LIRA
IT HAD BEEN 86,400 seconds since the timer started on their mission, and not for a moment had Lira allowed herself to stop moving.
She paced back and forth on the Marauder, her steps whisper silent as she worried her way past Andi’s empty captain’s chair.
So many nights she’d found her captain here, scratching tallies into her swords, neck bent as if pressed down by the weight of her sins.
The first part of the mission had gone as planned. Andi and Dex had gone in, the latter assuming they’d stick to his plan. Little did Dextro Arez know that the Marauders weren’t up for following his lead.
They’d executed Plan B with the ultimate amount of finesse. Lira would never forget the moment Breck sent Dex flying across the pub with a single kick to his gut. The snarl on the Lunamere guards’ faces as Dex destroyed their card game, Krevs scattered across the pub for anyone to claim.
After the Sparks had gone off and the Lunamere warden had arrived, Lira and the crew had hightailed their way out of that putrid pub as fast as their legs would allow.
The last she saw of Andi was when she turned to face the warden, and her inevitable transport to Lunamere.
They’d locked eyes across the pub, and as Xen Pterran guards surrounded Andi, she’d sent one desperate message to Lira.
Run.
It wasn’t a suggestion born out of fear. It was an order.
Despite everything in her, Lira had obeyed.
But with every step, she’d felt like a traitor.
Your captain is in chains, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. You should be by her side. Instead, you’re running.
All you ever do is run.
Run from your duties.
Run from your family.
The voice, as always, had sounded like Lon’s. Chest deep, full of knowing and love all at once.
Lira had shoved it away. Forced herself onto the Marauder, her hands clutching the throttle as she reversed away from the old, crumbling satellite’s docking bay.
This was all part of the plan. And yet, Lira couldn’t help but feel as if she’d just repeated an act she’d done four years ago.
Running from what you love most, Lon’s voice ghosted into her mind again.
As she’d flown the Marauder away from Dark Matter, Lira could only hope, and pray to the Godstars, that Andi and Dex would make it back out alive and with Valen Cortas in tow. Hopefully Andi and Valen would be uninjured. Dextro, she didn’t care a single star about.
She knew enough about the damage he’d once caused Andi to wish the worst upon him. It took a lot to break a woman like Andi, and yet somehow, he had managed to do it.
“I’m bored,” Gilly said, interrupting Lira’s thoughts. “I wish Dex was here.”
The pilot looked up from the dark dash before her. “What?”
Gilly shrugged. “He’s funny. I like him.”
“He’s not funny,” Lira said. “He’s Andi’s enemy, and therefore, he is our enemy. And he’s late.”
A full twenty-four hours after leaving Dark Matter, the Marauder, powered down into survival mode to avoid detection, sat like a dark shadow in the Junkyard. The irony of pretending to be dead in the air when only days ago, Dex’s men had literally killed the ship in order to board it and start this entire mission process in the first place, was not lost on Lira.
Lira’s scales sizzled as another wave of newly formed hatred swept into her.
“You’re going to melt the dash,” Breck said.
Lira sighed and shook out her palms.
Remove the anger, she told herself. Remove it, because you’re strong enough. Find the control.
It had been far too long. Andi and Dex were supposed to be out of Lunamere by now, safely back on board the ship. They should have already left this ship graveyard behind, a mere speck in the distance.
But now?
They were thirty minutes late.
Thirty minutes far too late.
Lira twiddled her thumbs, not knowing what to do with her hands otherwise. A tight knot had formed in her chest, one that refused to relinquish its grip no matter how deeply she breathed. What was the cause of the delay? Had something gone wrong in the dark halls of Lunamere? She couldn’t simply patch into her captain’s channel—the distance between them was too great.
“I can’t wait any longer,” Lira said to the girls, gaining their attention.
Gilly, who was flipped upside down on her chair, sat upright. “Andi ordered us to stay put. Do you want to disobey her?”
“Not entirely,” Lira said, shaking her head.
“What are you going to do then? We aren’t just going to leave them behind, right?” she asked, eyes wide with anxiety.
“Of course not, Gilly,” Breck answered for Lira. “She’s just...concerned.” Breck narrowed her eyes at Lira in warning. A private message from the gunner flashed across her feed. Keep it together. Don’t scare the kid.
Sometimes Lira forgot how young Gilly was. Her youth had been pulled out from under her by the awful things done to her in the past, and her innocence certainly hadn’t been restored by the road she now followed with the girls.
But she didn’t know the truth, and neither did Breck. Lira frowned as she thought about what Andi had commanded just before they entered Dark Matter.
If they didn’t return by the designated time, the girls were to save themselves. They were to hide in the darkest hole they could find until they were long forgotten by General Cortas and his lackeys.
Lira’s scales lit up again.
She’d followed Andi’s other orders. But this was not one she could obey.
How could they even trust Soyina? She’d checked out, by their snooping...and yet, Lira didn’t truly trust anyone in this galaxy. No one could, with its twisted history.
Another minor problem was the fact that, for the second time this week, Lira had been forced to assume her role of Second-in-Command. She hated the title, and wished she could discard it as easily as Breck and Gilly discarded used bullet casings.
If it was just Lira alone on this ship, without Breck and Gilly, she would storm Lunamere herself until she found Andi, dead or alive.
It was the very least she could do for the sake of their long friendship. For the chance at a real life, without the heart-clenching, back-breaking responsibility that waited for her back on Adhira.
But when the other two girls’ lives were on the line? Lira forced her emotions aside, as Adhirans should, and told herself they had to stay put.
“I’ll be back,” Lira said, turning on her heel.
“Where are you going?” Breck asked. When Lira didn’t answer, she added, “Lir?”
“You know she never tells us,” Gilly whispered back, though Lira heard it as she left the room. “Play me in a game of Fleet while we wait?”
Breck sighed. “Why, so you can slaughter me again? And where is Alfie, anyhow?”
“I’ll tell you if you play me in Fleet,” Gilly offered.
Their voices trailed off as Lira exited the bridge, stomped down the hallway and deftly climbed down the ladder hatch onto the deck below. The cool metal felt like heaven on her bare feet. Another ladder, a few quick, graceful strides across the catwalk and she found herself storming through the door at the end of the hall into her quarters.
Her room was clean, organized and mostly empty, save for the single welded bookshelf, which held her entire collection of romance novels on handheld pads, each with stories of pilots who stole their lovers away on adventures across the skies. Andi herself had gifted the entire collection to Lira on her Aging Day last year.
Lira had requested a room alone. Breck and Gilly shared the one across from her, which was stacked with soft, overflowing bunks, while Andi took the captain’s quarters above.
But Lira?
She enjoyed time to get lost in her thoughts. And she enjoyed the domed window wall that looked out into endless, swirling outer space. No matter where the Marauder traveled, it was always a glorious view. Ever-changing through the varillium walls. Today, Lira gazed out upon the hull of a broken warship, battered and melted into a mere hunk of waste. The Xen Pterran insignia was half missing on one side.
What size of bomb, Lira wondered, had been used on that ship?
The Cataclysm was more of a mystery to her than to the others, having come from a planet that was hell-bent on peace. Lira chose not to study it. She was too afraid to discover what a leader would have to do when faced with the horrific prospect of war.
She sighed and turned her back on the window wall. A small metal cot was pressed up against it. She sank onto the firm metal slab, relishing the cold on her back.
It was here that she could find a few moments of peace during their busiest days. Here that she could work out the constant barrage of questions and thoughts that peppered her mind day in and day out.
She’d made a lot of choices since leaving Adhira.
All of them had involved Andi and the girls. They worked together as a unit. A single organism with many arms and legs—some smaller than others, some with more scars or markings. But still one and the same once all was said and done.
Some might say that the girls were soulless.
But they were Lira’s soul. And if she had to bet on it, she’d say that she was a part of theirs, too.
For years, Lira had dedicated her life to this crew. She had come here as a girl dreaming of freedom. Now, she had it in her grasp.
Only General Cortas was in the way of that.
And if anything happened to Andi, after all she’d been through...especially on this mission, Lira would never forgive herself for letting Andi go in alone.
She hated to think it, but if anything happened to Andi, Lira would be in charge. What would she do then?
You’d run, Lon’s voice echoed again. Because power and responsibility are too much for you, little bug.
But that wasn’t entirely true. Lira piloted the Marauder. She held the lives of Andi and the girls in her hands each time they set out onto a new mission.
She sighed, closing her eyes. Chasing away the demons. They weren’t as large or as horrifying as those of the other girls, Lira knew...and yet they still plagued her.
When Lira’s father died from Wexen Pox, a great sweeping disease that took out many on Adhira, her mother had shut down. Then she’d drowned herself in bottles of Griss, refusing help when the need for the drink became too strong. Eventually, she left in the night without a word, leaving Lira and her twin brother, Lon, behind. The last Lira had heard, her mother was still living on Adhira, near the Endless Sea, shacking it up with a gilled man who drank more than the sea creatures he made his living catching.
Without their mother’s sister, Lira and Lon would have been alone as children. But their aunt had swept into their lives, welcoming them into her home. They were well cared for, well loved. But each year they grew. And with growth came responsibility.
The family career. Their aunt had no children to take up the job when she died, and so the offer had gone to Lira. She’d refused it, time and time again.
She’d spent her days training and studying how to pilot a ship instead of attending lessons with her aunt.
Lon had encouraged her all along, knowing it gave her joy, but hoping it would not be what determined her future.
And so when Lira had packed her bags and left... She’d never forget the look on her twin’s face. As if she’d just betrayed him. As if she’d reopened the wound their mother gave them both years before. It was the very same look Lira thought she saw in Andi’s eyes when Lira left her in chains, surrounded by guards in Dark Matter.
It was just her mind playing tricks. Pulling at her weakness. Andi had planned for that capture to happen, step by step. But seeing it play out was an entirely different thing.
Again, Lira’s scales heated.
Again, she forced them to cool.
It was why she slept on metal, and with no sheets. Because the dreams became too real, and by the time she’d awoken, any bedclothes would have burned to cinders anyway.
A knock on the door pulled Lira from her thoughts.
It swung open, revealing Breck and Gilly again.
“I’m just resting,” Lira blurted out. A stupid, unbelievable lie.
Breck frowned, her hands on her hips. She had to duck to keep her head from hitting the doorway as she entered. “You’re sulking, Lira. And Marauders don’t sulk alone.”
Gilly tossed a deck of cards onto Lira’s lap. An expensive edition of Fleet, a game widely played across Mirabel.
“I just beat Breck,” she said, twirling one of her red braids around her finger. “And I think I would also like to beat you.”
Lira sighed. She couldn’t be beaten. Gilly knew it.
But she also knew how to make Lira feel better when it felt as if the galaxy was pressing in around her.
“Come on, then,” Lira said, waving the girls inside. Gilly giggled and settled cross-legged on Lira’s metal cot, smiling as she dealt out the glowing cards.
Lira looked down at her hand. A good set of armor, a solid few soldiers, but her weapon? Of course—a Godstars-damned sword. It was as if fate was laughing at Lira, reminding her constantly of Andi’s absence on the ship.
“What if they don’t make it out?” Gilly asked, laying down her first card.
An Explorer ship, quickly followed up by a fully trained pilot.
Plenty of attack power.
Lira cleared her throat, staring out the window at the floating pieces of twisted metal as she laid down a card to cancel Gilly’s attack ability for the turn. “They’ll make it out,” Lira said, even though she herself didn’t quite believe it. “Trust me. And if you can’t trust me, then trust Andi.”
“We trust you,” Breck said. She frowned as Lira dug into her pocket and popped a chunk of Moon Chew into her mouth. “If you keep chewing that stuff, you’re going to make me vomit.”
Moon Chew was her stress reliever. The sickly sweet substance wasn’t to everybody’s liking, but to Lira, it was one of her favorite things.
Lira spat a wad of it into the cup she kept by her cot. “Your turn, Gil.”
“I’ll draw a card instead.”
Lira nodded her permission.
“Andi is only mortal,” Breck said to both girls. “We don’t know who the Xen Pterrans are anymore, or what they’re capable of. If they’ve really got the capability to kidnap Valen Cortas and cart him across the galaxy without being seen or heard...it makes me wonder what they’ve been up to all these years.” She was staring out Lira’s window, ignoring the game of Fleet, as if she were able to see Andi from this distance. “It makes me wonder what else they could do, or have done, without the rest of Mirabel knowing.”
“We just have to hope,” Lira said, “that Andi and Dex have thought of that. And that Soyina can truly be trusted. Because right now...” She sighed as she remembered her aunt saying these very words, years ago, when the Wexen Pox swept across Adhira. “Hope is all we have.”
“Hope is a raging asshole,” Gilly said.
“Explain to me, Gilly,” Breck said with a sigh, “how exactly can an asshole rage?”
Lira choked on a sudden, unexpected laugh. “I swear, the two of you. You were both born with my brother’s sarcastic soul.”
“You’re dead,” Gilly said suddenly, slamming down three rare red-glowing cards.
Lira absentmindedly set down three more, the stats already having formed in her mind, the win instantaneous. “Apologies, Gil.”
Gilly howled a round of fresh curses, and Breck silently shook her head, finally giving up on censoring the young gunner’s language.
They played three more rounds, and soon Lira lost herself in the laughter of her friends, the swift dealing of cards from her fingertips, the revel in each and every win.
It wasn’t until she heard the knock on the door and turned to see Alfie walk in that the terrified ache returned to her chest. And a sudden smell came along with it, pungent and horrid enough to make her eyes water.
Gilly jumped up off the cot, her cards scattering to the floor, their light winking out. “How did you escape?”
Breck’s head whipped to her. “What are you talking about, Gil?”
Alfie glided over silently, his head tilted to the side. The smell arrived in full force with him. “With help from the Marauder’s Artificial Intelligence system, I was able to unscrew the bolts on the waste bay’s door to remove myself from the room. It would be most appreciated if you would remove further attacks on me from your in-flight agenda. It is in the best interest of your mission.”
Lira sat there, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then a large bark sounded from across the room as Breck doubled over laughing. “Gilly, you beautiful little demon. You actually did it! You locked him in the waste bay!”
Gilly smiled smugly and crossed her arms.
Then a thought came to Lira. “Alfie, did you rebolt the door to the waste bay?”
Alfie cocked his oval head. Lira could see the gears moving in his body, as if he was deeply pondering her question.
“No, I did not reassemble the door. The mechanic bots should be reassembling it now.”
The three girls let out an exasperated moan.
“Alfie, you idiot,” Gilly groaned. “We don’t have mechanic bots on this ship.”
Lira bent over and nearly gagged from the smell.
Before they could let all hell loose on Alfie, the ship’s cool female voice spoke over their heads.
“Incoming message for Lira Mette.” After a moment, Memory added, “Hello, Alfie.”
Alfie glanced up. “Memory’s voice is very enticing to my inner programming. I should like to converse with her when you are done, Lira Mette.”
“Oh, Godstars,” Breck said. “Do not tell me our ship is about to hook up with the general’s AI.”
Lira raced to the opposite wall, tapping a holoscreen embedded into the metal. Seconds passed before the screen lit up and a message blinked into view.
She could practically feel the tension unwind from her muscles as she turned toward the waiting crew.
“It’s from Soyina,” Lira said, smiling as she swept past Alfie and out into the hall, where she raced toward the bridge, her fingers already itching to grab the Marauder’s wheel. “Time to go get our girl.”