Warden's Fate

by Tony James Slater

  His mind whirled through the possibilities. A quick touch-down? Sneak in and out without being noticed? How many are there? he asked her.

  Impossible to say. From a planet of billions, only thousands may be left. But if you go there, it will be enough.

  21

  Kreon was less than happy when Tris broke the news to him.

  He felt a tad guilty in doing so; his relief at not having to step through another Portal was strong enough for the Empress to notice.

  It is a wise choice, she pointed out. There would be no glory in such a death.

  I’m not sure what the alternative is, he admitted. Their plans were in tatters; not only could they not defeat Demios, they were no closer to defeating the Black Ships. This new obstacle put them further from their goals than ever before. They needed a new plan — or at least, some time to create a new plan. What do we do? he asked, hoping she would have an answer that didn’t involve a glorious death.

  There are other breeding worlds you could visit, she suggested.

  What? More planets with humans on them?

  They are hunting preserves. It is a privilege to be granted access to one.

  Tris was horrified. The thought that people were being raised like deer or pheasants was abhorrent. Although depressingly appropriate; humans hunted everything they could back on Earth, even the rarest and most majestic of animals. At least the Siszar ate their kills.

  There will be food there, she added, and you may find allies amongst the population.

  That will help. Is it safe?

  Safer than your previous suggestion.

  That wasn’t very reassuring, but at least she was honest.

  While Kreon and Kyra debated the pros and cons of this idea, Tris used Askarra’s holographic map to identify the planets in question. The Empress showed him three of them; all small worlds with only a single landmass. Tris guessed that if there were Siszar living in the oceans, any human habitations would be as far from the coastline as possible.

  How will I find you? he asked her. Being separated from their only ally in the region hadn’t been part of the plan, and was cause for more than a little concern.

  You know of the Skein? You have felt it before.

  That… web of Gift-energy? It’s everywhere, isn’t it?

  It was ubiquitous inside our territory, though the loss of so many Elders has weakened it substantially. That you can sense it is incredible, for a human. If you touch it with your mind I will know, and I will be able to find you.

  Cool! Like having you on speed-dial.

  It is an emergency measure. When you do it, others will be able to find you also.

  Tris shook his head. Every time the Empress handed him a cake, it turned out to have a bomb inside it. Just for once, he’d like to hear something a bit less honest.

  “Okay,” he said to the others. Kyra and Kreon stopped bickering and turned to look at him. “This planet.” He pointed to Askarra’s hologram. “There’s a breeding world here that doesn’t have much of a permanent Siszar population. The Elder who considered it her territory died in the homeworld attack, so it should be a while before anyone else lays claim to it. We can go there, hide from Demios, try to barter for some food, and figure out our next move.”

  Kreon’s eyes flashed at the suggestion of hiding, but Tris knew they were running low on options. They needed one solid day without anyone shooting at them while they came up with some new ones.

  “Very well,” Kreon said, resignation in his tone. “More time to study the Oracle data would be invaluable. A breakthrough is imminent, I am certain of it. I will inform Oktavius of our progress… or lack thereof.”

  “And I,” Kyra announced, “will take a shower. Because I’m a princess, damn it! Fighting the Siszar is disgusting. That black shit gets everywhere.”

  It wasn’t a long trip.

  Tris got cleaned up, then visited Ella’s cabin, where she made love to him with an urgency that suggested there was something bleak on her mind. He didn’t have to guess what; instead, he asked her to try the mind-controlling earbuds on him again, this time hoping for a more pleasant memory.

  He tried to steer his thoughts away from sex though, in case he saw something he really didn’t want to see. Instead, his mind kept returning to the issue of his rogue DNA. He tried to focus on his mother, hoping to catch a glimpse of her through his father’s eyes; the result was a mixture of both.

  As his breathing slowed, his vision cleared. He was looking through his dad’s eyes again; Mikelatz was standing next to his wife, in a darkened bedroom. Young Tristan was sleeping, his chubby arms over his eyes, his floppy hair all tousled and matted.

  With the inward detachment Ella’s device lent him, Tris eyed himself critically. Why were they always standing around, watching him sleep? Was that just something that parents did? It was a bit creepy to be honest…

  But at least it proved they cared.

  “You’re still worried?” Karra’s fingers intertwined with his own, squeezing gently.

  Tris let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “A little,” he felt himself say. “The markers in his blood… they go way beyond what I expected. Come puberty, the Gift is going hit him like a turbolaser blast.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” she said, not taking her eyes from the sleeping child.

  ”Will we, though? What you’re not appreciating is that the Kharash made us. They gave us the Gift, what bit of it we could handle. But with Tris it’s like… like my share of their genes took root in him, and grew wings.”

  Karra chuckled. “So he’ll be able to fly! That could come in handy.”

  Tris relaxed a notch at the musical sound. Gods, he loved to hear her laugh. “Maybe not quite flying, but he might develop some unusual talents.”

  “Like what?”

  Tris spread his hands. “Search me. If we had a live Kharash here, I’d ask him. It’s almost as though the addition of their DNA unlocked something hiding within our own. Like he’s… I dunno. The next step they had planned for us, if we’d made it that far.”

  “So he’s more evolved? I’d say that’s cause for a celebration. Imagine the Warden he’ll make! High Warden, even? With my brains and your pretty face, he’ll wind up running Atalia!”

  “No.” Tris heard the finality in his dad’s words, quashing her joke like the idle fantasy it was. “I’ve made my choice. We’ll raise him here. He’ll be safe, and he’ll be happy.” He turned to smile at his wife, hoping to soften his words. “We’ll all be happy. Together.”

  It didn’t have the desired effect. A family had been Karra’s dream for as long as he could remember, but the guilt that ate at her was equally strong.

  “It’s my fault,” she said, hanging her head disconsolately. “If it wasn’t for me you’d still be out there, righting wrongs. Doing good. Making the galaxy safer.”

  Tris felt himself shrug. “The galaxy is still there. Whatever our Gifts, we’re only cogs in the machine. There’s plenty of others keen enough to take up the slack.”

  She turned to him then, a hint of anger in her eyes. “So you honestly mean to deny him this? To keep everything we are from him?”

  “Hm, let’s think. Do you want to tell him your body-count? How can we raise a normal kid if he thinks his parents are warriors from outer space?”

  “But you said yourself — he’s not normal. I think our little Tris is special. And not in the way all moms think their child is special! I’m saying, he could make a difference one day. We could give something back to the galaxy, after all we’ve taken from it.”

  “No.” That tone of finality was back. “I won’t give him back. He’s ours. I won’t have him sacrificed for the common good. Can you imagine, if Kreon got hold of him?” Tris shuddered. “He’d turn him into a weapon.”

  Karra slid her fingers out from his, and stroked a calming hand down his sleeve. “Sometimes the galaxy needs a weapon,” she whispered, almost too faint for him to hear.


  “Not our boy.” Tris felt a surge of emotion welling up within him; protectiveness, righteousness, aggression; love. “The galaxy can go and get stuffed.”

  When Ella took the earbuds off him, Tris sat in silence, still marvelling over that final sensation.

  His skin tingled with it, like a charge of static electricity.

  As memories go, it hadn’t been a bad one after all.

  ***

  When they dropped back into real-space, the area around the nameless planet was empty.

  ‘Unnamed’ wasn’t entirely accurate; the Empress had called the place ‘Small Prey Breeding Planet in the Territory of the Elder of the Crystal Waters’.

  Tris liked ‘nameless planet’ better.

  Either way, it looked like they’d managed to loose any pursuing Siszar, and finding none waiting for them on arrival was a huge relief. Leaving the Vanguard’s crew aboard the Folly, he gave Askarra strict instructions to protect them at all costs. Scary as it would be to end up stranded on the surface, he didn’t want these people to become collateral damage in a war they had no say in.

  Kyra brought them down to the planet in her shuttle. Following Tris’ assertions that any humans would live as far as possible from the coast, she dropped them down from orbit smack-bang in the centre of the single large continent. Much of it was forested, and Tris wondered if they’d even be able to find any settlements, which would sensibly be hidden as well as possible.

  Then they reached a series of broad clearings which looked suspiciously man-made. Signs of habitation weren’t hard to see from the air. As they got lower he spotted a wide variety of buildings, all simple structures but ranging from mud huts to log cabins to more impressive, stone-built residences. Crops were being farmed in a more organised manner here, and a number of people were out working in the fields. They tilted their heads skywards as Nightshade flew over, and Tris crossed his fingers for a positive reception. These people would probably not trust strangers. Their life looked idyllic from the air, but it was bound to be less peaceful when a Siszar hunting party made planetfall.

  The most obvious population centre was a group of ramshackle buildings surrounded by a thick stone wall. A stretch of bare, cleared ground lay outside the walls, dotted here and there with what looked like piles of firewood. Kyra made a series of low passes over the village, giving the locals a good look at them before they landed. Then she picked a wide, flat space in the centre of the structures, and brought them down in a slow and unthreatening manner.

  “There,” she said, sounding satisfied. “If they think we’re attacking after that performance, they’ve never been attacked before.”

  “I reckon these guys know all about being attacked,” Tris muttered.

  “Then we have something in common,” Kreon said.

  Kreon waited until they were all assembled by the hatch before opening it. Tris suggested they go out unarmed at first, but met with derision from Kyra. “You go out unarmed,” she told him. “If they turn nasty, we’ll just hide behind your fat head.”

  So Tris clutched his glaive, keeping it as short as possible. He’d left off the environment suit though (which as far as he was concerned made him look like a bad-ass space pirate), and gone with a fresh jumpsuit from the Folly’s stores.

  Kyra cradled a rifle, though of course her real weapons were coiled around her waist. She’d left her armour off too — not because it was intimidating (she’d spray-painted it hot pink after all) — but because it was still covered in ichor from their last battle. She’d gone for jeans and a tank-top, part of her stash of Earth clothing that she rarely got to wear. Balentine accompanied them too, his white surcoat now stained with alien blood; the old Warden was showing an impressive amount of backbone for a librarian. Ella appeared unarmed, but Tris knew better; she’d been wearing the same outfit when she’d been attacked on the Folly, and that hadn’t ended well for Tina. Lukas rounded out the company. He hadn’t made much effort at all, wearing ordinary combat fatigues and a stained white vest, with a small pistol tucked into his belt.

  “No big weapons for you?” Tris asked him.

  “My whole body is a weapon,” he teased, treating Tris to a bicep-flex.

  Argh. Tris could almost hear Kyra’s eyes rolling.

  The hatch slid open and the ramp extended. Kyra was first down it — her philosophy about women seeming less threatening would have made sense, except she stalked down the ramp like a predatory cat. In sharp contrast to Ella, who Tris still thought of as fragile, there was just something about Kyra that always seemed lethal.

  Tris followed Kreon down next. Blinking in the bright sunlight, he took stock of the people arrayed around them. It was a surprisingly small group, consisting of middle-aged men and women dressed in faded patchwork tunics. All were armed with rifles, though the weapons themselves looked as ragged as their owners. They stood their ground, fierce and unafraid.

  Tris reached out with the Gift and found suspicion amongst them, along with interest and the odd flash of hope. Visitors were not completely unknown, he realised; humans had traded with the Siszar for years before the war, and it was not unheard of for ships to land here.

  More surprising was the fact that several of the minds he quested out towards met him halfway.

  There are Gifted people here, he told Kyra.

  I know, Tris. I’m right here.

  She held her rifle up over her head, then placed it on the floor in front of her. “Peace,” she said, repeating the word in a bunch of different languages. Through his implanted translator Tris just heard ‘peace’ over and over again. He’d almost forgotten the tiny device, and he marvelled anew at how much easier it made life.

  “Peace?” A tall, dark-skinned man stepped forward. The strap of a rifle was slung over his bare torso, but a wide steel knife was in his hand. Keeping the blade up, he walked towards Kyra. His cluster of warriors raised their weapons, but Tris could tell they weren’t trained to use them.

  Still hurts to get shot by them, Kyra pointed out.

  These people don’t want to shoot us, he told her.

  Yeah? They should try living with you.

  The dark-skinned man had the bearing of a leader, and the lean muscles of an athlete. A life of constant attack no doubt bred powerful people. And Gifted ones, Tris realised, as those individuals with the talent would be better able to sense the Siszar and avoid them.

  Still, it must be a horrible way to live.

  The leader reached Kyra, where he stared hard at her for a second. Then he stooped, picking up her rifle from the ground. He looked it over, a sparkle coming to his eyes, and his mouth curved up into a smile. “Good,” he said, tapping its powerpack.

  “Great,” said Kyra, “I guess that makes us friends. Now, what’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”

  The village headman took them into one of the stone buildings, which turned out to be a single open space inside with cloth screens that could be fixed in place to divide it up. Several more people were in here, including young women and children. None of them were armed, but all bore a red smudge like a thumbprint on their foreheads.

  A fire burned in a stone-lined pit, the smoke going out through a hole in the roof above it. For Tris, the surprises kept coming; he’d expected a hunter-gatherer society living in skin tents or mud huts, only to see crop fields and stone houses. Then he’d seen their weapons and assumed a level of technology that belied their surroundings. Now he was back to wondering how they survived; it didn’t look like they had indoor plumbing, let alone power and WiFi.

  A young girl with tanned skin and a long patchwork dress dashed over as they entered, and threw herself at the headman. He held the rifle up just in time to avoid her hugging it along with his waist. “Is okay, Sunni,” he said. “We make friends.”

  “Is it spacemen, Daddy?”

  “We see. Now go! Tell the rest.”

  Sunni let go of him and ran out of the door, a gleeful smile on her face. The other kids a
ll followed her, leaving just the welcoming party and a few adolescents in the longhouse.

  “Here. Sit.” The headman gestured at the fire, over which skewers of meat were cooking. The smell was enough to remind Tris that he’d been living on shipboard rations for as long as he could remember. Although they tasted alright, one thing they lacked was smell; he took a deep breath in, and his stomach rumbled in reply.

  Kreon eased himself down onto a plastic crate and stretched his legs out in front of him. The villagers pulled more crates over from the walls and pushed the others out to make a wider circle. Tris plonked himself down onto one of them, with Ella and Kyra either side of him. Lukas and Balentine flanked Kreon, whilst the headman and his warriors took the crates opposite them.

  When they were all settled, the leader clapped once for attention. “My name be Kov,” he said, his voice deep and measured. “And you?”

  “I am Lord Anakreon, a Warden of Atalia,” Kreon said. “My people need shelter from the Siszar, and food for a long journey. Can you help us?”

  Kov looked at him for a long time, considering the words. “Here, much food,” he said eventually, flicking his fingers in different directions. He unslung the rifle from his back and held it out for inspection. “Need this.”

  Kreon and Kyra exchanged glances. “We can spare you weapons,” the Warden said, “and we have men who can teach you how to use them.

  Kov nodded thoughtfully. “Good,” he said.

  Unable to control his curiosity, Tris leaned forward on his crate. “How often do they hunt you?”

  Kov glanced at him, then looked up as though he’d planned on using the sun to help him calculate. “More,” he said. “Long time, no hunt. Soon they come.”

  The man spoke smoothly; Tris could tell his translator was struggling, perhaps because Kov’s dialect had developed differently out here. It seemed to be getting better, though.

  “You fight them?” he asked, looking again at the ageing rifle.