by Essa Hansen
“Ah, you’ve realized,” Threi said. His Casthen armor gnashed against the wall as he shifted and closed his eyes. “It’s harrowing, to suddenly know your very reality is false, compelled. So, now it’s time to decide. Stay with your found family— which is a lie, a forced family— and live a dull life of cargo trade and safety zones. Or join me and gain access to the Casthen Harvest; Çydanza’ll let you in with open arms, delighted to get one of her Graven soldiers back and ready for duty.” He chuckled, enjoying every needle he stuck in. “You can return to your pack later if you wish, once she’s dead and you’re a hero.”
Caiden levered to his feet and stumbled through a burst of vertigo. He strode to a wall compartment and fished around in the med kit for the fat red tranquilizer cylinders. Threi looked human— one tranq would do— but he grabbed three to be safe.
Head still craned back, Threi cracked a blue eye open and observed Caiden with disinterest. “I can read you better than you can read yourself. You’ll say yes.”
“I have no reason to trust you.”
“You don’t have to trust me, you just have to want it bad enough. Let me sweeten the deal.”
Caiden stomped across the bay with tranqs in one hand and pressed the glave’s square muzzle against the man’s temple.
Threi smiled. “You have nightmares. Cartographers told me. You can be free of the repetition; I know how we can solve the memory loop.”
Caiden’s heart skipped.
“You never asked for it, did you?” Threi’s stare turned glassy. “You did the right thing, and got punished for it. That sums up this twisted multiverse. But lucky you— your ability to relive your most horrific memories is exactly what will allow us to destroy Çydanza.”
Caiden’s agony would be worthwhile if it could somehow destroy the Casthen Prime. The nightmares … they were shrapnel left in his body from the ordeal, and cut him every time he moved. Unless he extracted them altogether, he would live on with wounds that could never scar.
“How?”
“I can’t tell you all of it just yet, but I promise I will,” Threi said.
Caiden growled, “Say ‘soon’ and I’ll shoot you until there’s no charge left in this.”
Threi laughed, which scratched the glave muzzle across his temple. “I’ll tell you everything, but you have to say yes first. Agree to follow my plan and I’ll give you access to and assistance in the revenge you crave, and solve your nightmares for good.” He extended his hand, gloved in black membrane and tiny scales of scratched steel. “Deal?”
Caiden wasn’t fourteen anymore, wasn’t stupid enough to take a deal with uncertain terms. He pressured the glave’s muzzle in to tilt Threi’s head and expose more neck. “Good night.”
Threi chuckled. “See you soon.”
Caiden plunged all three tranqs into the man’s artery.
CHAPTER 24
BRAVERY
Threi’s eyes closed to slits and he slumped to the floor. Caiden kicked him in the groin to ensure he wasn’t faking. Not a twitch. Maybe three tranqs was too much.
He hooked Threi’s boot in the crook of one arm and dragged his dead weight across the bay and out to the ramp. At the entrance of the shielding hollow, a Casthen crew was waiting. They lurched into motion, glaves up, stances ready. Caiden whipped up his glave, too, and kept dragging. They wouldn’t fire if their boss needed Caiden alive.
He shouted, “Take him out of here, we’re done talking,” and half threw and half kicked Threi off the side of the ramp.
The shortest of the group of four scurried over and checked Threi’s vitals, followed by a huge chketin, who hoisted Threi around the waist like a doll. They both backed up while a third, lanky figure stalked toward Caiden. The shorter Casthen whisked injection syringes from their belt and tore off Threi’s armor plates to jam the syringes straight to his heart. He gasped, eyes snapping open, body going rigid with a flood of revivers and performance enhancers. His veins popped into relief.
Caiden hissed a curse and fired at the lanky Casthen. They dodged the beam with whipping speed, their body fluid or morphing beneath the armor. They raced up the ramp, spear glave extending and the pronged end of it crackling electricity. Caiden stumbled back, focused on the scalar gravity, piling nodes around the back of the bay. The pattern adjusted. Electric tendrils sputtered out, and the Casthen’s headlong rush smacked the clotted gravity as if hitting a wall.
Caiden slapped the door control panel. The back closed up, forcing the Casthen out. He heard orders barked from outside.
Pent’s depository wasn’t safe anymore. Threi’s unnerving nonchalance suggested his plan wasn’t over yet. But outside the depository wasn’t entirely safe either; there were patterns of Dynast Graven-tech sensors to avoid, and Caiden would be too easy to spot if he simply hung out in open space outside Emporia. Piled on that, his mind would struggle to steer the Azura with a dent in his skull. One of his ears still bled, hot and alarming.
Streaming more curses, Caiden launched himself into the pilot’s seat, head in the cradle, and threw his arms into the air. The cockpit filled with misting light particles that congealed into the drive guides. Threads of light coiled around his fingers and palms, ready for his direction. The mini thrusters trilled and hovered the ship in place.
Caiden’s hands trembled like birds waiting for a wind.
The engine whirred to life on its own, engulfing Caiden’s mind in a soothing whisper.
“Nine crimes, why did it have to be now?” He swallowed tingles of sour adrenaline. “I can’t fly without breaking everyone’s trust in me.”
Metal banged against different areas of the bay doors, and Caiden recalled what Threi’s group did in the Den, setting charges to disrupt door seals and crack open the ships for gloss.
“I’m sorry, Taitn.” Caiden tensed his fingers and powered the thrusters, hoping one or two of the Casthen might’ve been caught in the ignition. He sped the ship out of the hollow and into the crowded landscape of Pent’s depository, leaving the Casthen crew behind as frantic blips in the cockpit’s holosplay. He maneuvered around hazards in the dark— bin piles and freighter carcasses— edged in guidance glow. His muscles flexed, tendons tight. His clammy hands quivered in midair where the forgiving controls laced his nervousness calmly. He sailed the Azura out of the atmoseal entrance of the depository, and the ship calibrated its internal scalar gravity.
“Out safe.” His head was stuffed, throbbing with arrhythmic aches, but he was in the clear. The ambient temperature ticked down in response to his sweating.
Now to find somewhere safe and hidden to dock. He brought up a map of the flight pattern he’d designed. Coppery hues outlined the Dynast’s migrating sensors. The timing of zones replayed, perfect every time. If he was careful, he could avoid them.
One arcminute until the sensors roved over this slice.
Less than two kilometers away, another Emporia layer shot vertically. Between the layers coursed dense traffic of all speeds. Caiden merged in the flow and sensed the etiquette of passing, the subtle pauses and slows that let other ships complete their arcs.
When he spun to put the ship’s belly against a surface, his head spun with her. Dizziness swirled the streaking ships overhead, and Caiden lulled as the Azura nosed down into the stream. Lights scattered like stirred insects. Thrusters growled and roared.
“Shit,” he hissed.
Everything blinked at him to respond. He couldn’t distinguish the sparks in his vision from actual blips in the display and the copper perimeters of the scans. Traffic buzzed him, small ships cutting in front and large ones shoving their jets so near he was forced to bank. Caiden breathed deep and limited his movements. He weaved around blocky transport cruisers, small beamer quads, and sleek gray chketin warships. There was no air drag, no rush of pressure against the hull. The Azura cut through silken void like a blade.
Flying his starship surpassed the simulation in every way, from the real fuselage and plating to the hum of genuine
power, the singing of eldritch components. The simulations were fun, but this was glorious, and he wasn’t even pushing it hard. He made an intention and the Azura was a step ahead of him already, engaging space with ease.
Guilt peeled off him. Limitations lifted away. He let the inertia carry the ship in a slow traffic line, and closed his eyes for a sweet second, whimpering in pain. Darkness welcomed him. Neither his parentless genetics nor his Graven control nor his slave brand mattered in the Azura. He exhaled all his anxiety, set Threi’s revelations aside, and inhaled the cockpit’s warm, happy glow.
A smile stretched on his face as he felt a burn he hadn’t experienced since trying to shoot Threi in the face that very first time: confidence.
Freed from specific gravity, orientation ceased to have meaning, and Emporia was a different world on its side. Vast, light-studded slabs glided by above and below. Caiden got his bearings, checked the sensors, and picked up speed toward Emporia’s top. He rolled until the walls were vertical on either side. A strip of open space far off between the layers showed a tapestry of dusty veils and pinprick stars.
“Cartographers,” he thought aloud. “There’s a passager docking lobby.”
The Dynast didn’t have scan jurisdiction there; the Cartographers were a neutral organization, serving passagers first and foremost, often with no questions asked. Even if the Cartographers didn’t want to help him, he could take the time to get communications set up and reach Laythan. The crew was due back soon, close enough to reach.
The Cartographers’ sector was tantalizingly close, but Caiden was forced in a roundabout direction as the Dynast sensors swept in between.
Emporia’s exterior was as varied as its lightseep interior. The upper levels were studded with brilliant colors that melted and reshaped across hexagonal membranes. All vendors of some type. Ships hunkered against the shop walls like dark butterflies at stunning flowers. Caiden danced the Azura between Emporia’s market layers, letting the engine’s power fill his body while light shows filled his eyes.
The blinking orange indicator seemed part of it all, at first.
A chketin warship needled out of the wall and threaded into traffic at blinding speed. Caiden responded with a jerk, lashed by panic. He nosed down into a stream of tiny vessels. Several bounced off as their shielding engaged. The force jarred his ship sideways and spinning. He squeezed his fingers in the drive guides as if clutching a lifeline.
“Shit, shit!” Stupid.
His brain turned muzzy at the sharp roll. The ship was heavier, faster, and more taxing than any simulation. Barraged by visual guides, auditory blips, and rhythms, his brain struggled to process, blurring or omitting sensory input. He heaved his arms back and pulled the Azura level with one of Emporia’s layers.
He relaxed his fingers but couldn’t rein in his panting. His nerves were strands of razor fire violently strummed. “To void with this,” he swore. “Slow. I need to go slower with this head injury.”
He tried to channel Taitn’s patience, and dipped back into gentler traffic in a district that oozed green light. The ship’s heavy wings cut curtains of plasma into spirals.
SCAN AUTHORIZATION flashed in the middle of the cockpit.
Shadows slithered in his peripheral vision before they popped up in the Azura’s sensors. Two ships, both small. Their squared diamond bodies sloped to down-pointed wings on either side, all skinned in patterns of matte black, vitreous blue, and lines of copper.
Dynast ships.
The realization slapped him, and the Azura’s engines responded with a building screech of potential speed. He curled his fingers and ripped the Azura through traffic. The two smaller ships matched his veers.
Panic whipped Caiden’s muscles, but they strained against each leaden maneuver. He pulled sharply into a narrow passage. Cargo pods bobbed in his path. He rolled to dodge them, then popped out the other side of the passage as the whole section rotated. The two ships in pursuit emerged on either side and closed in.
Caiden clawed his fingers in the guides and thrust his arms sideways to power the ship between cargo cruisers with only inches of clearance. Every muscle and tendon in him corded. He yanked the Azura up tight, bailing at a right angle to speed against Emporia’s side.
The two Dynast ships vanished. Caiden gasped in frigid air. His arms cramped and the atmospherics chilled his sweat. Sparks sawed up and down his limbs. This was not like the simulations.
He rolled the heavy ship around until the ground was a ceiling, then coasted as he scanned the opposite plane to get his bearings.
One Dynast ship streaked from the ceiling in front of him. Lights razed the cockpit, dissolving the holosplay.
The other ship screeched up behind him.
Thunder smashed the Azura with a blinding charge as both ships shot out electromagnetic pulses. The two waves crashed together in the Azura’s middle and foamed through her systems, knocking out power.
She plummeted toward Emporia’s wall.
Half of Caiden’s neural activity shut off. He blinked dumbly for a beat before his nerves fired like lightning loosed. “Reinitiate. No time. Please. Reinitiate!”
He lurched from the pilot’s seat and plunged his hands into the twitch drive panels, which didn’t need a neural connection to use. Secondary power glittered online and the Azura’s engine reinitiated, blasting away moments before striking Emporia’s surface.
They jetted to safety, but using the twitch drive, the ship’s motion was heavy, desperate. Caiden struggled to regain control and keep his body steady against the console without any restraints. No frantic motions would help him now. The slightest twitch of a fingertip ricocheted the ship into violent motions.
Huge cruisers slid by like walls. Caiden weaved through, hoping the visual obstruction would maintain distance between him and the trailing Dynast ships.
But there was no need. To Caiden’s surprise, the two vessels peeled off.
Somehow, he didn’t think that could be a good thing. He didn’t appear to be in any zone that would scare the Dynast off.
Caiden heaved clear of the cruisers. Cramps vised his wrists. The thrusters juddered. He powered forward delicately, each fingertip commanding incredible energy.
Ahead of him, a swarm of tiny ships billowed and condensed, then abruptly spilled off in two directions around a congealing glassy surface.
A whimper punched out of Caiden’s breast. The Glasliq.
The Dynast chase had shined a huge beacon on the Azura. Had “Dynast Arbiter” Threi chatted up the two pilots: Hey, I’ve got this, leave him to me?
The Glasliq’s viscous surface hardened into wings with a bluebird sheen. Its inner metallic gills resembled a skeletal sneer.
Caiden’s throat clotted with despair, and he sucked in massive breaths to keep tears out of his eyes and ignore the throbbing in his brain. Now more than ever he needed to be able to focus. The ship was heavier and more complex than all of his strength, its intelligence too much for his young mind, its power too brash for his nervous system, and Taitn had been right about everything.
“I trained for this.” The hope rang hollow. His training against the Glasliq had been a simulation, and Caiden hadn’t trained at all using a twitch drive.
He leaned forward for speed and tipped straight down between Emporia’s layers, through haphazard traffic currents.
The Glasliq cut the fray as if it were immaterial, deforming and re-forming as needed. It splashed ahead in traffic and flared back into solid shape in front of the Azura, forcing Caiden to bank, bouncing him off small beamer ships and barreling through a narrow passage between walls. Trying to herd him into clear space.
He blinked away sweat and tears. Cramps rang his bones but he kept his fingers clawed tense, speed steady. The Glasliq flooded the passage behind him. He was familiar enough with the vessel to weave among obstacles so fast the Glasliq’s inner skeleton couldn’t fold quick enough even if its liquid body reshaped. Caiden also aimed for the brightest sect
ors, so that light soaked the Glasliq’s reflective body and killed its maneuverability, blinding Threi faster than his cockpit could polarize against.
It would be enough. He could make it.
Shaking all over, numbing himself to the rhythm of need, Caiden raced between another set of layers.
His left hand seized up in a flurry of pain. The crystallized panel wouldn’t release his fingers.
“No,” he cried, the word mangled into an animal sound of distress. Though his left hand was still on the controls, his cramped fingers were frozen in place. Out of control, the ship rolled, yawing right toward Emporia’s side. The Glasliq cruised tight overhead, filling the upper view with watery curls.
This is it. The serenity surprised him. Terror was a veneer; beneath it, he was exhausted. Able to surrender.
A section of Emporia slid into view lit in white and purple, clean and beautiful and Cartographer. A dart of hope punctured a sigh from him.
An iris slowly closed on a docking bay in the Cartographers’ wall. Caiden needed both twitch drive panels of control to make it. He clawed his right fingers to lower the Azura’s speed, then used his right hand to rip his paralyzed left forearm from the plate. He twisted his good fingers through the freed-up left panel to angle the Azura’s nose away from the wall. Toward the iris opening … but the roll worsened. They wouldn’t fit.
The iris bit into the ship’s wing and pitched it into rotation.
Unrestrained, Caiden was tossed like a stick and hit the ceiling shoulder-first. The dock’s walls scraped over every surface. Shield deflections rocketed around in Caiden’s brain as the neural link informed him of every abrasion, stress field, and impact. His body mirrored them all.
He was a little cog shaken inside a can. The edge of the bay ramp slammed into his neck, crushing a gurgle out of his throat. He scrambled to hold on to something. A sharp surface grabbed him instead and pain ripped up his arm, tangling with cramps and fractures. The roar in his ears hid his screams as he was tossed to a stop on the Azura’s floor.