Axira Episode One (14 page)

She considered my hand. At first I was certain she was going
to reject it and walk away, then she shook her head and got a
far-off look in her eye. “Fine. I suppose I could do with some
company.”

I took a relieved breath and nodded. I started to walk with
her as I brought a hand up and began patting the dirt from my
jacket. There was a stabbing pain emanating from my left gluteus
all the way down my leg, but I wasn’t about to rub it. I could
check for an injury when I got back to the Academy; I didn’t want
Em thinking she’d hurt me.

I glanced down at her muddy uniform. I wanted to know what
exactly she’d been doing and why it looked as if she’d taken on a
forest, but I held my tongue.

“
I was angry,” she supplied. “I took a walk amongst the woods
to let off steam.” She brought a hand up and pulled a twig from her
hair, flicking it behind her.

“
Oh,” I said in a weak voice. I could have and should have
come up with something better than ‘oh’, but what was I meant to
say? I wasn’t a counsellor, I kept repeating to myself, and it was
clear that Cadet Em’s problems weren’t the kind that assailed the
usual recruit. She wasn’t steaming because she’d failed to pass a
class or crying because some guy or girl she’d liked had rejected
her.

“
Why don’t you just ask me?” She said all of a
sudden.

I was halfway through scratching my chin. I stopped as if
she’d injected liquid nitrogen into my arm. “Sorry?” I
stuttered.

Still walking, she turned her head to me. “Why don’t you just
ask me what happened?”

My cheeks twitched. I couldn’t answer that the reason I
didn’t want to ask her what happened was because it looked as if
she’d either hit me or run away. Still, she’d challenged me, so I
took a breath and asked, “Are you okay?”

“
That’s not what you really want to know. You want to know why
I’m covered in mud and why I couldn’t keep myself together last
night when that mindair pushed her way into my thoughts,” she said
through a struggling swallow. “And most of all you want to know who
he is.”

“
Sorry?” I asked, my voice shaking.

She stopped and turned to me. “Master.”

I stopped. I was cold. It wasn’t just because there was a
chill wind blowing on the back of my neck – it was because of her
expression. It wasn’t as hard as it had been last night when Hendra
had challenged her. If anything, it was fragile, but fragile in a
determined way. Like someone who knows their weakness and for the
first time is ready to confront it.

I let my lips drop open. “Who is he?” I heard myself
ask.

“
A monster,” she answered.

I felt sick at her admission – the kind of sick that bypasses
your gut for your heart, making your blood thin and chill. “I’m
sorry,” I said. Those three little words were the only utterances
that could make it past my dry throat.

“
So am I,” she said as she brought a hand up and briefly
covered one of her eyes before letting her fingers drop slowly down
her face. “Lieutenant Ma’tovan confronted me this morning. He said
I couldn’t control myself.”

“
That’s not fair,” I quickly jumped to her defense. “Okay,
maybe you were a little rude to Hendra, but she was way out of
line. Any other cadet would have done the same or
worse.”

She shifted her gaze to me, considering me silently for a few
seconds before saying, “He’s right; I’m not controlled. I’m
contained,” she said the word with so much emotion hidden under the
surface, I thought her face would crack.

Contained. Why did I suddenly get the feeling that word
summed Cadet Em up perfectly?

I swallowed. I wanted to say something – something pertinent,
something useful, something that could reach out and help her. But
I had no idea what that would be. Instead my lips crumpled up into
a commiserating smile.

She brought her hands forward and stared at them, even
pulling back her sleeves to glance at the permanent scars dug into
her wrists. It was the first time I’d ever had a chance to get a
good look at them. They were holes covered over by scar tissue
interspersed at even sections all the way around her
wrists.

As she shifted, the light caught them, and I saw that
occasionally they shimmered, indicating they were no ordinary
scars. She’d already said they were permanently painful, and as I
gulped, I realized that was probably an understatement. From what
I’d read up about subspace scars, they could be agonizing. They
sent some people mad.

I gulped. For a man trained in one of the best combat
programs in the galaxy, I sure did gulp a lot. Then again, there
was something about Em that would make even the hardest warrior
show signs of nervous worry.

“
I’m sorry,” I said suddenly. I wasn’t sure what I was
apologizing about, but it was relieving to see her expression
soften as she flicked her gaze away from her scars and towards
me.

“
We should return to the Academy; it’s getting late,” she
said.

I nodded. It was getting late. While I had special
dispensation to be away from the Academy grounds for as long as I
pleased, I knew Em didn’t. People would be looking for
her.

We hurried along, or at least she did. Sometimes it was hard
to keep up with her determined stride. She wasn’t taller than me,
but the way she held herself and the way she moved served to make
me feel like a child.

I raced along with my hands tucked firmly in my pockets,
trying to ward off the chill. She strode freely as if the biting
wind was no hindrance whatsoever.

“
Let’s go down this laneway,” I suddenly said, “It’s a
shortcut.”

“
This way is quicker.” She ignored me and pointed ahead
between several buildings.

I wanted to point out that I’d been here longer than she had
and knew this city far better than a first-year recruit, but I held
my tongue. For all I knew, Cadet Em had already studied blueprints
of the city or run the whole thing in under an hour
flat.

I followed her lead and soon enough we were walking down a
very narrow alleyway between one old style heritage building and a
newer far more modern structure made of sleek white metal and blue
tinted glass. It was when we were halfway through the alley that
she abruptly stopped.

I watched, a slice of moonlight striking her face, as her
eyes narrowed. Her head tilted to the side with a quick twitch, and
it was obvious something had caught her attention.

Before I could whisper, “What?” or draw a step closer, I
heard something too. Just above us, along one of the sheer walls of
the new building, there was some kind of scrabbling noise. Slowly I
tipped my head back, my neck muscles practically creaking at the
move. There was something above us. It wasn’t a bird and it wasn’t
a section of the building giving way. It was—

I jerked backwards into Em, trying to latch a hand around her
wrist to pull her towards the shadows and out of sight. She didn’t
move. Instead she brought her own hand up and anchored me to the
spot. She wasn’t looking upward at the creature – whatever it was.
Instead her gaze was locked in the shadows to our left.

Nervous energy sparked along my back, feeling like a rush of
cold water tipping down my collar. Before something could happen,
before I could say or do anything, I heard the creature above us
move. There was a scraping as if claws were being retracted from
glass, and a swish as something fell towards us. I tried to ram
forward, but Em wouldn’t let me. She kept me in place with one of
the strongest grips I’d ever endured.

It was then that I saw what she could. As the clouds above
shifted, and several shafts of moonlight shone between the
buildings, I saw the light glint off something sleek, long, and
coiled deep into the shadows of a recess.

There was a clunk as something landed behind us.

Adrenaline exploded through me, hitting my bloodstream and
lacing through it with all the speed of light. I wanted to slam
backwards, drive my elbow around, and dive to the side.
Do something.
Start
fighting. I knew I had seconds.

Em wouldn’t let me move. She hadn’t once made any indication
that whatever the hell was behind us had caught her attention.
Instead her head was locked towards the sleek coiled object between
the buildings before us.

I didn’t know what to do.

I heard something make a swooshing noise behind
us.

This was it. It was all over.

Before I could prepare to have a blade sliced through my
middle, Em finally acted. She shoved my shoulder so hard that she
sent me skidding to my knees.

She whirled on her foot, leapt into the air, and grabbed the
creature who’d been behind us, just as it slammed towards
her.

A part of my brain picked up on the movement – whatever
region of my addled mind that wasn’t shaking with nerves and
adrenaline. I saw how graceful she was, how agile. She looked like
she was attached to a wire, or moving in half gravity. When the
creature leapt at her, she twisted in the air, slamming one knee
into its head as she used the flat of her leg to push it towards
the ground.

All this happened in an instant – in half a second. As soon
as the creature slammed into the ground, I twitched, whatever short
reverie that had afforded me time to note her grace ending with a
bang.

I leapt to my feet, lunging forward to help.

I still didn’t know what we were fighting.

“
Get down, Jason,” she bellowed, angling a kick towards me and
slamming her foot hard into my shoulder as she pushed me
back.

Again I was driven to my knees. Just in time. The coiled
creature finally reacted. It unfurled itself like a snake on fast
forward. Something whipped out towards me, slicing through the air
where I’d been standing moments before.

Em had already dodged, falling to the ground and rolling
before springing up to her feet in a neat summersault.

Clouds covered the moon again, cutting out what brief
illumination they’d given. We were plunged back into the dark, only
the scantest light there to illuminate the bodies of our
enemies.

As far as I could tell, we were fighting two modified Kore
assassins. One was a coiled, whip-like robot, essentially an
antenna on legs. A deadly antenna. They were a type of
communications device strapped onto the body of a robot assassin.
The coiled whip could just as easily be used to slice through an
enemy as it could to extend like an antenna to deliver its
intelligence using hardly-detectable encrypted signals.

As for the other enemy, that was also a Kore assassin. A
biological one, covered in sophisticated armor. I say biological,
but it’s questionable whether there was enough of the original
creature under those glittering plates of armor to satisfy the
definition of alive.

I had no idea what two Kore assassins were doing on Earth,
but I didn't have the time to question either. And unless I helped
Em, she would be dead. We'd both be dead.

Somehow she managed to keep on her feet, always darting back
from both foes, even when they combined their attacks. She was
offering so much of a distraction that neither of them had turned
on me yet, which gave me the opportunity to tug my wrist up and
activate my device. Or at least I tried to. As soon as I jammed a
thumb into the electronic screen it blinked back with an ominous
red flash. One that meant all signals were being jammed. I didn't
have the time to breathe, to swear, to scream. In that moment that
coil-like whip came swinging around and slammed into my shoulder.
This time Em wasn't there to save me, and I had to buckle to my
knees, lest the whip continue and slice my head right
off.

I ignored the pain that exploded through my arm, lancing down
into my shoulder and up into my neck like sparks through my blood
and flesh. Rolling, not caring that I jarred my shoulder again and
sent splatters of bright red blood over the cobbles, I came up
hard. This time I was ready to fight. As the whip sliced towards me
I ducked just in time, slamming one hand into the cobbles then
using it as purchase to whip my leg around and use it to kick the
coiled whip. If I'd been wearing my armor, that move would've made
a difference. As it was, it barely reverberated down the whip and
into the base of the coiled creature.

It did buy Em some time. I watched her double back, race
towards the wall, and actually climb up it before flipping
backwards and landing behind the cybernetic assassin. She didn't
pause, she moved so quickly and so efficiently it was like watching
a programed hologram go through their paces. She lurched forward,
rounded her shoulder, and slammed it into the middle of the
cybernetic assassin's back. Either she knew just where to attack
it, or there was so much concentrated force behind the move that
the metal plating along its back actually dented and it was sent
tumbling forward. It slammed into the cobbles, its hands instantly
scrabbling against them, digging into the stone as it tried to
force its way back up.

It was murder keeping my attention split between the
cybernetic assassin and the antenna. At any moment if I allowed
myself to be distracted by either one of them, the other could
pounce. If I let them near me, I'd be dead.