by Troy Osgood
Hissing and growling, Kaylia jumped on the Tiat. Holding the woman down with one hand, a strength born of rage, the other was raised up to kill.
I leaped across the room and grabbed Kaylia by the wrist, stopping the blow. She looked back at me, hissing, her eyes red. I wanted to step back, the girl I knew wasn’t visible in those eyes, but I couldn’t. She fought in my grasp and I had to avoid a swing of the other arm with those claws dripping purple blood.
“Kaylia,” I said calmly, letting her hear my voice. “It’s me. It’s okay.”
Her normal color returned to her eyes, the red fading. The claws retracted, blood dripping from the ends and Kaylia collapsed against me. She fell into my hug, face deep in my shoulder, and cried.
The Tiat didn’t move, didn’t appear to be conscious. I couldn’t tell if she was alive and really I didn’t care. I heard footsteps and the Thesans ran into the room. I didn’t care.
I just held Kaylia tight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It went quickly after that.
They came for the Tiat. The commander was still alive. Barely. They had questions for her. Mostly about how many traitors there were, how they had gotten to the assistant, how they had gotten to the planet. That kind of stuff. It didn’t concern me.
They came for Kaylia. She refused to let me go and I refused to let them take her from me.
We sat on a couch next to each other, she was curled up tight against me and had finally stopped shaking. Kaylia kept looking at her hands, holding them in front of her. They were clean, no traces of blood. But she remembered the blood dripping from her fingers, both times.
I remembered this last time.
It was my fault.
I felt horrible that I had made her go through that. But there had been no other way.
The Thesans had found a detonator on the Tiat, connected to the ship’s engines. It would have caused an overload and ignited the reactor. The ship would have gone up and who knows how far the explosion would have gone.
Yoterra’s assistant had screwed things up. He’d panicked and went to the Tiat instead of them getting another shot at kidnapping Kaylia. Knowing pursuit was on the way, and chances of escape were slim, the commander had decided on suicide. She just wanted to take as many Thesans with her as she could, so she had waited.
I didn’t know what the Thesans were doing with the Tiat commander and I really did not care. She could burn. Torture her. Whatever. Besides the Thesan traitors, she was apparently high ranking enough to be valuable. The Tiat were tough but eventually she’d break. I’d be long gone when that happened.
But what was going to happen to Kaylia?
We were left in a lounge in the main building at the hangar. Thesans medics had looked Kaylia over, no injuries, and left us alone. I sat on the couch, the kid next to me and I looked out the window. I had a view over the landing field and could see the Nomad’s Wind at the far end. Just sitting there waiting for me to board and go somewhere. Anywhere.
No destination. Just me and the stars.
I looked down at Kaylia, staring off at nothing, and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. She was a good kid. Didn’t deserve this.
Hearing footsteps I looked up to see Yoterra approaching. She had a tablet in hand and sat down in a chair across from us. She looked tired.
“We think he was working alone,” she said leaning forward, resting her arms on her knees and head in her hands. She gave a loud sigh and sat up straighter. “I hold myself responsible.”
She was but didn’t need to hear it from me. I didn’t say anything.
“But we don’t know,” she continued. “Where there is one traitor, there could be others.” She looked down at Kaylia and smiled, a small and sad smile. “And add in the faction that the guard belonged to, the ones that want to forcible erase our..,” she paused, thinking about how to phrase it and just shrugged. “We didn’t always do the right thing but erasing it is not right either.”
The silence stretched before I spoke.
“How will you protect Kaylia,” I asked, feeling the kid shift. Some of her own people wanted her dead. And for what? Something her parents had done, Yoterra and others had done? The kid was innocent and she was paying for the mistakes of others.
Yoterra stood up and walked over to the window. She stared out over the field, watching the ships and people moving around. Kaylia sat up and watched the older woman. Yoterra turned around, looking sad and tired and defeated.
She walked over, stopping in front of us. Reaching down she ran her fingers through Kaylia’s hair. Yoterra took the seat opposite us again and studied me intently.
“When I left the War Applications Division I destroyed all records of the procedure that made the Wilders,” she said, locking eyes with me. “I wanted them to live the rest of their lives in peace. After what they had done for their people, they deserved it.” She looked down at Kaylia and smiled, a sad smile. “As much as I will try to stop it, it will come out that she is alive. People like my assistant will want to destroy her and others in the Thesan government will want to use her to recreate the experiments.”
She reached out a hand and took Kaylia’s smaller in hers, smiling at the girl.
“I can no longer keep her safe.”
With a sigh Yoterra turned to me.
“Will you?”
I had begun to expect that question was coming and I already knew how I would respond.
There was only one answer.
From The Author
Welcome to Arek Lancer’s first adventure. There’s a lot more where this came from as Arek travels the galaxy. Each volume/episode/book will be novella length, shooting for around 30k words. Short and fun, that’s the goal.
Arek came about after I read The Midnight Line by Lee Child. I’m a big Jack Reacher fan and the idea of a character that just wanders and gets into trouble, or makes trouble, or it just finds him is interesting and has so much story potential. So much can happen. Anything can happen.
And so I started thinking of “Jack Reacher in Space”.
That evolved into Arek Lancer, which is a name I’ve been dying to use for years. And now I have. I describe Arek as part Jack Reacher, part Han Solo (my second favorite Star Wars character) and part Malcolm Reynolds. As I continue to write hiim, Arek is becoming more Reacher and Reynolds and less Solo but that’s okay.
There is no grand scheme to Lancer’s story. Like Reacher, he just wanders and has adventures. The old Lancer luck, things just happen to him.
I’m chugging along on the next Lancer story, scheduled for a month after this one hits. That’ll be the schedule going forward, shooting for every other month. 30k of Lancer adventures at least six times a year.
I love the dirtiness and low-techness of the Firefly/Serenity universe and wanted to try to capture that feel of space westerns well at the same time having a wide and varied galaxy to explore. Lancer’s stories take place in some future date. Earth has established colonies in our solar system and now expanded outward, and us earthlings aren’t exactly welcome. The galaxy is not unified, as much as some will pretend that it is. The Last Child doesn’t include a lot of the world building for the galaxy with some of that happening in the two short stories that are also available, Kinn’s Pirates and Delivery To Orso.
With any Arek Lancer short stories, the intent is to provide greater depth and backstory to the characters as well as the world and not just another (shorter) Arek Lancer adventure. At the same time, I don’t want to force anyone to get them (although both are free). The world building in them is not required reading, but it does flesh out the galaxy a little more. But if you enjoyed this one, you’ll enjoy those.
Please join my newsletter,Ossy's News, for all the latest on what I’m doing and when (and where) the new Arek Lancer stories will be coming out.
I’m finding that the novella form works best for me. Shorter and tighter stories with more impact and less filler. Keeping the every other month sche
dule will allow me to fit some other series and work into the mix. Sci-Fi and fantasy are not the only sandboxes I want to play in.
I’ve got lots of other things in the works, so you’ll be seeing a lot of me.
I hope that you’ll branch out into other genres with me, but if not, Arek will always be around for you to enjoy.
Thanks for reading,
Troy
As always, you can find me on the web (Ossy Writes), twitter (@troynos), Amazon and Goodreads
Other Books by
Troy Osgood
www.ossywrites.com
All stories available on Amazon unless noted otherwise
Short Stories
Doom Walking (kindle ebook)
Two Gunslingers (kindle ebook)
Taleweaver’s Song
(published by Barking Fire Publishing)
The Skeleton Stone
Arek Lancer
(published by Barking Fire Publishing)
Kinn’s Pirates
(part of the New England Speculative Writer’s mailing list: http://newenglandspeculativewriters.com/mailinglist/)
Delivery To Orso
(available with sign-up to the Ossy’s News mailing list)
The Last Child
The Last Child is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Edition 2018
Copyright 2018 by Troy Osgood
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Barking Fire Publishing, Northwood New Hampshire
Barking Fire Publishing and its logo are registered trademarks of Barking Fire Publishing, LLC
Cover art by GermanCreative
Barking Fire logo by Kat Howell
www.barkingfirepublishing.com
About the Author
Born and raised in the granite state of New Hampshire, Troy is a lifelong and avid reader of comic books and novels (mostly in the fantasy, sci-fi and adventure/thriller genres). The ongoing serial storytelling methods of comic books and television has always fascinated him and provided inspiration for his writing. He’s always had a love of creating and world building and dreams of someday seeing his creations expressed across all media: books, comic books, movies, TV and even toys.
When not writing, Troy can be found outside hiking, kayaking or out back at the bonfire with beer in hand. Don’t expect to bother him during football season, especially when the Patriots are playing.
Read more at Troy Osgood’s site.