But eighteen years had a way of changing one’s perspective. Zenfor could only hope Mil’less didn’t suffer much when the Athru destroyed the Coalition. She’d been stationed on Starbase Eight, the same one they’d left to go on their mission—which was only supposed to last four or five seasons at most. And here it was, nearly two decades later, where the companion she’d chosen had experienced—no, had decided to fall into a coma. She couldn’t help but bite back her resentment.

  The door to Engineering rolled away and Zenfor headed for her station, trying not to look at the curled-up form of Sesster, off to the side of his massive cradle near the back of the room. More times than she could count she’d tried to reach out to him, to find a way to break through the psychic barrier keeping his thoughts from leaking out, but each time finding it too strong. If he was still in there, his barriers were unbreakable. She hadn’t consulted Xax, but it was possible he’d died in there, and only his living shell remained, barely registering on any medical device. Had it been up to Zenfor, she wouldn’t allow this to continue. But he’d been very clear, and she needed to respect his wishes.

  That was what this whole thing had been about: the torment he’d undergone finding out the Coalition had collapsed, and his people were most likely subjugated. She didn’t think she could imagine what that felt like and she didn’t care to. If only he were dead, perhaps she might be able to clear her thoughts, but the whole problem was he was still there, still within her orbit, despite the barriers. She saw him every day, and every day she was reminded of what she’d lost. It was maddening.

  “Hey, Zen?”

  Zenfor slid her eyes to the side just as she unlocked her Engineering station. “Tyler.”

  “Sophie told me you dismissed everyone from the team. What’s going on, did you finish already?”

  “If I were finished, do you think I would be out here, running structural analysis of composite materials?” she snapped, pulling up the schematics on her station. The truth was she could do this in the Weapons Bay, but she needed a larger space around her, weapons was too enclosed. Engineering was large and cavernous, she could already feel her pulse slowing.

  “Was there a problem with the team?” Tyler asked. “We could always assign new—”

  “The team was fine,” she replied. “It is better if I do this on my own.”

  “Ah,” Tyler replied.

  She slid her eyes to the side. “What?”

  He was unperturbed. “Nothing.”

  Zenfor took a deep breath. If there was one thing she had learned about humans, it was their relentless pursuit to make others happy. Tyler wouldn’t leave this alone until he received a satisfactory answer. Otherwise he would keep pestering her until he’d found a way to fix the situation.

  “I am almost finished anyway. Any other assistance would have been redundant.” She tried to focus on the schematics in front of her—it wasn’t as if this was a difficult project—but her mind only wandered to the next-closest thing, which was Tyler’s look of disbelief. “If there’s nothing else, I’d prefer to finish this today.”

  “Okay. But if you need to talk to someone about…anything that might be bothering you, I’m—”

  “Your concern is unnecessary. Now leave me.” She took a breath, remembering her manners. “Please.”

  Tyler scoffed. “You may not think you need help sometimes, but you do.” He turned to go. “And work on that please. Had anyone else heard it they would have taken it as a death threat.”

  That’s how it was meant, she thought. She hated Tyler knew so much about her. It had come as a natural side effect of them spending so much time together. He’d been out of stasis longer than any other human, nearly twelve years, and he’d spent most of that time in Engineering, helping her to redesign the undercurrent system. It worked perfectly, but the unfortunate side effect was she had made…a friend.

  She allowed him to walk away. Any further interaction would only encourage similar behavior in the future. It had been harder than she’d expected getting used to the entire crew being back. For so long she’d been able to roam the empty corridors, reveling in her solitude. But now she could barely take a step outside Engineering without running into someone and the only place she seemed to find any solace were her quarters. And yet there, she felt closed off and trapped. Perhaps that was why she had been more irritable ever since returning to Coalition space for a second time. Not to mention it put them near Sil space again. Back when they’d been in orbit of that planet, her home had seemed so far away, almost as if it was out of reach. But here…using their advanced drive it wouldn’t take more than a few days to reach the border. There might even be Sil ships close, exploring what used to be Coalition territory, though it was doubtful. The “walls” of the Sil Alliance had stood for ten-thousand years, never growing, never shrinking. There was no reason to think they would start now.

  Zenfor drew a deep breath and tried to focus on the images and text in front of her. But she only ended up staring into space.

  6

  “Human! Place your hands on top of your head, you are under arrest. Robot, drop all weapons and extend your arms out to your sides, you are also under arrest.”

  Evie grumbled under her breath. What the hell was the Sissk security force doing here? Had they been following them ever since Lechal? And if so, how had they managed to do it without them noticing? “We didn’t do anything!” she yelled, using Box as a shield. His body could take the impact from their weapons…probably.

  “Evie. Do I initiate bodyguard procedures?” Box whispered.

  “Your presence on Sissk is disruptive to the native population,” one of the officers called out. Something sparked in Evie’s memory, but she couldn’t be sure what.

  “Then why did you let us land?” she called back.

  “Come out from around the machine with your hands on top of your head, do not resist and do not give us a reason to fire.” Something in the officer’s voice sounded urgent. It was the kind of urgency Evie recognized that could potentially set off a powder keg. Her best option was to comply, there was no way Box had enough sedative in his—

  “CITIZEN, MOVE AWAY.” Evie had to clap her hands over her ears otherwise she thought her eardrums might burst. The orb fell to the ground, rolling a few meters away. Box’s warning continued on repeat. She glanced around him again to see three of the officers covering their own ears. But the fourth, a Crilick, still had his weapon trained on them. Crilicks had only rudimentary auditory canals, preferring to communicate by hand signal or visual medium. Box’s warning would do no good against him.

  “Box! Call it off,” she yelled over the din of his booming voice. “It’s not working!”

  “Oh?” Box asked, the sonorous noise gone. “I thought it was quite effective.”

  Evie removed her hands from her ears. “I think a class in the functions of all the different species on this planet before we came down might have been helpful.”

  “It’s not my fault I wasn’t properly briefed.”

  “Last warning!”

  Evie glanced back to the group; they’d all trained their weapons on them again. And now Evie was out of cover, having needed to get within Box’s visual range to shut him up. She cursed and slowly raised her hands. She needed to find the orb again, but instead her eyes focused on one individual in particular, standing off to the right. He was Ashkasian, and now she realized why his voice had sounded familiar.

  “Run’ak?” she prompted, not needing the confirmation. It was him alright; the dark blue scales, the short, tank-like body with the long tail and those dark orange eyes she remembered staring into as a child. She was glad to see he’d become a security officer, he always had been a good soul. Though her heart panged a little upon realizing he’d been stuck on this planet while she traveled the stars.

  Run’ak squinted, and when he did, she could see how similar he was to the Bulaq if he turned just the right way. It was the same thing she’d seen in Vrij. “Evelyn?” He took a step closer. “It can’t be, you’re too young for a human.”

  She shook her head. “It’s me. I’ve been through a few strange events recently.”

  “I can’t…how have you survived?” he asked.

  “It’s a very long and complicated story,” she said.

  “One that you are not privy to,” Box added in one of his accents. “Top level brass only.”

  Run’ak glanced at Box, then back at Evie, his face awash with concern. “I’m sorry to do this, but we have to arrest you. As I’m sure you know, humans are outlawed on Sissk.” He turned to Box. “As are any collaborators.”

  Box made a noise like he was inhaling sharply, despite not having lungs.

  “I didn’t know,” Evie replied. “But if it’s illegal for me to be here, why allow us on Sissk at all?”

  “That was my supervisor’s idea,” Run’ak said, motioning with his head to the Bedrew officer behind the line, the same one they’d met in the streets. “He wanted to make sure you weren’t meeting other humans. If we had a secret cell anywhere on the planet it would put us all at risk. Now please.” He flicked his weapon up and Evie huffed, placing her hands on her head.

  “Do what they tell you,” she said to Box.

  “Wow, I am a terrible bodyguard,” he said to no one in particular. He extended his arms out to the side.

  Evie caught the glint of the orb on the ground and immediately had the urge to grab it. If she focused, she might move fast enough to avoid their blasts. But then what? Once it was back in her possession what was she supposed to do? Leave Box there by himself? Take on five Sissk security officers by herself? The last time she’d done something like that, the wrong people had died. And these officers were just doing their duty. “It’s because of the Athru, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Run’ak nodded. “Who else?”

  “I don’t guess you’d just let us get back in our shuttle and leave? We have a ship in orbit.”

  “We know,” the Bedrew officer said, his voice carrying over the other officers. “All planetary traffic was ceased the moment you came into the system. We will not risk Sissk for the likes of a rogue human. Once we have transmitted the circumstances of your death to your ship, they will leave.”

  Something like a chuckle bubbled out of Box, though it was mechanical and oddly even in its nature. “You don’t meet many humans, do you? Killing her will only enrage them. You’d be asking for a minor war if you allow anything to happen to either of us.”

  Run’ak turned to his commander. “Sir, maybe we can just—”

  “No mercy will be given, Run’ak. You know the law. We must take care of this before the syndicates get word of it. Unless you want another incident on your record,” the Bedrew said.

  Run’ak cast his eyes downward, but his face was turned in a snarl. “No, sir.” He approached Evie, cautious, but with his weapon pointed to the ground. “I’ll need to put you in restraints so we can take you to the station. You’ll be processed, then…put to death.”

  “Just let us leave. The Athru don’t need to know,” she said. “If all those years we spent together as kids meant anything, just let us go.”

  “What are you even doing on Sissk in the first place?” he asked, stopping a meter in front of her and stowing his weapon. He withdrew a set of electronic cuffs.

  “I came looking for answers,” she replied. “What happened to this place?”

  He leaned forward, but a metal hand shot out between his face and Evie’s. “That’s close enough, hot stuff,” Box said. The sound of weapons charging filled Evie’s ears and she froze.

  “Box. Pull…your…hand…away. Slowly.” Evie gritted her teeth.

  Box looked at the firing line, then back at Evie. He retracted his hand, moving it back to its original position.

  “Lieutenant, get that robot in some restraints!” the Bedrew said. The Crilick officer pulled out two sets of electronic cuffs and shuffled over to Box, his long, spindly legs carrying him quickly over the ground.

  “I never said anything,” Run’ak said, placing the cuffs on Evie’s wrists as he brought them down in front of her. “They wanted to rid the planet of any perception of help. About six months ago they found out you used to live here. Within a day they moved the people out and razed it.”

  Six months. That was about two seasons in Coalition time. And that matched up with the amount of dust she’d seen in the house. They’d destroyed it just because at one point she’d lived there? Talk about overkill.

  Run’ak led her away from the front of the house, and she looked back to the orb laying on the ground. She had to figure a way out of this. She hadn’t come through hell just to be summarily executed on her home planet. They might have no choice but to overpower the officers. Evie glanced at Box, who looked to her for instruction. The Crilick had bound both his hands and legs, but if she recalled, electronic cuffs probably wouldn’t hold against him.

  “Again, I’m sorry about this,” Run’ak said, leading her away and to their patrol transports.

  “Yeah.” She only hoped this time they could get away without killing anyone. Just as she was about to signal Box there was a sonic boom overhead, causing all of them, security officers too, to look up. Evie gasped when she recognized the ships.

  ***

  “Coming through the atmosphere now, Captain,” River said, controlling the shuttle. Inside, Cas and Tileah armed themselves with pulse weapons and Cas double-checked his boomcannon that he’d retrieved from the lock-up on the ship. It was fully loaded. And it was the only thing that he’d found could kill the Athru. For some reason, Zenfor still hadn’t finished replicating the design for mass production yet.

  “Caspian to all ships, keep an eye out for surprises. We don’t know what they might have up their sleeves and we don’t want to be caught off guard.” He adjusted his holster so the boomcannon fit snug under his arm. Right where Cas liked it.

  “How are we supposed to watch out for anything if they can hide inside time?” Ryant asked over the comm. Cas glanced to his left, three spacewings flew in formation outside the window. To his left, three more. Saturina had scrambled all the remaining spacewing pilots for the mission.

  “Quit your whinin’, Ryant,” Edra Blackfield chimed in. “If they know there are humans here, they’ll come out.”

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Cas said, focusing on Lechal ahead of them. His heart hammered in his chest, but truth be told he was glad to be out of the ship. Hank had nearly had a heart attack trying to keep him on the bridge, but this was Evie, and Cas wasn’t going to abandon her a second time.

  “Sir, I’m getting some comm traffic. They’re telling us to return to our ship and leave Sissk territory,” River said, pointing to the info coming across the shuttle’s scanner.

  “Looks like they decided to get chatty all of a sudden,” Tileah said. She’d strapped a pulse rifle to her back and had a pistol version ready in-hand.

  “Do you have a lock on Evie and Box?” Cas asked.

  River pointed to a small dot on the screen ahead of them. “Just picked them up. They’re outside the city, in a rural district. I think it’s the house the captain pointed us to originally.”

  Of course, Cas had figured it would be the first place she’d go. Whatever that orb was telling her it was leading her somewhere, and in conjunction with her hallucinations showing the “ghost” or whatever it was of her father in her old house, it made sense that would be her first stop. “Any indication of why we can’t contact them?”

  “There’s a jamming field in place.” Tileah accessed one of the side consoles. “Looks Sissk in origin.”

  “Let me guess,” Cas said. “No sign of the Athru.”

  “Nothing yet.”

  He shook his head. They’d hide until the last minute, hoping to ambush their prey. If Samiya was right and they had ships in orbit or on the surface, they wouldn’t reveal their hand until it was necessary. Cas’s plan was to land, grab Box and Evie, then get the hell off this planet and out of the system before the Athru could pursue. He wasn’t leaving anyone behind.

  “Captain?” River turned in her seat, indicating the primary scanners.

  Cas leaned over the console, reading the information. “Rings, I hope you’re ready for this,” he said into the comms. Ahead of them a small fleet of Sissk patrol craft approached from Lechal.

  “Ha! He called you Rings!” Ryant said.

  “Stow it,” Saturina said. “Captain, you and I are going to discuss decorum when we return to the ship,” she said, the menace in her voice unmistakable. “Until then, yeah, we got this. Go get our people. Wing one, engage the hostiles. Wing two, protect the shuttle.” Three of the spacewings pulled ahead of them, aiming at the approaching swarm.

  “Where do you want me to set us down?” River asked.

  “Right on top of them, don’t even cut the engines. The ensign and I will jump out and grab them, then straight back to the ship, understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” River replied, setting the coordinates. The shuttle pitched down, headed straight for the surface. Cas estimated they were probably traveling twice the speed of sound.

  Weapons fire peppered the hull. “Armor is holding for now.” Tileah took a seat and configured the station for tactical. “But without offensive weapons it’s up to the spacewings to keep them off us.”

  “Remind me when we get back to put you in charge of getting some guns on these damn things,” Cas said, grabbing the nearest handhold as the ship shook from the blasts.

  “Sorry,” River said. “This is going to be bumpy.”

  Cas noticed her mechanical fingers had split from ten into twenty, so she could more accurately control the rate of descent. They moved so fast he could barely keep up.

 

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