My left arm spits sparks. My pulseCannon is shredded. Inside the suit, my arm hurts like hell. I have a concussion. I puke inside my helmet. Fills it with a bitter stench, stings the nostrils. But I keep my feet, and my right arm works well enough. Viewshield is cracked. I stumble as I’m sucked toward the bridge too.
I crawl back through the holes I made in the walls. Make it to the bridge to find the place in chaos. Crewmembers hold to anything to prevent themselves from being sucked into the cold darkness. A Gold girl flips past me and flies out the bulkhead. Finally, red lights flash. Emergency bulkheads slam shut all over this part of the ship to cut the pressure leak. One begins to close behind me, reinforcing a wall that I crashed through. I hold it up when I see Sevro coming. The metal groans against the robotic arm of my starShell. Sevro dives through just in time and the door slams shut. Bridge is locked down with us inside. Perfect.
The pressure wind dies behind us as durosteel slats slide over the demolished viewports. The ship’s officers and crew pick themselves up from the ground, gasping for breath, but there is none. Oxygen and pressure are still being pumped back into the room. So those with breathing masks—the Golds, Obsidians, and Blues—watch placidly as the few Pink valets and Orange technicians on the bridge flop like fish, gasping for air that is not there. One Pink vomits blood, his lungs exploding in his chest because he tried to hold his breath. The Blues watch the deaths in horror. They have never seen men die. They are used to seeing blips on the scanners disappearing. Perhaps a distant ship exploding or gouting flame as it is boarded by Obsidians and Grays. Their understanding of the mortal coil is being adjusted.
The Obsidians and Golds don’t react to the scene. Some of the Grays attempt to administer aid, but it is too late. By the time the pressure and oxygen levels are normalized, the lowColors are dead. I’ll never forget those faces. I brought them this. How many families will weep because of what I did here?
In anger, I stomp my metal boot on the steel deck. Three times. And those who did nothing while their allies died turn to see Sevro and me in our killing suits.
Oh, how those Gold and Obsidian faces finally emote.
An Obsidian charges us with a forcePike. Sevro hits him once, crushing the huge man with a metal fist. The other four link together and attack us, keening one of their hideous war chants. Sevro meets them, delighted to finally be the biggest in the room. I engage a squad of Grays who scramble for their weapons.
This is the way it goes. We’re men of metal fighting disorganized men of flesh. Like steel fists punching the inside of a watermelon. I’ve never killed men with so little regard. And it frightens me how easy I find it in war. There is no ambiguity here, no violation of moral creed. These people are warColors. They kill me or I kill them. It’s simpler than the Passage. Simpler that I don’t know them, that I don’t know their brothers and sisters, that I use metal instead of my own flesh to drive them through death’s dark door.
I am good at it, better by worlds than Sevro, and that terrifies me above all else.
I truly am the Reaper. Whatever doubts I had in myself fall away and I feel the stain creeping over my soul.
We do our best to save the Blues. The bridge is large, but there aren’t many Obsidians or Grays with projectile and energy weapons. No reason for them here; no one has ever come through the viewports. Two female Golds with razors are the true menace. One is tall and broad. The other has a quick face that is pinched with desperation as she charges us. With their razors, they could cut even our suits in half, so Sevro blasts them from a distance with his pulseCannon, overloading their aegises and splashing the energy onto armor where it overloads the pulseShields and eats into the armor, melting the Golds. This is why they control technology. Humans, no matter their Color, are fragile as doves in the meat grinder of war.
My enemies dead, I turn now to the Blues in the pits. “Is there a captain?” I ask.
In my suit, I stand nearly a meter taller than them. They’re still staring at the mess we made of the others. I must be a walking nightmare. Arm spitting sparks. Suit half ruined. Holding a terrible razor.
“I don’t have all day to threaten and stomp. You are erudite men and women. This is not your ship. You merely occupy it for the Gold who commands it. I now command it. So. Is there a Blue captain about?”
The captain survived. He’s a placid, clean-looking man, more limbs than torso, with a fresh gash on his face that pains him terribly. He trembles and sniffles, holding the wound as though his face would fall apart were his hands to leave it. Uncle Narol would have called him a shiteating ninnypriss. Eo would taken a different tact, so I stand over him and speak quietly.
“You are safe,” I say. “Do not attempt anything rash.”
I pop my helmet. The sick drips out. I tell him he’s to go to the corner and strip off his star badge of rank. Trembling, he doesn’t get a chance to obey. Sevro lurches forward, takes his badge, and picks him up and moves him like a doll.
A plump dark-skinned woman more shoulders than anything else snorts at the demotion. She’s peculiarly substantial for a Blue. Bald, like the rest, with digital azure tattoos swirling not only along crown and temples, but over hands and neck.
Sevro lopes back to me.
“Sevro, stop pissing around.”
“I like being big.”
“I’m still bigger.”
He tries flipping me the crux in his suit, but the mechanical fingers aren’t so agile.
I give orders to the Blues in the tech pits that our friends in the stork are to be given access to one of the hangar bays. After settling themselves back into their stations, they obey. All here are loyal, because I have them under my power. But throughout the ship, who knows? They may be loyal to the Sovereign. Or they may only be loyal to the man who rules this ship. It’d be foolish to think they all operate under the same creed. I’ll have to make them.
I watch the stork coast into a hangar bay on a display. She’s barely held together by her bolts. Two leechCraft festoon her. My Howlers will have to fight off the squads of killers they contained. They might manage, but if the Vanguard’s Obsidians and Grays besiege them in the hangar, then all is lost.
Sounds come now from the bulkhead that connects the bridge with the rest of the ship. A deepspine hissing. The door glows red from heat, a small pupil in the center of the thick gray durosteel. Obsidians or Gray marines, no doubt led by some Gold, endeavor to reclaim the ship. Should take them a little while.
“Is there a holoCam in the hall?” I ask the Blues.
They hesitate. “Blackspace, you daft gasbags,” curses the female Blue I noted before. She pushes another Blue out of the way and syncs her tattoos with the console. A holo appears on one of the screens, confirming my fear. Golds lead the party attempting to make their way onto the bridge.
“Show me the engine room, the life support nexuses, and the hangar bay,” I demand. She does. Again, Golds lead parties of Gray marines and Obsidian slave-knights to secure the ship’s vital systems. They’ll try to wrest control of it away from me. Worse, they’ll try to board or destroy the stork to kill or capture Mustang and my friends.
“Who wants this ship?” I ask severely. I stalk along the raised command podium, kicking aside a body in my way, and look down at the communications Blues in their pit. They dodge my gaze, two women no older than I. Faces pale and fresh, like morning snow, now stained with tear tracks and grime. Wide cerulean eyes raw-rimmed and shot with red. They’ve seen friends die today, and here I rage selfishly, acting as though this is my triumph. It’s so easy to lose myself.