by Audrey Grey
“This. Yes, this will do.”
Talia’s mouth opened to protest, but that was what he wanted—her to suffer, to feel the pain of its loss. “So, that’s it? How will you contact me when you find her?”
He tore his gaze away from the brooch and allowed his attention to settle on her face. “You may come back in two weeks to collect her—”
“No! We’ll be gone by . . . I mean, I may not be able to come.”
“Hmm. Then allow me to deliver her.”
She rocked on her heels. The Starchasers would be traveling to the Torus belt, a collection of man-made islands in space only the wealthiest could afford. The itinerary included at least three separate destinations, so how would she know where to tell him to deliver Ailat? “I’m leaving for another planet soon.”
“Right. I forget how your kind flee during our cruel summers. What must it feel like to be so delicate? So breakable?” A small laugh. He left to rummage around the desk and then returned, dropping a tiny red button in her hand. “Take this. When she’s found, I will contact you and we can schedule delivery, for another fee, of course.”
The device burned inside her palm, another item probably powered by dark energy.
“Go on.” He reached over and folded her fingers over the device. His own mismatched fingers, some fleshless metal, others different lengths and skin-tones, cold over hers. “We’ll be in contact soon.”
Her wrist shivered with a constant stream of messages. Just imagining the scolding she’d get from her parents gave her a headache, and she had no idea how to explain where she’d been. Her body sagged. Now that she’d done what she could, fatigue was catching up to her.
She nodded. “As soon as you find her, I want to know.”
“Keep that on you, girl, and you will.” Something about his smile this time was different. Mocking. Angry. Hateful, even.
Tired. She was just tired, she decided. And she limped back to the elevator, relieved to finally have a plan.
Two days later, and Talia’s parents still weren’t talking to her. Not after the confrontation in the palace foyer and the screaming match she had with her mother, where Talia ended up throwing her shoes at the wall. Why was she dressed in someone else’s cape? Where had she gone? Why was she so impulsive?
And the one that really burned: Why did she insist on ruining everything? That question hadn’t been so much said as implied, but still. She knew it was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Somehow, in the span of a night, she’d managed to ruin a much-needed alliance, break off her engagement (the Thorossians were more than happy to announce that publicly), betray her best friend, and lose her family’s trust.
Talia huffed a sigh and leaned back into the leather couch of the lounge room, flexing her wrists above a sketchpad. Around her, a tropical forest spanned as far as the eye could see. Moss-laden trees rose to the cerulean sky. Rubbery, vibrant plants rustled with the movements of emerald green beetles and rainbow-colored birds, their chirps and twitters calming her nerves. Ferns swayed, followed by a rumbling growl, and a midnight-black creature padded within four feet of her. If she didn’t know it was a hologram, she’d be terrified.
“Hello, pretty thing,” she said as she wrote the word panther above the partial head she’d already drawn. Then she mindlessly filled in the whiskers, pausing to watch as the beautiful beast sat on its haunches and began to lick its paws.
Usually, immersing herself inside one of the Seven ecosystems took her mind off everything. The only games she loved more were the flight simulations she and Ailat played when the summer Palesian storms made real flying too dangerous. But the point was to forget about Ailat for a few hours, not remember her. So virtual travel it was.
As soon as they’d boarded the monstrosity her parents called a starcruiser, she’d ensconced herself here, hidden away from their scowling gazes and pointed questions. In the last forty-eight hours, she’d hardly left the room. Every time she ventured out into the brightly-lit hallways, some broadnet video of the incident with Ailat would find its way to her. It was all over the intergalactic networks. How she, Talia Starchaser, had embarrassed the prince of Thoros. Her mock companion corrupted and a wanted criminal.
Please let her be okay. The prayer felt empty, a helpless plea lost to the vastness of space. Talia leaned back, pressing her cheek against the viewing screen that wrapped around the wall of the lounge. Where was Ailat now? Was she finding a way to power up at night? Had the Collector found her yet?
Talia could almost feel the small device where it rested inside the hidden pocket of her dress, burning a hole against her thigh. She’d wanted to wear pants, but the entire family had to keep up appearances, especially after what happened.
The door slid open, and Tamsin slipped through the holo-forest, disrupting the trees as he hopped onto the couch beside her. Dressed in a gold suit that brought out his eyes, he wrinkled his nose. “This place stinks.”
“Shut up.” She tossed him a controller and reset the holo-theatre for a two-player game of invaders. The crystalline air of the rainforest disappeared, replaced by a million realistic stars dotted with an enemy mock fleet. While their silver, teardrop ships glimmered against the backdrop of space, she let her mind drift to the simplicity of the game.
Line up the ships inside the bright-green bullseye.
Pull the trigger.
They played until her thumbs burned and her stomach growled. Eventually, Tamsin grew bored and left. She stared at the door after him, working up enough courage to follow. Surely her parents wouldn’t still be mad?
As soon as she stood, the device inside her pocket vibrated against her flesh. She pulled the button out, terror and anticipation both managing to work their way through her nerves. A bright-orange ring flashed from the tiny button’s sides. She pressed the top, nearly dropping the device as a holograph rose from its depths.
The grainy form of the Collector solidified against the eggshell-white wall. “Hello, Princess.”
Princess? How does he know? Moisture shriveled inside her mouth, and she barely found the courage to respond. “Did you find her?”
“Of course. I have your mock. She’s safe now. A little worse for wear, but nothing I can’t fix.”
“Good.” She glanced at the door, feeling less relieved than she should have. Something about this felt wrong. “How do I . . . get her back?”
“Back?” A mechanical laugh rasped through the speakers.
“That was the deal, remember?” Gooseflesh shivered across the bare flesh of her arms.
“But that was before I talked to her. She had so many interesting things to say.”
“Like what?”
Static disrupted the holo-screen for a brief moment. When the video resumed, the Collector had drawn nearer, his strange, smiling face a dark mask in the screen. “Were you aware, Princess, that the royal Starchaser family uses decoy ships to protect themselves in space?”
A heavy weight, something like dread, filled Talia’s gut.
“But of course you were. How silly of you, then, to allow a tracker on boa—”
She was up before he finished his sentence, adrenaline propelling her forward. But it was too late.
One second she was sprinting down the hallways.
The next, she was sprawled flat on her face. Surrounded by darkness with ringing in her ears. Sounds came back in a wave. Alarms screeched. People screamed. Red lights broke the darkness, flashing in time with her heart. She got to her knees as a silent concussion rocked the ship. Followed by screaming metal and a deafening bang. Smoke choked the air and burned her eyes, her lungs.
Talia dragged to her feet, each step surreal as the ringing echoed inside her skull. She wandered through the smoky ship, stumbling into walls, calling out for her brother, her mother, father, anyone. What had she done?
“Oxygen breach,” the ship’s computerized voice said, sounding far too pleasant. Too calm. As if that malfunction wasn’t itself a death sentence. “Please find
your exosuit and proceed in an orderly fashion to your designated emergency station.”
Her heart slammed inside her chest as the ship tilted, right along with Talia, and she crashed into the wall. Bits of charred mock parts simmered all around her, and she wondered when she might run into human flesh, into her family’s remains.
A mock assistant dressed in a white exosuit and carrying a matching one in hand rounded the corner and spotted Talia. The mock held the suit out for her, but she could only blink, consumed by the heavy weight of guilt.
“You must put this on,” the assistant said. She tapped her wrist-com and muttered, “I’ve found her,” then turned back to Talia and said, “Hurry.”
As soon as Talia slipped the suit on, fitting the tight helmet over her head, noises became even more muffled. Her breathing whooshed out in ragged bursts. The assistant fiddled with the back of her suit and a rush of cool oxygen tickled her cheeks.
“We must find your station, Princess,” the mock said. Her voice was amiable and steady, despite the fact that there was no escape hatch for mocks. “Your parents are waiting.”
Talia gasped with relief at the mention of her parents, but she didn’t dare ask about Tamsin. No way could she handle him being hurt at the moment. Once she was with her parents, she’d be strong enough to ask.
The mock rushed them through the public dining area, the largest room in the ship. Tables were overturned, and diners lay strewn on the ground next to broken plates and the massive chandelier that once hung from the mirrored ceiling. Talia slid over the sea of shattered crystals and porcelain dotting the marble floor, holding back tears as best she could.
Her fault.
“We should help them.” Her voice was stifled inside the helmet. There was a button somewhere on the front she could use as a microphone, but she couldn’t find it through her thick gloves.
“They’re dying, Princess.” The mock looked down at a man and woman curled on the floor, a neutral expression on her face. In emergencies, mocks reverted back to their basic programming, which didn’t include useless emotions like empathy. Talia swallowed down her nausea as the couple on the floor gasped for breath and clutched their throats, their eyes wide and shiny. “The oxygen level is nearly depleted. They wouldn’t make it to the end of this room.”
The ship shuddered, the motion followed by a huge boom. Talia flung her arms out to keep from falling as the floor rocked beneath her feet. All at once, lightness overtook her, and the floor fell away. Bits and pieces of plates and glass rose around the room, sparkling like stars in the heavens. Bodies and tables floated in eerie silence.
The gravity generators had failed.
Pushing off the closest wall, Talia swam through the dining room, following the assistant mock to her station as silence washed over the ship. When they reached the back corridors, Talia felt the deep chill of space reaching for her through her too-thin suit, and a scream lodged in her throat.
A small boy lay folded on his side with a huge gash splitting open his forehead.
But the ship lurched again, and she saw the gleam of metal skull and realized it was Nismat, not her brother lying crumpled and dead.
Dead.
Where was Tamsin? Breathing too fast, she navigated the maze of hallways leading to the royal chamber, but terror stopped her right before the six-inch-steel enforced red door. She was shaking too hard to punch in the code. The assistant mock did it for her, and relief poured through Talia’s veins as the door opened and she saw Tamsin huddled near the back wall with her parents and grandmother. They held onto each other to keep from floating apart. All wore exosuits, their masks fogged with their heavy breathing. Blood poured down her father’s face, a mask of red making the whites of his eyes seem to glow. Her mother had Tamsin in a death grip. Like always, her grandmother was poised and confident, her head held high. She could have been holding a martini and chatting up members of her garden club with that composure.
A hint of a smile graced Talia’s lips. Even floating and in crisis, the matriarch never changed.
Talia’s mother left the group and shot straight for her daughter. As soon as their bodies met, Talia latched onto her mom, releasing a heavy sob. “I thought you were . . .”
“Shh.” Her mother’s grip was fierce. “We’re all fine, see?”
“What do we do now?” Talia asked. Never in her life had she felt so powerless.
Her mother glanced at her father. Something passed between them through their fogged visors, a look weighted with responsibility Talia hoped she’d never have to face. Her mother nodded and clung tighter to Tamsin while her father let out a long exhale.
“The ship is destroyed,” he said. “Unfortunately, our escape hatch is too damaged to use.”
Fear clenched Talia’s chest; it became impossible to breathe. From the deep quiet murmured mechanical noises, like ships bumping against their dead vessel. The enemy was docking. They would be inside soon.
“There is one option, a fail-safe the Starchasers have used for a millennium to ensure the Dynasty’s survival.”
Talia’s breath caught as the sound of gunfire, muffled as it was, punctuated the silence. The enemy had boarded and wouldn’t take prisoners. They’d use heat sensors, so there would be no way for a human to avoid detection, nowhere to hide where they couldn’t be found.
For a desperate second, Talia clung to the hope that the armada of ships they traveled with would save them. But . . . no. All it took was a glance outside the starscreen window to see the battles raging around them. This was a concerted attack.
The rebels must have amassed a huge force—she shook her head. Pointless to think about that now. Focus on escape.
Her father leaned over and took her gloved hand with his. A light dusting of frost crystals had veiled the glass over his face, so she only saw one golden eye. “You and Tamsin must get in the pod, Talia. You’re the hope for the future, for mankind’s future.”
“What?” She tried to push off him, but he held her tight. “No—no. Not without you—”
“Listen to me.” Even obscured by his suit, his voice held the confidence she could never hope to achieve. “I command you to do this. The pod is equipped to keep you and your brother alive for as long as possible until you’re rescued. As soon as it’s activated, a distress beacon will go out to our allies. You will be protected inside, safe. Do you understand?”
Sharp explosions rang from down the hall. More gunfire. They were killing everyone. Eradicating them. Despite the cold of deep space, sweat dribbled down her shoulder blades. Her breathing was so loud she could hardly hear anything else. She wiped the ice from her visor.
“I understand.” As soon as the words left her lips, she compartmentalized the consequence of her statement. Her parents would find a way to follow. This wasn’t the only pod. Her excuses that allowed her to leave them were endless.
There was no time for goodbye. She grabbed her brother’s hand as shouts rang out on the other side of the metal door. Tamsin wrenched free and threw himself toward his parents, and the door to their panic room jumped as something smashed into it. Talia ran to her brother and yanked him by the arm, only to have him tug his way back, crying fiercely in his father’s arms, wailing that he could never leave them.
Talia reached for him again, but the mock rebels cleaved the door from its hinges, and her father looked at her and shouted, “Run.”
And so she did.
The same mock who led Talia here hurried her down into a cramped metal stairway hidden near the back, just beneath a tall bar of gold-veined marble. She descended the steps two at a time, the bar closing over her and hiding the stairs from sight.
They won’t hurt them, Talia decided as the bar latched closed above. Sensing the darkness, her suit lit up at the sleeves and near her feet. A far-away, muffled explosion concussed the stairwell. Followed a few breaths later by three soft pops, like rocks cracking together under water. A fourth pop, and all went quiet.
Just
stunning blows, she told herself as she descended the last stair, her heartbeat throbbing in her ears. They’ll keep them alive.
Mocks weren’t savage enough to eradicate an entire family.
A metallic surface glimmered in front of her, the meager lights from her ankles casting soft half-moons across the body. The lid popped open with a hiss and revealed a dark-velvet-lined interior. A black apparatus for her face hung from the top of the lid, tentacles snaking down the sides like some oceanic creature she’d seen in a book, once, but couldn’t quite recall the name.
“You’ll have to remove the suit, and hurry,” the mock assistant stated, offering a small breathing apparatus to be used in the interim. “Your body won’t be able to handle the cold.”
Talia did as instructed, trembling from both her fear and the temperature. And as she stepped inside and lay down, her mind went numb, even as her body screamed to escape. This was a tomb. Better she die with her family than suffer inside this casket, afraid and alone for stars knew how long.
Hours.
Days.
The prospect was too much. But before she could scramble out, the lid clamped shut over her. Kicking the ceiling of her new prison, she discovered the lid immovable, the material nearly a foot thick. Despite being opaque from the outside, the inside surface was clear as glass. Darkness would have been better. Sweat broke out over her palms. Her bones tingled and muscles twitched. She felt as if she were jumping out of her skin. As if the whirlwind of panic ravaging her chest would burst open her sternum and kill her.
Her stomach dropped as the pod released from its hidden port at the ship’s belly and shot through space. White light streaked across the lid. A dark sun, flared with orange and bleeding black smoke, wavered inside the warped glass. The air fled her lungs as she realized the white streaks were stars—meaning her pod was traveling very fast—and the fiery mass growing smaller was her old ship. Her hands pounded the cool surface of the lid.