SABIRA FOLLOWED GRANDFATHER Spear, who followed the trail of his own blood. She held his palukai trained directly at his center mass and trailed far enough behind that he couldn’t disarm her with a sudden turn. Mentally, she urged him not to try anything, not to make her shoot. Before leaving the hub, she had completely disarmed him. She carried his dagger strapped to the back of her waist. The garrote and toxin capsules from his gauntlets were tucked into utility pouches.
Cracked and splintered, laser-scorched and sliced through, Spear’s grank plate armor was a tattered mess. Chunks had fallen away from his left arm. The cold added a blue halo to the bruised purple skin on his arms and hands. Blood dripped from his fingertips. The completely missing back plate of his armor revealed something disturbing. Protruding along his upper spine and neck, a silver biomech parasite, striped with rings of cobalt blue, had burrowed into his scar-covered flesh.
This must be how he and Daggeira grew so big so quickly. What under the rocks have they done to them?
After Spear had slain Zika, and Sabira had regained her guns, she had found the dropped yarist gem and tucked it back into a pouch. The energy drain hit her harder than before. Her belly growled with hunger. While they walked, she desperately wanted to eat the energy bar Zonte had given her, but that would mean lowering her weapon. Even though he’d killed Warseer Zika, she wasn’t ready to let her guard down with him yet. On top of the hunger, sharp pains knifed through her skull with each step. She wanted to hold the gem again, just to be rid of the drilling headache, but couldn’t afford to drain her energy further, not unless absolutely needed.
She touched the back of her head. Her hand came away bloody. Now both their blood left a trail through the winding corridors.
Her bare scalp and hand tingled in the frigid air. Her respirator had been crushed by Zika’s choking grip, leaving Sabira no choice but to breathe the unfiltered air. Every inhalation chilled her lungs. Every exhalation transformed into steamy wisps. The fingers of her left hand, no longer protected by a glove, turned a wan shade of blue. She flexed them while gripping the stick, trying to keep them from growing stiff and useless.
Grandfather Spear had remained silent while Sabira confiscated his arms back at the hub, and he remained silent now. So did she. There were a thousand things she wanted to say, questions to ask. Most of all, what was it that broke his faith? That thing on his back? But at the moment, nothing seemed more appropriate than silence.
As they neared an intersection, footsteps echoed from farther ahead. She hoped Daggeira hadn’t come following the same blood trail, looking to reunite with her warseer. Sabira quietly instructed Spear to kneel facing the wall, hands behind his head. She went to one knee, training her palukai in the direction of the echoes while keeping an eye on him. The footsteps ceased.
“I heard you whispering. Sound carries far in these corridors.”
“Gabriel?”
“Yes, it’s me. What were you thinking, going off on your own?”
“You’re clear. Come on.” Sabira rose to her feet. “You stay kneeling.”
Gabriel came into view around the bend of the intersecting corridor, gun in hand. “Who are you talking to?”
“My grandfather.”
Gabriel froze mid-step. His gun hand crept higher.
“He’s disarmed,” Sabira said.
“And the Slaver?”
“Dead.”
Gabriel approached the rest of the way. He trained his gun directly at Spear. His body language didn’t read like he was ready to shoot. Not yet.
“When we realized you snuck away from us, I came back to check on you. Orion and Zonte went ahead. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking you, Zonte, and Orion would be safe without me.” Sabira pointed to her grandfather. “But he wouldn’t. Not as long as that warseer lived. None of us would be for long.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed in thought. “With the Slaver dead, that is one less complication. This one, though”—he nodded to Spear—“this one is plenty complicated. I can’t believe he let you take him alive.”
“He didn’t. He defected.”
Gabriel looked from her to Spear to her again. “A trick. A trap. Must be. I understand who he is to you, but we can’t trust him.”
“Gabriel . . .”
He aimed at the back of Spear’s head. “After you killed the warseer, he saw his only way out of this bastion was to play on your sympathies. Once we let him board the Shishiguchi, let our guard down, who knows what he would do? Destroy the ship from within? Signal the Slaver fleet? Maybe he thinks he can steal the secret of how to pass through the Gates? Or maybe—”
“I didn’t kill the warseer,” Sabira interjected.
“What?”
“Warseer Zika. The Slaver. I didn’t kill her. I tried, but she got me. Nearly caved in my skull.” She twisted her neck to show the bloody back of her head. “He killed her. Not me.”
The muscles around Gabriel’s jaw tightened. He didn’t take his eyes off Spear’s head.
“Maia wanted all of us to have a chance at liberation,” Sabira said. “He deserves his chance.”
“He killed Maia.”
“And I killed vleez. Vleez children. And Maia still gave me a chance. You gave me a chance, when it would have been so much easier to hand me over.”
Gabriel’s lips curled back, revealing his perfect white teeth clenched tight.
“It’s what Maia would want. You know it.”
Gabriel took in a quick, sharp breath, and slowly let it out. He lowered his gun and unclenched his jaw. Holstering his pistol, he told Spear to put his hands together behind his back. Gabriel partially unzipped his jumpsuit. He ran his fingers in a complicated pattern over the smart-matter of his cloak underneath and pulled away a thick, purple ribbon of forma cloth. Kneeling, he wrapped the strip around Spear’s wrists, and the forma solidified into something hard and unbreakable.
“That will hold until we get you back to the ship.” Gabriel wiped Spear’s blood off his hands with his jumpsuit. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until then. Now get to your feet.”
Silently, Spear stood. He wobbled slightly but kept his footing.
“The main spiral arm we were following is just ahead,” Gabriel said. “Turn right. Hurry and you should catch up with Orion and Zonte. I’m taking him back to the Shishiguchi. We can’t afford to let him anywhere near this supposed superweapon, or the other servant for that matter. I promise to give him his chance, the same as we gave you. But should he try anything, anything at all, I’ll burn a hole clear through your chest and out the other side.”