Axira Episode One (2 page)

One of her arms was stretched out towards it. She had
obviously been shot seconds from escape.

I couldn’t shed a tear for her. Instead I walked in. Using my
boot, I pushed her legs forward so the door could close. Then I
leaned over to the panel and placed my hand flat against it. The
exposed wires and jagged metal could not hurt me. No doubt they had
killed the woman, but they did nothing to me. Instead I pushed into
them until my bracelet was flush with what remained of the
panel.

Energy and data transferred from the scratched and marked
gold over to the panel. Within seconds the air lift lurched and
began to ascend.

I stood there, bracelet still flush with the panel, wide eyes
staring out at the seared wall.

The air lift shuddered to a halt.

I turned.

It opened.

I saw them.

The security team from the Coalition ship. They wore the
classic Coalition uniform; neat tunics and pants with trim collars
and pips. They came from every race. From the humans to the
Bakarians to the Paranians. Every race that had joined the
Coalition.

The man closest to the lift brought up his weapon. There was
a moment where he stared at me, and maybe compassion softened his
features. Then his gaze flicked down to the woman by my
feet.

“
Surrender your weapon,” he snapped.

He was human.

In seconds the other security officers around him all brought
their regulation pulse rifles up too.

They pointed them at me.

I waited. Not because I wanted to, not because I could see
the concern on their faces and appreciate why they were here. Only
because my master decreed it. He was toying with them.

“
Surrender your weapon,” the human shouted again.

He was their captain. I had met Coalition forces before, I
understood their command structure, and I knew to look for the pips
on their collars or stripes on their shoulders.

“
You will die, human,” I said.

My voice was distant. It always was. Every word I had spoken
over the past 450 years had always been a surprise to me. I spoke
only what a creature beyond my mind dictated, never what I chose
to.

I walked forward.

Reluctantly they opened fire. I recognized their hesitation;
I saw their captain’s face. I appreciated the confusion and
sorrow.

Their bullets slammed into me.

Each one fed up my body and into my blade. Without knowing
it, they were making me stronger.

I pulled my blade up, swinging it around, aiming for the
captain.

An ensign jostled into him, knocking him to the
side.

My blade, crackling with energy, slammed into the ensign
instead.

He was blasted back down into the corridor. He skidded along
the floor, coming to a rest meters away, body limp, clothes covered
in black marks.

“
Fall back, fall back,” I heard the captain plead.

They kept shooting at me.

I walked forward. My footsteps were calm, even, paced. I
chose to hear them above the screams and fire.

I brought my blade around, catching another crewman closest
to me.

They did not have a chance.

“
Our bullets aren’t having an effect; hold your fire, hold
your fire.” The captain grabbed at the woman to his side and pulled
her back, pushing her out of my path.

“
What the hell is she, what is she?”

“
We can’t leave Mathers behind.”

“
He’s dead, we have to get to the passengers.”

I heard their screams. I watched their faces contort in
horror and anguish at their fallen comrades.

“
Running scans, Captain, I have no idea what that weapon is,
but it’s definitely absorbing our blasts,” a lieutenant shouted as
he ducked behind a broken section of bulkhead that had come away
from the wall.

“
Fall back, head for the other lift.” The captain, though he
was out of my immediate reach, still looked right at me.

Brave and stupid. Couldn’t he see that there was nothing he
could do? Couldn’t he see that his forces were hopelessly
outnumbered? If he wanted to protect his crew, he had to fall
back.

I could not share with him my thoughts, all I could do was
shout them silently in my mind.

When every one of his crew had reached the air lift at the
opposite end of the corridor, he closed it using a device on his
wrist.

As the doors hissed closed, one of his crewmen jumped
forward. “What are you doing—”

The captain pushed him back, the door closing over a section
of his sleeve. He yanked it out, his uniform ripping up his
arm.

“
She’s after me,” the captain answered, even though his crew
were now safely locked in the air lift and out of
earshot.

Yes, I was. My master believed you should always cut off the
head first. Without a commander, a crew falls apart.

I walked towards him. He backed away, always facing
me.

He brought his arms up. “Let us help them, please, just let
us help them.”

“
You will die, human,” my lips moved of their own accord. My
words chosen by my master. They were beamed right into my
mind.

He kept his arms in front of him, dirt and sweat dripping
down his brow. “We’ve still got people in there. Please, you can
take the transport. Just let us get them out.”

My arm moved up, my energy blade held firmly in my grip. I
twisted it around until I held it out straight, blocking off the
path behind me. The tip crackled and spat, energy arcing down and
travelling through the handle and into my arm. It did not hurt; I
could hardly feel it save for the lightest of tickles.

I looked on at him passionlessly. I saw the desperation
eating away at his features, yet he still stood. The pulse rifle
was still in one of his hands, his ripped sleeve dangling over
it.

He did not give up.

“
Please, we can’t leave them. Just let us save them. You can
take the god damned ship.”

“
You will die, human,” I repeated.

The section of corridor we were in was damaged, and as I
stood there emotionlessly, my arm stretched out from my side as I
blocked the path behind me, one of the conduits above exploded.
Pipes and circuits erupted out of it, slamming against my face and
shoulders.

Though they burnt, I did not move. I could withstand so much
more.

I saw him double back, bring his arms up over his face to
protect himself from the blast and crackle of the steam and
circuits.

He flinched as his exposed arm burnt.

Up to that point I had been wearing a hood. Black, it covered
my face and body. Only my boots and arms were bare.

The captain brought his gun up and shot at the conduit above
me.

There was an explosion this time. It slammed into me from
above, ripping my cloak off my shoulders. It pushed me down onto
one knee, the metal of the floor buckling underneath me. I jumped
forward before I could fall through it.

I flipped, twisting in the air, landing behind the captain,
bringing my blade forward.

There was a moment just after I landed where he stared at me.
Stumbling back, his eyes grew unmistakably wide. I saw the whites,
saw the pupils all but shake with terror.

“
Spacer, you’re a spacer,” he choked out.

The room was filling with dark foul smoke from the exposed
conduit. He leaned forward and spluttered into his hand, coughing
heavily, torso heaving as he did. But as soon as his fit was over,
those startled eyes locked back onto me.

“
What are you doing here? This is just a simple transport.
There’s nothing here but cargo.”

My master would soon be done playing with this
man.

The captain kept shifting back, movements jerky as he coughed
and spluttered against the smoke.

“
There’s nothing here for you,” he repeated,
desperate.

“
But your death,” I said.

He shuddered. But he didn’t turn to run from my promise. His
eyes drifted over me, those pupils still shaking.

I caught my own reflection at that moment in the swinging
panel of a service duct that had come loose from the ceiling
above.

My skin was covered in lines, channels of energy that would
glow in the dark. Patterns that shifted like wind across sand. I
wore white armor, and the channels from my skin tracked across it
too. Covering my eyes was a visor, opaque to the captain, it
offered no hindrance to my view.

“
Just … just let them live.” The Captain ran out of corridor.
His back slammed up against a door. It was half jammed open, but
the space it left was too small for the man to fit
through.

He should have been like an animal trapped in the corner,
except he did not lash out and neither did he crumple to his feet
and shake in fear.

He faced me.

I brought my blade forward.

I did not want to kill this man. I understood what he was
doing. I understood his sacrifice. I knew how loathsome those
mercenaries were. I knew the horror my master had in store for
all.

I had never wanted to kill anyone, but I could no longer
count the number of times I had wielded my blade.

Just before I brought it forward, his face slackened, not
with surrender, but compassion. “You don’t have to do
this.”

My blade stopped.

No, I stopped it.

I had done this precious few times over the past 450 years.
Overridden my master’s orders.

If I had not experienced it, I would not have been so sure
that escape was possible, that one day I would finally be able to
shrug off my shackles.

He hadn’t sucked in a breath since my blade had stopped just
against his chest. I was close to him, my arms ready to tense at
any second and plunge my weapon through his chest.

He looked into my eyes.

I have no idea what he saw.

At that moment the pain began. It stabbed into my
mind.

My master trying to reassert his control.

I had never lasted this long before. My other brushes with
freedom had lasted for fractions of a second. Long enough to know
it was possible, but nothing more.

The captain, those shifting pupils still locked on me, began
to move. He shifted to the side, my blade scraping across his
uniform and cutting it easily. Shimmying, he managed to squeeze
past it.

I heard him take several steps then he tapped something.
“Lock weapons onto my coordinates. Prepare to space this section,
that’s an order.”

It would kill him. If the weapons of his cruiser obliterated
this section of the transport, it would kill the captain
instantly.

It would not kill me. I would be lost in the rubble as I
drifted out into space, but I would find a way back inside the
ship. I would finish what I had started. He would be buying himself
precious few minutes.

“
Captain, you’re still there, we can’t—” someone snapped over
the captain’s wireless com line.

“
That’s an order.”

My master still fought me. The bracelets I wore sunk into my
skin like hands around my wrists, exerting their control, sending
their tendrils further into my body, sending their messages to my
brain, trying to override my control to claim me again.

Somehow I still fought.

Then I felt it. The energy surging towards the
ship.

I moved back, brought up my blade, and slammed it forward. As
I did, it created a shield. It arced, beautiful and blue, all
around me and down into the corridor.

The ship rocked back, the hull in front of my shield suddenly
erupting in an enormous, bright blast.

Sections of hull melted in seconds, others tore free, ripping
conduits, pipes, and panels out and sending them slamming away into
the dark space beyond.

My shield held.

It hurt.

Every bone, every muscle, every fiber of my being.

I could only keep it up for seconds. It would tax me of my
energy, shut me down.

As it weakened me, my master struggled harder to gain
hold.

I lasted long enough for the captain of the Coalition Ship
Zeus to fall back, run to the nearest air lift, and leave the
level.

Then I shut down, I succumbed.

Blackness claimed me, but as it did, one thought settled in
deeper than the rest.

I had claimed many lives, fought many battles for a master
who cared only for destruction.

Yet that day, for the first time, I had fought back long
enough to make a difference.

I had saved that Coalition captain.

It gave me the faith I so desperately needed to believe that
one day I could save myself.