ANDROMA
“YOU’RE SULKING AGAIN,” Breck said to Andi as they circled each other like two hungry sharks.
“I’m not sulking,” Andi said. “I’m simply regretting my decisions. Deeply.”
Breck lifted a dark brow. “You’re too much in your head. It’s time you got out of it.” She lunged forward, and before Andi knew it, Breck’s giant foot was in her gut.
Andi went flying.
She landed, with a great splash, in the massive lake that made up most of the Well. It was twice as deep as it was wide, and colorful, flashing fish swam beneath its depths, sucking the algae away so that the lake remained a glittering, almost crystal shade of blue.
Andi came up sputtering for air and shivering to find Breck, Lira and Gilly laughing by the water’s edge. Their laughs echoed throughout the massive cavern, slipped across the surface of the blue lake. Workers nearby looked up from their posts on the bridge that spanned the lake, their tubes that pulled water from the Well momentarily forgotten.
The Well of Rhymore was not exactly a prime location for training. The space surrounding the giant lake was slick, solid rock, and the only source of light came from the random flashes of the fish beneath the surface of the water. It was hard to see and difficult to move, plus they had a captive audience of Queen Alara’s workers watching.
All of which, to Andi, made it the perfect place for her and her crew to practice their fighting skills, something they hadn’t been able to do on solid land in quite some time.
“She just owned you,” Gilly said as Andi hauled her dripping self from the lake. A suckerfish, with its almost humanoid mouth, just barely missed a chance to latch on to her leg.
“Not funny,” Andi said as she slung the water off and shook out her hair. She never should have allowed that kick to make contact. She felt slow, as if her mind were weighing her down.
“It was actually quite humorous,” Lira replied with a grin.
“As humorous as this?” Andi asked.
With a growl, she sprang.
Lira deftly sidestepped her, bare feet moving with ease across the rocky shores of the inner-mountain lake.
Andi’s punch nearly clipped Gilly instead, but the young gunner ducked, then came back up with a punch of her own. Andi blocked it with her cuffs, and Gilly howled like a creature of the night.
“You’re going to pay for that!”
She lunged at Andi, but Breck stepped in front of her, and Gilly’s swings missed their intended mark.
“Lira, on my side,” Andi commanded. “Breck and Gilly, face off.”
Her pilot joined her, and together, they turned to face Breck and Gilly.
“The first to draw blood wins,” Andi said. “No weapons. Only fists and feet.”
Gilly flashed her teeth and glanced up at Breck, who stood with her hands raised, fists already in place to protect her face. “You’re so going down, ladies.”
In a flash, the girls all sprang into action. It was a flurry of fists, Andi’s wet clothing helping her to slip between Breck’s fingers, Lira’s graceful leaps keeping her out of Gilly’s range.
As they moved, Andi’s distracting thoughts tried to worm their way into the fight. Another opponent for her to face, and no matter how hard she swung her fists, no matter how effortlessly she landed each jab and punch or made a successful dodge, the thoughts attacked harder.
Fiercer than Breck and Gilly’s hits could ever be.
As Breck leveled a kick to Andi’s thigh, Andi swiftly returned it with a kick of her own. The giantess chuckled as Andi dropped to the floor, rolling away from another attack. Lira was there to back her up, swiftly dealing blows to Breck’s left arm. Gilly retorted with a flurry of curses and a rock thrown at Lira’s face.
As the girls moved and spun, Andi thought of what she had yet to face.
Valen, upon waking, had looked at her like he knew that her soul was black. Andi supposed it was. A soul that had taken so many lives must be tainted.
Breck’s fist clipped her jaw.
“Yes!” Gilly howled.
Pain screamed at Andi, but she willed it away. She would not go down that easily.
And yet, as she and Lira backed up, taking a few paces away to regain their composure, thoughts of Valen came back stronger.
Of course he wouldn’t want to see you, Andi. Why would he ever, in a million years, want to see his sister’s murderer?
In more ways than one, Andi blamed herself for his pain and his capture. Everyone—reporters and gossips galaxy-wide—had spoken of how the young general’s son wasn’t the same after Kalee died. If Andi hadn’t crashed that ship...then maybe Valen wouldn’t have been out in the night, walking alone in Kalee’s memorial garden.
He wouldn’t have been captured by Xen Pterran forces. And then all of this—Adhira, the crash landing, the tidal wave of emotions Lira was suffering through...
None of it would have ever happened.
Andi knew she was the beginning of the spiral that bent Valen’s life—and many others—out of control.
“Your left!” Lira yelped.
Andi narrowly dodged another rock thrown by Gilly. The young gunner would always find ammunition, even in the belly of Rhymore.
Gilly twirled past, hissing taunts and laughing as Breck and Lira went head-to-head.
“Come on, Cap,” Gilly said, waggling a finger at Andi.
With a quick bend, Andi splashed frigid water into Gilly’s face.
They tumbled back into the fight.
Andi’s thoughts followed right behind.
After the transport wagon had dropped them off, and the remains of the Marauder were carted deeper into the mountain, Andi and Dex had patched in a call to General Cortas.
That had gone very poorly. Andi still had a headache from the conversation, in which the general had been so upset that Alfie had suggested he “consume a bottle of his calming tonics and resume the conversation at a later time.”
At one point, General Cortas had called Andi and her crew a waste of his time. Dex had vehemently disagreed with him, to which Andi promptly reminded Dex that she could stand up for herself, and a flurry of bitter retorts had gone back and forth between them at once.
The general had then chewed them both out and ended the call.
“It could have gone worse,” Dex had said before they parted ways. Things had gone as well as they probably could have with the general, at least.
It was Queen Alara whom Andi had yet to have a full conversation with.
She knew a reprimand was coming—likely more marks on her record—but she guessed that Lira would get the brunt of the scolding from the Adhiran queen.
And speaking of Lira...
She was currently fighting off Breck at the center of the bridge. The glowing blue water below lit up Lira’s face, making her eyes stand out boldly as she tracked Breck’s motions and mirrored them when it was Breck’s turn to go on the defensive.
Workers scattered, gasping as the two girls moved so swiftly, and with such ease.
“Come on!” Gilly yelled.
She grabbed Andi’s hand, abandoning the attack for a moment as captain and gunner headed to join the other two members of their crew.
As they ran, more thoughts poured in.
Complete this job, and you’ll be pardoned from your death sentence. Arcardius will be open to you again. What will you do, then, with your crew?
Opening herself up to each of the girls had been difficult. A captain needed a crew, loyal and true, but a crew had to trust their captain in return. It had been an uphill battle to let the girls enter her heart, especially after the pain of losing Kalee and then Dex. Andi was wary of becoming emotionally attached to anyone.
But her crew had won her over, and Andi couldn’t beg the Godstars enough to keep them safe.
“I’m going back in,” Gilly said.
She sprinted across the bridge and leaped onto Breck’s back, where she placed her tiny hands over Breck’s eyes to block out her vision.
“Gilly!” Breck yelled, and Lira stopped fighting long enough to give in to laughter again.
Andi stopped walking. She stood at the base of the bridge, watching them. Realizing, suddenly, that her heart physically ached.
She loved these girls. They were the strongest women she’d ever known, and all she had in this galaxy now. If anything ever happened to them... If she were ever faced with a decision like the one Dex had had to make, to trade a single one of them in exchange for the life of another...
Andi’s vision blurred as she watched the girls laugh, all of them doubling over as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
She could hardly see them now as she stood a few paces away on the bridge, and though she was still wet from her fall in the lake, she realized, as she felt warmth spill onto her cheeks, that she was crying.
Godstars.
What in the hell was happening to her?
Andi tried to swallow them away. But the tears, almost as if they were spurred on by her noticing them, began to fall harder. Faster, until she thought they would never run dry.
Until Andi realized that the girls had fallen silent.
“Andi?” Lira asked.
They all turned to face her on the bridge.
Andi heard footsteps, and then the girls were suddenly surrounding her, taking her by the arms and herding her away. Back down the bridge, past the edge of the great lake, into the shadows of the cavern. They settled down beneath an overhang of sharp rock.
The girls closed in tighter around her, waiting in silence until Andi’s tears finally ceased.
The workers, now no longer disturbed by the queen’s niece and her fighting friends, went back to what they were doing. A calmness washed over the cavern.
Finally Lira spoke. “You’re afraid.”
It wasn’t a question, and Andi was grateful that she didn’t actually have to answer. Gilly and Breck had always looked at her and assumed she was fearless, completely beyond the struggle of having to face such a petty, frail feeling.
To them, she was a captain. A breeder of fear.
But Lira saw the truth as plainly as they saw the view of the mountain lake stretching out before them.
“I want to apologize,” Andi said. “To all of you, for getting us into this job.” She turned to Lira. “And to you, for earlier, on the transport wagon. I know being here isn’t exactly easy for you.”
Lira shook her head. “I don’t need an apology, Captain. I need you to speak your mind about what’s bothering you.”
“Do you want to hear about Dex or Valen first?”
None of the girls answered, as if they were all gently nudging Andi to make up her own mind.
“What Dex told me...” Andi started, unsure of where her words were leading. “I’m not sure if I can handle it.”
“In what way?” Breck asked.
Andi’s heart cringed as she considered what she was about to say. “All these years, thinking he was dead...it was easier that way. Easier to believe that he’d truly betrayed me because money was more important to him than love. But now that I know the truth? If it were any of you three held captive...if it were Kalee, and I had to offer up Dex to an enemy in exchange?” She realized, suddenly, that she was afraid of her own thoughts. “I’m not sure that I would have decided any differently than Dex did.”
“The choice he had to make was unfair,” Gilly said.
So simply put. And she was right.
Lira nodded and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “The pain he put you through was unfair, too. But life, I’m quite sure, never considers our feelings when it decides to take us down an unsteady road.”
Andi stared at the lake, her eyes burning from the recent tears.
“I tried to kill him. What if I’d succeeded?”
“You didn’t,” Breck said. Her dark eyes met Andi’s pale ones as she spoke. “And now you know his side of the story, and he knows yours. You both did terrible things, broke promises, ruined a mutual trust. You can hold on to your anger, if you think that makes you strong.” She smiled a little then. “But brute strength isn’t everything, Andi. Trust me, I would know.”
“Breck is right,” Lira agreed. “Anger and hatred have never given any man or woman lasting peace.”
“So I just forgive him?” Andi asked. “Move on?”
“That is for your heart to decide,” Lira said.
They all stopped talking for a while, lost in their individual thoughts. Gilly settled beside Andi and started combing her fingers through the drying strands of Andi’s long hair. “Now we should probably talk about Valen,” Gilly said, twisting Andi’s hair into an elaborate braid. “Because we all know that’s an entirely different issue than Dex.”
Breck chuckled. “Yeah. It definitely is, Gil.”
The girls turned their gazes to Andi.
She sighed. She was already spouting plenty of truths. She guessed it was time to unleash a little more, before her courage ran out.
“Valen will wake up again. When he sees me...if he tries to kill me...” Andi paused, swallowing hard. “I’m afraid I won’t try to stop him.”
Lira was silent as she pondered this. “Revenge is a powerful creature.”
“So is guilt,” Breck said.
“And shame,” Lira added, looking down over the railing. “Shame is a monster I know all too well.”
These things were a part of Andi now, as much as her blood, as much as her bones. Companions as constant as the crew that surrounded her now.
“You have many demons upon your back, Androma,” Lira said. She reached out and placed a warm, soft hand on Andi’s cheek. Andi relaxed beneath her touch, knowing that Lira had never, and would never, judge the things that any of the girls did. She saw beyond what they were, uncovered the motives beneath each and every one of the moves they made.
“I have never known someone, in all of my travels, who carries them with such persistence, who refuses to put them down when the burden grows too heavy to bear.”
“Breck could probably carry a heavy burden,” Gilly suggested suddenly.
Lira and Breck both laughed softly.
“Yes, she could. Which leads me to my point.” Lira dropped her hand from Andi’s cheek. But her eyes held Andi’s knowingly. “You have a...loyal crew, Andi.” She seemed to choke a bit on the word, as if it pained her. Then she shook her head slightly and carried on. “While we are here, together, in one piece...allow us to help you carry some of the weight.”
“What if I can’t?” Andi asked.
She stared out at the lake. She imagined that, outside, the sun was probably about to set, signaling the start of the Revalia Festival, a celebration that signified the end of The Cataclysm. The girls needed to go and get ready.
“That is a choice you must make yourself,” Lira said. “We all have them. Some of us simply take a little longer deciding what to do.”
“And you, Lira?” Andi asked. “Do you have a choice to make?”
“I have many,” Lira said with a sigh.
“Do you want to talk about them?” Breck asked. “There’s already a world of drama pressing in on us all right now. Why not add some more?”
Lira chuckled. “I’m afraid of what you all may have to say about it.”
“Don’t be,” Gilly said. “We just saw Andi cry. We’re definitely not going to judge you.”
Andi laughed, then gently pulled away from Gilly as the little girl finished up her braid.
“You’re my Second, Lir. I’ll help you with whatever choice it is you have to make. And I know the gunners will, too.”
All the girls nodded.
Lira closed her eyes.
For a moment, her scales glowed a gentle blue. A shade Andi had seen only a few times, when Lira thought no one was looking.
Sadness.
Deep, bone-touching sadness.
“Lir?” Andi asked softly. “You can tell us.”
Across the cave, a heavy door burst open. Alfie suddenly appeared, his oval head swiveling back and forth as he searched the cave for the girls.
“We could hide,” Gilly suggested. “We could stay in this cave forever.”
Breck chuckled. “We’d miss out on Revalia, then, little one. We can’t miss such a perfect chance to get dressed up.”
With a nod of agreement, Gilly leaped to her feet and waved Alfie over.
The AI marched across the arching bridge over the lake to join the girls.
Though he couldn’t show emotion, Andi felt as if his words were tense as he spoke.
“Apologies for interrupting you, Captain Racella,” Alfie said. “But Mr. Valen Cortas is awake.”
Andi’s stomach sank to her toes.
“Dextro Arez went to greet him and escort him to our temporary living quarters upstairs.”
The girls all stood, ready to follow Alfie back to their borrowed space.
“You should say a prayer to the Godstars, Cap,” Gilly said as she skipped along beside Andi, heading back across the bridge and to the exit of the Well.
“A prayer for what?” Andi asked.
“That the two of you don’t start The Second Cataclysm.”
“Gilly!” Lira chided.
But Gilly was already gone, running ahead to catch up with Breck as they exited the giant stone doorway and turned into the narrow hall beyond.
Andi glanced once over her shoulder, back at the lake. Wondering if she really could find a place to hide away and forget about the world.
But she knew that was never an option. Captains—leaders—did not hide. They faced their problems head-on, accepting their fears and attacking them anyway.
“Fly true?” Lira suggested.
“Not the best statement right now, Lir,” Andi said. She sighed. “What you were going to say before Alfie interrupted us?”
“Never mind that, Androma.” Lira draped her arm across Andi’s shoulders and guided her out into the hall. “It’s not important.”
Despite Lira’s words, Andi still felt the warmth of her Second’s scales, heating slowly into sadness as they joined the rest of the crew.