The Exiled Earthborn (39 page)

As Lucas got closer to the stairs, he noticed two slain guards tucked behind pillars, their blood just starting creep across the marble. Smoke was still rising from the charred armor, indicating they’d been killed recently.

A chime sounded from the lift bay and rang out across the room, reverberating off the stone walls of the empty hall. Ahead, the elevator doors opened and a quartet of uniformed palace guards stepped out. It was easy to decipher their allegiance once they opened fire on Lucas without saying a word.

Lucas dove behind an antique statue of an ancient king as plasma rounds whizzed by him, taking chunks out of the stone. He returned fire with his own pistol, but hit only air with his first volley.

Another chime rang out and a different lift door opened behind the troops. The rear pair of guards didn’t have time to react as Asha shredded them with a pair of submachine guns. Their two remaining comrades watched their fallen bodies bounce down the stairs, but before they could move, Lucas planted a pair of plasma rounds into each of them. Asha walked down the stairs and sprayed another clip of bullets into their bodies for good measure.
Wait, bullets?

As Asha drew closer, it was clear that she was indeed holding Earth weapons in each of her hands, though she did also have her trademark Magnum and sword. She still looked sick, but had clearly flipped a switch to not be bothered by such trivialities at the moment.

“What’s happening?” Lucas asked, trying to pull himself together. “Did you find him?”

Asha shook her head.

“The Refuge is restricted access with no override. I got as far as the archive level. That’s where I grabbed these,” she said, motioning to her weapons. “Your gun wasn’t there; I figured you had it with you.”

“What was Tulwar doing there?”

Asha shrugged.

“Attendants were dead, but data logs said he spent a good bit of time digging around in some old files. I couldn’t make much sense of it.”

“We have to get up there.” Lucas said, eyeing the lifts. The virtual controls appeared in front of him with a wave of his hand and he selected the chamber level.

“You can try, but—”

The light turn green and the lift started to rise.

“Well, that’s weird.”

Whatever restriction had been placed on the Refuge level had been lifted. The elevator recognized Lucas’s bio-ID and allowed him access to one of the most secure floors in the building. They were rocketing up to the top of the tower.

“Erik? Noah?” Lucas asked.

“With Auran. Far underground. Safe.”

Asha handed him a submachine gun. It was a relic they’d picked up at the cannibal village in Norway, but it still worked, that much was obvious. Lucas reloaded it and checked the readouts on his appropriated pistol. They came to a stop, the chime sounded, and the doors opened. There were no more floors to climb.

“Oh god,” Asha exclaimed as she stepped cautiously out into the hall, which was stained with a copious amount of blood. There were no guards here, not whole ones anyway. They were just bits of pulp and gristle with the occasional limb or shattered piece of light armor.

“We’re too late,” Lucas said in a low voice as he crept through the gore. Blood pooled into his expensive shoes.

“What the hell could have done this?” Asha asked, looking at the devastation in amazement.

Lucas knew.

There was only one door in the hallway at the very end, and it had been blown to bits. The metal was mangled into strange shapes and had been torn away from the frame completely. They stepped through the smoke and into Talis’s chambers.

Inside the vast room stood Hex Tulwar, clad in a bloodstained white suit of armor with a collar that obscured half his face. His long hair had been pulled back in a samurai-like bun, but most notably, he was aiming Natalie straight at them with his one remaining good arm.

“Shit,” said Lucas, pointing his pistol at Tulwar’s skull. Asha had her Magnum trained to the same location. Lucas had recognized the aftermath of Natalie’s close-range carnage setting immediately in the hallway. It seemed Tulwar had made a detour at the archives to arm himself with the most powerful weapon in the palace.

“Right on cue,” Tulwar said, smiling that same sickly smile that always unsettled Lucas.

“Where is she?” Lucas asked through gritted teeth.

“You mean our good Chancellor?” Tulwar said. “Right this way.”

He stepped backward and to the side, revealing a figure sitting on the floor, propped up against the bed.

It was Talis, with a pair of plasma burn marks across her torso. She’d been shot. Her jade-colored nightdress was more red than green.

“Lucas …” she whispered, pain etched on her face. She was still alive. Lucas’s gun never left Tulwar.

“What do you want, Hex?” Lucas growled.

“What do I want?” Tulwar laughed. “I want justice. Justice for my people. For my family. I know you are new to this planet, but do you know what High Chancellor Vale here did to the Rhylosi?”

Lucas nodded.

“Yes. I know she ordered the fleet to stand down at Vitalla. I know you think she’s the reason you lost so many that day. Why you lost your family.”

“But she didn’t have a choice,” Asha added. “It was either that or lose half the fleet. Sora could have fallen.”

Tulwar laughed again.

“You are blind like all the rest. If it were only that, perhaps Kyneth would have allowed me to forgive her after all these years. But Talis Vale’s sins run far deeper. I always knew in my heart, but now I have the proof.”

Lucas and Asha slowly circled around so they could see Talis fully. She was in bad shape, and blood was pooled out all around her, soaking into the ornate rug beneath her body. She clearly needed serious medical help, but Lucas couldn’t let his guard down for one second with Tulwar clutching Natalie. At this distance, one carnage blast could shred them both.

Lucas was thrown off guard when Tulwar suddenly threw a chip at him. He caught it by instinct.

“What’s this?” Lucas asked as he pressed the device with his thumb and watched a hologram spring out of it. It was mostly just a string of Soran numbers and letters.

“That is a coded transmission, one long thought deleted from the archives. But I resurrected it with some degree of technological magic.”

“A transmission of what?” Asha asked. Talis eyed the chip worriedly.

“Dates, times, and most importantly, coordinates. All the details of the Vitalla voyage.”

“And?” Lucas asked, his head cocked.

“It is a transmission sent to the Ruling Council of Xala from our very own High Chancellor Talis Vale.”

“Bullshit,” Asha said curtly, readjusting her aim on Tulwar.

“It’s true,” he said, half shrugging in his armor plating. “Ask her yourself.”

Talis was breathing heavily, painfully. She remained silent for a minute, but after a menacing glare from Tulwar, she began to speak.

“Rhylos … was worthless,” she said. “As were the R-Rhylosi. A drain on our entire planet. Their promised work on Vitalla wouldn’t have paid for a fraction of what … they’d cost us over the c-centuries.”

What was she talking about? She’d sold the Rhylosi out on purpose? The kind woman who had embraced them like her own children since their arrival here? It didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t understand. You sacrificed all those people and your own father? Why?” Lucas asked.

Talis’s face was ugly now. He’d never seen her like this. Blood crept over her bottom lip as she spat out her words like each one burned her throat.

“Varrus … was a monster. His foolish campaigns led m-my husband … my sons to the slaughter. I knew his arrogance would draw him to the ceremony on the planet. The fleet was to be spared … those were the terms.”

“It can’t be …” Lucas said slowly. He felt physically sick.

“And you just so happened to become High Chancellor yourself, how convenient,” Asha said venomously. “And your daughter, Corinthia. You put her at risk?”

“I pleaded with her not to go … she was so stubborn, like her father. But I knew Mars would keep her safe.”

“What else did you get out of it? That can’t be all.” Lucas pressed. “What did those millions of ‘worthless’ lives buy you?”

“A truce,” Talis said weakly. “A decade of peace.”

“Peace for you maybe, but that’s when our planet was getting destroyed,” Lucas said angrily.

Lucas’s head was spinning. Had Talis really orchestrated the genocide of almost an entire race, and essentially ordered the murder of her own father? It seemed beyond impossible, but here she was, confessing. It was now no wonder she’d forbidden anyone to speak of Vitalla since. Tulwar spoke next.

“That data,” he said, pointing at the chip, “has already been sent to every news outlet on the planet, which will verify its contents. I’ve also excavated some decrypted personal logs that relay the lovely back story the High Chancellor has just told you. Nothing is ever truly erased. Not really. I only needed the access to unearth it.”

Talis was in tears now. The blood flowing from her wounds wasn’t slowing, a side effect of the rifle’s specially formulated plasma.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I wanted … to be free of Rhylos, free of my father. I-I truly thought … it was the best path for Sora. Tell them that.”

Lucas didn’t know what to say; he was still in shock. Talis fell silent. Her eyes slipped shut. She was still breathing, but barely.

“Now what?” Lucas said, turning back to Hex Tulwar. “You kill us too and then die during capture?”

“Or he can die right now,” Asha said, her finger quivering over her trigger.

Lucas was stunned when Tulwar grinned and tossed Natalie at him. Lucas caught the rifle with his free arm.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. Tulwar now appeared to be completely unarmed and raised his good hand outward in a sign of submission with the other dangling uselessly at his side, a ghost of a limb inside the armor plating.

“There is one last act to the play,” Tulwar said slyly.

“I’m going to kill him,” Asha said, taking another step toward him.

“Wait,” Lucas said, holding up his hand. “What are you talking about?”

“A lovely rifle you have there. A truly one-of-a-kind weapon,” Tulwar said, nodding toward Natalie. “One that makes one-of-a-kind wounds.”

Lucas looked down at Talis. Her head was bowed and her chest was no longer rising and falling. The unending bleeding was too much. She was gone. Tulwar paid her no mind. He’d known she’d never survive those injuries.

“And it’s quite a disturbance you caused here tonight.”

Tulwar raised his hand, causing Asha to twitch and almost take his head off. Instead, a floating display of the Stream appeared in between them. A reporter spoke over security camera footage from the palace.

“We’ve just received this feed of what appears to be the Earthborn, Lucas and Asha, staging an assault on the Grand Palace.”

The footage showed Lucas disarming and beating down the two guards in the docking bay. Then it switched the Great Hall where he and Asha shredded Maston’s enlisted palace guards with gunfire.

“There’s no word on the High Chancellor’s condition, though SDI forces are en route to the palace after responding to the presumed distraction of the machines in Tatoni Square.”

This was a setup.

“There’s no way,” Lucas said. The look on Asha’s face said she understood as well. “But you’ve escaped, you’re here. There’s other footage.”

“Film that has all been cleansed. And we cannot forget your premeditation of this heinous assassination!”

Tulwar pressed a button on his white suit of armor and a different video appeared in front of them. It was a high-angle shot of their room; the timestamp showed it had been filmed earlier today.

“You’re really backing out?”

“I’ll be with you in spirit.”

It was his and Asha’s conversation about Stoller’s party. But it sounded …

“This isn’t going to be easy to do alone.”

A quick cut.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“You have to, you made a promise.”

Tulwar spoke, closing the video.

“How fortunate your lovely counterpart decided to assist you after all.”

Asha was seething.

“These are nothing but cheap tricks. We’ll show them your body, explain—”

“You will not,” Tulwar said sternly. The Stream feed reappeared and was showing pictures of Lucas and Asha with the headline E
ARTHBORN
S
TORM
P
ALACE
.

“Though I thank you for your invaluable assistance in bringing me here, and helping me escape. What are coconspirators for? They’ll never find me.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucas asked. “There’s no way out of here.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t commented on my armor here. Do you know its history?”

The pair of them remained silent.

“Of course not, you’re new here. This is plating back from the Sacred Wars. I had my men bring it in for tonight. All the elite Rhylosi warriors wore it in battle. It provided more than just protection. It brought them
honor
.”

Lucas heard the wail of alarms sounding outside.

“In the one, true faith, if a warrior’s body is not burned after he falls in battle, he does not gain entry into the Blessed Forest. Only if he enters as ash may he be reassembled in a new form, which will live forever. This suit allows such a transition.”

Tulwar pressed a button and a helmet shot up from behind his neck and encased his entire head.

“It is how I will enter the Forest tonight. After exposing and killing Sora’s wicked leader and corrupting her two false idols. My journey is complete.”

He paused, and raised his fist toward them.

“I go to my family; may you go with the gods.”

“No!” Lucas shouted as he lunged toward Tulwar. Through the visor, a furnace erupted inside the suit, and the cracks of the armor glowed. Lucas winced and yanked his burned hands from the metal. As Asha looked on in horror, Tulwar was incinerated in an instant, turned to dust in a flash fire that continued to burn as the suit crumpled to the ground. Within seconds, all of the plating had turned to ash as well, and there was nothing left but a pile of gray matter that began to absorb Talis’s blood like sawdust.