Echoes of Angels (audiobook)

Out beyond the edge of imperial space, one could almost pretend the Days of Glory had never happened. Here, for a moment, a person might imagine the farthest reaches of space, untouched by angel hands. That would be a fantasy, of course. All the known universe had fallen under their sway, save the perilous Expanse of Nod that Rachel now drew ever closer to.
The Fading Stars featured only tiny viewports for the crew, accessible in a few select locations of the ship. Rachel spent the majority of her time aboard staring out of one or another. She’d watched the shimmering walls of the Conduit stream by and—more interesting—glimpsed the systems when the ship would exit a gate to let the pilot rest.
This viewport was on the upper level of a cargo hold. For what she’d paid, the captain gave her free run of the ship. It didn’t stop the crew from staring up at her furtively, waves of mistrust radiating off them. A pair of men watched her now. She had her back to them, of course, but she could feel their eyes boring into her.
Doubt.
Fear.
Guilt.
And all of it underlain by an inclination toward violence. Their emotions threatened to choke her, even ten meters above where they crouched over whatever illicit cargo they were hauling. It was better she didn’t know the answer, in any case.
Still, the Conduit amplified her psionic gifts. She couldn’t have blocked out the convoluted mix of feelings driving these people if she’d tried. Void, she was lucky if she could manage not to let those same feelings infect her.
They had almost caught her, back on Kabzeel. Fucking Redeemers.
She needed to reach Gehenna, and passenger liners weren’t exactly setting course for systems near the Expanse, even if she could have traveled openly. And she couldn’t.
So.
She didn’t hear the man approach, but she felt him. Non-empaths sometimes thought a person would usually be feeling an emotion. Blind to their own natures, they’d forget, at any given time, people were driven by a half-dozen motivations all jumbled together.
Ximun was a mix of confidence and underlying timidity, all fueling his lust. And void, was it hard to not get sucked in.
Her mind was her mind.
Her mind was her mind.
Rachel turned, brushed her hair from her face, and tried to force a smile. Sure, he’d been trying to bed her since she came aboard. But despite being a smuggler, he didn’t seem inclined to pressure her into anything. Not on purpose, at least—he couldn’t have known how hard it became for an empath to separate another person’s desires from her own. All that training at TPS had helped, sure.
But Rachel had still found herself waking up in the morning with a stranger more times than she could count.
“We’ll be jumping into the Gehenna system soon,” Ximun said.
“Good.” Rachel glanced out the viewport. The iridescent walls of the Conduit gave no sense of location, no landmark, no way to navigate save being a prophet.
Ximun shifted from foot to foot, then glanced over his shoulder. “You … uh … never told me why you’d want to come to this little hellhole.”
“No. And I paid your captain enough not to ask questions.”
He was nervous. More nervous than a man trying to get laid. Rachel had to bite her tongue not to ask. It wasn’t her business. It was not her problem.
Without warning, the ship lurched to normal space. The Conduit wall vanished in an instant, giving way to the system gate—a series of space platforms arranged in a ring, all covered in angelic symbols. Beyond those arose the red dwarf of the system. A half dozen ash worlds orbited that dying star, but only one had any population.
Dropping out of the Conduit deadened her psionic senses so suddenly, Rachel had to steady herself against the viewport.
“So,” Ximun said, as the Fading Stars set off for the planet. “Just another fifteen minutes or so until we’re in orbit. I guess …”
So tempting to just give him what he wanted to be done with it. What she wanted?
No, damn it.
Her mind was her mind.
A clarion went off throughout the ship.
“Oh,” Ximun said. “What the fuck?”
An instant later, the captain’s voice crackled out over the intercom. “A Sentinel ship was hiding behind the back of the gate. They have called for boarding procedures. You know what to do.”
“Oh void!” Ximun said. He rushed to the rail below. “Get the deconstruction nanobots! What are you waiting for?”
Rachel groaned. This was not what she needed now.
Ximun spun on her. “You have a MAG?”
He couldn’t be serious. “In my quarters.”
“Good. Leave it there. Trust me, you do not want to be armed when the Sentinels come aboard. Whatever they say, just cooperate.”
Rachel scowled, then shook her head. “I know how to handle Sentinels.”