Peregrine 7

By Karen Greatorex Ao

Katlin Gindred na Bortheran, princess and heir to the Tayan Empire, has been brought back from the dead. The most expensive genes available were used to create her original body, and thousands of years of careful breeding, paired with a lifetime of intensive training, have made her a brilliant pilot, instructor, leader and fighter. But one battle against the ships of the Silerian Empire ended in a violent crash-landing that brought her to her demise. Katlin must put aside her humiliation and surmount her defeat if she is to resume her duties as princess and regain respect, but a message from a stranger seems to imply that her death was not quite as she had thought. In a universe torn apart by two warring empires, Katlin must decide which side is really worth fighting for, and which of her instincts to trust.

Contains some graphic scenes and profanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Idol: a Tree
• Release date: Jan 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311077059

Book preview

Peregrine 7

by

Karen Greatorex Ao

Peregrine 7 copyright Karen Greatorex Ao 2013

Idol: a Tree publishing

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter Contents

Arise and Remember

Not Dead Yet

Monsters in the Night

Boys and Girls

Fabrications

It is for a woman to be loved

Cold Stone

Birth of a New Era

Dead Katlin

A Lonely Planet

The Test

Re-Awakening

To Battle

The Final Assault

Epilogue

Also from Idol: a Tree

Arise and Remember

The sound of underwater bubbles thumped at her ears. And again. They came in a rhythm: bubbles… four seconds of silence… bubbles again, and silence. There were swishes of liquid too, and the faster thud of something heavy, regular and distant. Someone was breathing underwater, and someone else was beating a drum. That was quite a feat, she thought to herself, to be able to breathe underwater!

Katlin opened her eyes, and saw her own hair swirling in front of them.

Shit!

She sat up rapidly, thrusting her face and shoulders into the cool air above the surface. There was something stuck to her mouth and nose. Katlin clawed at it, barely managing to grip it feebly with her wet, slippery hands. She pulled hard, and succeeded in dislodging it enough from her throat to make her retch. Does it have an end? The tube kept coming as she pulled and pulled at it while her lungs burned to breathe and her airway spasmed violently.

At last the end of the tube came out with a gurgle, and Katlin took a long, deep breath of real air. Oh, it was beautiful! Air had never tasted so good! She looked about herself, and found her elation quickly diminishing. She recognised the clear tank in which she was sitting, and she recognised the sickly sweet smell of the fluid that filled it, and she recognised the horrid, red room in which it all sat.

I died? she croaked. And now they had brought her back to life.

Katlin squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember what had happened, but nothing came. She knew who she was: Princess Katlin of the Tayan Empire, her mother’s heir and Chief Eagle amongst their army of Starlight Fighters. That all made sense. She knew she was somewhere in her twenties. Her last birthday was… twenty-seven? No, twenty-eight. Srats! Getting old already! The last man she had slept with was… Tiarun? Kallen? No… there had been someone else after him. Jinfin? Yes. Must have been him. No doubt there would still be a queue of them waiting somewhere, all with hopeful eyes and words like ‘sire’ or ‘guardian’ in their heads. At least, there would be a queue if she hadn’t shamed herself in death too irrevocably. That was still entirely possible.

Katlin tried to stand up from the tank, but found her legs utterly weak and pathetic. For someone with a brand new body, she did not feel especially spritely or youthful.

At that moment, the door was thrown open by a tall figure in grey. Kat! her guardian exclaimed. Kat, you’re awake!

He strode directly to her and wrapped his huge arms around her, very nearly squeezing the new air from her fresh-born lungs.

Guardi, she said back, I don’t remember what happened. It’s all so… fuzzy.

Her guardian, a man most children would call ‘father’ in Sileria, released her and studied her face. You look almost the same – just fewer signs that you’ve ever smiled. Or frowned. Here, come out of the water and have a blanket. You’ve spent long enough in there already. He went to fetch one from the pile and handed it to her, then helped her to stumble out of the tank.

Where’s mother?

She’ll be here soon. She can tell you more about what happened than I can – access to battle recordings and all that. He grinned. It’s good to have you back.

It’s good to be back. I think.

Her guardian nodded and gave her another squeeze. You know you have to get back in the sky soon. We have the Termoren celebrations coming up, and we need someone to lead the flypast. I know you like showing off, kiddo.

Katlin shrugged. I’ll do it.

At that moment, her mother, Empress Kessgray, stepped into the room with tears in her eyes. Gravity of my heart, Kat, I thought it would be forever before we saw you again! She smiled sorrowfully, but stood where she was. Katlin’s mother was a master of emotions and propriety.

I’m okay, mother. I don’t even remember… much.

The empress looked her blanketed daughter up and down. Still my Katlin though.

And her mother was still very much her mother, dressed in the same black breeches and jacket uniform as any other member of the Starlight Fighters. Age had slowed her reflexes too far now for her to remain an Eagle, though she had commanded missions right into Katlin’s adolescence, and could still fly a peregrine ship better than most. Katlin was proud to have followed in her mother’s footsteps, and to have attained the rank of Chief Eagle where most of her ancestors had failed. Much of that had been determined by her genes, of course, but one couldn’t deny the dedication that it took to bring them out.

Katlin’s eyes moved across to her guardian. He and her mother were a peculiar pairing, she had often thought. One was tall and weathered like an old oak, but strict when not expected, and the other was petite and smooth-faced, but really very tolerant for a fighter. Katlin could always get away with any behaviour around her mother. Not so when her guardian was about.

Can you tell me how I died?

Her mother nodded slowly, but kept her features firm this time. Do you remember going into battle?

Katlin thought for a moment. No.

Have you tried looking in the kernel? Just search for the beginning of the battle at Lion’s Mane Nebula. See if it jogs anything.

Katlin sighed. Resorting to her kernel always felt like cheating. Though it was little more than a three-millimetre chip implanted in her brain, it did do a good job at storing just about everything that she ever saw, did or heard. Accessing…

The Silerians had been discovered raiding an old Tayan stronghold. The stronghold had been abandoned in previous centuries, but it was still very much in Tayan space. Katlin and ten of her girls had been called in to oust them. I remember getting into Peregrine Seven… That ship had always been her favourite. We set off from the trading post near Alpha Zeus – trading post 87A… and then… we folded space. It was definitely starting to come back now. When we came out of the fold, there was nothing immediately visible. We knew the Silerians had to be hiding somewhere. They were bound to have a force circling them for protection.

Silerian ships, unlike the delicate and elegant predators that Katlin flew, were bulky things that were too loaded up with power to be properly manoeuvrable, and an accurate reflection of the over-engineered, male pilots who flew them. They also liked to carry whole medical centres inside their bloated hulls. To hide such ships in a deserted corner of the nebula would not have been easy.

She had spotted a very obvious place of concealment, and so had one of her girls, who was hastily beating a path for the asteroid cluster. Eagle Golf, Katlin had radioed, do not approach. It’s too obvious.

Copy, Eagle Golf had responded, reversing her thrusters.

We waited for them to come to us. We knew something wasn’t right.

Katlin had run a scan of the entire area. Sure enough, she had detected live bodies at the site of the stronghold, but nothing clear in terms of ships. Then she’d seen something. There were clouds on the scanner – too blurry to be ships, but too strange to be anything else but suspicious. And they were moving.

By this time, the girls had been wise enough to spread out around the stronghold. Eagle Charlie, she had called, see anything out of your port window?

Negative, Queen Eagle.

Eyes open, girls. They’re close. I know it.

Katlin had looked at the scanner screen again, and had seen that the clouds were all moving at the same speed. No thrusters. They were gliding. Convinced that they were suspicious, she had unbuckled herself from her chair, and had leaned right over the console to look through the window at the space where one of them should have been. She had seen… something – a smudge of black against the black of space. But was that… was that the glow of cockpit lights in the middle? Shit!

As soon as she had made the realisation, something had punched into the side of her ship and thrown her hard against the wall. Katlin had scrambled back to her chair in a panic, screaming at her Eagles to steer away from the clouds, and had yelled at them that the Silerians had painted themselves to match the skies.

By the time she was buckled back in and ready to fight, one of the peregrines had already vanished from the scanner screen.

They surprised us, Katlin said to her parents. I should have seen them, but I didn’t until it was too late.

She had performed the most convoluted, evasive manoeuvre she could think of in her haste, and had only narrowly avoided sprays of laser fire to her port and bow. Follow their thruster fire! she had instructed her girls. Katlin used this method to identify one particular Silerian boat, and had blasted it into nothingness before her conscious mind had even been aware of it.

Her scanner told her that one was chasing her, though the readings for its proximity kept changing by alarming amounts. Katlin had spun her ship around in desperation, had shot at the black blob, but had missed. Damn!

Another twist and dive from direct line of sight, and she had escaped the return fire.

Queen Eagle, one of the girls had called in, Eagle Delta requesting support. Starboard engine inop.

Coming! Katlin had replied. She had darted in and between the Silerian ships, or where she thought they were, and had found her limping compatriot utterly exposed to any attack that happened to come her way. She had looked at the scanner briefly. Where were Peregrines Three and Nine? As the thought occurred to her, debris scattered across her windshield. The pieces were Tayan; not Silerian. No!

All Eagles, fold and go home. I repeat, fold and go home.

It was not worth sticking around for more loss of life. They needed to regroup. Eagle Delta, I will guide you to safety, copy? Katlin had no idea how she would do such a thing, but she was damn well going to try it.

Copy, Queen Eagle.

At least three Silerian ships were now centred on Katlin’s tail and had opened fire. So far, the clumsy fools had missed. Time for some talkback. She had taken hold of her second gun stick and had aimed at the starboard ship behind her, still careful to absorb the Silerian fire at the safe edges of her shield so as to protect Eagle Delta.

Bang!

One of the three bastards was done-for in a single shot.

Number two now. Katlin missed with her first three laser missiles, but caught the port wing of the ship with her fourth. Another of the Eagles took him out for her. Slow, slow, slow Silerians! she laughed.

The third Silerian ship was still firing at her as she danced about to protect her compatriot. Shield Warning. The edges were becoming frayed by the extended assault. Just then, Katlin spotted another enemy ship on the scanner. According to her readings, it was right on the port side of Eagle Delta’s ship.

Her options were limited. If she fired whilst dancing to avoid the assault of the ship behind her, she risked hitting Eagle Delta at close range. If she left Eagle Delta’s rear, the ship behind them would destroy Eagle Delta in seconds. Something else was needed. Katlin checked the readout on her shields again. There was absolutely no guarantee that they would survive much more of anything, let alone what she planned to do.

Eagle Delta, brace for impact, she said with a calmness that surprised even her.

Katlin had pushed forward with the thrusters, fast enough to shunt her compatriot out of the way and bring Peregrine Seven level with the enemy ship. Once in position, Katlin charged up her port engine until it glowed like a supernova in the night, and then put everything she had into ramming the entire left side of her ship into the enemy. She watched on as her port spar ploughed into the Silerian’s hull and tore it to pieces. Eagle Delta now had enough of a lead to feather a partial fold through space and escape, but only if Katlin could deal with this one, final enemy on her tail. Except… now she had only a single operating engine.

She needed something to give her more speed. To her right was a red dwarf star, and it was just what she needed. She turned her ship around, danced about amidst the fire that was still coming from her enemy, and then headed straight toward him. Follow me! She had said, pulling away and toward the star, and he had traipsed after her like a loyal dog.

Katlin had put on as much speed as her single engine could muster, and had gripped her controls tightly as if to will it to hang on for just a little longer. Then the gravity from the star had started to pull at it. She had to judge this just right if she was to use it to propel her faster rather than get sucked into its burning surfaces. Skies, but it had been powerful! As the forces became harder for her engine to counteract, and her speed increased, Katlin had begun to feather into a fold. The sky skipped in front of her, and suddenly she was thousands of miles ahead of where she should have been. It skipped again, and the view changed a second time. The skips became longer, and Katlin’s speed grew exponentially. She checked her tail. The Silerian was still there! Damn him!

Katlin was ready to line up for a fold through space now. She had pulled hard on her controls to free herself from the orbit, and was flung outward into empty space. Except that there was something else ahead of her. A warning flashed up on her console. Space time anomaly, it said. Well, that could mean just about anything: a black hole, dark matter or… who knew what else? She had checked for gravity warnings, but there were none. The Silerian was still close behind. If she tried to evade the thing now, she would have no chance of folding and making her escape. Katlin hit the fold button, but was sucked inside whatever it was before the fold had a chance to commence.

She did not remember anything of her transit through it, perhaps because of some interference with the kernel, or perhaps because there was nothing to remember, but she had emerged on the other side, near a solar system of some kind. Location report, Katlin had said to her computer.

Calculating, the computer had said. That was unusual. Why would it ever need to calculate its position? It always knew where it was in relation to the last point. Location report, she had said again.

Calculating, the computer repeated. It seemed to be counting down to a set of coordinates, but was a long way off deciding on them.

Katlin had checked her scanner then. Shitting bollocks! The Silerian had followed her through. Find me a Class 2 planet, or anything I can safely land on, now! she had yelled.

The computer had shown a planet on her scanner, and Katlin had aimed her ship right at it. Just as she did, a set of numbers pinged up on her console. They were the coordinates of her location, but Katlin did not recognise them at all.

She put everything she had into pushing her ship to move as fast as possible toward the planet, but in its crippled state, it was no match for the grunt of the Silerian brick behind her. And the honourless bastard driving it had not stopped firing at her. He was getting too close. Katlin had to punch her ship at a much-too-sharp angle into the atmosphere of the planet below. The air around her got very hot, very quickly, and she found herself barely able to breathe through it. Things were starting to smoke.

Below her, she could see clouds and snatches of the ground beneath that. Katlin tried to level off and slow down to stop her ship from burning any further. The engine screamed back at her, but Katlin persisted, and her speed began to fall. She was still moving too fast, but it was more manageable. The clouds swirled around her as she rushed into them. Drop a mine, she ordered the computer, and there followed the sound of something being ejected from the craft. Consider it a welcome gift, she had thought to her Silerian pursuer.

When she emerged from the clouds, the ground suddenly seemed much closer than she had anticipated. Katlin hauled back on the controls to level off, but she was still moving too fast, and she was losing too much height. Ahead was a lengthy area of clear land, surrounded by tall forests. It looked like it might make a good landing strip. Katlin had aimed for it, had tried to angle her ship as best she could, and then she had held onto her seat for dear life. Then everything became black.

She had crashed, and died.

You found my body on that planet, then? Katlin asked her mother.

Your kernel was retrieved from there, yes, her guardian replied.

Did you manage to save any of the fallen Eagles?

All but Jen. Her kernel was too badly damaged to retrieve anything useful. I’m sorry, Kat. I know you liked her.

She was brilliant, Kat said. Poor Jen. And all those deaths at her hands! It had been a disaster! Those girls would be fools to trust her again. I cannot be Chief Eagle after this. I-

You saved whom you could, Kat.

I certainly won’t be doing a flypast. I’m sorry. Showing off would be a terrible thing to do in light of their loss! Skies, it would be worse than dancing upon their ashes! The shame of it!

Kat, her mother began, You ought to get flying again as soon as possible. We’ve all had accidents… The empress had not. Katlin’s mother had never died on a mission. That was one of the things that made her so… invincible. …And they think well of you, Kat. You saved Carrie with some very impressive flying.

But Katlin was not in the mood for such praise. She went to a pile of clothing and began putting it on. As she tied up her shirt, she noticed something on the wall screen beside her. That did not look right. 4357? Wasn’t it supposed to be 4356 still? It only took a week or two to reanimate a body, not a whole year. She cleared her throat, How long… how long have I been dead?

Her guardian’s expression was strained, to say the least. Just over a year, Kat. It took us a long time to find you, but we did not give up. We would never give up on you.

A whole year, missing?

Who has been Chief Eagle in my absence?

Miranna, her mother said, But she will hand the pin back to you the moment you ask.

No. Miranna deserved that pin. Katlin was responsible for their deaths! I need to go and… think, Katlin said, I’ll see you both later. She allowed her guardian to embrace her, and then gave her mother a nod of respect, before heading out to one of the fortress’ observation decks.

Katlin had been raised in the safety of that building as all princesses of Taya were. It was huge and sprawling, with arms that reached in an embrace about the city, and it was made of a silver-grey metal that shone in the morning sun. The two together formed the capital of Tayan Empire, and that capital was a vast structure that floated quite independently in space.

It could be moved as close to a sun as was necessary, or as far from conflict as was desired. Six-million Tayan souls lived upon this island, and it was the centre of power for an Empire of three-hundred inhabited planets. For the most part, each planet would govern itself, but being a part of the Empire provided them with security and steady trade. Katlin’s mother and her ancestors had been the ones to provide that stability between the planets. They were the glue that held it all firm, and they were the example for all other Tayan women to follow.

Katlin remained on the observation deck for some time, taking in the sights and smells of her home. It did not appear to have changed enormously over the year in which she had been absent, and was still busy with the hustle of commerce and travellers. After her eyes had become sore from staring, she retreated to her bedroom, and curled up beneath the covers of her bed. Dead. She had actually been dead, and it hadn’t been all that unlike a deep sleep, or the time that had existed before she had been born. Just