Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

One Bern got a shot off before Cat could slice them both in half. The blast went through her chest, right by her shoulder. Cat staggered inside the lift, reeling from the physical impact of the blow, her nostrils tingling with the smell of burnt self.

The doors closed, snapping shut across a new stream of Bern blood. Cat looked for buttons to press, her pursuit having become mad and completely blind. The dizziness from her blood loss worsened with the new wound, filling her with despair but very little pain. She blinked away the cloudy thoughts and realized there were no buttons in the elevator to press, just a badge scanner and four massive knobs beneath it, each of which was ringed with more Bern symbols.

Left or right, Cat thought to herself, peering at the knobs. Either way, she wanted to go to the max. She wanted to be wherever the important shit was. The Callite in her wanted to turn them all the way to the left, knowing that would take her to the top, but these weren’t Callites. They shared more genetic code with Humans, who loved all things right and clockwise. She turned the knobs that way, all four of them, then waved each of her plucked ID cards in front of the scanner, not sure which was the highest-ranked.

To the max, Cat thought, smiling as the lift rumbled into motion.

••••

Cole felt powerless as the wounded Bern craft plummeted toward the surface of Lok. Group two’s suicidal dash for the rift, spurred by a fear for Mortimor’s life, had drawn copious amounts of fire from the Bern fleet still in hyperspace. He knew Arthur was in the cockpit doing his best to manage the crippled ship, but as they passed through the rift and screamed down through Lok’s atmosphere, the pilot in Cole wanted to be up there in the cockpit doing something with the controls, even if that something proved futile.

Around him, the ship’s cargo bay had become a physical manifestation of his internal chaos. A wide mix of aliens screamed and shouted as the ship bucked and shivered. Fear had each of them resorting back to their old, primal tongues. Gear was scattered everywhere and still rumbling about. What remained of a once-noble resistance force was now jumbled, confused, and frightened as it fell out of the rift toward the sucking gravity of the planet below.

Cole stayed wedged between one of the storage lockers and a bulkhead as he held Mortimor, whose body had grown perfectly still. Gone was the fierce and calm bravery he’d seen the man possess during the past days. That vitality had been replaced by the sagging slowness of a man with half his life drained away.

Penny helped Cole hold him in place, the three of them braced together for impact. They were no longer able to do any first aid as the Bern craft rocked from side to side, the screaming of disturbed air audible through the hull. Every now and then, the sight of Penny’s severed arm caught Cole’s attention—the trailing wires and dripping fluids adding to the surreal nature of his environment.

A loud wail emanated from the cockpit, the shrill call of a collision warning perhaps. The yelling and shouting from the passengers grew in noise and pitch, matching the changing Bern alarm. As it grew in frequency and duration, Cole marveled at the psychological similarities Humans and the Bern must share. The clatter of the warning siren eerily mimicked the sound a Human engineer would choose to signal impending doom—

••••

Doctor Ryke made his way to Parsona’s cargo bay as soon as the ship leveled off and the Gs relented to a level the grav panels could compensate for. They were still moving at quite a clip, heading back around Lok to the small ruin of a village where the whole mess had begun. The mess he had created.

“If only I’d gotten married,” he said aloud as he helped Scottie to his feet. His two old friends had remained seated on the deck by the rear bulkhead, pinned by Parsona’s acceleration.

“If only you’d done what?” Scottie asked.

“Nothing.”

“I thought she knew how to fly herself,” Ryn said. “You sure it’s safe to stand?” The large Callite accepted the help up, but with the wary stance of a man distrusting gravity.

“It should be fine.”

“What in the hell just happened?” Scottie asked.

“Mortimor’s ship just came through the rift from hyperspace and went down. It looks like our missile plan is off.”

“But the crews we sent out to get that fleet—” Scottie said.

“Toast,” said Ryke, nodding. He pulled on his beard. “Now help me with that console we were gonna use for the missiles. We’ve got other things that need doing with it.”

“We’re gonna leave them to die?” Ryn asked.

“Afraid so, but now it’s up to us to slam shut my damned door forever. Let’s just hope the end of the many massacres to come will get its start right here.”

44 · Revelations

“You can go crazy reading into prophecies, you know.”

Molly stopped struggling with her restraints and looked up. Byrne had turned in his seat to peer back at her, a wide smile on his face. Beyond him, she could see through the cockpit that the pilot had brought them into formation with a cluster of warships. The surface of Lok hung below, impossibly far away.

“Is this the time of fulfillment?” Byrne asked. He frowned at Molly. “Or did we narrowly miss that just a few weeks ago? Are you the one? Is Cole? Does it matter?”

Molly felt herself flush at the mention of Cole’s name. She bit her lip and looked down at her lap to see the Wadi’s tongue spiraling out of her pocket. She adjusted her elbow to keep the animal covered and felt a wall of resistance building, a shield of silence to keep from giving Byrne whatever satisfaction he was looking for.

“Don’t want to talk, huh?” Byrne wiggled around in his seat even further to gaze at her. In Molly’s peripheral, the armless maneuver made him look like an angry snake poising for a strike.

“How about you, my silvery friend? You’ve gone awfully quiet all of a sudden.”

Walter sniffed. “I don’t trusst you,” he hissed softly.

“And why not?” Byrne asked. “Because I don’t reek of lies? There’s two reasons for that, my pirate friend. My builders left out such glands when they made me, and I never once lied to you.”

The cracks in Molly’s new wall spread out in a spiderweb of curiosity.

“Then where’ss my gold?” Walter asked.

“Many jumps from here, I’m afraid. But we’ll take you to it once this galaxy is secured. A few months, at the most.” Byrne looked past their jump seats to the cargo bay beyond. The other guards could be heard working on the ship, securing items and putting away cargo. They had been at it since the small craft pulled away from the massive orb-shaped ship above. “As soon as your… rooms are ready, I’ll let you make yourself comfortable while the invasion progresses.” Byrne nodded to Molly. “You, however, might want to stay up here and see it for yourself.”

Molly turned away and looked back toward the cargo bay. She thought about what she could do if not for the restraints. Perhaps dash back, jam the door behind her, take her chances with the guards in the bay. Maybe she could find an escape pod and risk that they wouldn’t blast her out of the sky. She wondered if the pilot or any of the other guards were like Byrne, or if they were flesh and blood like her. She twisted her wrists against her restraints while she ran through the slim options, hating them all.

“There’s nothing you’d like to discuss? Strange, because your boyfriend was so chatty in hyperspace.” Byrne nodded to the pilot, who leaned forward and adjusted something on the dash. “Perhaps you’d like to listen to some radio?”

The pilot dialed up the volume, filling the cockpit with a crackling static, and then a voice: “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Group two is going down. We have Mortimor, but we are going down —”

Byrne dipped his head and the pilot flicked the volume off.

“It was a horrible crash,” Byrne said.

The fractures in her wall widened.