Seconds later, the blaring horns of the ship’s alarm rang three times and the lights dimmed. Layela tumbled as the ship lurched sideways. Weapons-fire collided with the ship’s weakened hull, the sounds pounding the walls around her.
“Josmere.” Layela imagined her wounded friend losing her footing in the unsteady corridors, unable to rise again.
She stood, clutching the wall as the ship rocked again. Barely any dizziness struck her and Layela allowed herself a slight grin. Her sister had drugged her, yes, but in true Yoma fashion, she had done the most harm in the least harmful manner. Her body was recovering quickly enough that she could follow Josmere.
She had to. Any danger Josmere now faced, she faced for her.
i
Josmere bit back a cry of pain as the ship shook again and her wounded leg struck the corner of a corridor. She pulled her gun free, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it, and felt for which way to go.
Close. The other Berganda was close. So close that Josmere thought she could smell the sap pouring from her, although it was probably only her own leg. Again the ship jostled and, this time, Josmere lost her footing completely, hitting her elbow hard as she tried to shield her leg from impact. She gasped and gritted her teeth as pain shot through her body. She couldn’t tell where it was from anymore.
“Poor little plant-girl, green and bright, fallen on the floor and unable to fight.” The words taunted and teased her out of her pain.
Josmere spoke tightly as she pushed herself back up, hand against the wall for support. “So you’re also a poet.” Josmere looked upon a face very much like her own, but this Berganda’s eyes were not friendly.
Josmere cast her eyes down and spotted her gun, secure under the other Berganda’s foot.
“As a Berganda, I always thought it important to have an extra talent as an alternative, for when my life became a worthless farce.”
Josmere winced and looked up. “Mirial lies beyond that purple cloud. You still have hope. If you go there, blood-sister, you could save us all!”
Josmere didn’t see the gun swing around. It hit her hard on the side of the face. The blow rang in her ears as she fell hard, but not loudly enough to block out the other Berganda’s horrible laughter.
“Hope? You ask me to shed blood and you say there is still hope? Do you know how often I have bled?” Her foot came swiftly down on Josmere’s wound. Stars erupted before Josmere’s eyes and her stomach leapt to her throat.
“No soil is good enough! I have shed for my people, I have suffered, and no soil is good enough!”
Josmere dared not move, for fear of igniting further anger. She knew she couldn’t keep conscious through another blow.
Seela had moved and no longer stood on Josmere’s gun, but even though the weapon was barely inches from her, it seemed miles away. Josmere cringed as a cold hand touched her cheek, the hand of a Berganda. Her body reacted to the touch of a sister, unable to stop the transfer of thoughts; the telepathy was stronger than her will.
Josmere felt Seela’s deep despair: hailed as the last saviour of Berganda for so long, she was unable to fulfil what she had been led to believe was her destiny. And then her family had died around her, one by one, until the only blood she had left to shed was that of others; her own useless and dead.
Gently, Seela wiped a tear from Josmere’s face as though it was her own. Josmere wanted to scream at her, to tell her how alike they were, and how she could still choose life. But she couldn’t speak, and she knew that Seela had seen those thoughts as clearly as if they were her own. And she had shed them as easily as a tree would shed dead leaves.
The hand disconnected from her cheek. It took with it the knowledge of Josmere’s thoughts, but it also took away whatever hope Josmere had left, leaving her emptier than she had ever felt.
“So,” Seela whispered as she rose, pointedly putting her glove back on her slender hand. “Both twins are still alive. How fun. Now I still get to kill a saviour of Mirial.”
Josmere gritted her teeth, clenched her fists and fought against the feelings of failure that Seela had imprinted on her mind.
“You will not hurt them.” Josmere clenched her teeth. She could reach her gun now, but found herself unwilling to do so.
“What, you’re going to shoot the last fertile Berganda?” Seela jested as she followed Josmere’s gaze.
“Please,” Josmere pleaded. She no longer knew what to say. She could only hope that the strength of her emotion would change Seela’s poisoned mind.
A shot rang out and Seela jerked back, green blood dripping onto Josmere.
“Layela, no!” Josmere screamed. The other Berganda staggered and leaned against the wall, waves of terror emanating from her and crashing into Josmere, who swallowed hard against the flood of received emotions.
“She was going to shoot you, Josmere!” Layela screamed. Her arm was still outstretched, her finger still on the trigger.
“Please, please put it down,” Josmere pleaded, locking eyes with her. “Please, Layela.” She would probably pay for this with her life, but it was a small price to pay. “Without her, my people have no future!”
Layela’s eyes widened as though in understanding, and she lowered her gun slightly.
i
Mists clouded Layela’s vision, teasing reality away from her and implanting the memories of a vision seen too long ago to remember. The other Berganda looked triumphant as Layela lowered her gun. Without pause, she extended her arm and shot Josmere in the chest. The smell of sap filled the stale air.
Layela’s scream caught in her throat, held there by the knowledge that she was only seeing what was to be. In just a few seconds, Josmere would be dead. The vision receded and Layela brought up her gun again, ignoring the plea in Josmere’s eyes.
If the future could be changed, she would change it.
Layela pulled the trigger. She held her breath as the bullet raced towards the other Berganda, cutting through the last remaining misty threads of her vision.
i
“No!” Josmere screamed, trying to push Seela out of the way. Each movement was a lifetime too slow.
She felt Seela’s jubilation turn to confusion as she realized that Layela had shot her, despite Josmere’s plea. That confusion then turned to horror and fear and, for an instant, triumph.
I will not be the last. Josmere heard the thought and felt her own body withering around her. She didn’t need to open her eyes to see the gaping hole in Seela’s chest, didn’t need to feel her own flesh to know green blood was splattered on her. Its warmth and promise of life grew cold as Seela shook with her last breath.
And then there was nothing.
“Josmere?” Layela knelt before her, blocking the sight of the dead Berganda. Josmere focused on the deep blue of her eyes and the warmth of her flushed skin. Layela hesitated. “She would have killed you, Josmere. I just, I only had a second to act, and...”
A sob knocked the back of Josmere’s throat, hard. The Destiny shook with the impact of a massive volley and the lights flickered. The two friends struggled to keep balance, while Seela’s body slid and rolled, her green blood carpeting the metallic floors of the ship.
“We have to go.” Layela pulled Josmere up, unresisting.
“You did kill me, Layela,” Josmere whispered, but Layela did not seem to hear, energized by the need to escape.
Still, as they both ran towards the nearest access point to reach the bridge, sob after sob kept catching in the Berganda’s throat.
Layela had sealed her people’s fate and doomed them.
She had killed the last.
CHAPTER 26
The Victory manoeuvred by the last of the Solarian fleet, its allies protecting its flanks. Gobran Kipso stood by his chair, clutching its back but refusing to sit in it. A volley blew past them and the ship rocked. Gobran lost his footing and stumbled back by Yoma.
She kept her eye on the purple menacing sky before her, but she snagged Kipso’s arm and pu
shed him back up. She didn’t undo her own seat belt for fear of suffering the same fate.
“Lady,” the captain mumbled. He blushed and waddled back to his seat, his fingers turning white as he clutched at it.
“Entering the nebula in thirty seconds,” Loran, Kipso’s second-in-command reported, her voice wobbling with obvious relief. She met Yoma’s eyes for half a second, gave her a tentative smile and quickly turned around.
Yoma shook her head, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She was a bloody thief, had always been a bloody thief, and all their tall tales of royalty did nothing to change her plans to always be a bloody thief. Nothing in the world filled her like the thrill of the hunt, finding forbidden objects and claiming them as her own. It filled her the same way the sights and smells of flowers filled her twin. But she would endure the tall tales now, to ensure that Layela remained far behind her, safe.
“Captain,” Loran whispered as the first wisps of the purple beast stroked the Victory’s hull. The metal of the ship shuddered in response. “Other ships arriving on the starboard side. Solarian, sir. About thirty more.”
Yoma sat up in her chair and Kipso exhaled loudly.
“Just take us through, Loran. Where we go, they won’t be able to follow.”
“Sir, the Destiny is badly damaged. She looks dead in the water.”
Kipso hesitated for a second. “Keep us on course, Loran.”
Yoma tried to jump to her feet, the belt pulling her back. “Bloody Rankok Rot!” She swore as she unclasped it, her eyes locked on Gobran. He whirled around, wide-eyed at the profanity.
“You can’t leave them!” Yoma jumped up and approached Gobran, her abdomen almost touching his. She looked up at him, squaring her shoulders, placing her right foot back. Her fists clenched. She prepared to do whatever was necessary to stop them.
Without revealing that her sister still lived.
“You can’t leave the Destiny and the others!” Yoma continued when no answer came. “Those are too many ships for them to handle! They’re already being slaughtered!”
Kipso’s dark eyes looked back into hers without flinching. They narrowed — not with anger, but with deep sadness. “I have no choice, Lady Layela.”
Layela! Everything she had done was to spare her. Everything. And now she had left her to die on a ship.
“You can’t.” To her surprise, her voice cracked.
“Entering the nebula,” Loran whispered. The ship rocked and Yoma took a deep breath. Layela!
Fresh air pummelled into her and she fell to her knees, blades of grass prickling her hands.
“Yoma,” she heard the voice beside her say, and she was standing again. Layela smiled beside her as they walked on a bridge.
Blood.
“Layela! Lady Layela!” Yoma’s consciousness flew back to her body, to the present, but still she could not shake the feeling of the warm blood on her hands, and the sight of her sister’s eyes.
She opened her own, the last of her vision washed away by the worry in Gobran’s eyes. He cradled her in his arms.
Great. She struggled to sit up on her own, a few other crewmembers looking wide-eyed at her. Her visions had picked the worst possible time to re-surface.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled.
“Was it a vision, Lady?” Gobran asked, his voice filled with awe and a hint of joy. Yoma raised her eyes and looked at him. Before she could answer, he filled the silence. “The queen has always had visions and powers. Now that we come closer to Mirial, now that we are within her great shields, your powers should become full.”
“Great,” Yoma muttered. Gobran helped her to stand and led her to his captain’s chair. “I already have enough problems with this power,” she joked as she sat gratefully. This was much better than having to keep going through the visions while out on a caper.
“Tell me, Lady,” Gobran kneeled beside her, his eyes hungry for answers. Everyone on the bridge held their breath as he voiced the question on all of their minds. “Will Mirial be saved?”
Yoma looked towards the sky and its thickness. She felt drawn towards its centre, where she now knew her true home dwelt. She felt Mirial calling to her and she yearned to respond, her hands wanting to reach out and grab the star, her feet wanting to run towards it, her soul yearning to break free of her body to join it.
She held the arms of the captain’s chair, pressing her hands hard against them until the edges bit into her flesh and the pain interrupted the longings.
“She will live, Gobran Kipso,” Yoma replied in a voice that didn’t even feel like hers, that sounded older to her than her own. “She will live,” she continued. His eyes were wide with relief that came at the expense of her sister’s blood, “but at a greater price than you could ever understand.”
She broke her gaze from his, not caring to see the effect of her words. Looking out toward where she knew Mirial waited, her sight was haunted by her darker half. The vision confirmed one thing, at least. That Layela would live at least long enough to see the day when one of them would die before the other, to save a home they had never seen. She leaned back into the chair, the old leather creaking in greeting.
She had simply been arrogant to believe she could stop what a large fleet, a purple nebula and professional assassins couldn’t. Mirial would have her way, no matter what Yoma craved and desired.
I can’t stop it. She swallowed hard as peace descended on her.
I can’t stop it, but I can make sure it is my blood that is shed, not Layela’s.
i
The green blood, lifeless and growing thicker under the cold lights, caught Romero’s eyes and held them before he dared look further. He took another step forward, focused on the green liquid. His brow was covered with sweat, his mouth dry.
He had smelled death before, but never like this. He had inflicted it on others, had even felt their last moments. He had followed them with his powers until he could no longer do so, the connection broken as the flesh grew cold.
His eyes strayed upwards. The green blood gave way to a long, yellowing leg. The skin, perfectly smooth and enticing but hours ago, was already drying.
Despite his explorations, he knew very little about death.
Her ripped pants, soaked in green blood, revealed a tease of green thigh. Romero remembered the feel of his bare hand on the fabric. How soft and warm it had been.
After years of searching for an afterlife, both through his powers and Layela’s, he doubted much existed beyond the fear and the final breath. And never before had he really cared.
The wound was in the chest. The shirt ripped, the hole hardened and crusted over where ether had failed to heal her before the last breath was drawn.
It smelled fresh, like a lawn being cut. Romero’s stomach turned. Death was not supposed to smell good, not like this. He forced himself to look at her. Her face was still recognizable, but it was beginning to sink in where sap no longer pushed on her skin, and the skin itself was hardening without its constant feed. Her hair had yellowed and had mostly fallen out. He looked away for a moment, and in so doing, saw her hands.
She had died with her hands covered. Romero’s vision blurred. He knelt, not caring about the blood, and reached down to take her right hand in his own. He remembered her hand’s vitality and the joys and ether they had shared. So different, yet so alike.
He turned the hand over and gently pulled at the glove, working it around the pommel of her slim hand, over her thumb and four delicate fingers. It slipped off, a lifetime of wear on it. A lifetime of oppression.
The green hand seemed untouched by death. The fingernails were still perfect, their tips white, clinging to their colour as though in hope that one day they would be allowed to see sun again.
He turned the hand over. It was perfectly smooth and without prints, as smooth as the rest of her had once been. He swallowed hard, shifted a bit as the sap stuck to his knees, and pulled his own glove off with his teeth.
His dark fingernail
s, outlined by his orange skin, were trimmed painfully each day to keep them as comfortable in the gloves as possible. The glove fell in the sap and he didn’t care. He closed his hand around hers, her slenderness vanishing in his thick fist. But where his mind had exploded in light before, where the two had connected more deeply than he had ever believed possible, all that he felt now was her cold, withering hand, and no spark of life.
He clutched her hand and feared letting go, his instincts repulsed by her lack of reaction, as though it was his own heart that no longer pumped blood. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of freshly cut flowers and dead legacies.
A howl ripped from deep within his throat, its echo only adding to his grief.
i
“I’m fine.” Josmere clenched her teeth, refusing Layela’s help.
“Why must you always be so bloody stubborn?”
“Because I’m a Berganda!” Josmere forced herself to grin sideways at her, flicking loose strands of green hair to her back. Layela did not look impressed. Josmere shrugged, wishing she could tell Layela she just didn’t care if she lived or died now. There had been little left for her before, and now there was nothing at all. “Seriously. I am healing my wound. I’ll be fine in a few hours.”
Layela sighed in frustration. As the two of them reached the ladder, a howl sounded through the Destiny. The friends’ eyes met briefly, and Layela looked towards the ladder with newfound urgency.
“And I suppose you’re fine enough to climb this to the deck?” she asked Josmere, who nodded.
“I need my hands. One leg will do.”
Josmere grasped the rungs, but ducked instinctively when a shot ricocheted off the wall beside her. Layela, crouched, felt her blood turn cold. The Kilita’s gun was trained on them. His orange eyes were slit and threatening, the pupils clenched like a snake’s.
“Why?” he hissed as he advanced. His ungloved hands and shirt were covered in green blood. Layela was surprised that it was Josmere at whom he aimed his gun, and even more surprised that her friend didn’t seem to care.
I saved you, Josmere! You won’t die here, like this. You’re not meant to! No mists assailed her vision, and she wondered if they would leave her alone now — if she had somehow beaten them back by fighting against their predicted outcome.
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