birth to her. The destroyer had been thrust into the care of the community. And when she’d been old enough to look after herself, she’d left. To find work.

  It was a far cry from the assassin’s own privileged upbringing.

  As a full member of the Arterian Royal Family, she did as she pleased. She had not had to fight to live. And yet, now, she embraced fighting for all it was worth. Bloodlust had always been in her bones.

  The assassin quickly covered the distance up to the shack, then she reached it, stretching out a hand and tapping her perfect nails against the broken metal door.

  She smiled at it for a few short seconds, then leaned back, brought her leg forward, and kicked it in a powerful, resounding move.

  Her heel sank so hard into the metal door that the thing cracked.

  The assassin was full Arterian, but her heritage did not completely account for her unusual strength, speed, and efficiency.

  From birth, she had been grafted with Illuminate technology.

  It was in her very bones and gave her the edge no one else had.

  The metal door clanged onto the floor, skidding several meters into the broken metal shack.

  She swung her head from side-to-side, clenching her teeth together twice to activate her internal scanners.

  They swept over the 5 x 5 meter room.

  It had been picked over for possessions long ago. The colonists on this world were poor, pathetic souls. They’d obviously stolen anything they’d thought was valuable.

  But they were still fools. For they’d left the most important item. An item that could change the course of history.

  As the assassin strode forward, she brought her hand up and waved it to the side.

  She picked up a unique energy signature.

  She thrust down to her knee, flattening her palm against a thick section of metal flooring.

  ….

  The assassin didn’t pause any longer.

  She brought her hand back, rounded it into a fist, and struck it into the metal floor. Though it was thick, and she should have shattered her knuckles, she didn’t.

  Her fist sailed right through, at the last moment small inertia shields flickering over it and protecting it from the impact.

  She punched right through the metal, pushed her fingers into the hole, then ripped a massive section of the plating clean off.

  She ducked forward, scooped her hand into the hole, and plucked out a metal strong box.… a sophisticated one.

  She held back a satisfied smile as she sat down and brought the box into her lap.

  She tapped the case with one long fingernail, before bringing the same hand up and tapping her lips. “Interesting,” she commented to herself.

  The technology of this box was far more sophisticated than anything you could imagine you would find in a dilapidated metal shack, let alone on this entire planet.

  It possessed the kind of secure technology they used in the Arterian Royal Family.

  In fact, as she brought her face closer and inspected it, she realized it did belong to the Arterian Royal Family.

  “I’ve got you now,” she said, lips spreading with mirth.

  She pushed to her feet, tucked the box under her arm, and walked outside, shields clicking over the metal.

  She tipped her head back and saw a storm brewing on the horizon.

  It made her smile even further.

  Because it wasn’t just the horizon that would be cut down by that storm, it would be the galaxy.

  A change was in the wind, one she would push through no matter the costs.

  …

  Prince Xarin

  I thrust forward with so much speed, my armor cracked the floor beneath me.

  I’d never felt such desperation. Such a drive to save someone.

  It was foolish, impossible to understand. I kept begging myself to stop, but I just couldn’t.

  I couldn’t describe it, but I knew that Shar needed me. That she had minutes. Damn minutes.

  A scream cracked from my lips as I suddenly found a set of stairs.

  I ducked down and pushed a finger through a drop of blood.

  Then I pushed down the stairs, leaping off the last few, falling to my knees, rolling, and punching forward.

  That’s when I saw a door.

  It was no ordinary door.

  It was Illuminate technology.

  You didn’t have to glance upon the sophisticated, elegant design for long to realize that. Plus, the symbols carved into the surface was unmistakable.

  I pushed toward it but hesitated before I reached a hand out.

  A sick feeling pushed through my gut, sinking hard into the center of my chest.

  I’d come to this planet on the slim hope of finding Illuminate technology that had not been ravaged by the Great War.

  If the perfect state of this door was anything to go by, then beyond that was just what I was looking for.

  And yet… I hesitated.

  Because this went against tradition. And not just tradition, my family.

  It was forbidden for lower members of the Arterian Royal Family to go after Illuminate tech. There was a specific division of the family that did that.

  For it was considered dangerous. The Illuminates and the Great Empire had been destroyed by an unknown force. Not enough archaeological information existed to understand who they were. But they had destroyed the Illuminates because of their sophisticated technology. That much the Arterian Royal Family knew. It was ingrained in their tradition and history. The first thing I’d ever learned when I’d reached the age of understanding, was that I had to be careful with Illuminate technology. Use it out of hand, let the commoners possess it, and the great force may come back.

  To many Arterians, they considered that force God. An angry, vengeful god who did not want man born in its exact image. Man belonged on Earth, on the dark, dirty, rocky planets of the Milky Way.

  Not in heaven.

  And when the Illuminates had invented their powerful technology, they had tried to ascend to that heaven.

  So they’d been wiped away.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said out loud as if a verbal reminder would somehow pull me to my senses.

  It did not.

  I didn’t care about possible repercussions from my family. Because I had taken every effort to keep this secret.

  I hadn’t told my men, and I would never dare breathe a word of this to anyone else.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d diverted my war cruiser on the hope of finding Illuminate artifacts.

  And it wouldn’t be the last.

  Because I was determined to find out the truth, no matter the costs.

  I did not subscribe to the belief that the Illuminates had been wiped out because of their superior technology. Though that thought alone could get me deposed, it simply didn’t make sense. The victors always rewrote history to make the brutality of war sound justified.

  So I took a deep breath, drove it into my gut, and pushed forward. As soon as my hand locked on that carved, incredible door, it opened. It hissed back into a recess with a silent, smooth move that proved it was technology light years beyond that which the modern galaxy possessed.

  I took a step into the darkened room. My eyes should have locked on the white plinth in the middle, on the strange device sitting on top.

  It didn’t.

  Shar was a crumpled, bloody mess by my feet.

  Something in me snapped.

  Whatever was left of my reason, my sen
se, was blown away.

  I fell beside her, wrapped a hand around her broken shoulder, and gently placed my other along her cheek. I shifted her head, using my scanners to ensure her neck wasn’t broken, then I looked into her eyes.

  They were half open….

  A surge of fear churned through me. Crumpled me. Tore down every wall. It felt as if it scoured my heart and ripped every single centimeter of flesh away like a man paring back the skin on an onion.

  I doubled forward, collapsing over her until finally my senses registered she was alive.

  Her half-open, bleary eyes suddenly blinked, and she looked at me.

  There wasn’t a great deal of consciousness there – she was clearly on the edge of death – but she was alive.

  And that was all that mattered.

  Though the Illuminate device was just a few meters away, I didn’t jerk to my feet to check it. Instead, I methodically took off pieces of my armor, wrapping them around Shar’s body.

  My armor was so sophisticated that it would be able to heal her, despite the fact she was not Arterian.

  It was dangerous – goddamn foolish to be taking off my armor. Half the galaxy wanted me dead. But half the galaxy wasn't in this room. And even if they had been, I would have done the same.

  I couldn’t see her die.

  Those words kept reverberating in my mind as if somebody was singing them right into my ear.

  Once I was done, and my armor had adjusted around her body until it encased her in full, I rested back.

  I kept one hand on her shoulder. I was still connected to my armor, despite the fact it was no longer on me.

  … And after a few seconds, it confirmed it was healing her.

  Slowly. She’d still need medical attention, but she was no longer critical. The armor could keep her in a safe stasis for days, if not years.

  So finally I was free to push to my feet. Slowly, carefully, I walked toward the white plinth in the center of the room. As I approached, the dull lighting brightened. No, it wasn’t the lighting – it was the device. It began to glow.

  I reached a hand toward it, watching, completely mesmerized as the blue and orange lines of light doubled. It was as if I was watching veins grow over the metal.

  I hesitated one final time, then pushed forward and plucked the device up.

  A part of me that still vaguely believed the traditions of my people waited to be struck down by God.

  I waited for the force to push down from the heavens and smite me.

  When it didn’t, I wrapped my hands around the device harder, bringing it close as I brushed a thumb delicately over the smooth surface.

  It was warm. And powerful.

  Strangely powerful.

  Though I did not have my armor on, I didn’t need to.

  As I tenderly brushed my fingers over the surface of the device, I felt something.

  Some strange connection that spoke of a long history.

  A long forgotten legend….

  I suddenly jolted as I received a communication to my internal implant.

  I clicked my jaw to the side. “Yes?”

  “We lost communication with you there for a while,” it was Mark. “Your highness, are you okay?” There was an undeniable quickness to Mark’s words. Fear for my safety – it had to be.

  I forced myself to nod. “I’m okay, but I have a casualty. Returning to the ship. Instruct my men to board the transport.”

  “Casualty?” Mark questioned. “Who?”

  “Irrelevant,” I said as I swiveled my gaze and locked it on Shar.

  I wanted to believe she was irrelevant. I tried to harden my gaze, lock my teeth together, and pull my heart away from her.

  … I couldn’t.

  So I pushed down and picked her up.

  Despite the weight of my armor, I was still strong enough to pick her up. My muscles tensed, my back stiffened, but it didn’t matter.

  Her head lolled to the side at what looked like an uncomfortable angle.

  I shifted my arms back and tilted until her head rolled to the other side and nestled against my chest.

  … Something about this felt right.

  So unbelievably, impossibly right.

  And yet wrong at the same time.

  With her still form crumpled against my own, my heart quickened with fear.

  I ran all the way through the facility and back up to the transport. Before I reached it, I reluctantly took my armor back from her.

  I wasn’t so far gone to forget how strange it would look if I dressed a simple soldier in my own armor. So I chanced upon a quiet place and took each piece of plating off her one by one.

  Fortunately, the armor had already stabilized her body, and by the time I took her back to the transport, I snapped at the field medic to attend to her injuries.

  It was a short flight back to my ship. But in my mind it dragged. It felt like years were flying through my fingers.

  I’d already locked my helmet in place, and wouldn’t have removed it for the world. It hid my expression. It hid my panic as I watched in full, heart pounding terror. As I waited for the transport to finally arrive aboard my war cruiser and Shar to be taken to the medical bay.