Foreword:
The one big downside to writing a backstory fic is that everyone already knows what happens in the end. DX Well, despite this story's obvious conclusion, I was determined to hatch at least one plot thread that would take my readership by surprise, and this chapter is my attempt. I get ten points if nobody saw it coming. ;P
"Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood."
— Psalm 7:14
« ... »
Kaden stared blankly ahead at the empty space outside his ship. Only the steady recession of the celestial bodies in the distance proved that they were moving. He sighed from frustrated boredom and leaned his head back against his seat, wishing for Lumos to appear in the distance before he lost his mind. He'd recently come to hate long, quiet trips with nothing to do, because the empty silence encouraged him to reflect on his life. It used to be that his worst memories were years behind him, buried beneath a mountain of joy—but not anymore. Now there was a more fresh wound to bleed anew whenever he found himself reminiscing, and that alone made him loath to endure any form of solitude.
He was about to strike up a conversation with Aphelion when he heard the soft muttering of a familiar voice, and felt her head come to rest against his shoulder. He turned his head to look at her, smiling with admiration.
"You awake?" he whispered.
"Mm-hmm," Nayeli mumbled over a yawn. "Thanks for letting me sleep."
"No problem," Kaden replied. "I'm still surprised you wanted to come at all. Are you sure you're up to it?"
"I'll be fine," she said. "I'm not due for another month. Besides, I've been wanting to visit Lumos for a long time now, and this might be my only chance before I become a full-time mom." She ran a hand over her swelled stomach, smiling tenderly.
Kaden could hardly believe he was only a month away from being a father. The idea of having his own child to raise and care for was both thrilling and frightening, but like any adventure, he would tackle it with the determination and enthusiasm that had brought him this far. He was even grateful for the timing in a sense, because preparing for the baby had helped him keep his mind off other things.
"So, what do you plan on doing while you're there?" he asked. Nayeli knew he wasn't going to stay in town, and she assured him that it was all right, but Kaden was curious what she had in mind to fill a week by herself.
"I want to try and make peace with an old friend of mine," she said. "We had a big fight a long time ago and we haven't spoken since."
Kaden held her gaze for a silent moment and blinked a few times. "You're not very subtle, are you?"
"Kaden... it's been six months."
"Seven, actually."
"Long enough. You can't pretend you've forgotten about him. I remember how upset you were when you came home that day."
Kaden bit his lip and shamefully averted his eyes. "I'm sorry I scared you."
"It's okay; I got over it..."
Nayeli reached over to place her hand on his cheek and turned his face back toward her. "But you never did. You haven't been the same since it happened. Kaden, the bond you and Alister have is special. You shouldn't be so quick to abandon it."
Kaden sighed and quietly relented. "Okay... I'll talk to him when we get back to Fastoon."
Nayeli smiled and gave him a satisfied kiss on the cheek. "I'm glad to hear it. He didn't get to see your wedding. It would be terrible if he didn't get to see your son, either."
"So... have you decided on a name for him?" Kaden asked, glad for a chance to change the subject.
"Not yet..." Nayeli murmured. "Since you were kind enough to let me choose, I want to make sure I pick something you'll like."
« « « « « ж » » » » »
After dropping Nayeli off at their old home, Kaden headed for Krell Canyon. He felt strangely nostalgic as he flew over the chaotic industrial eyesore that was the Vullard settlement. Its homes and factories were built from a hodgepodge of random materials whose haggard appearance testified to how endlessly they'd been recycled. Few of the structures had roofs, and from a bird's eye view one could spy on the Vullards as they ambled around operating heavy machinery even uglier than their buildings that looked like it had been constructed entirely from pieces of other machines. Aphelion commented on how Vullard junkyards made Kaden's workshop look organized, and her pilot couldn't help but laugh.
On the outskirts of the settlement, near a small cave with sparks and smoke pouring from its entrance, Kaden landed. He hopped out of his ship and strode over, cupping his mouth and calling from a safe distance, "Hey, Voren, you in there?"
Inside, a Vullard (hunched over the most misshapen buzz saw Kaden had ever seen) looked up from his work and turned to face his visitor. Kaden didn't know if it was possible for Vullards to smile, but the old coot seemed happy enough to see him. Like most Vullards, he was more machine than organic, and bent double under the enormous can-shaped junk container attached to his back.
"Kaden," he greeted, shutting off his loud machine. "I didn't think you would actually come."
Kaden grimaced under a forced smile, his ears sagging involuntarily. If any intelligent creatures in the galaxy could be said to have more grating, unpleasant voices than Cragmites, it was Vullards. Poor Voren's words croaked from his throat, horribly accented by a deep mechanical warble that must have been caused by whatever cybernetic implant processed his speech.
"Hey, I'm a Lombax of my word," Kaden replied. "Besides, it's the least I could do since you never turned me in after all those times you caught me in the mines as a kid."
Voren made a torturous attempt at laughing. "That's true. Who would have thought that the juvenile delinquent I used to chase out of town would end up being so important. Thank you for taking the time to see me."
Kaden smiled and stepped inside the cave. "So, what do you need to tell me that's so sensitive it couldn't be done over radio?"
Voren's voice got even lower as he ventured to explain. "Yes… Forgive my paranoia, but you know trusting outsiders doesn't come easy to my kind."
Kaden nodded with a roll of his eyes and gestured for the Vullard to continue.
"A few years ago there was a raid on my settlement," Voren began.
Kaden tried not to look too unfazed by this news. Sadly, raids were becoming all too common in the Polaris galaxy (especially on Krell Canyon with its rich source of raritanium), but Kaden knew it was different when it was your home and you were right there in the thick of it.
"A friend of mine, Dugar, was lost," Voren went on. "We never found him, but with all the casualties we suffered, we could only assume he'd been killed." Here he inched closer to Kaden and quieted his voice as he added, "The thing is, I think he may be alive."
Kaden's eyes widened with intrigue. "Go on."
"As a prank, I had put a tracking device in one of his implants so I could sneak up on him and scare him. I thought I had lost the receptor box for it in the raid, but recently when I was fishing through my debris pile for useful junk, I found it."
"Don't tell me the tracker is still transmitting!"
Voren nodded his affirmative. "And guess where it says he is."
« « « « « ж » » » » »
The Phylax Sector. It had taken a long time to fly all the way here, but this time the trip was far from boring, for Kaden's mind was full of questions. How could someone who was supposed to have been killed in a pirate raid several years ago suddenly turn up in a sector so far away from his home world? The only explanation that even came close to making sense was that he had been captured, not killed, in that raid. But Kaden was hard pressed to imagine why any band of pirates would want to keep a Vullard captive. Vullards were slow, unattractive, and little valued by most other races. He hadn't had the heart to tell Voren that he doubted his friend was in fact still alive, but regardless, it took little effort for the kindly old junker to persuade Kaden to check it out for himself. The adventure-loving Lombax leapt at the chance to pursue such an exciting mystery... and truth be told, he didn't hate the idea of knocking around a few pirates after the stunt they pulled last year.
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Aphelion announced that she had picked up some sort of structure on her long range sensors. Kaden compared the coordinates on the display to the readout on the receptor box of Voren's tracking device. They matched. Kaden approached with caution and squinted his eyes as the mystery destination edged into view, growing on the horizon until he could tell what it was.
A space station. A pirate base, from the looks of it. It had a fierce yet sloppy appearance, with gun turrets and other types of weapon arrays sticking straight out of the hull—a ghastly apparatus layered in multiple shades of dingy gray. Thankfully it wasn't very big, and Kaden was able to pinpoint the source of the transmission within a reasonable distance.
"All right, I'm going in," he announced. "Feel, you stay put. Shut down all your nonessential systems and wait for me to call. No one should bother you, but be prepared to defend yourself just in case."
As he said all this, Kaden was busy at work programming new coordinates into his personal teleporter. Already he could feel his heart beginning to race, danger coursing through his veins.
"Affirmative," Aphelion said. "Be careful, Kaden."
"Right." Kaden nodded, clipped the teleporter to his utility belt, and pushed the activation button.
In a flash of light his view of Aphelion's bulkheads disappeared, replaced with the dull, cluttered interior of a cargo hold. He glanced quickly in all directions, looking for signs of life, and breathed a sigh of relief at his luck. There wasn't a pirate in sight. Not willing to take any chances, he ducked behind the closest stack of crates for cover while he checked his instruments. The source of the transmission was close, but getting there without being noticed would be a challenge.
Without warning one of the crates behind him exploded, flinging him to the ground. Before he could react he felt a cold metal claw seize his body, and the next thing he knew he was being yanked into the air and dangled in front of a skull-shaped face with menacing yellow eyes that glowered at him from inside empty black sockets. "Thought ye could escape, did ya?"
The thing's arm electrified, and Kaden screamed as the shock jolted through his body. He fell limp when the torture ended a second later and the pirate gruffly muttered, "You're lucky I have orders not to kill any of you troublesome lot!"
Kaden could offer no resistance as the pitiless creature dragged him from the cargo hold and a few paces down a dark corridor. He stopped at a large iron door and began typing something into a keypad beside it while Kaden tried to catch his breath from inside his crushing grip. Seconds later the door opened, and the pirate threw his captive inside. Kaden struck the metal floor with a grunt of pain, and the hopeless sound of the door slamming shut reverberated behind him.
Groaning from pain and frustration, Kaden struggled to his knees and looked up. The sight before him made his jaw drop.
This dim, windowless room was full of people. There were Vullards, Terrachnoids, a few scattered other races... and Lombaxes. All eyes turned to Kaden as he stared around him with his mouth hanging open. They looked almost as surprised as he was.
"Hey, isn't that a new Lombax?" asked a curious voice, and immediately the dozen-or-so Lombaxes present came rushing forward in unison, surrounding him like vultures and barraging him with questions.
"Where'd you come from?"
"How's Fastoon doing?"
"Is anyone looking for us?"
Kaden felt like he was having a bad dream. All the voices and faces pressing in on him from all around, all the questions surging like turbulent waves in the storm of his mind… Just when he thought he might pass out, a brown Lombax cut through the crowd and pushed them back, shouting, "Hey! Give the poor kid some space, will you? Hasn't he been through enough?"
He knelt down and grabbed Kaden's shoulders to steady him when he almost collapsed. "Sorry about that," he said. "We've all been here so long that we've forgotten how traumatized we were when we first arrived."
After taking a few deep breaths with his eyes closed and his face pointed at the ground, Kaden found the composure to look up at the kind stranger, who softly muttered, "I'm Dezmond."
Kaden's breath caught in his throat, and he gaped at the Lombax before him as though he were a ghost. It shouldn't be possible, but it couldn't be coincidence. He saw before him, clear as day, a face he'd seen in many pictures, with a name he'd heard in many stories.
"No way..." he exclaimed. "You're Nayeli's father!"
Dezmond gasped. "You know my daughter?"
"Well, yeah, I'm—kinda married to her."
Kaden had never seen someone's eyes get so big so fast. He leapt in with his own questions before Dezmond could speak.
"How did you get here? We thought you were killed in the raid on Lumos eight years ago."
"That's probably what they wanted you to think," said a scarlet Lombax nearby. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "We were all captured in raids. Probably weren't even missed among all the other casualties, am I right?"
"Felix here thinks that the raids were an elaborate cover for kidnapping us," Dezmond said, suddenly testy and irritable.
Felix snapped right back, "Well, how else do you explain fifty-seven engineers captured in forty separate raids on sixteen different planets all getting dumped on a space station and forced to work together?"
Kaden jumped to his feet, his heart pounding with urgency. "What?"
A silver-furred female Lombax stepped forward to explain. "Everyone in here had distinguished themselves as inventors, physicists, or mechanical engineers of some sort before being taken from their homes."
"Do you know who's behind this?" Kaden asked.
She shrugged. "All we know is what they want. Ever since we were brought here, we've been forced to develop new technology. We have no idea what they're using it for."
Kaden swallowed. He didn't like the theories that were beginning to take form in his head, and the prognosis was getting worse by the second. Steeling his nerves, he asked his final question. "What have you designed?"
This time it was a Terrachnoid who answered, looking almost proud. "Oh, the usual—weapons, vehicles… There was the Cyclocannon, the Enforcer..."
A Vullard chimed in, "The battle armor."
Another Lombax added, "The mass cloaking device."
"Amazing things, if I do say so myself," the Terrachnoid stated. "It's incredible what the great minds of several different races can come up with when they actually work together."
"And nothing brings people together like death and torture threats," Felix muttered sarcastically.
Kaden saw the last eight years of his life flash before his eyes, starting with Dezmond's disappearance after the Lumos raid. Suddenly it all made sense. The pieces of an insidious puzzle fell into place, painting a horrifying picture in a decade of spilled blood. His chest tightened, and his limbs began to feel numb. As his vision started to blur, he fought the lightheadedness that threatened to overtake him. He couldn't afford to pass out now.
"So, what planet did they raid to get you?" Felix asked.
Kaden looked up at the crowd of Lombaxes and swallowed. "Fastoon," he said. "Six months ago—but they failed."
"What?" Felix's perplexed tone echoed the sentiment painted on the faces of everyone present. "What do you—?"
"Listen to me, everyone!" Kaden announced. "The one who orchestrated all this was Percival Tachyon!"
A chorus of gasps and murmurs rose up, and Kaden continued at double his original volume to keep from being drowned out. "He passed off your designs as his own, and right now he's in charge of a huge manufacturing effort backed by the Lombax Praetorian Guard."
"How do you know this?" the girl from before asked in disbelief.
"I'm the Keeper of the Dimensionator," Kaden said, to the further surprise of the dumbstruck crowd. "Plus, I wasn't captured in a raid. I came here today looking for someone who went missing years ago; I never expected to find—" He stopped mid-sentence. There wasn't time for this. "I have to warn Fastoon about Tachyon, so I'm either going to bust out of here now or die trying. I can't take you all with me, but I can give you a chance to escape, and I'd take it if I were you."
The Lombaxes looked around at each other with fear in their eyes, but they were no fools. Kaden could tell they believed him, and thus that trusting him was their only hope for survival. Interestingly enough, it was Felix who finally spoke on behalf of everyone. "So what's the plan?"
"Now, wait just a minute," barked a nervous voice, and the pink, octopus-like form of another prisoner skittered forth. "You Lombaxes might have a physical advantage in this type of situation, but we Terrachnoids are bound to be killed!"
"The same goes for us," said one of the Vullards.
"Stay here, then," Kaden instructed. "You're not in any immediate danger. It's the Lombaxes Tachyon has a vendetta against... Oh! Is there a Vullard here named Dugar?"
A Vullard standing a few paces away shied back in surprise. "That's me! How do you know—?"
"No time to explain, but if you ever make it back home, thank Voren for both of us."
Kaden didn't wait for a response before turning his attention back to the group. "Okay, what can you tell me about the specs of this station?"
"It's Defense Class, Level B, designed for maximum internal security," Dezmond explained. "I don't think there's any chance of escape without cutting off power to the entire station."
"But no power means no life support," Felix interjected. "So it's kind of a no-win. Besides, even if we could somehow shut down the main power grid, the backup system would activate too fast for us to be able to do anything."
Kaden thought for a moment, his tail thumping against his leg. Then he looked up with a sparkle of inspiration in his eye. "How long would it take the backup system to come online if the main power source were removed?"
Dezmond raised an eyebrow. "Removed? As in, removed and not just shut down?"
Kaden nodded.
"Well, I think that sort of blow to the circuitry of the power grid would delay the backup generators by at least fifteen minutes."
"Then that's gonna have to be enough time for an uprising."
Kaden pulled the teleporter off his belt and opened it up, setting to work on the internal circuitry.
"What do you mean?" the female Lombax asked. "And what is that?"
"This," Kaden explained, "is a portable teleportation device. Right now I'm programming it to accept a larger subject than normal, as well as a couple new destinations. I'm gonna use it to get into the engine room, and then I'll teleport the main generator into outer space." He looked up at Nayeli's father and said, "I may need some backup. Will you come with me?"
Dezmond looked at him in amazement, and a knowing smile crossed his face. "Absolutely."
"Take this." Kaden pulled off the glove on his left hand and gave it to his father-in-law. "It's a modified Nano-Swarmer."
"But—"
"Don't worry about me, the glove on my other hand is a weapon as well. I'm going to have my ship attack the station as a distraction while we go for the power."
Kaden tapped the device on his wrist and said, "Did you get all that, Aphelion?"
"Affirmative," his ship's voice answered through the communicator. "I'm on my way now. Notify me when you've taken out the power and I'll pick you up in the docking bay."
"Perfect! Thanks, Feel!"
Kaden ended the transmission and looked at his audience. "Once we get the main power shut down, that'll be your chance to storm the station and try to escape."
A tremor shook the room, announcing that Kaden's plan was already in motion.
"All right," he shouted. "Here we go!"
He grabbed Dezmond's arm and activated the teleporter. A second later he was in a different room, and met by the familiar sight of space pirates all around. They jumped in surprise at seeing two Lombaxes appear out of thin air, but wasted no time in charging toward them.
Kaden tossed a few cryomines, which homed in on the approaching pirates and froze them solid. Then he and Dezmond each jumped behind one of the pirate-cicles for cover while the remaining enemies showered them with blaster fire. The two Lombaxes looked at each other and nodded, and Dezmond deployed a pod from his glove and lobbed it over his shoulder. The hive settled on the ground, and buzzing filled the air as nanosects swarmed toward their unsuspecting targets. When the sounds of screaming and buckling metal died down, Kaden held still for another few seconds before carefully poking his head out from behind his shelter. Satisfied that it was safe, he ventured further into the room with his partner close behind him.
The pair looked up in unison, and there before them was the primary power cell for the station. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling, pulsing with green energy. Without a word Kaden dashed over to it and smacked his device right onto its surface, pressing a button and feinting backwards. The power cell disappeared in a flash of light, leaving two huge vacant sockets. Immediately the room went dim and the mechanical hum in the background faded to silence.
Now came the hard part.
"We have to get to the docking bay, fast," Kaden exclaimed.
"Whoa, wait," Dezmond said. " 'We'?"
Kaden sighed and muttered, "Actually, I had an ulterior motive for bringing you with me. When I get out of here, I'll need another Lombax to corroborate my story… and I'm sure you want to see Nayeli."
For a brief, beautiful moment, Kaden saw his wife's tender, grateful smile on her father's face, and he tearfully murmured, "Bless you, son."
If not for the circumstances, Kaden would have beamed. "Don't mention it," he said. "Let's get out of here."
Author's Notes:
- Tachyon's Plot— Okay, here's the deal: I don't buy that Percival Tachyon was somehow smart enough to design technology light-years ahead of what the Lombaxes could come up with. So the revealing in this chapter was my idea to explain it (not to mention lend a cool edge to the final arc of the story ^-^).