Incredible that something so small could mean the difference between life and death to so many people. Maybe the entire universe. And all she had to do was make one cut.
Hopefully, it would work as Emle and the other scientists expected. The notion that after all this, she was destined to be disintegrated by a massive explosion that she herself caused was—well, it was kind of poetic, really, given her history.
But they hadn’t sent a poet, they’d sent Captain Eva Innocente, legendary smuggler. And as Nara Sumas would almost certainly agree, you got what you paid for.
Eva grabbed the bundle of pinkish cables and teased out the magenta one. Probably. Holding her breath, she brought her vibroblade up to the insulated surface and, in one swift motion, sliced the cable in two.
Moments passed. The energy cube continued to glow the same merry pinkish-purple in front of her. If anything was exploding, it was happening slowly and elsewhere. She debated whether to stay in the relative safety of her current location or see what was happening on the surface. For all she knew, Emle had been wrong about whether cutting the power would work at all, and the Gate was still active. Yeah, she’d better check.
With a sharp exhalation of breath, Eva began to climb and crawl back toward the access tunnel. Nothing seemed to be moving above her, which she hoped was a good sign. Slowly, carefully, she peered over the edge.
At first, it looked as if she’d failed. The dreadnought was still there, moving inexorably toward the Forge station and the battle surrounding it. But as Eva looked closer, she realized the Gate was closed, showing stars through its vast arc instead of black sky and a freaky mystery planet.
Also, the rest of the massive ship was gone. Only the front part remained, inertia continuing to carry it forward since it no longer had engines.
“Alabao,” Eva whispered. She had done it. For particular definitions of “it,” since she had no idea whether anyone else had survived.
Before she could open comms to find out, a figure appeared above her. The bike-bot, its arm blades retracted. The larger robot was nowhere in sight, unless the faint twinkle of red near the ruined starship was from its lights.
Eva tensed. The bot had helped her, yes, but that didn’t mean it approved of what she had done. It wasn’t like they’d planned it all out together; they couldn’t even communicate with each other, and she had no idea what it wanted or why. Hell, for all she knew it could have come from that ship in the first place.
Silently, as all things were in space, the bot gestured at the wreck and turned back to her. Asking whether Eva had done that? Who knew what strange robot gestures meant? But Eva nodded anyway, in case its translators were as impossibly advanced as the rest of it. Them. If they were sapient, they deserved pronouns, though they weren’t broadcasting them over a commlink like everyone else did.
The bot turned away again, as if surveying the situation. Their expression was inscrutable, eyes glowing the same bright blue as before. Eva resisted the urge to run, because she didn’t exactly have anywhere to go. Down, maybe, back into the Gate. The access tunnel wouldn’t fit the bot, so she should be safe there.
Before she could move, the bot started to walk away. Brow furrowed, Eva climbed farther out of the tunnel, wondering what they were doing.
Without warning, a small Gate opened in front of them, like the ones Eva had seen back at the Fridge base. Oval-shaped, its edges bright green and blurred, and large enough to let the bot pass through without ducking. The other side looked like the interior of a ship, though it could as easily have been a building, given the aesthetic of the planet Eva had seen in that other galaxy. Every surface was metallic with lines suggesting connected plates, blue-white lights in the ceiling illuminating the room and its occupants. A huge bot stood behind a console that glowed faintly with floating pictographs reminiscent of the ones in the ruins on Cavus, while another bot waited nearby, staring directly into the small Gate.
Madre de dios, how many of them are there? Eva wondered. And what do they want?
The bike-bot stepped through the Gate, turning back to Eva one last time. To her surprise and confusion, they folded all their fingers but one and raised their fist at her. A moment later, the Gate disappeared, and Eva was left alone in the starlit darkness of space.
A thumbs-up. The robot had given her a thumbs-up.
My life, Eva thought, is too fucking weird. But it was her life, and she was alive, and that was better than the alternative.
Chapter 25
A Hero and a Memory
Eva sat on the floor in the hallway outside the med bay as a nurse tended to Mari’s broken leg. They were all in the hallway, technically, since the station’s med bay was completely overrun with the injured, Fridge and Forge alike. The reek of antiseptic and various species’ blood and other fluids was enough to make Eva turn her isohelmet back on, but it was a small price to pay for being able to smell Vakar again. He sat next to her, a hand on her thigh, reeking of incense and ozone with enough of an undercurrent of licorice to ease some of Eva’s own nerves.
“She will be fine,” Vakar said.
“I know,” Eva replied. “She’s broken bones before.”
They fell silent again, Eva afraid to ask the questions piling up in her head, and Vakar apparently unaware of them or unwilling to broach the subjects. His bosses couldn’t be happy with him, though maybe they’d be less angry, given that Vakar had defied their orders because he’d been investigating a massive Fridge attack.
Maybe not. Nothing to be done about it now. Worst case, Vakar was back on their crew permanently, and she was very prepared to be fine with that. She suspected he wasn’t, though, which made her sad even as she understood completely.
To distract herself, Eva started rooting through newsnet feeds, looking for something about Garilia. All she could find was a brief note that the system was closed as BOFA investigated local safety issues, and that tourists with canceled contracts should reach out to the appropriate authorities to ask for refunds.
She snorted, wondering whether Regina’s team had managed to round up all the escaped Pod Pals in the end, and how many of them were already scattered across various galaxies in the possession of random rich people. Too many, no doubt, to ever catch them all.
Had Eva done the right thing for Garilia, ultimately? She didn’t know. Lashra Damaal would hopefully have justice, whatever that looked like, and be unable to further her plans in the future. Whether the resistance would be able to change what needed changing remained to be seen. Politics was slow until it wasn’t, and a wave could quickly become a tsunami or a riptide.
But maybe, for Eva at least, it was time to walk away and leave that beach well behind her.
“Captain Innocente,” a voice above her said. Agent Elus, her blue-gray skin trending a little greener, her tentacle-hair still swept back from her face. She wore a spacesuit, to Eva’s surprise, eggshell-white except where it was grimy from grease or smoke or, in at least one place, blood.
Not her own, Eva thought, but I’m not going to ask.
“Agent Elus,” Eva responded. “Can I help you with something?”
“Perhaps. May we speak privately?” She held out a hand to help Eva stand.
Eva used her own hand to push off Vakar’s leg and rise alone. “Lead the way.”