"We're gazing upon the fourth dimension," Giga whispered. "Across the three dimensions we know . . . and across time itself."
Riff stared ahead at the black hole. In its center, he could now see a planet, a charcoal world, invisible in three-dimensions, appear now as a pupil in the dark eye.
"There it is." He stared with narrowed eyes. "The world of the shades. The home of the Dark Queen. The—"
"Riff."
The voice spoke behind him. At first he thought it was Giga who had spoken, but she never used his name.
I know that voice.
Riff caught his breath. Slowly, he turned around.
He could find no air. His eyes dampened. He could not believe what he saw.
"Riff," she said again, smiling tremulously, tears in her own eyes.
He leaped toward her. She laughed and wept and crashed into his arms.
"Nova," he whispered into the embrace. "Nova. Nova. Nova."
She laughed and mussed his hair. "Did you forget to talk?" Yet even as she mocked him, her tears flowed, and she wrapped her arms around him.
"How can this be?" he whispered. He touched her cheek and golden hair, stared into her green eyes, felt the softness of her armor. "How can you be here?"
She blinked, tears spiking her lashes. "I was always here, Riff. Always at your side. Stuck in the fourth dimension. I could see you, see everyone, but you couldn't see me. When you slept, I slept at your side. When Steel . . ." She lowered her head. "I was there too. Watching. Standing at your side. Always."
"I love you, Nova."
She laughed as she wept. "I love you too."
They kissed—a long, deep kiss that made Riff forget the blackness outside, forget his pain for just that moment of pure joy. Nova was back. Light shone again in the world.
When finally their kiss ended, Riff tilted his head. "You know, Nova . . . you sleeping in my bed, watching me, invisible all the while . . . that's creepy, really. That's stalking."
She groaned and punched his chest. "Hush, you. Just because I just kissed you doesn't mean I'm afraid to clobber you bloody."
"Just kiss me again instead."
And she did.
"Captain, sir!" Piston came barging onto the bridge. "The clod's back, the little one! And—Nova! Oh, lassie!" The gruffle ran toward Nova and pulled her into his wide arms. "You too!"
Twig raced onto the bridge behind Piston, leaped into the air, and crashed into Riff's embrace. She laughed and mussed his hair, and he laughed too, holding her in his arms.
"Twiggle Jauntyfoot!" he said. "Were you stalking us too?"
She nodded, grinning. "You need to stop kicking in your sleep, sir. You nearly knocked Nova and me off the bed."
Riff's eyes widened. "You mean, you both— in my bed— while I slept—?"
Twig shrugged and leaped back to the floor. "With those scientists aboard, it was the only place to sleep." She laughed. "Good to be back in three dimensions, sir. I'm famished. Nova, let's go eat. Real food!"
Nova nodded. "Better make it quick though, Twig." She glanced out the windshield. "We're getting close to that black hole."
"One last meal," Riff said. "All of us. Together. In the kitchen. One more hour together before night falls."
Floating through space, they entered the kitchen and crowded together. They warmed up the old frozen pizzas—a delicacy they had been saving. As they ate, they shared stories of Steel, speaking of the time Romy had slipped on his armor, of how Steel's mustache would flutter in his sleep, and how Twig had once stuck magnets onto his breastplate. They laughed as they told their stories, missing him, feeling some comfort together.
One last hour together, Riff thought, smiling as he sat among his friends. One more hour of laughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
INTO THE BLACK
They all stood together on the bridge. Six Alien Hunters. Six survivors in a crumbling cosmos. Six misfits to save the light.
The black hole loomed before them, a planet lodged in its throat. Yurei. A goddess of darkness.
Engines roaring fire, wings spread wide, the Dragon Huntress shot through space toward the shadow.
With blazing fire, with clattering metal, with the last hope of the galaxy, the starship charged into the black hole.
The panels rattled madly. The seats swayed. The bulldog bobbed so madly his head fell off. The Alien Hunters clutched the controls, struggling to remain standing. The roar of bending metal filled the ship. Outside streamed a typhoon, a blackness tugging them forward, squeezing them, spinning them madly.
"It's tearing us apart, Captain!" Piston cried.
"It's squishing us!" Romy wailed.
Riff gritted his teeth, staring ahead. He pointed. "Giga, keep us flying. To the Dark Planet. Focus on the planet."
"Happy to comply!" she replied cheerily.
Rising, falling, caught like a leaf in a storm, they wobbled through the black hole, charging toward the planet. The charcoal world hung before them, not spread out like Kaperosa or the stars outside, but a solid ball of stone, never moving, eternal. It didn't even seem a planet at all, but darkness made solid, shadows coalesced into a world, a lair.
The lair of the queen.
A chunk tore off the Dragon's wing.
A heat shield tore off the hull and spun madly through space.
"We got to turn back, sir!" Piston shouted. "Or this black hole will rip us apart like a wolverine on a rabbit."
"Negative!" Riff shouted, voice nearly drowning under the roar. "Giga, keep flying! To the planet! Faster, all power to the engines."
"Happy to comply!"
With a deafening howl, with blazing light, with a jolt that cracked the windshield, the engines roared into higher gear. Fire blasted out behind them. The ship screeched forward, crashing through the vortex, howling with an almost organic sound, a true dragon in all her glory.
Fire.
Lights.
Sparks of all color.
Finally shadows. Silence.
Riff exhaled shakily, realizing he had been holding his breath. They floated through clear space, in silence.
"Are we dead?" Romy whispered.
"I don't think so," Twig whispered back.
Romy bit her lip. "If we're dead, can we go to Hell? I'm a bit homesick."
"We might not be far off," Riff said, staring ahead through the windshield.
The Dark Planet loomed ahead, covering nearly his entire field of vision. A rocky black world. Craters and canyons marred its surface, and jagged mountain ranges rose across it like spine ridges. Gray clouds flowed around it like smoke around a charred corpse. Staring at this barren landscape, Riff felt it. The dark presence he had felt in his nightmare, as if the planet itself were alive, sentient, mocking him. Woven of evil.
"Captain," Giga said, tilting her head. "Sensors show that the planet isn't made of matter. Not atoms as we know them. As if it's . . . formed of concentrated dark matter. It's causing my calculations to break."
Riff nodded. "The entire black hole broke Lenora's calculations. Whatever's here is something new. Something we've never seen before. Something perhaps more dangerous than anything we've ever faced." He managed a wry smile. "Let's go poke it with a stick."
Giga nodded, suddenly not seeming particularly happy to comply, and guided the ship onward.
As they flew closer to the Dark Planet, it seemed to Riff that canyons and mountains formed faces on the surface, cruel demonic masks that beckoned him onward. Then clouds enveloped the ship, hiding all, clinging to the windshield, dancing like women of shadow.
These aren't clouds, Riff thought, belly clenching. It's a living creature. A vast, living thing enveloping the world.
"Approaching the surface, Captain," Giga said. "Still no sign of enemy ships."
Nova clutched her whip. "They must know we're here. It's a trap."
"Thank you, admiral," Riff said. "But I don't yet see a giant block of cheese."
Finally the clouds par
ted, revealing the rock land—surprisingly close. The thruster engines blasted out steam, and the ship leveled off.
"Keep us flying, Gig." Riff stared ahead, eyes squinting. "Just above the surface."
"What are we looking for, sir?" the android asked.
"A hill," he said softly. "A hill that's a thousand hills. And a rose."
They kept flying over the surface. Still no enemy ships attacked. Still no shades flew toward them. Nothing but the barren landscape, the smoke, the hills, and everywhere the visions of time—a jumble of reflections, the sky and ground and mountains spinning, bending around them.
"Run a scan for life forms," Riff said, staring ahead with narrowed eyes.
"Happy to comply! Scanning . . . scanning . . ." Giga tilted her head. "Picking up a very small signal, about a hundred kilometers away. Not much larger than my hand, sir."
The rose, Riff thought. He remembered it from his dreams. A frail flower, struggling to bloom upon a black hill, its petals falling. A flower he had crawled toward in his nightmare, knowing he had to save it, had to stop the evil from crushing it, and that evil flowing all around him, a living being in the air.
What was the rose? Riff did not know, but again that urge to save it filled him. It was important; he had felt it. Perhaps it held the answers to this place.
"Take us there, Gig," he said. "And keep the Dragon's fire warm."
"Where is everyone?" Nova whispered. She squinted, examining the landscape. "The tesseract ships, the shades . . . did they truly leave their planet undefended?"
Piston grumbled, hefting his war hammer. "Could be they sent all their troops across the cosmos already, thinking the black hole is defense enough."
"Getting closer to the life form, Captain." Giga's voice was calm, her face serene. "A hundred kilometers away. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight . . ."
Riff grabbed his gun. The memories jabbed him full of pain.
Scream, Starfire . . .
The voice spoke in his mind again—the voice of the Dark Queen. Silky. Cruel. A voice like a serpent slithering through a garden. Was it a voice in his memory, or the queen speaking to him again, reaching out from the wastelands into his mind?
Come closer, Starfire . . . come to me and shatter in my arms.
Visions floated outside, images of time, of futures that could be. The Dragon Huntress crashing. The Alien Hunters grabbed, tortured, torn apart upon the dark earth. Riff ignored them. Just possible futures. Different paths.
Yet your path is already written, Starfire. A path of pain.
He clenched his teeth, ignoring the voice.
"There." He pointed. "A hill."
The hill the shades had shown him. The heart of the planet.
"Life form on that hill, Captain," Giga said.
Riff shuddered. The hill cast out a thousand reflections, spreading out, twisting, looming, swooping from above. "Can you zoom in, Giga? Put it up on the head-up display."
"Happy to comply!"
The HUD crackled to life upon the windshield, zooming onto the hill. There Riff saw it. Growing from the hilltop. A single red rose in a world of black and gray. The rose seemed to call to him, fragile, begging, dying . . . struggling to reach out to him, to survive the miasma.
"Fly to it, Giga."
"Happy to—"
A screech rose across the landscape, filling the bridge. The windshield rattled. The floor shook. The Alien Hunters grimaced and covered their ears. The shriek rose louder and louder, finally forming words.
"Welcome, friends! Welcome to Yurei, the realm of the Dark Queen."
The clouds and smoke swirled ahead, rising into a storm, taking forms. The dark swirls danced like women, swaying, intoxicating, laughing, their eyes black coals, shining and staring into him. With shrieks, the banshees charged toward the ship.
"Giga, fire!" Riff shouted.
The Dragon Huntress blasted out her flame.
The plasma flew through the air, driving through the smoke. The miasma parted from the heat, then coiled back together, forming the shape of hands the size of crocodiles. The smoky fists slammed into the ship.
Scream, children . . . scream for me.
The Dragon Huntress jerked in the sky. The hull dented. The windshield rattled. The giant astral hands gripped the ship. A mouth yawned open before them in the clouds, and gleaming black eyes—like two spheres of tar—opened above. The creature laughed, woven of the storm, large enough to grasp the Dragon Huntress like a child grasping a toy. Its laughter rolled across the land, and again Riff felt it—evil itself taken form, coiling across him, filling his belly, invading his nostrils.
"The Dark Queen," he whispered.
"I am Yurei!" she cried, lightning flashing across her. "I am your mistress, your goddess, your torturer. Worship me. Beg me to die."
Giga drew her katana and stared forward, eyes raging. "Cannot compute," the android said . . . and fired the cannon again.
The plasma spurted forth, slamming into the queen's eye.
The apparition screamed.
The sound slammed forward, tossing the Dragon Huntress into a tailspin. The smoky hands loosened. The ship plunged through the sky, managed to right itself, and soared again. More plasma blasted out, but the queen waved an astral fist, diverting the stream.
A voice rose in Riff's mind again.
Save the rose, boy! You must save the rose!
Riff caught his breath. This wasn't the queen speaking. It was his father's voice. Aminor the magician—the wise traveler—guiding him.
"We're falling apart!" Piston shouted. "The ship won't hold much longer."
"Giga, keep firing!" Nova cried.
"Shades attacking!" shouted Twig.
New shrieks rose outside. The smell of burnt metal filled the air. Through the storm, Riff could see them. The Dark Queen Yurei was lashing her hands, weaving shades out of the smoke, tossing them forward. The beasts swarmed forward, robes fluttering, red eyes burning. They crashed against the Dragon Huntress, clawing at the hull, denting the metal, tugging on the wings. The ship spun madly. Riff fell. Outside he saw tesseracts flying forth, blasting out fire that drove into the starship. And always the Queen laughed, jaw opening and closing, a giant of clouds looming above them.
The rose, boy! You must reach it.
As the ship rocked, Riff pulled himself to his feet and stumbled toward the wall. He grabbed one of the space suits that hung there. He pulled it on.
"Where are you going?" Nova shouted.
"To grab the rose!"
A blast of enemy fire shook the ship, tossing Nova against the wall. "You've gone mad. What are you talking about?"
He ran off the bridge. He had to go there alone. Quickly. Hidden in the storm. He fell again, pushed himself up, stumbling onto the main deck and into the airlock.
He opened the outer door.
The storm raged, pummeling against him, shoving him back into the ship. The clouds coiled around him, reeking, hot, the tentacles of the queen.
Riff snarled.
He lit his jet pack.
He roared out of the airlock, blasting fire, and flew through the storm.
The winds gusted around him. The smoke clung to his helmet and suit like a living thing. The landscape rolled around him; Riff felt a little like a flaming sock tumbling through a washing machine falling off a cliff. A shade soared toward him, jaws opening wide, revealing its fangs. Riff fired old Ethel, and the gun spewed out her blaze. The shade burned and fell. Another demonic creature swooped. Riff fired again, shoved down on his jet pack's throttle, and shot forward, dodging the falling corpse.
He saw it ahead. A glimmer of red. A glow soon fading behind the storm. He curved his flight, roaring toward it. Thousands of shades flowed through the typhoon. Wind slammed against Riff. The Dragon Huntress soared above him, dipped, tilted, flipped upside down, nearly crashed, then soared again. The blasts of tesseract ships kept pummeling its hull, denting and ripping the metal, and the ship's cannon kept roaring out fi
re. Flying here outside, it seemed to Riff that the Dragon Huntress had become a true dragon, a roaring animal of legend.
More shades swarmed toward him. Riff fired his gun again and again, knocking them back, swerving between them. He could barely see anything but their fluttering cloaks, the smoke that filled the air, and everywhere the Dark Queen—laughing, storming, reaching out hands the size of storm clouds, her eyes like twin black moons above.
There! He saw it again. A dim red glow through the storm. He inhaled deeply and flew. Winds buffeted him. Stones pelted him. One rock slammed against his helmet, shattering the glass, and the storm whipped his face, cutting his skin. He kept flying. He fired his gun again and again until the plasma charges were gone.
Ahead, on the hill, the rose grew.
Its petals glowed, ruby red. The storm seemed not to touch it, yet the flower seemed so frail. One petal tore free, glided down, and crumbled to ash upon hitting the ground.
I'll save it. Whatever it is, I'll save it.
Riff flew in a beeline, eyes narrowed.
A tesseract ship rose from behind the hill.
Riff cursed and tried to swerve.
A blast of dark fire streamed from the enemy warship. Riff dipped lower. He screamed. Darkness and fire spread across him. The blast grazed the top of his helmet and tore into his jet pack.
The Dragon Huntress swooped above, raining fire onto the tesseract. The enemy ship shattered and crashed down in fragments.
Riff cried out in pain. Fire had burned his leg. His jet pack sputtered, coughed, and died.
Riff plummeted through the sky and hit the ground with a scream.
He tried to push himself to his feet. He yowled in pain, his leg twisted, burnt. He pulled himself forward, crawling uphill as the Dragon Huntress fired her plasma above. Ahead of him, Riff saw countless reflections through time. He saw himself dying, withering to bones. He saw himself holding hands with a dark woman of smoke. He saw the rose planted, wilting, blooming. A thousand futures all around him, a thousand pasts behind him.
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