35
It was nighttime on the frontier side of Lok. Molly brought her ship down through the atmosphere, descending toward the darkness of her abandoned, childhood village. She leaned forward to get a better visual through the carboglass, disturbing the Wadi in her lap. It flicked its tail, claws skittering on the polished plate that moments ago had held Molly’s leftover lasagna.
SEE?_ Her mother typed.
Molly checked the SADAR; a ship the size of a Firehawk sat right outside the commons. Cole had beaten her there. She didn’t take her hands off the flight controls to respond to her mother, but she thought about the red band in her chest pocket, considered popping off her helmet to try it out, to see if she could contact him. Instead, she focused on a soft arrival, pointing her thrusters away from the other ship and using the old commons as a landing pad.
Parsona settled to the dew-covered grass. Her belly opened, the cargo hatch lowering to the soft soil.
Molly popped her helmet off and set it on the rack. “Don’t touch anything,” she told Walter. “I’ll be right back.” She stroked the Wadi on the head and moved the creature from her lap to the back of the chair. Peering into her water bowl, she made sure it was topped up, then headed through the bowels of her ship and out into the crisp night.
Byrne had his hands on her immediately.
Molly tried to scream, but cold, bony fingers covered her mouth. She struggled against his arms, but they were unnaturally strong; they pinned her against his body in a vise-like grip, her feet dangling in the air. The flashlight fell from her hands and banged against the cargo ramp; it rolled into the grass, its beam snuffed out by the unkempt length of the dry blades.
Thin lips came down to her ear, brushing against them.
“You’ve been expected,” Byrne whispered, his words close, yet no hint of breath puffed against her cheek. Molly reached back to claw at his face, but he just tucked her under one arm as he keyed the cargo door closed. When the ramp sealed, he struck the control panel with his bare fist, demolishing it completely and denting the hull around it.
Molly kicked her captor physically and herself mentally. She berated herself for not keeping her helmet on so she could warn her mom.
She struggled to take in a breath of air—the way she was being carried forced her to exert energy just to stabilize her body. Her legs hung awkwardly, her spine bent and jolted with pain from each of Byrne’s steps. Even the red band added to her torment, the small lump jabbing into her ribs through her flightsuit pocket. She twisted around and grabbed Byrne’s arm to support her weight—it was like clutching a solid-steel rod.
Just when she thought she’d pass out from the exertion and inability to breathe, Byrne threw her down in a patch of dirt. The area around her glowed in the soft light of a nearby work lamp, and something hummed softly in the distance.
Molly tried to launch herself up, but Byrne grabbed her again and pushed her back to the ground. His fingers dug between the muscles in her neck, squeezing nerves that shot numbness into her arms. The underlying pain made her mouth feel like it was full of metal as her lungs continued to scream for air.
“You seem to have a problem keeping still, don’t you, Mollie Fyde?”
Byrne’s other hand went to her thigh, up near her hip. Fingers as hard and thin as screwdrivers dug deep at her hip socket, grinding against the bone. Molly had never felt such pain before. It wasn’t something she could scream about—that would have required some degree of motor control. Instead, her jaw fell open in shock, her eyes wide with fear. Even the leg he wasn’t gripping vibrated with pain, both flight boots thumping the packed soil. It was an agony on the verge of nothingness, a numbness that could be felt.
Her stomach lurched, then bunched up in knots.
Molly turned her head to the side and threw up her lasagna. She spat, her eyes rolling up in the back of her head as she tried to will herself unconscious. She dreamed of the comforting blackness that usually overtook her in moments of raw shock.
But Byrne’s iron grip held her just over the precipice of consciousness. Her legs continued to tremble uncontrollably from the pain.
When he finally let go, there was nothing Molly could do but relish the feeling of not being tortured. She tried to wipe her chin, but her arm flopped, limp and useless. Byrne remained crouched beside her, looking at her like a specimen of some sort.
“The next time you try and stand up, I’m going to do something very bad to you. Nod if you understand.”
Molly nodded. Once. It was all she could muster. Just moving her eyeballs around to take in her surroundings felt like an accomplishment. She and Byrne were in a small plot of land; tall weeds grew up next to a low brick wall. There was a fireplace at the far edge of the pool of light, a chimney rising from it and up into the black Lokian night. It was the ruined foundation of an old building, all the wood long since ground to dust, carried off by the wind.
Byrne grinned. “Recognize the place?” he asked.
Molly tried to shake her head, but only her eyes moved, rolling back and forth.
“No? You should. We had tea in this very room back on Dakura. This is the little hell your mother chose for her eternity.” He laughed. “Eternity! She didn’t last another twenty years, thanks to you.”
“Din’t kill ’er,” Molly slurred.
“Even worse. You had one of your cronies do it, didn’t you? Just like Lucin. Tell me, where are you getting your information? I know it isn’t from your father. And there’s not an inch of that ship I haven’t inspected. So I’m curious—how did you know to go to Dakura, and just what do you know about this place?”
A weak smile was all she could pull off. Byrne’s hand came to her knee and started sliding up her thigh. Molly could feel the pain, like a memory, even though his fingers hadn’t returned to the right spot yet. Her leg went numb in anticipation and she tried to slide her pelvis out of the way—but it didn’t budge.
????
“WALTER?”
His name boomed through Parsona, scaring the hell out of him. He froze, then quickly slid Cole’s things from the top of the human’s dresser and back into the drawer. He pushed it closed as quietly as he could and peeked out the door—up, then down the hallway.
“Hello?”
It may have been his imagination, but he thought the camera in the corner of the cargo bay moved slightly. “Hello?” he asked again. “Where are you?”
The voice boomed down the length of the ship:
“COME TO THE COCKPIT.”
Walter had the sudden urge to do the very opposite. He looked the other way, to the laz, then back up the shaft of the ship. The Wadi’s head peeked around the corner from the back of Molly’s seat.
Its tongue flicked out.
“What if I don’t wanna?!” he yelled to the Wadi.
The creature’s head pulled back.
Walter crept up through the cargo bay; he glanced at the portholes, which showed nothing but pitch black outside. He wondered if he was about to get in trouble for looting Cole’s room. He cautiously entered the cockpit, which hadn’t changed since he left it. The Wadi flicked her tongue out at Walter, tasting the air.
“You have a very loud voicse,” he told the Wadi.
The voice boomed in response, filling the cockpit: “HIT THE BUTTON MARKED ‘MIC’ ON THE RADIO. IT’S THE PANEL BESIDE THE LOUD HAILER, AND RIGHT NEXT TO—”
Walter flicked it before the voice could complete the sentence. “I know where the radio iss,” he hissed.
“There you are,” the lady said, in a more sensible volume. “I need your help.”
“Sssure you do. But who are you?”
“Can you adjust the squelch?” the voice asked. “I’m getting quite a hiss from the cockpit mic.”
Walter leaned across the controls between the two seats, his face just a foot from the radio. “That’ss jussst how I sspeak,” he said, showering the dash with saliva.
“Oh, my apologies. Listen, I’m seeing a hyperdrive signature ahead of us—I mean ahead of you—that I don’t like. I need you to run some tests for—”
“Who are you?” Walter interrupted. He shooed the Wadi from Molly’s seat and plopped down in the captain’s chair.
“I’m, uh . . . a friend of Mollie’s. I—well, I was supposed to meet you guys here, but the door’s stuck. The cargo ramp. Can you check it for me?”
“Are you outside?” Walter spun in his chair and peeked through the porthole. The planet was darker than space, but a pale glow could be seen directly ahead of the ship.
“I was. I’m radioing from my ship. Can you check the door for me? I think something’s wrong with it.”
“Ssure,” he said, working his way out of the seat.
“Just see if it’ll open, but don’t go outside. Oh, and I might need you to check something on SADAR when you get back. I’ll tell you what buttons to press, and you can follow along.”
“I’m not sstupid,” Walter said, stomping out of the room.
This was so annoying. He hardly ever got time to himself on the ship, time to sniff around.
He walked past his crew area, and the sight of all the empty chairs washed away his frustrations. He could feel himself brighten. Literally—the sheen of his metallic skin taking a more silvery hue.
Then again, he thought, our crew has gone from five to two in less than a week.
He felt pretty proud of himself for that.
He strolled over to the ramp controls and lifted the glass. Tapped the buttons.
Nothing.
He hissed in frustration, his skin resuming its prior, duller sheen.
????
Molly dripped with sweat, despite the cold. Byrne’s question about her source of information hung in the air, his hands positioned to deliver more pain. She couldn’t tell him about Parsona—so she fought to think of any other connection—anything he’d mentioned on Dakura. The fingers started to press in, and Molly remembered something. His reaction to hearing about her godfather.
“Lucin,” she gasped, then sucked in a lungful of air before it could be forced out of her with the attack.
But the attack didn’t come. The fingers rested on the spots, little divots of torture burned into her body’s long-term memory.
“I thought so,” Byrne said, his hand not moving. “What else did he tell you?”
About Parsona, she thought. But protecting her was the only reason she’d lied in the first place. “He told me about my mom. About Dakura. The mission my parents were on.”
“Which was?”
Molly took a deep breath. Even talking was exhausting. “Are you testing me? Or interrogating me?”
Mr. Byrne laughed at this, and his hand came away. He grabbed Molly by her armpits and carried her closer to the light, plopping her down in front of some odd contraption.
“Both,” he told her. “Do you know what I’m doing here?”
Molly shook her head “I don’t even know what you are,” she lied.
“Think of me as a scout,” he said. “Behind me is an army of trillions. And I’m going to open a door and let them in.” He turned to the side and waved at the silhouette of a device Molly found . . . familiar. It was a large cross of steel with wires leading to all four points. She traced the cables down to the ground, through the ruins, and off to the shadow of a ship outside the village square. She could see now that it wasn’t a Firehawk.
She looked back to the contraption. “What is that?” she asked.
But she already knew. She’d built one just a month ago, on Palan. She’d used it to rescue Cole from that hellish prison.
“You know, don’t you?” Byrne leaned in and studied her face. “Your mother knew more than she let on. Did she teach you how to use this?” The hand came to her thigh again. Without even looking, he seemed able to attach his fingers to just the right spot.
Molly shook her head. The bony digits pressed in, making the world flash around her and go silent. She moved her lips to say, “It was an accident,” but couldn’t even hear herself.
The fingers came away, the pain diminishing to a dull, lingering ache.
“What was an accident?”
She tried to force a long breath among the short and rapid ones.
“I built one,” she whimpered. “On accident. To rescue a friend, I built one of those.” She nodded her head toward the metal cross.
Byrne leaned in close. His eyes were wild, his face twitching with small muscles that bulged in odd places.“What did it do?” he asked. “Where did you build it?”
“I teleported some rock, moved a cell wall, to free a friend—”
“Bah! Then you didn’t build what—”
“—on Palan,” she finished.
Byrne reacted as if shocked by a bolt of electricity. Both hands, with uncommon speed and precision, flew to Molly’s armpits. Fingers found nerves there between her ribs and under her shoulders. He didn’t yet start squeezing, but Molly could tell this would be a level of agony beyond what had already transpired. Anticipatory pain tingled along tendons as if they knew what was coming; her shoulders crept up in fear.
“Where on Palan?” he spat.
“In the canyons.” Molly forced out the answer as quickly as she could. She tensed her legs, stretching her spine, trying to levitate away from his grasp.
“Liar,” he said. His fingers applied a little pressure. Molly felt dizzy, could smell something like ozone, could taste the pain. It was a new experience, and it hadn’t really started. Her throat constricted, her eyes watering.
What is he looking for? she wondered in her haze. She would give it to him, whatever it was, she’d hand him everything for a quick death, that’s how bad it felt.
“It was in space, wasn’t it?” he yelled. “You did something in Palan’s orbit. You opened a door!”
He no longer looked calm and in control. He looked desperate. In Molly’s state, his thin face, spitting with rage, looked like the specter of death, come to take her away.
“I know it was in space,” Byrne shouted, “because I came through it with Parsona. Tell me how you made it.”
With Parsona? A door? From where?
“I’ll help you,” Molly hissed. “Just. Stop. Hurting. Me.” She had to force each quiet word around a separate pant for air.
The hands relaxed. Byrne surveyed her face.
“There are two doors in this old house,” he said. “Invisible doors. Both were opened by friends of your parents many years ago and then resealed. It was a daring, foolish invasion, and now we get to return the favor.”
Byrne turned and nodded at the metal cross. “I can open old doors,” he said, “but I can’t create new ones. I’m thinking you can. You just don’t know how you did it, do you?”
“And that’s what you went to my mom, the one on Dakura, to find out about? How to make them?” Molly cherished the conversation, hoping it would continue. Her body tingled with the absence of pain.
“No. I went to her to determine which door to reopen.”
The game show. Her mother’s words came back to her, the innocuous analogy made deadly.
“One of these doors will open and end your galaxy, along with the threat it poses. My people will move in and systematically destroy this . . . mutation.” Byrne looked over Molly’s head. “The other door would have led you to your damned father . . . ” He peered down at her, his eyes narrowing as Molly felt her own widen. “But don’t waste your time hoping, I’ve already sealed that one forever. And soon, the other door will open . . . ”
His voice trailed off. “Wait,” he said. “Your mother. What do you mean by the one on Dakura?”
Oh, crap, Molly thought, grimacing at the slip. She could see how tortured criminals were broken, how the pressure of layered lies smothered until desperation forced you to tear them off, exposing the truth underneath, forgetting the consequences.
In the glow of the work light, Byrne’s face smoothed out, the bunched muscles disappearing. His grin grew into a menacing smile.
“Your father made a copy, didn’t he?” The nasally laugh returned, which scared Molly more than his rage.
Byrne peered over Molly’s shoulder, into the darkness of the commons. “How ironic,” he chuckled. “To think that the answer was under my nose all these years!” His laughter swelled as his hands came away from Molly’s armpits. One of them slid up her chest to her neck. She tried to pull away, but the other hand tangled itself in her hair, balling into a fist around a thick clump of her locks. The two sides of the vise worked together to squeeze off her air supply. She clawed at them, but they were made of steel. Indestructible.
“All these years, I had the hyperdrive under my feet! This galaxy and more could already be ours!” The hysterical laughter ceased as he looked away. Molly gurgled for air, arching her back and digging her heels into the dirt. She could feel her eyes bulging out; she looked up at Byrne with tears streaming down her face, wondering where Cole was, why he wasn’t there to rescue her—
Byrne smiled down at her, as if calmly waiting for her to die.
When her esophagus closed completely, her ability to even gurgle was taken away. The world became silent, and the last of Molly’s consciousness marveled at how quiet death could be. She teetered on the edge of life, peering over the other side, when—in the scary vacuum, the eerie silence that had ensued—a loud metallic click rang out. The release of something mechanical.
Byrne squinted into the darkness, his fingers relaxing. Molly wheezed a large gulp of crisp air past her burning neck, a temporary reprieve from the suffocation. Her captor leaned farther over her, peering toward the commons.
Molly turned her head as far as she could and looked back to her ship; Byrne grabbed the work light and shone it in Parsona’s direction. A dark shape fell from one of the wings and into the tall grass.
“What was that?” Byrne asked.
Molly remained silent, save for her rapid pants for more air.
She had no idea.
Byrne scanned the commons with the work light, keeping a hand on Molly. “Who goes there?” he called out, playing the beam across the hull of the ship.
Another object fell from the wing, flashing briefly in the cone of light. It disappeared in the grass and clanged loudly against something else.
“Were those missiles?” Byrne asked Molly.
Molly clung to a fresh lungful of oxygen and pursed her lips. As the fingers dug back into her hair and neck, she asked her own silent question:
Walter—what in hyperspace are you doing?
????
“Walter, what are you doing?” Parsona asked.
“Firing the missssilesss,” he spat.
“You have to arm them first! I told you not to jump ahead, just follow my instructions.”
“But—”
“Listen to me. We don’t have much time, and it’s very important. We need to stop a man from opening a door, and the readings on my sensors say he’s already trying.”
“But—”
“Those were our only two missiles, so you’re going to need to get in one of the escape pods and eject into the grass. I don’t care what you have to do to stop this, we’re all going to be dead either way, do you understand me?”
“But what about this wirelesss menu for the misssiless?”
“Do you hear what I’m saying? Very bad things are about to happen if you don’t get out there and stop that man. Destroy his machine. Do something. Now leave those wireless settings alone, they’re only for disarming missiles after they’ve been launched properly.”
“I can arm them,” Walter said flatly.
“No, you can’t. Trust me, it doesn’t work that way. It would take a quantum computer a dozen years to hack into—”
“I’m already in.”
Silence.
“That’s . . . that’s impossible.”
“No, it’ss the ssame key the Navy ussess on Palan for their mainframe. I ussed to log in and delete sstuff for fun.”
Walter shook his silvery head as he armed the missiles. “It’ss a sstupid passsword,” he added to himself.
????
Bright lights popped in Molly’s vision as the choking resumed.
Flashes of pain. Explosions of misfiring, confused neurons. When another bright light erupted from the commons—the flash of a missile coming to life in the dewy grass—she could barely distinguish it from her own illusory fireworks. It wasn’t until the object sailed overhead, trailed by a cone of plasma, that Molly could actually tease it apart from her misery.
The missile flew over the remains of the house and slammed into Byrne’s ship, which exploded in a fury of twisted, glowing metal. The hyperdrive wasn’t destroyed immediately, however. As the shockwave from the blast expanded out into Lok’s atmosphere, the drive continued to hum on a low setting—still trying to unlock a gate through which armies were destined to spill.
The wave of compressed air hit the commons moments after the bright ball of fire. It slammed into the contraption behind Byrne, teetering it. The old agent almost had enough time to scream before the cross fell across his back and erupted in a glory of sparks.
The majority of him winked out of the universe, accompanied by a soft pop of air as it rushed in to fill the vacuum.
Beyond, in the engine room of Byrne’s ship, the hyperdrive erupted, coating the wreckage with burning fusion fuel. The smell of something dead, billions of charred carcasses, wafted out over the commons.
The odor drifted down to Molly, coating her in its foul tartness . . .
. . . as she finally drifted off to black.