Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (9 page)

“How are
we going to do that?” I asked.

“We’re in
the cargo bay. Through that hatch and up the access tunnel is the living area.
Seats, beds, kitchen, the usual. From there if we continue to the foredeck we
will pass through the airlock where the docking collars are, and then the
cockpit in the front.”

“Okay,” I
responded. “You didn’t answer my question. We’re unarmed and hurt and they are
eight feet tall and heavily armed. And my hands are
still bound
.”

“Yeah. No
time for that,” she tapped the controls and the access hatch opened, revealing
a ladder. “Aside from a few access panels, there isn’t much in the living areas
that they would need to get to for them to bring the main power back online.
Most of that will have to be done through the main controls in the cockpit, so
that’s where they all should be. We can probably find some weapons that we can
use to hold out and get their attention long enough for dad to make his
approach.”

“And if
one happens to be accessing one of the panels?”

“They
won’t be,” she said with certainty as she stepped toward me, looking at me
squarely in the eyes. “Look, I know you’re new at, well, at
everything
.
But listen to me clearly right now. If we do nothing, my Dad dies, and then
we
die.”

I looked
around the room at the blood-stained walls and took a deep breath, doing the
best I could to calm my nerves. For a second, I was glad my hands were still
bound, that way she wouldn’t notice them shaking.

She
turned abruptly and started climbing carefully up the access ladder. I followed
close behind, using my elbows to augment my still-bound hands to climb. She
paused at the access hatch at the top, looked down at me and nodded. Bracing
herself against the side of the narrow access tunnel, she lifted both hands,
easily twisted to unlock the hatch and slowly pushed it open.

The room
above was quiet. After taking a slow survey of the deck, she nodded to me and
climbed silently to the top and hopped out, setting the open hatch down
silently on the deck.

I
followed her up, pulling my torso up onto the deck on my elbows so I could look
around. The living area was a long room segmented into several parts. We came
up in what looked like a small kitchen area. There was a half stack of rations
tucked cleanly in a transparent compartment on the wall. A few steps away was
the foredeck access door which Ju-lin had said would lead to the docking lock
and cockpit. The aft section was dark. The lights must have been blown out. I
could see shadows of four sleeping pods mounted on two-on-a-side against the
bulkheads. I wondered when and where the poor crew had run into the Draugari.
And how long they had suffered before they were killed.

I reached
up awkwardly, still trying to climb up out of the access hatch. Midway through
the last heft of pulling my torso up to the deck, my foot slipped on the ladder.
I slid back with a thud and a grunt, catching myself with my arms at the
shoulders with my legs dangling for a moment as I fought to regain my footing.

“
Quiet!
”
Ju-lin whispered as she moved to help me, and then she froze, her face white.
“Shit.”

I turned
my head to see a pair of white eyes glowing in the darkness of the aft
compartment just past the sleeping pods.

The
Draugari made a low growl as he moved slowly toward us. He was tall enough that
his figure took up the entire passage. As he drew nearer, I could see his
armored suit and hear his rebreather slowly and evenly drawing the air in and
out. I recalled that the Draugari do not breathe Earth standard atmosphere and
wore rebreathers with nitrogen infusers.

He took
another step and his hand went to his belt, drawing out a long, black blade.

The sight
of the weapon jolted my survival instincts. I once again pushed off, trying to
climb out of the access hatch. With a final heave I pulled myself up onto the
deck with a flop. I turned around. I was between Ju-lin and the Draugari, my
hands bound, completely helpless.

I heard
Ju-lin shuffling around behind me as he approached.

He looked
at her and made a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a laugh,
and then turned toward me, flipping the knife around in his hand, preparing to
deliver a downward killing blow. I tried to move away, but with my hands bound,
I slipped to the floor again. I rolled onto my back as he took another step. He
lowered himself to one knee and brought the blade up for a downward slash.

There was
a blinding flash and I felt a fire burn on my chest, I screamed in pain and
rolled over. Then I realized the burning was just that, burning. I looked down
to see a tiny glowing metal cinder on my chest. I shook it off. There was no
knife wound. There was no Draugari.

“Close
one,” Ju-lin stepped over and offered me her hand.

I took it and stood up. I
began to ask what had happened when she held up her other hand: her plasma
torch. “Sorry there, I think a bit of the splashback hit you.”

“You got
him?”

“You
could say that,” she said nodding back toward the sleeping pods.

I took a step to look
around the kitchen countertop to see the Draugari lying several feet back from
where he had been. His chest was now concave, blackened and smoldering; the air
was thick of the stench of cooked flesh.

Doors
were opening somewhere behind us toward the cockpit.

“They
heard,” I said.

“Get some
cover, back there behind the sleeping pods.”

“Can’t
you just shoot them?” I asked.

She shook
her head. “One shot is all I had.”

“Damn,”
another door opened behind us as we scrambled deeper into the ship. Ju-lin and
I slid into the darkness, each crouching behind sleeping pods on opposite sides
of the deck.

The door
opened and the first Draugari slowly walked in, he had his blade in his right
hand and a gun in his left. I took a long look, he was built like a human,
though taller, with broader shoulders and a barrel chest. His arms and legs
were a patchwork of black armor. Though his shape and movements looked human,
his rough skin and luminescent white eyes were undeniably alien. He saw the
opened hatch and paused, then called out. He took another step and saw his
fallen comrade.

“
Un’chan!
”
he called behind him as he slowly walked toward us, peering into the darkness.

Two more
Draugari appeared behind him to answer his call, all three with weapons drawn.
They were huge, menacing, and fearsome.

Ju-lin was breathing heavily beside me, but I could see her
hands were still steady.

The lead Draugari stopped on the far side of the sleeping
pods, looking side to side. He ma
de
another sound, and there was a grunting response. With a sudden thrust he
punched forward with his knife hand, slamming his fist against the far end of
the sleeping pod that Ju-lin was hiding behind. Neither of us was prepared for
the strength of the blow. It broke the sleeping pod from its mounting, sending
it flying forward into Ju-lin. She screamed in pain as it struck, pinning her
against the rear bulkhead.

Without
thinking, I stepped between Ju-lin and the Draugari.

They made
another sound, eerie and unsettling like a chirping baby bird being smothered
by a pillow. I realized they were laughing.

“
Un’ta’pa
”
he replied back and made a slight bow as if in salute, and then he began to
advance.

With my
hands still bound, I looked anxiously around for a weapon, a tool, anything I
could use. I saw a lever down by my feet to my right, under the remaining
sleeping pod. It wasn’t much, but it was a chance.

The
Draugari stepped forward, going around the remaining sleeping pod that I had
been crouching behind.
One more step
. He took it. I turned and kicked
the emergency release lever-the locks on the sleeping pods disengaged and they
tumbled onto the Draugari, knocking him to his right against the bulkhead.

He cried
out, but I suspect it was more out of anger than pain. With a snarl he lifted
the pod and it aside. He rose to his feet.

There was
another cry, this one was pain. One of the other Draugari behind him dropped to
his knees, and then the other. Smoke was rising from their backs. Behind him I
saw Lee, still in his colonial jumpsuit, holding a laser pistol.

Lee was
quick, but the lead Draugari was quicker. Before Lee could make his third shot,
the Draugari was moving swiftly to the side and returning. The Draugari gun
made a loud pop as it fired. His first shot flew high over Lee’s head, sending
sparks of slag.

As Lee
returned fire, the Draugari leapt to the side with startling agility, Lee’s
shots streaked harmlessly through the dank air. The Draugari’s second shot
struck Lee in the shoulder, sending the laser pistol flying from his hand. The
Draugari dropped his gun, and advanced toward Lee with his long, jagged blade
drawn.

Before, I
had stood up between Ju-lin and the Draugari without a thought. Maybe out of
fear, maybe it was out of duty. But as I heard Lee cry out in pain and held his
shoulder, his eyes wild with desperation, something in me changed. What I did
next, I did out of savagery.

“Come and
get me!” Lee hollered at the oncoming Draugari.

Without
hesitating, I bounded with two steps and took a wild leap at the Draugari,
throwing my weight at him from behind. Unprepared for such a wild attack, I
knocked him forward. As he fell, his flailing hand struck the galley table,
sending his blade sliding across the floor. The Draugari roared in pain as he
flipped over to grab me. He didn’t need his knife to kill me, I was certain
that he would be able to rip me limb for limb if he caught me. I kicked back
against him, making a desperate face-first dive across the floor.

I heard
Ju-lin scream a warning.

He was on
me in seconds, kicking my side and sending me rolling onto my back. He threw
himself on me reaching for my neck, but I had found what I wanted. As he came
upon me I thrust his knife upward at his neck with both hands. The blade
pierced the soft spot of his armor, slicing through his respirator, sinking
into the soft tissue.

The
Draugari gasped for breath, making a sickening bubbling sound. The light of his
eyes flickered once, twice, and then faded to black. As the life left him, I
felt a surge of energy coming through the handle of the knife. It began as a
soft tingle, and elevated to a throbbing pulse. It spread from my hands and
filled my whole body, coming in intense waves. With each wave my vision
clouded. I saw ships. I saw worlds. I saw faces, Draugari faces. I felt joy. I
felt fear. I felt agony. I felt a deep and ancient longing.

In the
last moments, I saw myself through his eyes. I shared his last thoughts. My
throat burned with pain. I felt a surge of fear, of shock, and then, at the
end, regret.  

Chapter 12.

“
The
Charon is our immortality. Upon death, we are able to pass on the core of
ourselves to another so that knowledge and experience is preserved. It is a
moment of connection, and the fleeting moment of our lives and deaths where we
are no longer alone. The spirit of the passing mingles with the spirit of the
one still waiting to pass, and there is peace.”

I
looked down at my teacher. My hand shook.

“Do
not be afraid Eli. My Charon is the gift I offer you, the last thing I can
teach you. I have told you all I have to tell, and my life has passed its
course across the sky. I am weak now, and old, so very old.”

“I do
not know what to do,” my voice was strange and distant.

“There
is nothing to know, all there is, is the doing,” he responded, slipping the
knife into my hand. “Now, quickly, before my time passes. The greatest loss in
the universe is a Charon that slips away unmet, and mine will soon be slipping.
So strike, Eli, strike now, and live well.”

My head
was spinning and temples throbbing. My throat burned,
I am choking
. I
gasped for air. My throat was clear. I could breathe easily. My mind swam with
strange and new images, an old Draugari handing me a knife, a filthy pile of
rags in the corner, the rush of a kill and the satisfaction of feeling my
enemy’s warm red blood rushing over my hand.

The world
shifted, Ju-lin and Lee were standing above me. The Draugari’s body was off to
the side. I still held the Draugari’s knife, and my hands were soaked in blood.
Not the warm red blood from my memory, but cool purple blood of a Draugari.

“Those
were his memories,” I gasped.

“What?”
Lee looked down, his shoulder was blackened and bleeding, and was leaning on
Ju-Lin to stay standing.

“I saw
myself. I saw me kill me, ur, I mean him,” I fumbled.

“You saw
yourself
?”
Ju-lin was startled.

I fought
to regain my mind. I was myself.

Eli.

Human.

Mostly.

I looked
again at the Draugari. Lor’ten. His name came to my mind as easily as my own.

“We need
to get control of this boat,” Lee broke in. “We can sort this out later. Lin,
help me get to the cockpit.”

I nodded.
Without thinking I flipped the blade in the palm of my hand, it cut through my
bindings with a whisper. The hilt felt natural in my hand, as if it were an
extension of myself. Ju-lin eyes were curious as she watched me. She looked
like she was about to say something, but then turned to help Lee toward the
front of the ship.

I started
to stand up, but stumbled back to my knees. “I need a minute, my head is still
spinning.”

“You
don’t have a minute,” Lee barked back.

“That’s
not your head,” Ju-lin called back over her shoulder as they passed through the
hatch. “It’s the ship!”

The ship?
I stumbled up to my feet, using the bulkhead to steady myself. We were
spinning, and it was getting faster. Warning lights were flashing along the
floorboards. I absently slid the Draugari knife into my belt, and stumbled
toward the hatch. I felt a brief surge of rage as I passed the bodies of the
other two dead Draugari. I heard their names in my mind, Jen’tak and Kel. I
shook off the thoughts and hurried to follow Ju-lin and Lee.

“Hell no
I can’t,” Lee grumbled as I entered. “Not with this arm. Get strapped in, you
take the stick.”

Ju-lin
opened her mouth to respond, but he silenced her with a look.

The
cockpit was much larger than I had expected. It was broad with a long and
angular viewport that afforded an amazing range of visibility. At the edge of
the viewport were three seats with command controls. I struggled to maintain my
orientation as we spun faster and faster.

“Eli,
take the seat on the right, that’s the engine control,” Lee called. “Get me to
the nav station.”

We were
in a flat spin, and picking up speed and losing altitude. Alarms were sounding
everywhere. I came forward to help Ju-lin get Lee into the seat on the far
left. Once he was seated and strapped in, I made my way to my seat, and Ju-lin
slid into the captain’s seat. There were control pads on either arm of my
chair, and as I sat, a holographic heads up display appeared floating in the
air around me. Almost everything was flashing red.

“Okay,
Eli, your control pad,” Lee instructed. “You will find an engine control
status, what does it say?”

I looked
at the control pad and tried to call it up, but it wasn’t responding. Whenever
I tried to enter a command, a strange symbol appeared on my display.

“I
can’t,” I responded. “The controls aren’t responding. It’s asking for an access
code.”

“Well,
boy, try it again,” Lee hollered back.

The
spinning was getting worse, completing full revolutions once every three
seconds.

“No,
Dad,” Ju-lin shouted over her shoulder. “We’re locked out. I can’t read it.
Pull up your display.”

Lee pawed
at his controls with his good hand.

“I can’t
read the symbols,” Ju-lin said desperately. “Did the Draugari do something to
the ship’s computers?”

“Sa’cara,”
Lee said, his voice flat.

“What is
Sa’cara?” Ju-lin responded.

“That’s
what the Celestrials call it,” Lee replied. “A booby-trap. Sometimes when the
Draugari pirate a ship, they install a failsafe tied to their own life signs.
If the Draugari crew is killed, the ship goes into a self-destruct sequence.”

“Okay,”
she answered as she looked over the controls. “How do I override it?”

Lee
didn’t respond. Another series of alarms started flashing. Artificial gravity
systems were failing.

“Dad! How
do I override it?” Ju-lin repeated. Her voice was shrill and frantic.

“We
don’t,” Lee responded flatly.

“Then we
need to get back to your shuttle,” Ju-lin unlatched her belt.

“Not in
this spin, there is no wa-” Lee’s words were cut short by a loud pop and
grinding sound. A field of debris flew from the ship. I saw the shuttle
floating free, every rotation I caught a glimpse of it, sliding off into the
horizon.

“There is
no way that the shuttle’s docking clamp will hold,” he finished.

The force
of the spin pushed me back in my seat.

“We’re
hitting the upper atmosphere,” Ju-lin said. “We’ll burn up without the heat
shields in place!”

“Eli,”
Lee broke in. “You said it was asking for an access code?”

“Yeah,” I
responded. “It says right here.”

“No it
doesn’t,” Ju-lin yelled back. “It’s in, what is that written in? Draugari? It’s
not Common.”

“You said
you saw his memories,” Lee said. “And now you can
read
Draugari? Nobody
in the Collective or the Protectorate has ever translated it.”

I looked
again, only then did I realize that the letters weren’t in Common.

“I don’t
know what the hell just happened back there,” Lee said. “But, you need to think,
and think hard, boy. What is the code?”

I stared
at the screen. I could read it. But I couldn’t think of the code.

“We have
less than a minute before the atmo burns us into nothing!” Ju-lin called.

As if to emphasize her
point, I saw the blur of an explosion in the distance. It was Lee’s shuttle
burning up in the atmosphere.

“I don’t
know it,” my voice was shaky. “I’m trying to remember, but I just don’t know.”

“Don’t
think about it,” Lee called back. “Just enter the code.”

“I don’t
know what it is!”

“Elicio,”
Lee’s voice was suddenly low, calm, even soothing. “Don’t think. Just type.”

The
evenness of his voice helped to melt my panic. It was smooth, reassuring, and
fatherly. Without another thought, I put my hand on the keypad and typed in a series
of eight digits.

“Emergency
power back online!” Ju-lin yelled triumphantly. “Dad, the heat shield!”

“Heat
shield up, stabilizers up in three, two, one!”

With a
sudden and violent jolt, the ship stabilized and the spinning stopped.

“Systems
coming back online,” Ju-lin said. “I have basic flight control.”

“Well
done kid,” Lee looked over at me. “I am not sure what the hell happened back
there, but that’s twice you’ve saved our lives.”

I looked
down at my hand, still stained with Draugari blood. Lor’ten’s blood. My blood.

“Engines,”
Ju-lin broke in. “Main engines are offline, I don’t have enough power. Eli!
Status?”

Roused
from my thoughts, I looked down and focused on the engine controls.

“All four
main engine thrusters are damaged, power reserves at seven percent,” I called
back. “System says we have enough power for a ten second burst at twenty
percent thrust from the primary thrusters.”

“That’s
not enough to get back into orbit,” she responded, her voice shaky as she
handled the controls trying to keep the ship steady as we continued to plummet.

“That’s
not enough,” Lee agreed. “Not nearly enough. And it looks like my shuttle took
off some of the hull plating on the number three thruster. If we fire the main
thrusters even for that long we’ll burn her out.”

“So what
do we do?” I asked.

“We can’t
go up,” Ju-lin responded.

“We go
down,” Lee answered. “Lin, keep the nose up as best you can, we can use the
maneuvering thrusters to angle our descent.”

We had
passed through the upper atmosphere; I could see the sea and green hills
through the clouds below us.

“I’ve
never landed anything this big before,” Ju-lin said.

“You
aren’t going to land this either,” Lee responded. “We’re going too fast, and
we’re going straight down. Nose up!”

Ju-lin
cursed as she fought the controls, “I just lost lateral maneuvering thrusters.
All I have is pitch.”

Cracks
started appearing across the viewport as we broke through the top of the cloud
cover.

“She’s
not designed for this kind of descent,” Lee broke in. “Our angle is too steep.
Nose up Lin,
nose up
. We’re going to hit the ground head first!”

“Nose
up,” she repeated softly. “Eli, you say we have ten seconds of burn?”

“Yes, but
your dad says it will burn up the engines,” I responded. “And wouldn’t that
just send us down
faster
?”

“Nose
up,” she gave me a sideways glance. “Full thrusters on my mark.”

“Three
thousand meters,” Lee called. “Lin-”

“Trust me
dad,” without another word, she engaged the remaining maneuvering thrusters and
pulled up hard on the stick. The cracks spread around the viewport as the ship
struggled against her commands, but then, with a swift flip, the ship turned.
The maneuvering thrusters weren’t enough to alter our descent, but she had
flipped us a full 180 degrees: cockpit toward the sky, and engines toward the
ground.

“Mark!
Thrusters full!” she called.

I flipped
the thrusters to full power.

Behind
us, the Carrack’s four engines fired their last. At first, there was no effect.
Two, three, four seconds passed.

“Fifteen
hundred meters!” Lee called.

“Six seconds
left on the burn!” I called.

“Seven
hundred!”

“Come on
dammit,” Ju-lin muttered.

“Three
hundred,” Lee said. “Rate of descent decreasing.”

The
Carrack shook violently and her structure groaned as her thrusters fought
against our momentum and the planet’s pull.

“Two
hundred!”

“Two
seconds left on burn!”

“Fifty
meters!” Lee announced.

“Descent
slowed to twelve meters per second!” Ju-lin called triumphantly.

I looked
out the cracked viewport. I could see mountains on the peripheral. They seemed
to hover there, still in the air.

“Six
meters and holding!” Lee called.

There was
one last cough and the engines fell silent.

“Hold
on!” Ju-lin yelled.

For a
second, a hundred tons of steel hung still in the air, mere meters above the
surface. The ground below was blackened from the last gasping burn from the
engines. The air was full of smoke and the smell of sulfur. And then, after a
breath, gravity regained her hold, and finally pulled the Carrack crashing down
to the surface.