“Besides, don’t you want to be the one who brought me in?”
Natera’s quiet for a moment. Pale gets to his feet and tugs at my hand. “No,” he says, “I need you.”
Before I can reply Natera speaks: “I accept your terms.”
Of course you do. “Central building. Come in a shuttle. Bring however many people you want, just make sure your lapdog Mallory is there too. Tell her we’ll meet at Hurtt’s grave.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Blood thrums loud in my ears and my sternum aches. Hurtt’s body lies splayed on the floor in front of the machine. Broken bits of plastic and metal rest in the pool of his blood. His good eye is stuck open, his lips parted. Ocho drops down from my shoulder to sniff at the corpse. I grab her and pass her to Pale before she does something gross.
“Was he a bad man?” Pale asks.
“I don’t think so.” I take a white coat from the back of the door and lay it over Hurtt’s face and chest.
“I liked his moustache.”
“Me too, kiddo.”
The fluid inside the cloning pod is gone, and a dark shape rests against the glass. I find the controls to crack the hatch open and peer inside. The clone’s long, black hair is still damp, her skin soft with a pink hue. She looks fake somehow, without scar or wrinkle, but it’s Cilla, and it’s me.
I focus my thoughts, lift her from the pod, and drop her into a wheelchair. Her hair sticks to her back and her head lolls forward grossly. I was worried I’d find her alive in some fashion, but her hand is cold, clammy. I rub the skin where her tattoo should be.
I hear them coming down the corridor, regimented beat of boots on tile. I grab another coat and put it over my clone’s naked body; simbryonic fluid seeps through the fabric in see-through patches.
Two of the Guard enter first with lasrifles raised to their shoulders. They scan the room before calling out, “Clear.”
Another four soldiers enter, charcoal uniforms clean and neat over xeoprene stealth suits. They clatter with extra weapons, waver sidearms, plasma grenades, and combat knives.
Only after they’ve spaced themselves out along the far wall, with the clone pod and broken machine between us, do the last guests arrive.
Lieutenant Colonel Natera wears his dress uniform: neatly pressed trousers and an asymmetrical jacket cut in the same shade of charcoal as his troops. Rank insignia glint on his lapel, breast adorned with the crest of the emperor.
Mallory pushes Teo’s wheelchair into the room and gives me a triumphant smile. I forgot about Teo. That doesn’t change anything: he can die with the rest of them.
“Cilla, what’s happening?” Marius looks lost, eyes red and filmed in tears, bits of food around his mouth and stuck to the front of his shirt.
“Everything will be fine, Marius,” I say. “Just stay calm. What did you do to his nurse, Mallory?”
“Kerry’s fine.”
“What is this?” Natera demands, his eyes stuck fast to the clone sitting limp in her chair.
“She didn’t tell you about that, huh?” I say, taking the opportunity to sow a little distrust between the new allies. “Hurtt and I had a whole plan worked out.”
Natera turns to Mallory. “What is this?” he says again, each word harshly bitten off.
“You said I would have everything I need for the new program, and I need that.”
“You should have told me!” Natera barks.
Mallory straightens her back and looks past Natera, her old MEPHISTO obedience training rearing its head. “You’ll have the real thing, all I want is the clone.”
“So that’s why you sided with them,” I say. “You killed Raf for your inane dream to make more of me. Sure you can trust her, Natera?”
Mallory speaks before Natera can respond: “I killed him because he backed out of our agreement. All the years I’ve worked at his side, all the times he told me I’d have my program, and he throws it all aside when you turn up.
“Raf was a fool to defy the empire.”
“He was a fool to trust you.”
“He never should have betrayed me. The empire will have me raise the next generation of voidwitches.”
“I can’t believe you want that,” I say, mouth twisted in a sneer. Every infinitesimal part of myself rages against those childhood memories, and she wants to relive it all. Worse, she wants to relive it in Briggs’s place.
“That’s because you abandoned us. But the friends I had then felt more like family.”
Family. Sera. Pale. Ocho. Fucking Marius. Squid. Trix. Mookie. Sera dead, Trix dead, Mookie broken and hateful because of what happened. Because of me.
I shake my head sadly, but I don’t know if it’s for me or her. “I hope it was worth it.”
“It will be,” she says, satisfied.
“Alright, Natera,” I say. “I’m serious about Pale—I need assurances that he’ll be looked after.”
“We aren’t interested in the child,” Natera says. “You have my word that he’ll be safe.”
“You know how many she’s killed,” Mallory says. “She doesn’t deserve your word, she doesn’t deserve a trial. She doesn’t deserve even a chance at freedom, however small.”
I can’t argue with that: I don’t deserve it. But I want it. I want to be free for once in my life, and if I have to die for that, then so be it. I never wanted these powers, this life, I never wanted to be their weapon. I can’t die here, but I will die here.
“Take her into custody,” Natera says.
One of the soldiers steps forward and slings their lasrifle over their shoulder. They pull the handcuffs from their belt with one finger, the shiny steel restraints gleaming under the lights. I don’t focus on the troops, each nearly identical in their uniforms. Same clothes, same guns, same plasma grenades hanging from their belts. Same as every soldier that’s tried to stop me, kill me, hurt my friends.
“I’ll get my trial?” I ask.
“I have discussed it with my superiors. You may not deserve a trial, but the people do. They should enjoy seeing the emperor’s justice done, live on every channel across the galaxy.”
Pale grabs my hand and tugs on it. I ignore the approaching soldier and get down on my haunches, resting on hand gently on Pale’s cheek.
“You can’t go, Mars; I need you,” he says. “Let’s just kill them.” He pleads with such sincerity it breaks my heart.
“Pale, I don’t want you to kill anyone, okay? Ever.” My eyes burn, but I don’t cry. Pale sniffles and wipes his nose with his sleeve. “It’s easy in the moment, but it’s hard later.”
The soldier stands beside me with the handcuffs ready. He clears his throat.
“But you kill everyone,” Pale says, even quieter than normal.
“You shouldn’t look up to me; I’m not a good person.”
“I still love you.”
I hug him, squishing Ocho between us and pinning his arms by his side while his small rib cage expands in my embrace. “I love you too.” I say it automatically, realizing the truth of the words as they leave my mouth. He’s like a brother; sometimes annoying, but worth protecting, worth holding close. “Which is why I don’t want you to kill anyone. You’ll understand one day.” I hope, otherwise it’s already too late for you.
I scratch Ocho on the chin, then stand and turn back to Natera. “You’re right; I don’t deserve a trial. But I have to spend the rest of my days living with the guilt of killing all those people. That’s probably not punishment enough, but it’ll have to be.”
“What are you saying?” Natera says, right hand twitching in covert hand signals.
His troops respond by taking a half step forward, lasrifles adjusted at their shoulders, high whine of lasrifles charging, smell of ozone. Same clothes, same guns, same look of confusion on all their faces. The soldier closest to me hears the movement behind him, drops the cuffs, and scurries back into line, prepping his weapon.
“Kill her!” Mallory cries.
“Lay down on
the ground or we will open fire,” Natera bellows, drowning Mallory out, desperate to regain control.
Should’ve listened to her.
I don’t reach out to grab the soldiers. Instead I remember what Dima said about finesse. I focus on the pins of their plasma grenades, imagine the small circles of steel are a foot wide and weigh a ton. Brainmeat vibrates inside my skull, unnatural.
“I’m sorry. You have my word—there’ll be no more killing after this.”
I shove the clone-laden wheelchair forward and every part of my mind comes together through the competing drug haze. Low groan in the back of my throat as the pins. Slowly. Shift.
The lieutenant colonel’s mouth opens wide to bark an order, but he stops. Stunned, they all look to the floor where the small wire pins tinkle and bounce.
I squeeze my eyes shut and throw out my hands, raising a psychic shield across the width of the room, ready to block what comes next.
Bright flash of pink through closed eyelids. Six shuddering dhooms. The ground shakes beneath my feet as the grenades detonate in near-unison. Explosions bloom outward and I lean into the shield, holding it in place, feeling the plasma fire inside my mind.
Pushing forward, I watch Pale clutch his bandaged head and cry out. Ocho yaows as she’s dropped to the ground, and I wait for Pale to fall too, but he stays standing.
I let my shield down and a wave of heat washes over me as I crouch down next to Pale. Smoke drifts over us, stinging my eyes and throat. I pull Pale’s shirt over his nose and mouth. My lungs convulse, hacking cough tears at my throat—the hot ash of dead troops taking their last shot at killing me. The meaty smell of cooked flesh and acrid scent of burnt hair hang heavy. The clone sits blackened in its wheelchair ahead of me, patches of bone showing through burnt flesh. Just another corpse for imperial forensics to find when all this is done.
“Are you okay?” I ask Pale, yelling over explosion-induced tinnitus.
He winces but nods.
I hear coughing through the drifts of smoke. Slowly it clears. The floor where the soldiers stood is chewed black, tiles and polycrete burned away. Behind the crater, Mallory stands with Teo, mouth and nose buried in the crook of her elbow. Marius blinks.
Fuck. I throw out my arm, psychic energy striking across the charred room. Mallory’s hands come up and I feel the blast dissipate, but still she stumbles back. I lash out again and she pushes the shot aside where it slams into the wall, demolishing sheets of steel and metal supports already damaged in the blast.
Another coughing fit pulsates through my chest, stinging eyes filmed with tears. I stretch my arms out, ready to attack wide but Pale screams sharp in my ear.
“Don’t hurt Marius.” The words come out in sobbing rhythm and Pale holds me tight around the waist, pressing his face into me.
I blink until my eyes clear and Mallory’s gone—leaving behind nothing but the receding sound of her boots.
The machine in the middle of the room sparks, half-slagged, burnt plastic and melted steel. Hurtt’s body lies partially burned on the ground near it. When he took me in, I should have warned him this would happen. Not this exactly, but something like it.
Extraction fans in the ceiling come to life, droning loudly as they suck smoke from the air. I rub Pale’s head, the bandages gummy to the touch. Fatigue tugs at my consciousness, metamethamphetamine worn off, tranquilizers still drifting through my veins, whole body shaking. Ocho stalks the space, sniffing cautiously at each of the barbecued corpses; I don’t bother stopping her.
“Did I save him?”
“You sure did, kiddo.”
“My head hurts,” he says sadly.
“The same thing happens to me when I push myself.”
He saved Teo. Mallory probably saved herself, but Pale saved Teo.
The boy beams and crosses the room to stand with Teo, unaware of the burnt and scattered remains of all those people. He puts both hands on the old man’s arm and says, “I did it,” to Teo or me, or no one in particular.
Teo smiles at the boy distantly. If he knows what just happened, he seems unfazed.
I grab Ocho around the belly and she complains as I lift her away from all those interesting smells, her feet black with ash. I join Pale and Teo, pressing my hand to the boy’s back. “You gonna be okay?”
Pale considers this, then nods.
I want to tell him how proud I am. He didn’t have to save Teo. Head still bandaged, pain probably coursing through his brain, steady ache in his skull, but still he reached out and made that shield, despite the hurt. Maybe there really is hope for him. I have to believe there is.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. I grab the handles of Teo’s wheelchair and push him from the room, Pale walking alongside with one hand still resting on Teo’s arm. The boy waves goodbye to Hurtt’s body, and I walk faster, taking him away from all that death as though it could be catching.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dark clouds loose heavy rain, droplets fat and cold as they fall on my shoulders and head. The Rua hums softly, air lock open, ramp down, puddles beneath it rippling from engine exhaust.
“Want to get Marius aboard?” I ask Pale, and he nods, groaning as he struggles to push the chair forward.
The ringed courtyard around the central building lies in ruin, the jacaranda tree blackened, blossoms and leaves reduced to ash. Fires have been dowsed by the rain, but a crashed frigate still sparks and smokes, its bow crashed into Building Three.
“Reinforcements from the downed carrier could be here at any moment,” Waren says, voice quiet but clear over the comm-link. “Are you sure this is necessary?”
“The clone is up there, sitting on the floor beside a cloning machine. I need to make it hard for the imperial investigators.” If there’s any doubt, then it was all for nothing. “Have you got the detonator codes?”
“Frequency is locked in. I’ll key them as soon as we’re airborne.”
“Thanks, Waren.”
I drop my head back and feel the cool water splash against my skin. It’s over. I could cry, but I let the rain trickle down my face instead.
Ocho sticks her head out from my hood and maows at the rain.
“Sorry, little one, I just need this moment.”
While he waited for us on the rooftop, Waren watched Mallory take the Antler and leave. She’s the only one that knows the truth, who knows the corpse isn’t really me.
Alright, maybe it’s not over.
Explosives from Building Two are stacked in the foyer of the central building. I’ve not needed to use them before, but Waren talked me through it: the structural hardpoints, the detonators. It should look like a trap sprung too soon, catching us all in the blast.
I climb aboard the Rua and feel the floor shake as Waren lifts us up from the ground. Pale and Teo sit in the living area in the middle of the ship, strapped into seats opposite the viewport.
We slowly gain altitude, leaving behind the compound, the downed Guard fleet, and countless corpses.
“Where to?” Waren asks, voice coming from the ship’s walls.
“I need you to scan for Hurtt’s ship.”
“Mallory could be anywhere.”
“She still has to reach minimum safe distance before she can slip into worm-space. We’ve got time.”
“Aye aye,” Waren says. “Ready for detonation?”
“Do it.”
I watch out the viewport as the explosion surges out from the ground floor of the central building. Flames rise high as the structure collapses, disappearing into the expanding cloud of debris. The boom reaches us a second later, muffled by the hull of the ship.
Sorry, Raf.
We punch through heavy cloud cover and the ruined compound disappears from view. The Rua shakes with turbulence and I grab a ceiling handhold. Gray gives way to pale blue, which fades to black as we ascend out of the planet’s atmosphere.
We leave Azken behind and Waren joins a lane of ships heading for the outskirts of the syst
em. Sleek pleasure yachts and battered commercial frigates travelling side-by-side, fastest and slowest ships kept level by imperial regulation.
“Scanning for the Antler now,” Waren intones. “It has a distinctive profile, but the sheer amount of traffic means it could take some time.”
“That’s fine, Waren; keep me apprised.” I crouch down in front of Pale’s seat and pat his hand. “I wanted to talk to you about something. When we take Teo back to Sanderak, I think you should stay there. Without me.”
I expect Pale to argue, but he stares past me, eyes tracking something over my shoulder. He points.
The Antler streaks through traffic with arms extended. There is a piercing shriek as it crashes into us, and our running lights flick to red—we just lost atmosphere. I’m thrown to the side and so is Ocho. Her glide membrane extends, but without atmosphere there’s nothing to slow her down. I reach out to grab her but my skull slams hard against the bulkhead and Ocho hits the wall with a sickening crack. I cry out, pain forgotten at the sight of Ocho’s broken body.
The doors close automatically and emergency oxygen hisses into the sealed room, but that will only buy us minutes.
Another screech of steel carved open that I feel rather than hear. Beyond the viewport the Antler looms large. It shoves us from the outward lane, the Rua’s engines unable to compete with Hurtt’s turboboosted ride. I can’t see Mallory inside the cockpit, but I know it’s her. Of course it’s her. Void-damn you, Mallory. You could have fled, but instead I have to kill you. Fuck you for making me break my promise so soon.
I scream and reach a hand out, fingers curling as I crush the Antler’s hull. Industrial steel fights against the strength of my thoughts until something inside the ship snaps. The twang vibrates through my mind, and the Antler crumples like cheap polyplas. Its engines stall and our sideways movement stops as Waren regains control. It’s still attached though, construction arms embedded deep in the Rua.
Short of breath, I open the cabinet beside the air lock—two voidsuits, one spare rebreather. I grab the suits and throw Pale’s to him. He unclips from his seat and struggles to dress in weak gravity. I control my breathing to keep my hands steady as they work at the fastenings, pulling the suit on and attaching the helmet. I put the rebreather over Teo’s face and check Pale’s suit clasps are sealed before strapping him back into his seat.
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