Altered Destiny Read online

  Altered Destiny

  Trevor Ames Gregg

  Contents

  Previously, On Unexpected Destiny…

  Prologue

  1. Out of Gas

  2. Repossessed

  3. Evil Yiu

  4. Mother?

  5. Geri

  6. Self Destruct

  7. He’s Back

  8. Primary Interlude

  9. Meet Isa

  10. Welcome Home Elarra

  11. The Council

  12. Garbage Chute

  13. Saeli

  14. Rescue Attempt

  15. Double Vision

  16. Destruction Derby

  17. Burnout

  18. Secondary Interlude

  19. Isa’s Secret

  20. Pods

  21. Precog Hit Squad

  22. Evacuation

  23. CYG8711

  24. The Rho’kar

  25. Refueling

  26. Elarra

  27. Tertiary Interlude

  28. Darlos

  29. Bloop Gun

  30. Dark Terminals

  31. The Hound

  32. The Robot

  33. Not Crevak

  34. Akrus

  35. Vengeance!

  36. Don’t Do That Again

  37. Space Elevator

  38. Shoktar

  39. Hubbell

  40. The Mantis

  41. The Emirate’s Cargo

  42. The Pulsar’s Signal

  43. Security

  44. Shadows and Darkness

  45. R-Seven

  46. The Crate

  47. Timeline

  48. Only Three

  49. Katerwans

  50. Feeding Time

  51. Vengeance

  52. End Him

  53. Platypus Routine

  54. Dimaks

  55. Skotty’s Sacrifice

  56. Data Core?

  57. Phone Call

  58. Retrofitted

  59. Beacon

  60. The Heist

  61. Sonic Emitter

  62. The Veteran

  63. Time to Launch

  64. Intruders!

  65. Neutrino Bypass

  66. The Mighty Warmaster

  67. Hatred

  68. Nova

  69. Mayday

  Epilogue

  Note to the Reader

  Cover art by Charlie Wilcher

  [email protected]

  Copyright © 2019 by Trevor Ames Gregg

  All rights reserved.

  This book is dedicated to my best friend. Thank you for all of your guidance and support, couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it without you.

  Previously, On Unexpected Destiny…

  For those of you who would like a quick recap, proceed. If you’re already up to speed, feel free to skip.

  Kyren, a young bot-fighter, longs to escape planetary orbit and journey into space with his brother, Athar. In a particularly bone-headed maneuver, Kyren agrees with Nosco, a local crime boss, to throw his next bot-fight in exchange for enough money to buy tickets to space for him and his brother… obviously without Athar’s knowledge. Only, Kyren can’t bring himself to go through with it and foolishly defies the crime boss who enlisted him in the nefarious scheme.

  In a tragic turn of events, Kyren’s refusal to throw the fight results in a confrontation with Nosco, and Athar is killed. Kyren barely manages to escape with his own life. Now a pariah and wanted by every thug and criminal around, Kyren must find a way to escape Magar City. After a little mind-meld with a bizarre psychic jellyfish, he accepts a dangerous job smuggling contraband for the telepathic alien. He finally earns enough for a ticket off-planet, to Junoval station.

  Alas, the crime boss has his revenge. Kyren is jumped and kidnapped from the station, sold into slavery to the vicious Captain Bulgren, a massive humanoid bear-like alien who works his “debtors” to the bone, keeping them under heavy guard. But there is a glimmer of hope. Kyren meets Alis, a beautiful blue haired, cat-eared rillian, a prisoner who was “promoted” to ship’s engineer when the previous engineer croaked.

  But of course, our heroes would not spend the entire book in a state of imprisonment… where’s the fun in that? So they manage to escape during a pirate assault and end up crash-landing their escape pod on an uninhabited world. A world that turns out not to be so uninhabited. There they meet the peaceful pygars, who are led by a strange child named Elarra. She is a child who is not a child, a liadi, a race of future-seeing Oracles.

  She drops a bomb, revealing that she has been waiting decades for their arrival. And that they have an unexpected destiny, to save the galaxy. Prophecy yada yada. Kyren and Alis don’t believe. But the point is moot, they’re still stranded on a deserted desert planet.

  But the Consortium, the force for good in the galaxy, arrives chasing the SOS beacon the prison ship activated just before falling to the pirates. They hitch a ride with the Consortium, only to be attacked by a mysterious, deadly spacecraft while in transit. The Consortium battleship is overpowered and boarded. A strange, bald-headed cyborg who somehow knows her name, tries to kill Alis. What a bastard!

  Elarra reveals the cyborg, named Tharox, is the galaxy’s imminent threat. He will destroy them all if unchecked. Kyren and Alis are the only ones who can stop him. But do they believe her? No way, she’s crazy! Anyway, Elarra knows of a potent weapon that may even the odds, but they must locate a relic hunter, a scavenger of ancient technology named Theophax, who knows the location of just such a relic.

  Unfortunately, locating the relic, a pre-millennium war cruiser called the Ashari, results in poor Theo’s death. Poor Theo, we had just started to get into his Billy-Bob-Thornton style drawl. (Don’t worry, you’ve not seen the last of him, he will reappear in the next trilogy, which will be based upon his adventures as a young relic hunter.)

  Once they obtained the Ashari, they were able to hop all over the galaxy, trying to find a way to beat a nearly indestructible foe. Elarra informs them of a scientist she has seen in her visions who has the knowledge necessary to defeat the unstoppable Tharox.

  Meanwhile, Tharox continues to batter the Consortium and Crevak pirate tribes alike, wreaking terrible vengeance for killing his family upon entire planets. Our heroes arrive at the space station where the scientist, a strange alien called a brontian, resides. But really, brontians are quite strange. A mass of tentacles at each end of a tube-like torso are used for locomotion and manipulation. Adorning the tube-like torso, is the brontian’s face. Yes, in the middle of their body. Oh, and they have incredibly rapid regeneration, perfect sense of time, incredible mental faculties, including photographic memory. Sure, they kind of are the ultimate scientist, I suppose.

  This brontian scientist named Benjam learns of the source of Tharox’s power, an ancient alien computer that can see the future. He is skeptical, but convinced when Elarra solves his greatest problem, a special equation unique to him and related to the flow of time.

  Our heroes, now armed with a genius scientist, scour the galaxy for ruins of the civilization responsible for creating the war machine Tharox has taken control of. They discover an ancient computer of similar design, still functional, but just barely.

  The computer confirms Benjam’s theories on time manipulation, and gives him an idea of how to defeat a computer that can see the future. The computer also reveals the possible location of Tharox’s super-secret bat-cave.

  Benjam builds a time-bomb capable of destroying the future-telling computer. They travel to the heart of Tharox’s power, and Alis pulls some trick-flying to get them to his lair, but the Ashari takes damage and crash-lands, breaking poor Alis’ heart.

  They manage to fight their way through hordes of death bots a
nd locate the inner sanctum, only to be ambushed by… dun-dun-dun… Tharox! The heroes brawl with him, but even with an alien exo-suit, Kyren is unable to defeat him. So Tharox kills Benjam and Elarra, and thinks he kills Kyren. However, Kyren is down… the chasm… but not out.

  Tharox advances on poor Alis who is struggling to keep the time bomb calibrated, which was damaged on their way in. Luckily, Kyren climbs out of the chasm at the last second and whoops up on Tharox, giving him a hundred-thousand-volt enema. Of course, like any good villain, that doesn’t kill him, and he pops back up at the last second. Then Kyren finally puts him down… for good!

  Kyren and Alis detonate the time bomb together, believing their own lives to be lost just as Elarra’s and Benjam’s were. But the author pulls out one final surprise. The detonation of the time bomb does something unexpected.

  Miraculously, Elarra and Benjam are alive, and Kyren and Alis are unharmed. They awake in a sea of green grass, discovering that the computer, its facilities, and the hordes of triangular Dragoon ships and skeletal Reaper bots are gone… as if they never existed. And to Alis’ delight, the Ashari is also there, undamaged. What about the fate of those techie-space-rats that infested her beloved ship? Who knows?

  All seems well, until Elarra has a new vision, a waking vision she struggles to understand. Again, she sees the galaxy’s doom… Why does it always have to be doom? Couldn’t they see something happy, for once? What the heck is a Kirugi, and why is it coming, anyway? I guess you’ll have to read Altered Destiny to find out!

  Prologue

  Warmaster Vlanchek was so close to the prize, he could taste it. Or maybe that was just the chunks of human flesh stuck in his shark-like teeth. Either way, he was on the verge of greatness. He gnashed his mighty jaw in anticipation, nodding his plated, bony head.

  With the ultimate weapon promised by the boy-who-wasn’t-a-boy, his Crevak tribe would finally defeat the Consortium once and for all. The mighty pirate fleet would plunder their worlds and his armies would decimate their populations. Vlanchek would reign supreme, the galaxy would tremble beneath his heel.

  A diminutive looking human boy of approximately ten entered the bridge, walking with a commanding air. He had sandy brown hair shorn short in a bowl cut, pale skin, and was wearing soft red velvet robes.

  “Mighty Warmaster, it is time, your reward awaits,” the boy said in a reedy voice.

  Rising from the captain’s station, he bellowed to his second in command, Battlehand Zaros, “Prepare the boarding squad, we shall claim our prize.”

  “Sir, what is there to board? We’ve been sitting in empty space for days. We could be using our new intel to raid the Consortium. Ambush them and devastate their fleet. Then we plunder,” Zaros groused.

  Vlanchek had become increasingly annoyed with his Battlehand’s behavior, as of late. The lizard-like thevar, while vicious and dedicated, had disagreed with him too many times recently. He would have to deal with it. Maybe sooner rather than later, he thought to himself.

  He turned his baleful black eyes and fixed Zaros with a menacing stare, “Battlehand Zaros, do not forget I am in command. You exist because I allow it. Do not question me again.”

  “Yes, sir,” the thevar said submissively.

  He knew this was a game and the thevar was playing it well. But Vlanchek hadn’t become Warmaster of the entire Crevak tribe by being a fool. He would have to deal with Zaros now, he decided.

  “Zaros, prepare the boarding squad,” he ordered again.

  “Just a squad, sir? We could meet with resistance, we should be prepared for anything. I will call up five squads, including heavy weapons,” Zaros suggested.

  “You will follow my order, Battlehand, or you will be replaced,” he growled, his voice guttural and harsh.

  “Yessir,” he replied, but the resentment was obvious to Vlanchek.

  “Warmaster, turn your attention to the monitor,” the liadi said.

  He turned and looked, and was astonished as he witnessed a great space station shimmer into view, flickering and flashing into existence. The proximity alarm sounded and the helmsman took evasive action, barely maneuvering his massive battleship around the station. As they circled and Vlanchek got a better view, he was awed by its’ massive size.

  It was composed of some deep blue metal and arrayed out in a square, four large, sleek pyramid shapes were linked to each along the outside edge by slender cylindrical struts.

  “There,” the liadi pointed, tracing along the sleek, angular bulk of the station, resting on the image of a massive red sphere nestled within what appeared to be a shipyard. “That is what you seek.”

  The red sphere somehow ate up the light, swirling with its own malevolent glow. Its swirling was mesmerizing, to the point where Vlanchek almost couldn’t look away.

  “Darius, you will accompany me,” Vlanchek said to the boy after a moment spent staring.

  “I see, you still do not trust me. But you need not fear, I have made a bargain on behalf of my people. I will honor my end, as you will honor yours,” the boy replied, trailing behind as Vlanchek strode from the bridge.

  A short while later, Vlanchek’s armored black shuttle sped toward the space station’s open hangar bay, entering and landing without incident. Not that there should be any trouble, if Darius were to be trusted, he thought. Liadi had visions of the future, and this one had offered Vlanchek a deal he couldn’t refuse. Now he would see if there was any merit to the liadi’s claims.

  The shuttle’s gull-wing doors popped open with a hiss and his squad of four, including Zaros and his third-in-command, Grimlok, dashed out, weapons up. They swept the hangar as Vlanchek strode from the shuttle, the liadi, Darius, in tow. His troops returned and took up a defensive pattern around the Warmaster and liadi.

  Darius pointed and they took the passage indicated. He began to lead them through a maze of corridors. Vlanchek realized he would indeed be at Darius’ mercy were this a trap. It would take forever for reinforcements to arrive. That is, if they could even make it.

  He knew he could find his own way, though. An unerring sense of direction was a feature of his species, the xalorn champions. They had been bred long ago to be cunning warriors, not just mere shock troops.

  Darius called a halt and turned down a dead-end corridor, a sealed door at the end.

  “Beyond lies what you seek. Now you will swear an oath to spare my people, and I will bind you to that oath. Refuse, and you will never obtain what is on the other side of this door, you will never find the weapon you seek,” the liadi spoke with a seriousness and strength far beyond his apparent age.

  The boy reached out and grasped Vlanchek’s massive wrist, his skin pale, contrasting against the Warmaster’s deep umber exoskeleton. Surprised, the Warmaster could only stare as he felt his powerful body refusing to obey his command to pull away.

  “Speak thusly, and be bound,” the liadi intoned. “I swear I will spare the liadi race from destruction, in exchange for the mightiest weapon in the galaxy.”

  “I swear that I will spare your wretched race in exchange for the weapon you offer,” he said angrily, control returning to his body the moment his wrist was released.

  Vlanchek felt a strange tingling in the back of his mind, a cloud whenever he considered Darius and the liadi. Had that little creep actually done something to him, he wondered?

  Turning, Darius touched the box in the door jamb and a holopanel sprang into existence, hovering just before the door. The display was full of strange characters and unknown symbols. Vlanchek had no idea how he knew, but the liadi seemed to be able to read the strange language, as he began to tap various symbols.

  The entire panel went yellow and the door hissed open, revealing what appeared to be some sort of workshop. Stepping past the liadi, he entered the chamber, followed by his troops. He began to look around, spotting a large rifle on one of the workbenches. Hefting the rifle, he turned and pointed it at Battlehand Zaros.

  “Battlehand Zaros, do
you still question my leadership,” he bellowed.

  “Sir, I have never questioned your rule,” the thevar replied nervously, his stumpy lizard snout scrunching into a parody of surprise.

  “I don’t believe you,” Vlanchek said, pulling the trigger.

  A bright flash accompanied the blue bolt of energy that streaked from the barrel of the rifle. The energy slammed into Zaros’ chest, tearing through his highly resistant battle armor like it was paper and exploding his torso into a fountain of gore. Droplets dotted Vlanchek’s rust-brown carapace, nearly blending in. As Zaros fell, his hand released its grip on the pistol he had been in the process of drawing, sending it clattering to the floor.

  Vlanchek secretly rejoiced as the rest of his men were stunned, cowed into inaction.

  “Grimlok, you are now my Battlehand, assume your duties and search this entire facility for all weapons and useful tech,” Vlanchek ordered.

  “Aye sssirrrr,” the bat-like urnak hissed, nervously looking at the fallen Zaros.