Boundless: A Middang3ard Series (Dragon Approved Book 13) Read online

  Boundless

  Dragon Approved™ Book Thirteen

  Ramy Vance

  Michael Anderle

  The Boundless Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Jeff Goode

  Rachel Beckford

  Deb Mader

  Kerry Mortimer

  Dorothy Lloyd

  Veronica Stephan-Miller

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Diane L. Smith

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  This Book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2020 by LMBPN Publishing

  Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

  http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US Edition, June 2020

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-978-9

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-979-6

  Dedication

  To Dragons in Space…I know they’re not a person, but hot-damn! As a concept it is intoxicating!

  —Ramy

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  to Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  to Live the Life We Are

  Called.

  — Michael

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Author Notes Ramy Vance

  Author Notes Michael Anderle

  Other Books by the Authors

  Connect with The Authors

  Chapter One

  Vardis stood in the doorway of Alex’s hospital room. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes betrayed his purpose. The alien was seething with energy. It was like looking at a lightbulb exceeding its wattage. He seemed unable to contain himself.

  Alex had only just pulled herself out of Vardis’ mental labyrinth. She still wasn’t sure what was real. Her memories seemed tacked on, or like they could have been changed without her even realizing it. The only thing she was certain of was that she was in the real world now.

  Roy was still having trouble adjusting to being outside the mental plane. He didn’t look as sick as he had while navigating through Vardis’ and Alex’s memories, but he didn’t look like he was up for a fight.

  Vardis took a slow, deliberate step into the room as if he were savoring the confusion he had caused to both Alex and Roy. He was gloating.

  Alex wasn’t going to take the bait. “What are you doing here?”

  Vardis looked around the room, energy still pouring from his body. “I came to see if you were okay. I heard about the explosion and wanted to check on your health.”

  Alex knew that was a lie. Even though she didn’t have any proof, she knew the explosion that had put her in the med-bay was caused by Vardis. She didn’t need proof that Vardis was trying to hurt her, though. Roy had been involved in the psychic attack as well. He’d back her up. “I’m onto you,” Alex threatened.

  Vardis closed the door behind him as he walked farther in the room. He looked from Alex to Roy, watching them both closely. “I do not know what you’re talking about,” he murmured, feigning ignorance. The smug tone in his voice was obvious. “They’re going to be transporting the shard in a little while. I thought you should know.”

  “You can’t use that weapon!”

  A pulse went through the room, a subtle ripple as if someone had lightly pressed their fingertip to water. Alex looked at Roy to see if he felt the distortion as well, but she found herself moving extremely slowly as if she were trying to move through gelatin.

  Then she heard Vardis’ voice in her head, lacking the prior smugness but sounding nearly frantic, almost mad. “We need to use the weapon as soon as possible,” he said. “It is time for this war to end, for the Dark One to pay for everything he’s put us through.”

  For the first time since she’d started suspecting Vardis, Alex realized the alien might not be of sound mind, and it seemed like he was quickly unraveling. “If we use that weapon, it’s going to destroy everything we know. It’ll destroy what we are fighting for.”

  “Not what you’re fighting for. Don’t you understand anything about dimensions and universes, human? It’s powerful enough to destroy a universe. Middang3ard isn’t your home, this is. Once the weapon is used on Middang3ard, the other eight surviving realms will keep on living. They’ll be able to experience life free of the Dark One.”

  Alex hadn’t realized the distinction until just now. Middang3ard wasn’t Earth, nor were the elvish or gnomish realms. They were all layered over each other like a pile of crepes. Vardis was only talking about discarding one of the crepes.

  Would that be so bad? Middang3ard was just a hub of different species, most of them working on the war effort. They could be evacuated; there was no reason they had to die. And the rest of the realm…

  Alex couldn’t believe she was even thinking about the option. It was practically genocide, and not worth it. The thought of losing any number of lives to destroy the Dark One made Alex’s stomach turn.

  “Is it any different than the lives Myrddin sacrifices to fight the Dark One?”

  Vardis’ voice broke Alex away from her thoughts. Now she wasn’t certain if the initial thought she’d had about letting Middang3ard be destroyed had originated from her or the alien.

  It had been the same when she’d spoken to the Dark One. Even though Alex’s telepathy was getting stronger at a rapid rate, she wasn’t sure if it was on par with either the Dark One’s or Vardis’. Maybe they were strong enough to influence her mind in ways she didn’t even know about.

  Alex shook away the alien’s words. “No, they’re different. We’d all be dead if Myrddin hadn’t organized everything.”

  “Yet there have been sacrifices. Your arm, for instance. There are things we lose that we never get back. That’s all this is, a sacrifice. The immensity of that sacrifice is as large as that which we hope to remove.”

  Something about Vardis’ voice had changed. It had lost its manic tone and was low and almost comforting, a distortion he did not seem to be aware of. Alex would have assumed it was an entirely different person.

  “Myrddin asked me to fight. It wasn’t something I was forced into. It was my decision. What you’re planning is monstrous.”

  Vardis raised his hand, his palm facing Roy. “No, monstrous would be focusing on your friend’s brain long enough to reduce it to a gray puddle on the floor. That would be senseless, unnecessary, and monstrous, to do that just to see your pain. What I’m proposing is that you and I, that we save the re
alms together. Keep quiet, and we can all live through this.”

  Alex pushed back telepathically, warding off Vardis’ influence. “I’m not going to kill millions of people.”

  “Just like the Dark One asked you, right?”

  Alex’s heart dropped. She wasn’t sure how Vardis knew about the conversation she’d had with the Dark One. Or maybe he didn’t. He could have been bluffing. It wouldn’t have been hard to deduce that the Dark One had reached out to Alex during the battle. “He didn’t ask me anything,” Alex answered.

  Vardis was silent for a second, watching Alex as if he were trying to discern the truth of her words.

  The uncertainty in his eyes was extremely comforting to her. If he could be confused, he didn’t have full access to her mind. She felt uncertainty coming off him.

  That must have been how it worked. They could pick up on each other’s feelings, and things that could be given away with body language seemed to amplify the thoughts of the individual. If Alex could keep her body language in control, it would be harder for Vardis to read her.

  Vardis, on the other hand, didn’t get himself under control. His emotions were as palpable as the psychic energy coming off his body.

  Alex decided to push the alien. “That’s the difference between you and me. You’re willing to sacrifice everyone around you, and yet you don’t fight. Sounds a little cowardly to me.”

  Anger filled the room as Vardis ground his teeth. “I have sacrificed more than you will ever understand. All of us sacrificed so much.”

  The alien’s eyes went glossy for a second, the bright white energy fading before he looked around the room as if he had just been transported into it.

  The energy came back and he screamed in rage. “All of them died! Do you understand? Every one of them!”

  A psychic blast tore through the room as time returned to normal.

  Alex and Roy were flung against the wall and hit hard enough to crack the concrete.

  The sudden time dilation had caught Alex off-guard, but the blast was weak compared to what she’d gone through in Vardis’ mind. He must have been distracted. Whatever was going on in his head was a weakness, one Alex wanted to exploit. “Where were you when they died? It didn’t seem like you could do anything to help them.”

  When Vardis spoke, it was in a voice Alex had never heard him use. It was high-pitched and more frenzied than before, his voice cracking with every other word. “I did everything I could! None of them believed me! None of them were willing to do what needed to be done! That’s why they are no more. But we continue. We will not let the Dark One win.”

  Who is the “we” Vardis keeps talking about? Alex thought. He’s never done that before. This guy must be crazier than I thought.

  Roy was getting to his feet, shaken by what had happened. He still managed to draw his pistol faster than Alex could see and fire.

  One of the shots hit Vardis in the arm, flinging him back. The alien didn’t seem hurt, though. He raised his hand, and Roy went flying.

  Alex reached out and tried to telekinetically pull Roy back down to the ground as he writhed in pain. “So, that’s the plan? You couldn’t do anything to keep your people alive? The best plan you got is to wipe out an entire universe? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the one who wiped out your people.”

  Roy fell to the ground as Vardis took a step back. “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me. You keep going on about how the Dark One killed your people, but we were in your mind too. I didn’t see one memory of the Dark One. Just you and a bunch of dead people like you.”

  The walls in the room started to shake and the glass in the windows vibrated. “How dare you!” Vardis growled.

  The door opened and a nurse walked into the room. She froze when she saw the standoff between Vardis and Alex. “I could come back later,” she murmured and let herself out.

  Before the door could close, it exploded like a grenade had just gone off, slicing the nurse’s face and leaving her a bloody mess on the floor.

  Alex screamed in rage, seeing how casually Vardis had treated a human life, and drew her scythe, rushing at Vardis while pulling him closer with her telekinesis.

  Vardis pushed back as hard as he could, stopping Alex for a second as he ran.

  It wasn’t in Alex’s head. Vardis was stronger in real life than in the psychic plane. It must have been because his attention wasn’t split. Her powers didn’t feel like they were anywhere close to his.

  Roy was back on his feet. He ran over to the nurse who had been attacked and held her head up. She coughed up blood, and there were tears in her eyes as she looked about fearfully. “Where does it hurt?” Roy asked.

  The nurse looked down at her stomach and pulled up her shirt. There were cuts all over her torso as well as her face. “They’re superficial,” she managed, her voice eerily professional. “I’ll survive.”

  “We’ll get help.”

  Roy looked at Alex. “We can’t let him get too far away. Come on.”

  Alex followed Roy as he commed for a medical team to come to Alex’s room. They raced after Vardis, and Alex wondered what other tricks the alien had up his sleeve.

  Chapter Two

  Roy patched himself into the base’s cameras as he and Alex pursued Vardis to see if he could find the alien and figure out where he was heading to. “Found him! He’s going for the hangar. We can cut him off before he gets there. Follow me.”

  Roy turned a corner a moment later and stopped. He pointed at an air duct. “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

  Alex looked dubiously at the air duct. “I prefer the open sky, but I’m not going to have a panic attack or anything. Why do we have to use the ducts, though?”

  “It’s a straight shot to the hangar. We’ll beat him to the punch and be able to take him out faster.”

  Roy pulled the grate off the air duct and knelt to give Alex a boost. She climbed up to it and slid in. It wasn’t as tight as she’d thought it was going to be. Roy pulled himself up behind her and directed her forward.

  Alex crawled through the duct, already anxious to get out, but she followed Roy’s instructions and turned where he told her to. It wasn’t long before he told her to stop. “Right below us,” he said. “Go ahead and get out.”

  Alex punched out the grate with her bionic arm and leaped out of the duct.

  The hangar was empty of any personnel but filled with a variety of transportation options: decommissioned fighter jets, some tanks, and a small collection of helicopters. There were exo-suits lined up against the wall that didn’t look like they’d ever been used. Alex remembered reading about them and how there were some groups in Myrddin’s army that were composed of soldiers without magic who only used that kind of suit.

  The lights in the hangar flickered on, and Alex saw how vast it was. Her initial impression of what the hangar held had been very misguided. There was nearly triple the amount of military junk than she’d originally thought. “Okay, what’s the plan?” Alex asked.

  Roy walked around, peeking behind a helicopter. “I think we beat him here, so it’s an ambush. Don’t know why he’s heading to the hangar, though.”

  Roy checked his visor’s feed of Vardis running through the hallways. “Yeah, he’s still heading this way, but it looks like he’s doing something. Messing with the cameras or something. It’s hard to see through the feed.”

  Vardis looked directly into the camera and Roy’s feed disappeared. “Guess that sums that one up. He’s knocking out the cameras.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to make sure we don’t call backup.”

  Roy shook his head as he walked back over to Alex. “Doesn’t make any sense. If we were going to call for backup, we already would have.”

  “Uh, just asking, how come we haven’t called for backup?”

  Roy was pacing and scratching the back of his head. “Vardis was smart. When we were bringing you back, a couple of other explosions went off in the base a
s well. We evacuated most of it. This place isn’t built for an attack. None of the dragons had been outfitted. And we still didn’t know the nature of the attack. Perfect time for Vardis to take out one person and not get caught.”

  Alex blushed and met Roy’s eyes. “He didn’t start by trying to attack me. For a bit, everything froze, and he tried to convince me to help him set off the weapon on Middang3ard.”

  Roy leaned against one of the helicopters as he watched the door of the hangar. “Why do you look so bummed out? Did you agree? Is this a big double-cross?”

  Alex threw her hands up, worried until she saw Roy smiling. “No. I’d never do that, but it felt like he had some good points. Some very good points.”

  “Let me guess. People must make sacrifices. Myrddin sacrifices people all the time. What’s the difference between what he wants to do and what Myrddin has done?”

  Alex was surprised Roy hit the nail on the head. “How did you know he said that?”

  “Because I’ve come across my share of megalomaniacal psychos before. You think they’d come up with something more original by now, but nope. Everyone basically says the same thing. Sounds good the first time, but after your third psycho, it seems like they all get the same script. I’m waiting for a bad guy with a little more creativity to show up. Even the Dark One, who wants to enslave all of reality for no reason. Guy doesn’t even have a tragic backstory.”