by F. T. Lukens
Ren kissed Asher’s nape as Asher pulled the blanket over them. Asher fell asleep quickly. Ren stayed awake, measuring the passage of time by Asher’s heart beats and the small snoring sounds he made when he turned his face into the pillow. Ren never wanted to move. He never wanted to be anywhere else ever again except in this bunk on this ship with his past firmly behind him and his future ahead, uncertain and frightening, but thick with potential in the promises of Asher’s kisses and the faith of the crew. Even without that, Ren was content to lie there, in the questionable softness of the bunk, with his back pressed against the metal wall and his feet sticking out the other end of the blanket and his arm trapped beneath Asher’s body so fingers were slowly becoming numb. Ren could become used to this and he would revel in the magnificent predictability of an unextraordinary life.
This is what Ren wanted: a soft place to land at the end of the day, Asher right beside him, and all the domesticity and routine and happiness of a life filled with love and certainty.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped and hoped and hoped it was possible.
10
“We’ll be close to Perilous Space soon,” Lucas said, plopping into a chair at breakfast. “There is a debris field a few hours out, and the prison is beyond that.”
After three days of uneventful travel, knowing their destination was so close spiked Ren’s anxiety. He sipped his coffee, and Asher rubbed his back. Asher sopped up egg with his toast as his palm swept up and down Ren’s spine. Ren took comfort in the familiar touch and consciously eased the tension from his shoulders.
They had a semblance of a plan. The specifics were hazy at best, but they’d get close enough for Ren to create a blueprint of the prison and go from there. Asher and Rowan had scoured the archives they could access, and Ollie and Darby had made plans which involved weapons and bombs that Ren hoped they didn’t have to use. Penelope ordered Ren to have daily check-ins regarding his wound and his fatigue. With regular use, Ren’s muscles had stopped seizing and constantly feeling weak, but he was far from one hundred percent. Exhaustion was a constant threat, and Ren spent most of his time either working out or sleeping.
He didn’t mind that much, since Asher joined him when he was able.
Penelope dropped a plate of food in front of him. “Eat,” she ordered. “You need the protein and the energy.”
Ren rolled his eyes fondly, but took the fork from Penelope’s outstretched fingers. Digging in, Ren chewed as the others filtered in. Darby shuffled by, barely lifting her feet, with her hair standing on end, and wearing pajama pants with little dogs on them, obviously Penelope’s. Lucas stifled a laugh, and Darby mustered a glare that was tempered by the picture of a tiny barking dog on her shirt.
Asher pulled his hand away, laced his fingers over his empty plate, and put his elbows on the table. Ren missed the warmth of his touch, but he couldn’t be greedy. He’d spent the last three days in Asher’s bunk, napping and exploring all the ways they fit. It was the most corporeal he’d felt in weeks. His consciousness was firmly within his body, and the ship was merely an occasional echo in his head. It was wonderful.
Smiling dreamily, Ren shivered as someone passed behind him; their touch whispered over the base of his skull. He snapped his head around to find… no one.
“You okay?” Asher asked.
Ren squinted, confused. “Yeah. I’m fine, I just thought…” he trailed off. He shook off the phantom touch. “Nothing.”
Asher raised an eyebrow, but went back to sniping with Lucas and Ollie.
Ren snatched Asher’s toast crust and popped it in his mouth. As nervous as he was about approaching Perilous Space, he was excited as well. Soon he’d find Liam, and then they could focus on their future—the crew’s, his with Asher’s, Liam’s as well.
A thought caressed the back of his mind, a fleeting murmur that was not his own. He jerked in his seat. “What did you say?”
The room was quiet. “Ren?” Asher asked.
A new ship is approaching. Older model. It doesn’t look like one of the Corps.
Ren’s ran a hand over his head. “Did you say something to me?”
“No, Ren, we haven’t said anything.”
“Is there another ship out there, Lucas? I swear I thought I heard something.”
Lucas shook his head slowly. “Not that I saw before I came down here. I would’ve seen it. Are you picking it up on the sensors?”
Ren bit his lip. “I’m not in the ship.”
“Are you sure?”
Ren gave Lucas a pointed look.
“Well! You tend to do weird things. I don’t know.”
A wrinkle appeared between Asher’s eyebrows. Ren absently smoothed it away with the pad of his finger, then dropped his hand to his lap.
“I’m fine. I just…”
I wonder what they’re doing all the way out here. They don’t belong.
Don’t worry. I doubt it’s anything exciting.
Ren stood abruptly. “Did you hear that? Tell me you heard that!”
The wrinkle deepened. Darby’s wide eyes and Penelope’s open mouth told Ren otherwise. They didn’t hear it. What was happening? There had to be a ship. Ren jumped into the sensors and raced through the wires. He pinged outward, but there were no ships and no communications in the area, only the beginnings of the rings of debris. Ren raced to find Rowan in her quarters, but she wasn’t on the comm system, or on a data pad.
Asher took Ren’s hand. “Ren?”
“I’m in the sensors on purpose. And Lucas is right, there are no ships.” Ren slotted back into his body. Confusion and fear formed a knot in his stomach. “I’m… I’m going back to bed.”
He scrambled out of the common area, leaving his dirty dish on the table, and stumbled toward Asher’s bunk. He was hearing things. He was stressed. He was tired. He hadn’t eaten well. He wasn’t slipping. He couldn’t be slipping again. Millicent wasn’t there. She was off courting disaster on drifts, and he’d been securely in his body for the last several days. He stretched his fingers and curled them toward his palm. He sat heavily on the bunk and counted his heart beats, inhaling and exhaling, feeling his lungs fill and expand, then empty. Running his nails over his scalp, Ren dropped his head in his hands.
“Please don’t be slipping. Not now.” He was on the verge of panicking. He could feel it, crawling into his throat, tightening around his neck. Sweat formed at his temples and nape. His heart raced.
The door opened, and Ren startled.
Asher held out his palms. “Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him, then sitting next to Ren on the bed. “What’s going on?”
Do you sense that? There’s one of us nearby.
Ren clapped his hands over his ears. He didn’t want to worry Asher, but he’d learned that keeping things bottled up was worse for him than telling Asher the truth.
“I’m hearing things,” he whispered. “And it’s not another ship or any of the crew sending messages.”
Asher made a low noise. “Are you stressed?”
Ren’s shoulders hunched near his ears, and the food he ate a few minutes ago swirled in his stomach. “Yes, of course.”
“Are you panicked?”
“No. I mean, yes, but it’s coming from the voices.” Ren dropped his hands and ran his palm up and down his thighs; the rough fabric of his trousers chafed against his skin, grounding him. “The voices aren’t a symptom of my panic attacks. But apparently they’re a trigger.” His breath hitched.
“It could be a new symptom, Ren. Despite the rest we’ve had the past few days, you’ve been running nonstop since you woke up. You were inside the ship for weeks. You’re fatigued. You might be feeling a few strange aftereffects.”
“Maybe,” Ren said, unease an unpleasant thrum beneath his skin. “You’re not wrong.”
Asher sighed. “Let’s take a na
p.”
“We just woke up,” Ren said, lips tipping up into a half-smile.
Asher shrugged. “We didn’t sleep much the night before.”
“I’m not going to argue with a nap.”
“Good. Shove over.”
Asher manhandled Ren into where he wanted him, with Asher on his back and Ren tucked along his side. Ren’s arm was slung over Asher’s waist; his head rested on Asher’s shoulder.
“When this is over,” Asher said, tugging up the blanket, “we’re buying a better blanket and a new pillow.”
Ren snorted. “I don’t disagree. Your pillow is horrendously lumpy.”
Asher dug his fingers into Ren’s rib and made him squirm closer. Ren let out a breathless laugh, and the curl of Asher’s lips into a smile did more to abate the clench of his heart than anything else.
“It is. We’ll have to buy at least three pillows for our bed. And a bigger blanket, since you steal.”
Ren made a half-hearted protest, but closed his eyes and reveled in the warmth and comfort of Asher’s body. “It’ll be the first thing we do. After we storm a prison, save my brother, and stop a powerful technopath.”
“Go to sleep, Ren.”
Ren snuggled in and, between one breath and the next, he fell asleep.
_
The hollow thud of metal debris hitting the hull echoed through the Star Stream, but that was not what woke Ren from his dead sleep. It was the sound hidden within, the voice of the debris’ occupant. The bed was empty except for Ren and a tangle of sheets. He swung his legs over the side and didn’t bother taming his hair or putting on shoes before he was out into the hallway. Vision blue, Ren ran to the bridge.
Do you think they know we’re here?
Sprinting through the hallway of the crew quarters, Ren passed the open arch to the common area. He didn’t stop when Asher and Darby called his name. He jumped up the steps to the bridge, ducking at the last minute.
He was already connected to the ship; his star bled out of the soles of his feet into the sensors and outward. With every step he took, they became louder, and his connection with reality stretched and dimmed. Voices. So many whispers in his ears. Talking. To each other. Not to him. Do they know he was here? Do they know he can hear them? Was he eavesdropping? Was he picking up something on the sensors?
No, this was different. This was… surreal.
Lucas swiveled in his chair. “Ren?”
“What is that?” Ren asked, pointing to the debris that surrounded them.
“The debris field around Perilous Space. Where the last of the technopaths were destroyed in the war between them and the organization that became the Corps.”
Asher and Darby walked onto the bridge, and Asher clapped his hand on Ren’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“The voices.” Ren closed his eyes and opened himself. It was like a zipper being pulled, a revelation of power and energy, and, with that one action, the universe opened.
“Do you hear them?” Ren asked.
Ren turned his head to find Asher staring at him with wide eyes and a concerned frown.
“Ren? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Ren squinted. Asher was beautiful bathed in blue.
“Can you hear that?”
Asher’s lips turned down farther. “Hear what, Ren?”
“The voices. They’re talking.”
Lucas opened the shipwide comm. “We’re approaching Perilous Space. All crew to the bridge. We may be having a situation.”
Asher crowded close to Ren’s side and placed his hands on Ren’s shoulders; the action was slow and deliberate. “Ren, tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s… voices. I hear voices.”
Biting his lip, Asher asked. “Is this panic? What do you need?”
“No, this isn’t an attack. This is…” How could he explain it? Murmurs and absent thoughts whispered in his head. The hairs on his arm stood up, and he trembled. Power shivered down his spine. He moved to the vid screen and studied the shapes and scraps of metal and circuits and wires which floated around them. They were ships. Dozens of ships, their components singed and tortured, twisted hunks of metal that gently bumped the Star Stream’s hull. They spoke to him. It was them. It had to be. “I’m hearing someone else’s thoughts.” No. That wasn’t right. Not someone’s. Several different… beings.
Ren allowed Asher to guide him to Rowan’s chair while they waited for Rowan and the rest of the crew. He blinked sluggishly and walked with delicate steps, conscious of not much other than the heat of Asher’s grip on his body and the voices swelling in his head. Asher ran his fingers through Ren’s hair and gripped his hand as if he might float away.
“Look at all this debris,” Lucas said, sweeping his hand toward the view screen. “It surrounds the prison on three sides. No wonder it’s impenetrable.”
“We can get through,” Rowan said, stepping onto the bridge followed by Ollie and Penelope. She raised an eyebrow at Ren in her chair, but then stopped short, mouth dropping open. “Ren? What’s going on?”
Tongue thick in his mouth, Ren closed his eyes. “Do you hear them?”
“Uh oh,” Pen said softly.
“Is he going glowy?” Darby asked, inching away. “Is that what’s happening?”
“Ash?”
“He looks like a ghost.”
“He’s not a ghost.”
Ren tilted his head. The voices were clearer now. They spoke to each other and they weren’t talking to him. Did they know he was there? Could they feel him? Could they recognize him for what he was?
Ren surged out into the debris field.
They saw him then.
Hello, there.
“Hello. Are you real?”
Of course. As real as you are.
“Are you like me?”
We are you.
“What is going on?” Asher shook him, and Ren’s body swayed. “Ren?”
With squinted blue glowing eyes, Ren turned to the group on the Star Stream. They watched him warily, and Darby appeared ready to bolt with her body angled toward the exit.
“They’re out there. Technopaths. Like me. In the debris. I can feel them.”
Asher’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “Are you serious?”
Why are you here?
“To rescue my brother.”
Asher kneeled in front of the chair and filled up Ren’s vision. “Don’t talk to them. We don’t know what they want.”
“My boyfriend says I shouldn’t talk to you.”
Why? Is he afraid of us? Many people are. But in this incarnation, we are hardly worthy of fear. We were vanquished and forced to live scattered in this debris.
“Wait. I don’t understand.” Ren slumped in the captain’s chair. “You’ve been here all this time?”
The rest of the crew exchanged glances. Rowan joined Asher. “Ren, we can’t hear them. Can you feed them through our comm system?”
Dipping farther into his star, Ren split his concentration between the voices emanating from the debris field and the systems of the Star Stream. He fed the sound through the sensors and into the comm system. It crackled to life, and the bridge filled with the sounds of noncorporeal beings. Their voices flooded the small metal space.
They talked over each other and they talked in unison. It was a cacophony of tones, low and high, slow and fast, bleeding into one synchronous and resonant voice echoing with the power of dozens.
“Holy stars,” Darby whispered. She moved closer to Ollie, Penelope, and Lucas. They all stared at the ceiling of the bridge. They should have looked out at the remnants of the ships and drifts which spread like asteroids and dust across the wide expanse of the cluster.
If Ren concentrated, he could pinpoint the faint glow of the ones that housed the voices
which spoke to him. They pinged in his chest, reverberated through his flesh and bone, echoed the stuttered heartbeat in his chest. They were pure power, stardust incarnate, basic elements of life made sentient. They were his kin, more like him than any human.
Asher grasped one of Ren’s arms with both hands. Rowan took the other and held on. Ren saw their fingers wrapped around the sleeves of his shirt, saw their pale skin contrasting with the dark cloth, saw their nails dimpling the fabric. Were they scared? Were they afraid Ren would float away with the voices? That he’d become as incorporeal as they were? He’d done it once. He could do it again.
He didn’t want to do it again.
He didn’t want to leave Asher.
Ren placed his hand over Asher’s and eased his fingers over the straining tendons of Asher’s fingers. His skin was dry and cool against Asher’s clammy sweat.
“It’s okay.”
“Where did you go, little technopath? Are you still there?”
The crew jumped at the voice directed at Ren.
“I’m here. My friends can hear you now. I’m funneling you through our systems.”
“Very clever. Are they afraid?”
Darby nodded vigorously. Asher’s grip tightened, and his brow furrowed. Ren smoothed his fingers over the wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“They are worried for me.”
“Ah, they should not be. We are no danger to you. We can sense you are powerful. Not many can feel us in the expanse of space. Others have recently passed by and did not sense our presence.”
Ren’s blood ran cold. Did they mean Millicent?
“Who are you?” Asher’s voice ran out strong and clear.
“We are the losers. We are the victorious. We are the immortal. We are the perilous.”
Rowan slowly released Ren. Her fingers left creases in the fabric of his shirt. She tossed her braid over her shoulder, and Ren saw the second her fear subsided and turned into annoyance. “That’s not who you are. That’s a bunch of ominous titles which mean dust. We don’t deal with frauds and tricksters.”
