Page 42 of Consume
The next evening, alarge Saelis ship had drifted toward Mayvel and Wix, hovering almost within firing range of the two planets. Wide-scale panic had thrown everyone into chaos. Hybrid murders escalated. Mind-I malfunctions increased. This was it—the end of the Black War, and we might only have a few hours to stop the likely outcome. Maybe less.
Underneath the shocked murmurs from those sitting around the dining room gurney, Parker’s ship’s engines purred. Finally, we were up in the air again, rising slowly off Mayvel away from the Saelises’ ship and toward the relative safety of space. Yet my chest still constricted with the weight pressing on humanity, and the truth I hadn’t shared. I would, as soon as Moon divulged her grand plan for defeating the Saelises.
“Shit,” Moon announced as though that would somehow solve everything.
“Sorry?” Mase pushed his empty dinner plate away and crossed his arms over his tight black thermal. Only he could eat at a time like this.
“Yep, literal shit.” Moon flicked a button on her Mind-I, and a picture of a Saelis appeared on the wall. “Like us, Saelises take shits. Also like us, they have special waste receptacles on their spaceships. Now, no one likes to talk about it or even think about it even though it’s one of the most natural things to do, which is why most spaceships have made it so they don’thaveto think about it. Waste receptacles are emptied automatically by transporting it to the nearest planet’s wastewater treatment plant, if there is one.”
Captain Glenn sat back to watch her. “How does this get us on the Saelises’ ship?”
“You think of the process inreverse.” Moon waved her hands as if rearranging her words in the air. “In a way, I mean. So, picture the Saelises’ waste receptacle on their ship, but instead of transporting away their shit automatically, the transporter brings an army of humanstothe ship.” She glanced around the room. “Us.”
Josh stroked his beard and looked to Franco sitting across from him. “Is that even possible?”
“Every once in a while, the transporter gets”—Franco glanced at the gurney filled with leftover dinner and swallowed hard—“clogged. Treatment plant workers reverse the transporter to fix the problem. Usually they don’t even have to take a single step on a ship because the problem is somewhere in between, but not always. When the problem is on the ship itself, workers transport directly to the ship’s waste receptacle, and no one on the ship ever complains or checks on the workers. No one wants to think about problems like these. They just want the problem gone, according to my contact.”
“I need to see how this works before I fully understand it,” Captain Glenn said, frowning.
“The nearest treatment plant is back on Mayvel, so you’ll get your chance soon enough.” Moon flicked her Mind-I again, and the image on the wall changed to a Saelis ship. “Now, on most ships, the waste receptacle is at the bottom.”
“Because you don’t typically think about what’s under your feet,” Franco added.
Ellison made a disapproving noise at the back of her throat. “I don’t know as much as I should about Saelises’ waste, but I’m sure it’s full of disease. None of this sounds sanitary at all. Do the plant workers wear some kind of protective suits?”
“They do,” Franco said, “and they’re located near the transporters. My contact within the plant says they’re easy enough to take on and—”
“Pheromones,” Ellison said. “Yet another thing I don’t know. Will the Saelises immediately smell the scent of human pheromones inside their ship? Absidy has hundreds of Saelis female ghosts inside her, and we have no idea how they will react to that. She has consumectalons in her blood, and most of us know what will happen if she bleeds around Saelis males.” She gazed across the table at me with watery gray eyes. “I’m not having second thoughts about you going, Absidy. I just need you to be safe.”
I nodded while my tongue cemented to the iron cube in my mouth. How was I supposed to tell them what I’d done? That they could no longer trust me? That despite how sure they were I could save them, I couldn’t? How could I even begin to explain?
When I didn’t say anything, Poh cleared her throat. “Saelises secrete pheromones through their shit like the rest of the lizard family, so rolling around in it is actually kind of perfect. Good job, Moon.”
“I... Thanks? But I don’t think rolling around in it will be necessary.” She shuddered hard. “Just keep the waste treatment suit and helmet on, and try not to let the Saelises see you.”
“Stick to me,” Poh said, nodding.
“Yeah.” Moon frowned. “Stick to her.”
“One more thing,” Franco said. “If they are going to blow us up again, their weapons are likely located here in this cannon-like thing.” He pointed to the front of the ship that looked like a Saelis snout. “As far as how to disarm it... Well, based on what was used on Earth two hundred years ago, the easiest way to do that is to go for the wires.”
“Josh...” I said around the iron in my mouth. Then, I winced, not liking how this next thought sounded inside my head. “Do you have more explosives that can blow up entire ships?” That wasn’t a question I ever wanted to ask, but we—I mean everyone else, not me—couldn’t just disarm Saelises’ weapons and expect them to give up. Still, though, whether I was there or not for this, blowing them up wouldn’t make us any different than the Saelises or the Ringers. It spun my stomach into knots. I pushed my lips together to fight the nausea as a cold sweat broke out over my scales. How could anyone live with themselves after so much destruction?
“Absidy...” Mase was gazing at me with a worried pucker on his forehead.
“Sorry, I just...” I swallowed and loosened a breath. “I’m not a big fan of murder on such a large scale, even for the Saelises. They didn’t start the Black War.”
“The Ringers did.” Mase folded my hand into his atop the gurney. “I’m not a big fan of murder, either, but it carries more weight than challenging the Saelises to a spelling bee.”
Josh nodded. “I have enough explosives.”
The air grew heavier in the room. Bodies shifted. No one looked particularly excited to jump up and get us going, but no one objected to the plan either. There wasn’t much of a choice because this was the only plan we had.
Pop turned to me, quiet all this time. His chin trembled, which unspooled and shattered everything deep inside of me at once. “When are you leaving me?”
“Oh, Pop.” I wasn’t leaving him. I couldn’t, but all my emotions had tied up my tongue.
“We all knew this day would come,” Captain Glenn said, “but I’m still somehow surprised by it. I wish we had more time to plan, to say our goodbyes...” He rubbed at the black bracelet on his wrist, a digital photo album of his wife and daughter. “But if everyone who’s going is ready, then gather your weapons.”
