by Stel Pavlou
“We take a running jump,” Daniel said quickly. “Ready?”
“Wait a minute, what the heck do you have in mind?”
Daniel quit listening. “Jump or I push.”
“Do you even know if this is going to work?”
“Of course I don’t know, I’ve never done this before!”
Blink peered over the edge. “That’s a heck of a fall,” Daniel said. “One—”
“Okay, okay!” Blink took three paces back. “Two—”
Screaming in absolute terror, Blink and Daniel ran forward, launching themselves at the opening on the other side.
Whompff!
A shock wave blasted out from the relic on Daniel’s chest, lifting them up and hurling them into the airshaft, arms and legs flailing.
Landing in a crumpled heap, barely able to move, they each rolled onto their backs, trying to breathe.
Daniel pulled his bloodied face out of the dirt. “You okay?” he asked gingerly.
Blink rolled his eyes back into his head. “You suck,” he croaked.
Everything hurt—every single inch. Unclipping himself from Blink’s belt, Daniel struggled to sit up.
A steady stream of cool air whistled past his ears.
Daniel glanced around.
There, an exit at the end of the tunnel, exposing a vast velvety blanket of deep blues and streaks of pink sprinkled with endless twinkling lights.
His breath caught in his throat. He recognized them! “Are . . . those . . . stars?”
Blink rolled over to see what he was talking about. His mouth hung open. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “We’re out.”
17
SUNSRISE OVER A BROKEN WORLD
The two boys stepped out onto the surface of a world that was hard to call a planet, although, once upon a time, it must have been one.
Beneath the infinite haze stretching from horizon to horizon that must’ve been the sky, the shattered remains of what was once a planet curved upward in both directions. The planet, which long ago had probably been a ball shape like any other planet, had been whittled down until all that was left was a vast crescent; a planet-sized orange peel floating in space, while all around the further remains of its shattered body had formed a thousand moons and flocks of asteroids, skipping and tumbling around one another, drawn together by the forces of their own gravity.
On the horizon, the lights of a distant outpost illuminated the bellies of a swarm of tiny craft, zipping to and fro from the massive hulk of a freighter.
Blink went to step outside, but Daniel stopped him. “Wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
Daniel rested a hand on his utility belt, and the pouch containing his holocule. The warning had been clear: if he stepped outside, he was dead. The same went for any of the grubs. Daniel didn’t think much about putting his own life in danger, but his friends? That was something else.
Whether or not that threat had been true, there was really only one way to test it.
“Wait here, okay?” he said.
“For what?”
“Just do it.”
“Who made you boss?” Blink snapped.
“Uh, this thing?” said Daniel, gesturing to the powerful relic pinned to his chest. “Give me two minutes.”
Blink threw up his hands.
“After that, do what you want. Just. Stay. There.”
“Fine. Two minutes.”
Daniel held his breath when he stepped outside, the air so cold that his eyes started watering. He reached into his belt for his mining goggles. They steamed up as soon as he put them on, which was probably a good thing because there were so many planetary fragments tumbling past in the sky that it was downright dizzying, and now he couldn’t see them.
Expecting the worst, he stepped gingerly out onto the surface of the ruined planet. As more time went by, he took more and more hesitant steps, until he’d gone a good ways, maybe twenty or thirty paces, and he stopped.
He waited. And he waited. And before long, nothing happened. He knew it! The threat of death had been a lie.
Keeping his back to Blink, he pulled the glowing holocule from its pouch, watching his own face spinning around inside the glass tube.
He tossed it on the ground and stamped on it as hard as he could. The glass shattered, releasing the brightly sparkling pinpricks of light. They swirled around, trying to form an image, before a gust of wind caught them and blew them away.
Daniel stood watching the stars when Blink came up quietly beside him.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay over there?”
“Since when did I ever listen to you? We can’t stay here much longer, you know.”
Daniel nodded.
The ground sloped away not far from the tunnel entrance, a mix of scree and ice that proved difficult to walk on, but neither of them cared. They walked in silence, just a couple of battle-scarred soldiers soaking in their surroundings. So much open space; so much freedom. It was so different from the Racks and the mines.
Eventually Blink couldn’t stay silent any longer. “You want to tell me what that was all about back there?” he asked.
“Not really, no.”
“You want to tell me where we’re going?”
“No clue.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
Daniel shrugged. “Sure,” he said.
“That ship over there has to head somewhere, right?” he said. “Might be good to be on it when it does.”
Daniel stopped in his tracks, jabbing an accusing finger at the uncountable stars. “And go where, Blink? Where? Which one’s home?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought that far!” Blink spat. “But anywhere’s better than where we just came from.”
“Let’s hope so.” Daniel rubbed a trembling hand over his exhausted face. Finding a place to sit, he reached into his utility belt for some water. Instead he found a hole in the pouch.
Blink checked his own supply—empty.
Neither of them said it, but they both knew that if they didn’t find water or food soon, they weren’t going to make it to any ship.
They watched the stunning crisp light of dawn break over the horizon in silence; one tiny sun, followed by another, and another, until a cluster of five small white spheres rolled into view, like a flock of angels taking flight.
The bellow of an animal echoed throughout the crags. “That’s a Ridgeback,” Blink said.
Ducking down, the two boys kept low, scurrying over to the lip of an overhang to scope out what was going on.
Down in the canyon, a troop of mud-soaked Overseers had arrived, mounted on hungry trabasaurs, blast-pikes at the ready.
It wouldn’t be long before they picked up the boys’ scent.
18
INTO THE RIFT
“I count six. No, wait a second,” Blink said quietly, “there’s another group coming around from the far side.”
Daniel rolled onto his back, searching the sky for a miracle. “We’re just going to have to go around them.” In a landscape dotted with canyons and mesas, that was easier said than done.
Blink pulled back from the edge. “And run into another patrol coming the other way?”
“Well, we can’t outrun ’em. A Ridgeback clocks in at—what?”
Blink hung his head. “As fast as a GoLoader.”
“And that’s inside a mine,” Daniel noted. “Who knows what they can do out in the open.” He rolled back onto his belly, taking a last look at the hunting party blockading their route, before crawling safely out of sight.
The two grubs kept low as they ran, hiding behind the occasional outcropping or boulder to get their breath back.
“Least now we know why no one ever came to rescue us from the mines,” said Blink. “Look at this place. No one knows we’re here.”
Everywhere they looked, from the fractured sky to the barren wastes, the sight was the same: total devastation. It would be easy to assume that few people, if any,
called this sorry place home.
A little while later they reached a shallow ravine. It took all their effort not to tumble headfirst down into it, but climbing up the opposite slope was worse, sapping energy they couldn’t afford to waste. With their dugs soaked in sweat, they crawled to the brow of the hill, only to hear the braying of more Ridgebacks echoing down in the canyon on the other side.
“I told you there’d be another patrol,” whispered Blink.
“There are probably patrols everywhere,” Daniel whispered back, motioning for Blink to shut up.
For such large animals, the sounds of Ridgebacks padding up the scree were surprisingly light. As they drew closer, the two boys could hear them sniffing the air while the Overseers riding their backs traded that peculiar animalist chatter—
Yach! Yach!
The Ridgeback call, a cross between a roar and a bark, brought the entire patrol to a halt.
It could smell something.
The boys pressed themselves into the dirt; glassy beads of sweat rolled down their faces.
Chatter shot across commlink channels, alerting the other hunting parties to the situation. More Overseers were coming.
Yach! Yach!
Another Ridgeback, a little farther along where the rocky ground had become treacherous and slick with ice, had picked up the scent too. It circled awkwardly back, its feet slipping, before extending its claws and driving them into the ice.
The electrical crackle of blast-pikes igniting came just a moment later.
Though they couldn’t see the boys yet, the patrol knew what they had.
Daniel glanced over at Blink. “Run,” he said.
Blink looked at him as though that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. Daniel roared, “Run!”
He jumped up before Blink could say a word, reaching out to the silver relic with his thoughts, the artifact answering his call faster than it had before.
The nearest Ridgeback pulled back its lips to reveal diseased gums and rotting meat stuffed between its dagger-sized teeth. With a snarl, it pounced at Daniel, only to find its way blocked by a swirl of air, a miniature tornado conjured up out of nowhere that the boy was using as a shield. The Ridgeback lunged again, knocking the boy clean off his feet. The Overseer dug in his heels, urging his mount to pin Daniel with its foot—
The spinning vortex shield took care of that, whipping the leg out from under the trabasaur, catching its massive body, and flinging both beast and Overseer at the rest of the pack.
The patrol scattered in chaos, trying not to get hit.
Daniel saw his chance. He scrambled away, his lungs burning in his chest, his teeth aching from the cold. Which way had Blink gone?
Flashes lit up the sky over the next hill. Blast-pikes—Blink . . .
Daniel hustled his way over the rise to find his friend caught between three circling Ridgebacks, Overseers jabbing him in the back every chance they got.
Blink crumpled to his knees.
“Get away from him!” Daniel hollered, whipping his arm back and hurling a vortex from the relic straight at them. The whirlwind smacked one Overseer from his saddle, and rebounded into a second before shooting off into oblivion.
The third Overseer yanked on his Ridgeback’s reins, pulling around to face Daniel, holding his blast-pike out ready to strike—and charged right at him.
Daniel ran to help his friend, holding one arm up to block the blow. Electricity flared across the vortex harmlessly, while the Overseer, overshooting his mark, struggled to bring his Ridgeback to halt and turn back around for another pass.
Daniel grabbed his friend by the arm. “Come on!”
Blink groaned, unable to focus. “I can’t,” he said, breathless. “I can’t . . .”
“Get up!”
Plumes of snow blossomed across a distant ridge like smoke, curling behind tiny black specks racing straight for them at blistering speed. More Overseers, more Ridgebacks—more trouble.
Daniel hauled his friend up, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, forcing him to move up the next ridge and beyond—
“It’s no use. I’m just slowing you down, Dee,” said Blink, trying to shrug him off.
“Just keep going.”
“What’s the point? Can’t you hear ’em breathing? They’re right behind us, laughing.”
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, the handful of Overseers that Daniel had managed to fend off were back on their mounts, following them slowly just a few paces behind.
Why didn’t they attack? What did they know that Daniel and Blink didn’t?
He turned back, his breath catching in his throat—“Great . . .”
The two boys teetered on the edge of a cliff. Where the ground sheered away, a vast rift had opened up, exposing the ruins of an ancient city lying half buried in its own destruction.
Above their heads, Nightwatchers circled like vultures, crying, “Who disturbs? Who disturbs?” Behind them, the Overseers slowly moved in.
There was nowhere to go.
“We could jump,” Daniel said, clutching the silver relic.
Eyeing the artifact, Blink laughed so hard he coughed up dust. “It’s like a mile down. You think you can survive that?”
Daniel wasn’t laughing.
“Eighteen-seventy-three and forty-one eighty-two, you are in violation!” an Overseer barked. “Return for processing!”
A Nightwatcher dove down in front of them, forcing them back from the precipice, screeching, “Who disturbs! Who disturbs!”
The two boys raised their hands and turned slowly around. With so many Overseers and Ridgebacks gathering, their run for freedom seemed not only useless, but in some ways ridiculous.
“Get moving!” another Overseer snapped.
The two boys quietly watched each other. Was this it? Was this how it ended? Daniel searched his friend’s face, but Blink had a look in his eye that Daniel couldn’t quite read.
“Come back for us, Dee,” Blink said.
What did that mean? Daniel never got the chance to ask. Blink rammed his hands into Daniel’s chest, pushing him clean over the edge.
Everything moved in slow motion, as though time itself was grinding to a halt—
Nightwatchers flew this way and that, yawping, “Who disturbs! Who disturbs!” Overseers rushed at Blink.
And all the while, Daniel fell backward into the rift, watching his friend Blink Darkada, raising his hands above his head, shouting, “I disturb! I disturb!”
19
FALLEN CITY
Whoosh!
Daniel plummeted, frantically twisting his body, trying to gain some control over his fall—he had to get away from the cliff face before he smashed into it.
Aiming the palm of his hand at the cliff’s surface, trying to conjure up the biggest shock wave he could muster in his mind, his whole arm suddenly throbbed from the raw power the silver relic was pumping through it—
Whompff!
The shock wave hit the surface with such force, it gouged molten rock from the cliff’s surface before rebounding and propelling Daniel out into the open. With barely enough time to get a sense of where he was falling, he let loose another vortex shield, attempting to cushion the impact. He fell into the roof of a derelict building, one of the few skyscrapers still standing.
Crashing through the dust, scrambling not to go flying off the other side, he stretched out and grabbed on to whatever he could find, holding on with his fingertips as his body swung out over the edge and slammed down into the cement.
Using all his strength, Daniel dragged himself up onto his elbows, swinging his legs from side to side until he could get a foothold.
Rolling onto the roof, he glanced up. Far, far above him, where Blink had been only a moment ago, a couple of Overseers stood watching. They couldn’t reach him down here, but they could signal the Nightwatchers.
Within moments a flock was swooping down to attack.
Daniel needed cover, fast. There had to be
somewhere to hide. He peered back over the edge. Beneath him, the husks of once mighty towers lay scattered like hollow dominoes—one had toppled against the skyscraper, its shell smashed open.
Without thinking, Daniel hurled himself off the roof, arms and legs flailing. Hitting the next building with a painful thud, he slid down into its dusty innards. Daylight spilled in through the broken windows, blotted out every now and then by Nightwatchers racing down the outside of the building in an attempt to cut off his escape.
Daniel jammed his heels into the floor, but it barely slowed his fall. The best he could manage was to change direction and slide into a dead end.
He didn’t move for the longest time, tears leaving track marks in the dirt on his battered face. Why had Blink done that? Why . . . ?
He lay in the fading light, listening to the Nightwatchers outside yawping to each other, impatient for him to make a move. It was hard to tell how long it had been since dawn, maybe an hour or two, and already it was getting dark again. How fast did this planet spin? Hopefully nighttime out here was equally short.
He’d have to wait them out if he was going to make it anywhere near those ships. He couldn’t do it at night. The Nightwatchers had too much of an advantage. Besides, although one or two didn’t pose much of a problem now, how was he supposed to take on so many? He wasn’t a soldier, he wasn’t trained for this; he was just a kid with a superweapon that he barely knew how to operate.
“Who disturbs?” came the distant cries.
“I do,” Daniel murmured, curled up into a ball, and, for the first time in what felt like forever, drifted off to sleep.
20
HIDE-AND-SEEK
A hail of debris showered down from every crack and seam in the roof, wrenching Daniel awake. Something powerful was thundering through the ruins outside, shaking the building to its upended foundations.
Daniel didn’t know how long he’d been out. Could have been an hour. Could have been ten. Exhaustion couldn’t tell time.
He picked his way over to the nearest smashed-out window, spying a Nightwatcher perched on the head of a crumbling statue. Anyone who didn’t know any better would assume it was asleep. They would be wrong. A Nightwatcher never slept; it waited and it watched, just like the others who were out there somewhere right now. Whatever was causing this rumble, they were well used to it.