“You know there’s always a place for you aboard theVarakartoom, right?” he said, and I cursed internally. He knew I was withdrawing, that I had not been happy with my fit on the ship for some time. Not since even Solear had managed to find a mate. Three weeks with her aboard the ship—Lyra—and he was practically dancing down the hallway. Not really; that would beridiculous. But his feelings, sure as the blazing stars, were. It wasterrible.Val hated it. It made her ache and hunger, and thus, it made me ache and hunger.
“I am sure,” I said again, and then I rose. Val coiled about my legs in her Gracka shape, her sharp, pointed ears twitching nervously. She was sleek, peltless, but when I petted her, she felt warm and alive, and soft as sin. “I will find the stronghold, destroy it, or kill Jalima and destroy it. Then you and your precious mate and children can sleep easy, knowing your people were avenged.”
His expression grew tight, and Val and I greedily drank in his displeasure. “Revenge isn’t everything, Sin. You were the one who once said that to me, don’t you remember?” I had, back when Asmoded had been single-minded in his search for Jalima. He’d been consumed by the need to kill the male who had murdered his wife and unborn son. Now, he knew neither of those things had happened. His wife had betrayed him, his son had been raised without him, but now he had his true mate, and a reunion with Saisir, his son.
These days, he was the calm one, the one sitting back and analyzing the facts. Back in the day, I had been the one holding him back, looking out for him lest he kill himself in his quest for vengeance. That seemed like a lifetime ago, and I missed it. It made me feel like a heel thinking that, but it was true. I was never hungry then, Val’s pain didn’t gnaw at me endlessly in the days when Asmoded’s grief and fury filled me.
“I am going. I don’t plan to die,” I said to Asmoded, and that was the truth. I was a survivor, if nothing else. Even if this planetwasdeadly to me, I’d come out on top. The challenge filled mewith something to look forward to, and it rallied Val, now that she’d been tempted to participate. Yes, we’d find this castle, destroy Jalima’s truest stronghold, and drive him further into despair. Then I’d feed onhim. Those tenacious Gladiators of theVagabondhad done it to the crimelord Drameil; we would do it to Jalima.
“Very well,” Asmoded agreed, rising from his seat and passing me on his way out. He did not touch my shoulder, though I saw his hand twitch at his side as if he meant to. My shoulder was still dripping silver fragments of Val, my symbiont. I did not blame him for holding back, even if a part of me felt pain, knowing I was repulsing even the touch of my closest friend. It was not Val’s fault, and it was not his either. It was mine.
Chapter 2
The Sineater
“You’re thin,” Dravion said as he came to stand next to me at the hatch to the shuttle. His tentacles gently moved against the floor of the hangar bay, keeping him raised to match my height. I ignored him, because I could not give him a satisfying answer. It was far more tempting to snap something derisive that might rile him, anger him. Lately, that temptation had been great around everyone—anything to feed Val, to feed me—but it wasn’t working. I was starting to think it wasn’t just the lack of true hate, rage, and despair. Something was failing in the bond between us, and now Val couldn’t sustain herself on the trickle that did come through.
I shrugged. “I am fine.” Despite the gnawing hunger, I had made sure not to lose any muscle mass, working out endlessly and filling my belly with food that fed the body but not Val’s soul, and thus, not mine. I flexed my fist against my thigh, clad in theVarakartoom’s custom-made armor, finally crafted by the ship’s young engineer, Ysa. She’d dropped by that morning to check on my suit, her fear in my presence sweet and intoxicating, but with a bitter edge. Val had fed, then complained of feeling sick and slunk into a dark corner to lick her ruffled, liquid fur for a while. Contrary to what I had told Dravion, I was not fine, and Val was getting worse. There was nothing the good doctor could do about it, though.
He held out a bag for me, packed to the brim with medical supplies. I had only to glance under the flap to notice that he’d stuck half a dozen injectors filled with his special healingstimulants into it. He was expecting I’d run into trouble. It was instinctive to lash out. “What, you don’t have any faith in my abilities? Think I’m gonna need that much medicine?” I drawled it mockingly, but Dravion’s eyes were kind, not a speck of tasty fear.
“You never know, Sin. Even you can get hurt, and I don’t think you’ve been your best lately.” The words made me bristle and want to shout in denial, but I held them back. If Asmoded thought I was not up to this, he’d yank the mission out from under me. I could not have that; it was my last chance to fix this thing Val and I were suffering from—a good, deep dose of evil, of darkness, a full belly for once in the past months. We’d be right as rain after that. I had to believe it.
“Did you say this to Asmoded?” I demanded roughly, and the doctor’s shrug made me settle in place, my skin prickling along my spine. That was not an answer, but there was no word from Asmoded to stop the prepping of the shuttle. Ysa was ducking around the sleek black craft, our smallest vessel, since it was only going to be me. It hadn’t been used in a while, so she was double-checking that all systems were running smoothly. Personally, I found it hard to be worried about a tiny malfunction.
The Ulinial female was an odd addition to a mercenary crew; her species were strict pacifists. Her uncut, long braid, with wooden beads threaded around the tips, declared that she still believed those tenets. She was one of those people who exuded nothing but peaceful calm and bright, warm friendliness, proving it was true. She only worked on the mechanics—armor and ship, never weapons; that was all Jaxin. Perhaps that made it work in herhead. I just knew I had to avoid her as much as possible; she made me feel sick.
Val was on the far side of the hangar bay—as long as Ysa was around, she’d withdrawn every part of herself and curled up in the corner in her Gracka shape. Silver eyes stared at us with hostility and distrust, and it made me feel the same, an echo of her feelings. It was harder to disentangle what she felt from what were my own feelings today than it had been yesterday. So hard that I gave Dravion a distrustful glare, even as he turned and walked away.
Minutes later, Ysathea ducked out of the shuttle, her long braid wrapped around her waist. Her boots were unnecessarily large and clunky, with thick soles and lots of laces—a fashion statement rather than a practical choice, though the thick rubber soles might insulate her from a shock, which wasn’t a redundant requisite in her profession. “All good,” she declared with a cheerful smile. “You can ride this baby down to that planet of doom, and it won’t be my work that kills you, Sinny,” she chirped cheerfully. I glared, and she smirked, not a waft of fear, let alone common sense.
“Little girl, there is nothing out there that can kill me at all,” I said to her. If Val were in good shape, that would be a fact of life. Sons of Ragnar, properly bonded with their symbionts, were indestructible, immortals who patrolled the supposedly lawless borders of the Alpha Quadrant. They had a strict policy: never interfere with politics, just rescue those in need. And with what word trickled in from the quadrant, I wondered if the stuck-up bastards still held to that policy. If they wanted, they could wipe the floor with the damned UAR.
Ysa just smirked a little wider, rocking on her thick-soled boots. She still looked tiny next to me, and she had to tilt back her chin to stare me in the face. Shorter tendrils of hair curled around her oval face, and her long, dark-blue lashes glittered at the tips with tiny little sparkles. Extremely pretty, ridiculously pretty, and very useless. It definitely didn’t make me feel inclined to be nice when she batted those lashes. But then, I had a feeling that was not her purpose. The senseless female was baiting me. What was wrong with people?
Stalking around her, I ignored her laughter as she called me an arrogant bastard. She was leaving, that was all that mattered. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Val slipped from her corner to trot back to my side. She rubbed her sleek Gracka body against my hip, butted her head into my hand until I obliged, and scratched her behind her sharply pointed ears. There was no one in the hangar bay to see us off, but that was no surprise. I could indulge her need for affection for a short while, even if the warm, fuzzy feelings would make her want to snap at things a moment later.
There were extra crates secured with maglocks to the deck of the shuttle, food and weapons, supplies to help me last out there and arm myself against whatever this certain-death thing might be that hid in the ocean. There was diving equipment too, but I wouldn’t need that. One crate was covered in warning labels, these would be the explosives that Jaxin had supplied to help blow up the stronghold.
“We can still devise a new plan, you know,” Asmoded drawled, catching me by surprise. He’d moved so silently on his sleek tail that I had not heard him approach. The Naga captain was in the shuttle’s hatch, leaning casually against the side, arms crossedover his chest. “This is not our only option, and we know Jalima is likely not there. Mitnick found information that indicates he’s in Rummicaron territory somewhere right now.”
Once, that might have meant flying at breakneck speeds to that location in the hopes of striking the fatal blow. Though Asmoded had always been savvy enough to make such flights coincide with paid-for missions, I doubted that the normal grunts who cycled through the ship for missions had any clue that the true goal had always been to end the crimelord.
“Destroying his ultimate safe haven is a perfect goal,” I said coolly. “One that will further your revenge. And is that not what I swore to help you achieve when you offered me this post aboard theVarakartoom?” I patted my chest to emphasize the importance of that vow. He might have needed me as a voice of reason, but when he’d found me, I’d been the one lost.
Asmoded pursed his mouth as he contemplated me with sharp eyes. Then he gave me a nod and gestured with a hand at the pilot console at the front of the ship. “Very well, proceed, my friend.” There was a note in his voice that crackled in the air with emotion—sadness. It wasn’t quite right to feed Val, but itwasone of those feelings she’d made me sensitive to. It felt like he was saying goodbye to me, but I did not understand that. I had no intention of dying down there or leaving the ship. Why were Dravion and he acting like they’d never see me again, and why did they care?
Stomping to the pilot seat, I ignored him and began my preflight check. Val trotted after me with a softly whining noise, her tail flicking back and forth in annoyance. When she reached me, she flowed over my body, changing her shape to become sleek, silverarmor that covered every inch of my skin. Sensing my need to shut everything out, she even covered my face, forming a perfect seal around my flesh—a suit of armor that would protect me from the vacuum of space while still allowing me to breathe. She could create a buffer of oxygen for quite some time, too, but the armor Ysa had made—and that I wore beneath—also provided that kind of temporary kick.
The shuttle hatch hissed as it shut, and then it was just Val and me and the mission. “Permission to depart,” I asked over the comm channel. I received an affirmative two seconds later from Jaxin, who had to be in charge on the bridge. It was too soon for Asmoded to have made it back there. As I checked that the hangar bay was empty and locked the doors, I wondered if they weren’t right. Val was sick; perhaps we reallyweredying. Perhaps I should say goodbye, but I was never very interested in those kinds of words, anyway.
“Depressurizing hold,” I announced, and again, there was an affirmative. They could see the progress the same as I could and beat me to the punch, announcing the opening of the hangar bay doors. My hands were light on the controls as I engaged the small shuttle’s thrusters and lifted her into the air. Then I aimed the nose of the ship at the doors and the gap of space being revealed beyond them.
Stars glittered like gems against a black backdrop, the water planet below shimmering faintly. A silvery orb, darkness clinging to half of it and gray fog to the other, hung motionless in space. The triple stars that lit this solar system seemed dim, barely stirring the planet’s atmosphere with their purple, red, and green hues. It was not a very inviting planet to visit; perhaps that’s why so little was known about it.
“Scans indicate all is clear,” Mitnick announced. “No visitors to the solar system. No sign of activity on the planet. Confirm landing coordinates near the located structure, please.” I did, though we’d been over this already in the mission briefing that morning. Mitnick was always very precise in following protocols, which was ironic because he loved breaking the rules when stealing data.
“Don’t grow too soft while I’m gone,” I found myself warning the listening bridge crew. “No more humans, please,” I added. Only half of me was attempting to make that sound like I might be joking, the other half, deadly serious. There were rounds of laughter from the bridge crew, though Mitnick—the one mated male—remained silent. Jaxin was uttering a very vehement denial, something to do with Bex, his laser cannon, being all he’d ever need.
