“This is their overture?” he scoffs, looking around at his fellow councilors. “We should send these beggars back to their ship at once.”
“Or,” I say urgently, butting in before the two of them can unzip and start comparing, “we can talk about how we can save lives. Not just yours. Not just ours. Everyone’s. Then and now. Believe me, I understand how you feel about the Starslayer. I feel the same way. But he’s the one who knows how to transport the Weapon back home. I don’t. We need him alive.”
“And if you reach your home?” the Rikerite asks. “What then?”
“Then Caersan and I will have a little … discussion,” I say.
The Starslayer’s projection watches me, cool and imperious. Even if we make it through this alive, somehow make it back to when we came from, we can both feel that conflict rushing toward us headlong. I know if I win, I’ll fire the Weapon. I’ll give everything I have to destroy the Ra’haam.
But mothercustard, that’s a big If.
“The simple fact is, I can’t get back to our own time without him. So please, please, hard as it is, we need to set whatever we’re feeling aside and figure out a way to pull this off.”
The Rikerite shakes his head. “You ask much.”
“She asks for nothing she is not willing to give herself,” Kal replies.
“… Meaning what?”
I square my shoulders, breathe deep. “Meaning it’s—it’s not a renewable resource. This power inside us. We can only use it so many times before we …” I trail off, my hand lifting to the cracks around my eye. “Firing the Weapon enough times will kill the Trigger.”
Kal squeezes my hand. I try not to dwell on the fear in his eyes.
“You see?” Caersan sneers. “Even this girlchild is willing to give her life in the fight to save you. But you will not fight to save yourselves?”
The Rikerite scowls, and the Watcher draws breath to spit more insults, and I can see the whole thing spiraling around the drain. But then, finally, the Ulemna moves, reaching up to draw back her hood.
She’s intoxicatingly beautiful, her skin a marbled blue and purple, and it swirls with what look like miniature galaxies beneath the surface, each in constant, hypnotic movement. Her eyes are silver, and her voice sounds like a musical chord in a minor key, three notes all at once.
“Even if we do as you ask, Terrachild,” she says, “and even if you could repair the Weapon and transport yourselves back to your own time, what then? If you defeat the Ra’haam in the past, you ensure this future does not come to pass. You are effectively unmaking all of us.”
“Only this version of you,” Kal says. “Other versions will live on. In a galaxy at peace. A galaxy without the Ra’haam.”
“And what about the people born after the Ra’haam bloomed?”
We turn to Tyler, standing among his crew. Lae meets her commander’s eyes, but he’s looking at Kal, at me, his jaw clenched.
“You go back and change things, who’s to say they’ll exist at all?”
“Destiny, Brother,” Kal replies. “Destiny.”
“You could always allow them to linger here,” Caersan says. “Consigning them to slow suffocation and consumption into the collective.”
“We cannot trust him,” the Watcher glares. “Cho’taa. Sai’nuit.”
“You have no honor,” Lae scoffs at Caersan. “Your name is disgraced. Your blood is shamed. We cannot trust a single word you say, murderer. And you honestly wish us to fight for you? To lay down our lives? For you?”
The Starslayer glances around the room. I remember what this place looked like that night Squad 312 came to Sempiternity, not so long ago. The galaxy spinning above us, beautiful people, fabulous gowns. But now it’s flickering lights, and broken fixtures, and a stinking algae farm to feed the starving dregs huddled downstairs in the growing dark.
“You call this,” Caersan sneers, “life?”
The meeting explodes into shouting again—the Watcher, the Rikerite, and even the Betraskan raise their voices as the Ulemna sits back, drawing up her hood once more. Lae is pointing at Caersan and yelling something at Tyler, who’s throwing up his hands and talking past her to Toshh.
Kal tightens his hand around mine, and I close my eyes. This is hopeless—the room is full of fear and anger, and the Weeds are out there in the black searching for us, and we’re trapped in the middle as the last life in the galaxy waits for its turn to die.
And then the sirens start wailing.
The dim lighting dims even further, the arguments stop, fear and confusion in the eyes of the councilors washing through their thoughts.
“Is that … ?”
“RED ALERT. RED ALERT. RA’HAAM FLEET DETECTED AT MARKER OMEGA. REPEAT: RA’HAAM FLEET DETECTED. ALL HANDS, BATTLE STATIONS.”
“That’s impossible,” Tyler whispers.
“Were you followed?” the Rikerite demands.
“Of course not!” he snaps. “We jumped half a dozen times to get here! We followed all inbound protocols!”
“Then how is it they have found us so soon?” the Betraskan demands. “Their last attack was only ten days ago! They should never have …”
“Oh, son of a biscuit …”
All eyes in the room turn toward me as I whisper, “They can sense me.” I look to Caersan, heart sinking. “Sense us.”
He inclines his head. “… Possibly.”
I swallow hard, look Kal in the eye. “We brought them here… .”
“RED ALERT. RA’HAAM FLEET INBOUND. ALL HANDS, BATTLE STATIONS.”
“You have brought doom upon us all, Starslayer!” the Watcher cries, rising to his feet. “Commander Jones, you should never have—”
“All due respect, Councilor,” Tyler growls. “But maybe we can point the finger after we climb out of this bowl of shitstew!”
“Can’t you just create a gate and jump out of here?” I ask. “You said this place has a rift drive—”
“It’s offline!” Tyler shouts over the wailing sirens. “Next attack wasn’t due for at least ten more days! The techs have to run maintenance, do repairs. And our Waywalkers need to recover between each jump!”
“How long until you can get it up and running?” Kal demands.
Tyler looks at the Watcher, still pale with fury. “Councilor?”
“At least forty minutes,” he replies. “Perhaps an hour—”
“RED ALERT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. TIME TO RA’HAAM INTERCEPT: TWENTY-THREE MINUTES. RED ALERT.”
I glare at Caersan, questioning, and with a lazy quirk of one silver eyebrow, he inclines his head. I look Kal in the eye, and he nods once. Hand in hand, we turn and run.
“Auri!” Tyler shouts behind us. “Where the hells are you going?”
“To buy you forty minutes!”
20
KAL
There are so many.
I know in my head the Ra’haam is an It. One hive mind, composed of billions of pieces, interlocked and connected into one massive singularity. When one part of it feels pain, all of it hurts. What one part of it sees, all of it knows. But as I watch that swarm of ships bearing down upon us—more vessels than I have ever seen—it is difficult not to see it as Them.
Terran heavy carriers. Syldrathi specters. Betraskan troopships and Chellerian scions. A hundred different models and classes, stolen from a hundred different worlds, all of them encrusted in writhing growths of blue green and trailing curling tendrils behind them into the dark.
And they are coming for us.
“Holy cake,” Aurora breathes. “That’s a lot of ships.”
“I am with you, be’shmai,” I tell her.
We stand in the Neridaa’s heart, staring at the projection she has cast around us. It is as if the Weapon’s walls were translucent: all the Void around us is rendered in close-up high definition, sharp as knives. My father reclines upon his crystal throne, but I can tell from the slight crease between his brows that he too is concerned about the force arrayed against us. If nothing else, that thought is enough to wake the fear in me.