The Requiem of Steel by David Adams

Author:David Adams [Adams, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: David Adams
Published: 2016-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

The Toralii sedated her when they moved her. A device was placed on the stump of her arm, where the prosthetic attachments led directly into her nervous system, and with a powerful shock similar to the immobilisation weapon that had stunned her on Qadeem, Liao was out like a light.

This time, though, she felt it.

She felt herself being moved onto a stretcher—or something that functioned the same—then being put into a ship. The details of her transit were almost completely lost to her. She only had brief feelings, notions indistinguishable from dreams, where she could feel vague sensations. Nothing that she could ever tell another living soul and claim it as the truth.

When she woke up, she was on another world. Light streamed in through a large, floor-to-ceiling window that occupied the lion’s share of one wall. The remainder of the cell was three steel walls, a writing desk, and a bed, which she occupied.

She sat up and realised, suddenly, she had a second elbow. Her prosthetic arm had been returned and attached. She flexed the fingers experimentally. Strong, but not as strong as she remembered.

There was one feature of the arm she was certain they would not return. The built-in plasma pistol. She flexed that muscle for the first time in months, trying to extend it… a thin bar of metal slid open on her wrist.

Nothing. Nothing of course. The slot was empty.

She pulled the sheets off her, and they disintegrated, folding up beside the bed like feathers on a bird. Liao slid off the bed, momentarily unbalanced by the weight of her reattached prosthetic. It would take some adjusting.

[“I hope you like it.”] Kest’s voice, broadcast through some kind of speaker system, echoed around the room. [“I tried to recreate the same model that you had when you came in.”]

Despite the circumstances, Liao felt a little bit of the caution drain out of her. “What are you doing here? Where am I?”

[“You are on New Evarel,”] Kest said, with more than a hint of pride in his voice, [“It is a planet deep within Alliance space. Originally settled by survivors of the cataclysm that took our homeworld, this planet—and its administrative government—are what many of us consider to be our homeworld. Our new homeworld.”]

She moved over to the window and, holding her prosthetic fingers up to block the glare, looked out. A vast city stretched out before her, a field of steel towers that stretched up so high that the star—a fierce, slightly blue light—was almost swallowed by them. It was sunset. Instead of a golden hue, as one might expect on Earth, or even Velsharn, the star cast the sky in a strange aquamarine glow. Aircraft, some as small as cars, others larger than a battlecruiser, drifted in orderly lines across the sky. Thousands of them.

[“May I come in?”]

Liao didn’t honestly think she had much of a choice. “Of course, Kest.”

The wall opposite the window swung open. Kest stepped through, a wide, happy smile on his face. [“Good afternoon.

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