Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One (19 page)

Before I knew what I was doing, I jolted
up, led by my tingling hands.

They guided me out of the door and into the
corridor.

The pitch of the yellow alert
had
n’t
changed.

There was no reason to suspect anything was
wrong, and yet right now, my heart virtually exploded in pure
panic.

I jolted forward.

Just in time.

Just in time.

…

Shar

I could feel it all around me.
That ghostly, ethereal presence. It felt like a man
- a male presence,
with an arm locked around my back and one
hand gently resting on my shoulder.

If I let him, he would
guide me
forward.

But I wouldn't. Couldn't.

Anger at seeing Xarin with the
princess still flooded through me. Anger the likes of which I'd
never
previously
experienced.

Though I'd had to kill many times to
survive, and had a brutal personality to match, I'd never felt an
emotion this volatile, this violent.

No amount of reasoning pushed it away.

I felt betrayed.

Which was ridiculous.
Who was Xarin
to
me that he would
have betrayed me?

The arrogant prince had the right to do
whatever he pleased.

Despite how angry I felt, I was still
terrified at the yellow alert.

Though I'd met up with a duty officer
who'd confirmed the yellow alert was nothing more than a mistake, I
didn't believe him.

I simply couldn't be reasoned
with.

So I fought against the ethereal arms that
still guided me, until I reached one of the lower decks of the
ship.

I had no goddamn idea what I was
doing….

…

Princess Arteria

She returned to her light cruiser, looking
for it.

The box.

The box she’d seen the assassin holding.

It was not hard for Arteria to walk freely
around the ship. It was an Arterian war cruiser and she was an
Arterian princess.

The crew were suitably subservient, bowing
and generally getting out of her way.

Arteria
tucked her long purple robes in
her hands, pulled them from around her knees, and walked up the
ramp into her cruiser.

“
It has to be here somewhere.
She wouldn’t have moved it onto the ship… not yet,” Arteria
whispered to herself.

There was no need to
modify
her tone – she had already ordered every
crewmember she’d come across to get out of her way. She’d emptied
the secondary docking bay of every engineer, and every
witness.

She knew the assassin would be
busy
putting into action
her ridiculous
plan.

Cortina
was,
by all reports, an extremely talented warrior.

She also worked for the enemy.

The Arterian Royal Family was more split
apart and divided than a segmented orange.

The family was split asunder by intrigue and
infighting. Everybody wanted to scrounge the power and technology
of everyone else.

Some divisions of the family were more
powerful than most – Xarin, for instance, held more importance than
she ever would.

Or should.

Arteria
suddenly pushed down to her
knee, seeing something metal sparkling out from underneath a
seat.

She clenched her teeth, expectant tingles
rushing through her gut.

She spread her hands wide, locking her
fingers on the seat.

She scanned it with her implants.

Implants she shouldn’t have,
but implants she’d
acquired specifically
so
she could
discover Xarin’s true power and bend it to her will.

Cortina was wrong. Xarin was not better
off dead. Yes, he had broken several sacred traditions by tracking
down Illuminate technology. Though the fool thought no one knew
what he was doing, rumors had spread.

But he did not deserve to die. Die, and all
his power and influence would die with him.

There was another way.

And finally Arteria snatched hold of
it.

She pushed her fingers into a barely visible
gap underneath the seat.

The hull plating here was reinforced,
strengthened by invisible shielding.

Her fingers pressed right through them,
crackles discharging up her skin.

She yanked the metal clean off.

Then she pushed her hand in and snatched
whatever was inside before she even had a chance to figure out what
it was.

…
A box.

A secure Arterian safety box.

Within would be what she needed.

She briefly closed her eyes and took a
relieved breath that pushed her chest against her royal
robe.

In order to access Xarin’s true power and
bend him to her will, there was only one thing she could do.

Become his betrothed.

Arteria
wrapped her arms securely
around the box and left the cruiser.

Just as she did, the yellow alert blaring
through the ship changed. Its pitch became more insistent, and as
she strode towards the doors, red strips of lighting suddenly
blinked into life all around her.

A red alert.

Cortina was about to
implement
her plan.

She would try to kill Xarin.

She would fail.

Cortina herself would die. And once she
was out of the way, there would be nothing stopping
Arteria.

She would clutch hold of greatness and lead
the galaxy forward.

…

Cortina, the Arterian
Assassin

Her heart pounded now. Drove through her
chest with a pleasant beat. She loved it when adrenaline pounded
through her veins, when anticipation rose in her throat.

Anticipation of the kill.

The Arterians were not naturally violent
people, but they were not peaceful, either. With their superior
strength and their ability to manipulate others, they often got
what they wanted without resorting to violence.

As she strode forward, she curled both her
hands into fists, and enjoyed the stiff sensation that locked hard
into her shoulders.

She chose to resort to violence. It was
quicker and more pleasurable.

The first thing she had to do was kill the
destroyer.

Slowly, preferably, so she could
appreciate every single moment of pain that would flow through that
wretched monster’s body.

To do that, Cortina would have to lure the
destroyer into a certain part of the ship.

It wouldn’t be enough to simply kill the
woman – Cortina had to strip the woman of any evidence of her
betrothal.

Then, oh God, then she could move on to
Xarin.

Then Cortina would be able to wrap her hands
around his neck, and watch the life drain from his gaze.

She kept patting her lips as
she strode confidently through the corridors and entered the room
she’d
chosen
for her final attack.

It was well-placed, and
located in
a blind spot the ship’s on-board scanners would
not be able to penetrate properly.

In the unlikely event, that was, that the
crew were able to reset them in time.

Cortina herself had placed phantoms in the
system. Phantoms that would distract the crew, and hopefully Xarin,
while she went about her sacred task.

With her heels clicking on the floor,
Cortina finally reached the right room.

Though the room was some kind of secure
Arterian weapons storage facility – and would be locked to all but
Prince Xarin himself – Cortina walked in, with nothing more than a
wave at the door.

Her implants sent out an invisible, coded
signal that overrode the door’s sophisticated security.

She walked right into the
center of the expansive room, then
spun
on the spot, pushing her arms out wide in a
circle.

She chuckled, her light voice echoing around
the walls.

Finally, however, she stopped.

She unclipped a device from her belt, and
waved her thumb over it.

Instantly it activated the
remote holographic transmitters she’d already
placed
throughout the corridors. Holographic emitters that would
be able to produce holograms
indistinguishable
from reality.

This was true Illuminate technology that
few outside of the central ring of the Arterian Royal Family
possessed.

Cortina waited, dragging her tongue across
her teeth.

Soon.

Soon.

…

Shar

It was when I was running through the
corridors that I saw something. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel
it.

Though I felt connected to the ship, maybe
that connection had broken, because as I rounded a corner, I almost
ran smack into a Zorv bot.

Rather than fight me, it zipped around and
zoomed off before I could even clutch my blaster from my
holster.

I screamed at it, frustration and terror
ripping from my throat. But I didn’t hesitate – I threw myself
forward.

It flew quickly through the corridors,
leading me on a circuitous path, taking me deeper and deeper into
the ship until finally it zipped into a room.

“I’ve got you now, you bastard,” I
screamed.

I rolled, and punched through the door…
right into what looked like a secure Arterian weapon storage
room.

A place I was categorically not meant to be
in.

I swung my head from side to
side, trying to
detect
where the bot had disappeared
to.

There were neat stacks of
crates in the center of the room, and around the sides were racks
of Arterian weapons. Large, all adorned with purple, gold, or white
symbols, and all categorically more powerful than
the simple blaster
I had clutched in my hands.

My armor was on, and theoretically it
possessed proximity scanners, but as I switched them to full power
and scanned the room, they came up with nothing.

No Zorv bots.

Something… kindled in my gut.

A kind of fear I’d never felt before.

Not for my life, but something beyond my
life. Some kind of connection that spread through time and
space.

I suddenly clutched a hand to my chest.

That’s when a light chuckle filtered through
the air.

The hair along the back of my neck stood on
end, and my body seized with fear.

Suddenly a figure appeared sitting atop the
pile of crates in the center of the room.

She was wearing a purple and red cloak that
cut across her mouth and furled down her shoulders. Her legs were
crossed, her hands arranged neatly in her lap.

She tilted her head towards me, a few
strands of hair peeking out from under the cloak.

…
She just appeared. Right
there. She couldn’t be a hologram – she was too perfect.

Though I was aware of cloaking technology,
this—

I didn’t get the chance to finish my
thought.

The woman leapt off the crates, even
though she was a good 10 meters up.

She sailed down to the floor, and a light
blue field flickered into place around her heels, absorbing the
force of her fall.

I staggered back, blaster still clutched in
my hands.

“Move, get out of here,”
someone suddenly
whispered in my ear.

The voice was familiar. The force of its
words speaking right into my soul.

But there was no one there. Just me and this
woman.

“Get out of here,”
the voice insisted
once more.

The woman in the purple cloak walked towards
me, heavy on her hips, every move a sashay as she tucked her hair
back behind her cloak.

“I have travelled many years to find you,”
she said.

I jolted back again.

I could feel those arms around my back –
stronger than ever. They were trying to pull me away, trying to
push me through the door.

The woman continued to walk towards me,
slowly, without a single care.

“…
Who are you?” I
managed.

She tipped her head to the side, then to
the other. She brought up a hand and tapped it on her fat bottom
lip. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re here. And
this will be your final resting place.”

I didn’t need any more evidence
this woman’s intentions were
evil
.

I jerked back and brought up my gun. I
didn’t wait. Didn’t have to hear anything else.

I wasn’t one of those people who would stand
there and let their enemy prattle on while they got the upper
hand.

Not me.

I fired.

My aim was perfect, and my bullet should
have slammed into her head, ripping off a chunk of her cheek and
nose.

It didn’t.

It slammed right into another blue inertia
field.

The woman tipped her head back and
laughed. “Trust me, darling, you don’t have any weapons that could
work against me. You have no recourse. No more options,” she said
slowly as she continued to walk towards me, “All you have to do is
die, and give up that sacred connection.”