Grace felt the weight of the Tyche’s thrust for the first time in what felt like hours. Her feet slid out from under her. Her lungs wouldn’t work. They were locked up with some kind of vice, and that vice was—
Pain. My God, the pain.
—the feeling returning to her body. To her back, her kidney. Her jaw. Her face, the side of her head.
Her heart had stopped, and she was going to die.
“Gracie,” said Kohl, all the way up now, wiping the back of his arm across his mouth, “now’s where the real hurting starts.”
He wasn’t moving fast, just taking easy steps in her direction. Casual, like he was out for a stroll on some planet’s crust, a sunny day around him. She watched him come as her vision faded. She wanted her heart to beat again. Grace wanted to live. She’d already had these insects touch her mind, and then got free because someone had come for her. She didn’t want them in her head, not ever again. Grace didn’t want to stop being Grace.
“I,” she said, then fell to one knee.
“Yeah,” said Kohl, close to her now. He crouched down in front of her. “Does it hurt?”
Her heart thudded in her chest. Just once, but it was enough. Enough for now. She nodded, unable to speak.
Grace Grace Grace Grace Grace!
Right here and now, after the effects of the drug Kohl had given her, she thought she could see it. Feel it. The thing was curled up inside him, snuggled up to his spine. Small. Tiny even. Smaller than a mouse. Larger than a cockroach. But it was inside Kohl. She couldn’t just grab it. Couldn’t even reach it.
“It’ll be okay!” said Kohl, his voice cheerful. “Together, right?”
Grace reached a hand towards him, but he batted it away, almost playful. “I,” she said.
“Okay,” said Kohl. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna keep beating on you until you’re all the way hurt. That way, you won’t resist so much. Last time, you were still fighting, Gracie. This time, you gotta have no fight left. You get me?”
“Kohl,” she said, but her voice was a whisper. “I pulled you … back. In here.”
“And I thank you for it,” he said. His face twitched, random series of movements that couldn’t be called expressions. “We’ll be together soon, and you’ll know how thankful we are.” He stood up, heaved a sigh, then grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet. “I’m real sorry about this. But it’s just gotta be this way.”
Grace tried to break free, but it was like trying to wrestle out of an industrial press. The usual places where a touch would bring pain did nothing to Kohl. He hefted her up, then tossed her across the cargo bay. She landed, head ringing. Body full of hurt.
You know, at least you found out what it meant to belong somewhere.
She closed her eyes. Opened them again, looking up at Kohl coming towards her. Something was blocking her vision, splitting Kohl in half. She tried to focus, reached out a hand. Hissed as it touched something sharp, her fingers cut against the edge of her sword, bright red blood standing out against her skin.
Grace reached up a shaking hand, her fingers closing on the hilt of the weapon.
Her breath caught, her heart alive, purposeful. The joy of life, felt through the handle of this weapon of death. The metal of the Tyche, a soft, warm home for them all. The feeling of pressure and movement, a thousand times larger than the largest star. She was everything. She was the universe.
They jumped.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“What the hell are those circus freaks doing?” said El.
“They’re aliens, El,” said Nate. “They’re doing alien stuff.” He frowned. “Which is fine, because here we are, hanging in the wind.”
“Yeah, but they’re just … sitting there,” she said.
Nate kept his frown going. It felt like the right choice of expression for this particular situation. Not scared, because that wouldn’t help El; she scared easy anyway. Not cheerful, because everyone would mutiny. No, a good, steady frown would do the job just fine right now. “I reckon,” he said, “that they’re wondering what we’re doing.”
“Hmm,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
“I want you,” he said, “to get some of that planet between them and us. I would like a lot of rock between us.”
“On it,” she said. She reached for her console.
“Hold up,” said Nate. “You know, when you’re hunting a bear or something, and the bear sees you first?”
“When have you ever hunted a bear?” said El. The sound of some system or other trying not to overheat, a fan working hard to keep it cool, undercut their conversation.
“Watched a documentary holo on it,” said Nate. “Big show after they terraformed Earth. They had to dredge up all kinds of extinct species.”
“So they could hunt them?” said El.
“I don’t think it was the driving force of the holo,” said Nate. “I think they were trying to show how they’d become extinct. Anyway. Doesn’t matter.”
“People used to hunt bears?”
“Hell if I know,” said Nate. “I wasn’t there when they broke the world. What I’m saying is—”
“This story,” said El, all nerves and energy, “would go better if we were away from a giant hostile alien ship. It still feels weird calling it a ship since it’s a flying rock.”
“Stay with me on this one,” said Nate. “If you’re hunting something that can hunt you back, you don’t want to run. If you run, those fuckers just run faster, and they won’t find anything left of you but bear repellant and torn clothing. So I’m thinking how we got ourselves in this mess is we ran, and those assholes,” he said, pointing out the window, “ran faster. I do not want to be a pile of torn clothing.”
“Can I ask a stupid question?” said El.
“No stupid questions,” said Nate. “Only stupid people.” She didn’t respond to that, just letting it lie between them with a raised eyebrow. Nate waved a hand. “Ask your damn question.”
“You want me to run slow?” she said.
“I want you to fly the ship in a leisurely manner,” said Nate. “I want you to pretend we’re on a cruise, with paying passengers.”
“We never have paying passengers,” said El.
“This is why humans are gifted with imagination,” said Nate. “Now you fly, and I’ll try and work out how to keep us alive long enough for you to keep flying.”
“You’re the boss,” said El, but when her hands reached the sticks they were steady. Calm. Good. The Tyche gave a gentle rumble as her drives came to live with less urgency than before.
Nate left her to it. A piece of relaxed flying would do her a world of good, and he needed a plan. He worked his console. Resources: what did they have? The Tyche chattered happily at him. Still got 15 good Republic ship to ship torpedoes, for all the good they’d do. The ammunition on the kinetic PDCs came up — that one wasn’t good. Low on all counts. They still had the lasers, but they were a substandard weapon for shooting rocks. Better against inbound ordinance with firing controls they could fry with a little touch of light.
Hm. Lasers. What could he do with lasers?
The Tyche reminded him he had unread mail. Because that was the most important thing right now: email from his fans.