by Lisa Eskra
Magnius watched him try to pull himself out of the smoking hovercar, but he'd been pinned behind the wheel. Streams of blood trickled down his forehead where he hit the steering console in front of him. Despite his immense power, his strength posed no match for the cage of metal that surrounded him. Magnius seized the opportunity to get away. Once Tiyuri got free, he'd try to hunt down Lyneea and use her as a bargaining chip to force Magnius to surrender without a fight. He hoped she wouldn't be here.
"I'll find you, Magnius!" In the cool air Tiyuri's voice echoed for blocks with a chilling tone that would forever haunt his dreams. "I will find you!"
And Magnius never once turned back, fearing he'd already wasted too much time and would only find an empty landing site. Fortunate for him, the Allied Fleet rarely left on time. Never in his life would he be so happy to see them.
***
Commander Mundammi cracked his knuckles and tried to make sense out of the cryptic message on the computer screen in front of him. He should've been off-duty an hour ago, but before he left his office, he received an urgent communiqué from Admiral McKirin. He put the entire fleet on high alert for any sightings of an unidentified vessel, and a number of ships had been diverted to Avia for reasons not disclosed. The careful wording gave him the impression this wasn't just another drill, and the fact that the PAU wasn't specifically named added to his bewilderment.
He rested his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. The fleet's alarm was probably much ado about nothing. Several months ago, a PAU probe had wandered off course when a comet damaged it. The entire incident set off hysteria that took weeks to resolve. Doom-and-gloom reports were nothing more than a misunderstanding.
Their mission of peace envoy to Sirius sent his blood boiling. He blamed the PAU government for the death of his parents, knowing they swept the deaths of those terreformers under the rug and deemed it an accident. The PAU either needed to be conquered or annihilated; as an ally, they would certainly be trouble, always planning and waiting to strike the AC if it weakened.
The ship landed on Fantasti several hours ago, and since they had not yet left, he decided to go outside and have a smoke to clear his head. The peace it offered him would be fleeting, yet unwinding in the warm night air would only take a few minutes. He did his best not to let the stress get to him, but it came with the territory. Responsibility for the vessel and its entire crew rest on his shoulders, and he did not take it lightly.
The captain emerged from the aft hold and lit a cigarette the instant he set foot on the planet. Kevin and Sibo chatted with Amii, both of them joking around in a vain attempt to outdo the other one in the hopes they'd score with her. To Rashad, she looked no better than average. Despite having the body of a lanky teenage boy, self-confidence guided her every gesture. Her expressive face bore her emotions with ease. He paid no attention to their conversation, preferring instead to smoke by himself.
Gazing at his ship, he took several relaxing puffs of hashish. The Kearsarge stood fifty feet high: a hulking gold vessel dated by its bulky design, inefficient layout, and lack of livable area. The exterior hull glistened under the bright lights like a disco ball from the alloy used in its armor plating. It was the only Orion-class vessel ever commissioned due to the rapid advances in technology in the 2270's. The Kearsarge was a monstrosity on the outside but a good ship, more capable than most gave it credit for.
After several minutes, Amii approached him and broke his state of calmness. "Is there a reason you don't smoke on board, Commander?"
"Hashish is banned aboard vessels of the AC fleet, but on many worlds it's legal. Every time we land someplace where it's freely trafficked, I have one. It's my wife's fault I got hooked on the stuff, and now that she's gone I can't bring myself to give it up."
"What happened?"
Rashad took a long drag, hesitant to discuss the past. "She was murdered one night by a psion. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it. She saved me from the streets of New Ireland. She'd been nothing but a kind soul her entire life." His eyes glazed over.
"I'm sorry to hear that. No one deserves to die that way."
"When I got my start at the Academy, our class was shown a video of a psion feeding. The sight was so gruesome I had nightmares for a month afterwards. And the damned mind-raper who did it is probably still out there somewhere. I have got to believe there's a fate worse than death waiting for those people."
She furrowed her brow. "What about the others, the ones who choose not to kill and just want a normal life?"
Her blatant naïveté annoyed him. "There are no innocent psions. The fact that some are ashamed to be psions only proves that point."
"And for that they deserve to die?"
"I just wish all of this psionic criminal testing had come along sooner. Then they would've caught the psions that abused their powers before it became so us-versus-them. I'd always been indifferent toward psions. I didn't bother them and they didn't bother me. It's funny how one twist of fate can change someone."
Amii smiled. "Kind of like something falling off a shelf and hitting me in the head?"
The captain allowed himself to chuckle. "Yes. Just like that."
"For however much it's worth, I think you should know Nadine is a good person. She has every reason to hate normal humans. By every account she should've become the next Aliane. But she didn't. She put that bitterness aside. She's fighting for psions' rights and working to broker peace across Astra. And she's being rewarded for all this by being confined to her quarters. She's a better person than I am because I'd have given up a long time ago."
"Why are you defending her? You barely know her."
"You're right. But there are three types of people: ones who contribute to the world around them in a meaningful way, those who seek to destroy that which others have built up, and people who don't matter in the greater scheme of things. I happen to think Nadine is someone who will change Astra for the better, and for that I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt."
After several pulls off what remained of his hashish cigarette, Commander Mundammi sighed. "I can't argue with that logic." He threw the butt on the ground and smashed it into the dirt.
Most pro-psion advocates drew on people's compassion, declaring equality a founding principle of democracy. Before he could ask her about her ideology, Rashad caught sight of a vehicle heading in their direction. The headlights were spaced too close together to be a hovermobile. His other two officers snapped to attention and drew their weapons in caution.
"Amii, why don't you head back inside…" he said. She seemed to object, but nodded and darted into the cargo hold out of sight.
When the vehicle pulled into the light, they noticed it was not a car but a hoverbike. Few people owned the braying death machines because of their cost. The rider removed his black helmet and put up his hands to dissuade any cause for alarm. His dark eyes possessed a sleepless shadow, and his suit bore wrinkles on top of wrinkles. His build was average, but Rashad underestimated no one.
"Identify yourself," the captain declared.
He raced up to the Kearsarge and took several deep breaths to compose himself. "My name is Matt Zoleki. I would not have come here but it's an emergency. I was being chased by a psionic assassin—"
"And you confused the military with the police? Why do people always do that? If you need to get in touch with your local law enforcement, do that and be on your way." Rashad narrowed his eyes at him, and then his mind shifted gears. "Wait, you said a psionic assassin? I don't know anyone who's gotten away and lived to tell. What happened?"
The man took a deep breath. "He was in an accident with another vehicle. I was just amazingly lucky. There's nothing the police can do for me, no way for them to protect me from anyone like him. You know that. He will keep coming until his mission is complete."
Sibo regarded Magnius. "You do look familiar…"
"I own Fantasti Fisheries. It's on the coast a few miles from here."
Kevin and Sibo glanced at each other and smiled, humming the jingle the company was famous for. "The best fish in the sea come from Fantasti! Fishery!"
An uncomfortable silence followed. Magnius glanced back and forth between both of them. "I'm not insane. Really, I'm not. I wouldn't be asking if this wasn't a life-or-death situation. But it is. Please."
Rashad pursed his lips. "Why was this assassin after you?"
"He's under the impression I'm somebody else. And I'm sure I'd make great blackmail fodder for those people on Superbia. Every year they seem to keep getting bolder and bolder. Who will they target next? The President of Chara?"
He wanted to toss Magnius back to the wolves when something occurred to him. He recalled the name Lyneea Zoleki on the passenger manifest. Was the story he'd just spun real or an excuse to join her here? Certainly the bruises on that man's face weren't self-inflicted. The last thing he wanted to do was turn him away and read about his murder the next morning.
"You said you own Fantasti Fisheries?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"You can stay aboard on one condition: we leave with a hundred pounds of fish in the hold. That should be enough for two good meals to each member of my crew. And I'll drop you off on New England, Chara. Is it a deal?"
"Yes. Thank you."
As Magnius dragged his hoverbike into the cargo area, Rashad left him with one parting thought: "I want you to stay away from your wife. If you disturb the peace, you'll spend the remainder of your time in the brig. Is that understood?"
He peered down at the floor. "Absolutely."
"Lieutenant-Commander King is on the bridge. I trust you can guide him to the loading dock of your operation." Mundammi gestured inside the ship. "Welcome to the Kearsarge."
Chapter Six
From Amii's upper bunk the striated metal ceiling looked alive. When she focused on one section, the grooves in her peripheral vision churned like charmed snakes dancing the conga. The ship's hyperdrive variance generated the optical illusion as a side effect of faster-than-light-speed travel. The Kearsarge had a unique audible signature because the engines were tuned so well. The deep, pulsating rhythm never faded no matter where she went, but it was insufficient to lull her off to bed.
Nadine fell asleep below her more than four hours ago. Since then, she observed every minute pass on her implant. Being on a strange ship did her no favors, nor did laying alone with her muddled thoughts and questions about the kind of life she might have lost. Did she have a husband or children out there somewhere, fretful that their mother had perished in the attack on Pisa? What did she like to do in her free time? Did she have any hobbies?
The uncertainty festered and ate her brain as the hours ticked by. She remembered Astra with great clarity. The AC. The PAU. Human history of the past 300 years. Politics of the 24th century. But none of that shed any light on the woman she used to be.
The door latch clicked. Her defensive instincts took over and she watched it open with urgent vigilance. When Dr. Jones entered the room shadowed by Xander, she breathed. After the scientist glanced toward her, the anxiety returned. While she didn't remember the man, there was an indescribable familiarity about him. As she climbed down from her bunk, she barely noticed the doctor leave.
"Xander, what's going on?"
He hugged her. "Amii, Amii, Amii…I'd be so lost without you." He spotted Nadine under the blankets of the bottom bunk and lowered his voice in respect. "You really don't remember, do you…even I hoped you might be faking it. Bloody wishful thinking."
"What happened? On Pisa?"
"The PAU finally caught up to me, though why they decided to shell the lab is anyone's guess. Wankers. Sorry excuse for a military if you ask me. I looked for you, but you'd already left. I was terrified, but at least I could track you." He pointed to his wrist implant. "I knew you'd gotten away, but you're fast. All I could do was pray the Souljas didn't find you."
"So our meeting hadn't been fortuitous?"
He smirked. "Hardly. People are quick to credit fate, but upon deeper inspection, control was never out of their hands in the first place. Fate is not the new-age religion some make it out to be. Everything that happens in life is our doing. Never forget that."
Amii spotted herself in the mirror and felt again as though she laid eyes upon a stranger. "Do you know how terrifying it is to not have any idea who you are?" Her gaze fell upon his reflection in the mirror. "I look around at all these faces and don't know who's a friend. I look at you and see a man I don't know. I feel lost and helpless, not knowing who I can trust…"
He lowered his eyes to hide the hint of sadness inscribed on his face. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
She quelled her grief and touched his hands. "Xander, have you ever felt so alone?"
"Yes. It was actually what I wanted for some time. My wife had just died. I felt like my work wasn't coming along like it should have been. I needed to hide for a while. And then…" He stopped and stared at her. "And then there was you."
"Me? Tell me about my past. Anything. It would mean so much to me."
She sat at the table and watched him pace around the room as he spoke. "Well, your parents were from New England. Very smart, top notch, cracking people. I met them when I began my research at The Palmer Institute. They asked me to tutor you in the sciences, and you were so fascinated with how things worked, I couldn't refuse."
He paused and swallowed as though he was holding something back, but continued in his next breath. "You were never any good at programming, but you have steady hands for electronics and robotics. Over the years, my assistants left me…all of them but you. No one else believed in me like you did. When I decided to go to Pisa, you begged me to take you along, much to the chagrin of your parents. They disowned you for leaving with me."
"Why?"
"For the same reason everyone in Astra hates my bloody guts and calls me a fraud. My passion, my dedication—every one of them is blind to it. They call me a failure? These worthless bobbins whose names will be forgotten the moment they die? The truth would bite them all in the arse."
His arrogant tone shamed her. "What else can you tell me?"
"Let's see…you're an incredible pilot. You sit in the dark and paint to trance music. You view politics as reality drama, and you have a bit of an obsessive interest with it. And you always get what you want."
"I'm an incredible pilot?" Of all he'd mentioned, it intrigued her the most.
"Simply the best I have ever seen. We've had to get out of some fairly dicey encounters with PAU ships this past year."
"What did I fly?"
"A petaflop." The small, unarmed vessels were renowned for their speed and amazing agility. Most pilots tried to fly them at some point in their careers, but few had the the skill required to utilize the ship to its full potential.
"How did I get to be such a good pilot?"
"Some people are just born to do things with ships that defy the laws of physics, I suppose."
"You don't have to exaggerate."
He knelt down beside her. "Six months ago, the two of us went to Tau Ceti. I have a friend, a rogue scientist on Beseepin, who had a new polymer he wanted me to look at, to see if it was anything I could use. So we went, and it was just the kind of thing I wanted for my android's skin. I paid handsomely for a bunch of it, and suddenly the PAU's military police barged in. It had been a sting to lure me out. I'll never know how we made it back to the ship with the stuff in one piece. Five of their fighters were on our tail, and I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we were already dead.
"Beseepin has a very mountainous terrain. Most people don't even try to navigate through it because it's so treacherous. But it was our only chance to lose them. You did things that day I didn't even think were possible." His eyes began to cloud over with tears. "We lost three of them in the maze of ravines. One clipped its wing in a narrow mountain pass. And the last one crashed when it didn't ascend fast enough." Recounting the event
made goose bumps perk up on his lower arms. He put his hand on her shoulder. "You have a remarkable gift, Amii. You're a remarkable woman."
Amii weakly smiled back at him. "I'm happy you're here. I've been so bothered I haven't been able to sleep."
"A problem easily solved," Xander said as he reached into his coat and pulled out a couple bags of tea. "Mandarin Cherry. You drink it before bed every night. It's sort of an acquired taste that I've never grown fond of, but it's something you've always sworn by."
He walked over to the sink to prepare the tea, and Amii thought it was fortuitous he happened to have just what she needed in his coat pocket. Of course, Xander struck her as a man who had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. The notion frightened her, and she worried she might be as wanted a criminal as he was.
***
"What do you mean there aren't any quarters left available?"
Magnius glanced at the security officer in incredulous shock like he'd been given a spoon and asked to dig to the center of the earth. He never gave much thought to the idea the Kearsarge might be filled to capacity. Making it on board was the only thing that mattered a few hours ago. Since then, he'd been stuck with the doctor where he tried to explain what happened with Tiyuri. Because the days on Fantasti were shorter, exhaustion threatened with every step. And now this.
"Just what I said, pal," the guard said as the two of them rounded a corner toward the cargo area. "VIPs are in the spare rooms. You weren't on the list so you'll have to take what you get. Tough luck is all I can tell you."
His heart throbbed anxiously at the loss of his privacy. How was he to know they stuck extra people in the hold? At least he'd be there alone to consider his options. Making it to Northampton wasn't enough. He needed a plan once he got there. Tiyuri might not be the brightest assassin, but his fanatical drive set him well above the rest. He may never be able to stop running.
