Black Star Renegades

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  For my family. Every single day, it’s all for my family.

  PROLOGUE

  Cade ran.

  Warm blood poured out of his nose and over his lips, but he was too distracted to smear it away. He was running as fast as his legs would take him while his brother urged him to “keep going, keep going,” even though, soon, there’d be nowhere left to go. Tristan was older, bigger, and stronger; he could have outpaced Cade and their pursuers with ease, but he stayed by his brother’s side, pushing him ahead. Cade sucked in shallow gasps of air as he heard his own racing pulse pounding in his ears. Exhaustion nearly claimed Cade, twice, but Tristan wrapped his fist around the back of his brother’s shirt, keeping him close, keeping him upright. He wouldn’t let them quit, not with the Zeros on their heels. They’d left their best friend, Mig, behind, knocked unconscious by one of the Zero thugs. Cade knew he’d be fine, though. The Zeros weren’t after Mig.

  They were after Cade and Tristan.

  The brothers followed the narrow, winding path that cut through the back alleys of the Kyysring outdoor bazaar. Tristan knocked over harvesting bulbs, crates of dried botho meat, and anything else that might slow down the maniacs chasing them. Cade cursed their decision to sneak out of the shelter, even though it was his idea. Mig was aching to get parts for the dasher bike he was trying to repair, and Cade was itching to break the claustrophobic mania brought on by the shelter’s confinement. Still, it was Tristan’s job to talk Cade out of his dumb ideas, and if he didn’t think strolling through a crowded bazaar at midday was the dumbest of ideas, then he’d somehow gotten as judgment-impaired as his brother. Cade and Tristan both had targets on their backs, and until they could jack a starship that would shoot them to the other side of the galaxy, the shelter was the only place they were safe.

  Cade tumbled around a corner, a half step behind Tristan’s lead, even though they both knew what they’d find: a dead end. In the halcyon days before a ruthless gunrunning gang wanted them strung up in the town square, all of Kyysring had been their playground. They grew up on this planet and knew every inch of its market, inside and out. And that’s why Cade knew being pegged by the Zeros in the bazaar was the worst thing that could happen. There’d be no escape this time. They’d been able to outrun the Zeros in the past, outmaneuver them, even outthink them. But the rabble pursuing them was eight strong, and all they had to do was shed some of their numbers to block off the few points of egress, and Cade and Tristan would be bottled in. That’s exactly what they did.

  “All right, all right,” Tristan said as he hunched over and cupped his hands together. “If you jump right when I boost you up, you should be able to reach the top of the wall and climb over.”

  Cade shoved his brother upright. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, winded. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Tristan snapped, taking a parental tone. “I’m your—”

  “You’re my what? Not my dad, Tristan. You’re my brother, and we stick togeth—”

  “Oy!” a voice called from behind. Cade and Tristan turned to see four Zeros—led by their scrawny leader who scraped a pair of shock batons along the ground as he sauntered ahead—closing around them. “It’s charming, you brothers having a spat over who is more eager to die. That decision is in the hands of The Zero, not either one of you punks.”

  Cade could almost smell the leader—Qwayg was his name—as he stalked toward them. He wore a loose-fitting tank top covered by a fur-lined jacket, and he had a tattoo of an elongated star sloppily applied over his right eye. Everything about him was coated in sickly grime.

  “Leave my brother,” Tristan said, stepping in front of Cade. “If The Zero wants to make an example, he can do so with just one of us.”

  Qwayg scoffed. “This isn’t a negotiation, kiddo. You’re worth more to The Zero alive, but he’ll take ya dead all the same. Your parents cost him a lot of money by attracting Praxis to our planet. And because of that, we have to show what happens when someone interferes with Zero business.”

  “Our parents didn’t bring Praxis here,” Cade spat. “They weren’t helping the Kaldorian uprising—they were aid workers, not freedom fighters. Everyone knows that.”

  “Too bad they aren’t around to say so themselves”—Qwayg shrugged—“or pay the price themselves. Now—”

  At his signal, Qwayg’s lackeys raised their weapons: One was equipped with a shock baton while the other two packed snub-nosed outpost pistols.

  “How’s this going to go?” Qwayg smugly asked.

  Cade, though, was focused less on the threat of lethal weapons bearing down on him and more on the strange man who’d entered the alleyway. He was standing a couple paces behind the Zeros, a three-foot wooden bo staff gripped in his right hand.

  “Let them go,” the man said, evenly. “Let them go and walk away from here while you still can.”

  Cade watched Qwayg turn around, slowly, the satisfied grin already disappearing from his face. “And who’s this? Granpappy?”

  The strange man took two steps forward, and Cade studied him in more detail. He was older than any of the Zeros and wore a tight-fitting tunic the color of rust. His tidy appearance and measured demeanor were, to say the least, oddities on Kyysring. Same for the weapon. Cade noticed that three immaculate blades studded the top of his staff, but it was still just a wooden stick with some sharp edges. While it was nice for this crazy person to intervene on his and Tristan’s behalf, what Cade really hoped was that he could last long enough in a fight against the Zeros so they could escape.

  “Those young men belong to me now, so I’ll say this one more time,” the man explained. “Leave them be and get out of here while I’m still willing to let you do so.”

  “You have any idea who we are?” Qwayg yelled. “We’re emissaries of The Zero! We’re—”

  “Poor choice,” the man said, and in that same instant, he twisted the center of his staff and it crackled to life. Cycling sparks of raw energy, dark blue and orange, crowned the top of the staff, contained by the protruding blades.

  Capitalizing on the distraction his fiery staff provided, the man jumped on the offensive. He swung his weapon around, using the blunt end to knock the outpost pistol out of the hand of the nearest Zero. He then jabbed the same end of his staff into the Zero’s torso, doubling her over. Cade was about to yell out a warning as the other pistol-armed Zero trained it on the man, but before a syllable could slip through Cade’s lips, the man grabbed the doubled-over Zero and used her as a shield against the incoming fire. He then charged forward, still using the woman for protection, and when he neared the Zero who was shooting at him, he plunged his staff forward—close enough so the energy could jump from the weapon onto the man, sending him into a fit of electrified convulsions. Unconscious, he fell to the ground, and Cade could see the smoke wafting off his body.

  The man dropped the wo
man and pointed his weapon ahead, waiting for the two remaining Zeros to make their move.

  “This guy is awesome,” Cade whispered to his brother. Tristan wasn’t listening, though; he was staring at the scene in front of them in wonderment.

  Qwayg tried pushing his last remaining ally forward, toward the man, but he wouldn’t budge. “You know what?” he said as he dropped his baton. “This isn’t even worth it. I’m out.” He kept his arms raised in surrender as he crept by the strange man, who let the Zero pass.

  “You’ll have no such luck with me, Granpappy,” Qwayg snarled as he held his batons forward, their ends pulsing with dull purple energy—nothing compared to his opponent’s crackling weapon. “I’ve been trained by some of the nastiest fighters you’ll ever know.”

  “That’s very nice,” the man said and launched into his attack. He wrapped his hands around the center of his staff, using both the charged and blunt ends to fight off Qwayg’s baton strikes. Qwayg came at the man with fast and varied strikes, but the man, as far as Cade could tell, defended himself with ease. And the more attacks he defended, the more ferocious and frustrated Qwayg became; he started to grunt with each swing of his baton, while the man remained silent, his face a mask of impassivity.

  Having tired of toying with Qwayg, the next time he came to attack, the man caught his batons on his staff; he spun his staff around, disarming Qwayg, and then, in a swift, fluid movement, he swept out Qwayg’s legs and knocked him on his back, hard. Before Qwayg could so much as groan, the man had the charged end of his weapon pointed just above his face, daring him to move.

  “Those boys are coming with me,” the man said. “Do we have an understanding?”

  “The Zeros don’t surrender,” Qwayg grunted. “We are the ruling pow—”

  The man inched his weapon down the slightest bit, and the cycling energy leapt onto Qwayg’s face, frying what few brain cells he possessed. By the time the man pulled his staff back, Qwayg was out cold.

  The man then turned his attention to Cade and Tristan, neither of whom had moved while the Zeros were being dispatched. Tristan was still dumbstruck, and Cade was torn between satisfying his curiosity of finding out who this guy was and the urge to grab his brother and run.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man said. “I’m not here to hurt you, either of you.”

  “What … who are you?” Tristan muttered.

  The man twisted his staff once more, and the energy that’d been pulsing at its head subsided. He walked closer to Cade and Tristan as he slung his weapon over his back.

  “My name is Jorken, Ser Jorken. I am a Master Rai at the Well. Have you heard of the Well?”

  “Nope,” Cade sharply replied, even though he’d of course heard of the Well. Who hadn’t? Defenders of galactic peace, spiritual warriors—all that stuff. But Cade wasn’t sold on this Ser Jorken, and he wasn’t going to give him what he wanted so easily. Especially when it seemed that the thing he wanted was him and Tristan, which was more than a little strange.

  “You’re a Master Rai. From the Well,” Tristan said, still spellbound. “And that,” he continued, craning his neck to espy the weapon strapped to Jorken’s back, “is your shido.”

  “Excellent, you already know much,” Jorken said. “That will serve you well.”

  “Serve us well for what?” Tristan asked.

  Jorken smiled and leaned down so he could directly address both brothers. “For your training, Tristan Sura. And for your training, Cade Sura. You are to become Rai, like me, if you choose.”

  Cade and Tristan shared a glance; Tristan was still agape, while Cade shrugged at Jorken’s offer. Unlike his brother, tragic events had aged Cade into skeptical pragmatism. Still, if the offer was real, Cade knew abandoning Kyysring for the Well would be a considerable upgrade. If nothing else, it would be nice to live in a place where he wasn’t chased around by people trying to kill him.

  “Does this mean we’ll get to knock the snot out of some Praxis a-holes?” Cade asked.

  “You live up to your reputation for possessing a unique fire,” Jorken said with a laugh. “But that’s not quite how we operate. You’ll help people; you’ll provide security, relief, whatever’s needed to keep peace and justice alive throughout the galaxy. Much like your parents, in a way.”

  Tristan looked once more at Cade, and he already knew what his brother was going to say. “We go together, that’s the only way,” Tristan said. “If Cade isn’t up for it, then the discussion ends here.”

  Jorken and Tristan’s eyes trained on Cade, who wasted no time getting to the inevitable. “Anywhere beats this place,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “I had a feeling this would work out just fine,” Jorken said, and he led them through the alleyway, circumventing the downed Zero thugs as they passed.

  They were walking through the artery leading them to the bazaar, teeming with people, when Cade broke the silence and their progress.

  “Wait, I want to know something before we get too far,” he said.

  “Anything,” Jorken replied.

  “Why us? I mean, of all people, why did we get chosen for this?”

  “It’s simple,” Jorken said, as he backed into the heart of the marketplace, leading the brothers to follow him. “I believe one of you may be destined to save the galaxy.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  TEN YEARS LATER

  The starship screamed through the sky, piercing the volatile upper atmosphere of the planet Quarry. Aerial detonations battered the assault cruiser, sending it careening off course and threatening to tear it in half. Inside the ship, the scanners were rendered useless, unable to predict the explosive squalls or chart a course to safety. The ship was flying blind through a neon-green-and-purple minefield, and Cade loved every second of it.

  Cade’s brother was less amused.

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” Tristan said, his arms folded over his chest as he expressed his disapproval from the copilot’s seat.

  “Did you?” Cade replied, feigning sincerity. “I must have missed that.”

  A nearby eruption on the port side rocked the starship. Tristan groaned. “Just try not to get us killed.”

  Visiting Quarry hadn’t always been such a dangerous proposition. There was a time when it was a thriving planet and active member of the Galactic Alliance; its commitment to open trade brought its native spices to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, with them, a small piece of Quarrian culture. But that was before the Praxis kingdom used the small planet to show the rest of the galaxy what, exactly, it was capable of.

  Still, there was a way to reach the surface without incurring the wrath of the combustible atmosphere. Cade and Tristan, in fact, had a detailed flight plan that would have guided them to a small sliver of airspace that wasn’t exploding. It was a hard-won map, learned through the trial and error of previous pilots, some giving their lives to find the one slice of sky that wasn’t certain death.

  They were nowhere near that sliver right now.

  While Cade’s penchant for taking unnecessary risks was well-documented—the Well literally had a file detailing his recklessness—he felt that his reasoning for abandoning the mandated “safe” plan was justified. After all, his and Tristan’s pilgrimage was meant to be a clandestine one, and Cade knew how thorough the watchful eye of Praxis tended to be; if the ruthless kingdom was going to monitor any part of Quarry, wouldn’t it be looking at the one safe place to land?

  Plus, Cade happily admitted to himself, the opportunity to fly his ship—which he’d named the Horizon Dawn, for no other reason than it sounded cool—through Quarry’s fabled sky of doom was too good to pass up. Cade just wished they’d get through it already. It felt like an eternity since their starship had plunged into this thunderous, life-threatening turbulence, and Cade was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this was a bad idea after all. He acknowledged the white-knuckle grip he had on the stick, which belied his cavalier attitude. But then, as if the galaxy was
in a wish-fulfilling mood, the ship began to settle. Cade waited, expecting something horrible to happen to compensate for the galaxy’s generosity, and when it didn’t, he breathed a sigh of relief. Even the sensors righted themselves, detecting the small amount of light that the nearest moon managed to capture from the flickering sun and deflect to the planetary surface.

  “You see?” Cade said, turning toward Tristan and flashing a playful grin. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re the only person I know who can provoke death with a smile,” Tristan replied, unable to hold back a smile of his own. Cade knew that his brother enjoyed the thrill of doing things that you weren’t supposed to do, even though he couldn’t indulge in them like his brother.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tristan leaned toward Cade and spoke quietly, sharing a secret that no one was around to hear. “You’re a good pilot, little brother. But you’re not that good.”

  Cade shot his brother a wounded look. “I can’t believe you’d say that. After all, I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing this for y—”

  Suddenly, the ship’s warning array bellowed to life.

  “You were saying?” Tristan yelled over the alarm. He swiped through the control panel’s notifications, trying to determine the problem. “There’s some kind of pressure building in front of us, it’s about to—”

  Although the viewport was coated with a gossamer residue, a gift from the atmosphere’s strange chemical makeup, Cade couldn’t mistake what the electronic screaming and Tristan’s truncated warning was all about: A neon-green fireball, large enough to incinerate the entire starship, had burst in the sky ahead and was thundering directly toward them.

  Cade jammed the stick to the left, sending them barreling out of the raging fire’s path. His reaction to the explosion was instant, but its proximity left no possibility for a clean escape. As the Dawn jerked to the side, the fireball tore across its underbelly, violently whipsawing the craft. Cade flared the ship’s stabilizers as he fought the stick, which was bucking out of his grip. The dashboard spat out one damage report after another.