Shards of Eternity (Stars in Shadow Book 2)

by John Triptych

  Hrothgar knew the pirate captain had him at a political disadvantage. The shards were considered to be holy relics within the region, and now this very upstart had more than his family possessed. Hrothgar’s health was failing, and his chosen successor—his son—was dead. House Maladore was now in danger of being toppled from power.

  “With your daughter’s hand in marriage, we seal a bond of trust between us,” Vega said. “I know you have been looking for the right husband for a long time, and why not me?”

  Gathering what little courage she had, Ava pushed her handmaiden away and stood up. “Your looks repulse me! And you’re a pirate—a barbarian raider who kills for booty!”

  Vega gave her a slight bow. “Alas, you have hurt me deeply, my lady. It is true I have conducted raids, and I’ve fought and killed for plunder. Yet I shall earn your respect, and no man is truly lost when he has found the love of his life. I am willing to forgo my dark past to righten my future from now on. I merely ask to be given a chance for redemption.”

  His honeyed words swayed her into silence, and Ava turned to look at her father, hoping he could do something.

  The archon of Scythia knew he was running out of time. If he relented and accepted Vega’s offer right then and there, he would effectively cede the entire dominion over to a pirate, and the fallout from that action might compel the other archons of the Concordance to intervene. Vega’s position seemed unassailable, and Hrothgar couldn’t allow him to hand the relics to one of his local rivals either.

  Vega knew the archon had no choice. The impending sense of victory was so close he felt like he could just grab it from the very air around him. “Well, what is your answer, Archon?”

  Hrothgar stroked his beard once more. My actions will be damned either way. I must buy some time for a better plan. He remembered the old legends surrounding the artifacts and quickly formulated a response in his mind. “According to the myths, the Shards of Eternity possess a power that can be harnessed by their wielder once all the pieces have been brought together.”

  Vega raised an eyebrow. What is this old fool getting at? “Yes, yes. I think everyone in this room is aware of that, Archon.”

  “Although your claim is the dominant one, you are still a stranger to us, and my subjects will not accept one who has yet to prove himself as my successor,” Hrothgar said.

  It was Vega’s turn to get angry. “Do you know how many times I cheated death in order to obtain these crystals? I had to fight my way into Union territory and back again just to bring these gifts to you!”

  “Yes, you overcame many hardships to present the relics to me,” Hrothgar said. “But you have to prove to my people you are worthy to lead them.”

  Vega felt like turning around and walking out of the throne room, but his mind kept telling him it was better to work with this old, weakening fool rather than to take his chances with one of Hrothgar’s rivals. “And so what would you have me do to prove myself further?”

  Hrothgar nodded. “There is another shard my house once possessed. I had given it to my son, Jurt. Unfortunately, he met his demise quelling a rebellion in one of the outlying worlds in the Scythian cluster. His body was never found.”

  Vega tilted his head up slightly. “I see. So there is another of these crystals somewhere in your territory?”

  “If you want my daughter’s hand in marriage and to become the future archon, then find and recover the fifth shard,” Hrothgar said. “Prove that you are honorable and loyal to my house as you claim to be. If you find my son’s final piece, I shall endorse your claim to my people and to the other archons of the Concordance.”

  You crafty old bugger, Vega thought. I didn’t think this senile codger had any brains left, but perhaps I might be better served to go along with it. If I can get the support of the people here, I might not even need those damned xtid anymore.

  Hrothgar leaned forward. “Well? What say you, Captain?”

  Vega nodded. “I accept. If you will give me all the information as to the last whereabouts of your son, I shall endeavor to find the final shard and prove my loyalty not just to your house, but to the people of your territory.”

  Baz matched his captain’s stride as the two men walked out of the palace gates and headed towards a waiting land car ready to take them back to the spaceport. The new executive officer of the Tiburon sighed with relief. “Boy, I’m glad to be out of that place. When those guards leveled their weapons at us, I thought we were goners for sure.”

  Vega grimaced while they continued on. “I want you to focus on the repairs of my ship, Commander. Let’s find that last crystal so we can retire in safe luxury.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Baz said. “I must tell you, it will take several days even with the Concordance helping us out. The Tiburon took severe damage, especially to her fusion drive. I’m surprised we even made it out here.”

  “I’m glad they will have a local guide accompanying us to help look for the crystal,” Vega said. “Now it’s just a game of finding a needle in the haystack.”

  “You really think we’ll find it? Seems that old archon is sending us on a wild goose chase.”

  Vega patted the container with the three shards beneath his cloak. “Yes, with the help of our mutual friend. He seems to know where every piece lies.”

  “The xtid? I gotta tell you, boss. I don’t trust that damned alien one bit.”

  “I don’t trust anybody,” Vega said. “We’ll use him just like we use the others until we get what we want. The moment they elevate me as the archon’s successor, we’ll be untouchable—even to the xtid.”

  “I dunno, I’m beginning to have second thoughts about all this,” Baz said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, these Scythians have a lovely palace and they’ve got all these servants to attend to their every need, but still.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “This damned air around us for one,” Baz said. “I always feel a shortness of breath.”

  “That’s ’cause there’s less oxygen in the atmosphere of this world compared to Earth norms,” Vega said. “Don’t worry, you’ll either get used to it or just bring a breather with you.”

  “Is that why those chimeras have got such huge chests?”

  Vega nodded. “They’ve got bigger lungs. The humans here adapted themselves to thrive in this planetary environment.”

  “Damn chimeras,” Baz said. “I can’t believe you’re going to marry that freak of a daughter the archon’s got.”

  Vega gave him an irritated look. “You’d better get used to the way they look, and don’t ever use that word while these people are around.”

  “What? Chimeras? That’s what everyone in the Union and the League calls them.”

  “The proper term is genetically modified human—GMH—not mutant or chimera,” Vega said. “Those are considered insults in these parts. If they hear you say it, they’re liable to take your head off.”

  “I get it, boss, but I don’t think I could ever interbreed with them,” Baz said. “I’d rather marry a sex bot instead. Those cat eyes, the pointy ears, the bronzed skin. Disgusting.”

  Vega winked at him. “It’s a small price to pay when you become an archon. In this galaxy you’re either born lucky or you have to go out and take it, and I’m doing just that. Not bad for the unwanted son of a poor colonial farmer, eh?”

  17 Licking Wounds

  The engineering and manufacturing decks of the Nepenthe were a hive of activity as the vessel remained nestled behind a dense curtain of drifting asteroids. HD-99953 was formally known as an uninhabited system, well away from the major spaceways of Concordance space, and the crew was confident they could safely repair the starship without anyone detecting her presence there.

  Taking a break from the nonstop supervisory work he had been doing for the past two days, Chief Engineer Viniimn folded his six arms around his trunk-like body and activated the tiny maneuvering thrusters attached to his harness to go down the corridor. Moving towar
ds one of the labs near the edge of the manufacturing section, he mentally opened the sliding door with his com-link and propelled himself into the room.

  Lieutenant Garrett Strand floated in front of the lab’s main console as he stared at two pairs of disassembled cybernetic limbs behind a transparent divider. Karana’s head with her detached torso remained strapped down on a vertical bed in an adjacent enclosure as the ship’s AI continued its neural and biological scans on her.

  Strand turned his head when he sensed the chief engineer’s presence inside the room. “How are we doing, Viniimn?”

  “Not bad,” the male nytini said. “We’ve been processing deuterium pellets for our fuel and we’re almost fully loaded. Repairs to the outer hull and laser systems are also proceeding smoothly, as is the gathering of tungsten for our main guns and lancer missiles. Of course, you’d know this if you volunteered to help out the engineering teams.”

  “I was never good at repair work,” Strand said. “I just break things for a living.”

  “You break sentients too,” Viniimn said. “Oh well, I guess each one of us has his own specialty.”

  Strand chuckled. “Well, one of my other duties includes prisoner monitoring, so that’s why I’m here.”

  “And how is our guest?”

  “Her physiology has stabilized, so it means we’ll begin the interrogation shortly,” Strand said. “I’m just waiting for the captain and our executive officer to come in.”

  Viniimn activated the download menu on his exoskeleton’s smartcom unit and began sorting through the accumulated scans. “Remarkable piece of engineering, isn’t she?”

  Strand snorted. “You seem to refer to her as a thing.”

  “I was referring to her cyberwear as a whole,” Viniimn said as he studied the holographic schematics. “Her augmentations are quite extensive to the point where I am amazed at how she has survived all this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Viniimn’s harness extended a laser pointer towards one of the detached metallic arms floating in front of them. “If you look at the base of her shoulders, you can see that the neural control circuitry was directly fused to her collarbone and shoulder blades. When assembling cybernetic limbs, most technicians wouldn’t go that far. They would have attached the limbs just below the head of the humerus—the upper arms—leaving the shoulders intact.”

  Strand scratched his chin. “You seem to know a lot about human anatomy and medical procedures for a nytini.”

  “One of my hobbies is multi-species cybernetics,” Viniimn said. “It eases my mind rather than thinking about starship structural engineering and repairs all day.”

  “You must have a very interesting downtime.”

  Viniimn let the obvious sarcasm go. “This Karana apparently underwent a very risky procedure, though it paid off. In addition to her limbs, even her torso has been heavily modified.”

  “Is that why Sappho detected implants on her spinal cord as well?”

  “It’s more than just implants,” Viniimn said. “It seems her backbone was rebuilt from the ground up, as you humans say.” He ran the laser pointer along the length of the holographic representation of Karana’s back. “If you look there, her bones were completely reinforced with combat-grade nanocarbon. Even her nerve cords were painstakingly bundled with high-strength wiring so she could withstand intense physical stress without internal injury.”

  “Explains why she wouldn’t die even though the kid and I shot her multiple times.”

  “There is nano-weave subdermal armor implanted just underneath her skin,” Viniimn said. “It pretty much gives her a protection rating close to that of someone wearing an Armatus battle suit. Karana’s heart and lungs are artificial too and can filter out harmful gases in addition to greatly enhancing her cardiovascular system. She could even engage her modified adrenal glands at will.”

  “Jesus antecessor.”

  Viniimn shifted the display over to her head. “Karana’s skull is reinforced, just like her spinal cord, but the most remarkable thing is the cyber pathways and control interfaces implanted at the back portion.”

  Strand sighed. “So she was heavily modified there too. What’s so great about that?”

  “All those control bio-electrodes would have overwhelmed a normal brain—I mean, she would have literally fried herself every time she moved a muscle due to the overloaded systems attached to her cerebrum,” Viniimn said. “Multiple neural pathways blasting out all at once with loads of signals … I’m surprised she was able to function, much less stay alive.”

  “Any idea how she was able to do that?”

  “The psychological studies concerning cybernetic individuals are still incomplete and somewhat arbitrary,” Viniimn said. “We have very little idea why some cybers go berserk while others function normally in life.”

  “Well, psychology has never been an exact science,” Strand said.

  “True, but in all my studies, I would have never imagined someone like her could get loaded up with all the hardware she has and not have it overload her mind,” Viniimn said. “The general rule is the more cyberwear one has, the more mentally unstable they are.”

  “So you’re saying she’s more machine than human?”

  “Pretty much,” Viniimn said. “The only part of her that hasn’t been heavily modified is her reproductive system, though I doubt she’ll be able to bear children due to the massive doses of drugs she has been taking.”

  “Neurizim, right?”

  “Correct,” Viniimn said. “The ubiquitous anti-rejection medication that all cybers take. Even though our current tech has enabled us to manufacture organic electrode bio-chips that are tailor-fitted to match our own DNA, the body itself still finds a way to refuse it.”

  Strand crossed his arms. “She was certainly doped up during the operation at the museum, but she hasn’t had a drop of neurizim since we captured her. Will her head explode if we wake her up?”

  “I’ve instructed Sappho to monitor her brainwaves closely and keep her sedated,” Viniimn said. “At this stage, anything could happen the moment we wake her.”

  “Well, she can’t bust out of bed without arms or legs unless she’s got a cybernetic tongue.”

  “She doesn’t have that,” Viniimn said. “Her digestive system has been simplified and she can only eat soft, almost liquid paste.”

  “You mean baby food.”

  “Is that what it’s called? Alright.”

  Strand shook his head. “I guess she’s great when it comes to her line of work, but being normal is pretty much out of the question for her.”

  “Yes,” Viniimn said. “Combat-wise, she’s close to perfect. Karana also has neural interface jacks that extended down to her fingers, before we detached those limbs.”

  “So she can hack through command and security systems?”

  “Correct; though not as efficient or as fast compared to a synthetic, she could perform better than an organic sentient without cyberwear,” Viniimn said.

  Strand pursed his lips. “That’s it. You just figured out a way to interrogate her.”

  It was Viniimn’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Rather than asking her questions for hours and sorting through the lies and deception, why not have Sappho access her neural interface directly?”

  “That would be dangerous,” Viniimn said. “The procedure might end up killing her.”

  “She got most of my strike team killed,” Strand said. “I don’t much care if she dies or not at this stage.”

  Viniimn began accessing Karana’s medical scans. “She has a smartcom hacking module implanted in her cranium. By doing some modifications, we could turn it against her own brain—force her to reveal the truth, so to speak.”

  “Let’s go for it.”

  Her mind rolled in an endless ocean of distorted fragments, buffeted against waves of hot, blinding pain. She could no longer feel the sense of touch, while the burning electrical cur
rents running through her spine gave an indication that she was still attached to the real world somehow.

  A calm voice was heard through the swirling limbo. “Karana.”

  She gritted her teeth while trying to focus her thoughts, but all she could sense was an unending darkness, and agony.

  “Karana.”

  The sound was distant, yet it gave her a feeling of hope. Someone was trying to help her. Someone she recognized.

  “Don’t worry, Karana, all is well.”

  She finally remembered. The voice belonged to her captain. Toto Vega. Yes. He always had a way to relieve her pain. The once unattainable sense of hope was there, growing like a small, radiant flower across the endless gloom of despair.

  “You’re safe now,” he said. “We’re back on the Tiburon. I’ve got you.”

  “I … I made it?” she asked aloud.

  “Yes,” Vega said. His voice sounded somewhat peculiar, but she could tell it was him. “Everything will be alright.”

  “But … everything hurts. I can’t feel my arms … or legs.”

  “You were injured,” he said. “Wounded pretty badly, but don’t worry, I’ll fix you up. Just like old times.”

  Karana couldn’t help but smile. “Will it be …. just like the way it was?”

  “Yes, it will be. But I need your help.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I need you to remember,” he said.

  “Remember what?”

  “The plan,” Vega said. “We got away, but they knocked out the database, and we need those star charts right away.”

  “Yes, we need to get to our destination,” Karana said softly. “You’ve got the other two shards, right?”

  “Shards?”

  “The Shards of Eternity,” Karana said. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the reason why we betrayed our own?”

  “Yes, of course, the shards.”

  Karana wanted to laugh. For once she had made him look like a fool instead of the other way around. “I think all those thoughts about becoming a Scythian archon have gotten to your head, Vega.”