The Shadow of the Gods

One

The pirate vessel was parked between her and the planet. Easily three times the size of her own starship, the looming bulk did not lumber forward and engage her in a lasfight. It simply sat there, unbothered by her scowl, doing its best to mimic a black hole with that dark paint job and a complete lack of plexiglass panels.

Expensive. Deadly. And definitely going to give her a headache.

Captain Ami N’uni had already assumed her usual position; she was standing in front of the viewport on the bridge of her ship, her mane of brunette hair pinned sharply away from her face. Her preferred outfit hadn’t changed in five years—the loose white shirt with the puffy sleeves, the faded denim jeans studded with useless but pretty shards of metal, the scuffed black boots, and the chunky leather belt that held her lasgun.

Ami thought she cut a fine figure in this get-up. The shirt clung exactly where it needed to—potentially distracting to her opponents, but practical enough that she could still move fast. Not that she made a point of meeting any of her opponents in person. But she’d known that she would have to face this particular opponent at some point.

Admiral Julius Kratis had a massive beef with her.

You’d think she was shitting in his slippers, not rescuing slaves from his ships.

Ami’s cargo vessel, the Free Ride, was embarrassingly small and its hull was a patchwork of grey and brown metal from various repair jobs. The Free Ride’s unusual shape—it looked like a hand with a thumb positioned beneath four merged fingers—never failed to announce Ami’s arrival. Possibly because the ‘thumb’ was actually a heavy lascannon capable of punching through most shields, perfect for threatening the pirates and slavers she came across in the void of space.

It usually comforted Ami to know that, at a moment’s notice, she could run back to her chair, wrench the manual controls out of the left armrest, and leap to another system.

But today, even though her feet were planted directly beneath her shoulders and her spine was straight, she felt a fragment of worry detach from a hidden place inside her, riding blood vessels up into her brain where it implanted itself. And grew.

‘Smart fucker,’ her only crewmate, Avurn Singh, muttered from the weapons console.

‘Language,’ she murmured, though she didn’t quite have the mental capacity to inject any disapproval into her tone. She kept her green eyes at half-mast.

The ten-year-old boy sighed dramatically and went slack in his chair. A clump of charcoal hair flopped over his sepia-toned face, hiding both the purple freckles he’d inherited from some alien ancestor and his impatient grimace. ‘I accompany you to avoid being lectured by my sister. Please don’t you start. It seems we did not encounter retribution from Julius earlier on our run because he knew to lie in wait here above Ilbb. And he was smart enough to keep his distance so he wouldn’t trip the Chippers’ planetside sensors.’

Avurn took perverse delight in the shock on the faces of their allies and enemies alike whenever a visual communications link revealed that he had been crewing the weapons console, targeting their ships with the lascannon if need be. Avurn, with his unbroken voice, could pretend to be a human adult of any gender when a conversation was verbal only.

Ami should have been more concerned about showing Avurn the seedy side of the galaxy, but his sister had given him a personal shielding device—and Avurn always managed to keep out of trouble, even when they docked and left the safety of the Free Ride behind. Avurn had a habit of embarking on solo adventures. Ami wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he got up to, because he’d warned her never to ask.

‘Can we send a message to the Chipper outpost without Julius getting wind of it?’ she asked, tapping a finger against her lip. She winced when she felt a flake of skin detach. The dry environment on her ship really wasn’t friendly to her complexion and she’d forgotten to use her face creams again.

‘Yes, I can connect us to the outpost on a secure link,’ Avurn answered, but he didn’t move towards the communications console. A third person should have been crewing it, but Ami had never found someone willing to fill it in return for exactly zero pay. And she wasn’t sure she could trust anyone else.

Avurn knew a lot about the galaxy and how it worked—which often led to him saying things she didn’t want to hear. Like now. ‘Do remember, Ami, the Chippers don’t exactly have a ship at their disposal. They’d have to use Xan’s vessel. They won’t, however, since he is a contractor and will ask them to pay him extra for the service. And you know my brother-in-law prefers to regale everyone with his past escapades rather than admit to the fact that he can’t fly in a straight line anymore. He is frequently inebriated.’

‘I suppose there are benefits to having a backup pilot who’s underage on most worlds,’ Ami said.

Avurn snorted. Most residents of Carton City, the desert planet’s only permanent settlement, spent their time at the bar, watching the drama vidshow that was Xan and Jensa’s marriage. Jensa enjoyed the attention and played into it, much to Xan’s exasperation.

Avurn, since the wedding, had been allowed his own unit next to theirs. This was done less for Xan and Jensa’s privacy and more because Xan wanted to be able to claim that he had no knowledge of Avurn’s untoward activities. Xan had chosen to become a contractor for the Chippers instead of serving a lengthy prison term for his past crimes. He wanted to keep his posterior out of a cell. Understandably.

‘Concentrate,’ Ami scolded herself.

The destruction of her ship was not the preferred outcome for her or her opponent. Julius would want to plunder the Free Ride before he sold it for scrap—or maybe he’d keep it for his pirate fleet. And he would have something nasty in mind for her and Avurn.

Slavery, most likely. A fatal end wasn’t off the table either.

If Ami had to choose? A quick lasbolt to the head, thanks. Because slavery, which had very recently been the future awaiting the people riding in the hold of her ship, was a fate worse than death.

The legality of slavery varied across the galaxy. If slaves were allowed on a world, then the Chippers couldn’t do a starking thing about it—the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency was an independent organisation and could only enforce the laws of a planet’s governing body, not change them. And even if a planet had made slavery illegal, then a Chipper would actually have to be on hand to witness the violation. There weren’t enough of them to cover an entire galaxy.

The Chippers stationed at the outpost on Ilbb never had any spare coin-chips; most of GLEA’s funds went towards paying their agents (and their cheaper contractors) to provide safety and order. Not all grateful worlds could afford to donate money to the Agency. It was, of course, much more economical to let someone else tackle the far-reaching slavery issue.

If Ami didn’t mention the laws she’d broken elsewhere, the Chippers would keep letting her use Ilbb as her base of operations.

But they weren’t going to be happy if she started a war in orbit.

‘Hail him,’ Ami said, nodding her head towards the other ship, which was steadily filling the viewport. ‘Don’t want Julius to get bored and start strafing the planet.’

‘He’d have a hard time hitting anything.’ Avurn snickered as he moved to the communications console. Once he’d dropped into the seat anchored there, he swiped a single finger over the sensor pad in front of him. ‘Carton City is but a small speck—and there are only scattered nomadic tribes on the rest of the planet.’

Static washed across the viewport, leaving in its wake a toothy leer. Julius was a Hiktai, a reptilian species with green scales, flexible legs that allowed them to stand or crawl comfortably, and an evolutionary urge to protect their hives—in Julius’ case, he considered himself a hive of one. Even the captains in his fleet couldn’t count on him to help them out of sticky situations.

Ami might be human, but Carton City was her hive, thugs and Chippers both, and she sure as stark wasn’t going to let anyone endanger it.

‘Admiral Julius Kratis,’ she greeted.

‘You done fucked up this time, N’uni,’ Julius said cheerfully. ‘We got you on vidcam! Stealing the merchandise right out of one of my ships. And my fleet’s registered to New Sydney. Gonna get you in real trouble, that.’

Ah. Stark. New Sydney’s government did have laws against slavery, to appease their nearest neighbours in the same system, but the punishment was a paltry fine. Theft, however…they took a dim view of that and perpetrators got tossed into the maw of a terrifying creature when it emerged from the ocean’s depths. Luckily for Ami, New Sydney folk really loved their loopholes.

‘So do you want me alive or dead?’ Ami asked.

Julius clacked his front rows of teeth together. ‘Alive, but I think you’d rather be dead.’

‘You can come collect me in person and gloat to my face,’ Ami suggested. ‘I have a docking port free.’

‘You starker! You’ll blast me the moment I step on board.’

Ami laughed. ‘Well, it would absolve me of the theft, wouldn’t it?’

That little loophole she planned on using? Kill whoever first accused you of the theft and suddenly there’s no accusation—or crime.

Julius shook his head furiously. ‘No, you will surrender yourself and enter my docking port. I will give you five minutes to comply. Be a single nanosecond late and I’ll slaughter twenty percent of the slaves you stole from me.’

Ami cursed softly. She waved her hand at Avurn, indicating for him to cut the link, and once again the viewport was filled with Julius’ monstrous ship.

What was she supposed to do?

The people crammed into her ship’s hold deserved the freedom she had promised them.

‘Julius will not entertain the notion of trading your life for theirs,’ Avurn warned her. ‘They’re worth more than we are.’

Ami rubbed her temples. ‘I know. And even if we do manage to get off a few shots with the lascannon, that shield is practically impenetrable. As for taking him out when I exit the docking port…forget it. He’s got a whole crew over there with itchy trigger fingers.’

‘No, he doesn’t. He’s alone.’

Ami dropped her hand and lasered in on Avurn. He was hunched over, shrinking down in his seat, suddenly looking his age. A boy caught in the act of doing something wrong.

‘Av?’ she asked.

‘I can only sense one lifesign over there,’ Avurn said quietly. ‘That entire ship can be crewed by a single being. Julius has a well-equipped vessel, granted, but he’s the only one on board. No doubt he relies on the appearance of having a sizeable army when he only has a handful of captains in charge of automated ships. Such hubris. There is a chance we could overpower him.’

Ami’s words were slow, suspicious. ‘Our sensors can’t penetrate that hull.’

Avurn expelled a forceful sigh that sounded as though it had been yanked out of his mouth along with several teeth. He held out his left arm, reefing up the sleeve of his jumpsuit. Avurn’s preference for wearing the colour black had often been a source of amusement for Ami, especially since he lived on a desert planet, but now even his expression was bordering on dark. He didn’t yield his secrets easily and why he’d kept this one was obvious.

The bump in the hollow on the opposite side of his elbow was thumbnail sized—and surrounded by angry red lines that twisted their way up towards his shoulder. He’d inserted something beneath his skin.

‘I have a chip,’ Avurn said, his eyes never meeting hers.

Ami wrapped her fingers around her lasgun, the leather grip worn down to the metal because it was second-hand, not from her use of it. She was a terrible shot. ‘Av. Chippers have chips. That’s why we call them…anyway, their chips go in the temple, not the arm.’

‘Can’t really risk discovery by putting it there, can I?’ Avurn chortled. He sounded much more like his usual self now. ‘It gives me the same powers they have: I can manipulate the universe’s energy to create forcefields, and I can sense the energy that lifeforms exude. Except I amped my chip up—you won’t believe how poorly designed theirs are, with such basic settings—so I’m pretty powerful.’

‘Avurn! Stark!’ Ami clenched her jaw, feeling stress twist inside her abdomen. ‘You’re wearing a chip you stole from GLEA! That’s a serious offence and if the agents on Ilbb see it—’

‘I didn’t steal it, I created it myself,’ Avurn said, scowling. ‘Granted, I did steal a chip so I could reverse-engineer it in the first place…’

‘Avurn!’

‘Captain!’ Avurn shot out of his chair. He stabbed a finger towards the viewport. ‘I can help! So let me.’

Ami could already hear the tongue-lashing she’d get if Jensa ever found out what her brother had been up to. Catching a lasbolt was a much less painful option, frankly.

Ami drew a deep breath, momentarily swamped by stress-induced nausea. ‘Alright. Two of us versus one particularly nasty pirate who has more lasguns than he does limbs. How do you propose we get out of this mess, Av?’

Avurn grinned.

Two

‘It seems Captain N’uni is going to surrender herself to Kratis,’ Second Lieutenant Pina-Sai said, once the unsecured link being Webcast between the two ships cut out.

His quickening breaths visibly ghosted across the viewport. The climate control system on their small, egg-shaped ship was faulty and had left them shivering in a temperature that was more appropriate for an icy moon. The ship badly needed repairs, though Private Kieran Krendasta wondered what, if any, help the outpost on Ilbb could offer them. Ilbb barely had any buildings, let alone starship facilities.

Finding a reputable mechanic was also going to be a problem. Most of the planet’s residents were criminals using Ilbb as a hideout—the agents posted here had made it their mission to introduce the shady characters of Carton City to the ways of the Creator God.

Kieran wasn’t sure how successful they’d been. People tended to take the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency for granted and didn’t always feel inclined to repay their services with coin-chips or worship of GLEA’s approved god. Kieran had mentioned his thoughts on this to Pina-Sai once, and the lieutenant had been quick to remind him that they shouldn’t expect anything in return for helping people.

Everything they did was done in service to the Creator God. Every agent was grateful to be carrying out his will and protecting his mortal children.

Kieran didn’t feel particularly grateful. The Creator God was starking useless.

Pina-Sai was bent into an awkward shape in the cramped cabin, though even if he had been afforded more space (and the budget to acquire a vessel with said space) he would not have used it.

Almost seven feet tall to Kieran’s five foot eight, Pina was not considered that unusual when among humans—even if he did stand out. But he had been raised on Lentaria, which was primarily populated by a blue-skinned, four-armed species that were all markedly shorter than Pina. His family had married and bred with humans for several generations, resulting in his tall stature. Full-blooded Lentarians had refused to speak to Pina until he’d adopted a permanent hunch that lowered himself to their level.

The only signs of his ancestry were the slate-grey eyes without any obvious pupils—and that peculiar braying laugh. Something Kieran didn’t hear very often.

Pina’s peppery hair was tightly cropped, exposing the chip in his temple, and his beard was kept tidy, as was required by the Agency. He had chosen to join GLEA, a predominantly human organisation, which should have solved his problems, but he was often overlooked for promotion—no doubt due to the painful and rather public breakdown of his marriage.

Agents who were married rose much quicker through the ranks, because of the potential offspring they could bring to the Agency. Those families unable to conceive naturally were encouraged to merge their DNA in approved clinics to create their children. Divorce was heavily frowned upon.

For all the difficulties in his life, Pina was a very patient man.

Kieran tried not to feel resentful about being paired with Pina. His superiors had said something about them being ‘suited’—frankly, they were both infamous screwups. No decent agent wanted to be associated with either man.

Their latest mission had been a glorified babysitting assignment on Unanda and they’d been on their way back to Gerasnin when their ship’s main console had started glitching. Things had got progressively worse after that. And of course their leapdrive had chosen to malfunction and strand them here.

Kieran had accidentally glanced at the dust-blown planet twice. A cube of ice seemed to be nestled against the nape of his neck, sending tendrils of frigid water down his spine.

He’d managed to avoid any deserts for a full Old Earth year.

Pina moved his avid gaze from the viewport to his companion. ‘What do you think we should do, Kieran?’

‘Assist Captain N’uni,’ Kieran replied.

‘Oh? To avoid touching down on Ilbb for that little bit longer?’ Pina asked, his lips curling. ‘I will admit to being somewhat attached to this portable refrigeration unit, since it has lasted several months longer than most ships I’ve been assigned. But it’s no longer comfortable or habitable. Your dislike of warmer climates is no reason to stay up here and freeze to death.’

Kieran narrowed his eyes at Pina, but managed to maintain a respectful tone. ‘No, sir. It’s clear that we will board and help the captain.’

‘It’s clear, is it?’ Pina echoed, his fingers fidgeting and overlapping each other on his knees. Kieran knew this meant that Pina was anxious and fighting the urge to wrap his hands around a glass of something strong. ‘What reasoning have you used for your assumption, Kieran?’

Unease gnawed a chasm into Kieran’s stomach.

Here we go again, he thought.

‘It’s just a feeling, sir.’

‘A feeling?’ Pina pressed. ‘Or a vision of the future in which you see us helping her?’

Kieran looked away, pained. No agent could see the future; it wasn’t one of the powers their chips gave them. But he had seen things. Mostly nothing useful, just snippets of daily life. Occasionally it was something to do with a mission. The Agency had dismissed these incidents as simple deja vu—even after that disaster on Fintaz.

Kieran now had a reputation for being unstable. He’d given up on applying for officer training because the answer was always an emphatic no.

It was safer to pretend he had feelings instead.

Pina pursed his lips and nodded. ‘No need to explain yourself. We will assist.’

Kieran stared at him. ‘What? No lecture about how we don’t have the ability to perceive the future?’

Kieran brushed his sandy-brown hair off his face (he really needed to get it cut—the agents on Ilbb would frown at how shaggy he had let it become) and tapped the protrusion on the temple that housed his chip. It was a small, insignificant bump, but sometimes he lay awake in bed for hours, wondering why the chip felt so cold beneath his skin. Other agents never seemed to lose sleep over it.

Pina frowned. ‘I am not our superiors, Kieran. While they might say you cannot possibly see the future…we are followers of the Creator God. Who knows what his plans are for us? The chips we use are mortal in design, hardly as potent as a divine gift. And there are already so many sub-level gods out there giving away powers like candy. I would be surprised if the Creator could not do the same.’

Hard to argue with that logic, Kieran mused.

Agents of GLEA gained their abilities through the use of tech—and only because the Creator God allowed it. Worshippers of the desert god, the Desine, were given their so-called ‘Magic’ upon birth. They could wield immense power without any artificial aid and were able to summon vast sandstorms, howling monsters that ripped skin from bone.

Monsters that claimed you, body and soul.

Kieran swallowed, bringing much-needed moisture back into his mouth. ‘You are never going to re-earn your old rank, Lieutenant. Being paired with me is bad enough for your reputation. Once people get wind of you actually believing me…’

‘I am a divorcee, so I’d say your reputation is the one taking a battering,’ Pina said as he began to steer their ship towards the pirate vessel. Even if the sensors on that monstrous bulk had been fooled by their basic cloaking device, Kratis would certainly notice when they attached themselves to one of the docking ports on his ship.

‘Your divorce has caused issues for you,’ Kieran agreed. ‘Or maybe your career stalled because you are incapable of learning any discipline in your old age.’

Pina flicked him a grin. ‘Old! Fifty is nothing for someone of Lentarian stock. I’ve at least a hundred Old Earth years left.’

 ‘I’m glad I won’t live that long,’ Kieran said, fighting to keep his own grin off his face. ‘Imagine being paired with you for a century. It’s a miracle I’m still sane after a single Old Earth year.’

‘If you had a rank, I would bust you from it just for disrespecting your elders!’

Silence soon fell between them, Pina requiring more focus as he hacked one of the docking ports on the pirate vessel. Kieran lacked his finesse with invading an opponent’s systems, never mind that GLEA provided them with third-party software that was supposed to be user-friendly.

‘Got it,’ Pina said as their docking tunnel extended and clanked into place.

Kieran and Pina both moved to the hatch, running their hands over their belts and ensuring that their lasguns, personal shielding devices, and communicators were present and secured. Relying on a chip alone had been the death of many an agent in the past.

Kieran glanced down at his violet jumpsuit and grimaced.

Their bright clothing wouldn’t exactly help them move undetected through the ship, most likely decked out in the neutral greys favoured by most designers, but it was their official uniform. Pina had two gold strokes over his right shoulder, indicating his rank—something Kieran knew he’d never have.

He was even more of a screwup than Pina was.

Kieran unclipped his lasgun from his belt, feeling the soft gel-based handle readjust inside his tight grip. He pressed his other hand to the airlock and sent his awareness through its twin on the other side of the tunnel.

His lips were already moving. ‘No lifesigns in the corridor. Safe to disembark.’

‘Do you have a plan?’ Pina asked, squeezing Kieran’s shoulder, a gentle reminder not to blunder into the situation—as he had done so many times before.

Kieran laughed shortly. ‘You’re the lieutenant, Lieutenant.’

‘My career advancement might have stalled, but that’s no reason for you to give up your own goals, Kieran,’ Pina said calmly. ‘Since you have so far shown no interest in marriage or breeding, which would fast-track you through the enlisted ranks or perhaps gain you a spot in officer training, we must build your strategic skills to a level that will impress our superiors. This is your mission to lead.’

‘You just don’t want to be the one responsible if we fail.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Oh well, I can only get us killed,’ Kieran said, then shook off Pina’s touch and slapped the sensor pad beside the airlock. He hurtled through the docking tunnel an instant later.

‘Kieran…!’

Pina cut short his rebuke and chased after Kieran, swearing.

Ami walked out into enemy territory, arms wide, bare palms offered to Admiral Julius Kratis.

He was shorter than she expected and his four lasguns (one in each of the clawed feet he wasn’t using for balance) were indecently long. If he was human, Ami would have said he was compensating for something. That kind of comment would have no effect on him. Hiktai were a hard species to read, but he had to have a weakness. Everyone did. Ami was willing to bet that even the gods had weaknesses that could be exploited.

Julius raised a lasgun and fired.

The ensuing lasbolt blatted against the wall beside Ami, though did no damage to the metal plating. She didn’t need the reminder to play nice. He’d already put in her in a vulnerable position by stipulating that she could not exit the docking tunnel with a lasgun or a personal shielding device.

Julius threw a pair of lascuffs at her feet. ‘Put those on.’

‘Afraid of one harmless little human, are you?’ Ami sneered, bending down on one knee. She scooped up the cuffs. ‘Pathetic, but not surprising. You know I can hijack this ship as soon as I get my hands on the controls. Bet you never learned how to fly it. You rely on all those automated systems, don’t you?’

Julius snarled. ‘Put ’em on now. Then tell me the code to open your docking port. No funny business, N’uni.’

‘I was thinking of trading me for my cargo?’ Ami batted her eyelashes. ‘Pretty please?’

‘No trade and no more stalling!’

‘Get one of your minions to cuff me. Oh.’ Ami managed a giggle, but she was going to have to rinse the taste of it out of her mouth later. ‘You don’t have any minions on board, do you. It’s just you, all alone on this big clunker. I guess most people laughed when you asked them to join your little so-called fleet. They must know you keep being outwitted by a human with only one lascannon attached to her shitty ship.’

All four lasguns rose in unison. ‘You wyvern, I’ll—!’

Julius fired. The lasbolts tore across the space between them—and hit only air. Then the bolts bounced away, striking and scoring the nearby bulkheads.

‘Shooting before you finish your sentence?’ Ami tutted. ‘Now that’s just unsporting.’

‘I said no personal shields!’ he roared.

Ami’s response was to wave her very empty hands. She hoped the frantic hammering of her heart wasn’t too loud or obvious. Gods, she could have just died.

Yep, definitely got a temper on him, that’s Julius’ weakness, she thought. As for my weakness? Poking the wyvern, that’s what. Can’t believe I trusted Av to block any bolts with his supposed powers that I’ve never seen him using. Shit. I forgot how reckless I can be when I’m backed into a corner.

Ami hurled the cuffs back at Julius. They hit the stretch of scales beneath his vinyl jacket and bounced onto the floor.

‘Put those on and get some extra cuffs for your other appendages,’ she ordered. ‘Oh, and while you’re at it, toss me your lasguns.’

‘Chipper!’ Julius hissed, his slitted yellow eyes full of venom.

‘Do you see a chip on me?’ Ami smirked. ‘Nope, I’m just the woman who’s going to shove you into a lifepod and strand you on the planet below. Then I’ll put out word on the Web that you’ve had to abandon ship. This giant eyesore will disappear in a matter of hours—good luck identifying the thief from down there.’

His throat crackled and popped as he laughed at her.

Not the intended reaction. Ami resisted the urge to mop the bottom of her shirt over her damp forehead.

‘ACTIVATE DEFENCE SYSTEM!’ Julius roared.

Alarms started screaming.

Julius grinned broadly, until his maw opened far enough to reveal his second and third sets of teeth. ‘Even a Chipper can’t deflect this many lasbolts.’

‘Av…?’ Ami called.

The boy skidded into view from around the corner.

He’d hung back inside the docking tunnel earlier, sneaking aboard once he’d hoodwinked Julius’ systems so they wouldn’t notice his presence. Ami had told him to keep out of sight, but Avurn had warned her that he could only create one forcefield at a time and he would join her inside it if he had to. As for the shielding device his sister had given him, Ami had quickly discovered that Avurn had long ago sold the ‘ancient and disgustingly inferior piece of tech’ because he’d needed the money to fund the construction of his chip. Gods help them.

‘Ami, we are starked!’ Avurn shouted.

The bulkheads shifted around them. Metal panels withdrew, exposing their deadly secrets, and within seconds the corridor was studded with hundreds of lasguns—and oh shit, they sprouted from the ceiling too.

Ami reached for the weapon stashed at the small of her back. She wasn’t a great shot, but even at this range she ought to be able to hit Julius—

The corridor exploded with light and noise.

Ami hit the floor. She lay there, dazed and winded, watching as the lasbolts bounced off the invisible barrier that stood in front of Avurn’s outstretched hands. He towered over her, all four feet of him, a force to be reckoned with. It was as though they were encased inside a plexiglass bubble, safe from anything Julius could throw at them—but they couldn’t escape the acrid tang of ozone coming off the lasguns.

Avurn grunted as he struggled to maintain the forcefield and his arms began to tremble; a Chipper conducted the universe’s energy through their hands when using their powers. But Ami was sure she had never seen any of them wield quite this much energy before.

Ami rolled onto her knees and staggered up onto her feet. Julius was still flashing that toothy smile, surrounded by a maelstrom of death, gleefully clacking his claws against the steel flooring. Not a single lasgun dared to fire at him.

‘Av!’ Ami said. ‘How much longer can you keep this up?’

‘We shall see!’ Avurn replied. ‘Hopefully until my virus takes out his weapons systems—and those systems were very easy to access!’

The lasguns, as though hearing the desperation in his voice, suddenly drooped in their sockets. The ensuing silence was somehow louder than the cacophony the weapons had been causing moments earlier.

‘ACTIVATE!’ Julius said, lifting one pair of feet to kick a nearby bulkhead. ‘Stark you, keep firing!’

Ami felt fingers brush past the small of her back.

Lasbolts shredded their way through Julius’ scales. He staggered back against the wall, throwing a mangled look of disbelief at them. Smoking holes swiftly replaced his eyes. He hit the deck. Hard.

Avurn lowered Ami’s lasgun, his expression grim.

‘You killed him!’ Ami cried.

‘The opportunity presented itself,’ Avurn said flatly.

The echo of nearby footsteps reached them. Avurn flinched and turned towards the sound, the lasgun rising once more. His hand was frighteningly steady.

Ami withdrew from him, trembling. There was so much she wanted to yell into his stony face, but only one sentence fell out of her mouth. ‘You said…you said there was no one else on board.’

‘I was wrong. It happens. I’ll kill them too.’

‘Av—no!’ Ami lunged for the lasgun.

Avurn’s expression shifted from defiant to startled when his finger slipped on the trigger. The weapon discharged.

‘Oh stark,’ the boy said faintly.

Ami swung her eyes in the direction the lasbolt had gone. Standing in the centre of the corridor was a man in his mid-twenties, his rigid stance emphasising his perfectly sculpted form (even the relaxed fit of his jumpsuit couldn’t hide that). Stark, he was hot.

Ami would have attempted to buy him a drink, if not for the current circumstances.

He had both hands thrown up in front of him, the lasbolt hovering mere micrometres from his fingers, evidently kept in place by a forcefield. He gently nudged the bolt to the side, targeting one of Julius’ mounted lasguns and effortlessly destroying it. He wielded his powers with much more precision than Avurn had.

Ami looked at the newcomer’s right temple.

Yep, definitely a chip there.

Not that she needed to see it, since his uniform was a giant purple clue.

‘I’m glad I wasn’t too late,’ the Chipper said, then glanced at the corpse on the floor. His lips twitched. ‘Well, I think he would disagree.’

Ami was too stunned to let the hysterical laugh escape.

Three

Kieran didn’t waste time trying to come up with an elaborate plan.

While Pina grappled with a console in a vain attempt to shut down the defence system, Kieran made his way towards the three lifesigns he could sense further along the curved corridor, clustered near another docking port. Pina hadn’t answered when Kieran had asked him if he could deactivate the lasguns in time—they were springing up all along the corridor like the rapidly spawned flowers of Ti’slo’a Prime—and had instead shouted at Kieran to just run.

Kieran had obeyed without question.

His personal shielding device deflected the lasbolts hailing down on him, until it failed with a whine and a whiff of smoke. But by then he didn’t need it. A small forcefield caught the only bolt that came close to ending his life—which, surprisingly, hadn’t come from the ship’s weapons. Those lasguns were now offline, though Kieran seriously doubted this was due to Pina’s efforts, given how frantic the lieutenant had looked when they’d parted.

Kieran took stock of the scored floor and bulkheads, eyebrows raised.

Both the captain and the boy should be dead.

As for the pirate, he shouldn’t be on the floor. His automated weapons would have recognised his biometrics and should not have targeted him.

The lasgun in the boy’s hand, however…that’d do it.

‘I shot Julius,’ Captain N’uni said and yanked at the weapon.

The boy stubbornly held onto the lasgun for several seconds, only relenting when she hissed something into his ear. It sounded like she was invoking the wrath of a relative on him.

Captain N’uni’s gaze was defiant when she turned back to Kieran. ‘This ship is registered to New Sydney. Admiral Julius Kratis accused me of stealing his property, so it’s perfectly legal for me to kill him to render said accusation null and void. If you have a problem with me ridding the galaxy of someone who considered living beings his property, then I’m going to have a starking big problem with you.’

‘He dealt in slaves?’ Kieran paused. Her starship was close enough that he could get a read on the energy inside it. He detected twenty lifesigns. ‘Why would you bring them here, Captain?’

‘No one looks on Ilbb for escaped slaves,’ she said. ‘It’s a wasteland where criminals go to disappear; snitches don’t last long down there. And unlike most seedy ports, it’s not watched by slavers. Anyway, I help these people catch a ride to wherever they want to go from here. Some even assimilate into the local population.’

She was trying to distract him.

She was doing a starking good job of it.

Kieran indicated her companion. ‘I believe the minimum age for humans on a starship’s crew is eighteen Old Earth years.’

‘Not on Ilbb,’ she fired back. ‘And that’s where my ship is registered.’

The boy lifted his chin. ‘Even so, there are few captains who would refuse someone as valuable as me. Mentally, I’m quite advanced. My body has not developed at a similar pace, but my predominantly human genetics are to blame for that.’

Kieran frowned heavily, until his vision went almost grey. There was a buzzing sensation in his right temple, where the chip rested, when he focused on the boy. It was not unlike what he felt around other agents when he tried to link his powers to theirs. He’d always had trouble doing that.

Kieran was less powerful than every other agent he’d ever met—discounting that one bizarre and horrifying incident on Fintaz—but he had resigned himself to this after more than two decades of disappointing his superiors. An agent’s power levels could be due to the chip they had been issued with, or even a minute glitch in their brain chemistry.

But even someone with Kieran’s limited capabilities could still sense the concern in the boy’s energy.

‘He shot the pirate,’ Kieran stated.

Captain N’uni hooked the lasgun onto her belt and stepped out in front of the boy, palms offered: both a gesture of peace and a plea for Kieran to listen.

‘Please don’t arrest Avurn,’ she said, a wobbly smile sketched across her features. ‘I might be a shit shot, but no one on Ilbb will testify to that, mostly because they love to help anyone avoid GLEA’s prison cells. They’ll back me up. Secondly, it was self-defence, which might be one of those New Sydney loopholes. And lastly—his sister would never forgive me.’

‘Ami cannot continue to liberate slaves if I am incarcerated,’ Avurn declared, frighteningly solemn for someone so young. ‘Can you imagine her trying to navigate the perils of space without me? She only managed to transport foodstuff before I came aboard!’

‘Av, you’re not helping!’ she said.

Kieran closed his eyes. Creator God, now would be a great time to finally reveal that you give a shit about me. Tell me what to do. Just a hint. Anything.

Silence.

Kieran studied Ami closely. She was beautiful, but he couldn’t allow that to affect his judgement. Still, he didn’t think she or her crewmate were lying about their activities. Those twenty souls on Ami’s vessel—he could feel their hope, feel them reaching out for an intangible, uncertain future.

The communicator on his belt spat out Pina’s shrill voice. ‘Kieran! A self-destruct sequence just activated!’

‘Av?’ Ami asked.

The boy nodded grimly. ‘It would be Julius’ style to rig a self-destruct sequence to his lifesign.’

‘You little starker!’ Ami snarled and kicked the pirate’s corpse, flipping him over onto his back. She yanked open the vinyl jacket he’d been wearing. An ugly device was cratered onto the Hiktai’s torso, covered in lights that were winking furiously as the ship’s self-destruct counted down.

She swore again. ‘Shit! Is your ship fast, Chipper?’

‘We’ll take yours,’ Kieran said instead of answering outright. He ripped the communicator off his belt. ‘Pina, get to this docking port. Now!’

‘The pirate captain?’

‘I dealt with him,’ Kieran replied.

Suspicion laced Pina’s words. ‘And by dealt with, you mean…’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Kieran! Do you even want to repair your tarnished reputation?’

‘Just get over here!’ Kieran barked and cut the connection.

‘Thank—’ Ami began.

Kieran turned his back on her and bolted towards the nearest docking port. He didn’t check to see if she and the boy were following him. He had an awful feeling that he wasn’t running from them or the self-destruct, but from the fact that he had, yet again, done something to endanger his position in the Agency.

Would they finally kick him out? Toss him headfirst into a galaxy he’d never had to navigate alone?

He had been given to GLEA’s Orphanage Division as a baby. He’d never known any other life. But maybe it would be safer for the Agency if he was gone—and safer for everyone in the galaxy if he wasn’t constantly being sent out on missions.

Who am I kidding? he thought as he ran. They didn’t even punish me for that massacre on Fintaz.

They should have killed me.

Ilbb orbited two of three suns in a trinary star system, but fortunately the celestial giants weren’t close enough to kill anyone who stepped outside. It was, however, starking bright on the planet’s surface. Sunlight here could last two to three Old Earth days. There were rumours of vegetation hidden amongst