28
“Open a channel,” Nix ordered.
Liam’s hand found its way to the proper switch and flipped it up. Zega’s image appeared on the cockpit’s window, projecting up from somewhere behind the console. His image was translucent, the growing yellow surface of Garuda shining through him. Zega looked tired, heavy bags forming under his eyes even visible in the poor projection. Liam heard a crash from somewhere on the other end and Zega’s image sputtered before regaining its clarity.
“Nix!” Zega yelled through the intermittent feed, “We’re under attack. It’s the Kraven. They mustn’t find her.”
Nix held his hands up in front of him and said, “Zega, slow down. Our sensors haven’t picked up any other vessels.”
“They masked their signatures somehow. The Ansarans didn’t know they were coming until the Kraven were already on us.”
Liam peered out the cockpit’s window to his left, trying to make out the settlement on the horizon. It took only a moment before a faint green light shined in the distance, lighting up the surface. Liam recognized those laser blasts anywhere. Those were Kraven weapons.
“Have they breached the city?”
Zega shook his head. “The spires hold. For now. Tell me you have news from the Disciples.”
Liam and Nix exchanged glances.
“The Gift of Re was indeed real,” Nix began. “It was a device with the power to create a wormhole.”
“What do you mean was?” Zega snapped, his eyes narrowing as though he was used to Nix disappointing him.
“It was recently stolen by an Ansaran. That’s all we found out before...”
Another crash on the other end shook Zega’s projection. He stammered, “Before what?”
“Before the Disciples attacked us,” Liam stated flatly. “Xara sends his regards by the way.”
Zega was silent. He lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I knew that Xara was no good. Still, this information is more important than you realize.”
“How do you mean?” Liam asked.
“It means that the rumors are true. It’s as bad as I feared. Our spies know that Ragnar has been trying to broker an alliance with the Kraven. The device we spoke of really does exist, and its power could change everything.”
“Why would the Ansarans want a device that could open a wormhole?” Ju-Long asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Zega derided him. “The Ansarans planned to use the Kraven to gain resources and territory. After the War of a Thousand Years, most of the planets and moons in this system had been mined dry. Even today, most of the Ansaran ships are made from melted down debris from the war. But that doesn’t mean the cowards would want to take all the risk themselves.”
“The Disciples said they received the device as a gift from the Ansaran High Council,” Saturn said. “Why would they involve the Disciples?”
Nix crossed his arms and said, “One of Ragnar’s supporters must have sent the device to the Disciples so it would be easier to access. There’s no way he could have gotten to it on Ansara. Their security is far too tight.”
Liam was confused. He tried to organize his thoughts aloud, “So Ragnar has the device sent to the Disciples, steals it, and then hands it directly over to the Kraven? He’d have no cards on the table.”
Nix and Zega looked confused. Something must have been lost in translation.
Liam continued, “Ragnar would have no reason to hand the device over if he didn’t have a guarantee that the Kraven would stay true to their word.”
The cockpit was silent, the crew appearing to be deep in thought. Finally, Nix spoke up, “Ragnar would have had a reason. While working in the spire, I overheard him speaking to the High Council on Ansara. The council told him they’d lost faith in his ability to lead. He was desperate.”
Liam stared once more at the surface of Garuda, growing larger by the minute. “If that’s true, then Ragnar wasn’t brokering peace with the Kraven, he was changing sides.”
Zega cursed. “That means he intends for Garuda to fall.”
In his shaky projection Zega looked frightened rather than his usual displeased demeanor. He rung his hands together, claws digging into his rough scales. “I have given you more information, and so I call in this one, rather large favor.”
Liam’s jaw tightened and the scar running along his face felt taut along his cheekbone.
Nix seemed surprised. “I have known you many years, but never have you called in a favor from me. The spires are in lockdown, I’m not sure what you expect us to do from out here.”
Zega’s eyes narrowed and he seethed, “Get me off this planet and consider your slate clean. All of you. I don’t care how it’s done.”
“There are more than a million Dinari down there,” Saturn argued. “What about them?”
Zega’s nose scrunched up, the scales seeming to lift up at odd angles. He spat, “What’s done is done. The Kraven have the taste of blood and nothing will stop that now. The Ansarans will fight and they will die. The Kraven won’t stop there. In their eyes the Dinari are just as culpable for their misfortunes as the Ansarans.”
Nix ground his teeth and slammed a clawed fist down on the console, temporarily disrupting the feed. “Enough!” he shouted. “Garuda has been my family’s home for generations and I will not stand by and watch it fall to ash. If the Kraven want a war, they’ve got one.”
Liam’s eyes grew as he watched their Dinari guide defend his homeland. He knew if it were Earth he’d feel the same way. For as often as he scorned the corruption and flaws of his home planet, it would always be the place he grew up. Before the wormhole, before the mine, and before traipsing around the solar system looking to make a credit, he was a citizen of Earth and damn proud of it.
“What do you think you can accomplish?” Zega asked. “You’ve got one ship and a crew incapable of flying her.”
“You of all people should know her capabilities. This is the ship that survived the massacre on Ansara. The ship that single-handedly destroyed a Kraven Nightstalker, the fabled hunter-killers themselves.”
“That was a long time ago. She’s old, falling apart. The pilots of that age are long since dead and you haven’t got a sliver of their talents.”
“You don’t know her like I do.”
“I won’t say it again whelp, a deal’s a deal. Honor my favor and get me off this rock or...”
“Or what? You’ll sick Riken on me? Your prized fighter won’t do you much good from the inside of the spire’s energy field.”
“You would deny me the right to call in a favor? You would go against the ancient ways of our people?”
Nix looked to Liam as if to apologize for what he was about to say. “I have a counterproposal.”
A large blast shook Zega’s projection once more and he braced himself against the table in front of him. His expression was becoming increasingly desperate. “I’m listening,” he huffed.
“We will stop the Kraven attack. After they’ve disbanded if you’d like to leave the planet I’d be happy to fly you wherever you wish, provided we’re still alive, that is.”
“If you succeed I’ll have no need of your favor, and if you fail I’ll have no recompense. You’ve learned from the best, Nix.”
“So you agree?”
“If I don’t I suspect you’ll do it anyway,” Zega said, defeated. “But if you survive this, don’t expect me to sing your praise. If you put a scratch on that ship, I’ll—”
Nix flipped a switch on the control console and Zega’s projection dissipated, his voice along with it. Garuda’s massive surface filled their viewport. Its brilliant light growing in size before them. Liam looked to Saturn and Ju-Long who sat in their chairs silently. If their thoughts were anything like his, they were unsure what exactly had just happened.
Nix hovered over the control panel, shoulders hunched, staring off into the sandy abyss ahead. When his temper flared he could be as frightening as Xara, something Liam was surprised to see
out of the normally collected Dinari. He turned his back to the cockpit’s window and faced the crew.
“I wouldn’t ask this if there were any other choice. There might have been a way to get past the Kraven and get Zega out of the spire’s energy field, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Where would we go? Where would you go now for that matter?”
Ju-Long stood up, spreading his hands wide as he spoke. “Regardless of where we go, it’s Ragnar and the Kraven who hold the answers to getting us home.”
“But even if we were capable, we can’t go home yet,” Liam reasoned. “The Kraven could simply follow us. Earth’s weapons would be no match.”
Saturn unstrapped her harness and stood tall, balling her fists and cracking her knuckles, “Then we fight. The Kraven have to be stopped.”
Liam nodded solemnly and stood up from the pilot’s chair. He eyed each of the crew in turn, stopping on Nix. “If you’re asking for our help, you have it.”
Nix’s cool manner shifted and he bore a devious grin, as though he’d been waiting for this opportunity all his life. His gaze turned upward to a maze of pulsing purple lines Liam hadn’t noticed before, glowing intensely like the strange energy from the spires. “How about it? Do you have it in you to go one more round?”