“A-live,” spits Deke from somewhere behind me.
“Holy Helios,” I whisper, scanning the scene outside through the crystal window. The sight is terrifying. The crowd of Acolytes that was jumping and cheering moments ago is now floating unconsciously a few feet off the ground. Whether they’re passed out or worse, I don’t know.
Chunks of metal, plaster, and other materials clutter the air, swimming along with the limp bodies. The debris looks familiar.
I try to see what’s happening by the compound, but I can’t. The window is fogging up fast.
A high-pitched noise grows louder, and I catch a crack creeping down the side of the crystal. As I watch, the fracturing spreads into a spider web of lines, and when the whinnying pitch reaches a new high, I realize what’s about to happen.
“RUN!”
I reach for my helmet and toss Nishi hers. Deke grabs his, and I cast my gaze around the room, realizing I never heard Kai answer.
He’s still passed out, his body a small heap. I shove his helmet on his head and pull him up. Hooking a shoulder under his arm, I take him with me through the door Deke is holding open.
Deke comes through last—right as the crystal window blows.
Nishi screams, and Deke shoves the door, slamming it shut just in time. Shards of crystal stab the other side.
As soon as we’re on the moon’s surface, the lower oxygen lightens my load. I try using my helmet’s communication system, but it’s not working. Since the dome is blocking our view of campus and the compound, I signal to Deke and Nishi that we should go around.
When we reach the crowd, the sight is so devastating my vision blurs, like my eyes don’t want to see more. It takes me a moment to realize I’m sobbing.
Bodies are everywhere. Floating past each other peacefully, three or four feet above the ground. None of them have woken up.
A pink space suit no bigger than Kai drifts past my head, the person light enough to rise higher than the others. I reach for the girl’s leg and pull her closer. Where a face should be, there’s only frost.
Her thermal controls stopped working. . . . She froze to death.
Shaking, I look around at the suspended space suits surrounding me.
They’re all dead.
Everything within me goes so cold, my suit might as well have stopped working, too. I suck in lungfuls of oxygen, but still I can’t breathe. There are too many bodies here . . . more than a hundred . . . more than two—
I can’t.
I can’t count. I don’t want to know.
A generation of Cancrian children who can never go home again.
It’s only when I see Deke and Nishiko move in my periphery that I look up. They’ve both turned and are surveying the damage behind us, at the compound, their gloved hands gripping the sides of their helmets like it’s the only way they’ll keep their heads. My gut clenches with dread, and I already know what horrors await if I turn to look.
I know the debris in the air isn’t all from Elara’s surface.
There are papers and notebooks and bags. Chairs and desks and books. And other bodies . . . bodies not wearing compression suits.
Faint shadows move in the distance.
Squinting, I see a small trail of people bounce-jumping toward the spaceport from the far side of the compound.
I decide not to look back. Right now, I need to get my friends and myself to safety—and to do that, the suffering has to stay behind me. I have to wall off the pain.
If I turn around, I might not be able to.
I nudge Deke and signal to the spaceport. Through his helmet’s visor, his face is pale and wet. He takes Kai off my shoulder, and I get Nishi’s attention, and together we follow the other survivors.
The spaceport’s floodlights are dark, but when we reach the edge of the launchpad, there’s a man directing us with a laser torch. When he sees Deke carrying an unconscious Kai, he motions for us to climb into the small mining ship parked in front of the hangar.
I help Deke get Kai on board, and when we’ve cycled through the airlock, we gently lay him down on the deck and remove his helmet. Then I yank off my own and take deep gulps of air.
We’re alone in a cargo hold full of spherical orange tanks of liquid helium from Elara’s mines. Frost webs the dark walls, and our breath makes puffs of vapor. The other survivors must have gone deeper into the hangar, toward a larger passenger ship.
The man who was guiding us emerges through the airlock and rushes up to Kai. His compression suit bears the insignia of the Zodai Royal Guard. When he takes off his helmet, I see a pair of indigo blue eyes.
Lodestar Mathias Thais.
Gently, he listens for breath, checks Kai’s pulse, and peels open an eyelid. “This boy has fainted. Can someone pass me the healing kit?”