Four steps into the Ghost, Cade wondered why he’d been stupid enough to think luck was going to be by his side.
“Whoa ho ho!” a voice bellowed at Cade’s side. “The almighty Chosen One walks among us!”
Cade shot a glance over his shoulder, knowing who he’d find: Elko, Omega’s knuckle-dragger prime, standing just a few feet away from him.
“And he’s gracing me with his glare,” Elko added. “I thank ye, O regal one.”
Cade should have known. “Select individuals know about the Rokura” Jorken had said, but secrets on the Well were as secure as water poured into a colander.
Having no other choice, Cade chewed the few steps between him and Elko, closing the distance between them. No one was looking in their direction, not yet, and Cade wanted to keep it that way. The last thing he wanted was a scene.
“I’m not royalty, genius,” Cade said. “And I have no interest in entertaining whatever you’re trying to provoke. So why don’t I just buy you a drink and we consider that the price of you leaving me alone?”
Cade tried to turn toward the bar, but his movement was interrupted by Elko’s mitt as it grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back around. Elko straightened his slouched posture and rose even higher over Cade, who realized it was hard to appreciate a man’s size until he’s towering over you. Elko was an Azzal, and his remarkable size was rare, even for his species. He stood a good foot taller than Cade, with shoulders so wide it looked like he could collapse them around Cade and absorb his body. He was so big, in fact, that the cockpit of his Echo-class starfighter had to be modified to accommodate his bulk. Like all Omega pilots, he had Omega’s sigil tattooed into the side of his head—two symmetrical wings that morphed into fangs, bisected by a rising star—the ink spreading across the three gills that ran across his narrow scalp. Elko was one of two nonhumans in Omega Squadron, and while Cade didn’t want to say he looked like a giant fish—that was considered offensive—the fact was that Elko looked like a giant fish. He had gills and scales, ashen-gray skin, eyelids that blinked from left to right, and webbed fingers. All pretty clear signs of marine life. Cade just had to make the slightest mention of Elko resembling something that came from the water, and he’d get a fight started right then and there.
“So tell me, all powerful one, what do you and your Masters plan on doing with this weapon? Are we going to continue to sit around and let Praxis take over more systems, or are you finally going to let Omega Squadron put its boots up their asses?”
“Oh,” Cade said, feigning surprise, “I didn’t know you and your squadron could defeat Praxis all on your own. Please, don’t let me stop you. I’ll just kick back and wait for you to finish.”
Elko snarled, and Cade could smell the alcohol on his breath. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this, Sura. Too long. Your Masters keep us in check because—why? They don’t want to start an all-out war, right? That’s what they always say. But war’s already here. They’re too afraid to fight back because they think we’ll lose. So instead, their strategy is to let Praxis press its boots on the galaxy’s throat, just as long as they do it gently. But I’ll tell you what: I’d rather die fighting than live under someone else’s heel. There’s a whole lot of us who aren’t going to let your cowardly Masters stand in our way for much longer. We’re going to fight back.”
Cade studied Elko, considering what to say. There was a lot of truth in his words, because the Well was, arguably, complicit in Praxis’s rise. At first, the Masters didn’t take Praxis’s aggressions seriously; then, they attributed the burgeoning kingdom’s growth to fringe fanaticism; then, they discounted Praxis’s growing might. By the time the Masters realized what Praxis had become, it was too late. The kingdom was already born. But Elko’s insights ended there, and they were balanced by just as much stupidity. “You know, Elko, you’re right. The Well has problems. The Masters screwed up more than once, and had a lot of people and planets been smarter, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. But we are, and I know the Masters are doing what they can to help. You’ve been there; you’ve seen it. We’ve quelled interplanetary conflicts that saved thousands of lives, we’ve broken Praxis blockades and delivered relief to starving people—to families and children. If you think you and whatever other angry idiots you’ve surrounded yourself with can actually make a stand against Praxis, you’re dead wrong. Praxis will eat you for lunch, and when they find out where you came from, they’ll suck the life from our sun just to prove their point.”
Somehow, another drink materialized in Elko’s hand. He took a long, sloppy swig, wiped the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand, then shook it off so the residue splashed in Cade’s face. Cade upturned his lip, but decided to let the offense slide. With any luck, that’d be the end of his conversation with Elko.
“Just like the rest,” Elko grumbled. “Nothing but pitiful excuses. Guess that answers the question of whether you’re with us or not.”
“See you around, Elko,” Cade said, and turned once more toward the bar. He wanted a drink more than ever.
“Yeah, walk away, Mr. Paragon,” Elko mocked from behind Cade’s back. “Mr. Powerful. So powerful. So powerful you couldn’t even save your own brother.”
Cade stopped dead in his tracks and took a long, deep breath. He could just keep walking, he could get a drink and forget all about Elko. If he were a better person, one who was in control of his impulses, he could absolutely do that. But Cade was Cade, and while he generally couldn’t care less what people thought of him, insulting his brother—his dead brother—was an entirely different thing. That slimy fish-face was lucky he didn’t have the Rokura on him, because blasting Elko into complete and utter nothingness didn’t sound like such a bad idea. But Cade was armed with nothing but his brother’s shido, and he couldn’t already break the promise he’d made to use it only for noble purposes. That meant he’d have to settle this thing the old-fashioned way. He turned, slowly, and shot a cold, hard glance at the other members of Omega Squadron. They were either looking away or shaking their heads, conceding that Elko had gone too far. It was their way of saying that should Cade go after Elko, they weren’t going to jump in. That was exactly what Cade was looking for.
“Get real, Sura,” Elko said. “We all know there’s nothing you can—”
Cade didn’t want to hear one more word come out of Elko’s stupid mouth. He whipped around, led by his fist, and landed a right hook across Elko’s face. He felt the squishy impact on his knuckles as flesh met flesh, and, as weird as it was, he was glad for the padding. Cade had thrown his entire body into the punch, which resulted in a wild, unorthodox strike. He knew better than to hurl his weight into a punch, but he wasn’t in the mood for controlling himself. Cade’s emotions were leading him, and right now, his emotions told him to attack like a wild animal, so that’s what he did. And it worked. His punch landed squarely, much to Cade’s surprise. What came as even more of a surprise was when Cade realized that his punch, the one he directed all his strength into, had budged Elko maybe an inch back on his heels.
“Well … crap,” Cade said as Elko glared furiously at him. He bared his chiseled, gray teeth and took three shallow breaths before unleashing a wet, gargled roar. His “MMMRRRAAAAWWW!” echoed throughout the entire bar, and Cade could only watch as he raised his webbed right hand, which looked like it could suction the skin right off Cade’s face. And who knows? Maybe that’s exactly what he would have done had the one person who had the power to stop him not intervened.
“STUPID MEN!” a voice yelled from across the bar, sounding less like a comment and more like a command. As in, “Stupid men, stop being stupid.” Whatever it was, it worked, and Elko froze his hand mid-plunge.
Cade turned to see Kira Sen stomping toward him, her fluffy Mohawk—a single row of hair set in dreadlocks—bouncing with every step she took. “Ah, great,” he heard Elko grumble, and he glanced over to see Elko dusting himself off as he tried to stand at attention.
&nb
sp; Kira stood between Cade and Elko, alternating her perturbed glance between both of them. Nobody in the entire bar said a single word until she reached her verdict.
“You said something dumb, Elko,” she said.
Elko immediately went on the defensive. “I did not! He came in and—”
Kira shoved her hand in front of Elko’s face, and he immediately shut up. She then turned her attention to Cade, keeping her hand in place to maintain Elko’s silence.
“Cade, I apologize for whatever Elko did or said. Best I can tell, he was exposed to too much radion as a child. He’s lucky he’s such a skilled pilot, otherwise he’d probably be digging ditches somewhere. And poorly at that.”
Cade gave a cavalier shrug, trying to conceal his deep, deep relief. “It’s cool,” Cade said. “I mean, I had the whole thing under control. But I appreciate you stopping him.”
“Sure you did,” Kira said, shooting Cade a patronizing smile. “Elko, go join your squadron. Cade, I’m buying you a drink.”
“No, you don’t have to. I mean, I’m—”
“That wasn’t an offer,” Kira said, turning back to face Cade—she had already started heading toward her own table in the back corner of the bar. “It was a command. Now come on; you’re having a drink with me.”
Kira Sen was, without question, the Well’s best pilot. Just ask her, and she’d say so herself. She formed Omega Squadron, hand-selecting its members and training them to fly and fight exactly the way she did. And like all of them, she had the squadron’s sigil tattooed on the right side of her shaved head, though it was often obscured by the dreads falling from her Mohawk. Cade eyed her and considered her vaunted—and insane—reputation and had to remind himself that she was only a few years older than he was, even though her accomplishments made it seem like she was a grizzled combat veteran. He also had to remind himself to keep his attraction in check. Sure, she had full lips and mysterious gray eyes, and while her tendency to be abrasive and brash could be really irritating, it was also really sexy. Kira was loaded with contradictions like this, and it drove Cade nuts. More than once he pondered how much he admired her for carving out her own niche at the Well while he flailed around aimlessly, but he also hated her for it. He should hate Kira, because she got to do all the cool stuff he was sidelined from, and she did it her own way. There was no one else like Kira, and being alone with her sprung an idea in Cade’s head, but he immediately shot it down. Cade was smart enough to know that if he even intimated flirting with her, he’d probably end up flat on his back. And not in a good way.
“Two shots of root!” Kira yelled as Cade took the chair opposite her.
“Oh, okay. We’re going right for shots?”
“I’m sorry,” Kira said, pouting her lip. “Did you want something different? Maybe a floral concoction?”
Cade rolled his eyes and took the shot as it was dropped in front of him. “This is fine.”
“A toast!” Kira yelled, hoisting her shot glass to the sky. “To the person who, apparently, is going to liberate the entire galaxy.” Kira lifted her glass to her lips, but before she kicked back her shot of root, she looked at Cade and winked. “But no pressure.”
Cade tossed the root into his mouth and tried to endure its unique, fiery burn as it coated his throat. Balanced with other ingredients—like mash, hops, or some kind of sweetener—root could be okay. Not great, but an improvement over its raw form, which tasted like rocket fuel combined with its own afterburner. Cade tried not to wince like he’d just been fed the stuff that made his ship go, but he couldn’t contain his body’s involuntary revulsion. His eyes burst open and he emphatically shook his head “no,” as if rejecting what had already happened would somehow make things better. Luckily for him, he saw that Kira was having the same reaction, though she was better at forcing it back. At least he wasn’t losing face as he torched his insides.
Kira pounded her empty glass on the table, twice, then held it up above her head. “Another round!” she yelled.
“I thought you commanded me for one drink,” Cade said.
“Shut up,” Kira replied. “You just lost your brother. I’m not going to let you sit here alone and wallow. It brings the whole place down.”
A second round was dropped in front of them. The bartender must have known not to leave Kira waiting.
“So,” Kira said, spinning her first empty drink glass clockwise on the table. “What’s your plan?”
Cade slouched back in his chair. “Come on, I left Ticus so I didn’t have to talk about … anything.”
“Oh, what? You want to talk about the grim things that I can tell are on your mind instead? This is the fun part: You’re going to have those Praxis dogs kneeling before you in terror. You don’t want to indulge, at least a little bit, in how awesome that’s going to be?”
“Assuming that’s how any of this works.”
“You don’t know?”
“Kira, I just spent the last fifty-some hours in a medical coma. I’m lucky I didn’t crash into an asteroid on my way here.”
“If it was me who pulled that weapon, we’d already be storming Praxis wherever they are and wherever they go.”
“And I’m assuming you have a foolproof plan for crushing the Praxis kingdom? I mean, who doesn’t?”
Kira stopped spinning her glass and glanced at Cade with a look on her face that was entirely lacking in humor. Even by Kira’s standards. “Yeah, actually, maybe I do. And maybe I’ll pull it off.”
“Careful now,” Cade said with a playful smile, trying to bring back some levity. “You’re starting to sound like the Rising Suns.”
Kira scoffed. “Is that so wrong?”
Cade paused. He knew the Well’s official line: The Rising Suns were a terrorist group that didn’t diminish any of the galaxy’s turmoil; they only contributed to it. They bombed Praxis outposts; they sought the weakest links in their supply lines and decimated them; they even started inspiring copycats who launched guerrilla attacks that compromised Praxis occupations. It was true that when the Rising Suns struck, Praxis responded by doubling down—their efforts, their cruelty, their suffocating presence. But there was no telling the intangible gains the Rising Suns were responsible for. Did their presence cause Praxis to second-guess themselves? Would showing Praxis’s vulnerability give entire systems the confidence to fight back? Cade privately wondered about these things, knowing the ostracism he’d be treated to if he voiced any of these questions. Still, even with Kira, he figured it best to tread lightly when it came to appearing to side with denounced terrorists.
“Well,” he said, “they’re pretty much the opposite of what the Rai stand for. We’re meant to be peacekeepers, not aggressors. The Rising Suns tend to only make our job harder. They attack, and then we have to clean up their mess.”
“You mean you have to assuage Praxis so they don’t do something atrocious.”
Cade tried to counter with something but instead froze. There were times when the control panel on Cade’s ship caught a glitch, and the screen would blink again and again until the system righted itself. Cade’s face, as he tried to think of a way to counter Kira’s statement, was that blinking screen.
“Face it, Cade. The Rising Suns are out there doing something, and we’re not. End of story.”
“Well, I’m sorry not everyone is obsessed with annihilating Praxis like it’s personal, Kira.”
Cade awkwardly groaned. He wished he could take all the words he just said and shove them right back inside his mouth. Everyone at the Well was dedicated to fighting Praxis, even if their methods for doing so tended to be unpopular. But no one had Kira’s fanaticism. No one was as dogged in pursuit of inflicting pain and misery on Praxis. She trained like she was still learning the ropes; she was the first one to volunteer for any mission, and she was so headstrong in her tactics and methods that her superiors had no choice but to let her have her own rogue squadron. No one could contain her, and the Well couldn’t afford to lose someone as gi
fted as she was, so they gave her what she needed. They let her operate however she wanted and surround herself with people who, if they were lucky, could keep up. What caught most people’s attention, though, was the way Kira fought. She went after Praxis like she had a vendetta, though no one knew why. And no one dared ask. Or comment on it.
“Look, Kira, I—”
Kira raised her glass and looked at Cade with a smile; he couldn’t tell if it was forced or not. Either way, she was letting him off the hook.
“To Praxis’s downfall,” she said, and Cade joined her in the toast. The second helping of root did not go down any easier than the first. In fact, it might have been worse.
“So,” Kira said, waving her empty glass in the air for the bartender to see. “Do I need a reason?”
“A reason for what?” Cade asked, still wincing from the drink.
“To want Praxis buried yesterday.”
“For the way you go at it? Yeah, you kinda do.”
Kira spun the glass on the table, nodding her head to whatever train of thought was going on in her mind. “I’ll make you a deal: I’ll tell you why I want to see everything Praxis burned to the ground, and you promise to let me be there when you do … whatever it is you end up doing.”
Cade pursed his lips as if considering her offer. A third round was placed in front of him. He was the one to initiate the toasting ritual this time, and he used the liquid fire to bury any mixed feelings he had about agreeing to give Kira something he knew he never could. The urge to know her story overrode his guilt, and he reasoned that whatever she told him didn’t matter anyway; he was long gone by the next moons.
“You got yourself a deal,” Cade said, raising his empty glass to be seen. His equilibrium shifted with the sudden movement, and he felt his eyes roll before snapping back into focus. Cade wasn’t much of a drinker, and he certainly wasn’t one to match Kira.
“First, put your glass down. You’re embarrassing yourself,” Kira said as she raised her own. “And if you tell anyone about this, I’ll—”
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