An End

Lightest touch, but the cheek collapsed, cheek and skull, neck and chest. Lightest touch and she was gone, not gone, but gone: pile of silver dust that danced in the empty air of a dead room. He inhaled deeply

take me with you a part of me forever with you take me and coughed, violently. Metal scoured his mouth, throat.

is this all there is?

He reached into the pile of silver, withdrew the locket from where her neck had been: sliver of wood, taken from the last of those magnificent flora after the planet had been harvested. He held the locket to his face. Her scent was there, faint, masked in that blood echo.

Rumble of

the time when we first laid by the fire and i explored every inch of your face with my lips because we were both too terrified to kiss

slitherjets above. Task and Elle.

Berlin turned from what had been his wife and walked away.

*snap* and she was out of the reverie, hardlink cable falling from limp hand and sparking the metallish floor as she slumped forward into Assistant’s arms. She was exhausted, but adapting. She fought off the sleep that her mind was struggling to impose.

“Now. Call them together. God’s ready for sentencing.”

The broken man at the table fumbled for the hardlink. Assistant removed the cable and wiped a stream of drool from the creature’s face.

“Can you take much more of the connection?”

“I’m fine.”

Doctor touched the side of Judith’s face, looked into her eyes, but she deflected his hand (claw). “I’m fine. Have him transported to the council chamber.

“Yes, Medium.”

Roar of dust and wind and something else. His glass shield deactivated, the silver began to tear away at Berlin’s flesh as soon as he walked out of the building.

stupid mistake.

He palmed the bubble control and a fresh wave of gelatin splashed out from his chestplate, semi-solidified around him. Circles and waves, waves and an ocean of more than glass. Glass from trees, metal from air, machines from

The nears followed him as he jogged toward Task’s vessel. They didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t know what was going on, but their movement was hesitant, sporadic. Berlin realized that it was because most of them were being scraped apart by the wind. Not many of the nears had much “flesh” left. He stopped.

“Halt.”

The remaining soldiers stood at attention. Berlin unlatched the force weapon from his holster, shot each of them in the cranial control node in turn. There was no resistance; there were no minds. Non-humans fell non-dead. He couldn’t have taken them with him. He wouldn’t have taken them with him.

Task hovered above the park of skeletal lumbers and nearish dropship. Limbs shattered underneath the slitherjets, danced toward Berlin as he approached. The glass protected him

from what

from the brunt of the impacts. Several smaller twigs penetrated the gelatin and sloshed in slow-motion within the shield. Berlin absent-mindedly batted the debris away, palms touching lumber for the first time since

and this heart, for you

the nights spent under a sky of wooden song, illicit romance in the guise of ambassadorial conferences. They’d harvested the planet, and she’d been broken. A decade and a family and a comfortable position in the system had never made up for that rape of the forest world. She had been broken, and Maire had been the instrument of her vengeance.

Walkway descended from the belly of Task’s vessel. Berlin tripped on his shield, palmed its deactivation at the exact wrong moment: an airborne branch flew past his face, projecting limb carving a deep gash along his left jawline. It became a world of silver and copper as vital black blood erupted from the wound.

He staggered forward as the vessel lifted, looping his right arm through the guardrail as the walkway ascended. Elle met him halfway and helped him aboard. He despised its touch.

They flew.

The chamber door closed with mechanical precision behind her. The headache was bad, but the face of Hannon was worse: Judith remembered the roaming hands and mediocre cock of the young council member. She also remembered punching him in the throat, and the way he’d bitched like a little girl.

“Judith.” His face was grin and acid. “Always nice to see you.”

She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples before taking her seat as far away from Hannon as she could possibly sit. Headache was developing into something worse. Apparently the aether was wearing her down.

“Is everything—”

The tender inquisition of a council member. Judith recognized the voice but opened her eyes to confirm. “I’m fine, Jade. Thank you.”

“Rough interface?”

“Yeah. Must be.” Burning, tugging. Something. Jade smiled sadly. Of all the council members, Judith liked the matronly old woman the most, but that really wasn’t saying much. The other members looked on in varying shades of disdain and nonchalance.

The chamber was circular, fell away in the center to the tube from which the prisoner would emerge and stand before them in due time. Judith peered over the edge just long enough to realize that she’d now added vertigo to headache.

The empty chair next to hers was reserved for God.

“Is he on his way?” Council member Corr, an old man with one real arm left, but they’d held the line.

“The nears are bringing him down. There must have been a fuckup with—”

“Yes, we heard the host body was inappropriate.”

“You could say that.”

that that that

Echo upon echoes as her voice fell down the central tube. Somewhere down there, the young woman who had killed a planet was waiting.

it shouldn’t hurt this much.

[but it will.]

Judith gasped, eyes opening, startled. No one was looking at her. No one was near her.

“Did someone—?”

The chamber hatchway hissed open again. Doctor and Assistant helped God to his chair. The host body looked as if it had been crying.

“What happened?” Hannon stood from his place across the chamber.

Doctor’s eyes darted. “He didn’t seem to want to come. Host body resisted.”

“Will it work?”

“It’s been working.” Judith plugged the hardlink into the host’s chest, pulled her own shirt open in preparation. “We’ve had several successful links so far.”

“It doesn’t look like the thing’s going to last.”

“He’ll last.” Judith wiped the host’s face, patted his cheek. “God’s in there. The host will last.”

“Then let’s begin.”

Judith plugged in.

Coughing so hard that she bent in half, coughing but there was no air. Mouth choked on blood, red blood (red blood?) and there were hands, arms, a chest and he was holding her as the ground shifted and

“What the—!”

They tumbled back to the desert hardpan as the mountains ripped from the planet surface and flew into the sun.