Warden's Vengeance

by Tony James Slater

  Kyra sauntered over to take the bags off Tris, and paused to ruffle his hair. “You’re welcome.”

  Tris summoned a glare and mouthed, “Traitor!”

  Kyra laughed. “Just keeping you honest, kid.” She winked at him. “One of us has got to be.”

  With the station essentially abandoned, Tris left Kyra to sort through her purchases and headed straight for his quarters.

  He really needed a shower.

  And he really needed to check his message from Ella.

  Just thinking about it put an extra spring in his step. He tried not to think about it containing bad news.

  Safely ensconced in his bedroom, he ditched the single bag of new clothes he’d acquired and crawled onto the bed. The shower could wait, he figured; the message was a recording, so it wasn’t like Ella would know how grotty he was.

  “Hey Mum?” he addressed the ceiling. “Could you play Ella’s message now, please?”

  “Certainly, Tristan,” the voice chimed back.

  “And, ah, you can stop monitoring for a bit.”

  “Very well, Tristan.”

  That made him feel a little less awkward. Of course, Askarra had received the message in the first place. Would she automatically know what was in it? He tried not to think too hard about it. Having a borderline omniscient battle station for a mother played havoc with his self consciousness.

  To say nothing of living inside her.

  With a flicker of light, the hidden projectors focussed into an image. Ella stood before him, wearing her usual skin-tight tactical outfit in black; it made his pulse race just looking at her.

  Her hologram orientated itself to face him; that would be Askarra, subtly reminding him that she knew what he was up to, monitoring or no.

  “Tris, Sweetie! You miss me?” her eyes flashed mischievously, and the hologram paused for a second as though waiting for his response.

  Tris just smiled, feeling the usual flush of warmth he got whenever she looked at him that way.

  “‘course you do!” the hologram continued. “I’m missing you so much right now.” She brushed a crimson curl out of her eyes, and her expression turned more serious. “Listen, not the best tidings I’m afraid; I’ll be away awhile longer. I’ve got a… family issue to attend to. Don’t fret though, I’m having a lark! I hope you are, too. Send me a message, if you get half a chance. And keep an eye out for Kyra, will you? I hear tell there’s a bunch of bad sorts out looking for her. I’d hate to see her in a pickle. Say hi to everyone for me!” Then her green eyes twinkled again, and she gave him a smouldering look. “Take good care of yourself, handsome. I want you in one piece when I get back!”

  She blew him a kiss—

  And vanished.

  As messages went, it was much like the woman herself; short and sweet.

  Or to be more accurate, absolutely exquisite and mysterious as hell.

  Still, there was no use worrying about it.

  Ella seemed incapable of staying in one place for more than five minutes, but she could definitely take care of herself.

  And there was no-one else around. No battles to fight. No chores to do. No intergalactic apocalypse to stave off, at least for the moment.

  Tris lay back, staring at the ceiling, and wondered what Ella would think of these strange new powers he was developing.

  He was asleep before he knew it.

  * * *

  Kyra was awakened by a loud, insistent beeping.

  An alarm?

  She swept her arm around groggily, feeling for a switch or something.

  The lights came on instantly, almost blinding her.

  “Kyra!” Askarra’s electronic voice was as fraught as she’d ever heard it. Her holographic form was present in Kyra’s room for the first time ever. “You need to wake up! There’s—”

  And then she screamed.

  The hologram threw its head back in apparent anguish, then fizzled and disappeared.

  Then the blinding light flicked off as abruptly as it came on, plunging her chambers into total darkness.

  Kyra blinked rapidly.

  It was very nearly the most disturbing thing she’d seen all day.

  Fully awake now, she slid off the bed and felt for her jeans and boots.

  Not getting caught with my pants down again…

  She shuddered at the memory; a dark eye in the mirror, staring at her through a hole in the dressing room wall. That had been way worse than the knife attack that followed.

  Yeah… that had definitely been the most disturbing thing today.

  But Askarra’s scream came a close second.

  Yet another thing that wasn’t meant to happen…

  Guess it’s a whole day of firsts. Oh goody.

  The darkness persisted.

  Which was odd.

  Ordinarily, back-up power would have kicked in almost instantaneously, but it looked like whatever had caused the black-out was here to stay.

  A sudden cold slid down Kyra’s back, and she reached instinctively for her swords. They were there, praise Sydon, and she quickly wrapped them around her waist.

  Something was bothering her, but she wasn’t quite sure what. Shaking the last of sleep’s fuzziness from her mind, she reached out to find Tris.

  He was obviously doing the same; they met in the middle.

  Kyra! You okay?

  Yeah, I’m fine. She grinned at his concern. The poor kid was hooked. What’s the matter? Scared of the dark?

  Yes actually, when I’m in deep space, his reply came back. But Ella sent me a message and asked me to look out for you.

  That was an eye-opener. It was almost comical that anyone would suggest Tris as a guardian for her, but Ella was smart enough to know that. And smart enough to know that any message she relayed via Tris would be taken seriously.

  Because if Ella was worried about her…

  Then maybe she needed to worry a bit, too.

  I’m fine, she reiterated, as much to herself as to Tris. There was something about being alone on this massive chunk of metal that was downright creepy…

  And that’s when it hit her.

  And she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.

  Tris. We’re not alone.

  His reply came back straight away, laced with panic. What? Who’s here?

  Not sure. Can you feel them?

  Through their link she sensed him stretching out, tentatively at first. His control of the Gift was still so slight; he had raw strength to spare, yet only the clumsiest grasp of how to use it.

  And weird super-powers developing?

  Something else she had to get on top of.

  Right after they found out who the hell was on their ship, and why.

  And more to the point: how…

  Resettling her swords for good measure, she groped her way towards the door. With the power out, it wasn’t going anywhere. On the one hand, that put a goodly number of doors between her and whoever was out there. On the other, they had to know that. Which meant they’d most likely come equipped.

  Ha! Not this well equipped.

  With a mental impulse Kyra drew her swords, making one warm-up pass with each of them before a pattern of rapid slashes sent the remains of her door crashing into the corridor outside.

  She winced at the clang. Glad I never got around to decorating.

  Sometimes it seemed like there was a perverse law to the galaxy; the nicer her room was, the less time she got to live in it.

  She gripped her swords and advanced down the corridor. Some fucker tries to take this home off me, they’re gonna get decapitated.

  Faint illumination came from bits of signage on the walls and floor; luminous paint must have been used in case of emergency. It didn’t allow her to see much more than the rough outline of the corridor ahead of her though, and it suddenly occurred to her that the attacker’s equipment was bound to include night-vision.

  Let’s see who’s got the real advantage then.

  Reach
ing out with the Gift, she tried to pin down the attacker’s whereabouts — only to come up empty.

  Damn it! Where are they?

  She’d definitely felt it earlier — the slightest brush of another mind, or perhaps the memory of it. Like an echo of something she’d felt earlier. Perhaps while she was still asleep?

  Whoever it was out there, they’d managed to hide their mind from her completely. She knew someone was there… she just didn’t have a clue where there was.

  Shit. Advantage: you.

  She swished her swords silently through the air in front of her, their familiar weight and momentum reassuring. She’d fought blind before. Hell, it seemed like these days, every bugger was trained to resist the Gift. Those damn Lemurians! At least in Lantian space, only the Priestesses can do it.

  And this time Kyra went cold all over.

  Because she’d figured out who was coming for her.

  And for the first time in a long time, she felt a tightening band of fear around her chest.

  The Priestess…

  Evelyn.

  Their last meeting hadn’t ended well.

  And it looked like she was back for revenge.

  Kyra?

  She was focussing her Gift so attentively that Tris came through like the roar of a plasma jet.

  Damn it! What is it?

  I think Evie’s here.

  I know.

  Ella said she was having ‘family trouble’, and I…

  Save it, kid. This bitch is bad news. Where are you?

  In my quarters. I can’t get the door open.

  Probably best you don’t. She’s here for me.

  No way! Kyra, get me out of here so I can help. My glaive is still on Earth, remember?

  Even more reason for you to stay put.

  Kyra, don’t even think—

  She tuned him out. There was a time for healthy banter; this wasn’t it. If Evelyn Fitzgerald was on the station, she needed her A-game.

  She stalked forward slowly, straining out with every sense she possessed.

  She’d made it three-quarters of the way around the station before a faint noise up ahead caught her attention. It was a rhythmic clacking, or tapping, metal on metal…

  She rolled her shoulders to loosen tense muscles, the crack of her joints so loud it almost deafened her.

  Sydon’s Name it’s quiet in here! I never realised how much noise the generators made.

  It was a noise she sorely missed.

  She edged closer to the sound up ahead, feeling her way forward in almost complete darkness.

  The waft of air was her first clue; she froze on the spot, waiting for her other senses to locate the source.

  A faint stripe on the floor pointed towards the disturbance… and then she had it.

  The doors to the emergency stairwells were held closed magnetically. They’d failed when the power went out, only failure for them meant falling open… and banging? The inertial dampeners would be down, but the Folly wasn’t meant to be moving. Couldn’t be, with no power to the drives.

  Blowing in the breeze?

  With no air circulating…

  The door below must be open.

  Which meant that someone had come through here.

  Recently.

  Kyra took a long, slow breath, and edged past the door. The smart move was to head for the control room — only, she didn’t have a clue what to do when she got there. Waggle the cables? Turn it off and on again? Shit, for all she knew the Folly was dead in the water. It could take months to figure out what had happened.

  She stopped.

  She was opposite the door to her quarters again — she could tell because the lump of metal that had once been her door lay on the deck, partially obscuring the glowing green signage.

  But someone else had been here.

  She wasn’t sure how she knew; some intangible feeling, some change in the air…

  The scent.

  Of course! A tiny hint of something ozone-y, like burning metal.

  And it all made sense.

  Evie had been tracking her the same way. Kyra didn’t need to sniff; she’d bought enough pretty perfumes in Bristol to drown a ferrobeast. It went without saying that she’d tried a few, and possibly a few more, before taking a nap.

  Gotta do something to make it feel like home.

  Only, Evie had been looking for them at Tristan’s home. She’d captured him once already at the Bristol house; it only made sense she’d try her luck a second time. The locked door to the basement wouldn’t have been an obstacle for her, and she must have figured out enough about the Portals to risk following them through.

  Those damned things really need an off-switch!

  The assassin had used something to shut the Folly down completely — a pulse grenade, more than likely. All capital ships were heavily shielded against EMPs from the outside, but a pulse grenade going off inside? No chance.

  And most attackers wouldn’t dare — total power loss of the vessel they were boarding would hamper them as much as the defenders.

  It meant the Folly wasn’t a total loss; the ‘turn it off and on again’ analogy hadn’t been completely inappropriate. Some systems would have been fried, but a ship this big had redundant back-ups for the redundant back-ups. If only they weren’t all vulnerable to the exact same weapon, they’d be laughing.

  Unfortunately, without an external power source to start the rebooting process, they were screwed.

  As thoughts rattled through Kyra’s mind like bullets, she moved relentlessly forward. She was close now; she could practically feel Evie’s mind burning in the darkness.

  Ahead of her, always ahead…

  And then, suddenly, to the side.

  A cavernous auditorium she used for her own private training opened off this hallway; now its doors were twisted and torn, their edges still glowing with the violence of their dismemberment.

  The entrance yawned, a great black gulf leading to a vault filled with terror.

  Kyra edged towards it, swords raised.

  She’d been scared plenty of times in her life. Less and less as the years went on, but moments still came.

  This was one of them.

  Denied her sight.

  Bereft of the Gift.

  Still she advanced, towards her nemesis; towards an enemy advanced enough to track her by scent. Evie had come for her before; using Loader to almost kill her in the catacombs beneath Atalia, then gutting Blas right in front of her on the derelict battleship.

  Not to mention the torture.

  And right now, Evie had every conceivable advantage over her.

  Save one.

  She’s never actually fought me before.

  Kyra grinned bitterly, her swords moving in sync with her thoughts.

  You’d think that bitch would have learned by now; I don’t die easily.

  And closing her eyes, she moved off into the darkness.

  11

  Àurea’s second journey through a Portal was every bit as unpleasant as the first.

  The intense cold did more than just chill her to the bone; it plucked at her, like a living thing, making her skin crawl and her mind race with thoughts of the unseen monstrosities that lurked in the deep.

  It was, she reflected, a singularly unpleasant experience. And one which she would have to repeat on at least two more occasions, if she wanted to survive this mission.

  And she very much wanted to survive.

  Almost as much as she wanted to kill Gerian.

  She emerged into a small antechamber of what was clearly a lab. Protective overalls hung on pegs; full environment suits dangled from charging racks. From the computer consoles in the corner to the lock-boxes for personal items, everything in the immediate vicinity had that crisp, sterile look.

  Revulsion welled up inside her. That someone so barbaric, so casually murderous, could be so… fastidious? Somehow, the man’s meticulous nature made him all the worse. A madman, doing the things Gerian did
— that she could understand. But to be so organised about it, so conscientious…

  It was abhorrent.

  And she would not stand for it.

  Time to make a mess.

  She had her power-flails out and ready, when a clatter from behind her announced the arrival of back-up.

  Her parents strode from the Portal as though the unspeakable violation she’d experienced had no effect on them.

  Not that she’d expected any different. They were both so numb to their own feelings, it was amazing they could even communicate with the outside world. She didn’t blame them for it; she felt the same way on occasion. It was an inevitable side-effect of the work she did. And her parents were essentially in the same job — only they both had at least a century on her. Still, they seemed more distant than ever with each other, even more argumentative than they had been before she’d died.

  Perhaps that’s what losing a child does to someone?

  Àurea shook out the chain flails and thumbed the power switch.

  She had no intention of finding that out.

  And as of right now, the single biggest threat to Ana was the man she had come here to kill.

  Which is why she would not fail.

  Even if it cost her own life.

  Her father spoke up from behind her. “Time versus stealth. Gerian’s personal quarters are unlikely to be monitored; Miren is relatively secure there.” He moved to the overalls and passed her a set. “We should delay the onset of violence as long as possible.”

  Àurea took the white garment, hesitant to let her guard drop long enough to dress in it.

  “Ulterior motive,” Sera suggested from the far side of the room. “Your father is looking for an excuse to remove his skirt.”

  At this, Àurea relaxed long enough to slip into the loose-fitting overalls. They wouldn’t offer as much protection as the bulkier environment suits, but certainly more than the few scraps of fabric she was currently wearing.

  Kreon produced two small laser pistols and offered one to Sera; she looked down at the weapon, sneered, and produced a wicked-looking blaster of her own.