Black Moon Rising

by Frankie Rose

  JASS

  NOT TODAY

  I use the tether to draw myself to her, hand over hand, pulling myself closer and closer. I didn’t think she’d beckon me to her anymore. Not now that she knows I’m coming to her. I thought fear alone would have her barricading herself inside her head, locking herself away tightly, even in her sleep, but as I was drifting into unconsciousness, I felt her tugging on our connection.

  I go to her. Just as always, I construct a place for us in my mind. I want to see her properly. I want to see the sunlight on her skin. I want to see the way her hair catches the light and appears to burn, all coppers, bronze, and gold. Creating a bright, daylight place is risky; the sharp detail of it all could wake her up. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, though. I cast the peripherals of my mind out, forming a bright, clear, blue sky overhead. Below my feet, a sea of soft feathery grass that dances and bows as a gentle breeze tugs at it. In the distance, on the horizon, I create a city skyline. Rather, I should say I recreate it from memory—the tall glass structures, shining like spears of burning white light; the arching bow of the bridge stretching from one side of a river I also paint into the scene. The narrow, winding waterway looks like a piece of silver ribbon, glinting and shimmering as it catches the sunlight.

  A beautiful day. A calm and peaceful day. I sit down in the grass, crossing my legs, and I focus on the tether. Reza is there, very close, waiting for me. I concentrate on drawing her to me, and she begins to materialize in the grass. She’s still sleeping, curled into a ball, her knees tucked up high against her body. I can create landscapes, galaxies and entire worlds from memory inside my head, but I can’t create her. I’ve tried countless times, and it never works. There are always too many flaws and inconsistencies. She’s never her perfect self. I allow myself a long second to marvel at her as she sleeps, and I try not to feel. Being around her is so damned dangerous. She elicits the most unpredictable, erratic responses from me that I can’t trust myself half the time.

  Her eyelashes look like smudged charcoal, fanning out against her high, flushed cheekbones. Her lips are slightly parted, her chest rising and falling evenly. Her fingers twitch, flexing and opening, as if she’s reaching out for something in her dreams. I already know what she’s reaching out for; she’s reaching out for me. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

  I place my hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. It seems like a crime to disturb her, but our time here is limited; I want to make the most of it. Her eyes crack open, and she looks right at me. I could influence her thoughts and her emotions here. I could calm her. I could make her think and feel things she would never even consider normally, but I don’t. I want the raw, unadulterated, pure version of Reza. I want her reactions to be real. I want all of her to be real. She inhales, stiffening a little when she realizes where she is. And who she’s with, of course.

  “Morning,” I tell her.

  She shakes her head, propping herself up on her elbow. She frowns, her face crumpling into a mask of confusion. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Take a moment. Think it through,” I say. I tired of arguing this out with her a long time ago. I usually allow her memories of our past meetings to trickle back to her for a few minutes before I even say anything. Saves on trying to reason her worry from her. Reza looks down into the grass, her fingers trailing through the long, supple strands, and I know what she recalling: all of the times we’ve met like this and talked. All the times we’ve met like this and fucked. Her cheeks color bright crimson. She blinks a couple of times, then looks up at me accusingly.

  “Why do you keep taking these memories from me?”

  I pluck a stalk of the grass, twisting it absentmindedly around my finger. “I don’t take them from you. I never have. You just never remember when you wake up.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I knot the blade of grass. “I want you to remember this,” I say. “Out there, in the waking world, you’re terrified of me—”

  “With damn good reason,” she whispers.

  I smile crookedly. “Depends who you are.”

  She pulls a face.

  “Anyway, out there you’re terrified of me. If you remembered what happened in here, you wouldn’t run from me anymore. You’d move mountains to find to me.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You’re so sure,” she says softly. “You’re so certain. Why would I use any of these meetings as an example of what you’ll be like in the waking world? I’m in no danger. You can’t hurt me in here.”

  Arching an eyebrow, I toss the stalk of grass to the ground. I’m smiling, which usually does nothing to settle her nerves. “Can I make you come in here, Reza?”

  She glances away, embarrassment obvious, all over her face. She doesn’t need to say anything. We both know the truth.

  “If I can cause you pleasure, why wouldn’t I be able to cause you pain? If you think I can’t hurt you in here, you’re very much mistaken.”

  Her eyes grow wide. “I thought…” She trails off, this new revelation taking a while to sink in. “What are you going to do when you’re finally in front of me, Jass?” she asks. “We’re not going to be friends. I’m going to do anything and everything I can to avoid you at all costs.”

  I shrug one shoulder. Lying back in the grass, I stare up at the clear sky, losing myself in the infinite expanse of blue. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I’m not worried. This bond between us isn’t something either of us can take or leave. It’s indestructible, and it’s not going anywhere. You won’t be able to avoid me, Reza. You’ll be drawn to me in person, just as you’re drawn to me here.”

  She hisses under her breath. When I look over at her, her face is buried in her hands, and her shoulders are tensed. I sit up, wrapping my arm around her, and I pull her to me. She doesn’t resist. She collapses into me, shuddering, as if she’s relieved. I lie back down, and she rests her head on my chest, nestled into the crook of my arm. I don’t like how reassuring this position is. It’s different being inside her. When I’m inside her and she’s clinging to me, desperate for my touch, we’re two opposing forces colliding, claiming one another. Right now, that isn’t the case. She’s seeking comfort from me, whether she likes it or not, and in return I’m offering her my protection.

  “You shouldn’t have come here in your uniform,” she says.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d clothed myself in the black and gold of the Construct. A moment’s thought and the uniform is gone, replaced with a plain black shirt and pants. “I won’t wear it here again,” I tell her.

  Silence prevails for a while. A single, lonely bird flits back and forth in the sky, and I watch it, admiring at its agility. When did I see a bird perform a show like that? I can’t remember. It’s fascinating to watch. Reza’s hair tickles at my neck. I can smell her—floral and light, a pretty scent that haunts me day and night.

  “Have you killed anyone today?” she whispers.

  The bird disappears. I close my eyes. The breeze plays around us, blowing my hair across my face. “No. I haven’t, Reza. Not today.”

  SIX

  JASS

  BARELY

  Patience has never been a virtue I’ve possessed. I’m probably the most impatient person alive at this point in time, in fact, and that’s saying something. There is a race of beings on a small, barren planet I encountered once, who have no concept of time whatsoever, and the idea of waiting for something causes them very real physical pain. They simply cannot even comprehend it. Right now, I feel like I am one and the same with that race. The flight time to Pirius has been long and arduous already, made even less unpleasant by the incessant ramblings of my injured co-pilot.

  “I could really use some medical assistance,” he announces.

  “I’m not a doctor. Now please. Suffer in silence.”

  “Not much of a humanitarian, are you?” Col says, laughing weakly. His dark hair is plastered to his head with sweat, and his lips have turned a ghastly shade of whi
te. “You are human, aren’t you?”

  I smirk. If only he knew. “Barely.”

  “I’ve been told I’m descended from some of the first settlers who left Earth thousands of years ago. I was orphaned as a baby, though, so I can’t be sure. The Pirians—”

  “I don’t care about your lineage, Col. I care about one thing, and one thing only. Landing on Pirius. Once we’re there, I’ll find the girl. I’ll kill whoever stands in my way.”

  “And what then?” Col’s voice is weak. I don’t need to read his mind to know how much pain he’s in. His body is trembling with it, shouting his agony out loud for all to hear, so loud it penetrates my mind, filling it whole, making it annoyingly difficult to think straight. Must be hell for him. His babbling is an attempt on his part to distract himself, but I don’t think it’s working.

  “What do you mean, and what then?” I demand.

  “I mean, what are you going to do once you’re finally in a room with Reza? Are you planning on killing her? Kidnapping her? Taking her back to The Nexus? You’ll forgive me for saying so, but it doesn’t seem like your return would be all that welcome. So what are you going to do with her once you find her?”

  “None of your business.” The words come out hard and clipped. They sound self assured and confident, but the truth is he’s posing a damn good question. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do once I find her. The bond between us is strong. She has energy inside her identical to the energy I carry inside me. That’s worth exploring and questioning her over. I keep trying to tell myself I want to find her because of that, but there are other reasons. At first, the meetings we shared in my dreamscapes were nothing more than a way to mess with her. It didn’t take long for me to become enthralled with her, though. She couldn’t remember much in her subconscious state. I asked her about her past endlessly, where she came from, who she knew there, but she couldn’t access those memories. She could only be her, in that moment, and very quickly that became enough. She was beautiful. She was devastating. She captured my attention in the most fucked up way, and I haven’t been able to shake her since.

  Col laughs. It’s the kind of teasing laugh that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “You’re really bad at this,” he says. “I can see it written all over your face. You’re clueless.”

  He’s so goddamn infuriating. I lean back into my seat, and I close my eyes. I want to kill this man. I want to, but I can’t. He is a means to an end, an entry ticket to a scenario I will have no access to otherwise. I felt the seers intent quite clearly when I ripped through Col’s mind: the string of seers I will need to meet on my road to find the girl, each one only in possession of a snippet of the information I require to find her. A chain. And if one of them has their mind taken against their will, or finds that Col Pakka is dead, they kill themselves, severing the chain. So damn smart. Too smart for their own good. I’ll make them pay for inconveniencing me. But…when the time is right, and not before.

  “I’m not holding it against you,” Col continues. “I don’t blame you for being confused. I’ve been confused ever since I was told I had to hand myself over to the Construct. It took a lot of belief on my end when they told me what was going to happen.”

  Despite myself, I allow his words to intrigue me. “Why would you force yourself to believe what they were telling you, then? If you knew pain and suffering would land at your feet?”

  Col merely shrugs. The movement causes him pain; he tries to hide it, but I can taste it on the tip of my tongue—coppery and bright, like the blood he’s still shedding all over the rear bench that runs along the raptor’s small cargo area. The craft is flying itself at this point. I’m not needed in the pilot’s chair, but I’m loath to go back there and sit with him. He might take it as a sign that I want to talk to him or something. I can’t help but pivot in my seat when I ask him my question, though.

  Col closes his eyes, stacking his hands on his ribs. He breathes out slowly, then smiles. “It’s simple. I love my people, Beylar. I love them more than life itself. If a little pain and suffering might help them survive whatever’s to come, then I’ll willingly take it on.”

  Such a foolish sentiment. I know every type of life form in this galaxy. I’ve interrogated every single one of them on Archimedes, and they all crack. They all give up their friends and their loved ones when facing down the edge of a wickedly sharp blade. None of those Commonwealth fools would do the same for him, and yet he’s here, bones broken, blood pouring freely, racked with pain, tormented on their behalf. So fucking blind.

  I spin back around in my chair just in time for the proximity alarm to start going off. A planet is close by, and not just any planet. Col input Pirius’ coordinates into the Raptor’s nav center five hours ago. We’ve been breaking our necks to reach there ever since, and finally it appears that we’ve arrived.

  “The descent through the atmosphere will be rough,” Col warns. “You might want to take it slow. With that breach in the hull—”

  “I know what I’m doing, fighter.” I’m already assessing the planet, hunting for the best approach trajectory. I haven’t said anything to Col, but the hull breach is actually much worse than I first thought. A clear foot long rent along the underside of the craft if the exterior scanners are to be believed, and they’re state of the art, so I have no reason to doubt them. A planet with barely an atmosphere at all would give us a bumpy ride at this stage. A planet with an atmosphere as thick and turbulent as Pirius’? Well, let’s just say we’ll be lucky if we make it down without the raptor tearing itself in two.

  I angle the craft’s nose so it’s online for a shallow approach, and I cut the engines to a third power. Once we hit the outer atmosphere, I’ll cut the engines altogether and coast my way down if at all possible. That kind of landing will require extreme concentration and a high level of skill. Luckily I possess both.

  “Not that I care particularly about your wellbeing,” I announce over my shoulder, “but you might want to strap in for this.” It’d be very unfortunate if I managed to stay my hand and keep the man alive, only to have him die during landing. Col grumbles as he clambers back into the passenger seat beside me, his face a rictus of discomfort as he fastens the safety harness around his body.

  “Aren’t you going to strap in, too?” he asks.

  My answer is simple. “No.”

  As expected, the raptor shakes as it hits the outer atmosphere of the planet. I allow the craft to dip down a little further, waiting to see how badly the heat shields warm up before I cut the engines. A mere ten seconds, and the raptor’s sensors are all screaming, alarms sounding from every on-board system. Life Support: 54 %. Heat Deflectors: 33 %. Power Relay: 16%. Communications: Down. Coolant Cells: 12% and falling rapidly.

  “Shit,” Col hisses, taking in the readouts. “We’re fucked. Why the hell are you even attempting to land this thing? It’s going to explode before we even break through the cloud layer.”

  It’s true that the planet’s cloud layer is lower than most. Thicker than most. The entire planet looks like a swirling mass of white from our vantage point at the edge of its gravitational pull. I’ve had to do this before, though. Col hasn’t taken in consideration the fact that I, myself, can add a little protection to the raptor’s shields when the time comes. I grunt as I place both hands on the craft’s controls, wrestling to keep us on our flight path. Pirius’ gravitational pull is lighter than I’m used to. Regis makes his men train at twice standard gravity in order to make them stronger and more resilient, but even with that added advantage it’s proving difficult to keep the craft under control. I check the hull’s scanners, and the cause for the insane amount of drag we’re experiencing is immediately obvious: the foot long rent in the hull is now three feet long and growing by the second. Damn.

  “Take the controls,” I command, hitting the release button so that a secondary panel pops up in front of Col. “This is going to take both of us.”

  Col looks stra
ngely relieved. He doesn’t complain about his broken body as he goes about aligning his panel to match mine. He moves with the authority and command of someone who’s flown before, and flown well. The two of us work furiously to control the raptor’s erratic approach toward Pirius’ surface.

  The noise level inside the craft is deafening. So many alarms and klaxons all wailing at once. I hold my hand over the control board, and I imagine the flow of power running to all the alarms. I picture it, until the flow is a vivid, living thing inside my mind. I cut it off. The alarms stop wailing, every last one, and Col shoots me a nervous sidelong glance out of the corner of his eye.

  No words, though. No time. The planet is growing larger and larger out of the view port ahead, and we don’t seem to be slowing down. A small tongue of flame licks over the nose of the raptor, and I realize we’re fighting a losing battle.

  “Thirty thousand feet to impact,” the cool, calm voice of the ships nav system informs us. “Twenty-five thousand feet.”

  We hit the cloud layer, and Col curses loudly. “If we don’t scrub our speed, we’re going to crash into the dunes and bury ourselves down a couple of hundred feet. No one will ever find us. Won’t matter, because we’ll be dead, but still…”

  “Twenty thousand feet to impact.”

  I cut off the nav system with a sweep of my hand. Okay, now is the time to act. Sooner than I’d hoped, but Col is right. If I don’t do something now, it will be too late. I enclose my mind around the entire perimeter of the raptor, allowing it to feel out the damage, to investigate and test out the tear. It’s bad. Really fucking bad. I can’t press the jagged edges of metal back together, because a solid chunk of it is missing. I sit back in my chair, releasing the controls.

  “What the hell are you doing? Jass! I can’t hold this thing on my own!”

  Col’s panic fills my head, but I push that out. I have no room for that right now. I need to focus. I need to concentrate...