by K. Gorman
She tilted her head, snarl firmly in place, and planted her feet, ready. “Then come get me.”
A smile touched Nomiki’s lips. A second later, a sharp pain hit her back. She turned around to see Baik standing there in his Alliance high command uniform, holding a blaster.
He fired again, and everything went black.
Chapter Forty-Six
She awoke once, a loud rush of pain, panic, and emotion, her head and limbs drugged down and strapped in place, the cool water of the Cradle lapping at her skin. A thick haze clouded her vision, and everything blurred at the edges.
Something stabbed into her skull, and a rip of static tore through her mind, along with the crisp, cold scent of snow.
The last thing she remembered before it went dark again was the sound of Tia screaming inside her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
It felt like she was in an ocean. Pressure surrounded her, pushed in on her, and she was steadily sinking into the deep. Light ebbed and flowed. Sounds came as through water―deep and lucid, echo-y. Her breath was a swell that made the entire tide surge.
Slowly, the atmosphere became less heavy. The light grew stronger. Water turned into air.
Her eyes fluttered open.
She lay in a hospital bed in a room painted a pale green, with gleaming medical equipment surrounding her.
Her breath slid out in a groan.
Everything was heavy. It hurt to move, a dull ache that filled her joints and muscles―the kind of slow, heavy pain that felt like it echoed throughout her body.
There was an I.V. in her wrist, and a med monitor over the same forearm. When she tried to move her other hand, she found that someone was holding it.
“Kar?”
At her other side, Marc lifted his head from where he’d bowed it over the edge of the hospital bed. Her eyes focused slowly, perceiving him first as a brown and black blob at the side of her vision, then with a keen but fluctuating detail. It was like her eyes couldn’t track properly, and they kept losing their anchor point and sliding away from where she wanted to look.
He brought her hand up and pressed his lips to the back of it, engulfing it in his own. The sensation came to her loose and disjointed, but the movement helped her focus.
Her gaze slipped up to his eyes and held them.
Gods, he looked exhausted. There were dark bags under his eyes, and his normally-rich skin looked gray and washed out. A reddish tinge tinted his eyeballs a faint pink, and they looked wide and gaunt, as if he had been keeping them open for too long. An oily sheen coated his skin, and a roughness of dark stubble was creeping into his cheeks.
He engulfed her hand in his and rubbed between her first and second knuckles. “How do you feel?”
She felt like she’d been run over. Every muscle in her body felt thrashed, and it was like someone had poured a load of lead into her bones. Pain echoed through them every time she tried to move, a dull and incessant throb. The room swayed a little too much when she tilted her head, like a boat on a wave, and she winced, but it evened out soon after.
“I feel like I need a really long vacation,” she said, her words slurring somewhat. Her mouth felt heavy. “Somewhere warm and beachy, preferably.”
He kissed her hand again. “I can make that happen.”
She sank her head back into the pillow. A drop ceiling hung above, tiled with that insulating foam that helped prevent sound transfer. It was off-white and speckled like a bird’s egg.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “Is she…gone?”
His hand tightened on hers. “Yes. They took her out. The original Tia, the one in the tank, honored your deal.”
Relief flooded her like a tide, her breath sucking inward in a hoarse sob. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped his hand hard, not caring about the bloom of pain from her tendons.
Tia was gone, and she could feel again.
It was like a glass wall had come crashing down.
Her breath escaped her in another sob. She rolled over, tensing into a hunched ball around Marc’s arm, gripping tight to his hand. A mix of pain, sadness, grief, anguish―everything that she hadn’t felt during her time with Tia―smashed right through her.
Her chest hollowed out into a deep well. Another sob clawed the air from her lungs.
“Oh, Gods,” she said, her voice a raw croak. “I killed so many people.”
“Shh, shh.” Marc’s chest rumbled with the sound of his voice. “You did what you had to. It wasn’t your fault.”
He reached around, enveloped her in an awkward hug, and her nose filled with the scent of fabric softener and dried sweat. His arm was warm, comforting. Patient. She sobbed under the cloak of his chest, her whole body wracking with the effort, tears streaming down her face.
“Yes, it was. I didn’t have to kill that many. Gods―I was strong, I had choices.” A great shudder went through her, this time followed by the acidic touch of vomit from the back of her throat. “I could have pushed them into the Shadow world, or disabled their weapons. I didn’t have to kill them.”
“What’s done is done,” he said, rubbing her back. “You saved the universe, Karin.”
“I know, but―”
“You are only human. You are human now, and you were human then. Not a goddess―human, with all our faults and features. And you are not that person now, not anymore.” He gave her a squeeze. “Right?”
Her breath stuttered, her jawline shivering with a line of cutting grief and horror.
It felt like she’d been cut in half. Sliced right through her lungs.
Gods, she wished she had been.
“No,” she said eventually. “I’m not.”
His lips tightened into a smile. “See?”
“That doesn’t change what I did. And saving the universe doesn’t negate what else I did.”
“No, but we can figure out how to go from here. There are options.”
‘We,’ he’d said. She liked that.
A weak laugh bubbled out of her. “You mean, I’m not the first person in human history who regrets the blood they shed and the lives they took?”
“No.”
She let out a heavy breath, drawing her gaze across the room. Her mind felt thin, like someone had stretched it too far out and put it under the sun. She took in the pastel green walls, drop ceiling, and mustard yellow trim. “Where are we?”
“Earth,” he said. “Old Earth. Somewhere in Spain. Fallon wanted you grounded, in case…”
“In case something happened during extraction, and either I or Tia switched everything over into the Shadow world and trapped people and broke equipment?” she asked.
“Yes, something like that.”
She winced. “Is Fallon pissed off at me? I remember them being pissed off.”
“I don’t think anyone’s pissed off at you. You saved the universe.”
“No, I didn’t. We all did.”
“You were a big part of it. Arguably, you sacrificed the most out of all of us.”
“No, the ones who died sacrificed the most.” She winced, and grief fluttered through her heart as she remembered Lieutenant Seki and Specialist Malouf, all of the Centauri who had died on the Aquila, and all of the children who had died at the hands of the Eurynome Project. “How’s Sasha?”
“Mysteriously vanished. She left you a message on your netlink.”
“Ah. And Tylanus?”
“In the library. Alliance is offering him asylum.”
“Are his eyes still black?”
“Yep.”
“Asylum and contact lenses, then. And a hush hush secret posting within their military’s R & D sector?”
“I think so.”
“I’m surprised Fallon didn’t jump on that.”
Marc was silent. His lips pressed into a thin line.
“What?” she asked.
“It came out that it really was Fallon who pushed to have Seirlin involved in t
he mission. One of Seirlin’s heads went to Chamak’s admiralty with a sob story, scheme-y reasoning, and a heavy recompense package.”
Her jaw slackened. “They got bribed?”
“Yes.”
“So much for that well-developed set of moral checks and balances they were always touting.” She rolled her eyes, then immediately regretted the action, tightening her grip on Marc’s hand as the motion made the room tilt. “What happened to Sasha’s Eurynome kids? Don’t they still have some of them?”
She hadn’t taken them all, she remembered. Just most. Some of them, at the time, had either been returned to their parents or were otherwise off the premises when she did her mass abduction.
“Yes, they have some of them. The rest…Well, they’re currently on vacation in London, I believe. The UN sponsored the trip, and the Alliance is playing guard with a few local officers to help show them around and keep them out of trouble. On the down low, Tylanus has offered to steal them if any party involved decides to go slack on their human rights’ duties.”
Given how he’d helped the children in the Cradle, she wasn’t surprised.
“Suns,” she said.
“Alliance has already donated a large amount of funds and offered citizen packages with full scholarships.”
“Uh huh.” And, if the two nations’ politics were anything to go by, they’d likely already shipped a number of other supplies to Fallon’s border for the few kids that Sasha had not managed to scoop up, and were knocking at it with full media fanfare, a carefully cultivated story of heroism and sacrifice, and several hundred ‘independent’ vloggers and reality television hosts.
Fallon may have the superior warships, but no one played the media like Nova’s elite.
“And the Centauri? I notice I don’t have any extra guards around?”
Marc hesitated. “They…took Tia.”
She frowned. “What?”
“They took her, Cradle and all, in the dead of night.”
Her jaw slackened. She gave herself a moment to process that.
Then, she decided it wasn’t her problem.
Guess I’m not Grand Regent anymore.
“You know, I didn’t think she’d let you take her out.”
Marc’s lips twitched. “She wasn’t going to. Remember that psychic connection you two had, even with her in the tank? Well, the original Tia knew what had happened the second Tylanus brought her Cradle back into our world. But Nomiki pointed a gun at her brain and convinced her otherwise.”
“Ah. And then the Centauri stole her.” She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “Where’s Nomiki now?”
“Currently following Fallon officials like a terrier. She is pissed.”
There was a small pause. Her mind wandered. Inside, she felt something twist.
“Gods,” she said. “I almost killed her.”
Grief ripped through her like a knife.
“But you didn’t,” Marc said. “That’s what matters.”
He brought her in for another hug, this time more vertical, and she breathed in his scent, her shaking body relaxing as the familiar smell of soap and sweat came to her.
Home. He smelled like home.
“Fuck,” she said. “I am not all right.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it will get better. Even if it takes time. I promise.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
“I had no idea these types of drinks existed,” Soo-jin said, examining the pink liquid inside of the martini glass she held. “I want five of them.”
Karin glanced over. Though her knowledge of alcohol was severely limited, she didn’t think Pink Ladies were all that uncommon.
Maybe the Sirius System put a different name on them, like calling the Sol System’s ninth planet ‘Hades’ instead of ‘Pluto.’
“I’m sure they’ll give you the recipe if you bribe them enough,” she said. “Hells, Nomiki might even have it. She used to bartend, you know?”
“Oh, shit, I forgot about that.”
The sun was nice, and the sand. Though a solid breeze blew across the treeline farther down the beach, they’d found a lee in the curve of the land, and Karin was roasting―in a nice way.
Apparently, removing Tia and all the groundwork processes she’d been training into Karin’s body―and the fit she’d thrown near the end―had overtaxed her Central Nervous System, which was why, despite several days of rest, she still felt as though she’d been run over by a truck.
But she was getting better. Slowly. Though, right now, all she wanted to do was lounge under the umbrella by the seaside, enjoying the view and getting fed snacks by Marc.
It was a good distraction. Sometimes, she even managed to forget what she’d done.
The Alliance had taken her in. After the kerfuffle with Fallon, Marc and Nomiki had torpedoed any consideration of theirs―for which she was glad, as it saved her the effort. The hospital they’d been in was a UN-run facility in the south of Spain, and they’d managed some casual sightseeing before flying to Italy. It was nice to be walking around without armor. And without a giant splint on her arm. Even if the memories still followed her.
She was due at the UN headquarters in Geneva in a few days, at which both she and Tylanus would be presented a medal, and the rest of the Nemina’s crew, including Baik, Shinji, Jon, and Reeve, would be presented different medals.
She’d already planned to use her acceptance speech to highlight the need for stronger universal human rights protections on genetically engineered subjects.
She still had her musculature from Eurynome. Though her weight had emaciated in the hospital, she was slowly gaining it back.
Right now, in the bikini she wore, she looked like a retired body builder.
And her brain―well, it was back to normal. Ish. It had its quirks, more than usual, and her old PTSD and paranoia kept creeping up, but with the Nemina’s crew, she was among family. There were also strange pains, and she kept getting headaches, and holes in her memory. Extracting an unwilling Tia had been a harder job than they’d let on, and she could still feel the mental scars she’d made on her way out.
And her brain had changed during their stint together. Her mind had changed. And the old bits of her didn’t quite fit where they’d been―like putting the pieces of a puzzle together, except half the puzzle had warped in the oven.
But they were slowly fitting back together.
There was no way she’d be completely back to the old Karin, but she was definitely one hundred percent Karin.
She and Marc were talking about a home together. Someplace to land the Nemina and sleep in a real bed. With real air coming in, and non-recycled showers, and plants she didn’t have to worry about in zero g. And a nice view of the ocean waves lapping on a beige, sandy shore.
“Enlil or Belenus?” she asked.
Soo-jin pushed her lips together, thinking. “Belenus has more happening, but most of the cities on Enlil have nice weather, like, always.”
“Praise solar boosts and terraforming,” she said.
“Indeed. It also has a very nice self-defense grid, in case Fallon decides to get handsy.”
“Hmm.” She relaxed in the lounge chair, taking a sip of her drink. Juice, not a Pink Lady. She was still recovering.
“How much money did the Alliance give you?” Soo-jin asked.
It was the fifth time she’d asked.
The amount hadn’t changed―it was just obscenely large.
“Enough,” she said.
“Are you sure? What if you have a sudden, deep craving for your own, custom space station, with like a glass infinity pool looking out onto the stars, and, like, it could have a big slow propulsion engine so you could just drift randomly about the system?”
“I believe they would call that a grossly inefficient ship,” she replied. “In that case, a custom-crafted Fint would definitely be in my new budget.”
And a beachfront on Belenus or Enlil. And maybe a stopover apartment on Liber Pater�
��s higher levels.
Though not the highest. Those realty prices were, somehow, even more obscene than the amount of money Alliance was giving her.
“If I get really desperate,” she continued, pausing for a moment as her eyes sharpened on Soo-jin. “I suppose I can always find and sell tickets to that sex world you keep mentioning.”
“Raphael’s Keep?”
“Yes. Presumably, the tickets would go for top dollar.”
“Oh, yes, they definitely would.” Soo-jin frowned, slow on the uptake. She turned around, her face turning to shock. “Wait―can you? Still?”
Karin met her gaze, her expression serious. Then, slowly, she gave a subtle nod and took a long drag of her drink.
Soo-jin’s mouth turned into a small ‘o.’ She slowly set herself back on the lounger, her face mixed in thought.
Except for Marc and Nomiki, she hadn’t told anyone that she still had the Eurynome dimension-warping powers. As far as anyone outside her immediate circle knew, she had gone back to being a human flashlight, albeit a strong human flashlight.
Combat mods didn't go away overnight. Or ever, in her case.
She would never use the Eurynome powers for a government again, and she would never let word get back to Fallon or the Alliance that she still had them.
She didn’t need for her and her friends to become a threat on their radar.
Movement caught her attention to the side. Marc appeared, along with Cookie, Shinji, and Tylanus.
Unbeknownst to her, Cookie and Shinji had been seeing each other for the past month―as much as one could ‘see’ another person during the fight against the apocalypse―and the past week off had given them a long-deserved reprieve from work to explore their relationship.
She and Marc had already been on two double-dates with the pair, though the two were more interested in their own company. Alone.
Tylanus looked mildly uncomfortable, and he kept himself separate from the other three, his long-strided gait eating up the sand, a pair of beach sandals comfortably on his feet. He’d gained a modest wardrobe since she’d carried him naked into a Centauri diplomacy vessel. He was walking around in what looked to be Earth-sourced khaki shorts and a loose T-shirt, and he’d pulled his long black hair into a braid that ran down his back.
