Dreams of the Damned

by Lindsey Sparks

  “Running it now,” he confirmed. He was behind me, standing near the containment box, from the sound of his voice, accessing the ship’s systems through his holoband. “Is it—is it them?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, suffocating under the guilt and grief of having caused this horrific outcome.

  “Cryosystem diagnostic complete,” Hades informed me. “I'm seeing five occupied cryochambers.” He paused for a moment. “All have failed save for one.”

  I closed my eyes and bowed my head, a tear streaking down my cheek as I mourned my fallen spearsisters. “Which one?”

  “Cryochamber seven.”

  I took a deep breath, raised my head and opened my eyes, and turned my back to the cryochamber holding my dead spearsister. I crossed to the opposite side of the cryovault, tracking the numbers inscribed at the top of each cryochambers until I reached seven. Holding my breath, I tore my eyes from the number overhead to peer through the glass to the face beyond. Selene.

  My heart surged with relief. Of the five Amazon warriors we had stranded here, Selene had been my closest friend. She looked perfect, her pale, moonlight skin unblemished, and her eyes closed in cryosleep.

  “Do you want me to initiate the wake sequence?” Hades asked me.

  I drew in a breath to say yes, but hesitated, thinking through the ramifications of waking Selene right now. I would have to explain the situation. It would take time and effort, and we still had so much to do to get this ship in the air and on its way to Earth.

  “Not yet,” I said, turning to face Hades, still standing beside the containment box. “Has the systems check completed yet?”

  Hades looked from me to the screen hovering above his holoband and back. The screen of his holoband displayed a replica of the larger holoscreen at the captain’s station on the floor above us. “Ninety-three percent,” he told me.

  I nodded to myself. “Let's wait on the results.” I glanced at the cryochamber directly across from us. It contained another corpse.

  There was a chance that running a successful wake sequence wasn’t even possible right now, and I wasn't willing to have the blood of yet another of my spearsisters on my hands. Not if I could help it.

  I started toward the spiraling staircase.

  Raiden stood at the foot of the stairs, watching me, his eyes filled with concern. He moved to the side as I approached.

  I paused when I reached him, my eyes meeting his, and my chin trembled.

  He rested his hand on my shoulder, giving me a gentle squeeze. His expression told me he understood my pain. The grief. The guilt. The shame. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

  I covered his hand with mine and flashed him a weak smile. And then I kept walking, making my way back up the spiral staircase to the command center.

  A box popped up on the holoscreen at the captain’s station as I approached. The ship-wide systems check was complete.

  I jogged ahead, racing up the steps of the pedestal to the captain’s station, and reclaimed the chair. I tapped on the pop-up, and it vanished, replaced by another, larger box listing the ship’s various systems. All were grayed out, indicating they were offline, except for the mainframe, life support, and the cryosystem, the last of which blinked red, announcing a critical failure.

  Hades joined me at the captain’s station, the containment box tucked against his side under his arm.

  “Can you tell what's causing the cryosystem failure?” I asked him, leaning forward as he reached out to swipe across the screen with his free hand.

  Hades navigated through a series of menus, then pulled up detailed readouts from several systems. He swiped them all away, leaving only the readings from the mainframe. “The entire ship is running on the backup power core,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. It was too close for comfort to the situation at the Omega site back home. “The other cryochambers likely would have been fine if the shield hadn't been erected around the ship,” he thought aloud, “but over time, it must have drawn too much power, draining the power core completely and depleting the backup.” He breathed deeply. “Our arrival hasn't helped, drawing power to the lights and ship infrastructure . . .”

  I swallowed my mounting fear and looked up at Hades. “How long until the final cryochamber fails?”

  Hades’ eyes met mine. “At the most, days. At the least, hours.”

  “Could we rig the ship to run off the chaos stone instead of a power core?”

  Hades shook his head. “Our ships weren’t built with interchangeable power receivers like in our cities. The chaos stone powers the FTL drive and the AI system, and the power core handles everything else. If we tried to replace the power core with a chaos stone, we would fry the entire ship.”

  I held his stare for a long moment. We had a chaos stone. We could plug it into the column in the city’s mainframe and produce a new power core, but it would take a while. I thought back to the power core we had found in the desert colony. We were already producing a new power core for the Omega site down in the Alpha site’s mainframe, leaving the scavenged power core unallocated. I nodded to myself, certain I had found the perfect solution.

  “Raiden,” I said through the comms patch, standing as I scanned the command center in search of him. I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Where are you?”

  He appeared in the back corner, climbing up the spiral staircase from the cryovault below.

  “I need you to run back to the gephyra and retrieve that power core we found in the desert colony,” I told him as he approached the captain’s pedestal.

  “You got it.” He changed trajectory and jogged toward the stairs up to the gephyra chamber.

  I turned to Hades. “If we replace the power core, could the ship run?”

  Hades pulled up the detailed report from the systems check, narrowing his eyes as he skimmed the information. “I don't see why not,” he finally said. “All systems are in good shape. The only thing causing problems is the failing power core.”

  I nodded to myself. “How long would it take to reach Earth from here?”

  “With the chaos stone to power the FTL drive . . .” He swiped the holoscreen clear and pulled up the navigation pane, quickly programming in Earth’s coordinates. “Three Earth days,” he finally said.

  “That's what we'll do then,” I told him. “As soon as Raiden returns with the power core, we’ll get the ship up and running. Once we're en route to Earth, we'll wake Selene and explain the situation.”

  I sensed Hades was bearing the burden of causing the other four Amazons’ deaths about as well as I was, trying not to drown under the tsunami of guilt. I stood and touched his arm, offering him a weak smile of understanding. Whatever happened between us in the future, this guilt would link us forever.

  When Hades’ eyes met mine, I gave his arm a squeeze. “If we hadn’t done it, they all would have died anyway,” I told him gently. “We never could have outrun the Tsakali. They were too close. We did what had to be done—sacrificed a few to save the many.”

  Hades closed his eyes and bowed his head, covering my hand with his. “They were good people. Their lives mattered.” He raised his head and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, and this rare moment of vulnerability sent fissures through my heart. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. How many more have to die?” He swallowed roughly. “Will this fight never end?”

  I leaned in, drawn in by the rawness of his pain, and rested my forehead against his. “We’ll keep going for as long as we can,” I told him. Promised him. “We’ll keep fighting, together, until it’s over.” Either we would win, or we would lose. But we wouldn’t quit. We wouldn’t give up. We would never give up because then all the pain and loss and death and sacrifice would have been for nothing.

  With a sigh, I pulled away. My stare locked with Hades’, and after a long moment, he nodded.

  I rested my hand on his cheek, just for a heartbeat, and then I turned away from him and climbed down from the captain’s station, heading
for my mom and Fiona. They stood together near the front of the command center, studying the star map on a holoscreen that hovered over the navigation control panel. I explained the situation to them, then returned to the captain’s pedestal.

  An hour later—after no word from Raiden—I was growing antsy. He should have made it through the gephyra and back to this planet by now.

  “Raiden?” I said through the comms patch. “What's the status on the power core?”

  There was no response.

  “Raiden?” I repeated, standing from my perch on the arm of the captain’s chair. “Emi?” Still nothing. “Hello?” I exchanged a nervous look with Hades, who now occupied the captain’s chair as he poured over the detailed reports from the systems check.

  He pulled up the screen on his holoband, and I could feel his dread before he announced, “The bridge to Earth has closed.”

  My muscles tensed, and I clenched my jaw. That explained why Raiden and Emi weren’t responding. Our own communications weren’t getting through.

  “Should we be worried?” my mom asked.

  I shook my head. “These things happen—random bursts of energy can disrupt the bridge, and the longer a bridge is open, the more likely something like this is to happen.”

  Hades tapped the holoscreen several times, then frowned. “I must be closer to the gephyra to establish another bridge.”

  “Can’t we just use the one up there?” my mom asked, pointing up to the level above us as she approached the captain’s station.

  Hades shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. A permanent gephyra established on a planet always overrides a ship-bound gephyra.”

  I blew out a breath, attempting to dispel some of his dread. Mine was plenty enough. “All right,” I said. “Let's head back to Earth. We'll need supplies for the trip anyway.”

  The group was quiet as we trekked back through the snow to the gephyra on the hill at the center of the unfinished settlement. Tensions mounted the closer we drew. Why had the bridge collapsed? And more importantly, why hadn’t Emi attempted to establish a new one?

  As we trudged up the hill, I sensed a presence lurking behind a frozen tree off to my right, near the base of the hill. Not human, and not Olympian, but definitely sentient. I spun that way, simultaneously charging and aiming my doru.

  But before I could get a lock on it—whatever it was—it bolted. My eyes bugged out as I watched the lurker scamper off. It was humanoid, and small, dressed in a full-body suit of some thick, silver-gray fabric. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it was a child.

  21

  “Cora!” Hades hissed. “You cannot let it get away!”

  My stare snapped to him, just for a fraction of a second, and his spike of fear shocked me out of stunned inaction. Without another thought, I sprinted down the hill, chasing after the childlike lurker loping away.

  It was fast, but its legs were short, and it moved with an increasingly pronounced limp. I was faster. Once I was within five yards of the creature, I skidded to a stop and rammed the butt of my doru into the snow. An electric-blue energy barrier burst up out of the ground ahead of my quarry, trapping it with me in an impenetrable circle.

  Cautiously, the creature reached out to the barrier with one hand. It hissed the moment it made contact, stung by the electrified energy, and cowered on the frozen ground.

  I stalked closer, attempting to dig into its mind to discover its purpose here and to figure out its language, but I couldn’t glean anything beyond a vague sense of fear and pain.

  It raised its face to me.

  I halted mid-step and muttered, “What the hell?”

  It was a child. An Olympian child—a young girl—from the looks of it, though how that was possible, I couldn’t begin to imagine. This place was half-finished and long abandoned. For an Olympian child to be present, there needed to be active cloning happening.

  Moving slowly, so as not to spook the girl any further, I sheathed my doru on my back and took a step closer to her, then another. I held my hands out where the girl could see them, attempting to put her at ease. “Hey . . .” I kept my voice soft, gentle. “I'm not going to hurt you. Are you all right? What are you doing out here?”

  The girl whimpered and hid her face behind her raised knees.

  In the back of my mind, I knew something was off. It didn’t make sense for a lone Olympian child to be here. But still, I moved closer.

  The others reached the outside of my energy barrier, and Hades banged against the sheet of energy, ignoring the electrified sting. “Back away from that thing, Cora!” he shouted. “It is incredibly dangerous!”

  I stopped and glanced at him, brows knitting together in confusion. Alarm flashed across his face, partially obscured by the shimmering barrier. I turned back to the child and found it had transformed into a monster, with bulging veins, red-rimmed irises, and steel fangs and claws.

  Heart hammering, I stumbled back a few steps.

  The hell-child lunged at me.

  I barely had time to react, tumbling backward and kicking the creature over me as I rolled. I drew my doru as I regained my feet and sent out a stunning blast.

  The hell-child dropped to the snow-covered ground, unconscious. Its steel claws retracted, and the protruding veins settled back in its skin. Once again, it appeared to be an innocent Olympian child.

  Breathing hard and keeping my doru aimed at the thing, I lowered the energy barrier, letting the others through. “What the hell is it?” I asked Hades as he ran over, my mom and Fiona close on his heels.

  Hades slowed to a jog, then stopped beside me and stared down at the stunned creature. “A Tsakali scout,” he said between heaving breaths. “They model their shells after what the children of their kind once looked like to make them appear unassuming and vulnerable.”

  “I'd say it worked,” I grumbled.

  The Tsakali scout stirred, and I charged the doru’s focus crystal, intending to deliver a killing blow before it could recover enough to attack us.

  Hades reached out, resting his hand on the staff and pushing the aim of the focus crystal off to the side. “Don't kill it just yet. If we bring it back to Earth alive, we can use it to demonstrate the true nature of the Tsakali to the human leaders. Perhaps then, they will understand the danger.”

  I looked at Hades, uncertain. This thing was dangerous; the prospect of it escaping and delivering its intel catastrophic. It needed to be destroyed.

  But standing so close, and with my own mental barriers lagging, it was impossible not to skim some of Hades’ surface thoughts. This thing might be just what we needed to convince the humans of Earth to destroy all record of the chaos stone and how it was created. It might be our only way to save them from us and what we would have to do if they refused.

  I turned my attention back to the Tsakali scout but let the charge fade from the doru’s focus crystal. Heaving out a breath, I sheathed my doru and pointed to the scout with my chin. “Hold its arms behind its back,” I said. “I want it restrained before it's fully awake.”

  Hades crouched down beside the scout, and my mom stepped forward to join him. They rolled the scout onto its side and pressed its wrists together, and I wound thin, unbreakable ropes of energy around its wrists. The bindings would hold, so long as I had access to my psychic gifts.

  My mom added military-grade zip ties, just in case, and slapped a couple of strips of duct tape over its mouth for good measure. She pulled an empty sack out of her pack and covered its head, then helped Hades haul the groggy scout up to its feet.

  Hands on my hips, I studied their handiwork and nodded. “Good enough. Let's head back to the gephyra. I’ll feel better once we can get this thing locked in a cage.”

  Hades led the way back to the gephyra, my mom and me hauling the scout between us. As soon as we reached the gephyra, Hades established a new bridge to Earth.

  “On our way back, Em,” my mom said through the comms patch. When Emi didn’t respond, my mom’s worried gaze locked with m
ine. “Em? Are you there?”

  “Raiden?” I said. “Can you hear us?”

  But still, there was no response. We exchanged wary looks all around.

  I stepped forward, leaving the scout in my mom’s hands, and climbed up the first step of the gephyra platform. Dread knotted in my gut, and I paused to look back at the others. “Wait for me to give the all clear.”

  Fiona stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes.

  My mom nodded.

  Hades’ expression was guarded, but I sensed that he was unwilling to agree. If he thought I was truly in danger, he would dive across the bridge and do whatever he could to help.

  I knew arguing with him would get me nowhere, so I sighed and turned back to the giant, quicksilver orb marking the entrance to the bridge home. Once the focus crystal of my doru was charged, I plunged across the bridge.

  And stepped into a scene taken straight out of a nightmare.

  Emi and Raiden sat on the floor in front of the curved control panel, their arms bound behind their backs and their ankles tied together. Two heavily armed commando types guarded them, the silver emblem on their black armored vests marking them as soldiers of the Custodes Veritatis.

  Meg knelt off to the side of the control panel, restrained in much the same way, a golden Amazon collar snug around her neck, suppressing her psychic powers. Twice as many Order soldiers guarded her.

  And then there was Henry Magnusson, standing behind the control panel, his arms crossed over his chest and a malicious grin curving his lips. “Welcome back, ancient one.”

  I aimed the charged doru at Henry, but before I could fire a killing blast, warm metal encircled my neck and latched with a resonant click. The electric-blue glow faded from the grooves running the length of the doru, and then from the focus crystal as my psychic powers winked out.

  They had been waiting for me to return. They had been ready, and I had been so distracted, I had let them collar me.

  “Cora?” my mom said, her voice transmitted across the open bridge through my comms patch.