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

  She conveniently ignored his first question, grabbing the last two bags from the pile and slinging them over her shoulders. “I left Nightshade on board the Folly. You know what the Wardens are like, commandeering every ship they lay their eyes on. You can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ‘em.”

  “True enough. So this one’s yours, too?”

  She gave him that ‘you’re an idiot’ look she did so well. “Of course not! I’m stealing it.” She rearranged the bags on her shoulders, both of which were bulging, and crouched down to pick up one of the crates.

  “Kyra… what’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  For a reply, she tipped her head towards the other crate. “I’m in a rush, so if you’re gonna waffle on, at least grab that gear and bring it on board.”

  Tris did as he was told, lifting the crate with a grunt and carrying it up the ramp. Kyra followed him with the second one, making easy work of it. He headed into the cargo bay, setting his crate down just inside. From the weight of it, there was heavy metal in there. Unless Kyra was stealing gold bullion, that meant it was full of weapons.

  “I got a call,” she said, placing her crate next to his. “A distress call. So I’m going to check it out. No big deal.”

  He wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. “Really? Because you’re acting like it’s a big deal. Stealing a shuttle, vanishing in the middle of the night without telling anyone…”

  “What part of ‘distress call’ don’t you understand? It’s not a ‘chill-the-fuck-out-and-come-whenever-you-get-the-urge’ call.”

  He had to give her that. “You’re taking weapons,” he pointed out, “so it looks like you’re expecting trouble.”

  She shrugged. “You know me. I’m always ready for trouble.”

  He nudged a crate with one boot. “That’s a lot of weapons.”

  “Okay, so I’m ready for a lot of trouble. What’s your point?” She walked back into the crew compartment, and he followed her.

  “Kyra, I’m worried about you.”

  “Aww!” She spun to face him, moving so quickly that he didn’t have time to react. But she just patted his cheek in a condescending way. “Don’t worry. It’s a family thing. I’ll be fine.”

  That instantly piqued his interest. “Family? What, like, your real family?”

  She screwed her face up, clearly wishing she hadn’t let that slip. “No. My fake family. The one that’s all made of robots.” She turned away, heading for the cockpit.

  Tris closed the cargo bay door and jogged after her. “You’re going home then?”

  She was already strapping herself in. “What does that matter? Look, Tris, I really appreciate you lifting that enormously heavy box, but I’m about to lift off. If you don’t get your ass outside this ship in the next ten seconds you’ll have to jump.”

  Tris spent a good three of those seconds making his mind up. Kyra’s mental state helped; it was already much steadier, as though having him around to throw insults at was helping her to cope with whatever had upset her so much.

  “I’m staying,” he said, crossing to the co-pilot’s seat and sliding into it.

  “What? Tris, you can’t leave! You’ve got your Investiture Ceremony coming up. Oktavius will have a fit if you don’t show.”

  Tris felt his lip curl up at the prospect. It probably wasn’t the cleverest of reactions, especially after the pact he’d just made with himself to ‘do better’, but winding the High Warden up certainly added to this trip’s appeal. “Yeah, well, he thinks too much of me.”

  Kyra quirked an eyebrow at him. “Picked you for a plum mission, did he?”

  Tris fought the urge to snigger. “It was a beauty, I’m not gonna lie. Big responsibility… my own ship and crew… I was going to ask you if you wanted to be a part of it.”

  Kyra was running through the pre-flight checks with one hand, glancing down occasionally at the old-fashioned console. “And you’re willing to throw all that away? To help little old me? If you leave now, you can’t come back you know.”

  “Ha!” Tris chuckled — then he saw her expression. “Wait, what? If I miss the ceremony…”

  “You’ll be declared a deserter,” she said, finishing up the pre-flight and swivelling her seat to face him. “The Wardens will hunt you down and kill you.”

  “Really? No… you’re doing that thing where you make shit up just to mess with me.”

  Kyra shook her head. “I’d never do that. I’m deadly serious, Tris. You know too much. After everything you’ve seen here, all the secrets of Atalia, you think they’ll just let you go?”

  Tris’ mouth fell open a little. “I never thought about it. I mean… they wouldn’t really try to kill me, would they?”

  Kyra turned back to her console. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I imagine there’s a sternly-worded letter in your future.”

  She fired up the drives, the sudden roar drowning out his retort. He quickly pulled the restraints around him, fastening them as the ship rose into the air. The hangar was already open to space at its far end, with just the vague shimmer of a forcefield holding the vacuum of space at bay.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Kyra gave him one last questioning look.

  “That depends. Where are we going, again?”

  “I don’t know.” The ship sprang forward, accelerating towards the opening.

  “Well, what do we have to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okaaay… what did this call actually say?”

  She gave him an exasperated look. “It was a distress call. It said, ‘Help’.”

  Tris considered that, as the forcefield grew to fill their canopy. It was a pretty tenuous reason to leave. Perhaps the single most tenuous reason that anyone had ever used to leave a place in the history of the entire universe…

  But still. It beat the snot out of cataloguing asteroids.

  “Yeah, screw it. Let’s go.”

  Kyra threw full power to the drives, and they shot out into the vast emptiness of space.

  * * *

  She’d obviously chosen the shuttle as her means of transport because her fighter wasn’t equipped for traveling long distances. That meant she had an extended trip in mind, but she didn’t seem eager to discuss the details. Instead, she played with a slender bracelet that Tris had never seen before. A tiny screen on it glowed with text, which she kept looking down at as she entered their course into the computer.

  “So,” he said, pointing at the device. “You going to show me this message or what?”

  She thought about that for a moment, then tilted the miniature screen towards him. The script on it was nonsensical of course, but his dad’s memories kicked in, allowing him to read it.

  ‘KYRA, NEED HELP ASAP. ESPER UNDER ATTACK. MEET AT FOLLOWING CO-ORDINATES:’ The string of digits that followed meant nothing to him, but the ship’s navigation computer would be able to find it easily enough.

  Tris read the message through a few times, before daring to question it. “Um… that seems pretty basic. Are you sure this isn’t a trap?”

  Kyra pulled the sleeve of her flight suit down over the bracelet. “Could be. But I’ve been away from Esper for a long time. This frequency hasn’t been touched since I left. Only two people have access to it; one of them is my mother…”

  “I thought you were an orphan?”

  She focussed back on her controls, making a slight course correction. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “But I heard that from you!”

  Kyra snorted. “Doesn’t change the advice.”

  He rubbed his forehead. She’d told him so many different stories about her past that he’d given up trying to figure out the truth. He was reasonably sure that she’d been royalty of some kind — mostly because she always denied it. “Okay. So your mother has called for help…”

  “No. No way that’s my mother. The message asked for Kyra. My mother would never call me that.”

  �
��WHAT?” Tris pounded the console in front of him. “So Kyra’s not even your real name?”

  She gave him a long-suffering look. “Pfft! Like Tris is your real name.”

  “It is!”

  Her brow furrowed. “Oh yeah. Sorry about that. I’m sure your dad had the best of intentions. He was a great guy, but he didn’t have much taste.”

  Tris narrowed his eyes at her. “You know what? I’m going to forgive that, because I know you’re just deflecting. You don’t want me to ask about your real name.”

  When she looked back at him, there was nothing but innocence in her expression. “Ask all you want, but if you ever find out, I will definitely kill you.”

  FIVE

  Their first destination was the Folly.

  The huge spherical battle-station had been helping to maintain the protective perimeter around Earth, though Tris had managed to avoid having her officially co-opted into the Defence Force. The latest round of repairs, undertaken by a swarm of maintenance bots, had left her matte black hull smooth and complete once more. All but one of the many docking bays had been restored to working order, not that he had any use for so much space. A gigantic cannon, which had been retrofitted to allow the Folly to hunt other battle-stations of the same design, jutted out like a Cuban cigar. It was a real eyesore, but it delivered a spectacular punch — taking most of the other weapon systems offline in the process. Tris didn’t know if it was functional or not. Repairs might not have been possible on a one-of-a-kind mega-laser, and most of the people who’d built the thing had died pretty soon afterwards.

  There was no need to initiate docking procedures. The AI that controlled the Folly handled that, scanning their ship and recognising Tris and Kyra instantly.

  “Welcome home, Tristan. You are cleared to land in docking bay six.” The electronic voice contained no hint of emotion. Kyra quirked an eyebrow at him; they both knew this was just an act. The AI had been crafted around the recorded memories of Tristan’s long dead mother. With the massive ship’s entire computer core to play with and years of isolation, the original program had evolved into something that was banned by every known civilisation: a genuine artificial sentience.

  Askarra, as she preferred to be called, was clever enough to keep this fact quiet.

  The docking bay doors yawned open, swallowing the tiny ship whole. Kyra set them down expertly, even though she’d clearly never flown this shuttle before. Tris knew a moment of envy; she’d been teaching him to fly a fighter, but it was a lot harder than it looked on TV and he still wasn’t confident in the cockpit. Her casual skill around ships of all kinds must have taken years to develop.

  Another thing I’ve never managed to ask her about. A little shiver of excitement ran through him. Maybe I’m about to find out!

  Kyra was the biggest unsolved mystery in his life, and he was determined to piece together the truth about her. She’d resist, of course; that was the game they’d been playing ever since she’d helped to abduct him from Earth. But if we’re going to her homeworld and meeting with her family, I’ll find out everything! Well, unless compulsive lying is a genetic trait, and they all do it.

  They left the cramped cockpit and made their way through the crew area, clomping down the ramp as soon as it was lowered.

  Inevitably, Ella was already waiting for them. Tris took a few seconds to drink in the sight of her. Deceptively slim and fragile-looking, he still had a hard time reconciling her appearance with the deadly assassin on her resume. Her pale skin was dusted with freckles, and her piercing green eyes betrayed a hunger that made him tingle with anticipation.

  As soon as he was off the ramp she rushed into his arms. A cascade of flame-red curls tumbled across his shoulder as she wrapped herself around him, squeezing him so hard he groaned.

  “Careful,” Kyra quipped. “Don’t want to break him too soon!”

  Ella ignored her, planting her lips on Tristan’s for a long, passionate kiss.

  “You missed me then,” he said, when she came up for air.

  Her reply was a playful smile. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”

  With their fingers intertwined, they followed Kyra as she strode towards the exit. The door opened just before they reached it, revealing an impressively-muscular form clad only in loose-fitting work-out pants. Lukas’ short, dirty-blonde hair stuck out all over the place, and he was blinking as though the bright lights of the docking bay hurt his eyes. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Kyra stopped in front of him, acting surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  Lukas rubbed his face with one meaty hand. “I live here. Unless one of you wants to give me a ride home…?”

  “Wasn’t your home destroyed by cyborg monsters?” she countered.

  “Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me.”

  “You’re welcome.” Kyra pushed past him. “Oh, and if you’re going to keep on living here, can you please put a frikkin’ shirt on?”

  “I just woke up!” he complained to her retreating back.

  “Hey man,” Tris greeted him. “Sorry, Kyra’s in a funny mood.”

  “Oh. Must be Tuesday.” Lukas let out a colossal yawn. “Do you guys need anything? Or…”

  “Go back to bed, mate.” Tris clapped him on a perfectly-sculpted shoulder. “We’ll sort ourselves out.”

  “Yeah…” he gave Tris a measuring glance, then winked. “I bet you will. G’nite.” And he lumbered off.

  Alone with Ella in the corridor, Tris indulged in another kiss. Then the lighting changed subtly — just enough for him to figure out that Askarra’s hologram had materialised nearby.

  “Hi Mum,” he said, taking a guilty step away from Ella. Not that it mattered; the AI could see everything that happened inside the Folly, unless she was specifically requested not to watch. That had led to some seriously awkward situations in the beginning.

  “Tristan!” Inside, she was less concerned about revealing her true nature. “I’m so glad to see you. Are you here to escort Eleanor to your Investiture Ceremony?”

  “Ahhh… yeah, about that…”

  It was uncanny how perfectly Askarra emulated a real mother. She’d mastered the art of asking uncomfortable questions before he’d had the time to take his boots off.

  “Are you having second thoughts about committing yourself to the Wardens? It would be a shame to waste your talents. Your father considered his work to be the most noble endeavour that a person could aspire to.”

  “Yes, well, my father also turned out to be a double agent working for the Lemurian government, as well as being the clone of a mass-murdering psychopath. But I’m not abandoning the Wardens completely. Kyra’s had a family emergency, and I’ve offered to help. After everything we’ve been through together, I can’t just let her go off on her own.”

  Askarra’s hologram pursed its lips. “No, you are quite right Tristan. Kyra is extremely valuable as an ally and as a friend. If she requests your help you must oblige, regardless of the consequences.”

  Tris scuffed the toe of his boot on the shiny metal deck-plates. The Folly was always so clean; it made him wonder if his mother had OCD when she was alive. “Okay, so she didn’t exactly ask for my help. I volunteered. But you know Kyra. She wouldn’t ask for water if she was on fire. I know she’s in trouble, I can sense it.”

  Askarra seemed to consider that for a moment. “You are most likely correct,” she concluded. “Kyra and trouble are rarely separated. She is much like you in that regard.”

  Tris pulled a face. “Look, I’m sure she’ll explain everything in good time, but for now we just need to—”

  “I have already laid in Kyra’s course,” Askarra interrupted him. “We will be departing momentarily. I am currently conversing with her on the bridge. She would like me to tell you that, whilst she is grateful for your offer, she does not require your assistance, and would prefer it if you did not use her as an excuse to escape whatever drudgery Lord Oktavius has assigned you to.”

  Tris glar
ed at the hologram. There were times when she seemed every bit as smug as Kyra herself. “Can you please tell her to shove that up her arse?”

  Askarra frowned at him. “I will do no such thing. I raised you to be polite and courteous around women.”

  Tris threw his hands up in mock despair. “Okay! You win.” He wrapped an arm around Ella, who had moved a discrete distance away. “I’m going to bed. I have a particularly pleasant young woman here, and she is need of some polite attention.”

  There was an unmistakable note of defeat in his mother’s voice. “I will suspend monitoring of the residential areas.”

  The hologram flickered out, but Tris couldn’t resist one last dig. “Oh will you? How courteous.”

  * * *

  The room Ella led Tris to was a surprise.

  Firstly because it was neither the austere, cell-like storeroom that she’d claimed for her own, nor the expansive suite that had once belonged to his father. In the same position on the floor-plan, but one level below, was an identical residence which she explained had originally been designed to accommodate high-ranking officials from the Lemurian Church.

  The second, and far larger surprise came when the door slid open and she guided him in, keeping one hand over his eyes.

  “You can look now, sweetie.”

  He opened his eyes. The room was done up like his old bedroom, in the house he’d shared with his dad in Bristol. It was much larger of course, and had all kinds of high-tech features that he would never have imagined before leaving Earth. But the walls had been decorated to match his memories — in rather garish red and white stripes that he’d loved as a kid, and had never found the time or the money to paint over. The bed was still the standard metallic built-in, but the desk beside it was that cheap pine-effect beloved of broke students all over the UK. Even the posters on the walls — ironically featuring Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back — matched perfectly.