The Last Stand Read online

  The doors rumbled open and shut behind them, leaving the prisoners alone with the cries of the wounded and the aching silence of the dead.

  Tyra blinked, her eyes scanning the chaos for Brak. She found him lying on the deck just a few feet away from her, his hands clutching the hole in his stomach, and his eyes wincing with pain.

  She went over to him and dropped to her haunches by his side. “Brak...” she said slowly, shaking her head. “Thank you.”

  He nodded once. “It is nothing.”

  Tyra grimaced and looked back to the exit of the hangar. She couldn’t see it through the forest of people in the way, but she could hear some of them banging on the doors, demanding to be let out, to have medics treat their injuries, food sent down...

  Tyra’s eyes drifted out of focus, her own hunger, and even Theola’s muffled cries faded into the background, somehow insignificant in the face of Abaddon’s threats. He was going to use Lucien’s love for his family to force him to back down—but would it even work? Who had he found to join their mission to destroy the Forge, and would they even listen if Lucien asked them to retreat?

  Furthermore, how was Abaddon going to contact Lucien to make his threat? Even if the Forge were close enough to allow communication, the interdiction field around the Red Line would prevent comms signals from getting out or back in. Abaddon would have to send a ship through the wormhole to get his message to Lucien, and another one to get Lucien’s reply. With all of those barriers to communication, it could take a long time before their fates were decided.

  Tyra grimaced. Suddenly their hunger and discomfort no longer seemed so insignificant. It could be days or even weeks before a comms message reached Lucien and his reply returned, and if food and water didn’t arrive, it wouldn’t matter what he decided: they’d all be dead, anyway.

  Chapter 30

  Aboard the Separatist Fleet

  Lucien met back up with the others on their way out of the mess hall. The crab-like guards who’d brought them there from the bridge were waiting for them at the exit.

  “Follow us,” one of them said, and they turned to lead the way. On the way back up to the bridge, Garek and Addy speculated about the urgent reason that they’d all been summoned.

  “Maybe we’re about to destroy the Forge,” Garek suggested.

  Brak caught Lucien’s eye and hissed. “You are sure you wish to die so that this blue-skin can live?”

  Lucien grimaced and shook his head. “There’s no other way.”

  Brak hissed again, clearly unhappy with the arrangement, but he nodded. He understood. Gors were more pragmatic and group-minded than most humans.

  The elevator stopped, and they followed one of the crab creatures back to the bridge, while the other one trailed behind. As they approached the entrance of the bridge, the doors rumbled open, as if Abaddon could see them coming down the corridor.

  The guards stepped aside, and Lucien walked through first. “What’s the emergency?” he asked.

  Abaddon turned from the giant, curving holoscreen in front of his control station. His glowing blue eyes were sharp, and his lips were set in a grim line. “We have been hailed by the Forge. They’re asking for you by name.”

  “Me?” Lucien asked, his brow furrowing with that bit of news. “How do they know I’m here? What do they want?

  “Abaddon claims to have your family hostage at The Holy City. He’s threatening to kill them and hundreds of other hostages if you don’t stop attacking the Forge.”

  Lucien’s blood turned to ice. “How...” he shook his head.

  “They’re bluffing,” Garek said.

  “Then how do they know that Lucien is here?” Abaddon asked. “They must have found out from someone.”

  Garek shrugged. “A spy probably leaked the information.”

  Lucien felt his own suspicions rise with Garek’s skepticism. “How did the Forge get a message from whoever is holding my family hostage? If they’re inside the Red Line and the interdiction field doesn’t allow comms signals in or out...”

  “They must have sent a messenger ship through the wormhole,” Addy said. She walked up beside Lucien, her gaze seeking his. “Look, you don’t have to do this. It’s too much. No one can be expected to give up their own life and their family’s lives for the greater good. No one would blame you for backing down.”

  “Can we back down?” Lucien asked, turning to Abaddon. “If I say we should retreat, will you?”

  Abaddon held his gaze. “Yes. The choice remains yours. If you decide not to press the attack, I will retreat. You will live, and your family will live—if the ones holding them hostage can be trusted to keep their word.”

  “But you’ve lost ships, crew members, resources... you’re saying you’ll just swallow those losses, no hard feelings?” Lucien pressed.

  Abaddon inclined his head. “My enemy has also taken losses. That is sufficient payment for mine.”

  “How did they get a message all the way out here?” Garek asked. “Aren’t we a long way from the Red Line?”

  The separatist leader explained: “The Abaddons have a private network of quantum relays with pre-calculated routes that facilitate travel and communications at near instantaneous speeds. It’s called the quantanet. It is not truly instant like Etherian comms technology, but it is close enough.”

  “How do you know that Etherian comms technology is instant?” Addy asked. “Not even we knew that their comms are instant until we found the lost fleet, and we have far more interaction with the Etherians than anyone outside the Red Line.”

  Abaddon replied, “There are rumors about them. Their fleet was lost beyond the Red Line for more than ten thousand years before you found it. That is more than enough time for such rumors to spread, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I think the more immediate question is what are you going to do?” Garek asked, turning to Lucien.

  Lucien shook his head slowly, and his eyes drifted to the holoscreen. Explosions sprinkled fire through the void; streaking red and blue lasers flashed back and forth; missiles spiraled and danced, bursting open in glittering clouds of debris as they reached their targets. Separatist sphere ships hovered all around the luminous gold cube that was the Forge, firing in steady streams. As big as those spherical warships were, they were dwarfed beside the Forge. Clouds of smaller ships swarmed around the sphere ships and the Forge—fighters and Faro capital ships, reduced to mere glinting specks at this range.

  “What if we lose?” Lucien said, slowly tearing his eyes away from the holoscreen. “What if I end up sacrificing my family and my own life, and we lose this battle?”

  Abaddon offered a sympathetic smile. “The enemy wouldn’t be trying to force a surrender if they weren’t worried that we can win.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “We will win,” Abaddon replied. “We are already winning. It is only a matter of time.”

  Lucien nodded slowly. His eyes slid back to the holoscreen, drifting out of focus as the conflicting thoughts racing through his head took all of his attention. He knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t get the words out. They got stuck in his throat. His legs began to shake and his palms grew cold.

  After a while, the separatist leader said, “If your goal is to save your family, we should not keep the enemy waiting for a reply. Abaddon is not a patient being—I would know.”

  “Don’t answer,” Lucien replied softly.

  “Are you certain?”

  Lucien’s eyes fell shut, and he winced. He sucked in a shuddering breath and blew it out slowly. “Yes,” he said, and with that one word, all the fight left him. He sank to his knees, a numb and broken shell of a man.

  “Very well,” Abaddon replied. He turned back to the holoscreen and the battle raging there, his hands once again sweeping through various displays and control systems as he gave orders to his fleet.

  Addy sat down on the deck beside Lucien and rubbed his back, not saying anything. There wasn’t anything she
could say. They were going to win, and countless lives would be saved, but not the ones that mattered most to Lucien. Guilt stabbed Lucien repeatedly like a red-hot knife. This was more than anyone should have to bear.

  “I have one request,” Lucien said. His vision was blurry and hot. He wiped his eyes angrily on his forearm, only to discover that they were wet with tears.

  “And that is?” Abaddon asked, sounding far away, no doubt distracted with the pressing concerns of managing his fleet.

  “Transfer your mind to mine now. There is no reason to wait anymore.”

  Abaddon nodded. “I will do so as soon as I can, but it may be a while yet.”

  “Lucien...” Addy said, slowly shaking her head. “We could still lose, and if we do, there’s no reason for you to—”

  Lucien cut her off with a sharp look. “There are some fates worse than death,” he said. “If I live, I’ll be living with the knowledge that I sentenced my wife and children to die. Would you be able to live like that?”

  Addy hesitated. Her mouth parted for a reply, but then shut, as if she’d just thought better of what she’d been about to say.

  “I didn’t think so,” Lucien replied.

  Addy muttered something under her breath, and looked away, but before she did so, he caught a glimpse of tears shimmering in her eyes.

  “It’s okay...” he said, reaching for her hands, but she jerked them away.

  “No, it’s not!” she yelled, her eyes flashing. He was taken aback to see that she was angry, and not sad. “You’re crazy, Lucien, you know that? I get that this is for the greater good, but no one should be able to make the choice that you just did! Are you even human?” Addy’s fierce tone and the hurt look on her face confused him, but her words left him cold and unable to respond.

  Her upper lip curled in a sneer, and she got up and walked away, moving all the way to the opposite end of the bridge to be as far from him as possible.

  “Don’t listen to her.”

  Lucien started at the sound, but recognized Garek’s voice. He turned to face the scarred veteran, and saw grudging respect in the other man’s eyes. “Very few people can ignore personal bias and emotional attachment in the face of duty. I couldn’t. I didn’t.”

  Lucien remembered Garek’s mutiny aboard the Gideon to save his daughter, Nora Helios, on Astralis. He also recalled the story of how Garek had fallen from grace in the Paragons: he’d brutally tortured and executed hundreds of aliens in revenge for them torturing and maiming his daughter.

  “I consider it an honor to have met you,” Garek went on.

  “As do I,” Brak added, striding into view. He stopped beside Garek and said, “The female human is only mad because you do not consider her reason enough to live in the event that we lose this battle.”

  Lucien blinked. Of course. He glanced behind him and saw Addy sitting against the far wall with her legs drawn up to her chest. Her green eyes glared coldly at him over her knee caps.

  He thought of going over there to reassure her, but decided against it. It would be easier for her this way, thinking that he didn’t care. In time she’d understand that it had nothing to do with her. The decision he was being forced to make now was simply too painful to live with.

  Lucien looked out at the battle raging around the Forge, and wondered where Etherus was in all of this. He hadn’t even lifted a finger to help them. Where were his reinforcements? Where was the proof of his divine power or of his supposed love for humanity? If he could help them and yet chose not to, then didn’t that make him partially responsible for all of the lives lost in this war?

  Lucien frowned, a cold knot of resentment forming in his heart. Something wasn’t adding up. It shouldn’t have fallen to him to save everyone. That was Etherus’s job.

  “You may all return to your quarters,” Abaddon said, interrupting Lucien’s thoughts. “It will be several days yet before this battle is won.”

  Lucien blinked in shock, and panic gripped him with the realization that Abaddon wasn’t going to put him out of his misery yet. “What about my request? I thought you said—”

  “I cannot transfer my mind to your body yet,” Abaddon replied. “I will lapse into a coma after the transfer, and losing a few hours of consciousness in the middle of this battle could mean the difference between victory and defeat.”

  Lucien gaped at Abaddon. He would have to languish with his guilt for several days. “But...” he trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Come on,” Garek said, hauling Lucien up by one arm. Brak helped on the other side, and the two of them half-carried him to the doors of the bridge. Addy was nowhere in sight, but Lucien heard an extra set of footsteps echoing softly behind theirs.

  The doors rumbled open as they approached, and the crab creatures escorted them back to their quarters.

  Lucien moved mechanically, his feet shuffling as Garek and Brak guided him.

  Before long they arrived at their quarters, and Lucien had no recollection of how they’d even gotten there. He stumbled through the door and over to the couch to lie down. He shut his eyes, longing for sleep to come and take away the hollow ache now radiating from every part of his body. He felt like he was dying.

  Time drifted by. Muffled voices babbled around him. Footsteps. Doors opening and closing...

  At last sleep came, but it was no relief. His family’s faces haunted his dreams, their eyes accusing, and in pain.

  Chapter 31

  The Lost Etherian Fleet

  —FIVE DAYS LATER—

  “A ship just crossed back through the wormhole. Should we give chase, Admiral?” Major Ward asked from the Gideon’s gunnery station.

  Admiral Wheeler pounded the arm rest of her chair. “Frek it!”

  “Your orders, ma’am?”

  “Hold your position,” she replied. “It’s too late to stop them now.”

  “Aye...”

  Silence fell on the bridge. They all knew what this meant.

  Five days ago the Faros had sent a ship through the wormhole with a chilling message, but it hadn’t been directed at any of the human forces at the wormhole. Wheeler’s comms officer had managed to decrypt and translate that message by using one of the translator bands found aboard the captured Faro shuttles. The message had been directed to Abaddon at the Forge, but it was actually intended for the forces attacking the Forge—specifically for Lucien Ortane. Abaddon was threatening to kill Lucien’s family if he didn’t back down.

  Despite the concern that Lucien would give in to that pressure, the fact that Abaddon had even issued such a threat gave everyone hope. The Faros wouldn’t be trying to get the forces at the Forge to withdraw if they weren’t scared that the Forge might be destroyed. Within just a few days, the reply had come back to the Red Line: Lucien had not responded to the threat, and that had inspired even more hope.

  Ever since then that message had been playing on repeat and the Faros had been struggling to get a ship through the wormhole to relay the news of Lucien’s defiance, presumably so that his family could be executed. Wheeler’s fleet was under orders to intercept and destroy any Faro ships heading back through the wormhole. But now, finally, the Faros had succeeded.

  Wheeler shook her head and put the matter from her mind. There was nothing they could do to help Tyra or her daughters now.

  May Etherus have mercy on their souls.

  * * *

  Captive Aboard the Faro Flagship

  The stench of human waste was a physical thing, drifting through the hangar. Theola was spent from crying. She had a rash and what looked like a possible infection from the poor sanitary conditions in the hangar. Tyra had long-since removed her diaper and left her to run around bare-bottom, but there was only so much that the occasional sprinkle of water and air-drying could do for a baby’s hygiene.

  Making matters worse, Theola was desperately hungry for milk. This was a bad time to be a picky eater, but there’s no reasoning with an eighteen-month old. Despite repeated requests,
the Faros hadn’t supplied anything even remotely analogous to baby formula.

  Tyra’s own stomach grumbled at the thought of food. There was never enough of it, and she regularly wasted hers by trying to get Theola to eat. Tyra’s gaze drifted around the hangar, her eyes unfocused, her mind blank. The other prisoners moaned and muttered constantly. The sounds blurred into a regular rhythm and cadence: the dissonant refrain of human suffering.

  “If they do not decide our fate soon, nature will decide it for them,” Brak whispered.

  Tyra nodded slowly, but said nothing to that. Her gaze drifted down to where Theola sat on the deck beside her. She had a vacant expression—her lips parted slightly, features slack, and dull staring eyes.

  Something hot and ugly rose inside of Tyra at the sight of her daughter’s suffering. It bubbled up from a dark, primal place and tore from her lips in an thunderous scream.

  Heads turned, eyes widening at the sound of her outburst, but Tyra didn’t care. She screamed again. And again. Theola began to cry, and other nearby prisoners cringed and looked away, a mixture of pity and unease crawling behind their eyes.

  Abaddon would pay for this, Tyra vowed. He couldn’t keep them locked up any longer, in these conditions, awaiting an uncertain end. Better that we choose our fate, she thought. She scooped Theola up and stood on shaking legs, her eyes wild as she looked around the hangar. All the exits, grilles, and access panels inside the hangar had already been checked for a possible avenues of escape, but Tyra refused to accept defeat for even a second longer.

  “You all want to die in here?” she demanded, scowling at each of them in turn.

  Objections rose from several prisoners. A few of them climbed to their feet.

  “It’s been five days!” Tyra went on. “We haven’t heard from our captors or even seen them in five days.” Whenever they came to deliver food it was always with shadow-robed slaves and six faceless soldiers in matte black armor. Abaddon and the blue-skinned Faros had yet to make another appearance since they’d all arrived in the hangar. “I say, enough is enough!” Tyra roared. “If we’re going to die, then let’s die on our feet! Let’s die fighting!”