by Laura Lam
“You need a hand?” Elva asked, her Evoli accent soft.
“Nah, I got it. Just need to threaten her a bit more.”
Elva flashed a grin and loped back to her work.
Clo reconnected the wires, even though she’d already done it three times this morning. Maybe if she tied them up extra tight. Her fingertips were callused and nicked with scars from endless hours in machines. Clo climbed out of the engine and swung herself into the cockpit, grunting as too much weight hit her bad leg. She had a hole in the left knee of her trousers—Kyla would be right brackish when she saw it—and the dull silver of her prosthetic caught the artificial lights. She rubbed the part where skin met metal. She could never tell how much pain was physical and how much mental.
Clo started the flight sequence, whispering a halfhearted prayer to whatever gods were listening—if any—then tapped her left shoulder, an old good-luck movement from her childhood. She’d tried to translate it to her commander once. Closest she got was: Never let the water level of the swamp go above yer shoulder, or ye’ll be head-deep in shite.
The engine fired to life. And then it purred.
“Yes, my beaut!” Clo called, slapping the walls.
While the spacecraft quivered, she tapped her mech cuff and ran diagnostics, watching the readings with bated breath. Green lights. Atmosphere fully regulated. The temperature cooled from the inside of an oven to perfectly pleasant. Clo could smell herself, like old cooked onions. At that moment, she didn’t care. Her ship worked.
She tapped out a message to the guard at headquarters that she was giving the Valkyrie a test run and got the all clear. She fired up the launch sequence and the Valkyrie gathered speed, skimming along the fire-gold sand before swerving up, up, rising above the ocher and brilliant orange mountains of Nova and into the purple of the sky.
Clo let out a whoop, hands dancing across the controls, and the ship moved like an extension of herself. She sluiced through the atmosphere and up into the stars. Nova grew smaller in the distance.
It was only up there, in the darkness of space, that she felt truly at home. More than the old Snarled swamp of her childhood, more than the sweltering Novantae desert. One circuit of the planet, and then she’d touch back down and make sure everything was still functioning. Or maybe she could chance two orbits. A little more fun.
Clo probably should have shrugged into a pressure suit in case the ship’s atmosphere gave up, but she’d been too impatient. Kyla had basically grounded her since she lost her leg. No more reconnaissance, no more stealing ships from Tholosians. Much as she loved fixing engines, she was bogging bored.
She was a quarter around Nova when she got the call. “Cloelia,” Kyla said, voice crackling over the ship comms. “I’m switching over to Pathos. Answer it this time.”
Clo had a habit of ignoring her Pathos when she was working on engines, even though Kyla yelled at her not to.
Clo’s pulse sped up.
Kyla let out a short laugh.
Clo’s hands tightened on the controls. From above, the planet looked even more like fire. The oranges and rust of the mountains, the yellow sand. All of it interspersed with the dusky blue of small, rare pockets of water dotted along the planet’s surface.
Most of Nova was practically uninhabitable due to the massive storms that covered almost the entire planet’s surface in dust. Novan headquarters were nestled in a valley surrounded by high desert mountains, protected from the brunt of the winds. Even then, the occasional storm rocked the facility. The resistance was forced to pump most of their water from deep underground.
A tiny, overheated planet in a forgotten corner of the galaxy. The stronghold of the resistance, hidden in the outermost quadrant of the Iona Galaxy—still Tholosian territory, but barely acknowledged. Full of stubborn, fierce fighters, determined to be a thorn in the Empire’s side.
There were no illusions on Nova. It would take time and effort to topple the Imperial family. But maybe, if the resistance grew and flourished, they could make a difference. Skirmish by skirmish, ship by ship, soldier by soldier freed of the Oracle’s programming.
One. At. A. Time.
And maybe, she thought wryly, long after my aged corpse is launched intae space, those shitegoblins will be off the throne.
Clo landed right where she’d started. The Valkyrie X-501 set down like a dream. As she swung out of the cockpit, she uselessly patted at the shirt of her oil-splattered uniform. There was sand in the creases of the fabric, and her buttons were tarnished despite a polish from the harsh wind. She looked a damn mess.
Clo could practically hear Kyla’s annoyed sigh.
She broke into a reluctant run, grumbling at the use of her full name. Only her mother had called her Cloelia, and only when she had been well salted with her daughter.
Clo opened the barracks door and stamped in, shaking sand from her boots. Sher and Kyla stood together; this must be one Avern of a mission for both Novan co-commanders to be there. They were often apart—training recruits, checking ongoing missions, or surveying their growing spy network.
Clo’s face softened at seeing Sher. He’d been away too long. Sher was technically her commanding officer; he’d been the one who plucked her out of the swamp water and given her something to believe in. Though she’d never tell him, she thought of him as a sort of older brother or uncle. The closest thing she had to family.
Sher was tall and lean, muscled from his past training as a soldier for the Empire. His dark brown hair was in desperate need of a cut and his stubble was longer than usual, meaning he’d probably been at some silthole of a forgotten outpost for the past month. His face was still unlined, his skin a light, golden brown, but he was older than he appeared—one of the first cohorts of soldiers completely genetically engineered and programmed for fighting. He’d been among the only survivors of that particular crop of infants, along with Kyla.
Kyla stood taller than her co-commander, even in flat-heeled boots. They were genetic siblings—born from vials within minutes of each other. After being forced to present as male during her time in the military, Kyla transitioned after escaping Tholosian rule fifteen years ago with Sher. Her skin was a warm brown, and her hair fell in long, black curls that no pin or hair tie could tame. What always struck Clo first was Kyla’s eyes: black as ink and so piercing, they made even the toughest soldier squirm.
“Okay,” Clo said. “I’m here. Hey, Kyla. Welcome back, Sher. And—wait a minute—” She reached for his face—an insubordinate move for anyone but her. “Look at that fuzz! You trying to grow a full beard?”
Sher dodged her hand. “Shut up, Alesca.”
“You are! Look, how patchy.”
“I was going for distinguished.”
“Of course you were.” She leaned in to him. “Distinguished. I’ll bet you’re trying to look all serious and broody for the troops, too.”
Kyla hid a smile.
Sher rolled his eyes and gave Clo a side-on hug—then immediately wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”
Clo glared at Kyla. “See? What did I tell you? She wouldn’t even let me wash, Sher. I’ve been at the engines since dawn
.”
“This is more important,” Kyla said, serious again. “Before I brief you, I’m going to need you to remember your training: keep a clear head; stay calm; don’t act without thinking; don’t—”
A throat cleared behind her. Clo twisted, taking in the small woman in fragmented pieces before her mind put them together. Delicate features, deceptively doll-like, skin too pale for the harsh desert, hair night-black. But those eyes weren’t really green.
The last time Clo had seen that face up close, those eyes had blared a luminous gold. The cold, brutish expression was just the same.
If I ever see ye ’gain, I’ll drain ye t’ the dregs, Clo had vowed the last time they met.
She felt Kyla’s hand clamp hard on her wrist before Clo’s hand could stray to the blaster at her belt.
Clo hated Eris. She hated everything the other woman stood for. Clo hated that she’d been drawn into Eris’s lies, that she’d let herself care for a murderer. No matter what good Eris did for the resistance, it would never erase that stain of what she’d done before.
And Clo hated Eris, most of all, for saving her life.
3.
ERIS
Present day
Clo had tried to pull a Mors on her. Eris glanced at where Kyla still had her fingers around Clo’s wrist hard enough to bruise.
“Still a slow draw, I see,” Eris said.
She skated near a lie; Cloelia Alesca might not be the sharpshooter Eris was, but what Clo lacked in skill she made up for in sheer raw anger and tenacity. Sometimes, that mattered more.
“Let me go, Kyla,” Clo snarled.
“Absolutely not.” Kyla’s grip tightened. “What did I just say? Clear head. Stay calm. Don’t act without thinking.”
Eris let out a short laugh. “Good luck getting her to do that.”
Clo lunged at her, stopped short only by Kyla’s interference. “Nice face you’ve got there,” she said. “Is it permanent now or can I still fucking tear it off?”
“Alesca,” Sher snapped.
Eris kept her expression even. The last time she had seen Clo, she’d worn a shifter over her true features. Her old face had been replaced by a new, unrecognizable one. It went with a new identity and life with the resistance. Clo, for all her annoyances, had been part of that life at the start. All it had taken was one glitch, and that was over.
The three people in this room were the only ones who knew Eris’s true identity—and that she was still alive.
“I figured I’d make this one permanent,” Eris said mildly. “Like it?”
Clo’s lip curled. “You can change your face, but you can’t hide who you are.”
When Eris was around Nova headquarters, Kyla and Sher let them both know each other’s schedules so a chance encounter never happened. It had been a dance, a successful one. It created the facade of harmony, of union within the rebellion. It wouldn’t do to have the kind of infighting that resulted in their best agent and their best mechanic trying to murder one another. But it was pretty clear to everyone with a pair of working eyes and ears that Clo hated Eris.
Eris had told Kyla as much, when she’d delivered the stolen Imperial ship and its crew of survivors. But she kept her true thoughts to herself: Kyla and Sher had lost their godsdamned minds if they thought Clo would agree to this.
“I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” Eris told Kyla and Sher. “She can’t follow orders because you’re both soft with her. You treat her like a sibling, not a subordinate.”
Eris didn’t admit that watching Clo, Sher, and Kyla had stirred something inside her that had to be squashed down and destroyed: jealousy. She’d had that camaraderie with Clo once. She’d had it with someone else, too, and that person was long dead.
She pressed her palm to the firewolf carving. The animal figurine was a reminder that she was alone, same as always.
Sher straightened. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t been disobedient with me. I let it slide because you do good fucking work.”
“There’s a difference between permitting occasional disobedience and being too soft. Besides”—Eris’s eyes lingered on Clo—“she’s reckless. A liability. You ought to keep her on Nova. Better yet, send her someplace else.”
“I’d rather be a reckless liability than a cold-hearted mass murderer,” Clo ground out. “They should have killed you.”
Eris heard Clo’s unspoken words: I should have killed you.
It didn’t matter that Eris had saved Clo’s life. What was one life spared compared to so many others taken? The scales had been tipped long before. Cold-hearted. Mass murderer. These were all things Eris had heard before, spoken by the other rebels at Nova when they’d celebrated the anniversary of her former self’s death—because none of them knew that death was as fake as the face of their new recruit. Eris had tried not to show how much those words hurt.
After all, she could be honest: they were kinder descriptors than she deserved.
The mechanic was right to loathe her: Eris used her old skills for a different purpose. She was still the Servant of Death, and always would be. Didn’t matter which side she fought on—Empire or resistance—killing was dirty work. Few people liked to sully their hands or minds with it.
Few people liked to acknowledge that it didn’t matter how good your intentions; in order to overthrow an empire, murder was a necessity. Someone had to do it.
So Eris did. And she let herself be feared and hated and never told anyone about her guilt. She’d never told Clo how much she hated her own past, her family, those tallies she kept nightly of her dead as she recalled every last rite she ever gave.
The Servant of Death is always alone. And you deserve it.
Kyla and Sher both stared at Eris. Eris had always figured they agreed with Clo. But they didn’t have to like her—they had a use for her. That was all she offered them.
“Stand down, Cloelia,” Kyla said.
“I don’t think—”
“I said stand down.”
Clo jerked her arm out of Kyla’s grip, her hand resting on the handle of her weapon. “I take it this mission has something to do with her.”
“Hand off the Mors, Alesca,” Sher said. “You’re not shooting anyone.”
“Oh, but if we all aimed at the same time . . .”
Eris scoffed, impatient. “Can we get on with the brief?” she said to Sher. “Kyla gave me the basics. Details, please.”
“Let me know so I can formally turn it down.” Clo crossed her arms over her chest.
Sher shot Clo a look. “A ship is about to leave Tholos called Zelus,” he said. “It looks like your typical cargo ship, standard S-model spacecraft. Records say Legate Atkis and his crew are delivering to a military outpost and will be taking up a position there. Nothing out of the ordinary, according to the paperwork. It didn’t even register with our intel until we saw these.”
He passed Eris his tablet and Clo edged closer to the screen with a resigned sigh. Eris studied the ship’s schematics with a practiced gaze. She knew every trick her father and brother had in their employ, every secret, but even she didn’t know how Sher and Kyla had managed to obtain a copy of the Oracle’s coding on this spacecraft. Whoever they had hacking into the Tholosian ships’ computers was damn good.
“That’s one flame of a coding structure,” Eris murmured. “The Oracle is keeping a close eye on this one. Could be weapons.” She tapped the screen to get a closer look. “One watches ships like this if they’re sending in supplies to the front lines, especially for a critical battle. There hasn’t been that kind of fight with the Evoli for a few years, but Tholosian resources have been strained since Charon got hit by the asteroid. Food is going to get low if they don’t find another planet that can pick up the slack, and stealing one from the Evoli is a desperate option. Maybe high-risk materials. Something they’d have good reas
on for the Oracle to watch over. The AI’s programming has become better about detecting supply strains.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Clo muttered, her lip curling.
“Not helping,” Sher snapped at Clo. He flicked his finger across the screen to bring up an image of the ship at port on Tholos. “What do you think now?”
Eris let out a breath at the image. A typical cargo ship like that shouldn’t have so many soldiers on guard, even for the usual weapon shipments. Her father would have depended on the Oracle’s space scanner to make sure the ship couldn’t be commandeered while in flight. But this? Eris would have used this kind of security to ensure the weapon she had was delivered safely to the battlefront.
For a big win. Possibly Empire-altering. Something that would kill a lot of people.
“That . . . is concerning,” Eris said.
“Understatement,” Clo said. “Hey, Sher, remember how excited I was about a mission before? Scratch that. Assign me to a backwater planet to avoid the slaughter before it starts.”
“And have you miss out on all the fun, Alesca? Wouldn’t dream of it. Stop whining.”
Eris passed the tablet back to Sher. “What do you want us to do?”
“Impossible to infiltrate,” Kyla said. “Your favorite. We need you to intercept the ship when it docks for fuel. Sneak on board, gather intel, hide a tracer inside so we can track its movements, and get out.” Kyla’s gaze was hard. “Get out being the end goal here. Don’t stay aboard. Don’t commandeer the ship. Do not, under any circumstances, kill anyone. We need to know what the cargo is, who it’s for, and the ship’s final destination. Cloelia will accompany you to ensure you make it on.”
Eris tried not to let her irritation show. “I know how to break into a ship, Kyla. I did it just before you called me in.”
“Clo knows these types of ships inside and out, and I’m not taking any chances. Questions?”