Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star (Chronicles of Alsea Book 10)

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Above them, the Voloth flagship had not launched another set of bioforce missiles. They probably assumed the job was done. Even if millions of lives weren’t at stake, she’d want to make this work just to prove them wrong.

  “There it is,” Candini said. “Ready grappler.”

  A slim, silver cylinder flew daintily ahead of them, looking far too innocuous to be a civilization killer.

  It was odd, the things that crossed one’s mind while staring disaster in the face. Rahel watched sunlight reflect off the metal casing and marveled at the fact that all of Alsea’s defenses were working against these things, but only she and Candini were seeing one with their own eyes. Everyone else had worked from battle grids and targeting screens.

  Candini crossed over the top of it, then steepened her dive to match its trajectory and speed. Gradually, she closed the gap.

  “Almost there,” Rahel said. The missile was growing larger and larger in her screen, close enough now that she could see alien lettering on its side. “Thank Fahla it’s such a small diameter. We can get our grappler around it.”

  “Because there sure as shek aren’t any convenient handles or magtran rails to grab.” Candini was watching the same view on her screen, forgoing any other flight data in favor of getting this right.

  “There. Hold steady.” Rahel wiped her sweaty hand on her flight suit. It was going to need a wash, she thought absently as she grasped the control stick. Now repurposed for the task, it acted as an extended arm. The grappler was her own body, reaching out from the bottom of their fighter. She had practiced this so many times on the space elevator that it had become second nature.

  A press of her thumb opened the jointed hooks.

  “Turbulence!” Candini called.

  Vibrations spread through the airframe, jostling the grappler and forcing Rahel to pull it back. One hard hit against the missile was all it would take to break a hook. If that happened, all was lost.

  The vibrations grew worse.

  “We’re in a downdraft. Under a cloud mass. The air should get calmer when we clear it.”

  “How long?”

  “Don’t worry. We have time.”

  “I can see the shekking ground, Candini. I can see the Silverrun River.”

  “We have time.”

  “How long?”

  The jostling lessened.

  “Three pipticks. Two. One.”

  They were in smooth air again, and Rahel did not wait one piptick longer. Without letting herself think, she slipped the open hooks around the shining cylinder and pulled the trigger.

  The grappler closed.

  “It’s in!”

  “Good job, Red. Let’s get the shek out of here.”

  Slowly, so gradually that Rahel wanted to scream, Candini leveled out their dive. They were almost brushing the tops of the Snowmounts before she began to climb again. After calling in their status, she said, “Keep an eye on that grappler.”

  “As if I could look at anything else?” If the power of her stare could keep the grappler intact against the acceleration forces it was now enduring, Rahel was guaranteed success.

  “We’re past the worst part. It survived the start of the climb. The stresses won’t get worse than that. They’ll get easier.” Candini cleared her throat. “There’s just one problem.”

  “One?”

  “The missile’s engine is still in operation.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing? It’s helping us take it above minimum altitude.”

  “That’s a good thing for this part of the plan. It’s not a good thing for the next step. The engine exhaust burned out our shield generator.”

  Rahel looked away from her screen for the first time. “We’re going to shoot this thing with no shields.”

  A single nod was her answer.

  “What are the chances that we’ll get shredded?”

  “Pretty high.”

  “Can we release it and run while someone else shoots it?”

  “We’re too far away.”

  “Can we release it and run while we shoot it?”

  “We can try. The problem is, missiles like these use gravitational sensors. The moment we let it go, it’s going to turn right around and head back to Alsea.”

  “So we take it higher up—”

  “I think it’s on a timer. As a backup for the impact detonator. The Voloth wouldn’t build or buy something like this and take the chance that it might be a dud. We’re carrying a live bomb.”

  “Shekking Mother on a burning boat.” She laughed. “I must be insane. I’ve truly lost my mind, because this is actually funny. Of course it’s on a timer. Why would it be anything else?”

  “Rahel.” Candini looked over with a solemn expression. “It’s been an honor to fly with you. You’re the best gunner I’ve ever had, and a good friend.”

  Rahel held out a hand, smiling as Candini took it in a firm grip. “The honor has been mine. You opened a whole new world for me. I’ve loved every tick we’ve flown together. And you’re a wonderful friend, even if you won’t leave me alone about my hair.”

  “All I ask is that you try the spikes—”

  “It’s not going to happen.”

  Candini’s smile vanished. “No, I guess not. I won’t be able to talk you into that tattoo, either.”

  “You already talked me into that.”

  She brightened. “I did?”

  “I was going to tell you after the battle. I wanted to put a phoenix on my back. A two-dimensional version of my mother’s sculpture.”

  “That would be stellar! I knew you’d see it my way.”

  “I usually did. Eventually.”

  With a final squeeze, Candini released her hand. “We’re approaching minimum altitude. I want to give us some breathing room before we release it.”

  “Give us a lot of breathing room. If we’re going to die anyway, take it as far as you can.”

  Rahel tried to absorb every detail of the view. They had left the last wisps of clouds far behind and were climbing into the welcoming darkness of space. Millions of stars blazed around them, comforting and familiar.

  Once, these stars had been an impossible dream. Now they were home.

  “Thank you, Fahla,” she murmured. “You have blessed me beyond anything I deserved. And thank you for helping me die with honor.”

  “You’ve always been honorable,” Candini said quietly.

  “No. I tried, but I didn’t always succeed. But this? It’s been a good day. I saved Captain Serrado, and we saved Alsea. There’s no better way to go.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  Candini called in the success of the missile’s capture but did not speak of the likely results of its destruction. Rahel understood. She didn’t want to spend her last moments listening to second guessing or final goodbyes, either.

  They flew in silence, gaining precious altitude as an unknown timer ticked down. She remembered her earlier terror and marveled that it now seemed so far away. That had been a fear of failure, but she had not failed.

  Her heart beat calmly, her breathing was slow, and she felt as peaceful as if she were back in the Whitesun warrior caste house, centering beneath one of the potted trees.

  She wondered what it would be like to meet Fahla. Surely the goddess would be proud.

  “Ready grappler,” Candini said. “Then flip to the targeting screen. Use aft weapons; I’ll jump the moment you fire.”

  “I’m ready.”

  One breath, then another.

  “Release it.”

  Rahel depressed her thumb and watched the missile fall away. A tap to her board returned weapons to the control stick; a second tap brought up the targeting screen.

  Candini had been right. The missile was already turning toward Alsea.

  “Fire!”

  The shining metal case filled her entire target square; this was a point-blank shot. She took it just as their fighter leaped, running from debris that exploded from the point of impac
t.

  Another breath, and another . . .

  She flinched as Candini let out a whoop of victory.

  “Shek, yes! Who’s the best? Who’s the best pilot in the whole galaxy?” Candini pummeled her thighs and whooped again. “What a ride!” Swiveling, she pointed both forefingers at Rahel. “Now you have to get that tattoo.”

  Rahel stared, her mind scrambling to catch up. She wasn’t going to die?

  She wasn’t going to die.

  Laughter bubbled up. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

  “Too bad I can’t take you back to the Phoenix. I’ve heard Dr. Wells is the best tattoo artist in the quadrant. She’d probably love—”

  Rahel’s heart jumped as the proximity alarm blared. Something tugged at her chest, hot and then cold. The cockpit was a blizzard of debris.

  Candini scrambled for the controls, swearing as she fought to right the tumble they had been thrown into.

  Too stunned to move, Rahel watched with distant interest as lights flashed on both consoles. More alarms sounded, then a voice warning about loss of atmosphere.

  Her chest was freezing.

  She tried to rub it, but her hand caught on something rough. Looking down, she found a large piece of metal protruding from her flight suit.

  That would probably explain why it was so hard to breathe.

  “Oh fuck. Rahel!” Candini threw off her harness and scrambled out of her seat, bent over beneath the cockpit cover. “Hold on. I’m going to get help. I just have to seal the hole first. Hold on, all right?”

  She pulled a can of sealant from the emergency kit and stretched back, her hip brushing Rahel’s shoulder as she sprayed the hole behind the seat.

  Rahel looked down again, fascinated by the incongruity of the metal in her chest. This time, she studied it more closely.

  Had she been able to get enough air, she would have laughed. It wasn’t shrapnel from the missile. It was a piece of sabot from a rail gun projectile. In the end, she would die not from her heroic final act, but from the sheer bad luck of being in the wrong place without shields.

  She coughed, and oh, shek, that was white agony.

  Candini crouched beside her. “It’s sealed. We don’t have engines or even thrusters, but we’re in range for a pickup. I’ll get you—Rahel!”

  When had her eyes closed?

  She dragged them open again and tried to smile. “Tell them . . .”

  Tears rolled down Candini’s cheeks. “Tell them what?”

  “Tell them . . . it didn’t hurt.”

  13

  Divide and conquer

  Tal reeled from the conflict of two wildly different awarenesses. Her physical body stood on the grassy quad, Sharing with Salomen. Lhyn’s hand still touched the back of her neck. The breeze wafted across her face and lifted a few wisps of hair, carrying with it the first scents released by the heat of the day.

  But she had also just landed in a heap on a hard surface. There was no grass, no breeze, and Salomen was not in her arms.

  She remembered empty space and a blurry, fleeting glimpse of stars. She remembered a ship glowing with the emotional output of more than a thousand minds.

  With a sharp inhale, she remembered Salomen’s cry of pain.

  “Salomen!” She pushed herself to her hands and knees, saw the limp body lying within arm’s reach, and scrambled over.

  “I don’t know.” Lhyn was already kneeling on Salomen’s other side. “But I can feel her standing here. I mean, physically.”

  Ekatya crouched at her head. “She’s still conscious with you?”

  “As far as I can tell. She’s upright, at any rate. Salomen, I know you’re in there. Say something!”

  Tal tried to tell Lhyn not to bother, but the black hole in her chest sent desperate tendrils into every part of her body, trying to fill itself. Her words were sucked into the gaping chasm, along with her breath and most of her strength.

  “That doesn’t sound conscious to me,” Ekatya said.

  “She’d have to be, or none of us would be here. Somehow, she’s still holding the Sharing together. The orbital jump, too.”

  “Then where is she? What the Hades happened?”

  They looked to Tal for answers she could not give. If she moved so much as a muscle, she would surely collapse into the singularity.

  Mindwalking required an enormous amount of power. Jumping to orbit multiplied that exponentially. Salomen took it all with her when she jumped, leaving only a shell behind.

  That shell was now dark and empty. There was a heartbeat, breath, and balance, but the vibrant spark of life was nowhere to be found. Their bond was amputated, a devastating loss that left Tal hanging in a silent maelstrom.

  She wanted to scream. They had poured so much time and effort into saving Salomen from the responsibilities of a warrior, and for what? So she could break under a burden that should never have been hers?

  Why hadn’t Fahla given those powers to the warrior instead of the producer who couldn’t hurt a fairy fly? Had it been her, she would have killed that shekking captain without a second thought. Then the political liaison, then every breathing body on that bridge until she found one less evil and more malleable. She would have been death incarnate, wreaking Fahla’s vengeance, and Salomen would never have been hurt.

  The black hole sucked down her rage and eagerly looked for more. In the seething emotional storm, Lhyn’s voice sounded distant.

  “She was deep inside him when he died. You felt it, didn’t you? I think part of her believes she died with him.”

  “Part of her?” Tal snarled, ignoring her flinch. “This is more than part! It’s everything! Everything!”

  “Andira.” Ekatya spoke gently. “She’s not gone.”

  “She is! I cannot sense her.” Did they not understand what that meant?

  “But we’re still in the Sharing,” Lhyn ventured, bravely trying again. “So she must be, too.”

  Ekatya looked around in dawning realization. “She brought us back.”

  Only now did Tal perceive the details of their location. Where before there had been nothing but a deck, their bodies, and a featureless sea of gray, she now saw the expansive space of Ekatya’s bridge. They were halfway between the central dais and the lift doors, sprawled on the hard surface of the lower display. Alsea shone beneath their feet, a glorious beauty sculpted in blues and greens and wrapped in ribbons of white.

  A memory escaped the gravity of the black hole. They had fallen through space together, hadn’t they? Salomen had cried out, and they had fallen.

  “She was anchored to you,” she said. “Before we brought Lhyn into the link. She must have held on to that anchor when we fell.”

  Lhyn brushed her fingers down Salomen’s cheek. “You made sure we landed in a safe place. Typical, always taking care of us.” She looked up, her features hardening with determination. “We need to take care of her.”

  “And how do you propose we do that? She’s not here! Wherever she went, none of us can follow.”

  “Why not? We’re all in the Sharing. She is still here. Somewhere.”

  “I don’t sense her!” Tal rubbed her chest. “It’s as if my heart has been torn out.”

  Lhyn’s brows drew together. “Does it hurt?”

  “Of course it shekking hurts, what do you think?”

  “I think—”

  Alsea slid away, flying across the deck and up the port side. Flashes of light streaked through the velvet blackness, but none blossomed into an explosion.

  “Those were bioforce missiles,” Ekatya said darkly. “The political liaison took command.”

  Tal twisted around to see better and froze at the eye-popping vision she had somehow missed before now.

  “Ekatya,” she croaked. “You’re glowing.”

  Ekatya looked down at herself. “No, I’m not.”

  “Not here. There.” She pointed.

  In her command chair atop the central dais, Ekatya’s physical body sat amid shiftin
g, shimmering curtains of light, brighter than a burning molwyn tree.

  “Stars and Shippers. How—?”

  “You’re not only Salomen’s anchor. You’re anchoring the combined power of all the divine tyrees.”

  One ring below, Commander Lokomorra called out an order as if nothing were amiss. An officer in the third ring responded crisply.

  “Can’t they see it?” Lhyn asked.

  “They see it.” The bridge officers were awed and wildly curious, but their training held firm. Tal was about to explain when the realization hit.

  She could sense them.

  Where Lhyn’s logic could not penetrate, empathic knowledge slipped through. Only Salomen was capable of this range. Tal would not be sensing the crew unless she and Salomen were still linked on some level.

  “I know this is difficult,” Ekatya said. “But we need—”

  “She’s here!”

  Ekatya hesitated, thrown off by the sudden reversal. “Are you sensing her now?”

  “No. I’m sensing them.” She gestured at the officers.

  “Because we’re still in the Sharing,” Lhyn said in a rush. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Thank all the stars, then. Andira, listen. She stopped the flagship long enough for our fighters to get here. The Phoenix just neutralized seventeen of twenty bioforce missiles. The fighters caught the other three. We have two lines of defense now.”

  “Defense, but no offense.” Tal picked up Salomen’s limp hand and cradled it between her palms. “At least she bought us time.”

  “It’s more than that.” Lhyn was vibrating with suppressed energy. “Don’t you see? Your chest hurts. Mine does, too. Ekatya?”

  Ekatya rubbed her chest thoughtfully. “I didn’t notice before. Too used to it, I guess. Why is it hurting when you’re here?”

  “Because Salomen isn’t. Not on this plane.” She turned to Tal. “You’re seeing this, not just sensing it. You’re showing the same symptoms, experiencing the same things Ekatya and I do in our bond. On our side, we’re feeling what you and Salomen do. We’re even feeling her absence. All the disparate abilities and consequences of our bonds have merged.”