Page 5 of Command

HisClossal’sresponse was immediate: “Neurosync subvocalization disabled. Communication network disabled.”

Threxin turned back to the comms officer. “Open a broad frequency transmission.”

She looked around as if lost for a minute, blinking rapidly. Then the female began keying buttons on her control panel. “Broadcast frequency open.”

“Elssianis gone. All who wish to survive beyond the husks of Apth will report for duty by directing your shuttles toClossal.”

CHAPTER 3

ALINA

Her right cheek was cold, but the left was burning. After those first sensations came the empty black box of her mind. Alina reached for the familiar presence of emotes and comms all around. The line between her Neurosync and everyone else in range was always buzzing, even when everyone was silent. Except now that line did not exist.

Muffled voices grew sharper as Alina racked her brain to figure out where she was and why there was no one there.

When she remembered the nightmare, she nearly laughed at the sick story her brain had come up with now. Good thing Alina was due for her next session with Dr. Pertin later that day.

The voice was Orion Halen’s, and Kaia’s by turn, and someone else’s. Behind her, all Alina could make out were abstract mutters.

She was in the command center, prone on the ground.

Had she passed out? It had happened once before when she was a kid, but fainting wasn’t a normal occurrence for her. Alina grasped for when memories ended and the nightmare began. She’d seen blood in the hall. Was that real? She’dheardColossalannounce a new commander… that had to be the dream, and that was before the blood.

When had she finished her shift?

“Hey. Glowstick.”

Alina managed a grin through the pain in the side of her face that was pressed against the cold floor. Kaia’s snark had this way of being both badass and somehow funny as long as it wasn’t directed at you. Alina instinctively tried to reach out to her charge with the NS, but it was no use—the words for a subvoc wouldn’t even form in her mind, much less transmit. Had she fallen and damaged something? She’d never heard of an NS being broken before.

“Why the hell are you here? What do you want with us?” Kaia’s voice again. Alina squinted toward the command platform.

“Nothing,” a deep, barely discernible gargle responded.

Alina tried to push herself up, but buckled as pain shot through her elbow. It must’ve been a bad fall.

“Nothing?” Kaia again. “You came here and killed dozens of people for nothing?”

Killed people?

Alina willed her eyes to focus, and this time they obeyed a little. She clamped her teeth on her lip to stifle another scream when the uhyre’s shadowy outline came into sharp relief.

Please tell me this is still a nightmare.

“I need you not,” the uhyre rumbled in broken Universal. He swiveled to face the thermaview and paused for several seconds. “Ship, how long will it require to vent the population deck?”

“What?” Alina, Kaia, and Orion blurted out at the same time. A sharp kick to her ribs made her clamp her mouth shut and curl in on herself, tucking her knees against her chin.

They’re behind me,Alina realized.

She fought the violent urge to scramble away in panic. How many of them were there? Alina blinked back a vision ofa monster army looming back there. She made herself as small and as quiet as she could on the floor.

Don’t draw attention.That, she now remembered in a rush of recognition, was what had gotten her in a bruised heap on the ground in the first place. And itwasa bruised heap—she felt it now as sensation came back to her limbs and her mind recalibrated itself to this new reality.

Indistinguishable murmurs and a sob rose from the other side of the command deck asColossalcomplied with the information request and said it would take four minutes and thirty-two seconds to vent the CRD.

“Hey now, wait a minute.” Orion again, dropping into the empty copilot’s seat. Kaia was behind him a second later, gripping at the carbon fiber back of it. “You can’t do that.”

“You were commander, no?” the uhyre questioned. “Are you confused how this works?”

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