Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

12 · Lok · The Present

Molly leaned forward in her seat as Gloria’s tail section rose into view. As the rest of the StarCarrier’s hull crept over the horizon, she saw that the downed Navy ship remained upright but was slightly tilted, her black thruster cones pointing obliquely up at the sky.

“It’s a shame we can’t just jump straight out to it,” she mused aloud. Her hand automatically drifted to the hyperdrive controls, feeling the switches that could move them anywhere in an instant, ignoring all things in between.

Cat, standing just behind the control console, laughed. “I think your friends in black would have a question or two about how we did that.” She pointed to the cargo cam where the Navy climbing team could be seen shrugging on harnesses and coiling ropes.

Molly pulled her hand away from the controls and rubbed the pads of her fingers together. “I know. It’s just hard to see how I’m supposed to have this power and not use it any time I want.”

“I ssay we jusst do it,” Walter said from the nav seat. He had his helmet on but with the visor open. He leaned forward and fiddled with one of the dials on the dashboard radio. “Let’ss sshut the cockpit door and do it.” He jerked his head toward the cargo bay. “We’ll tell them we took a sshortcut,” he hissed.

Molly laughed—then realized Walter wasn’t joking.

“This is what gets you in trouble,” she told him. “You need to work on being more patient—”

“Are we there yet?” Scottie asked. Molly turned to see him squeezing into the cockpit beside Cat, who rolled her eyes at the coincidental interruption. She and Molly shared a smirk.

“She’s just coming into view,” Molly said. She turned back around and gestured toward Gloria’s tail cones. “Are our guests clear on the plan once we get there?”

“I think so,” Scottie said. “All they know is they’re climbing down to the armory for flightsuits and combat gear, the stuff they’ll need for the raid on Darrin.”

“Do they seem nervous at all?”

“About what? The ship falling over or something? I guess they figure if it ain’t toppled by now—”

“No, about going back in there,” Molly said. Images of the previous day’s horror flashed through her mind: the mounds of dead bodies, the stairwell draped in gore, people crushed from toppling Firehawks.

“I think they know what needs to be done, and they’re up for doing it,” Scottie said.

“Sounds about right,” said Cat.

Molly glanced over at Walter as he fiddled with the radio. “I’d really rather you didn’t play with that,” she said.

“I’m hearing sstuff,” Walter hissed.

“That’s what radios do,” she told him. “Now please leave it—”

“But I’m hearing weird sstuff. Ssomeone sstrange iss on here.” Walter’s hand remained frozen on one of the knobs, sensing he should stop but unable to pull away. “Anyway, I almosst decrypted it—”

“Decrypted—?” Molly leaned over and saw Walter’s computer in his lap, his arm partially obscuring its screen. She pushed his elbow up and saw wavy lines and moving bar graphs rippling across the display.

Mom!

She slapped his hand away from the dial, then felt along the back of his helmet and turned the internal speakers off.

“Hey—!”

Molly reached up and grabbed her own helmet from its shelf, sending her Wadi scrambling. She brought it down over her head, snapped the visor shut, and reached for the radio switch, dreading what she was about to discover from her mother—

“ɮɽʖ ʨʠ˨ ξζδϱ ϛϠ ϡϞѦҨ”

Molly froze, her hand poised above the radio dials. She looked over at Walter, who had torn his helmet off and had turned away from her. She could see him pouting in the reflection of his porthole. Molly lifted her visor and removed her helmet. She flicked the radio to the external speakers, allowing the strange language to fill the cockpit:

“ӁԆԏשמ؋خ ٲٷڱڷᴕ ᴗᶈᶙאָשּׁתּﮀ ﭣﮉﻧ ﻺ”

Walter glanced at the dash, obviously interested in the sounds.

From behind them, Cat cursed.

“What is this?” Molly asked Walter. “What did you do to the radio?”

“That’s the Bern talking,” Cat said, her voice a whisper. “It must be from the fleet.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” Molly grabbed Walter’s arm. “Walter, how did you—?”

He yanked his arm away, still pretending to be hurt. Molly realized the how wasn’t important. She spun in her seat to face Cat. “Do you understand any of this?”

Cat shook her head. “Not a lick. I heard it plenty in my day, though. Enough to know what it is.”

“Is there any way we can translate it?”

Cat frowned. “Everybody I know that speaks that language is… well, gone,” she said.

Scottie smiled. “I can give you a good guess. I bet they’re saying ‘Bern mother ship, this is Bern baby ship, over. Commence galactic domination on my mark—’”

Cat smacked him on the arm playfully, but the blow knocked him against the bulkhead. Scottie went to wincing and laughing at the same time.

“I wass decrypting the Englissh,” Walter grumbled. “Not thiss.”

“Wait,” Molly said. She held up a hand to silence Cat and Scottie’s jovial bickering. “What did you say?”

“The Englissh iss riding a carrier wave.” He pointed to his computer. “I wass decrypting it. For fun. Before you hit me.”

“Oh, gimme a break. I barely slapped your hand away. Now what’s this English? Can you play it?”

“It’ss sstill garbled,” Walter hissed. He wasn’t giving up the pouting without a fight.

Molly took over the flying from Parsona and decreased thrust. She wanted to hear more of the broadcast before they got inside the StarCarrier and the hull interfered with the signal. “Do what you were doing, but play it through the speakers,” she said.

Walter made a show of gazing out the porthole.

Molly took a deep breath. “Please, Walter, as your captain and friend, I’m asking you to do this for me.”

Walter fidgeted in his seat and brought his feet up underneath him. He brushed some nonexistent dust off his shoulder, then reached for the dash. He turned the volume down on the radio and did something to his computer, which began emitting garbled phrases, but clearly English.

“They’re not happy,” Walter said. “That’ss all I can tell.” He placed the computer on the control panel where its speakers could be better heard while he continued to adjust the virtual dials on its screen.

“—nothing we — do for —. Group — and — two — lost. Mo — or went down — Co —. Repeat, form — continue — planned.”

“Can’t you clean it up some more?” Molly glanced back and forth between his computer and the view beyond the carboglass. Parsona’s belly was literally sliding through the feathery heads of Lok’s tall grasses as she continued to pull back on the throttle and move into a hover.

“I already did clean it up,” Walter complained. “It doessn’t get any clearer.”

“— planet Lok. — can — confirm?”

Molly settled Parsona into a hover just a few kilometers from the StarCarrier. She keyed the cockpit door shut, and the four of them leaned over Walter’s computer. The small group fell silent, concentrating on every popping utterance and trying to surmise the missing gaps:

“Confirm. — am — speaking to?”

“Edi — on. I — member of Dre — — cil.”

“— the —”

“Confirm. — are — Exponent.”

“Did you hear that?” Molly whispered.

“Too much basss,” Walter hissed. He reached to adjust the dials.

Molly waved him off. “Don’t. Didn’t you hear—? Why can’t we get the rest?”

“Approxima — — ordinates —.”

“It’ss a carrier wave,” Walter said. “It jumpss frequencsiess oncse a ssecond. I’m jumping after it, but the sscanner tracse I wrote hass too much lag.”

He pulled the computer into his lap and fiddled with it. Molly looked up through the canopy at the steel cliff of StarCarrier looming ahead. Something about the garbled phrases kept tugging on her subconscious, begging her to understand. She heard Cat and Scottie whispering back and forth between themselves—and then someone banged on the cockpit door.

“Tell them we need a second,” Molly said, keying the door open.

While Cat and Scottie chatted with the climbers in the cargo bay, Molly turned to see how Walter was doing, then noticed her nav screen had gone blank. A single line across the top read:

LET ME HELP_

Molly leaned forward in her seat and reached for the keyboard.

HOW?_ she typed.

LET ME TALK TO HIM_

Molly hesitated. She turned and saw one of the Navy men by the door frowning at the unexpected delay. Scottie gestured and made excuses, and finally the man turned away.

“The boys in black wanna know what’s taking so long,” Cat said.

Molly keyed the door shut. “They’re gonna have to wait.” She flicked the speakers on. “Go ahead,” she said to her mom. “Talk to him.”

Cat and Scottie gave her a funny look, then her mother’s voice came through the speakers:

“Walter,” Parsona said. “Do you remember me?”

Walter looked at the dash, then at Molly. “You’re Molly’ss friend, right?”

Molly wondered what he meant, then remembered her mom’s ruse the night Byrne nearly killed her. They had spoken before, but Parsona had pretended to be radioing in from another ship.

“That’s right,” Parsona said. “Do you remember helping me with the missiles?”

“Yeah,” Walter said. “About that, I didn’t mean to be ssso—”

“No, that’s fine. You did great. Now I want to help you.”

“With what?” Walter asked. He looked to Molly and shrugged.

“I want you to give me that program you’re using. I can do the frequency switching a lot faster than your computer.”

“Okay,” Walter said. “I guessss that’ss okay.” He turned to Molly. “Sshould we go and meet her?”

“She’s in the computer, Walter.” Molly pointed to his nav screen, which had gone black except for a blinking cursor. “She’s a part of the ship.”

Walter stared at the screen. He reached forward and poked one of the keys on the dash. The letter ‘W’ appeared, and the blinking cursor shifted to the right.

He glanced over at Molly, then bent forward, typing out the rest:

WALTER_

He hit enter.

HELLO WALTER_

He smiled at the screen, then turned to Molly, beaming. “I thought you were talking to yoursself all thosse timess!”

“Can you type in the program, or do you want to interface with my computer?” Parsona asked.

“I’ll type it,” Walter said, rather hurriedly. He bent to the task, referring to his small screen several times. Molly looked back and widened her eyes for Cat and Scottie. They both shrugged and remained silent. The Wadi flicked her tongue out into the air.

After less than a minute of typing, Walter sat back, and the nav screens changed. Molly felt her stomach drop a little, realizing she’d just let the Palan write a program into the ship’s computer. When the conversation with her mom went blank, her heart stopped for a brief moment, but then the screen flashed and showed a display similar to the one on his portable unit with audio bar graphs dancing up and down.

The same radio chatter as before came through Parsona’s speakers, louder, though, and without the annoying pauses:

“—need to fall back. Listen to your translators. Group two will have the lead from here on out, assuming they make it through. We’ll give them time before zipping up the rift. Until then, nobody transmits on standard frequencies. Keep chatter to a minimum on this channel. Follow your instructions and be good Berns until we can sort this out.”

“Group Five, affirmative.”

“Three, out.”

The chatter ceased, leaving the cockpit silent. Molly shook her head and grumbled under her breath.

“Why so glum?” Cat asked. “This could come in handy. We’ll know what them bastards are thinking before they pull it.”

“I know,” Molly said. “It’s just… one of those voices reminded me of someone. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She waited for the chatter to return, but the radio remained silent, the bar graphs flat and mocking. Molly let out her breath, drew in a new one, and reached for the ship’s controls, pulling Parsona out of its low hover and up along the tilted cliff of steel toward Gloria’s hangar. Behind her, Scottie keyed the cockpit door open and went back to join the climbers. Walter leaned toward the radio, presumably to shut it off.

“Can you leave it scanning?” Molly asked him. “Just in case the Bern say something important?”

He nodded and pulled his hand away. “Why would they be sspeaking Englissh?” he asked as he returned to his computer.

“They have to be good at blending in,” Cat answered.

“They look a lot like us,” Molly added. “Do you remember the guy from Dakura that nearly—that you rescued me from?”

Walter nodded.

“He was one of them, but you would never have known it.”

Molly saw Walter flinch. He looked at her with a strange expression—fear mixed with something else. She thought she understood how he felt, having been floored by the revelation herself.

“The ssame guy that sstrangled you,” he hissed.

“That’s right. We don’t have to worry about him anymore, but now you know why they speak English. You have to keep all this a secret, okay? People would panic, otherwise. Nobody would know who they could trust.”

Walter sniffed and nodded.

Molly guided Parsona into the Carrier’s hangar, high up the ship’s leaning belly. As she flew along the downward-sloping floor, she sensed Walter was dying to ask her another question, or possibly tell her something. She nearly pressed him to come out with it, but the more important task of close-quarters piloting required her attention.

She flew at a steep angle down the calm sea of riveted steel, ignoring the craggy reef of ruined and twisted Firehawks piled up at the bottom. Just above the open stairway door, she spun Parsona around and lined up the open door with her own ship’s cargo bay. As the landing struts settled to the decking, she locked the thrusters and accelerator just right to keep the ship from sliding back or flying forward. Parsona was basically in an inclined hover, held fast to the side of a steep cliff with her skids pressing against the bay’s decking.

Walter excused himself. He left his computer behind, crawled over the control console, and padded back through the cargo bay. Molly turned and watched him scurry past the climbers and their piles of gear, wondering what had gotten into him. She turned back around and adjusted the throttles one final time, double-checking that Parsona wasn’t sliding through the StarCarrier’s hangar.

Satisfied they were stable, Molly keyed open the cargo door, allowing the muffled anger of Parsona’s thrusters to invade the hull. She watched the cargo cam as the door opened fully, its rim swinging out and touching down to the StarCarrier’s deck.

The Navy climbers wasted no time, lowering bags of gear and coiled ropes out the opening and toward the stairway door below. The visual effect was surreal: Objects dangled out of Parsona sideways, even as her grav panels kept everyone upright inside the cargo bay. In the vacuum of space, Molly was able to cope with there being no true down, but seeing Lok’s gravity have an effect beyond her ship made her head spin.

Scottie and Ryn seemed unaffected by the vertigo. The large Human and Callite stood by the open bay door and shrugged harnesses on. The duo watched the Navy climbers intently, duplicating their knots and rope-handling, absorbing everything from the first climb that they’d need for the next one.

Molly felt fortunate to not be going on either expedition; she opened a packet of cheese for the Wadi and settled back in her seat for the long wait. She checked the rate of fuel burn from the thrusters and watched the video screen as the climbers scrambled backwards out of the hatch, one by one. The Navy guys seemed comfortable as gravity took a ninety degree turn; they bounced along on bent knees, letting the rope slide through their harnesses and gloved hands as they descended like spiders on thick strands of silk. Scottie and Ryn went last, mimicking them as well as they could, feeding the line in fits and starts as they scampered uneasily toward the stairwell. Molly felt a sudden surge of panic as the enormity of the expedition fully set in. She watched Scottie disappear into the doorway last. The collection of ropes twitched across the decking in time with some unseen movement.

The Wadi finished with the packet of cheese and went to work on the wrapper, nipping Molly’s finger as it did so. Molly yelped. She was sucking on her finger when Cat joined her in the cockpit.

“How’s everything up here?” Cat asked.

“Restful,” Molly said, pulling her finger out of her mouth. She nodded to the cargo cam. “I’m surprised you’re not going with them. Seems like your sort of thing.”

Cat stepped gracefully over the control console and slid into the nav seat. She placed a mug of steaming something in one of the cup holders.

“I think the boys will have more fun without me,” she said.

Molly laughed. “You mean without them feeling weak and pathetic in comparison?” She remembered Cat’s display in the opera house and wondered if the Callite couldn’t do the climb without a harness.

“Maybe I just wanted some peace and quiet, like you.” Cat laughed as she said it, like there was some inside joke Molly wasn’t privy to.

Molly smiled politely and looked over her shoulder to see where Walter was, but there was no sign of him. For the thousandth time, she wished there was a camera in his stateroom. For the thousandth time, she shuddered at the thought and retracted it.

The handheld radio squawked: “Belay, this is descenders. We’re through the stairwell and playing out line to the armory, over.”

Molly checked the cargo cam, only to see a half dozen taut lines and nothing else.

Cat squeezed the portable radio. “Roger,” she said.

“Belay and over,” Molly repeated, shaking her head. “What is it with men and their love of jargon?”

“I think one of those guys fancies himself a professional climber. You know what a belay is, right?”

Molly nodded. “I did some climbing in the Academy, which is also where I learned how much boys love jargon and acronyms.” She pulled the plastic wrapper away from the Wadi and threw it into the small trash bin behind the controls. Reaching into the vacu-seal compartment by her seat, she pulled out her leftover sandwich from the flight out. She only got it halfway to the Wadi before the animal snatched at it greedily, sniffing for the rest. Molly felt like her poor Wadi had gotten even smaller in just the last day.

“This is group four. We’re clear of the rift.”

Cat reached for the portable radio, but Molly grabbed her arm. She nodded toward the dash. “It’s them,” she said, indicating the ship’s radio and Walter’s computer.

“Group three, copy. Welcome to the party.”

“Five, copy. What’s the latest on one and two?”

“Two is queued up, not sure how far out. One is not going to make it, I hate to report. Over.”

Molly leaned forward and turned the volume up. Parsona’s thrusters and open cargo bay made the back and forth chatter difficult to hear.

“Copy that. Hold for instructions.”

“They sound very calm about taking over our galaxy,” Molly said. “Like it’s nothing.”

“Quite calm,” Parsona agreed. Her mother’s voice came out of the radio speakers as the hiss-filled chatter ceased.

Cat took a sip from her mug and returned it to its holder. “It ain’t their first dance, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asked.

“I mean, there’s probably just a handful of galaxies they don’t already got their mitts on. I imagine this ain’t as exciting or novel for them as it is for us.”

Molly moved the Wadi to the control console, its tail tracing circles in the air as it chomped on the last few bites of sandwich.

“What do you know about them?” Molly asked Cat. She turned in her seat and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Cat smiled and arranged herself sideways as well, her lean brown legs folded up in front of her. She adjusted the fabric band around one of her thighs and looked over her knees at Molly. “Whatcha wanna know?”

“Why are they doing this? If they have so much, why not just leave us alone?”

“What if we ain’t the good guys?” Cat asked.

“Cat, don’t you fill her head with any nonsense,” Parsona said. “I don’t want to hear—”

Molly reached over and flicked the radio speaker off. “Mom, I love you, and you can listen in, but I want to hear what she has to say.”

Cat lifted her mug and smiled through the steam, almost as if to salute Molly for taking a stand. She then turned up the lip and took another deep gulp without first bothering to blow across the piping hot surface.

“Your mom’s right,” Cat said, smacking her lips. “You shouldn’t listen to me.”

“But I want to know what you mean. What you think. I want to help you, if I can.”

Cat laughed. “Help me?” She shook her head. “What makes you think I need helping?”

“I—” Molly reached to the side and muted the cockpit mic, silently apologizing to her mom for excluding her fully from the conversation. “I saw you with the rod in the campfire the other night, how you kept making it glow before wrapping your hand around it. I asked Scottie about it and he told me—”

“He told you to mind your own business, didn’t he?”

Molly nodded.

“He’s sweet to protect me like that, but I don’t care if you know.” Cat shrugged. “Hell, I told people all kindsa stuff for years, but they just look at me like I’m crazy.” The Callite glanced up at the ceiling of the cockpit, her eyes narrowing to vertical slits. “Don’t care if your mom hears, neither.”

Molly reached to turn off the mute but then stopped herself. She did care about letting someone else in on the conversation.

“What have you been telling people for years?” Molly asked, with-drawing her hand.

“That the Drenards mean no harm. That we’re the bad guys. Stuff that tends to get you beat up.”

“Is that why you say those things? Just to get beat up?”

Cat shrugged.

“You enjoy the pain, don’t you? Why is that?”

Cat shook her head. “Naw, that ain’t it. I don’t enjoy the pain. I just hate the numbness. And I say them things because they’re true, that’s all.”

“So you don’t feel anything?” Molly crossed her arms and settled back against the panel behind her. “That sounds nice, to tell you the truth.”

“Bullshit,” Cat said softly. She spread her knees and leaned closer to Molly. One hand came up, a brown and scaly fist. It wavered in the air. “Ain’t nothing worse than being numb,” she whispered. “Nothing. I—” She took a deep breath and dropped her hand. “I was born with numbness, with problems in both legs. Couldn’t walk a lick.” Cat leaned back and grabbed her mug. She didn’t drink; she just kept both hands wrapped around it and peered into the steam.

“Go on,” Molly said, then felt bad for being pushy.

“I was raised by my grandparents,” Cat said. “They hadn’t raised their own kids, though. It was like parenting skips a generation in my family, you know? Anyway, they were clueless. Didn’t know nothing was wrong till I was five or six and still crawling around on my hands and knees. Other kids knew something was up long before. They took to calling me Cat, like one of the strays in the village.”

“I thought it was short for Catherine,” Molly said.

“Naw, I lengthened it to Catherine. No point in fighting every kid in town over something so stupid, so I adopted the name. Soon as they figured that out, they started calling me Cripple. Or Cripple Cat.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Spoken like an only child.” Cat smiled through the steam rising out of her mug. “I thought you said you went through the Academy.”

Molly clenched her jaw. She thought about some of the abuses she’d suffered, but none seemed as bad as what Cat had been through. Still, she got Cat’s point about the random cruelty of youth.

“Them kids done me a favor, way I see it. They not only showed me how I was supposed to be walking, they showed me how not to be behaving. Family couldn’t afford no hoverchair or prosthetics, so I made myself some walking sticks and started working out at a young age. Went health crazy. Started eating nothing but fruit and veggies from a half dozen planets and drank a few gallons of water a day.” Cat slapped her thighs and stared at her bare legs. “Thought I could fix ’em by working hard enough at it.”

“And you obviously did,” Molly said.

Cat shook her head. “Naw. I was—”

“Belay, we’ve reached the armory. Bagging up supplies and rigging the ascenders, over.”

Cat squeezed the radio. “Copy.”

“Make sure they leave the lines,” Molly said.

“Be sure to leave everything in place,” Cat radioed.

“Copy that. Belay, over and out.”

Molly and Cat smirked at each other.

“Where was I?” Cat asked. “Didn’t you want to hear about the Bern? How’d we get to talking about my childhood?”

“It’s fine. It’ll take them a lot longer to climb back up. You were telling me how you learned to walk by eating healthy.”

Cat shook her head. “Nope. I never did. Well, not like that. I dropped out of school when I was twelve. Moved to another town and started working in a plant putting buggies together. I could sit in one place with the other Callites while the parts came by, doing the stuff they did, only with a Lokian accent they made fun of me for. Anyways, I made enough not to starve. Won’t bore you with the next few years, but I eventually moved up to delivery and learned to fly. Did some local stuff around Lok, then eventually got assigned to the run between here and Vega.”

“You were a pilot?”

“Yeah, something you don’t need legs for, apparently. Unless, of course, your shift is short a man one day and you decide to run a shipment solo, then your boss figures you can do that all the time, and he starts cutting corners and pocketing the savings. Then, one day, your nav computer goes haywire and you need to run to the engine room to hit the emergency shutdown button on the hyperdrive before it jumps with bum digits, but you’re crawling through the cargo bay, dragging yourself along, breaking fingernails back on rivets and crying like a sap, and you’re not halfway to the engine room before the ship makes a bad jump—”

Cat peered into her mug.

“All that happened to you?” Molly whispered.

“Brightest shit I ever seen came next, the light flooding the ship through every porthole and crack. Thought I was in heaven. Thought maybe some sin-tallying machine had gone as haywire as my hyperdrive. Next thing I know, I’m being thrown all over the cargo bay as my ship crashes into a pile of ice. Screwed me up real good. I remember being drug through the snow, I remember when they cut my legs off, but that was about it.” Cat took one hand off the mug and rested her palm on the band around her thigh. “Wasn’t awake when they put them back on.”

Molly shook her head. “Someone cut off your legs?” She reached for the Wadi, remembering what Cat had done to save the animal’s life.

“I was half-dead anyway, the way Josh told it. But then, a few days later, I’m good as new. Legs working and everything. Some egghead ex-Navy chap is telling me the water on Lok had done it, that those gallons and gallons I drank every day while growing up had unlocked some old Callite genes from back when our ancestors could re-grow their tails. Wild-ass guesses, if you ask me. Science stirred with gobbly-gook.”

She took a loud sip, both hands back to cupping the mug.

“The next few years were a blur, sometimes literally, with people moving by so fast. I learned to fight. Learned to fight for them. Started adopting all kinds a weird beliefs—whatever they told me, I believed. You see a place like that, you’re a fool to doubt anything. Them boys loved me, said I was almost good enough to be Human. They couldn’t get over the way I could all of a sudden walk around without goggles. And my blood was useful to them. A steady supply of the Callite stuff—well, you saw how bad they needed that for yourself. I thought it was ritual shit—”

Cat looked over and frowned at her language. Molly waved her off.

“I thought it was ritual stuff. I shoulda seen what was going on, where the purple paste came from, the fusion fuel, all of it. I shoulda seen it earlier.”

Cat took another deep gulp, the bottom of the mug coming up high above her chin. She lowered the mug and peered inside, as if watching would somehow make it refill.

“It took a while for the numbness to return. Didn’t notice the sensations going away at first, not ’till I was just about completely numb all over.”

“Who were these people that did this to you?”

“Humans trapped in hyperspace. Remnants and new recruits from an old terrorist group. They think the Bern are onto something. They see aliens as a problem—and that includes themselves and other Humans. They’re pretty convincing, too. Of course, the other side also had a way with words.”

“The other side?”

“The Underground. I spent some years with them as well, after one of our raids didn’t go so well and I got captured.” Cat looked up. “It wasn’t long after I fell in with the Underground that your parents came to Lok, but of course I didn’t know about that ’till later. We eventually made a huge push, one of those raids that grows into a war, and it nearly wiped out both sides. The fighting spilled out into Lok, pretty much leveling the village where that rift is now. Most people got trapped on the hyperspace side. Me and a few others got stuck back here. I kept up the fight for a while, tried to talk sense to some people, but kept getting numb to it all. I eventually stopped caring. Hell, now I go back and forth between the two sides, seeing how one’s right and the other’s wrong, then changing my mind.”

“How we’re wrong?” Molly asked. “Wrong to want to live and be free?”

Cat shrugged. “Free and bumbling around aimlessly. Hell, your side might mess up the universe for a whole load of future people. You might unwittingly end life for everyone.”

“How would we do that?”

“Buncha physics I can’t half understand, but it’s possible. The universe goes ’round and ’round, you see? If it gets different enough, it might be the end of everything alive. The Bern basically make sure the universe is kosher for living things each time it resets itself.”

“It sounds like they make the world hunky-dory for them, but what about us? And why are you helping me if you aren’t sure who’s good or bad?”

Cat tilted her mug up and tapped the bottom, letting the last few drops fall on her tongue. She put it back in its holder for the final time and wiped her chin with her sleeve.

“These days, I just go wherever the pain is,” she said. “And you seem to be doing the same, so here I am. Here we are, you and me.”

“Belay, ascenders here. Coming up with the first load. Should be able to get it all in two, over.”

Cat grabbed the radio. “Roger,” she said. “Copy. Belay is over and out. Ten-four.”

She smiled up at Molly and winked.

But Molly wasn’t finding anything humorous at the moment. She frowned and stared off into space, thinking about the things Cat had said. There was something familiar in the argument, the claim that it might be worth it to sacrifice a few million lives to prevent the possibility of some future, even larger calamity.

“Glemot,” she whispered to herself. Cat’s claim was that the Bern might have a right to torch them all, just to keep her people from performing some unknown evil in some unseen tomorrow.

Her mind felt fevered at the thought that it all came down to that. Another calculation of risk, another bout of destruction on such a grand and unfortunate scale, and all over a bunch of what-if’s.

“What’s Glemot?” Cat asked, having overheard Molly’s disgusted whispers.

“It was the biggest mistake ever made,” Molly said, tears welling up in her eyes at the memory of that beautiful and haunting planet. “It was the biggest mistake in the universe up until this one.”

13 · Walter’s Room

Walter leaned his head out the doorway and peered to the side; Molly and Cat were still in the cockpit, talking. He stole across the hallway and let himself into Molly’s room, moving immediately to her bottom drawer. He caught the hair lodged in the drawer’s frame as it fell to the carpet, dug under her clothes, grabbed his spoils, and returned the single follicle to its place. He had raided the drawer so many times, he often worried he’d do it in his sleep one night and get caught.

He laughed to himself at the idea. There’ss no way I’d get caught, Walter thought. Not even in my ssleep!

He padded out of Molly’s room and back across the hallway, the red band from Drenard clutched in his silvery fist. As soon as his door slid shut, he pulled the band on, the seam lined up in back. Walter jumped in his bed and slid under the covers. He started thinking as loudly as he could, wishing the voice on the other side wasn’t so fond of always keeping him waiting—

“Sir? There’s a message coming in for you.”

Byrne turned to his assistant and waited. The young officer pressed a finger against his ear, holding tight the small radio receiver lodged there. Byrne assumed the gesture helped block out external noises. He could only imagine how such a messy interplay between flesh and machine would work, for he was one hundred percent the latter. His assistant nodded and raised one hand to signal it might take a moment.

Byrne settled back in his chair and looked around the suddenly quiet conference room. If he still had arms, it would’ve been a fine time to cross them, signifying his comfort with the wait. He would show his creators that he was quite confident in the invasion’s progress, dispelling the worries that had drawn them together in the high command ship’s main conference room.

“It’s from the latest ship to pass through the rift,” his assistant said.

The scattered whispers around the table died down as everyone listened for the latest news from the home galaxy.

“Go on,” Byrne said. It would’ve been a fine time to wave his hand in small circles, but he had to sit, an expressionless torso, and pour as much meaning as he could into mere words.

His assistant coughed into his fist and then cleared his throat. “The Senate is not happy with the timetables, sir. They’ve sent a spreadsheet showing a revised invasion schedule, with or without the, uh… the data stored in your arms. I can send the file through to your internals if you like.”

Byrne felt his programming stutter at the mention of the damned arms. That was all anyone around the conference table wanted to discuss. His arms. When would he get them back? Why weren’t there backup copies of all the intel he’d gathered on the Milky Way? How had he not foreseen one day being without them?

Right then, all Byrne wanted his limbs for was to pound the conference table to bits. He wanted to wave away the criticisms, to dispel the nonsense made by hindsight. He wanted a fist to shake.

“So the Senate wishes us to hurry,” he said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel.

A scattering of laughter floated around the table.

Byrne nodded to the invasion fleet’s head physicist. “What’s the latest on the rift?”

“The size has stabilized, sir, but we’re still showing a massive strain on local spacetime with each ship that comes through.”

“So there’s no bringing them through any faster?”

“No, sir. Not and still give each of the six folded dimensions time to properly recoil—”

“We take your word for it,” Byrne said, the interruption feeling rude without a polite raise of his hand. He looked around the table at the various heads of invasion divisions. Most of the eyes pointed his way were of the fleshy variety. Not for the first time, Byrne wondered what they felt of his being in charge. Was he seen as an abomination? One of their tools out of control? He didn’t think so. He often felt something more humiliating: That they just looked at him the way they did their communicators after they’d been popped out of their ear canals and set on the table before them.

“I understand the Senate’s impatience, and I understand each of yours,” Byrne said. “However, if the science says we can’t bring the fleet through any faster, I don’t see that we have a choice. It’s not as if this galaxy poses a threat to us, so we form up as steady as we can right here until the jump data is retrieved.”

The Personnel Chief raised his hand. “But when will that be?” He glanced at the others as they turned to face him. “And it’s not that the crews are grumbling about the time away from home, they just want to know when they’ll see some action.”

“I thought you were expecting your—” The Weapons Officer looked away from Byrne’s gaze and glanced at the knotted and empty sleeves at his shoulders. “—your data back days ago.”

“I was,” Byrne said. “I am. The agent I have working on this has our coordinates. I’m just waiting for the delivery.”

“While we wait, the Drenard invasion against the Humans continues and is taking a heavy toll.”

Everyone around the table turned to the other automaton in the room, the only figure among them who didn’t look anything like a good Bern. Agent Bodi stood in a far corner, preferring as always to keep his blue-tinted skin in the shadows. As uncomfortable as his presence made the others feel, Byrne felt a sort of connection to his mechanical brethren, his fellow plant among the enemy. But he also felt a twinge of disgust. So many other, more primal circuits inside of him had been designed to loathe the appearance of anything un-Bern.

Cinthya, the fleet’s Cultural Advisor turned to Bodi. “Are you really worried about the loss of Drenard life?” Byrne thought she sounded more professionally curious than shocked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bodi said, which caused more than a few spines to stiffen. “The start of our invasion was coordinated to ease the progress of this one. If we wait until the Drenards have already wiped out the Humans, I assure you we’ll have a messier time scrubbing their blue filth out of this galaxy than we would have otherwise. They’ll be battle-hardened and they’ll be everywhere.”

“Bodi is right,” Byrne said. Chairs squeaked as everyone turned their attention back to the table. “But we still have plenty of time before we need to worry, and every passing day, more of our ships arrive from hyperspace—”

“Hello, hello, hello. Testing. One. Two.”

“I’m sorry, more of our ships arrive from—”

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Pardon me,” Byrne told the division heads. He turned to his assistant and nodded. “I believe our agent is making contact.”

The young officer jumped up from his seat and inspected the band on Byrne’s forehead. “Is it coming through okay? Do I need to rearrange anything?”

Byrne wanted to wave him away. As he collected his thoughts, forcing them into the circuits of the Drenardian Communicator, he suddenly realized why the fleshy Bern touch their ears while talking to distant people. With all the curious gazes pointed his way, Bern had an overwhelming urge to rest his missing hand along the band’s edge, signifying to the others that he was speaking to someone not present—

“I’m here. Iss that you, Walter?”

Walter nodded. He reached out from the covers and flicked off the overhead lights. He could pretend to be asleep and continue to talk if Molly barged in.

“Walter, iss that you?”

“Yeah,” Walter thought. “Lissten, about that meeting—”

“Yess, Walter, I wass jusst disscusssing that with my ssuperiorss.”

Walter dug his fingers into his ears, as if he could plug the annoying hiss.

“I loaded the coordinatess you gave me into our hyperdrive, jusst like you ssuggessted,” Walter thought, “But sshe didn’t make the jump.”

“But you promissed,” the voice said.

“I know, but there’ss been a change of planss. I don’t think we’re jumping to hypersspacse anymore.”

“What’ss going on, Walter? I can’t promisse you all thiss gold if you can’t come through for me—”

“I think we’re gonna be jumping individual people to ssomewhere tonight,” Walter interrupted. “I’m gonna have to undo the changess I made to the hyperdrive or they’re gonna find out. I’m ssorry.”

“Individual people? What do you mean?”

Walter pulled his sheets up over his head. “There’ss thesse sshipss here keeping uss from going anywhere, sso I think ssome friendss of mine are gonna ssend people ssomewhere with the hyperdrive. I’m gonna have to change it back to the way it was.”

“Walter, iss there any chancse you could ssend yoursself ssomewhere with the hyperdrive?”

Walter thought about that.

“I’m not ssure,” he thought.

The voice in his head was silent.

“Hello?” Walter thought.

“One ssecond,” the voice said.

“I don’t know what to do,” Walter thought miserably.

The intolerable silence grew.

“Okay, Walter, I’ve got ssome numberss I need you to jot down.”

Walter fumbled at his belt for his portable computer. He powered it on under the covers, filling the small tent with an eerie luminescence.

“Okay,” Walter thought, as soon as the screen lit up. “What kind of numberss?”

“Thesse are ssome new coordinatess,” the voice in his head hissed. “I want you to jump to them asss ssoon asss you can.”

“I’ll try,” Walter thought.

“And, Walter?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget to bring Molly along with you.”

“Okay,” Walter thought.

Images and dreams of a cube of gold the size of a moon filled his imagination, as vivid and bright as the voice invading his mind.

“I promissse,” he hissed out loud, enraptured by the vision of so much shiny goodness, all of it soon to be his.

14 · Parsona

Molly clipped her harness to the eyebolt by the cargo door and stood ready to haul in bags of supplies. Each of the climbers had at least one black duffle, which they pushed ahead of themselves using ascenders that ratcheted along the ropes in one direction while refusing to slide down in the other. The sound of the thrusters holding Parsona in place erased the labored grunts of the climbers as they made their way up to the cargo bay and handed off the gear. Walter even emerged from his room to help out. He took one of the bags from Molly, nearly dropping the heavy sack as she let go.

The climbers scampered into the bay thankful for the grav plates, which altered the downward direction their bodies felt. Molly joined Walter and Cat in bringing them refreshments, nobody commenting on the blood stains on their boots and knees, the marks from their climb through a stairwell littered with the day-old remains of their crewmates.

“Are you sure we need another run?” Molly asked. She felt like doing anything she could to spare them another taxing ordeal, physically as well as emotionally.

One of the Navy men nodded as he sipped from his thermos. Behind him, Scottie leaned back against a bulkhead, taking deep breaths. Molly glanced out at the system of ropes rigged up across the decking beyond. Because of the grav plates and the thrusters holding them in place, it looked like she could just stroll out and walk along them. She had to remember the way the Firehawks had fallen the other day to appreciate the forces at play beyond her own decking.

The climbers rested for almost an hour before setting off again. Cat volunteered to spell Scottie or Ryn, but neither would hear of it. After they disappeared down the ropes, Walter made himself scarce as usual, and Molly and Cat returned to their boring duties as radio sentries and gossipers.

As before, they picked up sporadic chatter from the ships overhead, but nothing that seemed important. It wasn’t long before Cat and Parsona resumed the argument they’d been in the middle of before the climbers had returned and interrupted them:

“I just don’t see how you can sympathize with the Bern,” Parsona said, not for the first time.

Molly looked to Cat and watched her shrug. The Callite turned to gaze out her porthole. “I didn’t say they can do no wrong. All I’m suggesting is that the Underground might be the rebellious upstarts, and the Bern maybe got a right to try and quash them.”

“Now it’s them, huh? What happened to us?”

Cat waved her hand. “What’s it matter in the long run? Can you really think in absolutes like this? It’s like—”

Molly smiled and fed some of her protein bar to the Wadi as Cat struggled for the right word.

“It’s like what?” Parsona asked.

“Aw, hell. I was gonna say it’s like you can think like a computer, or something, but it wouldn’t have come out right.”

Parsona and Molly both laughed.

“I don’t mean to be obstinate,” Cat said. “I guess I’ve just thought on these things so long that I’m pretty sure there ain’t an answer.”

“Wait a second you two.” Molly leaned forward and turned up the ship’s radio.

“Affirmative, group designation four. Maintaining coordinates relative to—”

“It’s nothing,” Cat said.

“Yeah, it’s just that voice. I swear it reminds me of someone—”

“—approximate vectors. Edison out.”

“Flank me,” Molly whispered.

“No,” Parsona said. “It can’t be.”

“You two wanna fill me in?”

“Can we can transmit?” Molly asked.

“Yeah,” her mom said. “We’re riding the same frequency in order to listen in. I’m patching it together right now. But you don’t really think—?”

“I don’t know.” Molly shook her head and reached for the mic. She thought for a moment, then squeezed the transmit button. “Hello? Does anybody read me?”

The radio popped, and then a voice announced: “Carrier frequency compromised. All groups switch to secondary.”

A round of “copies,” followed, and then the radio fell silent.

“Well that sucks vacuum,” Cat said.

“Give me a second,” Parsona told them.

They waited.

“Try again. I think I have it, but there isn’t any chatter right now.”

Molly bit her lip and thought about what to say. “My transmission is scrambled too, right?” she asked her mom.

“Yes, but if the entire fleet is using this carrier wave, they’ll all hear you. Keep that in mind.”

Molly keyed the mic. “Mechanical bear, this is the Wadi queen, over.”

The same voice from before responded immediately: “Frequency compromised. Switch to tertiary.”

“Copy.”

“Negative,” a gruffer voice said. A familiar voice. “Break, break. Fifth group is maintaining secondary carrier frequency.”

Silence. Then a different voice. Higher. Softer. Still familiar.

“Molly? Is that you?”

Molly swallowed and blinked back tears.

“Anlyn?”

The trepid male voice returned: “This is group command, switch to tertiary frequency immediately.”

“Command, this is group five,” Anlyn said. “That’s your commander’s daughter. Please hold.”

“Anlyn,” Molly said into the mic. “Are you in that fleet up there? Can we talk? What are the Drenards doing with the Bern? How did you—What’s going on?”

“These aren’t Drenards, Molly. We—it’s complicated. We’re with some people from hyperspace. We control three ships up here—hold on a sec.”

Molly stared at the dash, waiting. She could hear her own heartbeat.

“Sorry, Edison had to say something on the other radio. We have command of three of the ships up here. There’s a few hundred people scattered between them.”

“What? Like refugees?”

“No. Warriors. They have a plan to close the rift but weren’t expecting the fleet to just be hanging out here. None of the Bern ships seem to be moving on, and we can’t act until they do.”

“They’ve been like that for weeks, just holding formation and shooting down anything that moves.” Molly let go of the transmit button, then squeezed it again. “About this Underground… are they from Lok? Do you have—? Is—?”

“I’m sorry,” Anlyn responded quickly. “We just learned what’s been going on ourselves. Another ship is still queued up to come through the rift. Your dad and Cole—” Anlyn paused. “It seems one of the ships went down on the other side.”

Molly gasped. Her heart pounded through her flightsuit. But still, she was just as much thrilled to hear someone relate their recent condition as she was dreading whatever had gone wrong. After keeping her thoughts and fears pushed into deep recesses for so long, she could feel them suddenly popping free, stirring and agitated and impatient.

“Reduce chatter, you two.” It was the other voice from the fleet.

“He’s right,” Parsona told Molly. “A constant stream is easier to stumble onto and hack.”

Molly looked at the mic in her hand, trying to sort out what was most important to say, what information she needed to best assist their combined efforts to defeat the Bern.

“How did the Underground infiltrate those ships in the first place?” Parsona asked, throwing one of her own queries onto Molly’s heap.

“My hunch is that the Bern are staging up here to protect their supply chain,” Cat told her. “You should probably tell them that.”

“Gimme a sec,” Molly told them. “I can’t think.”

She knew what she needed to say. She needed to speak to this other voice, to tell whoever was in charge up there that they were all in this together and that they needed to work that way. She tried a few phrasings in her head, then squeezed the transmit button.

“Command, we are with the Underground as well.” She looked over to Cat, who nodded, approving. “We are currently working on a plan to take out the large ship up there and possibly the rest of the fleet. It’s imperative that we talk.”

“Negative,” the voice said. “Any movement up here, and we’re sitting ducks. Maintain radio silence until the fleet moves out of this system. Nobody acts until then. Over and out.”

Molly cursed. Having friends so close and not being able to speak with them was going to drive her insane. She looked to Cat. “Any ideas?”

Cat shook her head.

“Molly, Anlyn here. We’re coming to you. I need coordinates for your cargo bay, and then I need you to clear out. Wait. Hold on—”

Molly heard voices conferring on the other side of Anlyn’s connection.

“Molly, make sure those coordinates are for a space one meter off the deck. And make them exact.”

Molly pulled up her nav screen to get her current position.

“How exact?” she asked.

“Edison exact.”

Molly heard the air in Parsona’s cargo bay pop, and then a figure materialized a meter off the deck—it just blinked into existence. The person hit the ground in a ball and rolled out of the way. Molly couldn’t believe her eyes. She started to get up from the crew seat, but Anlyn ran her way, telling her to stay put.

A louder pop, and a bundle of fur wrapped in tunics crashed to the ground, sending a vibration through the hull. Edison stood up and lumbered her way as Anlyn threw herself into Molly’s arms.

Molly held her friend—tears coating her vision—as yet another man appeared in her cargo bay.

“How many are coming?” she asked Anlyn, pulling out of the embrace and wiping at her eyes.

“Just us,” Anlyn said, smiling at her. Edison came over and wrapped them both up and lifted them off the ground. Past his shoulder, Molly saw Cat run to the third person who had arrived, screaming his name and nearly tackling him.

“Edison, you’re smothering me!”

He dropped them back to the ground. “Sincerest apologies,” he said. “Irrationally, my exuberance overcame my ability to forgo immediate gratification, I—”

“I love you, too,” Molly said, leaning into his tunics and wrapping her arms partways around him.

“What are you guys doing here?” she asked Anlyn. “I thought you were on Drenard.”

“Well, what in the galaxy is Cole doing in hyperspace?”

Walter popped out of his room. He hissed in alarm at the sight of Edison.

“Walter!” Edison said, stomping over to greet him.

Cat approached Molly from the opposite direction, pulling along a short, bald, bearded man. Molly felt dizzy from the amount of activity and the number of things she needed to ask Anlyn about. First, though, there was an outstretched hand waiting to be shaken.

“Ryke,” the man said. He accepted Molly’s grasp and pumped it warmly. “Lotsa folks call me Doctor Ryke, but I done nothing to deserve it.”

“I’m—”

“I know who you are,” Ryke said, smiling at her. He continued to hold her hand as he gazed around the cargo bay, appraising it as if he might a home he had once lived in, or helped to build.

“You know my father,” Molly whispered.

“Yup. Good man. And I wouldn’t worry none about him. He’s fond of grand entrances.”

“So he’s okay?” Molly turned to Anlyn. “How’s Cole?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Anlyn said. “I just recently found out where he was.”

“He set off to help Mortimor get out of hyperspace,” Ryke said. “What we need to be working on is getting that rift closed up as soon as he does. Before we get to that, though…” Ryke looked at Molly expectantly.

“I’m so sorry,” Molly said. “Do you guys need food or water? The bathroom? If you need to rest before—”

“Naw,” Ryke said, looking back over his shoulder. “You reckon I could sneak off to your engine room, just to see her?”

“See who?” Molly asked.

“The hyperdrive,” Ryke whispered.

Cat wrapped her arms around Ryke’s broad shoulders and leaned over to kiss the top of his bald head. “You haven’t changed a lick!” she said.

“Sure,” Molly said. “Help yourself.” She turned back to Anlyn, then realized how difficult it was going to be to explain the presence of all these people to the Navy climbers when they got back.

“Oh, Ryke? I’m gonna need you guys to stash away in the crew quarters in less than an hour. You’ll have to stay there while we fly back to this clearing we’ve set up camp in. I’m with some men in black.”

“Navy?” Ryke looked around like she’d warned him of snakes.

“They’re fine, I just don’t want to have to explain how you got here.”

Ryke scratched his beard and nodded, then hurried off toward the back of the ship.

Walter continued to gab with Edison near the door to his room. Molly flinched when she felt the Wadi scurry up her leg to her shoulder. Normally, the thing wouldn’t leave the back of her seat if she put her there. The animal twisted around her neck and jabbed its tongue out at Anlyn.

Anlyn’s eyes lit up at the sight of the colorful Wadi. She came close to Molly, reaching her hand out to it.

“By the lights of Hori,” she whispered.

“Another reason I’m glad you’re here,” Molly said. “I think there’s something wrong with her.” She removed the Wadi and held it out to Anlyn. “Gods, it feels like there’s so much I didn’t get to say before we left Drenard. I—” Molly watched the Wadi curl itself around Anlyn’s neck. “Exactly what happened after we left? I hear your people are pushing out into Terran space and attacking our planets.”

“She’s pregnant,” Anlyn said, rubbing the Wadi’s head with two fingers.

“She—Wait, what? The Wadi?”

Anlyn nodded.

“But, she’s getting smaller.”

“Has she been drinking a lot?”

“Kiloliters.”

“Well, she’s laid her eggs somewhere, and now she’s feeding them. Big ones, from the looks of her tail.”

Molly leaned forward and looked at the wisp of a tail as it circled in the air. “How can you tell?”

Anlyn looked around the cargo bay. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen them.”

“I can’t believe you’re standing in front of me! What’ve you been up to? We—Oh my gods I have to tell you about what happened on Dakura, and we got captured by the Navy, and Walter broke us free, and then I nearly got killed here. Oh, and we’re currently inside a StarCarrier that crashed and it’s like sitting vertically in the air and you remember Saunders? That guy from the Academy I told you about? He’s here and not trying to kill me anymore.”

Anlyn beamed and waved Molly down. “Slow down, you’re about as easy to follow as Edison right now.”

“I’m sorry.” Molly went to the galley and filled two cups with water. She glanced over at Edison to see if he needed a drink and saw him studying one of Byrne’s severed arms. Walter had drug the morbid things out to show them off.

“Here.” She held a glass out to Anlyn.

“We just ate about an hour ago, but thanks.” She accepted the cup. “So, you said you had a plan for getting rid of the fleet? I hope it’s a good one, because I had to pull royal rank to risk the hyperdrive trace and have us sent down here.”

“It’s the best we’ve got, but it’ll take a few days to pull off.” Molly nodded to the empty spot in her cargo bay where Anlyn had appeared out of thin air. “I just recently learned that my hyperdrive can do that as well. I’m sending a group of Callites and Navy personnel straight to Darrin, just like how you guys showed up. They’re gonna nab a fleet and then jump back here and put up a fight. Meanwhile, we’re gonna send every missile in this Carrier up to take out that massive ship. We think it’s the one that’s been downing enemy crafts like it’s nothing.”

Molly took a deep breath and winced at how crazy the plan sounded spelled out like that.

“How’re you planning on stealing the fleet at Darrin?” Anlyn asked. Her face had grown quite serious, as if the rest might be workable.

“That’s why we’re here.” Molly pointed to the black duffle bags from the first climb. “We’re raiding the Carrier’s stores for armor, weapons, flightsuits—”

“Not like what you’ll need,” Anlyn said, shaking her head. “At Darrin, you’re gonna come up against personal barrier shields that’ll deflect any kind of bullet or bolt fired at it. Trust me, I know.”

“Albert,” Molly said, remembering the blow Edison had landed to the weapon dealer’s head that the man hadn’t even felt. “Maybe we can just sneak aboard the ships and blast our way out?”

Anlyn shook her head. “The controls for the force-doors are on their belts. You’ll be sending people to their doom, Molly. One-way.”

“Well, hyperspace,” Molly said. She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe there’s enough missiles in here to take out several of the smaller ships before they start jumping away?”

“No,” Anlyn said. “Your plan for the Darrin fleet is a good one. You just need something better than these guns to take it from them.”

“Yeah, I need some of what Albert stocks.”

Anlyn smiled. “Actually, according to Edison, we might have something even better—”

Before she could explain what that was, the portable radio squawked from the cockpit, announcing the return of the Navy climbers.

“We’ll figure it out later,” Molly said. She took the Wadi back from Anlyn, allowing the animal to curl itself around her neck. “Grab Edison and Ryke and hide out in your room. Try and get some rest.”

Anlyn squeezed Molly’s arm and smiled. “Don’t you worry on that last bit,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t slept in ages.”

15 · Lok

Several hours later, Molly lowered Parsona into the now-familiar clearing just as Lok’s speedy sun began to slip over the horizon. Yet another brief day on Molly’s alien home had felt like several. The longest part for her had been the flight back from the StarCarrier, tormented by having Anlyn and Edison stowed away in their old quarters and unable to talk to them. Her only solace was in hearing how badly all three of them needed some sleep. Still, there was so much she wanted to tell them and to hear in return.

Their first stop in a long round of flights had been to drop off the climbers and their gear. Molly had then used another supply run to Bekkie as a chance to catch up with her old friends and give her an excuse for how they had arrived. Now that they were returning to the clearing, Molly realized the unthinkable task she had before herself: She needed to introduce a Navy Admiral to a member of the loathed Drenardian race. And with a Glemot crammed in the room for good measure!

Parsona touched down into her well-worn depressions in the wooded clearing, one strut squeaking a little. Her cargo door opened to let in the night sounds of forest whispers and chirping insects. Molly followed Cat into the cargo bay where another round of supplies had been arranged. As soon as the hatch met the crackling leaves of the clearing, Callites and Humans stomped up together to help unload. Molly left the physical labor to her friends. She squeezed past Ryke, who Cat was introducing to several Callites, and set off in search of Saunders.

She didn’t have to go far, as the portly Admiral was already stomping up the loading ramp to find her.

“Everything go okay?” he asked. Molly watched him search her for signs of trauma, yesterday’s adventures in Bekkie still seemingly fresh on his mind.

“It went fine. We got enough food and water to last the Darrin squads both ways, and I was able to buy extra flight gear off a few other ships for next to nothing. It appears that cash is king right now.”

Saunders looked over the bundles of packaged food and the crates of fluid packets with a frown. “Are you sure this will be enough?”

Molly pulled him out of the way of the supply chains and back toward the crew quarters.

“More than enough, actually. I picked up some friends in town, and one of them, a Doctor Ryke who grew up near my home village, knows a way to shorten the trip back from Darrin.”

“Even more than the route you picked out? I thought you had it down to four jumps or something like that.”

“Drastically shorter,” Molly said. “And it’ll be even safer, trust me.” She led him down the hallway and stopped just outside of Edison’s room. She slapped the door twice as the insanity of what she was about to do fully set in. The daunting task wrapped itself around her chest and made it difficult to breathe. She turned to Saunders.

“Molly, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, I—I just need you to stay quiet and calm, okay? Some of the friends I picked up in town… they might not be what you’re expecting.”

A hurt look spread across Saunders’s face. “I’m fine with the locals,” he said. “Just so you know, I was a Naval Ambassador before taking the job at the—”

He stopped. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning Molly’s face. Whatever he saw there had given him pause.

“What could you possibly show me—?”

There was a knock on the other side of the door.

“Just be calm,” Molly said, trying her damnedest to follow her own advice. She keyed the door open, and it slid back. The lights inside were off, the portholes shuttered. Molly ushered Saunders inside and closed the door. They had worried over whether or not he’d even enter the room if he saw what awaited him.

When the lights flicked on, Molly noted her worries had been justified. Saunders flinched back, reaching for Molly or possibly the door behind her. Molly steadied him; she felt his frozen muscles tremble beneath his copious bulk. She watched as the ruddy color of his neck drained white, and worried he might pass out again, just as he had when he’d found out about the Bern threat.

As Molly watched his reaction, hoping he’d be okay, she recalled the first time she had seen Anlyn. Her body had responded similarly, freezing and fumbling for Cole. She certainly knew what he was going through, and how far her own fears had come in such a short time.

“She’s a friend,” Molly told Saunders, hoping to calm him. She moved to his side and placed a hand on his back. “And this is Edison, another very good friend of mine.”

“D—Dre—”

Anlyn rose from her bed and bowed slightly. Molly was relieved to see Edison stay put, his bulk fearsome enough just hunched over on the small bunk.

“My name is Anlyn Hooo and I greet you on behalf of my empire—”

Saunders collapsed, his legs folding neatly, Indian style, as he sank to the deck. Molly steadied his shoulders to keep his head from going back against the dresser. She stepped around and knelt down in front of him, saw his eyes focusing on Anlyn, his mouth open.

“Sir? Admiral, I need you to stay with me.”

His eyes moved slowly to Molly’s.

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head, his jowls jiggling left and right. He made little circles with his chin, transforming the shake into a nod.

“Are you or aren’t you?”

“I need water,” he said, his voice thin and raspy.

“I can’t send either of them—” Molly nodded to her two friends. “Do you want me to leave you and get a glass?”

Saunders considered this. He shook his head.

Molly felt Anlyn’s hand on her shoulder; she turned to see her friend sitting down across from Saunders. After she got settled, Anlyn folded her translucent blue hands into her lap and smiled at the Admiral.

Molly moved aside and sat likewise, occupying the small plot of floor still available, each of her knees nearly touching one of theirs. Edison remained quietly seated on the bunk behind them, and the silence within the room became more palpable by the steady thump of activity in the cargo bay beyond. Together, the three crewmates rode out the old man’s shock, respecting the awkwardness they had induced.

“Admiral Saunders—” Anlyn eventually began.

“You speak English,” he said, interrupting her.

Anlyn nodded. “Molly told you why our people are at war?”

“Because of them?” Saunders asked. He pointed up at the ceiling and presumably to the Bern fleet beyond. His eyes darted away from Anlyn and settled on Edison. “Is—Is that one of… them?”

Molly stifled a laugh, then felt sorry for Saunders. His face was still ashen, his jaw slack with confusion. She reached out and put a hand on his knee. “Edison is a Glemot. He’s harmless,” she said, ripping the truth in half, grinding it to shards, then setting the fragments on fire. “The Bern look like us, remember?”

Saunders nodded and blinked rapidly, re-learning old news.

Anlyn held up her hands, showing her pale-blue palms. “Admiral, war has been declared on your empire by mine. There are agents in both of our camps that do not have the best interests of their own people in mind. Do you understand?”

“I do,” he replied, some of the color returning to his cheeks.

“I did everything I could to prevent these most recent hostilities, both as a member of our highest council and personally.”

“You don’t want to fight us,” Saunders said.

“That’s correct. I don’t. Many of us don’t.” Anlyn adjusted her tunics, then folded her hands into her lap. “We share a common enemy, your empire and mine. One that has been trying its mightiest to drive our people together so they can then sweep through the debris and lord over the ashes. That enemy is gathering right here above this planet. Do you understand this as well?”

“The Bern.”

“Admiral, do you understand what needs to be done? That this enemy must be stopped at all costs?”

Saunders nodded. Molly could see his throat constrict as he swallowed. She should have planned better and had some water in the room ahead of time.

“We have a plan,” Saunders said meekly. He turned to Molly. “We have a plan, right?” He seemed desperate for a confirmation of this feeble hope.

Molly patted his knee. “Admiral, we need you to do something important, okay? Anlyn has it worked out.”

“I am next in line to the throne of the Drenard Empire,” Anlyn said.

Saunders’s face remained blank, but Molly felt goosebumps ripple up her arms from hearing her friend say such an outrageous thing, even if it were true.

“I am not in a position of military power,” she went on, “and I will never rule my people, but I do have certain inherent foreign relations rights. Further, I happen to be on an ambassadorial mission sanctioned by my ruling body, entrusted with the right to establish first contact with races not previously negotiated with and enter into negotiations with any such races encountered.”

“I—I’m not following,” Saunders said. He looked to Molly for help, but she just nodded to Anlyn, trying to keep him focused.

“My hope was to make contact with the Bern,” Anlyn said. “It was my reading, my interpretation of an old prophe—An old document passed down for many generations. But I believe I was meant to do this. Right here. Right now. We are the races meant to unite under the shadow of a rift, Human and Drenard, not the Drenard and Bern.”

“Do what?” Saunders shook his head as if trying to clear the confusion. Molly noticed both his hands were clenched fists—knuckles pressed against knuckles in his lap, as if he could grip the air and somehow hold his senses firm.

“My people never made official first contact with the Bern or the Humans,” Anlyn said. “I have the power and the rights to do this, to enter into formal negotiations with either race.”

Saunders shook his head again, the folds under his chin swaying.

“She means that she can make it official if you declare—”

“I can certify it if you would choose to—”

Neither of them seemed to know how to come out and say it.

An awkward silence began to form as they looked to one another for help.

“Surrender immediately,” Edison growled, his gruff voice dripping with impatience.

“Do what?”

Saunders popped to his feet with a litheness that defied his bulk and an injection of energy that cut through his former stillness.

“Surrender? Concede the war with the Drenards?”

Molly and Anlyn both stood as well, holding their hands out to calm him.

“Hear us out,” Molly said. “It’s not just about stopping the fighting, which we don’t think it’ll even do, it’s about exposing the people on both sides who want this war. It’s a formality, nothing more.”

“It’s a way to smoke them out,” Anlyn said.

“I don’t—Even if I had the authority, which I don’t, the most I could do is surrender my fleet, the entire crew of which can fit in this single ship!” Saunders threw his hands up.

“That’s why we need you to go to Earth,” Molly said. “We need you to explain what’s going on—”

“But I don’t even know what’s going on!”

“Sir, all you have to do is recount the loss of your fleet and the unwinnable nature of this conflict. Convince the Galactic Union to terminate its offensive. We need to see who would want the fight to continue, even if it means utter defeat. These are our true enemies.”

“But what then?” Saunders asked. “What will it matter when the people who actually wiped out Zebra group are still around to mop us up? I need to stay here with my crew.” He reached out and grabbed Molly’s arm. “We’ll attack with the Darrin fleet, just like you said. I’ll lead them into battle myself.”

Molly patted his hand and shook her head. “The attack will be carried out as planned,” she said, “but you won’t be leading it. The mission to Earth is more important. It’ll solve the problem of finding the Bern among us without causing panic or worse.”

Saunders turned to Molly. “So I won’t be leading the attack back here? Then who will? You?” he asked.

She shook her head again.

“Who, then?”

“Me,” Anlyn said. “I’ll be leading them.”