Star Force: Lost Destiny (Wayward Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Thank you,” Javvin added with a hint of irony in his voice.

  “What do you mean by ‘hunting?’” Esna asked.

  “The V’kit’no’sat…those are the bad guys…are tracking down and killing us wherever they can find us here while the major fighting is happening out on the border. They really don’t like us operating behind it, so they have hunter teams out to try and find our scout teams. We hunt the hunters. This Era’tran is our 19th solo kill…and no, we’re not counting the few shots you put into him, but thanks all the same.”

  “Negligible,” Nor’far agreed. “I did not expect you to be able to defeat him,” he said just as the floating, pilotless V’kit’no’sat ship suffered an internal explosion, puffing out a tiny bit of debris and falling down to gently bump into the ground followed by more internal explosions.

  “Do you see the harness I’m wearing,” the Archon said as she finally released Rammak and stood.

  “I do not recognize it.”

  “It’s a power source and a couple of tiny Bra’hems. Without it we’d have been fighting him all day. It helps to come prepared for the big ones.”

  “Do you know how many more are here?” Javvin asked as Rammak carefully rolled onto his feet and stood up, testing the incomplete healing of his body that still showed shallow holes that were now covered with new skin a few shades lighter than his normal orange hue.

  “Better?” the Archon asked him.

  “Much,” Rammak said, wincing as he rotated his arms around.

  “Our dropship is on the way. Once we get to orbit we’ll get you all fully healed. As for their ships, they have another small one and big one. Not sure what class, but he didn’t come in that toy my brother just blew up.”

  “It’s not visible in orbit?” Javvin asked.

  “No. They’re being sneaky about it, which isn’t like them. I think they’re starting to freak out that they’re not able to push the border any further, so they’re starting to adapt their tactics.”

  “Which isn’t a good thing,” Travis said, landing beside his sister and removing his helmet again. Karen did likewise, revealing her equally Human visage as Esna copied them and took hers off as well.

  “You haven’t seen very many Humans, have you?” Karen asked her.

  “No.”

  “Well you’re not going to see any more in orbit. Our Ma’kri is Calavari crewed,” she said, looking up at Rammak. “How long?”

  “8 centuries.”

  The Human closed her eyes, wincing. “Ouch.”

  “I knew you would come if able, but I did not know if the war had been lost.”

  “Not by a long shot. We’re holding our own, but they’re getting more devious in finding ways to hit us. We need every Commando we can get. Welcome back.”

  “Thank you, Archon.”

  “As for you,” Travis said, looking at Esna.

  “She is learning,” Rammak interrupted, “but she needs a proper indoctrination.”

  “That can be arranged. We’ll drop you four off in Orlero on our way out, but you’ll have to wait there until they can find a ship going beyond the border. We’ve got more Vik to hunt.”

  “Is she going civie,” Karen asked Rammak as he looked at Esna, “or is she going to try and earn that armor?”

  “I think she could.”

  “That’s up to her,” Travis said, looking at Esna with an eerie semblance to his sister. “If you want to kick back and relax you can, but if you want to learn how to fight we could make use of you in a few hundred years.”

  Esna frowned. “Will it take me that long to learn?”

  “To earn that armor? No. To be able to fight Zen’zat and survive, yes.”

  “How old are you?”

  “2394.”

  Esna’s jaw dropped, then she looked at Karen.

  “Same,” she said, then both the Archons turned and looked to the east.

  “What is it?” Rammak asked, with Esna noticing that his helmet had several hits in it and was probably broken along with the other half of his armor that was laying on the ground next to his feet.

  “Their other Shav’rei is headed this way,” Nor’far said as both Archons flew up into the air and headed in that direction. “They are going to stall it while the dropship gets here. There is going to be a 4 minute overlap that we have to survive.”

  “Isn’t an Era’tran stronger than a Shav’rei?” Rammak asked. “I thought they were just transports.”

  “The Archons used most of their weaponry on the Era’tran,” Javvin added, “but it’s no threat to them. They do not want it getting to us.”

  “What do we need to do?” Esna asked.

  “Not stand in a group,” Nor’far said as he turned and began walking off. “Stay away from one another, but do not go too far. If the ship gets by them, run back and forth unpredictably and you might get one of their shots to miss.”

  “That’s it?” she asked, both disappointed and worried.

  “Their weapons are accurate,” Javvin said, walking off a different direction, “and you’re slow. We’ll try and draw their fire away from you.”

  “Lay down, Esna,” Rammak said, putting a hand on her shoulder as he looked off to the horizon. Wherever the V’kit’no’sat ship was it was still too far away to see. “If they think you’re dead they might not shoot you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll do the same, but over there,” he said, pointing to the dead Zen’zat.

  “You sure?”

  “Better that they don’t shoot both of us at the same time,” he said, not seeming to be too worried.

  “Can the Archons stop it?”

  “Probably. And if not, they’ll keep its attention. Let’s not give them anything else to look at.”

  “If you say so,” she said, taking a slow knee and dropping to all fours as Rammak walked off. She proceeded to lay down, but did so facing the direction the Archons had flown off so she could watch. Her helmet wasn’t on and when her head hit on a rock she thought about crawling back and getting it, then figured that if she got shot by a ship’s guns it wouldn’t matter. Plus it would look better if she didn’t have it on, for what living person wouldn’t want a helmet on in a fight?

  Almost as soon as she moved the rock and her red hair hit the dirt her vision got hazy as her head began to swirl. She got very tired all of a sudden and realized that she was both starving and insanely thirsty…but her pack had been destroyed and with it probably all her supplies.

  But that didn’t matter right now. If the Archons had a ship coming then staying alive long enough to get on it was all that mattered, so she just laid still and tried to stay awake, looking at the horizon from the side…

  “Esna,” Rammak said, with her blinking her eyes open and realizing he was standing over her.

  “Wha…where?”

  “You passed out,” he said, grasping her with two big hands and hauling her to her feet. “It’s time to go, youngling.”

  “Go?” she asked, still not totally with it, then she saw the gleaming chrome ship sitting on the ground a few hundred meters behind them. “What happened?”

  “We survived,” he said, a bit of emotion seeping into his words. “Now it’s time to leave this planet and rejoin Star Force. Can you walk or do I need to carry you?”

  “I can…walk,” she said, taking her first step and nearly falling as her legs seemed to be made of goo, but with Rammak’s help she steadied herself and was able to move mostly under her own power. Evidently there wasn’t a rush, because it took her forever to get over to the landing ramp that was extended down, with the others already inside and only one of the Archons standing on the edge waiting for them. Esna couldn’t tell which one, for the helmet was on and their armor looked identical, but it was Travis’s voice that she heard when she stepped onto the ramp and struggled to walk up it, needing a big hand from Rammak pressing on her butt to move her up.

  “The regeneration process saps stren
gth from the rest of your body to heal the damaged tissue,” he explained. “Just find a seat and veg out. We’ll get you something to drink on the way up.”

  Esna didn’t respond, finding her mouth so dry now and her steps so unsteady that she couldn’t think about anything other than walking…but the feel of the ship ramp beneath her feet brought back very old memories of the days with her father onboard his vessel, only now magnified beyond all scope at the look and smell of the pristine equipment. Esna had seen scraps of Star Force technology as she traveled with Rammak across the planet, but this ship was something far different. It was undamaged and seemed to glow with an emotional recognition of something being badly missing from her life, so much so she didn’t even realize it until now.

  Star Force was her home, she could feel it now, though that didn’t make any sense. She’d never been on a ship or in a city of theirs before but walking into this ship now, Esna knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. This was where she belonged, and it was so much more awe inspiring than she had even imagined from Rammak’s stories.

  Overwhelmed with emotion and dizziness, she didn’t make it far past the ramp before she fell, but Rammak picked her up easily enough and carried her to a seat, beside which he kept her standing long enough to strip away the rest of her armor, then he laid her down across the soft bench face down so her bare, mangled back wouldn’t rub.

  “Lie still for now and sip on this,” Travis’s voice said as something appeared before her face.

  Esna eventually recognized the straw and took it in her mouth, then she sucked in something that tasted so good she almost choked on it, but after the shock she gulped it down as fast as the straw would allow.

  “What is that?” she asked after it was empty.

  “A drink we call Red. It will help start refueling you,” Travis said.

  “Got anymore?”

  “Can you sit up?”

  Esna got her elbows under her and tried to twist herself around, but it wasn’t until Rammak pried her up a bit did she succeed, getting her butt on the soft padding and her feet on the ground.

  “Don’t lean back,” Rammak said, handing her another bottle as he sat down next to her.

  Esna made sure to keep leaning forward as she greedily sucked out the contents of the second bottle, then she tilted her head up and looked around, seeing Nor’far laying on the ground a few meters away in front of another bench where Javvin sat with his helmet off leaning his glowing head back against the wall, but neither Archon was visible.

  To her right was what looked like a cargo hold, but to the left was an open doorway that led elsewhere.

  “It’s a dropship,” Rammak explained.

  “How long will it take to move from star to star?”

  “It doesn’t. It’s taking us up to the Ma’kri. That ship will take us where we’re going and it’ll have a full med bay to heal your injuries.”

  “Yours too?”

  “Yes. It is a large ship and very fast. It also has a cloaking shield.”

  “So we can disappear?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’ll be nice,” she said, looking at the ceiling, walls, and anything else that was visible.

  “It will take you some time to adjust to everything,” he warned. “Be patient. Where we’re going is unlike the planet we’ve been living on.”

  “Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”

  “Sit and rest for now. We’re just passengers.”

  “Are they ok?” she asked, gesturing to the two Mavericks.

  “They are hurt, but even when their injuries heal they will not return to full strength. Newly grown tissue is weaker than what it replaces, so it will take years of training to catch up to where they were. It is a very good thing to be alive, but to lose years of training is not something that sits well with you.”

  “What about you? You’re hurt worse, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I will lose a lot, but I do not care. I will have plenty of time to train and recover my strength now that I have proper facilities to use.”

  “Still…that’s gotta suck. I don’t have much to lose, but you’re so strong.”

  “It is worth the tradeoff of being rescued. Do not concern yourself with it. You will have enough of a challenge regaining your own strength.”

  “This is a lot faster than healing normally. I should be dead now, shouldn’t I?”

  “Possibly. I did not see your wound before it was attended to.”

  “They said you were dead.”

  “The Archons have the power of a regenerator, in that they can trigger massive healing cascades. If you are dead that is because something in your body broke, and if they can cause it to heal soon enough they can bring you back. I don’t remember how I fell. Did Nor’far finish the Zen’zat?”

  “I did not,” the Scionate said. “He ran and drew me back to the Era’tran. I did not dodge soon enough.”

  “Travis finished him,” Javvin said, opening his glowing eyes and looking at Esna. “We were lucky. I don’t know how long they were tracking us, but that Era’tran was patient enough to get us all. If the Archons hadn’t been there we would have quickly died…and I’m still surprised they beat it. Era’tran versus even three Archons usually means a loss. These two are not typical.”

  “They are the twins,” Nor’far said respectfully, drawing an odd look from Javvin.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I recognize their names.”

  “Twins?” Esna asked.

  “A legend within Star Force,” Rammak answered. “I did not know their names either.”

  “It is them,” Nor’far said quietly as his head laid back down on the floor. “They are the strongest pairing and always fight together, but they have no Clan and are rarely seen. We are fortunate they were hunting our ambushers. I too am disturbed at how easily we were manipulated.”

  “We made it,” Esna reminded them. “Thank you for coming for us.”

  Javvin nodded, but neither of the Mavericks wanted to discuss it further and remained silent.

  24

  Esna didn’t say anything for several more minutes, then Rammak slid a flat screen onto her lap.

  “What’s this?”

  “Datapad. Turn it on,” he said, pointing to the upper right corner.

  Esna found the button and it lit up with multiple little windows, one of which she recognized as a battlemap, and most of the others were exterior views from the ship. On the battlemap she could see their dot rising up above the planet, but off in the distance there was another dot coming towards them.

  “Rammak,” she said, pointing at it. “Are they chasing us?”

  Before he could answer another datapad flew out of a wall bin and over into Javvin’s hands so he could take a look, with the Calavari allowing him to make an assessment.

  “It’s a Na’shor on an intercept course. We’re almost to the edge of the atmosphere but not accelerating too hard. I think we’re going to have a low orbit pickup.”

  “From what?” Esna asked. “There are no more ships…” she cut off as another dot suddenly appeared much nearer traveling very fast down towards them.

  “The Ma’kri will get to us first,” the Protovic said with confidence, though he kept watching the display.

  “What’s a Ma’kri?”

  Rammak reached over and hit one of the tiny screens, bringing it up full view then doing something to highlight a tiny object in it…then it zoomed in and autofocused to keep it center screen even as it was moving.

  “Whoa,” Esna said, seeing a long, dark knife blade of a ship that looked unlike anything she had ever seen before. “How big is that?”

  “Several miles long,” Rammak answered, not knowing exactly what model it was. “We can fly inside it.”

  “Miles?”

  “The Na’shor is bigger,” he said, taking the panel from her and making adjustments to bring up a tiny spec on one screen to show the tuning fork shaped ship that wa
s a heavy red in color compared to the nearly black Ma’kri. “Unless they have changed their designs, it is 26 miles long.”

  Esna’s jaw dropped. That was bigger than any city she’d ever seen on the planet. So big that she couldn’t even imagine how a ship could be that big, let alone fly through space that fast. The ship her father had owned was tiny in comparison, though she’d thought it was huge back when she was a child…or youngling, as Rammak often said, though he still called her that even with her being fully grown.

  “Is it better armed?”

  “Far better,” Javvin answered, “but fortunately not faster. If we get there first we will not have to fight. The question is, how far away do we have to get before they can’t track us. I have doubts now as to the conventional ranges.”

  Esna almost held her breath as she watched the three dots on the battlemap in the upper left corner, staring at the Vik ship and trying to imagine how large it was, for in the little picture it didn’t have anything but stars behind it, though they were moving as their relative positions changed. Before she figured out how to switch back to the Ma’kri the view of the Na’shor was eclipsed by something else. She thought the camera had broken for a moment, then saw the blackness slow and resolve into the hull of the Ma’kri, seen up close.

  She switched back to all the tiny little camera views, seeing the ship and the planet behind them in small scope, but on three of the screens there was a bright spot on the hull that they were moving toward rapidly. It expanded into a giant rectangle that they flew through…then all the cameras changed to the inside of the ship with white/grey walls and a lot of glossy sheen similar to the ruins she’d found on the planet, only much more vibrant.

  “We made it,” Javvin said as Nor’far stood up and headed aft, then the Archons came out through the doorway in their identical purple/green armor.

  “Let’s get you to the med bay,” Travis said, talking to Esna and Rammak as the Mavericks were already on their way out as the ramp lowered again. “Then you can take a very long nap.”