Astra: Synchronicity (10 page)

Using what little leverage the dresser gave
him, Magnius kicked at Tiyuri to break his grip. His opponent
slammed his fist hard into Magnius' face. As he recoiled from the
pain, he hit the brute with a telekinetic shock more powerful than
the last one. Tiyuri crashed into the door, breaking the lock and
sending it flying open. But the obstacle didn't hinder his motion.
He continued on and plunged down the stairs, frantically pawing to
grab something—anything to stop his violent descent.

Magnius didn't hang around to watch. He ran
to the window and stepped onto the overhanging roof. After climbing
down the nearby tree, he fell onto the ground and panicked, knowing
it would only be a matter of moments before Tiyuri came to. He
sprinted toward the white car, threw the gull-wing door open, and
jumped inside. Without even unplugging it from the house, he
shifted into reverse and sped out of the driveway. Upon reaching
the street, he jammed it into drive, running over a flowerbed in
their front yard with his getaway.

He breathed an uneasy sigh and headed toward
the other side of the city. The trip wouldn't take more than
fifteen minutes on a bad day. But this was about to be a very bad
day. He glanced into the mirror and saw a large vehicle skid around
a corner behind him. Within seconds the bright headlights blinded
him, and the car accelerated toward his. He stomped the pedal to
the floor but the electric car didn't respond, since it had been
designed for city travel not high speeds.

He swerved into the other lane, missing a
collision with an approaching hovercar by inches. Dodging oncoming
traffic became a frightening prospect so he made a series of rapid
turns onto side streets in order to lose the pursuer. It didn't
work, only serving to make the car behind him more aggressive and
dangerous. They dodged lampposts and vehicles in a frantic race for
survival, one he had no illusions of winning. At the sedan's
current rate of approach, he'd never make it to the landing
pad.

The two entered a residential area, and the
last thing Magnius wanted to do was injure a child or any
pedestrians. He decelerated and let Tiyuri clip his right rear
fender. In one surreal motion the car spun around clockwise and the
black hovercar smashed into the passenger's side of the commuter,
pushing the two down the street with their inertia. As they slowed,
the vehicles slid against a tall concrete wall, grinding them to a
stop.

Jolted but uninjured, Magnius tried to get
his door open, but it wouldn't budge. The car's frame had buckled
during the impact, preventing the handle from operating properly.
He glanced at the smoldering hovercar still wedged into the
opposite side of Lyneea's poor wreck. A jogger they'd passed after
the collision rushed over to Tiyuri's vehicle like a Good
Samaritan. If he could've done anything to save that man, he
would've—now was too late.

He put his right hand on the window and
turned his head away, shutting his eyes before shattering the glass
next to him. Without another thought, he slid out the opening and
wrested himself free of the vehicle. He saw Tiyuri with his fingers
around the young man's forehead while he tore out every trace of
gammamine from the naïve person.

Before he finished feeding, Magnius ran west
down the street. Could he best the rejuvenated combatant after
expending so much energy in their earlier struggle? He might've had
a chance if the assassin hadn't restored all his powers. He could
kill Tiyuri, but then he'd be one of those psions normals like
Lyneea hated because they had no respect for life itself; he would
not make a concession on his morals unless absolutely
necessary.

After sprinting past several large houses, he
turned to see if he was being followed. Sure enough, Tiyuri trailed
about thirty yards behind him. "You can't run, Magnius. Coming with
me was never a choice."

Magnius feared that had been the case. After
another hundred yards, he felt winded but stopping would seal his
fate. Now more than ever, Tiyuri would delight in beating him until
he fell unconscious before hauling his war trophy to Superbia.
Tiyuri never went against Aliane's word, and if she told him to
bring Magnius to her, that's what he'd do. The assassin didn't
bother with petty personal vendettas but followed orders like his
life depended on it.

As chance would have it, the following
morning was garbage day. Green bins lined the street as far as
Magnius could see in the darkness. To keep Fantasti in pristine
condition, a mandatory recycling system had been enacted, which
made the most of the limited resources available in the Vega
system. Never before had the decree seemed so fortuitous.

He rushed across the dark street. When he
reached the other side, he continued west. Passing a pair of refuse
bins, he used his telekinesis to shove them into Tiyuri's path.
Magnius glanced back to see paper and plastic flying everywhere,
bounding into people's yards and into the street as though it were
confetti. Tiyuri dodged the objects with little effort, or they
bounced off his chest without breaking his stride.

Failure didn't stop Magnius from trying again
and again, leaving a mass of debris in his wake. And Tiyuri
continued unfazed. He began resorting to other methods, using
objects in people's front yards: children's toys, signs, hanging
flowerpots, and seasonal decorations. Some of the larger items
tripped Tiyuri up, allowing Magnius to widen the gap between the
two. But that didn't matter if he couldn't keep up the torrid
pace.

Instead of allowing himself to resign to the
inevitable, Magnius tapped into the anger he'd suppressed all these
years. There had always been a quiet rage inside of him toward
Aliane. He continued to live with the misery she'd put him through
so long ago. She'd ruined his childhood, and if he ever planned to
put an end to things between the two of them, now was the time to
send a powerful message her way.

Magnius stopped in his tracks and spun
around. A vicious burning welled behind his eyes—a seething energy
of pure hatred. "You want me? Then come and get me you son of a
bitch."

He closed his eyes and channeled a massive
concussive blast at Tiyuri's location. The square of sidewalk
underneath him detonated, sending Tiyuri flying into the street
with a rain of concrete fragments around him. A nearby fence
splintered from the shockwave and water from an underground pipe
burst into the air, soaking everything around it. He'd never
channeled that much raw power before. He took a step back in
astonishment, and all at once the sight of such destruction
startled him.

Tiyuri picked himself up without taking his
eyes off Magnius. He approached unsteadily, limping on his right
leg. Blood spatters covered his bruised face from a broken nose,
but he was no less determined to complete his mission. Within a
minute his foe would regenerate his wounds, leaving Magnius worse
off than he was now.

"I don't want to hurt you, Tiyuri," he said.
"Let me go."

"I can't do that, Magnius. And now you've
made it personal."

In a sudden burst of energy, Tiyuri lunged
toward Magnius in an attempt to knock him to the ground and pin him
there. He cowered, holding his arms out to lessen the blow. But it
never came. Instead, Tiyuri hung suspended in midair several yards
away from him. He'd used his telekinetic powers on instinct without
even trying to.

All color drained out of the assassin's face.
It was the first time Magnius could recall seeing Tiyuri
scared.

"So maybe you really did turn out to be the
boy wonder everyone was hoping for," Tiyuri said, his words
dripping with sarcasm. "You belong with us. You belong with
Aliane."

"You seem to be forgetting that I'm holding
all the cards right now," Magnius said as he stood and lifted
Tiyuri further off the ground. "Nothing in all of Astra could get
me to see eye to eye with Aliane."

"Don't kid yourself that you'll ever fit in
with these pathetic normals. Your life is a lie."

People started to stir from inside the houses
to see what the commotion was all about. Magnius panicked, not
wanting any of them to recognize him. He grabbed a bicycle out of a
nearby yard and fled the scene. Moments later, Tiyuri fell ten feet
out of the sky with a thud and a groan, but Magnius didn't look
back. He needed to get away from the scene and to that ship.

He wove through alleys and side streets until
he got back to his house. If he went back for his hoverbike, he'd
be able to make it to the landing pad in time. He grabbed the
satchel on his return visit before speeding into the night on his
bike. He found himself unable to relax, given Tiyuri's singular
obsession with pleasing Aliane's every command. He remained out
there, somewhere.

Every minute that passed with no sign of
Tiyuri was a blessing. However, when he approached an overpass, he
felt a strong psionic presence. No sooner had the red flags gone
off in his mind, an oncoming vehicle swerved through traffic and
jumped the median.

With his heart racing out of control, Magnius
activated the counter-thrusters and skidded to a stop. He held his
arms out in front of him, using every last bit of psionic energy he
had left to stop Tiyuri. His hands trembled under the strain, and
his eyes burned like a hot needle plunged through them. He
deflected the hovercar toward the guardrail, which it hit with an
incredible amount of force, its momentum carrying it over the edge.
The vehicle plunged down toward the street below, its hover
mechanism cushioning the impact, and crashed into a lamp pole.

Magnius watched him try to pull himself out
of the smoking hovercar, but he'd been pinned behind the wheel.
Streams of blood trickled down his forehead where he hit the
steering console in front of him. Despite his immense power, his
strength posed no match for the cage of metal that surrounded him.
Magnius seized the opportunity to get away. Once Tiyuri got free,
he'd try to hunt down Lyneea and use her as a bargaining chip to
force Magnius to surrender without a fight. He hoped she wouldn't
be here.

"I'll find you, Magnius!" In the cool air
Tiyuri's voice echoed for blocks with a chilling tone that would
forever haunt his dreams. "I will find you!"

And Magnius never once turned back, fearing
he'd already wasted too much time and would only find an empty
landing site. Fortunate for him, the Allied Fleet rarely left on
time. Never in his life would he be so happy to see them.

***

Commander Mundammi cracked his knuckles and
tried to make sense out of the cryptic message on the computer
screen in front of him. He should've been off-duty an hour ago, but
before he left his office, he received an urgent communiqué from
Admiral McKirin. He put the entire fleet on high alert for any
sightings of an unidentified vessel, and a number of ships had been
diverted to Avia for reasons not disclosed. The careful wording
gave him the impression this wasn't just another drill, and the
fact that the PAU wasn't specifically named added to his
bewilderment.

He rested his head against the back of his
chair and closed his eyes. The fleet's alarm was probably much ado
about nothing. Several months ago, a PAU probe had wandered off
course when a comet damaged it. The entire incident set off
hysteria that took weeks to resolve. Doom-and-gloom reports were
nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Their mission of peace envoy to Sirius sent
his blood boiling. He blamed the PAU government for the death of
his parents, knowing they swept the deaths of those terreformers
under the rug and deemed it an accident. The PAU either needed to
be conquered or annihilated; as an ally, they would certainly be
trouble, always planning and waiting to strike the AC if it
weakened.

The ship landed on Fantasti several hours
ago, and since they had not yet left, he decided to go outside and
have a smoke to clear his head. The peace it offered him would be
fleeting, yet unwinding in the warm night air would only take a few
minutes. He did his best not to let the stress get to him, but it
came with the territory. Responsibility for the vessel and its
entire crew rest on his shoulders, and he did not take it
lightly.

The captain emerged from the aft hold and lit
a cigarette the instant he set foot on the planet. Kevin and Sibo
chatted with Amii, both of them joking around in a vain attempt to
outdo the other one in the hopes they'd score with her. To Rashad,
she looked no better than average. Despite having the body of a
lanky teenage boy, self-confidence guided her every gesture. Her
expressive face bore her emotions with ease. He paid no attention
to their conversation, preferring instead to smoke by himself.

Gazing at his ship, he took several relaxing
puffs of hashish. The
Kearsarge
stood fifty feet high: a
hulking gold vessel dated by its bulky design, inefficient layout,
and lack of livable area. The exterior hull glistened under the
bright lights like a disco ball from the alloy used in its armor
plating. It was the only
Orion
-class vessel ever
commissioned due to the rapid advances in technology in the 2270's.
The
Kearsarge
was a monstrosity on the outside but a good
ship, more capable than most gave it credit for.

After several minutes, Amii approached him
and broke his state of calmness. "Is there a reason you don't smoke
on board, Commander?"

"Hashish is banned aboard vessels of the AC
fleet, but on many worlds it's legal. Every time we land someplace
where it's freely trafficked, I have one. It's my wife's fault I
got hooked on the stuff, and now that she's gone I can't bring
myself to give it up."

"What happened?"

Rashad took a long drag, hesitant to discuss
the past. "She was murdered one night by a psion. Not a day goes by
that I don't think about it. She saved me from the streets of New
Ireland. She'd been nothing but a kind soul her entire life." His
eyes glazed over.