Nero Awakening Read online

  I pause, considering it.

  No. It isn’t a stretch. At all.

  “I don’t know what they found,” Edan continues. “The official reports said it was an accident. That there was some kind of gas leak in our house that day. While I was at school, they were poisoned by something in the air.”

  I suck a quick breath into my lungs. “Someone killed them for what they found.”

  Edan’s eyes are dark when he looks over at me. “Like I said, on the record, it was an accident. But I knew. They’d found something they shouldn’t have.”

  I shake my head. And once more, a conversation I’d had with Valen comes back to mind.

  Is there any good left? Is it all just shades of gray?

  “I was taken into government custody,” Edan says. “I didn’t have any family left alive to take care of me, so the government promised they’d do it. But they were cold, careless people who only wanted their check. I was twelve when my parents died. I gave the planet of Laziria two solars to prove they weren’t as soulless as I’d thought. But when they proved worse than I thought, I decided I was better on my own.”

  Since he was fourteen. Edan has been on the streets, taking care of himself since he was fourteen.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “I turned nineteen two weeks ago,” he answers in a hollowed out way.

  “I’m sorry I missed it,” I say. “I would have had Oona make you a pie if I’d known.”

  Edan shrugs, his eyes sliding back to meet mine. “Birthdays are for little kids with happy lives. We grow up, don’t we, Nova?”

  He’s right. Not everything can be easy. History is made by those who have it hard or are willing to handle the hard.

  “I’m sorry all that happened to you, Edan,” I say. “But I’m really glad we met in that park. I’m really glad I lied and called you my brother.”

  I reach out and grab his hand. The one with a few scars across the back of it, like maybe he was whipped for stealing food to survive.

  “I’m really glad you claimed to be my sister,” he says. His expression is serious. Sincere. “You saved my life that day. And I don’t mind spending the rest of my life paying you back.”

  This is a planet at war.

  Even as we descend from the sky, I can see the bombs going off. I see the shots being fired. I see Neron explosions all over the surface.

  I’m glad the children are sleeping right now. I don’t want them to see this, even though this is their future. I can’t protect them forever. But I can protect them for now.

  “Do we really have to do this?” I ask as Valen comes to stand beside me. His strong hand wraps around mine. He squeezes it tight, giving support. “Can’t he take care of it himself?”

  “Every day this war continues, it costs Dominion billions of credits,” Valen says. His voice is flat. He’s accepted all of this over the solars.

  I shake my head. Money doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to me. But this is the way things are. This is what we are here for.

  The Black Arrow touches down in the fortress, safe—for now—from the warfare. I go to the bedroom, collecting the girl in my arms. She doesn’t wake, only wraps her arms around my neck and breathes deeply into my hair.

  She’s getting so tall I probably won’t be able to pick her up like this in another solar.

  The boy yawns as Valen rouses him, but he rubs his tired eyes and gets out of bed, walking to his father’s side.

  As a family, we stand together as the hatch opens.

  A dozen soldiers, a general, and Cyrillius wait for us.

  “There is no time for pleasantries,” Cyrillius says as we step off the ship. “If this goes on another hour, the scales will be tipped and this will not end in our favor.”

  Everyone sets across a courtyard, and we walk swiftly to keep up. Cyrillius heads toward a stone tower, and we slip in through a door, leaving the soldiers behind outside. A set of stairs circles up and up, until it levels out into a circular room.

  Glassless windows give us a full view of the planet in the middle of an all-out war. I see bombs detonate, destroying buildings. I see five men shot to death on a street. I see grenades thrown into the open hatch of a ship.

  Lives are ending. Lives from all sides.

  The galaxy needs the Neron on this planet. I hear Cyrillius’ voice in my head, echoing the words he spoke through Valen’s connect-link just a few days ago, begging us to come to the planet.

  “Mom?” the girl says, finally waking when she hears the sound of another bomb going off.

  “It’ll be okay, baby,” I say, pressing a kiss to her forehead and setting her down. She goes to stand next to her brother, who pulls her into his arms, hugging her tight to him.

  He’s gotten so tall now. He’s taller than me. His sister’s head only comes mid-way to his stomach.

  “The time is now,” Cyrillius growls. “Do you not see all these people dying? Do you see how many resources are being wasted by the second?”

  My heart skips a beat. My palms are slick with cold sweat.

  I feel Valen’s hand on my shoulder. He gives me strength. He grounds me.

  It’s time.

  We have to do this.

  I give one nod.

  And I let my eyes slide closed. I let my spirit expand. I let it search, going out, spreading far and wide, farther, so much farther than I can see.

  I feel life.

  Valen’s hand slips into mine, and I feel my spirit stretching even further. Finding more life.

  I feel his thoughts. His plan. Valen and I agree.

  Cyrillius wants us to kill the locals. To stop their hearts. To get them out of the way of his acquisition of their planet.

  But Valen thinks it, and I do, too.

  We’ll simply freeze them. Use the Neron in their bodies, and put them into a stasis mode, where they can’t stop Dominion.

  We both push. We search. I feel each of them. Their lives. Their hearts. Their spirits.

  I flood my thoughts into them. I feel ice forming. I feel time stop.

  It’s working.

  Valen squeezes my hand, a confirmation that he feels it, too.

  It isn’t what Cyrillius wanted. But this is better.

  Colder and colder, I feel the world going quieter. I feel it calming.

  It’s working.

  And then a hand touches my shoulder. A hand I know. The boy. And then a smaller one. The girl.

  And I feel the power within me surge. I feel a flood. A dam breaking.

  Neron energy rushes through me as our family connects with power.

  And the world screams.

  And then I feel my power explode.

  And as my eyes open, I see thousands before me, local residents and Dominion soldiers drop to the ground, dead.

  We killed them. As a family, we killed them all.

  The dream vision comes back to me as I watch the planet in front of me growing bigger and bigger.

  I won’t let it happen. I can’t let it happen.

  Our children were watching as Valen and I set to take care of those residents. With the addition of their power, we wiped out an entire population.

  I can’t let it happen.

  I have to change the future.

  “This place is so much worse than I expected,” Edan says as we float through space.

  I nod in agreement.

  Isroth’s one moon—Gara Lune—entirely populated by the Kinduri. It floats as a dark figure in the sky, surrounded by swirling, black clouds. There are brilliant flashes around it nearly once a minute, constant lightning strikes in its ever-stormy sky.

  And just below it, is Isroth.

  Even from here, out in space, I see its dark surface. There isn’t a speck of blue or green on it. It’s all a dark gray, like the land was scorched, burned to the ground.

  But really, it was over used.

  The entire planet was mined out, left as a hollowed out colony.

  My stomach i
s up in my throat as I think about what is before us.

  After four weeks of anticipation and mental preparation, after the longest and shortest weeks of my life, we’re finally here.

  “We can do this,” Edan says as he reaches over and takes my hand.

  We. Not you. We.

  I’m not alone.

  I squeeze his hand tighter.

  Ahead looms the spaceport, where all traffic bound for Isroth must pass through. A giant class four ship with a portal right through the center of it waits in front of us. It is flanked by five dozen Class One ships, fighter ships, ready to take care of anyone who makes trouble.

  “It’s show time,” Edan says, never taking his eyes from the Class Four guard ship.

  I nod, even though all my blood has gone into panic mode.

  I want to turn around. I want to run. I want to go back to the safety of Salypso and let someone else, anyone else, figure out how to change the fate of the galaxy.

  But I know: there is no one else in the galaxy insane enough to try. There is no one else in the galaxy that has more riding on changing the future.

  If I fail, I will never have Valen.

  And that just isn’t an option.

  Not anymore.

  “Let’s do this,” I say with a determined nod.

  Edan takes the cuffs from the seat beside us and I place my wrists together behind my back so he can lock them in place. With a determined look on his face, he puts the collar around my neck, which locks over my mouth. It leaves only my eyes exposed, which are ringed with my infamous mask.

  In the viewport, I see my reflection.

  I look every part the prisoner.

  Edan looks me over, and gives a satisfied nod. He guides me to one of the seats, and ties me to it, good and secure, so I can’t escape.

  And we’re done just in time. Our turn to pull into the port arrives, and the Frank guides our ship forward.

  “State your business on Isroth,” a gruff, commanding voice echoes through The Corsair.

  “I’ve come for the reward money,” Edan says loudly and with confidence. “Tell Cyrillius I’d like to see him personally. Immediately.”

  “Cyrillius doesn’t see random visitors,” the voice says with an amused scoff. “Come back in a hundred solars.”

  “I think he’ll see me,” Edan says. And I watch as that wicked, wild grin grows on his face. “I’ve brought him the weapons manufacturer.”

  There’s a pause, and even though the collar is locked around my face and no one can see it, a wicked smile grows on my own face.

  In the background, I hear people talking, frantic and shocked.

  “Your landing on Isroth has been cleared,” the voice returns. “Land directly in the presidential courtyard.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” Edan says, smiling like a madman with death in his eyes. As the director light turns to green, he looks over at me. And I know he can see the gleam in my eyes, and feel the smile beneath this collar.

  The Frank directs the ship forward, and we slip through the portal, bound straight for Cyrillius’ door.

  Keary Taylor is the USA Today bestselling author of over twenty novels. She grew up along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where she started creating imaginary worlds and daring characters who always fell in love. She now splits her time between a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest and Utah, dragging along her husband and their two children. She continues to have an overactive imagination that frequently keeps her up at night.

  To learn more about Keary and her books, please visit www.KearyTaylor.com.

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  What I Didn’t Say

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