Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54

ALINA

" W hat the fuck did you do, Alina?"

"I'm sorry!"

I'm not.

"Goddamn it!" Kaia was reeling, stomping back and forth in the secret nook of the docking bay where the comms link they'd found was situated.

Alina had been summoned.

Isabelle had her head in her hands, pulling at the roots of her platinum blonde hair, long legs straddling her chair backward.

"You're saying we had a chance to get our ship back months ago and you fucking blew it?" Kaia spun on her. Her cheeks were angry crimson. "And now we've got two weeks for someone to come help us out here, instead of the year we'd planned for."

"He was bleeding out and I… I… I couldn't just…" Alina grasped for excuses that would never be good enough.

She thought she'd done a good job of protecting her NS, closing down her link before this conversation, but her distress must have seeped out anyway because she felt Threxin nudging at her walls. He was not yet good enough to break them, but he was getting there. She shuttered him out .

"You didn't fucking tell him, did you? About this?" Kaia hissed, motioning to the cables strewn around them in the tiny space. "Or did you betray that too?"

"No, I didn't tell him," Alina rushed out. "But maybe he should know."

"Fuck that! Do you have any fucking idea?—"

"Maybe this is fine." Isabelle lifted her head, hugging the back of the chair against her chest. "She's got access now. Maybe that was the point."

"Was it?" Kaia looked sharply at Alina. "Were you whoring yourself out for the greater good, Alina?"

A sick knot formed in her throat.

"At first it was the point." She ignored the whoring comment. "And it worked. I got Uploads back. I got him to do better down in the CRD. The shipment? That was for me. I kept him from killing Orion's father."

"What?" Kaia blurted out. "What happened with Per?"

"Threxin tried to get information out of him. He saw us together and Threxin wanted to kill him to protect our relationship, but I got him not to."

" Relationship ," Kaia spat, and it made Alina really fucking angry that she was trivializing this. Kaia herself was married to a part-uhyre. Why was the full thing any different? "Where is he now? Orion's father."

"I convinced Threxin to keep him under watch instead of killing him, so it worked! Did you know Per Halen wanted Threxin to… to mate with us? Produce more heirs for the ship? He didn't even know about the limiters then, and…"

"Of course I knew—why the fuck do you think he was locked away this whole time?" Kaia spat. "And the limiters… God, you had useful information all along. You should be tried for treason."

Alina froze, stupefied. What if that happened? What if they were going to put her on trial? Or worse, just not bother, just get rid of her …

"Kaia, I'm so—" Alina stopped mid-sentence, looking between Isabelle and her charge. "You know what? I'm not sorry. What do you think would've happened if I just let him die? Do you think the others would just walk away and let us live happily ever after? They'd use the next best thing! Did you see what was left of the Elysian's commander? What do you think they'd do to Orion? Killing Threxin would've been stupid and you know it. This way, we survive. With Uploads. With a vaccine, thanks to you. With a New Earth. Can't you see that this is a good thing?"

Maybe it was the shock of her outburst that prevented Kaia from her off, but by the end Alina felt herself withering. She had done the right thing. She'd done the best she could with what she had, and people were alive because of her.

Weren't they?

Kaia looked at her, and she could see cold calculation in her eyes.

"W-what are you thinking?" Alina asked.

"You could do it now," Kaia said, licking her lips. "You're close enough. I'll get you a firedagger and you can?—"

"Did you hear anything I just said?" Alina snapped. "Besides, if I couldn't kill him when he was my worst enemy, what makes you think I'd do it now that I'm in love with him?"

Kaia looked like she'd been slapped in the face, and by God, for a moment Alina had the urge to do just that.

"Go." Kaia's words were a wall falling between them, and the sensation that had been nagging at Alina for weeks now was confirmed in that moment: she did not actually care.

Kaia just wasn't built like normal people. She was a lone agent and always would be, with Orion being the only one she'd ever trust. Kaia would never need her or want her, and it wasn't her fault. It was just a cruel twist of fate that an assistant with a compulsion to take care of people was assigned to a charge who didn't want taking care of .

This was never going to work, not from the beginning. The realization felt like releasing a ballast.

Alina gave Kaia a short parting nod and left her to her scheming.

"How does it feel to be a traitor, Argoud?" Alina froze with her nutriwrap in her hand at the canteen the next day. She looked up to find a woman she didn't recognize scowling behind her in line for the dispenser.

Of course it was only a matter of time. Orion knew, then Kaia, and then Isabelle. They had no reasons to keep Alina's relationship with Threxin a secret.

"I'm not a traitor," she frowned.

"Is that what your uhyre invader convinced you of? You're fucking him for the benefit of humanity?" The woman shouldered past her and punched a button on the dispenser.

Being forced to address this here, where anyone could hear, made Alina heat with embarrassment. "No… I just think they're not the monsters they were back then."

"Right. Picked the right one to shack up with too, didn't ya?" The woman glared. "Bet your precious commander won't be slitting your throat any time soon like he did my daughter's."

The blood drained from Alina's face so fast that her vision went a bit hazy for a few ticks.

"I'm… I'm terribly sorry," she stumbled over her words, her tongue dry and heavy in her mouth.

"Sorry won't bring her back, will it?"

"That will never happen again, I swear to you," Alina tried to placate. She hadn't discussed this with Threxin yet, but surely now that they had a vaccine and even planned to equip the uhyre with limiters, uhyre-human relations would be permitted? Anything else would make him a hypocrite, and Alina was pretty sure he wasn't one… She hoped.

Alina tried again. "Part of the reason I did this at first… I wanted to work with him, for our people's benefit. So what happened to your daughter would not happen again."

The nutriwrap packet crinkled in the woman's clenching fist, and Alina could tell nothing would get through.

"Whoring yourself out for the common good? Whatever helps you sleep at night."

She had seen so many people leave over the prior days.

Alina watched the scene through the one-way mirror. Technically anyone could come and see the process of Upload. It was a way of normalization—a celebration. People were ecstatic about being given the choice to Upload. Some even thought this was the best possible outcome. Many would never have been able to afford Heaven.

They weren't told when exactly that final jump to their final destination would be, only that the plan involved settling on a habitable planet with the uhyre eventually . On Threxin's orders, Orion Halen could only give his people a rough idea of what was happening. They were going to make a jump to a habitable Earthlike planet. If it was indeed habitable and Earthlike, they would land. They would share this planet with the uhyre who invaded them. If not… Well, if not their future was entirely unclear.

That was enough for a steady stream of volunteers to manifest.

Alina refused to call it dying, because that wasn't what it was. But the way the life drained from their bodies and the flash of realization in that critical moment sure looked like death of a certain form.

But she could see the rapid flash of the rig's helm and the server unit as her shipmates' minds were transferred to the holding database of the ship.

Kaia had been there too, watching and pretending Alina didn't exist. Alina didn't bother trying to talk to her. At some point their silence began to feel almost companionable, except Alina knew better.

Kaia hated her guts. She hoped it was some consolation that this was what she had asked for in the first place—for Threxin to give people the choice to Upload should the prospect of living with the uhyre, or even just alongside them, be so unbearable to them.

But children were always hard to witness. The face of the girl in the rig, her eyes nearly completely shrouded by the helmet over her head, relaxed into perpetual stillness. She looked almost exactly the same. With the older people, their wrinkles would smooth out and freeze on their faces into a vision of ultimate peace.

But the children had no lines or wear to show in the first place. They'd had an entire life ahead of them to earn those.

The family of the girl smiled and cried at the same time as the blinking Upload indicator solidified into a constant green glow. It was done.

As the small body was unstrapped from the rig and taken away, there wasn't much time for goodbyes. The mother at the rigside squeezed her husband's hand, letting the nurse guide her into the rig. Alina couldn't hear them as their lips moved, but it was enough to see the man lean in to kiss his wife's lips. They would be reunited in minutes, and yet his brow was furrowed and his hands shaking even as he comforted his wife.

When the woman had passed, it was the husband's turn, and by this point he was visibly impatient. Alina couldn't blame him—he'd just watched his wife and daughter pass on to another plane of existence. It must feel devastating, being suddenly so alone. It had to Alina when her parents both left. She'd spent so many years caring for her mom, been so happy when she overcame the physical side of her illness. But her mind never recovered, and her parents decided their only option was to Upload, together. After everything Alina had done to try to get them all back to normal, it had all been for nothing.

At first Alina looked forward to joining them in Heaven one day, if she could afford it. Now she had bigger things to look forward to.