18. Zeerah

Kollok!

I dance back from the viewscreen, then I go to the door. Opening into space will suck out everything, including the bin of explosives and dead bodies and the Box. We'll have to start over.

The door controls are burned out.

I'm stuck.

Trapped.

"I've been waiting a long time for this." Kollok brims with self-satisfaction. "My only regret is that I can't execute the captain's vision myself, but I have no doubt the Harsi will debone you for me."

"The captain doesn't want that anymore." I trace burned wires through the wrecked door control panels. There has to be a component I can repurpose. "He changed his mind."

"Because you manipulated him. Wrecked his health, fundamentally damaged his mind."

"I didn't—"

"You wouldn't leave him alone."

"No, he—"

"You dug in your nasty little lesser claws and destroyed a man who could have been the greatest captain of all time." He jabs an accusing finger at me. "I'm honoring the wishes of my captain. The one who knew the values of being Arrisan. Not the man who let a lesser twist his mind."

Oh?

I've tried to hide the truth for all this time. I did it to protect Falkion, but obviously, that time is over. I face Kollok and the other bridge officers. "If you want the ‘original' Falkion back, you can have him."

Kollok blinks.

"We got separated during the last invasion. The Vanadisans sprayed us with their forced mating spray. We've both tried to resist. Just before the Harsi ship turned on, I got this cure." I pull it out of my other calf pocket. "Bring me in. I'll give it to him. He'll be yours again."

Kollok stares at me. The other officers too. Marip presses her finger to her lips, transfixed by my explanation. I've tried so long to keep this a secret. It's horrible that it has to come out like this, but there's also relief. Now they all know.

I heave a sigh. "It's not anybody's fault, but—"

"That…" Kollok curls his lip. "…is a disgusting lie."

Wha…?

"A horrible, manipulative, stupid lie." He crosses his arms, leans back, and shakes his head with an incredulous laugh. "Did you really expect us to believe it?"

"It's the truth," I say, stunned.

"You don't have any lusteal in you." He gestures at me derisively. "You don't smell wrong or spicy like your tainted-blood passengers. How could the captain be drugged by you?"

"The Vanadisans—"

"Ridiculous. You don't have any mating marks." He touches his own gray neck and settles back, shaking his head. "I've never heard such a blatant lie."

But…but…but… "But you can have ‘your' Falkion back." I tuck the cure back into my pocket and lean into the data screen. "You can have him back! Isn't that worth a try?"

Kollok's derision subsides. His expression flattens into one that's much too familiar to me. It's an Arrisan looking down on a weakling, someone who's trying to beg from them, or bargain.

I clench my fists, thinking quickly. A pained groan emerges from the casualties bin behind me. My heart thumps.

I've said I don't believe in ghosts. That was a lie. I believe in spirits and superstitions and gods and everything else, but right now, I am afraid this sound means something much worse.

I creep to the casualties bin, screwdriver at the ready.

Inside, partially obscured by bodies, Falkion struggles to focus on me. The medkit's dumped in sideways. He's half crushed, in a weird position, and clearly in pain. "Zeerah?"

My guts drop to the floor.

H, H, H!

I haul Falkion out of the bin, groaning from his weight. I really wish for an implant and super-strength right now. "No…"

Kollok and his well-armed, pristine officers watch us struggle.

This was no mistake.

I lower Falkion to the ground and pull the medkit out of the bin so the cables aren't yanking on his sheath. "You're killing him?"

Kollok lifts his chin. "He will have an honorable death."

"You're stealing his life."

Turbulence shakes my ship, bumps as it travels down the fishing line toward the end of the tether. The screen flickers wildly, then subsides. My panic rises.

"You're murdering him. Your own captain. This is mutiny."

"I am his greatest ally." Kollok's voice cracks down at me. "Our history will show he died fighting the Harsi. I will allow no other record of his life."

No other record?

Realization dawns on me. "This is because I saved him. Because I, a human, saved him, an Arrisan."

"It never happened."

"How can you allow Kollok to do this?" I shout at the other officers, lifting and hugging Falkion to my chest so they can see him, really see what they're doing. "How can you?"

Marip swallows. She tried to warn Werrin. We just didn't understand, or maybe it was already too late.

Laris shifts uncomfortably, and Yarvi wipes his forehead.

"Stop him," I urge. "Do something!"

"Don't waste your breath." Kollok suppresses his smile. "My officers are Arrisan. They understand rank."

"I'm higher than you! I'm the rationality officer. As soon as the Harsi are spotted, I—"

"Until the threat is proven real." His smile broadens. "Then your rank is stripped. We rule over you. Your own Humana empress wrote it that way."

Ah, crap. He's right. I remember being so giddy about it too. And now…

Marip raises her finger. She's helping me! Kollok acknowledges her.

"High Commander Drin's warship is in our nearspace, sir."

High Commander Drin…

"We will support him as planned. Contact engineering." Kollok smirks at me. "Lessers should know their place."

No!

Wait, please, I'll do whatever you want, I promise…

The words lodge in my throat. Begging an Arrisan just makes them crueler, and I've tried so hard to stay out of Kollok's way. Stay out of everyone's way. High Commander Drin, all the lower Arrisans. The bullies on Humana. My uncle.

Keep a low profile, Zeerah. Skate under the radar. No one wants you here. Do you really think one in your position should seek attention?

That safety lever buried deep inside me bends past the breaking point and snaps. "You're afraid."

Kollok sneers. "I'm not afraid of meeting my destiny."

"Of me."

His nostrils flare. "You wouldn't say that to my face."

"Bring me in, and I will."

He twitches. Silent emotions flit across his gray skin but I already know which one will win out. He's wrong, but he's not stupid. "I don't fear a weak lesser—"

"Who disarmed the Harsi."

The bridge becomes as silent as the aftermath of a land cannon blast.

"I disarmed them." I rest my palm against my chest, still holding Falkion to me with my other arm. "I did. A lesser. Not one of you."

Kollok chokes. "No."

"For a thousand years, Arrisans debated strategy, and in five clicks, I did what none of your ancestors could."

"Silence!"

"I used alien technology that you dismissed."

"You huddled behind it like a coward—"

"And I won!" I slam my palm against my chest. "I'm the first person to damage a Harsi. History is going to talk about me. My great accomplishment. I did that. Not you. They're going to talk about how your oh-so-superior Arrisan butt was saved by a human."

Kollok's mouth opens and closes.

"I'm a hero." I point my fist at him in challenge. "Live with it."

Kollok rises. His movements are jerky, fingers clenched like he wants to leap through the shaky connection and throttle me.

The bridge is utterly silent.

No one will rescue me.

I seethe with anger because I know I've spoken the truth.

Kollok pivots to Laris. "Erase the attack in the engineering bay."

The internal officer twitches. "Sir?"

"Any record, any video."

"But the attack is an important historical record—"

"Erase it!"

Laris hesitates, but then obeys.

Kollok sneers at me. "You will be forgotten. We will defeat the next Harsi. My actions will be studied by future generations. I will go down in our history."

"Yeah, for being a sad man who couldn't handle reality."

Kollok shakes. His gray skin turns ashen with fury as he stalks toward me.

Clang.

My ship jumps onto the extension cable. The video cuts to black.

Silence.

I hug Falkion. This is supposed to happen. The extension cable had a limitation. No more instructions can be sent from the dreadnought. That's why it was so crucial for me to ensure the Box was transmitting the last message. No one can send any signals to this bait ship anymore, but they're still receiving any messages sent back.

So, I can't see or hear Kollok, but he can still see and hear me.

Someday, I'm going to stab him in the face. But until then, I'll have to settle for annoying the crap out of him.

I hold up my palms, flashing the blank viewscreen the rudest gesture I know, and pepper him with insults.

And then, out of wordless frustration, I scream.

Zeerah's scream slides like a knife down the inner column of my spine, forcing me through several painful layers to consciousness.

Immediately, the medkit dispenses sedatives to compensate. Warmth seeps up my arm toward my face and drags my eyelids down again. I clutch at the medkit, grasp empty air, and force the faint word through my lips. "Zeerah…" And the world winks out again.

Another furious scream rends me back to consciousness. My limp hand passes over the medkit. "Stop…the…"

White oblivion.

And then wrenching reality.

Her third scream trails off. My hand's off the medkit. I think she's been shaking me. "Stop the what?"

"…sedatives…"

She does.

The return to reality hurts terribly. Nausea wells, and muscles in the back of my throat work to keep it contained. Shivers rack me. I crack open my eyes.

She strokes my face, hers close to mine, both our hoods pushed back just enough for this contact. "Are you okay?"

I'm very, very far from okay, but she must need me, or else her frustrated, impotent scream wouldn't have punctured my sleep.

"What's happened?" I ask, my words clipped.

"Stupid Kollok finally got me. He'd rather you die a martyr than live with the indignity of me having saved us."

"…saved…?"

She explains.

I remember the fight until the last moment. My half-empty sheath feels gaping and wrong. Nerves fire along my agonized forearm as the broken shard slides against my ulna, seeking its missing piece. Which the Harsi ate? Incredible. Her words are tinted with an audio halo. Just like my vision is glowing and fuzzy, this altered state is a strange dream.

In my nightmares, the Harsi chased Zeerah a hundred times. I've seen her stabbed through the chest and heard the sound of her death over and over in my mind. And never once, in any of those nightmares, did I imagine her leaping from the closet and stabbing the Harsi with an electric screwdriver.

Our current situation is entirely my fault.

I left Kollok in power because I, like the rest of the empire, believed the Harsi could only be defeated by an Arrisan.

I was wrong.

"Are you still awake?" She glances behind her at a data tablet, then back at me. "Say something."

I force out the words. "You…really are…Amante."

She blinks. Then, an incredulous giggle emerges from her sparkling smile. "Did you just propose? Here? Of all places?"

No. I meant that she's as resourceful as the original myth's character.

Tears shine in her eyes. She swallows hard.

My chest contracts. Heat buzzes in my ears.

In all the universe, there is only her.

Her shimmering brown irises, her adorable nose, her soft cheekbones. The scar on her eyebrow. Her delicious brown skin and her addictive lips.

My jack throbs with heat. My inner teeth flex. Their acid burns the back of my tongue.

Mine.

No, it isn't what I meant, but as is often the case, I turn the mistake to my advantage. My words are rough. "Your answer?"

"Serious?" She wipes her damp eyes, then sucks in a breath and clears her throat. "If…" Emotion overwhelms her. She has to clear her throat again. "There's something we have to do. After we live through this. Okay?"

I pull her to me and press her mouth to mine. She tastes like fire and grease and magnificence. And she kisses me back, one hand on either side of my face, her tongue yielding and flowing with mine.

We are two infinite creatures in an abyss of darkness.

And right now, I will do anything to protect her light.

A loud clank echoes against the roof of the ship. We jerk apart.

She looks up. "We hit the end of the tether."

And now we wait.

I'm bad at waiting. "You were screaming."

"In frustration. I really want to stab Kollok in the face. But there's no way out of this ship. The door is sealed from the outside, and the hull is double-reinforced. We chose a sturdy ship to be clamped by the Harsi, but that means I can't just unscrew a couple of bolts and remove a panel." She pockets her screwdriver. "There's no way out."

Double-reinforced hulls are about the same thickness as the walls and door around a science office. "I once saw a blade cut into a science office."

"I remember," she says. "I was there."

Of course she was. She's been everywhere that matters. At the time, I criticized the male for cutting through such thick metal so recklessly He could have broken his blade.

Mine is already broken.

And now I think if he'd broken his blade, he would have kept cutting. He destroyed every obstacle, every barrier and every objection to save his human partner.

I criticized him, and I was wrong. I doubted Zeerah's abilities, and I was wrong. I was wrong, and so I made new decisions.

I will save Zeerah.

She is mine.

I roll onto my side and clasp the medkit.

Pain knifes through me. I catch my breath, then push the regrowth gels to their maximum. My veins light on fire. My muscles claw out of my skin. My stomach surges for my throat. I vomit a small amount of liquid as I force myself into my blade mantras. My body triggers another vomit, but my annoyance about it recedes. I accept what is.

I am air. I am water. I am flesh. I am stone.

My blades unmake the universe.

I am night without darkness.

I am wings tipped with razors.

Time rips itself where I slice.

No barrier defeats a blade.

I am sharpness without light.