Page 19

I stop when I see Sefina’s back in the mirror. Rage boils me inside at the idea that anyone could carve up such a beautiful female.

Fracture>>Menace: Are you two almost done? We are landing in the tunnel and must move quickly so we can get this range extender to Clover.

Menace>>Fracture: Two minutes.

I step into the shower, ease myself out of Sefina, and set her feet on the floor. “We have to go very soon.”

“I figured.”

Sefina washes quickly, then helps me remove the blood from my back. We don’t need any more scent to help draw welvirs.

We dry off quickly and climb back into our clothes. As we clip our weapons harnesses on, I open the door.

Sythius is standing just outside, a rifle in his hands. Fracture is walking toward us from the cockpit. “Short on time. Clover’s been harassing me to hurry. Let’s go.”

I turn around, wondering where Sefina is, to find her injecting herself with another booster.

“Feeling okay?”

Sythius asks.

As she passes him, she smiles in a way I’ve not seen her do before. “Yeah.”

Sythius squints at me and wrinkles his nose.

I shrug. “After you.”

Sythius follows her down the ramp and takes up a post beside Fracture, who closes up the ship as I jump down into the dark tunnel.

Sefina’s got a hoverlift up and running. She glides it up next to us like she’s spent many hours on them.

“What?”

she asks me.

“Familiar?”

“Come on, junkers and hunters need ways to haul their plunder. Who do you think gets to work while they dig through their treasure?”

Sythius sighs like he knows what she’s talking about. He takes a seat on the deck.

I take up a protective position beside her while Fracture sits in the back with Sythius.

We race through the tunnels fast, heading for the main pick-up zone of the BlazeStar. I send out a local signal, letting whoever’s on guard know we’re approaching.

Coil>>Menace: We copy. Slow on approach. Survivors loading now.

Menace>>Coil: Please relay, one half-Solcrue team member in our party. A friend of Sefina’s who helped us get the range extender.

“Slow down, we’re almost there,”

I tell Sefina.

She eases back on the throttle, and a few seconds later, the lights of the cavern appear like a bubble in the rock. Coil is busy launching survivors up the ascent shaft. He drops as Thruster takes someone else up. The two of them are in full sprint mode.

A pair of blue eyes shift out from the rock, a dark, commanding Titan that makes me reach over and take the controls. I slow and stop the hoverlift at a distance. “Commander.”

Savage stalks toward us in the headlights of the lift. “A Solcrue, huh?”

Sythius gets down and turns to face Savage, who is far more menacing than I ever will be. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”

Savage shoves him back against the rocky wall. He jabs a finger into Sythius’ chest. “If you ever so much as threaten or make uncomfortable any member of this rebel camp, I will make sure your death is very painful.”

Savage exposes his elongating teeth as he growls at him.

Sefina gives me a worried look, but I don’t know any more than she does what Savage is planning.

“Savage, love.”

Leah walks up to us with a few other familiar faces. She’s covered in pouches of cybertech and weapons. “Let him join us if he wants to.”

Savage snarls back at her. But when his eyes find Leah, his teeth retract and the tension leaves his body. “You want to take responsibility for him?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Leah crosses her arms. “You know how I feel about second chances.”

“You would not give your brother one.”

“Because he helped cause this war and is still out there. This man didn’t do what he did.”

“He is not a man.”

Leah walks up to him and punches him in the chest. “Does that mean Cara, Amp’s mate, is not a woman?”

Savage huffs. “Of course, she is.”

“And what about Jeris? He saved Chaos’ life. He led us here. To be a rebel is to be one in here.”

Leah raps a fist on his chest over his ultromotor.

Savage sways. “Technically, it’s in here.”

He points to his side where his core backups are.

She slumps. “Whatever. You know what I mean. Let him join us.”

Savage shifts inside his harness.

“I’ll make it up to you later,”

she simpers.

He rumbles in frustration. “That’s not fair that you hold that over my head.”

“Pretty sure you’ll get it either way, love.”

He sighs. “Fine. But put a tracker on him.”

Cara steps forward with a bracelet in her hand. “Sefina, good to see you alive. My mother spoke of yours often. I trust your judgment on this.”

Sefina waves Sythius toward us. “Cara, Sythius.”

“This is Jeris,”

Cara says, encouraging the other Solcrue forward. “He has one too. It’s so the BlazeStar’s Mother and the other Titans know you are a safe Solcrue.”

She lifts her wrist, displaying her band. “I don’t look at it as a shackle because I can take it off. It’s more of a badge of honor among rebels.”

Sythius takes the silver band in his hands. “Honor is not something I’ve been told I have before. But I would like to be worthy of this.”

Cara smiles like she understands. “Alliances are confusing out there in the stars, but not here with us. None of us are perfect.”

She lifts up a pant leg, exposing her cybernetic foot. “But if we pool our skills, we can make our pieces into something whole.”

Sythius thanks her and puts the band around his wrist. This makes Sefina happy, so I force myself to tolerate it when she pats his back.

Cara leads the two Solcrue back to the center of the cavern, near where Coil and Thruster are carrying survivors up.

Fracture stands, looking up the long shaft at the silvery light from our ship. He chokes up. “She’s calling me.”

“Who?”

Sefina asks.

“Mother,”

he distantly replies.

I rest a hand to his back, savoring the slowly pinging beacon in my mind. Mother relays ship stats until she picks up each of our signals.

Mother>>Menace: SM-8301, you register. Threat scan, complete. BlazeStar welcomes you. Your Brothers await you onboard. SM-8301 Status—significant depletion detected. Please board for replenishing and resupply. Quarters are available.

The ping changes from a single tone to a three note pattern, letting me know Mother has me. If my ultromotor fails me before I arrive and her gravity beam is operational, she will reach out and collect me.

“It is a beautiful sound, isn’t it?”

I ask him.

“I have missed it for three long, cold years,”

he utters.

“See you up there?” I ask.

He looks at me and smiles with all the hope of a fresh unit. Then Fracture fragments into glittering pieces that reflect the light of the BlazeStar pouring down on us from above. And, slowly, he drifts up into the air toward the ship.

“Wow, beautiful.”

Sefina takes my hand as she watches him.

I have to agree. I wish I had a Creator like Fracture’s. Whoever they were, they made his batch Brothers into something special.

At least Quris is dead, and his machine is offline. But it makes me wonder how many other Creators might have survived the war or are just in hiding, tucked away as clones in replicators.

Maybe there is hope for us.

Savage shifts up beside me. I feel him, see him on my scanners. But sometimes, it still startles me. “So you killed Quris?”

“Actually, Sefi did.”

Savage quirks his brows. “Sefi?”

I cough. “Sefina.”

A grin cracks on Savage’s face. “I thought I smelled a bond around here somewhere.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I punch him in the shoulder. “You’ve had Leah since almost the beginning.”

Thruster rockets down and lands with a couple of running steps. He’s got a shielded platform attached to his front and loads up two more women.

“Kelta, Holo, and Fury are on patrol,”

Savage says. “So who has the range extender?”

I motion to Sythius. “He’s the one who got it for us.”

Savage’s jaw muscles flex.

“I know it’s not easy. I still want to kill him sometimes. But his father was General Predu.”

“That could be bad for us if he finds out.”

“He tried to kill Sythius. I think it might be good for us to have him on our side. Coordinate our anger into one force of vengeance.”

Savage looks me over. “You’re different. Never been this chatty.”

I look down as Sefina leaves and hurries toward her friend Aniah. They hug as Redline urges the group into the main portion of the cavern.

Menace>>Savage: Finally found someone who understands me so I don’t have to bottle it up anymore.

Savage>>Menace: I’m happy for you, Brother.

Redline>>Local: Welvirs on approach. Many. Tunnels are collapsing in the deep valley. Get everyone up now!

Thruster and Coil double the numbers they’re carrying.

Savage leaps onto a boulder. “Everyone pair up! Titans, take as many survivors as you can carry! We are out of time! We must climb!”

Tumble, Bomber, Shifter, Redline, and all the other Brothers rush into the shaft and line up in a massive ring around the perimeter of the ascent tunnel, waving survivors to them. We reduce the numbers on the ground quickly, but I’m not sure it will be fast enough.

Savage and Leah stay below with Sefina and me. We help Brothers load up with survivors and start up the wall.

Coil launches with Cara and the other Solcrue, but I can tell he’s almost spent. Thruster’s engines blaze and sputter as he slowly lifts four women toward the ship.

“They’re about out,”

Savage remarks.

“Go!”

Sefina shouts to Savage and Leah. “We will hold them off.”

Savage hoists Leah up to his chest. She wraps her legs around him, and he leaps up the wall behind the last wave of our brothers.

A woman screams as she slips from a Brother. I see her flail and frantically adjust my position to catch her. But it will be a rough landing from such height.

Menace>>Savage: One falling!

Shifter>>Local: She let go! My stupid body… It pinched her!

Savage looks, launches off the wall, catches the woman with an arm, crashes into the wall on the other side, and swings her over his shoulder. Leah steadies her as they keep climbing. I sigh with relief.

Savage>>Local: Breathe, Shifter. It’s not your fault. We will design you a suit like Morbid’s. Everyone, check your charges. I cannot catch any more. No more accidents. We cannot afford them.

Bits of rock fall from my climbing Brothers.

Sefina drops to a knee beside me.

“Sefi…”

I collect her as my vision lights up the tunnels from every direction with more welvirs than I’ve ever seen in one place.

“Get me up the shaft, but keep me below everyone about twenty paces,”

she says, her voice tight.

Gathering her against me, I grab the rocks of the shaft and begin our ascent. All I want is to take my rifle and fire down at them, but I have to trust her. She is capable of something I don’t understand.

Sefina weakens in my grasp and lets out a frightened gasp.

I pause, steady her with an arm, then keep moving. “I’ve got you. You just do your thing.”

The snarling and scraping sounds of welvirs rumble closer, thundering up the shaft. I look up at my Brothers to make sure they are at a safe distance. “Ready.”

“Hang on,”

she whispers as she clutches her head.

Welvirs start to climb after us, moving much faster with less weight hanging from them.

I launch us up another ten feet, dig my fingers into the rock, and bury my face in her silky neck. “Locked in. Do it.”

Sefina climbs up my body, hangs her head over my shoulder so her forehead points down, and lets out a horrendous pulsing scream.

Blue waves ripple down the shaft in faster ribbons, like she’s getting better at it. The vibrating echoes make their way up to my Brothers above us.

Several stop, turn, and look down like they’re in pain, too.

I wince as I endure her mind-shattering scream, but I refuse to give in to the weakness her defense system renders throughout my body. And as she quiets, so do the creatures below us.

Sefina falls completely limp, and I think she’s blacked out again.

“Sefi?”

I climb carefully, adjusting her as she slides down my front. Unable to stop and strap her to me, I grab the chest strap of her weapon harness with my teeth and keep her steady as I crawl as fast as I can the rest of the way up the shaft.

Hang on, babe. Please don’t leave me here without you. I might just lose the last shred of sanity I have left.