Page 158 of The First Spark
Utter stillness. The world might’ve been moving around her, but she wasn’t part of it. All she could do was stare. It couldn’t be Ariah. She’d watched her die. The face wasn’t enough to go on; the woman’s features were swollen beyond recognition, and they could’ve used a cybermod.
Iliana’s baffling ultimatum whispered in her memory:“You lost something very important to you… a piece of you… does the name?—”
Kalie clapped a hand to her mouth and screamed. “Oh, gods, Ariah!”
The scream snapped something in her; her legs unlocked, and she staggered to the video, crumpling to her knees. Her eyes widened as she traced the infected burns spiraling down Ariah’s neck, the missing chunks of skin, the vicious wounds criss-crossing her bare chest, and her leg, a rotting mass of black and yellow and putrid green. Then she screamed, and sobbed, and pounded the metal floor, wishing her bones would break like Ariah’s.
“Ariah is dead,” Julian said coldly. The word echoed in her ears:dead, dead, dead…
“No. But I’m sure she wishes she was.” Iliana’s voice was low and haunted. “I tried to give you a chance to free her, back at my coronation. I know what it’s like to be discarded, abused, abandoned… If you’d agreed to let me have the crown, I could’ve convinced the Prime Minister to release her. It would’ve been weeks. Not months. Not…”
Iliana shuddered, and a fist gripped Kalie’s stomach. If Iliana, who’d endured twenty cycles in a cell on Titan, shuddered at what had been done to Ariah…
Bile lurched into Kalie’s throat, and she doubled over, retching on the catwalk. Puke tangled in her hair. Someone swept the strands away, pinning them back as another wave spewed from her mouth. It landed on the floor with a wet splat. Kalie squeezed her eyes shut, shutting out the revolting sight. Her strangled gasps for air tasted rancid, and nausea churned in her gut.
Someone was murmuring in her ear. A man’s voice, kind and familiar.
People were shouting. Roaring.
The hands holding her hair didn’t vanish, but the presence shifted. Where there was warmth was now darkness. Waves of ice slithered through her veins.
Snot and tears streamed down her face as she looked up.
An armada of darkness, only visible by the light of the distant stars, emerged from behind the planet. Too many shadows. Too many ships.
Kalie crumpled. Fear crashed over her like ocean waves, pulling her down, drowning her.
“You can end this, Kalista. He’ll stop if you hand yourself in. I’ll let all of them go, I swear on my soul.” Iliana took a hitching breath. “The fate of our people lies in your hands.”
Dali, Sector 4
Undecemmensis-22, 817 cycles A.F.C.
Tryingto make sense of the sounds, the smells—frantic shouts, shrieking alarms and flashing red auras, the rank stench of piss and fear, thunderous footsteps that made the steel floor vibrate in tune with his thumping heart… Zane couldn’t take it. It was like daggers piercing his mind, blades shredding his heart,thereandhereand it was all happening again. An ambush. Sleek black destroyers or Oppallese rebels, it didn’t matter. They were surrounded, and hopelessly outnumbered, and Mylis?—
Kalie retched, and Zane’s grip tightened on her hair. Mangled images flashed through his mind. Mylis’s blackened, bloodshot eyes. His matted mop of hair. Blood caked onto his lips. His screams—Mordir, those screams—as he thrashed in agony.
Zane’s hand shook as he rubbed Kalie’s back. Akron’s holo barked at Nadar, whose sister, an Aquisian queen, had called moments ago with the panicked message that Carik had attacked Aquis. He’d attacked their other allies, too. Poltrun hadabandoned Akron and sent his fleets to fight for his homeworld. Arrosa’s fleet had retreated from Dejur, leaving Carik’s reinforcements with an open stargate to Dali.
“How many fleets are there?” Raging alarms and shouts muted Kalie’s faint whisper. “Five? Six?”
“Seven,” Zane mumbled. She gave a strangled sob.
“Sir, we’ve lost theMercury!”
Splintering debris exploded outwards where an Aquisian destroyer had been, and a Federation frigate plowed through the escape pods. Bone-deep chills shot through Zane. Screams rang in his ears, but whether it was the cries of the dying troops over the comms or the ghosts of Oppalli, it was impossible to tell.
Nadar barked orders at his cruisers. Three of them burst into debris. Ryker’s projection turned away in horror as the other Dalian destroyer, theScimitar, exploded in a cloud of shrapnel. The frigates and corvettes didn’t stand a chance. Someone shouted that the warplanes tasked with destroying the capital’s cannons had been destroyed.
Kalie clutched her head in her hands.
As Zane slid an arm around her, he breathed in deeply, trying to commit this moment to memory. The pungent reek of bile, fear, and body odor clung to the air. Clutching her arm, he pulled her trembling body against his and rested his chin atop her limp hair.
He’d known it would come to this. To save Kalie, he had to try.
“We can’t hold them off forever.” Nadar’s blue scales paled to the color of ice. “Sooner or later, I need to send them terms for surrender.”
Zane’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re staying?”
