“Come. We should not keep your father waiting.” With that, Tanik about-faced and led them the rest of the way back to camp.
Chapter 36
That night they ate grilled fish under the stars. Apparently some of the Revenants had gone down to the water and caught those fish earlier.
Gakram’s absence around the camp fire made Cassandra feel hollow inside. Her dad kept trying to cheer her up with stupid jokes, and Dyara wanted her to talk about it, but she just wanted to be alone. When she finished eating half a fish, Cassandra excused herself to take a shower in the outdoor facilities, which had running water thanks to pumps with snaking pipes that ran from a nearby stream.
When she was done, Cassandra strolled aimlessly down the grassy streets, looking for the Acolytes’ habitat. Silver light bloomed from the strings of lights on the street poles overhead. It was just barely enough to illuminate the gleaming white letters beside the doors of the habitats as she went by—C-26, C-27, C-28... The Acolytes’ complex was D-42. She was on the wrong street.
Cassandra cut through the next side street to reach “D.” The side streets were unlit, so it took Cassandra’s eyes a moment to adjust to the sudden plunge into darkness. Once they did, she saw a pair of glinting eyes watching her.
Her hand fell to her sword. “Hello?”
“Cassandra,” a guttural male voice whispered. The man stepped forward, closer to the light pooling from the street behind her, and she caught a glimpse of shiny scars running across his face. “We need to talk.”
It was Tanik. Cassandra frowned. A warm breeze blew down the side street behind her, and she shivered. She felt oddly chilled. Maybe it was because her hair was still wet. “About what?” she asked.
Tanik took another step into the light, and glanced around furtively. “About the Cygnians,” he explained. Someone went thumping down the street behind her, and Tanik quickly stepped back into the shadows.
Cassandra glanced behind her and saw a willowy Dol Walin walk by on long, skinny legs.
“Follow me. We can’t talk out here,” Tanik said, and then started down the alley ahead of her.
Cassandra hesitated. Tanik was not the kind of person she really wanted to follow down a dark alley. And what was he being so secretive about, anyway? Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out. Cassandra crept after him. They reached “D” street, and Tanik led her to the doors of the habitat on the corner—D-30. He keyed the magnetic door flaps open from an adjacent control panel and then stepped inside. Cassandra hesitated again, watching the door flaps flutter in the wind of his passing. The chill inside of her had turned to ice. She rubbed her arms and looked around once, quickly, before following Tanik inside.
The habitat was cool and dry inside, just like all the others. The temperature was regulated by the canvas itself, which became cold on the inside, and hot on the outside when connected to an electric current. Moisture condensed naturally on the inside and ran in rivulets down the inside of the domes to collect in drains along the floor, and that water served to flush the habitat’s toilets, albeit sparingly.
Cassandra had thought it was a brilliant system when she’d first learned about it, but right now it was doing nothing to help with how cold she felt. She rubbed her arms and shivered. Maybe she was getting sick.
“Come sit down,” Tanik said. He was already seated in a high-backed inflatable armchair. Cassandra headed for an inflatable couch and sat in the corner farthest from Tanik. Her sword made sitting awkward, but she maneuvered it so that it dangled to the floor while she perched on the edge of the couch.
“So? What did you want to tell me about the Cygnians?” Cassandra prompted.
“They’ve all been reassigned to the Nomad.”
“I know, I was there.”
“Yes, but what you don’t know is why.”
Cassandra shook her head. “The Admiral said—”
“He lied. I just came from a meeting with him and a few other high-ranking Sentinels. Before they gave the Nomad to the Cygnians, they sabotaged the antimatter containment system. They also re-calibrated the sensors to make sure the problem wouldn’t be found until it’s too late.”
“What? Why would they do that?”
“As insurance. The sabotage won’t do anything—unless the Cygnians try to jump away, say for example... to warn their people that we’re coming.” Tanik’s green eyes sharpened, and a faint smile curved his lips.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t do that...” Cassandra lied, remembering that Gakram had told her not to tell anyone about his people’s plans. She glanced at the door to Tanik’s habitat. She had to send Gakram a message to warn him about the sabotage!
“Let’s not waste time with lies, Cassandra. Gakram confided his people’s plans to you on the beach.”
Cassandra’s head snapped back around. “How do you know...?”
“Because I was using the ZPF to eavesdrop.”
Cassandra blinked in shock. “That’s what you were doing out there in the field?”
“Yes.”
Cassandra shook her head. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“For two reasons. One, because I don’t believe we should start this war by killing our own people. And two, because I’m not sure we need to fight.”
Cassandra arched an eyebrow at him. “You think we can get the Cygnians to back down?”
“Gakram told you about the prophecy.”
Cassandra’s eyes widened. “You know about the prophecy, too?”
“Of course. Anyone who knows anything about the Church of the Divine Light knows about their prophecies of the end of days.”
“Then you think I should do it. You think I should get myself killed by trying to negotiate with them.”
Tanik shook his head. “Let’s start with the most immediate problem. The Nomad is going to jump away, and when it does, it will explode and kill everyone on board. Boom.” He mimed an explosion with his hands. “No more Cygnian Revenants. But if someone were to warn them, they could fix the sabotage and jump out safely.”
“So get on the comms!” Cassandra snapped. “Why are you wasting time telling me?”
Tanik favored her with a condescending look. “Any message we send would be intercepted and eventually decrypted by Admiral Ventaris. We would be executed for treason. There is, however, a more subtle way to deal with the issue.
“When Gakram told you about the prophecy, let’s say that you agreed to go with the Cygnians. A little while later, I learned that you had left. Knowing what I do about the admiral’s sabotage, I naturally decide chase after you and bring you back. But when I arrive on the Nomad to pick you up, you refuse to leave, so the only way I can save you is by revealing the faulty containment field. Unfortunately, after that revelation, the Cygnians take me prisoner, and you continue on as planned to fulfill your destiny as the harbinger who was prophesied.”
“What?” Cassandra blinked furiously as she tried to understand the point of Tanik’s convoluted story. “Wait—we’re actually going to go with them to warn their people? Why?”
“To fulfill the prophecy.”
“And die! No way.” Cassandra shook her head vigorously. “You can go if you want to, but I’m staying on Cratus.”
“I’m not the one who was prophesied. The Old Ones won’t listen to me. But you won’t die. I promise. I won’t allow it.”
“How can you possibly make that promise? You know about my dad’s visions.”
“And I also know that visions are rarely cast in stone. The reason the ZPF shows us what it does is so that we can do things differently to avoid the negative outcomes we see. The Sprites are not evil—showing us unavoidable horrors just to torment us. They show us things in order to help us reach our destinies, and your destiny, whether you like it or not, is to negotiate with the Cygnians before they are all wiped out.
“Why do you think you, of all people, were the only one to befriend the Banshee child, Gakram. And why do you think he befriend
ed you? It is your destiny to save them, and it is my destiny to save you—should the need arise.”
“I don’t...” Cassandra frowned, but then a smile quirked her lips into a mischievous grin. “Your destiny is to save a teenage girl? I guess it’s all downhill from there, huh?”
Tanik’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “This is why you are my favorite student. You have a fine sense of humor.”
Cassandra did a double take. “I thought my dad was your favorite student.”
“No, your father is a pain in the kakker.”
Cassandra burst out laughing. It took a while before she regained her composure, and by the time she did, there were tears streaming from her eyes. She swiped them away and forced herself to be serious. “You promise I won’t get killed?”
“I swear it to every god and Sprite in the universe. May they all strike me dead if I fail.”
Cassandra let out a slow breath. “Okay, but maybe we should tell my dad.”
“No. He won’t let you go. You know how he is. He’d grak the whole galaxy just to save your life.”
Cassandra snorted. “True. Fine. Let’s do it. Do I have time to go back to my hab first?”
“What for?”
“Well, to take a few changes of clothes, at least. The Cygnians don’t wear jumpsuits, and even if they did, I have a feeling they wouldn’t fit me.”
“You have ten minutes to pack a bag. If you run into your father or anyone else, tell them the bag has dirty laundry in it and you’re going to wash it in the machines by the river.”
“Good thinking.”
“When you’re ready, meet me at the end of street A. I’ll be waiting there, beside a pair of Vultures.”
“Two fighters? What for? We could both ride in one, and we probably should, since I’ve never flown anything before.”
“Yet you have the training,” Tanik pointed out.
She and the other Acolytes had all downloaded flight training modules during the time they’d spent flying to Cratus. But since they’d been in warp the whole time, there’d been no way for any of them to practice that training. “I don’t know... I don’t even have a flight suit.”
“It’s a short flight, and you can use the autopilot the whole way. As for the flight suit, I’ll make sure there’s one waiting for you in the cockpit.”
“What if I crash and die? How are you going to protect me from that?”
“Now you’re sounding like your father. You will know what to do once you’re in the cockpit. Make sure you engage the fighter’s stealth mode to avoid detection. I’ll follow you an hour later in the second fighter.”
Cassandra’s brow tensed. “Do we have enough time for you to wait a whole hour to follow me?”
“The Cygnians won’t leave until they’ve evacuated all of their people from the other island. I can still sense some of them there, but they’re getting ready to leave, so I suggest you hurry.”
“Fine.” Cassandra stood on shaking legs. Were they shaking from excitement or fear? Maybe a bit of both. “See you soon,” she said, and then turned and ran out the door.
Chapter 37
“Here,” Tanik whispered, and handed Cassandra an oxygen mask.
She fitted the mask over her mouth and nose; then Tanik handed her a helmet. As she slipped it over her head, the helmet came to life with a series of tones and chimes. Glowing HUD icons appeared. One of them was a blinking O2 indicator.
“Ready?” Tanik asked.
Cassandra glanced around. Her breath reverberated noisily inside the mask and helmet. She and Tanik were hiding in the shadows between two Vulture fighters at the edge of camp. So far they’d managed to avoid awkward run-ins with Revenant patrols, but Cassandra wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.
She’d also been lucky to have avoided a run-in with her father back at the Acolytes’ habitat. When she had arrived at the habitat, Seelka had told her that her dad and Dyara were together in their shared sleeping module. She had taken advantage of their inattention to pack a bag and sneak out. When Seelka had asked where she was going, she’d told the Vixxon exactly what Tanik had told her to say: “I’m going to do some laundry.”
Seelka had looked confused, probably because Cassandra had never been in a hurry to do chores, so Cass had added “I don’t want to start smelling like Arok.”
Seelka had wrinkled her nose and smiled. “Good idea.”
Tanik interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to the present. “Remember to engage stealth mode before you take off,” he said.
Cassandra nodded and mentally activated her helmet’s external speakers. “Will that be enough?” she whispered. “Won’t someone hear me take off?”
Tanik shook his head. “No, because you’re not going to light your engines. Not yet, anyway.”
“How am I going to take off without engines?”
“I’m going to use the ZPF to launch you.”
Cassandra sucked in a quick breath. “You can do that? Is that safe? What happens when you let go?”
“Then you light your engines. At that point you’ll be far enough away that no one will hear a thing. I’ve already plotted a course for you in the nav. You can let the autopilot take you the whole way, but do not stray from that course. When the Nomad contacts you asking about your approach, tell them that Gakram invited you.”
Cassandra’s stomach was doing nervous flips, but she nodded. Snatching her pack of supplies off the ground, she turned toward her fighter. The rim of the open cockpit lay just out of reach, and there was no ladder to climb.
“Let me help you,” Tanik said.
Invisible hands picked her up, and she hovered into the pilot’s seat. She stowed her pack in the webbing under it. Now what? she wondered, as she studied the dark squares of three separate holo displays. Her eyes roved over the flight stick and the sliding throttle control, to the numerous banks of switches, buttons, and levers that adorned every available surface. It was overwhelming. Cassandra’s heart pounded in her chest and her palms began to sweat inside her gloves. She felt a vague sense of familiarity with the cockpit and its control systems, but she was in the grip of a panic, and couldn’t think straight.
“Connect your air hose. It’s under your seat,” Tanik said.
Cassandra fished around under the seat. She found the snake-like hose after just a moment and slotted it into the opening in the chin of her helmet.
“Now secure your acceleration harness.”
Cassandra folded out the two halves of the harness. It was more flexible than the ones she was used to. An additional clip fastened a springy cage around her helmet for added support. Cassandra wondered about that as she clipped the harness together.
“Close your canopy,” Tanik said. “And find the ignition switch. Don’t hit it until I release you. Understood?”
In lieu of a reply Cassandra flashed a thumbs up over the side of her cockpit. She found and depressed the open/close canopy button, and the beak-shaped canopy swung down over Cassandra’s head with a pneumatic groan. A split second later, her fighter leapt soundlessly into the air, squashing her into her seat. The camp fell away below her, a dizzying sea of white domes with grassy, illuminated streets radiating like spokes from the command center.
It wasn’t long before she lost sight of the camp entirely, and the jagged black mountains at the center of the island scrolled into view. Moments later they fell away, too, and the star-dappled sky took their place. Cratus’s moon shined down on her, a skinny silver crescent, the same shape as the island below.
How high is Tanik taking me? But even as she thought about that, the upward motion ceased, and Cassandra felt herself being pressed back into her seat as the fighter turned. Soon the island was rolling by beneath her. From this altitude the Revenants’ camp looked like an alien growth on the darkened landscape.
A minute later, the island was behind her, and the moonlit canvas of the ocean scrolled out before her like a roll of tinfoil. Then the pressure of acceler
ation ceased, and the nose of her fighter pitched down. The weightlessness of free fall set in, and Cassandra gripped the armrests of her seat in white-knuckled fists. Air whistled around the fighter as it picked up speed.
Cassandra panicked. Where’s the ignition? She’d forgotten to identify it earlier. Her eyes skipped around the cockpit, checking switches at random and trying to read their labels. It was too dark to read anything. Which one is it!? She needed a flashlight. With a thought, Cassandra activated the headlamps on her helmet, and the inside of the cockpit snapped into focus. She began reading the miniature fonts that identified the various buttons and switches. Air roared around her fighter as it bucked and shivered with turbulence.
Cassandra glanced up. Her fighter couldn’t be more than a thousand feet above the water now, and it was descending rapidly. She was out of time. Supposedly she already knew what to do because of the flight training module she’d downloaded. Cassandra stopped worrying for a minute and let her thoughts flow.
To one side of her main holo display she spied a bank of four red switches, linked together. She flicked the switches, even as her eyes registered the words Engine Start written above them.
There came a throaty roar, and the cockpit erupted with glowing lights and displays. A bright green heads-up-display flickered into view, projected on the faceplate of her helmet.
Trusting herself, Cassandra grabbed the flight stick, pulled up hard, and slid the throttle forward. Acceleration slammed her into her seat and threatened to rip her hand from the stick, but she tightened her grip and held on until the Vulture leveled out. She let out a ragged sigh and spotted her altitude on the HUD—three hundred and ten feet. Another second or two and she’d have been dead.
Cassandra’s pulse hammered in her ears. She carefully rolled some of the tension out of her shoulders and took a moment to orient herself. A blinking green arrow pointed to the right side of her HUD, indicating a nav waypoint. Wondering how to reach it, Cassandra tested the rudder pedals with her feet. The left pedal sent the fighter’s nose drifting to the left, and the right pedal sent it drifting to the right. Cassandra tried pushing harder on the right pedal, using rudder alone to bring that nav point into view. It didn’t work. Her fighter began trembling with a noisy roar of turbulence. The nose dipped down, and the left wing kicked up. She quickly released the rudder pedal and used a combination of stick and left rudder to bring the Vulture back to straight and level flight.
Broken Worlds- The Complete Series Page 57