Breck shrugged and pulled Gilly along with her, but Lira stopped for a moment.
“There’s a fissure in you. I can sense it even from here.” Lira loosed a gentle sigh before explaining her words. But when she did, they sunk like a rock into Andi’s gut. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose between forgiveness or hate. And you and I both know which one is harder to live with.”
She didn’t wait for Andi to answer. She simply turned, graceful as a bird, and left the room.
* * *
Andi waited by Valen’s side all night, unsure of why she stayed.
Unsure of why she couldn’t look away from the lashes on his back that crisscrossed his skin like ribbons, or the bruises blooming across his pale skin like paint.
Valen Cortas had never been Andi’s favorite person. She’d hardly known him in her old life. He’d been strange and silent and always seemed to be watching with eyes a little too interested in keeping track of her.
But he was a Cortas.
He was a piece of Kalee.
And seeing him here reminded Andi of what could have been. Not if she’d stayed and faced the punishment of her trial, but before all of that. Before the night that changed everything. If she hadn’t taken the throttle of the transport ship in her hands, or gunned the engine a little too hard, or looked away for too long to laugh at what Kalee had said...
She could still remember the exact moment of impact. The horrible, mind-melting screech of metal against rock.
She could still remember those few strange, weightless seconds in between the stolen ship’s engine cutting off and the transport wing clipping the side of a floating mountain. The crash as the ship hit the ground. The hot flames of the burning engine, and the sound of Kalee gasping for life, sticky wet blood dripping onto Andi’s hands as she pressed and pressed and tried like hell to staunch the flow.
“It hurts,” Kalee had whispered, but the words came out all wrong. The voice wasn’t hers, and the rattling cough that followed made her lips too red, as blood trickled from them and her eyes closed...
Andi stood up.
This was a mission, like any other. Even if it was Valen Cortas. She owed him nothing—not her life or her emotions or the time she could have been spending now, sharing a meal and stories of Lunamere with her crew.
She paced, focusing instead on the pain in her muscles, the screaming knife wound in her shoulder that she still hadn’t allowed Alfie to patch up.
Pain was her anchor.
It was the only true thing in life that never lied or cheated. Best of all, if she tried hard enough, she could usually overcome it.
She wanted to believe Lira was wrong. But Andi knew there were fissures in her soul. She had always thought herself to be a wall as solid as the glass that made up the Marauder. She was the captain. She would not bend, and she sure as hell would never break.
But today, she had broken. And now she had to find a way to put the pieces back together.
She was just preparing to leave, to force herself away from Valen’s sleeping form, when a flicker of movement caught her eye.
His steady breathing had quickened, the burns and scars on his back seeming to squirm with each fast breath. His head was turned to face her, and his cracked lips fluttered like he was trying to form words.
Andi stepped back to his side, wondering whether she should call on Alfie. But the AI was currently charging back up, plugged in to the ship’s dash a floor above.
“Valen?” Andi asked. Her voice was a weak whisper.
She hated the sound of it.
She almost reached out to touch him when a beep sounded out from the testing box behind her. Andi turned, brow knitting. The small screen on the silver box flashed with an update.
Abnormal Reading. Seek further tests.
Alfie had been right. She wasn’t entirely surprised, judging by the conditions inside Lunamere. She turned back to look at Valen, wondering what lurked beneath the surface of his skin.
His breathing had quickened again. His hands, which had been lying still at his sides, began to curl into fists.
“Valen. You’re safe,” Andi said, feeling like a fool with each word she spoke, unsure of whether he could even hear her. “You’re not in Lunamere anymore. We’re taking you back to your father, back to...”
His eyes flew open and locked on hers.
“Valen?” Andi asked.
One moment he was stone still. The next, Valen’s hand shot out, ice-cold fingertips gripping the stained fabric of Andi’s bodysuit.
She backed away, but he pulled with a strength he hadn’t possessed before, keeping her in place.
He tugged her closer, hazel eyes wide and haunted. His voice was raw and ragged as a demon’s when he choked out two harsh words.
“Kill...me.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
* * *
ANDROMA
“SO YOU’RE SAYING our cargo is a mutant.”
A shirtless Dex lounged like a lazy cat on the floor of the main deck of the Marauder, his lithe muscles out on display. His legs were draped over the edge of the couch Andi was sitting on, and beside him, Gilly sat cross-legged, focused intently on painting his fingernails red.
“Stop moving,” Gilly commanded. “You’ll smudge it.”
Dex chuckled and promptly stilled his hands. Seeming pleased, Gilly hefted the tiny nail brush like a weapon, whistling softly as she painted away.
The soles of Dex’s filthy boots grazed Andi’s thigh as he shifted.
She swatted them away and threw him an icy glare.
Apparently, her youngest gunner had fully succumbed to Dex’s charms, but Andi wasn’t ready to let go of the past just yet. Everyone, in fact, was acting far too normal around him as they enjoyed this rare time of relaxation while the ship was on autopilot toward Arcardius.
“Valen is no different than us,” Andi said to Dex, “and he’s not a mutant. And put on a damned shirt. This is a spaceship, not a pleasure palace.”
“It used to be both.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then winced as Andi ripped off one of his boots and launched it at his face. Gilly cursed as Dex smudged her handiwork yet again.
When Andi first got her hands on the ship, the main deck could only have been described as a man cave. Sagging, stolen couches with empty Griss bottles, dirty boots and socks strewn about, a scattered game of Fleet cards from whomever Dex had invited onto his ship and screwed over in days past.
Since then, it had been transformed.
It was comfortable and classy, almost all of the furniture Dex had owned had been thrown out and replaced by genuine Adhiran cowhide couches, purchased after the girls took on their first few well-paying jobs. Gone were Dex’s old messes, and in their place was a bright, airy room that was the most well-used part of the Marauder, save for the bridge.
Classical music played softly on the ship’s overhead speakers, the deep swell of stringed instruments serenading the crew as they sat together. It was Andi’s favorite music, the kind that didn’t need words to speak to a person’s soul. It was one of the only things she’d brought with her from her past.
The ship was much better now that she and the girls had placed their mark on it.
“Looks beautiful,” Dex said, as he looked at his freshly painted nails. “This is definitely my color, kid.”
Gilly grinned proudly.
But Andi seethed. He’d stolen her youngest gunner’s heart. Now he’d stolen her trademark red polish, too?
“I disagree,” Andi said, as she leaned forward and swiped the bottle from Gilly’s hands. “I think black, like his soul, is the better shade. Wouldn’t you agree, Gilly?”
The girl only shrugged, then leaped up from the couch and joined Breck and Lira at the varillium table nearby.
The table was shaped like
a large oval, and was currently stocked with Gilly’s and Breck’s tools for creating their own Sparks. They sat there now, mulling over their latest creation. Beside them, a metal cabinet was fastened to the wall, which held all of the girls’ playthings, and Lira’s stash of Chew, which Andi not-so-secretly wanted to blast out the airlock.
Across from the lounge area was the small kitchen, no more than two burners, a rusted sink that needed replacing, a few lockable metal cabinets for food stores and a cooling box for fresh ingredients. Alfie stood over the latter now, digging through its contents, wearing a Kiss the Cook apron that somehow looked strangely fitting on his metallic frame.
For the past hour, he’d been cataloguing their food stores as they waited for Memory to finish her own secondary diagnostic on Valen’s blood. Every so often, he’d glide over to the crew to spout out the exact nutritional value of each item, then proceed to define each word he’d just said as he dodged the various things Breck threw at him in response.
“So,” Dex said, nudging Andi with his bare foot. “Who’s in favor of calling the cargo a mutant?”
“Dex?” Andi glowered at him. “Would you do me the favor of removing your head from your neck?”
From the chair opposite them, Breck cleared her throat. “I don’t want to get in the middle of this little...battle?” She said it like a question, waving her hand as if swatting away a blood bug. “But unfortunately, I agree with the bounty hunter on this one.”
“Traitor,” Andi muttered.
“Apologies,” Breck said back. “But you saw the test results! Abnormal blood, Andi. After spending how many years inside of Lunamere? They probably royally screwed with him in there and caused the abnormality...” She paused, cocking her head and seeming to reconsider her answer. “Actually, that seems more likely than his just being a mutant.”
Dex groaned as the single person who had been in agreement with him switched sides.
Lira and Gilly, seated beside Breck, were busy looking over a new set of exploding Sparks Gilly had manufactured herself. The kid had talent, Andi had to admit, though sometimes Gilly’s passion for destruction unnerved her.
She reminded Andi a little too much of herself.
“What do you two think?” Andi asked.
Lira turned one of the Sparks over in her blue hands, scrutinizing it. “I think we should wait for Memory’s further test results to come in before we jump to any illogical conclusions.”
“Ah-hah!” Alfie’s head emerged from the cooling unit, frost covering the tip of his oval chin. “I have discovered the source of the smell.” He held up a dripping hunk of green meat, then proceeded to march over to the small ejection site and blast it out into space. “The full diagnostic results from Memory will be complete at any moment, Lira Mette. Until then, can I comfort you with a mind-numbing beverage of your choice?”
Lira ignored Alfie, tapping a space inside the small metal orb and inclining her head to Gilly. “Right here, little one. It needs to have more of a reaction. Add more powder.”
Gilly twisted her mouth to the side in thought. “My opinion on Valen is that he’s a mutant,” she said, flashing Andi a grin before she turned back to the Spark in progress. “Definitely a mutant.”
“Ha!” Dex clapped his hands triumphantly.
Andi sighed and kicked her feet up on the table. “My crew are losing their minds.”
“We’re not losing anything, just gaining imagination,” Breck said. “It makes life a little more interesting.”
“As if we need any more of that,” Andi responded under her breath just as Alfie walked over to the table in front of her, swiftly removed her feet from it and tapped on the screen embedded in the top. Once it lit up, he typed in a number of codes.
“So?” Dex asked, wiggling the toes on his exposed foot. Andi was so close to making him lose a toe or two. Or ten. “What do we have, Alfie?”
“The tests are providing inconclusive results. I am not certain what to make of this outcome,” Alfie said.
Well, that wasn’t something you heard every day from a highly advanced AI, especially with Memory’s programming to supplement Alfie’s systems and knowledge base.
“I will arrange for the great General Cortas’s personal medical team to run more extensive tests on him. We do not have what we need aboard the Marauder.” He glanced up. “That is not to say, my beautiful Memory, that you have not done well.”
“Did he just call our ship’s system beautiful?” Breck asked.
Alfie continued on with his explanation. “All I can determine is that Mr. Valen Cortas’s DNA seems to have...changed.”
“What, like he changed blood type or something?” Andi asked.
Alfie continued to scroll through a series of coded numbers and symbols. “It is not possible to switch blood types, Androma Racella. I believe that a pathogen is the source of the DNA alteration, though it is not one currently listed in any Mirabel records.” He tapped the screen again. “An anomaly, perhaps. I will continue to screen for further results. Until then, I must alert General Cortas.”
Andi nodded her head, wishing they had more answers. Wondering what the Xen Pterrans had done to Valen in Lunamere, and to all the other prisoners locked behind bars. Her skin crawled just thinking of it.
It seemed to be a good enough explanation for Gilly. She jumped to her feet, nearly knocking a Spark over and letting out a devilish cackle.
“Mutant! I was right.” Her freckled face was so full of excitement, truly showing her young, vivid spirit. It made Andi’s heart warm, seeing the proof that Gilly, contrary to popular belief, still had a soul, tainted as it may be.
“Maybe you are. Only time will tell, Gil,” Breck said from her chair, a smile softening her face.
“I will excuse myself now,” Alfie said, removing the apron and hanging it back up on the hook by the kitchen sink. “I have further things to attend to.”
As he left the main deck, Andi looked around at her team.
It was still shocking that the lot of them had accomplished a mission where the odds were so stacked against them. The worst was behind them, left to rot in Lunamere. Just another memory to lock inside her head so that she could move forward with the next job, the next payday. That was, of course, if General Cortas kept his word and didn’t choose to damn them to the Pits of Tenebris instead, which were supposed to rival the horrific conditions of Lunamere.
Even with questions about Valen still floating in her head, and the truth of Dex’s story still sinking in, Andi was somehow able to relax back into the couch. The music had changed to one of her favorite songs, “The Song of the Snow,” an almost mournful piece by a Soleran composer who’d been inspired by the bleak, unceasing winters on the ice planet. As Andi closed her eyes and listened, she finally felt at peace again in the presence of her crew, on the ship she loved so dearly.
Sleep began to whisper her name.
“Who wants to play Shadow Chase?” Gilly asked.
So much for closing her eyes for a moment. Andi sat forward, yawning.
Breck groaned, but Lira leaped up, excited to join in another one of Gilly’s favorite games.
“I’ll play,” Dex said. “If you’re prepared to lose horribly.”
“Gilly doesn’t lose this one,” Breck said. “Ever.”
“It’s true,” Andi said. “She’ll poison your drink with laxatives the moment you take the lead.”
Breck muttered something about bad experiences in the background.
Dex howled with laughter. Andi smiled back, the response instinctive and easy.
Before she could consider how she felt about that, the ship rumbled beneath her feet.
Once. Twice.
Then a horrible lurch threw her from the couch.
The lights winked off, quickly replaced by the deep bloodred of the emergency systems kicking on.
>
“What the hell?” Dex yelped as he scrambled to his feet.
The room felt like it was falling sideways, as if the Marauder was tipping.
Memory’s voice came on overhead.
“Alert. Systems crashing. Alert.”
Chapter Forty
* * *
NOR
ALL HER LIFE, Nor had known the pain of The Cataclysm.
She was only an infant when it began, only eleven years old when it ended.
A child, turned into an orphan queen overnight.
She’d seen things no one should ever have to see. Burning bodies falling from the sky as her family’s palace was struck by the debris from hundreds of destroyed ships. Screams rising from the smoke as soldiers from the Unified Systems tore through the streets of Nivia, razing it apart until they broke through the doors of the Solis Palace.
Nor had been only five years old when she heard her mother’s scream ring out through the palace in the dead of night. The night she was taken from them, stolen by General Cyprian Cortas of Arcardius.
For six years, she’d felt the emptiness of her mother’s absence. The depression, when her father, a king with a lost queen, tried in vain to rule in the midst of losing a war.
On the darkest, coldest nights after her mother was kidnapped, Nor used to lie in the bunker of the palace and imagine the face of the Arcardian general. She would imagine the pain she’d someday inflict on him, the deep chasm she’d rip through his heart when she stole everything he’d ever loved.
It was with great pleasure that she allowed her torturers to harm his son, Valen. For a while, she’d felt that desire for revenge slowly ease. But since the general’s son had escaped, Nor felt empty all over again.
Alone, just as she’d felt after the Battle of Black Sky, when Nor’s father left her, too, crushed to death in the rubble.
It was Zahn who had pulled Nor from the ashes of the palace. He’d taken her to Darai, who had raised her to take up her throne and become a mighty, relentless queen.
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