So far, Eris could justify the corpses left in her wake tonight. Kill or be killed. This man wasn’t attacking. Kyla told her to end a life only if necessary, save as many as possible. Eris should at least try to keep her word.
“There.” His voice trembled. “It’s done.”
“Good,” Eris said.
She saw the exact moment his Oracle programming kicked in. The rapid eye movement and dilation of his pupils, the curl of his lips as his hand reached for his belt. His snarled words barely sounded like the voice he used before: “For Tholos.”
The captain lunged with a blade. Eris smacked the weapon away and pivoted, but he came at her and slammed her into the ground. His hands were on her throat, a tight squeeze. Eris saw stars. The Oracle’s programming was a benefit and a curse. Right now, it was pumping adrenaline through his body and running code through his brain until all that remained was the Oracle’s commands: God of Death, I kill for Thee. In Thy name I give my body.
Nothing else. No consciousness. No choice.
No autonomy.
She hit him, aiming for his kidneys. Just enough to get him off her. But it was no use; the Oracle had taken over. The programming all Tholosians had hardwired into their brains since birth was bad enough, but the chip at the base of his skull gave the AI control over his body’s motor functions.
He was so far gone, he might never come back. Shorted out into what the Tholosians called gerulae. Mindless servants. Human drones.
Eris edged the knife out of her wrist sheath and struck. She aimed for his arm, and shoved him hard enough to knock him on his back. “Captain? Captain, come on. You’ve got to fight through the—”
“In His name,” he murmured, grasping the hilt of the blade. He yanked it out of his arm in a single move.
“Captain—” Eris scrambled to her feet.
“I give my body.”
The captain slit his own throat.
Eris stopped short, shutting her eyes at the sight. “Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She reached into her pocket, closed her fingers around her small animal figurine. The weight of it helped her breathe. But it was a poor replacement for the man who had given it to her.
<Eris?> Sher’s voice came through the Pathos. <Is it done?>
She closed herself off to feelings. There was no place in her line of work to mourn the dead. There was only this: small moments after a mission. Taking stock. A quiet moment to tally up her kills.
Even the ones she’d intended to save. Or the ones she’d given quick deaths.
Did the captain count?
<Yeah,> she told Sher, trying to keep her inner voice light even as a heavy weight settled in her chest. Guilt had become too familiar. <Tell Kyla I beat my personal best for a ship this size.>
<Well done,> he said. <Now report back to Nova. Kyla will brief you on the way.>
<Fine. Be there as soon as I can.>
She pulled out of the call, stepped over the captain’s body, and entered a command into the ship’s computer. She might have killed to take the ship for supplies, but sacrificing the few to save the many was the way of the resistance. It was sure as shit more merciful of an end than those the Empire gave. The ship’s survivors would have the chips at the base of their skulls removed and be deprogrammed of the Oracle’s influence. They’d be given another chance on Nova. And who survived was simply the luck of the draw.
The God of Death did not have favorites. He simply took.
Eris locked the other soldiers in and directed the ship back to Nova headquarters. Maybe some of the soldiers would be freed of the Oracle’s programming and could be turned to the cause. Most would fail, and she was delivering them to their death.
She unclasped the necklace at her throat, with its tiny metal scythe, and bent over the captain’s corpse. She might not have been able to save him, but she could offer last rites. The ones she would have given in her previous life. His fate would be decided in a level of the Avernian underworld, all seven the realm of a different god. For the Tholosians, the gods and devils of the Avern were one and the same. Light only shown by the dark.
And her patron god was Letum, the most powerful of their pantheon. Death Himself.
Eris whispered a prayer to her insatiable god.
In His name.
2.
CLO
Present day
“Dinnae do this tae me, ye temperamental piece of silt,” Clo cursed.
Last night was a late one. Chrysaor had given up yesterday, and Clo had been dragged out of bed closer to midnight than dawn. The weather had been humid and hot, and the water system was completely bogged. She’d spent an hour cursing the mechanic who had let it go dry.
But that was the resistance—never enough of anything to go around, equipment held together with little more than tape, strategic welding, and a prayer. Clo had managed to fix the damn thing and the ship had taken off for its mission. Less than five hours of sleep and she was back at it again.
Every pore was drenched in sweat, sand, and engine oil. If she got hungry, she could probably cook an egg on the flagstones. Clo had been working on this engine all morning beneath the Novan sun. The sand dunes rising around the compound were a gradient of orange, yellow, and red ablaze in the light.
It was another world to the damp, marshy swamplands where Clo had grown up. She never thought she’d miss the smell of sulfur, peat, and stagnant water. Sometimes, the resistance itself seemed as dried out as this empty planet they’d claimed as their own—a movement that could crumble into dust.
Clo wiped the sweat from her forehead. The Valkyrie X-501 in front of her should be flying like a dream, but the damn ignition wasn’t lighting up the engine.
Ugh. “Useless,” she muttered.
Maybe if she changed tactics, cajoled instead of insulted, the thing would listen to her.
“We need yer wings, my snell one.” With only the metal of the spaceship to hear, Clo always slipped back into the Snarl dialect of her youth. “Wouldn’t ye rather be out among the stars than mired on this blarin’ rock?”
A frustrated curse drew Clo’s attention.
On the next landing pad, Elva battled her own engine. Like Clo, she worked alone—but unlike Clo, it wasn’t by choice. Elva’s skin was stippled with swirls that branded her as different from Clo or the other Tholosians at Nova. The markings fell down Elva’s neck like stripes and curled around her collarbones. She had told Clo that the pattern followed the lines of cell development in the skin.
Clo had become very familiar with those dappled marks one night in her bunk. Their intimacy hadn’t repeated itself, instead giving way to an easy friendship. One mechanic to another.