WHEN HEROES FALL

by Abby J. Reed

  Their faces turned as I lowered myself to the ground, my minis sticking out at odd angles. The lights burned, but I forced myself to look at individual people.

  Yana nursed LuLu. Mateo sat next to her and chatted softly with his neighbor. Honestly, I was surprised he survived the attack. At least, unlike Brody, he returned my mini. That upped him slightly in my opinion. Cal sat to my other side, diligently avoiding Breaker’s eye contact.

  Khaim-asses needed to work out their ‘stroid already.

  Carved into the floor in front of me was a replica of the compound and the rest of the area. I ran a finger along the lines. “Who did the drawing?”

  Malani translated. She still wore a massive bandage wrapped over her clavicle, but she didn’t seem as stiff as before. At least a knifing wouldn’t take as long to heal as nearly getting torn apart by space. One of the Elik raised her hand in response to my question.

  I nodded. “Well done. It’s exact.”

  “Of course,” someone muttered. “They’d been spying down on us for so—”

  “We are all on the same side now,” I said more sharply than I would’ve if there were no pain gnawing in my skull. “We do not bleed black. It’s all that matters anymore.” I turned to Cal. “Chief Cal, will you start this meeting?”

  Cal barely stopped from rolling his eyes. “I officially open this meeting with the purpose of finding a way to save what’s left of our people. All of Scarlatti’s people.” The Elik and Herons straightened at this. “General Luka, do you have a plan?”

  General Luka. Oh, how I would’ve loved that title. Now I knew the title was worthless. Even this meeting was worthless, nothing more than a smokescreen to inspire some confidence.

  But I’d use what resources I had for my team.

  “I do have a plan.” I pointed to the little stones on the map where the fog had consistently rolled in, where I believed Extrats camped in pockets in the neutral zone. “You’ve all seen the starship. You know Breaker has been telling the truth. The Elik metal, dark matter, is valuable. There is a Queen coming to Scarlatti to take it, and she will be bringing more Extrats with her. She couldn’t give a ‘stroid about saving us survivors. The only option to save ourselves is to leave.” I ran a hand over my head and immediately regretted it. I paused as the pain readjusted. “There’s no way to make the truth pretty. We can’t leave ‘cause we’re banging trapped. We got lucky when some of us left the underground to check out the wreck. That’s mostly ‘cause the mist had retreated to the orchards and the Extrats went with it. I doubt they will make that mistake again. While we may be able to slip one or two people out, we can’t smuggle everyone out of the compound. We’d be exposed as soon as we reached the burned-back areas by the boundaries. And even if we could escape, there’s no place to go. Even if we managed to escape the compound and into the mountains, there’s the ocean.”

  Malani translated a question for the Elik. “We can’t leave our metal behind. It’s sacrilege. We’d be abandoning our sacred duty—”

  “You can’t look after your metal if you’re dead,” I said. “Unless your precious Astook has some way of using your ghost?”

  They went back and forth with Malani a couple times. I couldn’t tell what they were arguing about, but I got the sense Malani was trying to smooth over some of their arguments since this was an emergency situation. “They’ll be willing to discuss the metal topic after you ensure their safety.”

  I doubted if we would ever discuss it. “Fine.”

  “So what do we do?” someone asked from the back.

  As directed, Cal said, “We need to leave Scarlatti altogether before the Queen arrives.”

  “I thought you said we were trapped,” someone else said.

  I gestured to Cal. “We have an idea.”

  One of the Herons whispered to Malani. She translated, “The radio tower?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “If we can transmit a signal out, we can send for help in evacuating. We just have to do it before the Extrats break through. I delegate Breaker and Malani to cut around the Heron fortress to reach the tower and reprogram it to send out a message.”

  Breaker’s mom clutched his dad’s arm. “You’re sending out our son?”

  Breaker stiffly offered his hand to her. He glanced at Malani, who was only nodding. “I have to go out anyway. I need to get the data port coordinates for the signal off the First Hope. Besides, I’m the only one left who knows how to do this.”

  “But—”

  “Mom. Please. I want to do this. We want to do this. If we can get a help signal out to our friend Scorpia, we have a real chance of surviving.”

  “And if you fail?”

  We all knew even reaching the tower was a long shot. But we had no other option. I shrugged. “He won’t.”

  Breaker offered me a grateful look.

  Mateo raised his hand. He had the wide-eyed expression of a rook about to go on his first boundary duty. “What about the villages?”

  I gave him a sharp glance. The pain aggravated and crawled back near my temples. All I wanted was to be done with the meeting and get a min of quiet. Which I wasn’t gonna unless I hid in one of the empty rooms for a quick fifteen right after this. “What do you mean?”

  He leaned forward. Yana wove her fingers through his for support. “I can go to the villages and see if there are any survivors. They should be given the chance to leave, too.”

  My hands slid to my mini hilts. I didn’t think Mateo had the stones to suggest something like that. I glanced at Yana, half-expecting her to shoot down the idea. She didn’t. They must’ve discussed it beforehand. “They’re prolly dead.”

  “You weren’t here to see the flood path. If they were able to hide from the Extrats, they had a chance.”

  “You sure? The chances of anybody surviving in the open are near zero.”

  “It’s a job I can do.”

  “Go,” Cal cut in. “Every life counts.”

  I cleared my throat. “Don’t bother going to the village closet to the Elik mountains. It’s gone.” As Malani translated, one of the Elik winced. “If that’s okay with you, Chief Cal?”

  “Look out for any medical supplies, any plants,” Cal said. “Actually, before you leave, I’ll give you a list.”

  A mix of relief and anger vied for my attention. If Mateo left and brought back meds, I could hopefully pinch some to keep this migraine from spinning out of control. If he left . . . what a banging move, to risk your life so unnecessarily like that. Mateo glanced at me before agreeing to Cal’s request. In that glance though, was the still irritating whisper of you’re missing something. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to figure it out.

  Cal gave all the obligatory encouraging word nonsense and closed out the meeting while my mind drifted and coddled the pain. We had repaired sections of the underground, but that was mainly to give people something to do to make them feel safer. The underground wouldn’t hold. Yet all we needed to do now was hold out until help came.

  If it came.

  Truth was, it wasn’t a matter of if we died, but when.

  And when was looking awful soon.

  Chapter 21

  BREAKER

  The First Hope lay on its side like an injured bird ready to be ravaged for meat. My chest cracked open at the sight of the crunched exhaust Malani had once patched. Hope would never be able to fly straight in this condition, let alone truly get off the ground. I knew deep in my gut she’d never reach atmo again.

  I was alone in the rising moonslight. Fitting. Since I was by myself the first time I saw my Hope.

  I pressed my forehead to her gutted hull, spreading my arms as though to hold her. Breathed in her metallic scent. I touched the ribbing of her scales. Followed the texture to the crumpled nose, whe
re her name would’ve been if the ship were upright. Now the etching was buried at my foot, with only the edge of the E exposed. Even that had been razed in the crash.

  Even broke, she was still right beautiful.

  Two massive holes punctured her belly. One where a tree generously stretched, and if I walked back toward the exhausts, the other beneath her ramp. I heaved myself inside and came out in her main bay.

  That’s when I saw the glint to the right, a weak beam of fading light. Another hole?

  No. I walked closer along the wall-now-floor. The gleam caught in the crook of the bent stairway and solidified into a round shape—Botty.

  A cry caught in my throat. One eye light was crushed by impact, the other dim. I tugged him free of the staircase. Shook him. “Botty?” Panic infused my voice. “Botty, stay awake, all right? Stay awake until I can fix you. Just stay awake—”

  His front brush whrrred once, as if acknowledging me, then whrred slower and slower, a clock winding down, until he stopped.

  His eye light blinked out.

  I stared at the dead bot in my arms through watery eyes. I could fix him. I just needed to find the parts. Dig through Lewis’s workshop. Fix him. Fix this. Fix all of this.

  The thought clanged home. I don’t have the parts.

  I can’t fix this.

  You couldn’t do it, Breaker.

  I maneuvered to the staircase, treading along the walls, until I reached the bridge. Squatted, heaved with my shoulders, until the door gave way.

  Crimson foliage blocked the window, preventing me from seeing the extent of the damage. One of the lower interfaces on the right side dangled like a loose appendage. The main interface itself was, well—

  We’d both seen better dias.

  If I stepped out, I’d fall straight down to the opposite wall of the ship. The gap between me and the broken interface was like an impossible crevasse. I tucked Botty tighter and leaned against the bottom-now-side of the doorframe.

  How did Chief Malvyn fly Hope? Was there a back way into the interface I wasn’t aware of? Despite all we’d been through, it’s not as though I’d ever gotten to know all Hope’s secrets. Jupe said Raelyn was a hacker. Maybe if she were here, she could tell me.

  There was a reason, could very well explain everything, but I didn’t want to look too close.

  At the very least, if there were any confirmation needed that Chief Malvyn knew about my Hope, this was it. That’s why he stopped me at the emergency meeting before we left. He didn’t want others to know my Hope was real. Lewis practically implied that.

  Lewis—

  I pushed away the image of his broke glasses, of his broke nose, broke body—all the bloody broke things I couldn’t fix. Pushed it away because if I dwelled on it, the singularity in my chest would expand and suck in everything else around me and I didn’t want to live with that fear, didn’t want to live—

  I squatted, tucking into a ball as the anxiety crested, as the ship began to spin, breathed through it, breathed through it, breathed through it until eventually the attack passed and my thoughts were clear again.

  Malvyn put me on trial because he knew I’d spread the truth about what was out there and what was coming.

  But why? Why did he care?

  More important—How could he possibly know there was more to the galaxy than Scarlatti?

  My jaw muscles flared. I had to get to the interface to get those coordinates. I settled Botty out of the way, concentrated on the mental image of Malani wielding my lucky screwdriver.

  I will not live in fear of this. I will not live in fear—

  My cap thinned into a whip-like strand. At the end formed a tiny grappling hook. I didn’t have the dark matter mass for anything bigger, but it didn’t need to be anything other than strong.

  I hurled the whip out and missed entirely. It reeled back in on its own, not unlike Malani’s wings balling. I shook the cap. “Come on. You caught that Extrat. We both know that wasn’t me.” I reformed the whip, flung it out again.

  Another miss.

  I held my cap level with my eyes. “Come on, you stupid, bloody thing.”

  Another fling.

  Another miss.

  I hit the doorframe with my cap. “YOU STUPID—” Another hit. “BANGING WORTHLESS—” Another hit. “HUNK OF METAL.” Another another another. “WHAT THE HELL ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” I summoned all my strength, all my rage, for one last final hit, and miss.

  I slid down the doorframe, energy near spent.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” I whispered to my ship.

  In the dark, in the silence, the singularity in my chest roared.

  I opened myself up to it, to the disabling fear, to my inability to fix what mattered most, to my eternal frustration of not being able to control the outcome, to my failed job as brother as friend as son. To all the broke parts that shaped and made me.

  And yet—in naming these dark, broke parts—for the first time since I saw my ship, there was peace.

  My cap rippled, the whip curling again into a grappling hook.

  When I threw the whip this time, it caught. I swung myself over the gap. Gasped as the whip reeled me in and I reached for the pilot chair, sat on the back of it. If I shifted my weight too much, the chair would spin and throw me off.

  I pressed my palm to the sagging main interface, just like I did the first time. The cables sparked. The map hovered above in broken zigzag patterns, turning the tree leaves mauve. The beam program wasn’t working. No surprise there. No clue where one of the data chips went, so I couldn’t strip it from the system. It’d be easier to build a new one at this point than to fix it. Could prolly do it with a couple of the comms and a couple tower parts.

  At least I had access to the data port coordinates. I scribbled them with a pencil on a sliver of barkpaper one of the survivors had given me. I also searched for a back way into the interface. There wasn’t one. No surprise there, either. I didn’t dare try the exhausts.

  With no possibility for Malvyn to have overridden the interface, I knew the real reason why he could fly my ship. The proof was in the vid we watched when I first found Hope. He was the direct descendant of Captain Young, who landed on Scarlatti all those cycles ago.

  And me?

  I was Malvyn’s biological son.

  The realization should’ve shocked me, should’ve made me flush with anger, should’ve made me twang with horror. But I was too exhausted to do anything save embrace the numb of another horrible plot twist in my life. The truth made sense. All the hard gazes over the cycles, even the way my mom reacted when he’d spontaneously visited our apartment. The truth explained everything.

  Still, more, more, the ever wanting more thrummed in my chest.

  Hope brought me to Malani. Hope showed me what was beyond the strip of stars hanging in the overcrowded Scarlatti sky. Hope gave voice to the yearning inside.

  We’ve been through so much together. You, me, Brandon’s ghost.

  I ran my hand over what remained of the interface. If I squinted hard enough, I could see Brandon beside me, hunched with dismay at the wreck.

  My right beautiful girl. I’m so sorry.

  A hand, large and soft, laid over mine. Brandon, helping me. Didn’t matter that he was dead, that he wasn’t really here. The echo of his presence was enough to give me the courage.

  Then slowly. Oh so ever banging slowly, I shut her down completely.

  When her engine quieted, so did the thrumming in my veins.

  Hope sat silent as a gravecross like the first time I’d seen her. If I stood outside, she’d prolly be glowing from the moonslight. She was a husk now, no longer filled with possibilities. As I stood there in the broke bridge, surrounded by all the shades of red I hated, I saw Hope for
what she truly was: A symbol for my dreams and a vehicle for escape.

  I swung back to the door, pausing only to angle Botty upright toward the stars so he could rest in peace. The trek back to the hole was one of the longest I’d ever taken. I squeezed through.

  Repairing this hole alone, let alone the exhaust, let alone the interface, let alone all the other damage was beyond the scope of supplies we had here. I’d never be able to fix my Hope again.

  With one crash, Chief Malvyn had doomed us all. No, that wasn’t right. He doomed us all the sec he let greed consume him. He could’ve tried to facilitate a conversation between the Elik and Herons. He could’ve made King Oma feel safe enough to tell the truth. Instead he wanted the planet all for himself. All of them had failed.

  Sure, I played a part the sec I saw my otherworldly Hope cradled in the overgrown foliage. But Cal was right. I kept carrying burdens that weren’t mine.

  Now outside, I ran my hand against Hope’s hull, stroking her over and over again in the Elik greeting and farewell pattern. Thank you.

  I bowed my head and let the grief roll over. I tilted over, clutching at my gut as a soul-wrenching sob wracked my body. Again and again and again. Hope was dead. Dead as all my dreams.

  A testament to a young man’s folly.

  Yet I didn’t regret any of it.

  When the waves stopped, my fingers trailed along her scales, unwilling to completely let go. A deep breath, a shoving aside of the pain, a tightening of resolve, an embrace of fear.

  “Goodbye,” I whispered.

  I left Hope behind.

  And didn’t look back.

  Chapter 22

  LUKA