Void Star (18 page)

     How
? Was all he could think as they ran up the cargo hold.

     Boost closed the door after them as they all went up toward the pax compartment. It closed on another hungry batch of wild casks. The ship's hull sounded off as more and more came out of the woodwork.

     Nathan led the way up to the top of his ship and saw Trevor near the controls. He was lying on the ground again, out cold. Nathan slapped his face a little bit. His skin was like fire to the touch. He was in a pool of sweat.

     Nathan shook him, and finally, Trevor stirred. "Hmm?"

     His heart rejoiced that he was still coherent. He picked a great time to come out of it. "Good job, kid. You hanging in there?"

     Trev opened his eyes and looked around. Color was returning to his face. "I had a dream I was…" He realized where he was. "Oh…It wasn't a dream."

     Kaida and Glade exchanged a look.

     "C'mon. I need my copilot."

     Trevor pulled himself up without Nathan's help. Kaida found a maintenance towel and dried him off a little with it. Trev found his bearings just when he needed them. The ship took a hard hit from something.

     Nathan looked outside the turret. Seven or eight casks were trying to claw their way in, and beyond the dead casks, a group of them was coming out of the jungle.

     When Nathan looked back inside his ship, he saw Trevor was already scaling down the ladder toward the cockpit. He was okay for the moment.

     Nathan met him in there and took his seat. "Time to go." He hit the surface defense, which electrified the outside of the ship. Surprised screams rang out from outside. Then the bumping began once more. Nathan throttled the engines up and started making ground. Their weight and balance was a little off, but he'd been through worse scrapes.

     "How bad?" Nathan looked over as he pulled into a takeoff pattern. Looking down on them was one last cask; it was screaming and trying to break through the front windows. Then it fell off and began a five-thousand-foot free fall.

     "We have more trouble." Trevor coughed.

     "What now?"

     Trev just pointed. According to the radar, outside the planet was a mass of gray, just like they had seen on Flora.

     It was the darkness anomaly.

     "How did it get out here so fast?" Kaida asked herself. "That means…" She didn't have to say it; most of the known universe was most likely gone. All that remained on this side was deep Ruveran space and the abandoned galaxies beyond that.

     As soon as they passed through the layer of sandstorms, they could see the darkness once more. It was the same pulsing black mass tearing through the center of the galaxy. It engulfed the solar system's sun and then spiraled from it toward the center, ripping apart the planets near it. One dark stream hit Loffgannon, and the effect threw their ship into space. Just as they began to get their bearings, the anomaly began pulling the system into itself. Tongues from the great abyss reached out to taste them.

    Nathan engaged the force drive. The counter began to tick bar by bar, though much faster than it had before.

     Thank you, Oran.

     The shadowy chunks left of Loffgannon were being pulled along with them. The hungry black force pulsed as it swallowed everything in its path.

     The velocity at which everything was being sucked in was increasing—or else Nathan's body was pumping so much adrenaline that time slowed.

     He watched the bars and then turned back to the windows. They were spinning now as the darkness pulled them into oblivion.

     Just as it came to swallow them, Nathan engaged the force drive, and they hyper-jumped blindly into space.

     They burst out several galaxies away, grateful they hadn't flown through anything. The
Wrath
glided along slowly, at rest.

     Trevor didn't celebrate this time. It had been much too close. He wiped the moisture from his hair and coughed.

     "I can't believe it's gotten this far," Trev said into the quiet. He was still coming out of his fever.

     "It's getting worse. If it's this far…that means it's run through the ribbon and is spreading faster than it can ever be repelled," Nathan said and then added grimly, "I don't want to think of what happens if we don't find this artifact thing." He dusted sand from his outfit. "There won't be much left to save if we don't act fast."

     Kaida and Glade were behind them filling the additional crew member seats. They couldn't agree more.

     They all took a collective breath.

     "Where are we headed?" Trevor asked. "What's left? Is there anywhere left to go?" His hand was hovering over the NAV.

     Kaida had the cipher solved in her hands. "It's a short journal entry. It says he waited for Cleph'thera. He and his Absolver were attacked. His Absolver was poisoned. After Raxus had to bury his friend, he knew he had to leave. Then there's just a name: Zephlar-318," she answered.

     Trevor searched through and found it. "It's not too far from here." He calculated the route. Nathan hit the ignition, and the
Wrath
flew forward.

Chapter 19

     At the
Razerus XIII
, deep beneath its state-of-the-art defenses, Dacian Velkas sat staring at his monitors. A Ruveran monitoring station in the Charkus-3 system went offline as it entered the maw of the black abyss. For the last twelve hours, he had been bombarded by thousands of similar reports—all of them having to do with the same anomaly appearing, destroying everything, and continuing on. It wasn't clear if it remained in the area it destroyed and expanded from there, or if it was what it appeared to be: a wall of death. This latest report was a bit different; it was first time in a long time he had seen his old adversary in his Tiger-37.

     "And…close one," he told the screen. He rewound the video and saw the little ship make it out. He had no idea how close he had come to oblivion. Sutherland would never go down, would he? He was somehow tied with that loser band of Elysians. That was a new problem too, since they had cut rug and vanished with their new fleet.

     His aged face crinkled in thought. He had to worry about what he could control. The anomaly had gone everywhere but the side of the universe his people inhabited. They were next. This brought his mind to the strange meeting with Abel and the deal he couldn't refuse.

     He called up his fleet commander. "What do you have, Yorhune?"

     The gaunt-faced young man appeared on his screen and didn't look happy. On the screen before him was a Breaker overlooking the destruction of another galaxy. "The aberration is unstoppable. We've been using rifts to try and slow it, but it keeps coming."

     "I put you in charge of this for a reason. Deal with it." Velkas looked past his commander at their ship's viewer and saw the arms of darkness coming for his Breaker.

     Yorhune never answered again. The video feed was cut off.

     In the quiet of his office, Velkas took a difficult swallow. His empire was crumbling before his eyes.

     He strode through his office and took in his private collection, which ran along the walls. There were treasures from countless foes the Ruveran Empire had defeated throughout their centuries of unopposed dominance. His favorite would always be a simple chunk of rock. His men had presented it to him in a ceremony after the greatest battle Ruvera had ever won. It was the last piece that remained of the planet Earth. He mused that the Earthborns had been their greatest adversary since ancient times, when his ancestor Relken first took over the planet of Vale. Putting down that revolution over five hundred years ago set everything else in motion like a domino effect. Of course, they'd abandoned Vale in search of other conquests centuries ago. That was until he learned of the Void Star and returned to their ancient homestead.

     And now their long reign was coming to an end. Life was coming to an end. Maybe he would have one last laugh with an old enemy. That brought his mind back to his present conflict.

     "You almost have it." Like a scream run through a grinder, the voice ripped at his mind.

     He dropped to both knees.

     "Do you remember my deal?" Abel asked. He was in his office, sitting behind his desk. Abel started tossing the chunk of Earth up into the air and catching it on the way down.

     Velkas struggled to stay conscious through the pain. It felt like something was ripping his mind apart. Then it stopped.

     "I am almost finished ending the universe, Dacian. It's been pretty fun thus far. And a long time coming." Abel threw the clump of rock up and smashed it into dust. It rained into nothingness. "So what's your answer? When the Void Star reaches your hand, you will…?"

     "Destroy it. Immediately!" Velkas cried.

     "Good. Good answer. Bravo." Abel appeared at his side and helped him to his feet. "You know what? There is something else."

     Velkas braced himself for another onslaught.

     "Easy, bud," Abel said calmly. "I'm only going to ask a personal favor, from one new ally to another."

     "Anything," Velkas moaned.

     "There is this legend of the device, and for some reason, I believe it's true. My vision is blocked from something about to occur, and I don't like that. I have a theory of who it is that's been chosen to stop me, and I would like you to do something special for me to make sure they can't."

     Velkas just nodded.

     "That's a good boy." Abel chuckled. "So here's the deal…"

-o-

     For a long time, he sat quietly at his desk and stared into open space. He kept thinking about taking his ship and flying into a star. It would be fast and much better than what was coming. Would it even let him?

     "Master Velkas," the intercom buzzed. "Are you there, sir?"

     He sat there numb. At last, he shook himself out of it. There had to be a way out of this. He was Dacian Velkas, master of the universe. He was letting his judgment get clouded.

     "Yeah, I'm here." As the wheels in his mind churned, he knew what he was going to do next. "Open a line to Render."

     It didn't take long for his people to route a line to his assassin. The dark-armored figure appeared on the screen. "What can I do for you, sir?" came the robotic question.

     "Render, ready to make things right?" Dacian fumbled to clear his messy, long white hair from his face.

     "I will atone for losing the star," Render replied darkly.

     "That you shall."

     "My ship is closing in on their ship's location. What will you have me do?"

     "I have a new plan."

Chapter 20

     Nathan brought his ship out of the hyper-jump. He saw the little fledgling space station the NAV had designated. Zephlar-318 was barely the size of a small city and had all the appearance of a junk frigate. He got clearance to land and went into the docking port. His was one of three ships in the nearly empty bay. The
Wrath
limped into a spot with her broken gear earned from Loffgannon's landing. It sounded like it bent more metal back. But it could be worse.

     The docking bay closed and a dirty, green light indicated it was oxygenated. From the view in the cockpit, Nathan could already tell they weren't going to find an Eckelion here. The sleek blue WX-33 the Eckelions flew was absent.

     Nathan led the way off the ship. They processed through the receiving center, a gray-walled square with the latest space weather and occurrences displayed on multiple screens. Nathan had Trevor break into their system. He went through the visitors' log and couldn't find any Raxus. Plus, the last Eckelion ship to traverse this area had been there months ago.

     "You're right. He hasn't been here," Trevor agreed. Sweat beads were gathering across his forehead. He was still looking better than he had on Loffgannon though.

     "We should wait." Nathan answered. He saw what looked like red scratch marks running down the back of Trev's neck. They were definitely new. It appeared as if his blood vessels were bursting out. He steadied Trevor as he wobbled. "You all right?"

     A dizzy spell was leaving him woozy. Trev grabbed the counter. "I'm good. I just need a drink." He was holding his head. It looked like the sickness was pulling him back.

     Nathan looked to Boost. "I can't let this go further. He's needs medical attention. Get him to a medical station."

     "Aye, Captain," he answered. Just as Boost came up to Trevor, he collapsed against him.

     "I'm going to look around in case he is here and didn't register in." Nathan's face softened when it stopped at Kaida. "Can you look after him?"

     Kaida nodded. "Of course." She ran over and gave him a quick kiss and then hurried after Boost.

     Glade was looking through the glass top of the station toward the stars beyond. "I have a sinking feeling something terrible is headed our way."

     "Me too. Help me figure out a backup plan."

     Glade followed Nathan out of the receiving center.

-o-

     A sinister-looking red ship appeared outside the fledgling space station. It crawled to a stop, floating there for a few minutes until Render pulled it around.

     Master Velkas had doled out several squadrons of specialized ground troops for this. They sat hunkered down below deck, ready to move out. There was always room for overkill.

     The blip on the ship's radar had gone from flashing to a steady red.

     Sutherland's ship was there, which meant Trevor was with him.

     Render smiled at the chance to finally get revenge for what that stupid kid had done.

-o-

     Trevor, on the other hand, wasn't concentrating on anything. After going in and out of consciousness, seeing blurry lights and pitch-black, he found himself back on Io. He had been getting ready to go on a secret trip to infiltrate Ruvera. With no cure in sight, he had traded his dream of being a diplomat to be a spy for his world. After wrestling with how he should spend his remaining years, he decided he should make his life mean something. He knew this deadly quest would probably get him killed. Trev had just stopped by to say good-bye to his father. Then it would be onto the much harder task of breaking off his engagement to Nya.