by Laura Lam
Three options came up on the computer. The best one was a tiny dot of a planet, so small she barely noticed it at first. Perfect. She increased her speed toward the asteroid belt, as fast as the ship could go. Behind her she could see the blinking dots of a dozen other ships.
They fired. The ship shuddered, its cobbled pieces groaning with the effort to maintain speed as she dodged projectiles. The oxygen was holding up, but barely. Clo expertly wove through the lines of their fire—until she wasn’t so lucky.
A torpedo slammed into the back of the ship. Clo jerked forward in her seat, the rough cloth of the belt biting into her shoulder. “Silt.”
“Hull breach sustained,” the computer intoned. “Sealing off.”
“Alesca,” Sher’s warning voice came from behind her.
Before Clo could even dodge again, another torpedo smashed into the ship. Around her, metal shuddered.
“Wing breach sustained,” the stupid godsdamned computer added.
“Alesca!”
“Yeah,” Clo said. “I get it. Flume off.”
A groan from Briggs. “Listen to the commander and stop getting hit, Alesca.”
“D’ye want to pilot this damn ship?” She gunned the engine toward the asteroid field. “I’ll hand it over. Ye can hold your guts in while ye fly.”
She swallowed a sob. Please don’t die, Briggs.
He didn’t respond. She hoped he’d passed out again. All she could do was dodge the flying torpedoes that were locked in to her ship’s course. She couldn’t let the ship itself do the work. It was all her, and it took more focus than she had. Her friend was bleeding and dying next to her.
The asteroid field was in view. “Hold on,” she told Sher.
She jammed the lever for the thrusters forward, sending the ship hurtling through the asteroid belt. She was completely surrounded by dust, debris, and rocks. The remains of old ships that hadn’t made it hovered as Clo eased through the maze of rock.
Clo wanted to pretend that this was all a dream and she was back safe in her cot on Jurran, huddled beneath a mountain of blankets. She wanted to hear Briggs tell her to get up and start her godsdamned chores.
His weak voice sounded beside her. “Driving like a fucking Proclian.”
“Proclians drive better,” muttered Sher.
Clo gritted her teeth as when another Tholosian missile hit the back of the ship. “Damage at ten percent,” the computer monotoned. At least they’d changed it from the Oracle’s voice.
Clo’s hands were white knuckled around the navigator. “I’m saving yer ungrateful lentic arses.”
Another missile. Another. The ship grazed past an asteroid that nicked the side of the ship. Damage sustained: 15, 30, 40.
“You won’t be able to do shit once damage gets past seventy,” Briggs muttered. “Thought you were a better pilot than this, kid.”
She kept an eye on the computers as she went through the asteroid belt and almost cried with relief when the blinking dot of a nearby planet showed up on the screen. The computer scanned it.
“Fortuna,” the Novan computer intoned. “Mostly water-based. Planet terraformed in the year—”
“Can I land on it?” Clo snapped at the computer.
“Sending landing coordinates,” the computer responded.
Clo’s entire body strained as another missile skimmed the ship. If it sustained any more damage, they’d all die in this asteroid belt, another ghost ship left behind to decay with the others. Three more deaths to add to the empire’s billions.
“We’re gonna make it,” she said to Briggs and Sher, desperation the only thing allowing her to keep focus. “We’re gonna make it.”
Briggs’s hand was limp over the bullet wound. His skin was so pale. “Alesca,” he said. Clo flinched at the slight tremor in his voice. “You’re a good kid.”
“Briggs.” Clo heard the concern in Sher’s voice. “Don’t—”
“And you’re a damn fine commander.” Briggs’s voice was beginning to slur.
“Shut it,” Clo said, as the ship crossed to the end of the asteroid belt. God, they were so close. Almost there. “Shut it, Briggs. Don’t blare at us like yer already sunk.”
Clo couldn’t think about Briggs. If she did, they would never survive. “I’m going to have to crash the ship,” she told Sher. When he opened his mouth to argue, she said, “We need something big enough to draw their attention while we escape, okay? This is all we have.”
Sher gave a decisive nod.
Clo jammed the steering forward, and she and Sher unclipped their belts. They rose unsteadily to their feet and held on to the ceiling strap as the ship zoomed down, down, down.
One chance. That’s all they had to make it. They grabbed two parachute packs from the hold and put them on.
Briggs was still as Sher and Clo dragged his heavy, muscled ass out of the seat and slid the strap of the parachute around him.
“Alesca,” Sher said. Then, more softly: “Clo.”
“Don’t say it,” she snapped. “Don’t fucking say it.”
She pulled the levers to open the emergency hatch. Her stomach dropped as she stared down at the ground below her, coming ever closer. If they waited much longer, they’d never get the parachute open in time.
“Now or never,” she whispered. “I’ve got you, Briggs.”
Briggs didn’t answer.
Clo shut her eyes and flung them both out of the ship. As the air rushed around them, she clasped Briggs hard to her, her body trembling with fear. Distantly, she heard the ship skimming across the water to crash into the sand of the shallows. It didn’t explode, at least, but the ship would probably need to be scrapped for parts and rebuilt.
Clo pulled the string to open her parachute. The same camouflage she’d tried to hide the ship with back on Jurran. She was jerked toward the sky as fabric billowed up above her. The air was still for the few minutes she glided toward the surface, with Sher in his own parachute beside her.
It was quiet. Peaceful. She spotted a clearing between the canopy of trees and glided with Sher to the ground. Her landing wasn’t graceful. It was a hard jolt up her legs as she fell into the grass, Briggs landing heavily into her side. The weight of his body stole her breath. They were on the edge of a forest, next to a sandy beach. The waters of the sea lapped the sand, the sky above a dark purple-gray. The air smelled of salt and brine. Closer to home than the desert or the frozen rock she’d just left.
“Briggs.” She pushed against him, but he flopped into the ground, unmoving. Eyes still shut. “Briggs?”
“Alesca.” Sher’s voice was quiet again as he unclasped his own chute and kneeled beside her. “Alesca, I’m s—”
“Don’t say it.” She shook her head. “Please don’t say it.”
Footsteps drew their attention.
A group of women stood at the edge of the forest, staring at them warily. Clo doubted they had many visitors out this way on their small island, least of all ones who fell from the sky.
The whir of Tholosian ships entering the planet’s atmosphere sounded overhead, drawn to the smoking ruins of the ship.
Clo turned to the women. “Help,” she said, in every language she knew. “Please.”
An older woman stepped forward. She was tall and lithe, with lines across her face that told of a life long-lived but far from over.
She seemed wary of Sher but kneeled next to Briggs, pressing her fingertips to his pulse. She spoke a dialect of Imperial. Then she shook her head.
“No,” Clo whispered back. “He’s not. He’s—”
“We have to go, Alesca,” Sher told her gently.
The woman pointed upward and spoke again, her voice urgent. A warning.
If Clo didn’t leave Briggs there, she would die too.
Leaving him was one of the hardest things she�
��d ever done.
Late that night, when the Tholosians had left them for dead, Clo sneaked back down to the beach. She tried to carry Briggs to the water, but he was so heavy. Too heavy. Three of the women whose names she still didn’t know had followed, emerging from the trees like ghosts. Wordlessly, they helped her drag Briggs to the shore.
Clo pushed him gently into the sea, letting the waves take him, like the dark green waters of Myndalia had taken her mother. One of the women murmured something like a prayer.
He sank, down into the dark, and a piece of Clo went with him.
38.
CLO
Present day
Clo scanned the planet Ismara again, hoping the details Zelus’s mainframe gave her would come up differently.
The screen beeped, and Clo scrolled through the details.
Nothing out of the ordinary. No extra military craft.
Two and a half weeks until the Tholosian-Evoli truce, and they still had no idea what the Empire had hidden on Ismara, why they had gone through such complicated measures to make sure no one knew ichor existed or how the rock would be weaponized.
“Fucking bog-all,” Clo told the others as she flicked her finger across the screen.
The other women were seated behind her in the command center, watching the slow approach to Ismara. Rhea and Ariadne seemed entranced by the sight, and Clo was once again reminded that neither had left their respective cages on Tholos. The entire galaxy was so new to them, that it made Clo reevaluate everything she saw.
Ismara wasn’t far off the path Clo took to run supplies to Nova. From space, the abandoned planet was a smear of blue and purple, much smaller than the Sisters, Myndalia, or Sennett. They passed through the two moons, readying to enter the atmosphere.
Ismara was still a beautiful planet, in parts, but Zelus’s scan claimed much of it had been destroyed by mining. It had been abandoned for nearly a century, and pockets of growth were only now returning. One day, Tholosians would drain this planet to the dregs again. That was the way of the Empire: find planets that were resource-rich, eliminate all intelligent life that might be a threat, use up everything the planet had to offer for the Empire’s vast citizenry, and then abandon it until it was ready to plunder anew.
Rinse, repeat.
“We don’t know that yet,” Ariadne replied, peering over Clo’s shoulder as she slowly navigated the ship. “The ichor is down there; I’m sure of it.” She gestured to the computers. “The scan is detecting the same endospores that we found on Josephine, so we’ll take some suits and helmets.”
Zelus glided birdlike through the air as they made their way to the main barracks. “Should someone stay behind with the pilot?”
Eris looked annoyed at the reminder of his existence. “He’s locked up in the medical center, cuffed to a bed, and unlikely to do anything strenuous for a few days.”
Nyx’s laugh was dry. The soldier looked like she hadn’t done much sleeping herself. “Understatement. He looks like shit; definitely feels like shit. Deprogramming is rough.”
Clo suppressed a shudder. The sleeping quarters were on the same level as the med center. Even three rooms away, Clo had heard Cato’s screams as the machine detangled programming from natural brain synapse. Rhea had told her that putting a soldier under general anaesthesia during deprogramming was impossible; they had to remain conscious during the whole procedure.
Eris read the planet report. “With the soldiers they had guarding Zelus’s cargo, I’m surprised there’s no increase in security,” she murmured.
Clo tapped the screen for a better look. “Maybe they don’t want to risk tipping off the Evoli?”
Eris didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. It doesn’t look like there’s anywhere near the coordinates Ariadne found to land a craft this size. We’ll have to use the shuttle.”
“And contact Sher once we land,” Clo reminded her. “We really need him to send an unmanned craft with supplies.”
“Cato needs more blockers,” Ariadne added brightly. “Keeps him calmer during deprogramming.”
Eris scowled. “You’d think this ship made for one hundred people would have more of the damn things.”
“The Tholosians aren’t in the practice of deprogramming or having regular accidents and surgery,” Ariadne pointed out.
Eris made an irritated noise. “Clo, get the shuttle ready. Everyone, change into your suits.”
The shuttle was a tight squeeze and Ariadne ended up perching on Nyx’s knee. Clo brought the craft down near the Ismara warehouse on the southwest hemisphere. They fell toward the ground, the atmosphere whooshing over the craft.
The shuttle burst through the clouds. Clo’s stomach roiled again. Not as bad as Myndalia but she still swallowed the sharp taste of bile.
Most habitable planets in the Tholosian empire were like Myndalia. Dry or swampy, with habitable sections few and far between, and thus overcrowded. Temperate planets like the Three Sisters, with large continents, were rare and valuable.
On Ismara, the ground was nothing but hard rock covered in shallow water and topped with a thick, unforgiving mist. Large lily pads provided some nutrition and compost for fuel, but nothing larger could take root down below. Ismara was unique in that natural islands floated several hundred feet above ground level. Some flat, some with rolling hills or even small mountains. Clo had no idea how it all worked. Magnetic fields? Magic? All the same to her. The universe kept its mysteries.
“It’s so beautiful,” Rhea said, voice filled with wonder as Clo maneuvered the craft around a small floating forest, even if half of the trees had been burned away to clear space for miners. A few saplings sprouted from the singed soil. The other woman had her hands pressed to the glass as she stared at the sight below.
Clo let her smile show this time. “Told you I’d show you the universe, didn’t I?”
Rhea blushed.
Nyx rolled her eyes. “I hate to interrupt your romantic moment here, but how do we find the warehouse if it’s literally floating over the surface?”
“The coordinates Ariadne got when she hacked the Oracle are pretty precise,” Clo said, glancing at the screen. “These islands don’t seem to move quickly enough to make a difference.”
Ariadne fiddled with some of the controls, much to Clo’s annoyance. She was the bogging pilot here. “There’s no other use for this planet than hiding something. Here, go this way.”
She showed Clo a map on the screen and locked on to the location.
Clo followed the signal. They were all silent as they passed over floating islands. Some had buildings already falling to ruin, crumbling in the moist atmosphere. The paths and roads were overgrown, foliage reclaiming the dark ribbons.
The abandoned buildings were unsettling, a ghost town. Even Rhea seemed more subdued. This place already felt haunted and they hadn’t even set foot on land yet.
“Why did everyone leave?” Clo asked Ariadne.
“The records are unclear. When I ran the search through the Oracle’s files, they said mining was unsustainable.” Ariadne tapped a few buttons on her tablet, frowning. “It looks like the biggest mine was going to be at the ground level. The rock is hard, but they were developing machinery to do the job. Lots of raw material was completely untapped, but they just . . . stopped. They left everything.”
A shiver ran through Clo. Something felt off. People didn’t just abandon valuable materials like that, not without good reason. They were programmed to do the job, no questions asked. And no one had come to finish the job.
“How many people are we talking about?”
“At its height? Not many. Maybe thirty thousand.”
They set down and the ship landed with a soft whoosh. Clo’s breathing grew ragged, and yet again, she lost the contents of her stomach—this time in a vomit bag Ariadne had helpfully provided for landing. From the sound
s of the retching in the bullet craft, she wasn’t the only one.
“Should have aimed for your boots again,” Clo told an unaffected Eris, who smirked. “Got any breath neutralizers?”
Eris passed them to Clo and the others, who all swallowed gratefully. Leaning back in her captain’s chair, Clo took the tablet from Ariadne and pinged Sher. After a muted beep, his face appeared. Clo wished she could reach through the screen and give Sher a hug. He would smell like sand and metal and home.
She missed Nova—she even missed the blasted heat. She missed tinkering with engines and swapping jokes with Elva. She missed sending the craft off on their missions. She was ready to go home and leave the adventuring to others for a while.
“Hey, Alesca,” Sher said. “I’ve missed that angry mug.”
It was night on Nova. His dark green eyes looked black in the low light of his office. He had a room in the barracks, but he spent most nights working until he fell asleep on a cot set up in the corner. Even half a galaxy away, his eyes could see into the very core of a person.
“Shut up, marsh-hole,” she said.
“Ah, there’s that beautiful Snarl poetry.” He grinned. “You made good time. I wasn’t expecting your call this early. Where are the others?”
Tilting the tablet, Clo showed him Eris, Rhea, Nyx, and Ariadne—who gave Sher an enthusiastic wave. Eris nodded once in greeting.
“Well done on Macella, all of you,” Sher said. “Any problems, Eris?”
Clo wasn’t sure if Eris had mentioned the pilot to Sher. Clo didn’t know how to broach the subject. By the way, we’re conducting an unauthorized experiment and trying to break through a potential new strain of deprogramming. The subject nearly throttled one of us to death, but otherwise, it’s pure gleyed, promise.
“Not yet, but something feels off.” Eris gestured to the trees in view of their ship’s window. “If they’re hiding a bunch of precious ichor cargo, there should be security like what we saw on Zelus before we commandeered it. Anyone here would have approached the ship by now.”
Ariadne nodded. “The Oracle’s files mentioned security around the building but nothing else. On all official documents, Ismara is declared completely uninhabitable, so that seems to be keeping people away. We should be fine, but we still ought to wear the same basic protection I wore when I looked at Josephine.”