The device chimed again. “Yeah?” she answered.
Vinni’s crisp voice issued from the bracelet. “Nessie, you might want to take a trip outside. Some of the soldiers we left exploring the ruins have arrived with a present.”
As they rode the elevator down, Tris had one more go at convincing Kyra. “Seriously, I’m telling you — they were stitched together from different frikkin’ corpses!”
“Lies, lies, lies!”
“You’re a fine one to talk. All that crap you told me over the last few months? ‘Oh, my parents sold me into slavery,’ or ‘I’m an orphan, I was raised by wild foxes…’”
She snorted. “Pretty sure I never told you that one.”
“You might as well have done! The rest were just as bad.”
She made a solemn face. “Tris, there are lies that are used to trick people, and there are lies that are used to help them. And to teach them.” She paused to consider that for a few moments. “Those were the bad kind. Sorry about that.”
The doors slid open, and they strolled out through the lobby. There were no guards on duty anymore — one of Jen’s first official acts had been to disband the entire Laugarren military, rendering everyone equal citizens in the eyes of her fledgling government. Presumably she’d face a certain amount of push-back on that once the reality sank in, but for now she was being greeted with joyful tearing and burning of uniforms wherever she went.
Which begged the question, what else would they wear? A city full of naked people wasn’t really where Tris wanted to end this adventure. Fortunately, what was left of the Ring had been cranked into high gear to supply the needs of a hundred-thousand refugees, so presumably some civilian attire was working its way into the hands of the local populace.
They exited the tower into a plaza soaked in sunshine. It was another glorious day, and only made prettier by the splashes of colour that had appeared overnight on several of the buildings. Kyra confessed that she’d found a paint warehouse on the manifest of surviving buildings in the royal city, and had called in a favour to get its contents shipped here. She’d justified it by explaining that, now bereft of military duties, the people would need something to focus their energy on. And after a lifetime of living in a monochrome environment, it looked like someone was keen to take her up on the offer.
As they strode across the flagstones, luxuriating in the warmth, Tris spotted Lukas off to one side. Surrounded by a crowd of fascinated army-types, the big man was demonstrating the operation of his power armour. While Tris had been undergoing surgery, Lukas had spent his time asking questions, and had been delighted to discover that one of the nurses in the hospital was trained in therapeutic massage. He’d emerged from one of the operating theatres complaining that the Laugarren version of massage was more like having the shit beaten out of him with a pair of wooden planks. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him going straight back in for another one.
He lifted a meaty hand to wave at them at they passed. Several of his onlookers turned to gawp at Kyra. Tris couldn’t help but notice that one of them, a young woman, was wearing a rainbow wig.
“Where’s Ella?” Kyra asked — presumably to stop him pointing this fact out.
He decided he’d let her get away with it this time. “No idea. She said she had to tidy up a few loose ends, so…” he shrugged.
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Ha! You know what? It doesn’t bother me one little bit.”
They reached the edge of the plaza, where a small group of soldiers surrounded an enormous plas-wood crate. Their open-topped transport sat behind them; it was one of several civilian-style vehicles that had been rescued from Kyra’s city, and pressed into service ferrying people and supplies back and forth.
“Wow,” Tris said, observing the crate. “They found something big.”
The squad leader stepped forward, fist over his heart in salute. “Anything for the Saviour of Esper!” He nodded at two men with pry-bars, and they began levering the front of the crate off from opposite sides. “Some Lehenese refugees told us this had survived, so we brought it here to preserve it. It’s the statue that sat in that big square in front of the palace.”
He’d barely finished speaking when the front of the crate came free, dropping down with a crash.
Revealed was one of the most incredible things Tris had ever laid eyes on. Done in some glimmering, pearlescent material, it was a life-sized sculpture of Kyra, a long mane of rainbow hair streaming out behind her… as she rode into battle astride a towering pink unicorn.
She was speechless.
So was he.
She recovered first. “Now that one I did not know about.”
Rather than waste this golden opportunity on some lame-assed comment, Tris decided to keep quiet. He had plenty of time to come up with the perfect joke about this — many jokes, in fact. No way was he was going to let her forget this.
She turned to him, one eyebrow raised; her expression said that she was onto his game.
He decided to play it cool. “So, you’ve got your great big unicorn statue, and your fancy new ID chip. You thinking about sticking around for a bit? Get to know your mother again? Reconnect with your roots?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nope. Not really. I had something else in mind. You see, I distinctly remember, back on board the Ark, you promising to take me shopping on Earth.”
Tris clapped a hand over his eyes. “No! Come on, Kyra! Seriously? I made that promise under extreme duress, at a time when all of our lives depended on it.”
“Yes, I remember.” She smiled sweetly. “And now, your life depends on you fulfilling that promise. Got it?”
He rubbed his forehead. There was no point arguing with her. “Yeah. Whatever.”
She brightened. “Oh, and Tarri wants to come too. Okay?”
“It’s not a holiday!” he protested. “It’s not a field trip from school. This is life and death we’re talking about. If the Wardens ever find out—”
“Why, you got something better to do? You’d rather be cataloguing asteroids?”
It took a second for the penny to drop. When it did, his jaw went with it. “What the hell? How do you know about that?”
The sly grin on her face said she’d been waiting for this moment. “Oh, a little bird told me. Actually, a great big round bird the size of a battleship. Your assignment orders came through before we left Atalia.”
Tris was horrified. “My mother reads my messages?”
“Of course! You know how overprotective she is.”
“But they’re private. They should be encrypted.”
“She’s a sentient AI living in a computer the size of a battleship. I’d say she can handle encryption.”
“But damn it all, she shouldn’t be telling you!”
Kyra put a hand on his non-broken shoulder and squeezed it. “Tris, there’s something you’ll have to learn about women. We talk.”
For the second time in the last few minutes, he found himself rendered speechless. This time though, the joke was most definitely on him.
“It’s all good,” Kyra said, putting her arm around him and steering him back towards the tower. “If you make good on your promise, I’ll give you one of mine. I’ll have a little chat with Oktavius when we get back there. See if I can get him to change his mind.”
Tris nodded glumly. “What makes you think he’ll listen?”
At this, her grin turned positively evil. “Oh, you’d be amazed how persuasive I can be.”
THE END…
…for now!
So… What’s Next?
If you haven’t read the original Earth Warden saga, where Tris was first introduced to Kyra, book one can be found here:
Earth Warden: A Sci Fi Adventure
And the full tale of Kyra’s rather difficult childhood is chronicled in the ‘Kyra’s War’ trilogy, which starts with Spark of Resistance:
Spark of Resistance
All these books are ava
ilable in Kindle Unlimited!
Meanwhile, Tris and Kyra have A LOT of issues still to deal with. Esper is only one planet, and the galaxy is reeling from the events of previous books. What’s going on in the Lemurian Empire? Do the Portals work now? And aren’t the Priesthood still hunting Ella?
I’m currently hard at work on a number of projects, but the most important one is that uniquely human and grounding experience — the birth of my first child! Baby Freya (to whom this book is dedicated), is scheduled to arrive within a few weeks of me typing these words. So I hope you’ll understand why the next book isn’t up for pre-order just yet!
The best way to be sure you don’t miss it is to sign up to my free newsletter. Once a month, I send out news about how my writing is progressing, plus I share a few jokes and snippets of my work-in-progress. Best of all, subscribers automatically get TWO free short stories featuring the characters from the Earth Warden saga — ‘Kyra by Night’, following her exploits on Earth whilst Kreon is busy trying to recruit Tris, and ‘The Box’ — featuring Kyra and Blas, in one of her first jobs working for Kreon.
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CLICK HERE!
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Thanks for reading!
I hope you enjoyed Embers of Esper. If you did, it would be absolutely amazing if you could leave me a review on Amazon! It doesn’t have to be long and poetic — even a single sentence is fine. It just helps to tell the world that my books are worth trying, and makes a MASSIVE difference in whether or not a casual browser becomes a reader. It’s the best possible favour you can do for me!
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About the Author
Tony James Slater is an unusual combination of science-fiction author and travel-memoir writer.
He is a very, very strange man. He believes himself to be indestructible, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. He is often to be found making strange faces whilst pretending to be attacked by inanimate objects. But perhaps his biggest problem is this: he has a mouth so big he is at risk of swallowing his own head.
It is for this reason (amongst others) that he chooses to spend his life far from mainstream civilisation, tackling ridiculous challenges and subjecting himself to constant danger. He gets hurt quite a lot.
To see pictures from his adventures, read Tony’s blog, or complain about his shameless self promotion, please visit:
www.TonyJamesSlater.com
But BE WARNED! Some of the writing is in red.
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