Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said,” Nos Kil said, his words biting into Awen’s sentence.

  “Then who issued your orders?” Magnus asked.

  “And wouldn’t you love to know, Adonis.”

  More calmly, Magnus repeated his question. “Who sent you?”

  “Love,” Nos Kil said, turning his shoulders toward her. “Did Adonis ever tell you he shot his brother?”

  Magnus felt every muscle in his body tense. But he was prepared for this. He’d already thought through what he was going to say—to not let it get to him, and to confront lies with truth. Still, hearing someone say it out loud was like ripping off an old bandage that had bonded to a scab. “For failing to follow a direct order while—”

  “He shot him in the head,” Nos Kil said, ignoring Magnus, his eyes staring hard at Awen. “Because of a petty argument over a girl.”

  Magnus stepped in front of Awen and moved toward Nos Kil. The prisoner raised his hands in mock fear. “Please don’t shoot me, private.”

  “I might,” Magnus said.

  “Ooo. So strong.” Nos Kil tried to look over Magnus’s shoulder at Awen. But Magnus held his ground. “Then who will you get your answers from?”

  “The other prisoner,” Awen said, stepping around Magnus.

  Magnus watched Nos Kil’s face twitch as Awen came forward. He didn’t like that she just offered the enemy information for free. But, then again, she was a skilled negotiator after all. And Nos Kil had no idea if it was the truth or not. But her assertion had clearly caught him off guard.

  “There were no other prisoners,” Nos Kil said, cocking his head at Awen.

  “Oh, not from your Recon team, no. You’re quite right. But we did keep one of the pilots alive from the search and rescue convoy that was sent to find you.”

  Nos Kil hesitated. Given the look on his face, he clearly had no idea about the battlecruiser and the squadron of Talons—at least that’s how Magnus interpreted the look on his face. And, apparently Awen did as well.

  “So you didn’t know about that, I see,” she said. “How unfortunate that you weren’t more valuable to your team.”

  Again, Nos Kil hesitated. Then, in what Magnus could only guess was a meager attempt to maintain control of the conversation, he said, “Okay, I’ll bite, miss Elonia. Why is it apparent that I am not valuable?”

  Awen looked at Magnus with raised eyebrows, then back at the prisoner. “They sent three Sparrow-class light armored transports with”—she turned to Magnus—“what were they, scientists?”

  Magnus shrugged his shoulders. “Something like that.” Mystics, she was playing him.

  “That wasn’t a rescue team,” Nos Kil said, growing indignant. “That was…” He came up short, then started laughing. He waved a finger at her and then retreated back toward his bed. “You’re very good, Miss Elonia. You almost had me there. But I’m not falling for your tricks. And I’m so very sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not telling you anything more about my mission, nor am I falling for your attempts to get me to question my value to my employer.”

  “So you’re a hired gun,” Magnus said. “Which means this isn’t Repub sanctioned.”

  Awen looked at Magnus. “So that corroborates the other prisoner’s confessions.”

  “Right,” he said.

  Nos Kil moved back toward the containment wall. “I thought you said you only had one other prisoner?”

  “Did I say that?” Awen asked. “Whoops.”

  “Guess that’s all we needed,” Magnus said to Awen, then turned on his heels.

  “Did he ever tell you how much he hated you?” Nos Kil said as Magnus started walking away. “Hated growing up in your shadow? That he secretly resented you for putting the Corps above your family?”

  Magnus stopped.

  Suddenly, Awen’s voice spoke inside his head. “Don’t listen to him, Magnus.”

  Magnus turned and looked at her. I can’t let this go, Awen.

  “Yes, you can. And you must. He’s baiting you with lies.”

  But is it a lie?

  “You know, earlier on the day you shot him, we’d been joking.” Nos Kil chuckled a little. “I actually asked him if he’d ever shoot you if he had the chance. And you know what he said to me?”

  “Walk away, Magnus,” Awen said.

  Magnus felt as though his feet were frozen to the ground. He couldn’t turn and face Nos Kil but he couldn’t walk away either.

  “Magnus, I’m telling you: walk away.” Awen’s words were firm, like a mother who was issuing her last warning to her wayward child. A long silence filled the air. Magnus knew this coward was baiting him. He knew this was all a trick. Still, if there was even a shred of truth to what Nos Kil had to say, Magnus felt compelled to listen to what Argus thought of him on that last day. And yet he dreaded the answer.

  “He said that if he couldn’t pull the trigger first, he hoped you’d shoot him in the head so your last memory of him would be of his dead eyes staring you in the face.”

  Magnus turned away from Awen and strode toward Nos Kil.

  “Magnus, stop,” Awen shouted.

  “Yes. Stop, Magnus,” Nos Kil echoed. “Don’t do anything that could jeopardize your outstanding reputation in the Marines. Oh, wait, they have orders to arrest you? Whatever for?”

  Magnus’s nose was a few centimeters from the force field.

  “Now there’s the Adonis I knew,” Nos Kil said. “The man who shot his brother, betrayed the Corps, and had himself relocated to the Recon so he didn’t have to face the consequences of killing his own kin in cold blood.”

  “Shut up, Nos Kil.”

  “Must be nice to know a Caldwell who can pull strings for you instead of the limp one that couldn’t even screw straight. Kid was a worthless piece of splick, if you ask me.”

  “Shut up.” Magnus turned his head, ready to lower the wall and break the guy’s face.

  “Magnus,” Awen shouted in his head. “Don’t let him get to you!”

  “And to think you saved me from those ’kuda in the camp. If you only knew how many of your men I would go on to kill in the mwadim’s palace.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Magnus roared. He felt every muscle in his body tense in rage as the revelation bored a hole through his chest. “Azelon! Lower the containment wall.”

  The force field vanished and Magnus charged Nos Kil. The prisoner’s eyes flared as he placed his right foot behind him in a fighting stance. Magnus threw himself into Nos Kil’s chest, letting his shoulder plate strike the man’s sternum. He heard a crack as the Novia armor met bone.

  The men flew backward and hit the cell’s wall, then collapsed on the floor. Magnus began pummeling the man’s rib cage left and right. He heard more bones break with every punch, filling each blow with the hate and vengeance he’d stored up for whoever was responsible for the ambush at the mwadim’s palace.

  Nos Kil tried to fight back, but Magnus’s fury was so violent the man didn’t stand a chance. Magnus managed to climb on top of the man, raining down more blows, this time on his head and face. Magnus ignored the explosions of pain jolting out of his hands and racing up his arms. This man had killed almost two whole platoons, plus dozens of Luma and Jujari. More than that, he’d quite literally started the fire that sparked the war.

  Suddenly, Nos Kil flipped Magnus off him with a thrust from his legs. Magnus had been too caught up in his rage to realize he’d lost his balance, giving the enemy a perfect window of opportunity. The move happened so fast, Magnus had little time to push himself onto all fours. But as soon as he did, Nos Kil dropped a hammer blow on the back of Magnus’s neck. A blast of stars filled the gladia’s vision and he collapsed.

  Despite his disorientation, Magnus rolled to his left and swung his right fist toward Nos Kil’s face. The blow hit the side of his enemy’s head, forcing the prisoner off balance. Magnus was sure he’d dazed him when Nos Kil replied with a punch of his own, catching Ma
gnus under the chin. His teeth jarred together and his mouth filled with blood. But Magnus ignored the fluid, caught Nos Kil by the wrist with one hand, and reached toward his face with the other. Then he pressed his thumb into the man’s eye socket. Magnus squeezed with all his strength, wrapping his fingers behind the victim’s skull for leverage. Then he felt the eyeball pop, accompanied by the spray of the organ’s liquid.

  Nos Kil shouted, wresting Magnus’s hand from his head, and bent the violating digit away in an unnatural direction. The takedown move forced Magnus to succumb, twisting in favor of the pressure point. But he wasn’t fast enough—a loud snap followed by excruciating pain wracked him. It was all the time Nos Kil needed to deliver a chop against Magnus’s throat that broke his airway.

  Magnus looked up at the half-blinded prisoner, his face dripping with blood and water. While Nos Kil was maimed for life, however, it was Magnus who was mortally wounded.

  “Goodbye, Adonis,” Nos Kil said. Magnus felt the man reach around his throat. The next squeeze would suffocate him. But it never came.

  Nos Kil’s hands flew backward and slammed against the wall, held fast by some invisible force. Magnus—clinging to his last raspy breaths—watched as Nos Kil’s body left the floor and slid up the wall. The man made to say something, but his mouth was clamped shut. In place of the expected curse came a muted shriek of intense pain. Nos Kil’s face contorted, frozen in a state of agony.

  “Magnus,” Awen yelled. “Magnus, talk to me!” She hovered over him and pulled his hands away from his throat. Based on the look on her face and the way she stared at his neck, he expected it was deformed. “Mystics… Azelon! I need a medical evacuation right away!”

  But Magnus knew there was nothing Azelon or Valerie or any other medic could do in time to save his life.

  9

  Moldark was close—closer than anyone had been before him. He could feel the anticipation rising in his bones like the heat of an eons-old fire whose flames had died out long ago but whose embers still lay dormant under the ash. A fresh wind blew, summoning the coals’ orange radiance back to life, causing a new fire to burn, kindled from the remains of an ancient vendetta—one Moldark had sworn to fulfill.

  And he would fulfill his oath. His wrath would visit as many other civilizations as it could in the process—so long as it served his final purpose. Which this assault certainly did.

  “Lord Moldark?” the man asked, and not for the first time. Fleet Admiral Brighton had been standing below Moldark’s raised dais for at least a minute, trying to gain the leader’s attention. But Moldark had been too lost in thought to provide the admiral an audience. Instead, he watched the space battle unfold from his quarters.

  The conflict had grown to include dozens of battleships and hundreds of support vessels and fighters on both sides. Sypeurlion and Dim-Telok ships had redoubled the Juajri’s efforts, while the three Republic fleets deployed their full contingent of Talon squadrons and engaged in unbridled ship-to-ship combat.

  The destruction, Moldark thought, was beautiful.

  In the black space above Oorajee, bright bolts of deadly energy crisscrossed one another as the massive leviathans slowly maneuvered to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, minuscule star fighters zipped over their hulls like Melfarene mosquitos looking to draw blood from Bandalor mule bears. Blaster fire ripped through the void and splashed across force fields, sending ripples of energy into the abyss. Missiles streaked in one direction only to be followed by salvos going the opposite way as both sides tried to take out the high-speed fighters that continuously tried to evade the guided ordinance. And all around, Moldark imagined that he could hear the screams of the dying as their bodies vaporized in the void’s cold vacuum.

  “My lord, I’m sorry to keep insisting, but—”

  “But we haven’t heard back from the squadron we sent into metaspace.”

  Brighton hesitated. “That’s correct, my lord.”

  Moldark turned from the floor to ceiling windows and gazed down upon Brighton. “This concerns you?”

  “It does, only because of the time dilation you mentioned. At this point, the reinforcements will have had days to report their findings and—”

  “You fear them to be lost.”

  Brighton placed two fingers under his collar and adjusted it. “Yes, my lord.”

  Moldark sighed. It was a pity how much these humans labored over trivial losses. And for that reason alone, he mused to himself, they will never evolve far enough to contend for supremacy.

  “What are your orders?”

  Moldark turned back toward the space battle. “Do you see that vessel there?”

  “My lord?”

  Moldark gestured to Brighton to ascend the dais, then pointed toward a large Jujari starship that floated against the orange planet’s backdrop. “That one there?”

  “Yes. I believe that’s the Jujari dreadnaught The Victory of The Infinitely Majestic and Illustrious—”

  “I don’t care what it’s called, admiral. I care that we focus our weapons on it and destroy it.”

  Again, Brighton hesitated.

  “Is there a problem, admiral?”

  “No, my lord. But I feel I should remind you that—”

  “That the ship I’ve designated is a Jujari Dreadnaught-class battleship capable of meeting our assault with its own. I need no reminding from a man, admiral. Or do you forget with whom you are speaking?”

  “Yes, sir—my lord.”

  “But if you’d been paying attention, you’d know that the enemy’s focus has been on keeping three battlecruisers at bay. As such, they will not notice our strike.”

  “You want to interrupt Second Fleet’s assault with one of our own? But that might—”

  “Risk damaging the battlecruisers? Then I suggest advising them of our actions to mitigate our losses, admiral. All weapons to full power, no quarter. Target the enemy’s reactor.”

  Brighton’s mouth worked the air without producing sound. Finally, his will found traction with his voice, and he said, “But sir, that won’t give the Jujari crew any time to abandon ship.”

  Moldark spun on Brighton. “Are you here to play games, admiral? Is that what this is to you? I said no quarter.”

  “No quarter. As you wish, my lord.”

  “I will come to you on the bridge in a moment. Ready weapons systems. Dismissed.”

  Moldark listened to Brighton’s footfalls as he walked toward the exit and left the grand hall. The admiral was a fool, of course. They all were, what with their holding to antiquated rules of engagement derived from nearsighted agendas to extend mercy toward a conquered enemy. Moldark cursed to himself, wondering where such resolutions had been when his people were ripped from their planet and cast into oblivion.

  “Where was our quarter?” he said, seething at the stars. “Where was our chance to escape?” The answer, of course, was nowhere. For no mercy had been shown. “And thus, none will be given.”

  Moldark remembered well the screams of his kin as the Novia came to tear his people from their temples and imprison them. And for what? To source a prize the Novia could not produce for themselves? Moldark ground his teeth until his cheeks bled. “So they took, and took, and took, until the land was raw and rivers were filled with blood.”

  Finally, it was Moldark’s time to take. To consume and devour. To tear asunder and rid the galaxy of the vile pest whose appetite knew no end. It was his moment to reconcile the long outstanding accounts. It was time for vindication.

  But it would not stop with the Novia Minoosh and their kin, the Jujari. Moldark’s quest for blood had grown, extending toward any who stood to gain by feeding off the presence of another. And if there was ever a species who’d inherited and magnified the traits of the Novia, it was the humans. Their lust for that which was not their own seemed insatiable—no doubt the cause of their rapid evolution and domination in this pathetic sector of a crumbling galaxy.

  Moldark would end them. He would end them
all.

  * * *

  The Black Labyrinth came to starboard and aimed the chord of its body toward the Jujari battleship Moldark specified. He smiled as dozens of anti-ship quad cannon and missile battery targeting reticles overlapped one another, displaying readiness icons on the tactical holos throughout the bridge. It was time for a kill.

  The deck plating that protected the Jujari ship’s reactor core lay like a tricerasaur’s armor across the soft flesh of its posterior, keeping predators from its secondary heart. And like the armored beast of the Tradelands, the Jujari’s defenses could only sustain so much before plates were compromised and the inner flesh was violated. One strike, the monster would fall.

  The bridge crew worked themselves into a fervor as outstanding directives were reassigned or dismissed in place of Moldark’s new objective. He also wondered how much of their frantic activity was due to his presence on the Labyrinth’s bridge as this was a location he hadn’t frequented since ousting Kane.

  He strode up and down the length of the room, examining workstations and checking status reports. None of the officers met his gaze, each averting their eyes and busying themselves with their respective holos. The power, he admitted, felt good. It had been several millennia since he’d commanded a military force—none such as feeble as this, he admitted. But it served his needs. For the present, at least.

  Brighton stepped away from a command station and moved toward Moldark. “All systems are ready, my lord. We have target lock with 93% of our fixed assets reporting in.”

  “Excellent. Pull our remaining fighters back. As soon as they’re clear, give the order.”

  “As you command.”

  Brighton called the Talons off and waited for the last one to pass beyond the estimated blast radius. Second Fleet’s battlecruisers still weren’t entirely clear, but their shields would deflect most of the energy. And though Moldark hated to admit it, he needed all the ships he could muster, for this was only the beginning.