by May Sage
Kai nodded stiffly; the very notion was distasteful to him. He wasn’t much different from the wolves—a den animal, protective of its territory.
Half an hour into his tour of the closest tech sector, he had a change of heart.
Kai had no clue how Krane had managed to get them onto Tor Koa, a tightly guarded imperial planet, given the fact that they were both wanted outlaws, but there they were, being shown around by an elegant, well-dressed noble who was talking to them like they were valued customers.
Not for the first time, Kai wondered who exactly was old Ian Krane.
Then he was too busy drooling over the designs their host was showcasing to think about it too much.
“This one is a beauty,” Wen Aris, their host, told him, catching sight of the slender, silver ship he couldn’t stop watching. “She’ll be available commercially next year. But she’s in working order. Her Highness made it clear that any model you require will be available for your use.”
Again, Kai turned to Krane, who seemed quite fascinated with his nails right then.
So, he did have some noble contacts, and amongst the Imperials, no less.
Kai let it go. He certainly had his own private history, and he wouldn’t have appreciated it if his companion had started digging into it.
“She’s a Battria-X7 model. Designed for speed and protection. Her cannons and front blasters are lethal, like the X6, but, what makes her special, along with a velocity of point six past lightspeed in warp mode, is her shields. As resilient as those of most cargo and command ships. She’ll be the safest light transport in the market once we start selling her.”
Kai didn’t even consciously move his hand, yet it was extended, almost caressing the window separating him from the ship. Their Zonian was fast, no doubt about it, but no freighter of her size could go above point three past lightspeed. Smaller, slimmer, with modern materials, the light spaceship models they watched now went twice as fast.
“What do you think, kiddo?”
He had trouble putting what he thought into words.
“She won’t be cheap.”
The old male just laughed it off. “It’s on me. I can keep the Zonian and get you this baby as payment for your half of it.”
Only, a thousand Zonians wouldn’t have amounted to the price tag of this technological beauty.
“Don’t sweat it, boy. Someone owes me a favor. I’m collecting. No money will exchange hands on this.”
Kai recalled getting small, insignificant presents on a yearly basis. A small scarf with his name embroidered on it. A toy. A little knife. It had been a long, long time ago. He hadn’t thought he’d ever feel that way again.
“The wolves can’t live in there. She’s too small.”
Ian shrugged off his concern.
“They can stay with me when you’re using her.” He turned to the noble. “Does it come in black?”
Wen nodded with grace. “All our ships are entirely customizable.”
“Good, good. Let’s get the details sorted.” They started walking away, speaking low, whispering secrets Kai chose not to intrude on. Besides, he was too busy drooling over the ship, checking out its every angle.
“Kai!” Ian called out at some point. “What’s her name?”
He should have thought about it long and hard. Naming a ship was no small matter; it had taken them a long time to settle on the Zonian years ago.
But eyes flashed through Kai’s mind. One blue, one gold. He just said, “Lotus.” Why the child made him think of a lotus at all, he wasn’t sure. But calling his ship after the little lady who’d saved his life felt right. “The Black Lotus.”
“I like it. Classy. Slightly evil. Suits you.”
And she did.
His first mission was badly planned and should have ended up in a disaster. The Lotus saved his damn skin though. Wen Aris was no liar, evidently; her shields were worth their weight in gold.
Kai and Krane used to listen to the authorities’ communications to avoid them; now, catching their frequencies, they intercepted words about a kid accused of weilding magic. Kai knew he had to at least try to do something about it.
“We’re not ready,” Krane said. Rightly so.
Kai nodded. “There are only regular guards posted. The inquisitors said they’d be in in the morning. They don’t expect anyone to drop in and try to break the kid out.”
That, he knew from experience.
Krane sighed and just told him, “Don’t die,” knowing he had no way of dissuading Kai from doing anything he wanted to do.
Kai boarded the Lotus, his brand-new, just delivered, Lotus. At Krane’s demand, it was painted black, with red engines and propulsors, which only served to make her more gorgeous.
Sky approved.
“You’re not supposed to be in there,” he told the wolf, who thoroughly ignored him, stubbornly remaining planted on his heels.
Kai sighed and started the engine. Krane opened the trapdoor under the Zonian to let her out.
Eight
In the Beginning
Essel was a small planet of little relevance, other than its physical proximity to Vratis.; it was one of the planets directly under the control of the warlord, simply because it was situated in the same system as his ruling city. The child with magic had been found in one of the farisles, off the planet’s southern hemisphere, but when the reports had come in, the authorities had brought him to the main city.
After landing, Kai made his way to a small pub he knew, where the ale flowed freely and tongues ran just as easily. He got the whole story within half an hour.
The prison wasn’t well secured, thankfully. Just a dozen guards, some of them chilling in their break room, others playing chess.
It should have been easy. It wasn’t.
Walking into a prison didn’t require any particular skills; walking out with someone you’re not meant to take with you could prove problematic, he’d soon learn.
Kai was lucky enough to start with. The official at the reception desk was particularly dense.
“Hey, do you mind if I fill out an application form? Always wanted to wear one of your exosuits.”
The soldier puffed his chest. “There’s a little more to being an enforcer than wearing a cool exosuit,” he said, all the while opening a drawer and fetching an application form.
He had really fallen for it? Kai stared, speechless. Who actually wanted to be an enforcer?
He observed the area behind the reception desk as the guard was distracted. A light control panel. New tech flap doors, no doubt set to only open to authorized personnel. Cameras. Floating surveillance drones.
He bit his lip.
“There you go.”
Kai took the pile of forms and the pen the guard helpfully handed him, before walking away.
What now?
He thought back to his own stay in the warlord’s prison. The child had reached into his mind and talked to him. She’d knocked out the guards. Damn, she’d be handy right about then. Still, he might not be able to do anything like that, but he had other skills.
Kai discreetly slid a command control down his sleeve and placed it atop his pile of papers. He began entering codes, typing so fast the screen blurred.
He smirked. The security around their server was downright laughable. The lights, along with every other machine in the building, shut off.
“What was that?”
He smirked as the buffoon behind the desk got to his feet, looking around. “No clue, mate. A bad fuse?”
“Maybe. Let me call someone.”
“Sure. I’ll stay right here,” Kai lied. The second he’d disappeared, Kai got to his feet and made his way toward the back of the precinct.
Turned out, quiet, irrelevant planet or not, they were busy in Essel. Almost every cell was occupied with at least two or three inmates, all of whom cheered and called to him. Kai ran through the long corridors, looking over his shoulder, expecting guards to be alerted by the commot
ion any second.
He found the child in the last cell. There was no doubt that it was the boy he sought; no child of twelve or thirteen would have been imprisoned for any reason but magic. Besides, the boy watched him with resigned eyes, not even crying in fear.
He knew that look. This was a mage living on borrowed time.
“Hey, look, I’m here to get you out, okay?”
The boy’s expression was shocked, more than anything else.
Kai didn’t have time to try to convince him. He was locked away behind a console meant to be opened with fingerprint identification.
“Shit,” he cursed, hearing fast footsteps behind him, approaching at high speed. “Okay, step away from the doors.”
The boy obeyed carefully.
“Here goes nothing….”
Kai hadn’t used magic in so long, he didn’t even know if he still could. But the moment he decided to, the moment he breathed, just breathed and reached down inside, he found it.
Just like he had years ago, his hand reached out as he called to the energy around him and used it, firing directly at the cage. The console exploded, pushing the door off its hinges. Every other door in the entire precinct opened, as well.
Good thing. The guards were going to be busy.
Right then, the lights turned back on and a high-pitched alarm resounded through the building.
“You’re okay?” he asked the stunned kid who looked at him like he’d grown horns and a tail over the course of the last half second.
“You’re a mage.”
He was, although it now seemed like a strange fact, too long ignored.
“So are you, I hear.”
The boy nodded, his expression terrified at the very prospect.
Kai wanted to tell him it was no big deal, that his ability to use energy didn’t define what kind of person he was. But even if he had been any good at sharing feelings, they didn’t exactly have the time for a heart to heart, so he simply said, “Let’s get out of here.”
But that proved to be difficult, with every exit blocked and more guards surrounding the building at every instant.
They found a service staircase; he considered going down to get out, but figured any male called in would arrive that way. Instead, they headed up to the roof. A bad idea. Second mental note: prisons generally had a security droid posted on their roof, and when they were on alert, they also had fighting drones firing away. Kai grabbed the kid up and danced away to avoid the blasts coming at them from all sides. Good thing the machines weren’t that great at aiming. That, or he wasn’t bad at avoiding their shots.
Finally, there she came. The red lights of his beautiful Lotus, heading toward him thanks to the beacon he wore on his wrist. The ship was so responsive, she could practically think. It started firing at the drones, which turned their attention to her, rather than carrying on trying to kill Kai and the boy.
“Listen, what’s your name, kid?”
“Wench,” the teenager replied. He shrugged. “I’m small. Pa says I should have been a girl, so he calls me Wench.”
Fucking stupid father. “Right. Well, how good are you at jumping?”
“Errr….”
“If it’s jumping or dying.”
“Pretty good. I’m pretty good at not dying.”
Clever boy. Kai dropped him at his side, grabbed his arm, and they ran hard to gain some momentum, then they jumped together toward the boarding platform and open trapdoor underneath the Lotus. The ship closed the entrance as soon as they were safely inside.
Kai couldn’t believe they’d somehow gotten in there without getting shot, given his poor-ass plan.
“Get us out of here,” he ordered. The ship acknowledged the voice control and sped away from the danger at high speed.
Sky awaited him, lying down next to the captain’s chair. He could have sworn the wolf was shaking her head at him. Still, she licked his hand when he passed her by.
“Wow,” the boy named Wench mused. “That was literally insane. And have you seen this ship?”
“Trust me, I have.”
“And is that a wolf?”
Boys. Kai managed a thin smile; everything seemed to delight the impressionable teenager.
“Meet Sky. Touch her at your own risk.”
The she-wolf bared her teeth to punctuate that statement. Wench didn’t take it personally, too busy looking everywhere in wonder.
“This ship is going to be wanted throughout the galaxy after today,” the boy said, and Kai nodded.
“Yep. Which is why we aren’t flying her through the galaxy.” He pointed to the small freighter now coming into view. “The Zonian. She’s pretty plain and easily cloaked.”
“And no one will think that you’re hiding a freaking beauty like this inside that old dumpster.”
Kai glared.
“Call her that again and you’ll walk.”
No one insulted his ship. Or Krane’s, anyway.
The old male and four wolves were waiting for them when they got back.
“You managed, then.”
He inclined his head. “Only just.”
The male nodded. “We’ll be better prepared next time.”
And they were. The next time and the time after that.
After a few months, Kai started to wonder what he was supposed to do with the dozens of teenagers and slightly younger boys and girls who now inhabited the Zonian. There was just enough room for them, and every month, their numbers rose. Soon, the ship would be crowded.
That’s when the first of them turned up. An adult, actually older than Kai. He’d heard about a rogue who risked his skin to save mage kids.
“I thought it was just talk at first. Legends. But someone I trust swore it was happening. I knew it was time.”
Lawer was a transporter specializing in high-risk cargo, legal or illegal. He also was a mage who’d managed to hide it for longer than Kai.
He wasn’t the only one who sought him out.
A year later, Kai had a fleet. Seven larger ships, three dozen fighters. A small fleet, but a fleet nonetheless. There was no other word for it.
That’s when he took over his first planet, in the year 1214—almost by accident.
Nine
Alliances
Nalini never lost track of Kai.
It took a while for her to identify their strange link, the life force she was somehow always conscious of; it felt far and close all at once. Each time she cleared her mind and meditated, under the order of Warlord Enlil, to scan for relevant threats, she felt it. Him.
She was twelve when she consciously realized what it was. Over the course of the three previous years, it had been a familiar, yet foreign, presence she somehow got used to. It bothered her at first, but after months, she’d come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t cut it out or shield herself away from it. And later, she’d learned to find comfort in that familiar presence that made her feel a little less alone in her darkest nights.
She learned it was Kai the day he almost died. The usually benign, inconsequential awareness made itself pressing, almost painful. She knew what to do instinctively, as though something else—someone else—deep inside her had done it a thousand times.
She closed her eyes, letting her body collapse where it stood, although she’d been in a meeting. Poor Enlil made a fuss over her after the fainting spell. He’d insisted that she had to take more fresh air and fed her nice fresh fruits for weeks after that. He’d grown so very fond of his favorite weapon, losing it to sickness wouldn’t sit well with him.
As her shell fell, her consciousness travelled at an impossible speed, pulling her where she needed to be.
Kai was sitting on a plain single bed. He’d changed in three years; unlike her, he was quite grown up. He wore white clothing and, over it, a grayish sort of cape. And there was something in his expression she hadn’t seen before. Something darker, wilder.
“You!”
He saw her. She lifted a brow, start
led and confused.
“Me,” she confirmed, turning on her heels to observe their surroundings, trying to understand what was happening.
They were in a small chamber that was kept neat, clothing folded and piled up on a shelf, the bed was made, and there was a blaster at the ready next to the pillow. Good.
“What are you doing here?”
An interesting question. Not sure how to answer it, she countered with one of her own. “Where are we?”
He observed her closely, frowning.
“Tenera, in the Krazu system,” he practically growled. “The royals make children fight in a pit for their amusement around these parts.”
The very idea seemed repulsive to him. She smiled, hoping against all hope that he’d stay that way. That he’d stay good.
There was a chance he wouldn’t. Someday, he might be a new Enlil. Only much, much more powerful. Part of her knew to fear him for that possibility.
“You’ve infiltrated them in order to attempt to break them out,” she guessed, impressed and a little proud, too.
Kai nodded.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you were found out. You’re about to die,” she told him, because she felt it at the core of her very being.
As a seer, she knew better than to ignore her instincts.
“Are you serious?”
She nodded. “And now that I’m here, I might just die along with you.”
A guess, but now that she’d said it, it felt right. To test a theory, she brought her fingers close to the nearest object—a chair. She wasn’t surprised when her skin touched the metallic surface, finding it cold.
“I’m really here,” she mused.
Nalini felt the presence before they heard a dozen footsteps speeding their way.
“I hope you’re good with that.” She waved toward his blaster, which briskly flew out toward him; Kai jumped to his feet, caught it, and raised it rather than asking questions. He trusted her implicitly, she realized, stunned because she wasn’t used to it. Enlil doubted her every word, questioning her motives. He demanded every detail, every reasoning, before settling on a course of action.
