“It has to be me,” said Elpida. “Me alone.”
Pheiri’s crew compartment felt cramped and crowded, even with only five people. The space was still crammed with spare equipment looted from the tomb armoury; it would take days of work to complete a full inventory, let alone proper stowage. Several suits of full-body armour carapace were stacked up on the bench seats, off-white plates a dull matte under the lights, alongside enough firearms to outfit the whole crew twenty times over. Crates and cases of bullets and energy-packs sat against the walls further back, draped with tomb-grown armoured coats and bundles of spare clothing.
If they made it out of this tomb and escaped the trap at hurricane’s end, Elpida was confident that her new cadre would be the most heavily armed group in the graveworm safe zone, even without the incalculable benefit of Pheiri himself.
And what about beyond the graveworm safe zone? She filed that thought away for later, after this crisis, after the storm.
Pheiri’s engines throbbed a slow, steady, subliminal heartbeat beneath Elpida’s boots. The hurricane — beyond Pheiri’s outer hull, beyond the walls of the tomb — was a distant static hum of wind-whipped hail and sheets of rain. It sounded the same as before, but Kagami’s readings were consistent. The hurricane was weakening, slowly but surely. The storm had served its purpose, whoever had sent it.
Amina was helping Elpida to don one of the carapace suits. Elpida had managed the greaves, cuisses, faulds, and boots easily enough by herself, and then wriggled into the upper half of the support harness easily enough. But strapping the chestplate into position was too difficult with a missing hand. Amina had been lurking in the spinal corridor, listening to Elpida’s growing argument with the others — but then she had shown herself and scurried forward to offer her help. Elpida had been glad to give Amina something to focus on other than Ilyusha’s absence. Amina’s small, dexterous hands reached up between the carapace plates and Elpida’s clothes, hooking the armour to the harness, tightening the straps at Elpida’s instructions, checking the clips and seals and the joints between each hardened ceramic plate.
Victoria and Pira stood either side of the entrance to Pheiri’s main spinal corridor. Pira still wore half of her own carapace suit — gloves and gauntlets and chestpiece off, hips and legs still armoured, face closed and hard. She’d only been back inside Pheiri for about fifteen minutes, too eager to hear Elpida’s plan to finish stripping. Victoria had her arms folded across the grey chest of her tomb-grown thermal top, her brow creased, chewing her bottom lip.
Elpida was glad the others had not followed them from the cockpit. Melyn seemed exhausted, Atyle was absorbed in thought, and Sky was more interested in leaning over Kagami’s shoulder to peer at Pheiri’s internal screens. Eseld and Cyneswith were both lurking just inside the open bunk room door, pretending that they weren’t listening to the argument. Elpida knew she had to speak with both of them eventually, to make them truly part of the group, just as Howl had with Sky, but now wasn’t the time. Elpida needed to get armed and armoured, and get under way; the storm would not wait.
Victoria coughed — an attempted laugh. She gestured past Elpida’s shoulder, at Shilu.
“She counts as ‘alone’?” Victoria said.
Shilu was standing at the far end of the crew compartment, by the exit onto the rear airlock and the ramp. She wasn’t armoured in anything except a coat, though she was wearing her human disguise again, her black metal truth tucked away beneath soft brown skin and long dark hair.
“Apparently,” Shilu answered.
Victoria shot her a combative look. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Elpida.”
Elpida dipped her head. “I misspoke. Myself, Shilu, and the drones. And Howl, of course. What I mean is that I’m the only zombie going—”
“You can’t be fucking serious,” Victoria snapped. She looked pale and tight. Dark bags of stress hung beneath her eyes. “You’re still wounded. You’ve lost your right arm. You can’t even handle a long gun in that state! Elpida, don’t be ridiculous. At least wait for it to … to … grow back?” Victoria’s frown deepened. “Is that what’s going to happen?”
Elpida glanced down at the stump of her right arm. Melyn had changed the bandages in the cockpit, during the first phase of this argument, so the dressing was clean. Kagami had insisted she would only consent to this operation if Elpida gave herself the best chance of success, and this operation was a non-starter without the cover of Kagami’s drones. Elpida had judged that Kagami was not bluffing — Kagami thought she was bluffing, but she wasn’t, not really. Elpida had called that bluff by accepting without argument; she had downed an entire cannister of the concentrated blue nanomachines, a significant portion of their precious reserves, to kick her undead biology into a heightened regenerative state. Kagami had watched, trying to conceal her reaction. Then she had given her support.
Elpida wouldn’t have dreamed of consuming so much of the group’s resources even a few weeks ago, but her priorities felt clearer now. If she was going to rescue Ooni and Ilyusha, she needed every advantage she could get. The resources were not consumed for her alone, but for everyone.
The stump itched like a week-old scab and throbbed like a second heart.
“Given enough time, yes, it will regrow,” Elpida said. “But that could take days, maybe weeks. The storm is fading right now, that’s our time limit. This can’t wait, Vicky. You know that.”
Victoria clenched her teeth, turned aside, then back again. “You were in a goddamn fugue state! Howl had to take over! You were … fucking gone! And … and … and now you tell us you were in some kind of virtual reality, fighting Necromancers in your mind palace—”
“The network,” Elpida corrected gently. “I was in the network. I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“And you expect us to just accept you going off on a solo mission, with another Necromancer, into a place where we’ve already lost two people?”
Elpida nodded. “Yes.”
Victoria threw up her hands. “Fuck! I don’t know why I bother protesting. Kaga’s right, you’re mad. This is mad. You’re gonna get killed.”
“Kagami is confident in my decision,” Elpida said. “This is going to work.”
“Yeah,” Victoria huffed. “But she still thinks you’re mad. Elpi, you can’t do this. We can’t do this. We’ve failed. We’ve screwed up. You can’t fix everything yourself. This is the same thing you were doing before, and now you’re doing it again, and—”
“Victoria,” Elpida said, hardening her voice. “Nobody gets left behind.”
Vicky stopped. She swallowed. “I know, I know, it’s just … ”
“If it was you out there, I would do the same.”
Victoria frowned, eyes narrowing. “And what if it was you, Commander? What if we’d lost you, instead? What would you want us to do? Would you want us to throw ourselves into this— this—”
Pira spoke for the first time in several minutes. “Incident pit.”
“Thank you, yeah. Incident pit!” Victoria clicked her fingers and pointed at Pira. “What she said. Would you want us to throw ourselves after you, Elpida? You’d tell us to leave you behind.”
Elpida smiled. “Would you, Vicky? Would you leave me behind?”
Victoria’s mouth opened. No sound came out.
Amina finished tightening the internal straps which held the carapace breastplate to Elpida’s harness. Her touch slithered down Elpida’s back as she extracted her hands. Elpida patted her on the shoulder. “Thank you, Amina. Great job, it’s sitting perfectly.”
Amina lowered her eyes and started to blush, nodding stiffly. Elpida knew that Amina was getting more out of this than the simple pleasure of helping a comrade, but she didn’t have time to deal with that right now.
“Victoria,” she said, as she turned back to Vicky. “You’re angry and frustrated because your command decisions went wrong. You’re blaming yourself for your perceived mistakes, because you lost Ooni and Ilyusha out in the tomb. But that wasn’t your fault. We couldn’t have predicted that Kuro would be able to manipulate the material of the tomb. I could have made the exact same mistakes. And I’m sorry, I should have been here. I only wish I’d picked up my own shit faster than I did.”
Victoria swallowed and shook her head. “Commander, no, I—”
“And now you’re worried that I’m throwing more of us into an intractable problem, because you think my judgement is compromised. You’re worried I’m going to get lost too.”
Victoria sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, you might.”
She looked exhausted, like she wanted to scream. Elpida knew how hard the strain of command could be on a non-pilot, a baseline human being, even a trained soldier. Victoria had taken a battering in a way that she had not been prepared for. She needed shoring up. Elpida knew how to do that. For the sake of Victoria and all the others who would soon be without Elpida again for a short time, Elpida was willing to delay her departure long enough to give Vicky what she needed.
Elpida nodded. “That’s a risk I have to take.”
“But—”
Elpida waited. Victoria grimaced, but didn’t say anything.
Amina spoke up, voice barely louder than a whisper. “But Illy’s out there. Please? Vicky, please … ”
Victoria looked from Amina to Elpida, then back again. She shook her head. “I didn’t mean … ahh shit, I don’t know what I mean.”
Elpida said, “I know what you don’t mean. You’re not arguing that we should leave Ilyusha or Ooni behind. I know that, Vicky.”
Victoria nodded, looking elsewhere. “Yeah. Yeah, of course not.”
“One for all,” Shilu said, “and all for one.”
Victoria looked up. “Quoting more ancient literature at me?”
Shilu shrugged. “Primitive sentiment, but it does the trick.”
Victoria snorted.
Elpida reached down and picked up the left gauntlet of her carapace suit, already locked to the interlinked plates of vambrace and rerebrace. She held it out to Amina. “This piece next, please. Hold it steady so I can put my arm inside, then wait until I clench my fist, that should keep it in place so you can strap it to the shoulder. Understand?”
Amina nodded, taking the heavy plates in her arms. Elpida sat down on the end of the bench so Amina wouldn’t need to reach upward. Elpida slipped her left arm between the plates and clenched hard. Amina got to work, dexterous hands looping the straps over Elpida’s shoulder, locking the smaller plates to the chestpiece.
Victoria rallied. “Alright, yeah, of course I’m not saying that we should leave anybody behind. I’m saying you shouldn’t be doing this alone.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ve got Howl, and Shilu. Kagami’s drones will be with us until the comms uplink gives out.”
Victoria screwed up her eyes. “Elpi, I know what you’re doing. You’re downplaying this because you gotta do it, fine, and you gotta leave the rest of us here, but … ”
She trailed off, eyes flicking over to Shilu.
Shilu said, “I will do my best to protect her.”
“We barely know you, Necromancer,” said Victoria. “And Elpi’s just told us that we’ve had a least two other Necromancers right on top of us this whole time, playing some fucked up game in virtual reality, trying to murder Howl. How do we know you’re for real? How do we know you’re not going to knife her in the back the moment you’re out of drone signal range?” She turned to Elpida. “How do we know? Come on, Elpi, convince me, gimme something to go on here.”
Elpida met Shilu’s eyes. She wished she could explain.
“She spoke to you too, didn’t she?” Elpida said.
Shilu blinked. “Who?”
Elpida couldn’t help a smile. That was all she needed. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that Shilu had changed, but she knew the Necromancer had been contacted by the ghost of Telokopolis, somewhere in the network, during some moment that nobody else had been watching. Saying it out loud was a risk, they didn’t know who or what might be listening, but Elpida was certain.
“We can trust Shilu,” Elpida said. “We can trust her absolutely. She’s on our side. She’s a child of Telokopolis too now, one of us.”
Victoria chewed on her tongue. She didn’t look satisfied.
Pira said, “I’m willing to accept that.”
Victoria looked at her like she was mad.
“Thank you, Pira,” Elpida said. Amina finished tightening the straps on her left gauntlet. Elpida turned the other way so Amina could do the same with the right side; Elpida didn’t need the full gauntlet on the right, just enough armour to cover her bandaged stump. “Besides, that’s not the point. The point is that we cannot go in force. If we go in numbers, we risk the same outcome as the previous fireteam, cut off and singled out by Kuro. It’s too dangerous, too many of us could be lost that way.”
Victoria ground her teeth. “You could be lost.”
“Howl is confident that won’t happen, even if Shilu and I are cut off from the drones, or separated from each other. And if Howl’s method doesn’t work, then I’ll pull back and return to Pheiri while Shilu pushes on alone. Shilu, are you willing to do that?”
Shilu nodded.
Amina finished with Elpida’s right rerebrace, just enough armour to cover the stump of her elbow. Elpida thanked Amina again, then rose to her feet, flexing her arms and legs inside the carapace suit. She felt light and powerful, ready in a way she had not felt since before death. Her mind was clear, her purpose before her, no more doubts or confusions or paradoxes.
She selected a fresh submachine gun from the firearms taken from the tomb armoury — an ultra light-weight weapon with a combination shoulder and hip strap, a PDW perfect for firing one-handed. She looped the straps into place around her left shoulder, forearm, and hip, then tested the resting position of the weapon. She drew it slowly three times, making sure she knew the timing and the necessary position of her hand. Then she drew it quick and smooth.
“This one will do. Amina, can you please fetch me three magazines for this? That box, with the blue markings. Thank you. You’ve done great.”
Amina dipped her head. One of her hands came to rest on Elpida’s armoured hip; Elpida patted that too.
Victoria said, “You promise you’ll come straight back, if this thing doesn’t work?”
Elpida grabbed her armoured coat off the bench and pulled it over the top of the carapace suit, hiding the plates behind the dark fabric. The pockets were already filled with additional equipment — a spare radio headset, a heavy sidearm, a pair of grenades, and a slender combat knife.
“I promise,” Elpida said.
Victoria sucked on her teeth. “And Howl?”
Howl pushed to the surface of Elpida’s face. She felt her lips curl into a grin, pulled by Howl’s fingers.
“It’s gonna work like I work Elp’s cunt,” Howl purred. She raised Elpida’s left hand and made an obscene gesture with two fingers and her tongue. “That Necro bitch who tried to cut me up, she knows how to bend the walls of a tomb. Pretty sure she fed a bullshit version of it to Kuro, some crap about magnets, but I picked up the gist of the real thing, just by listening. Me and Shilu, we’re gonna walk through the walls and straight to our little lost lambs.” She winked at Vicky. “Back before breakfast. Save me a spot in bed.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
This was the basis of Elpida’s plan — Howl’s plan, really, since none of it was possible without the information and techniques she had ‘overheard’ while in the network grip of the Necromancer Perpetua.
Ooni and Ilyusha were lost. Radio contact was disrupted somehow, but a little while ago Ooni had managed to briefly re-establish the comms uplink, long enough for Kagami to trace a rough position. She was deep in the core of the tomb, the very centre of the structure. Shilu could cut directly through the walls with her bare hands, but that was a slow process, it would take hours to reach Ooni’s estimated position. And the walls deeper in now seemed to be changing their configuration whenever Kagami’s drone sensors weren’t looking directly at them. It was as if the core of the tomb had resurrected itself, writhing to new life when unobserved, deep in the dark.
But Howl was confident she could tame that chaos, part the walls, and walk right inside.
Victoria was frowning at Howl. “That’s not what I asked. I want you to promise to come back, if it doesn’t work. Come on, Howl. Don’t be a shit about this.”
Howl shrugged. “Sure. Promise. Whatever. It’ll work.”
Howl, Elpida said into her own mind. Vicky has been run ragged by perceived failure, and terrified of losing us. She needs reassurance.
That’s what I’m giving her! Reassurance! Look at me, major reassurer here.
You were never any good at this.
Hey, fuck you, Elps!
I love you too, Howl.
Elpida felt Howl slip back beneath her surface. She said, “Howl’s promise is genuine. Don’t let her tone fool you. If this doesn’t work, we come straight back.”
Victoria sighed. “I still don’t like it.”
“Nobody likes this. Not even me. But I have to do it.”
Howl surged back to the fore, gripping Elpida’s throat and lips, and said — “Unless you want me all up in your head instead, Vicky! You wanna carry me into the tomb? Didn’t realise you were into that.”
Victoria frowned harder. “Actually, that’s a good question. Why can’t you go in Shilu’s head for this?”
Elpida answered before Howl could make this worse. “We’re never letting each other go again.”
In the back of Elpida’s mind, Howl grumbled. True, but you don’t have to—
Shut up, Howl.
Howl growled.
“Besides,” Elpida added out loud. “That wouldn’t work. Howl can’t just come and go like we’re all interchangeable vessels. She can move across the network independently of me, but that’s too risky, especially right now.”
“Yeah, about that,” Victoria said. “Howl is also our only way to fight Necromancers. When this storm ends, if you’re not back … ”
Elpida smiled. “Vicky, we’re not going to fight Necromancers. If Perpetua was telling the truth, if there really are multiple Necromancers waiting to assault us when the storm ends, we are not going to fight them. We’re going to run. This little piece of Telokopolis we’ve built here has to survive. Pheiri has to survive. We run.”
“Wise,” said Shilu.
Vicky nodded slowly. She swallowed hard. “Right. Right. Of course.”
Elpida grabbed the helmet of her carapace suit. She raised the visor and fiddled with the built in comms-uplink until it clicked. “Testing, testing. This is Elpida. Kagami, do you read?”
Kagami’s voice crackled from the helmet speaker, “Loud and clear. All clam-shelled up, are we? Ready to do something moronic, I hope.”
“Always. Pheiri?”
The speakers emitted a soft ping.
“Thank you, Pheiri,” she said. Amina echoed the words, followed a moment later by Victoria. Pira mouthed it silently.
Elpida lowered the helmet. “Right. I’m ready. We’ll leave through the top hatch and over the side, as little fanfare as possible. I don’t want the crowd out there to know we’re sending anyone out. We don’t need a zombie escort this time, I don’t want them put in danger. Now, Victoria, while I’m gone, you’re in charge.”
Vicky put her hands up. Her skin went ashen. “No, I— I can’t— Elpi—”
Elpida hooked the carapace helmet to her waist and strode forward. She put her hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “Yes, you can. Vicky, I know you can do this.”
Victoria’s face threatened to collapse. “I’ve already fucked up enough. Come on. Don’t make me do this.”
“Everyone fucks up, and it’s never enough.” Elpida smiled. “When me and my sisters were young teenagers, there was this one time I led them to sneak out of our quarters. We wanted to visit a … ” Elpida edited the anecdote on the fly; Howl snorted in the back of her mind. “A particular kind of entertainment district. I fucked up so many times that we had a tail before we even left home. We spent four hours dodging capture in the public streets, had a whole detachment turning things upside down to find us. And we all got picked up one by one, carted home, chewed out. I made it to our intended destination, but by then I’d lost almost all of our forces. Howl included, believe it or not. It was just me and two others by the time we got there. And Nunnus — my … mother surrogate, I suppose — was waiting for me there, to give me an object lesson in the failures of command.”
Victoria blinked several times. “You got caught sneaking out to visit a strip club?”
Elpida turned that phrase over in her mind; she’d never heard it before, but—
Close enough, Howl laughed.
“Strip club,” Elpida repeated. “No. I don’t think we had those in Telokopolis, but the concept is close enough to make sense.”
Victoria tried to laugh, but she couldn’t quite get there. “Shit, Elpi. That’s hardly the same.”
Elpida squeezed Vicky’s shoulder. “I got to make command mistakes in a safe environment, where the worst consequences were more hours of training—”
And Nunnus testing us by seeing if we could pull it off undetected a year later, Howl snorted.
Let’s leave that part out for now.
“—while you don’t have that luxury,” Elpida continued. “But that’s not your fault. Nobody is expecting you to be perfect, Vicky. What I expect you to do is command. Make the decisions, take responsibility for that, and don’t shy away from it. I need you to do this, you’re the only one I can rely on. Kagami will be too busy controlling the drones, and nobody else is suitable, nobody else here can call on everyone’s trust, except Pheiri, and he needs one of us to make decisions for the group. I’m relying on you, Vicky. And you can do it, I know you can.”
Victoria swallowed. She tried to nod.
Howl hissed inside Elpida’s mind, She’s not gonna crack it, Elps.
She can and she will. One more push.
“And I’m not leaving you entirely without instructions,” Elpida said. “I need you to prep for immediate departure. Do you understand?”
“Oh fuck,” Vicky hissed. “You’re not planning on coming back.”
Elpida squeezed Vicky’s shoulder again. “No, I am coming back. But if I’m not back in time, then you need to prep to leave, and then you run. Do you understand?”
“I— I— I don’t know if I can do this without you. Elpida. I can’t—”
“You can. I’m not everything, Vicky. You all need to learn to operate without me making every decision. Now, focus. You’re the only one who can do this, but you won’t be alone. You’ve got the whole crew with you, right here. You’re gonna have everybody’s support. You’ve got Pheiri, too. If in doubt, he’s your best counsel.” Elpida spoke to the helmet clipped to her waist. “Pheiri?”
The helmet comms pinged softly. Victoria almost laughed, but it was half a sob.
“Vicky. Prep to leave. Do you understand?”
Victoria swallowed and nodded. “Immediate departure, right.”
Elpida let go of Victoria’s shoulder and stepped back. “As soon as the storm weakens to the point where it’s safe for Pheiri to head out there, you go. Make an announcement to the crowd of zombies outside, give them time enough to get clear of Pheiri’s path. Then go, run, don’t wait for the Necromancers to show themselves.”
“What do I tell them? T-the crowd of zombies in the chamber, I mean. They’re all … ours now, aren’t they?”
“Tell them the truth,” Elpida said. “Necromancers are coming, best to scatter, get away from the tomb. The more of them who can get clear, the more who’ll survive. Hand out the rest of the meat before then, keep just what we need for ourselves. Pull the drones back inside, but guard the hatches. Where’s Hafina?”
“Uhh … ” Victoria swallowed and blinked. “Up top, out on the hull, she’s the only one watching the crowd right now.”
“Pull her in ASAP, as soon as we’re gone.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Vicky said, one hand up. “The … tch, ‘bottom feeders’, the ones closest to our drone picket, most of them aren’t armed. Some of them don’t even have clothes. We send them back out there without Pheiri’s protection, most of them aren’t gonna last another day. They’ve exposed themselves by coming to us, showing themselves to the bigger predators. They’ll get eaten in the retreat. Elpida, we can’t just let them die.”
Elpida nodded. “This is why I’ve put you in command. Make a decision.”
Victoria stared, panting, then glanced at the weapons and armour and clothes stacked up all over the crew compartment. “We arm them.”
Elpida nodded.
Victoria kept going. “Clothes, boots, basic firearms. Whatever we can spare. We can’t give them the carapace suits, or anything difficult to use. But bulletproof vests, some pistols, rifles. We can spare that, can’t we?”
Elpida smiled. “Make sure to put the symbol of Telokopolis on their clothes. They’re ours now, even if we can’t fit them in.”
“Right, right. Uh, I’ll need to … use Haf, and … and Pira, and uh, drones, right … ” Her eyes flickered up, back to Elpida. “Wait. Serin and Iriko aren’t back. What about them?”
Elpida tried not to grimace. “For the sake of their own survival, it might be better that they exit the tomb their own way. If we spread out, we have more of a chance. Iriko and Serin can both handle themselves in the open, we know that. Once the storm clears, start broadcasting for them, but don’t wait to pick them up. Me and Shilu as well, if we’re not back. Just go.”
Victoria nodded. “Fuck. Fuck, I can’t believe we’re gonna do this. Fucking hell, Elpi.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon, here or elsewhere.” She unclipped the helmet and lifted it up, to slip it over her head. “Shilu, ready to—”
Pira interrupted, cold and sharp. “Commander. May I speak with you?”
Elpida paused. “You don’t need my permission to speak freely. Go ahead, Pira.”
“In private.”
Elpida raised her eyebrows. Pira nodded at the door to the infirmary, which stood ajar, then turned and strode toward it without waiting for an answer. Elpida glanced at Victoria, but Vicky just shrugged. Shilu said nothing. Amina was wide-eyed and silent.
Elpida crossed the crew compartment and followed Pira into the cramped confines of Pheiri’s infirmary.
The tiny room stank of iron, sweat, and bodily waste. It was still filthy with blood and sodden bandages, the floor caked in crimson and littered with medical detritus, the aftermath of Elpida’s wound and the extensive emergency surgery on Sanzhima, the girl the Death’s Heads had used as an unwitting suicide bomber. Sanzhima still lay naked on one of the medical slab beds, wrapped in masses of bandages and dressings, holding her chest together and keeping her guts inside. She was unconscious, face a puffy mass of bruises and blood. Elpida wasn’t sure if the girl would ever wake up.
Once this crisis was past, Elpida needed to get the infirmary cleaned up. Melyn deserved that much at the very least, for all she’d done.
Pira stopped a few paces inside the infirmary. “Shut the door. Please.”
Elpida shut the door. She made sure the internal seal was flush.
Pira’s flame-red hair was raked back from her forehead and across her skull in sweat-soaked rat-tails. Her face was closed, but the exhaustion was impossible to hide; she had been out there with the fireteam for several hours, then hunting for a way to retrieve Ooni and Ilyusha, alongside Shilu, but without the hobbled Necromancer’s limitless stamina. She blinked, and for a moment she seemed to have forgotten what she was going to say. The static of the storm beyond the tomb filled the silence.
“Pira?”
“Leave them behind,” Pira said.
Elpida sighed. “I hoped you weren’t gonna say that. Are you serious, or is this a rhetorical strategy for some other purpose? We don’t have time for word games right now.”
“I’m serious. Leave them behind. Go back into the tomb if you have to, just far enough to confirm if Howl’s theory works. But then pull back, retreat to Pheiri. Make up some excuse. Or cancel the entire operation right now. Nobody will think less of you, nobody will—”
Howl bubbled to the surface, and snarled, “You so afraid of that Kuro bitch, huh?”
“No. Commander, you can’t do this. Leave them behind.”
Elpida took control back from Howl and shook her head. “You know I won’t do that. Pira, what is this really about?”
Pira raised her chin. “Victoria is too polite to say it. Kagami is afraid of what it means. Amina … too young, too uneducated. The others, most of them see it, they think it, but they won’t say it to your face.”
“Say what?”
“You’ve been mentally and emotionally unwell. For weeks now, since we had to hunt. There’s … ” Pira paused, a struggle concluding behind her face. “There’s no shame in it. Zombies just go mad. It happens. And you’re no different. Your decision making is compromised. With Eseld you almost got yourself shot, then with Sanzhima and the bomb you sacrificed an arm — why? For what? The drones could have done it.”
“You know why. The zombies out there had to see—”
“Of course I know why,” Pira carried right on. “I know why, and I understand, and I agree. And that’s the worst part. I agree. I know that you have acted correctly. But, you are not stable. You are not mentally well. Your decision making is compromised. We have to leave them behind.”
Elpida nodded. “I was unwell, you’re right. And you might be the only person willing to say it to my face. For that, thank you, Pira.”
Pira’s expression threatened to open, a hint of hope in her cold blue eyes, like a cloudless sky after a storm.
“But,” Elpida added, “I’m much better now.”
“Really.”
It wasn’t a question.
Elpida leaned closer to Pira. “Look at my eyes. Listen to my voice. And answer seriously. Do you think I’m still unwell?”
Pira frowned. She couldn’t answer.
Elpida continued. “In the network I solved my paradox. Lykke helped, like I told everyone, however crazy that sounds.”
“Necromancer bullshit,” Pira hissed. “You’ve barely given us the details—”
Howl ripped back onto Elpida’s face, grinning wide. “Elps and the Necro fucked, nasty style. Almost cadre style. She’s gonna tell everyone later, but you get the preview, nosy bitch. How’s that, huh? All she needed was a good hard roll”
Pira’s face froze.
Elpida took control back from Howl. “As I said, Lykke helped. But she wasn’t the main thing. After her, I met … ” She took a deep breath. “It’s not the time to talk about it, not right now, it would take hours, and it’s unsafe. But I understand what was wrong with me, and I’ve fixed it, at least enough for this. This decision I’m making now is not a suicide mission. I’ll have Shilu as backup, and Kagami’s drones for most of the way. Howl thinks she can affect network control of the tomb architecture, and if she can, that solves most of our problems. I’m not putting myself at undue risk for no reason—”
“For two people.”
“For two of us, yes. Two children of Telokopolis.”
Pira clenched her jaw so hard that Elpida heard her teeth creak. Her carefully guarded expression began to crumple with frustration.
“Pira, if I didn’t go, if I leave two of us behind, then we would cease to be a fragment of Telokopolis. Nobody gets left behind. Nobody gets left out in the green. I applied the same standard to you when I gave you a second chance, and that was the right choice, you’ve proven it since.”
Pira took a deep breath. Her closed expression fell apart. Her lips shook. The skin around her eyes crinkled with internal pain.
“Commander,” she said. “We cannot risk losing you.”
Elpida shook her head. “Yes, you can.”
Pira gulped. “What are you saying?”
Elpida placed her carapace helmet on the foot of Sanzhima’s slab-bed. She considered her words carefully, holding on hard to the clarity that she had experienced inside the network, when Lykke’s attentions had finally helped her unravel the paradox of cause and comrades. She recalled the sheer brilliance of speaking with Telokopolis. She needed Pira confident and in control. She needed Pira to understand.
“I am not the only thing holding this group together,” she said. “You should understand that more than the others. You think I’ve been so emotionally unbalanced that I haven’t seen the way you’ve embraced Telokopolis.” Pira swallowed hard, but Elpida carried on. “You know that’s what holds us together. The ideal, the promise of more than this, what we’re working towards, where we’re going. Not just me.”
“But … Victoria—”
“Is very inexperienced at command, yes. But that doesn’t make me alone the difference between success and failure, between survival and death.” Elpida stepped forward. She raised her left gauntlet to touch Pira’s shoulder, seeing how Pira would react. Pira looked away slightly, but didn’t move. Elpida laid her hand on Pira’s arm. “While I’m gone — and it hopefully won’t be for long — Victoria is going to be in charge. But she needs your support.”
Pira blinked. “She doesn’t want it.”
“You all have to stop thinking of yourselves as waiting for orders from me. Victoria will need your support, especially if you have to pull out of the tomb before I’m back. I need you to back up her decisions and provide her counsel when she needs it. Stop lurking in the shadows, Pira. You’ve more than redeemed yourself. You’re one of us.”
“She would never trust me. Kagami even less.”
Elpida smiled ruefully. “Yeah, you did shoot me, once.”
Pira said. “Leave them behind.”
Elpida shook her head again. “It’s not my decision to make. It’s not up to me. If I leave them behind, that would betray everything we’ve been building. Nobody gets left behind. Nobody gets left out in the green. Telokopolis is for all. Telokopolis is forever.”
“Telokopolis is forever,” Pira murmured. She blinked hard; Elpida wasn’t certain if she saw tears.
Elpida said, “Is this about you and Ooni? Trying to be self-sacrificing by leaving her behind?”
“No, I … I … ”
“It’s been difficult between you and her, hasn’t it?”
Pira looked up, eyes dry. “Is it that obvious?”
Elpida laughed softly. “I spent my entire life managing a cadre of twenty four sisters. We all loved each other in the most messy ways imaginable, constantly, without pause. So yes, I can tell that Ooni wants you, and you aren’t giving her what she wants. Do you not want her in return? If not, I can talk to her, I can mediate.”
Pira swallowed and looked away. “It’s complicated. And this isn’t the time. I can’t stop you from doing this, can I?”
“Not unless you shoot me again.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Pira hissed.
Elpida was about to say something gentle — that she was glad Pira was here to take the joke, however badly — but then Howl took charge of Elpida’s lips, and curled them into a grin. “Think she’s joking, you trigger happy cunt?”
Pira stepped back, out of Elpida’s grip. The pain slid from her features, closed again. “Sometimes I forget you’re in there, Howl.”
Howl laughed; Elpida let her. “I never forget you, bitch,” Howl said.
“Mm. Good.”
Elpida forced Howl back down. “Howl means well. I hope you can believe that. Now, I have to get going.”
Pira nodded, but she seemed distracted. “I … I need some blood, but I hesitate to ask you for that. You’ve already been wounded, your body likely needs everything it can get.”
Elpida shrugged. “I’ve got a whole cannister of blue in me, I can spare some blood. Probably making it faster than I can bleed.” Elpida presented her left arm. “Here, you’ll need to loosen the gauntlet for me.”
“I really shouldn’t. Commander, forget I said it.”
“Do it. That’s an order.”
“No.”
“Do it.”
Pira’s hands shook as she loosened Elpida’s gauntlet. The glove slid off, hanging by the thick fabric straps, exposing Elpida’s palm and wrist. Elpida reached into her coat pocket and drew her combat knife, then held it out to Pira. “You’ll have to make the cut, I’m a little short on hands right now.”
Pira didn’t reply. She was breathing a little too hard, pale cheeks flushed a faint pink. She slid the blade across Elpida’s palm, shallow and short. Blood welled up in the cup of Elpida’s hand. Pira held it in her own, eyes locked with Elpida over the pool of shining red, then lowered her lips and drank directly off Elpida’s skin.
The static of the storm hissed and roared far beyond the walls, beyond Pheiri. The pain in Elpida’s palm was minimal, even when Pira sucked directly from the wound. After a mouthful or two, Pira raised her face, lips smeared with Elpida’s blood.
But she didn’t let go.
“Pira? Do you need—”
Pira darted her head forward. Bloody lips met Elpida’s own, smearing crimson in a clumsy, desperate kiss.
It lasted only a moment. Then Pira stepped back and let go of Elpida’s hand. She wiped her bloody lips on her sleeve, other hand curled into a fist.
“I don’t know why I did that,” Pira said. “I don’t know why.”
“I do,” Elpida said. “And it’s alright. We’ll talk later, okay?”
Holy shiiiiiiit, Elps, Howl cackled. She’s like one of us! Crazy cunt and not scared to splash it, ha!
She’s fragile. Don’t hurt her, Howl.
Wouldn’t dream of it.
Pira shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about. I am dedicated to you, and to Telokopolis. That’s all.”
Elpida wiped her own lips on the back of her hand. Pira returned the knife, then helped her re-secure the gauntlet, but she didn’t meet Elpida’s eyes. Then Elpida picked up her helmet and turned toward the infirmary door. “Past time I got under way. You’re gonna support Victoria, understood?”
Pira nodded, framed by the bloody mess of the infirmary. “Come back to us, Commander. And … bring Ooni back. Ilyusha too.”
Elpida smiled. “I will.”
Pira saluted, a fist to the side of her head. “Telokopolis is forever.”
“Telokopolis is forever.”