Breaking Point

by David Alastair Hayden

  Her eyes glittered as she examined the cut on his leg. "I'll rewrap the bandage." She removed a knife from her belt and handed him the sheath. "Bite down on this."

  He put the sheath between his teeth. She positioned the makeshift bandage then yanked it tight. He bit down hard, stifling a scream.

  “Painkiller?” he asked.

  "Can't give you any more."

  “You sure?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never taken more than three in a day.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  She pulled another pill out of a pocket and held it out. “Your call.”

  He swiped it out of her hand, tossed it back, and swallowed. He grimaced as it burned going down, like a mix of horseradish and Siriusan tequila, with a dash of hydrochloric acid added in.

  She passed over her canteen reluctantly, and he drank a big sip. Before he could take another, she swiped it back. "We need to conserve."

  He groaned as he stood. She chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” he grumbled.

  “You know, you’re kind of handsome—now.”

  “What?”

  “For such an old guy.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  He found that nearly impossible to believe. “Well, I’m not even fifty yet.”

  “So you’re old.”

  “That’s not old.”

  “It is to me.” She turned and switched off the light. “We need to move.”

  He lumbered a few tentative steps then took a deep breath. “The pain’s not as bad.”

  “Good. Cause we’ve got almost a half kilometer to go. Although…” She glanced around. “There are other places close by where we could enter wraith space.” She shook her head. “Close in real space but not in wraith.”

  She bolted off, and he jogged after her, grunting with each step. He tried to keep his mind off his leg.

  “What do you mean I’m handsome now?”

  “You looked like an aristocratic ass before, even after they’d roughed you up.”

  “And now?”

  “You almost look like my type.”

  “Type?”

  “Rough around the edges, and everywhere between.”

  That’s what he’d come to. Ambassador Galen Vim—always polished and well-dressed—was now dirty and scarred with his clothes in tatters, and fleeing for his life. And his destination might as well be hell.

  It would be a miracle if he survived.

  He tried to not think about going back into wraith space. Last time, it had felt like his head would split open and his emotional core would melt.

  An explosion rocked the tunnels, the boom overpowering Tamzin’s call for him to move faster. He picked up his pace as best as he could, hoping the explosion had taken out the last of the Reapers, though he doubted it.

  Better the hell ahead, that may or may not kill him, than the one behind. He knew what fate awaited him if the Tekk Reapers got their hands on him again.

  He focused his mind on Oona and Kyralla. He had to return before the Reapers got to them—if it wasn't already too late. Benevolence aid you, Orel Pashta. Keep them safe for me.

  “Get down!” Tamzin cried.

  Trusting she knew what she was about, he dove onto the tunnel floor. She stood over him suddenly, laser rifle up. She fired a continuous beam back-and-forth for two seconds. Screams echoed through the dark. Then, in one fluid motion, she swung the gun back over her shoulder, drew both her pistols and fired several shots. He heard them connect with metal and flesh.

  She holstered her weapons and grabbed one of his hands. “Up!”

  He climbed to his feet and ran as fast as he could.

  “I’d tell you to throw in some zigzags, old man, but they seem to come naturally to you.”

  He wanted to tell her to shut up, but he couldn’t waste the breath. He kept trudging on, his mind centered on Oona and Kyralla.

  He had to escape the Tekk Reapers…then eventually Tamzin. He had to save his girls.

  A white flash struck the wall beside him. Rocks exploded outward. The force of the blast knocked him down. Two more white flashes zipped over his head. Tamzin weaved between them and returned fire.

  She stopped firing and helped him to his feet. The Reapers weren’t returning fire anymore, but he could hear them stomping forward.

  “I’m running out of ammo.” She reached into her pouch. “And you can’t outrun them anymore.” She pulled out the fist-sized, black cube. “It’s safe to enter wraith space here, in this spot.”

  He cringed. “How close are we?”

  “Three-tenths of a kilometer away from where we need to be, in both wraith and real space.”

  “It’s too far.”

  “It’s right here where we’re standing or three hundred meters farther. We don’t have any other alternatives.”

  “I won’t survive.”

  “You must.” She pressed the buttons and stepped in close. “Do it for your girls.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Do it for me.”

  “For you?”

  “I went through a lot of trouble to break you out. I’d like to think it was worth it.”

  He heard the click of the buttons.

  Once again, a bright swirl formed around them. Then he was dragged into what might as well be hell itself.

  7

  Galen Vim

  A cloud of ghosts—snarling, twisted, long-limbed beings with distorted faces—descended on Galen. He fell to his knees, threw his arms up, and cried out in terror.

  “Tamzin!”

  She grabbed his arm. “I’m right here.”

  The ghosts fell upon them, and he screamed as sharp pinpricks washed across his skin. When the sensation ended moments later, he opened his eyes to see the remainder of the cloud seeping into the ground beneath them.

  The wormhole was again an empty passage tunneling through a raging, multicolored storm cloud veined with lightning. He tried not to look down because the surface they walked on was the same as the walls of the tunnel. And though it felt solid beneath his feet, he worried he would fall through into the energy storm.

  It had taken twenty-odd minutes to cover the space between where they’d entered wraith space and the mouth of the wormhole. As soon as they had entered it, Galen had realized that he’d greatly underestimated the hellishness of this trip. They’d gone from what he’d merely thought was hell to what had to be the actual hell of every myth in every old religion that believed a place of eternal torment existed.

  “You left me!” Galen whimpered. He sat, crouched on the ground, cowering at Tamzin’s feet. He wasn’t sure what had happened, only that he’d been alone in this living nightmare.

  “You shoved me away and ran. Again.”

  He stared at her in confusion a moment. He didn’t remember pushing her away, but it was possible. From one moment to the next, he hardly knew what was going on or what he was doing.

  Tamzin said the disorientation was natural, that wraith space couldn’t hurt him, even in the wormhole. But every ghost that passed through him pricked his skin like dozens of needles, and every spark that popped off the walls and struck him ached deep into his bones. It was all in his mind, she said. But knowing that didn’t change the experience.

  He began shivering despite the intense heat as if he had a fever. Thanks to his wound, he might actually have one. Or maybe it was a reaction to Tamzin's homemade pain relievers. Or maybe it was all in his head. How could he possibly know?

  “How much…farther?” he asked.

  “Just over a kilometer,” she answered.

  A hazy beast like a bull with two heads and tentacles sprouting out from its back charged toward them. He stood his ground. The creature wasn't real. It was all in his head. At the worst, when the beast collided with him, it would feel like getting punched in the gut, and the sensation would only last a few moments.

  When it was just several meters off, he snapped. He ripped away from
Tamzin, turned, and ran from it. When it reached him, he dove aside. The beast clipped him, its form passing through his side. There was no real impact, but it felt like one.

  He slumped down crying. He couldn’t withstand the madness any longer, and he couldn’t go any farther. He was never going to reach the end of the tunnel. He had no hope of surviving this. “Kyralla…Oona…I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “I’ve let you down.”

  When the Tekk Reapers had seized him, he’d been more terrified than ever before in his life, but despite the torture, he had refused to say a word. Pain could never make him betray his girls or the information he’d uncovered. The madness of wraith space though… If the Reapers had brought him here instead, he would have told them anything and everything they wanted to know. Hours of torture were far preferable to another minute here.

  Tamzin loomed over him with a pitying look on her face, a look that was almost worse than this place itself. She’d risked her life to save him—why he still had no idea—and he was letting her down, too.

  He pulled himself up and reached out to her. “Give me your gun.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I can’t take this anymore. And I’m just endangering you. I have to—”

  Tamzin slapped him hard, and he fell to the ground. “I do not help cowards.”

  He yelled as the beast appeared again and charged. He curled up into the fetal position, quivering. It charged through Tamzin and into him. As it left, he groaned, aching all over.

  She knelt beside him. “It’s all in your mind. There are no wraiths. No beasts. Static bursts, yes, but the shocks from them are mild.”

  “You keep telling me, but it doesn’t do any good.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  Tamzin didn't understand what he was going through. She couldn't. She was an experienced delver. A true one he guessed, genetically altered by the Benevolence specifically for the task. But it was a guess only. He'd never seen or heard of anyone with her features before. For her, even in the wormhole, there were no apparitions, no waves of dizziness, no bouts of confused terror.

  “I’m sorry wraith space is breaking you.” She took his face in her hands. “Because it’s an insult to the man you are. I saw what the Tekk Reapers did to you. You didn’t break. And I don’t think you ever would have either.”

  “I couldn’t give up my daughters,” he said.

  “Most people wouldn’t have lasted an hour.” She helped him up. “Now, close your eyes, focus on my voice, and repeat after me. Only Tamzin is real. Nothing here can harm me.”

  Eyes clamped shut, he held tightly to her hand as they marched forward. “Only Tamzin is real. Nothing here can harm me.”

  The mantra helped. Her touch helped even more. But it didn’t make the terrors go away. A ghost wailed behind them. He opened his eyes, turned, and yelped. The spirit had his mother’s face but the body of a lion. That was wrong, so wrong.

  Tamzin pulled him hard. “Stay with me. Don’t look back.”

  He focused on her again, trying to block out the sights around him, and repeated her mantra. The ghost disappeared, or maybe it was still stalking them. He didn’t dare turn around again to find out.

  “You’re doing good. We’re nearly there.”

  Tamzin surged forward, dragging him along by the arm. There was a sucking sensation around him, and then they were suddenly free from the energy tunnel.

  They walked out onto a barren, pockmarked landscape dotted with shimmering purple crystals.

  “Flux…crystals?” he asked. He’d never actually seen any before, though every device he owned and interacted with had batteries made of threads spun from the strange, otherworldly crystals. The entirety of human civilization was built on the backs of those crystals and the ability to charge them by accessing flux space.

  She paused at a large cluster of crystals. “Majestic, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” He squatted and reached toward them, but she jerked him away.

  “You do not want to touch them here. They will intensify the experience.”

  He leaped away from it as if it were a coiled viper preparing to strike. “Why haven’t you harvested these?”

  “When I harvest, I go farther afield, saving these for a rainy day.”

  “You’re not worried about someone else stealing them?”

  She turned back and smiled devilishly at him. “No one else can get here.”

  Galen still suffered the wraith space effects, but they weren’t as intense as they’d been in the wormhole. In fact, he was handling this better than before.

  Although maybe his fatigue was starting to play a part. He’d lost a lot of blood, he was hungry, and he was exhausted. He’d witnessed terrible murders. He’d been tortured. He’d been shot. He was beginning to fade out, and soon, Tamzin might have to carry him.

  “I’m not going to make it much farther.”

  “Focus on my voice. Repeat the mantra.”

  “No, I mean physically.”

  She leaned a shoulder under his arm. “I’ve got you.”

  “The visions aren’t as bad, now that I’m exhausted.”

  “I guess that’s a positive.”

  “Sedatives,” he muttered. “Sedatives would make this place easier to deal with.”

  “If you’ve got someone to guide you, then I guess maybe.”

  “I’ve got…you.”

  She smiled at him. “That you do. And I’ll remember that about the sedatives when we go back.”

  “When we go back?” he asked, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Eventually, you’re going to need to go back through the wormhole.”

  “What…why?”

  “Because this is ultimately a dead end.”

  Galen closed his eyes and prayed for death. He never wanted to go through this again.

  He stumbled and fell, but Tamzin hauled him up. “Just a few more steps.”

  He staggered along, not knowing how she had any clue where they were on this barren and lifeless landscape. A deluge of powerful emotions, horrifying visions, and tortured howling noises struck him. The effects of wraith space returned with a vengeance, and he felt as if he were going mad.

  He slumped to the ground, covered his ears, and rocked back and forth. Tamzin couldn’t break him out of it, so she dragged him the last few meters.

  “We’re here. You made it.”

  She wrapped her arms around him then activated her black cube. A bubble of light formed as the hyperphasic energies swirled around them.

  Then Galen found himself inside what appeared to be the cargo bay of a dilapidated starship.

  Tapestries in mismatched colors and odd patterns hung along corroded walls. Piles of cushions filled one corner, next to a small, tatty mattress. A greasy food replicator stood in another. Some small crates were stacked in various places, with no semblance of order. A large pair of doors led elsewhere, but they were currently closed. Judging from the rust on them, he wasn’t sure they could open.

  She helped him over to the mattress where he collapsed, nearly passing out on the spot. As his eyes drooped downward, Tamzin swept an arm out.

  “Welcome to my home, the starship Falling Rain.”

  8

  Siv Gendin

  Present Day…

  Siv stopped at the farthest edge of the dusty auxiliary starport. It was little more than a barren field used by the poorest starships. The prime space in Teloso’s real starport was reserved for those with money or status.

  He wiped sweat from his brow, rolled his shoulders, and sighed deeply. Battling Kaleeb had left him exhausted and emotionally strung out. He’d nearly died. Worse, he’d almost lost Silky.

  Right now, he wanted nothing more than to curl up in a dark, quiet place far away from this constant danger—far away from everything. Somewhere he could sleep for days, mock stupid movies with Silky, tinker with his gear, and just live his normal life…

  Until the neurological disease tr
iggered by his withdrawal from Kompel caught up with him. Then death could take him, and Silky could move on to Mitsuki or Kyralla. A brief smile flashed across his face. He would die soon, but Silky could go on for many centuries and would preserve their experiences together. Siv Gendin would not be forgotten.

  Less than an hour ago, he and Mitsuki had been about to give up this insane quest to rescue Ambassador Vim. They each had personal reasons for wanting to save the girls' dad but the reward was dubious and the chance of success practically nonexistent. Once Kaleeb showed up, they could no longer justify the risk simply to fulfill their personal desire to rescue someone else’s parent because they'd felt helpless when they'd lost theirs. Besides, Kyralla and Oona needed their help on the Outworld Ranger.

  But then, in a vision, Oona visited the secret genetics research facility every messiah family had spent the last century searching for. She even saw a copy of herself in a stasis chamber. Apparently, her father had discovered the coordinates for the facility shortly before being captured by the Tekk Reapers. That made it worth gambling everything to rescue him.

  There was also the matter of the large, glowing ball she’d seen hovering within a dark chamber underneath the facility. Only Silky knew what it was, and he wasn’t sharing that information with them. For the chippy, that mysterious orb alone made it worth putting all their lives on the line to go after the ambassador.

  So he and Mitsuki were going ahead with their plan to get passage from Zayer Prime to Titus II. But despite the stakes, Siv still had his doubts. As he stared at his and Mitsuki’s way off Zayer Prime, those doubts grew to dread.

  Parked on the opposite side of the field, the Hydrogenists’ starship resembled an armor-plated beetle. Thousands of dents, scratches, and scorch marks marred its bronze hull, which in several places sported patches of silvery metal where repairs had recently been made. The odd arrangement and design of its sensor systems suggested the arrays had been bolted on after the fact, perhaps as replacements to damaged originals. And the dual flak cannons, one mounted underneath and one on top, looked as if they’d been purchased at a salvage yard.