“Hello… can you… hear me?” a voice crackled. I’d have known that voice anywhere, even though the transmission was distorted.
“Xiphio, we can hear you,” Navan replied. “Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I am… safe, but I had to run… from snipers,” he rasped. “I used the… nudus to block their bullets. I have sustained… minor injuries, but I am not yet defeated, my friends. As we speak, I am… trying to recreate my part of the dome with… the nudus, but they have sapped me of much… of my strength already. I fear I… may be too weak for… the task.”
“The queens’ fleets are already inside Earth’s atmosphere, Xiphio. Raising the shield will do no good now,” I replied, tears brimming in my eyes at the sound of his voice. “You should get out of there. The Fed is sending scout ships, but they might not be coming for a while. I wouldn’t risk waiting for them. Just get to safety.”
“How… is Lauren? I have not been able to… contact her.”
I sighed, exchanging a look with Navan. “We don’t know.”
“How are… the others?”
“We don’t know about Angie or Ronad either, though Stone is safe,” I said. “He got shot by a sniper, but he’s out of harm’s way for now.”
“That is good news… about Stone. I was worried… for him. Is he… with you?”
“He’s recovering in the med bay.”
“Do tell him that I am glad to… hear that he is alive. I know we have not always seen… eye-to-eye, but I would not wish… any ill upon him. He is one… of our family, after all.”
It warmed my heart to hear him say that, even though I felt like the fibers that bound our crew together were being torn apart, with no clear way of bringing them back again.
“I’ll tell him.”
“Very well, then. I shall get in my ship and… contact you as soon as I find Lauren, Angie… and Ronad. I will search for them myself… if the scout ships are going to be a long time in… arriving. I would not… have them out there, injured and alone, while… I have a working vessel.”
I smiled hopefully. “Thank you, Xiphio.”
“I shall speak with… you again soon.”
As the connection cut out, I prayed I’d hear his voice again. Next time, let me hear Lauren, Angie, and Ronad as well, I begged.
Navan turned to look up at me as the soundwaves on the monitor turned flat once more, flowing across the screen like a steady river. A glint of sadness flashed in his eyes as he stood to put his arms around me, pulling me into a tight embrace. I knew we didn’t have time for this—we needed to get the ship off the ground as soon as possible—and yet, I couldn’t help myself. After everything that had happened, it felt good to be held by him, seeking sanctuary in our little bubble, just for a moment.
“If snipers got to Xiphio, we can assume they got to the others, too,” I mumbled into his chest. “They were probably human special ops, like the one we found. What do you think it means?”
He paused. “I think it means multiple world leaders are working with the coldbloods, in one way or another.”
“Do you think Gianne and Brisha knew about Earth all along?”
He shrugged. “It might be a recent development, no older than them discovering the properties in your blood. I always knew there had to be a reason Gianne was building deep-space tech all of a sudden. My guess is, she found Earth’s location from the Asterope. Maybe Brisha got the same information from one of her spies before she died.”
“That’s a lot of ifs.”
“We might never know anything for sure.”
“What’re we all chattin’ about in ‘ere?” Stone asked from the doorway. I whipped my head around to look at him. He was leaning against the frame, a hint of blood staining the front of his bandages.
“Stone, what the hell? You’re supposed to be in the med bay. I left you in there for a reason,” I chided. “You should be resting.”
He grinned wearily. “I’ll rest when am—”
An explosive jolt silenced him, the blast sending me flying across the room as the ground quaked beneath us. I cried out and struggled to get to my feet, but the ship surged upward, the whole vessel rolling over in one volatile heave, knocking the ship onto its side. The lights flickered, allowing me a single glimpse of a shadow as something heavy fell toward me.
Chapter Three
The air was pushed out of my lungs as Navan leapt toward me, pulling me tight to his chest and shielding me with his body. The heavy cabinet’s impact was imminent; there was nowhere else for it to go. A flash of blue light thrummed toward the spot where we lay. I couldn’t see Stone in the blinking light, but his nudus had protected us from being squashed, and the cabinet was bouncing harmlessly away.
Slowly, the ship stopped rocking, giving us the chance to scramble to our feet and make our way out of the upturned room. The lights had just come back on, so at least we weren’t trying to escape in the dark. With his arms wrapped around my legs, Navan lifted me up toward the cockpit door while I pulled myself through it. It was weird to see everything so topsy-turvy. The whole ship was disorienting. Something had rolled us over, and I wanted to find out what it was before it came for us. Even with the ship cloaked, someone had found us.
Lying flat at the edge of the doorway, I offered down a hand to haul Stone up. His face twisted with pain as he dragged himself up into the main space of the ship. As soon as Stone was safely beside me, Navan hopped up onto the control desk and braced himself against it, using the extra leverage to jump up toward the cockpit door and grab the edge of the frame. He pulled himself up with ease, and Stone shot him an impressed look.
“Showoff,” he teased. “I’d ‘ave done the same if it weren’t fer the great hole in me chest.”
“I bet you would.”
I lifted my finger to my lips, pointing up at the entrance hatch above our heads. Footsteps thudded across the metal exterior of the ship, and scraping sounds rasped across the hull, sending a shiver of terror up my spine. Evidently, the blast had knocked out the invisibility shield, leaving us exposed. Someone was coming for us, and we were trapped inside a metal prison.
“We need to get outside and find a decent vantage point.” I paused, glancing at Stone. “Are you okay to use your powers?”
He nodded. “Me chest might be in tatters, but me eye’s still firin’ on all cylinders.”
“Well, keep it wrapped up until we get out there,” I suggested, handing him a strip of bandage from the roll I was carrying in my pocket. He took it and fashioned a bandana out of the fabric, tying it across his third eye.
We waited for the footsteps to recede before clambering up to the hatch, using dents, bolts, and hollows in the wall to climb up the curved side of the ship’s interior. Navan helped Stone along, pushing him from behind, while I took the lead. Straining with every ounce of strength I had left, I stretched to reach the exit button, pressing down hard on it. The hatch whooshed open, letting in a rush of cold Siberian air.
I scanned the area, but whoever had been walking outside the ship had gone, leaving tracks through the undergrowth. Tentatively, I got to my feet, only to find thick plumes of black smoke rising over the treetops.
“What’s going on?” Navan asked, pulling Stone through the hatch.
“There’s a fire at the rebel base,” I said.
I ducked down again, dragging Navan and Stone with me, as a figure emerged from the darkness of the surrounding forest. A coldblood hobbled across the ground, clutching a wound in his side. He was dressed in the red and black of Gianne’s army, and his bloodied face was streaked with warpaint. He didn’t seem to notice us as he stumbled past, though the three of us exchanged a knowing look. We couldn’t let this guy get away, in case he harmed someone else.
“I’ll do it,” Navan whispered, removing his blade from its sheath.
The coldblood had barely passed the far end of the upturned ship when Navan dropped down behind him. A swipe of the saber took the soldier’s head clean
off his shoulders. At least there’d been no suffering, I thought, though killing was still proving hard to stomach. I knew it would give me nightmares for the rest of my life, if I made it through this.
“Now I gets it,” Stone remarked, as the two of us followed suit, skidding down the side of the ship and landing clumsily on the ground.
“Get what?”
“Why they’re called coldbloods.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“’Cause they’re cold-blooded killers. Makes a lot o’ sense to me now. Should probably ‘ave realized it yonks ago, mind.”
I wanted to say it wasn’t true, but I knew I’d be lying. Murder was in the very bones of what it meant to be Vysanthean, and though there were some exceptions to the rule—like Ronad—Navan wasn’t one of them. He’d killed countless people; he’d told me so himself.
“Come on, stop dragging your feet. We need to get back to the rebel base,” I urged him, ignoring his comment.
“Was it somethin’ I said?”
I didn’t stop for Navan as he walked toward us, wiping the blood from the edge of his blade. He cast me a curious look, a flicker of hurt passing across his eyes, but I didn’t feel like getting into a discussion about it, not with a war raging just through the trees. Instead, I focused on what was to come, resting one hand on my gun as we raced through the woodland.
I froze at the tree-line, staring out at the battlefield beyond in disbelief. The Fed was supposed to have driven the queens’ fleets away, but instead it looked like they’d fought it out right here, above the rebel base. Several ships had been shot down, and billowing smoke was rising from the wreckage as soldiers in both Gianne’s and Brisha’s colors poured from the decimated vessels, coughing and spluttering through the thick plumes. There were Fed ships on the ground too, while the rest continued to engage in an aerial assault with what remained of the queens’ fleets.
What shocked me the most, however, was the sight of the rebel base in a state of immense destruction. The dome was no longer protecting the base from prying eyes or warring queens. It had vanished, though the towers holding it up seemed intact. In fact, they were just about the only things still standing, aside from the alchemy lab, with its spewing chimneys.
“What the…” Navan came to a halt beside me.
“Do you think Bashrik is up there still?” I gasped, unable to take in the enormity of the devastation before my eyes.
Stone stared hard at the base. “Alfa and Dio are meant to be fightin’ in this. If I hear o’ my boys bein’ maggot food, I’ll not rest till every one o’ these bastards is dead.”
“Just try to keep calm,” I said, not knowing what might happen if Stone truly lost his temper. “We’re all worried about our people, but right now, we’ve got to focus on what we can do to help.”
Stone took a visible breath in. “I’m no’ a killin’ man, but I’ll break the oath o’ a lifetime if they’ve hurt me boys.”
A noise behind us made me turn sharply, bringing me face-to-face with the battered and bloodied Commander Mahlo, who was staggering toward us. Her clothes were torn and singed, her face crisscrossed with cuts, while bruises blossomed beneath her face.
“Oh, my God—Commander, what happened to you?” I asked, rushing to her aid. The last we’d seen of her, she’d been heading off in a ship, so why the hell was she back here when we’d left her barely half an hour ago?
“Ambush,” she choked.
“Who ambushed you? What happened to your ship? Is Bashrik okay?” I could hear the desperation in my voice, but I didn’t care.
“Ambush,” she croaked again. It was only then that I noticed her hand was closed over something. I remembered how Mort had tried to impersonate a soldier on Brisha’s side of Vysanthe, and I took a closer look at the clothes Commander Mahlo was wearing. The emblems were all wrong.
“SHIFTER!” I roared, pushing the fake commander to one side. It didn’t deter the creature, who hurled the concealed smoke grenade. Stone tore away the bandages that covered his third eye, but it was too late—he froze the shifter for a moment, before the smoke blinded him, releasing the impostor from his powers.
As the shifter scurried away, Navan grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the potentially poisonous gas. It tickled the back of my throat, the acrid sting singeing the inside of my nostrils, and my eyes watered from the smoke. I tried to speak, but a fit of coughing came out instead.
“We need… to… run,” I croaked, glancing frantically around the woodland where we stood. Stone was crouched on the ground, clutching his chest, coughs wracking his lungs as blood soaked through the bandages around his torso.
A net landed on top of us, and strong arms dragged Navan and me to the ground. I tried to wrestle free, but the net was charged with electricity, and every touch sent a spasm of pain through my body. Navan was suffering, too, his breath coming short and sharp as the jolts made his muscles twitch violently. I’d lost sight of Stone, and the shifters seemed to have vanished back into thin air.
Finally, through the dense smoke, I saw Stone being hauled away by two of the fleshy bastards. They carried him off to a small ship nearby. The metal exterior glinted as the cloaking shield fell away. As soon as they were inside, the cloak went back up again, shrouding them from view. I heard the thrum of its engine flying over our heads.
“They’ve gone!” I shouted, grimacing as another jolt ran through me.
“We’ve g-got to get this th-thing off us,” Navan stammered, the shocks stilting his words.
I slid my hand across the hard-packed earth, careful not to make any sudden movements. With only a few stings, I reached a corner of the net and began to tug it slowly over me. It seemed to take forever, every slow action filling me with exasperation, but as soon as I was free, I grabbed both ends of the net and threw them over Navan’s head, freeing him from the electrical current in one quick movement. I suffered for it, as two white-hot lightning bolts surged up my arms, making my entire body tremble. Navan caught me as my knees buckled.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I will be. Come on, we need to get after that ship.”
“How can we? It was cloaked.”
“They’re not going far,” I explained, my gaze darting toward the roof of the alchemy lab. For a split second, I thought I saw a glimmer. “Those shifters will be taking Stone to Orion.”
Chapter Four
Navan followed my line of sight to where a cluster of Gianne’s smaller gunships were poised around the lab. Four of Brisha’s smaller ships loitered around it, too, though it wasn’t clear whether they were there to defend the lab or strike at Gianne’s vessels. I supposed it was sacred ground to every faction in this battle, and that was the only reason the lab was still standing. The rebels wouldn’t do anything to it in case they damaged their product, nor would the queens’ fleets, for the same reason. Meanwhile, the Fed wouldn’t have attacked it because they didn’t wish to harm the soon-to-be harvested humans inside by bombing the crap out of everything.
“We should go around to the back,” Navan suggested, gesturing toward the tree-line. Even without the dome, it was the safest way to reach the lab without detection. However, I could already see soldiers of all kinds battling across the open space between the woodland and the base—we’d still need to get our hands a little dirty.
“Lead the way,” I whispered, drawing out my pistol. I wished I had more of my knives, as guns really weren’t my thing, but I’d have to make do for now. Navan drew his blade as we set off around the perimeter of the base, heading for what we hoped would be a back entrance.
Shifters and coldbloods alike swarmed toward us as we ran for the alchemy lab, but their blows were no match for ours. Working as a formidable team, we took out anyone who came our way, struggling through the chaotic battlefield. Sometimes, Navan would grapple with them while I fired a round into their chest, preferring to injure them instead of killing them outright. Other times, he would drive a hard kick in
to their knees, prompting them to buckle while I caught them around the throat, swinging around them before driving my elbow down into the base of their neck, rendering them immobile in one swift move. Of course, there were some I couldn’t avoid killing, but I took no pleasure in it. It was a job that had to be done.
Overhead, coldbloods swooped low, trying to claw at the Fed agents who lacked the advantage, all of them fighting for their lives now that most of their force was in the air. Navan surged upward to take on a few coldbloods who got too close, but otherwise we stayed firmly on the ground, ducking whenever a ship’s artillery peppered the earth beside us. Dogfights were taking place between the Fed ships and Vysanthean ships, the sleek vessels hurtling through the air, twisting and turning as gunfire rattled off from the turrets.
“There it is,” Navan hissed, pulling me into the shadows of the woodland. We were almost at the right side of the alchemy lab, with a good view of the building. Sure enough, there was a door at the back, though it was under heavier guard than I’d anticipated.
“I say we rush them so the element of surprise gives us an edge,” I whispered, keeping low to the ground.
He nodded, leaning in to plant a kiss on my lips. “Let’s do it, wifey.”
I grinned nervously. “After you, hubby.”
We were about to force our way through the back doors when a figure appeared on the rooftop of the alchemy building. Given how close we were, I could tell it was Stone. My heart sank as I saw his hands bound in front of him, his third eye covered. What made it worse was the sight of Orion and Ezra behind him, their chests puffed out as they sauntered closer to the roof’s edge.
Fall off… make my day, I thought bitterly, hating their smug faces. I hadn’t seen Ezra since that day outside the Salty Siren Inn, but the very remembrance of his existence made me feel sick.
I crouched there, expecting some grand speech, but it didn’t come. With a savage blow to the legs, Orion knocked Stone down to his knees instead. Our friend collapsed with a thud. Out of his pocket, Ezra drew a small bottle, which he handed to Orion. The broad-shouldered coldblood reached down and grasped a handful of Stone’s dark hair, yanking his head back while Ezra forced open the ambaka’s mouth. I could barely watch as Orion poured the contents of the bottle down Stone’s throat, leaving him to either choke or swallow. Evidently, he chose the latter, and they released Stone a few moments later, though he coughed and spluttered for a while, clutching at his chest.
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