I wasn’t really old enough to comprehend the Kronos disaster when it happened. I remember casts announcing that Fractionists had overrun a starship control room and tried to free it from the General Body’s directives. They fired the FTL drives without giving them time to warm up, and the resulting meltdown reduced the Kronos to a warped glob of hullmetal before most of the citizens had time to evacuate. I could never grasp loss on that scale—I’m still not sure I can.
But I understand what this man lost perfectly. Though I’ve managed to keep my faith, I know how it must have cost him his. And now we’ve both landed in the same place, on the same shuttle, bound for another ship that could end up the same way.
I hadn’t been thinking about the Kronos when I shook hands with Yasmin. All I cared about was protecting my siblings. But now I’m mired in doubt. Historically, the Fractionists have tended to value their movement’s progress more than the Fleet’s people. It’s part of the reason the General Body sees them as the most dangerous threat we face. As long as it puts them closer to their goals, the Fractionists will do whatever it takes, and people have suffered for it. Anything to break the General Body’s hold on the Fleet’s destiny and take it into their own hands. I don’t know if I believe those sacrifices are worth it. I haven’t had time to process any of this.
What exactly have I thrown myself into the middle of?
I press my head back against the restraints as a familiar human face moves down the line, checking that each of us is securely locked into our seats. “Hey, Zaire!” one of the older Scela shouts, and the dockworker turns his head. “Save a spot at the table for me tonight.”
“You that keen on losing your money?” Zaire shoots back, grinning wide—human wide, uncomfortably wide, too much of his eyes in the gesture—as his nimble fingers fly over another harness.
“I’ll beat you this time,” the Scela says.
“Sure, keep telling yourself that. I won’t complain.” He replies, reaching Key in line. “Hey, newbie, how’s it going?”
She doesn’t reply. In the exosystem, something leaks out of her, sour and…a little pleased? Her face stays locked in stoic contempt, but I can feel her exo pressing down an urge to smile.
“All right, got a grouchy robot over here. How about you?” Zaire asks as he moves onto me. “Looking good, fuzzhead.”
I mumble a gruff “thank you,” my thoughts flickering self-consciously to the scarf I should be wearing.
Zaire skips down the rest of the line, finishing his restraint checks. He turns back to the cargo bay with an impish grin on his face. “Y’all are a real pleasure. Have a nice flight!” He tips us a salute, then jumps off the rear hatch, slamming it behind him. Through the tiny window embedded in the hatch, I can just make out the shapes of more dockworkers retreating from the ship’s aft. A second later, a shudder rolls through the hullmetal behind me.
I don’t care about the dirty looks I’ll get—my hand is back on the hull, every prayer I know spilling from my lips. The exo keeps trying to shut me down, and I keep pushing it back, because no amount of wiring in my brain is going to make me hate flying any less.
We’re deploying into an unknown situation, one where the very air stands a chance of vanishing around us, and the Chancellor will be watching, I’m sure. I need everything God can give me.
I grit my teeth as the shuttle rushes out the launch tube and into the cradle of zero G. My exo does its best, but the afterthought of stew bubbles up in my mouth no matter how hard I try to swallow it back. Murmurs rise from the ranks as a cargo bay full of Scela lift against their restraints. I’m surrounded by drifting, hyperpowered limbs, our metal gone feather-light without gravity to enforce its mass.
As if that sensation weren’t strange enough, a click in my head sweeps me into an exosystem—not the pool of my squadmates I’ve become accustomed to, but the torrent of every mind in the shuttle. My breath comes in confused hitches as my brain struggles to equalize against the currents of thoughts. Familiar threads wind through it—snatches of Wooj, of Praava, of Key, flocking instinctively toward the ground the marshal holds for herself in the chaos.
Un-Haad. A solid line of thought wraps around me like an anchor, digging in with the weight of my name. With me. The marshal’s lungs are my own, and I follow their push and pull until my breathing slows and I settle back into myself.
A broadcast plunges through the exosystem, warming brightly as it overrides our earpieces and pumps audio out of them. Just minutes ago, a Fractionist demonstration began on the starship Aeschylus. They’ve managed to shut down a large portion of the ship’s research quarter. My exo informs me that it’s Grand Commander Ilych, chief among Scela, speaking.
In the turmoil of the massive exosystem, I pick out Praava’s fear sharpening to a point, so familiar that I feel for a moment like we’re one and the same. In the shadow of the marshal’s mind, she loops her sister’s name until underneath the voice of the commander there’s a constant buzz of Ratna Ratna Ratna Ratna Ratna Ratna Ratna humming through the current.
Reports show that the protestors are armed with stunsticks. One hit from their weapons has the potential to short out an exorig. We’ll be working to disarm and restrain them, with a larger goal of restoring order on the ship.
I leak worry into the exosystem, despite my best efforts to hide it. A download can help, but it’s nowhere near true combat training. Can we really handle armed protestors? The Chancellor must think so, though the doubt radiating out of the marshal is difficult to ignore.
The grand commander drones on anyway. A threat of hull breach has been made. In the event of a breach, our priority will switch to securing the citizens in their designated emergency seals.
She’ll be fine, Wooj reassures Praava as a wave of crippling fear surges out of her. She’s smart, right?
Smartest person I know.
So she’ll be smart enough to get far away from the protests and into a sealed zone.
Unless they breach that zone too, Key shoots back, and Praava twitches in her rig.
I hate to admit it, but Key’s on to something. Ratna is a doctor, so she’ll most likely be in the research quarter, the nexus of the protests. If Fractionists there are threatening to breach the hull, the emergency systems will quarantine the rest of the ship and let that quarter vent.
But why are the Fractionists targeting the Aeschylus? And why now? With the rest of the squad overtaken by Praava’s panic and the grand commander’s orders, I dare to let my own worries bleed into my thoughts. My bargain with Yasmin was about supplying information, but I don’t have enough information of my own. Would she expect me to help these Fractionists? Will she know if I don’t?
The shuttle pitches suddenly as we slip into our approach. Praava’s worry crescendos. The front of the ship jolts as we run up against our docking struts, and alarms sound through the bay, warning that the airlocks are about to seal. We unsnap our restraints the instant the rear door springs open, our exos pushing us to our feet in unison. As we disembark, another download drills into our exos, this time filling us with the ship’s layout until we know every bolt of it.
Something’s stirring in Praava. Her frustration spikes outward—she should be soaking in the scent of her birthship, and instead all she has is the processed air inside her suit.
The marshal reaches out and plucks us out of the larger exosystem like kittens lifted by the nape. Steady, she warns, shepherding the squad back into our usual configuration. We’ll be a part of the rear guard, watching the backs of the more seasoned Scela. We’re still waiting on orders.
But waiting won’t do. Waiting is a suffocating vacuum, boiling us from all sides. Ratna’s out there, and we have to get to her.
And before the four of us can come to grips with what’s happening, we’re running. The tidal wave of Praava’s urgency pummels into the backs of our necks, sweeping us do
wn the corridor even as the marshal shouts for us to stop and the other commanding officers cry out in alarm. But none of the other Scela come after us—their exos must keep them in place.
Our exos are panicking. They’ve never had to deal with something like this, and the machines are completely at a loss. Their control over our bodies cedes to Praava’s sheer force of will. She doesn’t need the exos to navigate this ship. She knows the back hallways and ladders that will get us to the research quarter without running into a single soul. This is her home, her birthship, her place in the Fleet, no matter how much the exos try to insist that her loyalty belongs to the Dread.
And we’re all along for the ride.
Key’s the first to come close to breaking her hold. She rears her head back, her thoughts a jumbled mess as she tries to extract herself from the quagmire of Praava’s emotions. What the fu— she gets out before she’s smothered again.
Distantly, I feel the tug of Marshal Jesuit in pursuit, but Praava’s fast to dismiss that fact. She can catch up once we’re sure Ratna’s okay.
Wooj is gone. His mind’s already so subdued, so loosely attached to his body with the full rig on. Praava fills him, gives him guidance, keeps his legs moving as we crest another set of ladders and pour out into a service tunnel that runs just beneath the bounds of the quarter’s hull.
We may be driven by love for Ratna, but our bodies are still weak, still unused to the full rigs that encase us, and Marshal Jesuit is closing fast. As we draw up beneath a manhole that will take us to the quarter’s main streets, my rig’s cameras catch her distant form charging after us. Praava lunges up at the manhole cover. Her enhanced legs power the jump so forcefully that she smashes right through. Our cameras’ apertures whirl as they adjust to the sudden wash of light that pours down from above. She yanks Wooj up after her, and Key follows a moment later.
Don’t you dare, Un-Haad, the marshal rumbles, her voice cutting through the roar of Praava’s thoughts.
But I can’t stop. Even if I wanted to stop, I couldn’t—the urge in our system is too primal, too fundamental, too familiar, too overwhelmingly human. My body is just a tool under Praava’s command. I take a running leap and catch the edge of the manhole, then swing myself up into the light.
And freeze at last.
Praava’s run us right into the main thoroughfare of the research quarter.
Right into the middle of the Fractionist protests. And almost immediately, the four of us realize the mistake we’ve made.
The demonstrators on the Porthos were a concentrated group, a small, single-minded gang focused on gaining the attention of the ship’s representative. They went down in mere minutes. This is not that.
This is a mob.
The streets are crowded with people, some of whom got knocked aside by our frantic ascent to the surface and are only now crawling to their feet. The rest of them are slow to grasp what’s happened—they stare, blinking, trying to wrap their poor human brains around the way we’ve just rocketed into their midst. The bulbous lenses of a camera crew’s rig turn on us.
Then a roar comes from farther down the street. All heads swing that way, even ours, and my heart sinks as my cameras zoom in on the commotion. The Scela deployment has arrived. They wade through the crowd, swinging stunsticks of their own as they beat back the frightened mass of people.
Driving them straight toward us.
“They’re cutting us off!” someone behind Wooj screams. The sharp crackle of an unsheathed stunstick draws my attention, and I duck just as the weapon swoops over my head. My exo uses the distraction to try to break free of Praava’s hold. It pours instructions on how to disarm my attacker into my head, but before they can settle, the heavy hum of Praava’s will slams into the back of my neck—she’s just spotted the building her sister works in. Protestors are crowded around it, and the urge to carve a path through the mass of people to get to Ratna builds.
The stunstick comes down again, the exo screams in my ear, and I manage to dodge to the side. A buzz runs through my right forearm—the weapon missed me by inches.
“We’re not here to—” Key tries to yell, but the rest of us quiet her as we press our backs together, the crowd backing up around us. Of course we’re here to hurt them. We’re Scela, and they’re Fractionists. Praava urges us toward the building, but before we can take a step, three more protestors draw stunsticks and advance on us.
There’s too much noise in the exosystem. Too much confusion. I know I’m supposed to fight, I know my body’s been loaded with instructions on how to engage, but with Praava’s control wrenched tight on my brainstem, I can’t match that knowledge to my body’s function. None of us can. The buzz of electricity in the air sends fear roiling through the exosystem from all four of us.
The closest man lifts his stunstick.
When I was a little kid, I once saw a cast of a thunderstorm on Old Earth. I used to imagine being there, on a planet, feeling God’s power in the forces of chaos around me. First the flash of lightning, then the roar of thunder. Natural and inevitable.
The stunstick cuts through the air. Lightning.
And then the thunder. It comes in the form of Marshal Gwen Jesuit hitting the ground with a massive thud as she leaps between us and our attackers. She strikes, fluid and devastating. In one motion she locks her hand around the man’s arm and wrenches it back. The Fractionist barely has time to gasp his surprise before the weapon is out of his hand and into hers. She swings it over her shoulder without looking and parries an incoming blow from a woman.
She’s faster than anything I’ve ever seen before, power rolling off her in waves as her enhancements flash in the bright day lights. She dodges another attacker, letting his own momentum send him toppling over his feet as she snatches his weapon out of his hands, turns it over in the air once, then drives its dull point into his back. He goes limp. With two stunsticks in her grasp, she becomes a whirlwind that sends the crowd scrambling out of her way as she drops anyone who dares lift a hand toward us.
The four of us cower, pressed together, doing our best to stay clear of her fury. Even the buzz of Praava’s will fades as her mind goes quiet with awe. This is it—the weapon we’re supposed to be, the true meaning of Scela power. Through our weak link to the marshal’s exosystem, we can feel the pureness of her integration, the way her mind and exo work in tandem to turn her into a perfect blade.
She cuts a path around us, beating back the crowd until we’re ringed by unconscious bodies, some still twitching from the stunsticks’ touch. When she finally comes to rest, we’re left with a thirty-foot berth. The marshal flicks the controls on the stunsticks’ grip, and a collective sigh of relief breathes through our system as the crackle and snap of electricity in the air dissipates.
Marshal Jesuit turns to face us, and all four of us instantly decide that we’d rather take the Fractionists. Her linkage to our exosystem cranks up to its full power, restored by her proximity, and the weight of her anger crashes down on us. What is it about you four? she snarls, and a strange, numbing feeling washes over my mind. It takes me a moment to realize she’s ripping up our exosystem, isolating us in our own bodies to protect us from Praava. I’ve never had a squad go charging headlong into danger like that. And it’s not even the first time you’ve done it. And you’re barely a week into basic.
I picture the board in the cafeteria. I picture our squad falling rightward, below patrol, off the edge. Shame and anger clash in the pit of my stomach.
Praava flinches as the marshal grabs her by the exo, just in case she tries to bolt again. Marshal Jesuit’s will buzzes hard on the back of our necks, sending us scurrying into an alleyway before the protest can converge on us. With her guarding the entrance, a sense of calm settles over us.
“What…what happened?” Wooj asks, swaying slightly.
“Emotion is the bane of the exosystem,” M
arshal Jesuit says. “It’s raw and powerful, will incarnate—it can take you over, and if your mind is linked to others, it gets messy. You’re still learning the exo, which made it very easy for this one”—she smacks Praava on the shoulder with one of her deactivated stunsticks—“to take over the system when she felt something so strongly.”
“I’m sorry,” Praava mumbles.
Something light and motherly flickers out of Marshal Jesuit, but she quickly clamps down on it. “You four ran off before getting your weapons. Now we’re in the middle of an active clash, and I only have two stunsticks.” She shakes her head, a laugh bubbling through the system. From the mouth of the alley, we spot some of the humans she dropped stirring back into consciousness. Marshal Jesuit strides back out into the open, crouching next to the closest one. “We need to keep these people from getting trampled,” she says, laying her hand on the twitching woman’s back. “Pick up what you can carry. Praava, I’m watching you. The rest of you can have this back.”
She waves her hand, more for dramatic flair than anything else, and our exosystem linkage restores in a rush. It’s almost a relief, having Key and Wooj’s thoughts back alongside my own, now that we’re clear of Praava’s dominance. Our exos greet each other like old friends before turning to the task at hand. Do we just…, Key starts.
I think so. I take a knee next to the nearest human and pick her up. She must weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, but the full rig takes the weight like it’s nothing. I lift her, balancing her midsection along the plane of my shoulder, before bending back down and picking up another one. Wooj and Key follow suit, and Marshal Jesuit stows one of her acquired stunsticks on her belt, keeping the other out just in case as she starts scooping up as many people as she can carry with her free arm.
A broadcast ping rolls through the exosystem. Breach danger heightened, it shrieks. Make for safe spaces immediately.
My stomach twists. I’ve thrown my cards in with the Fractionists, and they’re venting a ship. I don’t understand why. I can’t make sense of any of this—it’s all happening too fast.
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