Up ahead, Woojin thinks, his cameras zooming. Service door. Probably leads right to the bridge. Of all of us, he’s the one with the most experience sneaking around the inner walls of starships, so we trust his word.
The door is locked, and the ship’s management software doesn’t budge when we try to force it open. But hullmetal has nothing on four Scela on a mission. We rip it from its mounts in a matter of seconds and charge through.
We’re greeted by the crack of stunsticks firing up throughout the bridge as dozens of Fractionist eyes turn on us. My HUD doesn’t have time to parse the situation—all I see are targets. Sixteen targets, all armed, all running straight at us.
Time to put those combat protocols to use.
My exo is thrilled. For once our intentions line up with the orders that have been pouring into it. We’ve dived into the heart of the Fractionist threat, and the machine on my back is desperate to eliminate it.
My consciousness twines with the others, myself forgotten. We’re a single unit, meeting our attackers head on. I give my muscles over to the system and let it do the rest for me, my body moving instinctively into a dance my human remnants could never follow. Somehow there’s a stunstick in my hand. Somehow there’s a man on the ground who used to be holding it. Our system knows its weaknesses—Praava sweeps around Woojin, making sure that no one lays a blow on our weak link, who’s managed to grab a pair of stunsticks for himself.
Our attackers fall back, scrambling over the rows of control panels as they group with their fellows against the massive windows that show the distant stars. Several humans remain sitting at computer stations. These must be the workers who guide the Fleet—not Fractionists, just people who were here doing their jobs when the revolt took over.
As the combat protocols wash out of our system, I take in the rest of the room. The cluster of Fractionists has one notable exception in their number. The elegant Chancellor Vel is in the middle of their knot, her arms wrenched behind her back by the people holding her. Of course—to set Fleet direction, they need the Chancellor’s approval, the Chancellor’s biometric.
My focus locks on her, but beside me, Aisha only has eyes for the woman at her right. Yasmin’s eyes bulge when she realizes exactly which Scela have just burst in on her coup.
Then Aisha lunges, her rage paralyzing the exosystem.
She’s nothing in my hands. She’s a flimsy rag doll. A dyeworks child in a vacuum. Yasmin struggles and scrabbles to get away from me, but she’d have to break bone to get loose. She doesn’t have that kind of strength in her, much less that sort of self-sacrifice, and for a moment I just let her flounder, squirming uselessly.
I tighten my grip, and she lets out a low groan. The Fractionists back away, dragging the Chancellor with them. None of them look like they’re about to try anything, but I keep my stunstick on and charged just in case.
“Aisha, please—” Yasmin begs.
It only takes a flick of my wrist to shatter hers.
Yasmin screams, and I let her go. She collapses back against one of the control panels, cradling her arm to her chest as tears form in her eyes. Something horrible and human rises up in me at the sight of them. Envy. I’m jealous that she can weep when that’s been stolen from me.
“You killed Malikah,” I snarl. I snap back my headpiece so she can look me in the eyes, so she can see every wicked thought written across my face.
“It was an accident, Aisha. A trigger misfired, and the charges blew early. I never meant to—”
“But you did.”
“For all humanity, for the good of the Fleet—”
“I don’t give a damn about the good of the Fleet,” I thunder, and I swear the windows rattle from the force of my voice. “My sister is dead. I have only two family members left in this forsaken universe—one who’s wasting away on that plague ship and one who’s sniveling in front of me, trying to justify mass murder. All I ever wanted to do was keep my siblings safe, and turns out the person I should have protected them from was you.”
A hint of nervousness curls into the exosystem. The other three are trying to decide if they should stop me. Wondering if they can.
“It’s bigger than that, Aisha,” Yasmin says.
“No. It isn’t,” I snap back. I don’t care about the Fractionists, the General Body, the habitable world within our grasp. I barely care about the injustices of the districting system that drove Yasmin to the Fractionists in the first place. Those things have never mattered as much to me as family. I’m not a savior of the human race, a person with a say in this fight. I’m just an older sister, giving up everything I have for my siblings.
And it wasn’t enough.
My rage builds like an avalanche on an Old Earth cast. The exo encourages it. It wants my power unleashed, my revenge to be total. It wants me to rip and destroy, to crush, to take everything from the woman who’s taken almost everything from me. She can’t keep getting away with this. The exo wants me to tear her in half, and I want it too. I want it so badly that my whole body, metal and flesh, sings with the thought of slaughtering Yasmin.
She can’t keep getting away with it.
This isn’t justice, Key whispers in the back of my mind. I can feel her intention pulling against me, humming weakly at my neck. She knows she can’t stop me by force. My will’s hardened to hullmetal, and my squadmates are frozen in my thrall. She can only ask. Plead. Beg.
I take a step forward.
You’re better than this. Better than her.
I lift my arms, my hands curling into fists.
Look at where we are.
That actually does stop me, mostly because I have to process what she means. My cameras whirl, taking in the bridge of the Pantheon, the point of control of our entire Fleet. I breathe in, absorbing the way the power rests in the room. It’s not in the hands of the Chancellor, who’s still straining against the Fractionists holding her. It’s not in the hands of Yasmin, who can barely use one of hers, nor any of her fellow revolutionaries. And it’s not in the hands of the workers crouching underneath their control panels.
No, the power in the room rests firmly in the hands of us. The Scela. The enhanced warriors meant to be living weapons—tools to be wielded, not independent beings in their own right. The four of us, here on the bridge of the Pantheon, are the most powerful people in the entire Fleet. No one in all humanity stands above us at this moment.
I look down at Yasmin. She’s bowed her head, like she’s accepted what I’m about to do. Like she knows she deserves it.
But if this is how I wield power when there’s nothing that can stop me, I don’t deserve any of the strength coursing through my enhanced muscles. I don’t deserve this body that I sacrificed myself for.
I take a step back, and Key’s relief nearly knocks me over.
Yasmin glances up when she hears my footfall. “Aisha, I swear—”
I hold up a fist and she falls silent. “This Fleet will go to Alpha 37. To the world we’ve been promised. But we will never do it with you at our helm.” I spin to face the Fractionists cowering against the windows with the Chancellor in their midst. “A group that would vent a ship for the sake of the people’s sympathy has no place leading humanity.”
Behind me, Yasmin’s staggered to her feet, clutching her broken wrist. Her skin is ashen, her eyelids heavy. She looks utterly defeated, and satisfaction prickles through me.
“Your rebellion is over,” I snarl. “Release the Chancellor.”
They follow the order like I broadcast it right into their heads. Chancellor Vel staggers forward as the Fractionists around her hold up their hands. She draws herself up, setting her shoulders as she shakes her robe out. For a moment, I worry we’re about to be overtaken again, but the eerie buzz of Vel’s hanging orders is nowhere to be felt. Now that I have a moment to think, I realize that the rebels must ha
ve dragged her out of bed to get her in the bridge at this hour—she must not have her cuff. “Well done, Aisha,” she says, giving me a curt nod.
I let my muscles relax, lowering the stunstick.
“Now, if you four would be so kind.” Chancellor Vel wears a wicked, human look. “Kill them all.”
Our exosystem goes live with rejection, all four of us balking at the words. The Fractionists in the room let out gasps, some of them sliding farther along the wall in an effort to put more distance between them and us. Footsteps approach behind me as Key, Praava, and Wooj flock to my side. There’s an agreement flowing in the space between our minds. We won’t follow the Chancellor’s order. And she can’t force us.
As one, our fingers open, and our stunsticks clatter to the ground.
Chancellor Vel’s wrist twitches. I spot the bangle under the sleeve of her robe, and fear curdles through me. Was it just not active? Why hasn’t she used it, if she’s had it this whole time? My body locks up, bracing for the burn, as if tension in every single one of my muscles will keep me from doing her bidding.
But the sensation doesn’t come. My body remains my own. I nudge into the other three’s exos, and I’m met with the same confusion. We’re all disobeying the Chancellor. And yet she hasn’t used her trump, her bangle, the thing that will force us into obeying her every wish. We can’t even feel it.
She must read our confusion, even behind the breach suit masks and headpieces that hide our faces. Chancellor Vel lifts her arm, exposing the bangle. “I’ll have to have a word with Isaac and his technicians about the makeup of the blockers they wrote into your heads.”
In our system, puzzle pieces snap into place. Why our treasonous, order-defying trip to the Reliant was possible in the first place. Why we haven’t been compelled to follow the orders broadcast for all the Scela forces tonight. They installed blockers in our heads to keep us isolated from everyone except the marshal.
The side effect being that we’re also blocked from receiving orders from the Chancellor herself.
Before the relief can settle, the Chancellor opens her mouth again. “Strange—nothing’s working right tonight. Scela should have been deployed to the Pantheon the moment the Fractionists announced their intent. For some reason, none of them seem to have made it off the Dread.”
Some reason, I strongly suspect, that has to do with “malfunctioning” launch tubes and a crafty man in the Master Control Room.
“But if you continue this pointless defiance, I have other Scela at my command. Ones who could be headed to the Orpheus.”
Wooj stiffens.
“To the Lancelot.”
Sheer, numbing fear pours out of Praava.
“To the Panacea.”
I should rip out her throat. Right here, right now. Key’s hand comes down on my shoulder, grounding me.
“What happened to your loyalty?” Chancellor Vel asks, her eyes narrowing. “You promised me that, didn’t you?” Key goes stiff as the Chancellor’s gaze fixes on her. “I had such high hopes for you especially, Key Tanaka. We went through such trouble to have you on our side, you know.”
“I know,” she growls, squaring her shoulders.
Across the room, some of the Fractionists start to relax as they realize their lives are no longer in danger. They have us to stand between them and the Chancellor, the strength of four Scela as their shield.
But Chancellor Vel lifts her chin. She won’t let go easily. “These people are mass murderers. They’ve forfeited their right to live by violating the safety and stability of the Fleet—the safety we’ve fought so hard to maintain. You came to stop the rebellion, and yet you won’t see this through? You freed me, you seek to restore order, and yet you won’t do what’s necessary?”
“We came to stop the rebellion,” Praava says, pulling her words from all our thoughts. “But a woman who chooses to vent an innocent ship has no place leading the human race. And that goes for you too.”
Chancellor Vel scoffs. “Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense propaganda cast.”
“I was there,” Praava thunders. “I felt the air rush out of my birthship, and through my squad’s eyes, I watched as people died.” Her end of the exosystem is charged with her own purpose—purely hers, no longer reliant on her sister’s genius. “And we saw the First District camera crews picking through the wreckage, suited up and prepared. It wasn’t the Fractionists who vented my home, and no one else in this room believes that. Except for, well…” She gestures vaguely over her shoulder at the technicians. “Maybe them. But the rest of you know.”
Something about the Chancellor’s posture is unsettling the exo. She should be cowering like the Fractionists and technicians, but instead she stands tall, unblinking. She can’t control us directly, and we could snap her neck in an instant. Her fearlessness before was impressive. Now it seems stupid and unfounded. She should be quaking before us. Why isn’t she?
“The Aeschylus vent was a necessary measure,” the Chancellor admits. “You saw tonight the lengths to which Fractionists are willing to go to put people on their side. You’ll notice that we only vented the necessary sector, the one the protest was centered on, whereas these monsters”—she points emphatically at Yasmin—“made sure to take out an entire starship.”
“Being not quite as monstrous as them doesn’t make you any less monstrous,” Wooj mumbles. His legs are starting to weaken, and he leans slightly against Praava as the adrenaline fades from his body.
“But who would you rather have leading this Fleet?” the Chancellor counters. “Those who take necessary measures, or those who take excessive ones?”
We shouldn’t have to make a choice like that, Key grumbles inside the exosystem, but she doesn’t dare put that thought into words. Like me, she’s stuck on the issue of the Chancellor’s confidence. Wooj shares the sentiment. He’s run enough cons to spot when someone has a card up their sleeve.
“It seems like reason won’t work on you four,” Chancellor Vel says, lifting that useless cuff again. “Fortunately, I don’t need that.”
Panic snaps through the exos as they realize her gambit. She was stalling. She isn’t anymore. Something’s changed. The Chancellor makes a beckoning motion, and the doors of the bridge fly open.
Lopez must have been keeping the other Scela from shipping to the Pantheon. But there’s one he knows is working for his side. One he’d allow to fly out, thinking she’d help the Fractionists.
Marshal Jesuit steps through.
My autonomy dissolves as she reaches into our exosystem, my body locking in place. The buzz of an invasive will runs up my neck, but it’s far too kind to be the Chancellor’s. When we had the blockers installed, Marshal Jesuit became our conduit, the nexus through whom our orders were supposed to flow. The only way to get to us is through her. And the Chancellor, with her gauntlet, is doing just that.
The marshal doesn’t want this. I feel her in our heads, whispering an apology over and over. The Chancellor summoned me the instant she realized you were here. I tried to resist. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But no amount of “sorry” can make up for the fact that Chancellor Vel has her hands on the marshal’s strings, and the marshal wields absolute control over us.
“Now, before we begin, I know I made some promises,” the Chancellor says. “The others can be dealt with later, but one of them can be taken care of right away.” She runs a hand over her cuff, and I will everything in me to rush forward and tackle her, rip the device away before we’re forced into doing something we can never take back.
It’s not enough. My will may be hullmetal, but the marshal has fifteen years in Scela metal, and she bends our minds like it’s nothing. There’s no escape.
The Chancellor flips a switch, and in the exosystem, I feel something shift. Something horrible and dreaded rips through all four of us, but my focus instantly sharpens o
n Key, on the holes inside her that suddenly aren’t holes anymore.
Key Tanaka falls to her knees and screams.
I’m nothing but white-hot pain and the strange metal around me, the abomination woven into my flesh. Death would be better than this. Better than being this beast, this weapon, this tool in the hands of the people I devoted myself to fighting. Every twitch and movement of my enhanced muscles is a reminder of what they did—
What they did—
They beat me before they wrestled me into the chair. Said I was a worthless bitch, a waste of First District airspace. Then they ripped my clothes off, tied me down in that saddle, and lowered that thing onto my back as I screamed and pleaded.
My teeth shattered when the exo took hold of me.
They doped me up for the rest of it, but the agony was still there even if the sensation wasn’t. I watched them peel back my muscles, run reinforcements along the lines of my skeleton, jam new ceramic molars in where the old ones had been. They wove their own strength into what was left of me, and then they sealed me back up.
The worst part came after, the part where they dragged my limp, surgery-weak body to a room with computers and jacks that burned like the surface of a star when they plugged them into the back of my neck. They pulled and tugged at my mind until I was full of holes.
It feels like moments ago. The moment I lost myself.
Now the holes are gone. Now I remember everything.
Now I want to die.
Human, human, human, my blood screams, twisting through a Scela body, looking for an escape.
There’s a month and a half of a new person’s experiences crowding my head—the Key Tanaka who started when I ended. I can’t tell if I am her, if we can ever coexist. All I know is it hurts.
I’m vaguely aware of what’s going on around me, of the situation I left behind when I became myself. Of the Scela bending down and picking up the stunsticks they dropped. Of the crackle of lethal levels of electricity—so familiar, but from another life, one I didn’t fully live. Of my Fractionists running, hugging the walls of the bridge. Of the doors sliding shut.
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