Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

“Coril—”

Anlyn crawled next to her. She reached out and tugged on Coril’s shoulder, oblivious to the pain in her blistered hands.

“Cousin, wake up.” She crouched by Coril’s still form. She lifted one of her shoulders, trying to roll her over, but her body had all the heft of a thing that would never again move of its own accord. Purplish blood was everywhere, and the imprints of Wadi marks trailed away and into a nearby hole.

Anlyn wanted to cry in frustration. She wanted to shout the canyons quiet. She wanted to pound her fists into something. Rage and fury leaked out of her, trailing off as rich and powerful pheromones on the wind. She couldn’t see the columns of smoke she created, of course. She was oblivious to the bright trails of emotional screaming her pores leaked out around her.

Anlyn couldn’t see these things. But the creature lurking nearby, licking blood off its paws, certainly could.

The Darrin Civil war lasted just over a year. Anlyn spent most of that time remotely guiding missiles for Darrin I, sending them to various targets on Darrin II, especially its heavily defended orbital stations. Even though the command structures on both sides of the conflict were too fractured for any one person to have a full grasp on what went on where, how the war even started, or why it came to an end, there were many on both sides who knew of Anlyn, even if by rumor. Word of a captured Drenard, who had been left like a gift by a mysterious Bel-Tra, became the stuff of unbelievable legend. Despite the swelling gossip, and the growing doubts that soon followed to swallow them, there were many who would swear to their last day that the war would’ve ended sooner without her—but that it would’ve been a Darrin II rout.

Anlyn wouldn’t learn of this until later, long after her months and months of bad dreams and worse wakings. The pattern that formed around her made little sense on the surface. All she knew was that she had to avoid the ungodly pain the wires clipped to her flesh could bring, and so she needed to guide her missiles well. The motivation to do so—the fear that kept her senses sharp—meant her nightmares couldn’t end or let up. Her captors found themselves in a tricky game of keeping her both informed and full of fear. It meant Anlyn’s reward for her continued success was a gradual deterioration in her conditions. Her captors could be heard urging on the spitters on either side of her cell, even as they looked to her for salvation. The only way they could reward her was with more hate, lest her abilities become dulled by a diminishment of fear.

Often, as Anlyn lay on her padded table, she considered giving in to the wires and their electricity. She wondered if there would be enough pain to kill her, even though she doubted it. She would have gladly martyred herself if she’d thought it possible. She would have steered her guided missile right back around on the very installation they held her in—if only she knew which Wadi hole represented it. But her fear and the pain kept her forever running.

Over time, the nightmares changed. The Wadis completed their morph into scrambling, spitting Humans. The canyon labyrinths became mazes of cell-lined corridors. All that remained constant was the primal fear of bad things descending upon her neck and the allure of finding that safe place. It was always about that safe place, even long after she understood what sort of explosive death it meant for someone else.

Along the way, Anlyn forgot who she was. She forgot where she came from. A pampered childhood spent skipping through rooftop gardens with her cousins became a dream, something that couldn’t possibly have ever actually happened. Not to her. Wadis became something mystical that haunted her occasionally in nightmares, not something that she had once hunted. Bodi nearly transformed into the memory of someone she would seek solace beside. Nearly .

Anlyn lived in a shell. She curled into a ball when she was left alone. When called upon, she did what was expected of her with all the pent-up ferocity she could muster. She was an animal, docile and meek if untouched, embroiled and calculating when threatened. Those who could use such a thing mastered the art of threatening her and aiming her rage.

It all came to an end with little warning. Looking back, Anlyn could possibly see that her pursuers had become fewer in number, but it was all as much a blur as the blue bolts. One day, all she knew was that there were no more nightmares to make. The war was over. Now there were just papers to sign.

Anlyn was brought along to the ceremonies as some sort of display. They led her out in front of the dignitaries, and she rattled her chains dutifully. The electricity her handlers could send through her shackles kept her in line.

One of her original captors—one of the Humans in black who had watched the Bel-Tra ship disappear—seemed to be a major player in the treaty proceedings. His suit shimmered and caught the reflection of the bright stars, the alien constellations barely visible beyond the overhead dome, occluded by the new debris field Anlyn had helped create. The large gathering of Humans all stood on what was left of one of the orbital stations and seemed pleased with themselves for what their efforts had won: Two belts of barren rock, chunked and splintered and all but uninhabitable.

Some of them, of course, had won something more. Part of what Albert—the man in the shimmering suit—had won was Anlyn. After papers were signed with many pens and much smiling, he took her in the inferior ship he had bartered for to the inferior asteroid he had bartered for and bragged about having bartered so wisely.

He would be right in the long run. It didn’t take long before Anlyn’s finely honed skills and reflexes were translated to ship flight. Soon, Albert’s home and spacecraft began their steady incline of upgrades as Anlyn wrangled in more customers than any dozen pilots combined. Before long, she was the most feared thing in the most fearsome corner of the Milky Way, a thing rumored among its inhabitants but hardly believed. She was whispers in the darkness that sent chill bumps up the arms of other pilots. She was the sort of bluff that caused nervous laughter among hardened men, eyes glancing around to see if anyone believed, or if anyone else could smell their fear.

The years went by, and Anlyn gradually morphed into a thing that lived in other people’s nightmares.

All of it made possible because she could never escape her own.

Anlyn was leaning over Coril’s motionless body, her heart bursting with sorrow, when the Wadi lunged at her from above. She turned as soon as she heard its claws cracking stone. It flew at her in a flash of shimmering scales, catching and scattering the very shade. It landed all-claws before she could turn to defend herself, slicing into her back through her thin Wadi suit.

The toxins leapt through her veins, jolting tired and numb limbs alive with the bite of their poison. Anlyn lurched to the side, her body spasming and jerking reflexively.

The Wadi lost its grip and skittered across the rock. Anlyn spun around and tried to locate the beast before it struck again. She moved to the other side of Coril and tugged at the lance pinned beneath her cousin’s body. It wouldn’t budge. She tried to roll Coril away when the Wadi once again became an airborne blur.

Anlyn tried to move, but the creature was faster than the wind. The Wadi slammed into her chest, knocking her backward. Snapping jaws came for her neck, teeth scissoring open and shut in anticipation of her flesh.

Anlyn’s arm was pinned. She yanked it free, but her hand caught on something— her thermos . She yanked the small cylinder free and shoved it in the animal’s face, and the Wadi bit down, crunching through the metal skin and leaking what remained of her water.