Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  “Mommy says you’re a soldier.” Lee looked over and saw young Ben in his copilot’s seat. He knew Ben wasn’t really there. He was losing his mind. He understood that. Maybe it was what the Shapeless had done to him, or maybe he was just going over the edge all on his own. Either way, he didn’t care.

  “You’re goddamn right I am,” Lee said.

  Lee couldn’t avoid the asteroids in front of him. But he could let them work for him.

  He coaxed control out of the ship that he didn’t expect. Maneuvering thrusters somewhere complied with his force on the stick. It was the ship’s computer attempting to compensate in any way it could.

  With what little control he had over his ship, Lee managed to steer her, bottom first, towards one of the asteroids. He deployed the boarding cable—the same one he’d used on Archeon to grab the chunk of Herald Stone.

  It was going to be a risky move. There was a chance that the cable would simply snap off from the force of trying to stop his ship’s wild spinning out of control. Getting the clamp at the end to actually grab the asteroid in the first place was a long shot. Then he had to hope that his ship didn’t break apart when he tried to land on it, hugging the space rock.

  Here goes nothing.

  Lee opened the clamp of the docking cable. It jumped and bounced over the surface of the asteroid. With nothing to guide him, Lee had to go on instinct.

  He felt a slight tremor run up and down the ship’s superstructure, then another. On the third, he pressed the button to have the clamp snapped closed.

  Even with his seat’s restraints tightened, Lee’s whole body was violently jarred forward as the ship came to a sudden stop. His head hit against one of the panels that was overhead between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats.

  But he was alive.

  And despite the creaking uneasy noises in the cockpit, his ship was in one piece and, more importantly, hidden.

  Young Ben smiled from the copilot’s seat, like this was a game he was playing with his father; then he disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  “Where’d he go?” Chevenko bellowed. He stood from his captain’s chair, fury etched on his face.

  “I…” Anastasia looked at her instruments, radars, and holographic screens, desperate to find the little ship.

  “How the hell did this happen? How’d we lose him?”

  Chevenko felt physically ill. Not only was losing Lee unacceptable to himself and to Anita Lau; more worrying was what the Shapeless would think.

  “Sir,” one of the other crew members said meekly.

  “What!?”

  The man seemed to shrink as Chevenko’s hot gaze fell on him. “We may need to get out of this asteroid field,” he said shakily. “Our shields are almost depleted. We won’t be able to last another couple of minutes in here. But we can get out and go around it to—”

  A shot rang out like thunder, echoing around the steel walls of the bridge. Chevenko watched as the man crumpled to the ground, a hole blossoming in his midsection.

  The man choked off a gurgling noise as he tried to speak, then looked down dumbly at the blood gushing down the front of his perfectly-pressed uniform.

  Chevenko looked over at his daughter, expecting that she again was the shooter. We’re going to run out of crewmembers at this rate. But no, she merely turned back to her instruments. Then he looked down at the gun in his hand. He didn’t remember unholstering it. Or pointing it. Or pulling the trigger. But as the man spasmed and died, he didn’t regret it. Not at all.

  The dreadnought’s command deck was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

  “We’re not going anywhere until we find him,” Chevenko said calmly, his low voice cutting through the silence. “Is that clear?”

  No one spoke.

  Chevenko felt the rage boiling under his skin. This wasn’t like him, he thought. Something was wrong with him. But he ignored the restraining impulse. Instead, he reholstered his sidearm and stared around the room, daring anyone to meet his gaze.

  “None of us are going anywhere or doing anything until Saito is space dust,” he growled.

  Finally, Anastasia spoke up. “But he was right, Admiral. We need to get out of here. Our shields can’t take it anymore.”

  “He’s hiding,” Chevenko snapped. He sat back down in his command chair, breathing heavily.

  He was so lost in his rage that he barely registered that the little yellow-eyed alien he had in a cage right next to him was sitting cross-legged with those unearthly eyes closed, concentrating.

  Chevenko calmed himself and forced himself to think more clearly. “We need to flush him out,” he said.

  “How?”

  “Fire everything in a concentric pattern moving outward. If he’s hiding, we’ll either get lucky and take him out, or at least take away his hiding spots.”

  Anastasia shared a glance with the tactical officer. He cleared his throat as if he had something to say, but Anastasia cut him off.

  “Yes, sir,” she said simply, and nodded at the officer. He closed his mouth and turned to his control board.

  Moments later, every cannon on the dreadnought started firing.

  Lee stood fast as the glowing streaks of cannon fire flew all over the place, blowing up asteroids all around him. He didn’t budge from his hiding spot. To him it was clear what was happening. The admiral was desperate, and had conceded any advantage he might’ve had.

  Now Lee knew exactly where Chevenko was. More importantly, he knew right where the dreadnought was in relation to the Shapeless planet.

  All he had to was hold on and wait for his moment.

  There was only one way Lee was going to outrun the dreadnought, and he knew it. He’d have to fold skip, a much shorter form of the fold jump and considerably more dangerous. But there wasn’t another way. So he spun up the fold engines as he hid, and waited for the asteroid to slowly spin around and face the Shapeless home planet. Once it did, he’d detach and fold skip immediately, leaving the dreadnought in his wake, and worry about the consequences later.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the firing stopped.

  Lee wanted to initiate his fold jump, but something told him to hold back. To wait a little longer.

  Sweat ran down his back. He watched the Shapeless world rotate into view. It was now or never.

  “Why did you stop?” Chevenko snapped.

  “We have to cool the core,” Anastasia answered for the tactical officer. “We can restart again in a few seconds.”

  Chevenko frowned as he scanned the asteroid field. Again, there was nothing. And there was no way of knowing for sure if they’d hit and destroyed Lee’s ship.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Chevenko said.

  Just then, two Marines came in and dragged the dead crew member away as they’d done the dead copilot earlier. Chevenko felt another wave of deep silence fall over the bridge.

  “He’s still out there,” he said. “I can feel—”

  Something caught the admiral’s attention, but it wasn’t outside in space. It was inside the command deck.

  He spun around, thinking one of the Marines that was dragging away the dead officer was behind him. But no, they were both gone now. They’d slid right out the back hatch of the command center.

  Then he realized who the man behind him was.

  He let out a gasp. His eyes were playing tricks on him. They must be, he thought.

  Lee Saito was standing right in front of the viewing screens, staring and smiling at him.

  “Lee?” Chevenko said aloud as he got up out of his chair, pistol in his hand.

  His daughter looked up and over at him, confused. “What are you…how’d you get in here?”

  Chevenko heard a shriek; he quickly turned around and fired his pistol. He didn’t hit anyone, but managed to frighten everyone even more than before, which wasn’t an easy feat.

  “You missed,” said the image of Lee on the command deck.

  “Dad, what’re you doing? Put th
e gun down.” Anastasia stood up, ignoring her duties as a pilot. Her voice was strained, like she was trying to talk a crazy man off a ledge.

  Chevenko barely registered her words. “How did it get out?”

  “How did what get out?” Anastasia asked.

  Chevenko ignored her. His attention was on the yellow-eyed alien, which had somehow gotten out of its cage. He looked on, confused and nervous, as the alien grew to three times its size, into a hulking glowing-eyed beast with snarling teeth and large, long talons. It roared at him.

  He fired again.

  The yellow-eyed alien ran around the command bridge, dancing wildly around as Chevenko kept firing. One of the crew members tried to come up behind him and restrain him, but Chevenko gave the man an elbow to the nose that sent him sprawling.

  “Dad! Stop!” yelled Anastasia.

  He ignored her as he kept firing. Then the alien vanished. “Where the hell is it?”

  “What are you talking about?” his daughter pleaded.

  Chevenko was annoyed she wasn’t at her station, but when he looked at the pilot’s seat, he saw something sitting there.

  The yellow-eyed alien leered back at him. Then, with one arm, it lifted up the admiral’s daughter and threatened to snap her neck.

  Chevenko quickly reloaded, and emptied the new magazine into the alien monster.

  Suddenly it disappeared again. Someone was screaming.

  And Chevenko found himself looking at Anastasia, his only child, with wide eyes, and bullet holes in her torso.

  She crumpled forward in a pool of blood. Her body landed hard and remained motionless.

  “No…” Chevenko rushed to her side and fell to his knees, cradling her body in his hands. Blood ran through his fingers and down his arm. “I…it…”

  The admiral, tears running down his cheeks, looked around the commander bridge, still in a state of shock.

  There were dead and injured crew members everywhere. The walls were riddled with bullet holes. Equipment sparked.

  Those that had survived were rushing towards the exit now that the shooting had stopped. Sitting there in its cage, calm as could be, was the yellow-eyed alien, who stared at the admiral.

  What the admiral didn’t realize—what Lee had figured out and Clarissa had discovered—was that once connected to a mind meld, connected to the Abyss, that connection was always there. It was always open. Not only did that mean that memories could live on with a being even after they woke up, as with Clarissa’s husband, but an adept mind-meld user could manipulate that connection. In Chevenko’s case, he’s been forced into hallucinating a yellow-eyed monster rampaging through his command bridge.

  “I…I did this…” Chevenko slowly started to stitch the pieces together. He turned his attention back to his daughter. “Anastasia.” The admiral stroked his only daughter’s hair. “I’m…he’s going to pay for this! He’s dead!”

  Chevenko, tears still flowing, got behind the pilot’s sticks. He wiped his nose and waited. Lee had killed his daughter. Had destroyed his ship. He was dead.

  Then he saw it. A burst of energy from the corner of his viewscreen. A tiny, unmistakable thruster burn from the surface of one of the millions of indistinct rocks. Lee was scampering from his hiding place, Chevenko knew, gambling on his run for the surface.

  Chevenko smashed down the controls to fire their port lasers, but nothing happened. A flash of light told him the core was still set to power recycle.

  “Release the lasers, you idiot!” he screamed at the tactical officer.

  But when he turned, there was no one there. The bridge was empty. Silent except for the few moans of injured crewmen all around him. Movement from behind him. Perhaps some of the Marines peering in.

  But nobody to man tactical.

  Another flash drew his attention back to the active sensors.

  A fold jump.

  Chevenko slammed his hands down on the controls, fingers flying. The ship’s power was critical, her weapons systems offline, and her shield power precariously low, but she had full thrust power.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Chevenko screamed as he set the targeting computer to track and follow Lee.

  His target finally revealed itself. Now all he had to do was chase after it.

  A warning message told him of the dreadnought’s critical shield weakness. He ignored it. Another told him the ship was shedding escape pods. He ignored it, too.

  He pushed the thrusters forward to the maximum he could get out of them. No matter what, he wasn’t going to let Lee escape.

  Four

  Curiosity Killed The…

  Detective Sydal looked up at the ladder that he believed led out of the lunar underground and into the UEF base on Earth’s moon. Up at the end of the ladder was another bulkhead-type hatch, like you’d find on a submarine. Still covered in some of the blood splatter from the Waterman-Lau scientists he’d killed at the exotic matter generator, he started to climb the rungs.

  When he reached the top, Sydal had to position his body in such a way that he was able to get some leverage. The wheel that served as the door handle was a little rusted, but he was able to spin it open. That’s when the nerves hit.

  You gotta do this. Just be ready for anything.

  Sydal, two flamethrowers on his back and one around his shoulder, took his pistol out, knowing that he had no idea what was on the other side of that hatch. He held his breath and pushed it open just enough to take a peek at what he was walking into.

  Nothing.

  Sydal climbed slowly out through the hatch, carefully and silently closing the door behind him. Looking around, he had a hard time figuring out exactly where he was.

  Then he turned a corner and saw steam, and heard the sound of running water.

  As he crept along, the detective realized he was in a locker room, which was perfect. If he was going to move through the base, he needed to blend in. Walking around in bloodstained civilian clothes wasn’t going to fly.

  There was no way to know how many people were in the showers, but a quick look at the lockers showed him no one was in the main area. Sydal quickly searched for an open locker, knowing that at any second, someone could emerge from the showers.

  He found one with a uniform hanging on the hook inside. After taking it, he retreated back to where he first came in, slightly hidden away, to change.

  He heard two men talking and leaving the showers. One of them cursed, and Sydal didn’t have trouble imagining that the open locker he’d found belonged to that man. A man who now couldn’t find his work clothes.

  Sydal leaned back into his small space. He was well hidden from incidental view, but if someone were looking hard, they could find him. He moved as quickly as he could, ignoring the words of the confused man.

  Sydal ripped his old shirt up and made a bandage. When he tried to wrap it around his thigh where his gunshot wound was, he almost screamed out in pain. It hurt so much worse than it had before. He was glad for once that there wasn’t much light where he was. He didn’t want to see just how infected it was, considering it had been exposed to a pool full of corpses and sewer water.

  Sydal, sweating profusely, desperately searched his old pants, which were on the tiled floor next to him. Inside was the last of the painkillers he’d pilfered from the hospital earlier. He took every single one. Sure, he might feel high, but at least he’d be able to walk without limping, making it easier to fit in. That was all that mattered at the moment. Conformity was his path to his son.

  Dressed and ready to go, Sydal stood up straight. He gritted his teeth, knowing the painkillers were going to take a little while to work. But he couldn’t wait for that.

  The soldiers left the locker room together. Either they’d given up on finding the man’s uniform, or were heading to find someone who could help. All that mattered to Sydal was that he had to move now.

  He put one flamethrower around his shoulder, leaving the others behind, and entered the locker room proper.


  Before exiting the locker room, Sydal stopped by the row of sinks and checked himself out in the mirror. Apart from being unshaven, the only thing that made him stand out was the Waterman-Lau scientists’ blood splatter on his face. He washed it off. With water dripping off his face, he looked himself in the eyes.

  You’re so close. Just keep going.

  Sydal had no idea what the layout of the UEF Lunar Base was. The military police handled their own business. Sydal was persona non grata here. So when he exited the locker room, he had no idea where he was. For a little while he wandered, surprised by just how few people were here. He passed maybe two or three soldiers in ten minutes.

  Where the hell is everyone?

  He definitely wasn’t complaining, but the math didn’t add up. Before he’d been kicked into a hospital bed, the moon was crawling with UEF. So where had they gone?

  Sydal stopped at a map holographically projected from the floor further down the hall. He scanned it, looking for anything or anywhere that those bastards would keep a prisoner. Because that’s what Matthew was to these monsters.

  That’s when he saw it. The prison cells. They weren’t underground, or even on one of the bottom floors. The base prison was on the second to top floor.

  Okay, well, looks like I need to find a lift tube.

  Though he didn’t feel pain from his leg anymore, Sydal did feel the effects of infection. Sweat practically poured down his face as he searched for any sign of a lift. Finally he found one. The lift pod was attached to one of the interior supports for the dome. It ran inside a tube that extended nearly the length of the structure.

  Sydal got into the lift. He pressed the button for the eighth floor. Just as he thought that this was too easy to be true, a bony hand slipped between the doors and triggered them open again.

  Two cultists stepped in.

  Both cultists smelled like rank body odor and the coppery scent of blood. Sydal shifted his body and carefully pushed the muzzle of the flamethrower out of sight. From a distance, the weapon didn’t stand out any more than any other piece of equipment slung over a shoulder, but in the tight confines of the lift, it would raise eyebrows. He kept his head down and tried to exist as a barely-noticed wallflower.