“And the strikes. Describe them.” Jules kept her gaze on the room, and she gently pulled the bed apart.
“Twenty-seven vessels arrived. At first, we thought someone was being delivered.” Ave’s hands were set on her hips as she stared into the cell.
“Were you expecting a prisoner?” Jaessa asked.
“No, but it happens. They had us believe that. Sent a communication stating they were from Bazarn Five, transporting a convict. The moment they were past our orbital defense system, they went nuts. It felt random, like they were trying to destroy as much as possible, but they only hit our farthest facilities, where we house the less critical criminals. Level twenty and so on.”
Jules dropped the sheets, unable to find any clues. “Why do you think that was?” She had her own assumptions, but wanted to hear the captain of the Guardians’ assessment first.
“It was a distraction,” Jaessa answered before Ave.
“Right. But it still doesn’t make sense, because none of their ships neared this area,” Ave said.
“It was to draw your attention from them.” Jules touched the desk. It had four legs, but no drawers or anything on it. She crouched under it, searching along its edges. A symbol was etched into the surface. “Did you see this?”
Ave rushed over, checking under the desk with her. It was a marking, similar to a portal symbol. Squiggly lines intersecting a series of five triangles. “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea.” Jules checked her tablet, seeing if the image corresponded to anything in the Crystal Map. “It’s not a portal.”
“To use that, you’d need more than a carving on metal,” Ave reminded her.
“I know, but I had to be certain.” Jules had an idea. She took a photo scan of the image, and cross-referenced it with the digital files from Regnig’s library. Only a few had access to this information, and she found one result. She blanched, and passed the device to Ave.
“This can’t be.” Ave hopped to her feet, and raised the alarms with the press of a handheld button. “She might still be here!”
Jules couldn’t believe the symbol was associated with an ancient spell from a people called the Beykn.
It was said to make you invisible.
____________
“It’s not working,” Mary said, trying to send a communication.
“This isn’t terrible.” I relaxed, leaning into the seat beside my wife. “We’re making good time. Soon we’ll be at Ebos, exploring with Hugo. Don’t worry about contacting the Alliance. If Death’s Maiden escaped, you can sure as hell bet she’s not causing trouble. She’s probably hiding, ordering in takeout and catching up on the latest season of Intergalactic Dating.”
Mary laughed a little too loudly. She was nervous. I could tell it pained her to lose contact with the board and our daughter, but things like this happened on starships. Especially ones we were less than familiar with. “We should have taken the Kraski ship,” Mary muttered.
“Maybe you’re right, but there’s no sense in wishing for anything different. We’re here in the Cyclone, and nothing changes that.” I saw Hugo operating on a dash console behind us on the compact bridge. “What are you working on, son?”
“Trying to find out why the comms are down,” he answered.
“Is that so?” I raised an eyebrow, grinning at Mary. “You think you can do it?” I rose, stretching my back, and crossed the bridge. He’d popped a device panel off and connected an analyzer to its processing core.
“I’m close. If I didn’t know better, this has been manually modified.” Hugo didn’t look up while he spoke, just kept testing things with his remote tablet.
His comment rankled my mind, sending a ripple through my memory, but it was gone in a flash.
“If you figure it out, there’s an extra ice cream after dinner with your name on it,” Mary said from the pilot’s seat.
“I’m thirteen, Mom. Don’t assume sweets are the key to my heart anymore.” Hugo finally diverted his attention from the panel. I had the urge to slam it closed and order him to his quarters. It made no sense. I shoved it aside, feeling a headache emerging.
“But you’ll take the ice cream?” Hugo’s mom asked.
“I’m not dead.” Hugo’s tablet beeped, and I almost grabbed it from him. Instead, I stepped away, sweat beading on my forehead. Ovalax was awake, trying to stop Hugo for some reason.
“I think I might know what happened,” I managed to croak out.
“Dad, are you okay?” Hugo abandoned his station. I viewed his tablet, fighting to keep myself from thrashing it.
Mary was there, her hand cool on my cheek. “Dean, you’re clammy.”
“Check the footage. These Cyclones have internal cameras. They should have been running this whole time,” I said, sliding my back down the wall. I landed on the floor, and Hugo stared at me, concern etched deeply on his face.
“Dad?”
“Go. Load the feeds. A couple of days ago. Three, maybe. After the news from the board came in.” My head beat fiercely, and my vision began to blur.
Mary stayed with me, but Hugo obeyed my demands. I saw him selecting the camera feeds. It revealed all three of us on the bridge, then Mary and me. And then I was alone. “Stop there. Play it.”
I didn’t have a memory of this, but I could tell I’d done something bad. Yet it hadn’t been me. It was Ovalax.
“Dad, what did you do?” Hugo’s voice was quiet.
I closed my eyes but could sense what he was watching on the screen. Me dismantling the communicator network link, emptying out the convertor, and reinstalling it so no one would notice. When I opened them, the feed showed me walking to my quarters. I was clearly in a daze.
“Dean, was it him?” Mary asked.
“Yes. I can’t control it.” I had Ovalax buried inside my brain, and he’d taken the next step. He was able to command me like a puppet.
“We have to go home,” Mary told me.
“No.”
“Dean, we have to go home and see the doctors.”
“Ovalax is trying to tell us something. He wants us to go to Ebos. There’s a reason, I can feel it, and it’s important. For the sake of our Alliance, Mary.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was the truth.
“How can I trust you’re my Dean?” Mary inquired. She let go of me and shifted a foot farther away.
“It’s me, Mary. But I can’t say for how long. You have to watch me closely.”
“And you still want to fly to Ebos?”
“It’s the best chance we have.”
“To do what?” Mary asked.
“To convince him to stop.” I saw the fear in my family’s faces, but the compulsion to please Ovalax was too powerful to ignore. Ebos was a mystery, but for some crucial reason, we had to reach it in the next few days.
“Okay. We keep flying. Hugo, can you fix it?” Mary asked.
“I’ll try.” Hugo returned to work, and Mary assisted me to my feet. With the news that we were continuing to our destination, my headache eased, and I regained my focus.
“I should sleep.”
Mary frowned at me like I was a stranger. “That’s a good idea.”
I stumbled to my bed and fell asleep in seconds. For a moment, right before I slipped from consciousness, I was no longer Dean Parker. And then I was out.
Thirteen
“These are all of the cameras?” Jules perched at the central command office desk, with Jaessa to her left and Ave to her right. Ten circular screens sat in front of them, and a control stick allowed her to view any of the three hundred angles around this particular region. Many were mounted to the building’s interiors and exteriors, but there were also a dozen drones, constantly surveying the landscape from two hundred meters in the air.
“What are you searching for?” Ave asked. “None of the invaders came to this sector.”
“I know. It’s not that…” Jules retrieved the footage of the Maiden’s cell when she was gone. One mi
nute, a being was inside the room. It was dark, with just enough light to distinguish the rough outline of the prisoner. She got up, crossed the room to the desk, and the lights went off. When they sprang back on, the figure wasn’t there.
“The power fluctuated. Turns out an errant blast from across the continent damaged a relay. We’re all interconnected,” Ave said. “It only affected the lights, not the security system. Those are each independent, and invulnerable to attack.”
“She was there, then she was gone. Or was she?” Jules whispered.
“What do you mean? You don’t believe she became invisible, do you?” Ave’s voice implied it was the most incredulous idea she’d ever heard.
“Stranger things have happened,” Jules said.
“Like when you drifted through my defenses?”
“Exactly.” Jules fast-forwarded to the moment they realized Death’s Maiden was gone. Ave herself was on the screen, flanked by four heavily-armed Guardians. The barriers flashed off, and the thick metallic walls receded. She zoomed, and watched the cell’s exit. “There.” She pointed at the Guardian trailing behind the others. His step faltered slightly, but he quickly recovered.
“That could be nothing,” Ave said.
“Or it could mean everything. He bumped into her while she ran past into freedom.”
Jaessa, who had remained quiet for most of this, finally reacted, grabbing for Jules’ arm. “Is there a file on Death’s Maiden? She must have a name. Where is she from?”
“Ave, can we access it?” Jules asked.
Ave still wore her armor, but her helmet stayed off. She blinked her yellow eyes, and Jules saw the color in her artistic face tattoos darken. “If I agree to this, I need you to promise not to share the information.”
“Sure.” Jules wondered what could be so bad on it that they’d want to keep the details silent.
Ave unlocked a drawer across the room and pulled out a circular tablet. She typed in a code and passed it to Jules. “This is her bio.”
Jaessa gasped, reaching for it. “That’s her?”
Jules read the name. “Ranul.” The woman wasn’t petite. She stood at over six feet, and weighed almost two hundred pounds. Mostly muscle, from the looks of things. Her face was scarred; one of her eyes barely opened. Lanky black hair flowed past her shoulders. She appeared deadly.
Jaessa was still shaking, her mouth opening and closing.
“What’s the matter with you?” Jules asked.
“Her.” Jaessa pointed at the picture.
“You know who she is?” Ave walked closer, standing behind Jaessa.
“No. But I know what she is.”
Jules didn’t want to meet this woman in a dark alley. “Tell us.”
“Brack. She’s a Brack.”
This had just become a lot more interesting.
“Brack? Never heard of them,” Ave said. “She refused to speak with us. Wouldn’t talk.”
Jules thought about it. If Ranul was the orchestrator of the Udoon disaster, she had to have spoken to someone. “Jaessa, don’t worry. We’ll solve this. I promise you.”
“Thank you, Jules.” She seemed drained lately, and Jules didn’t blame her. She’d come to secure help for her family at home, and here she was, caught in the middle of a conspiracy, with her people’s lifelong adversary on the screen in front of her.
“What do we know?” Jules began to list off their facts. “Ranul escaped. Her allies tricked you with a diversion, and she made a rune that rendered her invisible. She waited for you to open the shields, and breezed past you and the other Guardians.”
Ave shifted uncomfortably on her feet.
“The twenty-something vessels tore off, and you assumed it was contained, but Ranul was gone. Vanished into thin air.” Jules set the tablet down and rose, stalking the dim room. She thought better on the move. “But she hadn’t left. So where is she?”
“Is there a missing ship?” Jaessa interjected.
“Ship?” Ave asked.
“Yes. You keep tabs on every vessel coming and going from each sector, don’t you?” Jules thought they were on the proper path.
“We do.” Ave accessed the records, and shook her head. “Nothing has departed from here since the escape. We ensured it.”
Jaessa was on her feet too. “What about the next sector? How far is it?”
“Twelve kilometers,” Ave answered. She turned her attention to the data again, and tapped the screen. “One craft did leave. It was a Shimmali model.”
Jules’ ears prickled. “Why was it there?”
“It transported a visitor for another captive.”
“Ave, I think she was involved with Udoon. Ranul must have made contact with someone here,” Jules said.
“Records show that she did have a single visitor around a year ago. The same man from Shimmal.” Ave shared the screen with Jules.
The name didn’t surprise her. “…Sarlun.”
____________
Worlds come and go. Stars ignite and burn out. Thousands of species are born and die. History is forgotten by nearly every living entity in the universe, but not Ovalax. No. Ovalax devoured minds—not from hunger, but for the good of the balance.
Without his interference, countless cataclysmic events would have transpired, but he never sought accolades. He just accepted the Sect of Memories’ assistance, the latest in the plethora of groups over the millennia determined to feed the prophetic creature living below Newei’s surface.
It was difficult for him to accept his defeat, but he’d allowed it regardless. Transferring to the stone had been effortless. He found he preferred it. And the truth was, he’d expected this eventuality. Ovalax needed that to happen, so he could accompany Dean Parker on the way to Ebos.
Plus, with his new proximity to the Deity stone, he could tap in to networks, and learn more than the feeble organic minds he ate could ever give him.
But Dean Parker was problematic. He’d foreseen the man’s arrival. He’d always known that a time would come when he’d face the Recaster. Dean thought he’d bested Ovalax against all odds, but that wasn’t quite true. Dean was the one set to change the face of the universe, and he’d done that when his daughter had returned him from the beyond. But Ovalax had different plans for the so-called Recaster.
His internal power allowed Ovalax to imprint on the man’s brain. He was now connected to the Recaster, and that only increased his authority. Dean was finally aware he’d been lying about Ebos. He undoubtedly assumed the Tiprea were fabricated, and they’d never come from Earth.
Dean probably didn’t understand why Ovalax would have deceived him, but most things from Ovalax were half-truths.
This galaxy would host a disastrous event. An ancient battle would arrive, and Ovalax needed to reunite with his partner to defeat it. He’d spent most of his existence a solo player, and having to rely on someone else brought great discomfort.
Ovalax had seen endless futures for his new host, and most of them predicted his death on Newei. Those close to him would perish. Conceivably his wife. The vision he’d sent Dean had been the strongest. Even now, as the man restlessly slept, Ovalax sensed his fears of his wife’s demise.
Ovalax had never encountered the bond Dean had with his family. It gave him a further understanding of simple organic beings, and why they were inferior to himself.
He focused, allowing the recent events to guide his concentrated efforts. There was a wildcard, the child of the Recaster. She was unreadable. Too many visions sprang into mind when he pictured the daughter. A Deity. It defied logic. He was there when they were hatchlings. He’d even eaten three of their children, cast-offs without power or purpose. But Jules Parker would be the ultimate prize. He’d demanded to feast on her mind when her time with his partner was completed, and she’d assured him this was acceptable.
But Ovalax wasn’t sure how to consume beings any longer, now that he wasn’t in his own organic form. He had to be content with his new purpose. To serve the
universe one last time, and prevent the Planner from tearing them to shreds. He considered Dean’s interactions with Lom of Pleva, and the fact that there were countless iterations of this very dimension. Ovalax lived in each as this single consciousness.
If Dean’s allies didn’t help get Ovalax’s partner to Gasade, it might prevent them from fulfilling their destiny, and all would be destroyed.
Ovalax wondered why he cared so much. Was he weak like Dean? Did he suddenly have feelings and illogical emotions? No. He did it to protect the universe, which had always been his destiny. Despite his foothold in Dean’s mind, part of him did want to leave, to return to the confines of the stone, and to continue his work in peace.
He sent a calm reassurance into his host’s dreams. Save the universe, and you’re free. Those words were a lie, but Dean wouldn’t sense it. He’d make certain of that.
____________
I couldn’t remember the last morning I’d felt so rested. My dreams had come and gone, but the moment I set my feet on the floor, a message penetrated my mind: Save the universe, and you’re free.
Then it vanished, fading like a morning mist under the hot sun. I examined myself for signs of Ovalax, but didn’t think he was active. I was extremely grateful for that.
The shower was wonderful, washing my stress away. When I got to the bridge, the first thing I did was kiss Mary on the top of the head, like I always did. I tousled Hugo’s hair, assuring them I was fine.
“Dad, I’m close to fixing the communicator,” my son said. There were even more pieces of the panel hardware scattered around the bridge.
I made us breakfast, and an hour passed without any surprises. We played music from back home over the speakers, talking about past holidays and Hugo’s eventual graduation. He kept working at the device, and when Mary was ready to end her shift, a single message carried into our ship.
“Just one?” I asked.
“It managed to squeak by. I think I have to redo the cylinders.” Hugo stuck his tongue out in concentration, but I stopped him.
The Colony (The Survivors Book Seventeen) Page 13