by Eva Brandt
I entered the cockpit and connected with the Sphinx. As I waited for everyone else to finish the preparations for launch, I smiled. “Let’s give them a good show, all right, Sphinx?”
“Of course, young Selene.” She chuckled, and the sound echoed into my spine, through every inch of my body. “We’ll give them more than that. I think it’s time to remind everyone of the lessons they’ve forgotten. The gifts of the gods don’t come without a price. Privileges are conditional and they can be taken away. We’ve stood by and watched long enough. The time has come to act.”
Oh, shit. Why did I suddenly have a feeling this wouldn’t be a race, after all?
* * *
Knox
“Take care out there, Knox. We might have been here before, but our past experience won’t help us that much now.” In the crimson light of our chimeras, Brendan’s pale face looked surreal, almost burnt. “Don’t do anything rash. We can’t afford to make mistakes.”
I sighed and tapped my finger against the display. I couldn’t touch him, but the impulse was still there. “I know that, but I can’t make any promises. You and I don’t always agree on what a mistake actually is.”
“Knox…”
“Don’t, Brendan.” I growled, fury and anguish swelling inside me all over again. “This isn’t a race at all. It’s a hunt. You know it as well as I do. And if they’re planning on hunting her, I’m going to hunt them. And I’ll make them regret the day they dared to think they could hurt her.”
That thought was the only thing that had kept me from doing anything stupid. It had been a close call during the second stage of the tournament, but Cerberus had sworn up and down that it would be fine, that we could do this together. He’d also guessed the chimera race would be the most likely third event, and we’d have to keep an eye on Selene, to make sure no one attacked her. It would be a good chance to take out my aggression on people who deserved it, and not just for me.
“Don’t try to pretend with me, Brendan. There’s no point. I think we’ve all stopped pretending now, if we ever were.”
“I suppose that’s true. I’m just… unsettled. I can’t help but feel I’m missing something. My father has never acted impulsively before and he’s never been quite this aggressive, not even when I refused to marry Penelope. This is strange.”
It was. I hadn’t thought the king would turn Brendan’s relationship with Selene into such a big deal either. But anyone with eyes could see these events were crafted specifically with the purpose of thwarting or maybe even killing her. That just brought us back to my approach—watch Selene’s back and hunt down everyone who fucked with her.
“In any case,” Brendan continued, “you’re not wrong in saying I want to protect her. I’ll take the lead, all right? August and Pollux can flank her and you can watch her back.”
“Sounds good,” I replied. I didn’t really care about my ranking in the tournament, as long as all of us survived this unscathed. And this would work. It had to. My pack couldn’t be torn apart, not now, not ever.
Our five chimeras were currently standing side by side in the hangars. The Typhon was first, then the Sphinx, Cerberus, Scylla, and Charybdis. Once my fellow Chimera Warriors and I made all the arrangements, I turned off my com-link and focused on my connection with Cerberus.
It was strange, but I could’ve sworn the feral beast at the back of my mind was stronger. When I closed my eyes, I could see myself standing in front of the massive beast—the three-headed lupine monster, not the machine.
“There’s nothing strange about any of this, my pup,” one of the heads growled.
“Your mate just gave us a wonderful gift,” the second said.
“Be wary,” the third head finished. “They will try to take our bitch from us. You have to prevent it, at all costs.”
“Oh, I fully intend to,” I replied.
Cerberus opened his three snouts and a jet of flame erupted over me. In the cockpit of my mecha, I clutched my controls and launched myself into space.
One of the funniest things about being the tamer of the Cerberus was the fact that I was essentially flying a gigantic wolf through space. Cerberus’s original body hadn’t been able to fly, so even in this metal form, he didn’t have wings. He didn’t need them, of course, as the tachyon flares located in his paws compensated for the lack. But his shape was still not particularly conducive to racing.
In simpler terms, Cerberus didn’t fly. He ran and he hunted.
This didn’t make me slower than any of the other ships of course, but it did make my moves different and harder to predict. I took advantage of this to track down my first prey.
He was easy to spot. I’d grown weary of listening to all the pilots of the Harpy Squad insulting Selene. Jared was dead now, so I couldn’t teach him a lesson. His cousin would just have to do.
There were only a handful of Harpies left in the final stage of the tournament. It was difficult to distinguish Vincent’s Aello at first, since Harpies weren’t as distinctive as the Grand Chimeras. I followed Cerberus’s instincts and, as always, he led me in the right direction.
The powerful diamond core of the Cerberus vibrated as I chased my target. I blasted one of the other vessels with a shower of tachyons, making it swerve to the side to give me room. The Harpies managed to avoid me, but not for too long. In less than a minute, I’d caught up with Vincent. My claws ruthlessly sliced through the Aello’s wing. The smaller chimera screeched and tried to escape, but it was much too late. I delivered a second attack, blasting the Harpy in the chest and propelling it into one of the meteorites.
Satisfied, I continued on my way. The Aello would be out of commission, but eventually fine. I didn’t really care about Vincent, but the Harpies were sort of related to Cerberus, and I didn’t want to destroy any of them. Besides, my priority here wasn’t getting revenge. It was keeping an eye on Selene. I couldn’t afford to get distracted and lose sight of her.
The Sphinx was a little further ahead, but the Charybdis was gaining on her. Charybdis’s long body was doing an excellent job at keeping everyone away. To their right, Scylla’s tentacles and wolf heads snapped and blasted the others who might have tried to approach.
I couldn’t see Brendan. He must be a little further ahead, like he’d said. So far, so good. As long as we stuck to this formation, no one could touch us.
The race went on. To my right, a Fire Arrow Attack Flier tried to slide past my guard. It was an admirable effort, but one doomed to fail. I slapped him away with the chimera’s tail and saw the pilot eject seconds before the FAAF exploded.
“Oops. Brendan’s going to shout at me for that one.”
“No, he won’t,” Cerberus said. “Typhon is just as bloodthirsty as I am. He just hides it better. His tamer is similar, you know that.”
Yes, I did know, and I loved seeing Brendan lose control. I’d never told him, but his true self—that secret savagery—was the real reason why I’d originally decided to dedicate my life to his quest. I’d wanted to support him, no matter what his goals might have been. It was just luck that the goals in question had been noble, because otherwise, we would’ve been in an entirely different situation.
The threatening glow of a solar eruption startled me from my thoughts. It was much too close, and I reminded myself I needed to stay focused. Solar anomalies shouldn’t be able to reach us here, but stranger things had happened. We needed to get this race over with as soon as possible.
I sped up a bit, blasting through some smaller space debris and making sure no one got too close to Selene and the others. I had to keep just enough space between us to avoid clashing with the massive bodies of the other chimeras, but I was used to that. I flew a little higher and in the process, I also caught a glimpse of Brendan.
He wasn’t as far as I’d thought. A few other competitors were in front of him, but he wasn’t trying to pass them. It was odd. He’d warned me to not do anything reckless, but it was far riskier to ignore two opponents who cou
ld be easily taken out.
Did he know something I didn’t? Had he seen or figured out something else?
I reached for my coms, but I never got the chance to ask Brendan anything. I received an answer in a different, far more horrifying way.
It all happened so quickly. One moment, we were all making our way over The Fields of Mercury, and the next, a flare of crimson light erupted around the Charybdis. It went down, hit several chunks of space rock, and disappeared in the asteroid belt. For unknown reasons, the Typhon moved too sluggishly to intercept it.
I wasn’t doing much better. My mind went blank. All I could think about was Brendan’s insistence that we were missing something.
But why August? Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t have an influential family. He had grown up an orphan, one of the numerous children involved in the Star Fleet Program. His parents had presumably been Terran, although he’d never known them. The Grand Judiciary recruited plenty of soldiers that way, so his background had never been an issue at the academy. But originally, he had only been important because of his connection to Pollux.
Shelving the thought for a later date, I launched myself deeper into the asteroid belt. “What just happened, Cerberus?” I asked as I directed my chimera around the lethal space rock.
“The Charybdis went dormant mid-flight. You need to hurry. August is in trouble. The metal and his uniform are still keeping him protected up to a point, but he doesn’t have long.”
Unlike regular flight units, the chimeras weren’t equipped with a lot of oxygen supplies. We had a small emergency kit, but it couldn’t sustain August for too long in space. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Without the Tartarus diamond core, the chimera was pretty much a giant hunk of metal, impressive, but largely useless. The radiation coming from the Sun would cook August alive.
I intercepted the Charybdis before she could fall further away, but as I’d feared, she had already suffered heavy damage. Cursing, I resigned myself to the unavoidable. I couldn’t heal as quickly as Brendan did, but I’d have to make do. Saving August’s life was more important.
We were much too far from the ship and Hyperion Base 35 for me to carry Charybdis. The only way to make sure he survived was by bringing August inside the Cerberus.
Taking a deep breath, I opened my cockpit. Almost instantly, I was assaulted by the overwhelming heat and power of the void, the heat of the Sun threatening to swallow me whole. I forced myself to stay cognizant and took refuge in my connection with Cerberus. He mentally flinched when we cracked the Charybdis’s cockpit open, but we successfully fished August from inside anyway.
It took less than thirty seconds to drag him into my chimera, but it was still thirty seconds too long. The Cerberus’s aura had protected me from the worst of the radiation, but with the Charybdis dormant, August hadn’t been so lucky. He was already covered in burns, although it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.
He was still breathing, thank Tartarus, unconscious but alive.
As I positioned him in my lap, the coms flared to life, activated without me having to do anything. “Knox, did you find him?” Pollux asked, in a panic.
“Yes. He’s alive, but only just. He needs help, now.”
Pollux cursed viciously. “Come back. We’re clearing a path now, but it’s crazy out here.”
I backtracked, going through the asteroid belt once again and heading toward Hyperion Base 35. It didn’t take me long to realize what Pollux meant. In my absence, the rest of the competitors had converged on Pollux, Brendan, and Selene, attempting to take them out of the fight. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but as I’d noticed earlier, the Typhon was moving more slowly than usual. Brendan had already taken a few bad blows, one of the snake heads smoking and out of commission.
Meanwhile, Pollux had lost the use of at least half of the wolf heads. I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected his navigational system was damaged. His flight path was unnatural, almost jerky, as if he was forcing himself to stay on track. If that was true, we were doing worse than I’d originally thought.
Selene was the only one with a functional chimera, and she made good use of her good fortune. She had launched herself into battle with almost desperate savagery. A blast from Sphinx’s claw kept one of the other competitors from attacking Pollux from behind. One of the chimera’s sharp wings tore straight through a small shuttle. Tachyon emissions flared around her, wild and almost out of control.
What was this insanity? How had this happened? Even if people didn’t like us that much, they should’ve acknowledged the value of our chimeras. We were priceless for Terra’s defense. This made no sense.
As soon as I showed up, the others started to disperse. We rushed forward, continuing on our journey to Hyperion Base 35.
August’s heart stopped twice on the way there. I buried my claws in his hip, willing him to hang on. “Don’t you dare die on us, you asshole. You wouldn’t want to make Selene cry, would you?”
Maybe he heard me, because his heart started beating again. Tachyons flickered madly under his skin and I tried to absorb as many as I could, to help him. “We’re very close now. Just a little while longer.”
I didn’t know how long it took for us to cross the finish line. It seemed like an eternity. When we finally landed on Hyperion Base 35, I couldn’t hear the announcer say our names either. My head was still spinning and I was close to hyperventilating.
The Grand Chimera Unit meant more to me than anything in the universe. They were, as Cerberus put it, my pack. My choices had alienated my parents and my brother, but I didn’t regret any of them, because they had brought me close to my fellow Chimera Warriors. To think we could lose one another this way, so stupidly… It was almost too much to bear.
Suppressing my anguish and dread, I opened the cockpit and carried August out. The staff at the base must’ve already been informed about what happened, because medics were waiting for us in the hangars. “Please give us Flight Lieutenant Cavallero’s body,” one of them said.
I didn’t appreciate his tone. He made it sound like August was already dead, and that was exactly what I was trying to avoid. “He’s still alive,” I growled, “and if you don’t make sure he stays that way, you’ll regret it.”
The doctor blanched and stared at my hands. I realized he must’ve seen my claws, but at this point, I couldn’t have cared less. “Lead the way,” I said with a sharp grin. “I’m coming with you to the med bay.”
“No,” another medic protested. “You both need to go through the decontamination shower.”
Technically, he was correct, since both of us had been exposed to radiation. But there was no time for something like that in August’s case. The decontamination shower took ages and by the time it ended, he’d be dead.
Maybe that was what he wanted. Maybe that was what they all wanted—to get rid of us, to destroy us, one by one. I wouldn’t let them. I’d tear them all apart, slowly and painfully. I’d make them burn and suffer, just like August had.
Selene and the others showed up before I could go through with my plans. “You’re all mad,” she told the doctors. “Set him down, Knox, and let me see him.”
I instinctively obeyed. I’d trusted Selene the day before, when she’d come up with her crazy plan to pass the mirror trial. This wasn’t the same, but it was close enough. We had to believe in each other, because nobody else had our best interests at heart.
Brendan flicked his fingers and a drone showed up, levitating August mid-air and giving Selene a better reach even after I released him. Selene took a deep breath and pressed her hands to his chest. “I know I don’t have your blessing, Gaia,” she whispered under her breath, “but just this once, please, help me. Don’t let him die.”
At first, nothing happened. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard it bled. I’d known Selene didn’t have Gaia’s Gift, but I still hoped she’d perform this miracle for us.
I wasn’t very sure how Gaia’s Gift worked. Some Terrans calle
d it magic, but that was peasant talk. It had a scientific source, just like ours did. Selene hadn’t been able to explain it, though, and every other person I’d asked was just as puzzled. It was part of the reason why General Rhodes had decided to take such drastic steps against the terrorists in New Washington, even if the group hadn’t been that much of a threat. The Grand Judiciary didn’t like things they didn’t understand.
But for Selene, it was different. She’d grown up as Gaia’s child, in a way I hadn’t. She might have become one of us, but she still believed in Gaia’s blessings. “Please,” she said. “They’re your children too. We can still fix this. We haven’t lost yet. Don’t give up on us.”
“Ms. Renard, we’re wasting time,” the medic intervened. “If you don’t have Gaia’s blessing, we should see to Flight Lieutenant Cavallero ourselves.”
The hypocrisy of the statement made me want to throttle him. Maybe I’d have done exactly that had Brendan not grabbed the man himself. “By which you mean putting him through a million different preliminary procedures that won’t help him in any way, right?”
It was very unusual for Brendan to lose his temper and everyone knew it. He was also a prince and had an authority I didn’t. The man went pale and started to stammer. “Y-Your Highness, there’s a process in these things. We can’t just—”
“You’ll do what you’re told,” Brendan cut him off. “We’ll give Selene a chance to help him. If it doesn’t work, we’ll take him to the secondary med bay. If you have issues, make sure every other patient is evacuated until then.”
“Our staff—”
“Your staff is inoculated against large amounts of radiation. What little is left on August won’t hurt you. And if it does, it’s easily solvable at a later date.” He leaned in a little closer. “I don’t know whose orders you’re following now, but be very careful. You don’t want me as your enemy.”