RAGE-FUELED AGGRESSION compelled Sabira to chase after Daggeira. She held back, refusing to let the yarist gem drive her into foolish, angry choices. She took a deep breath and gathered her bearings.
After the crackling bursts of energy weapons and clanging attacks of the drones, a deep silence followed. No one spoke, no one moved. Trails of steam rose into the lofty, frigid vault. Zonte and Gabriel looked to her and then each other—wordlessly reassuring themselves they were all unharmed—and then to the one remaining threat. The last abomination didn’t attack or make any move at all.
Sabira dropped the gem back into her utility pouch. Her body shuddered. The effects of the gem receded from muscle fiber and bone as quickly as they had washed over her. Its passing left a deep tiredness pulling down on her chest. Under the dwarf planet’s light gravity, the drain was more tolerable than usual. Still, she wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees, close her eyes, and let the bone-deep shivering pass.
And then Zonte was at her side, long arms around her shoulders. He wasn’t particularly strong, but quivering into his steady frame gave Sabira some reassuring stability.
“You were incredible,” he said.
“You’re the only reason I’m not dead. You were right about your vision. Giant spider monsters and everything. I’m grateful you insisted on coming with us.”
“Me, too.”
“But godsdamned . . . I thought I was hungry before. Now I’m starving.”
“I packed some energy bars.” Zonte rummaged through his emergency backpack, found one, and handed it to her. “Have to take off your helmet, though.”
“You had these the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never told me you were hungry.”
Sabira answered with a scowl. She figured now was safe enough for a quick bite, and started to unfasten her bubble helm when Gabriel’s movements caught her attention. One slow step at a time, he approached the immobile monster.
“Haven’t we had enough trouble from those things?” Sabira asked, tucking the energy bar in a pouch for later.
“There’s something about this one,” Gabriel said. “Before it went inert, the data field generated by its forma components suddenly spiked.”
Sabira arched a thin eyebrow at Zonte.
“I don’t know what that means, either,” he said.
“It means,” said the abomination, its remaining limbs clacking and fusing together. “I want to come out . . .” The glowing yellow blisters all flickered dark, then shone bright again. “. . . and play, too.”
Sabira raised her gun, but Gabriel emphatically waved her off. She kept the pistol trained on the mechanical giant, anyway. “It’s another trick. Another snare.”
“I’m not so sure,” Gabriel said.
Zonte also took aim at the abomination. “Just in case.”
“Step back from it, Gabriel,” Sabira said. “If it even twitches, I’m slagging it.”
“Please, don’t,” the abomination said. “I just got this body, and there’s nothing else decent in range to choose from.”
“Orion?” Gabriel asked.
“One of me. Well, at least as much of me as can fit. Sorry I’m late.” The abomination reconfigured into something vaguely humanoid, with two arms, two legs, and two hornlike curves atop its central core.
“Is it really?” Sabira asked.
“As real as anything else,” it said.
“That’s Orion.” Zonte lowered his gun, then gently rested his hand atop Sabira’s, until she lowered hers as well.
“Then why in all the hells did you attack us?” Sabira shouted, holstering her laser pistol.
“That wasn’t me. I just got here.”
Gabriel took out his device and studied its readout while pointing it at each of the tunnels that converged around them. “I think it’s best if we continue on as we have, down this primary spiral. Orion, perhaps you’d like to fill us in as we walk?”
“No. The Gohnzol-Lo went that way.” Sabira indicated the tunnel Spear and Zika had used to escape. “She’s our true enemy here. And she’s injured. If we don’t do it now, we’re giving her time to regroup and regain her strength. If we take her out, maybe we can get through to the others.”
“That’s quite the ‘maybe,’” Gabriel said. “If not for the energy shield, they would have killed you.”
“But they didn’t attack once my shields were down. And I think Warseer Zika is—I don’t know—manipulating them.”
“Of course the warseer is manipulating them,” Zonte said. “It’s what they do. Always. Your friends haven’t had the eon sacrament. They don’t even see they’re being manipulated.”
“Is Maia’s eon really the only way for us to see?”
“No,” Orion said.
Gabriel looked as if he were about to disagree, then thought better of it. “Do you have control of the Shishiguchi?”
“Not yet. Torque is ripping up the pagoda as we speak. She helped me get some control over myself again. Enough to transmit this NAC into the nearest available body.”
“That settles it,” Gabriel said. “We keep on as we were. Even if we hunt down and eliminate the Slaver, we’re still trapped in this Loshan Bastion. For now, we have little choice but to deal with our captor on his terms. He’s the one manipulating all of us, so he has to be our first priority.”
“Gabriel’s right, Sabira,” Zonte said. “You yourself said we can’t let them get that weapon.”
“If the Hizashi can crack the Shishiguchi’s firewalls—which is supposed to be impossible—then we have to take him seriously, if we want to get off this frozen rock,” Gabriel said.
“Not technically impossible.” Orion hunched his heavy, multi-jointed shoulders. “Not if it’s another Muyama ship.”
“And is it another Muyama?” Gabriel asked.
“The last thing you said, right before you froze . . .” Zonte said.
“The longer we stand around talking in circles”—Sabira paced back and forth between the group and the tunnel Spear and Zika had fled into—“the farther the warseer gets away, and the closer Daggeira gets to the Hara.”
“Exactly why I suggested we walk and talk.” Gabriel gestured in the direction they’d been traveling. “Orion can answer our questions on the way.”
The Orion machine started in the direction Gabriel had indicated. “So, turns out I’ve been believing a lie. I always thought he was dead. Subaru Hanada. My father. He was also a Muyama Adept. Legendary. The best. I grew up hearing stories about him from all over the Home Cluster. He was obsessed with the Old Portal. Studied it for decades. He was sure the Gates could be used again . . . and convinced that he had finally cracked the mystery. When I was very young, he put his theories to the test and tried to transit the Gates. I believed—we all believed—that he had made a mistake. That he’d been . . . Apparently, he made it through after all. Not to the Monarchy’s Gate, like us. But to this one.”
“But your blood-father, he didn’t seem to know who you were,” Zonte said.
“Didn’t seem to know who he was either,” Orion said. “Something glitchy happened. Something that kept him here instead of coming home. So I grew up with nothing but stories about him, legends. And to be honest, I wanted my legend to be greater. Wanted to prove I could do what he couldn’t. Once I ascended to Adept myself, I gained access to his research and used it as the starting point for my own . . .”
Orion’s voice drifted away as Sabira fell back from the others. She walked slower and slower at first, then paced backwards, until finally they were receding from sight, and she was stalking quickly toward the convergence of spiral arms. Now that they had Orion with them, Zonte and Gabriel stood a much better chance of reaching the Hara first.
It was time for Orion to face his blood-father.
Gabriel had been right. They needed to win the godsdamned game if they were going to be free of this place. But they didn’t need her to do it. She’d been right, too. Even if they freed themselves from Loshan Bastion, they still had a mad warseer to contend with.
It was time for her to hunt their hunter.