“Optimism, Morgana,” Ari said, even though she was starting to feel the opposite. Two dry seasons had come and gone on Ketch. The next rain season was due any day, and that meant at least a year had gone by on the Old Earth calendar. She moved to the line of dummies she’d made of her friends. Val wore a homemade corset. Merlin, Ari’s mother’s favorite green robe. Lamarack was one-handed and bragged the best mauve thawb she could find. Kay wasn’t there because she had the loutish taneen for when she missed her brother.
The Gwen dummy had been a bit of a disaster. Ari had gone through seriously dark moods while she worked on it, and eventually given up. It didn’t help that Ari could now recite the dozens of Arthur-Lancelot-Gweneviere heartbreaks from the previous cycles, complete with the video-quality memory playbacks Morgana was in the habit of gifting when she didn’t think Ari was taking the matter seriously enough.
Morgana’s training had been nothing if not thorough.
Which had inspired the Jordan dummy—Ari’s favorite opponent. It was covered in pots and pans turned into armor; even though Ari had found a suit of armor, she’d kept the ragtag version instead. It was less formidable, easier to bang against. Ari sent Excalibur singing through the air, danging across Jordan’s breastplate. It wasn’t enough, so she turned, using her full body to throw the sword into the dummy.
The handle wavered in the aftermath—sticking out of Jordan’s head.
“Oh, yes, that reeks of optimism,” Morgana said.
“You said I should vent.”
“I said you should give up on Gweneviere. It’s a poisoned love story. You said you could ‘vent’ your ‘feelings.’”
“I never should have taught you how to use air quotes,” Ari muttered. She went to pull the sword out of the dummy, but Morgana beat her to it. Her ghostly fingers closed around the handle without gaining purchase. “It’s not going to work. Excalibur won’t let you.”
“It let me once. On Urite.” Morgana heaved an annoyed sigh. “But then Merlin’s blood was on it. What I wouldn’t give for just a few vials full of that heavenly liquid.”
“Ugh, no more waxing poetic about Merlin’s magical blood!” Ari hauled the sword free and shoved it into the sheath at her back. “And don’t think that I—”
A simple, glorious tone sounded. As loud as the city was large.
At first, Ari couldn’t move. “That’s the signal beacon. Error is calling me back!” She sprinted for Ras Almal alone, climbing the steps two at a time, used to this workout. Ten flights and her legs barely burned anymore. If this had been her normal training, she would have set a personal best by dozens of seconds.
On the tower balcony, Ari silenced the signal alarm and stared at the blinking com light. From the number, she could tell it was Error calling. Who was calling was still a mystery. What had happened to her friends while she was here? Were they all right? Were some of them dead? Why had it taken so long for them to call her back? She’d run through these thoughts so many times over the last few seasons that her brain short-circuited. This could even be the Administrator bragging about his latest victory over her friends.
Ari answered. “Ari here.”
At first no one spoke on the other line.
“This is Ara Azar on Ketch,” she tried. “Who is this?”
“Ari?” Merlin’s voice crackled with static and hope. “Is that truly you?”
“Merlin!” She pressed a knuckle against her tearing eye, holding back a windstorm of sudden emotions. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“We’re… adrift. Lionel was taken over. I couldn’t stop it, Ari. We all tried, but we’ve nowhere to go, and Mercer won’t permit us to land anywhere.”
So it was time. Ari had been placing the jigsaw pieces of a plan together since she’d fallen like an angel into the remains of her destroyed home. Arthur, in all his absent wisdom, had been pressing her toward this, as well. Preparing, training, readying for battle.
One step at a time. No impulsive decisions.
After all, this was the Administrator’s game of chess. And Ari was taking back the offense. That’s what her time on Ketch had taught her. You don’t ride a taneen in one day. You spend months getting them to simply eat out of your hand. And you couldn’t bring Mercer down in one accusation, but with a few well-placed moves, you could change the game.
“I have a plan, Merlin. Listen close.” Ari gave him instructions for what to do with the Lionelian refugees—and then where they would meet. She tried to remain as unemotional as possible and hung up. She managed to stop herself from asking about her friends. How Gwen was. Why her brother hadn’t come on the line. All those things had to be pushed aside for now.
“Check, Administrator,” Ari said, finally pressing Send on the file she’d been compiling for months. A tell-all about what had happened to Ketch, sending it out on all open channels, for the great, wide universe to see.
The second step of the plan was a whirlwind of action. The generation ship—the fucking castle—stunned the hell out of Ari, falling through Ketch’s atmosphere and into the sandy desert like a barely-reined-in meteor. She helped the several thousand Lionelians into the least known city on the planet, the one built into the sandstone mountains in the south, where the taneens didn’t tend to venture. She made sure the refugees were stocked with food, water, medicine.
And she left.
Piloting the only working emergency life pod from Lionel’s castle, she powered, full throttle, to the very solar system that first sent humans into the cosmos like a constellation of consequences. From Mars, she caught a glimpse of Heritage: skulking, watching, unnerved no doubt by the space waves alight with anti-Mercer chatter. The communications coming through her console were a gratifying tangle of discussion about Ari’s video.
She hadn’t held back. She’d shown the collections of human bones, piled high by the taneens who’d feasted when the planet went lifeless. And she’d shown the excruciating death of the hatchling. The one that drank from a Mercer barrel of “water” from the shipment that had poisoned everyone. Big Mama had lost her mind that day, and that was on the video, too. The enormous grieving mother howled into the desert wind as the seizing little one finally went limp. She’d knocked her own head into a stone wall and bitten Ari three times before they’d both collapsed in a pile of misery.
Of understanding.
That’s how Ari had learned how Mercer did it. They’d waited for the dry season—and then struck. A cowardly, spineless move. But they hadn’t just murdered Ketch; they’d swept their crime under that barrier. Ari was pleased to hear so much speculation across so many worlds about what else Mercer might have covered up.
Ari kept her eye trained on the swiftly approaching, gaudy moon, and requested a docking space. Then she began the—honestly exhausting—decision of picking out what to wear. Something to blend in but, obviously, also look nice. She took in her appearance in one of the silver walls in the pod. Her skin had darkened under the Ketchan skies. Her hair was nearly twice as long, the ends gracing her hips, and her muscles were banging from the constant training.
What would Gwen think of her now?
Ari’s heart did an embarrassing drop beat as she straightened her clothes. “Be cool. She’s been with someone else. No big deal. Maybe several people. Maybe even… probably… huge, muscular, perfect, ridiculous fucking Jordan.” Ari pulled her belt tight as she imagined the black knight with her impeccable chivalry and gleaming armor—and had to unhook the leather and start again. She narrowed her eyes on her reflection. “You’re in trouble, Ara.”
“Permission to dock in Dodge Colony LK-189,” a docking guard voice floated in from the console. “You aren’t a Mercer affiliate, are you?”
Ari squinted and hit the com. “Do I look like a Mercer affiliate? This ship is barely running.”
“Have to ask. We kicked the bastards out.”