Author: Rachel Bach

I rolled my eyes as the thoughts left. Great, now I sounded like Nova. But the weird image talking gave me an idea.

“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.

With the words came a feeling of broken promises and an image of a man standing before a circle of alien figures so enormous I couldn’t comprehend them. But that wasn’t what got me. What got me was that I recognized the man.

It was Caldswell. He looked about a decade younger and he was wearing a Republic officer’s coat, and at his side was Maat. The real Maat, not a daughter. I couldn’t say how I was so sure, but I knew it was her without a doubt. She was kneeling on the ground, clutching Caldswell’s sleeve and begging him, pleading with tears in her eyes for him not to do something. Before I could figure out what, though, the image vanished.

We come, the lelgis said. Go now, death bringer. Never return.

I was about to call bullshit on that when something hit me. It felt like I’d fallen ten stories and landed face-first on the ground, but instead of stopping, I was blown back through the emptiness. I flew forever, going faster and faster and faster. And then, like a bullet breaking through ice, I crashed back into my body.

I woke with a start to find myself pinned tight against something hard that was moving very quickly, bouncing up and down through somewhere dim and gray. It was so weird that if it wasn’t for the Lady’s familiar heads-up displays scattered across my vision, I’d have worried I was still dreaming. I shifted experimentally, testing my fingers. My left hand felt fine, but my right felt very odd. I spent several seconds in confusion over this before I realized my right arm felt funny because it wasn’t armored.

“Well, look who’s come to,” said a smug, familiar voice. “Welcome back to the party, Morris.”

I closed my eyes with a groan. Oh goody, we’d saved Caldswell. I opened my eyes again and looked around, actually using my cameras this time, and I saw that the world was bobbing up and down because Rupert was carrying me on his back. Caldswell was behind him, still in symbiont form and looking worse for wear but on his feet. He had a shape on his back too, a black scaly one. Brenton.

I shifted my position, moving my hands up to grip Rupert’s shoulders. As I did this, I noticed that my naked arm was clean again with no sign of the black soot. Relief flooded through me. I hadn’t realized how scared I’d been that I’d broken myself for good until I saw my normal skin.

“Put me down,” I said, looking at Rupert, whose scale-covered head was right beside mine. “I can run on my own.”

“No,” Rupert snapped with a vehemence that made me flinch.

“You scared him good back there,” Caldswell explained. “We couldn’t get you to wake up, and that black stuff was almost up to your neck.” He shook his head. “Trust me, you should just let him carry you.”

Rupert’s grip tightened possessively on me as the captain spoke, and I couldn’t tell if I was touched or annoyed by that. A bit of both, I decided in the end. But Caldswell was right, I wasn’t up for fighting Rupert. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if I was up for running, either. My skin might look fine, but my body felt like it had been chewed up and spit out.

“What happened?” Because I wasn’t sure how much of my dream was dream and how much was real.

“I’m not sure,” Caldswell said. “I was busy trying not to get my head bitten off, so I didn’t see where you came from. You just appeared on top of Reaper’s shoulder, perched up there like a little silver bird, and the moment you touched him, Reaper stopped.”

“He died?” I asked.

“No, he stopped,” Caldswell repeated, his voice going grim. “They all did, every single lizard. It was like someone pulled the plug on the whole tribe. I’ve never seen anything like it, but we didn’t stick around to spectate. We got you and ran.”

I took a long breath. So much for the dream theory. “You didn’t get near the black stuff, did you?”

“No,” Rupert said. “We stayed back until it faded.” His voice was tight, and I could tell that had not been his decision. “I have your Lady’s arm piece, by the way,” he added. “But I couldn’t put it on while you were unconscious.”

“Really?” When Caldswell had said they’d run, I’d thought for sure that the armor I’d shed to get away from Rupert was gone forever, so when he told me it wasn’t, the relief was almost too much to bear. “Thank you!” I cried, wrapping my arms around Rupert’s neck so hard I would have broken it if he’d been human.

Caldswell made a choking sound, but I ignored him, reaching out my bare hand. Rupert slowed down just enough to hand me the pieces he’d been carrying. I snatched them from him and put them back on with frantic glee. Elsie’s blade had been attached to my right arm, after all. If I’d lost her, that would make two blades I’d sacrificed to xith’cal, which was simply unacceptable. “How much farther?”

“We’re almost there,” Rupert said, his voice much less angry now. “We made much better time with no lizards to worry about.”

“So they’re really all dead?” I asked.

Caldswell shook his head. “No. Learn to listen, Morris. I said they stopped.”

“What he’s saying is that the xith’cal aren’t moving,” Rupert clarified. “But they’re not dead either. They just stopped where they were.”

Cold dread began to curl in my stomach. “They won’t be like that for long,” I whispered. “This is about to become another ghost ship.”

“We figured as much,” Caldswell replied. “That’s why we’re hustling. What I want to know is why the lelgis have stopped firing.”

I had no idea why the lelgis would stop shooting, considering they’d told me in no uncertain terms they were coming to kill me. I didn’t like the sound of it at all, though, and I messaged Hyrek for an update.

They backed off and stopped firing about five minutes ago, Hyrek reported. Now they’re just sitting out there. We haven’t seen any of Reaper’s tribe either, and all the ship feeds have gone dead. What’s going on?

“Just get ready to fly,” I said, pulling up the map of the slave roads my suit had drawn on our first trip through. “We’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Who are you talking to?” Caldswell asked.

I turned so I could grin at him. “Hyrek,” I replied, tapping my helmet. “Onboard computer and com, reason number eight hundred and one why powered armor is better than a symbiont. The crew knows we’re coming, and they’re getting the ship warmed up for us right now.”

“Good work, Morris,” Caldswell said, and though he was no longer my captain, I couldn’t help feeling smug.

Sure enough, we made it back to the little dock right when I said we would. It was empty, just like Hyrek had said. The ship Rupert had commandeered had its ramp down, and Mabel was waiting for us when we ran up.

“Everything’s ready to go so far as I can tell, sir,” she said, scowling at the shape on Caldswell’s shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“Brenton,” Caldswell replied, marching up the ramp.

“Wonders never cease,” Mabel said as the captain unceremoniously dumped Brenton’s unconscious body just inside the door.

“Let’s get moving, people!” Caldswell shouted, striding toward the front of the ship.

Mabel gave Rupert and me an appraising look, then she smiled and turned to follow Caldswell. I had no idea what that smile meant, but it hadn’t looked smug. If anything, I’d have said she looked relieved, but before I could think more about it, Rupert hopped up the ramp as well and set me down. Despite my fears, I was able to stand without help, mostly. I had to grab the door in the end, but I hid my wobble by making like I was leaning in to take stock of my surroundings.

The ship wasn’t actually as small as it had looked from the outside, and it was definitely a female ship. The ceilings were much too low for male xith’cal, though they were still high by my standards. Also, unlike the raiding ships I’d spent my career busting up, it was clean. Everything was clinically neat and orderly, from the little hall we were standing in to the labs that opened off it. A science vessel, then, and a nice new one at that. Or it looked new to me. I’m not much of an engineer in my own race. Xith’cal equipment was way above my pay grade.

I was still getting my bearings when arms wrapped around me, and I stumbled into Rupert. He’d dropped the scales over his head while I wasn’t looking, and he was hugging me like he was afraid I’d vanish. “Take off your helmet,” he whispered.

I didn’t bother arguing. The moment my helmet clicked, Rupert pulled it off and dove at me, his lips slamming into mine. It was a brutal, desperate kiss. Rupert was always intense, but this was different. He radiated fear and need as he clutched me tighter, making my suit creak, and as his power overwhelmed me, I started to realize just how badly I’d scared him.

Finally he broke the kiss, lifting up just enough to whisper against my lips. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Not planning on it.”

“I’m serious, Devi,” he growled. “Never again. Promise me.”

“I’m not promising anything of the sort,” I said, pushing away. “I do what I have to do, Rupert. And we are not back on kissing terms.”

Rupert closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine with a frustrated sound. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I didn’t see what there was to talk about, but he was right. This was not the time. The ship was already spinning up. Rupert and I pulled apart, and he handed me back my helmet. I put it on as we walked to the front to see what we were up against.

The xith’cal bridge was surprisingly similar to every other bridge I’ve been on. There were the usual consoles against the walls and the pilot’s station up front facing the view port. Nova was sitting off to one side on a padded stool that was way too big for her, doing math on a touchscreen that took up an entire wall. The numbers must not have needed translation, because she was deep in an equation, though she did look up to give me a shaky smile when I stepped in.