My eyes grow wet as the evil of what I’ve just done sinks its hooks into my soul. It will never let go. I will never forgive myself for this.
Flashing lights blink in the cockpit. Our comms-link suddenly cuts out. I hadn’t been planning on messaging anyone, anyway - but it’s a strange and sinister coincidence.
Then, my heads-up display grows fuzzy – before fading to black.
“Dammit! We picked up a faulty Reaver!” There’s always an undercurrent of fear in Theme’s voice. Some people are predators, some are prey – and it’s clear from his nature which of those Theme is.
“It’s not the Reaver,” Sawoot’s voice is dark and clear.
I see her meaning instantly.
At the very edge of my vision, I see a ship. There’s no tractor beam on me, but I’m piloting towards them like their vessel is pulling me toward it. My hands grip the controls hard.
It’s a Toad mothership.
The huge, green behemoth is an affront against all that is good. The Toad species is technically neutral – not at war with either the Human Alliance or Aurelian Empire – but wherever there is crime, corruption or evil, you’ll find the tendrils of a Toad faction involved.
When a Toad mothership appears on your radar, you flee. Those massive ships can raze an entire city from orbit. Hell, it is a flying city, filled with a crew of thousands with a single motivation – profit.
Profit at all costs – that’s all the Toad species have been interested in since they dragged themselves from the swamps and hammered space rockets together out of aluminum and circuit boards.
I narrow my eyes, unable to zoom in with the HUD down.
The hulking, green ship is terrifying enough – but hundreds of little dots are flittering around the mothership like flies around a gigantic turd.
Assault ships, defending their base.
Gods!
The Toads didn’t come back with a battalion, as I’d warned Aelon. They came back with an army.
“Holy shit. Tasha! What are you doing?” Sawoot’s voice is frantic. “Quick, turn! Left, right, anywhere! They’re going for the Aurelians. They’ll ignore us if they don’t pick us up on sensors!”
If.
That breaks me out of my trance.
The moment the Toad ships notice us, we’ll be dead. We’re in a Reaver and they didn’t block out communications for nothing.
It means the Aurelians are alive.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Centuries ago, and millennia before that, the Toads and Aurelians were at war. In ancient times, they created obscene weapons of mass destruction called Planet Killers, which could obliterate whole worlds. In later generations, the weapons of war became for tactical. Old hulking warships like The Instigator served on the front lines for the Aurelian Empire, while the Toads invented devious tools including some Orb-powered technology that could actually block the Bond, just like they have ways of blocking comms-signals and disabling an HUD.
Think about it – how useful would a weapon be that could prevent the triads of Aurelians from telepathing each other, or sensing each other’s locations or emotions?
Regardless, that’s an explanation that fills me with both gratitude, and despair.
We’re flying towards our deaths – and yet, I’ve never been so grateful.
So, my triad are alive – but for how long? The Instigator will soon be engulfed by a green wave of Toad assault ships – even more than Aelon’s scheme could possibly defend against.
If I don’t warn them, they’ll all die – every Aurelian aboard The Instigator, all those warriors and Reavers on the surface of the moon, not to mention all the human miners on the surface of planet Tarrion.
The miners who hired Captain Aelon to defend them – but have now signed their death warrants with that allegiance. Those miners, sitting on rich ore deposits, could bear witness to the slaughter in an interstellar court – creating a diplomatic incident between the Toad factions and the Aurelian Empire…
…but only if they remain alive.
That’s why the Toads will slaughter them.
But regardless, this means the Aurelians are alive. That thought alone is hope.
Now, it’s my choice whether they stay that way.
If I let the three Aurelians die, all my problems will be over. A cold-hearted woman might take all the benefits of the Bond and leave her mates to die; but she’d be no less cold-blooded than a Toad if she did that.
A tough survivor might escape, leaving the crew and captain of The Instigator to their fate; satisfied with the thousands of years of life and the enhanced physicality the Bond has granted her. She’d let the three men face death, along with all the soldiers and miners unlucky enough to be aligned with them.
In the past, I’ve always thought of myself as that cold-hearted, tough survivor – but a moment earlier, I’d felt the guilt of being responsible for the death of Aelon, Vinicus and Iunia – not to mention the rest of the Aurelians on board The Instigator – and I could barely live with myself.
I know I can’t live with the decision now that I have the chance to choose differently.
But if I go back, nothing will change.
Grief grabs me anew.
Captain Aelon will never change. He’d captain The Instigator into battle against even a Toad Mothership, flanked by thousands of assault ships. The bloodlust is all he knows – and he’ll get what he’s wanted for all these decades: An honorable death, cremated by las-fire and buried in space.
“Captain?”
My dead silence is making Sawoot nervous. She can’t figure why I’m piloting closer and closer to the Toad fleet. My sensors and my ability to sense the Bond might have been cut off, but the sensors and readings of those Toad ships sure as hell haven’t been.
“I just need to get a little closer, so I can see their numbers.”
Theme coughs nervously. “I’d… I’d recommend against that, Captain. Strongly against that. They haven’t noticed us – yet. But, when they do, they’ll see a Reaver. An Aurelian Reaver.”
Sawoot nods. “A Reaver they’ll assume will warn Captain Aelon of their approach.”
My two crewmembers
