I bypassed the mess hall, even though I was absolutely starving, and jogged to the nearest elevator to head straight to the engine room. She wouldn’t have timed her message like that if it hadn’t been super important. I spent a great deal of time with her in the bowels of the ship. She’d work on the engines or tweak a suit of armor for one of the guys, and I’d work on a new gun or polish Bex the way she deserved.
Inhaling deeply, I found the scent of the humming engines—the metal and power that crackled through the air—soothing. When was the last time I’d been down here? Not since I’d gotten injured back on Xio. I’d spent weeks in the med bay, recovering far too slowly for my liking, and then I’d refocused all my time and energy on work and working out.
Ysa was at a workbench inside her office, her slender form dressed in an oversized pair of coveralls that slouched about her frame. She had a heavy belt around her hips, weighed down with a large wrench and several multi-tools. Clunky boots with thick soles gave her an extra few inches of height, and her long blue braid was wrapped twice around her waist to stay out of the way. A collection of wooden beads clacked together at the tip of the braid with each jaunty sway of her hips. She was probably listening to music through herimplants, still blissfully unaware of me lurking in the shadows behind her.
It was the rumble of my stomach that gave me away, an obnoxiously loud gurgle that reminded me my body was still recovering and rebuilding muscle. She froze, her chin jerking up, but when she pivoted, it was to greet me with a wide smile. “Ah, Jaxy! You got my message!” she squealed happily as she jogged across her workroom and launched herself into my arms.
I caught her with one arm, my chest twinging as muscles shifted—muscles that, three months ago, had been hanging in shreds. She was slight and small, smelling of engine grease, metal shavings, and something uniquely hers.
She thudded back onto her boots with a clunk when I released her with a huff. “You didn’t give me much choice; that message was blaring the moment I shut my closet door.” I’d barely managed to pull on my armor for today’s mission—let alone savor being back in it and in shape enough to go. Dravion had signed off on my clean bill of health, begrudgingly, only yesterday.
Her cheeky grin made her blue eyes sparkle, but they dimmed when the overhead lights flickered. It lasted only a brief second—barely there, then gone—but I knew it was a continuing concern for her that she had not been able to trace the issue. She hid her worry behind a cheerful smile.
“You’re such a grump! Come here, Jaxy. I’ve got a present for you, for your first mission since the doc rebuilt your chest!” It was a good thing I’d repeated some of those emotion-dampening exercises on my way here. The plan had been to mute my hopeful excitement;now, they helped muffle the stab of agony at recalling my injury and the loss of my trusty cannon when it happened.
No exercise in the world could have prepared me for the shock of Ysa’s surprise. She stepped aside and pointed, and for the first time, I could lay eyes on the project she’d been fiddling with. It was a portable laser cannon, and the sight of it made my heart lurch inside my chest. It ached to see a shape so familiar and yet so different, because I could see at a glance that it wasn’t Bex. This cannon was newer, sleeker—a make and model I’d eyed a few months ago but that I would never get, because I had Bex, and she was my one and only.
“I know,” Ysa said kindly, her smile warm but not as blindingly bright as before. “There wasn’t much left of her, Jaxy. There was no way I could repair her, but… thatisher barrel. Look.” She took my hand and pulled me with her, then pressed my numb fingers to the sleek barrel of the cannon. I did not want to touch it; it felt too much like betrayal. But then my skin caught on a scratch in the metal that was so familiar I instantly recognized it. She wasn’t lying, this reallywasBex’s barrel attached to a newer, sleeker body.
The image twisted in my mind, harsh, uncomfortable, and so very confusing. Bex but not Bex, my cannon but not my cannon, my sister but not my sister. Ysa was talking through the specs, explaining which parts of Bex she’d managed to integrate. It sounded like water rushing in my ears, and I didn’t hear a word. My thumb kept stroking that scratch along the barrel—Bex’s barrel—while I felt a very differently balanced weight in my arms. It was all wrong, but I could not find the words to express that.
When a ship-wide announcement called all of the away party to the hangar bay, I was incredibly relieved. Yes—themission. That I could focus on, not this mess of things inside my head. I breathed deeply, forced my thoughts away from the cannon and into familiar lanes. To feel nothing was a blessing right now, and I embraced it.
“That’s my cue,” I said to Ysa, and, still cradling the weapon, I jogged away. My arms had locked around it, and I was not ready to tackle that problem yet. She did not call out after me; she didn’t shout my name or joke about the mission. That was unlike her, but I’d gone numb, so I couldn’t feel how much I cared about that. Ysa was sweet—she had done this for me—and I knew it was rude to walk off without a word. I still didn’t turn around to say anything. I had a mission to go on, and I’d worked hard to make sure I was allowed to be part of it.
I’d only gone around the first corner after leaving the engine room when Thatcher slammed me bodily into the wall. The human was strong—too strong—and he didn’t seem to care that the barrel of a laser cannon was practically jammed into his gut. “You should have said thanks, bastard,” he snarled, eyes flashing with a fury he didn’t even try to bank. “You made her sad, and she slaved over that thing for days for you!”
My still-numbed feelings made me cool and calculating as I stared the male in the face and tried to plot the best course of action. Kill him, break his arm, or just shove him away? I opened my mouth, and I could see his sense of survival kick in at the slow reveal of all my teeth. He stepped away with a last shove and a glare that might have intimidated me—if I hadn’t made myself numb. Iwasimpressed; not many dared tangle with a Rummicaron with their bare hands. People tended to lose themwhen they tried.
Leaning toward him, I made use of my bigger size as I snarled a warning. “Do not touch me, Thatcher. Try again, and you die.” I did not tell him he was right about Ysa, that Ishouldthank her and apologize. To do so would require me to let in more of my feelings, and that would make me break on the spot, when I was holding a cannon that wasn’t Bex. I knew it, so I didn’t.
Stalking away, I was silently aware of the male following me like a shadow down the hallways. His footsteps were quiet, like a predator’s; his gaze sharp, and still angry. It was a good tactic, and I applauded him for using it so effectively. A little less numb, and I would actually feel threatened. It was a fact that Thatcher was a dangerous opponent, even unarmed, and it made me want to avoid another confrontation. Right now, I needed to be on the mission, not in the brig for brawling.
The hangar bay was filling up with more crew in armor, armed to the teeth and hauling supplies aboard the two shuttles that would take us down to the planet. Aramon and his twin were at the helm of the lead vessel, and Raukesh was manning the second. Brace was loading heavy artillery, and it was my job to help him with that. I’d personally picked each of the weapons to help us breach the facility and protect our landing site.
Asmoded wasn’t going down this time. He had to navigate the diplomatic waters tied to this mission from aboard the ship. That left the Sineater running the show, and if there was one male I could count on not to make a fuss about my abilities after the injury, it was him. “Get a move on, ladies,” he boomed, with a sharpness that made everyone kick it up a notch.
Forgetting about the wrong cannon in my arms, I slid it to my back on its strap and helped Brace load the last of the weapons. Then I was one of many strapping ourselves into a jumpseat, and I was forced to take the damn cannon back in my lap. It was harder to push away the distaste, the pain the sight of it brought me. Thankfully, the Sineater boarded the ship and ordered our party to launch, with a smirk that said he took great pleasure in being allowed to cause some destruction shortly.
His armor was a muted black, with sharp spikes along his shoulders and a helmet already partially in place. His freaky companion, a symbiont he called Val, was at his side, shaped like a beast with a narrow snout and sharply pointed ears. As the shuttle hummed and Aramon lined us up to exit the hangar bay, the Sineater did not sit down in a seat but remained standing at the center of the narrow aisle, at the head of the packed crates of weapons and supplies.
“Listen up!” he called out. “We’re heading down to Radin to do two things.” He held up one hand and raised a finger as he went down the list. “First off, we’re going to scout that research post and verify whether anyone is still alive, since Aderia lost contact three weeks ago.” I’d already heard all the details before, but it helped to keep us all focused to repeat them. I was keeping my eye on a few of the crew I knew had a hard time obeying orders, to make sure they were listening. I kicked A’varon in the knee when I saw the Kertinal wasn’t watching Sin like the rest were.
“Second, and this is even more important, rescue the scientists if they’re still alive. Mission priority: Danitalin Hiraza. We need to secure her at all costs, understood?” If she was alive. But it was very unlikely—thepost had gone out of contact, which rarely happened unless it had been attacked or overrun for some other reason. Our Aderian mission contact had assured us that an outbreak of something deadly was unlikely, but they hadn’t ruled it out, either. I was pretty certain this was going to be a retrieval, not a rescue. Either way, we’d get paid.
“This planet is officially part of the Kertinellian Empire, and we’ve been allowed to retrieve the scientists because they’re too busy dealing with an uprising of the locals. So no pissing off the Kertinals, and watch for Radin’s giants. Got that?” The Sineater eyed everyone as if waiting for a reply, and when nobody said anything, I kicked A’varon again. He jerked his head up and yelled, “Aye aye,” on cue, and the rest chimed in.
When silence fell again, we were spiraling down toward the planet in a tight curve. I could see the green that covered large sections of it, but this was also a world with lots of water—oceans of it. Sin blocked my view of Aramon at the helm by stepping into my line of sight, his mouth set in a grin that—even numb—I could tell wasn’t nice. “I know Dravion said you could come, but I wasn’t informed about that cannon. I thought Bex couldn’t be repaired?”
Leave it to Sin to pull a wound wide open; his question, sharp, precise, was like a laser scalpel. Numbness vanished from one breath to the next, and pain cut through my chest, not real, but intense all the same. This wasn’t really Bex. I glanced at the cannon I cradled and wanted to throw up; I wanted to hurl it away. With the Sineater watching me as if he knew exactly what I was feeling, I could not do that.
Hauling air into my lungs, I forced myself to focus on the second-in-command and pretend that pain didn’t exist. Evenif it did, it felt like I was losing my sister all over again. “Ysa gave it to me this morning,” I said through a jaw so tight my gums ached. “A little extra firepower can’t hurt, can it?” I said nothing about whether this was Bex or not, I couldn’t. ThiswasBex’s barrel, but it wasn’t her, was it? How could her soul have survived after that much damage? Perhaps what I really struggled with was: how could mine? Had I not been torn to pieces just like she had been?
Sin’s expression appeared neutral, his eyes flicking from my face to the barrel of the cannon. “We can use all the firepower; these Radin giants aren’t nothing.” Then to the rest, he said, “Prepare for the worst.” Yeah, prepare for a lot of death and destruction, because those giants had likely torn the research facility apart with their bare hands and used the scientists to pick their teeth with.
I focused on that image and channeled rage when I couldn’t manage numbness again. Dead Aderians, helpless empaths and pacifists, healers with soft hands. Some Aderians chose a path of protection, of military service and strength. By far, most were intellectuals and healers. Their empathic gifts were legendary, which made it all the more bizarre that they’d risk such a valuable asset on a planet this dangerous.
Anger worked. I hated seeing the weak in pain, the weak in danger. Protection was the core of my nature. I’d use this not-Bex, and I’d rescue those little scientists—if they’d survived the giants. If not, I’d damn well avenge them.
