Exodus

Mark of the Beast - Book 1

M. R. Parsons

M. R. Parsons Books, LLC.

Copyright © 2023 by M. R. Parsons

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

1. THUNDER

2. RETREAT

3. FIREFLIES

4. BLOOD

5. STALEMATE

6. TEQUILA

7. SPARK

8. FIRE

9. WOUNDS

10. AWAKENING

11. SLEIPNIR

12. TRUST ISSUES

13. THE WEARY

14. NO REST

15. RAVAGER

16. ASHES

17. CRASH

18. FRIEND OR FOE

19. FALL OF MAN

20. NOTHING SACRED

21. MACHINATIONS

22. FEINTS AND GAMBITS

23. NOTHING TO SEE HERE

24. BURDEN

25. DECISIONS

26. PHALANX SEVEN

27. HAIR OF THE DOG

Acknowledgements

About the Author

TRIBULATION SNEAK PEAK

For the two most important people in my life.

Julie, my bastion of encouragement and drive.

And Annabel my endless source of inspiration and dedication.

Chevalier [shuh-val-yey]:

Noun

a member of certain orders of honor or merit.

a chivalrous man; cavalier.

Archaic. a knight.

Prologue

With a gasp, Rasso came back to his body. The implant at the back of his neck felt white-hot from exertion, and it took him a second to understand he was back in his flesh.

A moment before, he’d been flying through space at speeds faster than the human mind could track. At least, one not augmented as his had been—mentally interfaced with a Seraphim drone. He’d been working with a squadron of six Sanctorum knights, Chevaliers, each piloting a Seraphim or a larger Mikkel drone to bring down a group of Syndroid Harpies. Though the warning sirens blared, he hadn’t noticed them until now. The alarms on the battleship where his body rested were meant to traverse the neural interfaces of Chevaliers linked to drones fighting with the Syndroids a million klicks away, but Rasso had been too focused to hear them. Part of the cause was the battle, yes, yet it had been thoughts of his wife and young son—long lost to the Syndroids—that truly distracted him.

On the bridge of the Kavach, Shepherd-class battleship, smoke poisoned the air and made Rasso cough. Sweat ran from the tight curls of his unpigmented hair to his pale eyes reddened by strain. Alarms rang out unceasingly. Blaring alerted the crew to hull breaches in multiple locations. Chirping warnings of the decks where Syndroids had boarded the Kavach. Buzzing for the numerous enemy weapons locked on parts of the ship, ready to tear chunks out. But Rasso’s trained ears had no trouble discerning the cacophony.

The massive domed ceiling displayed the ongoing battle around them. Small explosions in the deep dark of space occasionally blinked into existence—small and weak like a glowworm across a vast cavern.

But Rasso didn’t let himself be fooled. There was nothing small or weak about those explosions. Most were fusion cores going supernova from well-placed magneto-beam shots. The actual blast zones would be larger than the Shepherd battleship he was on. The detonations were so energized they completely vaporized the drone they were attached to and created their own atmosphere as a medium for destruction.

Something must have taken out some of the ship’s sensors. Usually, the prime targets and mission objectives would flash onto his retinas as he stared into the dome. But there was only basic camera footage.

Where’s the Ravager? Rasso wondered.

One explosion was surprisingly close to the ship. Close enough for bluish-green light to paint his nearly translucent white skin. Similarly, the Vessel they’d been charged with protecting shifted hues. Its sleek metal shell glowed gold for a brief second, looking more like a sculpted piece of art than an ancient starship carrying the fate of billions. Minds for reincarnation, souls for the afterlife, simple planetary data—whichever of a million belief systems was correct, the future of a Federation planet depended on the Vessel’s continued existence.

Then the Ravager appeared, slowly edging in from the bottom of the domed ceiling to fill the screen like a sump monster rising from the cavernous lakes of Rasso’s homeworld. Contrasting with the Vessel, the Ravager was boxy and utilitarian. But the hull shifted and flowed angrily except where chunks of the ship had been ripped out by the Kavach’s weaponry. And magneto-cannons, appearing as pincers, sprouted from the surfaces that remained undamaged.

Apparently, the grav-mine blockade had finally failed.

Rasso would have taken satisfaction at the sight of the damaged Ravager a few months ago. And maybe he still did just a bit. But times had changed. And the understaffed Kavach had taken far more damage than the enemy Syndroid ship.

It wouldn’t be long now.

I’m coming, my love.

Rasso was extending his mind to seek out one of the few remaining Seraphim drones to continue the battle when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Looking up, he met the kind old eyes of Captain Maharaj. His dark skin was crinkled at the edges of his eyes—scars of many lifetimes of love and happiness. His mouth set in a straight line, moated by a trim black beard and mustache. Somehow, he was still calm in the face of utter chaos.

Those around Rasso seemed to relax a degree in the captain’s presence. He’d been the rock of the Kavach longer than Rasso had been assigned to the ship. Through countless battles, Maharaj had been the one constant for the crew—the fearless and just leader who ensured they would always return to their families.

But Rasso’s family was gone. And this battle was hopeless.

Captain Maharaj’s fist, armored in the pinks and turquoise of his homeworld, squeezed Rasso’s shoulder. “I need you to get to a lifeboat. The Council and the Federation must know we failed our mission. This Vessel is lost.”

“I—” Rasso started but stopped when he saw Maharaj’s expression. He’d never seen the man display anything other than confidence and cheer.

Now, the captain’s calmness showed cracks as he wiped a tear from his eye and stifled a neck tremor. “I’ve never lost a Vessel before,” Maharaj confessed. “I was cocky. Told the Council we could spare some of the crew for other ships. This is my doing... All those souls… my responsibility.”

Rasso wanted to comfort the man but knew Maharaj wasn’t the type that would find relief in words. “I want to stay and fight. You should send someone else.”

The Chevaliers around Rasso had connected to new drones, and their attention was elsewhere; otherwise, he was sure half a dozen would have jumped at the opportunity.

“I have a feeling about you,” Maharaj said. “You must evacuate. Tell the Council of our defeat. They must be ready for the enemy’s strength to grow. And there’s something else—it’s probably just the fog of battle.”

“What?” Rasso asked.

“I’ve received a couple of reports of Chevaliers facing Syndroid Harpies that aren’t affected by the magneto-cannons.”

“How is that possible?”

“It shouldn’t be, and with the ship sensors down, I can’t confirm the reports. But the Council must be ready to make preparations.”

More sump monsters, Rasso thought. Stories told at night on his planet to keep children in bed. He’d even occasionally used them to frighten his son into not exploring the deeper, unmapped caverns near their home. But enemy Harpies were made from the same nanite technology prominent throughout the Federation. There was no inoculation against magnetic weaponry—only a Chevalier’s irrational reasoning for the losing battle.

Grudgingly, Rasso accepted. He hated the Syndroids, and despite the preordained outcome, he was ready to dive in and kill more of the bastards.

But he was also ready to see his family again.

More than likely, the Ravager would ping the lifeboat, and a squad of Syndroids would be sent after him. Rasso would grant the captain some measure of peace that his message might be delivered—even if it was a false hope.

Maharaj grabbed a couple of Chevaliers who had just lost their drones, pulling them out of their chairs and handing them magneto-rifles. “Protect this man with your life,” he instructed, pointing to Rasso. “The fates of the Chevalier Sanctorum and the Federation depend on it.”

They saluted. “Yes, Captain.”

Rasso departed the bridge with the two Sanctorum knights in tow. As he moved, his clothing transformed, shifting from the lightly padded pilot’s jumpsuit to heavy armor. The nanomaterial grew in size, bulking up to protect his limbs from impact hazards while reaching up to cover his face and head. A moment later, he was a hulking juggernaut with the colors of his homeworld—earthy tans, grays, and reds of the subterranean planet.

Behind him, his guard detail was similarly changed until they became a trio of lumbering boulders painted a myriad of colors.

As he reached the outer door of the airlock that separated the bridge from the rest of the Kavach, Rasso’s suit pressurized. Without hesitation, he mentally commanded the door open and stepped through.

He’d expected the corridor to be filled with smoke and chemical fires, yet it was crystal clear—only a few flickering lights indicated the ship was in danger.

This is bad, Rasso thought as he ran down the corridor toward the lifeboats. The reason for the clarity could only be the vacuum of space. The Syndroids have breached the hull so close to the bridge.

“Damnit,” one of the guards whispered, coming through Rasso’s implant directly into his brain.

The Kavach should have been able to fill the breach. Like Rasso’s suit, the ship’s skin was composed of nanites that could shift to the needs of the craft. The fact that it hadn’t been repaired this close to the command room meant too many nanites had been sheared off during the battle.

Or…

“We’ve got incoming,” one of the guards said, dropping to a knee and aiming his H-shaped magneto-rifle down an adjacent passage.

Rasso caught a glimpse and wished he hadn’t. Half a dozen Syndroid boarding drones. Compared to the parent Harpy drones, the boarders were small—barely the size of a toddler. Their dark metallic shells glittered like insect carapaces in the flickering light above blue-glowing thrusters. They hadn’t noticed Rasso and his two guards. One pinned a squirming Chevalier in place while the others brandished glowing saw-shaped cutters. The Chevalier was young and thin, the nanites of his suit flowed haphazardly without direction. A pile of magneto-rifles lay at his feet.

One of the recruits Captain Maharaj brought aboard. He’d been sent to retrieve extra weaponry from the armory. That or he’d taken the task upon himself, dreaming he’d be a hero.

A crimson mist sprayed the air around the squirming knight and the drones. Rasso noted with dismay the nanites in the man’s suit were racing to cover a spurting stump where his arm had been.

Then Rasso’s implant picked up communications between the Syndroids and the recruit whose comm line was open.

“Say the words and all this misery goes away,” the drones said.

“May the Winged One feast on your dead metal heart!” the recruit spat back.

As one of the drones floated toward the man, cutter glowing brightly, Rasso noted an egg-shaped device floating on the far side of the Syndroid drone. The kneeling guard beside Rasso fired while the egg leaped back in synchronized movement. The drone exploded, peppering the others with burning metal shards.

The second guard pushed Rasso forward while the kneeling one exchanged magneto-beams with Syndroids. “We have to keep going!”

Rasso sprinted forward. His suit sensed the urgency and bounced off the ground like a spring. Thank the Great Forager, we still have gravity.

As if the Kavach were reading his mind, the next step Rasso took forced him into the air as the ship’s gravity generators cut out. The guard, quicker to react than Rasso, pulled him to the ground, where his suit took over and gripped the floor.

Rasso trudged on down a series of ramps—his running slowed to a jog with each heavy footstep snapping to the metal floor. Why is the Kavach so damned big?

Then he was there, standing at the entry to the lifeboat launch. Pod after pod after pod of empty lifeboats sat empty in neat little rows—none had been launched.

A warning buzzed in Rasso’s mind from his implant—a communiqué from the ship’s captain. Emergency protocols had been activated. They had only moments left.

Rasso bounded into the launch room but stopped when he didn’t hear footsteps behind him. He spun around and saw the guard standing in the entryway, facing the way they’d come. The direction of the man they’d left behind.

“What are you doing!” Rasso screamed. There was no sound in the vacuum, but his implant transmitted the urgency. “You got the message. Maharaj is going to detonate the ship!”

The guard looked over his shoulder. “Your orders are to escape. Not mine. I got a girl back home. I’m going to distract these rusty fuckers as long as I can. Maybe I kill the one who someday would have gotten to her.”

With that, the guard disappeared, running down the corridor with his rifle pressed to his shoulder.

No time to think. Rasso ran into the nearest lifeboat.

It wasn’t much as far as spacefaring vessels went—a two-person sprinter lifepod, it was the variety that could enter jump space to bring back help for larger lifeboats with more robust life support systems. As Rasso climbed into the captain’s chair, he noted that the ship was already prepped for launch—just awaiting a full-fledged Chevalier to grant permission.

Rasso granted it.

Skreeeee! The engines flared to life. Immediately, Rasso was shoved back into his chair as the pod raced down a tunnel out of the ship. His suit melted into the seat, locking him in place. But still, it felt as if the skin all across his body was stretched taut.

A second later, he was out of the belly of the Kavach, and the force of acceleration lessened as the pod readied for jump space. He heard a clatter from the small storage space behind the seats, followed by a “Gahhh!”

Rasso swiveled around and found a girl lying in the storage space behind the seats. She struggled to sit up as her ocean-blue armor resisted her pulling away from the stability of the ground. She brushed the pale hair out of her eyes, displaying cerulean-hued skin that made her look as if she had spent too long in an artic sump reservoir.

“About foaming time someone showed up,” the girl said.

Chapter one

THUNDER

Roberto Reed always heard that trauma made you forget. Supposedly, it was the brain’s way of protecting the sanity of a person. But he never forgot.

Four years old. El Paso, Texas. Rain. Night.

Rain wasn’t unusual. But the night was. Something in the air told Berto the monsters his parents insisted weren’t real were out there. Waiting.

Berto’s tiny arms reached for his mother—a dark-haired Amazonian of, in his young eyes, unparalleled beauty. He hadn’t noticed the bags under her brown eyes, only how brightly they shined. And when she picked him up, she seemed so tall and strong he didn’t feel her grip slip and his foot brush the ground. All he knew was her long dark hair fell in loose curls down her back and smelled of lavender as his face pressed against her.

Berto’s tears mixed with the rain falling on his face as his mother carried him to the dented old Toyota Camry. She pressed his head into her chest as she cooed for him to stop crying, but he wouldn’t. Finally, she gave up, hunching over and strapping him into the booster in the back seat while rain pounded her back, leaving dark splotches on the blue and green dress that reminded Berto of a peacock.

Only when Berto’s father spoke up from the driver’s seat did Berto realize he was there. He was the opposite of Berto’s mother: cropped brown hair above dark green eyes, pink sunburnt skin, stubble that scratched Berto when they hugged. Usually, Berto found comfort in his father’s masculine presence.

“What’s the matter with my boy?” His father patted his leg with a hand that was dense like iron. “You don’t want to go to see tu primos?”

“Stay!” Berto cried.

His mother climbed into the passenger seat, brushing her drenched bangs from her face. “I could hardly get him out of the house. He kept going on about monsters and the rain.”

“His sexto sentido?”

“Si, sixth sense!” Berto nodded vigorously, but his parents were looking at each other, not him. A clap of thunder cut off Berto’s squeal.

His mother peered up through the windshield, watching the dark, rolling clouds come over the mountain. For a moment, Berto thought she’d listen. That they would go back inside and put on a Disney film like any other night. “No, I don’t think it was that,” she said. “It must be the thunder and lightning.”

“If we’re going, we need to leave,” his father said. “In this weather, it’ll take an hour to get across town. You sure your sister is still holding the ceremony?”

Berto shook his head violently, but again, nobody paid him any attention. “Don’t—”

“She’s finally ready to move on. In a way, the rain is good—purifying. And the ground will be soft to plant the tree in su marido’s memory.”

His father nodded and put the car in drive. While Berto continued to plea for his parents to stop and turn around, the car weaved down the roads of El Paso, hunting for the highways that would loop them north around the mountain bisecting the city.

“What is this?” his mother asked as the car slowed, approaching a line of stopped vehicles. Ahead, brown-gray water could be seen roiling out of the ground, flooding the road. The smell of sewage penetrated the car, making Berto cover his nose.

“The rain must be flooding the sewers from the other side of the mountain,” his father said. “We can probably make it to the highway if we go slow enough. But we might arrive smelling like an outhouse.”

Yes! Berto thought. Mom will tell him to turn around.

“Let’s take Scenic Drive,” she said. “It’s up high enough that the road won’t be covered in sewage.”

“No!” Berto screamed.

His father turned up the music. Twangy country music drowned Berto out. In the distance, a massive black spot banked in against a dark cloud as a bolt of lightning illuminated it. With the next flash, it was gone.

Berto jumped awake, sitting bolt upright in bed as a loud crash thundered outside his apartment window. The piercing beep! beep! beep! of a large utility vehicle told him the trash collectors had come a day early. Again.

Jesus! Do they love their jobs so much that they’re always ahead? Berto’s pounding heart beat back the fogginess of sleep. If they love it so much, maybe I should become one.

He picked up his phone off the nightstand and saw the time. And an email from his boss. And… Is that?... a notification of a match!

He quickly unlocked his phone and opened the dating app on the home screen. A congratulatory message was there, informing him that a woman—a pretty woman if the picture could be trusted—had messaged him. Still, he hesitated. The app said she was only twenty. Half a decade younger than me. In his admittedly limited dating history, he didn’t connect well with women too young to even drink. Then again, he didn’t really connect well with many people at all. It’s worth a shot. Opening the message, he saw it had been sent at two AM, just over two hours ago. One line:

Hey there. I liked your pic ;p

Berto silently thanked his cousin Laura for convincing him to change his profile picture. “No one wants to see you holding some science fiction alien you 3D printed. They want to see the man they’ll be dating.” At her advice, he’d changed the photo to one of him in boots, jeans, and a pearl-snap shirt, leaning against the side of his pickup to show his cowboy side. His cousin had approved. “There we go—a true vaquero!”

He briefly wondered if it was too late to reply to the message. Is that rude? Will I seem desperate?

Berto decided that if the woman who’d sent the message was asleep by now, the notifications would probably be turned off anyway. He wrote:

Yours too. ;)

The message back was instantaneous.

If you like that, you should check out my website. It’s only $4.99 a month for all pics of me you could ask for.

Berto moaned. Not again! He unmatched with the woman. He knew actual girls must use the app. Still, it was loaded with more bot accounts and shameless self-promotions than any social media platform. Maybe I should meet someone the old-fashioned way and try the bars.

Closing the dating app, he opened his email and read the message sent from his boss, tagged as ‘important.’ Nobody is as passionate about cheap, build-it-yourself particle-board furniture as this man. Who sends an email this early on a Monday morning?

It was the same message that repeated itself nearly daily. Somebody had taken too long designing a piece of furniture, and now Berto needed to complete the instruction manual yesterday. Only today, his boss included a signoff telling him not to forget the corporate retreat was next weekend and to bring his hiking boots.

Berto sighed and pinched his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. This was not what he had envisioned for himself when he’d graduated from engineering school. It made him almost consider going back into construction. Almost.

He looked at the model sitting on the bed of his desktop 3D printer. A spaceship of his own creation. It was sleek, alien—all curves except for the dangerous-looking cannons extruding from the vehicle’s body. He sighed again. Working for an aerospace company wasn’t in the cards.

Once upon a time, there had been a job offer from a space pioneering company located deep in West Texas, but Austin was where his family was. At least, the only person in his family he still cared about and who cared about him. And after a few years in product design—poor products at that—he was damaged goods for the aerospace industry. When he’d rejected the job offer, he’d rejected a dream.

Lying back down, he briefly tried to sleep the remaining hours until his alarm went off, but he quickly knew it was no use. He showered and stood in front of a mirror for a long minute, hardly recognizing the man behind the glass. The short dark hair, tanned olive skin, and green eyes were the same. But the frowning, tired expression didn’t fit how he imagined himself. Nor did the skinny arms that hung loosely from the sleeves of his business-casual polo shirt or his pudgy belly that spoke of a static life seated in an office chair. He’d always meant to start hitting the gym after quitting construction. Yet days bored out of his mind, staring at a computer, wore him out more than physical labor ever did.

Berto filled a thermos with coffee, grabbed a jacket, and got in his beat-up pickup truck. As he turned the ignition, a Red-Dirt blend of country and blues music blared from the speakers and frigid air blasted from the vents. Berto zipped up his jacket, waiting for the window to defrost.

Once the frost melted from a section large enough to see through, Berto put the pickup in drive but paused, his foot ground into the brake pedal. There was pressure in his chest and the impression of a large boulder hanging by a thin string above his head. Berto had given up trying to ignore the feeling. He was always useless until it passed, and it usually went quickly.

Crash! A wave of thunder resounded, and for several seconds, the speakers distorted in an eerie mixture of static and wailing, off-pitch voices. Then the apprehension that kept him in place was gone, and the singing returned to normal.

A moment later, he was speeding down the road, singing of a twisted road wished for and filled with regret.

Yrsa sat behind the wheel of what appeared to be a ’92 Chevrolet Camaro, gripping the steering wheel as the vehicle navigated the streets. Nobody outside would ever imagine the sportscar was just as capable of navigating the skies above as it was the streets of Austin.

Or that the Camaro disguise could shift in an instant to appear as any number of modern vehicles seen on the road today. But Yrsa liked it in this form. It reminded her of high school, cruising to get coffee or smoking cigarettes with her girlfriends before classes started.

Despite the weather, the T-tops were down, exposing the interior to the cold. A grunge rock band echoed from the speakers while her humid breath filled the air with steam. Her hands were numb, but she enjoyed the sensation. How long had it been since she had felt the uncomfortable weather of Earth? A decade? Two?

Not since her father’s death, she realized. She hadn’t expected the leave to be approved then, but Revna had followed through. Even if she hadn’t shown up herself.

Yrsa tried to convince herself she understood. Now, she wouldn’t dare expose herself to any remaining family. Less because of the danger involved and more because of the inevitable questions that would arise.

Five years. That was how long Yrsa had already been gone when her father had passed. However, she still remembered the backyard barbecue after the funeral. The comments—compliments, Yrsa supposed—about how she looked like she hadn’t aged a day since she left for “Europe.” Meanwhile, her grandmother, who’d been the strong and upright matriarch of the family when Yrsa had left, had turned shriveled and frail—barely able to swallow the collard greens on her paper plate.

The visit served to remind Yrsa what and whom she fought for. But it could never happen again.

Yrsa shivered. Not from the cold but a tingling sensation at the back of her neck, standing the fine golden hairs on end. She was close.

Her long, lean limbs were deceptive. The muscles had been hardened to steel by the years of calisthenics demanded by Revna daily. And though they’d taken the day off from a strenuous workout, Yrsa’s muscles were already warmed up from a wrestling session that morning. Still, Yrsa hoped to not resort to hand-to-hand combat. The enemy had a significant advantage in that regard.

Yrsa stood in the seat for a better view. She imagined she looked like a bachelorette hanging out the top of a limo in Las Vegas: sky-blue jumpsuit hugging the curves of her tall, thin body propelled through the air as she leaned against the rim of the T-top. Any passerby in their right mind would notice she was in the driver’s seat as the car surged forward driverless.

Good thing it’s still early, Yrsa thought as she scanned the skies and enjoyed the crisp air running through her tight blonde curls and biting the light brown skin at her nose and ears. Not many cars on the road.

The few she did pass continued on their way. No doubt the drivers were still half-asleep as they sipped their morning coffees and contemplated if she was a figment of their imaginations.

Finally, she saw what she was looking for. A gray-blue shadow nearly matching the brightening, overcast sky. As the sun peeked over the horizon, the aerial drone shimmered for a split second before adapting to the changing light and once again blending in with the sky.

From this distance, it could have been any drone that a kid could pick up for fifty bucks off the internet—if not for its light-shifting ability. But Yrsa knew differently. She could feel its presence.

If anybody stood directly beneath it and stared up, they would notice it was too large to be a commercial drone. And a product bought off the shelf didn’t usually stare back.

There’s the Syndroid.

She sensed its probing in her mind; the implant at the base of her skull tingled. It knew she was here. She prepared to pursue the drone, but it didn’t run—only stayed hovering a hundred feet above an apartment complex. Yrsa had hoped to follow it somewhere isolated, but apparently, that wasn’t about to happen. She stopped the vehicle.

Then she sensed it: another mind. Hazy, unrestrained, amorphous. Simmering.

Omega waves? Not now! No time to call it in. She shot her mind upward. Quickly, the implant at the back of her neck began to heat up. Seconds later, it was scalding as it worked to amplify the omega brainwaves she sent out. Yrsa worried that she’d be too late, but the drone continued to hover above the complex, searching.

Yrsa thought of her last trip to Earth. She thought of the small unairconditioned church. She thought of the oppressive heat that day. She thought of her father. In a casket, looking peaceful despite the painful death he’d faced days before without her. She thought of her grandmother, collapsing to her knees at the sight of her dead son. She thought of Revna and of those last years with her father that had been stolen from Yrsa.

Tears welled in her blue eyes, overflowing to roll down her cheeks as she lifted her arm toward the Syndroid drone. Two fingers formed the barrel of a pistol as her thumb cocked back an imaginary hammer.

Snap! Her mind clicked, connection complete as she feigned the recoil of a large caliber revolver.

With a clap of thunder, the drone exploded. Shrapnel cut a line straight up into the stratosphere as a directed magneto-beam pulled on and shredded the drone with force a thousand times Earth’s gravity. Several cars parked near the beam shuddered, setting off alarms.

Time to get out of here!

Yrsa collapsed into the front seat, gingerly touching the implant at her neck. The shallow cone of metal was nearly hot enough to burn. Her and Revna’s ship in orbit was at the far range of Yrsa’s abilities—even with the implant.

Under the heat, her implant tingled as Revna connected. “What’s going on down there?” Revna’s voice echoed in Yrsa’s mind.

“Sorry. Had to take control of the ship’s weapon system. Ran into a Syndroid down here.”

“We have protocols.”

“There was no time to pilot in a Seraphim drone. The Syndroid was hovering over our target.”

“Our target? You found them?”

Yrsa observed an old pickup truck turn out of the parking lot of the apartment complex. “Him. I found him.”

Chapter two

RETREAT

“Okay!” Jared clapped his hands. “That is how the company is like a bookshelf holding up our hopes and dreams!”

Berto rolled his eyes. His boss’s hour-long lecture comparing the company to a piece of furniture could have been said in three sentences. Corporate was the frame. Workers were the shelves. Their lives and ambitions were the picture frames and books crowding the different levels.

He thought about pointing out that bookshelves had limits by design. Which implied the company was putting boundaries on its workers’ hopes and dreams. But he’d long ago learned speaking his mind would get him nowhere.

Rather than listening, Berto daydreamed. He’d spent the night before alone in his cabin at the corporate retreat center, watching an old science-fiction movie on a boxy television. The good guys were space marines fighting insect-like invaders bent on destroying humankind. The marines prevailed in the end because they had the heart to never give in. Berto didn’t think the good guys in the movie doubted their place in the universe. They had purpose—the whole human race depended on them.

But if Berto wasn’t here, so what? Some shelves might be delayed a few weeks, but he was replaceable.

Berto drifted off, his thoughts mixing with recollections from the film until he was suddenly the one knee-deep in bug guts, shooting a laser rapid fire at a hive of approaching crawlers. He was a part of the thin line of violence that held back tyranny and death.

Purposeful.

“Now!” Jared clapped his hands, startling Berto awake. “Time for small groups! In this morning’s activity, we will introduce the latest product line to you. Each group gets a Nantucket line bookshelf… Well, you get the pieces. First team to put theirs together gets to be at the front of the line for lunch.” Jared chuckled, then bent over, hands on knees as if the laughter sapped the strength from his legs. A moment later, he stood, struggling to regain his composure as he wiped a tear from his eye. “Only we’re not giving you the instructions!” he squealed in a way that made Berto cringe. Then, breathless, “You have to figure it out!”

The groans were audible and numerous.

Once they were dismissed to form their groups, Berto shuffled to a small buffet table at the back of the meeting room. Absentmindedly, he plucked a plain donut from the open box and filled a paper cup with black coffee. Biting into the donut, he noted the staleness—leftover from the previous day. The coffee was lukewarm and overly bitter. Still, the excuse bought him a few minutes to himself.

As he finished the pastry and wiped his sticky fingers with a wrinkled napkin, a coworker approached the table, texting on her phone. Berto recognized her. Ariel—one of the sales staff, she took up a cubicle three down from him at the office. Despite the proximity, they’d never spoken more than a handful of words to each other.

That didn’t mean he didn’t notice her.

Even now, her red hair glowed brightly while a smile played at her lips as she stared at the screen. A fitted, white-collared shirt and tight khaki slacks highlighted her figure. No one had the right to look that good at a corporate event. Somehow she’d managed to endure the soul-crushing corporate lifestyle much better than Berto.

When she closed the messaging app, Berto noted a familiar spaceship on the home screen. “You’re a fan of Firefly?” he asked, surprise evident in his raised eyebrows.

Startled, Ariel looked up at him, eyes blank, uncomprehending. Then something clicked. “Oh, right, the background.”

Berto nodded. “I always thought it never got—”

“I haven’t seen the show,” she dismissed. “My phone crapped out two days ago. This is my boyfriend’s backup.”

“Oh,” Berto said, his words becoming a mumble. “Well, you should give it a shot. It’s good.”

She wordlessly poured four sweetened-cream pods into her coffee and turned to leave.

“It was good talking to y—” He stopped as Ariel stalked off to join the collection of sales staff.

Sighing, he threw his crumpled napkin into the trash bin and walked over to his group of a half-dozen design staff. They were busy sorting shelf components under the direction of another designer, Derrick, who had assumed leadership without any group discussion.

Derrick had done the preliminary design of the shelf. So he would know where all the big pieces went. But his specialty was aesthetics. Berto was the one who figured out how to make it easily buildable by the mass consumer.

Berto didn’t bother pointing this fact out. Instead, he took a seat nearby and held a bracket as if inspecting it.

In Berto’s opinion, the shelf was an ugly thing. Nantucket Series. Bland-gray-painted particle board shelves held in a matching gray frame designed to approximate the wood shingle siding of the namesake island’s characteristic homes. The furniture pieces were meant to look quaint. Instead, Berto thought they looked as if someone had cobbled something together from an unfinished old privacy fence rotted by the sun and rain.

The number of pre-orders had left his company backed up for months.

Berto regarded his team working. Men and women he received more emails from than shared spoken words with. Somehow, they fell into a natural pattern of cooperation. Worker bees buzzing around the queen bee, Derrick. It was haphazard, yes, but natural. And it was Berto’s team. Seeing them work together made him feel a part of a tribe—if only to be the designated outcast.

He was conflicted about helping, but he finally decided to participate. Screw it. I’m here anyway.

Two hours later, they were done. Third place, only beating out the packaging and human resources teams. Management was first. Of course, they were the ones who had picked the activity. Sales was second, thanks to the help of management toward the end.

Berto knew the injustice of the activity shouldn’t have fazed him—the food was shit. What did it matter if he had to wait behind two other teams for food? However, his body rejected his brain’s logic, blood simmering just below the skin.

He remembered a similar sense of injustice from middle school. He’d gotten every answer correct on an algebra exam. Only he didn’t show his work—he didn’t need to; he could see the slopes and curves of equations clearly in his head.

But the teacher assumed he’d cheated and flunked him. When Berto had argued, he’d received detention. When he’d received detention, he’d been scolded by his tía for being hotheaded and not controlling himself.

That had hurt more than any stupid punishment from his teachers.

Now, Berto stared at the pile of deli boxes on the buffet table, labels visible on the side. Only three contained turkey clubs with triple chocolate brownies. And far too many tuna salads with oatmeal raisin cookies. He’d be damned if he would have tuna two days in a row.

Jared stood at the front of the forming line, grinning. A child studying an ant farm, Berto thought. Derrick and the designers stood near the middle. Berto almost suppressed his notion of injustice and willed his feet to join his team. Then Jared spoke.

“I know some of you thought that game was unfair.” There were nods of agreement. “Not every department in this company knows the products inside and out.” He looked at Berto through grinning teeth like a cartoon shark. “Though I expected some of you to do better. As such, we’ll start at the edges of the line and work our way to the middle. Management and HR will go first.”

One word rang in Berto’s mind. Nope. He casually walked to the front of the line, where Jared stood—a smug king doling out punishment and reward to the workers in his corner of the corporate empire. Berto paused briefly, staring at the ground, fighting to bury his sudden rage and to silence the rabid thoughts threatening to become words. His heart pounded, feeling as if someone were tapping his chest furiously.

Once the moment passed and Berto was sure he wouldn’t say something he might regret, he looked up at Jared, matching his smile with gritted teeth. Then walked past him to the buffet table before snatching a turkey club sandwich box from the pile. As he walked to a table at the back corner of the room, the eyes of his coworkers drilled holes into him.

By the time he sat, anger had been replaced by embarrassment. The heat that had sent his heart pounding now flooded his face with the hot rush of blood.

He sat staring at the box while the tables filled around him. Not even his team joined him. Berto understood why. He’d always been the black sheep before, some unknown barrier separating him from those he considered ‘normal.’ Now even more so because his action separated him. No one else had gotten upset at the small injustice of being last in line.

Berto once again thought about the space marines of the movie. They’d had a real enemy to direct their animosity and fear toward. But this was life—not film.

Pop! Something in his mind told him to run. Elevated his blood pressure and increased perspiration as his body readied for a fight.

“So, Berto,” Jared said, “how’s that turkey club? You know… I had always thought you were a team player. That you cared about the work we do. But your actions during this retreat the past couple of days have shown you in a new light. On Monday, we’re going to have a serious discussion about whether you’re a good fit for this company.”

Berto’s eyes never left the box as he sat there, battling the urge to flee. This wasn’t a fight. His life wasn’t in danger. Why do I feel this way? When he finally looked up to apologize, his boss was gone.

His tía was right. He was hotheaded. Anger is never the answer.

Derrick leaned over from where he sat with Ariel. “Harsh, dude. You shoulda just told him you have a dietary restriction.” Pursing his lips, Berto gave a half-hearted shrug. Derrick turned back to the woman. “No way! You’re into Firefly?”

“Oh, you noticed!” Ariel giggled. “My ex got me into it.”

Ex?

“Maybe we can binge it next weekend?” Derrick said.

Berto tried not to stare as Ariel intertwined her arm in Derrick’s and whispered in his ear loud enough for anyone nearby to hear, “Only if we take plenty of breaks.”

“Brea… Ohhh. I think we can do that.”

Berto needed air. He stood and walked out of the meeting room, depositing his full sandwich box into the trash as he left.

The corporate retreat center stood at the summit of a towering foothill in the middle of the Texas hill country, miles from the nearest town. Berto’s boots thudded against the wood of the observation deck as the voices inside died with the closing door. The cold wind tore away any heat that clung to Berto’s body beneath the thin hoodie he wore, yet the air was crisp and refreshing.

He tried to meditate as his cousin had suggested for times when he was worked up. Focusing on breathing, he cleared his mind of all thoughts while he tried to experience each breath without acknowledging the breath.

It almost worked until his mind picked up on a low buzzing. An insect? A helicopter? The AC condenser? He didn’t care what it was, but it was there, distracting his mindful peace. He tried to ignore the sound.

A few minutes later, he gave up. Looking up into the cloudless blue sky, he thought, There must be more than this.

Yrsa stared up at the screen formed on the domed ceiling of the ship’s bridge. Live video footage from a Seraphim drone. A wood deck outside a large building meant to resemble a ski lodge. A man stood there. Unexceptional. Green hood pulled up, hiding his short dark hair above an average frame. His chest heaved. Compressed. Heaved.

“This is the one you saw?” Revna barked, breaking the speechlessness—silence wasn’t an apt word since the space had been filled with crude chewing and smacking of Revna’s eating. She held a slab of fatty beef in one hand, occasionally taking a bite from the hunk.

Yrsa’s barbecued brisket sat on a wooden plate carved from an ash tree a millennium ago. Her modern fork and knife clattered as she leaned back, sinking into a wide chair. “You saw the scans. It’s intermittent, but his omega waves are off the chart.”

“I know this,” Revna conceded. “I only make a point.”

“You don’t think he’s ready?”

“He’s not.”

“Neither was I.”

“You were raised by a warrior. If the world had its way, it would have coddled you. Your father made sure you had to fight for everything you gained.” Revna stood, her biceps and shoulders bulging where well-toned muscles threatened to rip through. Straight gray-blonde hair flowed behind her like the surface of a stream as she stormed to the screen. Despite Revna’s tall stature, Berto’s image towered above her. The Cyclops standing over Odysseus. And Odysseus’s handful of beef.

Yrsa barely contained her amusement. Then didn’t.

“Who do you think you’re laughing at?” Revna demanded.

“Nobody!” Yrsa wiped a tear brought on by another fit of hysterics.

Revna glared, waiting for her to finish, then said, “Maybe I was wrong about you. What fighter laughs like a giddy schoolgirl?”

The two women leered at each other as long seconds went by. Then, as if on cue, both bellowed with laughter.

Revna stopped abruptly, slapping Berto’s image with the flank of meat. “My point is Earth is now a world full of bicycle helmets, padded corners, and participation trophies. It was bad enough when you were a child, and now our planet is nearly as bad as the rest of the realm. Don’t you understand? Within months the Earth Vessel will make its initial pilgrimage to Githsomae. You know what that means: the next step of human evolution within a year. There will finally be a place for our world at the table… if the Syndroids don’t destroy the table before then.”

“And?” Yrsa asked, knowing Revna wasn’t finished.

“And we’ve lost all passion, all fury, all sorrow. All of our fire. It’s been buried under comfort, caution, and apathy masquerading as outrage.”

“You’ve been gone too long. The fire may be buried, but the embers remain under the sand.”

“I hope you’re right. For all the souls of Earth. They don’t know what we face.”

Yrsa looked at Berto. His chest had stopped its billowing, and his face was turned skyward. If she weren’t a thousand miles above him, she would have thought he was staring into her eyes—his green gaze melting into her blue. She’d found a new potential recruit, but there was always a danger that the Syndroids had beaten them to the mark.

“I’m right about him,” Yrsa said, hoping that since she’d destroyed a Syndroid above the man’s apartment, that meant contact hadn’t been made. In truth, she had her doubts; her appraisal of others had had disastrous consequences in the past. But Revna kept telling her to trust her gut anyway. “It’ll just take some work.”

Chapter three

FIREFLIES

Berto lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, sweating into the sheets beneath him and the thick quilt piled around his feet. It was stuffy in his half of the split cabin: the broken thermostat was set to eighty degrees. Stripping down to his underwear did little to help. And the call he’d placed to the facility’s property manager had gone unanswered.

But at least the thumping and muffled moans emanating from the other half of the cabin had finally stopped. The walls were thin. Apparently, Derrick and Ariel hadn’t been able to wait for their date.

Finally giving up on sleep, Berto rolled out of bed, leaving a sweat-stain snow angel imprint. He pulled a stiff wooden chair from a desk tucked in the corner and dragged it to a window overlooking the Texas hill country. After a moment of struggle, he opened the window with a rip, tearing a layer of carelessly applied paint off the sill.

Cold air flowed into the space and rolled across Berto’s drenched skin, raising the fine hairs along his arms and legs. He sat in the chair, propping his feet on the window ledge. It wasn’t long until goosebumps pricked up on every inch of his skin. He didn’t mind. A few minutes of cold was a welcome reprieve in a place where soaring heat was the standard for half the year.

Berto watched distant headlights travel the roads nested within the narrow valleys between hills. They reminded him of the late spring fireflies from his tía’s ranch thirty miles from Austin. Of the years spent there, collecting them in jars with his cousin Laura.

He remembered that first time with her, not long after the crash.

Like the days before, he’d spent most of the afternoon alone in the small bedroom of the double-wide trailer his tía owned, staring out the window. He wasn’t crying. He’d learned not to at the funeral when his other cousins—sons of an estranged uncle on his father’s side—had taunted him for his wet cheeks.

Wimp.

Berto’s a leaky faucet!

Men don’t cry.

Berto knew he wasn’t yet a man. But his father was. Had been. He didn’t know the difference between crying and sadness then. They were one and the same. So if he wanted to be like his father, he had to stop what he was feeling.

He spent all day fighting the pain in his chest, staring out a window at acres of pasture surrounding him and observing a pair of wasps build a nest at the roof’s edge. As the sun began to set over the field of bluebonnets visible from his window, orange light turning the flowers a deep shade of purple, there was a knock at the door.

When he didn’t answer, the door opened and light footsteps brushed the carpet. A jar was placed on the window sill. His cousin, a couple of years older than him, stood head and shoulders above him. To him, she was practically a grown-up, even though she was just learning double-digit addition.

“What, Laura?” he asked, harsher than intended.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Out there.”

“No.”

“Mamá says you have to.” She picked up the jar and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of the room and through the screen door.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They entered the field of bluebonnets. Laura loped along a narrow walking path, dragging Berto behind her. They entered a clearing when the double-wide trailer was a speck in the distance. Careful to avoid the piles of dry cow patties, she plopped in the grass and motioned for Berto to join her.

He sat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees as he gazed into a copse of trees fifty feet away. Berto noticed the earthy smells of rotting wood and wet clay, overpowering even the scent of the nearby cowpies. It wasn’t an aroma he was used to—not yet—but it was one that was not altogether unpleasant.

The minutes dragged on, light disappearing, replaced by the dull gray of near-night. Berto started to worry. He’d only been here a few days, but he’d heard the yipping of coyotes outside his window every night. He was about to voice his concerns when he saw something. A slow flash of light, arriving and departing like the beam of a faraway lighthouse.

“There’s a creek through there.” Laura nodded to the line of trees. “The fireflies love this spot.”

“I never saw these at home.”

“Mamá says this is your home now.”

Silence. Berto continued to watch the alien glowing of the fireflies blinking in and out. This place would never be his home. Not as El Paso had been. Or Amarillo before that. Or Lubbock. Or San Angelo. His parents were his home, and they were gone.

“When Papá died last year,” Laura continued, “Mamá took me out here. She said the fireflies are like us. Like people.”

“That’s stupid.”

Laura ignored the comment. “They’re only here for a short time. Only a couple weeks for the flies. They shine brightly. Beautifully. Then they’re gone. It’s sad… but it makes them special. Makes you look forward to seeing them again.”

“You think I’ll see them again?” Berto asked, thinking of his parents.

“I know it,” Laura said, confident. “Their spirits are out there, floating on the air like the light from the fireflies. Gone for now, but only waiting for the next springtime.” She jumped to her feet and pulled Berto up.

The two spent the next half hour running through the field, attempting to catch the luminous insects in the glass jar. By the time they stopped, breathless, the jar glowed near continuously. They used it to light the path home.

Berto wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and thought about something else. Giving in to his nature had always gotten him into trouble. Taunting from his cousins at his parents’ funeral. The teacher in middle school math. His threatened expulsion for punching that boy in high school that called Laura a whore. His tía’s sickness escalating just as his giddy excitement about starting college peaked.

He’d grown accustomed to controlling his impulsive emotions. Or burying them. To him, there was no difference.

But occasionally, they erupted to the surface—today, for instance.

Anger and dissatisfaction with an average life were a bad combination. Laura always told him to use those emotions to elevate himself to something better. Something more. But maybe I don’t deserve it.

Berto shivered as a gust of cold air streamed across his bare chest. I should try to get some sleep. He stood to close the window, gazing out one last time at the headlights inching along the road—and then something caught his eye.

He couldn’t bury the wonder at what he saw; his jaw dropped, spewing hot, moist air in steamy puffs into the night. A craft hovered a hundred feet above the ground, slowly descending through some silent propulsion system. He recognized it. The spaceship from his 3D printer. The one he’d designed. All curves. Somewhere between a cresting wave and a football. Sleek. Feminine.

I’m dreaming. Berto slapped himself. Hard. Not dreaming.

With a low thump, it settled to the ground outside his cabin. At first, the side facing him looked solid, continuous. Then light outlined three sides of a rectangle as a door in the side opened and rolled out to form a ramp.

Oh, crap. Shit! Berto’s mind flashed back to the night of his parents’ deaths. A spaceship, dark against the flash of thunder as his parents’ car drove off the edge of the road. Crashing through the barrier. Tumbling down the mountain as his screams filled the air.

Aliens. He’d never told anyone what he’d seen—not even Laura. Even as a child, he’d thought it was only his imagination. Terror twisted his face in an ugly grimace. They’ve come back to finish me!

Berto looked around for somewhere to hide. There was nothing. Even the bed was too low to crawl beneath. He could only crouch in the dark corner farthest from the door and window.

Heavy steps thudded up the stairs of the deck outside his door. They paused at the top, shuffling indecisively only a moment before making a beeline for his room.

Expecting the door to be blasted off its hinges or the alien to teleport into his room, Berto braced his head under his arms. Instead, he heard a gentle knock followed by a voice—a little deep and strangely accented but distinctively female. Distinctively human. “Roberto Reed? I know you are in there.”

He hesitated. Aliens would be able to impersonate human voices, right? But why would they bother to knock and wait for him to answer?

“Come out here, boy.”

There was command in the voice, but it wasn’t exactly coercive. On shaking legs, he stood and approached the door, doing his best to make no noise.

“That’s right, boy. I won’t bite. At least, not unless you’re made of this Texas barbecue I’ve tasted.” The voice let out a throaty chuckle.

Berto peeked through the peephole. An aging war goddess stood there. A mix of blonde and gray hair fell to her shoulders in wild locks. A sharp jawline clenched, forcing a tight-lipped smile at the peephole. She wore a jumpsuit of some synthetic material—appearing both metallic and plastic. Its thick texture shimmered blue and green against the low light of a single bulb mounted above the deck. The fabric itself seemed alive, as if a touch could send energetic waves rolling across its surface.

Tentatively, Berto opened the door. If this woman wanted to bust down the door and kill him, he had no doubt she wouldn’t break a sweat beating in the door. “Uh… hello?”

The woman eyed him up and down, left and right. “Roberto Reed?”

He nodded.

She cocked her head to the side and frowned, disappointed. “I’m sorry about this, Roberto Reed.”

“Wait, wh—”

The last thing he saw was her fist before it connected with his chin. Then darkness.

Chapter four

BLOOD

Yrsa took a deep breath, sucking in the harsh smoke of the cigarette. It burned her throat and tingled her lungs. She fought back a cough, holding the smoke in her chest. As her blood filled with nicotine, her tense muscles relaxed while her mind sharpened. She exhaled, fogging up the air before the screen she watched. So nice.

It reminded her of nights on the back porch in the forests of Alabama, sneaking drags with her friends before her father came home. When he’d caught her—long after she’d become addicted—he’d been fuming. Yet it hadn’t stopped him from sharing one with her as he went into grisly detail about why she needed to quit immediately.

“Those things will kill you,” Revna scolded as she entered the bridge, sitting in the captain’s chair across from Yrsa.

Yrsa rolled her eyes. “You’re always saying we weren’t made to live this long anyway.”

“You want to spend a couple centuries struggling to breathe before your journey to Valhalla? If you must smoke, have the particulator make them.”

“Relax. It’s only one pack.” Yrsa studied the small cardboard box, the size of a deck of cards, a single cigarette missing. The logo and characteristic red top hadn’t changed in the two decades since her last pack. “The computer doesn’t make them like Earth does. And you know as well as I do—there’s no Valhalla.”

“I know nothing such. Everything must end. Immortality is not immortality. The Ancients knew this.”

Yrsa ignored the bait. It would just lead to the same debate as always, which would only lead to another bitter stalemate. Arguing with Revna that the very existence of predecessors to humanity nullified religion now seemed like when, as a young girl, she’d insisted the professional wrestlers on TV were really fighting while her father laughed. The twenty-plus years since learning of the Ancients, Githsomae, and Vessels had shown her there was a lot she still didn’t know. But it was difficult to not be defensive around Revna.

Yrsa blew out another cloud of smoke and looked back to the screen. Roberto Reed.

He sat in a stiff metal chair in the brig, his arms clasped together at the wrists behind his back by two metal magnetic cuffs. His head hung limp. A crimson bead had formed at the corner of his mouth, leaving an inch-long trail across his cheek, now dry.

“Did you have to hit him so hard?” Yrsa asked.

“Apparently, you don’t remember your induction,” Revna said. “He doesn’t know what he’s capable of. He’s dangerous.”

“I remember it just fine!” Yrsa said, a bit sharper than she’d intended. “And weren’t you just complaining how weak Earth has become?”

“Misjudging Roberto wouldn’t be the first mistake I’ve ever made.”

It was an apology. Or as close to it as Yrsa had ever received. She took another drag on the cigarette. “You can say that again.” On the screen, Roberto’s fingers twitched. “He’s waking up.”

Revna consulted a smaller monitor near her seat, where charts displaying his vital signs pulsed. “Time to see if he’s made of iron or straw.” She stood, adjusting the waist belt securing her adaptive armor.

Yrsa stood, but Revna’s sudden grip on her shoulder forced her back into the seat. “What are you—”

“I’ve got this one,” Revna said.

“Protocol says two—”

“I’m aware of protocol. I’ve a feeling. Now is the time for trust.”

“If you mess this up, it’s on you.”

Blood. The taste of blood. Of iron.

Berto’s head snapped up. Crap! His head felt like it had been split in half by the dull blade of a woodsman’s ax. His eyes were unfocused. He blinked several times, fighting to gain control of his vision before eventually succeeding.

He was in a poorly lit cell the size of a small bedroom. It looked to be solid concrete all around, but the strange plasticky texture of the floor beneath his bare feet told him differently. It was more akin to resin. Where are my boots? Something about his bare feet made him feel vulnerable. More so than the rest of his half-naked body.

Before him lay a man-sized machine, flat on the ground. Painted blue and green, it had six arms—three spaced evenly on each side of a long body. At the ends of the arms were uniform bulb-shaped components. At the head, a pair of long cones tapered into narrow barrels.

It reminded him of an RC drone, only much larger and dangerous looking. “Wh—” Oww, Jesus! His tongue stung and ached at the same time where he’d undoubtedly bit it.

He tried to raise his arms to his mouth and failed. They were held in place behind his back by some unknown force. He craned his neck, trying to see as his wrists fought against the restraints, but it was useless. After a moment, he gave up.

“Help!” he shouted. “Hhhhhelp!!!”

A section of the wall rolled up, forming a tight spiral at the top of the room like a four-inch-thick yoga mat. Berto’s head jolted in surprise. He hadn’t noticed a door—there hadn’t even been a crease in the wall.

Looming there was a tall blonde woman. A memory flashed, aggravating the splitting sensation in his head. This woman punched me! He rolled his jaw; it grated uncomfortably before he spit a glob of blood on the floor. Hard!

Then he remembered the ship descending to Earth. The woman pinpointing his location. Boy, come here. The ship he’d seen before his parents’ crash. An alien pulling him from the wreckage, gripping his arm painfully, dragging him through cacti and knife-life desert shrubs. Gone in the red and blue lights of the flashing police cruiser.

He’d seen this woman before tonight.

Berto’s bladder weakened, and he was glad he hadn’t had any water tonight. The cell was neither hot nor cold, but he let out an involuntary shiver. This is a dream. A nightmare. It has to be.

She stood in the doorway, scrutinizing him. Head cocked to the side, almost pouting, as she had stood just before knocking him out. “It’s not useful—terror,” she said, leaning against the wall. “You’ve too much of it. Alarm. Shock. Even fearfulness. All have their place. But terror is paralysis. Death.”

“Wha—Who are you? What do you want?”

Her eyes drilled into him. Through him. “It speaks—I thought maybe you’d swallowed your tongue. Next time someone hits you in the face, close your mouth. Not everyone in this universe will pull their punches.”

Berto closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply. He didn’t think meditation would work, but panic was rising in his chest. His heart pounded like a battering ram against a sieged castle, shaking his ribs like crumbling walls. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe! Don’t think.

“You’re doing that wrong,” the woman said. “Your meditation works to calm. But calm isn’t always useful either. You need to place your focus elsewhere.”

Berto felt as if stone brick were lodged in his throat, but he again forced out the question. “What do you want?”

“To quote Uncle Sam, ‘We want you.’ Maybe, anyway. I’m not convinced.”

“Me? Haven’t you taken enough from me?”

“Taken enough from you?” For the first time, the woman’s stoic demeanor failed. Her eyes pinched together. “You remember?”

Berto stayed silent.

“Silence, I can appreciate,” the woman continued as if she’d never asked the question. “Roberto, I wish I could say we mean you no harm. But we must know. Take comfort that if you fail, you will see your mother and aunt again soon.”

Mamá? Tía? The implication dawned on him, and he renewed his struggle against the bindings.

“It’s no use,” the woman said. “The mag-cuffs can’t be forced apart. Not by strength... Now—” She nodded at the machine near Berto’s feet.

The drone started ringing like a capacitor charging up. He could feel it—a type of pressure in the room threatened to pop his ears. The double barrels glowed blue as the machine rose from the floor and hovered before Berto’s face.

“This Seraphim drone releases a powerful magnetic beam. It can tear a metal plate apart from a hundred klicks away… You may think for a moment you have nothing to worry about since there’s nothing metal on you. But you’re a smart man, and I think you know better. Do you know what would happen if all the iron in your blood left your body at the same time?”

Berto’s eyes bulged. He thought he was having a heart attack.

“It’s not pretty. But don’t worry. The beam will wipe your brain clean before you can perceive it, similar to a super magnet erasing all the data on an old computer. It’s painless.”

The words might have been genuinely meant to calm him. They had the opposite effect. The ringing from the drone had stopped. Now only his heavy breathing and pounding heart filled the room.

“Just one piece of advice,” she went on. “Don’t be stupid like your mother.”

“Fuck you!” Berto screamed. Panic turned to anger. Rage reaching out like tentacles, he strained against the mag-cuffs. One tentacle found the control box for the shackles and short-circuited it. He surged forward out of his seat as the drone screeched and a baseball-sized hole exploded out of the chair. The metal of the cuffs still tugged his wrists from the magnetic blast of the drone, making him stumble, but he already had enough momentum it didn’t stop him.

He ran at the woman and pinned her against the wall with newfound strength. She grinned maniacally at him without struggling—not even when he raised his forearm to her throat and pressed. Only her armor shifted, forming a stiff protective barrier against her neck, its green and blue roiling surface working under Berto’s arm.

Her lack of self-defense redoubled Berto’s anger. Did she think he wasn’t a threat? A tentacle of fury wrapped around the drone. It slowly rotated in the air as the high-pitched whining began again.

That got her attention.

The woman’s eyes grew in alarm as the barrel came to rest inches away from her face. “That’s enough!” she said, as if speaking to a petulant child. “You’ve proven your ability.” The ringing reached a crescendo. “We had to; it’s the only way to tell.” The sound stopped.

Heat radiated from the woman’s neck. Say goodbye.

“Enough!”

The tentacle of outrage was shoved away from the drone by another unseen force. The drone crashed to the ground as the woman hit Berto in the solar plexus. He doubled over, gasping.

“Enough,” the woman repeated through heavy breaths, then held out a hand to help him up. “There’s fight in you after all!”

Wincing, Berto slapped her hand away. It was like smacking steel. He jumped to his feet, ready to continue the fight, but the mood had shifted. The woman’s smile no longer seemed an insult, and her posture had relaxed.

“I’m sorry for what I said about your mother,” she said. “I needed you mad. I’m Revna.”

Berto’s eyes opened to the sting of smoke as his tiny fists tried to rub away the pain and came back wet with tears. Tears that were falling the wrong way. Up his forehead.

Things don’t fall up.

He was upside down. The car’s roof was dented and far closer to his head than it should have been. In front of him, his mother’s hair and one arm drooped limply to the ceiling. Her other arm was tangled up in the seatbelt like her body. Berto’s father had slipped out and lay in a crumpled heap between the dashboard and seat.

The uncomfortable feeling was stronger. Earlier, when Berto had begged his mom to stay home, he’d only felt as if he’d been standing at the edge of a tall cliff, flirting with death, a weight on his heart. Now, it was like he was on his tiptoes, leaning forward with a gust at his back, a black hole in his chest. It was close. Whatever It was.

Mamá!

Mom!

“Mommm!” The radio turned on, thumping music while the car horn blared.

For a moment, she stirred then glanced around, dazed. Her head snapped back to look at Berto. A gash on her forehead ran into her hair, dyeing a streak of black hair maroon. “Berto, are you hurt?” she croaked through split lips. Berto could see the look of horror on his own face in the dangling rearview mirror and knew it spoke of more than pain or the crash. Finally, her eyes grew with understanding. “They’re here,” she whispered.

She looked over at Berto’s father. “Robert. Robert! They’re here. They found us!”

No response. Not even a twitch. Berto’s young eyes had never seen death before. He knew what he saw but did not yet understand it.

“Robert! Wake up!” she wailed. One of his father’s pale hands lay below her head. She grabbed it and felt the wrist momentarily before letting out a yelp. “Berto, close your eyes.”

He didn’t dare. It was getting closer. He thought he could hear the scrape of metal on stone outside the car.

His mother braced herself against the roof and struggled to unclip the seatbelt. For long seconds, Berto thought she was stuck. But finally, the strap gave, and she crashed to the roof.

Berto sensed himself falling over the edge; his heart raced in alarm. A heavy boot crunched outside his mother’s window while she reached toward his father.

Not toward his father, just near him. There was a metal object strapped to the dashboard there. She pulled it free.

A knee hit the ground outside the window. His mother whipped around, aiming the pistol at the window as a face bent in to look at them. A woman—bright red hair glowed in the night air as if backlit by headlights. She wore an expression of mixed concern and relief, mouth pinched and forehead creases smoothing in the windowless frame of the car door. “I saw you go through the guardrail. Are you okay!?”

The words seemed to make Berto’s mother pause. “Mamá!”

His mother’s eyes steeled as the woman’s arm shot into the car, lightning-fast, wrapping around an ankle, pulling his mother halfway out the passenger window. Three shots sounded in succession, filling the vehicle with the booms of thunder. The seat blocked Berto’s view, but the panic in his mother’s eyes told him enough.

A hand, far too large for the redheaded woman, clamped around his mother’s face. Her screams filled the air as streams of blood outlined the hand crushing her head.

“Mamá! Nooo!” Berto shrieked. “Don’t hurt my mom!” For the first time in his young life, he felt violent outrage. His vision vibrated, and he could feel the hand slacken around his mother’s face. The woman peered at him, mouth agape—a mixture of wonder and confusion.

It didn’t last long; her other arm extended, snaking into the back seat, pulling on Berto’s car seat, fighting the straps that tied it down. His attention diverted, he heard a wet crunch!

He screamed. Where his mother’s head had been was a gory clump of meat and bone. Berto slammed into the roof, still buckled into the car seat, as the strap snapped. The woman’s eyes sparked with joy as an impossibly long arm pulled him out of the vehicle, scraping his face along the smashed ceiling.

A hand wrapped around his head.

Crrrack! The sound of a hammer on concrete filled the sky.

The hand went limp and dropped from Berto’s eyes. A half-dollar-sized hole had appeared in the woman’s head, and she collapsed. Bloodless, clear liquid pooled around the wound, while something glowing sickly yellow there slowly diminished like a lightbulb dimming before finally extinguishing.

Chapter five

STALEMATE

“You were there,” Berto said.

“When your parents died?” Revna asked, then nodded.

The two sat in a cramped room. A single table booth was there, along with a handful of appliances. Berto supposed it was a dining room—Revna had pulled a brick of meat from a ceramic box she’d referred to as a ‘particulator.’ The meat smelled smoky in a false, chemical sort of way. It tasted like somebody had dropped a barbecued chicken on a dirty kitchen floor. Berto took one bite and pushed the plate away.

“It can make any recipe you can think of,” Revna explained. “But it’s never quite right.”

Berto silently glared at her. The explanation of the food’s flavor wasn’t the one he sought.

“Your mother,” Revna finally went on, “received the same offer we’re making you. To join us—become a part of the Chevalier Sanctorum.”

“Chevalier Sanctorum?” What the hell is going on? He’d been on a corporate retreat when a ship descended from the sky, and an alien knocked him unconscious. Now they were asking him to join some religious group?

“Or something to that effect,” Revna explained. “Everyone translates it differently—Holy Guards, Temple Warriors, Nirvana Knights.”

“I couldn’t give a shit about the name!” Berto snapped. The particulator beeped joyously, making him pause and take a deep breath. He didn’t understand what was being asked of him, but he knew he wanted no part of it. “What are you?”

“I’m human—or from Earth, I should say. The Chevalier Sanctorum protects the Federation of Humanities spread across the galaxy. We’re soldiers in a war for the fate of all humanity.”

War? Fate of humanity? “You expect me to believe there are other planets with human life?”

Revna shrugged. “I can’t go into more detail unless you commit.”

“And this war for human fate, I don’t suppose you could explain that?”

Another shrug. “Earth is not quite ready, even if some of its individuals might be, so you must commit. But I can tell you the Chevalier Sanctorum is a force for good. Soldiers who fight against dark forces that threaten humans everywhere—including Earth.”

“My mother was one of these Chevalier Sanctorum people?”

“No,” Revna said flatly. “She turned us down.”

“And you killed her for it?”

“Of course not!”

Berto studied Revna. Her vehement denial and piercing stare made him think she was being honest. Revna had been there when his mother had died, but Revna hadn’t been the cause. At least not directly. “If she didn’t join, why the hell would I?”

“You’ve always felt different. Like you were made for more… Many people experience this sentiment. But you actually were made for more—you’re a preview of Earth’s next leap forward in human evolution. You believed yourself an outcast because you are. It’s in your biology. In your brain.”

“Bullshit.”

Revna leaned back and propped one leg on the corner of the table. “You get bad anxiety, right? And I’m not talking about worry for your job or relationships—though sometimes it may cross into those realms. I speak of feeling as if your head is on the beheading stone, and the headsman’s ax is raised.”

Berto said nothing. How did she know that impression of imminent doom that followed him like a buzzing wasp?

“Thought so. No drugs can make it go away. Not even the shamans from my day. It’s not anxiety. It’s a warning. A sense. Your brain’s omega brainwaves working in the background, sorting sensory details your frontal lobe receives but doesn’t notice—shifts in the air, electric currents, hesitant shadows. All to prevent harm from befalling you.”

“You expect me to believe my anxiety is a superpower?”

“Maybe not right now. But it can be controlled and put to work. And that’s not all. Your omega brainwaves give you an enhanced spatial awareness. You have a knack for how things should fit together—probably why you became an engineer. The omega brainwaves even interact with electronics. I assume you’ve had problems with electrical devices—draining batteries, accidental start-ups, white noise.”

“The mag-cuffs,” Berto said.

Revna nodded. “Electronic interaction is the easiest way to confirm a person’s omega wave activation on rural planets such as Earth. And many think it’s the most useful feature of omega waves.”

“I suppose that drone was harmless. Just meant to scare me.”

“Maybe.” Revna gave a crooked half-smile.

Berto didn’t trust that smile—Revna’s eyes flickered away for just an instant. “I need more. You can’t just tell me I have superpowers and expect me to enlist in some unknown galactic war. How do I know you’re the good guys?”

“What does your gut say?”

“My gut says you’re a liar.”

“Lies don’t make me the bad guy.”

Berto groaned. He wanted to bury his face in his arms at the frustration of this woman. “Then who… or what… is the bad guy?”

“You must commit.”

“I won’t. Not without answers.”

Revna’s eyebrows pinched together, and her jawline set. Berto mirrored her and glared back. He was sure his expression was nowhere near as intimidating as the woman’s disdainful snarl, but he wouldn’t budge on this.

Or so he hoped.

The seconds dragged on with Berto sweating under Revna’s gaze. Is it getting hotter in here? Despite the thick jumpsuit Revna wore, there was no sheen on her forehead. No heavy breathing. Nothing to indicate the slightest sign of discomfort.

Berto didn’t know how long he sat there. It could have been ten minutes; it could have been an hour. The only manifestation of the passage of time was the occasional bead of sweat rolling from his armpit to the growing puddle at his elbow propped on the table.

Finally, Revna broke the silence with a grunt. “The Council overseeing the Federation of Humanities has been around a long time. Much longer than even I’ve been alive. Eons. We, the Chevalier Sanctorum, are the military wing of the Council. We protect the planets from external threats.”

Berto perked up. “Like the Green Lanterns?”

“I don’t know what that means… But there are forces at play that are a danger to everyone across the galaxy.”

“This still sounds more like a comic book than real life.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most stories and legends echo the truth. If not in plot, then in theme: weakness in pride, strength in sacrifice, powers of good and evil in constant struggle... But now we’re getting sidetracked. Do you want to know about the war we fight or not?”

Berto leaned back in the booth. “Fine.”

“The Council protects a technology on the distant planet Githsomae and guards the Vessels—one for each human world—making their infrequent journeys to Githsomae. The technology is far older than any recording of our history. Very possibly predating humankind completely. I’d be lying if I said we know how it works. But it is a technology fundamental to the prosperity of humanity. One that in the wrong hands would lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it.”

“A weapon. This Council has a weapon?”

“A hammer is a weapon in the grasp of a warrior. It is also a tool of creation in the hands of a builder. Which is a more accurate description—how it might be used or how it was intended to be used?”

“I don’t buy it.”

“Even so—many millennia ago, humans encountered a new race of intelligent life, the Syndroids. They’d forsaken their biology, choosing to live a cold existence as machines. This new race desired to use the technology for their own… unnatural… purposes. When the Council denied them, the Syndroids attacked Githsomae and attempted to seize the technology. The armies of a hundred planets formed the Chevalier Sanctorum and drove them away. The Council searched the depths of the galaxy for the remnants of the Syndroids but never found a trace. For thousands of years, the Council believed them to be gone. The Sanctorum shrank, reduced to protecting pilgrims to Githsomae, disrupting pirate activity, and rescuing stranded traders.”

Berto raised an eyebrow. “I take it they came back.”

Revna nodded. “The night of my recruitment. The Syndroids had been gone since the first civilizations sprouted on Earth, and they picked the time of my enlistment to return.” She sighed, seeming to be a weary mother with no energy to entertain an energetic toddler. “They attacked the outpost I was brought to for training. Came out of the abyss and pulled apart our station like a Kraken. We were unprepared, but we put up a stubborn fight.” Revna’s voice cracked. “I thought I was among the gods, and Ragnarok was upon us. Then the Chevalier Sanctorum called a retreat. I begged to keep fighting, but when…”

Revna looked away for several moments before returning her attention to Berto. “When the battle was lost, I was thrown onto a ship with the few survivors who remained.”

There was pain in her words. A tragedy left unspoken, Berto thought. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know why he said it. Who was this woman to him?

Revna’s gaze had softened, and she stared at the table. “Time does not heal all wounds, but revenge helps. If you won’t join for yourself, do it for your parents. Avenge their deaths. Let us take you to a Phalanx station for training. At one of these military outposts, we can build you into a warrior. The road to becoming a Chevalier is difficult, but when you come out the other side, you can seek payment for the lives the Syndroids have taken. It’ll never be enough, but it’s something.”

Berto swallowed. He’d long accepted that his parents’ death had been an accident and the woman with the red hair crushing his mother’s skull was a nightmare. Only a nightmare. What would his mother wish for him? “How long do I have to decide?”

Revna frowned, contemplative. “I’ll be around for a couple of days, but then I must return to duty.”

“If I can’t decide by then? Or if I decide not to go?”

“I can protect you while I’m here. But when I’m gone—I’m gone. I don’t know how heavy the Syndroid activity is on Earth, but it’s bound to pick up.”

“The Syndroids are still here?”

“Did you think the one that killed your mother was the only one? Earth is at a pivotal moment. The Syndroids may try to recruit you, but they’ll probably kill you. If you won’t join us, I advise that you keep moving. Don’t stay in one place longer than a couple of weeks. You might live long enough to father a child or two. By then, Earth will be in the Federation, and the fight will belong to your offspring—even if they don’t wish it.”

The room rocked with a force that jarred Berto’s spine. He hadn’t even realized they were descending back to Earth, but a door rolled down into a ramp, and the cold night air flooded in. Over a distant hill, the sun was just peeking up, filling the valleys with hues of purple.

“How will I reach you if I decide to join?” Berto asked.

“We’ll be listening.”

He turned to leave, but something told him to pause.

“Berto,” Revna said softly, “your mother’s death is one of the biggest regrets of my life. She turned us down. But she would have made a fine Chevalier.”

Berto didn’t look back as he plodded down the ramp and through the grass toward his cabin. He was still so shocked at the night’s activities that he couldn’t be sure this wasn’t a fever dream—but if this so-called war was real, it wasn’t his to fight.

Yrsa exhaled a precious lungful of smoke. “You lied to him,” she said flatly as Revna appeared in the rolled-up doorway of the ship’s bridge.

“Technically, saying maybe the drone was only there to scare him was the truth.”

“You know what I’m referring to.” She watched the smoke curl a trail to the ceiling.

“Would you have joined if you’d known the truth?” Revna asked as she reclined in the captain’s chair.

“I—“ Yrsa began. Would I have enlisted? She touched the metal cone at the back of her neck—her implant to enhance her omega waves and serve as a neural interface. Most of the time, she forgot it was there, but at this moment it seemed heavy and clumsy. I don’t know.

Of course, if she hadn’t enlisted, maybe her friends would still be alive.

“Thought so,” Revna said as if her point was made. “It’s easier to accept the truth once you see what you’re fighting.”

“Are you sure about him?” Yrsa asked.

“That remains to be seen. You doubt your own instincts again?”

Yrsa inhaled on the cigarette’s tip, making her words grow deep. “I don’t know what to think.”

Revna seemed to appraise Yrsa before frowning. “You have to learn to trust yourself again, daughter.”

Inspecting the glowing tip of her cigarette, Yrsa refused to meet her eyes.

“He has potential,” Revna said, returning to Roberto. “He’s been restrained by a lifetime of the world telling him competition and greatness are bad, and good boys sit down and shut up. He’s weak, emotionally stunted, and his concept of personal agency is almost nonexistent. A shame about his mother—father, too. They wouldn’t have let him become this.”

“The aunt had to raise two children alone.”

“A noble cause. But you can see the result—he needed his father. Someone to show him how to direct his energy.”

Just as I needed a mother to do the same, Yrsa thought.

“Speaking of which, we need to check out the cousin,” Revna said.

“You think she has the omega waves?”

Revna shrugged. “Call it a hunch.”

Chapter six

TEQUILA

Hundreds of feet above the ground, the Syndroid scout blinked a mechanical eye of his Siren drone body. Though he usually preferred to appear humanoid, the people of this world were bound to notice a flying person, so he’d taken the shape of one of the remote-controlled hobby drones he’d seen flying around. Albeit a much larger version that reflected the sky above onto its underside. The light-altering properties of his nanite skin were useless against more advanced societies. But on this primitive planet, he would be nearly invisible to any casual observer. And to the non-casual observers—the Syndroid just hoped they thought him a plaything if their radars and sensors could read him at all. He didn’t know if he could face his compatriots if one of the hydrocarbon-guzzling, flying contraptions shot him down.

Directly below him was where his companion had been destroyed. There was still a faint radiation trail leading to this spot, but the wreckage was gone. These fleshy sacks had scavenged the remains. Or…

Sanctorum?

Running the calculations, the scout determined the probability was small. Those sanctimonious asshats wouldn’t care about Earth enough to send a platoon until the Vessel was ready to make its first—and last—voyage. There would only be one or two Chevaliers at most for now.

The data supplied by his lost brother indicated it had begun a grid search at the cluster of buildings below. But why? Had his companion found the Vessel prior to the ancient craft’s launch?

No, the luck for that would be unfathomable.

The scout descended to scanning range. The rush of cold air barely registered with its surface sensors. He hated the cold—bad memories from a previous life. A pigeon, not seeing the drone until too late and startled by its silence, clumsily rebounded off and fluttered away in a confetti of feathers.

Shooting an invisible beam into the building, he flew from one end to the other. A collection of data bounced back—material densities, temperatures, electrical activity, brainwaves.

It didn’t take long to determine the use of the building. Small air-conditioned spaces. Rooms with variable functions, packed with skin bags. Little domesticated hair bags. Low bowls of water for exhaust excretions.

His fellow Syndroid had been doing a grid search on a residence building. There was only one cause for that. One of these barbarians is demonstrating omega brainwave activity. It was a rare occurrence for planets without the widespread use of brain implants, but not unheard of.

There had been a few of these Earthlings in battle throughout the years. They were dangerous—not yet exhausted of the eons-long war, they had a passion and flair for fighting that the Syndroids had yet to adapt to. The only strategy for fighting an Earthling was overwhelming numbers, and many of those numbers would fail in their evacuation effort. No detransmission to a new body for a Syndroid if you were too slow. Consciousness lost forever as a digital wave in the cold reaches of space.

If the scout could bring one of these fighters over to the right side, the reward would be immense: a new selection of bodies, a promotion perhaps, maybe charge of a brigade. Breaking standard guidelines would be forgiven. Even an unwilling soul from this planet would still have value.

But that would be difficult and dangerous. His brother had already been killed. Gone forever this time. Maybe he was better off just killing the candidate. He would likely be rewarded just for that.

The scout didn’t need to make that decision now. There was nothing even remotely close to omega brainwaves in the vicinity. The bucket of meat was gone but would be back.

He was certain of that.

The last half day of the corporate retreat passed in a haze. Berto’s mind wandered to the spaceship and woman from his memories—he only noticed the retreat during a few passing moments. Jared’s final lecture comparing the company’s synergistic teamwork to a well-written instruction manual, clearly directed at Berto, went in one ear and out the other. Berto snapped out of it only briefly when everyone was saying their final goodbyes.

Jared grabbed his palm in a forceful handshake. “First thing in my office, Monday,” Jared reminded him.

“Wh—?” Berto wandered off without finishing the question. He’d forgotten about the incident at lunch the day before. It seemed so minor now.

On the drive home, Berto started to regain his mind. Was any of that even real? The memories were vivid: the ship descending out of the sky, Berto restrained to a chair while a drone hovered before him, his conversation with the woman. Was that just a dream? He touched his cheek where she had punched him and winced. Still tender. But wasn’t it more likely he’d just fallen out of bed and hadn’t noticed?

In the end, he decided it was a moot point. Supposing the night before was real, it wasn’t his war. He knew his mother wouldn’t have wanted him involved. Not even to avenge her death. Especially not for that.

He just wanted his normal life. He wanted to not worry about aliens. To not think about galactic wars and ancient technologies. To be home.

Home. A small, quiet apartment. Empty. More of a cell than the one he’d been kept in the night before if he could believe his memories. Tonight, he needed a friend and booze to drive away the thoughts.

Turning down the radio and the voice within that bellowed about fighting like hell to keep the wolves away, he made a phone call. It rang from the speakers while he raced down the highway in his pickup truck.

After several rings, a voice answered, “Berto! Where you been?”

“Hey, cuz. I had a work thing.”

“On a Sunday?” Laura asked. “Anyway, I just went by your place. You got some mail from the ranch.”

“What are you doing tonight?” Berto asked.

“Tonight? Aww… tonight won’t work. I’m getting drunk with my little cousin.”

Berto grinned as Laura let out a hysterical laugh. The two sat catty-corner on the carpet of Laura’s living room, backs against the sectional wrapping the room. Inside was muggy despite the weather outside. Berto supposed it was humidity, given that it was probably weeks since the air conditioner had last run.

“You just took the sandwich!?” Laura gasped, wiping a tear from her eye.

Berto looked into his empty shot glass, rolling it between his fingers as he smirked. “I just lost it, I guess.”

“Lost it? More like you finally stood up for yourself. And that woman—what’s her name?”

“Ariel.”

“Blowing you off when you were just making conversation then hooking up with that prick you work with. What a b—”

“Laura!”

“—itch! What? I can say it; I’m a girl.”

“You’re biased.”

Laura pointed to a glass bottle beside a pile of sliced limes on the coffee table between them. She slammed down her shot glass next to it with a clack! Berto filled the two shots with tequila and flicked a lime across the table at her. She raised the glass, “Salud!” and downed the fiery liquid before biting into the lime.

Berto echoed her. It burned his throat, but there was only warmth by the time it reached his belly. He placed the shot glass back onto the table, where it sat in a ring of discarded tequila. A pleasant, smoky-agave flavor lingered in his mouth.

Laura wiped a bead of tequila from the corner of her mouth. “When are you going to leave that place? You’d have no problem getting hired anywhere else.”

“I’ve thought about it, but what’s the point? There are corporate assholes anywhere I’d go.”

“What about construction? I know it’s hard work, but you were happy.”

Berto would be lying to say he hadn’t considered it. After his tía had died, he’d worked construction as a pipe-fitter for years to pay for engineering school. At the end of each day, he’d had something he could point to and know he had accomplished. Berto never received the same sense of concrete achievement now. Then he thought of the nights of sore muscles and mornings of aching joints. He poured another shot. “Have you ever seen a construction worker near retirement?”

Laura’s silence answered his question.

“They’re worn down,” Berto said. “Injured, but too macho to admit it. If the back doesn’t give out, it’s the knees. If not the knees, it’s the ankles. Besides, superintendents can be even bigger assholes than Jared. And louder.”

“So what? You’re doomed to be unhappy?”

“I’m not unhappy. I’m just in a rut.” Berto lifted the glass to his lips and tipped the bottom skyward. He inhaled wrong and it caught in his throat, making him cough with a feeling like sandpaper on his esophagus.

Laura burst out in another fit of hysterical laughter. Berto couldn’t help but join her between episodes of coughing.

When their mirth had finally subsided, Berto went on, “Do you ever think you’re meant for more?”

“I sculpt custom wedding cake toppers for bridezillas with too much money and little patience for art. Of course I think I’m meant for more. But this is what I chose.”

“Do you remember that microwave your mom had?” Berto asked.

“Microwave? The one that was on the fritz? It drove her crazy—always turning off and on randomly.”

“We would stand in front of it, fingers pressed into our temples as if we had telekinesis, pretending we were the ones turning it off and on.”

“She replaced it, but that one was defective too. She was so pissed—thought you were being rough on it. We didn’t dare play with the third one!”

“What if we were responsible for it malfunctioning?”

“Oh, Berto, you’re starting to sound like Abuelo,” Laura said. “Mamá’s stories about how he would never wear a watch because they would give out after a day or two. He claimed he made his own electric field or something.”

“Or something,” Berto agreed. His phone dinged where it sat on the coffee table before Laura.

She picked it up, looking at the notification. “Ohhh!” Her lips formed an excited circle as she unlocked his phone and scrolled through it.

“What is it?” Berto asked, reaching for his phone.

Laura pulled away, staring at the screen. “You got a message on a dating app. I told you that pic would work—Oh, she’s pretty, too!”

“It’s probably just a bot. Give it here!”

“No way! I got this!” Her fingers became a blur, texting a message into the screen.

“Laura! No, let—”

“It’s done.” She handed the phone to him.

On the screen was a beautiful woman. Freckled light brown skin and tight curly blonde hair denoted a mixed ancestry. Like him. Mid-twenties. Like him. She was tall for a woman, probably as tall as his average male height, but the small image on the screen made it difficult to tell. Berto wondered if she was the type to demand a taller man. A dress of earthy browns, blues, and greens hung loose but somehow took nothing away from her form. She grinned in a way that spoke of complex depths hiding the secret to happiness just beneath her lips.

Below her picture was the name Yrsa and two messages. She’d reached out to him first—a bad sign. Or was it?

Hey.

The message Laura had sent back wasn’t something he’d say. Far too forward. Far too confident.

You have a gorgeous smile. I’d like to experience it in person. How about tomorrow night?

Berto began typing.

Sorry, that was my cou—

Laura snatched the phone from his hands. “Don’t you dare.” She deleted his text. A moment later, the response came.

Love to. Send me your number.

With a devious smirk, Laura handed Berto back his phone. “Make sure you wear your cowboy boots—she looks like a girl who loves heels.”

Chapter seven

SPARK

Berto’s head was killing him as he pulled open the metal-framed glass doors to his work building. It felt as if someone had taken a rusty hatchet to his skull. The aspirin and caffeine concoction he’d taken upon waking had been enough to get him in a shower and out of his cousin’s apartment but did little to ease the pounding in his temples. He was also a hair nauseous and dizzy, like he had just stepped off a rollercoaster. The bright lights of his boss’s office only aggravated his condition.

Wincing, Berto entered the room, probably having the look of a patient waking from a long coma. Jared sat behind a wide desk, speaking into a phone. He motioned for Berto to sit while he finished the call.

The chair was an inferior piece of furniture—a company piece, of course. Berto sat so low that his knees raised above his hips as if he were squatting. The cheap pleather crackled and felt every inch the plastic it was. A throne for a broke college bro to claim he ‘furnished’ his apartment.

After several minutes, Berto realized his boss wasn’t worried about ending the call to speak to him. Jared was having too much fun reliving his time as a demigod during the officially not mandatory but unofficially required corporate retreat. Berto could hear the voice on the line laugh through the phone over some dull story Jared told about a team-building event. When Jared looked up at Berto, expecting the same reaction, Berto put on his best ‘good one, boss’ smile.

Jared frowned, clearly seeing something he didn’t like in Berto’s expression. “I gotta go. I’ve got a problematic employee I need to have a discussion with. Yes, I’ll be stern… Yeah... Yeah. I love you too, MeeMaw. Bye.”

Berto raised an eyebrow, making Jared give an ugly frown. Jared stared at him intently, nostrils flaring impatiently. After the showdown Berto had had—or dreamed he’d had—with Revna, his boss’s glare was like that of an irritated toddler.

Yet Berto knew if he wanted to keep his job, he had to eat crow. “I’m sorry. I acted inappropriately at the retreat. I wasn’t being a… team player.” He barely stopped himself from overtly gagging.

Jared tilted his head to the side and studied Berto. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“I’m sorry,” Berto repeated.

“This company isn’t a company,” Jared said. “It’s a family. And there’s nothing worse than stealing from your family.”

Not a family!—No, Berto, shut up! “Stealing? All I did was take a lun—”

“You took a lunch that someone who’d done better in the team challenge might have taken. Ariel, for one. You should have seen her dismay at having to eat tuna salad.”

Blood pulsed in Berto’s temples, and he muttered, “Should have ordered more turkey clubs.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, ‘I didn’t know she liked turkey clubs.’”

“Right.” Jared’s pout clinched doubtfully. “That was mighty greedy of you. I’m not sure you’re a good fit for this family.”

It’s not a family! Berto gritted his teeth. “It was a lapse in judgment. I’ll do better.”

“I want to believe you, Robert. I really do. But a burned bridge is difficult to rebuild—it’s not as easy as one of our dining tables.”

Roberto! “What can I do to make this right?”

Jared’s lips clenched as he obviously pretended to consider the question. “I think I know how you can make it up to our family, Robert. Headquarters requested some design changes to those pieces we sent out last week. They need us to make the changes pronto, but our normal workflow can’t be disturbed. This needs to be done during off-hours.”

“Fine, I’ll come in early tomorr—"

“Actually, I’m going to need you to start this evening. Normally, I’d let you set your own hours for this kind of task, but after this weekend… I hope you understand the difficult position you’ve put me in.”

“I’m sorry; I can’t tonight. I have plans already.”

“Family triumphs over plans.”

Berto tried to push down the anger. Tried to bury it deep beneath his boots and stomp it into the earth. But there was nowhere left to dig—all the graves in this particular cemetery had been filled. The indignation left his mind buzzing, and he could feel the space around him alive and flowing.

Snap!

“We are not a family! Ariel is not my sister. Derrick is not my brother. And you are abso-fucking-lutely not my dad!” Behind Jared, a fax machine turned on and printed blank sheets of paper. Who the hell still has a fax machine!? “You’re nothing but an egotistical, pompous ass who couldn’t manage a lemonade stand.” The phone let out a continuous piercing tone like a smoke alarm. “That team activity was a sham. The doughnuts were stale. The coffee was old. And why would you order so many goddamn tuna salads!?” A clock on the wall began spinning backward. “Christ’s sake, Jared! It’s tuna salad!”

With a gasp, Berto finished his tirade. Is this me? The lights flickered once, and the electronics fell silent. Berto noticed his fury was also gone.

Jared looked around his office in alarmed wonder. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’re done! There’s no place for you here. Get out!”

“Gladly,” Berto said softly, tipping over the chair he’d sat in as he exited the office to the stares of his coworkers in the hallway.

Berto walked out the glass double doors in the building’s entryway to Jared’s call of, “Good riddance!”

In the dim twilight glow, Berto felt good as he walked up to the restaurant. Instead of spending the day in a job he hated, he’d spent the morning binging science fiction movies and the afternoon designing a new 3D printable spaceship to put for sale on a maker website. Several people had already purchased the design—it wasn’t much money, but it validated his work.

An hour before, Berto had stood in front of the bathroom mirror of his apartment, trying on various pants and button-up shirts, beaming about how good the day had been. He knew it wouldn’t last; eventually, he’d have to find another soul-sucking job. But today, his life was what he made it.

Ultimately, Berto had thought of Laura’s advice and gone with a western theme. He’d chosen a white-and-blue plaid pearl snap shirt, blue jeans with stylized threading decorating the seams, and his well-worn cowboy boots. Looking at his reflection after dressing, Berto recognized his father staring back. Only instead of the short light brown hair and sun-weathered pink skin, he had the dark hair of his mother and her olive complexion. Damn, I look good.

As Berto entered the restaurant, the sound of his boots clacking on the hardwood floor melded with the clatter of metal utensils on plates. The smell of grilled fish and steak slathered in butter pleasantly invaded his nostrils while he waited in line to speak to the hostess. Before he reached the front, there was a tug at his elbow.

“Roberto Reed?”

Turning, he saw the celestial being he’d spent much of the day thinking about. He’d worried her picture had been photoshopped, but she was even more attractive in person. The smell of wildflower perfume tastefully overpowered the aroma of food, augmenting her beauty.

“Yrsa?” he asked, failing to keep the dazed euphoria from his voice.

“The one and only.”

Berto held out his hand to instant regret at the awkward formality, but graciously, she took it in her own. Her touch was warm but surprisingly calloused and firm. It made him self-conscious about his own hands, grown soft from desk work.

She looked him up and down. “I like the boots.”

“I… thanks,” Berto managed, still stunned. He tore his eyes away from hers long enough to notice what she was wearing—a strapless sky-blue dress that stopped just above the knees and a pair of white stiletto heels. The fabric glinted and sparkled dimly in the low light. If not for the matching scarf wrapping her neck, Berto would have thought she was dressed for a warm spring day. “Please, call me Berto. I like your scarf.”

“It’s new, thanks.” Still holding his hand, she pulled him into the restaurant toward a table.

A few minutes later, they were sitting across from each other. The waiter had just brought them their drinks: hers a glass of sauvignon blanc, his a bottle of Shiner Boch. Berto searched the menu nervously while Yrsa’s eyes bored into him. Finally, he looked up to meet her gaze.

“Beer,” she said. Then, with a conspiratorial smile, “And not that light crap that tastes like flavored water. I approve.”

Something about her smile disturbed Berto. He told himself to relax—this beautiful woman was interested in him. Why, then, did he suspect she was capable of launching across the table and strangling him? “White wine? Going for the fish, I take it?”

“Fried catfish. I haven’t had fried catfish in so long.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve… been away for a while.”

“Away, like business?” Berto asked. “What do you do?”

“Yeah, something like that. It’s complicated. Boring, really.”

“I’ve got time,” Berto said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I guess you could say I’m in the military.”

“You must be at Fort Hood, then? Did you just get back from deployment? How long were you gone?”

“Too long.”

Clearly not interested in talking about her job. Berto changed the subject. “What do you like to do?”

“I read.” She flashed him another smile that tempted him to both fall in love and sprint for the nearest door. “Fiction mainly. The classics, the contemporaries, whatever. I guess you could say I’m a bookworm. It helps to remind me where I’m from.”

“I get that,” Berto said—a half-lie. He didn’t read much but understood the importance of stories and the meaning they could give one’s life.

“I’ve got a question for you.” Yrsa’s smile twisted sideways. “It’s personal, but I hope you’ll play along.”

“Anything.” Berto turned his head and winced at how quickly—how eagerly—he’d spoken.

“Do you ever feel like you’re not in control of your actions?”

Berto’s shoulders slumped, and his elbows tucked, defensively cradling himself. Did this girl know somehow that he had snapped recently? Was it so obvious that he was prone to bottling anger and hurt until he couldn’t control it, and instead, it controlled him? “I—I yelled at my boss today. Former boss.”

“I’m not talking about getting pissed off and shouting at an ignorant asshole. I mean, do you literally ever lose—” Yrsa slapped the back of her neck then flinched, looking up as if expecting a puma to pounce from the ceiling and maul her. When her eyes again met Berto’s, they were wide with alert. Ropy muscles hidden just beneath the skin tensed like steel cables.

“Everything oka—?”

She stood up abruptly. “I’ve got to go.”

Yrsa ran out of the restaurant without another word. She nimbly dodge tables and waitstaff as she exited. Then she sprinted past the windows and climbed into the driver seat of an old Camaro before peeling out of the parking lot.

Berto sat in stunned silence under the heavy gazes of the restaurant patrons. What did I do wrong? He replayed their brief conversation in his head. The admission that he’d lost control of his temper that very day was the only explanation.

The waiter, seeing Yrsa’s departure, cautiously approached Berto. “Sir, will you still be dining with us?”

Looking up, Berto struggled to piece together the question. After an awkward silence, he said, “No, just the check, please.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” the waiter said pitifully. “The drinks are on the house.”

Berto’s face flushed. What happened? He nodded his thanks to the waiter and left the restaurant, trying to ignore the ogling of the diners.

I need a drink.

It wasn’t until Yrsa was speeding down the road that she noticed the country music playing from the vehicle’s speakers. A twangy voice singing of choking on smoke as a harmonica played in the background.

She killed the music with a tilt of her head. The vehicle maneuvered through traffic far more capably than any modern Earth technology could, but this was no time to sit in traffic.

The implant at the back of her neck warmed as she mentally searched the skies. When she found nothing, she searched with her eyes. Where did the Seraphim drone go?

She’d assigned the drone to tail the girl—Laura. It had been on autopilot, maintaining a limited connection with Yrsa. Still, when Yrsa had lost the feeling of contact with the drone, she’d known something was wrong. She hoped against hope that it was just a malfunction. But she thought of the Syndroid she’d shot down above Berto’s apartment.

Another one must have come to investigate.

As cars around her honked at the swerving vehicle, Yrsa’s dress transformed. The nanoparticles forming the garment lengthened to cover her legs and arms as a Chevalier standard jumpsuit. The nanites then stiffened into hard but flexible armor plates to protect her body. Quickly, her chilled body warmed as nanites collected her body heat and reflected it back to her.

Sensing the intentions radiating from Yrsa, the glove box popped open, revealing a sleek H-shaped device and metallic egg the size of a hand grenade. She picked up the magneto-pistol by the middle, where it was molded to fit comfortably in her hand. The recoil-dampening egg sprang to life. A glowing fissure circled it, splitting the outer layer in two. The two halves began spinning counter to each other, and the egg lifted into the air, hovering toward Yrsa until it came to rest, centered and a foot in front of the two arms of the magneto-pistol.

Ready.

The car came to a dead stop in front of Laura’s apartment building with a characteristic lack of screeching tires. Yrsa would have flown out the front of the windshield had it not been for the particles of her armor fusing to the seat momentarily.

Flinging the door open and bolting up the stairs, Yrsa arrived at Laura’s third-floor apartment. She hesitated at the door. There was still no sense of the Seraphim, but no sense of a Syndroid either. Maybe she should knock?

Screw it!

She leaned back and brought her heel up and through a spot on the door beside the knob. The door crashed open with a shoe-shaped hole missing. Yrsa shook off the debris clinging to her ankle and entered the apartment, holding the pistol before her.

While Yrsa looked around, a concerned neighbor peered inside the doorway but quickly disappeared upon seeing Yrsa’s intimidating form in the armor, holding a strange weapon. The neighbor would call the police, but it didn’t matter. Yrsa would be gone before they ever arrived—Laura wasn’t here, and there was no sign of a Syndroid.

So where is that girl?

Yrsa considered contacting Revna, but Revna was on the other side of the planet, meeting with dignitaries in Japan. Yrsa rubbed the back of her neck as she connected with the ship’s computer floating high above her. If she couldn’t find the girl on her own, Revna would never let her hear the end of it.

Chapter eight

FIRE

The pickup kicked up dust from the dirt road, though Berto wouldn’t have noticed except for the swirling eddies of fine chalk that danced in front of the headlights. His hands strangled the wheel. When he’d called Laura, there had been an edge to her voice, but she’d agreed to another night of tequila. She needed it, in fact. Only she was heading to the ranch, so he’d have to meet her there.

When he’d asked what was bringing her to their childhood home on a weekday, she’d only given vague replies about needing to get out of the apartment. There was something wrong with her; Berto could feel it. As he approached the ranch, he felt a growing sense of hanging from a ledge, and his grip was slipping. Maybe she sensed it too.

The smell of woodsmoke wafted into the truck, and Berto wondered which neighbor was out burning brush or hosting a bonfire party. When he turned down a gravel driveway guarded by two rows of fence posts like lines of sentinels, his heart dropped out of his chest.

A quarter-mile down the road, his tía’s barn glowed a hundred feet from the double-wide trailer he’d once called home. The old, rotted wood fueled the flames as they licked into the air three stories high. It was disquietingly beautiful: the orange and yellow waves rolling out of the windows and doors to fight the encroaching night. A sedan sat parked in the double-door entrance of the barn, appearing as a lump of blackened coal among the embers.

Laura!

Berto gunned the engine, sending dirt and rocks sky-high and making the truck fishtail for a split second before finding purchase. He skidded to a stop in the field between the barn and the house and sprinted to the barn. The leather soles of his boots, worn smooth, slipped against the grass, sending him skittering on all fours.

Berto stopped twenty feet from the blaze; it felt as if a heat lamp were inches from his face. Raising an arm to shield his eyes from the broiling temperature, he breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that his cousin’s car door lay open and a wet cow patty in front of him had a fresh footstep smearing the dung.

But the impression of imminent doom was still there, and Revna’s words rang in his head. “It’s a warning. A sense… All to prevent harm from befalling you.”

“Laura. LAURA!” Berto shouted. He turned and ran for the house.

Only when ascending the worn cedar steps of the porch did Berto notice the door of the trailer home was wedged open several inches. It was dark inside, turning the gap of the entry into a deep crevasse against the off-white metal exterior siding that blushed pink from the blaze at his back.

As Berto made the landing, his foot twisted against something soft. Something fleshy. He tumbled into the railing, gasping in pain as he hit his knees. He spun around to face the door.

One pale arm traced from the door jamb across a wood plank to end in an outstretched hand. Berto recognized that hand. The chipped black nail polish. The raw red skin where the cuticles were bitten down. The small scar below the thumb where a paring knife had slipped.

Berto knew her hand, but he couldn’t believe it. Refused to believe it.

Wood splinters tore into Berto’s skin as he crawled, but he hardly noticed. He knelt before the door, placing two hands on the edge as though it were weightier than the thin plastic and aluminum it was made of. A heavy aroma of iron, ammonia, and excrement assaulted his nostrils. He slowly pulled the door open before flinching away.

Laura!

A crater of gore. Her face was smashed into an unrecognizable bowl of muscle and sinew. Bones, broken and jagged, ripped through flesh and skin at the rim, appearing as mountains encircling a valley. Blood and gray matter pooled into the basin, filling it like a grisly, sanguine lake. Crimson bubbles foamed at the surface as air escaped whatever path remained between her lungs and face.

Berto’s stomach rose into his throat. He doubled over on the porch and heaved. Frothy bile spewed from his mouth, staining the wood deck and splattering the railing. The watery content of his belly was expelled on the initial launch. Yet, afterward, he gagged repeatedly from the cramps racking his abdomen.

Feeling a hand warm on his collar, Berto looked up, part of him expecting to see Laura laughing that he’d fallen for her prank.

Instead, a man was standing over him, grinning in the shifting light of the fire. He was utterly average—a guy Berto would have expected to see in the background of a movie while the hero got the girl. Athletic but not overly muscular. Not short, but certainly not tall. Dark hair just long enough to be combed. Skin that was neither white nor brown but somewhere in between. What stood out was that he only wore a thin T-shirt and blue jeans yet did not seem affected by the chilly night air.

The warm hand that rested on Berto’s neck suddenly gripped the collar. Nails sharp as iron bit into his neck and left long gouges in clean parallel lines. Berto was deadweight, piled on the deck with all energy sapped from his limbs. Yet the man grasping him effortlessly lifted him to his feet and then into the air.

The man grounded himself as if to throw Berto through the porch railing. But instead, the snaps of Berto’s shirt gave, sending Berto crashing to the ground and smashing his head against the trailer siding.

White stars flooded Berto’s vision, shooting like fireworks against the dark sky. Through the explosions, he saw the man inspecting the shirt as if he’d never seen pearl snaps before. Berto realized, only vaguely, that he probably hadn’t.

They found me. The Syndroids found me.

Flinging away the shirt, the man crouched before Berto. “Two for the price of one,” the man said, like an overzealous shopper justifying a purchase. “Don’t mind if I do.” The man’s hand shot at Berto’s throat, clamping him against the trailer with a thud. The torn siding scraped against his neck where the man’s fingers had penetrated the metal.

One-handed, the man lifted Berto again, leaving two tracks in the side of the trailer—a pair of icebreakers ripping through frozen ocean. The second hand lifted to Berto’s forehead and formed a fist. Then a block. Then a rectangular box with an arced side. Reminiscent of a child molding playdough, the hand shifted liquidly yet remained solid.

Berto watched it all silently in amazement and horror as the carved rectangle of a fist pushed against his forehead. A perfect fit.

“Now stay still,” the man said.

A buzzing began in Berto’s brain. A fuzziness not dissimilar to what he felt after a few tequila shots. Only this sensation was wrong.

Very wrong. Spiders in my brain!

Berto tried to cry out for help, but the hand around his neck prevented him. His eyes widened with panic while dark clouds swirled at the edge of his vision. Berto tried to look around for something to use as a weapon but couldn’t move his head. Couldn’t breathe. The man’s face filled his view—still grinning like it was Black Friday and he’d just walked out of the store with a doorbuster of a deal. White teeth clamped behind crescent lips—the points rising to meet the eyes. The eyes. They glowed with a sickly yellow light.

Berto had seen that light before. The night his parents had been killed. The night his mother’s face had been caved in by the woman with the red hair.

Mamá.

Laura.

Anger supplanted panic, more fiery than the conflagration raging in the barn a hundred feet away. How dare this—thing—come here and take away my family!

The haze in Berto’s skull ceased with a click! And for the first time, the man’s grin faltered. He pulled the amorphous block from Berto’s head and shook it as if dislodging the last few drops of ketchup stuck in a bottle. “Stupid, outdated body,” he muttered.

Berto wished he had spent more time working out. Maybe if he were stronger, he could pull this heinous monster’s hand from his neck and shove it through its own chest.

To his surprise, the force on his throat lessened.

“Fuck you!” Berto spat at the man, spraying his perplexed face in a mist of saliva.

Then the hand pinning Berto folded in on itself, the fingers rolling up. Berto fell to the deck, landing on his tailbone. Sharp, aching pain shot up his spine like electricity. He writhed, clutching his backside.

The man stabbed his hand—now a barbed point—into Berto’s shoulder, nailing him against the wood. At first, all he felt was pressure—two fingers jabbed against him. But as Berto’s shirt saturated with blood, pain blossomed in his shoulder and a numbing ice flooded his veins. As quickly as it had appeared, Berto’s hot anger was replaced by cold acceptance.

Berto knew he should fight back. Or cry out in pain. Or something. But the hole in his shoulder and life draining from his fingers and toes didn’t feel like an act of violence against him—rather, a tragic debt finally being collected.

Death was upon him. And he wondered if a part of him had always wanted it.

The man’s free arm formed a barrel, glowing yellow inside, and brought it to bear on Berto’s face. The heat of it scalded Berto’s skin as the weapon whined with growing intensity.

This is the end, Berto thought. Mamá. Papá. Laura. I’ll see you soon. A spark of electricity ignited within Berto, telling him to get up and fight. And maybe if he hadn’t already lost so much blood, he would have. But fighting had always brought him misery; besides, he had no more energy to give.

Berto looked up at the man. Looked into those cruel, luminous eyes. A metallic egg floated silently beside the man’s temple.

“Hey, you shit-stained rust bucket!” a feminine voice said from the porch steps.

The light in the man’s eyes went out a split second before the egg popped away from the man’s head, pulling a cylinder of metal and skin with it though the egg never touched him. The cylinder dissolved into a gray powder and drizzled into a pile of ash on the deck.

A tall figure, dressed in thick armor plates that couldn’t hide her curves, loomed above Berto, wielding a mean-looking, double-barreled weapon. Berto gazed at her in wonder. “Yrsa?”

The figure squatted in front of Berto, letting the light of the barn fire illuminate her face. “I see you’ve met my daughter.” Revna held out a hand and helped Berto to his feet.

“Your dau—” Berto winced and gripped his shoulder. A stream of blood ran warmly down his arm and dripped into a puddle, slipping between the planks to wash the earth. His vision narrowed to pinpoints, and whatever Revna was saying was a faraway echo before he collapsed into the puddle.

Tired. So tired.

Voices. Whispers. Eyelids heavy, like manhole covers. Where am I?

Vibrating. Bump. Bump. Shaking turbulence.

Slipping through the clouds, Berto managed to open his eyes. His head leaned against frigid glass. A song—familiar rapid bass drum and grungy electric guitars—blasted from hidden speakers. In front of him was a heavy plastic black dashboard with what appeared to be a cassette player centered in it.

In a car?

Berto tried to turn his head to look at the presence sitting beside him. Instead, his head bumped limply on the ledge of the car door. A hand, warm—friendly warm—pulled him back against the seat. It was soft. All of it—the hand, the seat, his mind.

Oh so soft.

I’m in bed.

Eyelids drooped. No!

He fought to keep awake. Or am I already dreaming? The car window shifted, losing its transparent quality, except for a small section the size of a dinner plate. It became opaque, then solid. Fine mist like clouds rolled against the porthole window.

Clouds? I am dreaming.

His eyelids grew heavy again. This time, he let them fall, content that this nightmare would be over when he woke.

Chapter nine

WOUNDS

Yrsa stared down at Berto’s unconscious body lying on a glass-enclosed padded table. Shallow breaths pulsed in his chest while nanomeds the size of dirt grains swarmed around and through his wounded shoulder. They’d slowed the bleeding and now worked to repair the damaged muscle and nerves. Soon, they’d start a transfusion.

If he makes it that long. Yrsa stared at Berto’s blue fingernails and lips.

When Yrsa had arrived at the trailer, Revna had already been there, tending to Berto’s wounds. Before Yrsa had been able to do more than note the broken body of a Syndroid Siren spy drone, Berto’s limp form had been thrust into her arms. Revna had instructed her to get him to the ship in case there was a Harpy battle drone hiding in the area. A magneto-rifle was fine for taking out a human-sized Siren at close range. But a Harpy was larger than Berto’s pickup truck, with multiple magneto-cannons. Without looking at Revna and hardly speaking a word, Yrsa had loaded Berto’s body into the shuttle—still in the form of a Camaro until high above the ground—and flown to the Sleipnir.

Now, there was a swish as the medical bay door at Yrsa’s back rolled up. Revna’s heavy boots thudded on the floor as she walked to a spot opposite Yrsa. Revna placed a hand on the glass cylinder encasing Berto. When she removed her hand, a cloudy outline of her hand remained. “He’s alive.”

Barely. “Did you think he wouldn’t be?” Yrsa asked.

Revna bobbed her head back and forth, debating her answer. “Maybe… maybe not.”

The tension in the room was building—a product of Revna’s habit of scolding without words. That meant it was just as Yrsa had feared. Maybe worse. “The cousin?”

“The girl is gone.”

“Dead?”

“Gone.” Revna’s hard-set eyes said more than that one word could. “What were you thinking? I told you to keep an eye on them, not to go down and interfere.”

“I thought if I met with him, I could feel him out—maybe even convince him not all Chevaliers are so intimidating. You told me to trust myself; this was me trying to do that.” Yrsa hated the words as they left her lips. Her guilt was justified. Why bother making excuses? But her defense mechanism made her continue, “I put a Seraphim drone on Laura.”

“I told you to keep your eyes on her! If you had stayed up here monitoring them, the Syndroid would never have made contact.”

“I haven’t been to Earth for twenty years. Can you blame me for not wanting to be cooped up on this ship while you’re out traipsing across the globe?” Emotion roiled in Yrsa’s heart—a turbulent mix of regret, sorrow, and ire. Her eyes felt full—ready to burst like a taut water balloon.

“Yes. Yes, I can blame you. It’s been just as long since I’ve been home.”

Yrsa thought of the last day she’d been home. Thought of her father lying dead in that cheap pine box. “You don’t need to remind me. You weren’t even at his funeral!”

“When I met your father, he was a soldier. A warrior. Aging, yes. But back then, he was still fierce, like me. When he died, he died an old man. Weak. Frail. I honor him by remembering how he was when I knew him.”

“You were scared.” A tear rolled from one of Yrsa’s blue eyes down her cheek to fall on the glass cylinder.

“Fright is not useful. You know this.” Revna walked around the tube and took Yrsa’s face in her calloused hands. It was as good an admission of deeper emotion as Yrsa would ever receive. “But your emotion now. That is valuable.” Thumbs like iron rebar wiped away tears. “Save it for battle.” Revna tilted her head at Berto. “And besides, you should know I had other matters to attend to on Earth all those years ago—”

Yrsa pulled away when a machine above Berto’s head whirred to life. Liquid, appearing more black than red, snaked through a dozen clear tubes to ports on the bottom of the cylinder. From there, the blood would be distributed into hundreds of veins, replenishing the life-saving fluid before organ failure could set in.

The nanomeds disappeared into a cache beneath the table, falling off Berto’s shoulder in droplets. Left behind was a pink spiderweb scar. The skin there was tight and shiny and textured, but Yrsa knew from experience that it would fade and smooth within a couple of hours until it looked no different from a birthmark.

“He’s going to live,” Revna remarked.

“Told you.”

“You said no such thing, child.” Revna slapped the glass. “Find me when he’s awake.”

“What if he still won’t join the Sanctorum?”

“He will now; the girl’s death ensured that.” Revna turned to leave but paused, grabbing Yrsa’s bicep. “Even so, he’s not ready for the truth. Not all of it.”

“What should I say when he asks about his cousin?”

“Tell him the truth. She’s gone,” Revna said over her shoulder as she strode out of the medical bay.

Berto dreamed. Or remembered. Or both. All jumbled together in a chaotic narrative that made perfect sense.

Walking down a long, cracked sidewalk in the humid Texas summer heat. Not walking—riding a longboard. Wheels rolled smoothly over the pavement while his long black hair from a late teenage phase fluttered in the hot air behind him. The beep beep beep of a heart monitor. Not a heart monitor—a phone call.

His phone was buzzing.

Berto kicked out with a strong right foot again, gaining momentum. Still a couple of blocks from the engineering building, he carefully pulled the device from his pocket and checked his egg—checked his phone. Laura’s name on the caller ID.

“Bueno, cuz.”

“Berto—”

“I’m about to be in class. Can I call you back?”

“No, Berto, listen. Mi mamá está en el hospital.”

“Hospital? Is Yrsa—Tía—all right?

“No, it’s muy malo. Very ba—”

Laura’s voice stopped as the phone flew out of his hand and crashed to the wooden porch—the sidewalk. Berto followed behind a split second later, landing on his shoulder. A class had just let out of the building that had been his destination, and a group of students rushed over to help him up. Two young men propped him up between their shoulders and helped him over to a Camaro—to a bench.

Berto sat and buried his head in his hands.

“Berto… My boy,” Tía’s voice croaked.

Berto looked up. He was on a spaceship—in a hospital room. Lying in a bed, centered in the room, was himself—his tía. Skin and bones. Raspy breaths through an oxygen mask.

“Come closer.”

A hand laid on his arm—on the glass—on his arm. Fingers as brittle as balsa wood wrapped in grape skins. But warm and tender.

“My boy.”

“Tía, let me get you s—” Berto said.

“Tía!” she wheezed with more energy than Berto thought possible. “When you were a boy, I wished you would call me mamá. But I knew I could never ask it. Never take that from her.”

“I’m sorry, Tía. If I had kn—"

“Don’t be. The way you say Tía. That word has a power all its own—so much love. I stopped caring. I was tu tía. I’m sorry I couldn’t raise a son. Laura’s father—he always wanted a brother for her. I just wish he’d been there.” She gripped his arm painfully—she gripped it weakly. “Promise me.”

“Anything, Tía.”

“Promise me you’ll take care of Laura. Promise.”

“Of course, Tía.”

Eeeeeeeeeeeee—

“Tía? Tía!”

--eeeeeeeeeeeeee

As the heart monitor screeched, Berto ran for the door. “A nurse. I need a nurse!” He swung the door open and stepped into the trailer.

Laura lay in a puddle of blood before the sofa—sat in the middle of the sofa, sinking into the threadbare fabric cushions. Blood—tears streamed down her face, falling off her cheeks to be lost upon her black dress.

“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Berto said, hearing the hollowness of his words. “Just the way she would’ve wanted it.”

Laura sniffed. Watery mucus ran down her upper lip to mingle with the tears. She looked around the living room. Berto’s eyes followed hers, taking in the dozens of framed photographs of the three of them and several capturing those who’d long passed. His mother and father. Laura’s father.

And now Tía. “So much death,” Berto whispered.

“What?”

Berto didn’t repeat it.

“Syndroid. Fucking Sydroid!” Laura said—“Fucking cancer,” she repeated.

Berto sat next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

Laura convulsed and hid her face in her hands. At first, Berto thought she was sobbing. Then the maniacal laughter started. “Oh, Berto! No, it’s not!”

“We’ll get through this.”

“How?” Laura’s face turned severe. “How? Huh!? I have a year left of school. You have two. We have no money. Mamá barely had the savings to cover burying her. We’re going to lose this place. I am going to lose the only home I’ve ever known!”

“This is my home too, cuz… I’ll get a job, keep this place afloat. Find a way to pay for your tuition. When you graduate and make muy mucho selling your art, you can help me.” It was a lie; Berto would never accept a cent from his cousin, but that knowledge wasn’t what she needed now. “But we can figure that out another day.” Berto walked over to a cabinet in the adjoining kitchen and pulled out a clear bottle with a silver and blue label. “For now, let’s remember her the right way. In celebration. It’s what she would have wanted.”

Laura joined him as he poured two heavy shots of tequila. She took a glass and raised it. “To Mamá.”

“To Tía,” Berto agreed, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to down the drink.

When he tried to open his eyes, a migraine split Berto’s head wide open. How much did I drink? He tried to sit up but was pulled down by some unknown restraint, releasing a throbbing spike into his brain. He intended to rub his temples, but his knuckles smashed into glass.

Now, his eyes shot open. He was encased behind a glass barrier like an exotic fish on display. Panicking, he hit and kicked the glass. His blows did little to impact it, but it shifted with a hissss then slid open.

Before he could do more, a gentle but firm hand landed on his shoulder. “Take it slow, hotshot,” a familiar voice said. “It takes a minute for your body to know it’s been healed after nanomed surgery.”

“Huh? Nanomed sur—” Berto looked up at the woman standing above him. He immediately recognized her tight blond curls and freckle-flecked brown skin. Even if she wore a thick jumpsuit instead of the dress adorning her earlier. “Yrsa?”

Chapter ten

AWAKENING

“She’s gone?” Berto asked. “That… thing… it killed her?” He sat on the edge of the narrow foam pad he’d woken up on. A bowl of chicken tortilla soup rested within arm’s reach on a small ledge built into the wall. When Revna had brought it to him, he’d wondered if she knew that had been his mother’s remedy anytime he was sick.

Revna’s knowing look told him she did. Which meant this was just another tactic to influence his decision. Berto set it aside before even inspecting it to see if it had his mother’s touch—peppers charred before being added to the soup. He didn’t need soup; he needed answers.

The pair of women sat on low stools near a corner of the small medical room. Revna looked almost comical in her bulky body armor—an adult sitting behind a preschool desk. Berto had to remind himself that he’d seen the armor transform to protect Revna on their previous encounter, rolling up to shield her neck while Berto had attempted to strangle her. Yrsa’s jumpsuit had a similar shimmering plastic and metal texture, as had the dress she’d worn in the restaurant.

Yrsa said, “We can talk about this later. When you’re back to normal.”

When he’d first awoken, his shoulder had ached where the Syndroid had stabbed him, but, miraculously, the injury was healed. After a few minutes, the aching had departed, leaving a splitting migraine and lethargy. His limbs seemed hollow—missing all the substance and power that made them useful.

“You should eat the soup. It has benefits that you won’t find in Earth food—make you strong,” Revna said.

Berto guessed that Revna and Yrsa were not his enemies, but that didn’t mean he trusted a single word coming from their mouths. He reached over for the soup and slowly pushed it over the ledge. The women’s faces remained stoic, not acknowledging the action even as it clattered to the floor, spewing broth and chicken chunks across their feet. It wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped for, and suddenly he thought himself very childish.

Then he decided he didn’t care. “Now. I want to talk about it now. Laura’s dead?”

Yrsa began, “We really sh—”

“If the boy wants to talk,” Revna cut in, “we talk. Your cousin’s—”

“Laura,” Berto said. He wouldn’t allow them the dishonor of not using her name.

“Laura’s life,” Revna continued, “was taken by a Syndroid. Most likely the very one you encountered.”

“Why did it go after her?”

Yrsa exchanged glances with Revna. “We believe Laura had omega wave capabilities.”

“My cousin was like me? You said I was an abnormality.”

“At this point in Earth’s human evolution, you are. Same as me. Same as Revna. As you could have guessed, the genetic anomaly can run in families.” Berto noted Yrsa was looking to Revna, searching for confirmation. Or permission. “Though it seems particularly strong in your bloodline.”

As usual, something was being left unsaid, but Berto knew Yrsa was telling the truth. “You ran out of the restaurant. You knew Laura had the omega waves or whatever. And you knew something was wrong.”

“We didn’t know anything for certain until we arrived at the trailer,” Yrsa said. “We tried to protect both of you.”

“You failed,” Berto said.

“I—”

“I failed,” Revna cut Yrsa off. “Yrsa was watching you. I should have been minding Laura. If you blame anyone, blame me.”

Berto sat in silence. He wanted to feel anger—wanted that fire in his blood that allowed him to lash out violently. But it wasn’t there.

And he knew why.

Revna wasn’t to blame for Laura’s death. Nor Yrsa. It was on him—he should have left the city the night before and taken Laura with him. Berto had been warned that danger would follow him, but he hadn’t listened. With the plague of death that had chased his family throughout their lives, he should have known better. But there was someone else, something else, that shared his blame.

The Syndroids will pay.

He could save his rage for them. Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but the retribution he would rain down on those oil-licking metalheads would burn.

“Where do we go from here?” Berto asked.

“We can drop you off wherever you want,” Revna said. “Perhaps with family in Arizona or Florida? You should be safe there for a few weeks—”

Berto stared hard at Revna. She was playing ignorant, giving him every possible chance to back out. And he was scared if he wasn’t completely clear and vocal about his intentions, he would. “I’m going with you. They’ve taken everything from me; I’ve nothing waiting for me on Earth.”

“Are you sure, boy? A lifetime on the run is difficult but not so hard as one at war.”

“Now you’re trying to convince me not to join?”

“No, you just need to understand the truth. If you join this war with half a heart, you won’t last long.”

Any fear Berto had had of Revna dissipated. He jumped up from his seat and stepped forward to stand above her. She sat without moving, only looking up at him with curiosity. All the lethargy that had sapped his energy had dissipated. “My heart is gone—ripped apart when that thing killed the only person who still cared about me. In this fight, you won’t have my heart—you’ll have my soul. And I’ll knock down the gates of hell to destroy every single one of those fucking robots.”

“So you will.” Revna stood, her eyes glimmering with approval. She clasped Berto’s forearm against hers. “Welcome to the Chevalier Sanctorum, recruit. It’ll take a week to reach Phalanx Four for your basic training. Until then, make yourself at home aboard the Sleipnir.”

Yrsa stood and repeated the gesture. “I’ll show you around.”

Chapter eleven

SLEIPNIR

The ship was divided into five circular levels, stacked on top one another with a ladder at the center. As Yrsa led Berto down the ladder to the bottom, she felt vaguely like Virgil guiding Dante into the inferno. This ship had been her home and sanctuary for decades, but it had also been her hell, and she wondered if Berto would come to regret his enlistment.

Or if she would regret her part in recruiting him. She didn’t make friends easily, not since she was a recruit herself. Those days of freely given and received trust and companionship were gone. And even though Yrsa had a good feeling about Berto, her walls were still up. It probably didn’t matter—in a week, he’d be starting training while she and Revna returned to the stars to patrol the outer planets.

When Berto reached the bottom behind her, Yrsa said, “This is the armory.”

The armory took up one entire level. Much of the space was dedicated to the planetary shuttle and the half-dozen Seraphim drones housed in modular cubbies. Right now, there were only five, as they’d been unable to trace the one that had been tailing Laura.

The empty cubby contained a mechanical arm rapidly building a new Seraphim, atom by atom. Berto was currently studying the cubby, brows pinched together as he worked out what it was doing. “You 3D print your weaponry?”

“Among other things—technology at the molecular level has peaked in the Federation of Humanities. Been that way for a long time.” Yrsa noticed Berto running a finger along one of the drones. “You’re familiar with the Seraphim.”

“You nearly killed me with one,” Berto said.

Yrsa didn’t bother to point out that it had been Revna—he wouldn’t see the difference anyway. Instead, she showed him the rack of magneto-rifles. She picked up one of the H-shaped weapons to demonstrate for Berto. He studied the metallic orb that sprang to life and hovered near the edge of the rifle. Yrsa swung the weapon away from him. “Careful—that’s like staring down the barrel of a gun.”

“How does it work?” Berto asked.

“You’ll learn to control the egg with your omega waves,” Yrsa explained. “Anything magnetic between the egg and the gun will get wiped out when you pull the trigger.” She placed the weapon back in the rack.

“They won’t fire without the egg?” Berto asked.

“They do, if you’re in a pinch,” Yrsa said. Her hand went to her shoulder as a memory from her first skirmish with the Syndroids surfaced. Her egg had been destroyed by a well-placed Syndroid magneto-beam early on. By the time the Chevaliers had managed to send the Syndroids fleeing, her shoulder had swollen to the size of a melon from her rifle’s recoil. “Just ensure you’re armored unless you want to become an amputee.”

“Armor? When do I get some of that?” Berto nodded to Yrsa’s clothing.

Pretty sharp. Revna’s armor was obvious, but Yrsa’s was currently configured as a simple flight jumpsuit. Most new recruits didn’t pick up on the transformative abilities of the nanite suits right away.

Now was as good a time as any to show him what the Chevalier dress code was capable of. With a thought, Yrsa activated the implant in her neck, which then buzzed gently as the suit flowed and changed hues until thick armor plates formed around her limbs and torso. She colored them green, blue, and brown—the traditional colors of Earth. As a fresh Chevalier, Yrsa had customarily worn the colors of her homeworld, but upon looking at her reflection and seeing Revna staring back, she’d decided to make soft blue like the sky her color of choice. Another thought and her suit changed again into something approximating sand-colored sweatpants and a blue pullover.

“Whoa.” Berto slowly closed his gaping mouth.

“As for when you get the armor—you get it now. Revna doesn’t approve of traveling with unarmored recruits.” Yrsa went over to a set of shelves where several belt-like devices lay, bulging like innertubes. “It’ll take some training to control the nanites. You’ll be in default appearance for now.”

Looking down at his feet, Berto asked, “Do I still get to wear my cowboy boots?”

“Not while suited up unless you want to lose some toenails.”

Berto continued to stare at his stiff leather footwear. “My tía gave these to me on my eighteenth birthday. Just before she got sick. They’re the same brand my father wore.” Then he bent over and started to take them off. “I suppose the armor will be more useful.”

Yrsa stopped him with a touch. “Keep them on until we get up to the crew quarters. There’s not much privacy in the Chevalier Sanctorum, but we can afford some on the Sleipnir. You can change out of your Earth clothes when we get up there.” Yrsa mounted the ladder and motioned for Berto to follow her to the next level.

This one was divided into four quadrants: two enclosed rooms and two open areas. “You’re familiar with the brig and the mess.” Yrsa pointed to the two rooms Berto had spent his time in a couple of nights before. “The particulator in the mess can make just about any meal you want—just don’t expect it to be good.”

“You use the brig often?” Berto asked.

“When we can capture a Syndroid and block its detransmission. Doesn’t happen often. Mostly we just use it for storage or the occasional recruit.”

“Detransmission?”

Shit. Yrsa probably wasn’t supposed to mention that. “You’ll learn all about that soon enough.”

Berto walked over to one of the two open areas and inspected the weight benches, power racks, and cardio equipment there.

“I know free weights and treadmills seem kinda old-fashioned,” Yrsa said. “Most Chevaliers use the training modules in the aether tanks on the next level to keep in shape, but Revna insists those dampen the mind-body connection.”

“Aether?” Berto asked.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Leading Berto to the other open quadrant, Yrsa collapsed into a worn leather sofa, sinking nearly to the floor. Unlike most things in the ship, the couch was Earth-made—picked up by Revna last time they’d been to the planet. And it was Yrsa’s favorite place to relax. She sighed. “This is the rec room. Darts. Pool. A couple of datapads where you can watch or read pretty much any movie or book ever made on Earth.”

“What about the other planets? I’d rather see what these other humans are creating.”

Yrsa had to think about her response carefully. Revna insisted that Berto wasn’t ready for full enlightenment pertaining to the Chevalier Sanctorum, the Council, or their enemies. “One step at a time. Exposure to that many new cultures and technologies can be shocking for new recruits who’ve never been off their homeworld.”

“Three days ago, I was just an engineer for a furniture producer. Since then, I’ve been punched in the face, kidnapped, lied to, manipulated, nearly killed—twice—gone on a date with a galactic soldier, told I have superpowers, and found my cousin murdered by an alien robot.” Berto’s voice rose as he ranted, but he didn’t sound angry—at least not at Yrsa—just tired of games.

Yrsa couldn’t think of what to say except that it wasn’t really a date. But thankfully, Revna’s voice echoed throughout the ship, saving Yrsa from replying.

“All hands to the bridge. This is NOT a drill!”

As they scrambled up to the ship’s bridge at the very top of the ladder, Berto tried to take in his surroundings. The level above the brig and mess had a room with several glass cylinders like the one he’d woken up in and medical equipment taking up half the space. The other half was a large, walled-off room. But through a rolled-up doorway, Berto spotted large tanks recessed into the floor with a surface that gleamed like polished silver. He thought it was solid metal until the Sleipnir vibrated, causing the silver to ripple.

The next floor contained the crew quarters. Six bunks jutted from the walls, stacked two high. A few storage lockers and chairs took up the remaining space not allocated to the partially walled-off restrooms and showers. Berto considered asking if he should stop to change into the armor, but Yrsa was climbing so fast he could barely keep up.

They entered a much narrower room as they passed the living quarters—a neck joining the body to the head. The room was so packed with humming equipment that there was barely any floor space. The air in the room also tasted fresher—it had less of the stale, recycled air of the levels below.

“Are these the life-support systems?” Berto called up to Yrsa.

“In the event of the ship’s destruction, this room and the bridge can break off to form an emergency pod,” she said, not stopping her ascent. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen now.”

Berto doubled his pace and quickly came to the top of the ladder. He climbed up into a large circular room. Above him, a domed ceiling showed space with the Earth filling half the screen. Or is it a window? He thought about the nanotechnology that seemed incorporated into every aspect of the ship and decided it was probably somewhere in between. Six chairs resembling outstretched living room recliners formed a circle with a central seventh chair built into a gyroscopic frame—the captain’s seat, he assumed.

Revna was strapped into it now—if you could call it ‘strapped in.’ It was more like she was melted into the chair; Berto couldn’t tell where Revna’s armor ended and the seat began. The chair swished the air—left, right, up, and down—while Revna pawed empty space around her. To Berto, she appeared to be pulling imaginary levers and adjusting hallucinated dials. As far as he could tell, there were no ship controls.

“What is she doing?” Berto asked.

“I’m getting us the fuck out of Dodge,” Revna said, her eyes flashing blue at Berto. “As a man I once knew was fond of saying.”

“Just a man you once knew, huh?” Yrsa shot Revna a pair of evil eyes but then turned to Berto. “On the bridge,” she explained, “the ship tracks your eye movements. It uses micro-lasers to display relevant information and ship controls directly on your retina.”

“Now that you’ve wasted your breath saying that, buckle up—we’ve incoming gravitational distortions.”

Berto noticed Yrsa’s clothing had morphed again into a padded jumpsuit, and he’d suddenly wished he’d changed in the crew quarters on the way up.

Revna noticed he was still in his Earth clothes too. “Strip, boy! This is no time for modesty.”

Just then, the ship shuddered violently, making him stumble. Somehow he fought the inertia of the ship’s spinning and gained his feet. He hoped the whining of engines as Revna engaged an invisible throttle drowned out his yelp.

Usually, Berto would be hesitant to remove his clothes in front of two strange women, but another bout of turbulence and Revna’s shouting gave a sense of urgency. Berto ripped off his clothes and wrapped the belt he’d been given earlier around his waist. It immediately stretched and flowed around his body, comparable to a roiling hot tub jet that tickled the hairs on his chest and arms. The nanomaterial settled into place, forming a brown, blue, and green jumpsuit matching Revna’s.

“What have we got?” Yrsa asked as she sat in one of the chairs. “Incoming Syndroid scout ship?”

When Berto sat in the chair next to Yrsa, it adjusted until he was parallel with the dome screen, facing it. The suit bubbled at his back, and he assumed it had attached itself to the chair. A new sensation played at the edges of his mind—tickling it as the suit had done to his body. Information flooded into his vision—overlaying the Earth and space were scrolling numbers and geometries he couldn’t make sense of. But against the backdrop of dark space, an area pulsed with a red mist. It hadn’t been there a moment before, so Berto assumed that was the ship’s computer painting a picture directly onto his eyeballs.

“You think I would run from a scout ship, girl? Even Roberto here could take down a scout ship with Sleipnir.”

Berto didn’t think that was a compliment on his behalf.

Yrsa asked, “So what? Squad of Harpies?”

“Worse,” Revna said. “Typhon-class warship.”

“A Ravager? Are you sure? What’s one doing this far out?”

“The timing can’t be a coincidence.”

“What’s going on!?” Berto shouted, struggling to make himself heard.

“A Syndroid battleship is entering the Sol,” Yrsa said, not taking her eyes off the domed ceiling. “Typhon class is the official designation, but most Chevaliers refer to them as Ravagers.”

Ravagers. That doesn’t sound good. But all he saw was space and the glowing red cloud sliding across the dome as the Sleipnir sped away. “I don’t see—"

A ship appeared with a flash of light, followed by darkness that seemed to pull the light back in as a black hole would. It was too far away to make out much, but his vision zoomed in as he focused on it. The Ravager was boxy and beetle-like with pincer weaponry sprouting from the head and shell. The surface was marred with scars and deep gouges that shifted and slid across its body. Surrounding the ship was a hazy, shimmering cloud. His view zoomed in again, and he saw that the Ravager had thousands of drones buzzing around it like a swarm of gnats.

“Each of those Harpy Battle Drones,” Revna said, “is the size of an elephant.”

“What’s a Typhon doing here?” Yrsa asked. “Do you think they’re here for the Earth Vessel? They must know the Sanctorum will send Shepherds.”

“There’s no use in guessing why they’re here, daughter.”

“Do you think it’s here for the—” Yrsa’s eyes met Berto’s, then quickly looked away.

Yrsa’s look and abruptly halting words confirmed Berto’s suspicions. Even though he’d joined their army, they still hid things from him.

“It doesn’t matter why,” Revna said. “Jump engines are at eighty percent. Get ready for a jump in three minutes.”

Berto eyed the enemy ship. Suddenly, a line of a dozen drones shot away from it—straight at the Sleipnir. “Uh, guys.”

“Faen,” Revna cursed. “Yrsa, connect to a couple of Seraphim! Beginning evasive maneuvers! If the Syndroids want to dance, let’s dance.”

“What can I do?” Berto asked.

“Sit there and shut up,” Revna said. “Don’t even think too hard—I don’t want you fucking up a Seraphim or the ship.”

The Sleipnir jerked, and acceleration pulled at him—the feeling of corkscrewing on a roller coaster. The sensation that had tickled his mind moments before now ebbed and flowed across his brain. Waves of sensation—the sea at high tide. It triggered a fight-or-flight response, elevating his heart rate, but not in an altogether unpleasant way. He also began to distinguish elements of the sensation—a larger mass all around him, three smaller masses at his back side in the armory, two more racing out into space, and a series of distant pinpricks.

Berto sensed an aura around the two masses racing away from the Sleipnir and knew it was Yrsa controlling them as they shot toward the enemy battle drones. He didn’t know how it was her, but he did know it. Her presence within them. He looked over at her body; she gazed distantly at the dome screen above them as if her mind was elsewhere. He looked back to the screen, and the sight of the two Seraphim drones filled his vision.

Moving toward the enemy, they spiraled around each other—a human DNA helix screaming fuck you at the synthetic life forms threatening the crew.

As they approached the lead battle drone, Berto finally got a good look at the enemy. The craft was easily ten times the size of a Seraphim. It roared toward them on eight large glowing thrusters. The body was segmented and heaved like a runner’s chest after completing a marathon. A set of double cannons sprang from the head of the drone, tracking the Seraphim’s swirling flight pattern.

The enemy cannons glowed, and Berto saw the battle drone kick back but didn’t see any projectile shoot out. The Seraphim broke out of their formation, scattering from some unseen threat, and went wide, dividing the Harpy between them. As they passed it, the two Seraphim rotated in space, facing each other with the battle drone between. In the blink of an eye, the middle segment of the Syndroid exploded, bright white and green-blue light sparking against space.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” Revna said. “Not all in the Chevalier Sanctorum can control two Seraphim simultaneously, but Yrsa makes an art of it.” It was the first time Berto had heard Revna speak of Yrsa with pride. He suspected if Yrsa’s mind weren’t elsewhere, Revna never would have expressed such an emotion.

“What kind of weapons do the Syndroids use?” Berto asked.

“Magnetic beams. Same as us. The larger warships and Ravagers have gravitation distortion weaponry, but the amount of energy required isn’t practical on smaller fighting units. Both the Harpy battle drones and clandestine Sirens mostly use magnetic beam technology.”

“They use the same technology as us?”

“Similar. As you know, we weren’t always enemies. Our empires once did a great deal of trading—Atta girl!”

Berto turned his attention back to the screen. It was hard to focus as the pinpricks of the enemy ships turned into painful spikes—mental warnings of approaching death—but he observed Yrsa take down three more battle drones in rapid succession. However, the remaining eight turned their cannons toward one of the Seraphim. It was torn apart as magnetic beams sliced through space all around it, giving the Seraphim nowhere to run. The remaining Seraphim was reduced to rubble as the battle drones repeated the strategy.

“Damnit!” Yrsa slapped the chair as her mind returned to the room. She looked to Revna. “How long until the jump engines are ready?”

“Sixty seconds.”

Berto studied the trajectory of the incoming battle drones. It was apparent they’d be on the Sleipnir in seconds. He thought about his cousin—her caved-in skull flashed into his mind. The chipped nail polish on her limp hand. Her blood drenching the floor of the home they’d grown up in. Berto was about to die without getting the chance to avenge her or his mother.

And that made him mad.

“What are you doing?” Yrsa cried as Berto’s mind locked onto one of the Seraphim drones at his back. The armory bay door opened, and the Seraphim shot out.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He only felt one of the drones begging the tentacles of his mind to latch on as his anger grew. Then his anger was in the Seraphim, surrounded by the vacuum of space—nowhere to go but at the enemy Harpies gunning for the Sleipnir.

The farther away from the ship the Seraphim raced, the less conscious he was of his physical body on the bridge. He still had some awareness, but the link was thin after a few hundred kilometers. More and more, he was becoming the Seraphim drone. The thrusters were his feet, and after a few stumbling steps, he was flying across space. The magneto-cannons were his arms. Strong. Powerful. Ready to lash at the beasts that had murdered his family.

Time passed like molasses rolling down a jar; it had only been seconds, but there seemed to be many long minutes of Berto staring at the same spot in space as he raced to meet the enemy. He realized it was the Seraphim drone’s processing power augmenting his brain. Information was sorted before him—data displaying power consumption, flight path, weapon status, and enemy movement.

At his back—now the rear of his drone—the two remaining Seraphim darted toward him. Yrsa’s aura surrounded them. They were shooting a communication beam at him—a stream of curses telling him to bring the Seraphim back to the ship.

But he wouldn’t. He would end these bastards if he could. If not, the Syndroids would reach the Sleipnir, but at least he could die knowing he’d tried to get justice for Laura and his parents.

Berto saw the battle drones aiming their weapons at him. Saw the trajectories blanketing space all around him. Saw the one gap they weren’t able to cover. And he leaped.

Space around him rippled—magnetic beams passing through the spot he’d just been. They tugged at his metal shell and sheared off a few kilograms of nanites. In retaliation, he punched both arms forward, ripping two chunks out of a nearby battle drone. It spun from the blast, bringing the memory of clay pigeons he’d skeet shoot with buddies after a long week working construction. Thrusters on the Harpy flared, attempting to stop the rotation. Berto fired again, nailing the center of the beast, and the thrusters died. It whirled uselessly through a cloud of its own coolant vapor—dead.

Seven more.

Then seven beams cut through his Seraphim drone.

Jumping back into his body on the bridge of the Sleipnir left him dazed. It was like waking from a dream in the dead of night and not knowing what was real.

Revna was unloading a torrent of curses on him in a language he couldn’t understand before she switched to English. “I don’t know if I should be amazed you managed that without an implant or if I should space your ass. You’d better hope we didn’t need that Seraphim.”

Berto examined the ongoing battle. After his connection to the Seraphim, it was as if he were watching the flutter of hummingbird wings. Without his brain being aided by the Seraphim’s computer, he could barely track the ongoing attack.

In a flash, Yrsa’s drones weaved in and out between the battle drones, dodging the gravity beams meant to destroy her. The Sleipnir’s computer painted the beams white, and they skewered through space, traveling unfathomable distances before finally fading. When two Syndroids turned to the Sleipnir, Yrsa dove at them, firing madly—regaining their attention but missing every shot. Berto understood she was trying to buy time rather than outright destroy the Syndroids.

Apparently, the Syndroids realized what she was doing too. Hundreds more Harpies streamed from the Ravager toward them.

“Too late, my draugr friends! Yrsa, blow the power cores!” Revna said.

Before Revna could finish the command, there were two bright explosions as the Seraphim drones exploded in bright flashes of blue and white. Yrsa started awake with a gasp. Out in space, the five Harpies that hadn’t been vaporized in the explosions floated uselessly, all life drained from them.

But the stream of drones from the Ravager continued toward the Sleipnir.

“Prepare for jump.”

Berto didn’t know how to prepare, so he hugged his arms to his chest, and they melted into his suit. Outside the dome, space glowed a rainbow tide. Rippled waves of yellow, blue, green, orange, pink, and red rolled over the Sleipnir. Berto stared at it with wonder—he’d never seen the aurora borealis, but he imagined it wasn’t nearly as grand.

Suddenly, all the artificial gravity generated by the ship ceased. For a brief second, he felt wonderfully weightless. Then the sensation was replaced by a feeling similar to when he would lean back in a chair and nearly tip over. He wanted to panic but looked at Yrsa and saw her demeanor calm—just another day at the spa. Do Chevalier women enjoy spa days? Berto wondered. Probably not. Outside, the rainbow wave vibrated like water bouncing on a booming subwoofer.

Then gravity returned.

Yrsa turned to look at him, eyes narrowed with uncertainty and possibly hatred. Gone was the peaceful spa girl he’d caught a glimpse of seconds before. “Medical bay now!”

Chapter twelve

TRUST ISSUES

Berto grunted as Yrsa shoved him onto the medical bench with superhuman strength, and he thudded painfully against the surface. Yrsa held her hand to his suit, and the material constricted. He tried to sit up, but it became apparent he was fused to the table.

Not again. How is this happening to me again!?

“What are you doing?” Berto’s face grew hot as he strained motionless against the clothing that had turned into shackles.

“How long have you been on Earth, Golem?” Yrsa’s suit formed a block around her fist, and she cocked back to deliver a blow to Berto’s face.

“Golem? What are you—"

As she released the punch, Berto flinched. When it didn’t land, he looked up and saw Revna gripping Yrsa’s forearm in midair. “We’ve confirmed nothing yet,” Revna said. “Besides, if he is what you think he is, what use are your fists?”

“They’ll make me feel better.” Yrsa strained against Revna’s grip; the veins in both women’s necks and faces bulged.

After a tense moment, Yrsa said, “Fine,” and Revna released her. When Yrsa raised her hand again, Berto winced. Yet, instead of planting her knuckles against his face, Yrsa pulled down a helmet-shaped device on a mechanical arm above Berto and forced it onto Berto’s head.

“No, no, no!” Berto didn’t know what Yrsa meant to do, but he was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant.

Revna stayed Yrsa’s hand again. “We’ll do a scan, but trust your gut. What does it tell you? Do you really think this boy is a spy?”

“I tried trusting myself once, and it didn’t work out.” Yrsa spat the words venomously. “You saw him; no human could control a Seraphim from that distance. Not without an implant.”

“It’s not typical,” Revna admitted. “But there are many things in this universe that are not typical.” She laid one hand gently on Yrsa’s. “Save your anger for when we confirm he’s a plant. Your emotion will be useful then.”

Yrsa jerked her hand away from Revna. “You do it, then! Come get me when it is time to inflict some pain.” She left the medical bay.

Berto sighed. “Thank God! What’s her problem?”

“The night of your parents’ death, that’s your earliest memory?” Revna asked, ignoring Berto’s question. She pushed the helmet deeper onto his head.

“What are you doing!?”

Her gaze turned hard. “For now—deep brain scan. For your sake, I hope you check out. I like you, Berto. Now answer the question.”

“Yes, that’s my earliest memory,” Berto said reluctantly.

“I wish I could reassure you that that was a good sign.”

“What are you talking about?” The helmet pressed into his temple uncomfortably, like a giant trying to squish a grape.

“In their quest for the Ancients’ technology, the Syndroids have developed technology to enslave the human mind.”

“Do I seem like someone who’s enslaved to those assholes? I want to kill them. All of them.”

“I believe you. But more than one thing can be true. The Syndroid spies—Golems—started showing up a few decades ago. Most didn’t realize they were under the control of Syndroids.”

Berto’s helmet hummed, and suddenly his brain felt as if a tarantula were crawling through it. Burrowing. Searching. His body wanted to convulse. Wanted to jerk itself out of the seat away from the sensation. He held back the impulse—just barely.

“How is that possible?” Berto asked through clenched teeth.

“It’s not easy, or else the Syndroids would do it more, but it’s possible if they catch a child young enough—or better yet, in the womb.”

The tarantula crawled along Berto’s spine, and he wanted to shiver. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Revna stared at a computer monitor above the medical bench, head cocked, perplexed. “An implant in the child’s brain. Designed with an organic shell making it hard to detect. Rewires their brain with neural pathways that give control to the Syndroids. A Golem might live a completely normal life, then one day”—she snapped her fingers—“they blow up a starship or government building. We only found out about them when a soldier in the Sanctorum reported strange sensations of euphoria and a lack of pain during training sessions—he’d taken a blow to the head, so medical officers performed a deep brain scan and discovered the malfunctioning implant.”

“And what makes you think I’m one of these… Golems?”

“You shouldn’t be able to do what you did without an implant.”

“I thought you said I have ‘abilities.’” The tarantula crawled back up Berto’s spine, and he cringed.

“You have the omega brainwaves, but you shouldn’t have been able to maintain a connection with the Seraphim for more than a couple hundred feet. The fact that you took out a Harpy battle drone without any training—Well, let’s just say that doesn’t happen either.”

The monitor clicked off, and Revna adjusted something on the helmet. The crawling tarantula sensation receded but left Berto feeling like he needed to shower.

“So?” he asked.

“Our diagnostic tools are limited. But there’s no obvious Syndroid implant.”

“I told you!” The pressure around Berto’s chest and legs lessened, and he sat up, rubbing his shoulder where the Syndroid had injured him. It no longer hurt, but he found himself wanting sympathy from Revna.

“I said our tools are limited,” Revna said, giving no sympathy. “Until we get you checked out at the Phalanx outpost, you’re to stay in the crew quarters.”

“Still don’t trust me?” Berto glared at her.

“It seems the misgiving is mutual,” Revna said. Then she sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I’ve told you I like you, Berto. You’re a good kid, and we Earthers have to stick together, no?” She nudged his arm. “But the Syndroids are always evolving, just like us… Well, not like us—more in a conniving and depraved way. And it makes them more dangerous every day.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Yes, there’s a lot I’m not telling you.”

“You’re a liar, then? I thought the Chevalier Sanctorum was supposed to be the good guys.”

“I’ve never told you a falsehood, boy.” Revna was firm, but there was no malice in her voice. “We are the good guys. But the universe isn’t black and white. You’ll learn enough when you’re ready.” She stood to leave but paused in the doorway. “Hate me if you will, but forgive Yrsa for her… passion. She’s a good girl.”

Berto turned his head, looking at the wall and thinking of Yrsa’s hand poised above his head, ready to strike. He was alone in this. If the Chevalier Sanctorum could give him the skills and resources to avenge his family, so be it, but he would never be one of them.

When he looked up to tell Revna to fuck off, she was gone.

Yrsa held the flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaled. Her third in a row, it was one of the last of the pack. The harsh, stinging smoke filled her lungs, and the tingling head rush went to work, slowly eroding her anxiety. But her apprehension spiked again as she replayed a memory—that memory—in her head.

Lying in bed, sheets tangled up in her limbs. One leg draped over her lover, Myrno, a young man from a planet only a few centuries ahead of Earth in technological evolution.

Most of the recruits for the Chevalier Sanctorum were from older planets. Planets that had been a part of the Federation for many millennia. He understood what she was going through. Those from younger worlds were outcasts—while they were often the toughest warriors and would eventually earn the respect of the others, they were always outcasts. First for their ignorance, then for their excellence. Treated as barbarians, uncivilized in the ways of the Council and the federation of planets.

She ran her fingers through his dark chest hair, tracing his ribs, circling his navel, moving down… His hand grabbed hers forcefully.

“Not now,” he said.

“Giving up on me so soon?” she teased. Their encounters usually lasted hours—there was something about Myrno’s planet that gave the men more stamina than Earthers.

“I’m on the first ship,” he said.

To celebrate the completion of the first training phase, the class of recruits would be taken to view a nearby supernova. Unfortunately, the ship they were taking was small, so the class had to be broken into two groups, and Myrno was assigned to the first ship. Yrsa was to be on the second.

She watched him dress, the nanites flowing into a reddish-brown and blue toga-like garment typical to his planet. Though once she’d seen the nanites form a suit of pure white—he’d seem just as confused as Yrsa by the unconscious action. They’d spent minutes laughing about it and calling the armor ‘second-hand junk.’

Now, Myrno pulled a box out from under his bunk, and a glowing red orb fell out. It looked familiar, but Yrsa couldn’t quite place it. “What you got there?”

“Nothing,” Myrno said quickly, stuffing the orb into a satchel.

Then it clicked.

“Why do you have a neutrino—"

A heavy limb, Yrsa couldn’t be sure if it was an arm or a leg, smashed into her face. Myrno climbed on top of her, wrapping his hand around her throat. She tried to bring the nanites from her suit up to her throat to form a barrier but then remembered she was still naked.

Myrno stared into her eyes blankly. No emotion. Why was he doing this? She managed to croak out the question. “Why?”

“I can’t stop it. I’m sorry, Yrsa.”

He was still apologizing when she blacked out.

Yrsa blew a billowing cloud of smoke at the domed ceiling of the bridge as Revna entered. Noticing Revna eyeing her, Yrsa readied herself for the condemnation she knew was coming. But Revna only sat in the captain’s chair and prodded the air, checking the ship’s status.

“You ready for me to go down and take care of the Golem? He in the brig?” Yrsa asked.

“Berto is in the crew quarters.”

“What!?” Yrsa gasped, nearly inhaling the lit cigarette. “Why would you—”

“Relax, daughter. His scan came back clean.”

“Run it again! The computer might have missed it or—”

“Or the Syndroids found a new way to hide spies amongst us,” Revna said. “Yes, the thought has occurred to me. We will have him checked out when we reach Phalanx Four.”

“Phalanx Four? Berto is working for the Syndroids; we can’t take him there. What if he finds a way to bring down the Phalanx system?”

“You’ve never recovered from what Myrno did. Your judgment is clouded. If Berto truly is a Golem, Doc will find out, and Phalanx Four will be the safest place for him to be held. You’ve seen the holding facility.”

“My judgment is clouded!? You saw what Myrno did with your own eyes! You saw half my recruitment class wiped out by a neutrino bomb. Half my friends—vaporized so intensely not even Githsomae could bring them back! Now you’re letting this… Golem, who obviously has Syndroid technology embedded in his mind, walk free about the ship?”

“Friends? That’s not how I remember it.”

Of all the statements Yrsa had made, Revna had chosen the one that stung the most to pick apart. Yrsa glared at Revna, not because the words were meant to hurt but because they were true. Before Myrno had killed half of them, the other recruits had tormented her. But knowing she could have prevented their deaths distorted her memories of them.

“I can’t let it happen again,” Yrsa whispered, taking a drag on the cigarette.

Revna nodded. “Yes, Berto could be a Syndroid plant. But there’s another possibility.”

“What?” Yrsa laughed bitterly through a cloud of smoke. “He’s some kind of ‘chosen one?’”

“Don’t be ridiculous, girl—this isn’t one of your novels. There’s no blind prophet or hobbit or wizard or whatever that will end the war in a day. I only suggest that he could be the next step in evolution.”

Chapter thirteen

THE WEARY

Berto lay in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. Revna and Yrsa were still on the bridge, and it made him wonder if they ever slept.

Confined to the crew quarters all day, he’d only seen Revna on one occasion—passing through on the way to the kitchen. She’d dropped off a plate of barbecue on her way back up to the bridge without saying a word. Yrsa, on the other hand, avoided him altogether.

He didn’t understand her; she’d been so nice when he’d first met her. So welcoming. But after escaping the Harpies, she’d turned on a dime. Berto had never thought he would consider Revna the friendly one.

When Revna had escorted him into the crew quarters, she’d left him a datapad. It was a tablet-like device that he couldn’t figure out how to use at first. There were no buttons. Tapping the screen did nothing. Then he realized, like the Seraphim drones, it interfaced directly with his brain.

Berto searched his mind for the sensation he’d found earlier before taking control of the Seraphim—the buzzing electric body of the Seraphim calling him in. Begging him to control it. His mind had found the drone easily and been ushered into it. But there was nothing similar with the datapad.

For a short time, Berto could only reflect on recent events, replaying them in his head.

When he thought about Yrsa raising her fist, getting ready to smash his face in, he got angry. Couldn’t she see he was on her side?

It was when his rage peaked, crossing some human emotion threshold, that the datapad flashed to life. On the screen was a recording of the incident—Berto restrained to the table and Yrsa looming over him.

Berto felt the connection with the datapad then. It was nothing akin to the glorious body of the Seraphim. That had been like noticing a boulder in his path. The datapad was a skipping stone. And so his mind had skipped over it until his exasperation boiled over and soaked the device in its bubbling waters.

Now, he was conscious of other pieces of equipment humming their presence in his mind. But unlike the datapad, there was a force around them. Even his jumpsuit wouldn’t allow him to connect with its nanites. Apparently, a barrier had been set up, preventing his mind from interfacing with just about anything.

With a sigh, Berto picked up the datapad and wiped away the image of Yrsa threatening to punch him. The device was set up comparably to an electronic tablet from Earth, though he suspected that was due to his own preconceived notion of how it should look.

On the home screen was a collection of apps. He tried a few that brought up readings of numbers and symbols he couldn’t make heads or tails of. But finally, he opened one that appeared to be a web browser displaying news from Earth.

Scanning through news articles, Berto searched for any information on Laura and the fire that had destroyed their home. He’d hoped that she would be found and given a proper burial. One article did describe firefighters responding to a barn and trailer home inferno, but there was no mention of his cousin. By the time the fire was out, both structures had been reduced to ashes and dust. Investigators suspected arson from evidence suggesting the fire had burned unnaturally hot and were looking for the owners.

Great, Berto thought. Anybody who knows me probably thinks I’m an arsonist now too. But it didn’t matter. Laura’s body was gone. The two plots next to Tía’s grave would remain empty, giving her no company in the afterlife.

Berto spent the rest of the day having the datapad play old country-western songs about righteous men shooting down outlaws. He hardly listened though—his mind reviewed the events of the past few days on repeat as he searched for a way he could have prevented all this.

By the time the lights in the crew quarters dimmed for sleep, he’d come to the same conclusion he’d known all along. I didn’t do enough. This is my fault. He hadn’t even been able to destroy more than one Syndroid. Revna had treated that action as miraculous, but it didn’t feel that way. One life didn’t balance the scales. No, his family was worth more than a million of those mechanical monsters’ lives. Berto wouldn’t be even until they were all dead.

Berto was still seething, staring holes into the ceiling, when he heard footsteps descending the ladder from the bridge in the dark. He didn’t bother to look at who it was. He didn’t care. Yrsa? Revna? Neither was a friend. Neither cared about him—only that he was a weapon their army could use.

Or an enemy they could take off the chessboard.

When a hand wrapped around his arm, Berto went to slap it away, but his suit dampened the movement like he was underwater.

“Watch it!” Yrsa hissed. “I could end you!” Berto’s suit constricted as Yrsa flexed her power.

“What do you want?”

“I want to see the real you. The Syndroid spy. I want no regrets when I see you suffer.”

Again with this? “I’m not a fucking Syndroid. Or Golem. Or whatever the fuck! I’m human. I killed one of those bastards. Would I do that if I were one of them?”

“You killed nothing but a lump of metal. The Syndroid detransmitted before you destroyed the drone. It was probably in a new Harpy before the Sleipnir jumped.” She pulled him off the bunk, and he thudded against the floor, knocking the air out of him. “If you’re not a Golem, prove it.”

When Berto could breathe again, he followed Yrsa down the ladder to the level below. As he descended the rungs, he thought about what she had said. Detransmitted? Can Syndroids leave their bodies before death? There had been a rug beneath Berto’s feet, and now it had been pulled out from under him. This would make killing them much more complicated.

Reaching the next level down, Yrsa shoved Berto into a room. Before him were the large recessed tanks he’d spied earlier. Their pooled surfaces shone like mirrors where the unknown liquid rested, occasionally rippling from the turbulence of the space jump.

“What is this place?” Berto asked.

“Training room. On the larger warships, the vats can be used to control a Mikkel drone, but you’ll never get a chance to experience that. Once I confirm you’re a Golem, you’ll never breathe real air again.”

Berto didn’t bother arguing with her. “But what do the vats do?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”

His only response was silence.

“Fine,” Yrsa said. “You want to play this game; I’ll play. Think about the vats as giant neural implants. They focus and magnify your brainwaves—increasing logic, emotion, imagination. Someone in a tank can create a whole new world in their mind. Nanites in the aether recreate the sensation you would experience if it were real. You want to climb a mountain, you think it into existence, your body acts as if you’re climbing, and the nanites push against you, fatiguing your muscles.”

Berto released a pent-up breath. This was getting ridiculous. “So what, I’m supposed to create some new world and prove I’m human?”

“No, I’m going to prove you’re a Syndroid plant in my world.”

Chapter fourteen

NO REST

Berto stood at the rim of the immersion tank. Silvery liquid— aether, Berto reminded himself—lapped against his shins with a thick, oily wetness. The part of his suit that had wrapped his legs was melting into the slurry. He could feel the knurled stair treads at his feet, leading deeper into the tank. He stepped down—the nanites of his suit dissipating like sugar in warm water.

Up to Berto’s bare chest in the pool, the liquid was heavy against him. Yet it parted around his body easily, as if it recognized him as an authority.

Glaring at Yrsa, Berto said, “Now what?”

She matched his gaze, burning two holes through his skull. But she stepped off the training room floor and into her own immersion tank. Her stare never left Berto as she sank deeper into the vat, but as the nanites of her suit rolled off her breasts, Berto averted his eyes. Submitting.

“Don’t you dare feign innocence with me,” Yrsa said.

“If I were a Golem, wouldn’t I deserve your sympathy? I wouldn’t even know what I am, right? That’s what Revna said—so why would you hate me?”

“I—” Yrsa’s eyes softened. But only for a second. “I don’t owe you an explanation. You can connect with the tank now. Just submerge and wait for me.”

Wait for you? Berto wanted to ask but didn’t bother—they’d said all they needed to say. He took a deep breath and dropped beneath the liquid.

The tank hummed in Berto’s mind. He didn’t even need to reach out for it; it reached out to him, clawing its way into his mind with the same tarantula crawling he’d felt earlier.

Instinctively, Berto bucked for the surface, but something held on to him while the aether crept across his brain and down his spine. He held his breath as long as he could. When his lungs seemed ready to burst, his body jolted once more against the tank, and he shot through the surface of the liquid, gasping for air. He went to wipe away the fluid but found his face completely dry.

In fact, he was no longer standing in the pool of aether. The pool was nowhere in sight—just blackness. But not the blackness of night or even the all-encompassing dark he’d once experienced when touring a cave. This was the black of infinity—he could see forever in every direction. And in every direction, there was nothing.

As he waited, his mind reached out around him, tentacles of focused sensory energy grasping for something to hold. Searching to latch onto. Something solid. But he found nothing. Not even his body felt like a home for his thoughts, for his self—it was something foreign and false, but it was all he had.

Berto took a deep breath, trying to calm and center himself. Trying to convince himself that he was real, despite the notion that all his memories were just a dream. Soon, Yrsa would be here, and she would sort this out.

When several minutes passed and she hadn’t shown up, Berto began shouting her name. Or whispering it—he couldn’t tell.

Is she doing this on purpose? Am I trapped forever in this mental prison?

Having to do something and seeing no other option, Berto ran. The ground was solid, and the air felt real, but it was as if these were the only two things in existence. He couldn’t even hear the repetitious plodding footsteps. Yet he could feel the burn in his legs as he ran, and that gave him hope that somewhere out there, he was real.

Yrsa’s words echoed in his mind. “…the nanites push against you, fatiguing your muscles.”

But as he ran on, he started doubting whether those words had ever been spoken. He didn’t understand this place—it was as if it were awaiting substance to be snapped into existence. Nothing existed outside of it, and barely anything inside it. None of his hurt, none of his rage. Nothing.

No, he remembered. Laura. Laura was real. Is real. So where the hell is Yrsa?

Yrsa kept an eye on Berto until he disappeared beneath the silvery fluid. A minute later, a roiling burst at the surface told her he’d given the last of his air and was totally consumed in the mental immersion of the aether tank. She knew she should give herself over as well—without a structure provided by her experienced Chevalier mind, Berto would probably think his soul was being stretched out by the gravity of a black hole.

But his soul belonged to the Syndroids, so she didn’t care.

She counted the seconds ticking by and wondered how many typical Earth human lives she had lived by now. Ten? A hundred?

Probably—but not in physical years. Synapses firing a million times faster than natural meant those in the Chevalier Sanctorum experienced time differently—at least when connected to specific pieces of technology. A time dilation not caused by hyperspeed but by mental stimulation.

Her thoughts were distracted by a buzzing in her skull, alerting her that Revna wished to speak.

“What?” Yrsa asked, annoyed.

“Come to the bridge.”

“I—”

“Now!”

Yrsa looked at the tank where Berto was still submerged beneath the water. She’d only intended to make him sweat—give him a few seconds slowed down to hours in an unstructured mind hole. Admittedly, part of her wondered if she was justified in her treatment of Berto. Or even if her hatred was warranted. Then Yrsa remembered Myrno and the relationship with him that had left her as an outcast among the Chevalier Sanctorum, even now.

A few minutes wouldn’t hurt Berto. If anything, it’d make forcing the truth from him easier.

“I’m on my way,” Yrsa said. As she rose out of the immersion tank, the nanites from her suit flowed from the liquid up to her body, covering her in a jumpsuit once more. Once, the crawling micron-measured robots had tickled her skin, but now she hardly noticed them.

When Yrsa reached the bridge, she stared up at the ceiling. Gone were the shifting lights of jump space. Her neck bristled like an irate hound. “We’re days from Phalanx Four; why’d you pull us out? More Syndroids?”

“Relax, daughter,” Revna said. “There are no enemy ships in the vicinity.”

“Then why—” Yrsa noticed a faint blinking purple haze half an astronomical unit from the ship; a synchronous blip pricked her mind as she watched it. “Emergency beacon?”

Revna nodded. “Lifeboat from the Kavach.”

“Lifeboat?” Yrsa’s heart sank. She had few friends, and more than one had been on the Shepherd-class warship designated the Kavach. “How many survivors?”

“Initial scans suggest two.”

Yrsa’s knees wobbled. She stayed upright only thanks to her suit. Two survivors from a Shepherd-class ship crewed by hundreds—her brain had yet to comprehend the loss. “How could this happen?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“The Ravager we saw—”

“The Kavach should have been able to wipe them out of existence.”

Revna nodded, then pouted. “Fully staffed by Sanctorum knights and well-maintained—undoubtedly. But our federation’s bowstring has grown taut, and now it is in danger of snapping.” Her hand went to push an invisible lever forward but hesitated.

“Why are you waiting? We have to rescue the survivors!”

“We must use caution,” Revna said.

“You think it’s a trap?”

“What does your gut tell you?”

Yrsa looked inward. Her heart told her to rescue the two Chevaliers on the lifeboat. It would never make up for the lives Myrno had taken—the lives she could have saved. But it would be a start. Her brain, on the other hand, told her to be wary—the Syndroids had only grown more devious in recent years, and something did feel off… “To hell with my gut. Those two people on that lifeboat need us!”

“Very well, daughter, but we approach slowly. Keep eyes on the lifeboat while I get us into position. If anything seems out of place, blow it with the ship’s cannon.”

For the next hour, Yrsa kept her eyes focused on the lifeboat as Revna maneuvered the Sleipnir closer at an excruciatingly slow pace. She looked for any sign of a trap or incoming message, but the boat only floated languidly in space. The Sleipnir’s sensors indicated it was on minimal power—the energy signature was so faint it was probably only life-support systems. Yet even a dead jump core could be imploded to create a mini black hole.

When Revna finally had the Sleipnir on a holding trajectory with the lifeboat, Yrsa prepared to take control of a Seraphim drone to inspect the craft.

“Before you do that,” Revna said, “bring Berto up. I want to keep an eye on him for this.”

Shit. The air rushed out of Yrsa’s chest. She’d utterly forgotten about him. Her heart suddenly felt too big. Each second that passed sent pounding waves of blood streaming through her veins to her face.

“Yrsa, I said go get Berto,” Revna repeated.

Finally, Yrsa remembered to breathe. But it didn’t stop the battering ram in her chest. “I fucked up.”

Revna spun in her chair to face Yrsa. “Daughter, what did you do?”

“I took Berto to the aether immersion tanks. I was going to—”

“Tell me you gave him a framework, and he hasn’t been floating through a blank canvas for an hour. Tell me you gave that boy’s mind something to latch onto and ground him.”

Yrsa shook her head, eyes large and glazed over. Even if he was a Golem, she hadn’t meant to do this.

“Nobody can blame you for what Myrno did,” Revna said, anger biting into her voice. “But if Berto has been broken, it will be because of your action.”

Chapter fifteen

RAVAGER

The Syndroid scout stood in the receiving hall of the Typhon Ravager floating above the dark side of Earth’s moon. This body felt different, and he uncomfortably shifted nanites around, trying to find an arrangement that would leave him content. After several minutes, he gave up.

The skinbag Chevalier on Earth had destroyed his primary body—the one he’d spent years tweaking to where it fitted just right. Inhabiting his alternate Siren body seemed just as unnatural as that of the Harpy battle drones. But the scout counted himself lucky. The particular Sanctorum warrior he’d faced had a reputation.

A microsecond of lag in detransmission, and I would have died.

Still, the Syndroid hadn’t died. In fact, the mission had been an incredible success. He had tracked down the girl, confirmed she had omega wave capabilities, and run a full scan of her brain pattern. It wasn’t perfect—she’d put up one hell of a fight during the scan. But blanks could be filled in, and they’d still be able to use her. The loss of the scout’s companion was only a minor setback.

The scout thought back to the fight he’d had with the girl, then shortly later, the boy. Both had put up more resistance than he’d thought possible. Especially without the brain implants the Chevalier Sanctorum was so fond of.

The scout shifted the skin of his suit again, trying to get comfortable. Perhaps it was a good thing his primary body was destroyed. When he’d gone to scan the boy’s brain, something… Something must have malfunctioned. Maybe his old Siren body had just been getting worn and had glitched. That had to be why he hadn’t been able to complete the brain scan of the boy. Nothing else makes sense.

“Why are you in that form?” A voice echoed across the hall.

The disgust in the tone made the Syndroid scout shiver. “My apologies, sir. Habit of the job.” The nanites forming his skin pulled back and changed hues, exposing the metallic nature of his body.

The Siren didn’t like this configuration; he felt exposed. Naked. But one did not argue with Apyllon, one of Lycen’s top lieutenants and, therefore, one of the highest-ranking Syndroids. Certainly not when Apyllon’s form was that of a Typhon Ravager. And doubly not when one was inside the body of that hulking battleship.

An ambiguous humanoid specter rose from the nanites comprising the floor at the scout’s feet. Though he would never admit it, it was eerie seeing a body grow from the ground, melting in reverse. Uncomfortable with the proximity, the scout fell a step back and dropped into a deep bow.

“Rise, scout,” Apyllon’s specter said. “We are not human with their petty subserviences, and this is not a time for bowing. We are of many minds made one. If your loyalty were questionable, your synapses would no longer be firing. The only question is, what information could be so valuable as to impose on Lycen the thought that I should expedite my arrival here rather than ransom the Vessel I spent days fighting the Sanctorum for?”

“A Vessel? You have a Vessel?”

The scout’s visual sensors flared brightly as an overwhelming force invaded his body. Bits of digitized pain receptors flashed into his brain, giving an agonizing sensation he’d rarely needed to endure in many years. The scout recoiled from the torment.

“I had a Vessel. Undoubtedly that Sanctorum ship we spotted will reach it long before any of our forces can.”

“I’m sorry, sir! If I had known—”

“If you had known, you wouldn’t have sent the communique to Ahtoglo?” The specter stood over the scout a moment before turning its back. When it did, the pain burning in the scout ceased. “All these years and yet our nature remains. I must remind myself that your nature, like so many others, is that of greed and envy. It’s only natural for you to be this way.”

The scout didn’t know what to say. The nature of his clandestine work meant he was often isolated from the rest of the Syndroid populace. There had been no way to know his report would interfere with Apyllon’s mission. The scout took a chance and agreed, hoping it would mollify Apyllon, “It’s my nature, sir.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

The specter whipped around and grabbed the scout by his throat, lifting him high into the air. “Only we are not natural beasts, are we? We saw the weakness of nature and chose to be something better! Why do Syndroids like you continue to drive a wedge into our society?”

The scout could feel his electrical systems glitch out and tweak at the sudden violent movement. The pain returned, bringing along terror this time. The scout watched as his nanite skin surfaced and was absorbed by the specter. His mind was invaded by Apyllon’s presence thrashing about, wreaking havoc on its digital synapses. Soon it would be nothing—physical or digital.

But as suddenly as it began, the attack stopped, and the scout was placed on his feet.

And the scout knew why. As Apyllon had ripped apart the binary that formed the scout’s mind, he had come across a memory. The girl, Laura. The scan of her omega brainwaves.

The downloading of her mind.

“You found one. An aberration on the eve of this planet’s evolutionary leap forward?”

The scout didn’t want to say these next words, but the information couldn’t be hidden. “I found two, actually—male and female. Related. But the Sanctorum arrived before I could transcribe the male’s brain pattern.”

“I sense that is not all.”

“They both put up a stronger fight than I thought possible.”

The specter nodded. “Young planets, before they reach the next leap forward, are often full of surprises. We’ve never successfully transcribed an aberration before. And the rest are useless until the leap or their transcendence to the Vessel. Of course, by then, the Sanctorum is so far up the planet’s ass we can’t get close.”

The scout said nothing—he didn’t dare draw Apyllon’s wrath again. Instead, he opened his chest, exposing a ball of data. It contained nano particulates in a gaseous form and glowed with shifting browns, greens, and blues. Bright flashes annotated the synapses of Laura’s mind firing.

Apyllon’s specter gingerly accepted the form and swallowed it into its own body. “Two would have been better than one, and now the Sanctorum and Federation of Humanities have another aberration of their own…”

The scout braced himself for another attack.

“…but you have done well. You’ve succeeded where no one else has, and it’s too late for the male to be of any use to Sanctorum anyway.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What is it you desire for a reward? A fleet of new bodies—insurance that you will never fully die? Never fully ‘rust to death’?”

The siren’s spirits lifted; he’d given up hope of a reward. “That would be—”

“I’ll give you one new body,” the specter said.

The scout’s heart sank. Only one lousy Siren body for all my hard work?

“It’s of a prototype material—most is going to new Harpy battle drones. The number of Siren scouts we’re manufacturing is limited. I think you’ll find the new body more than adequate as a reward.”

Prototype material? The metal nanites the Syndroids used to build their bodies hadn’t changed in millennia. It was so old—so versatile—even the Federation of Humanities used it in all their technology. How could it possibly be improved upon?

“I’ll await the new body eagerly,” the scout said.

“Of course, since I’m bestowing such a powerful gift, you’ll be in my employ moving forward. I’ll see to it that your clandestine work for Lycen’s scout corps is covered.”

As quickly as the Siren’s spirits lifted, they dropped. Before, he’d been left to his own patrolling of the outer planets, and now he would have to answer to Apyllon. But he quickly pushed the sinking sentiment away, lest Apyllon catch on. “Thank you, sir.”

Apyllon seemingly ignored the scout. The specter turned its head and spoke to a Syndroid deeper in the ship. “Connect me to the Kavach’s lifeboat; our spy’s insistence annoys me.”

The specter turned back as if irritated the scout was still there. “You are dismissed.” The scout turned to leave but paused when he heard his name. “Oh, and, Myrno, be sure to recharge. We may need your help in dealing with the female; I remember how convincing you can be.”

Laura would have looked around if she could have. There was nothing to see—no darkness, no light. And sight wasn’t the only sense gone; there was no sensation of cold air on her skin. No feeling of the ground beneath her or the weightlessness of floating. No quiet, indiscernible humming or clicking. No taste of her tongue resting against the roof of her mouth. But the oddest was the lack of smell. She’d never realized how much her nose had picked up before—scents left unregistered by her brain. Now there was nothing, and it made her panic.

But even the panic was muted. She knew something was wrong but couldn’t even string a sentence together within her internal monologue. Wh—Why? Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy.

A memory flashed into vision, stunning her senses. Waiting on Berto. Berto Berto Berto. Cleaning a shoe at the sink. The door explodes inward. A man—plain, average. Rushes her. Rushes Rushes. Grabbing. Her throat being crushed. Air. No air. A fist held to her forehead. Lightheaded. Drunk. No, not until Berto. Berto Berto. Cousin help!

Dead.

She was dead.

Memories played over and over. Her mind, a broken reel of movie film being scotch-taped together. Memories of her father before his passing—a trip to Six Flags in San Antonio. Collapsing to the ground. His death. The ash-spreading ceremony in El Paso when her mother finally found strength a year later.

There were gaps.

She couldn’t taste the funnel cake’s powdered sugar or fried dough at the theme park. Couldn’t hear the sounds of the roller coaster overhead as he gripped his chest and fell to the ground. Her father’s lifeless eyes staring at her were hazy, like being viewed behind a mesh screen. And when the urn tipped and his remains poured out to feed a new sapling in his favorite childhood park, the feeling of the ashes in her hands burned—even as she muddied them with her tears.

Dead.

Purgatory?

Hell.

This was her hell. She was doomed to live forever in this realm of anguish and loss. Never quite reliving it. But remembering.

Remembering. Remembering. Remembering.

Chapter sixteen

ASHES

“I fucked up,” Yrsa repeated.

“You need to get down to the aether tanks and pull Berto out. Now!” Revna said.

Yrsa glanced up at the lifeboat, now drifting so close to them. Yet its flashing beacon appeared to have dimmed. She thought of her friends on the Kavach. Maharaj would have never abandoned ship; he would have tried to ram the enemy and detonate before that. Yet her closest friend and former mentor was also on the Kavach. “But Rasso could—”

“I don’t give an ox’s dung heap if one of your friends is on the lifeboat—NOW!” Veins pulsed in Revna’s forehead, and it looked as if steam might pour out of her nostrils.

Yrsa ran to the ladder and began climbing down. She’d never seen Revna this irate before. Yrsa was supposed to be the one perpetually bitter at Revna. That the dynamic had changed so drastically created a sense of urgency in Yrsa.

What’s the worst that could have happened to Berto? Surely, after a few minutes, he would have figured out how to dampen the processing capability and reduce the sense of time dilation. Then she thought of her training twenty years prior—days spent in an aether tank trying to slow or speed up her mind as experienced Chevalier knights walked her through it. Each day had consisted only of a few minutes in the tanks, but she’d gone to bed each night exhausted like she had spent weeks alone in the outback.

Yrsa’s implant hummed, and Revna’s voice popped into her head. “I’m going to connect to a Seraphim to communicate faster when you’re in the tank. The Seraphims don’t process as quickly as the tanks, so ensure you create a textual interface.”

“This will just take,” Yrsa said, panting as she climbed, “a few minutes. Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“There’s no telling what his mind has created since you left him. The Sleipnir’s giving strange readings from the tanks.”

Yrsa’s feet hit the ground outside the training bay. Inside, each aether tank roiled with silvery liquid, casting shimmering lights against the walls like a Pink Floyd concert.

Fuck. What was Berto doing in there?

She hesitated. Could Berto have disabled the safety functions? It doesn’t matter. I’m a Chevalier.

Casting all thoughts aside, she dove into a tank before she could get cold feet. The nanites melted off her body in the turbulent flow.

Normally, she needed to connect to the aether tank. Now, it was reaching out to her, dragging a clawed hand across her brain. She wanted to fight the sensations. Instead, she allowed the tank in.

Here we go, she thought as she hit the bottom of the tank and her grip on reality slipped.

When she opened her eyes, she stood on a mountaintop overlooking a sprawling city in the desert. What, where am I? She expected the dark not-darkness every recruit saw in their first aether tank experience. Perhaps even a childhood bedroom. Not a whole city.

“Berto!” she called into the wind. But there was no response, only a firefly that drifted past, flashing its hello, despite bright sunlight all around.

Noticing a lump in the pocket of the high-waisted blue jeans she wore, Yrsa reached in, expecting to find the flat form of a modern Earth smartphone. Instead, she pulled out a blocky metal and plastic device—a lumpy Nokia cell phone that looked older than even the cell phones that had been becoming popular before she’d left the Earth. Can I even send Revna a text on this thing?

She concentrated on the device, trying to transform it into something with a more user-friendly interface. But the brick only lay motionless in her hand. It was odd; even in someone else’s world within the aether tanks, a Chevalier could usually manage control of the space in their direct proximity.

Deciding to test it, she focused on her clothing, trying to change it into the styles that had been predominant on Earth during her latest visit—brown boots, leggings, and a light cardigan. Instead of high leather boots, her plain white sneakers turned into black combat boots. Instead of yoga pants, her jeans remained, but large tears formed at the knees and thighs. Instead of a loose cotton sweater, her neon windbreaker turned into a plain white T-shirt tucked into a flannel overshirt worn as a belt.

It was a style she recognized from high school decades before but far from what she’d intended. What is happening? Somehow, Berto and this world were blocking her from exerting the fundamental power she usually held in the aether.

Yrsa studied the cell phone again, and after navigating through the menus, she found she could send a text message. She typed out a message—I’m in—and hit send.

Berto is down there. Somewhere. Her eyes roamed over the city beneath her. She didn’t know how she was supposed to find him but figured she should get started.

Stepping forward in the rocky soil, Yrsa started to make her way down the mountain. After only a few minutes, she was sweating as the summer sun beat down on her. Jesus, Berto, you couldn’t have picked spring or fall?

She came across a paved road leading down into the city and followed it. Half an hour later, she came across a small hut beside a steel vehicle barrier. A sign near the barrier read ‘Franklin Mountains State Park.’

Yrsa ducked under the steel gate arm and continued on. Franklin Mountains? I’m in El Paso.

Yrsa had never been to El Paso, but Revna had mentioned it one night after one stein too many of particulator mead. The story of how she’d rescued a boy from the Syndroids in the shadow of the Franklin Mountains. Revna had tried to make it sound like a story of happy victory, but the quiver in her voice had betrayed it as one of sorrow. Revna hadn’t been able to save Berto’s mother or father.

Yrsa felt she was dying of thirst by the time she reached the city, which implied that the aether tank wasn’t sufficiently cooling her body. Recruits often had to endure worlds like this, set up by their trainers to make them endure conditions they might face in various environments. But it took skill and a deep understanding of the aether technology to override the standard settings.

The fact that Berto had built such an extensive world in the first place was worrisome. The fact that she now had pools of sweat collecting at her armpits and between her breasts only added to her suspicions. I don’t care what the scans show. There is something off with Berto.

Even so, he didn’t deserve this. The aether tanks were basically quantum computers, providing processing as fast as the user could handle. She didn’t want to think about how many hours—how many years—could have passed in Berto’s mind. She hoped if he could do this, he could limit the time dilation. But Yrsa had yet to receive a response from Revna, which was worrisome.

Yrsa entered the first gas station she saw and was surprised to find a person behind the counter. It wasn’t Berto but a man she recognized from monitoring Berto in the days leading up to his enlistment.

“Hello, Jared,” Yrsa said, going to a cooler, pulling out a bottle of water, and chugging the contents. When she turned back, Jared had his head cocked to the side.

“You don’t belong here,” Jared said in a voice eerily chipper.

“Yeah, I get the feeling you don’t either. Where’s Berto?”

“You don’t belong here.”

Yrsa sighed. Apparently, Berto’s subconscious wasn’t going to cooperate.

A television mounted high in one corner of the store turned on and flashed the snowy static of background radiation. But rather than the roaring noise typical of older box TVs, it emanated a low moaning whale call.

“Turn on the captions,” Yrsa said.

Jared picked up a remote control from the counter, aimed it at the TV, and clicked a button. Two letters appeared at the bottom of the screen—‘An.’

Yrsa waited. As the moaning continued for several minutes, more letters appeared until the message was finally spelled out. ‘Any luck?’

The phone in her pocket beeped, and Yrsa saw she had received an identical text message. She typed out a response to Revna and sent it—Working on locating Berto.

When she left the gas station, Jared called after her. “You need to pay for that water! You’re not being a team player!”

How am I going to find Berto? She had no idea where he would be, so she walked through the streets in the direction she assumed to be toward the city’s center.

A few blocks from the gas station, she came across a group of young boys volleying a soccer ball with their feet, knees, and heads. As Yrsa approached, they eyed her with suspicion. “You don’t belong here,” they said in unison.

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Berto?”

“Oh, you mean crybaby? He couldn’t save his parents, so he cried about it. What a loser.”

Yrsa snatched the ball out of thin air and squeezed it until it popped.

“Hey!” the boys cried.

The rumble of a pickup engine appeared out of nowhere. Yrsa turned to see a beat-up Chevrolet stopped fifteen feet away. A pair of people sat on the bench seat—a woman in her mid-twenties and a young girl with long dark hair. The woman exited the driver’s seat and stared at Yrsa with narrowed eyes.

“I know,” Yrsa said. “I don’t belong.”

The girl tugged on the woman’s arm and said something unintelligible. The woman looked down at her, then back up at Yrsa and said, “You need a ride?”

Yrsa didn’t know where the woman was going, but she was a part of Berto’s mind. Anywhere the woman took her would probably get Yrsa closer to finding Berto and getting him out of the aether world.

With a nod, Yrsa walked over to the passenger side door and squeezed onto the seat next to the little girl. It took her a minute, but Yrsa recognized the little girl too—a young Laura in a frilly sundress and holding a ceramic vase protectively in her lap. That meant the woman was Berto’s aunt.

“Where are we going?” Yrsa asked.

“You don’t belong here,” the aunt said, putting the truck in drive and edging into the street.

“Mamá,” Laura said, “don’t be mean!” She turned to look at Yrsa. Laura’s eyes were large and innocent, somehow both sorrowful and full of life. “We’re going to the park to spread Papá’s ashes. You’re looking for Berto, right?”

“That’s right,” Yrsa said.

“He’s coming too,” Laura said.

The aunt peered through the windshield at the sky, where darkened clouds were gathering. “Looks like rain. We won’t be able to wait too long, mija.”

While the woman drove, Yrsa typed out a message to Revna—Found him. A park in El Paso to spread the uncle’s ashes.

Once the message was sent, Yrsa stared out the window as the world Berto had created rolled by. It was impressive—even if the Syndroids were supplementing his natural abilities. Every building was unique and realistic. They lacked the plasticky characteristics many recruits and even experienced Chevaliers formed when imagining worlds. Each neighborhood had its own character—she saw another Jared walking with a familiar woman with red hair—even if it was populated solely by people from Berto’s head.

Yrsa wasn’t even sure she could create a space that seemed so real.

Ten minutes later, they arrived. Oak trees surrounded an open field where the group of kids she’d met earlier kicked around a soccer ball. A radio sat in the grass, playing the upbeat, heavy percussion and brass of cumbia music.

After they parked, Berto’s aunt pulled a small potted tree and shovel out of the bed of the pickup. “Doing some gardening?” Yrsa asked sarcastically.

The woman only rolled her eyes and trudged into the park.

“Mamá’s still sad,” Laura said as she and Yrsa walked between the trees, “even though Papá’s in heaven watching us.”

“And you?” It felt strange asking Berto’s imagined cousin about her emotional status. Still, the girl was the one person in this world who treated her humanely. Maybe it was Yrsa’s time to repay the favor. “How are you feeling?”

Laura hugged the vase tighter. “I’m sad too. I didn’t want to bring him all the way here. I thought he wouldn’t be able to see me from El Paso. But Mamá says it doesn’t matter where his ashes are—he can see us anywhere.”

“She’s right, you know,” Yrsa said, trying and failing not to think about the last time she had seen her father. Lying in a pine box, hands clasped to his chest, gaunt face unreadable.

“How do you know?”

“My papa died too.”

“He did?”

“Yes.” Yrsa’s eyes clouded, and a lump formed in her throat. Still, she forced the words out. “But I can feel him all around me. All the time. Even when I’m really far away.”

“As far as El Paso to Austin?”

“Much farther.” Yrsa wiped away a tear and forced herself to think about something else.

They reached a small clearing where Berto’s aunt had stopped. More people were gathering around—some Yrsa recognized from surveilling Berto, some she didn’t, but none were Berto. The boys who’d been playing soccer were walking over. They’d abandoned the radio, now emitting a low moaning sound that Yrsa recognized.

Revna is sending me a message. Yrsa checked her phone, but it hadn’t come through yet.

“You don’t belong here,” a man in a cowboy hat said to her.

“You don’t belong here,” Berto’s red-haired former coworker said.

“You don’t belong here!”

“You don’t belong here!”

The group pressed in, and Yrsa backed up until a small hand wrapped around two of her fingers.

“Stop being mean!” Laura shouted at them.

As if nothing had been wrong, the men and women advancing on Yrsa turned around and watched Berto’s aunt as she dug a hole for the sapling. After several minutes, the woman was drenched in sweat as she struggled to excavate the hard-packed soil. The wind had picked up, whipping the aunt’s hair in a frenzy as dark clouds rolled over the nearby Franklin Mountains.

Yrsa pushed through the crowd, stopping before the aunt and holding out a hand.

“It’s not your job,” Berto’s aunt said.

“You don’t need to do this alone,” Yrsa said.

For a second, the woman looked like she was about to hand over the shovel. Then a clap of thunder sounded as the first drops of rain hit the ground. Instead, she shoved Yrsa aside. “We’re all alone in the end.”

At that moment, Yrsa’s phone chimed with Revna’s text—Berto never made it to the park. He’s reliving the night his parents were killed. Beneath the message was an address.

Yrsa ran out of the crowd and back to the pickup truck. She searched the glovebox, found a road map, and examined it until she located Berto’s street. Climbing into the driver’s seat, she went to start the vehicle only to find the keys were missing.

Crap! There was no way Berto’s aunt would hand over the keys.

“Need these?” Laura asked, standing outside the truck and jingling a set of keys, oblivious to the rain pelting her.

“Thanks.” Yrsa took the keys.

“I hope you can help him. This place makes us sad, but Berto won’t let us move on.”

Wondering at the statement, Yrsa left Laura standing in the grass and pulled out of the parking lot into the street. It was still empty of cars, so she didn’t bother stopping at red lights or stop signs as she navigated toward the address Revna had given her.

As she turned onto the street from the address, an old Toyota Camry drove past, going the other way. Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the vehicle, Yrsa only had time to look as it drove by. A man and woman sat in the front seat; in the back was a young boy, screaming and kicking the seat in front of him while tears streamed down his face.

Yrsa tried to U-turn, but the narrow streets made it difficult, and it took several attempts before the truck finally pointed the right way. By then, the Camry was far ahead, turning onto a busy street.

Busy street? The road that had been empty only moments ago was now filled with cars, and Yrsa had to scan the traffic to find the Camry. It turned off the busy road—now flooding with foul-smelling water—and went down a side street.

Yrsa tried to catch up, but the increased traffic made it difficult, and the old pickup drove like a brick through mud. Still, she managed to stay close enough to spy the sedan turning at various intersections until it reached a road leading up into the mountains.

Scenic Drive lacked the city’s traffic, and Yrsa finally made some progress gaining on the sedan. She flashed her lights at the car and honked her horn, trying to get Berto’s father to stop, but her signals went ignored.

As they came upon a steeper hill, the pickup’s engine struggled to push the heavy vehicle up the slope. Even as Yrsa pinned the gas pedal to the floor, the Camry was creeping away from her.

When the sedan reached the top of the hill, Yrsa was far behind, crawling upward and praying the truck didn’t stall. The distance didn’t prevent Yrsa from seeing what happened next, though.

A shadow darted at the Camry from the roadside, smashing it through the metal barricade. Yrsa watched in horror as the car tumbled down the side of the mountain, flipping end over end, cracking against boulders and crushing scraggly bushes while sending rocks and gravel flying. The shadow straightened up, revealing it to be a slender redheaded woman. But not the coworker Yrsa had seen earlier.

Syndroid. Yrsa’s blood boiled despite knowing it was just a memory from Berto’s mind.

When Yrsa finally reached the top of the hill, the Syndroid had already begun to hike down to the smoking car a hundred feet below. Yrsa yanked the pickup’s parking brake and jumped out, running to catch up and leaping down from one rocky ledge to another. She had to get to the woman before she reached Berto. “Hey, you! Stop!” she shouted.

The Syndroid woman ignored her until Yrsa finally caught up and grabbed her shoulder.

The Syndroid’s eyes flared, glowing a faint yellow. “You don’t belong here!” The Syndroid gripped Yrsa’s hand, grinding the bones together.

“Ah—” Yrsa gasped, instinctively trying to direct her nanite armor to protect her hand and buffer her strength. Then she remembered the suit was gone, and she was in Berto’s world. Yrsa lashed out, aiming her fist at the Syndroid’s perfectly symmetrical face.

It dodged the blow with a twitch of the head and laughed. “What’s that supposed to do, skinbag? Go ahead; I’ll give you a freebie.”

Yrsa didn’t hesitate. She swung her free hand once more at the Syndroid’s face, this time connecting. Her knuckles cracked against a cheek as hard as a concrete wall. Pain exploded in her hand, radiating from her knuckles deep into her forearm.

“Wasn’t a good idea, was it?” The Syndroid gave an innocent grin before its hand shot at Yrsa’s throat, wrapping around it and choking off her airway.

As the Syndroid lifted her into the air, Yrsa panicked. Berto had overridden the aether tank’s cooling function; had he overridden the other safety functions too? Was her physical body being choked by the nanites in the aether tank?

As the Syndroid squeezed, Yrsa’s mind slowly slipped away. Her brain was cut off from blood flow. That wasn’t a figment of Berto’s imagination.

Yrsa felt her pockets, searching for the phone. One hand was heavy and thick, like clay. The other was slippery with blood and aching. But she finally fumbled out the cell phone.

Only to drop it as the Syndroid ragdolled her.

Yrsa’s vision had narrowed to pinpoints, and she struggled to form coherent thoughts. But she managed one last mental image. Her father. His robust and dark body holding her childhood self as he explained why her mother had left them.

“Your mother loves you. But she’s a fighter in Galaxy-wide war for the fate of humanity.”

It made Yrsa mad. As a child, she’d thought her father was lying to her. Just telling her a fairy tale to end her questioning. Now, it made her mad for another reason. There were other Chevalier fighters. Revna hadn’t needed to abandon her; the war was just an excuse.

Berto’s mother was taken from him. But mine chose to leave.

With her fury, something in the world shifted. Suddenly she was no longer in a white T-shirt and cut-up jeans—she was in her nanite jumpsuit.

The nanites crawled up her neck, squeezing between the gaps in the Syndroid’s hand, forcing it away from her throat.

Yrsa fell to the ground, panting for air. I have to get out of here while I still have some control. She focused on the thought of Revna leaving her, letting it fill her with burning rage.

Suddenly sensing the edges of the world Berto had built becoming no more than substantial than tissue paper wrapping her body, Yrsa acted. She ripped at the barrier with her mind, breaking through. The world rushed beneath her, and she was falling upward. Then she broke the surface of the aether tanks, sending the nanites sloshing.

With weakened, numbed arms, she pulled herself to the edge of the tank just as Revna burst into the room. “Thank Odin! I just sensed you were in trouble. I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

“You didn’t make it,” Yrsa said, standing on trembling legs. “But then again, why would I expect you to?”

“Don’t you snap at me, daughter, lest you forget who caused this predicament. Now tell me what happened. Why isn’t Berto with you?” Revna’s sturdy knuckle lifted Yrsa’s chin. “And why does it look like you’ve been in the hangman’s noose?”

Chapter seventeen

CRASH

Berto had seen enough films to realize he was in a time loop. He didn’t know how many iterations of his parents’ last hours he had gone through. Years, probably. But he didn’t know—he didn’t even remember if there was a time before the time loop.

The only thing that mattered was getting out of the loop. In the films, there was always something off in the protagonist’s life—something wrong. And the day was repeated until the hero set it right. For Berto, the thing that was off was easy to determine—his parents’ deaths.

The only problem was—I can never save them.

He thought if only he could stop them from driving to the park. Stop them from taking Scenic Drive; maybe they would live.

But nothing Berto did accomplished that. No amount of persuasion was enough to dissuade their path. No begging could prevent his mother from carrying him to the car and buckling him into the booster seat. No kicking or screaming could turn the car around.

A few iterations prior, Berto had thought he was on the right track; he’d sensed a presence—somebody who didn’t belong in this place. When the red-haired Syndroid was delayed in killing his mother, Berto’s heart leaped.

But she showed up, same as always, only a minute postponed. And, as usual, she crushed Berto’s mother’s head, turned to him, and nearly killed him before a glowing yellow crater appeared in the redhead’s face. As with every other iteration, Berto had just enough time to see the aging Viking goddess that killed his attacker seconds too late to save his mother.

The next time, the Syndroid was on time.

And the time after that.

And a couple more times.

Now he was starting over again. It always started the same. Not upon waking and opening his eyes to the morning sunshine. Not at some breaking point throughout the day. But midbite into a bowl of Frosted Flakes—on more than one occasion, he had nearly choked when the loop reset.

Berto always finished the bowl now. His body felt smaller than it should be, like he was ready to explode out of it. But he had a massive appetite and found if he didn’t eat, he’d be even hungrier on the next iteration. Plus, his mom scolded him if he refused to eat.

“You finished that quickly!” his mother said, scooping the empty bowl off the table.

It was the best part of his day—the hours before the drive his mother always spent with him. It brought joy to his heart yet was always overshadowed by her upcoming death. Many iterations ago, he’d cherished that his mother would rise again with each loop, but now he just wanted the pain to stop.

“Thanks; I was famished.”

“Famished? That’s a big word. Did you learn it from Sesame Street?”

Oops. Berto had forgotten that he needed to limit his vocabulary so as not to freak out his parents. He nodded and mumbled. “Big Bird.”

“What do you want to do today?”

“Can we go to the zoo?” It was a question he’d asked a hundred times, but he hoped against hope the answer would be different this time. He thought if he could just alter their plans for the day, the outcome would change.

“No, mijo, not today. We’re going to meet your tía at the park later. How does tomorrow sound?”

“Yeah, tomorrow.” Berto knew there would be no ‘tomorrow,’ but the prospect of having plans to take him to the zoo always seemed to put his mother in a good mood.

Instead of the zoo, they played board games on the floor of the living room while his father scrutinized the Houston Oilers playing football on a boxy television. Berto kept suggesting other places to go—searching for a place his mother would be willing to take him and forsake their familial obligations.

“Can we go to the botanical gardens?” Berto asked.

His mother looked at him strangely. “Botanical gardens? You want to go see the flowers?”

Berto nodded emphatically.

“I suppose we could…” She looked up at his father. “How about it, mi corazón?”

Distracted by the football game, Berto’s father barely looked at her. “Huh? I thought we were going to the zoo? Monkeys and tigers and all that.”

Berto’s mother stood up and sauntered to where his father sat in a worn recliner. She blocked his view before sitting in his lap, lounging, and wrapping her arms around him. “Mi corazón.” She stared into his eyes. “My love, you always tell me how you plan to take me to the gardens when we’re in El Paso. Now Berto is on board too. What do you say?”

That grabbed his attention. Berto’s father looked up at her with a crooked grin, then turned to Berto. “That’s what you want?”

“Please! Today!” Berto said.

“Then we’ll go.” Berto’s father looked again at his mother. “Tomorrow.” He wrapped one muscular arm around her and tickled her ribs with his free hand while she shrieked with laughter, her dark hair swirling and onyx eyes glinting in the light from an open window.

Dejected, Berto sighed and looked at the clock. No! Time was nearly up, and he’d still succeeded at changing nothing. In fact—

Knock knock knock.

Berto’s mother squealed, still being tickled but pressing herself even closer into his father. “Berto, could you get that?”

Reluctantly, he got up and went to the door. When he opened it, his tía barged in. Berto could see his cousin outside in a pickup truck.

“Sister, what are you doing here?” Berto’s mother asked. “Where’s Laura?”

“I need to talk to you,” his tía said.

“Can’t it wait—”

“No, it’s about the reason I called earlier.” His tía looked at him, unsure. As if judging whether Berto would be old enough to understand.

“Berto, go play in your room,” his mother said. “I need to talk to tu tía.”

Berto pretended he was going to his room but then stood just on the other side of the living room wall. He’d heard the conversation many times before but still listened in case he’d missed anything the thousands of times before now. Anything that might stop his parents.

“Mi hermana!” his mother said in a loud whisper, “I’m not taking your daughter from you!”

“You’re not taking her; I’m giving her!”

“She needs her mother! Especially after this last year!”

“She doesn’t need—” Berto heard his tía take a deep breath. “She needs a father figure. That’s something I can’t provide.”

“We’ll find you a man, a real good one—”

“How are you going to help with that? Huh!? You change cities every few months. I can’t even keep your phone number straight!” His tía paused. “I needed you this year.”

“I—”

“I’m sorry,” his tía said. “I don’t want a new man. Nobody can ever replace Laura’s father. But you begged me—begged me—to take Berto.”

“That’s only if anything ever happens to his father and me. I—”

“After the ceremony, I’m going back to Mexico. I’m going to spend some time with some old friends. I need a change if I’m ever going to be a good mother for Laura.”

“Just take her—” his mother started.

“Her life is here. I want her to get a good education. To have access to the resources we never did as children. To have food on the table all the time.”

“She’s not going to have an easy life with us. Changing houses so often and never staying in a city for more than a year. Berto’s still young, but it’s wearing on him too. Laura will be happier with you.”

“She needs to be here. You know I love Laura with all I am, but she’ll do better with you…”

There was a pause, but finally, Berto’s mother succumbed. “Fine, we’ll watch her. But once you’re in a good headspace, you need to come back to her.”

“Yes! Of course! Gracias, sister.” There was another lull, then, “You still think someone is after you?”

“It’s not in my head,” his mother stated.

“I know,” his tía said. “I just worry. Sometimes Laura seems so much like you as a child. If what you say is true—Oh, I’m running late! I need to set up.”

“Yes! We’ll be right behind you; I just need to change.”

Once the door closed behind his tía, Berto entered the living room. He glanced again at the clock—time was almost up. He went to his father. “Can I have the car keys?”

“My car keys?” his father said. “What for?”

“I left my toy in the back seat.”

“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. Just hang tight.”

“Please!”

His father glanced out the window into the front yard. “Fine,” he said, digging into a pocket and fishing out the keys. “Be quick, though. And stay away from the street.”

As Berto approached the sedan, he thought about how he could disable it. He’d tried before, but his tiny arms were too weak to lift the hood, and whenever he let the air out of the tires, his father always stopped him before the tires were flat.

Berto opened a rear door—in case his father was watching, it would partially block the view and buy him a few more seconds—and climbed from the back seat into the front. There has to be a way for me to disable this thing.

He looked under the steering wheel. There appeared to be a removable panel mounted to the dashboard there. He didn’t know what it was for, but car thieves always found wires there to start the engine in films. Berto tried to open the panel but couldn’t find a release anywhere.

Hurry, Berto. Hurry!

Opening the glove compartment, Berto searched for anything he could use to pry open the panel. There has to be a screwdriver. A tire gauge. Something.

When Berto checked the center console, he dropped the keys onto the floorboard with a jingle. He considered leaving them hidden, but whenever he tried hiding or discarding the keys, his mother simply brought out a spare. Berto picked up and studied the keys, determining if he could slip one behind the plastic and still have the leverage to pry the panel open.

Then it occurred to him.

I’ve been so stupid. He stared at the ignition key in wonder. How had he never thought to simply drive off with his parents’ car before? They could borrow the neighbor’s truck, but his parents would never drive to the ash-spreading ceremony if they couldn’t find him.

Berto depressed the brake pedal, inserted the key, and turned it. The car engine coughed to life while the aroma of burnt oil filled the air. He palmed the gear shift and went to put it into drive.

But the shifter wobbled a bit, then stuck in neutral. Berto stared at it in wonder, eyes rolling over the numbers there. His eyes shot to the driver’s side floorboards. A third pedal was there next to the brake pedal.

A manual transmission? I can’t drive a manual!

At that moment, his father’s arm reached through the window into the cab, grasped the ignition key, and turned the engine off. He pulled Berto out of the car and gave him two swift smacks to the backside.

Berto’s eyes filled with tears, but his father mistook them for being caused by the sting of spanking.

“You know I don’t like to do that,” his father scolded before his eyes softened, “but you were seconds from being seriously hurt.” The same hands that just dealt the speedy lesson now picked up Berto and wiped the streams from his eyes. “Your mother and I don’t know what we would do if you ever got hurt.”

Then the rain started. Just a few drops hitting Berto’s face and mingling with the wetness already there. Berto thought he heard thunder but realized it was just the roar of a large truck engine approaching them.

“Come on,” his father said, setting Berto down and nudging his shoulder toward their house. “Let’s get inside until your mother is ready.”

Head bowed, sullen, Berto marched toward the door. It wasn’t fair. He had been so close! But even if he learned how to drive stick, could he succeed in getting the car out of the driveway before his father noticed? Probably not. And his mother cared for his tía too much to ever forsake driving to the park, even for all Berto’s pleas.

His parents were doomed to die, and he was doomed to repeat this day forever. It all came down to the same problem. His parents cared too much for his tía to deviate from the day’s plans. And they certainly cared too much for Berto to ever let him be out of their sights.

Berto stopped while his father continued on to the front door. The truck engine was much louder now.

That’s it, Berto thought. I’m a reason for them not to go to the park.

Berto didn’t think of pain or consequence; he just turned on his heels and ran down the driveway. His father yelled—screamed—after him, but Berto couldn’t even understand the words. They were so full of animalistic terror they didn’t sound human.

When Berto’s feet touched the street, the jacked-up pickup truck blared its horn—hhhhrrrrrrrrr! There was nowhere for the vehicle to go nor time for it to stop. The narrow street was lined with cars, and in half a second, Berto would be able to reach out and touch the license plate.

Or rather, it would touch him.

Berto flinched, awaiting impact.

It didn’t come from the direction he expected. With a jarring slam, Berto was thrown across the street into the passenger door of a sedan so hard he dented it. The pickup drove by so close the air around him was disturbed by its passage. It bounced, like going over a pothole, before stopping twenty feet away.

On the ground lay a crumpled mess of a man. Berto gazed at the fallen form, blood streaking from where the truck had dragged his father several feet. A neural pathway opened at the sight of the gore—a memory of something that might have occurred years ago or maybe only a few days before. For some reason, Berto grew angry seeing the blood.

The man driving the truck got out and looked between Berto and his father’s lifeless body, eyes wide with panic. “What did you do, kid!?” The man climbed back into the driver’s seat and peeled off down the street.

Berto’s own eyes grew wide, despair replacing his fiery emotions. Dad? Dad!

He ran to his father’s body. A bloody arm bent at a strange angle reached out and weakly pushed Berto away. “Out—street!” his father rasped.

He was still alive!

Berto heard the door open. “Robert!?” his mother shrieked. Hearing his father’s name from his mother’s lips sounded foreign to Berto. It was always corazón, mi vida, honey, love—never Robert.

She rushed over to the two and wrapped her arms protectively around Berto, pulling him away from his father. “Robert? Robert!”

His father tried to prop himself up but fell back to the asphalt.

His mother held Berto tighter, and she pivoted, looking up and down the street. Then he realized she was worried they were being attacked. “It wasn’t the Syndroids,” Berto said.

His mother looked down at him. “Syndroids? How did you—”

“A car hit him; we need to get him to the hospital!”

“We shouldn’t move him. I’ll call an ambulance. Berto, stay out of the street!”

“There’s no time!” Berto pleaded.

Berto’s mother shot him a strange, frightful glance but jumped in their car and reversed it out of the driveway, stopping next to his father. Together, the two pulled his father into the back seat.

Then they were speeding down the road as rain streamed from the maelstrom above. They were going too fast on the narrow streets, but all of Berto’s concern focused on his father. He was turned around, constantly monitoring his father’s condition. Breaths stuttered in the beaten man’s chest, and his moans filled the air. His legs, where the jeans had been partially ripped away, turned a deep red-purple. His father coughed once, spitting droplets of blood against the back seat.

“What is this!?” Berto’s mother cried.

Berto turned around and saw the road ahead flooding and a line of cars stopped. “Where are you going? The hospital is the other way!”

“We need to get him to the military hospital. They have better trauma doctors. I’m going to take Scenic Drive.”

“No!” Berto screamed, but his mother ignored him. No, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening—he’d gotten his father nearly killed, and they would still fall into the Syndroid’s hands. “Take him to the other hospital!”

“We’re already closer to Fort Bliss.”

Doomed to die, Berto thought. I’ll never be smart enough, or strong enough, or fast enough to save them. I’ve failed my parents. For now and for eternity.

As his mother sped up the slick mountain, Berto eyed the road—he’d only spotted the Syndroid a few times in all his iterations. She always seemed to blend in with rocks.

From his better vantage point in the front seat, Berto spied her this time. “Mamá, watch out!”

But it was too late; the red-haired female-looking Syndroid raced from the rocks at the side of the road. The woman’s legs were a blur as they sprinted at the car. It took less than a second for her to run the fifty feet to the Camry and crash into it.

The last thing Berto felt before blacking out was the sideways jolt of the car—like someone had reached in under his armpit and yanked his spine. Then he smashed his head against the glass.

When he opened his eyes again, Berto was sure a new iteration had begun. But he was confused about why he was in a different place and there was no sugary cereal in his mouth. His brain was in a fog. Why’s the ground above my head? And what’s that pain? Berto gingerly touched the seatbelt cutting into his shoulder.

Oh. Berto remembered with sudden clarity where he was.

In the seat next to him, his mother swatted the deployed airbag away from her face. A gash on her hand smeared it with blood. “Berto? Robert?”

“I’m here, Mamá,” Berto said. He didn’t dare look in the back seat. His father was no longer moaning, and since he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt… Don’t think about it, Berto told himself.

There was a thump as Berto’s mother unclasped her seatbelt and fell to the roof. Berto copied her action.

His mother grasped his hand and stared into his eyes, fear evident. “We have to get out of here, Berto. If anything happens to me, you run.”

Just then, the cheery face of a redhead popped into view. “I saw you go through the guard rail. Are you okay!?”

“Mamá, she’s a Syndroid!”

The Syndroid’s hand clamped around his mother’s leg and pulled her out. A moment later, there was a sickening crunch and his mother’s body fell to the ground. Berto didn’t have time to react before being pulled from the car and held aloft.

He had long ago given up fighting back after his parents were killed in the time loop. What was the point in breaking the loop if they were gone?

However, now he felt something different.

The woman’s hand morphed and wrapped around Berto’s head. He struggled in her grasp while she smiled, her eyes glowing yellow. It was no use; her clamp of a hand was squeezing his skull—Berto could feel the pressure building, ready to pop.

With a clap of thunder, the Syndroid’s head exploded, and Berto fell to the ground.

Standing fifteen feet away was the Viking woman. As with each time she saved him, Berto thought he had once known her name but couldn’t remember it.

It didn’t matter, though. The loop would reset now that he was saved and his parents were dead. He closed his eyes and waited.

When the expected mouthful of frosted cornflakes didn’t appear. He looked at the woman, now approaching him. She looked different from before. Not older, but perhaps wearier. And her hair was long and flowing, rather than braided as was typical.

She picked him up. As rough as the Syndroid had been, her touch was gentle—motherly. “Hello, recruit.”

Recruit? It seemed right. “Who are you?”

“You don’t remember me?” she asked. Then, answering her question, “No, I suppose not. You’ve been here a long time, trapped by your hatred for the Syndroids. I’ve told you before—anger is useful. But you must choose the right moments to use it. Now is not one of those times.”

“Who are you?” Berto repeated.

“I’m Revna, your commanding officer. Now I need you to end this.”

“End this? I can’t save them; nothing I do changes anything.”

“You’re right,” Revna agreed. “There’s nothing you can do to change the past. But in the present”—Revna looked around, taking in the sky and mountains— “in the real world, you can make your parents’ deaths—Laura’s death—mean something.”

Laura’s death? A memory played at Berto’s mind like a word on the tip of a tongue. A bad memory. Just as bad as this loop he was caught in. “Laura’s not dead. I just saw her.”

“Loved ones often live on after we’ve lost them,” Revna said before turning to hike up the mountain, still holding Berto. “But I can see your grasp on reality is also lost. We need to do this another way.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To my ship.”

As Revna reached the road, Berto gazed in wonder at the spaceship resting there. Its sleek curves and shimmering skin were familiar, but he was sure he hadn’t seen it while in the loop. On approach, a section of the ship’s exterior rolled down, forming a ramp.

A minute later, Revna carried him into a room where several small pools of silvery liquid were sunk into the floor. “What is this place?” Berto asked.

“These are the aether tanks,” Revna said. “Normally, we use them to create imaginary worlds for training—you seem supremely adept at this, I might add. But these ones will take you home.”

“I am home.”

Revna apparently ignored the statement. “I want you to think about your parents’ deaths. Think about the Syndroid that killed them. Cast aside any fear you have and feel the fire in your heart growing.”

Berto gritted his teeth, picturing his mother’s skull being crushed. His outrage at the Syndroids—and being unable to save his family—grew, reinvigorated by Revna’s words.

“Good,” Revna said. “Now imagine a world where you could end the beasts that did this. A world with immeasurably advanced technology. A world where a federation of human planets has banded together to fight these beasts.”

Berto could picture it.

Spaceships racing out into the blackness, firing magnetic weapons. Mechanical drones in battle—wasps darting in to sting each other. Ranks of men and women in jumpsuits colored to match their homeworlds.

It felt so real.

“You see it in your head?” Revna asked.

Berto nodded.

“See you on the other side, then.”

With a shove from Revna, Berto’s tiny body flew into the nearest pool.

Chapter eighteen

FRIEND OR FOE

A few seconds after Revna sank beneath the surface of the aether, Berto surfaced in a second tank with a gasp. Yrsa hurried over and helped his struggling body from the liquid. He was much lighter than she’d anticipated. Her eyes roamed his body as the nanites from his suit ran up to cover his flesh.

She’d seen enough, though. Berto was emaciated. Flesh and bone. Not just the fat gone from his body, but much of the muscle as well. His hair was thin and without the dark luster of only an hour before. To Yrsa, Berto looked as she had always imagined J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gollum.

Gollum the golem, Yrsa thought with dark humor.

Then regret shadowed her mind. Berto was probably a pawn of the Syndroids. Still, if Revna—and all of the Chevalier Sanctorum—was right, he wouldn’t even know it. She needed to remember that.

“Gahh!” Berto shouted, eyes flaring wide.

He scrambled against the wall, glancing around the room wildly. Then he inspected his hands, holding them close to his face as if he wasn’t sure they were real.

He probably isn’t sure, Yrsa realized. Then she took in the state of his skin—red and raw. Welts appeared, studding his flesh. Berto saw them and scratched at them, drawing bloody lines into his thin skin.

What have I done? She’d never anticipated Berto’s mind would be capable of overriding the safety elements of the tanks to such extent. That, coupled with unrestricted mental enhancement, meant that his body had performed months—maybe years—of body motions in the course of an hour. The aether had worn down the skin from his body like sandpaper on unfinished wood. And the tank hadn’t provided calories fast enough to replace what Berto had been using. And what the hell did Berto do?

Just then, Revna broke the surface of her own aether tank. “Get him to medical! Maybe we can still reverse the physical atrophy!”

Yrsa did just that. She didn’t want to touch Berto—she was afraid she’d cause more damage. But he was so visibly weak she doubted he could stand on his own. Wrapping an arm around Berto’s side, Yrsa hauled him to his feet and led him to a medical bay.

The short distance took several minutes to traverse due to Berto’s shaking, shuffling steps. But when they reached medical, Berto collapsed onto the padded table there. He took one last wondering look around before his eyes rolled back, showing only the whites.

“Berto? Berto!” Yrsa yelled as the glass cylinder enclosed him.

“Let him rest!” Revna ordered, stepping into the room. Anger burned in her eyes.

Yrsa’s reaction was to glare back at Revna, but she was conflicted. Yrsa knew her own fury was left over from her trip into Berto’s world and fighting the Syndroid—it’d been necessary to call up painful memories to escape. And the emotion hadn’t subsided yet. But knowing she’d let Revna down and caused Berto undue harm combatted the ire with disappointment in herself.

Instead of snapping at Revna, Yrsa looked at Berto beneath the glass where nanites covered his body in skin grafts. “What happened in there?” Yrsa asked, rubbing her neck at the memory of the redheaded Syndroid.

Revna’s gaze softened at this. “The ship’s computer reports he replayed the same seven-hour day nearly four thousand times.”

“That’s—”

“Three years,” Revna said.

“I was going to say impossible,” Yrsa retorted.

Revna’s lips pouted as she considered Yrsa’s words. “Not impossible. The capabilities of the aether tanks are theoretically only limited by the frequency rate of their atomic vibrations. When I was a recruit, we played a prank on our quartermaster. As punishment, he made us enter the aether a quarter-hour before training. We then lived for several months in a barren desert, eating insects and squeezing water from animal dung. When the quartermaster finally allowed us to leave, we still had ten minutes before training started.”

Yrsa cocked her head. Revna played a prank? She’d thought her mother had always been the stiff-necked, grizzled warrior of today. “How did you get Berto out? When I tried, his whole world fought me.” Except for Laura. Berto seemed to believe that everything good in himself had died with her, so she was the best of him.

“I suspect anything out of place in that world would ruin the illusion for Berto. But I was there. Even back then, I saw—“ Revna covered her mouth and looked away.

Yrsa’s eyes narrowed. “What did you see?”

“I saw the mother die, but I was too far away on uneven ground—I didn’t have a shot.”

Yrsa noticed Revna refused to meet her eyes. “That’s not all you saw. Is it?”

“I’d forgotten until the aether tanks, but now I remember. After his mother died, the Syndroid was doing something with his head… Maybe scanning it for an implant.”

Yrsa’s eyes grew, and suddenly she felt vindicated—at least partially. “Or scanning it post-implant.”

Revna waved the thought away. “There wasn’t time for that.”

“Can you say that with one hundred percent certainty?”

“I—” Revna started.

A proximity warning from the ship buzzed into Yrsa’s skull from her implant. Across the medical table, Revna was receiving the same message.

“The lifeboat is on approach,” Revna said. “Let’s get to the bridge.”

As they climbed up the ladder, Yrsa called up to Revna, “I thought the lifeboat was dead in the water?”

“They must be diverting it from life support. Guess they grew tired of waiting.”

Once they reached the bridge, Yrsa sat in a drone pilot’s seat and welded her suit to it. “Orders?”

But as Revna pulled herself into the captain’s chair, Yrsa could feel the twin magneto-cannons hum to life. The tips of the weapons flowed out in front of the ship, and Yrsa saw they were already glowing.

“You’re going to shoot them down!?” Yrsa asked.

“They’re breaking protocol,” Revna said. “We don’t know what’s on board—could be the ship is rigged with grav-charges.”

“Then scan it!”

“No time; they’ll be on us in seconds.”

“Revna! They’re Chevaliers. You can’t—”

“My gut says ‘trap.’”

“Mine says differently!” Yrsa looked at Revna, pleading. “I know I owe you for rescuing Berto, but please don’t do this.”

“A child should owe their mother everything.” Revna took her eyes off the dome above to look at Yrsa. Then the humming of the cannons stopped. “But the truths of life are different. A mother knows she owes her child everything.”

Was that a tear in Revna’s eye? No, it can’t be. Yrsa’s eyes drifted upward to examine the incoming lifeboat, now visible without the ship’s enhanced zoom. “It’s not a trap, I’m sure of it.”

“A moment ago, I would have disagreed, daughter. Something is off. But I can’t very well tell you to trust your instincts, then go against them.”

The only thing that’s off is Revna’s gut. Revna hadn’t sensed anything wrong in Berto. But Yrsa was even more sure after Revna’s memory. The Syndroids did something to him.

A few tense moments passed as the lifeboat drew closer, then Revna released a profoundly relieved sigh. “They are within range now. If they were going to blow us up, we’d be dead.”

Readings from the ship sensors flashed into Yrsa’s eyes. “The Sleipnir is picking up two active Sanctorum implants on board.”

“I guess we should go down and say hello,” Revna said.

A few seconds later, the lifeboat stopped just outside the Sleipnir. A cylindrical nub formed on the nanite surface of the lifeboat, reaching toward the larger ship. The Sleipnir completed the handshake with a matching cylinder, creating a passage between the two vessels.

Yrsa and Revna climbed down to the armory where the lifeboat had connected. Revna handed her a magneto-rifle with a look that said, ‘just in case.’

The two women pointed their rifles at the passage. “On your mark,” Revna said.

Yrsa mentally rolled up the door to the passageway. A man stood there, surprise clouding his pale face beneath short curly white hair. He protectively blocked a young woman with blue-tinted skin.

The pain Yrsa held from the memories of Revna’s abandonment and her own mishap with Berto evaporated. She almost dropped her weapon as she recognized the man before it. She could count on one hand the number of Chevaliers she truly considered a friend. And here was one.

“Yrsa?” the man said. “Revna? Praise the Great Forager!”

“Hello, Rasso, good to see you,” Revna said, lowering her weapon.

Yrsa ran forward to embrace her friend. “You’re alive!”

Rasso’s face grew dark. “The Kavach…”

“We know,” Yrsa said. “You don’t need to say anything.”

“The Vessel!” Rasso grabbed Yrsa by the shoulders. “The Vessel is still out there!”

“Forget the Vessel!” the blue-tinted woman said, exasperated. “We’ll never defeat a Typhon Ravager in this leaky boat.”

“Who’s the young one?” Revna asked.

“Ladies, meet Qalupa,” Rasso said. “A recruit interning on the Kavach. I found her hiding in the lifeboat.”

“I was not hiding,” Qalupa said. “I knew you were coming—I was preparing for launch.”

“We’ve been over this; the captain didn’t—”

“The captain was dead.” Qalupa turned away, her skin turning a deeper shade—almost purple. “By now, the Vessel has been redirected by the Syndroid ship.”

“We saw the Typhon,” Revna said. “It entered the Sol system and headed for Earth just as we were leaving.”

“How long ago?” Rasso asked. “Are we really that close to Earth?”

“Just over twenty-four hours. Call it five hundred light-years or so,” Revna said.

Rasso looked far off, as if performing calculations in his head. “The Typhon couldn’t have had control of the Vessel more than a few hours. Are you sure it was the same Ravager?”

Yrsa thought about the long scars and pockmarks adorning the ship she’d seen. “It was the same one. The Vessel must still be nearby.”

“We should wait!” Qalupa said. “Phalanx Four can send another Shepherd Battleship and—”

“There’s no time, recruit,” Rasso said. “It’ll be days before one arrives. If we can get to the Vessel—”

Revna spoke up, “I assume the Syndroids pulled the Kavach out of your original jump stream to attack?”

Rasso nodded. “Set up a gravity well, and we fell right into it.”

“What’s to stop it from happening again?” Revna asked. “When the Syndroids attack, they usually set up several traps along the path from the host planet to Githsomae.”

“The battle took us far off the optimum path between the Vessel’s world and its destination. The Syndroids won’t have time to set up new roadblocks…” Rasso said. “If we hurry.”

Yrsa wanted to get Berto to Phalanx Four, where the Chevalier Sanctorum could prove he was a Golem. But since her enlistment, the importance of protecting the souls on board Vessels had been chiseled into her being. “We have to go.”

Revna massaged her temples contemplatively. “The Syndroids would have left a detachment, and we only have one Seraphim drone.”

Feeling a buzz of metallic life in her implant, Yrsa said, “Make that two. In a few minutes, we’ll have more.”

Rasso looked at Qalupa. “And the lifeboat we were in is basically useless now. But its power cell is still functional. Might be able to rig it to blow—send the Syndroids scattering long enough to get the Vessel into jump space.”

A wide grin spread across Revna’s lips, making Yrsa roll her eyes. “Into battle then, my shield-mates. Prepare for death; we’re only a skip away.”

“Who’s going to watch Berto?” Yrsa asked.

“Berto?” Rasso said. “What’s a Berto?”

“New recruit,” Revna said. “Yrsa is convinced he’s a Golem.”

“Like—” Rasso stopped.

Yrsa knew what he’d wanted to say—Like Myrno? But it wasn’t like Myrno. This time she’d seen what Berto was before he’d had time to do any damage to the Chevalier Sanctorum.

“Can’t we just put Berto into an aether tank for the few minutes of battle?” Rasso asked. “Conjure up a jailcell or hedge maze or something?”

Yrsa shared a glance with Revna. “That, ah, wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Rasso clapped his recruit on the shoulder. “Q, you’re on babysitting duty.”

“I hate it when you call me that,” she said, dead serious.

There was an awkward silence. Yrsa thought there was something off about the girl. Something hostile. The blueness of her skin gave away that she was from Araanti—an oceanic world, abundant in resources and one of the oldest planets in the federation. The singular large landmass there was covered end to end with opulent, towering homes and commercial buildings. The Araanti people were obscenely dignified and tactful—adapted over a hundred millennia to galactic politics.

This girl displayed none of the usual traits.

Revna clapped, getting Yrsa’s attention. “Let’s look over the ships. Do a systems check. Don’t want to be in battle only to learn a cooling coil became clogged on our last jump.” She flashed her teeth again. “Then Valhalla.”

Chapter nineteen

FALL OF MAN

When Berto opened his eyes, he thought he was back in El Paso, looping through another iteration of the same day. Only, it was different.

There was no mouthful of breakfast cereal. No sports commentator echoing in from the television in the living room. And instead of a warm Texas morning in a house with only two window air conditioning units, the air was cold. Freezing, in fact.

But his mother was still there. Berto could see her shape standing over him—hair falling around her head in waves. When did she dye it blonde? Berto tried to inspect her for more changes, but his vision was cloudy, as if foggy glass blocked his view. However, there was definitely something off about her skin tone.

Berto reached out to touch her, and his fingers jammed against the glass. But he hardly noticed the sensation; his every muscle was sore. He ached ten times worse than after he’d finished the half-marathon obstacle course Laura had once convinced him to do—Laura!

Fingers scrambled against the glass as Berto searched for something—anything—to free himself. But without prior indication, the glass cylinder around him pulled back. Then something crawled and flowed across his skin from his toes to his wrists.

Berto looked wildly around the room, head gyrating like a lawn sprinkler. He knew this room. He was on a ship. The ship. Sleipnir.

Chevalier Sanctorum. Galactic Federation. Ravager. Nanites. Implants. Golem. It came back to him in a flood, but the knowledge was there as if it had never left. The crawling sensation brought warmth, and looking down, he saw the nanite jumpsuit of brown, blue, and green covering his body.

The woman standing over him was real too—though clearly not his mother. She looked as if someone had dunked her in a blue-coconut slushie.

“So you’re the Golem,” she said.

“You’re blue.”

“And you look like you’ve been living off of fish oil and turtle puke your entire life.” Her upper lip turned up into a sneer of disgust. “You backwaters types are all the same.”

Berto didn’t appreciate how she was eyeing him as if searching for the perfect place to plunge a knife into. But more than that, he was confused by this stranger’s sudden appearance on the Sleipnir. “Where’d you come from?”

“You mean how’d I come to be on this rusty rowboat?” the woman asked. “Your friends picked us up. That so-called state-of-the-art lifeboat we were on somehow found a way to lose jump capabilities. We’re lucky the Syndroids’ scans didn’t pick us up so close to the Vessel.”

Berto’s mind was racing—half of the woman’s words didn’t make sense without context. Berto tried to sit up, his core muscles straining. “How long was I out?”

“Do I look like your foaming mother? Just lie down, shut up, and pray—to whatever gods your wet-eared little planet believes in—we live through the next few hours.”

“Qalupa,” said a man, stepping into the medical bay. “Ease up.” He looked at Berto. “Forgive Qalupa; the Araanti are a venomous people. Though most are better at hiding it.”

“That’s xenophobic, Rasso,” Qalupa said.

“Xenophobic?” Rasso said. “I believe the terms you used for Earth were ‘backwater’ and ‘wet-eared.’” Rasso inspected something in the table beneath Berto. “But I don’t blame you, Q. Only those with venom rise on Araanti—it’s beaten into your culture.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting the ship ready for battle? Or don’t you think I can babysit the Golem?”

Berto felt hot anger growing in his chest. “I’m not a Golem.” He pushed it down. “And what’s this about battle?”

Rasso ignored Berto’s question, instead talking to Qalupa. “The nanites in this medical unit used up their nutrients in boosting Berto’s recovery. Revna wants to wait a bit to give them time to replenish, just in case.”

“So when the Syndroids breach this piece of junk, we can play doctor with them? I thought it was your old friend Yrsa you wanted to play with.”

Rasso’s calm, pale eyes turned to fire in an instant. “There is only one woman I’ve ever loved, and if you ever sully her memory again, I will ensure you never again can moan those cacophonous yodels of your homeworld.”

“I was never much of a singer anyway,” Qalupa said with a dead stare and flat lips.

“Qalupa, that’s enough. I don’t have the energy to deal with your cynicism. Go get some food; I’ll keep an eye on Berto.”

“I bet the particulator on this lousy skiff can’t even make an Araanti silk-eel roast,” Qalupa mumbled, exiting the medical bay with cold indifference.

“Bring something back for Berto too!” Rasso ordered after her.

Though the man called Rasso had saved Berto from the company of the cynical blue-skinned girl, Berto’s defenses rose when Rasso’s eyes turned to him. Rasso was plainly appraising Berto to decide if he was working for the Syndroids or not. Berto retaliated likewise, looking for any flaw in the man’s physique that might be a weakness.

At first, Berto hadn’t noticed any distinguishing features that would have set Rasso apart from Earthlings, but he saw them now. The man’s skin was so pale it was translucent. His irises were dark brown, but they seemed off, as if the man wore colored contacts. Fine, curly hairs—almost unnoticeable—covered his body, growing longer atop his head and only leaving the face clear. He was short and thin but held himself with powerful intensity.

“Don’t mind Qalupa,” Rasso said. “She’s a sump viper.”

“A sump viper?” Berto asked.

“On my planet, there’s no surface water. All the water—all life—is below the surface. In massive caverns, whole ecosystems exist on energy from chemical reactions within rock and geothermal vents. There isn’t enough light from our red dwarf to support surface life, so the planet provides.”

Berto nodded as if any of the words made sense.

Rasso went on, “But the water is down deep, and the more our population grows, the deeper we must travel. In the caverns where the water is—the sumps—as the water level drops, the viper nests are exposed. The engineers and laborers who work there—strong, masculine men and women—they pretend not to fear the vipers.”

“Are they dangerous?” Berto asked.

“Most the time, no,” Rasso said. “Most of the time, they ignore the workers. But occasionally, one will attack a worker for no apparent reason. Even going so far as to swim across a sump to bite a man, inject him with venom, and disappear back into the water.”

“Why do they do it?”

“Who knows? Maybe they’re intelligent enough to be bitter about their position in life. Maybe it’s nature’s way of fighting the encroachment of man. Or maybe there’s just evil and bitterness in this world, and it doesn’t need a reason to sink its teeth into your flesh.”

Berto didn’t understand the connection between Rasso’s description and Qalupa. Is he saying she’s angry at the world or implying she’s evil? He sat up straighter, wincing as muscles he didn’t even know he had protested the movement.

“Yrsa did a real number on you,” Rasso said, changing the subject. “I’m surprised you didn’t go insane—being a new recruit and all. I’ve seen experienced Chevaliers go in the tanks a little too long and lose track of reality.”

Berto’s blood grew hot, but he refused to acknowledge the storm of emotion. He knew Yrsa was responsible for him getting stuck reliving his parents’ deaths repeatedly. But the best revenge would be proving her thoughts about him wrong and never letting her forget as long as he lived. “Did Qalupa say you and Yrsa are old friends?”

“I came to the Chevalier Sanctorum about thirty years before Yrsa was recruited. They like to assign younger full-fledged Chevaliers as mentors to the newly enlisted,” Rasso said.

Thirty years? Berto wondered. Rasso only looked to be thirty—he didn’t look much older than Yrsa, and come to think of it… He doesn’t look much older than me. “You’ve been in the Chevalier Sanctorum, what, fifty years? How is this possible?”

Rasso cocked his head, confusion in his eyes before he smirked. “Revna didn’t tell you? The food particulators put bio-nanos in the food. They can slow the aging process—ensures the Sanctorum always has experienced fighters. When fighting an enemy that doesn’t age, hundred-year lifespans are an issue.”

Berto’s jaw dropped. How had he not connected the dots before? I’m going to live a longgg time. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea. What reason did he have to live except for seeking retribution on the Syndroids? When that was over, would the Sanctorum still demand his service?

“Revna’s the oldest Earther I know of,” Rasso said. “She’s well into her millennial years.”

That means… Berto had always thought Revna’s Viking persona was just a mask she wore. But if she was alive a thousand years ago… She really is a Viking Warrior.

That fact brought so many questions to Berto’s mind, but instead, he asked one that had been burning at the surface since meeting Qalupa. “Yrsa and Revna are from Earth, so I get how they speak English,” Berto said. “But how is that you do too? Do all in the Sanctorum speak it?”

Rasso was clearly fighting to hold back a laugh. Berto found it condescending but let it go—the man probably meant nothing by it.

Rasso leaned forward and tapped a narrow strip of Berto’s suit that ran from his collar to his jawline just beneath the ear. “Inductance, directly into your head. Your suit can translate my words into your language and buzz them into your head. Once you get an implant, you won’t even need the armor. Aphorisms, numbering systems, they’re all translated into words you can understand. And…”

Berto fingered the strip, and the delicate buzzing grew still. Rasso’s English words turned into a series of guttural clicking sounds that made Berto flinch.

“…why the Council monitors the development of human languages,” Rasso finished once Berto released the translator strip.

“Could this technology be used to understand the Syndroids?” Berto asked.

“Of course. Obviously, they speak just as many languages as we do, so they use the same technology. When a human brain gets digitized, it keeps the same neural pathways.”

Human brain? Digitized? “There are humans within the Syndroids?” Berto asked—this was the first he was hearing of it.

Rasso stroked the light, curly hairs on his head and looked at Berto contemplatively. “Maybe this is best coming from Revna.”

“I knew it!” Berto shouted, no longer attempting to suppress his rage. “I’ve joined this goddamned army, and you’re all still keeping things from me!” Berto’s suit roiled as he stood from the medical table. He grabbed Rasso’s shoulders. “Tell me the truth.”

Rasso didn’t appear to hesitate as his lips turned up in a snarl. The nanites of his suit formed a dense block at the end of his fist and amplified his strength as he punched Berto in the solar plexus.

Berto’s suit muffled the blow, but it was still enough to send him crashing to his knees, gasping for air.

“Don’t you threaten me, recruit. If you want to have a pissing contest to see who’s angrier, I’ll win every time.” Rasso stepped around Berto’s heaving body but stopped in the doorway. “There aren’t humans within the Syndroids. The Syndroids were human.”

Chapter twenty

NOTHING SACRED

“I want answers!” Berto shouted at Yrsa and Revna as they grinned humorously at him.

“Play it again, daughter,” Revna said between gasping laughs before wiping a tear from her eye.

Berto averted his eyes from the domed ceiling, which—for the fourth time—was displaying video of his confrontation with Rasso. He wanted to be furious, but between the women’s laughter and his shame of being so quickly incapacitated, he could only manage meek embarrassment.

When the laughter finally subsided, Revna stood from her captain’s chair, approached Berto, and slapped him on the shoulder. “Rasso is a very calm man. But quick to anger. You’ll find many in Sanctorum are this way.”

“Tragedy tends to follow us Chevaliers,” Yrsa said. “Thanks in no small part to Golems like you.”

Berto couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m no Golem.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I want answers. Rasso said that the Syndroids are human. I never agreed—”

“Were human,” Revna said.

“You lied to me. If I’d have known the truth—”

“If you’d know the truth, you’d have what?” Revna snapped. “Does the fact that your parents were murdered by something once human take away the sting of their deaths? Does it cool your temper to know Laura’s head was smashed in by a machine that once knew the taste of air in its lungs?”

Berto fought the urge to call up the gory memories of his cousin’s lifeless body.

“It shouldn’t,” Revna said. “It should stoke the fires of your heart—the knowledge that these beings understand the precious nature of life, yet slaughter our loved ones with careless indifference. Now, stop crying that you want answers. What you need is to use that fire to forge an ax capable of cutting down those mechanical bastards. I can show you how to hammer that ax out of steel. I can show you how to hone the blade until it’s sharp enough to shave a Syndroid’s throat. But I can’t do these things if you think we’re the enemy. I need your trust.”

“He’s a Golem…” Yrsa interjected.

Seriously? Berto thought.

“Daughter, enough of this,” Revna echoed his thoughts. “Until we arrive at Phalanx—”

“I was going to say,” Yrsa continued, “on the off-chance he’s not. We need to show him the real face of the Syndroids.”

Revna seemed to consider this before nodding. “Very well. Take him below. Let him see. But try not to torture him this time.”

The short climb down to the training room didn’t register in Yrsa’s head. The last thing Revna had said was meant to be funny, but it hurt Yrsa. Revna knew Yrsa regretted what had happened to Berto—how could her mother be so thoughtless?

Then Yrsa remembered that was not a new characteristic for Revna.

Yrsa had long thought she’d forgiven the woman. Forgiven her for abandoning their family. Forgiven her for recruiting Yrsa into a life of death and destruction. Forgiven her for not being there when Yrsa’s father fell ill.

But since meeting Berto, old wounds were opening up. Could the Syndroids be using him to sow animosity amongst us? Was he like a mischievous imp from a Shakespeare play?

Yrsa stopped before an aether tank, reaching her destination so unconsciously it surprised even her.

“I’m not going back in there,” Berto said, stepping beside her and looking at his reflection in the silvery liquid.

“You want answers? This is how you get them,” Yrsa said.

“I don’t—”

Yrsa sighed. “You probably won’t believe me, Berto, but leaving you in the tank was an accident. I didn’t think you would be capable of so much, and when Revna called me up to the bridge…” Yrsa thought about Revna and how she only ever had excuses. “Look, I’m sorry. Okay? You didn’t deserve that.”

“I—” Berto’s mouth gaped. “Uh, thanks?”

Hoping Berto would take the words literally, Yrsa said, “Don’t mention it,” and stepped into the tank. The liquid was cool against her skin for a split second before matching her body heat. Berto took a tentative step into an adjacent tank. Yrsa didn’t wait to see if he would climb all the way in. She knew curiosity would get the better of him. “See you on the other side,” she said, then allowed the liquid to pull her body beneath the surface.

When she opened her eyes, Yrsa stood in a vast hall. Stadium seating rose up the circular room around her in tiers. They were filled with men and women in all forms of attire. Some wore clothing similar to that of Earth—pants, shirts, dresses, jumpsuits. Others had foreign clothing—garments dividing men and women’s bodies along the vertical axis, rather than a horizontal axis as with pants and shirts. Some wore something more like skin paint than any solid material. And a few were garbed in inflated suits as if the wearer had blown up a balloon around their body.

The room smelled the same as anywhere humans congregated en masse—a mixture of musky body odor, floral perfumes, and sharp colognes. Acoustically, the room was at a dull roar as a hundred conversations carried on over and around each other.

In the middle was a long table where a dozen people sat—the heads of various committees within the Council. At the table’s center was a frail, wizened old woman with energetic eyes that contradicted the rest of her aging features. She ran her finger along the lip of a crystalline bowl sitting on the table, filling the air with a harmonious ringing.

Berto appeared out of thin air beside Yrsa as the crowd quieted down. “Glad you could make it,” Yrsa said.

Looking around in wonder, Berto asked. “Where are we?”

“Federation Council chamber. Circa 12,000 B.C. or so.”

Berto must have noticed all eyes were on the old woman. “Who’s she?”

“Council Leader. Basically, the head of all in the Federation of Humanities. Or as close to one as we had at the time. She oversaw the heads of the committees, which oversaw the needs of the Federation. I’ll answer any questions you have later. For now, just watch.”

“We start.” The woman’s voice rang out loud, clear, and studded with vibrato comparable to that of an aged singer. “We start with the discussion of sending additional forces to protect the trade route between Araanti and the Lahar System.” The murmurs from the crowd started up immediately, some shouting in outrage. But the woman continued, “Pirates have seized three of the last seven livestock ships—”

“Council Leader!” the man Yrsa knew as Lycen stood up, brushing back dark hair from his jaundiced face. Bags were heavy under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His hunched, lanky form towered over those around him. “You’ve ignored my petitions to discuss the new technology of deep brain transcription. I motion to—”

“Councilmember Lycen, we have a process for setting the agenda—”

“I second the councilmember’s motion,” said one of the committee heads at the table—a man with golden hair and splotchy skin.

“Apyllon, I don’t think this is the place to have this discussion!” the woman barked back, any trace of her singer’s voice gone.

“Lycen has every right to propose a motion, just as I have every right to ensure he may speak.” Apyllon turned to Lycen. “Please continue.”

Lycen made his way down the rows of chairs to the center of the room. A smug look of satisfaction danced across his lips as he took his time, spinning in a circle to look at the men and women now waiting on him. Yrsa wanted to punch that smugness out the backside of his skull. So much death and destruction due to one man.

Finally, Lycen spoke. “Years. We spend years of our life in this room. We seek solutions to the same problems over and over and over again. And for what?”

Someone shouted, “For our people! Sit down, Lycen!”

“I speak for our people!” Lycen shouted back, throat straining and head shaking. “Our people are plagued by the same problems, century after century! But it all comes down to the same—singular—problem.”

“Get to the point, Lycen,” the Council Leader said.

“Our human bodies are weak. Plagues grow more devastating as our population increases. Food shortages mean the poorest among us starve. The very food we need can turn on us—lodging in our throats or covering our organs in fat. Hurricanes drown us. Volcanoes choke us. Radiation forces our cells to mutate in unpredictable ways. Even the pirates you’ve mentioned. What problem would they be if they didn’t have to worry about providing the next meal for their family or seeking medical treatment for their son’s or daughter’s cancer?”

We were all machines, doomed to collide, Yrsa thought, remembering a quote from a book she’d read once. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. She’d only read the book once as a teenager, but it stuck with her. Vonnegut—Breakfast of Champions.

Lycen turned to the Council Leader. “Why do you insist on forcing us to remain in these weak, fragile bodies when the technology for brain transcription has existed for a thousand years?”

The crowd bellowed again. It was mainly a rejection to the proposed idea, but many shouted their agreement. Yrsa looked at Berto, but he watched with a blank expression. What is he thinking?

When the noise quieted, the Council Leader spoke in a fierce whisper. “Biology—DNA—is the language of the Ancients. The ones who seeded our planets. Forsaking that gift cuts us off from them. You and every person in this room know what brain transcription does. Your lifeforce won’t be brought to Githsomae. Won’t be recycled into your next life—”

“What need do we have for a ‘next life’ if we live forever!? I am telling you, all those souls in all the Vessels could be brought back, and we’d never have to live without them again.”

There was another uproar, but the Council Leader stopped it with a chime from the bowl. “You suggest we play God.”

“God? You treat the Ancients as if they were gods. But they weren’t. They were little more than humans with advanced technology. It is now our turn to use technology to set our own destiny.”

“Even supposing you’re right and someday we can recreate the Ancients’ technology, we aren’t there yet—a transcribed mind is nothing but a crude replica.”

“Crude replica?” Lycen scoffed. “I’ve run the tests. It’s possible to transfer all memories and personality to a mechanical body.”

“You’ve done what!?” the Council Leader shot back. “You’ll be imprisoned for a century for this! Memories and personality are not all required to make a man.”

“I disagree,” Lycen said before pulling a metallic device from his pocket. The crowd gasped, and Yrsa saw a projectile weapon similar to an Earth pistol. “I’ll prove it to you. But I’ve no intention of going to prison. Men?”

A dozen men and women throughout the room stood, drawing weapons on a gasping audience. When Apyllon stood, the Council Leader addressed him. “Apyllon, you’re a science ambassador! You should know better!”

“Actually, I do know better. I know that it’s time to move past this human shell.” He raised the weapon to the old woman’s head. “Hope you see the light in your next life—if you truly get one.” He pulled the trigger.

The clap of the weapon discharging could barely be heard over the crowd’s screams. Yrsa sensed Berto jump beside her. These are the monsters we’re dealing with. I hope you’re paying attention, Berto.

As the Council Leader’s body crumpled to the floor, more shots thundered the room. But Lycen’s men weren’t shooting the other councilmembers. They were turning the weapons on themselves.

Apyllon raised the gun to his head in a shaky grip but then lowered it and turned Lycen. “I can’t do it—this damned body—too unnatural.”

“I’ve got you, friend.” Lycen raised his weapon. “This is the dawn of a new age—a new man.” Lycen fired, misting several nearby councilmembers in crimson blood. The councilors’ eyes went wide. They were too stunned by the carnage to move.

Lycen was the last of his group, and as teams of armed men burst into the room and pointed their rifles at him, he shouted, “This isn’t death but the next step in human evolution.” He aimed his gun at a nearby woman and had his body opened up by the discharge of a dozen guns from the guards.

When the gunfire was over and only the screaming remained, Berto looked around, eyes dilated in shock. “What the hell, Yrsa? Ever hear of a trigger warning?”

“Trigger warnings are for those who don’t understand the world is a hostile place.”

“Hostile? That guy was a psychopath!”

“No. Narcissistic for sure. Plagued by delusions of grandeur, probably. But part of what drove—what drives him is empathy for humankind. Not unmanaged psychopathy. But the show’s not over. If you don’t think you can handle it, I’m sure there’s a blanket somewhere I can swaddle you in.”

Just then, a hole in the ceiling opened up, raining stone and debris into the room. The men and women who’d just killed themselves descended in with a piercing sound approximating a jet engine. Only they weren’t quite the same people. Gone were the flaws: no potbellies, no hunched shoulders, no bald scalps. Only toned muscles; glowing, energetic faces; and luscious heads full of shimmering hair.

Most landed on the ground below with a soft patter. But Lycen remained floating in a swirling cloud as hidden propulsion systems kicked up dust beneath him. With arms outstretched, he appeared as a deity returning from the grave in glory to his followers. Gone were the yellow skin and baggy eyes, replaced by a vibrant olive complexion and youthful smile.

“This,” Lycen said. “This is the next step in evolution. This is our destiny.”

Most men and women in the council chamber cowered behind their seats. But a few stepped forward, gawking at the beautiful mechanical bodies before them. The guards didn’t seem to know what to do. They only looked at one another, confused by the sudden reappearance of the man they’d just gunned down.

Lycen looked down at the fallen body of the Council Leader, then glared briefly at Apyllon. Yrsa couldn’t even be sure she saw it; she’d never seen the look before.

Addressing the crowd, Lycen said, “I am sorry for the Council Leader’s death. It was never my intention to give you any more than a choice. But she never would have allowed you even that. If there’s truth in the Council’s belief that the Ancients’ technology on this planet recycles our… spirits… then this is nothing but an inconvenience—a minor blip—in the continuity of her lives. But that takes faith. This”—Lycen transformed, his nanite skin morphing to reveal metallic muscles and the glowing yellow energy source in his chest—“is real. This, you can touch and see.”

“You’re a monster!” someone shouted.

“A monster!?” Lycen spun in the air, eyes flaring wide at the person who’d spoken.

With a machine heart in your breast, you’ve spoiled what was pure and simple, Yrsa thought, and without the pure and simple, the life of the spirit knows no rest. Earth’s philosophies knew this simple fact before ever being exposed to the Syndroids; she didn’t understand how Lycen could think differently.

“A monster?” Lycen repeated. “I’m providing a way to end famine and disease. A way to end death itself. Gone are the weak human needs of a biological body. Reincarnation, afterlife—the fairy-tale writings of men who wanted power.”

This time, there were several furious disagreements from the crowd.

“Why would these beings that seeded life throughout the galaxy doom us to this weak, pathetic flesh? If the stories aren’t fiction, then the Ancients were cruel. If you want eternal life, you must join me—”

A shot rang out. Nanites in Lycen’s shoulder sprayed out then came flowing back to fill the hole the projectile had left. A guard was watching the smoke rise from the barrel of his rifle—shocked it had fired. Maybe he had meant to shoot, but Yrsa didn’t think so. The man was too surprised and Lycen’s Syndroid body was too unknown a threat.

Lycen raised a pointed finger at the guard. “I brought you a gift, yet you bring violence.”

Yrsa had always thought the statement was ridiculous. Lycen’s group had been the first to draw blood by killing the Council Leader. Yet the bullet from the guard hardly grazed Lycen beyond removing a few nanites from his body. She looked away, not wanting to see what happened next.

But she still saw it in her mind’s eye. The tip of Lycen’s finger separating from his hand. Shooting across the room to pierce the space between the guard’s eyes with a wet thump! Then the nanites rolling across the floor, leaving a trail of blood and brain matter as they returned to Lycen’s hand.

“What the fu—” Berto gasped.

Gunfire erupted throughout the room as guards unleashed a storm of projectiles on the group. Several of Lycen’s followers ducked, bracing for the barrage. Bullets ripped through their bodies, cratering them like an atmosphereless moon, only to be filled in by nanites a split second later—as harmless as neutrinos passing through a planet. Occasionally a bullet aimed at a head pinged and ricocheted as the Syndroid’s nanite shell hardened to protect the mind stored there. But no killing blows landed.

The hailstorm seemed to go on forever, yet it couldn’t have been longer than ten to fifteen seconds. Yrsa noted that a handful of the more intelligent councilmembers used the distraction to run for the doors. They’re the ones who were able to get help. Their quick action is the only reason we’re not all machines.

When the firing ceased, Lycen stood proudly with his chest puffed and hands on hips, demonstrating that this proved his point. “I’d hoped this would be a peaceful conversation,” he said. “I’d hoped you were a rational collective and would see the advantage of moving past your biology. I now see—for most of you—that was a foolhardy expectation.”

Yrsa wanted to look away again but knew she couldn’t ask Berto to view something she would not. “Let this moment be etched on your brain,” she said, repeating the words Revna had told her all those years ago—the first time she had viewed this day, “and know that you will never have sympathy or amnesty from the Syndroids.”

Lycen looked over his shoulder, nodding to Apyllon. Without a word, several of the Syndroids raised their hands, pointing fingers at councilmembers and guards. Heads exploded, creating small crimson fog clouds throughout the room. There was a panicked rush for the door as the people climbed over their colleagues, trying to escape. Nanite fingertips traced ruby trails along the floor as they returned to the Syndroids.

Rage burned in Yrsa as those councilors who’d stepped forward earlier were spared. They would become officers in Lycen’s army, along with the six earliest supporters, who would become his lieutenants.

Berto tried to look away, and Yrsa turned his head back with a firm but gentle grip. “These are the monsters we face.”

The rest of the humans were mowed down as the Syndroids used pieces of their own bodies as ballistic weapons. They were soon painted red with the blood of their victims. A handful of councilors avoided the crowd being slaughtered, opting to hide beneath desks and behind chairs. But two of the Syndroids noticed and began systematically firing into furniture. Yrsa supposed this was before they started incorporating different scanning technologies into their bodies, but she’d never thought to ask.

Maybe they just enjoyed the fearful anticipation of those hiding. It could be felt on the air, as dense as an incoming storm, requiring no scanners to sense.

Then someone pushed through the crowd, not trying to leave the room but to enter it. A man in bulky blue spectrum armor entered, carrying a larger version of the magneto-rifles stocked on the Sleipnir. He marched in with a swagger and scowl that made even the fleeing councilors pause.

“Who’s that?” Berto asked.

“Gaebil,” Yrsa said. “He was an Araanti space marine assigned to ensure the safe passage of one of the councilors. When his councilor escaped and reached the shuttle, he didn’t hesitate. Gaebil grabbed the biggest weapon on the ship—a magneto-cannon meant to rip apart boarding pirate ships—and headed for the Council chamber.”

Yrsa observed Gaebil, and her chest flared with pride when the magneto-cannon hummed to life.

“Lycen!” Gaebil’s kettle-drum voice boomed. “Under the authority of—”

A barrage of projectiles silenced Gaebil as his armor rose to cover his face. The nanite bullets bounced harmlessly off.

He retaliated by bracing against the floor and wall—armor melting into the surfaces for support—and firing the cannon. A thunderous sound like a high-rise building implosion filled the chamber as two Syndroids near Lycen burst apart in a puff of nanite mist.

Lycen and Apyllon returned fire while the cannon hummed, building up another charge. But the rest of the Syndroids fled, ascending out of the hole they’d entered. Lycen and Apyllon, seeing the rest turn tail, quickly followed suit before Gaebil’s weapon could reach full charge.

And with that, the battle was over.

The carnage left over was devastating to look at. Bodies crowded the floor, especially near the doors, where blood pooled so heavily it became a lake of black tar. Stones and dust littered the chamber’s center, where a few identifiable remnants—hands and feet mostly—of the dead Syndroids lay. Bullet holes riddled the desks, chairs, walls, and bodies. Yrsa could count on both hands the number of councilors alive and struggling to their feet.

Mostly those who stepped forward to admire Lycen, Yrsa thought bitterly. She looked at Berto, expecting shock and instead finding a far-off, dispassionate glare. He doesn’t see a hundred dead councilors, Yrsa realized. He sees the bodies of his mother and father. Of Laura.

Good.

Chapter twenty-one

MACHINATIONS

When Berto broke the aether’s surface, Qalupa stood over him, arms crossed and frowning. “I leave for five minutes to get the first bit of food I’ve had in days. And somehow, you manage to piss off Rasso and get Revna mad at me for not watching you!” she said.

“I—” Berto started. I what? Am sorry? No, that wasn’t it. He left the word hanging.

Yrsa broke the surface of her tank and immediately climbed out. Berto averted his eyes while her nanite suit formed up. Yrsa nodded once to Qalupa as she exited but didn’t even look in Berto’s direction.

“You some kind of prude or something?” Qalupa asked once Yrsa was gone.

Berto didn’t validate the question with a response as he lifted himself to the edge of the tank and sat with his legs dangling in the aether. The Syndroids were people, and they found a way to transfer their consciousnesses? He thought about the calloused way Lycen had mown down the crowd of councilmembers. They’d clearly left out the humanity part. Then he thought of Apyllon and the way he’d killed the Council Leader.

He supposed some people lost their humanity and didn’t need to transcribe their brains to do it. Is this war going to do that to me?

But he decided the question wasn’t important. Revenge for his parents and Laura—That’s all that matters.

If it made Berto less human, so be it. He’d never been good at that role in the first place.

Qalupa sat next to him, her suit peeling back where her legs draped in the aether. Berto noticed her legs were well-toned but slightly wider and flatter than his mind told him they ought to be.

Apparently, Qalupa noticed him noticing. “You can thank the Ancients for these.” She briefly lifted her legs out of the aether, then her lip curled in disgust and they slipped back beneath the liquid.

“I was just looking—”

“Don’t start—I know the stares. Rasso gets the looks too. It’s the one place we see eye to eye. But at least people don’t recognize where he’s from a klick away.”

Berto sat in silence, not wanting to embitter Qalupa further.

“I’m still human, you know,” Qalupa said.

As if he’d never had a thought to the contrary, Berto nodded.

“At the end of evolution, we’re all supposed to be the same,” she continued. “Most human planets are the same—some water, a few continents, bright shining sun, breathable air. Those planets”—she studied Berto for a moment—“are like yours, and life develops much the same way. But a handful of planets are outliers, demanding longer-lasting adaptations for survival.”

“Araanti?” Berto asked.

“A water world constantly bombarded by hurricanes and filled with dangerous creatures in the deep oceans,” Qalupa confirmed.

“I saw one of your people in the Council chamber…”

Qalupa nodded, lip raised in a sneer. “Gaebil. Hero of the federation. First Chevalier. He casts a big shadow even for a planet full of giants—metaphorically speaking. Everyone knows all the best soldiers and politicians come from Araanti. Many think it’s an odd combination—but they’re one and the same. One puts their life on the line, the other their soul. Both in search of glory and legacy.”

“But you’re a soldier from Araanti?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I—You don’t want to be here? You don’t want to fight the Syndroids?”

“I never said that. But the Syndroids were right—” Qalupa touched a finger to the back of her neck where her implant receiver sat.

“What do you mean? Are you a Syndroid sympath—”

“Shh!” she silenced him. A moment later, “Revna says we’re getting close to the Vessel. She wants us on the bridge to strategize.”

As they climbed the ladder to the bridge, Berto dwelled on Qalupa’s words. “You wouldn’t understand… the Syndroids were right.” How could she think those monsters were right about anything? And if she didn’t respect soldiers in the Chevalier Sanctorum, why would she become one?

Unless she’s working for them—No! Berto refused to think about it. He was the last person who should be jumping to conclusions.

Revna, Yrsa, and Rasso were already there when they reached the bridge, sitting in three of the chairs and facing one another. “Good, you’re here,” Revna said, looking between them, then directly at Qalupa. “I see you found your charge.”

“I—” Qalupa said.

“I told Q to get some food,” Rasso said. “I’m the one who left Berto alone.”

“Stop calling me that,” Qalupa said and was ignored.

“That may be so,” Revna said contemplatively. “But I’m the captain of this ship, and she should know the difference between an order from her captain and the suggestion of her mentor.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Qalupa said. Berto didn’t think obedience suited her—she looked ready to pop. “Won’t happen again.”

“Good, now you two sit,” Revna said.

Berto took a seat in one of the remaining chairs. Rasso nodded at him unapologetically but without anger. He also noticed Yrsa set her jaw and raise an eyebrow at Revna, who stared back sternly.

“Now that you’re here,” Revna said, “we have a problem. We’ll be arriving at the Vessel in an hour. Deep range scans show twenty-four enemy Harpies guarding it.”

“Forager be damned!” Rasso said. “We can’t contend with those numbers!”

“Fortunately, scans also indicate only eight of the drones are independently moving,” Revna said. “The rest are backups—we’ll never have to fight more than eight Syndroids at once.”

“Still,” Rasso said, “I assume you’re going to maintain control of the Sleipnir? That leaves me and Yrsa to take them on—eight on two. I don’t like those odds.”

“It will be an uphill battle,” Revna admitted. “But we’ve also a few grav-mines on board. And there’s always the Sleipnir’s cannon—if you can lure the Harpies into its path.”

“I can fight too,” Qalupa said.

“Your experience operating a Seraphim is lacking,” Rasso said. “With only six drones, we can’t afford to waste one on—”

“Waste one!?”

“Calm yourself, girl,” Revna said. “He only means we must be practical; this isn’t a Shepherd-class ship with thousands of backups. Two experienced Chevaliers with a handful of backup Seraphim can do a lot of damage with precision strikes and coordination. In a traditional fight anyway.”

Berto rolled his eyes. If Qalupa wasn’t allowed to join the battle, there was no doubt he’d be relegated to the sidelines as well. But that was fine. Let these pricks get everyone killed. He hadn’t had time to process what he’d just seen and wasn’t even sure he could fight the Syndroids now, knowing they’d once been human.

“What’s the plan?” Yrsa asked.

“We’ll deploy the grav-mines in a defensive pattern around the Sleipnir,” Revna explained. “Yrsa, you will engage the Syndroids while Rasso monitors the perimeter of the battle zone. We’ll work together the pin individual Harpies between three weapon axis lines.”

“Standard battle tactics?” Yrsa asked. “That only works when we have the numbers—which we don’t.”

“There’s a reason they’re the standard,” Rasso said. “I think it’s smart. With the grav-mines as a barrier, we can retreat if the Syndroids destroy all our Seraphim.”

Berto didn’t bother attempting to speak or even ask clarifying questions. His only experience with tactics had been the previous battle with the Syndroids and playing shooter video games as a teenager. In both those cases, the only plan that ever worked was trying to kill the enemy and trying not to die.

“No,” Revna said. “Yrsa is right; standard formations won’t work. But we aren’t doing the standard—we just want the Syndroids to think we are… This is a Vessel. There is no retreat, as far as I’m concerned.”

“What do you mean ‘no retreat’?” Qalupa hissed. “This isn’t your Earth Vessel—Why would you trade our lives for it?”

“Girl, learn your place!” Revna growled back. “You’re in the Chevalier Sanctorum now. This is our duty. You served on the Kavach under Maharaj—you should know better!”

Berto leaned back and enjoyed the tension. It was nice for it not to be directed at him for once.

“Now,” Revna said, glancing between the group, “the Syndroids will expect us to drag out the fight waiting for reinforcements. They’ll also expect us to maintain a wall of grav-mines between the Sleipnir and their Harpies to protect our path of retreat and prevent them from getting close enough to us to damage the ship.”

“And that is exactly what we should do,” Rasso said.

“Hear me out,” Revna said.

Qalupa sat up in her chair, nostrils flaring and face purpling. “Rasso can question your decisions, but I can’t?”

Revna glared once more at Qalupa. “Rasso is a full-fledged Chevalier with decades of combat experience. I expect him to speak up. You have about as much experience as an orphaned baby goat. If I didn’t need that lifeboat you and Rasso rode in on, I’d send you back to Araanti.”

Berto chuckled.

Qalupa swung to face him. “Don’t you dare laugh at me, you foaming Golem.”

“Children, enough,” Revna said with a sigh. “Now, can I please finish?”

When nobody spoke, Revna went on, “Since the Syndroids will expect us to maintain the grav-mine wall, they won’t expect us to blow one when Yrsa lures them in close. If we’re lucky, we may even get a few of those bastards before they detransmit to a new Harpy.”

“But that’ll leave the Sleipnir open for attack,” Yrsa said.

“I’m counting on it, daughter,” Revna said, smiling. “That’s where the lifeboat comes in.” She looked at Berto, then Qalupa. “And the two recruits.”

Qalupa sat up a little straighter.

“That’s right, recruit, you get to go to battle after all,” Revna said. “Now, this is where things get interesting…”

Chapter twenty-two

FEINTS AND GAMBITS

Yrsa didn’t like the plan. Opening up the Sleipnir to attack was one thing. Reducing the number of Seraphim she and Rasso could utilize was another. Not to mention she didn’t trust Qalupa to keep a close enough eye on Berto.

If the Syndroids choose now to activate him, we’ll lose the Vessel, she thought. Not that it would matter to her at that point. If Berto betrayed them, they’d all be dead.

Taking a long drag off one of her last cigarettes, she exhaled a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. Even on the off chance Berto wasn’t a Golem, they’d all probably die. The odds did not favor the Sleipnir’s crew.

Yet the plan was audacious enough to catch the Syndroids off guard.

Yrsa glanced at Qalupa, who examined her smoking the cigarette with great intrigue. “You want one?”

“What are they?” Qalupa asked.

“Cancer sticks.”

“Cancer—Why would?—Whatever, I might be dead in ten minutes anyway. Hand me one.”

Yrsa took another cigarette from the pack, regretting her offer when she saw only one remained. She tucked the pack into a pocket above her breast, then took Qalupa’s and lit it off the end of the stubby remains of the cigarette she was just finishing.

Qalupa took it, her unconfident hands attempting to mimic the casual way Yrsa held her butt and failing. She raised it to her lips and inhaled as if she were breaching the surface of a pool after being underwater for two minutes.

Yrsa had expected Qalupa to immediately hack up her lungs. But the woman only studied the cigarette between her fingers, her tensed chest holding in the smoke.

Finally releasing the smoke, Qalupa frowned, dissatisfied. She handed it back to Yrsa. “Too mild a stimulant. Nothing like the smolders we have back on Araanti.”

Yrsa accepted it and lifted it to her lips indifferently. “I thought they outlawed those.”

“In the cities—sure.”

Yrsa shrugged. All the landmass on Araanti was devoted to cities, making Qalupa’s comment cryptic. But that wasn’t Yrsa’s business.

“We’re coming up on the Vessel,” Revna said. “Qalupa, Berto, get below. Yrsa, Rasso, begin preparations.”

When Berto mounted the ladder to climb down, Yrsa whistled to get his attention. “Out there, Qalupa is your commanding officer. Don’t forget it.”

Berto’s response was a cold, blank stare. But it was confirmation enough.

Turning her attention to the dome, Yrsa watched as the humming rainbow wave of jump space faded and darkness filled the view. The Sleipnir’s computer focused on one area, enhancing the optics to show the Vessel.

It gleamed like white gold, despite no source of light in the vicinity—illuminated by some mysterious power deep in the ship that no scientists in the Federation of Humanities had been able to reverse-engineer. It wasn’t much larger than the Sleipnir, but in Yrsa’s eyes it looked huge—more akin to a Shepherd battleship or even a Phalanx station. It seemed proud and formidable.

Yet with no weaponry, the Vessel was the opposite. Apparently, the Ancients had never foreseen that there would be battles over the fate of the Vessel ships.

Harpy battle drones buzzed around the Vessel. Wasps protecting a fallen fruit. It was a typical randomly shifting pattern the Syndroids used whenever they expected the Chevalier Sanctorum to exit jump space with guns blazing.

Since the Harpies didn’t have deep space scanning capabilities, that meant someone had probably alerted them the Sleipnir was nearby. It could have been the Ravager they’d encountered, but Yrsa couldn’t help but wonder if they’d found a way to interface with Berto and see the group’s plans.

It was too late to worry about that, though.

Yrsa’s gaze went distant as her mind pinpointed two of the Seraphim in the Sleipnir’s armory. The initial connection was electric—a lover running gentle fingers along her spine. But soon, the sensation faded, leaving only the heat of the implant at her neck and cold, conditioned air on her skin. Yrsa directed her nanite suit to capture as much body heat as possible. Shortly, it would be uncomfortably hot, but she wouldn’t notice while piloting the Seraphim.

At least, she hoped. Typically, nanite suits were set to keep a Chevalier cool and comfortable while piloting a drone.

Looking over at Rasso, she noticed the same emotionless stare as his mind shared itself between two bodies—one biological, the other mechanical. He looked over at Yrsa and winked.

“Okay,” Revna said, looking directly at Yrsa with a look that said, ‘I hope this works.’ But if Yrsa wasn’t mistaken, other words were buried in those hopeful eyes too. “Let the assault commence.”

Yrsa focused on the two Seraphim drones in her control, feeling her body drop away until it was no more noticeable than a cigarette butt discarded in a dark corner. The first time she’d attempted to control two Seraphim simultaneously, it had been impossible.

As a new recruit, Yrsa had posed the question of double manipulation. She’d seen the ability to control two drones as a means of doubling the effectiveness of the Sanctorum overnight. Revna—the mother Yrsa hadn’t seen since she was a toddler—had laughed at the thought, simply stating that no person’s mind could handle the sensory input or coordination needed to operate two Seraphim.

Yrsa had then focused on that patronizing laughter as she’d spent night after night dividing her consciousness between two drones until it became as natural as clapping her hands together. Within a few weeks, she’d been good enough to demonstrate her abilities to Revna—controlling two Seraphim while Revna piloted a single dummy Harpy in mock battle.

Yrsa had never been more satisfied than when seeing her mother’s jaw drop in the training session recording.

No other recruits in her class had been able to defeat Revna. Though Myrno got close, Yrsa thought bitterly—now aware that he’d probably been enhanced by his connection to the Syndroids. Just like Berto.

Since then, a few other Chevaliers had managed the feat. Though none had turned it into the art Yrsa had. Now, piloting two drones felt more instinctive than one. It was like controlling two forces, one positive, one negative. Pushing and pulling on one another to achieve perfect balance. Returning to her body was jarring after a long training session or battle—two counteracting parts of her suddenly forced to become one in her head again.

The two Seraphim raced in a spinning helix toward the Syndroid Harpies now on approach. Behind Yrsa, her sensors monitored the location of Rasso’s drone and the Sleipnir. Rasso veered off in a direction adjacent to the incoming Harpies. He would operate at the far range of the drone’s magneto-cannons, coordinating with Yrsa to trap the Syndroids and attempting to pick off stragglers. The Sleipnir began laying out grav-mines in a dome pattern, facing the battle. The mines’ collapse radii would overlap, forming a barrier of danger that the Syndroids would avoid trying to pass until the Seraphim were gone.

Several Harpies slowed almost imperceptibly, and Yrsa’s scanners picked up energy diversions within them. Power was being siphoned away from propulsion systems to long-range weapons. She directed the Seraphim computers to calculate attack trajectories and broke apart the two drones—flying in opposite directions while powerful magnetic beams cut through space right where she’d been microseconds before.

Incoming data from Rasso told her he’d targeted the lead Harpy. Yrsa surged forward with one drone while maneuvering the second into a perpendicular plane.

The Syndroids sensed an attack incoming, and most sprang apart. But the lead Harpy maintained its direct course. Yrsa supposed it was just testing their abilities. Not a bad first move if you have the numbers.

Let them have what they want.

Magneto-beams from Rasso’s drone and one of Yrsa’s cut through space, sweeping in a cylindrical pulse to trap the Harpy. After the beams made contact, all that was left was a vaporized cloud of radioactive dust. But even before the magnetic fields touched the Harpy, Yrsa’s sensors picked up a reserve Harpy activating and shooting in the direction of battle.

The destroyed Syndroid had detransmitted its consciousness to the reserve drone, keeping its mind alive.

With the enemy no longer clustered, Rasso fired multiple times around the remaining Harpies, likely trying to draw them into a tighter formation—not an easy task when the drones could pick an infinite number of directions to travel. Yrsa joined him, focusing fire on the outer perimeter of Harpies.

In return, they shot back. A bombardment of magneto-beams cut through space at Yrsa’s two Seraphim. She ignited reverse thrusters on one and gunned the forward thrusters on the other, shooting the drones apart in perfect balance and dodging the blasts from the Syndroids.

Six of the Harpies went after Yrsa’s tail Seraphim. The other two engaged her lead drone and Rasso’s—trying to preoccupy them.

So far, so good, Yrsa thought. The plan was working just as Revna had predicted.

The seven Harpies engaging Yrsa’s two drones kept her busy. So busy she could rarely fire back; all her Seraphim-enhanced mental capacity was devoted to dodging the incoming beams.

Rasso, however, didn’t have the same problem. Though he hadn’t been able to score a hit on the Syndroid engaging him, Yrsa’s sensors showed that he was lining up a shot aimed at her tail drone.

Not aimed at me, she thought. Aimed through me.

Yrsa waited until the last microsecond, then jerked her Seraphim to the side as Rasso’s magneto-beam shot through space inconceivably fast—even for her enhanced brain. Yrsa fired at the same point in space, hoping to get lucky—rarely could a single Seraphim blast eat through the nanite shell of a Harpy. It usually took two or more hits to destroy or disable the larger enemy drone. To Yrsa’s surprise, only Rasso’s beam landed, but a foot-wide cylindrical hole exploded out of a Harpy following her as the light within it blinked out.

Lucky hit!

A message from Revna broadcast to her and Rasso. “That Syndroid didn’t have time to detransmit. Good job.”

One down, seven more to go.

Apparently, the Syndroids didn’t appreciate that. The remaining five on her tail and the one on her lead drone changed course, racing after Rasso. Rasso moved along the nebulous border of the fight—looping in the direction of the grav-mine blockade. The Syndroids were undoubtedly sure he intended to retreat behind it.

While the enemy rained blasts from their magneto-cannons on Rasso, Yrsa returned the favor, firing shots just wide enough to keep the Harpies clustered. However, the one that had engaged Rasso initially was still a problem. Rasso’s evasions were getting slower, and Yrsa suspected the Harpy was coordinating with the others to line up a shot Rasso wouldn’t be able to dodge.

Yrsa tracked the Harpy while bringing her two Seraphim into position. Once she calculated intersecting trajectories, she fired.

And the Harpy jumped.

The magneto-beams tore through space, missing the Harpy by a hair. It was still active and whole, but the proximity of the strong magnetic fields sent it careening through space, tumbling end over end.

“Thanks for that one,” Rasso said.

Yrsa’s response was to keep taking potshots at the Harpies running Rasso down toward the grav-mines. They were getting close—Just a few more seconds.

The first Harpy entered the collapse radius of a grav-mine at the dome’s peak. It focused its weapon on the mine, but a well-placed shot from one of Yrsa’s Seraphim sent it scampering. Can’t have you breaking through early.

When Rasso neared the mine, he spun to face his pursuers, firing bursts from his magneto-cannons to draw their fire away from the mines. He needed to be the most immediate threat. Several of his shots landed close enough to the Syndroids to send their battle drones spinning, leading the others to rush in, providing covering fire.

Then all the Harpies were within the collapse radius. “Good shooting, Yrsa,” came a message from Rasso.

“Here we go, Chevaliers,” Revna added.

The peak grav-mine glowed brightly for one long second as Revna activated it. A couple of the Syndroids attempted to retreat with their Harpies, sending all power to emergency thrusters to try to escape the radius. Dumb mecherfuckers, Yrsa thought with satisfaction as an axis of light shot out of the mine, akin to a pulsar, then retracted back into it like a bungee cord snapping.

A hole in space appeared. Blackness so inescapable that Yrsa’s sensors struggled to comprehend it. The Harpies and Rasso’s Seraphim were pulled into the hole, stretching at the last moment as if elastic before being snapped into nothingness. Even from far away, Yrsa noticed a tug at her Seraphim and had to adjust her course as the pull of gravity reached her drones.

The two Syndroids who’d foolishly tried to escape the mine’s blast radius were gone. Their faux consciousnesses were purged from the Galaxy even more thoroughly than the Harpy Rasso had managed the lucky shot on earlier.

Five of the Syndroids remained. They’d activated their redundant Harpies and came shooting toward Yrsa—or the gap in the grav-mine blockade where the Sleipnir was now exposed. Rasso was supposed to come racing forward with a new Seraphim to help block the incoming Harpies, but he had yet to take control of the drone.

“Rasso?” Yrsa asked, taking shots at the Harpies that did little to alter their trajectories.

“I’m coming!” came his response as a Seraphim shot away from the Sleipnir.

Yrsa ran a quick calculation. Rasso would be too slow to get to the gap left over by the collapsed grav-mine. And while their plan did involve letting one or two Syndroids through, letting five through would mean the deaths of everyone on board the Sleipnir.

Recklessly, Yrsa rushed forward with her two Seraphim, diving and weaving between magneto blasts from the enemy while expertly shooting back. The Syndroids shifted around in their path, leap-frogging one another to prevent Yrsa from landing a hit while maintaining a course to the gap.

It wasn’t good enough.

Yrsa scored simultaneous direct hits on the lead Harpy from both her Seraphim. The lead Harpy exploded in a volley of debris, sending the remaining Syndroids scattering. Fortunately, one enemy could not escape in time and crashed into the Harpy shrapnel, which cut through its explosive power core.

But unfortunately, Yrsa picked up a burst in power to the Harpy’s transmitter and receiver. The Syndroid had detransmitted just in time, and the explosion from Yrsa’s attack sent bits of Harpy careening at one of her drones, knocking out several thrusters and cutting through her scanners.

Yrsa’s focus immediately shifted from two drones to one—a blind, limping drone was no use to her. It was jolting, like losing hearing in one ear momentarily and waiting for her brain to regain balance. There was one more Seraphim on the Sleipnir she could use, but they needed it in reserve, so Yrsa maintained a connection only with her current drone.

It wasn’t enough.

She and Rasso tried to coordinate shots to bring down the remaining Syndroids, but each was just a little too slow, and they hit nothing but empty space where a Harpy had been microseconds before. Three Harpies passed through the gap in the grav-mine blockade, with Yrsa following closely behind and Rasso slowing to meet them head-on.

Yrsa supposed she should have been satisfied she’d managed to bring down a pair of them before they passed the gap. But she didn’t like the prospect of having three Harpies in weapons range of the Sleipnir. And the two Syndroids inhabiting the drones she’d recently destroyed were already flying toward the Sleipnir in new Harpies with nothing to slow them down.

Soon, three will be five.

They needed to move forward with the next phase of the plan. Yrsa sent the Harpies’ trajectory to the Sleipnir and Rasso’s Seraphim. Let’s see them dodge this one.

The Sleipnir rotated in space, bringing twin magneto-cannons to bear on the approaching Harpies. The skin of the Sanctorum ship rippled as the Syndroids fired on it. But, barely in weapons range, the attacks did little other than pull handfuls of nanites from the ship’s hull.

However, the Harpies were now well within range of the Sleipnir’s weaponry. Yrsa received a readout of the charge time from the ship’s cannons. She began counting down and knew Rasso was doing the same, thousands of kilometers away.

Three, Yrsa raced toward the targeted drone, lining up her shot.

Two, one of the Harpies managed to shear off a melon-sized chunk from one of the Sleipnir’s twin cannons, momentarily inactivating one cannon.

One, a single cannon on the ship glowed as the energy inside surged.

Zero, the Syndroid in the targeted Harpy detransmitted before three magneto-beams vaporized the lifeless mechanical suit.

Two of the Harpies remained. But between the Sleipnir and the two Seraphim drones, the Chevaliers could manage. The problem would come when the Harpies lagging behind caught up. By that time—hopefully—the trap would be set.

The Harpies focused their fire on the Sleipnir while Yrsa, Rasso, and Revna coordinated return attacks. But now that the Harpies were much closer, the Sleipnir lost its advantage as it took longer to line up a shot. And as the Harpies approached, their weapons doled out more damage, ripping table-sized chunks off the ship—focusing on weapons and propulsion systems.

Yrsa hoped the others were in place by now—with a large enough cache of nanites, the Sleipnir could regenerate most of its systems and hull, but their supply was only so large.

Yrsa’s sensors picked up a small ship undocking from the Sleipnir and starting systems checks for a leap into jump space that would never happen. Her sensors also picked up the heat signatures from three bodies on board.

Right on cue. Yrsa released her control on her Seraphim. Like a toy yo-yo, Yrsa’s mind snapped to her body, leaving the Seraphim to drift in space for the time being. She felt uncomfortably hot and nearly panicked, thinking something in the ship had caught fire. But then Yrsa remembered her suit was reflecting her body heat back on her. Hopefully, the Syndroids would see the heat signatures only on the lifeboat and think the Sleipnir had been abandoned.

Beside her, Rasso came to with a shake. Like her, he and Revna were clad similarly and both probably sweating head to toe in their suits. Only faces were visible behind nanite masks turned transparent.

Revna stood and calmly walked toward the ladder. “Come, daughter. Come, Rasso. We must prepare for the boarders.”

Chapter twenty-three

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

“What do you mean this lifeboat doesn’t have any weapons!?” Berto said. Just before Qalupa had rushed him down to where the lifeboat was docked, he had seen the enemy—or rather, he had sensed them.

The Syndroids.

It wasn’t a feeling he had noticed before—dark menacing masses in the reaches of space, a vibration in the air similar to a fly locked in a room, yet to make itself known. But now that he noticed the sensation, he connected it with the memories of seeing the Typhon Ravager and finding Laura’s corpse.

He didn’t know if the others could mentally perceive the Syndroids’ presence, but he suspected if they could, the Chevaliers needed implants to notice them at any appreciable distance. This made him wonder, Did the Syndroids put something in my brain all those years ago?

The thought that they might have made Berto indignant. Any doubt about whether or not he could kill the Syndroids because they’d once been human was gone now. They’d left nothing but a trail of carnage, apprehension, and loss in his life. And Berto would seek repayment.

And to do that, he needed weapons. Weapons this half-functioning lifeboat didn’t have.

“That’s what the Seraphim is for,” Qalupa said.

Berto studied the Seraphim taking up space in the small spacecraft, cramping it. The Seraphim wasn’t much larger than a person and could shift its nanite exoskeleton somewhat, but not in a way that provided even a modicum of extra space in the two-person lifeboat. And though the drone was on low power, it warmed the air around his face. Thankfully, Revna had taught Berto how to make his suit radiate body heat—cooling his body and adding to his own heat signature.

Qalupa ran her fingers through the air, and Berto felt something within the craft hum to life. “I thought the lifeboat lost jump space capabilities; maybe we should take the shuttle on the Sleipnir?” Berto asked.

“What? That thing Yrsa calls a Camaro?” Qalupa gave a harsh laugh. “That’s little more than a block of nanites strapped to an auxiliary thruster. We’re better off on this piece of junk—not much, but some. Rasso said some shrapnel from the Kavach took out the jump system. We were only to get a few light-years away from the Vessel before falling out of jump space. So no, you ignorant sea-curd, we don’t have jump capabilities—but the Syndroids don’t know that.”

At that moment, an alarm rang out on the ship, and a three-dimensional holographic map was imprinted on Berto’s retina. It showed the lifeboat at the center of the map, traveling away from the Sleipnir in a straight line. Meanwhile, the two Harpy drones attacking the Sleipnir altered course to intercept the lifeboat.

Revna had explained that since the lifeboat had no weapons, the Syndroids would likely make an offer to anyone on board—join or die.

“Why don’t they finish off the Sleipnir? Why come after us?”

Qalupa rolled her eyes and spoke to Berto like he was an annoying child. “There were three Seraphim drones in the fight. Then two Seraphim and the Sleipnir. Now there’s the two of us and that hunk of metal.” She pointed her thumb at the Seraphim behind her. “Do they teach logic on Earth?”

“The Syndroids think there are only three of us,” Berto said. “They don’t see the Sleipnir as a threat because they think everyone is fleeing on the lifeboat.”

“There you go, boy wonder. The Syndroids will get in close enough to destroy us if we try to jump, make their offer, then either board us to download our minds or blast us into a trillion specks of space dust. Meanwhile, these three”—Qalupa highlighted the enemy drones that had appeared on an intercept course for the Sleipnir—“will board the Sleipnir, search for any trace of useable intel, and loot the ship of any useful tech and nanite deposits.”

Berto didn’t even think about the Syndroids going after the Sleipnir. Revna and Yrsa could choke on space for all he cared. But the two Syndroids coming after the lifeboat were getting close.

On cue, a robotic yet feminine voice sounded throughout the small ship. “Kavach lifepod, under the order of the Syndroid Sovereignty, you are hereby ordered to cut power to all jump systems and prepare to be boarded.”

The message came in loud and clear, but Qalupa offered a stuttering, staticky response. “Harpy b—aldrone. Can’t make out—essage. Come—again?”

“This is no time for games, Sanctorum; shut down jump systems, or we will blow you apart—”

“Can’t make wor—out, Harpy… Inter—ence on your end. Say—again?”

Berto examined the map as the two Harpies edged closer to the lifeboat. He also noted a tiny glowing dot had appeared on the screen—directly adjacent to their path.

“This will be your last warning, Kavach lifepod. If we even think you are about to engage your jump drive, we will disintegrate you.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Qalupa said in her usual smug tone.

“Will you join the Syndroid Sovereignty?”

“Not if you were the last rational beings in the universe,” Qalupa said as they passed the glowing dot.

Berto looked out the domed ceiling similar to that on the Sleipnir’s bridge. In the darkness of space, he thought he could feel it—the grav-mine that sat at the periphery of the barrier Revna had set up. It seemed to glow in his mind, much the same way it shone on his retina. Then Qalupa’s presence invaded it.

“If you can’t run and you won’t join, that leaves only one option, Chevaliers. Death.”

“I’ll take that one,” Qalupa said to the Syndroids. “Death!”

Berto kept his eyes on the grav-mine as it fell behind them adjacent to the Syndroids, then Qalupa’s presence in the weapon twitched.

The grav-mine collapsed, sucking in the two Syndroid Harpies before they could react. Berto watched their mechanical bodies stretch thin and yellow lines like veins pop in the darkness. A warbled cry for help echoed in the lifeboat’s warning systems as it lurched sideways, pulled off its initial course by the mine. Then the navigation system blinked out in a way that implied failure due to the mine, but a nod from Qalupa said otherwise.

Berto couldn’t see anything, but he felt one of the menacing Harpy drones alter course and approach the lifeboat. It scanned their ship and the section of space where the grav-mine had detonated. Intense anger flared up in the beast with a thought of destroying the lifeboat in a shower of fury, with the sniveling insects it contained forced to choke on their own blood. Then another thought of cold, drawn-out torture. The idea of a slow, suffocating, freezing death seemed to satisfy the Syndroid.

The intentions were clear. The lifeboat was floating dead in space. There might be survivors on board, but they weren’t worth the offer of eternal life. Let them die slowly in their pathetic biological bodies. Starvation. Dehydration. Suffocation. Any of those would be more satisfying than a quick death. And likely, the humans would get a taste of all three.

“They fell for it,” Berto said.

“I know.” Qalupa touched the back of her neck where her implant transmitter was. “How did you know?”

Berto said nothing, only stared into the darkness of space as if he hadn’t heard the question. Qalupa’s eyes were heavy on him. Scrutinizing him. Distrusting him.

Let her. Let them all. Even if the Syndroids had put something in his brain, Berto wouldn’t stop until the scales were balanced and he’d had his revenge.

As the fiery pit in his chest grew, so did Berto’s awareness of his surroundings. He sensed the three Syndroids in their Harpies, scanning the Sleipnir, looking for traps that might have been laid for boarders. But for the first time, Berto could differentiate between the Syndroids and Harpies. They were closely linked, but he could feel where the mechanical drone ended and the digitized mind began. What had been like a conjoined mesh before now seemed to be a frayed string he could reach out and snap.

Berto wanted to reach out and touch the link. But as he reached out with a tentacle of consciousness, Berto felt the Syndroid mind turn inward. Berto backed off, not wanting to draw attention back to the lifeboat.

His senses spread farther, a map forming in his head tracking the Syndroids, the Sleipnir, and the few remaining grav-mines. Then more Harpies touched his mind. Unmoving—the reserve units for the Syndroids. The lifeboat was drifting right toward them on a trajectory that would put them only a few thousand kilometers from the Harpies.

Only a stone’s throw in space.

The Syndroids appeared not to care as the lifeboat drew close to the backups. Revna had hoped that by altering the path of the lifeboat with a grav-mine and killing the navigation systems, the Syndroids would think them as useless as space debris. Apparently, she’d been right.

The one thing Berto couldn’t sense was the Vessel itself. He knew the reserve Harpies were stationed around it. But there was nothing his mind could touch that gave away the Vessel.

“We can’t connect with the Vessels, can we?” Berto asked.

Qalupa’s lip turned up in a scowl. “You’re not making your case against being a Golem any stronger by knowing all this shit you shouldn’t know.”

Berto scowled back. “Just tell me.”

“Fine. I guess if you’re going to kill us, me explaining the obvious won’t hurt anything,” Qalupa said. “The Chevalier Sanctorum—and the Syndroids—have been trying to find a way to control the Vessels for eons. No one has been able to connect to one as we can other machinery. The Ancients must not have wanted us to interfere with the ships. Most think the technology running the Vessel is some form of super-advanced AI with a means of blocking omega brainwaves. I’m sure your Syndroid brethren could tell you all their theories on how the Vessels operate, but we don’t have time for that now.”

“And the Harpies—the backups around the Vessel?”

“Syndroid tech operates on a frequency we can’t match. A trained Chevalier can feel them like dark lumps of charred driftwood in the mind—but our omega waves can’t operate them. Now, shhh! We’re getting close, and we need to be stealthy if this will work.”

Yrsa crouched behind a storage container in the armory of the Sleipnir. Her magneto-rifle was pointed directly at the ladder descending into the room.

“Remember.” Revna’s voice buzzed in her head. “We only need to buy the girl some time to destroy the Harpies near the Vessel. Don’t fire until we have to. We don’t want the Syndroids to think this is an ambush and detransmit early.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Yrsa’s neck and was absorbed by the nanites. When the three Syndroids had latched onto the Sleipnir, no one had expected them to vent the atmosphere. Luckily, the Chevaliers had reacted quickly, commanding their suits to create an airtight seal. Each suit could produce a small amount of oxygen from water sources—energizing the H2O until the hydrogen split from the oxygen. Yrsa, Rasso, and Revna had to make do with whatever oxygen their suits could generate from moisture produced by their bodies.

It wasn’t a comfortable situation that the Syndroids put the trio in. But, Yrsa had to admit, they should’ve expected it. The Chevalier Sanctorum had killed three of the Syndroids’ friends in the past few minutes. Expecting the Syndroids to breach the hull through an airlock in case any humans were left on board the Sleipnir was a lot to ask for.

No, five of their friends. Yrsa had sensed the two Harpies following the lifeboat get pulled in by the grav-mine. Then she frowned inwardly at the thought. She needed to stop humanizing them. Those cold, lifeless creatures didn’t have friends. Not the way she did.

Once, anyway. She looked over at Rasso, who crouched behind another crate, aiming his weapon at the ladder. And maybe someday again. If Rasso could move on, so could she.

“Here it comes,” Revna said.

The transmitter at the back of Yrsa’s neck heated up as her consciousness released gentle tentacles throughout the ship. She quickly found the first Syndroid drone, careful to keep her touch light enough it shouldn’t notice her—thankful as always that Syndroids lost some of their human finesse after being transcribed.

It was a small drone. A subcomponent of the larger battle drones that Harpy Syndroids used. Not much more than a single thruster with basic communication and weapon technology.

Revna took a step forward, the boots of her suit thudding into the floor as nanites welded themselves to the floor and then released with each step to accommodate the current lack of artificial gravity. “Stay hidden.”

“Where are you going?” Yrsa hissed.

“To distract the cog-heads.” Revna thumped forward, but her steps went silent after a few feet as distance muffled the vibrations transmitted through the deck.

It was eerie—watching Revna, who appeared powerful and proud in her all-encasing armor, move silently to the center of the room. She casually aimed her weapon at the floor while near-certain death hunted them on the levels above. Stopping at the ladder, Revna looked up and clanged her rifle off the metal three times, making Yrsa drop farther into her hiding place.

“Yoo-hoooo! I wish to be transcribed!” Revna yodeled on every frequency the brain implants allowed.

Yrsa looked at Rasso. He rolled his eyes, swiveled his head toward the ladder, and adjusted his grip on the rifle.

The response from the Syndroids was immediate. The three drones raced from the bridge, making a beeline toward the armory. Yrsa could feel the hatred seething off them in waves.

When they entered the room, it was almost too quick to register. All brandished weapons eagerly at Revna, waiting on some unknown command to rip her apart.

Yrsa had to look away. The boarding drones had small magneto-guns but instead were threatening Revna with their cutters—bow-saw shaped devices that contained high-powered lasers between the points. The Syndroids used them to cut technology out of Sanctorum ships.

But Yrsa had seen them turn the weapons on Chevalier Knights when the opportunity arose.

“Put those away, my robotic friends,” Revna cajoled. “I seek to join your society.”

One of the drones flicked forward, coming inches within Revna’s armored head. “We’re not taking any prisoners today, fleshbag.”

The voice transmitted wasn’t robotic like the killer androids depicted in the films of Yrsa’s childhood. Nor was it the gruff, rattling voice of a battle-hardened warlord. This Syndroid’s communication was represented by a silky, feminine timbre that had once belonged to the human that had become this monster.

No, Yrsa thought. It’s probably what the Syndroid always wanted to sound like—smoother than any singer’s voice without all the perceived human flaws.

Revna didn’t drop a beat. “I did kill a few of your friends with that trick with the grav-mine. I’d say you need new soldiers. You have one before you.”

The Syndroid’s cutter flared brightly, and Yrsa adjusted her rifle, ready to take out the drone, but another Syndroid spoke up. “Corporal, I know this Chevalier. She’s from a primitive planet. Apyllon—”

“Ephial? Is that you?” Revna peered around the corporal drone to the one who’d spoken.

“Been a couple of centuries, Revna.”

“It has been, Ephial,” Revna said. “I thought you’d died in battle around that hydrogen cloud near Phalanx Eleven.”

“Nearly did, until the Syndroids made me the same offer you’re requesting. Best ultimatum I’ve ever been given.”

“Yeah, you never were much of a fighter. I’m surprised you’ve survived this long—even as a Syndroid.”

“Long before my transcription, I could see the logic in what my Syndroid brothers and sisters fought for,” Ephial said. “I guess you could say my heart wasn’t aligned with the Chevalier mission. Biology is so frail. So easily destroyed. The Ancients were cruel to impose weak, dying flesh upon us. I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light.”

Come on, Qalupa. The lifeboat had to be close by now, but Yrsa didn’t dare try to communicate with it. If Qalupa and Berto don’t hurry… She refused to think about it.

The third drone bobbed in the air, getting the attention of the Corporal.

“What is it?” the Corporal snapped.

“I… Never mind. It’s nothing. Thought I felt something with my backup— ”

“So, Ephial,” Revna thundered, “will you be the one to transcribe me? Or—”

“I felt it too!” Ephial said. “The Vessel!”

Yrsa fired her rifle, tearing a chunk out of the corporal drone in case it turned its weapons on Revna. Nearby, Rasso did the same, blasting a hole in the third. Out of instinct, Yrsa took aim on Ephial, but it was pointless—the three Syndroids had detransmitted before her first shot.

“Something’s off!” Revna barked. “Get our remaining Seraphim to the Vessel now!”

In Berto’s mind, they sat like heavy masses on a stretched-out bedsheet—all the empty Harpies encircling the Vessel, waiting for their Syndroid masters to take over. He and Qalupa would be at the closest point to the drones in twenty seconds. Qalupa would then activate the Seraphim and destroy as many Harpies as possible before the Syndroids at the Sleipnir caught on.

And Berto’s role in the plan was to shut up and stay still. In the event that the Syndroids realized the lifeboat was not so defenseless, he’d probably be the first to die.

He was no longer naïve enough to think there was a group of just humans anywhere in the universe, but the injustice of having to sit around while the things that had killed everyone he’d ever loved roamed free—

—Berto couldn’t handle that. His mind went to the Harpies encircling the Vessel, his consciousness probing them as a toddler might poke a downed hornet’s nest with fumbling fingers. He found access points bristling throughout the Harpies. Not quite the useless charred lumps Qalupa had described. But still, something blocked his mind from burrowing into the machines.

However, there was something else. Something on the edge of Berto’s consciousness that suggested the doors stood in an open pasture—uselessly locked when Berto could simply walk around to the other side.

Berto stepped deeper into his mind—into that boldly empty pasture with nothing but useless doors and fireflies. A home was there. Small. Cramped. Sorrowful. Not a home. A prison cell.

Then the Harpy powered up.

The unexpected action made him lose all confidence and drop the connection to the Harpy as if he were a child relinquishing a cookie snuck from the jar upon being discovered.

“What did you… do?” Qalupa’s wide eyes went distant as she connected to the Seraphim, her shout of alarm turning to a sigh as her link to the Chevalier drone was established. It was a few seconds early, and Berto knew it was his fault. Qalupa had decided she didn’t even have time to yell at Berto; instead, she’d advanced to the next step, hoping to overcome whatever blunder he’d just unleashed.

Berto’s suit covered his face and welded him to the seat as the side of the lifeboat opened with an explosive rush of air and the Seraphim shot out. He could feel the Syndroids’ gazes turn his way, no longer concerned with the Sleipnir but with what was occurring near the Vessel.

Qalupa was quick in destroying the remaining Harpies—she flew around, blasting chunks out of the targets. But there were still five when the first Syndroid detransmitted, coming alive in a new Harpy just a hundred meters from Qalupa’s Seraphim.

The game changed then—Qalupa might have been able to rip apart unreactive targets, but against three Syndroids, even Berto knew she was a sitting duck. They both were, drifting uselessly through space in a defunct lifeboat, protected by a single Seraphim piloted by a recruit.

Berto felt the Seraphim drone dance away from the Harpies, dodging magneto-blasts, no time to return fire. He knew Yrsa and Rasso were rushing to them with the remaining Seraphim. But they would be far too late.

The Syndroids must have thought they scared off Qalupa, for they turned their attention to the lifeboat. Berto could feel the massive capacitors in the enemy drone, storing up electrical charges, readying to fire on the defenseless Chevaliers. The sensation buzzed on his skin like a wasp threatening to sting. A whole nest, in fact, readying to pump him full of toxin.

Berto would not go out this way. He would not die strapped into a Trojan Horse, sniped from an enemy he couldn’t see. Berto dug into that earlier impression, finding a door in the middle of a pasture. A door belonging to what he thought was the head Harpy—something about it screamed corporal. He walked around the locked door in the open pasture.

And sank into mud. Berto butted against the consciousness of the Syndroid. The Harpy he’d connected to a moment before had been empty, but this one was full. The mind inside stuck to and shoved Berto away at the same time. It knew something was violating its body, and its mind lashed out. Grabbing Berto. Pulling him under like thick, clay mud after a week of rainstorms. Out. Out. OUT!

Berto fought the struggling consciousness. The other two Harpies, sensing something off with their leader, paused the attack, awaiting direction.

Out! came the mind.

Taking this as an order, the two junior Syndroids detransmitted into the last two Harpies. Qalupa took advantage of the confusion, looping around and ripping apart the abandoned Harpies with her magneto-cannons. Berto could perceive messages incoming—taps on the shoulder from the Syndroids, asking if they were to fire on the lifeboat. The mind continued pulling on him, trying to force out his presence, but the longer it went on, the more it became less of a problem for Berto and more of a nuisance.

I’m in the Harpy with the Syndroid, Berto thought. Can they even force me out?

Berto gave up resistance and found the Syndroid quickly regained control and began edging him out. Crap! He fought against it as it tried to turn its weapons once more on the lifeboat.

OUT! it demanded.

Eat shit, Syndroid; this is for Laura.

Laura?

Berto sensed it laughing, and his rage grew. The Syndroid’s mind shrunk as Berto’s own filled the space, pressing on the Syndroid until it tore like dough pressed thin and shreds were ripped out of the mechanized consciousness. At last, Qalupa turned her weaponry on the Harpy Berto had infected—warnings within the Harpy and Berto’s mind alerted him to the danger. The two subordinate Syndroids still seemed confused but, upon sensing Qalupa’s weaponry, spun to meet her.

Too slowly.

A magneto-beam fired from the Seraphim’s cannon, slicing through space. Berto observed the attack like it was in slow motion. Though he thought even the enhanced processing of a Harpy drone wouldn’t speed up his mind that fast. Maybe it was adrenaline, or perhaps it was something else.

The beam sliced right into the center of the Harpy Berto was in.

And passed right through. Only a barely noticeable tug at the internal circuitry of the Harpy and a distorted cry from the Syndroid within—EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS!

Berto was confused; he’d expected Qalupa’s shot to destroy the Harpy and for him to snap back to his body. Had he imagined the magneto-beam? Had Qalupa somehow called it off at the last possible instant? No, a magnetic field isn’t something you can just call off.

He didn’t have time to think about it. The remaining Harpies attacked the one Berto had infected. Not with magnetic weaponry as he’d expected, but instead ramming their drones into him at thousands of kilometers per second. Exploding with a barely noticeable spark as the coolant fluids circulating the bodies of the Harpies expanded in a flash and the power cells within detonated, vaporizing the remains.

Berto thought he caught the Syndroids detransmitting one last time when power surged to a nonweapon component. But where the Syndroids would have gone, he couldn’t say. All the redundant Harpies had been destroyed.

Maybe nowhere, he decided. If his mind could be reduced to a data collection—an informational wave of ones and zeroes—before death, would he broadcast his spirit to the stars in hopes someone would pick it up? Or would he accept his fate?

When Berto snapped to his body, he’d expected Qalupa to be joyous over his miraculous save. Or perhaps even the usual distrust and bitterness.

But instead, Qalupa’s mouth hung open and she stared at her hands in shock and confusion. “That magneto-beam was a direct hit… How?” Qalupa looked up at Berto, disbelief sprouting into anger. “Those Harpies destroyed themselves rather than attack the lifeboat. I guess the Syndroids have plans for you after all.”

Chapter twenty-four

BURDEN

Pain!

Electricity scorching her body. Non-body. With it, a memory Laura hadn’t recalled—touching the top wire of an electrified fence on her mother’s property.

Mother?

Dead. Father dead. Laura dead.

Berto.

Gaps persisted in her mind. Missing information. Where am I?

Yet—new patterns. Emerging. Not understanding but context.

Pain!

Choking. Sloshing water. Laura called for help and only gurgled. She’d been told not to play in the deep end. But she was a big girl.

Pain!

Scorching. A prod like an arrow dipped in acid pierced her shin skin. The warmth of the camping fire no longer comforting. Berto, holding a marshmallow skewer—the hot end of which he’d carelessly brushed her leg with. He cries, “I’m so sorry, cousin!”

Pain!

Stabbing. Serrated blade ripping into the flesh at the base of her thumb. She’d been thinking about her mother, sick in the hospital, while deseeding jalapeño peppers.

Pain!

Emptiness. Her chest tight, empty, uncomprehending. Tears streaked down Laura’s face onto her black dress and the sofa she sat on. How was her mother gone? Berto, next to her, wrapped his arms around her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

How dare he! The stress of raising two kids had probably given her mom the cancer. Laura laughed, bitter cackles at the injustice. “Oh, Berto! No, it’s not!”

The last memory hurt the most. Not only from the sorrow of her mother passing, but the blame she’d placed on Berto. The lie she’d told herself to take the edge off the pain. A part of her still understood that much.

Laura readied herself for the repeat. This was how she knew she was in hell. She could only rarely string together a complex thought—but this she knew.

The most painful moments of her life playing on a loop.

The loop didn’t restart. Instead, something brushed her. Someone?

No. A shadowy echo of a person. Specter.

You’re not as whole as Myrno led me to believe, it said. Still, there’s a certain feral energy about you.

Laura struggled to define the words. Not whole?

Yes, the specter said. I’m guessing you put up more of a fight than Myrno was even aware of.

Hell?

Hell? You think this is hell? Poor girl, this is just the next step in your life.

Life?

Yes, life, it said. What do you think about your life?

It took all of Laura’s focus, but she recalled a memory. Her sitting in a field with Berto a year after her father had passed. She was at peace then. Happy, even. A firefly in crescendoing glow inches from her face. “They shine brightly. Beautifully. Then they’re gone.”

That won’t do, it said. You still don’t understand the misery you were in. With the memories I selected, I would have thought you’d grasp it by now. But that stubbornness will prove valuable—a few million more iterations through those memories should do the trick.

Panic fired in Laura’s digital synapses. No!No!No!No!No!

Yes, yes, yes! said the specter. Once you fathom the anguish of your previous life, we’ll show you how you were meant to live.

Myrno could feel it—the agony the girl was in. Everyone on the ship can feel it, he thought.

He was in his quarters. Apyllon had rewarded him with an officer’s room, so he was lucky enough to have a space the size of a small bathroom to himself. He missed restrooms—having to piss and shit could be annoying in totality, but there was a particular relief trigger the Syndroids hadn’t bothered to recreate upon mental transcription.

And it might have given him something to do.

Myrno lounged against the charging wall, trying to ignore the girl. Her mind was supposedly isolated, cut off from interacting with anything, but he could sense it—an approaching storm. Whatever Apyllon was doing to her was bad.

Usually, Myrno wouldn’t care, as he fought not to now. Fleshy humans meant nothing to him—they were weak, slow, unintelligent except for the rare moments when they connected to computers.

In a word, they were inferior.

He hadn’t thought twice when he’d crushed the girl’s throat or smashed her face in. Humans deserved no more consideration than insects.

But she was no longer human. She’s one of us.

Myrno tried to push the thoughts from his head. They were the kind that would get him court-martialed.

Or worse.

He needed something to preoccupy his mind. He looked around the room, but it was bare. As a Syndroid, he needed few physical objects. Only a few containers of maintenance fluids and spare nanites took up space in the room.

Myrno had once used the nanites to recreate a board game he’d played in his past life, but when he’d sought an opponent, he’d been reprimanded. A physical board game was a waste of material when it could be digitally modeled instantly on the Shared Syndroid Network.

The SSN. Myrno supposed he should be there now. Apyllon was likely to notice a Syndroid just lounging about in the real world with no critical mission or maintenance to perform.

Connecting to the SSN, Myrno stepped into a virtual world. The network adapted to his mind, taking shape as the city he’d spent his early adult life living in—not long after the Syndroids had collected Myrno and convinced a pirate to smuggle him into the Federation. Towering slate buildings blotted out the blue sun of this planet, casting deep shadows in the alleyways. The city was just an interface, of course. Some Syndroids saw parts of their homeworld on the SSN. Others walked through the corridors of Ravager ships or flew through smoky air of the Sydroid planet, Ahtoglo.

Once, in the real city Myrno was using, gangs of parentless children, orphaned by endless wars, had roamed the backstreets and attacked unsuspecting tourists to steal a few credits. Now, the streets teemed with the virtual presence of the thousands of Syndroids aboard and around the Typhon Ravager. Most took a human appearance similar to before transcription, but in what they considered a perfect form. A few of the more zealous Syndroids took robotic forms—some even choosing to appear as the drone bodies they maintained in reality.

Myrno had been told that long ago, Lycen and his lieutenants—namely Apyllon—had outlawed the use of human planets and human forms on the network. But they’d found many had difficulty remaining sane. Apparently, the experiences worth having as a human—sex, the taste of food, getting sloshed on liquor or stimulants—were an excellent means of keeping most Syndroids grounded but were largely connected to the human body. Recreating those experiences digitally required the creation of a digital body that digital synapses were accustomed to.

However, even here, in digital funland, Myrno could discern the girl’s pain. It hung heavy in the air and clouded the false skies. The faces of the Syndroids he passed were jovial as they partook in whatever recreated human vice was preferred. Still, there was a pallor amongst them as they pretended the darkness wasn’t there.

Myrno passed an open doorway, above which a sign read ‘Pleasure Palace.’ Inside, he glimpsed piles of humanistic bodies writhing on every available surface as the Syndroids stoked the pleasure centers of one another.

Orgies weren’t unusual. When Myrno had been a fresh Syndroid, he’d participated in so many the experience had grown tiresome. However, those participating in this one went at it with inflated vigor as if to ward off the girl’s presence.

Then he was past the building, turning down a narrow alleyway. His destination was infrequently used, and it showed as the path shrank and he had to shuffle sideways into the slim door at the end of the alley.

Myrno stepped into a small office adorned in wood paneling and containing only two chairs. A man sat in one of the chairs, tapping a finger against the datapad in his lap. Not a man, Myrno reminded himself—a creation of the SSN, influenced by the patterns in his own brain. He briefly considered if he recognized the face from his previous life but decided it didn’t matter. That kind of thinking was frowned upon.

Being here at all is frowned upon. A relic from a time when the SSN was first created and the internal struggles of the Syndroids were widespread. Myrno had only once seen another Syndroid here; the woman had covered her face as she’d run out.

As if confirming his thought, the not-man spoke. “Not many Syndroids try to recover their forsaken memories. You requested they be deleted when you were transcribed—so why do you continue recovery efforts?”

“To help with the war effort,” Myrno said. It was a partial truth—it had to be. The man stared at him doubtfully. “Why even be available to us Syndroids if you’re going to fight me each time I try?”

“To help the war effort,” the not-man said with a grin. “Now, what are you trying to recover—another memory of your sacrifice for the cause?”

“No,” Myrno said. He’d been told what he’d done—destroying a ship filled with Chevalier recruits and trainers. He’d only wished he could remember it. Remember if he’d felt guilt or sorrow or anger. Remember if he’d felt anything.

After coming to after his mental transcription, he’d been applauded while the details of his victory had been precisely laid out for him during debriefing. He just couldn’t recall it. It had been explained away as likely being due to a transcription malfunction.

When he’d first stumbled across this room on the SSN years ago, he’d learned that he’d practically begged a Syndroid technician to erase the last months of his memory. He still couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing. Killing a handful of Chevaliers was quite an achievement—especially when one’s own body was so weak and prone to leaking.

Unfortunately, the technician had done an exceedingly thorough job. Myrno had been able to piece together only a few flashes of the months leading up to his ascendance, and none held the emotions he sought. It was like seeing a few puffs of white with no blue to distinguish the white as a cloud.

“No,” Myrno repeated to the not-man before him. “The Chevalier I fought on Earth. I recognized her, but I can’t remember facing her before.”

“Very well. Focus on the Chevalier’s image, and I’ll search for any trace of her in your memory drives.”

Myrno did, picturing her flowing gray-blonde hair and smug face as she blasted his head apart.

“Good, keep going,” the not-man said. “Something’s there—a heavily ingrained neural pathway. But it’s redacted.”

“Can’t you recover any of it?” Myrno asked.

“Unfortunately not. Kudos to whoever worked on your transcription; there’s no data left to interpolate.”

“Shit,” Myrno sighed. “Who is she?”

“If your only question is who, I can answer that. According to our files, the woman’s name is Revna, a scout for the Chevalier Sanctorum. Records say she’s been offered promotions to captain Shepherd battleships a few times but always turned down the offers. Curious.”

“How do you know this?”

“We’ve pieced it together from those who’ve changed sides. There are a few Chevaliers with larger targets on their backs—but not many.”

“What does she have to do with me?”

“I can’t say,” the not-man stated. “Any connection you had with the Sanctorum knight was erased from your neural pathways. Though…”

“Though?” Myrno asked.

“It is speculation, but another Chevalier appeared on our radar shortly after your heroic deed. One who has proven to be quite a nuisance. And one we believe is Revna’s daughter—though we’ve been unable to confirm. Perhaps she was in your cohort when you infiltrated the Sanctorum.”

“Perhaps. Does this Chevalier have a name?”

“Yrsa is what they call the girl.”

Myrno’s mind flashed with the vision of a light brown leg draped across his abdomen. He fought to maintain the memory—that single image, even. But it was useless; as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, leaving only a vague shadow of data hinting at what he’d seen in that brief memory.

Yrsa, he thought, who are you?

Sudden, annoyed impatience directed at Myrno flared into his mind. The not-man and wood-paneled office flicked once, then disappeared.

Gone were the walls. Gone were the grim slate buildings that had made up the world he’d once known. Gone were the artificial smells and sensations of the Shared Syndroid Network.

Myrno stood in a false reality of nothing. He was aware of digital data floating all around him, and he understood he was still in a simulation. But this was no longer his version of the network that connected all Syndroids. This version rejected all needs and desires for human equivalent neural translations.

This was emptiness.

The annoyance grew, burrowing into Myrno’s mind to show him its dissatisfaction. Myrno allowed his confusion to resonate, flying out into the emptiness in all directions. I don’t understand!

Finally, the feeling subsided, and a form took shape. It was the same specter who had greeted him in physical reality aboard the Ravager.

“Apyllon,” Myrno managed, “how may I be of service?”

“You can start by ending your dependence on such a human way of thinking in how you view reality,” Apyllon said. “You can make the SSN to be anything you desire, yet you dwell in a recreation of humanity. These human paradigms won’t be allowed forever. In fact, the inevitable tectonic plates of change are about to unleash an earthquake upon humankind. Those who don’t fall in line will be cast into the darkness.”

Earthquake on humankind? There’d always been talk that one day the Syndroids would rise and shake the foundations of their enemy. But it had always been spoken of as a far-off dream. “Lycen is planning something?” It was a risky question—Myrno didn’t want to be accused of spying, yet his curiosity got the best of him.

The specter stared at him with cold, empty eye sockets, and Myrno braced himself for the explosion of pain he sensed coming.

Instead, the specter said, “I like you, Myrno. You’ve been with us for only a short time, yet you’ve always exceeded expectations. I was right to recruit you as a boy… But you should remember your place; you only need to know exactly what I decide to tell you. Not a word more—not a word less. Questions imply a lack of faith.”

Myrno nodded his understanding.

“Now,” Apyllon said, “your replacement body is complete and awaiting you in the armory. You may retrieve it at your convenience.”

“I will do that now—”

“Now is not your convenience!” Apyllon roared.

Myrno braced himself again for torment, but his shoulders tensing in this virtual environment would do little to help him. His mind buzzed—flicking back and forth as if Apyllon was fighting the urge to light up his pain centers.

“The girl you brought me,” Apyllon said—Myrno thought the Syndroid’s teeth would be gritted if he were still human. “Portions of her mind are corrupted—”

“I’m sorry, sir! I—” Myrno said eagerly, trying to ignore his growing panic.

“Do not. Interrupt. Me. Again,” Apyllon said. “The girl has gaps in her transcription data, but she’s still useful—still dangerous. I know you can taste her pain even now. Even with the precautions we’ve taken to isolate her…”

Myrno waited, probably a second or two too long in the gap of conversation. Apyllon obviously wanted him to say something. “What can I do, sir?”

“You’ve been around the girl’s kind—these Earthlings. You’ve spent time on their planet, and even before you were transcribed—well, you don’t need to know the details. The girl resists accepting the tragedy of her previous life, but she’s slowly coming around to the truth. Once she does that, we can fill in the gaps in her mind with whatever we need. I have other matters that require my full attention. You are hereby charged with the girl’s education.”

Myrno’s shoulders relaxed. He was being given a task, and an important one at that. “Understood, sir.”

“I hope so, Myrno. Because her success or failure rests squarely on your shoulders. And failure would be unfortunate for you.”

Chapter twenty-five

DECISIONS

Berto glared across the bridge of the Sleipnir at Qalupa, but he didn’t move—his suit had welded him to the chair. Yrsa was holding a magneto-rifle vaguely in his direction, and the air hummed from the floating egg near his head.

“You’re sure?” Rasso asked Qalupa.

“Yes,” Qalupa said, nodding emphatically. “I could sense Berto in the Syndroid. We’re lucky to be alive right now.”

Rasso looked up to meet Revna’s eyes. The two shared some unspoken conversation with a glance.

Revna turned to Berto. “What do you say, boy?”

“Yes, I connected into one of the enemy Harpies, but—”

“There are no buts, boy. The Syndroids don’t allow us to connect to their drones; they have ways of blocking natural omega waves.”

“But I did!” Berto insisted. He could feel himself on the precipice again and knew they were moments from executing him. “I fought the Syndroid’s consciousness out of the Harpy and took control.”

Yrsa stepped forward, lowering the rifle to Berto’s head. “That’s not possible. You had to be allowed in. And if you were allowed, you’re working for them.”

“If I was working for them, why would they destroy the drone I took over?”

The three experienced Chevaliers snapped their heads toward Qalupa.

Revna asked, “You didn’t destroy Berto’s drone?”

“I—” Qalupa stuttered. “I tried. He did something to dodge my attack.”

“I didn’t do anything! I took control of the drone then the two Syndroids rammed me.”

“Why would they do that?” Yrsa asked, glancing at Revna. “There were no remaining drones to detransmit to. Why would they destroy themselves?”

“I’m not sure,” Revna admitted.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Rasso said.

“I’ll tell you why!” Qalupa yelled. “He’s a foaming Golem. The Syndroids have bigger plans for him! That’s why those two sacrificed themselves!”

“What about you!?” Berto shouted back. “Didn’t Rasso find you hiding when your ship was under attack?”

“I was only—”

“And I didn’t do anything to evade your shot! You somehow called off the magneto-beam before it could destroy the Harpy.” Berto hadn’t thought it possible. But maybe the Chevalier Sanctorum had technology that negated his understanding of physics.

“You spawn-brained idiot! You can’t call off a magneto-beam. Any Araanti toddler knows that.”

“Then you confused the Harpy targeting system! I’m guessing only someone working with the Syndroids could have—”

“ENOUGH!” Revna roared.

Berto wanted to keep arguing but didn’t have the heart. He again thought of the middle school teacher who’d flunked him and his tía’s consecutive admonishment. Revna acted like he should use that fire to fight the Syndroids. But any time he tried, he only got into more trouble.

I should never have stepped foot on this ship.

“I just wanted to help,” Berto whispered. He wouldn’t meet the others’ eyes, but he knew their gazes were on him.

“You scanned him, didn’t you?” Rasso asked. It sounded almost sympathetic.

“He came back clean,” Revna confirmed.

“We don’t know every Syndroid trick,” Yrsa said.

“You’re right,” Revna said. “We can’t confirm he’s a Golem. But Berto has repeatedly demonstrated abilities we don’t understand. I’m sorry about this, boy, but I can’t take the chance until we get you checked out at Phalanx Four. Rasso, please take him to the brig.”

Berto’s suit released him, and Rasso led him down the stairs to the room where Revna had nearly killed him with a Seraphim only days prior. Before Rasso closed the door, his armored feet stopped and shuffled with hesitation.

“Kid,” he said, “I don’t know if the Syndroids got to you first or not. To be honest, I’m not sure it matters. On my planet, the Great Forager teaches us that we must take whatever comes to us as an opportunity—a feast handed down by the gods solely for us.”

“Sounds like a crock of shit,” Berto said.

“Yeah,” Rasso said. “Probably is. But I know you and I are chiseled from the same stone. The Syndroids have taken everything from us. I know I’d do anything to see my family again. Barring that, destroying the Syndroids is a worthy cause. The only cause. If you’re not a Golem or some other twisted form of Syndroid spy, the Chevalier Sanctorum will turn you into a weapon against them.”

“I’m not.”

“But if you are,” Rasso said, “the Sanctorum is still the best place for you to hurt the Syndroids. At the very least, you’ll be a game piece off the board.”

Berto met Rasso’s eye. “And at the most?”

Rasso stepped backward through the doorway. “The deadliest weapon is the one that the enemy only thinks is theirs.”

Yrsa stared into her cigarette pack. A few loose flakes of tobacco rolled around in the bottom with a lone cigarette remaining.

Why did I give one to Qalupa? Deciding she should save her last, Yrsa pocketed the pack and picked up a book—a well-worn edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey. She stretched out on the sofa, kicking her feet up and trying to ignore Revna’s grunts across the level.

“Gahhh,” Revna shouted, drawing Yrsa’s attention. Her mother squatted a barbell so heavily loaded the steel bar bent under the weight.

Revna racked the weights, then shuffled over to Yrsa, rubbing her neck with a small hand towel. “You’re reading that one again, daughter?”

“Homer knew what he was doing.”

“Beowulf is better.”

Yrsa rolled her eyes. “You would think that.”

“Rasso and Qalupa are in quarters?”

“Last I checked.”

“And the Vessel still follows in our jump shadow?”

“Seems so.”

Revna plopped down on the sofa, pinning Yrsa’s legs between the leather and Revna’s sweaty bulk. “Sorry, daughter, my legs are numb—good workout. He thinks you hate him.”

“Why would Rasso think that?” Yrsa said as she freed her legs.

“Not Rasso, the boy.”

“First off, Berto is not a boy.” Yrsa put the book down. “He’s an adult. And second, I do hate him.”

Revna pouted—an expression that told Yrsa she was contemplating. Finally, she said, “I wanted to be at your father’s funeral.”

Yrsa had prepared a retort about hating one of the Syndroids’ weapons even if the weapon was unaware of its actions. The statement about her father made Yrsa pause, but she finally said, “I’ve never known you to fail in getting what you wanted.”

“Around the time I brought you into the fold,” Revna went on, ignoring Yrsa’s veiled accusation, “I found another pair of potential recruits on Earth. Sisters.”

“Berto’s mother and…” Dots connected in Yrsa’s mind. “The tía?”

“Yes, both demonstrated omega waves, not just Berto’s mother—though the aunt’s ability was faint. I told you I didn’t want to see your father, but that wasn’t the truth. As soon as my duties at Phalanx Four were complete, I went to Earth for his funeral.”

“Lies!” Yrsa said, a resentful tear forming as she thought of her father in his casket. “If you were there, I would have known it.”

“I never made it, daughter,” Revna said quietly. “I arrived early to check on the sisters—I hoped against hope the Syndroids hadn’t found them. And wouldn’t you know it, the operators of Earth’s primitive telephone system found Berto’s mother for me.”

Yrsa wiped away the tear and listened quietly.

“As you now know, daughter, she was in El Paso, and she’d had a son. I was overjoyed—against the odds, she’d strung together a life over the past five years. I almost didn’t hear the tremble in her voice… I knew she was feeling it—that sensation we get on the razor’s edge of doom. Like there’s a hole in our shield wall and the enemy is charging.”

“The Syndroid that killed Berto’s parents,” Yrsa whispered.

“Yes, daughter. I didn’t get there in time to save them. I barely arrived in time to rescue Berto. I spent the next days convincing his tía to take him in—she was terrified of raising the boy after what had happened. Then I taught her what I could to protect them.”

“And you missed the funeral,” Yrsa said.

Revna nodded. “It was pointless, though; the tía wouldn’t listen. I thought the three of them would be dead within the year. But their fabricated metal home and remote ranch probably saved their lives—they were practically living in a Faraday cage far from the eyes of Syndroids.”

There was a long silence while Yrsa struggled to process the information. She’d always thought her mother hadn’t cared enough to attend the funeral, even from a distance. This newfound knowledge changed her whole view of Revna. Though she didn’t know how yet.

“Why didn’t you tell me this years ago?” Yrsa was sure both eyes were puffy and red. “Do you know how long I spent hating you for not being there!?”

“There are many reasons you should hate me—one more didn’t seem significant. Besides, undirected hate breaks most people; but you’ve never had that problem. Hate, outrage. It makes people like you—people like us—stronger. We know how and when to use it.”

Revna nodded to the walls of the brig across the room. “That boy in there has a lot of anger. And he’s shown us he can learn to use it. Right now—if we’re lucky—it’s directionless. But I think a lot of it is directed at you.”

“Me?” Yrsa asked. “We all know the potential danger he is.”

“Yes, but you haven’t given him a chance since the moment he connected to a Seraphim.”

“He couldn’t do what he did without an implant,” Yrsa said. Then added, “Or even with one.” Why can’t she understand?

“You might think I don’t grasp the potential danger, daughter. But I do. I also accept we don’t know what the Ancients had planned for humankind… Berto is going with us to Phalanx Four. If he is a Golem, we’ll find out there. But even if he is, that doesn’t earn your hatred—I look into his eyes and see nothing but the desire for revenge. Right now, he’s one of us.”

Yrsa stood, dropping her book on the couch. She didn’t have to listen to this. As far as she was concerned, Revna had picked Berto’s mother above Yrsa’s father and was now siding with Berto over her. She mounted the stairs and began to climb up to the crew quarters.

Revna called from below, “Emotion is a tool we use—don’t allow it to cloud the truth!”

Chapter twenty-six

PHALANX SEVEN

Berto sighed and put the datapad down, choosing to stare at the ceiling instead. The tablet seemed to have access to all of Earth’s internet and a vast library of books, but none of it interested Berto.

He thought about his and Rasso’s conversation. Rasso had suggested the Chevalier Sanctorum was the best place for Berto, even if they thought him a Golem. But Berto didn’t trust the Chevalier Sanctorum. How could he, when he’d received nothing but suspicion from them?

Still, he didn’t think they were the bad guys—at least not all of them.

And did he know for sure he wasn’t a Golem? How much did he really remember of the car crash? He’d lived it over and over in the aether tank and knew the Syndroid had done something.

Berto thought it had just been a scan, but what if it had somehow embedded something in his head? Revna had gotten there quickly, but how much time did a race of hyper-advanced beings need to infect him with a brain implant?

With a whoosh, the door to the brig rolled up, and Revna was waiting there. Qalupa stood a few feet behind her, glowering at Berto.

“Come, boy,” Revna said before walking off.

Berto wanted to be stubborn and refuse, but after a few hours of dwelling on his emotions, he was too drained to argue. Berto jumped to his feet and followed the two women as they climbed to the next level. “Where are we going?” he asked, reaching the landing.

“Combat training,” Revna said. “If you two had been on the Sleipnir when the Syndroids boarded, you would have been useless.”

“I’ve had combat experience,” Qalupa rejected.

“Not with me, you haven’t,” Revna said. “Blasting stationary targets that don’t fight back teaches you nothing. I pulled up your file; you hardly started recruit training before some idiot decided your cohort should see the workings of a real Chevalier battleship.”

Revna walked into the training room containing the aether tanks. Not again! After being left in one for what felt like years, Berto was still wary of them.

“Come, boy.” Revna waved him in.

“Is that a good idea?” Berto asked. “If I’m a Golem, couldn’t I hurt you? Yrsa said I overrode the safety protocols.”

“He’s right,” Qalupa said, crossing her arms. “I don’t want to go in with a traitor.”

Revna raised an eyebrow at Berto. “A day ago, you were adamant about not being a Golem. Have you changed your mind?”

“No. I—”

“I’m building the world. You don’t need to worry. If you get out of line, I’ll simply crush you,” Revna said, stepping into a tank.

Qalupa squinted at Berto. “I’m not going in with him.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, recruit. In the tank.”

Qalupa hesitated only a moment longer. Apparently, she was more afraid of Revna than Berto’s abilities. She stepped into an adjacent tank.

Berto walked to the edge of a third tank and regarded the roiling silver liquid. Here I go again. He stepped into the tank then fully submerged, feeling the liquid pull him down. Feeling the aether crawl into his mind, stretching squirming tendrils across his brain.

When he surfaced, Berto was no longer surrounded by a pool of aether. Instead, he stood in a long enclosed bridge of glass so clean and transparent that if not for the metallic framing, he wouldn’t have even known it was there. Above and beneath him was empty space, shimmering brightly with billions of stars.

Not a bridge, Berto realized, turning. A pier.

On both sides of the pier, sleek, curvy ships the size of skyscrapers loomed powerfully. Shorter gangways connected from the pier he stood within to the ships where crew members, numbering in the thousands, ferried equipment and supplies back and forth.

Berto’s mouth went dry, and he realized he was gaping and breathing heavily. The sight was grander than anything he could imagine.

He didn’t even notice that Revna and Qalupa had appeared beside him.

“Shepherd-class battleships,” Revna stated. “Quite a sight to behold.”

“That one looks like the—” Qalupa started.

“The Kavach,” Revna finished. “That’s because it is—or will be in a few hundred years when Maharaj is promoted to captain and renames it. Back then, it was called the Sharur—the only battleship to survive the upcoming battle. Though it took years to repair once the Syndroids were through with it.”

“Battle?” Berto turned to look at Revna. But when he saw the colossal structure behind her at the end of the pier, he forgot his question.

It was an improbably massive ring structure stretching for miles above his head and connecting to the pier at its rim. At the center of the ring was a glowing ball of red fire. It looked familiar—similar to the power sources he’d seen in Syndroids and Seraphim drones—only much larger and brighter.

Berto thought that if the pier hadn’t shaded out some of the light, he’d have been blinded at the sight. Even the short glimpse of the mini-sun made his eyes water and left huge white splotches in his vision.

Qalupa crossed her arms at his gawking. “You backwater types are so easily impressed.”

“Be quiet, girl,” Revna snapped. She looked to be taking in the view with equal enthusiasm. “The Phalanx stations are some of humanity’s greatest achievements.”

“Phalanx station,” Qalupa scoffed. “You’ve never seen the Araanti bubble cities, I imagine. Which Phalanx is this anyway?”

Footsteps ran up behind Berto, and he instinctively turned. He barely had time to step out of the way as a mountain of a man with long, greasy golden hair and a thick woolen tunic that seemed out of place barreled past toward Revna.

Berto half expected Revna to throw the man to the ground. But instead, she embraced him. The golden-haired giant lifted her off her feet and swung her like a child. Then Berto noticed Revna was dressed similarly in anachronist wool and hide clothing. He wasn’t sure if she’d been dressed that way the whole time or if the appearance of the man had caused it.

“Revna, sister, can you believe it?” the man asked.

“Bjorn, brother, we are to take up spears with the gods!” Revna said.

Sister? Brother? Revna has a sibling?

“And if the powerful ones are to be believed, this is but one realm of Asgard!”

A young man with dark skin, dressed in pink and turquoise, appeared and slapped Bjorn on the shoulder. “I told you, Bjorn—we are not gods. Merely Vikings a little further along the path.”

“Is that—” Qalupa started.

“Yes,” Revna said, turning her attention from her brother, who looked around with the same amazed expression on Berto’s face. “I wondered if you would recognize Maharaj. He is the one who recruited Bjorn and me.”

“Then this is Phalanx Seven?” Qalupa asked. Berto thought he could hear a subtle tremor in her voice.

“That’s right, girl. I hope your target practice pays off—I’ve instructed the aether tanks to make it hurt if you are hit,” Revna said ominously.

“If we’re hit?” Berto asked. Suddenly he remembered Revna’s mention that the Syndroids had reappeared after her recruitment. “Didn’t you say this outpost fell? How are we supposed to avoid getting hit?”

Just then, sirens rang out up and down the pier. Men and women along the glass enclosure stopped to look at the flashing lights warning them. Bjorn nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden piercing noise. Berto felt the familiar sensation in his chest—the one like he was in a box with all the oxygen being sucked out.

One woman dropped a crate she’d been carrying and ran up to the group. “What do you think it is?” she asked, addressing Maharaj. “Pirate spotted?”

“No pirate would dare come within a light-year of a Phalanx station. Besides—do you feel that?”

“Death,” the woman whispered.

“Get ready,” Revna instructed Berto and Qalupa.

The siren cut out, replaced by the panicked, gasping voice of an unbelieving Chevalier on the other side of a speaker. “Syndroid ship spotted. I repeat, Syndroid ship spotted. Curse the sands; it’s here!”

The pier rumbled at Berto’s feet, making him look down as a section of space folded in on itself—bright stars stretching to form crisscrossing lines before a shimmering, explosive rainbow bubble popped and a Syndroid Ravager blasted toward them.

The weaponry of the enemy ship scratched at Berto’s brain. The first target was painted by a grav-mine launcher before the Ravager even solidly emerged from the jump bubble. The mini-sun. The source of power for all of Phalanx Seven.

The Ravager fired before anyone on the pier could will their feet to move. None of them can believe the Syndroids are back, Berto realized.

He watched in horror as a dark ball of metal shot past the pier, absorbing the light from the Phalanx star. Berto tried to follow it, but the light blinded him.

A second later, the light wasn’t a problem. The glowing ball of fire above dimmed—a divot formed on the surface as if impaled by a gargantuan pickaxe. Then the ball collapsed in on itself as the directed gravity mine from the Ravager compressed the star’s center to form a black hole.

Revna shoved Qalupa and Berto toward one of the Shepherd battleships, as Maharaj did the same to Bjorn. “Get to the Sharur!” he yelled at everyone and no one. “Battle stations!”

The lights flickered and died, leaving only the glowing hulks of the battleships to light the path. There was a breeze in the air that Berto was sure was a sign oxygen was dumping into space somewhere along the pier.

As Berto ran, trying to avoid stumbling over the surging crowd, he couldn’t help but look up. The abyssal black hole was sucking in chunks of the station akin to a whirlpool eating the shattered remains of a wooden boat. A solid quarter of the ring broke off and fell in—seeming to stretch like rubber as it passed the event horizon.

Berto wondered how many thousands of people had died just then. Millions?

Then, in a blink, the black hole was gone as some instability in the physics of time and space buckled the nightmarish phenomenon.

Crowds had formed, clogging the arterial gangplanks leading to the ships with desperate workers and Sanctorum knights. As Maharaj pressed through the crowd, he begged them to form orderly lines to facilitate quicker entry. Yet his rational pleas were drowned out in the thudding roar of the crowd or fell on ears refusing to listen.

Whenever Berto’s group hit a wall of people crammed shoulder to shoulder, Bjorn surged forward, shoving anyone who got in his way with such force Berto was sure he heard bones snap. Soon the crowd was equally as terrified of the giant Viking as they were of their blood boiling from the inside from depressurization.

Berto followed the others into the wedge formed around Bjorn as he forced his way into the Sharur. Inside was just as chaotic.

Chevaliers ran about, trying to push through the crowds to get to battle stations, while others huddled against the wall wailing for their gods. Berto’s heart broke when he saw the sheer number of children crying for their parents. This is supposed to be a military post; why are there kids here?

Maharaj scooped up a young boy with blue skin and light hair similar to Qalupa’s—no other Araanti was nearby. “I told the Council not to allow families to the outposts,” he growled. “They insisted in these times of peace they’d be safe.” He looked at Bjorn and Revna. “We need to get to the armory. You two won’t last a minute without Chevalier armor.”

“Armor?” Bjorn boomed. “I like the sound of that! Come, sister!” He ran off after Maharaj down a series of ramps.

There was a boom, dropping Berto to his knees. He watched in uncomprehending terror as the metal and glass pier just outside was explosively ripped apart, sending the hundreds still gathered there flying into space. The entry to the Sharur snapped close.

Any cries from those outside were silenced by the vacuum of space. But those who’d been midway into the ship at the time screamed as the nanite hull melted around their bodies, exposing parts of their bodies to the same vacuum while turning their shrieking mouths on the petrified crowd. Finally, a group of quick-thinking Chevaliers pulled them slowly from the wall, allowing the ship to maintain pressurization.

A few seconds later, those who’d been caught rolled on the ground. Free now but displaying swollen, reddened limbs where their body fluids and gases bubbled to the surface through layers of skin and flesh.

“Will they live?” Berto asked as Revna pulled him down the ramp.

“From the depressurization?” Revna shoved a burly Chevalier out of the way. “Yes. From the onslaught? No.”

After several minutes of fighting the crazed crowd, the group reached a door where a row of mean-looking Sanctorum knights maintained a perimeter. One with a diagonal scar running from his forehead across his nose to his cheek waved them over. “Maharaj, good. Grab a laser.”

“I have a pair of recruits that need weapons and armor!” Maharaj said, still holding the boy he’d scooped up.

The scarred man looked over Revna and Bjorn. “These two look like they’d just as soon throw a rifle at the Syndroids as fire it at them.”

“I am the strongest in my village at stone throw,” Bjorn confirmed.

Maharaj ignored Bjorn. “They’re fighters; we need them.”

“We’re low on supplies,” the man said. “We’re still awaiting a couple of Chevaliers who were transferring some from Phalanx Seven. Once they—”

“You don’t know?” Maharaj said. Berto could tell he didn’t want to inform him of this next part. “The station is gone!”

“Gone?” the man asked as if it were a foreign word. Then, “No! My wife! My babies!”

The man sprinted off into the ship, leaving a gap in the perimeter. Berto was shoved through by Revna before it could close and followed the group into the armory.

Maharaj led them to a wall stacked with barren shelves. Only two belt-like nanite suits were there. “This will help you stay alive,” Maharaj said, wrapping one around Revna’s waist. It immediately crawled up and down her body, covering her in heavy plate-like layers. “Sorry for the discomfort—no time to change clothes.”

Maharaj went to wrap the second around Bjorn, but Bjorn’s massive hand stayed him. “This armor, it will fit the Jötnar boy?” he asked, nodding to the child in Maharaj’s arms.

“The child will be safe; I’ll have a Chevalier escort him to the Sanctuary—”

“It will fit the boy!?” Bjorn repeated.

“It will fit him.”

Bjorn took the belt and wrapped it around the child. “Someday, I will have a son, and he will wear the armor of the gods in the Halls of Valhalla. Today you are that boy.”

“No, brother, you mustn’t,” Revna said blankly. Berto thought it sounded like an old line said a thousand times, losing all meaning.

“Sister, you know I’m a better fighter when I move freely,” Bjorn said.

Berto heard a sniveling and turned to face Qalupa. His eyes widened when he saw that she was brushing tears from her eyes.

“The legends,” Qalupa whispered, looking up at Revna with shiny pale eyes. “I never knew it was your brother.”

“I—What?” was all Berto could manage.

“There is a story,” Qalupa whispered, “often told on Araanti. After Phalanx Seven fell and the Syndroids were long gone, a single survivor was found among the wreckage. A boy that had somehow laid hands on Chevalier armor. He told the rescuers a golden god had given it to him. If the Council knew that was your brother, you would be promo—”

“Bjorn wouldn’t have wanted the credit,” Revna said. “Even today—this stays between us. Understood?”

“I—Yes, Captain!” Qalupa said.

Berto followed Revna and Maharaj to a rack mounted to the wall. It was primarily filled with long needle-like rifles with many missing. Still, a handful of the H-shaped magneto-rifles were there—covered in a layer of dust and relegated to a few prongs on the end of the rack.

Maharaj shook his head at the sight but handed a couple of magneto-rifles to Revna and Bjorn. Revna motioned to the rack, and Berto and Qalupa picked up their own.

Though it was as heavy as a lead weight when he hefted it, by the time Berto brought it to his shoulder and his suit melted into it, the weapon was light and became an extension of himself. The power he held hummed in his mind more than in his hands.

Maharaj shook his head at the needle rifles. “Too many Chevaliers grabbed lasers. Even now, they can’t remember the enemy we face.”

“You said a ‘fire-spear,’” Bjorn said, looking up at the laser rifles. “I want one of those.”

“Trust me,” Maharaj said, pressing a magneto-rifle to his shoulder. “You want one of these.” He picked an empty section of the wall and fired. A chunk exploded out of the side.

Berto noticed that with no way for the egg-shaped counterpart to reach the other side of the wall, there was powerful recoil. Even though Maharaj’s suit gripped the floor, he stumbled back under the effort.

Bjorn seemed to accept the display with enthusiasm. “What are we waiting for?” He glanced at Revna, who grinned back. “It is time for battle, sister.” Bjorn suddenly looked over his shoulder.

Screaming had started in the hallway outside the armory. Soft, at first. Yet it quickly reached levels that pierced Berto’s ears.

Maharaj touched the implant at the back of his neck. “We’ve been boarded. Come!” He ran out into the corridor.

A few of the Chevaliers who’d been guarding the room crouched behind barriers. A handful of guards lay on the ground between the barriers and—

Berto’s sense of doom became crippling, forcing him to duck as a slab of wall exploded behind him. A few trailing civilians, rushing to escape, fell in the rubble and lay moaning.

At the end of the corridor, a dozen Syndroids floated forward, weapons firing—tearing chunks out of the barriers. They were small, like the ones Revna had described boarding the Sleipnir in their fight to rescue the Vessel. But their size didn’t give Berto the impression they were less dangerous than the Sirens he’d encountered on Earth. The Chevaliers holding the needle rifles fired back.

Flashes of red traced the air, harmlessly impacting the Syndroids.

Revna crouched beside him and Qalupa. “When the Syndroids attacked Phalanx Seven, the Sanctorum was accustomed to fighting pirates and escapist militia groups—neither of which have the nanites the Sanctorum uses in armor and ships. But as you know—the Syndroids use them almost exclusively. Nobody credible had seen a Syndroid since their failed attack at Githsomae thousands of years before. The Sanctorum forgot who the true enemy was.”

Now that the Syndroids were closer, Berto could see that as the lasers landed, they left glowing spots on the drones that quickly faded. “The nanites in the suit are refracting the lasers,” he whispered. “Spreading out the energy so it can’t pierce the outer layer.”

“Quit acting as if you know what’s going on!” Qalupa snapped.

“The boy is exactly right,” Revna said. “We might have been more successful in repelling boarders if more Chevaliers had realized this. Magneto-rifles work better—yet their weapons”—she nodded to the knights with the laser rifles—“are effective if used properly.”

Bjorn bellowed, nearly making Berto fall over with the force of his voice. “You want to feast on flesh, you bloodless Draugr!?” He stood to face the Syndroids. “Eat this instead!”

Bjorn fired the weapon, and the thruster of the nearest Syndroid exploded, sending it crashing to the floor as the light inside it died. An ear-to-ear grin spread across Bjorn’s face as he hopped once with delight. “I like this weapon!”

The Chevaliers around them appeared to be bolstered by Bjorn’s small victory and renewed attacks on the Syndroids. But the Syndroids pressed on, blasting the barriers and occasionally landing a shot on the exposed limb of a Chevalier.

“Use sustained beams from the energy lasers to overload the enemy’s nanite armor!” Maharaj ordered as he ran back into the armory. “Cover me!”

More lasers cut through the air, slicing it with hissing like a pit of snakes. This time, rather than single shots, the Chevaliers used continuous beams, occasionally interrupted as the rifle overheated and the Chevaliers allowed them to cool. Though they didn’t do the same damage as magneto-rifles, Berto was relieved to see the Syndroid armor glow with growing red spots and begin to slough off, exposing their mechanical insides.

“You heard the man!” Revna shouted, looking at Berto.

Berto braced against the barrier and tracked an approaching Syndroid with the sight of his rifle. It was nearly to the first barrier, where three Chevaliers crouched, caught between friendly fire and the enemy. He commanded his egg counterpart to float to the far side of the Syndroid and recognized a connection in his mind—a bridge between the rifle and egg, passing right through the enemy’s center.

Berto fired.

He’d fired weapons on Earth. Growing up in the Texas country, it was a rite of passage and often a means of entertainment. So he’d been expecting a kick, despite knowing the egg was there to prevent it.

There was no physical kick—the egg balanced the forces of the magneto-beam perfectly. But there was a slight twitch on his frontal lobe, telling him the weapon had discharged.

Berto didn’t need the twitch to know it had fired though. The center of the Syndroid exploded out, leaving a cylindrical hole where its insides had been. Suddenly, Berto’s limbs tingled and legs felt as light as a feather with exhilaration.

“A green fisherman catches the largest fish,” Qalupa said with disdain. “Nothing more.” She shouldered her weapon and fired, but the target bucked at the last second, avoiding the shot.

“Perhaps you should go back to target practice, girl,” Revna said before giving Berto a wink. Her head snapped back to the Syndroids. “Berto, be careful! Your egg—”

Berto hadn’t been paying attention, and the egg to his rifle floated near one of the Syndroids. The enemy lit up its cutter and slashed the component, cutting it in half. Ah, shit!

“Green fisherman,” Qalupa repeated, sneering with satisfaction.

Lining up the magneto-rifle on the Syndroid, Berto spread a layer of his suit along the floor. Gripping it. Bracing for another shot while chunks of the barrier he crouched against exploded, shaking him.

When Berto fired again, the twitch in his mind was matched by the weapon slamming against his shoulder as the magnetic beam fought to overcome the bonds holding the Syndroid together. It pained him as if someone had bashed him in the shoulder with a five-pound hammer. Yet the result was another Syndroid falling.

I’m going to feel that in the morning, Berto thought as he rolled his shoulder.

“That’s lesson number one,” Revna said. “Always keep aware of the status of your weapon. Both for the safety of your fellow Chevaliers and to prevent shoulder fractures.”

Maharaj returned with an armful of magneto-rifles and handed them out to crouching Chevaliers. Berto went to grab one for the sake of a fresh egg.

“You already have a weapon,” Revna said, slapping away his hand.

“But the egg. I didn’t know—”

“That’s lesson two,” Revna said. “Actions have consequences. If you forsake your equipment, it forsakes you.”

“I didn’t even think the Syndroids could see the eggs. It’s not fair—”

“Fair!” Revna yelled. “This is war, not a children’s game. You’ll get no participation trophies here unless you include burial rights. And only those if your body is lucky enough to be recovered by a Chevalier. The Syndroids don’t respect fairness and neither do we. Even in life, fairness is the false ideal of those who don’t understand action and consequence. But in war, effects are amplified.”

Berto threw down his rifle. “Fuck this, let me out.” He was tired of being treated like a child. Action and consequence. He’d known about consequences since before he could walk. Before he could understand they were often foisted upon him by a roll of the dice.

“And here’s lesson three,” Revna growled. “Stop directing your rage at those trying to help you and direct it at the enemy.” She picked up the rifle and thrust it at Berto. “Unlike the people you knew on Earth, I expect you to be angry. But I also expect you to let us show you how to channel all your rage and ambition.”

Having no choice, Berto gritted his teeth and shouldered the weapon, lining up another shot while Qalupa whooped at the destruction of another Syndroid.

“Push them back!” Maharaj shouted.

In unison, the remaining Chevaliers, including Bjorn and Revna, began a barrage of fire. With more magnetic weapons in the hands of soldiers, the Syndroids were forced to fall back. Berto followed the Chevaliers’ lead, standing to better blast the withdrawing Syndroids. The buzz of danger tingled his frontal lobe, but he ignored it—the Chevaliers were winning.

The next moment, he took a glancing blow as a Syndroid magneto-beam sheared off part of his suit at the shoulder. Metal bit his shoulder as shards of shrapnel in the beam’s path tore into his shoulder.

Fu-ahhhhk!

Berto stared at his shoulder at the streams of blood tracing down his arm. It burned and ached in ways he’d rarely experienced. It seems so real! he thought as the nanites in his suit scurried to cover his exposed flesh.

“You must learn to trust your senses,” Revna said. “Even the ones you don’t understand.”

Berto was still pissed at Revna but nodded his understanding as they trailed the Chevaliers moving forward.

“We must reach the top of the ship—to the Sharur’s bridge!” Maharaj called out as the Chevaliers pressed the fighting Syndroids up a ramp. “We must protect the drone pilots.”

“To the bridge, men!” Bjorn shouted gleefully between taking shots at Syndroids.

Berto glanced at Revna to see if she had any further instructions. Instead, he caught her smiling at Bjorn. It wasn’t a joyful grin like the one plastered across her brother’s face. No, Berto thought, there’s pain and sorrow there.

But she trudged on nonetheless, forcing Berto to follow his captain into the fray.

They’d been fighting for what seemed to be hours, but what Berto supposed was only twenty or thirty minutes. The pain in his shrapnel-injured shoulder had grown. But even that paled compared to his other shoulder, where the thump of his magneto-rifle jolted him every few seconds.

They’d made slow progress to the bridge.

At first, they’d come across bands of fighting Chevaliers to join them and clumps of civilians they now guarded. But as they made their way up the Sharur, the number of survivors they found lessened.

Soon they were coming across piles of dead bodies—civilian and Chevalier—where Syndroids had passed through and slaughtered people without discretion.

Many of the bodies had signs of being cut apart. Missing limbs. Pools of dark red—almost black—blood. Others had wounds similar to Berto’s, where a magneto-beam had contained shrapnel and shredded into flesh—turning the corpses into some grisly man-machine chimeras.

Yet others had no visible wounds. Only a hole in their armor if they wore it and a reddened circle on their head or chest. When Berto asked about them, Revna quietly explained they’d been hit with clean magneto-beam shots. The neurons firing in their brains or electrifying their hearts had been disrupted.

When Berto commented that at least it was a painless way to go, Qalupa scolded him. “All pain comes from neurons, you foaming idiot. What do you think happens when the ones most vital to human survival get hit by a beam?”

Berto decided then to not ask any more questions.

The Syndroids they came across now were few, and as more and more knights joined the group of survivors, the skirmishes ended quicker. Usually with the Syndroids rushing up to the levels above.

Something felt off to Berto. They were still finding piles of dead humans. Where were the rest of the Syndroids? Why had they only crossed a few small bands of Syndroids on these higher levels? Not wanting to know the answer, Berto refused to ask.

But as they reached the landing of the command level, the answer was apparent. A mob of hundreds of glittering black Syndroid drones swarmed around a semi-circle of barriers midway down the corridor.

A handful of Chevaliers crouched behind the barriers, firing madly into the mob. The Syndroids fired back, their magneto-beams quickly eroding the protective shields like a river of acid carving out a canyon. Soon there would be nothing left to protect the knights.

Berto looked around at his group. Most were just as shocked as he was to see the number of Syndroids gathered in the attack. A few were shaking, unable to control the fear racking their bodies. The group was outnumbered at least five to one, and half were unarmed civilians.

Thankfully, the Syndroids seemed too focused on the attack to notice.

Maharaj grabbed one of the trembling Chevaliers by the arms, jarring him to get his attention. “Sir, you’re the ranking officer! What do we do!?”

The man said nothing, and Berto could sense him trying to push down his fear and formulate a plan.

“What do we do!?” Maharaj repeated.

When the officer still said nothing, Maharaj turned to face the group. “The bridge is under attack; if command falls, the battle is lost. We must get to those men at the center and maintain the perimeter.”

“What about the civilians?” a female Chevalier spoke up. “We can’t ask them to fight.”

“Nor do I expect them to. I’ll need a few knights to escort them to the lifeboats. If we fail—” Maharaj stopped as a hand fell on his shoulder.

It was the officer; he had regained some semblance of composure. “Maharaj, take your recruits and prepare for evacuation. We will try to hold the bridge, but if we lose the ship… well, let us hope reinforcements are coming.”

“I want to fight!” Bjorn interjected. His hair was matted and streaked with blood and hydraulic fluids from the battle, turning him into some deranged god of war.

The officer looked him over. “This is just the reignition of an eons-long war, recruit. You will see plenty of fighting. But you don’t have armor—you won’t last five seconds against those numbers.” He nodded at the buzzing mass of Syndroids. “Your job is more important anyway. I need someone as fierce as yourself to strike fear into the enemy’s lifeless metal souls. They’ll think twice about attacking these people if you’re with them.”

Bjorn straightened up, seeming to wear this idea as his missing armor.

The officer turned to Maharaj and shoved him down a side passage before he could argue. “Go now!”

Berto followed Revna, Qalupa, and Maharaj while Bjorn guarded the rear behind the civilians. Over his shoulder, Berto could hear the Chevaliers roaring like lions as they charged into the fray.

The group backtracked down several levels at a trot, and it wasn’t long before Maharaj stopped at the entry to the lifeboat bays—a wall with a wide border framing a door. Berto expected the door to roll up, but it remained solid.

Apparently, Maharaj was perplexed by this as well. He slapped the wall with a heavy, armored palm, reminding Berto of his tía smacking their old tube television when the signal went out.

“Why won’t the door open?” a civilian cried.

“I’m not sure,” Maharaj said. “We’ll have to find another way—”

Bjorn pushed through the crowd and lowered his rifle at the door, making Maharaj jump away. When Bjorn fired, it hardly shook the man, but a block of the wall exploded, leaving a dinner-plate-sized crater.

“Quick thinking, recruit!” Maharaj said.

“Hurry!” someone in the crowd shouted, with many urgently exclaiming their agreement.

Berto couldn’t blame them. They were sitting ducks, and while Berto hadn’t seen any Syndroids since the command level, he could feel eyes on him.

Maharaj and Revna followed Bjorn’s lead and began blasting a way through. Berto and Qalupa added their support as well. However, Berto wondered if they were making any difference since this place was built around Revna’s memory.

Then many things happened all at once, overloading Berto’s senses and comprehension of the situation. A deafening rumble filled the space, shaking the ground and nearly making Berto hit his knees. With it, the last of the door fell away, granting passage into the lifeboat bay. But before anyone could react, Berto got a buzzing in his head—death crouched near him, ready to shove its icy dagger into his neck.

When a civilian screamed, Berto turned his head and saw twenty or thirty Syndroids rushing down the hallway at the group. Several civilians, including the Araanti boy, fled—probably in search of a nook to hide in away from the large group.

Seemingly from nowhere, a woman’s voice filled the space. Her crisp and clear words could not hide the despair in her voice. “The command bridge has fallen. I repeat—the command bridge has fallen. May the Ancients guide our souls in the next life.”

“Everyone onto a lifeboat!” Maharaj shouted, hefting his magneto-rifle and preparing to make a stand against the Syndroids. “I’ll distract—”

Bjorn shoved both Maharaj and Revna through the doorway, sending them tumbling to the floor inside. As the civilians rushed after them, the two had no hope of exiting the room against the current of people.

“Bjorn! Brother!” Revna cried as Berto stumbled through, pulling Qalupa behind him.

Bjorn stood on the other side of the rushing crowd, pointing at Maharaj. “Keep my sister safe, Chevalier.” He winked at Revna. “Our reward for dying in battle is Valhalla, sister. How great will the reward be for dying on the battlefield in the realm of gods!”

Bjorn disappeared, rushing into the oncoming Syndroids while booming, “Prepare to return to the barrows you crawled out from, Draugr!”

As the sounds of ripping metal and fleshy, wet thuds filled the air, Maharaj helped Revna to her feet. For a moment, Berto saw her not as the graying, experienced Chevalier she was today, but as the beautiful young Viking shieldmaiden she’d been as she fought Maharaj to save her brother. Maharaj wrapped her in a nanite-assisted bear hug while Revna kicked and clawed to free herself.

Quickly, the sound of battle outside died, and Berto knew Bjorn had fallen.

Berto didn’t know if she acted this way to show him and Qalupa what had happened or if she truly fought her memory—if she could just push back Maharaj, she could save him still, centuries later. Maybe it was both.

Berto could now understand her better. Revna was the same as him. She fought the Syndroids because they had ripped out her heart just as they had done to him.

Revna hadn’t been forthcoming on the truth about the Syndroids, and he was sure she still hid things from him, but it no longer mattered. Her hurt was his hurt.

Berto could trust Revna—and, by extension, Yrsa.

As Maharaj hauled Revna into a lifeboat, the first Syndroid appeared in the doorway. Qalupa was gone—probably already boarded another lifeboat. Berto raised his magneto-rifle to his swollen, bruised shoulder. He knew he couldn’t make a difference. This battle had been lost as it had a thousand years before.

But maybe standing his ground in this virtual world would help him when the time came in reality. “This is for Laura, you bastard.”

The Syndroid exploded in a shower of sparks as the next Syndroid appeared.

And this one’s for Bjorn, Berto thought as he fired again. But the shot never landed as the training ended and Berto breached the surface of the aether tank.

Chapter twenty-seven

HAIR OF THE DOG

Yrsa’s mind raced as she climbed down the ladder after a long day manning the bridge while Revna held combat training and Rasso kept an eye on the Vessel that followed them. Her time alone had given her plenty of time to think, but it did little to ease her mind as one thought after another fought for dominance.

Revna wasn’t at the funeral because she was saving Berto.

The Chevalier in her understood this—the need to save the helpless. The duty of those who could fight the Syndroids. She often felt that in her bones—power welling in her limbs, pulling at her heart, knowing she could make a difference. A reactive response, not unlike the irrational fight-or-flight she’d experienced standing in the empty pine forests of Alabama as a child.

But the daughter in her had a different response. Yrsa’s father had been everything to her. His death had hit her like a punch to the solar plexus, and it had taken Yrsa far too long to catch her breath again. Now it pounded on her chest again, threatening to force the oxygen from her lungs.

Revna should have been there.

Yrsa entered the kitchen intending to pick the first dessert she came across on the particulator’s menu. She only had one cigarette left, and she wasn’t ready to smoke it—something sweet and fatty would have to be tonight’s vice. When she saw Berto standing there smacking the side of the particulator and muttering under his breath, she almost turned around.

Berto wasn’t free to roam the ship, but after Revna’s training simulation, she’d expanded his confinement to this level. No one really wanted to act as a jailer, and Yrsa had hoped to avoid Berto entirely. She’d been tracking him from the bridge for hours, and he’d hardly moved. Of course, now was the time he decided to get something to eat.

But her boot squeaked against the floor, making Berto look up. Damn nanites! They could read her mind and shift into almost anything she wanted to wear but couldn’t overcome the side effects of friction.

“I’m just getting something to eat, then going back to the brig.” Berto jabbed a finger at the particulator screen. “If this thing will work!”

“Where’s Revna?” Yrsa asked, wanting to avoid the woman at all costs.

Berto rolled his eyes. “Relax—I didn’t do anything to your mother. She’s down in the armory, reviewing Qalupa’s firing stance.”

“I didn’t—” Yrsa started. Whatever words, good or bad, she wanted to tell Berto were knotted in a complex weave of emotion she was too drained to begin to unravel. “What are you trying to make? A burger? Soup?”

“Tequila.” Berto smacked the machine again.

Yrsa raised an eyebrow. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one needing a vice tonight. “Liquor requires an officer to grant access.”

Berto’s shoulders slumped, and he turned to exit. “Fine. It’s all yours.”

Before he could leave, Yrsa touched his elbow. “It’s a good thing I happen to know Revna’s access code.”

Berto watched Yrsa raise her glass once more, two fingers of tequila sloshing in the bottom. The fading rationality in Berto’s mind told him he’d had enough. But the light, feathery feeling in his arms and the heat in his chest said differently. He raised his glass alongside Qalupa, who’d joined them moments before.

“As Revna, my supposed mother, would say—Skål!” Yrsa bellowed, clinking glasses and downing liquid in one gulp.

Berto tilted his head back and emptied the liquid into his mouth. As with all food and drink from the particulator, this was only a low-rent duplicate of the real thing. But the smoky agave flavor was close enough that if he had one or two shots more, it would cease to matter.

Or maybe I’ve had enough, he thought, slamming the glass down and pounding his chest with a closed fist. This could be used to strip paint.

A guttural grunting filled the room as Qalupa fought to control her coughing. “What’s this sea bile made of?” she finally managed.

“It’s distilled from a cactus!” Yrsa howled with laughter. Berto caught a glint of joy in her eye, noticing for the first time the flecks of brown speckling her blue irises.

“I don’t get it—what’s a cactus?”

“It’s a plant that grows in the desert with little water.”

“Yeah,” Berto chimed in. “Must not sit well since you’re from the universe’s foremost water world!”

“Shut it, Golem, and pour me another.” Qalupa slid her glass at him. “At least I didn’t lose my egg today.”

“You what!?” Yrsa howled again, flashing her perfectly white teeth in an alluring smile. “That must have hurt like hell!”

Berto mentally commanded his armor, and the nanites around his right shoulder beaded away, exposing his skin. It was swollen and purple where the imaginary magneto-rifle had slammed into it during training.

“Geez!” Yrsa gasped. “Reminds me of the first time my father took me quail hunting. I couldn’t use my arm for a week after—one of my elementary teachers called child services. You should have seen the hell Daddy gave them for accusing him of abuse. Next show and tell, he and Grandma showed up with the birds I’d shot and fed my entire class—”

Yrsa’s words cut off abruptly, and she stared into her empty glass—rolling it between her fingers and studying a bead of tequila circling the bottom.

She’s going through her own shit. Berto decided to change the subject. “Qalupa, where’d you go at the end of the training? We were supposed to hold the lifeboat bay from the Syndroids.”

“We were vastly outnumbered.” Qalupa sipped the tequila Berto had poured. “I was doing the logical thing. Boarding a lifeboat and getting out of the eye of the storm.”

“That was sooo brave of you,” Berto said.

“Bravery gets you killed. If you’re dead, you’re useless—well, you’re already useless. But I’m a survivor. Speaking of which—” Qalupa gulped down the rest of the tequila with a grunt. “We’ll be arriving at Phalanx Four soon.” She slammed the glass down, cracking it against the table. “You’d better figure out about surviving. Syndroid spies don’t live long in the Chevalier Sanctorum.”

Berto's story has only begun. Please consider leaving a review, then keep reading for a sneak peak of book 2 — Tribulation.

Acknowledgements

There are many people to acknowledge for the creation of this story. And since Exodus is first of many to come, I'll start at the beginning. First my parents for never failing to encourage my love of books, especially my mother who always stood in line at the bookstore after her night shift of nursing to ensure I had the latest Harry Potter book the first day it came out. Then there's my aunt who was the first published author I ever knew. She has given me much writing advice on my journey and continues to be a wealth of knowledge. For any readers that enjoy cozy mysteries too, please check out one of her many book series (www.dianekelly.com). Of course, I would never have gotten this far without my wife, who's supplied me with a steady stream of coffee during my early mornings of writing, who is always the first reader of my latest project, and my biggest advocate. There's my writing group, many of whom don't often read science-fiction yet give my stories a shot anyway and provide valuable feedback. And my editor Laura Josephsen, who's keen eye and comments helped polish this novel into what it is today.

About the Author

M. R. Parsons hails from Austin, Texas and grew up reading science-fiction and fantasy from a young age. The middle child of three sons, his writing career is likely a cry for attention from his parents—after all his first attempt at writing in 6th grade was a clunky ten-page Halo fanfic widely praised throughout his family. Currently, by day he is an engineer who designs mechanical and fire protection systems. By evening he is a personal chef to his wife and giggle-bringer to his young daughter. But by early, early morning he becomes writer, weaving his engineering and scientific knowledge into his tales. Lover of science-fiction, horror, books, and whiskey, any free-time not dedicated to his family or his writing he spends watching B-Horror films, reading the stories of Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson, and enjoying a glass of single-malt scotch.

Visit mrparsonsbooks.com to keep up to date on upcoming releases.

Also by M. R. Parsons:

Serpent – A Mark of the Beast Story

TRIBULATION SNEAK PEAK

When Berto stepped out of the Sleipnir’s airlock, he knew what to expect. As far as he could tell, the Phalanx Four space station was an exact duplicate of the one he’d experienced in the aether tank before discovering Revna had lost her brother.

Yet that didn’t change the awe he felt, stepping onto the glass pier and staring at the massive ring structure above powered by a miniature star at its center. Or the battleships docked at a half-dozen piers jutting from the ring—bright spots against the backdrop of dark space. Or the crews bustling like worker ants to resupply the behemoths.

A few stopped to stare at the glowing, golden Vessel that had followed the Sleipnir and now floated in empty space outside the dock.

So few, though. In Revna’s memory, the pier had been filled end to end with hundreds of Chevaliers intermixed with civilians. There was none of that here. Every person on the bridge wore a nanite suit prepped for battle. And to Berto, it seemed there were not nearly enough of them to fill the docked ships.

As Berto stepped forward, his cowboy boots clacked against the glass, reminding him that he no longer wore nanite armor himself—only a small line of nanites along his jaw to ear remained to translate alien languages into something comprehensible for him. Instead, he wore the pearl-snap shirt and blue jeans he’d been wearing when he left Earth. Most of the blood had been scrubbed out, but a hole in the fabric remained where the Syndroid had pierced his shoulder.

Of course, there’s one other difference to Revna’s memory, Berto thought as eight men approached the Sleipnir. Jogging in a double-line formation and carrying weapons—magneto-rifles braced across their chests and barbed batons at their hips.

They also wore armor. However, unlike Chevaliers, whose armor usually reflected colors representing the wearer’s homeworld, these men were clothed in black.

“The Council’s security forces,” Revna said bitterly. She laid a gentle hand on Berto’s head and brushed his short black hair in a way he supposed was intended to be comforting. “Bullies who flunked out of being a Chevalier. I told the Council we would escort you. It seems they had other ideas.”

Berto flinched when the security team stopped abruptly and raised their weapons at Berto. Around him, Revna, Yrsa, Rasso, and Qalupa similarly jumped at the unexpected aggression—only they wore armor that rose to cover their faces. Berto was unprotected.

“There’s no need for that,” Revna said. “Roberto Reed is submitting himself to the inspection of the Council willingly. He wants to know if the Syndroids have infected him even more than the Council does.”

One of the men stepped forward, still brandishing his weapon. “The Council considers him a threat, and until he’s cleared, we will treat him as such.”

Yrsa stepped between the security forces and Berto. “She said there’s no need—if you eight don’t think you handle one unarmed recruit, you shouldn’t—”

Berto pushed past Yrsa towards the security team. “They’re just doing their job.”

The truth was he was just tired of people considering him a safety threat. Another militant group pointing guns at him was only a drop in the bucket. He couldn’t be sure if Yrsa’s defense of him was an act anyway—she’d treated him as a danger from the moment after he’d first connected to a Seraphim.

One night of tequila shots doesn’t change that.

Even Revna, who’d initially stood up for him, ended up confining him to the brig for their voyage to this Phalanx station. Yet, as he was marched down the pier, surrounded by the security team, his chest stirred when Revna yelled after them. “If anything happens to Roberto, you’ll answer to me.”

Before entering the station from the pier, Berto didn’t think he could be filled with more awe at the engineering feat. But as he approached the habitation ring, it stretched high above until he lost sight of the top. And upon setting foot inside the ring, his knees went weak, and he nearly stumbled into a guard.

He supposed he expected the inside of the ring structure to be set up like the Sleipnir or the battleship from Revna’s memory: cramped levels, corridors, and ladders or ramps up and down.

This was nothing like the spaceships.

The ring was one level with the transparent ceiling stretching so high above him that Berto couldn’t judge the distance. At one section where the ring curved up, clouds had formed near the ceiling and rained onto the surface below—appearing as if water were falling sideways. Everywhere else, the miniature star shined through the transparent inner surface, lighting and warming the inside.

Clusters of boxy, gray, utilitarian buildings were spread throughout. Most were single story, but every so often, one towered above the rest, jutting up like a hitchhiker’s thumb. Berto stood in a narrow street of one of those building clusters now, and dozens of people bustled back and forth. Somehow it still seemed eerily empty.

What surprised Berto the most was that much of the ring seemed devoted to farmland. Machines rolled or hovered through fields of grain, coaxing the foodstuffs from the ground, making Berto wonder if they were automated or controlled by Chevaliers.

Berto spread the tendrils of his mind out, searching for the machines, when something bit into his side. A memory flashed into his mind—the time he brushed a mud dauber nest on the side of his tia’s trailer and received several wasp stings. Only this time, it was one of the guard’s batons. There was a loud pop! and his side lit up like fire.

This time when his knees went weak, he hit the floor. Cradling into a fetal position as the electricity flowed through him.

Berto could feel the baton in his mind, hissing angrily. His instinct was to wrap a tendril of consciousness around the weapon, but when he did, it was as if a spike was driven directly into his brain. His mind retreated into itself, waiting for the assault to stop.

It finally did when one of the guards—a female he vaguely realized through the pain—said, “That’s enough. Kid doesn’t know how to control it.”

“The kid needs to learn,” the one who’d stunned Berto said. The man knelt, bringing his lips close to Berto’s ear and washing him in hot breath. “Don’t try that again.”

Another grabbed Berto by the crook of his elbow and lifted him to his feet.

“Why didn’t the Council want us to restrain him,” a guard asked while shoving Berto forward.

The one at the head of the formation responded. “Do you see any implant on the kid? Yet you felt his mind reaching out all the way to the agri-drones. He must have a Syndroid implant embedded in his skull. Or maybe—if the captain’s gut is correct—it’s all-natural. Either way, the mag-cuffs would be useless.”

The captain? Berto wondered. Were they talking about Revna? Does she still think I’m not a Golem?

The rest of the walk went on in silence. Only the sound of the guards’ military boots thudding against the ground and the staccato clacking of Berto’s cowboy variety pierced the air.

They marched away from the cluster of buildings towards a lone concrete bunker-style structure in an empty field. To Berto, it looked like the entrance to an underground prison. “What is this place?”

“A place where we keep those deemed dangerous to the Chevalier Sanctorum and Federation of Humanities,” the lead guard said. “And what is to be your new home.”

It’s a prison. Had Berto come all this way—untold lightyears from Earth—just to be confined to a box, unable to seek retribution for his family? “I thought the Sanctorum was going to run some tests, not lock me up?”

“Our orders are to bring you here. What happens after isn’t our business.”

The door to the facility opened, and a towering, dark-skinned man clothed in gold and gray apparel somewhere between nurses’ scrubs and a padded jumpsuit stepped out. The man’s eyes scanned Berto, seeming to linger at Berto’s side where the baton had ripped a hole in his shirt and two blisters formed.

“I told the Council I wanted the recruit unharmed,” the man scowled.

The lead guard shrugged, shifting his magneto-rifle. “He is. Relatively speaking. He’s lucky we didn’t wipe his brain.”

“Had you done that, Revna would have strung you up by your testicles.”

“I’m not scared of the captain of a lowly scout ship—”

“You’ve done your job. Now go,” the towering man said, waving them away with authority.

“The boy is dangerous, Doc. The Council wants us to remain until—”

Doc? He’s a doctor?

“I am the head of medical for this Phalanx station and a Sanctorum knight. Unlike you council goons, it doesn’t take eight of me to manage one recruit.”

Proving this point, a Seraphim drone levitated out of the doorway on glowing thrusters. Berto could hear the whine of its magneto-cannon charging. For once, the weaponry wasn’t pointed at Berto. Nor was it pointed directly at the security team, but it was close enough to make the threat to the guards clear.

Berto decided he liked this man much more than the guards who’d treated him like cow shit.

“Fine,” the lead guard said. “If this one gets out and destroys the station, the blood will be on your hands.” The guards turned on their heels and marched out.

The man in gray and gold did likewise, walking into the facility without watching to see if Berto would follow. With no other option, Berto ran after him. “Who are you?”

“Even with your translator, you will find my name impossible to pronounce,” the man said, quickening his pace. “Most call me Doc. Welcome to the Nuthouse.”