As she burst into the hold, Calexa was greeted by an odd sight. She skidded to a halt, and Vradhu-Ares’s long limbs and loose tail swayed with the residual momentum.

She’d been expecting a hostile reception, but the fierce looking Vradhu with the blade-tipped spears were on the other side of the massive space, too far away and too preoccupied to even notice her entrance.

“What the hell are they doing outside?” she groaned. S’s twenty or so human servants—stars, she hated that word—were standing in a huddle a good twenty meters away from the Medusa. Blankets were draped around their shoulders, and they wore haunted expressions.

This was no place for their kind.

Stars, what have we done?

Defenseless was the word that came to mind. They were far from home and totally reliant on the actions of Calexa and her crew…. and S. Each woman would have her reasons for being in servitude to the Primean. She could bet her crooked metal spine that none of them were there by choice.

Calexa couldn’t judge them. She’d been there once. She knew what it was like to be helpless. In this brave new Universe, life wasn’t easy for humans.

Mai stood in front of the group with a bullish expression on her face, her Irradium cannon planted firmly on her right shoulder. She still wore her combat armor, but her helm was up. She formed a formidable one-woman barrier between the humans and the Vradhu, her dark brown eyes threatening the violet warriors to ‘just fucking try me.’

Even though Calexa had no idea what was going on, a wave of relief and affection surged through her as she caught sight of her mercenary-sister.

Mai was good company, and she never shied away from a fight. Calexa had bought the former jewel-artist out of slavery after the dead Khral-master’s bond-house had been dissolved, and ever since then Mai had been her loyal friend and associate.

On D5, associate was the polite term for mercenary.

“Make me strong and give me the biggest fucking gun in existence.” That had been Mai’s reaction to being held in a Khral bond-house for three years, so Calexa had used her Arena winnings to pay for the illegal bio-enhancement surgery. Of course, ultra-human strength and big guns couldn’t stop the anguished cries in the middle of the night or the sudden flashes of panic that could freeze a girl dead in her tracks, but they helped… a little.

And as time passed and they’d visited more faraway planets, taken more jobs, and fought more than their fair share of assholes, the rawness of it all had been dampened… a little.

As Calexa slowly walked toward her people, several of the Vradhu warriors turned in her direction. A group of five broke off and jogged toward her, raising their bladed spears. They glared at her with open hostility, the striking patterns on their faces accentuating their fierce expressions.

Guttural curses were uttered in a tongue that she didn’t understand. Suddenly, she was surrounded by a ring of very menacing, very armed, and very large Vradhu. They closed in on her, cutting off any possible escape route.

Calexa didn’t flinch. After all, she’d been hanging around with Ares, and he was way more intimidating than these guys.

“You must be Maki,” she said in fluent Naaga, honing in on the only Vradhu who didn’t wear armor. Just as Ares had described, there was a thin silver torc around his neck.

Maki inclined his head, greeting her with a knowing smile. “Ah. The makivari. You have brought our clan-brother. Or at least, you have brought this version of him.” He studied her with dark, wily eyes, not seeming in the least surprised that she’d shown up out of nowhere with Ares’s body-double in her arms. “Where is the metal-lord?”

“He needs your help,” she said, urgency seeping into her voice. “He’s holed up in the corridor with a horde of Corrupted headed in his direction and…” She hesitated, knowing the news would be unwelcome. “He has two bodies with him. He says he wants to return them to Khira. I’m sorry.”

The Vradhu took it like a true warrior, a slight raising of his eyebrows the only sign of his dismay. Calexa understood. There was no time to waste. Grief would come later.

Maki barked orders to his men in Vradhu. Several of them started to jog toward the exit, heading in Ares’s direction. “Thank you, human. Your assistance won’t be forgotten. If you wish to relieve yourself of that ugly brute,” he nodded in the direction of Ares’s clone, “you can hand him off to one of the—”

“No,” Calexa snapped, not missing a beat. “I’ll guard him.” She was surprised at how protective she sounded, but Ares had entrusted his body to her, and she wasn’t about to palm him off to some unknown warrior, even if he was from the same clan as Ares.

Several of the Vradhu stared at her with bemused expressions, as if they thought she were some kind of raving lunatic.

“Very well.” A wide, toothy-fangy grin split Maki’s face. “Ares has given you his krivera, I see. In that case, you can do what you like, but please explain to your clan-sisters that we mean them no harm. The small one keeps looking at me as if she wants to tear my heart out, and I’m afraid I don’t have the stamina for these sorts of things anymore.”

“Mai can have that effect on people. Just try not to provoke her and you’ll be fine,” Calexa quipped, concealing her surprise. This warrior-chief seemed like a complicated sort of character, hiding his true thoughts behind a deceptively mild veneer. He was to Ares as light was to darkness.

“I’ll remember that,” Maki yelled over his shoulder as he followed his crew into the shadows.

Calexa turned and saw Mai staring at her with wide eyes. She stood alongside the mysterious Primean, S, who had hidden her intricately braided hair beneath a sea-green shawl. Zahra was several meters from them, guarding the entrance to the Medusa.

Both women greeted Calexa with sharp nods.

Maki had left the remaining two thirds of his men behind to guard the humans. They watched the women with dark, curious stares, appearing a little too predatory for Calexa’s liking. The humans stared back, their expressions betraying a mixture of fear, wonder, and strangely, admiration.

The half-Primean brothers, Raphael and Monroe, were nowhere to be seen.

“Cal!” Zahra yelled, her relieved voice echoing through the cavernous hold. “Over here!” As she waved Calexa over, her eyes went wide with shock.

Maybe it was the naked Vradhu in Calexa’s arms.

Maybe it was her newly shaved head.

Maybe it was the silver-ilverium harness-thing Ares had fashioned for her, or maybe it was the twin bone swords jutting above her shoulders.

The Vradhu warriors stepped aside as Calexa passed, but their unnerving black gazes never left her. A muffled boom reached her ears, coming from inside the Medusa.

That had to be Monroe’s doing. Nobody else would dare try and blow shit up inside her ship. What the hell were the halfbreeds doing in there? “They’d better not be breaking my shit,” she growled as she reached Zahra’s side. “Monroe still owes me for dismantling the Relectra drive and turning it into a water heater without asking permission.”

“Monroe could work on his communication skills, but at least we get hot showers now. I like hot showers.” Zahra shrugged. “Besides, asking isn’t in Monroe’s DNA. What the hell happened to you, Cal? Who’s the slumbering eye-candy?”

“Ask Mai to poach S’s pretty shawl,” Calexa whispered, becoming keenly aware of Ares’s nakedness. She had no idea what the official Vradhu policy on nudity was. Ares might not give two shits about it, but Calexa felt as if she had a responsibility to protect him from roving eyes.

S was staring at her. The Primean’s brilliant green eyes took in the unconscious Vradhu in her arms. Calexa growled under her breath.

Back off, he’s mine.

Whoa. Where had that come from?

“I’ll get the thing,” Zahra whispered. “But when I get back, you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do, missy. We thought you were…”

“Trouble Incarnate turned out to be nicer than he looks. He didn’t eat me, after all.”

“Thank the stars for that. You shouldn’t have…” She shook her head. “What are we doing here, Cal? What do the purple ones want from us? What have you been doing all this time?”

“Long story,” Calexa sighed. “We need to get out of here. This place is…” she searched for the right word in her mind, “compromised.”

“You’ve seen something, haven’t you?” Zahra raised an eyebrow, her expression turning canny. “You’ve got that look in your eyes again.”

“What look?” Calexa shook her head, not wanting to go down that path right now. “Let’s talk later. Badness approaches.” Dread slithered around in the pit of her stomach. Being away from Ares was making her edgy in a way that confounded her.

Nobody made her feel this way, but in the short time they’d known one another, she’d gotten used to his silent, larger-than-life presence; so much so that she found herself worrying about him, even as she carried his damn glistening, buck-naked, muscle-bound, slumbering body around.

Her eyes strayed. Again.

She cleared her throat. “Zahra, the shawl.”

Zahra followed the direction of Calexa’s gaze, her eyebrows lifting in appreciation. “He’s a whole hunk-a-chunk of male, isn’t he? I won’t ask why you’re carrying that sleeping beauty around. I’m sure both you and he have your reasons.”

“Zahra!”

“Yeah, yeah.” She turned away with a wink and approached the Primean.

Calexa looked down into the face of her sleeping charge. He was nothing more than a body, lacking consciousness and awareness, but somehow she felt the need to protect him with every fiber of her being. If Drakhin-Ares was an invulnerable god of metal and scales, then this creature was his weakness and his hope.

And he’d placed it all in her hands.

She still couldn’t believe it.

Ares’s plan was utterly mad and totally inconceivable, but it was the only hope he had of escaping this dark nightmare of a ship.

That was why Calexa would guard it with her life. She would follow it through to the end, purely because he could have taken advantage of her; he could have ruined her a thousand times over, and he hadn’t.

He’d held back.

He’d protected her.

He’d made her want to reach out and know him.

For Calexa, that was unheard of.

Maybe the Netherverse had spat them out in this crazy place for a reason.

The distant sounds of fighting reached her ears, originating from outside the hold. Vradhu battle-cries mingled with the dull moans of the Corrupted. The shouts grew louder in volume until Calexa caught sight of someone running through the open doorway.

Not someone. Something. A stray Corrupted, moving so fast it was nothing more than a silver-and-blue blur.

A Vradhu warrior sprinted after it, but it was too quick.

Ares was nowhere to be seen.

“Mai!” she yelled.

Mai spun, her eyes going wide as she caught sight of the creature. It was heading straight for the group of human women, streaking across the empty floor. Someone screamed.

“Blast it!”

Mai didn’t waste time. Her Irradium cannon flared, and a bolt of pure white energy ripped across the empty space, hitting the Corrupted in the chest.

Disintegrating it.

The sickening smell of seared flesh filled the air, mingling with the sharp tang of burnt metal.

“You didn’t tell me there were zombies in this galaxy, Cal!” Mai looked shellshocked. “What the hell is going on?”

“Get them inside,” Calexa barked, nodding at S and the rest of the humans. “I want everyone strapped in and secure. Tell them to get ready for a rough getaway. Keep the ladies in the passenger bay. The Vradhu can squeeze themselves into the cargo hold. As soon as Raphael and Monroe have the powerbanks back online, we’re getting out of here, even if we have to blast our way out.”

Zahra sauntered past, dropping S’s shawl into Ares-copy’s lap. “Some modesty for your sleeping beauty.” She frowned. “Am I going deaf, or did you just say the Vradhu are coming with us?”

“They’re coming with us.” Calexa nodded solemnly.

“What makes you so sure they aren’t going to slaughter every single one of us the moment the doors are closed and we cast off into space?”

“They need us,” Calexa replied, watching the remaining Vradhu out of the corner of her eye. The moment the Corrupted had bolted into the hold, they’d scattered, chasing the monster as it sped toward the humans.

If Mai’s blast had come one second later, at least two of the Vradhu would have been caught in the path of her Irradium flare, but there hadn’t been time to think about that.

That was how they lived, teetering on the precipice between life and death. There was no time for indecision or hesitation.

“This is… This is nuts.” Zahra sighed. “Where are we going to go? Raphael tells me there’s not enough energy left to power the jump-drive, and we don’t even know where the hell we are. I’m going to check with the twins to see if it’s safe to get back onboard, then we need to talk.” She gave Calexa a long, hard look. “Those purple people… we don’t know anything about them. They outnumber us, and they’re bigger than us. We should leave them behind. We should leave everything exactly as we found it and get the hell out of here.”

“Zahra.” Calexa watched the Vradhu warriors out of the corner of her eye. They ran back toward the entrance, arranging themselves in a defensive formation, their menacing spears held aloft. “I don’t know where we are either. What I do know is that these Vradhu have never heard of humans, and we’ve never heard of them.”

“You speak their language now,” Zahra said dryly. “This is after a winged metal monster rose up out of the floor, threatened everybody, and disappeared again. Now we’re being attacked by metal zombies that move faster than light, and you’re carrying a naked Vradhu around. On top of that, they’ve never heard of humans. Are we even in the same fucking dimension anymore, or am I tripping?”

A loud metallic groan echoed through the chamber. Calexa didn’t even know what that was.

Probably Ares. Only he could warp the walls and manipulate metal. As if in response to her thoughts, a slight tremor rippled through the floor, so faint as to be almost imperceptible.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “What I do know is that there’s a planet down there. It’s their planet. If we’re going to have any chance at surviving this mess, we need to go landside. If we can’t jump back into the Netherverse, we could be drifting for years. Better to find somewhere that can indefinitely sustain life.”

“Even if we get stuck there? If we can never leave?”

“Better to be stranded than dead.”

“This is crazy talk.”

“These are crazy times.”

The floor shook again, and impossibly, the impenetrable flat surface started to move.

It wasn’t rippling gracefully and purposefully as it did when Ares was in control. This was chaos; a grotesque proliferation of lumps and bumps that were strangely limb shaped.

“What now?” Zahra groaned in dismay.

Limbs grew into bodies. Bodies became Naaga. Naaga lurched to their feet, their arms outstretched, their eyes blank and coated with metal. There were about a dozen of them in total. Corrupted.

The ship had literally vomited them out of its depths.

“Get the girls inside,” Calexa said, her voice shot through with urgency. She didn’t want to let go of Ares’s clone, but she was going to have to fight. She thrust him toward Zahra. “Take him.”

“You want me to…”

“Please, Zar. He’s important to me. Keep him safe.”

There was no time for explanations. Calexa would trust Zahra with her own life, and therefore entrusting Ares’s clone to her was a no-brainer. Zahra understood. Mutely, she nodded, and without hesitation, she took the unconscious Vradhu.

She pressed a hand to the side of her helmet, cocking her head. Listening. “Comm’s back online. About time. You’ve lost yours, haven’t you? They have power now. It’s safe to go inside. Raf assures me nobody’s going to get blown up or electrocuted.”

Relief washed through Calexa. She drew her twin swords and gestured to Mai. “Inside,” she mouthed.

Mai nodded.

The Corrupted were fully formed by now. They stood in a jagged ring, staring at their surroundings. Several of the Vradhu sprinted toward them, yelling a high-pitched war-cry.

Decapitate them. Her skin rippled all over in anticipation of the danger.

One of the Corrupted turned and flew toward the humans. Two others broke off in hot pursuit.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Calexa growled. She tensed and exploded into movement, her bionic joints working harder than ever before. She willed herself forward, holding her blades low as she ran to intercept the Naaga monsters.

Thud. One of the Corrupted fell, a Vradhu spear protruding from its back. It rose to its feet with an unholy groan, extending metal-tipped claws toward its Vradhu attacker. The Vradhu whipped out a long hunting knife and grabbed the creature by its metal-tendriled hair.

With a fierce cry, he sawed through its neck, the muscles in his thick arms bulging.

The Corrupted’s body toppled as the Vradhu held his prize—the severed head of the Corrupted—aloft.

Another of the breakaway Corrupted had been intercepted by a Vradhu warrior, who elegantly sliced through its neck with his long-bladed spear. The rest of the zombie-like creatures milled about aimlessly in the center of the hold, presenting themselves as walking targets. It seemed they hadn’t yet gained awareness.

Four Vradhu circled them, moving in for the kill.

That left one.

One Corrupted soul, racing toward the humans.

A few of the women screamed. S pointed in the direction of the Medusa and barked at them to run. Mai raised her cannon and met Calexa’s gaze.

No. She shook her head. Too close.

The Vradhu were still within the radius of her cannon. If she squeezed off a shot now, they’d be caught in the flare.

Calexa ran faster and faster, her chest heaving, her lungs burning, her heart beating so fast it was about to burst out of its bony cage. As she drew her arms backwards, the bone swords seemed to become an extension of her body.

Ares’s gift to her.

She intended to do them justice.

She struck, bringing both blades across in a deadly arc. The finely honed, perfectly balanced swords met metal-infested flesh and bone, intersecting in a savage curve that made the Corrupted Naaga’s head fly.

Behind her, the high-pitched gasps of several women merged with Zahra and Mai’s shouted commands. The floor continued to sway beneath her feet like a disturbed sea.

The abominable head landed on the floor with a sickening thud, rolling toward one of the Vradhu warriors. He stopped it with a long three-toed foot.

How strange that for all their exotic armor, the Vradhu didn’t wear shoes.

The Vradhu grunted in approval and gave Calexa a short, sharp nod of acknowledgement before rejoining his crew.

What, so they were allies now?

She turned just in time to see the remainder of S’s retinue hurrying up the Medusa’s boarding ramp. S went third-last, with Mai and Zahra bringing up the rear. The Primean glanced over her shoulder as she boarded, meeting Calexa’s gaze.

Calm and unperturbed. That’s how she appeared, despite all the chaos swirling around them. Did she realize that they wouldn’t be seeing the twin moons of Torandor for a very long time; perhaps never?

S turned and entered the ship just as a wave rippled through the metal floor. Mai gave Calexa a lazy half-salute, standing guard at the entrance as Zahra darted inside.

Then her expression turned into a look of horror.

“What?” Calexa looked behind her. The floor was erupting. More and more of the cursed creatures emerged, some misshapen and hideous, others fully formed and deadly.

Corrupted. The name said it all. There was something truly horrifying going on here. Ares’s metal-shifting powers, the massive ship, the creepy Naaga and their rabid, diseased brethren; they were all linked.

Calexa and her crew had been dropped into the middle of it, and she still didn’t understand anything.

All she knew was that they had to survive at all costs.

Zahra emerged through the airlock. “Thought you might need this,” she yelled. “Catch!” A tiny metal bud flew toward her. In a fluid motion, Calexa dropped one of her swords and snatched it out of the air.

A comm-piece.

She stuck it into her ear, breathing a sigh of relief. “You there, Raf? Can you give me a status report?”

There was a crackle of static, followed by a faint beep. “Glad to have you back, Cal.” Raphael’s cool, familiar voice filtered down the line. It was tinged with relief. “Zahra told me you’d find a way to get yourself out of there alive.”

“That makes it three from three,” Calexa quipped. “Or at least it will, if we survive this.”

“More lives than a space-cat,” the halfbreed said dryly.

She’d survived the Khral’s bond-house. As punishment for killing the Khral, she’d been sentenced to fight in the Arena. Her handlers thought she’d suffer a gruesome death within the first few rounds. They’d been wrong. It hadn’t been pretty, but she’d gone on to win, and for some reason, she’d become a hit with the bloodthirsty crowds.

They loved their underdogs.

The first thing she’d done with her prize money was to get enhancement therapy. Then she’d won some more, enough to get more enhancement therapy. The stronger she got, the fiercer her opponents, and the bigger the prize purse. By the time she’d earned enough to buy her freedom, she’d also saved enough to buy the Medusa.

D5 was a shit-hole, but it could also reward in the strangest of ways. The irony of it all was that being the body-slave of a Khral had prepared her for the Arena like nothing else, because when he wasn’t trying to break her in his bed, she’d been out in the malkha fields with the other slaves, working like a dog and breathing in the toxic, smoke-filled air.

But that was a long time ago. She was here now, fighting metal-cursed monsters.

Waiting for Ares.

Trusting in a dream.

No point in reliving those old scars over and over again. She reined in her stray thoughts as several of the Corrupted began to lope toward the ship.

“What’s our current energy capacity, Raf?”

“We’re running at twenty-three percent. Enough to cruise for a long time, but not nearly enough to trigger a jump. I’m guessing we’ll need to split pretty soon, but I don’t know how we’re getting out of here. The doors are closed, and I’m guessing that airlock won’t open without internal intervention.”

Calexa bent and picked up the bone sword she’d dropped. The Corrupted were coming. Twin frag-guns had appeared in Zahra’s armor-gloved hands. Standing at the top of the boarding ramp, Mai tapped her temple then tapped the side of her Irradium cannon. “I’ll fucking burn them,” she mouthed.

“Can you offer me any new insights, captain, or am I going to have to risk unleashing one of our triticore missiles in these close quarters?”

“We hold the fort and wait,” she said, taking a step forward as the ground rippled beneath their feet. This time, it felt different; powerful and controlled.

He’s coming.

She just knew.

“Wait? What the hell for?”

“The fucking cavalry.”

The one with the insane plan. The one she trusted, despite all his strangeness. The one who would spell her ruin if this whole thing didn’t work out.

They didn’t have much of a choice.

Shapeshifting, winged, Drakhin-changed, cloned, ilverium-controlling, doesn’t-want-to-touch-me, makes-me-feel-like… Her thoughts ran together, becoming wild and frantic. She fed them to the hungry beast that was her rapidly pounding heart.

And he wants me to help him transfer his soul to another body.

It occurred to her that the process might not work.

Then what?

Fuck.