by Maura Milan
“And what is my goal?”
“Well, to complete that miffing bridge to another universe, GodsEye.”
“I see,” Bastian said. “GodsEye. That term is in my data files.”
That confirmed the data coil was where Bastian had uploaded a backup of his work. After all that time spent looking for journals, Bastian had put everything where everyone would least expect him to—on a piece of tech.
“Do you know of any weak spots in the GodsEye build?” Knives asked.
A string of light flashed momentarily in the whites of Bastian’s eyes as he combed through his data. “Of course. To create something, you must also know how to destroy it.”
That was exactly what Knives wanted to hear.
By morning, they had gotten a string of backup and solar grids up and running, which also meant the kitchen was open. There wasn’t any fresh fruit, but Knives wasn’t going to turn away an orange slosh of breakfast mix on his tray. Juo had called a meeting early that morning, and as was the case for many of these meetings in the past, Knives was late.
Except this time there was no general there to yell at him. No hiss from the speakers as his father listened and judged him. No one to check him, to push him to be better than he actually was.
This time it was all on him.
So when he arrived at the door to the meeting room, he took a deep breath. This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to pick oranges, learn from a bokhi bean master, sleep for a whole week, take Ia to the beach, and complain about how the red sand was getting everywhere.
This wasn’t what he wanted, but he knew this was what he had to do.
He tapped the sensor to the door, and it slid open. Juo, Eve, Meneva, and Vetty waited inside, eyes turned to him in expectation. There were plans to be made, and there were other things to protect beyond himself.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We’re not the only ones who should be part of this conversation.”
He was responsible for everyone in this academy. What he’d hated most about being a cadet was that the decisions were made behind closed doors, in rooms just like this. It made him feel like a Goma piece, ready to be sacrificed at any moment.
It was true that the cadets were counting on him, but he needed them to know that the universe was counting on them.
In this whole chain of things, they mattered the most.
There was a reason their salute was a fist to the heart. A fighting fleet was nothing without its soldiers, the fingers to the fist. Take them away, and there’d be no protection.
And a heart unguarded was as good as dead.
Knives stood on the same stage that Bastian and every headmaster before him had when they welcomed the new cadets. And today, his flyers and support crews were lined up before him.
This was probably the biggest speech Knives was going to give in his life. He thought back to all of his father’s televised speeches, trying to figure out a way to cobble together something inspirational. Something about charging toward the horizon.
More like charging toward their deaths.
Knives looked to the others who accompanied him onstage—Juo, Meneva, Eve, and Vetty—all watching in anticipation while two hundred more pairs of eyes were staring up at him from the crowd.
“Chien, they’re waiting,” Vetty whispered beside him.
“My father was the greatest general in Commonwealth history,” he whispered back.
“And mine was the richest man in the Commonwealth, but they’re not here anymore, are they?” Vetty asked. He took a prolonged breath before angling his head back to face Knives. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I thought you were an idiot, okay? Be yourself. That’s all you gotta do.”
In these halls were the remnants of the Commonwealth, of an age now gone. Of a government that drew borders and favored their own. Olympus was proud. Vain. Their fathers and forefathers were giants, watching as everything crumbled.
And now its people were lost. But they were not dead.
Knives took a deep breath and began. “General Erich Adams. Kilio Sinoblancas. At one point, they were just like us. Just like you. My father stood where you stand now, watching someone else give a speech about honor and valor. But I’m not going to give you that speech. We are at a point where there is no honor and valor. What we have left is desperation.”
“I know you’re probably asking yourself how on Ancient Earth we can survive in battle when we’re outmatched and outnumbered.
“I’m not going to lie. I ask that question with every breath I take before you. And I’m scared, just as you are. But fear is an interesting thing. It means there’s something left at stake. There’s something worth fighting for.”
His voice rung throughout the cavern. “Our future is still there. It’s up to you to see it for yourself.”
He made a fist and brought it up to his heart. He didn’t know if they would salute him back. But one by one, row by row, they did.
And he saw it in their eyes, so open and clear. A glimpse. A future. A break of light before the dawn of a new day. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
CHAPTER 53
IA
IA TOOK THE SHORT WAY home, hacking whatever intergalactic gates she could find to cut down her flight time. She had the ship’s scrambler systems on to get past security. Normally she had to keep her eye out for RSF sentry jets, but there were none to be found. It was something she had never seen in all her years of breaking through Commonwealth territories. The government must be so fractured, so broken, that their resources had been spent.
She thought about all the times she’d wanted the Olympus Commonwealth to collapse. It was all she’d worked for, revenge for what they’d done. The home they took. The mother they stole from her.
She dreamed about it every night. Watching Olympus’s capital planet implode until all that was left was a ghost of a system. She’d laugh at the floating ashes.
And she would do it with her brother at her side. That was their calling. Their destiny.
She snorted to herself whenever she thought about that dream. How foolish she had been.
Anger. Rage. Those existed.
But destiny? There was no such thing.
And here she was, sitting idle as the gate before her activated. The swirl of light circling around like streaks of white paint. A mirage of a new set of stars.
The Olympus Commonwealth had fallen without Ia even taking part in its demise.
And she had to laugh, because there was nothing else to dream about. But there was still a fight to win.
Ia flew nonstop, only taking a few breaks to get some rest. She needed to stay alert. Where she was going was a place not many ventured. One would even say it was dangerous. But she knew the path like the back of her hand. The dips and turns, the gravity swells and solar flares that would hit at just the right time.
She glanced around at the constellations to orient herself. She was sure she was almost there. In the distance, she saw a massive spherical void, light swirling all around it. A black hole. She eased in the jet’s reverse thrusters, slowing down its velocity, and stopped close enough to the event horizon without being pulled in.
Ia flicked on a holoscreen and clicked through the small list of her contacts until her eyes stopped on a name.
A screen flashed before her, a stream tone beeping through her speakers before it connected. A face appeared. Rugged.
His blond hair was long enough to tie back, and it made her smile.
“Looks like you and Vetty have been exchanging style tips,” she said.
Knives’s expression steeled, and he reached back to pull his hair down.
“Don’t,” she said. “I like it.”
His cheeks reddened just a touch, enough for her to notice even through the screen’s bluish tint. Behind him, she saw people bustling back and forth.
“Where are you?”
“Didn’t you get any of my messages?” he asked.
She clicked through her holode
vice, and there they were. Four unopened messages in her inbox.
“You didn’t read them,” he said.
She glanced up with a shrug. “Can you just tell me the important bits?”
“Well, there’s good news. I think there’s a way to bring that bridge down from the inside using Bastian’s own research.”
“Good,” Ia said. “Then there’s a plan B if I fail. Give me the details.”
“What do you mean ‘I fail’?”
Her fingers drummed on the dashboard, something he couldn’t see. She had news to tell him, and she knew he wouldn’t be pleased. “The Half-Man isn’t coming,” she said.
“Ia—” he said, his voice taking on a desperate edge. He shook his head, as if he already knew. “Please…”
Outside, a planetoid hovered in the distance, the same one she’d found with Einn by her side all those years ago. She placed a hand on the glass. She was home.
Her eyes met his.
“I’m at Nirvana. And I’m going to take my brother down.”
CHAPTER 54
KNIVES
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” His voice rose. The cadets behind him stopped and turned.
But the girl on the screen didn’t flinch. “I am.”
“We need you here,” he pleaded. “There are formations we need to decide, weak points to discuss.”
But at this point he was rattling things off just to buy time. To keep her there for as long as he could.
“I need you,” he said. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“You’re not alone, Knives,” she said, her voice softer now. “You have your own role in this, your own battlefield.” Her eyes went past him to the starjets being prepped in the background. “It seems like you’re already ready for it.”
He’d always thought he would be fighting the big fight by her side. Shoulder to shoulder. Fists out. He’d thought he’d be there to help her. But she was right. He had his own battle to win.
Ia looked off to the side at some unknown sight, and even from here, he could see her eyes glowing in anticipation of the oncoming fight. A determination he hadn’t seen in her since they were back on Aphelion.
“I’m getting close,” she said. “I should go.”
“Ia, wait.” He stopped her before she could sign off.
If he said it, the universe would take her away.
But the universe was going to take her away anyway.
“I love you,” he said.
She blinked. And blinked again. Until finally, a smile found her lips. “I never thought you’d say it.”
Her eyes came close, wide like the endless universe, and he looked into them until he saw the beginning of it all. And that was where her answer lay.
She didn’t have to say anything.
He already knew.
She held her hand up to the screen, and he placed his against hers, her palm print so small that he could no longer see it.
She gave him one final look, then ended the stream.
He looked back at the flight deck, at the people he would lead to the battlefield. He knew where Ia was going because he had been there before.
“Suit up,” he ordered. “In fifteen minutes, we fly.”
CHAPTER 55
IA
IA’S VIEW WAS FILLED with black, an absence of light and matter. She was staring at Aokonic, the largest black hole in the Commonwealth territories. And the most dangerous.
It was hard to picture a black hole until you actually saw one. They weren’t flat disks like most people thought. No, they were orbs of nothingness that sucked everything into their bellies from up, down, and all which ways. Greedy, insatiable pits of destruction. Gods of death, some people called them. And just like the gods, they had their own tendencies and habits—their own personalities. You had to understand them individually if you wanted to keep all of your matter intact.
After all his wandering, Einn had kept Nirvana near Aokonic, the only thing in the Olympus Commonwealth that he respected. He had been fixated on it when he was younger, always curious what was on the other side. No wonder he was obsessed with opening a bridge to another universe.
Ia brought her engines back up and skirted around Aokonic’s event horizon. If she hovered a sliver over, she’d be pulled in instantly, the force too strong for her engines to overcome. She held her breath and concentrated, and it was as if all the cells in her body had come to a stop. Thank Deus her suit was there to steady her. To keep her arms as still as a borg.
As she crested around the edge, she caught sight of a familiar outline. The planetoid that she and her brother had claimed after the day of K-5 Neptune. She had been so withered from that battle, so ready to recharge, when it came across their paths. It had grown since then. There were more sophisticated living cubicles, modded together in blocks and built into the planetoid’s existing crust. A colony now, it pulsed with life, and ideas, and danger.
Finally, she was here. She was home.
But there was a dragon waiting for her in its depths.
A dragon that couldn’t wait to breathe fire.
She looked at the large archways that hovered in the beyond, dwarfing the Nirvana colony with their colossal size. It was larger than any gate she had ever seen, with so much potential to change their universe. But change this grand was never good. Technology was the same as any weapon: a hunk of finely crafted metal and parts, harmless until the wrong mind got to it.
When she saw her brother again, it would be like staring into Aokonic. A monster with his own wicked tendencies and unpredictable habits. And as she had always known about any black hole, you had to individually understand it if you wanted to keep all your limbs intact. Ia didn’t fully understand her brother—he had almost killed her twice because of how little she understood him—but she was the only one who could even come close to guessing what he could do.
Before she was in plain sight, she received a message. It was from Goner. All it said was one word. Safe.
Which only meant one thing. He had been successful, and hopefully, it’d be enough to change the tide. It made her more anxious to get to Nirvana, to set everything in motion.
She flew forward, outside the protection of the event horizon, where her starjet would be easily seen. There were a few secret passages that Ia knew, ways to get in without detection. This was her home, after all.
But she headed for the main entryway to the flight deck instead.
Before she left Nowhere, she had switched jets with Goner, knowing she would need his for this exact reason. The force fields, reading the White Hearts data signature, opened as she approached.
And then she saw them. All of Einn’s supporters. She had heard they were quite the collection. Refugees. Dead Spacers. Fringers. Even Commonwealth folk. She couldn’t tell them apart, because they were all wearing his hearts.
She set the jet down in the center of the flight deck so everyone would see. Getting up, she lowered the ramps and took a deep breath.
She walked down, her eyes whipping back and forth to keep on guard. She had her pistols on her side, but she didn’t reach for them.
“I think you know who I am,” Ia said. And she raised her arms in surrender.
CHAPTER 56
BRINN
BRINN RAN AS FAST as she could. She had heard the frenzied gossip before the lab closed down for the night and approached the first group of people she saw.
“She surrendered?” Brinn asked them, incredulous when they confirmed it. That was not something Ia would do. Brinn took the long elevator ride that connected Penance with Nirvana. She had no idea where they had taken her former friend, but it didn’t matter. All she had to do was follow the lengths of people lining up for a glimpse of her.
Brinn pushed through the crowds and used her clearance to get into the room of Ia’s holding cell. Behind the bars and force fields, Ia paced back and forth. Her suit wasn’t the sleek black one that she usually donned but a mining suit. Still, under that bulky mess,
Brinn could see a gaunt sliver of Ia’s neck. She looked thinner, as if she had lost muscle.
Brinn did her best to hide her injured hand, wrapped in white gauze, behind her. She wasn’t forcing the regeneration process as she’d done in the past. It was still healing, but slowly.
Einn wasn’t there, though she knew he’d be on his way. For now, it was her and Ia. Alone.
Ia stopped when she saw Brinn and edged close to the force field. Ia’s dark hair had grown longer, and she had pulled it back into a messy ponytail that swished angrily around her neck. Yet her expression was calm, not a furious knot like Brinn had thought it’d be.
“Brinn—” Ia called.
Brinn kept her distance. She already knew what Ia was going to say. She was going to tell her what to do, how to think. She was going to tell her that what she was doing was wrong.
“I don’t need to hear it, Ia. You can’t convince me.”
Ia knit her brows, a flash of something indecipherable on her face. “That’s not what I wanted to say. I’m so sorry.” Her voice was small and gentle. “About Faren.”
At the sound of his name, memories rushed back, ones that Brinn had pushed away because they were too sharp. Reminders of a brother that was lost.
“That’s enough.” Brinn cut in, turning to avoid the look of pity on Ia’s face.
“You’re not alone, Brinn.”
“Stop,” she hissed as she started to walk away. Ia was wrong. She was alone. Everything had been taken from her. “If you’re going to say that you’re here for me, don’t.”
But Ia said something different. Unexpected.
“Your parents are alive.”
Brinn stopped. That couldn’t be true. Einn had told her that they were dead.
But if Ia was right…
Her heart faltered, and she shook her head, trying to wrestle away visions of a different future. One where she was reunited with her family. One where she was happy. She needed to remember why she was here in the first place. Killing Lind, making these weapons. It was her choice. Her own decision. This was her path.