Shattered Destiny: A Galactic Adventure, Episode One (12 page)

…
Why had I called the sword at
his side an Illuminate sword? I had no goddamn idea. My line of
reasoning didn’t make sense. I didn’t honestly believe that just
because his ship was called the
Illuminate
everything on board was called the
Illuminate, too. That was idiotic.

Yet I couldn’t explain why the word had
pushed from my lips.

The prince appeared to assess me carefully
for several seconds before taking several steps back. He nodded.
“We need to continue.”

I kept staring at him. From under my
armor, I didn’t have to control my expression, and I let my eyes
widen as much as they wanted to, let my lips part all the way open.
I knew my cheeks were slack and pale, knew I looked like an
emotional mess. Fortunately, no one could see.

I gestured
towards my blaster. “Can I keep
it out?”

He didn’t say anything. Eventually he
nodded. Then he pointed forward.

We continued to push slowly through the
jungle. The further we walked, the thicker it became. The thicker
my thoughts became, too.

There was so much I wanted to ask him.
Foremost was why the hell we were down on this goddamn planet.
Sure, the ship had scanned it from space, and it had confirmed
there were no enemies, barely any life more sophisticated than a
tree, in fact. So why had the prince taken a full contingent of
soldiers?

What was he looking for?

What did he really think was down on this
planet?

I found myself striding forward, pushing
out in front of the prince, even though he was meant to take
point.

My body just did it on its own.

Though I knew from experience that the
prince should pull me up on that, he didn’t.

We walked together in almost
near silence, the only sound the soft crunch of our
armored boots on
the jungle floor, and the occasional chirp of an insect.

I still didn’t know what we were after,
but as I flicked the prince an occasional look, and saw how stiff
his body language was even under his armor, I could bet it was more
than a simple research mission.

The further we travelled into the jungle,
the tenser he became.

The jungle around us started to shift,
too. Every now and then I watched him bend down as he appeared to
assess a misplaced rock amongst the foliage.

It took a while for me to realize they were
ruins.

As I pushed back a massive purple leaf, I
frowned down at what looked like the remnants of a stone
pillar.

As soon as the prince saw what I was
looking at, he ducked forward, and practically muscled me out of
the way in his haste to scoot down to his knees and assess
it.

Unlike me, he didn’t need to pull a matter
scanner from the holster at his belt – all he needed to do was wave
his armored hand over the ruined pillar.

Well, I assumed the armor had sophisticated
scanners, that, or he was waving at it.

Though that thought provided me with a
single moment of mirth, it was fleeting.

The prince suddenly jerked up to his feet.
He took a stiff step back, head lurching from side-to-side as he
spun almost in a full circle.

“What is it?” I asked, undeniable fear
curling in my gut.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t deign to as he
pushed forward, swiped at the massive purple leaves that obscured
the ruins, and pulled the plant out of the ground.

He thrust it aside and continued forward,
more cautiously now. I watched his neck shift as he assessed the
jungle floor carefully.

With every goddamn step my stomach
curdled. I wanted to tell myself it was just anger. Justified
frustration at the fact the prince had dragged me along on this
mission without one word of explanation.

But the further we traversed into the
jungle, the more that sensation returned.

That God awful sensation. A hand on my
shoulder. That ghostly apparition that told me what to do and
always forced me to protect the prince.

Now it was back, a trace of nerves slicing
down my shoulder and into my spine.

Suddenly, without realizing
what I was doing, I
split
away from the
prince, and jumped down an incline, boots skidding down a rocky
section until I had to push into a roll and jump to my feet to
avoid a ditch at the bottom.

“What are you doing?” Xarin snapped from
above.

I could barely hear him. It was as if some
unseen force had stolen into my mind and thrust a blanket over
every one of my senses. All my attention focused on a single point
about 250 meters into the jungle.

Fortunately I had the presence of mind to
tear my stiff white lips back from my teeth and utter, “There’s
something out there.”

With that, I could no longer control my
body, and I thrust forward with all the speed of a shot from an ion
cannon. I powered through the jungle, tearing into any leaf or
branch or twig that dared get in my way. It was a surprise flame
didn’t spurt out from my boots.

Time seemed to slow down, even though I
powered towards that point in the distance with all the combined
speed of my desperation and my armor.

Every moment felt sluggishly slow, every
movement a true trial.

Until finally I reached it.

Suddenly the path in front of me cut off.
It happened so suddenly, I almost stumbled over the edge. Instinct
alone saved me from falling down what looked like a 500 meter
ravine. It was so completely obscured by jungle vines and creepers
it was like a death trap.

Sure enough, as the prince came powering
through the jungle towards me, he didn’t see it.

I had to thrust a hand out, collect his
arm, and pull him to the side.

On paper, there was no way my armor was
stronger than his. Yet, somehow, I managed to pull him to the side
just in time.

He skidded and fell, dragging me on top of
him.

I slammed into his chest plating, metal on
metal.

Even though I couldn’t see his body beneath
the plating, I could tell every single muscle stiffened.

That was nothing compared to my own
reaction. I felt like my muscles seized so much they
calcified.

Suddenly he thrust forward, shoved me off,
and loomed above me. “What in Farick’s name—” he began.

He stopped.

His head
jerked
to the side with so much speed it looked as if someone had
attached a rope to his helmet and
yanked
it.

As the words died in his throat, fear rose
in mine.

I jolted to my feet, careful to take
several steps back so I didn’t tumble over the
precipice.

It took me a while to realize what the
prince was looking at, but I ticked my head around and stared
across a sizeable 20 meter gap.

There were ruins on the other side. Not
the sparse, broken ruins we’d come across – just a handful of
stones in the jungle.

Proper ruins. A building.

“My god,” the prince said. His armor could
not electronically obscure the surprise filtering through his tone.
It shook so badly, for a second he didn’t sound like the pompous,
arrogant fool he was.

“…
What are they?” I managed
through a dry throat. The longer I stared at them, the more I was
beset by that feeling.

It no longer simply felt as if a single
hand rested on my shoulder – it felt like a body was pressed into
mine, like someone had wrapped their arms around my neck, not in a
move of violence, but guidance.

A second later, my head tugged to the
side.

I saw something further down the precipice
on our side.

I moved to follow.

I didn’t get the opportunity.

The prince jerked out a hand and grabbed
my arm, the superior strength of his armor locking me in place.
Hell, with the right codes, he could probably stop my armor from
moving altogether, turning it into nothing more than a frozen
puppet.

I twisted my helmet to stare at him.
“There’s something further along the path,” I managed, disappointed
that I couldn’t hide how breathy my voice had become.

He didn’t move, at least not for a few
seconds. He just stood there, helmet angled my way, stiff armored
fingers pressing into my wrist.

Finally he dropped it and nodded. “Show
me,” he ordered.

I swallowed the bile that always rose
whenever he ordered me about, and shifted my attention forward.

I pressed through the jungle, moving about
20 meters until I stopped. Dead. The ethereal hands around my neck
suddenly locked onto the back of my head and thrust it forward. I
practically fell onto my knees as my hands jerked forward and I
began to dig through the dirt.

It didn’t take long – just a few mad pats of
my hands – to uncover something.

It was a metal disk, about two inches
thick, and half an inch wide. In the center it was hollowed out,
several lines, almost like hairline fractures, travelling out to
the edges of the circle.

I reached a hand towards it.

The prince threw himself at me, locked an
arm around my middle, and pulled me back with all the force of an
attack.

He thrust me to the side
and let me go. I
rolled and punched to my feet.

“You can’t touch that,” he snapped. “It
shouldn’t even exist…” He trailed off. His voice got a distracted
quality as he pushed down to his knees and hovered over the object.
It was almost as if he blocked me out completely as he spread his
hands wide over that metal disk and obviously scanned it with his
armor.

I resisted the urge to leap forward, wrap an
arm around his middle, and throw him to the side. Not because I
wanted to protect him, but because I wanted to show he couldn’t
control me, couldn’t push me around so easily.

But there was a force that could push me
around, literally.

I brought a hand up and pressed my fingers
into my shoulder, the exact point where that ghostly force always
connected with me.

I shuddered and stepped back, never
shifting my gaze off the prince.

After a few minutes of scanning whatever
that strange object was, he pushed to his feet and jerked away from
it. I’d never seen him move in a more uncoordinated, hasty way. For
a man who seemed to embody the statuesque strength of a god, he now
looked like nothing more than a boy in armor.

“What is it?” I found myself
asking.

At first I didn’t think he’d answer. Then
he turned his helmet towards me. “Something that shouldn’t be here.
Something that should have been destroyed in the Great War.” He
pushed past me and continued back up the precipice along the way
we’d come.

For a second I didn’t follow. Because for
a second I wanted to jerk down and pick that object up. For some
strange reason I wanted to draw it in close to my face and stare at
it, take it all in at once.

Before I could go through with
t
hat desire,
the prince appeared at my side once more, and he grabbed my
wrist.

He pulled me forward. Like I was nothing
more than a doll or a dog on a leash.

Though I desperately wanted to pull my
hand back, kick him on the back of the knees, then follow up with a
vicious blow to his head, I didn’t.

I wasn’t that stupid. I was already
skating on thin ice. Any more acts of insubordination, and the
prince would get rid of me.

He drew to a stop along the precipice I’d
found when I’d burst from the jungle. Though he could have let go
of my wrist, he didn’t. He kept hold of it as he tipped his head
back and stared at the ruins beyond. “We have to get over
there.”

“I probably can’t make that jump,” I said
honestly, double checking the specs of my armor on my internal
visor.

“I can.” Without any warning, the prince
looped behind me, and picked me up.

I spluttered, surprise tearing from my
throat, about to be joined by some well-placed insults.

B
efore I had a chance to scream them, the
prince walked back several steps, then leapt. I felt for certain we
wouldn’t make it. But halfway through, just when I was sure
we’d
drop
like a rock, the prince’s armor suddenly
employed thrusters.

It could fly.

And fly it did. We travelled across the
last 10 meters easily, and the prince dropped down gracefully on
the other side.

He held on
to me needlessly for several
seconds as he tipped his head back and clearly assessed the
ruins.

Then he dropped me.

Like a sack of rocks.

I thumped at the ground by his feet, my
weight combined with my heavy armor cracking the ancient stones
beneath me.

I glared at him, then briefly turned off
the audio feed and swore at him with every goddamn colorful
expression I could think of.

Then I pushed carefully to my
feet.

I turned.

The
prince frowned. “With me. One step
behind. Don’t get ahead, and for God’s sake, never fall
behind.”