“No. I just know that he’s speaking to someone. Be careful, Letho.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Alastor’s army is spread pretty thin. Mutant activity has been growing as of late, as has unrest in the labor sector. The hammerheads are beginning to realize that their end of the stick is much shorter than the Fulcrum citizens’. And then of course, there are the Tarsi.”

Bayorn. An army of Tarsi reborn.

“Please, Letho, be careful of your thoughts. I can’t guarantee that Alastor won’t find them in my mind.”

Another awkward silence. Thresha rose to her feet, her face flushing.

“Okay, I guess I’ll be—”

“Wait, don’t go,” Letho said, reaching out and grasping her hand. To his surprise, his hand didn’t pass through hers. She was cool to the touch.

He stood to face her, still clasping her hand. As if by its own accord, his other hand clasped hers as well.

“Letho…”

Before she could protest, he moved forward. In the fraction of time between thought and action, he felt alarm course through his body. But to his surprise, she returned his gesture. Her mouth was cool and wet as her lips parted. Beneath the sweetness of her kiss he could also taste her sickness, the disease that Alastor had planted within her so long ago. But it was too late to heed the copilot’s warning.

You are a fool, Letho Ferron.

He tasted the sweetness of her. Sparks flew and galaxies collided as enzymes in their saliva mixed and commingled, setting off a chain reaction in their bodies as they began a dance as old as time. Thresha sighed as the warmth of his lips began to explore the soft curve of her cheek, down the sleek ravine of her neck, onto the supple, mysterious outcropping of her collarbone. He was a starving man, drinking her up with a young lover’s haste.

And then she pushed him away.

“Letho,” she said, “I can’t. You know this can never be.” Her voice was breathless, husky.

Letho’s insides churned as if he had been pushed into a bottomless chasm. He felt tears welling up and fought them back.

“I love you, Thresha,” he said.

She recoiled as if struck.

“I—” she started, then stopped herself. “I love you too, Letho, but not in that way. I am unable to feel those things anymore. I cannot give you what you need.”

“You are all that I need. I don’t care about the rest.”

The embodiment of Thresha that only existed in his mind turned as if startled.

“I have to go, Letho. He’s coming.”

There was a blast of light, like a lightning bolt had struck him in the head. Letho opened his eyes. She was gone. But in truth, she had never been there.

Yet it had seemed so real. He had held her hand, kissed her, tasted her. He would never be the same. He sat on his bunk and held his head in his hands.

****

The next day Letho met Zedock, Saul, Deacon, and Maka in the war room. The man Letho had seen Saul arguing with the other day was there, too. Johnny Zip. He was thin and gangly, with short spiky blond hair and piercing grey eyes. His very pointed chin ended in a braided goatee.

“Fellas, this here is Johnny Zip, a friend of mine,” Saul said.

“Nice to meet you all,” Johnny said.

Zedock looked around the room. “Shall we begin?”

They began with a debriefing in which each of then men who had ventured to Hastrom City told their tale.

“There’s something else,” Letho said, after they had all finished their stories. “Thresha came to me last night.”

“What?” Saul said. “How the hell did she get in here?”

“She wasn’t here physically, you dummy. She spoke to me, somehow, inside my mind.”

“Mendraga magic,” Maka muttered, “cannot be trusted.”

Zedock raised his hand as if to stop anyone else from speaking. “Let’s hear what he has to say. Even if it’s voodoo, it could be useful.”

“She tells me that the Mendraga are increasingly being drawn into some sort of civil conflict with the hammerheads and the Tarsi. In addition, they’re seeing the same increase in mutant activity that we are. In short, they’re spread pretty thin.”

“And we have Bayorn embedded in their camp,” Deacon added. “I bet he’s getting an army together even now.”

“But what can we do? We probably have a hundred, maybe two, who can fight,” Saul said.

“Yeah, but we got vehicles, ships. How many pilots do we have?” Zedock said.

“Not sure. Probably numbering in the teens.”

“You got the best damn pilot in the known universe right here,” Deacon said.

Saul scoffed.

“He’s not lying. The kid can fly,” Letho said, fixing stern eyes on Saul.

“Even if so, we can’t just launch a full frontal assault on Hastrom City and hope that the hammerheads and the Tarsi are ready to fight when we get there.”

“Thats exactly what we have to do!” Letho insisted. “It’s time to take it to ’em. The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to get.”

Johnny Zip finally joined the debate. “I can tell you one thing,” he said. “We have plenty of explosives. I can set off quite a show. You know, a ‘tasteful’ diversion.” He flipped a small silver lighter into the air, caught it between his thumb and index finger, and with a deft twist and a snap of his fingers, ignited it.

“Very good, Johnny, I knew I could count on you,” Zedock said. “Who else has ideas? Come on, folks, we won’t get another chance like this. The cracks are starting to show. If we wait too long, Abraxas might get everything back together again.”

“I want to go in and kill Alastor and Abraxas myself,” Letho said.

They all laughed. Everyone save for Letho. He placed Saladin on the table before them.

“You’re not joking, are you, son?” Zedock asked.

Letho didn’t respond. Instead he spoke directly to Saladin. “Saladin, I need you to find anything of use that I might have missed. Do you have access to any civil records servers?”

“One moment, sir. Accessing civil services logs from still-functioning server arrays… Downloading city maps, utilities maps… Sir, there are massive drainage tunnels that traverse the entire span of the city. Many are still functional. The region in which Hastrom City was built was once a low-lying swamp area. It would often flood, as tropical storms and hurricanes were common before the climate shifted to more arid conditions.”

“Are these drainage tunnels big enough to drive a razorback through?” Letho asked.

“Yes, sir. However, there is one problem. There seems to be a large population of the creatures you commonly refer to as ‘mutants’ living around the tunnels.”

“Can we reach Abraxas’s palace from these tunnels?”

“Not directly inside, but there are utility ladders that lead up to street level right next to his palace.”

“So let me get this straight,” Saul said. “You want to drive a razorback through a dark tunnel surrounded by mutants and then sneak into Abraxas’s temple, which is probably crawling with guards, and try to kill two of the most powerful creatures in the known universe?”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Letho said. “Thank you for the information, Saladin.”

“But who’s going to keep the Mendraga off our backs long enough for us to infiltrate the palace and get the job done?” Deacon asked.

“The army of Tarsi that Bayorn is raising will provide the time you need to complete your mission,” Maka said. “And I will lead the Tarsi that dwell in Haven, as well as any Eursan warriors that wish to join us.”

“Maka…” Letho said, leaping to his feet, “they’ve got snipers all along those walls, and guards posted at the gates. It would be suicide.”

“We understand that we will have many casualties. We are ready to lay down our lives so that Abraxas might be destroyed.”

Zedock seemed to consider all this. “If we attack on multiple fronts we stand a better chance… but I don’t know. There are too many variables, too much up in the air.”