by Ben Hale
Inary smiled faintly. “A dozen dakorians and a krey, worried for a single human girl and a dakorian child.”
“She is no normal girl,” Reklin said.
“I’ll never forget when she healed Eldeza.”
Reklin faced his sister. “When did she do that?”
“Eldeza was one of those injured when the Ghosts took Mora,” Inary said. “Siena arrived and she didn’t hesitate. Even though Eldeza was a dakorian, she saved her life.”
“The girl has the heart of a dakorian,” he murmured.
“I think they all do.” She motioned to the augments, some of which were unconscious. Seven were under blankets and would never rise again. Of the twenty that had come onto the Kildor, half would not return to Lumineia. They’d either died before escaping, or succumbed to their wounds after rescue.
“Everything we thought about their race was wrong,” Reklin said.
“I know that now,” she replied. “They may not have our armor or stature, but they are just like us. And we’re all slaves in the Krey Empire.”
“No, sister. We are only slaves if we choose to be. And I’ve given enough of my life and blood to them.”
“What are you saying?”
Reklin held her gaze. “That I don’t want my life owned by anyone—not even House Bright’Lor. I want my life to be mine. To have children and raise them the way Sheklin taught. I want our family to be free.”
“You think that’s possible?”
Across the crowded ship, Reklin spotted Ero sitting in the pilot’s chair in the cockpit. There was blood on his cloak, from humans and dakorians he’d saved. He, like Reklin and all the others, had been changed by Siena, and there was no turning back.
“I believe it is,” Reklin said.
She lowered her voice. “Did Ero really give up House Bright’Lor to rescue us?”
He nodded. “It appears we are all outcasts.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “We can’t go back to Rebor.”
“I know. But whatever comes, we will face it together.”
“Approaching the next escape pod!” Kensen shouted.
Reklin nodded to his sister and turned to the airlock. A speck appeared in the distance, and grew as they approached. Hope stilled his heart and he waited for the onboard cortex to sync with the pod’s rotation. A gravity leash pulled it in, and the hatch sealed. Reklin swung it open and unlocked the pod’s doors. Lyn was inside, holding an unconscious Quin to her chest.
Reklin noted the gash on Quis’ head. “Lavana! We need a cell regenerator.”
He then reached into the pod and gently lifted the boy. Lyn’s clothes were torn, and there were ion burns across her stomach and knee. She grimaced as she stepped through the gap, her eyes sweeping the crowded vessel. Reklin placed Quis on a flat section of the floor and Lavana brought the cell regenerator. The subdermal cell regenerators from the bomber had only lasted a few people, but there had been some supplies onboard the Crescent. Lavana bent over the wound and used the handheld device’s light to rebuild the cells. Quis would have an ugly scar across his cheek, but he would live.
“Where’s Siena?” Lyn asked as Reklin closed the airlock and the pod drifted away.
“We’re clear!” Reklin called to Ero, and then shook his head. “No sign of her or Mora.”
“You think they made it out?” Lyn asked.
“I don’t know.”
Lyn hesitated, and then patted him on the elbow. “If anyone could survive, it’s Siena. And she would never let Mora die.”
“There’s two pods to go. Hopefully we’ll find her in one of them.”
Lyn patted him on the elbow again and then went to help the wounded. Reklin watched her go, struggling to retain his hope. Siena had come for him. She’d saved him and his family. He would not abandon her.
Reklin clung to his hope as they retrieved the first pod, which had two dakorians of Reklin’s family, Yeven and Eldeza, as well as Begle and Bort. The life-support system on the pod had been damaged, and the four were freezing and suffering from oxygen deprivation. Reklin helped them out and added them to the overcrowded space.
As they approached the final pod, his heart felt like it was in a spine clamp. But when the doors opened, he found Rexia and Thren. As grateful as he was to find them, there was a note of finality as he shut the door and unlocked the final pod. He turned and picked his way to the cockpit.
“That’s the last of the escape pods,” he said.
“We must have missed her,” Ero said.
Reklin sighed. “Maybe.”
“Could she have been on one of the pods for Malikin’s crew?” Kensen asked. “Maybe she ended up with them.”
Reklin thought of what she’d done to Thekton, one of the strongest Bloodwalls in the fleet, and shook his head. “They could not have subdued her.”
Ero grinned. “We’ll backtrack and see what we can find. Kensen, keep scanning.”
Reklin leaned against the cold bulkhead as Ero guided the ship on a return course. The holo blinked with every pulse of the sensors, the scan registering pieces of debris from the Kildor. The wreckage was scattered across two hundred lightyears of space, the chunks of seracrete, conduits, and other unrecognizable material tagged by the sensors and dismissed as too small to be an escape pod or ship. Ero still insisted on checking anything large enough to be a person.
“She walked in space without an exo, remember?” Ero said. “She’ll be here.”
Reklin didn’t have the heart to argue, and hoped the krey was right. But as the minutes turned into hours, they continued to find nothing. Just debris and empty space. And with each new failure, a little light drained out of Ero’s face, the truth chipping away at his disbelief until they finally floated above the misshapen bow of the Kildor. Reklin felt the same emptiness.
“But where did she go?” Quis asked.
The cockpit was crowded with augments, most nursing wounds. No one complained about the cramped space, not even Ero, who stared out the cracked forward window until his hands dropped from the controls. Reklin winced at the krey’s defeat.
“Could she be in there?” Lyn pointed to the slowly spinning bow. A single repulsor sputtered, glowing in the darkness.
“If she is, there’s not enough for the sensors to identify as human,” Kensen said softly.
“What about the stern of the Kildor?” Reklin said. “What happened to it?”
“I can’t find it,” Kensen said, and twisted the holo to show the region of space. “It stayed in the hyperlight bubble longer than we did, and every second would have carried it hundreds of lightyears beyond this position.”
“But can’t we track that?” Quis asked, his voice plaintive.
Kensen met the boy’s gaze. “I can’t. Its course was decaying and unpredictable.”
Lavana’s voice was kind. “Think of a boat on an ocean. If it turns even a tiny amount, its destination changes significantly. But we don’t know by how much or which direction the ship turned, and we don’t know how long it stayed in the bubble.”
“You’re saying she could be anywhere in the quadrant?” Reklin asked.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Kensen said.
Kensen’s broken voice settled on all of them, the sound of defeat. Reklin tried not to think, and yet his own augment would not be suppressed. If she’d been on the stern half of the Kildor, she and Mora would have endured the full brunt of the gravity distortions when it went through emergency deceleration. Even with her augments, it was unlikely she could have survived.
“But it’s Siena,” Ero insisted. “We all know what she can do. She put Thekton down like he was a roak, killed Malikin, and freed us. She ripped an entire starship in half. She’s too defiant to die.”
“Everyone dies,” Reklin said softly.
Ero came to his feet and turned on him. “Not Siena. I won’t believe it. She’s alive. I know it. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care about the cost. We’re going
to find her.”
“We’ll come back,” Kensen said.
“We’re not leaving,” Ero snapped.
Reklin stared out the forward window, his voice hollow. “We have no supplies, and the Crescent is barely operational.”
Kensen pointed to the holo of the ship. “It wasn’t fully repaired when we stashed it and—”
“Don’t tell me what it can do,” Ero snarled. “I’m seventeen thousand years old. I was here when these ships were built and put into service. I was alive when ships like this were upgraded from the Mark I to the Mark II—and the Mark III and IV. I know how long it can last. Now funnel power into the sensors and let’s find the rest of the Kildor!”
Kensen didn’t move, and everyone on the ship stood silent. Ero glared at them, his eyes flicking from one to the next, demanding, begging them to move. Reklin had never seen a krey so desperate.
“Ero.” Reklin stared at the krey, shocked to realize that he was behaving like Siena’s father. “I’m sorry.”
“She saved my life!” Ero shouted. “More times than I can count, she came for me. A human for a krey.”
“She came for me, too,” Reklin said softly.
“Because that’s who she is,” Lyn said.
“She saved all of us.” Quis bowed his head, and tears wet the bandage on his cheek.
Reklin leaned against the wall and tilted his head back, unable to bear the loss. Ero abruptly wilted. All the anger melted out of him, and he slumped into the pilot’s chair. In mute regret, the two stared out the forward window.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Reklin said.
“She’s not dead.” Ero spoke like he was trying to convince himself, as if the words would refute reality. No one responded, and the cold truth settled over everyone. Reklin hadn’t felt such an ache in his chest since Sheklin had died.
“Ero’s right,” Lavana said firmly.
All eyes turned to her, and Ero said, “You agree with me?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m as surprised as you are.”
“What are you talking about?” Reklin turned to his mother.
“We all know the girl,” Lavana said, her tone so fierce they all looked to her. “If we can’t find her, then that means she’ll find a way back. Agreed?”
Heads bowed in mourning gradually lifted, chins rising and setting in firm accord. There were murmurs of agreement, and Reklin realized that his mother was right.
Ero began to nod, and then flashed a lopsided grin. “She’ll probably show up when we need her most.”
“You think so?” Quis asked hopefully.
“She does have an odd talent for it,” Kensen said.
“That she does,” Reklin agreed.
Ero chuckled to himself and twisted the seat, his hands returning to the controls. Despite his smile and confidence, Reklin noticed the tremble to his fingers, and the speed at which he set the Crescent. They were two days from the nearest settlement, but as they jumped to hyperlight, they turned their attention to the future. They were refugees on a stolen ship without a destination. But they had hope.
One look around the cockpit made it clear that every one of them would not give up on Siena. And after two centuries of combat and service, Reklin understood the reason. Krey or human, soldier or slave, it didn’t matter. The girl had taught humans their worth, krey that they had a higher purpose, and dakorians that they could do more than kill. They were a family.
And Siena was their leader.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The stern of the Kildor spun through space, venting atmosphere and scattering debris. It had stayed in the hyperlight bubble for four minutes after the bow had tumbled free, and when it did breach the bubble, the violent deceleration had ripped the hull apart. Emergency shields shimmered, holding most of the air from escaping.
In the bowels of the devastation, a small dakorian girl heaved a beam of seracrete out of place. She desperately shoved plating and sparking conduits aside until she reached the prone body.
“My Seena!” Mora shouted.
The voice sounded distant to Siena, but the slap in the face was close. She lurched upward, the sting driving her to retreat. Her head felt sticky and something held her leg pinned. Then Mora’s face resolved into focus.
“Mora?”
“I thought Seena dead!”
The girl wrapped her arms around Siena’s neck, engulfing her in an embrace that strained her already sore muscles. She groaned, and Mora immediately retreated, her expression repentant. Siena squinted into the gloomy compartment.
She vaguely recalled teleporting into an escape chamber, but the pod had been damaged and the hull had buckled. With no other option, she’d pulled Mora out of the room and sprinted down the hallway, racing to get away from the ruptured alpha lines. They’d made it to a storage chamber at the end of the ship. Then she’d feverishly sought to pull the gravity into a cushion that must have kept them alive.
“Think you can help me with this?” She motioned to the section of plating pinning her foot.
“I strong,” Mora said proudly, and grasped the end. Too weak to assist, Siena pulled her leg free, sending whole new waves of pain up her limb. She activated her healing augment and breathed a sigh of relief at the expanding numbness.
“Help me up,” Siena said.
With surprising gentleness, Mora put her shoulder under Siena and lifted. Grimacing, Siena dragged her foot under her body and limped to the door. The entire door was warped, and she had to use an augment to force it open. Gasping in exhaustion, she and Mora squeezed through the gap.
They were in the rear of the Kildor, close to the propulsion drives. Everything was silent, and every few seconds the gravity wobbled, making her stomach lurch. She guessed the gravity emitters were operating on backup power, and wouldn’t hold for long.
“We need to find a control panel,” she said.
Mora helped her down the corridor, and Siena looked for anything still working. After several minutes they found a door that functioned, and entered a backup control center. It was located at the front of the wreckage, and emergency shields closed off an entire wall. Beyond, the emptiness of space yawned, and it took several moments for Siena to gather her courage enough to enter.
Siena limped to the control panel and activated the holo with a touch. The coding flickered, but she breathed a sigh of relief to find it still functional. It seemed the Kildor had possessed two primary cortexes that worked in tandem, both with the capacity to function without the other. Useful in case of damage, but Siena doubted the designers had thought the ship would be torn in two.
“We have minimal power,” she said. “The Kildor had a gravity harvester, and it looks like it kicked in when the drives blew. It’s collecting ambient graviton floating through space, and it’s just enough to keep the life-support systems from failing.”
That was being generous, and she quickly shut down nonessential systems to conserve power. The holo stopped flickering and the shields brightened. She vowed to thank Kensen for his constant yammering about starships.
Mora had drifted close to the shield. “Come away from that,” Siena said. “It’s dangerous.”
“Where mother?” Mora asked.
Siena checked the logs, and found that every other escape pod had been jettisoned. A scan for life signs didn’t even burp. Her fear mounted at the cold realization. They were alone. On half a ship. In deep space. With limited systems. She quickly checked what they had available.
Navigation and propulsion had been in the bow, and she had partial access to a limited node that had been in the stern. Flight control was gone, as was the cortex for the propulsion system. They had life support, at least, and the storage rooms probably had supplies. Most importantly, the entirety of the communication array, the primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries, had been either in the bow, or in the midship. Even if she could have powered it, she lacked the equipment to send a beamcast.
“Seena?” Mora’s voi
ce was plaintive.
“Yes?” She didn’t take her eyes off the controls.
“I hungry.”
She found Mora looking up at her, her expression downcast. Realizing it had been over an hour since they’d entered the room, Siena forced a smile and offered a hand. Mora gladly took it.
“Let’s find something to eat, shall we?”
They limped their way down the devastated corridor in search of food. In a storage compartment, they located a handful of scattered crates that were still intact and a functional food replicator. Siena inserted the protein, carbohydrate, and vitamin tubes into their appropriate slots and the mech rumbled. She picked up a broken cup and collected the horg that spilled out of the spout. She had to tilt it to keep it from leaking as she handed it to Mora.
She eyed it critically and then took a sniff. “Smells funny,” she said suspiciously.
“It’s horg,” Siena said. “It’s got all essential components we need to live.”
“Smells like feet.”
Siena snorted in agreement. “Maybe, but it’s all we have right now.”
Mora reluctantly took the tilted cup and sipped. She made her disgust evident but sat on a crate and didn’t complain further. Siena filled her own cup and sat across from her. Beneath the flickering lights in the wreckage of the Kildor, they shared a silent meal.
Siena sipped the horg, for once not noticing the taste. The ship had broken apart hours ago, but no one had come. According to the logs, a bomber had exited the hangar bay before the rupture. She’d traced the Gate usage back to the bridge, suggesting Ero and Reklin had taken the ship to escape. If they had survived, they would have tracked the escape pods of those from Lumineia. If they had survived.
She refused to consider the possibility that the bomber had been destroyed, and that Ero and Reklin were dead. Ero was a gifted pilot and would have found a way to survive the bow’s rapid deceleration. So why hadn’t he come for them? Even the back half of the Kildor was a kilometer in length and half as tall. But without communication they probably had the sensor reading of a lump of discarded rock, an asteroid simply drifting through the deep.
