The Last Girl From Earth

Lyra woke up to the sound of a warship breathing.

It wasn't like the human ship on Obsidian Moon. That ship had breathed like a sleeping animal, warm and welcoming. This was different. This was the slow, deep inhale-exhale of something massive and mechanical and cold, air cycling through kilometres of vents. The low thrum of an anti-matter core.

She was in a bed. That was the first surprise. She had expected a brig. A cell with bars.

This was not a cell.

The room was huge, dark, made of black glass and brushed steel. One entire wall was a viewport, showing open space and the swirling grey-brown surface of Obsidian Moon far below. The bed she was in was too big, the sheets black, absurdly soft. Someone had taken off her scavenger suit. She was wearing a plain black Imperial under-tunic that was far too large - it smelled like cold and ozone. Like him.

Kael's coat was draped over a chair.

Lyra sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to her chest. Her hand went to her palm.

The Heart was still there. It was no longer a stone. It had sunk into her skin. In the centre of her palm was a perfect black circle, the size of a coin, with faint gold veins moving inside it like living ink. It was warm. When she focused, she could feel it pulse in time with her own heart.

"Don't touch that."

The voice came from the shadows by the viewport. Lyra nearly fell out of the bed.

Kael Veyron was standing there. He wasn't wearing his coat or his uniform jacket. Just a black shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, showing forearms corded with muscle and covered in faint, silver Astral markings that glowed. He had a data-slate in one hand, but he wasn't looking at it. He was looking at her.

How long had he been standing there watching her sleep?

"You -" Lyra's voice was hoarse. "Where am I? Where's my -"

"Your scavenger suit is being decontaminated. Your AI core is on the table. You are aboard the Imperial Dreadnought Revenant, in my personal quarters. You are in no danger."

"Your personal quarters?" Lyra's eyes darted to the door. "Is this the part where the evil prince -"

"If I wanted to harm you, Lyra Vale, you would not have woken up," he said flatly. He walked over and set a tray down on the bedside table. Water. Actual fresh fruit - something that didn't exist on Obsidian Moon - and protein broth.

Lyra stared at it, then at him. "You drugged me."

"I sedated you. You were in acute bio-resonant shock. Your nervous system was overloading. If I hadn't, you would have had a seizure."

He said it like he was reporting engine diagnostics. No emotion.

Lyra picked up the water and drank it in one go because her throat was raw, but she never took her eyes off him. Building rule number one on Obsidian Moon: never trust someone who feeds you.

"Why am I in your room and not a cell?"

"Because my brig cannot contain you," Kael said. He tapped his data-slate, and the viewport changed. It now showed an internal camera feed of the brig. The brig's door - solid Imperial steel, meant to hold war criminals - was melted. In the shape of a handprint. Hers.

Lyra choked on water. "I did that?"

"You did that in your sleep," Kael said. "You were dreaming about being caged. The ship responded."

"The ship -"

"The Revenant," he corrected. "My warship. It is sentient. Semi-sentient. And it appears to like you more than it likes me."

As if to prove it, the lights in the room dimmed slightly, then brightened, focusing warmly on Lyra.

Kael's jaw tightened. He glared at the ceiling. "Stop that."

The lights dimmed again, petulantly.

Lyra almost laughed, despite herself. Then she remembered.

"You were supposed to kill me."

The room went cold. Kael's pale violet eyes locked onto hers.

"Yes."

"Your friend - Rylan - said it was an order from your father."

"Yes."

"So why didn't you?"

Kael was silent for a long time. He set the data-slate down. When he spoke, his voice was lower.

"Because my father also told me humanity was extinct because they were violent, greedy, and they built a weapon that destroyed Earth. He showed me archives. Bodies. Burning cities. He told me you were the last remnant of a plague."

He stepped closer to the bed. Lyra instinctively pulled back, but there was nowhere to go.

"Then I touched that thing in your hand," he continued, "and my own warship, which has been in my family for four generations and has never disobeyed a direct order, refused my command to fire on you. It called you Sovereign. Explain that, scavenger."

Lyra looked down at the black circle in her palm. "I don't know! I found it an hour ago! I thought it was a power core I could sell! I didn't know it was going to - to turn off the galaxy!"

"It's called the Heart of Earth," Kael said. "It's not a power core. It's a key. And you are the lock."

Before Lyra could answer, a sharp pain lanced through her chest. Not her chest - his. Or both.

Kael winced at the exact same second, his hand going to his own chest.

"What was that?" Lyra gasped.

Kael's eyes widened. He stared at her, then at his own hand, which was now showing faint blue lines under the skin - identical to hers.

"Bio-bond," he whispered, and for the first time, he looked genuinely shaken. "It can't be."

"What is a bio-bond?"

"Aureli failsafe. Ancient. My mother told me stories. When a Sovereign is in danger, the Protector genome activates. It links them. Pain. Distance. Death. If you die -"

"If I die, what?"

"If you die, I die," Kael said flatly. "If we are more than one hundred meters apart for more than a few minutes, we both start to suffer organ failure. It's a leash."

Lyra stared at him, horrified. "You are telling me I am biologically handcuffed to the guy who was supposed to murder me?"

"You are telling me I am biologically handcuffed to a sarcastic human who will get us both killed?" he shot back.

The door hissed open before she could retort.

A woman walked in.

She was breathtaking in the way a drawn sword is breathtaking. Tall, silver-white hair like Kael's but long and braided with black wires, wearing the white and silver armor of the Royal Guard Commander. Her face was Kael's face, but sharper, more elegant. Princess Seraphine Veyron.

Her pale eyes went from Kael to Lyra in the bed, wearing Kael's under-tunic, wrapped in his sheets.

Her expression froze.

"Brother," Seraphine said, her voice like ice water. "Explain why there is a human in your bed, wearing your clothes, and why Father's entire war council is demanding to know why you have committed treason."

Kael stood straighter. "Seraphine."

Seraphine walked into the room, ignoring Lyra completely at first, and picked up Kael's data-slate from the table. She glanced at it. Her eyebrows shot up.

"Aureli match 99.8%? Sovereign confirmation? Kael, what is this?"

"It's the truth," Kael said.

"The truth is that you were ordered to execute the last human descendant and instead you brought her into your private quarters and gave her fruit," Seraphine snapped. She finally looked at Lyra, and her lip curled. "So this is it? This is the monster that wiped out half the galaxy? She looks... malnourished."

Lyra, who had been silent, threw a piece of fruit at her.

It bounced off Seraphine's pristine armor.

Seraphine stared at the fruit on the floor, then at Lyra, in utter disbelief. No one had ever thrown anything at her.

"Oh, I like her," Seraphine said after a beat, but her hand was on her energy blade.

Kael stepped between them. "Enough."

"Father is calling," Seraphine said, suddenly serious. "He's been calling for twenty minutes. He's on holo. He wants to see the body."

The blood drained from Kael's face.

Lyra felt it - that sharp pain in her chest again, but this time it was fear, and it wasn't hers. It was Kael's.

"If he sees her alive, he will order this ship destroyed," Kael said quietly.

"Then what do we do?" Seraphine asked.

Kael looked at Lyra. Lyra looked at Kael. The black circle in her palm pulsed.

Mira-7, who had been silent on the table, suddenly crackled to life, but not in her own voice. In that older, deeper voice.

"Warning. Imperial signature: Emperor's Wrath. Titan-class warship. Exiting hyperspace in 3 minutes. It carries planet-crackers. It is targeting this vessel."

Seraphine went pale.

"Father sent the Wrath?" she whispered. "He sent his personal execution fleet... for us?"

Kael grabbed his coat, threw it at Lyra. "Put it on. Now."

"Why?"

"Because if my father sees you, he will kill you. And if you die, I die. And I am not ready to die for a girl I met an hour ago who throws fruit at princesses."

He grabbed Lyra's wrist - and the moment his skin touched hers, the glowing lines on both their arms flared blindingly bright, connecting. A circuit completing.

Seraphine saw it. Her eyes went wide.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, gods. You're bonded."

The entire warship shuddered. Red alarms blared.

From the viewport, Lyra saw it. A second shadow, even bigger than the Revenant, tearing out of hyperspace. A warship shaped like a crown of thorns. The Emperor's personal flagship.

A voice boomed through every speaker on the Revenant, a voice Lyra recognized from every Imperial broadcast on Obsidian Moon.

Emperor Lucien Veyron.

"KAEL VEYRON. YOU HAVE DISOBEYED A DIRECT ORDER. POWER DOWN YOUR ENGINES AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. PRESENT THE HUMAN CORPSE. OR I WILL BOARD YOU MYSELF AND TAKE IT FROM YOUR COLD HANDS."

Kael looked at Lyra. Lyra looked at Kael.

"Can this ship run?" Lyra whispered.

Kael smiled for the first time. It was not a nice smile. It was sharp and ruthless and terrifying.

"The Revenant can do more than run," he said. He pressed his palm to the wall.

The wall responded, veins of light shooting through it, all the way down the kilometers-long ship.

"Revenant," Kael commanded. "Forbidden Space. Jump. Now."

The ship, which had always obeyed Kael, hesitated for half a second - and then looked at Lyra, as if asking her permission too.

Lyra, without thinking, placed her own palm with the black circle on the wall.

"Go," she whispered.

The Revenant roared.

And in front of the Emperor's execution fleet, the most advanced warship in the galaxy tore a hole in reality where no hole should exist - a jump into Forbidden Space, where no ship had ever returned from - and vanished.

Leaving Emperor Lucien screaming in empty space.