THIS IS NOT a negotiation,” Gabriel’s voice carried down the corridor, heavy with command. Sabira couldn’t see him yet, or whomever he was talking to.
“What isn’t?” She turned the corner. A nondescript corridor panel had been moved aside to reveal a stocked weapons rack. Gabriel and Zonte were strapping harnesses across their backs and shoulders while nudging Cal out of their way.
“I’m coming with you to the bastion,” Cal said.
The focused glare of Gabriel’s golden eyes told Sabira that Cal was not, in fact, coming with them.
“I can run fast,” Cal insisted. “You’re going to need someone fast.”
Sabira admired Cal’s drive. From the first time she had met him—she waiting to die from asphyxiation, and he holding a knife to her throat—she knew he could have been a servant. That is, once he was old enough to pick a shaft. Which he still wasn’t.
Sabira reached past Cal, took two pistols, and holstered them to her belt. “See Gabriel now, he knows what to do. We’re going to get free of this trap. But we’ve all got to do our part.”
“But I’m almost old enough to be a pitter.”
“Which means you’re currently not old enough,” Zonte said. “See Sabira, we’ve all got our part to do to get through this. Your part is to stay here. Dawn needs a lot of help. And Sabira, grab a harness. Gabriel said they’ve got some kind of shield.”
“Not too tight with the harness, yet,” Gabriel instructed. “We’ll need to re-strap them over jumpsuits at the airlock.”
“Why is Zonte going?” Cal asked. “He’s not a fighter.”
“You’ve got personal shields?” Sabira asked. In the Holy Unity, nothing smaller than gunships carried shield emitters. They were too costly to waste on individuals. And too big.
“We’ve got personal shields,” Gabriel corrected.
Shrugging, Sabira strapped on a harness. “Cal has a point. Why is Zonte coming? And Gabriel, why are you alright with it?”
The Emissary cut his eyes to Zonte. “Tell her.”
“I saw this, or something like this, last time I drank the eon,” Zonte said. “I have to come with you. If I don’t, you’re going to die.”
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
“I do,” Gabriel said. “Sometimes, in the eon visions . . . Let’s just say, mysterious things can happen.”
“Vision or no vision,” Zonte said, “I’m just as responsible for protecting this family as anyone else. I’m coming with you.”
Sabira took a moment to let that sink in, rubbing at the scar of her left breast.
“They’re disciplined for infiltration.” She holstered two more pistols on either side of her ribs. “Their armor has stealth veils.”
“The Slavers’ stealth tech didn’t fare well against the veil lifters we gifted to the Monarchy.” Gabriel slid open a couple of drawers until he found what he was looking for, and pulled out a circular box.
“Didn’t fare well? Went right down the shaft,” Sabira said.
“Then it’s a good thing we have veil lifters as well.” Gabriel opened the box. Inside, a ring of six green orbs was secured in black foam. He gave one each to Sabira and Zonte. It felt dense and glassy in her palm as she secured it to her harness.
“Those won’t cover a whole city, of course,” Gabriel said. “Effective range is about thirty meters. Maybe a little more, if we’re lucky.”
“Why aren’t you taking one?” Zonte asked.
Gabriel tapped his temple and his eyes glinted gold and silver. “I can see through most portable-level stealth veils already.”
Cal had been inspecting a row of nodes set into the base of the locker. “They’re all dead. I can’t get any of them to turn on.”
“Makes sense,” Sabira said. “I saw the same thing in the pagoda.”
Gabriel opened a drawer, removed three respirators, and handed one each to Sabira and Torque. With a gesture, the panel slid closed. The hard, organic reeds covering the panel seamlessly merged with the reeds lining the Shishiguchi’s corridors, hiding any trace of the weapons locker.
“I need to stop at the medbay before we go,” Zonte said.
“I think we all should,” Gabriel agreed.
In the medbay, Dawn lay unconscious. The air carried the stringent bite of antiseptics. Coraz and Playa swept gracefully back and forth through an array of medtech huddled around her cot. Derev stood vigil beside Dawn, holding her right hand gently between his palms. Behind the medtech modules, Edlashuul straightened his sense tendrils directly toward their controls, his six-fingered hands performing minute adjustments.
“May we enter?” Gabriel asked. “We’ll be quick.”
“See me, be quick now.” Coraz gestured for them to come in.
As Gabriel and Sabira approached Dawn’s cot, Playa excused herself to meet with Zonte in the corridor, and Cal joined Ed behind the modules. Out of habit, Sabira prayed to Mother of Life to protect Dawn’s unborn children.
Dawn had been a hen before escaping the Unity. Hens served as living incubators, surrogates bearing brood after brood of others’ children so that their blood-mothers never had to cease their labors. Sabira never pried much into Dawn’s life before the Embassy, but Dawn likely had no idea who the blood-parents were of the children in her womb. But she always referred to the babies as if they were her own. Whether her maternal instincts were some manifestation of her true nature or the result of the Divine Masters manipulating her genetic line for centuries, it didn’t matter. She was their mother.
Sabira’s own brood-mother died when she was young, and she remembered little of her. Like most khvazol, Sabira never met her blood-mother. Unlike most khvazol, however, Sabira knew who her blood-mother was. Gunna, Handmaiden to the Ihvnahg-Ra, the Pinnacle of the World. Grandfather Spear had told Sabira of her blood-mother long ago, in a different life on a different world. As it was impossible to know where Dawn’s instincts came from, it was just as impossible to know the origins of Sabira’s drives. Was she genetically destined to be a warrior? Could she ever be anything more? Did she even want to be?
“She was in a lot of pain, so Coraz put her to sleep,” Derev said. “She’s stable now. Not sure yet, not about the little ones.”
Gabriel took Dawn’s other hand in his own. “She possesses a strong will and a strong heart. And she’s in fine hands. The three of us need to go and see about getting the Shishiguchi free. Take good care of her for us while we’re gone.”
Gabriel stepped aside for Sabira. She bent over and kissed Dawn between the tattooed glyphs on her forehead. “See me, your babies will be born healthy and free.”
Sabira and Gabriel left the medbay. At the far end of the corridor, Zonte and Playa clutched one another. Gabriel announced he was headed for the airlock. After a lingering kiss, Zonte haltingly pulled himself away from Playa to join them.
Playa came to Sabira and gave her a warm hug. “I wish he wasn’t going.”
“I know,” Sabira said. Me, too.
“He wants to be brave, like you.”
“He wants to do everything he can to keep us safe. So do I. During Maia and Rain’s funeral, I figured something out. I realized who I am. I protect our brood. Like Coraz keeps us healthy. Like you nurture our hearts. I’ll keep an eye on him out there. You keep an eye on everyone in here, see me?”
Playa embraced Sabira one last time before heading back inside the medbay.
They gathered at the airlock in the hangar. The smart-matter walls were still configured to be the lush botanical landscape they had been for the funeral. By the airlock door, Gabriel pulled a small device out of a harness pouch and checked it. “Good. Magnetic poles. See. Here’s the compass function. The dome is to our west.”
Gabriel checked a display near the airlock. “Sensor’s say it’s a breathable atmosphere. The air is pressurizing after venting to let us in. Damn cold, though. No airborne pathogens detected.”
“But just to be safe . . .” Sabira started.
“Helmets,” Gabriel finished. “We need to suit up anyway. Take the respirators as a backup.” He opened a panel to reveal a row of hanging blue and white environmental jumpsuits and bubble helmets.
“Look,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know what’s waiting for us any better than you do, other than a nearly suicidal Slaver, and the two people in their whole army who can unbalance Sabira’s head the most. We need to be quick, but we need to be smart. Eyes and ears open. Stay together. Keep moving west. Zonte, I know you haven’t been trained, but I know how brave and quick on your feet you are. Keep your head down, do what we do, and listen to what we say.”
“I see you,” he said.
“I’m brave, too.” Cal ran into the hangar, a respirator slung around his neck and a knife sheathed at his leg. Sabira recognized it as the knife she gave him when they escaped the Pyramid Zol-Ori.
“Cal,” Gabriel started before Sabira stopped him with a squeeze on the shoulder.
“You are brave,” she said. Cal was only a few years younger, but with his slim build and youthful face, she couldn’t help but think of him as a boy still. She detached a holster from the harness beside her ribs. “That’s why we need you to watch our back. Everyone else is in the medbay. We need you to watch the door.”
She offered him the holstered pistol, and he stood a little straighter.
“We’re counting on you,” Gabriel said.
“Nobody but you gets through that airlock,” Cal said.
“Don’t pull that gun out until you need to,” Sabira instructed. “And don’t pull that trigger unless you mean to kill whoever it’s pointed at. We all work together, we all get through this. See me?”
Call nodded. “I see you. Nobody else dies. Nobody.”
Sabira took the back of his head in her right hand, felt the thin hairs growing into pale curls, and pulled his forehead to her own.
“Nobody else dies,” she said. “I promise. Nobody.”
* * *
Warseer Zika Rab Izd turned her seat to glower at Daggeira and Spear with three yellow eyes, cobwebbed with green bloodshot. Her conical sense mounds twitched on either side of her head. Humiliation curled her silver lips.
Daggeira moved to speak but caught the slight shake of Spear’s head warning her off. The man didn’t survive to the rank of attendant by not knowing when to hold his tongue.
So she waited for Zika to give them orders. Or do something. Instead, Zika fumed, wordlessly boring into the servants with her three-eyed gaze. Daggeira wished she could will the warseer forward with her mind, get her up and moving after their prey. Vital moments ticked past.
When Zika finally released the harness securing her to the pilot’s seat, Daggeira breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, the warseer wasn’t rising up and leading them into the bastion. Zika opened a small side compartment and removed a canister of briny water. She went through the same little ritual of pulling free the amphibian and biting into the largest tumor riddling the creature’s flesh. Wincing her eyes shut, she wiped away the mess from her lips before opening her eyes again, one by one. After dropping the dead beast back into the canister, she stowed it away.
“Leave your microfilters open,” Zika commanded. “Sniffers say the atmosphere inside the bastion is breathable. Save your air tanks until needed.”
Finally. Come on, let’s drilling go already.
“That strange old man said whoever gets to the Hara first, wins his weapon. What’s a Hara?” Daggeira asked.
Zika rose and dismissively gestured, indicating a vague location outside the gunship. “I’m sure he means that dome in the middle. But that’s of no matter. The Devil and his stolen khvazol are the mission priority.”
“But that weapon—”
“Is clearly a ruse, a distraction. Another trap.”
“You’re correct, of course, Warseer. But the apostate, she’ll want that weapon to use against us. Against other pyramids in the fleet.”
“He called the superweapon Godsfall.” Spear studied the palm of his gauntleted hand as if he could see through to the biomech prosthetic, or the phantom fingers his granddaughter had butchered off. “He claimed it could kill Gods. Such blasphemy.”
“It slagged a moon! With one shot.”
“Listen to the attendant, Third Drum Daggeira. He is wise for a human. We must keep the superweapon from the apostate and the Black Devil, yes, but we mustn’t let it bait us into an even more sinister snare. We heard our captor’s words. He and his false masters and blasphemous weapons are Trickster’s spawn.” Zika practically snarled out those last words, revealing sharp teeth behind curled lips.
“Yes, Warseer,” Spear agreed. “We are tasked with reunifying the apostate and the others. However, finding them in the bastion’s sprawling maze will be nearly impossible. Even if we don’t know where they are, we know where they’re headed. We beat them to this Hara, we’ll be the ones springing the trap on them. Then we’ll be in a better position to deal with our captor. And see for ourselves if his weapon has a place in Divine Will or not.”
“Capture our prey and confiscate the moon-killer all at once,” Daggeira said.
“I do not think our captor and his false masters will give up such a weapon easily,” Zika said. “We’d be fools to think they’ll just let us go after reaching this Hara. First priority remains our prey. Once they’ve been reunified, then we kill this overinflated old human and confiscate his weapon for the glory of the Holy Unity.”
“Yes, Warseer,” they answered in unison.
Zika placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “For the Gods, for the Divine Masters, for all the Holy Unity—and for our own redemption—we go to hunt down Trickster’s Black Devil and bring back his disgusting head.”
She triggered a reflexor in the back of the cockpit, and two panels slid open. Inside, cocooned in pulsing scarlet membranes, six coiled vaidu waited, their sharp limbs twitching.