The Xarren Escape (Plundering the Stars Book 2) Read online

  The Xarren Escape

  Plundering the Stars, Book 2

  James David Victor

  Copyright © 2020 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 J Caleb Design

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Thank You

  1

  Chapter 1 (JINX)

  Nightmares were a way of life for me. I was a slave for much of my childhood and endured tortures and pain that most couldn’t even imagine. I’d lost my friends and family then, and it seemed that I’d lost them again. I’ve had nightmares of that time since, almost every night, but what I woke up to now was something different all together.

  Everything hurt. Every bit of me. I was on fire. I was heavy. I couldn’t move. Was I dead? It was dark and I couldn’t see, or breathe, and I just couldn’t understand what was happening. Awake, asleep, dead? I didn’t know. None seemed like exciting options.

  There was an intense pain coming from my stomach. Searing and sharp and blinding. It was liquid fire, like molten metal burning through my veins. Every tiny movement made it even worse. I was awake, definitely awake, unfortunately awake. Even my nightmares didn’t feel this terrifying.

  And as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found another pair of eyes staring back at me.

  I screamed. The eyes were cold and dead and unblinking. Then there was another set of eyes, and another, and another. Some human, some not, eyes of many species. That was when the full terror of my situation presented itself to me.

  I was buried under a mound of corpses.

  Bodies. All around me. On top of me. Crushing me. Suffocating. Cold corpses. Corpses covered in wounds and dried blood and empty, soulless stares. They pressed down on me and reached for me and clawed at me, and I screamed and screamed, but no sound reached my ears. I kept screaming my silent screams until my throat was raw and the pain was blinding.

  What’s happening? What’s happening? What’s happening?

  I couldn’t breathe. The bodies were suffocating, the humid night air not helping in the slightest. It was like trying to breathe through a wet towel. I tried to yell for help, to pray to the Materelle, but every breath, every word, was choking me.

  Calm down! I thought, a moment of clarity suddenly piercing through my scrambled, panicked psyche. Deep breaths.

  No help was coming. I had to do this myself, no matter how painful. And it was excruciating. Straining, tears blurring my vision, I clawed my way up. I roared from the pain and the effort and used all of my strength to shift body after body. Luckily, it seemed that I was near the top of the pile, otherwise I would have been dead already. All the bodies were still lukewarm, so relatively fresh. I pushed aside a Yaline with its slimy scales, and sticky yellow something oozing all over that covered my arms. Others had innards and bones sticking out.

  It was enough to make me never want to eat again for as long as I lived. I wanted to vomit, but I was able to hold it all down. There was enough of a disgusting mess all around me, no need to add to it.

  My progress was slow, and it didn’t take long before I wanted to quit, to just let the bodies bury me and take me to the depths of the underworld. Everything hurt, everything in me screamed at me to stop and rest. But if I rested, then I would never see Yan again, or my other friends, or fulfill my dreams. Dreams that, until recently, I hadn’t thought were achievable, dreams that I didn’t dare think I could accomplish.

  But with Yan at my side, I could do anything.

  So, I couldn’t become a permanent resident in this corpse mountain. I had to break free, no matter what it took.

  It was a crucible of the highest order, a trial by combat, a baptism by fire, a swim through a river of blood and all those gruesome euphemisms for overcoming something hard and traumatic. All that aside, I cried when I pushed aside a dead Bantiss and another Elarri and found the vast Elarri sky looking back at me, its moons gleaming brightly, the stars twinkling by the billions, while streaks of light zipped all over, starships going to and from. Thick clouds were heading in from the west, an ominous wall of darkness in the night.

  But that didn’t matter. I’d made it. I choked on a sob.

  Far more painful and graceless than I intended, I stumbled down the mound of bodies. Despite the lunar light above, it was so hard to see. I ended up somersaulting down in a tangle of limbs before I slammed hard into the ground with a resounding splash. It was immediately apparent that I was in one of the many runoff ditches that led out of the Elarri capitol. Now I was covered in every form of bodily fluid.

  Finally, I allowed myself to heave. I retched and retched until my throat was raw and burning and there was absolutely nothing left in my stomach.

  I scampered away from the bodies and the sewage until I found some dry sandstone and leaned against a wall. More deep breaths. Just calm thoughts and deep breaths. I was alive. Materelle preserve me.

  As I settled, my adrenaline went away, and all the pain of my wounds came back with absolute clarity. A clutching pain in my stomach threatened to overwhelm me, and I winced, recoiling against the wall until I slid onto my rear. I covered the wound and cried out in agony. Terror ripped through me, making me afraid to even look at it, but I had to.

  Holding back from throwing up again, I wiped away all the blood and guts and disgusting refuse that was all over me until I was able to peel away the tattered bits of an Elexae servant’s uniform. And beneath it was a scorched wound on my stomach, a charred monstrosity of blood and pus and burnt skin. The exact type of wound one might get when shot by a blaster. Not something you typically survived.

  How, though? Why was I shot? Why was I tossed into a pile of bodies?

  No sooner did I ask those questions than the memories came roaring back.

  The heist. It was going according to plan. The power went out and all hell broke loose. That was when I had to go to the vault and meet up with Yan and Rowan.

  Rowan… No, he was the one. He intercepted me in one of the halls above the vault and shot me point-blank. No words, no explanation, just a stone-cold stare and a blaster pistol. And that was all I remembered. The fact that I’d been thrown into one of the Elexae’s corpse dumps meant that they thought I was dead. And I wished I was, because this pain was terrible.

  And Yan… Oh, Yan. Are you alive still? Did you manage to get out? If Rowan betrayed me, that meant he betrayed all of us, which meant he knew every detail of the plan. So no, that could only mean…that Yan was either dead or captured for real. And being captive to Xarren Elexae was basically like being dead already.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. No, this couldn’t be, not when we were so close to pulling it off. We were going to fix everything, chase our dreams and live the lives we’d always wanted. Now… Now that was a feeble, foolish wish.

  Part of me wanted to stay there and wallow in my misery, let this wound take me. What more could I do, after all? I was just a
girl, a former Torgoran slave with not a lot of combat experience or thieving skills to speak of. I didn’t have any of the skills that Yan or Amara or K or Pivek had. I just… I just was there…

  “No!” I suddenly shouted. I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. Maybe I wasn’t a fighter, but my friends needed me, and I would help anyway I could. They were alive. They had to be.

  The rendezvous. If things went south, or if things went right, we were to meet up at an old abandoned inn on the outskirts of the Paken District near the main Elexae estate. Maybe Amara was waiting there! I didn’t know how long I’d been out, so maybe it was pointless, and maybe Rowan told Xarren all about it and they’d already managed to capture her too. But I had to try. If she was alive, I had to find her.

  I gritted my teeth as I pushed off the wall. The sky suddenly flashed above in a lightning strike, then a roll of thunder, and a few moments later, rain, glorious rain. It was like ice, cold and stabbing as it pelted me, but it washed away the filth. I stood there, eyes closed, in pain, as it cleansed me of the blood and viscera. It was another baptism.

  I need to find Amara.

  When I couldn’t stand to be still any longer, I crept forward. The first step I took, I lost my balance and fell to the ground, my wound flaring. I couldn’t help my cries. Then I pushed myself up and tried again. This time, I managed a step and then another, but each one was earth-shattering. Each one felt like my insides were being torn in two, like I had shards of glass in my stomach shredding me to ribbons.

  Still, I had no choice but to push on.

  Through the rain and the dark and my blinding pain, it was hard to make out my surroundings, but I managed to paint a picture. Judging from the cracked walls and broken glass and piles of sand, I guessed that I was in one of the abandoned outer districts of the capitol, one that was being consumed by the wastes. Not ideal. I hoped that the Elexaes would dump the bodies of their enemies near the estate, but I could have been halfway around the planet. No way was I walking that.

  It felt like an hour, and very well could have been, but I finally found a set of stairs that led up from the drainage ditch, away from the sewage and the bodies and all the death. I shivered. From the cold or the disgust, it was hard to say.

  The climb was even worse. Each step was hardly tall, but they each felt like an entire mountain. I wasn’t able to stay on my feet, so I found myself crawling on all fours, rain battering me, blistering winds racking me. I couldn’t believe I was missing the heat.

  I climbed and climbed, slow and painful. Until I couldn’t think, until my thoughts were only of the pain and that I had to stop, but I couldn’t stop, but I had to stop, but I had to, BUT I CANT.

  Climb, climb, climb, one hand over the other, one knee over a step then the next, until I was breathless, until I was numb and raw, and my arms were shaking. My whole body was shaking.

  Materelle please help me, I pleaded, my tears indistinguishable from the rain that ran down my face. I can’t do this anymore.

  I made it to the top. At some point. Somehow. Still raining, no end in sight, my body so numb that I no longer felt the pain. That was good, right? Though I couldn’t feel anything, I managed to stand. Everything was a blur. I was dizzy. And cold. And hot. Did I have a fever? Who knew?

  One step forward. Stumble to the side. Pushed to my feet. A few steps, I fell. I cried. My stomach burned. I wanted to die. I couldn’t give up. Can’t give up. On my feet again.

  And walking. Stumbling.

  Abandoned streets. No lights, no life, no one to help me. All alone. Dead.

  Dead.

  All my friends were dead.

  Yan is dead. Amara is dead. K and Pivek…

  I fell to my knees and screamed, a roar that echoed through the night but was nonetheless silent against the storm. I couldn’t think straight or see straight or hear anything over the rain and the pounding of my heartbeat. And the pain.

  THE PAIN!

  “Someone please! Help me!” I cried. I wasn’t sure if my words came out, but I felt my lips move and my throat vibrate.

  I was on the ground now. No more walking. No strength left for that. Only crawling. Only pain. But I endured and kept going. Past abandoned buildings and stores and homes and everything in between, and there was no one. No one to help.

  The hard sandstone streets disappeared, and I found myself crawling through one of the encroaching dunes, soaked through from the rain, which was an interesting juxtaposition, but to me it was like sludge, pulling me down, down, down and not letting go. I pushed against the sand, fighting, my limbs screaming for me to stop.

  I didn’t.

  I made it out of the sand, back on hard ground, somehow. Maybe Materelle was watching me after all. And somehow, I found a way onto my feet again. Stumbling forward, so much pain. But I didn’t fall. Until I got to a jagged stretch of winding streets, the broken houses leaning in as if trying to listen to me suffer.

  My legs buckled beneath me and I crashed to the ground. I couldn’t go any further. I wanted to, desperately, but I couldn’t. My body would not move. I sat there, on my knees, head bent, as the rain enveloped me in its icy embrace. My breaths came out in puffs of smoke. There was no more pain, just an aching void where feeling should have been.

  Was this dying? I felt like I was shutting down. Gravity took over before long, and I slumped to the ground. I lay on my side, my cheek against the pavement. This was it. I was going to die in the rain, in the cold and dark, wounded and alone. Never to see my friends again or see my dreams.

  Or see Yan.

  Oh, sweet Yan…

  As my vision faded, as the roar of the rain and thunder and my blood screaming through my veins grew louder and louder, I thought I heard something: the squeak of rusty hinges. And a door slamming shut. In my darkening vision, I saw some lights in a window. A door opened, and light flooded the street. A silhouette, two, impossible to make out details.

  They stepped into the rain towards me. Friend or foe? Who was to know?

  I wouldn’t be alive to find out.

  Then the cold black took me, and all my pain, all my everything, ceased to exist, ceased to be. Somehow, that was a relief.

  2

  Chapter 2 (YAN)

  Jinx sat beside me, all smiles and warmth and as beautiful as she’d ever been, her red hair lustrous and glorious in the moonlight. I smiled at her and took her hand and said something that made her laugh, and I laughed, and it was amazing. Everything made sense, me and her, together, friends, safe.

  The air was warm, but not too humid like on Elarra. In fact, judging by the vibrant vegetation all around us, we weren’t on Elarra at all. Large green leaves, glowing bugs that lit up the night, and the distant trickling of a waterfall signaled that we were somewhere much better than the sandy wastes of Elarra.

  I looked to the sky and found a bright red gas giant staring back at me, ringed by a massive blue boom tube the likes of which was rarely seen in the galaxy. I knew where we were, though I’d never been there before. It was Torgor, home world of Jinx’s people and one of the great seats of power in the entire galaxy. I’d never seen it, but Jinx had described it vividly, many times, always with a gleam in her eye and a soft smile as she thought back on a childhood stolen from her.

  So why were we here now? I didn’t remember planning a trip. And Torgor was always a place that she reminisced about, but not somewhere that she wanted to return. Too painful for that.

  “Do you like it?” she asked me, her eyes on the stars and the gas giant above that was teeming with extra orbital mines and hundreds of ships.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, which was the truth. The jungles of Torgor were renowned for their picture-perfect vistas, and this was not a letdown in the slightest.

  Jinx let go of my hand and hugged her knees to her chest. “I always wanted to return here, to take in the sights one last time, to right the wrongs of my past.” She sighed and looked away from me. “But now, I’m afraid that’s but
a foolish dream.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean? We’re here now.”

  She turned back to me. I stifled a scream. Blood ran from her mouth and nose and eyes, and her skin became cold and pale and her eyes distant. Dead.

  “It’s too late, Yan.”

  “Wait, I— What?”

  “I’m gone.”

  “No Jinx! Please—”

  And then Rowan appeared behind her and shoved a grav-blade through her back and out her stomach in a spray of blood. I roared.

  I jolted awake.

  The jungles of Torgor disappeared, replaced by a dingy cell, cold stone walls, and a flickering fluorescent light that made my head swim. Jinx was gone, the live version and the horrible bloodied one.

  It was just a dream, a nightmare.

  And then I remembered. The nightmare was real. I was in a cell in the dungeon of the notorious mob boss Xarren Elexae. We’d planned a heist, to rob his vault and make off like kings, and it had gone terribly wrong. I was captured again, beaten, and— Oh wait, my wounds were healed. There were bruises all along my arms and stomach, but as I lifted my shirt, I found the wound from where I’d ripped an EMP out of my abdomen was healed, and the cuts from my beatings were gone too.

  Biogel, no doubt. Xarren wanted to keep me alive and well for whatever torments he had planned to inflict on me. Not surprising, but not an ideal situation.

  The nightmare was real, and I was nowhere near death. But Jinx… Saints… Jinx was dead. And Rowan had killed her.

  I grabbed my hair and pulled as I fell into a fetal position and cried as the memory of his words came back to me. He killed her. Shot her dead. Now my best friend was gone—sweet, loving Jinx, gone from the stars.