15. Zeerah

I'm out of time.

The Harsi ship is moving. It's dragging us to the Averian sector. No one knows when we'll arrive. We've left the support ships and even the PeaceWrecker far behind.

Falkion intends to go Outside to cut away the tangled wires blocking us in.

But when he reports in to the bridge, the vice-captain vehemently opposes him.

"There's no point in evacuating now," Kollok snarls. "We must prepare to fight."

Falkion uses the crowded engineering office's main screen, so this is not a private conversation. Evacuees mill curiously. Engineers jog around us, grabbing tools and supplies.

"The Harsi will trace our energy signatures back and eat every fleeing coward," Kollok continues harshly. "You know better, Falkion. There's no escape."

Falkion's jaw muscles flex.

"Actually…" Werrin clears his throat. "We're not using our energy to move. Any ship that evacuates before we arrive at the Averian sector might get away."

"Hopes and dreams," Kollok scoffs.

"Also, we're blind," Werrin says. "We have nearspace communication, but have left behind anyone we could communicate with. That means we're moving fast. Once our evacuation ships leave, for a brief window, we'll be able to communicate. Their sensors can be our eyes."

Falkion nods once. "I'll return."

"Falkion!" Kollok shoots to his feet. "As your captain, I—"

"You have my bridge." Falkion holds his silence with a look. "Not my rank."

Kollok presses his lips together. His gray face turns ashen. He slowly sits down.

Falkion exits the engineering office.

The crowd parts for him.

I follow him to the doorway. No matter how busy it is, there's always an aura of calm and space around him.

Amid all the running and chaos, he takes my hand.

Once, we hated each other.

Now…

I push back my hood and press my lips to his.

He tastes male and commanding. Starlight and honor. Desire clenches in me. More than anything, I want to drag him back to his room, claw at his bare chest, and beg him to take me. We should have had sex a million times already. I wasted our shifts eating or sleeping or running. I want all our time.

I pull back, and he focuses on me, intent. "Zeerah."

"Come back," I order him.

He nods.

My last view of him is clinging to a multi-person sled. It weaves through the stacked evacuation ships and disappears from sight.

And then, in the middle of thousands of jostling Arrisans, I am utterly and completely alone.

Exhaustion drags me down as if gravity's just doubled.

I'm pretty sure I've been awake for thirty Humana hours at least

Squeezing between soldiers in the engineering office, I scope out a flat, quiet spot. My stomach growls, but it can wait. I stretch out on a crate.

Kollok's annoying voice pierces my daze.

The bridge is still arguing among themselves on the main screen. No engineer has bothered to shut it off, and Marip hasn't closed the connection on her side either. Their fighting chases me into dreams.

Kollok is lecturing his officers. "…and fleeing is not the Arrisan way!"

"I understand, sir." Werrin is clearly frustrated. "But—"

"Don't argue with your superior."

"I'm only pointing out—"

"Do you think I haven't studied the same battle tactics?"

"No, but I—"

"Or did that lesser's fears infect you, and you're afraid to face the Harsi?"

Werrin protests. Kollok accuses. I drift off.

A few clegs later, my crates are bumped roughly by engineers carrying a large turbine. They jostle me awake without even noticing.

Werrin sits a few lengths away on an engineering console.

I rise and yawn, then push through the milling evacuees to offer him a cold stims pack. The privilege of being a former supply officer is that even when I haven't been to a place before, I can read the secret signs. I know where all the supplies are.

He takes a sip and makes a face.

"Nothing like cold stims in the morning." I swallow the bitter acid. It's bracing and numbs my tongue. I crunch a bowl of nutrient cubes. "Got bored on the bridge?"

"Since I can't plot a course, I don't have work, so I might as well leave. Or so I was told." He flips through screens. "I think the Harsi recently dragged us through an asteroid field. If I'm right, we're much closer to the Averian sector than anyone else thinks."

My stomach squeezes. "Really?"

"Well, it's just a guess. And with all this damage…" He gestures at the soot particles still hanging in the air. "We could be in the Averian sector right now for all I know."

The nutrient cubes feel too heavy in my guts. I set them aside. "So what do we do?"

"Clean your lasers." The screens reflects his face. "Sharpen your blades."

The crowd jostles me.

It's suddenly much too crowded.

I can't breathe.

I squeeze into the doorway and push my way out to the main bay. The evacuation remains at a standstill. All platforms are full, and there's no room to maneuver ships.

Could we already be in the Averian sector? How would we know? But…surely we would know. Our ship would be attacked.

Maybe the Averian sector isn't our final destination. Maybe we're being dragged beyond the edge of known space. Maybe much farther.

Falkion is still Outside.

I really hope Werrin is wrong.

"You there. I need— Hey! Excuse me." A familiar voice cuts into my dark musing. A science officer snaps imperiously at the backs of soot-blackened engineers. He waves a cracked data tablet. "This screen is—excuse me! It's important. I must— Hello!"

The engineers shove him aside like he doesn't exist.

Why's he familiar?

He's older, with heavy jowls and white-spotted black hair. His eyes rest on mine, and recognition jolts us both at the same time. He's that science officer, Banyal, who sneered at me and Noemi and got kicked out on his first day.

I take a step back.

"You! Human, rationality officer. Wait!" He catches up to me and snaps imperiously, "Order one of these engineers to repair my data tablet."

"Ah…"

"You must." Banyal's voice breaks, and his arrogance cracks at the same moment. He looks distressed to the point that he's going to cry. "It's a matter of extreme urgency."

Yeah, it's been a stressful few shifts for all of us.

"You're in luck," I tell him, and use my supplies knowledge to find him a new data tablet, pristine and ready to operate.

"No, no." He pushes the broken one at me. "My device is the only one synced to the Box."

"The Box? On the Harsi ship?"

"Yes." His distress increases. "My screen broke during that wretched rotation. And I'm the last science officer on the Spiderwasp. Everyone else went to the PeaceWrecker. Think of all the data we've missed!"

Yeah… Well, I'm not doing anything else right now. I pull my electric screwdriver from my calf pocket and slide it along the edge of the case, opening up the guts.

He moans. "Black mush."

"Eh, I've seen worse." My after-school pocket money on Humana was entirely dependent on how well I could bring flamed-out components to life and resell them to richer classmates. But it's not going to be easy. "Can't you sync another data tablet?"

"I'd have to carry it next to the Box on the Harsi ship. I did bring another Box down from the science office." He hugs a nondescript black case. "But their signal radius is only about a man's arm-length. A shortcoming of the Tsingvaris' technology."

So he needs this data tablet fixed. I fiddle with the components while he enumerates the ways he's tried to go to the Harsi ship with a replacement data tablet, replacement Box, or both. The grav tub connecting our ships is misaligned. He thought about trying a spacewalk, but it would be difficult. What if the Harsi ship changed direction? He could be flung into space and lost.

"And the assault spigot is closed," he continues.

I look up. In the middle of the bay hangs the blunt end of a twisted, thorny tube. It's maybe two people's height off the bay ground.

The spigot is closed, huh?

Because the Harsi ship is empty…

I identify the unsalvageable parts, then take him around the side of the office to the inventory and find spares. We sit in a quieter shadow beside the office, but nowhere's really quiet in this overcrowded bay.

"You might want to get that new Box set up anyway." I fiddle with a sticky cleaner. "Just in case."

He collapses against the wall with a huff, then he actually does what I suggest. He sets up the nondescript rectangle between us. It turns a sparkly opalescent color that's almost clear, but somehow not at the same time. Lights glow at the edge of my consciousness.

I set down the data tablet. "Actually, I think—"

He disappears.

I jump to my feet.

He's gone. Vaporized.

Electricity tingles down my spine. "H-fire on an H-ing H!"

Werrin comes around the corner. "Zeerah?"

"He disappeared!"

Werrin squints where I'm pointing, then he reaches out with his foot. His foot stops in midair.

Oh?

"Hmm." Werrin steps and puts his whole weight on the invisible step. He hovers in the midair.

Ah…

"…yes, yes, very clever," Science Officer Banyal mutters as he abruptly reappears.

Werrin stands on Banyal's knee. Under normal circumstances, that would be painful, but the reinforced skinsuit means Banyal probably doesn't feel anything.

"Now, did either of you see me or hear me speaking?" Banyal asks.

"I didn't hear you." Werrin cranes his neck to see Banyal's data tablet. "But I saw a hint of a shadow, like a child first figuring out how to change the visibility of his skinsuit."

Banyal points at me. "You heard or saw…?"

I shake my head. "Nothing."

"Now, this illustrates the fine differences between Arrisans and humans. Although we perceive almost the same range on the visual and auditory spectrum, we are very slightly shifted from each other. Asking the Box to camouflage me from a human leaves me slightly vulnerable to being observed by an Arrisan, and vice versa."

Huh. "This Box provides camouflage? I thought it just interpreted signals."

"And sends them," he says. "Everything we sense is a mere signal. Visual, auditory, heat, air currents…"

I crouch down to Banyal's level. "Do me."

Banyal flips through the screens on his data tablet. "You must specify who you're being camouflaged from. So, if we had other aliens here, they would easily observe you, but as it's only Arrisans…" He locates the entry for Arrisan and sends a "camouflage" command to the Box. "Poof."

Werrin blinks.

"Is it working?" I ask.

"What's the range?" Werrin asks Banyal.

"The object to camouflage must be within arm's reach of the Box."

"Pity."

"Hey," I say.

Werrin stares right into my eyes. "Imagine camouflaging the whole ship from the Harsi."

"Ah, well, that's not impossible." Banyal taps his lips thoughtfully. "The Box has been absorbing data from the brain of the Harsi ship all this time. It could very well know what spectrums the Harsi can detect, both with their ships and with their other senses."

"Guys," I say. "Are you sure you're not pranking me? Because—"

A soldier tries to walk through my space and boots me hard. She falls on top of me, and we roll together. She gasps and scrambles back. "What in the seven suns…?"

"Ah, hey." I check myself, rubbing my elbows, but the skinsuit luckily cushioned my body.

She startles like I've appeared out of thin air and scrambles off. Others flow around me. Werrin and Banyal look at me with surprise.

"I'm guessing you can see me now," I say.

"You've moved out of the radius." Banyal touches the data tablet, presumably to turn off the camouflage. "It was still quite a surprise."

"Spooky," Werrin agrees.

This would've been so useful for, oh, basically my entire life, but especially when I was hiding on this ship as a stowaway. I gently rest my palms on the Box. It's lighter than it looks, but feels solid enough. Big, but portable. "I want one."

"Yes." Banyal smiles, distracted. "Well, fix my data tablet. We must know what that Harsi ship is saying."

"Oh, it's fixed. That's—"

He rips it out of my hands.

"—what I was going to tell you earlier," I say.

He scrolls through the wake-up screens. "Ah, yes, the Harsi ship has put forth numerous signals. It's taking guesses at some. Directions, of course. Movements, speeds. Oh!"

I jolt. "What?"

"The number it's projecting. It's no longer zero."

Unease squeezes me. "What is it?"

He looks up, ominous concern written on his heavy features. "Two."

Something is wrong.

I cling to the engineer's scaffolds as I slice through cables. Guns, communications, all tangled and useless. Electricity zings up my blades, into my bones. Some cables are live like this, and bite. I slice through another. It floats away into the inky blackness, a dead coil.

Few lights illuminate these wires. I'm guided by my hood display and dependent upon glitchy external cameras.

Behind me, space is black and empty. There are no stars. No way to measure speeds, to guess at locations.

We could already be in the stomach of a beast and not even know it.

A reflection catches my eye. An engineer's sled.

She pulls up beside us.

"Finish here." Her order transmits from inside her skinsuit to inside ours. "This is the last one."

"Wha…? No," the engineer next to me protests. "There's a big tangle about four ship's lengths behind us."

"It's gone."

"What do you mean, gone? What about the guys working on it?"

She shakes her head, grim. "Everything beyond three ship's lengths is gone. Ripped off or something. Only tattered shreds remain."

What's happened?

Where did the team working on it go?

The engineers clearly want to know just as much as I do.

Someday, historians will write disparaging things about me. Even if cutting the cords to restart the evacuation feels like the right thing to do, I can already hear the words.

He had a brilliant career until he abandoned his duties. He left his role because he was obsessed with fleeing. His legacy is a warning.

I cut the last cable.

It disappears out into the darkness.

Olasi's order sounds in my hood. "Watch for ships."

The evacuation has restarted.

Once, I would have killed myself rather than damage my reputation.

Those were back in the days when I raged and flashed my blades over nothing.

Ghostly outlines beneath us show the ships leaving the atmosphere veil. Debris hits their hulls and bounces off with fiery warnings. In space, destruction is silent.

I catch the sled handle, holding on underneath in zero gravity with the other engineers. The others crane their necks to look behind them into the blackness.

I understand the feeling.

Someone is peering back. Hovering over my shoulder. Breathing across my neck.

Awakening, after a thousand years, hungry…

"Maybe it's a coordinate," Werrin says, crunching nutrient cubes. "Or a destination. A call signal."

"Or how many other Harsi ships are nearby," I say darkly, tossing back another pack of bitter stims.

The evacuation's just restarted. Falkion did it. He cleared the way. Ships are exiting slowly and cautiously.

Soon, it will be my turn.

He'll make me leave him behind.

And then he'll die…

No! I will save him. I just have to figure out how.

"Are you going to contact the evacuating ships?" I ask Werrin, since it was his idea to use their sensors to figure out our location.

"Yeah." He gulps his cubes, starts to leave, then walks back. "Actually, I just had a thought. Can we use that Box to operate the Harsi ship?"

"I hope so," Banyal says. "Someday, after we map all the controls, the engineers could give it commands. Make it release our ship, ideally."

"But can we access its proximity sensors? Even if we can't control anything, can we see what it sees?"

"Get a map of nearspace from the Harsi perspective?" Banyal's mouth droops as he considers, then he shrugs and starts tapping. "I don't see why not…"

Werrin goes inside the office to contact the evacuees while we're waiting.

"Ah. Here." Banyal shows me the screen. "This is what the Harsi ship sees."

It's a field of bubbles, or maybe they're cells. Inside each watery bubble is a spiky nucleus. The nucleus reminds me of a Humana flower called a thistle. The tufts all point in the same direction, like they're oriented by a magnet.

"What is this?" I ask.

"I'm not sure." Banyal moves the view, rotating the field. "I asked for a nearspace map. I suppose something has been lost in translation."

Banyal hands me the display and scrolls on the other data tablet, murmuring about an instruction manual. I rotate the screen, trying to zoom in. The view doesn't zoom. There must be a hundred water-bubble thistles. It's kind of a pretty pattern. I could see someone turning this into a fabric for a wrap.

Hmm. There's a glitch.

The thistle to the left of center is misshapen. The pointed end is buried in a ghostly lump of clay. Something about the ghostly lump seems familiar. I've seen it before. I just can't remember where. Tiny little dots—ribosomes?—float inside this one messed-up cell.

A ribosome dot drifts to the edge of the cell. It crosses the wall and floats into a new cell. The thistle inside the new cell turns to point to the intruder. The flower tuft opens, and the petals peel back.

It turns into a flattened red blood cell with sea urchin spines.

Just like the ones buried in our lump-of-clay dreadnought!

Adrenaline spears me through the heart. I drop the tablet with a clatter and jump back, swearing.

Banyal gasps, startled. "What are you doing?"

I point. My finger shakes.

He looks down.

My heart thumps with fear. I'm wrong. It's a mistake. I'm stupid. I'm scaring us both for no reason. But Banyal doesn't dismiss me with chiding. He slides around to view the tablet more directly, then he rubs his mouth.

I dance forward and backward. There's nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Falkion's still Outside.

With them.

Werrin ambles around the corner. "Any luck with that Harsi map?" He stops. "Uh…you okay?"

My tongue is a lump in my mouth. I point more dramatically.

"Navigation officer." Banyal rises to his knees. He's strangely dignified at this moment, speaking slowly, thinking. "Did you make contact with the evacuating ships?"

"Barely. There's too much interference. The lead ship was scanning for stars when their transmission cut off." He tilts his head. "Uh, your faces…You've got me real spooked now." He snorts, shaking his head in denial. "I almost thought, in the final instant, there was a sound like screaming."

Banyal lifts the tablet. He's managed to zoom in somehow to the few bubbles immediately surrounding ours.

The thistle on our right has stabbed a Reaper-class ship and is dragging it into its maw.

The thistle on our left is moving forward to stab a different ship.

Werrin's jaw drops. His nostrils flare, and he shakes his head. "That's not… No. We're not already in the center of a Harsi horde."

His fear amplifies mine.

"I've got to stop the evacuation," he murmurs, backing away. "The bridge…"

He suddenly stops and cocks his head. Two engineers arguing loudly nearby choke off midsentence. All around us, everyone falls silent.

A distant scraping gets louder and louder.

It's coming from the attack spigot. A low moan, and a gust of fetid air floods the bay. Electric fear sweeps across the engineering bay, eerie and terrifying. Soldiers back away from the spigot, leaving a big hole beneath, and crowd into us. I scoop up the precious Box and hug it and its data tablet like hard-edged teddy bears.

"The counter," Banyal whispers. His tablet is the one synced to the Harsi ship. "It's reading one."

As I watch, his counter drops again. Zero.

Terrible, strange clanks echo from the Harsi pipe.

Arrisans flee from beneath it like oil exposed to droplets of soap.

The press against us becomes terrible. An atmosphere gauge appears on the inside of my hood display, warning me that everyone around me is using up the oxygen. My skinsuit stiffens, protecting me from crush damage, but I can't move. My breath comes in short gasps.

A long, beige thing drops from the spigot and lands on the grating with a massive clang.

The Harsi.