by Rachel Bach
If the xith’cal had been screaming before, I had no idea what they were doing now. The stands exploded into violence as the xith’cal began attacking one another with astonishing ferocity, ripping and clawing and biting like animals. The sheer magnitude of the carnage was so shocking I couldn’t do anything except watch in stunned silence for several seconds before I finally got it together enough to scramble back to my feet. “What the hell is going on?”
Caldswell stared at me in disbelief. “You killed Reaper.”
“And that caused all this?” I threw out my hand at the slaughter going on in the stand.
“The tribe leader keeps order within the bloodlust,” Caldswell said. “It’s how they…” His voice faded as he shook himself. He blinked a few times, wiping the blood off his temple. When he turned back to me, he looked much more aware. He also looked pissed as hell.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. “You were supposed to be getting out of here!”
“I don’t take orders from you!” I shouted back.
Caldswell’s arm flung out, pointing at Rupert, who was brushing the ash from the blast off his shoulder. “He does! What the hell was that, Charkov?”
Rupert’s smooth answer made me proud. “A missile, sir,” he said crisply. “Our last one. We should go. It is foolish to waste time arguing here.”
“This is not over!” Caldswell bellowed, but he started running toward the hole we’d made in the arena floor. “What’s our exit?”
“Hyrek’s got us a ship,” I said. “Let me grab Brenton and—”
I didn’t get to finish, because at that moment, Brenton grabbed me.
He must have recovered from the shot during the chaos, because the bastard came out of nowhere, taking me off my feet before my cameras had even registered him. We flew across the arena in a tangle that unfortunately landed with me on the bottom. But as I’d noted before, this Brenton was nowhere near as clever as he normally was. Though he landed on top, he didn’t pin my legs, and the second he got me down, I kicked him off. My suit flipped me back to my feet on the upswing, and I came up gun first, pegging Brenton in the chest.
Sasha’s bullet didn’t even get through his scales, but the force pounded him back into the sand again long enough for me to get the advantage. I jumped on him, getting him in a headlock. Symbionts might be tough bastards, but under all that armor and strength, they were still human, and they still needed to breathe. I twisted him tight, putting all my weight into the arm I was using to pinch his neck, but I was still barely holding him. I glanced at my cameras, scanning the arena for Rupert in the hopes I could get him to come help me deal with this craziness, and that’s when I realized that the arena had gone still.
Without letting my grip on Brenton slack, I jerked my head up. It wasn’t my imagination. The arena was silent, the xith’cal frozen like someone had hit pause. Only Rupert and Caldswell were moving, and they were backing away. A second later, I saw why.
Something was stirring beneath the smoking wreckage of Reaper’s box, the broken metal shaking like there was an engine rumbling under it. Then, without warning, the pieces exploded out as Reaper shot to his feet.
As he rose, the pressure of his presence rose, too. The strength of it was enough to make my body go slack, and I almost lost Brenton. I recovered at the last second, bashing the mad symbiont into the sand again, but I was sorely tempted to toss Brenton and run.
I’d never seen Reaper fight. Never seen him do anything actually except sit around, give orders, and survive a missile to the chest. But even if I hadn’t witnessed that last part, my instincts were enough to tell me that Brenton was now the lesser threat by several orders of magnitude.
Fortunately, though, the xith’cal wasn’t looking at me. All his attention was on Caldswell, and as he stared the captain down, his shoulders began to shake with a horrible, deep, metallic sound. Laughter, I realized belatedly. Reaper was laughing.
His huge snout opened, showing thousands of yellow teeth sharp as shrapnel as he began to speak. The words were so deep they vibrated in my chest, and though I had no idea what the giant lizard was saying, Caldswell must have, because his shoulders stiffened.
“Devi!”
I glanced at my camera to see Rupert skid to a stop beside me. I hadn’t even seen him run over, but he was with me now, his knee on Brenton’s chest, pinning him down. “Let’s go!” he hissed.
“Can you understand that?” I said, pointing at Reaper.
“No, Caldswell’s the one who understands xith’cal,” Rupert said, tugging on my arm.
He’s telling Caldswell that he is impressed by his final blow, but it failed all the same, scrolled the text across my camera.
I gasped. I hadn’t realized Hyrek was still watching. “What else?” I asked, ignoring Rupert’s growl.
Your weapon is mine, sworn prey, Hyrek translated. Call your puppet squid off, or I will use her to destroy you all.
I frowned. Puppet squid? Caldswell must have thought the same thing, because the captain grinned wide as he glanced at me. I could almost see him putting two and two together as he remembered my earlier threat to call the lelgis if he betrayed me, and when he looked back at Reaper, his face was so cocky even I wanted to punch him.
“The lelgis aren’t here for me,” he said, folding his arms over his bloody chest as the tribe ship rumbled under the lelgis’ fire. “You’d better look to your tribe, Jorek, while you still have lizards left.”
Reaper hissed, and a roar rose from the stands, half rage, half shock. Even Hyrek’s text looked excited when it scrolled over the screen.
He used Reaper’s old name! The words flew by. That is the greatest insult. Tribe leaders abandon their names when they become the flesh of all. Caldswell must be suicidal to say such a thing to Reaper’s face.
Or calculating, I thought. Reaper looked ready to eat the captain right there, but as Caldswell held his ground, daring him, his hand was behind his back, waving at us to run. Rupert saw it too, and he tightened his grip on my arm, yanking me off Brenton. But before he’d gotten me to my feet, Reaper attacked.
For such a huge lizard, he could certainly move. His head snapped down like a trap, jaws plunging to devour Caldswell whole. If the captain hadn’t been a symbiont, that would have been the end. Even my Lady couldn’t have evaded Reaper’s teeth. But Caldswell was faster than death. He dropped and rolled just in time, and as he came up, the change rippled over his body.
I was used to seeing symbionts change by this point, but Caldswell’s shift still took me by surprise, mostly because it was so fast. Rupert and Brenton both took seconds to cover their body in scales. Not many, but you could see it happening. Caldswell changed like a flipped switch. One moment he was human, the next he was perched on claws as long and deadly as any I’ve ever seen, leaving shredded clothing behind as he dove out of the way of Reaper’s next attack.
For a supposedly injured old guy, it was a pretty impressive sight. Caldswell was so fast my cameras had trouble tracking him. Good thing, too, because Reaper was tearing after him now, and with every move, the huge xith’cal seemed to be growing even bigger as the lizards in the stands began to chant.
He’s drawing on the strength of the tribe. Hyrek’s message flew by in frantic bursts. You have to get out of there before he gets any stronger.
“Devi!” Rupert shouted at the same time, tugging my arm so hard I stumbled. “Let’s go!”
Even Brenton seemed to have caught what was going on. Maybe it was because I’d shot the tube out of his neck, cutting off the drugs, or maybe Reaper was just that scary, but Brenton seemed to be coming around. He still wasn’t talking, but his symbiont wasn’t fighting us anymore. Like me, he was staring at Caldswell and Reaper and the double ring of warrior xith’cal that now circled the arena.
I felt Rupert tense as his head swiveled, taking in our position. I didn’t have to look because my suit had already laid it out for me. The xith’cal that had charged into the
arena when we’d blasted through the floor hadn’t stopped coming while Reaper had been making his speech. The arena was thick with them now, and though they’d spread out to give their tribe leader room to fight, I had no illusions they’d let us run. I also didn’t see how we could take them all.
Rupert must have come to the same conclusion, because he moved closer to me. For a second, I thought he was about to remind me that this fiasco was my idea, but whatever his other failings, Rupert had always been tactful, and all he said was, “How do you want to do this?”
I blew out a long breath to put off admitting that I had no idea. Originally, I’d planned to escape using the chaos of a lelgis attack for cover and the death of their tribe leader to wreck the chain of command, but while the lelgis part had worked just fine, how was I supposed to know that asshole lizard could survive a missile to the chest? Now, though, no matter how I cased the situation, I couldn’t find our out. There were just too many of them, and we were too deep into the tribe ship. Even if we could break free of the warriors ringing us in, we’d have to fight our way back over fifteen miles of enemy territory to get to our ship. Rupert and I were good, but we weren’t that good.
And just like that, the feeling hit me in the gut. That cold, sinking tightness that comes when you know you’re completely screwed. Reaper was already a good five feet taller than he’d been when the fight started, and Caldswell’s escapes were getting narrower every time. Another few swipes and it would all be over. Caldswell would die, Rupert would die, the crew would get caught and die. Even goddamn Brenton would die, and I’d be a xith’cal weapon until I died too, a quiet, traitor’s death in a xith’cal lab where even the king’s death guides couldn’t find me.
My fists curled into tight balls. Rupert saw the motion, and his calm voice grew hard. “Devi?”
“No,” I said.
I felt him tense. “No what?”
“I’m not dying like this,” I snarled. “I’m not giving these lizards a goddamn thing.”
As the words left my mouth, the pins and needles of the black sickness spread up my arms like wildfire. I welcomed them. I’d been trying very hard to avoid this, but right now I was having a hard time caring about the consequences. For once, I hadn’t come looking for a fight. Reaper and Maat had captured me, sought to make me their weapon. Well, they were about to see just how dangerous a weapon I could be.
Rupert still had a death grip on my arm, but it didn’t matter. One thought was enough to pop my armor’s sleeve, leaving Rupert holding the pieces as I ripped away and charged straight at Reaper. I heard Rupert start running after me a second later, but for once, he was too slow. I’d thrown everything I had into this charge, and I launched into the air on my second step, shooting up toward the distant lights before flipping and coming down straight at Reaper with my soot-black arm held out in front of me like a spear.
As I fell toward the huge xith’cal, I could feel my rage coalescing. Sharpening, just like it had back in the glass cell. I was still furious, but it was a directed sort of fury. Like the battle drugs, but better. Even time felt slower, leaving me plenty of space to put my mind in order for what was likely to be my final hurrah.
One of the blessings of being a mercenary is that you have a much greater chance than most to pick the manner of your death. I’d always hoped mine would be glorious, but this was even more spectacular than I’d envisioned. My only sadness was that no one back home would ever get to see it, which was a real pity, because this would have wowed the Devastators for sure. That was fine, though. After everything that had happened, a glorious death was good enough for me. And when I got to the warrior’s gate of heaven, I’d be able to hold my head up high and tell them that Devi Morris had died as a Paradoxian should, taking her enemy with her.
That thought actually made me a little sad. I didn’t want to waste the virus, but honestly, it was probably better this way. The speed of the lelgis’ response had made me realize that my plan to use the virus to free the daughters was likely a pipe dream. It didn’t matter how secret the Eyes kept me, the lelgis would have found me the first time the virus killed a phantom, and that would have been that. Caldswell wouldn’t even have to betray me to bring the squids down on us with all their blue fire.
It seemed so obvious now that I felt like a complete idiot for not realizing it earlier, but it was far too late to change things. And anyway, this wasn’t such a bad end. I hadn’t killed Maat or her daughters, and I’d get to take out Reaper, which was more than the Republic Starfleet had ever been able to manage. Even better, I’d be making a chance for Rupert and the rest to get out. No, not bad at all, I decided, and that final thought was enough to put a smile on my face as I slammed my black hand down on the ridged scales of Reaper’s unguarded neck.
I felt Reaper’s plasmex before I felt him. It was like diving headfirst into a pool of voices, all of them roaring. My senses expanded in an explosion, and suddenly I could feel them, every xith’cal in Reaper’s Fleet like they were my own body. Reaper’s flesh, indeed. For one second, I was there with Reaper, part of his enormous presence, and then, like poison dripped in a well, the blackness began to spread.
When I’d killed the phantom, it had made me empty, but the deaths of the xith’cal filled me to bursting. I couldn’t begin to count how many there were, but I felt each one like a needle digging into my skin. Like the phantom, I could feel their pain, but this was worse, because unlike the phantom, the xith’cal weren’t actually dying. They were rotting, curling up like bits of fruit left out in the sun. If I’d been a real, trained plasmex user, I probably could have explained it better, but even though I was swimming in the stuff, I didn’t know plasmex from potatoes. All I could figure out was that the virus killed the most important part of the xith’cal but left the rest intact, dead but alive, and it was killing me, too.
I couldn’t feel the pins and needles anymore. I couldn’t feel my own body at all, actually, but I could feel the virus in my mind. It was like suffocating, only instead of air, I was being cut off from something I hadn’t even known my body needed. Plasmex, I guessed. This must have been what Maat had warned me about. The corruption had finally spread all the way, and now the virus was going to kill me. But even though I knew what was happening, I couldn’t do anything except sit and wait as the xith’cal shriveled up one by one until I was alone in the emptiness once again.
By the time the last one flared and died, I was deep in the blackness. If my first trip here had been dipping my fingers in a pond, this was diving to the bottom of the sea. I didn’t even know which way was up, or if the concept of up existed anymore. I was starting to wonder if I was dead when the image entered my mind.
After so much nothing, the sudden jumble of sensation made me jump. It was like someone had shoved a video feed directly into my consciousness and was playing everything at double time. For several seconds the chaos was overwhelming, but then, slowly, the images merged into meaning, and the meaning into something like words.
You should not be here, death bringer of the mad queen.
That was paraphrasing. Really, it was more like the jumpy, terrified feeling of trespassing somewhere where trespassing got you lynched mixed with the sense of reckless use, like I was a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler. The feelings were so complex and intense, it took me several seconds before I could answer.
“Who are you?” I said, turning toward the presence of the others in the emptiness, the others who had always been here. “And where is here?”
This time, their answer couldn’t be shaped into words. I got the feeling of motherhood and guardianship combined with that sense of smallness you get when you stare too long into the void of space. This was followed by a concept of infinity that nearly broke my mind with its hugeness, and yet I felt like I was part of it, a tiny speck floating in a greater oneness.
I rolled my eyes as the thoughts left. Great, now I sounded like Nova. But the weird image talking gave me an idea.
&nb
sp; “You’re the lelgis, aren’t you?” I said, or thought I said. It was hard to talk when you had no vocal cords to vibrate or air to resonate sound.
We are all, came the answer, followed by another shot of that intense sense of belonging to the infinite.
“Right, gotcha,” I said. “What do you want from me?”
That time, the answer was simple: a quick, bloodthirsty image of my death. But gruesome as the sight was, it gave me hope. After all, if the weird things in the dark wanted me dead, that must mean I was still alive somewhere.
“So why don’t you do it, then?” I said, crossing my nonexistent arms over where I thought my chest should be. Taunting giant invisible things might not have been the smartest move, but if they hadn’t squished me yet, there had to be a reason, and I wanted to know why.
You are shrouded in darkness we cannot pass. This time the words reeked of poison and toxicity and a strong warning to stay away. But you are the death of all. We must end you lest you end the endless. The feeling of oneness and infinity bloomed in my head again for a single moment before it cut out. This was followed by images of lelgis ships hunting through space like sharks through the sea. We will find you, death. The mad queen will not have you.
I didn’t understand that last bit. The phrase “mad queen” was very specific, but the sensation that came with it was a mix of sickness, fear, and pity. “Who is the mad queen?”
The one they made who is like us, the lelgis replied. The feeling of sickness and pity was back in force, but this time it came with an image: a girl bound to a wall with her face covered in a metal mask and sickness hanging around her like a fog.
“Maat,” I whispered, more to myself than to them, and then, “Hey! I don’t serve her.”
She seeks to use your death as her own, they said, and again, I felt the sensation of reckless use. But the mad queen must not die. It is for this we made agreements with the humans, but for you, all pacts are discarded.
