“Kiyo, how...?”
His mouth curved into the lopsided grin she’d known her whole life. “We followed them here. I think they’re attracted to the heat coming from the ship’s engines. We’ll keep them busy while you get Imperator Tomasz to safety.”
Imperator Tomasz. The words felt strange as they rolled along the seams of her brain. With all the Sec-Bot chaos, the thought hadn’t occurred to her that Daxton now ruled all of Earth.
Tesla stared numbly as Lind Fuhr and a few other members of her welding crew fought off a pair of Sec-Bots on a raised platform overlooking the bay. When one of the workers fell, another pressed forward to protect the others.
Yesterday, she’d agreed with Daxton that she didn’t belong anywhere, least of all in the divided world below the deimark. But now—in this moment—the Gulch had banded together to protect their homes and families. The Sec-Bots attacked with lightning-quick movements, but the harsh life of the Gulch had forged the bones of the lower level workers in fire, making them stronger. Making them one. Tesla’s breath caught as a sense of pride filled her.
She was a Gulch rat.
These were her people.
“Your friends are by the vents,” Kiyo said, grabbing her elbow. He pulled her to where Jasmeen lay completely still over Daxton’s body. Tesla felt a tightness in her throat, thinking her dead, until the girl leaned back and brushed the hair from her face.
“He’s breathing,” Jasmeen said. “He’s alive, but I don’t think he can last much longer.”
Kiyo rolled a makeshift energy grenade toward a trio of approaching robots. A soft pop sounded as a flash of blue sparks traced a circle on the floor. “That will buy you some time until its conductor burns out. The ship is at the far end. I don’t know how you plan to get out without power, but that jittery kid seemed to have an idea.”
“You take Daxton,” Tesla said to Jasmeen. “I’m going to stay behind. I have to help.”
Jasmeen shook her head. “Tesla, you’ll die.”
“She’s not staying behind,” Kiyo insisted. Tesla started to protest, but Kiyo’s eyes shifted, pleading with her. “I know what I did was unforgiveable,” he whispered, “My actions were inexcusable and wrong. If I’m going to die here—right now—let me do this one thing right.”
Tesla swallowed heavily, her hands trembling with anger and fear. She didn’t forgive him for what he’d done. She couldn’t. But if he was willing to give his life to save them all, they didn’t have to part as enemies. “May the stars guide you home,” she breathed as she helped Jasmeen lift Daxton one last time.
Kiyo smiled sadly before turning to crouch behind a crate, his weapon already firing at an advancing Sec-Bot squad.
Tesla didn’t turn back, not even when Kiyo screamed and she heard the soft sound of his body hitting the floor. Instead, she ran, Jasmeen panting beside her as they wove past other starcraft in the bay. Her lungs burned like the energy grenade’s flares, and just when she thought she might collapse under Daxton’s weight, they rounded the tail of a ship to find Theopoenne Fox waiting on the cargo ramp of a rusted transport, a pulse blaster in each hand.
“Move faster!” she shouted, firing at the Sec-Bots behind them.
They reached the cargo ramp, heaving Daxton up the slope by his arms. The sharp sounds of bullets striking metal filled the air as the robots began attacking the ship.
“Sorry, sweethearts, but we’re running out of time,” a rough male voice said behind her. Tesla fell backward as a boy a few years older than her wrapped his arms around Daxton’s torso and yanked his body roughly into the ship.
Jasmeen’s mouth dropped. “You?”
Eamon Faraday’s eyes widened. “HER?” he bellowed to Theopoenne as the woman punched the button to lift the cargo ramp. “She’s the one who interrogated me!”
“You can work it out later,” the opera singer said over her shoulder as she ran for the transport’s controls. “Right now, I need you to fly this rusted heap.”
“There’s a med-bay in the back,” Eamon grumbled, his eyes still narrowed at Jasmeen. “Your doctor friend is waiting with that little red-headed kid.” His boots thudded loudly as he followed Theopoenne to the cockpit.
Jasmeen grabbed Tesla’s arm. “You expect me to trust an opera singer and a greasy criminal with Daxton’s life?” she hissed.
“Not greasy,” Eamon yelled back, his voice full of amusement. “And I can hear you.”
The entire transport swayed as the Sec-Bots fired heavy artillery rounds against its hull. “Just get us the hell out of here!” Jasmeen snapped.
“Unless you want all those people back there to be sucked out into space, whiz kid has to close the inner safety seal and override the security lock on the outer bay doors before the Rumbler can take to the stars,” said Eamon. A monstrous grinding of gears shrieked along the hull walls, sending vibrations through their feet. “Okay, now we can go.”
But the sound stopped. Blitz suddenly appeared, and before they could stop him, he reached for the handle of the exit hatch.
“What are you doing?” Faraday shouted. “You’re going to get killed by those things if you step foot outside!”
“There’s not enough power left for me to hack the security lock on the outer bay doors. I have to do it manually,” said Blitz. And with that, he threw open the door and took off at a sprint.
“BLITZ!” Jasmeen screamed. “Get back here!”
She made to follow him, but Tesla stepped in front of the hatch saying, “You can’t go. Daxton needs you here.” Jasmeen moved toward the door, but Tesla was two steps ahead. “I’ll help Blitz. Just make sure the pilot doesn’t leave without us.”
Tesla hurried through the hatchway, ignoring the angry shouts from Jasmeen and Theopoenne. A large piece of shrapnel ricocheted off the ship’s hull, sending her tumbling out of the way. Blitz had managed to lower the inner seal, cutting off half of the bay from the danger of empty space. Those caught outside the seal, closer to the giant metal bay doors, now scrambled toward life pods. Up ahead, Tesla spied Blitz entering an operations office.
She pushed through the ache in her legs and ran faster, dodging past Sec-Bots who darted after those climbing into the pods. Reaching the office doorway, she slid inside, crashing into Blitz.
He slammed both hands on the control panel. “There isn’t enough power! I can’t activate the manual override, Tesla,” his voice cracked as he punched another code into a display. “I can’t save Daxton, and it’s all my fault.”
Tesla knelt, pulling the boy closer. “None of this is your fault, do you hear me? Bad deeds are the work of bad men. You tried your best. That’s all you could do.”
“All the power is going to this thing,” he said with a sob, turning his HDP toward her. “I just can’t figure out why. We’re trapped.”
Tesla grabbed the HDP, staring at the screen in disbelief. “Where is this?” The schematic showed a series of lines converged to a point, topped with a strange cylindrical object—the same design that she’d seen her father download from the commander’s office. The file he died for.
“It's just outside this hangar, on the exterior of the station, but I don’t—”
“Blitz?” Tesla turned back to see the boy’s face had paled, making his freckles even more pronounced, as dark blood dripped from between his lips. The Sec-Bot retracted its blade, leaving a gaping hole in his abdomen.
No. Please stars no.
“Blitz!” Tesla cried, catching the boy before he fell.
His breathing came in shuddered gurgles as he struggled to move, handing her the HDP. “Take it. You’ll n-need it to stop Kyrartine,” he whispered. His lungs sucked in just enough air to breathe the words, “Long live the crown.”
The light left his eyes.
The remaining air in the station suddenly tasted thin and sour. Still reeling from shock, Tesla laid Blitz down gently and stood, facing the door as the Sec-Bot advanced. She backed away, buying herself enough time to reach
inside the bodice of her dress for the microComm. The robot sprang forward, its head unit splitting open to reveal a nightmarish mouth, all jagged edges and serrated blades. With a soft click, she depressed the button and hurled it into the gears.
Then, she ran.
Seconds later, the microComm exploded, shaking the floor. A plume of smoke reached toward the ceiling, and Tesla choked back a sob as she tucked Blitz’s HDP into her dress. He’d given his life to save them all, but they were still trapped. His sacrifice would mean nothing if she couldn’t figure out how to stop the power from being leeched from the station.
The amber emergency lights glinted off a familiar shape, and Tesla suddenly knew what she had to do. She stumbled toward the Hull Walker suit, gripping its metal exterior with both hands as she climbed inside. Stuffing her dress within, she punched every button until the exoskeleton closed around her.
Much like her fightBot, the suit was bulky and ungraceful. She located an ancient port and prayed it would connect to her bioNexus. With a shiver of electricity, the suit powered on, linking to her brain.
Okay, big guy. Let’s move.
The suit responded, lifting a leg and propelling her forward. Tesla breathed a sigh of relief as she headed toward an oversized maintenance hatch. The cumbersome digits of the Hull Walker struggled to rotate the lock.
At the corner of her viewscreen, Tesla saw Theopoenne and Jasmeen fighting off Sec-Bots as they advanced, wave after horrible wave, toward the starcraft. We’re running out of time. With a great heave of her arm, she drew back and punched the lock. The force was enough to weaken the air seal, and the hatch blew outward into space, taking Tesla with it.
Tesla reached out with the mech’s giant digits, desperate to grab anything that might stabilize her before she drifted out into the stars. Engage gravity locks. The suit responded, and her body felt as if it might snap in half from the sudden stop as the feet of the mechanical beast magnetized, clamping solidly to the outer bulkhead of the Atlas.
Debris from the inside of the station blew past her, and Tesla flinched as large bits of metal hit her viewscreen. She scanned left and right, dizzy from the sight of the swirling Earth’s surface, until she spied the tower roughly thirty yards ahead, its edges glowing a faint blue color.
Step by hulking step, she drew closer to her target. Sweat dripped down her brow. She reached the structure, searching for a display, or data input—anything that might stop the flow of energy—but found nothing.
With a cry of frustration, she slammed a metal fist against the structure, denting it on one side. The blue pulsing light weakened and threatened to stop altogether. I have to destroy it, she realized. Was this what her father had wanted all along?
She stepped back, ready to make a run at the structure, but was knocked down with the force of something solid. A lone Sec-Bot, blown out into space, had found the only heat signature left in the void: Her.
They crashed together. Tesla clawed her way upright, engaging the gravity locks once more. The Sec-Bot scrambled for purchase, sinking its blades into the hull of the Atlas as it pressed forward toward its prey.
Tesla turned her back to the robot and ran as fast as she could, engaging small thrusters in her feet as she propelled herself into the tower. The collision cracked her viewscreen, making her teeth rattle from the impact. Vibrations shivered through her suit, and the tower tipped, held on by one final connection.
The Sec-Bot plunged a blade into her suit, tearing open a gash in her side. Tesla screamed in agony. All around her, dark tar-like bubbles glistened against the Earth’s light. Her readout screamed with red: CRITICAL IGNITION LEVELS. At the current fuel limits, she would only be able to manage one more pass at the tower.
She stepped back, bringing the Sec-Bot with her, and readied for a final charge. If she missed, Daxton and the others would never leave the Atlas alive. The Sec-Bot opened its head unit and gnashed its serrated teeth against the corner of her viewscreen.
It was now or never.
Legs pumping, the Hull Walker barreled toward the tower. At the last second, Tesla focused on the bioNexus, willing her own energy to bind with that of the machine, pushing her strength into every circuit and coil. The thrusters engaged, and she slammed into the tower, gripped its frame, and pulled with all her might, jerking it free from the exterior of the Atlas. Without any magnetic surface on which to take hold, her gravity lock disengaged, sending her flying into the blackness of empty space.
The blue lights of the tower began fading as the power from the station ceased to flow. As she drifted away, the Sec-Bot continued to tear away her exoskeleton, ripping its way toward the warmth of her body piece by piece. As the tower lost its final pulse of energy, so did the Sec-Bot, its motions slowing to an eerie stillness. With her oxygen depleted, Tesla watched, numb, as the outer bay doors finally opened and a smattering of lights returned to the Atlas. Life pods burst forth, followed by a rusted transport.
They were free. Those who had survived the attacks on the Atlas would have enough reserve energy to last at least a few days, while those lucky enough to reach the life pods had a chance at reaching Earth. And the others... Daxton would be safe. Jasmeen and Sav would see to that.
Her bioNexus sizzled and crackled as the suit’s power source overheated. The bitter cold stung against her skin, painting crystals of ice across her broken viewscreen. In her final moments, Tesla felt a strange wave of peace envelop her broken body, and she began to mouth as much as she could remember of the Old Words, prayers her mother had taught her a lifetime ago.
She thought of Blitz, and Jasmeen, and Sav, as well as those still left on the Atlas. She thought of her father and her mother and the Gulch, of flight school and the feel of her uniform on the day she'd earned her wings... of Daxton and the way he'd pulled her close—of everything that had ever felt like home.
Her vision blurred, blending the surrounding colors into a marbled swirl, but not before she saw a light burning as brightly as a solar flare. Blinded by the glow, Tesla gave in to the cold, allowing her body to be claimed by the stars.
FORTY-ONE
VOICES ECHOED AROUND HER, muffled by the noise of what sounded like an engine. A gentle warmth cascaded over her body, and Tesla wanted to sink down into it, drown in it, never to surface again. Then, someone slapped her.
“Ow!” she cried, blinking her eyes open to see a circle of faces. Her tongue felt swollen and clumsy, and she realized she was lying on a stretcher in what must have been the med-bay of the Rumbler, judging by the shelves of medical supplies and large red cross painted on the wall.
Jasmeen drew her hand back with a look of relief. “Thank the planets you’re alright.”
“And Blitz?” asked Sav. “Did he make it to a life pod?”
Tesla shut her eyes as the memory of what had happened on the station came flooding back. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, gripping the electric blanket that covered her. “I tried—”
The words hit Sav, and he crumpled against the bulkhead, his amber eyes shining against the light. “I promised I‘d keep him safe.”
Jasmeen brushed a strand of white hair from Tesla’s face. “He did what he had to do to keep us safe. And so did you. That’s what family does for one another.” She gave Tesla’s hand a squeeze. “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”
Freiter sat on a chair to the right, an IV dripping into his arm. “So you’re the infamous Tesla,” he said. “I hear I’m in your debt for saving my life.”
His words made Tesla’s chest tighten. Where was Daxton? She struggled to sit up, looking around the room.
“Relax,” said Sav, rushing forward to ease her back onto the bed. “Space exposure is serious. You need to take it easy.”
“But Daxton—”
“—is stable, thanks to you,” Sav finished. “He’ll have one nasty scar, but it’s better than being dead. He keeps coming in and out of the anesthetic, though. Theopoenne and that ruffian pilot are in the cockpit. They’v
e promised that wherever they’re taking us has a full medical staff.”
Just then, Tesla spied Daxton lying beneath a woven blanket, his face sullen and pale. He moved his lips, murmuring words over and over.
“What’s he saying?” Tesla asked, straining her ears to hear.
Daxton moved again. “The... penny.”
Tesla’s eyes snapped to Daxton’s face. Her father’s last words. Why was Daxton saying them now?
“His mind is just reacting to the pain,” Sav insisted at the look of confusion on Tesla’s face. “He keeps reciting our names over and over.”
Daxton’s lips quivered, but this time the syllables were clear.
Tesla sat up straight, scrambling to free herself from the blankets and the stretcher. Her balance immediately felt askew, sending her crashing into a case of glass vials and tourniquets.
“What in space is wrong with you?” Jasmeen asked.
But Tesla was already reaching for the door. She lifted what remained of her tattered ballgown as she stumbled toward the front of the ship. Her bandaged hand threw open the cockpit door. “Theopoenne!” she panted. “My father’s last words were, ‘Find Theopoenne’!”
Earth swirled mutely against a field of black. Eamon leaned back from the Rumbler’s viewscreen, one leg propped up on the ship’s dashboard, guiding the ship through the void of space with his bioNexus. “Looks like Nevik’s kid is finally putting the pieces together,” he muttered.
Theopoenne rose from the co-pilot seat. Her dress twinkled as she placed a slender arm around Tesla’s shoulders. “Come with me,” she said softly, “I think it’s time to end the secrets.”
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