Unity by Elly Bangs (free e reader txt) 📕

through the sun-bleached bones of a single long-dead cactus, the only fuel we’d been able to scavenge from the all-surrounding desolation. Every time a satellite rose, Kat would hunch over the dim bluish light of her signal rig, hammering furious commands into the holographic display and shouting obscenities, until the faint star disappeared over the horizon again.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“It’s like trying to hop a moving train,” she growled, rubbing her eyes. “One of my programs will break through all that encryption sooner or later, even with this shitty bandwidth. It’s just a matter of time and luck: not enough time, and shit luck.”

She shook the plastic jug in which the last of our water rattled hollowly and passed it to me.

“You should have it,” I said.

“You think I’m gonna just sit here and watch you die of thirst? Drink up already.”

I hesitated and did as she asked.

The moment I’d downed the last drop, she yelled, “No, I’m gonna make you sit there and watch me die of thirst. That’s the only way I have of getting back at you for getting me into this.”

“She wouldn’t just leave us here.”

“Maybe the old Danae wouldn’t. Maybe she’s not the same person, now that she’s fused back into the group mind. Maybe she’s forgotten. Maybe she just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s slow death for us.” Suddenly she turned and squinted down the slope, out across the sandy plain and added, “Then again, maybe it won’t be so slow after all.”

A cluster of lights had entered the canyon and was headed directly for us. There must have been a dozen rovers in the convoy—all big ones, heavily armored. In the dusty glow of their headlights, I could see the red and purple paint on their plating, if I hadn’t already guessed. Medusa Clan.

“What do you think?” Kat asked, jittering. “Take cover higher up in the rocks, pick them off one by one when they try to climb up to get us?”

I shook my head.

“What, you’re not even going to try?” Kat yelled. “This is your specialty. You could probably waste half of them while I distract them with pot-shots from the other side. At the very least we’d get them angry enough that they stop caring about taking us alive, right? I know how Medusas treat their prisoners, Lex. I really don’t want to make this easy for them.”

“I don’t either. But I . . . .” I shook my head. “I can’t kill.”

She blinked slowly. “Say again?”

“Ever since Antarka. I lost the ability. If I try, I just . . . break down.”

“This whole time—?!” She cut herself off. She balled her fists and groaned loudly in frustration. “There is no God! Nobody’s watching your every move and judging you for everything. That thing you saw in Antarka, the eye in the sky, it was Danae’s hive mind all along. You know that, right?”

I had no answer.

“Are you really going to make me to do this alone?” Her voice shook. “Is that what this is? It’s all my fault for getting in the way of your rock-and-roll suicide, right? Will it really ease your conscience to throw me to the wolves?”

“I don’t . . .” I stammered. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

The Medusas were rolling steadily closer in a delta formation. I could hear roar of their motors against the uneven terrain now.

“Fuck it,” Kat growled. She threw open the side door of the rover and yanked something out. A heavy sack. Then she drew her wave pistol and trudged ahead to face the convoy head-on.

She planted her feet and stood there, coat flapping in the dusty headwind, silhouetted against the uneven line of oncoming headlights. It was hopeless, but I wanted so badly to help her—to at least try.

The lead rover barreled forward as if to run us both over, and then locked its brakes at the last second and skidded to a halt. We were engulfed in stinging grit and horizontal vaults of light—and when the dust cleared, I saw him, standing up through the top hatch of the lead rover, his horrid leather jacket crinkling as he moved.

Kat flinched when she realized who her pistol was trained on, but she didn’t dare to lower it either. Duke only glowered impassively down at both of us and let the silent seconds draw on. Then he tipped back his head and laughed.

“You’re all right, chum,” he told her.

The convoy’s motors had quieted down. There were thirty or forty wavers trained on us now, not counting vehicle-mounted autoguns. It was hard to count through the glare of their headlights.

“You have no idea how much I’ve looked forward to this,” Duke called out to me as he hopped down. “But now that we’re all here, it’s bittersweet at best. Look at you, Alexei. Anyone can see you’re all used up. I could chop you to bits and you’d probably spend your last breath thanking me for it. Where’s the fun in that?”

He took a slow, swaggering stroll through the headlights, savoring the attention of his own troops, delighting in speaking and being listened to. He raised his oversized hands, but no one applauded. No one looked amused.

“Stay back!” Kat shouted. “Take one more step toward us, and I will end you. Every last stinking one of you.”

Duke shot me a smile. “Who’s your friend, Alexei? Oh, I like her. I wish all my warriors had such guts. Or such a sense of humor. Whichever.”

Kat upended her pack, and everyone flinched at the large cubic object that tumbled out into the dust: the dull, liquid black gleam in the headlights. The cage of circuitry, its indicators fading on and off like a slow heartbeat.

“Who’s laughing now, big boy?” she bellowed.

A number of Medusas gaped or took a step backward. Even Duke stopped in his tracks. His eyes kept darting between the cube and Kat. “Is that what I think it is? Don’t tell me that’s . . . the missing Gray warhead from the