Wooj grapples with his harpoon, swinging the magnet around on its string until he’s worked it into a fast-spinning circle. For a moment, I think he’s going to try to hit the Icarus, to reel himself in, but then his intention comes through the system. He’s got his sights on the starship Margrave, adjacent to the Icarus in the Second District tier. A much smaller target, but one that will be within reach for him in a matter of seconds.
Focus, he says, both to himself and to the rest of us. The mission matters more than any of this. So for the time being, I block out Wooj and bring the whole of my consciousness onto the approaching hull of the Icarus. My fingers tingle as the magnetism returns, reaching, yearning, readying me for the moment of impact.
I hit the ship with nothing but a muffled whump, the only noise coming from the brush of my body against my suit and the subtle creak of my enhanced skeleton as it arrests my momentum all at once. My lungs compress, flattened against hullmetal, and my gasp is accompanied by two others as Praava and Key slam into the Icarus. Our magnets hold. Our lungs refill with another breath of processed air.
And somewhere, distantly, Wooj snaps to a halt on the end of his harpoon line. He yanks hard against it, and a second later, his feet slam down on the hull of the Margrave.
One jump down. Five to go.
The second goes easier. Once again, we target the largest, most obvious Third District starship, and this time Wooj manages to land on it with us. There’s still that weird note of resistance cropping up in his exo from his glitchy integration, making every motion more difficult, but he’s powering through it. The cliff face, he swears, will be the last time his full rig gets the better of him.
When we round the hull of the ship, Key freezes, staring at the Fourth District, at one ship in particular. From this distance, even with our cameras, we can’t see the blown-out section of hull, the patch job covering it, or anything else that would indicate that three weeks ago, the Aeschylus spilled itself into the void. Key’s purpose hums louder.
A swell of relief-tempered pride rises from Praava at the sight of her birthship, still sailing. It’s quickly dampened when she remembers that her sister isn’t there, and her thoughts cast backward to the Lancelot.
Hey, focus, Wooj reminds them. Still four more jumps left.
We recenter ourselves, and the leap to Fourth District goes off without a hitch. It’s starting to feel natural, giving my body completely to the exo, letting it take over my legs and catapult me into the blackness. Bit by bit, the fear slips away, replaced by a cool confidence that isn’t entirely mine. I’m happy to wear it anyway.
But by the time we’re leaping from Fifth to Sixth, we’ve gotten too comfortable.
Wooj spots the starship Orpheus, his birthship, floating on the distant edge of the district formation. He twists to get a better look at it, right at the moment we leap, and his momentum skews, sending him sailing into Praava. They bounce off each other, their courses adjusted, and suddenly our targeting system goes wild as it tries to latch on to something, anything. Praava fumbles for her harpoon, but she’s so far off course that it won’t do her any good. A sinking, horrible feeling rushes through all of us as we watch her drift steadily farther away.
My hand drops to my waist, fueled by my exo’s instinct. I grab my harpoon and wheel it, spinning it into a frenzy until the moment my exo screams for me to let go. The magnet end sails through the void and drills into Praava’s back with a thud that knocks the air out of her. She twists around and grabs the line, and my internal targeting pings worriedly as I start to drift off course with her.
But Key catches my drift. Two seconds later, her harpoon slams viciously into my side, and I wrap the line twice around my free arm. “Woojin,” she snaps, and waits for three breathless moments before his harpoon rockets past her. She reaches out and grabs the line.
We’re a confused tangle of momentum, the lines between us tightening and slackening as our system tries to establish equilibrium. I try to lock my targeting on the Sixth District ship we’re trying to hit, but it’s out of our reach, and no amount of flailing is going to get us there. “We’re going to miss the ship,” I hiss into the comm.
“We’re not aiming for that ship,” Wooj replies, and his glee nearly flattens the exosystem as we sail right through the Sixth District tier.
I watch the hulls of the ships go by, accepting my fate a little more with every window we sail past. I wonder if anyone’s looking outside—if anyone would spot the flash of four tethered Scela flying through the void. It’s late at night, and many of the cabin lights are dimming to their lowest levels as the ships bed down. It isn’t likely that anyone’s up to see what’s happening outside. I scan for faces, but the windows are so few and far between, the chances so astronomical, that my exo nudges me, reminding me to focus. I fix my attention on the next tier of ships coming up.
Seventh District looms, and my cameras immediately fix on the Reliant. We aren’t going to hit it—it’s not the largest ship, and it’s not the one Wooj has us sailing toward. A collective sigh of relief passes through our system as the target grows closer and closer—a smaller ship on the upper edge of the formation. Wooj turns in the void, orienting himself so that he sails feet first. His magnetism spins up until the metal in his legs aches.
Three seconds to impact, the exo warns.
I close my eyes and grip the lines tighter.
Wooj slams into the hull, his magnets latching on with everything they have. The line between him and Key snaps tight, and pain lances through the system as Praava and I come to rest, our arms stretched as taut as the lines between us. A tug from Wooj is all it takes to bring us floating down to the ship’s surface, and if it weren’t for the exo, I’d cry with relief the moment my magnetized feet hit hullmetal.
“See,” Wooj says the moment his heart is beating slow enough to let him. “Wasn’t all that bad.”
“Key,” Praava groans from farther down the hull. “You’re closest. Please punch him for me.”
Key obliges—once for Praava, and once for herself.
I crouch against the hull, press my hand down, and start muttering every prayer of thanks I know. God is on our side tonight. The worst of our travels is over. All four of us made it safely through. Malikah won’t ever go back to the dyeworks. And the Fleet will come to berth.
Key knocks my prayer askance with an aggressive burst of her willpower, strong enough that it scorches the back of my neck. Annoyance snaps through me, but I curb the impulse to hit her again. She has a point—starlight’s wasting, and we should get to the Reliant before we start saying our thank-yous.
I stand up and give the others a short nod, taking a deep breath that echoes in my breach suit’s helmet. We’re so close. Just a little farther, just a few more jumps. And as we shake the reckless energy out of our system and launch once more from the skin of this starship, I let myself start believing that for once, things will go right.
When my feet land on the Reliant at last, I don’t pray.
I don’t have to.
My exo unclenches when we reseal the airlock behind us and take our first steps on the Reliant. I feel like I’m taking my first steps as a Scela again, my legs shaky and unsure of how they should move with gravity tying them down. The others aren’t doing too much better—not even Praava.
“Did we really just…,” she gasps, snapping her headpiece back as her breach suit’s seal crawls down her neck. She sucks in a deep breath of the Reliant’s air. It’s still uncommonly warm compared to the Dread, even at night, but Praava’s lungs are greedy for something that hasn’t been reprocessed in the curdle of her own sweat.
Woojin throws an arm over her shoulder, leaning against her as he struggles to put his mind in a place where he doesn’t have to fear every moment. “We fuckin’ did that,” he mutters, glancing back at the airlock hatch.
Ahead of us, Ais
ha stares down the night-dark corridor, apprehension building in her. We’re in the upper levels of the ship, she thinks. The main body of the habitat is below us. I’ve never been up here before. Her exo spins for a connection to the ship’s network but fails to grab anything. We don’t have a download of the ship’s layouts waiting for us here, because no one expects us to be here in the first place.
Probably better that way, I tell her. Don’t want our fingerprints all over the network with no magic man in the Master Control Room to wipe them away. Speaking of, time to haul ass before someone wonders why an airlock just opened.
Aisha nods, then starts off down the corridor. The taste of her birthship’s air is grounding her in the mission, and her thoughts turn repetitive—not a prayer but a vow. A steady chant drives her forward as she swears that she will pay off her aunt, she will keep her sister out of the dyeworks, she will keep her brother alive.
I glance back at Praava and Woojin, who are still clinging to each other for support. “C’mon, you two. We’ve got some treason to commit.”
We make our way through the Reliant with far more stealth than our massive bodies should be able to produce. The ship slumbers around us, corridors emptied, doors locked. Every move we make feels too loud when the only other sound is the gentle hum of the ship’s machinery, the noise we’ve been living with our entire lives. This morning was the first time I’ve ever experienced silence free of any sort of mechanical rumble—save for the airless hell of the Aeschylus vent. The thought of a future free of starship noise is somehow both suffocating and thrilling.
Aisha leads the way through the upper levels, but we can feel her guessing. Several times we take turns that end in dead ends, and it takes her nearly an hour to get us down to the level of the main habitat. The vacant streets feel eerie without the crush of people that inhabited them last time I was here, and the absence of leftover decorations from Launch Day make them feel even emptier. We wind through the marketplace, pressed close to the shadow of the buildings in the dimness of the night.
Praava and Woojin take it in with fresh eyes. Neither of them has been in the Seventh District before, and it’s a lot to process. Before I came here, it was easy to believe that all starships are equal in the eyes of the General Body. But this one bears the brunt of the frontend’s negligence and suffers under the weight of the backend’s overpopulation. The Reliant seems to be made of frayed edges, stitched together.
I press my hand against the pocket in the breach suit where the data jack rests. Maybe tonight we can take some steps toward changing that. The sentiment feels reckless and new, but not untrue.
Aisha’s steps quicken as we get closer, her stealth forgotten in her rush to get to her aunt’s door. She hits the buzzer without hesitation, and the rest of us cluster around her, pressing close against the stoop. Just in case, I flick my headpiece down and scan my cameras for any hints of motion. There’s no telling who might be out at this hour. Who might misinterpret the sight of four Scela at a Fractionist leader’s door.
Our enhanced hearing strains, but we can’t detect any noise within the apartment. Aisha frowns and presses the buzzer again. Malikah has to be in there, even if Yasmin’s out, she reasons.
Something edges at the corner of my camera’s vision. I whirl, trying to target the little flicker of motion, but it whips out of sight before I can home in on it. Someone’s out here, I warn, and the rest of the squad goes on alert.
Aisha’s thoughts turn to a steady stream of Malikah Malikah Malikah as she leans against the buzzer, and all of us wince at the grating, distant sound inside the apartment.
Maybe she’s a heavy sleeper? Woojin suggests.
There’s another whisper of movement down the street, and this time Praava spots it too. Her cameras and mine zoom in on the figure that’s just emerged from an alleyway. He trudges toward us like it’s the last thing he wants to be doing, and everything about his posture screams fear. I square my shoulders, just in case he needs any extra inspiration.
As he draws nearer, our images sharpen into a gaunt-looking man in his late forties. He keeps his eyes lowered until the last possible second and his palms raised above his head. There’s a stunstick attached to his belt, but from the way his body moves, I doubt he has the muscle to use it properly.
Local enforcement? Praava asks Aisha. Night watchman? All four of us have frozen, our exos holding us still as our system mulls over exactly what to do about this man.
No uniform, Aisha notes. And why would he have his hands up?
Fractionist, then? Woojin suggests. Only, why would a Fractionist approach a Scela squadron knocking on the door of one of their leaders?
Because we’re knocking, not breaking the door down, I reason. I’ll handle this.
As the man stops a wary twenty feet away, I step forward to meet him, cocking back my headpiece. In the dimness, he has to squint to see my face. It takes a moment, no thanks to my bruises, and I’m banking on the hope that he’s one of the Fractionists who’s seen me without the Archangel makeup. But then the recognition flickers in his eyes, and triumph lifts inside me. His whole stance changes from one of fear and caution to one of reverence. Of worship.
Please don’t start crying, I beg.
Aisha’s disdain burrows into the edge of my mind, but I can’t let myself be too bothered. I feel right. Like claiming the Archangel has put me into alignment. Like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. The holes still gape in my memories, but I feel whole in spite of them.
“We’re looking for Yasmin Un-Dul,” I announce. “We have some critical information she needs.”
“I’ll take you to her,” the man says without an ounce of hesitation.
So being a brainwashed rebel figurehead has its perks.
* * *
—
Even with the infamous Archangel reassuring the man, his nervous air clings to him as he leads us through a makeshift hatch in the wall of the Reliant’s habitat. Can’t really blame him when he’s got four Scela breathing down his neck.
Within is a glowing, narrow space run with cables that have to be brushed aside to move anywhere. The man slips through them easily, but our bulk doesn’t follow well. We end up pushing and shoving and hoping we don’t do any permanent damage to the ship’s workings.
After what seems like an eternity of squirming through the walls of the ship—though my exo curtly informs me it was only six minutes—we spill out into an open area filled with the chug of machinery, where a small crowd has gathered. Several of them spook when they see us, scrambling away, and my ears fill with the crackle of stunsticks. Aisha, Woojin, and Praava shrink back, but I step forward into the light, trying to give my face the most human set possible.
The stunsticks fizzle out, replaced by whispers of “Archangel” that get swallowed by the steady churn of the machines around us. I snap my headpiece back down once they’ve all gotten the picture.
“Yasmin?” I ask.
“Here.” She steps forward, her face made gaunt by the light they’ve strung up overhead. Aisha’s aunt looks tired, ragged. These past weeks must have been difficult for the movement, even those who were nowhere near the tragedy. I wonder how many of the people who died around me on the Aeschylus were people she knew. Fellow Fractionists. Friends. From what Aisha thinks of her, I doubt Yasmin has many of the latter. Her life is full of carefully calculated distance, the kind you learn when you grow old in the backend.
I meet her gaze with my cameras. Aisha’s mistrust of her aunt curdles through the exosystem, but all I see is a woman who’s taken the worst of the Fleet’s injustices and turned them into fuel for her fire. A woman willing to do whatever it takes to defy the General Body.
A woman who’s never going to get her hands dirty, Aisha scoffs. I shove her thoughts away and pry open my breach suit’s pocket. The little data jack tumbles into my palm.
Yasmin’s lips thin. She nods.
“What you didn’t know—what you wanted us to confirm—was whether the world was habitable.” I pause, forcing back a ludicrous grin. I’m here. I found my way back to what I once was, and I’m doing something that must have been the Archangel’s wildest dream. “The planet is habitable. And these are the coordinates,” I finish, holding out the data jack.
A rush of pride glows through me as Yasmin’s eyes light up. A soft smile breaks over her features, and I return it with my closest approximation. Whispers chorus around us as the Fractionists absorb the impact of my announcement.
Wait, Aisha says behind me. She’s been glancing around the room, searching the faces. Her will explodes, rattling the back of my neck as she reaches into my exo and forces my fingers to snap shut around the jack. “Where is Malikah? We rang the buzzer several times—it should have woken her up.”
Yasmin acts like she didn’t hear, her gaze fixed hungrily on my closed fist. “This couldn’t come at a better moment, Archangel. This is truly incredible.” She turns around to the rest of the Fractionist gathering. “With this, we can strike back at last. Start the preparations!”
Hushed cheers reverberate through the crowd and some of the humans dart off immediately, twisting back through the pipes and wires. Others lean over their datapads, their fingers flying over something that my cameras can’t quite make out. I swear I can smell a nervous, fearful scent pouring off them.
Yasmin turns back to me and holds out her hand, expectant. “The coordinates, Archangel.”
Suddenly Aisha isn’t the only one keeping my fingers locked around the little device. I scan her face, looking for the usual indicators of deception. Maybe Aisha’s right not to trust her aunt. “What are you putting in motion?” I ask, trying to sound commanding, and pull my hand back.
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