“But remember to hold on to me with your other hand,” he said, and then waited.
Feeling like an idiot child, I snatched a handful of his warm shirt, trying to touch him as little as possible.
He jumped. “Great Collapse, your hands are cold.”
I almost let go, and I felt my blush creep back up my earlobes. “I don’t have to—”
“Shh, we’re going,” he said, moving forward and tugging me along behind him.
I was glad none of my crew could see me like this. Weak or not, dying or not, I most definitely wouldn’t still be holding on to his blasted shirt by the time I piloted us back to the Kaitan.
If we even made it that far.
After Nev used an ID card he’d gotten from somewhere, the door to the lab slid open. He poked his head out into the equally dim, red-flashing hallway. It was quiet except for the screaming alarm. Only then did he move forward with me in tow. So far so good.
…Until we turned a corner and almost ran into two crew running toward what had to be the bridge, or the engine room.
Nev lunged forward, breaking my hold on him, before I or the others could blink. With a few swipes of his blade, they’d crumpled to the ground. Smart, to use his sword, even though the pistol was a far more obvious weapon. Someone might have heard the blasts. The blade was silent.
“Did you kill them?” My voice came out higher than I’d intended.
“I hit them with the hilt. They’re just unconscious,” he said distractedly. With equal inattention, he passed his pistol to his sword hand, grabbed my hand, and directed it back to the hem of his shirt.
I spared the energy to scowl at a spot somewhere between his shoulder blades. But I didn’t say anything, because we were creeping down the hall again, in the direction the crew had come from. Nev moved quietly, far quieter than me, even though he had heavier footwear—boots to my blasted slippers. Walking stealthily was a skill I had failed to cultivate while captaining the Kaitan. I’d built up the opposite: stomping.
I regretted that now, especially as I stumbled into Nev’s back when he stopped at a juncture. I had to steady myself with both hands, one on his waist, under his shirt, and the other, holding the plasma pistol, on his shoulder. He was lucky I didn’t blow off his head.
I whipped my hands away as soon as I was steady. He waited, listening.
And then he flattened me against the wall, tucking both of us deep into the shadows. About five more crew ran down the hallway we’d nearly crossed, shouting about a pressure leak in a bank of valves.
They didn’t stop. But I didn’t even take a breath once they were gone, because Nev’s arm was mashed across my chest, his elbow digging into my ribs, his other palm pressed against my hip. I felt both unbearably self-conscious and buzzingly warm, which had nothing to do with the temperature. It had been so long since I’d been touched, and never like this. I was usually too busy fishing, never mind that most people wanted to stay away from me. And even if the rare, desperate individual didn’t, my brothers and Eton had been too much of a deterrent.
It didn’t matter that Nev probably wasn’t aware of what he was doing, and that we were running for our lives. The effect was the same. My heart took off faster than a starfighter, and blood pounded in my ears.
Well, at least I didn’t have to be so embarrassed about touching him now.
He moved away from me, not as quickly as I had from him, slipping up to the junction to make sure the coast was clear, the red-alert lights flaring in his eyes as he glanced back and forth. When he’d apparently determined it was safe, all he whispered was “Hand.”
I grabbed the back of his shirt again. This time I didn’t scowl at him. I even braced my fist against his lower back, only half trying to ignore how firm he was, and fixated on the Kaitan in my head. Please, Nev, I thought, if you get me home I swear I’ll never call you a piece of scat again.
When he was sure I was ready, we continued to slip forward. It took only a few more hallways and turns, and stepping over one more newly unconscious form, before we arrived at the airlock that led to the starfighters. A swipe of one of Nev’s ID cards—where had he gotten them all?—took care of the seal on the doors.
The bay was as shadowy as everything else, with the usual periodic sweeps of red light illuminating the looming shapes of the fighters. But the siren was quieter here, probably so anybody piloting in an emergency would be able to hear themselves think. No one seemed to be paying much attention to the small spacecraft with the much larger vessel foundering.
Or else I was wrong again. Nev cursed only loud enough for me to hear, and a voice echoed from the other side of the bay:
“Yes, they’re shooting at us. That grubby little fishing vessel!” The revolting little man who’d hit me appeared, striding out of the shadows with someone dressed as a fighter pilot. The disgusting man was likely a vice captain, or else he would have been on the bridge right now. I wanted to leap forward and attack him, until his next words made me freeze: “Even if our ship’s cannons are offline, these starfighters aren’t. I want to see chunks of that heap drifting by viewports in less than ten minutes.”
My ship. My crew. I realized my hand was now digging into Nev’s back like a claw. He turned and touched my face, just for a second, to bring my eyes to his.
I could never in a million years have imagined a situation in which Nevarian Dracorte would have either touched my face, or touched my face without me punching his. But apparently this was one. He held my gaze and nodded, communicating everything he had to in that simple gesture:
It’ll be okay. Wait here.
I waited. Because, for some unfathomable reason, I still trusted him.
He strolled away from the doors with the pistol at his side, swinging his deadly blade almost jauntily, as if it were a cane…and whistling, of all things.
Both men halted midstep. Their eyes were mag-coupled to the Disruption Blade. They knew what it meant that he had one.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Nev said.
The disgusting man reached for what was likely a comm at his ear. Before his hand even made it halfway, Nev’s pistol was up.
“No, you know how this goes,” Nev said. “That’s it, drop your hand.”
He strode right up to both of them, pistol pointed. He stood for a moment, as if considering them, and then cocked his head at the disgusting one.
“You really might want to reconsider that facial hair. And hitting other captains.” He leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. “You never know when they might outrank you someday.”
And then Nev backhanded him across the face. He hit him like the man had hit me, except Nev was holding the pistol and so the blow was a lot heavier.
The man only had time to let out a satisfying squeal and a dribble of blood from his mouth before the blade flashed and Nev laid them both flat like everyone else. He grinned at me over his shoulder and beckoned with his sword. Far more surprising than his inappropriate attitude to the whole situation was that I found myself grinning back at him.
I stumbled away from the wall as he lifted the microchipped key to the starfighter off the pilot, along with yet another ID card. He was building quite the collection. “Probably the only reason I’m doing this instead of just leaving him to get sucked into space”—Nev grabbed one of the disgusting man’s legs and dragged him toward the airlock doors—“is so he can live with the shame of all this.”
He did the same with the pilot, depositing them safely on the other side of the doorway. I was ashamed myself that I was too weak to help him, but I couldn’t even attempt to offer. Nev didn’t seem bothered.
Once he’d sealed the airlock again, he dusted off his hands. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I said, unable to keep from grinning again, even as tired as I was. Or maybe because I was so tired. “Let’s get back to the Kaitan and get the blasted hell out of here.”
How I would explain his presence to the crew posed a greater challenge than starting u
p the starfighter, blowing straight through the bay doors with a pair of plasma torpedoes, and jetting for the stars through the ragged hole. Any fighters that could have followed us came tumbling out behind us, unmanned, into the vacuum of space.
“You,” Eton growled while stabbing a finger at me, “ought to be dead.”
He sounded disappointed, rather than amazed that I wasn’t. We were seated in the messroom, where the crew could eat their meals or spend some quality time stewing in awkwardness, as we currently were.
Eton had been blessedly absent before now, holed up in the turret, chipping away at the destroyer with the mass driver. Not that it had been all that necessary since, mysteriously, it hadn’t even attempted to return fire or lock onto us again with its tractor beam. Maybe that was because Captain Uvgamut had so neatly and astonishingly disabled it from the inside out. Arjan had been piloting the Kaitan away from the foundering destroyer, but he’d since put the ship on autopilot. And now that everyone had finished their various duties, we’d gathered here for what was shaping up to be a rousing good time.
I glanced at Qole. She looked to be at death’s door—her eyes were deeply hollowed and her entire face remained shockingly pale for someone with a complexion that dark. My only consolation was that some color had finally returned to her lips.
It hurt to look at her, both in sympathy for the obvious abuse she had sustained, and because what in the systems had transpired in that destroyer? Shadow affinity was one thing, but what I had seen and experienced was entirely fantastical—more magic than science.
What had been perhaps even more amazing was that, in the middle of a complete rage, in the grip of some unspeakable power, she hadn’t lost control. In my admittedly limited experience of Shadow in anyone other than Qole, black eyes seemed to indicate madness—obvious, nonsensical, reckless insanity. Instead, Qole had shown a restraint and quality of behavior that I knew I wouldn’t have had. And she had obviously paid the price.
Here I sat, having deceived her practically since I’d met her, using tricks instead of the truth to try to achieve my goals, and I had only a few bruises to show for it.
I didn’t want to think about why else it might hurt to look at her. She was sitting across the table from me, keeping her distance. I had the strong urge to close that distance, but I couldn’t. She wouldn’t want me to. For a moment there on the destroyer, it had been just the two of us, a polarized pair united by a common goal. But now we were back to being worlds apart. It almost made me miss the destroyer.
I wanted to share the same goal again—and preferably without the looming threat of death. I wanted to tell her the truth. All of it.
Despite looking at the end of her charge, Qole somehow managed to sit up straight when she spoke. Her voice was steady, but she wasn’t meeting my eyes. “Eton, he just saved my life.”
“So what? Qole, you were in danger because of him in the first place.”
I swallowed. There was little denying he was right.
“Eton’s right,” Arjan helpfully confirmed. “One minute, our lives are fine, and the next you’re almost dead and the Kaitan is shot up, thanks to him.” He stood with his arms crossed, and his fury was more contained but no less potent than Eton’s. “I’m glad he wasn’t a total scumbag, I guess, but he’s still a piece of scat.”
“And did you see what he did to Eton?” Telu demanded. “He beat the snot out of him. Not what I’d say was nice-guy behavior.”
“Hey.” Eton scowled, an expression somehow made all the more frightening with half of his face swollen and bruised. “There’s no need.”
Telu shrugged. “Sorry. But I say we strip his stuff as payment, maybe rough him up so he gives us some sweet credentials to a princely bank account, hey?” Her face started to redden. She practically spat out her next words. “Then we can leave him in some scum hole and tell everyone he’s there. And we can say, ‘Oh hey, we were super nice, we thought he’d be okay there, we didn’t intend to get him killed or anything.’ ”
“Attractive as the thought may be, you’d only be causing us a great deal more trouble,” Basra said. “And he didn’t call the destroyer on us—he tried to warn us about using the comms; we didn’t listen.”
Arjan stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious, Bas.” He sounded almost hurt. There was tension between them disproportionate to Basra’s logical comment, and I filed it away for later investigation.
“It’s not that complicated,” Qole said. She still wouldn’t look at me. “He lied to us, and everyone got in trouble. He also saved my life, probably all our lives, when he didn’t have to. We drop him off where he can get transport, he promises to never contact us again, and we’re done.”
I’d assumed her initial judgment would sting, but such an impersonal dismissal from her life hurt a lot more than that. I wasn’t sure what I had expected from her…a little more credit, after what we’d been through? Acknowledgment? Acknowledgment of what? I had no idea.
Silence settled around the table as everyone considered this somewhat acceptable course of action. Acceptable, that is, to everyone but me, for whom it was profoundly wrong on multiple levels. I took a deep breath. The last twenty-four hours might have been hell, but this was going to be the hardest part.
I let out the breath. “I’m afraid you can’t really do that.”
“Why the hell not?” Qole asked. She only gave me a glance at that, then focused determinedly on the wall somewhere to my right.
I rubbed my jaw. The pain suppressors were making it a very disengaged servant, and I needed it in top form right now.
Basra stole my thunder. “That destroyer won’t be the last one, will it?”
I nodded, grimacing. “I’m afraid that’s true. That destroyer belonged to the Treznor-Nirmanas, they have a nearly infinite supply of them, and they want Qole—yes, yes, Eton, I’m getting to why they want her.”
I’d beaten Eton to the punch, at least, and he paused, his mouth open for a demanding roar. I felt a twinge of guilt at making Qole go through this, but it had to be done. It’ll be okay, I thought, I’ll be careful.
“Because of this.” I reached out and flipped off a light. The flickering Shadow lantern on the table now covered us in its purple glow. “Shadow is difficult to harvest, but an incredible source of energy. But to most everyone else, using it in simple appliances like that”—I gestured at the lamp—“is tantamount to suicide. You’ve all experienced, some of you firsthand, what Shadow poisoning can do.” I thought of the wasted man who had grabbed my arm at the harbor, and repressed a shudder. So different from Qole. “The rest of us use it in massive industrial power plants or space stations, or even in experimental starship prototypes, but not for mood lighting.”
“That’s crappy mood light,” Telu said flatly.
“Good for a crappy mood, then. It’s volatile, but Shadow wants to bind to organic matter, even as it tries to destroy it. If it achieves a binding, it stabilizes. My family has been pioneering such research, studying how to create an affinity between Shadow and algae in order to make it less dangerous and far more useful as a bio-energy source. If we succeed, this could change the systems. We’re talking untold energy potential here, infinitely widespread application, and immeasurable value.”
“The Treznors didn’t say they wanted me for that,” Qole said, eyes on her lap, now. Why wouldn’t she look at me?
I grimaced. “I know. I didn’t know what they were after until you did. Look, people like you, Qole, are the key to understanding how Shadow binds organically—for my family, we’re after it for the algae, but the fact is, more directly, you’re an example of it binding with humans. Interest in this has been a side effect of our research. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” I added quickly. “My family can use what they find to make Shadow safer—not just as a fuel source, but also to keep it from destroying people the way it does on Alaxak. To save you, Qole, and Arjan and Telu.”
“And what would you need
from Qole to do this?” Arjan asked darkly.
“Our research is so close, missing only the final pieces. All we need is for her to undergo a few tests—and possibly even you, Arjan, and you, Telu—to achieve our goals.”
Qole’s face instantly grew hard. “Tests…like the Treznor-Nirmanas’?”
I held up my hands. “No! My family wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t. The tests are nothing that would cause you any pain—tiny tissue and blood samples, reflex measurements, brain scans, that sort of thing. My uncle, Rubion Dracorte, is leading my family’s top-secret research into this, and he assured me that no harm would come to you.”
“Yeah, ‘top-secret,’ ” Eton growled, “and ‘no harm,’ my ass. Did you notice the destroyer?”
A regretful sigh escaped me. “The Treznor-Nirmanas have been spying on us in an impressive capacity, which is one of several reasons why I came alone. My uncle and I couldn’t trust anyone else. And, yes, their involvement makes things a good deal less safe for you, now that they know of our interest in Qole. The wisest course of action would be to come with me to Luvos, my home planet, and take shelter in the capital, Dracorva.”
“So we just give the Dracortes everything they want, even though they already have everything?” Arjan sounded disgusted.
“If we can understand how this works, then no one will have any reason to go after Qole; they’ll come to us instead,” I said. “We can keep her safe, and she can help us understand the gift she has.”
Arjan and Qole glanced at one another. “This isn’t a gift,” he said. “Trust me.”
“But it can be. We can turn it into one.”
“Why?” Qole finally met my eyes, and I shivered in a way that wasn’t unpleasant in the slightest. Too bad her next question was of the less-pleasant sort. “Why does your family want this so badly?”
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