Broken Moon Series Digital Box Set

by F. T. Lukens

  Chaos reigned, and Ren was king.

  A sharp crack pierced through the static and the power. Ren was snapped back into his body. He swayed on his feet. His eyes were half-lidded, as he stared at the destruction he’d wrought. Bodies, wreckage, and tech lay around him in the blast zone, but the hum of the tech was absent. He was disconnected from it all. Strangely, he didn’t reconnect with his body as he usually did, as if there was another way for his body to not to feel like his own.

  Zag stood a few feet away with an ancient weapon in his hand; smoke swirled from its barrel. Ren watched the wreath of gray as it dissipated, feeling as if he could follow, disappear into the ether like a ghost.

  Asher stared at him with wide green eyes and an open mouth. He looked ridiculous. Ren wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t because he had no air. He swallowed and gagged at the hot metallic taste on his tongue.

  Ren swayed again. Fiery pain bloomed from his side. It spread; sizzling agony swept through his nerves, engulfed him, lit him up in a way he’d never experienced. It wasn’t blue, like his power, but orange and red like flames. With a trembling hand, Ren touched the wound and raised blood-stained fingers.

  “Oh,” he said.

  Then his legs gave out, and he fell like rubble.

  14

  The ground beneath Ren was hard and cold. The colors leached away, leaving the world grey as he stared at the cracked sky.

  “Ren,” Asher was at his side, cradling his face in shaking hands. “Cogs, Ren. What did they do?” Asher pushed down on Ren’s wound and it sparked another fire, but it was weak, sputtered out, and left Ren cold. “What the hell did he shoot you with?”

  “Ash,” Ren said, voice thick. “What?”

  “Don’t talk. Don’t talk.” Asher was frantic, barking at people, yelling—but his hands didn’t leave Ren’s body. Ren couldn’t feel Asher’s touch anymore. He missed it with an ache almost as sharp as the wound.

  He was freezing. And then he laughed. Nadie. Asher had crossed him. But Ren would cross while in Asher’s arms.

  “What’s so funny?” Asher asked. His voice was steady in the encroaching dark, but there was underlying fear—always fear.

  “Nadie,” Ren choked. “Crossing.”

  Realization, panic, and guilt flickered over Asher’s expression, until it landed on determination.

  “To the ship,” he whispered. “To the ship. Hey! I need a transport. I need…”

  Ren’s eyes fluttered shut, and he drifted. The sharp taps on his cheeks and the urgent voice weren’t important, and they were far away… so far away.

  Noises. Voices. Movement.

  Ren groaned when he was lifted; his body shuddered of its own accord. The pain was enough to rouse him. He stared up at the underside of Asher’s jaw, where blond stubble caught the low light of wherever they were. They moved too fast, and the scenery blurred. Ren closed his eyes again; the jumble of sensation was too much.

  “You stay with me. Okay? You can’t get out of fighting with me by dying.”

  Ren smiled, then went limp again.

  What happened? Ash, what happened!

  Help me get him to the ship.

  Stars! Ollie! Ollie, open the bay doors! And get Pen!

  Ren stirred when they crossed the threshold into the ship; the Star Stream welcomed him, enveloped him in the warmth of its embrace. He tried to move, to alert Asher, but his body wouldn’t respond. His power swelled in his chest, reminding him he was more than human, more than flesh.

  Can you save him?

  I don’t know what… is that a bullet?

  What the stars happened? Where were you two?

  Put him there. Out of the way. I’ll do what I can, but he’s lost so much blood.

  Are you okay, Ash? Are you hurt?

  No. No, I’m… fine. Save him, please.

  Hand me that! Where did they get a bullet for stars’ sake?

  This was their only option to stop him.

  Why did they need to stop him? Ash?

  Ren’s hand fell off Penelope’s table when she jostled him. His fingers grazed the hull. He didn’t hesitate. He fled the pain and the turmoil. He fled his unresponsive body. He fled the phantom sensations of needles and hands.

  He’s still bleeding.

  I’m doing the best I can. I don’t know…

  He fled toward safety. He fled into the ship. Ren dissipated into the ether, into the circuits, into the wires. There, he was happy. There, he was safe.

  He’s gone.

  %

  Ren watched from the vid feeds. He stared down at the figure on the cot, hooked up to machines, pale and small under blankets.

  Someone sat next to the bed… someone… someone Ren knew. Asher. Asher sat next to the bed and held Ren’s limp hand clasped in his own, mumbling words that didn’t make sense. His blond head was bowed; his lips were pressed to his knuckles.

  “I’m so sorry. What have I done? What have I done?”

  Ren switched feeds, crossed the room, found another angle. He sat watching. Time ticked by, calculable down to the millisecond, not measured in moments or feelings, which were inconsequential to him now. All that mattered was the ship and the systems, operations and electricity and data.

  “I have to leave. Pen is going to watch over you. And Rowan. And Lucas. Ollie, too, if he can stand to. He’s upset.”

  The lights flickered. A short in the mechanism, but Ren didn’t rush to fix it. Why did Asher need to leave? He shouldn’t leave. Ren didn’t want him to leave.

  A woman—Rowan, her name was Rowan—walked into the room. She lightly touched Asher’s shoulder. “They’re here for you.”

  Asher gently placed Ren’s hand back on the table and tucked the blanket tighter over the body.

  “Watch him.”

  “You know he’s going to come looking for you when he wakes up. It’ll be the first thing he’ll want to do.”

  “I don’t know about that. I betrayed him.”

  “You were protecting him. He’ll understand.”

  Power surged in the bay door mechanism; the lock stuck. People waited outside, dressed in uniforms, ornate birds on their shoulders—Phoenix Corps. Ren hesitated for half a second before fixing the glitch and allowing them entrance.

  Rowan grabbed Asher in a hug, and they embraced tightly.

  “We could run,” she whispered. “They think he’s dead. They wouldn’t follow. And if they did they’d never find us.”

  “They would. And they’d figure out he’s still alive and they would take him. And they’d hurt you and the crew.”

  She nodded, her chin digging into his shoulder. “Take care, little brother.”

  “You, too.”

  They parted.

  Asher left.

  Following him, Ren jumped to another feed and watched the bent figure walk down the corridor and into the bay. The group of soldiers waited for him. They surrounded him and escorted him out of the ship.

  We’re departing for Mykonos.

  Aye, captain.

  Stars and space.

  We’ve got work.

  Minutes. Seconds. Hours.

  New coordinates.

  Another drift.

  A dock.

  Space and stars.

  Credits.

  Coordinates. Route set.

  A malfunction. Fixed.

  A message.

  Seconds. Hours. Minutes.

  Wake up, brother! Wake up.

  Ren gasped when he woke. His back arched off the metal; his mouth and eyes were open. His muscles pulled taut for a long moment before he flopped back to the table, exhausted. He breathed, lungs aching, body shivering from the influx of adrenaline and from the frigid air. He weakly raised his head.

  The ship was dark. And Ren was alone.<
br />
  Book Three: Zenith Dream

  “The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”

  —Woodrow Wilson

  Some readers may find some of the scenes in this book difficult to read. We have compiled a list of content warnings, which you can access at www.interludepress.com/content-warnings

  1

  Wake up!

  Ren snapped his eyes open and gasped. His back arched, and his body pulled taut, suspended in air by his shoulders and heels, before he flopped back to a hard surface. He gulped in oxygen. Wheezing, his lungs ached. His body shivered from the influx of adrenaline and from the frigid air; goosebumps bloomed over his skin. He weakly raised his head.

  He was alone. The ship was dark, lit only by emergency lights. Ren pushed to a sitting position with trembling arms; his muscles were feeble. His chest heaved, his breath puffed out in clouds in front of his face, and the blanket that covered him fell and pooled into his lap. Bent forward, Ren grasped the bed railing next to him, and the cold metal burned against his palm.

  Was this real? Or was it another dream with sense memories so stark they fooled him? Was he awake this time? Was he in the ship?

  The bed beneath him was hard and unforgiving; a thin mattress was all that separated him from a flat slab of metal. He smelled of antiseptic and sweat. A thin tube, currently attached to nothing, stung in the crook of his arm. He rubbed his chest; the scratchy fabric of medical scrubs pulled across his stomach, caught on something, and tugged uncomfortably on his skin. Possibly not a dream—too many sensations.

  Brow furrowed, Ren lifted the hem of his shirt. White tape and gauze crisscrossed a spot far left of his navel and above his hip. Tentatively, he pulled at the bandages to reveal a dark, bloody, and scabbed wound: a jagged circle of flesh, not quite healed, but not angry and new. Starbursts of yellow and green and brown spread outward from it and bled up his torso in a sickly, painful bruise.

  Ren slammed his eyes shut and sat awash in memories that scrubbed him raw, caused bile to crawl up into his throat, and sent his heart pounding. Pain and smoke and rubble. Falling, the Corps, and Asher amid the chaos. Crei and Millicent and Vos and Asher trying to save him. Prophecies and blood and dreams of Liam and Asher leaving. He pushed his hand against the gunshot wound, smoothing the tape with unsteady fingers.

  Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it.

  Hunched over, he reached out with his star, and the familiar signature of the ship welcomed him, calmed him, and staved off the impending panic. He didn’t recognize this bed or this blanket or the room he was in, but he was on the Star Stream. He was safe on the ship, in the ship, but for now he resisted the urge to flee into the circuits.

  He was awake: a state of being he hadn’t thought he would achieve again.

  He’d watched, of course. He’d been detached from it all, within the confines of circuits and switches and vid screens. He’d heard the messages on the comms, the disagreements about what to do, the times Rowan cried in her room, and when Ollie stalked the cargo bay. He’d seen Pen brush his dark hair from his forehead and Lucas pilot with bloodshot eyes. At other times, everything was black and muted, as if he was at the bottom of the lake and all his sensation was filtered through the water: sound and touch distorted by pressure and movement, sight blurred by currents and shadows. Still other times, he’d dreamed nightmares and visions so real he’d thought for certain he was awake, only to be plunged back into the depths of his body or sent scurrying for safety into the signals that sparked between relays.

  Ren opened his eyes. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and shook his head, trying to ease the fog in his brain. Everything was vague and strange. He had spent an indeterminate amount of time transferring between the ship and his comatose body, and his ability to perceive and process wasn’t quite aligned.

  “Hello?” his voice cracked in his throat. “Anyone there?” The words were clumsy in his mouth, and the raspy sound petered out into a breathy whisper.

  Where was everyone? How long had he been asleep?

  The Star Stream was powered down; reserve lights gave a gentle glow, and the core systems hummed softly, lazily, as they drew power, not from the engines, but from a power source beyond the shiny bulkhead. They were docked on a drift, but not one Ren recognized. The unfamiliar tech buzzed hazily in the back of his head. The noise was not nearly as loud as Mykonos or Delphi, indicating the drift was smaller.

  Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Ren gingerly stepped down and hissed as the pad of his foot touched the cold deck. Keeping his grip on the bedrails, he slid farther, pressed more weight against his feet. His atrophied legs clenched, and he hobbled like the newborn lambs on Erden. After a few tense moments, he steadied enough to fully straighten.

  Ren grabbed the blanket and draped it over his shoulders. Unsure but determined, he lurched from the bed to the wall, stumbled, and clung to the doorframe. His body shook as he moved through the opening and found himself in the hallway through the crew quarters. Taking stock, Ren realized he’d been in Ollie’s room, while his own was farther down the hall. But where was Ollie? Where was Rowan? Or Lucas? Or Penelope?

  Stars, he was addled. Splaying his hand against the wall, he entered the ship and swept along the vid screens and the comm system. No one was onboard, not even Lucas who tended to stay with the ship. He scanned the ship’s messages, and the last received was to Rowan, which stated a date and a time and a location. A coordinated exchange—Rowan was still doing business?

  Ren flinched at the date. Six weeks had passed since Crei. He’d been asleep for six weeks. Asher had been gone for that whole time. Where was he? Why hadn’t Rowan found him?

  He disengaged from the ship and slid to the floor; the wound in his side twinged, reminding him of the reason he’d been asleep for so long. He gauged the small progress he’d made down the hall and sighed. Settling back into his body would be difficult, especially if being corporeal meant being trapped in flesh that didn’t want to obey him and moved slowly. Already he was exhausted, and hunger gnawed his stomach. He touched the tube in his arm, and wondered if that was how Penelope had kept him alive.

  Wrapping up in the blanket, Ren sent a blast of heat to his location, enough to warm the air and to stop the shivers that traveled up his body. Content to rest until his friends returned, he let his eyelids droop.

  Would they be surprised to see him? Would they be happy that he was finally awake? Would they turn him away once he was stronger?

  No. They wouldn’t, and doubting them was an insult to the loyalty and kindness they’d shown him. He banished the thoughts, recognizing them for the poison they were. If only he’d recognized Asher’s devotion when he’d had the chance.

  Asher.

  Ren’s heart seized. He’d screwed up. He’d pushed Asher away and now he was gone. He could only wonder what he was doing now. Was he being punished for being AWOL? Was he being lauded for killing the star host who had attacked them on Erden? Did he think of Ren at all? Fondly? Indifferently? Ren swallowed around the lump in his throat. His only choice was to make it right. To fix it. And he would. If it cost him his last breath, he’d talk with Asher one more time and do what he could to make everything right between them. Whatever it took, he’d do it, because he needed Asher, because his feelings for Asher were deep and affectionate and like nothing he held for anyone else.

  With that decided, Ren drifted, on the edge of sleep, cozy and gradually warmer wrapped in a blanket on the deck plate. He dreamed about an orange sun and a sandy shore and a clear blue lake. He dreamed about splashing in the froth and the green canopy of trees and a breeze that ruffled his hair.

  As he slipped deeper into his doze, a disturbance shook him awake. He startled, eyes sliding open. Someone approached the ship from the drift, and their presence bristled over Ren’s skin; his power alerted him to whoever was crossing the
barrier he’d unconsciously created around the ship.

  Ren merged with the Star Stream. Spying them from the security cameras, his hope that it was Rowan or one of the others fizzled when he saw the pair of youths huddled close to the bay door. Hats pulled low and dark scarfs over their features, they attempted to bypass the lock, inserting a chip and a code. Amused, Ren mustered a smile and blocked their inelegant attempt to open the door. They cursed when their override didn’t work.

  “Cogs! I thought you said the universal key would let us in,” one hissed.

  The other shrugged. “It does on most ships. Just not on this one.”

  “That confirms the theory then.”

  “How does that confirm the theory? It just means they have stronger locks than the other fools docked around here.”

  “They have stronger locks because they have something they want to hide.”

  Interest piqued, Ren focused in on the speaker—a girl with hair as black as his home’s night sky save for streaks of nebula purple that peeked from beneath her cap and with dark eyes that darted between the door and her companion.

  “Yeah, how do you know?”

  She pulled down her scarf to reveal olive skin and a mouth she pressed into a thin, annoyed line. “It’s my job to know. Okay? Trust me.” She flashed an impish smile.

  Her companion shook his head. “In case you haven’t noticed, Darby, we live on the outermost drift in the cluster. Your information could be years old.”

  “Don’t doubt me. I told you, there is something on this ship that the Phoenix Corps wants badly enough to chase it planet-side.”

  Ren physically recoiled, and pain flared up his torso. He snapped into his body; the back of his head smacked into the bulkhead. The Corps. Anxiety coursed through him, and he scrambled to his feet. He stumbled down the hallway, unsure where he was going, knowing only that he needed to move, escape. Breathing hard, he ducked into the common area, tumbled past the dining table, and fell to the deck in front of the worn couch.