Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  As the cell door glided open, Tredd shot a heavy stun on the guard’s neck, and he sank down limp on the floor. He’d be out for the day.

  Tredd peered inside the dim cell.

  Inside, Henning stood up, his thorny blonde hair a mess. He squinted as the bright light flooded in. Trying to adjust, he rubbed his eyes, but with his right hand completely covered in a medical bandage, he only managed to scratch at his forehead. He frowned, but as he met Tredd’s eyes, his expression relaxed, and something close to a smile appeared on his face.

  ‘They took Aino,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  THE ROBOT CHAIR hummed as it rolled Jill back to her usual position on the command bridge. Vorlar had wanted her present, and she had no choice but to comply – the chair responded to his commands.

  Vorlar’s men had taken Aino and her crew to the cells, leaving Tristram behind in the compound. Jill was unaware if he was alive, not having had a chance to see him, and that made her miserable. She felt wretched, but as long as there was no proof of him being dead, she kept up hope.

  Jill knew nothing of Vorlar’s plans. Did he bring me here to tell me? Jill wondered what he wanted of her now that he had Aino. She doubted their story would have a happy ending.

  Vorlar sat in his seat above the rest and kept himself preoccupied with the screen of what must have been Dr Killock’s terminal in his hands. Jill had hoped the tattooed girl would have had a chance to fix things with it, but she had lost it too soon. Jill was still unable to move. She had, however, started to feel a tingle within her chest. It was a feeling she had never had before – similar, but different to the tingle she had had previously. Perhaps the girl had only managed to mess up something within me.

  Dr Belinda Killock limped in through the doorway, an irritated expression on her face. Jill couldn’t believe her eyes.

  She was supposed to be dead.

  Jill remembered the doctor’s cry and the sudden silence as Berossus mauled her against the wall. She remembered her blood on the white surface, and the soldiers carrying her body away. Now the wall had been cleaned, and apparently, the doctor revived. The realisation of her being still alive brought Jill down.

  Vorlar stood up and faced the doctor, who limped up the steps to him. ‘She should be here any moment,’ he said, and handed over the small terminal. ‘I need you to verify this.’

  The doctor took the terminal and nodded. Then she peered at Jill, and grinned.

  As the doctor turned to approach her, Jill saw the right side of her face. Even though she had placed sophisticated medical masking on it, she could not hide all the cuts and swelling beneath. Her once perfectly symmetrical face looked lopsided. Perhaps she had broken a cheekbone.

  ‘Enjoy it while you can, old hag,’ the doctor said to Jill, and sneered as she pointed at her own contorted face. ‘This here will heal, while your pain has barely begun.’

  Jill had arranged Belinda Killock’s transfer to Vorlar’s unit. With her background combining deep medical skills with special forces training, she had seemed like the perfect fit. Jill had even hoped she could help her understand herself, but they had never gotten close enough to speak about it. Not long after the doctor joined, Jill had realised their personalities were too different to work together. The doctor had gotten closer to Vorlar, while Jill had been delegated to peripheral mission administration.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Jill asked.

  ‘You think you’re something, don’t you?’ the doctor said, and walked around Jill, dragging her right leg. ‘But behind that mask you’re a scared little girl. While confidentiality is critical, it is my duty as a doctor to report potential threats. You are one, not only due to your freak ability, but also because of your weak mental profile. The admirals must have been tricked by your once pretty face to overlook your lack of competence when they promoted you.’

  What she said was true. Jill was no soldier. She had sometimes wondered why had climbed up the ranks so easily, and if the military really was her path. Now she knew. Tears rose up in her eyes, and fell down her cheeks.

  ‘Cry, baby, cry,’ the doctor teased.

  They were interrupted when an officer reported in. Everyone turned to the door. The soldiers had brought Aino with them.

  Aino’s eyes burned red. She had been crying. Jill met her eyes with a hopeful smile, only to get a hostile frown in return. Perhaps Aino still thought of her as the enemy. Jill remembered when she first met Aino on the Excalibur. She had been in charge of preparing her transition to the science facility – the assimilation centre. Unless they were offline, she had played the role of a navy officer. It had been difficult to reach the girl; any interaction Jill had tried to have with her ended with Aino shutting down in silence. Even when Jill took her offline to arrange her return back to Tristram, she had refused to cooperate. She was just a little girl; just like Jill herself had once been. Perhaps Aino had her own happy stories, ones without Dawn Alliance officials like Jill and other adults bossing her around. It must have been terrible having her abilities uncovered. Fair enough – perhaps I deserved her frown.

  Vorlar stepped down and approached Aino. The soldiers pushed her in front of him and he knelt down to greet her.

  ‘Aino, dear,’ he said, in an awkward manner that seemed like he was trying to sound more amiable than a Dresnean commander ever could. ‘I’m so sorry I had to drag you here. But you see, the universe is a scary place, and I want to protect all human beings like you and your father from whatever lurks behind our secured perimeter.’

  Aino stood silently, her arms crossed over her chest, and looked away, pursing her lips.

  The doctor laid her handheld terminal on the desk, and swapped places with Vorlar. With a smile, she offered Aino her hand and got her to look her in the eye. ‘You remember me, Aino? I am here for you.’

  Aino turned her head away. ‘Not talking to you.’

  The doctor continued, ‘You know, not everyone can do the things you do… I know how you must feel, but rest assured I am here to help you. We all are here to help you.’

  ‘You will become famous,’ Vorlar said from behind the doctor.

  Aino frowned. ‘Where is my daddy?’

  ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ the doctor said, and touched her upper arm. ‘He is safe in another suite in this fine ship—’

  Aino brushed off the doctor’s hand. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘All right, straight to the point…’ the doctor said with a long-suffering sigh.

  ‘I like it,’ Vorlar said with a chuckle. ‘I want you to move stars, I want you to become the protector of the five races against internal and external threats. Forces amass outside the charted territories—’

  Vorlar frowned as an incoming message cut him off. It passed through automatically without anyone taking it in, an emergency connection from an interstellar battleship. Vorlar responded, ‘We are on our way, what is it that can’t wait?’

  An unknown captain was on the screen. ‘Vice Admiral, we have just received a report on abnormal movements of the stars around the E-110x system.’ A system on the fringe, Jill knew by its name.

  ‘Define abnormal,’ Vorlar said.

  ‘Six stars closest to E-110x, sir, their paths have diverged.’ The captain on the screen spoke nervously, like he didn’t believe what he was saying, but Vorlar stared at him, demanding more. ‘If they continue these paths, we will see them colliding. This includes E-112x, a particularly enormous white hypergiant… The combined mass could shake the galaxy.’

  Vorlar glanced down at Aino, furrowing his brows. ‘Are you doing this?’

  Aino shook her head.

  Vorlar snorted. ‘What’s causing it?’ he demanded from the captain on the screen.

  ‘Unidentified, sir. We are working on it.’

  ‘I expect a full report on my arrival.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the captain responded with an awkward expression, before the screen went blank. Jill could relate to hi
m. Nobody enjoyed reporting to Vorlar.

  Vorlar pressed his lips together to a thin line, and turned to Aino, who was standing uncomfortably between the two soldiers. ‘If it’s not you… then who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aino said with a quiet voice, and glanced up at Vorlar. Jill had to commend her for keeping calm in front of him.

  ‘Let me make this clear to you, dear,’ Vorlar said, pushing his face down in front of Aino’s. ‘You don’t want to play games with me. For the last time: are you doing this?’

  ‘No! It’s not me.’ She stepped back, but was stopped by the soldier behind her.

  ‘Well, then, who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Aino screamed, and started crying. ‘How would I know, I can’t even—’

  Nobody heard the end of her sentence, because an alarm went off. The officers peered at their screens for information, and in less than three seconds, one of them said, ‘Decks two and three are down. The prisoners have escaped.’

  ‘They are moving towards us!’ shouted another.

  Vorlar stood up and darted to the seat of command. Just as he got there, the door opened. Jill could barely see the door from where she sat, but as they entered and she saw them, she let out a relieved sigh.

  Tristram was alive. He entered first, backed up by his crew. Jill recognised her old schoolmate and navy colleague Eddie Parkes. Behind them appeared the tattooed Jindalar girl and the tall blonde man, Aino’s father, whose right hand was covered with a bandage.

  When her eyes met Tristram’s, although it was just for a brief moment, she knew there was nothing in this universe that could harm her anymore. She saw the gleam in his eyes that was full of life and determination – a moment’s gaze meant for her, and for her alone.

  The soldiers on the bridge turned to Tristram, drawing their guns.

  Jill gasped.

  Then Tristram disappeared.

  In the next instance, he appeared behind Vorlar.

  As he appeared, every soldier around them fell down, almost perfectly synchronised. Some fell face first, some backward, and some tumbled down on their knees, hands on their necks, and weapons clattering on the floor. The whole crew went down.

  The doctor screamed.

  Vorlar didn’t. Instead, he grinned.

  Tristram flinched.

  Vorlar turned around and grasped Tristram’s arm, which held a weapon against Vorlar’s neck. With his powerful hand, he twisted Tristram’s arm so that he had to drop the gun. It hit the floor with a few dull clanks.

  ‘Tredd Bounty and his freak time-bending ability. Pretty impressive taking down my crew, I have to admit. But you’re weak. You should have killed me instead of stunning. I’m immune to tranquillisers.’

  Before Tristram could do anything, Vorlar hit him in the chest so hard that he flew backwards a few metres, hitting the floor hard.

  Jill gulped. ‘No!’ She wanted to move. She wanted to hit Vorlar down. She wanted to heal Tristram. She wanted to do something. She felt a tingling again in her chest.

  Vorlar engaged his Hotblade. It glowed dark red, and made the air melt around him. He spun it around, ready to strike Tristram. With an evil grin, he glanced back at Jill, then Tristram’s crew. They stood frozen on the spot, holding their breath.

  It cannot end like this, Jill thought. We are so close now. If Vorlar kills Tristram, everything will have been in vain. It will be the end of the world, the end of everything... She felt the tingling in her chest spread all over her body, from the tip of her nose to the tips of her toes. The tingling increased in intensity, a familiar feeling she thought she had lost. Her power was supposed to be neutralised, but by some miracle, she was feeling it again.

  She realised she was electric.

  Tristram raised his hands up in front of him, as if to shield against Vorlar. ‘You got me. Put away the Hotblade before you break the code of conduct.’

  ‘No,’ Vorlar said. ‘Killing a terrorist like you will fall under Protection of the Realm.’

  Vorlar raised the blade.

  Jill realised Tristram was going to die in the next second. She cried out.

  As she did, the tingle inside her went off the charts. Her fingers lit up with blue, and before she realised what was happening, a blinding flash shot out of her chest. She felt a discharge as white light filled her vision.

  TRYING to rise up from the floor, Tredd froze as he saw the dripping red Hotblade above him, clutched in the hands of a fiercely grimacing Dresnean. Vice Admiral Block knew about Tredd’s time-lapse, and had outplayed him, bringing him to the last stop before the final voyage.

  I should have shot to kill.

  Tredd couldn’t talk himself out of this. His head throbbed, his arm was probably broken and his chest hurt with every shallow breath he took. He was so close to Jill, almost by her side. He could hear her scream, but there was nothing more to say, nothing more to do, as the molten blade started slicing down to release him from this pain.

  A flash of light shot from the corner of his eye, exploded with loud crackle in front of him, and filled his vision in pure white.

  So this was what death by Hotblade felt like.

  His whole body relaxed and he let himself fall back on the floor, giving himself to the purest light of God.

  He felt his heart pumping. And then, slowly, he could see again.

  The floor of the bridge felt hard under him. As he gasped, pain shot from his chest through his whole body.

  The Dresnean still stood above him, now in stupor, examining the hilt of his Hotblade – the dripping blade itself was gone. ‘A million volts…’ He glanced behind him at Jill.

  Tredd saw his chance. His gun was too far to reach, so he pulled back his right leg and delivered a kick as hard as he could to Vorlar’s ankle.

  The impact hurt him probably more than the Dresnean, whose hard boots absorbed the blow, making him only shift his footing. ‘Blasted worm,’ Vorlar cursed, throwing the hilt of his faulty Hotblade aside and bringing his boot down on Tredd’s stomach.

  Tredd felt his intestines compress between his backbone and Vorlar’s boot and curled up, spitting vomit on the floor.

  Vorlar stomped around him. ‘Once I’m done with you, you little piece of scrap,’ he said, and delivered another kick, this time to Tredd’s head, rendering him unable to hear through the pain ringing through his skull, ‘I’ll mute your girl and…’

  EVIE SAW the doctor’s terminal over at a desk between her and the Hotblade-wielding Vorlar. With just a bit of time with it, she was sure she could make Eddie and Jill fully functional again.

  Beside her, Henning pushed the doctor away from Aino and shielded his daughter in his arms.

  Evie dashed towards the terminal, but was blinded by a sudden blast of lightning that seemed to shoot out from Jill.

  For a moment she couldn’t see anything. She rubbed her eyes, and when her vision came back, Vorlar’s blade had disintegrated. She wondered what in the name of Ilmatar had happened, but there was no time to waste.

  She raced to the desk and grabbed the terminal. In an instant someone pushed her from behind and pulled the terminal from her hands. Evie reeled and lost her grip on the device as she took support from the desk. She turned around and saw the doc holding the terminal.

  ‘Something’s gone wrong…’ Bells peered into the terminal through her messed-up hair, poking the screen with fervour.

  Evie grabbed hold of the terminal again with both hands. ‘Not wrong,’ she said, ‘but right – for once.’ She pulled back on the terminal and kicked Bells in the stomach with the ball of her foot.

  The doctor squealed and let go of the terminal as she reeled backwards, holding her stomach. She glanced up with a grimace. ‘Lucky shot, nerd,’ she hissed, and launched herself forward.

  Before Evie could react, Bells’s foot swooped through the air in a kick that landed on the side of her head. For a moment she didn’t know what had happened. She found herself down on the floor, still clutchin
g the terminal, the pain on the side of her head growing in intensity.

  She yelped as a boot came down on her wrist.

  ‘Never mess with a pro,’ Bells said, and bent over to pick up the terminal.

  Evie rolled onto her back, panting. Her head throbbed from the blow.

  Bells peered at the screen with a self-satisfied expression, which turned to sudden shock as the terminal rose from her hands, as if it could fly. Bells gasped and tried to grab it from the air.

  Evie tilted her head, still too shaken to get up. In the corner of the room, Aino crouched and clenched her fists.

  She’s doing it. Go girl!

  Bells tried to grab the terminal from the air, but it was already too high. ‘You little…’ she cursed, and stomped toward Aino.

  Henning stepped in front of Aino. He had grabbed one of the assault rifles from the fallen soldiers, and was pointing it at Bells.

  ‘You can’t fire it,’ Bells said.

  Henning lowered the gun and took a quick look at the blinking red light on the rifle. Then he changed his grip, took a hold of the barrel, and swung it back. As Bells charged toward them, Henning smashed the rifle down hard on her collarbone.

  She yelped and fell to her knees.

  THE FLASH of lighting blinded Jill. The world around her melted away, and she fell into a blissful state of release. Eyes closed, she released a moan, and let the feeling of rapture take her. Her body felt languid and her mind a new kind of calm. She wanted to hold on to that moment of pleasure, but the reality kept creeping in like a cold morning.

  Vorlar was unharmed by her blast, but had lost his blade. He had been correct when he said she couldn’t electrocute him, that the Hotblade protected him, but what he hadn’t realised was that her electric blast would render the weapon useless.

  However, one blast was all she could do. She remained tied down to the chair, and paralysed. The electric tingle had faded with the burst.

  Tristram lay still on the floor, helpless.

  Vorlar needed no weapon to kill him. He kicked Tristram in the gut.

  Jill screamed as Tristram cried out from the kick and curled up on the floor. Before tears filled her vision, she saw Vorlar deliver yet another kick – this time to his head.