CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Pepper almost shot Metztli as the Teotl burst through one of the broken bulkheads, tentacles akimbo as it flew through the air. Pepper reholstered his gun.
Two mongoose-men floated near the sealant goop around the breach in the Gulong’s hull, trying to see if they needed to add more to stop air loss.
“The chamber is under attack,” Metztli said.
“More Hongguo?” Pepper asked. “Nashara, I don’t like surprises, can you see anything?”
“They found a damn blind spot, I’m moving drones to look. Hold on.” There was an annoyed sigh.
“The Hongguo landed a ship on the hull, they cut their way through. My warriors are holding them,” Metztli said. “I don’t know how long they can last.”
“The Hongguo in the first third of the ship are moving again as well,” Nashara reported. “They’re fighting their way toward us.”
Damnit. Nineteen hours to go. Pepper moved toward the Toucan Too. “Come on, kid,” he yelled at Kara, who’d been out of the ship, inspecting the tip for any damage and patching it.
She started fingertipping her way up the hull toward the air lock.
Three suited bodies, Hongguo feng, burst through the sealant. They fired. The two mongoose-men taken by surprise died. Their guns spun off, clanking down the Toucan Too’s hull.
Pepper bounced into the air lock, pulling his guns free and leaping back out.
Metztli flew past him and struck the nearest feng, ripping an arm free with a tentacle. Pepper shot the other point-blank, but not before getting hit in the shoulder and thigh.
He swore several times.
The third feng flew down along the hull toward Kara before either Metztli or Pepper had time to hit him.
She’d sprung free of the hull, grabbing one of the Raga machine guns, just as the feng smacked into her and swung around, trying to use her body as a shield, or her as a hostage.
The girl jammed the point of the gun under her armpit and pulled the trigger with her thumb.
She kept firing long after the feng died, leaving a long stream of blood as he flew on and hit the deck, bounced, and spun away.
Nashara’s voice bellowed out from the ship, “There are more of them coming up the hull towards us, they’re using nonreflective cool suits, hard to spot.”
Pepper looked at the girl. Her hands were shaking. He coasted out and grabbed her.
“You’re hurt,” she said, looking at his shoulder.
“I know. You?”
“I think I’m okay.” Her voice wavered.
Pepper pulled her with him into the lock. Nashara appeared and looked over Kara. “The chamber is close to being overrun. I’m losing repeaters all throughout the Gulong. If we stay much longer, we’ll be overrun too.”
“And you don’t know how to control the Gulong?” Pepper asked.
“Not yet,” Nashara snapped. “It isn’t happening.”
“Then we hang on as long as we can. We have no other choice.” Pepper leaned back in. “Someone get this girl a gun.”
John flew in with a machine gun in hand. “Let’s get Kara into a room,” he said. “She does not need to be out there.”
“We need every hand,” Pepper said. “Every. Hand. We have nineteen hours left.”
“We’re not making nineteen hours,” John said.
“Speak for yourself,” Pepper spat, and kicked off down the corridor looking for more weapons. He’d give the Hongguo nineteen hours. It would be nineteen hours they’d never forget.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Cayenne appeared in Nashara’s vision. “I see a lot of movement around the Gulong, what’s going on?” The feed hissed and sputtered, pushing through Hongguo jamming and hopping several drones to reach her.
“We’re not going to make it down here,” Nashara said.
“That bad?”
“That bad.” The moment of silence stretched, neither sure what to say.
Then Nashara shook her head. “She lied.”
“What?”
Nashara showed Cayenne the cloud of flack approaching the Gulong that Cayenne couldn’t see from her side of the wormhole. “The League has arrived. Danielle was giving herself a margin.”
The first wave of drone nukes shot through, hitting the Hongguo ships and splitting them apart. Then the smart chaff, thousands of cylinders flung through to burst out and confuse the scene.
Nashara smiled as Danielle hailed her. “You lied,” Nashara said.
“We lost lives getting here this quick,” Danielle said. She looked grim, serious. “For the cause.”
The five League ships used their nuclear drones to quick effect, using surprise to roll over the Hongguo at first.
“We can escort you to safety,” Danielle said. “You’re going to have start moving.”
Nashara shook her head. “We’re dead in the water. We can’t move.”
Danielle swore. Nashara watched as the seven remaining Hongguo ships reformed into a starlike pattern.
Cayenne appeared. “Is that a pattern?”
The starlike group of ships swirled out and fired a concentrated burst of missiles at the League ships. Danielle scattered, focused on dodging them, and the Hongguo had the offensive.
Nashara was already on it, burrowing the space around the Gulong for transmissions coordinating the Hongguo attack. “Got it.”
Danielle appeared, grunting against the massive acceleration. “Where are your other ships? Five against seven isn’t going to be pretty.”
Raw lamina yielded to Nashara. She shivered and split, three times, and then she was in three of the ships. The star pattern fell apart. Three new copies of herself appeared with three smiles. “Keep going,” they said.
And Nashara laughed as she followed the source back toward the Datang Hao, where the Satrap was risking high-bandwidth communications to control the Hongguo ships.
A window in the lamina appeared before a great wall of defenses, and Cayenne saw her enemy for the first time. A balding, saturnine woman; a heavy child; a dour-faced man. “Who are you?” they asked, all their mouths moving in unison.
Behnd the trio a tank of pink liquid stirred. The dark shadow in it, that was the actual Satrap. That would be the creature Nashara and her sisters would dump into the vacuum and watch boil its insides out.
“I’m Nashara.”
“I’m Cayenne.”
And then they both shattered the window and began to rip into the wall of defenses the Satrap had. Firewalls, yes, but it had opened them up to control its small fleet. It would die for the mistake.
The three ships she’d taken turned on the other four. There was no time for names, just fast destruction. And the League ships unloaded more nuclear drones into the ball of fighting.
Nashara winced as two of the ships hosting copies of her mind split open and died, and then the third hailed Nashara.
“Call me Ada,” she said quickly. “Get Danielle off my ass, and then we need to help Cayenne get the Satrap.”
“Fellow freedom seekers,” Danielle’s broadcast rippled out from the Daystar, “who are rising up against our vicious alien masters, news of your valiant struggle has spread throughout all human communities thanks to our newly launched communications network. You have friends, true human friends. We believe in your cause, and we are here to help.”
“Don’t pay attention to the propoganda, let’s move,” Nashara said. She followed Ada across a string of buoys, and then Cayenne stopped them.
“I got it,” Cayenne shouted, and showed them a representation of a giant wall with a tunnel bored through it. Nashara could see on her navigation windows that the Datang Hao had changed course and now wobbled toward the wormhole’s edges. “I got in and boosted it, locked the controls.”
The Satrap’s trio appeared, mouths in perfect sync for the Satrap. “You are not so different from me.”
“You are nothing more than a parasite,” Nashara said.
Danielle contin
ued, “The League of Human Affairs lends our hands to yours. Our warships stand ready. Human destiny is at hand. We can lift off the chains of our oppressors and strike them down and take our rightful place among the stars. Even now we are rising up against Satraps on worlds all throughout the Satrapy.”
The Datang Hao struck the wormhole at an angle, breaking itself open against the incredible tidal stresses. One-half continued past the wormhole leaking debris. The other half transited, appearing within sight of the Toucan Too.
“We are proud,” Danielle said, “that you have chosen to rise with us.”
Ada looked over at Danielle’s obviously prerecorded message. “They’re going to take the Gulong from us, aren’t they?”
“Yes. But I imagine,” Nashara said, “that Pepper, John, and the Ragamuffins won’t hand over New Anegada.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Pepper sat in the chamber with Raga mongoose-men and a handful of Azteca with the large crate that had once housed the nuke in front of him.
A day ago he’d been getting ready to fight for his life and was not sure he’d make nineteen hours.
The doors clunked open and men in deep blue armor walked in. Mirrored visors on protective helmets looked around.
They had red fists as an emblem over their chests.
One of the suits of armor puffed over, and the mirrored helmet slid open. A Slavic woman with short hair tapped her chest with three fingers in front of Pepper.
“On behalf of the League of Human Affairs I salute you,” she said. “Your incredible work has inspired many to throw off their shackles and rise up against their oppressors.”
Pepper stared at her. John had left with Nashara and the Toucan Too to return to Nanagada. He wanted to see what damage had been done, and what would be needed down on the surface.
She looked slightly discomfited by Pepper’s stare, but continued, “We are proud to offer you a medallion commemorating this historic event.”
Many high-ranking Ragamuffins had died, along with their ships. The remaining Ragamuffins that could fight clustered around the wormhole, checking traffic and stopping any but Ragamuffin ships from going to Nanagada. That irked the League.
But not enough for them to try to cross into Nanagada. Pepper had told Danielle in a brief meeting that New Anegada, or Nanagada, whichever one preferred, was Ragamuffin. It would not be joining the League of Human Affairs.
Though they would work with them. The League’s uprising had just begun, there was a long war for human independence in front of them.
Pepper took the medallion and pocketed it. “I need a ride to Nanagada.”
“There is a ship docked here for you, a Takara Bune.”
“Thank you.” Pepper grabbed the crate and moved.
“What’s in the crate?” the woman asked.
“None of your business.” Pepper floated out of the cavern with one last look around.
“Sir?”
Pepper wearily turned. The woman clenched her fist and held it up. “Humans first!”
Pepper licked his lips. Then held up a fist. “Sure.”
The human calculators had sat throughout the entire thing, staring at the abaci in front of them and waiting for their next instructions.
The Ragamuffins had won this battle, but somehow the League had come in and taken the clear victory away. It felt like a loss, Pepper felt, to hand this all over and walk down the corridor.
He didn’t like that at all.
Several League soldiers bundled him and the crate up in a vacuumproof baggie and tossed him out across a line to the Takara Bune.
Inside the lock, Pepper ripped his way out to find a small man waiting for him.
“I’m Etsudo.”
Pepper shook his hand. “Thank you for the ride.”
Etsudo cocked his head and looked at the strap of the medallion floating out of Pepper’s pocket. “You got a medal too?”
“Yes.” Pepper took it out. He clenched it in his fist and squeezed until it folded in half, then he tossed it into the grating. Let it blow out the next time the air lock opened to the vacuum.
“We’re tossing the line now and heading for New Anegada,” Etsudo said, and the ship rumbled as it accelerated.
Pepper touched down to the floor. Nashara appeared, projecting herself in front of them both. “Grandpa!”
“You seem to be everywhere these days.” Pepper walked up the ship’s center core.
He decided to skip going to the cockpit as he found the small galley. He rooted around the freezer locker and grabbed a dish. He pulled the top off and watched it heat as he squeezed into a seat.
Pepper wiggled his hands and pointed at the locked drawers. “Fork?”
“Yeah.” Etsudo fished one out.
“The League is asking everyone to rise against the Satrapy. With the Gulong they can close down wormholes to strong Satrapic areas. Already aliens are being deported from some heavily human habitats for those areas. They’re calling it ‘firewalling.’ They want to create a human government, and human worlds.” Pepper looked down at the potatoes and gravy and wrinkled his nose. “What do you think the problem with that is?”
Etsudo leaned forward. “We can shut these artificial borders, but even at sublight speeds, sooner or later, we will deal with other species, and creatures stronger and more powerful than ourselves. If we don’t have models for dealing with this that don’t involve all-or-nothing antagonism, we will, not now, but one day, become extinct as a species.”
“Exactly.” Pepper stabbed the air with his fork. “Exactly.”
He looked around the Takara Bune.
Nice ship.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Nine days had passed since Jerome’s death.
John stood in the garden, the Wicked High Mountains just peeking over the trees, the distant boom of seawater hitting the rocks by the road regular and almost reassuring.
He looked back at the sea of faces. Friends of Jerome’s, such as Daseki and Swagga, shook his hand and walked on. Friends of the family came from all over Brungstun, the small town, dressed in their best.
Nashara stood beside him, with the dinged-up mobile unit using wheels to follow her up to the graveyard.
The priestess, dressed in her robes and colorful earrings, handed John the jar that she had declared held Jerome’s spirit.
Everyone followed John down the road, to the point where it crossed with the path leading down to the beach, and John threw the jar in the crossroads where it broke.
The crowd sighed.
Kara stood there after the crowd dispersed, looking tired. The first day on the surface she’d stumbled around a lot, staring up at the sky, falling to the ground as she adjusted to the perspective of standing on the surface of an entire world. They’d given her drugs for mild bouts of agoraphobia that left her huddled inside rooms at times. “Why did you throw the jar?”
“Here they believe his soul was in it,” John said. “When we smashed it by the crossroads, we released his spirit to the land of the dead, where it belongs. It’s old Vodun, strong in these parts of Nanagada.”
“And you believe this?” Kara cocked her head.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe.” John smiled. “It’s a ritual. It’s . . . somewhat therapeutic. It’s important to many that came here today.”
“John?” Kara’s voice trembled. “Jared still isn’t here yet.”
John looked at her. “He’s on his way.”
“If he’s dead, I’d like for you to tell me. Don’t treat me like a child. I’m not a child.” She looked straight at him, like a small soldier.
Nashara walked over just as John reached out and put a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “I swear he’s alive, Kara. We’re going to go see him as soon as he arrives.” He looked up at the sky. “The League is doing a good job. They’ve stopped the fighting out here, and Jared will be able to come to you soon.”
She stepped back. “Okay.”
But she didn’t l
ook convinced. She turned and walked back up the road toward John’s Brungstun house.
He hadn’t been there in years, but had cleaned it out and given Nashara and Kara rooms.
“She doesn’t believe you,” Nashara said. “She assumes the worst.”
“She’s seen the worst,” John said. “When are you going to be leaving?”
“I’m loving being here, for now. I’d like to stay a little while and relax, unpack everything, you know?”
“The room is there for you as long as you want it.”
This time Nashara grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, things are going to be okay.”
John smiled. “I keep telling myself that.”
And soon enough, he might even start believing it. He turned to go walk back up to his house, leaving Nashara near the shards of glass.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Planets were beautiful, Nashara decided. She spent every day of the next week luxuriating in just trundling around with the mobile unit: walking off into the bush, smelling the mango scent on the wind from John’s backyard trees, and even going down into town to the market despite the stares she got.
And after a week, John started coming out of his shell.
And several days after that, he found her on one of the piers watching the boats bob at anchor in the harbor.
“You ever been sailing?” he asked.
“No.”
So John helped her into small boat that shook alarmingly and creaked. Water sloshed around the bottom.
The wind was brisk, but it didn’t seem to bother John when the whole boat tilted over as they sailed out. Nashara swore and grabbed the mobile unit, in case they got dunked, but he laughed and let one of the ropes out, and the boat leaned back to normal.
They sailed far out past several reefs, to a private sandy beach, where John shouted in surprise as Nashara let herself fall backward and hit the cold, turquoise-clear water.
The Toucan Too was parked several miles away, near a massive clearing outside this small town that perched on the rocks near a natural harbor. Her brain sat inside it, she knew that. It broadcast itself through the mobile unit, and her sensations were sent back to the ship’s lamina by her body, with its Chimson-manufactured implants. It was all an illusion.
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