Free Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach

so there was nothing to hide the betrayal on his face as I joined him. I refused to let that disturb my hard-won calm, though. I walked right up to him cool as you please, folding my arms over my chest as I tilted my head back to meet his eyes.
    When it was clear I wasn’t going to speak first, Anthony sighed, running a gloved hand through his dark brown hair. “I didn’t think you’d show.”
    “I said I would,” I replied, leaning against the smooth trunk of the nearest soypen.
    “And do you have anything else to say?” Anthony snapped. “Anything at all for me after I came all this way?”
    “I didn’t ask—”
    “Don’t give me that bullshit,” he growled. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”
    I put up my hand. “Stop. Just stop a second and listen.”
    He shut his mouth with an angry huff. When it stayed closed, I continued. “I’m sorry I worried you,” I said in a measured voice. “I didn’t mean to disappear for so long. We had to do a wild jump to escape Reaper’s ship and we lost time in hyperspace as a result. We actually just got out not thirty hours ago, and I spent most of those asleep. That said, I’m still sorry I scared you. I hope you know I’d never do anything like that on purpose.”
    “I do know…” Anthony said, but his voice trailed off as he glanced through the soypen in the direction of his ship. “What’s going on, Devi? Why are you out here, of all places, and with a symbiont? And what the hell did you do to piss off Reaper so bad he’d siege a core world to get you?”
    I grinned. “Made the news, did I?”
    Anthony snorted. “More like dominated it. That picture he put up of you was everywhere. Reaper was as aggressive as they come, but even he stayed away from the major colonies. And then, out of nowhere, he comes in with a full siege, demanding you as payment. So when he vanished ten minutes later, everyone presumed he got you.”
    He looked at me, and I nodded. “Yeah, he got me.”
    “Did you really give yourself up to save Montblanc?”
    I made a face, because the truth was exactly opposite. We’d been trying to get
away
from Montblanc under Caldswell’s orders when Reaper caught us. But I couldn’t tell Anthony that, so all I said was, “More or less.”
    “It was all anyone talked about for weeks,” he said. “There was talk about going to war with Reaper for real, not just skirmishes. Before the Republic could vote on it, though, they found the burned ships.”
    I knew where this was going, but I asked anyway. “Burned?”
    Anthony nodded. “The Terrans tried to keep it secret, but we’ve got good intel that the lelgis burned every one of Reaper’s ships to a cinder. We also know they’re the ones who burned Stoneclaw’s ships, meaning the squids have now taken out two of the three known xith’cal tribes.”
    “What about the Bloodtooth?” I asked. The Bloodtooth tribe was the one I’d dealt with the least since they were on the opposite edge of the galaxy and mostly preyed on the Aeon Sevalis, but they were rumored to be absolutely awful, even for xith’cal.
    “In retreat,” Anthony said. “They ran for the Waste Belt soon as word got out, though they won’t stay there long. Not even the lelgis can keep the xith’cal from making a play with such prime hunting grounds up for grabs.”
    That would be nasty business once it started, but still, the loss of two tribes was an enormous blow to the xith’cal. It was a different universe, a safer one, and I’d helped make it that way. I’d killed Reaper, the ancient enemy, and his whole tribe with him. Now that I actually thought about it, I realized this meant I’d probably killed more xith’cal than all of Terran Starfleet put together. Not that I could explain that to Anthony without getting into the virus, but if I ever did get to take credit, I’d be a war hero for sure. The king might even knight me, assuming I survived to claim the honor.
    “But I didn’t come