“I’ll leave her next to where the tunnel exists at the docking bay,” Bellona recited, going over our plan. “That way, when we come through, we can bring her with us.”
I nodded, our plan finalized. “This is it.”
“This is it,” she confirmed.
“I’ll see you on the other side, sister.”
Leaving her, I made my final round through the Fortuna. It had been my home for the last few years. Lucina and I had been so excited after we were given our assignment close to the stars. We expected long days chatting, to train hard and to become warriors, and to leave happy knowing that we had served our people well, making our mothers proud. The Fortuna was our legacy.
We never expected to be the ones fighting the impending war with the Surtu. We never expected to die. Others might have, possibly Gallia, or maybe even Bellona. But not Lucina and I.
We hadn’t viewed the Fortuna as our coffin. We barely even thought of it as a battle station. We thought it was another home for us.
We were wrong.
Leaving was bittersweet. The happy memories we had of our lives onboard were marked by the hardships of the last...what was it...a week? I couldn’t tell anymore. It felt a lot longer.
In the mill pantry, I found Juventas. She was brawny, with short brown hair and tattooed muscles that gave her away as the street fighter she was. But she loved to bake. It was a passion of hers. And we loved her for it, often stopping to inhale the scent of her sweet bread, waiting for the dinner hour to arrive.
There would be nothing sweet about the bread she baked tonight or the soup we’d be serving with them.
“Commander,” she said, greeting me. “Is it time?”
I placed my key on the counter in front of her. “It’s time.”
“Why are we all dining together?” a soldier protested nearby. “I know I stink. I don’t want to sit next to a bunch of others who do as well.”
I went to fill his bowl of soup. “Your Lead Officer said we have a blackout scheduled for tonight. You either eat now, or you starve until tomorrow.”
The soldier wasn’t impressed. “We have kitchens on our ships. And why are you serving us? Aren’t you that Commander bitch? The one that got Kalij sent off to the Captain?”
“Nah,” another soldier said, looking up from the bread he was chewing. “The Commander is meek. This girl has some gall. You claimed yet, sweetheart?” he asked, grinning hungrily.
I shoved bread at him. “Fortunately, yes,” I said truthfully. “Now shut your ugly trap and swallow. We don’t want the food to go to waste.”
The soldiers were eating. That was good, but it wasn’t good enough. They should have been drowning in their soup by now. I hurried to the kitchen. “Are you adding enough pest control?” I asked the girl at the stove.
“We’ve used all that we have,” she said. “The longer it cooks, the more the sedative must wear off.”
“Then we’ll have to serve it faster,” I called to the girls maneuvering in and out of the kitchen. “Get them to eat as quickly as possible. We want them all down at once. Brace yourselves. As soon as the first man falls, the others will be alert.”
I worried about my warrior sisters around me, but I shouldn’t. We were not weak; we were all well trained. This was the real fight we had prepared for, though if we managed to escape, it wouldn’t be our last battle.
“Funny that a root from Earth is going to be their demise,” the girl at the stove said whimsically, humming as she stirred. There was no fear in her at all.
I sighed, recalling what Jidden had told me of the Surtu’s strategy. “Sadly, it won’t be the demise of all of them. The ships that have landed on the Fortuna are a drop in the bucket compared to the fleets that have arrived.”
The girl pointed the spoon at the soldiers already asleep in the corner of the kitchen, where they patrolled. We had fed them first, as much as they could eat. “But there’s still something satisfying about seeing the big bad Depraved snoring like teddy bears, completely at our mercy.”
I couldn’t argue with that. There certainly was.
Juventas pulled another tray of bread out of the bread oven – one of two. The other oven, the important oven, was cold as ice. “More pest control, at your service,” she sang.
Whatever the original name of the root was, it was lost forever to the women of the Fortuna, exchanged for one much more appropriate.
A commotion in the dining hall sounded like an alarm throughout the ship. All of our waiting, all of our fears and our hopes, had led to this moment. I nodded to the girl at the stove. Immediately, she abandoned her spoon in the soup and helped to lead the women towards Juventas, who escorted them into the tunnels.
I returned to the dining hall. To my relief, most of the men were dropping. The few that remained standing were dazed, swaying around as they reached for their blasters. Some waved their hands, causing forks to fly off the tables. They were dangerous, but they were soon taken care of by my sisters. Some of whom fought while the others ran to the kitchen, wave by wave. Fight, then leave.
Out in the gardens, Bellona was leading a battle of her own. The women fought the guards on patrol and then escaped into the tunnel through the temple. They were heading towards the docking bay where Jidden waited, having sent the soldiers in their ships away.
If all had gone to plan, he was on his ship with Lucina and the divide between the space station and the docking bay was already up, keeping the Surtu men out.
“Why do we have to go through the tunnels?” a woman complained as she passed by me. “Can’t we just go straight to the docking bay?”
“We don’t know how long the soldiers will be out, there are still many left to fight. We were able to convince a majority to come to the dining hall, but there are more Surtu than women. As long as those of us still fighting can keep the soldiers away from the kitchen and temple, the tunnels are our best hope.”
“My sword is my best hope,” she grumbled. “They’re lucky they managed to take it off me during the siege.”
I felt underneath my dress for my mini-crossbow. It was still there, strapped to my leg, as well as a dagger. I took the knife out and handed it to her. “It’s no sword, but it’ll have to do.”
She was delighted. Instead of heading towards the tunnels, she returned to the dining hall to fight.
Knowing the battle around the kitchen was won, I headed towards the gardens to help Bellona, stopping by my quarters first to make sure Lucina was gone.
No one bothered me. My sisters were doing well. With great contentment, I realized no one would have to stay behind. As long as everyone went to the tunnels, we would all make it out.
My quarters were empty. That was good. Jidden had done his part. Saying my goodbyes, I looked around at the home that was once mine – the Persian-inspired pillows on my bed, the warm plum-colored wallpaper, and the plush carpet. Here, I had been Terra Lynch, a pacifist trained as a warrior. Once I left the station, I would be known as something else completely. I would be Nightshade, a deadly poison.
Chapter 20
Jidden
Soldiers filled my ship, but they were not men. They were women, an army of Roman goddesses dependent on me to set them free. I did not know if I was their hero or their fool.
I didn’t care, not as long as Terra was among them.
I waited for Terra at the loading door of my ship, holding Lucina in my arms. I promised Terra that I wouldn’t let her friend go and see her safely from the station. As my ship continued to fill, I was tempted to drop the little blonde and search for my mate, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to earn Terra’s trust.
I wanted to earn all of their trust, including the fiery priestess who was going to pilot the ship out of the hatch and away from the station. I had warned Bellona that piloting a Surtu vessel was not like piloting the lowly cargo ships gathering dust in the corner of the docking bay, but Bellona insisted she knew what she was doing.
I hoped
so, for all of our sakes.
Convincing the soldiers to leave the docking bay, including my fellow Lead Officers, had not been as difficult as I anticipated. That was the beauty of the Surtu hierarchy. Captain Fore had put me in charge of the Fortuna until he arrived to transform it into the new Surtu command center.
At the moment, he was busy starting a war. Since I was in charge, the men had followed my orders. They had no choice. The punishment for disobeying the orders of a superior during wartime was death.
Death was what I faced if the men found their way through the divide that I’d raised. They gathered behind it now, watching the exodus of women boarding my ship. I had stolen their claimed ones they hoped to light bond with. All of the women were now under my protection.
You can lower the divide, a part of me told myself. Tell your men you knew of the plan, that this was a trap to break the spirits of the women warriors for good so they knew who was in charge.
The double betrayal tempted me. If it were me on the other side of the divide, I would want me dead. But I had to be true to my integrity, to my father, and to Terra. I was not turning my back on my people. I was going to look for another way. I was an honorable Surtu man.
I would make sure that when historians wrote about this time and when whispers of we saved the Surtu from extinction was passed around, the children of our children would speak with pride.
Terra finally came into view, rounding the last of the women into the ship like a dark shepherdess. In the distance behind her, the doorway to the tunnel was sealed.
“How did you manage to keep the divide up?” she asked when she found me.
“I seared the wiring,” I answered. “It was a simple solution, but they’ll be looking for something much more complex.”
“Good,” she said and made a call over the communicator I’d given her. She instructed Bellona to close the loading door to the ship and open the hatch of the space station.
“I can’t!” Bellona shouted through the communicator. “We’re on a Surtu ship, remember? They don’t have the remotes on board to close the hatch!”
“It’s okay,” Terra told her. “We’ll figure it out.” Quickly, she glanced at me, and then added, “Whatever happens, you leave. Understand?”
“Yes, Queen Sister,” Bellona confirmed. “Make sure you’re on the ship when I do.”
Terra turned to me, her mind working. “Can you activate the hatch with your mind?”
“I can, but it’ll take time. I’m unfamiliar with your technology. Melting a wire is easy. I did that with my hands. Using my mind to shift through the electronics of the hatch will be much more complicated.”
“We don’t have time,” she proclaimed. “I’ll have to do it by hand.”
I did not see any problems with her plan. The command desk within the docking bay was not far from us, so I let her go.
It was a mistake.
As Terra ran down the loading door of my ship with her black dress and auburn hair flowing behind her, a brilliant light appeared, blinding us.
I instantly knew whose light it was. The soldiers under my command did not possess the training to travel as light through the unbreakable material of the divide. Though we were beings of light, we were much denser than the light of the stars around us because we had to bring our physical forms within us.
The material of Surtu ships was easy to pass through by design, but it took a special kind of training to go through the toughest of Earth’s elements. The type of training a Fleet Captain had.
Captain Fore appeared within the docking bay. Terra saw him, but she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t when the lives of her women depended on the hatch being opened. I set Lucina down so that I could help, but before I could move, the loading door closed, and I felt my ship start to hover.
The door was no barrier. I began to transform into light, but a hand grabbed my ankle. “Don’t leave,” Lucina pleaded. “We need you.”
What the little blonde said was true. The women could make it out of the station without me, but what lay beyond – that was another story.
“I can’t leave her,” I whispered, agony building within me. “I love her.”
“Then honor her,” Lucina said. “Let her be the Commander. Terra would not want you to abandon us.”
She was right. If I left, it would mean sealing the fate of the women as slaves to the Depraved. If I allowed it to happen, Terra would resent me all the days of her life. I had to see her women to safety, and then I would come back for her. My soldiers could take her captive a thousand times, and I would always come back for her.
I knew heartbreak. I’d felt it when my parents died. And now I felt it again. A tear rolled down my cheek, the first in many years. Lucina stood, swaying slightly, and she wiped it away with the sleeve of her Surtu uniform.
Chapter 21
Terra
I ran to the command desk of the docking bay, playing the codes I needed to enter in my head so that my fingers would not stall. I didn’t have much time. If Captain Fore lowered the divide before the ship left, we would all be ruined.
Luckily, Captain Fore had as much trouble with the seared wiring as the other soldiers. I reached the command desk, and I opened the hatch. Moments later, the ground shook as Jidden’s ship lifted out of the space station and disappeared into the relentless night.
My heart broke watching them leave. I would never see them again. Not Jidden. Not Lucina. They were lost to me forever. But I was glad they had left.
Jidden had remained true to his word. He had not sacrificed us for his gain, even if that gain was me.
I loved him more for it.
I did not have time to grieve my losses. Captain Fore grabbed my arm and pushed me against the divide. Without turning to face the soldiers I had insulted, I could feel their anger.
“Women are sacred to the Surtu,” the Captain raged. “But for some women, there is only death.”
Four months had passed since the women of the Fortuna had escaped the leering clutches of the Surtu soldiers. They had been led away by Jidden, my alien mate with whom I was eternally light bonded. I missed my sister warriors, especially Lucina Whitmore, my best friend since childhood. And I missed Jidden.
It had been hard to believe that I would never see him again, but I had finally accepted it for my sanity, especially now that I was a slave onboard the place I once called home.
The Fortuna looked nothing like it had before. The Surtu had taken over completely, making it their command center as they fought a war against Earth. The gardens were overgrown, and the temple abandoned. The inner station had been gutted out, distorting the sleeping quarters into dormitory-style housing for the Surtu soldiers. Masked as a spiritual sanctuary, the Fortuna had been built spacious and harmonious, but now it was crowded and loud, the marble floors marked with the heavy traffic moving in and out.
There were many soldiers on the Fortuna. Although the Surtu were larger, stronger, and they had an ability to heal themselves, they weren’t invincible. Plenty had died at the hand of my sister warriors. The key was to strike a fatal blow before they had a chance to recover. It was a lesson Earth had likely learned the hard way.
I should be dead, as the soldiers my sisters killed were. I had led the escape of the women from the space station. That was three hundred fewer women the Surtu men could use for baby factories. With the Surtu facing extinction and their females dying off from an unknown disease, my crime was punishable by death.
I had been sentenced to die, but Jidden had saved me. I wonder if he knew that his love had saved my life.
We were light bonded. We had shared the act of altering our state of being into light, becoming one beacon and one soul. It had been brief, but it had united us forever. It was because of the light bond that I knew Jidden lived. At times, I could sense him, feeling his anguish and hopelessness, usually when I was close to sleep.
After being imprisoned on his ship and sentenced to die, Captain Fore had come
to visit me. He put his hand along the back of my neck. The neck was the only part left exposed by the Surtu uniform I had been forced to wear. I thought he was going to take away my integrity and force himself on me, but that was not his intention.
“So the rumors are true,” he had said. “You are light bonded to the traitor.”
The traitor was Jidden. “Yes,” I’d admitted, feeling no shame, but I was confused. The only person I had told was Bellona. She’d had no contact with the soldiers – except to assassinate them before they knew she was even there.
“When the murderer Kalij petitioned for his light bonding ceremony, he was outraged that another man had been allowed to light bond with the human Commander before his appointed time. He wanted to be the first. I told him no such service had been approved, and a woman tricked him.”
“I did lie to him,” I said, refusing to allow the scum Kalij any merit. “I wanted access to the docking bay. The light bond Jidden and I share – that came later.”
“I see,” the Captain said. “You are light bonded to a traitor, but that does not change the fact that you are one of us. Our light shines in you. It is against the law to kill a human woman unless she has committed an unforgivable act of treason. You have done that, by the way, but you are no longer merely human. You are part Surtu. No Surtu woman is put to death, no matter what her crimes were. Your light bond saves you from death, but I plan to make your life a living hell.”
I had imagined the worst. In my fears, the soldiers made me their concubine, but another Surtu law was that no man could touch a woman who was light bonded. It wasn’t because of morals, but to ensure the health of her children. When it came to human-bred Surtu children, those birthed from bonded parents were healthier and survived longer.
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