“We’ve got you,” the younger Alexander said, wrapping the rope around Dana’s torso.
Dana finally wrapped her fingers around Grey’s hand. Her foot still hung outside, but the Alexanders had kept it from slipping any farther.
The ship shuddered, but Grey’s grasp remained strong. Rin slipped the rope through the divot in the floor and tied it off. Then she wrapped another line around her sister and lastly herself.
Grey still didn’t let go of Dana, even as they banked the other direction and they slid away from the abyss and inside the ship. When they were nearly level again, Grey was able to yank Dana a safe distance away. The three of them stared out of the space as the clouds broke, giving them a view of a barren, rock-laden Jupiter landscape. They were far closer to the ground than Dana realized.
“Thank you,” she finally managed.
Grey’s hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and she took in deep breaths. “We’re even then.”
Suddenly the cockpit door flung open, and Tanner Alexander frantically ran out obviously looking for his daughters.
“Be careful, Dad!” Rin yelled as he saw them and came running.
Tanner dropped to his knees, pulling Grey and Rin into an embrace.
“What hit us?” Grey asked.
He started to respond then hesitated, and Dana knew it was because of her. He let his children go and looked directly into Dana’s face. She looked away.
“We’ll talk later,” he said. “It might be a rough landing. You’ve gotta get yourselves secure before we lose our stabilization again.”
Rin cut the ropes holding them with that huge knife she had seen earlier, and before Dana could protest, Tanner Alexander picked her up in his arms like she was a child and carried her over to an area behind the Jeep.
She tried to speak, but Tanner was focused on his daughters.
Dana could only watch the man taking care of them, remembering how she held a violetflare to his head only a few days ago.
Chapter 22
Landing was uneventful by comparison, and as soon as Grey felt the ship touch the ground she was untying herself and Rin, ready for some answers.
“Are you okay here?” she asked her sister, who gave a quick nod in response.
Grey dashed to the cockpit. She didn’t bother knocking. Mom, Dad, Mrs. March, and Corporal Lennox all spun around when she entered.
“What happened?”
“I’ll check for damage,” Lennox said, grabbing a blueflare from the gun rack and charging out the door, Dad on his heels.
Mom stood, dark fatigue around her eyes.
“We lost the Schumans and almost lost Dana,” Grey said.
“Almost?” Mrs. March tore off her headset.
“She’s okay, but who shot us? And where are they now?”
Mom glanced at Mrs. March who said nothing. Grey was getting tired of the adults passing looks.
“What?” Grey’s arms felt weak after holding on to Dana with all her strength, but there was no time to recover.
“It came from the surface,” her mother said softly.
“Are you kidding me?”
Mrs. March moved from around her chair. “And it wasn’t Mazdaar.”
“How do you know?”
“The energy signature didn’t match any of their weapons.”
“Who’s did it match? Yien?”
“No. We don’t have any record of it.”
The implications of that statement took a moment to register. “But who else would attack us?”
“We don’t know, Grey.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, which felt matted down. “Are we at least where we’re supposed to be, at the rendezvous point?”
“We’re close,” Mom said. “But over fifty kilometers off.”
“So there’s no time to waste.” Mrs. March urged Grey toward the door. “Sue, start gathering our supplies and take Lennox and your husband with you. Grey and I’ll assess how many injuries we have.”
“Wait, Commander.” Mom took hold of Grey’s arm. “Can you give us a moment?”
Mrs. March paused. “Don’t be long.” She closed the door behind her.
Grey pulled away. “Mom, we don’t have time.”
“Honey, you’re bleeding again.”
“I’m fine.”
Sue Alexander gently brushed Grey’s face. Then she turned away, covering her mouth with her fingers. For a second Grey thought she was being dismissed, but then she saw the tears in her mother’s eyes.
“Mom?”
“I can’t keep doing this, sweetheart.”
“Doing what?”
Her mother closed her eyes and stood there as if unable to answer.
“You got us to the ground in one piece,” Grey said. “We’re okay.”
“We lost two more people on my watch, and I almost lost my girls again.”
“But you didn’t.”
Mom straightened and faced her. She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “When we get through with this mission, I want you to know things are going to change.”
“Mom, I’m okay.”
“We’re going to be a real family again.”
“I thought that’s what we were now.”
Mom shook her head. “I joined up with Yien because I wanted to make a difference in this world. But then I had you and Rin and realized the biggest difference I could make was to be a good mother to you. I should have resigned right then. I wasn’t there when you needed me, and now I’ve dragged my whole family into this mess.”
Grey took the second rifle from the rack and handed it to her mother. “At least we’re together.”
Mom cupped Grey’s face. “And we always will be if I have anything to say about it.”
Seeing her mother waver unnerved her, but she realized this was part of being an adult. Mom needed to be able to share honestly with her. It went both ways now.
Grey rested her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “I will be fine and so will Rin. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I know you will.”
“I realize I don’t have your experience,” Grey said. “But I’ve gotten a crash course in survival these past five years. I’m not the little kid you left.”
When her mother started to say something, Grey stopped her. “I know it wasn’t your choice and I’m not blaming you, but I’m tired of being kept in the dark.”
“Grey, there’s a chain of command.”
“The only chain I care about is that you’re my mother and I’m your daughter.”
Captain Sue Alexander looked straight into her daughter’s face for the longest moment. “Then there’s something you need to know.”
“I promise I’ll keep your confidence.”
“That’s the only reason I’m telling you. Right before liftoff we received a message from Jet Yien himself.” Mom took a deep breath and straightened. “Someone on this ship is a Mazdaar mole.”
# # #
Dana concentrated on her right leg with everything she had. She pictured her quad tightening, then her knee straightening. Something tingled. She saw her lower leg rise a half inch before she let out the breath she’d been holding and had to rest.
“Okay, you’re next.” Rin Alexander suddenly appeared in front of her wheelchair with a med kit. “I need to clean that arm.”
“Since when did you become Florence Nightingale?”
Rin pulled out a gauze pack. “Who?”
“Before your time by about three hundred years.”
“Just trying to be useful.”
“Well, be useful somewhere else.” Dana waved toward the others.
Rin ignored her and took her arm. She couldn’t deny the three-inch gash was painful, and it only got worse as Rin rolled up her sleeve and debrided it. Dana winced but refused to make a sound.
“How bad is that Paul guy hurt?” she said, nodding toward the young man who’d been laid out on a blanket on the other side of the hold. He had stirred once, bu
t he still looked unconscious.
“I’m not sure.” Rin glanced over her shoulder. “I think he hit his head.”
“So are you allowed to tell me what happened and where we are?”
The younger Alexander shrugged as she finished taping a bioskin patch to Dana’s forearm. “If I knew I would tell you.”
“Thought you were part of the special inner circle.”
Rin stuffed the extra gauze into the med kit and took more time than necessary to do it. When Grey and her mother exited the cockpit, Rin’s longing glance in their direction was obvious.
Dana easily read between the lines. The youngest Alexander felt left out, which made her vulnerable. She felt an urge to proselytize the girl, like RedStar had her.
They don’t care about you. Not really. They’re using you.
She had rebuffed RedStar’s arguments in message after message, but RedStar persisted until Dana began to believe.
Why do you care about me? Dana had written.
I see your potential. They don’t.
Mazdaar destroys. Yien gives hope, she insisted.
And those are the lies they want you to believe.
They aren’t lies.
Really? The Yien Dynasty has killed innocents too.
RedStar had her there.
“That should do it,” Rin said, pulling Dana out of her reverie.
She unfurled her sleeve over the bandage. “What do you think about all this?”
Rin snapped the med kit closed. “I said I didn’t hate you, Dana, but you’re right about one thing. We are not friends.”
She pulled her arm away. “Did I say we were?”
Chapter 23
There was no time for Grey to fully process her mother’s revelation. In one moment every person became a potential threat, and when she spotted Rin bandaging Dana’s arm she wanted to drag her sister away. Dana being the mole would be too obvious, but what if she was still trying to get to Rin?
“This stays between us,” Mom whispered.
Grey nodded. Out of the thirty-two civilians originally on board, two were now presumed dead. Ten more were wounded, including an elderly man who’d broken his arm. Paul was still unconscious, but Lennox seemed to think he’d be okay.
No one knew who’d attacked them, and Mrs. March made sure to share that information with the others. She didn’t need any rumors about her withholding important details to take root. As soon as the injured had received medical care, the commander gathered everyone together and climbed up onto the hood of the Jeep again to lay out their plan.
They would load down the Jeep and themselves with as many supplies as possible and head toward the rendezvous point on foot. Mom said the ship wouldn’t fly again in its current state, and they were better off getting away from it, since it could possibly be picked up with Mazdaar sensors.
Fifty kilometers was a long walk on an unfamiliar planet, and Grey didn’t relish the journey. She and Rin could’ve made the trek in two days back home, but all bets were off here. Mom had assured them there was oxygen, but until Grey got out there herself she wasn’t sure it would feel the same as Earth.
As they lowered the ship’s ramp, Grey stood with the others and gaped. The air seemed breathable enough, but it smelled like rain. The clouds roiled above them like at Orion Settlement, a monstrous orange-and-red storm that never ceased, but the ceiling here was twice as high. There was no rainbow dirt or even the fine particles of the canyon. Instead, the ground seemed to be made of reddish, sandstone rock, like something in the Preserve.
The ship had set down in a clearing. In the distance an enormous, wispy mountain range loomed. But the mountains seemed to breathe and flow, and Grey realized they weren’t mountains at all.
“Is it fog?” Rin stood beside her.
In the arid climate of the Preserve, fog was something they’d only read about.
Mom appeared next to them. “It’s a moisture phenomenon. We called it the breath of God.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
“A few times.”
The monstrous fog swirled as if it were alive, darting one way, then the other. Like a silver dragon watching and waiting to swoop in. Grey turned away, feeling safer in the confines of the ship than out in the open. She volunteered to help pack supplies and tried to keep her body and mind busy. Her arms still ached, but in a way she was glad for the pain. It gave her something to focus on. Lieutenant Marie Johansson worked beside her.
“That was brave of you back there with Dana,” the lieutenant said.
Why did everyone keep calling her brave? She had done what she hoped anyone would do.
“She didn’t deserve to die like that,” Grey said.
“Some would say otherwise.”
Grey lifted a crate into the Jeep’s bed. “Would you, Lieutenant? I didn’t see you running to help us. All three of us almost got sucked out.”
Johansson shot her a look. “What are you insinuating?”
“If you saw us, why didn’t you help?”
The woman tossed a canvas bag into the Jeep. “You’re out of line, Alexander.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“For your information, I was helping that man”—she pointed at the gentleman with the broken arm—“who passed out from pain. By the time I saw Dana, you were already pulling her to safety.”
Grey picked up another crate, feeling foolish.
“Look, I get it,” Johannson said. “We’re all stressed. But don’t forget what Dana Yurkutz did. You can’t let down your guard, no matter what she says.”
It was advice Grey didn’t want to hear but knew she should. She also couldn’t forget that Dana had saved her life. Didn’t that selfless act mean something?
“I know what she did better than anyone,” Grey said.
And she had seen the lieutenant treat Dana, a prisoner, with respect. Maybe Grey really was at the end of herself. Adrenaline could only take her so far. When would she break? Now she was suspecting Yien soldiers.
“Watch yourself, Alexander,” the lieutenant said. “Someone else might not be as understanding.”
Chapter 24
We move out in five minutes!” Mrs. March called and then turned to Grey. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
Johansson had probably told the commander about her insolence, and Grey was going to hear it for disrespecting her superior.
Mrs. March pulled her aside and lowered her voice. “Do you trust me, Grey?”
“I always have.”
“I hope you know I would never ask you to risk your safety if it were not absolutely necessary.”
Where in the world was this going? Grey faced the one person in the world besides her parents she would follow into battle without hesitation. This woman had protected her when she didn’t even know she needed it. She’d helped Grey learn how to provide for herself. Mom and Dad had planted many good seeds in her as a child, but Mrs. March was the one who’d made them grow.
Mrs. March touched her finger to Grey’s chest. “You are a light, Grey Alexander, and I don’t want you to ever forget it.”
“We’re gonna be facing a lot of darkness, aren’t we?”
“Perhaps.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I need you to continue to trust me.”
Grey didn’t like the unknown, but she determined to listen and obey this time. There might always be secrets Mrs. March couldn’t share for whatever reason, and she had to be okay with it.
“I’ll die before I betray you,” Grey said softly.
“And I hope that is never tested.” Mrs. March reached into an inner pocket of her uniform coat. She pulled out two small hologram projector discs, each the size of one of the silver bouillon coins Grey had used to trade with Jet Yien back before she knew he was the emperor’s son.
“One is a map to where we think Benton is hiding,” Mrs. March said. “The other is a message. If for some reason I am unable
, I want you to find him and give it to him.”
“But where will you be?”
“There are no buts, Grey. I need you to promise me you will do this.”
“Surely there’s someone better qualified.” Grey glanced at her boots. “I am not a soldier, Mrs. March. I probably never will be.”
The commander placed the discs in Grey’s palm, closing her fingers around them. “I have confidence in you. Now it’s time for you to have some confidence in yourself, dear girl.”
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”
Mrs. March sighed. “Things have not gone as we hoped, but I still have faith.”
Grey stared into the woman’s clear eyes. Did Mrs. March know who the mole was? Grey desperately wanted to ask her, but she didn’t dare with everyone around. Instead she dropped the discs into her pocket where the skelette was already safely stowed.
# # #
Grey gave Rin a leg up onto Trif’s back then hoisted herself onto Tram. They had no saddles and only the zorses’ halters and reins they’d fashioned out of rope, but it wasn’t the first time they’d ridden that way. Grey patted Tram’s neck.
“I missed you, boy,” Grey whispered.
“Feels good to be riding, doesn’t it?” Rin said.
“Almost like home.”
“Except for that.” Rin pointed at the sky and then at the ominous fog in the distance. “And that.”
Grey chuckled. Somehow the zorses had survived the flight with little more than a few scratches, but she could feel Tram’s energy pulsing underneath her. If they had been home she might’ve challenged Rin to a race, something the zorses loved as much as they did.
But this was no game, and if Grey was honest with herself, she felt more than a little apprehension over the whole plan.
“Got room for two?”
Grey twisted around to see Paul Alvarez making his way toward her. She started to dismount Tram, but he held up his hand.
“Joking,” he said with a pained smile, and Grey was surprised at the relief she felt that he was up on his own two feet. When she’d first seen him laid out unconscious, she thought he was dead.
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