Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (33 page)

“Given
the mix of biological and energy readings I’m getting off of those things,”
Piter said nodding toward the Charon that Growd had set aside “It may be
possible they are some sort of memory storage device. I have no idea how, but
it
is
possible.”

“Then why
can’t you or I see or access them?” Growd retorted. “And don’t tell me you need
to get back to a lab to find out. There has to be some reason why nowhere-boy
here can experience them but nobody else can.”

Nowhere
boy. His words hung heavy in the air. I think I preferred being referred to as
Twig and Berries.

I felt
Dex’s grip slacken.

Taro’s
Charon was just two feet away, I thought. I would only need seconds to draw out
his memories of the Draugari.

“So tell
me now, where did you come from?” Growd pressed. “Who are you?”

Growd hit
me again across the face. Harder this time. Blood began running from my nose. I
allowed myself to slump back. Dex shifted his feet and adjusted his grip to
hold me up rather than restrain me.

I glanced
over at Piter. She was a historian. She would know the legends. She may have
put it together. If she knew, her dark eyes didn’t betray it. She just stood
there, watching me with cold, dispassionate eyes.

“Someone’s
coming,” Lars called. “The passageway, they’re running in.”

Growd,
Dex, and Piter turned their attention to the hall. I knew it was the only
opportunity I would have, so I set my feet and jabbed my elbow backward,
knocking Dex backwards and off balance. Then, with a desperate lunge, I leapt
forward and grabbed Taro’s Charon and called on it to show me the memory I sought.

I was
back on the ship’s command deck. I was older now, and stood in front of the
Captain’s seat. I bowed gravely. As I rose, I saw four Draugari warriors in
front of me. A dozen Thar’esh stood around the room, quiet and solemn. I
stepped forward and stood face to face with the leader of the Draugari. His
armor was simple and not nearly as advanced as Lor’ten’s had been, on his belt
was a gun, but no blade.

“Why
did you call us here?” the Draugari said in a low growl.

“We
will give you the technology you need to feed and protect your people,” I spoke
evenly in the Draugari tongue. “We will show you how to make powerful ships,
and navigate deeper into space than you have ever been before.”

“You
will give us ships like yours? Ships like this one?”

“Yes,
this very ship,” I responded. “But this is more than just a ship, it is also a
factory. We have fighter craft, small, agile, and powerful. We will not just
give you this ship. We will show you how use it to build starfighters by the
dozen, even the hundred. We will show you how to survive.”

As I
spoke, a holographic display activated and the image of an asymmetrical fighter
craft hovered in the air between us.

The
Draugari studied the image, nodding his head in approval, “A powerful gift,
what do you demand in exchange?”

“Your
silence,” I said. “Your silence, and your protection. Like you were once, we
are a hunted people, and there are few of us left. Far, far too few. We are
traveling to a world.”

The
display changed to a star map, a bright blue light isolated a single system.

“We
mean to live there, quietly, where our enemies will not find us.”

“You
have power and ships such as this,” the Draugari said, gesturing his arms
around the room. “You do not need to hide.”

“We do
not need to,” I answered. “But we choose to.”

“Why?”

“Our
reasons are ours,” I answered. “Perhaps your people will one day follow in our
footsteps, but not today I think. Your species is young. Impossibly young. Do
you accept?”

“We
accept,” he replied without hesitation. “Your secret will be kept, and your
world will be protected by me and my kin, I swear it.”

With
that, the Draugari reached for the pistol on his hip. I felt Taro’s heart
quicken for a moment before the Draugari reached out and offered the gun to me.
He explained: “When my people make an oath, the two leaders exchange that which
is most dear to them: their weapons. This pistol has been passed down from
chieftain to chieftain for four hundred years. It has slain foes beyond number.
Take it as a symbol of my trust.”

I
looked down at the gun. It was primitive, but the gesture was not.

“This
blade was forged on my home world, far, far away. It has been carried by my
predecessors for generations beyond counting.” I said as I reached down to my
belt and withdrew my dagger.

The
Draugari eyes widened as the golden inlay flashed in the lights.

“It is
the weapon of a warrior,” I said solemnly. “I have no more use of it.”

The
Draugari bowed as he took my blade. He began to turn away when I stopped him.

“And
take this as well,” I pulled a pure-white stone from its place on my belt.
“This is the bladestone. My people use to forge and sharpen our blades to keep
them honed to kill.”

“I
know stone like this,” the Draugari took it and turned it over in his hand. “I
will carry them as symbols of honor.”

The
memory was ripped from me as my body was pummeled to the ground, I gasped,
trying to breathe as Dex’s knee pressed against my chest. It fit. My head spun
with the revelation. It all fit together. As I struggled to regain my sense of
self, I opened my eyes to see what was left of Taro’s Charon lying a few feet
away, shattered. The memories gone forever. I heard faint voices rising up in
the air as the whisper of his memories dissolved into nothing.

“What did
you say?” Growd’s howling voice cut through the haze. I turned my head to see
that, this time, he wasn’t looking at me.

“Sir, I
said the escorts pulled off,” the copilot said breathlessly, still panting from
the run down to the chamber. “They said the Draugari are defeated, and the
Skins were approaching the planet, and that they were ordered to leave us here
and return to defend the colony.”

“I didn’t
order that!” Growd’s face was red with fury. “The fools have left us
defenseless!”

“I
reiterated your command,” the co-pilot responded. “They said that they took
their orders from Commander Teigan, sir. And that Teigan called them back to
defend the colonists.”

Growd’s
face reddened even further.

“The
escorts are gone?” Lars broke in. “The Skins will find us, we’ll be dust! We
need to get out of here!”

“Don’t
panic,” Growd snapped. “Piter, it looks like we will do it your way. All of
you, empty your packs, grab as many of the artifacts as you can, we will take
them back with us and get to a lab. Now!”

Piter
didn’t need any more urging. She immediately turned her bag upside down,
sending an assortment of electronic devices clattering to the ground. She took
off her sweatshirt and began grabbing Charons, using the sweatshirt to securely
pack them in.

“Dex, let
him up and grab as many as you can carry,” Growd instruction as he drew his
pistol and leveled it at me. “You. Keep your hands behind your head and start
walking, you’re not touching a thing. I don’t know how you were able to do
that, and I really don’t care. You may be unusual, but you cannot be the only
one who can access those things. Someone, somewhere, or some piece of equipment
will be able to read and decode the data, and I will find it.”

“Then why
not kill me?”

“Leverage,”
Growd sneered as he picked Filian’s Charon off the ground. “I may still need a
gun to your head to get Lee and his bitch daughter to cooperate.”

“So he
didn’t just abdicate his position as Governor to you after all?”

Growd
scoffed in reply as he turned to the co-pilot, “Once we are onboard the
shuttle, fill this cave with plasma drones. Wipe it off the face of the world.”

“Yes,
sir.”

My heart
sank.

Piter
glanced over at me, and then reached down to retrieve her camera. She held it
up, and snapped two more pictures. One of the great stone in the center of the
chamber, and another at the ceiling. She slipped the camera into her pocket and
gave me a curt nod before turning to leave.

With
Growd’s gun to my back, we left the chamber and began walking back up the
passage at an urgent pace. Piter and Dex were in front of me, I could see her
backpack was bulging with Charons and she held two in each hand. Likewise, I
saw Dex had several jammed into the pockets of his cargo-pants as he held two
in his left hand, and the flashlight in his right.  Behind me, I knew, Lars,
the co-pilot, and Growd were all carrying more.

I eyed
the Charons they carried. What else was locked away inside? They would be more
than just stories, I knew. The technology would also be there somewhere, buried
in the recesses of those minds. They would tell the story of how the Thar’esh
knew the Draugari, they may even contain the knowledge of where the Draugari
came from. All of their memories of dozens of lives were locked within those
containers. Not just their memories, but all of the minds of those they killed,
all of the minds and memories that that they took. The thought made me shiver.
While in Filian’s Charon, I had seen into the mind of the slaver alien she had
killed. Cold and reptilian. She had taken it all in a brief moment. All of his
knowledge, his skills, his life and history, all of it was there.

It wasn’t
just the knowledge of the Thar’esh: it was also the collected knowledge of
every being they had come in contact with, every alien they had fought and
killed.

Though
Growd did not understand what he had, I knew that he was right: Though it may
take years, MineWorks would find a way to access the memories and swim in the
vastness of the knowledge. My teacher’s voice once again echoed in my head,
and, finally I understood his lessons. Walking in my second life, with a gun to
my head and surrounded by the last remaining whispers of a great and powerful
race, I learned the lesson that the elders had tried to teach me in those weeks
I’d spent lying as my leg mended and I was stuck watching my wife toil in the
field: the Celestrials had brought us—them—the Thar’esh—to the brink of
extinction at Vasudeva because the Thar’esh had stolen on the knowledge of
others and taken the short path to power. They lived by fear, and taken power
wherever they could. As a result, their unearned might had corrupted them, and
others had paid the price. What had it cost? Tens of thousands of Thar’esh, and
billions of Celestrials—gone in an instant.

I looked
greedily at the Charons that the others were carrying, I thirsted for the
knowledge, the truth, the history, the power. But as we neared the light at the
end of the passage, I fought back my hunger. And as I did, I could feel my
teacher’s presence next to me, and felt the strength of Lor’ten’s cold
discipline. The Charons held the keys to power. Too much power. The knowledge
had destroyed the Thar’esh, as surely it would destroy humanity.
One cannot
wield strength that one did not earn
. The words echoed through my mind. Was
that something my teacher had said? Or was it Lor’ten’s master? Did it make a
difference?

I am not
a schizophrenic collage of minds, I told myself. I am the sum of my parts. I am
Thar’esh, I am Draugari, and I am human. The Charons contained centuries of
knowledge, untapped technologies, and the keys to countless secrets lying
hidden in the depth of the black. Though I wanted them, hungered for them, the
memories were not mine to take. Likewise, they were not humanity’s to devour.
Alume was right. Some books needed to be burned.

As I
stepped back into the light and was ushered onto the shuttle with a laser
pistol to my back, I knew what must be done.

Chapter 34.

“We should have stayed with the Slires instead of going down
to grab those two surface rats!” Tren howled.

“The two fighters are coming in,” Kel called as he fired the
thrusters.

“Gain altitude, get into orbit,” I ordered as I tracked the
lead ship. “Our weapon guidance systems can’t compensate for the gravity.”

“You mean
you
can't!” Tren growled as he rerouted our shields to the
rear to meet the coming assault.

“I see no sign of our Slires,” Jen’tek noted. “The Skins must
have destroyed them.”

“I knew the chieftain should have given us more than
inexperienced children as escorts,” I growled.

“Or maybe given us a leader with half a brain in his head!”
Tren countered.

I would have to face his challenges this time. A leader does
not allow such insolence. But first, we had to survive.

The ship shook as the Celestrials came into range. As they
strafed around, I adjusted the missile guidance. We were high enough now for
them to track, or so I hoped. I locked on and fired. The Skin saw it coming,
engaged his engines, and dove into a spiral, using the planet’s gravitational
pull to outrun the missile. Twenty, thirty seconds passed. The missile was
closing, but not fast enough. I watched with clenched fists. I knew his plan:
he would soon pull up and bank sharply, a maneuver that the missile could not
duplicate. The warhead would fall uselessly to the surface.

Unless-

I entered the override code for the missile and waited. I
waited until I saw him begin to bank upward. The instant he did, I
self-destructed the missile. At range, the ordinance was not nearly powerful
enough to damage the ship directly, but the shockwave had enough force to send
the already diving fighter hopelessly into a tailspin toward the planet.

I watched, satisfied, as the Celestrial ship lost control,
and tumbled end-over-end down to the surface of the world.

At last Tren was silent.

I turned my attention to my last remaining enemy.

The return flight to the Downs was short, but tense. As soon
as we boarded the shuttle, Growd turned me over to his guards and shoved me
into the back of the cabin while he and the others furtively discussed their
plans in hushed tones. Aside from Piter, who occasionally glanced my way as she
cataloged and stored the Charons into secure storage crates, nobody but the
mouth-breathing guard who was keeping his pistol leveled at my chest paid
attention to me.

As we lifted off, I wa
tched
out the narrow viewport as the plasma drones exploded, burning out what was
left in the chamber and melting the carvings into slag. All that was left of
the Thar’esh was here in the shuttle. I wiped dried blood from my face and let
myself sit back into the comfort of the luxury padded seat as I tried to come
up with some way to escape, or at least crash the shuttle: destroying myself
and the Charons with me. But without my blade, or without help, I couldn’t see
any way to manage it. And still, even if I could, Piter and others on-board
were innocent. There had to be another way. So, as we returned to the Downs, I
watched for an opportunity that never presented itself. 

As we set
down on the landing pad my spirits sank further. On the ground I would be
surrounded by Growd’s thugs with the shadow of the Collegiate’s fleet coming in
from above. There would be no escape.

I can at
least take comfort in knowing that the Charons die with me, I thought. Alume
would see to that. Though everyone would die. The colonists, Lee, Ju-lin. My
stomach sunk under the shadow of hopelessness as the shuttle’s doors opened and
the afternoon light flooded the cabin.

With his
gun at the ready, Lars and the mouth-breather ordered me down the ramp as they
followed close behind. Maybe it was my eyes adjusting to the brightness as I
stepped out into the sun, but I didn’t realize that anything was wrong until I
was about twenty paces from the shuttle. The air was still, the colony was
quiet. From what I had overheard on the ship, the Celestrials were regrouping
and due to break atmo within the hour. It was the calm before the storm, but
still, it was too calm. 

I felt
the shots before I heard them. It was a sudden burst of scorching heat just to
my left. I turned and looked over my shoulder to see Lars crumpling to the
ground, his chest smoldering. A second shot came from somewhere low on the
ground, near one of the storage containers to my left, it would have burnt down
the mouth-breather where he stood had he been a half-second slower. The shots
went wide as he sprinted for cover.

Behind
me, back in the shuttle, I heard Growd shout, and the heard the blaze of return
fire. I turned my head and squinted to see that the storage container where the
first shots had come from was now scarred and black from Growd’s men returning
fire.

“Eli! Hit
the ground!” I heard a man’s voice, deep and familiar.

I obeyed
without a second thought, and as soon as I did, all hell broke loose.

The
landing pad was hot with laser fire and the air popped with the forceful bite
of conventional weapons as Growd and his MineWorks crew exchanged fire with
their invisible assailants. There were more shouts to my right. I raised my
head to see about a dozen armed men spilling out of the command center, joining
the fight to protect Growd and his men, who were seeking cover inside the
shuttle and behind several nearby shipping crates.

The
MineWorks security team never knew what hit them. As soon as they were in the
open, bullets and lasers rained down from all directions. Four dropped in the
first salvo and the rest broke for cover and began to haphazardly return fire.
The assailants had the element of surprise, but the MineWorks forces were well
trained. They quickly regrouped to counterattack with deadly accuracy.

I was
lying prone in the dust with the battle raging above me for several minutes
before, at last, the exchange of fire began to wane.

“Growd!”
a deep voice bellowed from somewhere unseen. “Growd! Answer me coward!”

“Is this
what it comes to, Lee?” Growd boomed back from behind the crate where he was
crouched for cover. “Attacking your own kind so we are all forced to all sit
here as the Skins close in for the kill? All of our blood on your hands!”

“You wanna
talk blood?” Lee retorted. “What did you do to the fighters? Have a kill switch
installed? Reactivate the fighters so that Teigan and his men can get up
there!”

“Commander
Teigan was in breach of contract,” Growd’s voice cracked as he called back. “He
is paid to do as I say. He undermined my orders, so I disabled his ships. It’s
perfectly legal.”

Grounded
the fighters? I looked around and saw a long row of tail fins in the distance.
The Falcons were still on the ground. We were defenseless. Growd was going to
let the Celestrials do his dirty work by leaving us to die. To Growd, I
realized, the colony was just a loose end.

“Legal?!”
Lee’s voice was thick with rage. “You want to leave 8,000 people down here to
die?”

“The
risks of colonization,” Growd responded. “It’s not my preference, believe me.
But, as you can see, we have a limited number of vessels. There is no way to
evacuate the entire planet.”

“So allow
me and my men to defend it!” Teigan’s voice echoed across the airfield.

“Ah, now
Commander Teigan,” Growd replied. “Now you have to choose. There are what? Well
over 100 Celestrial ships closing in? What do you expect to achieve by going up
against them outnumbered almost 10-1?”

“Ten to
one my ass!” Another voice broke in. “The
Tons
counts for at least
twelve herself!”

I smiled,
relieved. Loid was here, and he was alive.

“Teigan,”
Growd continued. “You owe your men more than a glorious and pointless death.
Come with me, escort my shuttle clear. The Skins aren’t here for us. They want
this world. Let them have it.”

“And
leave the colonists to burn?” Teigan scoffed back.

“That’s
life on the frontier,” Growd snapped back. “This is your last chance Teigan.
Drop your arms, and come with us, or I will have no choice.”

“No
choice but to what?” Lee called back.

Growd
slowly stood up and stepped around the crate where he had been crouching,
stepping clearly into the open.

“Or
what?” Growd responded. “Why not shoot me now, Lee McCullough? If you shoot me
the activation codes to re-initialize those Falcons are lost, aren’t they?”

His words
were met with silence.

“Ah,
yes,” Growd continued. “Now you understand. The Celestrials, no doubt, have
located your fighters and are at this moment homing in on this position. So I
will tell you what I will do: my people and I are going to board my shuttle,
unharmed. We are going to lift off, unharmed. Once we are clear, I will
transmit the unlock signal so you can re-initialize the Falcons and make what
fight of it you can.”

“What
bullshit! He won’t send the signal, we don’t have to listen to this!” I heard
Ju-lin seethe. “Can’t we just beat it out of him?”

“Lin,
quiet,” Lee said.

“Yes,
little girl,” Growd spat back. “Listen to daddy.”

“I say
trust him,” it was another voice, Loid’s. I turned to see him stepping out from
around the edge of a building not far from where I was laying, pistols in their
holsters. His left jaw was bruised and swollen and he was walking with a limp.
“What do we have to lose? If we stay here with our guns pointed at each other,
the Skins will disintegrate us. If we start shooting, most of us will die, and
then
the Celestrials bombs will disintegrate us. If we take him at his word we at
least have a chance.”

“You
can’t be serious?” Ju-lin howled again. “After everything he did to you, you
want to
trust him
?”

“Do the
math Twiggy,” Loid responded flippantly. As he turned and caught my eye I
thought I saw him wink.

Again
there was silence.

“Lee, you
have no choice, and you know it,” Growd holstered his own weapon and turned
toward the MineWorks security forces. “Load up, now, we’re leaving. I will transmit
the signal once we are a safe distance; you have my word of honor.”

Lee and
the others remained silent as Growd and his people shuffled into the shuttle.
Within a minute the door was sealed and the engines began to whirl. Only then
did the colonists and Teigan’s pilots emerge from their cover. I caught sight
of Lee and Ju-lin on the far side of the field walking towards us. Lee’s
shoulder was still bound in a sling, but he held a rifle in his good hand and
was standing straight and walking with purpose. Ju-lin was on his left.

“Ho there
Eli,” Loid greeted me jovially as he approached, he offered his hand to help me
up, but I ignored it, pulling myself roughly to my feet.

“He won’t
send the signal, he’d just as soon have us all dead so he won’t have anyone to
answer to. And now he has the, well, he has what he was looking for.”

“He has
it all there in the shuttle?” Loid’s eyes widened fractionally. “So you ignored
my advice yet again, and led him to the spot? Can’t say I wouldn’t have done
the same thing. What did you find?”

“Truth
and power,” I replied bitterly as I watched the shuttle rise off the ground. 
“He now holds a millennia of history, and secrets that were supposed to remain
hidden. And we’re about to be, how did you say it, disintegrated?”

“Oh,
yeah. About that,” Loid’s grin returned as he smacked me on the back. “Lee!
Where are you? Get your best mechanics together and have them bring about forty
feet of fiber cabling, quick. Teigan, have your men wheel one of your fighters
over near the
Tons
.”

“What are
you playing at?” Lee barked back as he and Ju-lin approached. “You’ve left us
stranded, and now that bastard is going to get away!”

“Survive
when you must, and take vengeance when you can. Vengeance can wait.” Loid
turned aside to me. “I like that, I think that will be rule fifteen. Now, perk
up, I need your help. Go run ahead and get
Tons’
computer systems fired
up and pray this works. I need to take a look at one of those Falcons and see
if I can actually pull this off. I’ll explain when I get there.”

My eyes
met Ju-lin’s briefly before I left. For once, I noticed, she wasn’t questioning
Loid, but instead had a wistful smile as she walked next to her father. Now
that he was closer, I could see that Lee’s face looked gaunt.

“Quit
gawking at the lady and get your ass moving,” Loid shot over his shoulder to me
as he threw his arms in the air, muttering to himself. “Seriously, he leaves me
to be tortured for
days
and I have to explain myself, but he leaves her
for an hour and acts like it’s been years. Pathetic Eli, just pathetic.”

I had
just gotten the
Tons’
computer systems online when Loid came in,
followed by Jager and Boils, my old bunkmates.