Annika sighed, wanting to think about her answer. “Since there’s a good chance we’ll die soon, I wanted you to know how much you’ve changed me, and I couldn’t do that without telling you where I started. That’s the power you have, Jude. That’s why you’re the chosen one.”
Judit leaned her forehead against Annika’s as if breathing her in. “It must be true love if I can adore you and be very angry with you at the same time.”
Annika laughed and clasped their hands. “You must love me if you can’t say the word ‘despise.’”
“I could never despise you.”
She reached for Annika’s cheek. Annika turned her gloves over, ready to take them off. She wondered if their suits would protect them inside the black holes. Willa had survived somehow. Annika wondered if her shuttle had survived, too, or if they’d found her floating in deep space.
Floating…
Annika sat back. “Judit, we’re dressed for open space.”
Judit blinked before looking down. “I am, but you—”
“A pressure suit will do for a short time. Let’s jump!”
Judit stood and nearly leapt away from her, face horrified. “What?”
“You said the Damat is probably following us. If we jump, they can pick us up.”
“We…” She swallowed. “We don’t know that they’re out there.”
Annika leaned close to the console. “Damat, if you’re listening, we’re going to jump.” And for good measure, she fed her data chip into the shuttle’s computer, setting it to transmit. Soon, the whole galaxy would know how rotten Nocturna, Meridian, and the hierophants were. “If you’ve got the info from Meridian,” she said, “broadcast it. The galaxy needs to know who the real problem is. Meridian and Nocturna need to stand down.”
Judit bent beside her, and though she still seemed frightened, she spoke without a quiver in her voice. “It’s time for them to be split into smaller houses, and Annika and I will start the first one.”
Annika gasped and nearly wept again. Even after what she’d confessed, Judit still wanted to marry her? She had to kiss her but pulled back quickly. The black holes were getting closer. They didn’t have much time.
“We don’t have helmets,” Judit said.
“There’s always something.” Annika rooted around in the ship until she found the emergency pressure suits, designed to keep a person alive inside the shuttle. She took a glove to replace the one she’d lost, and the helmet fit perfectly around her own suit, but they had to rig one onto Judit’s.
“I should put the other pressure suit on,” Judit said.
Annika shook her head. “You have a greater chance of survival with the evosuit.”
Judit caught her hands where they were fixing the helmet. “That means you have less of a chance!”
“I’m used to surviving in extreme conditions. I’ll be fine.”
Judit looked stricken. “What if you’re not? This is crazy, Annika!”
“Not any crazier than a Nocturna assassin and a Meridian guardian falling in love.”
She finished with the helmet, and they got the air flowing. Annika switched out her tank with one of the other suits, and they did the same for Judit. They had enough air, but the pressure suit wouldn’t keep Annika warm for long. If the Damat wasn’t with them, neither of them would survive.
On the forward view, the cluster of black holes came ever closer. They were supposed to be looking backward, searching through a special catcher that sifted through transmissions and images coming from the rest of the galaxy. They were supposed to be searching for the future, but Annika didn’t want to search anywhere but Judit’s face.
Annika bound them together with a long tether. “I love you.”
Judit readied the shuttle door. “Ready. On three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
As they both said “three,” Judit opened the door, and the loss of atmosphere blew them into space.
* * *
As soon as they were free, Judit clicked her teeth together. “Damat? Come in! Bea?”
The openness of space lay before them, the shuttle flying away at high speed. Judit clung to Annika’s hands. In space, they’d be tiny dots. No one would ever find them, even if they were close enough.
Annika gripped her tightly, eyes wide inside her helmet. “It’s all right, Judit,” she said over their helmet comm. “Just look at me.”
Judit tore her eyes from the galaxy, the wheeling stars and the nebulae, the hideous cold that wanted to engulf her. They were spinning, and the light from the black holes came and went inside her vision, blinding her over and over even through the helmet’s tint. It made her sick, but she told herself she was imagining things. There was no gravity to act on her stomach.
She tried to keep her gaze locked on Annika’s beautiful, stormy eyes. That was all the infinity she needed right there, and all she had to do was focus. “I love you, too.”
Annika smiled. Was her face a little paler? She’d be feeling the cold more acutely. Even with the rate they were moving, she seemed to be shaking. Judit had thought to insist on giving her the evosuit, but then she’d have to watch Judit die first instead of the other way around. As much as the idea hurt, Judit wanted to spare her that. It would be the last gift Judit could give her.
“I’m all right,” Annika said, but it sounded a little breathless. “I’m okay.”
“Bea?” Judit cried. “Please, come in. Damat?”
Silence answered her. Should she take shallow breaths or deep ones? If she used up her air, maybe she and Annika would die at the same time.
“I’m okay. You’re okay.” Annika’s eyes looked heavy. The cold would put her to sleep before it killed her.
“Stay with me,” Judit breathed. “Stay awake.”
Annika smiled languidly. “I should have worn something warmer.”
They should have stayed on the darking shuttle! “Bea!”
“I see you, Jude!” Beatrice’s voice echoed in her ear.
Judit cried with joy, and her stomach did cartwheels. In the reflection of Annika’s helmet, Judit watched the Damat’s shuttle coming closer. It maneuvered around them, into their trajectory, and hovered, open airlock waiting.
Judit heard Annika laughing and joined in. They were going to live! Going to get a chance to be together, to grow old together.
The thought didn’t bring her as much joy as she wanted. When she’d thought they were going to die, it had been easy to forgive Annika, but now, she wasn’t sure that wave of forgiveness had been real. She’d pushed what Annika had told her to the back of her mind, focusing on all the good things that had happened between them since death was so soon in their future.
Now, as she stared at Annika’s still beautiful face, she thought of every filthy trick Nocturna was going to use her for. They hadn’t planned to simply kill Judit and Noal. They wanted to take over his mind. That was so very Nocturna, and it filled Judit with both hatred and fear. If Annika had considered going through with that plan, what else was she capable of? Judit had seen exactly what her mother was capable of, after all. They might not be so different.
A frightened, animal part of her said to cut the tether, let Annika float away. She was already falling asleep. She wouldn’t even notice. Judit’s pack had the jets; she could maneuver into the shuttle alone. Judit clutched Annika tighter and nearly sobbed at the most cowardly, inhuman thought that had ever crossed her mind. She used her jets to move them both into the shuttle feet first.
“We can use the magboots to slow us,” she said.
“All right,” Annika said sleepily.
Judit’s boots pulled her to and fro as they neared the shuttle, as if the magnets couldn’t decide which surface to stick to. She and Annika ended up thudding into the inner wall of the shuttle in a tangle of limbs, and the artificial gravity dropped them to the floor. Annika grunted as Judit did; there’d be more than a few bruises between them. The outer door hissed closed, and at
mosphere filled the room along with a blast of heat. Judit scrambled upright and wrestled her awkwardly fitting helmet off, then helped Annika do the same.
“Are you all right?”
Annika nodded, only a little wobbly as Judit helped her up.
The cockpit door hissed open. “Welcome back!” Beatrice called from where she piloted the shuttle alone. “Sorry for the bumpy landing.”
“Thanks. Really, Bea.” Judit went forward and hugged her around the shoulders. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Beatrice grinned. The forward screen showed them already under way toward the Damat.
When Judit turned, Annika kissed her soundly. “We’re alive.”
“Yes.” And she wanted nothing more than to sink into Annika’s embrace, to let everything go as she’d done on the shuttle, but doubt jangled in her mind, and she didn’t know how to get rid of it. She sat in the second chair. “Is everyone all right, Bea?”
“A little banged up. After that ship accelerated with you on it, we gave chase, but the Nocturna warship caught up to us. We got into a firefight and had to flee. Roberts figured out where your ship had gone, and then we were on your trail.” She glanced at Annika. “But I guess you two made it out okay?”
“I don’t think I was ever on any ship you found,” Annika said. “Feric laid a trap for me and destroyed the ship we were on.”
“And Evie?” Beatrice asked. “Is she back at the Eye?”
Judit’s breath caught, and her stomach lurched as she relived Evie’s death, the surprise in her eyes, the hole in her side. “She’s dead.”
Beatrice sucked in a breath and stared, and Judit was flooded with guilt for saying it so bluntly, so cruelly. She wouldn’t be the only one mourning.
“Willa killed her,” Judit said. “She killed a lot of people.”
“Willa? The Willa?”
Judit nodded. “I’ll explain it to everyone at once, if you don’t mind.”
“It was the hierophants,” Annika said. “They were trying to use us to bring about war, but we’ve thwarted them now. We won’t be their martyrs. We’ll be their ruin.”
For once, Judit was glad to hear the cold-blooded killer in her voice. They needed her now if they were going to see the corrupted hierophants destroyed.
Once aboard the Damat, Judit was left with what to do first. Go back to the Eye? Tell the crew about Evie’s death? Her body was probably aboard some ship docked at the Eye, the same one that had brought Judit. If they got her back, they could have a funeral. Judit would have to plan it, and the thought made her stumble. She’d never lost a crew member before.
Noal met her outside the shuttle bay and hugged her, but when he looked to Annika, Judit knew there was more to think about than just their next actions.
The way he stared at her, as if he’d never met her, Judit knew he’d heard the transmission. Spartan was behind him, and he put a hand on Noal’s shoulder as if ready to pull him away from Annika at a moment’s notice.
Annika opened her mouth, then closed it as if thinking better of what she had to say.
Noal put up a hand. “I understand, but I’m not ready to talk to you yet.”
Annika nodded, looking pained, but she didn’t argue. She looked to Judit, and a question lingered in her eyes. Now that they were safe, what did Judit want from her?
Time, Judit decided. Time to think about what she should do. “Have we heard from anyone else about our transmissions?”
“Not yet,” Beatrice said.
And the Meridian and Nocturna ships Beatrice had detected were probably waiting at the Eye. “Tell everyone we’re going to the Eye,” Judit said, heading for the bridge.
“Everyone?”
“In the galaxy,” Judit said. “Put it out there, then bring us in slow.”
Annika gasped, and Judit knew what she was thinking. If they went in fast, maybe they could get her mother out alive. Anger flared in Judit again: at Annika, at her mother, at Nocturna, at Meridian, too. Variel would have to survive on her own for a little while longer.
On the bridge, Beatrice moved to get them under way, having a word in Roberts’s ear first about announcing their destination.
Judit sat in her chair and adjusted her comm so she could speak to the whole crew. “Attention, Damat, as your captain, I’d like a moment of your time.”
The bridge crew turned to her, and Beatrice’s eyes still held sadness. Now Judit would have to watch the rest of the bridge crew cope, see their pain, but this wouldn’t wait. It shouldn’t.
“It is with great sorrow that I tell you of the death of our tactical officer, Evie Benson, cruelly ambushed by hierophants of the Eye, the same people who engineered the chaos now facing our galaxy.” Judit paused, gripping the arms of her chair for support. Noal wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“She died bravely,” Judit said. “Always doing her job without hesitation, and it is in her name, in the name of my father and all who have died in this chaos, that we will put an end to it. We will seek out the hierophants who have engineered this crisis and see them brought to justice.” She nearly growled out the last word and felt it settle inside her like the prophecies of old.
Chapter Twenty-one
Annika listened to Judit’s words, but even the thought of revenge gave her no comfort. While they’d floated in space, Judit’s face had gone from frightened to distant. That had been easy to see even through the lethargy that wanted to take over Annika’s body. When she’d spoken later, her voice had been calm, almost deadly. Annika’s confession had affected her more than either of them thought. Maybe the words had only just sunk in.
Noal had certainly absorbed them. He could barely look at her; if she moved suddenly, he’d probably jump out of his skin. But she couldn’t worry about him now, or any of Judit’s crew, no matter how they looked at her. She had to focus on defeating the hierophants once and for all.
Judit wanted to imprison the hierophants responsible for the chaos, and Annika now realized that included her mother, if she was still alive. She’d participated in the plot to disrupt the galaxy, she’d planted bombs on Nocturna Prime, and she’d had a hand in Judit’s father’s death, all so Annika could be free.
No wonder Judit had left her behind. She was a criminal, and Annika knew she deserved punishment, but part of her hoped her mother had already fled, maybe leaving a note that promised to get in touch soon.
As Judit finished her speech, the bridge crew mourned together, some shedding a few tears. Annika looked to Judit, wondering if a hug would be welcome. Noal still had his arm around her shoulders, and Annika didn’t think he’d welcome the contact.
Annika sighed. She’d begun thinking of the Damat as her new house, her new home. She’d been overjoyed when Judit told the galaxy they’d marry and start a new house, but now Judit might reconsider. That offer might have been an empty promise, made only to give the rest of the galaxy something to focus on, something Judit planned to die thinking about.
She might be Annika of No House for the rest of her life. Maybe she should run away with her mother.
The thought stabbed at her, and she clenched a fist, nearly groaning. No, she could never flee as her mother had, could never hurt Judit like that. If Judit was angry, fine. She wouldn’t stay angry forever. And Annika would repay years of deception with decades of honesty, with giving. There could be trust between them.
And Annika knew where it could start. She would help catch her mother, as much as the thought pained her. The punishment didn’t have to come from Nocturna or Meridian but someone more neutral. Her mother would have to pay for what she’d done, even if a court decided she had to pay with her life.
That was a hard truth to swallow. Annika had always considered the law to be mutable, something for show, to be bent as needed. But to Judit, the law was a thing of beauty, the stitch that held the galaxy together. And Annika’s mother had broken it in the worst way. If Annika wanted a life with Judit, she would have to see justice served
no matter how much it hurt.
When they traveled back through the transmission gate to the Eye, Annika kept her eyes on Judit’s screen. The area was swarming with ships, both Nocturna and Meridian. They all bore damage, but they’d stopped fighting for the moment, maybe waiting for the return of the Damat, maybe to blow them out of the sky.
“I can’t believe the hierophants engineered this whole thing,” Spartan said. “I mean, they’re watchers. That’s what they do. They watch and they report.”
“And what they saw led them to this,” Noal said. “To resetting everything. They saw themselves as the catalyst. Maybe some of them even thought it was about time.”
“It wasn’t all of them,” Annika said. “They’d been fighting amongst themselves on the Eye.”
Noal and Spartan stared as if they’d forgotten she was there. Maybe after her admission, they’d forgotten she was on their side. It hurt her more than she thought. At least Judit didn’t look at her that way, even if she didn’t look at her at all.
Spartan cleared his throat. “Then maybe there are some out in the galaxy who are still watchers. They’ll be able to tell us who was in on this plan, and who wasn’t.”
“Whatever happens,” Judit said quietly, “we’re off script now. Willa thought Annika and I were going to die in that shuttle.”
The Eye came closer, and from the outside, it looked the same as always, a ziggurat carved from an asteroid. The umbilicals floated below it, two still attached to shuttles, but the rest stood empty, waiting. Annika had imagined them as the tentacles of a monstrous sea creature before. But they didn’t hang empty in space; they extended across the whole galaxy.
“We’re getting hails from both Meridian and Nocturna ships,” Roberts said.
Judit looked over her shoulder at Annika. “Ready to send a message?”
And what would that message be? Were they going to present a unified front that Judit didn’t feel anymore?
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