“Maybe you should open with that next time,” said Nate.
“Run,” said Grace, again. Her eyes flicked sideways, Nate figuring on her checking her HUD. “We’ve got just over five minutes.”
“Until what?” said Kohl.
“Until we blow a chunk out of the moon.”
“Fuck,” said Kohl, but Nate was already running. Or as running as you could in lower gravity, big loping strides taking him back the way they’d come. He held his sword in his metal hand, blaster in his right, and hoped to see stars again before he died.
• • •
Kohl had a hand on his back, pushing him forward. He glimpsed the big man’s grin through his visor. “No slowing now, Cap.”
“Go,” said Nate. “Get on.”
“Hell no,” said Kohl. “Gracie’ll have my dick on a spit.”
“Asshole,” said Grace, over the comm.
“Leave me,” said Nate. “That’s an order, Kohl. Get Grace out.”
“I’m gonna have to disagree on that particular point,” said Kohl. “You can yell at me later.”
And they were running again, chalky walls streaking past.
• • •
30 seconds. Starlight. His breath harsh in his ears, throat burning. A flash of Grace Gushiken on his left. Kohl’s strong grip — damn that armor is good, I’ll have to get me some — propelling him forward.
29.
“Tyche!” Nate gasped it out. “We’re clear!”
26.
A scramble up the inline of the maw, an exit from the ant farm. Darkness around.
25.
The maw opening up, ejecting them. Moon dust hanging around them, clouding his visor. Lights from his suit, tiny in the hard black.
24.
Ships overhead. Missiles and fire. Lasers turning Ezeroc fighters to molten rock in space.
23.
“This is the Tyche. We are on approach.” El’s voice. Calm. Nate could picture her hands on the controls, steady as a rock.
22.
“How long?” he gasped.
“Ten seconds.”
21.
He looked at Grace. She shook her head. Kohl helped him reach the lip of the pit, the dark of the moon pushed back by the lights of his armor. A final show of humanity against the dark.
18.
“You should … go,” said Nate, over the comm. “Get out, El. Ain’t no way, no how you can get clear in time.”
15.
A ship, scudding low over the moon’s surface. Inbound, hard approach. Drives burning bright.
14.
The ship cut its drives, giving him a brief glimpse of a cockpit’s glow, then it was spinning in space. The Tyche, come to get her crew.
12.
Skids on the deck. An airlock open. Hands helping them inside — Chad, for Christ’s sake, it was Chad with his stupid name and his stupid boss.
7.
“Go! Helm, we are inside. Go!”
5.
The hard push of the Tyche’s engines. They slammed him against the wall of the airlock. Grace’s helmet slamming against the wall next to his, Kohl and Chad tumbling on top. A crack over the comm as something broke — a seal, a bone, hard to tell.
3.
The ship was shaking with the fury of their ascent. Nate had never felt the Tyche burn so hot.
2.
Something in the superstructure above him groaned. It sounded like the end of the world.
1.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“HOPE, I NEED you to make sure that reactor holds, you hear me?” El was looking at the holo stage, the landing party’s beacons the only bright points against the moon’s surface. Ten seconds. Ten seconds was bullshit.
“She’ll hold,” said Hope’s voice. “It’s the hull I’m worried about.”
“You should … go,” said Nate, over the comm. “Get out, El. Ain’t no way, no how you can get clear in time.”
El clicked off the comm. Wasn’t time to worry about that now. Captain was out there. So was Grace and Kohl. It’d be all of them, or none of them. She opened a line to Chad. “You good?”
“Suits on. I’m good. I’ll get them, Helm.”
“You better,” she said. She saw them now on visual, Kohl’s ridiculous armor like a landing beacon. El cut the thrust, spinning the ship around, the moon’s tiny gravity nothing. She toggled the Endless field, a tiny bit of extra mass dropping them like a stone. The skids hit with a clang that made her teeth hurt.
Her hands moved like restless mice over the controls. C’mon Nate. C’mon. Get inside.
“Go! Helm, we are inside. Go!”
El slammed her hand down on the throttle, pushing it to the stops. The ship roared, moon dust billowing out in every direction. She had a counter up on the holo stage, a part of her attention never far from it.
5.
More. I need more. “Hope!”
“She’s at the red!”
“HOPE!” screamed El.
3.
The ship shuddered, a few hidden joules coming through from the Ravana’s heart. Something groaned behind her, the structure of the ship shaking apart. Alarms on the holo lit, warnings meant for a different pilot. Meant for a pilot who wanted to save her own skin.
2.
Not this pilot.
1.
• • •
A moment of bright, bright light. A new sun, blooming under the crust of the moon. The interior of the flight deck was cast for a tiny slice of time in nothing but pure, pure white. All details, the corner of the console, the edges of the holo stage, Els’ hands, were bleached to the same uniform, brilliant purity. The Tyche’s cockpit dimmed as fast as her old tech would allow, snapping down protective filters.
The blast wave hit a moment later. El had a moment to think, this shit never ends, and then another moment to think, that doesn’t mean I want it to end right now. Then the hand of a titan of old grabbed the hull, turned the Tyche like a toy ship spun in a tornado. The holo stage’s alarms entered what looked like an endless cascade, the chair at El’s back hitting her hard as the ship bucked.
The Goddess of Luck went head to head with Ares.
El’s hands found the sticks. They were in a spin, and they needed to not spin. Moon rock and debris rattled against the outside of the hull, and through the now clear windscreen El saw a piece of stone as large as the Tyche herself flung past. It wouldn’t have been more than five meters away. And then it was gone, hurled off into space. If anything like that hit them, they wouldn’t even feel it.
She worked the controls, trying to get the Tyche to respond. She felt the ship trying, fighting with her, not against her. The spin slowed, turning into a tumble. El didn’t feel quite so much like throwing up her last meal anymore. Something in the ship’s systems gave out, the drives stuttering to silence, and she realized she could play with the controls all she wanted: she was using nothing but dead sticks.
A moment later, all lights in the flight deck died. The holo stage went out. Her console gave out.
They were drifting.
The burst of flight they’d had was enough to push them out from the moon’s shadow. The dark disk of the moon felt like it was pulling away above her. A glowing crater marred the surface, angry red against the rest of the cold rock. Earth, in its beautiful greens and blues, came into view. She could see with the naked eye the massive bulk of the Defiance, fire pouring from three locations she could see. The Torrington still flew, but one of her drives was down, dark. Her movements were more of a limp. Of the Confidence there was no sign at all, and the dead Lucidity still floated alone in the dark.
El ran a tired hand through her hair. She wanted to stretch but there was no gravity. They were floating, a leaf on the wind. She keyed her suit’s comm. “Hope?”
“El.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m … okay,” said the Engineer.
El thought for a second. “Didn’t I promise you a Vikin
g funeral?”
“You did,” said Hope. “You did.”
“What now?” said El.
“I think we get drunk,” said Hope. “That’s what the Vikings did.”
“I mean, now,” said El.
“Reactor’s fried,” said Hope.
“Okay,” said El. She almost turned off the comm, then said, “You wanna come to the flight deck?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s beautiful,” said El.
• • •
Why it was beautiful was hard to put into words. It might have been that they’d won. The remaining human ships were the victors. Ezeroc fighters, without the commanding intelligence of their hive Queen, ceased to navigate, becoming plain ol’ ballistic rocks. The Torrington and the Defiance engaged in a mop-up, shooting some down, leaving the smaller ones to the Defiance’s remaining fighters.
It could also have been beautiful because of what El could imagine down on Earth: confusion. Men in black, in meeting rooms or halls of power or in black ops, just toppling over. Stopping like a broken clock.
Hope joined her on the flight deck, her hand over hand motion taking her to the captain’s chair. She belted herself in. El turned to look at the Engineer, her pink hair floating free of her face. And she thought, it might be beautiful because we are with our family. Live or die, they’d done what they set out to do, and they hadn’t killed each other. They’d made a Republic used to ruling ease up the boot, reach out a hand of compromise. Backs to the wall, humans helped each other. The turning on each other, the blaming, the hunt for scapegoats, would all come later.
El looked back out the window. She saw mother Earth above them, that beautiful, clean, blue-green disc. It might be beautiful because it stops the heart and frees the soul.
It was enough.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“I GUESS I want to know where we stand,” said Nate. He held his cup of coffee in hands that shook if they didn’t grip tight enough. Yeah, even the metal one.
Karkoski looked tired, worn thin, but her back was still straight. Nate noted she held her own coffee just as hard. “You mean whether I’ll let you fly out of here.” They were in the officer’s mess of the Torrington, which made a step up from the last small room Nate had been in on this ship. Karkoski had told everyone else to leave, including her usual impassive Marine escort.
“Hell, no,” said Nate. “Of course you’ll let me fly out of here. And you’ll fix my ship first.”
“I am?” Karkoski frowned. “That seems a stretch of reason. Biggest haul of my career. You’ve got a boatload of enemies of the Republic. Your ship is bolted to the side of mine, and your reactor’s dead. Fish in a barrel.”
Grace leaned forward. “But you are, Karkoski. You know why?”
“Fill me in,” said Karkoski. But she looked interested. She looked like every time she listened to Nate or Grace, things went her way.
“You need us,” said Grace.
Some doubt clouded Karkoski’s face. “I. Need you.”
“Sure,” said Nate, hand on Grace’s arm. “We have the only force of people capable of fighting the Ezeroc. You and I both know conscripted soldiers don’t work as well as the ones who fight for truth. Love. Their homes. Shit like that.” He waved a tired hand in the air. “But there’s a more important reason. This isn’t about your career anymore, Karkoski. This is about us. All of us. Humans. Against the biggest threat we’ve ever seen. It’s not about the Empire, or the Republic. There ain’t no Resistance, Karkoski. All of us are monsters. Criminals. Pirates. Thieves and liars. But we need each other. We need each other or we’re all going to die.”
“Imagining for a second I can just let you go,” said Karkoski, “with all these witnesses.” She was referring to the Defiance, a watchful distance away in space. Or maybe she meant all the witnesses down on Earth. There were a lot of eyes, a lot of holos. A lot of talk, in the wake of the battle. Of alien invaders and subverted leadership. Confidence in the Republic had to be at rock bottom about now. “Where would you go?”
“Depends,” said Nate.
“On what?” said Karkoski.
Grace leaned forward again. “Use your imagination, Karkoski. We’re a merchant vessel. A free trader. Our Guild permits are in order. You’ve used us for dirty work before. But now? You need someone small. Quiet. To go in the dark spaces where you can’t take a ship like the Torrington. Where something like the Torrington will be seen. By alien eyes.”
“You want me to send you to fight the bugs,” said Karkoski.
“Hell, no,” said Nate, again. “Ain’t no way a ship like the Tyche’s got that kind of fight in her. She’s got heart. She’ll fly into the storm if we ask her to. But no. We’ll find them, Karkoski. We’ll make our Endless jumps until we track them down.”
“Then what?”
“Then we call you,” said Nate. “When we’ve found the heart of the enemy.” His hands clenched on his cup. “We’ll strike ’em down. They brought war to us. Made us hate each other. We’ll return the favor. We’ll teach them fear.”
“And the Intelligencers?” Karkoski looked like she was panning for gold in a dried-up riverbed.
“Believe me, I want to execute them for what they’ve done. But, uh. We’re taking them too. They’re going to, uh.” Nate frowned, turning to Grace for help.
“They’ll work for humanity,” said Grace. “Just like they did today. We’ll build a specialist team. One that can shield our ships. Fight the bugs. Mind to mind.”
“You’re going to let them escape,” said Karkoski.
“It didn’t sit right with me letting those assholes go,” said Nate, “until Grace explained it. This way, we’ll know where they all are. And … hell. I guess we need ’em. Fighting mind insects? We need a little magic of our own, Karkoski.”
“A little black magic,” she said. “Can we trust them?”
“Chad, maybe,” said Nate. “Amedea, not so much. I think those two are in charge of the rest. Anyway. After we put ’em down, the Tyche will go after the bugs.”
“You’ll never make it,” said Karkoski. “Everything we know about them says they’ve torched every world they’ve laid a claw on.” She sighed. “I’ve read what reports there are.”
“Then what have you got to lose?” said Nate. “For the next few weeks or months or however long it’ll be, you’ll be up to your medals in politics. Working out who’s in charge, who can be trusted. And you know what? You’ve got one group of people who can be trusted. One group of people who’ve never cheated or stolen from you. You’ve got us.”
Karkoski thought about that for a long time. Then she said, “Yes, I do.” She put her cup between them, stood up, and turned. Stopped herself. “Captain?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s always nice to have friends, don’t you think?” And then she left.
• • •
Grace had followed him back to the Tyche. Back through the cargo bay, around sprawled and tired espers. Hands of thanks, a touch here and there. Nate wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. They’d done it. And — he cast a glance at Grace — they’d done it together.
They clambered up the ladder to the crew deck. Nate stopped in front of the door to his cabin. A shower. Clean clothes. Food.
“We’ve got a little time,” said Grace, her lips next to his ear. He felt the whisper of her breath against his neck. Nate had imagined those lips against his, just as he’d imagined her lithe body against him.
He turned, thoughts of food gone like a wisp of fantasy. Nate saw his own yearning reflected in her eyes, and caught a little of his own vulnerability there too. Two people gone through life the hard way. He raised a hand to touch her hair. Then her face, his fingers trailing down her cheekbones to touch her lips. Lips he wanted to kiss again more than he’d wanted anything before. Nate realized he was touching her with his metal fingers, and jerked them away like he’d been burned.
She reached out for his hand, laced her f
lesh fingers through his golden ones, and brought them back to her face. “Here,” she said, putting his fingers back on her lips. She lowered his fingers to her throat. “Here.” She guided his fingers lower, metal fingers tracing her shoulders. “Here.” She let go, and he continued to trace his fingers further down her body. Past her breasts, a shiver coming from her at the touch, her eyes widening as her lips opened in a gasp. To her hips, where he pulled her close. She curved against him, their lips meeting. He could taste the sweat on her, smell the animal underneath the cultivated exterior. She smelled of her ship suit and battle, a primal scent that made him want to growl. Nate had figured on a shower moments ago, but she was just as dirty as he was. He found her sexier for it, the raw Grace Gushiken, the woman who’d fought at his side like a dancer. Like a demon. Like the beauty of the dawn. He’d never wanted anyone this much. He felt hot and alive. And hungry.
Nate reached behind him, pressing the door open controls. Her hands were on him, tracing down his chest, tugging his shirt out of his pants. He felt his skin react with a shiver as her fingers traced their way down the hard lines of his stomach. Neither of them wanted to let go, and they stumbled back into his cabin, the door sealing behind them. She jerked his pants open while he pulled off her shirt. He reached around her, unclipping her bra. He wanted more. Nate wanted it all. He bent his head down to kiss a nipple, and she arched against him. Grace fell back against his bunk, and he tumbled down with her, his body moving with a mind of its own.
He’d found the person he’d been looking for his whole life. He hadn’t even known she was right in front of him until now. All it had taken was a little luck.
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