“Two minutes out,” Pavel called down to him. His voice at the top of the ladder sounded tinny. Aly realized where he was—steps away from the engine room. Then Pavel disappeared.
“No,” he tried to yell, but his mouth wasn’t working anymore. He was alone, shivering, his head busted open. How, exactly, did he get here? He’d never seen snow, but this was what it must feel like to be buried in it. Even his brain was freezing over. Memories flashed from his life: walking alongside his dad, water dripping off a corrugated metal roof. Someone was coming toward them, but he couldn’t remember who or why. They were on their way to fly a kite . . .
Aly slipped out of consciousness and then woke again. How long had it been? A second? An hour? He heard the NX marching. The hiss and zip of expensive hydraulics boiled the blood in his heart.
He was seven. His dad’s enormous hand pawed at his shirt and pulled him close.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to. And don’t say anything smart.” His dad had whispered the last word like it was something foul, shameful. A Fontisian was passing, but he wasn’t like the missionaries who taught Vodhan’s word in the droopy makeshift prayer tents. The Fontisians were generally larger, with pale skin and pointy ears the kids would whisper about. It was rumored they could hear anything, anywhere. But this particular man had dark tattoos all along his neck that looked like they were clawing their way out from under his shift.
“What’s this?” the Fontisian had asked, as he grabbed roughly for their kite. Aly was too scared to speak—and the man had repeated himself, this time in Wraetan. He’d accented it in all the wrong places. And when his dad told him it was a kite they’d made together, the Fontisian’s answer was cold.
There is only one way to get to heaven, and it is not by flying.
Now Aly felt the cool grate against his face. How much time had passed? More than two minutes, he was sure.
He was going to die. Maybe he was dead already.
He could still feel the rain from when he’d been tossed outside all those years ago. In his mouth, on his eyelids, sliding down around his ears. It was like the water had been gathering all these years, between then and now, rising. Then it swallowed him up and everything was quiet.
SEVEN
RHIANNON
THE UniForce soldiers would board any second, and Rhee could no longer trust that they would protect her.
“Take the pill. The scrambler takes up to a minute to work,” Dahlen said. There was a new sense of urgency in his voice.
“I’ve lost it!” Rhee peered through the grate into the darkness. She’d made a mess of everything. “Help me get the grate up!”
He cursed in Fontisian. “There’s no time,” he said. He went to the wall and slid his fingers along its gnarled surface. He found what he was looking for: the opening of a hatch that had been invisible. He motioned for Rhee to crawl inside. When the hatch closed behind her, everything went dark.
But it didn’t go still.
The bark shifted under Rhee’s weight, poking and prodding her as she tried to get comfortable. She knew the ship was alive—it was organic matter, after all—but she hadn’t expected it to squirm and wiggle. She felt sick, like she’d digested something rotten. No, like she was being digested.
Outside, the ship had settled into a grav beam, and she heard the bay doors open. Dahlen offered strained greetings, and Rhee felt the weight of the craft tip as though several soldiers had come on board at once.
“Sergeant Niture,” a man said, introducing himself. “Just a routine sweep. Interesting vessel . . .”
“I’ve never seen this kind of droid before,” Dahlen said. Rhee heard the zip and hiss of a machine sweeping across the small pod. Something cracked. “It’s pretty, certainly. But can it be more careful?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the sergeant said in a tone that suggested he was not sorry at all. “These NX combat droids haven’t been programmed for a soft touch. Sooner we’re done, sooner it’s off.”
“Of course,” Dahlen answered. “Can you tell me, Sergeant, when martial law was declared?”
A tense silence followed. Rhee figured this Niture character must not like being questioned, even if the question itself was a reasonable one.
“Since riots broke out across all of Kalu, that’s when,” the man said roughly. “Lots of people devastated by the Princess’s death, and lots of people wondering exactly who’s responsible. Like the allies don’t have enough problems. Enough dusties to choke off whatever resources they have left . . .”
Rhee heard a long pause, and she wondered what had been communicated in that silence. She was worried about the riots. She’d have to check the holos next time she got the chance.