Chapter 43

After making his run to the makeshift bunker at the end of the main corridor, Kell lays it all out to the sergeant-at-arms overseeing the bridge defense. He doesn't want to be caught in a lie, so he gives the chrome-dome an honest report.

"It's just half-a-dozen slaves. But one's a Wookiee, so he counts for like three."

"Good work getting out of that," the sergeant says to Kell. Through a series of firm, barked orders, the chromed stormtrooper works to assemble two strike teams of eight a piece to charge the main corridor in columns and overwhelm the slaves. While he's setting the order of the charge, Kell tucks a thermal underneath an ammo box.

"What else do we need to know, pilot?"

"I think that's all they've got. They were looking for another group, but I think we already cooked whoever that was. Listen, I need to get out there and protect the mining platform from that traitor."

"That traitor" doesn't come out of Kell's mouth well. It feels forced. The sergeant picks up on it and tilts his head at Kell.

A stormtrooper shouts an update. "Sir! I'm getting no response from the unit covering the turbolifts on the armory level. I think they're gone."

"Shit," says the sergeant. "What about reinforcements from the upper decks?"

"Radioing them now." While the sergeant and his troops listen for help that is likely already dead, Kell lays down his final thermal and kicks it to the back of the lines, where stormtroopers ready tripod lasers for a more potent defense.

For a heartstop instant, a trooper seems to take note of the shiny ball as it rolls to a stop. Every muscle in Kell's body tenses up. He blew it.

The trooper shakes his head and bats at his helmet. He's having a communication issue. He never saw the thermal.

Kell breathes a sigh of relief.

"You're running for the hangar on the count of three, pilot. We'll cover you. Good luck out there."

"You too, sergeant," Kell says. "Give 'em hell."

"For the Empire."

"Yep. You too." Kell cringes. He's so fucking bad at lying.

Three soldiers spring up and lay down suppressive fire, and Kell scrambles down a small side hallway toward the hangar. When he turns the corner, the corridor is strangely vacant and pristine, as if a battle for the very soul of the ship wasn't taking place at all. Kell hears the laser fire, but it's muted, distant.

He pulls the remote detonator from the belt. He's never killed anyone before.

He pushes the button. A roaring explosion shakes the floor panels under his feet.

It's not that bad if Kell pretends he doesn't hear the screaming. If he ignores the guy shrieking, begging for someone to find his leg. If he doesn't think about the families those troopers may have had at home. Kell clears his mind, focuses. He needs to get out there and help Slake.

Kell pushes the button for the hangar door and sees his Interceptor gleaming in the only occupied fighter rack. He's only been in one combat mission in his entire career, but he knows what he can do with that machine. He can take on anything.

As Kell approaches the fighter, something black and amorphous catches his eye all the way up at the hangar ceiling. Strings of a goopy, tarry substance drip from an air vent. Tracing the strings down from the grating, Kell sees the drops puddle behind a crate of proton torpedoes that sits between him and his fighter's rack.

Dread grips Kell's insides.

Nixus. The real, physical Nixus is aboard Profundity.

Kell pads softly toward his fighter, taking a wide berth around the crate. Suddenly, he sees Major Tav unfold himself from behind the crate of torps, and Kell freezes mid-step. The man is a corpse. Rail thin with a torn face on pallid skin. Black veins spiderweb at his temples and neck.

Kell sees that the drippings from the grate aren't that at all. Rather, they're cables, pumping god knows what into Tav's body. Giving the vent a closer look, Kell sees that it shakes and bulges, like something bigger than a Wookiee is squirming inside of it.

Something much bigger.

Tav crawls on all fours toward Kell at incredible speed. Kell leaps back, keeping at least ten meters between himself and the Tav thing. Tav rises to his feet in a series of sickening clicks, standing firmly between Kell and his Interceptor. His puppet strings stay connected to whatever the fuck is in that vent.

"Flight Officer Roderick," Tav says. His jaw moves out of sync with his words, and the sound is not coming from his throat. It's more muffled, like his voice is in his belly. "I believe you're grounded."

Kell pulls his pistol and points it at this dead thing. "I'm not afraid of you," he says with a stammer.

Kells guts roil in terror and revulsion. He wishes he'd said nothing.

The major laughs in a caustic clicking sound, like an insect tapping its mandibles together. "Oh, I know precisely how you regard me, you speck."

Kell can't meet Tav's eyes. Instead, he looks to the blue energy field, one-hundred meters to his left, all that dead space beyond it. The exact spot Pyre died. He never thought of that as a refuge before this moment.

On a hunch, Kell inspects the organic black cables connecting Tav to whatever is in that vent. He watches the thick veins' muscular twitch pumping a lump of God knows what upward.

From Tav, to Nixus. Weird.

Tav-Nixus sighs impatiently. "You'd think your species would operate with more urgency, knowing the infinitesimal time you have in this universe. But you're all so tedious. This endlessss worry and trepidation!"

Now to bait this fucking thing, just to confirm Kell's hunch. "Well, you know. We're fragile. We don't have the luxury of being omnipotent. Our actions have consequences."

Again that bizarre clicking laugh. "Oh, I know all too well how fragile you apes are."

Bingo. If they were on a sabacc table, Nixus would have just confessed its entire hand. Kell relaxes. He's got a plan. No fucking clue if it'll work, but at least he knows next steps. And there's a comfort in knowing that he'll have agency in his death. He'll have taken his absolute best shot. "I suppose you want something from me. That's why I'm still standing upright."

"Clever monkey. Since your species operates on primitive bartering, I'm prepared to make you an offer, yes. Bring Slake back here, serve her to me, and I will let you live. No one else. You'll be the only one on either of these ships who skips back to their pathetic little life. How does that sound?"

There's desperation in the Tav-thing's voice. As if this being in front of him is not infinite, is not all-powerful. It's scared, it's weak. It needs Slake. It's bluffing.

Here goes nothing.

"Counter-offer," Kell says, aiming his gun right between Tav's dead eyes. "I blow Tav's brains out here and now. And we'll just see how immortal you are when your host body bites it."

For a flash Tav flinches backward. It's vulnerable. But then a wide smile stretches across Tav's face. "You know I have access to this ape's memories, right? Its full breadth of knowledge, hopes, dreams, its plans. Among all of that silly noise, it knows many facts about you. Among those facts is your sidearm shooting scores. The lowest in all the Empire. You only barely made the requirement to fly your little contraptions. So, do you think you can hit me in one shot? From twelve meters away? Because if you miss, you know that I'll be on you very quickly. And I will tear you in half."

Kell does his best to look shaken. He's doing a better job faking it than he did with the sergeant he blew up a minute ago. He lowers his pistol.

"That's a good boy," Nixus says through Tav.

"I'll get you Slake," Kell says. "Just. Just… one request first."

"Certainly," says Tav, looking relieved himself.

"I'm going to need you… to eat a bag of dicks."

Tav's head tilts. "I'm… not familiar with this expression?"

"What about this one?" Kell flips off Nixus. Then he pulls his pistol to the left. And he shoots the hangar's containment field with his pistol. The barrier is the equivalent of the broad side of a very, very large barn. Kell Roderick literally can't miss.

Kell's laser shot sizzles into the blue energy field separating vacuum from Profundity's interior, and alarms sound all over the hangar. The doors woosh shut to contain a potential breach. The floor storage seals suddenly.

Terror in the infinite oil slicks of Tav's eyes. "NOOO!"

And the ceiling vents seal shut with tremendous force, cutting the veins leading to Tav.

Tav collapses to the floor instantly. A hideous, inhuman roar shakes the walls of the entire hangar, and whatever monstrosity is in the vents rumbles, writhes, and then dies in a rattling gurgle.

Tav moves weakly on the floor, and Kell snaps his pistol up at the prone man. He approaches to get within his range. Which is about two meters at most. Tav opens his blue eyes, looking right at Roderick, holding out his hand.

"Kill me."

Kell kneels down next to this man he never knew well, never liked at all, but takes his hand anyway. They share the experience of having been possessed by that asshole demon. But Slake saved him. And now he needs to return the favor for someone else.

"Roderick…" breathes Tav. "Save Slake. Help her."

"I will."

"Do it. Shoot now." Pleading, barely a whisper. Kell puts the pistol's barrel right on Tav's forehead. He feels pressure from Tav pressing his head into it.

Kell closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

Nixus, at least its physical form, is gone. That black hole is alive and fucking unwell out there, though. Kell realizes he's panting. There's a lot of guilt he's going to have to sort through later. But he buries all of it, as deep as he can, and he sprints to the rack that holds his Interceptor.