by Debra Jess
Once those two left the bridge, Darvik jumped at the chance to take back some of his control. "I request permission to speak with Captain Silt. Can you arrange for me to transfer to the Silt?"
. No sneering or swearing from the squad leader, just a tired look of disgust. "You'll get your chance to talk to him soon. He's transferring over here."
A Manitac captain boarding an unsecured pirate ship? No responsible captain would dare. Kelra wouldn't have, and neither would he.
A minute later, Hyeph Silt entered the bridge, his crisp Manitac uniform clinging to a gaunt frame, complete with gloves and a uniform hat covering his thinning hair. Silt took a huge chance not wearing a decon suit himself. He looked no different from when Hart had met with him only two years ago, pumping him for information on Kelra. Silt had lied about what he knew about her and possibly lied about their affair. Darvik hadn't thought much of him back then, and still didn't.
"Where is she?" Silt demanded, forgoing any pleasantries or grand speeches.
"She's on the Majesty of the Stars."
Silt invaded Darvik's space, trying to exert his dominance. "You let her over there? Alone?"
"It's her ship. There was no reason for me to refuse."
Silt squinted, not sure if Darvik was lying or not. "Get her back here. She's coming with me."
Not if Darvik could help it. He didn't need the details of Silt's problem with Kelra, but if the alien hadn't already killed her, this guy clearly would. "We can't."
"You can and you will." Spittle flew from Silt's mouth.
"Let me explain—"
"I don't want explanations. I want Shade. So you had better contact her and get her back from the Majesty of the Stars, or I'll begin shooting one of your filthy pirate crew every fifteen minutes until you do."
"I'll need to connect with her ops tracker."
"Do it."
It looked like he'd have to use subterfuge to get his point across. Calling up the ops tracker recording instead of the feed, he played the last fifteen minutes of it, starting with the appearance of the cloud and ending with a blank screen.
"As you can see, we can't call her back. We were, in fact, about to attempt a rescue when your fired on us."
"What the hell was that thing?"
At least Silt didn't accuse him of fabricating the image. "We don't know and we don't care. Killing it before it kills Shade is our only priority right now. If you would lend me your security squad—"
"Not in this lifetime."
He expected no less. "Well, then I guess you don't want her back here alive."
Silt’s face turned bright red as his agitation increased. For a moment, Darvik thought the man would hit him, but instead he took a long breath and pointed to the squad leader.
"Select three of your best. They will accompany Hart over to the Majesty of the Stars to retrieve Shade. I want her back here alive."
The squad leader looked as if he wanted to argue, his lower jaw sawing back and forth. Darvik made a guess: Shade did some serious damage to the security squads on Station Seven. If Manitac shortchanged the sick bays of its own navy, as they were rumored to do, Darvik would bet many members of the Silt security teams were still recovering. Thinning out security on the Queen of Hearts would leave Silt and his men vulnerable to Darvik and his pirates.
Instead of speaking his mind, the squad leader nodded with a weak "Aye, sir." Hitting his ear jack with his wrist, he commed his command. "Buxter, Jinsin, get back to the bridge. You have a new assignment."
No response came.
The squad leader glared at Darvik as he repeated his orders. "Buxter, Jinsin, do you copy? Report in. We need you back on the bridge."
Still nothing came in return.
"What is the problem?" Silt spat. "Why aren't they responding?"
"It's possible they can't hear me over the cutting torch, sir."
"How long could it possibly take to cut through a floor?" Silt held up his hand, warding off the squad leader's attempt at answering. "Log into their ops tracker. I want to see what they're up to."
Jacking into the Queen of Heart's holo, the squad leader brought the ops tracker online. The dead bodies of Buxter and Jinsin filled the holo.
"He lied about the ’pets." The squad leader raised his plasma rifle.
Darvik couldn't fathom an explanation except one: Kelra. She must have given a gun to one of the puppets, probably Mayla, with orders to kill any Manitac officer who made it to their level. What else had she told the puppet to do?
"Enough." Silt grabbed Ezick by his hair, dragging him toward Darvik. Rusa started to stand but got pushed back into place with a rifle butt to the back of her head. Johza risked putting a hand on Rusa's shoulder to calm her down.
"This is how it's going to work." Silt violently yanked Ezick's head back. "You'll disarm the puppets. I don't care how you do it. You'll bring them up here where we can control them. Then you will take a shuttle over to the Majesty of the Stars, and you will bring Kelra Shade to me. If I even suspect you're trying to double-cross me, I'll start by shooting off this one's right foot, then his left, and slowly work my way up to his head, keeping him alive, and I'll make sure you can hear his screams."
"You harm one hair on that kid's head"—Darvik leveled his best death glare at Silt—"and there won't be enough left of you to jettison out a garbage shoot."
For the briefest of moments, Silt's fear sneaked through. Instead of backing down, though, he tightened his grip on Ezick's head. "Get moving."
Darvik didn't look back as he stepped through the compression gate. When all this was over, one way or another, there would be a reckoning like no other.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Just as her air ran out, the funnel dropped Kelra. Spots danced in front of her eyes as she gasped the heated air around her, her lungs burning. She didn't dare look up. If she did, what would she see? Her nemesis, the evil thing she hated more than she'd hated anything in her life towering above her?
No, that would not be the last thing she saw before she died. Better to look at the floor and remember Darvik, how he treated her, as if she were the only person in the world to bring him true happiness. And by the Stars, she felt the same way. When she died, it would be his face she remembered, not the amorphous creature she'd failed to kill.
So she waited until it became apparent the cloud wasn't going to do anything. It hovered next to her, so she could see the wispy substance of it out of the corner of her eye. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she slid her hand over to touch it and then jerked back.
She'd expected a shock, a sharp sting of lightning creating a crusty mark on her hand like she'd seen on her father and like she’d felt when the cloud tossed her across the room. Nothing happened to her this time though. The skin remained normal.
She tried again, pushing her hand farther inside, reaching for the other side. Her arm wasn't long enough for that, but the interior of the cloud cooled her overheated skin, bringing a slight relief.
Stupid girl, grasping into the enemy's embrace and feeling grateful for the cool touch because the rest of you feels miserable. To avoid the temptation to reach again, she pushed her sodden body off the floor, brushing at her clothes for lack of anything else to do.
When she finished, the cloud still hovered unmoving right next to her. So she looked up to see the fullness of it. The stars slowed their rapid orbit, each one reaching the apex in time with her heartbeat.
"Now what?" Her voice sounded too loud for her own ears. "You're not going to kill me, so what do you want? Why did you kill my parents? Why do you even exist at all?"
It didn't answer, but at least she could vent her frustration at it without getting hurt, for the moment.
"If you insist on tormenting me with your presence, then I'm going to turn down the heat while I figure out how to kill you."
No longer worried that it would attack her, she backed away until she reached the room temperature controls, running her fingers along
the old system and sliding the gauge downward.
The cool air revitalized her waning strength. What to do next? Darvik hadn’t responded to her. With the ops tracker destroyed, he wouldn't be able to see her. Her ear jack still worked, but dare she risk comming him? The only reason for Darvik, or any of the crew to ignore her, would be if the Silt caught up with them.
Which created a conundrum. If she left the sick bay, the cloud would follow her, but if it wasn't actually doing anything, then maybe she could get back to the bridge, fire up the engines, and get the weapons systems operating. Wouldn't that shock Captain “I can't even remember his face” Silt?
The door controls were right next to the temperature controls, so she dissolved the door behind the cloud. It didn't move, so she walked right up to it.
"I need to leave. Slide aside and let me through."
It billowed to her right as if it understood her, allowing her to slip out the door. Her lungs still burned from the heat, so she didn't run, but she walked really fast toward the bridge.
The cloud followed her at a respectable distance, seemingly in no hurry. On the bridge, she had to start at the navigation console to get the ship ready to ignite the engines, but not yet. The element of surprise was critical, so she couldn’t alert the Queen or the Silt to what she was doing.
At the security console, she found the weapons systems had power and were operational.
Working as fast as she could while keeping her cool, she managed to pull up a holo of the immediate area around the Majesty of the Stars. She'd guessed right. The Silt docked on the starboard side of the Queen of Hearts. Why Darvik had surrendered wasn't important. What she needed to do was get the Majesty of the Stars to fire its cannons at the Silt and not miss.
Checking the individual turrets was out of the question, but the readout showed half of them were ready to fire, probably loaded when the cloud first attacked. After decades of no use, she'd be lucky to get just one salvo fired from each. The autoloaders more than likely would have frozen solid, and it would take days to get them lubricated again.
She didn't have days, but really all she wanted to do was get Silt's attention on the Majesty of the Stars. The side benefit would be letting Darvik know she was alive.
So fire the cannons first, then jump to the navigation controls and get the engines roaring while Silt recovers, or not, if Darvik can take advantage of the situation.
If he was still alive…
Don't do this to yourself. Not now. Ignore your doubts. Ignore the cloud. Just get this ship moving long enough to make Silt regret tangling with the Queen of Hearts and the Majesty of the Stars.
Sluggish activation of the cannons worried her, but at least they worked. Talking more to herself than to cloud, she muttered, "Acquire target."
The turrets squealed, but swiveled as she needed them to, aiming for the stern, where the shields would be strongest to protect the engines. She was less likely to kill her former crew members. With luck, she wouldn’t have to.
"Targets locked." Praying to the Guardians that Silt hadn't transferred Darvik or any of the pirates on to the Silt, she fired the cannons.
The boom rattled the bridge a bit, but on a ship the size of the Majesty of the Stars, the bulk of the recoil was absorbed before any damage could occur. The holo showed half the missiles hitting the Silt. What they lacked in speed, they more than made up for in power. It didn't look as if she did too much damage, but at least she had Silt's attention on her, not the Queen of Hearts.
She got the impression the cloud watched over her shoulder, stars still slow and calm.
Strange. Even stranger, she didn’t feel threatened by it, and her anger was fading, though that could be because she had to worry about keeping Darvik alive. She’d get back to her revenge after she knew that Darvik and the Queen of Heart’s crew were safe.
Jumping down to navigation, she double-checked the holo. The Silt was caught unawares because they still hadn't fired back. Her crew had gotten lazy without her. That, or Silt was just an idiot, maybe both.
Clicking the console to life, she activated the main engine start-up sequence. Lightning shocked her from behind, scorching her back. She turned to face the cloud. The stars, which had been muted until now, circled the cloud's nucleus in a violent clash of energy. The cloud rose toward the ceiling as the stars circled faster, before it slammed down to the floor. The hiss and snap returned in an uneven, staccato rhythm. The sparks focused, became less random, before spraying her console.
Something had hurt the cloud, and it was reacting to the pain.
Another volley of lightning hit the floor, right next to her chair. There was nothing else she could do lest the cloud destroy the entire bridge. She triggered the emergency shutdown program, forcing the engines to quit before they finished the first sequence.
All sense of calm left her as she ducked under the console, trying to cover herself as best she could. Was it the sound had hurt the cloud? Maybe her plan to douse the alien with high decibels had been the right choice. The one plan she hadn't gotten to yet. Was this was how she could kill it…if she still wanted to?
Which she did. Didn't she?
With the engines off, the cloud calmed down again, the stars slowing. The holo above her flashed. The Silt had fired on the Majesty of the Stars, as she expected, but she couldn't return fire. Not with a pissed-off alien at her back.
The funnel stretched out again, this time narrowing to a fine needle point at the end. Kelra tried to lean away, but the funnel followed her no matter which way she twisted. She wanted to run away, but stayed still. Running would mean abandoning Darvik, and by the Stars she wouldn’t do that. The funnel touched her face before the tip widened, surrounded her head. Powerful stings pricked her from her scalp to her chin, but Kelra forced her eyes to remain open. If she was going to die, it would be with her eyes open and aware, not closed and frightened, though her heartbeat tripled. Without warning, the funnel pulled back. Her hair, electrified, twisted and tangled around her neck and jaw as the funnel dragged it away from one side of her face. It was searching, but for what? Something inside her?
When the funnel invaded her ear, her questions became a scream, but she didn’t react fast enough to stop it, if she even could.
The Majesty of the Stars disappeared, replaced by frozen tundra. Six moons and a giant red sun rose, passed overhead, and set on the opposite horizon. Seasons changed in seconds. The frozen wasteland melted to feed expansive fertile lands and deep oceans, populated by creatures of thousands, maybe millions, of species. As the creatures raced before her, the green changed to gold as the soil dried into sand and a vast desert swallowed the creatures. Some adapted, others did not. The desert sands blew, and huge dunes rose to mountainous heights, and the cycle of life spun in a new direction, giving rise to new creatures even as it buried the old.
Millennia passed, and soon the sun turned sick and expanded. Though most of the creatures never noticed, one looked to the stars. To remember where it came from, one of the beings scooped a sample of soil from the ground before launching itself into space, pulling others of its kind with it.
The world fell away, and the atmosphere thinned. Kelra sped past other planets, outpacing the worst of the sun's death throes until the golden nebula caught up to her.
Everything went black.
When she woke, her head felt heavier than a fully loaded dock crane. The alien was nowhere in sight. A grunt followed by a groan accompanied her crawl to the captain's office. She gripped the handles of a cabinet and sink set to haul herself to her feet. It took a long moment to regain her balance. A stream of cool water welcomed her back to reality as she splashed her face. Her hand flailed a bit as she grabbed for a towel to blot the water.
Images of a dying sun and a planet long since destroyed played like a movie in her mind's eye, the power of its destruction inescapable.
What had happened when she blacked out? Where was the cloud? Where was the Silt? The Queen of Hearts?
She needed to find out.
She'd worry about where the cloud had disappeared to after she obliterated her headache and returned to the bridge.
As she turned back to the sink, she leaned closer to the mirror to examine the bump on her forehead. The bruise could have been worse, nothing a good icing wouldn't cure should she be lucky enough to live to worry about it. Before she pulled away, she noticed her eyes. Her dark brown irises had become lighter, almost gold. She looked closer, pulling her lids open as far as she could. No. The color of her eyes hadn't changed. Her irises were full of stars.
Her knees buckled under the weight of realization. Without thought, she grabbed for the counter to keep herself upright. Had it been her decision or the cloud's? The cloud hadn't disappeared; it had merged with her. Everything she'd seen while unconscious had been the cloud's collective memory. Millions of beings hadn't just reached for the stars—they became stars, inheriting all the energy and power and knowledge from one another. Now they shared all those abilities and more…oh, so much more…with her. Had the cloud seen her memories as well, shared her experiences among the collective?
By the Stars and their Guardians, the cloud wanted to come with her. It couldn't live outside the nebula, though. Human technology hurt—that’s why it attacked the Majesty of the Stars. It absorbed the humans, her parents, but didn’t kill them. In doing so, it stopped the ship’s engines and the pain. Now, it joined her in a way that it could survive. It had powered down the energy bursts that had killed the crew of the Majesty of the Stars so it could remain inside her without killing her.
By remaining inside her, the cloud wouldn't react if she powered the engines again, she could feel that, but it wasn't completely at her mercy either. Stumbling away from the sink, Kelra activate the overhead lighting. She examined the rest of her body. Her hands looked normal, but her fingernails, never covered in polish, were gray with wisps of black rising from her fingertips.
