Read Online Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) by Vaughn Heppner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Vaughn Heppner
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Sector steppes. Otherwise, he exercised his talents with the other Specials in the training chamber.
There were four Specials aboard
Discovery
: Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus. Venice could shift 8.3 light years, a phenomenal distance. Jasper could shift 2.1, Roxie 1.7, and Cyrus a mere 0.8 light years. The differences were extraordinary as Venice could shift four times as far as Jasper. It meant Venice received the best treatment in terms of privilege and living space.
The four of them often trained in close proximity. Then it became clear that Venice’s better treatment bothered Jasper, although the Earth’s best telepath tried to hide it.
The weeks merged into months and the great colonizing vessel neared the two hundred light year mark. Cyrus’s dreams worsened the closer they approached the New Eden system. He asked the others about their dreams, although he asked them carefully and only in the training chamber. The security over them meant constant surveillance.
The shift crew and the monitors in particular grew increasingly wary around them. Because they were humans instead of machinery, the four Specials were the most volatile cogs in the Teleship. Without their telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities,
Discovery
would have to use direct thrust to build up velocity to go from A to Z. The Teleship lacked the needed fuel to build up to near light speed. As the vessel approached the two hundred light year mark from Sol, that became an ominous thought for the Normals. If something happened to all four Specials, it would strand the ship, crew, and sleeping colonists out here for the rest of their lives.
“They should worship us,” Jasper told Cyrus. “Instead, they treat as plague victims, as freaks and mutants. Why else do they watch us so carefully?”
“Normals always fear what’s more powerful than them,” Venice said. “Get over it, already.”
“She can talk,” Jasper whispered to Cyrus later. “They treat her better than they treat the three of us.”
“She can shift four times farther,” Cyrus said.
“Does that make her a superstar?”
“Yes.”
That fact ate at the telepath, but Venice’s superiority didn’t bother Cyrus. He was the lowest talent among them and he’d lived the most normal life—normal meaning that regular people had treated him as an ordinary person. Venice, Jasper, and Roxie had much different life stories, filled with alienation, at least before the creation of Psi Force. Before the search for the psi-able, the Normals around the other three had treated each of them… well, like mutants or freaks.
In Cyrus’s opinion, his near normality made him the most balanced of the four. He wanted to maintain that. With permission from Chief Monitor Argon, Cyrus had trained with the marines. At first, the marines treated him with such delicacy that it had hardly been enjoyable. He tried to get them to relax around him, and it was slowly having an effect.
It was different with everyone else. The worst were the shift crew and monitors. They treated the four of them like radioactive nuclear material. There were heavy safeguards in place against them and constant surveillance. The Normals needed their talents, but the telekinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance frightened them. Ninety percent of the time, the inhibitors in Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus remained switched to talent-off mode. In the shift tube and while watched through cameras in the training chamber the inhibitors were switched to talent-on mode.
I’m literally a cog in a machine
, Cyrus thought.
I’m a slave, dragged here, dragged there, and forced to do my masters’ bidding
.
He didn’t hate the Normals, but he wasn’t going to accept this treatment forever. He needed to be free. He wanted to breathe something other than canned air. Now, with the worsening dreams and remembering Jasper’s claim of nonhumans in New Eden who would help them, Cyrus started becoming paranoid. There was a BAD THING
There were four Specials aboard
Discovery
: Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus. Venice could shift 8.3 light years, a phenomenal distance. Jasper could shift 2.1, Roxie 1.7, and Cyrus a mere 0.8 light years. The differences were extraordinary as Venice could shift four times as far as Jasper. It meant Venice received the best treatment in terms of privilege and living space.
The four of them often trained in close proximity. Then it became clear that Venice’s better treatment bothered Jasper, although the Earth’s best telepath tried to hide it.
The weeks merged into months and the great colonizing vessel neared the two hundred light year mark. Cyrus’s dreams worsened the closer they approached the New Eden system. He asked the others about their dreams, although he asked them carefully and only in the training chamber. The security over them meant constant surveillance.
The shift crew and the monitors in particular grew increasingly wary around them. Because they were humans instead of machinery, the four Specials were the most volatile cogs in the Teleship. Without their telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities,
Discovery
would have to use direct thrust to build up velocity to go from A to Z. The Teleship lacked the needed fuel to build up to near light speed. As the vessel approached the two hundred light year mark from Sol, that became an ominous thought for the Normals. If something happened to all four Specials, it would strand the ship, crew, and sleeping colonists out here for the rest of their lives.
“They should worship us,” Jasper told Cyrus. “Instead, they treat as plague victims, as freaks and mutants. Why else do they watch us so carefully?”
“Normals always fear what’s more powerful than them,” Venice said. “Get over it, already.”
“She can talk,” Jasper whispered to Cyrus later. “They treat her better than they treat the three of us.”
“She can shift four times farther,” Cyrus said.
“Does that make her a superstar?”
“Yes.”
That fact ate at the telepath, but Venice’s superiority didn’t bother Cyrus. He was the lowest talent among them and he’d lived the most normal life—normal meaning that regular people had treated him as an ordinary person. Venice, Jasper, and Roxie had much different life stories, filled with alienation, at least before the creation of Psi Force. Before the search for the psi-able, the Normals around the other three had treated each of them… well, like mutants or freaks.
In Cyrus’s opinion, his near normality made him the most balanced of the four. He wanted to maintain that. With permission from Chief Monitor Argon, Cyrus had trained with the marines. At first, the marines treated him with such delicacy that it had hardly been enjoyable. He tried to get them to relax around him, and it was slowly having an effect.
It was different with everyone else. The worst were the shift crew and monitors. They treated the four of them like radioactive nuclear material. There were heavy safeguards in place against them and constant surveillance. The Normals needed their talents, but the telekinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance frightened them. Ninety percent of the time, the inhibitors in Venice, Jasper, Roxie, and Cyrus remained switched to talent-off mode. In the shift tube and while watched through cameras in the training chamber the inhibitors were switched to talent-on mode.
I’m literally a cog in a machine
, Cyrus thought.
I’m a slave, dragged here, dragged there, and forced to do my masters’ bidding
.
He didn’t hate the Normals, but he wasn’t going to accept this treatment forever. He needed to be free. He wanted to breathe something other than canned air. Now, with the worsening dreams and remembering Jasper’s claim of nonhumans in New Eden who would help them, Cyrus started becoming paranoid. There was a BAD THING
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