As for the launcher, that was just a comfort thing. She felt better hauling around a weapon that could at least put a minor burn on a Kordolian warrior, even if it wouldn’t kill him.
“You had a flashback just then, didn’t you?” She asked the question before the moment slipped away, taking her heavy objects from Rykal.
He looked away. “I don’t know what that means.” Hisvoice was terse and clipped as he began to walk away. Arin stared after him. His pointed ears were twitching.
“I know that look, Rykal,” she called, shrugging her pack over her shoulder as she hurried after him.
He ignored her.
What had changed? It was as if day had turned to night in the blink of an eye. Arin had seen this before. She’d seen it in the veterans who’d returned from missions to the very far reaches of human charted territory. They were the men and women who went to the unknown places; the places where new species were encountered and people disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Something had triggered a memory in Rykal, and whatever he’d seen hadn’t been pretty, because all of a sudden, he’d become withdrawn.
Arin stopped and looked around, trying to get her bearings. They seemed to be on some kind of service level. Dilapidated equipment lined the corridor, and beside her was a series of decommissioned cleaning bots and a stack of rusted spare parts.
“Why are you even following me, anyway?”
Rykal turned, and his face was like smooth, polished stone. Once again, he was a perfect stranger, analien. His barriers were definitely up. “You told me to,” he said, his voice flat.
Arin looked up and saw the sector markings on the wall. They were in 7B, which was close to the communications room. “You don’thaveto follow me, you know. I’m a big girl, and I can find my way from here.”
“You’re right,” he said. Those damn elf ears of his were still twitching. Up above, the lights flickered. As Rykal turned on his heel, tiny black specks started to appear on his face, neck, and the top of his head, quickly becoming denser until they formed an armored black helm that completely concealed his features.
He glanced back at her for a brief moment, appearing socold and menacing in his full suit of armor that her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry. Her fingers flew to the activation panel of the EI launcher. Arin was reminded that he wasn’t herfriend, no matter how much he professed tolikeher.
Rykal wasn’t human, and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of forgetting that again, no matter how charming he might be at times.
As Arin glared back at him, wondering what the hell had turned him into such a moody bastard all of a sudden, he disappeared without a word, leaving her standing in the service corridor amongst dead robots with the lights flickering up above.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Of course Rykal wasn’t going toleaveher. Not when he’d heard the familiar skittering sound of Xargek larvae in the vents. Not when he’d heard them scratching up and down the elevator shaft.
But he was a little bit messed up right now, and he didn’t want her to figure that out.
It had happened when he’d pulled her up out of the elevator.
The memory had been so sharp, burning brightly in his mind. Arin had called it aflashback.
For a moment, it had nearly destroyed him.
Out of all the First Division warriors, Rykal considered himself the most defective; the most fucked up. That mind-wipe shit the Empire’s scientists had tried to pull on them had left him with confounding fragments of memory, like shards of broken glass that couldn’t be put back together.
The memories could be triggered by almost anything, but he hadn’t had aflashbackfor such a long time.
Yet it had happened when he’d gripped Arin’s arm.
He’s clutching her arm, holding on so tightly, but she’s too heavy and she’s starting to pull him with her, because his bodyis just too small. He’s only a child, after all. She looks up, smiles at him, and lets go, falling into the abyss below.
Maybe the others had these fragments too. Maybe they were just better at burying them. Maybe they had better self-control.
She doesn’t scream. She just smiles, her eyes overflowing with love for him.
Rykal swore as he stabbed his sword into the wall and made another hole, squeezing through the gap. There were narrow corridors in-between the walls containing deadspace. They housed all manner of pipes and cables and even some monitoring devices. He advanced along the deadspace and waited until he heard Arin’s steady footsteps, made heavier by the dual load she was carrying. She reached the hole he’d made, paused, sighed, and then moved on, heading further up the corridor. Rykal followed her by sound alone, navigating through the hidden corridor between the walls. Occasionally, he had to duck or crouch as pipes and machines got in the way, but he had no trouble matching her speed.
He tried to rid himself of the bitter aftertaste of that terrible memory, of what he’d seen in his mind’s eye when he’d touched Arin.
She slips out of his grasp. It’s his fucking fault, because he isn’t able to hold on. He’s too weak. Too small. He screams as shots ring out and the crater below lights up with flashes of blue plasma fire.
