Chapter 20
Ysathea
I was almost at a full-out sprint through the Varakartoom to reach the area where Mitnick had located the nasty entity in our systems. Thatcher was hot on my heels, carrying my tools with him, as well as far too many weapons still strapped to his body from the previous mission.
He did not appear hurt, and that’s about all I’d been able to reassure myself of before we’d gotten separated.
It was hard to describe how relieved I was that he showed up by the engine room when he did.
That blackout—I’d held a vague hope it was something else, but I knew, almost right away, that the entity was back.
It shouldn’t have been possible, given all that Thatcher had thrown at it, but somehow, it had survived.
Again. I tried very much not to let that get me down, but it was hard.
How were we ever going to defeat it? How much of my home and my family was it going to destroy before it was through with us?
What in the blazing stars did it even want?
“Mitnick, please confirm: is it still where you found it? Both signatures?” The communications specialist agreed right away, confirming that, for some reason, both the entity from the waterworld and the Shadow Unit soldier were located on the aft deck by the brig.
I could see why the entity would be there, as a bundle of important cables ran past that deck not far from it.
It wasn’t a bad spot to set up camp and slowly prepare to seize control of the entire ship.
As for the human… there was a very well-stocked armory right by the brig that might have been his target.
“Hold steady, Ysa,” Captain Asmoded answered, and he leveled a glare at me that would wither even when miniaturized on my comm’s display.
“You’re not going in alone.” I responded by aiming my camera toward Thatcher just behind me.
“Good. I’ve informed the Vagabond; they’re coming back around to us. Give me back control of my ship.”
I nodded, but in my gut, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to.
What options did we have left? Would we have to blow up a portion of the ship to destroy it?
The brig was empty, and nobody appeared to be there, but the deck above had bunk rooms and a recreation area, while the gym was below.
With everyone back from the planet, such a tactic could be very dangerous.
The lights flickered, almost luring us to step inside.
Then I saw it, and my breathing faltered.
“Oh stars. Are you seeing that, Thatch?” A black knot sat on the wall at the back of the lockups.
It pulsed like it had a heartbeat, and veins spread over the walls and tunneled beneath the panels.
He swore, which I took to mean yes. This wasn’t nearly as big as the thing we’d encountered in that maintenance shaft before, but it was definitely terrifying.
How had it regrown to this size in such a short time?
“Take a breath, Ysa,” he said, catching me by surprise.
I twisted to look at him over my shoulder and discovered he had his dark eyes locked on my face, not the threat on the brig wall.
There was such unshakable confidence in his eyes that it made my belly twist. “You know more about the Varkartoom than anyone. You can figure this out.” Then he added the kicker that almost made me cry: “I believe in you.”
How did he know to say exactly the right thing?
This male rarely talked at all, but he had a shocking way with words.
This was either the worst or the best moment to pull out that card, because for long seconds I struggled to do exactly as he’d advised: breathe.
Overwhelmed with emotion—fear, doubt, and an overpowering feeling of being loved, of being seen. Ah, Thatch, how did you do that?
There was noise coming from my comm, but I didn’t hear a thing.
I turned to Thatcher, held out my arms, and let him sweep me into his protective embrace.
He tucked me against his chest, and some of that doubt and stress eased, the weight on my shoulders lifting.
He was a solid shape I could curl into, and I felt safe.
His head bent to mine, his long black hair falling forward to brush against my face.
As his warmth settled like a blanket over me, I realized this was the first time we’d touched since he’d come back from the planet.
“Okay, okay,” I murmured against the black armor I’d created for him.
“I got this. I just need to think.” To figure out how to finally deal with this invader, we needed more information.
Arm ourselves with data. I was beginning to think that black stuff was indestructible, but the Sineater had managed to kill it when it had “possessed” a body.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have a spare body lying around to trap it in. That would be extremely unethical.
“There’s still the Shadow Unit soldier to deal with, too.
He’s on this deck, isn’t he?” Thatcher said against my hair, again timing his words with uncanny accuracy.
He was not a mind reader, and couldn’t possibly know what dark possibility had occurred to me.
Yet the mention of that Shadow Unit soldier gave me a hint of hope, a spark of possibility.
It also made me realize the danger was much bigger than I’d thought.
I lifted my hand scanner, checked the readings, and frowned.
“I see the entity, but Mitnick is confirming the human vanished off our sensors again… We don’t know where he is, but they think he’s still here.
” Here, as in on the ship, but they didn’t think he would have continued to hang around the brig.
Thatcher and I were on our own again to deal with the entity.
That’s what the noise on my comm had been about.
When I checked it, I discovered that both Mitnick and Asmoded had been trying to reach me.
“We’re sweeping the ship top to bottom,” Asmoded warned when I confirmed I was still here.
“You’re without backup for now. Proceed with caution.
” Mitnick added that he’d monitor our situation, but that was all he could do for now.
Moving slowly with Thatcher deeper into the brig area, the two of us cautiously eyed the three cells that lined one wall.
More often, these were used to stash drunk or misbehaving crewmembers for the night.
Sometimes we collected a bounty on someone alive, and they were housed here until we delivered them.
Right now, they were supposed to be empty.
The middle cell pulsed with darkness from the entity, and almost a third of the room was taken up by the black knot and tendrils crawling along the wall.
A force field hummed and flickered over the cell furthest away, and neither of us could see inside it.
“Stay close,” Thatcher said, and he swung his rifle back into his arms on its strap.
He’d seen that force field too, and he wanted to check it before we tackled the black tumor growing on the brig wall inside the middle cell.
My fingers twitched around the scanner I held, then flicked to the box of tools Thatcher had dropped at the entrance.
It was tempting to go back for them, grab a hefty wrench.
Did I hold onto my vows not to do any violence, even in a situation like this?
Thatcher seemed to know exactly when I shuffled back a step.
His hand reached behind him and curled around my wrist. “Stay close,” he snapped again.
He placed my hand on the small of his back, on the belt around his narrow hips.
“We’ll get your tools in a bit.” So I followed him, moving with his body as he crossed the brig and aimed the barrel of his rifle into the last cell in the row.
I drew in a shocked gasp when I peered around his shoulder and saw what had halted him in his tracks. I’d thought perhaps the force field being on was a malfunction, a byproduct of the entity clinging to the wall beside it. Perhaps it was on for much more sinister reasons than that.
Drawn back against the wall, back-to-back with where much of the entity pulsed in the other cell, a figure hung.
Feet barely touching the ground, hands raised to his throat, but otherwise completely limp.
It was a male, dressed in green-and-brown smeared clothing, several knives in sheaths all over his body.
Bulky, big, and muscled in nearly an identical manner to Thatcher.
This male was also splattered with dark red on his hands and wrists.
Perhaps it was also on his clothing, but the green-and-brown fabric masked it.
He was being strangled by dark vines wrapped around his thick neck, his hands clawing slowly, reflexively at them and drawing furrows of blood into his skin.
More of that black substance covered his face, wrapped like foil over his features so they pushed through.
A mask of agony, of a male screaming in turmoil while no sound came out.
I wasn’t sure if he was being suffocated or simply silenced as the entity tried to absorb him, or perhaps possess and control him.
Whatever was happening, the fight was almost concluded, and I was pretty sure the human was losing.
“Ah, hell,” Thatcher growled. “Can you kill the force field? We should put the bastard out of his misery.” That’s when probably the worst, most awful plan unfurled in my mind.
It was definitely going to cross the line, breaking my vows.
I saw no other way to save my family, my ship, the Varakartoom.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that I’d do anything to prevent the destruction of another home.
I couldn’t stand by idly when I could have done something, for the sake of a conviction I held as much out of nostalgia as for spiritual reasons.
“Don’t,” I whispered. “It might be our one shot to truly kill it.” I clutched at Thatcher’s belt, my fingers in such a tight fist that my azure-blue knuckles were turning a pale pastel shade.
“We have to try to drive it from the cell into the male. The Sineater killed such a creature back on Xio. Remember that?” We’d tried everything else: fire, the icy cold of space, oxygen deprivation.
I feared that not even blowing up the Varakartoom herself could shake this thing from her systems.
Thatcher shrugged and lowered his weapon before he glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Okay, what then?” he said, not saying a word about the moral implications—clearly not even all that concerned about putting an end to his fellow human’s suffering.
That made me feel worse, because I had kind of hoped someone would tell me what an awful plan it was.
Thatcher didn’t care, though; I knew he truly didn’t.
I was the one with the moral compass in this equation, and now I felt like mine was telling me to do something horrible.
I wet my lips, swallowed roughly, then told myself internally to toughen up. So what? This was a mercenary vessel; these were tough males used to killing and death and even torture if the job called for it. Of course none of them would so much as bat an eye at this solution—Thatcher least of all.
We shuffled back and paused in front of the cell in the middle of the row.
We stared at the black knot pulsing on the wall, and I knew it was my only option.
Then Thatcher said the right thing again, and it was definitely the right moment for those words.
“You have no choice, my little engineer. You are protecting your home, your family. I don’t know much about right or wrong these days, but I know that is right. ”
That’s right. Protect, at any cost. Yeah, that was kind of his motto, wasn’t it?
And what he wanted to protect most was me.
I nodded, and then I reached up to cup the side of his jaw.
Stubble pressed against my skin—abrasive—a reminder that he was rough around the edges.
Some of those edges were as sharp as knives, but some of them were there to protect a surprisingly soft core. Rising onto my toes, I kissed him.
“Thank you, Thatcher,” I whispered. A kiss with him was never just one touch, one brush of our lips.
He claimed, taking what he wanted; a plunderer.
His mouth slanted over mine, his tongue delving deep, and his hands found my curves and yanked me close.
Danger thrummed around us, but in that moment, there was only passion.
“When this is over,” he growled against my lips, “I’m going to pin you to the nearest bunk and fuck you senseless. That’s a promise.” He lifted his head after those words, leaving me a tingling, wet mess trembling in his arms. “Let’s do this.”