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  He swallowed. Not that it was love most of the time. Sometimes it felt as though Joel was the first true romantic love of his life. He wondered if God had put Joel in his life deliberately late. He swallowed.

  Outside, he heard the thump of boots. Rising to his feet, he went to the door, realizing halfway there that he still clutched the holy book. Cramped in fear, his fingers wouldn’t let it go. Desperately patting his pocket with his free hand, he felt the detonator. Releasing a breath, still unable to release the damned book—and oh, God, he was going to burn in hell fire for that mental blasphemy—Silas opened the door, hand shaking so violently it rattled it in its frame.

  He saw them immediately: men and women, all viciously armed. Their clothing and hair were ragged, and to a one they had dark circles under their eyes. They stood in exactly the same position and said as one, “You will join us or die.” He swore they blinked in unison. Joel had protested that Silas would need him to identify the Infected. It was too bad that Silas wouldn’t be able to tell him he had been wrong; their Infection was instantly apparent.

  Backing into the house, Silas threw up his hands and squeaked, “I will do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me!” He sounded distressingly convincing.

  Most took positions on the porch—in range of the explosion, he noted in a far-off corner of his brain—perhaps half a dozen of them filed into his house, and Silas found himself, of all things, annoyed that not a single one of them wiped their muddy boots. He was a petty, silly man.

  Encircling him, they spoke in unison, “We need Alexis Darmadi.”

  Silas pointed helpfully to the stairs. “Right upstairs, still sleeping.” All but two immediately bolted for the second floor.

  One of the remaining stayed near the door; the other took a step toward Silas, mucking up the floor further. Not that it mattered.

  “You will join us.” Both men said it. Same inflection. Same blink at the end. Same slow smile afterward that didn’t reach the eyes. Silas didn’t have the sense of the Dark that Joel had, and yet he felt his stomach lurching, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and a sudden certainty. This was evil; this was everything he’d sniffed at as religious superstition. It was in his living room and wanted to take Alexis and his little nephews. It would kill Markus. Infants were useless to it.

  The air between them shimmered, as though by heat. Silas blinked. He did feel hot, though he was not sweating. It was a dry heat, like fever. Was he getting sick already? No, it had been explained to him on numerous occasions that the Dark was primarily transferred by fluids. It could transfer in the air, but it took sustained contact, close contact. Silas backed up a step, even though it didn’t matter.

  Upstairs someone slammed on a door. “Unlock this. You will join us.” Silas had locked all the bedroom doors. He’d wanted the Dark to think Alexis was inside. He tried not to look up; he tried to keep his eyes focused on the man before him.

  The Infected man stepped closer. “We know you. What you do. Sodomy is a sin.”

  Evil was lecturing him about sin? Silas threw The Three Books at the Infected man before he’d thought about it. The book opened, and as it soared, its pages caught fire and slammed into the Infected like a flaming hand of God. Silas’s eyes went wide.

  The Infected man backed up, surely blinded but showing no sign of pain. Upstairs Silas heard what sounded like someone trying to knock down a door.

  Silas had run out of time. Reaching into his pocket, he found the detonator. Grimacing in expected pain, he hunched his shoulders and pressed the button. The world shook, and pain shot through his ears as explosions rang through the house and the yard. Through his closed eyelids he saw orange, and the air that reached his nostrils was acrid with smoke and scents of burning carpet. He felt heat …

  But oddly he didn’t feel that much heat. Had he flubbed it? The Infected were making no sound—although his ears were ringing, and maybe he just couldn’t hear them. But they hadn’t moved toward him, either. Maybe they were just staring at him in absolute amazement at his incompetence. He dared to open his eyes. He was crouching in a circle clear of fire, but all around him were flames. The flames should be roaring, but all he heard was the horrible ringing in his ears. Through the flames he did make out the two Infected who’d been guarding him … or at least pieces of them. Those pieces were on fire. The explosives Alexis’s guard had set had worked. He saw a head, hair on fire, eyes open, expression oddly peaceful.

  Silas spun away. He was supposed to have died, too, a quick death. Instead, he was going to slowly burn to death. He was more frightened of the pain than of dying, and his knees almost gave out. He stood at the center of the inferno, and like the eye of a great storm, it was strangely calm, and stranger still, mostly free of smoke. He wasn’t, it appeared, even going to be given the grace of dying by smoke inhalation. He was going to burn. Should he run into the flames? Would that make his death easier?

  The thought had just crossed his mind when the flames and smoke before him split and withdrew. A path, riddled with debris and smoldering, but a path nonetheless, appeared. It stretched through what had once been a wall, directly to the back door of the kitchen. The door was gone and standing in its frame was a lion. The firelight shone on its mane and its yellow eyes and made it almost appear one with the blaze. But unlike the whirling conflagration outside of Silas’s small circle of safety, its expression and stance were calm, reminding him of a fairy tale in which God had come to his chosen in a lion’s form. He was hallucinating. Obviously. He wasn’t chosen, and no magical lion was here for him. At that thought, the lion leaped forward, traversing the narrow path before Silas could do more than raise his hands, as though to ward it away. Seconds later, it was wrapping around him, rubbing against his legs like an enormous housecat and pushing him toward the path to the back door.

  Silas didn’t consciously grab hold of its mane. But he did grab hold. He didn’t plan to let it lead him through the fire. But he did follow it, mane clasped in his fingers the whole time. Outside the house, there was another scene of horror. More fire was in the forest that surrounded the house, although that hadn’t been rigged with explosives. There were also more Infected. Their bodies were strewn on the ground and glowed like old coals, what was left of their faces eerily calm. Of course they would have surrounded the entire house.

  Silas swallowed, held tight to the lion’s mane, and let it lead him through the fire.

  27

  The Final Battle

  System Zero

  Volka wasn’t sure she existed as anything but thought. She flitted between the Skimmers and the captains, Noa, and Alaric. She felt the emergence of the Dark’s latest faster-than-light ships and broadcast their emergence through the waves to Young and Dixon who sent it to James and Sixty, who sent it to the Q-comms of every Luddeccean LCS and the Uriel. TAB and Bracelet immediately led four unmanned fighters each on an intercept of the missiles the ships launched toward the allies, and Skimmers watched the skies above them with extra care.

  Sixty’s voice cut through her thoughts with odd solidity, “There are currently forty-three of the Dark’s faster-than-light ships in atmosphere or near orbit.”

  They’d already taken out five faster-than-light ships, damaged another six … and lost the Nehrer. The captain hadn’t expected his Net-drive to work, hadn’t expected to make it home in one piece. He’d attempted a risky maneuver that had protected the Uriel … she shook herself, trying not to remember the abrupt expulsion of the crew members from their bodies. She’d sworn they’d seen her and felt her thoughts in the waves.

  Her eyes were closed; she was only half-corporeal, but her non-corporeal self saw Sixty’s Q-comm sparkle. His voice, once again, crossed the divide between the world of her body and her other, drifting, sliding self. “If we lure them closer, we might take them with the fusion blast.”

  Alaric was thinking the same thing, letting the Uriel descend at a breathtakingly sharp angle. The Skimmers adjusted their own
trajectories.

  From her ships, Volka saw missiles dropped from the faster-than-light ships above them—that were promptly destroyed by drones commanded by TAB and Bracelet. As the two Q-comm-enabled fighters spun back to rejoin the Skimmers, Volka heard a weere priest aboard the Uriel. “Those were the last drones.”

  She focused on Alaric’s flight plan. If he got closer to the surface, they were within range, but Alaric intended to take the Uriel down to just a few kilometers above the surface and then break toward the shipyard, making it look like they weren’t in range. He hoped to lure the faster-than-light ships down with the maneuver. The Uriel was too large to weave and dodge, but with the Skimmers and the fighters to fend off incoming missiles and phaser fire, it wasn’t a weakness.

  Missiles continued to rain down, but TAB and Bracelet began leading pilotless fighters in place of drones in terrifying suicide strikes against weapons that would take down the Skimmers. The Skimmers took down the conventional weapons, and the Uriel made it to the cruising height Alaric intended. Below them, the black sea’s waves funneled up as though to drag them under—hopelessly, the allies were far too high—but it was frightening and a reminder that any ship that sank too low was lost.

  Sixty’s Q-comm shone. “Less than six-hundred kilometers.”

  She felt her lips pull into a smile and almost laughed for victory, and for the fact that she had a body and wasn’t just a figment of the universe’s imagination, a creature of dream.

  And then the quantum waves directly in the Uriel’s path buckled. The Skimmers screamed. Alaric’s crew saw it as “a fluctuation in space-time, sir.” She heard dozens of mental cries ringing out, “They’re free-gating into our path!” The Uriel couldn’t dodge. “Accelerate,” Alaric commanded. “Alter course—” Volka saw the Uriel’s new trajectory in his mind, and the Skimmers pictured where the Dark’s ship would emerge off the Uriel’s portside. She knew that although it wouldn’t be a direct hit, it would be a hit.

  The Skimmers never free-gated so far into a gravity well.

  Nor did the Luddecceans.

  The next instant, she saw why.

  Normally, the Dark’s ships arrived in a brilliant red sphere.

  The thing that free-gated against the Uriel’s portside, was, for lack of a better word, a smudge of red and black, and, in a heartbeat, she knew that the Infected within it were already atoms, but atoms were power, and the “smudge” spread and ripped outward. The portside of the Uriel appeared to peel half away, and an outrigger bent hopelessly.

  The Uriel wasn’t going home.

  Damage reports were ringing through the bridge.

  Outrigger down. Electrical fire midship. Ten dead.

  Anger surged through Alaric. It brought with it the lack of fear, the crystal clarity of thought, and the taste of metal on his tongue. It was almost like an old friend at this point. His friend and he were about to have one hell of a party.

  “Call in the fighters, and the remaining LCSs, prepare to evacuate. Tell the Skimmers to be ready to help out.” The fighters could make it to the hidden gate—and since they were mostly piloted by dumb machines, they had more room than usual. Two men per fighter if they threw out the survival gear that would be useless in a system infected by the Dark. Between them, the LCSs, and the Skimmers, what was left of his crew had a ticket out of here.

  “Aye,” said an ensign. In a distant part of his mind, Alaric noted the man sounded shocked. Had Alaric been the only person who’d understood this was a suicide mission? That annoyed Alaric for some reason, and at the most nonsensical of times he was aware of his annoyance.

  “The Dark’s faster-than-light ships are moving to intercept us.”

  “Excellent,” Alaric said.

  “Sir,” an ensign declared. “The electrical fire damaged our engine. If I don’t shut it off—”

  That was not excellent. “Power it down,” Alaric said. “Hover engines and inertia will keep us going long enough.” They just had to appear to be a threat. He peered down at a readout. He still had phaser cannons and a few torpedoes. He felt a feral smile pulling at his lips. She was injured but deadly.

  Another thought occurred to him, one much less pleasant. He checked a readout. Swore and unharnessed himself.

  “Sir?” Ko asked.

  “Electrical fire made it impossible to wake our baby from the bridge.”

  Ko motioned to their nearby security officers. “You’ll need a guard, sir. They’re going to try and board.”

  Alaric almost protested that was nonsensical, but then realized how right Ko was. The Dark valued human life—inasmuch as they could be used for intel and labor. Everyone aboard the Uriel was both, and the Dark would try to take every member of his crew it could. “All right.” To the bridge crew, he said, “You are much too valuable to be taken alive. Set your systems to automatic and get out of here as soon as you can.” He pulled on his helmet. Before the visor dropped, he commanded his team, “And seal your armor.”

  An LCS left the Uriel’s dock, ten fighters in her wake. One of them was TAB. The former tablet called out to Sixty through the Q-comm, “Tell Jerome I can’t wait for him to plug me in again! Don’t let him get blown up.”

  Bracelet, her fighter trailing another LCS, chimed in, “Don’t get yourself blown up, either, 6T9.”

  “I guess that would be a shame, too,” TAB said without a lot of conviction.

  “I’m primarily worried about Volka and Carl, of course,” Bracelet added.

  And 6T9 couldn’t be insulted by either sentiment. He would exist if he got blown apart. It would be half an existence, entirely digital unless he got a new Q-comm, but it wasn’t the same as death.

  “Let me focus on keeping her alive,” he admonished both of them and let his attention focus on the data coming in through the phaser cannon’s cameras, Dixon’s mind, and Uriel’s Q-comm.

  Dixon said, “The last cannon’s out of ammo; let’s pull it in. We’ll have to sterilize any Infections with phaser rifles.” They’d only accomplish that by going outside the ship and spraying her manually.

  6T9 was the logical choice for such a maneuver. Disconnecting his hardlink, his own sensors coming online, he found Sundancer had made herself transparent. Below him, dark waters churned. His head jerked up. They were covering the Uriel’s damaged port side. The Uriel’s cannons were still firing, but the shots were largely ineffective and obviously pre-programmed. A boxy, dark, enemy ship was latched to the Uriel’s topside. It wasn’t firing on the Skimmers; perhaps it couldn’t from its perch. But the Skimmers’ cannons wouldn’t do much damage to it, either. They could ram it, but that would mean Infection.

  Dixon said, “We’re saving our fire. Everyone is nearly out of ammo. We just want to protect the other Skimmers in the dock helping with the evacuation. All the LCSs are off.”

  6T9’s shoulders fell. He turned to Volka; her eyes were closed. “Volka, how close are they to triggering the weapon?”

  Dixon’s head jerked up from the rifle he was inspecting. “It will probably be harmless to the Skimmers, would probably even cure them if they were Infected. As soon as the crew is loaded up, he can let that thing blow!” He turned his head to Volka, his expression almost a smile.

  Volka’s ears curled. “There’s a problem.”

  “What sort of problem?” 6T9 asked, sitting up, unconsciously taking her hand.

  She opened her eyes. “Fire problems, hostile boarder problems, and computer problems.”

  Holding out a hand to a weere crew member, Sixty ordered through a Q-comm, sparking blindness, “Give me a rifle. Volka—can you tell me where they are?”

  Her ears came forward and then curled almost immediately. “You can’t think of going in there?”

  6T9’s Q-comm had returned the results to a query he hadn’t intentionally sent. “I can help with fire and boarders, and I am a computer.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Volka said.

  “Not while Carl is out of commission,” Dix
on declared. “I’ll go with you, General.”

  “And I will too,” said a weere. Flores was her name. “I can smell the Dark almost as well as you, Admiral.”

  Volka’s hand didn’t release 6T9’s own.

  “I won’t kill Darmadi,” 6T9 promised. It came out grudgingly.

  Her grip grew tighter. “I know that.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s dangerous.”

  6T9 kissed her hand. “That bomb has to blow.”

  Her grip loosened. She nodded. Her eyes didn’t let him go, though. “I need to know where we need to go,” he whispered.

  Volka’s stare went past 6T9.

  Dixon’s head snapped back as though he’d been punched. “I see it.”

  Flores’s ears came forward. “Got it, too.”

  Sundancer spun so that her keel was perpendicular to the ground. Gravity within the ship didn’t change. To Sixty’s right was glossy black sea; to his left was a sky stained by smoke. Before him was Volka; she had him caught once more in her gaze.