The Faarian Chronicles: Exile

by Karen Harris Tully

  “In my mom’s office. Today’s bodyguard is outside. I think this is the first time I’ve had any privacy in the past couple of days.” I made a face.

  “I know how you feel.” He reached toward the camera and must have switched a setting because a well-worn living room unfolded around him and a gaggle of laughing, screaming little boys ran past. “My brothers.” He made a face. “Let’s go for a walk outside, huh?” he asked and walked through a screen door into a farmyard. A whole outdoor panorama sprang up around him.

  My heart rate picked up. “Sure.” I stood a bit awkwardly in one spot while he walked toward the red sun setting behind a small grove of fruit trees. “Is that your family’s ranch behind you?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s beautiful there.” I paused. “You know, I was afraid you wouldn’t want to talk to me after all the trouble I got you in with your parents.”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to talk to me after my design almost got you killed,” he replied with a grimace.

  “It wasn’t your fault they stole it.”

  “No. I should have used better security measures.”

  “So, the hacker got hacked, huh?” I teased.

  “Something like that.” He smiled sheepishly back at me. “So…”

  “So?” I arched an eyebrow at him and we grinned at the shared joke, like that first day, a few months and half a lifetime ago.

  “My parents want me to invite you over for dinner,” he said in a rush. “I know, it’s a stupid idea, right?” He rolled his eyes. “They’re calling you ‘that brave Earthan girl’ now.”

  “No! Um, I mean, that would be nice.”

  “It… would?” he asked. “I mean, it would. If you wanted to.”

  “I do! It’s just… I don’t think they’re gonna let me go anywhere now. Not for a long while, at least. Now that they’ve decided to keep me and not send me home, that is.” It was my turn to roll my eyes.

  “They wanted to send you back to Earth?”

  “Yeah, Myrihn and Nico and their friends. But more people stuck up for me, which was cool, even Lyta and Otrere who’ve been nothing but pains since I arrived. That was a surprise. And Myrihn got demoted for child-proofing our scys so they didn’t work against anything except haratchi.”

  “Ah, so that’s what happened. I’ll bet she’s not so happy with you.”

  “Nah, she hates me, but what else is new?” I found myself walking around the room next to him in silence for a moment, watching the red sun set. “And the on-call team last night was sure ticked too, at being duped like that.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me in question.

  “There was no emergency at that other Kindred. The call was faked to get them out of the way. But Micha was almost in time; I wonder how she found out.” Did he get a bit of a strange look on his face right then? But when I looked again, it was gone. Must have been my imagination.

  “And Ethem was next, wielding an ancient scy he’d found somewhere.” I laughed at the memory. “Penthe and a bunch of our trainee group followed him, but by then, all they could do was first aid and mop up. Anyway,” I looked up at him, “thanks for sticking with us. I’m not sure how that would have gone down without your help.”

  “Of course I stayed with you.” He looked surprised and reached out his hand to almost touch mine. “We’re friends. That’s what friends do, right?”

  I couldn’t quite answer as I felt this hum of electricity from his holo-fingertips to mine. He hovered around to face me and reached out his other hand too. We both stared as we slowly brought them up till they were palm-to-palm between us. They glowed where we almost, almost touched, and I couldn’t breathe as I looked into his amazing aqua eyes to find he was looking into mine. One of us, maybe both, stepped a little closer.

  “Right?” he asked again in that deep, melodic voice. I gulped.

  “Right,” I whispered and managed a small, quirked smile while my heart tried to beat through my chest.

  We turned to watch the red sun’s final moments, bathing the desert with a flash of glorious pink, yellow and orange before fading into the lasting half-light of the white dwarf star. Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all. I looked down at the energy humming between our fingertips.

  Definitely not so bad.

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  About the Author

  Karen Harris Tully creates elaborate worlds for her novels aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. A PNWA member, she's the author of Janie's Got a Car, published in Creative Colloquy, Volume One. After growing up in the snowy mountains of Colorado, Karen experienced the traffic nightmare of Seattle before accidentally realizing she's a small-town girl. She happily lives in Raymond, WA, singing karaoke with her amazingly supportive husband, beautiful son, and two disgruntled felines.

  Read on for an excerpt from The Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance

  Released July, 2016!

  The Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance

  Karen Harris Tully

  Chapter 1: Sorry, Not Sorry

  Some days, I swear, the whole planet was mad at me.

  "Take it back! Take it back!"

  I could hear the chant even before I reached the doorway. They had said there would be protesters. I expected a few people waving signs. I didn't think the entire train station would be full of people who hated me.

  I looked at the faces of the Warriors who were forming a barricade for me. Their disdainful expressions said, "What did you expect? This is what you get when you disobey orders and give interviews to slimy reporters."

  Seriously? I grunted disgustedly to myself and hefted my overstuffed duffel higher on my shoulder. Geez, where’d all these protesters come from anyway? I didn't know what to do besides duck my head and pretend to ignore them, while keeping a lookout from the corner of my eye. A few looked twitchy in that way I was starting to recognize.

  The Kindred Warriors and their Ahatu cat partners stretched themselves into two lines, holding back the crowd and making a walkway down the stone steps and across the wide train platform. The Afflicted Rights protesters gave the cats a wide berth, but pressed in close to the Warriors who held their scys out horizontally to the floor, poles extended like a high-tech alloy rope line. Their blades remained folded into the poles.

  "Take it back, take it back! No one deserves to die like that!" The stone train station echoed with the protesters' chants filling the cavernous space. They pressed toward me, against the human-cat barricade, waving their protest signs and shouting in my face. I put my head down and hunched my shoulders against the onslaught of hate coming at me from all sides.

  The stone train station had been my underground haven these past few months, with the space, but not the equipment, to practice gymnastics. But now the stone made this an echo chamber of anger, and my haven was ruined.

  Micha, my mother's Ahatu Warrior partner, walked next to me, her giant tiger bulk coming up to my chest and taking up most of the walkway. I gripped my fingers into the fur on her shoulder, a bit harder than she liked. She bonked her head against my side with affection and purred reassurance.

  Teague, with my mother gone and her second-in-charge on maternity leave, was the first Warrior on the steps next to me. "Whatever you do, Sunny, leave your scy on your hip," she said next to my ear. "That's an order."

  I looked down not even realizing that my hand was on my weapon. On my belt, it looked like a police baton, but it would take only two flicks of a button to extend it to full-length, double-bladed deadliness. I nodded to show I'd heard and started down the steps when something small and hard hit and burst on my cheek, making me stumble and flinch to the side.

  I swiped at it with the back o
f my hand and saw dark red and bits of red cellulose casing. I probed at my cheek and found it sore, but the skin unbroken. I sniffed the back of my hand. Ewww, blood. Someone else's blood. Gross! I looked around in time to see Teague snatch a protester out of the crowd and pat her down, coming up with an air pellet gun and tucking it into her belt.

  Really? This was what I got? I did my best for my mother and my family. I put my brain on the line to testify about the monster who had climbed in my window and attacked me. (Fat lot of good that had done. Months later, Mom was still wrongly imprisoned for a murder she hadn't committed.) And I gave an interview to show the world the proof that the court wasn't willing to consider. In return, I got hatred and bloody paintballs from rich, Glass City activists who didn't know a thing about it. All they knew was that they didn't like my phrasing in an interview. Well, sorry. Not sorry.

  I flicked the bloody cellulose bits off my hand and jerked my chin up and my shoulders back, glaring around at the protesters. I knew there must be a big smear of blood down my cheek, but I refused to wipe at it again.

  Tall, muscle-y, quiet Teague, hoisted the protester up by the back of her shirt to get the crowd's attention. They paused mid-chant to see what she would do.

  "Peaceful protests are allowed here," she said, barely raising her voice. "Weapons and projectiles of any kind are not. Anyone caught with such a device will be asked to wait outside. Attacks, such as this one, will be dealt with by the Kindred Council." She unceremoniously plunked the protester down next to another Warrior who took over, ushering her out a side door that I knew led out into the desert. The protesters, not equipped or dressed for the mid-day suns, visibly wilted. They proceeded chanting a bit more hesitantly. “Take it back. Take it back. No one deserves to die like that.”

  I stalked forward with Micha at my side. I knew my odd, mood-ring eyes that I'd inherited from my mother would be flashing gold, daring anyone to mess with me, but I didn't care at the moment.

  I was a freak. It was official. And my mother, the General, had ordered me to move - again.

  My train to The Point Warrior-Farming Academy would be arriving within minutes. Warrior-Farming, which made, like, zero sense, until I thought about the fight to grow food with the haratchi doing their best to eat the world. This planet was seriously messed up. I suddenly stopped and threw my arms around Micha's neck, burying my face in her ruff, my life spinning out of control on me once again. She purred reassuringly in the quiet way only my mother and I could hear.

  Everything will be fine girl-child, you’ll see. Change is what you make of it, Micha said.

  I nodded, wrinkling my nose against the ever-present, overcooked-in-the-microwave smell of haratchi that pervaded her fur before straightening and wiping my eyes. "Micha, you ever think of using soap?" I asked.

  She chuffed a laugh as my cousin Thal ran in behind us, ignoring the protesters completely. "You are sooo lucky!" He launched himself at me for a hug. He'd been thought-messaging me on my link for the past hour about how much he wished he could go to school early and bypass the entrance exams. Lucky. Riiiight.

  "I am going to completely explode my insides all over those tests!" he exclaimed. I had to think about that one a moment. I was no good with slang. Still, coming from Thal, who was grinning like a maniac, exploding insides had to be a good thing. "You just wait, I'll be there next semester," he said, softer this time, not loudly enough for the chanting protesters to overhear. "I can't wait till you're giving me the tour this time! Link me every day, okay? I want all the details." He bounced on his toes as he walked. It was hard to be down around Thal.

  Other Kindred members came in to see me off: Thal's big, kind of evil twin sisters, Lyta and Otrere, Kindred Administrator (head cook, general manager, and head den father) Ethem, everyone from my patrol group, and more. The train pulled up and the Kindred members gathered around me in a half circle in front of the door. The Warriors shifted into a watchful line around the Kindred members, pushing the protesters back to make room.

  Ethem gave me a teary hug and a hot meal to go in one of his good insulated glass dishes. “Leave it in the box marked Katje on the train, okay?” Ethem sniffed.

  I nodded, doing my best to ignore the chant that was annoying the heck out of me.

  “Oh! We’re going to miss you!” He pulled me back in for another motherly, fatherly, I don't know, some kind of parental hug. It felt nice. I relaxed into his shoulder - for a moment.

  “Take it back! Take it back!” The crowd chanted, louder again at being pushed back. I stiffened and tried to ignore them.

  Lyta and Otrere took turns awkwardly shaking my forearm, like in an old, medieval movie, before one of them yanked me in for nuggies. The other slapped me repeatedly on the back before I - not unkindly - kidney punched my way out of their hold. I would not miss the rough and tumble twins.

  “No one deserves to die like that!”

  Ugh! I ground my teeth.

  The twins also told me how lucky I was and that they would see me soon, with a little more menacing tone than Thal. The train door slid open, saving me from their further ‘congratulations’ and the idiotic chanting that was making my blood boil. The sign on the train car read, "Northbound. Caution: Bio-scanners in use. No Afflicted - This Car."

  I boarded the train and stood in the doorway to wave goodbye, focusing on the friends and family I'd only so recently met. Had it really only been two months since I'd left my family on Earth for planet Macawi and the custody agreement from hell?

  “TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK!” the protesters screamed at me in an angry fever pitch, pressing in like I was getting away.

  “NO!” I screamed back, finally having had enough. The crowd quieted in surprise. “Did you see my mother's trial? And you want me to say that he didn’t deserve it? Are you people insane?”

  Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The protesters roared their outrage and pushed at the barricade. Two of the twitchiest ones managed to push through and leapt at me, each one's bright blue eye coming into view, along with their fangs. I quickly drew my scy, but it was still extending when they literally bounced off some sort of force field at the train door, and were thrown back into the crowd. So that was what the bio-scanners did.

  Micha jumped up into the train and stood at my side, snarling at the protesters.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said to Micha before raising my voice to the crowd. “Your innocent act would go a lot farther if a few of you didn’t always try to attack me!” I yelled at them. The look of surprise on many of their faces told me they probably believed their protests for equality.

  “The actions of a few do not define us all!” one yelled in response. The Warriors quickly subdued the two stunned Anakharu and marched them out the door. The rest of the Kindred members strengthened their protective semi-circle around the open train door.

  Teague shoved me backwards, farther into the train and stepped up into the doorway.

  “Sunny, would you keep your mouth shut around them?” She exuded exasperation. “No talking with reporters or the Afflicted. In fact, no Molinidae at all. You may be leaving, but we still have to live here. You got me?”

  I huffed in disgust but nodded, not taking her seriously about the Molinidae though. That one protester was actually right. Most of them were not Afflicted, and only the really messed up, off-their-meds Afflicted were Anakharu.

  “Where is she going?” One of the protesters yelled from the back. Kindred members turned to glare. Wouldn’t they like to know? Teague turned to face the crowd.

  “Veridian’s visit here is over. She’s headed back to Earth through the WorldPort,” she announced. I could see some of the protesters had their links out, recording Teague’s statement. The Afflicted population thinking I’d gone back to Earth would probably be a good thing. Too bad it wasn’t actually true. “As you probably know, her visit here was more problematic than we’d hoped.”

  I snorted. That had to be the understatement of the year
. I turned and found myself a seat next to a window and hugged Micha goodbye. I would miss her and Thal the most of anyone. Teague finished her statement, asking the protesters to respect my and the Kindred’s privacy, and then she and Micha stepped off the train. We pulled out a scant minute later and I waved goodbye to the Kindred members there to see me off, ignoring the protesters. With all those people waving, it almost looked like I had friends there. Possibly even what you’d call family.

  End of Excerpt

  The Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance available now!

  https://www.amazon.com/Faarian-Chronicles-Karen-Harris-Tully-ebook/dp/B01H2L74ZI