The Hive Engineers

by Emilia Zeeland

  The burning wound on Yalena’s arm made her face contort, but she forced herself to look her opponent in the eyes. The Fian woman was right. There was no denying that Yalena had killed Robin. It may have been the push of a button, the command she’d issued to a clone, but Robin had died at her hands.

  Yalena’s heart clenched, reliving that desperate, drowning moment when Robin’s soul had left his body. The distraction it tempted her toward was a mistake she couldn’t afford, though. Not when she’d come so far.

  “I’m sorry about your husband.” Yalena focused on the staff, still pointed under her chin, but then she peered at the woman. “This is bigger than any one of us. Felix is wrong. We have one of the hive engineers on our side. They don’t want to bring Novofex to Earth, so give up now. Let’s end this.”

  The spear nudged her head up, scratching under Yalena’s chin.

  “I don’t care about Felix or his plans anymore. I care about revenge.” The woman studied Yalena with her small, dark eyes. “Let’s end this indeed.”

  Yalena swatted the staff away with one hand and flew to her feet. She stomped over the end of the staff, making it dig into the sand. The second Robin’s wife wasted trying to free her weapon was all Yalena needed. She propelled herself into two quick steps up the length of the staff. The climb up brought her knees to the same level as the Fian’s head. Full of rage, Yalena threw herself onto the woman.

  Robin’s wife fell onto her back at the force of Yalena’s jump. Her hands grasped at Yalena’s sides, trying to fight her off, but Yalena steadied herself on one knee and pinned the woman’s body down with her other knee. It throbbed faintly with the reminder of the injury she’d suffered on the ice moon, but Yalena pushed harder and harder with it until sharp pain stabbed at her calf.

  She screamed, arching her neck back involuntarily. The movement shifted her balance, so the Fian soldier was able to throw her off with a punch to Yalena’s side. On her back, Yalena gritted her teeth, hugging her injured leg. Her fingers traveled down her calf until she felt a small pocketknife sticking out of her flesh. After a deep breath, she pulled out the knife in one quick movement. Blood streamed out, but Yalena knew from the location of the cut that it hadn’t touched any vital arteries.

  Above her, Robin’s wife circled as if picking her next move, the one that would hurt the most.

  Through tears of pain, Yalena noticed two of the yellow dots on her visor had now turned green. She twisted in the sand, finally able to flip around and push herself onto her hands and knees. She wasn’t sure her leg could take the pressure if she tried to stand.

  “Easy prey,” the Fian woman said. “That’s what you are, Troian.”

  Disregarding that statement and trying to isolate her helplessness through the vibe, Yalena whispered. “Heidi?”

  “We’re almost done,” Heidi panted on the line.

  But it wasn’t what Yalena had meant to ask. She fought not to let the desperation seep through, but a quick look left and right made her stomach clench. The rest of the squad were deep in battle, many of them caught between multiple Fians. And there was no sign of Felix, the last Novofex bazooka or the RWD.

  Despite another yellow dot turning green on Yalena’s visor, they were losing.

  “Done,” Heidi reported, short-of-breath.

  A kick to Yalena’s stomach told her Robin’s wife wasn’t above attacking an opponent who was down. The next kick knocked the air out of Yalena’s lungs completely. Her elbows gave in and she fell face first into the sand. She let herself get kicked one more time, but no matter how much it hurt, allowing it to happen had been deliberate.

  Yalena caught the Fian’s ankle and twisted it until her opponent lost balance and slipped into the sand. With her leg and shoulder still pulsating from the cuts she’d endured, Yalena dragged herself on top of the woman’s foot. She stretched out a leg, covered in blood, and slammed her heel into the woman’s chin.

  “Heidi,” Yalena said, once she was able to breathe again. “I need you to fly over us. Now.”

  “Shouldn’t I help Bako with the last Novofex bazooka?” Heidi asked.

  “Bako is doing all right, my friends,” he said on the line, against the background of grunts and blows in his fight.

  Yalena pushed the Fian woman’s knees down with all her might, fighting to keep her pinned down. “Quick, Heidi. Fly, now.”

  “I don’t understand,” Heidi said, but by her strained breathing, she was probably running to her Bluedrop.

  “I don’t see the last Novofex bazooka,” Yalena said. With another shove, she put all her weight against her opponent. “We’ll have to activate the RWD. That means we need to get the scout out of here.”

  “Him?” Heidi sounded aghast. In the background, the launching beeps of her Bluedrop gave Yalena hope. “And what about you?”

  “If this battle kills the scout, we’ll have a bigger war on our hands,” Yalena dodged a direct response. “We need to get him out.”

  Maintaining a conversation, ignoring pain, and fighting had spread Yalena’s focus thin. Robin’s wife finally managed to wiggle her foot free and kick Yalena in the throat. Crawling clockwise, Yalena rotated until she could push the woman’s chest down with both arms. The Fian punched her in the throat and as she fought for oxygen, Yalena pressed her hands against the woman’s throat too. They were gasping, fighting for air, at the same time.

  Yalena squeezed as hard as her muscles allowed, but it was as if her body wouldn’t listen. Her head was about to split open. Her own brain was fighting her desire to hurt the woman. Novofex refused to turn on Novofex.

  “Troian, stop.” Felix’s voice cut through the blurring vibe. “You can’t kill her.”

  Without looking around to spot him, Yalena loosened her grip. He was right.

  With one final attempt at anger and a fistful of the soldier’s uniform in her hand, Yalena lifted the Fian’s body just enough to gather momentum and slammed the woman back into the ground, where she sunk into the sand, gasping. Shakily, Yalena rose to her feet, then kicked Robin’s wife down the slope of a sand dune. The woman came to a halt on her elbows and knees, choking. Yalena scanned the sand until her eyes found the hilt of the knife she’d removed from her calf. She bent down to snatch it—it would have to do as her last defense against Felix. Then, Yalena dragged her gaze up to find the Fian leader. And she froze.

  Felix stood at the fallen gate of Farsight, laser gun in one hand raised at the level of his shoulder, pointed so close to Jen’s head she must be brushing against it as she shivered. A guard pushed Nico to stand on Jen’s other side. Nico’s nose was bleeding, and his hands were restrained behind his back.

  Yalena didn’t dare to blink, let alone move. Whatever version of the serum Jen had taken wouldn’t protect her from a laser beam to the head. And even if Nico had managed to finish the device, he wasn’t able to deploy it now that his hands were restrained. Yalena had to get to the RWD, but in doing so, she’d lose both of her friends. Felix would see it as a desperate last attempt to attack. And he would shoot them.

  Staring at the sight in front of her hurt Yalena’s eyes, but she couldn’t look away. Her vibe seethed in hatred and desperation. In the moment it mattered most, her usually quick wits threatened to fail her. She’d grown so accustomed to thinking on her feet, to connecting the dots in an instant, to dreaming up a solution the rest of the world was a second too slow to see. This time, she had nothing. The sudden realization filled her with acid that burned her insides.

  To make matters worse, the platform Nico, Jen and Felix stood on shook with the weight of a mountain of a Fian—Hayden, the one who’d captured Sibel. His steps were slow and secure, like he had nothing to fear in this battle. Strapped across his shoulder was a heavy weapon with a container filled with blue liquid. Novofex.

  Hayden overtook Felix, his steps quickening until he broke into a jog.

  The first raindrops on Yalena’s forehead injected pure dread into her. “The rain. They’ll con
taminate the rain cloud.”

  “Yalena, what’s the extraction plan?” Heidi said on the comms. “I’m over you in twenty seconds.”

  Yalena tore her eyes from Felix, Nico and Jen to find the scout. She willed herself to transmit to him the only solution she had managed to concoct in her mind. She recalled the alien’s insect-like feet folding as he had prepped for a jump, and she sent that mental image to him.

  She searched for a sign of understanding in the scout’s bottomless black eyes. Instead, in a voice as screechy as it had sounded when the Queen had spoken, Yalena heard a low, guttural whisper, “You are a planet of heroes.” It echoed inside her mind, inaudible to the world, but it fueled the resolve inside her.

  “Yalena, what do I do?” Heidi squealed on the line.

  “What you do best,” Yalena said. “Fly, Heidi.”

  Yalena heard the swoosh of a fast approaching Bluedrop before she saw it. “Now,” she screamed.

  The scout jumped up, just like he had done to get up the mountain of sand before. His long claws screeched, digging into the metal of Heidi’s Bluedrop. He dangled from the small ship as it sped away.

  “Holy stars!” Heidi shouted on the line. “Please tell me someone saw that. And they said life gets boring after you have a baby!”

  Yalena didn’t allow herself even a moment to exhale with relief. In the few seconds it had taken her to coordinate the extraction, she’d missed Stanley catching up to the Fian with the bazooka. Her father jumped on Hayden’s back, trying to pry the weapon out of his hands.

  Then, Yalena’s eyes flashed back to Felix. And Eric, who was taking one small step at a time toward Felix, hands in the air.

  “Tell them to stand down, O’Donnell,” Felix said. “Or you lose her.”

  Silently, the Fian holding Nico in place fell backward, as if taken down by one of the raptors on the jungle planet. Yalena was tempted to give Felix a vicious smile. It had been Alec. Although he must have been taken aback by the attack, the Fian soldier rolled into a fight with Alec. They toppled off the side of the lowered gate and into the sand.

  But Felix’s attention had remained on Eric, who was still too far away to save Jen. Her eyes welled with tears of terror, but her hand slowly slipped into her front pocket.

  Felix seemed too tense for his usual gloating. “What’s it going to be, O’Donnell? Save the world or save the girl?”

  Eric blanched, but he took another step closer. He must have seen the same as Yalena—that he wouldn’t be able to get to Jen, but he could provide a distraction to help her. “Jen...you know I love you, right?”

  Jen looked like she was twisting her wrist inside her pocket. “Eric...” she whispered. “You have to take down that weapon.” Then, her features tensed. Jen pulled her hand out of her pocket, a thin metallic glove wrapped tightly around her wrist.

  It was one of those moments that seem to last an eternity, but Eric nodded at Jen ever so slightly.

  “This is our home, Felix,” he said. “The people out there count on us to throw ourselves between them and danger. To fight for them.”

  “So you choose to save the world?” Felix sneered. “Wrong choice. The world can’t be saved.”

  Knowing she’d never manage to pull this off, Yalena threw the pocketknife at Felix. Assassin-style, it flipped through the air, but she was too far away. It slipped into the sand a few steps in front of Felix. Still, it had been enough to make him look.

  Jen ducked under Felix’s arm, punched his wrist with her gloved hand, then through his loosened grip she tried to pry the laser gun from him. “Go, Eric, go!”

  Eric turned, teary-eyed, away from Jen and ran, before he could change his mind.

  Hayden had managed to throw Stanley off, but now faced Adeline, who was too fast for him. After a distracting dance of fight moves, the Fian managed to land a blow on the side of her head and Adeline’s body slackened as she lost consciousness.

  Fat raindrops fell at intervals. The rain was starting. Hayden mounted the bazooka on his shoulder, aiming for the skies. Eric reached him just in time. With a silver glove around his own hand, Eric jumped up, fist aimed at the Fian’s neck. The impact was enough to make Hayden hunch down with a pained grunt.

  “Last chance, Troian,” Felix shouted, drawing Yalena’s attention away from Eric’s fight with Hayden. One of Felix’s arms closed around Jen’s throat, making her face turn crimson, and his other hand still held the gun, despite Jen’s efforts. Felix pointed the gun at Jen’s temple. “They listen to you. Call this off and I’ll let your friend live.”

  Yalena gaped, at a loss for how to stall this. She felt paralyzed. If she moved, Jen would die.

  Her eyes flashed to Nico, whose expression was streaked with anger. Now that Alec had freed him from the Fian guard, Nico could wiggle his arms around just enough to fish a small oval device out of his pocket. He threw it in Yalena’s direction, although it landed meters away from her.

  “Connect the green wires,” he shouted. “Green wires, Yale-”

  A flash of purple sent Nico crashing back against the wall of Farsight.

  “No!” Jen and Yalena’s screams mingled into one.

  Felix aimed the gun at the RWD and shot, missing it by inches. With a cry of rage, Jen smacked her silvery fist into the inside of Felix’s elbow and then another time into his hand. He dropped the laser gun and pushed her, so she fell back.

  Yalena didn’t hesitate. She ran to the RWD, falling onto her knees when she reached it. The metal device seemed fragile. The lid was already off—she only needed to follow Nico’s instructions. Nico...she didn’t dare look back at the place where he’d fallen. She couldn’t think of it yet. She couldn’t let the full impact of the loss spread through her chest.

  With trembling fingers, Yalena examined the wires. There were hundreds of hair-thin threads in metallic hues of all the colors in the rainbow.

  “Lenly, wait!” Alec’s scream made her look up for a second. He was still fighting with the guard that had been holding Nico. But Alec wasn’t trying to overpower the Fian, not anymore. He was fighting to get away, to come to Yalena, to stop her.

  Yalena let her gaze drop to the RWD in her hands again. Green wires. Green wires. She mentally repeated Nico’s instructions as her fingers brushed the metallic strings in the device. There it was—a shimmer of mint. And another. And another. Yalena plucked the threads out and searched the rest, but there didn’t appear to be any more minty green ones. For a second, she paused with the intention of linking the wires to each other, but her fingers wouldn’t obey.

  She needed one last look.

  Just one last look.

  Blaine and Natalia were mid-fight. Blaine pushed with a staff, making his opponent fall back, then he swept Natalia up with one arm, pulling her close to him. “In case our alien friend messed up the serum.” He planted a quick, desperate kiss on her lips.

  “Lenly, don’t,” Alec shouted again. “Don’t do it.”

  Yalena couldn’t resist a glance back at him. Alec was fighting like a madman, scraping toward her, but two tall Fians held him back. It wasn’t even a proper fight anymore. She pursed her lips so as not to cry.

  She whirled around to see Hayden smack Eric. He landed hard on his back next to Adeline, who was still unconscious. The Fian then lifted the Novofex bazooka again, aiming at the clouds. Stanley ran toward him with a battle cry, his face covered in purple blood, but he was too far away to reach Hayden in time.

  “Lenly,” Alec panted, sounding closer this time. She had to hurry before he stopped her. “Don’t.”

  One last glance. By Farsight’s gate, Felix punched Jen in the stomach. She must have fought him better than Yalena had imagined, but it didn’t matter. Felix walked over and picked up his laser gun. This time, he didn’t waste time pointing it at Jen, but aimed directly at Yalena.

  “You were always the biggest threat, Troian,” Felix spat out. “I should have killed you the second you set foot on Nova Fia.”

&nb
sp; His hand clenched tighter around the gun at the same time as Alec shouted again, only steps away from Yalena.

  There was no more time. She stilled her breath for what she knew was the last time. “Please, forgive me,” Yalena whispered on the line. It was meant for Eric, who she was robbing of a sibling. For Alec, who she loved more than anyone. And for Jen, who she might take out with her.

  Stanley’s words from a conversation back on Nova Fia swam up in her mind. The moment she would lose everything had arrived—the time she would be left with nothing but who she was. And Yalena was a hero, with or without the words the scout had managed to say inside her head.

  Her fingers felt sticky when she linked the minty-green wires. The metal of the RWD’s lid felt cool against her palm, and Yalena pressed it firmly.

  The Radiation wave was invisible, but it passed through her like a ghostly gush of winds, knocking the air out of her lungs. Pain pricked the side of Yalena’s arm, while the world stopped spinning. She might have imagined it, but Alec must have finally reached her. She felt his arms at the small of her back, holding her limp body.

  And then every nerve in Yalena’s body burned.

  Chapter 39. Daydream

  Yalena fought to discern shapes from the smears of coral and gold swirling around her. The spinning slowed until she found herself in the field of dry wheat and grass, which was eerily familiar from the Commander and Dana’s memorial service. Only the sky was different. Yalena tilted her head all the way back to take in the peach tones of a sky very unlike the relentless gray-white clouds Earth had always shown her.

  “The candied skies are a bit much, I’d say.” Alec’s Martian accent appeared to mock her.

  Yalena gazed up for a second longer, until the sky turned slightly purple at the edges. “That’s how I imagine a sunset painted the sky before the Quakes.”

  When she finally tore her eyes away from the dreamy view, Yalena found Alec sitting on a wooden swing. The exact same one as the day of the memorial. It was wide enough for her to join him.