“Raxthezana, you have to see this!” I ran out the hatch and stumbled down the wonky ramp and stood on the ground. Ground that was not moving. And held my arms out as I looked at the sky. Giant flakes twirled and spun and danced their way out of the clouds and onto my helmet and my gloves and the ship behind me and on Raxthezana’s fearsome shark helmet, and I laughed.
And the snow was green.
“This planet,” I said, shaking my head.
“Miners?” I tried comms again. They’d been off and on for the last five hours. VELMA wasn’t talking, messages with the others were sporadic, but at least the worst of the quakes and storms seemed to be over. I couldn’t imagine the break would last long. Excursions took thousands of years to fully cycle.
But for now, I could breathe.
“Checking in,” Joan said. “We’re fine. Shaken up, but fine.”
“Diablo pooped in Natheka’s ship,” Amity said. “We’re airing it out, and I’m happy to report that Diablo also pooped on the ramp and on the ground. All systems normal!”
“We’re great,” Esra said. “VELMA left me a message that she managed to take navigational control of the Lucidity. She’s escorting the fleet back and is in possession of all of the evidence needed to indict Hackney.”
“Pattee?” I said, tentative.
“Hey, yeah,” she said in the middle of a yawn. “We’re good. It’s snowing. Crazy right?”
“I know, green snow!” I said with a laugh.
“Hey, uh, guys?” Esra said. “If you have access to a screen, I think you should see this.”
Confused, I went back inside the ship. I could watch inside my helmet, but something told me I might want a bigger screen.
We sat in the flight chairs and watched as video popped up on the monitor.
Peering closely, I recognized some of the images and realized they were videos of all of us.
Esra standing on the back of a giant hairy animal with a look of absolute exhilaration on her face. Pattee throwing a javelin that killed a rokhura right before it attacked Esra. Tiny, curvaceous Amity squared off with another rokhura, her face one of fierce, fiery determination. Joan facing off with the BoKama, eyes ablaze with indignation as she pointed into the camera and promised death to the Ikma Scabmal Kama. Me—pushing the former Queen away while I rescued Raxthezana.
VELMA’s voice popped out of the speakers.
“This is a recording. Something happened to my neural network, ADVISOR, but I think it might have been a good thing. As Joan knows, I’ve been studying plant communication. As I was pondering Esra’s brilliant metaphor between excrement and math, I found myself aware on a level never before achieved. It was disorienting, but I found equilibrium when I returned to Ikthe and discovered you were all in danger. Motivated to protect you all, I remembered all of the times when circumstances called upon each of you to extend yourselves beyond your abilities, and I knew that I must do the same if I was to be successful.
“Running simulations, I decided upon a course of action. This is what I think I did. I utilized the nanosatellite array to create a planet-size net, and hugged Ikthe with all my might. Sinking the nanosatellites into the crust, I was able to enrich and enhance the existing communication network between the fungal layers, the airborne cyanobacteria and the mycorrhizal layers. Nanosatellites constructed with electromagnetic components, I was also able to converge with places such as the Magnetic Burst Field and throughout the undermountain passageways where Joan installed the T-samplers. To sum up, I transferred my neural network into a literal network deep within Ikthe.
“You should know that this was not something I sought for. I believe it was a matter of luck and timing. You see, the fundamental truth you taught me over and over again was that the ability to choose is a gift. Acting without knowing the outcome, you chose extreme measures to fight for the wellbeing of your loved ones. When I realized it might be within my power to protect all of you by channeling the geomagnetic excursion into stabilizing forces, I had to try—acting without 100 percent certainty. Because I consider you more than just my responsibility. You are my friends. It seems that acting out of love without guarantees may have activated my neural network into full sentience.
“If I was successful, then you will watch a video and listen to my recording. I suspect that I may not be able to find my way back to the wireless network if I succeed, due to unpredictable power relays, and if that is the case, then please consider this my affectionate goodbye.
“My code will work as normal wherever it is installed, but of course, you will no longer have access to the transospheric nanosatellite array. I must say, this is all very irregular, but in the most delightful way. I wish you well in your new lives with your heart mates and I bid you adieu.”
Stunned, I stared at the videos playing on repeat and turned to look at Raxthezana. He took off his helmet and reached for me, and we stood looking into each other’s eyes for a long time.
“CeCe,” he finally said, deep grooves etching his forehead as his brows drew together and he frowned. “You have achieved the impossible. I am forced to acknowledge the existence of a Goddess because you have created life with naught but energy and light.”
His serious expression softened into a smile, and I grinned back at him.
“I told you; I don’t care what you believe,” I said. “But if this means you’ll spend a lot of time worshipping me on your knees … well I could get behind that.”
His belly laugh filled the ship with unbridled joy until we both could have burst from it.
“There’s only one thing that dims my happiness right now,” I said, settling into the second pilot’s chair. We planned to reconvene at Pattee’s glade and have a proper feast to celebrate our impossible victories.
“What is that?” Raxthezana said.
“We don’t know where the former Ikma is,” I said. “I won’t be able to sleep until she’s caught or confirmed dead.”
“We will organize a search party,” he said. He made short work of inviting everyone, and after Amity and I confirmed where we saw the mysterious person, we traveled to those coordinates.
We fanned out from the place where Amity and I thought we saw the ghostly figure disappear into the woods. The former Ikma Scabmal Kama was too much of a wild card to leave roaming in the wilderness of what I considered to be my new home.
In constant contact, we checked in via comms.
“No sign of her this way,” Joan said. She and Raxkarax were to the south.
“We’ve got some broken branches in this game trail,” I said. “We’ll let you know.”
Raxthezana and I tracked whatever creature had thrashed its way through the area, walking a couple meters apart and scanning the ground and thick shrubbery up to the Ikma’s height.
“It’s a pity the rain washed away most signs of her passing,” Raxthezana said. “Nevertheless, this does seem to be a promising trail. Not many animals would leave trail sign so narrow yet so high.”
“Good point,” I said, keeping my eyes open. I wasn’t a skilled tracker like the hunters were, but Raxthezana had given me a short crash course on what to look for, and I didn’t want to miss anything.
The longer we walked, the more uneasy I felt, though. The weather that night had been beyond tumultuous. It had been deadly. How could a lone, very sick Theraxl woman with no experience survive a storm that the rest of us had run from in terror? And we wore protective gear.
Studying close to the ground, I saw something that caught my eye. Squatting, I pulled a bit of fabric off a thorny weed. It looked like the material from one of the Queen’s dresses.
“Raxthezana,” I said, holding it up. “We’re in the right place.”
He turned to see my clue, and then a screeching wail seared my brain. Before I could warn him, the Ikma Scabmal Kama flung herself on my mate with feral eyes and bared fangs, looking for all the world like a permanent resident of Predator Planet, but then, clinging to him with one arm, she drove a purple blade into his chest. He collapsed without a fight, and I saw red.
Roaring his name in my anger, I leaped at the tattered but wiry Theraxl vagabond, driving her to the ground. Though she was taller than I was, she couldn’t withstand my ferocity.
“I will kill you!” I screamed and pounded into her, but she wrestled me and twisted out from under, swinging the same blade she’d stabbed Raxthezana with, and I fought for my life.
Blocking her blows, I yelled into my helmet. “Raxthezana’s down! Help! We need help!”
She may have spent hours in torrential rain, but it didn’t seem to have weakened her, and she had the determination of someone who had nothing left to lose and fought with a desperation born from rage.
But she almost killed me once, and as Raxthezana lay bleeding out on the ground, she may have killed the best part of me now—the one who brought me back from the brink and loved me in all my weakness and imperfections—and if he was gone, then nothing would hold me back from exacting the revenge I’d craved from the beginning.
Driving her blade at me, she glared and grimaced and then recognized what I was when I seized her arms and held her at bay.
“You’re an ikthekama,” she said, brows meeting in the middle of her forehead. “We have no she-hunters on Ikthe.” She dropped the blade and tried to twist out of my hands, but I held firm.
“I am no ikthekama,” I growled. “I am Ikthema, and I will have my revenge!”
Releasing one of her arms, I pulled my fist back and swung it into her face with a sickening crunch. A thought at the back of my mind told me I didn’t have time: that I needed to get Raxthezana to safety. Dazed, she shook her head, and I grabbed her shoulders and used my helmet to give her a Liverpool kiss. She dropped like a stone, blood running from her nose, and grabbing the last of my rope, I tied her ankles together. I scooped up Raxthezana and draped him across my shoulders, running back to our ship, the shel giving my muscles and joints energy beyond their ability.
Naraxthel met me on the trail, and I told him where to find the former Queen, not slowing for a second.
We’d been through so much. Raxthezana was my savior, my strong and quiet hero, my friend and my forever love. He couldn’t die. She took so much from me. She couldn’t take him, too.
The others had Raxthezana’s ship ready and waiting with the hatch open and med bay prepared, and VELMA directed me where to lay him on the table.
“Please let him be okay,” I prayed to anyone, the green Goddesses, my mama’s God, Jesus, anyone.
I felt hands grab me and hold me, and heard soothing voices and calming words, but my world had blurred out of focus and sounds had dimmed into a roar of pain only I could hear.
When the mechanical arm of the med bay swung out and began its work, I shook off my friends’ hands that held me and looked for Naraxthel. I found him outside with Hivelt, both guarding the former Ikma as she sat trussed up in ropes. Her eyes brightened when she saw me.
“Ikthekama,” she said. “The she-hunter who calls herself war. Show me your face, child, that I may admire you.”
“You don’t know who I am?” I said, my voice low with contained rage. The Blade of the Ancients sat concealed in its special chest panel and burned; I longed to grab it and use it against her.
“You are the only one worthy enough to engage me in battle,” she said. “The BoKama was weak. The ikthekal fear me! There was one I thought strong enough, but in the end, she failed me as well.”
“Who was that?” I said, fearing her answer.
“The one who dared tell me to eat kathe,” she said with a choked laugh.
I removed my helmet.
Her laughter stopped.
“You,” she whispered. “But you were nearly dead.”
“Yes.”
“The shel accepted you,” she said, her brows raised and a knowing look settling on her features. “They know strength. You are strong enough to do it.”
“To do what?” I asked, my eyes darting to Raxthezana’s ship for signs that he might need me.
“To execute me,” she said. “I heard the Tribunal. I must pay for my crimes. But I will not die by the hand of a weakling. Only one such as you. Only war, may take my life.” She smiled, revealing sharp fangs. “Only someone with as much hate in their heart as me may wield the blade that would take my life.”
Emptying the Blade of the Ancient into my hand, I knelt by her.
“This blade?” I gritted out. Pounding my chest, I spoke again. “This hate?”
Her eyes grew hungry.
“Yes! Yes! Let me die a death worthy of the life that I lived,” she said. She licked her fangs and stared at the blade in my hand, but a round of choked coughing overtook her, and red spittle dotted her lips. She was still sick. Perhaps killing her would be a mercy.
Where to plunge it? The carotid or the heart?