The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (34 page)

Eikhus and the Nautilus made their way safely
back to the Kharybdian Enclave after dropping Setsei and Suthsi off
in Madai. The Ytrans have surprised us all by deciding to enroll in
classes at Daralfanoon University where they plan to study
cosmocriminology, and, yes, hone their fighting skills.

Eikhus himself has decided to channel his own
fighting skills towards the battle against death. He has only one
more year of nanobiotech training before he can begin an
apprenticeship in anastasis, which he hopes to do at Nejinsen.
Meanwhile, Nerea has asked Eikhus to officiate at her merging
ceremony in June. Spud and I are looking forward to seeing her and
her other two tributaries join currents to create little creeks or,
as Sarion joked, pro-creek-ate.

And Spud? Well, he’s still playing those
screeching operas during our routine duty patrols in our own Solar
System. Though I’m happy to report that Spud’s transmitting an
super-high note from an awful aria at an enormous, out-of-control
Humboldt vessel yesterday caused the massive renegade ship to break
up harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere, before it could crash land and
turn Europe into a giant impact crater.

Off duty, Spud heads back to Europe himself
for a couple of months, spending weekends tending to his mother’s
estate in France, and weekdays in those intimidating British public
schools. Anything to get time away, he insists, from Everett
Weaver’s insipid leadership of Earth Core.

As for me, after waving “buh-bye” to the
paparazzi, I pulled the window shades down, locked the doors of my
Malibu bungalow, and set the alarm. The marine layer was creeping
in and I didn’t bother to wait to see my world turn gray. I
M-fanned to Maryland, where late spring on the farm is a lush
garden warmed by bright sunshine, my very own Eden. My plan was to
camp out for several months between Zygint duty shifts in my true
home in the Appalachians until filming would begin again on
Bulwark
.

I couldn’t avoid wondering what had happened
to the souls we had left behind on HD5924. Were they successful
immigrants to another dimension where the fruits of knowledge were
ripe for their picking? Had they died during transport, and
transitioned en masse to Level 3? Or had they, like the John in my
brother’s story, left the planet—the universe--Icarus for the
vacuum of nothingness, from which no one had ever returned? I would
also have to take a few weeks this summer to return to Zyga and try
to uncover the secrets behind Project Helios and my
brother’s…death.

The whole family was sitting around the
dinner table when I arrived back East. I took one of the two empty
chairs, sitting between Andi and Blair, to join everyone in a
hearty meal of vegetable stew. We had a lot to catch up on. George
had passed his bar exam, Connie had gotten engaged, Kris had won a
music award in Vegas, and Billy’s Little League team was in the
semi-finals. It was wonderful to all be together again. Almost. My
eyes tried not to wander to the only unfilled seat, where with each
glance I’d hoped to see John’s tall frame and his friendly face. I
ended up repeatedly disappointed, seeing … nothing.

Nothing. Was that John’s fate, as he had
written in his story? Or had his driving passion led him to write
another ending for himself, in a world beyond our own? A world
forbidden to everyone except foolhardy villains and beings who
yearn to fly.

Kris was nattering on about plans for her new
CD, and I politely tried to turn my attention back to the rest of
my family. And then I saw it, just a blur in the corner of my eye,
in the empty seat I was desperate to avoid. The silver water
pitcher in front of me taunted me with a reflected view. I looked,
and gasped. John!

Ghostlike and transparent, emaciated, his
eyes sunken and dull. His expression was a silent pleading that
grew more intense as he faded slowly from my sight. I turned to
look directly at his chair. It was, as before, empty.

“Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best title, but
it’s hot!” Kris said accusingly, in response to my gasp.

Shaken, it took me a minute to process her
remark, and I responded with a wan, “I hear you.” I scanned the
faces of my siblings. Some were looking at me with a bit of
concern, but none seemed to be reacting as if they too had seen my
momentary vision. I took a deep breath, smiled at Kris and then the
others, and added, “Hot sells. Go for it.”

And filled my mouth with a convenient
spoonful of vegetable stew.

Had I simply imagined I’d just seen John?
From another brane? Desperate? Alive? I’d come home to Maryland to
be with my family and catch my breath, but perhaps there was
another family member that I needed to seek out. One who needed my
help. Right away.

We had waited for John for so long.
I
had waited… But what if John was wrong, and ‘patience is not always
the champion’s best tool’?

Pleading fatigue, I excused myself from the
table and ran up to my bedroom, my fingers reaching for my Ergal.
First stop, London. To pick up Spud, whom I needed by my side.
Then…

I closed the door, pulled my Ergal out of my
pocket, and activated it. Maybe, just maybe, a Rush’s best tool is
… action.

The emprise continues…

Redemption

The Zygan Emprise, Book 2

By Y. S. Pascal

www.zygfed.com

Book 2

ABYSSAL REDEMPTION

A Spark of That Immortal Fire

Pity the man imprisoned in his own mind. It
is the cage from which he can never escape, except, of course, by
death. And if death were to run from his arms, taunting him from an
unreachable distance, man’s thoughts would fade into the ether,
trees falling in the woods that no one can hear.

Except the Ursans.

--Lester Samuel Moore

Chapter 1

Galaxy Quest

Where time and place are meaningless

The gaunt young man looked up at his
tormentors and opened his mouth to scream. Only a whimper escaped
his cyan lips before he collapsed unconscious onto the spongy
surface of the pediment under his shackled feet.

“Death will come quickly,” the empyrean woman
declared to her companion as she tapped the youth’s head with the
point of her shoe. “He was a fool.”

The elderly man blinked back tears. Allowing
himself one last glance at the prone victim, he began his
transformation—reborn as a transparent liquid which oozed into the
gaps in the porous ground and disappeared. The woman, too, was
melting into the permeable layer on which the body lay. Within
seconds, the cushioned layer itself had fully dissolved, and once
again the young man lay silent and surrounded by infinite
emptiness. Alone.

* * *

Great Britain, 1871

“What happened? What’s the rush?” I whispered
as I caught up to the panting first-former in a too-tight tuxedo
who was running down the stone path to Eton College Chapel. Several
other long-legged teenage boys sped by us, black gowns flapping,
and we upped our pace to keep up with the crowd.

“An execution.” There was a disturbing hint
of excitement in my “classmate’s” voice. “A rip for Neville Minor.
Hurry, Rush, or we shall miss it.”

I suppressed a shiver under my own black
robes. Execution? In high school? These British boarding schools
were worse than I thought. I’d uploaded enough Dickens before time
looping back to the past to know that 19
^th
century
London wasn’t exactly a Beverly Hills spa, but murdering teenagers
in British boarding schools hadn’t come up in any background files.
What possible crime could this Neville kid have committed to
deserve death? Even the Zygan Federation’s ruler, the Omega Archon,
had never imposed the death penalty on its worst criminals and
terrorists. Much less on push-the-limits teens like me.

I brushed my fingers through my blonde
windblown curls. I wasn’t used to having hair down to my collar,
Shiloh Rush’s trademark was a spiky short haircut in a modern punk
style. Funny, disguised as a clean-shaven 13-year-old boy on
this—ahem, unauthorized--time loop, I actually had longer locks
than I sport playing teen space cadet Tara Guard on our TV show
Bulwark
.
^xxxv

“Cap the beaks or you shall get swished as
well,” my jogging partner—Richards, I think he’d said his name
was—buzzed. “We’re the last of the tugs.”

Flipping up my tails, I reached a hand in the
back pocket of my trousers and felt for my Ergal. Anamorphed into
the shape of an antique stopwatch, the Zygan all-in-one tool had
not only transported me back to 19
^th
century Britain,
but was supposed to translate foreign words directly and silently
into my brain. I’d set it for England and the correct date, but
still didn’t have a clue what Richards was saying. Eton had a
language of its own.

We arrived at an open clearing and clambered
over some large granite blocks to get a better view of the arena
before us. In the center of the muddy courtyard below was a wooden
box shaped like a stepstool. On it knelt a boy no older than my
12-year-old brother Billy looking ashen and terrified as he was
being held down by two muscular sixth-formers. I scanned the yard,
but saw no sign of a guillotine, gallows, or the executioner’s axe.
Good. There might still be time to save Neville’s life.

I couldn’t help but flash to my own “school
days” a couple of years ago at the Mingferplatoi Academy as a Zygan
Intelligence trainee. Zygan Intelligence catascopes, agents, were
expressly forbidden by our kingdom, the Zygan Federation, to
interfere in local cultures. “Observe and Preserve” had been our
mantra as cadets. But there was no way I was going to stand by and
watch a real-life horror film play out for this crew of lusty
adolescent voyeurs. I had to create a distraction of some sort that
wouldn’t violate Zygfed’s strict rules, but
would
give the
poor kid down there a shot at breaking away from his captors.

A loud murmur rose up from the audience as
two gray-haired men decked in long black robes walked onto the
grounds, the taller of the two carrying a bundle of branches tied
together. I frowned.
They’re not actually thinking of burning
him to death with that kindling, are they?
If I was going to
engineer a rescue, I’d better live up to my last
name—
Rush
.

My eyes landed on a on an enormous elm whose
leaves overhung the field. Were those black fuzzy spots among the
foliage birds?

I pulled out my stopwatch Ergal and, after
checking that the gazes of Richards and his classmates were intent
on the arena’s spectacle, I casually put the chain ring next to my
right eye. Under the 20x magnification of its barely visible lens,
I could easily see, perched on the tree limbs, yup, a flock of
ebony ravens. I flashed on a quote from my uploads of Edgar Allan
Poe. Were they an ill omen for poor Neville? If I could only act in
time, nevermore.

Hiding my Ergal back under my robes, I picked
up a two inch rock from the dirt and grass by my feet. Pressing the
watch face with a secreted hand, I morphed the Ergal into a
slingshot, pulled it out again, and, drawing on the skills I’d
gained as a kid on our Maryland farm, shot the rock over Richards’
head at the big tree.

Unfortunately, I never had developed very
good aim with such a primitive weapon. Yes, I missed. The elm, that
is. The rock arced up over the crowd and started its fall, landing
directly between the shoulder blades of the tall man gripping the
branches. Professor Gray-hair let out a piercing scream and threw
the bundle up in the air, terrifying the ravens, which cawing and
shrieking, swooped out of the tree en masse. The errant bundle of
sticks bounced off the bald pate of the shorter of the two masters
before splashing into a puddle, showering both men with splatters
of mud.

The students’ rumblings and laughter echoed
across the field, giving me time to anamorph my Ergal back into a
watch and join the chorus of “Neville, Neville” from the stands.
Wouldn’t do to get caught myself amidst this barbarism. I did
manage an honest ‘whoop’ though, when, distracted by the circus,
the older teens holding Neville finally released their grip
.
There’s your break, kid, take it.
To my amazement, pale and
shivering, Neville stood stiffly by their side. “Run, dammit,” I
muttered under my breath. Would I actually have to go down there
and rescue him?

I jumped up a foot when a strong, firm hand
grabbed my shoulder from behind. My Zygan Intelligence training
kicked in instinctively and I spun around, right arm extended,
locking my fingers together to land a disabling karate chop on my
attacker.

But a second strong, firm hand stopped my
fingers an inch from their target, my fellow agent’s wiry neck.

“Spud!” I grunted, as both of his strong,
firm hands pulled me away from the other students, and prodded me
out of earshot towards a stone archway back down the path from
whence we’d come. Though I wasn’t exactly short at almost 5’9, Spud
towered over me by at least a few inches.

Turning to face me, his brown hair slicked
back and his brows knitted over piercing gray eyes, William “Spud”
Escott’s expression was as dark as his robe. “What in blazes do you
think you’re doing?!”

“Trying to save Neville from the blazes,” I
nodded towards the show. “They were going to execute him--I had to
do something! What? What’s so funny?” Spud had uncharacteristically
erupted with deep guffaws.

“’Tisn’t
that
kind of an execution,
Rush,” Spud finally returned, still chuckling. “Trust me, Neville
is not about to die. Though his bottom may be a bit aflame for a
few days after Hornby’s punitive handiwork with the birch.”