by Viola Grace
Seeing death is a rough life, but Liberty finds out that death can open doors to worlds she never imagined.
Liberty has spent her time trying to warn the people around her about imminent death. Her warnings have not always been well received, and after a stint in prison, she is offered a chance to enter the Volunteer Program.
Set free and launched into space, her life as a Death Seer begins.
The Nyal Imperium is the area that wants her, and she is delivered to a court world and into the custody of the duke who has other plans for her beyond having her read his death.
All she needs is a slight change to her genetic code and her destiny will change forever.
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Liberty
Copyright © 2014 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0003-3
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Liberty
Terran Times Second Wave
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Liberty Trout sat up and stared toward the bars of her cell.
“You have a visitor, Trout.”
She looked into the shadows on either side of the grilled doorway. “I can’t see. Who is it?”
The guard unlocked the door and beckoned her forward. “Come out, Trout. They are going to talk to you.”
She extended her hands to the guard, and he put the cuffs on. She walked with the two other white-garbed orderlies that were on duty at the house for the criminally insane.
If she had been convicted of an actual crime, she would have had an easier time of it. As it was, Libby was used to the cold cell, the lavender scrubs and the frightened looks that she received from the staff and other inmates.
The flat, rubber-soled shoes thudded as she stomped her way past the eyes staring through the grills of the cell doors.
They took her through the hallways into a secure room where a peculiar party was waiting for her.
A small, silvery man was sitting at a table while two large and burly males were positioned behind him.
Her guards seated her across from him, and to her surprise, they left her alone with the extraterrestrial guests.
She smiled slightly and waited.
“Are you the seer?”
The silver man was direct.
“What do you mean, the seer? I am just a mental patient who likes to call in disasters.”
A chilling smile, that could have done a shark credit, spread across his features. “I am Recruiter Norz. If you are the seer I am looking for, there is a position for you in the Alliance or possibly the Imperium if that is where your aptitude lies.”
“You are kidding.”
He lifted a tablet and gracefully flicked through images with his fingers. “You predicted nineteen terrorist events before they occurred last year, and this year, you have already briefed local law enforcement on twenty-three that have all born fruit. If the law enforcement had taken you seriously, the most recent explosion that destroyed so many lives might not have happened.”
Libby nodded. “It was good that the others listened.”
Norz nodded. “Very good. Now, your people do not look favourably upon talents, and more and more of you are appearing in the population. We are not demanding that you come to us, but we are offering you a choice to be appreciated for what you bring to the universe.”
“Paranoia and pain?”
“You do not bring the pain, you merely see it. Do not give yourself more credit or blame than necessary.”
She blinked. “That is one of the kindest things I have ever heard since this started. You do understand that I can’t control this. It comes and goes as it likes.”
He nodded. “I do understand. I also understand that your own species would keep you locked up in this fashion every time you have a vision.”
“I am currently being held in a detention facility, so you will have to wait until after I am tried and I serve my time. I have been in the papers and now am on a wait list for a trial date. I would definitely be interested in the posting, but I don’t know when I will be out.”
Norz gave her a considering look. “If you agree, you will have full opportunity to leave on the earliest shuttle. The arrangements with your government have already been made.”
“They will let me go, just like that?”
“They cannot prove your involvement and the funds to bring you to trial will be excessive. This is the simplest answer. There are more detailed moral issues that would come to light when the announcement was made.”
“Like what?”
“Perhaps like, if your talent is truly real, what have they been filling the mental wards with? The organisers of your world do not wish for the existence of psychic talents to be known.”
The witch hunts that would ensue were probable. With humanity’s record for attacking anything different and analyzing it afterward, it was safer for those with a talent to keep their mouths zipped and try to get off world.
“So, I will be found to be free of all charges? No conspiracy and no misuse of emergency services on my record?”
“We will remove the current charges.”
“Good. Can you expunge my entire record of all charges? I want my parents to be able to hold their heads up high at the church picnics. I am a volunteer, not a freak anymore.”
He made some notes on his tablet. “The request to completely wipe your records has been sent. Now we wait.”
She raised her brows. “We wait here?”
“It will not be long. True seers are not as common as your fiction would have you believe.”
Libby chuckled and sat with her hands in her lap, the chains resting on her thighs.
He was correct. In half an hour, the deal had been struck and Libby was signing the contract to leave in a week. It would give her seven days with her family and time to sort out her belongings.
“When the time comes to pick you up, we will send a vehicle to collect you. All you need is your bag and you will be on your way to the stars.”
She cocked her head as he worked on his tablet with both hands. She had to admit, he could type fast for a dude.
A guard came in and unlatched her cuffs. She rubbed her wrists. “Just like that?”
Norz inclined his head and slid the tablet over to her. “We had begun the process before we arrived. We merely needed your agreement to complete the circle.”
Libby read the agreement. She promised to let them train her, offered her mind for observation and her body for enhancements. In all important things, she was theirs, but she w
as being given free rein and the support of the Alliance and Nyal Imperium to see what was given to her by the universe and use it to save lives.
She signed the tablet with her finger and pressed her thumb in the box indicated for her to do so. For good or ill, she was taking the chance that she had been offered. Her parents had drilled two things into her. The first one was do good where you can, the second was heed the signs that you were given.
Being in custody and having an alien pull strings to get her out was a definite sign from whatever deity was looking down on her.
She left the room with her new guards, and after a brief checkout of the facility, she exited her prison and headed for the vehicles on offer.
Her trip home was done circumspectly in the black four-by-four that took her up the badly paved roads and to her home town of Peach Sweet.
She got out of the vehicle, still in her prison scrubs, and she hugged her family as they came out to greet her. They were conflicted about the good news but not about her release. They wanted nothing more than to have her free. Liberty was the motto they lived by, and they were relieved to have her with them once again, even for a little while.
Chapter Two
Libby received the warning that she was being picked up in the morning, so at dawn the next day, she was on the porch with her family and waiting for her ride.
Her mother was clutching one hand; her brother was clutching the other. They all stared out at the open field in front of them and waited to see a car on the road.
“Libby, I want you to know that we support you in whatever you do.”
Her father put his hand on her shoulder, and she felt surrounded by love at that moment.
“I know, Dad. That support let me open my mouth to begin with. Without you behind me, I never would have had the guts to make those first calls.”
Her mother squeezed her hand. “God gave you that talent for a reason. Who are we to deny his purpose?”
Libby didn’t see the deity like her parents did, but she nodded her head. “Precisely. Why have it if you don’t use it?”
The time for the pickup was finally there, and she looked around when a sound became audible coming from the north. The family looked over as one. The craft became larger and larger as it approached, until the half-kilometer vessel was settling in the meadow to the left of the house.
Liberty got to her feet and hugged her parents and brother. “That’s my ride.”
Her brother grinned. “I think I might put in my application.”
She wiped a tear from her eye and turned toward the ship with her pack over her shoulder. “You might want to talk to Mom and Dad about that. Well, farewell, I love you all.”
“We love you, Libby.” The family spoke as one.
Libby knew that they would be with her in her triumphs and disasters, just as they always had been. They might not share her talent, but she was connected to every Trout in her bloodline and they were linked to her.
The grass gave off a sweet scent as she hiked through the green stalks and crushed them under her feet. They didn’t stay crushed. They popped up as soon as she lifted her feet. It was one of the memories that had marked her life. She left no trace of her existence behind. No marks, no traces, no trails were ever left by her feet. She could not be tracked by anyone she knew or their dogs.
The hatch on the side of the shuttle opened and a ladder extended to invite her to climb. Shrugging, Libby set one foot on the rung and began to pull herself up and away from contact with her world.
Images assailed her but she ignored them. She would make it to the moon base for training, and from there, she would go where she was needed. The thought that she could make a living seeing and telling people about it was a bit of a surprise. She couldn’t wait until they proved it.
A man at the top of the steps extended his hand to help her into the ship, and when she took his hand, she blinked rapidly. She swallowed and continued into the shuttle, surrendering her bag and taking the seat he offered her.
She rubbed her hands together and put the image of his death out of her mind. He was going to be much, much older when he had the seizure that would end his life, and his family was gathered around him with children and grandchildren as witnesses to his passing. It was a good death.
Libby had first been leery of seeing the deaths of those around her, but in most cases, they were designed to be dead at that particular place and time. She had tried to alter their fates at first. She had steered them in different directions and someone had still died. It had never saved a life, merely swapped it for someone not on the initial list of destiny herself. She had only tried it half a dozen times before the guilt became overwhelming. Trading one life for another was not her purview.
Now, she warned the rescue crews so that they could save those whose fates were uncertain.
The shuttle had a few other Terrans, but they all looked at her as if she was frightening. When a woman reached into her bag and handed her a paper, it suddenly made sense.
Suspected Terrorist accepted as Volunteer. Is space the new Botany Bay?
In the centre of the page was Libby’s photo and name. “Well, crap.”
The woman cocked her head. “I am guessing that it is journalism run amok?”
Libby rocked her hand from side to side. “I have been suspected, but the reason for that is the same reason I am here. I see things that haven’t happened yet and not everyone believes that I didn’t plan it to begin with.”
The woman stuck out her hand. “I am Frankie.”
“Libby.” With some relief, she took the other woman’s hand with her own. A bright flash after several hundred if not thousands of years was the way that Frankie would exit existence.
“Pleased to meet you, Libby. I can see the patterns of cause and effect.”
“I can see disasters. I can see death. It makes for lousy party conversations.” Libby chuckled and released Frankie’s hand.
“What do you see for me?”
“I have found that few, if any, people really want to know the answer to that. Are you sure?”
Frankie cocked her head. “Well, is it in the next twenty years?”
Libby sighed with relief. “No. Definitely not.”
“Then, I will have already outlived most of the women in my family. I am good with that.” Frankie smiled.
Libby blinked. “Well, you will definitely live out the next twenty.”
Frankie grinned widely. “Then, I am definitely glad that we were on the same flight. That is a huge load off my mind. They said they could keep me healthy, but I was not sure that they would be able to manage it.”
“You trust me?”
“Nothing you have done is outside your behavioural pattern. I hate to say it, but the logic is sound.”
Libby chortled. “And logic is your line of speciality.”
“It is indeed.”
While they were chatting, they had taken off and were rising rapidly through the skies of their home. They each paused and looked to the thick, clear panels that let them see out. The Earth spun beneath them and they headed toward the moon.
Libby and the rest of the Terrans were silent. Male and female, they all knew that while they could technically return in three years, they wouldn’t want to. There was literally an entire universe to explore, and they had been offered the chance to see it. There wasn’t going to be anyone going back, at least not on this shuttle.
Libby watched the moon as it got larger and larger. She could actually see the moon base. Part of her was excited and the other parts were equally dread and cautious optimism.
Her life was about to take a sudden shift, and she was pretty sure that it was a good thing. Pretty sure.
Libby went through the physical assessments with ease. Her body seemed eager to get going on the new program. The two months in the detention centre seemed to have done her some good. With nothing to do but push-ups and sit-ups, she had quite a bit more muscle now than she had when she
went in.
The doctor smiled. “It seems you are ready for combat training, Miss Trout. You can begin immediately.”
The doctor typed a few characters into a tablet, and by the time Libby had sorted out her new grey bodysuit, there was a stranger standing in the doorway.
“This is your combat instructor, Tebila. She will show you the techniques you need for basic self-defence as well as etiquette and language. Put on your gloves.”
Libby nodded to her instructor and tugged her gloves into place.
Tebila gestured for her to follow along and led the way to a gym.
“We are starting right now?”
Tebila smiled, a glowing grin crossed her black velvet features. She nodded and beckoned Libby to enter the training area. With a quick jab, she attacked. Training had begun.
One week later, Libby had control over Alliance Common, Nyal Imperium Standard and a number of frequently used languages. She also had control over her body in the fighting ring and was able to defend herself for two minutes, which was the estimated time for her escort to arrive if she was attacked on any world at any time.
Libby didn’t know why she would be in danger, but she nodded during the briefing and sat through endless rounds of healing to keep her in top physical condition.
The idea of being treated by both a doctor and someone who could lay hands on her took some getting used to, but as she finished her final check, she waved to them both before heading for the administrator’s office. Today, she would find out where she was going to be posted.
“Thank you, Tebila. Your help has been invaluable.”
Tebila smiled. “It has been interesting to learn what your body was capable of. I must confess to some personal disappointment that you rejected my invitation.”
Libby blushed. “I am rather pedestrian in my tastes. Another woman is not precisely my style, though I am sure I am missing out on an amazing experience.”
