The tremors of Minos’s imminent death shook through Mae’s legs as she raced towards the entrance of the space elevator.
If the station was badly off before, driving it into the planet now was a mercy. All the company’s secrets would fall from the sky and burn on the planet. Hopefully, Kuebiko would not claim any more unwilling human victims, and no more queens would control humans.
Minos’s orbital stabilizers were fighting the demands of her engines. The station was at war with itself, and only Rook in the command center maintained its deadly trajectory.
Mae ducked as walls twisted and crashed around her. The forces being inflicted on the station were pulling it apart, and she wasn’t sure if the space elevator was about to meet the same fate. The floor tipped to one side, putting everything at a ten-degree angle. Anything loose slid abruptly. Crates, dead potted plants, and the body of a Mr. Brown all collided with her, knocking Mae back into the walls of the corridor.
She pushed them off, wriggling and struggling free. With one hand on the leaning wall, she scrambled towards the door that led to the last flight of stairs between her and the space elevator.
Mae worked her way up the stairs, bumping off walls and floors, until at last she reached the assembly area in front of the massive elevator doors. As soon as she made it, she immediately crashed to her knees. Red Mae’s final memories hit her, shooting through the network like bullets. They filled her spare cache capacity, even as she became aware that her last splinter died down on the planet’s surface. Mae was now the sole survivor and final resting place of all their experiences.
Fitting these new recollections into her head would take some doing, but it shouldn’t cause another fracture in her processing core. Mae held them tight and partitioned them for later. She couldn’t afford to break apart like the station at this pivotal moment.
Staggering to her feet, she glimpsed the green light gleaming by the doors. Over the dying groans of the station, the bright ping of the elevator doors sounded. They juddered halfway open and then stopped. It didn’t matter.
Through the smoke, six Jackals staggered out, ragged and covered in dirt and blood, but they never looked more beautiful to Mae. At their rear, still standing tall, was Colonel Zula Hendricks, lending an injured Captain Shipp a shoulder to lean on. Mae rushed forward and counted heads. Half of the team that had ventured down to the planet did not come back up. None of the synthetics remained.
With the thundering echoes of destruction all around, Mae grabbed hold of Zula Hendricks, squeezing her tight. She reeked of dirt and sweat, but she was real.
“Mae!” Another voice broke through the din. Lenny appeared at the top of the stairs behind her. His eyes were enormous in his head as he took in all the Jackals in their torn uniforms. Minos bucked beneath their feet. “Rook is keeping the station on the track you set, and we unlocked the umbilical to your ship. Now can we get out of here?”
“No point in coming this far just to die now.” Zula handed Shipp over to Mae to assist. “Jackals, we’re leaving. Let’s hustle.”
Lenny took up position on the other side of Olivia Shipp, and everyone followed the colonel. Private Amutenya half-carried Ackerman, who was also injured. Minos was in her death throes, screaming as she plunged towards the planet. The Jackals only had minutes to make their escape.
* * *
They reached the Fury and raced along the umbilical, which bucked like a wild horse. Inside, the ship’s warning lights flashed amber. After the attack through Erynis, EWA remained disabled, but some systems had managed to hang on.
Zula pointed to Ackerman and the remaining Red Team Jackals. “Manually disconnect that damn umbilical. Pump that lever and close that door like your life depends on it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” They all rushed to obey.
Shipp slumped by the door. “I’ll make sure of it, Colonel. Get to the flight deck.”
Zula, Mae, and Lenny scrambled up the stairs since the onboard elevator wasn’t working. The Fury was totally silent compared to the station. Upon reaching the flight deck, Mae took a position at the helm. Lenny hung back, waiting to see if he could help.
“Status report, Mae,” Zula barked, slipping into the command chair.
“Fury’s executive functions remain jammed, but we are almost disconnected from the umbilical.” Mae ran her fingers across the panel, searching for any signs of life.
“Can we maneuver once we’re free?”
One part of the navigation board lit up. “Safety protocols allow us attitude adjustments, but the engines themselves won’t fire yet.”
Zula’s fingers tightened around the arms of her chair. “That’ll have to do. Come on, Shipp. Are we free yet?”
None of this mattered until they disconnected from Minos. Mae kept her eyes locked on the display. They’d either be free in moments or share the fate of the station. The company’s research would be lost in either scenario, but she found she didn’t want to die. Enough Maes had done that already.
A green light flashed twice on her panel. They’d untethered the umbilical.
“We’re free.” It came out as a whisper, and Mae needed to repeat it a second time for her mother to hear.
“Then put as much distance between us and that fucking station as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The Righteous Fury wasn’t capable of fast burn yet, but it was still satisfying to push away from Minos. Mae deftly guided the ship out of range and towards a stable orbit of their own.
As they lost the connection with the faltering Minos network, Mae reached out one last time to Rook. She didn’t want him to die alone.
I’m not alone. I have my memories and I’ve experienced the deaths of those I loved, he replied, and she could almost conjure his face. Promise me you’ll use that black site information, Mae. You’ll find details on the juggernauts in there. I discovered a planet they’re using as a staging post. Just remember that not every puzzle you solve is what you might expect it to be.
We won’t give up, Mae promised. They won’t destroy any more worlds.
Minos Station tilted, arcing downward in a spectacular display. Her engines, which first brought her to this planet’s orbit, now took her to her doom. Pieces of shielding broke off and started burning up on their own. It gave the station a fiery halo.
The network faltered, but Mae tried to hold on to it for as long as she could. As it slipped away, she caught one glimpse of Rook.
One last piece of advice, Mae Hendricks. Don’t be too quick to mimic humans. You don’t want to become like them in all things.
With that, Rook’s voice faded away and was gone.
Mae piloted the Fury into a stable orbit, and the three of them watched Minos take its last fateful dive. In its belly were the remains of the Extraktors and their ship, as well as a terrifying second queen. It spun and tilted like a child’s toy as pieces of its outer rings crumpled and tore away. The planet grabbed these shattered hunks and covered them in wreaths of flame as they tumbled into its atmosphere. It was beautiful and satisfying destruction.
Zula stared at the view screen, her face set in lines of exhausted triumph. Turning, she removed disc drives from her webbing. “We’ve got all the proof we need on those Minos bastards.” She smiled fiercely.
Mae let out a ragged sigh. “But how many died for it? Does it even make a difference?”
Her mother grabbed her, administering a powerful hug. “They knew the risks, and took them anyway. Even Rook sacrificed himself for us. This place was a nightmare, but it was no danger to synthetics. He did it for us all. What is more human than that?”
They seemed like good words. The kind you would say over a grave.
The Fury’s flight deck fell silent.
Lenny rubbed his head and then slid down to the floor. “He didn’t have to do that. I guess he got to make his own choices, right to the end.”
Zula nodded and then glanced over at her daughter, focusing on her damaged jaw. “I can’t imagine the things you’ve seen and done.”
Mae said nothing for a while. A jangle of emotions and memories ran through her. She raised her hand and touched her chin. “I’m… I’m not sure I am ready to share them yet.”
She’d killed and enjoyed it. That was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever be comfortable telling her mother.
Sometimes, you can be too human. Davis’s voice echoed softly, as if he were disappearing back into her subroutines. Being alone again without him was jarring, but made her more human. She would learn to live without him as humans did with their parents.
She placed her hands on the control deck. “We need to restore functions so we can pick up the others’ cryo escape pods.”
Zula let out a long sigh. “It will be good to reclaim our Jackals.”
Mae reached out, looking for the remains of the network. “That may take some time, though. Erynis’s corruption ran pretty deep. I don’t think I can untangle it immediately.”
“I can.” Lenny rose to his feet and pushed his hair out of his eyes. As he did so, Mae sensed him in the network, but stronger than an augmented person had any right to be.
She gasped as he pulled the scattered threads of the Fury’s systems apart, then wound them up and reformed them in an instant. That shouldn’t be possible.
Zula glanced right and left as the control panels of her ship blinked to life with light and movement. “What’s your name again, young man?”
“I used to be Lenny, but I think after all I’ve been through, I need a more mature name. You can call me Leonard Pope.”
The colonel nodded. “We’ve recently had a vacancy open up as conduit between the Fury and the crew. Have you ever thought of that as a career?”
Something about Lenny’s demeanor looked very different to the young man who’d first pulled Mae out of the darkness. His face settled into a foreign expression, and a shiver ran up her spine as he answered her mother.
“Thank you, Colonel Hendricks. I believe I would very much like a place on the Righteous Fury.”
Mae was certain of two things: she’d never told Lenny her mother’s rank, and the voice coming from his mouth echoed the cadence of Rook.
Some part of Rook appeared to have settled down inside Lenny’s augment. She wasn’t sure why the strange synth would do such a thing. Perhaps it was because, in the end, he couldn’t quite bring himself to cease existing. He rode in Lenny’s head as Davis rode in hers. That wasn’t a bad thing—was it?
She took a seat at navigation and began plotting the locations of the Jackal cryo pods. Once they gathered them all, things would start to return to normal—or, at least, normal for the Fury.
Whatever Rook’s presence meant for the future would reveal itself in time. All Mae knew now was that she and her family were nearly complete once more. The battle went on, and they would face it together. She set her eyes on the sun peeking around the curve of the planet, and waited for orders from Zula Hendricks to begin their next task.