Eclipse the Skies

by Maura Milan

  She decided to put her trust in her government one last time.

  Right at that moment, the lights cut out.

  CHAPTER 4

  KNIVES

  KNIVES SAT IN THE PILOT SEAT of his 504 Kaiken, staring out into the expanse, the stars in the distance blinking at him. They only made the silence more obvious. Even without looking back, he knew Ia was slumped in her seat. She was sulking. It emanated off her like a dry heat.

  “You got what you needed?”

  “Keep this under wraps, Knives,” she reminded him. “You can’t go reporting that we ran off to Myth.”

  “Of course. You think I want to hear the general screaming into my ear?”

  Ia quieted at the mention of General Adams. Ever since she’d found out the true identity of Knives’s father, things between them had been strained. But was that really why she was giving him the cold shoulder right now?

  “It was nice getting off campus,” Knives said, trying to lighten the mood. “We should do it again.”

  “I’ll make sure to invite Eve,” snapped Ia.

  He stabbed his finger down on the autopilot button and swiveled his chair around to face her. “What does that mean?”

  Ia shrugged. “You seemed comfortable with her.”

  “You told me to get her into her room. I wasn’t going to lead her at gunpoint in a space station filled with—”

  “With what? Dead Space murk?”

  “No. That’s not what I meant. Dead Spacers don’t like Citizens. You would know.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And I still do.”

  “Fine,” Knives muttered to himself. He turned his chair back around and gripped his steering wheel. She was trying to start a fight. About anything. Everything. There was no point talking to her, not until she cooled down.

  He flew the rest of the way in silence, pretending to pilot when in actuality the navigation systems were still set to auto. He took the time to think, to seethe, to simmer. All he wanted was for things to be calm between them, to have her stand beside him and smile, but since the attack on Aphelion, it sometimes felt like they were still on opposite sides of a chasm.

  They spoke all the time, but they weren’t actually talking. Any mention of the fact that his father was the general was always a conversation killer.

  And they never brought up that kiss.

  Yet it was all he ever thought about. The taste of her lips, the brush of her hair against his cheek, the pull of her fingers, closer and closer.

  He shook his head.

  The problems were on the table, and they were still there, looming like big, clunky wultakus in the room.

  The Kaiken cleared the Birra Gate, and Knives’s eyes focused on a white planet, its atmosphere swirling with angry gray clouds. He disengaged the autopilot system and grabbed the steering wheel, bringing the Kaiken into its descent.

  They were home.

  The Kaiken rumbled from the chaos of the atmosphere until finally it broke through the clouds. Below them was the Piro Range, a string of mountains formed in AG-9’s northern hemisphere. He spotted a curve in the lengthy chasm underneath. A flurry of snow ripped right through. He needed to find the right lull, or the Kaiken would be smashed into the side of the rock.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to do it?” Ia piped up.

  He gritted his teeth and refrained from answering her. Instead, he focused on the snow, whipping back and forth on the current of wind. He saw an opening. He cut all the thrusters, and the Kaiken dove through. As it cleared, they felt the force of wind against metal, and he heard Ia groan in annoyance. He knew what she was thinking. I would have done better.

  He pulled the steering wheel toward his chest, leveling the Kaiken out before reigniting the mid thrusters built into the wings. They crested around the curve of the ravine to where the flight deck opened up, but instead of seeing the flare of the entrance force field and the lights inlaid along the tarmac, there was nothing. Just darkness.

  “What on Ancient Earth?” Knives’s heart rate spiked within his chest, and memories of their recent visit from the Armada burned into his mind. Was it another attack? So soon?

  He tapped on his holowatch and brought up a stream to Comms. No answer. He disconnected and redialed, but after several tries, there was still no response.

  Ia leaned over his shoulder to get a better view. Her breathing was shallow, edged with panic. “If something’s happened, we need to get in there.”

  But it was impossible that something would have happened. Not with all the new security measures in place. Since the slaver attack, RSF had placed motion detectors and mine bombs—cloaked with jamming transmissions and painted so black they were undetectable to the human eye—around the perimeter of the entire system. The Birra Gate itself was under heavy lock and key. Only high-level Star Force personnel could get in and out. Now that Knives was temporary headmaster of Aphelion, he was one of the few people who actually had access.

  No one would ever be able to get in, he told himself. But he flew a little faster.

  As he landed on the tarmac, lights from the wings of the Kaiken probed the darkness, spilling over the line of training jets parked along the flight deck’s wall. He powered down the engines and waited for the hatch of the cockpit to slide open. Before he could hop out, he peered down the ladder.

  Professor Meneva Patel, one of the youngest faculty members at Aphelion, was already waiting for him, her arms crossed, annoyance written across her face. Her white lab coat was wrinkled from a full day’s wear, but in no way had it been ripped, burned, or shredded by an incoming enemy force.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, to be sure.

  Her expression remained the same. Aggravated.

  “The power’s out,” Meneva said. “Again.”

  CHAPTER 5

  BRINN

  BRINN TARVER SAT in the corner of the canteen. It was so dark that she could detect only the silhouettes of the cadets around her. They were sequestered there during the power outage to keep everyone safe.

  Most of the mess left by the Armada attack had been long cleaned up, but signs of it remained. Blast marks still scorched the surface of some of the tables, and the metal floors were dinged from the fallen debris.

  The other cadets were seated around the tables in small clusters. After what happened with the Armada, a lot of them had transferred out. Including Angie. It wasn’t her choice, Angie had explained to Brinn the day she was scheduled to leave. Her father had ordered her transfer to another academy. He could barely deal with Ia also attending Aphelion, so the slaver attack was the last straw.

  Sitting there, Brinn suddenly missed Angie’s relentless string of observations, about how stiflingly boring the lectures were, about some dashing boy she was paired with in comms classes that day. Brinn had tried to tune them all out before, too busy reading over materials for her next class or worrying about Ia, but now that Angie was gone, Aphelion felt a bit more empty.

  She knew everyone else noticed it, too. The usual chatter in the canteen had been replaced by a tension that clung silently to the air. The slaver attack had changed everything. Before, they lived behind a glossy sheen. It tricked their eyes from seeing what was really out there. All that danger, all that destruction and loss. And now that the sheen had dissipated, none of the parades and fanfare could persuade Brinn otherwise: their world wasn’t as perfect as they thought.

  Angie had told her that together they would fix all of the problems of the Commonwealth from the ground up, starting with Aphelion. But in the end, the promise they made to each other was just words. She didn’t blame Angie. Maybe it wouldn’t have been worth it anyway.

  “Cadet Tarver,” a voice called from behind her.

  Brinn turned to see Professor Patel coming toward her, using a light screen to illuminate her path. Her long, black hair was swept into a tight knot at the top of her head. Brinn stood and tipped her head in acknowledgment. Professor Patel wasn’t a ranking officer, but she still
deserved respect.

  The professor looked her up and down, her eyes weary from endless hours of work and lack of sleep.

  “Follow me,” Professor Patel said. “It’s going to be another one of those nights.”

  “And what kind is that?”

  The professor sighed. “Long.”

  Brinn looked up at the uranium core, its burning blue luminescence almost hot enough to sear the skin off her forehead. The ventilation pipes latticed across the ceiling groaned noisily. The Armada’s attack had laid waste to most of the academy grounds. Fortunately, the structure of the core room remained intact, but the wiring and computer systems were a bit more fragile—nearly the entire system had shorted out. Only about 15 percent of the available circuitry was still usable. The core had an immense amount of power, but now there was no way to direct it. Hence, the rolling blackouts.

  Because of the power issues, the protecting force fields that surrounded the core were barely at full capacity. Brinn studied the shimmering edges where the holes were located. She’d return to the surface with slight radiation burns on her cheek, but with enough rest, she would heal quickly due to her Tawny ability to regenerate.

  Since security was tight, supply routes were also limited, and they didn’t have enough radiation pills to go around. So Professor Patel had sent Brinn down there alone while she handled the generator units above the surface.

  Well, not exactly alone.

  “Is this what people consider idling?” Aaron stood a few meters away, observing her. He was a borg, constructed of metal alloys, durable synthetic plastic, and fiber wires, so the radiation had no effect on him. His facial structure had been completely repaired after the attack, as had his other malfunctioning operating systems, but his grumbling attitude was pretty much the same as it’d always been.

  “I’m not idling,” she answered as she walked the lines of panels tiling the ground. “I’m searching.”

  She edged around the core reactor, following it in a circle all the way to the back, and then stopped. The toes of her boots met a yellow square stenciled along the edges of one particular panel.

  Aaron peeked over her shoulder. “That looks sealed shut.”

  “It isn’t.” Her eyes scanned the panel until she located a notch at one of the edges. Even with a lever in place, she wasn’t strong enough to lift 40-centimeter thick vinnidium steel. Brinn turned and held out the crowbar for Aaron to take. “That’s why you’re here.”

  Aaron rolled his eyes, and Brinn wondered why Professor Patel had programmed him to react like that in this type of situation. He grabbed the bar and slotted the angled end into the notch. With no difficulty, he hoisted the heavy sheet of metal paneling off to the side.

  Brinn crouched and gazed at the web of wires crisscrossing from one end of the panel to the other. It looked like a mess, but there was order in that madness. Half of the wires dead-ended at fried circuits, so she unplugged them, quickly rerouting everything so that the power could be redirected.

  Her fingers were on the last wire when she paused. The cable was frayed almost all the way through.

  Brinn unplugged the severed wire, swapping it out with a brand-new one and closing the circuit. A few bulbs lit up above, their sterile white glow casting an eerie sheen across the room. She had managed to patch part of the grid, but there was still damage elsewhere.

  She looked at the frayed piece of wire in her hand.

  “What do you think could have done this?” she asked Aaron.

  He stared at the damaged cable. “Rats.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Rats found their way through nearly half a meter of vinnidium steel?”

  “Those pests can get into anything,” Aaron said. “There’s a reason why they survived past Ancient Earth. Not even cockroaches could do that.”

  He was right. Rats had evolved to the point where they could survive space travel. They planet-hopped from system to system, making their own colonies among the stars. She felt the jagged edges of the exposed fiber, pressing the sharp points against the pad of her thumb. Well, if there were rats in here, that meant there was a bigger problem to deal with. The core room wasn’t as secure as everyone thought. Somewhere in this room, there was a weakness, an opening for mysterious things to come in and out. And take. She made note to tell the headmaster. It was better to be safe than sorry, and she already knew what “sorry” was like.

  “Are we done?” Aaron asked, interrupting her train of thought.

  Brinn glanced back at the bright uranium core, her eyes narrowing at the sight. “Yeah,” she said. “For now.”

  She walked back to her dorm room and found Ia hunched over and drying her hair, a tangle of thick, wet black. Brinn couldn’t help but notice the tattooed feathers inked dark on Ia’s forearms, like smoldering ash on golden skin.

  “How was the water?” Brinn asked.

  Ia glanced up through the folds of the light-gray towel. “Tepid.”

  Brinn’s lips quirked, remembering her own shower earlier. “At least tepid is better than freezing.”

  Ia tossed the towel to the floor and then sat on her bed. She nodded at an empty spot next to her, and Brinn sat comfortably on Ia’s ruffled blankets. There used to be a clear division between their sides of the room, but now they moved into each other’s halves freely.

  Ia’s muscular arms fished through her pack. “I got us something,” she said.

  She pulled out an amber bottle, a dark liquid sloshing within the curve of its walls. Ia popped the stopper at its mouth and handed the bottle over for Brinn to drink.

  “What is it?”

  Ia smirked. “The worst drink you will ever taste in your life.”

  “Then why drink it?”

  “Because I think we deserve to relax,” Ia said. “Just for a little bit.”

  Brinn sniffed at the contents of the bottle, sweetness wafting to her nose, but when she took a gulp, it was like acid in her throat.

  “It burns,” she gasped.

  Ia laughed. “It’s supposed to.” She grabbed the bottle and took a swig, sticking her tongue out after she swallowed.

  Brinn howled in giddy laughter. It was something that she couldn’t control. Sometimes, she felt the old Brinn rearing her head, holding herself back from her emotions, but not now. It was strange that the most dangerous girl in the known galaxies could do this to her. Even though the room was dark. And the universe out there was grim. At least they could still smile.

  They spent the next hour talking, about this and that, catching up but never really. Ia rarely spoke about her meetings with the general, and Brinn didn’t mention her worries about her brother. It was a time to talk about things that could make them giggle, and to ignore the dark stains in their hearts.

  As the drink started to dig its claws into her emotions, the merriment turned to silence, and Brinn’s thoughts overtook her. She was faced with the slight shifts inside her that had taken place over time. Most of all, there was this strange sense of disappointment. In herself. In the Commonwealth. In her place in life. It emptied her out completely, and the archnol wasn’t enough to help her forget. She was alone with these thoughts. More than anything, she wanted Ia to ask her how she felt about these things, but she never did.

  Ia stood and adjusted the blankets so that Brinn would be warm. Brinn squinted at her, Ia’s face hazy in her eyes from all the drink.

  “You should get some rest,” Ia said. “We have to prepare. Tomorrow, we train.”

  Brinn raised her eyebrows, barely comprehending. She fell asleep to the sight of Ia sitting at the center table, her eyes focused in the distance. As if she was trying desperately hard to see what was coming for them.

  CHAPTER 6

  IA

  IA GRABBED BRINN’S WRIST, and with a quick shift of her weight, she threw her friend’s body across the training ring. “You’re so bad at defending yourself. Remember your angles.” They had been training for almost three weeks now, and Tarver still hadn’t improved
.

  The gym was empty except for the two of them. There wasn’t enough power to light the whole space, just the spotlights flaring hot over their ring. There wasn’t even enough power to run a fighting simulation. They were forced to train fist to fist, without the protection of impact gloves. Around them, the light trailed off quickly into the darkness so it looked as if they existed only in this little circle of the world.

  Right now, it wasn’t a safe place to be.

  Brinn rolled onto her knees. She rubbed at her side, casting Ia the most vicious of glares. But Ia was immune. She could survive those insufferable looks, steeped with annoyance and aggravation. They were easy to deflect, but a knife to the throat or a pistol pointed right at the head—those were not. Those left you dead. She needed Brinn to understand that.

  “I’m not always going to be there to protect you,” Ia said.

  Brinn stood, stretching the ache away from her limbs. “I can’t win against your brother. There’s no contest.”

  She pointed a finger at Brinn. “You need to get that type of thinking out of your head. You might be smaller than he is, but that doesn’t mean you can’t beat him.” Even from this distance, Ia had to lift her chin to look at Tarver. For the most part, Ia’s height kept her at a disadvantage, but in small, close spaces, she was capable of a wealth of damage.

  “If you haven’t noticed”—Brinn motioned to the oppressive darkness around them—“the power system is on the fritz. We’ve got a rat infestation in the core room. Not to mention what’s going on out there, outside the academy. There’s strife in the territories. My brother is out protesting in the streets.”

  It was the first that Ia had heard of Faren in a while, but not the first time she’d heard that heaviness in Brinn’s voice. It had been there when Faren went to the hospital for defending a refugee student several months ago. That worry.

  “Civil unrest, protests—none of that matters,” Ia said. Brinn’s eyes flashed in quiet anger.

  But Ia ignored it, because there was something larger going on in the universe. After Einn infiltrated the Fugue testing grounds, the Olympus Commonwealth had decided to turn everything there into scrap—including GodsEye, the structure that Headmaster Bastian Weathers had been developing. The general was keeping quiet about what exactly this structure did. The only thing Ia had gathered was that it was a unique gate system of some kind. Unique enough for her brother to find interest in it. Einn had taken the knowledge he’d acquired at Fugue to build his own model. Ia knew there were holes in his research; otherwise she would have seen his replica’s power by now. Einn needed someone to finish it.