Dark Nest: Reckoning

Taryn Wolfe rushed his students out of the burning remains of the Training School, trying to block the smell of destruction and burnt flesh from his nose. Harder was attempting to block the searing emotions that came with an unexpected attack and the shock of sudden death. He had to fortify his mental shields entirely, always a jarring and unnatural quiet for an empath. He hurried his class outside and into the dangerous heat of the Homeworld's surface temperatures.

Ask why later, he commanded himself. Survive now.

Out from the fire, into more heat. If they could just get up the mountain, in whose shade the Training School for the Psychically Augmented had been built, there would be cooler air, a place to regroup and figure out what the hell had just happened.

He prayed Saire had gotten the middle PA grades out of the east wing. He couldn't be sure.

Then came gunfire. More screams. A new wave of shock, fear, horror and pain broke over Taryn like a tsunami wave, cracking open the blockade of mental shields and leaking the terror in. His class, a group of six graduate-level teenagers, began to scream, all of them feeling the whole of the event more keenly than he.

The surprise of the explosion had knocked the students off guard and they hadn't raised their barriers against further onslaught. While they were Defense trainees, they were empaths first and foremost, and it was empathy that defined their existence.

Everyone stopped in their tracks, paralyzed by the conflict between the adrenaline to keep moving and the desperate need to respond to the mental and physical anguish bursting from their besieged classmates. Several of them were swaying back and forth, their mouths an "o" of despair, some tore at their uniforms, fine grey tunics now smeared with ash, and one started running back towards the burning building. Taryn caught her.

"It's not an accident, Professor Wolfe! We're all being attacked," Joiye cried, her normally high pitched voice ratcheted up a further octave by fear. Soot from the explosion marred her face save for where the rivets of tears and sweat had cleaned it away.

"Indeed," Taryn said, gathering himself, restoring his mental shields and casting out a centering breath, from his energy field to theirs. "If you can't stay calm now, you won't stay alive. We're heading to the generator. Keep to that wall. Close your mind off to everything but your training. Remember your last evasive maneuver drill. Think of this as routine."

Taryn sensed their panic settle into workable though shaky foundations. Their walls snapped up and their resolve sharpened; he could feel it as clearly as he could see a blurry lens coming into focus. "Good. Now run and stay down." He was grateful his voice held authority, because his heart was in his throat and his perspiration had nothing to do with the heat.

Taryn's rage, a dormant dragon he'd forced deep into the core of himself and locked away, awoke, roared, and threatened to undo him. He clamped down on the impulse to turn and fight, knowing the awesome and vengeful creature he could become. Children were his responsibility, their next generation. Not adventure, not travel, not combat, not revenge, nothing like the glorious life he was sure Captain Temesia Elysse was living. Children. He had to get them out alive.

Professor Brodin was right. His worst fear had come to pass. But Brodin wasn't here. He was on the Dark Nest, far away, where Temesia held sway. And Taryn had never forgiven either of them for going while he had to stay on at the school.

Temesia. He hoped she was having a better day than he was.