Rhea had never seen anyone die before.
When they had commandeered Zelus, Nyx had urged Rhea and Ariadne into an empty meeting room and slammed the door shut. That had been a kindness. She’d found blood spattered across her dress later, from walking down the corridors lined with masked corpses, but only seeing the aftermath had not stopped the horror from sinking in.
For once, she was glad the other women had left her behind. She never wanted them to see her like this: sitting in the ship’s command center, staring at the wall, fighting back tears.
The Evoli had blue eyes. Dark hair. Pale skin.
He had been afraid. She could see it in his face. Now she’d never forget.
“I didn’t know his name,” she murmured, shutting her stinging eyes. “I didn’t even know his godsdamned name.”
She didn’t use language like that. Her life had been comprised of poetry—soft words for reassurance, her voice never rising in anger. She could only think of that man as the Evoli. Other, according to the Tholosians. An enemy not worthy of a name. Did he have family? Friends? They would have no way to mourn him, no way of even knowing he was gone.
Gods. Gods. Her chest ached. Rhea knew the other women couldn’t have stopped it—that his fate had been sealed with his capture—but it still hurt. That was what the Empire did: forced you to be complicit in the dehumanization of others.
They reduced you to same identifiers animals are given: a species name. Orous zuinae. Extinct. Llidnian ixesuma. Extinct.
That will be you in the end, if you’re caught, Rhea thought. No name. No one to care about you. Why would they? You’re just an—
“Stop it,” Rhea told herself, digging her fingernails into the skin of her arms. “Stop it. Stop it.”
A soft beep emerged from the computers. She snapped her head up, her heart thudding hard against her ribs. Had a Tholosian guard sensed something was off with the ship’s logs? Had their identities been compromised?
Rhea checked the controls, cursing her clumsy fingers. She’d rarely touched tablets or technology. In the Pleasure Garden, such things were considered distractions. Though Ariadne had taught her the basics, she was still slow to type.
She keyed in the command to find the source of the alarm.
Oh.
There was movement on the ship—a single signature on one of the lowest levels. And it was heading for the exit near the canteen.
“Seven devils,” Rhea muttered, swearing yet again. She grabbed a Mors from Nyx’s weapon pile.
Someone else was on the ship.
She threw on one of the Mors-proof jackets stored in the cockpit. A well-placed laser would still hurt, but at least it wouldn’t slice her in half.
Rhea’s breathing was ragged as she left the command center. She’d have to deal with this herself. She didn’t want to be alone, but she couldn’t call for backup when the others were in the middle of their missions.
You can do this, she told herself as she hurried quietly down the hall toward the canteen. The ship shuddered. The exit hatch was opening.
“Damn,” she hissed, rounding the corner.
A man in a torn uniform was slipping out of the exit hatch. Who was he? How had he entered the ship in the first place without her or the ship’s computers knowing?
Rhea slipped behind him as he slowly made his way down the ramp. He moved stiffly. Injured? Yes—a Mors blast must have glanced over his hip. The fabric was burned to his flesh. His skin at the back of his neck was yellow and covered in a sheen of sweat. He wouldn’t be as strong or as fast. She had a better chance of taking him down.
The man turned.
Rhea froze.
It was the godsdamned copilot.
She had seen him when she boarded back on Tholos. He had caught her eye, then glanced away, as if she was nothing. Just a dona. But he had escaped onto Asteria days ago after Clo shot at him—or, at least, they thought he had. Rhea fixed her eyes on the injury at his hip. He hadn’t escaped.
He’d been here the whole time.
The pilot pointed a Mors of his own at Rhea’s head.
“Put your weapon down,” he said, his voice rough.
“You first.”
They stood at an impasse. Bruises hollowed his eyes, and sweat stained his pale, jaundiced skin. His hand was shaky, and his gaze was unfocused, eyelids heavy. Would he risk the shot?
No. He darted a glance to the open hatch, and she guessed what he was thinking: lock her in, escape.
The pilot went for the door.
Rhea lunged after him, but he was faster. The pilot scrambled out of the hatch and smacked his palm against the button to close it. Rhea leaped through, skidding down the ramp as the door slammed shut behind her.
“Shit,” the pilot said, taking off in a limping run.
Rhea opened her mouth to yell after him, but they were in the hangar, with dozens of other ships around. There might be others resting in the crafts between journeys. There might be—
Two people came out from behind the crafts, moving slowly.
“Hey!” the pilot yelled, waving his hands. “Get me a fucking medic. Get the—”
Rhea lunged at the pilot, tackling him from behind. They both hit the ground. Rhea rolled hard against the concrete, letting out a soft grunt of pain.
His eyes met hers, and Rhea could see the rapid contraction of his irises. The Oracle programming was waking up. Any moment, One would fully activate and pump his system full of adrenaline. Even in his weakened state, he weighed twice more than Rhea.
He bucked against her as she tried to slide her hands down to his bare wrists . . .
The pilot shoved her off and stumbled into a run. “Hey!” he said to the people approaching. “You— Godsdamn it. Fucking husks.”
Rhea didn’t even think. She scrambled up, darted for the gerulae’s utility belt, and grabbed the first thing her hand touched. An oil canister.
She launched it at the pilot.
The canister slammed into the pilot’s temple, and he went down with a muted cry. Rhea breathed hard, watching his body for any movement. None. Had he been at full strength, she wouldn’t have stood a chance at knocking him out with one hit.
“Thank you,” Rhea said, looking at the women next to her.
They stared expressionlessly down at the pilot, barely even blinking. The scythes on their cheeks seemed to absorb the harsh overhead hangar lighting.
While there had been servitor in the Pleasure Garden, the gerulae had been kept strictly on the other side of the walls. Attendants could answer queries, give polite responses that were just lively enough to show a facade of choice. Gerulae, Rhea knew, were different. Did they even know what was happening?
Rhea shook her head. No time for that.
“Can you help me?” she asked the gerulae. “I can’t . . . I can’t drag him alone.”
They stared at Rhea wordlessly. Rhea reached out to take the first woman’s hand. “Can you—”
A vast emptiness expanded inside Rhea. She couldn’t hear thoughts, no, but this woman’s emotions . . .
Nothingness. Dark. Bleak. An abyss, floating down down down down into the black can’t scream can’t speak nothing nothing nothing no—
Gasping, Rhea released the gerulae’s hand. “Gods. Gods. I’m so—gods, I’m so sorry.”
The women blinked at her, and Rhea could feel the echo of that chasm inside her. How dark and long it was. And she could do nothing to help them. Nothing.
Rhea shut her eyes, hating this. Hating everything the Empire had done. Hating how inept she felt because, right now, she couldn’t do anything other than fix this one small problem: the pilot.
“Help me with him,” she urged the gerulae firmly.
They only responded to commands. The Oracle would not let them act on anything that might be considered a choice.
The women grasped the pilot’s hands and helped Rhea drag him back to the ship. Once they had him restrained in the command center, the gerulae returned to the ship they were servicing and kept scrubbing the metal clean. The Oracle had left them with nothing, just like that Evoli who had died. No names, no voice, nothing for themselves. Rhea wondered what crime they had committed to become this. It might have been nothing more than being too slow to bring Damocles his breakfast.
There’s nothing you can do for them.
Rhea returned to the command center and looked over the pilot. He smelled of sour sweat and sickness, which meant his injury was bad. He’d been on the ship, hidden somewhere for days, with no medical attention.
Rhea ripped open the uniform around his wound, wrinkling her nose at the putrid smell. The others might consider it a waste, but Rhea found a med kit and rooted around in the box for supplies. Gauze, tape, disinfectant.
She held up a syringe. Thank the gods, a stress blocker. The Legate must have had this on hand in case the crew needed to briefly deactivate the Oracle’s acute stress response during surgery. Rhea had injected Nyx with a dose while Ariadne remotely removed the chip from her cerebellum. Ariadne had excitedly told her how it worked.
Yes, a waste of supplies. But after the Evoli . . .
“I can’t stand back and watch anyone else die,” she told the pilot’s unconscious face. “Not even you.”
Rhea cleaned his wound, whispering a few words. Not a prayer—she’d left those gods and devils behind so long before. She’d never pray to any deity from the Avern again. No, she whispered something else, sent out into the quiet void of the universe.
It has to be better than this, she thought, as she bandaged the pilot’s injury. If we bring down the Empire, we have to make our lives worth more than this.
With a sigh, she sat back and waited for him to wake. An hour later, his limbs began to twitch. Rhea readied herself, Nyx’s Mors still clutched in her hand. She didn’t know how to use it, exactly, but she figured she could embellish her skills.
The pilot opened his eyes. He tested the ropes as he met her gaze. The blank look that was a product of the Oracle’s programming hadn’t kicked in yet. Good. The blocker was working.
“Hello,” she said with a smile. “I’m Rhea.”
He shook his head as if to clear it, then winced. “Avern. What did you do to me?”
Rhea’s expression turned apologetic. “Hit you with an oil canister.”
“Unfuckingbelievable,” he muttered. His muscles strained as he pulled at the ropes again.
“You’re not going to get those off,” Rhea said. She held up the syringe from the med kit. “After treating your wound, I injected you with a blocker that works on your sympathetic nervous system. It’ll keep the Oracle in its background processing stage so One doesn’t flood your system with adrenaline and cortisol while we talk.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. If he’d hidden in the vents for nearly a week, he’d be malnourished. “I can get you something to eat.”
“Pass. For all I know, you’ll poison it.”
“If I wanted you dead, you would be.” She rose and left him, grabbing the first thing she saw in the canteen: Ariadne’s dessert bars. The girl was going to kill her when she found out.
When she returned to the command center, he looked more alert. She unwrapped the bar and held it to his mouth. “Eat.”
“Told you I wasn’t interested.”
“You’re starving.”
“I’ll live.”
“Stop being stubborn,” she said.
With a glare, he leaned forward and bit into the bar. He closed his eyes, as if to savor the taste, and kept eating.
“So, I take it you weren’t in that ship we destroyed?” she asked. “Or Asteria?”
“Misdirection. I stayed behind to gather intel.” He finished off the bar and leaned back, exhausted. “Stupid decision, really. Your friend shot me and it’s worse than I thought.”
Rhea frowned. His skin was pallid, his breathing too slow. When Rhea touched his forehead, his skin burned to the touch. “How long have you been like this?”
“Few days.” He gestured to his midsection. Dried blood stained his jacket. “Wound’s infected. Wasn’t gonna live if I didn’t make it off it the ship . . .” His voice was trailing off. He shut his eyes, shook his head hard, and started muttering Tholosian propaganda phrases: “Tholos is might. Victory is strength. Failure is weakness. The Scythe slices the soul. The Gods will have their sacrifice. I sacrifice myself to Tholos.”
Seven devils. The Oracle might not be able to activate his acute stress response, but One’s background processes were still active. Simple repetition to ensure constant compliance. One of Rhea’s clients used to mumble phrases in his sleep.
“Hey.” Rhea grabbed his jacket, shaking him. “Pilot.”
He still muttered under his breath, his eyes rolling up in his skull.
“No,” Rhea whispered fiercely. “You’re not going to die on me.” Not after that Evoli. Not after what she’d seen.
When the pilot finally passed out again, Rhea checked his pulse every few minutes.
She was going to save him.
We have to be better.