by Kayla Olson
I cannot remember the last time he used my full name.
Fix one thing, break another.
59
LIKE WISHES ON THE VERGE OF BURNING OUT
I HAVE TO leave—I can’t be in this room with them anymore, with Heath and Leo and the feelings.
“Anyone needs me, I’ll be up in Control in about an hour,” I say, settling my metal tray on the countertop with more of a clatter than I intended.
“Anything you need us to do?” Heath asks as I breeze past him.
“Just . . . stay alive, okay?”
I resist the urge to look over my shoulder as I walk out.
Not that I know where I’m going, exactly—all I know is I need to sort myself out. I’m a mess, and everything I touch is a mess, and I’m sick and tired of doing my best to save us all only to end up hurting people in the process.
I thought I could do this.
I thought I could do it half as well as she did, just because we share blood.
She made leading look easy. It’s anything but.
Almost every place I can think to go is likely to amplify the anxiety I feel, not calm it: the labs, the hydro chamber, Control. Even in the rec center, I’ll feel pressured to run, do anything but sit still and take some time to think. And besides, the track is just another reminder of my futile desire to run away when I can only run in circles.
Before I’ve really decided where I’m headed, I end up at my own front door. Inside, it’s every bit as empty as I left it. Will I ever get over it? Will it ever feel normal that our place is now mine and mine alone—that she’ll never be waiting for me again?
I turn the fire up as high as it will go, settle into the leather chair. It’s familiar against my skin, cool from lack of use. I curl up into a tight ball and stare so long at the flames I start to see myself in them: ravenous and relentless, never satisfied, blooming and bursting like wishes on the verge of burning out.
I could save this place or burn it down, I think, and I’d never have what I truly want.
What I’ve lost can never be recovered. What I’ve lost can never be replaced.
What happens when what I’ve lost . . . when part of it is myself?
She died and took part of me with her.
She died and I’ve been looking for her ever since: in Leo. In Heath. In my ability to pick up the work she left behind, save the station she loved. In anyone who’ll look at me like I’m not just a shadow of who I was before the brightest parts of me burned out. In anyone who’ll look at me like I’m enough.
I hate this, and I didn’t ask for any of it. But there is work to be done, and I am still my mother’s daughter, and there are still lives at stake—mine included. Not just what could be taken away by one swift swallow of poison, either; a person can eat and sleep and breathe, but still be ash inside. I’m not quite to ashes yet, and I don’t want to be.
All I can do is my best, I tell myself. And my best will be enough. It has to be.
I repeat it, over and over again in my head, until I start to believe it.
It’s only embers, but it’s something.
60
SKELETON SPHERE
THREE QUARTERS OF an hour pass, and I spend their entirety still as stone in my chair.
Before finally heading to Control, I strip my layers of exhaustion away: my tired, rumpled clothes. The sheen of sweat on my skin. The pins in my hair that haven’t done a thing to keep the flyaways from slipping out.
All I can do is my best. My best will be enough.
No one else has died, not yet, or else I would’ve heard about it. It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure—not if, but when.
Zesi’s already at the panel deck when I arrive at Control. Not trying to murder anyone, I note, which seems promising. Gone are the blueprints, the diagrams—his display screens are mostly black now, save for the overlay of a faint white three-dimensional grid: our radar. It’s like the skeleton of a sphere, bones sprouting out like a starburst from its center. He has a thin headset frame wrapped around the back of his head, and he’s practically shouting into its microphone. I can’t hear what’s in his ears.
He’s oblivious to my presence until I rip the headphones from his head. I press my thumb to the on/off sensor, and immediately, a voice I don’t recognize starts blaring through the main speakers.
It doesn’t take long to realize it’s a recording. A woman’s serene voice, at odds with her words: YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GRANTED ACCESS TO THIS LINE OF COMMUNICATION.
“Zesi . . . what . . . ?”
“You left it unlocked,” he says, dipping his head toward the message system. “Thought I’d try to pick up where you left off.”
“I . . . I could’ve sworn I logged out this morning.” But sure enough, the display screen is open to the secret inbox, my mother’s private one. Perhaps I was more out of it than I realized after so little sleep, under so much pressure. The passcode was difficult enough for even me to crack, so this must have been my own mistake. I scroll through the call log, see ten new attempts at contact since the last time I stopped trying. “And you’ve gotten that message every time?”
“I’m starting to hate her voice,” he replies.
It doesn’t make any sense. Vonn explicitly directed me—well, my mother—to contact him with that handle. At least they’re out of dark space now. In theory, they’re close enough to receive our calls, but in reality . . . we should probably focus our attention on stopping them. If they’ve blocked us, there will be no getting through unless they are the ones to initiate.
“Any sign of them on the radar?” He’s been swiping at the spherical grid ever since I arrived, spinning and examining it from all angles. I haven’t seen anything unusual on the display, but then again, I am not our resident expert.
He pinches the screen, zooming out to reveal a wider view of the space around us; the skeleton grid from before is so small now it’s just a white circle at the center of an even bigger sphere. He spins the image 180 degrees and a tiny blip flashes against the black.
“There,” he says. “They’ll be here earlier than we thought—I’ve been searching the field for any sign of smaller bees or firebirds they might’ve launched from their main ship. If they’re trying to catch us off guard, that’d be the way to do it.”
I take in the screen, think. “Did you ever figure out if we’re equipped to, uh . . . defend?”
“Oh, we’re definitely equipped,” he says. He swipes the screen with three fingers, and there are the blueprints again, this time highlighted in yellow in a number of places. Each yellow place has a tag attached to it, like A10 and F3. They’re scattered all over our various decks, with the heaviest concentrations on each of the station’s main faces. “Take your pick.”
“What . . . do the tags mean?”
“We have tons of A tags—those are the smallest. They do minimal damage, but with maximum output that we can coordinate for large effect,” he says. “H is full blast. There’s only one of those, but it’s on an internal magnetic track between the outermost layers of Lusca’s shell; I can shift it to one of thirty-two positions, easy, in less than fifteen seconds flat.”
“And all of the others?”
“Varying degrees of destruction.”
As relieved as I am that we’ll be able to protect ourselves, if it comes down to it, I don’t want to destroy. I cannot stand Vonn, but these are our own people—they’re on our team. They just don’t know it yet.
A wave of dread hits me. Same team, same strategy: our defense mechanisms are only reassuring until I think of the exact same weapons being turned against us.
“Are they—will they be equally equipped?”
“Depends on the craft, depends on their approach,” Zesi says. “Their main ship will be loaded, for sure. But if they’re sending firebirds out first, the only advantage they’ll have is the advantage of surprise.”
I exhale, pace the room until I’m looking out the huge window where we take our cof
fee breaks, resting my elbows on the metal ledge. I prefer this view—endless constellations of stars instead of a finite smattering of control panel buttons. What to do? Assuming we are unable to get in touch, since that seems like a lost cause at this point, it would be wise to plan for their attack.
“How devastating would full blast be, exactly?” I ask, as if Zesi has any way of knowing for certain.
“Could breach an entire segment, if I had to guess. If anything cracks the outermost shell, it’ll trigger automatic airlocks all over the station”—he pauses, and I hear his fingers tapping away at the display—“they’re these giant metal panel sheets, from what I can tell in the prints. Emergency barriers that’ll snap together from the floors and ceiling . . . probably best not to get caught on the wrong side of them.”
His words trigger a memory long buried: all those years ago, when we were taking precautions against the solar flare, my mother told me something similar. Usually, when I think of that day, I think of sitting with Leo in that gray box of a safe room at the station’s core, our backs together, and Haven talking nonstop. I think of my mother telling me I’m the heart when I asked why she couldn’t come with us.
What I haven’t thought about since then is why I was so afraid of her staying on duty. They snap together like teeth, I remember her saying. I need to make sure they don’t eat you. I couldn’t find the words to tell her how very much I needed her to stay alive, too.
An idea sprouts: we could pile everyone into the safe room—it was built for twice as many people as we have left, at least. “Any idea how much time we have until Vonn closes in on us?”
“An hour?” he says. “Maybe two? Could be even less if they’ve launched the birds. A firebird could zip here in as little as half an hour, depending on how far out it was before takeoff.”
I want to wait as long as possible before asking people to camp out in such a dim, depressing room, but it sounds like we’re working with a very narrow window of time. You’d think the designers could’ve made it more hopeful-looking, since it would only be used during times of extreme duress—but no. It’s a plain gray cube, cement except for the requisite air vents. No windows, no neon, no cushions; even the benches are made of steel and cement. Fire hazards and all that, I can only guess. People are unpredictable, especially under stress.
Which . . . makes me reconsider locking everyone down in the safe room altogether, given our circumstances.
Would it be worse to take our chances on Vonn’s attack—stop it before it starts, somehow?—or to put our increasingly volatile population together in a dark room where they can’t escape? What sort of safe room does it become when you’re locked inside it with a mystery murderer who hasn’t hesitated to kill six people just like you?
Still. We could lose many of our people if things go worst-case scenario with Vonn.
There is no surefire win here.
I close my eyes, make the call.
“Haven?” I say as soon as she picks up. “I’m going to need you to make an emergency announcement.”
61
PANDORA
WE HAVEN’T HAD need for the safe room in so many years that half our people aren’t old enough to remember how to get there. Fifteen minutes pass in a blur as Heath, Haven, Leo, and I position ourselves in the most heavily trafficked areas around the station, guiding people in the right direction and making sure they actually do what we’ve asked them to this time. Zesi stays behind to monitor the radar, while Natalin gathers up as many SpaceLove packs as she can pile on the cart—hopefully our people won’t have to stay in the safe room for too long, but we can’t be careful enough.
When no one passes through my corridor for two minutes straight, I run and find Haven, who’s nearest to me on the opposite end of this deck.
“Hey,” I say, cutting her off as soon as she’s given directions to a trio of sisters. “I’m going back up to Control now. I need you and the guys to check all the residential wings, and also the rec center—make sure no one’s unaccounted for, okay?”
She gives me an easy grin. “Go. We’ve got this.”
“And after that, could you send Leo up to Control? And the rest of you could stay behind with—”
“Seriously, Lindley. Go,” she says with a little shove. “And yes, I’ll pass all that on.”
“And—”
She tilts her head, gives me a look.
“Okay. Okay, thank you, Haven—buzz if you need me.”
“We’ll be fiiiine.”
I head back up to Control as quickly as I can, less sure of myself than I look. Ever since I made the call to direct everyone to the safe room, I’ve been turning the decision over in my head. Eventually, I landed on splitting our core six into two groups: two of us with Heath, the other two with me. Heath will be able to handle anything that gets out of hand in the safe room, and my gut says I can trust him. As for the decision to bring Leo up to Control—mostly, I just want someone else in the room with me besides Zesi. Even though Zesi’s beyond preoccupied at the moment, it doesn’t mean he’s not our killer . . . it only means his sense of self-preservation is as strong as the rest of ours. And just in case, I’d rather not get on the wrong side of said self-preservation.
Besides, having more eyes and ears and hands around should prove helpful, especially since Leo’s good under pressure. Zesi hasn’t buzzed, so we’re not under immediate threat just yet—but that could change at any second.
“Anything new?” I ask as soon as I’m back. Zesi is exactly where I left him, only now he’s standing over the display screen instead of sitting on his stool. It’s a subtle change, and it carries with it a new sense of authority.
He shakes his head. “They’ve stalled out here”—he swipes to rotate the radar’s sphere, doesn’t even have to zoom out this time—“and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.”
“Still no word from them?”
“Nothing.” He sighs. “On the plus side, I haven’t picked up any firebirds just yet.”
“And on the down side?”
“They could be stalled out for any number of reasons—to fake us out, or to prepare their shields in case we go on the offensive as soon as they’re within shooting range. Or they could be planning to launch a coordinated advance of firebirds,” he says. “Easier to send more than two if the ship’s not moving.”
None of this is good.
“And we don’t have any way of moving closer to them on our own, right? Or away?” I ask, just to be sure. We’re a station, not a ship—by definition, we are a stopping place.
“Not unless we send Heath out in one of our firebirds.”
I bite my lip. It isn’t the worst idea, and actually, I’m surprised I haven’t thought of it before. Maybe Heath could get a call through from one of the crafts instead—maybe those lines won’t be blocked. For that matter, maybe our regular channels would work. Hope blossoms inside me as I make fast work of our message system, tapping and dragging Vonn’s handle from the private inbox over to the main one. I put in the call, and it’s working, it’s really working—
“Hello?” I say breathlessly as the call connects. “Hello, this is Acting Commander Lindley Hamilton speaking?”
“IT IS WITH REGRET THAT I MUST INFORM YOU,” the recorded voice says, speaking right over me. “YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GRANTED ACCESS TO THIS LINE—”
I jam my finger into the screen, end the call. “No, no, no.”
“She’s the worst,” Zesi mutters. “The absolute worst.”
“Could Heath call from one of the birds?” I ask. “Would that get through, you think?”
“At this point, I think about the only thing that would get through to them is if Heath flew all the way out and raised a white flag.”
I’m quiet, weighing pros and cons. It’s a total risk—I mean, what if they fire an array of shots at him before he has the chance to prove his approach is a peaceful one? Vonn is the type to assume the worst, obviously. What if they hit him—what if—
“You’re not actually considering that terrible idea, are you?” Zesi asks, straightening.
Heath could die. But . . . he could also succeed.
If nothing else, he could try to make contact using one of the birds’ communication systems down on the hangar deck—he might not have to fly anywhere at all. The only potential drawback is that it’d leave Haven and Natalin to fend for themselves with everyone down in the safe room. Haven’s constantly offering to step in, insisting she can help me handle things. Maybe it’s time I let her.
“Lindley?”
“Look, it isn’t the worst of ideas—I’m all ears if you have a better one.” I cross my arms, challenge him with my eyes.
A brief blip sounds from the radar, and Zesi mutters a curse.
“What?” The blurred world snaps clearly back into focus, and I’m at his side in less than two seconds.
There’s movement on the grid. Six tiny white specks break off from the larger white dot at the edge of the sphere: Vonn’s ship. They move toward us in synchrony.
“How . . . how long do we have?” The words taste like dying stars.
Zesi’s deep brown eyes meet mine, dark with steely resolve. “Long enough for Heath to have a chance at holding them off, if you get him in the bird now.” He glances at the grid, his mouth a grim line. “Maybe less.”
There’s no time for what now, no time for what if.
“See you on the other side of this,” I say, already halfway out the door. “Do your best here, and I’ll do mine.”
I only hope our best is enough.
62
MADE OF SPLINTERS
MY STEPS ARE full of fire, my heart is full of ash.
I fly from Control and buzz Heath on the way.
“Linds?” he says, not two seconds after I initiate the call. I hear the din of chaos in the background, everyone crammed into the safe room. “What’s happened?”
“No deaths, nothing like that,” I say, even as the word yet sprouts up in my head. I fill him in quickly on Vonn, on the firebirds. On the rickety splinters I’m calling Our Plan. “Meet me on the hangar deck as soon as you can, okay?” I’m so fast and focused I nearly bump into Leo as I turn the corner, clearly on his way up to Control. Change of plans, I mouth at him, and immediately, he does a 180 and falls into step beside me. “I’m talking five minutes, not fifteen,” I add to Heath.