35

THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN BEING AT THE HEART OF A battle you’re unable to fight.

Noemi decides this about the fourth time a mech flies straight into what would’ve been her crosshairs. Her thumbs tighten on the controls, instinctively seeking triggers for weapons that aren’t there. In the corsair, it accomplishes exactly zero, except for accidentally turning on Virginia’s music.

Once she’s shut that off, she tries to take stock. Without the combat map provided by command, or any communications with her fellow fighters, making sense of the battle is almost impossible. Genesis starfighters dart among Vagabond ships of every size and stripe. Mechs fly around her, random as gnats, sometimes so thick they blind her to the rest of the starfield. She’s still registering as a civilian vessel to them, so she’s safe, but Noemi didn’t come here to stay safe. She came here to help.

Even without weapons, she can defend her world.

Months ago, she was on the verge of being captured by Stronghold authorities when Virginia flew by in this exact ship. Virginia had defended the Persephone not with blasters or lasers, but by scrambling the signals all around her.

Why didn’t I ask her exactly how she did that? Noemi thinks as she goes through the various controls, familiarizing herself more with the corsair’s less-critical functions. That would’ve been an extremely useful conversation to have. Mega-useful. Finally she hits upon a subroutine in communications that ought to work. Here goes nothing….

The corsair broadcasts on wavelengths that rise and fall in sine curves across the control panel. At first she wonders whether she’s now playing Virginia’s music to the mechs, which would be hostile but not effective. Then she sees a handful of mechs fold their strange metallic wings, almost like bats preparing to sleep. A smile spreads across her face as she realizes they’ve lost their command signals from the Damocles.

That’s exactly what they’re doing, Noemi thinks. They’re falling asleep!

Laughing out loud, she pushes farther into the thick of the night and does it again. Once more, a dozen mechs fold up into uselessness, and the Genesis and Vagabond ships pick them off one by one. This isn’t as satisfying as destroying them herself, Noemi decides, but it’s effective. The more Queens and Charlies she incapacitates, the better chance Genesis’s forces have of winning this fight.

When she swoops into another cloud of mechs, they adjust formation. Noemi’s heart sinks as she realizes the Damocles ship has detected what she’s doing. So has the Katara; the massive vessel changes course, trying to put itself between the corsair and the Damocles, but it’s too late. Any second now, those mechs are going to attack her—

—yet in one instant that formation breaks, and the mechs turn on one another.

“What the hell?” she says out loud, her voice echoing inside her helmet. Queens and Charlies firing on one another? Ignoring the Genesis fighters? A Damocles ship must be malfunctioning.

But there’s something very methodical about the way the warrior mechs are fighting. Their movements are synchronized. Almost like they’re separate parts of the same thing…

Just like Simon’s mechs were on Haven.

Only one other person could do this. Only one other person in the whole galaxy, one person most people wouldn’t admit is a person at all.

Abel! She looks around wildly for the Persephone, though of course it’s impossible to glimpse it in the chaos. The mech-on-mech battle has escalated into an animalistic frenzy, one pouncing upon another in the same eerie rhythms. Shards of metal spin out in every direction; some of them rain against her cockpit.

Noemi presses a hand to her mouth in both horror and wonder. The wonder is for Abel—he’s expanded his capabilities even further, done something so unprecedented and heroic that it fills her with awe.

The horror is for what Abel might’ve done to himself. Was Simon’s mind doomed from the beginning, or did he break himself down by trying to control machines, trying to be only a machine instead of a person?

But the mechs have almost completed their violent self-destruction. Most of the ones remaining are the ones she put to sleep, and the combined Genesis/Vagabond fleet ships have resumed blowing those to smithereens. The lone Damocles ship in her field of vision turns away, clearly heading for the Gate. Earth’s forces are in full retreat.

They’ll be back. They’ll dig deep. Earth has warships capable of being operated by humans. They may have forgotten how to fight their own battles, but war has a way of reminding people.

“This isn’t over,” she murmurs, watching the Katara take its place at the center of the fleet, a silent testimony to Dagmar Krall’s contribution and potential new power.

The war hasn’t ended. It’s just entered a new phase, one Noemi can’t guess at. But she senses the danger will be even greater.

Flying toward Abel’s ship feels like swimming against the current. Almost all the other ships in the fleet have begun their journey home, zipping past her, leaving wake trails in the debris of the battle. One of the larger Genesis vessels, the Dove, lingers near the Gate—for more readings, or another message, she figures. Other than that, she and Abel are going to have this corner of space all to themselves.

Don’t worry about what’s to come, she tells herself. Go back to Abel. Live in the moment. Kiss him every chance you get. As soon as she gets within range, she signals the Persephone.

No response.

Noemi straightens in her seat and tries again. Nothing. A chill sweeps through her as she accelerates. He pushed too hard. Controlling the mechs did something terrible to him. Or maybe one of the mechs got inside the Persephone to stop him? Abel can defend himself, of course, but then he ought to be answering her, and he’s not.

She doesn’t become truly afraid until the corsair slides into the Persephone’s launching bay and she sees the Genesis transport pod.

Someone came up here to see Abel, and that someone must be responsible for his silence.

The second the air lock’s done cycling, she springs the cockpit, yanks off her helmet, and goes for the weapons locker. Blaster in hand, Noemi walks slowly into the corridor. Every nerve is on edge. Her ears prick at every small noise, but it’s just the usual sounds of a spaceship—air filtration, the faint buzz of the mag engines, and—

Wait.

She listens closer and hears it again: The faint clink of metal on metal ahead, somewhere around the sick bay.

Noemi gets her back to the wall and keeps her weapon at the ready as she inches closer. The fear inside her as she ducks behind each strut, straining to hear what lies ahead—it reminds her of her first day on this ship. She was headed to the sick bay then, too. The doors on board close automatically, so there’s no way she can get in there without giving away her presence. But she can at least listen and figure out as much as possible about what she’ll face when she goes inside.

Even before she can make out words with any clarity, she recognizes Abel’s voice, and she recognizes that something’s badly wrong. Even his tone sounds… groggy, not quite right. Leaning her head against the nearest panel, the best conduit for sound, she finally understands a bit of what he’s saying. “—impossible for you to be sure.”

“We only learn through experimentation.”

Wait, is that—Professor Akide?

Astonishment boils into fury. Noemi doesn’t know how he overpowered Abel or exactly what kind of experiment he plans to run, but she’s putting a stop to this, now.

She goes through the door, weapon raised, to see Abel lying flat on one of the biobeds and Akide above him, frowning at a scanner. “Back off!” she shouts. “Get away from Abel this second, or I swear to God I’ll fire.”

“No, you won’t,” Akide answers. He doesn’t budge.

“Do you think I don’t believe in God? So the promise doesn’t count?” Noemi feels like her stare alone could kill him where he stands. “Trust me, I do, and it does.”

“I believe in God, too.” With that—quick as a flash—Akide pulls a weapon of his own.

No mech would ever have gotten away with that. She would’ve blown it to bits before it could even get its hand on its blaster. But she’s so used to thinking of this man as a member of the Elder Council—as her protector, even her friend. Her fighting instincts didn’t kick in fast enough.

“Noemi?” Abel turns his head toward her. He’s visibly weak and dazed, even more than he was in his exhaustion on Haven. Whatever Akide did has turned him into a shadow of himself.

With his free hand, Akide activates some small device. Instantly Abel goes unconscious. Noemi remembers the fail-safe used to capture him months ago; Akide must have his own methods of shutting Abel down.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” she says.

“And you’re not going to shoot me.” Akide looks disappointed, the same way adults look at little children who have let them down. “We’re only going through these motions because you’ve never accepted what Abel really is. What he’s for.”

She wishes she could shake him. “Did you happen to notice that we just won the biggest battle of the Liberty War? That we have a brand-new war fleet, one Abel helped bring here?”

“We’re grateful for that. But gratitude isn’t worth much, compared with the safety of our world.”

Noemi doesn’t agree, but that’s beside the point. “We don’t have to destroy the Gate. Don’t you see? We can use that Gate now. Make contact with the other worlds of the Loop, force Earth to be the one on the defense for a while. Everything’s changed. We can turn this uprising into victory.”

“You don’t understand war.” Akide sounds sorrowful, but his expression is hard. “They’ll send humans after us this time, and the fighters of Genesis will have to take the sin of murder on their souls. And in the end, if Earth doesn’t succeed in taking our planet, the other colony worlds will decide to claim it themselves. They’ve seen our prosperity now; they won’t be content to merely help us. No, they’ll come after us next—unless we destroy the Gate now.”

“We don’t know that.” She thinks Darius Akide has a lot of nerve telling her—someone who’s trained to fight for almost a third of her young life, who’s gone into countless battles—that she doesn’t understand war. He’s the one who’s forgotten. “Are you really going to strand all the Vagabonds here, and all the Remedy members who came to help us?”

If he cares about their volunteer fleet, he gives no sign. “I’m willing to sacrifice one mech to ensure that Genesis remains safe. You’re willing to endanger millions in the hopes the war has changed. That’s not enough, Noemi. We have one more chance at ensuring the security of Genesis forever, and we’re not going to waste it.”

Hasn’t he heard anything she’s said? Noemi wants to scream. The Elders don’t want to win this war, she thinks. They only see two ways to end this war—through death or isolation.

“I can’t make you believe in victory,” she says. “And I can’t make you believe in Abel’s soul. But I’m not going to let you hurt him, ever, so you can just—”

Noemi doesn’t hear the energy bolt. She only feels it. Heat beyond imagining erupts in her chest, sears outward along every nerve. Her muscles lock up, and her weapon falls uselessly to the floor. For one instant she sees the horror on Akide’s face, the way he looks from her to the blaster he just fired and back again in disbelief.

He meant to do it, she thinks in a daze. He just didn’t know what it would feel like to kill someone.

Then she falls.