Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

Molly cursed him. She threw her hands over the top of Byrne’s head and brought her shackled wrists down to his throat. She leaned back, trying to crush whatever he was made of.

A shriek erupted from the pilot. Molly kept her eyes tight, her jaws clenched. She didn’t need to see what the Wadi was doing to know. She’d seen the animal tunnel its way through flesh before.

Whatever Byrne’s neck was made of, though, it wasn’t flesh. Even with Molly leaning all her weight back and her feet braced on the base of Byrne’s seat, she couldn’t feel the surface of him budge. It was like trying to strangle a lamppost.

Byrne roared something and began to sit forward, bringing Molly with him. She hadn’t worried about him doing harm to her, not without his arms, but she quickly realized she’d been mistaken. Byrne bent at the waist, pulling her into the back of his seat, then kept bending forward even more, his mechanical spine showing no limit to the forces it could impart.

Molly was crushed and smothered against the back of his seat. She could feel the strain on her shoulders, the bite of the shackles on her wrists, and wondered which joint would give way first and if it would happen before she suffocated. She felt the urge to gasp in pain, but her cheek and neck were twisted against the back of the padded headrest, her jaw forced to the side. With a sickening pop, Molly felt one of her shoulders leave its joint, the tendons and ligaments crying out in pain. Tears formed in her eyes and were trapped there. Molly couldn’t breathe. She pictured her death, her failure, her stupidity.

The other shoulder felt as if it could go at any moment, and Molly realized the danger of picturing such things, the sort of pain and confusion she was leaking to her Wadi. With only half a breath in her lungs, she pictured instead her Wadi attacking Byrne. She pictured raw hate and destruction, all aimed at the armless man. She concentrated her fear into fury, her pain into punishment.

Her shoulder was blasted with another wave of torture, but it was the pain of coming back together. The pressure came off Molly’s jaw, then her cheek. She felt Byrne writhe beneath her aching wrists. She pulled back, brought her hands up over his head, and nearly fainted at the jolt of agony as her shoulder popped back into place. Her arm went numb past her elbow, down to her wrist. She stood, despite the fear she might pass out if she did, and saw the Wadi tunneling through the side of Byrne’s head. Its little tail spun madly, its hind legs clawing at the air, its head fully inside Byrne’s.

The powerful, armless, robot went berserk. He straightened his legs, attempting to jump out of his seat, but caught his knees on the dash and ripped a panel clean off. He tried throwing his head to the side to bash the Wadi against something, but his shoulder hit the dead pilot, who was slick with blood.

Molly tried to steady Byrne in order to protect the Wadi. She found herself transfixed by the sight of the animal, clawing through steel and twisted rods. She held Byrne’s shoulders, her own arm screaming with shining pain, when something popped. There was a loud, cracking sound followed by a brief flash of light, and then a sizzle from Byrne’s head just before his body went limp, slumping down into his seat.

The Wadi’s hind legs emerged, its tail wiggling. It pushed against the side of the ruined head, trying to extract itself from the hole it had dug. Molly reached up to help, then recoiled at the zap of electricity and heat. The rear half of her Wadi shivered, then fell still.

Molly ignored the pain and grabbed the animal quickly. She wrapped her hands around its waist and pulled it out. She heard herself cry out when its front limbs, then neck, came out limp. Molly pulled the animal against her chest. She adjusted her grip, using the sides of her arm to distribute the searing heat and keep it from ruining her hands.

Before her lay two lifeless Bern. Her every joint was in agony. Her Wadi was deathly still. It had all happened in an instant. Not even a minute.

Walter .

Molly turned around, searching for him, wondering where he had run off to, and saw that he had closed the cockpit door behind him.

She rushed to the door and slapped the controls to its side.

Nothing happened.

She peered through the door’s round observation port. In the cargo bay beyond, she could see Walter standing off to one side, just on the other side of the door. Molly pounded the glass and yelled for him.

Walter glanced back, just for a moment, then returned his attention to the open control panel by his side. He had a colorful tangle of wires out, the door’s controls dangling from the wall. Past him, Molly could see movement—one of the Bern guards emerging from a room aft of the cargo bay. As soon as the guard saw Walter, he called out, his lips moving but his alarm muffled by the cockpit door.

“Get inside!” Molly yelled to Walter.

She cradled the Wadi in the crook of her elbows and slapped the glass with both hands, the metal rope between them restricting her movement. “Walter!”

He didn’t turn. She could see the back of his head glowing as he fumbled through the wiring, looking for a particular one. He finally yanked one free, bit through it, then clamped his teeth down over the insulation and drew the wire out slowly, leaving a coppery bit exposed.

“Walter! Get inside!” Molly banged her wrist restraints against the glass, wondering if she could somehow use them to break through.

Walter turned at the sound of that. He had just cleaned another wire with his teeth. Two Bern guards were now running for him across the cargo bay.

Walter shook his head. His lips were curled down, tears streaking across his cheeks. He mouthed something to Molly, then brought the two wires up.

I’m ssorry.

He mouthed the words again as he pressed the coppery bits together, twisting them tight.

In an instant, the cargo bay filled with a white haze of condensed air. Wisps of it stirred, like speeding clouds racing for some unseen horizon.

The Bern guard further away from the cockpit turned to his side, his eyes wide and white in horror. He slipped and fell, then was pulled after the swirling, escaping air—sliding out of view.

The other guard dove across the last meters of the cargo bay and crashed into Walter. His face was twisted up in fury and fear. He pawed at Walter’s hands, trying to wrestle the wires away from him, but then the sucking of what must’ve been an open cargo bay and the vacuum of space beyond tugged at his feet, lifting him and Walter into the air.

Walter held the edge of the opened control panel, his fingers wrapped around the square hole in the hull. He dangled there, stretched out sideways, the Bern guard hanging from his feet.

Molly’s nose touched the glass in front of her, the Wadi pinned to her chest. She cupped her hands on either side of her face and peered through the porthole. Walter’s eyes locked on to hers. She watched, horrified, as the vacuum of space tore the tears from his cheeks, sending them like twinkling bullets back through the bay.

The Bern guard lost his grip on Walter and went tumbling out of sight, bouncing off a bulkhead as he went. Walter went to mouth one last thing, but then the shine on him faded away, dulling into some state of calm. A wan smile broke across the Palan’s face. His eyes twinkled as if some beautiful thing had appeared in his vision, and then he let go.

His arms waved in the air once.

His eyes locked on Molly’s.

And then Walter was gone forever.

As Lieutenant Robinson approached the offices of the GU President, the old Bern agent couldn’t believe his good fortune. The invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy had played out in a strange mixture of stops and starts for him, almost like a perfect microcosm of his entire career. For two decades, he had toiled as a member of the Human Navy, trying his damnedest to push the war through the pesky Drenard front in order to secure the rift from their side. At the very least, he had meant his efforts to weaken their defenses while more Bern agents slipped through the rift, dodging the blockade. And just when he was starting to see some successes along those lines, the High Command got involved in some prophecy nonsense.