Theo staggered to his feet, and saw the helmeted forms of his friends in the room. They all seemed to be in one piece. The same couldn’t be said for Karl’s lackeys. Across the room were the shredded remains of two Yasta guards.
“What about Karl?” Theo looked around the room expectantly. “I saw him fly through the air with the sword in his hand.” He managed to spot the spare lasana blade Karl tossed to him, and picked it up.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Makram was on his feet, but part of his weight was being supported by Cierra. “We need to get outside. Hubard is on his way.”
They made their way out into the remains of the dome. The roof was ripped open, and the winds of Relisse swirled around them. Just as they were about to exit the crumbling structure, they ran into Hojae, who’d managed to find a spare helmet. He jogged up to them. A few cuts from flying debris lined his arms.
“What happened to you?” Makram whirled on the Josti with an accusatory bite in his voice. Before Hojae could answer, the conversation was interrupted by something overhead. Makram looked up to see a light in the sky. He beckoned the others toward a hatch that led to the outside. The exit was filled with fallen steel girders and broken chunks of carbon. Makram looked to Theo. “You’ve got the only lasana blade. Think you can get through it?”
Theo grinned and stepped forward, with the sword in his hand. He laid the edge of the blade on a piece of structure that blocked access to the door. Putting his weight on the sword, the blade began to peel through the metal with ease. He made quick work of the debris blocking their path. After that, only a keypad operated door stood between them and the outside world. Theo took his blade to the door, and cut out a diamond pattern to get through it. Sparks flew as the circuitry shorted out. Theo retracted his sword, and watched in satisfaction as a large chunk of the door fell outward.
Theo stepped through, and turned to the others. “Looks safe enough to me.” He offered his hand to help Cierra through the gap, but she shrugged him off.
The cargo ship was almost on the ground. Theo watched as Hubard and his crew guided it to a resting spot fifty yards away. He was ready to put Relisse behind him. The world was nothing more than a reminder of everything he had lost, and everything that was wrong with the empire.
“Wait! What about the Relissarium slabs?” Cierra looked over her shoulder, in the direction of rubble. It seemed a shame to leave it all behind.
Makram shook his head. “Forget about it. We took out the mine; the rest doesn’t matter. We have to get out of here before the fleet finds out what happened.” His recent reminder of his own mortality had put things into better perspective. His team was still alive, and the mine was blown up. It seemed like a good result.
Once they were in the ship, Hubard advised them to strap in. “I’m showing some activity outside, and we don’t have any exterior weapons. Keep your helmets on until we reach orbit.”
Theo was slammed back in his couch, once again, as the huge cargo ship ignited all of its plasma engines and pushed them into the sky. The smell of his own sweat was beginning to fill his helmet. His oxygen levels were low, and the filtration seemed to have been damaged a little. The force of the takeoff built upon him, as though a grown man was sitting on his chest. He gasped for air. The surface of the planet retreated quickly on the monitor as they shot upwards into the sky. Abruptly, the acceleration ceased, and Theo could breathe once more, in zero gravity.
Hubard’s voice crackled over the speaker system. “We’re in orbit. You may take your helmets off, but don’t rest easy. I’m going to find the portal in a few minutes.”
Exhaustion lined their faces. Theo let out a shuddering breath. For a few seconds, he didn’t think they would survive the rapid flight to orbit. Cargo ships weren’t built to take such extreme stresses. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. It had been an emotional and physically trying mission. He was glad it was over.
“Just so you know, we’re going directly to the Grand Council on Carristoux. The higher-ups want to talk to everyone. I don’t know what for; we achieved our objective.” Hubard sounded a little worried.
“It’s about the leak.” Cierra’s voice carried lightly over to Theo. “They want to find the traitor. This won’t be fun.” She laid back in her chair and sighed.
It took another half hour for the cargo ship to reach the portal. Hubard brought them in slow and steady. There was no telling if the Imperials had set another trap. He didn’t want to risk any unwanted attention. After a moment, Hubard decided to go ahead and open the portal. Normally, such portals were busy and full of traffic, but this one was inside the cordoned zone. So far, he’d not found any signs of destroyers or other warships in the area. The faster they were back on Carristoux, the better.
“Hang tight. I’m about to make the jump. I don’t have time to administer sedatives, so I hope you know how to meditate.” Hubard prepared to enter the portal.
No sedatives? Theo fought not to hurl. He felt himself turn inside out. He knew it was an illusion, and a by-product of the transfer through wormholes in space, but knowing why something happened didn’t make it any less gut wrenching. After what seemed like an eternity, they were through the portal, and on the other side of the galaxy.
Theo shook as he looked at the others. His body felt weak. Several of the others looked like they had experienced the same thing. Theo clutched the side of the acceleration couch, and tried to focus. He began to recall where he was, and that they were headed toward the planet where the Carbonari had their secret operations.
While his mind began to knit itself back together, Theo tried to remember what happened during those last few minutes on Relisse. He recalled they were to head back to Carristoux because the Carbonari wanted to know who the traitor in their midst was. It wasn’t him; that was for sure. Theo looked at the others. It was hard to believe, after all they’d been through together, that one of them could have betrayed the group. But, money could buy many loyalties. He couldn’t help but feel suspicions as his eyes passed over each of them.
Then it struck him. The very thing that made Theo ready to kill Karl. The blast had interfered, but he had a completely new reason to want that man dead. It was something he had said. The Imperials had burned down the forest on Sirsette. Theo’s mind drifted back to Naia. Was she dead?
Theo managed to pull himself up to the forward compartment, where Hubard and his crew monitored the flight back to Carristoux. Theo looked up at the screen over him, and made sure they were on a course to the surface.
“Where you headed, Theo?” Makram asked.
“I need to talk to Hubard.” Theo explained, and touched the call button next to the door.
“What?” Hubard’s voice called back at him.
“Can I come up there?”
“Why?” Hubard snapped.
“I want to know about the planet we were on before we boosted off for Relisse.”
There was a pause. “Come on in. We’re in a holding pattern waiting for landing coordinates, anyway.”
The door slid open. Theo drifted into the cockpit, and the door slid back. Hubard sat up toward the front, and watched the approaching planet, while Rix was plugged into one side. Irane, whom Theo still couldn’t figure out, was at another panel reading over some data. Kurga, the huge white-haired hominid, sat in one corner, and checked some things against a clipboard. It was a much more sophisticated craft than the ones he was used to flying.
“Hello, Theo,” Hubard spoke to him as Theo floated over the front of the ship. “Something you wanted to see me about?” The little man pushed his spectacles up higher on his nose. His eyes seemed to pierce Theo.
“The planet we left,” Theo told him. “Before you took us to Relisse. Was there any unusual activity on it after we left it?” He didn’t want to say anything about Karl’s boast of being the forest’s instrument of destruction. Part of him prayed that it had been an empty taunt simply used to upset them.
“I d
idn’t notice anything.” Hubard brought up a floating screen from the main panel. “No, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary over there. However, there is a time delay when you go through the portal. I haven’t received any news from the usual channels. Let’s see what’s on the imperial transmissions.” Hubard scrolled almost impossibly quickly through the information in front of him, until he saw a report that focused on the planet’s district. He tapped something, and a figure materialized in space, just over them.
“Imperial forces scored a major victory in the hunt to eliminate the Carbonari traitors.” The face of a man in an official robe spoke into the air. He was one of the more respected news casters. “Ranger units of the Twelfth Legion struck deep at an isolated post that the radicals had established in the forests of Sirsette. Although His Imperial Majesty’s troops suffered losses, the entire Carbonari unit was destroyed, down to the last rodent.” The smile on the reporter’s face made Theo’s stomach churn.
The images were of the treehouses and shelters on fire. Theo turned away, as the bodies of several of the people he’d met were visible in the background. Karl had lied about the extent of the damage, but not of the final results. Naia had to be dead after a raid of that size. There was no way she would have allowed her charges to suffer without her. The others in the cockpit stopped to look at the images. Stunned silence filled the craft.
“Is there no end to what they’ll do?” Hubard whispered, trying not to impede the reverence.
Theo put one hand to his head, and tried to think. First Mari, now Naia. Where would it ever stop? He tried not to feel the inner rage that consumed his soul when Mari and his family perished. But, to no avail. His blood boiled.
All Theo wanted to do was go away. He hated the place where he found himself at this very moment. When he’d cut down the Yasta monks, the horror of it all came back to him. Theo closed his eyes and saw the face of a novice monk the second before his lasana cleaved through the young man’s skull. They were about the same age.
Theo left the cockpit, and drifted through the open door back to his chair. He pulled himself down into it. Tame your evil self, Naia had advised. An image of her burning under the Imperial assault flashed into Theo’s mind, and he desperately tried to push it away. He shook his head. There would be no taming his evil self. Evil was the only language the Yasta and the empire understood. So, he would bring it. He would be the evil. He would rain down hell’s fire upon them like they’d never seen before.
Firestorm
The Relissarium Wars Space Opera Series, Book 4
One
Hundreds of voices rang out, in varying volumes of discontent. The circular chamber echoed with their concern. Senator Philo Nazir leaned forward, and pressed his thin lips closer to the microphone on the speaker’s podium. “We have seen the evidence that those fanatics will stop at nothing to pursue and pervert their power! If we stand by and do nothing, Carristoux will be just as much to blame for the carnage to come as the Yasta themselves!” He paused, trying to keep his temper under control. “We can no longer sit idly by. We have a choice to make. Either we mobilize a territorial militia to seize control of Relisse and this new mineral, or we condemn everyone to suffer under Yasta control. It is not a matter of ‘if.’ It is a matter of ‘when.’ A reckoning is coming. What side will Carristoux be on?”
Murmurs slithered through the gathered members of the regional parliament. Carristoux had long been known as a meek outer planet. It was assumed that the populus would fall in line with the Emperor, because that was the way it had always been. The young men served their time in the Carristoux Regional Militia as part of a rite of passage. The women married and bore more children to continue the cycle. The distance from their planet to the Emperor’s base—along with their submission—had been enough to keep the Imperial soldiers from breathing down their necks too closely. Of course, that was what the population of Relisse had thought, too, and look where that had gotten them: engulfed in a planet-wide inferno.
Senator Nazir clenched his fist. His nails bit crescent moons into his palms. This planet was on the verge of change. All it needed was a final push. He quietly wondered if his speech would be enough to tip the scales. One by one, the other members of parliament cast their votes. The ones who could not be there in person were represented via video conference. An overhead hologram tallied up the numbers. For a moment, Philo felt hope for their future, but it festered in the next heartbeat. The final tally was in: 352 votes to 118. Motion denied.
Anger and frustration boiled Philo’s blood. Timid children and old men with their heads in the sand, the lot of them! He ground his teeth behind the long-practiced mask of civility that he had plastered on his face. With a flourish of his robes, he left the chamber. Chanta, his aide, was waiting in the stone hallway outside of the room. She wasn’t allowed inside the actual chamber. Only current members of parliament were allowed to sit in on the actual sessions. It was supposed to keep the senators from being influenced by others during the votes. Philo scoffed and pinched his thin lips into a tighter line. How many of them already have their pockets lined with the Emperor’s coins or their hearts lined with Yasta threats? He fought back the feeling of hypocrisy that tugged at the back of his mind. After all, wasn’t he in his position because of the Carbonari? It was the opposite side of the coin, but he was just as guilty of being in power because of his alliances instead of his politics as the others.
“I take it the speech didn’t go well.” Chanta moved her long nail across the communications tablet that was cradled in the crook of her arm.
“What gave it away?”
“Your charming smile and boyish delight.” The light from her tablet lit up her prominent cheekbones.
Philo felt his lips curl into a wry smile. She reminded him of a well-aged wine with her dry sense of humor, and voluptuous body. “Any word on our…shipment?”
Chanta had worked with him—and under him—long enough to know that he was referring to the returning Strike Force Retaliation team. “It is still on track for delivery.”
“At least one thing is going right, today.” Philo’s footsteps echoed down the stone hallway. The gentle, upwards slope signified they were nearing the surface. If you could count having a traitor on the most trusted team of the Brotherhood as something ‘going right.’ His mind was a flurry of upcoming meetings and underlying worries.
Outside of the parliament’s entrance, the fresh, balmy air caressed their skin. The simple pleasure of it was lost on him. His eyes squinted along the waterside docks. At the end of the dock to his left was his private submarine. It was the latest top-of-the-line Aquacruiser, that had been featured in “Interstellar Transit” for three standard months in a row. Personally, he thought it was a waste of money, but the rest of the Brotherhood’s Grand Council thought it was worth the investment to keep up his guise as a frivolous-yet-forward-thinking member of parliament. Plus, it never hurt to have a high-end submarine at their disposal.
Waves lapped against the wooden planks of the dock. Philo reached his hand under his robes to press the key fob tucked into his pocket. The top hatch of the submarine unsealed with a hiss and slowly raised up. He offered his hand to Chanta to help steady her. Well, if he was being completely honest, he also did it to get a good view of her hips swaying down the interior ladder, but chivalry was easier to palate than a lustful craving. Chanta knew what she did to him. Her exaggerated swaying and slower-than-necessary descent stirred his desires.
A loud bang high in the atmosphere made him jump. The senator looked up at the sky, and had to shield his eyes from the bright magnesium fires of falling debris. Inside the submarine, Chanta’s tablet lit up with an incoming video call. The quality was riddled with static, but Philo recognized the voice immediately: Makram.
“Mayday, mayday! We…apart…emergency land—” Makram’s voice cut out suddenly. The falling ship crashed into the water on the horizon.
Philo leapt into the Aquacruiser, and pull
ed the hatch shut behind him before she turned to Chanta. She already had a secure communication link on her tablet, established with the secret Carbonari base they were supposed to be heading to. Philo snatched it from her fingers.
Seneca answered the call, “We saw it, too.”
“Get a recovery team over there, now! Find that ship before someone else does. I don’t need to tell you that if any of the crew are not recovered, I will have your head!”
“Already on it.” Seneca’s eyes betrayed the terror he felt, but he somehow managed to keep his voice relatively calm.
Philo shut down the comm link and tossed the tablet onto the nearest cushioned seat. Agitation pulled his thin lips once more into an almost imperceptible line. “They are quickly falling out of my good graces. First the mission is an utter failure, and now they can’t even do a reentry properly! I have half the mind to demote them all.”
Philo checked the navigation system to make sure the proper destination was programmed in. If he wasn’t worried about being followed to the crash site, he would have personally navigated to the fallen ship just to have the satisfaction of pulling Makram out of the water himself. That boy had gotten a pretty big head over the years. Maybe it was time to knock him down a few pegs. Unfortunately, Philo had only gotten so far in the Brotherhood and in politics by being careful. An official’s personal craft investigating a crash would be too suspicious. If anyone could identify even one of the members of the Strike Force Retaliation team as part of the Carbonari, and he was spotted with them, it would be the end of his long political career. No, some things had to be delegated—no matter how badly he wished to take care of them on his own.
“Later you’ll be busy with interrogations.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. That was one of things he liked about her. He sat down in the chair opposite the screen and propped his feet up. “Go over it with me one more time.”
The Relissarium Wars Omnibus Page 19