by Sara King
The Nephyr ducked and just kept coming. Seeing her ploy wasn’t working, Magali decided to shift perches before it could reach her. She thought about returning to the ship, but she couldn’t pilot it, and the last thing she wanted to do was trap herself in a metal shell with a Nephyr. Magali threw her guns over her shoulder and, out of sight of the Nephyr, slipped off the ridge and into the rocky outcroppings below, stopping only to leave her jacket slung over a rock, just a small part of it showing between the boulders. She calculated the best vantage point to shoot at the ridge and went to it, calmly setting up her next shooting station, then sat back to wait.
Jersey realized Magali had shifted shooting positions the moment he got within five hundred yards and saw that, despite still seeing a dark splotch of the black Nephyr jacket he had loaned her, her heat signature was no longer visible and he couldn’t see the barrel of her gun. Immediately, he sank down behind cover, trying to decide what to do next. He doubted she was running from him—if she’d left a distraction behind, it was because she fully intended to use his confusion to put a bullet through his eye.
Dammit, Mag, Jersey thought desperately, snap out of it.
Absolute silence reigned above him, the silence of a predator stalking its prey.
Damn, Jersey thought, his heart hammering. He glanced back at the camp, where the volunteers from Silver City were rejoicing with the eggers they’d freed, having absolutely no idea of the cat-and-mouse game he was playing on the mountainside with their reluctant heroine. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and decided that he had to circle around and come at her from behind.
Magali was watching the ridge through her scope when she heard a tiny sound to her left. She had just enough time to drop the rifle and draw her pistols before the Coalition Nephyr was on top of her. She fired two glancing blows that he deflected with his hand before he hit her, head on, and they went down amidst the sticky foliage.
“Mag!”
The thing had hold of her wrists, so Magali shoved her knee into its face.
“Ah, fuck, Mag!”
Magali dropped backwards and kicked at the glassy surface of its chest, ramming her foot into its too-hard torso again and again. Nephyr, a deep part of her began to babble. I’m going to be raped by a Nephyr.
“Mag, it’s me!”
She screamed on a soul-deep stab of terror and started thrashing, kicking wildly, twisting her wrists until they bled.
The Nephyr wrapped its body around her, a cage of glass. “Mag, please,” it almost sounded like it was crying. “Please, it’s me.”
Pinned to the ground, her gun over the cliff, Magali hyperventilated. She had no way to kill it. Not with her bare hands…
“We met on the shores of the Snake,” the Nephyr said, still totally trapping her with its hydraulic, glassy body. “You were pretending to be dead, hoping I’d pass you by.”
The Snake, Magali thought. She could just jump. End it now. Follow little Benny to the ground…
“I gave you soup and hot chocolate,” the Nephyr said. “Took you to Silver City.”
Silver City. That’s probably where those asshole eggers forced Joel to take them. They probably killed him and took his ship. Maybe if she ever got down off the cliff, she could hunt them down.
“You took out my lifeline, Mag. Please, it’s me, Jersey.”
Jersey.
Magali froze, remembering that name from somewhere.
“Jersey Brackett. From Six Bears.”
Brackett. Her dad was friends with a Brackett. His kid had played chess with Milar.
No, some part of her corrected, the Bracketts are dead. Dad is dead. Runaway Joel killed them.
Or did he? Hadn’t someone told her that?
“Shhh, Mag, it’s okay. You’re okay. Nobody’s gonna hurt you again, okay?”
But he was hurting her. He was raping her. Right after he’d told her to shove Benny off the cliff. He had pulled down his pants and told her to get on her knees…
“Mag, sweet Aanaho, Mag, I’m here, okay? You’re safe.”
Safe. The word felt foreign in her mind. How could she be safe if—
Silver City. She remembered Silver City. A Nephyr bleeding on the bathroom floor, surgical spreaders stuck in his neck. A bar where he’d kicked a table in half because four others wanted to play. Magali pulling out her gun and shooting them, then going outside and killing sixteen more. A crowd, cheering her name. Jersey, holding her arm, refusing to let her hide from their excited chanting…
Magali felt her world shift, felt everything seem to tumble apart, the overwhelming terror suddenly stripped away, leaving her to recognize she was still fully clothed, that the Nephyr wasn’t moving above her.
“Jersey?” she croaked.
Very slowly, the Nephyr lifted his head. His glittering face was glistening with crimson, starkly contrasting his blue-green eyes. “Mag?” he whispered. He had tears on his cheeks, making the translucent skin even glossier than it already was.
“Why are you holding me down?” Magali whispered, unable to find her voice. Her throat felt raw, almost like it had when Steele—
“No, Mag, dammit, stay with me,” Jersey said, lifting his body above her. He was dripping blood from his nose and it was dribbling onto her chest, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You remember who I am, Mag?”
“Jersey?” she whispered, focusing up at him. “Why are you bleeding? Did the guys in the bar do that to you?”
Jersey blinked at her, then shook himself. “Yeah, Mag. It was them. But you took care of them for me. How about a nap? You wanna go back to the ship and sleep a little?”
“Yeah,” Magali managed. Then she saw his filigreed skin touching hers, felt the unnatural, stony hardness, and began to curl up inside like a scared little kid.
“Hey Mag, don’t leave me now…” Jersey was being nice to her, but still didn’t let go of her hands.
And then, in a wash of total horror, Magali realized why.
“Oh Aanaho,” she whispered. “I killed people.”
Jersey hesitated, and for a brief instant, she saw the same mental acuity she’d seen in Anna sharpening in his blue-green eyes. “Yes,” he said, but it was reluctant. “We can talk about it after you get some rest, okay?” He still wasn’t letting go of her hands.
“Who was it?” Magali managed.
“You don’t remember?” Jersey asked, giving her the look someone would give a bird with a broken wing.
Magali remembered killing Nephyrs, but she didn’t remember—
Nalle. She remembered killing Nalle. “The Director?” she whispered.
Jersey’s eyes were full of pity. “And a couple others.”
With the awkward way he avoided her gaze, it all suddenly rushed back; the cold ruthlessness, the determination, the look on every face, the feel of every squeeze of the trigger. “Oh no,” she whispered, horror wrapping its icy, taloned fingers around her heart. Not a couple. An entire camp. “Aanaho, no.”
“Hey,” Jersey said quickly, “if you hadn’t done it, the rest of us would have. We had to take that camp, and it was their jobs to stop us. We had to free the eggers, Mag.” He let go of her wrists and sat up, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Any way you look at it, you saved lives.”
But guilt was sinking through her being, staining her to the core. She had killed. Again. Dozens of people. Clerks. A cook. And then she had tried to shoot Jersey… “Aanaho,” she whimpered, panic rising with her too-fast breath. “Aanaho Aanaho Aanaho…” She felt her heart rate speeding up, blood pounding in her ears. Martin. Nephyrs. Guards. Benny.
I’m a killer, Magali thought, heart hammering way too fast. Just like Wideman said. He was right all along. Just a killer. Killer, killer, killer, killer…
“Mag, calm down love, you’re breathing too fast.” The too-hard fingers began stroking her hair, pulling her head close to his stony chest.
Killer, her mental voice whimpered, in soul-deep anguish, recognizing the truth
of it, accepting it. The only thing she’d ever been good at. The only way she’d ever excelled. Her only contribution to society as a whole. I really am just a killer. Then Magali lost consciousness in the Nephyr’s glassy arms.
CHAPTER 5: Warning One
Independence Day, 17th of May, 3006
North Tear
Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds
“Stop immediately,” a sudden mental boom sounded. “You have triggered the Phage Containment Defense Grid. Authorized personnel only. Please present authorization or return the way you came. Eradication measures trigger in four legs.”
Tatiana froze, grabbing Milar by the arm. “Okay, I think we found our inviso-aliens. They just told us to stop and give authorization,” Tatiana said, trying to figure out how to grant herself authorization.
Milar blinked down at her. “And you think you can get it, somehow, sweetie?” She’s lovable, but she’s also a ditz.
Tatiana narrowed her eyes. “I am not a ditz.”
“Two hundred stitches says you are.” Damn, gotta remember she can hear me.
“That’s right, knucker.” Tatiana peered out at the otherwise-totally-unremarkable jungle ahead of them, wondering just how far a ‘leg’ was. Or maybe it was a unit of time. That would suck.
You have triggered the Phage Containment Defense Grid, the booming mental voice repeated. Authorization please.
Tatiana squinted. Then, because she really didn’t have anything better to say, she said, “I am Captain Tatiana Eyre of the Coalition Space Force. I come in peace, for the purpose of trade and resource-use negotiations.”
“Unrecognized hive,” the mental ‘voice’ responded. “Please produce authorization of purpose before proceeding.”
“My authorization comes from Admiral Maako on the Fortune Orbital, leader of the human forces on this planet,” Tatiana thought.
“Unrecognized hive archon. Please provide accurate authorization of purpose.”
Tatiana thought about rushing through the perimeter anyway.
“Action not suggested,” the mental voice warned. “Reactive measures will be taken to prevent Phage contamination.”
“What’s going on?” Milar whispered.
“They don’t wanna let us pass,” Tatiana muttered. “Something about contamination.”
“What, like the Phage?” Milar demanded, going immediately pale.
Tatiana snorted. “They’ve explored thousands of ancient cities, all of which were supposedly wiped out by this ‘Phage.’” She sarcastically air-quoted the last. “Look, if you read Daytona Dae’s essays, she says they thought that stuff was a god, okay? An evil, vengeful god. Does that really sound like something we should be concerned with?”
“You’re missing the part where it killed off the Aashaanti,” Milar said. “And the Kelthari, and the Ra’u, and the—”
“Obviously, it didn’t,” Tatiana interrupted, gesturing at the empty jungle ahead of them. “And we’re about to make contact with the only known survivors. Besides. The likelihood that a disease not only survived sixteen thousand years, but is physiologically compatible with both the Aashaanti, which were non-cellular, and humans, which are multi-cellular, is pretty much statistically insignificant.”
“I’ve never had much luck playing the statistical slot machine,” Milar replied.
Indeed, he had been captured by Nephyrs, escaped from Nephyrs, captured again by Nephyrs, and then escaped, again, and still had not only his skin, but all of his fingers and toes. That was statistically as close to impossible as walking on the sun.
“This is the Phage Containment Defense Grid. To prevent total systematic annihilation of all sentient species in this quadrisphere, authorized personnel only.”
“It’ll be fine,” Tatiana said. “I think it’s just a robot. A really old robot.”
“‘Just’ an invisible, sixteen-thousand-year-old, body-shredding alien robot.” He peered at her like she had warts.
“Yeah,” Tatiana said. When Milar just raised a brow, she frowned and said, “What?”
“Okay,” Milar said, “then this is where I tell you, as the smart, capable man in the bad horror holovid who’s going to live through this, that we need to fall back on Plan B, where I go splatter me some Nephyrs and get us outta here.”
“No, gimme a sec,” Tatiana said. “I think I can talk to them.” She thought really hard about needing to get into the quarantine zone to meet the aliens on the other side.
She must have spent a bit too much time thinking about how badly she was itching to play with their cool technology, too, because the idiot robot replied with, “As per the Hive Accords, Aashaanti technological advances are not allowed to be passed to evolutionarily inferior races without approval from the archon ancients in a five-to-three ratio. With the current archon ancient survivor ratio unknown, any vote must be delayed until accurate survivor numbers have been established. Please return once the surviving archon ancients have been accounted for.
Tatiana prickled at ‘evolutionarily inferior races’ and said, “We have advancements you clearly didn’t. Maybe you could let us come in there, look around, and I could offer up a few tips. You know…organize an exchange.” …right after she added a few choice pieces to her soldier for safekeeping.
Technological Salvage is not an authorized mission type. Please consult the hive elders for trade arrangements.
Tatiana was starting to get frustrated. “Listen, you’re not—”
Milar slapped a big, callused hand over her face and dragged her to the rocky jungle floor against his body, effectively cutting her off. Nephyrs, he thought to her. Moving in the jungle. Spread out.
Oh shit. Tatiana felt herself starting to panic, realizing they were trapped.
She heard Milar give a little groan. Calm down, sweetie, Milar said. That’s really not a good thing to start doing right now. When she looked up at him, she saw him wincing and holding his temple. Besides, I don’t think they saw us yet.
They have heat-sensors, Miles! Tatiana cried.
Your signature’s masked by the gel, Milar cried. Calm down!
Oh shit, Tatiana thought, seeing the sheen of Nephyr skin only a few dozen meters off, shit, shit, shit, shit. He was standing parallel to them on the rocky ridge, looking down into the jungle leading into the Tear.
Ambassador, are you and your bodyguard in danger? The robotic mental voice was like an angel from on high.
Tatiana’s eyes widened. Yes! Yes I am in danger! Those evil cyborgs are trying to kill me! They are here to sabotage Aashaanti trade relations! They need to be stopped!
I’m sorry, Archon. Your request has been logged with the hive, but Social Asylum is not an authorized mission type.
Nonono, Tatiana thought. I don’t need asylum. Just kill them for me.
As per the Solid State Accords, we cannot execute sentient creatures before giving them six warnings that their behavior is violating our elder-approved mission directive. A moment later, the robot’s mental voice seemed directed elsewhere as he said, “Stop immediately. You have triggered the Phage Containment Defense Grid. Authorized personnel only. Please present authorization or return the way you came. Eradication measures trigger in twelve legs.”
Then, from much closer, Tatiana heard, They’ve gotta be around here somewhere. I could’ve sworn I was hearing them talk. Wonder what the hell’s making my electronics malfunction. Keeps buzzing out. I’ll have to skin that damn tech that worked on them last night. He took a couple more careful, unnaturally quiet steps, then turned to the right to continue down the ridge, towards them.
“Negative, Search and Destroy is not an authorized mission type. Please present proper authorization of purpose. Containment measures begin in eleven legs.”
Watching the Nephyr continue to stalk towards their hiding place, Tatiana slowly reached out and found a mid-sized stone amidst the rocky outcropping that hid them. She nudged Milar in the side, shoving the rock into his hand. Throw this down the hi
ll, she told him. As far as you can.
Milar squinted at her, then at the stone, then at the innocuous-looking, inviso-alien forest covering the downward slope into the Tear. He turned, cocked his big arm behind him, heaved, and it made a delightfully long arc before it collided with another rocky outcropping and bounced, taking a fantastically long time to come to a halt as it tumbled down the hill.
Immediately, Nephyrs started pouring out of the woods, dozens of them, rushing the place where the rock had hit the ground. The one that had been walking towards them was the only one who stopped, looking directly at them.
Milar shot him, three laser blasts in rapid succession, two of which bounced off his forehead or cheek, one of which hit him in the left orbit. The Nephyr went down with his socket burned out, twitching.
At the same time, the Nephyrs who had rushed the stone were slowing near the site of impact. One was bending down to retrieve the rock.
It’s got a heat imprint of her thumb on it, one of them thought. The bitch was holding it. He lifted his head to scan the jungle below him, peering off in the opposite direction. Must be using something to block their heat signatures.
Warning One. You have crossed twenty-eight legs into the area affected by the Phage Containment Defense Grid. Please return the way you came immediately or your threat of contamination will be removed. As per the Solid State Accords, that was Warning One.
Giggling inside, Tatiana hunkered lower into their hollow, enjoying the hard feel of Milar’s big body behind her. She started mentally counting down in her head.
We are so screwed, Milar thought. I’ll shoot her first. Then myself.
Like hell you will, Tatiana said. Just chill a moment. I’m calculating something.
Chill?! Milar cried. This place is crawling with Nephyrs! Hundreds of them! I can’t kill hundreds of Nephyrs, Tat.
“She’s nearby,” the Nephyr holding the rock said. “Her fingerprints are all over the goddamn stone.”
