Closing Arguments

(Starspeak)

“You’re good,” Win said. “Better than the Ronin. Where have you been hiding skills like that?”

“It pays not to brag,” I said. “To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in yours. I figured you’d be better than this.”

“I caught your little landmine, didn’t I?”

“But will you catch the next one?”

“Depends,” Win chatted. “Done catching your breath?”

“How appropriately worded,” I said, materializing my jet regulator.

He must have sensed me tap my Adeptry. He brought his gun up and fired in a heartbeat.

Instead of making a shield though, I cut off his sight. A burst of smoke between the two of us hid which direction I flew.

The smoke didn’t obscure him long. Through the cloud I heard a pop and suddenly the majority of the orange cloud vanished.

Tsk.

Figures he would know a few tricks like that…

Smoke was handy, but for clever Adepts, there were a number of ways to neutralize it.

Still, cutting off his sight for even an instant was enough, and he was too slow adjusting his aim to keep up with me. Gale force wind propelled my body toward him from an unexpected high angle.

His gun came up, but another burst of smoke covered another shift in my jets, carrying me over and behind him in an instant.

I caught his gun arm as he turned, levering his weapon away from me. His torso was open and I did my best to try shooting him in the belly from point blank.

Unfortunately for me, Win was no slouch.

Matching me, he levered my gun with his other arm so that I couldn’t quite point it at him.

In this close of quarters, there was no extra time to think. Both of us abandoned the guns at the same time, trying to attack whatever weak points were in reach. Face, shoulders, belly. Anything goes.

Unfortunately for him, I barely flinched when he chopped at my shoulder.

Augmented joints, sucker!

I batted aside his guarding arm and slammed a fist into his belly, earning me a single moment to reach for Adeptry. Simple. Reliable. Familiar.

A quarterstaff materialized in my hand, and I brought it down on him, battering him toward the wall.

Nai had told me that, in a fight, your brain goes through some strange motions. Maybe it was part of being Adept. Maybe it was just an eccentricity of acting on instinct. But like she’d described, I realized Win was familiar with stick fighting a moment before he actually showed the skill.

I jabbed my weapon towards his guard, hoping to at least break a wrist or forearm, but Win backstepped smoothly, materializing his own stave to defend himself.

he shouted psionically. A grin was on his face.

He was, I realized, trying to taunt me. Goad me into responding, pulling my focus off the fight.

The joke was on him though. I’d fought alongside Nai under Coalescence. I’d fought Casti gangsters sharing my mind with two different species of alien.

I knew myself.

He liked to talk?

I like to talk too.

I said, probing his defense, looking for a window so I could rematerialize my gun.

I could tell he was looking for the same opportunity.

he said.

Between his renewed attack and the realization that my brain was trying to auto-translate what must have been Speropi words for Farnata fighting styles, Win almost managed to put me on the back foot.

But just like he’d gleaned some of my skills, I’d gotten a picture of his.

He was good. Maybe even physically superior to me with the augmentations I suspected he had. But I was quicker. Especially up close.

I baited him, throwing my stick toward him. Not like a spear, but perpendicular to his body. He blocked the blow by reflex with his own weapon, but realized too slow as mine bounced back into my hands, where I spun it upwards, inside his guard and connecting with his chin.

The satisfying crack bowled him off his feet, and we both went for Adeptry again.

I traded my quarterstaff for a revolver, and Win created up more sea green paneling to catch the bullets. Maybe it was my imagination, but he’d been looking awfully pressured in the instant I’d seen his face disappear behind his panel shield.

“Don’t tell me,” I mocked. “You are not left-handed.”

He actually laughed behind the shield.

“I don’t exactly have six fingers on my right hand,” he replied. I hadn’t realized Win had paid that close of attention to movie night.

“Hey, if you want to switch gears and go for a battle of wits, I’m always game,” I said. I did my best to not sound out of breath, but I doubt he bought it.

We were both pressuring each other, and we both knew it.

“Wasn’t the point of the game of wits to just kill the short fellow without him realizing?” he said.

“All he had to do to survive was surrender,” I pointed out. “He drank the poison himself, still trying to kill the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

“So I should take the hint, right?” Win said. “Dread Pirate…no, it’s probably good Kemon never attended film night. He would not have liked that character.”

I decided he was talking a bit too long to just be collecting himself.

As silently as I could, I took some distance, and prepared to throttle my maneuvering jets again.

His trick caught me off guard because he didn’t dissolve the paneling he was hiding behind. Instead, dark viscous liquid splashed out from all sides of the panel.

I wasn’t quick enough to avoid all the spray though. Splatters of it landed on my shoulder and arm and…did nothing.

Cascading it quickly didn’t indicate any notable physical properties, and Win didn’t give me a chance to analyze it closer. He materialized another spray of the liquid that made me revise my estimation of his mass limit.

In just a few seconds, he’d covered almost a third of the cargo bay in the tar-like substance. It was that thickness, but not that…slow? The liquid held its shape like molasses but also oozed along the ground, spreading, not unlike an oil slick.

He emerged from behind the panel shield, materializing another massive gout of tar. On my own the maneuvering jets weren’t forceful enough to levitate me…in 1G that is. But the Fafin was under significantly less thrust than that currently.

Up was my favored direction in these circumstances. I darted up toward the ceiling, before going laterally with another burst of air. I kept the cargo bay’s shelving units between me and Win while I avoided more sprays of tar.

In just a few seconds, Win had covered more than a third of the massive chamber. I began to get a sinking feeling I knew what the tar was for.

“Got you,” he hissed.

He made some kind of spark, and every drop of tar in the room glowed for a split second and erupted into flames.

My brain fired on all cylinders, and I felt my superconnector surge for a split second.

Time crawled to a halt, and I could imagine Nai speaking advice right into my ear.

‘Some kind of combustible exotic fluid…but why spread it out like that? Why not create a more conventional fireball? There’s more to this trick. Don’t evade without thinking!’

I fired my maneuvering thrusters again, barreling away from the fire.

Even maximum speed wasn’t quite quick enough though. I painfully slammed into the cargo bay wall, but I didn’t try to stay on the move.

My whole arm was splattered with the fuel, and I didn’t have the luxury to stop drop and roll.

So instead, I kept my on-fire shoulder pressed against that wall, going on instinct. Starve the flames of oxygen. Doubling up on that tactic, I flared my maneuvering thrusters again, but this time on minimum intensity. It was little more than gas leaking away from my body.

But it was nonreactive gas, and it would displace oxygen.

Still, it took agonizing moments to starve the flames, and I let out a scream.

On radar, I could still track Win on the other side of the cargo bay, even through the flames, shelving, and stacks of crates between us. He still moved when he heard me scream though.

I lingered for extra seconds, making doubly sure all the flames had been choked on my body. I had seconds to take stock of the situation.

Win’s tar was more like sticky napalm. Tactically speaking, it was horrifying. An immediate threat that covered a wide area and did a ton of damage. And that was just at face value. The instincts I’d gleaned from Nai insisted there was more to the flames than that.

As an Adept ability…it relied on oxygen. Real oxygen. Strange. There was a reason Adept chemistry liked to dabble so much in catalysts. Win’s napalm didn’t combust like my flashbangs with their own Adept-made oxidizing agent. Adept materials could chemically react with ordinary ones, but there were caveats because of how Adept atoms could just stop existing. The thermochemistry needed to be paid for twice, because dematerializing Adept atoms in real compounds needed to restore potential energy to the now bonded real reactants.

Win’s tar reacted with real oxygen and combusted. Oxidized. Same thing. But when Win dematerialized the napalm…

He did just that, and I realized what his trick actually was.

Win dematerialized the oxidized napalm with his cascade, pushing it through every surface of the hangar he could reach…and replaced it with fresh napalm in the same act, freeing up the oxygen…

He ignited the fresh fuel, and flames roared back up in the cargo bay.

It was a persistent trick. He could keep reigniting the same area over and over again. If he kept going like this, he was going to melt right through the floor!

Win didn’t stop there. He flung more napalm toward my end of the cargo bay. He might end up cooking us both if he kept adding heat like this. The sealed cargo bay would quickly turn into an oven.

I grinned.

I’d just had a terrible idea. I might suffocate myself.

I asked.

one of the crew replied. Vez, maybe.

I said, and started altering the gas my maneuvering jets pumped. Typically, I propelled myself by creating pressurized gas within a centimeter of my body. Once the gas pushed away from me, it stopped exerting force on me, so my normal jets didn’t last very long. Any given particle of gas stuck around for less than a second.

But I needed to change that.

Win wondered, spraying more napalm toward me. He’d covered another third of the cargo bay’s floor, hemming me further in. If he ignited it now, I’d have virtually nowhere to stand.

I huffed.

Gunshots punctuated his statement.

He could just shoot at me repeatedly. If I tried to erect cover, he’d just burn more, and flush me out. Sooner or later he’d find a shot.

No, I needed to take this close range. It had been a mistake to take distance.

I asked whoever was finding controls for the vents.

True to my guess, Win shot at me, the moment I showed myself. He was moving back and forth between and over the rows of cargo, looking for a line of sight on me.

I needed to buy a bit more time. A burst of smoke erupted between us. This time, he was slow to create a neutralizing agent. But he still caught sight of me ducking behind a new crate. A bullet sparked off the metal a few inches from my head.

Another burst of smoke covered my next change in position though. I didn’t need to keep line of sight on him. My first candled radar fizzled out, but I was ready with two more. This fight would be over before they ran out. One way or another.

Win tried adding the same neutralizing agent to my smoke cloud, only for it to change colors instead of disappearing. I’d made two clouds mixed together. His neutralizing agent worked on my first one, but I’d used an unfamiliar composition for the second.

Just as there were clever tricks to counter smoke, there were ways to circumvent the counters too.

Unfortunately for me, the spot he moved to was good. As soon as I dropped the smoke, he’d probably be able to figure out where I’d gone.

I just needed a few more seconds.

I asked.

I was out of time; I had to start a bit early. Hopefully not too much gas would leak out through the bottom vents before they closed.

Win reacted as soon as my foot touched down on the layer of napalm he’d spread over the floor. My cascade met his, and he knew exactly where I was, and where I was heading: directly through the fuel.

I dissolved both my smoke clouds to put more mass toward my other gas.

This time, I caught the ripple that went out from Win, igniting the napalm across every surface in the cargo bay…except the floor.

Walls and shelving units burst into flames again, but the layer of fuel covering the floor did not glow.

I charged toward Win, batting away his hasty attempt to switch back to fists.

Win had been decent with stick fighting, but his shortcomings glared in strictly hand-to-hand. He didn’t block quickly enough, and his counterattacks were sloppy.

I punished every mistake I could. Slow to guard his face? Feint low first before trying to knock some teeth out. Step in too far trying to grab me? I shoved his head against a metal shelf, kicking him back into his own greasy napalm.

He’d been dissolving a neat circle around himself to keep himself from getting burned, but shoved around like he was, he was too slow.

Where he fell, I dissolved the layer of heavy gas I’d built up. It was heavier than oxygen, enough for a few kilograms to displace oxygen upward across the entire cargo bay. And with the lower vents sealed, my gas wouldn’t leak away. Wherever it touched the napalm, there was no oxygen for combustion.

So when I dissolved the gas near Win, it came back, igniting that section of fuel on contact.

Win let out a scream of his own as his back was scorched. He wasn’t in contact with the flames for more than a second before he dissolved all of it in a panic.

I cracked, not giving a moment’s respite. I tried kicking his face while he was down.

That may have given him a good idea though, because he flung more napalm my way at close range, materializing a tarp to protect himself.

Unlike before though, he didn’t wait for coverage to ignite the fuel, and a torrent of fire bore down on me. There was our ‘more conventional fireball’.

Instead of avoiding it though, I turned up my jets and went straight forward. The same gas I was using to displace the oxygen on the floor could quench the flames and blow through the liquid fuel itself as I charged toward Win.

I had to keep close to him, or he’d turn it into a shooting gallery again.

Win was adding layers to his defense as the fight went on. Instead of finding him still underneath the tarp, on the other side of the flames he’d erected more green panels as shields and obstacles.

I didn’t hesitate to advance. I had to stay close to him. Radar said he was just on the other side, but when I began to vault up, his arm thrust through the paneling, grasping my collar. He yanked me forward, slamming my head into his shield.

He was reaching right through the paneling, I realized. Selective solids. He could pass through his own cover like Nai could. That might be an even more troubling ability than the napalm.

Win warned.

“[You don’t seem a decent fellow,]” I snapped back. “[I’d especially hate to die.]”

He was getting aggravated. Probably didn’t help that I was displacing the oxygen more and more. Maybe he just never expected me to put up so much of a fight.

I flared my maneuvering jets, grabbing the panel and using it to flip myself around. The disadvantage of selective solids was that sometimes you wanted to interact with them. Nai was skilled enough to regulate exactly when and where hers would phase.

But Win’s version of the trick was less refined. ‘All or nothing’. He couldn’t use them for leverage.

Despite putting myself in an advantageous position, Win still found a sore spot to press. Literally. He jabbed a thumb into my fresh burns, trying to get an arm around my throat.

Was he seriously trying to choke me out?

Idiot.

Or maybe his first strike against my shoulder had given him a false impression of my durability. He might think a knife wouldn’t penetrate my skin. And napalm at this range would burn him too. But I still needed to breathe.

Still, I was better up close, and it showed.

I slammed his leg with mine, forcing his footing backward before pitching myself forward and flipping him off me.

He let out a grunt, but didn’t let go of my neck, actually pulling me down with him. That was fine. I just needed my arm and his eyes unoccupied.

I chastised him.

For a split second, completely involuntarily, I felt his head twitch toward the hand I’d freed.

I opened my palm, and the glowing flashbang within exploded. He flinched, and I tore myself free of his pin. But he was completely blind now, so I didn’t hesitate to kick him while he was down.

My flurry of blows cracked at least two ribs, and I thought I felt something dislocate when I socked him under the jaw. I could have used a knife and gutted him there, but I was in control of the fight.

He did not stay down.

Instead, Win picked himself up, eyes still alive and glaring at me.

I really should have stabbed you just now, I thought bitterly.

“Give it up, Win. You’re outclassed, and I know way more movie quotes than you,” I said, breath heaving.

“You’re going to suffocate us both if you keep that up,” he panted, shakily creating a stave.

“Maybe I will stop,” I said. “You’re not in great shape there. Can you even still make the fire?”

My tired legs picked that moment to waver on me, and I took a cautious step back so Win couldn’t bat me with his quarterstaff.

“You’re not looking too hot yourself,” Win said. He held the staff one handed, but he kept the other free, fingers twitching like he might draw a gun at any moment.

He was still looking for a window to shoot me.

He was right though. I wasn’t doing too hot. I’d given more than I’d got, but still, I was bruised and battered. My burns especially stung. I’d never been injured quite like this before.

But I’d imagined it plenty.

The last time I’d been this hurt was after days of evading Vorak, and even then, my survival had been punctuated by a keen awareness of just how lucky I’d been in the end. Afterwards, I’d feared the next time I’d be so badly hurt, trying to steel myself for this very moment.

And it worked. This wasn’t enough to buckle me. Nai had never been cruel in training, but neither had she been gentle. Half the training I’d done with her involved dodging training-safe gouts of flame. They didn’t burn but they were still hot.

And suddenly it clicked.

The selective solids. The exotic fluid. The—not sea green, but teal coloring. The fire.

I had to laugh.

“Wait! I just figured you out! After all that talk,” I cackled. “After all that, after all this [bullshit] you and Kemon have put together, underneath it all? You’re just a wannabe Warlock!”

His whole body tensed. I’d struck a nerve.

I launched two more rocket knives, herding him further toward the corner. He avoided one, but was too slow for the other and it sunk into his forearm at a painful angle.

Both of us were panting heavily, but it was him taking scared half-steps backward.

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he hissed.

“Don’t I?” I sneered.

At the tip of my finger, I conjured up the best impression I had of Vorpal Fire. I’d Coalesced with Nai enough times to have at least that: an impression.

It wasn’t the real thing. It wasn’t long lived. It wasn’t even that hot on my fingertip.

But one single spark of the stuff flashed in the air where I pointed, and Win’s face went completely slack.

“That’s right, I forgot we didn’t tip that to Kemon,” I grinned. “You had no idea, did you? See, Ted is just my middle name. I learned Adeptry from Nai Cal-Yan-Ti. A bit more from the Century too, but really, it’s Nai. I burned Marshal Tispas’s arm down to a stump. I defeated every headliner the Red Sails sent my way.”

“…You killed Sendin Marfek,” Win realized, too shocked to keep his psionics synchronized.

“Say my name,” I whispered. “I dare you.”

a shocked voice whispered.

It was, I realized, Kemon’s. Figures he would be listening in. Drew was handling that problem though.

I wasn’t the only one with psionic-equipped allies. That particular detail hadn’t come up when we confronted this ship’s captain. So I didn’t get to see his face, but damn, it felt good to see Win’s shock at least.

“Unbelievable…” he breathed.

“[Inconceivable?]” I grinned.

Half his voice was truly shocked. Some part of him was caught completely off guard and downright stymied.

But I’d learned better than to trust his words.

So I hadn’t let my attention tunnel vision on Win, and I noticed when a lump materialized at ankle level a few feet away from me.

Just like Win had, I created a wall of solid material rising up from the cargo bay floor. Win’s improvised grenade exploded, spraying half the cargo bay in tiny shrapnel.

But not our half.

Pulling the mass of my shield back, I didn't pass up on a knife this time. Close quarters is where my advantage was biggest. I made multiple feints, transforming cuts and stabs into punches or chops by dematerializing the knife halfway through and reforming it in my other hand.

‘Control the knife’ was conventional advice. But Adepts had a few more options than that.

Freely shifting between my fists, quarterstaff, and knife let me steadily overwhelm him. With the momentum on my side like this, he had to block, parry, and deflect every one of my strikes perfectly, indefinitely. Until one of us made a mistake.

And we could both tell it was going to be him.

He failed to lean away from a jab that caught him on the cheek. His head snapped back and he couldn’t keep his balance. Instead of letting him fall, I snatched his wrist, dragging him toward me and slamming my knife into the same forearm.

A painful shriek went out from his lips, but he still kept a handle on himself enough to swing the bloodied arm at me, desperately trying to fend me away.

It was unlucky for him that I’d kept my knife out. His swinging limb met my slash, and his already wounded arm tore.

The impact of my knife splitting through bone put me off balance, and I danced out of reach, just in case.

Holy cow.

I’d lopped off his hand, plus a few inches of forearm.

“Give up—” I tried. He was missing an arm! But he just clenched his jaw and let out an ugly scream.

In the blink of an eye, all at once, a discolored hand flickered into existence. A temporary replacement via Adeptry.

Replacement limbs? You gotta be kidding me!

In the same motion, he flung the new arm toward me, launching another wave of pre-ignited napalm.

I blasted my maneuvering jets on full reverse, backing me away from where it fell and flames leapt up.

That hadn’t been a proper attack…

It was only to create space.

I saw him grab a lever in the floor, and haul open the manual override for one of the hatches to the decks below.

He must have opened the panel before, when he’d been hemming me in with the flames.

He was running!

I darted toward the hatch, stopping myself from diving headfirst. My instinct was good, because a bullet cracked the air as it flew past me.

I shouted, chasing him as quickly as I dared.

Radar made it simple to keep track of when he wouldn’t have line of sight. But the long narrow spaces of the Fafin’s corridors meant it would be difficult to get close.

Drew warned me.

I replied.

But it was critical information. Did Win think Kemon was in the brig? No. If they were psionically communicating now, they would have been earlier too. Ever since Win docked his shuttle.

My heart clenched as I recognized the turns and hatches Win picked as he fled.

Kemon must have figured out where the humans aboard were hiding. Win had been losing in the cargo bay, so he and Kemon were cooking up another way to scrape by.

I chased Win down the corridor connected to the water treatment room, barreling around the corner in time to see him tear the door off the room Ike, Sid, and the other humans aboard were holed up.

“Not another step!” Kemon called out.

He wasn’t using his psionics. He wasn’t even coming over the intercom. He’d undone the lockdown and snuck out.

As predicted.

Wolshu Kemon stood at the end of the hall, moving to join Win in the water treatment cabin.

“Not another step Ted— Caleb, I mean,” he huffed.

My radar told me exactly how Win was standing right in the middle of them, holding the smallest one—Cody, it must have been—close. No doubt with a gun to his head.

“Just walk slowly,” I said, “and we won’t have any problems.”

The worst case hostage scenario had arrived. I just hoped we were all ready for it.

“I want to make sure you all understand,” Kemon said, ushering Win to follow behind him. “We can still be allies in all this.

Win dragged Cody in front of him, human-shield style, with a gun to the kid’s cheek. He materialized another gun for Kemon to hold to Sid’s head. The two of them shuffled down the hallway first, with Win and Cody in front, blocking my view.

I could work with that. Win was my target anyway. I had help for Kemon.

“The ship is still on course for the Casti homeworld. We can present our case to the Coalition—” Kemon continued.

“Let them go and I’ll go with you,” I said. “Win’s shuttle. We can go in front of the leadership and I’ll say whatever you want, as long as you don’t harm anyone here.”

Kemon and Win paused their slow retreat down the hall, actually considering the offer for a second.

“Tempting as that idea is, Caleb,” Kemon said, practically spitting my name, “things are going to unfold more on my terms now.”

“No, they won’t,” I warned. “Because Tenharu Serralinitus is still on his way, and Nai Cal-Yan-Ti is with him. You might have me, but—”

“The Jackie Robinson will keep its distance when we transmit humans will be killed if they attempt to dock,” Kemon said sternly.

“Not going to make that threat “ I asked. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the first one. You try to save face, even now…”

“You shouldn’t have tried handling this all on your own,” Kemon said. “You could have had Vez guard your friends here.”

“Stay focused, would you?” I said. “I don’t want you spacing out and squeezing the trigger by accident.”

Drew called.

I said.

“Rest assured, Caleb, we won’t shoot anyone without provocation,” Kemon said.

“But first we’re going to return to the bridge,” Kemon said.

“Then we’re going to revisit exactly who’s giving orders here—”

A gunshot rang out, and Win suffered two reflexive reactions. The first, he froze. Kemon had just insisted he wouldn’t shoot anyone by accident. And yet, to every indication: gunshot.

His second reaction was to glance toward the thunderous sound.

But it wasn’t Kemon who’d fired.

It was Drew.

Armed with an invisible gun and invisible bullets, she was the backup plan in case Kemon tried to slip out from under the lockdown in the chaos.

We’d tried to avoid needing her to shoot someone as much as possible, but this was how things had unfolded.

Kemon dropped his gun, clutching a bloody hand, and that left nothing to stop Sid from trying to grab Win’s gun arm.

I didn’t even need to tell Cody to hit the deck. As soon as Sid grabbed Win’s arm, he made himself as small as possible, curled into a ball on the ground.

Both hostages were free of the guns.

I’d been waiting, and this was my window. Maneuvering jets firing on maximum, I exploded toward Win. Crashing into the Farnata knocked Sid over too, and my momentum carried us into Kemon behind him.

I was the first to recover from the pile and wasted no time in kicking Kemon out of the way.

“Pin him!” I called out.

Drew and Sid both tackled the Casti.

All my attention fell on Win.

We were just barely out of arm’s reach, squaring off. Neither of us were in the condition for more fancy Adeptry, but I still had one trick left in me.

So did he.

Battered as we were, I was the superior fighter up close. I feinted for his face, switching my jab into an attempt to grab his arm. Yanking him closer, I—

Win dematerialized his own replacement arm, knocking me off balance. I fell, too much weight having gone forward.

He seized the opportunity, materializing another pistol.

My foot lashed out even as I fell, bashing his hand and knocking the gun across the hallway.

I pulled myself off the floor, creating a gun of my own in my hand.

“Win!” Kemon’s arm found the fallen gun, and he flung it across the floor back toward Win.

He dove for the pistol, and as his hand closed around it, he fumbled just a hair. His grip on it was just centimeters out of place for aiming and firing.

I materialized my gun cleanly though.

And for a split second we froze.

Win not daring to lift his eyes toward me. Not daring to put the weapon down either. In that split second, I could see the decision weighing behind his eyes. Fire? Or finally surrender? It would only take the tiniest moment to decide—

I shot him before he could finish the decision.

My bullet caught him low on the cheek, bursting up through the side of his head. He fell back, dark blue blood gushing from the wound, and he thrashed on the cargo bay floor, limbs scraping for something to grab on to.

Win’s Adeptry was good enough to replace damaged body parts in the blink of an eye. But even he couldn’t fix a headshot.

It was an awful sight. Somewhere behind his eyes, some part of him was still conscious enough to feel the life going out of him. There was no mistaking the pure terror and agony that gripped him.

A second shot, right through the forehead spared him any more suffering.

It took every fiber of my being not to retch and vomit on the spot. As I stood stock still, fighting not to show anything on my face, it was gratitude that kept my feet firm under me.

Half of me hated the idea of killing someone. I still couldn’t explain to myself why exactly. Maybe it was because I’d killed Daniel by accident. I knew how easy it was to do something horrible, intentionally or not. I knew how possible it was to still want to do good afterwards.

From the depths of my heart, I believed that any person at least could be good.

And my other half was grateful for that instinct. Because as long as I felt this sick when I killed someone, then I didn’t feel like I was at risk of becoming some kind of psycho monster like the one I’d just ended.

I hated killing, and right there next to Win’s corpse, I couldn’t be more thankful to be wired that way. The last thing in the world I wanted was to feel okay with this.

So of course Kemon was ready to open his mouth.

“Murderer!” Kemon hissed, still clutching his bloodied hand. “He froze. He hadn’t turned the gun on you!”

…Was he serious? He had the gall to have real emotion behind the words. He’d trusted Win. They’d been friends. Still, I couldn’t believe he thought the words were worth speaking. Was this another attempt to paint me? Some petty, long shot attempt to taint everyone’s view of me?

That’s exactly what it was. Kemon knew he’d lost, but he’d still try to poison the well. Even his choice of words was familiar; he was lying with strictly true information.

Win had frozen. He hadn’t aimed the gun at me yet.

Pathetic.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “I would have loved to spare him. First words out of my mouth were for a peaceful settlement to this.”

“You call unconditional surrender a peaceful settlement?”

“Any surrender was being generous,” I said. “Because Win just got back from dragging six human kids off on a suicide mission. You wanted them to die alone on a rock in the middle of nowhere Vorak space. For…does it matter? For your own goals. You were both ready to sacrifice children . That’s the kind of monsters you are. And the only reason I offered surrender in the first place was for the sake of my own conscience. But no. He tried to kill me. Then, when after realizing he’d tried picking a fight he couldn’t win, I offered a second surrender. How did you two respond? You threatened Sid and Cody, Jean too. First chance? He attacked me. Second chance? Taking children hostage.”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “No third chances.”