Killbox

As it turns out, Hon wasn’t bluffing about having alerted the crew, but they come in a little too late to join the battle. Instead, they work cleanup. We’ll take the corpses with us, disperse their molecules, and space the dust. Harsh, I know, but it’s better than leaving a trail this wide to follow. Better for their employers, whoever they are, to wonder what became of their thugs. We can’t allow the wrong parties to follow us back to Emry before we’re ready for battle.



Dina has wiped the cameras down, offering looped footage instead of a record of what actually happened. If we’re lucky, nobody will have been watching the feed live, so we don’t have to worry about security heading our way. But that’s a hope, not a surety. We need to move fast now.



Doubtless they’ll wonder about all the scorch marks, but we can’t do anything about them. Dina leads the way back to the ship, and I don’t relax fully until we’re on board. She takes Evelyn to a vacant berth where she can settle; Loras goes with them.



That leaves Hon and me to make our way to the cockpit. My nerves flutter at the idea of doing this again. It hurt so damn much the first time that my whole body has tensed in anticipation of pain. Letting the phase drive use my body as a conduit isn’t one of my more prudent notions, though I’m not exactly known for caution in any case.



Hon offers me a canny look. “You sure you can do this again? March’ll kill me if I deliver you as an empty shell. Now we got Evelyn, we can afford to go back slow. Maybe.”



I know what he means: mind gone, flesh intact. That’s the worst part of burnout—it leaves your loved ones to clean up the mess. And to be honest, no, I’m not sure, but despite his attempt at kindness, we don’t have the time for a long haul in straight space from the nearest beacon. We’d be sitting ducks the whole time, fair game for any Morgut ship able to come through wherever they choose. Unlike human ships, slow and limited in comparison.



Except for me, except for mine.



I tell myself again, There’s no distance in grimspace. It’s all relative; therefore, I can jump from anywhere.



Just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should. I can almost hear March, saying the words. When did he become the voice inside my head?



“We don’t have a lot of choice,” I say gravely. “I’m not indispensable. Doc has my samples. In time, he can probably make more like me—and use Evelyn’s nanites to do so. It’s vital to get Evie to Emry, quick and safe; we can’t afford another attempt on her.”



This is more than me chasing adrenaline, more than me dancing on the razor’s edge for the thrill of it. For the first time, it’s not that I want to risk being sucked through the door on the far horizon. I want to live. I have people who care whether I come out sane and whole on the other side. For the first time, I’m frightened of what I’m about to do. At last, I have something too dear to lose.



He studies me for a long moment, dark eyes full of shadow. It’s just as well March isn’t here because he wouldn’t let me do this again, knowing how much it hurt me before. There’s no guarantee I’ll survive it, but that’s sort of the human condition, isn’t it?



In the end, nobody gets out alive.



At last, Hon calls the docking officer. “We’re ready for departure.”



“Acknowledged, Dauntless. Did you enjoy your stay?”



Hon glances at me. “It was . . . memorable.”



The docking officer offers the usual litany of questions. Are we departing with any new goods? Did we purchase livestock on station? We’re able to answer no to the security questions. Stations like this don’t much care about the hiring of new crew, so they only inquire about goods and services.



In all, it takes five minutes for the port authority to clear us. Thanks to Dina, they don’t know anything about the gunplay in the docking corridors. Then Hon maneuvers us out of the bay in a smooth swoop. I remember when I flew the ship, leaving his kingdom; there was never a worse pilot in the history of starfaring.



He takes us a fair distance from the station. It’s important that we get clear of the gravitational pull, if nothing else. I need a clean slate to work with—a standing jump is hard enough without detracting factors.



I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, knowing I’ll need the fortification. Oxygen floods my bloodstream as I jack in. Blind now, shades of black and gray. My hearing sharpens. I can tell the instant Hon touches his shunt, then the phase drive starts to hum. He’s letting me do this.



Then he’s with me. This time it’s different, and he’s not guarding himself so tightly. I see him flooded with concern, edged in worry-red. If it was fear, I don’t know how I’d gather my resolve to do what must be done, but he’s not afraid.



He’s raw and rough, full of hubris and ready laughter. Oh, he knows the danger of believing his own legend, and most times, he only pretends he does. I see a white-hot love of his sister, Shan, and a sad blue longing for what he’s lost. For the first time, Hon seems wholly human to me, not a larger-than-life figure.



You set?



Yes.



The phase drive hits its height, seeking that connection, and it comes harder this time because there’s more resistance in me. Oh, Mary, it’s worse this time, a thousand times worse, as if my body boils from the inside out. A scream dies in my throat as the engine turns me inside out, twists through me, to carry the ship into a horrific birth in grimspace that blazes through every cell.



Moisture runs down my face once more. I can’t tell if I’m still breathing, but I must be, because we’re only halfway there. The pain prevents me from focusing for a moment. I’m still blind, even though I’m in grimspace—and that terrifies me more than anything ever has. It takes precious, precarious seconds for the colors to flare to life in my mind, for my brain to detect the pulses echoing through distance that is not distance and translate them into something more than agony.



From far away I hear something moaning pitiably, like an animal in pain, but I have to ignore the noise. Screen it out. Emry Station. Emry Station. Emry Station—



For endless moments, I’m lost. The damage is too great. I cannot do this. We are lost—grimspace will take us.



No. Fight through, Sirantha. We’re counting on you. Hon, in my head. Can he feel how much this burns? My blood and bones are evaporating within me. I’m blazing like a chunk of cosmic rock hurtling through the atmosphere.



Not yet, he orders. Where, Sirantha? Tell me where.



There.



I am the beacon through which I must pass—and then another twist. I am the ship. I am the stars. There is no barrier between the building blocks of existence and me. Pure torment this time. There’s no pleasure, no euphoria, only unceasing misery. Hon works furiously at the ship’s controls. He’s followed my insane directives once more, done his part to bring us safely through.



But I have nothing left to give.



My whole body locks in a rictus, but it’s a blessing. I can’t feel anything now.



“Sirantha?” I hear the voice, but it’s too far, too far. Now there’s pressure on me that might be hands, but there’s no sensation of heat or warmth.



To my surprise, I realize I can see them all now: Hon, Dina, Evelyn. They’re all in the cockpit, but their distress seems trivial. I have no connection with the broken thing in the nav chair, and I want none.



“Get Doc! Right now. I don’t care if he’s sleeping. Get him on board.” Dina has her arms around my body.



On some level, I realize that means I did it. We reached Emry Station. Did Edaine—the jumper who gave her life to liberate me from Perlas—watch while they wept over her final jump? Did she whisper a farewell, unseen, unheard?



“There’s no wound,” Evelyn says. “These readings . . . the instruments must be off. How can she have lost so much blood if there’s no wound.”



Words tumble end over end, becoming sounds that make no sense, then even that goes quiet.



Peace. Peace, at last.



CHAPTER 25



Unfortunately, it’s not forever.



I’m aware of someone forcibly raising my lids, and stinging light streams into my eyes. My body feels leaden, so I can’t lift my hands to bat this annoyance away. All I can do is lie here, watching but unable to respond—trapped in my own flesh.



The sounds slowly coalesce into words. Doc’s speaking, but not to anyone in particular. He’s making notes. “At 2307, Jax appears to be catatonic. Vitals now stabilized. She was deceased for precisely one hundred and ninety-five seconds before resuscitation was successful. She has been transfused with one liter of synthesized blood, and the prognosis is positive. I am unable to determine whether her cognitive functions have been impaired, although initial tests indicate they are not. I posit that her unique physiological structure may be utilizing this near-comatose state to engender repairs to damage inflicted by direct jumps.”



He stands over me for another moment or two, but since he’s allowed my lids to close I can’t see what he’s doing anymore. Footfalls tell me someone else has entered the room. I recognize the way he moves, the way he smells. I don’t need sight to tell me March is nearby. I wish I could reassure him, but I don’t know what I’ve done to myself. I can think of few things more horrifying than to be trapped inside my own flesh.



“Any news, Doc?” His voice is raw, as if he’s been crying.



“Her condition is unchanged, Commander. Perhaps she needs time to cycle through the healing trance, then she’ll awaken naturally, as she did on the Folly. At that time, I’ll assess her condition and see what secondary injury was inflicted by the neural repairs.”



Though I can’t speak up, that can’t be right. I don’t remember anything about those three days. I certainly wasn’t conscious and able to listen in on other people’s conversations. I want to scream, but I can only do so silently. My vocal cords don’t work.



“You think she’ll wake up on her own, then.” With nothing else to focus on, I hear the request for reassurance in his tone. March takes one of my hands between two of his, and I feel the heat of his forehead against mine.



No matter what Doc says, I’m none too certain of that.



“I have no way of being sure,” Doc returns quietly. “It is a hypothesis. Sirantha’s physiology is suprahuman, so my knowledge base proves of relatively little use.” He hesitates, and I hear uncertainty in his lengthy exhalation. “I feel I must prepare you for the worst,” he goes on heavily. “It is possible she will never awaken at all. Though cerebral impairment does not normally occur until a patient has been deceased for greater than two hundred and forty seconds, this is only a guideline, not an absolute. The extremity of damage suffered in jump, compounded by duration of death—”



“There may be something permanently wrong with her brain,” March snarls. “That’s what you’re getting at.”



“It’s possible. I’m saying I don’t know.”



“I should never have let her go.” His lips brush my brow, then he moves back. March’s hands remain wrapped around mine.