WHEN HEROES FALL

by Abby J. Reed

  Did you see that?

  OH MY ANGEL—

  Was that a new weapon?

  MY SISTER—

  We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die.

  What’s going on?

  Do we attack?

  Scorpia’s voice boomed out from my comm, a wide override beam sent to every ship in her makeshift fleet. DO NOT ENGAGE. CEASE YOUR FIRING. Her wrestling was plain in the long pause. She could descend to face her mother or see if any had ejected before impact and help them. Then, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE, TOO. SPREAD OUT FOR ANY SURVIVORS AND—

  I turned off my comms and went full-throttle toward the Queen’s ship. A Leech was hardly noticeable compared to the rest of the erupting chaos. The Queen’s ship spun at an alarming speed. It wasn’t rotating this fast before. I matched its rotation speed and settled on the hull near the back of the ship. Usually guest quarters were kept back here, which meant a better chance of accessing a map. The burrowing process began. I had no armor, so I slipped on my thickest jacket.

  A clang as the Leech ejected the metal. I peeked through the hole with my pulsars ready to take on the first line of defense. Usually when a Leech burrowed a Solteran ship, protocols triggered and an armed mech droid appeared. Repair bots followed about ten secs after that to try to repair the damage while the mech droid held off invaders until the real soldiers came.

  I climbed inside. It was like emerging into a graveyard. Emergency lights flashed along the walls, but otherwise the ship was silent. No mech droids, repair bots, or soldiers in sight. I paused for a min, letting my body adjust to the grav levels. Where was everyone? Who shut off the protocols and why?

  Was Tahnya even here?

  I jutted my jaw. She had to be. But in order to find her, I’d need the ship’s layout. I crept along the halls, looking for anything that could provide me with a map.

  A pocket door on my right. I reached to engage the handle when I noticed the smear of purple.

  Solteran blood. Fresh.

  My heart skipped. I hesitated. Kev’s face flashed in my mind. His loco grin at the thought of purple blood running.

  Not so fun when faced with the real thing.

  The room was dark. “Lights on,” I said.

  The room didn’t respond. Of course it didn’t.

  I didn’t want to turn my back to the dark room, but the layouts should be along the wall around . . . I found the telltale screen. I breathed in relief. A quick pulse jumped the system and I was in. Every couple secs, I tipped my ear to the hallway, listening for footsteps. Only silence. The glow of the screen burned my eyes as I dug through welcome menus until I found a layout.

  YOU ARE HERE stamped with the Solteran insignia. I was in a powder room.

  But where would the Queen keep Tahnya? After that loco ability she’d shown on Atina, there’s no way the Queen would keep her in the holding cells. The med bay? That’d make the most sense. Plus, it wasn’t far from here. Down two floors and over some. Wouldn’t bet on the elevators being in fine shape. But there was a set of stairs down the hall.

  I jogged toward the med bay—

  The soft sound of fabric against fabric behind me.

  I spun.

  A group of five people, four men and one woman, stood there, staring. But they weren’t really seeing through their glazed eyes. They loosely held a mix of weapons and objects. One of the men held a dirty pillow. Their mouths muttered incoherent nonsense. Gashes covered their arms and handprints of purple blood spattered their uniforms. Their heads cocked lazily to the side as though their bodies didn’t know how to operate neck muscles.

  My throat seized.

  The smell wafting off them—I placed it.

  All those ships—they had been pulsed. It was exactly what ShuShu and Leader were afraid of—line tech that had developed too much. Which meant, somehow, the Queen pulsed the ships from Scarlatti.

  Terror trickled along my spine.

  In pulsing the ships, she had also accidentally done one other thing, which explained the firing within her fleet: She had line-hacked her own people. Except, with a pulse that strong, she hadn’t simply hacked their lines. None of the finesse. None of the control you’d expect. She wasn’t bothering to control them, to input direct commands.

  She had hacked them and left them to rot. The only thing left inside them reflected exactly what was happening on the planet’s surface: The order to kill and destroy.

  I ran.

  Chapter 47

  MALANI

  Can you not hear it sing? the Queen said.

  No. I couldn’t. The asteroid was only a rock in the sky. Breaker had spread out his hands, trying to talk to the Queen. The Extrats weren’t attacking him, giving a wide berth of respect to the entire shuttle platform. The Queen must’ve told them to stand down. I didn’t dare come out of the trees, not when Breaker waved me back. Didn’t want to break his concentration. A breeze caught at his response, tugging his words away from me.

  Can you not hear it sing?

  My wings flit anxiously.

  I couldn’t help Breaker. Couldn’t do anything from back here.

  Useless, worthless. No. That was a lie.

  I shoved the accusations from my mind.

  Astook, what do I do?

  The Extrat horde suddenly broke like a dam. Metal bodies flooded the space like writhing undulating snakes, blocking my view of Breaker. Panic filled my throat. Breaker. I shot into the air, bursting from the tree line to help him. “Breaker!” I yelled.

  There were too many bodies. Too many Extrats blocking my view. How could I help him if I couldn’t see him?

  An Extrat leapt at me, claws extending. Mist swirled between branches, trying to snag my dangling legs.

  Can you not hear it sing?

  Sing sing sing.

  As if Selah herself stepped down from the clouds and handed me the idea, I backed farther into the trees, flying high enough so the Extrats couldn’t reach me, higher than the mist streaming through the fog.

  And I soared.

  Up and up and up. A yell from below, Breaker’s voice, but I didn’t turn back. My wings trilled with joy, and I knew it wasn’t just my own joy at flying so quick. Somehow, my wings also knew. They beat harder and harder, retracing the path of the falling Hope, until the war below was a wriggling speck on the ground and I was a fish swimming upstream. Up and up and up until the cold-triggered goosebumps threatened to burst. Up and up and up until Houtiri was a broken shard of glass. Up and up and up until the atmosphere rotated through colors like a bleeding rainbow and my dreads and metal wings were the only solid form in this transparent world. Up and up and up until my lungs seared. Up and up and up, higher than I’d ever been before.

  Ahead of me, ships lit the sky.

  White ships firing on black ships firing on silver ships. One crumbled, blazing as it fell across the sky. One crashed into another, both spinning out of control. There was no way for Scorpia to easily get down. We were on our own.

  I was on my own.

  I stopped when my chest could barely heave in enough breaths. Come on, come on. My lungs strained, but I held steady. Scarlatti at my feet, a war breaking out in front of me, turning until there was nothing sitting between me and Astook, the asteroid.

  Can you not hear it sing?

  No.

  But I bet it could hear me sing.

  I raised my arms and sang. First, a lullaby, a snippet from a long-forgotten past. Then, to the Heron drinking songs that drifted to my cell after their celebrations. Then, to every Elik song I could remember. Building, forming, shaping the melody until it created a spear. I sang and sang and sang, wrapping layer around layer, finishing with the Human song Brody sung at the compound festival.

  Let me sing you a lullaby,
son

  A lullaby of darkness and dreams

  When the world closes and hope disappears

  Don’t hold on to your fears

  Let me sing you a lullaby, son

  A lullaby of stars and tears

  When you fade away and your soul emerges

  Don’t hold on to your fears

  And finally, the last verse I’d only ever heard him whisper once under his breath in the throes of madness:

  Let me sing you a lullaby, son

  A lullaby of belief made clear

  When angels take flight and in strength stand demons

  Don’t hold on to your fears

  At the last word, I hurled the spear toward the asteroid. The melody bounced off, causing no damage to the dark matter swirling beneath its surface. But it was there. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel the effects through the melody. The Queen was right. The payload wasn’t in the Elik mines, but buried in Astook.

  The asteroid truly was a god.

  I whipped my melody back, singing again, flinging it at the rock.

  Move.

  If I could shove the asteroid away and break it from its orbit, the Queen would follow her prize. She might leave Scarlatti and what remained of the planet would be saved.

  I didn’t want to save it. I never wanted to return. But this planet and I were part of each other’s stories. And because Breaker cared, I cared. And in trying to save its future, I could finally let go of the past.

  I hit the asteroid again, again, again, song after song after song.

  I wasn’t strong enough.

  Music wrapped around me in the atmosphere, and I flew higher, my lungs aching, testing the limit of the atmo, hitting it again—

  MOVE.

  Another type of music swept past me, filling my veins with song. Not my music, somebody else’s . . . Someone else was trying to move the asteroid. I wove their song into my spear. Strengthened it, and again flung out the melody.

  But the asteroid would not budge.

  Like my wings on the lab table. Like Breaker in leaving his brother.

  A glimmer of light bounced off the asteroid, a wink, as though it laughed at my pitiful attempts.

  My grip tightened on the melody until my knuckles ached. I may not have been a true Elik royal, but I had Elik royal blood in my veins. I may not have been completely Human, but I was going to fight for the compound. I was strong. I was powerful. Because that’s who I was—someone who didn’t give up and held on, even when I didn’t want to.

  And this banging god was going to move out of my way.

  I rose even higher. The cold sliced through my skin, knifed at my veins. I sucked in the last bits of oxygen, flinging myself beyond the limit of the atmosphere to shorten the distance even more and screamed.

  Screamed for all the pain I had been through.

  Screamed for being torn from time.

  Screamed for all the times my voice was stolen.

  Screamed for all the grief, for all the hope, for all the freedom I wanted.

  Screamed until my vision turned midnight from lack of air and hurled the spear at the asteroid with the last of my strength.

  Just before the midnight overtook me—

  The asteroid moved.

  Chapter 48

  BREAKER

  Brody swung the blade with precision. I skipped backward, stumbling over Circuit. The Extrat I nearly crashed into kept moving past. As though it had been given orders not to harm me.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled, regaining my balance.

  But Brody didn’t hear me. Brody wasn’t in there, or was shoved so far back he couldn’t come to the surface. His lip curled back with none of his familiar scowl. It was an arrogant, completely foreign sneer. The Queen stood behind him, her eyes were closed, her lips moved, her hands outstretched.

  I backed away, careful as I dared on Circuit. “Brody, please don’t do this.” The fear slithered in my stomach, turning over and over. I didn’t want to fight him. In all my nightmares, there could be nothing worse. Don’t make me do this.

  My cap rippled into a whip. I flung it out. It curved despite my clumsy throw, tangling Brody’s legs. He hit the ground hard, immediately rolling up and slashing at the whip. The whip curled in and changed to a dagger.

  Brody launched, stabbing out. Basic took over and I swung my dagger in an awkward block. It hooked onto his blade, tearing it from his grip. He didn’t even notice. He kept coming. A feint, then a punch to my ribs, knocking me backward. The cap became a slender cane, keeping me from hitting the ground completely.

  I’d only ever had basic, but at least that was more than Brody had. If we were on level ground, with two hands, I could beat him. With the Queen inside his head? On the unlevel clearing? This hacked Brody was faster, more balanced. He was playing with me.

  I held up my arms, still backing away. “I don’t want to fight you, Brody.”

  Brody swept a kick that knocked me to the ground. My breath knocked from my lungs. A tiny stone ground into my spine. He knelt at my feet, crawling up Circuit like he did that Heron man in the forest. I twisted away, shoving my cap at him to keep back. My pant fabric tore in his grasp. Shiny metal exposed to light. I jabbed at Brody’s soft spots, away from anything vital. “Brody, no!”

  He didn’t listen. He crawled up my chest. My neck between Brody’s knees, and he squeezed. “No!” I gasped. Not this. Dark tinged my vision. Do it. Do. It. There was no other option.

  I’m sorry. I thrust my dagger deep into the meat of his thigh.

  Red blood flowed, but Brody didn’t flinch.

  No.

  I stabbed again, desperate. Again. My brother’s blood drenched me, flowed across my lips, and still he did not move. Stars flicked across my sight. My heart careened in my chest. Stars, he could’ve killed me already. He was still playing with me. He allowed me just enough air to gasp, “Brody!”

  Brody leaned forward as my vision went dark, leaving only his half-smile burning in my mind’s eye. It’d be the last image of my brother I saw. “Brody is not here right now.” His voice was thin and chilled, a mimicry of the Queen’s. A chill slithered along my spine. “What should I tell him were your last words?”

  I muttered a reply, felt my cap shift once more out of desperation. My lungs ached and my throat threatened to collapse completely.

  The non-Brody leaned closer. “Speak louder.”

  My cap rippled into a hook and I jerked Brody’s head closer to me. He slapped the ground to stabilize himself and his bleeding thighs dislodged their grip. Precious air filled my lungs. I held his head by the curls as my cap rippled again and sliced open the back of his neck. Dug into the flesh to yank out the line.

  Brody fell backward as though I’d struck him. I shoved him aside as I tried to keep breathing through the pain in my throat. But I held the line above, triumphant, choking on the blood in my mouth.

  Brody’s eyes cleared as they looked at my blood-stained face and tunic. He grasped at his thigh as his brain registered the pain. Blood flowed through his hands. His jaw flexed as pure rage flooded his face—but not at me. All that intense heat pointed at the woman behind us.

  The sounds of fighting rang across the clearing, clangs and shouts and screams. Luka was still holding off the Extrats. The survivors hadn’t been killed yet.

  I used Brody’s shoulder as a crutch, dragging myself upright. I staggered toward the Queen, her eyes still closed in concentration, holding out the line. I dropped it at her feet, crushing it with Circuit. Her eyes snapped open. A post-rain breeze blew, whipping my clothing and for a sec, Circuit gleamed blood-red.

  The Queen froze, looked between Circuit and my face as though seeing me for the first time. Her lips dropped open in a gasp and a word
burst from her throat—

  Brody slammed into her. The Queen flew sideways, and he pinned her to the ground. She grabbled for her kpinga, accidentally cutting open her palm before Brody moved it aside. I stepped forward and swept out the remainder of my dark matter shard and pressed it into the wound.

  The Queen shoved Brody off with impressive strength and gaped at her palm, at the nugget of dark matter embedding in her skin.

  Brody stood next to her, bent over with a tight grip on his bleeding shaking legs, eyes wide as the dark matter bonded.

  The spot thinned, stilled. Then continued spreading across the lines of her palms, spreading as it passed the boundaries of the wound and filled the entirety of her palm, spreading like a stain—

  The Queen Mother gasped. “No!”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. She knew what this meant too.

  Joy exploded inside like an exhaust come to life. I’d bet. I won.

  With the Queen consumed, she could no longer control the Extrats. She would be neutralized.

  We’d won.

  The Queen tore her gaze from the consuming dark matter. Her eyes were heavy and sad as they met my triumphant smile. And the word that tried to escape earlier, finally did. “Breaker?”

  Of course she knew my name. She saw the holo taken of me from the TriRing. She hunted me to Syktyv for the dark matter. But the way she said my name, the familiarity there, like we were old friends. I stared at her. The smile slipped off my face. “You know me?”

  The dark matter traveled to her wrist now. “I should have known.” Her eyebrows twitched as though in pain. Her voice turned accusatory, “Of all the people who’d understand the lengths I would be willing to travel to go home, it was you.”

  “What are you talking about. We’ve never—”