I can’t leave this folk here. Not after killing a real innocent today, after seeing all the madness that the galaxy puts on folk. I need to get them all out of here.
Araskar speaks. What’s your problem? Did you get the prisoner?
Oh, we got the one. Problem is, it en’t just the one.
He don’t answer that. I’m not sure what to say. I look around me, and my gaze takes in the rows and rows of folk, leaning on each other, leaning on the walls, even against the stacks of hyperdense cells.
Their eyes don’t change. Faces are all thinned out from where they should be. Bodies like a Routalais; all thin, like skin’s just fabric hung on bone. But their eyes are all the same. All hope.
Aw hell.
You were saying?
Seven thousand people, slab. All like Kalia and Toq, bluebloods what was taken captive by the Resistance. We gotta get them home.
Araskar don’t answer right away, but I can figure what he’s thinking. What does Swez say about that?
That’s a problem too, slab. The Matakas are long gone. Left us here.
Any ships?
Two barges.
Jaqi, we can’t take all these people with us. I can’t even get back to my own shuttle.
We have to, slab! I won’t let this happen! I won’t let this many innocents go down. We get them free, we strike a blow against John Starfire. Innocent lives should mean something in this damn galaxy! I try to calm down, but damn, this gets me riled. I en’t letting anyone else die.
Where the hell will we even take them?
“Jaqi,” Scurv says. “The loading dock.”
The loading airlock gapes, a giant gap, with the stars of space beyond the sense-field. The whole thing’s been cut into Shadow Sun Seven’s side. Two of the automated barges sit on the platform.
Them oxygen cells are everywhere. The Matakas may have filled an entire barge-loader, but they left plenty of wealth. All held together by bags of skin membrane, the cells are piled in big old heaps everywhere you can guess. A black metal platform rises out of the flesh, and there’s three barges parked along the platform. No place for a loose shard.
And there is a ship coming into the airlock.
I’ve seen this kind of ship before, but it takes a long moment afore it clicks with me where I done seen it.
I shot one of these ships up at Bill’s.
It’s a Vanguard drop ship.
“Resistance troops. We’ve got . . .” I realize I’ve got one hand on the soulsword. Taltus’s soulsword, the one is too big for me.
“A full squadron,” Scurv says. Vi bites vir lip, and I reckon vi is calculating something in that cat-quick head of virs. “Forty, yes?”
“Forty.”
“Forty is not too bad.” Vi unholsters vir guns. “Remind me to kill the pilots, so the ship does not get away.”
“Slab, one shard goes wrong and you’ll blow every single person here away. We can’t risk it. Maybe we can talk to them or—”
Scurv ignores me, walks up to the platform, and climbs the ladder.
Like a big damn fool, I follow vim. “Slab, you can’t shoot here!”
We climb up over the lip of the platform to see a whole platoon of the Vanguard. Swords drawn, each one of them. I’m about ready to piss myself.
Their commander has the same face as that bearded fella I killed in Bill’s. Same face as Araskar. Helmet is obscuring his face a bit, but there’s a look I recognize in them eyes. The fella who stood over a six-year-old child, ready to kill him, and I clutch the soulsword, and I realize that no matter what happens, I en’t backing down here.
“Surrender the children and the traitor Araskar.”
“Out the airlock, assho—”
Scurv shoots him before I can finish my insult. A single green shard, flashing, hits that Vanguard scab right in the chest, blows his entire chest apart.
Before anyone can say a thing, Scurv shoots about ten more troops. Green shards flash, and then one’s down, and then another, and then yet another, and one shoots a red shard that blasts apart the metal under Scurv—but Scurv moves, quick as a cat again, slipping to the side.
“No shooting!” one of them shouts. “One wrong shot, you blow this entire place! Soulswords!”
They whip out their swords, and some of them manage to deflect the shots that fly from Scurv’s guns like air rushing out of a punctured ship. Green shards go flying, in a rush.
More hit flesh, tearing through armor, than hit soulswords.
“Don’t fire back!” the troops yell—but I see others drawing sidearms, trying to save their lives—
And Scurv stops firing. And smiles.
“We were in prison a long time, sadly,” vi says. “And our other selves”—vi cocks the guns—“need sustenance. Not many shards left. Question we must ask now, is whether there are enough to take care of you all.”
About fifteen soldiers remain, standing next to screaming, weeping, bleeding, and burned corpses. Vi’s just taken out more than half the squad.
“Lucky, are we?”
“Grab a cell!” The remaining troops come for Scurv, swords drawn—and each of them rolling a hyperdense cell.
Scurv backs up a bit, till vi’s at the edge of the platform—and smiles. Just like a cat at a mouse-hole.
“You don’t dare shoot!” one of them yells. “You hit one of the cells, we all go up!”
“That would be the case,” vi says. “If we ever missed.”
And vi shoots.
Flash. One shard, across the way, one shard, in the midst of a million packed oxygen cells that could blow us all to hell—
It takes off a Vanguard head, neat as you please. Body and oxygen cell both fall.
Flash. Another shard. Another Vanguard head.
Flash. Again.
The troops get smart, hold the cells up in front of their faces, crouch down as they circle Scurv, suddenly reluctant.
Scurv gestures with vir gun. “Oh, we like this. Don’t be too easy on us, aiya.”
While I’m watching like some dumb cow, another soldier comes for me, soulsword raised. He yells some damn thing about the Resistance and John Starfire and nonsense, but all I can think is that I have accidentally drawn Taltus’s sword, not the one Araskar gave me. It’s about twice the size and weight of the one that fitted me before, and I wave it at him, trying not to drop the damn thing.
This bastard is fast. I back up, back up some more from him, and he keeps coming. Stabs and slashes, but I’m backing up faster than he can hit—until I back right up into the barge Swez left for me.
I swing the soulsword, but Taltus’s blade is too heavy, and I lose my grip and it scrapes along the ground. I dodge just in time to keep the Vanguard soulsword out of my shoulder—and it sticks in the barge behind me. He grabs the short soulsword from his belt, stabs at me, but it turns on Taltus’s blade, slices my side and my shirt.
I drop Taltus’s sword and grab his neck with one arm, the short soulsword with the other, and we fall to the ground, wrestling for the short soulsword. The bastard is stronger than me, but I got a grip around his head, cutting off his air—and he’s pushing the blade down, toward my chest, but I tighten my grip, lock it like Bill showed me, feel his neck compact under my grip—and the soulsword is through my shirt and poking into my skin—and he goes limp.
I stand up, gasp—and then throw myself down as one of Scurv’s shards goes overhead.
I look up, my heart hammering. With each heartbeat, Scurv does the impossible.
One beat, vi shoots the feet off three Vanguard too busy covering their faces. They fall forward; vi shoots their heads. Neat as you please. No hyperdense cell touched.
Two, vi blows the heads off two Vanguard close enough trying to rush vir with their soulswords.
Three, couple others toss their oxygen cells at him, abandoning all sense. One-handed, the slab catches two oxygen cells and shoots the Vanguard with vir other hand.
Four, vi springs to the side, hi
ts three of them—three—with two—two!—shards.
Five, vi jumps like a cat, lands behind two Vanguard, takes their heads off. Six—four Vanguard give up, draw their weapons, and vi shoots them all first, right over the weapons.
Seven, eight, nine—vi sends shards within a finger’s width of them oxygen cells, blasts heads off shoulders, legs off waists—
Ten—they’re all down—
A Resistance gauntlet grabs my arm, and I see the soulsword flash, I jump away just in time, yanking my arm out of her grip, but now she’s rushing me, yelling something indistinguishable about you bastards you bastards.
Scurv raises the pistol—then fires out the airlock. The shard bounces off the sense-field, rebounds, hits this Vanguard from behind.
I stumble away—and fall.
Scurv runs up the platform and there’s more shooting from inside the Vanguard ship, and then vi walks out, across the metal platform to me. I stare up into the face of Scurv Silvershot, only sentient beside me alive in a sea of corpses.
Forty Vanguard.
Vi picks up a short soulsword, tosses it in the air, and just to scare the hell out of me, shoots it. It glows white-hot and goes spinning across the platform, within a few feet of the cells.
“Damn it, don’t play!”
“We cannot resist a little flash,” Scurv says.
I can’t even be mad. “Them comics don’t lie,” I say.
“They lie plenty,” vi says. “Just not about the shooting.”
* * *
Araskar
I gasp for air, feeling my body, on the floor of the swampy chamber, my whole body wet with sweat and condensation. Not dead yet. Not dead yet.
Of all times, now I notice that it sounds almost comforting not to be dead.
“Araskar,” Z says.
“What now?” I try to get up. My arms feel as worn out as old rope.
“Both you and Xeleuki - an - Thrrrrr - Xr - Zxas have shed blood this day. I should be more crippled than both of you but I feel hale, all pain and shaking gone from my limbs in the decisive moment of battle. I—have the ancestors made me immortal?”
“Jaqi did a miracle,” I say, staggering to my feet. “Don’t question it too hard.”
“The ancestors have truly sent you back for a reason,” X says.
“They have sent me back to kill the Faceless Butcher—”
“To finish this mission!” I groan.
X gets to her feet as well. “Come, Zarag - a - Trrrro - Rr - Zxz. The battle is not over. The Faceless Butcher must yet die today. I feel the ancestors singing, waiting for us at the River of Stars. They know for what we fight.”
“Yes. We will return to the pit, and call for him.”
“Will you shut up about that?” I say.
“Indeed, he—agh!”
X twists, but not enough. The bone-headed spear enters her body, emerges bloody from below her right breast.
She roars, louder even than the oxygen works. Roars, and she forces her body down and breaks the shaft of the spear. Blood and viscera flow from her and she spins, mortally wounded but quick still.
The NecroSentry emerges from the mists, holding my soulswords, the bastard. “Death,” he roars. “Finally, death!”
X is not done, though. She lunges for him. He brings up the soulsword, drives it into her chest. She digs her claws into the eyehole of his helmet, and he bellows, and shoves her against the nearest pillar, cutting with the soulsword, but she triumphantly tears an eye from his head and holds it aloft.
He screams, yanks out the sword from his chest. X slides, bloody, along the pillar, still holding aloft the NecroSentry’s severed eye.
Not another useless death. Damn it.
Z pulls me to my feet, and puts me behind him. Those black claws come out of the ends of his fingers again. He bellows at the NecroSentry, “I have cheated death! Will you fight me, then, when I have best your master? I have made a mockery of death, and returned!”
The NecroSentry rushes him—and loses its balance, flailing, and dropping one of my soulswords.
My sword goes sliding along the ground of the oxygen works. My sword at last. I dive for it, roll along the wet ground, come up holding it—
And see several dozen other soulswords glowing in the darkness. Coming for me.
Jaqi?
Slab, you’re there! I can hear the relief in her voice. Thank all gods and Starfire. Look, where you at now?
The oxygen works.
I have a mighty problem, slab.
I— Three Resistance soldiers run out of the haze, brandishing blades and running for me. I do too.
I back up.
The word traitor forms on their lips.
Word’s gotten out.
They slow when they realize how slick the floor is. One, braver than the others, attacks me. I parry her blows, and slide on the floor, trying to catch every blow and turn them away from me. Not easy, when I’m trying not to slip, and my whole body’s screaming from the beating it got just this morning—oh, and the hours I spent drugged and crammed into a locker.
What’s your problem now, slab?
Our swords clatter, spraying moisture droplets. I back up and nearly slip; catch myself just in time to block a thrust from my opponent. I’ve been backed against the pillar where X lies bleeding out, staring, the floor even slicker than usual with her blood.
Did you get the prisoner?
Oh, we got the one. Problem is, it en’t just the one.
“Araskar!” the soldier fighting me shouts. “Don’t resist, traitor! Don’t resist!”
“Don’t resist,” Rashiya’s ghost says.
The Vanguard soldier rushes me, putting too much weight into her thrust.
And X, in one last gesture, whips that sense-rope, the coil bright white around my opponent’s leg, yanks her off-balance. My opponent loses balance and my sword goes right through her middle.
I kick the Resistance soldier away. With one bloody hand X presses the sense-rope into mine.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“My honor.” She smiles, mouthing the words, unable to speak with ruined lungs. “I have gained my honor back.”
“We’ll sing of you. I hope there are ancestors waiting for you, X.”
“Of course there are.” She dies with a smile on her face.
I shove the sense-rope into my belt. Another one of the Resistance runs for me, holding her blade more cautiously. Her opponent flanks me. Trying to back me into a corner, but they’ll still have a hell of a time killing me with a couple of swords.
And that’s when Z and the NecroSentry, a massive, roiling, bloody wrestling pair, slide right into the first Resistance soldier and throw her against a pillar. The NecroSentry angrily seizes her by the arm and tosses her at Z. He ducks and she bounces off a pillar.
Seven thousand people, Jaqi says.
The other Resistance soldier charges me and I lose the thread of what Jaqi was saying. I back up some more, and my back hits another pillar, rumbling with oxygen processing. I catch his blade, and I see fear in his eyes. He’s got the same face as me, but unscarred, perfect. I press my attack, despite the way his sword cuts into my leg. It catches, half a second, on the synthskin and his eyes widen and he realizes he’s dead and—
I jam my sword through his solar plexus.
But I can’t stand to have any more ghosts haunting me, no matter how useful the memories might be. I don’t take the memories.
He writhes on the ground, choking on his blood.
Still not dead yet.
Z roars something from the depths of the oxygen works. There’ll be another Resistance soldier after me soon enough. More soulswords glow in the distance, near that elevator. You were saying?
Seven thousand people, slab. All like Kalia and Toq, bluebloods what was taken captive by the Resistance. We gotta get them home.
Well, shit. What does Swez say about that?
That’s a problem too, slab. The Matakas are long gone.
Left us here.
Shit, shit, shit. Any ships?
Two barges.
Two barges. Maybe two hundred people could fit all told? Not a patch on seven thousand. Hell, damn and burning Dark. Jaqi, we can’t take all these people with us. I can’t even get back to my own shuttle.
We have to, slab! I won’t let this happen! I won’t let this many innocents go down. We get them free, we strike a blow against John Starfire. Innocent lives should mean something in this damn galaxy! I en’t letting anyone else die here!
Where the hell will we even take them?
I bend over the dead Vanguard soldier.
He’s still gagging on his blood. His eyes, the exact same color and shape as mine, stare up at me. Will I look that afraid when I finally die?
I force myself to look down at his bloodstained chest. I guarantee these troops were briefed not to bring shards into the oxygen works, or anywhere near the hyperdense cells. Guarantee it.
I also guarantee you this: no soldier will ever give up a sidearm, not unless they’ve lost their mind. Even when the sidearm could get them killed. And I guarantee you that whoever drew “look-for-Araskar-in-oxygen-works” duty didn’t bother checking their soldiers for sidearms.
I feel around his belt.
Yeah, he’s carrying a small shard-blaster, the kind of thing you stick in the back of your waist pocket. I yank it out, get plenty of his blood and sweat on my hand. The shards inside glow red.
A live gun.
All it will take is a couple of shots, and we’ll be rid of this entire oxygen works.
And ourselves. And half of Shadow Sun Seven.
Z runs to me. “Come!” He seizes me by the arm, and we run across the wet floor, slipping and sliding.
The one eye of the NecroSentry glares through the green mists behind us. He’s closing on us.
Z yanks open a door in the wall, and shoves me inside. I fall over onto a pile of hyperdense cells, stumbling, trying not to plunge the hand holding the shard-blaster into the hyperdense cells and blow us all up. I stumble, and for one second the glowing red shard-blaster hovers above the bright orb of a cell and I am about to tip over onto it—and I get my balance.
I stand there heaving with relief. “Damn it, Z!”
“There are more Vanguard troops coming in,” he says. “I think the Faceless Butcher discovered your identity.”
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