The elevator opened to a chaotic central bunker, an immense room with rows of bunks along the walls and emergency lights hanging from the ceilings. At the end of the room was a large galley where communal meals could be prepared. Kids huddled in groups along the walls, sitting rigid on cots, talking in hushed voices. Waverly tried to ignore the angry stares from a group of girls led by Marjorie Wilkins, a preteen girl with knobby knees, who had an obvious crush on Kieran. Marjorie was a vocal supporter of Kieran, and she would goad anyone who didn’t attend his services.
“What did your friends do this time?” Marjorie spat at Waverly as she walked past.
Waverly knew she should ignore her, but she couldn’t let this go by without answering. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“I mean the people you left our parents with,” Marjorie said. “They must be your friends, otherwise why would you have left our families there?”
“Would you rather grow up on the New Horizon? Maybe I should have left you there, too,” Waverly said, and tried to face her down with a cool stare, but the girl wasn’t in the least intimidated.
“Everyone thinks you’re a coward,” said Millicent, Marjorie’s little sister. Both girls had lost their father in the shuttle-bay massacre, but they were holding out hope that their mother was still alive on the treacherous sister ship, the New Horizon. These girls were the most vocal critics of Waverly’s failed rescue attempt. Waverly was racked with guilt every time she saw their mean-eyed glares. Because she should have tried harder. It didn’t matter that Mather’s thugs were shooting at her. It didn’t matter that they’d winged her shoulder. She should have stayed just a little longer and made that lock give way. The parents would have spilled out of that cargo container and overwhelmed Anne Mather and her thugs. They could have piloted the shuttle back home, and everything would be okay. If only Waverly had stayed another few seconds, or a fraction of a second, instead of turning coward and running. And she’d never have gotten away at all if the crew of the New Horizon hadn’t turned against Anne Mather at the last moment and helped the girls escape.
Waverly tried to tell herself that if she hadn’t run and at least rescued the girls, Marjorie and her sister and all the little ones might have ended up as reproductive slaves on that ship. They’d have their eggs stolen and put into surrogate mothers, and they’d have to watch their babies be raised by strangers. That’s what they’d done to Waverly, Sarah, and all the older girls. But it seemed useless to try to tell Marjorie that. She didn’t want to listen.
The only thing that could help now would be for the parents to get away themselves. For days, then weeks after the girls’ escape, everyone on the Empyrean had waited, hopeful that the civil unrest the girls had left behind on the New Horizon would lead to the release of their parents. As their hope dwindled, Waverly found more and more kids glaring at her as she went about her duties. Sometimes she didn’t even want to leave her quarters.
“I tried my hardest,” Waverly said to Marjorie, but she heard the weakness in her voice.
Marjorie curled her upper lip in disgust. “That wasn’t good enough, was it?” she said with a bitter scowl.
“No,” Waverly said, meeting every accusing eye in turn. “It wasn’t.”
They had nothing to say to that, but she could feel them scowling at her as she walked away.
This is why I hide under tractors and combines, Waverly thought bitterly to herself. No one can see me. No one can say anything to me. And I can just be alone.
Only the teenage girls who’d had their eggs stolen like Waverly understood why she had to run. Alia Khadivi, Debora Mombasa, and Sarah Hodges were all sitting on a bunk at the far end of the room, and Waverly wove through the crowd to get to them.
“Did that bitch Marjorie say something to you?” Sarah asked, sending a hard glance in the girl’s direction. Sarah was compact and intense, and every emotion she had skitted across her freckled face with unmistakable clarity.
“Don’t worry about it,” Waverly said. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Sarah shook her head. “Everyone thinks we’re being attacked again.”
“The New Horizon is nine million miles ahead of us,” Waverly said.
“I know,” Alia said through pursed, deep pink lips. Her long, thick hair draped over her shoulder in an ebony cascade. “Maybe Seth got out.”
“No,” Waverly said instantly. “Seth wouldn’t do anything to hurt the ship.”
“You better hope the problem is Seth,” Debora said with a grim laugh. She ran her fingers nervously through the tight curls in her black hair. “Because if it isn’t him, it’s the New Horizon.”
Waverly sat down on the end of the cot next to Sarah. She wanted to reach out and take her friend’s hand, but she didn’t want to act like a scared little girl.
“I wish Kieran hadn’t hidden all the guns,” Alia said. A practical girl, Alia had taken on the task of trying to harvest as much produce as possible from the family gardens, which had become sorely neglected in the last few months. She and her volunteers brought endless baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables to the living quarters, and often they would work together in the ship’s galley to make enormous pots of vegetable stews for the younger children to eat. Alia rarely betrayed emotion, but now she jiggled her foot inside her red silk slipper, making the cot the girls sat on tremble.
“They’ll have to follow me out an air lock if they want to take me back there,” Waverly said. She tucked icy hands under her thighs.
“Don’t talk like that,” Sarah said automatically.
“Why not?” Waverly said.
She felt Debora studying her for long moments with her luminous eyes before finally saying, “You got us off that ship. No one could have done better. You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Don’t pay attention to Marjorie and those idiots,” Sarah said.
“I don’t,” Waverly said coolly, but she knew Sarah didn’t believe her.
In the center of the room, a girl named Megan Fuller held up a hand, calling everyone to attention. Megan wasn’t classically pretty, with her over-plump cheeks and scraggly brown hair, but her smile lit up her face beautifully. “Let’s all gather around, everyone!”
“Oh God,” Waverly said. “Will they ever give it a rest?”
“It makes people feel better,” Alia said with unexpected equanimity. “You have to admit that.”
A surprisingly large number of kids gathered around Megan. People bowed their heads as she prayed in a singsong: “Dear God, guide our leader, Kieran Alden. Whatever happens tonight, please protect us from our enemies until the day you reunite us with our families, either in this life or the next.…”
“It’s a nice thought, seeing our parents again,” Debora said distantly. Shortly after arriving back on the Empyrean, Debora had learned that her parents died in the shuttle-bay massacre. She was brave about it, but she hardly mentioned them, and she seemed to prefer the company of the small herd of sheep and goats she took from field to field throughout the ship, watching them graze with empty eyes. “I feel my mom talking to me at strange times.”
“I used to talk to my dad after he died, when I was little,” Waverly said, remembering those sad, lonesome nights. “Just as I fell asleep.”
“Maybe Megan isn’t so wrong to pray, then,” Alia said.
Waverly looked at Megan, who held her hands over her head as she prayed aloud. She knew the girl was a great supporter of Kieran; whenever he entered a room she stared at him with a heaven-struck look on her face. It made Waverly sick. “She sounds like Anne Mather.”
“You know,” Debora said, an edge of impatience in her voice, “not every religious person is like that woman, Waverly.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to,” Debora said, her eyes on Waverly’s knees. “Anyone can tell it’s your attitude.”
“I thought you didn’t like Kieran’s little
cult, either,” Waverly said, knowing she was getting defensive but unable to help herself. “After Anne Mather, how could you?”
Debora shrugged, sullen. A hunk of her springy hair moved into her eyes, and she impatiently jammed it behind her ear. “Megan isn’t Anne Mather. Neither is Kieran. You of all people should know that.”
Sarah and Alia looked at Waverly with sympathy but dropped their eyes to the floor rather than join the discussion.
Waverly opened her mouth to protest, and shut it again. I didn’t overreact, she told herself. Kieran is dangerous.
But Anne Mather was worse. And maybe she had found a way to sneak up on the Empyrean. Maybe she was boarding the ship with her thugs right now.
Waverly doubled over, leaned her forehead against her knees. I won’t go back there, she promised herself. I’ll die first.
THE BURDENS OF LEADERSHIP
From his simple podium, under soft yellow stage lights, Kieran looked out over his congregation. The numbers had dwindled over the weeks, as the crew became increasingly demoralized, choosing to sleep in on Sundays rather than bother to attend. Now Kieran was left with about half the crew—the true believers—and they stared at him with light in their eyes.
“I know we had high hopes that increasing our acceleration over the last month would bring us closer to the New Horizon and our parents.…” He swallowed. Suddenly these words sounded like defeat—the opposite of what he’d meant to write last night. Kieran smiled, and some of his congregation leaned forward in their seats. He caught the eye of a little black-haired boy in the front row chewing on his bottom lip.
“We want the battle to begin,” Kieran said with a confidential tone. “But I must ask you to be patient. We’ll catch up to them when God wants us to, and not before.”
That was all he’d written; they were the last words on the portable reader in front of him. But the energy in the room still hung suspended, waiting to be released.
“We will catch them!” he said, and raised his arms over his head, fists clenched. “The deaths of our loved ones will be avenged. We’ll triumph over our enemies and land on New Earth with the memory of victory in our hearts!”
His congregation jumped to their feet, chanting, “Kyrie Eleison! Kyrie Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!” It was an ancient benediction, in Greek, that meant “Lord, have mercy.” It also happened to be the origin of Kieran’s name, and he knew it was no accident that his congregation yelled this at the end of all his sermons. He smiled humbly and held up his hands to speak over the din: “Thank you! Thanks! Everyone!” But they just kept on cheering.
Was it wrong for him to love this?
Not so long ago, he sat on this very stage on trial for his life. Seth Ardvale and his thugs had orchestrated one sham witness after another, and for a while, it looked like the crew of boys wanted to throw Kieran out an air lock. He still had nightmares about it and awoke swimming through damp sheets, screams caught in his throat.
Now they loved him. Now they cheered, and he was safe.
But he never forgot that the tide could turn against him once more.
Suddenly a deep, roaring boom seemed to hit Kieran in the middle of the chest. He staggered. The floor under him rumbled, and the wooden podium seemed to dance away from him. Several crew members cried out, holding on to their chairs. The curtains on the stage of the auditorium swayed.
“We’re under attack!” someone screamed.
“Get to the central bunker!” Kieran cried. He catapulted himself off the stage and took off running down the aisle, pumping his legs as hard as he could, though the floor swayed in front of him. He moved so fast he was stepping onto the elevator for Central Command before the first of them even reached the hallway.
He hit the com button in the elevator. “Sarek? Arthur? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know!” came Arthur’s panicked voice over the speaker. “I don’t know if there was an explosion, or—”
“Where’s the New Horizon?”
“They’re still way ahead of us! I don’t think it’s them.”
The elevator was moving with agonizing slowness, and Kieran punched the metal wall next to the intercom speaker. “Could they have sent an attack force in a shuttle?”
“Without our sensors picking them up?” Sarek put in. “Impossible.”
Sarek and Arthur were good officers, but they were only thirteen. What if they missed something? What if the more-experienced New Horizon crew had fooled them somehow? If so, where would they attack first?
“Check the engines!” Kieran shouted into the intercom as the elevator doors opened. He sprinted down the hallway, his heart pounding painfully, his breath out of control.
An even larger tremor moved through the ship, and he fell against the wall. “Oh God,” he said under his breath as he righted himself and lurched to Central Command.
“Seat belts!” he yelled into the room.
Arthur and Sarek buckled themselves in. As he strapped himself to the Captain’s chair, Kieran made a ship-wide announcement, ordering the entire crew to the Central Bunker, then swiveled to face Arthur, who looked shaken. “What have you found out?”
“The engines are operating normally,” Arthur said. His glasses slid down his sweaty nose, and he jammed them up again. “The computer is acting like there’s no change at all.”
“Coolant? Reactors?” Kieran barked.
“All fine. I can’t find anything wrong!”
“No problems in the hull, either?”
“No!”
“The nav system isn’t showing a problem, either,” Sarek said, shaking his head.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Kieran asked. His entire body shook, and he grabbed the plastic arms of his chair with clawlike hands as he stared out the blast shield at the sky.
And he noticed, along the edge of the large square portholes, the stars were winking out, one by one. He collected himself with a deep breath.
“Those weren’t explosions. They were thruster bursts.” Sarek and Arthur looked at him blankly until he added, “We’re turning. Check the nav system again, Sarek,” he said grimly. “Manually this time.”
Sarek shook his head, impressed. “You’re right. Those were thruster bursts.”
“Can you correct our course?”
“I’ll just reengage the nav system,” Arthur said. “The course will correct itself automatically.”
“At least we’re not dealing with a decompression,” Kieran said with intense relief. He pressed the com button on the arm of his Captain’s chair. At first he’d been nervous to make ship-wide announcements, but now he liked the knowledge that his voice was filling the entire vessel—his whole world. “Attention, crew. We are not under attack. I repeat, we’re not under attack. Those disturbances were unexpected thruster bursts, nothing more. We are safe, and the New Horizon is as far away as ever. You can go back to what you were doing.”
Kieran turned to Arthur. “How did this happen? The nav system should have prevented this.”
Arthur looked at the computer screen in front of him, flipping through the ship’s intricate control programs with mechanized efficiency. Something caught Arthur’s eye, and he squinted, reading the computer language. “Someone tampered with the programming.” He looked at Kieran, wide-eyed. “Sabotage.”
For a moment, no one in Central Command spoke or moved.
“Call the brig,” Kieran said quietly.
Sarek whirled back to his com display, a hand on his earpiece. “Harvey? Are you down there? Can you give me a status on our prisoners?”
No answer came.
“Check the vid display,” Kieran barked. He knew it! He knew in his bones Seth had done this somehow.
Sarek flipped through the various views of the brig, both inside and out. “I can’t see anyone down there,” he said, defeated.
“Send down a team of Command officers,” Kieran said, but he knew what they’d find. Harvey Markem injured or dead, and Seth Ardvale gone. Kier
an’s pulse quickened, and a cold sweat chilled his skin. “How did Seth do this?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur said as he fast-forwarded through video images of the brig. “The last thing the video shows is Harvey sitting in his chair where he’s supposed to be. Then the screen flickers, and suddenly you just see an empty chair. No recording of an attack or Seth leaving.” He turned around to face Kieran, his features narrowed with concern. “So the video surveillance system was disabled before Seth escaped.”
“Someone on the outside helped him escape,” Sarek said ominously.
A frigid dread moved through Kieran’s limbs. By himself, Seth Ardvale was dangerous enough, but with a crew of followers? He’d nearly killed Kieran once. He could do it again.
“Arthur, can you call up the visitor logs to the brig?” Kieran said on impulse. “See if anyone has been down there lately?”
Arthur tapped at the keyboard in front of him, scrolled through a list of names reflected in green lines of text in his glasses. His boyish face was thinning out, taking on the harder angles of a young man. He looked serious, and burdened. “They’re all just people authorized to bring meals, and…” Arthur looked at Kieran in surprise. “Waverly Marshall visited Seth about a month ago, before we put him in isolation.”
Kieran felt as though he’d been turned to stone. Arthur and Sarek looked away, embarrassed.
“Get her. Bring her here,” Kieran said, but before Arthur could react, Kieran got out of his chair and marched out of Central Command, calling over his shoulder, “Never mind.”
People were still hovering in the central bunker in groups, talking in whispers about the thruster bursts. The little ones were pale and quiet; the older kids were red faced and angry. Kieran scanned the crowd until he found Waverly in the corner of the room talking to a group of girls huddled around her, among them Sarah Hodges.
Spark A Sky Chasers Novel Page 2