by Rachel Caine
“You’re what?” She let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh—not amusement, just shock. “You can’t do that!” Then she realized what I was talking about, and her momentary humor died.
“Bea, we can’t go after Lifekiller with Derry and his crew on our asses,” I said. “You know that. And I’m the only thing they really want. You . . . when they sentenced you it was just to make my criminal charges look good. They don’t need you. This is about me, Derry, and Deluca, nothing else. Deluca wants me dead, and he’s willing to fuck with the entire Honors program to do it. I admit it, I was stupid enough to think he had limits, or that the Honors people were incorruptible. I should have known better on both counts. He’ll keep coming until I stop him, and whatever grudge Derry’s got, he’ll keep coming too.”
“Fine, we stop them!” Bea said. “But giving yourself up . . .”
“Listen to me, okay? This is real. We just lost our drones to Bacia, no backup coming. We’re alone: Nadim and us, Typhon and his crew, Suncross and his boys. That’s the army. We can’t split our Leviathan up; they can protect each other, but on their own they’re vulnerable. And eventually, those other two Leviathan are going to catch up, probably at the worst possible moment. I can stop that. I have to.”
“You can’t just . . . just go!” Bea looked panicked. Stricken. She reached out and cupped my face in her hands. Her skin had chilled. I could feel her trembling. “Zara, you can’t leave us. How do I ever—how do we—do this without you?”
“Honey, you’re strong. You’re smart. You and Nadim have a strong bond. You’ve got Starcurrent and EMITU—”
“And a Phage that’s gone off the rails, and a robot I don’t trust, and—”
“Stop.” I kissed her. It tasted sweet. It also tasted like tears and good-byes. “You got this. I trust you. Trust me?”
She didn’t want to, but she nodded. Gasped back tears. “What are you going to do?”
“Take Jury over to Suncross’s ship,” I said. “If I can get Chao-Xing to come with, that’s my best case. If not, I do this alone.”
“Derry will kill you, even if the robot doesn’t.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. I couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen; it was an embedded risk. “Depends on what Jury decides, I think. But hey, if I have Warbitch with me, I’m upgraded on odds, right?”
“You’re doing this whether I like it or not, aren’t you?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to lie to her, as much as I ached to comfort her. And she let the tears flow this time and threw herself into my arms. I felt warm and safe and almost whole in her embrace . . . and then Nadim filled the empty spaces, and it was perfect. How could I leave them now?
But I didn’t have a choice. So I kissed her fiercely. “I love you.” Then I pulled away. It was a colder universe when I stepped out her door, and despite Nadim’s hovering presence I still felt like I was untethered. Floating. Lost.
Zara, you don’t have to do this, he said silently.
I really do, though.
I found Jury back where I’d left him the night before: standing at the comms station. Motionless. But as I approached, the blank dome of his head swiveled around, and blue eyes caught fire.
“So,” I said. “Let me make a call, okay?”
“Do you not wish to know my decision?”
“Not yet. Call first.”
He stepped aside, but not far. Didn’t bode well for what conclusion he’d drawn.
I called Chao-Xing. The connection wasn’t great, and it looked like I’d gotten her out of bed. She was in silky pajamas. Somehow, I’d never quite pictured her in anything but a buttoned-up uniform. I was not prepared. “Uh, sorry to wake you,” I said.
She impatiently waved that off. “What is it?”
“I want you to go with me to Derry’s Leviathan,” I said. “We take Suncross’s ship. Our Leviathan keep going.”
That woke her completely up. Her whole posture changed. “Are you insane?”
“Probably,” I said. “But I want you to hand me over. Make a deal that if they get me, they’ll break off their pursuit and take me back to Earth. We can’t get into a Leviathan fight right now. And that’s inevitable if we don’t do this. Now. If Starcurrent is right, Lifekiller could be holed up changing into something even worse. Even more powerful. Our odds are bad enough. We can’t afford to let my problems get in the way.” I took a deep breath. “Look, we already lost our drones, and there’s no way Bacia will give them back unless they win decisively against the Phage they’re fighting. We can’t count on that. This is the only play we’ve got to improve our odds. We’ve got to take it.”
“Even if it kills you.”
“Derry’s not going to kill me,” I said. It was a flat-out lie; I didn’t believe it, but I sounded confident. Too confident, maybe. “Deluca wants to do that his own damn self. Or at least watch it happen. So anyway, I’ll have time. You know me. I’m resourceful.”
“I’m not leaving you there on your own. I refuse.”
“Chao-Xing.” I put all I had into calling her by her name, and it got her attention. I wasn’t usually this gentle. “This isn’t about our feelings. This is about winning. And we both know there’s got to be losses in this kind of war. Okay? So let me do this.”
She hated it, I could see that, but she finally, tersely nodded. “When?”
“Now,” I said. “I’ll update Starcurrent and EMITU, then we’ll ask Suncross to pick us up. You tell Typhon and your crew.”
“Doubt they’ll be happy about this either.”
I didn’t know if she meant her crew, mine, or the lizards. However she meant it, she’d be right.
I cut the connection and turned to Jury. He’d taken in the whole conversation, but he didn’t say anything. “I’m surrendering myself to your custody,” I said. “You got handcuffs?”
“Unnecessary,” Jury said. “I will not let you escape.” I didn’t know what he was thinking, but in this moment it didn’t matter.
I sighed and hit the internal comms. “Starcurrent, EMITU, I need you here. Got something to tell you.”
Ze didn’t like my plan at all, and argued strongly against it, but Bea shushed zim. She’d shown up, red-eyed and quiet, but armored inside. She supported what I was doing with calm strength.
I didn’t need to persuade EMITU. He twirled a bunch of extensors and said, “You interrupted me to tell me this? Go on, then. Sacrifice yourself. See if I care.” He did that sniffing thing again, which he must have thought made him sound superior.
“Aww, don’t cry,” I told him.
“I wasn’t—” he sputtered. All his extensors stilled. “You will come back, Zara?”
“What, not Wanted Felon?”
EMITU said, as quietly as he could, “Please come back.” Then he ramped up the volume and perked up his extensors again. “Don’t waste my time coming back injured! I have written a haiku to inspire you: ‘Chilly eventide / How a human, hot blood gains / in spite of the stars.’”
“It’s a good one,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll remember it. You take care of Bea and Starcurrent. And Xyll. Uh, you might want to have some last-ditch plans if the Xyll situation gets worse.”
“I am a physician, not an exterminator!”
“I thought you were a poet.”
“In my spare time!” EMITU spun toward Jury. “You will look after her?”
“She is my prisoner,” Jury said, “and therefore in my care.”
The med bot paused as if he had a vital inquiry. “Did you like the kitten holos?”
“Educational,” Jury said. I thought he was just being polite, but how could I tell? “Good-bye, EMITU.”
“Good-bye, Jury. Would you also like a haiku?”
“I have not acquired the appreciation.” Jury hesitated. “Yet.”
“Progress,” EMITU sighed. “At last. Farewell, Zara. Don’t get dismembered.”
He zipped off back to Medbay. I wasn’t sure whether I felt reassured or horrified.
Maybe both.
Bea broke her near-military restraint long enough to hug me, and then walked away with her back straight. Starcurrent had turned into mournful, troubled colors, translucent toward the tips. I had no trouble at all interpreting that.
“It’s okay,” I told zim. “Just look after Nadim.”
Nadim was silent. He hadn’t withdrawn from me, thankfully; I could feel him there, just at the edges of my consciousness. Troubled, like Starcurrent. But like Bea, resolute. He was trying. I was trying. We all were.
But it felt like good-bye, and now that it was here, I didn’t want it, not at all. I wanted to run and bury myself in the bond and sing with the stars and run and run and run until we ran out of universe.
I know, he whispered. I do too. But at what cost?
At the cost of everything. Everyone. And neither of us, no matter how much we wanted to, could ignore that and be wholly, cruelly selfish.
I love you, I told him simply, and his emotion rolled over me, so strong I had to bow my head and just breathe to stand against it. When it receded, I walked away and down the hallway. No flashes of color lit my way this time. Nadim’s walls had turned mournful dove gray, and his silence haunted me. Jury walked behind, like the judge and executioner he might become.
I called the lizards to let them know I was coming over. Ghostwalk answered the call and agreed to collect the three of us: Jury, Chao-Xing, and me.
With a heavy heart, I suited up, as I had before. Back then, I was all anticipation, pumped at going on a mining mission with Suncross. On Typhon, Chao-Xing must be getting ready as well. Jury stopped me when I started to grab the boost pack.
“No need. I have this capacity built in.”
Of course he did. Why wouldn’t a bounty-hunting killer robot have rocket boots in case he needed them to hunt down a fugitive? I slipped onto Nadim’s armor silently with Jury, and he took me out farther, where we drifted toward Chao-Xing, already waiting for the lizards to scoop us up in their net.
Then it was too late to turn back.
The farther I went from Nadim, the less I could feel his presence, and by the time the lizards hauled us in, he was only an echo of warmth, quietly mourning. I scrambled out of the netting and noted that only Ghostwalk seemed sober. Chao-Xing looked elegant and deadly, even climbing out of a salvage net.
“How’d they take things?” I asked her.
“About as well as you might expect,” she said. “Marko’s angry. Yusuf thinks you’ve got a point. Typhon . . . well. He’s Typhon.”
“Sorry about pulling you into this, but I thought you’d stand the best chance of getting out alive,” I said.
Chao-Xing cast a long, appraising look at Jury. The robot’s blue eyes seemed focused on the middle distance between us, but I had no doubt he was listening. “Have you asked it what it plans to do?”
“I’m letting him come to his own conclusions,” I said. “Hey, Jury. Have you made up your mind about me yet?”
“Apologies, Zara. I am still gathering intelligence. It would be premature for me to give information when I remain undecided. Rest assured, I will ensure your safety until I reach a conclusion regarding the most judicious course.”
“You seriously aren’t going to come up with a plan to destroy this thing?” Chao-Xing asked me, pitching her voice low. “Because I will if you won’t.”
Quickly I shook my head. “Don’t antagonize him.” Louder, I said, “Jury, don’t worry about what anybody else thinks. This is between you and me, and I’m leaving it in your hands. You decide. Do what you think is right.”
“You do not plan to plead for clemency? Or mitigation?” Jury seemed a little surprised, maybe.
I shrugged. “Look, you’ve read the records. Whatever I did, I did it for reasons I thought were important at the time. I admit I jacked Deluca’s daughter’s purse. But that was survival in the streets for the Zone. And Deluca was running chem. You know all this already. So I’ve got nothing to add.”
I was putting it all out there, and rolling dice, and it felt . . . good. Free. I wasn’t afraid, and maybe that was stupid, but I liked this plan.
It might end with me dead and Derry laughing, but the game was the game.
Ghostwalk clearly was the designated driver. He’d pulled us in, and now he was leading us back to the central hub, where the rest of the crew was sprawled out. Suncross lay slumped in a corner. Maybe he wasn’t drunk, just asleep in an awkward spot. I wasn’t going to get all judgy about it. I’d slept worse places.
“Looks like you had a hell of a party. Well, let’s get going.”
“Why?” To his credit, Ghostwalk wasn’t a sucker. “Why are you here?”
“Full disclosure? We want you to take us somewhere. And since we paid you—”
“Yes, Zeerakull, you paid us,” Ghostwalk acknowledged. For a Bruqvisz, he was positively even-tempered. “But I am concerned that this goes beyond my rank.”
“Do you want to wake up Suncross right now?”
Ghostwalk looked over his shoulder at his sleeping boss, and his shoulders sagged. “No,” he said. “I do not.”
Suncross was snoring away, empty drink containers rolling around on the floor in a way that posed a positive hazard to safe navigation, so I cleared them up, then crouched down and leaned into Suncross’s personal space. “Hey,” I said. No response. “Suncross!” Nothing. “You’re fired!”
The translation matrix must have conveyed that perfectly, because he woke up grunting and flailing his four arms at me. I eased back out of range, and when his eyes focused, the ruff went up on the back of his head, then down. Couldn’t tell if that meant he was relieved or pissed off. “Zeerakull,” he said. He sounded grumpy as hell. “Why are you here? Go away. I sleep.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You’ve got a job. Get up.”
“In an hour.”
“Now, lizard brain!”
The insult made him growl and show teeth, and eventually—with some help—got him upright. Leaning and blinking, but upright. “You come at the wrong time,” he said. “We were honoring our ancestors.”
“By drinking yourselves sick?”
He shrugged. “How else? We drink, we tell their stories, we drink more. Is respectful.”
Far be it from me to criticize somebody’s religion, especially if it involved storytelling and booze. Seemed like a cool approach. “I need you to break off from the Leviathan and find the ones who are chasing us.”
That got his full attention, finally. “We go to battle?” For the first time, Suncross seemed off-balance. “But . . . today is not auspicious. Not lucky. We should not fight today.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not,” I said. “You’re just my ride. Get us there and hang out. Maybe you get the word to leave and rejoin Typhon and Nadim. Maybe you pick us up again. I can’t predict what’s going to happen.”
Suncross scrambled into a more authoritative stance, striking a pose with arms akimbo. “Ghostwalk, find the angry Leviathan and take us there. When we’re within range, send a request for parlay.”
INTERNAL SEALED DOCUMENT FROM THE HIGH JUDGE ADVOCATE’S OFFICE, RETRIEVED DURING INVESTIGATION INTO GROSS MISCONDUCT
I have deep-rooted concerns about this Derry person Torian Deluca has inserted into our program. All scans and behavioral reports indicate that not only is he a sociopath, but he also has serious substance addiction issues and is drastically ill-suited to Leviathan cooperative living, particularly when not given a traveling partner. I am recording these concerns and noting that over my objections, the Honors Council has—under pressure from Deluca, I presume—pushed through his selection. The Leviathan Ophelia initially voiced reservations of said partnership but has been made compliant through upgrades necessary to the purpose. I pray that history will not judge us as harshly as we deserve for what we’ve done.
If I had any courage at all, I’d tell Deluca to publish and be damned, but in reality, I would be the one damned, and I admit that I can’t face tha
t outcome. I’d rather be remembered as a corrupt official than what I really am.
If I could kill that man, I would gladly serve every rehabilitation sentence on the books. But I’m not brave enough for that, either.
Forgive me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lost Loves
THE LIZARD SHIP smelled even muskier than it had the first time, spiced by the stink of the swill they’d been drinking.
It was strange being away from Nadim and Bea, even worse not to feel them, but since we were speeding in opposite directions the bond stretched thin, then snapped, leaving my head in an eerie silence that I wasn’t used to anymore. I glanced at Chao-Xing, wondering if she felt the same, but we weren’t close enough for me to ask.
Chao-Xing was studying the ship interior—the decor as well as the disarray left by lizard religious rites—and she shook her head. “This is how I imagine Vikings would be, if they went to space.”
“What is a Viking?” Ghostwalk asked.
I left Chao-Xing in the hub giving the lizard lieutenant a quick human history lesson while I followed Suncross, who was beckoning with four claws. Jury accompanied us, a silent, watchful presence at my back. Suncross stared hard at the robot.
“Do I want to know?”
I didn’t imagine he was interested in all the details. We’d hired them as mercs, after all, though maybe I was starting to think of him as a friend. “Do you?”
“Only if the metal person becomes hostile.”
The lizard led me to a big room filled with unimaginable tech. Lights and screens and silver cylinders and jagged things, and I had no idea what any of it did, but I felt like a kid in a candy shop. Or a techie in a hardware store, more like. Despite the dire situation, I immediately wanted to take everything apart and see what it did. The last time I was here, I was just passing through, so I didn’t pay that much attention to their systems, but really, the Bruqvisz had a gorgeous aesthetic sense with their machines.
