The Exiled Earthborn (44 page)

Lucas lightly kicked a downed Paragon.

“What are the numbers then?”

Alpha checked a readout. “Five Xalans killed during their capture attempt. Acceptable. Believable.”

He tapped a few more keys.

“In addition to you and Asha, we will depart with four Guardian troops, including Commander Maston.”

“And including me,” Kiati said. She was tending to a raised knot on Lucas’s head.

“Only four?” Asha asked, finally able to catch her breath. “We have a whole ship full on the
Valiance
.” She motioned toward a porthole where the SDI cruiser could be seen.

“Four could mean you were accompanied by a small escort in your escape who were also captured. More than that would draw suspicion. This infiltration is meant to be tactical, not an outright assault, which would surely fail.”

Eight of them, then. Against all of Xala. Lucas shook his head, much to Kiati’s annoyance. He looked into her stern bluish-green eyes as she sealed a cut on his forehead with gel.

“You volunteered?” he asked.

“Best case, I’m a hero,” she replied. “Worst case, I’ll see an old friend again.”

Before Lucas could respond, Maston broke through on the comm.

“Get down here now,” he said. “There’s something you need to see.”

“Holy shit,” Lucas said as he looked down at the creature lying on the floor of the CIC. He was wearing light plated armor and clutched a fearsome-looking pistol. His skin was as black as the void of space outside.

“I should have anticipated they would send a Shadow,” Alpha mused. “They likely wanted to leave nothing to chance.”

Asha pulled out her Magnum and stood over him, pointing the barrel at its exposed head.

“We can’t take any chances with this thing,” she said.

A panicked Alpha rushed forward and swatted her pistol sideways with his metal claw. She glared at him.

“You cannot. I already relayed the casualty count back to Xala.”

He tapped a few controls at the nearby holotable.

“In addition, this ship bears his signature. He is the operator. If we kill him now, they will know that somehow a Shadow captain has died despite the prisoners being allegedly secured and unconscious on a ship full of Paragons. They will not believe such a thing is possible without foul play involved. We must secure him like the others.”

Maston looked at Alpha.

“I hate to say it, but he’s right.”

Asha reluctantly lowered her weapon.

“You’re sure you can keep this thing chained up and out cold for our entire flight? What if sleeping beauty wakes up because you don’t know the proper gas dosage to keep him under?”

“We have little choice in the matter, but I will monitor his state at all times to ensure he does not regain consciousness.”

“Someone help me with this damn thing,” Maston said as he bent over the creature. Lucas did the same and two soldiers raised his legs on the other end. It must have weighed four hundred pounds, and Lucas was the only one not wearing strength enhancing power armor. Looking down, Lucas was a bit unnerved to see its pupils moving back and forth under its eyelids. What
did
Shadows dream about?

This was it, then: one final voyage toward nearly certain death. The
Valiance
had departed, its crew with it. Only the eight of them remained to roam around the cramped Xalan interceptor as they prepared for what lay ahead.

Lucas sat on an ammo box in the armory as he cleaned Natalie for the twentieth time. In addition to every Xalan weapon they had here, the
Valiance
had loaded them up with everything they needed to infiltrate Xalan central command. More guns than they could carry. A stealth suit and a spare for each of them. Odd devices that Lucas hadn’t covered during his Guardian training.

Across from him, the two lucky souls other than Kiati and Maston who had joined their assault team sat shifting through their potential loadouts. There were still weeks to go until they reached Xala, but they’d likely spend every day preparing.

One of them was named Reyes, a young, brown-skinned woman with her right temple shaved to the scalp and voluminous black curls everywhere else. She was a custom-engineered tactical assassin who had been flown in specially for the mission. She boasted about targets she’d killed across Sora and in deep space. One time, she claimed, she put down the entire crew of a Xalan scouting vessel before they even knew she was onboard. After that, they started calling her “Whisper.”

The other was a lanky bald man named Kovaks. He looked far skinnier than most male Guardians, but he was recruited for his infiltration prowess. He’d been a master thief before he was caught and forcibly enlisted in the SDI, where they taught him to kill instead of steal. He was one of the few Guardians who wasn’t tank-bred. Additionally, he also had been one of the few to make it back from the Makari mission alive. If there was a dead Xalan in a dark corner during the spaceport assault, chances are he was responsible, he’d told Lucas.

Kovaks and Reyes were quite competitive when it came to recounting their past kills. It was soon revealed that both had lost family in the war: Kovaks a brother, Reyes her parents. Both had happily leapt at the opportunity to join the mission when they realized its significance.

Lucas finished his maintenance on Natalie and headed down a level to go back to his quarters. He heard footsteps from down the hall and decided to investigate.

He made his way to the sleeping deck where the bodies of fifty-odd Xalans lay on ice. Maston was staring at one pod in particular. As Lucas approached, he knew which one.

“Staring death in the face?” Lucas asked. Maston was peering at the unconscious Shadow, secured and asleep behind the glass.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Maston said. “The last time I was this close to one of these, it nearly killed me.”

“Same here,” Lucas said. “We’re in a very small club.”

Lucas looked up and down the rows of pods.

“I wanted to shut off their oxygen until they were brain dead,” Maston said. “That way we wouldn’t have to worry about them at all.”

“Can’t we?” Lucas asked.

“Alpha says these pods wouldn’t be enough to keep them alive after that. They need specialized tanks or something,” Maston replied. He pressed his fingers to the glass.

“What would it be like, to have that much power?” he asked, gazing at the Shadow within.

“I don’t know,” Lucas answered. “But my guess would be terrifying. I wouldn’t want to be something that was specifically bred to be a killing machine, would you?”

Maston laughed.

“Oh, I don’t know, most Guardians are pretty well adjusted.”

Lucas shook his head.

“They’re not like this. Not like these things. I think you’d have to trade your soul to wield that much power.”

“But to fight for your home, to defend those you love, wouldn’t you make such a bargain?” Maston asked.

Lucas thought about it for a minute.

“I suppose I might,” he answered truthfully. The Shadow’s eyes were still moving underneath his lids. Lucas suddenly felt a sharp migraine coming on and took a step back.

“I’ll be down the hall,” Lucas said. “This place is eerie.”

Maston didn’t say a word, and Lucas left him staring into the pod.

Their eventual destination had Lucas uneasy already, but soon it became clear there was no solace in sleep either. Bad dreams were nothing new to Lucas; he’d endured more than his fair share since Earth. But these were something … else.

They went beyond nightmares to pure, unadulterated terrors that had Lucas waking up in a cold sweat screaming some nights. Sometimes many times a night.

These weren’t flashbulb memories or strange dreams open to interpretation. They were simply terrifying, through and through. There was one that had Lucas strapped to a table being dissected by Alpha wearing bloodstained surgical gear. Looking down, he could see his internal organs convulsing, and each new slice brought a surge of pain that he could truly feel, despite his unconscious state.

Another night, he was simply made to sit and watch as Paragon troopers stormed into his house on the outskirts of Portland. There, they methodically tore his former wife and son, Sonya and Nathan, limb from limb before setting the entire place ablaze. Lucas was paralyzed as the fire consumed him, and he felt every square inch of his flesh burn.

This night was different. He was back in the palace on Sora, roaming the empty hallways that were normally bustling with people. With each new turn, he found himself staring at an identical corridor, and he had no idea where he was actually going. But there was no pain, no savage Xalans nearby. What was going on?

Lucas made one final turn and found himself in a hallway painted with blood. It was the exact scene he’d found before entering Talis Vale’s quarters the night of Tulwar’s escape. There were corpses on the ground, and Lucas’s eyes widened when he bent down to see who they were.

Corinthia Vale lay sliced open from sternum to hip bone. Silo was next to her, missing his entire lower half. Kiati’s body was nearby, with her head a few feet further away. Tannon was sprawled out with his throat cut, draped over Talis, who was riddled with gunshots. Malorius Auran rested next to her, gored by stab wounds, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Lucas kept walking, splashing through the blood, which pooled like rain puddles. Again, as it had that night, the door lay mangled and torn off its hinges. When he stepped over it to enter the room, a jolt of shock surged through his spine as he found two more victims. Little Noah lay on the ground clutching Erik. Neither were bloodied, but both had turned a grotesque shade of blue. Lucas dropped to his knees in tears. He couldn’t revive them, and they lay there like marble statues, looks of frozen terror etched on their faces.

Up ahead, the frame of Talis’s bed was shaking. Lucas crawled forward past the small corpses and slowly got to his feet. There between the four pillars were Asha and Maston, stripped naked and very much alive. Lucas’s mouth fell open as he watched the two writhe around, muscles straining, breathing shallow, not paying him any attention at all. Both were soaked in blood, as were the sheets below them, but Lucas knew it wasn’t their own. Around them were discarded weapons. Swords, pistols, rifles, knives.

Blind with rage, Lucas picked up a nearby combat knife from the edge of the bed and launched himself at the two of them. He shoved Asha off of Maston and jammed the blade into his throat. Yanking it out, he turned toward Asha, who knocked the knife away. Lucas was too angry to care. Immediately he wrapped his hands around Asha’s throat and threw her down onto the bed. He squeezed as hard as he was able; the blood on her bare skin made her slippery.

“Why?” he yelled. “Why?”

Despite being choked, Asha merely smiled as he shook her. Maston had blood spurting out of his neck next to them, but was somehow laughing maniacally.

“Why?” Lucas cried. Asha’s smile only widened.

Lucas felt a crack on the side of his head. Pain shot through his temple and ricocheted around his skull.

He woke up on the ship.

Asha was glaring at him, breathing heavily. She rubbed her neck and even in the dark, Lucas could see there were angry red marks on her skin in the shape of fingers.

“Wha—” he began. “I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what?” Asha yelled. “Try to murder me in my sleep?”

She hit him hard in the face, which rocketed Lucas’s head back and made him see stars. It was clear he deserved it. He tried to explain as he wiped away the blood trickling from his nose.

“I had a nightmare. It was—”

But she had already stormed out of the room, dragging most of the bedding with her.

When “morning” finally came, as indicated by the clocks, not the light outside, Lucas marched down to Alpha’s quarters. The creature answered the door, looking irritated.

“Something’s going on here,” Lucas said flatly.

“What are you referring to?” Alpha said as he rubbed his head. Lucas could see red veins threading through his normally pitch-black eyes.

“I’ve been having nightmares. Truly messed-up shit. Dreams so visceral I can feel the pain in them. Tonight, I woke up trying to strangle Asha.”

Alpha’s reddened eyes widened.

“I have had similar terrors plaguing me. I thought I was alone in my torment. This … This is not a natural occurrence. It cannot be.”

Alpha turned to walk back inside his quarters. It was a server room full of circuitry and holograms that sprang to life as he walked by. In a corner was a nest of blankets that was clearly his bed. Lucas half expected to find Zeta inside, but Alpha was too much of a gentleman, he supposed.

“Are you sure it’s not just the stress of this suicide mission?”

Alpha shook his head. He flipped through a few screens on a nearby control cluster.

“I do not believe so. The images are so searing they feel purposefully planted.”

“What have you seen?” Lucas asked.

“Many things,” Alpha said, and Lucas thought he saw him shiver a bit. “I saw my family slaughtered before my eyes. I watched Zeta butchered by the Desecrator. I—”

He paused, and turned to look at Lucas.

“Tonight, I was dragged through the streets of Elyria, bound for execution in the central square. It was … you and Asha who carried out the sentence. I felt the rounds enter my chest as if it were actually taking place.”

“Why would we both be having screwed up dreams like these?” Lucas asked.

Alpha had pulled up a view of the sleeping pod area on a floating monitor. He zoomed in on the figure.

“I suspect we are transporting a Chosen Shadow.”

A few hours later, Alpha had the skeleton crew assembled in the CIC. From the rough-looking faces in the group, it was clear few had been getting much of any sleep as of late. Further investigation revealed all onboard had been plagued with the same sorts of horrifying visions. But as everyone else slept alone, no one had attempted to kill their bunkmate.

Asha had finally started speaking to Lucas again, but just barely. She still wore a permanent glare when looking in his direction.