by Alex White
“What are you going to do? Punch the alarms if we trip them?”
Without answering, Nilah cycled through her intensities, pushing toward ultrabright flares so strong her skin itched. She wanted to be sure her dermaluxes were as optimized and flexible as they could be for whatever might be coming. Orna didn’t understand, but there was no point in arguing with someone who’d just found out her planet was deliberately exterminated. Nilah flexed her knuckles before unholstering her slinger and looking down the sights. It wasn’t ideal, with Kin in her off-hand.
Orna glanced down at Nilah’s grip. “You ever shot one of those before?”
“For a show, once. Had to trade places with a bunch of military blokes for a day. One of them taught me to shoot a bit.”
“Stay behind me then.”
“Is that the best place for a poor marksman?”
She watched the gears turn in the quartermaster’s head. “Take point.”
The elevator sounded a note and the doors slid open to reveal darkened corridors. Nilah stepped ahead.
Which way? she asked Kin.
Take the next right.
What kinds of alarms can we expect?
I could disable the acoustic and arcane, but biometric is still an issue. When you come up against locked doors, you must be extra careful. There are bound to be trip sensors I couldn’t detect, either.
They made their way deeper into the ship, passing a bank of laboratories wreathed in dim, green light. The shadows of exotic equipment beckoned to the two mechanists. If they survived the day, Nilah vowed to investigate further. Though, given the ship’s evil nature, perhaps she didn’t want to know what the labs were for.
She signaled to Orna in the direction of the central computer core, and the quartermaster nodded for her to proceed. No sooner had Nilah stepped down than the tile under her foot turned bright red.
I tripped the alarm!
Countermeasures in twenty seconds, was Kin’s only reply.
“Run!” she shouted to Orna as they bounded down the hall, bloodred lights following them the whole way.
They reached the door to the main server cluster, its bulk indicating a hermetic seal, hardened against penetrations. They’d never get it open in time.
“Orna! Panel!”
The quartermaster slid onto her knees, coming to a stop in front of the computer panel and slamming a palm against it. She sliced out a glyph, but no matter how fast she was, it couldn’t be fast enough—the springflies were coming.
It was with this thought that Nilah slid her slinger over to Orna, along with Kin’s cube, then stepped into the dead center of the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Orna bellowed.
“Get the door open.”
She was the fastest in the PGRF. Her reflexes were legendary. Her rookie year had shocked even her staunchest critics. Her eyes were quick, able to discern perfect detail at long distances. Her ears were finely tuned to the sounds of machinery. Nilah Brio was a galactic talent, and it was time to prove her mettle.
She signed out her glyph, and magic flowed down her arms, pouring light into her dermaluxes. Springflies had to see, just like everyone else—they had one infrared sensor, and that was it. Infrared was just another wavelength of light. She could fool them. She could stun them.
Or she could get decapitated. Either way, the choice was made.
Metal chittering between klaxons heralded their arrival; a swarm of scything robots zipped along every surface. One springfly would be nearly impossible to stop, and there would be dozens of the shivering bugs. She cleared her mind and channeled her thoughts to her arms.
The dermaluxes began to flicker with invisible light, the strain of it elevating the itching on her arms to an outright burn. She sunk into a fighting pose, though she kept her limbs fluid and her mind clear. She repeated one thought: I am the fastest.
The silver blur was almost impossible to see as it bounced around the corner, but Nilah managed to jolt out of the way just in time. Knives whistled past her neck, hauntingly close. Her eyes locked onto the first springfly as it erupted once more in her direction, but this time, she stepped aside and caught its thorax in her bare hand.
Without hesitation, she forged a psychic link to it, finding surprisingly simple software inside. Its core architecture unfolded before her in the span of a heartbeat. There weren’t many layers to it, just “go here, kill these two women.” Its tick-ticking blade sliced down her arm, but she didn’t let go. She only had time to replace one instruction: KILL became PROTECT. She threw it back down the corridor as the next springfly came bounding toward her, past its brainwashed comrade.
She tried to dodge, but the whirling blades were too quick. It sunk its long fingers into her abdomen, and Nilah gasped. Her dermaluxes went a pale green on reflex, but she forced the infrared light back into their pulse pattern. It tried to withdraw, but she forced her way inside its mind through their skin-to-metal contact.
PROTECT.
She ripped it from her body with a scream and threw it toward the others. A third came whizzing at her so fast she thought her head would roll, but her first convert careened into it, and only the very tip of its blade came across her ear, white and hot. The infrared was clearly having an effect on their targeting, and the hesitation had saved her life for at least the next quarter of a second.
The two springflies scrabbled across the ground, snapping at each other, and Nilah lunged for the newcomer. It made to slice off two of her fingertips, but her tiny ally parried its blow and she was able to slap her palm across its insectoid back.
PROTECT.
This time it was easier, a passing caress across a worthless security system. She ignored the fact that on the ground next to it lay a bloody slice of ear. Another and another whizzed toward her, but between her brainwashed bugs and the infrared reflecting across the blood-slicked floors, they were slow. Nilah smashed her fist into one and brought the heel of her hand across another, implanting her malicious code into their tiny brains.
Orna sucked in a breath as a spark snapped between her and the door panel before erupting in a cloud of acrid smoke. The computer was rejecting her. “I need more time!”
Take all the time you need, Nilah thought, but couldn’t speak. A moment’s diversion, a stray glance, and she’d be skewered, sliced, or mauled.
Her Flicker began to flow, gracefully transforming from one move to the next, preserving her momentum. Exhilaration flooded her, even as her life’s blood poured onto the floor. She didn’t waste time attacking—she only needed a glancing block to infect a springfly. Soon, a welter of shrieking metal stoppered the corridor as the tiny war raged. Pulsar’s fire, strobing strike, slingshot; she deployed every move in her arsenal, always finding her targets where she expected them to be.
Every drive she’d ever taken in her life, every grand prix she’d faced, millions of decisions made in the blink of an eye, couldn’t compare with the unbridled thrill of this fight. She was pure force: unstoppable, beautiful, perfect. A glancing blow took a shaving from her elbow. Another notched her skull as it ran a furrow down her hairline.
PROTECT. PROTECT. PROTECT.
The maelstrom of screeching filled what was left of her ears—more devastating than any crash, more transcendent than any crowd’s cheers. Her little allies fought bravely, and any enemy who took an injury became Nilah’s servitor. Orna screamed at her, but she was only vaguely aware of the quartermaster’s voice.
Her wounds began to throb, muscles began to seize, but she pressed onward. Three springflies remaining. Accretion’s pull, nebula’s birth, rising rocket. Two remaining. Disrupted orbit, cold star. One. Singularity.
The last pieces of attackers went clattering to the ground at her feet. The pile of killer robots was dozens deep, with much of the ship’s security reserves expended by the battle. Nilah reached down and touched her shivering allies, one by one, frying their electronic brains. No reason to risk them turning against her if someone rega
ined control of them.
Her abdomen seared with pain. Hot rivulets of blood ran from cuts on her face, her legs, her arms. Staggering, she turned to look at Orna. The quartermaster had gotten the door open, but instead of going inside, she stared at Nilah, mouth agape. The floors swayed under her feet, and her breath came in shallow rasps. She couldn’t lift her arms, could barely keep her eyes open.
“Never doubt it, darling …” said Nilah, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. “I’m the fastest in the whole bloody galaxy.”
The cold steel floor rushed toward her face.
Boots held the sticks of her gunnery station steady, looking across the bay to where Cordell stood ready at his own anti-air guns. Mother’s hacker crew had stopped them from directing the Harrow’s automated defenses to destroy the enemy battle cruiser.
But there was always manual control.
Boots and Cordell could crew two turrets, which wasn’t much, but maybe they’d get a lucky shot or two. There were dozens of turret stations across the Harrow, but only one atmos-shielded docking bay that could hold Mother’s battle cruiser. That was where they’d make their stand.
“Hold, Boots,” called Cordell as they watched the cruiser approach. “We get one try here.”
The cruiser loomed large in their turret cameras, its fighter wing skimming the surface of the ship like a pack of angry hornets. Under normal circumstances, Boots would’ve already opened fire, along with a full battery of slinger stations. With just her and the captain, it made more sense to let the cruiser close and try to drill it with heavy spells at close range.
The cruiser filled her entire camera view, and she had to zoom out to reorient. She flexed her fingers, willing herself not to fire.
“Hold!” called Cordell.
The keel of the battle cruiser swelled before them, and Boots peered from behind her gun station to see the battle cruiser less than a thousand kilometers out. She tensed to fire.
“Hold!” called Cordell.
“Range eight-seventy, sir!”
“Copy that!” he replied. “I said hold!”
The battle cruiser’s nose was almost touching the docking bay shield when Cordell called, “Fire!”
“Finally!” Boots clicked the trigger, launching dozens of scorching corrosion spells into the hull of the battle cruiser. At such a close range, their dispersers couldn’t stop all of the incoming spells, and Boots and Cordell landed more than a few good hits on the cruiser.
The spells began to eat away at the battle cruiser’s hull, covering it in creeping rust. The cruiser tried to return fire, but the Harrow’s turrets had dispersers of their own, easily stopping the incoming spells. Maybe they’d get lucky. Maybe they could actually put Mother down without a fight.
When thick red powder covered the nose of the cruiser, Cordell shouted across to Boots, “Switch to heavies! Let’s finish this!”
Boots yanked back the cockbolt and tapped the console buttons to rotate the ammo canister to lancers. With the weakened hull, they could put a bolt of energy straight through the battle cruiser’s power plant and finish the fight. The drum thundered into place, and she took aim, trying to imagine shooting through the hull into the central reactor.
She squinted down the sights. “Bye-bye, witch—”
The world flashed gray, and by the time Boots could blink, the battle cruiser was settling onto its landing struts, pieces of its fore hull crumbling with the still-active corrosion spells. The witch had pulled her ship outside of time long enough to land it.
“Captain!” she called, and Cordell hot-footed it toward her, looking back at the ship to make sure they weren’t about to mow him down. It’d be foolish for them to use their ship-to-ship slingers inside a docking bay, but these were genocidal maniacs, after all.
Boots and Cordell settled in behind two of the docking cells, taking cover behind the deckhand consoles. They exchanged looks and trained their slingers on the battle cruiser as ramps descended from all sides of its bulk. From here on out, they weren’t repelling boarders. They were just buying time for Nilah and Orna.
Boots spotted the first enemy soldier lean out of a hatch to lay down some covering fire. She popped off a shot in his direction, and the opposition erupted from the ship like angry ants.
The magi, clad in vermilion uniforms, poured from the ship in waves, clearly superior fighters to the ragtag crew of the Capricious. The open nature of the docking bay allowed Mother’s troops to spread out and take up superior positions with little trouble.
Boots ducked behind her console as a barrage of spells crashed against it, melting one side into slag. Cordell popped up to give her cover, but the wall of return fire forced his head down. It had only been ten seconds since the battle started, and they were already pinned, with a strong probability of being exterminated.
“We have to fall back to more controllable ground!” he shouted at her. “Time to get to Aisha!”
“Okay, but—” Another volley dug into Boots’s cover. “I can’t just start running!”
Cordell traced his glyph, and a glowing blue shield enveloped his forearm, growing as tall as his body. He arose and bolted for Boots’s hiding spot, spells arcing across his shield before fizzling into nothing. He almost reached her, but was picked up and thrown fifteen meters into the air by some invisible hand. His shield winked out, and he shouted in surprise; strings of attack spells followed him into the air. He clutched at his chest as though he were being crushed, and Boots poked her head out while all attention was on him.
The telekinetic wasn’t hard to spot: she was the big witch with conductor arms and a flashy light show. Boots took careful aim and shot, the spell sailing wide before detonating harmlessly against the hull. It was enough to break the telekinetic’s concentration though, and Cordell went plummeting toward the deck. Quick as a wink, he traced out another glyph and his shield coalesced under him. He slammed into the deck shield-first, unharmed, and rolled to his side to deflect a fireball aimed at his back.
The shield was like a beacon for enemy fire, affording Boots the opportunity to dash back into the corridor while Cordell drew attention. She took up a position inside the open blast door as three soldiers rushed Cordell’s position. His shield whirled around him, punting one man across the docking bay with a back-snapping crunch. He took another woman’s head off with his slinger, and the third soldier peppered his position with fléchettes, only to find Cordell crouched behind his protection.
If Cordell could just get to Boots, she could slam the door and they could beat a hasty retreat. Boots fired into the combat, but her aim was off, and the shot struck Cordell in the side of the leg. He cried out in agony and betrayal. She never had been good with a slinger.
“Sorry!”
“Damn it, Boots!”
The captain made a fist and punched with his spell, breaking every bone in the third soldier’s body before hobbling after Boots with all his might. He kept his shield propped behind him, and shot after shot bounced from his back. The telekinetic traced another sigil, and Boots took aim past Cordell.
The captain flinched. “Don’t shoot!”
But Boots melted the telekinetic’s chest with a well-placed bolt from her slinger. So one for one—not the worst record.
“Let’s go, girl! Hit the button!” Though he was ten feet from the docking bay blast door, he rolled under as it slid closed.
The captain lay on his back, panting, and Boots took her finger off the trigger of her slinger. With her free hand, she helped him up and looked at his leg. The wound oozed blood; she’d seen a lot worse in the war. He’d be okay to walk if he didn’t put too much pressure on it.
“They’re gonna break this door wide open in about fifteen seconds, Captain.”
“Yeah. Best we jet.”
They ambled down corridor after corridor, Cordell’s arm over her shoulder. The plan had been to hold the choke points, but they hadn’t been prepared for the sheer number of attackers. At that m
oment, soldiers were spreading throughout the ship, and Boots felt sure Mother was among them. The plan was to draw the troops back to Aisha’s choke point and assault from there, but the pilot would never take out enough of them.
Cordell tapped his comm. “How’s the hack coming, Hunter One?”
Orna’s voice came back to them, only a whisper. “Hunter Two is down.”
The words closed their fingers around Boots’s throat, and she had to stop. She stumbled into the wall, shoulder-checking it before sliding to her knees. Had she heard that right? Nilah was down?
“Is she dead?” asked Boots. “Did you see it?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot of blood, and I had to … I needed to keep going,” said Orna.
Cordell sniffed, his lips a thin line. “I asked how the hack was coming. The rest of our lives depend on it.”
A bone-shaking thwump reverberated through the corridor, startling Boots to her feet. They were breaking through the blast door.
Cordell placed a hand to his ear. “Orna?”
“Yeah. The hack is coming. I’m on it.”
“Good,” he said. “Capital ships have all kinds of medical response—”
Spell bolts filled the hallway, sizzling against every surface. The captain traced his sigil while Boots returned fire, trying to buy them time. Troops rushed them, and a discus round came whizzing toward Cordell, its deadly white glow arcing from all sides. He sidestepped and spun, diverting the disc without trying to stop it head-on. The shot shaved flakes of magic from his shield before buzzing through a nearby wall, leaving a long gash.
The captain hit the ground hard, and Boots dragged him backward out of the blistering volleys, a red streak staining the ground behind him. Once they were out of direct fire, she turned him on his back, so she wasn’t dragging him on his open wound. She hauled him into a maintenance bay, taking a shorter route back to the next choke point.
“Not much farther, sir,” she huffed.
A soldier rounded the corner, and Boots let go of Cordell long enough to pop off two shots, striking the soldier in his hand. He stumbled backward in hysterics, and Cordell tossed a frag grenade after him. Boots hit the deck, covering the captain with her body as the explosion cleared out a few more of the invaders.
