DEX
THE XEN PTERRAN mask stunk like rotting blood.
With each step Dex took, the stolen boots crushed his toes together and the dead soldier’s armor rubbed in all the wrong places.
Dex’s Tenebran blood boiled.
The...man who’d worn this suit before him had murdered innocents. He’d approached Revalia as if it were a war zone, shooting at anyone that moved. Man, woman, child.
“Hurry,” Dex said as he helped haul a shocked Valen across the sand.
In front of them, Andi took point, her pace steady. Not too fast, not too slow. Her Xen Pterran armor was too loose, but she looked the part nonetheless.
Other soldiers sprinted past them, and Dex’s heart leaped into his throat.
They’ll know, he thought. They’ll see right through our stolen masks.
In his mind, he saw a lifetime behind bars, stuck in that horrible darkness they’d just freed Valen from. He readied himself for a fight, body like a coiled spring about to come loose.
But the soldiers only ran past, clicking freshly loaded clips into their rifles as they disappeared into the smoke beyond.
He hoped they, too, burned with the bodies he and the Marauders had left behind.
* * *
It took everything Andi had not to swing her swords at the soldiers as they ran past. But she held herself in check, continuing up the hillside as they got closer and closer to the desert’s edge.
The line of ships was half a mile ahead, ramps still lowered, dark interiors waiting to swallow them whole.
Each step, each breath, they made it closer.
“Which one?” Andi asked. Beside her, Breck had Lon held over her shoulder, his body limp as if he were already dead. “Lira. You have to tell us which one.”
She couldn’t see her pilot’s face behind the Xen Pterran mask. But she guessed it was blank as Lira ran, robotic and silent.
Andi looked to Dex instead. He knew starships better than she did, could look at them as if he saw their insides turned out. “Which one?”
“There. Middle of the fleet. It’s the smallest, so it’ll be harder to track.”
The ship of choice was outdated. The wings were dented, the hull looked to be made of several different models, and yet...it had made it here in one piece, all the way from Xen Ptera, and unless this attack was planned as a one-way trip, she guessed the ship had enough fuel inside for a flight back to the Olen System.
Andi swallowed, glancing back only once at the distant destruction.
Soldiers were gathering together, knocking over the remains of booths.
They had droids lined up on the sand for questioning. People huddled together on the ground nearby, some screaming and begging for mercy. Others looked stoically out at the desert, as if resigned to the same shock that was swarming through Lira and Valen now.
“We can’t leave them here to die,” Andi said. Adhira had taken them in. Alara had allowed them to stay in Rhymore after they’d crash-landed. She knew the general had a hand in it...but this planet had opened its arms to her and her crew.
Now it was bathed in blood.
A victim to Xen Ptera’s terrors.
Breck hefted Lon farther onto her shoulder. Her muffled voice came from inside the mask. “We don’t have a choice. If we go back down there, we’ll all die, too, Andi.” She angled her head toward Valen. “He is our mission.”
Andi turned away.
She would make this choice now and allow herself to consider the consequences later. More faces, more dead for her to call to a dance.
They continued until the sand beneath their stolen boots turned to metal.
Until they were marching up the ramp of the chosen ship, Dex whispering, “Go, go, go.” Gilly ran inside, swinging her rifle left and right, searching for any remaining soldiers on board.
“Clear,” she mouthed.
It was strangely hollow inside. Enough space to pack a hundred soldiers into the empty cargo bay. Overhead, a single catwalk spread left and right. Darkness waited beyond.
Breck set Lon down on the cold metal floor. Lira nestled beside him, shifting his head gently to rest on her lap. Valen knelt before them, speaking in hushed tones to Lira. His own hands shook, but it seemed he was in better control of himself for now.
Go with Gilly, Andi silently commanded Breck.
The giantess nodded and slipped past Andi to follow Gilly and Dex farther into the ship.
She watched them climb the ladder to the catwalk, no words shared between them as they split up, Breck and Gilly to the left, Dex to the right.
Andi waited, catching her breath and praying to the Godstars that the ship was clear.
Only a few seconds passed before a gunshot exploded above.
The crew.
Leaving the loading door open, Andi turned and sprinted into the heart of the ship.