Broken Worlds- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  “And I’d rather that she stay.” Tanik held his gaze.

  Darius frowned, and Tanik clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Collecting firewood is a man’s work, am I right?”

  “That’s sexist,” Cassandra complained.

  “I can cut wood just as well as you.”

  Tanik arched an eyebrow at her. “Perhaps you can cut it, but can you carry it? You can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”

  “So?”

  “So, you can help us once you’ve packed on some more muscle. Besides, I’m sure your father doesn’t want you to get crushed by a falling tree.”

  Cassandra glared at Tanik, but Darius relented with that argument. “All right, let’s go.”

  “Seriously?” Cassandra said. “You’re going to leave me all alone? Remember what happened the last time?”

  Darius gave her a tight smile. “You’ll be fine up here,” he said, and pointed to the Marines standing guard with their laser rifles. “Besides, after today’s training you must be feeling more confident about protecting yourself, right?”

  “I guess...”

  Darius looked around for Dyara. He spotted her standing to one side of the bonfire. “Stick with Dya,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Fine,” Cassandra relented. “You be careful.”

  “I’ve got Tanik with me,” Darius said with a shrug. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  Tanik smiled thinly at that. “Yes. Let’s go.”

  Darius dropped a kiss on top of Cassandra’s head while Tanik turned and strode for one of the two Ospreys. “Be safe,” Darius whispered before hurrying after Tanik.

  “You, too!” Cassandra called after him.

  Chapter 21

  Darius watched Tanik quietly as he flew them to the forest below the mountain. There was a clearing on the slope not far from the castle, just a few kilometers from where Darius had hoped to look for the bodies from the well.

  He felt an uneasy flutter in his stomach as he wondered about that. After spending all day trying to think of a way he could get down to the forests, now Tanik was taking him down there, along with the perfect excuse—to gather more firewood. Was Samara was onto him? Darius’s heart began to pound. Or, maybe Tanik was onto Samara, and he wanted to get Darius alone so that they could talk.

  Darius cleared his throat. “You must be happy to have your wife back after all these years, especially after you thought she was dead.”

  “Yes,” Tanik agreed, bringing the Osprey down between the tops of bright green trees with spiky, cone-shaped leaves that gleamed like jewels in the sun.

  “Sorry for waking you both last night,” Darius went on. “I guess visions can be misleading sometimes.”

  “Most times,” Tanik amended.

  Darius frowned. This conversation wasn’t going anywhere. The forward landing struts touched down with a crunch of gravel, followed by the rear ones as the Osprey landed on the slope. Tanik rose from the pilot’s seat with a twisted smile.

  “You’re not very subtle, Darius.”

  His whole body turned to ice, and he fumbled with the release lever for his acceleration harness. “I’m sorry?” Darius asked with a furrowed brow.

  “Subtle. You’re still suspicious of my wife.” Tanik said, walking down the sloping deck to loom over Darius. He stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Darius hesitated to reply.

  “You really think I wouldn’t be able to recognize my own wife?” Tanik asked.

  “Well...” Darius trailed off with a nervous laugh. “I guess that is pretty stupid.”

  “Indeed,” Tanik agreed as he went to open the cockpit door. “You don’t want to go losing your head down here, Darius.”

  Apprehension shivered down Darius’s spine. Was that a threat? He finally managed to release his harness to join Tanik in standing, but he almost fell back into his seat thanks to the steeply-slanting deck.

  “Lose my head?” he asked.

  “Yes.” The cockpit door slid open, and Tanik regarded him with a cold smile that never reached his eyes. “It’s an expression from your time, is it not?”

  “Yeah...” Darius nodded, wondering how Tanik would know that. He smiled back, trying not to let his unease show, and followed Tanik down the sloping corridor.

  Tanik waved the airlock open as they crossed the troop bay. Darius walked in behind him. The inner doors slammed shut, and then the outer ones slid open.

  Tanik hopped down, seeming almost to float to the ground. He took a few steps, pebbles crunching loudly underfoot, and then turned to Darius. “Well?”

  Darius landed on the slope with a sharp spike of pain in the arches of his feet, and fell on his hands and knees—a stark contrast to the graceful, floating landing that Tanik had executed. Picking himself up, he saw Tanik already walking down the slope, heading for the trees.

  As Tanik reached the trees, he began to glow brightly with the gathered energies of the zero-point field. He drew his sword, also glowing brightly, and swept it through the trunk of a dead tree. The tree leaned over and slowly fell, snapping the branches of its neighbors before hitting the ground with a loud crash.

  Darius stopped and stood off at a safe distance, watching as Tanik’s blade swept through a second snag, felling it with another crash. Tanik moved onto a third, but this time it was a live tree.

  Darius felt a prickling thrill of warning. Before he could figure out why, a shadow fell over him and he saw a massive tree swinging down toward his head. Darius ducked and rolled to one side.

  Sharp branches carved fiery lines in his back, and spiky leaves pricked his skin like cacti, but the trunk missed him. The crashing thunder of the falling tree died away, replaced by the booming peals of Tanik’s laughter.

  “Good! I was hoping you’d make this a challenge.”

  Darius spun to face Tanik, drawing on the ZPF to activate his own shield even as he drew his sword. “What are you doing?” he screamed, partly from the pain of his injuries.

  Tanik walked around the fallen tree, flourishing his own blade. “Tanik was right about you. You are a threat to the Augur.”

  It only took Darius a second to figure out why he was speaking in third person. “Samara?”

  “My real name is Nova.”

  “You’ve been pretending to be Tanik’s wife this whole time,” Darius said.

  “That’s a banal observation at this point, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t have to kill me,” Darius said, backing away in the direction of the Osprey. “I don’t want any part in killing the Augur. That was all Tanik’s idea.”

  Nova’s lips stretched into a smile, and the yellow-green eyes of the body she’d somehow possessed danced brightly in the light of a ZPF shield. Nova stopped advancing for a moment, but Darius kept backpedaling.

  “I believe you,” Nova said. “But there’s just one problem. I’ve also seen Tanik’s vision—the one with you sitting on a throne, ruling the Union, and I’m afraid that there’s only one way to prevent that from happening.”

  “I’m not a threat,” Darius said.

  “That little stunt you pulled in the fortress earlier is just a taste of what’s to come. If you can already hide yourself from me, imagine what you’ll be able to do when you’re fully trained?”

  “I’m not a threat,” Darius repeated.

  “No? You’re idealistic, and when you realize that you actually have the power to change things, you’ll try. You’ll try to be the hero and save the galaxy from itself. You are a threat, Darius, whether you know it now or not, and there’s only one thing to do with such threats.”

  “Let’s say you’re right. Why don’t you be the hero and save me the trouble? Or does the Augur control you so tightly that you can’t think for yourself?”

  Tanik’s body began advancing again, a helpless avatar for Nova. “And what heroic agenda would you have me pursue? Defeat the Cygnians? Destroy the Crucible? Free the hunted?” Nova smirked. “You’re no
t the first misguided fool to think that we should be fighting the Cygnians instead of the Keth.

  “There are two problems with that—you’re assuming that the Cygnians are the greater threat, and you’re assuming that a fair and democratic Union would be peaceful. Do you have any idea how many different wars the Cygnians prevented by unifying and subjugating all the different species in Orion? Right now everyone has a common enemy. They’re like ants, raging against the boot that crushes them. Take that away, and they’ll turn on each other—assuming they survive your war with the Cygnians.”

  Darius was still backing away, but Nova outpaced him easily. He fought the urge to turn and run. He couldn’t risk turning his back on this fight.

  “I have a daughter,” Darius said, shaking his head. “Don’t do this.”

  “Begging is a disgraceful way to die,” Nova chided.

  “The others will find out that you killed me. You won’t be able to make it look like an accident. Not anymore.”

  “Perhaps not, but I doubt it will matter.” Nova flashed another smile. “They’re not thinking very clearly right now.” Nova’s free hand rose, and hundreds of large rocks floated up all around Darius’s head.

  “Goodbye, Darius.”

  Nova flicked Tanik’s wrist, and the rocks flew toward Darius’s head at high speed. He thrust up his hands in an attempt to shield his face, and his eyes winced shut in anticipation.

  But nothing happened. He cracked his eyes open to see the rocks hovering in mid-air, some of them bare inches from his nose.

  Nova looked puzzled. “How are you doing that?” She looked at Tanik’s hand. “Tanik must be weaker than I thought. What a pity.”

  Nova dropped Tanik’s hand, and the rocks fell with a noisy clatter. The larger ones came rumbling down the slope. Darius glanced over his shoulder to see the boulders knocking other ones free, jumping and skipping down the mountain in a thundering rock slide. Darius leaped over one of them, and dodged two more. Just before the rock slide had finished rumbling past him, a third boulder glanced off his hip and knocked him over. He dropped his sword and fell on his hands and knees once more.

  Panting from the sudden exertion, Darius looked up and glared at his adversary. The rocks parted like a wave around Tanik, missing him entirely. Darius grabbed his sword and climbed to his feet.

  Nova laughed. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” She leapt through the air and landed with a crunch of gravel right in front of Darius.

  Nova swung her sword swung down, and Darius just managed to bring his up in time to block. The blades crashed with a sizzling metallic clatter. Nova slid her blade down along Darius’s, then slipped it out from under, and thrust.

  Darius turned his body to avoid that attack, but it still grazed his stomach with a crackling hiss and a searing flash of heat. Darius jumped back, recoiling from the blade. He glanced down to find his jumpsuit char-blackened where the sword had grazed him.

  Darius backpedaled in earnest now, heedless that he might trip. “Snap out of it, Tanik!” he screamed.

  “It won’t work,” Nova said. “He can’t hear you.”

  Darius turned and ran down the hill, willing himself to run faster than he ever had in his life. Gravel skittered under his boots as he dashed down the mountain, weaving around boulders and leaping over others. He heard hurried footfalls behind him, and glanced over his shoulder to see Nova keeping pace with him.

  “You can’t run from me, Darius!”

  But Darius ran even faster and reached the trees. Branches and tree trunks blurred around him. Jutting roots forced him to jump while fallen logs and low-hanging branches made him duck. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but still he ran.

  “Watch your step!” Nova called out, sounding farther away now.

  Darius didn’t understand until the trees abruptly parted in front of him and clear blue sky appeared. Going too fast to stop, he sailed right over the cliff and into open air with his legs still churning. He cried out in alarm, and his head swam as he looked down. A carpet of green and blue trees sprawled out far below his feet. It was a sheer drop, at least a hundred stories. He picked up speed quickly, with the wind ripping at his jumpsuit and hair, forcing his eyes to shut.

  He managed to squint them open just as he hit the forest canopy. Branches slapped, snapped, and scratched as he fell, some of them breaking through his shield. Then he hit the ground with a sickening thud.

  He lay there on his back, unable to breathe. The treetops spun around his head. His whole body felt warm and numb, like it was vibrating, or falling still. Shredded bits of green and blue vegetation fluttered down like rain. A broken branch crashed down beside him with a thump. Darius’s mind swam. He thought he might be sick, but he couldn’t find the strength to move. His eyelids slammed shut like they were made of lead. He forced them open, only to have them slam shut again. Even with his eyes shut, it felt like the world was spinning.

  I must have a concussion... can’t sleep now... he thought, even as his thoughts slipped away like water through a sieve. Would Nova come down to look for him?

  His mind flashed back to the game of hide and seek at the castle, and he used what little strength he had left to hide his presence as he had then. He only hoped that it would work while he was asleep—unless this smothering carpet of darkness was the shadow of death, in which case it wouldn’t matter anyway. Darius sucked in an aching breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh.

  Chapter 22

  Dim light slipped in through a blurry veil of eyelashes. Darius’s eyes opened wider. Sensation and memory came back in broken fragments, like staring at his reflection in a shattered mirror. He remembered falling, slamming into the ground and lying there numb and fading.

  He no longer felt numb. His entire body ached, his skin itching and tingling. That had to be a good sign. He tried sitting up, but a sharp pain stopped him, and he saw the jagged, bloody point of a branch protruding from his side.

  Kak... he thought, his heart pounding and head swimming. He couldn’t pull that branch out. It was likely the only thing stopping a deadly hemorrhage.

  Darius blinked at the slivered fragments of a dark blue sky. Night was falling. He must have been unconscious for several hours already. That meant his injuries were holding—at least for now—and that Nova had given him up for dead.

  Darius focused on keeping his presence small and concealed while he thought about what to do next. He was alone in a forest teeming with Seekers and who-knew-what other kinds of predators, badly injured, and with no supplies to treat those injuries.

  The nanites in his blood might be enough to keep him alive if he pulled out that branch. Darius tried sitting up again, using his arms to prop himself up. Searing pain lit his stomach on fire. He bit his lip to keep from crying out and forced himself upright.

  As soon as he did so, he realized he had another problem, besides the branch. Both of his legs were broken, folded up under him at impossible angles. One of them was broken so badly that he could see a bloody white bone poking out.

  Darius gasped, and his breath hitched in his lungs. His stomach heaved at the sight of the injuries, drawing a fresh stab of pain from the puncture wound in his side.

  No wonder Nova had given up on him. There was no way he’d be able to survive without urgent medical attention. Feeling like he might faint, Darius lowered himself onto his back. That movement activated his injured abdominal wall and he gasped from the pain. With his mind and heart racing, he laid his head on a bed of broad blue leaves, and prickly cone-shaped green ones. The world was spinning again. He thought about Cassandra, of leaving her an orphan in a hostile galaxy, forced to fight and die in the Revenants’ war, with her mind and will no longer her own.

  He couldn’t leave her to that fate. He had to find some way to get through this. To survive. First he needed to remove the branch. Then he’d have to set and bandage his broken legs and fashion splints.

  Darius glanced around, noting the broken bra
nches around him. He could fashion splints with some of them and secure them with strips of fabric from his jumpsuit. But it could take days or weeks for his nanites to heal his legs. He’d have to find water and food long before then.

  One problem at a time.

  Darius lifted his arms. At least they weren’t broken, but they were badly scratched. Blood had crusted in long crisscrossing lines, running all the way down both of his arms. He grabbed the end of the stick protruding from his side, about to tear it out but thought better of it. It would be easier and safer to pull it out the same way it had gone in. He forced himself back into a sitting position and felt around behind him for the other end of the branch. It was slick with blood, and there wasn’t much to grab onto.

  He had to push it through from the front until he had something to grab at the back. Grimacing, Darius wrapped both hands around the stick... and pushed.

  Stars exploded in his head. White-hot pain tore through him, and there was no stopping the scream that burst from his lips. Tears streamed down his cheeks and hot blood bubbled over his hands. Darius stopped, gasping and shaking, weak with shock. He blinked spots from his eyes and shook his head. He couldn’t pass out now. He’d die for sure.

  With blood still pouring from his side, he reached around and found the other end of the stick. It was slippery with his blood, but he found a knot in the wood to grab onto. Knowing that time was precious, he gritted his teeth and ripped the branch all the way out. Darius felt things pulling and shifting inside of him, and almost fainted from the pain and loss of blood. He tossed the branch aside and clapped a hand to the front and back of the puncture to slow the bleeding. Gasping from the pain, he held pressure on the wounds with shaking hands.

  There wasn’t much else he could do. He couldn’t spare his hands to rip off pieces of his jumpsuit for a bandage, so he just sat there, in a world of pain, with his life slipping through his fingers.

  After a while, the flow of blood slowed, and a spreading numbness eased his pain. It was utterly dark now. The only sight an occasional glint of eyes watching from between the trees. His eyelids grew heavy once more. He fought it, but exhaustion overcame him, and his head hit a pillow of dried leaves.