Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  The AirLink had been severed.

  Chatine couldn’t believe it. Marcellus had disconnected the general of the Ministère.

  Then, as though coming to some sort of decision, the general jabbed at the TéléCom and started speaking rapidly to an unseen recipient. “My grandson is on his way to the Precinct now. I don’t want him anywhere near the operatives. Inspecteur Limier is the only person who has my permission to enter that interrogation room. Do you understand me?”

  A moment later, the general released a breath and flung the TéléCom onto the seat next to him, letting out a huff. “Imbécile.”

  Chatine flushed with irritation, feeling the urge to defend Marcellus to his grandfather, but before she could utter a single word, her attention was suddenly pulled back to the window of the combatteur.

  Outside, a cluster of silver crafts just like the one she was in had swooped in alongside them. Their knife-edge wings glinted in the darkness. Chatine’s gaze whipped to the opposite window, where she saw even more combatteurs gliding into formation.

  They were surrounded.

  What is going on?

  The general picked up his discarded TéléCom and spoke into the screen. “Thank you for arriving so quickly, pilotes. When we reach the base, I want every explosif on this fleet deployed. Full impact. Anything off target will be accounted for. The base must be annihilated. Obliterated. No survivors.” He cricked his neck and added, “Vive Laterre.”

  Chatine felt the warmth drain from her face first, followed by her neck, her arms, until her fingers felt colder and number than they’d ever felt living in the freezing Frets.

  “You’re going to destroy it?” she asked, and she was honestly surprised at the surprise in her own voice. What had she thought the general was going to do when they got there? Knock on the door and ask for a chat?

  The general flashed her a look of pure disbelief. Disbelief that she could be so stupide. So ignorant. “The Vangarde is the enemy of the Regime. They are an infestation. A disease. And the only way to deal with an infestation is to find the nest and destroy it.” He nodded toward the glowing hologram in front of them. The map had refocused itself. It was now displaying the city of Vallonay. It glowed and sparkled like an actual paradise, not the dark, decaying cesspool that Chatine had spent the past ten years of her life in.

  “Where is the base?” the general demanded from Chatine, and then into the TéléCom, he said, “Stand by for location.”

  Chatine couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t feel. The numbness continued to spread through her until she was paralyzed everywhere.

  She stared, unblinking, at the map—at the pulsing red dot, which was now mere centimètres away from the city. In a matter of seconds, they would be right over the Frets. In a matter of seconds, the general and his entire Ministère army of combatteurs would be dropping explosifs from the sky, destroying everything below.

  Chatine managed to find her tongue. “But, what if there are people nearby? Innocent people who have nothing to do with the Vangarde?”

  The general shot her another look. He was growing impatient. “There are casualties in every war, Renard. It’s called collateral damage. We are keeping the Regime safe. That’s what matters. Now, do you want to get off this planet or not? Show me where the Sol-damn base is.”

  But Chatine could barely hear anything he was saying.

  All she could hear was the screaming.

  Thousands of voices screaming at once.

  Calling for help. Begging for their lives to be spared. Crying out that they hadn’t done anything. They didn’t deserve this. They were innocent.

  And then all she could hear was Azelle. Screaming as the ground gave way beneath her. Screaming as the world around her erupted into a storm cloud of metal and dust. Screaming until her scream was snuffed out forever.

  Chatine glanced out the window at the fleet of combatteurs flanking them, waiting for the general’s orders to annihilate the poor, defenseless Frets.

  If she told him where the base was—if she told him it was buried under Fret 7—he wouldn’t hesitate. He would wipe it all out. Fret 7 and maybe even parts of Frets 14 and 20, too. There was no way those crumbling structures would ever survive.

  Tens of thousands of people.

  Her people.

  Dead.

  Gone.

  Collateral damage.

  Fret rats just like her. Crocs just like her. Hungry mouths and empty stomachs just like hers. Diligent, hard workers just like her sister. Crying babies just like Henri.

  Henri.

  She could suddenly see his face at the window of the combatteur. His round gray eyes staring back at her. His beautiful gurgling laugh echoing through her mind. His chubby little hands pressed against the plastique, like he was reaching for her through time.

  She’d always told herself he was better off dead.

  Better off with the Sols than living on this wretched planet.

  And maybe he was.

  Maybe they all were.

  Maybe there was nothing left on Laterre worth living for.

  “Renard!” the general exploded. His voice cut through her thoughts and shattered the warm bubble around her. Chatine watched Henri’s face disintegrate back into her memory.

  She turned toward the glowing hologram in front of them. “There,” she said quietly. Her finger shook as it landed on the crumbling structure that sat like a giant sore on the city. “That’s where the base is. It’s right there.”

  The general was immediately on his TéléCom, relaying the coordinates to the rest of the pilotes. Chatine felt her stomach lurch as the combatteur dipped into another sharp turn and then picked up speed, racing toward its destination.

  There was no more doubt. No more uncertainty.

  Chatine had made her choice, and there was no going back.

  She forced herself to look out the window. To watch as the rusting monstrosity came into view on the horizon. To witness as it disappeared from existence in a blinding explosion of light.

  - CHAPTER 73 -

  MARCELLUS

  WORD OF THE CAPTURED OPERATIVES must have spread quickly, because by the time Marcellus arrived at the Precinct, it was crawling with Policier. Countless more than the usual night shift. It seemed everyone wanted to get a look at flesh-and-blood members of the Vangarde. At these ghosts whom they’d heard rumors about for the past seventeen years.

  Marcellus pushed past the swarm of deputies lingering in the hallway, making his way to the last interrogation room. The Truth Chamber, as it had been nicknamed in the Precinct. It was where the most stubborn of suspects were questioned. The ones who needed extra coercing. Marcellus knew, from checking the Communiqué before he’d arrived, that both operatives were being held there.

  He had also been relieved to discover, when he’d looked at the pictures of the detained operatives, that Alouette was not one of them.

  Two Policier droids were positioned in front of the door to the Truth Chamber. As Marcellus approached, both of their heads clicked toward him in perfect synchronization. It gave him the chills. Not only because droids always made him uneasy, but because he honestly didn’t know how he was going to get through this.

  Was he really going to interrogate two members of the Vangarde?

  He cleared his throat and spoke to one of the droids. “Officer Bonnefaçon to interrogate the prisoners.”

  The droid’s eyes flickered as it processed the incoming information. “Access denied.”

  “What do you mean ‘access denied’?”

  “We have been given instructions to grant access only to Inspecteur Limier.”

  Marcellus scoffed. “Instructions from who?”

  “That would be me,” said a voice behind Marcellus. He didn’t need to turn around to know it belonged to Sergent Chacal. Marcellus clenched his fists. “The general called me directly. Said you weren’t allowed anywhere near the prisoners. And that I should wait for Limier.”

  Marcellus s
pun around. When he saw the sergent, he knew the correct reaction was to wince. But all he could do was laugh. “What happened to your face?”

  Chacal’s glare seemed to make the enormous welt over his left eye pulse.

  “You should probably go put some salve on that,” he told Chacal. “It looks pretty bad.” Then he turned back to the droids. “Officer Bonnefaçon overriding all previous directives.”

  The droid on the left jerked to attention at the command. Marcellus felt the orange light from its eyes flicker across his face as the droid scanned him.

  “You can’t do that,” Chacal complained. “I have orders from the general.”

  “The general is not currently here,” Marcellus pointed out, “which means local command of this building falls to the highest-ranking agent on premises.”

  The droid completed its scan and stepped away from the door, letting Marcellus pass.

  As Marcellus opened the door, he turned back long enough to flash Chacal a smirk. “That would be me, now.”

  He dismissed the droids and stepped through the door, which sealed shut behind him. Marcellus stood motionless just inside the room as he took in the two women in front of him.

  They were both wearing long gray tunics, similar to the one Alouette had worn. One of them had an unusual scar on the right side of her face, starting beneath her wiry dark hair and running down to her chin. She was sitting at the table, tapping her fingers rhythmically against the surface as though working an invisible TéléCom. She didn’t even glance up at Marcellus.

  But the other—the slighter, short-haired one, who was pacing the length of the room in a pair of red canvas shoes—stopped and stared at him, her lips tweaking into a knowing, almost familiar smile.

  “My Sols,” she said in a whisper, almost as though she were speaking to herself. “You look just like him.”

  Marcellus knew instantly that she was speaking of his father.

  He’d been told throughout his life that he looked like Julien. It was one of the reasons, he’d convinced himself, that the general was often so distrusting of him.

  “So you knew him,” Marcellus confirmed.

  The short-haired woman nodded. “He was a fine operative. A gentle man. He loved you very much.”

  Marcellus felt tears pool in his eyes and he blinked them away, suddenly remembering the microcams stationed throughout the room.

  He schooled his expression and pointed to the chair next to the other woman. “Sit,” he said, infusing strength into his voice.

  “I like standing,” the short-haired woman replied. It wasn’t defiant or arrogant. It sounded more like she was reciting a well-known fact.

  But Marcellus had no doubt that every deputy and officer who had been lingering in that hallway was now crammed into the monitoring room, watching them, listening to every word.

  He had to make this look real.

  Or he’d soon find himself on the other side of that table.

  “I said, sit.” His voice left no room for argument.

  She sat.

  The other woman still didn’t look up. She continued tapping on her invisible screen, her mouth moving ever so slightly as though she were silently reciting something she didn’t want to forget.

  The woman with the cropped hair glanced at the wall behind Marcellus, which was covered, floor to ceiling, with steel lockers and compartments. Marcellus had a feeling that she knew exactly what was hidden inside those compartments. That she understood the kind of pain that could be—and often was—inflicted within these walls.

  And yet, her expression remained eerily calm. Almost serene. As though she were imagining herself in a tranquil garden, not here in the Truth Chamber of the Policier Precinct. It reminded Marcellus of Alouette, and he found himself wondering if Alouette had learned her peaceful manner from this woman.

  Marcellus motioned to the short-haired woman’s left arm. “I guess there’s no use in scanning you.”

  She pulled up the sleeve of her long gray tunic, revealing a scar similar to Alouette’s. “No.”

  “So, do you have a name?” he asked, trying to keep his voice gruff and unrelenting.

  “My friends call me Jacqui,” the woman replied.

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Marcellus pulled out the chair opposite the women and sat down. He nodded toward the other woman. “Does she talk?”

  Jacqui glanced at her fellow operative, and her lips quirked into a knowing smile. “Not much.”

  Marcellus pulled out his TéléCom and swiped at the screen until he reached the access panel that controlled the security feed. “I think you probably know why I’m here.”

  Jacqui cocked an eyebrow. “I have a few guesses.”

  “The general is not going to be happy until you tell us everything you know.”

  “Is the general ever happy?”

  Marcellus nearly chuckled at that one but bit his tongue.

  He hovered his fingertip over the screen of his TéléCom. “It’ll be cleaner if there’s no record of what goes on in here.”

  At that, the other woman finally looked up. But not at Marcellus. Her gaze was trained intensely on the device in front of him.

  Jacqui let out a breath, as though she knew that whatever came next was inevitable.

  Marcellus plunged his finger down on the screen. A moment later, a voice announced in his ear, “Security microcams disabled.”

  After that, the words rushed out of Marcellus so quickly, he wasn’t even completely sure he was making sense. “I know about my father. Mabelle sent me a message to meet her in Montfer. She told me where she hid the microcam. I watched the footage. I know the Patriarche and my grandfather were behind the exploit bombing in 488. I know they pinned it on my father. I know Julien Bonnefaçon was innocent.”

  Sometime during his outburst, the silent operative had gone back to tapping on the table, no longer interested in the conversation.

  Jacqui smiled at Marcellus again. This one, however, seemed sadder than the last. “That’s right. He was.”

  “But if you knew that, why didn’t you clear his name? Why didn’t you clear your own name?” It was the question that had been bothering him ever since he’d torn out of Ledôme on his moto. “You had the proof. You had the footage from Mabelle. Why did you let him go down for it? You could have released it across the planet. You could have saved him. Saved his life.”

  “Because it wouldn’t have done any good,” Jacqui explained.

  “But—”

  Jacqui held up a gentle hand to stop him. “We had inclinations that the Patriarche and the general were behind the exploit attack, but we didn’t know for sure. By the time Mabelle was able to get us the footage, it was too late. Your father was already in prison and so was Citizen Rousseau. The rebellion had fizzled out. Our numbers were too low to make another attempt. So we decided to hold on to the footage and wait for a more opportune time to release it. We needed to rebuild. Regroup. Bide our time. That’s what we’ve been doing for the past seventeen years. We’ve been waiting for the right moment.”

  Marcellus’s brow furrowed. “And this is that moment?”

  Jacqui looked away, her tranquil expression faltering for just a second. “Not exactly. Things have gotten out of hand. We didn’t expect any of this. We definitely didn’t plan for any of this. The riots, the fights, the chaos. They forced our hand. We knew we had to act soon before things got really out of control. But it was a mistake to move forward before we were ready. We were ill prepared.” She glanced around the interrogation room and sighed. “And now we’re here.”

  Marcellus still wasn’t following. “What do you mean, you didn’t expect this? Didn’t you start this?”

  Jacqui shook her head. “No.”

  “So the Vangarde didn’t kill the Premier Enfant to start another revolution?” It was a notion that had been blooming inside of Marcellus for the past few days. And now that he was saying it aloud for
the first time, it felt oddly rational.

  “We would never do such a thing,” Jacqui insisted. “The entire philosophy behind the Vangarde is to bring about change with as little violence as possible. To awaken people. To make them realize we’re all equal under the Sols. What has happened here over the past few days is just utter chaos. There’s no organization. There’s no structure. That’s not how we work. It never has been. The death of the Premier Enfant proves that someone else is trying to overthrow the Regime. And they’re using the Vangarde name to do it.”

  Marcellus swore he saw a twinkle in Jacqui’s golden eyes. As though she were trying to tell him something. He’d known Jacqui for only a few minutes, and yet he already had the feeling that she was the kind of woman who liked to speak in riddles.

  “You know who killed Marie,” he said with sudden realization, his heart thumping in his chest.

  “We do.” She nodded once and held Marcellus’s gaze as though she were attempting to cushion him from a fall. “And I think you do too.”

  Marcellus was suddenly sure he would retch again, all over the shiny floor of this interrogation room. He swallowed hard. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  But she just smiled a small, cryptic smile that made Marcellus grateful he was already sitting down. He feared his knees would give out from the weight of the message hidden behind that smile.

  Yes, you do.

  In that very instant, Marcellus was certain he had known it all along.

  He’d just been too cowardly to see it. Too cowardly to face it. Life was easier when you shoved things out of the way. When you lived a lie.

  “He hates the new Patriarche,” Marcellus said numbly, each word feeling like a tiny infidelity on his lips. “Ever since Lyon came to power two years ago, my grandfather has complained about how inept he is. And then the Patriarche decided to help the Usonian rebels. . . .” His mouth went dry as more and more pieces fell into place in his mind. “He sent Commandeur Vernay to Albion to be killed by the mad queen. He went against my grandfather’s counsel.” Suddenly, the footage from the hidden microcam flickered through Marcellus’s mind again. “But even before that, Patriarche Claude forced him to sacrifice his own son.”