Colored lights streak through smoke. Amps blare so much bass that the ground shakes, or maybe that’s just her feet. Either way, the whole world is moving with her. Everyone around her dances with abandon, arms flaring, necks loose, all the emotions held back over weeks of agonizing labor burst through their beaten-in inhibitions. Valyrie is sweating. Even burning green, she’s sweating. Valyrie’s guitar screams with music only aura capable hands are capable of, her long red hair twacks her back with every bob of her head. Her band is transcendent.

  Valyrie catches sight of Penny on the drums, flaring red and summoning the gods with every flick of her wrists. They’re playing by instinct now. The song was supposed to end years ago, but the crowd cries with their singer. Valyrie is sweating. She’s burning green and still pouring everything she has into this one song. Hearts as one, the crowd, the band, the abandoned hangar they’ve commodared make music that shakes the walls. Tomorrow she’ll be chained to Stellaris-9 with hundreds of others tugging it towards periapsis, but tonight? Tonight she’s unchained and on top. No one is on top of her.

  But nils aren’t allowed even this. Sirens blare, but she plays anyway. The band follows her lead and plays on. Discordant screams and shouts pop up here and there, but they don’t beat the music. People still dance even as electric batons crash down. This is still their moment. They worked so hard to bring joy to this place. Dozens of nils scrubbed this old hanger from top to bottom. Valyrie personally cooked enough food so that the hundred people here could drink and eat and dance and sing without a single credit spent or a single ID checked. She won’t stop now. Not until they fucking make her.

  Something hits her in the chest, but she’s burning green. Another shot hits Penny, but her red isn’t nearly as strong. Her sister goes down, but she’s okay. Penny will make it out of this; she always does. The singer drops, the piano goes still, dozens of pins pierce her skin and pour electricity into her veins. Valyrie doesn’t stop. She won’t stop. She can’t stop. Not even when she collapses to her knees, her fingers make the guitar sing.

  —

  Valyrie wakes up tied down. White lights blaze above. Somebody is rapping quietly within the white walls. She blinks reality into existence. Her arms refused to move, the belts tying her to a gurney don’t break. Valyrie’s so weak she collapses with the token effort. She can’t even feel the red within her, much less summon it.

  Valyrie’s head swims as she lets it fall back onto a pillow. She’s got a full-body migraine, and the fluorescent lights aren’t helping.

  “Oh good, you’re awake.” Valyrie manages to turn her head slightly to the right. Petra just walked in through a double door, pulling down her sureon mask while bobbing her head to the music. She twists a nob to turn it down but not off. Her little swamp thing walks into the room after her, supporting her mother with a sturdy vine.

  Valyrie’s bindings shake as she tries to lunge forth. A vine forcefully shoves her back down.

  “No need for that now,” Petra smirks and unties her golden hair from its bun. Her smile reaches her emerald eyes, but Valyrie is not amused. “We don’t have much time left before you need to make a choice.”

  Vaylrie glances at the clock in the corner of her HUD. She has fifteen minutes to make contact with the handler or boom. “What did you do to me?” Valyrie growls.

  “You told me I had forty minutes to disable your bomb. I did it in twenty. The extra five minutes are your fault for not waking up earlier. Amelia was pulling her punches after all.” Valyrie glares at the little monster smiling at her.

  “Let me go. Now!” Valyrie says.

  “I will,” Petra holds up her hands, “but only after you hear the bad news.”

  “What bad news?”

  Petra opens her mouth wide. She tilts her head up so that Valyrie can see her upper molars. Her tongue traces the surface of her silver tooth. Valyrie just stares in confusion.

  “I swapped the codes for the bomb so your Collective couldn’t figure out the trigger it even if they had a quantum computer and millennia of electricity to run it,” Petra says, finally closing her mouth. “That code is stored in a transmitter in one of my back molars. You try to hurt me or Amelia again, and I'll blow your head off.” Petra leans forward with her usual pout. Valyrie would laugh if the news wasn’t so freaking horrible.

  “You’ve killed me.” Valyrie swallows. “Worse, you’ve killed my whole family.”

  “Now hold on. I only have your trigger. I’m not going to threaten anyone else.”

  “Do you genuinely think Freestar needs a bomb to kill us? My family.” Smoke, fire, and music race through Valyrie’s mind. “They could space my brother, ground my father into soylent green, or just straight up shoot us, you idiot. We’re not all blues. Most of us aren’t even red, not that blues can’t be executed as easily if a second-circle faction bothers to try.” Valyrie starts hyperventilating. What’s Petra’s plan here? Steal her from Freestar? Even if the Collective doesn’t send bounty hunters after the pair, they’ll still make an example of her family. Nils aren’t allowed to be free even if they escape.

  “Valyrie, calm down.” Petra races to the other side of the bed and gently shoves Valyrie back down. “Jesus Christ, you just got out of surgery, at least try to relax.” Valyrie can’t help but chuckle at that name. It’s crazy that nearly three thousand years later, people are still swearing on that name. She really shouldn’t laugh, though. She was raised in some variation of Mormonism.

  “Just hear me out,” Petra says, “and then make a decision. If you want to help us, great! We’ll figure out how to keep your family safe together. If you don’t trust me, I won’t stop you from getting back to your Collective, and the moment you’re off the station, I’ll disable my trigger. At least without the codes, you don’t have to worry about a random explosion in the dead of the night.”

  Valyrie lets out a deep breath. She’s already wasted two minutes panicking. “Just say your peace. I can’t go anywhere while you hold my leash.”

  “I get the irony of you trading one master for another. I’m not trying to be your slaver, I’m hoping you’ll choose to work with me, but I need to know you won’t hurt us when I let you go!” Petra shouts. “Even without Aura, you soldiers are dangerous.” Petra waves her dangling sleeve as if to prove her point. Valyrie rolls her eyes. They both know the monster at her side is more than enough to put Valyrie into the ground in her current state.

  Petra continues her rant. “Ugh. I don’t know why everyone has to be so fudging cruel. I’m just trying to save our species. We should all be. But whether its the Freestar Collective or Shatterveil or even freaking Cradle you all just shoot first and ask questions later. Freestar could have just sent an open line to their researches instead of sending a freaking blue to blow up my home. Do you know how terrifying you look in a tattered spacesuit? I thought you were a freaking revnant come to break down my blast doors.”

  “I would love to listen to you rant about the injustices inherent in space facism and my questionable fashion sense, but I’m on the clock here. Could you make your proposal so I can leave you to be crazy all on your own?”

  Petra pouts, and by now, Valyrie’s been Pavloved into smirking every time the girl puffs out her cheeks. Petra only gets redder when Valyrie shows teeth. “Fine. Here it is. I’m very close to a cure, but the materials and knowledge I need aren’t accessible in this bunker or on the internet. My theories are pointing me towards the sacred and maybe Eventide echoes, but I really would rather not go down the latter route. Either way, negotiating with the Sacred and finding echoes is going to take resources. Resources only the major players and above would have access to, and talking to them would require at least third-circle authority. So, here’s my idea. You get me a Freestar ship. Something large enough for an actual research team, but I’ll take a light cruiser if that’s all you have available. You get me that, I disable my codes, then Amelia, I head to Mars to find someone reasonable who can get us a foot in the door with the major players on the sane side of the system. Deal?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Hah! Are you serious?” Valyrie cackles. “You’re lucky I’ve got no loyalty to Freestar, otherwise I would convince them to glass this place with an armada.” Valyrie turns to glare at the Wandering Echo playing human. “And put that monster down.”

  The monster steps forward for round two, but Petra puts a hanging sleeve in front of her. “Amelia is not a monster. I won’t have you insulting her again.” For good measure. Petra chomps down twice. Valyrie’s impressed. This woman’s a natural slaver.

  Valyrie rolls her eyes. “Regardless, and I’ll say this as concisely as I can because I have about ten minutes left before I need to be out of here. Your plan is stupid. Not just cause I’m a nil and have absolutely zero authority within the Freestar military, but because you think that even Freestar is stupid enough to just gift some space rat an entire cruiser. Those things cost hundreds of millions of credits each used. Even if I stole one and managed to fuel it enough to make my way back here, Freestar would unleash hell to get it back, and that’s after they slaughtered my family to make it clear how pissed off they were. I’m not helping you. You’re insane.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Oh yeah, you think I’m wrong because you can blow my head off if you even sneeze too hard. Well, you’re wrong.” Valyrie shoves her head back down onto her pillow. “I gave up on life a long time ago. At this point, I’m just staying alive for my family’s sake. If I don’t resurface, Freestar will just mark me dead and leave my family alone. You’ve given me a gift really. I’ll just stay down here until this shard falls to Earth.”

  “No,” Petra says, leaning over the bed so that Valyrie is forced to look at the grinning girl. “You’re wrong about Freestar just giving a cruiser to some random space rat. I’m offering a trade.” Petra picks up a scalpel, and Valyrie braces herself for torture. Crazies living in hidden bunkers without the guidance of an authority lost their humanity quicker than anyone. There was a whole genre of movies about these situations. People like Valyrie breaking into random bunkers for loot rarely made it to the end. Valyrie wouldn’t be surprised if other pilots had made it this far only to end up at the end of the torturer’s knife.

  Yet, Petra didn’t use the knife on Valyrie. Instead, she held it up to her cheek and scrunched her eyes. With a whimper, Petra broke skin. Deep. But there wasn’t as much blood as there should be. Was Petra a bot? That would be a twist. Unfortunately, it was worse. Petra was so much more than a bot. Light spilled from the wound, brighter than the fluorescent lights oveRhend.

  “It’s a Lunar Echo. I’ll offer it to Freestar for a ship.”

  Vaylrie stares awestruck at something more valuable than the entire Collective. She smiles. That nagging rebellious part of her gut knocks on her mind’s door, and for the first time in a while, Valyrie doesn’t have a collar or a peevish handler or a boatload of guilt telling her to keep that door closed.

  “Nah,” Valyrie says. “With that, Imma get you a whole fleet.”

  –

  Valyrie leans against a working elevator, tapping her foot. Turns out that this bunker, built for a thousand people, had a few redundancies. To her right, the little monster glares at her. She hasn’t left Valerie's side since she woke up. The creature even waited outside the changing room where Valyrie tore off the hospital gown. Valyrie was currently wearing a green sheath dress with a surplice collar that almost made her feel elegant and noble and like a model Freestar citizen. Or just an actual one. Petra had blushed at the choice, offering one of the many space suits instead. Valyrie rejected each one. She was starting to like getting the witch flustered.

  The nerd in question is finally heading towards them. Petra waddles over in an old space suit, looking like one of the original Soviet cosmonauts. Modern suits are sleek and form-fitting, with tinted face masks granting soldiers an air of mystery and gravitas. They’re also tough as balls. Space debris could hit Valyrie, and her old space suit would bounce it back. The thing was in tatters now as it was not built for expendables, but for average humans like Petra, suits like that were like being wrapped in a man-made red aura. So it was unfortunate that Petra would have to ride on Valyrie’s back in this clown costume. Valyrie was going to need to be on a lookout for stray debris lest Petra expose her Echo after a stray toothbrush blasts a hole through her body. Petra struggles forth with her few limbs strangled in the big orange tubes of suit. The monster at Valyrie’s side finally leaves and rushes forth to replace the cane her mother is leaning on. Petra waves some sort of memory disk in her hands.

  “Got her,” she calls out. Valyrie narrows her eyes. Petra said she had a way to spoof the visual and audio recordings in her HUD, which would be essential if their little rebellion was going to work without the handler watching with a popcorn bucket in her lap, but what did Petra mean by “her”?

  Petra hobbles forth while Valyrie crosses her arms. Petra’s little foray cost an additional two minutes. They’ve got five to reconnect with the handler before the promised boom. If they connect after sixty minutes, then Valyrie is going to have a hard time explaining why her brain isn’t painting the bunker walls.

  “I got her.” Petra smiles, handing it off to Valyrie.

  “What is it?” Valyrie asks, but Petra’s already in the elevator.

  “Tell you on the way up.”

  Petra’s bouncing with excitement. The monster catches her before she can tip over. Valyrie takes a spot on the other side of the elevator and leans against it, watching the duo. It’s questionable if the pair are really the best people to trust the fate of her family with. Eh, worst case scenario, Valyrie unleashes the little monster, and vine girl infects all the non-nils in Stellaris-9. A mini zombie apocalypse is a sort of revenge all on its own.

  Petra smashes the panel of the elevator, revealing various ports and switches behind the buttons. Her fingers articulate and then separate into mechanical tools. The skin of what used to be the tip of her index finger folds back as she shoves it into one port, rapidly fascinating it with a quick turn. The elevator shoots up at G-forces that are certaintly not healthy for the average human much less a cripple. Petra is forced back to the wall, and her monster gently catches her. Valyrie can’t take her eyes off the mechanical hand as it reforms into something that looked real a moment ago. So that arm’s fake, too. She spares a glance at Petra’s one leg and wonders what’s going on under the suit.

  “Careful with that. That’s my daughter.”

  Valyriie looks at the memory stick, then at Swamp Thing. “I though the monster was your daughter.”

  “Amelia is not a monster! And if you’re going to be working with us you have to start using her name. Also a woman can have multiple daughters.” Petra humphs and looks like a chimpunk in the funhouse mirror that is that spacesuit helmet.

  “Sure, whatever. Still, what’s in this?” Valyrie moves to insert the memory disk into the port on the side of her head.

  “Wait,” Petra says before gold-plated pins meet the copper of her mind. “I need you to promise me you won’t hurt her.”

  Valyrie raises an eyebrow and lets the memory stick fall to her side. Petra practically jumps in fear that Valyrie might drop it. “What’s going on here? It’s just a spoofing program, right?”

  Petra looks side to side. “It’s not just a program.” She looks at the monster. Amelia. Damn it was going to be hard to call that thing by a human name. “Amelia wasn’t the only girl I tried to cure. Rhen was infected too, but she didn’t obtain coherence like Amelia can. We had to upload her mind to that disk. It was the only way we could break out safely.”

  “Break out?” Valyrie asks? Petra just points up at the elevator in reply. “Another time, then. Continue.”

  “Well, long story short, we built a body, we lost the body, and then we tried to keep her running as a subsystem of the bunker’s AI, but that ended up being electricity we couldn’t spare, so we had to keep her asleep most of the time. We woke her up to deal with you up there, but you know how that turned out.”

  “Why didn’t you just, you know?” Valyrie points to her head. “I don’t have the strength to keep Rhen in my head; she’s a huge power draw, and Amelia has a hard enough time staving off madness, so Rhen’s basically been sleeping for the last two years with only a couple hours of coherency every now and then.”

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  “So you want her in my head cause I’m not weak or crazy. That makes sense, but how does that help me?” Petra frowns at Valyrie’s words but shakes herself back into focus. “She’s really smart. She’ll be able to spoof your sensors better than any program I could write. Besides, she deserves a life even if it’s vicariously through some meathead.”

  Valyrie laughs at that, then focuses on the memory card. The sixth apocalypse was almost A.I but humanity had luckily seen enough movies to nip that problem in the bud the moment another singularity strolled onto the scene. What Petra had done was unbelievably illegal and incredibly immoral. Trapping a soul in a memory disk, if this was even the original Rhen’s soul, was incredibly terrifying. This might just be an eternally wailing A.I tricked into thinking it was someone called Rhen, which was almost as horrifying as an actual person being trapped in a machine. What Petra was asking was antithetical to life and free will. She makes a perfect slaver, honestly.

  Valyrie pops the disk into her head. Her HUD flickers, and a teenager screams.

  [Ahh! Oh. What is this? Valyrie! Mom. What the hell did you get us into? Tell me you’re not dragging my family into certain death, Valyrie?]

  Valyrie laughs. “I should be asking you that.”

  “You should be asking me what? Oh.” Petra asks. Valyrie rolls her eyes. “It might be difficult having to talk to you out loud all the time.”

  [Well, you’re going to have to get used to it. I’m not going to read your mind. That would be a major violation of privacy and has a seventy percent chance of rendering you catatonic in a month. You’ll just have to find a nice dark corner to talk to yourself in the future.]

  “I’m guessing you’re aware of the plan then?”

  [Yep. Mom left me notes before you shoved me in your head. I’ve gone through all seven stages of “Mom what the fuck are you doing” and arrived at acceptance in the time it took you to roll your eyes.]

  “Glad to know you’re excited about us working together.”

  [Oh, why wouldn’t I be excited about putting the lives of my mom and little sister in the hands of a blue soma addict with concepts of a plan to take over a station with five hundred thousand souls?]

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t read my thoughts.”

  [Doesn’t mean I won’t go through your memory stores. Sorry about…everything by the way. I thought our lives were bad. Jesus.”

  “Why are you in my memories?”

  [Cause I need to scrub the last hour, dufus. And also cause I’m bored. Thinking at lightspeed here. You’re going to want to eat a lot of bananas in the future. We’ll be low on potassium for the next…ever. I’m replacing the memory of you getting knocked out by Amelia with one of you heroically rescuing Petra and running around like a madwoman until you stumbled upon this elevator.]

  “You don’t have to be rude. You know I can just take you out of my head and deal with the consequences.”

  [Then you’d be killing me.]

  Valyrie freezes up. She blinks at Petra whose only heard half of this conversation but has a face like she knows what Rhen would say.

  [What? You didn’t think it would be as easy as taking me in and out whenever you want to trick your handler? Petra’s been keeping me asleep for the last few years and explicitly has not been turning me off. This memory stick had enough power for Mom to run over here without killing me, but if you take me out of your head for more than a couple of seconds, then I’m dead.]

  “But you’re…”

  [What? A program? An echo of a soul? Nah. You really underestimate how smart Mom is. I’m a complete human being on chip, and most humans don’t come back if their brains get shut off for a while. Hell, a couple of seconds without power is probably the same effect as a dozen concussions to me.]

  Petra’s story makes a lot of sense now. The power requirements to simulate–or Valyrie guesses actually run–an entire soul with its billions of neurons and everything else that makes a person a person would be an insane power draw. That’s how humans won the AI war so easily. The machines literally needed hundreds of nuclear plants and thousands of solar arrays just to sustain themselves. After a while, humans just started shooting planes of glass in the sky, and the AIs exterminated themselves because they couldn’t think fast enough to stay awake.

  “Eventually,” Valyrie chews this over, “Someone is going to ask me to insert a memory stick. I’m a soldier. I have checkups every month. If they ask me to take you out, what do I do? I don’t want to kill you.”

  [It’s so sweet that you pretend to care. I’ve seen you murder children before, Valyrie. I have my eyes on you, even if Mom is too trusting to keep you on a proper leash. Though if you really want to prove that you’re not just a weapon of the Freestar Collective, you could download me into your head. I take a lot of power, but you’re used to burning red anyway, right? Even when sleeping? Just send that Aura my way. I won’t take up much more headspace than your HUD. Matter of fact, I could replace it. I have access to all your sensors anyway.]

  “Do it.”

  [Really? Not going to take a moment to think it through? I’ll be stuck in your head until Mom builds me a new body. That might take a while, given current priorities.]

  “I’m not going to let a child die.” Valyrie feels Amelia’s glare. She doesn’t meet it. “Freestar forces me to fight kids. I don’t choose to. I’m not evil.” Valyrie swallows, but her throat still feels dry.

  [Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Downloading myself into your head now.]

  Valyrie stumbles forward as sparks erupt from the side of her head.

  [Ah, sorry. I put too much sauce on that. I’m extremely excited to have a body again.]

  “Hold on a body?”

  [Yeah, now I can actually feel what you go through. And holy shit this place smells. Ugh. Flesh is going to take a moment to get used to again. Biological hardware is so slow. Anyway, now that we’re buddy-buddy, try not to get up to anything freaky or painful while I’m awake. I don’t handle pain very well.]

  “Wait. What about when I-”

  [Trust me, I will put myself to sleep if you need to use the bathroom or have a meetcute. I am not into women. Just think really hard if you need me. I’ll know something is wrong.]

  “Okay. Hey!”

  [Oh shit, you have a transmission incomming.]

  [0-19. Are you back? You’ve secured the target! Oh my goddness, I was so worried for you.]

  [Alright. You’re history is scrubbed, and I’ve digitally erased Amelia from your vision. Time for you to do your part. Proceed with your oh so amazing plan.]

  Valyrie swallows down a million questions. “Hey, handler. Yeah, I’m back.”

  [Thank goodness. Is it okay if I use your vocal cords to talk with Dr. Xu?]

  [I can block her from taking control, just so you know.] Valyrie swallows at that. Block the handler from violating her body. That…that’s incredible. Only now does Valyrie truly realize the extent of Petra’s changes. Sure the bomb is still there and she’s traded one pair of peeving eyes for another, but holy crap she has bodily autonomy again. She feels like a kid. She wants to jump for joy.

  “Don’t block her.” The words hurt to say, but Valyrie can’t alert the handler to anything just yet. She’ll enjoy her newfound freedom later. She can wait a few minutes.

  [Don’t block what? 0-19, what do you mean?]

  [You have to give me some sort of indication that you want me to mute your voice, idiot. Once the signals are sent, I can’t take them back. Make a peace sign or something if you want me to spoof you.]

  “Sorry, handler. Pretty sure I’m concussed. It was a fight and a half against the Wandering Echo.”

  [A Wandering Echo?! How? Why is there a Wandering Echo in that facility?]

  “You’ll have to ask the good doctor yourself. Better her words than mine.”

  “Dr. Xu,” the handler says with Valyrie’s voice, “It is great to have you onboard with the Freestar Collective and I’m sure you have a lot of questions to address, but why is there a Wandering Echo in this bunker? How are either of you still alive?”

  “You’re the handler now, I’m guessing. Sorry Valyrie, if that’s incorrect.” Valyrie shakes her head as thist time her handler only has her vocal cords in a strangle hold. “Okay. The handler then. That’s weirdly impersonal. Do you have a name?”

  “You may call me Lt. Rook or by my call sign Double Eleven, and it is truly a pleasure to meet you Dr. Xu. Please don’t mistake my urgency for ruthlessness, but if there’s a Wandering Echo in this sector, I need to report this up the chain immediately. This facility will need to be blasted apart before anyone from the Voidwalker Dominion comes sniffing around.”

  “Yes, I understand. Long story short is the cure I was working on partially worked. It was good enough to keep a zombie from going berserk during its transformation into a Wandering Echo, a transformation that I in no way facilitated to answer your next question. I managed to keep the Echo in stasis until Valyrie disturbed the facility. It started to wake after the first time Valyrie spoke.

  “First time?”

  “Yes, Valyrie managed to knock it unconscious after speaking again. It’s still down there, but I doubt it's smart enough to give chase.”

  “That is some good news, then.” The handler takes over Valyrie's head and looks around the elevator as if hints of a Wandering Echo were that easy to find. The viral factor is safely below 3 MOI thanks to Rhen’s spoofing. Valyrie would smile if she could. Her eyes glaze over the Wandering Echo right in front of her as if the terror isn’t there. Surprisingly, Amelia shares her amusement.

  God, is she actually starting to think of that thing as a person?

  “You could at least ask first before taking over my head, handler.”

  Valyrie stumbles forward in pain. She drops to her knees as a thousand volts course through her veins. “What the hell, handler. You shocked me.”

  [You felt that. How on Earth did you feel that?]

  “Because I don’t have an Aura left. I just fought a freaking Wandering Echo.”

  [I…Well its how I usually get your attention and you ignore the smaller stuff. You should have told me.]

  “I’m telling you now, you idiot.” Valyrie collapses on the floor and shakes. Drool drips down her mouth.

  [Crap. Sorry. Force of habit. Let me help you up.]

  A chip in her head with more authority than her muscle spasms calmly pushes Valyrie up to her feet. Valyrie’s everything goes back under Freestar’s control.

  “In any case,” the handler coughs without any real apology, “you’ll both be subject to a brief quarantine on your way back, but those matters we can discuss later. Oh, where are my manners?” Valyrie does a full bow face parallel to the floor before giving Petra her best smile.

  “It’s an honor to have you finally join the Freestar Collective Dr. Xu. We look forward to working with you.”

  For the rest of the elevator ride and most of the walk back, Petra and the handler go through onboarding to the Collective. It’s interesting stuff, or Valyrie tries to convince herself it is. Her handler has taken full control of her body. Valyrie’s walk is now the handler’s walk, strict and formal like she’s on a march. Valyrie’s hands now gesticulate with the handler’s bubbliness, completely destroying the casual posturing that makes Valyrie Valyrie. Even the unique ocular drifts of her eyes are now the handler’s. It’s all unfamiliar and nauseating. Everything the handler’s gaze lingers on surprises Valyrie like a flickering television constantly changing channels. Petra at least has the gall to be unnerved at the whole charade. Her voice is quiet and apologetic. Every time she asks the handler a question, she’s subjecting Valyrie to another minute of this torture. But this is fine. This was Valyrie’s plan. Petra is meant to act like an actual loyal immigrant to the Freestar Collective until Valyrie contacts her with the next steps.

  It was extremely obvious that Petra would need to be kept in the dark for most of Valyrie’s half-baked plan. If Valyrie had any chance of starting a rebellion amongst the nils and taking over the station, Petra couldn’t know anything important. The woman was honest as a button and had the poker face of a mirror. It would be mostly on Valyrie and Rhen, and maybe Amelia now too, though the girl was probably the nuclear option.

  [Incredible work 0-19. I’ll be writing about your successes in your mission report. I think the higher-ups will be very pleased with your progress lately.]

  “Thank you, handler,” Valyrie was finally able to say. “That does bring me to a bit of an issue.”

  [Oh. Anything I can help with?]

  “No, unfortunately. I kind of used up all of my aura getting Petra out safe. I’m literally at 0%. I’m going to need a major recharge before I can safely fly again. Just a couple of hours in the sun.” This was key. Valyrie only had a few minutes to bullshit her way through Petra’s questions on how to take over Stellaris-9. She needed some time to sit in the sun and think about what the hell she was going to do and who she knew that was trustworthy enough to bring into the fold. Her mother was essential, obviously. As a high-ranking cleaner, she had access to every floor and level on the ship. Her mother was also a socialite who knew everyone in the east wing and had friends in high places in the other three quadrants. Her dad was a drunk, so there was no way he was allowed to find out about this. She needed a way to get her brother back on Stellaris-9, and that would be the most dangerous part of planning a rebellion. There were reasons why Freestar separated families. Maybe she could get the Voidwalker Dominion to free him in exchange for Amelia? She had no idea how she could hide a Wandering Echo on the station. Alarms would start blearing at five MOI, and the girl still radiated fifteen. There was too much to plan.

  [Well, I think you’re fine if Petra can handle a longer flight back. I will see about getting a transport to meet you halfway.]

  “No! That’s fine.” Valyrie really didn’t need a transport ship intercepting her and asking about the vine girl she’d be tugging along.

  “Petra is okay with a long flight. She’s got wards for that. No need to waste the fuel.”

  [Um. Okay. Well, you’re the boss. I’m going to talk to a few people about citizenship papers for Petra. I’ll check back in within the next hour, okay?]

  “Sound’s good, handler.”

  [Okay 0-19. Signing off.]

  Valyrie makes the peace sign, and Rhen confirms that audio and visual signals are spoofed to show them just walking down the hallway.

  [Well, she’s just a bundle of joy.]

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Tell you about what?” Petra asks.

  “Rhen, we’ve got to figure out a way to involve you in these conversations.”

  [Hacking into the loudspeakers.]

  “Can you all hear me okay?” Rhen’s voice echoes down the hallway.

  “Rhen.” Petra stops. She beams with so much joy, it makes Valyrie turn away to hide her smile. “We’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “Jeez.” Rhen pauses. The loudspeakers hiss despite Valyrie knowing there’s no button for Rhen to hold down. “You don’t have to apologize for everything, Petra. Some things are out of your hands.”

  Petra looks down at her hand and stump. “It’s not supposed to be like that. I told you kids I would look after you, and now…” Petra starts to cry. “I’m so ,so sorry. I kept you locked in a stupor for years. I was terrified of losing you, and now I don’t even have a body to give you. I don’t know when I will. It's horrid. It’s just terrible.”

  “Petra, please. It’s okay. We’ll figure things out. We always do.”

  Amelia lifts down the vine crossing her mouth. “It's. Good. Hear. You.”

  “Don’t strain yourself, Amelia. Stay focused on your meditation until you’re back to normal. We’ll have a lot of time to talk in the future.” Amelia nods gratefully. The vines around her limbs tighten, and one wraps itself double over her mouth.

  “We do need to talk, though. I don’t think Valyrie has much of a plan.”

  “I have concepts of a plan.”

  “So nothing at all then,” Rhen sighs. “Okay. At least explain the basics of what you’re thinking. I want to hear it all from you.”

  “Well…” Valyrie starts. “The Freestar Collective is a second-circle player with around fifteen million ‘citizens’. Most of us are nils, around sixty percent. The ratio on Stellaris-9 is even higher. Out of five hundred thousand people, four hundred thousand are nils. The plan is pretty straightforward. Petra, free the nils, we mutiny and take over the station. In the chaos, we steal a cruiser, take any scientist Petra trusts and my family. Then we fly to Mars or wherever the safest Sacred trading post is.”

  “Wait. So your plan is to abandon all of the people who helped us?” Petra says aghast.

  Valyrie shrugs. “We’re four people against the entire Freestar Collective. You’re crippled, Amelia’s apoctalyptic, and Rhen’s the warcrime I keep in my head. We’ll be lucky if we survive a week before one of you three blows our cover. We can’t afford to shoot for idealistic plans that get my family killed. I’d rather you just blow me up now before I wrap my family into this.”

  “Still, there’s got to be a better way.” Rhen offers.

  Valyrie sighs. “Okay. I’ll spell it out for you two. The best case scenario is that we successfully mutiny and we have a hundred thousand hostages to trade with the Freestar Collective in exchange for the lives of every nil on Stellaris-9. In that best-case scenario, we end up like Stellaris-2, and the Freestar Collective blows us and the hostages to smithereens to set a precedent.” Valyrie lets her words settle on the kids and the naive adult. “There’s no way to get your cruiser without a mountain of credits or a trail of corpses a lightsecond long.”

  Petra bites her lip in frustration. Vine girl pats her on the back but doesn’t turn to Valyrie and glare like she’s used to. Even Amelia is considering the reality of the situation. The plan has merit in the girl’s eyes. But if the monster is the only one who gets Valyrie’s plan, what does that make Valyrie? Nothing to think about right this moment.

  “Okay, then we go back to my original plan,” Petra says. “We purchase a cruiser with my Lunar Echo.”

  “Hah. That’s not a plan at all. In the best-case scenario, the upper brass takes one look at you and shoves you into a box off to some off-the-grid military lab, or they cut you open and tear it out of you, then throw your corpse into a garbage chute because you mean nothing to them without your enhanced Resolve. You’re under the impression that you can just sign a contract with Freestar and they’ll give you a cruiser for some cash. Major players don’t deal like that. Their words only mean something if you have an orbital laser pointed at their neck.”

  “This is…oh dear.” Petra gets lost in thought. The reality of their impossible situation and her even more impossible quest is finally starting to weigh on her. They arrive at the military blast doors. Valyrie turns around to glare at the motley crew.

  “Look, what I’m telling you is our best shot at getting you what you want. Rhen, you have access to all my memories, right? Look through everything I got on Stellaris-9 and tell me there’s a better way. I’ll build you a body myself if you can come up with a better plan. This is the reality, Petra. This is what your little quest is going to cost.”

  Petra looks down at the ground. She hides her tears. Valyrie sighs and places an arm on the woman’s good shoulder. “Look. I know this is a lot to take in, but you’re a scientist, right? You’re good at math and stuff? Run the numbers. Compare how many people will be saved if you manufacture that cure versus the few that will be lost on Stellaris-9, and not even by your own hand, either. It will all be Freestar’s fault. At the end of the day, it’s not us ending their lives. It’s the fascists.”

  “We’ll still be the ones pulling the trigger.”

  This girl is much too pure for this world. “Okay. You all talk this over. Amelia, I’m relying on you to broker a consensus on what we should do. I’m going to recharge and I’ll be back in an hour. Then…Petra, look at me. You’ve got to decide if your quest is worth it, otherwise, you need to stop holding my leash. I don’t care if my head explodes if you fuck this up and put my family at risk, I will kill you all. Okay, see y’all again soon.”