by Ben Hale
Their vessel had originally been built to support larger capital ships, but it had been modified to accommodate an elite dakorian team. He loved the Fell Shadow, and it had been under his command since he’d been appointed captain.
Their ship’s exterior had lances capable of damaging larger ships. Onboard, they had dozens of hammer lances for a variety of needs, compartments for food, det explosives, and a portable gravity drive. With four blackout boots, Reklin and the Fell Shadow could infiltrate any planet in the Empire, and once there, they were equipped to deal with small- to moderate-sized threats.
Out of sight of the others, Reklin leaned back with a pained sigh, grimacing at the ache in his body. He was getting old, and soon enough, he would be removed from his rank. He sighed and looked out the window, hoping his plan would work. Hoping this mission would give him what he most desired: the rank of an immortal. The rank of Bloodwall.
Chapter Three
Ero Bright’Lor sprinted down the hallway, forcing Skorn to keep up. Krey soldiers raced to cut them off, so Ero veered down another hallway. Human slaves stood by, watching the krey brothers pass. Ero shot a look over his shoulder, his grin widening as he listened to shouts in the distance.
“I told you this was a stupid plan,” Skorn growled.
Ero skidded on the floor as he tried to turn. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Not if we’re executed.” Skorn stabbed a finger behind them. “And we can’t outrun dakorians.”
Ero shouted for a group of slaves to move, and they cleared a path. Dressed in brown pants and gray shirts, the slaves bore scars on their cheeks and hands, evidence of the cruelty of House Kel’Ray.
The slaves stopped to watch the two thieves. They would tell their owners everything, of course, but for now, the fact that two krey were stealing brought some excitement to their dull lives. Thieves were usually dakorians or earless humans. Rarely did krey steal from other krey, the risk of death being a sufficient deterrent, unless the krey were from a lower House or exiled. Ero and Skorn had once been sons to the fourth most powerful House of the Empire, but now their House stood on the verge of extinction.
“This way,” Skorn said, banking around a corner.
The long hallways curved in a perpetually rising spiral, part of the great structure known as the Spiran by the locals and the Rusted by outlanders.
The interior had once been beautiful, with smooth white walls and bright-green accents, but like everything else on Rodelan, it had eventually gained a red tinge from the heavy atmosphere. The dust covered the outer buildings and had breached the air scrubbers, coating the interior.
The walls curved into a flat, vaulted ceiling. Doors on the outside of the corridor led to the private homes of the krey members of the House, while the interior rooms were for slaves and the few dakorians employed on the planet. Currently ranked third in the Empire, House Kel’Ray could certainly afford more, but they didn’t care to protect a planet with so little value.
The brothers passed through several doorways, which were the customary fourteen feet tall, high enough for a dakorian. Strips of light—gray interspersed with yellow, the colors of House Kel’Ray—glowed on either side of the door. Holographic banners hung on the walls, showing the House crest and the symbol for Rodelan.
The curving corridor took the brothers upward, extending higher and narrowing toward the top of the structure, where the Primus, Secondous, and Tertious had their offices. Other governing chambers were housed at the summit of the Rusted tower, which extended above the planet’s dust clouds.
House Kel’Ray didn’t bother to spend resources for cleaning mechs, so slaves washed the walls by hand, a loathsome task, even for a slave. Sweating through their gray clothing, the humans paused to watch the two krey.
“How many guards have you seen?” Skorn asked.
Ero shrugged, slightly out of breath. “Kel’Ray has a few thousand guards, but most are at the central Spiran.”
Ero’s expression darkened. “If we get caught, they’re going to kill us.”
Ero released a snort of derision and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “They hire Houseless krey as guards. The only way they could catch us is if they had interior Gates.”
“They have a dozen dakorians.” Skorn scanned the corridors as they caught their breath.
“But they don’t have a Bloodwall on this planet,” Ero countered. “Unless we see a dakorian, we’ll make it to the top of the Spiran.”
“Have I told you I hate this plan?”
“More than once,” Ero said.
Skorn glared at him, and Ero grinned. Although House Bright’Lor had once had sixty-seven sons, Ero had always been closest to Skorn. They’d gotten into plenty of mischief over the last few thousand years and survived mostly unscathed.
Until Kelindor.
Ero grimaced and pointed down a hall. “Think we can make it to the World Gate?”
Skorn jerked his head. “They would have closed off a direct route. We need to find another way to reach it.”
Both turned when heavy footfalls came from the end of the third corridor, and a pair of dakorians burst into view. The towering guards had a single line carved into their horns, marking them as sergeants, the lowest rank. But even lower ranked dakorians could rip a krey in half with their bare hands.
The dakorians pulled hammer lances from their backs and smashed the heads on the ground. The impacts absorbed the kinetic energy. The runes on the handle began to glow, showing the amount of power in the weapons. As they pointed the two hammers at Ero and Skorn, the centers of the hammers began to turn white.
“Go,” Skorn barked, and they dived into a side hallway.
Ion bolts streaked down the corridor and slammed into the wall, carving holes in the seracrete. Ero and Skorn sprinted the length of the corridor and turned a corner, but the dakorians thundered in their wake. Bred for combat, the dakorians hurtled down the hall, devouring the gap.
“Now what?” Ero asked.
“You’re asking me?” Skorn snapped. “This was your plan.”
“And you followed it.” Ero looked down a hallway to the right and spotted a group of slaves scrubbing the walls. He caught his brother’s shoulder and pulled him higher in the Spiran.
The dakorians turned the corner and aimed again, firing into the midst of the slaves. A man took a full blast in his back, his scream sparking panic among the rest, who scattered. A woman shrieked as light grazed her shoulder and burned her skin.
Skorn spotted a door ahead and activated his holoview, embedded into his wrist. A hologram appeared above his arm, and he activated the floating symbols to connect his cortex to the small crystal that controlled the door. Symbols flowed across the holo as he hacked the system. Just as Ero reached the door, it lifted upward, sliding into the wall above the entrance.
Ero ducked another ion blast and dived into the opening. Skorn followed and slammed his palm on the interior crystal. The translucent barrier dropped from above, sealing the opening. Skorn’s fingers flashed across his holoview. As dakorian footsteps reverberated through the floor, the switch fizzled and burst into sparks.
“That won’t hold them for long,” Skorn said, retreating from the door.
Ero examined the burn along his elbow, where an ion bolt had melted his shirt. He pulled it away from the burn, wincing in annoyance. He liked this shirt. It was one of the few he had that looked regal.
The two dakorians appeared on the outside of the door and began to swing their hammers, the heavy weapons smashing into the door. Cracks appeared in the barrier.
“Open the door!” one of the dakorians barked. “House Kel’Ray might grant you mercy.”
“No thanks,” Ero called.
“Have it your way.” Eagerness crept into the dakorian’s voice. “That means we get to kill you ourselves. And there’s no escape from that room.”
Unfortunately, he was right. Their refuge turned out to be the private quarters of an upper-ranking krey. W
ith a trio of side rooms, the central room was illuminated by a window. A red sandstorm battered a distant desert.
A large holographic image of a krey adorned the wall adjacent to the door, the owner of the room. Like all members of the krey, he stood slightly taller than a human, his head more spherical. His ears were pointed and his skin was gray, while his body was thin and muscular. Although skin tones varied among the krey, the greatest difference between them was their eyes. The image showed a krey with bright-red eyes, the hallmark of House Torn’Ent.
Ero turned away from the image and surveyed the room, his eyes drawn to the wide window. They were a couple thousand feet off the surface of the planet, a drab landscape of red rock. Shield domes dotted the hills, green foliage and bright buildings visible inside.
Then Ero spotted a different holo. The second image projected onto the wall above a cabinet, showing a beautiful krey woman. Her yellow eyes were piercing with a glint of cruelty, and her black hair swirled in the wind.
Ero motioned to the holo. “It looks like we found an admirer of Olana.”
“Is that why you picked Rodelan?” Skorn asked while searching the room. “Because she used to be Primus here?”
“She’s Tertious of Ironden now.” Ero watched the woman in the holo, not certain if it was attraction or irritation that stirred in his chest. Probably both. The door thudded again, and new cracks appeared.
“If you tell Olana we stole from her House cortex, she will want revenge.” Skorn paused in his search of the room. “No matter your history, you cannot tell her what we did.”
Ero raised his hands defensively. “I’m not going to tell her.”
Yet, he mentally added. Olana was one of the few krey to capture his attention, her cunning only matched by her beauty. Olana had designed the coding for the main cortex of House Kel’Ray, a giant crystal that was kept on Rodelan. The cortex contained all the information about the House, from the names of its millions of slaves to the food purchased by its head for a recent banquet. The code to protect the cortex had been unbreakable, until now. Ero hid his smile from his brother as he imagined a future conversation with Olana.
“Will you stop standing around and help me find a way out?” Skorn asked as he picked up the base of one of the holos and threw it at Ero. It missed and struck the wall, the small crystal sparking as it shattered. The holo of Olana disintegrated.
The hammers continued to strike the door, and Ero realized that time was short. He searched the various rooms of the krey’s personal home, hoping for an exit. A sleeping room, an office, and an eating area. The first two showed no egress, but the kitchen had a large automatic oven.
“Skorn,” he called, motioning to the oven. “That’s big enough to have its own dedicated gravity sphere. We could rig it to collapse and take out the wall.”
Skorn appeared at his side, a frown on his face. “You want to take out the entire level? We need to escape, not kill us all together.”
Skorn disappeared again, and Ero kept looking. Every second the cracks on the door expanded, the thudding of the hammers a constant hum. Then he spotted his brother rummaging through drawers and searching under the desk in the office.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “We need to find a way out.”
“These are the quarters of Tertious Jent,” Skorn said.
“You know him?”
Ero recalled the fleeting effort he’d made to read about their target. Tertious Jent was third in authority for Rodelan, but he was not a blood son. With his red eyes, he was a son of Torn’Ent, not Kel’Ray. Since they had more high positions than children, House Kel’Ray employed members of other Houses, and Jent had filled the position a few years ago.
“Tertious Jent has his eye on Olana, but she refused his advances, so he has a mistress on the far side of the planet,” Skorn said, flipping a table onto its back to look beneath. “I think he uses a pocket Gate to visit her.”
Ero whistled in appreciation. Pocket Gates could connect to any Gate on a single planet, and they were extremely expensive. The illegal variety didn’t even need to connect to an existing Gate and could open its own terminus at any location.
“I found it,” Skorn said.
Skorn reached into a secret cavity hidden behind the desk and raised the small circular mirror. Ero joined him and examined the object. The back of the mirror bore three symbols: one for the maker, one for the design, and one for the purpose.
“An unlinked pocket Gate,” Ero said. “It seems Jent has been siphoning funds from House Kel’Ray to pay for his mistress.”
“Mistresses,” Skorn corrected. “He’s got three, by my count.”
“How did you know all this?” Ero asked.
“You think I’d follow your plan without having a contingency?”
“You didn’t trust me?” Ero feigned indignation. “I’m offended.”
Skorn rolled his eyes, the expression odd through the identity modifier, which made Skorn look much uglier than normal. Ero had chosen the better of the two identity modifiers they’d purchased, so he looked moderately better, even if he currently had yellow eyes instead of blue.
“You had the plan, I make sure it works.”
Crack. The door trembled anew, its fissures reaching to the base. More dakorians arrived and more hammers struck the door, their hum followed by the crunching of the glass barrier.
“So you knew Jent had a pocket Gate?” Ero asked.
“I suspected. While you were off gallivanting on Serlin, I researched this world.” Skorn activated the Gate, a tiny holo appearing above the runes.
Ero wanted to be angry at his brother’s lack of faith, but a hammer smashed through the door, spreading glass across the floor and lodging one shard a few finger lengths from Ero’s boot.
A hammer aimed at them through the opening, the center of its head glowing as the lance prepared to fire. Both brothers ducked, and the ion bolt blasted into the window across from the door. The entire panel shattered.
Wind howled into the space, and glass was pulled into the whirlwind. They were above the clouds, but red dust billowed into Jent’s room, quickly coating the walls, the furniture, and Ero and Skorn. A strangled cry came from outside the room.
“Stop destroying my quarters!”
Ero grinned. “Looks like Tertious Jent doesn’t appreciate our presence.”
“Will you focus?” Skorn asked.
He pulled Ero away from the line of fire and behind a cabinet of expensive drey. With fluted tops and wide bottoms, the drey bottles were crystal and glass, their contents an assortment of blue, green, amber, and gold liquid. The light emanating from the walls reflected off the bottles in sparkling streaks of light, made all the more brilliant when an ion bolt hit the cabinet. Glass and crystal exploded into the room. The alcoholic drey ignited and spilled flames across the floor.
Fed by the wind, the fire quickly spilled inward, licking at the cabinets and walls. Seracrete wouldn’t burn, but Jent had plenty of expensive furniture made of rare wood. The fires licked into them like a ravenous human.
A strangled shout came from Tertious Jent, causing Ero to laugh. Skorn scowled and tucked farther behind the ruined cabinet, avoiding a blistering volley of streaking light that ripped into the seracrete and blackened the floor.
“I’m glad you find your death amusing,” Skorn growled. “But we don’t have enough space to activate the Gate now.”
“We have all the space we need,” Ero said.
Skorn glared at him like he’d gone mad, but Ero caught his brother by the shoulder and yanked him away from the broken cabinet. Skorn saw his intent and tried to resist, but Ero reached the window and jumped, dragging his brother into open air.
Chapter Four
“Have you lost your mind?” Skorn bellowed.
They slid down the outside of the Spiran, buffeted by the dusty winds. The slope turned inward as they fell, accelerating them across the smooth surface. Ero managed to catch Skorn’s arm and pull t
he pocket Gate from his grip. Pointing it ahead of them, he pressed the top symbol. The embedded cortex opened to his thoughts, and he felt a tiny tug at the corner of his skull. He pictured their destination, the World Gate chamber on the far side of the planet.
Silver light flowed from the mirror and expanded ahead of them, rising to form a tall oval. Skorn’s curse was lost in a hail of ion bolts before they passed into the Gate.
The portal opened into a large, vaulted chamber. Their momentum sent them skidding across the floor for thirty feet before they struck a pillar. Ero grunted from the impact.
Ion bolts streaked through the portal, pummeling the pillar above their heads and showering them in bits of stone and dust. The pocket Gate tumbled from Ero’s grip. He reached for it, but an ion bolt burned between them, and he snatched his hand back.
Through the portal, he could see the dakorians lining up at the window, firing down into the open Gate. Unable to close it, Ero scooted away and around the pillar. Skorn did the same, circling from the opposite side. Both huddled behind the column as ion blasts hit the stone.
“What now?” Ero asked.
“You sound like you’re having fun,” Skorn said.
“Aren’t you?”
Skorn glared at him and then shrugged. “A little.”
Delighted by his brother’s answer, he swept a hand around the pillar. “If we don’t close that Gate, one of the dakorians is going to jump. Through the portal.”
A streak of white light came through the Gate and struck the pocket Gate, obliterating it in a small explosion of sparks and metal. The Gate popped like a bubble, leaving the room in sudden silence.
Ero poked his head around the pillar and peered into the haze of dust. “I told you it would work.”
Skorn wiped dust from his shirt. “Luck does not qualify as working.”
Ero stood and examined their destination. The room was circular and enormous, with several pillars supporting the pointed ceiling. The one they’d been hiding behind had suffered significant damage, but the rest were carved in intricate patterns. Skorn was quick to the main entrance, and he used his holoview to seal the opening.