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Reesa cuffed Lily by the collar of her barriersuit. The lieutenant-technician hauled her across the docking claustra towards Goshan's fledgling. Though she kicked and flailed, Lily couldn't escape the Verakian woman.


"I'm not getting in that thing!" Lily hollered over the squeal of her boots dragging over the tile.


"You have to."


"Why?"


"Because when you piloted it to the manta," Vortrand interrupted, "you established a neural bond with it." He hopped from his perch on one of the fledgling's flank flaps.


Instead of his usual uniform trousers, gray shirt, and jacket, Vortrand wore a navy colored barriersuit. Starcollide clung to his lean frame. Armor plating beneath the suit protected his torso, back, and the not insubstantial bulge at his crotch. A belt fastened low on his waist carried static and corrosive liquis cartridges. An L-Striker hung at his hip. In the snug garb he looked lithe and strong and Lily couldn't stop staring.


"What are you goggling at, Abadie?"


A scathing comment almost erupted from Lily when Reesa cut in front of her. Yanking the collapsed helmet from the compartment at Lily's back, Reesa flicked her wrist and popped the headgear into shape. She shoved the helmet onto Lily's head, fastened it to the collar of her barriersuit and swatted Lily over to the captain.


Vortrand wedged on his own helmet then snatched another liquis bandolier dangling from the flank flap. He tossed it to Lily who buckled the large ammunition belt around her hips. Blue liquis cartridges ringed her lower half. She frowned at them then at the juvenile manta.


"Can't you use one of the other fledglings?" The question bounced off the insides of her helmet. She didn't think anyone heard her until Reesa's voice invaded her head gear. The talk-rounds' audio feed patched into the helmet.


"Neither of them are sprint capable yet." The Verakian woman waved at the two other juvenile mantas secured in port fissures puckering the claustra's west wall. "Still growing."


"Can't the manta land on Riklim?" Lily asked as Reesa fitted an L-Striker into the holster attached to her ammunition belt. Vortrand answered her.


"Adult mantas cannot travel planetside. Low orbit is the furthest they can safely venture from void space."


"But I don't know how I flew this thing to begin with."


"Which is why we're taking it for a test coast and sprint before we plot any vectors to Riklim. Now, get over here and get on board."


Starcollide gloved fingers tangled in front of Lily. Booted feet angled inward. The last time she boarded that fledgling Goshan died and crumbled in her arms. Flagettes bored into her body. The fledgling hijacked her brain. She had a barriersuit this time, so the flagettes shouldn't hurt her but what if they did? They wanted in. Back under her skin, back in her mind, taking over her thoughts, making them—


One.


The floor quaked under Lily's feet. The docking claustra distorted. Surroundings dimmed and smeared. Swirling colors created a new, unfamiliar environment. Cold sweat dampened the slices of skin under her breasts and small of her back.


Lily stood in the midst of a crowded great hall. Two enormous circles of stained glass set in the ceiling cast shapes of colored light on the smiling faces around her. The people appeared human, their garb opulent and strange. She moved among them, searching for the docking claustra.


Murmured congratulations flowed over her, the speakers' voices at once muffled and amplified as though they chattered underwater. Young women in red and white uniforms studded the throng. The colors of their garments mirrored the flowers formed in the windows overhead.


Puzzle pieces of colored glass created roses, one red and one white. Thorny vines wound between the blooms, framing them. A dark shadow scurried over the white rose window while Lily gazed up at it. Then two shadows. Three. Bits of gloom skittered across the high ceilings; roaches under a beam of light.


The rose windows shattered.


Lily ducked and covered her head. Watery screaming drew her up. Glittering shards pelted the hollering crowd, sliced through fine fabric and flesh. Shadows descended on the party like a murder of phantom crows. The mass of bodies lurched, clawing and fleeing from their doom. She had to run too, but her father, where was her father?


A gloved hand caught Lily's arm. Someone spun her around and caught her shoulders. A flash of light off his round spectacles briefly obscured his green eyes.


"Get to my workroom." Camille's father shouted as the buzzing report of liquis shot filled the air. "Get my journal." He pulled her close. "Trust no one at HELIX." He shoved her into the crowd where she fought the current of bodies, trying to reach him again.


"But what about you?"


Edward Hersch shook his head. "You and the journal are all that matters. Run!"


Lily broke into a sprint. People around her were an undulating wall of limbs. They edged her onward and shoved her back. She lost her footing in the confusion and crumpled in a pile of white silk and lace. Shiny black shoes and colorful heels pounded around her. She struggled to right herself. Legs, bodies, knocked her down. The cacophony of screams and battle swallowed her cries for help. Fingers sought a sturdy handhold, strained for solidity that simply wasn't there. Then someone had her. Their strong arm hauled her up. They came eye to eye. Her heart thumped at the sight of her savior.


It was—


"Abadie!"


From atop the fledgling, Vortrand shouted down at her, the noise deafening in her helmet. Lily blinked. Amber light from the manta's lustules hurt her sensitive eyes. Altered surroundings stabilized. The docking claustra bloated and deflated like the inside of a pumping organ. Spit flooded her mouth. Swallowing, she shut her eyes. Jellied legs wobbled.


The memory fugue was similar to the episode Lily experienced on Myskuul, but not entirely. In the Twilight Market, the alien memories were vague and shimmery, a fragile mirage supplanted over her sight. This claustra vision was too clear, too tangible. Fingers and toes, the space behind her belly button, froze. This was neural bleed. Camille's memories encroached on her own. Soon, there would be no distinguishing their identities. They'd be—


"One," Lily whispered and opened her eyes. Streaks of light gleamed off the shiny boots built into her barriersuit. "Vortrand," she said, voice quavering. "I can't do this."


A steady voice radioed down to her from the fledgling's top. "Do you want to go home, Lily?"


Her head went up and down, yes.


"Then we need to get to Riklim. No one but you can get us there. If you want to go home you must pilot this fledgling."


A big sigh lifted and lowered Lily's shoulders. By the time the Atarsen and doctor Puu started working on the Bralian memories they might be too far entrenched and entangled with her own to extract. What would home matter then?


Defying the weight of her body and fear, Lily dragged one foot forwards then the other. She kept at it until she neared the closest flank flap. Vortrand clambered down and offered her his hand which she took. The captain pried open the entry hatch and lowered himself into the fledgling's shadowed interior.


"Jump down."


A shaft of light shone into the ship's wet bowels. Vortrand waved Lily to him. Crouched on the hatch's lip, she peered inside, checking for flagettes.


"Jump down." The command was sterner this time.


"We can't take Vlex's scraper?"


Vortrand jumped up, snagged her ankle, and dragged her inside. Yelping, she latched onto the hatch's ledge. The captain yanked on her again and her hold broke. She tumbled into the fledgling. The hatch snapped shut, sealing the pair in total darkness.


Lily thrashed in Vortrand's arms. The captain squeezed her until she got dizzy and went slack in his bear hug. Pants slowed to even breaths. The captain's voice transmitted into her helmet.


"Utori technology is patterned after Bralian models they back-engineered. Ships are genetically dedicated to specific pilots. And fade technology is largely incompatible for any species other than Utori."


Once Lily stood straighter, Vortrand's hands moved from her waist to her shoulders.


"We cannot begin the test flight until you turn on the lights."


"I don't know how."


When the fledgling crashed behind the camp and Goshan yoinked Lily inside, he controlled the ship with those holes in the control dash. The memory of plunging her fists into the basins stiffened her. Flagettes had wound around her. They'd penetrated her arms with burning kisses. Ice water flooded her veins. Retreating steps squished and sucked over the sproingy, fluid-covered floor. Hands tightened on her shoulders.


"Where are you headed? I'd rather not spend the rest of the turn trapped with you in the dark." The captain's hands slipped from her shoulders and glided to her hips. "Unless you're ready to make the most of unfortunate circumstances."


Catapulting from his grasp, Lily butted against the squashy wall at her back. "Get real." Though space stretched between them, Vortrand sounded too close in her helmet.


"Is fickleness a trait of your entire species or is it just your defining characteristic?"


"I'm not fickle." Lily said to the black space where she imagined Vortrand.


"Fine. Then turn on the lights and let's get on with this."


"I'm not putting my hands in those holes."


"Holes...the flagette basins?"


"Yeah, that's what Reesa called them."


"You're neurally bonded with this fledgling. You don't need nerve connections to manipulate surface systems like lighting. Just command the ship."


"How?!"


"How did you open the entry hatch with Reesa? Or dilate the port fissure in the reclamation chamber?"


The entry hatch and the port fissure opened when she imagined them open. Not only imagined, but pictured and projected to the ships' consciousnesses. She'd thought at them and they'd responded.


Closing her eyes, Lily conjured an image of the fledgling's interior as she'd seen it on Earth. A red, infernal glow lit the navigation cabin. MSac fluid glistened on the port fissure puckered walls. The fledgling grumbled. A minor convulsion accompanied by a low thrumming rippled the floor. She stumbled.


"Finally," Vortrand said. The red glow of the fledgling's lustules illuminated him. He circled a finger in the air. "This is the emergency setting. Try adjusting it."


Lily had never seen the fledgling's regular lighting. Would the ship respond if what she pictured wasn't accurate? She closed her eyes again. This time she imagined the amber glow of the lustules bubbling the mantas walls. When she pitched that thought outward she focused on the sensation of thought-sending. It felt like the first time she drew a still life by drawing the negative space. Juxtaposing her perception that way used the same brain muscles thought-sending did and if she really concentrated she sensed the fledgling.


The juvenile manta's consciousness was a cloud of alien fog lapping at the edges of her mind. Smokey tendrils investigated the images she thought-sent and sucked them up.


"That's better," Vortrand said and Lily opened her eyes to a brightened and less demonic navigation cabin.


The captain squelched to the navigator's seat growing out of the floor. He crooked a finger at Lily who joined him in front of the central control dash. He snagged her wrist.


"Get your hand in there." He guided her gloved mitt to the dark maw of a flagette basin.


Lily pried at his fingers. "No! It almost killed me the last time."


"Last time you didn't have a barriersuit. Your neural bond gives you direct access to surface systems and eases your command of the ship, but to fly, you must establish nerve connections."


"It hurt."


"Because you bare interfaced. The fledgling's designed to fuse temporarily with a pilot's suit, not permanently with a pilot. Not anymore. Trust me." Vortrand brought her hand nearer the flagette basin. Lily shoved him and shook her arm loose.


"I'll do it."


Gulping, Lily wiggled her fingers over the basins then plunged her fists inside. They squished into mucus-thick MSac fluid and tangles of sinuous flagettes.


"Ugh." She extracted her flagette covered hands. Nerve strands wriggled into the starcollide. A network of raised veins formed in the smart fiber. Mouth agape, she turned for Vortrand but he'd left her side. She spun. The captain sat in the navigator's seat, legs splayed. He patted the vacant space between his thighs. She shot him a you're-kidding-me look.


"You've never piloted conscious," he said. "I'll have to coach you. As it happens, I'm an excellent pilot."


"I bet." Lily sneered and backed into the navigator's seat. She arranged herself in the cradle of the captain's body. Plates that armored his chest and crotch dug into her back and bottom. Heavy breaths pushed her slightly forward. His arms already occupied both armrests. She placed her hands over his large ones and relaxed into him. Vortrand cleared his throat.


"The neural bond gives you exclusive control over the fledgling. With your assistance I can manually manipulate some systems. Direct some of the flagettes to my suit and activate all systems."


Picturing the control dash alight, Lily roused the fledgling. The ship's flanks shuddered. Alien fog limning the shore of her consciousness rolled over her. She tensed then eased. The fledgling's consciousness was a veil draped over her mind. It was separate from her, something she drew back at her whim. Not at all like Camille's memory seed.


As she directed flagettes to Vortrand, the final panels on the control dash lit up. Two more nerve connections, thicker than regular flagettes, looped out of the upper portion of the dash and fused with the primary function core at her chest. Port fissures in the fleshy walls expanded. Gallons of MSac fluid gushed from the puckered openings.


Lily hadn't commanded the fissures open and she couldn't thought-send them closed. The fluid line neared her knees. She remembered inhaling and choking on the muck. When the fluid reached her middle, her butt lifted off the chair. MSac fluid made her buoyant. Gasping, she clung to Vortrand.


Flagettes peeled from the navigator's seat. They whipped around her arms and legs, reeled her in and tethered her to the chair. Her limbs lashed to the captain's. Another thick nerve connection snaked around herself and Vortrand, binding their middles. He grunted when the final tether constricted.


"Feeling secure now?" He asked, words strangled by the fledgling's overzealous response to Lily's anxiety.


The fluid lapped at the bottom of Lily's helmet.


MSac fluid overtopped her head. Her gear remained airtight, trapping a bubble of breathable air around her head.


"Can our resnance chips handle this?" She asked.


"Our chips will function as normal with the gas pocket trapped in our helmets. As our HAF fields have been in extended contact we shouldn't experience any interference. Should the chip fail, the MSac fluid can support us should we draw it into our lungs. That's why you didn't drown when you bare interfaced. The MSac fluid sustained you."


Nodding, Lily eased back then her heart leapt again. "But our L-Strikers!"


"Our equipment will be fine once the fledgling exporates the cabin. That didn't occur properly when you piloted the ship from your baseworld to the manta."


Suspended in warm MSac fluid, Lily was weightless. The fledgling's rhythmic shuddering drew her into syncopation with the ship. Thump, thump, thump went her heart, beating in time with the hum of the ship's internal activity. Reesa's voice cut over the metronomic lull.


"Do you have visual?"


"We don't." Vortrand answered then said to Lily, "Loosen our arms."


The visualization barely touched her thoughts when the flagettes binding them eased off, freeing their arms. The cord binding their waists stayed put, but it didn't squeeze the life out of them.


Vortrand breathed out at the sudden release. His head rested against her. "You should see a blue arteph on the dash."


An arteph was a catani glyph for a light guttural sound. It also meant "picture" or "vision" when written and was shaped like a stumpy triton. She found and pressed it. A HOptic display spread over the control dash and over the wall space above it. The manta's docking claustra appeared on the display. Voxic tiles opened in Lily's helmet, the interfaces and data they contained imprinted on her headgear's gelatinous face shield.


"Visuals confirmed," Vortrand said and the lieutenant-technician ran through the launch process.


A port fissure in the manta's i-layer dilated. Flagettes from the parentship curled around its offspring and maneuvered it into m-layer. They wedged passed the walls separating the manta's insides from the outside. The vista of space opened up on the fledgling's wall display. The view was narrow. Lily wished she could see more. The display responded to her desire, stretching until it banded the entire cabin, offering a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of their surroundings.


"To expand the screen manually you use the dial there." Vortrand indicated a control on the right side of the dash.


"Why bother with manual controls when I have a mental link with the ship?"


"Because one turn you may need them. Never use one way to achieve your ends. As for fledgling piloting specifically, as this juvenile ship matures, its systems will become too numerous for your mind to harness and regulate. An adult manta cannot be herded by nerve or neural connections alone. Our manta runs on an override CPU."


The last of the manta's flagettes disentangled from the fledgling. They coasted freely in space. Not much separated them from nothingness. Lily shuddered and the flagettes remaining around herself and the captain constricted.


"Do you see that asteroid?" Vortrand asked.


Lily located the swiveling rock far ahead and said she saw it.


"Take us there."


Motivated by the images Lily thought-sent, the fledgling coasted to the rock. When the asteroid loomed large on the wall display, Lily thought, stop

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