Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
AIRIK
Airik’s first days in Zarmur had been spent hiding tears and climbing—a race against other moraziri candidates.
Climbing trees. Climbing ropes threaded with nails.
And climbing smooth metal walls that rose high into the sky, with sharp glass protrusions meant to serve as fingerholds.
Those who didn’t reach the apex first were thrown into warrior pits.
For Airik, there had only ever been one option—to win and be unconquered in speed.
Otherwise, without access to the regeneration chambers, a single injury could be fatal.
So he’d fixated on the stars above, bounding up vertical surfaces, a fervor driving his heart and limbs to go faster. He’d let himself think that maybe if he could catch a single star, he could wish away the relentless terror that had become his nights and days.
Only once had he lost, a few weeks after the sacred Algorithm had selected him to be a forgeling.
Airik had been approaching the top, and when it had become clear he would win, another child who had gotten too close had panicked, his flailing arms knocking Airik’s legs out.
Airik had plummeted lengths and lengths down—long enough for him to close his eyes and for the first time ever, truly fear for his life.
He’d crashed into the piles of equipment packs beneath them.
The jolt had rattled him, and he’d broken an arm, but nothing his body couldn’t manage on its own.
The other child had fallen, too, but he’d broken a leg, which was the only reason Airik had survived the trials after.
And the first life he’d been forced to take.
The fall from Ed’un’s atmosphere now was much worse, but the feeling of suspended awe as the ship dove toward the planet’s surface was the same.
He fought with the controls, trying to keep the ship’s thick belly parallel to the ground to absorb impact—if he ever made it.
The ship’s anti-collision alarms screamed, and then, against all programming, the ship veered into several atmospheric processors.
One sheared off the right wing. Then, the left tore off.
Airik shut his eyes tight, holding the controls the way he thought he was supposed to do. There was no point in looking.
Metal screeched. His ship hit the ground. Above the blood pounding in his ears, Airik heard the neural engine recite all the things it was doing to keep the ship intact, with the systems still obeying its control.
The ship skidded across terrain like a stone thrown across a lake, bouncing as if it had no weight at all. Airik’s body rattled in the command chair with each impact. Each one was a little less terrible than the last.
Until finally, everything stopped.
There was no explosion. No cleansing fire to wash him of his sins, no darkness shrouding him, welcoming him into death.
A great awareness pressed upon him, telling him that, somehow, he still lived. The only evidence that anything had gone wrong at all was a deep ache pounding in his body like he’d been trampled by a stampede of beasts.
And the silence. At first, he thought his eardrums had ruptured from the rapid descent. But then he heard crashing waves and the songs of birds. The silence, he realized, was the ship’s. The calm hum of the engines and the heartbeat signal’s soft beeps had died.
Strangled by the seat harness and the release switch unresponsive, he cut through the straps with his knife.
Airik stood, stunned that his legs still worked. Glass crunched under his boots—his progenitor’s language module and the sedative bottle. A violent surge of anger shot through him at the sight of the liquid spreading across the floor, overtaking the sparking module chip.
He turned to the viewport, searching for the other craft responsible. Cracked glass obstructed his view.
Suppressing a growl, Airik covered his fist with the sleeve of his shirt, then broke the viewport’s glass.
A salty breeze swept through the cabin, stinging his nose.
Vertigo made him stumble back, but he caught himself on the chair’s headrest. Long, purple grass with curling tips swayed back and forth beyond the striker’s crushed nose.
Beyond that lay a rock ledge, partially blocking his view of the ocean.
He’d crashed next to a cliff. If the ship had been nudged slightly to the east, he’d now be dead, either by drowning in the ocean or by being incinerated against the rocky cliffs.
Airik sagged against the control panel, gasping.
There isn’t any time for this. You are unkillable. Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. Move!
His thoughts jumbled as he checked through the ship for damage.
The nuclear core pulsated a little erratically, but old technology did that sometimes.
Checking his sleep quarters, the only evidence of a crash at all was a pile of his books on the floor and his cot sheets bunched on one side.
Everything else remained strapped in its place behind doors or within drawers.
Even the ship’s biological-support systems still worked, as evidenced by the water he ran to splash on his face.
Keep moving. You’re still on mission.
Ed’un’s environment was perfectly suited to true sapient species, but Airik donned his protective combat suit anyway. Though the irradiation protocols that had failed to stop kudra’s morph were long since stabilized and neutralized, the wildlife that still prowled suffered unpredictable mutations.
The instant the ship’s airlock hissed and the door slid open, letting in light, Airik’s eyes slammed shut.
He threw up an arm to shield against Ed’un’s two bright suns and to stop the singular burn that felt like it was tugging at his brain.
Tears stung as he smashed a button on the side of his helmet to drop the ultraviolet visor.
Adapt. Ti’rosi can see in bright sun, once acclimated. You must suffer to earn it.
After blinking a few times to clear the haze, he reduced his vision protection just until his eyes teared again. His helmet had been ripped off on the Lemides, so he couldn’t rely on its shield.
His ship had crashed in a field. To the west lay a gray forest of darroh trees, mutated to ten times their original height, rivaling the skyscrapers of Zarmur.
He jumped off the ramp, facing the ocean. It lay undisturbed, black and calm. Two bright suns hung in a cloudless sky above him, like the eyes of a bored god, amused by his predicament yet unwilling to help.
His throat tightened as he circled the ship. The communication module had been burned off, leaving a smooth bump where it had been. There was no hope of escape. No way to fly. No way to call for help.
Smoke rose from beyond the rock wall.
Airik gripped his sword tightly, moving toward the smoke. In the skies where it dissipated, two flying creatures spiraled and twirled. A dance only he could see. He shook his head, his eyes blurring again. It seemed the effects of the impact were still upon him.
He couldn’t see the other craft, obscured by the rock wall, but the smoke meant it had to be on the beach, hopefully strewn across it in tiny fragments.
Because, surely, it was a reaper’s craft, here to harvest kudra.
They must’ve broken the coding of the portals.
Why else come to a failed planet like Ed’un, where the wilderness sought to kill on sight?
Why risk confrontation with a morazir who, under the authority of the Veynari and with the skills of a sword, gun, and a body that had been forged in adversity, could torture, apprehend, and, if need be, terminate?
Maybe these were the same people who’d killed his progenitors. They’d never caught the murderers, but it was suspected they had been kudra reapers and the killing had been the symbolic slaying of a morazir.
Airik docked his sword behind his back, checked for his combat knife in his boot and his gun on his belt.
For their own sake, they’d better already be dead, because no one would leave this planet with morphed kudra.
Its value in the war trade had already cost millions, maybe billions, of lives and remained the biggest threat to the Veynari and its citizens.
He headed toward the smoke trailing into the sky.
Perhaps a sign that he’d find absolution here if he wanted it.
To end those of the same sort who’d killed his progenitors so many years before.
The ones responsible for the grief and loneliness he would never have felt if his progenitors had considered anyone beyond themselves and the love they’d foolishly allowed themselves to feel.
Maybe here, he’d finally destroy the memory of it all.