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  VALDJAN

  Cyborg Warriors Book IV

  The Ardak Chronicles

  By Immortal Angel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Valdjan

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Fallen Press, Ltd.

  Copyright © 2019

  Editor: AW Editing

  Copyeditor: Anne-Marie Rutella

  Proofreader: Lisa Howard-Fusco

  Cover Designer: Jonathan Melody

  ISBN: 978-1-948243-03-2

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Other works by Immortal Angel

  Tovian: A Cyborg Warrior Tale

  Tordan: Cyborg Warriors Book I

  Roihan: Cyborg Warriors Book II

  Simban: Cyborg Warriors Book III

  Valdjan: Cyborg Warriors Book IV

  Mordjan: Cyborg Warriors Book V (coming May 2019)

  Durstin: Cyborg Warriors Book VI (coming July 2019)

  For the one and only, greatest brother in the universe.

  It’s not Ender’s Game.

  It’s not Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  But then again–neither of them wrote a book for you, did they?

  [Mic drop.]

  Because of you, I have wings.

  Immortal Angel

  Chapter One

  Valdjan

  “Valdjan.”

  “Yes?” Valdjan glanced up from his workstation in the laboratory of the Ardak ship, where he was researching more into the history of the Ardaks and their technology.

  He quickly got to his feet when he realized it was King Tordan himself coming through the door, flanked by Aria, Roihan, and Mordjan, as well as Geeeroo, and Ryoduin, two elves from the hidden village whom he’d met briefly an hour ago. He began to get a bad feeling in his gut as they crowded around him, and his gut was never wrong.

  Tordan clasped his arm in greeting. “I wish I had more time to chat, but as you know, if your brother’s intel is correct there are only five days left before the Ardaks return.”

  Valdjan nodded. “Yes, it’s one of the only times I wish he was wrong.”

  “One of our greatest problems when they return is that we lack the technology and magical power to repel them,” Tordan said smoothly. “And I believe you can help with that.”

  “Me?” Valdjan asked on a gasp. “What can I do?”

  “We believe you can fulfill the other half of the prophecy of the Crystal Cave, giving us access to the power of the crystals.”

  Valdjan took a step backward in shock, almost falling over the stool he’d been sitting on. He searched the king’s expression for a smile, but one never came. “Why on Aurora would I be the one to fulfill the other half of the prophecy about the Crystal Cave?”

  “We’ve calculated the odds by dissecting every line of the prophecy, creating an advanced algorithm with all the possibilities we could think of,” Aria said matter-of-factly. “The odds are in the billions to one that it would be anyone other than you.”

  “Alone they come, but alike they be. You and Simban are both Siiritans. Both cyborgs,” Tordan added. “Both of you had unsuccessful implants . . .”

  “Yes, and both of us are unbearably good-looking,” Valdjan replied sarcastically, running a hand through his hair.

  The similarities might be there on the surface, but Simban was . . . different. Determined. He’d thrown himself over the edge of that canyon three days ago with a force that Valdjan didn’t know if he even had anymore. Valdjan had thought he was crazy. Hell, he still thought Simban was crazy.

  Valdjan turned to Geeeroo, the eldest elf in the hidden village they’d discovered in the mountains. “You aren’t going for this, are you? You actually think a computer can use an algorithm to figure out a prophecy?”

  “Well, it is an unusual approach,” the elder elf allowed. “But the fact remains that, if you do this, you could save every being on Aurora.”

  “But the prophecy also says ‘he whose cause is true shall free the enemy.’ I don’t even have a cause.”

  “Your cause is Aurora, you idiot,” Mordjan growled at him.

  Valdjan shot the angry cyborg a dark look. “I know that, but it isn’t my cause any more than anyone else’s.”

  “Hence the odds,” Tordan said smoothly. “We’ve run this algorithm again and again, testing different variables. It keeps coming back to you.”

  Valdjan’s gaze shot from one to the other. The idea that he was some kind of savior was preposterous, and he wanted to continue to argue. Yet, as the silence grew, he knew he’d been beaten. “Leave it to a bunch of damn cyborgs to try to use an algorithm to figure out a prophecy.”

  “You’re one of those damn cyborgs,” Mordjan reminded him gruffly.

  Tordan clapped him on the shoulder. “We need you. Last time, the Ardaks only attacked Siirti, but they decimated our population. Can you imagine what will happen if they bring a much larger force and invade the entire planet?”

  Valdjan ran his hand through his hair again before heaving a great sigh. “What do I have to do?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” Tordan’s gray eyes lightened, and he smiled for the first time that morning.

  Valdjan didn’t protest any further, and less than an hour later, he set off from the elven village with Geeeroo. They were taking the path he’d walked with his brother only three days prior.

  The hike was long, and Valdjan had three hours to think of how he got into this godsforsaken position. The Ardak invasion had been swift and brutal, and he could see it, smell it as if it were yesterday.

  A terrible rumble shook the cool night air, and when the bed shook, at first he wondered if he’d drunk more than he thought. It didn’t go away—in fact, it got louder. He slid out of bed and donned his armor with fumbling fingers before grabbing his sword. He was part of the Siirtian defense force, and protecting the people of his village was the only job he had left since his wife had died.

  Screams began to pierce the air of the quiet mountain village where he lived. He opened his front door, sword in hand, and found a living hell outside.

  Great metal spaceships were descending from the sky, and thousands of giant jungle cats that were walking on two legs descending from them. Their fur was orange striped with black, their faces angry, their fangs bared as they began to march through the streets, a ray gun in one hand and a sword in the other.

  They kicked in doors, capturing men and women alike, killing those who fought back. Sometimes, they used their weapons. Other times, they disemboweled their victims with their claws or ripped their victims’ throats out with their fangs.

  Shock and disbelief flooded him as he witnessed the scale of their enemy. There must have been four or five cats to every villager, and he had no idea how many more were on those ships.

  Helpless. That was how this situation should have felt, but he was no stranger to that feeling—had watched his wife waste away over two long, painful years, unable to do anything to stop it.

  So, he had shoved it away, making room for the anger and frustration he had, and started to move, sneaking up on them and killing as many as he could. He might not be able to protect them all, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  He’d killed eight by the time he’d been captured; although, he didn’t tell anyone what he’d done. He heard in the prisons that most of the others hadn’t killed any, thought t
he cats were indestructible. No being was indestructible if one was determined enough or smart enough to realize their weakness. For the Ardak army, the sheer scale and advanced nature was their weakness. By relying on their numbers and their tech, the cats forgot to protect themselves individually, not searching dark places as well as they should have before entering.

  The night they invaded, the night when half of his people were killed in one sweep of the village, wasn’t the real horror. Indeed, the horror had just begun.

  Valdjan had never seen anything like the ray guns or glowing swords that cut through warriors as if they were water, but over the next few months, the giant cats had unveiled their heinous technology.

  He thought he’d felt helpless as he watched Jessa die slowly, or as the Ardaks invaded, but it had paled in comparison to watching from a cage as the Ardaks had done experiments on the males of his people, knowing he had failed them. They inserted chips into the backs of their necks, cut off limbs, turned the men into cyborgs without even knocking them out first to dull the pain. The Ardaks’ chip tech was so crude that only one in four chip implantations had been successful.

  He was one of the first, and he should have been one of the ones who didn’t make it. The chip had failed to block his memories, failed to give them complete control over him. In the end, it had simply just shut down so they had thrown him into the trash pile, expecting him to die.

  He hadn’t.

  Somehow, his chip had restarted and he had escaped and learned to live with it. The chip in and of itself wasn’t evil. It made his body work better. Allowed him to control his emotions and his pain. It made him stronger and faster by allowing his muscles to regulate their energy. The Ardaks had given him ocular implants, which upgraded his vision and allowed him to see at night. He could see heat through walls. He could see incredible distances with just a thought.

  Unlike most of the others, he loved being a cyborg, though he was in agreement with them with his loathing for the Ardaks—both for killing his people and for what they’d done to his brother.

  He didn’t know how Simban had lived through the constant pain, the frustration of his body not working the way he wanted it to. He had, through his own perseverance, healed himself and found a beautiful elven mate.

  Leaving Valdjan with no one. Again.

  He was happy for his brother and didn’t believe anyone was more deserving. But in the back of his mind, he wondered why everyone he loved ended up leaving him.

  When they had finally rebelled against the Ardaks and defeated them a month ago, he’d thought they were free. But then the whiskered bastards had sent a poison that turned the sky red, forcing them to fight another battle to find a cure. When they found the cure, again, he’d thought they were free.

  But two days ago, his brother had come upon an Ardak scout ship and snuck aboard. After connecting to their computer, he found that the Ardaks were returning. Why did they keep coming back to Aurora? That was one of the answers he’d been searching for in the computer.

  He could understand the elves’ desperation to find their Crystal Cave, but the idea that he would be able to access it was simply . . . ludicrous. He couldn’t believe that he was allowing himself to go along with this. He just hadn’t been able to tell Tordan no.

  His elven companion was silent as they walked to edge of the canyon, each sticking to his own thoughts.

  They arrived all too soon, and Valdjan went to the edge of the seemingly bottomless canyon, stopping just close enough to the edge to peer over the side. The clouds stretched out far below, puffy and white, their tips just turning pale pink and gold with the rays of the early morning sun.

  “You’re wasting time,” Geeeroo observed calmly.

  Valdjan kicked a rock, watching it fall until it disappeared into the clouds below as a cold sweat began to bead on his forehead. He wished he would have fought harder when Tordan was convincing him. “Why am I doing this again?”

  “Because if you jump into the canyon and pass the tests, you will get us the power of the Crystal Cave. We can defeat your Ardaks.”

  Defeating the Ardaks sounded pretty good, but it still didn’t explain why it had to be him. “Yes, but just because an algorithm thinks it should be me, it doesn’t mean it is.”

  Geeeroo crossed his arms. “You’re right about that. But I’ve been doing magic for a few millennia now, and the pull of this is strong. You’re the one in the prophecy. I can feel it.” There was absolute certainty in his voice.

  Valdjan wished he had the same conviction. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There is no way I’m the victim of an elven prophecy.”

  “You mean the hero.”

  He glanced at the edge of the cliff. “It feels like the victim to me.”

  Unexpectedly, the elder elf chuckled. “To you, it probably does, but it will be fine. You’ll see.”

  Valdjan sighed. “Tell me this fucking prophecy again.”

  Geeeroo’s face changed as his eyes rolled skyward and he recited the lines.

  “Alone they shall come, but alike they be

  Past the end of the world to seek truth within

  The first, who believes he’s lost all, shall find the key

  To pow’r greater than any on earth of heaven

  The unmade reborn, the remade undone

  The second, whose cause is true, shall free the enemy

  On his strength lies the fate of every last one

  The echoes rippling throughout eternity.”

  When Valdjan just raised an eyebrow, he shrugged apologetically.

  “It sounds better in elvish, and the words have more meaning.”

  Valdjan snorted. “I don’t care how it sounds in elvish. That says nothing about me.”

  “Traako, it isn’t going to say your name, Siirtian cyborg. That isn’t how prophecies work. If your brother was the first, you are the second.”

  Valdjan almost cracked a smile to hear the elf curse in consternation, but his mind was busy thinking of the prophecy itself. His brother had jumped over the side of the canyon believing himself to be the first “he” the prophecy spoke of. A man who believed he’d lost everything.

  And he’d been right. After his crazy jump, his brother had found the cave at the bottom and spoke to the guardian of the Crystal Cave. For all of that, the guardian had only given him one crystal, which had helped him find love. The power greater than any on earth or heaven.

  That was great, but it wouldn’t defeat the Ardaks. And one crystal wasn’t enough to win a war.

  The second, whose cause is true . . .

  “I don’t have a cause,” he muttered.

  “Yes, you do. You want to defeat the Ardaks as much as the rest of us.”

  “Yes, but only as much as the rest of you. There may be other ways to defeat them besides this cave. There is still the rebellion to find.”

  “And what if you can’t find them? We only have a few solar rotations.”

  Valdjan kicked another rock over the edge. Geeeroo was correct; they were short on time. He did want to defeat them, but there was no way that prophecy was about him. He wasn’t a fucking hero, and he wasn’t like the other cyborgs, either. He didn’t have a death wish. Many of them wanted to die because of all that had been taken from them, because the Ardaks had changed them with their technology.

  Yet Valdjan still considered his life worth living. His world worth fighting for, even if he was alone.

  The one whose cause is true.

  He and Simban might appear similar, but inside, they were nothing alike. His brother had a cause and was the one who gave his heart and soul to things.

  Valdjan had given his heart and soul to Jessa at a very young age, and look how that turned out. Then he’d given it to the defense force and they’d been overrun by the Ardaks in minutes.

  He gazed out over the clouds, thinking. If his cause was to defeat the Ardaks, how much truer could it be? Getting the crystals would allow the elves to defend them all and mig
ht save the lives of every being on Aurora, including the life of the guardian at the bottom of this canyon.

  He crept a bit closer to the edge.

  This would be a lot fucking better if I wasn’t afraid of heights.

  The unreasonable fear had afflicted him since childhood and hadn’t gone away with his transformation into a cyborg. He cursed the Ardaks for making him a damn cyborg but leaving his fear of heights intact.

  He began to chant to himself, trying to gather the courage to jump. “The one whose cause is true. The one whose cause is true.”

  The fear still made his limbs tremble.

  If Simban could do it, he should be able to as well.

  Yes, well, he’s a fucking hero.

  He paced the black rock at the edge of the canyon.

  The one whose cause is true . . .

  The one whose cause is true.

  “Will it help if I push?” Geeeroo teased.

  “That’s easy for you to say. You aren’t going to die.” Simban had told him about the jagged spikes and columns of rock that filled the bottom of the canyon, ready to impale anyone who wasn’t the chosen one.

  “You aren’t going to die either.”

  Valdjan shook his head, kicking another rock. “Fuck! Someone has to do it! We need those crystals or the Ardaks are going to eat us alive.”

  He spoke more for himself than the elf.

  Valdjan took a deep breath.

  I am not a hero. But, right now, there is no one else.

  There’s only me.

  With that, something in his chest loosened. He couldn’t escape the inevitable truth. Despite the fact that he didn’t think the prophecy was about him, he did believe in the gods. And fate.

  He was there for a reason, and if he wanted a chance at those crystals, he was going to have to jump.

  He took a deep breath and stretched his arms outward.