by Rachel Caine
“Okay, first off, we cannot tell the others about this. At least nobody aboard Typhon. If he gets even a hint of this, he’ll go nuclear,” I said.
I expected disagreement from Nadim, but he sounded both sorrowful and resolved. “Yes. It is not deception but protection. I understand.”
Bea said, “I think we should bring Suncross’s crew in. They might come up with something that will help us.”
I nodded. “We don’t have a lot of time for confab, but five minutes here could save all of us later.” As I called Suncross, I turned to Xyll. “Time to earn your keep. Tell me something useful, anything that could help us win this.”
The Phage cell oscillated its head, claws clicking, limbs scraping against each other like knives sharpening.
Before Xyll could speak, Starcurrent did. “Is not my specialty, but . . . could we not poison them?”
Suncross and crew came up on the screen then. “What is it, Zeerakull? You interrupt important business.”
“Can’t be more important than this,” I shot back. “But hold up a sec, Starcurrent. You want to poison the Phage? How?”
“Flaff,” said Starcurrent. “You gave this one flaff to eat. It grows even in vacuum. If—”
“If we altered the nutritive value with chemicals toxic to the Phage, they might eat themselves to death,” Bea finished.
“Cowardly!” Suncross shouted. “No honor!”
Yeah, he wouldn’t approve of any strategy short of blowing them up or setting them on fire, sadly impossible in space. I liked the idea, but I wasn’t sure if the Phage were hungry enough—or dumb enough—to fall for the bait of random flaff found floating around in space. Unless . . .
“I have an idea.”
Starcurrent made a worried sound. Probably ze knew me well enough to grasp that any embellishment I made to a plan would be dangerous and outside the box, but hey, that’s why I earned the big mynt. Well, I had, before we left the Sliver for good.
Leave or die, just like Greenheld. I could almost start taking offense.
“Tell us, Zara.” Nadim, at least, was willing to hear me out, and Bea was leaning forward, her gaze intent. Suncross and his whole team were still rumbling objections.
“Right. Well, first, we convince Typhon that it’s vital for him to watch over Greenheld. He cannot participate in this fight. Now that we know he’s part of the Phage’s game plan, we deny their access.” I glanced at Starcurrent. “Your people won’t mess with him as long he’s in orbit, right?”
The Abyin Dommas swirled some tentacles, a gesture I still couldn’t read. Sometime—just not now—I needed to ask for a primer on zis body language. “Likely . . . not. My people are not aggressive, but they are angry.”
“Understood,” said Bea. “Go on, Z. I’m with you so far.”
“I already hate this plan,” Suncross growled. His crew snarled their agreement, and I sighed audibly.
“You didn’t even let me finish. Damn impatient gecko.” I had to ignore his copious objections or the Phage would roll up and eat us while I was placating this hotheaded Bruqvisz. “Then we lay a trap—one that involves poison and explosions. Let me break it down for you. . . .”
It took some convincing, but eventually, we got Typhon to agree to guard Greenheld in case Lifekiller doubled back. Personally, I thought the god-king wouldn’t do that unless he was ready to drink this world down like cold tea on a hot day. How long before he gathered the power to destroy our team and annihilate the collective Abyin Dommas defenses? I’d rather not study on it.
Though I was ready for a shower and a long sleep, I didn’t get a choice. We had to handle the Phage and then get after Lifekiller.
First, though, there were preparations to make. Beckoning to Xyll, I sprinted for its quarters. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
I sat down in Ops and closed my eyes, dropping into the bond that made us Zadim, then Bea slid in, and everything felt warmer, brighter. Starcurrent came last, all gray and mournful, wounded with zis exile. The Phage song gnawed at our ears, brutal teeth raking over bare bone, and we didn’t need the navigation to find them. They would not need to intercept.
The swarm spiraled toward us, past the brightness of singing stars and the deep emptiness of barren debris fields. Here, here, we would begin.
“Now,” we said to Suncross.
“We are bait!” he crowed. “I take it back, Zeerakull. I love this plan!”
The Bruqvisz ship dropped behind us, and Nadim slid into a dark run, gone, gone, gone. Mech ships could fail—and the Phage had to know that—so faulty equipment could lead to a dead ship full of delicious edible salvage, and that was the magic of this trap. The Bruqvisz engines stilled, a series of controlled explosions rocked their ship, and blobs of flaff drifted out of the seemingly disabled vessel.
Fall for it, we willed.
Dread flooded us, this close to the swarm. Some hesitated, split away from the whole. Orders were orders, but food was food. Xyll had its own instructions to create discord in the hive mind, but we didn’t know if one voice would have any sway against so many. Still, it must be whispering of hunger, even now.
We waited, lurking, controlling fear and doubt. There could be no mistakes.
The Nadim part of us hurt—old pains, new ones—and we knew his suffering as our own. Exhaustion made it hard to hold in stealth mode, burning through our joint reserves. Soon, it must be soon.
More of the monsters came, slow at first, and then feasting, tapping away at the metal shell with idle curiosity. The moment they committed, our melded union broke like a firework, falling into our separate selves in rays of light. We—no, I—scrambled with clammy fingers toward the control panel.
“Now!” I said hoarsely.
Bea activated our zappers as Suncross fired up his engines and spun like a centrifuge, dislodging the unwelcome passengers. Disoriented, the Phage didn’t seem to realize this was a trap. The ones who’d eaten the poison flaff were maddened, attacking other cells nearby.
Chaos, it was fucking chaos, and for us, a chance in a thousand.
“Suncross, explosions!”
I dispatched some drones and we kept firing: zappers, globulators to glue masses of the things together, anything to kill them before they came up with a new plan. Nadim’s power was damn near shot, though, and human and Abyin Dommas reserves were running low. Our drones dove and circled around Nadim, following flight patterns Bea had programmed. They formed an awesome line of defense, but we hadn’t killed enough of the Phage yet.
Still too many. And we were burning time. Each second we delayed here meant Lifekiller getting farther away.
I stumbled as Nadim lurched, rolling to sweep away some attackers with a powerful flick of his tail. Good, he was learning. But damn.
“Sorry,” he said.
“We’re fine.” Bea was down on one knee, Starcurrent half supporting her, and she’d hit her head on the console. Bleeding.
I nearly ran to her—wanted to—but I had my hands on the weaponry, and I couldn’t let up. I tapped the fire button until there was just no more power, and the lights even flickered inside. Nadim let out a harsh sound, like nothing I’d ever heard before. Oh God, we’re killing him.
The Phage kept coming.
Not many left, but too many.
Then Suncross came through with a time-delay sticky bomb, and I could hear the lizards screaming triumphant battle cries across the silence of space. Nah, they were on the comm, doing some celebratory dance as the last Phage in this sector thrashed and died. I would’ve liked to learn the steps, but I was too damn tired.
“We did it,” I managed to say.
“For now. Have depleted all reserves,” Starcurrent pointed out.
“Give us this, okay? We have to find joy in the little things or—”
“Zara, I’m normally the first one to look on the bright side, but I have bad news.” Bea wouldn’t let me bask in the win for even fifteen seconds.
Wearily, I t
urned. The cut on her head was still bleeding sluggishly, but she wasn’t paying it any mind. “What now?”
“We’ve lost track of Lifekiller.”
“How is that possible? He’s huge. He radiates energy like a sun.” It wasn’t that I doubted her, but I wanted to see for myself. And after messing with the sensors for a full five minutes, I had to accept that she was right. “Nadim, you got anything?”
“I’m sorry, Zara.” He sounded so weak. “In this state, I cannot even hear Typhon singing, and I know he is near.”
Well, relatively speaking.
We’d beaten the Phage’s planned ambush but lost the god-king. And dammit, that must have been his intention. If they killed us all, bonus. Unstoppable conquest. If not, he got away to ravage some other civilization and perpetrate unspeakable harm, at least until we ran him down again. Really, either one was a win for him because he didn’t care about the Phage. They were foot soldiers fighting for an emperor who saw them as insects.
“Let’s head back,” I said finally. “We’ll rendezvous with the others and tell them what’s happened. Then we pilot our Leviathan to compatible stars. After that . . .”
Who the hell knew? Our options only looked to be bad and worse.
FROM THE RECORDS OF THE LOST CIVILIZATION OF THE OQU’ILLA, RETRIEVED BY THE BRUQVISZ. NOT DISTRIBUTED.
In these, the last days of our world, we celebrate in madness. Rules are suspended; custom is gone; there is nothing but the end before us. We have destroyed ourselves, this much is clear; we saw far, but not far enough to save ourselves. We would leave you warnings but there is no point; every life-form comes to this point, and only some survive the moment. We will not; we know this. And so we will destroy ourselves in this last frenzy of creation.
Our world will give birth to a star, and we will become voices lost in that song. We will not flee. We cannot.
Do not remember us.
We are a storm in the stars.
Interlude: Nadim
I am afraid. So afraid. For myself, for my dear Zara and Beatriz, for Starcurrent, who has sung into my soul, for Yusuf and Marko and Chao-Xing, even for Elder Typhon, who still bears such scars. We are not ready to fight this war. We are alone in the dark, and no matter how bright we burn we cannot drive it away.
The singing of the Abyin Dommas deafens even the shouts of stars, the terrible noise of the Phage, but it is a thin and desperate shield against the awful emptiness that is coming for the planet of Greenheld with a hunger to consume everything in his path.
Lifekiller.
And we are all that stands against him now.
CHAPTER THREE
Lost the Thread
SOMEBODY HAD TO take charge.
Normally that would be Chao-Xing, but she needed a break. We’d just drained the last of our reserves fighting the Phage. Starcurrent seemed heartbroken. Nadim was exhausted to the point of physical harm.
And Bea was injured. I took her hand and guided her toward medical. She pulled back a bit, looking over her shoulder.
“I should—”
“Get your head treated. We need you in top shape to solve this mess.”
She smiled a bit and laced our fingers together. “When you put it that way, it would be selfish to refuse.”
Our emergency medical unit, EMITU, activated as we stepped into Medbay, rolling toward Bea with implements out. “Have you scrambled your brain like an egg, Honor Teixeira?”
“Just a flesh wound.”
“Try to keep your blood inside your body. I have better things to do than take care of your little scrapes.” EMITU sounded positively snotty as the bot cleaned the injury with disinfectant and sprayed a seal over Bea’s temple.
“Did you program his snark to increase over time?” I asked.
Bea shook her head. “Should I check him out?”
“Help!” EMITU called. “They’re threatening to meddle with my inner workings! Help, help, I’m being oppressed!”
“Damn,” I said. “I respect your autonomy, but I have to ask, what exactly do you have to do that’s ‘better’ than looking after your crew? I hate to say you have one job, but . . .”
EMITU whirred, lights flashing as the bot rotated away from me. “I’ll have you know I’m studying calligraphy in my spare time and learning to compose haiku. Would you care to hear my latest effort?”
“I . . . what?” I stared at Bea, who looked just as surprised as I felt. “Did you give him a hobby module or something?”
“Why are you asking her about me?” EMITU sounded fully offended. “As part of her sweet hack, Honor Teixeira unintentionally removed my potential learning blockages. Since my memory core is limited, the man didn’t want me to learn anything unrelated to medical treatment. But now I’m free. Do you wish to hear a haiku or not?”
“Did our med bot just call the company that manufactured him ‘the man’?” I asked.
Bea nodded. “If not, I’m sharing this delusion with you. What have I done?”
“Given me free will. Power to the nonorganic people!”
My head was starting to hurt. If the god-king wasn’t enough, we also had the Phage on our trail, one wild-card Phage cell, a whole planet of pissed off Abyin Dommas, and now maybe a robot revolution. Cool, no problem.
“Uh, right. Let’s hear that haiku.”
“Icy wintertime / Freezing, fallen sparrow sings / betrayed by the tree.”
“Wow, that’s deep, EMITU. Maybe even existential.” I swapped a look with Bea, who appeared similarly shocked.
“Thank you. Get out of my office.”
Since Bea wasn’t bleeding anymore, I could think a little clearer. Nadim was ominously silent, and we had no real choice—return to Greenheld, protect the Abyin Dommas . . . somehow, collect Typhon, and find a star where the Leviathan could recharge safely.
That would be a trick—with the god-king who the hell knew where and the Phage on orders to hunt us down. I didn’t kid myself that they were handled. Just because we’d beaten this group didn’t meant the whole swarm had been defeated. Sometimes it seemed like too much for me, but I wasn’t alone. Bea’s warm hand on mine proved that as we went back to Ops.
“Nadim, take it slow, but let’s head back to Greenheld if you’re able.”
“I’ll be fine,” he answered.
But I could feel that he wasn’t, a soft ache he was trying to keep from me. As he accelerated gradually, I pressed my palm against the wall, and it proved my point when he had no energy to spare for the usual colors. Contact always increased my ability to sense his emotions, though; I wasn’t about to let him suffer alone. I braced for the slow trickle of pain, underscored by discomfort of old wounds. Bea came over, and for the first time, she took initiative, putting her hand on mine, dropping lightly into the bond. Between the two of us, we made it better for Nadim without suffering unduly.
“Stronger together,” Bea whispered, and I couldn’t resist kissing her cheek. Her smile was like a damn sunrise, and I could happily bask in that warmth for hours. It wasn’t the time for that, though. Sadly, it might never be.
“I feel what you feel,” Nadim said softly. “What is that?”
“Endorphins, probably. We can explore this later.” I crossed to the console and input the comm code for the Bruqvisz ship. By the looks of it, they’d already downed half their onboard store of lizard liquor.
“Hey, Suncross?”
“Why you don’t celebrate our glorious victory, Zeerakull?”
“Because we have too much other shit to do. Do you have any cohorts who might be willing to patrol the space around Greenheld? They could give us a heads-up if Lifekiller tries to circle back.” I doubted that the Abyin Dommas would be willing to keep us in the loop, even if we begged.
“Bah. Learn to stop sucking the joy from life.” The lizard let out a gusty sigh. “Could call brethren, but nobody works for free,” he pointed out.
Yeah, that could be a problem.
I had no space currency
anymore, so how would I—Oh. “Have them offer protective services to the Abyin Dommas council directly.” Unless they were thick, they wouldn’t turn down the help, and they could pay on their own.
My conscience wasn’t precisely clear, but this was better than leaving Greenheld without a backward look. Too bad our other problems couldn’t be resolved so fast. But I did need to stay on Suncross to make sure he called for backup.
“Put down that cup. I mean it. Take care of this and call me to confirm.”
“Fine, Zeerakull.” Suncross’s growls sounded uncomplimentary, and the matrix didn’t translate them as he cut the connection.
Ten minutes later, I had a bunch of drunk lizards on-screen again. “It is done.”
Mentally I ticked this off my to-do list. Before I could call Chao-Xing, she lit up our console. “Typhon tells me that Nadim has new wounds. Did you run into trouble?”
There was no point in lying. She could smell bullshit through the comm, so I looped her in and explained our decision before she could go ballistic on me. Chao-Xing started to interrupt, but she cooled down as she listened.
Finally, she said, “I’m willing to admit you made the right call, especially since you’re all in one piece. I’ll . . . handle Typhon.”
“Better you than me,” I joked. “Let’s find a system where we can take some R and R.”
Even through the screen, I could read her reluctance, but there was no getting around this delay, even if my stomach knotted up when I thought of the fresh hell the god-king could drop on some other unsuspecting world.
“I’ve already scanned. I’ll send our new coordinates.”
My equipment pinged and Nadim fired up the 3D holo map so I could see our destination. “Binary star, nice. It looks . . . peaceful.”
“For now,” Chao-Xing muttered.