Chapter 25
Slake calms herself, reaches out and finds a current of energy churning deep in the recesses of her mind, a place where Nixus can't reach. She feels that power contained somehow, held back by wall of disbelief. Slake, now in an ironically more open mental state with Nixus possessing her, connects her focus to every nerve, millions upon millions, and tells them each to open.
Infinite electrical signals fire in rapid succession, and flood of energy hurtles through her.
She uses that power to push Nixus.
She feels its discomfort instantly as Nixus resists—a swelling in her skull. Fear takes hold of Slake, reminding her of the terror she felt when Nixus showed her the story of its collapse. Yes, she faces an infinite, supreme power. But its emptiness is so raw and evident. Nixus is a lack that needs. And that makes it weak.
Ssstop.
She shoves it again. She feels something hard and sharp dislodge in her esophagus, and she forces it out in a hot rip of acid and bile. The last vestiges of Nixus writhe and squirm in her mouth, tasting metallic and impossibly cold. The squirming remnants extend barbs to gain purchase on her tongue and in her throat.
Slake wills her sinuses and saliva glands to open, flooding her mouth with warm, slippery fluid. Summoning every ounce of her strength, physical and otherworldly, she heaves in deep coughs that expel every bit of Nixus from her physical presence.
She's able to open her eyes again.
When she does, she sees Roderick, slumped backward over his seatback, his jaw unhinged, and a writhing, oily black tendril jutting out from his lips. The tendril itself has a mouth, and endless rows of sharp, yellow teeth, snapping.
Roderick speaks around the monster – "Wha awe you thooooing, STHlaaaaaake?"
Channeling that instinct again, Slake raises her hand and throws every joule of power from inside her directly at Kell's neck. He flies out of the cheap break room chair, and she pins him to the wall, using only her mind. The force of the collision blows out a child-sized mass of tar-soaked tumor out of Kell's mouth.
She knows about half is still inside of him. How she knows this is unclear.
Using her own invisible grasp, she clutches onto a part of that foreign mass. And she pulls.
"NOOOO, STOPPP." The pleading comes from the thing on the floor. Not Roderick.
She yanks it. Again. And again. Finally, the thing tears out of Kell. She drops him, and he collapses to the floor. Probably dead. She has no time to mourn him.
She gathers the pieces of the monster and pulls them into a single formless, writhing ball, like an oil spill in zero-G. In its surface, she sees agonized faces, species that are familiar, and others that are insectoid, alien, terrifying. An endless mass of souls and torture.
And it's at her bidding.
"Look at me, Nixus."
The faces try to look away, but she pulls them all to the front of the floating mass. She forces open their eyes, to see just more black underneath.
"STOOOOPPP. STOOOPPP DOING THIS TO ME!"
"Silence."
It quiets.
"Now, dissipate," she whispers.
Nixus explodes, splattering black sludge everywhere. Outside the platform, in the cold recesses of space, the black hole screams. The platform and the two capital ships that patrol it quake, but Slake doesn't feel the tremors. She herself floats two foot off the floor, in a lounge splashed in unspeakable alien viscera.
Her uniform is spotless. She didn't get a drop on her.
Slake sets herself down on her feet. Walks to Roderick to check if he's breathing.
He groans, concussed. Broken ankle, broken arm, dislocated jaw, countless cuts and bruises. But he's alive.
"You idiot," Slake says, unaware that she's weeping with relief, exhaustion, and concern. "You're so stupid."
She picks up his shoulders and begins the work of dragging him to the airlock.