Kyle looked surprised, but he followed. The two men walked side by side down the ramp and toward the ranger station. “Quite a speech,” Kyle said.
“Thanks.” He glanced at Kyle, searching his face, looking for any signs that he might betray them. He found it unreadable.
Kyle held up his cane. “Sorry I can’t walk as fast as you.”
Charlie gave him a level look. “I know.” When Kyle simply stared back, Charlie said, “Maybe someday things will slow down enough you can get it healed.”
“A doctor told me it would take surgery and twelve weeks when I can’t walk at all. I’ll do that after the damned Next are gone.”
The desert air sucked moisture from every inch of skin, desiccating him from the inside out. It must be even harder on Kyle. “I don’t mind walking slow,” Charlie said. “It’s good to have you here.”
Kyle gestured toward the buildings and the invasively green potted plants they were now close enough to make out more clearly. “Where do they get the water to live?”
“There’s a hell of an aquifer under here. We could turn all of Entare into an oasis for about a hundred years.”
“How many people are in there?”
“We don’t know. They wouldn’t be recruiting farm kids and the like if they had enough people to beat the Next. But there’s some—we’ve seen ships go up and down, maybe ten of them. None big. A few ships have come from the spaceport, too. And gone back. There’s maybe thirty or more people recruited? So we guess there’s that many Shining Revolution that came down.”
Kyle frowned. “There’s more like fifty recruited. Maybe sixty. Almost all of one whole farm. The harvest was early, and so they left a week ago.”
“You’re just telling me that now?”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know.”
“Assume I don’t know anything. It’s worse if you fail to tell me something than if I learn the same thing twice.”
“Sir. Yes, sir.” Kyle stared directly at Charlie, a tiny bit of defiance clear in his eyes.
Charlie shook his head. “Don’t do this. I told you it was my show. I’m glad to have you along. I need you to be our face here, as well. When it comes to attacking Next’s Reach, people will believe you more than me.”
Kyle stared at him. “I know.”
Three people had come out of the station and were walking toward them. Two men and a woman. As they came closer, Charlie spotted Shining Revolution symbols painted on their clothes. They lacked the pristine dress of the leaders, but they looked just as serious as the videos Charlie had seen of Nayli and Vadim.
“Do you recognize any of them?” he whispered to Kyle.
Kyle gave the slightest shake of his head. “Good afternoon,” he called out.
The taller of the two men, a hulk with blond hair and reddish skin and golden cat eyes, looked a little surprised at the friendly greeting. He recovered quickly, offering a flat, “Good morning. What can we help you with?”
“We came to help you. We’re interested in what you’re doing.”
The greeting party stopped in the middle of the path, effectively impeding forward progress. The same man said, “I’m Richard. I’m in charge here.” He pointed at the other two. “This is Hiroma—” the black-haired, brown-skinned woman nodded “—and Samil.”
Samil was both short and slight. He had a pointed chin and high cheekbones and moved like someone with intense competitive mods, maybe even battle mods of some kind. Charlie had seen a few of those accompanying smugglers before. There was a nervousness to them, a way of moving that set his instincts on edge. As if to support Charlie’s conclusion, Samil spoke next. “I see you have a Port Authority vehicle. But you’re wearing ranger uniforms. Want to tell us about that?”
Kyle stepped forward, his voice genuinely passionate. “We’ve seen family and friends come over here. We’ve listened to rumors in the wind at home, and those rumors have been telling us you’re going to attack the Next.” He held his hand out. “I’m Kyle Glass. You may know I left the ranger service to help throw out the people who gave the planet to the fucking robots.”
The woman, Hiroma, glanced at Charlie. “I’ve seen him in the news. He’s one of the men you threw out.”
“He was trapped into negotiating. Now he’s seen the Wall at Nexity and he wants the Next gone as much as I do. They’re a plague on humanity. Abomination.”
“That true?” Richard asked Charlie directly.
“Yes.” It wasn’t that duplicitous; he did want the Next off of Lym, and he had been trapped into negotiating.
Richard still stood with his arms folded across his chest. “Who flew that ship in?”
Kyle answered. “A pilot. We’ve got a few more people, too. But we’re the leaders, and we told them to stay while we check things out.”
“How many people?” Samil asked.
“Twenty.”
Samil cocked his head. “So many? What if we don’t have that much water?”
“You do,” Charlie answered. “I used to work in that station.”
Richard turned back. “Okay, we’ll take you to the station.” He glanced back at the Storm. “You’ve got air conditioning in that thing?”
“For a while,” Kyle said. “They’re to leave in an hour if we don’t come back.”
Everyone followed Richard, although Samil took up the rear, very much like a herd dog.
His memory of the station was good. There were three main doors, and Richard led them through the biggest of the doors into a reception area with tables and benches. Two men in uniform guarded the door between reception and anywhere else. One of them startled when he saw Kyle. Charlie thought he had been a robot repair tech on the farms, but he wasn’t certain, and there was no opportunity to ask.
They all sat around a table, and a young man brought them water, his eyes wide and full of curiosity. Richard waved him away before he leaned in and started talking. “You gave us a deadline. Well, we have one, too. There’s more of the stinking robots here than there was a few days ago. We need to take them out before there’s too many.”
Charlie had always assumed one armed Next was too many to fight, but then he knew some. These people didn’t. He held his tongue.
“We’ve figured out a good way to attack them, and we need to be in position before dark. We’re leaving soon. We might be able to use twenty more people, but only if they’re strong and willing to fight. It might be better if you wait and then you can join us afterward.”
Charlie stayed silent.
“What do your people know? Are they all rangers?”
“Some are.” Kyle sipped his water, looking only mildly eager. “Next are tough to kill. What do you have for weapons?”
“We’re asking the questions.”
“Very well. They’re not all rangers. The Port has a bunch of rangers co-opted to help control the spaceport with all the ships coming in. But some are rangers. Others are from the farms. Everyone is strong.”
“How do we know you really want to join us?”
Kyle managed to look quite affronted. “What? We flew all the way over here just to sweat in the damned desert?”
Richard laughed for the first time. “Stranger things have happened. What weapons do you have?”
“Good hand weapons,” Kyle said. “And knowledge. Charlie knows the base and the area, and he’s been to Palat. Passion. Just like you, we want our system back, our pride back.”
Richard held a hand out. “Welcome aboard. If you agree we can reject some of your people if we think they’re not ready, you can bring them in. We appreciate the help.”
All three shook hands. Hiroma had kept the same slightly distrustful look she’d started with. Samil squeezed Charlie’s hand sharply enough to cause real pain. At the same time, he watched Charlie’s eyes, as if taking in his response to the challenge.
Charlie managed not to flinch.
They hadn’t learned as much as Charlie wanted to, nor had they received a terr
ibly enthusiastic greeting. Maybe the Shining Revolution people were naturally distrustful.
To be fair, though, right before a battle was an awkward time to add recruits. If he had been leading the battle he would not have taken them at all unless he was really shorthanded. Or needed easy sacrifices. He hated being here. There were a lot of lives on the line, everyone he’d brought with them as well as the ones who’d come here to throw their lives at a cause.
He’d led this big a group in training exercises. Not into a fight.
It set his teeth on edge.
He wasn’t made for war, and he wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
NAYLI
Nayli stood in the doorway of their bedroom, staring down at Vadim’s sleeping form. She matched her breathing to his. They were like one being, one entity standing against forces out to destroy mankind.
She wondered how it would feel to be away from him. They had spent weeks and months without sleeping together, one on shift, one off, and vice versa. She had moved out and taken her own quarters right after the attack on the Deep. But always they had been inside of the same metal walls, on the same ships, able to reach each other if they needed and wanted to.
How could she bear to be separated from him?
As usual, she might as well have voiced her thoughts out loud. Vadim stirred and lifted an arm, beckoning to her. She went, as she always had. He folded her next to him, and she breathed in the smell of him and appreciated the way his arm and stomach warmed her. “It will be all right,” he murmured. “You’ll come back.”
“I will miss you.” She felt it, too, like a knife going into her side. “I will fight so fiercely that we will win in spite of all their power. We won before, all those years ago.” She could sense that old win. Her ancestors had pushed the damned robots back and back and finally out, had forced a treaty that had stood for thousands of years. They would do it again; she would do it again. Only she wouldn’t be as soft as her ancestors. She would kill them all. After she danced on whatever was left of Nexity she would scour the solar system until they were all wiped from every station.
As if he read her thoughts, Vadim smiled up at her. “You will win for us,” he said. “You always have. You are the Queen of Humanity, and I love you.” He rolled over and put a hand on her cheek. He tightened his fingers and pulled her close to him, touching her lips with his ever so gently and then leaning back and looking at her, desire softening his face.
“I will love you forever and always,” she whispered. “I will love you from the far side of the grave.”
“It’s not time to meet there yet.” He touched her cheek.
She responded with a shudder. She loved it when he took her with fierce demands, when his heat demanded heat from her. Softer love undid her entirely. His tenderness made her feel completely visible, naked in her heart. He put a hand between her breasts, and her blood rushed to meet the warmth of his palm, and she accepted his request, sliding so close to him that a long line of skin from shoulder to knee touched, barely broken by the hills and valleys of their bodies.
His fingers rubbed against her nipples and then tugged gently at them and a slight moan escaped them both at once.
She was still warm from Vadim as she walked, alone, into the command center of the Shining Danger. She sat in her chair, staring for a moment at the one that he usually occupied. With a gesture, she summoned Stupid into a holographic body and shaped it into a pirate. She stared at it for a moment and then reshaped it into a female warrior, a hunter figure named Huliant she’d discovered in a book as a young girl. In keeping with illustrations from the book, she gave Stupid’s avatar long hair, a bow and arrow, high boots, and a form-fitting but practical outfit. Before she changed it again, she caught herself. No point in looking as indecisive as she felt. She’d be okay. In fact, she’d be great.
“Marina?”
“Yes?” Marina materialized from behind her and slid into the chair that would have been Vadim’s. She wore her blue-black hair waist length, caught in a fine black net that let it cascade down her back. “Everyone’s on board.”
“Good.” Marina had flown with them before. She was the perfect first officer, so attuned to the ship that she might as well breathe with it. “What about Lym? Are our people getting near Next’s Reach?”
“They might have even landed. They’ll report soon enough.”
“It’s in their hands now, anyway.”
“Have you ever been to Lym?” Marina asked.
“I’m looking forward to it.” Nayli used hand signals to tell Stupid to start the ship warming up. “I heard sunrises are beautiful. We came from there, you know. Humans. I know there’s legends of a colony ship, and that before we came from Lym we were from a different place altogether. But we were alone on Lym for generation after generation. All of us existed in that small place. All of our ancestors on a tiny ball—my ancestors and yours. It will be interesting to see it, to imagine all of that history.”
“I was there once.” Marina stared at three screens in front of her, her eyes flicking across real-time sensor readouts. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. I hope we don’t hurt it.”
“Me, too. But that doesn’t matter as much as destroying Nexity.” There were weapons that might do that on the Danger now, a few of them even secret things that had been designed and built but never tested, weapons they’d discovered as they combed through the salvaged backup records Brea and Darnal had left in a vault for them. She was going to Lym with an arsenal, a plan, and a huge fleet of backup ships. “We’ll be as gentle and precise as we can be. But the larger goal is winning, and the secondary goal is surviving to fight another day, since there are more Next by far in other places. If we can save the planet as well, so much the better.”
Marina looked directly at her, a questioning look on her face. “Would you really destroy Lym to destroy one robot city?”
“If I have to.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
NONA
In spite of the fans blowing so loudly she could barely think, it was so hot inside of the Storm that sweat beaded everyone’s faces, and their hair had gone flat, damp, and stringy. A few people napped, somehow, even in the heat. Beside Nona, Amanda fidgeted and worried. From time to time she stood up and stretched, looking longingly toward the door. She had just sat down from a stretch when Farro said, “Finally,” and popped the door open.
Charlie and Kyle both looked good. Great. Sweaty and nervous and also like they had succeeded. Nona’s felt her shoulders fall and her face relax. She’s hadn’t realized she was so worried until they came in through the door. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“It is.” Charlie went to the front and picked up the microphone. “All right. Sorry for the long delay, but things are moving fast now. We need to disembark. We’ll be counted and sorted as soon as we get near the station. People will ask you questions. You each came of your own free will, you decided together and in ones and twos. Stay authentic, even to our people, even to your own family if any are here. Tell no one anything other than that we are here to attack the Next.” He stared them all down, catching as many people with direct looks as he could. “We can’t afford to be caught. Remember to watch us for cues. Whatever we do, you won’t mistake it. If you’re not sure we’re making a move, we aren’t. So you all have that?”
The people in their cabin nodded.
“Yes.”
“We will.”
“Yes.”
Charlie continued. “There are roughly a hundred people in there. That’s more than we expected. Roughly half are from here, and half are from the Glittering.”
Silence. People watched him. For a man who said he wasn’t a leader and didn’t like battle, he seemed to be doing pretty well. Nona felt a deep sense of pride in him fill her, felt like she herself was more ready than she had been when they landed, calmer and more centered.
Charlie called again. “Ready?”
&nb
sp; “We’re ready.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m ready.”
He looked pleased with the responses. “Say it together. Ready?”
A resounding yes filled the cabin. The unity of it buoyed Nona, helped her stand and turn and be ready to walk out of the skimmer and into a fight.
As they all rose and moved toward the door, Charlie called out, “Remember, Kyle is our main spokesperson with the strangers.”
Nona frowned. Charlie had told her that Kyle had more credibility as a leader of dissidents and a hater of robots, but Nona still didn’t trust him. What if he betrayed Charlie? He had already done that once.
She and Amanda and Charlie were the last ones out, except for Farro, who stayed behind to protect the Storm and keep it ready. The wall of heat set off internal warning bells. She’d never been in air so hot and dry. So many little triggers of things that would warn of extreme danger on a station that were normal here. She must have shown her dismay, since Amanda clutched her hand briefly and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Just . . . surprised at the heat.”
“Breathe slowly. That makes it easier.”
“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”
Kyle created two long columns of people and they started walking away from the skimmer.
The heat dragged at her, making her feel heavy as they walked at the back of group. Breathing felt like pulling hot knives through her chest. She spoke a silent affirmation in her head. I can do this. I can do this.
A line of men and women from Desert Bow Station regarded them silently as they walked by. They pulled three people out of the group at random. One was a woman Nona had met briefly at the dinner party, and the other two were men—one young and one old.
Hopefully they’d stand up to whatever questioning came their way.
At one point, Amanda took her hand and whispered, “What if we don’t find her? What if she’s dead?”
All Nona could offer was a small, overheated smile.
They were lined up and each of them questioned briefly. When it was Nona’s turn, a tall woman with silver eyes said, “Your name?”
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