She found herself speaking without meaning to, out of that weird, chilly detachment. “If you offer to hand us over . . .”
“No.”
For a moment she assumed it was Cadan who’d answered, but then, as she took it in, she realized Felicia and Ivan had spoken at once, and Markus was shaking his head.
“Hand you over to those butchers?” said Ivan. “Now that we know exactly what they want you for? I don’t think so.”
Somehow she couldn’t stop herself from answering him. “If you don’t, they’re going to kill all of us.”
Beside her Lin raised her head. “You could save yourselves. All of you. Lissa, too.”
Her voice was curiously flat. Elissa shot a glance at her but couldn’t catch what she was either thinking or feeling. And before Elissa could form words, Lin spoke again.
“None of you need to die. If you handed just me over, kept Lissa here.”
“Maybe,” said Ivan. “Maybe not. It’s pretty damn likely they’d kill us off as witnesses even if we did hand you over.”
“But maybe they wouldn’t.”
“Even so.” Cadan’s face was as hard as steel. Elissa looked at him, at the crew, and something flickered to life within her, sudden heat in the midst of the cold.
Lin formed her next sentence slowly, as if she were puzzling something out. “You’re willing to die . . . when you don’t need to. When you could get a chance at surviving.” Her eyes moved across them all. “And you’re not doing it just for Lissa. You’re doing it for me.”
The crew was staring at her now. Ivan shrugged. “Why not?”
Lin’s eyes met his. “But I . . . I’m not even really human.”
“Oh, of course you damn well are,” said Ivan. “All that—it’s so much fake legal crap. Anyone can see you’re human.”
“But I . . . my brain’s not . . .”
“Your brain’s as normal as your sister’s,” Ivan said. “And even if it wasn’t, since when did a bit of difference make someone not human?”
“Just look at Ivan,” interjected Felicia.
Lin blinked at her.
“Well,” said Felicia, “you think arms that length are normal?”
Ivan gave a sudden snort of laughter, and after a second of incomprehension Lin’s face broke into a smile—a smile that was not because of Felicia’s joke but because she finally understood what the crew was trying to tell her.
Inside Elissa the little flicker of heat licked higher. Like Lin, she hadn’t expected this, not of the crew, not at this last extremity of danger. It was one thing for her to die with Lin, and another thing for Cadan, who’d promised her that he’d help them—
Her thoughts broke off. She hadn’t expected it of the crew. But she had expected it of Cadan. Not because she thought it was fair that he should die for her and Lin, but because she’d known he’d be willing to. Somehow, in the last horrible few hours, she’d gone from hoping she could trust him to knowing, without question, that she could.
“And,” said Markus, “we can at least go down fighting.”
The flicker became a fire. Elissa’s head came up; her spine straightened. Beside her Lin’s face flushed suddenly bright. No longer dead, but twice as alive as before. “We can fight?”
Cadan’s back had straightened too. When he swung around from the controls, his face was blazing, his eyes like bits of blue glass. “We damn well can. The ship’s stabilized now, and we’ve got no reason to conserve our firepower.” A shut-teeth grin flashed across his face. “Lin, you want to come shoot at the bastards?”
Lin was sliding into the seat next to him before he finished speaking. “These switches, right? That’s how you arm the weapons?”
“Yes. That’s right. Now, these are the controls—”
But Lin’s hand was already skimming over them, a practiced, familiar movement. The display screen changed.
“What the hell?” said Cadan. “How are you—how did you ever learn to do that?”
Lin moved her hand again, and a different set of code blinked on the screen. “I can read things. Mechanisms, systems, computers . . . This one’s complicated. It took me a while of watching you before I could work it out.”
Everyone was staring at her now. Even Elissa. The electrokinesis was one thing, the odd ability to use machines and fasten harnesses before anyone had shown her how to. But understanding the controls of a spaceship?
Even if the process itself were as simple as flying a beetle-car, the control panel was deliberately set up to be incomprehensible to anyone untrained. It was a mass of obscure symbols, all the switches at the sides unlabeled and uncoded. She knew it had taken Bruce two months to even remember what they all meant, let alone learn to use them correctly, and here was Lin saying it had taken her “a while” of watching—just watching.
“It’s armed,” said Cadan, his voice fascinated.
Lin nodded. Elissa had crossed to where she could see her sister, and she noticed Lin’s eyes had slid a tiny bit out of focus. It was as if whatever she was doing were shortcutting her conscious mind, instinct leaping straight to where her fingers touched the controls.
Cadan was frowning. Then he shrugged—a “what have we got to lose” gesture. “Fire at will.”
Lin fired. Rockets shot across the viewscreens, splintered fire against the shields of the attacking ships. Within seconds came answering blasts like a silent echo, hitting the Phoenix’s shields, sending them inching down.
Lin laughed, a glinting, savage sound, and fired again. She was flushed, her eyes fever bright. After the years of being trapped and controlled, here she was, fighting for her own freedom, being given the chance to hit back against the organization who’d imprisoned her, even though she had to know she had no real hope of taking any of the attacking ships down with her.
At least I gave her that much. A few days of it. Terror, and grief, and horror, but freedom, too.
That was worth it, at least. For Lin, I did it right. I did the right thing.
But . . .
Elissa’s gaze slid over to Cadan. He was watching the screens, his profile showing in a hard, set line. He’d been around for half her life, but it seemed like it had only been in the last two days she’d come to know him at all. There were things she should say to him—things she wanted to say, if she could gather enough courage—but it was too late. After years of thinking of him as a big brother, then a friend, then an antagonist; after years of hero worship and hurt and irritation; now, in the shadow of death, she knew exactly what he was to her. And it was too late. She’d run out of time.
Cadan turned his head, first to glance at Lin, then farther. His eyes met Elissa’s. She felt the look—a blazing look the bright blue of a summer sky—all the way through her, tingling under her skin. She couldn’t look away. It was too late. There was no time to find out whether he still saw her just as his friend’s little sister, or whether he, like she, had found things changing in the last couple of days, like puzzle pieces breaking, shaking down into a new pattern. No time even to tell him . . . tell him anything.
Cadan spoke briefly to Markus, who had come to stand at his shoulder. Then Cadan got up and came around the end of the safety rail and over to where Elissa stood.
She looked up at him.
He said nothing, just tipped his head toward the door.
Elissa took a last look at Lin, bright and alive, surrounded by people who’d told her she was human, who’d told her she was worth as much as any of them, who were prepared to die with her. I did that. I gave her that. And it’s okay that she’s not even noticing me, not thinking about what I had to lose to do it. I didn’t do it for what I could get. But if I can just have a few minutes—here at the end of everything—just a few minutes to get something for myself . . .
She followed Cadan down the steps from the bridge.
As she stepped onto the lower area of the flight deck, the ship shook, the shields dropping another increment. Once through the trapdoor that le
d into the corridor, Cadan turned, taking hold of one of the grab handles set into the wall. Elissa climbed down after him and curled her fingers around the grab handle nearest her. Above them the door clamped shut.
“Elissa.”
He’d never said her name that way before. She felt it the way she’d felt him look at her, as if he’d reached out and touched her skin. Her heartbeat picked up.
“I didn’t want you on the ship,” he said.
Oh. She took half a step back, feeling slapped.
His face changed. “No. Wait. I need you to listen. I’ve gone through a hundred ways of saying this, and none of them come out right. But if I don’t—if I don’t say it now—” His eyes were intent on her face, his hand white on the grab handle. “I’ve run out of time. I have to say it now, whether it comes out right or not.”
Another blast hit the deteriorating shields. Elissa felt it go through her, a vibration through every nerve and bone and muscle.
“I didn’t want you here,” Cadan said. “For ages I’ve thought you were—okay, I thought you were spoiled, and self-centered. And way too pretty for your own good. And I”—he flushed—“I wanted you to be impressed by me. When I’d been at flight school for a while, there was this time, I remember I came back and you—you weren’t a little girl anymore. And like I said, far too pretty. But anything I did that you should have been impressed by, you never were. You always just gave me this look, and it was like whatever I did, however high I climbed, I’d always be the kid who was lucky to be there, who’d never really belonged. It’s when I started calling you princess—do you remember?”
“I remember. But, Cadan, I never—”
“No. No. You have to let me say it. You’ve changed. You’re brave, and tough. I mean, it’s not like I can see you fighting pirates—or firing against other ships like your sister’s doing. But you’re . . . well, I wouldn’t like to have to work against you, I can tell you that. And thinking you were self-centered—I don’t think you even remember how to put yourself first anymore.” He hesitated. “Maybe that was always there, and I just never noticed it. Maybe it’s me who’s changed. Or maybe it’s just this last couple of days, with everything that’s happened . . .” He paused again, swallowed, and she saw that the corners of his lips, as well as his hand, were white.
“I love you,” said Cadan. “I know it’s the worst possible time to say it, and it won’t mean anything because it can’t, because it’s too late, and I’m an idiot to even want to tell you—” He swallowed again. “I just wanted to tell you. That’s it. I love you.”
She felt that go through her too. She stared at him, her body locked into motionlessness, the words vibrating through every nerve and bone and muscle.
“I wrecked your career,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m in the middle of getting you killed.”
Cadan gave a tiny, rueful smile. “And again, yes.” There was a breath of a pause, then he shifted, made a little dismissive gesture with the hand holding the grab handle. “Like I said, I’m an idiot. I wouldn’t even be telling you if we weren’t in the middle of getting killed. So, please, feel free to finish it off by telling me that you wouldn’t be interested even if I were the last person on the last ship in the whole of the known universe—”
“I can’t.”
He’d begun to look away, but now his gaze jerked back to her. “You can’t?”
“I can’t. I can’t tell you that. I . . . it’s crazy, and it’s—oh my God—so the wrong time, but I—” Their eyes met, and suddenly she was shivering. “I was in love with you when I was thirteen,” she said. “Then you got all grown-up, and were such a pain, and I told myself I didn’t care, and I didn’t even like you. Then, on the ship . . .” It was difficult to keep looking at him. She dropped her gaze, talking to the floor, heat rising in her cheeks. “Like I said, I thought you were amazing when I was a kid. And now, seeing you doing your job, everything you’ve done to help me and Lin . . . how I used to feel about you—it all came back.”
“ ‘It all’? You mean . . . the stuff you felt when you were thirteen?”
Her face was flaming now. She still hadn’t raised her head, but she heard all the layers of questions in his voice and forced herself to look up. “An awful lot more than I felt when I was thirteen.”
Cadan stepped across the space between them, taking hold of the grab handle above where she held it. Their hands brushed. Her mind short-circuited at the jolt of his skin against hers.
“It is crazy,” he said. “And the wrong time. And there’s probably no point to any of it, because, like you said, you’re in the middle of getting me killed.” Pain flashed in his eyes, but amusement, too, and she couldn’t help laughing a little, dizzy with the feel of him standing so close to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, for the sake of saying something.
“Oh, well,” Cadan said. “I’m not looking to change anything.” He leaned down, his hand sliding to cover hers, his other hand braced against the wall next to her waist, and he kissed her.
Another blast rocked the ship, tipping them sideways, Cadan’s arm close around Elissa and his body between her and the wall.
The ship wouldn’t hold out against the attacks forever. She hadn’t told him yet that she loved him. She must, she must say the words before it was too late. As soon as she had breath to speak, she needed to tell him . . .
Above them the door to the flight deck sprang open. They both jumped, heads jerking up to look.
Lin’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “You have to get back to the bridge. Quick!”
Cadan leapt up the steps, pushing past where Lin stood. Elissa hurried after him to grasp her sister’s arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You have to get up there too.”
“But why? What’s happened?”
Lin yanked her arm away. “Don’t ask questions. Just go, Lissa, please!”
Elissa ran up the steps to the bridge, confused, heart pounding. What could have gone wrong that needed both Cadan and her to fix it? What was the crew doing? And why was Lin not following—?
She got onto the bridge. “What is it? Cadan?”
He whirled to face her. “Lissa! Don’t let the door shut!”
But it was too late. Behind her the barrier thumped closed. Cadan raced toward her, slammed his hand on the panel that should have reopened it. There was no swish of it obeying him, but Elissa’s attention was on the sight in front of her.
On the floor Ivan and Felicia lay sprawled, as if they’d fallen where they’d been standing. Markus was slumped in his seat, held up only by the safety harness.
It was so not what she’d expected, so inexplicable, that Elissa just stared for a moment, unable to take it in.
“Lin!” shouted Cadan, and Elissa spun to see him bang his hand against the barrier. Above the thumbprint panel a little red X shone out. The door was locked. “Lin, open this door!”
“What are you doing?” Elissa asked. “How can she have locked the door? Against you?”
Cadan didn’t answer. He banged on the glass again. “Lin!”
No answer.
Elissa pushed in next to him, panic icing her blood as she saw the flight deck stretching empty beyond the suddenly impenetrable door. What was going on? Where had Lin gone? And what had happened to the crew?
Lin came out of the hyperdrive chamber. The ship lurched beneath another blast as she did, and she grabbed, one-handed, for a hold. With her other arm she cradled a slim black box. The hyperdrive.
The hyperdrive? Elissa banged on the door. “Lin! What are you doing? Why have you locked us in?”
Lin bent, laid the hyperdrive carefully on the floor. Her hair swung over her face, and she didn’t answer.
“Lin!”
Lin went back out of sight. Elissa looked up at Cadan. “She’s in the hyperdrive chamber again. What is she doing? Can you open the door?”
His face was overcast with confusion and an
ger, his hand still pressed hard against the glass. “She’s overridden it somehow. It’s not responding to my thumbprint. She— I had no idea she could do that, operate machines so precisely. And I don’t know what she’s doing. She—”
He broke off. Lin had come back, on hands and knees this time, presumably because it was safer to roll rather than carry the thing she was bringing back with her. The energy cell.
She rolled it across the floor, then reattached one of its cables to the hyperdrive. The other lay slack beside her. Its two-pronged plug was clearly visible from where they stood, and a little shiver ran over Elissa’s skin. Lin must have pulled it out of the place where the dead Spare was, must have—ugh, how could she?—broken the glass cylinder and pulled it out of his skull. Elissa had hardly been able to bear seeing it. What was Lin doing, salvaging the disgusting thing?
“Lin!” said Cadan again, and this time his voice was sharp not with irritation but with fright. “Talk to us. You’ve locked us in, you’ve incapacitated my crew—you can’t be worried we’ll interfere.”
Interfere? With what? What was Lin doing that she wouldn’t want them to interfere with? And why did Cadan sound suddenly afraid? In the back of Elissa’s mind, like the slow drip of a faucet, a little voice began to repeat a single word. No. No. No. No. If Lin could lock the barrier without touching it, overriding even Cadan’s thumbprint, she could operate the spaceship controls from outside the bridge. The spaceship controls, including the hyperdrive.
Lin stood up, pushed her hair back, and looked at them. There were tears running down her face. In Elissa’s head the drips got faster, louder, all joined together. Nononononononono.
“I don’t see why everyone should die,” Lin said clearly, through the glass.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Elissa’s voice came out shrill. “What are you doing? What are you doing with that thing?”
“It didn’t break,” said Lin. Despite the tears her voice was so calm, it sounded flat. “The only thing it needs is an energy source.”
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