Let them see exactly what kind of monster they created.
When there was one man left alive, she bladed her fingers and jammed them into his abdomen, rupturing flesh and connective tissue. She grabbed a fistful of his intestines while he screamed, and shewrenched.His eyes rolled back in his head—he was going to black out from pain and blood loss, butno,he needed to stay awake, he needed to look at her while he died and know there was nothing he could do to?—
But he was already gone. Ysira drove her fist into his skull again and again,again,until nothing remained but pulp and shattered bone. Her ears rang. Her vision blurred. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. She could have destroyed an entire world, made a thousand of those uncounted suns go dark, and still it would not be enough.
She was sick inside her helmet. Ripped it off so she could breathe again. On her knees in that pool of blood and sick, a scream tore its way up through her chest. She screamed until her throat was raw, until she could do nothing but sob.
Find Neri. Find Neri. Find Neri.
She staggered to her feet.
Eventually, she found a pointed-eared woman who was unarmed, cowering under a table. Her black hair hung loose around her face, framing terrified rose-quartz eyes, and she wore a smock like Ertagaz’s.
Ysira centered herself, let that red haze recede. Then she dragged the woman out by the shirt.
“Don’t hurt me!” she shrieked. “I’m a researcher, not a soldier. I’m just a scientist?—”
“Get up.” Ysira’s voice came out hoarse. “Tell me where you’re keeping the boy.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with—” the woman started to say, but Ysira lifted her by the front of her smock and let her flail.
“You people keep saying that,” Ysira snapped. “I think you have it backward.Where is he?”
“They’ve ordered his transfer planetside, back to the Zal Fel base.” The scientist spoke very quickly. “C5-001 is too volatile. There are ten thousand people on this station and if he blows a hole in it we’re all dead.”
“Take me to him.”
Ysira held the scientist by the collar as she led her through the complex. Ysira’s fingers encircled her neck; it would take little effort to break it. The scientist seemed all too aware of this. Trembling, she brought Ysira to a transparent enclosure sequestered from the rest, where a frail, black-haired boy sat on the floor—awake and apparently unharmed. Neri stood and limped toward them as they approached.
“Release him,” said Ysira.
The scientist complied. The enclosure’s front wall slid away with ahiss,and Neri rushed into the open. For a terrifying moment, Ysira worried he’d try to embrace her. Instead, he looked her up and down with frightened, bright red eyes. Shewas covered in blood, some still wet, some forming a stiff crust on her clothing.
“What’s going on?” Neri asked. “Where were you? Are you all right? Why?—”
“No time.” Ysira seized the scientist as she tried to slink away. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Please,” she moaned. “I did what you asked.”
Ysira dug her fingers into the woman’s arm with almost enough force to splinter the delicate bones. “You’re in no position to bargain. Show me the way out.”
The scientist bleated on about something Ysira didn’t understand. An awful noise sounded overhead, a blaring howl that could only be some kind of warning. The overhead lights flashed, splashing the walls and floor with red, and Ysira’s patience ran out. She squeezed until the scientist’s humerus was wet gravel and she screamed.
Ysira felt nothing at all. “Show us the way out, or I break every bone in your body one by one.” She grabbed the scientist by the neck and urged her onward. To Neri she said sharply, “Stay close and follow me.”
The boy didn’t move. Those vivid eyes held so much fear as they took in the wounded, sobbing scientist, the gore on Ysira’s clothes, and their alien surroundings. She made her voice gentler, though no less urgent. “Neri. These people—I don’t know what they’ve told you, but they mean to hurt you. They have hurt all of us for hundreds of years. Their weapons can’t kill me, but they can kill you. And theywill.”
“Should I—should I use the demon?” he asked.
“No,” Ysira snapped, harsh enough to wound, but she needed him to listen. “Not unless we have no other choice.” If the scientist was worried about Neriblowing a hole in the station,so was Ysira. She couldn’t afford such an unpredictable variable.
Not yet.
“You let me handle this,” Ysira said. “But we need to go.”
From there they ran, as quickly as Neri’s foot and the scientist’s limited body would allow. She showed them to a high-ceilinged chamber with six massive gates, each as tall and broad as the front doors of the White Cathedral. Ysira stomped on the scientist’s ankle so she couldn’t flee, ordered Neri to hide around the corner, and dashed ahead to dispatch scattered resistance.
When the last of them lay dying, a dent in his chest shaped like Ysira’s fist . . . she looked up at Neri. His face was rigid, expression far away.
