Leave, I silently pray. Just leave, Booty. Get Lyra out of here.
“She’s arming,” Xyla says. “Booty has locked onto the warship.”
“She can’t win!” I say. “She can’t fucking win against that ship!”
“I know that,” Xyla says. “She’s not trying to win. She’s trying to save Lyra.”
“What?”
“Lyra and her bot have exited Booty Hunter and are on collision course with…” She pauses. “Oh, shit.”
“With who?”
“Booty says it’s Nyleena’s cryopod floating out into space. They’re going to detonate themselves and take out the warship.”
Silence after that. As we all take in just how dire this situation is.
ALCOR—the real ALCOR, not a copy—trying to save us by taking over the warship.
And Lyra—trying to kill us, and the Cygnians too, should ALCOR fail.
Xyla opens up an air screen, projecting two images at once. Lyra, holding on to Prince as they shoot through space towards the cryopod, and Beauty on the other. Doing her best to deliver ALCOR to the warship before Nyleena and Lyra explode.
We’re already dead, I realize.
The only thing left to know is which way we’ll go out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT – LYRA
Booty has control of Prince, directing the tiny thrusters built into his body for maneuvering in station atmosphere, to correctly point me to Nyleena’s cryopod.
I can see her. My sister. Helpless and frozen inside her pod. I was there when we put her inside. All the Cygnian officers and medical advisors standing by to make sure all her life support was online and functioning. That her mission directives were complete. Half listening as the general told me—over and over again—what I needed to do once I got her in range of our target, some planet called Earth.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
No one missed Corla once she escaped. No one cared that one queen got away, not really. She is just a weapon. Just as valuable out there in space alone as she is at home. They were probably hoping she’d get to Angel Station so they could wipe the place out, I’m sure. There’s no way to know that because I was not a part of her mission.
But she was separated from her detonator, just like Nyleena and I were. They can’t blow her up if they don’t have her sister to initiate—unless they get a hold of Corla’s cryopod. Then they could rearm her with a new sister detonator. And the old detonator—if she is still alive—would blow up with them. Three targets. Three explosions.
No higher-order princesses, let alone a queen, ever escape from Cygnia. We just prolong our time and get to choose our target instead of them.
Where is that other princess? The one who was escorting Corla? We need to know that. We need to find her.
And why didn’t I just fly Nyleena back into Cygnian space and detonate her there?
I laugh a little in my suit, then make myself stop. I only have so much oxygen and this suit can’t make more. So laughing is wasteful. But wouldn’t that be something? To take them out with their own weapon?
I know why I didn’t fly back to the Cygnians. I hate to admit it, but it was because I was afraid. And I was maybe just a little bit hopeful. That we could get away. That we could get to Angel Station. That we could really, and for once in our lives, be free.
It was a stupid dream. I know that now. I should’ve blown us both up before we even left. Taken out those generals, and those doctors, and the fucking king himself. Because he was there.
I don’t know why I’m bothering with this little puzzle. This battle will be over in a matter of minutes and then all this becomes someone else’s problem.
But Nyleena’s pod, though I can see it, still seems very far away. So what else can I do with the final moments of my life but ponder all my mistakes? Think up a better way to do things?
“Intercept in thirty seconds,” Booty says through my helmet.
I don’t say anything back. There’s nothing to say so talking is just as wasteful as laughing ironically.
“But don’t detonate,” Booty adds.
“What?” I whisper, the question out before I can stop myself.
“ALCOR is on his way to the Cygnian warship on Beauty. He’s going to infiltrate and take them out.”
I can hear the torment in her voice. The emotion and anguish. And this is the moment I realize… ships are people. She loves ALCOR. She wanted to do this mission to save him and now look. He’s gonna kill himself to save us.
I crash into Nyleena’s pod, making mad grabs for something, anything to hold on to. The side of the pod is sleek and smooth. Sealed tight so no air, not even a single molecule, can enter without permission. But I grab onto a handle meant for lifting, and my body jerks hard, pulling the cryopod with me through space. Hurling us even faster and farther away from Booty.