Void Star (8 page)

     Daphkalian nodded a few times and pointed toward the dock where they were parked. As he continued to speak, he kept checking around himself to make sure he wasn't being watched. Finally, the dark figure nodded back, and then the two parted ways.

     Instead of seeing where Daph went next, Trevor followed the cloaked figure.

     "We need to return to the ship," Boost warned.

     "Shut up, stupid. C'mon." Trevor hid in the crowd as Daphkalian lumbered by. As soon as he was gone, he jetted through the busy plaza to where he'd last seen the dark figure. The alley was thick with activity.   At the end, the dark figure turned.

     Trevor barreled down a separate street to head the figure off. He pushed on, not thinking of what he would do should he catch up to confront this mysterious person.

     What if he's armed?
he thought.
Well, I'm armed too
. Even though he didn't know how to use the sword, it was still a weapon.

     When he hit another cross street, he stopped. Boost rolled into his leg painfully and backed up. Trev fought the urge to disassemble the robot and peered around the corner. He saw the dark figure had stopped and was speaking with two others.

     Trevor ignored their dingy confines and smells of refuse in the cramped alley, closed his eyes and listened.

     With a thick Ruveran accent, one spoke to the others. "What the crews of
Breaker VI
and
IX
are searching for is right here, docked at station thirty-one. Get as many soldiers as you can right now and meet me there."

     The others didn't say a word, but Trevor imagined they agreed to his order.

     When Trev heard them coming his way, he pulled his cloak over his head and began walking in the other direction as nonchalantly as possible. Apparently, with their eye on the prize, they didn't take notice. Two of them walked hastily past him.

     Trevor realized the missing one was going to the ship to stop them from taking off while backup arrived. The crazy thought left in his head was that he either had to stop him from getting there or beat him to it. He took a deep breath and ran.  Boost rolled after him.

-o-

     The refueling crew finished up and drove away. Nathan was outside the ship, doing a final walkaround check to make sure all panels were closed and the pad was clear of debris. There were some new battle scars from their escape, but nothing too serious. He had found the transmitter they had pinned to them that had disabled their force drive. It had taken him a few minutes to take it apart and create an antidisrupter from it. They wouldn't be able to get away with that trick again.

     After he felt comfortable with his check, he walked back up the cargo ramp. His cargo hold was surprisingly empty at the moment, more than it usually was.

     The compartment itself was two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. Its track record was pretty solid, even though there were moments when the antigravity kicked off. They were currently in a slick-floor configuration, but could easily flip rollers for palletized cargo. The rails they used could hug any size or type of pallet. The only thing on the floor was Kaida's equipment, which was tied down with straps, and Nathan's off-road vehicle, the CTV-44 Hammerhead, which was tied down with chains.

     He thought about making sure the battery still worked on his vehicle when he sensed someone coming up behind him.

     "Daphkalian. There you are," Nathan said.

     The large man just shrugged his reply. "Where's Kaida?" he asked.

     "She's helping me with something, probably sitting at the table I left her at."

     "Good." Daphkalian produced a light assault pistol from the back of his pants. The barrel was leveled at Nathan's face.

     "Whoa, easy." Nathan had his hands open to show he was unarmed.

     "Put these on." Daph chucked wrist bindings at Nathan's feet.

     "That's the plan? With me bound, you go in there and steal the data pad unhindered?" Nathan asked.

     "Just do it," Daph snarled.

     Why doesn’t he just shoot me?
  Nathan grabbed up the bindings slowly. "Did you ever think what would happen to you after you lost your use? Ruverans can't be trusted."

     "Shut up, old man. I read the alien's notes. I know what he told you. Even though most of it is completely ridiculous, I know an opportunity to get rich when I see one. They are paying me handsomely."

     "I'm sure they will." Nathan clicked the bindings closed, and they turned red, indicating they were closed and locked.

     Metallic footsteps rang out as Kaida walked into the cargo hold. Her eyes were down on the pad, and her brow was furrowed in thought.

     "That makes this easier," Daph said quietly, facing toward her.

     Kaida looked up and saw the situation as it appeared. Nathan was in handcuffs with Daphkalian pointing a gun at him. The gun slowly turned on her.

     "I'm going to need that." Daphkalian smiled.

     Kaida's eyes went to the pad in her hand and then back to the gun. "I don't understand what's going on here."

     "I don't have time for this." Daph approached her. As he reached out to grab the pad away, he felt a quick, sharp pain in the nape of his neck. Then he fell and saw nothing as he crumpled unconscious to the floor.

     Nathan dropped the heavy bindings on the floor and clapped his hands free of dust.

     Kaida's mouth had dropped open. She played the quick scene over again to make sure she understood. One second, Daph was coming for her, towering as he did. Nathan was in bindings off to the side, and then he was right behind him as the giant fell forward, having dealt some powerful blow.

     "How did you…?"

     "They teach that on the first day of the academy."

     Another sound broke through the hollow cargo bay. Nathan turned around and saw his nephew bounding up the ramp, Boost rolling up right behind him.

     "We…we've been…" Trevor struggled for oxygen.

     "Betrayed? We know," Nathan finished. "More on the way?"

     Trevor nodded vigorously.

     Nathan surveyed the situation and prioritized. "I'll put this one in the cell." He was looking at Daph. "Boost, get the engines going. Trevor, take care of that Ruveran running across the tarmac. Ms. Elwin…" He paused for a moment as he lost his train of thought. Her smell had reached his nose. "Please find your seat."

     The group broke off into their respective duties.

     Nathan dragged Daphkalian off to the holding cell as Boost rolled off toward the cockpit.

     That left Trevor watching the dark-cloaked figure he'd been racing against. The figure had a large blaster rifle in his arms, and he fired on their craft.  The shots were insanely close to the mark for someone so far away.

     Trevor dialed into the cargo hold control panel. He rerouted a few systems here and there, directed the anti-grav toward the back, and then hit the activate button.

     The encroaching enemy was struck by the invisible force and went flying backward. His gun continued fifty yards farther.

     "Good-bye." Trevor flicked the switches back to normal mode and closed the ramp. The light went green as soon as the ship's door was closed and the locks fully engaged. Shield control powered on shortly after.

     He ran up through the ship. He didn't see Kaida seated when he rushed through the pax compartment and realized why when he reached the cockpit. She was sitting behind the pilot's seat. No one was allowed in the front of his uncle's jet besides flight crew, and there was an even stricter rule with women. It was unbelievably archaic, but so was his uncle.

     As Trevor went to warn her that his uncle would kill her if he found her there, Nathan came up the stairs. Slightly winded from dragging the traitorous giant around, he eyed Kaida, innocently buckled down inside his cockpit. She looked up questioningly.

     Trevor watched as his uncle paused to let loose the demons and then suddenly took his seat without a sound. Trev's jaw dropped.

     "Where we at?" he asked Trev.

     Trevor cleared his throat to hide his surprise. "Before takeoff checklist."

     Outside the ship, a handful of soldiers were running toward them, guns blazing. Their laser fire pinged off the
Wrath's
shields harmlessly. The ship spun around, took flight, and shot off into the lower atmosphere of Flora.

     On the ground, one out-of-breath soldier ran up to the others. "It's all right.
Breaker VI
and
Breaker IX
have just arrived."

Chapter 7

     "What in the world is that?" Rayph asked his supervisor.

     Jeb, boss of Outpost Z-19, laughed. "Don't blame the game. You're the one who doesn't understand the rules. This is all about tactics."

     Rayph tossed the board game aside, knocking the pieces to the ground. This game, chess, couldn't be more confusing. There was no way to attack your opponent outright. Maybe if they were playing a shooter or a strategy game on his console, he'd teach his boss a lesson.  Earth games made no sense.  Probably why their people had died out.

     Rayph decided to go back to work and actually learn his job while Jeb went to go get more snacks from the storage cupboard in the next room. Maybe he would try this chess game later.

     Outpost Z-19 was about the worst assignment you could get as an Ecath. Rayph had failed flight aptitude tests, science tests, and military training, and when he had tried to make it as a writer, he became a laughingstock. So for Rayph, the outpost gig was perfect—decent pay, barely any responsibility, and best yet, no work. All he had to do was monitor a few machines, and that was that.

     The outpost was small. The bottom floor contained the rec room, which connected to a shared sleeping quarters and a bathroom. Then there were stairs that led to the small upper floor. Rayph wound his way up those tower steps and opened the door.

     When he arrived, he saw a red blinking light on one of the computers and walked up to it. It took him a second to figure out it was actually one of their recording machines.

     Rayph knew enough to work the thing. He dialed the knob up, put his headset on, and pushed "play."

     There was a lot of static. "Hello?…Come in Z-19. This is Outpost R-81. We have reports of an anomaly in space. We know what you're thinking, but it's not a rift. It's something else. We can't seem to figure out what it is with our equipment yet. At its current rate of speed, coming from the Outer Rim, it will reach us at 1244 standard synch time. We'll let you know if it's something to worry about."

     Rayph shrugged. The guy sounded older; he'd probably been doing this a long time—at least long enough to know better than to worry about nothing. Most events in space weren't anything to sweat over. A star collapsed here and there, meteor showers—it was nothing to go overboard with. Rayph wondered why the older man sounded so concerned.

     He put his headset back down and threw his feet up. At the top of the outpost, there was a pretty nice view of the Milky Way Galaxy. It was beautiful the way it spiraled into itself like it had spinning tentacles.

     Rayph had heard his boss talking about how in his day, there had been a war through this system, and one of the planets had been taken out. Leave it to the humanoids to figure out that kind of destructive power. He couldn't remember what that planet was called.  Were they the ones that made chess?

     "Anything new?"

     Rayph turned and saw the boss eating a package of bitter wafers. It was probably why he was so large in the middle, which was strange for an Ecath. They were usually all lithe and catlike. Jeb was pretty fat and slow. He hoped he didn't turn into a Jeb working there.

     "Naw," Rayph answered. "R-81 reported some weird space anomaly, but I doubt it amounts to anything."

     "You want to come back downstairs and go another round?" Jeb had Rayph's white king in his hand.

     Rayph shook his head and smiled. "I don't—"

     "Z-19, Z-19, come in!" the voice from the radio called, panic-stricken.

     Rayph watched his boss lumber over to the radio and answer. He also saw the clock above his head read 1242.

     "Go ahead," his supervisor said calmly.

     "I need to relay something back to Flora and quick. The anomaly…it's something…it's unbelievable! Warn them that they have to declare Protocol 3."

     His boss wiped a crumb off his shirt. "Did you say Protocol 3?"

     "We don't have time for this!" the voice yelled. "Yes! This thing is…it's, like, it's consuming everything! They must be warned before it's too late."

     "I will."

     "Good. Make the call, and then try to save yourself. Oh no…it's—"

     The connection went dead.

     "What was that about?" Rayph asked. He wasn't sure whether he should joke about it or what. The concern on Jeb's face said that would not be wise.

     His boss pulled up an old-school phone, which Rayph had never seen. He immediately got a voice from the other end.

     "Hello?"

     "Initiate Protocol 3."

     "Identity."

     "Y-Eight-Two-M-Five-D-Three-Zero."

     The other person ended the call.

     His boss put the receiver down.

     Before Rayph could ask anything, he saw something that scared him, something on his boss's face. He grew even more worried when Jeb covered his mouth with his hands. His eyes were looking out far in the distance.

     Rayph tried to see what his boss was seeing. Out in space, he didn't really see anything new. Suddenly, he saw movement. It was subtle, like a trick of the eye. Then when he realized it was real, his own mouth became guarded, as if he didn't want the words spoken.

     Out there, shadowy tendrils, like snakes, were winding their way through the Milky Way. Stars were disappearing. One whole side of where they were looking vanished in a type of dark vortex that was traveling forward.