by Anna Carven
The thought was almost too much to bear.
Akkadian was crazy. He wanted to break a secret tradition that had been part of the Empire since its inception. The Silent Ones were the Empire’s killers in the shadows, and as assassins, they had no peer. They had taken down leaders, outlaws, warlords, and politicians. They had broken the backs of civilizations and destroyed merchant empires. If Kythia’s military was the Empire’s blazing sword, fearsome, brilliant, and intimidating, then its Silent Ones were the hidden dagger it kept at its back, to be used when one was unguarded and unaware.
Ashrael sneered, meeting the General’s piercing stare with his sightless eyes.
You think you can change the Universe with your will alone, soldier?
Visions of Akkadian meeting swift, silent death by his hand filtered through Ashrael’s mind, but he was powerless before the General. From the neck down, he was paralyzed and disconnected from his body. His ka’qui swirled around him uselessly; he couldn’t even channel it into his limbs as he usually did in order to enhance his speed and power.
Unable to help himself, he laughed, a noiseless, bitter chuckle that surprised his captors. Captured by the enemy, missing his left arm, and motionless from the neck down, he was well and truly screwed.
“You may laugh now, but you will change your tone when we succeed.” The General’s tone was cryptic, his aura difficult to read, but then again, Ashrael was having a hard time following anything.
All he wanted to do was kill.
Akkadian turned to Elgon and said something to him in High Kordolian. The words sounded so familiar, yet Ashrael couldn’t make any sense of them. Since when did military Generals speak High Kordolian?
Having come to some sort of agreement with Elgon, Akkadian focused his attention towards Ashrael. “I won’t subject you to this torture any longer. I will leave you to think on what we have discussed.” The General turned, an air of easy arrogance about him. It infuriated Ashrael more than it should have, but with the compulsion to kill clouding his thoughts and the neural immobilizer deadening his limbs, he couldn’t do a thing.
If all the demons of hell decided to sit down and devise a torture specifically for him, then this would be it. Being stuck in this pointless limbo surrounded by one’s enemies was a fate worse than death.
“Cynicism is the refuge of a poisoned soul,” Akkadian said on his way out, and Ashrael thought he could hear a trace of irony in the General’s voice. Asshole. “In your case it’s understandable, and none of us can pretend to be any better, but try and see the benefits of our arrangement. You aren’t dead yet, Silent One, so think about making this lifetime a worthy one. Give me something I can work with, katach.”
Chapter Four
“Where are my audio-buds?” Noa fought against her rising panic, staring at the empty charge-dish in dismay. She’d left them at her bedside to charge, and now they were gone. Spending time alone in the desert had reinvigorated her and calmed her, but now her fragile composure was threatening to crack.
She glanced around her small room, searching frantically for any sign of the small silver devices, but aside from her neatly made bed and a small wardrobe, there was nowhere to stash a pair of tiny audio-buds.
In a world of horror, the music coming from the audio-buds had been her only respite. There was no way they could be gone. She stuck her hands into the pockets of her loose trousers, hoping she’d slipped them in there and forgotten about them.
Nothing.
“Sseems like ssomeone has a tasste for Human noisse.” The Universal words were spoken with a strange intonation. A scaly hand landed on Noa’s shoulder and she whirled, coming face-to-face with an alien. He wasn’t Kordolian; this one was of the race that called themselves Soldar.
He regarded her with a curious stare and Noa froze, taken aback. This alien’s eyes were strange; he lacked pupils, and his pale blue irises didn’t have a defined border, bleeding into his sclera.
“Have you seen them? My buds?” There was a frantic undercurrent to Noa’s voice. Her audio-buds were loaded with precious music; she’d carefully selected tracks which were able to pierce through the psychic chaos that always surrounded her.
To her dismay, she’d found that the silence in the desert had been just a brief respite. Upon returning to the makeshift infirmary, she’d been assaulted with a cacophony of thoughts.
The Soldar narrowed his eyes, the dark scales on his face gleaming in the bright light. There were pale patches on his cheeks where scales had fallen out, but they were starting to regrow.
A vision assaulted her. It was an errant memory, still fresh in the Soldar’s mind. She saw harsh lights and smelled acrid disinfectant. Doctors in masks surrounded them, their eyes hidden behind dark protective datalenses. The doctors spoke in English, but through the Soldar’s fogged memory, she couldn’t understand what they were saying.
One approached them with a laser-cutter, and Noa cried out as sharp pain lanced through their cheek.
Fuckers. Couldn’t they have at least used sedation?
She dropped to her knees, overwhelmed by the memory. She was dimly aware of the Soldar kneeling beside her, concern radiating from him.
He took her palm into his gentle hands. His touch was cold, his fingers covered in smooth scales. “Try thiss,” he whispered.
Sharp pain radiated through Noa’s palm, as if she’d been pricked with a needle. She looked down and saw blood trickling from a small hole in her skin.
“What the hell did you just do?” She recoiled, withdrawing her hand in shock and anger.
The Soldar waved a sharp claw at her, raising a hairless eyebrow. “It workss, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“The interference is gone, isn’t it?”
As her palm throbbed, Noa realized he was right. Pain had overridden the terrible intrusive memories that flooded her mind, shattering their grip. She dug her nails into her palm, savoring the pain. She’d endure this kind of pain any day if it would grant her clarity of mind.
“Focuss on that point,” the Soldar advised her, a hint of a smile tugging at his black lips.
Noa stared at him in astonishment. “This is almost better for my head than listening to Bach,” she murmured. “How did you know?”
“I’ve sseen how you behave in the midst of so many others. It is too much for you ssometimes, no? I’ve come acrosss your kind before. Chexkalich. That’s what you’re called in my language. Spent many revolutions on a merchant sship with one ssuch as you. You can ssee beyond the physical, but your talent tormentss you. You need to find a way to control it.”
“Do you know how I can control it?” Hope flared in her chest, only to be crushed as the Solder shook his head.
“Pain iss the only thing. Pain iss a focal point. Use it. It iss a crude measure, but it workss. The one I knew used it when thingss got too much.”
“Oh.” Noa stored away that valuable piece of information. She was still digging her nails into her palm. Her fingers were wet with sticky blood, but she didn’t care.
So according to this strange alien, she was a chek-something, whatever that meant. If that was the Soldar word for damaged telepathic freak, then so be it. At least it was reassuring to know that out there in the infinite Universe, there were others like her.
That news gave her hope. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to live her entire life trying to avoid people, afraid of what she might see inside their heads.
“Well, thank you, uh…”
“Lalock.” The Soldar rose to his feet and held out a long arm, helping Noa up. “As for your noisse device, you should assk the Chiketek.”
“Huh?” Chiketek? What the hell was he talking about?
“Sshe likess your Human art-noisse.” Lalock winced, shaking his head. It was as if the thought of Noa’s music was worse than torture. “It appears to brings her ssome peace.”
“So it should,” Noa said, slightly indignant that any person, alien or otherwise, should refer to
her carefully curated music selection as noise. “That music was composed by ancient masters, Lalock. You can’t possibly equate it to noise.”
Lalock shrugged. “Cultural diferencess,” he said wryly. “You have never heard a female Soldar trivoice in full ssong. It is a ssound worthy of the hallss of the Divine Ocean Palace.” His expression turned sad and wistful. “But the trivoice don’t ssing anymore. Not ssince the Kordolian occupation.”
“Maybe I’ll get to hear it someday,” Noa said softly as the pain in her palm began to fade. The words Kordolian occupation sent a chill down her spine.
What had Humans gotten themselves into?
“How do you feel about being held here, Lalock? Aren’t you worried about what they might do to us?”
The Soldar folded his long arms and sighed. “I hate the Kordolian Empire,” he said, his strange blue eyes becoming hard. “I hate what they’ve done to our people, sscattering them far and wide acrosss the Nine Galaxiess, but our current rescuerss are not beholden to the Empire.”
“They aren’t?” The murmurs of a hundred thoughts pushed at the edges of her consciousness. Noa tried to hold them at bay just long enough to finish this conversation. As scary as they were, the Kordolians fascinated her, and this was important.
“Prince Kazharan is a rebel and an ally to our people. He has the ssupport of the First Division, at least on the ssurface. The Empire is fractured, Human, and all we can do is endure until the Kordolianss tear themselvess apart.”
“So they’re at war with each other.”
“It appearss so.” A sudden burst of satisfaction radiated from Lalock. “Half of the Nine Galaxiess is quietly watching, waiting, hoping against hope for the Empire to fall.”
“Then the ones who’ve reached Earth… aren’t the bad guys?”
“The lesser of two evilss is what you Humans would call them.”
“Huh.” Noa struggled to process his words, trying to hold the psychic noise of dozens of souls at bay. She’d never valued silence as much as she did now.
Instead, she bit the inside of her lip, tasting coppery blood as she focused on the pain, using it to distract from the thoughts threatening to invade her mind.
Words spoken in alien tongues filtered through her brain. She caught glimpses of distant worlds; of strangely colored skies and vast oceans filled with gigantic alien creatures.
Wincing, Noa bit harder, using pain as an anchor.
She really had to get a handle on this whole mind-reading business. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life wandering around in a fog of confusion, held hostage to the thoughts of others.
Pull yourself together, girl.
Once upon a time, she’d held the world in the palm of her hand, enthralling audiences with her skill. She’d been the penultimate performer, a concert pianist so good she’d been labelled a freak because of her blistering speed and sublime control. She desperately wished she could become that person again, but now she was forever changed, a different kind of freak.
One who could read minds.
She closed her eyes as Lalock’s difficult past surfaced, bringing with it a world of pain and suffering, not only endured on Earth, but also on his home planet, a hot, humid place where the terrain was similar to the jungles of Earth.
His pain and suffering had occurred at the hands of Kordolians.
A feeling of dread rose up inside her.
Trying to be respectful of his privacy, she tried to push the thoughts away. “Lalock,” she pleaded, “please get out of here. I don’t want to see inside your head right now.”
Not now, not ever. Not if it wasn’t necessary. Not without his permission. It was such a violation of his privacy.
Who the fuck had taken her audio-buds? Now more than ever, she needed her music, but if that wasn’t an option, there was always the desert.
Chapter Five
Someone was following her. Noa stopped at the end of the dusty path as she was assaulted by a wave of emotion.
It was concern more than anything else. She turned and saw the woman called Abbey standing beside a blooming wattle tree. Its yellow crown swayed gently in the breeze, casting gentle shadows over Abbey and her child.
The baby was bundled safely in a dark fabric carrier that molded to Abbey’s small frame.
“Where are you going, Noa?” she called, running her fingers through the child’s wispy hair. “Zyara will probably come looking for you soon.”
She looks too frail to go out in the hot sun like that. She’s still recovering from that horrible ordeal, poor thing. I’d better convince her to go back inside.
The thought fragment irritated Noa, even though she knew Abbey meant well. She was not as frail as she looked. “I’m just going for a walk,” she said tersely. “I just need a little space.” She emphasized the word space, hoping Abbey would get the hint.
Instead, Abbey walked towards her, a gentle smile gracing her delicate features. She was the epitome of motherly serenity, and as she whispered something to her child, a fraction of her aura washed over Noa, bathing her in warm contentment.
It relaxed her frayed nerves and made her want to confide her most painful secrets in her, even though she she barely knew the diminutive woman.
And to think Abbey was the wife of that bad-ass, mean-ass, scary-ass looking Kordolian, the one they referred to as The General. Noa had taken one look at that crimson-eyed, hard-faced, obsidian-armored, deadly alien and vowed never to get on his bad side. Since they’d been rescued from SynCorp, she’d stayed well away from the General and his kind, afraid of what she might inadvertently find inside their heads.
One didn’t have to be a telepath to realize that a man like that would have dark secrets. Kordolians were not to be messed with.
But how could the General and Abbey, who were polar opposites of each other, be drawn together in such a way, and how did Abbey deal with a guy like that?
Noa couldn’t imagine such a thing, but at the same time, the woman in front of her was living proof that perhaps Kordolians were capable of love and protection, of decency and honor. The star-kissed child she held was even more miraculous; she was perfect, ethereal proof that union between Humans and Kordolians had been sanctioned by nature.
“These are yours, huh?” Abbey held something out to her, her palm wide open to reveal Noa’s silver audio-buds.
“Yeah,” Noa blurted in surprise. The fact that Abbey had them made her a little bit annoyed. “Where did you find them?”
The infant squirmed and wriggled, making soft gurgling sounds as Abbey started to gently rock her back and forth. Her skin was a remarkable shade of light silver, somewhere in-between Human tan and Kordolian steel, and Noa realized she was seeing something extraordinary.
The child was the first of her kind.
“I borrowed them,” Abbey admitted, an apologetic expression crossing her face as she dropped the silver buds into Noa’s hand. “Sorry for not telling you earlier, but we were at our wits’ end and I couldn’t find you. Jira, the Chiketek girl, was howling again, and we didn’t know what to do. I thought your music might calm her down.” She inclined her head, a sly glint entering her eyes. “It worked a treat, just like it did for me when we were stuck in that God-awful underwater facility. I have to say, though, you have, uh, interesting taste in music. I ran your playlist through the Network Assistant. Downloaded the entire thing onto my link-band so Jira can listen to it any time she wants. I hope you don’t mind. It’s the only thing that seems to calm her down right now.”
Noa should have been pissed off at the intrusion, but Abbey’s good intentions blew away any trace of irritation.
Then a sudden wave of emotion washed over her.
She gaped, momentarily speechless as Abbey’s starlight baby let out a satisfied sound, almost like a purr. The child’s thoughts hit her like a warm monsoonal downpour, drenching her in love, light, and affection.
They were the thoughts of an innocent, not yet tainted with pain or suspi
cion like those of an adult, and they nearly brought Noa to tears.
She couldn’t take this anymore.
She was going to go mad.
“I-I have to go,” she blurted, shaking her head as if to try and dislodge the incomprehensible emotions surging through her mind. There was probably a good reason Humans didn’t remember the beginnings of their lives.
To see the world through the eyes of an innocent was almost painful, because Noa knew she could never go back there.
“The Network Assistant fed me some interesting data,” Abbey said softly as Noa turned towards the vast, limitless desert. “Apparently, in this century, most experts agree that the most expressive interpreter of the great virtuosic pieces of the Romantic Era was Noali Clarke. Her recorded performances of Lister are supposed to be especially good.”
“Liszt,” Noa corrected, before she could stop herself. “It’s Liszt.”
“Liszt,” Abbey repeated, testing the unfamiliar name. She narrowed her eyes. “I was told Noali Clarke was tragically killed in an unheard-of bot-car malfunction. You wouldn’t happen to have known this Clarke person, would you?”
“Not quite,” Noa replied carefully, trying to keep her expression neutral, although it was damn hard when one’s mind was being bombarded by glowing psychic baby-fuzz. Infants, she decided, were as close to the divine as Humans would ever get, and therefore, they were a little bit scary.
Noa was telling the truth, though. She wasn’t quite sure who she was these days.
“I see,” Abbey said cryptically as she played with her little one, allowing the baby to grasp her outstretched finger. Noa suspected Abbey knew a lot more than she let on, but to her relief, she didn’t grill her.
I can’t face this right now.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said tersely. She’d already been out this morning, but the thought of solitude was too alluring. She needed to go back to her quiet rocky outcrop, where silence reigned, and think.