Nyleena?”
I take a deep breath. Then I lie to him. “She’ll be OK.”
“You promise?” His eyes are still narrowed, but it’s not all suspicion. It’s mostly fear.
I hate that. Because I know what he’s feeling right now. I know he loves her. I know he wants those babies. I know he would do anything to keep her safe.
And he trusts me. Even after he saw the truth. Even after he killed me.
He wants to trust me. And so he will.
That is my real superpower. They all trust me.
Hell, even ALCOR trusts me.
But I’m not going to tell Luck what I’m doing. So I just I nod. And lie to him again. “I promise, Luck. If you do what I say, I promise she will be OK.”
He nods back at me. “OK. Tell Mighty Boss I’ve got a complimentary all-access pass to the Harem Station spin node ready and waiting.”
And then he salutes me.
I nod, salute back, and turn to leave. But Luck calls out one last time. “What about ALCOR?”
I spin around, walking backwards. “Which one?”
“Our ALCOR. Will he live?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Luck”
His face becomes serious. And then he yells over the alarms, “None of us are gonna live, are we? We’re just gonna go out fighting, aren’t we?”
And that’s it. I can’t lie to him a third time. “I don’t know, Luck. I’m just… doing my best.”
Then I turn around and run towards the museum entrance.
When I get out into the main concourse on level one twenty-two, there are thousands of people pressing up against a barrier that cordons off a narrow walkway leading to a waiting lift bot hovering in the center of the station space. Including a couple hundred pissed-off princesses.
“Oh, no, mister!” that red one says, pointing at me from behind the barrier. “You’re not getting away again!”
The silver threads wrap them all up. None of them see it though.
Only I see it.
The connection is there.
We are all connected.
And not just by the silver threads, we are connected in another way too.
We are outlaws. Pirates. Ex-prisoners. Bounty hunters. Mercenaries. Criminals.
We are all ALCOR’s unwanted.
He really is a fucking genius.
“Let me remind you”—the Baby’s voice competes with the klaxon alarm for attention as his words boom over the station-wide comms—“we’re in a level one red alert. If you are not presently manning your assigned battle station, you will be rounded up and thrown out an airlock without warning!”
“Suns, Baby,” I say, stepping onto the lift bot. “You’re in a bad mood.”
“I cannot deal with these children. They do not listen.”
“Welcome to my world. Please find Mighty Boss and get them down to the spin-node room. I’ve removed the security measures that keep the AI’s out.”
“Done,” Baby says.
“And I wish I had time to give you some tips, but I only have time for one question, Baby.”
“Just one? All the secrets of the universe are wrapped up into just one question that I have the answer to?”
“Well. Probably not. But this is the only question that matters right now. Do you trust me?”
“Implicitly.”
“So if I tell you that I need all our exploding princesses thawed out and placed in the spin-node room right now you would say—?”
“I would say ‘Yes, sir.’”
“And if I were to tell you that I need Tycho’s cryopod also put in that room?”
“Oh fuck,” he says. And he hesitates. But then he says, “I would do it.”
“And if I were to tell you that I need all my brothers in that same room and none of us will ever walk out of that room again, Baby? What would you say then?”
Baby hesitates a little longer this time. Long enough for me to know he’s running billions—maybe even trillions—of calculations and simulations.
But finally he says, “So you are going to do it.”
It’s not a question.
“You would say, Baby?”
“Of course, I will do it all, Crux. And not because you’re my responsible party and I live on your station at your pleasure. I would do it because you are a good man and I know that if you have a plan, then you have looked at all available options and this is the only acceptable version of the future.”
A good man. Alera called me that too. But it’s way too soon to draw any conclusions about me.
“But what about the battle at the gates?”
“Fuck that battle, Baby. Let those insane girl-mind ships do whatever they want to the Akeelians. We have all the weapons we need right here on this station. Now get everyone