Chapter 17 #4
"What we do know," D'Rett adds, "is that Diamalla's files classify several of these species as significant military threats.
Some of them make the Cerastean fleet look small.
" He lets that settle for a moment. "Queen Ameela has been transparent with us about all of it.
She wants this dismantled as much as we do.
We are working towards dismantling it quietly, before any of these civilizations realize what was occurring. "
"And we can trust this new queen? Ameela?" Cody asks.
I think of Sator. Of the gold flooding his luxen when he learned his daughter was winning. Of a male who risked everything, day after day, to show kindness to me.
Ameela is her father's daughter. That, at least, I can believe.
D'Rett turns to the facility, his expression hard. "Let's get the full story from these males."
We move back to where the Ostium workers are being tended by the medical team.
They have been given thermal blankets and more water, and one of the medics is healing an infected wound on the taller male's shoulder.
Their luxen pulse with faint, exhausted waves of green and pink – fear and gratitude tangled together.
I kneel beside them and speak in Ostium, keeping my voice gentle. It costs me more than I expected to use this language with kindness. But these males are not my captors. They are victims of the same queen who imprisoned me.
"Are there other facilities like this one?" I ask. "Elsewhere on the planet?"
The taller male, Drev, shakes his head. He isn't sure, but he hasn't seen any other facilities or workers. His companion, who has not spoken yet, stares at the ground and weeps silently.
I translate for Cody and the others as the rest of the story unfolds.
They were part of a workforce that had been conscripted from the poorest Ostium communities and shipped to Ceraste under heavy pheromone control.
The Regina pheromone overrode everything: will, judgment, even basic self-preservation instincts.
They mined velith around the clock, extracting the ore and processing it for transport back to Ostium space.
Drev's voice goes flat as he describes what happened next. They worked them to death. By the time Diamalla fell, and the pheromone supply stopped, fewer than half of them were still alive.
Without the pheromone, the surviving males woke as if from a dream to find themselves stranded on an alien planet with no transport, no supplies, and no way to contact home.
"Fourteen of us were left," Drev says, his silver eyes distant. "We rationed what was left in the facility, but it was not enough." His hands tremble around the canteen, which he clutches like a lifeline.
His voice breaks. "The heat took some. Infection took others. When we were down to ten, eight of them left to look for supplies or help." He pauses for a moment. "None of them came back."
Drev reaches over and grips his companion's arm. "Joln and I are all that's left."
I relay this to D'Rett.
D'Rett and L'Zaen step aside, heads bent together in urgent, low conversation. It lasts less than a minute before D'Rett turns back and starts issuing orders.
"I want drones in the air immediately. Full sensors sweep, expanding grid pattern, south and southwest along the ridgeline.
We're looking for heat signatures, movement, any sign of encampments – and any other facilities like this one.
Two transports will head south and sweep as far as they can before dark. "
"They'll hide," I say. Everyone turns to me.
"If they see Cerastean ships approaching, they will hide.
They have no reason to believe you are anything but a threat.
" I pause. "Let me record a message in Ostium.
Broadcast it from the ships. Tell them the war is over, that Diamalla is dead, and that we are offering rescue. "
D'Rett holds my gaze for a long moment, then nods. "Do it."
It takes me two tries to finish the message.
Once I'm done, D'Rett assigns one shuttle to stay behind and prepare for evacuation. Drev and Joln need time in a healing pod, and our team needs to get back to base. The remaining two transports lift off with the drones, heading south, my message already broadcasting from their hulls.
I watch them go and feel a strange, dissonant weight settle in my chest.
Cody stands beside me, close enough that his arm brushes mine. His face is a mask of controlled emotion, but the scent rolling off him tells a different story. It's fury and grief and a complicated, painful empathy that makes my chest ache.
"You okay?" I ask him. The reversal of our usual dynamic feels significant.
He looks at me, and the mask cracks slightly. "Those guys," he says, nodding toward the Ostium males. "They remind me of—" He stops. Swallows. "When I found you. In that cell. You looked—"
"I know." I take his hand, threading my fingers through his in full view of everyone. I do not care who sees. "I had the same thought."
He squeezes my hand so tightly it almost hurts.
"We're going to find the rest of them," he says.
I leave the 'if they're still alive' unsaid. It’s not a helpful thought, so I keep it to myself.
I lean into his shoulder, briefly, and I look out across the desert as I try to absorb the weight of what we have uncovered.
Diamalla did not just kill my people. She used my world.
She would have hollowed it out like a carcass, taken what she wanted, and left the bones to bleach in the sun if she hadn't been stopped.
And somewhere out there, scattered among the stars, there are civilizations that do not yet know how close they came to the same fate.
The suns are beginning their descent. The fading light catches the dark walls of the Ostium facility, softening its harsh edges, and for a moment, they almost look like they belong here.
But they don't. They never will.
I tighten my grip on Cody's hand and watch the search parties disappear into the golden haze.