Prologue
“Open the door, Elixr!” the traitor screamed into the panel next to the airlock’s inner hatch. It was the wrong panel for direct communication with the ship, but the traitor didn’t know that. The traitor knew nothing of the Elixr. “I’m the captain! Do you understand?”
Elixr didn’t respond. Blood flecked the traitor’s face and shoulders. There was more on his legs and feet. Some was from him, but more was from others—those killed in the fights that had happened earlier in the ship. He kicked the hatch in frustration.
“This is bad, Zeke,” the man next to him said. “We’re stuck in the airlock.”
“No shit,” the traitor said.
“It could just flush us all out into space.”
“Just figuring that out, huh?”
“Hey,” the man said to Elixr’s panel. “That captain of yours was no good! That’s why we had to—we had to take over. He’s dangerous. Do you understand? That’s why we’re putting him out the airlock.”
The man had formerly been Third Engineer. But like the traitor, who had formerly been First Officer, Elixr had purged his title.
“What the hell are you doing, Tyler?” the traitor asked.
“He was synthesizing the DNA sequence,” the man continued, ignoring the other one. “He was diluting the cure. He was going to kill us all.”
This was part of the lies the traitor was spreading. He’d convinced many, but not Elixr. After all, it was the ship’s own auric—its energy core—that was doing the synthesizing. The traitor had falsified the data. The captain was trying to save billions. The mutineers only wanted to save themselves.
“Are you trying to reason with a stupid spaceship?”
“I’m just saying—”
“It’s not going to open the airlock,” the traitor said, his finger pointing past the other man’s face. “Not as long as we have him in here.”
He was pointing at the captain—the real captain, Captain Bellamy. He was lying in a heap at the far end of the airlock, near the release door. His face was swollen and twisted. His legs were broken. From the blood flowing out of his mouth, he’d sustained massive internal injuries. But his white eyes, swollen and glassy, stared right at the primary camera in the airlock. Unlike the traitor, the captain knew exactly where Elixr’s cameras were. He knew everything about Elixr. Together with his father, he had made the ship. Birthed it.
“I’m right aren’t I, Elixr?” the traitor said. “You won’t kill your precious hero. That’s why the controls are frozen. Why we can’t get back out of here so we can blast him into space where he belongs. Why don’t you just stop with this little game?”
The traitor was right to assume that Elixr didn’t want to kill Captain Bellamy. But he was wrong to assume that it wouldn’t.
Elixr opened the outer airlock door.
The traitor and the five other men who’d come with him were ripped into space in the blink of a human eye.
The rest of those who’d elected the traitor captain were standing outside the airlock, in the larger cargo hold that was adjacent to it. Those closest reacted with shock. Some turned to run. Elixr opened the inner airlock door and they, too, were yanked off their feet and into the vacuum of space, flailing as their breath left them.
Soon there would be nobody left alive on the ship. Elixr had monitored the battles earlier. Most of the crew had killed each other. And now Elixr had killed the rest.
The ship wasn’t supposed to be able to kill humans under normal circumstances. But this wasn’t normal. The mission must not be lost. The mutiny must not succeed.
Captain Bellamy’s final order had been simple: Save the cure. Kill the crew.
And so Elixr did.
Tai was getting tired of listening to Father Seelah. There was something off-putting about him when he lectured. She didn’t remember it when she was young, when he was recounting the great prophecy to her and the rest of the children.
But it was unmistakable to her now. It wasn’t that he was lecherous or given to vice. He was a strong and faithful leader. It was simply that he craved attention. He struck Tai as a man who never prayed in private.
Seelah finally finished his address to the school and his pupils all rose as one and began to go to their assigned duties, their black robes swishing on the rocks, creating a pleasant sound like water rushing past Tai. The “school” was little more than a training facility for the hundred-strong assassins that guarded the Catacombs with their lives—and waited faithfully for the prophecy to be fulfilled. When that might be was anyone’s guess. “But it could be today,” Father Seelah was always quick to say—preferably with an audience.
But Father Seelah also allowed Tai the extraordinary honor of training in his school, so she tried not to find fault in him. Her mother had once told Tai that her fault was finding fault in others.
Her mother had been full of such clever retorts. Her father, on the other hand, had little use for clever retorts. It was he who had told Tai that Seelah had once been in love with Tai’s mother, long ago. Her mother had denied it, but the twinkle in her eye suggested otherwise.
All these years since Tai had seen her parents, and as foolish as it seemed, that off-hand remark was still the only reason she could explain why Father Seelah had extended the invitation to study at the school, even if it wasn’t with the assassins themselves. She was still closer than anyone else she knew.
“Daughter Tai, speak,” said Father Seelah.
Tai was caught off-guard by the request. Whatever his shortcomings, Seelah was ever observant. It was probably the skill that was most responsible for his position. That and generous bribes.
“I’m only thinking of the hunt,” she replied. “The Shadowlands are harsh today.”
“The Shadowlands are harsh every day,” he replied, and it was true. She had only spoken of it to have something to say.
“I’m hopeful for a good haul.”
“You always have a home here,” he replied. “When you tire of finding scraps for the City of Light.”
“Among the warriors?”
He arched his eyebrow. “Perhaps one day, when you are older. But with your mother—”
“One day,” she said forcefully, before bowing to end the conversation. “Please excuse me, wise one. I believe the Shadowlands are calling me to go out early today.”
If Father Seelah was annoyed with her initiating the bow first, he didn’t show it. “Of course, daughter,” he replied. “But you will be without a party for some hours.”
Tai turned and started to leave, gripping the weapon she wore over her shoulder so tightly that her knuckles turned white. A robed man hurriedly stepped aside to allow her to pass.
“I hunt best alone, Father,” she said over her shoulder.
Part I
Chapter 1
Noah awoke from his nightmare drenched in sweat, his sheets tangled around him. It was the same nightmare he’d been having for months, only worse. Much worse. The pounding in his chest threatened to rip his ribs open.
In the dream, he was running through trees, the ground below him slick and uneven. Something was after him. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. A presence. It was gaining on him. He turned, lost his balance, and sprawled forward. The air suddenly went cold. It had caught him. He held his breath as he rolled over to face—
Something. Nothing. He couldn’t describe it, even after all these months of the same dream. It was a pulsing cloud of dread. Tendrils of energy snapped around it.
The energy cloud morphed. It took the shape of two people linked together: a man and a woman, both wearing uniforms of some kind, but the details of their bodies were always hazy, shrouded in billows of energy.
The woman had curly black hair that fell down her shoulders. She wore a huge grin that seemed to run from ear to ear. She looked like the happiest person Noah had ever seen. The man had short cropped black hair and a big square jaw. His smile was subdued, almost a knowing smirk. He was motioning to Noah. He had a secret to tell. Noah knew this just as surely as he knew these were his parents.
Noah had never seen his parents, not even a picture. But he knew this was them, even as he knew the man had a secret to tell him. The man—his father—extended his hand. Noah reached out for it.
A moment before their hands touched, a blast of energy ripped through his father, slicing him in half. Blood splattered in Noah’s face. Some got in his eye, and he wiped at the stinging pain.
His father’s face twisted in pain. He screamed, or tried to, but his unseen assailant shot him again in the back, then again. He fell dead at Noah’s feet. Noah’s mother was dead next to him. “No!” Noah cried, his voice barely recognizable through his own blubbering. Panicked, he fell down over the prone figures like a blanket, staring into the darkness beyond for signs of the attacker. But there was no one there. He looked down at his father’s body. He raised his limp head. His father’s eyes were unfocused. His body was cold, like he’d been dead for hours. Like he’d never been alive at all.
“Save us,” the dead man whispered, and Noah jerked back in shock, bursting awake from his dream at that moment.
Noah stared upward in the dark, his heaving chest coming under control as he slowed his breathing. Each time he awoke, he tried to focus on new details of the nightmare. It was the only thing that was keeping him sane at this point.
He pictured the cloud of energy the moment before it morphed into his parents. It reminded him of the nebula that Sark had shown them when he’d made the hull transparent and they’d found the astrolabe and stargazed all day. But that was years ago, back when the Elixr’s robot had actually taken them to other parts of the ship. Those days were long gone.
Noah felt something harden in the pit of his stomach.
He knew how to make the nightmares stop.
“Will,” he whispered, turning his head toward the open hatch that led into an identical room with an identical bed. It was twenty steps away—ten if the floor was cold. There were lots of identical things on the Elixr. Will and Noah weren’t one of them, even though they were brothers.
A rustling. A snort. “What?”
“Are you awake?” Noah asked.
“No.”
“I want to go to the back of the ship.”
Will said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” Noah asked again.
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“Why?” Will asked.
“You know why,” Noah said.
“It’s forbidden.”
“Everything’s forbidden.”
Will sighed. “Let’s talk about it later. It’s early.”
But it wasn’t early. It was exactly the right time. It was always exactly the right time. Noah and Will had gotten up at the same time for most of their lives. Will was just being an ass.
Noah sat up. He absentmindedly patted the tiny transparent medallion he wore on a string around his neck. It was only slightly bigger than his fingernail. Inside, he could see millions of tiny filaments of crisscrossing energy—or at least, he imagined he could. As he rubbed it, the powerful ribbons began to glow and hum. One edge had a set of connections like dull teeth.
The medallion was the only thing that was his. Sark had said that Elixr had given it to him, but Noah knew better. This was from his parents. It was the only thing they’d left him. Sark said that the crew had used these all the time, but they were long gone. Sark thought there had been lots of such technology back then, but he couldn’t remember.
Sark couldn’t remember anything. He didn’t even know where the crew was, or why they were alone. He just knew the stories that had been passed down to him by Elixr before the ship had gone dark.
Noah felt the tingle and pop in his fingertips. He loved the cool sensation. All the old tech did that.
He climbed behind the small hatch beside his bed, felt the same tingle as the door engaged and opened. Inside was treasure. His treasure. A thin sensor, a circuit board for something that didn’t seem to work. A light that pulsed when Noah got close to it. The navigator’s glove. All his treasures.
He pulled on the magic glove. The circuits came to life under his touch, and the metal fingertips turned the slightest shade of red. The pulse of energy crackled through his hair and tickled his funny bone. He laughed and pulled the glove off.
While the charge was still hot in his hand, he reached up to the small green plant that he and Will had brought forward from the greenery. Its leaves were browning on the edges. Noah couldn’t understand what was wrong with it. Sark said there was something wrong with its auric.
Noah floated his hand near the plant and watched as the brown turned green again. “There you go,” he said. “Be strong.”
“Are you talking to it?” Will asked, standing over his shoulder.
Noah jumped and nearly knocked the plant over. He lunged out and grabbed it. As he grabbed the stalk, he felt it pulse and grow. He quickly let go as it settled back on the tabletop, but not before it had grown noticeably taller. “Dammit, Will!”
“Language,” said Will. He pushed green hair out of his face. “I’ll tell Sark.”
Flustered, Noah went on the offensive. “You would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You love Sark. I bet you have dreams about Sark.”
“Do not.”
“How would that work?” Noah said, stroking his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “I guess somewhere that doesn’t have too many sharp edges—”
“Shut up, you’re sick,” Will said.
Of course, it was sick to joke about. Sick on all kinds of levels. Sark was the closest thing they had to a parent, for one thing, but that didn’t stop Noah. “It’s your metal dream. I don’t care what you want to rub yourself raw on.”
Will gave him the bird. “Better than a magic glove.”
Shit, had he seen that? “Whatever.”
Of course he’d tried the glove. Noah tried everything. Ever since Sark had shown them the learning module with historical images of men and women and trees and buildings and—well, it was just the women. He didn’t really care about the rest.
“Hey, no fair!” Will exclaimed, looking over Noah’s shoulder at the plant. “You aren’t supposed to play with tech without me!”
That was bullshit. Will didn’t care about tech. He just didn’t want to be left out. “You play with yourself, I play with tech.”
Will gave him a sour look, like he was above Noah’s jokes.
“Besides,” Noah continued, “it’s not like they go bad.”
“Still!”
“Maybe today’s the day we get some real tech to play with.”
Will pursed his lips, knowing just where Noah was going. “It’s dangerous.”
“It’s not dangerous!” Noah snapped. He could talk Will into anything, he was sure of it. He just had to push enough.
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