“They think wrong,” Remy said firmly and released her as she unwound from his arm.
“Yes, they do,” she declared and struck the door with a blast of power that forced it out of the frame and into the open space beyond. At the same time, a shimmer of blue outlined all three of them.
Without waiting for either Remy or the admiral, she ran forward and launched another pulse of power directly ahead. More men screamed as Amaratne and the android raced after her.
Remy’s shield sparked and he snapped two shots to the right. The admiral fired left, then ahead, and eliminated the last standing Enforcer.
“I thought you said there was a half-dozen,” Amaratne protested as Remy shot the Enforcers lying prone around them.
The Talent flinched but she didn’t protest. She didn’t give the man the response he was looking for, either.
“More are coming.”
“Ted?” Amaratne asked.
“There is a car in the tunnel,” Ted told him. “You can make it if you hurry.”
“No, you can’t,” the Talent said, and her eyes glowed with yellow flame.
“We’re still going to try,” he replied and tried to take her arm despite the way her shield crackled.
She stepped out of his reach and the sound of a helicopter reached their ears.
“They called reinforcements in,” Ted said through their comms. “You need to hurry.”
“Come with us,” Amaratne urged and the Talent turned.
Thinking she would follow, Remy sprinted to the fence and sliced through the support wire with no intention of welding it back. The admiral and the Talent raced after him, and the man was careful not to touch the power-wreathed woman.
Somewhere behind them, the helicopter touched down and shouts followed.
“They know we’re here and which way we ran,” she said and slowed as they reached the fence.
A second helicopter could be heard coming in after the first.
“You kicked a hornet’s nest.” Ted sounded both pleased and worried.
“And I have the fumigation they require,” the Talent replied, stopped, and turned back.
“Wait!” Amaratne cried, and Remy started forward.
She began to run and outstripped them easily as she augmented her speed with magic. Remy ran with the admiral.
“You know she’s trying to save us, right?” the man asked.
“But we’re the ones who are supposed to be saving her,” Remy argued, “not getting her killed!”
“I think she’s doing that all by herself,” Ted said.
“Well, not on my—”
Heat flared from round the corner of the building and seared their faces as they turned toward it. Men screamed and two very loud explosions followed by a myriad of smaller ones followed. The third helicopter was taken out of the sky.
“Well, that’s all of them,” Ted observed.
“But—” Amaratne protested and gasped for breath as he stumbled forward. “Where is she?”
Remy reached for him, but the admiral shrugged out from under his hand and continued toward the burning remains of the helicopters and the scorched earth surrounding them.
In the end, the Talent was easy to find.
She’d crumpled in the center of the last clear patch of ground before the burnt area began. He hurried to her side, shook her shoulder, and looked for a pulse.
The breath he took as he lifted her into his arms was a cross between a gasp and a sob. Remy cupped a hand under his elbow and helped him to his feet. He didn’t try to take the admiral’s burden.
“We have to go,” he said. “She bought us time, but it won’t take long for them to regroup.”
“We’ll bury her with honors,” Amaratne declared and grief roughened his tone.
“We will,” Remy agreed and steered him toward the fence and the forest beyond. “Do we know her name?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Regime transitioned into the Dreth home system expecting an undefended world. They were in for a rude surprise.
“I thought we’d drawn them off,” Admiral Vance Easterly stated and stared at the array of ships.
“The rear admiral reported battle joined, sir,” the comms chief told him. “I don’t understand.”
“More pirate tactics?” the scan chief suggested. “Don’t leave the base unguarded while you’re off raiding?”
“Pirate, Dreth, it doesn’t matter,” Easterly responded. “There are more of the monsters at home than we thought, but—”
You will not hurt my people! The voice roared through their heads and made them wince.
The rear admiral saw his command crew flinch almost in unison.
In the command centers of the Dreth home fleet, the voice echoed more gently, and the Dreth officers looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Well, someone loves us,” Angreth’s captain murmured and glanced at him.
His look of puzzlement turned to curiosity when he caught the look on Angreth’s face. “Sir?”
The admiral’s answer was to touch a button on his console and show brief scenes from all over the ship that revealed the older members of the crew behaving with undignified glee.
One of them raced to the camera, tore it off its mounting, and kissed it. He held the device in front of his face, brought it into focus, and made the picture bounce up and down as he danced in celebration.
“She came, sir!” he shouted. “She came!”
With a snap, crackle, and fizz, the picture went blank.
Angreth rested his head against his fist and sighed wearily. “Add another camera to the amount Varag of K’leth owes us.”
The command crew stared at the jumble of screens. Shouts of jubilation came from gun crews and engineers alike. In the hangar bays, Dreth Marines had come to attention and saluted the owner of the voice like a warrior returned.
The scenes vanished as the scan team brought up a view of the empty space before them.
“Something’s coming through,” they warned, and Angreth rose from his seat and thumped his palm on the All-Fleet Broadcast button.
“Hold your fire! Our Witch has returned!” he roared and hoped it was enough.
He recognized the Knight as she appeared between his fleet and the Regime, and his spirits rose.
Across the battlefield, the Regime commanders gaped.
“What is that?” Rear Admiral Easterly demanded, and one of his older scan operators turned pale.
“It’s the Knight,” she whispered, but Stephanie’s words overrode her.
“Prepare to be destroyed,” she stated coldly and her face filled their screens.
Regime crews gasped and drew back. Dreth crews cheered.
Her eyes burnt with dark fire, and her face was that of an avenging angel. The camera zoomed out and everyone saw the petite figure standing in the center of the Knight’s command deck, her body wreathed in purple and blue flames shot through with black lightning and her silvered hair floating free of its traditional plait.
Her voice turned cold. “Telorans, to me! We’ll take their Talents first.”
On the Dreth ships, every Teloran mage froze, then came together in clusters of two or three as the Witch sent the locations of the Regime’s shipboard Talents to their minds.
“What did she—” the Regime’s rear admiral began but his question was cut short when the four Talents on his bridge screamed and fell.
Their handlers drew back in shock and the admiral rose from his seat to see what had happened. He drew back when he saw a stricken Talent, blood seeping from her eyes and nose as her body convulsed in the grip of dark lightning.
“Get us out of here!” he ordered. “Pull the fleet back! We need another strategy.”
The command crew stared at him.
“Do it now!” he shouted and broke through their shock.
All around him, the fleet captains obeyed. On every deck, Talents died and they were powerless to help them. Maybe the distance of t
ransition would save them.
None of them saw the celebration on Dreth as Angreth transferred the recordings of the encounter to a planet on the edge of despair. Screams echoed around the planet again, but this time, they were screams of joy.
Two words were repeated the planet over.
She’s back!
Far above Earth, John fell—or rather, he flew with Ivy clutched to his chest as the Talent he’d wrapped around them protected them from the vacuum of space.
“Here they come!” she called, her hands wrapped around his forearm despite the Talent that held them together. She turned her head to look at him. “I don’t know how they’re finding us.”
“Very good radar?” he suggested, took them into a twisting dive, and headed toward the distant glimmer of one of the satellites.
It was hard to stay on course and he pulled more eMU to keep them steady. His body ached from the fight, from the fall, and from drawing and channeling this much Talent in one long session.
“Are they shooting at us?” Ivy asked as orange and white flared under the fighter’s stubby wings.
“Not for long,” he told her and directed two shards of blue to intercept the incoming missiles.
“That is some serious overkill,” she noted as the missiles detonated before reaching them.
“Hold onto your hat,” he instructed, and she yelped as he accelerated and turned the stars to streaks as he fled toward the satellite’s shelter.
“Well, this is one thing they won’t blow up,” Ivy observed, “which is not something I can say for ourselves!”
John chuckled. “So it won’t matter if I do this, then.”
He grunted as he pulled back from the satellite and used a blade-like piece of blue to shear one of its antennae arrays. Wrapping that in another shroud of blue, he hurled toward the jet, keeping the satellite behind them.
“That should foul its radar,” he muttered as the piece spun into the fighter’s path.
The explosion that followed was spectacular.
“Fireworks, John?” Ivy asked, and he chuckled.
“Everyone loves a fireworks show.”
Drawing more Talent, he propelled them toward the orbital and the cable car nestled beside it.
“Do you think they’ll notice?” she asked as he dropped them on top of the vehicle
“I hope not,” he told her, using Talent to release the security locks on the maintenance hatch, “because I could do without company on the ride down.”
“Only you and me, huh?” she asked and let him help her through the hatch.
He dropped down after her and magicked the hatch closed, locked it tightly, and pressed the control that told the car to descend.
“Wouldn’t it be nice?” he asked, glanced toward the foyer, and breathed a sigh of relief to see it empty.
Ivy sidled closer, leaned against him, and wound her arm around his waist.
The cable car jolted a little and began the long journey planet-side. John snaked an arm around her and pulled her close before he turned her to face him.
“You can’t blame a guy for wanting you all to himself,” he said and lowered his lips to hers.
“Shut up,” she told him, and the words came out muffled as their lips met and they lost themselves in the kiss.
The cable car trembled, and they parted and looked around in time to see the first of the satellites burning as it fell. A second one exploded and began to plummet.
“And the stars shall fall from the heavens,” John murmured and was surprised when Ivy replied.
“And the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken.”
With an arm wound around each other’s waist, they leaned closer to one another and watched the fireworks fall.
Not far from central Paris, in a run-down part of the city, stood a bar. Its paint was peeling and the shopfronts on either side had boarded-up windows and padlocked doors.
Across the road and past the empty shops, the Seine flowed sluggishly between its banks, a bridge shadowing a waste-water outlet built beneath its foundations. The bar still had its patrons, but they were few and far between and scattered between the tables, booths, and bar.
The numbers didn’t match the traffic coming through, and those at the tables nursed their drinks and stared into the night with wary eyes.
Most of them were well past their prime. Some looked like they’d evaded the nurses at the local retirement village and all of them looked around before they wandered over to speak to the bartender.
Violetta watched them, her eyes set deep in a face creased by age and time. After a while, she sighed and set her glass down.
She pushed her seat back, got creakily to her feet, and wandered to the bartender. In all honesty, she’d had enough of staring at an empty street.
“A special,” she said when the man glanced at her with inquiring eyes.
He sighed and the rag in his hand ceased its perpetual motion.
“I don’t make that one no more,” he told her, turned to the back of the bar, and reached into the storage cabinet.
He retrieved a bottle and stretched to the display rack and selected another. Violetta watched as he took a glass and mixed a new drink.
“Here’s the new one.” He set it down in front of her. “The Witch would like it.”
Nodding, Violetta lifted the drink and took a cautious sip. She took a moment to savor it, then said, “I like this vintage. Do you know where I can find the mixings?”
The barkeeper gave her a tight smile.
“The boss wouldn’t like it, but…” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Down that hall, stairs on the right, two flights. Two knocks, then one. Tell them Amaratne sent ya.”
Violetta took her glass with her and headed down the hall. There was only one set of stairs and they led down. There was only one door too, right at the bottom.
She knocked twice, then once, and waited. Somewhere, someone had taken a look at her and probably noted the drink in her hand. It wasn’t long before the door opened and she was able to walk through.
It shut immediately, but she didn’t let that bother her. She was too busyewate>
rhe mall. Tvrond. The sight of them made it hard to keep walkll. Tut she managed a few steps so she was clear of the entry.
There were easily twenty-five people/p> re. Looking around, Violetta realized she knew quite a few of the faces. One looked up, smiled, and raised a hand in welcome.
She smiled in return and moved into the room while observed she those present. There were some good people/ re.
Her gaze came to rest on two men seated in the corner farthest from the door.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” she murmured and moved in their direction.
Amaratne looked up—a much younger Amaratne than she’d ever have expected. Violetta glanced at the man seated beside him. She hadn’t known he had a friend who was into cowboy hats.
She stopped, nodded to the admiral, and smiled as he turned to his friend. She took another sip of the entry drink and studied the admiral as she did so.
“I guess I’ll have to lose a little age if I want to play in this game!” She grunted a low chuckle, only to be interrupted by someone calling her name.
“Violetta!”
She turned and her eyes lit up at the sight of an old friend. “Jasper! You made it!”
Amaratne momentarily forgotten, she waved and headed toward him.
“It’s been so long!”
Heretic of the Federation continues with The Beast Rises.
Pre-order today to have it delivered at midnight on February 25, 2021.
Creator Notes - Michael Anderle
December 26, 2020
Thank you for reading to the end of this book. We have reached the middle part of this series.
For those who have been waiting, Stephanie is back!
She’s back, and she is a bit pissed off.
In every war, there are situations that are horrible, and then there are
situations where terrible people make heinous decisions.
Stephanie needed to know (at the end of book 02) what John thought of the pain and suffering that would occur when she got back. Not that she would have stopped, but it helped to understand the emotional reticence she might need to deal with upon her return.
For John, he is becoming the type of Apostle who is willing to play nice, but there is a message to be delivered, and it will be.
Return with us when book 04 The Beast Rises as the fights explode on Earth and for Dreth.
When the beast doesn’t get his way, that which remained hidden becomes needed. Perhaps a bit early.
Join me for a rollicking read!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
* If you have not read the stories about Stephanie Morgana, join me for the first part of this story in The Witch of the Federation, out in ebook and Audiobook.
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Michael Anderle - [Heretic of the Federation 03] Page 38
