Chapter 4 Navi

I don't like having others thoughts in my mind, but after Sevrin captured me and did his first experiment, I learned to find some form of strength in each new type of torture. That first, single chip, one that relayed their thoughts into my head, also oddly opened our cell door when I wished for it. They never figured out it was me. Only my friend Shavih has an idea.

Many women died that day that didn't need to because we saw our opportunity and took it. Now we know we can only leave our cell when we're supposed to, or we get shocked into submission or Sevrin's cyber-freak dogs are sent after us.

"Look," a woman calls from behind me. The others in the group cell turn to peer through the round windows as Hyperion appears. "What is that?"

I follow them to the glass and squint across the pitchy void at the others up here with us. My heart races when I see the cluster of green and yellow lights trailing behind a ship with blazing thrusters. Skysprinters chase after them, firing missiles.

Why would they shoot at one of their own?

A faint grid scrolls open in my eyes, brightening with each thumping pulse of my heart. Startled, I blink and try to clear my vision.

This is new.

Targeting brackets flash over the specks of light. A dialogue box appears, and I nearly choke.

CyberTitans: Estimate, 200+

Half-breed: Human-Solcrue, 1

"Titans." The word slips out in my shock.

"What did you say?" A woman who's missing an eye turns to me. "Did you say the T word?"

I grimace as another woman cries out and bangs on the window. "No! You're leaving us behind! Hey! Over here!"

"They're escaping ," my friend Shavih gently corrects. She motions with a cybernetic hand to the portal when it ignites. "If they are free, they can rebuild and come for us. But right now they're as desperate as we are."

A guard slams the door to our cage open and points his shock baton at Shavih, igniting the tip.

Shavih slinks back, lacing her metal arms protectively in front of her.

The ship outside enters a portal, slowly lugging the hundreds of specks though, via radiant ropes. A missile from a skysprinter breaks several Titans free. My human sisters cry out as they fall back to Hyperion.

My heart aches for the Titans, like so many of the women we have lost to Sevrin and Rochir's horrific procedures. But right now, Shavih's life is my immediate concern.

A Solcrue woman with human arms and synthetic legs steps between them.

"Move aside, Jeela," he growls. "Siding with humans is a crime. Unlike Sevrin, I'm not eager to hurt you . I will, however, do my job."

"Punish me instead of her," Jeela insists. "Shavih can't take another hit today."

The guard shakes his head, taps his earcom, then zaps Jeela until her legs give out. Jeela gasps.

"You dare tell me what to do?" he snarls. "How about I punish both of you?"

A subtle red frame flashes around my vision, growing brighter like a strobing migraine. I clutch my head and stifle a groan. I don't want him to pay attention to me.

PoppyLocal: Red Alert. Missiles locked on. Prepare for Impact!

Poppy? Nothing on Ravenger III is titled with such a name that I've seen, and I don't know anyone named Poppy.

The mess of windows that flash erratically in my vision send pangs through my head and show Ravenger III weapons have armed. Through the window, the ship's thrusters burn brighter until I'm certain the ship entering the portal might explode.

My heart beats faster.

They're trying to outrun something.

The visuals become clearer.

PoppyPellucid: Who is this? I can't read you clearly.

Pellucid? The word appears in the upper left corner of my splay's visual field. I'm on Ravenger III.

Ravenger III: Missiles hot.

Shit!

My heart pounds. The ship's systems fill my vision with brighter reports. I feel their pull like heavy additional limbs I could control if I just had a little more strength.

The Titans are our only hope. They can't die!

As the guard raises his baton at Shavih, I stagger through the women.

Shavih doesn't deserve punishment for an observation.

The Titans don't deserve to die for wanting freedom.

But something else compels me. My body acts alone as if it knows what I need when even I don't. There's no time to consider consequences. The base of my splay heats, and I think it's controlling me.

Then I read the newest alert in my eyes.

Low power. Source detected.

Targeting brackets home in on the guard's shockbaton.

Fuck me.

If the self-preserving splay works the way I think, a zap might be enough. But to willingly take one without Rochir or Sevrin forcing it makes me wonder if I've literally—finally—lost my mind to a machine.

I can take the zap.

I can take the zap.

I've endured it plenty of times. But the thought doesn't ease the pain anticipation that threatens to hold me back.

So I thrust myself between the guard and one of the few friends I have left. The crackling nodes bite into my chest. The force behind the guard's baton shoves me into Shavih.

Electricity floods my body. I arch as every muscle tenses and know Shavih's getting the residual sting.

Time slows to a crawl.

Bolts like strings of lightning zigzag across my vision and crackle in my skull.

Readouts promptly scroll open in pale teal frames, giving me full access to the ship's basic computer systems. I don't know what will shut the guns off without them being quickly restarted except for one command. I experienced it near the end of the war just after I was captured with several other women. And it's the only one with my Standard Security Access.

My splay has the power it wants. Now it's my turn.

Pellucid Command: Ice Shields Up. Brace for impact.

Ravenger III: Ice Shields Initiating—

Shields lift, dimming the light of the sun through our window. Guns shut off. Engines reverse thrust to slow us.

It will be several minutes before the ice shield scanners confirm space is safe, another couple to restart weapons.

I was connected to Sevrin's torture chair when we went through the belt of frozen coolant crystals between Saturn III and Escepiter when rogue bounty hunters attacked the ship. I remember it well and hope my effort is enough.

The fire in my chest grows then dies. The guard's baton smokes and burns out.

Time speeds up.

Poppy's ship disappears through the portal without losing anymore Titans.

The guard drops me, looking surprised. He touches his earcom and hurries out of the room, slamming the door behind us.

Shavih catches me when my knees give out. I guess I took enough of the shock that she's okay.

The other women chatter about the shields and wonder where the ice is. She whispers in my ear. "What the fuck did you just do?"

I glance back at her and strain to catch my breath after the full-body seizure.

She snaps something behind me, but I'm too tired to address it.

"I can't really say thank you enough, except for this." Shavih clips a small item into the back of my skull. "Been stashing this extra capacitor for a long time. It's got piezoelectric converters that will turn movement into power. It will charge up on its own. That way you can have power to do whatever the fuck it is that you just did whenever you feel like it."

"Nothing." I say. "You got that?"

"Navi—"

"I'm not telling you shit. I don't want to risk them probing your head like they do mine." I touch the tender spot on my sternum from the shock. "If they discover that capacitor, we're all fucked. They will tear this place apart until someone confesses. Everyone will suffer. It better be damn good and hidden, or just take it out."

Shavih slumps, checks the vacant doorway, and then messes around a little more in the back of my skull. It clicks and thumps as she works. I close my eyes and pretend the noises are normal so they don't make me gag.

"And I don't know for sure if it was me or the splay," I admit.

When she's done, she hugs me against her as we sit in the corner of the group cell. "It isn't visible now. And thanks. I didn't have one more shock in me today. They don't power us up like they do you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I saw the light in your eyes, Navi. You don't have to tell me. But I was close enough to see it move." She guides my head back and onto her shoulder. "Rest. We're all tired after testing."

But I don't want to close my eyes. I don't trust the guard not to come back for revenge. Or worse, bring Sevrin or Rochir with him. And I hate lying on the gritty floor made of woven metal. But Shavih knows augmentations and human limitations. She used to serve Solcrue officers on a mothership called Marst , and she's been at this a lot longer than most of us.

"Do you think they'll come back for us?" someone asks.

"When they're ready," Shavih remarks. "But stars know when they'll acquire the armada necessary to fend off the Solcrue."

"Any chance they'll take me, too?" Jeela asks.

"I don't know," Shavih replies. "I'm sorry."

Jeela picks at a frayed wire in her leg. "It's okay. I'd rather die a moral being than live a life of guilt and remorse."

When I crack my eyes open to check on her, Jeela's looking right at me. Her expression says she knows what I did. It doesn't look like she resents me for it. She joined our group of pieced-together experiments a month after I did.

The memory of the falling Titans comes back to me.

I urgently get to my feet, despite Shavih's protests. Blue light pulses throughout the ship from the ice shield I put up and the programs that suddenly open in my vision with my movement. Through it all, I peer down at the moon we approach. Several clouds tarnish the surface. Targeting brackets open around them.

Scanning—

Titans are tough. They'll make it, right?

I wonder if they can hear me at such a distance. Poppy could. My sisters would want to know I tried. They deserve to have someone fight for them.

PellucidLocal: Hello?

No one responds. I scan my small group of friends clustered together in the dirty cell and close my eyes.

PellucidLocal: Does anyone read me?

I try to reach out a few more times and wonder what it would be like to talk with my human sisters like Titans talk to each other. It would certainly make an escape plan easier.

The door opens again, and Sevrin storms in. He pushes the other women aside, grabs me by the throat, lifts me up, and slams me against the wall.

Switch off. The command is hesitant, but my vision clears. I'm not sure if it's in time.

I choke under his scaly grip. My toes scrape the floor. But I am helpless under the strength of his augmented body.

My cellmates scatter and plaster themselves to the walls.

"How do you keep surviving?" Sevrin sneers.

I peer warily up at his green eyes, wondering what he'll do to me if he figures it out. He bares rows of dark pointy teeth. A cheek twitches. Then he drops me.

"Put her in isolation. The dark cell." Sevrin rips his baton from his belt and forces it into the guard's hands.

Shavih and Jeela reach for me but lean back when the guard whips his new baton to life in warning. Then he snatches me up by the collar and drags me out of the cell.

My last look toward my friends is tarnished by Rochir's frame, dressed in a spacesuit and decorated with his devilish grin. "I'm going to have fun punishing you."

Cold dread prickles my spine.

Most of the Titans made it to freedom.

I watched them on the holovids as a child and witnessed their desperation as they fought to save civilians and their fellow soldiers—human and a Titan—how our kinds worked together to hold off the Solcrue. I know CSP turned. Titans may not trust humans. They may not come for us, but they will get revenge for their fallen. If they take out the Solcrue and all I get to do is watch as I die, I'll still be grateful because the snakes will have lost. But I'm not ready to lie back without a fight.

You are going to regret hurting us one day. I roll to face Rochir as the guard stops outside my cell. "You may control my mind and my body, but never my soul—since you have no idea what one is."

"You self-righteous dreg. Morals won't save you out here. Only the strongest and smartest survive." Rochir kicks me in the leg. "Now shut up and warm up those hands of yours. I'll be back later."

A wave of pain curls through my right thigh. I absorb it, memorize it, let it linger so I can use it one day when I return the favor.

"Maybe I'll burn out your eyes again for fun," he simpers as the guard opens my cell.

I can't help myself. "At least I'd be spared having to look at your fugly face, or worse, that pathetic prick you call a dick."

"I should cut out your tongue as well." Rochir stuffs a rubber gag bit in my mouth, then lifts me by the strap around my head. It's excruciating, but all I can think about is how vulnerable his bits are.

I grin through the pain and knee him with everything I have. Something about the power in the new splay has made me feel daring.

Rochir drops me. Before the guard can collect me, I scramble into my cell.

The guard swears as Rochir turns deep green in the face.

My door slams. I claw the bit off of my head and fling it aside.

Rochir finally gets up and hobbles to my cell window. "That was your last mistake."

He cranks up the reverberating panels that make my mind shudder and my heart stutter under the compression waves.

My nightly torture begins.

I tuck myself in a corner and cover my head. Between my father's screamo music and my mother's incessant communication feed in our hideout on Herebus, I learned to withdraw. Once again, I hide inside my mind, block out the buzzing mayhem, and accept that the rumble in my chest and brain are normal. The darkness is everywhere like it was back then.

This is okay. This is my life. I must find comfort in pain.

What does this pain teach you? My mother would always ask me when I was hurt, when the blindness became infuriating. Did you make a mistake you can prevent? If not, are you able to tolerate something new because of this experience?

I inhale a choppy breath under restrained sobs, not wanting to waste energy or precious hydration. I must save my tears for when I need saline to clean my wounds.

Sometimes, pain is just pain, and all I learn is that I can take it this time. I'll survive. It's miserable but I'm determined not to let Rochir win.

Rochir's voice is muffled through my filter.

"Imma make you fucking pay, bitch!"

I open my eyes in the darkness. One day— I envision Rochir disintegrating from his crotch outward. Imma make—you—fucking pay.

Bitch.

The ship's Ice Shield shuts off. I know by the blue filter that fades from the starlight. I plug my ears in the growing drone and curl up in the corner. To any average person, I'd look insane. But I'm coping how I can so I live to see the day I fill Sevrin and Rochir's worlds with pain—as much as I can render them.

I pretend I'm in my idyllic dreamland far away. All of my friends and family are with me, alive and living in a terraformed utopia. And Titans are everywhere.

I pretend they are the beings I saw on the holovids: strong protectors, respected guardians of us weaker species, with integrity, kindness, and genuine smiles, not the twisted kind I always get from every Solcrue on this ship.

But they really were out there.

The image of the ones falling to the surface comes back to me. We still haven't left orbit.

I get onto my stomach and crawl with my fingers in my ears to the little window that looks out at the life-sucking vastness of space. Slowly, I get myself to my feet and make myself look out across the fields of Hyperion.

PellucidLocal: Hello? Can anyone hear me?

I will survive another day. Then I will focus on the next.

Hundreds of Titans are free.

I hope they come for us, for me.

But I can't rely on someone else to find me or my friends. The longer we wait, the more we lose.

Soon, the Solcrue will pay.

I have to find a way.