by Rachel Caine
“Shit,” I said.
“My feelings exactly. I hope you don’t mind that I called Chao-Xing for backup,” Bea added. “I just—you looked like you needed whatever rest you could find. But she’s almost here now.”
I shook my head. “I get you. Xyll was a lot, even before. I’m trying but it’s tough.”
The last time I saw Xyll, the alien looked like nothing more than a sentient spinal column with a small maw full of needle-sharp teeth, still able to eat its way through damn near anything. Not a feature you wanted in something’s baby phase.
“Nadim, how close is the Hopper?” Bea asked.
I scrambled to get dressed as he answered, “Opening for Chao-Xing now.”
My boots were half-on as I ran toward Xyll’s part of the ship. Nadim felt heavy with concern, worry underneath. “Xyll . . . hurts,” he said. “I can feel it radiating from the room.”
“Not healing? Dammit. I was hoping EMITU’s treatments would help.”
“I can’t solve all your problems,” the med bot said, whirring toward me. Bea was following close behind. “Any care I offer this poor creature is experimental at best. The ethics! You’ll cause me to be discredited as a care unit.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a med bot anyway,” I muttered.
“Being kicked out is not the same as choosing to quit.” EMITU sounded huffy.
Bea stepped between us. “Now is not the time. Should we get the doors open or wait for Chao-Xing?”
Nadim said, “We should wait,” at the same time that I answered, “Let’s check on Xyll. EMITU is here, so it should be fine.”
“Are you certain you want to do this?” Nadim asked. He sounded worried. I was too, a little, but that vanished when Chao-Xing came around the corner. Even though she had to be tired, it didn’t show at all. Not a hair out of place, sharp creases in her trousers, not a wrinkle to be seen.
She carried a rifle and had a sidearm in her belt and nodded to us as she approached. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve been trying to talk to it, but it doesn’t want anything to do with me. You’re the chosen one with the Phage cell, it seems.”
I could’ve lived without that honor. Pun intended.
“Ready?” I asked, and Chao-Xing nodded. “Right. Here we go.”
The door opened, and a breath of what I can only describe as hell billowed out. It looked yellow and tasted like a toxic mix of acid and sulfur, and I turned away, coughing and choking. The others were far enough away not to be caught in the killer smog. EMITU rushed forward and I felt a jab in my arm. “Ow!”
“It’s for your own good,” EMITU declared, and rolled backward.
That’s when Xyll—well, the reddish, whippy thing that was Proto-Xyll—came screaming out of the mist, straight for me, and I got a good look at the nightmare teeth that gleamed like stainless steel, and the horrific motion of its slithering, bony tail along the floor as it curled up, and it occurred to me way, way too late that this was a mistake, a fatal and everlasting mistake, as that tail uncoiled like a spring and sent itself hurtling toward me.
Chao-Xing threw herself in front of me in a fiercely protective stance, bringing her weapon up, but the Phage cell was too fast. Xyll latched on to her back like a second bloody skin, tail wrapped around her rib cage, and it dripped a thick, smoky ichor down the back of her uniform.
She was still upright, twitching. My lungs burned from the yellow mist coming off Xyll’s body. No time to hesitate. I shoulder-rolled, slapped my boots on the deck, and launched myself in a flat dive that sent me close to Chao-Xing . . . close enough to grab her pistol on the way, twist, and fire in almost the same motion. Everything seemed syrup-slow, even my heartbeat, and I aimed and fired at the widest point of Xyll’s back where it clung to C-X’s spine. Its head was at the base of her neck. I felt the phantom sensation of what had happened when Xyll went for me last time. I could still feel the weird cold sensation of its presence back there.
EMITU wheeled forward, but Xyll was locked on Chao-Xing and burrowed through her flesh. It squirmed out of sight. The space between this heartbeat and the next, that was how long it took. I dropped my weapon, unable to believe what I’d just witnessed.
Was it killing her from the inside?
“Holy shit.” I couldn’t stop shivering. “Is she dying? What’s Xyll doing in there?”
Nadim touched my mind, but it didn’t feel as warm as usual due to his fear. Bea was crying. I reached for her, unable to see clearly through my own tears. She nestled into my arms as Chao-Xing collapsed as if she’d been struck by lightning. This can’t be happening.
“You flesh-bags make my life so difficult,” the bot said. “I am very cross. Tell me, why do I have to be cross? Why not quadrangular? Or square? Or, heavens, triangular? I feel this is angular chauvinism . . .” Chao-Xing went rigid, and she thrashed like she was having a seizure.
“EMITU! Do something!” I shouted. The med bot injected her with something, then gave her another shot. Nothing seemed to help. “EMITU!”
“I’m administering treatments!”
I felt Bea’s arms wrap around me, but somehow, I was holding her, and Nadim was banging questions at me I couldn’t answer, and I just felt so sick and helpless and sliding toward chaos.
Chao-Xing can’t die. She can’t.
FROM THE PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE OF BACIA ANNONT, SENT TO THE OBORUB COLLECTIVE, ARCHIVED TO THE APOPHIS CLOUD
Four thousand seven hundred and seventy-two years of work, turned to rubble in a handful of moments by Lifekiller. I should have left him where he rested. But how was I to know he would wake, could wake? Or how powerful he could become?
Loss of the Sliver is catastrophic but survivable. I will rebuild in a new place, distant and even more hidden. I always find opportunities and greed to exploit.
My faithful servants accompany me on this journey. For the rest, I will dedicate a monument when convenient. Remaining drones flank me as we flee the battle.
Rich salvage opportunities I leave behind. I remain in possession of the cell samples from Lifekiller, and thus remain powerful; if genetic modifications to my code are possible using this template, I will become even more powerful.
Powerful enough perhaps to devour Lifekiller.
Something to consider.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lost Power
WATCHING AND NOT being able to do anything was the worst. I wasn’t used to feeling so powerless, so unnecessary, and I paced around Ops, torn between charging into Medbay (which EMITU had strictly forbidden) and letting out a primal scream. This was my fault. I’d campaigned to bring Xyll on board. I’d believed the damn thing could be helpful. Everybody, including Chao-Xing, had said I was making a mistake, but I’d been arrogant enough to think I saw potential nobody else could.
And now it had taken my friend and might be killing her from the inside out. Because she’d risked her life to protect me, although I didn’t even like her when we first met. Thought she was an inflexible hard-ass with no sense of humor, but it turned out she was willing to go all in for me. Hot tears started in my eyes again.
The comm beeped, and suddenly I had Marko on screen, ranting at me. “You didn’t think we had enough trouble without exposing Chao-Xing to the Phage you kept as a pet?”
“Hey!” It burst out of me, totally out of control, and I rushed the console and leaned in so he’d get a good, hard look at the anger. “I get it! This is my fault, and she’s paying for it. I know that, and you have no idea how sorry I am. Just shut up and let me think!”
“You thinking is what got us into this!”
“Unless you’ve got something useful to—”
“Get it out of her,” he said grimly. “And kill it. If that’s not possible, then—”
“We’re not touching her. So help me, if you say a single word about destroying the host, I will come over there and slap you so hard that your children will feel it.”
A tiny part of me held out hope, wanting to b
elieve all this could still work out. That we wouldn’t lose our friend, our warrior queen, to something so stupidly random as a creature that was supposed to be a damn ally. If she’d fallen to Lifekiller, at least that would have meant something. This . . . this was no kind of way for someone like her to go out.
“This is such bullshit. I’m the one who called Chao-Xing over. Zara was asleep! How about you fight with me instead?” Bea shouted back at him, and I touched her shoulder in appreciation before I did what I should have already done: I cut the connection.
Marko tried to reconnect. I blocked him.
Right then, Starcurrent came into the command center, tentacles fluttering; judging from the mix of colors that came and went, ze was very anxious and not sure what to do. We were rowing the same boat. I lifted a hand in greeting but addressed my next words to Nadim.
“No more calls from Typhon until we know what’s going on; he’s bound to react badly to what’s happening right now, and we can’t afford that,” I said. “Do we have any data at all, from any source, about what’s happening with Xyll? Knowing why it went in might help.” I couldn’t articulate the fear that it might be devouring C-X.
“The Bruqvisz may have something,” Nadim said. “They collect stories and myths. Our data on the Phage is less than accurate.”
I called up Suncross, got Ghostwalk—Suncross was presumably resting or passed out somewhere—and Ghostwalk immediately said, “Yes, we have many stories. Not all about the swarms. Shall I send?”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”
The compendium he sent was, well, extensive would be a good word. No way would I have the time to pore over all of that, especially since it was (unsurprisingly) written in a language that I didn’t comprehend. “This is great, but . . . Nadim? Can you translate for me?”
“Yes,” he said. “It might take a little time. Shall I let you know when it’s done?”
“Yes, please.” I pushed back from the console with a frustrated growl. “I’ll be in the combat sims. I need somewhere to put all this—”
“Rage?” Bea finished. “Yes, I can feel it, and so can Nadim. Go get rid of it.”
I nodded and jogged for the holo room, fast as I could move.
For nearly an hour I killed things, punched things, kicked things; I made sure every damn one of them was a simulacrum of a Phage, and I fought with weapons, barehanded, every way I possibly could.
And then I punched something that felt slightly different. More real. And I realized that without me seeing it, someone had entered my sim.
Marko.
He grabbed me and shoved me back, and all of a sudden, we were on. I swung for him, he blocked and sent a mule kick that should have shoved me through the wall, only I dodged it and he staggered, off-balance. I landed a roundhouse kick to his side, and he rolled and came up fluid as a tiger.
“Hey!” I checked him with an outstretched palm, though I was ready for it not to work. “You need to back right the hell off, now.”
“No. You’ve been a force for chaos since you came on board Nadim,” he said. “You took a sweet, innocent ship and turned him into—”
“What?” Nadim’s voice suddenly came from the walls, and it sounded surer, more mature than I’d imagined he could. “An adult, capable of making my own decisions? I’ve grown, Marko. You refused any deeper relationship with me, and I will not have you pretend you were the guardian of my innocence—which could also be called ignorance. Zara is right for me, now and always. And you have no right to judge her. You never challenged me, never taught me, never made me better. She has.”
“Better?” The bitterness in Marko’s voice was kind of sad. “You’re out of control, Nadim. She’s done that.”
“I am more in control than I have ever been. I no longer live by the rules of the Elders, or the Honors; I decide for myself, and with my true-bonded crew. I am autonomous. And you are still shackled to a system of rules that you can’t reconcile.” Nadim’s voice softened. “I know you are worried for Chao-Xing. I am too, and so is Zara. But you are with friends, Marko. Always. Let yourself accept that the lies no longer rule you, and you’ll find your own peace.”
Exactly when did our beautiful ship get so wise? He’d always been loving and caring, but this was deeper. A cutting kind of compassion like a surgeon’s knife.
Marko wavered, and then sagged back against the wall with his hands dangling at his sides. I relaxed my stance. A little. “It’s . . . Chao-Xing shouldn’t be hurt like this. She was born for this, and I . . . wasn’t. I’m not enough. Typhon accepted me because of her, and I can’t be more. I’ve tried. And I can’t go home; I accepted the Journey and it’s for life.”
“Screw the rules,” I said. “Look, do I have to tattoo that on your damn forehead in reverse, so you see it in mirrors? If you want to go home, go home. Tell them the truth. Get it out on every feed around the world; you know they’ll be sticking camera drones in your face the second you land. Tell them everything and let people decide for themselves what place Earth has in all this shit. That would be a thing Chao-Xing would approve of.”
All the starch went out of him with that, like he’d never even considered going home as anything like a real possibility. And I saw the naked want in his eyes. He was good at this, but he didn’t feel it like I did. And you had to feel it to be here for the rest of your life.
I went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Nothing too sentimental, a friend’s gesture. He wasn’t in the hugging mood, and neither was I.
Nadim’s voice broke it up when he said, “Zara? EMITU wishes you to go to Medbay. Marko as well.”
Oh, that didn’t sound so good.
I could tell when we were at the Medbay doors that Marko felt reluctant to go in. I felt it too, and from the look she sent me, so did Bea. Couldn’t tell what Starcurrent thought, but ze was rippling those face-fronds a lot and strobing colors I didn’t think were exactly content. On impulse, I grabbed Bea’s hand and offered my other to Marko. He took it.
Then we walked in to find out what EMITU had to tell us.
The bot spun toward us and accelerated like he meant to run us down. “You must decide!” EMITU sounded super agitated, which was exactly what I didn’t want in a med bot. Or anyone with that many sharp instruments on their appendages. “Shall I put her out of her misery, or—”
“No!” we all said, as if we’d actually organized it. I continued, full speed ahead. “Don’t you even think about it, you scrap heap!”
“That’s hurtful,” EMITU said. “I only asked because I’m about to bring her out of sedation, and when I do, she’s going to scream. A lot. But as far as I can tell she will survive.”
As the med unit went to work on Chao-Xing, I stood by the door, feeling just as helpless as I had before I fought Marko in the combat sim. I felt Marko behind me, standing with Bea, but I only had eyes for EMITU and his patient. I didn’t know when it had happened, but at some point, Chao-Xing had started mattering to me. Friend, yeah, but she was more, a mentor too, someone whose good opinion I craved.
The needle attached to EMITU’s extensor sank into Chao-Xing’s arm. As promised, a shriek escaped her, and her body contorted.
I took a step forward, then turned away. “Nadim, are you finding anything useful in the files Ghostwalk sent?”
“I’m analyzing, Zara. So far, nothing seems applicable to our situation.” He sounded tense and worried. Felt that way too, though I’d lessened our bond to keep my anxiety from affecting him.
“Status?” I asked the bot. “I mean, take some scans. Find out what the hell Xyllarva is doing in there.”
“On it, Zara.”
I still wasn’t used to this robot calling my name, but I took it as a sign that I wasn’t pissing him off. He ran the tests and clicked over the results. It took all my self-control not to pace. I was watching Marko, trying to see if he was going to lose it—and if he did, what I was willing to do to stop him. “EMITU?”
“Don’t
rush me,” he snapped, but then he was done in a matter of seconds. “I have good news and bad news. Which do you prefer first?”
Bea answered for us, squeezing my hand. “Good. It will bolster us for the bad.”
Marko put a hand on my shoulder, not bracing me, but more like holding on because the ground might suddenly tilt beneath his feet.
“Xyllarva is not eating Chao-Xing or laying eggs inside her.”
“Okay, whew. That is good.” I started to smile, but EMITU whirred his extensors, telling me silently not to get too excited, a cautionary gesture. “Sorry, go on.”
The med bot added, “Xyllarva has latched on to her cerebellum and twined around her spinal cord. Surgical removal would certainly kill her. The Phage are resistant to most toxins, so anything strong enough to eradicate it would—”
“Also kill Chao-Xing,” Marko finished.
“You’re putting words in my mouth, but yes,” EMITU said. “For the host to survive, the symbiote must thrive. Congratulations, a fascinating hybrid has been created. Huzzah! Now please remove your distracting emotions from my office. I must conduct more tests and find out how I can save this new species.”
“She’s an infected human!” Marko spat. “Not a new—”
“Zara, escort him out or I’ll tranq him.”
Figuring this wouldn’t go anywhere good, I grabbed Marko’s arm and Bea helped me haul him out of Medbay. He fought then, nearly smacking Bea in the eye, and neither Nadim nor I was having that.
“Stand down,” Nadim thundered, sounding like Typhon on a bad day.
Marko paused in shock, and I wrenched his arm behind his back and smashed him face first into the wall. “This doesn’t help Chao-Xing. You think she’d call this a good look?”
He finally shook his head.
“Going to behave yourself?”
When his shoulders slumped, I felt the fight go out of him, if not the deep underlying anger. Marko nodded, and though I didn’t altogether trust his answer, I let him loose.