Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “It’s—it’s over?”

  Moldark sighed. “Yes. It’s over. Now, to your feet.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As the man stood, Moldark could see a dark stain surrounding his hips and pants. Curious, he reached out and touched the clothing. Brighton winced but did not pull away. The fabric was wet, and Moldark’s fingers smelled like urine.

  “You are afraid,” Moldark said.

  Brighton shook his head at first, then changed directions. “Scared only for your fate, my lord.”

  “You lie.”

  “It’s true,” Brighton protested loudly. “I swear it.”

  “Then why didn’t you try and stop them?”

  “I—” Brighton’s darted around. “I didn’t know, I swear it. Or else I would have.”

  Moldark stepped in close. “You had no idea about their attempt to assassinate me?”

  “No. Before the mystics, no. They pulled me from the head and then marched me here at gunpoint. Said they had to speak with you and that it was a matter of utmost importance. An emergency. That it all, I swear to you.”

  Moldark sniffed the air—sniffed Brighton’s soul. The man was telling the truth. “Any idea who ordered the hit?”

  “No, my lord. I suspect some commanders in the two other fleets, but nothing concrete.”

  Moldark eyed Brighton a moment longer.

  “I swear, my lord!”

  “Very well. Get this cleaned up immediately, then return to the bridge. I have pressing work to finish.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  “And change your clothes, Brighton. You stink.”

  “Yes, my lord. I will.”

  Moldark turned around to walk toward Piper’s room when he heard a moan from one of the Marines. He glanced at a suit of armor and noted a hint of movement. One remained alive? Moldark looked at Brighton, who merely shrugged. Then he walked to the survivor and bent down, motioning Brighton to join him.

  “Remove his helmet,” Moldark said to the fleet admiral. Brighton nodded, then moved around, undid the chin strap, and pulled the cover for the Marine’s head.

  Blood seeped from the man’s nose and mouth, and burn marks laced his neck. He had precious few moments to live. “Who sent you?” Moldark asked. But the man only groaned. Moldark repeated his question more forcefully. “Who sent you?” Again, the man seemed in too much pain to reply.

  When Moldark snapped his fingers in front of the Marine’s face, the man’s eyes focused then went wide with fear. The victim sputtered blood and tried to push himself away.

  “I have no time for this,” Moldark said. He summoned his strength and exerted his will upon the Marine. Doing so this quickly would kill the host, he knew, but the man was dying anyway, so it mattered little—even a hint of who was behind this assassination attempt might be useful. Moldark was the dominant force in the Marine’s psyche, so he asked his question one final time, slowly. “Who sent you?”

  The Marine trembled, still fighting, still resisting, even to the end. But it was impossible to resist an Elemental—the choices were submission or death.

  “Nine,” the Marine said, and then his face went blank.

  Moldark stood, staring down at the body as if it had been cursed. He felt anger boil in his soul. No—it was stronger than anger. It was rage. “They double-cross me yet again.”

  “My lord?” Brighton asked, stepping back.

  Moldark turned on his fleet admiral. “There will be consequences, Brighton. Painful ones. Ones they will regret only so long as they’re alive to witness them.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  For the first time in a long time, a new desire was forming in Moldark’s mind—one that quite surprised him. He’d been focused on avenging his people for so long that all other goals failed to rival it. But now—now he had another goal. Not a rival, per se, but one he considered duly important. And, if the circumstances presented themselves, one he would entertain without hesitation.

  “The bodies, the clutter”—Moldark gestured blindly to the floor—“I want it all gone, now.”

  “Right away, my lord.”

  Then Moldark headed for Piper’s door.

  18

  The first meeting with the Gladio Umbra’s company commanders made Magnus feel awkward. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be in the meeting, or even that he disliked those present. Instead, he missed seeing the faces of the people who’d gotten the team this far—who’d helped keep them alive.

  But Magnus understood the nature of leadership and the ever-changing needs of a growing unit. To say that the Gladio Umbra had grown would be an understatement. Further, to say that it could continue to function healthily under its previous leadership structure would have been a fallacy. He, of all people, knew that unit success rose and fell on sound leadership. Without it, their efforts would fall short, and the galaxy could not afford that. A new structure must be employed—but it didn’t mean he couldn’t miss the past.

  Colonel Caldwell led the meeting from the far end of a second conference room table that he’d commandeered from Azelon’s inventory of endless rooms and tables. Around it sat Captain Forbes, leader of Taursar Company, and Lieutenant Nelson, leader of Hedgebor Company, both rifle units. Azelon was present for both support and intel with Drambull Company and naval operations with Raptor Company, while TO-96 lead Fang Company. And finally, Master Willowood, who sat at the table’s far end, commanded the mystic-filled Paladia Company. No other members of the Gladio Umbra’s ever-expanding ranks were allowed in this meeting.

  “Thank you for breaking from your training evolutions to meet on such short notice,” the colonel said, standing with his hands behind his back. He wore the standard attire of the Spire’s crew, a white bodysuit with pale blue trim. The colonel had managed to keep off most of the weight that other men his age carried—a result of daily PT and attention to his diet. Still, he had a slight belly that protruded from the bodysuit in a way that suggested Azelon might want to look into alternative clothing styles for the less physically fit among the crew.

  “It has come to our attention that a missing member of our team has been located,” Caldwell said. “Forbes and Nelson, I know that neither of you have met Piper, but you’re aware of her relationship to Senator Darin Stone, and, more importantly, her giftedness in the Unity.”

  The two company commanders nodded.

  “Willowood, would you care to take it from here?”

  “Thank you, Colonel.” Willowood rose from her chair and addressed the room. “During Awen’s most recent use of the quantum tunnel generator on Ithnor Itheliana, she detected Piper’s presence aboard a vessel leaving the Wyndorian system.”

  “Do we know what type of vessel?” Forbes asked.

  “We do,” Magnus said. “A Paragon ship named the Peregrine.”

  “According to Ricio’s account, that is Moldark’s personal ship,” TO-96 said.

  “Awen confirmed that Piper was indeed in Moldark’s care.” Willowood looked around the table. “She also did not sense that Piper was in distress.”

  “So, she went willingly?” Nelson asked.

  “We believe so.”

  “And why do you think the girl would go willingly?” Forbes asked.

  Caldwell answered for Willowood. “There are several plausible explanations—”

  “But the most probable one is that Piper knew Admiral Kane was her grandfather.”

  Forbes stared at Willowood, dumbfounded. It was the same look Magnus had given Awen and the old woman when they’d told him as much. “Ho—ly splick. Are you saying Kane is—”

  “My ex-husband?” Willowood nodded. “Yes.”

  Caldwell looked like he was about to say something, but Willowood kept going. “If it’s any consolation, I recognize that it was wrong to keep the information from you.” Willowood let her eyes linger on Magnus. “For that, I’m sorry. It was a mistake, and I have myself to blame for the reasons why.”

  Awe
n seemed about to speak up, but the older woman raised a hand before continuing. “As for why Valerie never said anything, I can only speculate. If she did not wish her father’s identity to be known, then she had a good reason for it. Unfortunately for us, we will never know the answer, nor do I believe it is something we need anyway. The curtain has been pulled back, and we will let Valerie rest in peace.”

  “The most important question now,” Caldwell interjected, “is how are we going to rescue Piper?”

  “OTF.” Forbes pounded a fist on the table. Magnus liked that the man seemed all in with his new commission to the Gladio Umbra. “You have a plan, Colonel?”

  “Negative. I only learned about Piper’s whereabouts moments before I called you all here. This meeting is to determine whether or not we proceed with a rescue mission, and if so, what it looks like.”

  “May I offer an observation, sir?” TO-96 asked.

  “Go ahead, Brass Balls.”

  TO-96 hesitated. “Brass Balls, sir?”

  “Here we go.” Magnus grinned at TO-96.

  “I’m afraid I do not understand the reference, at least as it pertains to me.”

  The colonel smiled past the cigar and pointed to the bot’s weaponized forearms. “You pack some heavy firepower for a bot. And I saw you put yourself in harm’s way to protect lives on Worru. Then, you volunteer to command a company of starfighters that you’ve never flown before. And now you’re offering suggestions to a Republic Marine Battalion Commander. Tell me, have you ever made a military suggestion to a colonel before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And are you afraid in any way?”

  “Afraid?” TO-96 tilted his head slightly. “Sir, I’m incapable of experiencing fear.”

  “Damn straight,” the colonel replied. “And, therefore, Brass Balls.”

  TO-96 looked at Magnus, presumably for an explanation. But Magnus shrugged. “The nickname makes sense, ’Six. You’re gonna have to roll with it.”

  “Roll with Brass Balls,” TO-96 said. “That is a very clever pun, sir. Though the exact implication of the colonel’s meaning still eludes me.”

  Caldwell rapped his knuckles on the table and fixed his eyes on the bot. “Your suggestion?”

  “My apologies, sir. If our larger mission is to thwart Moldark, and a potential mission is rescuing Piper from Moldark, it seems there is a certain fortuitous nature regarding the two objectives.”

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is charming,” Azelon said, and then gave the colonel a robotic wink.

  The commander chuckled and scratched his eyebrow. “You’re suggesting we utilize one to accomplish the other.”

  “I don’t see the harm in trying.”

  “And how would you propose we take out Moldark?”

  “Assuming the Peregrine has returned to the Black Labyrinth, then that places Piper with Moldark on his command ship. If we find her, we find him. My calculations suggest that the opportunity to eliminate Moldark increases exponentially as we close on Piper’s position.”

  “So you’re suggesting we hit the Black Labyrinth, grab the girl, and take out Moldark if he’s hanging around,” Forbes said.

  “Without your prolific use of colloquialisms, yes—that’s what I’m suggesting.”

  “The bot really does have brass balls,” Nelson said to Forbes. “Now I need me a pair.”

  “All right,” Caldwell said, raising a hand to quiet the laughter. “I think the bot makes a good point. However, I feel that one objective does not necessarily beget the other. A rescue operation is not the same as an assault, and we don’t have the time, training, or resources to conduct the later, at least not without taking heavy losses. That said, I do think that whatever team goes after Piper will have the opportunity to take a shot at Moldark, and that shouldn’t be overlooked in its importance. It is not, however, the prime objective. Do I make myself clear?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “You’re thinking up something, aren’t you, Colonel,” Magnus stated.

  Caldwell rocked back in his chair and rolled his cigar in his fingers. “We have Granther Company make a low-profile insertion onto the ship, locate and extract the girl, and then get the hell out.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Magnus said. “The teams will be up for it.”

  Azelon raised a hand. “There are several obstacles to your plan, colonel. Not the least of which is getting the members of Magnus’s unit onto the Labyrinth in the first place. According to TO-96’s documentation on your typical special operations procedures, we’ll need to work through target-analysis, mission-planning, equipment-staging, and rehearsal—the latter of which I don’t foresee anyone having time for.”

  “And that’s exactly why you’re here, Smarty Pants,” Caldwell said. “Because we’re not going anywhere until we come up with something blaster proof—for the girl’s sake and yours, Magnus.”

  Magnus cracked his knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

  19

  Piper heard strange sounds outside her room. First, there were blaster shots and people running around. Then what sounded like muted screams and lots of heavy things falling on the floor. She’d thought about stepping into the Unity to see what was going on, but her grandfather had said the meeting wasn’t for her. And, in case it was something bad or scary—which is what it sounded like—she thought better of looking. Plus, her grandfather might get mad if he found out she’d disobeyed him, so she stayed curled up on her bed.

  It was several minutes before he came to get her. “Piper? Are you there?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said over the door’s intercom. “Is it okay to come out now?”

  “Yes, child. My meeting is over.”

  Piper slid off her bed, walked across the room, and touched the keypad to open the door. Her grandfather smiled and then gestured back toward his chair at the top of the platform. But Piper looked around him to where the men had stood. They were all gone. The only thing she could see was a strange blackish powder along the floor like someone hadn’t swept or dusted in a while.

  “Shall we continue?”

  * * *

  Piper knew metaspace was just beyond the veil—she could feel it. She stood in a forest-wrapped clearing deep in the Foundation’s wilderness. The sunlight caressed her face as she looked up at a wall of water. It flowed from a rock outcrop twenty meters overhead and stretched nearly as wide. But unlike any other waterfall she’d seen, which pooled in a broad basin, this one disappeared into a slit in the ground ideally suited to capture the liquid sheet.

  The cascading wall glimmered in the light, inviting Piper toward it. But as she neared the gap in the grass-covered stone ground, she was careful to keep her toes from slipping into the space. For, down there, she did not sense the Foundation, nor any realms of the Nexus. Instead, she sensed—nothing. Oblivion. The eternal vastness of the void. Whatever this place was, wherever she’d journeyed to in her attempt to give her grandfather his quantum tunnel to metaspace, it was unlike anything she’d seen—beautiful, but also dangerous.

  “What do you see?” asked a voice from beside her physical body. It belonged to her grandfather. The voice echoed through the trees like rocks grating on one another, and she didn’t like it very much. But Piper’s mother had sometimes said that a little girl’s voice was irritating too, so she tried to give her grandfather the benefit of the doubt.

  Piper also knew that her grandfather wasn’t right. There was another presence with him, something dark and mean. She saw it hover around him—within him. When his voice was nicer, that was when the spirit stepped back a little. But when his voice was scratchier, like it was now, the spirit blocked her grandfather’s presence. She wondered if she could help him when all this was over—after she helped him rescue the Jujari.

  “I see a waterfall,” Piper replied at last, using her physical body’s mouth to communicate with her grandfather. He stood over her as she lay on the floor in his big observation deck with the huge window.
He’d placed a pillow under her head, which she thought was very kind of him.

  “Why a waterfall?”

  Piper looked into the forest as if doing so would help her grandfather hear her better, but she realized it didn’t matter—he couldn’t see or hear the waterfall anyway. “It’s what the wall looks like between the two universes.”

  “I was picturing something more dramatic,” her grandfather replied.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Never mind. What are you going to do next?”

  Piper looked back at the waterfall and crossed her arms. “I don’t know yet. I need to think about it. And please stop talking. You’re distracting me.”

  She studied the water as it flowed off the outcrop and fell into the wide slit. She knew that going around it would only place her on the backside of the falls, not on the other side of the universe. That was the whole point of going through something and not just around it.

  But the falls felt dangerous, and the emptiness below even more dangerous. She could practically hear Awen telling her to step away from the gap now—warning her not to get any closer to the water. But Awen wasn’t here now. And Awen hadn’t been asked to help the Jujari escape. This was Piper’s job—it was her chance to be a grownup and do something important. If So-Elku had tried to help her recognize who she was without the restraints of her power suit, then this was her chance to do something about it, to show the cosmos who she really was.

  Still, fear of the unknown tugged on her heart. She looked back and forth between the water and the gap. The falls shot down into inky blackness, disappearing into infinity. It was a long way down. And there was just enough space that a small person, like her, could fall through. If she wasn’t careful, Piper knew she might plummet into the pit.

  But she would be careful. And she would be strong. Piper summoned her resolve, looked down at her hand, and extended her fingers toward the shimmering wall of water. She noticed how her fingers trembled more the closer they got. Small droplets of water formed on the tiny hairs on the back of her hand. They were cold. And heavy. In fact, the more moisture that gathered on her fingers, the harder it was to hold her arm up.