genocide, please note that a species name must be dormant for 100,000 years in order to re-enter the registry.
“Get…up,” hisses a voice somewhere up above. It fights its way through ringing ears and into a battered head. Sarya rises to one knee and nearly keels over from the overpowering stench in the air. Widow pheromones, hot metal, burning insulation, leaking coolant, goddess knows what else. She falls to her hands and knees and retches.
“Up,” repeats the voice. She is hoisted to her feet by a collection of very hard, very sharp implements. There is nothing at all soft about her mother right now. “You will carry this,” hisses the voice. A satchel is thrown over her shoulders and tightened mercilessly.
“Hey, that corporate ship is all docked now,” says Helper’s voice from the ceiling. “Network says they’re looking for somebody, which I’m pretty sure I predicted. There’s a big public announcement that everybody’s supposed to cooperate if they run into—”
“Enough, Helper,” says Sarya. She rises, still shaky, from her hands and knees.
“A corporate ship?” hisses Shenya the Widow. She tilts her head, as she always does when she’s using her Network implant. “Searching Watertower? What corporation?”
“Oh, some deep-space archaeological firm,” says Helper. “Let me look it up real quick—”
And then Shenya the Widow’s blades slip out from under her and spark across the floor. She lands with a disturbing crack and a furious hiss, limbs swinging and scrabbling for purchase. The battle has apparently not left Shenya the Widow unscathed.
“Off, Helper,” hisses Sarya as she stumbles backward out of range. She leans against the doorframe and takes a breath, her ears still ringing. She very nearly offers to help her mother, but she squashes the impulse. Her mother will do this on her own, or not at all. And then she will tell the story in the future, of how Shenya the Widow needed no help to deal with a bounty hunter many times her size. She will work those scars into every conversation, and she will be insufferable about it.
“Pain without fear,” whispers her mother as she draws herself to a shaky standing position.
“Pain without fear,” answers Sarya automatically, struggling to stand upright herself. “Did you—” she says, then coughs. “Is he—”
But she realizes she doesn’t need to finish either sentence. She did, and he is. The bounty hunter takes up most of the common room floor, sprawled on his face. He looks smaller than before—and then Sarya realizes it’s because his arms have been removed. The big one rests in the corner while his long whip twitches at her feet.
Unsteadily, she steps over it—with half a mind to stomp it into the floor. She remembers its cold caress on her face and body, and the memory lends her strength. She makes her way to Hood’s torn body, stepping over streaks of fluids of various colors and viscosities. She stands above him, eyes tracing his dented form and sliced tubes. He is oddly beautiful, in a way—and yet she doesn’t feel a trace of sadness. This is on you, Hood. You should have known this was coming when you decided to take the daughter of a Widow.
“This is…not the time for gloating,” says her mother behind her.
But Sarya has already found what she’s looking for, peeking out of a dented compartment. She crouches above the smoking form, hands tracing warm metal. When she rises and turns back to her mother, she is inserting earbuds.
“He took my gift,” she says quietly.
She does not thank her mother for protecting her. That is not the Widow way. Widows speak thanks for small things, for gifts and favors. The large things, the sacrificing of lives and the killing of threats—these are taken for granted.
“You…go first,” her mother says when they reach the door. She seems to be having difficulty assembling sentences. “I will follow and…protect.”
Only now does Sarya begin to realize what has happened here. A dead bounty hunter—yes, that’s only justice. But now she is stepping over a—what is that? The bile rises in her throat. It’s another limb. But whose? Did it belong to the babysitter? To old Baz? To the arboretum caretaker? “Where?” she manages to say, unable to take her eyes off the oozing stump.
“Away,” says Shenya the Widow, swaying.
And Sarya finds that she is able. She strides to the door and barely jumps at all when it opens and a figure slumps into the room, head lolling. She refuses to look down as she steps over it,