The Beacon, page 1
THE BEACON
SENTINELS
BOOK FOUR
JAMES DAVID VICTOR
Copyright © 2023 James David Victor
All Rights Reserved
Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by Christian Bentulan
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Thank You
1
Nightmares were no longer a regular occurrence for Melias Volery. He used to have them all the time, during and after the war between the Confederacy of Colonies and the Union of Independent Systems, the two dominant human spacefaring powers. Those wars had been bloody and awful, thus it was almost natural that he should have some nightmares as a souvenir—a parting gift—of his tour.
Those nightmares had lessened over the years, and now they were nearly gone, thanks to the new calling of his life as a Sentinel, a soldier for hire who went through the stars saving people. His crew was his family. They had all helped each other heal—at least as well as they could all manage.
So, when he went to bed, he no longer expected to be awakened by nightmares, gasping for breath and coated in sweat.
But this night, he had a nightmare, and it was a new one, a gruesome one.
In it, he was one of the mindless, those that the ancient Lightbringer device had turned into super strong, durable monsters meant to rip their enemy’s limb from limb in a cruel attempt to purge the galaxy of undesirables. It was a terrible thing to witness, a worse thing to fight against, and ultimately hell if you were the mindless having to kill your own family and wondering what you had done when—if—you regained your mind.
When he had unwisely had his crew test the device on him so they could learn how the device worked, it had been a struggle. His body was no longer his own. Instead of occupying prime seating in his mind, he was trapped in the dark recesses of it, unaware of what his body was trying to do. In there, he was trapped with the dark manifestation of the device’s will, a sickly, crawling thing that wanted to dominate him. He had fought against it in a metaphysical, but still painful, battle.
As much as that struggle had been painful and exhausting, he preferred it to watching his own body betray him and do unspeakable things to the people he cared about. That was perhaps a small blessing, a small mercy, to those afflicted by the influence of the wretched device.
This time though, in this new nightmare, he was not in the darkness of his mind. He was a passenger in his own body, powerless to do nothing but watch, as he rushed through his ship, his strides long and awkward but fast. No one was fast enough to stop him, not strong enough, not agile enough to dodge him in the narrow halls, no time to find armor or weapon that could possibly hope to stop him.
So, they didn’t. They didn’t. He tore his family asunder, their blood spraying the walls, floors, ceiling, the multiple colors of their insides shading the pale blue lights in new hues. Their screams were a terrible chorus that echoed through the ship, bouncing along the walls, giving warning to those that he had yet to find, but he did find them, and then he did the same to them.
He felt his nails dig into their flesh, felt the tearing of their muscles from bones, felt the crunch of bones snapping, the released pressure of organs popping beneath his strength. While his body committed these horrors, he was trapped inside, right behind his eyes—screaming, crying, pleading, begging for it to stop, for himself to stop.
His body was no longer his.
It was unclear how long the rampage went on. It was one body after another, some that ought not to have been on his ship, but they came, and they fell in a spray of blood and screams.
Until at last, he came to the end. Niath and Arke. They stood near the exit of the ship, but the ramp was up, and they were in a wormhole. There was no escape. Niath—tall, corded with muscles, her horns twisting from her explosion of hair. Tears stained her cheeks, pouring from rage-filled eyes. She held her poleaxe up. As if that would stop him.
Behind her, Arke stood, petrified, blue face smudged with her own tears. Arke was a very competent fighter—maybe not quite as gifted with combat prowess as Niath, but few were. At that moment, however, she saw her captain—someone she cared for deeply—turned into a monster. It was clear the shock and horror were too much for her.
Melias cut Niath down with minimal effort, making a mockery of the vast experience and skill the centuries old Yorutan warrior possessed. His claws cleaved through the poleaxe, and the vibro-blade didn’t do the damage she hoped it would. It dug into his skin, but the pain was distant to him.
Meanwhile, the real him screamed as he watched his body tear his vice-captain to pieces.
Hands dripping with blood and body brimming with violence, he rose to his full height. He turned to Arke, who had collapsed, hyperventilating, against the wall. Her eyes so wide with terror that he wasn’t sure she could actually see him anymore.
But the monster that he was didn’t care about that. It simply stood over her, blood dripping from the tips of his clawed hands and sliding down his neck.
He loomed over her with a bloody grin and lunged.
With a scream lodged in his throat, like a stone trying to choke him, he bolted upright—awake and in his bed—in a fit of gasps. He was slick with sweat, his soaked sheets sticking to his bare skin. His chest burned, and his ribs throbbed with an echo of past wounds. His heart beat so fast that he knew it couldn’t be healthy for him.
His hands flew to his face. He calmed, squeezed his eyes shut, and let his body take long, deep, desperate breaths. With some effort, he breathed out. His shoulders sagged as his mind and soul dispelled the horrors of his nightmares.
“It was just a dream,” he whispered to himself.
That was when he learned he wasn’t alone.
“Captain? Are you… Are you okay?”
His eyes snapped up as his hands dropped away from his face like anchors plunging into the murky depths. Standing in front of his bed—or more on the bed with one knee propped up as if to come to his aid—was Arke.
She looked too young at this moment. Her small, slim body was engulfed by the too-big shirt she wore, the one he knew she favored when she was about to sleep. Her blue legs slipped out from the bottom. Her round, soft, concerned, face stared back at him. Her pathfinder marks looked dark in the faint orange glow of his accent lights that glowed at all hours.
A soldier’s life was not what she should have been living. She should have been a scholar like her uncle, or pathfinding like her father, searching the distant stars for discoveries beyond compare. And in a way, she was. She had received her pathfinder’s marks, after all, but she had a heart for helping people, so the Sentinel life was the perfect calling for her, a vocational match the stars could be proud of. So, no surprise she wanted to help him now.
His body was still heavy with fatigue and the lull of the night, so he knew it was still his time to sleep. When flying through space, it was hard to measure time with the passage of days, so you had to sleep when you were tired. They were still moored at their home base of Waystation, however, so here it was—an approximation of—night. So, Arke should have been asleep as well, but he knew she was spending too much time every day and night poring over her father’s notes, her uncle's notes and books, and the ancient Prime Ones texts that she protected with her life. All to find some clues, some hints, about where to go and what to do next.
She brought her other leg onto the bed, her knees tucked beneath her. “I was… I was on my way to tell you something, but then I— You were shouting, so I came in. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to…”
He saw her then, not as she was now but covered in blood and gore, her eyes lifeless and distant. Gone. The thought of it made him sick. He had to battle the urge to vomit right there.
As she reached out to offer him some comfort, he grabbed her arm, pulled her close, and crushed her to him.
She went completely still. He didn’t care. He held her tight, just so relieved. It was only a nightmare, and all of his crew was alive and well. A heavy, painful, breathless sigh shook his body.
After a moment’s hesitation, she hugged him back, just as fierce, her strength leaking into him. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her breath a breeze against his neck. One of her hands caressed his neck with a steady touch. The other had her fingers splayed in his hair. It was a comforting embrace, and he didn’t want to let go. In their line of work, physical comfort wasn’t very common, beyond brief and friendly embraces. This was a lot more intimate.
Eventually, they broke away from one another, though Arke didn’t retreat too far. Her hands fell away from him but trailed down his arms and rested on his wrists, the slightest whisper of a touch letting him know she was still there and wouldn’t go unless he asked her to. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to go.
“Was it an old nightmare or a new one?” she asked.
Melias swallowed. “New.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She nodded. “I understand,” she whispered. She pulled away and leaned back on her heels, her hands finally falling free from his wrists. He thought Arke might leave him then, but she raised a hand and placed it against his bare chest. If she was bothered by the sweat, she didn’t show it, though she would have protested when he pressed every inch of his sweatiness against her. She rested her hand over his heart and felt the frantic tune.
“Deep breaths, Captain. You’re alright.”
He did as she said and took long breaths, counting three or four seconds before releasing. It did him some good. His nerves relaxed, and his heart wasn’t so panicked, the drumming slowly to a gentle rhythmic beat.
“Thank you, Arke,” he said, managing to smile. She smiled back brightly, which made her light up in a way that always seemed to make him breathless for a second. Her hand dropped.
“You’re very welcome, Captain.”
He huffed, still smirking. “You don’t need to always call me captain, Arke. You know that, but…but when we’re alone like this, you’re allowed to call me Melias, or whatever you like.”
“I… I’ll try to remember that.”
She pushed off the bed and pulled her large shirt down, suddenly be self-conscious about how much leg she was showing. Melias didn’t mind, of course. They were all soldiers, and soldiers tended to not have much privacy. Not to say there shouldn’t be some modesty, though.
Arke was about to leave, but he called out to her. “Wait, was there something you were coming to tell me before you heard me having a nightmare?”
She blinked, then remembered. “Oh yes! The commander sent word that Vasya has regained consciousness, so you should go see her before we depart.”
“That’s good news. Thank you.”
And it was. With all of his engineer’s injuries, he’d feared she’d never wake up, even when Thandriel’s medics assured him that she would. She had been in a coma for a week since Red’s betrayal. A week they had all spent biding their time and recovering, while their enemy scoured the galaxy doing stars-knew-what.
But it was a break they needed. Melias was tired, but his body had lost the pains and discomforts of the last few battles, which they’d all had in what seemed to be rapid succession.
Arke’s lips curled into a soft grin. “You need your rest, so go back to sleep.”
“No chance,” he said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and emerging from the sheets. “Not gonna risk that nightmarish hellscape again. I’m too awake now anyway, but thank you.”
Lips pursed, she nodded. “Suit yourself, sir. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
Then she slipped out of his quarters and down the hall, the door sweeping shut in her wake. He watched her go before the door shielded her from view. His shoulders sagged. I hope that was the only nightmare and they don’t get worse. He had enough to worry about and would need consistent rest. Nightmares would not help.
The time on his holo-clock told him he could have slept for a good three more hours before he had planned to get up, but his nerves were frayed. There was no way he was going back to sleep. Instead, he took a quick shower to rid himself of the sweat and the stink. When he was finished, he tore his sweaty sheets and blankets from the bed and cast them into a corner with more of his dirty things. With the stress and chaos of the last week, he’d left his quarters a mess. Dirty clothes all over the floor, recyclable cups and plates from the food he took in here while he dug through old archives about the Prime Ones. It took him a moment to sift through the pile of “clean clothes” for a suitable pair of trousers and a form-fitting shirt. They would do for now.
Most of the ship was either asleep or out. They didn’t all keep the same hours, but they tried to coordinate so they were on a somewhat consistent, collected schedule that didn’t conflict too much. Their medic, Ixion, was of course awake, as he slept little even when he should. Melias passed him in his infirmary, hunched over a low counter filled with new medicines and materials he’d gotten during their current hiatus.
Their new temporary crewmate, Lyra’Tonvash, lounged in the common room with her long legs kicked up on the back of the booth she sprawled on. She had one hand behind her neck as a pillow, while the other threw a strange copper-tinged orb into the air. When he entered the room, she caught it in midair and stared at him. Her strange, intense yellow eyes pinned him in place. She was a trusted ally, but he’d yet to get used to that unnerving stare of hers. It felt like she was peering into his soul, or that he was prey and she the predator.
She flashed a sharp grin, her wicked teeth glinting. “Captain Melias, you’re up early.”
“Captain Tonvash, you’re still up,” he retorted, a small smile playing on his lips.
She dragged her gaze back to her orb. “My people need little sleep. We evolved on a world with many predators and dangers, things that were always awake to hunt us. So, we adapted to need little sleep.”
“A useful trait, I’m sure.”
“Quite.”
His fellow Sentinel captain was a curious one, but he was happy to have her for this mission. He had seen her fighting prowess and raw strength firsthand during the Battle of Halvug, and she would be a much-needed help in their fight against the Lightbringers. With her squad currently on the medical hiatus, she had been eager to volunteer her services to him, and he was happy to have her.
He continued on to the cockpit. The Goose was still parked in Thandriel’s private hangar bay for her Sentinel company, but he knew he’d find his vice-captain here all the same. The cockpit was more her sanctuary than his, even though the Goose was his bird. He didn’t mind, though. He knew his ship was always in good hands and well-tended with her.
Niath sat in her co-pilot seat, her legs folded beneath her. She held an old-fashioned leatherbound paper book. She had a small collection of them, mostly ancient Yorutan fables, poems, and epics. She snapped it shut as he walked in, and she looked at him.
“You’re awake,” she said, echoing Lyra’s words.
“I am.”
“Nightmares again?”
“You heard?”
She shook her head. “No, but I assumed.”
He sat beside her. “This one was new. Terrible, visceral.” He explained the dream, and she absorbed it with a straight face, nodding once. He stumbled a bit when he described how he killed her and then Arke, but Niath was strong and took it in stride. Most soldiers—or at least those with a conscience who had killed people—dealt with nightmares. PTSD was not a thing of the past, and though he knew how to deal with it, it didn’t make it less real—just a bit less severe.
These dreams were not that, however. These were fears of the future, of what he thought might happen if they failed. It was a strong motivator, but he could do without the visceral nature.
“If they continue, then you should have Ixion give you something to knock you out.”
“Yeah, but is that healthy to suppress it like that?”
“Mentally and emotionally? A therapist might say no, but none of us have psych evals on our list of skills. It seems pretty cut and dry that these nightmares stem from a deep fear of what might happen if you hear the device again. It’s rational, and normal, to have that fear. I don’t think it’s any deeper than that, if you want my opinion.”
He snorted and snickered. “And you say you don’t have any therapist skills.”
Shrugging, she swiveled and kicked her legs up onto the main console. Only she was allowed to do that. With a sideways grin looking back at him, she said, “When you’ve lived as long as me, you pick up a thing or two.”
“I should hope to be half as wise as you once I reach your age,” he said, which made her laugh. It was in jest, of course. At their healthiest and longest-lived, humans could make it to about a hundred-seventy at the most, but it was usually around a hundred-twenty to a hundred-fifty. That was but a flicker of a candle next to the raging fire of Yorutan longevity. They could live millennia.
