Sidekick by Carl Stubblefield (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

with her before they left. And he would deal with it himself this time. He would be getting his hands dirty a lot in the near future if things went to plan. Showing his resolve would be an example for those who would follow. After he finished, they could set off and finally end this fiasco.

“Aurora! You need to focus!” the voice said with desperation.

“I’m trying, dammit!” Aurora gasped. She had always used her hands as a focus for her power. The voice had told her that was just a bad habit she had to break her mind of believing. She could project her powers anywhere around her; she didn’t even need physical contact.

“You can free yourself if you just do this one thing. Project your power into one spot. I know you can’t see the chains that are holding you, but you don’t need to. Trust me!”

Aurora tried again, but the concept was fuzzy. When she tried to wrap her head around what the voice kept telling her, she just couldn’t get it to work. There wasn’t anything in front of her, so she couldn’t really practice the skill on anything else.

“Stop worrying you’ll accidentally hit your hand or arm. You’re hesitating, and it’s affecting your concentration and power buildup.”

A door creaked open and bright light spilled into the chamber. “Let me finish up here, first. Yeah, she doesn’t know anything. I won’t be long, but we can’t have any loose ends,” a man framed in the doorway said, touching his ear and talking on a comm.

Aurora’s heart froze. Too late.

Chapter Eleven

Jailbreak

Boots made loud clops on the floor as they approached, and Aurora held her breath. The high-pitched trill of a communicator went off. “Yes, sir. But I think that I should—” A pregnant pause. “No, I’m not second-guessing you— It would be wise to— Understood. We will get underway immediately.” Angry muttering could be heard as the boots stomped back to the door and slammed it behind the figure as he left.

Aurora exhaled deeply from holding her breath. “You have no more time, if not him than someone else.” Aurora pushed harder than before, spurred on by desperation.

“Good, good! Now move that focus left… there!” Aurora could see sparks occasionally pop overhead and the flickering light as she compressed her skill into a small area and held it. She usually used her skill as an area-of-effect attack, and it was so difficult to focus her power in this way.

At last, the chain gave way and one arm was free. She spun around and relieved the ever-present tension on her sore body. It was much easier to focus on the chain now that she could see it and she burned through the other side and lay on the cold cobbles, letting her back and shoulders rest.

The large rubber material that covered her hands bounced and came to a rest as her shoulders protested. Tilting her head to the side, she saw they were not as large as she had initially expected. Both were the size of soccer balls, but they were still heavy to lift. She tried to hit them against the floor and wall, but they were perfectly spherical and simply bounced.

Now that she was partially free, hope sprang back and with it just a bit of anger. She tried releasing energy directly into the rubber around her hands and felt no change in the material. This made her even more frustrated and she poured more MP into the skill, focusing on her right hand and the ball of rubber around it. The air around the ball began to ionize into plasma and she compressed the field to degrade the rubber.

She could feel the sulfur atoms in the material and attacked them, ripping electrons away. As it became oxidized and the cross-links began to fail, the material began to lose its cohesion. The outer surface began to crack and the furrows began to run together like clay in a desert riverbed, and still she pushed. When her MP was nearly expended, she slammed the ball against the ground and the material gave up.

It shattered into pieces, and Aurora dropped the T-bar handle her hand had been clutching. It fell with the chain that used to attach it to the wall as Aurora flexed her hand, sweaty, numb, and cramped for being forced in the same position for who knew how long.

With her other hand free, the remaining ball was quickly destroyed after her MP recharged. Getting to her feet, she felt like a fawn just after birth, wobbly and uncertain. Inside though, she felt like molten lava. She had been overpowered on the station, but three on one really wasn’t a fair fight. She wasn’t going to let them have another opportunity to get the drop on her.

She made her way to the door, her strength returning quicker than expected. After checking to see if it was clear, she snuck out. The area was conspicuously empty. Heading up two floors, she found a supply closet and ducked inside as someone approached. She subdued the man as he passed, who turned out to not be a super at all. She donned his jumpsuit and helmet, leaving him bound in the closet, tucking her hair up into the helmet as she exited.

Seeing another group of men carrying supplies, she followed them to a large troop transport. Taking a risk, she jogged up to them and offered to carry a crate that was sliding out of an overburdened worker’s grip as they loaded it aboard. He nodded briefly and grunted as he tried to reorient his load. She followed and stacked the crate with the others.

As the men filed off to grab another load, she hung back and, instead of heading down the ramp, made an abrupt turn and hid behind some other crates. When the coast was clear, she made her way to an access panel and sealed herself inside. This was a standard C-type transport,