19. Zeerah

So, I guess Falkion just proposed marriage. That's what it means, usually, when an Arrisan starts talking about his Amante. Giddiness wells up in me. Ah, this is crazy.

Falkion drags himself to the wall and sets his palm against the metal. My chest lifts with hope. Wherever a blade goes, he has no need of exits. He'll make one.

He glances back at me. We're both wearing hoods, of course, sealing us in from pressure. His bruised silver eyes sit in dark, pained hollows. He squeezes them shut and tenses.

His blade extends into the wall.

Atmosphere hisses through the cut, and depressurization warnings flash on my skinsuit. He pauses, shaking and sick. One small hand-length pushes him to the limit.

I have to do something too.

I squat in front of the data tablet attached to the Box and look up Sunpiercers. The schematics prove what I already know. There are no weak joints. There are no weapons. No hidden engineer's tools or hull cutters.

Falkion carves another hand-length, slow and steady.

Clank.

Uh-oh. My heart drops through the floor as a long spine pierces our ceiling. I dive back. "The Harsi!"

Falkion cuts in a curve. His hole will be small, but we don't need a big escape hatch, just enough to squeeze Outside. More spines puncture the walls and floor. I dance away from the skewers toward the middle of the ship. In the ceiling over the casualties bin, a circular dent appears.

An attack spigot!

I weave back to Falkion, screwdriver in my hand, my heart thundering like a small rabbit. We survived their attack once. We'll survive again.

Of course, last time, I was camouflaged by the Box, and this time, I'm out in the open, so…

Wait! What am I thinking?

I scoop up the data tablet and Box. Camouflage, camouflage, camouflage… I flip through the settings. Arrisan Standard labels mix with other languages. Come on, come on…

Falkion saws aggressively at the metal wall. Our ship shudders. Metal on our ceiling crinkles inward as the spigot bends and forces entry. A terrible rushing slides us toward the middle of the ship. I scramble back to Falkion and keep searching. There! Activate camouflage. I bring up my image, then Falkion's, and halo us. Select creature…there, Harsi. Done.

The data tablet processes my request, hitches, and then processes it again.

A message conflicts with my order.

Please take me to the bridge.

Oops!

I shut off the message, then go through the camouflage process again.

Falkion sweats as he forces his blade around the final curve, sawing back to the start. A low moan echoes, and dank air gusts in as the spigot opens into our ship. I set the Box in front of us, trying to measure an arm's length. We're going to have to crouch down and pull in tight.

The clanking of the incoming Harsi grows louder.

My heart thumps.

Only a palm's width of the wall remains, but there's no time. Falkion pulls free and turns to face the invading Harsi, his face a mask of deadly intention. I catch him in a hug and pull him down to his knees. "Don't move."

He looks through me, tensed for combat. The medkit beeps, panicked.

"Please," I murmur.

Even at ten percent of his health, he's a force of destruction.

We press against each other like opposing elements. I face away from the spigot, trembling as I suppress my urge to run, and he faces it, barely held back from attacking. Our two forces meet in the middle.

The next instant will determine our fate.

Please, Falkion.

Let me save you.

The Box behind me flashes lights at the edge of consciousness.

Harsi flood into the ship.

My body goes absolutely still.

Discomfort fades to the background. The tremors from the massive overdose of medkit stimulants quiet to crystalline readiness.

One thought pulses through my exhausted mind.

These creatures will not survive.

My race's ancient enemies land on the ship floor and spring outward, expanding with their first leap. They swing their knife-arms wildly, brush the ceiling, and stomp over dead bodies. One Harsi connects with the casualties bin. Bodies and explosives spill out.

Zeerah kneels in front of me, a barrier and a shield.

Every instinct screams to attack.

I must protect her. Throw her behind me, draw their attention. Push her out of my way, slash.

Electric wires hiss in my readied muscles and pulse in my half-broken blades.

My falchions slide out, curving protectively around her.

She pinches my chin, her fingers compressing my sealed skinsuit gently, and makes me look at her as she mouths, Trust me.

The Harsi stampede to our corner, and their knife-arms swing, nightmares made real.

I brace to counterattack.

They run right past us.

Hm?

Clattering, they stomp around the burned-out console. One slices the blackened viewscreen in half. Zeerah flinches. Others poke and bore holes in the burned-out control panels.

More Harsi fill the ship, scuttling and clomping over each other. It's crowded.

The monsters press toward us.

Zeerah squeezes her eyes shut.

Dark certainty swirls in me.

I brace for the inevitable, but they don't discover us. One makes a wide turn and scrapes against my protective blade. The sharp edge scores their carapace. It doesn't leave a mark. The Harsi stomps away, oblivious.

We are camouflaged.

I hold my position like a hidden curse, watchful.

Eventually, the monsters shimmy up into the attack spigot and retreat back into their ship. It grows quiet. The medkit beeps steady and loud.

One Harsi stays behind.

It moves the casualties bin into an upright position, picks up one of the spilled bodies, and shakes it. Live explosives thud onto the grating. Zeerah cranes to watch over her shoulder, horrified.

The Harsi tosses the body into the bin, then it pokes at the explosives, rolling them over with its knife-arm.

She inhales.

I cannot grow any colder.

If that Harsi eats the explosive and it goes off…

Plans to swing her behind me rehearse over and over in my mind. Suddenly, my implant crackles.

The Harsi jolts. It drops the explosives and looks right at us.

"Shhh…" Zeerah breathes.

The Harsi doesn't see us kneeling in the open, doesn't care about the medkit's beeping, and doesn't hear Zeerah's light admonishment.

But when someone tries to talk inside my brain, it reacts.

I toggle my implant off.

The Harsi waits a long moment, then returns to its inspection of the live ordnance.

My implant crackles again.

Dread streaks from my center to my fingertips.

Certain officers can override my controls.

As captain, I am supposed to be reachable in emergencies.

Again, I toggle my implant off, but it's too late.

The Harsi charges.

Zeerah swears and scrambles to her feet.

The Harsi's movement is almost too quick to follow.

But I have just rehearsed this move a hundred times.

My suit fires, muscles surge. I roll backward onto my feet, faster than lightning, and swing her out of the path.

The Harsi's antenna turns to follow our evasion while its body slams into the wall behind us. One foot kicks the camouflaging Box to the side, and another squashes the medkit. It buries its knife-arms into the external wall up to the elbow joints.

Atmosphere hisses around the punctured metal.

Decompression warning, my hood display flashes.

The Harsi struggles back, shredding metal as it flails, but the extra weight weakens the entire panel. It collapses outward with a big pop.

Hullcrack!

Vacuum sucks out the air, explosive. Green warnings scream across my vision. We're all abruptly yanked into the void. I flail for an anchor.

And whiff empty space.

No!

My fingertips brush the jagged hull. Skinsuit gloves magnetize to Arrisan metal. Thank the seven suns. I swing up, Zeerah tight to my chest. I magnetize her suit to mine. We rotate like a fulcrum and land on the roof.

Behind us, in the darkness, the Harsi twists out of control.

The crushed medkit swings wide, following the Harsi's exit trajectory, and the Box floats with it. The force of the two objects tugs on my inner sheath. A sharp pain cuts through my icy focus.

Zeerah lunges. "I have to grab the Box!"

I demagnetize her suit and allow her to push off me. She strains for the Box. I hold her ankle and when she captures the Box, I drag her back.

The Harsi rotates to face her like a planet on its daily rotation. Frictionless in the void, its knife-arms pass by her hood by a hair's width

She's safe, but they catch the crushed medkit still attached to me.

No!

It stabs aggressively, as they always do, and its knife slices through the medkit without resistance. The crushed medkit shears in half, and the two halves float away. The Harsi wiggles helplessly.

If it could have grabbed on instead of trying to mindlessly kill the device, it would have gotten the leverage it needed to attack us, but it couldn't change its response.

And so the Harsi rotates slowly as it falls away from us, its knife-arms and legs twisting in the void. Fragments of the medkit and droplets of lost medicine surround it in a frozen halo.

It can't change.

But I can.

I cut the trailing cables of the lost medkit, sealing the ends into my skinsuit. Without the constant influx of stimulants, my heart rate lowers. My head fills with gas, even though I have several clegs' of atmosphere left.

I have to push through.

Zeerah kneels by the hole in the Sunpiercer and peers into the interior. She tucks the Box under her arm and crawls back into the ship.

The night sky looks so black right now. Endless, without stars.

My vision expands. Light spills from the hole in the Sunpiercer beneath my feet. It reflects off distant wreckage. My hood display records what I see, and my implant struggles to identify the debris.

A massive ship has been destroyed. These hull shards are too large to fit any evacuated ships, or even a Starbreaker-class. They're closer to the size of a dreadnought.

My stomach clenches.

I follow the curve of the Sunpiercer's hull to the hook where the cable connects us, my magnetized boots clinking. The cable is taut, but I can't see as it disappears into darkness.

Where is the Spiderwasp?

Everything goes fuzzy.

Zeerah crawls out of the hole again, and her voice comes through my hood. "I reset the message and put the Box in with the bodies. Maybe we'll get lucky, and they'll still carry it inside to the bridge."

My tongue is made of lead. "Good…"

Her beautiful face appears haloed before my eyes. I barely feel her arms. "Falkion?"

"Yes…?"

Her bright eyes tell me I'm not fine, but she says tightly, "No, never mind. Demagnetize your boots."

I use the last of my strength to jerk them free. My body floats in the void. She threads her fingers through mine, knotting us together, and clambers onto the cable. Her movements turn jerky as she navigates the new surface.

"Am…m…"

"Amazing?"

"Amante."

She coughs in surprise. "You're so romantic. Giving me long walks in the open sky, letting me fly you like a captain balloon. All we need is a sunset and ice cream. It's the perfect date."

"…Someday…"

"Yeah." She sniffs. "I'll get that implant. Take you back to Humana. We'll go on supersonic runs along the beach. Snuggle up in a console and watch videos in dead languages. We can even do something you'd like, like sharpening my old knife collection. My treat."

Warmth fills my chest.

I close my eyes. Clicks turn into clegs, but I barely notice them. Her words are a soothing soundtrack.

Nightmares no longer plague me. Instead, I drift from warm thoughts to pleasant dreams. It takes a long time to cross the length of a single Arrisan dreadnought.

Much less three ships' lengths.

Zeerah's panicked cry awakens me. The cable has disappeared beneath her feet, and we're thrown into space. Suddenly, the frayed edge of the torn cable whizzes past us in the frictionless void.

The Harsi must have torn the Sunpiercer free and then consumed it.

The loose cable snaps back toward the dreadnought, a deadly snake.

I pull Zeerah to my chest, and we rotate helplessly as the cable disappears into the darkness. This is how casualties are lost forever. My vitals dip into green. Our atmosphere is dangerously low. She didn't say anything, but she must have accepted the truth long ago. We could never have made it to the dreadnought.

I catch Zeerah's hood and orient her face with mine. Her panic centers on me.

"This is not how it ends," I tell her, even though the words are rough, and speaking them agony. "We're just beginning our fight."

She swallows hard. "Does that mean you, uh, Arrisans believe in an afterlife?"

"No." I magnetize our suits, sealing us together. "There is only this life. But we believe in echoes."

"Echoes?"

"That even now, the pain and fury of the Arrisans who died, helpless against the Harsi, echo down to our generation. To us right now. But we also believe the future echoes backward in time. That all those centuries ago, every single dying Arrisan knew that someday, a warrior would rise up and defeat our greatest enemy. They heard the echo of your triumph, Zeerah. My ancestors fought, died, and continued on beyond all rational hope because of you."

Her chin wrinkles. "You are truly the greatest captain in all of history."

"I am honored to stand beside you."

She hugs me fiercely.

We are one lump among a field of larger lumps.

The frayed end of the fishing cable drifts away from us.

We float into the darkness.

And then something appears on my hood display.

A Humana miracle.

"Halooo there!" Engineer Juk cheerfully calls from a tiny repair sled. "By any chance, did you two Heroes of the Empire need a ride?"