A brutal lesson, learned time and again over the coming decades, was that one should never enter dark space during a Xurak attack. Prior to their invasions, they often layered the subdimension with interstitial mines. During that vulnerable period of FTL entry, when shields were down, the mines would detonate. Anyone who translated in would find their ship and all electronics on it disabled, leaving them easy targets for the Xurak.

  Everyone in the Rhodeshi system who managed to escape and activate their FTL were left helpless as dark warships hidden in the thundering clouds preyed upon them.

  There is no running from the Xurak. There is no hiding from them, not here, in their realm.

  Bathed in the red emergency lights, I tried to help Kybit back up, but she was completely limp. Wisps of smoke wafted off her cabling and her eyes stared lifelessly back at me. Was she dead? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what death even looked like for the Nekomata. Some plugs were still blinking near her spine, but everything else was dark. I cried for her to get up, but I could hardly move her. And as I glanced around helplessly in the ruined corridor of the Aphelion, I saw a shimmer in the air.

  Not a second later, the object of my nightmares, the thing that haunted me since we encountered the Mantza derelict, appeared. Manipulator claws restlessly tapped the floor panels. The dark frame was silhouetted in the emergency lights, and from its ovoid thorax, a red unblinking eye stared at me.

  At that moment, I realized who had been attacking us. I realized who that ship out there belonged to. And I realized what would happen to me if I got caught.

  Abandoning Kybit behind, I ran as fast as I could down the smashed corridors of the Aphelion. I didn’t stop to check if the drone was chasing after me. I didn’t even think about where I was going. All I wanted to do was find the darkest corner on the Aphelion and hide until it was all over. It was all too much, and I was so distraught that I didn’t notice the air shimmer ahead of me. At full speed, I slammed into the side of yet another drone.

  Falling to the floor, I wheezed as the breath was knocked out of me. I rolled on my back, and I looked up in horror at yet another unblinking eye. Manipulator claws were raised above me, ready to tear me apart. I was paralyzed, waiting for them to descend. I knew it was over, but at least, this was a better death than what had happened to the Mantza.

  But the drone didn’t do anything. Its manipulator claws didn’t strike at me. The red eye scanned me for a second, and then, its many legs backed away as the drone indifferently turned towards analyzing the ship.

  I didn’t question this unexpected mercy. I stumbled to my feet again and shot around, only to see the other drone advancing down the corridor, similarly examining the Aphelion.

  Cornered on both sides, I ran to a sealed access tube against one wall. The keypad sensor was blown and so I yanked down on the manual lever. The tube’s front panel hissed open, and I threw it to its side as I clambered for the ladder. My hands didn’t stop shaking as I grabbed the metal rungs and began descending. It took me a minute to get to the bottom of the narrow maintenance shaft, half the crawlspace was flooded with dark coolant. I dangled on the ladder as I tested it with my foot. It stung, but whatever this chemical was, it was nowhere near as bad as the toxic rivers on Ghiza VI.

  My hands and knees burned as I lowered myself down into the black icy liquid. Careful not to get any more of the substance on me, I crawled through the coolant as fast as I could muster. It burned my skin, but I couldn’t stop now. I saw a ladder junction just ahead, though as I sunk my hand through the black waters, I felt a numb slicing sensation. I raised my arm quickly, and through the dripping coolant, I saw blood well up from a long cut on my palm. I had sliced it on some scrap metal, likely from a puncture from the battle before.

  I winced as the shock wore off, and it began hurting. Continuing on all threes, I slugged myself through the brackish liquid and over to the junction. Once or twice I slipped and the coolant went up to my neck. I shrieked, not at anyone in particular, but just in anguish. I was too far gone to think clearly. All that existed in my head was pain, fear, and anger. And just the overwhelming need to get away, to find somewhere that was safe. That was what compelled me down a half-flooded shaft of coolant, even though logically there was no point.

  I kept my head above the waterline, and as the burning became nearly unbearable, I finally reached the end.

  Exhausted, I threw myself against the ladder and climbed back up. With the last of my strength, I kicked the exit seal open, a dumb move considering I didn’t know what was on the other side. But I got lucky. I emerged into empty and isolated part of the Aphelion. Heaving myself out, I collapsed shaking in pain in a round hallway lined with thick pipes. Yellow support girders lined the distance and the air stank of some nauseous fume.

  But there were no drones here. And while I was exposed out in the open, I didn’t have the wherewithal to find somewhere better. Every movement sent agony along the length of my body, and I no longer possessed the strength to get up.

  In that darkness, I cried out for Ingrish. I cried out for Amon—anyone. This horrible nightmare, I wouldn’t have believed it was real, not without my burning skin proving otherwise. In between gasps of tortured breath, I wondered if it was just that I was going to die here. Alone.

  I cried out, begging for anyone, anyone, to save me.

  Through my pained tremors, I noticed the air shimmer and something stepped out of the aether. I stared at the all-too familiar silhouette, believing it was impossible. At first, it thought it was Amon, who had somehow removed his Carapace Suit. Or perhaps Waylon Tyrell, however improbable that might’ve been.

  But as the figure approached, my eyes widened in abject horror. The Xurak knelt down, and with a strange curved device, injected something into my neck.

  Darkness took me soon after.

  …

  I do not know how long I was out, but when my eyes struggled open, I felt buoyed, floating in some dream. But as my eyes opened to a world of yellow fluid, I realized it was a nightmare. I was in a tank—an egg-sac, bubbles chortling around me. I panicked. Images of what we found in the derelict bombarded my head, those alien pods and their horrifying purpose. I remembered the things that had been the Mantza, writhing as Amon riddled them with bullets. I remembered what he told me, that the Xurak were hollowing them into something else.

  Thrashing in panic, I wished I had died by manipulator claws or the coolant. I flung myself against the sides of the pod. My fingers uselessly scraped at something that wasn’t quite metal. I tried to tear away at my ventilator mask, but it was placed on tight, wrapping around the back of my head. My head snapped back as I pulled too far on the oxygen tube, the line going taut. Dazedly, I looked through the viscous fluid, through the opaque glass. Dark movement shifted on the other side.

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  I screamed as I pounded on the membrane glass. My fists thudded uselessly against the strong material. I saw the movement paused, and then began to grow closer until a disturbingly familiar blurry face stared back at me. It turned and then the air I was breathing suddenly tasted nauseatingly sweet. I became tired, and I screamed in terror as sleep took me again.

  When I awakened once more, I came groggily back. I didn’t know what to expect. I was lying face up on a surgical table, clamps restraining my wrists and feet. I didn’t feel any different, but I slowly realized that my skin didn’t hurt anymore from the coolant burns. It seemed all the Xurak had done so far had been to heal me of my injuries. I hoped against all the hope that that would be the end of it, even though I knew that wasn’t the case.

  A light-field was beamed down on the bed, illuminating me in a dim haze. Looking around, I saw the medical bay—the only word I had available to describe such an awful place.

  Writing now, if I were to describe Xurak architecture, it is part spaceship, part living thing, and part art gallery. The ceiling split into many ridged arches that resembled a rib-cage. And yet, its polished and clean design suggested an aesthetic rather than biological necessity. The walls were lined with more of the pods, tucked in by tough cartilage that was inset with bulbous white buttons on their sides. I saw alien silhouettes in many of the egg-sacs.

  There were places on pillars where I saw computer screens running, or at least, I thought they might’ve been the equivalent. The screens were of no different material than the ship’s hull. And yet, odd light written in an indecipherable language flickered across their surfaces. I saw many machines, though most could equally be described as organs. I saw things I couldn’t understand. I saw a circulatory system, a transparent core pumping some black fluid. I saw a wall of orbs, maybe eyes, that were hooked with wires in their sockets. I saw an open chamber filled with a thousand needles, contracting and extending with terrible life.

  And last of all, I saw the surgical instruments placed on a tray near my table. I tried not to look at those.

  Hearing footsteps, I strained to see who—what—it was. The figure resolved itself into the same one I had seen earlier in the Aphelion.

  I still couldn’t believe my eyes. The face looking down was… it was human. Almost. The Xurak had pallid, deathly white skin. One could see many blue and green veins underneath. He didn’t have any ears, instead wearing thin ovoid caps on the sides of his bald head. The man’s eyes were scarlet, and although they looked just as human as mine, I saw a translucent membrane flick across their wet surface.

  While I thought the extra eyelid was organic, the glossy layer depicted tiny diagnostic information as the man examined me closely. The Xurak’s face seemed wrong, both graceful and unnatural, timeless and yet stretched too thin. Its strange teeth were of the same black substance as the ship, coated in shiny mucous. Satisfied with whatever it had been looking at, the Xurak turned to a nearby table filled with medical instruments.

  It was at that point I snapped out of my stupor and began crying and begging for it all to stop. The Xurak turned and inserted a needle into my wrist. Something cold pumped into me, and I lost control of my body. It wasn’t that I was numb, but rather that I was made utterly limp. The only thing I could do was breathe as the Xurak doctor prepared something. I was given only a minute to steel myself before my short time ran out.

  The doctor lifted a syringe of some sort. Inside was a clear fluid with many white particles. They were moving—alive. The Xurak placed the syringe against my eye and asked a single question in my language. “Shall we begin?”

  …

  I shall withhold the details of what transpired with the Xurak doctor. It is true this account speaks of many horrors, but I am not here to regale savagery after savagery until the mind’s eye is scarred with every cruelty known to exist. I don’t want your pity for having suffered these things nor is this account a bitter list of long-held grudges. I only mention these brutalities as a warning, so that you may understand the consequences of defeat.

  The galaxy has taught me time and again that there are few things worse than being helpless.

  For those still interested in a clinical description of the Xurak conversion surgeries, you can refer to the appendices. But for these pages, I have found the imagination suffices. Nothing you could conjure would be an overestimate.

  I was not thrown back in the pod or put unconscious again. I was dragged by two androids down a long hall, all the while feeling as though things were moving in my skull.

  I still remembered the doctor’s last words. He didn’t speak in my language the next time. Instead, some alien tongue was gnashed at my ears and the meaning resolved painfully in my mind.

  “It is important we understand each other.”

  The translation wasn’t at all like Ingrish’s. With each word, it felt like my head was being violently re-arranged. I saw flashes of images I couldn’t understand. I tried to speak words, but some guttural noise came out instead. It frightened me. The icy feeling in my body didn’t get better over time. It was getting worse. I felt sick to my stomach, and I felt a strange hunger. My stomach didn’t growl anymore, but I felt the ache anyway. I glanced dazedly at my arms where two ports had been installed.

  Several times I had a chance to look at a reflection in the dark metal. I didn’t take the opportunity. I kept my eyes fastened to the floor, the only place on the Xurak vessel that couldn’t hurt me any further.

  At the end of the corridor, the androids placed in a type of brig. One of the droids sat me up against the wall while another stepped away detached a long tube from a service panel. It connected to port on my left arm, inserting the needle into the opening. Some viscous fluid began pumping in, and I felt my weakness recede. And with that, the two androids left the cell and activated a force field, leaving me alone with nothing but the soft hum of the energy bubble.

  I didn’t move from where I sat. I think the paralytic drug had worn off, but I didn’t try to rip the nutrient tube out of my port. More than anything, I wanted to shake myself free of what had been my body. I wasn’t sure I was even myself anymore—whatever that meant. My own thoughts tasted vile to me as I felt them twisted into the horrible language of the Xurak.

  It is quite a thing to change the very words you speak. The world takes on new hues, new colors. Everything I thought I had learned had been turned upside down and sifted into a language that made me want to claw out my ears. The very concepts of my mind were warped into something nightmarish to me, even as I tried to put them back together again.

  I tried to remember Ingrish, the Bakke. My mother. The Xurak had a different word for her kind. Ghrushus—aliens that are only good for being processed into nutrient fluid. But even as the things which swam in my brain tried to respeak the words I held dear, turning Ingrish into nothing more than a source of nourishment, I found a strange clarity.

  I have mentioned many times that I had a simple way of thinking. I understood the world through narrow meanings. And so, unlike any other human left in the galaxy, my mind was full of clear distinctions, strict definitions, and words that could not be so easily reinterpreted. Despite everything of the Xurak’s attempts, I still knew where myself began and their intrusions ended.

  And as time passed, and as the growths on my thoughts did not strengthen, I realized I had finally found the one battle I could win. I had been taken to a place where death is a mercy, but as the world of the Aphelion fell away from me like a fading dream, I realized I had been here before. I had been here all along. The Mantza had taught me everything I needed to survive a place such as this. Or rather, since I had endured the Mantza, I had been prepared to endure this as well.

  The Xurak speak a language of emptiness and exile, but I was not bothered by those things. Those words could not hurt me, nor the meanings they carried. And as the world of the Xurak enveloped me, I remained. I wasn’t carried away by the torrent nor was I broken underneath it. I remained, and I found I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  It wasn’t determination or courage that filled me. The Mantza have no use for such things, and I had been reduced to the point where they meant nothing to me either. There were only a set of facts—and facts alone. The Xurak had hurt Vas. Whatever I was now, I was still Vas. And therefore, I hated the Xurak.

  I grabbed hold of the nutrient tube, and although my mind and body ached to let it be, I ripped it out of the port sewn into my arm, spilling the nutrient fluid all over the floor.