The Boundary Zone

by A. B. Keuser

  The screeching in his head was like a knife against his synapses. He could barely think, much less try to follow KaDen's instructions. As if finally sensing that, the pressure stopped, KaDen backed off--if that was possible.

  You must keep him from finishing his plan.

  Finishing his plan required Kenzie. And Cable was certain Nrog weighed a full ton. Pushing the man off him would have been a feat fully rested and with his back muscles fully healed. As it was....

  He is going to kill her

  If she dies....

  Yeah, I know, I die.

  We all die

  We cannot work through without her

  Cable didn't much care about the Ka right then, and didn’t care that KaDen knew it either.

  He muttered untranslatable words in Cable's mind and Cable reminded him, in thought, that they were working toward the same goal... that they had different reasons didn't signify.

  KaDen would happily kill him to save Kenzie's life. A tact that would do him no good at that moment. Though Cable wasn't certain that would save him.

  He would die for Kenzie if necessary, but willingly was not the word he would use to describe that conviction.

  Forty

  Mack didn’t have time to worry about Cable—whether he was alive underneath the crassicau, whether he could help her.

  A half strangled curse answered the latter worry. She had to let him fend for himself.

  Aaron required her full attention.

  "Don't you understand?” he said, waving the gun wildly. “We were supposed to do this together. This is what we are. They didn't know when they made us. They thought they could control us, but we are kin to gods and they will never let us grow beyond what they control unless we force them to."

  "You want me to help you, but all you care about is petty revenge. You were in the wrong, Aaron. We're different, but genetics doesn't make us better."

  "You're wrong. It makes us infinitely superior."

  "You're betraying our entire race by being with him."

  "DNA doesn't determine who we are. It never has, and I won't let you convince me it's changed anything about you."

  She moved sideways, trying to get to Cable. If Nrog was still alive, she'd need to get to him too. She didn't know enough about crassicau biology to say whether or not it had been a fatal blow.

  But Aaron blocked her path, herding her back toward the Imadaha's walls. Walls she knew she couldn't touch.

  "I am the one destined to bring our people back from obscurity and extinction, Kenzie. I am the chameleon they knew would be their salvation."

  She threw an annoyed glance at Nrog. The crassicau's understanding of the prophecy was clearly limited and it was going to get them into trouble.

  "That's not the way the story goes."

  "You've never believed in me."

  She had. Once. But now, everything he'd done was measured against these actions and she couldn't help but wonder if there had been a greater goal to it all, even before this.

  "You were my big brother. I practically worshiped you. What more belief did you need?"

  "If you truly did, you would now."

  "What I don't believe in is killing people just because they've pissed you off. Believe me, if I did, I'd have a body count longer than yours. You can't expect me to let you kill my best friend--your best friend."

  "He's not my friend."

  "And I suppose you're going to tell me he never was?"

  "No. He was once, but he's.... nothing to me now."

  She shoved him right back. "That is ridiculous. If he wasn't anything, you wouldn't care how he died. If he was simply a hurdle in the way of your master plan, you'd have killed him the moment you had a chance. There would be a bullet in his skull and we wouldn't be having this conversation because you would have had to have killed me too."

  His jaw was set. And he glared at her with a cold calculation she'd never seen before. "Don't take his side. You can't."

  "You've already insisted I've betrayed you. If you want him dead, you're not on my side either."

  Confusion was his response, and for half a second, he was the little boy she'd grown up with. Then, rage replaced all else, and she stumbled backward, flinching at the brief contact of her hand on the cold, dead wall of the Imadaha.

  "You can't work the tech Aaron. If you get rid of me, you won't bring the kindira back from extinction... you'll only doom them further."

  She caught him by the wrist and pulled, counting on whatever remained of his brotherly love for her. He didn’t shoot, but his cry of disgust threatened to burst her eardrum.

  Wrenching around, tangling in his strange robe, she heard the clatter of metal—not his gun—and he pulled free of her grip. The robe fell to the floor in a sack-like heap. Aaron glared at her, gun lowered at his side.

  In his fleet uniform—a garment she’d assumed he’d burned—he was too much like the brother she’d buried months before.

  “Aaron, don’t do this.”

  Taking his hand, she tried to find the words, looked for anything she could say to make him understand….

  “You’ll never understand, will you?”

  Drawing the gun up, he twisted and she hit his wrist, dancing away at the same moment he shoved at her.

  She watched as he stumbled.

  Over corrected.

  Pitched backward, hands flailing.

  She couldn’t reach out to him as he fell… into KaLongre’s corpse.

  It disintegrated in a puff of decay and Mack took a halting step backward as the kazahan… sensing his kindira DNA latched onto him—attempted to bond with him as its new Ka.

  At first, she thought the screams were Aarons. But if they were, they weren’t escaping his own throat.

  The ship cried out in pain around them, and Kenzie watched her brother die. Her body refused to move, her mind stumbled over itself.

  Aaron crumpled in on himself, his skin burning to ash as he sank into the chair, as his eyes crew round. They pulsed outward and…

  Nrog drew her back. She recoiled from him, her mind skipping over the disconnect.

  Letting assumptions trace the lines of what she hadn’t seen.

  With a final screech, whatever had been left of Aaron shattered.

  Despite Nrog’s insistence she not, Mack glanced over her shoulder. Aaron had carbonized, what was left of him was a charred black mess, no longer shaped like a man.

  KaRapp had died here. Not her brother. He’d been gone for six months. This was just a shadow… one she’d never been able to save.

  “Are you okay?” She grimaced at the crusting blue blood and checked Cable behind him.

  He was staring at what was left of Aaron. She couldn’t look again.

  “We must go, KaZie. This kazahan is dead, dying.” He grimaced at the chair behind her. “The chameleon has consumed itself.”

  Her boot slid on the floor and she looked down to the key Aaron had dropped.

  She nodded to Nrog as she bent down to scoop it up. “Go to the shuttle, prep it, we’ll be right behind you.”

  He could run faster than either of them. It wasn’t an odd request.

  Nrog hesitated, cast a wary glance at Cable, but did as she said.

  Dragging Cable away from the chamber, she prayed the key in her hand was what she thought it was. Goddess help her if it wasn’t.

  Forty-One

  Alarms blared overhead and Cable stiffened, wincing as the tension pulled at his torn skin. Whatever remained of the kazahan’s mind, it was a ghost and it was going to pull itself apart.

  And take you with it

  Cursing the emotionless tone in KaDen’s voice, he grabbed Kenzie by the arm and hauled her toward the exit.

  “It’s a suicide sequence triggered by the Imadaha’s destruction.” She broke free of his grip and ran to the nearest bundle of cording on the wall.

  He watched her try to connect with the ship, watched her wince and recoil in pain.

  He’s
too far gone to accept her

  If you don’t leave now, you may not be able to.

  “We need to go. The ship’s breaking up.” This time, he took her hand, and the mutilated skin of his burned brightly at the contact. “If the corridors collapse before we get to a shuttle, there’s no chance we’ll make it out of here.”

  “We will. But I have to save them first.” He let her go when she turned out of his grasp and followed, ducking around broken walls. They hung like skin shaved from muscle.

  “Who is left to save? Maeltar’s people jumped ship the moment she called them back. It’s just us now.”

  KaDen answered for her.

  The kindiran embryos your people stole.

  They are not the only ones.

  They can be sacrificed, she cannot

  “He says we have to leave them, Kenz. There are others.”

  She spun on her heel, and he ran into her as she grabbed his face with both hands. Her eyes blazed with something akin to fire, and her expression was set.

  “I will not leave this ship without them. The thought of abandoning them… Aaron dragged them into this. I won’t let his mistakes kill them.”

  He looked at her, knew what he had to do and ignored KaDen’s imprecations. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She kissed him. The hard press of his lips on hers was almost as sweet as the coiling of his hands around her waist, she sagged against him as a wash of desire flooding over him. And then, she pulled away, running back toward the command center.

  Her footsteps drown out by the blaring sirens overhead, he took a last, deep breath and followed her. Neither of them could afford to lose themselves. Yet.

  His boots squelched across the foreign decking on the ship’s floors, and he knocked into a wall before steadying himself.

  By the time he caught up to her, she’d broken open a door on the far side of the command center and he slipped in behind her.

  It was like a chef’s galley, row on row of metal units with more doors than could ever be necessary.

  “I hope you know which one you’re looking for.”

  She didn’t answer him. Yanking open one of the drawers instead.

  In the silence beneath the sirens, she dug the pilfered key from her pocket and wiped a hand across her forehead.

  The air was thin and hot.

  Her fingers fumbled with the lock, and she cursed.

  “Here,” he took the key with his mangled hand and locked his grip, snapping it to the side. It broke off as he wrenched the unlocked cabinet open and she shoved him out of the way.

  “It’s here, it will take just a second to—” She pulled the case from the cabinet and turned to him. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  With a quick nod, Cable took her free hand in his own and together they ran back the way they’d come.

  The shuttle is gone.

  Cable stumbled to a halt. If they were trapped….

  There is another way.

  “Come on, we’re about to do something really stupid.”

  They climbed through the observation deck hatch and were halfway across the ugly place before Cable dragged her to a stop. He stared out at KaDen’s ship. It was close enough now, he could make out the silhouettes of Raza and Stacy—at least he hoped it was them.

  He could feel the strain KaDen undertook to give them one last chance.

  Holding the case to her at an odd angle, Kenzie looked around as though there might be a shuttle hiding among the spindle columns.

  “We’re not that lucky.” He muttered a curse and squeezed her hand. “He told us to jump.”

  Forty-Two

  “He what?”

  Mack hesitated, her hand gripped in his.

  Cable pulled her sharply away from the door and she followed him, running headlong toward the open darkness of the void.

  Her thoughts stalled, chest constricting. They were either dead… or something close to it. But she had to have faith that the Ka weren’t going to kill her. Had to have faith that they needed each other now. And if they knew what was good for them, they’d know they needed Cable too.

  “You are lucky I love you or else I’d never….”

  Jumping together, they flew into the darkness as the sound of shattering bones echoed behind them.

  And then it was all gone.

  The bounce shield had closed off around them, a bubble in the darkness.

  Bigger than the ones she’d used to transport to KaLongre’s ship, it held them, suspended in the cold darkness, and she shivered until Cable pulled her to him, sharing his warmth.

  Breathing was difficult. She didn’t know if that was a lack of air, or something else altogether.

  Momentum carried them away as the Ka ship tore itself apart, the explosion silent, the halo of flames behind them. Only the shockwave touched them, pushing them further and faster towards the Ka ship she’d been on which she’d been all but a prisoner.

  Cable turned his head, facing the destruction behind them and she pulled herself closer, unable to bury her face and ignore the death. “That could have gone better.”

  “But it could have been a lot worse.” He swallowed and she felt the movement against her head. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save him.”

  “Aaron died on the planet where you left him. I mourned him then. The man he was on that kazahan…” she shook her head. “I refuse to remember him like that.”

  Their bubble of bounce shield collided with the Ka ship behind them and they were flung, sprawling across the soft floor of the observation deck. Raza was at her side helping Mack up in an instant.

  “I thought for sure I was never going to see you again!” The woman had her in a lung collapsing hug and picked her up off the floor.

  She heard Cable behind her groan and she shook Raza off to help him. Stacy was already there, she’d hooked his arm over her shoulder, but he didn’t stay upright. Honestly, Mack didn’t know how the woman remained upright as he hit the floor.

  Glaring down at him, Stacy scolded him. The back of his shirt was stained red with dried blood and his skin was pale.

  She looked up at Mack and Raza. “Help me get help him up.”

  “We’ll get him patched up and good as new.” Raza helped Cable leave and for the first time in a very long while. Mack let herself breathe easy.

  Except each inhale felt like she was breathing in a mouthful of needles.

  And then, there was a tug. Like a cord tied to her spine at the base of her neck, she felt them. Calling to her in some way she hadn’t previously experienced.

  Glancing at the case that held the kindira’s future, she made her way up to the command center, resting the case holding the future of the Ka race gently against the console’s base, she fell into the ship’s brain.

  “Thank you for the escape. I… owe you my life.”

  “We will consider the lives you saved as fair trade.”

  KaLea glared at the others, scolding them. “We did not save you for the embryos. There are other cases. Though we are pleased they survived. You are Ka, the rules of our society apply to you as they do any one of us. We cannot allow you to die if we have the power to save you. A tenant it seems is inherent in you as it is in us.”

  “Thank you for trusting Cable.”

  “It is easy to trust a man when we know his mind. KaDen was most sharing. And it is easy to trust a Ka when she gives us every opportunity to test her and never fails us.” KaMin bowed his head.

  “I lost your ship, your friend.”

  “He was lost long before you came to us. Your brother saw to that. Not you.”

  Mack felt Cable’s presence, weak and lingering in the shadows behind KaDen. “You’ll need an advocate within the fleet.”

  They were in her head, they already knew. They agreed. Still, they voiced their response.

  “KaDen and Cable will negotiate our peace. You are too important to risk.”

  “I honestly wasn’t even going to offer. The things I fix don’t
talk back to me.”

  “Rest now, child. The battle is won, the war far from over.”

  They pushed her out and she blinked as the command center came back into focus. The interaction had drained what little reserves she’d had left, and she sagged forward.

  Strong hands caught her under her arms and pulled her back.

  “Don’t want you breaking that pretty nose of yours,” Raza said and hefted her up. “I think you are entitled to a nap, don’t you?”

  “Where’s—”

  “Cable is right here,” she helped her over to where Cable lay, stretched out on the floor, seemingly unconscious. “Maeltar is… gone. We’re not sure where she is, just that she isn’t here.”

  Mack considered telling them where the nearest cabin was, but she didn’t think she’d make it, and if Cable had to sleep on the floor—she didn’t know if they could carry him without reopening his wounds—she’d take the floor too.

  Raza lowered her down next to him and pitched her voice with mock stern-ness.

  “Go to sleep, or I will sedate you.” She smiled. “Stacy and I will be here to make sure your bad dreams don’t creep up on you.”

  Forty-three

  A loud blip sounded in front of him and Kenzie shifted in his arms, still only semi-conscious. Her eyes half closed, he laid her down on the makeshift nest Raza had made on her third visit.

  Kenzie mumbled something as he brushed a strand of hair from her face.

  “It’s almost over.”

  Deny their request to come aboard

  Raza waited just outside the hatch, her jaw set as she stared at the data pad in her hands. “Peezus isn’t calling the show this time.”

  “Never thought he would.” He took the pad, glancing over the information a moment longer than necessary before pressing the comm receipt.

  Peezus peered through the tiny screen, squinting across a garbled connection. “Admiral Gunkrite requests landing clearance if you can grant it?”

  No chance in any hell

  “Can’t give it.” Cable looked over his shoulder to where Kenzie slept. “I’ll come to you.”

  When he kicked Peezus off the line and handed the pad back to Raza, he asked, “Stay with her?”