Axira Episode One

  Chapter 10

  Axira

  I walked to class the next day, focused. Not on my studies, on my self-appointed mission.

  I was still filled with the certainty that I could do something – make a difference.

  It gave me the will I needed to hold my head high and ignore the stares. Though I was sure information on my exploits last night would not have spread too far, I was equally certain a watered-down rumor had spread. My classmates may not know exactly what had happened, but they knew something was up. The fact I was pulled from class several times over the day to debrief with various admirals was proof enough.

  As I walked through the corridors, sunlight streamed in through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the wall. They showed an unrivaled view of the city beyond. If you cared to, you could let the sleek white and gray buildings pulling down to the water distract you.

  I ignored the view.

  Holding several datapads, I kept my head straight and my gaze straighter. I fixed it on the floor as I thought of my next move.

  Though I was determined to help find the information leak at the Academy, I also knew I had to be careful. I couldn’t immediately start zipping around the place, doing subspace jumps or pulling my energy weapon from my subspace pocket.

  I had to be subtle.

  Grasping one hand into a fist, I walked past a group of cadets who were discussing something animatedly amongst themselves. As soon as I approached, they changed topic. They’d assumed I was out of earshot – they were wrong.

  They’d been discussing me – as almost every group of people I passed were.

  For someone who’d tried to stay inconspicuous and silent, I was turning out to be one of the most talked about topics in the Academy.

  As I marched along, my footfall always measured and precise as my tall form cast a long shadow toward the wall, I noticed the extra security. I felt it too. Not only were there more thin-lipped officers scouting the halls for trouble, but there was a distinct new hum in the air – no doubt the sound of the Academy internal sensors operating at full as they continually scanned the grounds for more trouble.

  It wouldn’t work. They didn’t know who they were dealing with. I could guess.

  I knew the capabilities of the Coalition. I knew how hard it was to pry past their defenses. There was a reason my master had never pushed into their space – it wouldn’t be worth the risk. Get a good, unflappable crew with a good ship, and you could take on a spacer.

  Master was content to lurk in the shadows, deep within Kore space, biding his time, only ever selecting jobs that secured his further dominance, not risked it.

  Despite his prudence, Master was one of the most powerful forces within the Kore Empire – if the most shadowy. So the mere fact that someone within the Empire had the gall and resources to run a successful, undetected reconnaissance mission right in the heart of the Coalition – at the Earth Academy – was deeply worrying.

  There was only one group I knew who’d try it – the Caste. A group of desperate, powerful, resourceful warriors situated deep within the Empire. They were one of the ruling forces of the Hole Sect. They were also adept at creating willing, mindless soldiers.

  Utilizing everything from brain-washing techniques to mind-control to complete cybernetic refitting, for every soldier of the Caste you took down, two were created to replace them.

  I reached the end of the hall, and turned to the left, down a staircase that would lead me toward the recreation floor.

  I had no reason to use the facilities.

  I should be heading to class, yet I calculated my current detour wouldn’t make me late.

  I had five minutes to get to class. It would take me two to do what I would do next.

  …

  Jason Singh

  “We’re running out of time,” Admiral Forest said, her voice a hurried hiss as she stood in the middle of the room. There were no windows, and the walls were reinforced with inch-thick carbo-steel.

  It was a room designed to keep things in. Currently, it had four inhabitants, and only two of us were alive.

  I took a step forward, forcibly keeping my gaze locked on the Admiral rather than the two dead assassins secured in containment fields behind her.

  Blue light flickered through the room in time with the pulsing, humming shields. It washed over the cold gray floor and up the drab walls, it even played against the side of the Admiral’s jaw as she angled her head toward the assassins. “We don’t know how much data they managed to send before you interrupted them.” She shrugged her shoulder at the assassins on the word them.

  I cleared my throat and straightened.

  “This is deadly serious,” she said in an ominous tone that matched the cold, dark room perfectly.

  I knew that.

  God did I know that.

  “Admiral, I’ll try—”

  “Lieutenant, I don’t want excuses, not now. I want answers. I don’t care what you have to do and what you need to do it, but find me that leak.”

  I didn’t recede in the face of her blunt anger, but I should have. It felt like standing in the path of a spewing volcano.

  I knew the Admiral wasn’t directing her belly-shaking rage at me – it was the impossible, unsolvable situation.

  The lives of everyone hung in the balance here. They had no way of knowing how much information those two assassins had managed to glean and send to their masters before they’d died.

  It was like knowing you’d hurt yourself, but having no idea how badly. The Academy could have sustained a light wound or a fatal blow.

  I gulped, my throat pushing against my tight collar. “Have we managed to learn anything about the assassins?”

  The Admiral shook her head curtly. “Nothing. Their memory circuits were scrambled the moment they shut themselves down.”

  He hung his head.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Lieutenant,” the Admiral commanded, her piercing eyes blazing like twin blasts, “If you hadn’t brought down those assassins, they would have sent even more information. They could have gone berserk and taken down a section of the city too. You did the right thing.”

  “You mean we.” I leveled my gaze at the ground.

  I was only starting to process how incredible Em had been during that fight. She’d moved like… Christ, I had no comparison. Competent, lethal, graceful, efficient – like nothing I’d ever seen outside of a holo movie.

  I found myself gulping.

  “I’m well aware of the Cadet’s contribution,” she assured me.

  Contribution?

  She’d won that battle while I’d stood around and tried not to get killed.

  “Her skills have come to my attention before. Moves will be made to accelerate her program. She’s an asset we can’t afford to lose at this time,” the Admiral said thoughtfully.

  A flashback of Em sitting on the wrong side of that safety fence blinked into my mind.

  I agreed wholeheartedly with the Admiral – we couldn’t afford to lose Em. The only problem was, I didn’t know how to keep her. Every day it seemed she encountered some new emotional dilemma. I didn’t know what was lying under the surface of that Cadet, but I wanted to help. I just didn’t know how.

  I didn’t share a single one of these thoughts with the Admiral. Instead, I straightened up and kept my stance stiff.

  “We need to accelerate this investigation. I don’t care what it takes,” she repeated, “Just find our leak. No one is off limits. Scour this entire Academy and find me our spy.”

  I snapped a salute.

  “It could be anyone,” she emphasized. “Anyone.”

  “I’ll get them,” I assured her.

  “Soon,” she warned.

  I nodded.

  Soon.

  Because if I didn’t find our leak soon, it would drain the whole Academy dry like a hole in the heart.

  …

  Axira

  I waited until I could sense there was no o
ne in the room, then I jumped. I opened up a hole in subspace with my mind, traveled through it, and appeared within a dark, cold space flickering under the reflected light of two powerful force fields.

  Instantly I made a fist, sending a burst of energy slamming through the room. It wasn’t enough to blow the roof off or crumble the walls – I wasn’t trying to destroy anything.

  It would interfere with sensors, block this room from being scanned and my presence detected.

  I had about 60 seconds until it stopped working.

  I did another subspace jump, this time appearing right next to the containment field holding the cybernetic assassin.

  I tilted my head to the side and assessed the field. I sensed the energy, quickly gauging it wasn’t strong enough to keep me out.

  I jumped again, this time appearing inside the field, alongside the slab that held the cybernetic assassin.

  A flash of fatigue crossed through my body, but I ignored it as I leaned down to work. Jumping through containment fields was a tricky and tiring business.

  I yanked the assassin up, turning it over as my eyes darted toward the back of its neck.

  I was looking for its information processing circuit.

  I spied it and plucked it up, snatching it from the lock it formed with the reinforced metal ring running around the assassin’s neck.

  The crack of metal echoed through the room.

  I rolled the circuit until it was flat against my palm. I closed my eyes.

  I sent energy winding across my skin and into the circuit, connecting to it in a rudimentary fashion. I no longer wore the sophisticated wrist devices that had once been my shackles. If I had, I could have learned this circuit’s secrets instantly. Instead, I had to use other senses.

  The cybernetic assassin had deleted its memory banks, and I wouldn’t be able to recreate that information.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t find out anything useful.

  I knew that cybernetic assassins were equipped in different ways depending on their intended mission. If their masters wanted them to gather intel by physically hacking computer systems or remotely accessing feeds and signals, their bodies would be implanted with sophisticated information extraction equipment.

  This assassin had none of that gear. Instead, as I assessed the circuit, I found what I was after.

  Telepathic residue. I could feel it. I may not have been a telepathic creature myself, but I could sense the particular fields such skills used.

  This circuit still tasted of them.

  I opened my eyes and quickly assessed the rest of the assassin’s body. Sure enough, there were other circuits and antennas embedded in the creature’s body that would be capable of picking up telepathically transmitted information.

  Indeed, as I pried back sections of the assassin’s armor, I ascertained its race was one known to possess telepathic abilities.

  I had my answer. The cybernetic assassins had received its information telepathically.

  It made perfect sense. The Academy was too well guarded to allow its main computer banks or encoded signals to be hacked. While there were other methods of gaining and transferring data, none were as hard to detect as telepathic transmission.

  All you required was someone powerful and skilled enough, and someone capable of receiving. Such a method could not, however, be used over long distances. They didn’t have to be. The few kilometers from the Academy’s heart to the alley I’d found this assassin in were enough for the ability to work.

  I returned the circuit to the assassin, flipped him over, and jumped back into the main room.

  My time was up. Soon the Academy sensors would be able to detect me. So, with one final fleeting look at the cybernetic assassin, I jumped away.

  Step one of my mission was complete. Now all I had to do was find the telepathic leak. And I knew where to start.