Kemi patted his knee, smiling. "I like that idea."
Lailani burst into the room, carrying a box of equipment, and Marco instinctively moved away from Kemi.
"Are you two almost done?" Lailani said. "We're less than an hour away from the forest moon, and I need help untangling the quantum cables. Fucking things are more knotted than Christmas lights in July."
Kemi nodded. "Help her, Marco. I'm almost done here."
As Marco walked away, heading to the airlock, he felt both women watching him—Kemi and Lailani, the two loves of his life, perhaps the only two women he had ever truly loved. Perhaps both were lost to him now.
Maybe our romance is over, Marco thought as he entered the airlock. Maybe it can never be rekindled, not with Kemi, not with Lailani. But I still love them. If anyone is up there, if anyone in the cosmos can hear . . . don't let me lose them like I lost Addy. Like I lost so many friends. Let us win. Let us put together the puzzle of our lives, navigating by candlelight in the dark.
The star system came into view ahead. Ben-Ari, Marco, and Lailani gathered on the bridge. Kemi sat here in her seat, flying the ship by tugging on cords. Fifteen planets circled a young star—a dozen gas giants and two hellish infernos with runaway greenhouse effects. A green moon was orbiting an indigo gas giant with glistening azure rings. Toward this small verdant world they flew.
"It's remarkably Earth-like," Lailani said, reviewing readouts on her tablet. "In fact, a lot nicer than New Earth. Probably would have made an ideal human colony, if it were closer. According to my database, no human has ever set foot here. But an old scientist, seventy years ago, discovered this moon from a distance. He called it Nandaka, naming it after the god Vishnu's sword."
Marco glanced at the tablet in his hands, showing the location of their pursuers. They were close now, roaring toward the same star system.
"We won't have long down there," Marco said. "Those bastards are right on our tail."
"I'm about to turn off the warp drive," Kemi said. "At least, I think I am. I haven't pulled this strand yet. Hold on to something!"
They all clung to the webs along the walls.
The Anansi moaned.
It was an organic sound. The sound of a living animal. As the ship thrummed, Marco found himself stroking the wall.
Good girl, he thought. Nice and easy.
Since discovering the ship's secrets, Marco wondered whether the Anansi was sentient, or whether female marauders had simply evolved to bear the males' children, transport them across the galaxy, and have no independent thoughts. As the ship now moaned and trembled, sliding back into regular spacetime, Marco could feel her energy, her lifeforce, her pain and loneliness.
She's not evil like the males, he thought. She's not aggressive. Not a meat-eater. She has suffered so much.
And suddenly, as spacetime uncoiled around them, Marco found himself gazing through the ship's eyes, seeing the cosmos like an endless dark ocean. Rising from warped space, he felt like a whale breaching the water for air, thankful for a deep breath after so long in the murk.
The gas giant came into view ahead, brilliantly blue, its silvery rings catching the starlight. Before it hovered the verdant moon. The beauty filled Marco's heart with elation—no, not his heart but a larger heart, wounded, uplifted, pumping deep within a metal body.
Friends. Family. The thoughts flowed into Marco, not his own. A place to rest.
"Sergeant Emery, are you with me?"
Marco blinked, and his consciousness slipped back into his own body. Once more he stood on the bridge of the Anansi. He nodded at Ben-Ari.
"I'm here, Captain." He hefted his gun. "Whatever's waiting out there, we'll face it."
Lailani checked her instruments. "I'm detecting a hundred ravagers orbiting the moon. Hard to say how many are on the surface. The trees are hiding so much of what's down there, but I'm detecting heat signatures in pockets around the mountains. Probably easier for the marauders to communicate with their friends from the peaks." She bit her lip. "Meanwhile, our twenty friends are still in warped space, moving fast. They'll be here in an hour. If we're lucky."
Ben-Ari nodded. "That means we have an hour to land and send the Anansi back out. Until our pursuers emerge from warped space, they can't communicate with Nandaka. We fly in casually, like we're just another ravager on its business. Lieutenant Abasi, you got that?"
"Aye, Captain," Kemi said. "Taking us into orbit, nice and smooth. Lailani, send me coordinates for a good place to land."
As they approached the green moon, several ravagers detached from orbit and came flying toward the Anansi. Marco stiffened, gripping his rifle, as if he could fight the ships from here.
"Fuck," Lailani muttered.
"Keep us nice and easy, Lieutenant Abasi," Ben-Ari said, though her voice was strained. "They don't know we're humans aboard. We're just a bunch of marauders coming for a visit." The captain glanced at Lailani. "And mind your language on my bridge, Sergeant."
Ten or more ravagers were now racing toward them from Nandaka's orbit. Even if the Anansi's plasma canon were working, they were too many to fight. Kemi's hands trembled, but she kept flying smoothly, and the forested world grew closer ahead. So did those other ravagers.
"They're hailing us, Captain," Kemi said.
"Ignore it." Ben-Ari's hand also reached toward her gun, a nervous habit. "Keep going."
"Captain, they're trying to open a communication channel," Kemi said. "The spheres are activa—"
"Shut them off," Ben-Ari said.
Kemi nodded, tugged a few strands, and the spheres across the bridge went dark.
"I don't like this," Lailani muttered. "They're suspicious. They're going to roast our asses."
"For all they know, we're just a wounded ravager returning from battle, her cannon and communication systems broken," Ben-Ari said. "Remember, our friends back there are still in warped space. They won't be able to alert anyone for another hour."
"Captain, their claws are opening!" Kemi said. "They're about to blow plasma. We have to run!"
Marco looked at a monitor; it was wirelessly connected to sensors from the Saint Brendan they had attached outside the Anansi's hull. The enemy appeared on the screen, and Marco cringed. The ravagers had always reminded him of closed metal flowers, and now their petals were blooming open, revealing flaming innards. In seconds, that inferno would blaze across the Anansi.
"All right, Lieutenant," Ben-Ari said, pale. "We tried. We'll retreat and—"
"Wait," Marco said.
"Sergeant—" Ben-Ari began, voice tense.
"Wait!" Marco repeated, remembering how he had felt a connection to Anansi, to this living creature. He placed his hand on the wall and closed his eyes.
"Captain, their cannons are about to fire!" Kemi said.
"Defensive maneuvers!" Ben-Ari shouted.
There there, girl, Marco thought, stroking the wall. You can hear me, can't you?
The ship moaned. Fear pulsed through her. The walls trembled under his palm.
"They're firing!" Kemi's voice sounded distant. "We're too close to the moon to get back into warped space!"
"Dodge the assault!" Ben-Ari cried, voice muffled, echoing, as if coming from kilometers away.
Marco kept his eyes closed, kept his hand on Anansi's wall.
It's all right, girl. It's all right. I'm sorry we hurt you. I want to set you free.
The ravager seemed to weep. She had suffered so much. Her memories flooded Marco—memories of the male marauders hurting her, enslaving her, driving her to war, stabbing her innards with electrical rods.
They won't hurt you again, Marco thought, passing the words into her. But right now, I need you to talk to your sisters. Tell them to stop firing. Tell them that you come in peace. That you're coming home. Can you do that?
The ship's fear seemed to ease. Her engines purred. Her claws began to open.
"Lieutenant Abasi, why are you exposing our cannon?"
"I'm not, C
aptain!" Kemi frowned. "The . . . the ship is flying itself." She gasped. "We're emitting some kind of radiation."
Lailani pointed. "The enemy ravagers are closing their claws! They're no longer attacking."
Marco breathed out in relief, pulling his consciousness back into his body. Outside the viewport, he could see it. The other ravagers were turning aside, opening a path down toward the moon.
Ben-Ari was staring at him strangely. "It seems that our dear Sergeant Emery is full of surprises."
The others turned toward him.
"Marco, what the fuck did you do?" Lailani said, one eyebrow raised.
"Put on the ole' Emery charm," he said.
Lailani rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Poet, I'm surprised you haven't fucked the ship by now, with your record."
"Language!" Ben-Ari said.
They entered the atmosphere, finding themselves in blue skies over lush forests. Alien birds fluttered over the canopy, and rivers snaked between verdant mountains. Nandaka, this large moon of a blue gas giant, rustled with life. It had been years since Marco had seen so much green. They all stood silently, watching. Kemi had tears on her cheeks.
"It looks like Earth," the pilot whispered. "Do you think Earth still has trees, still has beauty?"
"Earth might be ugly now," Marco said, "but we'll rebuild her. We'll make her good again."
And we'll find Addy.
They landed in a valley clearing, a few kilometers away from where Kemi had detected a marauder base. Before opening the airlock, Kemi and Marco installed the harness they had built, enabling them to remotely control the Anansi and send her back into space—hopefully with their enemies pursuing the empty vessel. But Marco knew now that the Anansi, even without the harness, would find her way, would find freedom and peace.
Goodbye, girl, he thought, patting the hull. Godspeed.
Wearing their uniforms, carrying their guns, the four Dragons opened the airlock and stepped onto the surface of Nandaka.
Trees soared around them, as tall as skyscrapers, heavy with luminous yellow flowers. Tentacled plants coiled on the forest floor like anemones, reaching out toward buzzing, translucent insects the size of sparrows, their wings purple and shimmering green. Beams of sunlight filtered through the canopy, glistening with pollen, and birds with silky blue tails fluttered above.
"It's beautiful," Kemi whispered.
Lailani licked her lips. "Those birds look delicious."
"Let's get the Anansi off the planet first," Ben-Ari said. "Then we'll have time to hunt for food, and just as importantly—hunt for another ship. Lieutenant Abasi, can you boot up your tablet and—"
Shrieks from the trees interrupted the captain.
Dozens of pale creatures leaped down from the canopy. Their eyes blazed with fury, and their hands opened, revealing toothy mouths on the palms.
As his comrades raised their guns, Marco sighed.
Nothing is ever easy.
CHAPTER NINE
The sun fell, the moon was new, and Addy drew her sword.
She still hung on the web, and still the slaughter below chugged along. Still the screams, the clanking chains, and the marauder shrieks rose in a song. Still the corpses dangled on chains, moving line by line, swaying, dancing the dance macabre. Fires blazed across the camp, reflecting in the eyes of the creatures, and shadows lurched.
Through those shadows she would move. In that darkness she would creep. She, Staff Sergeant Addy Linden, who had faced the scum with fire and screaming bullets and furious raining death—she would travel through the cloak of night, armed with only the tooth of a rancid beast. And in the wilderness, she would seek life.
I was a warrior queen of fire, she thought. Now I will be a mistress of shadows. Now I will be she who strikes from darkness, who—
"Addy?" Steve whispered at her side. "Addy, do you have a cig?"
She blinked, her thoughts interrupted. She turned to glare at Steve, who hung on the web beside her.
"How the fuck would I have a cig?" she whispered back. "Didn't you notice that the marauders stripped us naked? Now shut up! I'm formulating my plan."
She, Steve, and thousands of other captives hung on the webs stretched between metal poles. When Addy looked down, she could see the slaughterhouse at work. The horror spread for kilometers around: hooks on chains, bearing squirming, screaming humans; pits where marauders slit their victims' throats, bleeding them out; assembly lines where the aliens butchered the corpses, packaging meat and organs; and transport vessels of jagged black metal to ship out the meat. Around the camp spread the electric fence. There was only one gate, one path to freedom, and the enemy defended it.
Yet many marauders were sleeping now. Only a handful were still manning the assembly lines, taking the night shift. A handful of others guarded the gate. If Addy wanted a time to escape, she wouldn't find a better one.
We must kill the marauders on that gate, Addy thought. If we sneak up, enough of us, and—
"Addy!" Steve whispered again.
"What?" She turned toward him.
"You have a marauder tooth!" he said.
She rolled her eyes. "I know, Steve. It's the cornerstone of my plan. At least, if you shut up and let me think."
Steve didn't seem to hear. "So if you have a tooth, maybe you have cigarettes too. Can you check?"
She glared at him. "How about you check that the marauders haven't removed your brain already?"
He snorted. "Yeah, Addy. Like I wouldn't know if they had done that." He hesitated, gingerly touched his head, then snorted again. "As if!"
Addy sighed. How had she ever wasted time on that useless lump of muscle?
"All right, listen up, Steve. You too, Stooge." She turned toward the pudgy, snoring man who hung at her other side. She nudged him until he awoke. "I'm going to cut us loose. We creep down, as quiet as can be. We make for the gate—just us. We move silently, shadow to shadow, nimble as cats in the night."
Steve cringed. "Addy, Stooge can't even walk to the bathroom without knocking over my bongs. And twice he mistook my hockey trophy for a urinal. I don't think nimble is his forte."
"Well, then he can be a bloody distraction and get his brains eaten while we escape!" Addy snapped. "That is, if they can find anything but bong smoke inside his skull. Now shut up and get ready for our great escape."
She slipped out her weapon—a marauder tooth, snatched during the failed mutiny on their transport ship. Orcus's tooth—taken from the very bugger who had first captured Addy on Haven. As she sawed at the webbing, she wished she had her old comrades with her, the fellow Dragons. Lailani, tiny but fierce. Marco, bookish but noble. Kemi, intelligent, capable, calm and quick under pressure. Captain Ben-Ari, a woman Addy had grown to admire, the only authority figure she respected. Addy had fought with them in the great war, and here alone, with only Steve and Stooge, she missed them. She needed them.
And suddenly, as she was cutting the webs, she was crying. Because she missed her friends. And she didn't know if they had abandoned her, betrayed her, left her to this hell. And the thought of such a betrayal seemed worse than a thousand deaths in a slaughterhouse.
"Hey, Ads," Steve said, voice soft. "It's all right. I'll look after you. I know . . ." He cleared his throat. "I know I'm not Marco. I'm not smart like him, not with books and words and stuff. But hey, we used to beat up hockey guys together, right? We can beat up some aliens."
Addy sniffed, freed an arm, and wiped her eyes. "Steve, we used to beat up each other mostly. Well, I would beat you up."
"Only because I let you!"
"You did not!" She freed her other arm.
"I'm a big guy, Addy. I stand half a foot taller than you, and even you're a giant, and I'm probably twice your weight, and you weigh about as much as a rhinoce—"
"Watch it!" Addy said.
Steve gulped. "In any case, if I don't want to get beat up, I don't. Those marauders will learn that. I'm not smart. I know that. But I'm strong. And you have me figh
ting with you." Suddenly his own eyes dampened. "You've always had that, even when you didn't know it."
Addy blinked away fresh tears, reached across the web, and touched his shoulder. "I always knew, ya big galoot. Now shut up and let me cut you loose."
She reached out toward him with her tooth, then froze.
Movement below.
A marauder was climbing the web toward them.
Slowly, Addy pulled her hand back toward her, hiding the tooth behind her back. Steve inhaled sharply, pressing himself against the web. Addy had already freed his arms; he slung them back into the webs.
The marauder kept climbing toward them, gripping the webs with all six legs, grunting, snorting. In the dim light from the fires below, Addy saw the horns, the empty eye socket, the twitching conjoined twin. With flaring fury, she recognized him. Orcus. The marauder who had kidnapped her on Haven. The marauder who had bitten off Grant's hands. The marauder who had shoved a feeding tube down her throat.
Hatred flooded Addy. She had already taken one of the beast's eyes. She longed to leap down, to stab the other three, to kill this monster. He had hurt her. He had hurt her more than anyone ever had. But Addy inhaled deeply, forcing herself to calm down, to wait. Now was not her time to fight, not here, not with a hundred marauders below, ready to race up.
A few years ago, I'd have jumped onto this creature and died in battle, she thought. Maybe Marco did teach me some prudence after all.
Orcus reached her. The alien placed his six legs around her, three on each side, trapping her in a cage of spikes and claws. He lowered his massive jaws, the size of a crocodile's mouth, and gazed at her with his three remaining eyes.
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