Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One (18 page)

“Stop, stop, you idiot,” I begged myself
through clenched teeth.

Finally I managed to stem the anger just
long enough to turn, push my shoulders into the blood splattered
wall, and walk myself down to a seated position. Instantly I
collapsed my arms around my knees, tucking my head in low until my
two beaded plaits trailed over my shoulders.

I began to cry.

I was a woman of few tears. But now they
flowed. From some unknown place.

Though I wanted to stay there, pressed up
against the wall in a pathetic ball until these feelings went away,
I didn't get that opportunity.

For at that exact moment a yellow alert
blared through the ship.

I was starting to get used to them. The
exact pitch and tone. And somehow – though it sounded truly insane
– I always felt them just a few seconds before they
occurred.

I was connected to this ship somehow. Knew
where to go even without being directed, and whenever anything went
wrong, I was always the first there.

So I snapped to my feet quickly, bringing up
two trembling hands and thumbing away the tears.

Realizing it wouldn’t be enough, I snatched
my pillow off my bed and dried my face in one quick move.

Then I ran for the door.

I was still in my armor, or at least my
chest plate and my leg pieces. As I exited my room, I grabbed my
gauntlets and helmet from just outside the door were I'd dropped
them in disgust. I crammed them on then thrust forward with all the
speed I could manage.

It was just a yellow alert, and most of the
other security personnel barracked in my corridor didn't move
particularly fast.

The
Illuminate
went to yellow alert every other day.
Even if Zorv were detected several sectors away, a klaxon would
always blare through the ship.

To them, it wasn't a big deal.

To me… I couldn't push away the thought
something terrible was about to occur.

I sped through the corridors, pounding along
the floor so hard it was a surprise my armor didn't crack the metal
plating.

…

Arterian Assassin

She was aboard his ship.
Finally.

She’d come aboard with Princess Arteria as
one of her personal assistants.

She could feel the destroyer – taste her
presence like dried up blood along her tongue.

She licked at her lips as she pushed
forward through the abandoned corridor.

Technically she shouldn’t be here. This
was the prince’s private deck. No ordinary crew were permitted to
enter it.

She was not ordinary. As a full Arterian
Royal assassin, there was nothing in this galaxy that could stop
her.

She walked forward, heels clicking along
the floor, her long dark hair trailing over her
shoulders.

She finally reached Arteria’s
door.

She placed a hand on the security panel
beside it and let her Illuminate implants hack right through the
security codes.

The door opened, and in she walked.

The
princess looked startled. The
assassin pressed a smile over her lips as she walked forward and
the doors closed behind her.

She
strode right into the center of the room, the princess
having to take several sharp steps back.

It was strange for the assassin to be
without her cloak.

On all her operations
to
-date, it had always hidden her identity.

From this point on, it wouldn't
matter.

The destroyer was on this ship, Xarin
too.

Within a matter of mere
minutes
this
would all be over.

Perhaps the fervor swelled in her eyes,
because the princess let out a stuttering gasp. “Why… why do you
look like that?”

“As I told you many times, if
you follow my exact words, you and your family will not be harmed.
It’s time to
action
the plan.”

Arteria
brought a hand up and clutched
it to her chest, transferring slicked lines of sweat along her
previously perfect, unrumpled robe. “The plan?”

The assassin inclined her head. “Don't
pretend to be innocent now. You knew exactly what would happen the
second you came on board.” The assassin took several resounding
steps forward, her heels clicking against the floor. “It's too late
to back out now.” She pushed her face close up to Arteria’s, until
she could see how startled those green shimmering eyes
were.

“…
You're going to kill him,
aren't you?” the princess asked, voice teetering annoyingly high
with such a pathetic innocent note.

The assassin
tilted her head to
the side, brought a hand out, and latched it on Arteria’s collar.
She neatened it, thumbing away the lines of sweat Arteria had
transferred from her shaking hands.

Once
the assassin was done, she clutched
both the princess’ shoulders, then nodded.

“Please, don't kill him. There must be
some other way—”

“You know what he’s done. If we want to
ensure peace and prosperity for the Empire, then he must be
destroyed.”

The princess closed her eyes sharply, but
first, she hesitated.

…
The assassin was incredibly
skilled in picking up people's true intentions. She had been
trained since birth.

She could guess if somebody was lying with
nothing more than a single glance.

But as the princess strangely hesitated
once more, the assassin put that momentary pause down to nothing
more than fear.

“I'll do what you need me to do,” the
princess finally agreed, dropping her gaze, a few tears shimmering
in her crystalline green eyes.

The assassin nodded low, smiling, curling
her lips into her perfect hard white teeth. “Then follow
me.”

…

Prince Xarin

There were no Zorv, or at least not that I
could tell.

The war cruiser’s proximity alarms were
blaring, and as I stood on the central platform in the operations
room, I stared at the primary view screens with a narrowed, almost
terrified gaze. “How long until you reset the sensors?” I said
through clenched teeth.

“Our best technicians are working on it.
This anomaly will be fixed within the hour,” the captain said in a
strong, punching, confident tone.

I knew that confidence was
misplaced.

I had no evidence to support that
suspicion, no evidence other than the fear climbing my
back.

The yellow alert had been blaring for almost
10 minutes now.

It wasn’t an unusual sound aboard this
ship.

Whenever Zor
v were detected, regardless of
whether they were close at hand, the ship’s
dedicated
scanners would warn the crew. It was then up to me to
decide whether we would alter course to intercept.

This ship
did not possess ordinary
scanners. They were some of the best Illuminate scanners the Royal
Arterian family possessed.

And they had been primed to pick up the
Zorv, no matter the distance.

Though ordinary scanning technology in the
modern galaxy was severely limited, Illuminate scanners could
detect Zorv activity with great accuracy light years
away.

I didn't understand the technology itself,
but I didn't need to. I was simply a puppet the Arterian Royal
Family were using to win their war, and puppets don’t need
knowledge.

“It would help if our technicians know
more about this scanning technology—” the captain began.

I shook my head curtly.

My teeth clenched, and no matter how hard
I tried to open my mouth, I couldn’t. So I spoke around a locked
jaw, “You know I can't tell you, so don't ask me. Just find some
way to reset them. And do it now. Without the scanners working
properly, we won’t be able to detect a real Zorv attack until it’s
too late.”

With that, I swept out of the operations
room, cape billowing behind me as I strode towards the superfast
lift.

Before I reached them, I made brief eye
contact with Mark.

…
It wasn't my imagination, there
was something strange going on with my personal guard, with my best
and only friend.

Perhaps it was personal. Perhaps I should
offer my shoulder to Mark, just as he offered his own shoulder to
me all the time.

I didn't have time.

When the doors to the lift sliced closed
behind me, I pushed a hand out and locked it against the wall.

Arterians
had
some of the strongest physiologies in the Milky
Way.

They had lifespans of over 1000
years, and their bodies could take a massive amount of stress
without showing it,
in fact
100 times the
stress it would take to kill a human.

So why did I feel so undermined? Why did I
feel as if I were about to fall to my knees?

Before I could return to my quarters, I
punched out a hand and altered the coordinates.

The lifts
beeped to register the new
setting, and I felt a shudder as the lifts shifted forward on a new
track.

It took me too long to look down and see
what my fingers had typed in.

I was heading to one of the habitation
decks.

Though I had ample minutes before the lift
arrived, and could alter my heading, I didn't.

Instead I remained there, one sweaty hand
locked beside the navigational panel, my desperate eyes staring at
the coordinates.

Finally the lift arrived, and the doors
opened with a hiss.

I didn't stride out, but bolted
out.

Soldiers were shifting about, slowly,
despite the blaring yellow alert.

By now news had spread that there was no
threat at hand. That didn’t stop the anger from curdling in my
stomach at their nonchalance.

I went to snap at the nearest soldier, but
controlled myself just in time.

I hid behind my helmet, glad no one could
see the sweat pouring down my brow.

Before I knew where my feet were carrying
me, I ended up in front of a door.

It was a plain door, and it
would lead into an equally plain room, without windows and without
much in the way of decoration. This
room
belonged
to
a soldier, not an officer.

A mere grunt.

I had no idea who was stationed
her
e. Or at
least, I shouldn't.

But I pushed a slightly shaking
hand out and entered my senior
over-ride
command codes into
the panel.
The
door
opened
and
realization sliced into my gut.

Shar
.

It was her quarters.

I pushed in, glad that there were no
soldiers behind to see what I was doing.

The doors sliced closed behind me.

There was nothing in the room that could
confirm these quarters were hers.

Apart from the general, overwhelming sense
that filled the place like blood flowing into a beating
heart.

I could feel her. Smell her. Hear her
echoing voice.

Every sensation vibrated with the
knowledge that she’d been here recently.

Again I felt
my hands shift as
if they were being controlled by some external force.

Sparks of energy tingled
through them
, chasing up my wrists and plunging high into my
elbows
and
shoulders.

“What
the
….”

I jerked my hands up, commanding my armor to
recede to my wrists. The plating flicked back in a smooth move like
petals unfurling from a flower head.

…
I stared at my
hands.

They were normal. There was no external sign
of what I was going through.

Before I knew what I was doing, my hand
shifted to the side, I dropped down to my knees, and I moved
towards the wall.

…
There were faint specks
of blood on it as if someone had struck it repeatedly with their
fist.

I began methodically tracing my
fingers down
those dried-up specks.

And as I did, I got the strangest sensation
– the strangest image filled my mind.

It was so precise, so detailed, it seemed
like a vision smeared over reality.

Her outline, the strange beaded plaits
that ran above her ears folded over her shaking shoulders. Her head
locked against her knees. Her bloodied hands pressed against her
shins….

I jerked back until my legs banged into her
metal bed.

I shifted over my shoulder and saw her
pillow had been abandoned on the floor.

I crouched down and plucked it up.

…
And swore I saw a vision
of her drying her eyes on it.

I shivered. So fast. So violent. So all
encompassing.

“What… what’s happening to me,” I
managed.