Worlds Apart (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  Worlds Apart

  Books by Carmen Webster Buxton

  Wakanreo series

  Alien Bonds

  Alien Vows

  Alien Skies

  Haven Series

  The Sixth Discipline

  No Safe Haven

  The Nameless World Series

  The North Edge of Nowhere

  Oaths and Promises

  ThreeCon Series (read in any order)

  The Nostalgia Gambit

  Saronna’s Gift

  Shades of Empire

  Tribes

  Worlds Apart

  Alternate History

  King of Trees

  Young Adult Science Fiction

  Turnabout

  Drifters

  Fantasy

  Where Magic Rules

  Bag of Tricks

  Hidden Magic

  Worlds Apart

  by Carmen Webster Buxton

  A Crimson Fox Publishing Book

  P.O. Box 1035

  Turner, Oregon 97392

  USA

  Cover design by Najla Qamber

  https://www.najlaqamberdesigns.com/

  Copyright © 2021 Karen Wester Newton

  ISBN: 978-1-952667-31-2 - Kindle

  ISBN: 978-1-952667-32-9 - paperback

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  For: Tiny, Peter, Mosby, Muffler, Sam, Darwin, Carbomb,

  and Cosmo

  You all made my life so much richer.

  Chapter One

  Prax crouched beside the wagon wheel, trying to see through it without exposing himself to the outlaws’ line of fire. A blast of heat streaked past his head, almost as if someone had thrown an invisible torch. The acrid smell of wood burning assaulted his nose as he ducked. A black scorch mark on the corner of the wagon showed how close the weapon’s charge had hit.

  He could hear repeated gunshots as his people fired their more primitive weapons at the outlaws. In front of his family’s wagon, the four terrified alogos strained in their traces. If his mother hadn’t set the brake, the team would have bolted by now. His mother had angled their wagon, to give the team some shelter from the wagon in front of them, but the animals were still frightened by the noise.

  Prax could see that at least one Mercouri wagon had not been so lucky. After careening out of the loose oval formed so hastily at the first sign of the attack, a wagon lay tilted over on its side. The frantic team of alogos stamped their feet and tried to drag it along as it was. If the occupants were still alive, none of the Elliniká were in a position to help them.

  Prax dropped to the ground and crawled out from behind his family’s wagon toward the damaged wagon, making soothing noises as he scrambled hastily toward the team. The alogos still chittered angrily, but their feet no longer stamped the ground. Prax stroked their sides, then reached through their legs and sliced the traces with his knife. As soon as he had severed the last leather strap, he lunged forward and grabbed the rein for the lead animal before she could bolt.

  “Praxiteles, be careful!” his mother’s voice called from behind him.

  Prax didn’t dare look back to see where his mother was. He ran, crouched over and tugging on the reins, calling to the leader as he led them back behind the wagon. “Ho, girl! Ho! Come along.”

  The near animal screamed and tried to rear in the traces. Prax saw a dark welt on her side and realized she had been hit. The silence of the outlaws’ weapons unnerved him; there was no retort, no bang, only those silent blasts of heat that burned their targets so painfully. Prax smelled burned hair more than burned flesh, but the wound must have hurt.

  Prax calmed the animal, then coaxed the team as close to his own wagon as he could get them. The outlaws had attacked from either side of the line of march, but at least here the wagons on the opposite side of the oval provided some cover. Prax hastily tied the leading rein to the water barrel near the front of the wagon, then looped a length of the trailing traces through the tailgate. Just as he tied the knot, the edge of the wagon cover lifted, and Iphigenia’s anxious face peered out.

  “Praxiteles, where’s Father?”

  “He had to stay with the herd,” Prax said. “He sent me back to help you and Mother. Hand me my rifle. And keep down!”

  His sister disappeared, and in a moment, their mother took her place. Circe Mercouri’s brow knit in a frown as she passed Prax a long-barreled weapon and an extra clip.

  “I tried a few shots with the other rifle,” she said, “but the range is too far. I thought it best to save the ammunition.”

  Prax took the gun and checked the clip in it. It was almost full. “I’ll wait until I have a clear shot.”

  “Prax!”

  The shout came from the wagon behind them in the line. Prax expected to see Artemis or her husband, but instead, his younger brother crouched beside the rear wheel of their neighbor’s wagon.

  “Nikos!” Prax started toward him, but his brother waved him back.

  “Wait there,” Nikos called. “Can you get another rifle?”

  Prax shook his head. “I need to leave one with Mother, and Father has his with him.”

  “All right.” The wagon beside Nikos rocked on its wheels as the alogos in front of it shrieked. “I’m going to free their team.”

  Prax watched anxiously while his brother repeated the same maneuver he had so recently accomplished. Just as Nikos started to race back with the now-untethered team, he screamed and fell face down in the dirt, his arms outstretched.

  Heedless of the target he presented, Prax ran to his brother and dragged him behind the cover of Artemis’s wagon. Artemis’s loose team of alogos bolted into the open space between the wagons, dragging their traces behind them.

  “Nikos!” Circe called.

  “I have him!” Prax called back, hauling his brother to his feet. Nikos groaned, relieving Prax’s worst fear. “He’s alive. Stay there, Mother!”

  The wagon cover lifted above him, and Artemis peered out. Behind her, Prax could see the soles of two small pairs of shoes peeping out from the cupboards under the bed. Artemis looked terrified, but she held out her arms. “Pass him to me. We’ll keep him in here.”

  Prax hoisted Nikos to his feet, then bent down and grabbed him around the hips. He stood up with his brother’s dead weight draped over his shoulder. Artemis took Nikos’s arms and pulled him into the wagon with Prax pushing to help out. Nikos slid in head first, his stomach scraping over the side of the wagon. Prax saw a deep burn mark on his brother’s back, raw red in the middle, black around the edges, and oozing blood.

  Prax had no time to worry about Nikos’s wound. He grabbed his rifle from the ground and crawled under Artemis’s wagon on his belly. Prax gasped as he felt a sharp pain in his side but he ignored it. He needed to see what was going on.

  The outlaws were indeed out of rifle range. There weren’t too many of them, probably not more than two hundred. They seemed to be spreading out, moving away from their earlier, tightly clustered positions. In the far distance, a little uphill from the rows of helmeted men, a bright yellow banner waved beside a tall man in a gaudy red shirt.

  “Gemal!” Fear st
abbed the pit of Prax’s stomach. They had no hope of mercy from a raider like Gemal, who had lured many bandits to follow his banner, forming a small army that preyed upon villagers and Elliniká alike.

  Movement caught Prax’s eye. He looked south and saw a large, dark shape cresting a rise in the plains. The thing moved smoothly, with no sign of alogos or other beasts of burden. It was a hovercraft, a vehicle used by city dwellers when they wanted to travel the plains.

  Prax studied the ranks of the outlaws, who seemed not to have noticed the vehicle. What were the city dwellers thinking to come so close to an attack? Had they no fear of Gemal and his weapons?

  An outlaw directly ahead of him caught Prax’s attention. The man crawled along on his belly, edging his way closer and closer to the Elliniká wagons. With the magnification of the rifle scope, Prax could see the man’s head and shoulders quite clearly. As he watched, Prax realized the outlaw held not an energy weapon but an Elliniká rifle.

  Prax propped himself up on his elbows and took careful aim with his own rifle. At this distance, the weapon would throw left a good bit, so he aimed a half a meter to the right. He squeezed the trigger, bracing himself against the recoil.

  The man jerked backwards, dropping his weapon. Prax couldn’t tell where he had hit him. The man was still moving—unlike the hovercraft, which had taken up a position on a small hill.

  Prax stared at the vehicle. The city dwellers must be sure of their ability to outrun the outlaws. As soon as Gemal saw them, he would order an attack. Unless the city dwellers had their own weapons? Just as Prax had that thought, a sharp crack sounded, almost like thunder, and a long flash of blue light rent the sky for a fraction of a second. When it was gone, the air had a strange, charged feel, as if it were electric. Prax could smell a terrible odor of something burning—not the isolated smell of the outlaws’ weapons hitting a target, but more pervasive. The air smelled almost like the prairie after a fire had devastated it. Where the yellow banner had waved, Prax saw a wide band of charred grass, a twisted metal pole, and nothing more. He looked through his rifle scope. All that remained of Gemal was a pile of ashes and a small cloud of rapidly dissipating smoke.

  Prax stared. He knew the city dwellers had energy weapons—that’s where Gemal and his men had stolen them from—but even city people couldn’t command lightning to strike.

  The outlaws looked as surprised as Prax by the unexpected light and sound. They stayed frozen for a few seconds, then jumped to their feet and looked around. A fierce cry rose from those nearest to where the banner had flown. They ran to the blackened spot. A group of them clustered around the charred grass, and then one man raised something into the air, holding it over his head to show the others.

  The outlaws around him gave a loud, keening wail. Their comrades stopped their attack and pulled back to see what had happened. They shouted and milled about in shifting clusters of men. A stocky man in a metal helmet seemed to be in charge, as the others all turned to him. He waved an arm, and the outlaws began to survey the nearby landscape. A triumphant shout rose from the group. They had seen the hovercraft.

  Prax stopped watching through the scope and crawled out from under the wagon to get a better look. None of the outlaws were firing at the wagons anymore. All of them had formed into a group as if they were going to mount a new attack. They had started to flow down the slope toward the hovercraft when another blue bolt struck from the sky.

  Prax drew in a breath, blinking. The light blinded him momentarily. This, surely, would teach the raiders a lesson. When he could see clearly, the outlaws had stopped in their tracks. They were no longer shouting, but a loud buzzing rose from the group as if they were all arguing at once. Where the blue light had hit, a cloud of black smoke, torn by the breeze, marked the location of another charred patch of grass. Before the outlaws could move, a third bolt struck, this one only a few meters away from their front line.

  When the smoke drifted away, the bandits were in full retreat across the plains.

  Prax let out a breath of relief and was conscious all at once of intense pain. He looked down at himself in surprise. Scorch marks across his left side showed the path of the weapon’s charge. He must have been hit when he retrieved Nikos, but he hadn’t been aware of the pain until now.

  Suddenly dizzy, he leaned against Artemis’ wagon, holding on with one hand. A moment later, his mother popped her head out of their wagon. She took one look at him and started to climb down.

  “Wait!” Prax said. “We don’t know what’s happened.”

  “The city people drove the outlaws away,” Circe said, “and you’re hurt.”

  “Nikos is much worse. See to him first.”

  She did, but not without a cursory glance at Prax first, as if to reassure herself.

  While his mother climbed into Artemis’ wagon, Prax waited where he was, trying to assess his wound. It was difficult because the fabric of his shirt had burned and stuck to the wound itself. When Prax tried to take off his shirt, the pain almost made him pass out.

  “Leave that alone,” his mother said, climbing back down from Artemis’ wagon. She looked out at the plain. “Someone’s coming. You go and talk to him while Iphigenia and I move your brother into our wagon. I’m going to watch the children while Artemis looks for her husband, and Iphigenia checks on your grandmother and your sister’s family.”

  Prax started to protest that he was well enough to help them, that Nikos was too heavy for them, but she cut him off.

  “Nikos can walk, with some help. We’ll manage him. You speak the city dwellers’ language better than anyone in the clan. Someone should at least say thank you.”

  Prax didn’t argue. She wouldn’t listen to him anyway, and it was true that no one else was as fluent as he was in the language spoken in the cities. “I’ll go, then.”

  He looked out at the nearby prairie. A man in gray trousers and a darker tunic was walking toward the line of wagons. He wore low, shiny boots, and Prax suspected the objects on his belt were weapons.

  Prax started forward to meet him. Halfway there, he could see the man was shorter than he was, and probably twenty years older. His dark hair had gone gray at the temples. He walked briskly enough, though, as if he kept himself in good shape.

  “Good afternoon,” the man said as he drew near. “I’m Hari Ijeomah.”

  Prax could tell from his accent the stranger wasn’t from Pireaus, or even Agnios. His accent was clipped, almost harsh to Prax’s ear. Prax glanced around at the chaos all around him. A dozen men and women worked to right the overturned wagon. Others rushed about putting out fires. Several wagon covers and one wagon body were in flames. “I’m Praxiteles Mercouri. I thank you for the greeting, but I can hardly call this a good afternoon.”

  The stranger flashed a white-toothed grin, his deep-set eyes closing almost to slits in his dark-skinned face, darker than any Elliniká. “I take your point. Still, it could have been worse.”

  Prax glanced at the hovercraft in the distance. Several figures waited by the boarding ramp. “I know. Thank you for driving off the outlaws. You saved many lives—possibly all of us.”

  Hari shook his head. “Don’t thank me. Your deliverance came courtesy of Mistress Rishi Trahn, head of the House of Trahn. Lucky for you, she likes to go sightseeing when she visits a new world.”

  Prax sensed no deception in the stranger’s statement. And if he was an off-worlder, it explained his accent. Before Prax could reply, a young boy ran up and blurted out a message. “Praxiteles! Eugenie asks can the strangers help us? Angela is hurt.”

  The off-worlder looked blank, as doubtless he didn’t speak Elliniká. “Something wrong?”

  “Our healer is wounded,” Prax said. “Ordinarily, she would help the others who have been injured.”

  Hari’s expression turned inscrutable for a few seconds. He lifted his left wrist and spoke into a wide sort of br
acelet he wore. “Rishi, their only doctor is wounded. What do you want to do?”

  After only a second’s pause, a woman’s voice spoke from the bracelet. Prax wasn’t shocked, as he had often visited the cities and seen the miraculous machines that city dwellers used, but the boy beside him jumped in surprise.

  “In for a minim, in for a credit,” the woman’s voice said. “Call the Golden Hawk, Hari. Ask Dr. Warchovsky to come down and see what she can do.”

  “You sure about this, Rishi?” the stranger said. “You’ve already broken the rules once, in a big way.”

  The woman’s snort of derision was clearly audible. “From what our guide said, that bandit scum will be no loss. I don’t care how big the fine is. Get these folks some help before any more of them die.”

  “Okay. It’s your call, Mistress Trahn.”

  Her only answer was a sputtering noise, abruptly cut off. Hari grinned and then tapped some bumps on his bracelet. He started a rapid-fire conversation with someone named Bridge, asking for a medical team and rattling off instructions on where they should land.

  “Ijeomah out,” he concluded.

  “Your doctor is coming from somewhere far away?” A new anxiety gnawed at Prax. Nikos’ wound had looked bad, and he had no idea if his father had been hurt when the herd stampeded, or if Penelope’s family had suffered any injuries.

  “From a ship in orbit.” Hari looked down at the boy, who stared up at him with awe. “Maybe you could send this kid to tell your people the doctor is on her way and will be here in twenty minutes or so.”

  “How long is twenty minutes?” Prax had never learned to tell city time.

  Hari looked taken aback, and then he pointed to a clump of trees some distance away. “If I were to walk to those trees and back—not run, just walk fast—it would take me about two minutes. Multiply by ten and you’ve got it.”

  Prax nodded acknowledgement and turned to the boy. “Run, tell Eugenie the strangers are sending a doctor, but it will take as long as a wagon race for them to get here.”