by Huss, JA
“I know that,” ALCOR says, his voice soft and his tone careful. “I don’t either. But they’ve started something now, Valor. The Cygnians have sent us Lyra for a reason. They let Corla escape for a reason.”
“They’re gonna come get us,” I say. “They’re gonna let Lyra and me be together long enough to make babies, and then they’re gonna come steal them or her, or me… or hell, all of us.”
“Or…” Jimmy says. “They’re just gonna take us and blow up ALCOR and everyone else on it using Lyra or Corla as the detonation device. We have no idea how they’re triggered.”
ALCOR says, “But if we can get Nyleena and maybe find that Velia girl, we could, at the very least, reverse engineer their new weapons.”
“And make babies,” Luck says. “And get that too.”
“That’s why we have to get them first,” Xyla says. Those are the first words she’s spoken since we started this conversation. “Whether they want to use Nyleena to blow us up or to set one of you up to breed with her, doesn’t matter. Their endgame is our annihilation.”
I’ve always liked how Xyla counts herself as one of us. How she always uses the word ‘we’ and almost never uses the word ‘I.’ And right now, I appreciate that more than she will ever know.
“If we could get Nyleena back to Harem,” ALCOR says, “we could keep her safe. We could keep Lyra safe too. There is a reason I have that defense system. We just need to get through this one mission, boys. We just need to get her back and we’ll be OK. I promise.”
Boys.
He almost never calls us boys anymore. He used to back when we first found him. It was always, “Boys, come here.” Or, “Boys, I need your help.” Or, “Boys, we can do better.” It makes me sad to think back on our history together because it hits me in this moment, just what ALCOR is to us.
It has taken me twenty years to realize he is our father.
“We’re about to enter the last gate,” Xyla says, walking back towards the cockpit. “Helmets on, suits pressurized. Now.”
Standard procedure, I tell myself. Just normal precautions when you go into unknown territory expecting resistance.
We all suit up and strap in. I hate not being pilot. I hate not being in Booty. I hate not being in control when there’s so much at stake.
But Valor catches my eye from across the room and nods his head. I watch a glint of cobalt blue blaze across his violet eyes, a reflection of the electromagnetic glow that surrounds the gate like spider-like tendrils, and nod back as we go in.
And most times you come out the other end of the gate just fine. Suit unnecessary. Empty space for a million miles in every direction.
But that’s not how we come out of this gate.
We come out of this gate blinded by a flash of light, an explosion of the brightest magnitude, and the sense that we just made a very big mistake.
Because everything goes black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - LYRA
We come out of the last gate in silence. I expect alarms, and warnings, and Booty’s disembodied voice barking orders.
None of that happens. I count to ten in my head, letting my body adjust to the new stillness, then open my eyes.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking around. I unsnap myself from the harness, then shakily get to my feet. Prince is still snapped into the bot station, safe and snug. But he’s not moving or making any sound.
He looks dead.
“Booty?” I say, expecting an immediate response. “What’s going on?”
I know she’s not dead. The bot isn’t dead either. These can’t die unless you blow their memory components into bits. They just go out of service for a while.
But Booty is not out of service. I know this because in this silence there are lights flashing on panels, and images on screens, and data flowing in code everywhere I look.
“Booty!” I say. “Answer me.”
I step forward towards the cockpit. The space where Serpint and his brother Draden probably spent a lot of time together. Talking, and joking, and laughing. Probably got angry and fought in this space too.
I look up at the large, main screen. Not a window in the traditional sense, but a live feed outside the ship.
My eyes squint together, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. “What the hell is that?”
Something is floating towards us. Spinning in the vacuum of space. Toppling end over end as it gets closer and grows bigger.
The screen is tracking the unknown object. Calculating its velocity and collision time—because that’s what’s going to happen if she doesn’t move.
“Booty, move out of the way!” I say. “Booty!”
But she doesn’t move. Just hovers in space. Waiting for—
The object smacks into us. Not enough impact to make the hull shudder or move us off course, but the vibration carries through the hull of the ship as a dull hum that rings for a second or two.
“What the hell am I looking at?” I say, walking forward to peer at the screen. Because I now see that there’s more of these spinning objects.
Lots more.
“A debris field,” Booty says. “That’s what we’re looking at. Bull Station is gone. And that thing that just hit us, and those things still spinning towards us… are bodies.”
“Bodies,” I repeat. Like saying it out loud will force it to make sense. “Nyleena.”
“She must’ve exploded,” Booty says. “And taken the whole station with her.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, that’s not what happened.”
“Lyra,” Booty says, using one of those calm, patient voices people use when someone is being unreasonable. “The station is gone.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I say. “We were connected. If she detonates, I go with her. If she blew up, we wouldn’t be here. She has to be here somewhere.”
“Then what caused this—”
She stops talking, her data screens scrolling—scrolling—scrolling. Searching for answers.
But I see the answer just as all that scrolling stops.
“There’s our answer,” I say, pointing to the screen. “It’s a Cygnian warship.”
Booty’s hull is a formidable piece of engineering. Her weapons systems are top of the line, and her AI core is probably one of the best out there.
But Cygnian warships are no joke. They are easily ten times her size. Easily have ten times as many torpedoes. And when they come to destroy something, this is exactly how they leave it.
In pieces.
“Serpint,” I whisper.
“I’ve got Dicker on radar. She’s signaling me now.”
“Oh, thank the sun.”
“But the warship has her in a traction field. They’re pulling her in. This is just an emergency beacon.”
“We need to sever that connection so they can get out of here.”
“They’ve seen me,” Booty says. “They’ve locked on me too. I’m just not close enough to be in their control. And Dicker and the crew can’t get out of here even if they weren’t in that traction field. The only way she goes home is if I tug her behind me. There’s no power on the ship at all. The only thing working is the emergency beacon. All systems are dead.”
“The crew?” I say, afraid to ask but knowing I must.
“Wait,” she says. “There’s another emergency beacon. Very small and it’s behind us.”
“The crew, Booty! What about the crew?”
“I don’t know, Lyra. But the other signal is coming in as… Nyleena.”
“Shit,” I say, looking at the other screen where Booty’s exterior cameras are zooming in on a single cryopod.
“They’ve fired. I have to return fire.” She pauses. “Returning fire now.”
I don’t know why she’s telling me this. Why she’s reporting to me. Maybe because that’s what she does with Serpint and it’s just habit. Or maybe because she wants my input.
Two torpedoes release, their forward thrust sending us back
in the opposite direction for a moment before her thrusters can compensate.
“They can’t kill me this far away,” Booty says. “I’ll just return fire and blow their torpedoes up as they approach.”
“And if you run out of torpedoes?” I ask. Because she will. Long before that Cygnian warship does.
“I can outrun them easily. But—”
“But,” I say, finishing for her, “we have to leave everyone else behind.”
“Incoming signal from Xyla,” Booty says.
“Oh, thank the sun,” I say. “They’re alive.”
“They have a plan. But it’s a bad one and will probably fail. And even if it does work…”
“Even if it does work what?”
She tells me the plan, and the consequences, and we both sit in silence for several seconds.
Then Booty says, “We have two choices, Lyra. And neither of them are good. We get Nyleena and run, leaving Dicker and the crew to hope for the best. Or we stay and fight to save Dicker and the crew, and let the Cygnians recover Nyleena if we fail.”
She pauses. Again, maybe for Serpint’s opinion that never comes. Or maybe she just wants me to get used to the idea that either way, we’re not going to win. Not today.
Then she says, “If they get Nyleena they can still detonate her? Even without you?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling defeated. “They can’t detonate me without her, but if they get her cryopod and start a new detonation sequence, they could detonate her without me.”
“So you’re safe? As long as they don’t get a hold of you?”
“No,” I say. “If she blows, I blow. My fate is tied to hers.”
Booty sighs. “So they could wait until we go home and then detonate Nyleena, thereby detonating you, and take out half of Harem Station too.”
I say nothing to that.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Then what should we do?”
I draw in a deep breath and look around the interior of the ship. Log what I see, what I can use, half-heartedly calculate my chances of success. Decide the odds are bad, and then decide to do it anyway.
“Take me over to Nyleena. I’m getting off here.”
Because I have a third option in mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - SERPINT
We come out of this gate blinded by a flash of light. An explosion of the brightest magnitude. And the sense that we just made a very big mistake.
Alarms are screeching, panels of electronic equipment spark and flash, like their circuits have been ripped out. And as my vision clears I spot Xyla through the cockpit hatch. Her hair is a tangled mess of lavender tendrils, letting me know that the ship’s gravity is gone.
And then I feel it now too. The way, even under my suit, my shoulders strain against the harness trying to keep me in place. Everything else happens in slow motion. My mouth opens to start yelling their names. Valor, Luck, Jimmy. But all the words get lost in my throat when I see the reason why we have no gravity. Why all the screens and panels are flashing with the blue-white light of lost electric current.
There is a gash in the side of Dicker’s hull. And on the other side of that hole, out in the empty blackness of space, is Jimmy.
Sound returns now. The silence was just a pause in my hearing after an explosion and Jimmy’s voice is in my helmet.
Not dead. Yelling at Valor, who I now realize is hooking a suit tether onto the side of the hull, about to exit the ship and join Jimmy in the deep dark.
“Right there! Right there!” Jimmy is yelling. Pointing a finger to the side of the hull.
“I got it,” Valor says. Calm. Too calm. He points his hands together and dives through the gash, following Jimmy outside.
Luck is floating across the room at the end of a tether. Shaking his head and blinking his eyes, trying to get his bearings just like I was.
We are all alive, that’s all that matters right now. So I unhook myself, reach for a safety tether on my suit and hook on to the nearest eyebolt.
I will not be sucked out of the ship. We have no air in here at all. We are in perfect equilibrium with the vacuum surrounding us. But one small thrust in the wrong direction could send me spinning away. And if you’ve never tried to recover a body-sized object in space—well, it’s a fucking bitch. There is no time to go chasing after anyone.
Valor and Jimmy are obviously dealing with some emergency on the outside of the ship.
“Get it off!” Jimmy is yelling.
“I’m trying,” Valor says, still calm.
I have no idea how Jimmy got outside. Maybe during the initial explosion or maybe he went out there on purpose.
But I don’t bother them. Whatever it is they’re doing, they don’t need my help.
I float up towards Xyla, my tether extending as I get further away from my anchor point.
“What the fuck happened?” I say into my helmet.
She has no helmet, or suit for that matter.
She was made for the vacuum of space and her body is self-contained and sealed. But she has an internal communication system that plugs right into our suits.
“They shot at us the moment we came out of the gate.”
“Who—” But I stop. Because I see who.
A massive Cygnian warship hovers off to the side of Bull Station. Its massive, bird-like form is silver and windowless. Just smooth metal. An aerodynamic design that mimics the wings of a bird diving for prey.
It lights up.
A pink glow surrounds the silver body. And even though I’ve never actually seen a Cygnian warship fire torpedoes, I know this is how it happens.
More than a dozen blue-white streaks leave the ship, arcing out into space as they lock on their targets, and seconds later Bull Station is just… gone.
Debris flies out in all directions, heading straight for Dicker’s hull.
I look over my shoulder and see Valor and Jimmy climbing back inside the blown-out hole.
“Can’t get it!” Jimmy says, his eyes locking on mine as Luck, now fully back from his blackout, pulls him and Valor back into the shelter of Dicker’s dead body as bits and pieces of the station float by outside.
“What the fuck is happening?” I say.
“They locked us with a traction torpedo the moment we exited the gate. And now they’re pulling us in.” Xyla turns her head up to me, her wild, lavender hair swimming around her face, and says, “They’ve caught us. And there’s no way to sever the traction without Dicker’s weapons online.”
“It doesn’t matter,” ALCOR says. Which surprises me. Because I figured he was out of commission with Dicker. “Just shoot me out to that ship, Xyla. And do it now.”
“What?” I say. Because I was obviously out for more than a few seconds and there’s a plan in motion I’m just now catching up to.
“ACLOR is going to infiltrate the warship and take it over.”
“Can you do that?” I ask.
“No one has any idea what I can do,” he says, voice low and calm in my helmet. It’s not his regular voice. No emotion at all. Just… stoic logic. “Not even me.”
A chill shudders up my spine, making all the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“I’m getting an incoming signal,” Xyla says. “From Booty.”
“What the fuck?” I say.
“She’s here,” Xyla says. “With Lyra.”
“No—”
“The warship has locked on to her,” Xyla continues. “But she’s too far away to grab just yet. Torpedoes have launched. Booty has returned fire.”
“Now, Xyla,” ALCOR says.
“On it,” she says. “Valor, release Beauty.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
But no one answers me. Valor just unhooks Beauty from her safety niche, pats her on her spherical head, and throws her out the gash in the hull.
“Now,” Jimmy says. “All we have to do is live through the next ten minutes until she rea
ches the warship.”
“Good news,” Xyla says. “The warship is heading towards us, so now we have less than a minute. And Booty is on an intercept course with the warship.”
Leave, I silently pray. Just leave, Booty. Get Lyra out of here.
“She’s arming,” Xyla says. “Booty has locked onto the warship.”
“She can’t win!” I say. “She can’t fucking win against that ship!”
“I know that,” Xyla says. “She’s not trying to win. She’s trying to save Lyra.”
“What?”
“Lyra and her bot have exited Booty Hunter and are on collision course with…” She pauses. “Oh, shit.”
“With who?”
“Booty says it’s Nyleena’s cryopod floating out into space. They’re going to detonate themselves and take out the warship.”
Silence after that. As we all take in just how dire this situation is.
ALCOR—the real ALCOR, not a copy—trying to save us by taking over the warship.
And Lyra—trying to kill us, and the Cygnians too, should ALCOR fail.
Xyla opens up an air screen, projecting two images at once. Lyra, holding on to Prince as they shoot through space towards the cryopod, and Beauty on the other. Doing her best to deliver ALCOR to the warship before Nyleena and Lyra explode.
We’re already dead, I realize.
The only thing left to know is which way we’ll go out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - LYRA
Booty has control of Prince, directing the tiny thrusters built into his body for maneuvering in station atmosphere, to correctly point me to Nyleena’s cryopod.
I can see her. My sister. Helpless and frozen inside her pod. I was there when we put her inside. All the Cygnian officers and medical advisors standing by to make sure all her life support was online and functioning. That her mission directives were complete. Half listening as the general told me—over and over again—what I needed to do once I got her in range of our target, some planet called Earth.