Old World (The Survivors Book Eleven)

by Nathan Hystad

  “That was unexpected.” The sound of Dean’s voice startled her.

  She went to the next symbol and waved a hand near it, the carving taking on her green glow. Her heart began thrumming, the Iskios powers pressing hard into her body. Her limbs grew light, her legs weightless, but Jules kept walking, then floating over the path, each symbol burning hotly as she passed. Soon the light was blinding, and she squinted as the corridor opened into an expansive cavern. At the center sat the round crystal she’d seen in her vision.

  Dean’s warning voice set alarms off inside her head, but she didn’t heed them; instead, she floated forward. Always forward.

  The stone called to her. Begging assistance, offering so much, demanding even more. It was ten feet wide, not rough and jagged like some portal stones. It had the same purpose but felt unique, older than the others.

  She closed her eyes as she lowered directly in front of the clear crystal sphere, and she was suddenly transported away.

  A boardroom. Her eyes blinked open, seeing the faces of the Alliance board members.

  “Mary, we have to do something about the threats. If we stand idly by while they continue to posture, it will only weaken our position,” the man across from her said. He was new to the role, but Mary was glad to have him on board. He talked a lot of sense…

  She was pulled from her mother’s mind, sent through a wormhole of cascading lights until she stopped on a familiar bridge.

  “We’d better return to Menocury L05, Captain,” Sergo said. “There’s nothing out here but hunks of rock and debris. I’d say we’ve been had.”

  Natalia rubbed her temples, sitting in her husband’s chair. She wished he was there instead of her. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been tricked by the distress call.

  “If we were lured here, then there was a reason. Turn this thing around and set course for Menocury this instant,” Natalia ordered Dubs, the android pilot taking the order and acting on it quickly.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Natalia felt the nagging doubt she’d always had when considering command positions, and this only further amplified it. She’d always been better as the sidekick, with a gun in her hand and boots to kick the doors open. She wasn’t fit to order an entire ship around, especially not a starship of this stature. She missed Magnus and hoped he was…

  Jules tried to mentally claw her way back inside her own mind, but once again, she was rushing through a tube of light, ending inside another…

  Regnig shuffled across the room, the vials bubbling along the intricate arrangement of tubes and chemicals along the desk. This couldn’t be, could it? Her blood… it was different than before. Regnig sat in the chair, his old bones wishing for the comfort of his bed. It had been arduous, but he’d found what he sought.

  The book was heavy in his lap, and he licked his clawtip before flipping the pages. There it was. Proof that she wasn’t alone, proof that his memory still served him. There were others, or had been others, with these gifts, and someone had had enough foresight to record the blood sample. The boy had been nearly the same age of maturity as Jules when they took over.

  Regnig closed this book, reaching for the next. He found the marked pages telling the tale of O’ri of the Stor. At first, he was hailed their greatest champion, his abilities such a blessing to a dying people. Years after saving them from the brink of self-destruction, he vanished, only to appear a century later, demanding retribution for his years of slavery to the race.

  Regnig set the book to his lap. There were others. Other children with the rare abilities, though very little was written in history about them. His hand shook as he watched the bubbling alchemy set. Was Jules going to go down the same dark path as some of her predecessors? Only time would tell.

  Regnig’s tongue tapped his beak, and he decided to put some tea on before bed…

  Jules hardly comprehended what she was being shown. Her mind screamed out, and she wasn’t sure if her voice did as well. The image shifted, bringing her somewhere new.

  The projection counted down as he pulled the trigger, the man in front of him ducking to avoid the shot that didn’t occur. Dean knew he needed to shut the timer off, but it was going to be difficult with Frasier alive. All the doubt he’d felt before about killing the man had vanished the moment he’d mentioned Jules, and cutting a deal with PlevaCorp…

  She attempted to cling to this vision, but she was tugged away with a greater force.

  Papa! she called out into the universe, and she saw his head cock upwards as she was yanked away.

  “Papa,” her real voice said, and she stared at the round crystal beckoning her. Then she was no longer Jules as she touched the crystal. It was hot to the touch, but she didn’t care. She was in an empty space, devoid of light or darkness; only a sense of everything filled her.

  She was something different, perhaps an entity, perhaps more. A deep part of her understood why the Nirzu praised her as a god. Wait, she wasn’t the crystal. She was a girl. No, she wasn’t. She had never been a girl. Had she? She pressed harder into the stone, not with her physical hands, but with her Iskios powers.

  Everything coalesced inside the crystal as it grew hotter, brighter, but she didn’t back down. The entire nowhere space she was inside shook, vibrated, and thrummed with energy until she was sure the universe would implode.

  She burst apart, and everything made sense.

  ____________

  Frasier ducked and rolled, but my shotgun wasn’t loaded. It clicked empty, and I dropped it to the ground. “Nice try, Parker, but you’re going to have to do better than that,” Frasier told me, aiming a pulse pistol at me.

  “Amada, you can’t let him do this. He’s going to kill them. Destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish. Our people need you,” I pleaded, knowing we would need their help.

  “Don’t listen to these fools,” Martina said, and Magnus kept his aim on her.

  “There’s only eleven minutes left,” I told them. “If we don’t stop this weapon from going off, there’s no turning back. You may get your planet, but we won’t let this go without a fight. We’ll come here with everything we have and destroy you, Frasier.”

  He had the look of a madman as he grinned at me. “It doesn’t matter, because this station is the weapon. I won’t be here either.”

  His own people began to mutter from behind him. “Hold up, what did you say?” one of them asked.

  “You told me you’d die for the cause, and that’s why you’re here, not down there, Calvin. Have you changed your mind?” Frasier asked.

  It was now or never. The man he was addressing shook his head. “I haven’t changed my mind, but I think the cause you speak of is different from mine.” The Restorer shot Frasier, and this time, the man didn’t see it coming. Frasier dropped his pulse pistol, the weapon clattering to the ground.

  “You’re too late,” Frasier said, turning to face me. His left hand clenched the bullet wound in his chest.

  I ran to him as he fell to his knees. “How do we stop it?”

  “You don’t.” He wore the same smile, and he coughed as his punctured lung gave way.

  “Frasier, you can tell me. You don’t have to do this. Don’t let your life be a waste,” I told him, and Amada raced to his side, clutching Frasier’s hand.

  “You loved me once. Tell us how to stop this ticking time bomb.” Amada was crying, and Frasier reached up with bloody fingers to wipe away her tears.

  “It’s… too late,” he said, his head dropping to the ground. He didn’t breathe any longer, but his eyes remained open, staring at a spot above.

  “Damn it!” Amada shouted.

  I stood quickly, trying to assess our situation. The clock was still ticking away, and it was at nine minutes remaining. I raised the shotgun and faced the half-dozen Restorers. “Look, I don’t care what your pasts held, but we can’t let this happen. We need to work together to stop this station from catapulting into the atmosphere. Are we going to have any proble
ms?” I asked, and they all shook their heads.

  Martina took the opportunity to attack Magnus, sending a wild elbow toward his face. Magnus blocked it, his rifle falling to the platform. She struck out again, hitting him in the stomach, and she reached for the gun. Magnus didn’t wait. He pushed her over the railing, and she screamed as she fell to the glass below, landing with a thud. Her yelling stopped, and she remained still.

  “Anyone else?” Magnus asked, grabbing his gun. His face was grim as he raced to the center platform, and we activated the main console.

  “Who knows what he did? Calvin?” I asked the man, and he ran behind me.

  “I can’t believe he went this far. He was always a little deranged, but he didn’t tell us about killing the others in Old Rome when he picked us up, I swear,” Calvin said.

  “That’s fine. We can deal with that later. In the meantime, we have a few minutes to prevent Earth from being destroyed.” My fingers flew across the console screen, trying to see what could be done.

  “Okay, let me think. He said the weapons were everywhere. I think he spread them out to prevent anyone from moving them, should he be boarded.” Calvin pointed at a blueprint schematic I brought up. “He had us place some in each of these locations.” He pointed with a shaky finger to several random spots. No one would have been able to uncover a pattern to his madness.

  “How big are they?” Magnus asked.

  “About the size of a trunk. It took two of us to carry each one,” Calvin said.

  “Where’s your ship? How did you fly here?” I asked.

  “It’s gone. They didn’t want you to think the station was inhabited,” he told us.

  “Okay. We have a ship here. We can bring the devices onto it, then send it off at full thrust,” I said.

  Mag pointed at the countdown. “Dean, we have seven minutes. There’s no time for this. We need to move the station away.”

  It wasn’t a fast ship, but it did have thrusters, and the entire station rumbled as they started firing up. I switched screens, seeing the path Frasier had programmed in.

  “Magnus, use the tablet.” I shoved it at him. “Find out where the override is.”

  I peered at the group of Restorers and saw someone helping Bonnie with her wound. We needed to move everyone out of here, and I told Amada so.

  She shook her head. “You figure out how to change the trajectory?”

  “I got it!” Magnus shouted in triumph. “Here.” He leaned over me, tapping the keys. “Looks like we can’t change the course without doing it manually.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means we can fly the station the other direction, away from Earth, but it will still detonate,” he told me.

  I glanced at the clock. Five minutes.

  “Everyone out of here! Magnus, lead them to the ship. You need to leave now!” The urgency was overwhelming.

  “Dean, you can’t mean you’re going to stay and pilot this,” he said.

  “Just go. I’ll see if there’s any other options. Make it home to your family!” I shouted, and he paused a second before obeying the order. He led the Restorers across the platform, Bonnie being carried by two of them, and saluted me briefly before the door closed.

  I hardly noticed that Amada was there by my side.

  The clock told me there were four and a half minutes before the space station exploded, and the detonation was going to be unlike any before it. PlevaCorp would have seen to it.

  Twenty-Four

  “Jules!” Someone was shouting at her, shaking her at the shoulders.

  Jules Parker blinked her eyes open, and the darkness of the room was almost startling. Dean stared at her, his face pale. Nothing would ever be the same; Jules knew this. She’d seen too much, gone too far. She lifted a hand, looking at it as if it couldn’t even be connected to her body.

  “Jules, we have to go. The ship… it’s here.”

  “What ship?” Her voice was even, her tone unfamiliar.

  “The Collector. I heard something and ran outside. He’s heading for the others. Our friends.”

  Jules smiled. Somehow the concerns of the human were distant, irrelevant. “What of it?”

  “What of it? Jules, what happened to you?” he asked, and she tried to remember. She’d floated to the round stone, and she glanced at it now, no longer feeling the infectious draw to it. She touched it.

  “I understand the stones now,” she said softly.

  “What are you talking about? The Iskios powers?” he asked.

  “That’s what you would call them. But no, they never belonged to the Iskios. They are ancient, trapped in a stone like this one on the world the Theos banished the Iskios to. The Iskios energy connected to it, my mother being possessed by the energy, passing it on to me within her womb.” Jules ran a hand over her stomach.

  “You’re freaking me out, Jules.” Dean stepped away from her, his eyes wide with fear. “You don’t sound the same. Are you still Jules?”

  She nodded. “I am Jules Parker, but I am more.”

  “Whatever you are, we need to get the hell out of here, unless you want to be frozen for the rest of time on the Collector’s ship.” Dean was grabbing at her forearm, and Jules only smiled.

  “We have nothing to fear from him. Come,” she said, touching Dean’s arm. They were enveloped in the energy field, and she rushed them forward, moving out of the caves, away from the now-silent stone. She’d come back for it soon. It was part of her now.

  Dean stared at her with open fear at first, but he was soon smiling as they lifted from the ground. Jules knew he was always a little afraid of her; everyone was. They pretended to not be bothered by her powers, but she knew they were, even her family. She didn’t blame them. She was afraid of what she could do as well.

  They hovered ten feet over the grass, the valley bright and beautiful in the afternoon. At this moment, in the sanctuary of the lush valley, you’d never know that the entire world was going to die in the next decade, perhaps sooner. There was nothing that could be done about it, not even by someone like Jules. Some things in nature weren’t mean to be trifled with, and the power of a star was one of them.

  The cylinder ship was huge, greater than she’d guessed when she’d spotted it roaring above them the other day. It floated above the makeshift camp at the top of the ridge where Jules saw the rest of the students, along with Slate, Loweck, and Suma, who was lying on the ground.

  “They’re not moving,” Dean said, pointing at them.

  Jules could see that there was a pale amber beam emanating from the Collector’s vessel, casting a net over the Academy group. The platform along the mountain ridge was generally flat and at least two hundred meters long, half that wide. Jules lowered herself and Dean to the edge of it, staying a safe distance away from the time-freezing beam.

  She watched for a moment, trying to discern if the Collector was going to reveal himself. “How do we help them?” Dean’s voice was low, as if he didn’t want to draw attention to them.

  Jules grew angry, watching the beam trap her friends. They’d come here for a simple mission and instead had to deal with unfair hardships, all because of this Collector. They’d been shot down, nearly drowned and killed by the underwater eels. They’d been forced to march through unforgiving terrain, walk through monster-infested caves in the dark, and now he was pursuing them with single-minded focus.

  Jules found herself inside her mind, amid all the confusion and chaos since her powers had emerged once again. She tried to press her barrier into place, but it failed. The tingling she used to feel in her toes and fingers was gone, replaced by a constant warming comfort. Her eyes burned bright and green, with no way to stop them. She had a moment of fear, thinking she’d never be the same, but that was for the best. She was tired of waiting to see if they were going to drain or fail.

  She could finally be what she was intended since birth. Jules almost rushed forward when she saw Loweck lifting from the group, her
orange skin making her distinguishable among them.

  “He won’t have one of her kind, because there are no others like her,” Jules told Dean, who nodded along.

  “There are no others like you,” Dean said softly, staring at the nearby ship hovering above their friends.

  Jules felt like she was being clouded again, her powers attempting to take over. She touched Dean’s arm and carried him with her toward the long ship. Part of her wanted to leave him safely far away; the other part needed him close. He’d always looked out for her, and a sliver of herself wasn’t one hundred percent confident. Having Dean beside her changed that.

  They arrived at the edge of the ship, and she saw Dean looking around for a hatch in the exterior. “We won’t need that,” she assured him. With a flick of her wrist, the green energy bubble that surrounded them began to vibrate, slowly at first, then so fast, it was impossible to see the shifting movements.

  She moved toward the hull, and they passed through. A moment later, they were on his ship. Her father had referred to the Collector as an it. But in Jules’s mind, it was an angry, bitter man, an ancient being with a compulsion to gather and hoard people from all corners of the universe. His time was over. She needed to stop him and to free all of his captives. The stone had told her something important. There was someone on the Collector’s ship that was going to save Jules’ life one day.

  Dean stepped forward, out of her dissipating sphere of energy. His boots clipped along the hard surface of the corridor as he walked through it, staring at the beings behind their various glass casings. He tapped on one, Jules seeing an unfamiliar rat-like creature behind the barrier. The ship was clean, the hallway long and sterile. There was no scent on board, and that in itself felt odd after being outside in the fragrant valley.

  “This is sick,” he said, his face long as he went to the next case. It appeared to be a Shimmali, only the snout was longer, as were the limbs. When they walked on, the display cases lit up, showcasing the frozen beings behind. Jules felt a numbness to it all as they went, Dean far more bothered by it all. Jules knew they would all be safe soon. She was going to free them; of that she was certain.