Coral was back in the small hold, curled up in Bay's bed, her silvery hair spread out around her head. They had been taking shifts at the helm, alternating between cockpit and hold.
Bay had been trying to avoid her. Which was almost impossible on a ship so small. Even with him in the cockpit, and her in the hold, they were only a few feet apart. There was no privacy aboard Brooklyn. And Coral was the last person Bay wanted around. Flying with the weaver was intolerable.
She betrayed my father, he thought. She stole Brooklyn!
The irony of that thought struck him at once. Had he himself not stolen Brooklyn once, using the shuttle to defect?
No, it wasn't that Coral had stolen Brooklyn—with Bay himself aboard.
He looked at the weaver. Her smooth, dark skin decorated with silvery ink. Her hair like molten moonlight. Her full lips and graceful form. She was beautiful. She was intoxicating. She was ethereal like a fairy from an old book.
Bay was young and hot-blooded, and he was not blind to Coral's beauty. He didn't like how she heated his blood, how she stirred desire inside him.
I wish it were you here with me, Rowan, he thought.
He looked at the bulkhead, where he had hung a portrait of Rowan, one he had drawn only last week.
"Draw me like one of your French girls," she had said.
Bay had never heard of France, and he assumed it was a reference to one of Rowan's movies. Half of what the girl said made no sense to him. She had grown up in a duct, learning about humanity from books and movies, the most recent ones two thousand years old. Even her accent was nearly impossible to understand, the same accent humans had in the old films. Yes, Bay barely understood Rowan, but whenever he was with her, he felt good. Felt at peace. It was only with Rowan that he felt truly happy, that he could forget his past.
In the portrait, she was wearing her Inheritor uniform, leaning against a starfighter, smiling. A tight-lipped smile. She only ever smiled with her lips closed, hiding her crooked teeth. Bay didn't mind her teeth. So what if they were crooked? He didn't mind that her hair was short and messy and brown, not long and silvery and shiny like Coral's. He didn't mind that she was so small. When he called her a hobbit, he was only teasing. Today he would have readily swapped the fairy in his bed with the hobbit in his drawing.
I miss you, Row.
But there was no time for navel-gazing now. Not with the battle so close. He approached Coral and touched her shoulder.
"Coral?"
She rose in bed, blinking, her hair tousled. "Never wake a weaver for anything less than the end of the universe."
Bay nodded. "Good, so I was right to wake you. Come into the cockpit. You better see this."
She followed him, stared through the viewport, and gasped.
"You weren't kidding," she said.
The battle spread before them, a glimmering scar across the darkness. A million starships or more swarmed ahead.
Bay licked his dry lips. "We'll have to give this battle a wide berth. It'll add a few days to our journey, but—"
"No." Coral narrowed her eyes. "The front line has moved to encompass Elysium, the planet of the Weeping Guildhall. The scorpions will be there soon, if they're not there already. We cannot delay!"
Bay stared ahead. The battle was closer now. When he zoomed in, the lights revealed themselves to be warships. Countless warships. The entire Inheritor fleet would disappear here. On one side, closer to Brooklyn, flew the Concord armada. On the other side—the Hierarchy. But the border between them was blurry. Both fleets were swirling, clashing, blending together in a chaotic dance.
"You want us to fly through that?" Bay said. "We'd have better luck flying through a minefield."
Coral took a shuddering breath, then nodded. "The ancients will guide our way."
"If the ancients want to help, they can teleport the Godblade into my hand right now." He held out his hand. "Nope, didn't think so."
Coral glowered. "Do not mock the ancients. And yes, we will fly through the battle. I'd rather fly through a battle of a million starships than a scuffle between ten."
Bay tilted his head. "Explain that logic."
She groaned. "Bay! We're flying a tiny shuttle barely larger than a bathroom. And barely cleaner, by the way."
"Hey!" Bay said, then looked around him at the piles of laundry, sheafs of paper, and snack wrappers. He sighed, conceding the point.
"They won't notice us," Coral continued. "We'll be like an ant scurrying under battling elephants."
"That's what I'm worried about," Bay said. "Ants tend to get crushed in that situation."
Lights flashed on the dashboard. Monitors turned on. Brooklyn's camera swiveled toward them.
"Did somebody say ants?" The ship shook. "Are there ants inside me? I knew it!"
"Good morning, Brook," Bay said. "We're flying toward a massive battle with a million warships and Coral wants us to fly right between them."
"That's fine, but what about the ants?" Brooklyn said.
"No, it's not fine!" Bay tugged his hair. "Why is everyone fine with this? Flying between a million warships blasting missiles and plasma is not fine!"
The battle was even closer now. It wasn't only that Brooklyn was flying toward the front line. The front line was moving toward them. The Hierarchy was pushing deeper into Concord space.
Brooklyn's sensors began picking up signals from the ships ahead. Her monitors scrolled through stats on countless starships. Dozens of species were fighting here. On the Hierarchy side, most were scorpions. But many slave races had come to fight under the stinger banners. There were giant spiders, electric trees, gargantuan centipedes, and a host of other monsters. Even the marshcrabs had come to fight for their masters. Each Hierarchy race flew their own warships, nightmarish machines that sprouted claws, spikes, and cannons.
On the Concord side, the Aelonians formed the bulk of the fleet. The glowing, translucent humanoids flew in graceful, silvery ships shaped like leaves. But many other civilizations had come to help. There were glassy ships filled with water and intelligent fish, rocky ships that contained intelligent crystals, the pod ships of the Esporian mushrooms, round ships filled with soil and sentient mosses, and other species Bay didn't recognize.
It was, by far, the largest battle he had ever seen, ever imagined. Not since the First Galactic War a thousand years ago, the war that had destroyed the Galactic Alliance and birthed the Concord and Hierarchy, had such violence filled the Milky Way galaxy.
And Brooklyn was charging right toward it.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Bay said, wincing.
Coral nodded. "Like an ant between—" She paused as Brooklyn trembled. "Like a bee between elephants."
Bay grimaced. The battle was closer, closer, the starships soaring, tumbling, blasting fire. Within seconds, Brooklyn would be flying through the gauntlet.
"Brook, you wanna take the wheel?" Bay said.
"Dude, I'm not programmed for this!" Brooklyn said, voice rising to a panic. "I vote to get the hell out of here. Take the long route! We—"
"Too late!" Coral pointed.
A massive frigate, torn open and burning, came tumbling toward them, trailing smoke and shrapnel.
Brooklyn squeaked and her camera retreated into the dashboard like a scared turtle. Her monitors went dark.
Great, Bay thought. I think my spaceship just fainted.
Wincing, he grabbed the joystick. He'd have to fly.
The ruined frigate rolled toward them. Ra, it was huge. It was the size of an office building. Two more warships chased it, blasting cannons, filling space with light and red-hot metal. Just beyond them swarmed a thousand more ships.
Bay yanked the joystick all the way back. Brooklyn soared.
The burning warship tumbled toward them. Closer. Closer. Only a heartbeat away.
Bay and Coral both screamed.
Bay tugged the joystick harder. He shoved on the throttle, rising higher. He overshot the spinning frigate, gra
zing its cracked hull. Brooklyn jolted and shouted and careened.
Bay didn't even have time to release his breath.
They rolled into the inferno of war.
Space burned.
To their right, two starships slammed together and shattered, showering glass and metal. Scorpions and squid-like aliens spilled out.
To their left, a cruiser plowed through a storm of starfighters, blasting cannons, then exploded with a furious shock wave that tossed Brooklyn into a spin.
Bay clung to his joystick, nearly falling from his seat. He righted himself and flew onward.
Below them flew a flat, rectangular vessel lined with circles and towers. It was nearly the size of Paradise Lost. Drones rose from the colossal machine, reaching out robotic arms. Starfighters swooped toward the behemoth, raining fire. Bay swerved from side to side, evading the drones, then dodging the blasts of fire from the mechanical monster.
Above them, warships shaped like crabs scuttled across the darkness, reaching out claws, grabbing smaller starships and crushing them. A pincer reached toward Brooklyn, and Bay floored the thruster, shooting between the claws before they snapped shut.
"This was a stupid idea!" he shouted, swerving left to right, escaping a swarm of missiles.
"You're doing great," Coral said.
"I'm mucking terrified!" Bay swooped, dodging several scorpions in mech suits, then vaulted over a warship lined with a thousand cannons like porcupine quills.
"We're almost through!" Coral said.
"Don't you have any magic that can help?" he cried as shells burst around them. A striker slammed into an Aelonian leaf-ship above, and Bay dived through, barely avoiding the debris.
"I told you, it's not magic!" Coral shouted over the roaring battle. "It's aether."
"Whatever the hell it is, can you help?" Bay shouted.
Coral nodded. "Sure, let me just activate my 'defeat the entire Hierarchy' rune."
Grimacing, Bay swerved past two starfighters. "Gee, would ya?" He fired his shells at a missile flying their way. It exploded before them, and he flew through the flame. "Activate your 'generate new underwear for Bay' rune while you're at it."
Another missile flew their way.
Bay cursed and fired, destroying the missile in space.
A third missile flew, and Bay fired again, missed it. Cursing, he charged toward a warship and flew in rings around it. The missile slammed into the larger vessel's hull. The warship opened fire—at Bay. He flew, zigzagging.
More missiles came flying their way.
"All right, this is definitely not crossfire," Bay said. "The bastards are firing on us."
"Which side?" Coral asked, gazing across the battle. Thousands of warships of a dozen species spread around them.
"Both!" Bay said. "Everyone!"
He swerved around a hulking destroyer, zigzagging around its cannons. Shells burst behind him.
Strikers streamed toward them, blasting plasma.
"Bay, I don't like this," Coral said.
"Gee, you think maybe flying into the Ra damn front line was a bad idea?" he said. "Really?"
"There's no need to be sarcastic." Coral pointed. "We're almost at the end. We can do this."
Bay pressed his thruster to the max, roaring toward the edge of the battle. That was Hierarchy space ahead, but anything would be better than this gauntlet.
The strikers kept chasing him. Three. Then ten. Then a hundred.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit." Bay shoved himself against the thruster, desperate for more speed. "I think they know we're humans. Why else would they send so many strikers after a shuttle?"
"I am not a shuttle!" Brooklyn said, waking from slumber. "I am a micro-ship. There's a huge difference. Well, a micro-difference. But a significant one."
"Well, look who decided to wake up!" Bay said. "Rise and shine, princess. Care to use any of that staggering micro-ship intelligence to increase our speed?"
"I told you, dude, if you ever bought me premium fuel, I—"
"Enough about the premium fuel! Give me extra speed, Brooklyn!"
The camera on the dashboard nodded on its stock. "Put on your air masks, dudes."
Masks dangled down from the overhead compartments. Brooklyn shut off life support, and their speed inched up.
They were nearly through the battle now.
Bay could see open space ahead.
A wall of enemy warships, shaped like writhing octopuses with metallic tentacles, rose to block their passage. The tentacles unfurled, revealing hundreds of round holes like suction cups.
From each hole flew a whirring, blinking bomb ringed with blades. They looked like saw blades glued onto grenades.
Bay stared in horror as hundreds of spinning bombs flew toward them.
Brooklyn screamed.
Coral closed her eyes. A rune on her forehead began to glow.
As Bay clutched the joystick, Coral placed her hand over his. Light flowed from her rune, down her arm, and into her hand.
She began to move the joystick.
The spinning bombs reached them. Hundreds of them.
Eyes closed, Coral jerked the ship—down, up, side to side.
Blades scraped against Brooklyn's wings, hull, and roof, sawing grooves into the metal—but missing the cockpit. Missing the engine. Failing to cut all the way through.
Behind Brooklyn, the saw blades slammed into the pursuing strikers, embedded themselves into their hulls, then detonated.
The strikers exploded.
Shock waves blasted out, hitting Brooklyn, propelling her forward.
The shuttle spun through space, hurtling closer to the octopus ships.
"Coral, I need my hand." Bay struggled to pull his hand free from under hers; she was pinning it to the joystick. "Coral, I need my hand to fire!"
But she seemed to be in a trance. Her eyes were still closed. Her glowing hand still covered his, moving the joystick. Her grip was iron; Bay couldn't free himself.
He raised his left hand—the bad hand, the one with the stiff fingers always curled into a deformed fist.
He screamed as he uncurled one finger—just a centimeter—the joints creaking, the muscles spasming. He grabbed the cannon's trigger.
He fired.
Shells flew into the octopus starships, exploding against tentacles, tearing off the appendages. More explosions rocked the enemy ships—perhaps their armaments. Flame and metal showered. True octopuses spilled out from the burning vessels, flailing, and more bombs exploded, and a wall of fire rose in space.
Bay winced, holding his breath, as they flew through the inferno.
They shot through the fiery curtain.
Bombs and blades whirred everywhere around them, and Coral flew madly, her eyes closed, whipping between the projectiles, streaming up and down and sideways at speeds Bay had never seen from the shuttle.
And it ended.
They broke through.
They hovered in open space.
Behind them, the last few strikers attempted to fly through the inferno, only to shatter and burn and scatter in pieces. A few scorpions, ejected from their strikers, tumbled through space, flailing, then finally falling still.
Brooklyn flew onward, leaving the battle behind.
"We did it," Bay whispered. "We actually flew through the front line. We emerged in one piece." He spun toward Coral. "You did it, Coral! You used your magic! You—"
Her rune dimmed, her eyes rolled back, and she slumped in her seat, unconscious.
"Coral!" He turned toward her but dared not release the joystick. He kicked the dashboard. "Brooklyn! Brooklyn, wake up, you useless hunk of junk!"
Her camera propped up and dilated.
"Is it over?" the starship asked, then swiveled toward Coral and gasped. "What happened to her?" Her voice dropped to a worried whisper. "Did she get ants?"
"She doesn't have ants!" Bay said. "She used too much of her magic, I think. Or aether. Or whatever you want to call it. But she got us
out of the battle alive. And by the way, lots of help you were, Brook."
Bay didn't think cameras could roll their eyes, but Brooklyn came close.
"Dude, I'm only a shuttle," she said. "I'm not made for battle."
"I thought you were a micro-ship."
"Whatever!" Brooklyn said. "I'll take over now, though. You take care of the weasel."
"Weaver," Bay said. "She's a weaver, not a weasel."
Brooklyn tilted her camera. "You sure?"
"Almost certain."
"Well, I'll be damned. You lifeforms all look the same to me."
As Brooklyn flew onward, leaving the battle behind, Bay turned to Coral. She was out cold, but he could find no wounds, and her pulse was strong, her breath deep. He lifted her in his arms, surprised by how light she was. He carried her into the hold and laid her down in his bed.
"Coral?" he said softly, kneeling beside her.
Her eyes fluttered open. "Did we . . . make it through?"
He nodded. "We did, Coral. You did."
A faint smile touched her lips. "Good. I'm tired. It'll be a while before we reach the Weeping Guildhall. I need to . . ."
Her eyes closed, and she slept.
Strands of her hair lay across her nose and mouth. Bay brushed them back, marveling at how silky the strands were, how they shone like snow under moonlight, and how soft her skin felt when his fingertips brushed it.
He pulled his hand back.
"Sleep well, Coral the weaver, you nut," he said softly. "You're either going to save the galaxy or drive me mad. Or both."
He returned to the cockpit. They flew on into the darkness. Into Hierarchy space. Into the realm of scorpions, untold danger, and the faintest shred of hope.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For a long time—darkness and pain.
Ayumi thought it would never end.
The scorpions carried her in the sack. She felt their claws—poking, cutting. She heard their laughter—hissing, crackling, cruel. She smelled the stench of them, the acidic smell of burning oil and dead things. Their saliva ate through her sack, her skin.
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