The Calypsis Project Boxed Set (Books 1-2 - The Echo-Alpha Duology)

by Brittany M. Willows

  Eyeing the darkness with uncertainty, Levian entered the unlit room prepared for an ambush. He listened closely for the breath of a hidden foe, or any sounds that might suggest an impending attack, but heard nothing—not even the faintest rasp of movement on the tiled floor.

  Nearing the end of the short entry hall, his gaze settled on a nightstand. A glass brewing orb sat atop its surface, glowing green with the remnants of a sleeping aid. Beside the table sat a large bed, its covers wrinkled, a collection of plush pillows strewn about the folds. The mattress had preserved the monarch’s imprint, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Maybe he had been detected earlier than he thought. Perhaps she had already been moved to safety, and he was about to walk straight into a trap.

  Those troubling thoughts rattled on until he rounded the corner and spotted a figure by the window. It was the infamous ruler herself—Ahlaie Yhehiel. She stood unmoving in a gown of silken sheets, watching a cluster of stars far beyond the curve of New Heathfield. At first it seemed she had not heard him come in, nor taken notice of the scuffle outside her chamber.

  Then, she spoke.

  “I never meant for things to happen this way.” Her voice was weak, lacking the strength it once held—that raw power that had once commanded hundreds of fleets across the galaxy. “For the longest time, I believed we were fighting for our survival—that we had no choice but to exterminate the human race or face extinction ourselves . . . I see now the mistakes I made.” Ahlaie turned away from the window and met Levian’s befuddled gaze. Her lips curved slightly. “I knew you would come.”

  At last, it dawned on him.

  “It was you,” he hissed. The alarms, the suspicious lack of activity in both the upper and lower decks, the phony guards, and the unlocked doors—it had nothing to do with luck at all; this was the Queen’s doing! She wanted him here. “How did you—”

  “This planet was not supposed to be mined for another cycle yet.” Ahlaie threw a glance at New Heathfield, its glassy shell gleaming a vibrant gold outside. Mining vessels larger than cruisers moved leisurely about the defense fleet on their way to and from the planet’s surface, trailing dust in their wake. “I knew if we came here, you would find us sooner or later. The moment we arrived in the system, I disabled everything. Sensors, radars . . . The sentries have been monitoring prerecorded data ever since.”

  Levian shook his head. “I do not understand. Why?”

  The Queen’s smile vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. She moved toward him, gingerly placing each foot in front of the other as if every movement caused her agony. Now he could see the deep purples and reds that surrounded her right eye, the swelling on her cheek and nose. More bruises ringed her thin neck like some kind of crude collar.

  She halted several feet away, just out of reach, and slowly opened her gown to reveal the myriad of jagged scars that had been carved into her limbs and torso. Though some appeared old, many were so recent they practically glowed pink against her light purple skin.

  “The Empire is falling, Levian,” Ahlaie confessed, clutching the sheets close to her chest once more. “No longer do the warriors heed my call, for their loyalty has fallen to another. To them, I am nothing. My words have become emptier than the soul that occupies this broken body.”

  “Who has done this to you?” Levian asked. Some part of him wanted to console her, to ease her pain. But after everything she’d done, he could not allow himself to sympathize. She had betrayed him. She had betrayed his entire species and endangered all those who called this galaxy home.

  “Sol D’Vare.” The name slid off her tongue with a hint of fondness, like that of a former lover. “Many years ago, he came to me with a warning. He said mankind was building an army and claimed to have a weapon capable of wiping them out. But first, he needed the Empire’s help to locate a sufficient power source.”

  The Nepheran High Lord. Levian should have suspected as much. If only he had known what was going on sooner, how deeply involved the Queen was with the Nephera, then perhaps he could have helped her—saved her from this madness.

  “All the lies and deceit . . . When I discovered what his true motives were, it was too late. Sol never wanted unity, never wanted me.” Ahlaie shook her head as if to banish painful memories. “No living being should ever have to endure the torment he put me through.”

  The pieces were beginning to fall into place. Levian finally understood why she had behaved so erratically the last time they spoke. It was a desperate cry for help from a corrupted soul—one last attempt to free herself from the clutches of the High Lord. His gut twisted at the thought of what that monster had done to her.

  Ahlaie took a second to regain her composure, then motioned to a silver object on the bedside table. “I know what you came here to do,” she said, “and I will not try to stop you. I have already transferred the core’s access codes to a portable device. And now I have only one final request . . .”

  She inhaled deeply and moved closer.

  “Please,” she choked out, “kill me.”

  Levian recoiled, taken aback by the monarch’s request. He could not deny the fact that there was nothing left for her in this world. If she stayed here, she would be burned alive. If she abandoned the Royal Empire, she would be hunted down by the separatists for her crimes.

  One way or another, she was doomed to die. And if she would rather die by his hands than go up in flames with the rest of her grand city, then he simply could not refuse her request.

  Levian took the Queen by the shoulder and drew his other arm back. She trembled beneath his palm, frightened of the pain to come but resolute in her decision. With a flick of his wrist, a single lance of energy sprang forth from his gauntlet. He plunged the blade into her chest.

  Ahlaie gasped and collapsed in his arms, clinging to his harness in a futile attempt to stay on her feet. A soft whimper slipped from her lips as blood soaked her pale gown, running down her chest in maroon rivulets.

  Levian could feel her grip beginning to loosen. Withdrawing his blade, he took a knee and set her down as gently as he could.

  She reached up to his face and ran her thumb over the grooves in his helmet. “I love you, Levian. I have always loved you,” she whispered. Then her brow creased, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “ . . . But you could never love me back.” The Queen’s focus drifted, her hand fell limp, and the violent tremors that wracked her fragile frame ceased.

  Just like that, she was gone. But her last words lingered in Levian’s mind as he lifted her body onto the bed. “Farewell, Ahlaie Yhehiel.” He closed her eyes with a sweep of his hand, then clenched a fist to his chest. “May your spirit find peace in the beyond.”

  Yet another victim of the Nephera’s lies . . .

  Levian scooped the storage device off the bedside table and woke it with a tap of his finger. Two intricate strings of numbers and letters streamed across the screen—both of which he recognized. 1698u.81c.037 and 1700u.47c.002—the dates of the High City’s construction and the formation of the Royal Empire, respectively. One would grant him access to the antechamber, while the other would initiate the station’s overload sequence.

  Clipping the device to his belt, Levian hurried back to the lift and palmed the holo-panel, praying it would not make any stops on the way down. The only sector that lay between him and the core housed the guard quarters, and taking on a horde of enraged Khael’hin in a confined space was suicidal. He would never make it out alive.

  “Echo One checking in,” Lieutenant Jenkinson’s voice filled the warrior’s helmet. “What’s your status, ‘Nher? Over.”

  “I have the access codes. On my way to the core now.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Alarms in the living quarters have distracted the guards for now. However, it will not be long before they become aware of my presence,” Levian said, relieved when the lift stopped outside the antechamber. He hurried over to the circular door and punched the first code into the h
olographic control panel.

  “Understood. Keep me updated. Over and out.”

  With a chirp of approval, the door slid open.

  Levian peered through the open doorway in search of activity. The curved passage appeared empty, and no movement showed on his motion sensor within a thirty-meter radius. Cautiously, he entered and approached the command console. Through the thick glass of the observation window, he could see it—a great sphere of energy churning violently in the heart of the station.

  The very thing that gave Oreva Alkastoran life would soon be its undoing.

  Swiping his hand over the console, Levian brought up the controls. Numerous display screens glowed to life and filled the window in front of him. Station schematics, population statistics, logistical and geographic information . . . He sifted through them until he came across a command input screen, then inserted the second code into the system.

  A concave hexagon spun in the center of the screen like a warped disc, pulsating and rapidly gaining speed. Then it vanished. The display faded to a deep purple, and a warning message appeared alongside a countdown timer: OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. OVERLOAD SEQUENCE INITIATED. BEGINNING EVACUATION PROCEDURES.

  Levian promptly shut down the alarm systems before they had a chance to notify the rest of the station’s inhabitants of what he had done. Opening a communications channel to the human dropship, he alerted Echo Team and bolted for the exit.

  He had fifteen minutes to reach the Shadow.

  ————

  Alana sat stiff as a board in the Falcon’s copilot seat, eyes glued to the Drocain High City through the forward viewscreen. All of her earlier excitement had drained away, leaving only the most troubling thoughts to occupy her brain. What if the fusion core failed to detonate? Or what if it did, but Levian couldn’t make it out in time?

  What if, what if, what if. She could speculate all day if she wanted to. Keep thinking like this and I’m going to drive myself insane.

  Ten minutes had already passed since they received the Fleet Commander’s last message, meaning he only had five left to evacuate the station. Alana knew from experience that that was plenty of time for things to take a turn for the worse.

  “Uh oh,” Parker gulped.

  A rush of adrenaline shot through Alana’s veins. “What is it?” she asked, scooting over to take a look at her teammate’s terminal. Two horizontal lines streamed across his screen undisturbed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uh, we lost radio contact.” Parker pressed his fingers to his earpiece and swiped his other hand across the control panel in an attempt to revive the signal. “I-I don’t know what happened! There was this burst of static and then it cut out entirely.”

  Alerted by the commotion, Jenkinson clambered into the cockpit with Jhiral and Carter on his heels and leaned over the pilot’s seat to get a closer look at the terminal. “Is it an issue on our end?”

  “It shouldn’t be!” Parker threw his hands in the air in frustration and raked his nails across his scalp. “I ran a thorough scan over every piece of equipment in this wagon. Everything was operating just fine until now!”

  A horrible thought entered Alana’s mind: What if Levian’s been captured? Or worse . . . If his helmet was damaged, the connection would have been severed immediately. “You don’t think he—”

  Before she could finish that sentence, Jhiral stepped forward and gestured sharply out the window. “There!” she exclaimed, her finger tracking a small object as it darted away from the city. Its hull caught the light, gleaming like an amethyst against the black of space.

  Alana squinted, unable to identify the craft at first. Then the vessel changed course and spiraled toward the Bandwagon at an alarming speed. As it hurtled closer, she recognized the sleek form of Levian’s corvette.

  Something was wrong.

  The Shadow was slipping in and out of cloaking. Molten gashes marked its shell, and smoke streamed from its engines in clouds so thick they nearly obscured the Bandwagon’s viewscreen as Levian shot past the dropship’s starboard flank.

  “He’s been hit!” Alana cried. Bright flashes of light flickered in her peripheral vision and she turned back to Oreva Alkastoran. Plumes of radiant flame erupted from the station’s upper sector, sparking down the length of its stem like a string of firecrackers. Drocain ships were beginning to retreat, hoping to escape the blast.

  Their efforts were in vain.

  The High City exploded in a great ball of fire that engulfed the entire defense fleet, vaporizing the ships nearest to it and sending a shockwave racing toward the Bandwagon.

  “Buckle up!” Parker shouted over his shoulder.

  Alana and the rest of the team hurried back to their seats as the dropship whipped around to chase after the Shadow. The shockwave rammed into the Bandwagon’s stern a second later, triggering impact alarms and propelling it away from the destruction.

  Warning signs flashed on every screen. Emergency lights blinked amber across the board. Debris hurtled past the window, some pieces scraping by the glass while others collided with the dropship’s hull. Each blow rattled deep in Alana’s bones, and she gripped her seat a little tighter.

  The Bandwagon leveled out and began to stabilize. The tremors gradually faded, the alarms fell silent, and within a few moments the lights returned to normal.

  At last, they had cleared the blast zone.

  Parker pumped his fists in the air and let out a howl of victory, then clasped his hands over his face.

  Alana sank into the padded leather of the copilot’s seat.

  That was way too damn close.

  Directly ahead, the Legacy of Night slipped out of cloaking and quickly expanded beyond the limits of the forward viewscreen. The Shadow was nowhere to be seen.

  Where did it go?

  Alana straightened in her chair and pored over the area in search of the corvette. She tracked its smoke trail, following each thin wisp of vapor until she caught sight of the craft several kilometers away—rocketing toward the assault carrier’s docking bay. Putting a finger to her earpiece, she tried to hail the Fleet Commander. Static crackled over her headset, but no response came.

  “Damn it!” she said. His radio must have been knocked out when he got hit. “Parker, we have to stop him. He’s going too fast; he’ll never make it inside!”

  Parker shook his head. “Oh, he will . . . But he’s going to make one hell of an entrance.” The dropship’s exhausted engines rumbled in protest as he accelerated ahead at full throttle. Even at this speed, there wasn’t a chance in hell they could catch it in time.

  The Shadow punched through the bay’s shield doors mere seconds before the Bandwagon, and crashed into the deck. Crewmen dove out of the way as the vessel skidded past them, shredding floor panels and throwing sparks until it slammed into the far wall.

  Echo Team piled out as soon as the Bandwagon landed and dashed across the bay. Lenque had already arrived on scene.

  He clambered on top of the Shadow, clawing frantically at an almost invisible seam in an attempt to pry open the emergency exit. Without warning, the hatch popped off—nearly knocking the young Leh’kin over—and landed with a bang amongst the crowd.

  Lenque leaned to look inside, and a hand sprang from the rolling smoke within. Waving for the medical team, Lenque dropped to his knee and grasped his father’s arm.

  Slowly, Levian rose from the corvette’s cramped cockpit. His legs shook as he stood beside his son, still somewhat dazed from the crash. Yet he held his head high and addressed the crowd gathered below, raising his voice for all to hear. “Oreva Alkastoran lies in ruin,” he said. “With it, the defense fleet has fallen, and Queen Ahlaie Yhehiel’s reign has come to an end. This is a time to rejoice, my brothers and sisters, for on this day . . . we stand victorious!”

  A triumphant roar erupted from the crowd and resounded off the bay walls, drowning out Echo Team’s round of applause.

  “He actually did it.” Jenkinson reached out to give Alana’s a fri
endly shake, then wrapped his arm around her. “We’re taking big steps here, Carmen. Big steps!”

  CHAT ENABLED

  CONNECTING . . .

  >>CONNECTION ESTABLISHED

  DATE / / 15:00 PM, 09/07/2442

  LIBERTY ANN YELLOW >> WE FOUND THEM.

  Chapter

  ———FIVE———

  BSI Shuttle Pioneer, Unidentified Location

  Darkness.

  For what felt like an eternity, it seemed that was all there was—a lonely emptiness that consumed all thought and feeling as though it might starve.

  Then, something changed.

  A vague sense of awareness returned. There was a chill in the air, a crispness like that of an early autumn morning. It was impossible, however, to regain a sense of orientation—for in this emptiness, this void, there didn’t seem to be any direction at all.

  An astral light pierced the veil, flooding the blackness with a series of distorted images: the first revealed a decimated city; the second, an infinite stretch of ash and bone that gave way to a vast sea of crimson. The gurgle of thick waves surging through hollowed skeletons was nauseating.

  With the images and sound came a distant voice.

  Wake up,it whispered.It is time to wake up. They are coming.

  That last line repeated over and over until the words had melded into a single, resonant tone. Mournful cries rose from within, joined by the roar of machines, the clash of swords, a bloodcurdling shriek, and then—

  . . . Silence.

  The slow rhythm of a waking heartbeat roused Kenon Valinquint from what he had assumed was a short slumber, though the stiffness of his bones and the dryness in his throat suggested otherwise. He blinked to clear his bleary vision and waited for Pioneer’s darkened cabin to come into focus.