As soon as he was in reach, a bony hand punched out and grabbed Thorn’s arm in an iron grip. Tucks empty eyes bore into his, and he finally managed to cough out a single word.
“Witness!”
As Tuck spat out the word, he jabbed his other hand at the med staff. Thorn turned in time to see the wind rip away their medical garb, exposing wet, grey skin, bulbous eyes, and tentacles.
Nyctus. They were all Nyctus. And they were here, on the Hecate.
“Thorn,” Tuck hissed. “What next?”
Thorn opened his mouth to scream for security, but a vicious blast of wind blew him backward. Now he could feel his own power being bled from him, like someone reaching deep inside and pulling.
Thorn drew himself back, desperate to get away from Tuck, from the storm, from the Nyctus. He crashed into something and fell—
Flat onto the gurney, where he just lay, blinking, the overhead lights harsh in his vision.
There was no storm, just the soft, white-noise rumble of the Hecate’s systems. Thorn rolled his head to the side and saw no Tuck—and no Nyctus. He saw only the ship’s surgeon, Quinn, and a nurse, both muttering over a medical display.
“Doc?”
Quinn looked up, her dark eyes snapping to focus on him. “Ah, Lieutenant Stellers. Sleep well?”
Thorn swallowed hard. His heart still pounded in his chest, a staccato, loping beat of two notes that translated to a fear response so ancient, it had no name, only a sound. “I was asleep?”
“You were. Not a problem, though,” the surgeon replied. “And actually better, in a way, since we get better data.” He pointed at the display. “Looks like you were dreaming, too.”
“I . . . was, yeah,” Thorn said, letting his head sink back down on the pillow. He’d had the dream before, of being back at Code Nebula and once more witnessing the horrifying removal of Tuck’s capacity to perform magic. The procedure itself had been bad enough, but the recurring dream added the even more horrifying drain of Tuck’s life force, and his reduction to a cadaverous shell. It had been a horrific thing to see, so it wasn’t surprising the event haunted Thorn, a constant echo of the time he’d seen a ‘caster broken back to pure humanity, like a maestro who loses the ability to hear and speak.
Tuck had known magic, and then he’d known a void. The emptiness was cruel enough. Living beyond the procedure was a kind of walking death, known only to Tuck and the few other ‘casters who had been deemed too dangerous to continue practicing magic. It was a small group of souls who were bereft of the spark within them, and Thorn still felt pangs of guilt every time he thought about Tuck’s sad eyes and shaking body.
But there had never been Nyctus before. Never.
“Well, Lieutenant,” the surgeon said. “You’ve got a slight buildup of metabolic toxins, which suggests you need a good night’s sleep. Your electrolytes are a little off as well, so eat something before you rack out. Otherwise”—Quinn paused and looked at the nurse, who shrugged before turning back to Thorn—“you’re in pretty much perfect health.”
Thorn sat up. “Please tell the Captain that. I’d be grateful. Maybe throw in a few words like superb and remarkable.” He tried to sound offhanded about it, but his heart was still racing—something the ship’s surgeon could readily see on the display.
“Take it those dreams were unsettling,” the surgeon said, then looked up and gave Thorn a sly smile. “Or just exciting? No—don’t tell me. Your dreams belong to you alone.”
The nurse chuckled. Thorn forced a smile, but it felt waxy on his face.
“Let’s go with exciting, sir,” he said, reaching for his uniform and boots. Eyes averted, Thorn dressed and thought of Nyctus, and secrets, and memory.
Thorn touched the ID panel beside the door to Tanner’s planning room, located immediately behind the Hecate’s bridge. The door slid open, and Thorn stepped forward,
Then he stopped, seeing the little room jammed with people.
“Squeeze in, Stellers,” Tanner said, gesturing him forward. “Everyone get cozy.”
Thorn pushed his way, sliding between the XO and the Hecate’s Security Chief, a man named Braxton who had, in the three years Thorn had known him, smiled once. Besides them and Tanner, the ship’s intel officer took up virtually all of the remaining space. As Thorn pushed against Braxton, the man glared at him—a bit unsettling, since their faces were about twenty centimeters apart.
“You realize you have to buy me dinner now,” Braxton deadpanned.
Thorn gave a grim nod. “Only if you take me dancing after.”
Braxton let a glimmer of a smile leak through his eternal scowl, then they both turned as Tanner cleared his throat.
“Save the romance for your off time, kids. We’ve got Nyctus to hunt,” the Captain said, Thorn chuckled along with all the rest, even though the dream he’d had in the Infirmary about Tuck still hung around, dark and unwelcome. Tanner didn’t even crack a smile, and just pressed on.
“The reason I’ve had you all jam in here is this,” Tanner said, touching a control and bringing an image up on the screen mounted on one bulkhead. Thorn had to crane his head around the XO’s to see. The image was that of a man, dressed in an ON uniform, sitting at a console aboard—a ship, although there was nothing to indicate which one it was. Probably a capital ship, given the expansive bridge, but that was all he could tell.
A moment of silence was finally broken by the XO.
“Okay, sir, it’s . . . someone, sitting at a bridge station.” She looked at Tanner. “Is there something more I should be seeing here, sir?”
Tanner opened his mouth to reply but paused as Thorn leaned forward.
“You have something to add, Stellers?” the Captain asked.
Thorn examined the image. That face—
“I’ve seen this man before” Thorn curled his lip. It hadn’t been someone he’d met at Code Nebula; he knew all those people well enough that he’d recognize them without trouble. Who then?
“Wait,” he said, as the memory popped open like a new data window. “Right. I don’t know his name, but he was the Tactical Officer aboard the Centurion.”
“Right first time, Stellers,” Tanner replied. “Which leads me to ask, how do you know this man?”
“Well, I don’t, actually.” He went on to explain how, not long after being assigned to the Forward Operating Base known as Code Gauntlet, Thorn had been tasked to assist in figuring out how the Nyctus were degrading ON sensors. This involved watching the Centurion’s flight-recorder data play out the doomed ship’s final moments, from the perspective of the bridge crew.
“And this man was the Tactical Officer.” Thorn looked at Tanner. “How long ago was this image captured, sir?”
The intel officer answered. “Three days ago, aboard the Colossus.”
“She’s Admiral Best’s flagship, isn’t she?” the XO put in. “Command ship for the whole Rimward Fleet?”
“That’s right,” Tanner replied.
Thorn took a moment, letting the information percolate through his overloaded senses. This, the images of Tuck, and his vision of the little girl on Nebo were all combining to cause hairline cracks in his certainty about what was real. The unnerving moment passed, and he spoke up.