Eclipse the Skies

by Maura Milan

  Not that she wanted to anyway. She kept her eyes closed whenever she could, even when she was no longer asleep.

  The pain would be gone once the bots were all flushed out, Knives had assured her. Words she knew were repeated right from the doctor’s mouth. The pain would be gone. Or would it? Her body would still remember. It wasn’t systematic like that. The body always remembered. It remembered every decision you made. Every failure. It was all a part of her. Even if her memories were gone, wiped somehow by that accident, her body would prod and poke her until it all came flooding back.

  There was no escape. Floating in this place between death and life, where the days blended together like waters of an ocean. A slosh of seconds that ebbed into each other, became each other, dissolved into the same thing.

  It barely registered when Knives came to visit her.

  “Ia,” he said. Whenever she saw him, he was always calling her name.

  And then one day, the voice became female. Low. Smoky. “Ia.” It snaked quietly into her dream. It found her, caught in the middle of worlds, a place where nothing ended and nothing began. And then something wet landed on her face with a slop.

  Ia’s eyes shot open, her sight blurry, blinking until she could focus. Finally, she realized the blur wasn’t from her vision at all, but from the thing that was on her head. A muslin cloth, drenched in cold water.

  “Wake the mif up already,” Eve said.

  Ia lay quiet, trying to outlast Eve’s very short patience, hoping the surly bartender would soon give up and leave. But she didn’t.

  “Do you want me to throw more water on you?” Eve’s voice was loud and agitated.

  There was no use pretending anymore. Ia blew one corner of the cloth off her face, exposing her mouth and tiny bit of right eye. “What do you want, Eve?”

  “My room back.”

  Ia’s right eye swiveled around, spotting the red fabric draped across the doorframe, the terrible travel posters of planetary destinations on the wall, and the fake gold accenting on everything, now sadly losing its luster. All touches of Eve.

  Which meant she’d been sleeping in Eve’s room, on Eve’s bed, sweating all over Eve’s bedsheets for Deus knows how long.

  “You’re kicking me out? I’m injured.” She had no shame pointing it out to her. “I might even die.”

  “And that’s why I want you out of here. Because if you do croak, I’ll have to get dead-person smell out of my mattress, and you know how hard that is to get rid of.”

  “But I can’t even move.” It was something she had already grown to accept. It was her new truth. She hadn’t been able to get up since the fight with Einn.

  Eve glared at her. She placed a heel on the edge of the mattress and kicked. The vibration rattled her bones.

  “You’re the Blood Wolf of the miffing Skies, Ia.” She leaned in. “You can try.”

  Eve kicked the bed frame again and again. Each kick harder than the last.

  Ia clenched her teeth with every kick. She felt it each time. The impact searing right through her.

  And then her mind stopped.

  Because she felt it.

  Each.

  Time.

  From the chatter of her bones to the reaction of her nerves. It was all very numb, but it was there. And for first time in a very long time, she realized that there was something else besides the pain.

  “So are you going to just die in here, Ia?”

  Ia looked Eve right in the eye. “No.”

  CHAPTER 29

  KNIVES

  THE HARIX RACE SPACE was exactly how Marnie had described it. Crowded and noisy, and that was just on the observation platform right by the finish line. For the most part, that was where everyone docked.

  The track was even more chaotic. One of the dangers of navigating the course was getting past broken wings and engine hulls—remnants of races past. Not to mention the occasional dead pilot. They were ghosts, haunting this place of spoiled dreams.

  Knives looked at the old bottle cap that Eve had given him before he left Myth. It was worn on its edges, painted with red lacquer, and meant only for the guy he was here to see. The victor. His face was hovering all over the place, on holobanners and marquees. A mess of thick dark-brown hair whisked into a very sharp knot on the top of his head. He wore a cloth face mask, covering his nose and mouth, which wasn’t uncommon due to the racing fumes.

  Underneath his image was his ID. Minotaur.

  At the Harix track and every other race space—both legal and illegal—across the galaxies, the pilots never used their own names. They used the name of their ship. Not the model, because that would get confusing. Most people picked trendy names. Like Viper or HammerHawk. Even Bebop was popular among the racing crowd.

  So Minotaur was an unusual choice. It was an old word; not many people knew it. But when Knives was young, he was forced to take a class called The Classics of Ancient Earth. A fancy class for the fancy school his mother had insisted on enrolling him in. Fancy, in this case, meant boring. But at least he knew where the name had originated from.

  If this guy had won this race that many times, then Minotaur was a suitable name for his ship, which had been traversing the labyrinthine paths of the Harix Corridor for so long.

  Knives looked up to the victor’s tower, where he caught a glimpse of him. The pilot’s dark-green flight suit was halfway zipped, the upper half shrugged off, with the sleeves swinging down around his ankles to expose the black compression shirt underneath. The victor leaned against the safety rails, staring at the course.

  A standing platform lowered down to the challenger’s lounge. An announcer with long arms and legs, the effects of gravity growth, swayed on top of the platform. “Racers, get ready.”

  As everyone made their way to their jets, Knives raised his arm to get the announcer’s attention. “Is it too late to sign up?”

  The announcer scratched a long fingernail across his eyebrow. “What’s your ship ID, kid?”

  He’d never thought to name his own ship. Star Force flyers rarely did, since they never needed to own, especially with a wealth of high-quality vessels to borrow in the fleet.

  “Theseus,” he said finally.

  The announcer curled his upper lip at the sound of the name and then shook his head. “What are you waiting for? You better get to your Theseus before the race starts.”

  If Knives wanted to win, he needed a mifload of luck—and names were lucky. It was Theseus who brought down the Minotaur in the myths. In the unlikely event that he actually did win, Minotaur’s pilot was going to look up at his name and be pissed.

  Settling into the pilot’s seat, Knives positioned himself at the far end of the starting line. He sized up the other models, the majority of which were modrockets, regular transport vehicles overhauled with scrap and refurbished racing engines. They weren’t high-speed vessels like his Kaiken, so he’d have an advantage.

  He craned his neck trying to catch a glimpse of Minotaur in the center of the starting lineup. Knives did a double take. The ship was covered in burnout, but there was no mistaking that silhouette. A Yari 4. Not many of them were made, hence the 4 in the model name. They were luxury racers. He had no idea how anyone in Dead Space could get hold of that, unless that person stole it.

  A holoscreen clicked on in his periphery, and the announcer’s voice rang through. “Racers, on your mark.”

  Knives placed one hand on the steering wheel and slipped the fingers of his other hand through the grip lever on the side. Asteroids of all sizes stared back at him. So still, as if they were suspended in time.

  “Set.”

  Knives blew out a deep breath to relieve the tension in his jaw. It did nothing to help.

  “Go.”

  He punched the lever forward, his front thrusters igniting.

  Of course, Minotaur was in the lead, its dual hypersonic engines supercharging its ionic thrusters. A bright light in the otherwise dark sky.

  Beside him, the
other jets jockeyed for second, third, and fourth position. Anything that could get them as close to the front as possible. To do that, they had to fight for the center. After all his time programming flight simulations, Knives knew that a cluster of jets heading right through an asteroid field never amounted to anything good, so he hung back.

  It wasn’t long before a wing was clipped, and then another, each collision knocking the asteroids around them. Soon, jets were going down left and right, detached wings and broken engine parts spiraling out of control. A chain reaction that was impossible to contain. And just like that, the moment of stillness had passed.

  If Knives waited any longer, he’d lose his chance to get through the chaos that was brewing. And from here on out, it was only going to get bigger. His eyes darted back and forth, tracking the trajectories of everything colliding around him. Finally, there. An opening. A direct shot right through, only clear for a couple of seconds.

  Knives whispered a quick prayer to Deus and charged forward. He dipped the Kaiken low, avoiding the bulk of the debris, trying to outrun the chain reaction before it reached the rest of the path. He held his breath as he weaved through the remains of the asteroid field like a needle threading in and out of a seam.

  Finally, he reached a clearing, and he exhaled, his whole body jittery with adrenaline.

  But he wasn’t completely in the clear yet.

  The Kaiken approached a section of the path that was immersed in total darkness. He looked up and saw why. A behemoth loomed in the distance, blocking the light from the system’s star. From Marnie’s stories, he knew what it was. An enormous asteroid, known for the complexity of its tunnel system.

  But there was one major route that everyone knew about.

  His eyes focused on a slim opening on the face of the rock. Knives’s heart rattled against his rib cage. This was the actual start of the course. The Harix Corridor.

  If he thought navigating through an asteroid field was a pain in the ass, then traversing directly through a giant asteroid was even worse. He’d have to be as precise as possible. The passages inside were tight; only room for one racer at a time.

  There were at least five or six other jets in front of him, including Minotaur. And he didn’t even want to think of the gap that existed between the second- and first-place racers. For him, it seemed victory would be impossible.

  If he wanted, he could stop right there, turn back, and he’d be guaranteed to wake up to see another day.

  But there was something he’d remembered. A memory, not from Marnie, but from someone else, whispered to him over flickering candlelight: the reason why the best of them continued to fly.

  It’s something you chase, Ia had said to him.

  This whole thing wasn’t about winning or losing. It wasn’t about receiving VIP treatment in the victor’s tower, getting that cash prize, seeing his face floating all around that observation pavilion.

  It wasn’t about any of that at all. It was about feeling invincible.

  Even if it was for one brief moment.

  Knives took a deep breath, and with all thrusters fired, he went in.

  The Kaiken raged against the dark. The headlights were only strong enough to see a few meters ahead, so he focused on the taillights of the jets in front of him as a guide.

  Suddenly, a blinding light flashed on the course ahead.

  His jaw grew slack. A light that bright could mean only one thing. A crash. And it was a big one. The explosion was quick, the fire extinguishing within seconds as it burned up all the unfortunate ship’s oxygen reserves.

  The starjet directly behind the wreck got clipped by a ripped panel, sending it backward in a tailspin, hitting another jet.

  Quickly, Knives maneuvered the Kaiken backward to a larger pass, angling his jet against the wall to avoid the jumble of metal and debris.

  The pileup was a major setback, burning through precious seconds he needed to challenge Minotaur at the lead, whose finish time averaged at the thirty-second mark.

  He needed another plan.

  He thought back, his sister’s account unfolding rapidly before him. Marnie flew the Harix Corridor in ten seconds. In recent years, no one had even come close, not even Ia.

  “There’s a reason why,” his sister’s voice echoed in his memories. Just as he remembered it. Clever, haughty.

  His eyes widened as it all came back to him. Hands on the wheel, he tilted his jet back, zooming past each curve and corner, searching for that little something his sister had told him about.

  A secret passage.

  And if he remembered Marnie’s story correctly, the entrance to the passage would be coming up on him right about—

  He swerved left, navigating around a rock column until he spotted a tiny opening slashing diagonally along the rock wall, blocked from view by a large spire.

  He squeezed the Kaiken through the crevice. Its force field sparked green from contact at the wing.

  From this passage, it would be a straight shot out to the finish line.

  His eyes flitted down dangerously to the stopwatch. It had already been twenty seconds since he entered the Harix Corridor. He wasn’t even close to beating Marnie, but he never imagined flying faster than his sister. That was not what today was for. No, today all he needed to do was be quicker than Minotaur. Even if it was by a nanosecond.

  His eyes narrowed as he stared at the end of the tunnel. Where there should be an opening, there was a wall.

  A barrier blocking him from a chance at victory.

  He fired his rail guns at the thick layer of rock, little bits and pieces of debris clouding the space around him. The light from outside seeped through, cutting through the darkness. Soon, hundreds of crooked holes stared back at him like rows of peeping eyes. But still, the opening wasn’t big enough for his jet to fit through.

  He glanced down at the stopwatch, another second ticking by.

  Slamming his palms into the steering wheel, he cursed. “So close. So miffing close.”

  Marnie never had to worry about this problem. She always had luck on her side. For her, it all fell into place. As if it was her destiny.

  But Knives always had to claw for whatever scraps destiny was willing to give him.

  There was another girl who had to do the same. She clawed and scraped until she was close enough to bite off a chunk of destiny and spit it out at its feet.

  So that was the real question he had to ask himself. Just as he had during Einn’s attack. What would Ia do?

  Knives glared at the sheet of rock.

  He knew what she would do. She’d break it down.

  The barrier was already full of holes, and his jet was the perfect hammer. He ignited his thrusters. The Kaiken surged forward. His body jolted backward in his seat from the sudden shift of speed. The nose of the jet buried right into the barrier’s weakest point, a cluster of bullet holes that landed off-center. All the while, his thumb was on the trigger, his rail gun blasting away at whatever surface it could get. At this point, the Kaiken’s force field webbed a bright green around him before overloading and fading away.

  With an extra surge, his jet scraped through, its once pristine hull now damaged and completely vulnerable. But at least it was free.

  Knives looked down at the timer. He had three more seconds. Glancing in his periphery, he saw that Minotaur hadn’t cleared the corridor yet.

  Eyes forward, the finish line in sight, he pushed the thrusters to their limit.

  But then he caught a flash of movement in his rear view. Minotaur was behind him.

  Comparing the specs of their jets, Knives knew the Yari would quickly overtake his Kaiken, and he glanced over to see Minotaur pull up to his side. The victor of the Harix Corridor angled his head at him and brought two fingers up to his brow in salute.

  It was enough to make Knives falter for a second too long.

  And just like that, Minotaur had taken the lead.

  In the past, Knives would have conceded defeat, but n
ot now. He felt his heart thrumming inside, chasing this need to go faster, to be better, to completely ignite.

  His eyes narrowed as an idea took hold.

  Knives tapped hard on his displays, discharging all the fuel and power he had into the afterburner. At the same time, he redirected the Kaiken’s batteries to give the burn some extra oomph.

  He pressed the button, sparking an explosion that tore through the back of his jet. The Kaiken kicked forward with a burst of furious speed.

  The HUDs and enviro systems went down. Knives punched the button at the collar of his suit. His helmet came up over his head, visor down. His grav suit was fully activated, already pumping in a steady stream of oxygen for him to breathe.

  He couldn’t look left or right to track where Minotaur was. Because all that mattered was that finish line, marked by two giant red beams floating in the distance.

  He had to bet all his luck on this one moment and hope to Deus that Minotaur was behind him. His racing ID was Theseus for a reason. Theseus slayed the Minotaur by being clever and resourceful. He faced the impossible, and he won.

  The lights of the finish line blinded Knives as he passed over it. The Kaiken was depleted of all its fuel and charge, and without power to its thrusters, he couldn’t even slow down to see who had won.

  Blood still rushing through his veins from the thrill of the race, he swooped toward the landing pad. His heart pounded inside his chest, and he wanted to yip out in glee. Being invincible. Was this how it felt?

  His jet flew through the atmos field that circled the landing deck and adjacent observation deck where most of the bystanders awaited. The gravity generated from the atmos field slowed him down, but his jet was still flying at a furious speed.

  This was going to be a dangerous landing.

  He careened to the deck, his wheels touching down on the flat surface. His knuckles rattled as he clutched the manual brakes with all his strength. The friction was so intense that one wheel popped, and then the other.

  The Kaiken slid to a halt, the bottom of its hull scraping against the landing pad. Once he was at a stop, Knives reached up, prying the cockpit open. Immediately, his ears drowned in the roar of chants, thundering around him like an unrelenting storm. Knives stared back at the crowd, their fists punching the air in unison.