Confluence (Godbreaker Book 3)

  CONFLUENCE

  D. J. MOLLES

  CHAPTER 0

  IN MEMORIAM

  What makes someone “great?”

  Is it how they were born? Is it simply in their DNA? Is it just something that a person has, or doesn’t have? Or maybe it’s how they die? Heroics, perhaps? The quantity or the quality of a person’s sacrifice? Is that what makes them “great?”

  Or maybe it’s what they do between being born and dying. Maybe it’s the choices that they make. The twists and turns of their decisions that guide and touch the lives of not only those around them, but rippling out and touching people far, far away.

  I was there. I remember. Others speak of him as though they knew him. As though they were there, even though they weren’t. Bunch of lying cocksuckers, if you ask me, but that’s beside the point.

  The point is…what determines whether someone will be remembered long after their time on this earth is done?

  It’s an important question, because time on this earth, as I’m sure you can tell, is getting short. Extinction is coming. Eradication. Extermination.

  And it’s hard to be remembered if there’s no one left alive to remember you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  BACK TO OKSIDADO

  The stars fell from the night sky, and Perry had no way to put them back.

  His eyes watered as the cool night air slashed past his face. He blinked the tears away and watched the descent of those heavenly bodies as they flared brighter and brighter, and then winked out, one by one, plummeting towards unknown places.

  Standing at the controls to the skiff to Perry’s left, Stuber swore darkly at those falling stars, his glaring eyes affixed on them until they disappeared in the atmosphere. “How many more godsdamned Guardians is the Watcher going to shit out of the sky?”

  “Those are far away,” Perry answered, dropping his gaze to the blur of moonlit terrain that flashed beneath them. “Hundreds of miles. They’re not going to Oksidado.”

  “We shouldn’t have stopped at Praesidium,” Stuber growled.

  “The skiff would’ve never made it without a recharge.”

  Stuber rounded on him. “I fucking understand that, Perry. Can you just let me curse the universe right now? It’s what I need.”

  Perry raised a hand in surrender. “Fuck the universe. Fuck the Watcher. Fuck the All-Kind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why do they make these godsdamned things so slow?” Stuber’s forearms bunched and writhed as he strangled the throttle. But the throttle was already pushed to the max. Perry was afraid he was going to snap the handle clean off.

  He traded a glance with Teran, just a few paces away. Her expression in the light of the waning godsmoon was grim. Rifle tucked against her shoulder. She made eye contact with him, and a disturbing thought passed between them, unspoken.

  I’ve never seen Stuber like this.

  Facing Perry, Teran was looking towards the rear of the skiff. Her skin, blue in the moonlight, suddenly brightened. Shadows became stark across her face. Her eyes widened, lifting from Perry’s and shooting upwards.

  Perry spun and looked up.

  A phosphorous-white glow lit up the sky directly behind them.

  Perry blinked as it rocketed over their heads. He whipped around to follow the object’s rapid arc, the harsh glow sending their shadows streaking into elongated horrors. And then the light winked out, leaving a burning vapor-trail behind, like a great, spectral finger pointing directly to their destination.

  Oksidado.

  “You sonofa—” Stuber’s outcry was cut short by the clap of a sonic boom that slammed them all at once, punching their heads, rattling their bones, leaving their ears ringing.

  From the front of the skiff, Mala spun, her face wild with alarm. “That one was close!”

  “It’s heading straight for Oksidado,” Stuber said, his voice suddenly dead.

  Perry leaned over the control console, trying to make sense of the readout. “How close are we?”

  “Just a few more miles,” Stuber’s voice strained, as though something was choking him. Or perhaps it was the strain of trying to break the throttle.

  Perry grabbed Stuber’s arm. “Don’t let it see us coming!”

  Stuber shook Perry’s grip from his arm. “I need to get closer!”

  “Stuber!” Mala stalked back to the helm, pointing with her longstaff. “Put us down on that ridge ahead! We’ll be close enough to make it to Oksidado on foot!”

  “It’ll take ten minutes to hoof it from that ridge!” Stuber snapped. “And that’s ten minutes too long!”

  Mala planted herself directly in front of the control console. “Stuber. If that Guardian sees us coming, it’ll shoot us out of the sky, and I can’t stop it. You can’t save Petra if you’re a pile of charred bones.”

  “You’ve seen what those things can do!” Stuber looked like he was about to grab Mala and toss her overboard. “It’ll level the whole town before we can get there!”

  “Hey!” Perry swooped in and grabbed Stuber by the shoulder—this time not intending to get shaken off. Stuber tried, but it didn’t have enough heat behind it, and Perry clung on. “Hey!”

  “What?” Stuber roared in Perry’s face.

  “We’re gonna get Petra, okay? We’re gonna get her.”

  Stuber held their course, eyes burning into Perry’s as hot and bright as that sky-born Guardian.

  “Put us down on the ridge,” Perry urged.

  Stuber bared his teeth like a dog thinking of snapping. Then he sucked in a giant breath, and yanked the throttle backwards, banking the skiff sharply to the right and heading for the ridge that overlooked the little town of Oksidado.

  Perry stabilized himself on the control console as the skiff swerved, drifted sideways, and then dropped altitude. Stuber was moving before the skiff came to a full stop. He vaulted over the siderail of the skiff, hit the rocky ground of the ridge, then charged forward as he slung into his rifle.

  His rifle. Which would do about as much to a Guardian as hurling insults at it.

  Stuber was clearly not thinking straight.

  Perry and Teran tumbled over the skiff after him, swearing between themselves. Mala simply launched herself into the air and completed a graceful arc, landing with her feet planted, longstaff held in front of her like a baton, blocking Stuber’s path.

  Perry and Teran scrambled up to them in time to hear Stuber’s voice rumble: “Get out of my way, paladin.”

  “Stuber!” Mala hissed at him. “If this were any other person besides Petra, you’d say exactly what I’m about to say to you: Slow down. Think. Do this right.”

  On the other side of the ridge, the night sky suddenly bloomed an angry orange, followed by the concussive soundwave of multiple explosions going off in quick succession.

  Stuber jerked as though to slip around Mala, but she shifted her center and blocked him again. “Stop, Stuber! Let me help you!”

  “You’re not helping me, you’re stopping me!”

  Perry skidded up, inserting himself between them again. “Mala. Can you fly out ahead and try to distract the Guardian while we move in?”

  Mala’s gaze ripped away from Stuber’s. Hit Perry’s. She nodded once. “I can do that.”

  She didn’t wait for more planning. They all knew there wasn’t time for that. She turned, and her shield erupted around her, scorching the rocks at her feet as she leaped into the air again, and then with soft pulses of her shield, began to soar to Oksidado.

  Still need to learn how to do that, Perry thought.

  Stuber shot for the top of the ridge. Perry jerked out of his momentary envy and stuck close to his friend, Teran taking up a positio
n on Stuber’s other shoulder.

  Perry was certain that Stuber had intended to simply keep charging forward, but as they crested the ridge, his feet simply lost their power and stumbled to a stop. Perry looked down into the little valley that contained the tiny town, and found his lips drawing into an O of dismayed shock.

  Fat columns of smoke were already lifting from three demolished buildings, flames beginning to lick up. The top of the Guardian was just visible over the squat collection of buildings, just a sliver of its copper-colored dome. Flights of micro-missiles spat out of its pods, chain gun ripping like a buzzsaw, green flashes from its energy weapon erupting in all directions, disintegrating anything that stood in its way. It was holding nothing back. It was there to extinguish all life—men, women, children, and every mangy street dog.

  From the southern end of Oksidado, a stream of panicked humanity poured out of the town as though it were a dam that had sprung a catastrophic leak. Those people didn’t know where the hell they were going—just away from the thing in the center of their town.

  A flash of light from the north end of town. Perry squinted into the cavalcade of destruction, and saw Mala land on the top of a building. Her longstaff spat three rapid bolts of energy, and then she shot into the air again as the roof she’d been occupying was suddenly consumed in a wash of bright green goo that immediately began to melt the building like fat in a frying pan.

  “Perry!”

  He snapped his attention back. First, noticed that Stuber had unlocked his legs and was now charging down the slope towards Oksidado. Then Teran, a few steps behind him, waving at Perry to get his ass into gear.

  He didn’t relish the thought of going into that mess, but if you only got one road to travel, best to stop bitching and get to stepping.

  Perry swore and plunged forward.

  In the pounding of footsteps and the huff of his own breath, with the night landscape around him turning to a blur of shadows as he sped through it, the world around Perry started to fade, and his reality became overwhelmed by the sounds coming from Oksidado.

  Screaming. Bullets. Melting rock. Exploding missiles. Disintegration.

  Screaming.

  Fear took a backseat. Fury rose to the occasion. The Gift of Confluence that had coursed through Perry’s being his entire life—even if he hadn’t known what it was called until recently—took a hold of him. The world became red. A river down which he flowed, every action seamless and effortless.

  Stuber had a long stride and he was hell-bent on sprinting the entire mile to Oksidado, but the flow of Confluence pushed Perry harder than he would have been able to as a normal man, and within a few seconds he found himself keeping pace with Stuber.

  The rise of the ridge flattened out into the valley. The buildings now stood in stark silhouette to the flames boiling up amongst them. The river of fleeing humans was just a writhing mass, desperate for safety.

  Perry gasped out words between huffs of breath—because, while everything flowed easy in the red, his lungs still needed oxygen. “Stuber…stay close to me…so I can use my shield!”

  Stuber gave no indication that he’d heard, but Perry knew that he had. Whether or not he would comply was a different matter.

  Perry shot a look over his shoulder and saw Teran, struggling to keep up with Stuber’s long legs and Perry’s supercharged ones.

  “We’re losing Teran!”

  “She’ll catch up!”

  “She’ll need my shield too!”

  Stuber’s pace began to flag. It didn’t matter how bad you wanted to run like the wind, even a legionnaire’s muscles eventually hit a wall.

  “Stuber, you ass!” Perry grated. “You’re gonna gas yourself out before we even get there!”

  “I’ll…” pant-pant “…manage!”

  “And what if you have to carry Petra out of there?” Perry gulped air. “Save something for the fight! You’re acting like a peon!”

  Stuber tumbled to a stop by ramming his bulky body into the side of a building. He spun, put his back against the mudbrick and heaved. Spat.

  Perry spun to look behind them. Teran was just shy of reaching them. He gripped his longstaff and used the butt of it to hold Stuber against the wall. “Wait for Teran.”

  “I’m waiting!” Stuber raised his rifle, checked the reticle, bared his teeth. “Teran! Move your ass!”

  Teran slammed into position with them, her face all flush and ire. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Perry turned to Stuber, removing the butt of the longstaff from his chest. “Alright. Stuber. We’re with you. Lead the way. But try not to get too far ahead of us.”

  Stuber spat another wad of gummy spit, swiped sweat from his brow, then rounded on the alley between this building and the next. “Let’s go.”

  They plunged down the alley. Perry tried to get his bearings, but he’d only been to Oksidado once, and the circumstances then had been a little disorienting—now even moreso. He had no clue where they were or how close they were to Petra’s house.

  Would she even be there? It seemed like everyone else had the right idea and was getting the hell out.

  They neared the end of the alley.

  People. Three of them. Flat-out sprinting. Arms pumping, mouths gaping for air, eyes wide.

  The night flared green. And then red.

  “Stop!” Perry snatched at the strap of Stuber’s rifle, pulling him back.

  The three people were nothing more than clouds of vaporized blood. Blackened tatters of their clothing lilted through the air like flakes of ash.

  Teran uttered a breathless curse.

  Stuber allowed himself to be stopped, though Perry was sure Stuber could’ve just towed him along. Perry’s shield came up, surrounding them in a bubble of faintly-glowing light.

  “Might not want to clear that corner just yet,” Perry snapped.

  Stuber’s eyes were fixed forward, across what looked like the main street that ran through the center of Oksidado. Perry followed his gaze. Their destination wasn’t directly across from them, but peering over the tops of the squat buildings, Perry thought he recognized the rickety wooden porch on the second level of Petra’s house. Off to the right, and a few rows of buildings back.

  “Lower your shield so I can clear the corner,” Stuber husked.

  There didn’t appear to be any more fleeing people in the main street. Those last three had just been a little too late to get out unscathed. And with the absence of targets in the street, the Guardian’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Hopefully.

  Perry thought he heard the distant crackle of Mala’s longstaff. Or maybe that was the Guardian’s own energy weapon? Perry wasn’t sure there was a difference. But it didn’t look like any rounds were coming their way, so he lowered his shield.

  Stuber immediately stepped to the corner of the building and peered a single eye around it.

  An explosion, followed by the sound of something massive falling. Probably a building.

  “It’s locked in with Mala,” Stuber said. “It’s distracted. Let’s go.”

  He didn’t wait, just sprinted.

  They crossed the main street and ducked into the alley across from them. All the streets in Oksidado were narrow, so that there was little to distinguish between alleys and streets.

  A stream of corrosive rounds slashed at the top of a building over their heads. Perry activated his shield in time to keep the sizzling globules of what used to be mudbrick from burning through their skulls.

  Stuber hung a right at the next intersection, pausing only long enough to make sure that the Guardian wasn’t staring them down. Here, Perry did manage to recognize the alley that he and Stuber had carted Teran’s wounded body through, what seemed like ages ago. He only recognized it by the old woman standing on her stoop, smoking a reed.

  Gods, does she ever move from that spot?

  Stuber ignored her, but Perry gawped. “What are you still doing here? You need to get out of town!”

  The a
ncient old hag squinted at him with beady eyes and blew smoke. “Bah,” was her only response.

  Stuber pulled up on the stoop of his wife’s house and stopped. He seemed to consider kicking the door down, but then thought better of it, and instead raised a fist. Politely knocked.

  “Petra!” Stuber raised his voice. “I’m coming in! Don’t shoot!”

  He inclined his ear to the door, as though waiting for the go-ahead.

  A meteor shot out of the sky and slammed into the building across from them, showering debris over Perry’s head as he ducked and instinctively formed his shield into a roof over them.

  Mala’s toppled out of the perfect circle of still-glowing mudbrick, her shield extinguishing as she hit the ground with a gasp and then dragged herself to her feet, longstaff still in hand. She blinked blearily around and seemed surprised to find Perry and Teran staring at her.

  Stuber was still focused on the door. Mala’s flight and impact seemed a minor distraction to him.

  “Primus help me,” Mala coughed. “I can’t keep its attention much longer.”

  The old hag stood on her stoop and rasped out a chuckle.

  “Godsdammit, Mala,” Stuber said without looking at her. “Just give me one more minute. That’s all I need.”

  Mala gritted her teeth. Clenched her longstaff in both hands, and shot back into the air.

  Stuber opened the door and raised his rifle, weaponlight blazing into the darkness inside. He stepped through the entry. “Petra? It’s me. It’s…Franklin.”

  “Franklin?” Teran whispered.

  Perry shrugged as he followed Stuber into the house.

  All was dark and silent. Except for all the explosions and gunfire outside. But aside from that, eerily quiet.

  “She might’ve already left,” Perry pointed out, trying to stick close to Stuber as he moved through the kitchen and into the hallway beyond.

  Stuber ignored him. “Petra! Are you here?”

  He stopped at a door. Thrust it open. Inside sat the old Surgeon that had patched Teran’s gutshot. But still no Petra.

  Another fusillade of micro-missiles struck a building nearby, rattling the floorboards under their feet and causing dust to sift down from the ceiling like a cosmic baker was trying to flour them.