Authors: Rachel Bach
Tags: #Action & Adventure, #Space Opera, #Fiction, #Romance, #Science Fiction, #Military, #General
Honour's Knight
Honour's Knight
Paradox [2]
Rachel Bach
Orbit (2014)
Rating: ★★★★★
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action Adventure, Romance, Military, Space Opera, General
Fictionttt Science Fictionttt Action Adventurettt Romancettt Militaryttt Space Operattt Generalttt
Devi Morris has lots of problems - and not the fun, easy-to-shoot kind either.
After a mysterious attack left her short of several memories and one partner, she's determined to keep her head down, do her job and get on with her life. But even though Devi's not looking for it this time, trouble keeps finding her.
She sees ghostly creatures no one else can, the inexplicable black stain on her hands keeps getting bigger and she can't seem to stop getting into compromising situations with a man she's supposed to hate. But when a deadly crisis exposes far more of the truth than she bargained for, Devi discovers there are worse fates than being shot - and that sometimes the only people you can trust are the ones who want you dead.
The more I thought about it, the less I understood why I found Ren’s smile so scary. Other than the night she’d smiled at me in the lounge, I couldn’t actually remember her doing anything threatening, but thinking about her definitely increased the feeling that I’d forgotten something. I ground my teeth, trying to force my stupid brain to remember. There had to be a reason I was so afraid of her; what was it? What had I forgotten?
I was still trying to figure this out when the hand grabbed my spine.
I shot bolt upright. From the lack of horrible pain, I knew there was no way a hand could
actually
be grabbing my spine, but that was exactly what it felt like. Five fingers and a palm, wrapped around the vertebrae just below my neck. I could even feel the fingers moving inside me, readjusting to get a better grip.
My shock had been enough to flip my suit into combat mode, but when my vitals flashed up, I didn’t see anything wrong. My suit had no breaches, and though the panic had elevated my heart rate, I was otherwise fine. I didn’t see anything behind me through my rear cameras either. I was about to flip my visor back down and do a full scan when a soft, feminine voice whispered in my mind.
Come.
As the word finished, the hand on my spine jerked, and I popped out of my body like a shucked pea.
about the author
Rachel Bach
grew up wanting to be an author and a supervillain. Unfortunately, supervillainy proved surprisingly difficult to break into, so she stuck to writing and everything worked out great. She currently lives in Athens, Georgia, with her perpetually energetic toddler, extremely understanding husband, overflowing library, and obese wiener dog. You can find out more about Rachel and all her books at
rachelbach.net
.
Rachel also writes fantasy under the name Rachel Aaron. Learn more about her first series,
The Legend of Eli Monpress
, and read sample chapters for yourself at
rachelaaron.net
!
Find out more about Rachel Bach and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at
www.orbitbooks.net
.
B
Y
R
ACHEL
B
ACH
Paradox
Fortune’s Pawn
Honour’s Knight
Heaven’s Queen
B
Y
R
ACHEL
A
ARON
The Legend of Eli Monpress
The Spirit Thief
The Spirit Rebellion
The Spirit Eater
The Spirit War
Spirit’s End
The Legend of Eli Monpress (omnibus edition)
The Revenge of Eli Monpress (omnibus edition)
COPYRIGHT
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Orbit
ISBN: 9781405525244
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Aaron
Excerpt from
Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie
Copyright © 2013 by Ann Leckie
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Orbit
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Table of Contents
To the original crew of the
Glorious Fool
PROLOGUE
Y
ou said
no
?” the girl shrieked, crushing the letter in her fist. “You didn’t even think you should ask
me
first?”
Her father folded his arms over and fixed her with the look that used to make his soldiers tremble. “No. It was not your decision.”
The girl threw the balled-up letter at him, bouncing it off his chest. “I can’t believe you, Papa!” she shouted. “The best plasmex school in the galaxy invites me to be a student, and you ruined it! You don’t even ask me what I think, you just said no like you get to talk for me!”
“I do talk for you, Yasmina,” her father said calmly. “You are twelve, a child. Children should not go so far from home.”
“I’ll never go
anywhere
,” Yasmina wailed. “I’ll be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere
forever
!” She whirled around and ran through the farmhouse to her room. “I hate you!” she screamed.
“You will not speak to me like that!” her father yelled back, but it was too late. The girl had already slammed her door.
He took a step to follow, then stopped, running his hands through his thick, curling black hair, which seemed to be getting grayer by the day. He knew from experience that confronting her now would do nothing but make her angrier. That was natural; Yasmina was young. He was not. It was his responsibility to be calm, to do what was best. But that was cold comfort when he could hear his daughter crying.
The man sighed and sank onto the worn chair beside the picture window that looked out over the open fields that surrounded their sprawling house. Honestly, he didn’t like being out here any more than she did. He’d never liked wide open spaces. There was too little cover, too many ways someone could sneak up on them, but he’d had no choice.
Yasmina was plasmex sensitive. It hadn’t been so bad when she was young, but with her powers growing every year, they couldn’t stay in the city with all its voices. So he’d quit his job with the Terran military and moved his family to the colonies, away from everything that could hurt her. The isolation had been bearable while his wife was alive. Now, things were … less easy. But with just the two of them, it was more important than ever that he keep his Yasmina safe and close at his side.
Something bumped gently against his shoe, and the man looked down to see the balled-up letter his daughter had thrown. He leaned over and picked it up, pressing the crumpled paper flat across his knee. The letter from the plasmex school informing them of Yasmina’s acceptance was printed on heavy, old-fashioned paper. A ploy, he was sure, to convey an age and importance he’d seen no sign of when he’d looked the place up. He’d sent his reply on a far less prestigious droid relay, and despite Yasmina’s tears, he felt no regret. So long as he breathed, his little girl was not going to a coed school on the other side of the galaxy.
He balled the letter up again, crushing the paper ruthlessly. He was getting up to toss it in the incinerator when he heard a knock on the door.
The man froze. He was not expecting anyone, and you didn’t get accidental visitors this far out. More worrisome still, none of his proximity alarms had warned him someone was coming, and he’d bugged his farm very thoroughly. Whoever it was must have flown in, but he had not heard a ship land.
The knock sounded again, louder this time, and the man burst into action. He grabbed his army pistol off its rack above the fieldstone fireplace and loaded it with stun rounds from the box on the mantel. Then, hiding the gun behind his back, he opened the farmhouse’s heavy door a crack to reveal two strangers, a woman and a girl.
The man paused. The woman was middle-aged and clearly elite military; no one else could make standing still look so dangerous. The girl was different, though. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and she was far too thin, with dark brown hair cut flat just above her jutting shoulders, but what worried him even more than her thinness were her eyes. The girl’s gaze was glassy and blank, like she was drugged, and the man tightened his grip on the pistol hidden behind his back. “Can I help—”
The words weren’t out of his mouth before the woman grabbed him. Her strike was so fast he had no time to think, but he had been a solider himself for many years, and he didn’t need to think. Even before her fingers tightened on his wrist, he was swinging his gun out to shoot the stranger in the leg, but as his gun came up, a second hand stopped him.
The grip was so hard, he thought it was the strange woman again, but one look proved him wrong. It was the girl. The strange, blank-faced girl had her thin hand wrapped around his wrist like a vise, and as her fingers dug in, a word spoke in his mind.
Sleep.
The command landed on him like a weight. All at once, he was falling, the gun clattering from his hand as he tumbled to the ground. A second before his shoulder hit the floorboards, he was out.
The man woke with a snort. He was sitting in his chair, staring out the dark window. He blinked groggily and wiped his hands over his face before glancing at the clock. Nearly nine; he must have fallen asleep.
The man stood up, stretching the soreness out of his limbs as he walked to the door. He had a vague feeling that someone had been there, but all was quiet and the bolt was set, just like normal. Shaking his head at old paranoia, the man glanced down the hall toward his daughter’s room. It had been hours since their argument, but the sight of the shut door still stung.
With a deep, tired breath, the man set off down the hallway. He knew he was giving in, being soft, but Yasmina was the only one he had left. Fortunately, her light was still shining under her door, so he knocked softly. When she didn’t answer, he leaned his head against the cool, painted wood.
“Yasmina,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I know you feel isolated out here, but you have to understand, we did it to keep you safe. I should have asked you about the school before I turned them down, but I couldn’t bear to let you go.” His voice began to shake, and he started talking faster. “Now that Mama’s gone, you’re all I have left. If anything happened to you, I would pull the universe apart.”
He stopped, holding his breath, but there was no sound from inside. Scowling, the man knocked again. “Yasmina?”
No answer. Suddenly furious, he reached down and threw open her door. “Yasmina! I know you’re angry, but you
will
answer me when—”
He stopped cold. His daughter’s room looked just like always—the floor too messy, the walls covered in pictures of places she wanted to go—but there was no one in it. The room was empty. Yasmina was gone.
That was all he saw before he tore back through the house and out into the night, screaming her name into the cold wind that blew across the empty fields.
Yasmina made herself as small as possible, hunching her shoulders and keeping her chained hands close against her back. The strange woman walked beside her, tugging her along. The other stranger, the large man in the dark suit, walked behind with the girl. That was good. The adults were scary, but their danger was understandable, like her father when he had his rifle out. The girl was different. Her glassy eyes and blank expression were terrifying in a way Yasmina could not explain. Sometimes it felt like there was nothing inside her at all. Like the strange, silent girl wasn’t even human.
It had been two days since the strangers had taken her from the house. Since then, she’d been watched every moment, unable even to use the bathroom alone. The man and the woman treated her like a piece of luggage, refusing to tell her who they were or where they were taking her, and the glassy-eyed girl didn’t seem to realize Yasmina existed. She just sat in her chair while they made one hyperspace jump after another, playing her chess game like it was the only thing that mattered in the universe.