Rosalie
“Anything from Dexx?” I ask Dart as the small ship we have taken continues on the course Dante took.
“Some things I probably shouldn’t repeat,” Dart says with a grin.
“Let me know,” Maggie says, taking a moment out of her loving inspection of the ray gun I gave her. “I’ll happily repeat anything he said.” It’s her turn to grin at me. “I bet it’s swears,” she adds with glee.
I bet it is too. I also suspect it will have something to do with how anything Dante touches turns to chaos.
“Any sign of Dante’s ship yet?” I ask.
“We’re still following his engine signature,” Dart says. “It’s our usual method for locating lost ships.”
“Do you lose ships often?” Maggie asks.
“All the time,” Dart says happily. “But we find them again.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand the Sarkarnii.” Maggie shakes her head.
“You will if they let you shoot some cockroach aliens,” I respond.
“That”—she lifts the pulsar gun up to her cheek and squints her eyes—“is very true.”
And the Sarkarnii think Dante is chaos. If I survive this mission at all, it will be due to luck rather than judgement.
“Mistress,” Dart says, staring down at his console. “I think I have located the boss and the rest of the crew.”
“How?”
“Their life signatures. Ours are different to other Sarkarnii,” he says without a hint of pride. “They’re on the small, lifeless planetoid circling the second moon of the gas giant.”
“Lifeless doesn’t sound good.” Maggie looks over my shoulder.
“It’s good,” Dart says. “It means we can find the boss.”
“Are they…alive?” I ask, my heart in my mouth. “Can you tell?”
“Yes, the boss is very much alive,” Dart says. “And if I’m reading this right, he’s about to start an assault on the Gonoz.”
“In which case,” Maggie says, “I think we should go help him.” She strokes the ray gun like it’s a kitten.
My heart flip flops in my chest at the thought of being reunited with Dante. All around us, the warriors are getting ready, although I notice most of them have shed the armor they had on originally.
Is that a sensible option? Probably not, but again, if we’re going into battle, I know which Sarkarnii I want on my side. Dante’s crew love him with an intensity I’ve not seen in other clans.
That makes me part of his crew.
That makes me part of him.
I need Dante in my life like I need to breathe, and I also need to hit him over the head for leaving me when he said he wouldn’t.
The ship lurches to one side, causing Maggie and me to tumble into each other.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re being fired on,” Dart calls out. “I suggest we get to the pods and use them to reach the planetoid’s surface. They won’t be able to pick us all off.”
“I don’t like the sound of being picked off.”
“I don’t like the sound of pods, but I’m not going to stay here, and you said you wanted some excitement, so…”
I shove Maggie ahead of me as the remaining warriors activate what look like tubes but I know to be escape pods, given my experience.
Having secured her into one, I go to mine. Dart steps into his and all which remains is his grin, rather like a Cheshire cat as the pod drops into space.
Leaving only me. The rocking motion of the vessel has ceased. Instead there is a steady ticking noise and a slow hiss of atmosphere escaping. I need to get in the pod. I need to get to Dante. But I am hesitating.
The last time I was in such a pod, I thought I was going to die. It hurtled me towards Vorostor, the outside flaming and the sounds of my screams deafening in my ears.
I didn’t die…but I swore never again. And now it is the only choice I have.
A crackling noise fills my ears before it resolves into a low, unpleasant hum.
“The human is here,” it says. “Welcome, Rosalie.”
It is the professor. He is waiting for me, down on the planetoid.
I’ve been running from everything my whole life. It’s about time I stopped running. It’s time for me to meet with chaos and for chaos to triumph.
“I’ll be seeing you,” I say out loud as I step into the pod, and it falls away from the ship, heading to the surface below.