Nexus

by Sasha Alsberg

  Nor smiled as she finished her demand, looking beautiful as a rose. The droids closed in, red lights blinking on their fronts to show that the message had gone out, loud and clear, across the galaxy.

  Androma would hear it. She would come, without a doubt, the moment she saw the feed.

  Well done, Valen thought to Nor.

  Her answer was just filtering back through their link when a sudden cry overtook it.

  “ARACHNID LIVES!”

  The scream cut through the crowd like a bullet.

  Valen’s gaze fell away from his sister as he searched for the source of the words.

  Then the world turned to fire as a bomb exploded into the night.

  * * *

  Valen was blasted off the stage by the power of it, a sudden force of wind and dust that had his back slamming into the pavement below. The air rushed from his lungs in a single breath.

  He was vaguely aware of his body twitching, his legs numb beneath him as he saw the source of the bomb. Half of the Academy building was gone, the glass structure destroyed in the explosion, like it had never existed at all. Smoke poured from the gaping hole in the pyramid, the world beyond it quickly disappearing as the thick black clouds poured into the city streets.

  Valen gasped, trying to stand, but he couldn’t see through the smoke. He couldn’t see. Pain lanced through his body as he tried in vain to catch his breath. He was suddenly back in Lunamere again, before Nor had come to save him. Before he’d chosen to save himself. In his mind, he only saw darkness, and cells lining the sides of an endless black hallway.

  He wasn’t strong enough to break himself out. He was a prisoner, set to spend eternity in this cold, empty hell.

  Not real, Valen told himself. This isn’t real.

  Hands grabbed him from behind.

  “Get up, you fool boy!”

  Valen yelped and scrambled to get away.

  “I said, get on your feet! Get a hold of yourself, princeling!”

  The world slowly came back into focus, and Valen realized it was Darai kneeling over him, the adviser’s face twisted in rage. Blood trickled down the side of his cheek, and a shard of glass was lodged in his skin, but he was the most welcome sight Valen had ever seen.

  “Can you stand?” Darai asked.

  Valen nodded, allowing Darai to help him to his feet, shameless in this moment. His back screamed as people sprinted past, trying in vain to escape the Academy grounds. He watched it all with a strange sense of detachment. As if he were not here, as if this were not truly happening.

  “You have to calm them,” Darai insisted, ushering Valen back the way they’d come. The transport still sat waiting, the pilot waving his arms as he ushered them over. Someone shoved past them both, nearly knocking them back to the ground. Darai leaned on Valen for support, and a sharp spike of pain slammed into Valen’s ribs. “Can you hear me? I said you have to calm them! Reach into your mind! Compel the crowd to relax, so we can get to safety!”

  “I can’t!” Valen said. He was already so weak, his mind so labored from searching for traces of Androma, from commanding so many to find her and Arachnid and bring them forth.

  The old man shook him by the shoulders. “You’ve grown soft, lazy in that damned estate. I said, compel them!”

  Amid the chaos, Valen sank into his mind. He realized that he’d had the door closed, but now that he’d opened it, he heard another voice, screaming his name.

  VALEN! Valen!

  Nor! Valen thought back to her, relief flooding through him at the sound of her voice. Are you alright? But when he looked up, he couldn’t find her. He only saw a sea of soldiers—reinforcements arriving from their barracks in the city. He could just make out Breck’s towering form as she moved closer to the back of the stage, likely closing in on Nor.

  “I have to get to my sister!” Valen said wildly.

  “She’s just as big a fool as you are!” Darai shouted. His eyes were dark, spittle flying from his lips. “You want to help your sister? Then compel these people, before we all get killed in this chaos.”

  Valen closed his eyes, readying himself to obey, to calm the storm around him.

  Then the first gunshot went off.

  CHAPTER 17

  LIRA

  All her life, Lira had trained for battle.

  Not by force, but of her own sheer will to prove her worth to the galaxy.

  When she was only a girl, her aunt Alara had not allowed her to join the Adhiran Sentinels in their daily training. Lira had begged Alara to let her go, longed to fall into step alongside them on their endless runs around the mountain, their days-long treks through the jungle and desert from one terraformed section of the planet to the next.

  Alara had refused, but Lira had decided she’d do so anyway, for was life truly worth living when you were only walking in the footsteps someone else had laid out for you?

  Her aunt had been furious when she’d discovered Lira spent most of her time fantasizing about flying ships or fighting with her fists, instead of learning how to rule Adhira. And when Lira had finally run, desperate to escape the future her aunt had chosen for her, each life decision like a perfectly stitched portion of a quilt that had been designed just for her...

  Lira had taken up fighting in the pits of Zerpro7. Both to hone her skills and to remind herself that sometimes the greatest strength came from a place of pain. Each hit she’d taken, every bruised jaw and bloodied knuckle and swollen limb, had brought her to where she was now.

  And so when the explosion went off, knocking her off the stage, Lira recovered quickly and fell into action, her body responding out of memory—and a drive to protect her queen, who’d taken away all the pain of her past life. Who’d given her a new life, and would give countless others new lives, as well.

  Smoke filled the streets as she rolled to her feet, Gilly close by. Citizens screamed, tripping over each other to escape the chaos. Commands crackled through the soldiers’ earpieces.

  A familiar voice rang out in Lira’s ear now, through her com. Breck. She and Gilly were the only two people who had access to this com since she’d had it fixed—altered to block out any possibility of communication from Androma after that traitor chose the other side.

  Traitor.

  The word felt strange in her thoughts.

  Was Androma a traitor?

  The doubt didn’t last long. A fog from the outer stretches of her mind came rushing forward, shutting all uncertainty out.

  Traitor.

  Androma was a traitor.

  “Create a perimeter around the queen! Protect her at all costs!” Breck shouted, her voice booming in Lira’s ear.

  But it couldn’t block out the sounds of the gunshots.

  At her side, Lira glimpsed a flash of red as Gilly closed in on the stage where Nor had just been, the other soldiers in their unit following suit. Rifles were raised and bodies locked in close, ready to give their own lives to save their queen.

  Protect her at all costs, Lira heard another voice whispering. Not in her com, but in what felt like her very soul.

  It was the same voice she’d always heard since Nor took power, flickering into her mind throughout the day and night like a candle in the darkness. She latched on to the order, desperate to obey.

  Protect your queen.

  Figures emerged throughout the crowd, dressed in deepest bloodred—the color of Arachnid. Another shot rang out. The sea of people writhed and shoved and moved in too many directions at once, a wave rocking and rolling, ready to crash against the shore.

  Enemy, Lira’s gut screamed as she saw the black spiderweb design painted on their helmets. Where were they coming from? It seemed like they’d emerged from everywhere and nowhere all at once, holes in the universe that she couldn’t trace.

  She had to exterminate the enemy. She had to prove herse
lf worthy of serving her queen, especially with her past affiliation with Andi weighing on her daily, shaming her.

  Lira had to be better than her past.

  This was her time.

  Lira fought her way through to the center of the chaos, toward the stage where she’d last seen her queen. She could see Nor’s personal guards now, forming a line of defense as red-helmeted enemies approached from all directions, but Lira saw not a glimpse of the queen or her crown.

  Panic raced through her.

  “Our orders are to remove all threats to the crown,” Breck’s voice said into her com. “Whatever it takes.”

  A man fell beside Lira, his head cracked and bleeding as he hit the pavement. He was Adhiran, his skin blue like hers. Like someone else she’d once known and loved—a twin who’d become a traitor. As he fell, Lira caught a full view of the stage through the gap in the crowd.

  Her heart leaped as she saw the queen, alive and well. Nor was shoving back against Zahn, reaching for something...her lips forming a name.

  Valen, she was saying. Valen.

  “They’re closing in,” someone shouted. Gilly suddenly appeared beside Lira, her small frame moving like a warrior as she lifted her gun and fired twice, a smooth cadence that hit its target. One of Arachnid’s soldiers fell midsprint, body convulsing before they dropped to the ground, trampled beneath rushing feet.

  Their weapons only stunned, creating a short-term paralysis. Another order of the queen’s, when she took up her reign. None were to die; only to fall. But the red-helmeted figures had no such constraints as they shot through the crowd, taking down anyone and everyone in their path.

  The city, once beautiful and fully protected from war, was now a graveyard.

  An enemy soldier sprinted past Lira. She lifted her rifle, breathing steadily as she centered him in her sights and fired. The stunner round took him down immediately. Beside her, Gilly shot another.

  “Unaffected scum!” the child spit out.

  The scent of electricity filled the air, mixed with the sour tang of blood as Lira and Gilly finally reached the stage. From this vantage point, Lira could see just how many fought for Nor; too many for Arachnid’s soldiers to overcome. They would find a way to get her out, to get her to safety so they could clear the area without any danger of the queen getting hit.

  Little by little, the circle of Nor’s guards pressed toward the waiting transport ship, keeping the queen in the center, protected. Safe. Then another helmeted figure emerged from the crowd, firing off shots. Bodies dropped all around, and Nor screamed from somewhere inside the circle, the sound of a mother watching her children die. Lira felt that pain in her own chest.

  So many deaths. So many, who’d finally seen the light, now fallen.

  Breck fired three times. The stunner rounds hit the soldier in the neck. A convulsion—one, two, three—and the figure was down, still as stone.

  “Tighten the circle!” Breck commanded, her voice echoing both inside Lira’s com and out as the giantess stepped up alongside her. Gilly pressed in from her left. Together, the three of them joined the circle of soldiers guiding Nor to the transport. Another wave of red-helmeted enemies flooded the city streets, the moonlight dripping across their shoulders like blood.

  Another fifty paces, and they would be at the ship. Ahead of them, Lira could see a young man waving his arms. Valen, his face desperate as he screamed his sister’s name. The transport engine roared to life, steam spitting from its valves as it readied for takeoff.

  Protect the queen. Lira heard that whispering, constant voice again, leaking its way into her mind.

  She obeyed it.

  She believed it.

  “Faster!” Breck hissed.

  Lira tripped over a fallen body. A large hand caught her by the elbow, lifting her back to her feet. “Keep moving, Lir. We’re almost out of here,” Breck said, grip tight as she guided her forward.

  Protect the queen, the sweet song chimed again, and Lira stumbled once more as the back-and-forth of it all hit her with full force.

  “LIRA! To your left!”

  Her head felt like it weighed too much, like it was going to tumble from her shoulders, as she looked to the left. Then to the right.

  A wave of crimson helmets rushed out of the shadows from all sides. More enemy reinforcements that had come from nowhere. The symbol of Arachnid was painted on all of them, hideous and horrible and enemy, enemy, as the group seemed to soar down the city streets. Lira’s unit readied themselves, but now the tide had changed.

  They were too few.

  The enemy was too many.

  Breck and Gilly lifted their rifles and started firing shots. Lira lifted her rifle, too, but it felt heavy and out of place in her hands. She positioned her finger over the trigger and sent out a whoosh of breath, for it was time for battle. Protect the queen.

  “Shoot them, Lira!” Breck shouted, bumping into her with a broad shoulder.

  She shot at the crimson figures closing in, too many of them still standing. Her unit reloaded, but there were too many enemies, and they were still too far from the transport. The queen was in the center of the soldiers, but the circle thinned out as a soldier was shot. The woman fell, hitting the ground with a wet smack. Her silver veins faded to a dim, dull gray in an instant.

  Another fell to her left, nearly taking Gilly down with him.

  “I’m sick of these stunners!” Gilly screamed. “We need real guns!” She fired, taking out two enemies, one after the other. Breck spun and hit three more. They closed the circle tighter, but they’d moved too quickly. They hadn’t seen the one enemy soldier slip into their ranks.

  Lira whirled, realizing with horror that it was already too late as the enemy lifted his weapon to fire. But at the last second, Valen appeared, shoving the enemy with all his might.

  The enemy’s gun angled right as the bullet left the chamber with an earsplitting crack.

  Blood sprayed her face, painting her vision in red as Zahn fell, pulling her down with him. Lira screamed in agony and fear, trying to rise, trying to see, trying to fight. But the crowd closed in around her, pinning her in place, and a single thought thundered through her mind, drowning out everything else.

  She had failed her queen.

  CHAPTER 18

  ANDI

  Klaren Solis, a woman the galaxy had long thought dead, was somehow standing before her, fully alive and well.

  Scars covered half of Klaren’s face, and her tongue was missing—hence the droid that spoke for her—but the other side, Andi noticed, looked like an older version of Nor. That same smooth brown skin, eyes burnished in gold, hair dark and slightly curled. And that pride in her gaze; the way she kept her chin tilted ever so slightly toward the stars, always.

  “You deserve to die for bringing the Solis siblings into this world,” Andi ground out. She had yet to unleash her vengeance on Nor and Valen, so their mother was the next best thing.

  Andi reached for her swords, but they weren’t there—she’d forgotten that the damned things were outside in Soyina’s care. She cursed and stepped forward to use her fists instead, but Dex held her back.

  “No, Andi. She has compulsion. There’s no telling what she might force you to do.”

  But the woman only stood motionless, watching them with sad eyes.

  “Would you truly strike me down for the crimes of the children I bore?” Klaren asked through the droid, sending her a look full of disappointment. Andi felt her face flush, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t quite tell. “That is the least of the crimes I have committed over the course of my life. And I have long since paid for them, if such a thing is even possible.”

  Klaren touched the scarred side of her face gently, her eyes distant for a moment before she turned her gaze back to Andi. “In any case, I mean you no harm. My gift was stol
en from me the day Cyprian cut out my tongue.”

  This was a trap. It had to be a trap. They’d come all this way, wrecking the Marauder and losing Lon in the process, only to fall into the hands of Nor and Valen’s mother.

  “What do you want from us?” Dex demanded. “Whose side are you truly on?”

  “Mirabel’s,” Klaren said.

  Andi’s head spun as she tried to make sense of that declaration. “Nor’s Mirabel, or...the free Mirabel?”

  This was Arachnid, after all. Klaren was Arachnid. They were one and the same. And Arachnid had threatened Nor on the feed. Andi and Dex had seen it for themselves, when they were back in the nebula. Still...

  “And why should we believe anything you say?” Andi asked. “For all we know, you compelled your way in here, killed the true Arachnid and now you’re planning to destroy the rest of the Underground, too. Perhaps Nor’s soldiers are already on their way.”

  The droid’s red eyes blinked from where it perched upon Klaren’s shoulder. “How little you know, Androma Racella. If I wanted to destroy these people, I would have done so ages ago. And as I said before, my compulsion has long been silenced, thanks to your predecessor.”

  Andi was about to ask what the woman meant, but Klaren continued on too quickly.

  “If your hope is to kill me, then do it. I’ve longed for the grave all these years, though my mission is still not complete. But know you will never save your crew if you harm me. Of course, that hardly matters now, for they are only a small, insignificant portion of the galaxy that will soon fall to a fate far worse than death, should my children succeed in their plan.”

  “What plan?” Dex asked.

  Andi looked back and forth between Klaren and him, unsure if she should allow them to continue talking. What if Klaren was lying to them even now? They had no way of knowing whether they were being compelled or not.

  “My daughter and son are close to opening the Void,” Klaren said, turning her gaze on Andi again. “And when they do, the future will be grim. If there will even be a future for people like us. But together, we can stop them. So if you wish to save your friends, I will help you—in exchange for your allegiance to me in this war.”