“This ain’t a gravBike, kid.”
A cold sweat soaks my body. I wipe my face and wish that Volga were here now. I feel naked without her, just as I did the entire time I was with the Duke.
“What’s that light?” Electra says, pointing to the communicator.
“Incoming message,” Pax says. “Could be Mother.”
He opens the channel and a noseless face distorted by a facial scrambler appears over the holopad between the pilot and co-pilot seats. The pixels swirl together, looking like a plague of marauding locusts forming a head with gaps for the mouth and eyes and the twirling black tips of a ghost crown.
“Ephraim ti Horn,” the disembodied head of the Syndicate Queen rasps over the ship’s speakers. Whatever blood is left in me chills.
The children are struck dumb, smart enough to know when to be afraid.
“Let me guess, you’d be the queen bitch, eh?” I say thinly.
“You will return the children.”
“Course I will. In exchange, I’ll take a private island on Venus with a legion of Pinks to bring me cocktails in little coconut shells. Not a bad life, eh?” I laugh at the locust face. “Let me guess: you’re going to offer me three islands. Well, fuck that and fuck you. I’m not afraid of dying and certainly not afraid of you. Ephraim out.”
I reach and shut off the communicator, but the hologram doesn’t obey. The empty eyes stare at me from the mutinous pixels.
“I gave this ship to the Duke,” the shadowy face rasps. “I own it. I own you. Soon I will see you in the flesh—while you still have it. Till then, thief.” The ship suddenly banks hard to port, throwing Pax sideways behind me. He slams against the bulkhead. My body jerks against the pilot restraints.
“What’s happening?” Pax asks, picking himself up. His forehead is bleeding.
“The ship’s turning around…” I whisper.
“Back to the Syndicate…” Pax says.
“Well, turn it back!” Electra shouts.
“Good idea! I’ll just do that,” I snap. The steering has gone dead. The secondary electrical controls are off. “It’s being flown remotely. Coms are dead.” My mouth’s gone dry. I look frantically for some sort of override, but the control isn’t physical. It’s coded into the ship’s computer. “The escorts won’t reach us in time…” I say. They’ll land us at some Syndicate facility and that will be the last the world ever knows of us. But it won’t end there. No, they’ll draw it out for years. And what will happen to Volga then?
“Slag this.” I totter to my feet, almost falling down. Pax catches me. I sway there, trying to slow down the spinning. “Thanks.”
“What are you going to do?” Electra asks.
“Something stupid.” She reaches for her restraints. “Stay, hatchetface.” I grip Pax by his collar and shove him to the chair. “Both of you, strap in.” I leave them exchanging confused glances as they strap themselves into the pilot and co-pilot chairs. I stumble back through the ship, using the wall to support me. “Where are you?” I shove open doors and lockers, finding fridges of champagne and caviar and dining sets. Come on! Blackness is creeping into the fringes of my vision. I fall down, catching myself on the cushion of an inset dining area. I fumble with the zoladone dispenser in my pocket. I drop it on the floor and pick it up. I pop three zoladone between my molars. An electric thrill vibrates through my veins, numbing the pain in my chest. I struggle to my feet, and in the back of the ship, near the disembarcation ramp, I find what I was looking for—a walnut-paneled locker full of weapons. Beneath a row of pulseRifles and elegant railguns rests a stack of thermal grenades in formafoam. Someone is laughing. It’s me. I pull the grenades out, clutch them to my chest, and shimmy to the back of the ship, toward the engines. I cluster the grenades on the ground near a cooling unit and shudder out a breath.
“Here goes something.” I set the timer on one of the grenades to thirty seconds and, with a laugh, drop it amongst the pile. I race back the way I came. Well, I try to race with rubber legs, pulling myself back toward the front of the ship, using my arms to hold myself up, counting silently to myself. I reach the front cockpit, seal the door behind me, and collapse into a passenger chair along the wall behind the pilots. Pax and Electra stare at me as I buckle tight the safety restraints. Jove on high, let there be crash webbing in this seat.
“What did you do?” Pax asks.
“Told ya, something stupid. Four, three, assume the position!” Their eyes widen and they cover their heads with their hands.
A deafening roar comes from the back of the ship.
The door to the cockpit buckles inward. The ship pitches sideways and begins to spiral down as the gravity thrusters fail in stuttering gasps. Then they give out and we’re plummeting down, the city and sky whipping past outside the cockpit windows. As we careen down into the wasted, skeleton city landscape of one of the Jackal’s craters, I can’t help but laugh bitterly.
I knew this was gonna be a one-way ticket….
WALKING OUT OF THE ASH LORD’S fortress, I am an empty shell.
The Howlers wait on the landing pad at the top of the tower. The Nessus hovers to the left of the Ash Lord’s shuttle and is readying her to depart. Colloway’s battle-scarred ripWing is docked on her topside. Far below, the tattered remnants of Apollonius’s forces and those of the Ash Lord fight a desperate running battle on the south end of the island. Our injured and dead have been loaded up. I don’t yet know the tally. The jubilation my friends expected to feel with the Ash Lord’s death never comes. Not when they see our faces. And when they hear of Pax and Electra, and Atalantia’s fleet, they turn as pale as Sevro. Rhonna is stunned.
“No,” she whispers. “It’s bullshit. Virginia would have protected him. I know it. He fed you a line.”
“Society fleet ripWings are eight minutes out,” Pebble says. “We’ll have to burn like hell to escape. At current orbit, we can be back on Luna in four weeks.”
I barely hear her. My mind is apart from them, from this place. If only I could go back in time and never come to this hope-forsaken planet. I just want to hold my boy again in my arms. I would protect him from the worlds. I would never leave him. Is he even alive? Would I feel it? The horror grips me again. The world swims and I feel the tears of anger itch behind my eyes. Sevro is locked in his own rage. He storms up the ramp, shouting for the Howlers to load up.
But my feet do not follow. They cannot.
“Darrow?” Pebble murmurs. “What are you doing?”
Sevro turns at the top of the ramp to look down at me.
“I’m not coming,” I say, and as I say it, I feel the last of my soul empty itself from the vessel of my body. Sevro watches me with contempt. “I’m not going back to Luna.”
“Boss,” Colloway says. “What are you talking about? They have your kid. We have to go back.”