“Okay, alright. We’ll come up with something. What are you going to do?”

“Save us,” I said.

“I’ll hold my breath.”

“You shouldn’t.”

I raced the rest of the way down the ladder to find the once bustling city of Aszerat a ghost town. And silent except for a threat announcement playing on a loop. I took a lift to the transway and headed back West, my mind churning the whole way. I ran through the sequence of what was going to happen. The Scythin’s arrival at the docks was imminent. Naecia wasn’t going to get the Switch Drive unmoored from the Odiat in time.

I got off the transway at the food court closest to the docks. The air was still a thick mélange of all the different dishes on offer, all left sitting on trays and heating racks. My stomach had the nerve to grumble.

“We have visual!” shouted Izairis. “Timelance has placed itself in geosynchronous orbit outside the docks.”

“Fuck. Okay,” I said. “Are there any voidsculls coming across or anything?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Hey here’s a crazy idea,” I said, casting about for a temporary place to hide the Chime, “but couldn’t we just fire the Switch Drive and... take all of Aszerat with us?”

“Don’t you think I thought about that, already?” Naecia spat through the com. “We can’t bring up the Odiat’s reactor, and even if we could, we’re talking about a city the size of a moon. It wouldn’t be enough power for the aggregator to assemble all the particle data. We need to get it off this ship and onto something with real power, and I don’t know what. It’s going to holes, Ben.”

“Too late,” said Izairis.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Naecia and Izairis watched the Timelance fill the Odiat’s passive display. The ship’s spiked outer ring was so large that it resembled a floating city unto itself. As such, it had to remain distant or collide with Aszerat. It was still close enough that they could see the thing that came out of it.

“Are they, uh...” said Naecia, feeling her stomach drop, “... how?”

Izairis stared. “There is nothing I know that could explain that.”

They watched as a thick, serpentine braid of glowing Scythin flesh threw itself directly into the hard vacuum of space and spiraled toward the docks. Razor-like fins tipped in orange and magenta twisted down its length from behind each of its four blunt heads.

“Help me uncouple this thing,” said Naecia, lifting a corner of the Switch to access the main power connections. The task was easy in Mother’s carapace. Aptat’s parting gift had given her full access to the suit. Courser’s quarry. She’d regained control when Aptat’s neural signal ceased. Patton had now saved her twice.