Chapter 4 Evo
Eon is practical and yet more emotional than I remember.
“So you and Raven are…mates?”
My brother grins. “I have never known such hope or happiness before, Brother. Perhaps that is what you need.”
“A female?” I disagree.
“Someone to show you that you mean something more than just the purpose inherent to your design. Raven makes me feel human again, like I can be more than the cause of death and destruction. You should hear the way she laughs when I sneak up on her.”
I find a recording from him and replay it. Her laugh is an uplifting sound. I understand why he would crave more of it.
“I would not trust myself,” I admit. “With a female.” I doubt any of them could ever trust me.
“You just haven’t met the right one yet.
” Eon switches to another screen with a different Solcrue ship lurking in another quadrant.
“But for now, we’ve got to chart a path out of here.
Relics have a system on the BlazeStar for salvaging minerals from the nebula, which we can turn into fuels.
Chasm brought his crew here to survive, but there’s only so much they can gather manually. ”
My scanners bring up an anomaly in the distant sky.
“I have no doubt the Solcrue will figure out where we are. We must stock up and get out of here before they surround us. The BlazeStar might be able to do short portal jumps, and human Rebels do have a mobile portal for small ships. But we are going to need many more to move ships quickly, like Aegis.”
“We have collected useful parts since Raven contributed her junker routes to the Rogue Fleet database,” Eon offers. “I am certain that will become a priority in the days ahead. Portals will make evasion much more efficient.”
Eon bumps his armored elbow to mine. “Missed you, brother. I feared the worst for many years. You survived. That is not insignificant, Evo. Now, we should return for the joint force briefing. Can’t communicate telepathically with humans. And you arrived with a lot of them.”
I don’t want to go back.
“Just stay covered up. No one can change you or get anything from you that way.”
After a controlled sigh, I bank our ship and turn toward Rogue’s Mothership. When Eon pats my arm, my helmet closes up.
“Oh, come on. Are you really doing that with me?”
“I don’t feel like Ghosting right now.”
He hums a note of amusement. “But it’s fun when we fight together. I have missed taking on your skills, brother. Do you not miss being invisible?”
“I like being solid when I’m flying a ship.” I wiggle my gloved fingers over the controls.
“Fair enough.” Eon leans back and chuckles in a way I have not heard in a long time.
My memories of life before becoming Titan are few.
But somehow, I know the sound of his laugh.
The memory is blended with a hoppy flavor, neon lights, small darts, and the light thump of metal planting in cork board.
“I wish this could last,” he says. “This peace, this sense of relief I feel. But I know it won’t. War is coming. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I don’t know how we’re going to prevent a repeat of last time. We fought with everything. I am just…tired of fighting.”
So am I. “Navi, Craze’s mate, reminded me recently that many of us have been on the inside, seen Solcrue ships. That is something we did not have before.”
“I have encountered interesting pieces among the wreckage.” Eon tilts his head and crosses his arms. “You make an interesting point. Perhaps, it is time we had a meeting with the anajas, see what they know. I’m certain the Solcrue officers they served let a few details slip now and then.”
“Relics have mentioned it. Celeste, Chaos’ mate, has already helped.”
Eon looks at his wristband. “My mate is calling. Jackknife needs my assistance with a repair. Flashbomb still has not learned self-control. Capsule is busy patching a leak in a sealscreen. It sounds like we’re going to have to disconnect Ravenger because the systems are just not compatible.
The Mother AI on Aegis keeps blocking the vessel. So our meeting is postponed.”
Eon gets up. “I will fly myself to Aegis. Unless you want to join.”
“I would like to process in peace if that is acceptable.”
He gives me a slow nod. “It is. Just do not get lost in the space in your core. Perhaps defragging of your drives would be beneficial.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” I ask.
“After two years of surviving in space, I don’t need ships anymore. Especially now that I have rocket boots. I’ll be back soon, brother. You’re onto something. We need to explore everything everyone knows.”
The flashing indicator on my screen makes me call back to him as he steps into the airlock.
Evo>>Eon: There is a solar storm coming our way. It will pass very close to the nebula. We may encounter some turbulence. Please relay to the fleet.
Eon clicks twice over our com feed. He got my message. Moments later, he’s gone.
I track him, racing back to the mothership, his boots registering as tiny specks of heat in the abyss. Relief from seeing him is brief.
The storm is in my sights now, along with a blip of something synthetically powered. I bank back to the edge of the nebula and zoom in on the anomaly.
What the hell is that?
Scanners sort out a broken emergency signal. I piece the words together, replaying them as I correlate the message with known ships and run the call through voice recognition programs.
Someone is out there, caught in the storm.
Solcrue are crazy enough to conceal themselves in such a manner, but their tactics have never been so isolated.
They prefer numbers, smash and grabs, and annihilating their opposition.
It could be CSP, but they don’t typically risk their own hides for vengeance.
Only human Rebels ever dare to face such danger when they are desperate.
Something pulls on my chest like a hot thread woven deep into my ultromotor. I look down at my digibadge built into the left breast of my armored suit. It lights up even though I have switched it off. I did not command it on, nor wish it.
“Please… Anyone.”
My voice assessment program runs.
Voice Assessment Complete: Human in distress.
Voice ID: Sergeant Aera Nereus, Omega Force StarJumper.
Omega Force? I didn’t think there were any left.
Critical Relations: Daughter of Inventor and Omega Force StarJumper Scranton Nereus, and CyberGuard Mother Leeta Nereus.
A Creator’s descendant is in trouble.
I quickly message my twin.
Evo>>Eon: Emergency Rescue Program Running. Descendant of Creator in danger. Solar storm approaching. Do not follow. Will report back in one hour. If transmission does not arrive, consider us decommissioned. Do not search.
I silence coms as I leave the nebula. It’s going to be a treacherous grab in the storm, but I track her position, prep the gravity beam on the belly, and get myself on an intercept course.
My Skysprinter is at full power and carries me across space toward the storm in minutes.
Lifting my shields, I target the ship and bolt into the clouds. It is a rough, jarring ride. Bright flares of light tear over the hull. But Solcrue have had many centuries to perfect shields against such galactic threats. And I am grateful for their engineering in this moment.
Then I hate myself for liking anything they create.
But reality cannot be denied.
The dash monitor for the gravity beam gives me a green indicator that it is charged and ready.
Ahead of me, the vessel tumbles chaotically through the torrential waves of light and heat.
I sway the SkySprinter in just behind the ship, watching the movement for a pattern I can predict.
When I see my opportunity, I mash the Ignite command and snatch up the ship.
But the connection is unstable. The hot gales from clashing flares send our linked vessels tumbling.
I redirect main power to engines and my grav beam.
Lights and life support in the cabin goes out.
The ship I’ve captured stabilizes beneath me.
I cut upward through the storm at an angle to reduce the force of impact from the solar flares.
The little ship on my belly creates fierce drag that threatens to pull us back in.
But I maintain course and, slowly, ribbons of light flicker and begin to slip from our ships.
We break free. But we have tumbled to the other side of the storm that is already stirring up the nebula.
The Solcrue SkySprinter registers the “capture.”
My programming reports something else.
Vessel offline. One life form aboard. Five minutes of oxygen remaining.
“Shit.”
I set autopilot to keep us away from the storm, get up, and throw myself in the airlock. The door barely opens before I squeeze out.
Time Remaining: 4:21.
I crawl over the Skysprinter and down to the grav beam, humming as it keeps my ship’s belly to the roof of what vaguely represents a SunFlux. The symbol on the side is not of Rebel. It is not a Solcrue serpent, or a CSP shield. It is a sun with a partial band of eight orbs and a star in one corner.
Time Remaining: 3:58.
The ship is a dead metal husk. I have to open it manually.
My scanners overlay blue schematics as they uncover what’s beneath the hull.
As I scour the ship for a way in, I get a glimpse through the glass of a hibernation pod and a motionless human female inside.
Her star suit appears to be intact, so I forgo precautions, rip the hull plates off the airlock access, grab the door mechanisms, and tear them out.
The door lazily slides open. I pull myself into the vessel. There isn’t much in the ship except some loose tools and crumbs of food. When I reach the pod, I try the release mechanism, but it won’t budge. Even her pod has shut down.
A faint light in her visor is one of two items powered up in the area. A tablet with lines through its flickering image floats by. I grab it when I see the Rogues’ nebula. I think this female found us on purpose.
Time Remaining: 2:21.
I stuff the tablet in an armored pouch on my thigh and assess the human’s pod. There is only one way in with systems down. But breaking the smooth space glass is not something I’m equipped for. Few tools in the area stand a chance.
Then Eon’s question comes back to me about whether I’ve learned to control the shift.
I replicated Leah’s blood in my hands.
Time Remaining: 1:57.
I don’t know what I’m doing, not exactly, but I remove my gloves and set my hands on the glass. I have fragmented with Fracture more than once in recent days. I have mapped the feeling well. But thinking of the fissures and the way disaggregating felt is only enough to crack the glass.
Time Remaining: 1:34.
Come on. Why can’t I figure this out?
Mother Besha, the one who helped us hotskins get acquainted with our new skills, told me to listen to how things feel in order to replicate their properties.
For years, I bottled up how I felt. I served as a soldier and then as a slave, watching Brothers and humans die.
I pull that feeling to the front of my mind, the agonizing, soul-shattering misery of human blood on my hands as Solcrue commanded my cybernetic body remotely.
I disassembled bodies of Brothers. I hauled human practice mates by their hair to their Masters.
All the self-loathing, guilt, and rage from being unable to decommission myself to prevent further harm fizzles up in sharp waves.
Time Remaining: 0:43.
The pulses hum through my palms, into the glass, sending violent cracks racing over its surface.
Time Remaining: 0:37.
Fear that another female will die because of me makes me growl in frustration.
The pod turns white with fractures. I rear a fist back and smash my knuckles through the glass.
It caves, and I peel open the tempered layers.
Frantically throwing my gloves back on, I free her from the pod and search her suit for life support access.
Time Remaining: 0:25.
The alert blinks red in my vision.
I know. I fucking know!
Ripping the cable from my suit’s pack, I clip it into the port near her back. For a second, nothing happens.
Then a light blinks on in her visor, and another.
My visor shows oxygen and power transferring. Heater’s kick on in her suit as mine shut down. That’s okay. I don’t need them. I am simply more efficient with oxygen and heat. It is a small sacrifice for a life that cannot handle what I can.
I open coms to local frequencies, hoping hers is working.
“Hey! Can you hear me?”
When she doesn’t respond, I clutch her to me and make my way back to my ship. My programs are still running assessments, but they suggest she is alive.
I hope they are right.