17. Zeerah

Falkion lives, nude and unconscious, on a makeshift operating table in the engineering office. A medkit flows healing gels into his right sheath directly into his blood. Science Officer Banyal, who survived by escaping out the main doors before they closed, uses a device called a bone knitter to fix his shattered ribs, pelvis, and clavicle.

Normal people can't get kicked across a bay.

Blades can't either.

I clean up the dirt and spread healing ointment across the small gashes and wounds. My palm brushes his warm forehead and smooths his soft hair. His four little earspikes are missing from his right side. Amputated, like his right blade. I dab the bumps, my heart throbbing. So many losses. He'll never be the same.

But the little spikes on the left ear are still there. I trace their shape with my pinky.

I swore I was going to save him.

My mother couldn't save my father.

I've half succeeded.

So far.

In the main bay, teams search the wreckage for survivors. They triage and heal those they can. Evacuee-filled ships hover dangerously close to our dreadnought. It seems the horde won't attack anything inside our "bubble," which is a radius of three ship-lengths in all directions. Harsi ship-lengths, of course, not ours. The engineers calculated it, but that's just a guess.

We are the skeleton crew.

Around us, in the engineering office, the highest-ranked survivors argue about what to do. Kollok rages at us from the main viewscreen. "High Commander Drin is going to meet us in this sector! We must prepare. Outfit the land cannons for space battle."

"You're crazy." Engineer Juk is not a leader, but the other engineers look to him for guidance. No one's seen Olasi. "A land cannon ain't gonna do nothing in space."

"You'll make it effective."

"No?" Juk shakes his head, exasperated. "You want crazy, better shoot the Harsi ships with screwdrivers. It'll be more effective."

"No!" Kollok leaps from his console and points at Juk accusingly. His finger shakes. "The Harsi were not defeated by an electric screwdriver. That's not what happened."

Engineer Juk holds open his hands. "You saw the video—"

"I saw Captain Falkion fight the Harsi to a standstill. I saw him withstand it while the human cowered in fear. And I saw your land cannon destroy it. That's what I saw."

Yeah, he would see that.

The others mutter to themselves, glancing at me with Falkion. But for the first time, I feel like their gazes aren't angry or prodding. They either nod with recognition or flash me their screwdrivers.

Kollok can say all he wants on the bridge, but my tool of choice dangles from the belt of every single person in this room.

Outside the door, an engineer hands out weapons from a massive inventory box to anyone capable of wielding one. They ran out of screwdrivers immediately. They're also out of Allen wrenches and electric pliers. No one wants a laser.

Soldiers drag land cannons out of storage to clean and repair them, but waiting around for the enemy to meander back to the fight isn't the Arrisan way, and huddling around in ships avoiding the fight is also pretty anti-Arrisan.

Engineer Juk rubs his head in frustration. "We need a real plan—"

"I gave you a plan!" Kollok snaps.

"—based on actual reality, sir, and not some fantasy. Sir."

"You listen to me." Kollok paces the bridge in a sickly mirror of Falkion's pacing. "We are writing history. This battle will be studied for generations. We are shaping what future officers will know about themselves as Arrisans."

Engineer Juk tries to interrupt.

Kollok talks over him. I think he'd rather die than admit I might have done something useful, even by accident.

Engineer Juk is done. He rudely turns his back on Kollok, and gazes at Falkion with longing. Falkion would shut Kollok down.

Juk catches my eye. "Mute him," I say.

He blinks, then, as if he just needed permission, he hits the mute.

Kollok continues to pace and scream on the main viewscreen, but the silence is blessed.

"What's the real plan?" I ask Juk.

"So the way I see it is this." Juk puts the feed from the two Box data tablets up on separate screens, and we all sit up and pay attention. One screen shows the Harsi anatomy as currently understood by the Box. The second screen shows the schematics of a Harsi ship.

"The Harsi have some kind of undetectable-to-us force shields on their bodies and on their ships. That's why we can't cut their metal. And that's why we can't cut them. The Harsi's personal shield is generated by their antennae. We cut the antennae, we cut the shield. So, we have to cut the antennae."

"And how do we do that?" a ratty junior officer asks. "They have to lower their shields for us to cut them."

Juk taps his mouth. "So when do they lower their shields?"

"On their ship," somebody guesses. "Where they're already shielded."

My mind flashes back. The squirmy tongue hovering over Falkion… "When they're about to eat."

Everyone falls silent.

I stroke Falkion's forehead. Even if he's unconscious, I want him to feel I'm here.

"Normally, the Harsi don't stop in the middle of a sweep to eat." Werrin's eye sockets are red with deep double bruises, but he doesn't touch a medkit. "They carry organic matter back to their ship."

"So why did it eat his blade?" Juk asks, like any of us really know.

"Curiosity?" Werrin shrugs. "We shot at it, but Falkion attacked. It must have been curious about what kind of thing he was."

There's a long moment of respectful silence. Falkion's bravery will go down in history. The uninjured Harsi did cart off an entire bin of casualties. That's like an ant carrying food back to its hill.

"So we need to get them to carry something in with 'em," an engineer says. "Something deadly."

"Explosives?" a junior officer suggests.

"Nah," the engineer replies. "They toss inorganic matter into their engines."

"Organic explosives?"

Suddenly, everyone has an idea, something to add to the brainstorm.

Science Officer Banyal finishes with the bone knitter and carries the medical equipment to the survivor-hunting teams outside. A junior cadet supply officer—not Koron—drapes a new skinsuit over Falkion's nude body. The oil-slick-gray fabric coils around him, wriggling underneath his bruised back, and seals him up for safety. I put on his hood. There. Now he's safe from ordinary danger.

But I leave his hands free. Like he once did to me, I now stroke his angular wrist. The small creases there, the small scratches, which I smooth healing ointment over, the tears on his knuckles. I touch the pad of his thumb. So recently, he rubbed my nipples with this thumb, tender and attentive. He palmed my buttocks, rolled me onto my belly, covered me from behind, and thrust until I shattered.

It was only a few clegs ago. Well, shifts now, but even so. Not long.

My chest aches.

He's going to live.

I tune back in to the discussion.

"So, when those two Harsi come back, we have a plan." Juk grins. He's missing part of a front tooth.

Everyone stretches, congratulating each other.

Kollok stares out from his screen, arms crossed. We can't hear him, but he can still hear us. His lips curl back from his gritted teeth.

Heh.

Eat sand, Kollok.

Science Officer Banyal looks up from his data tablet. "There's a complication."

Juk stops smiling.

"The counter on the Harsi ship." Banyal licks his lips. "When our attackers returned to their ship, the counter briefly increased to two and then decreased to one. I believe the injured one died. However, the number has started increasing again."

Dread fills the office.

"To what?" Juk asks.

"Thirteen."

We let out a collective exhale.

Thirteen?

We barely survived an attack by two Harsi. How could we possibly survive an attack by thirteen?

"Fourteen," Banyal says grimly. "Ah, fifteen."

Someone moans.

Normally, a targeted ship is flooded with hundreds of Harsi. We're were lucky to have only fought two, but our luck has run out.

"I keep trying to reset the counter higher," Banyal continues, tapping his data tablet synced with the distant Box, "but it must not be convincing. If I could get another Box within arm's length of an occupied Harsi ship's brain, we can receive the data needed to make a convincing projection and stop more Harsi from coming over to our ship."

There's a long silence.

Juk just stares. "We need to get a Box, intact, inside an occupied Harsi ship?"

Banyal nods.

Juk scrubs his face. "Okay. All right. Ideas? Anybody? Hit me."

Round two is equally hot and frantic, but a clear plan emerges. They'll dangle a derelict ship on a cable, teasing it like a fishing lure in front of the closest Harsi ship, and hope they take the bait.

During this discussion, Falkion's lashes flutter.

I lean forward.

He cracks his eyes open and looks up at me. Pain-filled silver studies me for injuries.

"I'm fine." I try to smile, even though the relief makes warmth seep into my face and heat prickle my eyes.

He turns to look over at everyone brainstorming ideas.

I squeeze his hand. "I'm here."

"I know." His voice is faint as his answering squeeze. "That is not the normal…battle strategy…team…"

The motley assortment of crew, from the lowest cleaning robot technician to Navigator Werrin, don't even eat in the same mess halls, much less work together. And now they're plotting how to defeat the Harsi.

"That's why we're going to win," I tell him confidently.

A ghostly smile passes across his face. He closes his eyes again. Soothed to sleep by my confidence, he gets the rest he so desperately needs.

Good. I actually feel a lot better. I wipe the dampness from my cheeks. Stupid grit in the air is irritating my eyes. Falkion's totally going to be fine. He just needs a few clegs to recover. And I'm going to make sure he has them.

"This has never been done before anywhere in the empire," a junior officer, one of the main architects of the new plan, crows.

"Which means it might not work," one of the engineers cautions.

"Uh, dangling bait in front of your target is called ‘fishing.'" I ignore the emotional wobble in my voice and clear my throat. "And it's super common."

The junior officer deflates a little. "Super common?"

"Because it works."

He perks up again. The others seem reassured. We get moving, and a short cleg later, Operation: Fishing Lure is ready to launch.

Except for the fact that I'm inside it as it's towed outside the atmosphere veil and connected to the longest cable.

"We see you," Banyal says.

His image flickers from the only working viewscreen inside the burned-out, derelict ship we've chosen to be our bait. It's airtight, barely. The Box I used to camouflage myself and Falkion balances at my feet against the blown-out control panels.

"Can you confirm that the data tablet is displaying the correct screen?" Banyal asks.

My synced data tablet is stuck to the front of the Box, easy for me to see. "It's projecting the message, ‘Bring us to the ship's brain.'"

"Very good. With any luck, the Harsi will obey." He brushes his hands. "All right, the final check is complete. A sled is coming to pick you up, and then we'll launch."

The Box is why I'm here instead of an engineer. Banyal knows I can operate the data tablet in stressful situations.

This bait ship is as silent and cold as a sepulchre. It's a Sunpiercer-class. Smaller than a Harvester and much hardier, it still has a big open area inside. I piloted one once with Falkion.

My hood's down and filtering the ship's stale air, but I swear I can smell blood. A casualties bin rests behind me in the middle of the open floor. I asked the officers who delivered it if we should do some kind of ceremony for the departed. Their bodies have been stuffed with a variety of explosives. It seems like desecration but the Arrisan officers disagreed.

"There is no higher honor," one replied.

His partner nodded. "Injuring the Harsi after death is our dream."

These two were high-ranked and in fresh, crisp uniforms, as if they'd just arrived instead of surviving the Harsi and multiple fires. I think I can trust their judgment. It's creepy to be in here with corpses alone, though.

On the one flickering screen, Science Officer Banyal moves aside for Werrin.

Werrin sidles forward, slides into the curved console, and lowers his voice. "I don't mean to alarm you, but you should know that Kollok wants you dead."

Anxiety vibrates in my belly. This is ridiculous, though. I've faced the elephant-locust Harsi, and I'm still nervous about an impotent vice-captain.

I laugh it off. "I'll be okay."

"I'm serious." Werrin rests his elbows on his knees. "I got a cryptic message from Marip, and two guys from the second watch just waltzed through the bay. I'm worried."

I'm touched. "My whole life, I've been ordered around by more powerful people, and my whole life, I've slipped around them and survived. I'm great at evading trouble."

"Yeah, but with the captain gone, Kollok has every reason to come after you."

"He'll have to catch me first."

Werrin compresses his lips in concern as he leans back. The makeshift bed on the crates behind him is empty.

With the captain gone, he just said.

My stomach drops. "Where's Falkion?"

"Huh?" Werrin cranes around. "Uh…"

The view of the engineering office disappears. My flickering old screen is taken over by the bridge.

Kollok wants you dead.

He'll have to catch me first.

Kollok sprawls in Falkion's captain console on the bridge, smug and relaxed, surrounded by his loyal crew. "Caught you."