The Revenants Read online

Darius held out another canteen. “You want one?”

  The Lassarian said nothing, but his eyes pinched into thin slits.

  “Well, come get it,” Darius said.

  “Why don’t you bring it to me.”

  Darius frowned. He wasn’t going to pander to a spoiled brat. “Catch.” he said, and tossed the canteen at the boy. Arok’s eyes widened in alarm. At the last possible second, he uncrossed his arms and snatched the canteen out of the air. It had come within an inch of smacking him in the face.

  “Nice reflexes,” Darius said.

  Arok hissed at him and jumped to his feet. “You are mocking me?” His tail lashed the deck in angry swishes.

  Darius blinked. “No.”

  “Then you were hoping I would be slower, so that you could injure me with your cowardly assault.”

  “Hey, calm down, kid. I’ve got nothing against you. Besides your attitude, that is.”

  “Attitude? What attitude?”

  Flitter chirped something, and Seelka sniggered.

  Arok’s yellow eyes swept to them. “What did he say?” Arok demanded.

  “He said you make the Banshee look friendly,” Seelka said.

  Cassandra laughed and nodded along with that. “It’s true!”

  Darius remembered her comment about the Banshee being one of the nicer children, and he wondered if it was because of Arok that she’d said that.

  Arok’s glare found Cassandra next and he took a quick step toward her.

  Darius stepped sideways to put himself between the Lassarian and his daughter. “Hey, calm down, kid.”

  Arok tried to go around him, so he planted a hand on the boy’s chest and gave him a gentle shove.

  “I said—”

  Arok hissed and lashed out with one hand, raking four sharp claws across Darius’s stomach. Fire erupted in his belly and four bright red lines appeared. Darius stared dumbfounded as blood bubbled out and those four parallel gashes blurred together. Blood pitter-pattered to the deck in a steady stream at Darius’s feet.

  Arok grinned and held up his hand. Sharp claws protruded from the tips of all four of his fingers, dark and glistening with blood. He made an effort to peer around Darius and then tossed his head at Cassandra. “I can be funny, too. See?” he said, and roughly turned Darius by his shoulders to face Cassandra. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of Darius’s injury. She jumped to her feet with her hands balled into fists.

  Darius struggled against the Lassarian, but Arok was surprisingly strong for a teenager. He elbowed the kid in the stomach, provoking a loud hiss. Rather than let go of him, Arok tightened his grip and wrapped one of his arms around Darius’s throat. His claws dug in with sharp pricks, pressing dangerously close to Darius’s carotid artery.

  “Apologize,” Arok growled.

  “For what?” Darius asked quietly.

  Arok tightened his grip and his claws dug into Darius’s throat.

  “Stop it!” Cassandra screamed.

  Flitter chittered softly, but Seelka said nothing.

  “Listen,” Darius said. “I apologize if I did something to offend you, okay?”

  “Not good enough.”

  “What do you mean not—” Darius broke off in a gasp as Arok’s claws dug deeper still.

  “Beg for your life, pika.”

  Darius grimaced and swallowed his pride. “Please don’t kill me.”

  “Yess, go on.”

  “Just leave him alone!” Cassandra screamed.

  The airlock swished open in that instant, and a blast of cold air gusted in. Darius glanced sideways, being careful only to move his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything. The airlock was empty.

  “Who is there?” Arok demanded.

  No one answered.

  “Tanik?” Darius asked, wondering if he’d somehow sensed that something was amiss and had come to save his prodigy.

  The airlock swished shut once more. “Nice try,” Arok said. “Distracting me won’t work.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Darius replied.

  “Beg, pika. Beg me to spare your miserable life.”

  Darius was about to do exactly that when he saw a shadowy gray hand reaching down. It was exactly the same color as the inside of the transport. That hand pried Arok’s claws away from Darius’s throat, and then a blast of hot, fetid breath hit Darius, and a massive, gaping maw of jagged gray teeth appeared in front of him. Four black eyes blinked open behind camouflaged lids. Banshees were practically blind in bright light. They hunted by their sense of hearing and smell instead.

  Arok screamed in terror at the sight of the Banshee child. He let go, and Darius stumbled away.

  Darius glanced up to see Gakram clinging to the ceiling upside down. His chameleon hide was almost perfectly blended against the metal roof of the transport.

  Arok was tugging desperately to free his arm, throwing his weight against the Banshee’s iron grip, but despite his best efforts his hand was inching closer to Gakram’s gaping mouth.

  The Banshee snapped his jaws right in front of Arok’s fingers, missing them by a hair.

  Arok whimpered, “Let me go!”

  Gakram’s eyes darted to Darius. “Say the word and I will take his hand.”

  Darius absently rubbed his stinging throat and his hand came away slick with blood. Tempting as it was, a hand for a few scratches wouldn’t exactly be a fair trade. He shook his head. “Let him go.”

  “Are you certain?” Gakram asked.

  “Yes.”

  Gakram released Arok, and the Lassarian fell on his butt with a sharp yelp. He jumped to his feet with a snarl just as Gakram dropped down in front of him on all fours. The Banshee’s barbed tail skittered restlessly across the deck, and he bared his teeth.

  Arok took one look at the Banshee, then spared a hateful glance at Darius, and ran for the airlock. Arok slapped the control panel until he accidentally opened it.

  Once the kid was through, Darius mentally accessed and shut the doors via his extra-sensory chip (ESC). After that, they heard Arok banging on the outer doors. Darius took pity on him and cycled the airlock.

  “Are you okay?” Cassandra asked. She was staring at the bloody mess Arok had made of his stomach.

  Darius nodded. “I’m fine. It looks worse than it is.” He wasn’t bleeding anymore thanks to the nanite injections they’d received after waking from cryo. With those injections, he and Cassandra (along with all of the others from the pods) were capable of healing much faster than normal. Not to mention that they’d no longer get sick or age past their prime.

  Gakram’s skin gradually changed from gunmetal gray to its usual brown color, and he winked the left pair of his four eyes at Darius. “You are welcome.”

  Chapter 7

  Tanik came to get them about an hour after the incident with Arok. He was still wearing his armor, but his helmet was off now, revealing his scarred face and bald head. Tanik didn’t seem surprised to see the smeary puddle of blood on the deck, or Darius’s shredded and blood-soaked jumpsuit.

  “We’re ready for you,” Tanik said. The kids climbed to their feet one after another, but Darius remained seated.

  “Did you see Arok?” Cassandra asked. Her hands balled into fists as she said his name.

  “Who?” Tanik asked.

  “The Lassarian kid.”

  Tanik inclined his head to her. “Ah, yes. I believe I saw him by one of the camp fires eating roasted Awk with the Marines.”

  “Awk?” Darius asked.

  “The Seekers we shot down. I’m told that they taste just like chicken.”

  “You need to arrest Arok,” Cassandra said.

  “And why is that?” Tanik asked.

  “Don’t you see?” Cassandra burst out. She jabbed a finger at the puddle of blood on the deck. “He almost killed my dad!”

  “That is troubling,” Tanik said.

  “So arrest him! Or go dump him off the cliff. I don’t care,” Cassandra seethed.

  “Cass...” Darius ch
ided. “I’m fine. He doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “He tried to kill you!”

  “Your girl is right,” Seelka said. “He would have killed you.”

  “Is that true, Darius?” Tanik asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if he would have killed me, but he was threatening to. He told me to beg for my life.”

  Tanik’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Did you? Did you beg?”

  “I started to. My pride’s not worth my life.”

  Tanik glowered at him. “And why didn’t you fight back?”

  Darius frowned. “I tried, but if I’d moved even a centimeter, he would have ripped my throat out.”

  Tanik scowled. “Get up.”

  Darius frowned. “Give me a second.” He climbed gingerly to his feet, wincing as the movement tugged on the recently-scabbed over gashes in his stomach.

  “Now defend yourself,” Tanik said.

  “What?” Darius asked.

  “You heard me,” Tanik said as he stalked toward Darius with his fists raised.

  “Are you insane?” Cassandra shrieked. She put herself between Tanik and Darius, but he sent her tumbling with a flick of his wrist.

  A hot flash of anger suffused Darius. He roared and ran at Tanik with his fists swinging. Tanik blocked his first blow, and sidestepped the next one. As Darius sailed on with his momentum, Tanik sucker-punched him in the gut.

  All four of the gashes in his stomach ripped open and hot blood bubbled out once more. Darius felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, but he shook his head to clear it.

  “You’re soft,” Tanik said. “Have you never been in a fight before?”

  Darius gritted his teeth. “So what if I haven’t?”

  Tanik snorted. “For someone with an entire galaxy depending on him, you are remarkably complacent. Come on. Try again.”

  “It’s not a fair fight. You’re a Revenant. I haven’t even been trained to use the abilities I supposedly have.”

  “I’m not using any abilities,” Tanik replied, while advancing steadily toward him.

  Darius jerked his chin to his daughter, who was just now picking herself back up. “No?” he demanded.

  “Not on you,” Tanik clarified.

  “You’re also wearing power armor.”

  “You don’t need to injure me. First one to pin the other down wins. I’ve deactivated the power-assist, so my armor is a detriment, not an asset.”

  Cassandra ran at him, screaming incoherently.

  “Don’t!” Darius said.

  She leapt up behind Tanik, as if to claw out his eyes. Instead, she hit an invisible wall and hung there, frozen and suspended in mid-air.

  “Leave us,” Tanik said, glancing at her. “Or I will put you to sleep.” With that, he released Cassandra, and she fell in a heap at his feet.

  Darius scowled darkly at Tanik. Enough was enough. He circled in slowly, keeping his eyes on Tanik’s hands and feet.

  “Good. I’ve got your attention,” Tanik said.

  Darius stopped just out of reach of Tanik, but he continued circling, looking for an opening. He leaned in to deliver a jab to Tanik’s chin, only to receive one to his own. His teeth clacked together noisily. He bit his tongue and tasted blood.

  “Try again,” Tanik said, smiling.

  Darius tried to sweep out his legs with a kick, but Tanik caught that kick and pulled him off his feet. He landed on his backside with a jarring thud, and Tanik fell on top of him a second later. Cold metal armor pressed against Darius’s throat as Tanik pinned him down with one arm. His other arm swept under Darius’s legs, forcing them up to his chest so that he couldn’t use them to deliver a kick. Not that Darius had the attention to spare. He had to use both of his hands and all of his strength just to hold Tanik’s weight off his neck so that he could breathe.

  Tanik shook his head, grinning. “You are pathetic, Darius! Even your daughter would put up more of a fight than this! Perhaps I should try her next. I bet she knows how to take a beating.”

  “Stop it!” Cassandra sobbed.

  Darius’s mind exploded with blinding fury, and he pushed against Tanik with all his might. Tanik’s arm came away from his throat, and his other one slipped out from behind Darius’s legs. Tanik began to get up, but Darius’s hands found his throat and squeezed.

  Tanik straightened, pulling them both up. “Much better,” he croaked in a hoarse whisper. “You win. Let go.”

  Darius blinked in shock. He’d won? Why wasn’t Tanik defending himself? He glanced away from Tanik’s face and took in the scene. Both of Tanik’s arms were spread from his side and wrenched behind him, as if he were straining against invisible chains. Tanik’s yellow-green eyes flicked down, gesturing to the floor.

  Darius followed that gesture and saw that the two of them were hovering several feet above the deck. His rage gave way to shock, and they both fell in a heap with Tanik’s armor clattering loudly.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Cassandra asked, hurrying over to him.

  Darius sat up and nodded.

  Tanik lay on the deck beside him, coughing and laughing. “Very good!” he said, while rubbing his throat. “You see? You can defend yourself.”

  “I did that?” he asked.

  Tanik snorted. “Of course. Why would I hold myself back so that you could throttle the life out of me?”

  Darius slowly shook his head. “How?”

  Seelka stared warily at the two of them, while Flitter chittered nervously.

  Tanik gave a twisted grin. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”

  Chapter 8

  Gatticus stood on the upper hull of his Osprey. His mag boots held him in place while he used a laser torch to weld the final pieces of his comm probe together. Stars shined all around him, dazzling in their brilliance. Gatticus took a moment to revel in the boundless beauty of the void. But only a moment.

  He went back to work, firing his laser torch to join components together. The laser itself was invisible since there was no air in the vacuum to refract the light. The effects, however, were readily apparent. Hardened alloys with incredibly high melting points liquefied and flowed together like sticks of butter in a pot.

  Gatticus turned off the laser, allowing the joins to cool. He ran a diagnostic on the probe’s systems, checking the nav computer, Alckam drive, and comms one last time. He’d set the probe’s course for Drake Depots #926, the nearest re-fueling station. It was located along a less-traveled route—the Callisto-Abbex Starlane—but hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before a Union ship stopped there and received Gatticus’s distress call. Failing that, perhaps the depot manager would spring for the cost of sending the message down the Starlane via comm probe. Gatticus’s message promised a reasonable reward for any action which led to his safe return to Union Space. The reward would be enough to encourage civilian cooperation, but not enough to attract attention from unscrupulous freelancers who might think he was rich and try to hold him for ransom.

  Regardless, as long as Gatticus’s probe arrived with enough power left to transmit his distress call to the depot, his rescue was inevitable. It was a legal imperative for any Union Navy or Security vessel in receipt of a distress call to respond, and in the case of civilians, like the depot manager, they were obliged to pass along such calls at their earliest convenience.

  Gatticus set the probe’s maneuvering thrusters to fire on a ten second delay, and then crawled through a missing hull panel in his Osprey. The Alckam drive was set to spin up just as soon as the probe cleared the ship. Gatticus activated his mag boots and walked through the open bulkhead into the cockpit. His transport was now a depressurized skeleton, with gaping holes everywhere. The ship was unfit for habitation by biological lifeforms, but being an android, Gatticus was just as comfortable in a frigid vacuum as he was in a warm, pressurized cabin.

  Gatticus gazed out the cockpit canopy and into space, waiting. Seconds later his probe appeared, riding on small glowing blue plumes of fire.

  The probe
was an ugly, blocky contraption, but Gatticus felt a warm glow of pride at the sight of it. It was a testament to his skills that he’d been able to build such a vehicle at all.

  A flash of blinding light tore through Gatticus’s optical sensors, and the probe was gone.

  It worked. Gatticus smiled. Of course it worked. The probe would arrive in four hours and twenty-six minutes, which meant that the soonest he could expect a rescue was about nine hours. All he had to do now was wait.

  Gatticus sat down in the pilot’s seat and caught a glimpse of his reflection on the inside of the canopy. His forehead was torn open, the synthetic flesh burned away and charred at the edges. The metal casing underneath was also charred, but instead of a thumb-sized hole in the center of that blast-scoring, there was a clean silver circle. His nanites had repaired his injury as best they could, but they weren’t equipped to make cosmetic repairs.

  Gatticus gingerly touched the charred edges of his skin, and the material crumbled into a cloud of shimmering black ashes. He scowled, wishing he could remember who had shot him and why.

  Whoever it was, they deserved to be sent to the nearest Cygnian hunting ground.

  * * *

  Tanik led the Acolytes through the field. The storm was over, and dusk had fallen on Ouroboros. Darius looked up to see stars pricking through gaps in the clouds. The air was colder than ever, and the grassy field glistened with raindrops that quickly soaked through the legs of their jumpsuits.

  The sun had sunk below the cliffs and the waterfall, but the clouds still shined with a faint orange glow. Here and there, between the soaring white domes of tents, camp fires danced with crackling flames. Marines were gathered around the fires, hunched over on stools, munching on glistening bits of roasted Awk flesh. The smell drove Darius’s stomach to rumble and made his mouth water.

  Another, louder rumble drew his attention to an Osprey floating down for a landing at the edge of the field. Landing lights peeled back the shadows, exposing a rippling blue pool of grass below.

  A whirring sound and a flicker of movement revealed the dorsal laser turret of a nearby Osprey tracking restlessly across the night’s sky. Darius wondered if that turret was set to auto-fire, or if Tanik had assigned gunners and a system of night watches. Either way, it was comforting to know that they had defenses in place in case the Awks returned.