Defender

by Janet Edwards

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I want to forget about Fran, and move on to something new.”

  “In that case …” Lucas tapped his ear crystal. “Emili, are you there?”

  “Of course,” Emili’s voice answered.

  “Morton’s unit is calling for an emergency handover at Level 67 beach,” said Lucas. “We’re taking it. Amber, Adika, and the Alpha Strike team are fully equipped so they can go straight to the beach. Forge had better go with them, because a climbing specialist could be helpful inside the wave machinery. The rest of us will head back to the unit.”

  Adika picked me up and started running towards the nearest park exit. We were flanked by Rothan and Forge, and the Alpha Strike team chased after us. Our route went past the park event area. A crowd was gathering around the circular event stage, and I saw their heads turning to look at us.

  On any other level of the Hive, people would have been confused by the sight of us, but we were on Law Enforcement Level 20. The people here knew the secrets of the Hive. They knew that the nosies were fakes, they knew about Telepath Units, and they knew exactly what they were seeing now. This was a telepath and her Strike team in full flight, heading out to respond to a Hive emergency.

  A man pointed at us and shouted. “They’re Light Angel!”

  Rumours had been going round Law Enforcement about an attempt to sabotage a power supply nexus, and an entire Telepath Unit flying in from the horrors of Outside to prevent disaster. I heard an odd rhythmic sound, and realized the crowd had started clapping.

  I adjusted my ear crystal, and the camera extension unfolded at the right side of my face. “Emili, are you receiving the images and sound from my camera?”

  “Yes.”

  “Send them out to the whole unit,” I said. “The crowd is applauding what we did to defend the Hive, and that applause isn’t just for me and the Strike team. It’s for every single one of us.”

  The sound of clapping grew louder as we went by the crowd. The rest of the Hive didn’t know what we did to protect them, they must never know what we did, but the people in Law Enforcement knew it and we were their heroes.

  Message from Janet Edwards

  Thank you for reading Defender. This book is the second full length book in the Hive Mind series, and there is also a prequel novella, Perilous. You can make sure you don’t miss future books in this and my other series by signing up to get an email alert when there’s a new release.

  You may also be interested in my books set in the very different Portal Future universe, where humanity portals between hundreds of different colony worlds scattered across space. These books include the Earth Girl trilogy, the Exodus series, and related stories. Please continue reading for a sample chapter of Scavenger Alliance, the first book in the Exodus series.

  Visit me online at my website to see the current full list of my books, including suggestions on the reading order.

  I’d like to thank Andrew Angel for Beta reading Defender. Any remaining problems are entirely my fault.

  Best wishes from Janet Edwards

  Books by Janet Edwards

  Set in the Hive Future

  The Hive Mind series:-

  PERILOUS: Hive Mind A Prequel Novella

  TELEPATH

  DEFENDER

  Set in the 25th Century of the Portal Future

  The Exodus series:-

  SCAVENGER ALLIANCE

  Set in the 28th Century of the Portal Future

  The prequel novellas:-

  EARTH AND FIRE: An Earth Girl Novella

  FRONTIER: An Epsilon Sector Novella

  The Earth Girl trilogy:-

  EARTH GIRL

  EARTH STAR

  EARTH FLIGHT

  The Earth Girl prequel short story collection:-

  EARTH 2788: The Earth Girl Short Stories

  Other short stories:-

  HERA 2781: A Military Short Story

  Set in the Game Future

  REAPER

  Please visit https://janetedwards.com/books to see the current full list of books

  You can also make sure you don’t miss the next book by signing up to get new release updates

  About the Author

  Janet Edwards lives in England. As a child, she read everything she could get her hands on, including a huge amount of science fiction and fantasy. She studied Maths at Oxford, and went on to suffer years of writing unbearably complicated technical documents before deciding to write something that was fun for a change. She has a husband, a son, a lot of books, and an aversion to housework.

  Visit Janet at her website: www.janetedwards.com

  Follow Janet on Facebook: www.facebook.com/JanetEdwardsAuthor

  Follow Janet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanetEdwardsSF

  Sign up for new release updates: www.janetedwards.com/newsletter

  Preview of Scavenger Alliance

  In the year 2408, eighteen-year-old Blaze is one of the last seven hundred people scavenging a living in abandoned New York. A century after the invention of interstellar portals, the respectable citizens have left for settlements in the countryside, or joined the great exodus of humanity to new, unpolluted colony worlds. Those remaining in New York are the undesirables that neither the citizen settlements nor the new colony worlds will accept.

  Blaze’s mother died six years ago. She thinks her father is Donnell, the leader of the uneasy alliance between the remnants of the Earth Resistance and the old criminal gangs. It’s less clear what Donnell thinks, since he barely speaks to her. The alliance is crumbling under the strain of its hardest winter ever, when an old enemy tries to use Blaze as a pawn in a power bid. She thinks her life can’t possibly get more difficult, but then an aircraft carrying three off-worlders arrives in New York.

  Chapter One

  I was the only person who saw the aircraft arrive in New York, and I didn’t realize what it was at first. I’d just stepped out on to the roof of the Americas Parliament House, when I noticed the small speck in the dawn sky.

  Logic told me there was no need for me to worry about anything overhead. I was standing on top of the highest building in the area, so should be perfectly safe from the gliding attacks of the local predators. The crisp carpet of snow under my feet was an extra reassurance, since none of those predators would be out hunting while the temperature was below freezing point.

  I still stopped to stare upwards and make sure this was only a bird. My years in New York had taught me that letting down your guard, even for a second, could get you injured or killed.

  I couldn’t work out what species of bird this was, but it was definitely far too high in the air to be anything dangerous. I forgot about it, fixed my eyes on where the blue, planet Earth flag was proudly silhouetted against the rising sun, and gave the distinctive, right hand on heart salute of the Earth Resistance.

  My regular morning ritual completed, I would normally go back inside, but today I lingered with my eyes fixed on the Earth Resistance flag, brooding on the ominous fact that today was my eighteenth birthday. My position in the Resistance had been uncertain ever since my brother left, and turning eighteen would probably make my life even more difficult.

  I was reluctant to go back indoors in case I found my worries becoming harsh reality, but the icy January wind was finding its way through my layers of clothing, and triggering an ache in the left arm that I’d broken last summer. I sighed, turned back to the door to the stairs, and then remembered the strange bird and gave a last glance upwards.

  I was startled to see the bird was much closer now, vastly bigger than I’d thought, and didn’t look like any kind of living creature I’d ever seen. It took me a moment longer to work out this had to be an aircraft. I’d heard people talk about how such things were commonplace centuries ago, used for long distance travel in the days before the invention of portal technology, but I’d imagined them having wide flapping wings rather than stubby, rigid structures.

  The aircraft must have come from b
ehind Fence, flying casually over the vicious wire that protected the respectable citizens from undesirables like me, but why? The last of the citizens had abandoned New York in 2389, withdrawing to their new settlements the summer before I was born, so what had brought them here now?

  I stood there for another couple of minutes, watching the aircraft fly straight overhead and across the Hudson River to skyscraper-crammed Manhattan. It stopped there, hung motionless in the sky like a hovering bird of prey for a few seconds, then slowly dropped vertically downwards and vanished behind one of the buildings.

  An enemy aircraft had landed in our city! I forced myself out of my stupor, ran back inside, clattered down the narrow flight of stairs, and then came to an abrupt halt as I saw the man walking down the corridor ahead of me. He had his back to me, just an anonymous shape in a thick, hooded coat, but the flickering lights of the gun tendrils on his right hand and wrist showed this had to be Donnell. Now that Kasim was dead, Donnell was the only person here with an Armed Agent weapon.

  I hesitated. Given my dubious situation, I normally gave messages to one of Donnell’s officers rather than approaching him directly myself, but he needed to hear this news at once.

  “Sir!” I hurried up to him.

  Donnell tugged down his hood as he turned to face me, and I saw his eyebrows lift in surprise.

  “I just saw an aircraft!” I said. “It landed over the other side of the river in Manhattan.”

  Donnell frowned for a moment, and then shrugged. “I can’t believe the citizens have suddenly started flying aircraft after all these years. It must be some off-worlders checking the art galleries and museums for anything worth salvaging. Forget about it, Blaze.”

  “Forget about it?” I repeated his words in shocked disbelief. The idea of the citizens trespassing in our territory had been bad enough, but the thought of off-worlders coming here and taking whatever they wanted was even worse. “But we’re the Earth Resistance. It’s our duty to stop the off-world colonies leeching resources from Earth. It says so in our charter!”

  Donnell ran his fingers through his thick brown hair, with its scattering of silver strands that added distinction to his legendary good looks. “That’s true, but I wrote that charter over thirty years ago, back when there were still a couple of billion people living on Earth. Everything is totally different now.”

  There weren’t billions of people living on Earth now, there were probably less than a hundred million, and only just over seven hundred of us here in New York, but I thought that made it even more important to defend our rights. Angry words burst out of me. “We should still go to Manhattan and …”

  Donnell lifted a hand to stop me. “Calm down, Blaze.”

  I was horrified to realize I’d been shouting at Donnell. I hastily shut up.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone else about the aircraft,” Donnell continued. “Everyone in the Resistance would react like you, wanting to get their revenge on the off-worlders who bled our home world dry of resources to found their bright new colony worlds, while the members of the other divisions are even more bitter about the way those bright new worlds refused entry to anyone with a criminal record. Whatever I said, the whole of the alliance would go racing off to Manhattan, and that could get us all killed.”

  His attitude suddenly made sense to me. “You’re worried the off-worlders could have advanced weapons?”

  “That’s one problem. The other is that it’s nearly two months since the winter fever hit us. Only a handful of people recovered in time to go out hunting and fishing before the last blizzard. Now everyone’s finally well again, we have to focus all our efforts on getting more food before the next blizzard arrives, because we’ve nothing left to eat.”

  Donnell’s words shocked me. I’d known we were short of food, there had been strict rationing for weeks, but … “The food reserves are gone?”

  “We’ll be eating most of the remaining food for breakfast.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” I murmured.

  “I discussed the situation with the leaders of the other four divisions. We made a joint decision not to frighten people with the truth, because we didn’t want anyone heroically heading out into the blizzard and getting themselves killed in an attempt to get more food. I’m only telling you about this now so you’ll understand why I’m asking you to forget about that aircraft. However wrong it feels to let off-worlders ransack Manhattan, we must hunt food rather than invaders today. We have children to feed.”

  I nodded in reluctant acceptance.

  “It’s not as if we’ll ever risk going to Manhattan for supplies again after that disastrous trip last summer,” Donnell added. “Anything left there is going to rot away and fall apart, so the off-worlders might as well take whatever they want.”

  I winced at the mention of that trip to Manhattan. I considered myself lucky to have escaped with nothing worse than a broken arm, because one of Donnell’s officers had been killed.

  “I won’t tell anyone about the aircraft, sir, but if it takes off when everyone is out hunting then they’ll all see it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if people see the off-worlders leaving. They won’t be able to fly after them.”

  There was a moment of silence after that. I thought our conversation was over, and was about to leave when Donnell spoke again.

  “Happy birthday, Blaze.”

  He’d remembered my birthday! I gave him a wary look. “Uh, thank you, sir.”

  “It’s time that we discussed your future.”

  Panic stabbed at me. What did Donnell mean by that? Did he feel that my eighteenth birthday marked the end of his debatable responsibility for me? I waited in tense silence to hear what Donnell would say next, but his attention had shifted to something behind me. I turned and saw Machico, the eldest of Donnell’s officers, was coming down the corridor towards us.

  Machico gave me a single inquisitive look before speaking to Donnell. “There’s a problem downstairs, oh beloved leader. Some of the Manhattan division men started jeering at Queens Island division, and Queens Island naturally retaliated. Luther was eager to flaunt his officer powers, and waded into the middle of the argument before the rest of us could stop him.”

  He paused. “The good news is that Manhattan and Queens Island instantly stopped throwing insults at each other. The bad news is that they started ridiculing Luther instead.”

  I frowned, distracted from my own worries by concern for Luther. All the other divisions hated each other, so an argument between any of them was likely to turn violent, but the feud between Manhattan and Queens Island was particularly bitter. Luther was barely nineteen, and had only been an alliance officer for five months. I could understand him wanting to prove himself, but it would have been wiser for him to let a more senior officer deal with the situation.

  Donnell groaned. “I’d better go and remind the troublemakers that my officers have the support of my authority as alliance leader.”

  The two of them turned to walk off down the corridor. I stayed where I was, but Donnell glanced back at me and waved his hand in a beckoning gesture. I chased after him and Machico, catching them up when they stopped by the big steel door that led to the main staircase.

  “If I can deal with this problem quickly, then we’ll be able to continue our talk,” said Donnell.

  I was even more nervous now. If Donnell wasn’t letting trouble between the divisions distract him from discussing my future, then he must have something grimly serious to say to me.

  Donnell put his hand on the security plate, and lights flashed as the plate checked his handprint. The door slid aside, and we went down six floors worth of stairs. When we reached ground level, Donnell yanked aside the heavy curtain that blocked the doorway ahead, and we left the Resistance wing of the building for the warm, smoke-scented air of the huge central reception hall.

  In theory, this whole area was common ground and safe for everyone. In reality, each of the other four divisions had stake
d their claim to the corner of Reception by the entrance to their wing of the building, while the Resistance had an area in the centre of the room.

  At this time in the morning, the members of each division should either be in the long queue for food, or sitting at the tables in their own areas and eating breakfast. Instead, half of them were on their feet and laughing. The target of that laughter was standing right in front of us, with two Manhattan men on one side of him and two Queens Island men on the other.

  Luther usually had an air of calm self-confidence, but now his expression verged on panic. I could understand why. One of the Manhattan men taunting him was Cage, and I knew from personal experience how dangerous Cage could be.

  “I’ve told you twice now to go back to your own areas,” said Luther. “I’m an alliance officer, so you have to obey my orders.”

  “I’d no idea you were an officer, Luther,” said Cage, in a voice of maliciously exaggerated innocence. “I must have missed hearing that wonderful news.”

  “I remember Donnell announcing Luther’s officer appointment months ago,” said the other Manhattan man, Shark, “but I assumed it was a joke. What has Luther ever done to earn an officer position?”

  Luther ran his fingers through his black hair, obviously uncertain how to respond. I’d had a crush on Luther’s good looks for a while back when I was fifteen. My feelings had survived a few months of his unrelenting indifference towards me, before being annihilated by a two-second encounter on the stairs. I was walking upwards, when Luther came dashing down past me, pushing me aside with a casual command that the traitor’s sister should get out of his way. I’d heard that sort of remark plenty of times before and since, but it had been especially painful coming from him.