“We do what we must to survive.”
“This is not the way!”
“And what would you suggest?”
“We could have been allies. We could have shared these stars if your first solution had not been to steal them for yourselves.”
A hiss stuttered out between the seeker’s teeth. “Coexistence is a fool’s desire, a hopeless reverie. Few species can find harmony together. Even now, amongst your own kind, you cannot attain peace. That alone proves it would have been a waste of time.”
“More of a waste than a thousand centuries?”
Light rippled in Kenon’s peripheral vision.
There you are.
He sidestepped, arm raised, and brought his elbow down on the High Lord’s shoulders when he darted past. Not giving his opponent a chance to recover, Kenon lashed out with one of his blades.
Sparks flew. Sol reeled and toppled over, flashing in and out of existence. The young warrior’s blade had split his cloaking device wide open. The device whined, struggling to maintain the veil. It managed to hide the seeker for a few seconds more, then succumbed to the damage.
“You,” the High Lord growled as he picked himself up off the ground, “are an insult to your ancestors. Lacking the strength of a Valinquint, the wisdom of a vykord . . . You cannot defeat me, warrior. No one can. Why delay the inevitable?”
“You have not taken my life yet,” Kenon pointed out.
“And so you think you actually stand a chance?” Sol straightened, lips twisting into a grin. “I have killed your kind before, Valinquint. I can do it again.”
He can, but he will not,Doramire said.He needs you alive.
Sol opened his mouth to speak again and paused, an odd expression crossed his features. He wiped his chin and examined the blood on his glove. The longer he stared at it, the deeper the creases on his face became, and when his eyes flicked up again, there was a wild spark in them. A ferocity Kenon had not seen.
The High Lord lunged at him.
Startled, Kenon leapt back—ducking and weaving to avoid the seeker’s frenzied attacks. Flashes of crimson filled his field of view. There was no space between them for him to strike, and Sol didn’t stop until his blades met flesh.
Kenon cried out as the glass bit into his abdomen, its serrated edge tearing into his skin. Shredding his innards. Dizzied by the pain, he tripped over his own tail.
Sol took advantage of the opening. He pounced, bowled the young warrior over. The pair of them writhed on the floor, smearing arcs of luminous blood across the invisible surface. Kenon tried to fight him off, but he was too weak. His movements were becoming slow, sluggish.
The blood loss was taking its toll.
The High Lord grabbed Kenon by the harness and slammed him into the ground. Again and again. Once he was sufficiently shaken, unable to defend himself, Sol leaned in close. “Such defiance, such determination,” he hissed, his breath spilling hot over the young warrior’s muzzle. “And it is all for naught. One way or another, Valinquint, you will light this weapon. Even if I have to drag you to the activation chamber in pieces . . . You will bring me salvation.”
A jolt of anger fizzled through Kenon’s body. His lips curled to bear a sharp white fangs. A growl rumbled deep inside his chest, rose to his throat, and erupted from his jaws with all the fury of a thunderstorm. His shields shimmered, burst upward like lightning.
The High Lord went flying and landed with a horrible crack. Steam rolled off his armor where the energy bolt had hit. Dragging himself to his knees, he lifted a hand to his bloodied forehead. A new gash stretched across his brow.
Both of them pushed to their feet, and Sol sprang back into battle without delay.
This time, Kenon was ready. He seized the seeker’s wrist mid-strike, twisted it behind his back. Sol tried to wriggle free, then stiffened as the young warrior brought a blade around to his throat. Electricity sparks inches from his flesh.
“My body may contain the essence of a vykord, but I am not the legend and I am certainly no god,” Kenon hissed in his ear. “My name is Kenon Valinquint. I am a warrior of Dyre, protector of the Drahkori, and I refuse to be the trigger to your weapon.”
Sol flinched when he pulled him closer.
“However . . . I will be the key to its destruction.” Kenon removed his blade from the High Lord’s throat and thrust it into his back. He drove it deeper and deeper until his knuckles were pressed against the alien’s spine. Dark red streams ran down his forearm.
Sol wheezed, lifting a trembling hand to the blade jutting out the front of his combat harness. Every attempt his suit made to repair itself was met with a spark, and a glittering spray of fried nanites. “No,” he choked out. “This cannot be. I am unconquered. I am eternal!”
“No being should live forever.” Kenon withdrew his blade.
The High Lord crumpled to the floor, gasping for air. He flopped onto his back and lay there for a moment, staring blankly into the blackness, into the artificial stars, as blood filled his lungs and pooled beneath him. Then his eyes rolled back into his skull, and his head lolled to the side.
Doramire heaved a tired sigh.It is done.
A hollow clang rang throughout the room.
Kenon pivoted on his toes and lifted his arm when a blinding light split the darkness—a gateway previously concealed in the shadows. Mist spilled from the opening, swirling about his feet, beckoning him inside.
This is it, child. Doramire said. The activation chamber.
Kenon deactivated his gauntlets and limped towards the entrance, clutching his abdomen. The warmth of his own blood seeped between his fingers, trickled from the gash on his knee. Every muscle ached and trembled, threatening to give out at any moment.
Just a few more steps, he reminded himself.
Just a few more steps, and it would all be over.
He paused just inside the gateway, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. As they did, his jaws parted in speechless awe.
A grand hall stretched before him. Colorless, yet radiant. Not dull and gray like the other rooms. Curved pilasters hugged its walls of polished mineral, giving the impression that he was wandering through the skeleton of a long-dead behemoth. A strip of glass bisected the opalescent floor, infused with flecks and streaks of gold.
And at the end of the strip, a flight of stairs led up to a stage, above which there hovered a holographic image of Calypsis. Thirty meters tall, rotating slowly—ponderously, as if its mass were more than it appeared. As if it were more than mere light.
As Kenon hobbled up the path to the pearlized steps, he noted the strange tranquility this place held. There was an air of stillness that calmed his heart and hushed the noise that plagued his brain. Although short-lived, it had been so overwhelming and persistent that he had forced himself to tolerate it.
Now his thoughts were clear, his mind at ease.
He’d almost forgotten what silence sounded like.
“Doramire, when this is over . . . what will become of you?”
Most of me resides here, in the chamber, he said. When my Caelevit was shattered, my essence latched on to the nearest energy source in an attempt to preserve my being. In this case, that was the weapon’s core. And so, once Calypsis has been destroyed, this consciousness will be erased.
“Will you feel any pain?”
No. Only relief. After centuries of wakefulness, I will rest.
Kenon paused at the top of the staircase, craning his neck to look at the sphere looming over him. Doramire might not feel any pain in the end, but would he? Would the self-destruction process tear him apart, would he be consumed by fire? Or would it be over too quickly for him to feel anything at all?
There is only one way to find out.
He stepped into the hologram. Tiny particles of ice clung to his skin as he passed through its outer layer. Their cooling touch lifted the pain from his wounds. When he halted in the center of the stage, a ring of light glowed to life beneath him.
>
If you wish to contact your comrades, you may do so, Doramire said. But be quick. The battle in orbit is not yet won. The longer we delay, the more forces your allies stand to lose.
“Show me how,” the young warrior requested. Following the vykord’s instructions, he brought up the communications hub and opened a channel between himself and the fleets. “Hail Home Fleet,” he said. “This is Kenon Valinquint of Echo Team. Can anyone hear me?”
The panel pulsated. His speech was distorted and amplified back at him, but no answer came. Could the weapon’s shield be disrupting its own signal? Or was the sheer volume of transmissions bouncing between ships to blame?
Praying it was the latter, praying his call would eventually get through, he repeated his message. After several more attempts and still no response, he was starting to lose hope.
“Please,” he begged. “Can no one hear me?”
A burst of static came over the channel, carrying with it the faintest hiss of a woman’s voice. “We read you, Valinquint,” she said. “Patching you through to Houston.”
The line remained quiet for a minute, then the interference cleared and it was Fleet Admiral Anderson who spoke next. “Valinquint, where are you? What’s going on down there?” he asked, a spike of urgency in his tone.
“The Nepheran High Lord is dead. I made it to the activation chamber.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Hold the celebrations, Admiral,” Kenon said, “for I hail not with a report, but a warning. In a few moments, I shall initiate the weapon’s self-destruct sequence. I can’t be sure what will happen when I do; however, it would be wise to put as much distance between yourself and Calypsis as possible. Just to be safe.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
“I am afraid not.”
There was a brief pause. “Understood . . . Lieutenant Greveson,” Anderson called to a member of his bridge crew. “Turn us around, and relay that message to the fleets.” Then to the young warrior, he added: “I won’t forget this, Valinquint. You have given us a future many didn’t think possible. For that, we are eternally grateful.”
With that, the Admiral signed off.
Kenon summoned the full list of available channels. Several strings of numbers appeared on-screen. Among them was 03066-84263-AC. He tapped the sequence to open a private channel. “Alana, are you there?”
“Yes! Yes, Kenon, I’m here,” she replied, and he could tell by the quaver in her words that she was crying. She must have overheard his conversation with Admiral Anderson.
“Are you and the others all right?” he asked.
“We’re okay, Kenon. We’re safe. What about you?”
“Fine, all things considered.”
Alana let out a shaky breath. “Oh, good. You had me worried for a while there. I was beginning to think we’d lost you, too.” She went quiet for a moment. “So this is it, then?”
“This is it.” Saying it out loud, acknowledging his fate, sent a rush of adrenaline through Kenon’s veins. Yet, he found himself strangely content with it. He was not ready to leave this world, to leave his comrades, but if it meant they could live out the rest of their lives without the threat of extinction or war looming over their heads . . .
That was reason enough.
There was just one thing he had to do first.
“Listen, Alana. My time is short, and there is something I need to tell you before I go.” Tightness gripped Kenon’s throat. “I want you to know how grateful I am for your amity. You were there for me when no one else was, and I could never have made it this far without you. Truly, I could not have asked for a better friend.”
Alana chuckled past her tears. “It’s been one hell of a ride.”
“It certainly has,” Kenon agreed. And for the first time in what felt like forever, he laughed too—a nervous, but undeniably genuine laugh. How ironic, he thought, that in his final moments he should find joy. “Might I . . . ask a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Could you give the others my farewell?”
“Yeah, of course. You didn’t think I was gonna let you get away without so much as a message for them, did you? They’re going to miss you.” She sniffed, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll miss you.”
Kenon swallowed hard, his eyes squeezed shut. “It has been an honor to know you, Alana Carmen,” he said. “Thank you . . . for everything.”
With the swipe of a finger, he disconnected from the line. The background noise from Houston’s bridge gave way to the monotonous hum of machinery. The sound wave on-screen flatlined, and he swept aside the list of channels.
Are you ready? Doramire asked softly.
At Kenon’s nod, the floor shifted. The circle he was standing on began to rise, lifting him up into the heart of the globe. An array of control panels materialized before him as the platform came to a stop. Their symbols and texts were foreign to his eyes, totally illegible. Fortunately, Doramire knew exactly where to take him.
He accessed the weapon’s security systems, deactivated its fail-safe protocol and shut down the cooling stations. Calypsis’ song, that resonant hum, dropped to an almost inaudible pitch. Once all of the safety and defense systems had been taken offline, the vykord guided his hand to a firing command.
The weapon’s target had already been chosen. It was focused on itself. Kenon finalized the command. The displays shrank away, leaving a single symbol hovering in their place. Its many concentric rings rotated in front of the warrior, emitting a melodic note like fingers tracing the rim of a glass. Taking the hologram in his grasp, he closed his hands around its weightless form and drew in a deep breath.
As he swept his arms outward, the hologram exploded into a billion tiny fragments that illuminated the globe. Shimmering tendrils snaked across the young warrior’s skin, and a creeping paralysis gripped his body.
The sequence had been initiated.
A tingling sensation spread inward from his fingertips as the weapon’s power infused his veins, seeped into his very bones. He could feel it building within him—searing, bubbling, demanding to be let loose. It continued to swell until he could no longer contain it.
Like a supernova in the depths of space, a wave of energy erupted from his body. Glowing blue ripples spilled over the activation chamber, flooding the weapon’s internal network, invading every crack and crevice. And with each wave that followed, its foundations grew weaker.
A torrent of fire and particle flares engulfed the grand hall. Metal buckled with a groan, screaming in protest while the world imploded on itself.
It wouldn’t be long now.
Kenon closed his eyes to shut out the destruction, savoring what remained of the cooler air inside the globe. As he reflected on the path that led him here, he realized Alana couldn’t have been any more right about their journey.
He set out in search of redemption, and found adventure.
I have seen things many could only dream of, touched things once thought unreachable. I have witnessed great tragedy and triumph, watched entire fleets fall to ruin before my eyes.
All my life, I wanted to travel the stars, to see what lay beyond my homeworld. Not only did I achieve that, I sailed the black sea myself! And my feet have carried me across planets I never even knew existed—through cities and mountains and snow!
In my brief existence, I accomplished more than many could ever hope to. Now I can leave this life knowing that I made a difference, knowing that my death will allow this galaxy to flourish.
So here I stand in the face of my demise.
And after all I’ve been through . . .
I am finally at peace.
———EPILOGUE———
IN MEMORIAM
1125 Hours, March 06, 2443 (Earth Calendar) / Liberty Park, Charab’dul, planet Chelwood Gate
“Take a breath. Now let it out.” President Deja Talbot’s voice reverberated from the loudspeakers positioned around Liberty Park. She leaned on the podium, p
ainted nails bright against the dark wood, and looked out over the sea of dress blues and whites before her.
Thousands of people had come for the service, and all were packed in so close that only a few slivers of emerald grass peeked out beneath them. Though most wore stark or tearful expressions, a rare smile flashed here and there—a hopeful glimmer in the gloom.
“Relish this moment,” Talbot continued, “for the war is won. The Nephera have been eradicated, the Royal Empire defeated. After fourteen years of bloodshed, humanity can breathe again.” She raised her arms in celebration, then rested heavily on her palms again. “But victory comes at a price—one which we paid amply. So as we begin to rebuild, let us never forget those who gave their lives so that we would have a future to look forward to.”
The crowd cast their eyes to the ground, and the park became silent for a moment. When they lifted their faces again, President Talbot summoned Alana Carmen to the stand.
With all the composure she could muster, Alana pulled away from her teammates and stepped up to the podium. The midday sun glinted off the medals that adorned her breast. Their colored ribbons fluttered lightly against the white of her dress uniform, telling of bravery and duty and honor. Of all her accomplishments, of all her victories.
Prior to the service, she had asked Talbot if she could say a few words after the inaugural speech. Now that she was here, in front of all these people, she wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“This war has taught me many things,” she began slowly. “For one, you can never be sure what lies around the bend. The whole universe can change in an instant—the world you’ve known split open to reveal a dark truth within. However, I also learned it is in the darkest of places that we can find the unlikeliest allies.
“On December first, twenty-four-thirty-eight, I discovered a conspiracy that, if exposed, could completely alter the direction of the war. Shortly thereafter, I found myself in the sights of a Drocain warrior. He could have killed me right then and there, but he didn’t. He passed me by, gave me a chance to run . . . Instead, I decided to share my findings with him.”
The Calypsis Project Boxed Set (Books 1-2 - The Echo-Alpha Duology) Page 60