“Shit. Grav’s gonna flip, guys!” Jackin called from the cockpit.
Cavalon tried to determine what surface he should hold onto in order to negate the effects of the switch, but his senses were still too muddled from adrenaline and panic. So he just let it happen, falling awkwardly into the wall as it became the floor again.
Emery and Warner handled it with slightly more finesse, pressing their backs into the wall and sliding down onto their butts as the gravity shifted back to normal.
“I have to snap-warp so they can’t lock on!” Jackin shouted. “You guys okay back there?”
“We’re good,” Emery called.
A high-pitched squeal rang out from the engine room as the warp drive spun up. The floor shook and the drive let out a troubling crack—the result of engaging before any kind of acceleration. Cavalon could hardly believe the hyper-restrictive Legion ship computer had allowed Jackin to do that.
Sweat dripped into Cavalon’s eyes, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He unbuckled the front of his torn vest and let it hang open, welcoming the cool rush of air. He slid across the floor to lean on the wall beside Warner.
Warner groaned, slouching heavily against the wall. His arm and leg were torn and glistening red, though the bleeding appeared to have slowed. Emery sat on his other side, bruised and sweating, but seeming mostly unscathed. They sat for a few long moments with only the sound of their labored breathing and the rattling of the still-tremoring ship.
No surprise, Emery perked up first. “Okay, that was a little fun.” She flashed them a grin.
Cavalon’s pounding, frenzied heart disagreed. As did his aching muscles, which burned and cramped from overuse of his Imprints.
Despite being decidedly not amused by the events themselves, he did feel an odd sense of satisfaction at the outcome. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d handled it relatively well. It could have gone better, but it also could have gone far, far worse.
For the first time since they’d met earlier that morning, Warner’s mouth turned up into an actual smile. Emery joined as well, and they both began to chuckle.
A lump grew in Cavalon’s throat, and he couldn’t bring himself to join in their display of relief, or exaltation, or whatever was going on. It was too absurd. Absurd, maybe, but their reality. It said something grim about the state of life on the Argus that the Sentinels were happier to be in mortal peril than at the relative safety of their post.
But at the pit of his stomach, a deepening well of acid churned—because he knew that wasn’t the real reason he couldn’t bring himself to revel in the victory along with them. Because if it’d been up to him, those two would be dead right now. He’d have left them behind in less than a heartbeat.
He’d seen the very archetype of it in action on an almost daily basis growing up, far too many times not to recognize it now for what it’d really been. A ruthless selfishness that went beyond fight or flight, that dug deep into the very moral center of what it meant to be human: seeing numbers where people should be, assigning value to lives like they were just any other commodity to be bartered, manipulated, or expended to achieve an outcome.
Emery and Warner’s value had only exceeded the risk of waiting for them because of that damn warp core.
Warner elbowed him, and Cavalon refocused on the glint in the man’s sandy brown eyes. A glint that looked suspiciously like approval. “You did pretty good, princeps.”
A thickness built at the back of Cavalon’s throat. He tried to clear it with a hard swallow, but his voice still came out stiff. “Princeps? Can we not do that?”
Warner gave a half shrug. “We’ll see.”
The ship’s rumbling finally ceased and the high-pitched squeal cut off into a long, low thrum as the warp drive finished its acceleration. They were on their way back to the Argus.