Flicker: Ember in Space Book One

by Rebecca Rode

  But Ember wasn’t concerned about them. Instead, she gazed out the window at the Union forces. It was easy to be impressed. Though the Union’s array of ships wasn’t uniform in size and the individual fighters couldn’t be less than three decades old, they did seem well armed and prepared for battle. Anyone who could make Kane go on a rampage like this was a worthy foe.

  And a worthy ally, in her case. At least for today.

  “They’ve sent us a message in text, sir,” a woman with headphones said. “Their leader requests an unarmed negotiation meeting.”

  “I bet she does,” Kane muttered. “Foolish girl. Reply with an order to stand down and surrender.”

  “Yes, sir.” She turned back to her panel.

  Stefan was in his new department overseeing the new flickers and ensuring that what they saw got transferred to the weapons specialists. His part in the plan was simple and, Ember hoped, not too dangerous. Mar had installed a small stolen security mic in Ember’s jacket, which was connected directly to Stefan. He would hear Ember’s orders and execute them, making it look as if she had obeyed and leaving her free to complete her part in the plan. It didn’t allow him to reply to her, but Ember hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

  Mar had also managed to send an encrypted message to Amai by routing it through several other systems. It was risky, and there was no way for Amai to respond, but Mar seemed optimistic it had gone through. They’d requested that Amai bring a stolen Empire shuttle with an empty hold and wait away from the fighting. In just an hour and forty-five minutes, Ember, Stefan, and Mar would eject from the ship in an escape pod and find her.

  Ember hoped the message would be enough to keep Amai from blowing up their ship with them still on board. She hadn’t done it yet, which was a good sign.

  Ember’s role was the most dangerous of all. She would wreak as much havoc as possible to disrupt the Empire’s offensive efforts. But she’d have to be subtle enough to slip under Kane’s radar. Especially since he wanted her right by his side.

  Another assistant was talking to Kane now, speaking quickly.

  “. . . more ships than expected, sir. Do your orders stand?”

  “They mean to intimidate us, but they can’t. We have something they don’t.” Kane stepped over to Ember and slid his hand along her neck, gathering some of her hair. She flinched at his touch, and he smiled. “Are you ready to show off our power, my gypsy?”

  “Yes, sir.” Just not in the way he expected.

  He dropped her hair, but didn’t move away. “Status, Leonard?”

  “Armed and ready, sir.”

  “The floor is yours.”

  Leonard bowed, then began barking orders before he’d even straightened, and the room came to life as everyone scrambled to obey.

  Kane squinted at the ships as he softly spoke to Ember. “I want you to look for a specific person. Their commander, a woman aged thirty-six. She’ll be heavily shielded.”

  The Daughter. Of course Kane would seek her first. Ember didn’t intend to kill her, but she scanned the ships, pushing ever farther. It was difficult to scan so many vessels at once. Pilots, mechanics, security, soldiers. Children. She flinched. There were families on some of the ships. They were frantically evacuating, but it was clear the Empire had caught them before they were ready.

  “I don’t sense her, sir,” Ember said honestly. “She must be giving orders from afar.”

  “Her death would greatly accelerate this war, gypsy, perhaps save thousands of lives. Keep looking.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The first shot is off, sir!” a soldier cried out unnecessarily. The flash of light that burst from an Empire ship ahead was impossible to miss. The well-aimed shot slammed straight into a freighter at its weakest shield-point, and its side erupted in flames.

  It’s begun, Stefan and Mar. Please be safe.

  “Look for their general, then,” Kane told her. “Once he’s dead, take out the captains. They employ sixteen per carrier and two on smaller vessels.”

  “General and captains. Yes, sir.” Ember didn’t want too many casualties on the Union side, but the lack of deaths would be suspicious as well. She hoped Stefan had gotten the message. He would focus the weapon room’s efforts in trying to minimize Union damage.

  The battle had begun in earnest now. Shots flew on both sides, explosions scattering debris like feathers at a pheasant hunt. Ember focused her attention on the decks below. She would have to avoid a systematic approach to her ship’s destruction. It would be too obvious.

  Stars, forgive me for this.

  She tested a captain first, a particularly sour man who barked orders and physically attacked his soldiers when they didn’t move quickly enough. She sent a blow to the man’s hot, angry soul. It flickered, and for a moment Ember held her breath, watching it carefully. It dimmed but didn’t go out.

  Relieved, she released her breath, then went back to work.

  She couldn’t say how long it had been. Ember’s face felt too warm; her uniform was soaked in sweat. Kane was relentless in ordering entire ships taken down. It had taken her nearly an hour to render an entire ship unconscious, something that enraged Kane. He screamed at her, threatened her, breaking her concentration.

  He didn’t know what else she’d done in that time.

  She checked her wristband, surprised to see that nearly an hour and a half had already gone by. Ember had planned to sneak out while Kane was issuing orders, but the man remained at her side the entire time.

  “Sir,” an assistant cried from the back of the room. “There seems to be something poisonous on deck three. The entire deck is on the ground.”

  “Quarantine sequence,” Kane snapped.

  “Already initiated. Several teams are already down there testing. They can’t detect anything unusual, sir, but it’s spreading upward now. A third of deck four has already succumbed.”

  Kane was quiet. How many people per minute?”

  “Sir?”

  “I want to know how many of my soldiers fall each minute. Ask them.”

  The assistant relayed the question, waited nervously, then came back. “Between forty and fifty per minute.”

  Kane’s face darkened, and he turned to Ember. Her heart nearly skipped a beat under his murderous gaze.

  “Sir?” she asked, but he wasn’t buying her act any longer.

  With a growl, he yanked Ember by the collar. “You think to attack my ship, you filthy little traitor?”

  She immediately reached out to his inner light—and found it locked away behind an impenetrable shield. “Of course not, sir. I’m obeying your orders.”

  Without releasing her, Kane addressed the assistant. “Call the medical bay. Ask if they’ve had an unusually high rate of officers fall in the past half hour.”

  The assistant complied, his face growing paler by the second. Finally he closed the call. “Yes, sir. Six captains and two lieutenants have fallen with no warning whatsoever.”

  “Perhaps the Union has a flare too, sir,” Ember said quickly. “Surely you don’t think—”

  “I don’t think, you rat. I know.” He released her with a disgusted look and held the trigger so she could see it. “Forty to fifty at once. You’ve been deceiving me all along.”

  “Oh, I’m the liar?” Ember shot back. “You never intended to protect Earth.” She felt along Kane’s invisible shield, but the edges were insubstantial. It was like trying to grasp air.

  “What the Empire does with its own land is no concern of yours.”

  “What you do with my people and my home is absolutely my concern!”

  His fist slammed the trigger, and suddenly she was on her knees in agony. She gritted her teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of crying out.

  He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward a door on the opposite side of the room as the pain tore through her insides. The specialists watched her struggle until the door slid closed. Only then did Kane throw her arm to the ground and release th
e trigger.

  Ember trembled, but she forced herself to scan the dark room. It had to be Kane’s quarters—tall and fancy and smelling dreadfully like him. Cupboards much like the one he’d kept the collar in lined the walls. He was opening one now. Kane retrieved a tiny black box, slammed the cabinet shut, then stalked toward her.

  “Remember that machine you broke?” Kane said, his voice deadly. “It was a lengthy examination of that machine that made me realize I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Seeing what a flicker sees is slightly helpful. Collaring and torturing a flare into submission is one step further. But it still leaves too much power in your hands, and we can’t have that. You’ve made that all too clear.”

  He knelt by her side as she pushed upward, struggling to rise. Her body still shook too violently, however, and she soon fell back down, breathing hard.

  He brought his stunner to her head. “I’m going to adjust your collar now. Stunners are fatal at such a close range, so hold very still.”

  She was tempted to fight. Stars, she wanted to fight him even if it meant her death. But Stefan and Mar would be making their way to the lift about now, and they wouldn’t leave without her. She had to get them to safety. “The emperor would be furious if you killed me.”

  He reached behind her head to the metal pressing against her spine. It sent a jolt of warning down to her toes. A few more adjustments and the device hung a little heavier than it had before. He pulled back and examined it.

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to test it yet due to a lack of subjects.” He smirked and rose to his feet again, aiming the stunner at her chest. “Now, stand by the window.”

  Ember tested his shield again. Stronger than ever. She managed to roll onto her side, then rise slowly to a sitting position as the room spun around her. Then she pushed slowly to her feet. Lights flashed outside the window as shots were exchanged. The Union seemed to be holding their own against the Empire’s front line, but there were still plenty of Empire ships holding back. What were they waiting for?

  He pointed at a ship outside the window, a large Union carrier. “I want that entire ship’s occupants dead. Start with the pilots, then the engineers. I want it out of commission in two minutes.”

  “No, Kane. I will not kill for you again, now or ever.”

  “I hoped you’d say that.” He clicked something in his hand and spoke into it. “Kill everyone on that ship now.”

  The collar on her neck began to burn. Her skin underneath singed and she began to smell burning flesh. But she was so frozen in shock she couldn’t do anything about it. She watched as her internal arm reached up, then forward.

  “Who’s doing this?” she demanded.

  “You. Or, rather, your inner light. It rebelled against my testing machine, but it seems to have taken quite nicely to my updated reader. It took a bit of tweaking to get the signal just right. That’s why I had Talon tune it to you during your training.”

  Ember thought back to the thousands of push-up and sprinting sessions, to those moments when her body had seemed to move on its own. She’d assumed she was just on automatic, but maybe it had been something more.

  She tried to pull her inner arm back, but it was as if she were completely disconnected, and before she knew it, she was grabbing hold of the collective lights on the ship, easily penetrating a few shields as if they were nothing.

  “No,” she hissed, but it was too late. She yanked them all out at once.

  The dots of light in the distance flickered and died. Three hundred and sixty-four at once.

  Her chest seized until it was impossible to breathe.

  Commander Kane stood next to her at the window now, watching as if nothing had happened. “I call it the C.O.L.A.R. 2.0, or Compulsion of Light Anticipation Remote. It takes the decision out of your hands and places it in mine, where it belongs. If only I’d had this twenty years ago when the first flare was under my command.” He turned to face her. “Can you imagine the type of power this brings? It almost makes me more powerful than the emperor.”

  The carrier’s internal lights flickered now. Its emergency power would be turning on soon, which would have kept the thrusters steady for several more hours if it weren’t stranded in the middle of a battle. Without its shields, the ship would easily be hit and destroyed before long.

  “See?” Kane said, a strange eagerness in his voice. “Several hundred at once. With me at the helm, all your mental barriers are removed. Now do the next ship over. In fact, I’ll point, and you kill.”

  Three hundred and sixty-four. Two-thirds the number of people in her village. She’d just killed them all at once, and she hadn’t even meant to.

  He pointed, and the collar heated again, painfully singeing her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as her arm extended again, reaching for the lights flickering in the distance. As she made contact with the terrified occupants of the next ship, she detected several infants among them. Several of their escape pods had left without their maximum passenger load, leaving many of the most vulnerable behind.

  It was done in seconds. Nearly four hundred that time.

  Twelve children.

  Stars, please, Ember pled. You have to stop this. She imagined herself running out of the room and escaping, but her feet seemed just as disconnected as her light. Kane seemed to have complete power.

  Another ship. And another.

  One by one, each vessel went dark. The fifth exploded within seconds, probably meaning she’d killed a mechanic in the middle of refueling or working on the power core. Kane was bouncing on his toes now, looking very much like a child on his birthday.

  I have the right to decide.

  He pointed again, and she extinguished a smaller ship. Eighty-nine that time. The collar burned so severely now she could barely focus on the scene in front of her.

  Her friends had to be waiting near the escape pod by now. Mar could probably be convinced to leave without her, but Stefan never would. He would simply die with her.

  That meant it was time to fight.

  She tried to gain control of her light to check Kane’s shield again, but it didn’t even acknowledge her. Another ship went down—a smaller ship but with over two hundred passengers. A civilian ship.

  Kane pointed again, this time to the largest vessel, which had just emerged from the planet’s atmosphere. “There’s the one. I’ve been waiting for her to show herself.”

  Her consciousness eagerly thrust out a hand in obedience. Ember left it alone, focusing all her concentration on Kane’s shield. Then she summoned a second hand from her light. It flickered and moved slowly, but at least it was something. She probed Kane’s shield, then began to beat it with her fist.

  Kane’s head jerked up, and his eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t be able to do that.” He adjusted his trigger, then jabbed the button again. Red-hot agony swept through Ember, sending her writhing on the ground again, but this time she was prepared.

  She closed her eyes and began to hum.

  Her consciousness began to lose its grip. She was fading out.

  She directed all her strength to the notes. Every last inch of herself, every cell that still existed, she sent to making the sounds. Burning with anger and pain, she opened her mouth and shouted the lyrics, the words all jumbled and barely coherent.

  Then she summoned her second hand once more, feeling her inner light brighten to a feverish intensity.

  All her frustration and pain and anger and determination swelled in her throat. She released one giant, final yell as she threw herself at the shield.

  It smashed into a thousand pieces.

  Kane’s face went pale. “You can’t—”

  She grabbed the light.

  And yanked.

  The commander jerked, then dropped as if in slow motion, the trigger slipping from his hand and tumbling away as he hit the ground.

  He released a last breath and went still.

  Ember’s pain stopped abruptly. The room clo
sed in on her and she gave in to the precious blackness.

  26

  Ember awoke to a sensation of swaying. She forced her eyes to focus and stared uncomprehendingly at the corridor walls surrounding her. They were moving. Something tightened around her, a familiar smell penetrated her nostrils, and suddenly she felt very much at home.

  “Just relax,” Stefan said somewhat breathlessly. “I’ve got it all worked out.” It was his arms around her. She recognized the feel of them.

  “Stefan?” It came out as a whisper. Not responding, he stopped, looked around the corner, and resumed his long stride.

  They reached a huge metal door. It felt significant somehow, this door. It was open. Stefan set her gently down on the floor. Mar smiled at her from above. “This is no time for sleeping, princess. Your chariot awaits.”

  “Halt!” a voice shouted from down the hall.

  “Get her onto the ship, Mar,” Stefan said quickly. “You’ll make it if you hurry. The coordinates are already entered, but keep radio silence for the first ten minutes or so. Your ship is supposed to be unmanned. And make sure you get her to a medic, all right?”

  “You there!” the guard called, closer now.

  This was wrong. Panic welled up Ember’s throat. “Stefan?”

  His warm gaze settled on her. “I was meant to help you, Ember. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  “No,” she whimpered, sitting up. It was all coming back. “I’m not going without you.”

  “Yes, you are.” He slammed his fist on the Close button, and the door began to move.

  “Doors closing,” an automated warning announced. The escape pod.

  The guard stopped and took aim, but Ember punched his inner light as she’d done with the others, sending him tumbling to the ground. She struggled to her feet, legs shaking, and searched for a button to stop the doors from closing. “There’s got to be another way. We can figure this out.”

  The doors continued to close. Only Stefan’s upper half was visible now. “I tried to disarm the theft feature, but it didn’t work. It has to be done manually, from the corridor panel. You won’t get far otherwise.”