So now a new war, a new objective: not to “win,” because winning is no longer enough. Now they must give it in turn, take the Viators’ future just like they’d tried to take their own, and this, now, is the final play, the last breeder, the crowning glory of a war forged across a galaxy for a thousand years.
But if she kills the last of them, then she kills the last of them. Not Lugen or the First or the Allied Monarchies or the Quorum or whoever else one wanted to say gave the order. Just her. They can’t make that call for her. She has to make it for herself.
She doesn’t lower her weapon.
The breeder opens their mouth and speaks in the Viator tongue. The words are a threat, but the tone is grave petition. “Without us, you will perish.”
She doesn’t know what it means. But she’s already made her decision.
* * *
Adequin’s immediate sensation upon regaining consciousness was that she didn’t weigh enough.
“… the fuck…” she grumbled. She reached up to touch the bruise swelling on her upper cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered open.
A dim gray ceiling—but she knew immediately what that ceiling belonged to: the crew quarters of a Hermes.
The fuckers had hauled her aboard, like a goddamn piece of cargo.
She scowled and a hazy form appeared above her. Her eyes adjusted and focused on his bronze skin and shaved head.
“Now, sir—”
Her feet hit the ground, her grip tightening around Puck’s throat before she knew what she was doing. She thrust him against the wall of the cramped quarters, then shoved him aside. He slid down the wall, coughing. Mesa crouched beside him, light fingers grazing his neck.
Adequin swallowed some copper-tinged saliva and crossed the room in two strides. She pressed herself against the long, narrow observation window.
Static bolts danced across the void beyond the black silhouette of the Argus. Or rather, what remained of the Argus.
She clamped her eyes shut. Against the back of her eyelids, Bray reached out before disappearing into a wave of white light. She tried to reason it out, his existence unspooling, just as the pieces of the ship had been, just as they were now. But her swollen eye ached and her head pounded, mind straining with the effort of it.
“What did you do?” she growled. Her ragged breath fogged the ice-cold glass.
She turned her ire back to Puck. He was on his feet again, rubbing his throat. Mesa stood beside him. Erandus appeared in the doorway from the common room, looking alarmed.
Adequin’s glare remained on Puck. “What did you do?” she repeated.
“Excubitor,” Mesa began carefully, “we needed you among the survivors, and—”
“You had no right!” she yelled.
“You’re the only one with that right, Rake!” Puck yelled back, taking a step forward. Mesa’s hands lifted as if to stop him, but retreated. “And you were being too stubborn!”
“I told you to leave without me,” she said, stepping face-to-face with the taller man. “You defied a direct order.”
Puck stood his ground, but his eyes were hesitant. Maybe even apologetic.
“No one is trying to challenge your authority,” Mesa assured.
“It’s not about authority, dammit!” Adequin took a step away from Puck and swung her arm to point out the observation window. “There are two hundred people on that ship!”
Puck wrung his hands. “Not anymore…”
“Shut the fuck up, Circitor,” she said, her voice low and steady. “Or you’ll wish you were among them.”