Chapter 16
- Nora -
The Beast answers immediately. The entire chamber jolts beneath my feet. I grab a nearby support structure as the living ship twists through space. Around the room, cords tighten and release. Officers manipulate smaller bundles of tendons while Krix'vorr works the primary controls.
I try to follow what he's doing. After a few moments I abandon the effort.
The system is too complex. From a distance the controls appear primitive, a collection of ropes, tendons, and biological mechanisms. But every movement produces an immediate response somewhere outside.
The Beast rolls, accelerates, changes direction and feints.
She fights by dancing to his lead. I watch Krix'vorr's hands moving across the living controls. He's guiding her, working through her.
The same concentration I saw during the sex appears on his face now. The same certainty, the same unwavering focus. He never seems rushed. Every motion feels deliberate. He knows exactly what he wants the Beast to do before she does it. Just like he did with me.
The comparison makes warmth spread through my body. I want that again.
The Beast lunges. The turtle-creature tries to meet the attack head-on. Krix'vorr pulls sharply on one control tendon and presses his other hand against a glowing membrane.
Outside, the Beast twists around the larger creature's flank. Something tears and the lens fills with a burst of glowing fluid.
Excited sounds ripple through the chamber.
I blink. "I didn't even see what happened."
"Neither did I," Lucius admits. "Something important appears to have ruptured. This battle is very different from Space Force simulations. But we seem to be winning."
The turtle-creature clearly agrees. Its movements become frantic. Massive limbs sweep through empty space while the Beast stays close, darting around it with astonishing agility for something so large. Another heavy shudder travels through the deck beneath us.
Then another. The Beast is attacking again.
I watch Krix'vorr instead of the battle for a moment. Every locust in this chamber revolves around him. Every movement of the Beast answers his touch. The enormous living predator obeys him with the same certainty that his crew does.
He's completely in control, so confident that my mind can't deal with it.
A pulse of heat runs through me. Before I notice what I'm doing, I've pressed my thighs together. New tingles shoot through my crotch and I can’t help moving my legs a little to enhance them. This is the most primal experience I’ve had, and I’m sure the room is full of all kinds of alien pheromones.
The turtle-creature suddenly convulses. Several of its huge appendages go limp. The Beast surges forward one final time. A violent impact flashes across the lens. The image shakes hard enough that several crew members grab nearby supports.
Then everything stops. For several seconds I wait for the next exchange.
Nothing comes. The turtle-creature drifts through space.
One side of its shell has partially collapsed inward. Glowing fluids leak from multiple wounds. Its limbs move only sporadically now.
I stare at the image. "That's it?"
The officers are already relaxing. Several begin exchanging reports while others release control lines and return to secondary duties.
"That's it," Lucius says. He rotates once as he studies the image. "I suspect we missed most of the important parts."
I look from the crippled creature to Krix'vorr. "I don't understand. They barely touched each other."
"They touched each other many times," Lucius replies. "The Beast has horns the size of church towers. And there were other blows exchanged. You simply couldn't follow all of it. I recorded everything and still have no idea what happened."
“She has horns?” I ask, incredulous.
“Three of them, Captain. Ah, you haven't seen her properly from the outside. But I have. They're curved and very pointy.”
“I think that explains some of this,” I say weakly, astonished by the primal nature of this space battle.
Krix'vorr releases several primary tendons and rises from the command position. The Beast responds immediately, settling into a calmer rhythm beneath our feet.
"The enemy is crippled," he says. "Its vital organs have been ruptured."
I still don't really understand what happened. Judging by the way Lucius keeps rotating and reviewing his recordings, neither does he. What I do understand is simpler.
Krix'vorr entered this chamber, took control of a living monster the size of a mountain, and ended a battle that had apparently been going on for hours or days.
Watching him do it was almost as overwhelming as watching the creatures themselves fight.
My mouth is dry and I swear I can smell my own arousal in the alien air.
Without waiting for reports, Krix'vorr begins issuing orders. Crewers bow their heads and hurry away. Membranes open throughout the chamber as crew members disappear into adjoining passages. Everything happens with practiced efficiency.
"Come," he says, glancing back at me. "I want you to see this and tell me what you think.
" Something in his deep, bassy voice makes warmth spread through me again.
The battle is over, but the energy still hums through my body.
Watching him command the Beast was almost as overwhelming as the battle itself.
Lucius rises beside me as I follow Krix'vorr into the corridor. "Your heart rate remains elevated."
I glance at the drone. "I was just in a battle."
"Hmm. I sense other biomarkers as well, but I won’t mention them.”
“Don’t.” The truth is more complicated than either explanation. Part of me is still processing the violence. Another part keeps remembering Krix'vorr seated in the center of that chamber, guiding a living warship through combat with absolute confidence.
The corridors become busier as we move deeper into the Beast. Crews hurry past carrying equipment and biological tools whose purpose I can't guess.
Nobody gets in Krix'vorr's way. They simply clear a path ahead of him.
The effect is impossible to miss. Every creature aboard this ship knows exactly who commands it.
Eventually we reach a chamber that resembles an airlock, if an airlock had been grown rather than built. The membrane ahead of us opens and reveals a fleshy tunnel connecting the two immense creatures. Beyond it, the defeated vessel drifts in space.
The damage is obvious even from here. Torn tissue hangs open in several places. Fluids leak slowly into the darkness. Parts of the creature barely move at all. Several warriors join us before we proceed. Krix'vorr takes the lead.
He walks forward carrying nothing except his ceremonial sword and the certainty that everyone around him will obey.
Inside the enemy vessel, the atmosphere feels wrong.
The corridors pulse weakly. Some membranes no longer respond.
Others remain frozen open. The entire creature seems to be dying around us.
Locust bodies appear in chamber after chamber.
All wear different markings than Krix'vorr's crew.
Others still clutch organic weapons. Several lie in pairs, as though they chose their own deaths rather than wait for someone else to decide their fate.
"They killed themselves?" I ask.
Krix'vorr studies one of the dead before answering. "Their ship is dead. A captured Harrower has no future. All who can choose their own ending."
His tone remains matter-of-fact. To him this appears to be an ordinary consequence of defeat.
The search eventually leads us to a survivor. The locust is badly injured. One arm is gone and cracks run across large sections of his carapace. He looks up at Krix'vorr and immediately understands who has found him.
The questioning is brief, but the answers are not. Between ragged breaths, the survivor confirms that another wreck was discovered in this region. His brood never reached it first. Slavers found it before either side arrived.
"And survivors?" Krix'vorr asks. The wounded locust manages a bitter laugh.
"If there were any," he says, "the Gzet took them. May the curse of my mighty Queen Crak-difz be always on you, enemy Krix’vorr!"
The words linger in the chamber and I feel my pulse quicken again.
Krix'vorr turns his head toward me. “We shall examine the wreckage. I’m sure you’ve served your Queen well.”
For a split second I think he’s talking to me. Then he draws his sword and in one fast movement whirls around and plunges it into the wounded locust’s chest.
The victim convulses once, then goes limp in death.
“Our Chief is merciful,” one of our own locusts mutters as Krix’vorr pulls his blade out of the enemy’s body and wipes the blood on his skin.
Replacing his weapon in his belt, he walks past me. “Come along, Nora.”
I follow him through the enemy ship, my mind struggling to keep up with what I've just seen.
The violence should terrify me. Some of it does.
But walking behind Krix'vorr, surrounded by his crew, I feel something I can't quite explain.
Not safety, exactly, but the strange certainty that whatever happens next, it will happen to someone else first.
The wreckage occupies an entire storage chamber.
At first I only see twisted metal and shattered components piled between organic support structures. Then my eyes begin picking out familiar details. The angles. The plating. The shape of the hull beneath all the damage. The symbols.
My breath catches.
That’s a Space Force scout ship, or what remains of one.
For several heartbeats I remain frozen where I stand. The wreckage is scorched black in places. Entire sections have been torn away. Some parts appear melted. Others have been crushed as though something enormous grabbed the vessel and squeezed.
"Nora?" Lucius asks.
I barely hear him. My feet carry me forward before I've consciously decided to move. Krix'vorr says something behind me, but the words blur together. The ruined scout vessel has consumed my entire attention.
I climb onto a broken section of hull and steady myself against a twisted support beam. My hands shake as I brush soot and residue from the damaged surface. Beneath the burn marks, faint identification markings emerge.
My pulse pounds harder. Can it be?
I wipe away more debris. Because I know this ship. This scout ship.
A flood of memories follows immediately. Long hours in training. Mission briefings. Arguments over strategy. A rare, shared drink. Shared personal details that made us bond, despite the rivalry among the pilots. Watching launch schedules update in orbit around Earth.
And then, watching her scout vessel depart before mine ever received clearance.
"Sophia," I whisper. The name leaves my mouth before I realize I'm speaking.
Lucius rises closer. "Captain?"
I point toward the damaged markings. "Captain Sophia Crendle. This was her ship."
The drone becomes very still. For several moments neither of us says anything. I keep running my fingers across the damaged hull, as though touching it might somehow confirm what I'm seeing.
Sophia left Earth a month before me. Just a month.
At the time I was jealous. She got the assignment first. She got the ship first. Now I'm standing over the remains of her vessel.
Krix'vorr approaches slowly. I can feel his attention on me long before he speaks. "You know this contraption?"
I nod and force myself to look away from the wreckage.
"I know the pilot." The words sound strange in my own ears. Because surely I should use the past tense. Surely nobody can survive this kind of wreck. She must have hit the mine field too, but in a different place. The engine is blown apart, the cabin looks shattered and there’s definitely been a fire.
“But if someone looked at my wreckage,” I mutter, “would they think I made it?
I climb down from the wreckage and begin examining the surrounding debris more carefully. Emergency compartments have been emptied. Several storage lockers have been ripped out completely.
"They searched everything," I murmur.
Lucius drifts past me, recording continuously. "The Gzet, which I assume to be a species of alien?"
“Or these guys,” I say, nodding to the dying ship we’re in. “If Sophia survived the crash, she didn't stay with the wreck.”
Lucius circles the wreckage. “I was going to comment on that. Someone took her, dead or alive.”
Krix'vorr watches me think through the possibilities. His posture remains relaxed, though I've spent enough time around him to recognize that he's paying close attention. "You believe she still lives?"
I straighten slowly and look back at the wreckage. The answer isn't logical and there isn't enough evidence. There isn't even a good reason. Except that I know Sophia.
I remember the stubbornness that drove instructors insane. I remember the way she'd refuse to quit long after everyone else accepted reality. I remember how fiercely she wanted to escape Earth.
A woman like that doesn't die easily.
"I think she survived," I say.
Lucius rotates once. "Statistically that conclusion may be optimistic."
"It almost certainly is."
The drone pauses. "Then why do you believe it?"
I glance toward the damaged vessel. Because I need her to be alive. Because she represents the first real connection to home I've found since leaving Earth.
I don't say any of that aloud. Instead I look toward Krix'vorr. "The Gzet took someone. Dead or alive. We know that much."
For several seconds he studies me, the wreckage, and the scattered evidence around the chamber. I can almost see the calculations unfolding behind those green eyes. A second human. A second scout vessel. More clues about my civilization. Another objective.
Eventually one corner of his mouth lifts. "A hunt, then."
The words send a surprising warmth through me. Perhaps it's because he says them with complete certainty. Perhaps it's because, in all the time I've known him, Krix'vorr has never sounded uncertain about anything.
Or perhaps it's because for the first time since waking aboard the Beast, I don't feel alone anymore. Somewhere in the galaxy, Sophia may still be alive.
And now we have a trail to follow.