Ki Book One Read Online Free Page B

easily.
    Ki screamed, but the keening, desperate cry
cut out quickly.
    He looked up to see a man next to her. He’d
jumped in through the open window with agility and strength any
hardened soldier would be amazed at.
    Dressed in an unusual, pure-white, metallic
armor from head to foot, the man grabbed Ki by the neck and pushed
her head up. Though his armored fingers were tight around her
throat, she did not make a noise. She stared up in shaking-eyed
desperation.
    The man pulled a white device from the wrist
of his armor and brought it in front of her face. It pulsed with a
blue light, beeping intermittently.
    Finally Jackson acted. He snapped up,
getting ready to lunge at the soldier.
    He didn’t get the chance.
    The soldier reacted with impossible
reflexes, reaching for his gun and pointing it at Jackson without
ever turning around or removing that device from next to Ki’s
face.
    Frozen on the spot, Jackson heard soft
footsteps from the front of the house.
    “ Target acquired,” the soldier in front of
Ki said aloud, his voice distorted somehow. “Scanners confirm no
other life signs in the building.”
    Scanners? Life signs?
    The soldier closed the device, returning it
to his armor. It fitted in neatly.
    Jackson had never seen technology like it.
From the armor to the dexterity of the soldier, something wasn’t
right. If the Tarkans were this developed, they would have taken
Ashka easily in the last war. If they had only recently invented
this kind of technology, they would have used it to their immediate
advantage.
    Still frozen on the spot, he heard several
people approaching, and two more soldiers dressed in exactly the
same flawless white armor entered the room. All wore opaque
helmets. There was no glass fitted in the front, no gap to see out
of, just continuous, smooth metal. Yet they all clearly could
see.
    They approached with their weapons locked on
him.
    “ Don’t shoot him; remove the levi device
first.” The soldier in front of Ki lowered his own weapon, bringing
his hand down sharply. A blade shot out from the back of his wrist.
Long and sharp, it too was perfect, clean, glinting
white.
    Ki flinched, turning to the side.
    The blade was a bare centimeter from her
cheek.
    Tight fear seized Jackson’s chest as he
watched the soldier move around her. Instead of plunging the long
blade through her back, he cut the ropes that bound her to the
chair.
    She did not lunge forward and try to run
away. She sat there limply.
    Jackson had seen people surrender before. In
the last war, he’d watched close friends give in to desperation.
Their faces would turn white, their bodies limp, their expressions
cold and dead.
    She looked no different from those men he’d
seen.
    “ Who are you?” finding his courage, he
snapped at the men. “Ashkan Guards are on their way.”
    The soldier before Ki tipped his head to the
side, that faceless helmet directed at Jackson. With a seamless
move, the blade disappeared back into the armor of his wrist. Then
he brought up his gun instead.
    It was unlike anything Jackson had ever
seen. Sleek, long, the barrel held a chamber that pulsed with a
blue glow. There was no magazine for bullets, just that radiant
light.
    “ Take the levi device from him. Be careful.
Then remove him from the house and disintegrate him.” The soldier
turned back to Ki, looping an arm under her shoulder and pulling
her to her feet. She winced in pain, but she made no
noise.
    Disintegrate him?
    Why not just shoot him now and take the
device from his pocket? Why were they being so careful?
    As one of the other soldiers moved towards
him, Jackson formulated a plan.
    The device was all he had. So he plunged a
hand into his pocket and brought it out.
    It was a strange-looking thing. Fitting into
his palm neatly, it was incredibly light, feeling like nothing more
than colored air. It was made of blue interlocking, filament-like
sections.
    With one press of his hand he confirmed it
was soft enough to break