THE FIRST BARRAGE caught the ’fleet distracted. Viv did not know the Pride ships’ proper names—but the mind orders chaos and supplies terms when needed. Thorndrones dodged obstacles, slipped through reflexively assembled shields, and burst against the torches and cruisers of the Mirrorfaith, shattering glass hulls to rainbow shards. Air and bodies vomited into the void. A cathedral ship burst in a curtain of blue flame. Another simply caved in, without any impact Viv could see.
’Faith fighters burned to their business, which was everywhere. The Pride drones and their Pridemothers had fallen from the Cloud all through the ’fleet, and the close-in combat reduced the maneuverability advantage they enjoyed due to their lack of fleshy bodies—but what they lost in speed they made up in surprise and focused fire.
The sky became thorns. Running lights and gunfire drowned out the stars. Viv heard screams through many bands. Soulguns pulsed, possessed Pride drones, and sent them careening back against their own fleet, only to be reclaimed by an exorcism wave. A squad of war monks scattered too late to avoid a grav-bomb that crushed them into tangles of limbs; another began their chanting just in time, and a golden hand sheltered them from an enemy fusillade.
In the middle of all this hung the octahedron, boiling with Grayframe, Hong and the Grand Rector at its heart. Their focus slipped as battle raged. Welts rose on their skin. Sweat poured down Hong’s body. An instant’s distraction would shatter the emptiness that kept them alive.
The world, oh priests, was on fire, and in the middle of it—well, a bit to the side, to be honest—stood Vivian Liao, out of time, out of place, far out of scale, who had about as much hope of flying one of these ships as her Cro-Magnon however-many-greats grandmother would have of writing a natural language parser on the first try. She could have been forgiven for giving up and watching the fireworks, save for two facts about her character.
First, she had never in her life stood by to watch anything. She lacked the bystander gene.
Second, her friends were in danger.
Observe. She’d done plenty of that already.
Orient. You can’t do much about a Sierpinski gasket the size of Greenland trying to eat a Sistine Chapel the size of Honshu. Hong’s inaccessible at the moment—stuck in gray goo. Zanj, who the hell knew where she was. The time for deep-cover operations had well and truly passed. Xiara knelt on the other platform across the way, overwhelmed by Pridescream.
Decide. First order of business: help Xiara.
Act. Viv ran. If she jumped, and trusted to inertia, she could probably reach the platform, provided someone didn’t shoot her down or blow her up on the way. She made it halfway to the platform edge before an arm of shadow caught her around the midsection. Reflexes took over: she dropped her weight, hammered her heel down, jabbed with an elbow, and hoped Lailien’s body worked more or less like others she had known, in spite of his weird refraction index. His grip did loosen when she stomped on his foot, but her elbow found only empty air, and his hand tangled in the fabric of her coverall. She spun around, kicked for his knee, and missed, which brought her too close. His hand caught her throat, and his nails dug in. She choked. Black spots swam in her vision. She pried for an eyeball, but her thumb could not hook right. Her eyes rolled, seeking resources, help—behind her, she saw the Archivist fallen, and Brother Qollak, petrified.
Stupid plant.
That would be an uncharitable last thought, but she was having a hard time coming up with better.
“I don’t know how you did this,” Lailien said. “But you are no relic. You are a curse to the ’fleet. I will not suffer you to live.”
At least, Viv was pretty sure his last word was live. Unfortunately for any accurate transcription, Lailien was interrupted—in this case by a sharp blow to the back of his head, from a black iron rod Brother Qollak had not been holding before.
Lailien let her go and crumpled, eyes closed.
Slack-jawed, gasping breath, Viv watched Qollak’s facial fronds wriggle and rebraid. Red-gold eyes emerged. A scarred face twisted in a grin. She looked down at Lailien, scornful, and kicked him once for good measure.
“Zanj!”
“Don’t worry, Vivian. If anyone gets to kill you, it’s me.” She frowned up at the Pride fleet. “Though I might not be able to stop them as easily. Can we please get out of here before someone decides to nova this whole system?”
Beside them, the Archivist stood. Her bright, wide eyes fixed on Zanj in awe, but she hadn’t yet found the right words, or else the breath to scream.
“We’re not leaving,” Viv said.
A Pridemother burst overhead. Its burning thorn shrapnel scattered a monk squadron. “The hell we’re not. You wanted to bother with these cargo cultists, fine, we tried. We’ve wasted a week, you almost got yourself killed twice, and the people you came to help are dying. I say we take the loss, nab Xiara, and run.”
“Hong’s in there.”
“And so’s the Grand Rector, and a whole lot of very hungry feral Graystuff. The rest of us, in case you hadn’t noticed, are out here. If we’re lucky, we can get you out of this unscathed.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Of course it is. Without you, we have nothing.”
Viv drew back. Rainbow cascade destruction shimmered around her, and she felt the situation in her mind, the pressure of entities and requirements, a puzzle unsolved. Hong, locked in his duel. The ’fleet, scattering. Xiara, collapsed. The Archivist, uncertain. Zanj. Gray. Ideas shuffled together. She knew this feeling, too: an unspeakable solution, one her fingers knew though her brain could not form the words. This was when you shouldered your coding partner out of the way and said, let me drive.
A spinning chunk of broken Pridemother crashed into one of the monks whose meditation sealed the dueling ground. He disappeared in a flash of light: there’s a lot of information stored in flesh, and information, anthropomorphosists insist, wants to be free.
So did the Grayframe. As the monk died, as the duel’s borders flickered and failed, quicksilver ropes burst out to seize two darting Pride drones and melt them into itself. The Grayframe bloomed and grew around the duelists at its heart, who still refused to die.
“And now,” Zanj said, “we have that to worry about.”
Viv ignored her. “Give me Gray.”
“What?”
“His vial. Give it to me.”
“You’re crazy.” But she drew the vial anyway from her jacket, a few teaspoons of Gray shimmering within, and she did not stop Viv when she snatched it.
“I’m not crazy. You just lack imagination.” Test tube in hand, she turned to the Archivist, still frozen by the unfolding conflagration. “Hey!” A snap of fingers caught her attention. Tears shone in her eyes. Dammit. Viv didn’t like interrupting another woman’s tragedy. But the Archivist could mourn later, once they survived. “Archivist. Your fleet needs you.”
Understanding is merciless. It casts illusions aside, burns objections. Even misery cannot delay it forever. Viv did not know the Archivist well, but she judged with the evidence to hand: a woman who spent her life in study, seeking right answers, tricks, elegance.
But the ’fleet was scattering. The Grand Rector had broken the Hierarchs to keep them from standing against her—and now they lacked a leader. Archivist Lan, long used to sifting data for conclusions, understood who that must be. She took Viv’s hand, and pulled herself to her feet. “How can I help them? They can’t even hear me.”
“Xiara will link you to the net. Zanj, can you get Lan to Xiara in one piece?”
Zanj squinted, did some mental math, shrugged. “Sure.”
“Lan. Calm them down. Scatter. Fight defensively. Give me time to stop this war.”
And before either of them could try to talk her out of it, Viv ran to the edge of the platform, and dove toward the growing silver vortex in the sky.