Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1) by Mary E. Lowd

Author:Mary E. Lowd [Lowd, Mary E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2020-12-07T22:00:00+00:00

20 Twisting the Knife

Floating outside the broken, haunted science base that had recently tried to devour the universe, it occurred to Clarity that what she and Mazillion had just done was heroic. She should feel like a hero. But it didn’t feel heroic; it felt scary. And she didn't feel like a hero. She felt angry the universe had put her through so much.

Trillions of other people out there—of all sorts of species—had lived through today without seeing the space-time continuum split open in front of them. They'd gone through their normal day, living in their homes which hadn’t been shredded before their very eyes.

As the old adage goes, life isn't fair. But damn, Clarity wished it could be less obvious about it sometimes. I mean, at least try to pretend like you don't have a favorite child. And another child who makes you unaccountably angry, and all you want to do is take her toys away and torture her.

The universe was a terrible parent. Clarity hated it.

The buzzing all around Clarity's face, like a crown of laurels that had actually been made from itchy poison ivy, changed pitches again, growing deeper and pulsing. Words resolved: "Spaceship comes?"

"I think so," Clarity said, hearing the words as a question. But she saw the purple flickering light of Merlin wink in the distance off a long spear shape. Cassie's spiraling horn. "Oh god," Clarity breathed in relief. She hadn't thought Cassie was coming. She truly hadn't, and she wasn't prepared for how relieved she'd be to see the little living spaceship.

Cassie's tube organs on her side swelled and tightened, carefully jetting the starwhal into place, hovering perfectly still in front of Clarity and her containment crate. Then a patch of Cassie's dark purple skin, slightly mottled with shades of fuchsia and speckles of mud brown, slid open like an eyelid, showing the dull pink glow of her bioluminescent interior. Clarity hadn't seen Cassie's airlock open from the outside before; there was a raw, wound-like look to the open airlock, like a gash in her side. Clarity felt like a virus or bacteria flying into the airlock, some sort of intrusive, parasitic organism.

As soon as the airlock sealed behind Clarity and the containment crate, she unzipped the side of her spacesuit, unable to wait for the airlock to completely re-pressurize. The air in her suit blasted out through the hole, pulling many of Mazillion along with it. But then the air in the airlock caught up, and Mazillion was able to fly, clustering together into a mouth orb. They said, "Thank you."

The inner valve of the airlock slid open, and Mazillion buzzed away into the belly of the beast. Clarity was left staring at a containment crate still much too heavy for her to carry, and the spongey quality of Cassie's flesh would make it difficult to roll the crate even if she had a dolly for it. Which she did not.

Clarity decided to leave the containment crate in the airlock. That was probably where it would need to be for blasting it into the heart of a black hole anyway.

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