Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

27

Molly gripped the spigot with the palm of her hand to avoid using her damaged fingers. She gave the valve a turn, and water gurgled out of the hose, discolored at first, then running clear. She offered the stream to Cat, who knelt beside her.

Cat pushed the hose away. “You first.”

Molly held the stream against her lips and took in a mouthful of the cool water. She shook her head, swishing it around before spitting it out, trying to purge the taste of the rag. She ran more water over her lips and drank some down, enjoying the burn of the frigid fluid. She passed the hose back to Cat, who began splashing some on her face.

Molly collapsed against the dumpster behind her and looked up at the lone and naked bulb above, which cast a sad pool of light into the alley. On the other side of the restaurant, she could hear the blare of horns and the rattle of traffic. Occasional shouts from drunks and angry pedestrians reminded her that people were out there. Civilization, going about its nighttime business. Oblivious. Meanwhile, she cowered against a dumpster in some dark alley, a seeming world away. Her body was literally drained, and she felt lucky to be alive.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Molly said. She turned to the side and watched Walter pace up and down in the darkness, hissing to himself. “And then I need to alert the authorities, tell them what’s going on in that place.”

Cat swished some water in her mouth, then spit it out in a pale, blue stream. She wiped her chin with one of the few clean patches of her shirt. “Those probably were the authorities,” she said.

“They were going to kill me, weren’t they?” Molly inspected the mark in her arm, wondering how many times that needle had been used. Her vein seemed red and irritated, standing out against her pale skin. She worried she was imagining things. She looked up at Cat. “They’re rigging the elections, right? They were gonna take it all—every ounce I had, weren’t they?”

Cat nodded and splashed some water on her face. She looked up at Molly. “Was at least six dead in there.”

“But why?” Molly didn’t get it. Living people gave blood forever. It was as dumb as a parasite killing its host. Didn’t politicians need to keep their constituents alive, at the very least? She started to say something to Cat about it, then saw her face as the water washed away the blood. Molly leaned forward from the dumpster and gaped at the Callite’s lips, touching her own. “Your face—!”

“Still bad?” Cat asked, smiling a little.

“No, I—your lips, I could’ve sworn—”

“I’m fine.” Cat bent the hose to stop the flow and handed it out to Molly. “What about you? You need a doctor? They do anything ’sides bleed you?”

Molly drank some more water and shook her head. She ran the cool liquid over the pads of her fingers, numbing them a little. “No, I just… feel a little weak. I… I’d be dead if you hadn’t come along.”

“We!” Walter hissed from the darkness.

Cat and Molly smiled at each other, complete strangers sharing a post-adrenaline moment where bonds were immediate and humor oddly enticing. Again, she marveled at how untouched Cat appeared. What had seemed a missing tooth must’ve been darkened by blood. And perhaps some of the blood on her belonged to another Callite—from a donor bag, or something. She watched as Cat reached down to adjust one of the strips of fabric around her thigh, bringing it up to hide a tattoo of some sort, a purple line that encircled her brown, scaly leg.

“So, I’m Molly,” she said, holding out her hand. “Not quite how I’d hoped to meet you.”

Cat wiped her own hand on the back of her shorts and held it out.

“Gently, if you don’t mind,” Molly said. After shaking, she held her palm up for Cat to see. “I’m what they call a frequent voter.”

“Looks like you need a lesson on haggling, I’d say. Or at least on stocking up before an election.” Cat smiled at her, looking her up and down before shaking her head. “You was just a baby when I saw you last. Hand couldn’t wrap around my finger.”

Molly froze, the column of cool water splashing from the hose to the dirt. “Do I know you?” she whispered.

“Naw. Just saw you the once, after you was born.”

There was a sound down the alley, a banging and rattling noise like the lid of a garbage can falling. Cat leaned out and looked around the dumpster while Walter hissed with alarm.

“Probably a night glyph, but we should keep trucking. Can you walk? Them two boys behind the counter won’t be out forever, and I’m certain they’ll come looking for us. Especially after how we left their friends.”

Molly nodded and let Cat help her up. “Do you have a place nearby?” she asked Cat. “My ship might not be safe.”

“No. No place. No need, really.” She frowned at Molly. “Look, I knew your dad, and for him I’m glad to help you out. But once I get you tucked away someplace, I have a few things I wanna look into. Starting with that election joint.”

“Of course,” Molly said. “And I’ll—”

Cat raised her hand. “All I’m sayin’ is that I don’t have time for helping you track down your past, if that’s why you came hunting for me—”

“No, that’s not why—”

“There’s a lot I’d rather forget than stir up, is what I mean. And if the galaxy’s endin’ soon, you’re not gonna get a lotta complaints from me.”

Molly shook her head. “It’s not like that. I just need help getting in touch with a group of people. My mom said you’d know where to start, maybe introduce me.”

Walter popped out of the shadows, tugging on Molly and Cat. “Let’ss go,” he hissed, looking down the alley.

Cat nodded and pointed the way, causing Walter to scurry off into the shadows. Molly watched him go, marveling at how at-home he seemed in the dark, grimy alley. Cat pulled her along, her gait light and full of bounce, especially for someone who had just taken such a brutal beating. Molly racked her memory for information on Callites, whether they healed faster than Humans. She was pretty sure they didn’t.

“Wait a second,” Molly said, pulling Cat to a stop. “Exactly what are you?”

Cat laughed. “What am I? If I wasn’t what I seemed, would I tell you?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “It’s just… I’ve seen some things lately that didn’t turn out how I’d hoped. Men that weren’t really men—”

Cat took a step closer. “Listen, you need to up and run if you suspect shit like that. Don’t stand around gabbing—”

“Are you with the Bern?” Molly took a step back as soon as she heard herself utter the question. She looked around for Walter, her thoughts flitting to the last humanoid she’d encountered with godly powers and an uncanny resemblance to what he wasn’t.

Cat moved swiftly and seized Molly by the shoulders. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Molly attempted to pull away, but the woman’s vice-like grip held her firm and seemed to confirm what she was thinking—

“No, I’m not one of them,” Cat said. She let go and slapped Molly on the shoulder. “Now, c’mon. Walk and talk.”

Molly hesitated, rubbing her shoulder. Something rattled in the alley behind her, and she found herself hurrying forward, catching up with the mysterious woman.

“What are you, then?”

“What does it look like?” Cat peered over at her. “I’m a sodden Callite, that’s what. Well, mostly, I think.”

“You think?”

“You were born on Lok, weren’t you? How old were you when your pops took off?”

“Six. And yeah, I was born here. Almost on the other side of the planet, though.”

“Yeah, I know the place. Hell, maybe you were too young to remember, but Lok is a crazy place. There’s shit in the water.”

Molly looked over her shoulder at the receding pool of light by the dumpster. She spit to the side, the taste of the water from the hose already nasty with the hint of someone else’s blood.

Cat laughed. “Little late for that. Besides, it takes a lot before something goes wrong. And the city probably treats their shit.”

“You cuss an awful lot,” Molly pointed out.

“Yeah, well I fell in with some Drenards and I’ve been to hyperspace. Kinda narrows the expletive vocab, you know? Gotta go with the archaic shh— stuff.” Cat cupped her hands around her mouth. “Little man,” she hissed. “Next left.”

“You’ve been to hyperspace?” Molly felt her heart skip a beat; she hurried up beside Cat. “I—that’s why I came to find you. I need to get there myself.”

“What? Why’d you wanna go there? That place’ll give you one helluva migraine.”

Molly wasn’t sure what her mom wanted her divulging, but she felt like she was already erring on the side of un-caution just by being near the alien.

“My dad’s there,” she said. “Maybe a friend of mine as well.”

“Mortimor? What in the galaxy’s he doing there? Thought he slunk back to Earth years ago.”

Molly shook her head. “I don’t know.” She followed as Cat turned down another side-alley. “I’ve been told we need some special fuel.”

Cat laughed. “Yeah. That, and a hyperdrive that don’t exist. Speaking of which, you wanted to know what was in the water?”

“I have the hyperdrive, I think.”

“What?” Cat pulled Molly to a stop, right in the middle of the narrow side-alley. Molly looked to the side and saw Walter’s diminutive silhouette framed by another well-lit and busy street.

“You have the hyperdrive?”

“The hyperdrive?” Molly repeated. “I don’t even know what that means. But according to this Byrne guy, I think I opened the hole above Palan that my mom escaped from.”

“Your mom? Parsona? Ain’t she a little… dead?”

“The ship,” Molly said, realizing it would be easier to introduce them than explain it.

“Oh, that Parsona.” Cat gave her a brief, concerned glance, as if she were thinking it’s not healthy to anthropomorphize ships to such a degree. Instead of saying anything, however, she simply turned and gazed down the dark alley for a moment. “Well, if you say you opened a door like that, then you must have the drive.” She laughed to herself, shaking her head. “Damn, that’s a clever place to put it. Ryke must’ve rebuilt it though, or someone would’ve noticed.”

Molly froze. She had a flashback to the smelly guy in her ship pointing out something in the engine room to one of his Callite partners.

“Shit,” she said, tasting the old word, which mixed well with the after-taste of the foul rag. “I think we might have a problem.”

“What’s that?” Cat asked, following along as Molly hurried off toward Walter.

“The guys on my ship,” she said, “I think they know about the drive!”

She broke out into a trot, her head balanced on the knife edge of worry and woozy.

Cat came running up alongside her—the alien’s strides easy and effortless. “These guys you keep mentioning,” she said, “they didn’t happen to smell like raw death by any chance, did they?”

28

Edison grunted and stood up from another of the Bern computers. “Complete data destruction,” he said. “I hypothesize demagnetization.”

Anlyn frowned and stepped close to the control station’s carboglass window. Looking out, she could see their borrowed Bern ship locked to the end of the long coupling corridor. After the first few computers were found perfectly clean, she had assumed they all would be. Edison, bless him, thought the sampling size was “statistically insignificant,” and had insisted they check several more.

“Are you satisfied?” she asked, smiling at his reflection in the glass.

“They scuttled their endeavor completely,” he said.

Anlyn nodded. “Which still leaves us wondering if they gave up or just changed tactics.”

“I disagree.”

Anlyn turned to give him her full attention. Edison spoke while removing the battery and power inverter he’d been using to temporarily juice up the computers. “The Bern abstained from fleeing this structure in haste, nor did they sulk off in defeat. They methodically scrubbed everything.” Edison aimed a claw at a patch of the rubberized decking. “Impressions there and there indicate removed equipment containing much mass. Equipment repurposed elsewhere.”

“Yeah, but where? And why leave this place unguarded?”

Edison gestured beyond Anlyn. “Visualize. These structures are devoid of defenses. No impediments to movement, no blockades, all open vectors of sight, all engineered for offense, a launching pad for unbridled attack.”

Anlyn frowned. “With no worry of reprisal?” she asked.

Edison shook his head. “Without Drenardian fear,” he said. “More parallel to a Glemot’s clinical precision. You must cogitate as a Bern.”

Anlyn gazed back out the window, imagining the way she would set things up if she were expecting an attack. Edison was right. Her side of the rift was purely defensive, and she couldn’t help but think that way. For generations, her people had held the lines, learning how to build trenches that never budged. This side was all seek-and-destroy.

“It still doesn’t make sense to leave in such a hurry,” she said. “You think they just jumped into a star because it gave them a way around our barrier? Then why didn’t we hear about them from Bishar? Surely if an invasion had begun he’d have been notified by the Circle.”

“You’ve stated the exact quandary I’ve been pondering.”

Edison came over and rested a hand on Anlyn’s shoulder. “What becomes of interstellar craft that hyperjump into preexisting mass?”

Anlyn shrugged and lifted her empty hands, palm up. “They disappear?”

“Precisely, but to what location?”

“Nobody knows—they never come back.”

“Include this variable: assume the Bern determined a reliable method for returning.”

“Returning from where?”

“Hyperspace.”

Anlyn frowned. “Hyperspace isn’t a place, though, is it? It’s just a made-up name. An idea.”

“That is one possibility, statistically likely, perhaps. However, something interconnects point A to all possible point C’s. Travel requires existence. Movement must be analog, not digital. Objects occupy all states between.”

Anlyn scrunched up her face, trying to follow along. “The point B’s, you mean?”

“Correct. It’s not theoretically impossible that myriad such points constitute a physical place hyperjumpers travel through. If that supposition is correct, one logical conclusion could also explain—”

“What happens to bad navigators,” Anlyn finished for him. “So, if you accidentally jump into another object, you get inside hyperspace and you can’t come out. Like something is blocking your way.”

“Theoretically,” Edison said.

“Okay, so you’re stuck somewhere. Won’t your oxygen run out?”

“Probably. Perhaps hyperspace consists of a junkyard of failed navigational attempts, derelict ships drifting throughout a large void similar to the vacuum of space but without the stars. Survivors could temporarily resort to looting, taking by force oxygen and spares from recent arrivals—”

Anlyn laughed. “Is this a real theory, or an idea for a holovid? Sounds to me like wishful thinking on your part.”

“Incorrect. I’m being scientifically rational—”

“I can totally see you as a hyperspace pirate,” Anlyn said, squeezing his arm. “You’d be ferocious, and have the best ship with all these spare parts cobbled together. And a peg-leg!”

Edison flashed his teeth. “Humorous visual, but I am being unbiased and logical. Dwell on the theory and compare it to our observations. The Bern deduced something new about hyperspace, found a primal door that opens all others. Is that not what hyperspace is?”

“Nobody knows what hyperspace is,” Anlyn said.

“We know some. We know one can travel extreme distances through-out our galaxy. If it connects all that space, it logically follows it could connect even more. Perhaps we heard nothing of an invasion because the Bern are preparing their attack from within hyperspace. Perhaps they’re building structures similar to this one. Perhaps, when they attack, it’ll be from every possible vector at once—”

Edison’s eyes flashed, his fur bristling with all the signs Anlyn had come to recognize as him having an idea.

“That explains the most confounding variable! They do not calculate it necessary to be here because they can return at any time of their choosing. Instantaneously. Setting up in hyperspace is synonymous with setting up everywhere. They are here, by all practical military measures. More crucially, their raid could target Bishar and the Great Rift from hyperspace with less effort than from these obsolete stations. Perhaps—”

“These are a lot of ‘perhaps,’ coming from you.”

“Perhaps,” Edison said, smiling. “And perhaps we should forget the prophecy and our previously stated mission of peace. Transmitting word back to the Circle becomes direr, or ascertaining the Bern fleet’s location and effecting an ambush before they diverge along too many vectors to defend.”

“I don’t know,” Anlyn said. She looked out the glass, mulling it over. In the distance, the armored wall of the Great Rift could be seen, the gold glimmering like a nearby star. It felt strange to see an object residing in her own galaxy while her home was so impossibly distant and inaccessible.

She looked at the foreign design of the ship they had become stranded in. Massive and black, with menacing barrels and rocket pods, its fearsome demeanor hid its toothless condition. She looked down the hull at the strange squiggles adorning it.

“What’s its name?” she asked Edison.

“Increase specificity.”

“The ship,” she said, pointing. “What’s it called?”

Edison gazed out with her. “The Exponent,” he said.

“The Exponent,” she repeated. “How coincidental is that?”

“I believe ‘ironical’ is the correct term. Exponent is a mathematical notation for enormous numbers, and we are but two. It also pertains to rapid growth, and barring advances in xenobiology, such is statistically unlikely for us.”

Anlyn smiled and shook her head. “That’s what I love about English. So many words have multiple meanings, the reader ends up injecting some of their own. Like the Bern Prophecy, for instance.”

Edison grunted. “That’s what I loathe about the language. English can be imprecise when wielded improperly. It leads to conversational derailments such as this.”

“I don’t see a derailment—I see a detour. And where you see a mathematical notation, I see a deeper meaning, a coincidence that’s hard to ignore.” Anlyn turned and faced her love. “Exponent can also mean a person who brings forth a new or great idea. Like maybe the one you just had about hyperspace.”

Edison frowned down at her. She leaned close and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his tunic. “I think we need to test your theory, and that scares me,” she said.

Edison lightly stroked her back with his massive paws. They both looked to the side, out through the glass to the quiet cosmos beyond.

“I’m unable to deduce a reason for your frightened state,” Edison said. He smiled at Anlyn’s reflection. “Calculate the statistical likelihood of my incorrectness.”

29

“Hello? Son, can you hear me?”

Cole cracked his eyes. There were no goggles, no bright, searing light from everywhere, just the soft warmth of artificial bulbs. Two men leaned over him. One of them he recognized but couldn’t place. He had short hair and a generic-looking face. Very generic, like Cole had seen a hundred people who looked just like him.

The other man seemed slightly familiar as well. Cole blinked and attempted to bring them into focus. The second figure had wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, both laced with gray. Cole felt he should know their names.

“Can you hear me?” the man with the beard asked.

Cole nodded.

He looked around and saw the same room from his last dream: beds and curtains and white walls.

“Can you move your arm?”

Cole watched the lips move, forming the words. It all seemed to be happening at a normal pace. Very un-dream-like. He smiled up at the men.

“Your arm, son, can you move it?”

Cole raised his left arm. He tried to make a fist, but it felt weak and tingly, like he’d been asleep a long time.

The generic-looking man smiled. “The other one,” he said.

Cole continued to admire his own hand while the other arm came up. He lifted his head and stared at it in disbelief. It wasn’t his. Flaps of skin hung open like fleshy shutters. Inside, small pistons, bundles of wiring, metal plates—they moved at his command. He traced the mechanics down past a hinged elbow until it met his own flesh, the two slightly different colors of dark skin adjoining in a neat line.

“Very good,” someone said.

But it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. Cole tried to sit up, but several hands forced him down. He tried to complain, but a mask was placed over his face. He took a deep breath to protect himself from whatever was about to happen. He looked up at the man holding the mask and tried to remember where he knew the guy.

Dakura! The guy was a Stanley! Cole gasped in disbelief—then he found himself hoping and praying that all his nightmares had been dreams, some simulated hell—

All he got for the sudden intake of air, however, was a heaping lungful of the stuff from the mask…

He came to again, but in a different room. Sitting up, the various visions mixed together, confusing and piecemeal: his own face reflected in a visor, a boy he had murdered so many years ago, a girl with fiery red hair—

Cole looked down at the black bedsheets draped over him and the cot beneath. Glancing up, he saw an IV dripping fluids into his arm. Beyond, rows of elevated cots stretched down the narrow room, most of them full of still figures with their own IVs and breathing machines. Two doctors stood by one of the cots, obviously working on someone. Tools clattered on a tray; their heads remained bowed in concentration. One of them whispered commands to the other, calm but insistent.

Cole looked at the needle taped to his left arm. He turned and studied his right one. It appeared perfectly normal. He couldn’t keep all the nightmares straight, couldn’t sort out the real from the unreal. He hoped Riggs was part of the latter. It certainly hadn’t felt real at the time. But then, some things he knew to be dreams had felt incredibly, indelibly real…

Hoping to sort the true from the fake, Cole tapped along his right arm with the pads of his fingers. He came across tendons, but they felt strange and unyielding. He felt the same part of his other arm, just to make sure. Completely different. Except that he could sense stuff through this other hand, could feel with the pads of the fingers as if they were real. He was pretty sure that sort of thing was still science fiction.

Cole pulled the sheets back and discovered he wore the barest of coverings: a surgical gown made of some thin material. He started to swing his legs off the cot to see if he could stand, when an alien groan emanated from the body next to him. Cole watched the bulky form stir slightly beneath its black sheets, then fall still.

When he looked back to the doctors, he saw one of them looking his way. It was a Stanley, there wasn’t any doubt. He held up a gloved hand—blue latex dappled with blood—and said something to the other person, the doctor whose back was to Cole.

When she spun around, Cole recognized the hair immediately. It was mostly tucked away under the hood of the surgical gown, but bright, red trails of it hung down over the white, making the splattered blood on her gown seem pale and lifeless by comparison. The girl’s eyes met his for a brief instant—then she dashed out of the room, leaving the Stanley to continue his work alone.

Cole grabbed his pillow and sat upright. He then became distracted by his arm, as it had done what he’d asked without him having to think about it. He held it up again and flexed his fingers one at a time. The girl and another man strode into the room, both of them visible between his new digits.

It was the man with the beard. Cole tried to place his face as he crossed the room; the girl went right back to helping the Stanley.

“Where am I?” Cole asked, as the figure approached his bed.

The man ignored the question. He grabbed a stool from beside another cot and rolled it next to Cole’s before sitting down.

Cole realized who he was, the sudden recognition hitting him like a bullet. He remembered seeing the man’s face—a younger face—in pictures aboard Parsona.

“Mortimor?”

The man nodded. “It’s Cole, right? You’re the kid I spoke to over the D-band?” Mortimor glanced at Cole’s new hand. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but let’s wait until you get used to using it.”

Cole pushed himself back on the cot, sitting up even more as he tried to clear his head. “You’re Molly’s—you’re her father,” he said.

Mortimor frowned. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but we’ve got some problems, and I need answers. Let’s start with who you are and how you got here. Then I’d like to hear how you know Molly and where she is. Also, I need to know where that Drenardian band is you were thinking through the other day. I know it’s a lot to dump on you, but we don’t have a lot of time, if we have any.”

Cole swiped his hair off his forehead and tried to swallow, but his mouth felt dry, his tongue swollen. “Can I get some water?” he asked.

“Penny!” Mortimor snapped his fingers. “Some water,” he said, after she turned.

She rushed off, and Mortimor turned back to Cole. “Is Molly okay? How do you know her? And why were you wearing one of my flightsuits?”

“We found the ship,” Cole said.

“Parsona?”

Cole nodded.

“How—?” Mortimor stared at the wall beyond Cole. “What about the man aboard the ship?”

Cole shook his head. “No one was aboard. But we did… we found what was in the ship. The hidden thing.”

Mortimor narrowed his eyes, and Cole suddenly felt trapped in one of those situations where two people both know a secret, but don’t know how to tell the other person they know without giving the secret away in case they don’t.

“Where did you find it?” Mortimor asked, obviously feeling caught in the same snare.

Cole chose his words carefully: “In the chart data.”

Mortimor nodded, but something else seemed to flash behind his eyes. Relief?

“Did you serve with Molly? You seem a bit young.”

“We were cadets together. At the Academy.” Cole looked up as the girl reentered the room. More of her hair had come loose as she hurried to the cot. She held a glass of water in her bare hands, her gloves pulled off. Cole felt a wave of guilty excitement from seeing her. He noted her freckles and the way her cheeks were flushed from the rapid walk. He barely managing to nod his thanks as he reached for the glass—

“Ah… left hand,” Mortimor said, pointing.

Cole obeyed. He smiled at the girl, who turned away quickly, hurrying back to Stanley. Cole took a long swig from the glass, dribbling some down his chin. He went to wipe it off his mouth with his right hand, but Mortimor grabbed his wrist.

“Careful,” he said. “People tend to hurt themselves at first, even with the temporary limiters.” He reached down and used part of Cole’s sheet to dabble at the moisture on his chin. The way he did it—like a doctor tending to a patient—suddenly made Cole feel like a useless invalid.

“You’ll need some therapy,” Mortimor said. “Some training. First, though, back to Molly…”

“Yeah.” Cole took another sip of water and swallowed. “We were flight partners in the Academy. I was sent with her to get the ship. Everything went to hell from the beginning—”

“Byrne?” Mortimor asked.

“What? No, that came after. Hell, I just found out about him. You do know he’s here, right?”

Mortimor nodded.

“Okay, no, our problems started on Palan, some pirates there—”

“Palan? What in the galaxy were you doing on Palan?”

“That’s—that’s where the ship was. I don’t know what—”

“No, that’s fine.” Mortimor shook his head. He looked back to the Stanley, who was peering over his patient at their conversation. “So, I imagine Parsona told you what needed doing. Where did things go wrong? On Dakura? Lok? Is Molly okay?”

“Go wrong?”

Cole looked for some place to set the glass, then gave up. “Things went wrong everywhere.” He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “We barely got out of Palan alive, we committed genocide on our way back to Earth, the Navy framed me and we had to kill Lucin—”

“What?” Mortimor pushed away from Cole’s cot, a wary eye on his right arm. “Two guards!” he shouted to Stanley. Several of the nearby forms stirred from the outburst.

Cole held up both hands. “No, that—it wasn’t like that. He was about to shoot Molly, I swear. He’s the guy who set us up, who had us go get your ship.”

Mortimor squinted at Cole. Two aliens ran into the room dressed in Navy black, reaching for weapons at their sides. Mortimor held up his hand, keeping them at bay.

“How did you end up here?”

“I don’t know. Molly and I split up on our way to Lok. I made a jump. I was in a Firehawk with a friend—”

Cole stopped, whatever words he had queued up next shattered in a spasm of anguish. He thought of Riggs, dead by his own hands.

It had been real. That part had been very, very real.

He leaned forward, rested his face into both palms, and began to cry. There was no escaping into his skull this time—no shrinking down and getting away from it. There was nobody to hurt, to take it out on. There was just the shame and the depression, the guilt and the torment, wrapping their tentacles around him, squeezing the air out of his chest.

“Leave us,” he heard Mortimor say.

Cole tried to remember where he was, to get a grip on himself, but the scramble for sanity just made him fall even faster. He sobbed into his hands, the tears dripping through his fingers.

“My friend—” he croaked, his voice high and embarrassing.

Mortimor came to him, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Take your time,” he said.

“My friend’s legs,” Cole sobbed.

“Shhhh. I know. It’s okay, son.”

Cole shook his head and swallowed. He licked the salt from his lips. “It’s not okay,” he mumbled. “Nothing’s okay. Molly—” He pushed his hands up through his hair, clenching fistfuls until the roots tingled with pain.

“Where is she?” Mortimor whispered.

The question hung in the air between them, between two strangers. They knew almost nothing of each other, but they both orbited that same drifting unknown, that haunting absence in both their lives. For Cole, the question opened some internal hatch holding back all his atmosphere, and the vacuum sucked at it. His body quaked with grief as a moan unlike any he’d ever uttered welled up and out.

Mortimor wrapped his arms around Cole and pulled his head to his shoulder. Cole latched on and cried even harder, a thousand horrible things dragging their claws across his insides as they were yanked through that newly opened hatch. He cried and fought it, trying to keep them in. Shame and guilt, they tore through him, far more powerful than the embarrassment of breaking down in front of a stranger.

Mortimor waited. Despite his sense of urgency, he let the lad have it out. He could very well imagine the things the boy had been through. While the young man’s frame shuddered with agony, he looked around the room protectively. He looked to the others in their cots, to their heads lifting from pillows, their faces full of empathy and regret. Mortimor clenched his jaw and didn’t say a word—he just let the boy have his cry.

It was all he could do to not join in.

30

“Did they smell like raw death?” Molly repeated. “They smelled worse than that!”

She hurried alongside Cat, wondering what the Callite knew about the people on her ship. And worried about what they might know about the mysterious hyperdrive within it.

The two of them left the dark alley and crossed the main road leading out of town. They angled toward the stables, cutting between two more buildings and running past Walter, who had become distracted in front of an electronics boutique. Finally, they darted into another alley to get out of the glow of the streetlights, the blood on them both conspicuous. They jogged along the side road parallel to the bustling strip Molly had walked down earlier that day.

“Are they—will they steal my ship?” she asked Cat, panting between the words.

“Depends.”

“They said they knew my father, does that narrow things down?” Molly glanced back and urged Walter along. Then something occurred to her—and she felt like she was going to throw up. Reaching up to her neck, she felt the empty air there, and had a sensation like she was missing some part of herself.

“The Wadi!” She stopped and yelled back to Walter, who jogged up to join them, panting. “Where is she?”

Walter’s eyes widened. He reached down and unzipped something on his flightsuit, and her Wadi burst out amid a cloud of colorful confetti like a cannonball followed by fake, pixelated smoke. It leapt to the ground and ran to Molly, scampering up to her neck and sticking its head down the back of her shirt. Molly’s heart nearly burst with relief. She kept one hand on its back and rubbed the stubble of Walter’s head.

“You’re the best,” she said, stooping over to kiss his forehead.

Behind her, Cat clapped her hands. “The ship?” she said.

Molly turned and nodded, and the three of them set off at a jog, the Wadi’s claws digging into her skin as it held on.

“The Callites are huge,” Molly warned Cat. “Bigger than the guy beating you up at that blood-letting place.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Cat said.

“Lots bigger,” she added, trying not to sound winded.

“Trust me,” Cat said, her voice even and smooth. “It won’t be a problem.”

They ran along in silence for a while, the buildings thinning as they reached the outskirts of town. Ahead, Molly could see the beginnings of the stables. Most of the ships had their anchor lights on, red over white up the back of their tails or on extended rods for the ships that eschewed tails altogether. Molly berated herself for having not turned hers on; but then, she hadn’t expected to be out all day.

“Where’re you parked?” Cat asked.

“Other side of the johns.” Molly pointed in the general direction, but didn’t need to. They were downwind from them and could’ve nosed their way in the dark. “What’s the plan?” she asked. “Should we get Pete for backup?”

Cat laughed. “He’d get in the way. The plan is for you to wait outside and for me to go in and handle it. I’ll try not to get blood all inside your ship.”

Molly wasn’t sure what to make of that. They ran past a few ships, ducking under wings here and there to cut down the distance. She yelled back at Walter to watch a power cord snaking from one of the pedestals toward a ship, then heard him trip over it and bite the dust, anyway.

“The loading ramp was down when I left, but I don’t— there!” Molly reached for Cat, trying to slow her up. “That’s her right there.”

Cat held up her hand. “I see her,” she said. “Wait outside.”

Molly nodded; she followed behind as Cat ran to the ship. She stopped just outside—close enough to hear what was going on. Walter caught up, dusting himself off as Cat disappeared up the boarding ramp. The two crewmembers crouched in the shadows, panting and looking at each other with wide eyes. The Wadi leaned over from Molly’s shoulder and hissed at Walter, the first time she’d ever seen it do that.

“No,” she whispered to the animal. She turned the other direction and peeked around the corner and into the cargo bay. She hated the idea of waiting and letting someone else take the risk alone; she felt on the verge of going in to investigate, when Cat came back down the ramp, her posture relaxed.

“Are they gone?” Molly asked.

Cat shook her head. “No, they’re sleeping—”

“Good! Then we can take them by surprise. I can rig up a taser from the twenty-four volt panel, hit them with wires—”

Cat waved her off. “No doing,” she said. “I know these guys.”

“You know them?”

“Yeah,” Cat said, nodding. “Old friends of mine. And they’re exhausted, so why don’t I introduce you in the morning?”

“Introduce me? I want them off my ship!”

Cat leaned her head to one side. “I doubt that,” she said. “These are the people you’ve been wanting to meet.”

Molly woke up in the pilot’s chair sideways, her feet over the control console. She had an awful crick in her neck and a Wadi on it—the creature was curled up under her chin and snoring contentedly. Dawn had come and gone, the sun fully up and heating the cockpit, giving her the headache she always suffered from rising late.

She moved the Wadi to the back of her seat before sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that she was starving. Secondly, that the nav chair was empty. She leaned forward and turned on the cargo cam, then grabbed the helmet behind her. When the vid screen came up, she saw Walter pulling the galley apart to cook breakfast.

“Morning,” she said into her helmet, greeting her mom.

“Morning, sweetheart. Are you feeling better?”

Molly adjusted the volume and pulled the visor shut to muffle her own voice.

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t talk more last night. I was on empty.”

“Literally, from the sound of it. Sweetheart, before we do anything else, we need to look into this election place, find out who else has disappeared. This could—it could go back to one of the cases your father and I were working on.”

“Really? What would the elections have to do with fusion fuel?”

“Nothing, but when your father and I were stationed here, our main investigation kept getting sidetracked by a never-ending string of missing persons cases.”

“I remember you telling me that. Well, the other you. On Dakura.” Molly paused, trying to remember some things and forget others. “Do you think I just avoided becoming one of those missing people?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t an election year when we arrived, and yet some of the cases went back several years and were pretty steady. Maybe this is something different.”

“Maybe they preserve the blood,” Molly said. “They could steal it over time and then flood the polls with votes.”

“That’s what I don’t understand about what they did to you. The tally machines don’t work that way, otherwise donor banks would run dry every six years. The machines do skin conductance readings to make sure the voter is present, and they look for chemicals in the blood that have a very short shelf life, hormones and what-not.”

“Well, the boxes in that place were marked ‘Votes,’ and Walter said the building was some kind of election joint.”

“Which is how I would hide blood if I were stealing it,” Parsona said.

“Stealing it for what?” Molly asked, exasperated. “Why do you have to make everything more complicated?”

Her mom didn’t reply, and Molly regretted the outburst. She looked down at the Wadi, who had crawled into her lap and was looking up at her, a pink tongue spiraling in the air between them.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” Molly said.

“It’s okay. I probably deserve worse.”

“No. You don’t.” Molly held the sides of her helmet and groaned. “This is just too much for me to handle, I think I… I need Cole, or somebody. Can we just go to hyperspace, find him and dad, just deal with all this other stuff later?”

“I think that’s a good idea, actually. We’ll talk about it after breakfast.” The cargo cam panned up toward the crew quarters, drawing Molly’s attention. “Walter’s cooking is waking the ship.”

Molly watched as two of the squatters emerged from their bunks. Her bunks, she corrected herself.

Molly flipped up her visor. “I’m gonna send Cat up here and have her put on Walter’s helmet. I haven’t told her about you, so break it however you like. Hopefully the two of you can figure out what to do next—I don’t think I can handle being in charge of this.”

“I need to talk to her anyway, find out how soon we can fill up with fusion fuel. Now, go drink plenty of juice, okay? I don’t want you doing anything for the next few days besides resting up and recharging.”

Molly mumbled a promise before popping off her helmet. She left it in the nav chair with the visor open and shooed the Wadi into what had become its favorite home. She crawled over the controls and exited the cockpit, entering a fog of tasty aromas.

“Good morning, guys.” She nodded warily to the two men, then squeezed Walter on the shoulder as he tended a skillet layered with popping meat.

Scottie tipped a non-existent hat at her. “You must’ve come in late. Sure left in a flash.” He crossed the cargo space toward the galley, and Molly saw he was wearing one of Cole’s favorite t-shirts, his bulk stretching it near to bursting. The sight of it on him undid everything the smell of breakfast was attempting with her tastebuds. It also made it easy to forget that these were the people she needed to associate with.

“I’m Scottie,” he said, holding out his hand toward Walter.

Walter shrugged and held up two cooking utensils, as if putting them down to shake would entail some exhausting ordeal. “Walter,” he mumbled back, the sizzle of frying meat almost hiding the annoyed hiss that came after.

“This is Urg,” Scottie said, patting the large Callite on the back. Molly recognized him as the near-mute from the day before. Nods were exchanged. She marveled at how close the Callite came to filling one of Edison’s flightsuits. Seeing these strangers in her crew’s clothing sent ripples up and down her flesh. A full day of loathing these men had built up some sort of venom within her. Being told that these were the people she’d been looking for wasn’t much of an antidote. She felt slightly nauseas from their presence—so much so, it took a while to notice their stench had disappeared.

“You guys figured the showers out?” she asked, rounding up mugs for everyone.

“Yeah,” Scottie said. “I really appreciate you letting us shack up here and get cleaned up. We’ve had… some real troubles the past week or so.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to stay for one more night, but we need to work out a different bunk arrangement. You guys can double-up or someone can sleep out here. Oh, and once we top up with fuel, we’ll be moving on, so it’s best you start looking for something more permanent.”

Scottie glanced at Urg. They both accepted cups of instant coffee from Molly.

“Additives are in the fridge,” she told them. “I’m gonna get Cat up, but your other friend can sleep as long as he likes.” She headed across the cargo bay.

“Oh, Ryn’s not in there. He left early this morning to… take care of some things. Should be back by noon.”

Molly waved over her shoulder to let him know she’d heard, but continued to Walter’s room. She keyed the door open and turned the lights on dim. Cat was sitting up in the bunk with her legs crossed, staring at the door.

“Morning,” Molly said, wondering how long she’d been sitting like that.

“Morning. Everyone else up?”

“Yeah. Coffee’s the instant kind. Breakfast’ll be ready soon.”

Cat popped up and stepped toward her. Her hair was wet, as if she’d recently showered. She had on the clothes Molly had set out for her. In the dim light, her face looked flawless, or unscathed at least, a very far cry from how Molly had first seen her. She also looked small in a plain shirt and shorts. Her wiry muscles seemed lean with their definition hidden. Molly wouldn’t have given her a second glance in a crowd, even with the bright hair knotted back on her head.

“Hey,” Molly said, “before you do anything else, I need you to go to the cockpit and talk to someone.”

Cat lowered her brow to something between curious and wary. “Who?”

“There’s a helmet on the starboard rack. Just put it on, the mic is still live. And don’t be alarmed if the door shuts behind you, okay?”

Cat narrowed her eyes but nodded. She headed toward the cockpit while Molly checked in on the other rooms to make sure everything was intact. The engine room, especially.

When she got back to the cargo bay, a plate piled high with meat and eggs was waiting on her. She grabbed a few pieces of bread and took one of the empty crewseats, pulling out the table in the handrest. Everyone else had already dove in, filling the room with contented, smacking sounds. Molly watched them eat, wondering why she felt so alone with so many people on the ship. She also marveled at how she could possibly feel anything other than ravenous.

She ate slowly, forcing everything down. She had to remember her promise to her mom and her pragmatic need for sustenance—her appetite simply wasn’t there anymore. Walter set a glass of local juice on her tray. She took a sip, then touched her arm around the bandaid, wincing at the bruised and sore feeling that had spread from the needle. She couldn’t tell if it had gotten worse overnight, or if it was getting better.

“You okay?” Scottie asked.

Molly glanced up. “Cat didn’t say anything about last night?”

“Only that attendance was light and she didn’t find many takers at the pub.”

Molly watched him take another large bite and chew voraciously. Beside him, Urg continued to cut his food into tiny pieces and eat them with careful, steady precision, chewing subtly before swallowing. Molly wondered why Cat hadn’t said anything about her ordeal—if it was a trust issue, or just a result of the late hour.

“What’s she doing in the cockpit?” Scottie asked.

Molly shrugged. “I hope she’s lining up a tank of fuel.” She stabbed blindly at a bite of food and watched Scottie and Urg glance at one another. “You wouldn’t know where I could find some, would you?”

Scottie took a bite of his toast and made a show of chewing, but he was obviously considering how best to answer.

“I might know someone,” he said around a mouthful of masticated bread. He swallowed. “I have to warn you, though, the price has gone up considerably.”

Molly looked over at Walter, who was following the conversation closely. “I can pay,” she said.

“I’d be surprised. It’s gone up a lot.” Scottie smiled and jabbed his fork in her direction. “I think we could work something out, though. Barter with something besides cash.”

Molly felt her throat constrict with disgust, even though she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Bartering goess through me,” Walter said, leaning forward from his seat.

Scottie looked from Molly to him, then back again. He raised his eyebrows and took a loud sip from his coffee.

“Give me a price before you tell me we can’t pay,” Molly said.

“The price,” he said, setting down his mug, “is the use of your ship for a few weeks.”

Molly slapped her fork to her plate, then grabbed her armrest and squeezed so tight, it felt like her hand would lock there forever. She found it difficult to unclench her jaw to reply, so she hissed through her teeth: “Never.”

Scottie smiled and held up his fists—a knife in one and a fork in the other. “It’d be for a good cause,” he said. “You’d be helping a lot of people out.”

“There are other people needing my help more. Tell you what, you give me a tank of fuel and I’ll come back in a week and you can ask my dad to use his ship.”

“I thought it was your ship,” said Scottie.

“Our ship. Same thing. Look—” Molly released the armrest and grabbed her napkin. She dabbed the corners of her mouth with it. “I’ve been traipsing across Lok for two weeks looking for some of this fuel. I don’t have time for—”

“For my people,” Urg said quietly.

Molly looked over to the Callite, his broken silence stunning her into one of her own.

“You haven’t been here when one of the shuttles goes up, have you?” Scottie asked.

Molly shook her head, but then she remembered the craft she and Walter had seen lift off from the café. “Did one go up yesterday?” she asked.

Scottie nodded.

“I saw it,” she said. “And you say it was a shuttle?”

“An immigrations shuttle. During election years, they round up Callites with expired work permits and ship them home.”

“But that’s the law, right?”

Scottie frowned. He reached over and rested a hand on Urg’s arm, even though the Callite didn’t seem to be making an effort to rise, or even speak.

“Things aren’t right or wrong because they’re the law. They’re supposed to be the law because they’re right or wrong.”

“Look,” Molly said. She pushed her eggs away from her toast, but her meager appetite had dwindled to nothing. “I don’t want to argue politics, or whatever. I’m not trying to be a crusader. I just want to get back to my family. Surely you can understand—”

“I do,” said Urg. “I understand.”

Molly glanced up and locked eyes with the massive Callite; she watched his lids scissor shut in a slow blink.

“I want my family back as well,” he said.

“Can’t you just go home to them?” Molly asked. “That’s all I’m trying to do, get back with my family.”

Urg shook his head.

“They were on yesterday’s shuttle,” Scottie said.

Molly looked back and forth between them. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she whispered. “Maybe it would be best if he just—”

“The shuttle was shot down by that fleet up there,” Scottie continued. “The last four shuttles have all been sent crashing straight back to Lok, no shots fired, nothing. They just go limp and fall back to the prairie. It’s like they get halfway to orbit and just give up.”

Molly looked from Scottie to Urg, disbelieving. “It crashed?”

“All of them have for the last two weeks.”

“With people on them?”

Scottie leaned forward slightly. “My two friends should’ve been on that last one. With their families.”

Molly looked down at her plate where she had idly swirled her food into a miserable mess.

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“They won’t stop,” Scottie said. “They’ll round up more today and more the day after, right up to the elections.”

“But why would they—?” Molly shook her head. Surely they wouldn’t. She dropped her fork and reached for the bandage around the crook of her arm, rubbing it reflexively. Looking down at the red skin spreading out from the puncture wound, she considered that they possibly would.

“It’s the same to them,” said Urg, as he shrugged his massive shoulders. “Gone is gone.”

Molly turned to him, saw the deep furrows in his scaly forehead that seemed to convey confusion rather than the sad resignation in his voice.

“Then why come here?” she asked. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I don’t mean to blame you, but why risk it?”

“The government on Shurye isn’t much better,” Scottie said, speaking for his friend. “There’s just as much of a chance taken by sitting still.”

“Everything is chance,” said Urg.

Something beeped. Molly looked over, thinking it was an alarm of some sort, then saw Walter had finished eating and had brought out his videogame.

“I feel bad for your loss,” she said, turning back to Urg. “Truly, I do. I lost my family when I was younger, so I hope you can understand what it feels like to have a chance to get them back. Besides, I can’t do anything about that fleet, and the law is probably not on your side—”

“Screw the law,” spat Scottie. “This isn’t about law or legality—”

Molly looked down at her plate and away from the outburst.

Scottie took a deep breath, calming himself.

“Think about what the law is saying,” he said. “People born inside one invisible line are confined there. Even if they wanna pay the taxes, buy some land, obey the local rules, they aren’t allowed to move. They don’t have the basic freedom to choose where to live or where to raise their families. It’s like the days of being born a cobbler’s son and having to become a cobbler.”

“There’s legal immigration,” Molly said, unable to restrain herself from arguing her point.

“And there’s limits to that, which means after a certain number, we get right back to that invisible line a sentient being can’t cross. This isn’t about laws. It’s about xenophobia. It’s about Lokians scared their planet will be overrun, that its future makeup might be different than what it was in the past.”

Molly shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the primary motivation—”

“No?” Scottie pushed his plate across the galley table and leaned back in his seat. “I think you’re wrong. The same government restricting immigration from Shurye does everything it can to get more Terrans to move here. And I don’t think you understand how much good you could do with this ship of yours.”

Molly stood up and stacked her plate with Scottie’s and Walter’s. She scraped her leftovers in the degrader before piling the dishes in the sonic washer.

“You guys can stay here until you find a safe place,” she said. “I’ll pay you double the market value for the fuel, or I’ll ask you to point me in another direction. I’ll even let you use the ship when I get back, but I won’t be delayed. I can’t be.” She looked over Walter’s head to Urg, whose lids flicked together once, removing the wet sheen from his eyes.

“I just can’t,” she said.

Molly topped up her coffee and crossed the cargo bay to open the ramp and let in some fresh air. She leaned against the jamb with her second cup and peered through the steam as the metal decking swung out and into the dusty stable lot.

Outside, several crews from other ships performed their daily chores, making Molly feel like there was something productive she should be doing. They washed down their hulls, performed repairs out on their wings, scrubbed bugs off the carboglass, all reminders of the tasks she’d been neglecting. The weather was great for the work, but she could tell it was going to get hot later in the day. And without a breeze, it wouldn’t be long before those crews went scurrying back inside, hovering around the AC vents and waiting until nighttime to finish the day’s work.

She blew on her coffee and was about to take a sip when she noticed a cluster of men crawl up on a wing a few ships to Parsona’s rear. One of them held something to his head, a portable radio, perhaps. Everyone in the group looked back to the west, shielding their eyes from the sun.

Molly leaned out from the doorway and followed their gazes. She noticed several other captains and crewmembers exiting their ships to look the same direction.

“What’s going on?” she asked a young man in coveralls, who was running between her ship and the neighbor’s.

“A fleet,” the guy yelled over his shoulder. “There’s a massive new fleet on SADAR!”

Molly looked to the sky, her hand shading her eyes. She couldn’t see anything, but she thought she heard a rumble growing, like distant thunder.

Scottie joined her by the ramp. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Something—” Molly cursed herself and ran back inside. She keyed open the cockpit and apologized to Cat. Leaning over the control console, she fired up the SADAR and waited for it to initialize.

“You okay?” Cat asked.

“I think there’s something going on in orbit,” Molly told her.

The SADAR popped up, and she extended the range. There was the cluster of the Bern fleet overhead, which hadn’t changed much—just grown since she’d last looked. The largest of them dominated the group, the one she liked to think of as Lok’s new potato-shaped moon.

“There!” Cat said, pointing.

“I see it,” Molly said. A cluster of new targets were in motion, and more were streaming in behind—blips that signified ships popping out of hyperspace. And something about the formation triggered a tremor of recognition in Molly.

“Can your mom see this?” Cat asked. “Nevermind, she just said she could now that the SADAR is on.”

“Yeah, that’s how it works. I think I know what—”

Cat raised her hand as red warning lights flashed on SADAR. Molly reached to locate the threat, when Cat grabbed her wrist.

“You need to hear this,” she said, pulling the helmet off.

Molly switched to the external radio and hit the “Center Target” button.

“—yday, mayday,” the voice crackled. “Cruiser Engala has been hit by something. No flight controls. Gravity sensors are haywire. Mayday, mayday, ma—”

The radio fell silent. The SADAR centered on the cluster of new targets that had just jumped in-system, their IDs blinking as Parsona’s computers scanned them. But Molly didn’t need to wait for the computer to do its work. She knew the formation without needing the ships’ IDs:

Navy.

The cavalry had arrived.

“We need to get into flightsuits and scramble,” Molly said.

“We’re no help up there,” Cat said. “We need to hunker down.”

Molly looked at the screen. The Bern ships were moving, responding to the Navy fleet. Only—they seemed to be moving away from them. Her normally tactical brain remained blank, not knowing what the Bern ships were capable of. It felt like the beginning of a surprise simulation, those tense moments when you weren’t sure who you were up against. She reached for the dash and started warming the thrusters and cycling the hyperdrive, just in case.

“Why don’t you grab some food?” she said to Cat. She fought to keep her voice calm as several of the red Navy targets began flashing with mayday beacons. It made no sense. The Bern ships seemed to be retreating, but the Navy fleet was winking with distress.

“I’m not that hungry,” Cat said, “but I get your drift. Tell your mom we ain’t done talking.” She crawled out of the nav seat and handed the helmet to Molly before exiting the cockpit.

Molly put the helmet on its shelf and leaned over the nav seat to tap the top of her own. The Wadi came out with a sleepy look; she scooped it up and followed Cat into the cargo bay. “Walter, take the Wadi and make sure it eats plenty.” She looked down the ramp as Walter pulled the hissing creature from her arms. “Scottie, I need you to come back inside. We’re buttoning up.”

“What about Ryn?” he asked.

“We’ll let him in when he gets here, if we’re still here when he gets back.”

“If we’re still here? We aren’t going anywhere without—”

A loud blast cut him off, and Scottie fell forward as a wave of compressed air rocked the ship. Something exploded nearby. Molly ran to him, helping him up as a wall of dust and debris roared across the stables.

Molly’s hair stirred from the breeze of concussed air. The incredible noise left her ears ringing, but she didn’t see a fireball, didn’t feel heat in the air from a munitions blast. She ran to the door, squinting into the storm of dust that had risen around the neighboring hulls.

Another impact boomed farther away and was followed by the rumble of kinetic energy. Molly looked up—Firehawks and larger ships were raining down through the atmosphere, clear across the sky to the horizon. They dropped through the air with the glow of accidental reentry, leaving behind trails of dirty smoke.

“What the flank?” Scottie asked, peering out beside her. “Holy hell,” he said, “it’s like the shuttles—”

“Get inside,” Molly told him. “We need to get out of here.”

31

Cole stared up at the ceiling of his new room. He lay in a narrow bunk, the one beside him empty. He wondered if Mortimor’s people had that much extra space, or if it had belonged to one of the aliens he’d seen die on the Luddite’s moving village. Maybe it had belonged to someone who had perished during that raid, a raid he assumed was meant to rescue him.

He ran bits of that hellish scene over and over in his head; he thought back to the conversation with Byrne and tried his best to remember everything he had spoken of. He puzzled over the strange way time seemed to alter around that mast. He recalled with a shudder the horror of fleeing across the deck, of being chased… he stopped himself before he got to what came next.

Cole rubbed his face. So much had happened over the past few days, so much information had passed through his ears, it made him feel like a cadet cramming for an exam even though they knew they didn’t stand a chance. The clock beside his bunk went off for the third time. Cole slapped its top and tried to fight off the depression. He’d lain around recuperating for half a day, and now he was late for his orientation and rehab. Begrudgingly, he tore off his sheet and swung his feet off the cot. He reached for the outfit they’d left folded on the stool: a faded pair of civilian denims and a t-shirt with a logo for some unknown sports team. He was thankful to not be donning Navy Blacks, which most of people he’d seen seemed to be wearing. He also hoped they had burned whatever remained of his flightsuit—he didn’t want to see the stains in them ever again.

Dropping the surgical gown, Cole stepped into the faded pants and pulled them up. For a bit of practice, he used his right hand to work the zipper. He didn’t understand what Mortimor had meant by rehab—the thing worked perfectly well, just like a real hand. The zipper slid up smoothly, the hand firm and steady—and then it kept on coming, the metal tab ripping off with a soft click.

Cole held up the broken piece to inspect it. In the shiny, neatly sheared ends of the snapped metal, he got his first glimpse of what Mortimor had meant.

“They’re waiting on you.”

Cole snapped his head up just in time to see a flash of red hair swirling through the air, following the speaker out through the door. Her voice rang in his ears, burning his cheeks. He shook his head and cursed at himself, then closed his eyes and pictured Molly.

With red hair.

“Aw, c’mon!” he said, clasping both hands to his face in frustration.

And regretting it immediately.

When Cole left the room, he saw Mortimor and the Stanley conferring at the end of the hall; he hurried down to meet them.

“What did you do to your face?” Mortimor asked, his eyes wide.

Cole touched his bruised cheek, using the only hand he trusted at the moment. “I was practicing what I’m gonna do to the guy who took my arm,” he said.

“Oh, boy,” the Stanley said, smiling. “Another hothead.”

Cole returned the robot’s smirk, then noticed something strange about the Stanley. The skin around the mouth was perfectly natural, not folded and plastic-looking. Cole’s hand fell to own lip, his jaw dropping.

“We haven’t been formally introduced,” the man said. “I’m Arthur. Arthur Dakura.”

“You’re not a Stanley,” Cole said.

Arthur laughed. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, not really. I guess you could say they’re me. I modeled them after me, anyway.”

Mortimor grinned and slapped Arthur on the back. “C’mon, let’s walk. You boys can chat on the way.”

He pulled Arthur along, and Cole hurried after them. At the end of the hallway, the trio turned a corner, and Cole got his first glimpse of the motley makeup of the place’s inhabitants. Callites and Delphians and several races he’d never seen pictures of strolled in and out of connecting passageways. The place had the bustle of the Academy during a drill. Hallways, offices, classrooms, dormitories—each room they passed had a chaos of bodies stirring within. All manner of creature moved between the doorways, but only a smattering of Humans.

Cole tried not to flinch as a male Drenard rounded the corner wearing a white combat suit. The blue alien nodded to Mortimor, who greeted the massive alien in a different language. Cole held up a finger, like a student with a question. He watched the Drenard pass, his jaw hanging agape. Arthur tugged him along, asking a question before Cole could get his own out:

“I take it from your confusion of my identity that you’ve met my simulacrums. How long ago were you there?”

“Dakura?” Cole looked over his shoulder as the Drenard ducked into another doorway. “Um, a week? Or less, actually. I’m not sure, to tell the truth.”

“Just a week?” Cole turned back to Arthur and saw the man’s eyes grow wide. Arthur rested a hand on Cole’s shoulder as they steered through traffic after Mortimor. “Tell me, how was the planet looking?”

“The planet? It was, uh, dark gray. Kinda boring, to be frank.”

“Dark gray? Excellent!” Arthur clapped his hands together. “Brilliant.”

“Yeah, real nice place you got there,” Cole said distractedly. He turned to watch a creature go by that seemed covered in plates of stone.

“Did you take a tour? Of LIFE, I mean?”

“Up close and personal,” Cole said, not caring to relate his run-in with security. He followed Mortimor through a door and into a stairwell; Cole held the door open for Arthur, who nodded politely like everything buzzing around them was perfectly natural.

“What’re you doing here?” Cole asked.

“Thank you,” Arthur said, shutting the door behind him. “Well, I wish I could say I was here on an important mission to save the galaxy, but I landed quite by accident. I was out training with my yacht—”

“You were showboating,” Mortimor called back. He had already begun to take the stairs two at a time.

Arthur smiled at Cole and winked. He rested a hand on Cole’s back and guided him up the stairs, talking as they went. “I was just having some fun in a time trial course, trying out some alterations to my own thruster design. I got in a spot and took a chance on jumping out. The rest is too long a story to relate.”

Cole shook his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you specifically. What are all you people doing here? I don’t even recognize half the aliens back there.”

Arthur came up beside Cole, shaking his head. “The Luddites made this about race a while back. What you see here is just the fraction of the Underground that remains, and a lot of them are members from other galaxies. The majority of incoming are Human now, ever since the war in Darrin. Most of them are snagged by the Luddites before we can get to them. The Milky Way tends to dump out in the colds for whatever reason.”

“So this is where people disappear to?” Cole quickened his pace, trying to catch up with Mortimor. “Why can’t we just jump back out?”

The stairs ended on the next level, terminating at a single door. Mortimor had a tall locker open. He brought out sheets of plastic and what appeared to be goggles. “Doesn’t work that way,” Mortimor said. “Here, put these on.”

He handed Cole a clear poncho-like outfit and a pair of goggles. Cole worked the plastic over his head while Arthur did the same and continued talking:

“Normally, the little critters can’t see into hyperspace, what with the light and all. We’ve bred some that can, but they have the opposite problem: they can’t see out. Well, metaphorically speaking. Supposedly it’s two types of light, or the medium they vibrate in, but that’s more of Ryke’s bag, all I do is play doctor.” He glanced at Cole’s arm as Cole fumbled with his goggles. “Best I know how, anyway.” He met Cole’s gaze and frowned. “I’m sorry, you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Of course you don’t.”

“Fusion fuel,” Cole said. He strapped the goggles to his forehead and hoped he’d said it like it wasn’t one of the most recent things he’d learned, trying to come across as cool and adult-like as the other two. He pulled the hood of the poncho over his head, trying to copy what they were doing and not seem completely lost. “So we’re stuck here? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“You ever met a guy in a bar with a lot of cool stories from hyperspace?” Arthur asked.

Cole shook his head, getting the point.

“Grab your neighbor,” Mortimor said. He reached for Cole’s elbow and lowered his goggles. Cole did the same, making his world completely black as he reached out for Arthur.

“Ready?”

“You betcha,” Arthur said.

“Sure,” Cole said, not knowing what to expect.

Mortimor cracked the door, letting in enough light to see clearly through the blackened spectacles. The three men stepped out onto a rooftop covered in water. Cole didn’t feel the rain at first; they were sheltered by the small stairwell sticking out of the roof. Once he stepped out, however, he saw it to either side—drifting sideways, parallel to the ground, just like the snow.

“That’s weird,” he said, still clinging to Arthur and fighting the vertigo.

“Makes perfect sense once you get a handle on the physics. Light and water, my friend, the components of life—”

“I didn’t bring you boys up here to discuss the weather,” Mortimor said. He leaned close so they could hear him clearly over the patter of rain on the back of the stairwell. “Follow me.”

Arthur shrugged at Cole and raised his eyebrows. The two of them turned and followed Mortimor around the stairwell and into the driving rain. Cole looked down at his feet as he walked so we wouldn’t feel so dizzy. He noticed the top of the building was coated with a rubbery surface, probably put there to provide traction through the film of water in addition to keeping the rain out of the structure beneath.

As they walked directly into the sideways torrent, the large drops of water popped up and down his chest, sounding much like the incessant gunfire of the Academy’s rifle range. Cole kept his head low and marched with the others toward the edge of the flat, rectangular roof, the size and shape of which reminded him of boring office buildings.

As they neared the edge, however, Cole realized the place was far more interesting than that. The entire structure was moving. Or maybe the ground below was simply sliding by beneath them. Either way, as Cole stopped a meter from the edge and looked down, Mortimor and Arthur had to reach out and grab his elbows to steady him before the vertigo sent him reeling.

“Don’t get too close,” Mortimor warned. He and Arthur pulled Cole away from the edge.

Cole found it hard to turn away from the sight of the land rushing by. The world below was a field of mud covered by a skim coat of water—an infinite, brownish mirror. The lowest layers of rain skipped right across it, leaving furrows like waterfowl coming in for a landing. And all of it slid beneath the building, giving it the appearance of a dirty, rippled ocean viewed from the bow of a steaming ship. Cole’s stomach began to protest all the myriad cues of motion that belied the solid footing beneath him.

“Best not to even look at it,” Mortimor said.

Cole agreed. He turned away from the sight and put his back to the rain, huddling close to the other two men.

“Then why bring me up here?” he asked.

“So we won’t be overheard,” Mortimor said.

“What, like spies?”

Cole looked to Arthur, whose grin had been replaced with tight, flat lips. “Is he serious?”

“We have a few embedded within the Luddites—we’re pretty sure they have some here. It’s complicated, but a lot of soldiers have defected over the years. It’s easy to forget why you’re here after a while. Some people flip just to see if they’ll be more comfortable on the other side.”

“Or because they’ve grown too comfortable,” Mortimor suggested. “Some just get bored.”

“So why are you here?” Cole asked. “And what’s up with this place? Is this building on wheels?” He concentrated on his feet, trying to sense any movement.

“Grav panels,” Arthur said rather loudly to compete with the rain. “They cycle, pushing and pulling, smooth as a baby’s—”

Mortimor waved him silent.

“Listen, son, there’s an invasion underway. A very nasty people—”

“The Bern.” Cole nodded. “They design the universe every time it goes around. I’m the Golden One. I got a lot of this from the armless dude.”

Mortimor’s eyes narrowed.

“Byrne. I told you he was here.”

“You didn’t tell me you talked to him,” Mortimor said.

“Well, I mostly listened.” Cole faced the far end of the roof, allowing the rain to smack the plastic across the back of his head. The men to either side of him did the same, the three of them standing in a line, their heads bent close to confer over the pattering drops.

“And he called you the golden one?”

“Or chosen, I can’t remember. Anyway, he said it was too late. Then a bunch of people came in, dressed in white—you guys, I take it—and everyone started getting hacked up—” Cole stopped.

“Yeah, that was some of our men,” Arthur said.

“I picked up a little of what Byrne was thinking,” Mortimor explained. “It was just coming through too damn slow to decipher easily. What part we got, well, no offense but I thought you were someone else.”

Cole glanced over at Mortimor. “Do what?”

“I picked up another name—” Mortimor looked across him to Arthur. “We thought Molly—”

“Yeah,” Cole said, “it sounded like Byrne was confused about something similar. And look, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I have no idea about any of this stuff. All I care about now is getting back to her. And maybe visiting that camp on the way and kicking some ass.” He held up his new arm, tenting the poncho in front of him. He clenched and unclenched a fist, visible through the clear plastic. “I’m ready to try out this new hand,” he said.

Mortimor shook his head. “Forget about it. We don’t go on raids for revenge. Besides, there’s an endless supply of idiots on both sides, there’s no changing anything by bashing against each other.” He gestured out to the moving, inundated world beyond. “The best we can hope for out here is to stay in one piece and in one place.”

“What kind of ship did you arrive in?” Arthur asked.

“Firehawk,” Cole said. He reached up to adjust his hood and keep the water from dripping in.

Arthur looked across at Mortimor, who shook his head.

“Why’d you guys bring me up here?” Cole asked, feeling like there was something they weren’t telling him.

“To ask you a favor,” Mortimor said. “But first, we need to know everything you know. Are you sure you never heard any news about Lok?”

Cole shook his head. “Like I told you yesterday, we were heading there, but we got picked up by the Navy—”

“That’s where the Firehawk came from?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why’d the Navy pick you up?” Mortimor asked.

“We were leaving Dakura where we— Molly’s mom, the one on the ship—”

He looked to Arthur for help, but got a blank look.

“We were told to unplug her mom—your wife, sir. I—I didn’t want to, but… you should have seen—”

“And did you?”

Cole nodded.

“Good,” Mortimor said. “I’m sorry you had to clean up one of my mistakes, but we wanted that done years ago. We all agreed.”

Cole bobbed his head again, unsure of what to say.

“So, you never made it to Lok, and you don’t know if Molly did.”

Cole shook his head. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“I don’t know,” Mortimor told him. “I’m worried about all of us, to be honest.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“For you? Some rehab with that new hand and some rest. What’s done is done. But first, there’s someone who’s dying to meet you.”

Cole looked out across the rooftop. The sideways rain made it feel like his feet were glued to a wall and the water was falling straight down. “Who would want to meet me?” he asked.

“I want you to listen and listen carefully, okay? This person’s name isn’t to be spoken where anyone can overhear.”

“Who is it?”

“As far as anyone knows, she works more for the enemy than us, okay?”

Cole swallowed. “Who wants to see me?” he asked.

Arthur squeezed his shoulder and leaned in close.

“Have you ever heard of the Bern Seer?”

32

Parsona wasn’t the only ship leaving the stables in a hurry, or Bekkie, for that matter. Dozens of craft lifted up from all around town as crewmembers ran across Pete’s dirt lot in panic, trying to get back to their ships. Through the carboglass, Molly could hear improperly warmed thrusters screaming as neighboring starships lifted off cold. In the distance, a Navy cruiser fell through the atmosphere, glowing bright red—a sign of breached reentry panels. It disappeared over the horizon, followed by a flash of light.

“Why’re they in atmo?” Cat asked. She leaned forward from the nav chair while Scottie hovered behind, his hands on the backs of their seats.

“I don’t know,” Molly admitted. “Maybe they were trying to land, or something.”

“A cruiser?” Cat asked incredulously.

“They don’t want debris,” Scottie said. “That explains the shuttles.”

Molly avoided the crush of departing traffic and flew low, skirting the prairie as she headed out of town. There weren’t many more blips falling, but a few big ones were still in orbit.

“No debris?” Cat asked, turning to Scottie.

“For the rift. They’re shooting them down intact.”

“I think you’re right,” Molly said. “They’re somehow disabling them and knocking them out of orbit. And they’re making it look easy.”

“Poor Ryn,” Scottie said.

“I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just as safe wherever he is.”

Scottie didn’t say anything. Behind them, Molly could hear Walter arguing with Urg about which dishes went where.

“Where should we go?” Molly asked. She looked at their current course and realized she had subconsciously begun flying back toward her home village and the rift—the very last place they needed to be.

“Mount Jeffers?” Cat asked Scottie.

“Probably what everyone else is thinking. So, no.”

“We could hide out in the woods beyond Ashron,” Cat said. “There’s tons of clearings big enough to set down in. Maybe we should wait there and see if things calm back down.”

“Which way is that?” Molly asked, turning to the others.

Cat pointed through the carboglass, her face rigid. Molly followed her trembling arm, adjusting course to match the direction she was pointing, mistaking the gesture for an answer to her question.

“What the flank?” Scottie muttered, leaning forward between the two seats.

Ahead of them, descending through the atmosphere nose-down like a dropped dart, was a Navy StarCarrier.

“Holy shit,” Cat whispered.

Molly pulled back into a hover, sinking down toward the grasses.

Cowering.

The almighty bulk of the greatest class of starship ever built was descending from the heavens. Tilted slightly—falling slower than gravity warranted—the thing seemed to be straining against the inevitable, its forward thrusters raging to slow its impact. The great ship’s nose disappeared over the horizon, and then the rest of the monstrosity came to a sudden, sickening halt.

They all waited, breathless, for some cataclysmic noise to accompany the horrific fall. They watched for the ship to crumble, tip over, or maybe even explode.

It did none of those things.

Impossibly, the tail of the great StarCarrier remained in the same position. Askance. Aloft. Thrusters pointing up to the sky from which it had plummeted.

It just stood there, perfectly still. Terrible and lifeless.

33

Anlyn wrapped her hand in Edison’s and squeezed one of his large fingers. “How confident do you feel about this?” she asked.

“Ninety-two percent,” he said. “Rounding down, of course.”

Anlyn frowned; she let go of his finger and hovered her own over the hyperdrive button. The coordinates for a class V star were locked in the computer, a sight that ran counter to everything she knew about astral navigation. Red lights flashed and alarms sounded, warning her of the poor choice of arrival coordinates. Only once before had she ever jumped while overriding a hyperdrive’s alarms, and she was pretty sure that decision, for better or for worse, had been the most momentous of her entire life. This decision, however, seemed to rival that other one.

She closed her eyes, said, “I love you,” and then pressed the switch.

Her stomach dropped. More warning alarms went off.

Edison screamed beside her.

Anlyn opened her eyes and caught a wave of harsh light across her face right before the windshield darkened, returning things to normal. A thousand white dots crawled across her vision like albino ants. She blinked rapidly, trying to sort out the foreign alarms and worrying about Edison.

“Are you okay?” she yelled. She applied thrust, then gripped the steering column with both hands. Her stomach had dropped because they were in free-fall. And the spots of light seemed to be flurries of snow.

“Zero optical functioning!” Edison roared in English.

“Great Hori, we’re in atmosphere! I’ve got targets everywhere. Trying to get lift!”

A voice interrupted in a language she recognized, just as she knew the general look of their script: Bern. The words rattled for a few seconds, then stopped.

“Did you hear that?” Anlyn asked.

“Affirmitive,” Edison said, fumbling for the radio, “They find our arrival vector non-optimal.”

Anlyn grabbed the mic and pressed it into his groping paw. She had the ship leveled off and rejoining the other SADAR targets at altitude. She heard Edison grunt, clearing his throat; he launched into a conversation in Bern.

“That didn’t sound like our speech,” she said, once he was done.

Edison sat back in his seat, dabbing at his eyes with the back of his paws. “I’m ignoring our prior schematics,” he said.

“What?” Anlyn settled into formation, flying by the instruments, the outside world shrouded in white. “What did you say to them?”

“I said flight eight twelve four, Exponent, falling into line, apologies for the fright.”

“Why would you do that?” Anlyn glanced over at Edison. “We came here to talk!”

He shook his head. “Our surviving the jump obviates the need for talk,” he said. “Assumptions have been validated: there’s an invasion underway. By extension, the Bern are little interested in nonmilitant communications.”

Anlyn settled down, the shaking in her arms subsiding as the rush of jumping into the center of a star and surviving gradually faded away. She looked at the grid-like pattern of targets spread out over thousands of kilometers, the blips flickering and sporadic from some sort of interference. Still, there was no doubting what she was seeing. A massive invasion force was assembled all around her—in fact she was now a part of it. Edison had been right about everything.

The voice on the radio returned and carried on for half a minute.

“What did he say?”

“He expressed grievances with our flight commander followed by orientation procedurals for us. We are presently queued up for the rift, number four hundred eighteen. Maintain velocity and minimize chatter. Resume three hour shifts.”

Anlyn laughed, her voice shaking with all things but humor. “Three hour shifts? Great. Who’s gonna take over for us so we can get some sleep?”

Edison shrugged. “Such logistics normally fall upon the commander, Commander.”

Anlyn turned to frown at Edison and saw his furry cheeks peeled back—his teeth flashing.

Anlyn laughed at him. Once more, without humor.

34

As Parsona crept toward the horizon, the full bulk of the Star-Carrier came into view. It seemed to rise out of the ground like a geological formation—an obelisk defying time and gravity. While the majority of the ship appeared intact, the forward twenty percent had been crushed, or perhaps driven into the ground. Smoke streaked off the massive wreck in dozens of places, emanating from glowing-orange fires. Other than that, the hulking tower stood as a quiet memorial to a battle lost.

“Dang,” Urg muttered.

Molly looked over her shoulder to see that the large Callite had squeezed in beside Scottie. The two of them were leaning forward, peering out through the carboglass at the gigantic ship ahead. Behind them, she could hear Walter continuing to put things away in the cargo bay. She turned back around and concentrated on keeping low to Lok’s grasslands, rising now and then only to clear strips of straggly trees. She couldn’t help but notice the way Cat strained forward in her seat, taking in the view. The Wadi did the same beside her, its neck stretched out, tongue flicking.

“Crazy to see something so invincible look… dead,” Scottie said.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Cat said. She tore her gaze away and glanced around at the dash. “You got any ’scopes in this thing?”

“Like binoculars?” Molly shook her head. “No.”

“I think they set down in the lake,” Scottie said. “That’s a shame.”

As they got closer to the wreck, Molly saw he was right. Lok had no oceans, just a few puddles the locals exaggerated by calling them “lakes.” The StarCarrier had landed right in the middle of one; the nose of the great ship was buried in a muddy crater and surrounded by pools of water covered in oil and fuel—some of them on fire. A wall of mud and dirt had been thrown up by the force of entry, forming a berm on the perimeter. The resulting barrier and moat looked purposefully built, like a warning to interlopers saying: “Stay out.”

Molly flew over the glistening brown wall and felt sad for the flashes of light twinkling on dry ground—the flapping of displaced swimming things. As she banked around to perform a full circuit of the ship, keeping Parsona low enough to feel safe from the fleet in orbit, she couldn’t help but see the once-powerful craft in the same light as the fish: an animal out of its element with no way of putting it back. A thing dying, if not already dead.

As they rounded the port side, the stenceling on the side of the ship came into view, and Molly lost what little breath she’d been holding.

ZEBRA-9200 “Gloria”

This wasn’t just any StarCarrier, it was the very one she and Cole had escaped from two weeks ago. The realization made her feel like thrusting away from it, as if it still posed some threat to her. She read the hull designation several times, the surge of adrenaline passing as she forced herself to remain calm.

“So big,” someone whispered.

Molly nodded. Up close, the ship seemed even more massive than it had in space, perhaps because the enormity of an entire cosmos wasn’t swallowing it up, providing some sense of scale. It took almost fifteen minutes to do a slow lap around the mountain of metal. There were no signs of life, no lights or movement from survivors. Everywhere along the ground, the ship’s hull was a twisted mess of shrapnel and torn plasteel, entire decks of the carrier crushed and impassible.

“There’s no way in,” Cat said.

“And no safe place to land and walk in from. I don’t know what we were thinking to come out here.”

“Curiosity,” Scottie said. He leaned over the control console to peer up at the metal cliff looming ahead of them. “And didn’t that kill the cat?” he asked.

“What about the hangar bay?” Cat asked, ignoring Scottie.

“We can look,” Molly said, “but I’d think they’d have shut it before reentry.”

She took Parsona up and spiraled around toward the ship’s belly, remembering the last time she had flown along that very section of the massive carrier. Four Firehawks had been escorting her—their missiles armed and locked. The size and shape of the hull hanging in space had filled her with fear. She’d been convinced the Navy was about to airlock her and her friends for a string of tragic events.

Now, despite the unease she felt from recognizing the craft, it leaned sadly in the dry atmosphere of her backwoods home planet. Unmoving. Harmless. It didn’t seem right that such a large creation could meet its end in such a short period of time, or end up somewhere as inconsequential as Lok.

“Damn thing’s open,” Scottie said, pointing to one of the carrier’s airlock bays. “Can we fly in?”

Molly pulled up opposite the airlock. The StarCarrier was leaning to one side, the open hangar pointing up to the sky, which meant she had to angle Parsona’s nose down so they could see inside. She reached for the spotlight controls before noticing the lights inside the bay were still functional.

“Something’s not right here,” she said.

“Nobody’s home,” said Cat.

That’s exactly what didn’t seem right. Molly could see the full length of the tilting hangar, all the way to the far wall, which hung way below them. There should’ve been a pile of Firehawks and Scouts down there, trillions of dollars of destroyed Navy hardware lying in a pile.

“Must’ve been in the fight,” Cat said.

“Or the crew used everything they had to escape.”

“I didn’t see nothing fly out on its way down,” Scottie said.

“Me neither, but there were Firehawks raining down earlier, before we left Bekkie.”

“Not enough,” Molly said. “There would’ve been hundreds of them aboard.” She turned to the others. “Should we peek inside? Look for survivors?”

Cat turned to her and shook her head. “Ain’t no one survive this. Not a crash like this.”

“Yeah, but there’s still power. Maybe someone—I dunno, I just always think there’s a chance.”

“If you wanna stick your nose in and take a sniff, be my guest. But get ready to hightail it when this puppy goes down.”

Molly turned the radio down to its lowest broadcast setting, just in case anyone in the fleet above was listening in. She brought the mic to her lips.

“Zebra wing—” She hesitated, trying to think up a lie, then figuring it didn’t matter. “—Parsona here. Any survivors, please come back on twenty-two eighteen.”

They waited. She adjusted the squelch until a faint hissing and popping assured her the speakers were operational. Nobody responded.

“Just a peek,” she told the others. She gripped the flight controls and replaced the mic, then nosed Parsona forward, back into the same bay from which she’d fled with Cole just a few weeks prior.

An easy in-and-out, she promised herself.

35

“You want me to meet someone called the Bern Seer?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of the Bern.”

Mortimor laughed. “She’s no more a Bern than you or I, Cole. She’s the one who’s been watching them come. She’s on our side, if there is such a thing.”

“Where is she? Here?”

“No—”

“Further ahead,” Arthur interjected, shouting above the rain. “As far ahead as you can go, in fact.”

“Why does she want to meet me?”

“Won’t say, but she’s calling in a favor, a big one, and… well, I can’t force you to go, but I’d owe you one of my own if you did.”

Cole looked down at his hands beneath the folds of his clear plastic poncho. Water coursed across it, giving his flesh an artificial sheen.

“I’ll go,” he said quietly.

“Good,” Mortimor said. He slapped Cole on the back. “Now, let’s get out of the rain. I’ll introduce you to doctor Ryke, who’ll take you out.”

Cole followed the two men forward, the pelting at his back driving him along and the rain to either side making him feel as if he could fall clean off the roof and go drifting after the droplets forever.

“Wait,” he yelled up to the others. “Who’s Ryke? Aren’t you guys coming with me?”

“Sorry,” Mortimor said, waiting up for him to catch up. “We’ve got plenty enough to do without a trip forward.” He worked his hand out of the poncho and put it on Cole’s back, urging him toward the stairwell. “Besides,” he said, “she specifically asked to see you alone. Ryke’s just driving you.”

“Driving me? In what?”

Half an hour later, Cole found himself cowering in the passenger seat of the answer. They called it a hyperskimmer, and it raced across the water on three foils, skipping like a cast stone and feeling completely out of control. As the craft sped directly into the driving rain, Cole fought the urge to scream; he ground his teeth and gripped the dash in pure terror, wondering how the hell Doctor Ryke could see where they were going. As the craft’s forward skiff tore through the watery surface of hyperspace, it kicked up twin roostertails to either side—large sheets of foaming whiteness that created an artificial canyon the small vehicle seemed to glide through. Every now and then, Cole glanced over to Ryke to make sure they were going to be okay. Each time, he found the strange man fiddling with a dial on the dash or looking at Cole while he talked.

“Don’t you need to concentrate?” Cole asked the doctor.

Ryke looked at him for a long while. He took one hand off the steering column and scratched his thick, brown beard. He rubbed his bald head and adjusted his black goggles. Cole couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and peered down the narrow chute of visibility created by the roostertails, certain that they were travelling far too fast for anything meant to come in contact with water.

Earlier, the vehicle had seemed pretty damn nebular, back when it was in the garage and sitting still. It was basically a flat triangle of steel sitting on three runners and topped with a sleek bubble cockpit. Ahead of the cockpit was a flat deck with a crane-like apparatus stowed flat. The whole thing was painted stark white and appeared fast even when idling. Cole had been excited to crawl inside, but now that they were racing along, hydroplaning across the wet surface of hyperspace half-blind, he just hoped to survive long enough to get back out.

“Concentrate on what, exactly?” Ryke finally asked.

Cole shook his head and pointed forward. “On where we’re going!”

“Oh, I know exactly where we’re going. Alls you gotta do is head right for the rain.”

“Well, we seem to be doing that awful fast,” Cole said.

Ryke laughed. “If we didn’t, we’d never get there!” He leaned over toward Cole, as if about to confide in some secret. “She’s shaped like a cone, you know.”

Cole peeled his eyes away from the smeared carboglass. “What? The Seer?”

That really got Ryke going. He laughed and slapped his thigh. “Don’t be silly! It’s hyperspace that’s shaped like a cone.”

“Can we talk when we get back?” Cole asked. “I’m feeling a little sick.”

“No problem. You just listen, then, and I’ll do the talking.”

Cole groaned.

“It all comes in at a point, hyperspace does. Like I said, it’s pretty much a cone, but laying on its side. And it’s always moving, not just the stuff in the air, but the surface, too. It’s always sliding back into the past with new stuff and happenings coming in at the tip.”

He paused, scratched his beard, and fiddled with a dial. “Not sure where it all goes, though. Maybe back around? Still working on that…”

Leaving the dial alone, he pointed forward, through the center of the two roostertails. “Anyways, the Seer lives out there. Impossible to miss her as long as we head into the rain. All the way forward, hyperspace ain’t so far around. Like I said, it’s the tip of a cone, so we don’t need a map. Now, getting back is different, but quicker. That’s what the radio’s for, so they know where to meet us.”

“Mortimor and them.”

“Right. Now, you keep quiet, not enough room in here to get sick.”

Ryke scratched his beard.

“Darnation, I was about to ask you a question. You gonna chunk if I ask you to nod?”

Cole shook his head. What he should’ve said was the listening was making him queasy. He altered his grip on the dash and saw his right hand had dented it, leaving impressions under each finger.

“I heard you was on Mortimor’s ship, the Parsona.”

Cole nodded.

“I built her, you know. The hyperdrive, anyway, not the ship. You notice anything peculiar about it? The hyperdrive, I mean.”

Cole shook his head.

“Hooo-eeee!” Ryke hollered. “That’s right!” He slapped the steering column with a flat palm. “Done her up good!”

Cole felt like sticking his head between his knees.

“Broke my heart to see her go, especially seeing as how.”

That piqued Cole’s interest. He turned to the doctor, who was looking right at him, one hand idly twisting a dial on the dash.

“What do you mean, seeing how?”

“Stolen,” Ryke said, growing solemn. He glanced forward for a picosecond, then stared back at Cole. “Dontcha know?”

Cole shook his head.

“Been about a year, now. Outside time, anyway. One of the sentinels—the guys that ride out in a perimeter around the HQ—they saw a patch of stars in the rain. Looked like a rift. We was prepping Parsona to make a break, get as many of us out as we could, when Byrne took off with her by himself. Broke Mortimor’s heart.”

“How did Byrne get his hands on the ship?” Cole asked.

“What? It was on the roof. We never even kept the thing locked.”

“Yeah, but where did Byrne come from? Why didn’t you guys stop him?”

Ryke stared at him. He rubbed his beard. “Darnation, son, how ill-informed are you? Mortimor and Byrne were best of buds. Joined at the hip. That skinny freak took us all in.”

“He lived here? Byrne?”

“Of course. We all came together. You do know he delivered his daughter, right? He was there when she was born. Saved his wife’s life. That’ll bond you to a feller.”

“He—he delivered Molly?” Cole’s nausea began to take a different form.

“Yup, but he didn’t work his way into the group then. Not completely. Naw, it was really when Parsona took ill. That Bern bastard had loads of money. The sort of group we were, it never occurred to us to question anything for fear of those questions being redirected our way. When he offered to set her up at Dakura with the high and mighty, that pretty much made him an honorary member.” Ryke shook his head. “A Bern in the Drenard Underground,” he said.

Ryke turned away from Cole and peered through his side of the cockpit, even though there was nothing to see there but a wall of foamy spray. “I reckon we were all blinded by the glimmer of that jerk,” he said softly.

“Any idea why he might’ve abandoned the ship when he got to Palan? You think he was worried the Navy might still be looking for it?”

“Don’t know. Maybe. I’m more curious about why that rift even went to Palan. How in hyperspace did it form? Makes no sense, really. When we heard one was open, we figured it’d be one of ours on Lok actin’ up.”

“One of yours?”

“Yeah. Dontcha know? I’m the stupid genius that got us into this hubbaloo. Tried to help the resistance stage an invasion, but they got their butts whooped. Now that same passage is being used the other way around.” Ryke lowered his bushy brows. “You looking a might bit pale, son, you’re not gonna get sick, are ya?”

Cole shook his head. “No. Just confused.”

“Good! That means you’re paying attention. And yeah, I’d love to hear the story of what went down on Palan. Bet that’s a good one.”

“So why did Mortimor hide his wi—I mean, do you know about . . ?”

“Parsona? Yeah, he told Arthur about her after the ship vamooshed. That was a row. Like admitting to a good friend that you stole from him. Why hide her, you ask? I’ve got my own theories, but we ain’t talked about his wife much. I reckon—just from my dealings with her, helping set that rig up—that she was gonna go crazy in that thing. Crazy as artificial intelligence can get. One’s and zero’s all scrambled, if you know what I mean. I think he was just freezing her in time to lock her away like that. Putting her down without erasing her, you know? Like he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Same reason people put their loved ones in cryo, even though there ain’t no chance of getting them back.”

Cole rolled that around while Ryke glanced forward for just a second.

“Other idea is he was hiding her from Arthur once he showed up. Or maybe he didn’t trust Byrne deep down, I don’t know. I think he was a lot ashamed of stealing her away—the selfishness of it all. Poor boy loved her too much, if such a thing’s possible.”

“It is,” Cole said.

“Yeah? I wouldn’t know.”

Cole sat and watched Ryke power the hyperskimmer along, looking forward for the longest time he’d seen him do that, his goggles hiding whatever he was thinking.

“You’re an okay guy, Doctor Ryke,” Cole finally said.

“That’s what they tell me!” the man hollered, laughing. “Ooops, there she is.” He pulled back on the throttle and the roostertails receded, giving Cole a wider expanse of blurry nothingness to squint into.

“Where?” Cole asked.

“There!” Ryke said, pointing.

Cole peered through the sheets of spray until he saw it. At first, all he spied was some water flying upward—then he saw the hooves the water flew from! As they got closer, he could see a team of six horse-like animals galloping behind a small house, a shed roof over them and a porch to one side. At the end of the porch lay a small wall blocking the rain, creating a protected pocket for vehicles to dock up to.

Ryke eased into the space, putting them in the lee of the small wall as he matched speeds with the shack. He flipped a switch and Cole watched two claws come out the side of the skimmer and grab the walkway, pulling them tight.

“You go on ahead,” Ryke said, popping the canopy open. “I’m gonna wait here and spell the Theryl’s, give them hooves a rest.” He patted the throttle lever for effect.

“Just go inside?” Cole asked.

Ryke laughed. “Way I’s raised, we’re taught to knock first!”

Cole shook his head and crawled out of his seat, keeping low to stay out of the rain. He knelt on the flattened rubbery deck just ahead of the skimmer’s cockpit and reached across for the wooden railing. There was a gate there that hinged inward, but he just stepped over the thing instead.

The narrow passageway on the side of the cabin was unprotected, the water racing through the air sideways, so he hurried to the back and around the corner to find shelter on the wide porch. The heads of two of the animals were just beyond the porch railing, their necks rising and falling with their long gait. One of them seemed to watch Cole with its large, single eye on the front of its head. Long whiskers trailed back from its mouth, making it seem like the creature was smiling. Cole studied the animals as they eased up, their legs just moving in easy circles instead of driving the shack forward. He wondered how long they could run like that.

As he was studying the animals, the shack lurched to one side unexpectedly, and Cole reached out to steady himself, clutching at the railing. His stupid right hand went straight through it, knocking out a chunk and leaving two splintered ends.

“Ah, hyperspace,” he said, looking at the mess he’d made. He gripped one of the porch’s posts to steady himself while he surveyed the damage, wondering what to do.

“It’ll be fine,” a voice said behind him. Cole turned and saw an old woman standing in the open doorway, her body draped in a thin gown.

He looked back at the broken railing, then turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She waved him over, and Cole noticed she wasn’t wearing goggles to protect her eyes. His heart fluttered with panic. He remembered Byrne, the only other person he’d seen who could withstand the light. He also remembered what they called the woman and wondered briefly if he’d been set up, if this was some sort of trap—

The woman waved again, the sleeve of her gown falling back to reveal an arm narrower than bone. “Come inside and get comfortable,” she said. She backed through the doorway, her eyes focused on something distant and to Cole’s side.

Cole stood a moment, indecisive. He looked over at the rear of the hyperskimmer, its engines purring with the strain of pushing the cabin into the rain. Everything within him said to feel threatened by the situation, but he couldn’t. His normally reliable paranoia failed him for some reason. He crossed the porch, keeping his feet wide in case the cabin shuddered again, and stepped inside the cabin after the woman, who shut the door tight behind him.

There was a brief moment of pitch black as he worked his goggles loose. “I’m Cole,” he said. He blinked in the dim light of the interior and took in his surroundings. The room was tiny, a hair more than a few meters to a side. A neatly-made bed rested in one corner, almost as narrow as the woman herself. The far wall had a counter, a sink, and some cabinets. A large barrel had been strapped to another wall; it sloshed with water, and a hose added more to its contents in steady drips. The entire space crackled with the sound of rain on tin, the boards squeaking as the place rumbled along.

“But then,” Cole said, “I guess you already knew my name, being a seer and all.”

The lady smiled, her wrinkled face not matching her bright, beautiful teeth. She sat down by the head of the bed and patted beside herself. “I’m sorry I don’t have much in the way of furniture. There’s not enough need to merit straining the animals.”

“That’s okay,” Cole said. He sat down at the foot of the bed and fidgeted with his goggles, turning them over and over in his lap. He concentrated on keeping his posture stiff as an uncomfortable silence somehow grew amid the din of rain on metal. He noticed the woman looked near him, but not right at him.

“Your eyes—” he stammered.

“Not so good in low light,” the lady said, laughing. She leaned close to Cole. “Do you mind?” She held up both hands, palms out.

“I— sure,” Cole said. He took her wrists, his hands easily encircling them, and leaned forward as he closed his eyes. She reached for his forehead first, just the pads of her fingers moving lightly against his skin. Cole let go of her wrists and remained still. It didn’t feel invasive like he thought it would. It didn’t feel strange at all. He kept his eyes tight as her fingers moved down to his checks, feeling his jawline and chin.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking right into hers; they seemed bright but unfocused.

Cole felt his heart stop for a moment as he lost himself in them—the brown with the yellow starburst, little ridges of black flying out from the pupil, giving them a depth he found… familiar.

“Do I know you?” Cole asked, as the lady sat back, smiling.

“Not yet,” she said. “And I’m not who you think I am.”

“You’re not—?”

“Molly?” She laughed, a pleasant sound. “No, I’m not. I’m not half the woman she is.” More laughter. “Literally,” she said, running her hands through the air and down the length of her frail form, “as you can plainly see.”

“Why did you want to meet me?” Cole asked. “Am I supposed to do something?”

“All you need to do is be who you are.” She reached behind herself and arranged a pillow, then settled back, bringing one leg up onto the bed. “Can you keep a secret?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t tell Mortimor, but I wanted you out just so I could meet you. You can tell him it was important if you want, but that’s the truth of it. I don’t have much more to look forward to, but this was one of the biggies.”

“Meeting me.”

She nodded. “Absolutely.”

“I feel honored, I guess. So, how long do we have? What do you want to talk about?”

“Oh, life. Philosophy. The same sort of stuff you’re interested in. I also have a story or two you might find fascinating. But first, I wonder if you could do me a favor.”

“Sure,” Cole said. Already, he felt the most relaxed he had since crashing into hyperspace. The small cabin was like a pocket of normalcy within a raging storm of bewilderment. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Well, there’s a leak behind that counter,” the Bern Seer said, “and for the life of me I can’t see where the water’s coming from.”

36

Parsona’s nose dipped into the carrier’s flight bay, the glare of Lok’s sun replaced by the warm glow of artificial lights.

“Suns ’a britches,” Cat whispered. She cupped her hands around her face and pressed them against the porthole beside the nav chair. Molly hovered the ship just inside the cavernous hangar and looked out to port through her own circle of glass to see what Cat was reacting to.

“Flank me,” she whispered.

It was the Firehawks. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. They were piled high along the upper wall like they’d been shoved out of the way and had somehow gotten stuck there. The StarCarrier’s hangar bay wasn’t empty at all, the ships just weren’t down around the bottom where they should’ve been—they were heaped up along the upper wall to either side of the open airlock.

Molly noted several ships had crashed back to the decking in front of the pile. They lay apart from the rest, forlorn, their wings crushed. The sight made her chest feel hollow, her stomach nauseous. Shapes she equated with power and grace looked like broken animals. Like dead things.

“Don’t make no sense,” Scottie said.

“It makes perfect sense,” Molly whispered. She kept her voice soft, almost as if in reverence of the shattered hulls. She flew deeper into the hangar, then spun the ship around to survey the scene. The pile of debris sat on the sloping deck, up at the top, seemingly in defiance of Lok’s gravity.

“The grav panels went out at some point,” Molly said. “Maybe on impact, maybe before. The ships must’ve rattled around in here, crashing against that side, and then the grav panels kicked back on. Now they’re holding the ships to the decking, which must feel like down for them.”

Scottie leaned over the control console to peer at the wreckage. “Watch your hands,” Molly said, nodding at the controls.

“Yeah, sorry.” He gripped the back of the flightseats and squinted out through the carboglass. “You don’t have any binoculars?” he asked.

Molly shook her head. “No. Just SADAR. Why do you ask?”

“Thought I saw something moving up there,” Scottie said, pointing.

“That’s not—”

“I see it too,” Cat said. She leaned forward and peered toward the line of busted ships. “I’ll be a Drenard’s uncle,” she said, “somebody’s alive in that cockpit!”

Molly was about to argue with them when she saw it as well. Something definitely moved inside one of the shattered canopies. It was impossible to make out any detail—it was just a dark form shifting behind a spider web of fractured glass.

“I’m gonna test the panels,” Molly announced, almost out of habit, as if Cole were there and she needed someone to second the idea.

She lowered the landing gear and settled gently to the decking. As she reduced thrust, Molly waited for the ship to slide back, matching the lean of the StarCarrier, but Parsona didn’t budge. The solid decking beneath them matched the evidence hanging above in all those Firehawks and their scattered debris: the StarCarrier’s grav panels were fully functioning.

“This feels freaky,” Scottie said.

“Forget about the planet,” Molly told them. “Just concentrate on the decking. The decking is down.” It was easy to say, but hard to sound convincing. White puffy clouds slid across the rectangle of blue at the end of the hangar bay. They were looking up a steep slope and trying to tell their bodies it was something else.

“Are we all gonna go out there?” Scottie asked.

“We might need the muscle,” Molly said, already formulating a plan and making a list in her head. She looked back through the cockpit. “We might even need Walter. Anybody know where he is?”

“I have to go,” Walter thought. He peeked out of his room and up the length of the ship.

“Everything okay?” he heard through the band.

“Yeah, jusst—”

“Why are you thinking about sshipss going down, Walter? Iss everything alright?”

Walter cursed himself. He was concentrating on not thinking about that!

“It’ss fine, I jusst need to go help Molly.”

“I undersstand. Hey Walter?”

“Yeah?” He glanced out again, then ran across and snuck into Molly’s room while his mysterious friend kept talking.

“When you come ssee me and bring me thosse armss, why don’t you bring Molly with you?”

Walter knelt by her bottom drawer, looking for the tell-tell hair. “Why?” he asked, dying to end the conversation and get out of there.

“I’d like to meet her. And bessidess, what good iss all that gold if you don’t have ssomeone to sspend it on?”

“I’ve gotta go,” Walter said, pulling off the band. He folded it up and stashed it away, then finally found the hair.

As he put the single follicle in place and snuck out of her room, he thought about a block of gold the size of a small moon. Barrel after barrel of solid gold so big you needed tugs to move them around.

And then he thought of how much Molly would really love a brand new starship. And he would buy her one. But first, he had to get her into orbit to meet this guy, which meant reprograming the crappy ship they were already in. How would he get his chance to do that? Molly wouldn’t trust him near the systems, and whatever she’d done to the cockpit door, it was enough that he couldn’t crack it. It was like the thing had a mind of its own. He had to find a way, somehow. His new friend—the voice behind the band—had said was that he was a very smart Palan and that he would figure something out.

And I will, Walter told himself.

He sure was glad to have met someone who knew he wasn’t stupid.

Molly parked several hundred meters from the pile of ships, just in case any of them shifted. It made for a long hike with all the heavy gear they were toting—and it gave her plenty of time to appreciate how large the hangar was without ships arranged throughout.

Scottie and Urg carried the fuel tank for the cutting torch between them; Molly had the handheld radio and the large medkit; Cat carried a duffle full of blankets, water, and clean rags. Walter had volunteered to carry the torch and its tubing, which had started off neatly slung over his narrow shoulders, but loops kept sliding off, knotting in coils that he had resorted to dragging across the deck.

Together, they approached the Firehawk in which they’d seen movement. It lay upside down, on top of another broken ship. Everyone set their gear down in a base camp of sorts, all acting professional and calm. Except for Walter, who hissed with annoyance as he began unknotting the hose for the cutting torch.

“I’ll go up,” said Molly, “since I’m familiar with the torch. Scottie, you and Urg can give me a boost to the wing; Cat, you play out the hose.” She pulled the basic medkit out of the larger duffel and slung it around her neck.

Urg raised his hand.

“What is it, big guy?”

“I wanna look for others,” the Callite said, frowning.

“That’s a good idea. Scottie can boost me himself. Take the radio with you in case anyone starts transmitting.”

Urg nodded. He grabbed the portable radio from the top of a duffle and stomped off.

“Make some noise if you find anything!” Scottie yelled after him.

Molly waited for Walter to get the last knot out before attaching one end of the hose to the cutting tank. The dial showed a quarter-full, more than enough. She couldn’t believe they had found a single survivor, much less the dozen or so cuts it would need to deplete the tank.

“I’m ready,” she told Scottie, jerking her head up at the wing above.

He stood directly under it and formed a basket with his hands. Molly draped the hose around her neck and reached up for his shoulders as she put her weight in his palms. She could feel the muscles around his neck harden as he lifted her up effortlessly, high over his head.

“Whoa!” Molly reached up and grabbed the lip, steadying herself as Scottie practically tossed her on top of the wing. She stayed on all fours and turned around. “Nice and easy, big guy.”

Scottie smiled sheepishly as Molly took the loop of hose from her neck and pulled the cutting torch up. Behind her, she could hear the faint sounds of someone knocking, the thump of a boot against thick carboglass.

It took several tries with the sparker before the torch lit, the flint inside worn nearly smooth after so many years of use. When it finally caught, there was a loud pop as the excess gas exploded, followed by the purposeful hiss and blue flame of pressurized fuel burning upon release.

Molly twisted the dial on the side and concentrated on the shape of the white teardrop in the middle of the blue flame. Once it looked perfect for cutting plasteel, she locked the valve and slapped the carboglass several times with her palm. She waited for the noise within to stop, the dark form pulling away from the hazed glass. The entire canopy was so finely cracked, she couldn’t see inside, even from a meter away.

She studied the shape of the cockpit for a moment, determining the best and safest place to cut. One entire lip of the canopy was twisted out of shape, preventing it from sliding back and trapping the person inside. Looking at the way the Firehawks around her were warped out of shape, she couldn’t believe a human being could survive whatever had happened. She bent down and worked the flame over the lip of the side porthole, squinting at the bright light of plasma as she gradually cut a circle out of the hull.

The entire section of frame fell inside the cockpit as the last of the cut was made. Molly killed the torch and bent down near the hole. “Keep back for a sec!” she yelled. She opened one of the water bottles and doused the edges of the plasteel, which popped and hissed violently but lost their red glow.

Two gloved hands emerged. They grabbed the jagged lip, and a helmet followed. Molly realized at once how the pilot had survived the crash: his lifesupport umbilical was still jacked in by his armpit, catching on the edge of cut steel. She reached down and popped it loose as the man fell out of the hole and onto the wing of the lower Firehawk. He kicked at the surface with his heels, scrambling backward and fumbling with his helmet.

“What’s going on up there?” Scottie yelled from below.

Molly ignored Scottie’s shouts. “Hold still,” she told the pilot. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down before reaching for the clasps on his helmet. The dome popped off, revealing a young spaceman with sweat-matted hair and eyes wide with fear.

“It’s okay. Calm down.” Molly looked him over for signs of injury. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Higgins. Private Higgins,” he said. “Deck maintenance, third shift. I—” his eyes focused on something beyond Molly. “Where’re the others?” he asked.

“Keep calm.” Molly handed him a bottle of water from the medkit. “You were smart to get plugged in,” she told him.

Higgins took a long swig from the bottle, wiped his chin, then looked down at his flightsuit. “Jonesy,” he said, rubbing his fingers over the name patch. “He told me to do it. Gave me one of his extra flightsuits. I think he knew we were going down before we even got hit. He ran off for the Admiral, I think he was trying to save the old man—”

“Saunders?” Molly asked.

Higgins nodded. “Yeah.” He stopped and looked up at Molly. “Are you a part of some kinda rescue operation?”

“I— Not really. There might not be anyone else to rescue,” she said.

“Everything okay up there?”

Molly went to the edge of the wing and looked over. “A scared mechanic. He jacked into the life support. The antigrav suit kept him alive. Gimme a sec with him so he’ll be okay to climb down—”

Loud banging echoed down the line of ships, cutting her off. Scottie and Cat turned and looked toward the sound; Molly followed their gazes. In the distance, she could see Urg waving his arms and pointing up to another Firehawk.

“Pants on fire,” Cat whispered. “I think we have more survivors.”

There were eight of them in all. Five pilots, two navigators, and Higgins. The two paired-up crew members had been on deck, ready for lift-off, when the grav panels failed. Everyone’s story was the same and equally awful: they had held tight in abject terror while the ships were flung from one side of the hangar to the other, everyone fearful their Firehawk would rattle out the open hangar doors, or they would lose life support.

Certainly, some others had.

None of the Gs suffered had been too much for the flightsuits, and everyone seemed fit, if dehydrated and terrified. Molly and her little rescue crew stayed so busy crawling across the wreckage, cutting people out and getting them food and water, that she hardly noticed the odd dynamic forming. Pilots—some of them twice her age—were looking to her and her friends as if they were in charge.

While Urg continued to search for anyone left alive in the tangled mess—refusing to give up even when it seemed unlikely there were any more—Molly and the others sat with the crewmen, trying to console them. They all had a defeated, dazed look, almost like animals after a near-drowning.

Molly peeled the wrapper off a protein bar and handed it to one of the pilots. His eyes were unblinking, wide and wet.

“It was the Drenards, wasn’t it?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “No. It’s something worse. Now listen, we need to figure out—”

“What’s worse than Drenards?” someone else asked.

“Is it the Tchung?”

“It’s not the Tchung,” Molly said.

“Gotta be the Dremards. I heard they were coming out of their arm of the Milky Way for the first time. They attacked Rigel!”

Molly held up her hands. “It’s not Drenards—”

“What then? Did you see them? What was it?”

“Listen,” she said. “The first thing we need to do is help the rest of the crew. See if any of the staff survived. Then we can—”

“Survived?” Higgins squeaked. “Nobody but us survived! How could they? There was almost ten thousand people on this ship, and now there’s eight!” He looked at his palms. “Darlene,” he said, then started sobbing, covering his face with his hands.

Molly rose and went to him. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and looked to the others. “We’ll mourn when we can and for as long as they deserve, but right now we need to—”

“We need to get off this ship!” someone said.

“And we will,” Molly told them. “We will. But first, we need to see if anyone else survived. According to Higgins, here, one of the pilots went off to help the senior staff—”

“They’re dead!” one of the pilots said. “C’mon, the only safe place in this bucket was to be rattling around in one of our little tin cans.”

“That’s not true,” Molly said. “There’s one other place we need to check. Just in case.”

One of the pilots—Roberts, according to his name patch—met her with a solid look. His eyes were aware, vibrant, not as red as the others.

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“The simulator room,” Molly said.

They left the survivors behind with Urg, who insisted on continuing his search for life among the debris. Several of the pilots suggested they come along and help, but Molly stood firm, pretending to be looking out for their well-being. In reality, she didn’t want to get bogged down if they came across bodies of people they knew, forcing her to tend to their nerves instead of potential survivors. Also—and she hated to admit it—she didn’t want to get outnumbered if any of them found out who she was. According to the report she’d found in the Navy database, she and her ship were the highest of high-priority targets. And now they were back on the same damned Navy StarCarrier she had once escaped from.

She swiped one of the pilot’s badges through a door reader and let Walter go through first. He led the way with his computer, the schematics for the ship pulled up from his last hack of the place. Molly looked at the badge in her hand, the one that had opened the door, and wondered if the gesture had even been necessary.

They made haste down the hallway that led to the stairwells, not trusting the elevator shaft after a crash landing; it could easily be just as twisted as the Firehawks. They each carried biotubes from one of the pilot’s survival kits, and Cat had a flashlight, just in case.

Inside the landing of the stairwell, they came across their first bodies, barely recognizable as such. Not welded down like everything else aboard the ship, they had been flung all over the stairwell when the grav panels had temporarily failed. They left behind not much more than smears of red wetness on the walls and on the underside of the rising flight of steps. Flightsuits lay scattered in lumpy reminders of what the mess had originated from.

Molly tried to focus into the distance as she stepped gently through the slick, chunk-filled puddles. She gripped the railing to the side. When her hand went into something wet, she had to stifle her gag reflex and fight to remain in control of her senses. She led the way down the steps, two flights, both of which were covered with and reeking of human remains.

Behind her, Scottie coughed into his hand. Molly reached back and clutched Walter’s sleeve, helping steady both of them, physically and emotionally. She scanned open the door on the crew deck and waved them through, each of them pale and holding their breath. All except for Walter, who didn’t seem fazed; his attention was firmly locked onto his computer.

“This way,” he said calmly.

Scottie leaned against the bulkhead, his head bowed down. “We’re gonna have to find a different way back,” he said. “I’ve seen some flanked-up shit in my day, but nothing like that.”

“They were probably told to—” Molly fought hard to swallow, “—told to get in the stairwell. Like an emergency drill. Either that, or everyone thought of the suits in the hangar and got backed up trying to get there.” She grabbed Scottie’s arm and led him after Walter, who was waiting at the next turn.

“I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to be in there,” Cat said.

The words popped a visual in Molly’s mind: the tight confines, packed and rattling with dozens and dozens of Gs. It would’ve been awful.

“We’re not gonna find anybody down here,” Scottie complained. “I’m thinking we should head back.”

“It’s just around the corner,” Molly assured him. Walter had shown her schematics of the carrier; the sim room and the hangar were situated above and below the pilot’s quarters, as if to reduce their foot travel.

Walter ran ahead, leading the way to the simulator room. The smell of blood and oil seemed to permeate the lower decks as fluids leaked out of broken things. Molly fought to ignore the occasional body they went by. Even the sight of a bag of laundry, open and disgorging crumpled Navy blacks, filled her with sorrow. What was left of the person who had been rushing off to wash those? she wondered.

As they caught up to Walter and neared the simulator room, Molly realized Scottie had been right. They weren’t going to find anyone alive down there. If someone had survived in a simulator pod, they would surely be running up and down the decks by now, looking to rescue others or trying to flee the ship.

Expecting to find the room intact, the pods empty or full of more horror, Molly stepped inside with her hopes low—when she should’ve been concentrating on keeping her defenses up.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of crewmen had been packed in the simulator room—it was impossible to tell exactly how many. Their bodies formed a wall of gruesome death on the far side of the room, stacked up in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Firehawks piled high in the hangar. Jumbled up, mounded like a snowdrift, they formed a slope of tangled forms, their individual parts woven together and indistinguishable.

The marks their flying bodies had made spotted the room, dotting the pods, the floor, even the ceiling with bright marks of crimson. Molly caught herself on the doorjamb and tried to wave away the others before they joined her. The sound of Scottie gagging behind her let her know she’d been too late.

“Flank me,” Cat said. “They were all thinkin’ the same thing.”

“Let’s go,” Molly told them. She pushed her way past her friends and back into the hallway, which suddenly seemed positively laden with fresh air. She tried not to think about what those people had gone through, what their last moments had been like. The crowded panic, the fearful silence, and then… the horrible rattling and crushing.

“Ssomethingss knocking,” Walter said from the room.

“I think that’s my knees,” Scottie said. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Ssssshhhh,” Walter hissed.

Molly stepped back by the door but didn’t dare look inside. She listened around the corner for a sound, but could only hear her heartbeat in her ears. Scottie came out bent over and covering his mouth with the back of one hand.

“Damn, I think I heard it too,” Cat said.

“It’ss coming from the podss,” said Walter.

Molly steeled her nerves. Keeping her eyes low, she reentered the room. She stood there, perfectly still, holding her hands out to urge the others to be as quiet as possible.

There. A muffled pounding. Running to the nearest pod, she clanged up the steps and slapped on the egg-shaped compartment before pressing her ear to it.

“You hear anything?” Cat asked, climbing up the steps.

“Someone yelling, I think. But these things open from within, so I don’t get why they’d need help.”

Cat ran up the steps of another pod and rubbed her hands across the hatch. “Are they damaged?”

“Doesn’t look—”

The pod twitched, rotating in its base. Molly stepped back. Walter hissed at the pod closest to him, which seemed to have moved in unison.

“Of course!” Molly ran down the steps and toward the control room.

“Of course, what?” Cat called out after her.

“A simulation is still running. Somebody must’ve—”

She stopped when she entered the control room. The remains of that very somebody were smeared all over the small booth. Their body lay crumbled in a heap in one corner, the spaceman’s flightsuit so flat it appeared empty. Molly looked away, but the sight was seared on her retina, overlaid onto so many other horrific images. She thought about the sacrifice this person had made and silently honored him.

The keyboard and screen were a mess, but she had to do something about the pod controls. She pulled the medkit over her shoulder and around in front, then groped inside for a gauze pad. Using the medical fabric to remove a smear off the screen made it impossible to imagine the mess as anything other than blood. The pad soaked it up dutifully.

Molly glanced at the flight routine summary. The adjacent SADAR screen showed a cluster of virtual Firehawks drifting in space. The routine still had almost two hours to go, a gross overestimation for how long the crash would take. Then again, she probably would’ve done the same thing, taking no chances on an early exit.

Using the gauze to hold down the CTRL button, she jabbed the BREAK key with a knuckle, then ran back outside while the simulation wound down.

“Scottie, we’re gonna need you in here,” she called out the door. “Everyone, get ready to guide any survivors out. Keep their focus away from the back of the room. We’ll form up and meet in the hallway.” She turned to Cat. “Come with me,” Molly said.

She ran toward the far pods, the ones that would be closest to the tangle of bodies. It would be important to get any surviving occupants away as quickly as possible. Molly wasn’t sure how, but having something to work on—people to be responsible for—made crossing the room possible. She felt grateful for the temporary immunity and focused on the slim chance that the simulators had kept the Admiral safe.

She forgot, for just a moment, that she might not be safe if he was.

The hatches started popping open as soon as the simulation shutdown procedure completed. Cries of anguish and relief spilled out of the pods just before the people did. Men and women exited their simulators and shouted for one another. As they emerged, it proved impossible to keep them from seeing what lay at the far end of the room. Moans of agony and peals of disbelief rang out, along with a smattering of curses. Molly found herself yelling at grown men to head for the exit, the white hair and beards on many of them signifying rank their borrowed simulator suits belied.

Everyone seemed too stunned to care that they were being yelled at by a teenager, a Callite, a Palan, and a roughneck local. Their state of shock made them more like cattle, giving Molly and her friends easy verbal control of them. She felt a wave of confidence and surety wash over her—the hours they had already spent around the horror had put her group in a much better state than these survivors. The four of them had descended through the gore in stages, rather than hatching directly into the worst it had to offer.

Molly corralled a dozen survivors together and guided them, pushing and prodding, toward the hallway. They clung to one another like refugees, knees weakened by an emotional ordeal no less taxing than a physical one might be.

Cat lagged behind with another cluster, including a few women. In fact, ahead of Molly—clustered around Walter and Scottie—there seemed to be quite a few women among the survivors. Further ahead, an older gentleman leaned against the rear of a pod and threw up on the decking. Several other people seemed to have been physically sick. Molly swallowed hard and tried to focus on getting everyone out of there.

“Into the hallway,” she yelled.

Most of them didn’t need to be told. Many ran out, clutching their stomachs or sobbing into their hands, men and women alike.

As she guided her own group forward, Molly heard someone yelling from inside one of the simulators. She left Cat in charge of her survivors and stomped up the steps, only to find yet another level of disgust: someone hadn’t gotten their suit plugged in. Either that, or the grav link had failed. The other occupant, a young man, seemed unscathed but in a state of shock. He held the body in his lap, the arms of the deceased dangling to either side with the litheness of a hundred joints.

At least, thank the gods, the suit’s seals had remained intact.

“I need you to come with me,” Molly told him. She ducked into the pod and reached for the limp body in his lap. The survivor stared at her, visor open, mouth slack, a dull whine leaking out. It was the sound of distilled agony. Of confusion and regression.

Grabbing the limp figure, Molly shifted it to the other seat and nearly threw up inside the simulator pod. The form inside the outfit felt pulverized. Chunked. She bit down on her tongue to divert her attention with some pain while she folded the suit and its contents out of the man’s lap.

“We need to go,” she told him. She unbuckled his harness and pulled him toward the open hatch. The man continued to make a strange moaning sound as she guided him out and down the steps.

They were the last two out into the hallway. As they approached the door, Molly felt the need to turn around, to make sure there weren’t more people to help. It was hard to do with the knowledge of what lay behind, but she looked anyway. Everyone that could be saved was out. The percentages—seeing how many didn’t stand a chance—it made her feel sick.

In the hallway, she found most of the survivors sitting along the wall, some of them prone. The medkit felt ridiculous across her back; nobody needed so much as an adhesive strip. What they should’ve brought down was more water and rations. Molly saw that the little nourishment they did have was already being passed around; she worked her way down the line of bedraggled spacemen, checking eyes for alertness—when she found him. Found herself face-to-face with Admiral Saunders.

Their eyes met—and his widened.

“You.”

Molly nearly burst out in tears to see someone she knew, someone from her seemingly long-ago past. Saunders represented a thread back to normalcy; she could see him and remember being young and only miserable in frivolous ways. She could remember, with longing, the simple pain of being yelled at, of being treated poorly. She approached, holding out a bottle of water, but he slapped it away.

“You need to drink,” she told him.

He looked to either side of himself, surveying those nearest him. Molly noticed the men and women clustered around him had the most gray in their hair and the least trauma in their eyes. They bore the haggard look of veterans, the creases made by years of worry had become permanent in expressive wrinkles.

“Arrest her,” Saunders said meekly, looking to his subordinates. “She’s the one—”

Molly knelt down and rested a hand on his shoulder. “We need to get everyone out of here,” she said, “and you need to drink some water. You can airlock me later, if you like.”

He frowned as she pushed the water into his hand. A thin man with wispy gray hair slid close and grabbed the bottom of the bottle, moving it to Saunders’s lips. The gray man met Molly’s eyes with his own; he nodded slowly to her as the Admiral slurped from the bottle.

Molly stood up and looked around herself. There had to be almost a hundred of them. With what few they had rescued above, it was but a sliver of a fraction of a percent of the total crew. The tragedy of this one act alone was mind-numbing. The thought of it happening throughout the galaxy was too terrible to even register. At least one cruiser had also gone down, then there were all the Firehawks and support craft—

Molly left Saunders in the care of the others and walked back down the center of the hallway. She wondered how they were going to get everyone through the stairwell and into the ship. And how many flights back and forth with Parsona would it take to keep everyone comfortable? And where would she take them? All the way back to Bekkie?

She was mulling this over, surveying the crowd, when she noticed Walter standing by the doorway of the simulator room, staring inside. His eyes were narrowed, his silvery, stubbly head leaning forward as he gazed in the direction of the far wall.

“Don’t look at it, Walter.” She walked up and put her hands on his narrow shoulders, trying to turn him away.

“Ssomething’ss wrong,” he hissed.

“I know, buddy, but we’ll get through it together, okay?”

“No.” He shrugged her hands off his shoulders. “Ssomething’ss really wrong. It moved.”

Molly forced herself to look at the pile of bodies in the distance. “Nothing moved in there, Walter. Your eyes are playing tricks on—”

One of the bodies on top of the steep pile fell away from the rest; it rolled sickeningly across the simulator room, joints folding in ways they shouldn’t. And then it came to a sudden halt. Several other bodies followed suit, all of them coming to a stop at the same place, their limbs tangled and supple.

Suddenly, a large chunk came loose—a crowd. The rest of the wall followed in a sudden avalanche of bodies. The corpses tumbled across the steel decking together, skidding to an eerie halt in a wide dune of the dead.

Walter pulled back from the room, hissing.

“What’s wrong?” Cat asked, walking over and steadying Walter. She peered past Molly. “What in the hell?”

“Get everyone together,” Molly whispered. “We need to get out of here.”

“What’s going on?”

Molly turned to Cat. “The grav panels are failing.”