The Exiled Earthborn (51 page)

“Nobility is foolish,” the creature hissed. “It will not save you.”

“I know,” Lucas said. His attention was caught by something on the central console. There was another message being broadcast, one that had been set to play after Alpha’s father’s video was complete. It apparently had already been running for some time.

It was Alpha, speaking to the camera this time, broadcasting to his entire species during the communications blackout. This was the only message any of them were seeing. He was mid-speech already.

“… and now that we understand the full extent of the Council’s treachery, rise up with me. Rise up and take back your planet! Take back your homes! Take back your lives!”

A call to arms. Resistance agents planted all over the quadrant were likely spearheading uprisings all across the colonies. A pair of monitors showed angry crowds massing outside central command as he spoke. Flashes of gunfire and explosions could be seen on the screens.

“Curious,” the Desecrator said. “The truth exposed. The colonies in chaos. The homeworld in flames. An opportunity.”

“An opportunity for what?” Lucas asked. He checked Natalie; he wasn’t sure how much life the rifle had left in it.

“A new ruler,” the Desecrator mused. “A powerful one. No Ruling Council. One singular pillar of strength.”

“It will be Alpha,” Lucas said, gritting his teeth.

“It will be
me
,” the Desecrator snarled. “I tore the Council limb from limb after I learned of their lies. I will be the hero. All Xalans will ascend to glory in my image.”

Lucas could see the Desecrator’s new plan forming in front of his eyes. With a power vacuum, he could easily attempt such a coup. There was obviously none who could match his prowess in battle. The violent elements of the Xalan government that remained could rally behind him.

He couldn’t let that happen. This had to be more than some noble gesture so that his friends could escape. The Desecrator had to die, right here, right now, or Xala could become more dangerous than ever.

Lucas pulled Natalie’s trigger, but recoiled as the gun sparked violently in his arms and actually glowed so hot it began to melt the mesh fiber suit covering his hands. His old friend was on the edge of death, just as he was.

“Pitiful,” the Desecrator said. “Now, step forward and you may receive the honorable death you desire. That much I will allow you for the part you played here today.”

Lucas looked down at the unstable core visible through the shorn-off section of the gun. A revelation. He knew what he had to do. He was jolted by a voice on his armor comm.

“Lucas?” it said. It was Asha; she’d regained consciousness.

He was too stunned to speak.

“Lucas?” she said again.

“I’m here,” he finally said.

“Where are you?” she asked, her voice weak. She was probably overflowing with painkillers. “Are you on the ship?”

“No, Asha,” he said. The Desecrator was circling him slowly, and Lucas never took his eyes off the beast.

“I’m not coming back.”

Asha’s voice grew stronger.

“What? Where are you? What’s happening?”

Lucas spoke quickly.

“Listen, I need you to go back to Sora. I need you to be a mother to Noah and Erik. I need you to tell them that what we did here was worth it. I need you to tell them I didn’t abandon them.”

“What? No!” her voice was getting frantic now. “Where is he?” she said, presumably to Alpha. There were whispers Lucas couldn’t make out.

“No! No!” she shouted, “We’re going back. We can’t—”

“Asha!” Lucas yelled into his comm. “You have to go. We can’t leave the boys alone in this world. They need you!”

“
I
need you!” she cried. Lucas could hear muffled sounds of her struggling, presumably trying to get out of Alpha’s grasp. Fortunately she was likely too weak to succeed.

The Desecrator was growing impatient and strode toward Lucas. Alpha continued to talk on the prerecorded message behind him. The words “freedom” and “tyranny” were coming up often. Lucas was starting to feel quite dizzy. The wound in his side was draining him completely and his blood was spattered all over the metal floor. He was cold, almost freezing.

Lucas looked down at Natalie; the rifle was practically vibrating in his hands now. He ran his thumb over the etching in her stock one last time. He turned the gun on its side and arced his finger around the control panel there, increasing its power output.

W
ARNING

“I need you too,” he said to Asha.

D
ANGER

“I’ll always be with you.”

C
ONTAINMENT

“You have to believe that.”

F
AILURE

“I love you.”

C
ORE

“I love you so much.”

O
VERLOAD

Natalie was now so molten that the gun had eaten through his suit and was burning his palms. This was it. He flung the rifle out in front of him. It bounced once on the metal floor and slid underneath the Desecrator’s legs. The creature looked down, confused.

Finally, Asha’s small, soft voice spoke through the comm.

“I love y—”

She was cut off by the blast.

Lucas saw the light for a instant, reflecting through every conductor crystal in the relay like a trillion stars all going supernova at once.

Beautiful.

27

Lucas was on the Ark.

Asha lay with her head resting on his shoulder and her arm across his chest. The softness of her T-shirt was matched only by her skin. She smelled of autumn, somehow.

Ahead, Alpha was sitting at Lucas’s desk in front of a pile of metal and circuitry, working on some new invention, no doubt. Noah sat at Alpha’s feet, grinning at Lucas. The boy turned to rock a nearby makeshift cradle where the tips of Erik’s little toes could be seen.

Asha slowly began to wake; her eyelids fluttering. Lucas found himself gazing into those brilliant green eyes that never failed to leave him breathless.

She said nothing, simply smiled.
That
smile.

This was everything he needed, right here.

He could stay here forever.

28

Asha sat propped up against the cold metal of the cargo hold. Her legs were bare after they’d stripped away the tattered remains of her stealth suit. The cut across her leg was gruesome and was currently being held together by metal stitches and organic sealant put in place by Kiati. It felt like her thigh was full of a thousand white-hot needles, but she blocked out the pain, refusing further drugs when they were offered.

Kiati had to eventually be induced into a coma, as her own injuries were far more severe than she was letting on. Alpha had a nasty gash across the side of his face, but would survive. Only Zeta had emerged from the encounter nearly unscathed, nursing only a minor leg wound. The pair of them were on the bridge, piloting their escape craft through the unsuspecting Xalan fleet anchored in the solar system, which was too busy with the chaos on the homeworld to notice them. They were simply one more military vessel, flying aimlessly without orders like all the rest. Soon, they would be far enough away to activate their white null core and head home.

Asha was locked in the room, she knew that, and had grown exhausted from banging on the door or attempting to pry open paneling to escape.

She couldn’t blame Alpha for doing it. After all, she had threatened him at gunpoint to turn the ship around to go back for Lucas.

Alpha tried explaining it to her scientifically. They’d all heard the blast. Felt it as they made their escape. Alpha realized what Lucas had done, how he’d detonated the core of his weapon to kill the Desecrator. That was no ordinary gun, and no ordinary explosion. There wouldn’t be anything left of him to find.

Asha didn’t believe it, and leveled her revolver at her friend’s head to make him take her back and prove it to her. It was Zeta who clubbed her from behind, and she woke up here with the two of them profusely apologizing. They had to leave. They had to leave or none of them would make it out.

They kept the ship’s comm channel open in the hold, though Asha said nothing back when they spoke to her. Zeta confirmed that the entire Xalan comms relay had been destroyed by Lucas’s detonation, and the Xalans were frantically trying to get communications back online using backup systems. Alpha contacted Tannon Vale, who reported that the Xalan invasion force had become disoriented by the transmission of the message and subsequent communication blackout. The Sorans had managed to destroy a good amount of the enemy fleet in the ensuing confusion, and the Xalans were forced to turn tail and run. Sora was saved. For now.

But Asha didn’t care. She simply stared down at her communicator and listened to the gentle white noise of the static.

Any minute now.

Silence.

Any minute.

Asha felt the ship lurch and then slow to what felt like a stop. She turned to look out the window and saw the familiar multicolored haze of a space-time tunnel. The core had been activated. They were headed back to Sora without Lucas. This was really happening.

Asha stayed in the room. She wouldn’t leave, even after Alpha unlocked the door. For weeks, she accepted food and water from them and allowed Zeta to change the bandages on her leg, but said nothing. Did nothing. If she slept it was only because she unwillingly passed out on occasion, only to jolt awake a few hours later. She continued staring out the window, listening to her comm, now millions of miles out of range.

One device never left her hand. A tiny chip, only a centimeter wide. She pressed it like she had a thousand times. A familiar list of names came up.

Alpha.

Noah.

Erik.

Asha.

Lucas’s Final. His last words recorded just in case. His goodbye. He’d slipped it into her armor when she wasn’t looking sometime before the mission began.

Asha hovered over her name. She hadn’t been able to press it so far. If she did, that was it, she thought, Lucas was really gone. Her finger drifted dangerously close to the icon, but at the last second, she closed the menu and tucked the chip back into her pocket.

Not yet.