Empire of Ashes: An Epic Space Opera Series (The Augmented Book 1)

by Ben Hale

  Opening the door, she stepped into the corridor, but again Kensen caught her elbow. She spun back, expecting an argument, but he pulled a red cloth from his side, the one they were supposed to be using to clean. He reached up and tied it around her face, the end hanging over her shoulder. Then he cupped her obscured cheeks in his hands.

  “This is the last time you fight without me,” he said.

  “You’ll have to learn how to fight.”

  His gaze did not waver, but his jaw clenched. “I know.”

  She held his gaze and nodded. Then she whirled and sprinted down the hall. The airlock was open, so she exited through that to avoid the dakorians installing the gravity drive. She bolted down the causeway leading to the station. A running slave would be noticed, so the moment she reached the station, she slowed into a hastened walk. She turned a corner and passed a large group of dakorians, all armed, probably headed for the Nova. She ground her teeth and dropped her gaze, hoping the dakorians listened to Kensen. Several looked at her mask curiously but paid her no mind. When the last had passed, she hurried down the corridor.

  Although she’d never visited the Korgith station, she’d seen where to go in her dream. She passed slaves working on mechs, cleaning the bulkheads, or carrying parts. All trudged on their way, their eyes on the floor until she rushed past, at which point they looked up. Her blond hair bounced on her shoulders, mingling with the strip of red cloth forming her mask.

  She threaded her way through the station, grappling with the knowledge only gained from her strange vision. She did not understand why, only that she had to act. The urge to help Reklin overpowered her caution, driving her faster, but despite her haste, the questions rose like bubbles to the surface of water.

  Had she really seen the future?

  Was she losing her mind?

  Was she dying?

  She swallowed the questions, terrified of the answers, and accelerated again, risking more attention from the krey she passed. Most were engineers from House Thorn’Vall, and they glared at her with their silver eyes. Some muttered and cursed, but the disgust was not directed at her, but rather her owner. They obviously assuming her flight and mask were by command.

  She bolted around a hulking dakorian, threading between him and a bulkhead before turning down a side corridor. The gravity allowed her to follow the curve of the tunnel up and around one of the leisure pods. Another side corridor and she recognized her destination. She accelerated, and just as she entered the corridor, she drew the hilt of her energy blade.

  She turned the corner and sprinted the length of the hall, wondering what she would do against fourteen dakorians, all carrying weapons for crushing and dismemberment. Then she recalled the moment when she’d dueled Reklin. She’d drawn on an unseen strength then, and now she hoped to do so by choice. Tentatively, she reached into her soul, willing that same augment to activate. To her shock, it did.

  Her limbs gathered strength, her feet streaking across the floor with the speed of an elite soldier. All fear crumbled, disintegrating before a surge of power. She activated her blade. The weapon illuminated her passage as the light flattened and turned sharp. She rounded the final corridor.

  She half expected there to be nothing, to find her vision wrong. It would prove that she’d gone mad. But it was exactly as she’d foreseen, with fourteen dakorians arrayed in a semicircle, the one in the center holding the crusher, all facing Reklin. The leader had his hand in the air, ready to give the kill order.

  The corridor had extended straight downward from the station, obscured the Siena from view of the rest of the station. The walls of the corridor rose to Siena’s waist, the windows unfinished and open to space.

  The soldier stood at ease, his stance ready for the fight of his life. He was formidable, Siena had seen enough in their duel to know that, but even a Bloodwall would be hard-pressed to survive such a trap. Reklin’s one advantage was the corridor itself, which would limit how many could strike him at once. But he was also trapped.

  With several dakorians facing away from Siena’s approach, they had yet to notice her small figure, and she used it to her advantage. She closed the gap in a sprint, arriving just as the leader barked an order.

  “Kill him.”

  One dakorian must have heard her footfalls because he glanced over his shoulder. Siena slashed the back of his leg, causing him to falter as the rest charged Reklin. The wounded dakorian grimaced and fell to one knee. Siena sliced him across the back and then the throat, leaping past him as he fell. His groan was lost in the furious clash of blades.

  Siena darted to the next soldier, striking low to again force the dakorian to his knees. Then she delivered a lethal blow. Three fell to her hand before she was noticed, and then someone shouted a warning. They turned on her with a vengeance.

  “It’s a slave!” One laughed. “And she’s got a—”

  Siena’s sweeping blade plunged into his chest, slicing through the bone armor and into his upper heart. His laughter turned to pained shock, and then rage. He retaliated, swinging his hammer for Siena’s skull. She dodged to a window and leapt into the empty air beyond. She caught the vertical bar between windows and swung around to enter the next window, using the supporting strut to absorb the weapon’s impact.

  The blow dented the support, and the sound drew the attention of the rest of the dakorians, including Reklin. At the center of the melee, his fight was desperate. There was a gash on his shoulder, the bone armor split and cracked. Another wound was in his thigh. He stared in disbelief as Siena cut through another dakorian.

  “Will someone kill the animal?” a tattooed dakorian barked.

  “You four,” the leader shouted. “Kill the human.”

  A small group separated from the main attack and spread out, forcing Siena down the corridor. She retreated and then bolted to the window, using it as a springboard to leap to the ceiling. A blade came for her head, and she cringed. Upside down, she tried to shrink lower—and abruptly her feet were sucked upward, carrying her to the ceiling. She stumbled as she landed. There were no gravity repulsors on the ceiling, which was just plain, dark seracrete. She swallowed as she realized that she had manipulated the gravity, and she’d chosen to stand on the ceiling. The dakorians stared at her, equally confused by her sudden reversal.

  “She’s got a gravity leash!” someone bellowed.

  She didn’t have time to understand what had happened. Sprinting across the ceiling, she dodged the hammers and ion bolts before jumping back to the floor. Mercifully, whatever had caused her to land on the ceiling had ended. Relief was followed by a savage burst of pride. What if she could control the augmentations . . .?

  The shock cost her when a hammer lance swung for her waist. She flinched backward, but she was facing the wrong way, and her position did not provide an escape. She grimaced, her heart thundering in her chest at the moment of death—but a broken blade reached out and struck the axe, turning it upward. It passed above her head and lodged in the chest of a charging dakorian.

  Siena didn’t wait for the axe wielder to recover. She sliced across his hand and forced the weapon from his fingers. An ion bolt streaked over her shoulder, burning her flesh, and struck a patch of seracrete plating. It buckled, the metal bent and blackened.

  “Time to go,” Reklin barked as he jumped toward a window.

  He caught the base of the window and heaved himself out and down. Then he flipped and landed on the underside of the corridor. Siena took one look at the handful of dead and the survivors, who regarded her with murderous intent, and then sprinted to follow.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Siena leapt out the window and caught the edge, throwing her body downward. The gravity repulsors along the bottom of the corridor went both ways, but the lower corridor had not been built. She flipped over and down, landing on the underside of the seracrete plating. She regained her feet just as Reklin raised his broken blade and plunged it into the seracrete, severing the power conduits. Siena
immediately began to float away. Panic engulfed her, and she flailed, but Reklin reached over the broken power conduit and caught the back of her shirt. He yanked her to his side, where the gravity repulsors continued to function, and she stumbled to a landing.

  Reklin turned and sprinted toward the space station. “Why did you follow me?” he demanded.

  Of course, Reklin knew her identity, but she couldn’t explain her vision of the future, not to him—or to anyone. She raced after him and, with the extra strength in her body, managed to keep up.

  “I was curious,” she said.

  “Curious enough to risk your life?”

  He obviously didn’t believe her, and she glanced over her shoulder. Several of the dakorians were floating around the outside of the corridor, using ridges of the bulkheads to climb along the edge.

  “I overheard someone talking about taking the ship,” she said. “I came to warn you.”

  “Why?”

  She couldn’t be certain he believed her, but the question was the same regardless. The pair reached the end of the corridor and jumped, both grabbing the outside of another corridor, which allowed them to lever themselves up and inside. As they entered through the window, they startled a pair of slaves that quickly noticed the blood on their bodies and the mask on Siena’s face. The slaves bolted.

  “Are you angry I came?” she asked. “Or angry I saved your life?”

  “Humans do not fight for dakorians,” he said.

  “Would you rather I let you die?” Anger seeped into her voice.

  He rounded on her. “You should not have followed.”

  “That shame must be so great,” she said. “For you to live knowing you were saved by a human.”

  “It would,” he retorted. “But you’re not a normal human.”

  Her anger evaporated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really?” Reklin asked. “Back in that corridor you moved faster than any human I’ve ever seen—even faster than a dakorian.”

  “Adrenaline.” She shrugged like it was nothing.

  “Or you’re an augment.”

  She swallowed against the burst of fear. “A what?”

  Reklin caught her by the back of her shirt and dragged her into an alcove. Leaning down, he hissed, “We both know what you are. I saw the vid of you in Olana’s office. I saw your face heal.”

  Now Siena’s fear turned to panic. “There’s a vid?”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “It’s been destroyed, and I have the only copy. But when we get out of this, I want answers.”

  She glanced to his holoview. He was still holding the back of her shirt, so the crystal was visible close to her face. She remembered Olana’s crystal burning, and on impulse, she imagined overloading his holoview and clenched a fist.

  The crystal in Reklin’s wrist burst into sparks and turned black. Reklin jerked his hand back and rubbed the sudden burn, muttering a curse. Then his hands came to a stop, and he turned to Siena.

  “In the vid,” he said slowly, “Olana tried to summon aid, but her holoview overloaded and burned. You did that?”

  “I didn’t choose to be an augment,” she said quietly. She tensed, waiting for reprisal, but he merely regarded her with a strange look.

  “I cannot promise the Empire won’t discover your identity,” he said. “But I swear it won’t come from me.”

  “Why would you do that for me?”

  “Because you saved my life,” he said. “And I don’t want to be in debt to a human.”

  She was inclined to believe him, but his words made plain their position. She was still a slave and he was still a dakorian, but by keeping her secret, his debt was paid.

  “Agreed,” Siena said. “Now can we get out of here?”

  Reklin’s response was cut off by the rising wail of a siren coming from deep within the station. Reklin turned down the corridor that would take them back to the ship.

  “The alarm has been raised,” he said.

  “I have ears,” she said, drawing another glare.

  “Talk like that to a dakorian, and they’re going to break your bones.”

  “I think I’m way beyond that type of punishment,” she said.

  He snorted, and was that a smile? They hurried down the corridor as slaves fled, disappearing down smaller servant corridors. Reklin searched up and down, scanning for an exit, while the siren blared.

  “Captain Gellow attacked me on a House-owned space station,” Reklin said. “If he’s caught, reckoners will be here within the hour. Right now he’s probably claiming that I’m a criminal, so he has the freedom to attack. If he kills us before we can escape, then he can inform the Empire of our guilt and prevent any consequence.”

  “But he attacked you!”

  “Doesn’t matter. He has to eliminate us, or he’s as good as dead.”

  Picking up the pace, they raced down the corridor until it intersected with one of the leisure pods. They stopped on the threshold and then retreated when it became clear that dakorians were forming into patrols to search the station.

  “This station is owned by a House but operated by three separate crime groups, one of which is controlled by my former captain,” Reklin said. “All three will fight each other at the slightest provocation, but they also stand together if an outsider threatens the station.”

  “You mean us.”

  “Exactly. We need to get outside.”

  He reached for a window and climbed out. Siena stared into the void of space and then reluctantly followed. She joined Reklin on top of the corridor, and both listened to the patrol of soldiers pass beneath them. When the sound faded, Siena breathed a sigh of relief and then noticed Reklin looking upward.

  “Do you still have your gravity leash?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The mech that flipped you upside down. I assume you stole it.”

  She shook her head and then decided that telling him she’d willed the gravity to her desire sounded insane. And she’d already revealed some of her augments. She was not inclined to reveal more until she knew he’d kept his word. Instead, she motioned back to where they’d first fought Captain Gellow.

  “It broke in the conflict,” she said.

  “Too bad. We could have used it to get back to the Nova.”

  “You want to go through that?” She pointed to the maze of supports, corridors, and leisure pods that formed the outside of the space station. The maze of interconnecting girders, stacked and mounted together, created a network of giant squares to which the pods and corridors were attached.

  “Either that or we fight our way through the halls.” Reklin reached for a girder and began to climb. “And from what I understand, there are at least a hundred dakorians on this station, let alone those that could come in through a Gate.”

  Siena grabbed the other side of the cube and began to climb, using the seracrete ridges for purchase. The strength she’d summoned began to ebb, and she struggled to scale the outside of the beam. She’d been so focused on reaching Reklin that she had not thought about a subsequent escape.

  They scaled two cubes and then threaded deeper into the station, their ascent made difficult by the waves of gravity coming from various angles. In addition, they were in full view of dozens of corridors, and every time a patrol sprinted by, Reklin and Siena were forced to hide in the shadows of massive beams.

  “Did you know Gellow wanted to kill you?” Siena asked.

  She grasped a ridge of seracrete, grimacing when the cold metal cut her hand. She climbed higher, straining against the pull of gravity from a nearby repulsor. She squeezed beyond it to a more stable stretch of seracrete beam and scaled hand over hand to the next level.

  “He was once a friend,” Reklin said. “I went to ask him for help.”

  Her hand slipped, and the seracrete ridge sliced across her arm. She sucked in her breath and pushed the wound behind the beam. She tried to summon her healing augment, but she was tired, and it
wouldn’t activate.

  “Tell me,” Reklin said. “Why did you fight in Olana’s office?”

  She strained to reach the next beam. “They were going to kill Kensen,” she said.

  “Dakorians kill slaves all the time, and slaves rarely resist.”

  “I wasn’t going to let him die,” she said.

  She lifted her chin and met his gaze, expecting anger or disgust. He clung to a beam across the support cube, hanging from the next section. Instead of anger, curiosity reflected in his black eyes.

  He began to climb again, and she did as well, keeping pace with the dakorian that now held her life in his hands. She might have destroyed the vid, but he could still tell the Empire, or anyone, and her life would be forfeit. Then she had the terrifying thought that he knew more than he was saying. How much did he know?

  “When did you know what I was?” She lowered her voice when a trio of dakorians sprinted by in a nearby corridor.

  “I suspected after we fought in the cargo bay,” he said, jumping to a higher ledge.

  “Why didn’t you kill me then?” she asked.

  She scaled to an intersection of beams and leaned against the vertical, breathing hard. Reklin scaled to the horizontal across the cube and leaned into the shadows. Across the gap his smile was faint.

  “I was taught to respect one of high caliber. I couldn’t dismiss that, even if you are a slave.”

  Her consolation was short-lived as a shout rang out, and dakorians suddenly began climbing from a nearby corridor, pouring from the window. Reklin climbed faster, and Siena hurried to climb with him, but the previous strength did not come, and instead she was flooded with weariness.

  She scaled a support cube and stood on a beam as wide as she was tall. Gathering herself, she raced across the seracrete beam until she could grasp the vertical support on the opposite end. Ahead of her, Reklin did the same, both ducking when ion bolts erupted above their heads, the white light scoring seracrete beams.

  A dakorian climbed into Siena’s path and aimed his hammer. With no other option, Siena jumped from the support onto the curving exterior of a leisure pod. She landed hard, but the embedded gravity that bound the occupants to the outside held her to the surface. Beams of light burned into the curve, the heat so close she could feel it on the back of her legs. She ducked under support. In the nearby shadows, another dakorian climbed into view, exiting through a window of the leisure pod.