Chapter Forty-One
If there was ever a time that Aphrodite went full gear head, it was that moment.
Elbow in elbow with Rexna, spread out in the loading bay, wrenches and drones whirling with soldering irons hissing nearby, they worked in tandem.
Rexna completed the shell of the light compulsion cannon while Aphrodite worked on building up the internal components.
The cannon took less time than upgrading everyone’s armor.
Because all their armor was working platelets, there wasn’t much to work with and much they could do…
so instead, they attacked the problem a different way.
They created armor covers that wouldn’t suffocate their breathers and worked on better helmets.
Aphrodite didn’t know what even they were trying to adapt to or defend against, but she’d be damned if she didn’t try.
They said the void devoured light? So she built internal lights into their suits between the platelets and the helmet so nothing could slip between the cracks.
They said the void rotted life, she added better filtration systems and light components to the covers for their filters and around their helmets.
She would break the stars if she had to ensure Xexis came home with her. This was her fight, the Brexzkit asked her to help, she wasn’t about to lose another crew because of something that was meant for her and her alone.
Aphrodite didn’t realize she was sobbing until a warm hand cupped her shoulder. She’d stripped a bolt having twisted at it so much. Rexna rubbed her shoulder tenderly, taking the item from her hands. They shook like leaves in the wind, her vision blurred with tears. “I can’t let them die.”
“I know.”
“They’re not allowed to leave me.” She choked on her own tongue, drying her tears on the back of her wrist.
“I know.”
The pair sat in relative silence as Aphrodite stared at all their work and feared it wasn’t fucking good enough. All her tech, all her inventions, all her gadgets and gizmos could do nothing if she didn’t know the enemy they were up against.
“Mphronatch?” She jerked upright and twisted, finding Grooug stepping down into the loading bay. “Rexna, the Kannatch has requested your presence in the command deck.”
The technician bowed their head to Grooug then to Aphrodite.
Aphrodite sat in the middle of their mess helplessly as the tall Vroz clambered to their feet and left the loading bay.
Instead, Grooug took their place and settled down beside her.
She flopped against him, head on his shoulder.
Grooug sat still, a pillar, strong and ready to weather a storm.
“Mphronatch is worried about a hunter’s death. It is an honor to die on the hunt.”
“But what if I can keep you from getting hurt? What if you don’t have to die? What…” She trailed off, exhaling a shaky breath. “Why are you all okay going if you are so sure you’ll die?”
“We may not, but when you hunt, death is always possible. To be a hunter is to be bound by duty.” He explained softly, putting his head ontop of hers. She could feel the muscles in his pincers moving.
She took a deep breath, sinking against the hunter. He sat there, calm and soft as she stared out at the wasteland of tech around her. The words that came out of her mouth tumbled out. “Grooug, why don’t you want a mate?”
He snorted, “Hunt is my priority.”
“Mmm, so you don’t want any distractions?” she teased, peeling her face off his shoulder.
“Distractions get you killed.” His words rang through her deeply.
She jerked to look at his face. His eyes were far off, staring into the stars as they sped toward the void.
After a long moment, he spoke, “My father was in danger. My mother took a killing blow to save him. She died in the hunt, an honor. But my father missed her all his days. He died years later of a broken heart. Mate’s are two halves of a whole, and when one is gone, the other withers. ”
Aphrodite wrapped a hand around his bicep and smiled softly as he glanced at her. “So, you’re afraid of losing them in a hunt?”
“I fear nothing…but I know pain. I witnessed that pain. And it’s pain I want to avoid.
” His voice didn’t waver, but his gaze darted down to where their hips met, then to the mess around them.
Without having to motion, he was referencing the ache in her chest as well. Not just his parents, but her pain.
“It’s not all pain,” she whimpered, shifting to pick up one of her many messes. Poking absentmindedly at the pieces, not sure how to tell him, despite the pain…Despite the worry and the heartache, despite everything she would never trade having met Xexis for anything.
“But pain is the strongest.” He squeezed prodded her with a finger. “You should go be with the Kannatch; you’ve honored us with your technology.”
And so, Aphrodite scraped herself up off the floor and avoided all the traps of the armor and tech around her.
Climbing up the steps, inches before she reached the bridge, she stopped.
Xexis froze, mid-step down. She smiled. He softened, breathing a heavy exhale and stepping backward.
She followed him up onto the bridge, then back into the bunks.
Pulling him by the hand to the back wall of the ship before tossing herself into his arms. He engulfed her, holding her tight.
“My Mate,” he sighed.
“Just, please,” she begged, nuzzling her face into his throat. “Just don’t talk about it. If we talk about it, I’ll convince myself it’s hopeless. So, let me pretend this can’t possibly go wrong.”
He nodded. Pressing his cheek against the side of her head, they sank to the floor in each other’s arms. Aphrodite pretended they were at home.
They were in their rooms, cuddled up in their bed, lingering in that precious time before he had to go to court and waking up.
She clutched him hard and begged the stars to help them.
Have mercy, she pleaded. See us through this, she thought as loud as she could, keep them safe.
Aphrodite hoped beyond hope that she wasn’t repeating her past mistakes.
It took an agonizing two weeks in the tiny ship and one stop at the last station before they passed the last planet in the stars.
Aphrodite thought she would lose her marbles.
The other Vroz seemed to be able to hunker down and keep from fidgeting in their tin can of a hunting vessel.
So, instead, she spent her time reading to Xexis.
They’d given up trying to sleep in separate bunks and instead used the empty shelving for storage and combined their mattresses into the lab.
Aphrodite spent the two weeks curled up with him, reading every book she had in her storage.
When they ran out of books to read, they ended up telling their own.
She told him the story of her first invention; a tin can robot her brothers helped her fashion with bumpy wheels and a wobbly head.
It was able to raise and lower its clawed arms, that was it.
But she’d been so proud of that silly hunk of junk that she brought it to school.
It didn’t survive the day because she kept showing off her robot to anyone who would look.
Xexis’ eyes sparkled at the story as she talked through crying at home that the robot died.
Her father explained that machines work and then they stop working, and a good technician could repair it.
Make it better. So, she spent days fixing the bumpy wheels and wobbly head.
The next week she came into school with the upgraded robot and everyone was impressed that it could move and raise its arms up and down at will.
“My mate is brilliant, even as a youngling.” Xexis nuzzled her head.
“What about you? What was your big, I know I want to be a hunter for the rest of my life story?” she teased, kissing the ridge on his forehead.
“I was always meant to be Kannatch, so the hunt was my purpose…” he trailed off with a long, drawn-out sigh.
“But?” she giggled.
“But, there was this…what would be a stag to you, but not a friend. A male deer.”
Aphrodite rolled her eyes, settling in for his story.
Xexis beamed as he flopped onto his back, laying her across his chest. “The beast was enormous, as tall as a boulder, thick shoulders, massive antlers. We were on a planet for a hunt and I was supposed to stay by the ship while my teacher scanned the area. But I saw the beast, standing a few yards off, staring at me. It was challenging me. So, I snuck out into the trees and wrestled it for ages. It wasn’t until its body gave in and I had it in a head lock that I realized it’d tired itself out.
It would charge at me like nothing else I’ve seen, roaring and leveling its antlers with me.
But I bested it. And when it bowed its head, lying on the soil of the forest, I knew I’d won.
I believe it expected me to kill it, but I left my opponent there on the ground, having won the battle.
“My teacher stood in the clearing, watching me, ready to step in if I faltered but I did not. So, they patted me on the head and said I did well. But my opponent did not agree. Instead, it rose to its hooves and charged one last time. My teacher knocked me out of the way just in time to get an antler to the chest. They were tossed across the forest. I knew the beast, despite having been beaten honorably, was not there to be bested and left. It had too much pride. I cut it down before it could charge again and rushed to my teacher. I untangled them from the brush and rushed them to the ship. The adrenaline from getting them home so the technicians could heal them... I knew then that, yes, I enjoy the hunt, but helping people? It calls to me like a song in my chest. I feel for pain and want nothing more than to ease it.”
Aphrodite nuzzled her face deep into his chest, burrowing herself into him as much as she could. He held her there as they lay in silence.
And after those two weeks of reading, talking about their childhoods, and blatantly ignoring the storm cloud over their heads, the ship slowed down.
The whole crew crept to the Command Deck.
Out through the windshield as they came out of hyperspace, came the ominous dark.
Like a large building inching closer and closer, blocking out the sun, the void appeared as an impenetrable wall.
Aphrodite feared it was a flat surface, that they’d run straight into it.
The stars began to fade away, the light before them dying.
And then…ever so slowly, they breeched the void.
The ship rumbled lightly with turbulence but there was nothing to be seen.
Only the light inside the ship, there was nothing before them.
As they clicked on the forward lights, inches in front of the crystal panes, the light was snuffed out like a thick smog.
They crept forward, following the map Buddy made for them.
It was an eternity until they slowed to a stop. The smog lifted and they were in blank, empty space. No light, no life; just an empty void.
Their scanners lit up the abandoned moon before them, but they couldn’t see it without putting the ship in risk of crashing into it. Kern turned the ship around, leaving the nose angled into the angry smog and the loading bay facing the moon they couldn’t even see.
Everyone pulled on their armor. Unlike before, there was no merriment.
There was no giggling or shoving each other as everyone prepared.
It was silent and haunting. Even when Buddy engaged her armor, only the soft click of all the pieces coming together could be heard.
Her heart slowed to a sluggish thump after thump as she watched Xexis pull on his helmet.
Everyone crept to the loading bay. The researchers, Kern, and Rexna with their blasters set to light impaction, Aphrodite at the door.
Her pack, her hunters, all synced up with the cannons and squared their shoulders.
As she read off the countdown till the doors hissed open, everything was a blur…until she hit zero.
The doors wrenched open, all encompassing light going off as the pack was rocketed out of the loading bay. She clamped the doors shut the second the light began to fade. Instantly, the researchers and Rexna scanned the room, blasting anything that even remotely resembled a shadow just in case.
The only thing Xexis didn’t know…and that Aphrodite realized a moment too late…was that Buddy was no longer in the ship.
She lurched left and right, looking for him. Her gaze running every line, every space, every crevasse in the loading bay. Until the familiar clicking of text typing across her data pad filled her ears. Aphrodite glanced down and found a message for her.
Buddy will keep the pack safe for Aphrodite Kerso. We are from here, so the void cannot hurt us.
Tears welled in her eyes. Slamming her fingers against the keyboard, she responded: Stay safe.
Aphrodite paced in the loading back, opening up Buddy’s live footage.
Surprisingly, his scanner vision helped her see everything.
The pack found the moon, setting on either side of the moon.
Buddy watched a few feet back, analyzing the moon.
Then, steadily, as if they uncovered themselves from behind a curtain, she saw them.
Under Buddy’s scans, the moon lit up with tiny craters and tunnels.
Every inch of it was throbbing with undulating goop.
The Brexzkit clogged up every artery of the moon and clung to its walls.
She gasped into the comms. “The whole moon is full of them, Xexis.”
All she got back was static.
Aphrodite was alone once more. She’d never been more afraid.