WHEN HEROES FALL

by Abby J. Reed

  Jedd took me to the far side of the core, where a ledge jutted, making a natural platform. He left me standing facing the crowd. Some faces I recognized from around the compound. Others, I didn’t. Prolly the new Elik and Herons. But all were just as weary and ragged as my parents.

  Above ground, before we left, the center was too small for all the compound residents. Now, this bunker held more than enough room for the survivors of all three tribes. I wasn’t good at guessing without counting, but there had to be less than a thousand survivors total, and that was generous. No, maybe five hundred, including the ones sitting in the tunnels.

  Five hundred. Out of three tribes.

  The tiny number was enough to make me want to sink to my knee.

  Cal took Malani and settled her onto a spare bed in the back. Next to her was an alcove full of extra weapons, though nearly every person clearly was already armed twice over. Next to the alcove was the control hub where the override codes could be entered.

  Even though this was no true stage, the gap between me and the onlookers felt like one. I was so sick of stages. I always ended up lying and performing and they had never once worked in my favor.

  The crowd hushed.

  That aura of power. The weight of presence. I didn’t need to see Chief Malvyn to know he entered the room from the side.

  But the crowd wasn’t completely silent, not like it would’ve been before we left. Harsh whispers continued spreading. Hips twisted away from the chief, a subconscious movement to get away. Lips thinned in disapproval. The glow of Chief Malvyn’s reign had faded with the war.

  He didn’t make eye contact with anybody but moved to sit in his seat-o’-power next to the ledge. Did he bloody move that down here? Or did he have a second one specifically built for the underground? Wouldn’t put either past him.

  He settled into one of his favorite power poses. Now that I’d seen both Scorpia and Leader, and the difference between them and Malvyn, I knew anybody who had to make power poses to communicate strength prolly didn’t have as much as they believed.

  When he looked up, his gaze was filled with hatred. His mouth twisted in the same displeasure as always whenever he saw me. I’d forgotten what all his direct anger felt like. This time, though, his anger didn’t weigh as heavy, didn’t mean as much.

  There was something else different about him, but I couldn’t place it.

  My eyes narrowed. He had known about the ship. What other secrets was he hiding? More important, why this show? Would he really be willing to let me share what was out there with an audience? Had he changed and was willing to listen now?

  Then I realized why he looked different.

  My parents aged ten cycles while I was gone. Cal aged fifteen. Even Lewis, cheery ole Lewis, didn’t escape without getting more white.

  But Chief Malvyn? His hair leaned on the side of brown rather than gray. And that deep permanent V in between his brows was more of a suggestion than a carving. He looked younger.

  He took out a handful of beads from his pocket and rolled them in his palm. Tahnya’s bone beads. Her leather hair strip wrapped around his wrist as a memento. He cleared his throat.

  “Breaker Gershomson, you are being charged with the kidnapping of Brody Gershomson as well as my daughter, Tahnya, for influencing and manipulating the former Captain Luka, for abetting the escape of the POW Malani, attacking both your former mentor and our medic, the theft of a cart of Elik metal, and, most importantly, for breaking boundary and abandoning the compound in its greatest time of need. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  ~ ~ ~

  “What?” This was a trial. A bloody ‘stroiding trial. This wasn’t a ledge, but an executioner’s block. “I . . .” Words slipped from my grasp. “Manipulate Luka? Have you seen the guy? Just ask him.”

  Luka’s skullish face rose above the crowd. “I can testify—”

  “We have no reason to trust an ex-Captain,” Chief Malvyn said. “You left your compound to burn. Do you deny this?”

  My mind slipped into analysis mode.

  Reasons why I needed to tread careful:

  1. This entire thing was a setup and a repeat of before. Chief Malvyn was banking on everyone remembering how banging well that turned out last time. Even if I was right, I looked a khaim-ass. I had to play even smarter than before.

  2. If Cal really did manage to force him to let in the refugees, that meant his power was already wavering. If Chief Malvyn’s grip on the compound was weakening, my bringing back the starship only worsened the damage to his power. This was an attempt to prevent that.

  3. In trying to shut me down, Chief Malvyn made one mistake—he gathered everyone together. I could make my case to the public instead of only to him. And, if I was sensing the mood right, that mistake would make all the difference.

  When I didn’t immediately answer, Chief Malvyn leaned forward. “Did you even leave the planet? Or have you been hiding out of cowardice this entire time?”

  All right. Let’s play. I turned to face my audience. “I did leave the planet. You all saw the ship take off. And I do admit to kidnapping my brother. But I did not kidnap Tahnya or manipulate Luka. They came of their own free will. Ask Luka. He’s right there.”

  Luka raised his arm. “I am willing—”

  Malvyn cut him off again, causing Luka to turn an even darker shade of scarlet. “Why should we believe you when you are wearing the Extrat’s work?”

  I glanced down at my cap. Sure enough, it rippled between forms, agitated, clear as a cloudless dia for anyone wanting to condemn me. “Do I look like an Extrat to you? I bleed red, not black.”

  “He’s right.” Cal’s voice rang out from the back of the room. The crowd parted enough for him to step forward. “As the only medic left, I can certainly tell you he’s not an Extrat.” He gestured toward Malani. “And neither is she.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I didn’t turn back to Chief Malvyn, but fully faced the crowd. I had one chance to get ahead of whatever the chief was planning. “However, I will confess to one other thing. I failed. I did not find our ancestral planet.” A tittering rang throughout the crowd. “I found something else instead.”

  “You are on trial—” Chief Malvyn started.

  I spoke over him. “There’s an entire galaxy outside of Scarlatti. So much more. A galaxy filled with planets and systems and nebulas and dying stars. And it’s beautiful. That’s not all. The real reason I didn’t find our ancestors? The galaxy is filled with people, just like us. Red-bloods who are Human, and purple-bloods: Solteran.” My audience broke into gasps and whispers. “For generations, we’ve been missing out on the rest of the galaxy. For generations, there have been opportunities and chances we’d never get in our isolated valley. For generations, there’s been an entire world right outside our door.”

  “We have our own war—” Chief Malvyn started.

  “Let him speak!” someone shouted.

  I faced the chief. “There’s something else. The Elik metal? It’s not metal. Not entirely. It’s called dark matter. It gives off never-ending energy and it’s valuable, and Scarlatti is sitting on the biggest galactic payload the universe has ever seen. You’re not the only one who wants it. There’s a Queen. She’s coming for the dark matter and she has an army of Extrats. There’s no possible way we can win.” I paused. “Our only hope is to abandon the planet.”

  Chief Malvyn laughed, a deep boisterous bellow. “Leave Scarlatti? Have you learned anything since you abandoned us? After all we have been through to defend it? After coming together despite our blood colors? Once again, you come here and tell us we must leave our home. Once again, you ask for too much.”

  I gestured to the room in a slicing motion. “And look how many have paid for it. Look how you’re hiding underground in your home. You call this de
fending. I call this barely surviving. There’s another option. We just have to take it.”

  “How can we leave?” a new voice said.

  I turned to see Nocklie the butcher. His chest was strapped with a knife.

  “We can’t even leave the underground, let alone the planet,” he said.

  “There’s someone on the outside who’s willing to help us. Her name is Scorpia and she has access to ships. She promised to help in any way she could. She is willing and able to get us off Scarlatti.” My forehead knit. How much should I tell them? “We only have to reach out and ask for her help.”

  Chief Malvyn leaned forward, clearly unimpressed. “No. This plan is ludicrous—”

  “She’ll help in exchange for what?” someone else shouted. Nobody seemed to notice the chief was interrupted.

  “Well,” I said. “She doesn’t want the Queen to have the dark matter.”

  “So we give it to her instead?”

  The Elik able to hear Malani’s translations protested. It’s not yours to give.

  “Why should we trust Scorpia and not the Queen?” Nocklie said.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. If I was being honest, I wasn’t entirely sure we should. She tortured me. Violated Circuit. But Jupe trusted her. And I trusted Jupe. If life under Chief Malvyn taught me anything, giving someone unlimited, unchecked power was never a good idea. And I couldn’t leave these survivors behind for the Queen to cut through. In a way, Chief Malvyn was right. I did abandon them. I didn’t want to do that again.

  “Because, in the end,” I said, “Scorpia cares about life. It’s either that or die.”

  Someone else shouted, “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

  I shrugged. “Why would I lie? What could I possibly gain? I could turn around and leave, right now. But I made mistakes and I’m trying to own and fix them.” I glanced to Chief Malvyn. The calculation in his gaze spun. How to take me off the board until he could gain control. “We have a chance to leave. We can leave the Extrats. We can join a larger world. We don’t have to live in this fear—”

  Chief Malvyn stood, slashing the air with his hand. “Enough of your lies.”

  “It’s not a lie!” I shouted. “Look at the ship. Look at our clothes. Look at—”

  Chief Malvyn slammed his fist on the arm rest like a gavel. “Breaker Gershomson, I am sentencing you to jail until further notice.”

  I threw up my arms. “No! You can’t do that. There’s too much—”

  A shout rang through the core. The air instantly turned thick with sour fear. Bodies surged toward the weapons in the alcove. I was suddenly back in Leader’s tent all over again as the message spread.

  “The Extrats are attacking again!”

  Chapter 9

  JUPE

  The Leech settled onto the landing pad in front of the palace. I’d only seen line vids of the place. Even while ShuShu brought in a teaching and research salary, we couldn’t afford the tickets to visit in holo. Up close, you could see the thin ice bridge connecting Atina itself to the palace. Easily destroyed if safety deemed the action neccessario. The walls of the palace itself was carved from ice and gilded with precious metals. The main doors were embedded with crystals and gems that caused the ice to glitter even more. What a ridiculous show of wealth. ShuShu and I were plenty content in our little mall alcove before.

  Before everything fell apart.

  Royal soldiers poured out of the main doors now, flooded up from secret entrances to fill the landing pad. Their violet and ivory uniforms glistened with special material to protect against wind chill. Their guns pressed firm against their legs as they stood in rigid rows like tiny toys.

  Leader rose from her seat, her aim on Brody still intact. She slid my pulsars on. “Tahnya, open the ramp.”

  Tahnya squeezed my hand, her fingers white. “I don’t know how.”

  “I do.” I rose, not letting go of her palm until the last min. My ass was stiff from sitting for so blasting long. “The controls are in the wall.” I found the panel in the side and punched in the command. The bottom hatch opened, the teeth retracting.

  Leader leaned over as a ramp descended and nodded. “Brody, you exit first. You two, back up. If you try anything, he’s dead.”

  Tahnya scrambled to her feet, practically skipping backward to obey. I stepped closer to the tiny hallway, stretching out the gnawing ache in my legs. Leader didn’t tell us how long had passed since we left Syktyv, but the scent of my uncle’s corpse told me enough. The urge to run away, away, always away hit.

  Brody scowled and muttered curse words. He stalked down the ramp. Leader kept her gun on him, making sure we didn’t try anything stupid.

  As though we would.

  She disappeared from sight.

  Tahnya approached me silently from behind. “Would you like help?”

  Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the Leech. My vision spun once, then righted. If only I could skip over this moment. “Sí.”

  She waited for one sec, three, seven. When I didn’t move, she put her hand on my back. “I’m right here.”

  I steeled myself then walked with heavy steps to the bed. Where my uncle lay.

  At the sight of his body, my rib cage shrunk. Air couldn’t reach deep enough.

  His wrappings were still intact, though the cloth around his head wasn’t as neat from where Leader forced us to reveal his face. Or, what would’ve been his face if the Extrat didn’t take it. There should’ve been a sign on him, an inscription, maybe, to show how important he was. But there was nothing. No Bai Hao scent, no wisps of beard poking through, no flashing neon sign to indicate to the universe this was the great ShuShu Cho. It could’ve been anybody’s corpse.

  My fists clenched.

  How dare you die and leave me here.

  “It’s not your fault, Jupe,” Tahnya said.

  I ignored her and scooped up his stiff legs, wincing at their lightness. “You get his head.” We swung his body from the bed and carried him into the main room. “I’ll go first.” I stepped backward onto the ramp.

  The onslaught of light bouncing off ice forced me to squint. I stepped carefully until the cold of the landing pad seeped through my shoe. The wind slapped at my body, trying to rip my shirt off my back. My view of Tahnya was striped with obsidian as my hair lashed against my cheekbones. I turned around into the face of the soldiers. They had already separated Leader from Brody. Considering Brody’s seething body language, that was a bueno move.

  Tahnya readjusted her grip on ShuShu’s shoulders, gaze alert and body ready. She didn’t seem as scared as I thought she’d be.

  The head soldier stepped up, holding Leader’s gun. He walked as though he had permanently twisted balls and took it out on the world.

  “Relinquish your weapons.” He had to shout over the wind. If we wore lines, a subtext would’ve appeared at the bottom of our vision, saving his vocal chords.

  “You already have my wrist pulsars,” I said, gesturing to the soldier who held them.

  He was a skinny man with the chapped cheeks of someone who worked outside regularly. He weighed the pulsars appreciatively. He better. Those were the best hard GUs could buy. He slipped them on his own wrists. When he looked back at me, he started.

  “Are you the Hero of Salvade?” He must’ve checked his line because he bounced on his toes. “Angel, it is. He’s the Hero of Salvade!”

  “Quiet,” the head soldier said. By the annoyance in his tone, he must be already cooking up some disciplinary actions.

  The second soldier snapped to attention. As soon as the head soldier turned back to us, he mouthed an expression in his wedge dialect and rotated my pulsars over and over, grinning at his good luck. The soldier next to him bent over, admiring.

  Hell, if
I knew my pulsars were this popular I would’ve sold them on the off-line market on the TriRing.

  “Why are you here?” the head soldier asked Leader.

  “I brought prisoners.”

  “Did the Queen ask for these prisoners?”

  “No, but—”

  “She doesn’t need to be bothered with this.” The soldier waved at the others. “Take them all to the cells.”

  That meant the Queen had beat us back from Syktyv. She probably beat us back by several dias, if not longer. Ah, the luxury of good quality tech.

  Leader’s eyes widened. She raised her hands in supplication. “I have important information.”

  “You can give it to me.”

  I snorted, which was lost to the wind. “Guess the Queen really doesn’t need you anymore, ese.”

  Leader straightened. “My name is Leader. I run the most expansive faction in the galaxy and have been feeding the Queen information for cycles. Do you really want to tell the Queen you turned away information I brought considering I also brought in the Hero of Salvade?”

  The head soldier hesitated. He glanced between Leader, me, and the body we carried. His eyes flicked back and forth as though receiving and reading a line message. “Follow me.”

  He turned on his heel and headed toward the palace.

  Leader gestured for Brody to obey. He shook with cold and cupped his injured hand to his chest, the snarl on his face nothing short of monstrous. Really, how could he bear looking in a mirror with an expression like that?

  I took ShuShu from Tahnya. She paced beside me, also shivering, keeping a hand out in case I needed help lifting. I didn’t. ShuShu was still too light.