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  Warrior Rising

  ( Chronicles of Soone - 3 )

  James Somers

  Warrior Rising

  James Somers

  PROLOGUE

  Year 9015: Planet Castai

  Within the massive flagship of the Baruk space fleet, a nightmare sat upon a throne. Kale stood completely erect before his master, Lucin. “You summoned me, my lord?”

  Completely black eyes measured Kale. When Lucin spoke, his voice echoed throughout the chamber. Kale seemed ready to start shaking. He tried to remain cool and collected-difficult considering the person he stood before.

  “Kale Soone, son of the king of the Barudii, I want you to accompany our survey team down to the planet,” Lucin commanded. “Since you were the one who provided us with the means to defeat your father and his Barudii warriors, I assumed you would want to survey your handiwork.”

  Lucin smiled the entire time. “The Barudii have been defeated, the battle is over?” Kale asked.

  Regret was written all over the boy’s face. Kale wished he had not allowed his pride push him to such traitorous action. If only there were some way out. Too late for that now-the deed was done.

  Lucin came down from his throne walking toward Kale. He towered over the teenage boy by a good six inches. “We’ve had a marvelous victory, Kale,” he said. “And that victory is all thanks to your willingness to turn against your father.”

  The words cut Kale to the heart. “Was that what I did?” he said.

  “Oh yes. We are in your debt, young man. Why, without your complete betrayal of your people, we never would have been able to destroy your father and his forces. The victory we have gained today will allow us to take the entire planet of Castai.”

  Kale looked pale now.

  “Go on, son of Kale the first. Go down to your home world and see what your pride has accomplished for the enemies of your people.”

  Lucin grinned as Kale walked toward the door of his throne room. One of the Baruk officers met him at the door. Lucin called after him, “Lieutenant, please see that our young warrior gets a thorough look at the battlefield. I don’t want him to miss out on any of our conquest.”

  Such devastation, it was like nothing Kale had ever laid his eyes on before. Bodies were piled upon one another and strewn throughout the entire valley before Mt. Vaseer. The ground was soaked with the blood of his people. Birds of prey launched skyward as he walked through the aftermath. Most of the dead were from Kale’s own clan, the Barudii. He had known many of these people personally. They had looked to him as the next in line for the throne. Their pale faces and lifeless eyes condemned him now.

  He wandered between bodies for nearly six hours. His boots were stained red as he splashed through puddles of Barudii blood. Around him, the murderers of his clan retreated from the battlefield; the dark skinned Vorn and their vicious brute clones, the Horva. Yet they did not lay a finger to harm him-why would they? After all, he was the one who had led them here-had given them the information necessary to make all of this possible. He was a villainous traitor. He belonged among their enemies now.

  “Master Kale?” one of the Vorn commanders called. “You had better find a transport to take you back to our Lord’s flagship. We’ll be departing soon to join the fleet. You don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  Kale paused in his search. “I will be along shortly,” he said.

  The soldier went on about his business, rounding up the Horva for departure. Their work here was finished.

  Kale searched more frantically now. He had to find him, had to know if all of this was really happening, or merely some nightmare. Near the front lines, Kale saw it on the ground. The diadem was pure adomen-a costly, durable alloy bearing a luster all its own. The single azure jewel normally mounted on the front was missing.

  Very near, Kale found his body-the owner of the crown and King of the Barudii. This was his father, his namesake-the man whom he had betrayed into the hands of the Vorn and Baruk. His bloodstained expression was strangely peaceful. Kale could not take his eyes off of him. He felt frozen in place, frozen in time. Could this really have been what I wanted, he wondered? Is this my prize, my victory for the humiliation that was brought upon me?

  He shut his eyes and turned away from the face, but it was still there, piercing his soul. He considered his mother and his younger brother, Tiet. How horribly had they died? His brother had only been in his eighth year-ten years the younger.

  He heard the troop transports power up and ready for take-off as the last of the enemy combatants made their way aboard. Many ships to choose from, but none of them contained any friendly faces for him. He began to walk away and thought of looking back to take in one last glimpse of his father, but he could not do it. He didn’t have to-Kale had a feeling his father’s face, its expression cast in death, would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  Kale boarded one of the transport ships, carrying thousands of Vorn and Horva, and stood next to a view port. The massacre was less personal from the air. He was the only survivor of the Barudii clan-the only survivor and a traitor. He felt like pulling his blade and stabbing it into his heart, to kill the soul wrenching agony before it could begin its feast, but he didn’t have the courage.

  He sat on the floor against the wall of the ship’s troop compartment among a hundred smelly Horva brutes. His Barudii clan had been the guardians of Castai’s people. Now those people would be ripe for conquest by the Vorn and their masters, the Baruk.

  REBELLION

  Year 9027: Planet Castai

  The sky burned red like fire and so did his emotions. A lone figure watched from his perch as people scurried to their homes on the streets below-curfew was approaching. Military personnel were stationed in threes on every major path to ensure obedience.

  He watched them below, hating them. A security camera’s gears whined as it swiveled on its mount next to him, looking for miscreants. He was almost in view, but not quite.

  They weren’t going to see him tonight. He would be a shadow, a nightmare that strikes and is gone before the senses can capture it. Orin would be angry, of course. He had been before, but now Tiet was older, now he was ready.

  The Vorn cloning facility stood in view above the far rooftop-that place where monsters are bred. That’s what they used to kill my people.

  The next rooftop stood all the way across the wide path below. When no one appeared to be looking, he leaped away from the ledge, somersaulted and landed on the rooftop ledge on the other side of the path. Utilizing the Way had its benefits. He could move objects with his mind or enhance his own movements. He could fight like a whirlwind, or creep upon his enemies like a shadow. He wanted to finally put his training to use. Years ago, his people had been protectors on Castai. If only they hadn’t been massacred. The Vorn would not be their taskmasters now.

  Tiet sensed the motion of the cameras and spotted them easily. He waited for them to leave a dead space in their visual field for him then he ran through to the other side of the rooftop. The cloning facility towered above him-the jump to reach it would be too much, even using the Way. The paths had cleared with the onset of curfew. He could run across now. Tiet dropped off of the building, a full two hundred feet to the ground.

  While in the air, Tiet noticed a Vorn soldier emerging from a door below. He adjusted his fall slightly and came down right behind the man using his mind to soften his landing. His hand cupped the soldier’s mouth. With a quick jerk of his arm, the man’s neck snapped. He dropped the enemy to the ground as the body went limp. Tiet left him, hoping he would be long gone before anyone discovered the body.

  He ran across the empty walkways to the fence on the other side. He jumped over its top with little effort, but an
other layer of fencing stood on the other side. The sign warned intruders of electrocution. No bother-Using his mind, Tiet helped his muscles propel him over. This is almost too easy, he thought.

  On a security panel inside the cloning complex, a warning flashed. Data began to pour onto the screen. The security officer examined the information. Sometimes, small animals triggered the pressure relays located all over the grounds of the complex, but not this time. The weight given at the trigger point registered one hundred and fifty five pounds.

  He punched in his security code to activate the silent alarm and brought up scanning and video devices on his display. It took a moment, but then he saw him. A man was entering the building through one of the air vents. The security officer brought up a schematic for the complex and zoomed in on that particular air duct. It traveled through an area of the detention center and then came out near the main laboratory area. “Gotcha!” he crowed.

  “Identify.”

  “Dr. Ranul K’ore, Chief Science Engineer, Sector Seven.”

  “Visual and voice recognition confirmed,” said the robot.

  The Sentinel robots were standard fare around the labs with this special project in the works. Metal bodies mingled with composite plastics-they were tough enough to get the job done, just not nearly as sophisticated as what he was working on now. The metal door slid open and Ranul walked past the automaton into the main lab.

  Ranul’s nineteen-year-old daughter had been imprisoned along with his wife, Ellai, to pressure him into building war machines for the Vorn. If he refused, he might never see his family again. He tried to push away the pain, turning to continue his work.

  He typed the final program sequences on a keypad, arming the weapons systems of his latest Sentinel prototype. As Vorn scientists watched his every move, Ranul finished complex algorithms for the Sentinel’s combat systems then transmitted the files into the cyborg’s expansive memory. A few of Ranul’s engineering specialists mingled among the Vorn scientists running diagnostic checks on the prototype systems.

  Ranul had modeled the exterior appearance, from skeletal structure all the way to muscle positions and skin features, after a young Barudii he had known long ago. Looking at the new Sentinel, he realized just how much it did look like his old friend, Orin Vale. Despite the prototype being a weapon under the control of his enemies, Ranul couldn’t help but take pride in his work. He had done what many thought would never work. He had built a robotic warrior nearly as unstoppable as the old Barudii warriors themselves. Still, it would be used for Lucin’s purposes.

  As the robot’s CPU began to run through its programming and perform systems diagnostic checks, Ranul watched the Vorn in the room. The enemy scientists all looked very pleased with their new soldier. He wondered for a moment what the consequences of all this would be for his people and his family. He whispered his wife’s name with regret. Ellai, what have I done?

  The air duct wasn’t as roomy as Tiet would have liked, but he could still get through. A constant stream of wind passed over him, making it hard to hear what any voices said from the adjoining rooms along the way. He scooted along, hoping he might find something that he could sabotage in order to thwart Vorn control over the city. Rebellion against Lucin and the Vorn would take many people willing to fight, but it had to start somewhere.

  Tiet came to a vent screen made of a particularly heavy meshwork. When he looked inside, he saw what appeared to be a holding cell. A small group of adolescents sat on the concrete floor inside. A few younger boys and girls and one older girl about his age made up the group. The only facilities in the room were a small dirty sink basin and a toilet with a blanket hanging across as some semblance of privacy.

  The front of the cell was barred with heavier meshwork and a half sized door-which meant they had to get down on their knees to get out-if they were ever allowed to.

  Tiet’s scabbard scraped the roof of the duct. It was too difficult to maneuver in the tunnel and get to his blade. Instead, he removed a kemstick from his vest. The hilt was about twelve inches long-three feet long fully extended. The adomen rod hummed gently.

  Such were the properties of adomen, an alloy mixing silver with adon and carbite. Its densely packed molecules lived in such an excited state that the metal atomized anything it came into contact with. Only the presence of electromagnetic fields could keep it stable. Honis Kem, a Barudii living over one hundred years ago had developed the kemstick from adomen after working for years to produce the Barudii blades used by warriors of his clan.

  Tiet pressed his face against the vent, looking down on the children in the cell. He tapped lightly with the hilt of his weapon on the floor of the air vent. The older girl looked around then up at him. She started when she saw a person behind the vent screen.

  “I’m going to get you out,” he whispered. “Is it all clear?”

  The girl stared at him, not giving anything away by gesture. The other children in the cell were now looking up to see where the voice was coming from. One young boy started to cry out, but the older girl cupped his mouth quickly to prevent him from alerting the guards.

  She gestured only, putting her finger to her mouth to shush the children. Then she quietly walked near the front of the cell and looked down the hall beyond-no one was coming. When she walked back to the other children and gestured to calm them again, she looked up and nodded to him.

  Tiet brought the kemstick hilt up in a stabbing fashion and then extended the adomen rod. The shaft punched through the metal around the vent like a hot knife through butter.

  He grabbed the mesh plate with his fingers and proceeded to cut around it in a circle large enough to get the older girl through. The metal popped and sizzled as the field destroyed molecular bonds, carving through the wall of the vent pipe until he was done.

  Tiet laid the cut piece up ahead of the hole and reached his arms down in order to help the children up.

  “We can’t reach,” whispered the older girl.

  “Don’t worry.”

  Without warning, one of the children began to levitate off the floor. She thought they might scream and gestured for them all to remain quiet-assuring them it was all right.

  The child rose up quietly into the hole. Tiet caught hold of each, pulling them inside. He pressed against the side wall just enough to allow them to pass and get behind him.

  The girl walked to the front of the cell wanting to be sure no guards were coming-no one yet. Behind her, the children each took their turn, seven in all, and rose up through the charred hole with the help of their mysterious rescuer.

  “Come on,” he whispered.

  The older girl walked underneath the hole. Invisible hands seized the girl and lifted her up to Tiet waiting to receive her inside the tunnel. He had short dark hair like midnight and dark piercing eyes. When Tiet grabbed her hands, she gauged his strength.

  Tiet pulled her inside the air duct and pressed his body back to allow her to pass-she was larger than the young children, making for a tight squeeze.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Tiet Soone. And you?”

  “Mirah K’ore. Are you insane? How did you get in here?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a Barudii warrior,” he said confidently.

  She didn’t seem impressed by it. “I didn’t think there were any Barudii left.” She didn’t wait for the reply, scooting her body past him.

  She’s sort of feisty, he thought. He also noticed she was pretty beneath the grime of her incarceration.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Go back down this shaft and it will lead you to the outside. Take this kemstick,” he said, handing Mirah the retracted weapon. “Run for the fence. This will allow you to cut through and get off the grounds. Just be quiet and stick to the unlit areas. You should be all right. I didn’t see any guards on the way in.”

  “Then what?”

  “If you can get to a home, maybe they’ll hide you until you can get back to your famil
ies.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I still have some business to attend to. Now get going.”

  The children began their slithering back along the air duct with Mirah behind them. Tiet crawled on over the hole he had made and continued through the duct ahead.

  In a moment, a guard appeared in front of the cell. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Where are the prisoners? He grabbed his throat-something unseen choked him. His eyes bugged as he tried to breathe. Orin’s fist tightened in the shadows, watching while the guard struggled and then collapsed-his trachea crushed by an invisible grip.

  Orin looked up at the charred hole in the ceiling of the detention cell. Careless, just plain careless and inexperienced, he thought. He sighed and moved on, using the shadows to his advantage. Those children are going to need help to get out of here safely. He would have to deal with his protege soon enough.

  Tiet passed more cells as he continued his crawl through the ventilation system of the cloning facility. Every other room appeared to be empty. When he finally reached the end of the shaft, Tiet found it capped by a wire grill.

  Beyond the vent screen, he saw a massive room full of all manner of technologies. Clusters of cloning pods hung from great robotic arms mounted to the ceiling. This must be where they grow the Horva.

  Only one detail was missing from the chamber. There were no clones, none at all. In fact the entire chamber was completely devoid of activity. A series of large tanks with various chemical names printed on their sides stood in the distant portion of the great room. The fluid tanks were transparent and empty.

  A control chamber sat near the tanks. Maybe I can get some useful information from their computers. Tiet pressed his body against the screen and then gave it a good solid push. It gave way and almost fell onto the floor before he could grab it.

  Nothing moved in the room. Tiet climbed out of the ventilation tube and replaced the screen in case someone happened by. He crossed the floor of the huge chamber cautiously, looking for camera mounts. There were a few, but he waited and used the large equipment to stay hidden from their field of view.