Embers of Esper: A Sci Fi Adventure (Warden's Legacy Book 1) Read online

  She heard the tension in his voice, and knew the same thing he did; those men would never reach her in time. She was a sitting duck, with an armed and mobile enemy veering around behind her. She didn’t know how long her life support would hold out for, but it probably didn’t matter much; she’d become a pretty little firework in the next few seconds.

  Damn it! Her nose was pointing towards the freighter; the only reason that ship wasn’t blowing her away was because their own fighter was closing in on her. Her enemy was actually giving her cover, at least until he lined up his own shot…

  And that gave her an idea. Nudging her manoeuvring jets, she course-corrected a smidge. She was now aimed directly at the open docking bay; she hit the retros, killing her forward speed as violently as she dared. The reward was a blaze of laser fire, strobing through space just ahead of her canopy. By braking, she’d messed up her opponent’s shot. The next one would count, but the second it took him to line it up again might be just enough…

  The hull of the freighter loomed ahead of her, swelling to fill her viewscreens. She hit the retros again — just as the ship’s crew recognised the danger, and the docking bay doors began to grind closed.

  Ha! Too late for that… suckers!

  They probably thought she was attempting a suicide run, smashing into their ship in a last-ditch attempt to stop them from reaching Earth. But she was shedding speed as fast as possible, eyeballing the timing as the gap narrowed in front of her…

  Then she was through it, losing both wings to the doors with spectacular violence. The air-retaining forcefield rippled around her, sending blue flares dancing across the canopy. The transition to gravity was brutal, slamming the crippled fighter into the deck so hard it bounced. The shock of impact travelled through its hull and up into her spine. Her vision swam and she gritted her teeth against a wave of pain, but friction now added its grip to the last blast of her retros. The remains of her fighter screeched to a halt, gouging a great furrow in the deck beneath it. It canted over to port, affording her a view of a shocked crewman who had narrowly avoided being flattened. She couldn’t blame him for being surprised; this was a rather unorthodox manoeuvre. But it had saved her life. As well as providing her with an interesting opportunity…

  She popped the cockpit, vaulting out in one smooth motion. That was the only graceful part, though; she landed badly, sprawling on the battered deck as her feet went out from under her. This turned out to be a blessing; a blaster bolt sizzled above her, the stunned crewman displaying an impressive recovery time.

  Too bad I can’t hire him, Kyra thought, as she reached for her swords. Wrapped securely around her waist, the twin blades responded to her psychic command, unfurling in the blink of an eye. She lashed out as she came to her feet, one razor-sharp steel ribbon stretching across the distance between them to bury itself in the man’s gut. As the first blade came loose, retracting back to normal size, she swung the other; the crewman’s head was sliced clean off, hitting the deck behind him with a satisfying thud.

  The comm-chip crackled on Kyra’s belt, and she crouched in the shadow of the wrecked starfighter to answer it.

  “Alpha, please respond! We’ve lost your signal!”

  She ground her teeth in frustration. Frikkin’ students! Not that there was anything else he could have done; she just felt better throwing some of the blame his way. Why else would she have taken this job?

  “What time do you call this?” she asked him, revealing her survival and delivering a rebuke at the same time.

  “Ah…” the squadron-leader sounded confused. “Mission time? Or Earth-standard?”

  “It’s bloody-useless o’clock, that’s what time it is! Get your asses in gear and watch out for any more arrivals. I’ll handle this one from in here.”

  “From… in where? Alpha, are you…?”

  “Yes, I’m inside the freighter, alright? So don’t blow it up, or I’ll be really annoyed. You take charge out there. I’m going to find the captain of this bucket and have words.”

  “Okaaaay…” the poor bloke still sounded bewildered. “Do you… need any help?”

  “Yes, I’d like you to ram your ship in through the nearest airlock and fight a one-man boarding action right to my side.” She injected just enough sarcasm into the comment to keep him from crapping himself. An experienced operator should be able to recognise a joke, but this guy was ex-military; there was a slight chance he’d take her at face value. “I’ll need a stiff drink when I’m done here,” she added, just in case. “And you’re paying.”

  “That I can do,” he said, sounding relieved.

  Kyra killed the comm, and stretched out with the Gift. She’d developed the psychic power as a child, and had come to rely on it after long years of constant fighting. She could tell that the rest of the docking bay was empty, but delving deeper into the ship she picked up a few splashes of consciousness here and there. Only a handful were close enough to give her immediate trouble. The freighter wasn’t huge; it probably ran with no more than ten or twelve crew. Those weren’t great odds for most people, but for Kyra it was just enough challenge to keep things interesting. These pirate crews sometimes employed exotic tech, or had skills she didn’t regularly come across. That wouldn’t save them, but it would give her something to tell stories about.

  She shook the blood off her swords, careful to avoid getting any on her boots. That thought made her groan; the odds of staying clean whilst fighting hand-to-hand all the way to the bridge were almost non-existent. Realistically, she was in for yet another night of trying to shampoo entrails out of her hair.

  Speaking of which…

  She sent a mental impulse to the microscopic crystals embedded in her scalp, exchanging the brilliant rainbow for her second-favourite colour scheme; a more mission-appropriate black, heavily streaked with dangerous shades of red. This was a serious job, after all. She liked to give the right impression while she was chopping up bad guys.

  And here they come.

  A distant clunk drew her attention, and she moved cautiously around the ruined fighter. A large door on the far side of the bay slid open… to reveal a massive robotic construct. A shimmering forcefield protected its human pilot, while heavy weapons bristled up and down the ten-foot-tall frame. In the bright overhead lights, every inch of the towering machine gleamed with lethal promise.

  With a whine of servos, it clomped into the docking bay.

  Swearing under her breath, Kyra stepped back into the dubious cover of her fighter’s twisted nosecone. You have got to be kidding me! Where the hell did people like this get exo-armour?

  TWO

  Tristan was bored out of his mind.

  He stared at the tablet in front of him. The jumble of glyphs and characters on the screen looked like something an archaeologist should be poring over… but somehow, it all made sense to him. One of the weird side-effects of having his dad’s memories implanted into his own head was being able to read all this alien gibberish.

  Picking up his stylus, he stabbed the correct answer. He knew it was correct; he’d been deliberately pacing himself, but he’d spent so many hours sitting tests like this that he was losing the will to live. After months of mind-numbing study, this was his final written exam — the one that would secure his place once and for all amidst the great and glorious ranks of the Wardens.

  It was hard to believe that it was multiple choice.

  Not the point, he reminded himself, casting a surreptitious glance at the other desks around him. The questions, which covered intricate nuances of interplanetary law, were deliberately written in a selection of obscure languages that took many years to master. At least, they should do; Tris had simply stuffed a posh memory card into his head, and woken up with a hangover and a century of knowledge about every aspect of the Wardens and their endless crusade.

  Protect Earth, and protect humanity. From ourselves… and from everything else.

  Which still didn’t explain why apprentices had to le
arn Ancient Akkadian.

  Bollocks to this! I’m done. Swishing through the last series of questions, Tris marked off his answers with barely a second thought. It didn’t really matter if he got a few wrong — they were designed to make him think, to make him carefully weigh the ethics and the legalities of each situation. It was ridiculous; a course in diplomacy for a job which almost always ended in extreme violence and bloodshed.

  At least, it did in his experience.

  Twirling his stylus, he dropped it to the desk and stood up. He left his tablet where it was and stalked out of the hall, not bothering to meet the examiner’s eyes. He knew what he’d see there; a hint of surprise, that anyone would leave the exam so early, followed by a trace of scorn as they recognised who he was.

  The difficult one. The problem child. The twenty-two-year-old boy from Earth who, despite having almost no training, had managed to save the entire galaxy — and with it, more lives than they would ever know.

  They probably weren’t aware that he’d taken his fair share, too.

  His weapon of choice was an expanding staff, topped with a blade that could cut through anything. Right now it was propped up in a corner of his austere chamber, gathering dust. He’d spent the last hour wishing he could just grab it and set off for some far-flung battlefield. Not that he wanted to fight; he’d done enough of that already to last him several lifetimes. He just wanted to feel like he was achieving something. Like he was making a difference. Not sitting in some echoing hall, surrounded by robed apprentices who had barely set foot outside of the library.

  It’s not their fault. Tris was becoming an expert at making these little excuses on behalf of his classmates. And his tutors. None of them were deliberately stifling him. They had their rules to follow, their tests to administer. I’m just… different.

  It was perhaps the politest way to describe his situation.

  Wandering the corridors of Atalia, he trailed a hand across the pale stone walls. To look at the place, you wouldn’t think it was in deep space — drifting somewhere out beyond the rings of Saturn. The first time he’d visited Atalia it had been millions of miles from here, an immense fortress seemingly carved from the bedrock of a barren, airless planet. It had never occurred to him that it could fly.

  He reached his chambers, letting himself in to what could quite easily have been mistaken for a prison cell. He had two small rooms, one of which was the bathroom; unadorned stone walls, a threadbare rug on the floor, and no windows because of the whole ‘in space’ thing. As a masterless apprentice he held the lowest rank on offer, and it was reflected in his accommodation. That would change in a few days, with the Investiture ceremony already being planned and his graduation a foregone conclusion. Hopefully, things would improve after that. But it wasn’t a window that he was holding out for… well, not only a window.

  He kicked off his boots, lay down on the bed, and thought of Ella. At times, he fantasised that his Gift could reach across the vast gulf of space separating him from his girlfriend. He tried to imagine what she would be doing now; training maybe, or meditating. It bothered him sometimes that he still knew so little about her.

  Like what she does when I’m not around? Well, apart from killing people.

  Ella was a White Priestess, and one of the most feared assassins in the galaxy. Or she had been, until she met Tris. Now she was devoted to keeping him alive, though fate seemed determined to make that difficult.

  Ah, Ella! I miss you so much.

  She was currently living aboard a giant spherical space station called the Folly, for a variety of reasons. For starters, assassins weren’t exactly welcome on Atalia. Not unless they were employed by the Wardens, at any rate. And Ella had been employed here once; breaking her contract to save Tris’ life had turned her into persona non grata in these parts. It had also made her an outlaw from her own order, and the rest of the Priestesses had been hunting her ever since. That was the real reason she stayed away — in a place the size of Atalia, there were far too many tongues to wag.

  Tris passed a few pleasant minutes daydreaming about her. It was funny; she was a fragile little thing, a slender redhead with a penchant for wearing incredibly tight outfits. She looked like a stiff breeze would blow her over. Yet he’d seen her in action too many times to be fooled by that. Even with all his spooky advantages, there was absolutely no chance he could beat her in a straight fight. Honestly, he doubted even Kyra could; luckily, it seemed like the two women had come to understand each other lately.

  As though summoned by that thought, Kyra pushed open the door and strolled through it. She never knocked; she didn’t need to. Tris had sensed her approaching from halfway down the corridor. He’d also sensed that she wasn’t in the best of moods.

  He sat up on the bed as she closed the door. There was something different about her; she was holding herself tense, and moving more gingerly than usual. Also, she smelled of smoke. But that wasn’t unusual. Kyra had a habit of burning things.

  “Hey Tris. How’s your day been?”

  He let out a world-weary sigh. “You really want to know? It’s bullshit, all of it! I’m so sick of this place, these endless tests, all this reading and studying and books. My ass went numb from sitting on a bench while I ticked boxes. I would never have believed there could be this much paperwork involved in becoming a Warden.”

  She nodded wordlessly, limping over to the bed. She winced slightly as she eased herself down next to him.

  “I honestly think I’m starting to go mad,” he continued. “If it’s possible to actually die from boredom, I’m telling you, I’m right on the edge. Anyway, how was your day?”

  She ran a hand through her hair. Oddly enough, her fingernails were encrusted with blood. “Oh, you know. Pretty much the same.”

  * * *

  Kyra wasn’t too badly injured. It was mostly cuts and bruises — plus the odd burn here and there… Eventually, Tris made her promise to visit the medical wing. But she refused to go until she’d had a drink. There were several bars dotted around Atalia — not raucous dens of debauchery, but rather quiet havens for civilised discussion. Kyra picked the nearest one; Tris wouldn’t normally dare enter the place, fearing the judgemental stares of those higher up in the order. By tradition, only Invested Wardens frequented places like this; not their filthy henchmen, and certainly not a base apprentice. Kyra, of course, gave not one shit about such things. It was incredibly satisfying to sit beside her at the real-wood bar, and feel the other patrons squirm with indignation. It went without saying that none of them would dare ask her to leave.

  For the most part, they drank in silence. Kyra was also missing someone, Tris could tell — not that he’d ever dare mention it. He’d come to realise that Kyra was a complicated person. Whilst she was clearly developing feelings for an irritatingly perfect specimen of humanity called Lukas, she was also in deep denial about it. There were reasons; she’d recently lost someone she cared deeply about, and in a manner that could only be described as unpleasant. Also, she wasn’t the most emotionally available person in the galaxy. Tris knew her well enough to know which lines he shouldn’t cross. She would work her issues out in her own time; meanwhile, Lukas was living on the shuttle she called Nightshade — currently docked aboard the Folly.

  All our hopes and dreams are there… More than anything he wanted to get the hell off Atalia, grab Kyra, Lukas and Ella, and take the giant battle station off on another grand adventure.

  Just so long as no-one dies this time.

  An hour later he was back in his room, gazing up at the ceiling while he delved through his father’s memories for details of the Investiture ceremony. All he knew so far is that he’d have to give in and wear one of the long black robes that all the other apprentices seemed to live in. He shook his head at that. Try fighting in one of those! Hell, try going to the toilet in it. Either way, it’s going to end badly.

  But a morning of discomfort was a small price to pay. He was finally nearing the end of
this ordeal. He could smile and wave for an hour while he was officially invested — or perhaps look stern and solemn, as the Wardens seemed to prefer. And then he’d be free! Free to roam the stars in search of adventure. On official business, of course. The High Warden owed him a favour, and he planned on asking for Kyra and Ella to be made permanent members of his crew. The three of them together would be unstoppable… and Lukas could come in handy, too. When he wasn’t busy getting a massage.

  The next visitor did knock. That, by itself, was unusual; Kyra was the only person who’d visited Tris’ room in weeks. His Gift-sense told him that the High Warden’s aide was outside his door… now that was really odd. And it could mean only one thing; he’d been summoned for a private meeting with Lord Oktavius himself.

  A thrill of anticipation ran through Tris. This High Warden was not like the first one he’d met — a kind, almost grandfatherly figure. Oktavius had a strict, puritanical reputation. He’d staunchly opposed most of the actions Tris had taken since becoming apprenticed to his previous master, the now deceased Lord Anakreon. But a summons from the High Warden wasn’t something he could just turn down. And with a sudden stab of excitement, he realised that there was only one reason for Oktavius to request such a meeting…

  He’s got a mission for me. Something he doesn’t want to announce to the general population. He knows I’m ready… and he needs my help.

  THREE

  The trip to the High Warden’s tower gave Tris chills.

  He’d made this journey twice before; once to be introduced to the former High Warden, Lord Erekasten… and once to find the old man’s body lying in a puddle of his own blood. That discovery had set in motion a chain of events leading to battle after battle, capture, imprisonment and damn-near execution. It was not amongst his fondest memories.