DAGGEIRA WATCHED THE target ship disappear into one of the three cavernous maws, consumed by impenetrable shadow. Tremendous arcs of electricity bolted across the ancient megastructure, momentarily concealing it in a flash of light. The talon’s sensors complained of signals as far beyond their calibration as they were beyond Daggeira’s comprehension.
The electric flashes subsided to their previous erratic discharges. In the spans between their blue-white crackles, the shattered bits of aku-vayk reflected the crimson nebula, and the Gates appeared coated in blood.
“They’re dead,” Daggeira whispered. “Crushed to nothing.”
Trickster’s Black Devil must have drilled them all in the head. After fighting so hard to get away, why under the rocks would the apostate charge straight into oblivion? Didn’t make sense. Something down on that vermin-infested planet had caused Trickster’s seed to take root in the apostate’s heart. She had become someone Daggeira no longer understood. But not everything about her had changed. If the impossible happened, if the Black Devil’s ship did survive the Gates and the two of them faced each other again, Daggeira knew the apostate would never give in—she’d fight until her last breath.
The talon’s course pointed them straight for the same triangular opening. They needed to change course soon, or share the same fate as the target ship.
“We all saw it,” Daggeira said aloud. “They’re dead. I’ll say the same to the High Godseer when we return.”
“No one can pass through the Shattered Gates of Heaven and live,” Attendant Spear agreed. “Only the dead found worthy of eternal service may pass beyond.” The holo-projected crackle of a massive bolt lit up the cockpit.
Daggeira added, “I’ve only ever seen the nebula once before.” Drilling the apostate on the observation deck. “But never the actual Gates. Not like this. Do they always have these discharges?”
“Lightning,” Zika said. “It’s called lightning. It typically only occurs on planets with a significant atmosphere. Answer the third drum’s question, Attendant. I’ve seen your privileges logs. You’ve spent many hours in observation decks. You must have viewed the Gates of Heaven before. Are they usually active with lightning such as this?”
Spear didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question, Attendant. My dominion can make you speak words of my choosing, yes, but cannot read your thoughts. So tell me the truth. Have you ever seen the Gates behave in this manner?”
Spear stared into the holo projection, but his eyes looked blank, unfocused. “I have not, Warseer.”
“Then perhaps our prey truly does know their way through the Shattered Gates.” Warseer Zika injected more fuel into the engines. Acceleration pressed Daggeira into her seat. “I vowed I would follow the Black Devil into Trickster’s Hell and back.”
“But Warseer—” Daggeira started before a will not her own shut her mouth. Muted by Zika’s dominion, she turned to Spear, eyes pleading for the attendant to talk sense into her. His blank gaze stared only at the Gates of Heaven, looming ever larger.
“Maybe She Who Waits draws near,” Zika said. “Then again, maybe Conqueror sees me, and vengeance is mine for the taking if only my grasp is bold enough. Do you know the extent of your former crewmate’s treachery, Third Drum? The extent to which Attendant Spear's bloodline has been polluted? The apostate betrayed and murdered the head of my clan and family with his own nihkazza. Urzdek Rab Izd, Pinnacle of the Pyramid Zol-Ori. That pyramid was bestowed to my clan by the Master of Masters himself. The apostate and her Black Devil sabotaged the pyramid from within to coordinate with the vermin’s attack. No family and clan in the history of the Holy Unity have ever been so dishonored. Before this, I was Taskmaster Rab Izd, a full task of servants and warseers at my command. Heh. Now you call me Warseer Zika.”
Her three yellow eyes rolled up at odd angles in their sockets, discolored by branches of green bloodshot. “After the martyrdom of Pinnacle Rab Izd, the Pinnacle of the Ihvik-Ri grows paranoid. Covers himself in armor beetles.” Her speech grew steadily faster. “I’ll need more than the word of two mindless servants to restore my honor. If I don’t buy back our standing with blood, family and clan will lose the patronage of the Divine Masters. It would mean our utter ruin. So I will pursue this Black Devil and apostate into the Shattered Gates, across all the stars of the galaxy, until She Who Waits takes me at last, or all the Holy Unity sees me drop their bones at the feet of the Ihvnahg-Ra dra Nahgohn-Za.”
The apostate’s not the only one drilled in the head out here. Passing through the Gates of Heaven was certain death. Had been since their shattering. Did Zika really think leading them into suicide would restore her clan?
The apostate may have been right. Zika will get us all killed.
* * *
“What you are seeing now is neither light nor matter.” Orion’s voice issued throughout the observation deck.
Within the display, the black interior of the Shattered Gates had transformed into a living tapestry of infinitely complex design. Fractal blossoms of color swelled and waned, one into the other, layer beyond infinite layer.
“It’s not even space itself. This is a visual representation of probabilistic waveforms, rising in potential before collapsing into reality. Currently, we are a small speck of space-time suspended like a bubble in the non-local field. Intruders into the realm of everywhere and nowhere, if you happen to feel poetic.”
The interweaving wash of color and motion transfixed Sabira. Something about the impossibility of it felt familiar. Had this been what she witnessed, but couldn’t remember, when she had passed through the living portal in her eon vision?
“Does anyone understand what under the rocks he just said?” Coraz asked.
“While I’m sure that was the extremely simplified version, I’d be lying if I said I did,” Gabriel said.
Every color imaginable flashed, sublimated into harsh white, and resolved into a triangular field of stars bordered by deep black. The triangle grew wider until only the star-speckled void filled the display.
“We’re through, safe and sound,” Gabriel said.
“Oh glitch!” Orion exclaimed. “Oh, fucking glitch!”
All the eyes in the room popped in alarm. Edlashuul’s sense tendrils stood straight and rigid.
“Orion?” When no response came, Gabriel demanded he answer and explain what was wrong.
“Is it the warseer?” Derev asked. “Did she get us?”
Dawn gripped Derev’s thick arms tightly to herself. Torque held the eeshl closer to her chest.
“The pulsar map is all twisted,” Orion said.
“What does that mean?” Sabira asked.
“If the pulsars aren’t mapping, it means we made a wrong turn,” Gabriel said. “This isn’t Home Cluster, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Orion answered.
“Are you trying to tell us we’re lost?” Coraz asked.
“Why didn’t you let Orion shoot them?” Derev shouted. “Now what will we do?”
“Yes, I’m saying we’re lost,” Orion said. “That’s not all. Really didn’t think they’d do it. Another ship is transitioning the Gates. They followed us. ”
The Shishiguchi shuddered around them. Thruster engines roared, and acceleration gravity turned cruel, like a small moon had dropped onto Sabira’s rib cage.
This all should have been left behind—her enslavers, her family, her lovers. Sabira had chosen a new life, new people. Yet even beyond the Shattered Gates, everything she had hoped to escape remained. Lingering scabs that refused to heal into scars.
“Our guests will be right behind us,” Orion said. “Until we pass the stochastic horizon, we can’t activate shields. If they come out guns blazing, galactic wrong turns won’t be our biggest problems.”
“My babies,” Dawn gasped, audibly struggling to breathe. “My babies.”
“I’m sorry,” Orion said. “Any slower and our chances of survival get ugly. Coraz, as soon as this is over, get Dawn to the medbay. I’ll have a lem waiting for you.”
Derev is right, Sabira thought. Why didn’t I let Orion shoot them? If Dawn’s babies don’t make it—if any of us don’t make it—it will be my choice that caused it. My mercy, when I should have been fierce.
* * *
In the talon’s holo display, the great broken triangle of the Gates’ entrance grew wider, until the projection became a floating slab of black. Suddenly, the image flared brilliant white. Then the holo collapsed to a point and disappeared.
Time became an abstraction, a memory of something missing. A nine-hour shift? A heartbeat? Zika had cut the engines before entering the Gates, leaving Daggeira as weightless in space as in time.
The holo projection sprang to life. A field of stars lay before them. The Gates, wreathed in bolts of cosmic lightning, fell behind.
Daggeira’s lips became her own again. She laughed, delirious with the joy of not being obliterated. She had passed through the Shattered Gates of Heaven . . . and lived.
“I’ve got eyes on our target.” Spear’s dry voice cut her laughter short. “They’re accelerating faster than before. They intend to beat us to the horizon and raise shields.”
“The Devil runs scared.” Zika punched the engines.
Acceleration slammed Daggeira back into her oversized seat. She had been disciplined through many heavy acceleration drills, but the pressure on her heart and lungs never felt like this. If not for their transfigurations, she and Spear would have suffocated under their own weight.
Cockpit alarms indicated the target ship had locked weapons on them. The talon’s targeting display appeared in the holo. Even under the crushing pressure, Warseer Zika began dialing in the target on the fleeing ship’s exhaust. If Zika didn’t shoot soon, they’d lose their chance to hit while the Devil’s shields were down. But if they opened fire, surely the traitors would, too. Without shields, there would be one outcome and one outcome only. Mutual destruction.
Daggeira focused all her strength on speaking. “Warseer, see me. I have . . . an idea. We can get them without . . .” Without them killing us at the same time.
“Scared to die in battle?” Zika’s voice was strained, though not as badly as Daggeira’s. The warseer’s long fingers continued working the gunnery controls; the targeting triangle slid closer to the receding exhaust plume. But the warseer’s hand quivered. Was Zika’s hand shaking merely from the acceleration force, or was she the one afraid? If Daggeira was going to stop her, she needed to play on Zika’s fear and pride together.
“Not scared,” Daggeira grunted. “I want the glory . . . to stand behind you . . . in victory. Still a way.”
“Target . . . ninety seconds . . . from horizon.” As Spear spoke, Zika finally aligned the targeting triangle with the enemy ship.
“Apostate stopped Devil . . . from fighting,” Daggeira spoke as quickly as she could manage under the strain. “We can use that. Let me challenge her . . . One-on-one. Won’t resist bait.”
“Attendant?” Zika asked.
“She’s right,” he said. “Eighty seconds.”
“I know how . . . get under her skin,” Daggeira insisted.
Zika’s hand trembled over the trigger. “Once past the horizon . . . they’ll engage shields . . . fire on us. . . . My only chance to deliver . . . Divine Will.”
“They won’t,” Daggeira insisted. “Apostate thinks she can . . . turn us traitors.”
“Sixty seconds.”
“I see you . . . May Conqueror . . . see us all.” Zika pulled her hand from the trigger.
Warseer Zika says she sees me, but she doesn’t understand. Not yet. When I kill the Black Devil and capture the apostate, then she’ll truly see me. They all will. Then they’ll know.
I am the Hand of the Goddess.
* * *
“Our friends just completed Gate transit,” Orion announced.
A second display came alive with the aft sensor feed. Another massive structure that had been shattered into uncannily aligned pieces quickly receded. On the far side of the Gates, distant enough to be viewed from edge to swirling edge, another red nebula loomed, a bloody smear across black space. Between the Shishiguchi and the Gates, a drive plume ignited.
“They’re slamming acceleration,” Orion said. “How can they push that hard without crushing themselves? I’ve got them target-locked. No weapons fire from them yet, so I’m holding for now.”
Sabira wanted to tell him no, she was wrong, fire now. But she couldn’t speak. She struggled to even breathe.
“We’re now within their weapons range. Hold tight.”
The flare of the Unity ship grew brighter and closer. They were going even faster than the Shishiguchi. Spear and Daggeira must be using yarist gems to hold up under that level of thrust.
Sabira’s vision collapsed into a tunnel, fuzzy and dark at the edges. She closed her eyes and focused on fighting for every breath. Each moment stretched into a torturous eternity.
“We are beyond the horizon!” Orion announced. “Shields activated. Ramping up inertial modulators.”
Bit by bit, the small moon lifted off Sabira’s chest.
“Coraz, be ready,” Orion said. “Inertial fields will be in safe parameters in thirty . . . Wait. Hello? I’m picking up a network of satellites between three and nine thousand kilometers out, concentric to the horizon. Gravity wave distortions, too. But not from the Gates. That doesn’t make sense.”
The Shishiguchi lurched. Sabira felt like she was torn to shreds and crushed into a ball at the same time. The ceiling displays went blank, and every light switched off.
Dawn screamed in the dark.
* * *
In silence but for the growl of thruster engines, Daggeira watched their target cross the invisible horizon of the Gates’ influence. If she was wrong about the apostate, it meant they survived the Shattered Gates only to die at the hand of the Black Devil moments later.
Attendant Spear broke the silence first. “Multiple energy signatures . . . outside horizon. Nine, eighteen, more . . . Satellite network.” The exhaust plume of the enemy ship suddenly went dark. “Lost target ship’s energy signature . . . Still have visual . . . Target decelerating too hard.”
“Is this a trick?” Zika asked. “A feint?”
“It’s a drilling ambush!” Daggeira shouted.
“Thirty seconds . . . from horizon,” Spear said.
Zika cut the engines and flipped the talon, nose to tail. Daggeira’s guts tried to change places with her lungs. Zika reignited the engines, and a wall of force slammed Daggeira’s spine from the deceleration. Dark stars danced in her vision. At the rate they’d been accelerating, they had no possible way to decelerate before triggering the ambush.
“Past horizon,” Spear said. “Multiple signatures . . . incoming.”
The holo display sputtered out. The cockpit went dark.
“I’ve lost control,” Zika grunted.
The wall of force slamming Daggeira’s spine crushed the last breath from her lungs. The dark stars in her vision supernovaed to black.
* * *
Sabira’s head swam drunkenly. She tried to writhe out of her restraints. But they bound her as tightly as before. Unable to sense up from down, she felt the familiar nausea of her guts floating against her ribcage. Small backup lights swelled in the corners of the room, soft blue radiance dimly outlining her peripheral vision.
Dawn continued to scream. None of them could go to her.
Did Grandfather Spear lay some kind of trap? Could his weapons pierce the Shishiguchi’s defenses so easily? Sabira almost hoped he would finish them off quickly. Slice their ship in two, just as Gabriel had threatened to do to them, and be done with it. But that would be too kind, too merciful. There was no mercy in the Holy Unity.
It was happening again. Grandfather Spear was coming to take her back, take all of them—even Orion this time. There’d be no second escape. All she could do was wait, trapped queasy and motionless in the dark, while her friend screamed for the life of the babies in her womb.
“Hold on!” yelled a woman from somewhere in the ship’s corridors.
“We’re coming!” a man yelled after.
The patter of running footsteps punctuated Dawn’s wailing and the others’ scattered, helpless moans. Three beams of light shone through the doorway, jumping erratically through the dark, followed by a dance of silhouettes and shadows. A familiar form appeared above her. He had a torchlight secured to his forearm.
“What’s happening?” Sabira moaned. “Who?”
He angled the light toward himself. Shadows slid over Zonte’s pretty face, alabaster skin almost luminous in the stark light. “Even Orion’s not sure what happened. He freed Playa and me from our cabin. Now we’re going to get you out of this.” He shined the light on the beam cutter in his other hand. He pulled a pair of goggles from one of several bags slung over his shoulder and told her to close her eyes while he cut her loose.
“Dawn?” Sabira asked.
“Orion and Playa are getting Dawn and Coraz,” he said. “I’m getting you and Gabriel first, then the rest. Everything in the ship is drilled. No gravity. Luckily, our shoes changed automatically. They can grip the floor so we don’t float away.”
Sabira closed her eyes, but still felt dizzy. Her mind swirled. The heat of the cutter beam near her temple only made it worse.
“I’m going to puke,” she mumbled.
“Orion gave us emergency kits,” Zonte turned off the cutter and reached for one of the bags. “Here, he said to give you this if you feel sick.” Zonte stuck something on her neck, against her pulse. Within moments the dizziness subsided, and the urge to vomit quelled. He reminded her to keep her eyes closed and resumed cutting.
Beside her, Torque and the eeshl whimpered against their restraints. Zonte paused. “Hold on a little more, alright Torque. I’ve got to get Gabriel next, but we have more emergency kits. Once I cut Sabira free, she’ll get you. You’ll be out soon.”
Zonte moved down to free Sabira’s legs, and she cautiously sat upright. An Orion-lem crouched over Dawn. Beside them, Playa knelt by Coraz. Sabira squinted from the blaze of their cutters. Dawn’s screaming quieted to panicked moans while Derev demanded to be freed next.
Once Zonte cut off the last forma tentacle, he gave Sabira an emergency pack. She went to work cutting the restraints off Torque while Coraz and Orion examined Dawn.
“Can someone tell me what’s happening?” Sabira asked. “Did the warseer do this? Are they about to board?”
“They never opened fire,” Orion-lem said. “After we crossed the stochastic horizon, some kind of satellite array was activated. We sprang a trap. Right before everything went glitchy, I had synced into this lem and was preparing a stasis field in the medbay. The field must have protected this body. As to what’s happening outside, I’ve been trying to connect with the Shishiguchi’s passive sensors this whole time, but no it’s no good. We’re trapped and blind.”
“While you take care of Dawn, the rest of us need to prepare for an infiltration crew,” Sabira said. “Weapons locker?”
“Outside my pagoda.”
“I know where.” Gabriel sat up after Zonte cut his upper restraints.
They were floating Dawn toward the door when the lights came on. The gravity generators eased back next. Derev, Playa, and Orion-lem quickly secured Dawn in their grasps so she wouldn’t fall.
“All major systems appear to be back online,” Orion-lem said. “But not because of me. I’m still locked out. I can’t sync with the pagoda, the Shishiguchi, anything.”
Displays flickered to life across the ceiling, once again showing the aft and forward views. The wedge-shaped Unity vessel tumbled dark and mindless in their wake. To their fore, a third ship slowly emerged, bow to stern, as its stealth veil lifted. The bright red ship was spherical at its core, with long straight extensions pointing in every direction, like hardened rays of sunlight.
The ceiling images blanked out, and the full wall display resumed. The back of an aging human’s bald head filled the wall. No tattoo glyphs marked the yellowish-gray scalp. He turned, bringing his magnified face into view. Sabira had never seen him before, but something struck her as familiar. The sharpness of his eyes.
“—At last,” the man said, his voice translated from whatever strange language he was speaking into Khvaziz. “We have visitors.”
Orion’s mouth fell open. “Father?”
Every face turned to Orion. “Father?”