The sheer arrogance of that plan hit him full force. Kyra had never taken payment from Kreon — she’d joked about it, moaned about it… but she’d stayed because she wanted to make a difference. That was what he was meant to be about — making a difference. Solving injustice in the galaxy, one case at a time… no matter how difficult. He’d been pissed off about the dull task Oktavius had assigned him, longing to recapture the excitement of his previous adventures…
But not on his own.
All those other apprentices on Atalia, the ones he’d looked down on because they had to study so hard — none of them had Kyra on speed-dial. They were all preparing to cast off the bonds of apprenticeship, to set forth into the galaxy as masters of their own destiny. Wardens didn’t travel in packs, and only senior ones could afford to keep an entourage. Tris had just assumed that he wouldn’t be parted from Kyra, and that’s where a lot of his arrogance came from. Not from having ultimate faith in his own abilities — from having faith in hers.
And she had faith in him. Otherwise she wouldn’t be sending him off on such an important mission. It was no more dangerous than a hundred things he’d done for Kreon, and by now he should have all the skills he needed to pull it off.
Save for the one that mattered most; self-belief.
That was something he would have to change.
Ahhh, crap. I guess I’d better get my head on straight. This is going to happen anyway. It’s not like I can take a rain-check.
But then, just as he was about to give in, he hit the clincher. “I don’t know how to fly that thing,” he said, pointing at the shuttle. “How the hell am I meant to get up there?”
Jen turned to him, tugging on the hem of her top to straighten it. Her eyes glittered. “I can fly it,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
THIRTY-TWO
Learning that he was about to command his first solo mission had come as quite a shock to Tris — but not nearly so much as learning that his pilot was an octogenarian. The ship, which had to be even older than she was, didn’t inspire much confidence either.
On the upside, for back-up he had Alek; a gifted, yet rather prickly man who was so engrossed in his tablet that he didn’t even seem to be listening.
“Find my boy,” Jen was telling Kyra. “He’s co-ordinating with our people on the surface. He’ll know if they’ve moved the princess, and what they’re planning to do with her. You’ll be able to sense him, right?”
“When I get close enough. It would be a lot easier if you people allowed comm devices.”
“We can’t risk it. You’ve seen how paranoid the commander is. His agents monitor everything, and we have enough trouble as it is. They hunt us like rats.”
Kyra gripped the old woman’s shoulder. “At least you can still bite.”
It was farewell, Tris could tell, though neither woman seemed prepared to admit it.
Lukas cleared his throat. “Thanks for the breakfast,” he said to Jen. “And for letting us crash.”
“You’re welcome.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Sorry I couldn’t arrange a massage. If we all live through this, I’ll do you myself.”
Lukas didn’t look remotely flustered. “Anytime,” he winked at her.
“Tell Aldur I love him,” Jen said, trading one last glance with Kyra.
“Tell him yourself,” she countered. “I’ll keep him alive until you get back.”
“I’m not worried about him.” Jen’s eyes were bright. “I’m worried about you.”
Kyra frowned at her. “This isn’t my first shit-show, you know. I kick ass for a living now.”
Jen patted her arm. “I know, dear. That’s what bothers me.”
And with that, the two groups went their separate ways. Jen stumped off towards the rickety old shuttle, while Kyra and Lukas headed for another set of doors at the far end of the hangar. Tris couldn’t help wishing he was part of the latter party… but he squashed his reluctance beneath his combat boots. Five minutes ago I was impressed with Jen. She’s got stamina and she’s got heart. More importantly, she’s got a son, and he’s the most important thing in the world to her. She wouldn’t be volunteering for this if she thought it was a suicide mission.
He jogged to catch up with her, ignoring the complaint from his shoulder. It would have to cope with a lot worse, if this trip went the way he expected it to.
Alek came too, but kept his tablet in front of him as he walked. Tris decided not to make an issue of it; for all he knew, whatever the coder was doing right now was vital to the mission.
The shuttle’s ramp deployed with a tortured screech and a burst of pressurised gas.
It wobbled when he walked up it.
“Strap in,” Jen commanded, dropping into the pilot’s seat.
He studied the shuttle’s interior, noting the missing wall panels, exposed wiring, and holes in the floor through which components of the drive system could be seen. “Are you sure this thing’s airtight?” he asked, trying not to let his nerves show.
“It used to be,” she replied. “But it’s hard to test that underground. We’ll know for sure once we hit space. If you hear any hissing noises, please let me know.”
“You’re taking the piss, right?”
She twisted her seat to face him, and gave him a long-suffering look. “No, I went before I left. The bathroom on this crate hasn’t worked in years.”
Alek sniggered from behind his tablet, and Tris realised that she was messing with him. Hopefully that meant she was also joking about the hissing…
Jen’s fingers flew over the controls with the confidence of long familiarity, and with a shuddering whine the engines flared to life. She spent a few minutes running through checks and scrolling menus, then lifted them off the ground just enough to count as hovering. “Alek,” she called back, “you got the doors yet?”
“Duh! I’m waiting for you,” he said, and tapped something on his tablet.
An ear-splitting shriek came from above them, and Tris threw his hands over his head reflexively. Luckily, neither of the siblings noticed; Alek was still studying his tablet, while Jen was easing the shuttle higher. A screen embedded in the centre console offered a view of two doors swinging open to reveal a narrow ribbon of pure darkness. That would be the sky, meaning the doors he was looking at were directly above them. A loud bang came from overhead, and he flinched. “What was that?”
“Oh, just something falling down on us,” Jen said, wafting his concern away. “They turned the topside of the hangar doors into a park, but there’s a few small buildings that probably won’t survive this.”
As if to prove her point, a rain of debris clattered against the hull, visible on the monitor like misshapen hailstones. A few larger bits followed suit, including one long beam that struck them like a gong before tumbling off past the cockpit.
“Huh. That’ll be the Peace Pagoda, then.” She didn’t sound too upset about it.
“There won’t be anyone there now, will there?” Tris asked.
“I wish! Only top-ranking officers are allowed to use it these days. A hundred-foot drop would be the best thing that could happen to them.”
But no screaming figures fell from the sky, and a few seconds later the shuttle was rising up through the centre of Laugarren. A scattering of lights on the nearest buildings illuminated a handful of grey-clad figures. They pointed and yelled, but no-one opened fire.
“What weapons do we have?” Tris asked, as that possibility occurred to him.
“Just you,” Jen quipped, as they continued to rise. “Don’t worry. We haven’t run air patrols since you guys arrived. The commander’s too paranoid that a pilot will go rogue, and take a pot-shot at his precious tower.”
That was comforting, but Tris gripped the sides of his seat just in case.
Jen didn’t hang around, tilting the shuttle’s nose up and gunning the drives. A tremor ran through the ship, accompanied by a disturbing cacophony of creaks and groans… But a second later, the lights of
Laugarren shrank beneath them and they rocketed up through the night sky. Jen gave a whoop of delight, as though she’d been dreaming of this moment for a long time.
Tris found a grin creeping up on him. “I bet the air traffic controllers are screaming at us right now.”
“Ha!” Jen barked. “Let them! We can’t hear ‘em. I stripped all the comms gear from this bucket years ago.”
She piled on the speed, and soon they were swallowed by clouds. Tris felt her elation dial down a notch, as a more serious side asserted itself. “Alek, do you want to give me a heading?”
The coder glanced up at the sound of his name, and squinted at her back. “Depends. Where do you want to go? We might be able to find some construction explosives in the deep storage areas. Or we could go straight to the Laugarren section. Assuming the commander is in league with Viktor, the robots are most likely being manufactured there.”
“That’s convenient,” she said. “Because I was just thinking about the section next-door to ours. There’s some old friends we should visit.”
“Friends?” Tris looked at Alek. “You’ve got friends up here?”
“Pfft. I wouldn’t say that,” he replied.
“Don’t mind him,” Jen called back. “He’s never forgiven them for their… ideological differences.”
“Logical differences,” Alek corrected her. “Their beliefs were ridiculous to start off with. Changing them arbitrarily just proves that point.”
“Yes, but pointing that out to them probably didn’t help your case. We don’t all run on logic, Alek.
“Sensible people do.”
Tris chuckled. Amazing. Separated for thirty years, and they bicker like they’ve never been apart.
The only people he felt that comfortable with were Kyra and…
Holy shit! Ella!
With everything that had been going on, it was easy to forget that he had a gigantic battle station floating around up here — to say nothing of the lethal assassin in charge of it. Two assassins, in fact; it was high time he gave one of them a call.
“Hey Alek,” he pointed at the tablet. “I know the ship’s been stripped, but does that thing give you comms?”
“Of course. Comms go via the Ring.”
“Can you call out beyond it? If I give you the frequency?”
“Most people can’t. I can, because I’ve got top-level access.”
Tris was far too excited to care about his attitude. “Great!” He pulled the comm-chip from his lapel, hoping it hadn’t been too badly damaged. They were pretty resilient things, but he’d been through quite a lot in the last couple of days.
Alek took the device and studied it. He dug his thumbnails into the seam of the plas casing, and before Tris could say anything he popped it open to expose its innards. “Wow. Okay, you really need to upgrade this. Is this the tech they use off-world? No wonder everyone wants to come here.” He pressed it closed, squeezed it for good measure, and handed it back. “Make the call. I’ll clone the signal.”
Tris felt a bit daft, pushing the correct sequence of buttons on the tiny device and saying, “Hello, Mum? Are you there?”
Alek frowned at him over his tablet. “You don’t need to talk. I’m only copying the frequency.”
Tris winced inwardly, and thanked every god that Kyra hadn’t seen him do that.
“Here,” Alek said, holding the tablet towards him. “Now you can talk.”
Tris briefly considered strangling the coder, but figured that wouldn’t go down too well with his sister. “Hello? Folly, this is Tris. Askarra, do you read me?”
There was a burst of static, then a drab, electronic monotone replied. “Greetings Tristan, this is Askarra. Do you require assistance?”
Relief washed over him, despite her dumb-computer impersonation. “Mum, it’s okay, I’m with friends. Is Ella there? I need to speak with her.”
There was a pause. “I’m afraid she can’t come to the phone right now.”
“What? Mum, this isn’t a joke! I’ve got a serious situation going on here, and I could use some firepower.”
Concern flooded Askarra’s tone. “What’s wrong? I’m currently engaged, but I should be able to reach your location in under five hours.”
Tris snatched the tablet off Alek, holding it closer to his mouth. “Engaged? What’s going on up there?”
“A large number of enemy vessels showed up in the vicinity quite recently. They refused all attempts at communication, demanding only that I withdraw the Folly or face some unspecified ‘consequences’. I was able to drive them away with minimal damage, but they are attempting a number of simultaneous flanking manoeuvres. I believe they intend to force their way down to Esper. It’s possible that they are not aware of the formidable defences Kyra described.”
Tris cursed. “Viktor’s mercs? Maybe they can bypass the Ring.” He raised questioning eyebrows at Alek, who was still fuming about the theft of his precious tablet. “As I understand it, all it would take is for Viktor to kidnap a bunch of Esperian citizens and put them on those ships. Hell, he might even have volunteers. There’s a group here called Laugarrens, and some of them are working with him.”
Alek scowled, but nodded at his appraisal.
Askarra sounded more human with every response. “Don’t worry, I can keep them out. However, if I leave this position, and those vessels are able to penetrate the Ring’s defences, there will be no way to stop them from reaching the surface.”
Tris put one hand over his eyes, and massaged his forehead. “Ah, crap. Well, look, let me know if the situation changes, alright? And when Ella’s done in the shower or whatever, can you please tell her to give me a call?”
“Certainly, Tristan. It was nice to hear from you, by the way.”
There was a note of snark in that, and the call cut off.
Parents, eh? Who’d have ‘em?
He handed the tablet back to Alek, and crossed another idea off his list. There wasn’t much left on it. If only I had more information! There’s so many variables here that I don’t understand. Like, who even is Viktor? What can he do? What can’t he do? And as for the Ring…
That was a mystery that could take a lifetime to unravel. Although it did give him one more tenuous possibility. “Hey Alek, this might be a stupid question, but if you have top-level access, can’t you use it to just turn the factories off? Or tell them to build paperclips instead of robots?”
The coder was inspecting his tablet, turning it over as though there was the slightest chance that Tris could have damaged it. “Yes, of course I can. But Viktor can just turn them on again. He must be using the commander’s top-level access to place his orders, or I’d have been able to see them. And he’s a lot smarter than the last time he was here. If he can trace my commands, he’ll find out where we are.”
“Bollocks.” Tris bounced the bag of high explosives on his knee. “I guess we still need a plan then. I mean, these bombs might destroy a factory or two, but what if there’s more than that? What if there’s hundreds?”
Alek, satisfied that his tablet was undamaged, tucked it away in a cargo pocket. “How would Kyra have destroyed them?”
Tris stared at the bag and racked his brains. “Damned if I know. This sort of thing just comes naturally to her. Worst case scenario, she could have just chopped them all to bits with her swords.”
Alek pointed at the knife attached to Tris’ thigh. “Your weapon worked against the machines. Can’t we just use that?”
Tris drew the knife and gazed at its woefully inadequate blade. “It does cut through anything, but it’s a little on the small side.”
“It’s what you do with it that counts,” Jen quipped. She tapped a few controls, then swivelled her seat around to face him. She took a long look, then started chuckling.
“What? It wasn’t that funny.”
She sighed. “Oh, it’s not that. I was just remembering the last time I made this trip. That was the first time we met the people who lived on the Ri
ng. We didn’t even know they existed until then. Alek was sitting right there, just like now.” She snorted. “He looked the same, too. Handsome bastard.”
Tris didn’t want to get into whether or not Alek was attractive. Perhaps that was one of the more inexplicable aspects of a family bond. “Was Kyra here on that trip?” he asked.
Jen beamed at him. “Oh yes! She was sitting exactly where you are now — a little slip of a girl, barely eighteen, with her boyfriend sat right next to her.”
That piqued Tris’ interest. He raised an eyebrow. “Boyfriend, eh? What happened to him?”
Jen looked puzzled for a moment. “I can’t quite remember. I think she slit his throat.”
“WHAT?”
Alek made a disgusted sound. “No she didn’t! Your memory is useless. She didn’t cut his throat.”
Tris shivered, and sat back in his seat. “Phew! I was starting to get worried there. What did happen to him?”
Alek shrugged. “She shot him in the head. Obviously.”
THIRTY-THREE
Tris kept his fingers crossed all the way up to the Ring.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jen’s piloting skills — it was the general crappiness of the shuttle that concerned him. He’d opted to keep his grav-belt on just in case. It was surprisingly comfy when it wasn’t cutting off the blood flow to his legs, though he doubted it would do him much good once they left the atmosphere. Inevitably, there were no helmets or vac-suits in the shuttle’s rusting gear lockers… not that he’d have trusted them if there were.
Jen spent the rest of the journey regaling him with some of the antics her precious ship had been through, mostly at Kyra’s behest. Hearing tales of space battles narrowly survived, and explosions on the Ring that had come close to incinerating it, didn’t instil him with much confidence. Jen swore blind that she’d poured her heart and soul into maintaining the ship, for old time’s sake. Tris couldn’t help wishing she’d just saved up to buy a new one.
The vast arc of the Ring glittered in the distance, swelling from a slender silver ribbon to fill their canopy with immense curves of steel and glass. Jen guided them to a wide windowless section, and pulled up alongside it to dock with a protruding maintenance hatch.
Embers of Esper: A Sci Fi Adventure (Warden's Legacy Book 1) Page 27
