The Revenants

by Jasper T. Scott

  “And what exactly are those purposes?” Darius asked. “How long are you planning to stay here?”

  “As long as it takes,” Tanik replied.

  “How about you give us a real answer?” Darius pressed.

  “A few years.”

  “A few years?” Dyara echoed.

  Tanik nodded. “By then the Cygnians will either have relaxed their guard at the Crucible enough for us to slip back through the Eye, or our scouts will have located a fuel depot on this side of the Eye with enough fuel for us to make the journey home without using the wormhole.”

  Darius shook his head slowly. “There’s no way we have enough supplies on board to last that long. We’ll have to grow our own food on Ouroboros.”

  Tanik nodded. “We’ll have to establish a colony, yes, and it will take some time for us to plant and harvest native crops, but our supplies should last until then, and there’s plenty of wildlife to hunt for meat.”

  Darius watched as Cassandra walked up to the viewport for a better look at their new home. Darius hesitated a moment before following her there. Both Tanik and Dyara went with him to the viewport.

  “Is it safe down there?” Darius asked.

  “No,” Tanik replied.

  Darius shot him an accusing look. “Then why did you bring us—”

  “Because everywhere else is either more dangerous or too far for us to reach with our remaining fuel.”

  “What about the Keth?” Dyara asked. “This planet used to belong to them, so how do you know there aren’t any of them still living down there?”

  “There aren’t. I would have sensed them if they were here.”

  “And the Revenants?” Darius asked.

  “The same. Don’t worry. The only beings still alive on Ouroboros are animals.”

  “What are the Keth like?” Cassandra asked.

  Tanik looked at her. “They’re very much like us. They are what humans call a terran-type species—humanoid, but that is a racial slur to other species.”

  Darius ran a hand along his jaw. “How is it possible that so many different species can look so similar without sharing any genetic information?”

  “Some say that the divine light uses a common blueprint to create life. Others think there was a master race, long dead or long gone, that seeded the galaxy with life. A common blueprint or architect would explain a common design. There are many theories.”

  “Yeah, so about the Keth—” Darius said. “—you once said that they make the Cygnians look tame. After meeting both Banshees and Ghouls, I don’t see how any species that looks like us could make them look tame.”

  “It is a question of perception versus reality. The Cygnians look terrifying, but despite their numbers, their population yields a particularly low number of Revenants.”

  Darius snorted. “Maybe because no one is hunting their unproductive bloodlines to extinction.”

  “On the contrary, who do you think the hunters are?” Tanik replied. “Both the hunters and the hunted die on designated hunting worlds, and the Cygnians’ social structure prevents interbreeding between bloodlines that haven’t produced Revenants and the ones that have.”

  “So the Keth make the Phantoms look tame because more of them can use the source field?” Cassandra asked.

  Tanik favored her with a thin smile. “Not just more of them. All of them. Every single Keth is born with an affinity for the divine light. That is why we need Revenants to fight them.”

  Darius blinked in shock.

  “Who’s winning the war?” Cassandra asked.

  “We are,” Tanik replied, but his smile faded to a scowl as he said that. “However, the price of victory has been too steep, and the war was unnecessary to begin with. We’re fighting the Keth because of the Augur’s visions.”

  “The who?” Darius asked.

  “The leader of the Revenants,” Tanik replied.

  “What visions?” Cassandra put in.

  “He foresaw a Keth invasion, and he started a war to prevent it. He is the one who found the Eye and established the Crucible along with the system of seals and hunting grounds, all of it in an effort to breed more Revenants. He founded the Union. Before that the Cygnians were directionless predators, scouring the galaxy for their next kill. The Augur gave them a purpose beyond killing for killing’s sake.”

  “Is he a Cygnian?” Cassandra asked.

  “No, he’s a human.”

  That revelation struck Darius like a ton of bricks. Speechless, he shook his head and forced some moisture into his mouth. “How is that possible? The Cygnians invaded Earth a long time ago, didn’t they? I thought the Union existed before they came to Earth.”

  Tanik shrugged. “The Augur apparently found some way to leave Earth before they invaded. For all we know, he’s the reason they invaded.”

  “But that would make him... like a thousand years old!” Cassandra said.

  “Older,” Tanik replied.

  “Why would the Cygnians let him rule them?” Darius asked.

  Tanik looked at her. “The Augur is the most powerful Revenant who has ever lived. It is likely that he compelled the Cygnian Royals to follow him, and that he compels them still.”

  “But what about the other Revenants?” Darius asked. “They could overthrow him. Revenants are immune to each other’s abilities, right?”

  Tanik slowly shook his head. “No one is immune to the Augur.”

  “What about you?” Dyara asked. “You’re not following him.”

  “I learned how to hide my presence. Then I faked my death and escaped through the Eye. He doesn’t know that I am still alive.”

  Darius considered that. “And after you escaped, you spent your time trying to destabilize the Augur’s empire from within. But if he can control everyone, why bother?”

  “Because not even he is powerful enough to simultaneously control everyone in the galaxy. He controls the leaders of the Cygnians, and the other Revenants, but everyone else is still free to do as they please.”

  “Free,” Dyara snorted. “No one in the Union is free.”

  Tanik conceded that with a nod. “The Cygnians use fear and threats of force to keep citizens in line, but behind them, the Augur is the one who is really gluing everything together. Without him, the Cygnians would go back to wanton killing.”

  “And that’s somehow better?” Darius asked.

  “We have two enemies to defeat: first the Augur, then the Cygnians.”

  “Are there any others like the Augur?” Cassandra asked. “Revenants who can influence other Revenants?”

  Tanik flashed a wan smile, and his eyes danced, as if amused by some private joke. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”

  Cassandra shook her head.

  “Figured out what?” Darius asked.

  Tanik jerked his chin to him and his smile broadened into a twisted grin. “You. You can influence other Revenants. That is why you are the key to everything. It is your destiny to defeat the Augur and take his place.”

  Chapter 4

  Gatticus Thedroux sensed the steady thrum of power returning to his ocular units and limbs. Servomotors in his joints whirred to life in his neck as he looked around. He was floating in the back of an SB-22 Osprey.

  But where was the Osprey located? And how had he gotten there?

  Gatticus consulted his internal logs and found nothing but a stream of errors. Corrupted memory, files not found, sectors missing, boot failures... There was also a repair log. His nanites had repaired everything as best they could with available materials by cannibalizing non-crucial components. Gatticus frowned—a human gesture, but he was designed to look and act human, after all.

  “Activate mag boots,” he said, and his legs snapped straight, yanking him down to the deck with an echoing clunk. As soon as his feet touched the deck, he made his way down the corridor from the troop bay to the cockpit, but before he even reached the cockpit, he realized that something was wrong.

  The door was
open, the pilot’s seat was empty, and his sensors couldn’t detect any other lifeforms on board—not even the faint radiation signature of another android. He was alone.

  But where was he? And how had he gotten here? He couldn’t remember. He knew his own name, and most of his older memories were still intact by virtue of being stored in a backup data core. Thanks to that backup, he knew he was an executor and ambassador of the United Star Systems of Orion, the USO. He’d been on some kind of mission... but he couldn’t remember what. He also knew what year it was, in addition to several different languages.

  Gatticus sat down in the pilot’s seat and checked the navigation panel to see where his Osprey was.

  The answer wasn’t encouraging. He was in deep space, far from all the nearest trade lanes and planets. Gatticus’s frown deepened, and he checked the ship’s log to see where it had come from.

  The Osprey had launched from the Deliverance, a colossus-class carrier. The carrier had been stationed at another point in deep space, some fifty light years from his current location. The Osprey’s autopilot had been given instructions to engage the Alckam drive and fly until the ship ran out of fuel and fell out of warp.

  No fuel.

  If Gatticus had possessed a heart, he was sure that it would be pounding by now. He was stranded in deep space with no fuel. There was no way back to the carrier he’d launched from, and no way to reach any nearby colonies. No one would find him drifting here in the middle of nowhere. Gatticus used the nav display to search for the nearest Union world or station.

  The closest place he could call for help was a deep space re-fueling station along an elbow in a nearby trade lane. It was eleven point twelve light years away.

  Even if he sent a distress call to that station, it would take too long to arrive. By then, his power cells would be utterly depleted, and even if someone reactivated him, his position and duties in the Union would have been given to some other executor. There had to be another way.

  The Alckam drive was down to just fifty grams of antimatter, not enough fuel to sustain a warp bubble for a ship of this size, but it would be enough for a comm probe, if he could fashion one from the Osprey’s components.

  Gatticus ran the numbers in his head. Given the size of the Osprey’s Alckam drive assembly, sustaining a warp bubble over twelve light years would require just over thirty grams of antimatter.

  The probe would make it with fuel to spare. Now all he had to do was build it.

  * * *

  Darius sat in the pilot’s seat of an SB-22 Osprey. “Is everyone strapped in?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  Cassandra nodded. “We’re ready.”

  A couple of the other children also nodded—the black-furred Lassarian, and the chalk-white Vixxon with her staring white eyes. The Banshee child bared his long jagged gray teeth and blinked all four of his giant black eyes. He gave a low growl, and Darius suppressed a shiver. He didn’t like the idea of having a Cygnian teenager in his cockpit, but Cassandra had assured him that this Banshee was one of the nicer kids present. Either that said something very disturbing about the other children, or Darius was going to have to adjust his stereotypes. He hoped for the latter case.

  Darius keyed the Osprey’s intercom. “Is everyone secure in the troop bay?”

  Tanik’s voice crackled back to his ears a moment later: “Yes. Let’s be on our way, Darius.” There weren’t enough seats in the cockpit for all of them, so Tanik and Dyara were riding in the troop bay with a squad of Marines.

  Darius switched to the Deliverance’s command channel and said, “Flight ops, this is Gray Four requesting launch clearance, over.”

  “Gray Four, you are second in the queue. Launch in twenty second and counting, confirm.”

  “Roger, Ops. Gray Four out.”

  Darius entered the queue and waited for the launch tube to clear out. The Vultures had already launched, but there were dozens of transports lining up to fly down to the surface with Marines and equipment. It was their job to establish a safe landing zone for the colony before they brought the rest of the crew down.

  Darius’s transport was the only one in the first wave that carried civilians, and only because Tanik had insisted on taking the Acolytes down with him. He’d assured Darius that they would be safe, despite the fact that Ouroboros teemed with deadly creatures.

  A clu-clunk sounded and a jolt went through the Osprey, jarring Darius. Four dark walls rose up around them as the Osprey dropped into the vehicular airlock below. Deck sections slid shut overhead, blocking out the relatively brighter lights of the hangar.

  Crimson lights flashed briefly inside the airlock and a loud roaring sound began as giant fans sucked all of the air out. A moment later, a pair of doors opened up in front of them, revealing the launch tube. Red lights flashed down the length of it, and a robotic voice said, “Three, two, one—”

  A sudden burst of acceleration slammed them into their seats, and a few seconds later they rocketed out into space. Ouroboros loomed large and close before them, so close that it blotted out the light of the surrounding stars. Ouroboros was a mottled green and gray world, striated with blue rivers, and blanketed with white clouds. It was another arboreal planet, just like Hades, but unlike Hades, this one didn’t appear to have oceans, only lakes.

  Darius grimaced at the thought of what might be lurking in the forests. He set the transport’s autopilot to take them down to the designated landing zone at a safe speed, effectively freeing himself to sit back and enjoy the ride. Darius glanced at the navmap and saw a pair of Vulture fighters race up behind them, one on either side. His comms chirped with a message from one of the Vultures.

  “Gray Four, this is Red Leader, be advised there’s a storm building over the LZ. Unless you brought a parachute, you’re gonna want to keep your speed down.”

  Darius recognized that voice. “Blake?”

  A crackle of static burst back over the comms—a sigh. “What’s up, Spaceman?”

  Definitely Blake. “They let you fly again after what happened?” Darius asked. Blake had accidentally fired one too many missiles at the Crucible, killing some of the people they’d been trying to rescue.

  “It was an accident,” Blake replied. “And we’re short on pilots. Now if you don’t mind, sir, let’s cut the chatter. I’ve got another fifty transports to escort down before my day is done.”

  “Lead the way,” Darius replied, wondering for the first time what the point of a fighter escort was if Ouroboros was abandoned. What was Tanik afraid of?

  After a few minutes, they hit the upper atmosphere and turbulence shivered through the transport. A growing roar sounded against their hull, and gauzy white clouds swelled below them. Before long the clouds became towering mountains, some of which were broken by the snow-covered peaks of real mountains.

  As their speed dropped, the autopilot nosed down to enter the atmosphere at a sharper angle. Now they were being pulled against their harnesses rather than pushed into their seats.

  Some of the alien children in the cockpit began murmuring and moaning with the return of gravity as their stomachs leapt into their throats. But not Cassandra. She gave a whoop of delight.

  Darius smiled. She was as fearless as ever. As they fell, the clouds swept up below them, and the sky gradually lightened from black to blue. Dark specks appeared, flitting between the mountain peaks—birds? Darius wondered, and the clouds flashed with lightning.

  “Heads-up,” Blake said over the comms. “Looks like we’ve got some action over the LZ.”

  “Action?” Darius replied. “What kind of action?”

  The clouds drew a thick white curtain over the cockpit canopy, blocking their view. Darius checked the nav display and found over a hundred unidentified contacts, each of them about half the size of a Vulture. Those had to be the birds he’d seen.

  A straight bolt of lightning flashed by in front of them, followed by another, and then a flickering stream of them. But lightning bolts weren�
�t straight. These were lasers.

  A split second later the clouds fell away and a scene of utter chaos appeared. Dead ahead was a sprawling green field marked with a green diamond to denote their landing zone. The hunching black shapes of several Ospreys were already landed in the field, and four Vultures were circling above them, firing flickering streams of hot-white lasers into a swarm of giant black birds.

  Lasers leapt out to either side of them as Darius’s escort opened fire. Birds leapt into flames and fell thrashing to the ground, raining over the LZ like meteors. Apparently the birds were more of nuisance than a threat.

  But even as Darius thought that, a pair of birds latched onto one of the Vultures, and it went tumbling down. The canopy blew open as the pilot ejected. The ejection seat rode a bright blue thruster trail into the sky before deploying a parachute and drifting down slowly. The Vulture went spinning into the ground with a flash of light and a subsequent boom that rattled through the cockpit.

  “What’s going on?” Cassandra asked.

  Darius took over from the autopilot and activated the Osprey’s forward cannons. He targeted the nearest bird and sliced off its wings with two fat white laser beams. The severed torso of the bird fell flaming to the ground.

  Just as Darius targeted the next one, he saw a pair of birds shredding the ejected Vulture pilot’s parachute with their talons.

  The pilot’s panicked voice sounded over the comms: “Get them off me! Get them—!” His voice died in a gurgle as another bird snatched him from the air and carried him off—parachute, ejection seat, and all.

  A second Vulture fighter went tumbling from the sky, and this time the pilot didn’t eject.

  “Fek it!” Blake roared just as that fighter dug a flaming crater in the landing zone. It was a good thing Tanik had told the deck crew to empty the antimatter from all their Alckam reactors before heading down to the surface.

  Darius’s Osprey hit the flock of birds, and suddenly it was hard to see for all the flapping black wings. Darius had already hauled all the way back on the throttle, but now he was forced to kill thrust entirely and hover to avoid colliding with one of the beasts.