Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

the colors of the Colosseum Police racing to the spaceport and probably the launchpad the Guardia had recently occupied. She chuckled at the irony of the name of her ship, as always. Guardia meant police in an old Earth language, so the police were chasing after the police.

Hopefully, her First Officer would choose another inventive name this time around and provide a little more humor. His choices always impressed and amused her. For now, her only job was to locate the girl who had tried to invade her mind with helpful suggestions about defeating the Hoot. She was sure it was a female, but couldn’t say why, just as she also believed it was young and poorly educated. How she could tell the sex, schooling, and age of the empath from a few random thoughts that her mind rejected was a mystery.

That was part of the allure of empaths. Many believed they didn’t even exist. Others misunderstood the depth of their powers. The vast majority knew only rumors and tales.

If the empath turned out to be a male, Stone wouldn’t be completely surprised, but the sex and age impressions seemed to fit the tone of the projected thoughts. Not the words she’d heard, because there were none. It was the ideas behind them, the feelings. A lot more had been conveyed to her than the simple instructions for her to attack the Hoot’s rear, a tactic she hadn’t considered but was grateful for.

A quad of Wittens fell into step with her. One, the obvious leader, asked, “Have you the desire to be adored this afternoon and evening? We can provide you with edible stims and physical stimulation.”

She barely glanced at the blue creatures, however, there had been a time years ago on another planet she fondly recalled. “I have known a quad of your kind and if I didn’t have to work today, things might be different.”

The leader flashed a smile so white and pretty that it sped up her heartrate. “We are often in this neighborhood because we occupy an apartment near here. Just ask around. Someone will know where we are.”

With a salute of a single finger to his forehead, the polite Witten veered away, along with the trio behind him. She watched from the corner of her eye. Maybe next time.

Captain Stone pulled her thoughts to the present. She had learned her skills with swords like she had learned many other weapons early in her life. Her father hadn’t spared her the intensity of her training for being smaller than her brothers. She either defeated them or suffered the pain of loss, which was both mental and physical. He’d later insisted on lessons by professionals and hadn’t let up until each of his children was master of three or more weapons.

The last free-lance empath she’d heard about had been placed on trial a dozen years earlier on a moon circling a gas giant near a dim red star. She couldn’t remember the name of the place or the planet, but she vividly remembered the public reaction when he’d been captured and tried in a court over the vast amounts of charitable contributions that had poured into his bank accounts before he was identified.

He was found guilty. He admitted to unknowingly enter their minds and convinced people to give him money. But what the captain remembered most was the common reaction, for the people of that planet and others, because the trial was widely followed. They instinctively hated him. They called for his death and they cheered when he was suspended above the marsh at low tide by all six appendages for the local scavengers to eat their fill before the tide came in and swallowed his limp body.

Which brought her to try and understand why she was risking chasing down the empathic girl. If they were discovered by others, she might someday hang above a marsh alongside the girl with the tide coming in.

There were other empaths, probably far more than most suspected. She knew that because with her anti-empathic mind, she had identified at least six in her ten years as captain of the trading ship, never more than one on any single planet. Only once had she confronted one of them, and that was about the overly expensive price she’d almost paid for automated farm equipment she wished to sell on another planet.

She had accused him in private of being an empath. In response and possible fear of discovery, the empath had reported to the docking authorities that Stone’s larger than normal trading vessel contained secret compartments for smuggling and contraband. He’d also mentioned she would accuse him of anything to get revenge—even of being an empath.

All trader’s ships have hidey-holes, but the troops had come aboard as if they had a personal vendetta against her and the ship, no doubt the result of the empath stirring things along. They located a few empty places, some suspicious, but nothing illegal in any.

A year later, with the ship modified and wearing a new name, and with Stone in another disguise, had returned and “allowed” the empath to again bargain her down in price. Stone sold her a dozen crates of broken electronics at premium prices before lifting off hurriedly.

However, the Captain had learned a valuable lesson. Don’t accuse or mess with empaths. When cornered, they fight for their lives. Yet, after all that, here she was chasing one down. They were rare and all used their powers carefully. The idea of an empath and an anti-empath teaming up felt sinfully good.

The benefits were tantalizing and more. The Guardia, her ship, had been totally paid for by her father and listed as an independent trader. Not a pirate ship, but not far removed. Profit was profit. She and her ship were not welcome to return to several worlds, but the number of other worlds to trade on was endless in