Mind Games

Dranara has been a Protector since she was a child, using her psychic gifts to help the Foundation prevent assassinations, kidnappings, bombings, and catastrophes. For years she’s been the strongest Protector, the one the others look up to, but she’s losing control of her gifts and she’s terrified what that means. She wants to trust her handler Sylvin, to tell him the truth about what she’s going through, but Sylvin has booked an uncharacteristically luxurious spaceship to get to their next assignment, which feels like a condemned man’s last meal. She thinks something is off with him, but like most handlers, he’s heavily shielded from being read.

On the ship, Jackson, a concerned but erratic stranger, warns her not to trust anyone at the Foundation, that she’ll be killed if she’s of no use anymore—and the Foundation probably already knows she’s slipping. Jackson knows too much about the life of a Protector to not at least listen to what he has to say—and he seems to care about her in a way Sylvin never has.

She’s been raised to trust Sylvin and believe in the Foundation, but everything is telling her something is wrong. Jackson may be slightly insane, but he’s making more sense about the Foundation than she’d like. Is he right? Is this her last voyage?

This novelette is the first story in the Mind Games series.