3. Into the Void

"Stay close," Lupo whispered.

They ducked under a window that opened into the resurrection ship's mess hall. Within, a security team was performing sweeps.

"I disabled the internal sensors before you downloaded me back into my body." Lupo explained.

They scampered on. An intersection in the hallway up ahead was marked with an indicator for the docking bay. Auren finally allowed himself a breath of relief as they approached one of a few docking tubes. Like all the doors before, it slid open for them.

Auren looked around nervously, and Lupo tried to be patient with him but failed.

"Are you coming or not?" Lupo implored, waving him along from within the tube.

To his relief, Auren followed him inside.

Lupo had memorized the ship's schematics a week ago when it docked with the resurrection ship. He grinned as they boarded it. The vessel was even more luxurious than he'd imagined. A sleek axial hallway ran the span of the thing. On one end, a command bridge and viewing cone awaited him. On the other, an Alcubierre drive and bridge room sat empty and idle. The craft's medbay, fabrication unit, and living accommodations were exactly where he'd expected to find them, filling the space between the ship's two ends.

Lupo let out a little whoop. It felt good to be alive. It felt good to be. He ran his finger along the wood grain of the ship's wall as he wandered to the hallway. Auren was trailing him silently, likely thinking him quite mad. But Lupo didn't care. He giggled as he noticed the soft piano music filtering in from the ship's speakers. Compared to the silence and limitation of the years he'd spent out of body—this was all a miracle.

"You said this was a pirate's ship?" Auren asked. He'd expected something less…executive.

"Was a pirate's ship. It's ours now. Let's get the fuck out of here!" Lupo yipped.

Auren had followed him to the ship's bridge. Lupo hopped into the command chair, pulled up the control display, and began hacking into the ship's command unit. Like all of the pirate's systems thus far—it was no match for his naval intelligence training, and a pleasant chime sounded as he transferred flight control over to himself.

"You want to sit down for this part of things." Lupo warned Auren.

He began to disembark from the resurrection ship immediately. There was a clunk as their vessel decoupled itself from the other. Then Lupo knowingly fired their maneuvering thrusters at far too high a setting this close-in, searing open huge holes across the larger vessel's surface as they angled away.

He laughed maniacally as he did so, imagining all the pain he was preventing these assholes from perpetuating by shutting down their little scheme once and for all.

This is for you, Bartie. He thought with a flash of feral hatred.

"Stop! What are you doing?!" Auren yelled.

But Lupo couldn't stop. He'd promised himself he'd do this the moment he was able years ago.

Lupo fired the ship's cannons before the resurrection ship could reply in kind—aiming for where he'd memorized the reactor to be and pounding holes across into its hull. There was a flash, and then a chain reaction of explosions caused the bulk of the vast reincarnation ship's innards to erupt into the vacuum as it wrenched apart. It was impossible not to see the bodies of pirates arcing out in the expanding field of ice and doom. Lupo swung them away spectacle, pushing the engines to the maximum as they outpaced the shockwave of destruction expanding out into the void.

"Hang on!" Lupo yelled.

He spooled up their Albucierre drive and prepared to jump into hyperspace before they were overtaken by shrapnel.

Directly ahead, two pirate destroyers blinked into local space. A flurry of red alert symbols immediately flared across the viewscreen.

"What are those?!" Auren cried.

"Nuclear missiles." Lupo murmured.

He was redirecting all power to the engines now. He'd even dropped the shields and momentarily killed life support to accelerate the drive spooling up.

"Multiple warheads incoming. Restore power to point defense immediately." The ship computer warned.

Auren screamed in terror.

"Impact in 5…4…3…2…1..." The ship's computer counted.

And then, to Lupo's utter amazement, they blinked out. All at once, the viewscreen was delightfully cleared of all its warnings. Nothing but a field of stars whirled beyond as they channeled across the hyperlane on autopilot toward the place Lupo had almost abandoned the idea of returning to: Thestle.

"Yo, serial killer, mind telling me where we're going?" Auren demanded. He leaned down beside Lupo and stared out at the stars. His mouth fell open.

"Holy shit," he gasped, watching as space flew by at a truly mind-numbing rate.

"I'm sorry. I swear before all of this I was a kind man." Lupo said. He hoped Auren could believe him.

"Where are you taking us?" Auren asked after a time. He'd sat down cross-legged on the floor beside him and was still raptly watching the stars as though he'd never seen them before.

"Thestle," Lupo replied.

"It's 6 days transit. I can help you enable realistic settings if you'd like to maintain a more natural schedule, or I can deactivate whichever you don't want to burden yourself. Personally, I think the more realistic we keep our simulations, the more human we'll remain. What that says about me after what I've been through…I'm not sure." Lupo grinned.

Auren looked at him with eyes that seemed to want to trust but couldn't manage it.

The younger man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, closed his eyes, and rocked slightly as though he were coming to terms with some tremendous inner conflict. He wiggled his feet anxiously, rubbing one atop the other as he considered his options.

Lupo let him think.

"I'll do the natural thing, too. I don't know if I trust you yet. But I think I'm starting to." He said quietly.

And that was more than enough for Lupo, who was thankful for the company.

TO BE CONTINUED…

AVAILABLE JUNE 2024! PRE-ORDER NOW!