Chapter 17: Kelta
I drop to my knees, broken, seeing Thruster attached to the bottom of the anomalous ship. They carried him into space, to a vessel beside the mothership.
I’m going to get him back. I’ve got to find a way.
Suddenly, I understand my father's obsession with everything space battle-related: the gear, the tech, the maneuvers…all of it. It was because he lost Mom, because he didn't want to lose the rest of us. Because he waspissed.
I’m not going to lose Thruster.He’s my family now.
A rustling groan makes me scan the brushy hills. A glint of sunlight on metal exposes Holo’s failing body.
I clamber up, snag a boot on a root, faceplant, and get up again. Running to Holo, I slide myself under his arm. “What the hell happened?”
“They took him, magnetic panel on a Poison Arrow.” Holo chokes and wavers. His eyes screw shut. “I’m sorry, Kelta. I cannot protect you in my condition.”
"No fucking shit," I joke. "Why don't you tell me our best options and leave the rest to me?"
He motions to a cluster of rocks. “There’s a tunnel entrance there. It will take us to an old Titan outpost, but there are welvirs.”
“I have killed two already. We will survive.”
Holo’s eyes fill with sadness as I help him limp back to the tunnel. “What is it?”
"Other than realizing we didn't destroy all the Poison Arrow ships like we thought and feeling a lot of pain everywhere, it's the fact that you have to help me. We are supposed to protect you."
"We're helping each other. That's a give and take agreement, Holo." Spotting something familiar not far out in the sand, I encourage Holo to sit on a rock. "Be right back."
I run through the soft soil into the desert and find my pack. Brushing the sand off and fixing some of the webbing, I hoist it back up onto my shoulders, then push my legs hard to get me back up the hillside to where Holo waits. “Ready?”
He clenches his jaw and lets me help him up. I’m not much of an assist compared to a Titan, but Holo makes it to his feet.
“So what is it, really?” I ask as he reluctantly hangs an arm across my shoulders. The weight on me is immense, but compared to the pain Holo’s in, I think I still have the better deal. I keep a handgun ready in my right hand, wrapping my left around his waist.
“Women should not have to endure such conditions.”
“Why?”
“Because you are—precious. You make the future possible.”
I find a flashlight in my pack and click it on as we enter the tunnel. It’s a steep, loose decline into the passageway. Holo slips and slides the rest of the way down. When I’m under his arm again, I check the tunnel for welvirs and listen. With no sounds from possible threats, I help Holo limp down the passageway.
“We’re a team,” I tell him. “And while we’re not reproducing, we can be valuable assets in other ways.”
“That’s not quite what I meant. I didn’t mean it’s your only purpose, but it is a divine one, part of your role as a Creator, not the summation of it. We just want to protect your minds, your hearts, the capacity you have to pay attention to others, to understand, to love us when we do not even love ourselves. You help us...” He lifts a wiggly hand to his forehead and taps it. “Have a future.”
I think about his words as he directs us through a network of passages and down to a heavy door.
“You haven’t met the likes of rebel men,” I mutter. “Few of them give a damn about us, let alone care what we care about.”
"I know we can be hard-headed andpretendlike nothing matters, but often that's just because we can't cope on our own, so we block everything out because it's easier. And while we don't have a mother, we still love Creator Besha as if she were. Deep down, we need women in our lives, mothers and lovers. You make existence worthwhile in ways revenge can't." He unlocks the door and lets me into a small base built into the core of a mountain.
“Wow, what is this place?”
"Old mine shaft. They mined Ellipsis before they terraformed it. Cara's grandfather did that."
“That’s why she knows how to make remedies from what’s on this planet?”
“That, and she’s lived here as long as us.” Holo walks around a corner and into a room that looks like a lab and sits on a workbench. “She broke us out of Hyperion.”
