Read Dark Space: Avilon for Free Online

crunch anyway . A few heads turned, and the newcomer looked up, but no one saw anything to associate with the sound. Just as well he’d made a noise, though. Now that the Imperial had looked up, he’d noticed his peril. There were already four Psychos sizing him up. Bretton sighed inwardly and crept toward the group.
    Sometimes he wished he’d never left Etheria, or that he’d never found Omnius’s dirty laundry, but if he was going to wish for something, he’d wish that the Sythians had never invaded the galaxy, and that neither he nor his wife had died and come to Avilon in the first place. Then he’d wish Omnius away for good measure, just in case the AI god of Avilon decided to resurrect him from a natural death, too.
    As the Psychos advanced on the Imperial, Bretton bet that man had a few wishes of his own.

Chapter 3
     

    E than noticed that the blinding tunnel in the clouds became noticeably dimmer after they’d crossed the threshold. It led to a circular chamber with a familiar, shiny golden dome at the end. A Peacekeeper stood waiting there for them. As they approached, that man placed his hands against the dome and it rose up on four shining pillars of light. Then they were herded underneath the dome by more Peacekeepers. From the inside, the dome and floor were both black and glossy. Two glowing circles marked the floor. The inner one green, and the outer one red. Ethan led Alara into the inner circle.
    Then one of the Avilonians raised his hands and the inside of the dome began to glow with ever-increasing brightness. Suddenly, the Peacekeeper dropped his hands and the dome fell with a boom. A loud whirring filled the air, and it became so bright inside the dome that Ethan had to shut his eyes. Wind whipped at their hair and clothes, and Ethan’s ears popped with a sudden change in air pressure. Then the brightness faded and the wind died down. Ethan opened his eyes to see the dome rising on four pillars of light once more.
    “Is it going to be like that every time?” Atton asked.
    Ethan shook his head. They’d just been teleported from their reunion in the sky back down to the surface of Avilon. He supposed some drama was to be expected for such a feat of technological wizardry.
    As they were herded out from under the dome, Ethan saw that they were now in the middle of a rooftop garden. Faintly illuminated synthstone walkways slithered out into the night, flanked by colorful beds of flowers. Majestic trees stood sentinel on dark, rolling fields of grass, tracing the sky with jagged, tree-shaped shadows. Their leaves rasped in a warm breeze. Overhead, a full Avilonian moon shone bright and blue in a sky that glittered with countless stars. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t decide what.
    Atton was the first to recognize what was missing. “Where’s the city?” he asked.
    Ethan looked around, noticing now that the horizon was dark. Absent from it were the bright, shining towers he remembered from the world-spanning city. He looked up once more to the bright sea of stars overhead. It shouldn’t have been possible to see stars on Avilon, not with all the city lights, yet here they were, surrounded not by soaring skyscrapers, but by dark, cultivated greenery, as if the nearest city were in some far off land.
    “Please follow me,” a blue-caped Peacekeeper said as he began walking down one of the snaking pathways.
    The group followed without complaint, marveling at the quiet beauty of the park. They passed a bubbling brook, walking over a short bridge with ornate railings. Fronds of soft, gold-glowing flowers hung like a curtain over the other side of the bridge. The pathway sparkled darkly underfoot, a mirror to the stars.
    As they passed through the curtain of flowers, something tickled Ethan’s hand. He scratched at it absently-mindedly. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain, and he smacked his hand, assuming an insect had stung him. Something small and delicate rolled away between his fingers,