Unstoppable - Promises Stronger Than Darkness E-Book

Charlie Jane Anders

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 607

Beschreibung

The conclusion of the mind-blowing intergalactic Unstoppable series, the sequel to the Locus Award-winning Victories Greater Than Death and Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, from the international-bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky. THEY'RE THE GALAXY'S MOST WANTED — AND OUR ONLY HOPE When Elza became a space princess, she thought she'd be spending her time at the palace, wearing gorgeous couture and soaking up everything there is to know — but instead, she's on the run, with everyone hunting for her and her friends. Rachael followed her best friend Tina on the adventure of a lifetime — but now Tina's gone, and Rachael's the only one keeping her friends together, as they go on a desperate quest to save everyone from an ancient curse. Rachael, Elza and their friends have found one clue, one shining mysterious chance to stop the end of the world. And that takes them back to the second-to-last place they'd want to be: enlisting the aid of Captain Thaoh Argentian, the woman who stole Tina's body (and who now seems to be relishing a second chance at teenage chaos and drama, instead of living up to her legacy of an intrepid heroic commander). With only a ragtag band of misfits, crewmates, earthlings, friends, lovers (and one annoying frenemy), the Unstoppable Crew are up against the universe--and they soon find that in order to survive, they may have to cross a line they vowed never to cross.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Charlie Jane Anders and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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Acknowledgments

About the Author

ALSO BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERSAND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

All the Birds in the Sky

The City in the Middle of the Night

Even Greater Mistakes

THE UNSTOPPABLE SERIES

Victories Greater Than Death

Dreans Bigger Than Heartbreak

Promises Stronger Than Darkness

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Promises Stronger Than Darkness

Print edition ISBN: 9781789095463

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789095470

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition April 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 Charlie Jane Anders. All rights reserved.

Charlie Jane Anders asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Excerpt from “One Trick Pony” by Major Powers & theLow-Fi Symphony © 2016, used with permission

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Annalee, who showed me the way home

They’ve got a head start.They’re going to need it.We’re falling apart,But we’re making a plan.

—Major Powers & theLo-Fi Symphony

PROLOGUE

The Rogue Princess

Dark times, desperate people. The stars are dying and the peacekeepers are corrupted. There are no more righteous fighters—just monsters and prey. We have no place left to run, but we all keep running anyway.

Except if you’re lucky—if the Ardenii smile upon you—there’s still hope. When you find yourself in a danger you can’t see a way past, you may yet be saved.

Maybe the Rogue Princess will come to your rescue.

Six of the seven princesses stay within the Palace of Scented Tears, anointing themselves, drinking from the river of sweetest fears, and trying to find some answer, some clue, to help save the doomed suns. But the seventh princess travels far and obeys nobody. She saves people—she saves entire worlds—and she always tells the truth.

The Rogue Princess journeys in a starship that was made half for art, half for science, and she appears without warning. Her companions aren’t fighters: they’re scientists, diplomats, scholars, artists, and musicians. Survivors of the Battle of Antarràn and the Fall of Irriyaia, they search for a cure for the Bereavement, the strange sickness that menaces every last star that supports life.

And along the way, they help people in need. People like us.

Many believe the Rogue Princess is a legend, but she saved our lives. Our ship was broken, we were spewing air through a hole the size and shape of a floatbeast head, and Scanthian raiders were about to fire one last missile to finish us off. All of us chanted the Yarthin Prayer of Not Dying as we said our goodbyes and reminded ourselves that life had been sweet.

And then it appeared: the strangest vessel we had ever seen. We glimpsed a stone wall covered with graffiti, and the sweep of a Royal daggership’s upper hull. The ship cradled us with its ion harness, holding our air inside so we could keep breathing, and moved between us and the bandits’ ravager-class starship.

That’s when I heard her voice.

“Stand down, raiders. This is Princess Elza, and my pronoun is she, and I will not allow you to hurt these people. Your ship has a radiation leak and you bought faulty gravitators from a scrapyard at Vandal Station, and there are a dozen other ways I could make sure you never threaten innocent lives again, without firing a single weapon. You have one chance to leave in peace.”

The Scanthian raiders hesitated for just one moment. And then they were gone.

We never had a chance to thank the Rogue Princess. Or to tell her all the ways we would honor her, if we made it to a new planet to start over and rebuild our lives. She stayed long enough to make sure we were safe and repaired, and then she disappeared into the endless. We never learned why she would take the time to help us, when she has so many worlds counting on her.

But I heard a story from someone who saw her once, at the Irriyaian exile citystar. She wept into a cup of bitter snah-snah juice, and they heard her say to her friend that she would save as many people as she could, to honor the memory of the love of her life. She knew what it was to love—and to see that love stolen by fate—and she would never let that happen to other people if she could prevent it.

This is a cruel universe, and it’s getting crueler. But there’s one person out there who fights for all of us. When hope seems beyond all reach, pray she finds you.

1

ELZA

. . . 300 Earth days left until all the suns go out forever

Of course the heist went sideways. What did anyone expect?

The Undisputed Training Bra Disaster had made it to the supergiant planet made of pure diamond without being detected because Elza had done her part: she’d learned all the details of the planet’s defenses from the Ardenii, the ancient supercomputers that speak to her through the crown she wears: a silver filigree that casts an amber light.

Their party had managed to sneak all the way under the glittery surface without falling into any of the gravity traps or force fields, because Damini and Zaeta’s soul-deep connection made them the best pilots alive.

Everything was going perfectly.

And now? Elza, Yiwei, Kez, and Wyndgonk hang inside a living net that keeps saying sarcastic things to them, like: Oh, it’s such a privilege to have these distinguished visitors caught in my fibers, I’m practically fraying with excitement. Oh wait, I’m not fraying at all, you’re completely trapped. Sucks for you!

Their captor’s footsteps approach—the Great Alucian (she/her).

Elza can’t turn her head far enough to see the Great Alucian, but the Ardenii are bombarding her with every fact there is to know about this scary lady who’s one of the richest people in the entire galaxy. She’s wealthy in ways that go beyond just money: rare items, secrets, influence.

“You thought you could steal from me?” The Great Alucian chuckles.

“Yes.” Wyndgonk (fire/fire) breathes a gout of red flame. “We don’t just think we can, we know we should. It’s our duty to rob you. You have too much stuff for one person.” Wyndgonk looks a lot like a fire-breathing beetle the size of a sofa, with a thick iridescent shell, hooked mandibles, and long segmented legs ending in tiny claws.

“We need that chalice more than you do,” says Kez (he/him). Kez has stopped wearing his gold-threaded junior ambassador uniform. Instead, he sports a red-and-yellow-swirled shirt and crimson pants from Miscreant Station, which set off his dark brown skin and high cheekbones.

“Ahh,” the Great Alucian sighs. “You came to steal the chalice that no lips have ever touched. Of course you did. It’s the rarest item I own, and that is a high distinction.”

Elza can’t concentrate. The net whispers strange insults to her. The Ardenii fill her head with terrible information (armies of refugees fleeing their doomed stars, a small child who just watched their parents freeze to death in a blightstorm on an asteroid colony). But mostly, she’s too full of grief to think about anything else. Grief siphons the life out of her, and it never seems to let up.

This heist went wrong because the person who made everything go right wasn’t here to help: Tina.

“Look. Just let us borrow the chalice.” Kez puts on his most reasonable negotiator voice, the one he practiced in diplomat school. “We promise we’ll bring it right back, and we won’t let our lips touch it, so you won’t have to change the name or anything. We believe that chalice is the key to saving all of the worlds from the Bereavement.”

“So you’re telling me that the chalice is even more invaluable than I already thought,” says the Great Alucian. “Hardly a strong argument for me to lend it out.”

The Great Alucian comes around the side of the net and Elza sees her face. She’s a Makvarian, a tall humanoid with shimmering purple skin and big round eyes, and she wears jewels embedded in her cheeks and jawline. According to the Ardenii, the Great Alucian rejected all of Makvaria’s teachings about taking care of each other, and chose to become totally selfish.

For just a moment, the Great Alucian looks just like Elza’s girlfriend Tina. A needle-thin blade goes all the way inside Elza’s heart.

Elza blinks, and the Great Alucian is just another Makvarian, wearing a dark cowl and a diamond-studded black cape.

“Listen,” Yiwei says. “See our friend here? She’s a princess. She will guarantee on her royal honor that she’ll bring the chalice back to you.” Yiwei has let his black hair grow out into a shaggy mane around his lean baby face, but he still has the cockiness of a Royal Fleet cadet. “This doesn’t have to turn ugly. Elza, tell them.”

Elza snaps out of her reverie, and realizes Yiwei is talking about her. “Right,” she says. “On my honor. I guarantee it.”

“Or,” says the Great Alucian, “I could keep the chalice here, and be the only collector in the galaxy to have an actual princess as part of my collection of rarities. Why, that sounds so much better!”

We’re going to have so much time to get to know each other, whispers the net.

This can’t be how everything ends. The suns are dying, the galaxy is ruled by a monster, and Elza’s going to be stuck in the “collection” of some rich egomaniac who would fit right in among the São Paulo elite. Come on, get your head right, Elza tells herself.

But the Ardenii have more facts to share: a city just died. A tree murdered all its friends.

“Take them to the immobilizing chamber,” the Great Alucian says to the net. “Once they’re frozen, I’ll figure out where to place them inside my vault.”

Wyndgonk, Kez, and Yiwei are all yelling at the Great Alucian that she’s making a mistake. The net is already lifting them off the polished diamond floor, carrying them toward the immobilizing chamber. Elza knows there’s got to be a way out of this, but the Ardenii are giving her nothing but unthinkable thoughts.

“Ummm,” says a barely audible voice from below them. “Umm. I’m uh, I’m here to challenge you. To a game. If I win, uh, then you have to let my friends go and we borrow the chalice. If you win, we stay here. Okay? I heard that’s one of your things.” A small human girl with a round face and curly reddish-brown hair stands, cradling a robot monkey.

Rachael sounds so shy, so tentative, her challenge somehow feels even more brave.

“Oh, you heard correctly,” the Great Alucian says. “I love a challenge, and since you are free of my net, you have the right to issue one. Very well, I accept! If you defeat me, you may take the chalice and your friends. If you lose, I keep you all, forever. What game do you choose?”

Rachael steps forward—face bright red, fists balled. “How about,” she mumbles, “we play a little game of WorstBestFriend?”

*   *   *

A cycle later, Elza and her friends trudge onto the Undisputed Training Bra Disaster, and Rachael cradles the chalice that no lips have ever touched. It looks like . . . a big cup. Made of some tarnished alien metal, like brass or bronze. (Even the Ardenii don’t know who made it, or what it’s made of.)

“Thanks for saving us down there.” Yiwei shoots Rachael a look that obviously puts a warm flutter inside her. Elza feels a stab of jealousy.

“Uh. Thanks.” Rachael squirms and looks at the paint on the wall, the way she always does when somebody tries to tell her how heroic she is. “I guess all that time I spent in Gamertown paid off after all.”

“Don’t worry,” Yiwei says. “Not going to try and give you a medal or anything. Dinner later?”

“Um, yeah.” Rachael turns and smiles back at her boyfriend. “I just remembered something I have to do. See you soon.” She wanders away.

Elza wants to go back to her tiny quarters and stare at the floor. But Yiwei follows her down the hallway covered with murals (including a heartbreaking new one by Rachael: a flagon of snah-snah juice with comets and stars floating on the surface, surrounded by wildflowers like the ones Tina used to wear on her uniform sleeve).

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” Yiwei asks.

She wants to say no, but she nods. Neck spasm.

The Ardenii give Elza an update about the resettlement of all the Irriyaian refugees: it isn’t going well.

“Listen, I know you’re still grieving for . . . for what happened to Tina,” says Yiwei. “But what in the thousand flaming lakes was that just now? We nearly got turned into part of that egomaniac’s collection, and you weren’t even paying attention. We need you focused on the mission, or we’re all doomed.”

What happened to Tina.

Meaning the thing where Tina’s mind—her whole personality—was erased, and she transformed into an arrogant jerk named Thaoh Argentian. Elza bottles up a scream.

“You ought to be the biggest asset to our team. The Unstoppables, or whatever we’re calling ourselves this week,” Yiwei is saying. “You have a direct line to the super-advanced computers that know everything there is to know. But you’re not helping. I’m sorry to put pressure on you, but . . .”

Yiwei’s still trying to act like Captain Othaar, his idol. Elza was right there when Othaar died from Thondra Marrant’s touch, which means she can’t even think of the man without feeling a wave of disgust. And the more Yiwei imitates his mentor, the more he grosses Elza out.

“I get it,” Elza says. “Thank you for your concern.” She really hopes the EverySpeak can translate the right amount of low-key sarcasm from Brazilian Portuguese to Mandarin. “I’ll try to be more of a team player next time.”

The Ardenii freak out inside Elza’s head, because these all-knowing supercomputers have been dying to study the chalice for hundreds of years. And they bombard Elza with news about the chaos and disruption from the tiny black holes getting ready to gobble up every sun that supports life.

Elza’s so distracted, she walks right past the hallway that leads to her quarters. She winds up in the flight lounge, which is half the gray metal control center of a Royal Fleet daggership and half an artist salon with wood-and-velvet walls and big couches.

Damini and Zaeta sit in teacup chairs in front of a bunch of holographic blobs, happily chattering to each other. Damini is a human with medium-brown skin, with wide, laughing eyes and long black hair worn up, with red kumkum between her brows. Zaeta has ninety-nine eyes in between the tiny scales on her face, and her arms end in flipper-claws.

“Did we get it?” Damini bounces up and down, and the bangles on her bony wrists chime like bells next to the red thread she always wears.

“We got it, right?” Zaeta chimes in, her top layer of eyes sparkling. “I can’t wait to see it, it’s the oldest artifact ever discovered—”

“—from any humanoid civilization,” Damini says.

Damini and Zaeta always finish each other’s sentences, ever since they became psychic best friends. It’s not always obnoxious.

“We got it,” Elza says. “It looks just like a regular cup. I hope we can get something useful out of it.”

“I’m sure we will,” Damini says. “The Ardenii helped us find it. And it’s the closest thing to a clue we’ve found so far.”

“Everyone is scared back home on Wedding Water,” Zaeta says. “They can see a black hole getting ready to gobble up the sun, like a speck of death. If the ice doesn’t thaw on time, a whole generation of eggs could be trapped forever.”

“Speaking of which,” Damini says, “we wanted to talk to you about something.”

“All these side missions you’ve been having us do?” Zaeta says. “Like rescuing those poor Yarthins from the Scanthian pirates? It’s incredibly noble—”

“—but we just don’t have time,” Damini says. “If we can’t solve the Bereavement soon, there won’t be a future for anybody.”

Why is everybody getting on Elza’s case today? She already has the Ardenii to remind her every second that the stars are dying, she doesn’t need her friends piling on.

“I’m just trying to honor Tina’s memory,” Elza says in a quiet, toneless voice. “If Tina was here, she’d want to save as many people as possible.”

They’re still nattering, but Elza mumbles an apology and walks away. Being a princess is not as glamorous as she thought it would be. She chose not to stay on the Invention of Innocence, the deluxe starship she inherited from Princess Constellation, where she’d have been pampered by attendants and caretakers—because then she’d have had to follow orders from the Palace of Scented Tears. And that meant she didn’t get to claim a fancy princess name, like Princess Nonesuch. Instead, she’s here with her friends on this rickety ship, which is half Royal daggership and half artist colony, held together by daydreams and duct tape.

Elza used to think all of that luxury was wasteful, selfish. But now she sees that it’s just a way to make the burden of the Ardenii more bearable. The Ardenii fill her head with random terrible things every second—like a small town in the middle of Makvaria’s swampland just got destroyed by a freak storm.

Back home in São Paulo, Elza’s only real friend was another travesti named Fernanda, who had creamy brown skin and short hair that she styled differently every day. Fernanda always spoke in an undertone, but she had a laugh you could hear from two streets away. The two of them were inseparable, until Fernanda stopped talking to her, and Elza had to go live at a hackerspace. What would Fernanda say if she saw Elza now: wearing a wreath of golden light on her head, but still sleeping in a run-down old shack? She’d probably think it was hilarious.

Elza almost makes it back to her quarters without getting dragged into another conversation. When she reaches her door, Rachael comes around the corner and waves at her.

“Hey,” Rachael says in a voice almost too small to hear.

“Hi.” Elza stiffens, ready for Rachael to tell her another way that she’s ruining everything.

“I wanted to give you this.” Rachael holds out something small and bright red in her left palm. “It’s some kind of candy, supposed to taste kind of like cinnamon and cherries. Those people we saved from the pirates? The Yarthins? They asked me to give it to you, as a thank-you present. I didn’t get a chance until now.”

Elza looks at the glistening red dessert. The Ardenii fill her head with information about what a delicacy this is, and it’s a hundred percent safe for human stomachs.

“Are you . . . Are you sure you don’t want—”

“It’s for you,” Rachael says. “They wanted to thank you, and I . . . I also want to thank you. I miss her all the time, and I know we need to keep going and do what we can, and everyone is terrified. But I feel totally lost without her here. So thank you for doing good in her name. It’s everything.”

Elza is crying—not serious grown-up weeping, more like a little kid who fell off a bicycle. Helplessly bawling, heaving with huge tears. She takes the candy with one hand and covers her face with the other.

“Hey,” Rachael whispers. “I’d really like to hug you, if that’s okay.”

Elza holds back for a moment, then falls into Rachael’s arms, clutching the candy.

“There’s enough to share,” Elza says when she can talk again. “Let’s eat it together.”

Rachael squeezes her tighter. “Sounds good.”

2

. . . 299 Earth days until all the suns go out forever

Elza used to waste her energy worrying about all the things she didn’t know. She spent so many nights alone, dreaming up horrendous things that could be happening to the people she loved, or disasters that she wouldn’t find out about until it was too late. When she found out there was a way to know everything, so she’d never have to wonder again, she knew she’d do anything to have the Ardenii in her life.

Now Elza wakes up with her head full of bad news, and goes to sleep with a weary mind. She never has to imagine the worst things that could happen, because she already knows.

And every once in a while, the Ardenii tell her a number so enormous it’s impossible to comprehend, and she has no idea what it means. Except that the number keeps going up.

*   *   *

Everyone sits around the flight lounge, staring at the goblet they just risked everything for. The five Earthling kids, plus Zaeta, Wyndgonk, Cinnki, Kfok, Naahay, and Gahang.

“So . . . what now?” Kez holds the cup, which is still just a cup.

Elza says nothing, because she’s busy losing an argument with the Ardenii inside her head.

You can’t ask that of me, she pleads. In response, they send her more images of disaster: people on a thousand worlds going berserk, hurting their neighbors under blighted suns.

“Damini, what do you think?” Yiwei asks, since Damini’s usually the one who solves puzzles.

“It’s a total mystery, sorry.” Damini shrinks deeper into her sofa cushions and glances at Zaeta, who gives her an it’s okay smile.

When you know the answer, it becomes your responsibility. When Elza first heard that saying, she felt empowered, as if she’d been given permission to make trouble. Now those words feel like an entire planet resting on the back of her neck.

“According to our research, this cup is actually a space probe,” says Kez. “A probe that was sent out a very long time ago, by people we know nothing about. And it probably saw where the Bereavement was launched from.”

Long ago, a mysterious species called the Shadow Galaxy lost a war with some creeps called the Vayt. And the Shadow Galaxy took revenge by launching the Bereavement: a swarm of black holes that spread throughout the galaxy and nestled inside stars, waiting for the right moment to start gobbling them up. The Vayt tried to sabotage this weapon in the most hideous way possible, by twisting people into weird antibodies to neutralize the swarm.

These black holes have remained frozen in time inside little beach balls made of flesh, but now they’re starting to wake up—and when they do, it’s all over. For everyone.

“If we figure out the origin point of the Bereavement, maybe we can learn more about the people who sent it,” says Cinnki (he/him), a foxlike Javarah who moves with a languid grace inside his silken clothes.

“So what are we waiting for?” Naahay turns her skull-face toward Elza. “You’re a princess now. You just look at the cup, and the Ardenii will figure out everything.”

“Thank you for telling me how to do the job that I was more qualified for than you,” Elza says.

Naahay was one of the kids competing for the crown that Elza now wears, along with Wyndgonk. After everything went wrong at Irriyaia, Naahay’s friend Robhhan went back home to Oonia Prime, but Naahay decided to stick around, and she’s been putting a scream in Elza’s throat ever since.

The Ardenii show Elza the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to Naahay: she tried to show off during a game of aahrkon when she was ten years old and toppled into a lampfish bog, in front of all her friends. Elza stifles a laugh—then she surfs a wave of guilt over invading Naahay’s privacy. She can hear Fernanda in her head: This is just like you.

Elza realizes Yiwei has been talking to her for a minute. “Are the Ardenii telling you anything useful? Elza?”

“There’s only one option left, but I hate it.” Elza’s skin crawls.

Please don’t ask that of me.

Rachael leans close to Elza and whispers, “It’s okay. This isn’t on you.”

Everybody looks at Elza differently—even her friends—now that she has a silver lattice woven into her scalp, casting a honeyed light onto her face. Like they want to curtsey every time she’s standing next to them in the line to use the bathroom.

“But there’s something you’re not telling us,” Yiwei says. “Isn’t there?”

Elza sighs. “Yes. The Ardenii found the interface immediately, but the data is corrupted. There’s an algorithm that could restore it, but I would need the full power of the Ardenii to run it. Which means . . . I would need to be inside the Palace of Scented Tears.”

She can feel a shudder go through everyone in the room.

The Palace of Scented Tears is where Elza used to live when she was trying out to become a princess. It’s at the center of Wentrolo, the capital city of Her Majesty’s Firmament—the seat of power of Marrant, the garbage-fiend who’s now in charge of everything.

“That’s the most secure place in the entire galaxy. We’d have to go through two whole armies to get inside,” says Kfok (she/her), a big slug with five eyes, two mouths, and three arms ending in stingers. “The Royal Fleet and the Compassion. And if we got past them . . .”

“. . . we’d be facing Marrant,” says Naahay. “This is not happening.”

“Hush, child,” whispers Gahang. “Your certainty does violence to the memory of the rain-scarred priests.”

“You’re the one who can’t tell the difference between competence and luck,” Naahay taunts Gahang.

Elza had expected Naahay to make friends with Gahang (who was part of the crew of the Undisputed, along with Tina and Damini). After all, they’re both skeleton-people from the planet Aribentora. But Naahay and Gahang can’t stand each other, because they each think the other is a bad Aribentor.

“There’s no time for a debate,” Yiwei says. “If getting inside the palace is the only way, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Whatever it takes,” Damini agrees.

“We can’t just walk into the palace,” Kez says. “Everyone who’s still there is loyal to Marrant.”

“We’re the Galaxy’s Most Wanted,” Yiwei says. “Because apparently stopping a few rebels is more important than finding a way to save everyone from a frozen death.”

“The queen hasn’t been seen since Marrant’s takeover,” says Wyndgonk. “Her Radiance is either a prisoner, or . . .”

Time to drop another unpleasant truth. “The Ardenii know what’s happening with the queen,” Elza says, “but they will not tell me.”

“We could drop into the palace from above—” says Damini.

“—using personal impellers, or hoverboots!” says Zaeta.

“We should just burn down that whole corrupt place.” Kfok gestures with one barbed arm. Wyndgonk nods at her.

“We’re not talking about one of the stinkpalaces of Orvan IV,” Naahay says. “The Palace of Scented Tears is the most well-protected place in history and none of you has what it takes to get inside.”

Everyone falls silent, just staring at the old cup and trying to think of an idea that’s not instantly doomed.

“Okay, please don’t hate me,” Rachael says. “But there’s one person who probably knows how to tap-dance inside the palace without anyone noticing.”

“Don’t say it,” Yiwei says.

“We promised we wouldn’t mention her anymore,” says Kez.

Elza sighs and massages her temples. “No, Rachael’s right. We need her help, and I know exactly where to find her. Thaoh Argentian has been hiding out on Vandal Station ever since she told us to go to hell.”

3

RACHAEL

. . . 294 Earth days until all the suns go out forever

Thaoh Argentian is on a date.

Two cute young Makvarians surround her and gaze adoringly while she keeps their cups overflowing with Yuul sauce. All three of them kiss each other with their mouths full of the spicy, tart liquor, in the gloomiest corner of the sleaziest nightclub at the bottom level of Vandal Station, the Bump Dump. Thaoh has attached new gems to her strong cheekbones and jaw, bigger than the ones Tina used to wear.

Of all the things Rachael expected to find the woman who stole Tina’s body doing, partying was at the very bottom of the list. Next to Rachael, Elza is as stiff as a board, and her mouth scowls under the hood that conceals the glowing circlet on her head.

“. . . go dancing next,” Thaoh Argentian is saying to one of the two beautiful people on her arm. “I used to love dancing, when I was young and breathless the first time around. Or perhaps we should just go back to my quarters and finish this bottle there.”

The two young Makvarians giggle and twine their bodies around Thaoh’s.

Elza just marches up to their corner table and sweeps the bottle of Yuul sauce onto the floor with one fluid motion. Crash, splash. She glares at Thaoh’s two hookups until they disentangle themselves from Thaoh and make a retreat.

“I’ll find you later! Thaoh Argentian always keeps her promises.” Thaoh waves at her two new friends. They smile back, nervously, and then they’re gone.

The nightclub is playing Javarah screech-break music, which is just as distracting as it sounds. The lyrics are all about clawing your lover’s face off.

Thaoh groans at Elza and Rachael theatrically. “I told you. There’s no way to restore your friend, and we have bigger things to worry about. I didn’t ask to be brought back to life.”

“But you certainly seem to be enjoying being alive again.” Elza snorts.

Rachael wishes she could do something more for Elza—her heart must be breaking. Even worse than Rachael’s, which is saying something.

“Yes. I am,” Thaoh says, with a sudden heaviness. “I am enjoying being alive again, more than I ever expected to. I am truly sorry. If I could snap my fingers and bring Tina back, I would, but you yourself told me that even the Ardenii don’t know how to do that. So all I can do is try to help fix this mess. I’m spending my time building alliances, working to undo Marrant’s takeover of the Royal Fleet.”

“When you’re not drinking and hooking up with random people,” Elza says.

Rachael feels shy, even more than usual. How weird is it, to be standing in front of her best friend but feel like she’s talking to a total stranger?

“I will not apologize for blowing off steam. I came back to life in the middle of the apocalypse, and everything I spent my life trying to protect lies in ruins. If I’m going to be forced to be alive, I might as well have a little fun. I had honestly forgotten what it’s like to be young—these hormones are a beast.”

“Except that’s my girlfriend’s body you’re using.”

“Not anymore.” Thaoh Argentian gestures for more Yuul sauce to replace the bottle that Elza smashed.

“You did not just say that,” Elza says.

Rachael hates feeling so powerless. She doesn’t usually wish she was the kind of person who could raise her voice and command attention—someone who could smack the table and say, “Everybody shut up,” and bring an argument to an end. But now, with worlds and worlds at stake, she wouldn’t mind being able to make a little noise.

“Let’s stay focused on the mission.” Yiwei steps forward, with his robot Xiaohou raising his little monkey face to pick up some musical cues from the screech-break. “We don’t have time for personal issues.”

Rachael’s boyfriend keeps saying things like that lately, and it’s getting all the way under her skin. Ever since Tina turned into this obnoxious woman, Yiwei has been stepping up and trying to be more of a leader, and his leadership style has a little too much “tough love” for Rachael’s taste. She hasn’t managed to talk to him about it, even when they’ve been alone together.

“Oh, great.” Thaoh rolls her eyes. “Are you also here to tell me what to do with my body?”

“It’s not your body,” Elza says.

“This has been fun.” Thaoh stands up and wipes spilled booze off her shirt. “But I need to get going. Listen, I have no shortage of things to feel guilty for, but living my life is not one—” Then she stops and stares at Yiwei’s right sleeve.

Yiwei is no longer wearing his cadet uniform from the Royal Academy, since he dropped out ages ago. But he found a way to program the same design onto the right sleeve of the casual V-neck shirt he’s wearing now: a picture of Panash Othaar, the captain of the Indomitable. The guy who gave his life to save Rachael and her friends.

“Panash,” says Thaoh. “You know, it’s weird. He was one of my closest friends, and now when I think of him, I feel sick and confused.”

“That’s the Marrant death-touch,” Yiwei shakes his head. “Anyone he touches melts into a noxious puddle that everyone hates. Tina was right there when he touched Captain Othaar.”

“The effect is worse in the long term,” Elza says. “It seeps into every memory that involves the dead person in any way. Soon your whole past is soiled.”

“I suppose I’m experiencing half the effect, because I have the same body but a different mind.” Thaoh shakes her head.

“We need your help,” Yiwei says. “We think we’ve found a clue that could lead us to the people who created the Bereavement—the Shadow Galaxy. But we need help to make sense of it.”

“There’s no point.” Now Thaoh seems like a sad old warrior in the body of a teenage girl. “The stars are dying and there’s no way to fix that. All we can do is try to redeem the Royal Fleet, so there’s at least someone to help save whoever’s left. Now if you’ll excuse me? I need to finish getting properly drunk. See you again sometime.”

She shoves her way past Elza and Yiwei, leaving Rachael staring at the back of her best friend’s head as she walks out the lightning-bolt-shaped door.

*   *   *

Vandal Station packs even more sensory overload than Rascal Station, the space city that Rachael visited a billion years ago. Bustling crowds, blaring music, smells that turn her stomach—all the things that Rachael could barely deal with on her best day—fill every narrow passage between the sun towers, which rise up so tall that Rachael can’t see their spires. She clenches her fists and chatters under her breath, keeps her head down.

Tunnel vision closes in on her.

Rachael should be feeling better, right? She confronted the Vayt, and purged these ancient monsters from her dreams. She regained the ability to make art, and now she can hide away and draw, when everything becomes too much. So why isn’t she feeling better? If anything, it’s all hitting her so much harder now—maybe because she’s no longer having to hold it together in the eye of a crap-storm, or maybe because she can’t talk to her best friend anymore.

Whatever the reason, anxiety chews Rachael up, and she has to force herself to move forward, through all these bodies and scents and noises. Everybody is shoving each other, and a brawl constantly seems a heartbeat away from breaking out—most of the people here fled from doomed worlds with whatever they could carry, and they’re all wishing they had someone to hit.

A group of Aribentors and Yarthins block the alleyway between two sun towers as they huddle over a holographic cloud. Rachael tries to squeeze past them, and then she sees what they’re looking at: Thondra Marrant, the new leader of the Royal Compassion, giving a speech in front of a roaring crowd. Rachael can’t hear what Marrant is saying over the jangle of music and voices, but he’s smiling, genial, looking for all the world like any other politician.

The holograph flashes a series of pictures: Rachael, Elza, Yiwei, Kez, Damini, Zaeta, and Tina.

Rachael pulls her hood farther over her face and pushes ahead.

Her friends are probably wondering where she is, especially Yiwei. People are going to freak out and maybe organize a search party. But Rachael can’t bring herself to just walk away from Tina again—her mind knows this isn’t Tina, but her heart doesn’t—and she can’t give up on the swashbuckling Captain Argentian, after all that hype.

A while later, Rachael sees a few worm-faced Undhorans, swaggering and wearing the red slash of the Compassion on their jackets—and they’re holding plastiform pads with the faces of Rachael and her friends on them. Damn. We really are the Galaxy’s Most Wanted now.

Rachael could trawl this city forever and not find Thaoh, especially if she doesn’t want to be found. She tries all the sleaziest, darkest, grungiest bars and clubs, which means she sees things she can never unsee.

Just when she’s about to abandon hope, she spies an old friend moving through the crowd.

Thanz Riohon wears a big cloak and a Makvarian opera mask covers his eyes, but he still moves like a Royal Fleet officer. And Rachael would know that face anywhere: full lips, square jaw, and the same fizzy purple skin as Thaoh herself. He steps through a tiny doorway that Rachael had overlooked, and she follows him inside a dark cavern where people gamble with razor-sharp corkscrews.

By the time Rachael pushes past all the Kraelyors and Ainkians tossing pieces in the air, hooting, and trying not to cut themselves, Riohon is already sitting next to Thaoh Argentian.

Rachael thinks at first this is another hot date, and the tunnel vision closes in. But then she hears what Riohon is saying.

“. . . most of the daggerships and about half the shortswords are on our side. But the longswords and broadswords are more conservative, and they won’t go against the Firmament, even now. When we’re ready to make our move, we’ll still be absurdly outnumbered, but . . . we’ll have a fleet.”

Thaoh starts to say something, then she spies Rachael standing over the tiny concave table in the darkest corner of the gambling den. “You again.” Thaoh squints. “You’re the one who doesn’t talk, right? This should be interesting.”

You’re not worthy to wear Tina’s face, Rachael almost says. But she’s speechless, as advertised.

“Rachael Townsend!” Riohon leaps to his feet. “May you walk in gentle sunlight and sleep under bright stars. Of all the people to run into, I’m so happy to see you. I heard what the Royal Fleet tried to do to you and I’m sorry. This is—”

“We’ve met.” Thaoh grimaces.

Riohon starts chattering to Thaoh about Rachael’s amazing feats of heroism—as usual, this kind of talk makes Rachael want to barf. But at least the look in Thaoh’s eyes changes a little, and she gestures for Rachael to pull up a fluff-chair.

“What brings you here?” Riohon asks.

Rachael half closes her eyes, and tries to pretend she’s just talking to Tina and Riohon.

“You’re wasting your time. Both of you,” she mumbles, eyes still half-shut.

“She’s blunt at least,” Captain Argentian says to Riohon. “It’s refreshing.”

“Don’t condescend to me.” Rachael feels her face get hot. She grips the rim of the table with ten white knuckles. “You know I’m right. You’re wasting your energy trying to fix the Royal Fleet, when all the suns are dying. We found a clue. There’s a space probe that saw where the Bereavement was launched from—that swarm of black holes that are about to chow down on every important star.”

“And . . . if we locate the origin point of the swarm, we might find some way to shut it all down. A fail-safe.” Riohon purses his lips. “There are still stasis generators around all of those black holes, for now. If we could reactivate them all . . .”

“It’s the slenderest of chances.” Thaoh Argentian shakes her head. “I learned the hard way when I commanded the Inquisitive: some gambles aren’t worth the risk.” She gestures at all the people scraping themselves bloody trying to wager with sharp objects at all the other tables.

“I’ve learned to trust Rachael’s instincts,” Thanz Riohon says. “And even a tiny chance of stopping the Bereavement . . . we can’t ignore that.” He turns back to Rachael. “What’s your plan?”

The trust and respect in Riohon’s eyes are better than a thousand medals. “We have the space probe already. We need to sneak Elza—the Rogue Princess—into the palace so she can decrypt the information.”

“Oh, is that all?” Thaoh laughs and swigs Yuul sauce. “A ninety-nine percent chance of dying, for a one percent chance of finding a clue that might not lead anywhere.”

Thaoh’s laughter gets inside Rachael through every pore.

There’s so much more that she wants to say—needs to say—but she’s done. She’s used up her talking-to-jerks quota for the next week.

“What else do we have?” Riohon says. “Rachael is right: what’s the point of restoring the Royal Fleet if there’s no more galaxy for them to protect?”

“We could build artificial suns. We could create safe havens for refugees. We could—”

“—save a tiny fraction of all the people who will surely die.” Riohon fixes her with an intense stare. “I promise, I will keep building this alliance, so our fleet is less puny when the opportunity comes. Recruitment would be easier if I could let everyone know that you’re alive again.”

“If everyone knew I was back, Marrant would blast this whole city to rubble just to eliminate me,” Thaoh says. “I wouldn’t wish to be egotistical, but I’m a bit of an obsession to him.” She gestures at Rachael. “According to this one and her friends, Marrant’s wife, Aym, faked her own death and hid from everyone—evenme—just to escape from him.”

“In any case, you can leave this with me. If Rachael and her friends need your help, then that’s where you should be.”

Thaoh closes her eyes and braces herself against a sudden shiver. “I’m already dead. This is a borrowed life.” She pushes her chair back and stands, then opens her eyes and gives Rachael the same grin Tina used to flash when she was about to jump out of a spaceship. “Very well. Let’s go break into the palace.”

Rachael wants to thank Riohon for his help, but Thaoh is already halfway to the exit. She settles for giving Riohon a thank-you look.

“We’ll see each other again, Rachael Townsend,” Riohon says. “May the Hosts of Misadventure shield and guide you.”

“Umm, yeah. Back at you.” Rachael smiles and waves, and then runs to catch up with Thaoh, who’s already disappearing into the crowd on the street.

4

. . . 293 days until all the suns go out forever

Could you please explain again, with less attitude and more explaining?” Kez (e/em) says to Thaoh Argentian. (Kez came out as gender fluid a while back, and now eir pronouns change every once in a while. It’s easy to use the right pronoun thanks to the EverySpeak, the translator that everyone carries.) “We have a stolen Compassion knifeship, thanks to Riohon and your other allies. That’s bloody wonderful. So why are we going to so much trouble to disguise it as a derelict freighter?”

E gestures at the candy-apple-red ship, which looks sort of like a fighter jet except that the front is shaped like a frog’s head. Cinnki, Kfok, Damini, Zaeta, and Gahang are busy covering the ship with layers of junk, including pieces of the hull from a broken-down cargo ship.

The bootleg knifeship appears especially sleek next to the Undisputed Training Bra Disaster, side by side in a secret hangar of Vandal Station.

“Old smuggler trick.” Thaoh beams and rubs her hands together. “We change our appearance at the right moment, and we can slip inside the Glorious Nebula without anybody seeing us coming.”

“That reminds me,” Wyndgonk, the fire-breathing nine-eyed beetle, says. “What exactly are you calling this group of officers who want to stand against Marrant? The resistance? The holdouts? The rebels?”

“We’re calling them the Royal Fleet,” Thaoh says firmly. “Because that’s who they are.”

Wyndgonk snorts a dark flame. “The Royal Fleet is gone. You need to let go of that dream.”

Yiwei steps forward and changes the subject. “So who’s coming on this mission? Besides you and Elza, I mean. This ship can only carry six or seven people without maxing out life support.”

Elza hears her name and wanders over. “I’d like to bring Wyndgonk, if fire is willing to come.”

“Ugh.” Wyndgonk turns all nine eyes upward and clicks fire mandibles together. “Sure. Going back to the palace. Sounds like a party. Why not.”

“And we’ll need your best pilots.” Thaoh gestures at Zaeta and Damini—their faces light up at the compliment. She turns to Kez. “I heard you know your way around starship engines and esoteric physics. We could use your help too, if you’re up for it.”

Kez nods. “If I can help, I’m in.”

That just leaves one spot on the mission.

Yiwei turns to Rachael, and she gives him an encouraging smile. But she’s not ready for what comes out of his mouth: “You should take Rachael. She’s good at noticing things that other people miss.”

Elza nods. “I’d really like it if Rachael came with us.”

Rachael is lost for words. There are literally a half dozen people in this hangar who would be a better choice. But she looks at Yiwei, and he raises one eyebrow. So she just nods and says, “Okay, sure,” in a small voice.

“The artist. Seems fitting, since you’re the one who talked me into being part of this disaster.” Thaoh looks around at her team. “We leave at first cycle. If you have any last business in Vandal Station, now’s the time. I am going to go dance and see how much Yuul sauce I can drink without passing out.”

She strides away, leaving Rachael still stunned.

*   *   *

“So, I just have one question,” Rachael says to Yiwei later, when they’re wrapped around each other in their shared quarters on board the Undisputed Training Bra Disaster. One wall is covered with Rachael’s latest sketches. “What in the actual flaming lakes? Why would you want me going on that mission instead of you? Or Gahang, who was a Royal Fleet officer?”

“This is a stealth mission, and I’m not brilliant at those,” Yiwei says. “You’re good at improvising when everything goes wrong, which I’m sure it will. But also? You can stay close to Thaoh and keep tabs on her, just in case. She’s on her guard around me, but she underestimates you. We can use that.”

“You don’t trust her?” Rachael props herself up on one elbow and looks into his gorgeous brown eyes.

“You do?” He clicks his tongue. “She’s definitely not what I was expecting.”

“I hate being around her. She’s like a walking reminder of how much we messed everything up.”

Rachael feels like there’s a thing she’s been wanting to say to Yiwei. Her nerves have been stripped raw, a breath caught in her lungs, every time they’ve been together in public. And now the two of them are alone, and he smells so good, and she doesn’t know when she’ll see him again.

So she finds some broken words and tries to make them fit.

“I love you and I trust you, and I feel good about us,” she says in a flood. “But . . . it sucks being in a relationship when we’re both freaked out and depressed. That’s not your fault, it’s not anybody’s. Things fell apart so fast, and we couldn’t stop it, and the man who messed it all up got rewarded. Again. I just feel angry all the time, and I know you do, too.”

He looks up at her, blinking. “Yeah. Yeah. I know. It’s like . . .”

There’s a long silence. Even Xiaohou doesn’t try to fill it with tunes—the musical robot just sits on the edge of the bed looking at the two of them with his fuzzy head cocked to one side and his gumdrop eyes watchful. Like he can tell that this is supposed to be a quiet moment.

Yiwei flinches, like he touched a live circuit. Then he tries again to speak. “It’s like, I look at you and I know exactly how you’re feeling, because I’m feeling the same way. And I’m scared if I even talk about it, I’ll realize that I’m held together by a thousand cheap patches, just as much as this ridiculous ship.” He takes a slow breath, broken up by choppy heaving sounds. “Neither of us can afford to fall apart, with literally everything at stake.”

“So that’s why.” Rachael has that joyful/miserable feeling. Like when you finally admit how terrible things are, and it’s a huge relief—except that it means you have to face up to all the terribleness.

“That’s why I haven’t been opening up to you,” she says. “It’s not that I want to shut you out, it’s just, I feel like you and I are carrying around big balls of poison, and if we share our poison balls, we’ll just have double poison.”

Yiwei startles her with the most tragic smile she’s ever seen. “You know that’s not how feelings work, right?”

“In theory. In theory I know how feelings work. I used to be good at feelings, even. Right now? I . . .” She chokes. Her face feels like a hot mask, laced with salt. “I don’t think any of it is working. At all. I can’t grieve the people we lost. I can’t feel bad about the person I killed, or all the people we left to die on a doomed planet. All I can do is try not to spill poison everywhere.”

Yiwei gestures with his left hand, and now Xiaohou is playing some sweet, sad erhu music with a lot of trailing high notes.

“I’m scared everybody thinks I’m a dick.” He sits up and kneads his own left shoulder. “Every time I say things like ‘we don’t have time for personal feelings.’”

“Yeah. I don’t know how to deal with it when you say stuff like that. As if we’re all just supposed to shut ourselves down, like robots.” She shoots a look at Xiaohou, as if to say: No offense.

“I don’t want to be that person. I’m trying to be strong, and help everyone cope, and it’s making me hate myself. I don’t know how to do the thing you do, where you bring people into the group and make them want to pitch in just by being kind to them.”

Rachael looks past Yiwei at a picture she painted long ago: all six of the Earthlings sitting in the bluehouse on the Indomitable, staring into a well of stars. “I feel like when we first met, you were an optimist.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Just promise me you’ll stop trying to be the tough-love guy, okay?” Rachael reaches for him, and he reaches back.

“I’ll do my best.” Yiwei pulls her close. “But in return, you need to let me know what’s going on with you. Okay? We can share our poison when we’re alone in this room. I promise you we’ll each have less poison to carry afterward.”

“Okay. Yeah.” She cries harder, and now he’s crying, too. The two of them just weep on each other’s shoulders while Xiaohou serenades them. Soon she’ll have to get up and put her face back in neutral, so she can follow Fake Tina around and make sure she doesn’t screw all of Rachael’s friends. But for now, she and her boyfriend are two crying machines.

5

The Glorious Nebula shimmies: a big fried egg the color of peach sorbet. Rachael has seen this incredible vista twice before, when she first traveled to Wentrolo and when she was running for her life inside a makeshift artist starship, but still, seeing such a massive swirl adds a couple extra secret chambers to her heart. What kind of materials would she use to draw this thing, anyway? Pastels? Watercolors? Some kind of high-tech nano-paste with hyper-ultra colors that are more vivid than anything on Earth? Maybe Rachael will try all of those, because she can draw again, and it’s all she wants to do.

Then Rachael sees the refugees.

They go from pinpricks to shapes in an eyeblink. There are thousands of them, all circling the outside of the Glorious Nebula, trying to find a way in. A wall of Royal Compassion ships, including a half dozen broadswords, fires an occasional warning shot at any ship that gets too close.

“I don’t get it,” Kez says. “The first thing we were told when we arrived here before was that refugees are welcome here. The buildings will always make more space for people to live in.”

“Marrant.” Wyndgonk spits dark smoke. “As soon as he finished taking power, he decided to keep out almost all migrants, except for the ones from ‘civilized’ worlds like Irriyaia or Makvaria.”

“Revulsion! That is horrible—” Zaeta says.

“—even for Marrant,” Damini chimes in.

Damini, Zaeta, and Thaoh sit up front, at the controls of this stolen Compassion knifeship (which still has no name), while Wyndgonk, Rachael, Kez, and Elza huddle in the back.

“This is shameful,” Thaoh says. “But it’s good for us at least. We’ll just appear to be another refugee ship, until we get in the middle of a confrontation with some Royal Compassion vessels.”

“And then we drop our disguise and turn into a Compassion ship in the confusion,” Kez says. “Cynical, but brilliant. Brinical? Cylliant? Anyway, the timing will need to be perfect.”

Rachael hates being cooped up on this tiny ship, unable to get much space from Fake Tina.

“Can I ask your advice?” Kez says to Thaoh.

Thaoh raises one eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“That was before. When we’d just lost Tina.” Kez kneads the back of eir head. “I just wanted to know . . . how do you keep going? I mean, you came back from the dead, and found everything you worked for was ruined. How do you get out of bed, or whatever it is you sleep in?”

Thaoh starts to crack a joke, then thinks better of it. “I gave a lot of thought to vanishing, pretending to be some random young Makvarian. But I couldn’t run away from myself, and fighting is a habit by now.” She tilts her chin at Kez. “I guess you’ve known some loss, too.”

“I had my heart broken.” Kez blows into eir clasped hands. “There’s a boy named Ganno the Wurthhi, who’s not speaking to me anymore. But way more than that, I had my dreams broken. Which I think is possibly worse?”

“You were wearing a diplomatic services uniform when I first met you.” Thaoh tilts her head.

“I had this notion I could become an ambassador, go back home to Earth, and welcome my people to the galactic community, but I realized I couldn’t speak for the Royal Fleet or the Firmament, even before Marrant took over.”

“So you need to figure out how to be a peacemaker, without being a mouthpiece.” Thaoh lifts her gaze to the carbonfast rafters. “You’ve chosen a difficult path. It’s always easier to break things than to repair them, and people will inevitably accuse you of compromising too much. Still, sometimes an independent voice can bring people together more easily than an emissary from one side or another ever could.”

“I get that. I just . . . I wanted to go home as the representative of something grand and ancient, with pomp everywhere. Just buckets of pomp. So people would have to listen to me.”

Thaoh is replying, but Rachael can’t listen anymore, because something vicious is trying to claw its way out of her and her face feels hot. She suddenly has an image of popping an airlock and shoving Fake Tina out into the vacuum of space—she feels ashamed right away, because that’s the last thing she’d ever do, but the rage still eats away at her.

She’s a ball of poison.

*   *   *

Rachael finds the least noisy corner and pulls out a lightpen and pad. She sketches furiously, making dark slashes and curves, until she finds the shape she’s looking for. The voices around her fade as she gets lost in her picture, and oh wow, she missed this so much. The art just flows out of her, like old times.

When it’s finished, she goes and finds Elza at the very back of the stolen knifeship, staring out of a viewport at the retreating stars.

Rachael wants to say something like “I drew you something,” or “This is for you,” but she’s still in her art daze.

Elza turns away from the starscape—maybe she was hearing more bad news from the Ardenii—and gazes at the picture, then Rachael’s face. “This is . . . this is beautiful.” Elza’s face goes blank again, then she shakes it off. “I love this. Wish we could make it real.”

Come on. Do some words.

“We could use the ship’s fabricators to make it,” Rachael whispers at last. “Like on the Indomitable when they made uniforms for us.”

“So you designed this for me to wear? I didn’t know you did fashion design.” Elza’s smile is the candy coating around a whole lot of pain.

“I haven’t in ages, but I was feeling inspired. I bet this would look amazing on you. I call it a tactical ballgown.” High-waisted, with a big sash tied with a bow and a low neckline covered by lace, the dress in the picture has knee-length billowing skirts and sleeves that start puffy and then taper. The whole thing looks frivolous, except Rachael shows Elza where she could attach weapons and tools to the satiny folds, and the sleeves conceal silken ropes with grappling hooks. “I just . . . hate