Four stories off the ground.
One wrong move and he’ll plummet. Not to his death. Gods, what I’d do to be certain that I wouldn’t die if I mimicked him.
I hang back, loosely holding the railing. Once upon an era, I would’ve been just as fearless, and that change inside me stings bitterly. I loved who I was as a Fast-Tracker, and I want to love who I am as a human.
But I’m not sure how.
Stork pats the railing. “Hop up if you want.”
Court and Mykal are whispering to one another. Hugging close, but both eye Stork skeptically.
They’re not why I falter. My belly up against the banister, I hone in on the terrifying plunge, and who knows? Maybe Stork will push me just for kicks.
I keep my boots on the deck, but more brazenly, I peel off the tiny EI disc so we can speak in private. “You don’t act like an Influential,” I tell him.
Sharp glances pierce us since I just spoke Saltarian.
Stork pays them no mind. “That’s because I was raised by humans.” Voice clipped at the end, he downs another gulp. Knowing the day he’ll die, that has to change him. He has no hands on the railing and such little regard for personal injury. Willingly hanging off the balcony.
FTs would love the thrill.
“You’re more like a Fast-Tracker,” I mention.
He tips his head in thought, but then he gestures his bottle to the other balconies. “I reckon they are too.”
Handfuls of people sit leisurely on the railings. Some even lounge across the banisters, backs propped up against the columns. Legs dangling everywhere. Hardly batting an eye at the death they could meet below.
“These are humans?” I ask in disbelief.
He soaks in my reaction before nodding, “Yeah. All of them.”
I blink back maddened tears.
Why aren’t they afraid to die? And why am I so petrified? Shame weighs my head down.
I only look up again when whispering escalates. Placing the disc behind my ear, I translate a nearby conversation. Someone says that the entire crew is here.
Only about two hundred bodies have spilled into the courtyard, which seems so small in comparison to StarDust. There, we roomed with over a thousand candidates.
With a passing hush, the courtyard goes eerily still. All eyes descend to the stone-carved woman.
“What’s happenin’?” Mykal whispers to us.
Court is unblinking. “I’m unsure.”
The statue suddenly glints and flickers out, and the woman in all her glory just vanishes. Leaving behind the fountain’s base, petals floating in a tiny pool.
“Knew it was a fake,” Mykal whispers proudly. “Was too pretty-looking to be real.”
“It’s a hologram,” Court murmurs.
One that can produce mist and sound. And soon, a new image replaces the stone-carved woman, light beaming up from the fountain’s base. Static crackles the picture. Less lifelike, the projection resembles a three-dimensional film and shows a starcraft viewing bay—a familiar viewing bay.
The Romulus.
Where we once stood against a long metal railing. Where we once glanced out the enormous window that oversaw the galaxy. Where we were told we’re human.
Court stands more upright.
Mykal grinds his toothpick, all three of us recognizing the location and the cadets in sleek burgundy uniforms. Hands cupped out in front, the image halts on the young brassy-haired commander.
Theron and his brisk authority. He snaps his fingers and the picture zooms on his intimidating face: slanted forehead, hooked nose, and dark eyes lost within black pupils.
Lucretzia’s crew sucks in apprehensive breaths, others huff out angrily. Strain wrenching the air.
“Humans,” Commander Theron says, voice unreadable. “We’re broadcasting live from the Romulus. To remind you that we will take what is rightfully ours. Andola belongs to Saltarians, and nothing will stand in our way. Not your starcrafts, not your armor, and not your leaders.”
He snaps.
The hologram swerves, and the Lucretzia crew jolts, everyone rousing like they’ve been rattled awake from a deep stupor. Voices and small cries in the courtyard intensify like a sickening chorus.
I can’t look away.
Two women and one man are blindfolded, gagged, and kneeling on the Romulus viewing bay. All three seem young from my vantage point. Wrists cuffed and an iron collar locked around their throats, bronze armor still protecting their chests, they breathe raggedly but stay calm. And motionless.
None of them yank at their chains.
None of them scream through their gags.
On their breastplates, I can read the symbol using the EI. Tapping the disc once, I realize that the letter A stands on five lines.
The admirals of the Earthen Fleet.
I’m so confused. Looking to the Lucretzia crew to the C-Jays behind me to Stork—I expect a readiness, a fight to go rescue their leaders. But no one moves.
Stork chugs liquor to the bottom of the bottle. Dulling a pain in his eyes.
I lean forward. Watching the admirals do nothing, not even as Theron loads a gun, and I think, run.
Stand.
Stand.
Run.
“Look away.”
It takes me a second to realize that Stork is speaking to me, Court, and Mykal.
“Why?” Mykal asks like it’s a dumb request.
And all four of us are staring at one another as violent gunshots ring out, three rapid-fire pops. The Lucretzia crew screams into guttural sobs. Wailing like nothing I’ve ever heard.
I open my mouth, baffled as the people on the balconies cry and embrace, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Hands tangled comfortingly in hair.
I focus back on the hologram: three bodies crumpled together, blood soaked beneath their lifeless limbs.
Lifeless.
What … “What just happened?” I ask, just as the hologram recedes and the stone-carved woman returns, the rushing water more ominous.
Court pries his methodical gaze off the fountain. “They’re dead.”
Stork hops back onto the observational deck. “They were killed.”
Killed.
Life can’t be taken like that on Saltare … from Saltarians. I’ve never seen anyone be killed before, but when Bastell was hunting Court, I feared that ending.
I stare off, unsure of what I feel, and I mutter, “Let their souls find peace.”
Mykal nods wholeheartedly, and he brings his hands together in robust applause. I would’ve joined too, so I could respect the dead, but the noise drops uncomfortably.
He stops.
And a dense air compounds, tears sniffed back, and the crew’s anguish morphs to enraged horror.
“What’s wrong with you?!” a girl screeches.
Mykal is hot all over, and Court wraps a firm arm around his waist and whispers in his ear.
She wails again. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH—”
“He meant no offense to you!” I holler back over the balcony. Not against spitting if I have to. I will toss a wad if someone means to shame him again.
“Knave!” a few people shout, as though telling Stork to wrangle us.
Stork motions an okay to a young woman down at the fountain’s base. Fiery red braids line her scalp, inked rings tattooed around her tawny-olive biceps. I read CAPT over four lines on her breastplate.
I figure she must be Captain Venita.
Court drops his arm from Mykal and then seizes Stork by the elbow.
“Mate—”
“Tell me they didn’t give their lives for ours,” Court says urgently. “Tell me that wasn’t the trade.”
Oh.
Gods.
To help free us from the brig, the admirals let the Saltarians murder them.
Sickness churns, and I wait on edge for Stork to shake his head and say never. Because who would ever do such an irrational thing?
He doesn’t shake his head.
Doesn’t deny.
He just says, “Follow me.”
* * *
Stork brings us inside a stuffy storage pantry. Boxed and canned foods teeter on tall, uneven metallic shelves, hundreds of provisions enclosing us. I skim the labels: marshmallow cereal, honey beans, peaches, coconut milk—and once the door is locked, Court and Stork are in a standoff. Glares puncturing glares.
“You shouldn’t have done that trade,” Court says coldly.
Stork rests an elbow on the shelf. “There is a much bigger picture here.”
“Your bigger picture,” Court corrects. “I’m not indebted to anyone. We want no part in whatever you and your dead admirals have orchestrated—”
“They died for you.” Stork sneers, stepping forward. Blond tendrils slip out of his hair tie and fall in his infuriated face.
“Heya!” Mykal wedges between their fuming stances and extends an arm toward Stork to protect Court.
Stork never backs down.
Neither does Court.
I stay near the canned fruits. Mulling over what this all means. Someone died for me. Three lives for ours. Court says we’re not indebted, but I owe them something, don’t I? My journal and all my scribbled owed to’s are on Saltare-3.
Left behind and unfulfilled. So many debts I never paid, and that remorse haunts me in mindful moments like these.
How do I even repay three deaths? What’s the equivalent value to life lost too early?
“They didn’t die for us,” Court says in a smooth, biting tone. “They died for their cause. For their people—”
“You are their people!” Stork yells, and then inhales a deep, plentiful breath. Tucking loose blond strands behind his ears, he tries to say more calmly, “You. More than even me. You are who they want to protect and grow old and create new generations. You.”
Court is painfully still. “And I should feel guilty. Remorseful?” His arched shoulders are full of authority that lifts my bones as high as his. As powerfully. “These are humans I’ve never met. A people that I’ve never seen until now. Why don’t you go fight for Saltarians? Go fight for your people that you know nothing about.”
Sighing into a weakened laugh, Stork shakes his head a few times. “You’re a blast, mate.” He reties his hair at his neck. “You lived on Saltare-3, a planet that remained out of war and conflict for centuries. Which means you have no clue what the majority of Saltarians think of humans. Of you.”
It’s true.
“Let me tell you.” He unstraps the sword on his back.
Uneasiness ripples through us threefold. “What are you doing?” I ask, my spine pressed to the shelves. Pulse jumping irregularly.
Stork unsheathes the glinting blade, metal shining but scratched from use. He circles the room until he blocks the door.
Too near. I scoot over to where Mykal and Court stand side by side.
Court clasps my hand and draws me closer to Mykal, who tucks me in the middle, and I hear Court whisper to us, “He’s drunk.”
But Stork hardly wobbles or slurs. He twirls the sword effortlessly. If he really is sloshed, he’s unlike any drunkard back home.
“Scared?” Stork asks. “I can murder you right here, and you will never be able to murder me.” And then he tosses the blade. Sword clattering at our feet.
I don’t understand him one bit.
“You are pathetic.” Stork nearly seethes, iciness chilling his eyes. “Weak. So bloody fragile, why shouldn’t I wipe you from existence? Let the superior species reign and the inferior die.”
Cold snakes down my body, too nippy to speak.
Mykal crouches and grasps the leather hilt of the sword, heavier than I thought. I sense the weight pulling at his muscle.
Stork makes a come hither motion. “Fight me. Like I said, you’ll lose. Always. Every time.”
Mykal snatches the leather holster and strap, and then he sheathes the weapon.
Blade gliding smoothly into its protective case, Mykal tells him, “I’m not fighting my own brother, but I am taking your blade.” He buckles the leather across his chest, sword on his back.
Feels even heavier, but Mykal adjusts the weight, able to carry the weapon.
I thought Stork would protest, but he’s lost pondering. Until he shakes his head, “We’re not brothers. I told you—”
“We share a pa, a ma,” Mykal interjects. “That makes us brothers. And right about now, I’d say I’m the older one. ’Cause you’re here acting a fool, waving a sword about, trying to frighten us into fearing what you’d like us to fight. But we’ve already been grabbed with malicious hands, baby brother. You don’t need to be evil to show us evil exists.”
Court nearly smiles, his pride for Mykal flooding me. Causing my lips to rise.
The three of us—we stand stronger.
Stork rests a hand on his side, like he’s a little bit winded. But he lets out a curt laugh. “Look, I wish every Saltarian saw humans how I do—”
“How’s that?” I ask, wondering how he pictures humans.
“Strong-willed, resilient.” His reddened eyes flit to the floor before rising to us. “And selfless … I will never be able to sacrifice my life the way that the admirals just sacrificed theirs.”
My brows furrow. “Why would you want to? Why would anyone do that?”
Stork tilts his head like the answer is in front of me. “Wouldn’t you die to save each other?”
We all inhale.
No thought, no question—just a tremendous feeling.
Yes.
He props his shoulder blades to the door, a tangible loneliness separating him from us. “It’s one of the deepest forms of love, and I’m not saying that every human feels it but they all have the chance.”
Court goes rigid, unblinking. His joints rusting. “The need to save strangers, is that an innate human trait?”
“For some…” Stork says, voice trailing in curiosity. “Why? You asking for yourself? Because I wouldn’t peg you as a guy who’s overly compassionate to strangers.”
Court laughs, the noise almost shrill in my lungs. His eyes well, and he cringes, all sound falling heavily.
Mykal squeezes his shoulder.
I remember easily why Court was sent to Vorkter Prison: he tried to revive people on their deathdays. That time where he was called Etian Valcastle—it perished inside him long ago, and I can practically feel Court scraping the ashes in his palms.
Stork nods a few times in realization. “You’re not an Icecastle because you’re a thief. You tried to save the dying.” He’s not asking.
He knows with such little information given.
The wart is smart.
Court locks eyes with Stork. “I’m not that person anymore,” he tells him. “I’m not risking my life for strangers, and you can say that your admirals died selflessly, out of some deep love, but they died to save three people they need to stop a war. We’re just pieces in your game—”
“This isn’t a game to me,” Stork rebuts hotly. “And it’s definitely not a game to the lives that have protected Earth for centuries through fa—” He cuts himself off, rolls his eyes in frustration.
“Through what?” I prod. What has Earth gone through?
Stork reaches for the nearest shelf, pushes aside canned mushrooms, and snatches a jug of whiskey. Facing us, he pops the cork. “You’re right. We don’t just want you.” He sidesteps over my question. “The Earthen Fleet needs you. All of you.”
He puts the bottle to his lips and swigs. Wiping his mouth, he adds, “I couldn’t care less why you want to help. Whether it’s for each other, for the admirals who died so you could live, for answers I’ll share later, or for humanity—the fleet still needs you.”
“Why us?” I ask.
He tucks another lock of hair behind his ear. “Because, dove. You’re the only humans to ever grow up on a Saltare planet. Because you have the best chance of blending in on Saltare-1. Better than even me. The admirals knew that. We all know tha
t.”
The mission to retrieve a baby on Saltare-1—their best bet is us helping them.
I owe these people, and it’ll be hard for me to say no. That suffocating guilt may not fester in Court or Mykal, but they’ll share in mine. I hate that too.
“We already agreed to the retrieval operation,” Court says suddenly, so resolute that my lips part a little. Mykal carries the same unbending emotion, loyal to this decision. “We didn’t need to see your admirals die.”
“Executed,” Stork amends with a swig, most of us frowning at the new word and at his drinking.
Mykal nods to Stork. “How dangerous is this op-thing gonna be?”
He wipes his wet lip with his thumb. “First, you’ll need training. Then, we’ll see.”
THIRTEEN
Mykal
After some fussing, Franny agrees to bathe first. Our cozy barracks have some kind of planetary appeal that I don’t find as glamorous as Court or Franny.
Room shaped like a diamond, four long beds hug each wall. Covered with round pillows and constellation-patterned blankets, too heavy for the suffocating temps. I’d be doing everything in the nude if I could.
Spinning stools surround a circular table in the middle. And lastly, a frosted sliding door conceals a tiny bathroom.
No portholes. No breeze or hoot of an animal.
I only hear droplets hitting tile.
Shower.
What a strange thing. Lukewarm water drizzles on my biceps, steam swathing my body. I roll my shoulders, not liking the sensation.
If I’m not careful, I’m going to start feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling. Like Franny’s hands journeying over her curves. Privacy is still hard to give with this damned link.
Mind drifting, I struggle.
Franny is tentative at first. Not sticking her head beneath the pour, and as soon as she steps under, water drenches my hair. Soaks my face.
I pinch my eyes.
Bed. Bed.
I’m on one of the beds, round pillow chucked to the floor to make room for Court. His nose is deep in the same Myths book while sitting next to me. Our legs stretched out appreciatively.
Without shifting his eyes, he curves his arm around my broad frame. I’m swept up wholly into his senses. Dry. Water gone. His pulse thumps heartily against mine.
The Last Hope Page 11