I don't question him but check over my shoulder one more time. ARC10's orange ooze glows, giving it the appearance of a lump of coal seated among glowing embers. I can hear its horrendous racket from here.
I face the city again. Moon is in the distance. I need to follow. Sprinting at my top speed, I catch up. He navigates us to a new part of the city, one where creatures are in a frenzy. They rush around, some screaming, some fighting with others. It's chaos. I follow Moon through the crowd as he shoves his way through, clearing a path for me. Creatures start, screeching at our presence.
We emerge on the other side of the congested terminal to the open runways.
Another golden army approaches from our left.
Moon changes direction. We sprint away from them into a series of platforms holding different ships. Mechanics and pilots grunt as we dive through them, the golden army on our tail.
The night is endless and so are the blaring spotlights that keep us in full view of the enemy and the enemy of us.
Finally, we approach a platform without wreaking havoc in it. Docked as quiet and quaint as a teacup, a small ship purrs to life when Moon approaches. It's as clean as porcelain, as delicate at glass. Moon sprints up the lowered hatch that slides out from the ship's opening, landing at his boots. The thing is so pristine, I hesitate for a single second, scared to track my bloody, torn feet inside it. When a spear flies past my head, piercing a cushion in the cabin, I rush up the lowered gangway and fling myself inside, all fears of my mess thrown aside.
"Buckle in," Moon says, tapping into the glassy dashboard in front of him. He rests one hand on it and the other taps at icons in the air I can't see. The launch is smooth, smoother than igniting the Jeep and gunning it out of its parking stall. Rushing into the seat at his side, I fumble with the straps behind my shoulders, trying to squeeze my arms through them as modeled through Moon's actions.
A rush of G knocks me back. I sink into the seat as the pressure takes my breath away.
We're clear. Above the planet, above the halo of lights that don't obscure the stars, above the golden blemish on our launchpad, we soar.
The window before us is massive. Full 180-degree views capture my attention. Other ships hover just out of the atmosphere, the mountain and the blue-bellied ship on opposite sides of my peripherals. The blue ship glitters. The mountain hoovers, deadened in the blackness until a light emerges from its zenith. The glow trickles down the ship, illuminating symbols and etchings on its massive body that I've never seen before.
ARC10 rises after us, chugging along between our small dropship and the mountain.
I'm so glad to see it. The legs retract, forming the bulbous, outline of a demented peach pit. It's the first time I'm seeing my ship from afar. Truly seeing it in its element. The bottom radiates with pulsing orange goo. I can even see it from here.
Moon scowls. "Your ship needs to move. Fast."
"What the hell am I supposed to do from here?"
"No..." Moon's scowl deepens.
"What?"
"She wouldn't."
"Who wouldn't?"
"What would be the point in that?"
I clutch the straps over my shoulders and shout, "Are you speaking to me or not, because I'd like to know what the fuck you're talking about."
Moon reverses his ship. I'm thrust forward, my arms reaching out to hold myself back from smashing my head against his control panel.
When I look up, a flash of red momentarily blinds me.
The gold ship — the mountain — fired at ARC10.
I'm struck with the quiet pulse that shakes my bones after impact — the agony of a cosmic gut punch.
ARC10 breaks in two.
"No." I scream. "No, no, no, no, no, no." The universe swirls, the black vortex captures my body. "No." I'm tumbling through a new blackness.
"She did it." Moon drops his hands to his thighs. "She actually did it."
"Get closer," I order, pointing at the debris floating away from my ship. "There might be survivors. We need to grab them now."
"That's what she wants," Moon says.
"I don't give a fuck about who wants whatever ominous bullshit you're talking about. Take me there now."
Moon faces me. "No."
I can't breathe. How has this gone so wrong again? I can't stop screaming. "My people are dying. My sister. My friends. My ship is destroyed."
Pieces of ARC10 scatter. It could be the ship, it could be my VIPERs. It could be anything and I have no idea how to fix it.
Behind us, the HMS Valediction appears. Blue beams blast from it, smacking the golden mountain square in the middle.
ARC10 is in the crossfire.
"Let me out."
"What?"
I pull my arms through the straps and rise from my seat. "Let me the fuck out."
"Sit down!"
I rush to the hatch and search for a suit or something to breathe through while in space. I can't find anything, just a long spear wedged inside a velvet, teal couch. I couldn't have lost everything. On the bulkhead to my right, I notice a silver lever.
Escape hatch.
"Don't you dare pull that," Moon shouts from the cockpit. The high rage in his voice doesn't terrify me. The threat hidden underneath his words doesn't either.
If everyone and everything I love is gone, where else do I go?
I wrap my fingers around its smooth handle.
Before I even realize he's left his seat, Moon twists my arms behind my back and shoves me into the wall. "If you open that hatch, you will die. What good are you to anyone then?"
His breath against my ear is hot. Extra hot. Almost like his hands against my wrist, his hard body against my back. I'm revolted by him, this man, touching me. I try to shove him off, but his grasp is superhuman. I try all my moves, stomping on his foot, angling my elbow toward his gut, flinging my head back to collide with his forehead. Nothing works. I only feel the rumbling of shots fired around us.
"If you'd stop wriggling around like the un-evolved maggot you are, I can go back to my controls and we can find a way to tow your ship before Juno strikes it again and destroys the entire population inside."
I stare at my hand on the silver lever and will it to move — to slam the contraption down, open the door, and suck our bodies out into the vast emptiness. My anguished soul yearns for this escape. One small jostle, one accidental movement and I can rest.
When my pause stretches out for a few seconds, I feel his grip loosen. We stare each other down, eye to eye, the full capacity of my loathing firing at his face. After a few minutes, he turns away.
I'm rooted to the spot, my hand still on the lever. "Why did you bring me here?"
He returns to his seat, ignoring my question. "Readings indicate your ship is functional. "
I don't know how to respond. My mind still wars between ending the pain, sleeping — sleeping, how good it would feel to finally sleep — and watching this grisly stranger take control of what's left of my ship. Let it all go, or find a way to bring it back. Take the easy exit, or jump back into the crisis.
I clench my fist, wishing the pressure from my PAHLM was there to wake me up, to snap me back into Commander Janika Lorn, unflappable officer of the illustrious Earth's Militia, daughter, partner, bartender, Reaper. I want my old life back. I want to squeeze the device that kept me grounded and return to the woman I used to be.
There's nothing in my hand.
Nothing but dried blood caked to my dark skin. Whose blood is this? It could be mine. It could be my enemies'. The maroon is the same color as the coats, as the cots, as the people who made my life below-ground a living hell.
Would I ever want to go back to that?
No. No matter how bad this gets.
Because here, I have a choice.
The heat from my adrenaline rush begins to cool. I release the latch.
Moon places his hand on the dash again, his left hand taps at the air. "The hit was not critical and the Olypmi is retreating. You threw a temper tantrum for no reason."
I don't join him but stand behind his seat, staring at ARC10 and the debris floating away from its body. "It's hurt."
"The way you talk about those things is disgusting. They're machines, not pets."
ARC10 limps through space toward us, leaving behind the chunk of the ship that was blasted off. How can he not see the pain it's in? The way it drags its busted half behind it or the way its luminescent belly glows in blood-orange? If I could hear my ship's engines now, would I be able to distinguish its agonized wail among the other clanking noises? "Can we retrieve it?"
"What? So you can hand-weld it back together? Stupidest fucking idea..." his grumbling trails off, but his lips still move.
"That's not a bad idea." Looking carefully, I realize it was only the bottom-most quadrant of the ship that was broken off. The brig. If the Crust were still alive and still in their cells, they'd all be dead, but since there was no one who was supposed to be incarcerated, there may not have been casualties. If the ship is as intelligent as I believe it to be, it sealed itself to save the people inside.
I inhale and exhale, slowly releasing my tension in a gust of air. It's the first lucky break in a long, long time.
"Are you always this high-strung?" Moon doesn't turn around to speak to me anymore, his focus is all in the information on the display I can't see.
I slip back into my seat and cross my arms. "Right, and if you saw the ship holding all your friends and loved ones explode, you'd sit here and stay totally calm and collected?"
"Yes. Because I love nothing."
I snort.
We're speeding now, zipping through space, but I barely feel it. Despite the foulness of my present company, I enjoy the light vibrations of the powerful engine below me.
Slowly, the black-sand planet disappears below. The bare-bones corpses of the yaks and golden soldiers become an afterthought — another memory I'm sure will return when I close my eyes that night and maybe the next thousand nights to come. That is, if nothing else more gruesome and fucked up doesn't kick down my door to traumatize me. By now, I'm surprised there's still anything else that could truly horrify me. This space reality is more grisly than I could have ever anticipated.
As I follow the billowing black coat of my new captain to the back of the jump ship, I can't even imagine the surprises in store.
The larger ship is in our view. It consumes us. Once we've been swallowed whole and land with a soft thump against the dock, we wait for our hatch to connect to the airlock.
The airlocks are clean and silver. A puff of cold air blasts over the dome of my naked head. I run my hands over the skin and remember the condition I'm in. My blood-soaked smock is crumpled and torn, revealing my scars underneath. I wipe vampire sand off my legs as we walk and try to pick out the bits stuck between my jagged fingernails. Something sticky is drying next to my left eye. I think one of the stitches in my head may have broken because it hurts when I touch it.
My self-consciousness intensifies as the airlock opens and we enter the ship-proper. Who am I meeting and what will they think of this motley commander dragged from the throng of imminent defeat?
Who gives a fuck. I'm here for one reason alone.
But as soon as we enter a long passageway of pristine white walls lined in royal blue marble flooring with agate blue inlays providing a soft glowing light, I cringe.
This is no ship.
This is a palace.