The Genesis Sequence Books 6-10

by Mackenzie Morris

  "You are a good father." Cain slid his round fiberglass and plastic white helmet on with the clear visor down. "Do I get to know our mission details?"

  "We have to pick up a cargo shipment on Elysia's closest moon, take half of it to the front lines in Southern Elysia, and then return here with the rest."

  "Wait. The front lines? I thought Masamba said this was a low threat mission."

  "It just got upgraded to level three out of five from level one. So get familiarized with those guns and be prepared to fire if it comes down to it. I hope you're not afraid of Azimandians."

  "I've never met one. I don't care what race we face. If they're enemies, I will shoot them down. You just give me orders, Rav."

  "That's what I wanted to hear. Do your job and I'll get us home in one piece. You ready, Cain?"

  "Ready, sir."

  Rav placed the earpiece into his ear and spoke to the flight control tower. "Quasar Luminous requesting clearance for takeoff."

  Masamba's voice answered back. "Clearance granted. Fly fast, Quasar Luminous. You are to call in at the first sign of you experiencing any emotional distress. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Get moving."

  Rav throttled the engines, sending the sleek black fighter down the runway. Once he gathered enough speed, he removed the landing gears and pulled back on the yoke. And just like brushing his teeth, he was back in the air where he would never forget how to fly. Living underground for most of his life, the freedom of the open skies beckoned to him with an unsurpassed force.

  But the silence from the other side of the cockpit caught Rav's attention. "Cain, you okay back there?"

  "Yes, sir. Just . . . feeling a bit . . . queasy."

  "Don't you dare throw up in my cockpit. I will have you scrubbing it for days."

  "I won't, sir."

  With a pre-programmed course plotted through the Elysian airspace, it took only six minutes of flying through darkness after passing through the thin atmosphere to reach the marshy green moon of Styx. Rav brought the plane down to land smoothly on the cracked runway in the middle of the stagnant water and bald cypress trees with their bulbous roots partially submerged. Two-feet-long salamanders with pink skin climbed out of the shallow pools to rest on the giant lily pads in the hazy light from the nearest star.

  Rav shut the engines off then climbed out the top, leaving the hatch open for Cain to follow him. His boots thudded in the soft mud on the side of the runway with a rancid squishing sound. The humidity made the air sticky with haze and fog that eternally hovered in the tops of the bare black trees.

  Rav sighed in frustration when he heard the surprised yelp and felt the warm mud splash onto the back of his flightsuit. Already knowing what he would see, he turned around and doubled over in a fit of laughter.

  Cain was spread-eagle and face-down in the swamp mud.

  "Cain! What happened to you?"

  He sank deeper in the mud, giving only tiny defeated whimpers in response.

  Rav composed himself enough to help his mud-caked gunner out of the sludge. "Cain . . . what happened now?"

  "I fell from the top of the plane." He snickered and unzipped his flightsuit to wipe his face on his t-shirt underneath. "Some high class women on Darkshot would pay hundreds of Dayta Notes for a mud facial like this."

  "Get cleaned up as best as you can. We're heading right over there to the supply depot. You really are new to this kind of life, aren't you?"

  "I am trying, sir."

  Rav patted him on the back. "I know. I didn't say you weren't. And I wasn't complaining. Let me help you, Cain. I was only checking on you because I care."

  "I'm good. Lead on, sir."

  "Call me Rav, please."

  "Will do, Rav."

  Rav led Cain down the runway and onto the rural base where soldiers in green camouflage were unloading crates from a cargo transport ship and carrying them into the unloading bay. He walked straight to the guard director's window on the side of the depot building. He placed his Flight Force card through the slit below the windows. "Flight Master Tillman. I'm here to pick up a supply shipment."

  There was only silence on the other side of the window.

  Rav glanced up to see the guard slump over then fall out of his chair. A small bullet hole spread like a spiderweb across the center of the glass, mere inches from Rav's face. Dark blood oozed from the man's face.

  "Rav, get down! Grenade!"

  In a flash, Cain lunged at Rav, knocking him to the asphalt and pinning him there. Cain covered him with his body as the nearby explosion sent heat and twisted shrapnel past them. Rav's face was against the ground, so he could only see the smoke and light, but he felt the spray of hot blood and the heaving of Cain's chest against him. He heard the screams, the pops of gunfire, the orders being shouted, and the raspy gasps in his ear.

  After a minute, he sucked in a breath when Cain rolled off of him and stayed still on the asphalt.

  "Cain . . ."

  The ringing in his ears was overwhelming. He clasped his hands on the sides of his head and tried to clear his ears, but the high-pitched buzzing would not cease. Rav then turned his attention to his gunner.

  Cain groaned on the blackened ground where it had been scorched from the nearby explosion. His normally tan skin was white and sickly.

  "Cain!" Rav reached out to his flight partner, but strong arms grabbed him from bend. Before he could break free, he was picked up and placed on a stretcher. Despite his protests, the soldiers strapped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose as they ran him into the nearest medical tent.

  Six pairs of hands were on him, taking his blood pressure, checking him for injuries, and securing an IV into his arm. Rav was having none of it. He ripped off the oxygen mask and swatted at the soldiers. "Stop it! I order you all to stop. I'm fine. Go get my gunner. Save Cain!"

  "Cain Coolidge is right over there, sir. Please calm yourself and let us do our jobs."

  Rav watched in horror as his flight partner was carried into the tent and transferred to a cot. "What's wrong with him? Someone tell me what's wrong! Cain! Cain, talk to me. Say something."

  The only sound he got in response was a violent choking as Cain pushed the soldiers out of the way and he vomited across the dirt floor. His black hair was sleeked with sweat and mud and small droplets of dark blood slid down the arms of his flight suit, but Cain appeared to be in one piece.

  One of the soldiers held up the compact backpack from Cain's back. "His parachute saved his life." He turned it around to reveal the thick jagged gash and the chunks of shrapnel that glinted in the light, still embedded in the black canvas. "Flight Master Tillman, your gunner is fine. He's merely shaken up. We are going to patch up his cuts, but he will be back to your side without delay. But you have to calm down or we will be transferring you to the hospital on Elysia where you can get further medical attention."

  Why was everyone saying that? Did they not see how patient he was being with them? But as the ringing in his ears dissipated, Rav heard the frantic beeping on the portable monitor where the wires led to sensors that had been stuck to his chest. "Is that my heartbeat?"

  "Yes. You are going to have a heart attack if you do not get control of yourself. We have already given you four doses of medication to slow your heart rate, but you are not responding to it. Deep breaths, Flight Master. Deep steady breaths."

  Rav focused on his breathing as he watched the soldiers strip off Cain's flightsuit to take his vital signs. "Cain, you saved my life."

  He gripped the side of the cot when another soldier put stitches in the fresh cut on the back of his head. "That's my job, right? I'm your flight partner. You can count on me, sir."

  Rav listened to the slowing beeps of the heart monitor. "What happened out there?"

  The corporal who was in charge wiped the sweat from Rav's face with a clean cloth. "We apprehended a Valmoron sniper nearly two miles from our location. It was one hell of a shot that killed that guard i
n the depot. You were his intended target. Two more Valmorons were found in the swamp nearby with eight more grenades ready to toss onto our base. It is safe to say that our treaty with Valmoro is over."

  "Mercenaries?" Rav asked.

  "With payment and written orders still on them. They will be transferred to HQ on Elysia to be interrogated. With Azimandian troops on Elysia and now this, we have been placed on high alert. The front lines in Southern Elysia, the other thirty moons and outposts, and the asteroid colonies between here and Darkshot are exploding with fighting. Whatever peace we had is gone now. The cities of Tranquil and Narcis were firebombed fifteen minutes ago. It is almost as if Azimandia was waiting to attack in order to protect something or someone on Elysia. President Brightman has the Intelligence Center on alert."

  "Intelligence Center? The espionage department? Why?"

  The corporal handed him a cup of water. "Because we believe Azimandia has brought in at least one agent within the past twenty-four hours. The spy would more than likely be human. He could be disguised as a citizen, a civilian contractor, or even a solider or pilot. The Department of Peace is analyzing the records of every person who has entered the Elysian airspace in the past seventy-two hours. We will find the spy, whomever he may be."

  Rav shot an inquisitive glance over at Cain, who was resting on the cot and sipping water from a paper cup. "And where are the military prisons located?"

  "Don't even think about it, sir. Your gunner passed through the highest levels of security. If he's working for Azimandia, I will personally kill myself for being so naive. It's not him, Flight Master. You can rest assured on that point."

  All of Rav's baseless worries melted away when Cain smiled at him from across the tent. They were all right. They had survived. Rav owed Cain his life. Without him pushing him to the ground and shielding him with his body, Rav would have died. There was no way Cain was a spy. Rav smiled back and gave him a thumbs-up sign. "Good work, Recruit Gunner Coolidge. I will inform Masamba of your bravery today. All I can say is . . . thank you, my friend."

  Chapter 9

  Benjamin hesitated. One wrong key and the fusion bomb would detonate prematurely, killing Visht, Jezzien, Dallis, Neon, and Derek. They all watched his fingers closely, waiting with their breaths held in anticipation. Ben's grey eyes glittered behind the lenses of his pink-rimmed glasses. The light from the communicator he stole off of an Azimandian guard was the only light in the bomb storage room. He checked the time before focusing once again on the seemingly endless strings of numbers and symbols. They had been down there for eight minutes. If they did not return Dallis, Neon, and Derek to their cell before they had to be awake at morning bell, then their entire plan would be over.

  "Come on, Ben. You can do this." Jezzien, Visht's sister with the puffy pink hair and sparkling red horns, rubbed his shoulders. "We know you can do this."

  Dallis's large blue hand pulled her away. "You mean well, but you are only making him more nervous. Prince Benjamin does not find comfort in women."

  "Sorry. I was trying to help. If you put in the wrong numbers, we all die. No pressure."

  Ben tried to block them out and focus on what his husband had taught him before their wedding day. There was always a pattern, always a hidden code in the Azimandian security systems. Twenty to thirty equations sped through his mind at a given time. He could see the numbers, the intervals, and the similarities. Solving one after another in his head, Ben quickly put the pieces together. When he was ninety percent sure of the key, he pressed the green button on the communicator and bit his lip so much that he drew blood. It all came down to this. Life and death.

  The screen flashed white twice and there was an audible click from inside the metal bomb cylinder.

  Ben stared at it in awe, his mouth agape. He whispered in his surprise. "I did it. Guys, I did it!"

  "You're a genius, Ben!" Dallis wrapped him in his muscular arms. "You are the smartest human I've ever met. Okay. We gotta go now. At least now we have the ones labeled for Star-World Zero Alpha offline. Tomorrow night, we go to the next set."

  He drew a deep breath and waved to the others as they left, leaving him alone in the bomb facility with only Visht and Jezzien at his side. "Paper."

  "What?"

  "Give me paper now. This communicator on the bomb is fried now."

  "Uh, I have my communicator you can use and-"

  Ben snatched it out of the warbringer's hand and immediately began typing the lines of code and numbers into the blank screen. He could still see the thousands of fading figures in his mind. In a fury, he recorded them all from memory.

  "What are you doing?" Jezzien asked, turning to Visht. "What's he doing? Don't tell me he remembers all of the security codes. There were over two million data sets in that system along with two scramblers and a mathematical cipher. I would know. I helped design the thing."

  "Shh. Let him work."

  Ben's fingers ached as they began to cramp, but he continued typing as quickly as he could to keep up with information he saw in his head as clearly as if it was written on the wall in front of him. After two minutes, he reached the end. "Done."

  "You memorized the entire security system, didn't you? Impossible."

  "Then check it." He handed her the communicator and stood there with his arms crossed as he waited.

  "I . . . how? Ben, you have a gift."

  He shrugged and held his blue flannel jacket around him. "I've always been able to recall information like that, but only for a short time. I can't remember any of it now. It came in handy during medical school."

  "Eidetic memory to an extreme."

  "And it only works sometimes. Vance knew exactly what it was after he taught me to hack my first terminal. When I did it with my eyes closed after he walked me through it, I thought he was going to have a heart attack from being so happy."

  Visht pushed his sister towards the door. "Jezzi, you have to get out of here before the warbringers find you. They already know you're a member of the Azimandian Underground, so they won't hesitate to kill you. No questions asked."

  "Did you know that Leah and Kalimis are gone?" She asked, stroking the ends of her pink hair. "Someone broke them out of that underground cell with all the medical equipment in it. Kalimis is missing, Visht."

  "It's okay. Allies got him and Slayven both."

  "But I needed to apologize. Kalimis doesn't know how I feel."

  Visht sighed. "That has to wait, Jezzi. He's with Slayven again."

  "That's always the case, isn't it? He will always choose that rejected boy over me. I practically thew myself at him, but what did he do? He ran off with Slayven and became a traitor. I could have married him and given him a hoard of baby warbringers to carry on his legacy. What can Slayven give him?"

  Visht shrugged his shoulders. "Apparently something you can't."

  "That's why I can't stand men like you, Benjamin. You take away good men from their wives."

  Ben only stood there as the woman stormed off into the sewers. "What did I do?"

  "Nothing. Jezzi's just a firecracker. She didn't mean that, Ben. You did well tonight."

  "Did I do something to make her angry at me? I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry, Visht."

  "It's not your fault. Come with me. We'll get back to your bedchambers and get you something to eat. I'll have the chefs make whatever you want. Do you like waffles? I heard humans love waffles."

  "What if she's right?" Ben asked quietly.

  "Who? Jezzien? No, no. You can't listen to her. She's crazy." Visht held the door open for Ben, then they walked side-by-side through the darkness of the sewers. He pulled up a holographic map to guide them towards the surface.

  "It's my fault."

  "For the love of space, quit with the self-hatred. Are you happy with the way you are? Then it shouldn't matter what anyone else says."

  "Not that. Vance. Jezzien was partially right. If I hadn't made Vance fall in love with me, he wouldn't have run off to kill his b
est friend."

  "Oh, Ben. That's not true and you know it. Vance loves you, yes, but you love him to. Love should never be blamed for things like this. You didn't deceive him or force him to fight for you. Whatever happens on Elysia, it is up to Vance. Vance's fate is in his own hands." Visht stopped to check on him. "Ben, are you crying?"

  "Yes!"

  "Why?"

  He sniffled through his tears. "Because I'm having a breakdown, okay? I can't do this anymore. I want Vance back, I want this war to be over, and I just want to live my life."

  "That's what we're doing all this for. You help the Azimandian Underground and get the Red Sand Rebels back together, then we will end this war and get you home to AX-97. You and Vance can live as a married couple should, you can go back to finish school and become a doctor, then you can put everything behind you. But to get there, we need your help. No one else can do the things you do."

  Ben fanned himself with his hands to dry his tears. "You're right, you're so right. Ugh. Sometimes I can be such a diva."

  "Hey, it's okay. You've got this. You know what? I think we're going to make a quick stop before we get back to your room. I happen to know that Tirlmayn is about to call Vance to check in on him. I can hijack the signal and transfer it to my communicator. Then you can talk to your hubby. Will that make you feel better?"

  "You have no idea."

  "Good. Then we're breaking into Tirlmayn's room. Hope you've got your sneaking shoes on."

  * * *

  Vance sneaked away from Rav for a few minutes while the soldiers hauled the boxes of supplies to the Galaxy Glider. He found his secret communicator inside the hidden pouch on the inside of his pants. Right on schedule, the screen lit up with an incoming call. Checking around the side of the fighter plane, Vance answered the call. "Father?"

  "How are things going, Aveni? Is your disguise holding up? The scientists did quite the job on you, hiding your metal arm and everything, huh? Did the Valmoron ambush go as planned?"

  "To perfection. I shielded Rav from the grenade blast and he now believes that I have saved his life. He trusts me."