- Ava -

The only thing that was different inside the comet this time was that there were no machines to guard anyone, and that Nur's body was nowhere to be seen. His pool of ammonia was so still it looked like a polished mirror in the dim light.

Either someone had been there to get his body, or he'd had robots that had tidied up in the room.

The last time she was here, they hadn't explored any more of the ship, but since Nur had been the Kunuru who had killed Groti'ax, at least he had access to war robots.

Ava didn't like the idea of exploring the ship on her own. But it would be a pity if she was just a few feet from another Kunuru who could be reasoned with, and then didn't try to find him.

There wasn't much more to explore. The room with the pool was the main chamber in the ship, and the rest were just small compartments with no immediately obvious function, all made from gleaming metal. There was no sign of any robots.

There were no more doors leading out from the chamber, unless that pool of ammonia was in fact some kind of doorway. But Ava wasn't about to check that out.

“Okay,” she said, and the sound of her voice was small and hollow in the metal ship. “We've done what we had to. We tried.”

She turned and marched quickly out of the comet, both relieved and disappointed. 

She detached the shuttle from the ice tunnel and just flew straight away from the comet.

Now what?

That was the only thing she'd come here for. But of course she couldn't expect the Kunuru to be here right at the time she came. She would wait for them for as long as she could.

She had time for a little detour.

- - -

The Fire Planet loomed large in front of the shuttle. The Fire was on the dayside, but even in bright sunlight it was visible as a thin, searingly white line of light with all green in front of it and all black behind it. The plume of smoke was hardly visible. The Fire burned so hot and so fiercely that very few larger particles remained to create anything but a hot shimmer in the atmosphere, many miles above the blaze. It was both a terrible and a beautiful sight.

“And whatever happens, I will never see it again.”

She cupped her stomach. “This is where this all started, kids. Now you can say you've kind of been here. If there's anyone left to say it to.”

For all she knew, the Kunuru could be turning Earth into a frozen, sterile planet right at that moment. And it was mostly because of her.

She'd failed.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “That damn Fire Planet has screwed us all over from the beginning. We've all been in orbit around that damn thing since- oh, fuck!”

There was a blinding flash of white, coming from the planet below.

Something had exploded down there, in the black, scorched plains where the Fire had passed only weeks earlier.

Ava blinked to get her vision back, then called up the recorded data on the shuttle's display.

Something had come in at high speed and crashed on the Fire Planet. Something that looked a lot like a comet on the shuttle's recording, one that had such an eccentric orbit that it didn't show up on her first scan.

Ava dried her cheeks. “I suppose that could be our guy. Arriving fashionably late.”

Nur had said that the Hierarch of First Rank would meet them on the Fire Planet. Perhaps he hadn't gotten the memo that Nur was dead. Or maybe the meeting was still on.

Ava ordered the autopilot to land where the comet had exploded.

Of course, nobody could survive a crash like that. Still, she had to check.

- - -

The exploding comet had created a wide, but shallow crater in the thick, hard layer of scorched soil and ashes. In the middle of it was an oval, gleaming object the size of an apartment building.

It looked so much like the interior of Nur's ship that it pretty much had to have the same origin.

Ava circled the crater a couple of times, but there was no movement. There was also no reply on the radio.

“I guess we'll just land.”

The autopilot set the shuttle very gently down a hundred yards away from the Kunuru ship. Ava just sat and looked for several minutes while the engines spun down.

The oval ship didn't look damaged at all. Probably the comet itself had exploded in the air, and the ship inside it had been able to land more softly. For all Ava knew, that could be how every Kunuru ship landed.

She tried the radio again, explaining everything very carefully with the translator set to speak Acerex. Still no reply.

She looked up. She might have to get out. This was the deadliest planet known, but the jungle hadn't had time to grow back after the Fire had passed. The danger right here wasn't so much the Fire as flying creatures like the dragon-like firebirds.

There was nothing moving in the sky.

She popped the hatch, and the sour, penetrating stench of the Fire hit her senses so hard she had to steady herself on the frame to not collapse. An avalanche of memories rushed through her mind, all of them unpleasant.

This is the price we pay for failure.

She looked up and around. Still no movement anywhere. She jumped down onto the spongy ground, then walked fast over to the oval object, keeping a sharp lookout to the sky.

Nothing attacked her, and she stopped a few paces from the Kunuru ship. After that explosion she would have expected it to radiate heat, but instead it seemed to be absorbing it. The air was noticeably cooler the closer to it she went.

She walked up to it and knocked on the ice cold metal. There was no resonance – it was like knocking on concrete. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

“No,” said a chilly, ghostly voice from behind her.

Ava yelped and almost jumped out of her skin. “Oh, fuck. You scared me.”

It was a Kunuru, smooth and tall and thin, with brown bones on the outside of its body and milky eyes on the top of its pointy head. Its hands were long and clawed, like Nur's had been. But this one was clearly a different individual. He looked older, more weathered and more frail.

“And you killed the Hierarch of Fifteenth Rank, Nur.”

The Kunuru spoke English like a 1950s radio announcer, very singsong and stilted. That was probably a clue to how he had learned the language. Earth had been beaming speech and radio waves out into space for almost two hundred years.

“I didn't kill him, but I understand what you mean,” Ava said slowly. “It was a terrible mistake. I was pressured into bringing along a bodyguard, and he went beyond his rights. I did not want Nur to die. I only want friendship with the Kunuru.”

“Mistake,” the alien mused. “Terrible. Yes. We are eighteen now. We had been nineteen for a long time.”

“I'm very sorry. The leaders of the Earth are extremely angry about what happened. About the death of Nur. I have been instructed to apologize on behalf of our people.”

“The death of Nur,” the Kunuru repeated. “Resulting in the death of Earth.”

Shit.

“The people of Earth only want peace and friendship. Peaceful cooperation with the Kunuru.”

“Friendship is the absence of war. Yet, Nur is dead.”

This wasn't really working. “He is dead, and we regret it very much.”

“Vrun stated that we are to cleanse the universe of everything that is not worthy of him. Yet you cleansed the universe of Nur.”

Time to change topic. “Why are you here on the Fire Planet?”

“The Fire is sacred to the Acerex. Now we will dishonor and enrage them by quenching it.”

“You will extinguish the Fire?” It didn't seem to Ava to be such a terrible thing.

“The Acerex have failed us as the hammer to our anvil. This is their punishment. It will dishonor them and spur them on to become a better hammer. They will be angered and will attack our slave species with greater ferocity.”

“They're not a hammer at all,” Ava tried. “And Earth is not an anvil. We want everyone to live. We don't want to cleanse the universe.”

“Everyone wants to cleanse the universe.”

Of course they would think that. “We really don't.”

“Everyone,” said another voice, and a shadow fell on Ava.

It was another Kunuru, and this time Ava didn't yelp. But she was starting to feel small. And the shuttle suddenly felt like it was very far away.

“It is the purpose of all activity among the stars,” the newcomer said. He was taller than the first, and didn't look as old. “As Hierarch of First Rank, Sur, has just said. Every race wishes to conquer and cleanse the universe for its own use.”

“Seriously, we don't,” Ava stated as firmly as she dared. “We want every race and species to thrive in this big universe. We want to be friends.”

“We monitored the talks with Nur,” the younger alien said. “You stated your friendship. Then your Acerex killed him. One of our nineteen.”

“It was a terrible mistake,” Ava repeated. “Notice I'm here alone now, trusting the Kunuru to understand the value of friendship and peace.”

“We are friends,” the newcomer said. “Eighteen friends who were nineteen until recently.”

“Eighteen,” yet another Kunuru said, and another shadow fell on Ava.

“Eighteen,” said another, coming around their metallic ship.

“Eighteen.” Another.

“Eighteen.” Another.

“Eighteen.” Another.

There were so many tall aliens around her that Ava felt the first pangs of a bad panic in the pit of her stomach.

Still they kept coming, tall, spindly aliens with long hands, pointy heads and their brown skeletons on the outside.

“Eighteen.”

They stood in a circle around her, all eighteen of them.

Ava's heart was racing, and she felt panicky tears burning in the corner of her eyes. If they moved in now, and if they had any kind of weapon ... heck, they could probably kill her with those claws, tear her apart like a piece of grilled chicken ...

The first, older alien who was Sur, their leader, came forward with two gliding steps. “They murdered Nur.”

“It was a mistake,” Ava said and tried to keep her voice steady. “It was never supposed to happen.”

“Thus we must remove the Earth and dishonor the Acerex,” the old alien continued as if Ava hadn't spoken. “The Earth is powerful. The Acerex have not killed a single Kunuru until now. Nor has anyone else for untold cycles. Only when Ava of Earth commanded it did the Acerex kill Kunuru. We must protect ourselves against Earth and its might. Twelve billion there are. It is a plague such as the universe has never seen. Enough to murder many Kunuru.”

“We won't murder anyone,” Ava said, unable to keep her voice from trembling. They didn't seem to be listening. In desperation she turned her translator back on and turned the volume to max, no translation, just amplification.

“Nur was a mistake,” her voice boomed across the scorched landscape, and the Kunuru around her froze. “An accident. He did provoke Xark'ion, too. Maybe trying to dishonor him, I don't know. But Earth does not want to cleanse the universe. We wish only to make friends. Your allies are surrounding my world. Earth. Clearly preparing to attack. You exterminated the Ysal. And turned the Solp into your slaves. And ruined the world of Woor Five. It is you who are murderous. Don't judge others by your own flaws!”

That last part wasn't very diplomatic. But Ava had the feeling the time for conventional diplomacy was over.

“Let us listen no more,” a Kunuru said. “We will take the life of this lethal Earthling, then quench the Fire here on the Acerex planet, then order the attack on Earth. It will be a long war. Earth will murder many of the lesser species. Then, when their task is completed, we will murder the Earth. Before they can murder us.”

He suddenly had a pair of giant, alien scissors in his hand, similar to the ones that Nur had held and that had made Xark'ion attack him. The blades gleamed dully in the sun on the Fire Planet.

Ava took one step back, but only bumped into another alien. They were surrounding her, and the one with the huge scissors was gliding towards her on his spindly legs.

He held the scissors in both hands and slowly opened them, displaying the edges of the blades. Each was at least four feet long. He lifted the terrible weapon to the same height as Ava's neck.

She tried to run, but strong, clawed arms caught her and held her up towards the alien coming towards her.

“Let me go!” she yelled, and the translator made her voice boom again. “You misunderstand!”

The alien with the scissors was very close, and he calmly thrust the open blades towards Ava's neck. The claws holding her were hard and sharp, and if the fabric in her utility suit hadn't been so sturdy, they would have pierced her skin. But there was no way it would be able to prevent those blades from cutting off her head.

Her head was bent backwards by another set of claws, and now Ava thrashed and pulled and jerked and twisted in real panic, but she was held so firmly she only hurt herself. Especially her forearm, where something hard was poking her wrist-

In a flash she remembered it.

With her other hand she found the secret pocket at the suit's left sleeve, peeled it back with fingers stiff from fear and felt the warm, smooth wood inside.

Cold metal touched the skin of her neck.

She pulled the little tube Xark'ion had given her out of its pocket, pointed it at the head of the Kunuru holding the scissors and gave the end of it a firm push.

There was a wet thud, a shower of ice cold fluids splashed over her, and the Kunuru holding her let go from sheer shock.

The scissors fell to the now damp ground with a metallic rattle.

The alien in front of her swayed back and forth, then collapsed without a sound.

It no longer had a head.

Ava's knees buckled under her. “Oh fuck.”

The translator-amplified exclamation rolled over the burned plains like thunder.