Chapter Text
8 YEARS AGO
Shane Hollander age 15
Shane sat forward on the couch, elbows on his knees, hands clenched so tight his knuckles had gone pale. On the television, the Montreal Voyageurs streaked across the ice in a blur of red and blue.
They were playing an American team, the Chicago Hawks, live from a packed arena somewhere in the States. The commentators were loud, fast, excited. “So much speed from Montreal tonight, just look at that transition…”
“SHOOT!” Shane shouted it before the player even took aim.
The puck slammed into the net. GOALLLL. The crowd roared. Shane leapt to his feet, pumping his fist. “YES!”
His dad laughed from the armchair, raising his beer in salute.“Another couple years? That could be you out there.”
Shane rolled his eyes, breathless and grinning. “Dadddd.” He pretended to scoff, but he couldn’t stop staring at the players skating in celebration. That was the dream. Always had been. Always would be.
Shane lifted his glass of ginger ale and took a sip, bubbles stinging his tongue. His dad clinked his beer bottle gently against it. “To future NHL superstar,”
Shane grinned.
The game restarted. Fast and aggressive . The commentators shouting over the noise. Then a whistle blew. The players slowed, looking around in confusion, one of them gestured toward the referee. The crowd noise shifted, from cheering to uncertain murmuring.
“What’s going on?” Shane frowned.
The camera zoomed out. Players clustering together. Referees speaking urgently into headsets. The commentators’ voices faltered. “…we’re… uh… not sure what’s happening here folks…”
Then the screen flickered. Static into black. Shane and his dad stared at the blank television. “What the hell?”
A moment later. The screen returned to a stark blue backdrop. The seal of the White House centered beneath a podium.
“Oh god,” his mum whispered behind them, the sofa dipping as she sank down beside them.
Then the US President stepped into frame. Barack Obama. His expression solemn. He began to speak. “My fellow Americans… and people watching around the world.” His voice was calm. “It is my solemn duty tonight to inform you of a situation that affects every nation on Earth.”
Shane felt his dad sit forward slowly.
“Earlier today,” the President continued, “scientists monitoring deep-space objects confirmed that a large asteroid, we are calling XIV, significantly larger than any previously recorded near-Earth orbit had entered a trajectory that intersects with our planet.”
“What does that mean?” Shane whispered. His mum didn’t answer, she was already crying.
The President continued. “Let me be clear: this is a serious and unprecedented threat.”
“But I ask you…I urge you…do not panic.” He paused as though to let his words sink in. “As I speak, the world’s leading scientists, engineers, and space agencies are working together in a level of global cooperation never before seen in human history. Multiple plans are underway to deflect or alter the asteroid’s path.”
Barack stood strong, his words ringing out. “We are preparing for every possible contingency. Governments around the world have already begun securing long-term food supplies, medical resources, and infrastructure to ensure continuity of human civilisation.”
Shane didn’t fully understand the words.
“Safe zones and protective regions are being identified,” the President continued, voice steady. “Once we know the projected impact location, relocation efforts will begin. But tonight…tonight I ask you to hold fast. To care for one another. Tomorrow we ask you to continue your daily lives as normally as possible.”
“We face this challenge not as nations divided but as one human family.” Barack looked directly into the camera. “And we will face it together. God bless us all.
The screen faded slowly. The White House seal remaining for a moment. Then gone.
His dad reached out first, grabbed his hand pulling him into a hug his mom came forward, clutching both of them. They held each other tightly. No words. Just shaking breaths.
And Shane. Fifteen years old. Future NHL hopeful. Dreaming of ice and crowds and bright stadium lights.
Stood there in his father’s arms. Realising for the first time…That the future he’d always imagined…might not exist at all.
O|O
PRESENT DAY
PORTERS TOWN. SECTION 24b
Mac avoided looking in the rear-view mirror. Before everything went to hell, he had been a school bus driver. Back then he had hated the job, the noise, the chaos, the little bastards shrieking and running the aisles. Now he would have given his right arm to have that life back.
Tonight he carried over twenty ‘passengers’: men, women, teenagers. Some sobbed openly. Others sat frozen, faces blank with shock.
Guides.
Usually the Centari picked them off one at a time. Tonight they’d struck gold. A whole safehouse uncovered. A month’s worth of quotas in one sweep. That was why Mac had been dragged from his bed, to drive the only working coach in Porter’s Town. To deliver the human cargo to a “secure facility.”
Two Centari paced the aisle, tall and hard-edged, their eyes glowing faintly as they scanned for injuries, for resistance, no talking was allowed before processing.
Three prisoners had been hauled to the front. One of them barely looked human anymore. A young man. Face swollen, nose shattered, one eye sealed shut beneath a grotesque bloom of purple and black. Blood crusted at his mouth. He looked like something dug up from a grave.
Outside, a convoy rolled with them, armoured vehicles, flashing lights, armed escorts boxing the bus in on all sides.
Mac kept his eyes locked forward.
Then something struck the windshield. Wet, disgusting, a spitball sliding slowly down the glass.
Mac blinked in disbelief and glanced back. The battered man was staring straight at him. Grinning.
Blood smeared across his teeth. His lips moved, Mac frowned, trying to read it. The man mouthed it again, slow and deliberate.
B. R. A. K. E.
Mac’s stomach dropped into his shoes. In the man’s hand, somehow now free of restraints sat a grenade. The prisoner flicked his wrist and hurled it down the aisle.
“GRENADE!”
The Centari reacted instantly, diving onto the device in a blur of motion.
Mac slammed the brakes. The bus screamed, metal shrieking, tyres burning rubber as it fishtailed violently across the highway. Passengers shrieked as the vehicle skidded sideways, tilting, threatening to roll. Behind them, escort vehicles swerved. One clipped another. Then another. A chain of crunching metal and spinning headlights.
Through the chaos, Mac saw movement. The broken-faced man exploded from his seat like a released spring. He hit the Centari hard.
One punch. Two. Three. Bone-shattering blows. The alien enforcers crumpled.
The bus lurched then slammed to a stop.
Gunfire erupted outside. Smoke canisters burst open across the road, vomiting thick orange clouds that swallowed everything. Shouts. Screams. Flashing lights dissolving into haze. Mac dropped to the floor of his seat well, hands over his head. But he was vaguely aware of the door opening and the sound of running.
O|O
Ilya’s face was carved from stone as the footage played. No reaction only the slow, rhythmic tap of his fingers against his thigh betrayed the storm beneath.
The Porters Town incident. Eight Guides escaping under their noses. Twenty humans in hospital, three critical. Two centari badly injured. It was an embarrassment. The moment he had heard the report, something had twisted low in his gut a familiar pull, sharp and instinctive.
Finally his quarry was near. So he had come down personally. Now he sat with his command team, reviewing everything. Again. And again.
Human body-cam feeds flickered across the screens. Superior Centari 3D recon overlays rotated in layered projections. Smoke, shouting, chaos. A complete operational failure.
The field commander had rushed the extraction, fearing a civilian riot. In hindsight, it had been a catastrophic call. No one had anticipated a small militia waiting in ambush.
“Load the raid entry footage,” Ilya said quietly. He watched the assault unfold, precise, clinical. Exactly as per protocol. Doors blasted inward. Windows shattered. Smoke grenades deployed. Strobes flashing to disorient the occupants.
Standard procedure. Except they had expected one or two Guides at most.
Then came the moment that made Ilya’s lip curl. The team on camera celebrated, laughing, crowing in triumph. Sloppy. They celebrated too soon. Restraints ran short. Zip ties and human cuffs substituted. Captives left insufficiently searched. Careless.
“Pause,” Ilya said, leaning forward, eyes sharp, a small smile curling on his lips.
The frame froze. Ilya’s gaze locked onto a single figure. “That one,” he murmured. “Why is he so badly injured?”
The image zoomed revealing a face nearly unrecognisable beneath swelling and blood. Marky scrolled through the incident logs, frowning. “Nothing recorded, sir. Injuries may have occurred prior to the raid.”
Ilya’s eyes gleamed.
“Da, perhaps” he conceded softly. “But he is bleeding too heavily.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “Either human enforcement was excessively… enthusiastic.” Ilya tilted his head. “Or the injuries were self-inflicted to defeat facial recognition.”
Ilya and his team spent hours dissecting every angle, every footage, all audio, interrogation records, sensor telemetry. He watched the bus attack replay again and again.
When he finally leaned back, it was with a low, satisfied exhale. His smirk was razor-thin. He was an Esper. But that was not what made him dangerous. He was a hunter and he knew his prey.
“This,” he said at last, voice quiet with certainty, “is Voyager.”
Marky’s brow lifted but he did not argue.
“There was no need for such extreme measures otherwise,” Ilya continued. “I know his patterns.”
“Orders, sir?” Marky asked.
Ilya’s gaze returned to the frozen frame, the damaged face, the stillness beneath the violence.
The attack had been carried out by no more than two or three operatives. Against over fifty personnel. Suicidal odds. But the resistance had exploited one immutable truth: The Centari would never risk harm to a Guide. Not even a bruise.
The grenade had been a bluff, a dud and the escorts had thrown themselves on it without hesitation. Exactly as predicted.
Ilya’s instincts hummed with electric certainty. Voyager had been there or very, very close.
He rose slowly. “Extend all search quadrants,” he ordered. “I want ten battalions deployed. Minimum Grade Three Espers assigned to each perimeter. Systematic sweeps.”
His voice dropped to something colder. “And roving hunter squads. I will be on point. He will not escape again.”
O|O
“Owwww…shit.” Shane glared up as Rosie’s fingers pressed hard against his face. With a sharp, practiced motion, she snapped his nose back into place. Pain burst white behind his eyes.
Rosie snorted. “Oh, don’t be such a baby, Hollander. You’re still a pretty boy.”
Shane let out a slow breath through his mouth. “Your bedside manner sucks.”
“Mm. You’re welcome.” Rosie smirked.
They sat in the half-dark of a shattered drainage tunnel, concrete walls split with old impact cracks, rusted rebar exposed like bones. Stagnant water trickled along a shallow channel at their feet, carrying the sour stink of rot. The air was damp and cold, every sound echoing down the long, hollow throat of the broken infrastructure.
A flickering portable lantern cast weak yellow light, throwing long, trembling shadows.
Behind them, deeper in the tunnel, eight Guides huddled together wrapped in scavenged blankets, whispering, shaking, trying not to cry..
The metal access hatch scraped open. Both Shane and Rosie turned instantly, rifles lifting up.
Troy ducked inside, boots splashing through the shallow runoff. His face was tight, jaw set. “It’s bad,” he said quietly. “Worse than bad.”
Shane’s stomach sank. “How bad?”
“They flooded the whole sector. Troops everywhere. Esper units too, lots of them. At least five quadrants are locked down. Full perimeter sweeps.”
“We can’t stay here.” Rosie closed her eyes.
Shane shook his head immediately. “If we move now, they’ll find us within hours.” He glanced back toward the cluster of Guides. “We can shield ourselves,” he said quietly. “But they can’t.”
Troy followed his gaze. The rescued Guides looked fragile, hollow-eyed, exhausted, terrified.
“We could try teaching them,” Troy offered.
Shane’s mouth tightened. “Not fast enough.”
“Then we stay put,” Rosie replied. “For now.”
Shane rubbed his face, wincing as the reset bone throbbed. “Can you reach operatives outside the lockdown zone?” he asked. “If they make enough noise elsewhere… it might look like we slipped through.”
Troy nodded slowly. “Diversion.”
“Exactly. It buys us time. Time to rest. Time to train them.”
Rosie’s hand closed over Shane’s wrist. Her voice whispering. “We may have to cut them loose.”
Shane didn’t answer right away. He looked back at the huddled group, frightened faces watching him, trusting him. Then he looked at Troy and then Rosie. “I know,” he said quietly. “I know.”
“Do we know how they found us?”
Troy exhaled sharply. “Bad luck. A dog walker saw a light. Reported it for the bounty.”
Shane’s eyes hardened. “Bastards.”
O|O
ONE MONTH LATER
“For the record,” Troy said, breath fogging in the sharp air, “this is a really, really, really bad idea.”
Shane snorted, tightening the laces of his stolen skates until the leather hugged his ankles like a second skin. The blades caught the pale winter light, thin and wickedly bright against the endless sheet of ice stretching out before them.
“I think we passed bad idea territory about a month ago.”
Rosie smirked, tugging her bandana higher over her nose before pulling her goggles down into place. Frost had already started to gather along the edges of the glass. “Ha! attacking a Centauri convoy? That was suicidal bad idea with guns.” She jerked her chin toward the two men. “This is outrageous bad idea… with skates.” She looked pointedly at their feet and then out at the icy lake.
The ice of Lake Mille Lacs lay wide and open around them, nearly twenty miles of frozen grey blue surface stretching toward a horizon swallowed by thickening cloud. Snow had blown across it in long white streaks, filling shallow cracks and ridges where the lake had shifted and groaned as it froze. Now and then a deep, distant boom echoed underfoot, the sound of ice expanding in the dropping temperature.
Strong enough to hold a person. Not strong enough to trust with anything heavier. Troy pushed slowly forward, testing the surface. His skates whispered over the ice with a soft, slicing hiss. He rolled his shoulders, then dropped into a low stretch, palms braced against his knees as he loosened tight muscles.
Shane followed suit, gliding in a short circle. He leaned into the motion, letting the familiar rhythm settle into his body, ankles flexing, thighs burning lightly as he shifted weight from edge to edge. He straightened, exhaling sharply, steam curling into the cold air, he couldn’t stop the excited grin that animated his face.
“It will work,” Shane smiled. “The lake’s fully frozen, but the thaw last week weakened the top layers. Too risky for vehicles. Even a bike would punch through in places. Weather’s closing in, no copters. And the Centauri won’t get ground or air units across fast enough. And …and if we are lucky there won’t be any Espers close by.”
“Yeah if we are lucky,” Rosie agreed. They had been over this a hundred times, she glanced down at the sledge beside her. Eight snow-packed forms lay strapped to it, bundled in scavenged clothing , coats, scarves, even hats and helmets, rough human shapes that would pass at a distance in blowing snow.
The plan was simple.
Shane and Troy would create a moving target across the open ice; visible, fast, impossible to ignore. Their pursuers would pursue on foot, slowed by the weather and forced to detour around the unstable ice. They would call in reinforcements from everywhere, hopefully leaving roads and paths unmonitored. Rosie would use the distraction to slip the Guides through the gap in the patrol net and move them to a more secure location.
At the right moment, Shane and Troy would dump the sledge into a weakened patch. The snowman decoys would vanish into the freezing water, again hopefully convincing the pursuers that they had they’d fallen through.
The hunt would stall there. Long enough for Shane and Troy, now unburdened to circle back through the storm and vanish.
It was ludicrous. Dangerous. Utterly outrageous. And exactly the kind of plan that sometimes worked because it was so stupid.
Troy gave a powerful push and skated backward in an easy arc, circling Rosie with a flash of confidence that didn’t quite hide the tension in his shoulders. “See you in five hours,” he said lightly. “Keep the kettle on babe.”
Rosie rolled her eyes, though her smile was thin and tight. “Arseholes,” she muttered. Then she reached out, grabbing both of them by their jackets and hauling them into a quick, one-armed hug.
“Be careful,” she said quietly. “You big louts.”
O|O
They started slow. No dramatic push, no racing strides, just long, careful glides that barely whispered across the ice. The lake stretched ahead in a vast, pale expanse, its frozen surface streaked with windblown snow and faint blue veins where old cracks ran beneath the clear upper layer.
Shane leaned into each stroke, keeping his movements loose and economical. Every ounce of energy mattered out here. Twenty miles of open ice left nowhere to hide if they burned out too early.
Beside him, Troy matched his pace easily. The rope harness around his shoulders creaked softly as the sledge dragged behind them, runners hissing over the frozen surface. The load added weight, but on the smooth ice it moved well enough for now.
The cold was the hardest part. It seeped through gloves and boots. Toes going numb. Shane kept his head down, goggles frosting at the edges, letting muscle memory take over. His purloined skates weren’t ideal, longer blades, stiffer boot, built for distance rather than agility nothing like the snug, responsive feel of his old hockey skates. But they would do.
For nearly two hours they moved like ghosts across the frozen lake, the only sounds the steady scrape of steel and the occasional deep, echoing creak of shifting ice far below. The storm was building, clouds thickening, wind beginning to snake across the surface in low drifting ribbons of snow swirls of mist and ice. Perfect cover.
Inevitably the ropes pulled taut as the sledge caught slightly on a ridge beneath the powder. The snowman decoys bobbed and tilted, one slumping sideways in a disturbingly human way.
Troy slowed, gliding back to steady them. He patted one down, adjusting a scarf. From a distance, they still looked convincing, eight bundled figures huddled low against the cold.
Shane had already dropped into a crouch, viewfinder pressed to his eye. A checkpoint ahead on a road that ran parallel to the lake. Only a handful of troops visible near a line of portable barriers. Perfect.
Shane smiled grimly, once they were spotted, radios would erupt with chatter. Reinforcements would converge from every direction.
Their only advantage: ice. Troops would struggle to move fast. Vehicles couldn’t follow. Any Espers in the area would have to approach carefully.
They just needed to last long enough. Give them a hunt to remember. Then vanish.
Shane lowered the viewer, jaw tight. The plan had so many holes it could’ve been Swiss cheese. But it was the best he had. And beneath the tension, a strange spark flickered, the old thrill of speed, of movement, of skating free across ice.
He exhaled slowly. “Ready?”
Troy grinned, sharp and reckless. “Yo! Let’s give them something to chase.”
They loosened their shields together. Not fully, never fully but just enough. They let the emotional projection bleed outward: panic, vulnerability, the frantic static of frightened Guides on the run.
It worked instantly. Shane felt it like a ripple across water, awareness snapping toward them. A shout. Heads turned. Radios came alive. Troops spilled onto the ice in a rush, their boots slipping and sliding as they struggled to gain traction.
Shane and Troy pushed off hard. Now they skated fast, long, powerful strokes eating distance. The sledge bounced behind them, runners rattling over uneven patches as they angled away across open ice.
Shouts echoed behind them. A warning shot cracked the air. The bullet struck ice somewhere to their left, sending a spray of glittering shards upward. They didn’t look back.
Wind rose steadily, visibility dropped, turning the world into shifting white and grey shapes. Occasional silhouettes appeared through the haze, troops trying to cut them off ahead, then fading again as the storm swallowed them.
And then Shane felt it. A sudden, invasive prickling at the back of his mind. Unmistakable. Esper. The sensation crawled under his skin like static electricity, setting his nerves on edge, making his concentration falter.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Troy felt it too, his posture tightening instantly.
Then they saw him. A dark figure tearing across the ice on a lightweight pursuit bike, its studded runners biting into the frozen surface. He was closing fast, faster than anyone else.
Too fast.
Shane’s pulse spiked. “Keep moving!”
The esper leaned forward his hand outstretched at the same time pushing the machine harder, ignoring risk. Then the ice betrayed him. A sudden crack split the surface beneath the bike. One runner punched through thin ice, jerking the vehicle sideways. The esper reacted instantly launching himself free in a powerful leap as the bike skidded, spun, and partially broke through the frozen crust.
He landed on safer ice, rolling smoothly back to his feet. But far too slow.
Shane hollered in relief and twisted around just long enough to throw the enemy a sharp, defiant middle finger before skating hard into the thickening storm.
The esper presence faded behind them as distance and weather swallowed him.
Twenty minutes later, Shane slowed, scanning the ice ahead. “Here,” he said.The surface had a darker, glassy sheen, thinner, weaker. They unhooked the ropes in quick practiced motions. Then jumped onto the sledge, using their combined weight to drive it forward.
The ice cracked instantly. A sharp, splintering sound as they leapt clear just as the sledge broke through, plunging into black water beneath.
The disguised snowmen vanished with it, sinking out of sight. Both men stood there panting hard, watching until the last ripple faded. Troy quickly shrugged off his rucksack and dragged it across the ice, creating scrambling marks near the break.
Shane tossed his hat and a rifle nearby, convincing debris. The final touch they let a sparks of panic and fear and then instantly raised their shields as though cut off mid cry for help.
Then they donned wide white ponchos made from old bed sheets, blending into the storm-blown landscape. Crouching low, they began a slow, circuitous route back the way they’d come, moving carefully, leaving minimal trace.
Behind them, distant shouts eventually rose.
A flare gun fired. Red light streaked upward into the storm-dark sky. Then another, they grinned at each other, finally something was going their way.
The first hour back was slow and brutal, cold biting deep, tired muscles trembling from exertion. But once they were sure no trackers followed, they increased speed, skating fast under the cover of the storm. By the time they reached the isolated farmhouse three hours later, both were shaking with cold, faces numb, clothing stiff with frost. A silo buried underground would be their home until Spring broke, enough time to teach the baby guides the basics. Enough time for the trail to go cold.
O|O
Ilya had been tracking the fugitive Guides, when he felt it. Their presence faint, but unmistakable
flickered sharply in his awareness. Then came a sudden spike of emotion. A bolt of raw terror. And just as quickly…. It vanished.
Wrong.
Ilya’s heart slammed hard against his ribs as he pushed himself faster, boots slipping on the slick ice. Even with Esper strength and reflexes, it was brutal going. Every step threatened to slide out from under him, forcing him to fight for balance, to claw forward across the frozen lake. If only he had those strange blade-shoes the fugitives wore. They had moved so much faster than anyone on foot.
He ran anyway. Twenty minutes later he saw it. The shattered hole. Black water churning beneath splintered white edges. A rifle, a bag, some clothing.
Ilya froze for half a heartbeat. “No,” he whispered. Then louder, harsher a sound dragged straight out of his chest. “No. No. No…”
He didn’t hesitate. He tore off his outer jacket and plunged forward, diving straight into the inky water.
The cold hit like a physical blow a crushing, suffocating shock that drove the air from his lungs and seized every muscle at once.
He forced himself down anyway. Hands reaching blindly into the freezing darkness, searching for fabric, for flesh, for anything.
Nothing.
He broke the surface with a ragged gasp, ice slashing at his arms as he dragged in air that burned his lungs.
Then he dove again. And again. And again.
Each time the water felt colder, heavier, stealing strength from his limbs. His vision narrowed to a tight tunnel of black and grey. Thoughts dissolved into a single, desperate command:
Find them. Find them. Find them.
He barely registered the hands grabbing him, dragging him back onto the ice. He fought instinctively, still reaching toward the hole even as his body began to shake violently.
“Sir! Sir…!” Voices sounded distant, muffled. “It’s too late. They’re gone.”
Someone wrapped a thick thermal blanket around his shoulders, pinning his arms, forcing him to stay still. Ilya barely felt it. Consciousness slipped slowly, like a tide pulling away from shore.
But as darkness crept in, one small, niggling stubborn thought lingered beneath the numbness. Something felt… wrong.