Black Moon Rising

by Frankie Rose

  “Finally. You're getting it at last,” he says. “I kept trying to tell you. No one would listen, though. Funny how people will refuse to hear the truth simply because they want to believe in an alternative. Not very smart, Reza.” He brushes his fingers along the line of my jaw, his eyes a little hazy, and I can't stop myself. I reach out down the tether, and I fire as much energy at his newly resurrected shields, determined to bring them down. He wasn't expecting me to strike him like that. He can't have been, or he would have shored up his defences more efficiently. His shield splinters like glass, exploding into a thousand pieces. A million. More. Shock transforms Jass' face, but I'm not really paying attention to his reaction. I'm charging forward, lashing out, demanding the energy inside me to obey and come to my aid. I couldn't really access it before, but now I don't give it an option. I rip it clean out of me, hurling it at Jass. I'm hell-bent on making him pay for this. I put my trust in him. I believed him, and he played me for a fool. I put everyone I know in danger, because I gave a predator the benefit of the doubt. And he's right; he didn't even try to disguise the fact that he was a predator. He maintained the fact that he was dangerous from the moment we met, and I chose to overlook it...

  If Col dies, it will be because of my complacency.

  If the people of Pirius die, it will be because I ignored something that was staring me right in the face.

  Forks of power surge from my mind, crackling and furious, reflecting my anger. They strike at Jass' mind—razor sharp barbs, clawing at him from the inside. I sense his pain, and his surprise. He tries to hide it, but I am a part of him now. The connection between us is unbreakable. I feel whatever he feels if I want to, and feeling the shock that volleys through him is satisfying to say the least. Jass tries to push me out of his head. He calls to the power I'm hurling at him, trying to turn its allegiance, trying to make it his own, but he should know better. He can't contain my power. He can only contain his own.

  I’ll rain napalm down inside Jass' head. I’ll destroy him on an atomic level. There is a tempest brewing at the center of me, and I am ready to unleash it on the man I was almost foolish enough to fall in love with. He's flinching away from me, I can feel it. He's running from me for once. Col's hands are on my shoulders, trying to pull me back, but I'm free-falling, ready to submit, prepared to pay whatever grave cost must be covered in order to hurt Jass. I would push further, harder, until the job’s done, but something catches my attention out of the view port right ahead of me.

  A series of heavy armored doors beneath The Nexus' hull lower slowly, yawning open until they hit the ground. Five? Six? Seven? I think there are eight doors, and Construct soldiers pour forth from them like a plague. Their black and gold uniforms make them practically invisible against the rocky midnight terrain of Archimedes. If it weren't for the small blue lights glowing at the top of each of their phase rifles, it would be impossible to tell how many of them there are. Enough to make me panic. Enough for me to allow my concentration to waiver for a moment. Jass seizes the opportunity, hurling me out of his head. I try to reengage him, but his shields are back with a vengeance. They're a meter thick this time, and made of reinforced steel instead of stone.

  “I'm always going to be stronger than you,” he says. “I've been honing this skill for cycles. You’ve done nothing but try and bury it. You were terrified of it. I embraced it. I have a mile wide head start on you. You're never going to be able to catch up. You might as well accept it and surrender."

  His eyes are so black. The golden flecks that swirled and sparked in his irises when we were together less than twenty-four hours ago have disappeared. Not a single fibre of light remains now. It feels like Jass has been consumed by the beast that has been trying to devour him all this time. Nothing remains of him except death and hunger.

  In the distance, in front of the research facility, the Construct soldiers have formed into ranks and are marching toward the Oraxis with worrying speed. At the front of their column, a single tall figure leads, gold panels glinting off his shoulders. His face mask is striped with two panels of gold down its' sides, singling him out as a general. General Stryker. My blood runs cold in my veins.

  Jass grunts quietly, and when I look back at him I can see my own horror reflected in his eyes. He's not afraid, though. It really is my fear, reflecting back at me, though him. He must be leeching it through the tether.

  "He's a reasonable man, if you do what he asks," Jass informs me.

  I've forgotten about Col. I've been so caught up with attacking Jass and then reeling from Stryker's presence, that I've left my friend standing on his own behind me. He barely registers as a blur as he rushes past me and throws himself at Jass, fists flying. Jass reacts, but his movements are so small and measured that they're barely observable. His index finger on his left hand twitches, and then Col careens backward. He hits a bulkhead, a loud crunching noise filling the air, his head tilted backwards, neck muscles straining, as if a sudden and unbearable pain has claimed him. His arms are wrenched back, flat against the wall, his hands flexing and contracting, as if he's trying to wring Jass' neck and failing.

  "You can kill me," Col wheezes. "But you'll never kill Reza. Your friends won't either. They'll try to crush her, make her...compliant," he grinds out, "but you'll never win her over. She'll kill you all in your…sleep. She'll come for you, Jass. From this...day forward...you'll never be safe."

  Over my shoulder, down in the bowels of the Oraxis, the Construct soldiers have blown the loading hatch. The ship rocks violently, and yet Col remains where he is, pinned to the wall, suspended by the sheer magnitude of Jass' temper. Heavy footfall rings out through the ship, deafening, beating out a metronome of death. Jass' back straightens. He stands a clear three inches taller as Stryker's giant form appears through the cargo bay entrance. He stalks through the small, once-opulent passenger area, kicking chairs out of the way and upending a table in his haste to reach us.

  I brace for the man's hand around my throat, but it's Jass he grabs hold of first.

  Jass allows himself to be manhandled, but I can feel his anger flickering like an open flame down the tether. "I knew you were rebellious, but your defiance knows no bounds, Jass Beylar," Stryker spits. He hits a button on the side of his face mask and the entire thing splits open, concertinaing together until it slides down into the steel-rimmed collar around his neck. He's aged since I saw him last on the Invictus, but I'd recognize the man anywhere. Stryker has been a main feature in my nightmares ever since I left the Construct's conditioning center when I was a child. The hair at his temples is silver now, where once it was jet black. The rest of his hair is further streaked with silver, and much thinner than it used to be. He turns, casting a glance over his shoulder, as if he knows he's being studied, and I gasp at the sight of him. A long, jagged, ugly scar runs the length of his face, and his left eye is missing, replaced by a milky white implant with a target marker at its center in black.

  I'm whisked away, taken back in time, back seven cycles, to the day the Invictus was attacked, and to Stryker trying to stop me from getting onto that escape pod. I can feel his hand closing around my throat like a band of iron, tightening and tightening until even the smallest flow of oxygen cannot get through. My hand closes around the weighty handle of the phase cutter, and I slash out with it. The arc of light that flares out of the cutter is terrible. The smell of burning blood and singed flesh fills my nostrils...

  Stryker grins at me like he's just run into an old friend. "Well, hello there. What an unexpected surprise."

  THIRTY-TWO

  JASS

  ARCHIMEDES

  Five scientists meet us at the pressure lock, afraid and on their knees. They weren't expecting Stryker. More over, they weren't expecting me. I'm not dressed as I usually am when I visit Archimedes—I'm missing my Construct issue uniform—but the scientists of this station recognize me without any difficulty. Their innate sense of fear starts screaming like a klaxon as soon as I get within five
feet of them. I’ve been stationed on Archimedes long enough that their hearts wither in their chests at the mere thought of me. Stryker's men shove me roughly from behind. I have to dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands to avoid tearing their heads off; I have a part to play here. If I act meek and repentant, Stryker will allow me back onto The Nexus. He's a proud, arrogant man. If I play to his self-importance, he'll be so puffed up and pleased with himself that he'll overlook how oddly I'm behaving.

  “Regis is going to be overjoyed when he realizes he has two runaways to play with," Stryker grunts. He's had a hold of Reza since we left the Oraxis and walked over the rugged, uneven terrain to get to the research facility's pressure locks. “I’m hoping he’ll let me take care of you, though. Stupid little bitch. I’m thinking about taking one of those pretty eyes of yours. It’s only fair.” He pushes her forward, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She lands in a heap in front of the gathered scientist, who all recoil away from her like she's a venomous snake. A Construct guard shows Col the same treatment, sending him crashing to his knees next to Reza. His eyes flash with hate as he looks back at me over his shoulder. Stryker steps into my field of vision, blocking both Reza and Col out. "He's been waiting for an excuse to flay the skin from your meat for cycles, Beylar. I don't think I've seen him this excited since...well, ever."

  I affect a casual smile, shrugging one shoulder. "I'm sure with a word or two from you, his most trusted second in command, I will be just fine."

  “Why would I speak on your behalf?" he scoffs. The implant in his left eye socket whirrs as the black target marker locks onto five points across my head and chest in quick succession.

  "Because you're going to tell him you and I have been working together," I tell him. I'm calm, cool, and collected on the outside, but inside I'm a tightly wound piece of elastic, ready to snap any second. "I've been gathering information," I continue. "I've found out where they're based, where they've been hiding for decades. We can give the information to Regis together. Or, you can hand me over to him on a platter, beaten and missing fingers, and I'll tell him myself. What do you think he's going to do when he realizes I've been working to expand the glory of the Construct all this time, and you were completely oblivious?"

  Stryker hawks, spitting at my feet. "You must think I'm completely stupid, Beylar. If you had that kind of information, you would have transmitted it to the Elders immediately."

  “The place was a dead zone,” I answer. "It was impossible to get a message out. And once we left the planet in that pleasure cruiser, I already knew you were locked on our coordinates and coming to intercept us."

  Stryker frowns, muttering under his breath. He's a hard man. Fearless to the point of stupidity, though. Not a very smart man overall. "If you're telling the truth, you won't mind sharing the name of this planet, Beylar."

  I hand it over without thinking twice. "Pirius. The planet's name is Pirius."

  "NO!" Reza's cry of anguish bounces around the research facility's high-ceilinged arrivals area, echoing off the thousands of panels of glass. The scientists, who still haven't said anything, get to their feet and stagger away from her, obviously wishing to put some space between themselves and the crazy, bound woman on the floor. "Jass! You're going to get them all killed. You've just signed their death warrants," Reza hisses. I've watched a thousand people die before. I've observed entire settlements being torched, razed to the ground. I've watched women kill their own family members, shooting each of them in the back of the head before the Construct members could get to them, to spare them the misery of being toyed with and tortured. I've been looked upon with hatred so many times in my life that I've become impervious to the emotion entirely.

  But when Reza looks at me, her eyes burning with hatred, I really feel it this time. It hits me like a sledgehammer square in the gut, and I can't keep up this pretence. I've tried really fucking hard, but I just can't bear to have her look at me like that. I train my expression into one of nonchalance, but I create a tiny crack in my mental shield, reaching out for the tether. It's there, as strong as ever, glowing inside my head, but it feels as if there's no one on the other end of it. Like Reza has managed to cut herself off from it completely.

  She doesn't answer me when I say her name in my head. She doesn't say a word. I extend myself down the length of the connection, and I don't reach her until I hit the very end of it. She's clearly doing her best to put as much distance between us as she can.

  "Reza. You're the worst actresses in the world," I say.

  Stryker’s nodding at me, suspicion all over his face, but he's telling me that he's going to take my suggestion into consideration. I split my mind in two, ingratiating myself to him at the same time I speak to Reza.

  "I didn't mean for this to happen," I tell her. "And I didn't want to hurt you. But I had to in order to make this believable. I've told you before, haven't I? You're terrible at hiding your feelings. You can't lie to save your own life. If I told you what I was planning, you’d never have agreed. You'd never have been able to keep the pretence up. Please...don't react." I might as well have left that part off the end. She's not reacting to my words at all. Her face is still a rictus of fury and betrayal. She's not listening to me.

  "Reza. When The Nexus dropped out of hyperspace, I heard Regis' thoughts. He's been learning how to defend his mind the way you and I can for a long time now, but he let his guard down for a moment. He didn't just get me hooked on the Light when the Construct took me. He also embedded a tracker into my genetic coding. That's why he let me go when I escaped The Nexus with Col. It was far more interesting for him to find out where I was going than stop me."

  Reza's eyes flicker. I'm shouting down the connection, but I get the feeling my voice is little more than a whisper to her. She's doing an impressive job of shutting me out. She's hearing enough to make her relax her walls a little, though. Her brows bank together. I'm looking right at Stryker, nodding as he offers me more threats and warnings than I can truly stomach. Fuck him, though. I'm focusing on Reza's form in my peripherals. I catch every tiny twitch and move she makes.

  “Regis couldn't track me to Pirius, Reza. The sand storms blocked out the tracker’s transmission. But once we hit open space, it began transmitting again. There's no way to pull it from me. There's no way to remove it from my body. It’s a part of me now. Regis will always know where to find me. Which means, if we're together, you're always going to be in danger. I couldn't bear that."

  "So you hand me over to them once and for all?" Reza answers. "That's how you resolve the problem? I’m going to activate the nightcreeper Darius gave me. I’m going to end this.”

  “No! Reza, no. Don’t do that. I have a plan. Archimedes isn't just a research facility. It's a prison facility, too. Regis keeps his most valuable, most dangerous, most volatile captives here. It's safer than The Nexus. No external atmosphere. No external gravity. If someone escapes, there's absolutely nowhere for them to go."

  "Wonderful. So we'll be trapped here, being tortured and interrogated until we crack. Only it won't matter if we crack, because you already told Stryker about Pirius!”

  “I’ll have you out of here before anyone can lay a finger on you.” I hope she can hear the sincerity in my voice. The idea of one of Regis’ interrogators, men and women I trained, hurting her in any way makes me want to burn this whole fucking place down to the ground. It won’t happen, though. I really will protect her. “I’ll make sure the Pirians are safe, too. I’ll make sure everyone gets out. I had to give Stryker something, otherwise this would never have worked. The people of Pirius are ready for revolution, anyway. Farren—”

  “Farren’s a murderer. He doesn’t care about the people. He only cares about himself. He killed Col’s mother. We both know he’s the one who—”

  “He didn’t kill Erika,” I say quickly. “I looked into his mind on the night he won the election. He didn’t know who harmed the previous chancellor. I accidentally slipped into someone else�
�s mind that night, too, Reza. The person who really did commit the murder.” I’ve been keeping this to myself for too long now. It’s been weighing on me far more than I thought it would. “Darius. Darius killed Erika.”

  In the corner of my eye, Reza freezes. She was fighting against her restraints, struggling to wriggle her way out of the oversized spacesuit Stryker ordered her to wear, but now she falls as still as can be. “Darius? You’re…you’re out of your mind,” she hisses. “Erika and Darius were best friends. There’s no way he would ever have hurt her, let alone killed her.”

  “She asked him to do it. She saw what was coming, and she knew the people needed to be unified. She thought her death would be a catalyst for change. And it was. She was already dying, Reza. She didn’t see it as losing her life, only…speeding the process up.”

  I send her my memories of Darius’ thoughts. The scenes are blurry and confusing in places, but the final moments are very clear: Darius holding Erika in his arms, kissing the inside of her wrist and stroking her hair, then thrusting the ceremonial blade up into her stomach. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry out. She held Darius’ hand and spoke to him in hushed tones until she didn’t speak anymore, and then Darius wept over her body until she went cold.

  Tears streak down Reza’s face, out of control. “How am I going to tell Col?”

  “Concentrate, Reza. Stryker needs to see that you hate me. You despised me back on the ship, and you despised me when we entered the research facility. If that changes, he’ll know something’s wrong.”

  The man in question is barking orders at the scientists who are still grovelling on the floor. Construct soldiers hurry this way and that, their heavy military boots making a deafening din as they stomp around. Col’s head is hanging, his body so limp that I begin to wonder if one of the soldiers knocked him out when I wasn’t paying attention. He raises his gaze a second later, though, perfectly conscious and apparently desperate to rip my insides out.