8. SIX

six

Kira blinked up at the ceiling, her body surrounded by the cups she’d served the tea in and whatever else had been lying out unsecured. A feeling of wet soaked into her pant legs. Probably from the tea she hadn’t managed to finish.

Her brain felt sluggish as she realized the red tint to the room was from the flashing red lights that indicated a ship wide emergency.

That shrill sound beating in her ears was the proximity alerts.

Torvald rose gracefully from his chair. Somehow, he hadn’t gotten tossed about in the collision, managing to maintain his seat.

Kira eyed him with envy as she rotated the shoulder that had taken the brunt of her fall. Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone shared that trick with her?

Kira pushed herself off the floor, turning on her comms. “Would someone like to explain what just happened?”

“We were hit by something,” Jin said.

Kira gave him an incredulous look. “You think?”

Raider’s voice interrupted through the ship’s intercoms. “Kira, I need you on the bridge. We’re in a bit of a situation, and it’s about to get worse.”

The ship heaved as if dodging something.

Kira stumbled, nearly losing the balance she’d just recovered.

Jin shot past her. “That bastard switched the ship to manual.”

“Jin, wait—“ Kira’s voice trailed off as Jin disappeared down the corridor. “For me,” she finished with a sigh.

Torvald caught her as the ship did another of its maneuvers. “Is this type of excitement normal for you?”

“I’d really like to say no.”

But the truth was Kira and Jin attracted trouble like flowers did a bee.

The Wanderer had seen more than its share of this type of excitement. There was that time on Galileo where they ripped half the belly of the ship off. Then there were those pirates near New Neptune who thought they were easy pickings and tried to commandeer her ship.

Such stories numbered in the dozens.

Sometimes she thought they were cursed.

“It seems I didn’t know what I was getting into when I boarded,” Torvald observed as Kira staggered toward the door.

Rather than concerned, Torvald seemed almost amused by that fact.

Kira ignored him as she concentrated on making her way to the bridge. “Status report.”

“Everything is fucked,” Raider growled.

Kira reached the corridor that led to the bridge. “That’s a lovely image but it doesn’t really give me a picture of the situation.”

“You want a briefing. Here it is. The system’s defenses attacked us and they’re getting ready to do so again.” Raider sounded stressed. “They have mines, Kira. Mines.”

“The Hakeeb, those things he’s calling mines, are the least of his problems,“ Torvald said. “Soon your human’s piloting will trigger the secondary layer of defenses.”

Kira clutched at a handhold on the wall as the ship swooped and dove. Torvald swayed slightly but didn’t even stagger.

“I see he found them,” Torvald observed.

“The mines are shooting at us!” Raider snarled.

Kira forced herself further down the hallway, the bridge’s hatch just ahead. “Finn, I need you to find Elena, Joule, and Ziva and get them secure.”

It was likely none of the three had been in a space battle before. They wouldn’t know how rough the ride could get.

Kira didn’t want them breaking their necks by accident during a quick maneuver.

“Don’t worry about us, Auntie. I’ve got Joule and Ziva and we’re already strapped in,” Elena responded.

The tight knot in Kira’s stomach loosened.

“Finn, what about ki shields? Can you use them to protect the ship?”

“I can, but I don’t think it will help much. Ki shields aren’t meant to deflect that kind of fire power. We’d need someone with a shield affinity who has been trained in that art,“ Finn responded over the comms.

Torvald nodded. “Our defenses wouldn’t be worth much if every Tuann could circumvent them.”

Joule’s voice came through the line. “I can help.”

Kira hesitated. Joule wasn’t wrong. As the only person on the ship with the affinity they needed, he could be of help.

The problem was that Joule was still young. He was at the beginning of his training. As talented and determined as he was, that would only take him so far in a situation like this.

Kira made a split-second decision. “Do it.”

Joule would never get the chance to grow into the man she knew he could be if he didn’t survive.

“Is that wise?” Torvald asked as Kira cut the line. “He is young.”

Kira headed for the bridge’s hatch. “Do you know what the worst feeling in the world is? It’s being powerless as you watch the world burn around you.”

Kira didn’t expect miracles from Joule. It was enough if he could delay their deaths by even a second.

That second might be all she needed.

Kira burst onto the bridge. The view outside careened as Raider worked to keep the ship away from the mines chasing them.

The cameras located on the Wanderer’s hull zoomed in on the objects chasing them. Kira was familiar with them, having seen them once before during the voyage to Ta Da’an. Like the sea mines of humanity’s nautical past, they looked vaguely like angry hedgehogs. They bristled with spikes, their exteriors blending in almost perfectly with the black of space.

As she watched, yellow lights lanced the darkness. They headed straight for the Wanderer.

Raider cursed as he pulled back on the ship’s yoke.

“Can we return to the station?” Kira asked, finding a seat and strapping herself in.

Torvald moved up behind her, not bothering with finding a chair as he studied the monitors.

“No. We’ve already tried,” Raider said.

“Every time the ship veers that way, the mines cut us off,” Jin added.

Kira studied their trajectory. From the looks of things, it appeared the mines were forcing them toward the planet. It was not a tactic Kira would have predicted. She’d expect the mines to try to keep them away from the planet.

Kira cursed silently to herself. What did she want to bet she had a guess as to why?

Ta Sa’Riel was protected by a planet wide defense system that Kira and Elena had already run afoul of once during their previous exit from the planet. The moment they got close to the planet they’d be besieged on two sides. There would be no escape then.

“Someone come up with a plan. Playing tag isn’t going to work for much longer.” Raider jerked the yoke to the side as the ship rolled.

“You’re not supposed to be playing at all, Meat Sack.” Jin circled Raider’s head.

Raider batted one hand at him. “Get away from me, Tin Can.”

“It’s Tin Man. Get it right!”

Kira ignored the two as the comms panel lit up, indicating someone was trying to contact the ship.

“That is an interesting tactic in the face of certain death,” Torvald observed, studying Jin and Raider as they fought over who would be the pilot.

“This is my ship! I should be the one at the helm,” Jin argued.

Kira spared them a quick glance as the ship tilted left and then right. “You get used to it.”

“You have a history of making bad piloting decisions,” Raider snapped back.

“That’s Kira. Not me.”

Kira rolled her eyes as she opened a channel to Graydon.

“Who is the one responsible for burning out the engines on Castaway?” Raider pointed out. “Who flew us into that asteroid in the Kuiper belt? You, Tin Can. Both times, you.”

Graydon’s face showed up on the screen, making Raider and Jin fall silent. “I’m glad to see you three are taking the situation in stride.”

There was a carefully hidden tension around the corners of Graydon’s eyes that betrayed the fact he wasn’t as at ease as he seemed.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” Kira admitted.

Graydon inclined his head. “As it is yours.”

She offered him a tight smile. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about this situation we’re in.”

“No.” Fury cracked the hold he had over himself before his expression was wiped clean again. “I’ve already tried.”

Kira nodded slowly, disappointment making her voice soft. “That’s too bad.”

Just once, she’d like to take the easy route. Not have to fight tooth and nail to survive. Was that too much to ask?

“I don’t have the authority to override the system defenses.” Graydon paused, his gaze sliding to a spot over Kira’s shoulder where Torvald stood. “The emperor is the sole person with that right.”

Kira and Graydon stared at each other as Jin made a soft sound of understanding.

Kira muted the line, freezing the video link at the same time. Raider’s forehead furrowed in confusion as Kira swiveled to face Torvald.

“I don’t suppose you have any insight into whether the emperor will intervene or not?” Kira prodded.

A growing suspicion replaced Raider’s confusion. “Wait. Don’t tell me—“

Torvald regarded Kira. “He will not.”

Raider banged his head on the back of his seat.

“You’ll die too,” Kira pointed out.

“I doubt that.”

Kira wanted to admire the man’s arrogance, but a part of her knew he was right.

He would survive.

The rest of them, however, would not. They would die—with the possible exception of Kira who had surmounted similar situations in the past.

She didn’t want to, though. She’d been there and done the lone survivor thing. It sucked.

If the ship went down with everyone on it, she’d go with it.

“You’d sacrifice everyone on board?” Jin asked.

There was a note of disillusionment behind Jin’s question that made Kira aware just how important the answer was to him. In a way, Jin was slower to trust than even Kira. He’d been hurt too many times in the past by those who denied his existence. They couldn’t conceive of a drone possessing a soul or self-will.

Those who did often looked at him like he was a monster.

Jin’s “spying” was his attempt to understand the character of the man who may have given him life.

If Torvald failed Jin’s assessment, that would be it. Jin would never reveal their relationship. Torvald would never learn what happened to his firstborn.

“The Hakeeb are programmed to respond when they sense a danger to the planet. I would be doing a disservice to those below by allowing a threat to land.”

Torvald’s answer surprised Kira. She had thought he would ignore Jin as many Tuann did.

He didn’t. Even better, his answer was reasonable and one she’d likely make if she was in the same position.

Jin too.

Kira kept her smile to herself, relieved that Jin wouldn’t write Torvald off quite yet.

“Whatever triggered the mines has to be located on the outside of the ship,” Kira said, thinking out loud.

Jin made a soft sound of discovery. “The proximity alerts. They went off when we were leaving the station.”

Kira nodded in agreement. “That’s what I was thinking as well.”

Something had set them off. Kira was betting whatever it was, it was responsible for their current predicament.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Kira unmuted the line. “Graydon, can you get a close-up view of the belly of our ship?”

Graydon nodded to someone outside off screen.

“How is my package doing?” Graydon asked while they waited.

Kira flashed him a humorless smile. “Still in one piece. Though I can’t promise it’ll remain that way.”

Graydon’s mouth opened only for him to pause as someone murmured something off screen. “Send it.” To Kira, “I think this is your problem.”

Kira leaned forward as a video feed of the underside of her ship took up one side of the screen. The video feed magnified several times until a flower bud no bigger than the size of Kira’s palm came into focus. Vines spread out beneath it, burrowing into the metal of her ship.

Raider’s curse was heartfelt. “Well fuck.”

“You made the right call not standing down your defenses,” Kira told Torvald, not looking away from the feed.

The bog’s hag was a Tsavitee bioweapon whose primary purpose as near as Kira could figure it was to terraform any planet it landed on. Only instead of creating a paradise, it left behind a wasteland that was toxic to most living creatures.

It was considered so invasive that the only solution if a planet was exposed was a complete quarantine.

No one in or out.

Such an event would spell economic doom to any planet unlucky enough to be infested.

Cut off from trade, they would have to survive with only the resources available to them. Not an easy task when technology and goods were often imported from other planets.

It was near impossible to fully rid a world of the bog’s hag once it began to spread. Once it sensed a livable atmosphere it would come out of hibernation. Soon after, it would emit a toxic gas capable of rewriting the genetic code of those exposed.

The process was slow and agonizing.

Death was preferable to the alternative however. Those who survived became little more than zombie-like creatures that possessed a level of aggression that was off the charts. They would hunt and kill any living creature in their vicinity. They felt no pain or fear either, making them difficult to fight off.

Kira was pretty sure the only reason the Tsavitee hadn’t used it more often during the war was because they feared how invasive it was. After all, what was the point of conquering a planet when you couldn’t even land on it?

Graydon’s gaze developed a piercing intensity. “I am ordering you to abandon ship. I’m already in position. I will pick you and the rest up.”

Kira stared at the video of the bog’s hag, the single flower bud floating with the weightlessness of space.

It looked so benign for something so horrible. Beautiful almost.

“I can’t do that,” Kira said in a flat voice.

Even if she’d been willing to abandon her ship, her home, the chances of Graydon’s plan working were slim.

They would have to trust that the mines would lock onto the ship and not them. It would leave them vulnerable, without the speed or maneuverability of the Wanderer’s engines. That was also assuming the roots of the bog’s hag hadn’t already penetrated their hull.

If they had, Kira and the rest might be carrying the spores of the bog’s hag on their skin and clothes. The outcome should those spores reach the planet would be the same. Ta Sa’Riel, the capital of the Tuann empire, would be completely and irrevocably isolated from the rest of the universe.

“You are being stubborn.”

Kira shot him a crooked smile. “It’s the only way I know how to be.”

“Kira—“

Kira shut down the link before he could argue further. There was work to do. She had a ship to save.

Kira shoved to her feet. “Buy me as much time as you can.”

“You know this is reckless, right?” Raider asked.

“I do.”

Jin trailed her to the hatch. “I’m coming with you.”

Kira shook her head. “I need you here.”

“Kira—“

“You were right earlier. You know this ship better than anyone. You’ll be of more help here.”

It was an argument she knew Jin would understand.

Their skill sets may have been different, but they were equally important to the success of the plan.

“You’d better come back, Phoenix. You don’t want to know what I’ll do if you don’t,” Jin snarled.

Kira chuckled. “I’ll consider myself warned.”

Kira stepped off the bridge to find her way blocked.

“This is a mistake,” Finn informed her.

Kira slid past him and headed for the armory where her armor was stored. “I get that you think so.”

Just as long as he didn’t try to stop her.

“The Tuann have stories of that abomination,” Finn informed her as she set out at a quick pace.

It took only a few seconds to reach the armory. Kira crossed to the locker that contained her armor and reached inside.

Finn turned his back as Kira stripped out of her loose clothing, replacing it with a skintight under suit that would lie beneath her armor.

Next, she grabbed the individual pieces, sliding them on with the ease of long practice.

Originally designed for combat where you needed to be suited up in minutes, the process was a quick one.

Kira latched the final piece of the armor over her chest.

“All the more reason, I need to do this.” She grabbed a pair of gloves and slid them on. “I’ve considered our options, and this is the best one for survival. The bog’s hag will be dormant due to the cold of space. If I can separate it from the ship, the mines will target it instead of the ship.”

It would leave them free to land without having to dodge the full force of the Tuann defense system.

There was no need to mention the possibility of the bog’s hag coming out of dormancy once disturbed.

She preferred to think in best-case scenarios until the situation dictated otherwise.

“Where’s Maksym?” Kira asked, noting Torvald’s presence at the doorway.

The man was as stealthy as his son—and as curious as him too.

Finn glanced in Torvald’s direction and frowned. “With the children. He has instructions to get them off the ship if things go wrong.”

Kira tucked her helmet under her arm. “Someone needs to see if the roots have breached the hull.”

Kira wouldn’t be able to do it as she would be outside of the ship, and something told her it would be a bad idea to make demands of an emperor.

Something about possibly shortening her life span.

Finn’s jaw tightened as he held Kira’s gaze. A battle waged inside him. The traditional mindset of an oshota conflicting with the part of him that Kira had only caught glimpses of since their first meeting.

That part of him that was willing to consider other options even if they had never been done before. To act outside the system when the situation warranted.

He would need that side of himself if he was to remain at Kira’s side.

Tradition and procedure were two words that had never been used in conjunction with her and she didn’t plan to change that now.

Defeat showed on Finn’s face seconds before he took a step back. “You’re not to get a scratch.”

Kira slapped his shoulder as she moved past him. “You know I can’t make any promises.”

Finn’s reaction didn’t leave her disappointed, an annoyed growl following her into the corridor as Torvald fell into step beside her.

“You have an interesting way about you,” Torvald observed as they descended a level and headed for the aft of the ship.

Kira looked at him, not saying anything.

“I didn’t think he would compromise. Oshota usually don’t.”

They neared the airlock. The door already open in preparation for Kira’s arrival.

“The same strength of mind that allows them to become an oshota also makes them more stubborn and set in their ways,” Torvald explained.

Kira stepped inside the airlock as Torvald fell back a step.

“Maybe that’s the Tuann’s problem,” Kira said. “It’s not a partnership if one side always dictates the other’s actions.”

Or maybe they had just never encountered someone quite as stubborn as Kira.

Torvald waited as Kira fastened her helmet over her head before flashing him a thumb’s up.

“Jin, I’m ready to go.”

The airlock door slid shut as Kira turned herself to face the hatch that would lead to space. There was a whoosh as the enclosed room depressurized. Kira’s feet came free of the floor as the gravity cut off.

She floated toward the outside door as it slid open, revealing an endless black studded with bright pinpricks of light.

“Raider has bought us all the time he can, but the engines are close to being maxed out. The mines should reach us in about ten minutes. You need to be back on board before that happens or you’ll get torn apart by shrapnel,” Jin warned as she kicked on the suit’s thrusters.

There was a slight vibration as Kira shot forward.

“Understood.”

The Wanderer passed over top of her. A hulking beast against the black of the void.

Kira reached out, skimming one hand along its side as she glanced out into the starry sky. Data streamed down one side of her visor. With a flick of her eye, she magnified the view of the mines.

“No time to waste,” Kira whispered to herself.

Everyone was counting on her. She couldn’t let them down.

“Tell me you at least have a plan,” Jin urged.

Kira grinned as she increased her speed. “Working on it.”

Silence echoed over the comms.

“We’re doomed.”

A snicker left Kira as a red dot flickered to one side of her visor, indicating she was nearing her destination.

She blinked, expanding the screen and zooming in on the bog’s hag.

In the short time since they’d discovered its presence, the plant’s tendrils had spread even further. It now took up a space about five feet wide. Thickly intertwined, each feeler was no thicker than Kira’s pinky finger.

Upon closer inspection, Kira could see what looked like tiny, orange blood vessels interspersed throughout the green of the vines.

The tightly furled flower bud looked like a dead thing. Its petals black and withered. Once it bloomed, however, the flower’s inner petals would be the same shade of orange as the veins on the vines.

Kira landed gently on the hull, far enough away that there was no chance of disturbing the bog’s hag. Her armor’s magnetic boots engaged.

“Finn, how are we looking inside?”

The ship bucked before he could answer. Kira’s body whipped to the side. Only luck and her quick reflexes enabled her to engage the thruster, steadying her torso.

Thank any god that existed that she’d sprung for the high-grade armor that nearly bankrupted her at the time. Otherwise, that stunt would have destroyed her legs.

“What the fuck, Raider? A little warning next time,” Kira shouted, checking on the bog’s hag.

The flower bud was still tightly furled, indicating all the jostling hadn’t brought it out of its dormant state yet.

“You act like this is easy,” Raider argued through gritted teeth. “It’s not.”

Finn cut in before Kira and Raider could argue any further. “There are no roots that I can see on the inside of the ship.”

Finally. A bit of luck.

“Pull back to the closest bulkhead. Once there I want you to weld the hatch shut. I’ll blow this section of the hull when you’re done.”

If Kira had had the time, she would have preferred to use a welding torch to cut the section with the bog’s hag free of her ship since using an explosion carried inherent risks.

Too much power and she could rip the ship in two. Too little and the section containing the bog’s hag wouldn’t detach.

“You want to put a hole in our home?” Jin asked, sounding horrified.

Kira looked out to the mines chasing them. “I’m not seeing a lot of other options, are you?”

Jin’s silence was grudging. “This will cause problems during re-entry.”

“One thing at a time.” Kira brought up the targeting function of her helmet. “Finn, let me know when it’s done.”

Once finished marking the spots where her charges would need to go, Kira lifted her arm and pointed.

A ball bearing shot from the weapon’s port of her armor, zipping toward the first of the target locations. It hit the metal of the hull and stuck.

It was followed by nearly a dozen more.

Kira was two thirds of the way through placing the charges when a shiver ran through the bog’s hag. A pair of tendrils that had been floating free until now, twitched.

“Shit.”

Kira kicked free of the hull, shooting backward as those tendrils snapped in her direction.

The tendrils followed as Kira banked left.

“Why does it sound like something is wrong?” Jin asked.

“Perhaps because there is,” Kira grunted.

She banked again, trying to line up the shot for the final two charges. It was a no go. She didn’t have the angle.

“I’m done on my end, Kira,” Finn told her.

Kira gritted her teeth and reversed course, charging directly at the bog’s hag.

“Why does it look like you’re playing chicken with the bog’s hag?” Jin asked as a pair of tendrils speared toward her chest.

“Because I kind of am.”

Kira’s vision spiraled down until all she saw was the tip of those tendrils. Her breath echoed loud in her ears as the distance narrowed. Almost there.

Kira caught the faint tightening as the tendril’s flexed.

Now.

She dodged to the side, brushing past its length with centimeters to spare. The thrusters in her suit whined as she pushed them to their max.

The black bud passed beneath her as Kira took aim. The ball bearings launched and then Kira was past.

“The charges are set. Blow it now.”

Kira put distance between her and the bog’s hag, angling toward the top of the ship.

In the lower left-hand corner of her display, a feed of the bog’s hag popped up. A small explosion came before the section the vines and flower were attached to started floating away.

Exhilaration filled her as she cleared the top. It quickly changed to horror as the sight of dozens of golden ribbons of light converged on her ship.

“Go! Go! Go!” Kira screamed, hoping Raider and the others were seeing the same thing she was.

Their time was up.

“Not without you. You’re still outside the ship,” Jin argued.

Even as he said it, Kira could sense the Wanderer’s engines cycling in preparation of a burn.

“I’ll match the trajectory,” she said, despite full knowledge of how impossible a feat that was.

“This is madness,” Raider muttered.

Still, he listened as the ship dove; Kira a tiny figure struggling to follow.

“I need you, Jin,” Kira whispered.

He was her only hope if she wanted to survive.

His presence flooded her mind, the link that always existed between them becoming a river.

Kira’s vision doubled. Her mind expanded and separated. A part of her remained in her body, flying through the dark of space. The rest hovered on the Wanderer’s bridge.

That part yanked control from Raider as Kira/Jin locked him out of the system.

They became the ship. More than a shell wrapped around an organic form. Rather, it became their body.

They rolled, evading the first wave of golden streaks. The streaks shot past them, curving and looping around.

Jin/Kira charged forward, much as she’d done with the bog’s hag. Their minds united.

They swerved left then right, weaving through the brilliant gold streams of light like a bird through the trees.

A hum buzzed in Kira’s ear. An annoyance she tried to shrug off.

It remained persistent, a cadence developing as it repeated over and over again.

“Get..in...the...Get in the ship!”

Raider’s shout brought Kira partially back to herself.

There was a reason Kira and Jin didn’t try this often. Kira’s current confusion was a big part of that. The longer their link remained open, the more it would become increasingly difficult to distinguish where Jin began and she ended.

Kira’s mind was sluggish as she forced herself to concentrate, untangling her thoughts from Jin’s.

Airlock.

Where was it?

The feeling of being in two places at once lessened as Kira focused. The air lock was just ahead. Five meters at most.

Kira angled for it.

Jin’s panic burst through the link as a single golden streak glanced off the Wanderer in front of Kira.

A piece of metal came free, crashing toward Kira.

She had a split second to think, This is going to hurt.

Seconds before impact, a sheet of soul’s breath formed between her and it. The shield took the brunt of the collision.

Even so, Kira bounced off it with enough force to send a burst of pain all along her right side. Agony swamped her as something wet slid down over her eye. Unconsciousness ate at her vision.

Jin flooded their bond. A pulling sensation came, sucking away her pain. Cool, methodical reason replaced it.

Kira forced her body to move. Brief sparks of agony lit her nerve endings before they disappeared down their bond.

“Hurry, Kira.”

Jin’s voice sounded strained.

For a being used to the cold, unfeeling of metal and circuitry, he had no way of coping with this level of pain.

“Jin,” Kira whispered as more blood obscured her vision.

Her mind was breaking. Her body following.

“Reach, Phoenix. Reach for us.”

Blindly, Kira extended her hand.

A hard grip caught her wrist, pulling her inside.

The link between Kira and Jin snapped.

Kira crumpled. The last thing she saw was a dark figure standing over hers. An unending void where his face should be.

Kira mouth formed a single word. “Torvald.”

Behind him, the hatch opened as Joule stepped inside with a worried look on his face. Finn behind him.

Kira’s body went limp as darkness descended.