“Yeah, I caught that.”
Slab? You there?
The NecroSentry pounds on the door, and the mag-locks screech. Z nearly bounces away from the door. “I must go battle the NecroSentry,” he groans. “Though there is no honor in fighting a thing that was already dead, I think there is honor in avenging Xeleuki - an - Thrrrrr - Xr - Zxas, who sold her life bravely in the name of killing the Faceless Butcher.”
“Glad you figured that out.”
Araskar, you en’t lost that sword again? Where are you?
Hang on, I tell Jaqi. Something the Boss said comes back to me, as I look down from the hanging slab of dead Zarra across the pile of hyperdense cells . . . and down to the glowing shard-blaster in my hand.
Boss Cross’s words. If we have any problems, this is where the mines will separate from the, ah, head.
This is crazy. I should just go out there and sell my life as dearly as I can.
“You should come to me,” Rashiya’s ghost says.
Well, when she says it I don’t want to do it.
Jaqi, I say. I have the craziest plan in history. We’re going to split off the mines from the rest of the prison. You just rig something up to drag the bug’s bottom end to the node.
Hang on, slab, I’m getting shot at.
“Z,” I say, and raise the pistol I took off the Resistance soldier. “I have a question for you about honor.”
“Now is not—urg—” The pounding on the door knocks him away from it, but he returns to his post. “An ideal time.”
“Is there honor in laying explosives?”
The door crashes open. The NecroSentry looms above us.
I shoot the NecroSentry.
The shard takes most of his head and shoulders off, but his arms remain, flailing around on a headless torso. Thankfully, his bulk also absorbs the whole of the shard—no red fragments go flying, and so we aren’t prematurely blown to hell.
“You have robbed me of honor!” Z snarls, as he rears up and kicks the flailing corpse away. “An’ you could have blown this entire place up!”
I check the load. A few more shards in this gun. “That’s the idea. How do you feel about a really big explosion?”
Z thinks for a minute, then says, “They are honorable, under the right circumstances.”
“Oh good. I would hate to have the wrong circumstances for that.”
-19-
Jaqi
SCURV AND I KICK the bodies of the Resistance soldiers off the platform. Vi does that business again where vi bites vir lip and examines the ship. “This will fit forty people,” vi says, and motions beyond the platform, where the miners are massing. “Forty. Them barge will fit another hundred and sixty.”
It’s been a while since I seen this many folk in one place. Forty people seems like a tall order. But there’s at least a couple of thousand out there, having put down their mining gear with the blobs’ sickness.
“I en’t taking just forty,” I tell Scurv. “I’m taking them all.”
Vi doesn’t answer me.
I’m taking a full seven thousand, damn it. I grab the soulsword’s hilt. What’s that you said about the craziest plan in history? I ask Araskar. Slab, you there? I think, before I realize that this en’t the cross sword I’m holding, but Taltus’s much larger blade.
And a voice bellows into my head, like it’s about to pop open.
ADEPT TALTUS. YOU HAVE CALLED UPON THE SACRED VORTEX OF FAITH. EXPLAIN YOUR NEED.
Uh . . . Hell, am I hearing the voice of God? This en’t Taltus. This is Jaqi.
JAQI. YOU ARE AN ADEPT? WHY DO YOU BEAR THE BLADE OF TALTUS? HOW CAN YOU SPEAK THROUGH IT? NONE BUT AN ADEPT OF THE MASKED FAITH CAN SPEAK THROUGH THE BLADE.
En’t no Adept. En’t nothing. Taltus gave me the blade, when he died. What’s this business about faith?
THE BLADE WAS NEVER HIS TO GIVE AWAY. YOU MUST RETURN THE BLADE. AN ADEPT’S BLADE IS SACRED.
Taltus never told me his blade could connect to his elders. Without even a node-relay?
Unless I’m having some sort of effect on it. How can you even hear me? I’m on the other side of the galaxy.
YOU ARE NOT IN-SYSTEM? HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING TO US?
Okay, well it en’t the blade. I hold up the sword and stare at it. What the hell? I always been good with nodes, and we can’t be more than three miles out from Shadow Sun Seven’s node—but damn, really?
I am pushing this message through a node?
Almost a miracle, that.
HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS?
Good question. Hang on— Who better than a bunch of religious types to take in seven thousand refugees? Maybe they’d weasel out of it if I asked, but if I can turn up on their doorstep. I’m coming, uh, with the blade. Where you at?
FOR ADEPT TALTUS’S SAKE, YOU COULD MEET WITH ANY ONE OF OUR REPRESENTATIVES—
Naw, slabs, I’ll come to you. Just tell me where. Thuzerians still running out of the Llyrixan system?
YES.
I’ll be right there. Won’t take but a minute out of my schedule to get you this sword.
As plans go, this one en’t exactly high-grade. But it’ll get the refugees in front of a bunch of religious types, and they’ll be able to take those folk in, at least for a while. Right? No one like religious types to take in the poor and sick.
I don’t know. Hell, I never smuggled living cargo. I’m making this business up as best I can.
I grab the other soulsword. What’s this about the craziest plan ever? Reckon I found a place of peace we can take these folk.
There’s Araskar. Can you rig up some way to tow the mines to the node?
Tow them? Tow all of Shadow Sun Seven to the node?
Not all of it. A mental picture slams into my head from Araskar, nearly knocks me over with the pounding pain. Oxygen works, making a sort of neck for this creature. If there’s an accident in the volatile oxygen works, both halves of Shadow Sun Seven are programmed to separate.
We’ll separate the mines. The oxygen should last long enough to get to the node, if you can rig up a decent tow. Tug the bottom half of the bug.
I see what he’s saying. A mad plan, but . . . I look over at Scurv, chewing vir lip. “Aiya, slab. You reckon you can rig up this drop ship to tow this place?”
“Tow the entire prison? We are not sure we heard you right.”
“We’re going to try and break the bit with the mines off.”
“This seems like a good way to destroy us all.”
“It’s meant to separate. Like that holo when you was on that ship and they separate the bit at the top from the bottom because them Suits are attacking—en’t you familiar with this?”
Scurv laughs, idly pets one of vir guns. “That never truly happened, girl.” Vi points behind the platform, at the mines. “There will be tow ropes in the drop ship, and we could hook them around the endoskeletal struts. We will not be able to build up much speed, but we can try towing.”
“Don’t matter,” I say. “Just get us there.”
Vi walks up the platform into the drop ship, and returns with rope. “This is one of the madder things we have done, in our time.”
“It’ll make a good comic book.”
* * *
Araskar
I pull aside the hyperdense cells—one at a time, very carefully—until I see the controls for the old hopper under the floor. “Here we are.”
“You found it?” The soldiers hammer against the door, Z bracing himself, shoving his shoulders against the metal. He’s shoved the remaining meat of the NecroSentry against the door, in order to help block it. On the other side, what sounds like at least five Resistance troops pound the door.
The NecroSentry’s not - quite - dead arms feel around, like they’re trying to grab weapons. Z kicks the corpse. “Stay down,” he hisses. “You should have allowed me to finish this thing, for Xeleuki-an-Thrrrrr-Xr-Zxas.”
“Not enough honor,” I say. I run my fingers over the controls. “Needed
to save you for something really great. Like I thought. This room’s a backup in case the main feeds fail. Pretty easy to turn on.”
Z leaps aside as the point of a soulsword jabs through the metal. He whacks the soulsword’s blazing tip with the NecroSentry’s knife, trying to bend it before it’s jerked back through the door.
I cinch X’s sense-rope around the lip of a wide, flat rivet set into the floor. “I turn on the track that carries this hopper, and then I’m going to see what happens when I overload the system with oxygen and shards. If I’m right, we have an explosion like a Shir fart, and Shadow Sun Seven splits in two.”
“And I am going to fight all these soldiers while you do that.” Two more soulswords cut through the metal of the door.
“I don’t want to be the only one who goes out in a blaze of glory,” I say.
“Glory and honor are two different things.”
“Hate to say it, but I don’t think you’ll ever get to explain the distinction to me.”
“I am aware of this. It saddens me.”
“You know,” I say as I drop into the little metal tunnel, “Jaqi made you promise to stay alive.”
“She does not understand what a difficult request this is.”
“We might survive this.” I don’t know why I’m suddenly so optimistic, but I want to hope. “If John Starfire can lead an army of scrappy crosses to victory over the Empire, then we might come out of this one alive, and fight another day.”
“It is foolish to ask such things.” The door is being cut to ribbons now, the white light of the soulswords shining through. “Also, foolish to invoke your enemy’s success to guide your own. But if the ancestors choose to send me back again, I will find you, Araskar.”
“And apologize for stuffing me into a locker?”
“And insist I was right about the Faceless Butcher.”
Zarra. “Don’t let them get into this tunnel,” I say.
“My honor on it.”
I grab several of the medium-sized hyperdense cells and, one at a time, feed them into the hopper on the tunnel.
I turn it on and the hopper starts to move. I drop onto the track behind it, crouch in the tunnel. The track moves me along under the floor. It’s tight enough that I’m hunched over, back scraping against the ceiling. With my soulsword, I breach the chamber of the gun—just enough. All you need is a crack in the gun’s housing, showing through to the shard-chamber. I toss it in the hopper, already stuffed full of hyperdense shards.
I’ve cracked a lot of pistols to create makeshift grenades. It should hold out until it hits the centrifuge. I hope.
Then again, either way it’ll blow me mostly to hell.
The track pulls me until the rope around my waist goes taut, and I scramble backward against the track, crabwalking until I reach a small alcove, sized for the Reveks who do maintenance in here. It’s too small for me, but I duck into the alcove and when another hopper comes by, I grab it, wrench it off the track, hold it against the alcove, pressing myself into the corner.
And I immediately feel stupid. Why am I trying to preserve my life? What do I have to live for? This is it.
Finally dead.
Rashiya’s ghost whispers in my ear. “I knew you wanted to be with me.”
I find myself thinking of Jaqi. Of her on the moon of Trace. Hope you danced. And I actually smile. I want to see her again. I want to watch her go on about food. I want to learn to play that stupid guitar.
Life is funny.
Nothing is easier, and none of my friends are alive. But when you get right down to it, there are things worth living for even in a lousy life. And though she won’t want to hear it, I feel like I learned that from Jaqi.
The world lights on fire.
* * *
Jaqi
The drop ship is all hooked up, heavy cable normally used to moor the ship in emergencies. Scurv is sitting in the cockpit, figuring vi will be a better shot with the limited weapons on board than I would.
All right, slab, I say to Araskar for the fifth time. All right—
The explosion knocks me to the ground, tosses the miners everywhere. The drop ship trembles, pushes against its spurs, nearly tumbles off the platform, but Scurv fires the engines and the ropes go taut.
The lights flicker and go out, leaving us standing in the red light of the drop ship’s engines, the only illumination in the mines. The air tastes of smoke and cold, and my chest hurts—the oxygen is escaping.
Also, I feel about thirty pounds lighter. It’ll take a while, but the grav-field en’t pumping out no more, so unless we can spin this thing up on our own, we’re going to start floating.
It worked, Jaqi.
Slab?
Araskar doesn’t answer.
“Kalia!” She’s standing next to me, along with that half-starved, one-handed reporter. “The air is gonna leak. We need to tap some of them cells.” I look at the reporter. “You got any equipment to do a tap?”
“Maybe,” she says. “The guards might know. Sometimes, if the oxygen quality is poor in the mines, we find small cells—about the size of your head—and detonate them.”
“That’ll have to do,” I say. “Let’s get looking for small cells that can be broken without too much fuss.”
Oxygen rushes past me, out the airlock. Kalia and I paw through the piles of hyperdense cells looking for pieces small enough to detonate. “Jaqi, here’s—” Kalia coughs and hacks as she hands me a cell the size of my forearm.
“Stand on back,” I say, and jab the cell with Taltus’s sword.
The explosion knocks me onto my back, whacks my head hard enough that I see stars. But there’s sweet, sweet air. I stumble to my feet, hand the sword to Kalia. “Do a few more.”
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, Jaqi, okay—I’m scared—”
“Shh.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “We won. You en’t got nothing to worry about. We w—”
That’s when the shards flash outside.
They pass just off Scurv’s bow, and vi fires a few times—and I look up to see the large Vanguard warship. Just like the one Araskar rode around in.
Sitting right between us and the node.
“What are they doing?” Kalia says. “They won’t fire on us—”
They fire again.
Scurv twists the drop ship to take the hit. The shards blow apart on the drop-ship’s sense-field, toss it to the side, and tear off an antenna that isn’t covered by the field. The chunk of antenna glowing hot metal, crashes into the platform and embeds itself into the barges still parked there, barely missing the hyperdense cells. The cells fly everywhere in the low gravity, bouncing off the walls.
I think I pissed myself.
Scurv’s voice comes over the comm I’m still wearing. “That is it for our shields. Next shot we catch for you, girl, this drop ship will break apart.”
“They won’t shoot,” Kalia says. “They’ll destroy the stores of oxygen.”
“I reckon, girl, that the Resistance cares less about that oxygen than about killing us.” I hardly realize I’m saying them words.
“They won’t kill us all!” Kalia says. “All these people! All these—bluebloods.”
Shit.
She embraces me, of a sudden, whispers, “Thank you, Jaqi. You tried.”
I look up at the Vanguard ship. No, damn it. We won. We won!
We need a miracle.
-20-
Araskar
FIRE ROARS THROUGH THE tunnel; I’m jerked backward, the pain overtakes me as my skin burns, I pass out for the moment.
And then—
The cold awakens me; the cold every soldier fears; that cold of thin, evaporating atmos as space steals in. And though the cold awakens me, I can’t move. Pain comes with it. Not dead yet, but burned, bloody, possibly broken.
No. I wanted this to be fast, damn it. Not slow asphyxiation and freezing.
“You shouldn’t have protected yourself,” Rashiya’s ghost says.
; I didn’t want to die, I try to say, but there is no air in my seared lungs—and then the metal hiding me from the Resistance soldiers tears away, and a half-burned monster seizes me, pulls me out of the hole where I’m hiding.
The monster looks weirdly like Z, if Z had most of his skin burned off. The horns are right, anyway. And as I watch, as the monster pulls me out of my hole and goes, hand-over-hand, along what used to be the floor, through the near-vacuum, that skin begins to reassemble itself, healing from the raw, bloody burned state.
My eyes must be fooling me. It makes sense, since the moisture in my eyes is freezing from the vacuum—
Z shoves me down a tunnel. I tumble through dodgy gravity, bouncing off the walls of the Threg’s guts. Sweet oxygen rushes over me. I take an icy breath, gasp and suck in what little oxygen remains, as it’s being also sucked out into space.
“Z—” I try to say the words, but my tongue is too numb, my body in too much pain.
“So close to the end now,” Rashiya’s ghost says. She’s dead, all gray like she was when I buried her, a corpse without breath or memory, under one shovelful after another of dirt. “So close to me. You don’t want to live now, do you?”
She says it, but I think I’m alive. I think this worked. I reach, with a hand that unclenches painfully, for the hilt of my soulsword. Jaqi, it worked.
I want her to hear me. I want someone besides these ghosts to hear me.
“She can’t hear you,” Rashiya’s ghost says. “It’s okay. You can die now. You can finally die! Why don’t you want to die?”
I blink, because something strange is happening in the actual world. Z, the strangely healing-before-my-eyes Z, deposits me in the tunnel, turns around, and jumps out into the vacuum.
Or he tries to jump. He kind of stumbles, trips, and floats, trying to push off against the still-remaining residual gravity. Whatever’s happened to him, it’s taken the energy out of him. He feebly swims, a pale figure against an ocean of stars and debris. Like he’s trying to reach Shadow Sun Seven’s head, spinning off into the distance, shedding debris.
What the hell?
Despite the pain, somehow I manage to move. Manage to loop the broken rope that is still attached to my waist around the endoskeletal spur that runs through this section of mines. Manage to tie it, burned fingers fumbling.
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