The Genesis Sequence Books 6-10

by Mackenzie Morris

  Feeling sick and nearly vomiting inside his exosuit, Lucas pushed through it. He began powering through the turning of the final wheel that would set it all in motion. It was the final thing that would secure the end of the war. With one final push, the gears clicked into place and the valves shut off. Steam filled the room as water poured in, but it instantly turned to steam as it hit the glowing orange control rods. Blinded by the toxic fog, Lucas felt his way forward until he could barely make out the blue dots of light on the face plates of his cyborg friend.

  Derek dragged him over to the far corner of the enclosed room then threw his arms around the exosuit. He quivered as he held onto Lucas, silently crying in the only way he knew how. The heat was already beginning to burn Derek's body and it was clear he was in a great deal of pain.

  Facing death only made Lucas that much braver. He could not let his friend suffer. With a click of the latch, Lucas removed his helmet and slid it on over Derek's head. He then swiped his hand along the control panel to unlock the entire suit. It hissed as it unlatched and he fell into the foot-deep water, unable to stand on his own. "Get in, Derek. Get in! I changed the controls to manual so you could operate it. It's hard to get used to, but with your programs, you should be able to interface with it."

  Derek cautiously stepped into the exosuit. It closed tightly around him.

  "You can get out of here. You can create something, a drill or a ladder, something. My suit will continue to produce enough oxygen for you to get out of here. We can't both make it, but with your creation technology and the help from my exosuit, you might stand a chance on your own. You don't have much time."

  Derek shook his head as more digital blue teardrops fell across his face plates.

  "What's wrong with you? Didn't you hear me? I said to go! Save yourself. Damn it, Derek. You're my friend. Friends don't let friends die when there's something they can do to save them. Go. Go!"

  Once the buzzing of the exosuit turned into clanking inside the ventilation shaft and Lucas was fairly certain that Derek was on his way to escape the planet, he leaned back against the shaking wall to watch the concrete crumbling around him, the steam rising up from the quickly-heating control rods, and to feel the water rising up to his neck.

  Lucas closed his eyes and held onto the silver crucifix that Derek had created for him. He thought of his daughter he had never met. He dreamed of Ruth, the girl he loved. He silently said his goodbyes to two souls who would never hear his voice again. The pressure inside the reactor area grew until his lungs ached with the need to draw a breath, the temperatures rose until his skin turned red and black with burns, and his eyesight vanished. Alone in the chaotic darkness, Lucas Stephens prayed until he slid below the water.

  * * *

  The first bullet ripped through the leg of Vance's jeans, dropping him to the black and white marble floor of the throne room. Two more tore into his stomach, but he caught the boomerang as it flew back to him. Not giving up, he sent it flying once more into the crowd. The popping of gunfire and the whining of lasers flew past his head. Sticky hot blood poured from him as he continued to crawl towards his attackers. He told them he would not go down without a fight, so he would give them a fight to remember. As long as his heart kept beating, Vance would continue fighting.

  Vision blurry from hot tears, throat hoarse and raw from gasping, arms and legs trembling from the growing weakness. None of that would stop him.

  Hit after hit, his body was filled with holes and lead. He crawled until his kneecaps were shattered and his elbow was broken. Face-down on the floor, he still held up his hand to catch his weapon as it loyally returned to him once more. Vance had no way of knowing how many he had killed, but each one was worth this torture. They had to die. He had to keep them busy so they would not chase after Rav and Nemo.

  Writhing on his elbows and shattered knees, Vance struggled for every breath. His entire body dyed crimson with his own blood, he looked up through the silence at the rows of enemies. They showed no remorse, no mercy for him. However, the firing stopped.

  Red Mask's boots slipped in the lake of blood that covered the floor as he stepped towards Vance and knelt down in front of him. He took Vance's neck in his gloved hand and forced him to look up at him. His voice was gravelly as he spoke to him. "Stop struggling. Just give in to your demise. You won't win this. Why drag this out and cause yourself so much more pain? Let us put you out of your obvious misery. A man, even a half Azimandian man, can only bleed out for so long before he expires. You've been mortally wounded at least six times. No one is coming back for you. No one is going to rush in here and drag you off, throw you in a vat of plasma, or have your limbs replaced with metal ones. Not again. It's over, Vance."

  With his swollen and bloody fingers, Vance lifted the boomerang one last time. "Not . . . yet."

  Red Mask gasped and let Vance's neck fall out of his grasp as he stumbled backwards. Before he could grab as the massive slash wound across his stomach, the man's torso slid off, completely disconnected from his hips. He landed in a gory mess of intestines scattered around the steps.

  Vance grinned as he collapsed next to him, the plasma-edged boomerang going black.

  * * *

  "Kalimis, pull up the data from Sandra's ship. I have to see the tracker data for everyone. Bring it up, will you? Hurry! We have to wait for Vance to get done in there then we have to get him and we have to get off of this Star-World so I can detonate the bombs." Rav fell to his knees as he entered the cockpit of the ship, exhausted and emotionally torn a hundred ways in different directions. "Now, Kalimis!"

  "Already pulled up for you. Everyone's vital signs have come back online . . . well . . . the ones who are still alive, that is."

  After unstrapping the carrier from his back and placing Nemo safely in the corner, Rav rushed to the controls and shoved the warbringer out of the way. He leaned over to study the rows of names, statuses, and heartbeats.

  Sandra: Alive.

  Leah: Alive.

  Remy: Alive

  Tamir: Alive

  Kalimis: Alive.

  Slayven: Alive.

  Jezzien: Alive.

  Krisharn: Deceased.

  Visht: Alive.

  Lucas: Deceased.

  Dallis: Deceased.

  Derek: Alive.

  Neon: Alive.

  Rav: Alive.

  Nemo: Alive.

  Vance: Alive.

  Rav covered his mouth as his eyes scanned across that last name over and over. The green line continued to record the heartbeats of his friend. They were fluttering and fading, but they were there. As long as that line continued jumping and the name stayed lit, there was hope. "Come on, Vance. Call me. Call my communicator. Tell me you're okay. Tell me you killed them all. Tell me you're coming back to the ship. Come on. Come on! Give me a sign, buddy. Give me a sign."

  "We need to leave, Rav. We can't stay here for much longer before the warbringers find out and storm us."

  "Just a few more minutes. Please. Vance is inside the palace with a bunch of clones, warbringers, and Valmorons. He stayed behind to fight them off so Nemo and I could escape. He'll be calling any moment. I know he will. He has to. You've fought with him. You were gone a year with him, so you know he can hold his own in a fight. He's fine. He's got this."

  "How many were there?" Kalimis asked.

  "Only like a hundred, maybe two hundred. Nothing Vance can't handle."

  "Rav . . . two hundred to one is not favorable odds."

  "Shut up. You can't talk like that. Vance can do it. He's strong. He's better than them. I know he is. He has to be." Rav clutched the communicator in both hands, staring at the black screen, waiting to hit the button to answer the call as soon as it came in. Tense seconds turned into minutes. Each one dragged on, crawling along as Rav could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. "Come on, Vance. Give me a sign. Let me know you're alive!"

  His screen lit up.

  Rav instantly accepted the call and
held it to his ear. "Come on, Vance! I knew you would do it!"

  "Rav, this is Leah. I called to let you know that Squad Four has been successful in their mission. The four reactors on Odyssia triggered a chain reaction. It was a bit premature, but we were able to take out eighty percent of both the Elysian and the Azimandian forces. Tobias Desruisseaux, Camille, and Visht are about to meet with any remaining leaders from the other countries to sign a peace treaty. It's over, Rav. We've won. The war is over. Rav? That's good news, isn't it? Rav?"

  The communicator slipped from Rav's fingers and crashed against the metal floor of the cockpit.

  Leah's voice continued to emit from the speaker on the communicator. "Rav? Rav, are you there? Come in, Rav."

  Rav's hands trembled as he reached out to touch the name of his dearest friend on the monitor as the green light slowly faded away and the heartbeat jumped once more before becoming a straight line. Like an airtight coffin, the air in the cockpit closed in around him, drawing out his breaths and leaving him in a cold state of shock. His heart stopped along with the one on the screen. His blood ran icy, his knees buckled, and he fell.

  Chapter 14

  Three Months Later

  Benjamin Trainor's boots crunched across the half-frozen leaves and twigs of the ice-dusted swamp. Under the hazy yellow light of Darkshot's fourth moon, he held his late husband's leather coat tightly around him and rewrapped the purple scarf around his neck to keep the frigid winds from biting into his skin. His short curls became tousled in the breeze that whipped around the weeping limbs of the willow trees where they rested on the banks of the muddy water.

  As he reached the edge of the swamp, he spotted a lonely stump surrounded by a circle of river rocks that someone had spent hours arranging into some sort of mosaic artwork. That had to be the place. Despite his shivering, Ben knelt down on top of the rocks and gingerly stuck his gloved hand inside the hollow opening of the stump. He felt around until his fingertips hit something hard in the middle.

  He retrieved the square silver box and found a note attached to the top, addressed to him in Vance's flowing yet shaky handwriting.

  My Dearest Benjamin,

  If you are reading this, I am long gone. I always suck at goodbyes, so I'll keep this short and to the point. I love you. You should know at least that much by now. I don't say it enough and I certainly don't show it like I should. Somehow, you still want to be with a horrid man like me. So, thanks for that, mate. You join the short list of people who don't want to kill me after meeting me.

  Anyway, there should be a box with this note. (As long as no bandits decided to come steal it. Bastards.) I want you to open it, take out the contents, then break it in half. It should snap easily. It was designed that way, anyway. Keep one half for yourself and give the other half to Nemo. You are my husband and he is my son. You two (and possibly Rav) are the most important people in my life.

  Now for the hard part. I leave everything I have to you, of course, except for my boomerang. You were never the fighting kind of person, so giving you a weapon is like giving an Azimandian a jar of marshmallow cream. Please give my boomerang to Rav. Not that I think he'll ever use it, but he'll do something dumb and sentimental with it. He's like that. Oh, and if I die in some horrific way where I explode or am trapped in an underground mine shaft or some shit like that and you can't get to my boomerang, then tell Rav I said tough luck. I don't have much stuff anyway, so there's that.

  Now for the even harder part. I don't want you to cry. You know I hate seeing you cry. But you're probably bawling your eyes out as you're reading this, so me asking you not to doesn't work. Don't worry about me. I learned a lot from you, dearest. If you want to know one thing that will possibly make you feel a tiny bit better about all of this death stuff, it's that you made a difference in my life.

  I believed in the end. So, thanks for that, mate. I guess your religious stuff wasn't as stupid as I first thought. Now that I'm dead, I suppose I'll be learning the truth about it all anyway. It's cool, though. I probably died like a bad ass hero. I did, didn't I? Please say yes.

  P.S. If they build a statue of me, maybe have them shave off a few inches around my belly. No, wait. Don't do that. Make me fatter so you can rub Rav's face in it for always teasing me about my weight. Yeah. Do that. The universe needs pudgy heroes too.

  Seriously, though. Wherever you go in life from here, know that I'm always with you. I don't want you to fall back into the hands of some abusive monster. You are worth so much more than that, Ben. You need to be strong on your own for a while and raise your children. Show them how to be strong men like you. I only ask one thing. When they're older, please tell them my story. Let them know that I tried.

  With all the love in the universe,

  Vance Nemo Trainor.

  Ben held the paper to his lips and did his absolute best to hold back his tears. But he failed. Through his crying, he kissed the paper and slid it inside Vance's leather coat before taking the small silver box in his hand. He opened the lid to see the golden eight-legged robot with a divide down the middle. Vance's name was engraved across it. Half of it was encrusted with tiny pale emeralds and the other was lined with pink sapphires, just like Ben's wedding band had been.

  He picked it up and bent it in half until it snapped cleanly. Both halves began crawling up his arms to perch on his shoulders. With a small laugh, Ben dried his eyes then stood up to leave. But he spun around when he heard the footsteps approaching from behind.

  The man in the purple turban sauntered up to put his arm around him. "What are you doing out here? You said you just needed some time away, but you've been away from the ship for hours. I was worried. You're the Guardian of the Flower Fields now, so you can't be running off. The children need you, especially if you're still planning on opening that orphanage on Elysia. Your own boys need you too."

  "I know. Thank you for watching them. I left Slayven in the Flower Fields with the others."

  "Did you find anything out here? Oh, what are these little guys?" Tamir plucked one of the robots from Ben's shoulder and examined it in the hazy light. "I've seen these before. They're low tech companion bots. They can't really do much, but they're worth quite a bit. Think of them like the little teacup poodles some women keep in their purses."

  "I've always wanted a dog to keep in a purse. What does that make me?"

  Tamir patted Ben's curly hair. "It makes you a special kind of man."

  "Vance left them to me. One of them belongs to Nemo."

  "Why would Vance leave these to you two?"

  "No idea. But I kinda like them. They're cute."

  "Everything is cute to you, isn't it?" Tamir chuckled. "That's all right, I guess. Anyway, I got a call from Camille. Her, Remy, and Jezzien are setting up a trading guild on AX-97. They're gathering up employees and starting to ship goods already. They'll be up and running in no time. Guess who will be the overseer of finance?"

  "You? Don't they know that you'll just steal all the profits?"

  "Nah. I'm going clean. The straight and narrow. They even hired Neon to run cargo between the remaining outposts. Jezzien and Kalimis are getting things ready for their first baby, Remy is writing stories in her off time, and Camille is also working as an adviser to Visht."

  "How is Visht doing, anyway?" Ben asked, brushing the dirt from his black skinny jeans and starting off towards the ship. "I haven't had a chance to talk to him."

  "He's good. He's actually quite a capable leader, but time will tell. He is changing all the laws in Azimandia and eliminating the class system. No more rejecteds. Women will even have rights and a say in society."

  "That's good. What about Derek? His name never went black on the system. His heart keeps beating, but he died, right? He died in that reactor room with Lucas and Dallis when the entire thing blew up. I mean, he couldn't have survived, right?"

  Tamir shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? It's probably just a glitch in the system. Or he could be out there somewhere. After
all, he was associated with Olonictu. Perhaps the Hive Queen rescued him. In other business, Slayven says he is handing Baban over to two Biromian traders who passed by the Flower Fields. He wanted to make sure he had your authorization to make a move like that."

  That was some of the best news he had heard. "Of course. Baban needs to be with his own people. What are the odds of that, huh?"

  "Well, that's an update on just about everybody."

  "What about Rav and Leah? And Nemo? I need to get this robot to him."

  "No one has heard from any of them since Vance's death. Rav had a breakdown and left Kalimis's ship in an escape pod with Nemo. A day later, Leah vanished as well. We can only guess that they ran off together to be alone."

  Ben wrung his hands together. "I hope they're okay."

  "Enough about everyone else. How are you holding up? This is the first time I've gotten to talk to you in a week. You've been so closed up in your room."

  "Just taking advantage of this time away from the children to clear my head. I have a lot to think about, a lot to plan for the future. But you're right. We should be getting back to the ship. I have a lot of work to do."

  * * *

  Slayven pulled the wool blanket over the final child as he tucked them into their bedrolls on the floor of the cabin by candlelight. He stood and stretched his arms above his head before tiptoeing to the counter in the kitchen, careful to not make too much noise. It took three hours of bedtime stories, singing lullabies, and making hot milk to get them all to fall asleep. The last thing he needed was to wake them back up. A few of the teenagers were quietly playing cards in the back corner after finishing their school work.

  Checking one last time to make sure that everything was in order, Slayven picked up the wooden box from above the refrigerator and held it under his arm as he made his way towards the front door. He stopped at the table where the stack of adoption paperwork was already drawn up, complete with Ben's signature. All that was left before Slayven officially became Isaac's father was his own signature. He wanted to wait until Isaac woke up the next morning so he could explain everything to him before he finished the process.