CHAPTER 52

It’s rare that a person can say she gave everything.

I can now.

The ship smolders. We lost deck two an hour ago.

Fact: We cannot take many more hits. At March’s command, the Dauntless and Sweet Sensation fled, leaving us to face the dreadnaught alone. They carry with them images and samples in the hope someone smart and innovative can come up with a way to hurt it. Maybe it will be Dina.

I’m happy Hit and Kora made it out safely, happy that Hon and Loras got out, too. If this space above Venice Minor is to be our tomb, then let the end come. Let this dark beast devour us, then, and someone else take up the fight.

The black ship carries the taste of grimspace, but twisted and tainted, as if they took someone like me and fed it to the dreadnaught over long years. Here, we are plankton before the leviathan. March was right. Our lasers do nothing. Our cannons glance off its skin as if it’s made of dark matter. I keep firing, but I’m weary. Everyone is.

The Triumph rocks with yet another missile. They tear through our shields like they aren’t there, and only the fact that our ship is more maneuverable—and March is an expert pilot—has kept us dodging for so long. But his reflexes are slowing. At this point, we’re only delaying the inevitable. When it destroys us, it will turn its attention back to Venice Minor, and there’s nothing we can do.

I resent the impotence more than the prospect of my own end.

I glance over at March, my heart aching. His hawk eyes meet mine, heavy with sorrow and regret; but it’s not his fault I followed him here. In truth, I would follow him anywhere. He is not perfect, with all his dark shadings and the weight of duty on his soul, but I could never love anyone more.

There’s no need to say it. He knows. At the end, he flows into me as he was always meant to be. I’m complete and at peace.

Ship alarms have been going off for a while. Torrance hasn’t been able to turn them off, so we’re spending our last moments with Klaxons in our ears, and red lights flashing overhead. It lends the cockpit a peculiar, infernal air.

“It was a hell of a ride,” I say out loud.

Our coils are drained. I have maybe one more shot from the lasers, but no more. We don’t even have juice enough left to run. Nothing left for a jump.

March smiles at me, love shining from him. There’s no point in hiding anything now. “It sure was.”

“Life support has been compromised,” the computer tells us coolly. “There are two hours and fifty-two minutes of oxygen remaining. Sectors twelve, fifteen, and nineteen have breach. Lockdown in progress.”

“Commander, LC, it was my pleasure to serve with you,” Argus says.

He pushes out of the nav chair then and offers up a perfect salute. I’ve never seen anything so brave or so awful. Since the next hit will blow the ship wide, I get to my feet also. I don’t take the last shot.

To my astonishment, it doesn’t come because there’s another ship on the horizon, coming from the planet and rising fast. The sleek, smooth lines identify as a pleasure yacht, and when it comes closer, I realize I’ve seen it before. I took a ride on that ship once.

I scramble for the comm. At this range, I don’t need the codes. “Ramona?”

Her image flashes to life. As always, she’s lovely. Her dark hair has been looped in elaborate coils, and she’s dressed head to toe in white. “You’re looking pale, darling. Happy to see me?”

I laugh unsteadily. “Right now? Not really.”

“You will be. There’s not much time now, Sirantha. Everything I have is yours. You’ll find all the documents in order on Venice Minor. I think you know where, you’ve stayed at the villa.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, bewildered.

“In all these years,” she says, as if I haven’t spoken, “you’ve never asked me for anything. Not once. When I got your message . . . well.” She lifts her slim shoulders in a shrug. “This is what I can do now. You’ll be free to allot my assets as you choose. Believe what you may about me, but I have always loved you. Now, go.” Her gaze focuses on March. “Take her away from here.”

She smiles at me one last time, then the message shifts from private comm to open transmission, bounced to every satellite. Her very expression changes, becoming prouder, colder, and almost . . . majestic. “I am Ramona Jax,” she tells the universe. “And I do this because this is my world.”

At first I don’t understand, but March falls back as instructed, as quick as our limping vessel will carry us. The dreadnaught focuses on Ramona as the greater threat. Her pilot, if there is one, doesn’t try to dodge its hits. Instead, her ship sails directly toward the beast, gaining speed with every second. I watch in horrified silence.

“She’s going to ram it,” Argus breathes.

That won’t be enough. It could never be enough. She’ll break up on its hull, and leave it gleaming in its dark power. The dreadnaught doesn’t try to take evasive action. Why would it? The thing’s untouchable.

I close my eyes, unable to watch her die.

“No. Look.” The demand in March’s tone jolts me.

Impact. At first nothing seems to happen, then her ship splits wide, revealing the payload inside. She’s turned her entire yacht into a bomb. Light radiates outward, almost like sunrise after the longest night. The dreadnaught crumples inward. I can’t hear the force, but both ships go up, and the enormous shock waves ripple outward.

Dead. My mother’s dead.

It’s absurd, but I’m both proud and grieving at the same time. When I asked her for help, I never thought it would come this way.

“She saved us,” I whisper.

March nods. “Probably half the damn universe, too. We have to find out if there are more of those. I took readings. We can scan for them.”

“Not to be unheroic, but maybe we want to find somewhere with breathable atmosphere and fix the ship first,” Argus suggests.

“Two hours and twenty-two minutes of oxygen remaining,” the computer advises.

“Venice Minor is closest. I have a house there, apparently.”

I can hardly assimilate her sacrifice. It goes against everything I thought I knew about her, but then, people are never precisely as we see them, for good or ill. Billions of people will see that transmission; Ramona broadcast every last second until her ship went up. Maybe now, going forward, I’ll be known as her daughter. I find I don’t mind at all.

“If you’re not the luckiest son of bitch in the whole galaxy, then I don’t know who is.” Hon’s voice crackles through our comm. “Remind me never to play cards with you.”

March scowls. “I thought I told you to head for New Terra.”

“I thought I’d hang around to watch you die first.”

“We’re here, too,” puts in the captain of the Sweet Sensation . “What’s our plan, sir?”

He answers, “We need to get on the ground. You two follow us in and pick up any pieces that fall off.”

“Roger that,” Hon says.

March flies with kid gloves. The nav com’s shot, so he guides the Triumph on pure instinct and expertise. The landing is hell, but he manages to put it down outside my mother’s private hangar with a minimum of extra damage. By the time he stands up, I’ve almost accepted that we’re still alive.

Well, some of us. We lost deck two. That’s everyone in maintenance and comms.

Foreboding ripples over me, then I realize who I know that works in comm.

Rose. We lost Rose.