by Mick Fraser
“You know, he probably fucking would. Doesn’t help me though... Shit. They were burning the brand? Really? It’s been almost ten years. And we got our arses kicked.”
“I’m telling you, it was the brand.” He swore. “Founder’s blood, Ellys. This isn’t good.”
Drenno sat up, leaning forward on the console. “Hit me.”
“Hit you? I need someone to hit me.”
“Bard...”
“Hera’s Arch. The coordinates are in Hera’s Arch.”
“That’s through the Heligan Blockade. That can’t be right.”
“It’s a Deadworld called Nix. It’s in illegal space.”
Drenno sat back, chewing his lip. Something about the news didn’t surprise him, but he wasn’t happy about it either. “Well, that’s that. Can you get us through?”
“Oh, I can get you in and out, if you’re certain it’s the right course.”
“Too late to start thinking ahead now.”
Bard looked troubled, leaned closer to his monitor. “Listen, Evayne won’t stop now. You know that. And she won’t waste much time chasing you; she’ll find a way to get ahead of you. You’ll walk right into it.”
“C’mon, Bard. You know me.”
“I do – that’s what I’m worried about. I know Rathe’s death must be hurting you, and I know you’ll react the way you always do: you’ll throw yourself into something you can’t climb back out of. Just go steady, okay? Breathe a little.”
“I’m fine, Bard.”
“Even if that were possible, which it’s not, I don’t believe you. You’ve only got one gear.” He leaned back a little, his manner softening. “I’m burning this data my end. You got it?”
The console beeped. “Yeah.”
“Alright. I gotta go. One of these days they’re gonna start asking questions.”
“Of you? The decorated hero?”
“Right… Hey, Ellys, for what it’s worth, I still wish you’d pulled me out of that damned blood bucket.”
Drenno shook his head. “You’re where I need you, Bard. And Keera wouldn’t have wanted you out here. She’d be glad at least one of us wasn’t in the same deep shit.”
“Maybe. I mean, she always did like me better.”
“In your dreams, hotshot. Give my love to Namie.”
“I will. Keep your head down.” His face grew serious. “Hope in the light, man.”
Drenno laughed, surprised at how much he meant it. “Fuck you, Bard.”
“You too, Ellys. Hey: be careful.”
The monitor blinked off.
CHAPTER 21
~TRAIN/WRECKED~
WITH A HEAD like the inside of a marching drum, Angela stood in the training room before Illith, trying not to visibly wince at every sound. The dizziness had mostly dissipated, which was a relief, and the shower had refreshed her a little, but her head felt like it had been pounded flat and rolled back together.
Illith regarded her coldly, head slightly on one side, the way a cat might watch a mouse. She waited until Angela started to feel uncomfortable under the stare before speaking. “Hruskan Red is an Avellian beverage. Neat, it is used by humans as an anaesthetic. It takes considerable conditioning and watering down before you can drink it straight from the bottle. I can only assume Gaelan was amusing herself.”
“Too many words,” Angela groaned. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Well that remains to be seen.” Illith raised her hands, sweeping them out as though revealing the room for the first time. “This is my sancto, where I train my body every day. Now I intend to impart its secrets onto you, so that together we of this crew can seek just recompense for the death of Rathe Massai. Our brief time here previously was a taster, and it showed me what I needed to know of you.”
“Right.”
“That you are weak.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.”
“It was not an insult, mystraal. It is a fact. You may know how to fight against others as weak as yourself, but if you were to face a Silsir, an Endrani, an Exethan, in open battle, you would be dead in moments – even with your gifts. I intend to fix that. We have six days until we reach our destination; in that time I will begin to condition you.”
Her head spun. “Six days? How much can you teach me in less than a week?”
Illith tapped the back of her neck. “We can make a solid start, thanks to the Amp. It increases physical strength, muscle memory, reflex speed, cognitive development, stamina and adrenal efficiency. It will regulate your arcing, but more than that, it will allow you to absorb instruction faster, recover from injury quicker, and develop essential survival skills at an accelerated rate.”
The Silsir stepped aside lithely, revealing a headless mannequin clothed in a short-sleeved, skin-hugging black suit made of interwoven mesh stitched with dark grey ribbing. There were reinforced pads along the wrists, biceps, shoulders, along the thighs and shins, like armour. Angela moved closer, and realised the suit wasn’t black, but multi-coloured with night-dark shades of red, green, blue and yellow, darkened so deeply that together they appeared almost pitch. “This is a Mark 4 Wasp-Class Utani Hypersuit. It is the raiment of AEGIS instant-action shock operatives, commonly known as Harlequins. It will be yours when you are ready for it.”
Beside it was a clean silver box, about waist-high. Illith tapped a touchpad on top and it came apart, the sides spreading open and the lid sliding back to allow a rack of shelves to rise from within. The shelves were loaded with weaponry, utility belts, items of clothing.
“Weapons,” she announced. “We have a variety here, most of which you need not worry about. But there are a few that I would like you to become familiar with. This—” she removed what looked like a blade-less hilt from one of the shelves— “is a coiled fibrum sword, also called a magnablade.” She pressed a switch and a serpentine coil of segmented plates unfurled from within and formed a straight, gleaming blade, which then began to glow faintly red. “The fibrum super-heats in heartbeats and will cut into or through most compounds. It, like plasma, can be stopped by one of these.” She retracted the blade and returned the hilt, then withdrew a small black device, which she clipped to her wrist. When she shook her arm and made a fist, a fan of emerald energy blossomed into a semi-transparent disc. “You are familiar with this, yes? It is a plasma shieldlet, and will deflect incoming attacks for a time. When it turns from green to red, it is close to failing.”
Deactivating and returning it, Illith selected something from within the box and threw it to Angela, who caught it clumsily as the chest closed itself and sank into the floor. It was a dark blue outfit made from a material similar to spandex.
“Put that on.”
Angela looked around. “Here?”
“You have something I have not seen?”
“Well, I don’t know…”
“Relax. Look.” Illith turned away, and Angela quickly changed. The spandex felt a little odd, too tight on her bust, too loose on her lower legs. She bounced up and down a few times, ignoring the pain in her head.
“Okay. Now, what?”
Illith pointed at the ground, where a familiar red light appeared. “Arc to this point.”
“We covered this.”
“No. We tried and you failed. Arc to this point.”
Once again she tried to remember what it felt like to arc. She tried to summon the sensation of heat, felt it welling in her arms and flaring in her breast, when suddenly it worked: in a flash of light and searing heat she darted forward, over-shooting the target by more than metre. She almost cheered, but Illith looked unimpressed. “Now there,” she ordered, indicating a second spot of light several metres away. Angela cricked her neck, shook her arms loose, headache all but forgotten. She located the spot, focused, arced. It felt like leaping, she realised, like diving headlong. A third light appeared on the floor, and she went to it immediately, then to a forth, and a fifth, missing each one by various distances. With every arc, the heat and pain intensified frac
tionally, until at last she made an attempt that ended in a flash of hot agony. Instead of arcing she stumbled forward, toppling to her knees. Her limbs burned with fatigue.
Illith, still standing in the centre of the room, appraised her silently. After a moment she said, “Interesting.”
“I’m glad you’re entertained,” Angela panted.
“I am not entertained; I am educated. This is a study in progress. Now we know that the ability is finite. Tell me: have you danced your whole life?”
“Since I could walk. I dance for me. It’s… therapy. Why?”
“You have a certain way of moving. A grace. It is unrefined but may yet serve us well. On your feet.”
Unsteadily, Angela rose. The pain was gone now, and her strength was returning. Illith tapped the floor with her foot, and a ring of blue light appeared around them, with a blue line travelling from one side to the other between them. The Silsir moved forward to stand with her bare white toes touching her side of the line. “Position,” she snapped, and Angela did as she was bid.
“Now I want you to hit me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Throw a punch.”
“I don’t want t—” Illith’s fist cracked against her right cheek like a cannonball, spinning her and dropping her to her knees. Her blood flared immediately and she leapt up, still too groggy, retaliating with a far-too-wide left hook that the Silsir blocked with humiliating ease. A second cannonball exploded against her ribs, then a third lifted her clean off her feet. Her clumsy attempt to rise through the pain and disorientation was rewarded by a sweeping kick that floored her completely. She rolled over with a grunt, holding her aching cheek, to look up into Illith’s expressionless face.
“Well,” said the Silsir, “at least we know you are tough, if a little stupid. Let us try that again.”
Pushing one hand beneath her chest, Angela forced herself up. She raised her fists, planted her back foot. Illith threw a punch that she swayed away from, then another, but the third blow connected out of the blue, a battering ram in the solar plexus. Air blasted from her lungs and she went down to her knees again.
Illith sighed. “We have a lot of work to do.”
For the rest of the day they alternated arc practice with fist-fighting, and Angela’s battered body ran the gamut between Illith’s barely-restrained beatings and the burning pain in her limbs as she repeatedly pushed her arcing to its limit. Each time her instructor-slash-torturer called a break, she could almost feel the Amp repairing her damaged flesh, lightening bruises and stitching hairline bone fractures. The only thing it didn’t do was take away the pain. It could have been five hours or ten when Illith suddenly clapped her hands, removing the floor lights.
“Go now,” she said. “Rest. We will continue tomorrow.”
Gratefully, Angela gathered her clothes and left the sancto, heading back to her quarters along the green line. She had barely collapsed onto her bed when the door shushed open, and Gaelan appeared, smiling. “How’s your head?”
She opened a bleary eye. “Well, I’m not hung-over anymore.”
“Golden – because you’ve got a flying lesson.”
Gaelan took Angela down to the shuttle bay, where Dizzy and Shimmer were still working on the crashed Jackdaw. They had righted her, somehow, and cleared away the debris from around her belly. The To’ecc was underneath, cutting something or other with a blowtorch, while Shimmer hovered above him on a small floating platform propelled by tiny jets, studiously working on a panel of exposed wires. She looked down through her full-face mask, and waved a slender, three-fingered hand. Dizzy hadn’t said much since Rathe’s death and the escape from Haze, but he looked up over the flare of the blowtorch as the two young women entered the small hangar. He noted the faint bruises on Angela's cheek and winced dramatically.
“Illith must be training you,” he said, sliding out a little from beneath the shuttle. “How’s that going?”
“Take a guess,” she replied. Looking up, she saw that they had covered most of the more extensive damage with metal plates and patches of weld. “How’s your ship?”
He shrugged. “She’ll fly. Just not today.” He looked at Gaelan. “Are you taking the Snike?”
“Do’vah says I have to teach this one to pilot,” the Avellian answered. “And since you can’t fly straight, the only thing left is the Snike.”
“Can’t fly straight? I taught you everything you know, sweetheart. Your father too, and don’t you forget it.”
As he slid back underneath the Jackdaw, Gaelan stepped between Dizzy’s outstretched legs and signalled Angela to follow. She led her around the shuttle to where a second waited, this one much smaller, snub-nosed, painted pale grey. Gaelan opened the side door like a van and climbed inside, and Angela followed. The interior was compact, barely big enough to smuggle anything worthwhile. The Avellian helped Angela clip her safety harness into place. A flight stick stood in front of each seat, as well as an identical bank of switches. The writing was illegible to Angela, and Gaelan began by explaining what most of the main buttons and switches were for.
“The column steers,” she said, tapping the flight stick. “The vertical is inverted, you understand?”
“Down is up. Standard.”
Gaelan scoffed. “Right. Acceleration is here—” she indicated a slider on Angela’s right, “—and these switches here deploy side thrusters; they’ll help you bank. I’ll talk you through it.”
Angela’s heart was pounding and she took a deep breath. Gaelan tapped a few buttons; the dashboard lit up. Ahead of them, the cargo doors began to open, revealing the airlock doors beyond. The intercom buzzed.
“You got an hour,” said Drenno over the comms. “Then we’re back in Phase-shift. Don’t scratch our last tug.”
Gaelan didn’t reply as she remotely opened the airlock doors. She pushed forward on the accelerator and the Snike whirred, lifting shakily from the ground. The Avellian looked sideways at Angela. “Relax, Earthborn. You’re just earning your keep.”
CHAPTER 22
~TRY NOT TO THINK OF IT AS LOSING~
FOR THE NEXT four days, Angela’s training continued at a similar pace. Illith’s regime was tough, but thanks to the Amp she found she was able to retain information unconsciously, and then apply it without direct thought. The process was no instant quick-fix, but whatever chemicals the Amp was flooding her body with were also shaping her, refining her physique incrementally, improving her stamina and speed daily.
On the second day, Illith introduced weapons to the routine, teaching her the basics of using various melee weaponry. Having learned self-defence and disarming techniques from her granddad, Angela progressed swiftly, earning fewer beatings for failure than she had previously. When she arrived in the sancto on the third day, Illith had constructed a small firing range. She handed Angela a pistol of sorts, light and black, shaped like a flintlock but with a pair of arms at one end similar to a crossbow. There was no trigger, but a pressure pad embedded in the handgrip end made the weapon whirr slightly when her fingers brushed it. Ahead of her, holographic pop-up targets buzzed an inconsistent tune as they rose and fell in random order.
“That is a dashbow; a long-range plasma-based precision weapon,” Illith instructed her. “Use it to hit the red, but avoid the blue.”
She shook her arms loose and waited for the first red target to appear. It popped up and she reacted instinctively, squeezing the pressure pad. A crackle of energy sparked along each arm, merging at the centre to tear through the air and explode against the target’s upper body.
“Centre mass,” Illith said, a note of mild surprise sneaking into her tone. “Again.”
There followed two more red targets, then three blue and one more red. Angela hit all the hostile targets with unexpected ease.
“You have used a dashbow or handcannon before?” Illith asked her.
“No. Never.”
“Hmm. We may have found something you are good at.”
Angela smiled, but Illith clapped her hands and the targets resumed their dance, this time moving from side to side. “Again!” she barked.
In the evenings Angela flew for an hour with Gaelan while the Phase-drive recharged. The basics were simple enough, like driving a car in many ways, but the advanced flight controls and the dashboard layout were still beyond her. Shimmer assured her that she was learning quicker than usual, but the Amp could only enhance innate skill, which inferred that Angela was a better markswoman than pilot. In the long run, she figured she could probably live with that.
She still struggled to fully bond with the Avellian girl. While they had many things in common, Gaelan’s mood swings sometimes made her standoffish for no apparent reason, and occasionally her mood would turn dark at the drop of a hat. She missed Rathe dearly, that much was clear, but Angela also recognised frustration. Gaelan wanted off the Shadowstar. At 19, who wouldn’t?
Of Gage she saw little, which was something of a relief. The Auton was aggressive in her mourning, and even the rest of the crew were giving her a wide berth. During one of her nightly visits to the medical lab, Angela asked Six-Tails why he thought Gage hated her, to which he simply replied, “She hates everyone, Angela. Why should you come aboard and be the exception?” It was a fair point.
Drenno spent his days on the bridge alongside Dizzy, or helping with the repairs to the Jackdaw. At other times he simply disappeared. When he did, no one looked for him or asked after him, and Angela guessed it was something he did regularly. He was grieving; they all were, but they all dealt with it in different ways. Besides Gaelan’s, Angela hadn’t seen a single tear shed for Rathe. It simply wasn’t their way.
At the end of the fifth day, after more solid beatings than she cared to count, Illith summoned the mannequin once more. She seemed less outwardly hostile than she normally did.
“It is time to see how you handle a hypersuit,” she said. “Put it on.”
