On Mission

by Aileen Erin

  The kid was probably already dead, just like they assumed this man would be as soon as I saw him.

  But I wasn’t like SpaceTech.

  “I know I make bad choices.” The man wiped a drip of sweat from his brow. “I’m not a part of my kid’s life. She doesn’t even know me. I know it sounds like a fuckin’ lie, but I changed in prison. You said something to me when I was getting hauled away, and… I… I was hoping once I got out to try and fix shit with my daughter, but they took her.”

  “Are you sure they took her?” Lorne asked. “Did they gave you proof?”

  Fair question. SpaceTech wasn’t above lying, especially when it saved them time and energy.

  “They sent me a vid. I know vids can be faked, but I can’t risk it.” He shifted from foot to foot. “Man, if you’re going to kill me, just do it now. Okay. I can’t—”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” That wasn’t my MO. I rested my hands on the table and leaned close to him. “I didn’t in that alley and I won’t now.”

  He eyed me for a second and then dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes, as if resigned to the loss already, and I ached for him. I ached for his daughter and his ex. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t okay.

  “There are more.” He spoke softly without out looking up at me. “Three tables down to the right. Two tables up on the left. The last table next to the stairs. You’re surrounded. I only had to keep you here until the ship—”

  I stepped away from the table, and he stopped talking.

  Lorne started to ask a question and I held a hand up. I closed my eyes, and I heard it then. There it was. It was faint and distant and such a familiar sound to me that it didn’t stand out.

  I turned toward the sound, glancing out at the horizon. I saw it now. The flashing blue and red lights on the wings. A SpaceTech ship was approaching. It would be another minute or so, but they were coming.

  I guess the Yhona let more land after all.

  I’d deal with them later. Right now, we were in it.

  The trap had sprung.

  I signed quickly for a guard to search the Rojo, and three sprang into action, running from one table over. If he had a device that could set off the lucole again, I wanted it.

  I turned to Lorne. “I hope this was a good idea because that approaching ship is SpaceTech.” I pointed to it.

  He looked where I pointed and then, as he breathed out, his skin lit bright. Brighter than I’d ever seen before. “We fight. Always together.”

  “Fuck yeah,” Roan yelled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull the gun from his pocket.

  “Wait.” Everything slowed as I saw the weapon in his hand. “You still have that?” I stepped back, pressing against Lorne, hopefully blocking him from any bullets.

  Why did Roan still have a gun?

  “Fynea gave it to me. It’s mine now.” He said that like it was an actual thing. He knew better.

  “Eshrin.” He was standing to my side and a little behind me, so I didn’t have to say it very loudly. “You have to take it from him. You know he can’t aim for shit. He’s not allowed to have a gun.”

  “It was one time.” Roan sounded annoyed. “One. Time.”

  “No. It was one time today, but that wasn’t your first mishap with a firearm.” Maybe no one else remembered that he’d fired at my feet at the house, but I hadn’t forgotten.

  “Don’t worry, babe.” Roan studied the gun in his hands. “This is some next level Aunare shit. I’m sure it aims for me.”

  I glanced at Lorne. “Does it aim for him?”

  “No.” Lorne looked at me like I was crazy for asking. Or maybe it was for distracting him right now, but whatever.

  I glanced at the sky. We had ten seconds before they got here. That was enough time to get the gun away from Roan.

  I held my hand to him. “Give it.”

  “No. I’m good.” Roan held out the gun in front of him. Bang.

  There was a scream and the Rojo hit the ground.

  Shit. The guards dropped beside him. “Did it hit anyone else?”

  One of the guards popped up. “We’re fine. It only hit the man you were talking to, in his shoulder. He’ll be fine.”

  I spun to Roan. “We don’t have time for this. We’re about to be attacked, and I don’t want to get shot. Give me the gun.”

  “If we’re going to be attacked, I need the gun, Am.” He pointed the gun up in the air. “I didn’t mean to—” Bang. “Shit.” He started to lower his hand and bang. He turned to me, and I jumped at my best friend before he shot me, grabbing his wrist and carefully controlling the movement until the gun was pointed at the ground.

  “Let go.”

  “Right. Yeah. Frosty idea.” He released his grip.

  I grabbed the gun as it slid from my hand and then Ginu appeared beside me and grunted. I took that to mean he wanted the gun and handed it over.

  “Sorry about that,” Roan yelled to the Rojo, who had yet to get up from the ground, but one of the guards was still with him.

  I stood on my tiptoes to see, but the guard was now searching the Rojo for any devices. The patch on the Rojo’s shoulder would heal him.

  Fine. Good. Damn it.

  The fight hadn’t even started and it was already a shitshow.

  We were so screwed.

  The ship was close now. Almost right on top of us.

  Eshrin slapped his faksano together twice.

  The rest of the guards answered with a clack-clack of their own.

  The ship above us fired, and we hit the ground. Lorne’s hand was on my back pressing me against the roof. He leaned close to my ear. “You blow it, I destroy the pieces. Just like before.”

  I lifted my chin just enough so I could see his eyes. “Just like before. On three.”

  “One,” Lorne said.

  “Two,” I said.

  And then we both hopped up. I crossed my wrists in front of my chest as I let the power build quickly, and then screamed as I lengthened them at my sides. The boom of the ship exploding was loud and yet silencing.

  There was a fizzle in the air as Lorne burned the pieces to ash before they hit the ground.

  For a few heartbeats, the silence kept on. I hadn’t realized how much noise there had been in the market until it was all gone.

  There was a pause as the dust cleared.

  I took a shallow breath. All around me I could feel the fight breathing to life. Another moment and it would be here. There were too many SpaceTech officers at the tables around us.

  One big breath.

  A man jumped over the table at one of my guards, and that was it.

  The fight was here.

  It was fast then. Another market. Another fight. But it felt the same.

  Almost the same, except this time Lorne was with me and I wouldn’t run away.

  Our guards worked quickly, moving together as a team, as they’d been trained to do—to protect us at all costs.

  I didn’t want to need protecting. I was ready for a fight. But when I saw what they were doing, I understood what my place in the fight would be.

  An Earther weapon flew high the air—a bomb. I wasn’t sure if it was going to go off, and I wasn’t taking that chance. I crossed my faksano.

  My power hit it and it exploded before it got near us.

  Lorne hit the bits with his power, and they turned to ash.

  Another weapon went up in the air. I thought about saving that one, but it was the same as the Rojo dude had. We already had one of those. I destroyed it.

  Another one came and this one was different. Not a bomb. Not the one that the Rojo dude had. We needed it.

  “Catch it,” I yelled to Lorne.

  He moved his faksano to hold them in one hand and leaped in the air, catching it before it hit the ground. “Why are we keeping this one?”

  “It looks different. We need a solid sample.”

  We kept going. Sometimes keeping the weapons, but mostly destroying them
.

  No one made it through our guards. No one even got close. I was almost disappointed that I didn’t get to actually fight anyone. I was angry and anxious and ready to take that out on some unsuspecting asshole. But apparently that wasn’t happening tonight.

  “There’s another ship approaching,” Lorne said, and I knew it was time to find a way to get out of here.

  “Ours?” I asked, just in case I’d misunderstood.

  “No.”

  “Great.” Time to destroy it. “Where—”

  And then there was a ding.

  A ding that rang in my head, reverberating louder and louder and louder.

  I dropped to my knees, and I knew I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it.

  Oh shit.

  Oh shit.

  One more. That’s all they needed. One more and I was dead, and I might take out everyone here with me.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  AMIHANNA

  There was a sickening crack, a flash of white-hot heat, and the guttural sound of people dying. And the ringing. Still the ringing. The sound kept getting louder until all I could hear was the ringing.

  I couldn’t see anything.

  I couldn’t hear anything except for the ringing.

  I couldn’t feel anything except for the pain and the hard, cold cement of the roof’s surface on my back.

  And then there were hands on my face, and I tried to slap them away, but they stayed firmly in place.

  Fingers pressed against my eyelids and then I realized I’d closed them again. It was still night, but there was enough light on the rooftop to hurt.

  I blinked and looked into Lorne’s eyes. He was grasping my head. He looked away at someone else and his lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying or make out the words on his lips. I was too distracted by all the snow falling.

  No. Not snow.

  Ash.

  And then I realized that Lorne was flashing and I remembered the screams I’d heard just before the ringing took over.

  I tried to look around, but there was no one I could see on the roof except my guards. My friends. And the ash.

  The ship either turned around or we fired at it or I didn’t know. Lorne couldn’t destroy it on his own and take down everyone on the roof. Could he?

  I looked back at Lorne. He was still flashing.

  He had to stop flashing.

  The ringing was getting louder and the pain was getting worse, but my fear for Lorne and what he might do chased it away enough so that I could think.

  He had to stop flashing before he killed us all.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.” The words came out frantically and probably much too loud, and I wasn’t sure I believed them, but I was saying them anyway. Because if I said them, then maybe they’d be true.

  The vibrations kept rolling through me and my head started to pound. It was like someone was stabbing me in the brain and I bit my lip to stop from screaming again.

  I felt something wet on my lip and I wiped it away.

  Red.

  Blood.

  Again.

  I shoved my hand in my pocket but when I looked around to make sure no one had noticed, I saw that everyone had. Because the fight was over, and I was surrounded by Lorne. Roan. Eshrin. My guards.

  Audrey pushed through the wall of guards and dropped to her knees beside me, pulling something out of her bag.

  I glanced at Lorne and tried not to think about the pain, but it was slowly getting worse. The ringing was getting even louder and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to make this worse. I wanted the vibrations to go away. If I moved would they get worse?

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe through it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. And my heart was pounding. And I’d been here before. And I didn’t want to die.

  And now I was panicking.

  “Help,” I said to no one and everyone. I still couldn’t hear, but I knew I was yelling. “Get it out of me.” Another wave of pain sliced through my brain and I grabbed my head, squeezing it in at the temples, hoping to release some of the pain, but I couldn’t stop the scream this time.

  I curled into a ball and rolled onto my stomach, resting my forehead on the cold cement, and I didn’t care that it was dirty. I didn’t care about anything but making the pain in my head go away.

  I could feel each tiny bit of lucole in my brain. I hadn’t been able to before, but I could now. They were like razor-sharp burrs stuck in my brain. I wanted to destroy them, but they were tiny—just slightly bigger than a nano—and there were way too many of them. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I couldn’t tell, but it felt impossible to know.

  I’d never tried to destroy something so small, and never something inside a living being. There was no way I could destroy them without blowing up my brain.

  But now that I could feel them, the temptation to try was there.

  I shifted my head and the burrs’ vibration dug them deeper into my brain. I tried to take a breath but the pain was getting worse and I couldn’t get enough air in. “I can’t—” Hot wet dripped out of my nose, splashing on the roof. I wanted to swipe at my nose, but my elbows were resting on the rooftop and I didn’t think could move.

  Lorne gently lifted me into his lap. He pulled me close, until my face was pressed tight against his chest, and he started to vibrate.

  Vibrate?

  He took a breath and then more vibrations.

  No. Not vibrating. He was singing.

  It was the Aunare healing song. I couldn’t hear it, but recognized the rhythm and how it made me feel. It healed me—body and soul—but I wasn’t sure how. There were some things about the Aunare that I didn’t understand and classified as magic. Like their healing pods. And the light floors of Ra’mi market. And the healing song.

  The guards joined in, adding their voices to Lorne’s. I felt Audrey next to me, her device scanning. She stuck something small and cold on either side of my forehead, and the pain started to ease.

  With the pain even a little bit less, I wanted to go. Right then. I wanted to go back to our ship, but I couldn’t move and I didn’t think Lorne would let me even if I tried.

  The ringing in my head slowly started to diminish, and with that, the pain started to lessen even more. The burrs weren’t vibrating so much, and their sharp points seemed to dull. With each second that passed, I felt a little better and the panic started to die down. I was going to be okay.

  I really was going to be okay.

  But I also knew that okay was temporary, and it would continue to be temporary until this poison was out of my body. I thought that having lucole in my blood was nothing compared to nanos, but I was wrong. Nanos I could survive. I wasn’t sure I could survive this.

  Lorne kept singing, and slowly, I was able to hear him. His voice was on the verge of cracking, and my heart broke at the sound.

  Audrey placed her hand on my back. “She’s okay, Lorne,” she said softly. “She’s okay. I was able to get a very good reading on the vibrations of the crystal pieces inside her, and I was able to cancel out their frequencies.”

  Lorne stopped singing, but his grip on me tightened. “You can see it now? You can get a read on the poison?”

  “I can. Better than that, I believe that I’ve forced the lucole back to its natural state. As it lessened in severity, I made adjustments to the scan. I can now see it in her system even at neutral.” She paused. “This is a very good thing. We know it’s there. It’s not hidden from us anymore. If we can see it, then we can start to work on how to get rid of it. But I don’t know what will happen if it activates again. I don’t know what my manual manipulation of the microscopic crystal pieces in her brain will do long term. Will the next time she encounters the activation tone count as her third? I don’t know, and it’s critical that we find out.”

  A throat cleared beside us, but Lorne didn’t let go of me. My face was still pressed against him, and I was more than a little fre
aked out and happy to stay that way.

  “We should go now, your majesty,” Ashino said. “We have Yhona ships approaching, and I would rather be gone by the time they get here. Can I have the vehicles brought up?”

  He was right. I pushed against Lorne, and he let me go. His skin wasn’t flashing anymore, but it was still too bright to be safe. “I want to leave. I want to go back to the warship. Now.”

  He nodded to Ashino. “Let’s leave.” Then he looked at me and pressed his finger between my eyes. “Your head is hurting?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t lie. “But I’m okay right now. My head hurts, but it’s not as bad as it was on Apollyon.” I couldn’t ever let it get that bad again. It had killed me last time. They’d damaged my brain so badly that jumping back through the galaxy had killed me. They’d brought me back, but I’d died.

  Three ships landed on the roof, and for a second, I forgot that our on-planet transport vehicles could actually fly. Lorne mentioned it when we talked about what we’d do if things went wrong, but I’d completely forgotten. “Our vehicles just landed on the roof.”

  “Of course they did.” Lorne said it as if having a ground-only vehicle would’ve been absurd.

  If we ever ended up back on Earth, he was going to freak when he saw what kind of vehicles I drove. And then there was Roan’s speeder—man, he was going to think I’d lost my mind for riding on that thing.

  I tried to stand, but Lorne refused to let me go. He carried me in his arms to the closest vehicle, then eased me inside on the back bench and slid in next to me. Roan, Audrey, and Tyler sat in the bench across from us. Two more guards got in with the guard acting as pilot in the front, but I couldn’t see who.

  I stretched out on the back bench with my head in Lorne’s lap. I thought I was exhausted earlier, but that didn’t even come close to how I was feeling now.

  One of the guards passed a carton of water over the partition. “Drink.” The word was more grunt than anything else.

  I didn’t have to see him to know who that was. “Sure. Thanks, Ginu.” But I couldn’t sit up to drink it.