Warden's Fate

by Tony James Slater

  All too soon they were winging their way up through the planet’s atmosphere, her terrible experience below fading like the dream she kept praying it was. Being safe back inside the shuttle’s tastefully decorated interior was such a harsh contrast to her time in the jungle, it added to her sense of broken reality. Or maybe that was the drug, still lingering in her system?

  The strangle-vine poison was still in there. Every beat of her heart pulsed new pain around her body, and her vision swam with fatigue. Lukas was flying; if they’d been relying on her, they’d never have gotten off the ground. She was strapped into the nav seat next to him, staring out of the viewscreen without seeing anything.

  Sharki was travelling as cargo.

  Kyra closed her eyes, debating whether it was worth the pain it would cause her to push her hair back from her face. Lukas had warned her that recovering from toxic shock, especially after enduring it for so long, would take time.

  Time. Something she suddenly had way too much of. She looked at the years stretching ahead of her with a sense of dread. Sharki had been there for so long. Sometimes the star she orbited around; more frequently, in recent years, part of the background. She’d been little more than a kid when she’d fled her homeworld, though older in some ways than many people ever needed to be. She’d drifted from world to world, job to job, never with any goal more concrete than surviving. Staying clear of the thugs she knew were chasing her. It hadn’t been much of an existence. Then she’d signed on with Sharki’s crew — they hadn’t even been called the Marauders then — and suddenly she’d had a purpose again. Not saving the galaxy, or rising to command rank, or anything so ambitious; just amusing her boss. Impressing him, when she had the chance. And eventually, loving him. Migrating over to Kreon’s crew had cost her dearly, but the allure of leaving her mark on the galaxy had proved impossible to resist. But all that time, she’d kept a candle burning in her heart for the first real man she’d ever loved. Now, suddenly facing the rest of her life without him — years and years, decades even…

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  There was one silver lining.

  Lukas had gone from an overbearing, insufferable, arrogant asshole, to being quiet, understanding and courteous to a fault.

  He’d also found her lost Arranozapar, which he presented to her with a flourish once the grav-drive was safely engaged.

  “I found it,” he explained nonchalantly.

  “Where?”

  “Same place you left it, I imagine.”

  She gave him full credit for that one. And for his part, he professed to forgive her for rendering him unconscious and locking him in his cabin. Although she got the impression that was mostly because he didn’t want to admit he’d been knocked out by a girl.

  Tracking her through the jungle had been as easy as following the trail of bodies. He regularly apologised for not reaching the compound sooner, though they both knew there was nothing he could have done to save Sharki. Evie had planned this too well; from infiltrating Atalia to setting up this elaborate death-trap, she’d forced Kyra to play by her rules.

  For the last time.

  If I see her again, I’ll chop her into so many bits that she’ll fit in a shoe box.

  It was a quiet journey, that first day back.

  “Thanks,” she said, at one point. “For letting me deal with this, I mean. For not butting in with a ton of bullshit advice and self-help slogans.” They were sitting in the crew lounge, eating ration packs as the shuttle sped through interstellar space.

  “It’s all good,” he replied. “I’ve been there. I know that crap doesn’t help.”

  “You lost someone?” It was an idle question. She wasn’t really expecting a detailed answer, but Lukas obliged her anyway.

  “After my stint in the military came to an end, I went back to practising medicine. It was something I was good at, that I enjoyed. And I didn’t have to kill anyone.” His shoulders slumped, and he slid his half-finished meal tray onto the table. “Until I got promoted. They made a big fanfare about it — I was getting to work on the cutting edge.” His expression turned sour. “Literally. My first shift as an apprentice sculptor, they had me amputate the limbs from a young girl and lobotomise her. Not for any medical benefit; to turn her into a weapon. I never found out what she’d done to deserve it, or what happened to her after she left my table, but I went home and locked myself in my apartment. I would have refused to go back, but… they don’t give you that option. They were very subtle, not making any direct threats, but I got the gist. My wife and daughter lived with me in that apartment, and I—” He paused for breath, fighting back emotions that Kyra had never seen from him.

  “It’s okay,” she said, trying to make her voice as soothing as possible.

  He snorted. “Yeah. Well, I went back to work. What else could I do? But before I even finished my second shift, I was planning our escape. It took me two years to get everything ready. To use my privileges to get us what we needed, a piece at a time. You live with fear in those moments, like it’s another member of your family. It’s always there; what if they know, because they always know…” He drew another shuddering breath. “And then the day came. I’d done my work, no matter how distasteful it was. I’d given them no reason to suspect me. I’d made contact with a representative of the Ingumend, and he’d promised to get me out. To get us all out.”

  Kyra could already see the end of this story, and it wasn’t good. “What went wrong?”

  He shrugged. “I never found out. I did my shift, and I…” he broke off, swiping at his eyes. It took him a few seconds to master himself. “I got out,” he said, his voice flat. “And they didn’t.”

  Kyra looked at him, sobbing into his hands like a big kid. She’d never stopped to think what his life had been like, under the Church. Why he’d rebelled, and what it had cost him…

  And she didn’t want to think about what had happened to his family.

  The punishment for a runaway Sculptor wouldn’t have been pretty.

  “I’ll go check on Sharki,” she said, standing and heading aft to give the man some privacy.

  She opened the door to the cargo bay, which so far she’d been avoiding.

  Sharki’s body lay strapped to an emergency stretcher, clamped to the deck and covered with a tarp.

  But on the floor beyond it was a massive lump of angry red flesh, taking up half the cargo bay. Raw meat and muscle glistened wetly; a small cloud of flies rose up from their feast, disturbed by the pressure change. A sudden stench assailed her nostrils, making her want to gag.

  What the fu—?

  “Lukas?” she called back through the door. “Why is there a dead dinosaur in my hold?”

  9

  As the Folly sped through interstellar space, Tris turned his dad’s pendant over in his fingers, studying the slim metal disc and the delicate amber gemstone it encircled.

  He was feeling lost.

  Everything he’d been getting used to was going away again. Like his parents, and like the pitiful life he’d managed to cobble together for himself on Earth after they’d gone. Now it was his new circle of friends that were vanishing like smoke on the wind.

  Ever since Kyra had blasted out of the docking bay on her mission of vengeance, he’d felt racked with guilt. Not only could he not go and help her — a fact which was quietly driving him insane with worry — but they were currently travelling in the opposite direction, heading for a meeting with a bunch of diplomats that were bound to treat him like a glorified lapdog; the lowly apprentice of Lord Anakreon, Warden of the First Circle.

  Ella had been keeping her distance, becoming invisible in the way that only assassins could manage. The revelation that her sister had abducted Kyra’s chosen life-partner had hit her hard; clearly she felt responsible. And worse than that; Kreon felt she was responsible, and it didn’t take a lifetime of covert operations to figure that out. He’d only seen her once since Kyra’s departure, flitting past the entrance
to the hanger where he’d been taking out his anxiety on a bunch of training dummies.

  Saying goodbye to Àurea had been hard.

  But not nearly as hard as saying goodbye to Loader.

  Tris had fought alongside both of them several times now, but his relationship with Kreon’s daughter had never been anything more than that of fellow combatants. Loader, on the other hand, had been with him from the beginning. He’d gone from thinking the talos was an inanimate piece of machinery to being convinced of his intelligence. It had taken some time, but Loader had finally trusted him enough to share the truth — or as much of the truth as he’d known himself at that point. Now everything was different. Loader’s new crystalline form and the implications of his origin had changed him subtly. Tris had detected a certain melancholy in him, as though being the last of his species weighed more heavily now. Perhaps it was the tomb they’d discovered, containing the deactivated bodies of hundreds of thousands of Loader’s people. The temptation to go back there and explore must have been strong… and insanely dangerous.

  Tris wished there was more he could do to help his friend, but Loader had agreed to take on the role of young Ana’s bodyguard in the absence of Lukas. That meant he was staying behind on Helicon Prime — and would soon have his shiny hands full, if the current state of unrest was anything to go by.

  Tris was sad to see him go. He sincerely hoped their days of exploring the galaxy together weren’t over.

  Kreon’s old ship Wayfinder, and the other artificial intelligence that had joined their crew, ALI, hadn’t arrived by the time they’d left. Tris could tell the Warden was more than a little gutted about that.

  He turned the pendant over again, tracing the gem’s facets with his finger.

  The Folly felt so empty now. After struggling against the overwhelming tide of emotions from two-hundred-plus confused refugees, their departure had left him drowning in silence.

  The pendant hadn’t helped him at all. He kept hoping it would recharge, but so far, no joy. His trip through the ancient Portal on the holy world of Oracle seemed to have killed it for good. He kept it though, because useless or not, it was the last thing his dad had ever given to him.

  Never take it off, Dad had said. Had he known? That Tris would grow up to be a powerful psychic, with talents that would have made it impossible to survive on Earth without training?

  Probably.

  The pendant needed no power source. According to Kreon, it continually recharged itself using his body’s own metabolic energy. Those first few days on the ship, Kyra had been amazed at how much he could eat. So had he — he hadn’t realised that it was caused by this gem, sucking power from his aura to block Kyra’s attempts at reaching him. Now, though he occasionally felt it warm against his chest, it seemed like its batteries had been depleted for good. Leaving him with a trinket and a memory, but precious little else.

  Kreon, whilst occasionally present in body, was in such a bleak mood that he barely even spoke to Tris. It was understandable, given the events of the last few days. Saying goodbye to his daughter and granddaughter for what could well be the last time couldn’t have been easy, and the splintering of their crew hadn’t helped to lighten the Warden’s stress-load. Kyra had said that their mission into Siszar territory was a big mistake. Tris suspected that Kreon felt the same way, except that he was the one responsible for leading them there. There was no way out of it that Tris could see, and their ultimate goal had always been to discover more about the Black Ships. Unfortunately, it seemed like everything they did discover pointed towards one inescapable fact; the Black Ships were unstoppable. Whatever they were, no suggestion of them having any kind of weakness had come to light so far. Personally, Tris was convinced that ‘they’ were an ‘it’ — a conclusion which made the chance of victory seem even smaller. What could anyone do against something like that? Kreon was spending all his spare time locked in his quarters, working through the vast amount of information they’d stolen from Oracle, presumably hoping to answer exactly that question.

  Tris could summarise the Warden’s findings from those hours of study with one look at his grim expression. Not good.

  In the odd lonely moment, he reached out to the Empress of the River of Silver Flashes. The powerful alien’s nestship was keeping pace with the Folly, riding the same bubble of heavily-warped gravity to speed across the galaxy in tandem. With her was an indeterminate number of her followers, but whilst they also possessed the Gift, the shape of their thoughts was impossible for Tris to read without direct contact — something none of them felt inclined to offer.

  Do not worry about them, the Empress told him. I have made it clear to them that your vessel is not to be harmed.

  Why would they want to harm us? Weren’t you sent here to fetch us?

  Most are males. They care not for such lofty concepts. They seek only the joy of the kill.

  Really? So what are they doing with us?

  I have promised them a great battle.

  Oh? Are we… expecting a great battle?

  I am certain we will find one soon enough.

  Tris didn’t feel that was as reassuring as she intended it to be.

  He went back to agonising over the danger Kyra was facing. But selfish as he felt for not doing more to try and help her, Tris found it was Ella that he missed the most. There was no competition with her; no verbal sparring, no constant need to prove himself. Ever since the first time she’d kissed him, he’d been trying to figure out what she saw in him. Eventually, he’d come to the conclusion that he was better off not knowing. Being with her was so easy, yet so exciting at the same time. He still got fits of nerves now and then, but she’d seen it all before, and had an excellent way of helping him to relax…

  He’d thought a lot about going to look for her, and late on the third day since Kyra left, he caved.

  Embarrassing as it was to admit, he didn’t actually know where his girlfriend had chosen to live. She’d visited him often enough in his suite, and he’d sensed that she wanted to keep her own space private. Although realistically, that was his English politeness in overdrive. Enlisting Askarra’s help was the last thing he wanted to do, but he didn’t fancy interrupting Kreon’s meditations for a directory enquiry.

  “Mum?” He addressed the ceiling of his bedroom. “Where’s Ella?”

  “Hello Tristan. Eleanor is currently in her quarters.”

  “Oh, right.” He felt even more stupid about his next question; even though Askarra was essentially a computer program, he could feel his ears burning. “Um, where are her quarters, exactly?”

  There was a beat of silence. Tris winced; his mother may be an AI, but she still knew how to sweat him.

  “Eleanor’s quarters are located on deck seven, room 7128. It is accessed via the peripheral corridor. Would you like me to guide you there?”

  “No thanks,” he said quickly. “I’ll find it.”

  “Would you like me to inform her of your intentions?”

  “No! No, thank-you, that’s alright.”

  He could almost feel the computer’s disapproval. But Ella had been as wary as a wild deer lately, and he was half afraid of scaring her off. Given her chosen profession, he didn’t think it too likely that he’d catch her unprepared.

  The room, when he found it, was a surprise. It was in a part of the Folly he’d never visited, and with good reason; snuggled up against the outer hull, it was about as remote as it was possible to be on a spherical ship. The schematic Askarra helpfully flashed up to keep him on track had listed these rooms as multi-purpose. He guessed that meant they could be configured as cabins if needs be, but otherwise got used for store rooms or broom closets. One thing he could see straight away — they were tiny.

  He approached Ella’s door, and reached up to knock.

  Inevitably the door slid open before his knuckles could contact the metal, revealing Ella leaning demurely against a bulkhead inside. “Welcome, my Lord,” she teased him. “To what do I
owe the honour?”

  Tris had spent most of the trip down there rehearsing what to say. But all that evaporated in an instant, and he was back to being the shy, stuttering schoolboy he always felt like whenever beautiful women paid him attention. “Hi! I, err, wanted to see you. I mean, I wondered if you wanted to see me? Because you can, I’m… in the same place still, you know, if you want to visit.”

  Disastrous. He changed tack. “So, this is your place?” He glanced through the doorway, making appreciative nods. From what he could see, his first guess had been right; it was a broom closet.

  Mercifully, Ella watched all this unfold without comment. When he’d finally exhausted his supply of nervous babble she crooked a finger, beckoning him inside without a word.

  He went, never able to resist that gesture.

  The inside of the room was utterly devoid of decoration. The floor and ceiling were bare metal; the only bed was a fold-down bunk attached to the drab grey wall. A row of tall lockers occupied the far corner, which was only far insomuch as it would take him two steps to reach it.

  “It’s easier,” Ella explained, obviously intuiting his thoughts. Or possibly reading them directly from his horrified expression. “Less distractions down here. It’s awfully hard trying to stay sharp in a world where everything’s soft.”

  “Riiiight…” Tris did a full turn, checking out the extent of her minimalism. There wasn’t even a bathroom. He decided that wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to open the conversation with, though. “You’re welcome to stay with me, you know. Full-time, I mean. You could bring your stuff…” his eyes travelled back around the room. There wasn’t a single piece of ‘stuff’ in evidence.