Kenon let out a long sigh of relief as the high-rising tree-structure came into sight, not yet touched by the flames of war. He felt like he’d been away from home for years, yet only a few weeks had passed. He was almost glad to be back, but remembering why he had left in the first place pushed those happier feelings away again. He was nervous about entering, not sure what he would find inside.
“That is one huge-ass tree,” the Lieutenant remarked, staring up the wide, mossy trunk to the tangle of branches above.
Kenon limped ahead of his three teammates and pulled aside the curtain hanging over the doorway, then waved his hand quickly, urging them to hurry inside. He paused a moment before following them in and looked back to the city, now engulfed in fire and ever-thickening clouds of smoke.
The Council Building was gone, and with it the High Council of Ceida. There was no doubt they had all been killed when the Leh’kin frigate came crashing down on top them.
He and Alana had barely made it out alive themselves.
Without any further delay, he headed inside. It was quiet, and no movement was detected on his motion sensor. He wondered if anyone was here, or if his parents had perhaps abandoned their home when the battle began.
“Wait here,” he said to the humans, deciding to have a look around.
So many things were missing; objects that’d belonged to him when he was little were nowhere to be seen, and small items like glass ornaments and the hundred-year-old antique daggers were gone as well. All Kenon could find was his old hunting bow and a set of leather armor in a large chest in the back room.
There was no sign of his parents.
It was like his parents had packed up and left after he’d set out for war . . . had they been forced to leave Ceida because of the shame he’d brought upon them?
This was not the time to fuss over past issues, his wound was still bleeding heavily and he was beginning to feel weak. Kenon went back to the hall and led his teammates into the understructure.
This had been the one place in the house where he could just go and be with his thoughts. He used to spend hours down here studying the star maps—gazing at the images of distant worlds he thought he would only ever visit in his dreams.
The scent of rusty tools and mold lingered in the cool air, and the room was unnervingly quiet except for the clatter of armored boots in the stairwell—and then there was a gasp, a squeak of a voice. Kenon stopped, his teammates did the same.
Someone was hiding in the back corner of the room, peering out from the shadows. The figure rose and stepped into the faint light filtering in through the open door at the top of the stairs.
It was Khae.
“Kenon?” she whispered, unable to believe what she was seeing. She, too, must have been informed of a death that never took place. She would have grieved for him, the loss of her one and only child. “But the councilors—they told me you were dead!”
“Merely a rumor—they believed it, too,” the young warrior told her. “I’m sorry for the pain it must have caused you.”
Khae blinked. “Why have you come back?”
“War has led me home.”
“Why here?”
Kenon lifted his hand from his leg, just enough to give his mother a glimpse of the wound so that she knew what he needed.
Khae gave him a brief look of concern, then quickly nodded and went over to the chest by the wall. She knelt on the ground, lifted the heavy lid, and reached for the medical kit inside.
Leaning against the wall, Kenon tried to keep his wounded leg straight out in front as he eased himself to the floor.
“This is the worst I have seen since the accident with your father . . .” Khae popped the small metal case open and pulled out a roll of bandages, an almost empty spool of brown string, and a four-inch blade.
Kenon said nothing in response. The mishap his mother spoke of was no accident, but a brutal punishment carried out by his father, who believed that violence was the only way to get through to his disobedient son. And though Khae knew her partner could be unnecessarily aggressive, she refused to think that he could inflict such serious injuries upon his own child.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
He thought that was a silly question considering the current situation outside. Still, it wasn’t an enemy fighter that had harmed him. “We were in the Council Building when it fell.”
“And these creatures?” She gestured to the humans. “Weren’t these the brutish beasts you set out to fight against?”
“Things changed.”
“Yeah, speaking of things changing,” Alana said from where she was sitting at the bottom of the staircase. Her stepfather was hard at work stitching the gash on her face. “Now that we’re in the clear: Lance, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“We have a problem.”
“We have a lot of problems,” Lieutenant Knoble said, biting his lip in concentration as he tugged on the thin thread. “The rest of the team is still locked up in an alien ship; said aliens are an even bigger threat than the Drocain, we’ve got an entire colony living on a superweapon, and we still don’t know what the key is or where to find it.”
“Actually that last bit is where the problem is.” Alana looked at Kenon out the corner of her eye, then turned her attention back to Knoble and Private Sevadi. “It’s Kenon, Lance. He’s the key—which explains why the Nephera have been focusing on destroying our team, and also why they’re here now leading an assault on his homeworld.”
Knoble stopped what he was doing for a minute and stared at her, searching her gaze for some sign that what she was saying was a joke.
“Him?” he pointed to the young warrior. “You’re sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“How’d you figure that out?”
“One of the Drahkori from the High Council was working with the Nephera. Things didn’t go the way he wanted them to, so he told us what was going on. We also found out he was chasing a lie—apparently he was told that Calypsis was going to be used to wipe out mankind and everyone else would be spared.”
“I wonder if everybody else is being told a similar story. That would explain why the Nephera have been able to gain so many allies.” Lieutenant Knoble finished his handiwork, broke the thread and returned the supplies to the Corporal’s backpack.
“I do not understand,” Khae whispered as she packed her own medical supplies back into their case. “You are the key to . . . to a weapon?”
“I am afraid I do not understand it either.” Kenon stood, his leg now wrapped tightly in bandages. The wound still ached but he didn’t have to worry about bleeding out anymore. Motioning to Alana, he said, “I found out at the same time she did. I don’t know why it had to be me, but I do know that I have to do everything in my power to stop the Nephera from activating their weapon . . . even if that means taking my own life.”
“But that’s why we’re here.” Alana unslung her rifle. “To make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
Khae tilted her head, examining the small human standing before her. She was clearly still wary of them, but her fear had gone and she was more curious now. She asked, “Where will you go now?”
“The Nepheran ships in the area are interfering with our comms equipment and we have a report to file before we rescue the rest of our team.” The Corporal closed her visor and checked her weapon. “We need to distance ourselves from the city; find some high ground.”
“The safest way out of Ceida is through the Deadlands,” Kenon put in. “We will travel to Dokan where the cliffs reach out over the sea—that is the highest point within ten miles.”
“Then that’s where we’re headed.”
Chapter
—TWENTY-FIVE—
2230 Hours, December 03, 2438 (Earth Calendar) / Deadlands Underground, north of Ceida State, planet Dyre
Three klicks out. Where are you taking us, Kenon?
Looking at her h
elmet’s display, Alana saw the navigation point she’d set was facing in the complete opposite direction from where they were heading. Not only that, but two hours of walking had only taken them three measly kilometers outside Ceida’s border markers.
The idea had been to head for the cliffs in Dokan; the altitude and the distance from the Nepheran ships would have made for a damn near perfect line of communications with the Legacy of Night.
It was Kenon who had put forth that idea in the first place . . . So where in the hell was he leading them now?
One thing’s certain . . . I am really starting to get sick and tired of traipsing through all these goddamned tunnels! she thought.
Vines climbed down the narrow passageways that confined her, snaking in amongst every crack and crevice they could find in the sandstone walls. Dirt and grit would fall from the ceiling every now and then, shaken loose by the conflict on the surface.
Alana was beginning to worry that the whole place might cave in and bury them all alive.
“Hey, Kenon, mind telling me where we’re going?” she asked, hoping to grab her friend’s attention.
The young warrior signaled for her to be quiet when a strange, monotonous hum started up. It was a sonorous, quivering sound that gradually increased in volume and changed pitch as the group rounded the next bend.
Alana bumped into the Drahkori as he halted abruptly in front of her. “Shit, why the hell did you . . .” she trailed off, leaning to the side to see where he’d affixed his gaze.
On the floor, at the end of the passageway, was the source of the noise: a golden, glowing arrow of light that resembled the hand of an antique clock. It rotated unremittingly from the center of a shimmering ring, encircled by a loop of intricate, pulsating symbols.
What is that? the Corporal wondered. It reminded her of a compass, but the hand wouldn’t stop spinning. What in the world could it be searching for?
Kenon tilted his head, curious. Taking a few steps forward, he came to stand in the center of the glyph. It immediately stopped its incessant movements, leaving the hand pointing at the wall ahead.
The symbols around the ring began to pulse faster, feeding numerous threads of light to the center and coaxing three more clock-like hands into existence. If this was a compass, hands now pointed to all four cardinal points.
More lights flashed, and the grinding of stone against stone sent shivers up Alana’s spine as the wall began to rise.
A hidden door, she thought. Let’s hope this takes us someplace nice and safe.
“Let’s keep moving,” Knoble said once the door had lifted fully.
The group moved on into a shadowy cavern; there was just enough light to make out their surroundings.
Twin channels filled to the brim with crystal clear water ran parallel to the cracked pathway they walked upon, and the remnants of an enormous building lay in ruin around them.
Further along, on the remains of a tall marble archway, Alana saw a flickering holographic image: a sign of some kind, written in a foreign language she couldn’t interpret even if she tried.
“Barlow . . .” Kenon murmured, staring up at the sign. Of course he would be able to read the sign—it was probably written in the language of the Drahkori.
“Do you know where we are?” Alana asked him.
“There is a reason why this place is known as the Deadlands, and that is because nobody dares to come here anymore.” Kenon narrowed his gaze inquisitively. “We were told many stories as children, but the only thing we ever learned about the Deadlands was that its sands had not been crossed in centuries. So, if history holds true, then these tunnels have not been accessed in many hundreds of years . . . And judging by the technology here, I can confirm that these structures were built before the Purge—meaning they are over half a millennium old.”
“Think we might be able to find anything useful down here?” Alana asked. “Something to help enhance our comms signals? If we don’t report in soon, Levian’s going to start wondering what the hell happened to us . . . and since you led us the wrong way, we’ll—”
“I led you in the wrong direction?” Kenon turned to her and cocked his head.
How could he not have known that? He knew exactly where the objective was, where he was supposed to be taking the team—and the navigation point on his heads-up display should’ve been a constant reminder of that.
A high-pitched whistle reverberated off the cavern walls; the Corporal looked up ahead to see that her stepfather and Sevadi had already passed under the archway and were standing at the top of a crumbling staircase. Sevadi had his hand on the cavern’s back wall, which was glistening like a jewel.
It was Knoble who had whistled. He motioned for Alana and Kenon to join them.
“What did you find?” Alana asked, climbing the stairs.
Neither one of them answered her. Instead, the Private jogged over and requested her flare gun. With the gun in hand, he told his teammates to back up a bit, then aimed upward and pulled the trigger.
A bright red flare exploded from the barrel and climbed into the air, hissing as it hurtled into the shadows . . . then it burst, shedding light upon the massive thing Sevadi had discovered.
The wreckage of a starship, and one of considerable size. It had brass embellishments fastened to a battered old hull, and its overall shape resembled that of a vessel fit to sail the seas—which was odd considering that most, if not all, of the spaceships Alana had seen in her lifetime shared the same basic shape; alien and human alike.
The vessel was trapped in a glassy, honey-colored substance that reminded her of the hardened crytal she often saw covering decimated cities in the aftermath of a Drocain assault—but crytal had a purple sheen to it whereas this looked just like amber, which led her to the conclusion that this was not the work of the Royal Empire.
Alana wished she could have taken a look inside the remains of the starship, but that wouldn’t be possible with it buried so deeply in this amber-like matter. Even if they had the tools to melt this stuff, it could take weeks to get through.
“Well you certainly had some damn fine transports in the garage before Lady Asshole came along and threw them all away, didn’t you?” Alana said jokingly to Kenon, but he was shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “This is not one of ours. The ships my kind used to possess can be seen in paintings and carvings, and they looked nothing like this. Not to mention, the lettering on the hull does not match any known Drahkori language.”
“Then who does it belong to?” Knoble demanded, as if he expected the young warrior to know. “If there’s one, there’s got to be more. Random ships don’t just appear out of thin air.”
“It could have traveled here via slipspace,” Alana theorized, then added to the young warrior, “If there’s nothing of use to us here, then can we get going?”
Kenon wasn’t listening to her. He was staring off into the dark, concentration drawn elsewhere. Perhaps he’d heard or seen something—but when she said his name, he didn’t respond.
————
Kenon had heard the female soldier speak his name, but he was trying to pinpoint the source of a very strange noise emanating from amongst the ruins. It was similar to the droning of the glyph they’d discovered earlier—however, this was more varied in tone, and had a somewhat more mechanical ring to it.
Curious, the young warrior ventured into the shadows.
Years pass; we lose ourselves to time.
There it was again—the strange voice that’d spoken to him after the Council Building collapsed. Kenon had no recollection of what it had said to him then, and even now he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.
It didn’t seem his teammates were able to hear it.
Could it be a distorted transmission coming through his headset? . . . No, that wasn’t it. The words of this unseen entity sounded as if they were echoing inside his skull like a distant memory or the last fragments of a dream.
Is this wh
at lead me down here—this voice? he wondered. If that was the case, then for what purpose?
Following the sound as it grew louder, Kenon rounded the next bend and halted. In the middle of a black marble floor, an empty quiver lay partially covered in sand. Next to it was a small leather pouch, and what looked to be the handgrip of a limbless bow.
Left to lie in the dust for thousands of years . . . Whispering stirred in his head once more. Reclaim what was once yours.
Kenon crouched down and opened the flap on the pouch. There were at least a hundred tiny rods inside; each no more than six inches long. When he pinched one of them between his fingers, it extended in a flash to a length of five feet and the tip glowed.
Arrows without heads; he surmised there must be some way to bring them into existence, perhaps if he were to nock the arrow.
Strapping the pouch to his belt, the Drahkori warrior activated another nineteen arrows and inserted them into the quiver before slinging it over his shoulder.
Kenon bent to pick up the handgrip; a vibration ran through his palm when he wrapped his fingers around it, and the weapon’s black limbs formed before his eyes. Blue lights shimmered along their lengths, the bowstring gleaming like the thin fibers of a silk web in moonlight.
Following Athenna’s reign, the Drahkori were only allowed to use weapons made out of wood or metal. This bow, however, appeared to be crafted from obsidian and also contained some kind of energy source.
This had to be a piece of the old technology—meaning it would have been banned long before his lifetime. Yet, impossible as it was, this weapon, and the intense power it sent coursing through his veins, was somehow familiar.
Kenon turned at the click-clack of boots on stone.
Alana came around the corner, stopping when she saw him. “Whoa,” she said, eyeing the bow. “Where the hell did you get that?”
The young warrior gestured to the floor, shrugging as if to say he wasn’t sure how it came to be there, and then holstered the bow. “I wanted to apologize for leading you down the wrong path,” he said. “If we leave now, we might still make it to Dokan before dawn.”
The Calypsis Project Boxed Set (Books 1-2 - The Echo-Alpha Duology) Page 26