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  Vendel Rising: Vol 4

  It Ends With a Beginning

  L.A. Warren

  JEM Publishing

  Vendel Rising: Volume 4

  It Ends With a Beginning

  by: L.A. Warren

  Copyright © 2018 L.A. Warren

  VENDEL RISING: Volume 4

  It Ends With a Beginning

  All rights reserved.

  This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this ebook ONLY. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, or distributed in any printed, mechanical, or electronic form without prior written permission from L.A. Warren or JEM Publishing except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Editor: Eanna Roberts (www.penmanshipediting.com)

  Cover Artist: Ellie Augsburger (www.creativedigitialstudios.com)

  Interior Design/Formatting: JEM Publishing

  Published in the United States of America

  JEM Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: NUMBER

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my one and only—my amazing and wonderful husband.

  Without your care and support, my writing would not have made it this far.

  BLURB

  New Terra Histories by Malita s’Lissa s’vlor

  “Make the impossible possible.”

  These are the words my grandfather left me with. They whisper and echo in my head every day. But how do you make the impossible possible? This was my task, and I chipped at the mountain of impossibility until the first boulder fell. After that, accomplishing the impossible didn’t seem nearly improbable. My most potent weapon was perseverance.

  I’m insane…I think. Maybe? I don’t know. My memories are foggy. There were several times when that fine dividing line stretched between sanity and that darker place of madness. It's hard to know for certain.

  Tender Training broke me. It splintered my identity, but I believe I gained more than I lost in the madness which followed.

  My entire goal had been escape. I fought for freedom. The fact that I faced an unsurmountable task did not dissuade me. The Vendel came to my home, they murdered nearly all of Earth's population, and they took a thousand of us as slaves. They were the very definition of evil and I vowed to defeat them.

  Revenge filled my every waking thought and fueled my determination to never give up. No matter the pain the Vendel inflicted, the deaths they caused, or the fate of my sanity, my purpose drove me forward.

  Not once did it occur to me that I might fail. I kept moving forward, one small step at a time. As long as I was doing something, I believed a solution would be found.

  While I failed to learn the very basics of the mysterious WOR-skill, my subconsciousness took over. No one told me what I did was impossible. I just listened to the voices in my head and did it.

  That’s me…making the possible out of the impossible. As for my sanity, have you met my sisters?

  Contents

  Part I

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part II

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Ten Years Later

  New Terra

  Epilogue

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  VENDEL RISING Series

  About the Author

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  THE END

  Part One

  Plans

  Prologue

  New Terra Histories by Malita s’Lissa s’vlor

  “Make the impossible possible.” These are the words my grandfather left me with. They whisper and echo in my head every day. But how do you make the impossible possible? This was my task, and I chipped at the mountain of impossibility until the first boulder fell. After that, accomplishing the impossible didn’t seem nearly impossible. My most potent weapon was perseverance.

  At some point, I think I was insane. Maybe? I don’t know. My memories are foggy. Perhaps there were several times when I passed that fine dividing line stretched between sanity and that darker place of madness. It's hard to know for certain.

  Tender Training.

  It’s an odd thing. The first time it nearly broke me. I remember a compulsive desire to please Gregor, resulting from my first experience with ten days of Tender Training.

  The second time? I lost something that second time around. It splintered my identity, but I believe I gained more than I lost.

  My entire goal had been escape. I fought for freedom. The fact that I faced an unsurmountable task did not dissuade me. The Vendel came to my home, they murdered nearly all of Earth's population, and they took a thousand of us as slaves. They were the very definition of evil, and I vowed to defeat them.

  Revenge against the Vendel filled my every waking thought and fueled my determination to never give up. No matter the pain the Vendel inflicted, or the deaths they caused, my purpose drove me forward.

  We would never make it back to Earth.

  I had to find a different solution.

  Not once did it occur to me that I might fail. I didn’t know what to do, but I kept moving forward, one small step at a time. As long as I was doing something, I believed a solution would be found.

  And that cloak of invisibility? My desperate wish to not get caught? Yeah, that had never been done before. It wasn’t a wish, but rather a manifestation of the WOR skill. While I failed to learn the very basics of the mysterious WOR-skill, my subconscious took over. No one told me what I did was impossible. I just did it.

  That’s me . . . making the possible out of the impossible. As for my sanity, have you met my sisters?

  Chapter One

  Gambit, Day 276

  Elise floated in the purple soup and stared at the rotating wheel of WOR-skill diagrams. The tangled lines made her eyes cross and she rubbed at her brow. Where she had made steady progress correcting Bar and Rod skills, those of the Wheel frustrated her with their complexity. For the tenth time she changed the inner ring of symbols and came up hard against a wall.

  Alex told her it was wrong, but Alex couldn't figure it out either. The silent conversations she had with her sister no longer seemed
odd, but wasn't it? Speaking to yourself meant a person was crazy, right?

  Why would it be odd? And what do you mean crazy? Alex said.

  Can't you give me a little privacy?

  Not when you say I'm odd. It makes me think you don't want me here.

  I do. I do want you here.

  Alex's unique perspective when it came to dissecting the WOR-skill was invaluable. They had made incredible progress fixing thousands of years of what the Tenders had messed up.

  With a frustrated wave, Elise dismissed the entire box of WOR-skill diagrams. Her brain couldn't handle the challenge any more. The glowing lines faded into the purple soup. Her mind wasn't on the work, and a pinch of pain had settled behind her eyes.

  A pinch of pain?

  Isn't that laughable?

  That lunch with Gregor yesterday, as with any encounter, had irritated her and made her uneasy. It had resulted in intense pain at the end of the braklav as well.

  Gregor had hinted at things she shouldn't know, but did. Conversations of the jump-jet circuit dominated the conversation between him and Carek. They had gone on and on about the races and Gregor's placement of his Imperial bet, something she needed to win.

  But what the hell?

  It was as if Gregor knew about her and the jump-jets. But how could that be? If he knew she'd been escaping confinement to train in the jump-jet circuit, he would have locked that down. She would've been subjected to Tender Training for an entire Sun Cycle; thirty days of torment, if her deception had been revealed.

  But that hadn't happened. Good thing too. The jump-jet circuit was her only bid for freedom.

  She'd invested countless hours in perfecting her skill in the jump-jet. Her position in the Gambit race circuit had come at great cost and, as silly as it sounded, if she won, if she happened to win the entire circuit, she would have the means for escape. At least, that was the plan. Win the jump-jet circuit, use the winnings to purchase transport, evacuate the Earth WOR into the ship, and disappear.

  Her plan had holes. Huge gaping holes, but it was the only plan she had. So far, it seemed to be working. Except for Gregor's cryptic comments over lunch.

  But if he knew . . . if he suspected, wouldn't he have punished her by now? He'd done worse for far less. Gah! She didn't have the mental energy to waste on what ifs!

  And it's not like she'd avoided Tender Training. Gregor had sentenced her to an hour at the end of the braklav with High Tender Marcus. Not for anything to do with jump-jets, but because she'd used a familiar address for her good friend, Carek.

  Carek swam over to where she floated. “We’ll be having visitors.”

  Elise half heard what he said. “I closed down the WOR-skill diagrams.”

  No one could see what she worked on. It was a closely guarded secret, known only to her, Carek, and her closest friends.

  She moved over to the linking diagram. The initial three-dimensional representation had been comprised of ten separate diagrams; a mess concocted by the Tenders who sensed the fabric of the WOR-skill but failed to comprehend the true scope of it. She had condensed those down to four key nodes. She had then added a secondary layer of complexity.

  The construct now extended into two additional dimensions. The fourth and fifth dimensions extended off the four nodes along several spokes radiating from each node point.

  “Aren’t you curious who's joining us?” His brows lifted.

  “High Tender Marcus and Master Varlen visit often enough.” Elise shrugged.

  “Yes, but they are bringing others.”

  Elise stopped her inspection of the linking project. Her voice hitched. “What do you mean others?’

  “Evidently, the Emperor spoke to Lord vlor’Vardhal.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Gregor listened?”

  She barely contained her excitement as several shapes swam toward them through the purple soup. During that oddball lunch, where Gregor hinted at forbidden things, she'd made a request. It was something she required for her work on the linking project, and she'd made a valid case, but Gregor rarely took her recommendations seriously. He and the High Tender thought they knew everything about the WOR-skill and training WOR, when the truth was far different. Still, the fact he'd listened made her breath hitch.

  Off in the distance, three men towed six shapes clad in red down from the surface of the purple sea. She couldn’t make out who they brought, but smiled nonetheless. Gregor had listened.

  Master Varlen arrived first. She looked into the faces of the two women he brought with him and her hopes fell. Not Fifth Rank WOR. With nearly a thousand WOR taken from Earth, she didn’t recognize them. Both girls tried to smile in greeting, but the breathing apparatus clutched between their teeth frustrated their efforts.

  The small breathing tube wasn't required. She didn't have one, but visitors to the soup tended to find the act of breathing in the purple liquid terrifying. She remembered her first experience. Her breathing tube had fallen out accidentally and Carek had been forced to restrain her as she tried to shoot to the surface over eighty feet above. For several long minutes, she'd thought she would drown, until he forced her to take in a breath.

  Now she didn't think twice about breathing in the soothing liquid. The women kept one hand clutched to the small cylinder at their mouths, and one held in Master Varlen's hand. Their unease and fear paraded across their features as their gazes darted about, looking far overhead to the surface of the purple sea and across what seemed a nearly endless expanse. The am-net soup, a purple fluid which nourished the nodes of the am-net, was more than expansive. Larger than a pond, or a fair-sized lake, a sea was a more apt description.

  Elise smiled at the girls, trying to reassure them, despite her frustration that they were not what she needed. She told Gregor lower ranked WOR wouldn’t work.

  Her frustration, however, turned to delight as High Tender Marcus swam up. He towed Paula behind him, her expression a mess of barely contained panic. Elise imagined the conversation as the High Tender instructed Paula about the soup.

  Although Paula tended to keep to herself, like Elise, she shared the unenviable position of being High Tender Marcus's select WOR. He trained only five of the women, while all the other Tenders were responsible for ten or twenty. She and Paula had a unique understanding of what it meant to disobey that man.

  Paula took long ragged pulls off the breathing tube. Her wide, dilated eyes broadcasted her fear. She glanced at Elise and took a shuddering breath. When High Tender Marcus released her, he sent Paula into a spin. The poor girl flailed wildly. The High Tender shook his head, disapproval heavy in his gaze. Paula’s eyebrows shot up as her face drained of color.

  The woman holding his other hand brought a smile to Elise’s face. Chandra peeked over his shoulder and waved. When the High Tender released her, she swam to Paula and settled Paula’s thrashing.

  The final two arrivals were also well known to Elise. Aomi and Alice held hands with High Tender Anders vlor’Alturis. He trained Alice and had a reputation nearly as harsh as High Tender Marcus. Green sparkled from the man’s eyes. The color was nearly twin to Carek’s, yet where her friend’s eyes held warmth, this man’s eyes radiated a cold brittleness.

  He stopped and hovered a short distance away. High Tender Anders vlor’Alturis did not release her friends.

  “Good day, s’Lissa,” High Tender Marcus said, approaching with shallow scooping motions of his hands.

  She replied obediently, “Good day.”

  “I just had a very interesting visit from the Emperor and an odd request.” He lifted his brow and continued, “He demanded I bring you four of my Fifth Rank WOR.”

  “Yes, High Tender.”

  “Do you care to explain?”

  She bowed her head. “Have those women completed their Binding Rites?” She pointed to the women of lower rank.

  “They have. Why?”

  “I’m not sure, but it might be important.”

  Irritation flickered behind his eyes.


  “Let me explain.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “If the WOR could listen in, I can bring everyone up to speed.”

  Communication within the am-net was complicated. Sound didn't broadcast through the soup, primarily because humans couldn't vocalize without vibrations of air across vocal chords. A direct connection between the immersion suits had to be established, otherwise there was no way to speak to another. Her suit linked to Carek's and the High Tender's, but no one else.

  “No.”

  His abrupt one word response wasn't unexpected, but he was bound to do as Gregor commanded. That didn't mean she wouldn't have to jump through his hoops.

  "You convinced the Emperor, now you must convince me. They will wait.” He glanced at Carek. “Mr. Tusel, supervise the WOR while the Lady Malita explains all this to me.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Carek headed toward the WOR.

  “Please have Lord vlor’Alturis join me as well as Master Varlen.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Carek repeated.