9. Falkion

My pronouncement echoes across the bridge.

My officers frown. Skepticism wars with confusion.

The communications officer raises her finger. "What happens when she gives an order and you're not with her?"

"I'll wait until he comes back," Zeerah promises.

But we know the Harsi won't wait. "I'll always be with her."

Kollok shakes his head. "Captain…your health…"

"My health is fine." Especially if Zeerah is never beyond my fingertips and I can finally sleep.

Engineer Juk strolls onto my bridge. "Hey, Cap'n, what's this about shifting consoles around?"

I frame the Harsi warning light console with my hands. "We need to create a new officer's station—"

"Captain, no," Kollok says.

"Wait," Zeerah says at the same moment. "I don't have to be on the bridge all the time, do I?"

"Only true officers have a place on the bridge," Kollok says.

"Maybe I could set up in the supply cabinet down the hall," she says. "Out of sight."

"That station is right beside you, closer even than us," Kollok says. "And the point of my call to the high commander, to staging this intervention, is… We've had our differences, you and I. You come from a different background, a different school, but you proved yourself to us. To me. Don't let the mistake of losing your command once destroy the captain who's earned our respect."

The other officers nod.

"I've changed," I agree, but they take it as a question and start flooding me with evidence.

"You don't scream at the lower ranks or flash your blades anymore," Navigator Werrin says.

"You haven't thrown a man into a wall in ages," my internal officer agrees.

"You haven't threatened to cut out my tongue if I pass along another annoying message," my communications officer says.

"You paid attention," Kollok says. "You were on fire for this bridge, this warship, this mission. Now? Even during the Harsi alert, you were disengaged. Calm, as if the emergency didn't concern you. We can't see you, Captain. Where have ‘you' gone?"

I study my sheaths.

Luckily, none of my old classmates or teachers from the Arsenal are around to hear this. Flashing my blades to make a point? Egotistical hubris. We're only supposed to use them to execute our assignments.

The old me should have known better.

For the first time, I feel like a true blade. Like, the worldly concerns I had as a captain were so petty, so pointless. Rank? Appearances? Who cares about those? I'm finally aware of my higher purpose, which is to protect the empire and everything in it, and also specifically, to protect Zeerah within it. Flashing my blades only because I'm irritated…

I can't remember the last time I was irritated, actually.

Full of rage, confusion, and strange urges, yes. Those are felt in direct proportion to how far I am from Zeerah.

But plain irritation over some imagined slight? Petty annoyance from being delayed or otherwise slightly off-schedule? Those feelings are absent. Erased. And so I do, in general, feel calm. It's strange. All my former concerns have fallen off me like loose robes. Squabbles are mere whispers.

"You accuse me of changing since I lost my command to the Vanadisans," I tell them softly, in direct contrast to the flashy rages I used to have. "And you are right."

They shuffle, murmuring with shock.

"We may argue about who should give orders or be what rank, but none of it will matter when that light stays on."

I point at the Harsi warning light, allowing my sword to emerge to my fingertip—not to scare them, but for emphasis—and then suck it back in again. "My old aspirations are ash."

"You'll get your old aspirations back," Kollok insists.

The others nod encouragingly.

"Without a constant reminder of your worst shift hanging all over you, you'll—"

"Hold on, then." Engineer Juk scratches his head and looks up from the orders. "A human's been put in charge of the Harsi? Does that mean she's taking over the research and our repair jobs and everything?"

There's a long silence as we contemplate this possibility.

"Would it mean I wasn't spending much time on the bridge?" Zeerah points one foot toward the door. "On account of me having to, uh, supervise all that?"

"Yeah, sure." Engineer Juk shrugs. "If you're always out inspecting the investigation and whatnot, that's like the engineering office. We're never there."

"Great. Well, in that case, I'd, um, better go check on that H-alien ship. All the research, you know. I can go now."

"You can't," I tell her. "My shift is on the bridge."

"I'll watch the bridge, Captain." Kollok eyes Zeerah. "Your courageous new rationality officer has to learn."

I don't like Kollok, but we both agree I shouldn't be on the bridge, so I can't hate him as much as I want to.

"Why are you so certain the H-aliens are coming back, like, in the next gora?" I ask Falkion as we fly out from the bridge toward the lower quadrant. "Three false alarms in less than one Standard Year is a lot, but Allie figured out how to safeguard against any more."

"Why are you so certain they're not coming back in the next gora?" he asks. "Or in the next cleg? Or the next click?"

"Well, if they did return in the next click, you'd be stuck. You still have their ship impaled on you. Hey! Were you really going to fly across the empire with another ship still stuck to you?"

"We have an assignment—"

"But you'd be too slow and unmaneuverable."

"Is that a reason to turn my back on a threat?"

Fine. I've never minded overpreparing for danger. The more escape routes I know, the better…

An Arrisan dreadnought is always arranged from the inside core, where the engine and command centers are, outward. The inner areas like the bridge are less vulnerable to external damage or the nightmare of hullcrack.

The H-alien ship's long spines are buried deep. Teams of engineers push on it like a body working out a splinter.

"Part of the slowdown is testing ideas!" an engineer shouts at us through a thick face mask. Behind him, a team shoves a sparking, squealing grinder machine against the huge greenish-gray metal pipe. "We've invented countless new machines! None cut the Harsi metal, but they're proving useful elsewhere in the empire!"

The team turns off their machine and backs away.

Not a scratch dings the H-alien metal.

Strange. The metal doesn't seem that different from any Arrisan metal. It looks rougher, maybe, and obviously, it's got the greenish cast.

I reach out to feel.

"Don't touch!" the engineer shouts into the cottony quiet. "Harsi metal's got microscopic knives! You run across their deck without shoes on, and it'll take off the bottoms of your feet!"

I jerk my hand back.

Funny. Arrisans are all about knives and teeth and violence, but at least I can touch their buttery-smooth ship surfaces. Everything about the Harsi is jagged and deadly.

"So, hypothetically speaking, if you had to decouple their ship from ours real fast, how fast could you do it?"

"This one? Twenty, twenty-five clegs!" He pulls off his helmet and reverts to speaking extra-loud, but no longer shouting. "But the others have a wicked hook. They're probably the attack spigots, you know, the faucets that bury deep and then open, pouring the Harsi directly into the ship."

"So, if you add them?"

"Yeah, triple that. We'd have to get all the pulleys and whatnot into place, and this assumes they don't break when we apply force. Harsi metal's really insidious, you know. Their ships grab on, and they don't let go."

Hmm.

A room-sized atmosphere veil seals off this portion of the room from open space. The veil shimmers like oil.

Falkion stands beside me, his hood on. "Ready?"

I pull on my hood. It seals, and the display pops up, tables and information flickering at the edges of my consciousness. "Um, actually…"

Falkion strides through the veil.

Eh. I'll never be ready for this, probably.

I follow.

My stomach drops as gravity changes, and I'm held to the floor only by magnets in the thick soles of my skinsuit boots. Sound changes abruptly. Nothing comes through the hood. I hear only subtle reverberations in my bones.

A widget inside my hood tells me how many clegs of atmosphere I have left. Despite the small size of my skinsuit, the time is about the same as I had in my escape pod.

In front of me, silent sleds buzz around the entrance to the sea urchin ship. Farther out lurk the support ships and then the big warships.

Falkion leads me to a disk. It's a mirror aimed at a matching disk on the H-alien ship. I clomp awkwardly after him. He shows me how to demagnetize my boots, then step onto the disk.

The disk is actually a grav tube.

I figure it out when it abruptly throws us into space.

My stomach lurches.

The stars rotate around us as we hurtle across space. Without walls to show how fast we're falling, it's not as nerve-racking as flying around the inside of the dreadnought, but still breathtaking. We are two tiny motes of dust in a vast interstellar universe.

We slam into the receiving pad and Falkion swings clear and lands on scaffolding underneath. I swing more wildly. His warning shout is transmitted directly into my hood. "Don't touch the Harsi metal!"

I try to change my angle of dismount, but my flailing throws me outside the grav field. I drift helplessly.

Falkion snags my ankle and pulls me to the narrow scaffold, which is suspended over the H-alien ship by magnets. We cross to an unnatural hole that's been bored into the ship. It's covered by another atmosphere veil. We go through and enter the H-alien ship proper.

Inside, gravity has been reestablished. Ramps and scaffolds snake through the wide, segmented halls, and their metal feet or legs are scarred with scrapes. Teams of Arrisans and science officers bustle through. They aren't wearing hoods, so I pull mine off. The air smells charred.

It's unsettling.

Ukuri hurries across the scaffolding to us. Noemi and a cadre of other science officers trail behind him. "Captain, I received your message. May I remind you that our work is critical? We can't simply scamper off and entertain any new officer the empress ordains, whoever they are."

"It's Zeerah," Falkion replies.

Ukuri's incredulity battles with his disquiet as he turns to me. "You're in charge of our research? What could you possibly want to change?"

"No, I don't want to change anything." I angle my wrists downward in a pacifying gesture. "I'm just here to learn. In case the H-aliens come back next gora. Or next cleg. What are you going to do?"

Ukuri considers me for a long moment. "Noemi?"

She moves to the front.

He murmurs to her. "Explain our research so Zeerah recognizes its full value."

She gives me a bright smile.

"Oh, I recognize the value," I assure everyone as Noemi takes off her surgical lenses and focuses on me.

Ukuri starts to turn away, then stops. "Yet you've brought the captain?"

"He's, uh, going to stay close by in case the, uh, H-aliens are suddenly spotted…"

"And I need to enforce Zeerah's orders," Falkion says firmly and without a hint of patronizing. "I won't move from her side."

Shock rustles through the crowd.

"Well, well." Ukuri lifts his brows, and his tone changes to dry amusement. "Isn't that convenient?"

"What is?" Falkion asks.

"It's a solution to a small problem we were discussing a short time ago." His lenses reflect the captain's image in them, but his smile is enigmatic. "I can't imagine anyone daring to harass you with the captain at your elbow."

Shock jolts me, followed immediately by a hot flood of embarrassment.

Falkion turns concerned eyes on me. "Someone was harassing you?"

"No, it doesn't…uh… It's not really relevant now," I say urgently, wiping away my flop sweat. "Let's not talk about it."

"Captain!" An engineer hustles up to Falkion. "The bridge has questions about your new officer's station."

Falkion reluctantly turns to answer.

Noemi exchanges a look with Ukuri. She's really like his wife or something. He takes her silent cue to round up his people.

A pompous old science officer grumbles, "Another useless human interfering with our research."

Ukuri stops, turns on his heel, and singles out the disgruntled speaker. "Science Officer Banyal? You're done for this shift. Go sort samples."

Banyal pulls up sharply. "You can't dismiss me. I'm a major researcher in this field. I was making important discoveries before your genes were combined."

Well, he does look old. His dark hair is dotted with white, like Kollok's, and he has heavier jowls.

Ukuri lifts a brow. "Too bad your important discoveries didn't include tact."

"I'll complain to the Science Center. The Arsenal!"

"Oh? Dear me, such vicious threats, whatever shall I do?" Ukuri taps his lips, but can't quite erase his smirk. "Stay if you like, but you're barred from using our equipment or resources."

Banyal huffs. "Fine, I'll leave. Is the restriction lifted at the end of the shift?"

"You may not receive any of Noemi's assistance until you apologize for unjustly besmirching her race."

"As if I need the help of a human." Banyal trudges off in the direction of the grav tube back to the Spiderwasp.

"He'll learn." Ukuri's cold smile is tinged with real amusement. "We all do."

He disappears into the interior. The other science officers follow Ukuri in a clump. But his flippant manner of dealing with Banyal sticks with me.

"I didn't realize Arrisans bothered with sarcasm," I tell Noemi.

"I think it's only Ukuri. He sets them up to squirm, especially later, when they realize what discoveries I've made and what I can do to help them." She chuckles evilly.

Noemi knows her worth. I've always liked her.

"Someone was harassing you, Zeerah?" Falkion repeats, having finished his conference.

My heart thuds. "Seriously, it doesn't matter now."

He studies me for a long moment.

"I'll tell you later," I promise, lying through my teeth. "So, Noemi, um, tell me about this ship. If the H-aliens appeared right now, what do we need to know?"

"Right now? Well, you're standing in the grub room."

My belly curls up. "Grub room?"

"Yes. Unlike an Arrisan ship, which is built from inside out, the Harsi ships are built like a sac divided into regions."

She shows me a diagram.

Like the Arrisan dreadnought, gravity is organized around the central engine.

But unlike an Arrisan dreadnought, a Harsi ship can change form. They use their spines to hold their prey, then, after soldiers have scooped up all the food—i.e., any people—they push their super-basic, matter-compacting engine out like a starfish injecting its stomach into a clam. It converts everything into energy.

Everything.

When the Vanadisans got this derelict ship up and running, they rigged their own controls to trigger "consumption mode," and this is how they ate the second dreadnought.

Then they turned on us, but luckily, we fried them.

In "consumption mode," the H-alien ship is a ravenous monster.

"Perhaps another Harsi ship collided with this one in ‘consumption mode' and caused the hole." Noemi points out the atmosphere veil behind us. "As you know, nothing in the empire can cut through Harsi metal, so we assume this cut was made by another one of the Harsi."

The way she casually throws around their full names makes little shivers cross my skin. Ghosts from an ancient era hearing their names for the first time. It makes this more real.

Maybe the Arrisans aren't so crazy after all.

"Here's the ‘soldier' Harsi you would face if they returned today." She brings up an image on the closest available viewscreen.

H-aliens are creepy-looking. The adults are almost the size of an animal we used to have before the disasters called an elephant, but their skin is a beige-green, and they have six limbs. Four legs are segmented. Their two arms terminate in sharp points like knife-arms. How do they pick up anything? They lack opposable thumbs.

Instead of eyes, they have dark patches on their skulls and a thatch of long, wavy hair on top that serves as antennae. Their big mouths contain a single shark's tooth, wide and sharp.

"So, if this ship was suddenly flooded with H-aliens, could I hide in a supply closet, slip on a grub costume, and inchworm my way to freedom?" I try to make a dumb joke to lighten the mood.

"I assume you wouldn't give off the right antenna signals," Noemi says, actually entertaining my question. "You'd be ‘defective,' so they would eat you."

"Ugh. No stowing away on an H-ship, huh?"

"Correct. If you encounter a Harsi, there's only one thing to do," she says.

Yep, it's obvious. "Run away."

At the same moment, Falkion sets his feet and raises his wrists. "Fight."