The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (29 page)

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About the Author

Karen Harris Tully creates elaborate worlds for her novels
aided by her bachelor’s in political science and economics. A PNWA member,
she's the author of Janie's Got a Car, published in Creative Colloquy, Volume
One. After growing up in the snowy mountains of Colorado, Karen experienced the
traffic nightmare of Seattle before accidentally realizing she's a small-town
girl. She happily lives in Raymond, WA, singing karaoke with her amazingly
supportive husband, beautiful son, and two disgruntled felines.

Read on for an excerpt
from
The Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance

Released July, 2016!

The Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance

Karen Harris Tully

Chapter 1: Sorry, Not Sorry

Some days, I swear, the whole planet was mad at me.

"Take it back! Take it back!"

I could hear the chant even before I reached the doorway.
They had said there would be protesters. I expected a few people waving signs.
I didn't think the entire train station would be full of people who hated me.

I looked at the faces of the Warriors who were forming a
barricade for me. Their disdainful expressions said, "What did you expect?
This is what you get when you disobey orders and give interviews to slimy
reporters."

Seriously? I grunted disgustedly to myself and hefted my
overstuffed duffel higher on my shoulder. Geez, where’d all these protesters
come from anyway? I didn't know what to do besides duck my head and pretend to
ignore them, while keeping a lookout from the corner of my eye. A few looked
twitchy in that way I was starting to recognize.

The Kindred Warriors and their Ahatu cat partners stretched
themselves into two lines, holding back the crowd and making a walkway down the
stone steps and across the wide train platform. The Afflicted Rights protesters
gave the cats a wide berth, but pressed in close to the Warriors who held their
scys out horizontally to the floor, poles extended like a high-tech alloy rope
line. Their blades remained folded into the poles.

"Take it back, take it back! No one deserves to die
like that!" The stone train station echoed with the protesters' chants
filling the cavernous space. They pressed toward me, against the human-cat
barricade, waving their protest signs and shouting in my face. I put my head
down and hunched my shoulders against the onslaught of hate coming at me from
all sides.

The stone train station had been my underground haven these
past few months, with the space, but not the equipment, to practice gymnastics.
But now the stone made this an echo chamber of anger, and my haven was ruined.

Micha, my mother's Ahatu Warrior partner, walked next to me,
her giant tiger bulk coming up to my chest and taking up most of the walkway. I
gripped my fingers into the fur on her shoulder, a bit harder than she liked.
She bonked her head against my side with affection and purred reassurance.

Teague, with my mother gone and her second-in-charge on
maternity leave, was the first Warrior on the steps next to me. "Whatever
you do, Sunny, leave your scy on your hip," she said next to my ear.
"That's
an order."

I looked down not even realizing that my hand was on my
weapon. On my belt, it looked like a police baton, but it would take only two
flicks of a button to extend it to full-length, double-bladed deadliness. I
nodded to show I'd heard and started down the steps when something small and
hard hit and burst on my cheek, making me stumble and flinch to the side.

I swiped at it with the back of my hand and saw dark red and
bits of red cellulose casing. I probed at my cheek and found it sore, but the
skin unbroken. I sniffed the back of my hand. Ewww, blood. Someone else's
blood. Gross! I looked around in time to see Teague snatch a protester out of
the crowd and pat her down, coming up with an air pellet gun and tucking it
into her belt.

Really?
This
was what I got? I did my best for my
mother and my family. I put my brain on the line to testify about the monster
who had climbed in my window and attacked me. (Fat lot of good that had done.
Months later, Mom was still wrongly imprisoned for a murder she hadn't committed.)
And I gave an interview to show the world the proof that the court wasn't
willing to consider. In return, I got hatred and bloody paintballs from rich,
Glass City activists who didn't know a thing about it. All they knew was that
they didn't like my phrasing in an interview. Well, sorry. Not sorry.

I flicked the bloody cellulose bits off my hand and jerked
my chin up and my shoulders back, glaring around at the protesters. I knew
there must be a big smear of blood down my cheek, but I refused to wipe at it
again.

Tall, muscle-y, quiet Teague, hoisted the protester up by
the back of her shirt to get the crowd's attention. They paused mid-chant to
see what she would do.

"Peaceful protests are allowed here," she said,
barely raising her voice. "Weapons and projectiles of any kind are not.
Anyone caught with such a device will be asked to wait
outside
. Attacks,
such as this one, will be dealt with by the Kindred Council." She
unceremoniously plunked the protester down next to another Warrior who took over,
ushering her out a side door that I knew led out into the desert. The
protesters, not equipped or dressed for the mid-day suns, visibly wilted. They
proceeded chanting a bit more hesitantly.
“Take it back. Take it back. No
one deserves to die like that.”

I stalked forward with Micha at my side. I knew my odd,
mood-ring eyes that I'd inherited from my mother would be flashing gold, daring
anyone to mess with me, but I didn't care at the moment.

I was a freak. It was official. And my mother, the General,
had ordered me to move - again.

My train to The Point Warrior-Farming Academy would be
arriving within minutes. Warrior-Farming, which made, like, zero sense, until I
thought about the fight to grow food with the haratchi doing their best to eat
the world. This planet was seriously messed up. I suddenly stopped and threw my
arms around Micha's neck, burying my face in her ruff, my life spinning out of
control on me once again. She purred reassuringly in the quiet way only my
mother and I could hear.

Everything will be fine girl-child, you’ll see. Change is
what you make of it
, Micha said.

I nodded, wrinkling my nose against the ever-present,
overcooked-in-the-microwave smell of haratchi that pervaded her fur before
straightening and wiping my eyes. "Micha, you ever think of using
soap?" I asked.

She chuffed a laugh as my cousin Thal ran in behind us,
ignoring the protesters completely. "You are sooo lucky!" He launched
himself at me for a hug. He'd been thought-messaging me on my link for the past
hour about how much he wished he could go to school early and bypass the
entrance exams. Lucky. Riiiight.

"I am going to completely explode my insides all over
those tests!" he exclaimed. I had to think about that one a moment. I was
no good with slang. Still, coming from Thal, who was grinning like a maniac,
exploding insides had to be a good thing. "You just wait, I'll be there
next semester," he said, softer this time, not loudly enough for the
chanting protesters to overhear. "I can't wait till
you're
giving
me
the tour this time! Link me every day, okay? I want all the details." He
bounced on his toes as he walked. It was hard to be down around Thal.

Other Kindred members came in to see me off: Thal's big,
kind of evil twin sisters, Lyta and Otrere, Kindred Administrator (head cook,
general manager, and head den father) Ethem, everyone from my patrol group, and
more. The train pulled up and the Kindred members gathered around me in a half
circle in front of the door. The Warriors shifted into a watchful line around
the Kindred members, pushing the protesters back to make room.

Ethem gave me a teary hug and a hot meal to go in one of his
good insulated glass dishes. “Leave it in the box marked Katje on the train,
okay?” Ethem sniffed.

I nodded, doing my best to ignore the chant that was
annoying the heck out of me.

“Oh! We’re going to miss you!” He pulled me back in for
another motherly, fatherly, I don't know, some kind of parental hug. It felt
nice. I relaxed into his shoulder - for a moment.

“Take it back! Take it back!”
The crowd chanted,
louder again at being pushed back. I stiffened and tried to ignore them.

Lyta and Otrere took turns awkwardly shaking my forearm,
like in an old, medieval movie, before one of them yanked me in for nuggies.
The other slapped me repeatedly on the back before I - not unkindly - kidney
punched my way out of their hold. I would not miss the rough and tumble twins.

“No one deserves to die like that!”

Ugh!
I ground my teeth.

The twins also told me how lucky I was and that they would see
me soon, with a little more menacing tone than Thal. The train door slid open,
saving me from their further ‘congratulations’ and the idiotic chanting that
was making my blood boil. The sign on the train car read, "Northbound.
Caution: Bio-scanners in use. No Afflicted - This Car."

I boarded the train and stood in the doorway to wave
goodbye, focusing on the friends and family I'd only so recently met. Had it
really only been two months since I'd left my family on Earth for planet Macawi
and the custody agreement from hell?

“TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK!” the protesters screamed at me
in an angry fever pitch, pressing in like I was getting away.

“NO!” I screamed back, finally having had enough. The crowd
quieted in surprise. “Did you
see
my mother's trial? And you want me to
say that he didn’t deserve it? Are you people
insane?
”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The protesters
roared their outrage and pushed at the barricade. Two of the twitchiest ones
managed to push through and leapt at me, each one's bright blue eye coming into
view, along with their fangs. I quickly drew my scy, but it was still extending
when they literally
bounced
off some sort of force field at the train
door, and were thrown back into the crowd. So
that
was what the bio-scanners
did.

Micha jumped up into the train and stood at my side,
snarling at the protesters.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said to Micha before raising my
voice to the crowd. “Your innocent act would go a lot farther if a few of you
didn’t always try to
attack
me!” I yelled at them. The look of surprise
on many of their faces told me they probably believed their protests for
equality.

“The actions of a few do not define us all!” one yelled in
response. The Warriors quickly subdued the two stunned Anakharu and marched
them out the door. The rest of the Kindred members strengthened their
protective semi-circle around the open train door.

Teague shoved me backwards, farther into the train and
stepped up into the doorway.

“Sunny, would you keep your mouth shut around them?” She
exuded exasperation. “No talking with reporters or the Afflicted. In fact, no
Molinidae at all. You may be leaving, but
we
still have to live here.
You got me?”

I huffed in disgust but nodded, not taking her seriously
about the Molinidae though. That one protester was actually right. Most of them
were not Afflicted, and only the really messed up, off-their-meds Afflicted
were Anakharu.

“Where is she going?” One of the protesters yelled from the
back. Kindred members turned to glare. Wouldn’t they like to know? Teague
turned to face the crowd.

“Veridian’s visit here is over. She’s headed back to Earth
through the WorldPort,” she announced. I could see some of the protesters had
their links out, recording Teague’s statement. The Afflicted population thinking
I’d gone back to Earth would probably be a good thing. Too bad it wasn’t
actually true. “As you probably know, her visit here was more problematic than
we’d hoped.”

I snorted. That had to be the understatement of the year. I
turned and found myself a seat next to a window and hugged Micha goodbye. I
would miss her and Thal the most of anyone. Teague finished her statement,
asking the protesters to respect my and the Kindred’s privacy, and then she and
Micha stepped off the train. We pulled out a scant minute later and I waved
goodbye to the Kindred members there to see me off, ignoring the protesters.
With all those people waving, it almost looked like I had friends there.
Possibly even what you’d call family.

End of Excerpt

The
Faarian Chronicles: Inheritance
available now!

https://www.amazon.com/Faarian-Chronicles-Karen-Harris-Tully-ebook/dp/B01H2L74ZI