Читать книгу Nexus - Lindsay Cummings, Sasha Alsberg - Страница 18

ANDI

Her hands were covered in blood.

An ancient obsidinite dagger, the color as dark as pitch, lay forgotten on the metal floor of the Marauder. The blade had broken in two during the fight. Unsurprising, for Androma had fought hard in the skirmish. The weapon itself was old and somewhat dull, but the wounds it had inflicted upon her fallen enemies were not.

It’s over, she told herself. You slayed them all. You won.

And yet, as Andi stood on trembling legs, surveying the cargo bay of the Marauder, the feeling in her bones was not one of victory.

Rather, it was one of defeat.

Loss was a crippling thing, a beast that did its very best to conquer even the strongest of souls. With each life she took, a voice in the back of Andi’s mind whispered the same question.

How can one truly be an enemy, if they’re being controlled?

Andi staggered forward, a pinch in her side alerting her to the presence of a wound. There was too much blood on her to discover the source, too much exhaustion for her to care.

They’d come for her, knowing she’d survived the attack on Arcardius weeks before. The fight had lasted mere minutes, and the bodies were now scattered all around the cargo bay, still fresh, still bleeding out. All of them wore the sleek, dark uniforms of Xen Ptera. The queen’s sigil, shining gold on their armored chests, glared at her from all around.

She’d won this time, but more would come.

More always came.

Andi growled a curse as she saw movement in the corner, behind the rubble of a smashed crate. A gloved hand, stretching out from the shadows. One of the soldiers, mask still in place, was struggling to hold on to life.

She thought she’d finished them all off.

Andi stumbled forward, and the room wobbled, going in and out of focus. She blinked, suddenly realizing that much of the blood must be from her own wound, and pressed onward, stepping over fallen soldiers until she reached the only other living soul on this ship.

“Please,” the voice begged, the exterior com of the soldier’s helmet crackling. Half of it was bashed in, likely from one of Andi’s hits. “Please.”

The sound of that voice...

Something tugged at Andi from within.

The soldier’s hand lifted, reaching for the helmet, trembling as it moved upward.

Andi leaned forward and removed the helmet herself, wondering why she was doing it, even as the soldier’s face was revealed.

“Help me,” the soldier gasped, this time not through a com, but through bloodied lips.

A young woman with eyes the color of a clear sky. Her skin was an ashen gray instead of its usual ocean blue, and pain filled her eyes as she stared up at Andi, breathing her last few breaths.

“Lira,” Andi whispered. “What are you doing here?” The shock faded, giving way to horror as she stared at Lira’s rapidly paling face. Andi gathered her friend’s fallen body into her arms, choking on a sob. “I’m so sorry, Lira. I can stop this. I can fix you.”

But the blood was pooling out of Lira’s lips now.

“Come closer,” Lira whispered. Her chest rattled, heaved, as she sucked in a breath.

Andi bent down, agony shredding her heart. How had she done this? How had she not known her best friend was inside that uniform?

She felt Lira’s wet lips touch her cheek as she spoke again. “You killed me. You killed us all.”

Then Lira began to laugh. A sickening, howling laugh that struck Andi deep, rattling her bones. She skittered backward, away from her friend’s dying body. Her head spun as she turned, realizing Lira’s laughter had multiplied.

The fallen Xen Pterran soldiers were gone.

In their place, it was her crew who lay dying.

Gilly, with braids the color of fire.

Breck, her beautiful dark skin now coated with blood.

Lira, those sky-blue eyes growing empty and cold.

All of them, barely alive and bleeding out.

“No,” Andi said, nearly choking on the word. “No, this can’t be happening.”

She lifted her hand, realizing she was gripping the dagger again. It was wet with their blood, and yet she didn’t remember any of the hideous act. Andi’s body felt a million miles away, her mind screaming at her to make sense of the scene. To change it.

“Very good, Androma,” a woman’s voice said from behind her. “Now bow to me, before you become like the rest of them.”

Andi turned slowly, her heart filling with dread. For she knew that voice, and the monster who possessed it.

Queen Nor Solis, the leader of the Olen System, stood in the cargo bay of the Marauder. Valen hovered beside her, both of them smiling like demons released from the mouth of hell.

“I will never bow to you,” Andi seethed.

Then her crew members stood, dead no more. They moved to flank the queen, expressions of adoration on each of their faces. And seeing her girls at Nor’s command, like a pack of smiling wolves...

The sight brought Andi to her knees.

She’d lost them.

She’d failed them.

And now she would die.

* * *

Andi woke with a start.

The horrors of her dream were vanquished as a new nightmare materialized before her bleary eyes. Red lights flashed in the doorway to her quarters, in unison with the blaring sirens that resonated across the ship. Confusion racked her brain until realization came rushing inward.

She’d fallen asleep studying a map of Solera, Lon and Dex in charge of charting their course...

Something was very wrong.

Andi leaped up from her cot and ran into the main corridor. With each step, the clamor of the alarms felt as if it was vibrating in her bones. Her tired muscles screamed as she hoisted herself up the ladder, almost running into Lon as she scrambled onto the landing. He was kneeling on the ground before the door to the bridge, twiddling with wires.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“The ship is going into meltdown,” he told her. “I don’t know why. But everything is shutting down, including the doors. I can’t seem to get them open.” He dropped the two multicolored wires in a huff.

“Where the hell is Dex?”

Lon helplessly held out his hands, and Andi let out a growl of frustration. “Move aside, unless you want to land your ass in the med bay.” Lon hurriedly backed away as Andi pulled Gilly’s double-triggered gun from her belt and fired the stunner at the door’s scanner in a hail of sparks and smoke.

The door teetered on its hinges for a moment before falling inward with a rattling bang.

“There, it’s open.”

Lon whistled as he looked at the gun. “That thing is awesome.”

Andi rolled her eyes and rushed inside.

The control panel on the dash was going haywire. Holographic blueprints drifted across the console, lighting up many areas of the ship in flashing red. Too many.

“Memory?” Andi called out as she slid into Lira’s pilot seat. “Run a diagnostics scan.”

Memory’s voice crackled over the ship-wide com, weakening with each word. “Fuel leak in the engine room. Oxygen levels at thirty-four percent and dropping.”

Both of which were their lifelines—though by the looks of it, neither would be viable for much longer, at the rate they were dropping.

“Well, that’s just great,” Andi said sarcastically. She wished, desperately, that Breck was here. Her head gunner knew the ins and outs of the Marauder’s mechanical room like the back of her hand, and while she couldn’t always fix the problem, Andi knew she could’ve at least bought them more time.

But she wasn’t here. And any attempts they made to fix whatever was wrong would waste time they didn’t have.

“What the hell is going on?” Dex cursed as he came running through the door, Havoc hot on his heels. The creature leaped for his legs, but Dex kicked it off.

“Easy!” Lon shouted, reaching out his arms as Havoc yowled and barreled into them, horns just visible beneath his layers of fuzzy orange.

“The damned thing is trying to kill me before the ship does!” Dex snapped.

“Took you long enough to get here,” Andi said, sending him an annoyed look.

“I was having a great dream.” He came up next to her and nudged her shoulder. “You were in it, actually—”

Andi cut him off. “Spare me the details.”

Dex glanced at the floating blueprints. “Well, this looks bad,” he said, stating the obvious.

Lon stepped up to the console, Havoc cradled in one arm as he entered in a code that blessedly turned off the alarm. He’d learned a lot in his time on the ship. Lira would have been proud.

He turned back to Andi and Dex. “I know we wanted to have a better plan before jumping to Solera, but I don’t think time is something we have anymore.”

“Do we have enough fuel to make the jump to hyperspace?” Dex shifted his gaze to the fuel gauge, which was running dangerously low. The control panel still blinked a furious red.

Lon scrutinized the fuel level. “Barely.”

If they had enough fuel to make the jump, it would be a miracle. And if they didn’t?

Well, they’d likely burn up in hyperspace.

“It’s a chance we’re going to have to take,” Andi stated, seeing no other viable options. She buried her nerves deep as she typed in the coordinates for Solera, fingertips flying across the dash. “Dex, why is it that ever since you first boarded this ship, we always seem to be crash-landing?” she asked.

“Because our love is impossible to keep afloat?” Dex suggested jokingly.

Andi let out a shaky laugh.

She wanted to be confident, but her hands shook, the traitorous things. She hadn’t known how much strength she’d actually pulled from her crew until they were gone. Lon and Dex were worthy partners, but they weren’t her girls.

You’ll get them back soon, Andi told herself. To Lon and Dex, she said, “Time to make the jump.”

“You sure?” Dex asked, furrowing his brow.

“Yes,” she confirmed. They couldn’t risk waiting for something else going wrong, if that was even possible. Everything that could have gone wrong just had. So Andi entered in the last command and offered up a silent prayer to the Godstars.

“Destination confirmed: Solera,” Memory announced. “Warming engines for full thrust to hyperspace in ten...nine...”

The ship jolted, throwing them to the ground. “Crap!” Andi said, grappling to stand and read the control board. One of the ship’s engines had just blown.

“Can we still make the jump?” Lon asked, pulling himself up into a chair, his eyes wide as he looked between Andi and Dex. Havoc clung to his shoulders like a rabid leech.

Andi shot a questioning look at Dex. He knew this ship as well as she did, and right now, she didn’t know the answer.

“I’d say it’s a forty percent chance,” Dex said, looking at the stats.

“Thirty-five percent,” Memory corrected in a crackling tone. Even the Marauder’s AI was failing.

“I’ll take it. Strap in, boys,” Andi said, settling into her captain’s chair. Even in the middle of this disaster, she couldn’t help but melt back into the smooth leather, perfectly molded to her form. Like a queen sitting upon her throne.

Dex took the pilot’s seat and Lon buckled himself in behind them. The ship shuddered again and dipped to the right. Andi’s head smacked painfully against the headrest.

Damn things were supposed to protect her head, not give her a concussion.

“Make the jump, damn it!” Andi growled, looking sideways at Dex. They would get to Solera. They had to, even if the ship was just a husk when they landed.

They had to make it.

There wasn’t any other option.

Dex hit the throttle, launching them into hyperspace.

Rainbow streaks streamed past the windows, but Andi didn’t have any time to marvel at the sight. She was too busy watching the Marauder’s diagnostic array to make sure the ship wouldn’t explode around them.

At this point, there was no going back.

“May the Godstars guide us,” Lon prayed. Andi hoped they were listening—otherwise, they were essentially screwed. And not in the way Dex enjoyed so much.

The three of them fell into a tense silence for a few minutes as they hurtled through space toward Solera. Andi typed some calculations into the navigation system and readied the ship for arrival—or at least she tried to. Half of the systems were off-line and the other half weren’t functioning correctly.

“What are we going to do when we get there?” Lon asked.

That was a great question. Andi thought they’d have more time to plan, but with the current situation putting a huge snag in their mission, she wasn’t quite sure.

“We need to fix the ship,” she said. “That’s our top priority right now. Without the Marauder, we can’t do anything.”

“But how will we get the parts we need when we don’t look like Nor’s followers? You know, those silver veins?” Lon wondered.

They were going to have to improvise. Andi had done it before—with Dex, actually.

She turned to him. “Do you remember Ricar?”

Dex smiled wide. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“What’s Ricar?” Lon asked nervously.

“It’s a small planet in one of the rogue systems. Dex and I had to stop there once for fuel, and it didn’t work out too well.”

“You see,” Dex continued, “Ricar is essentially a terraformed planet made of metal. Most of the people who live there fancy being more machine than human. We didn’t think stopping there would cause any issues, but apparently the locals aren’t too fond of outsiders.”

“So what happened?” Lon pushed.

Even in their current situation, Andi had to laugh as she glanced back at him. “We had to become one of them. So we took wires, metal plates...really anything that might seem mechanical, and we dressed ourselves up.”

Andi could still remember how Dex had wound a metal coil around her neck and arms to hide her skin. He, on the other hand, had glued small aluminum sheets to his face for his disguise. Surprisingly, it had worked. No one batted an eye at them as they refueled. Everything went smoothly, at least until they were back on the ship.

She took off her disguise easily, but Dex... Well, he hadn’t really chosen wisely when he’d adhered the metal to his skin. The glue turned out to be rather permanent, and the tiny sheets of metal were stuck to his face for a full week before they finally managed to pull them off.

“Let’s just say we got the fuel, but it wound up causing more problems in the long run.” Dex rubbed a bare spot on his stubbly cheek.

“Still can’t grow hair there, I see.” Andi smirked.

“Shut up,” Dex mumbled.

“It’s time,” Lon said, pulling them back to the present.

The radar flashed, marking the Tavina System up ahead.

Dex placed his hand on the throttle and eased it back, exiting hyperspace as they approached Solera. The ship shook around them, far too aggressively as it entered the planet’s atmosphere.

They’d made it. The ship was breaking apart around them, but against all odds, they’d made it.

Andi let out a sigh of relief. The Godstars must be liking her today.

Using the last dregs of fuel, Dex directed the ship toward the planet’s icy surface. But as they passed through Solera’s outer rings, Andi realized that they were utterly alone. It was a known fact that Solerans didn’t like mingling any more than necessary with outsiders, but every populated planet had some type of space traffic around it.

It was beyond eerie that this one didn’t.

So when a pulse of light shot through the empty airspace toward them, it caught them unaware. The light encased the Marauder for a moment before resuming its path in their wake.

Dex swore. “What the hell was that?”

“Solar ray?” Lon guessed, but Andi shook her head.

“Let’s just get down there,” she said. “We don’t have much fuel left. Bring her down nice and easy, Dextro. You wreck my ship, you pay for it.”

Dex grunted. “I can’t,” he gritted out as he tried to engage the thrusters.

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“The thrusters aren’t at full power.”

“They’re only giving twenty percent thrust,” Lon said, furiously typing on the holoscreen in his hands. “And the backup system is off-line.”

Of course it is, Andi thought grimly. That light must’ve done something to the ship.

Solera was growing larger and larger by the second.

“Brace for impact,” Memory said calmly from the speakers as fire engulfed the exterior of the ship, so at odds with the icy world they were quickly approaching.

Andi gripped the edges of her seat and watched helplessly as Dex white-knuckled the wheel, trying to keep the ship steady.

She took back what she’d said about the Godstars liking her.

They really must hate her guts.