WHEN HEROES FALL

by Abby J. Reed

  My blood froze over. Breeched. If she were inside . . .

  Angel. What if such an aggressive hack caused all the protocols save the survival ones to be shut down? The breech still might be active then.

  If that were the case, there’d be no getting her out until we put the ship right. I didn’t know how to do it. There certainly wasn’t time to wait for Raelyn to show up or for one of the line-hacked to become coherent enough. Every sec counted during a breech.

  I glanced across the hallway.

  Guards and soldiers wandered listlessly around, hurting and terrified, each wandering in their own little world. If the breech had taken out an entire wall, everyone in this wing would be sucked out into the vacuum alongside me. If the breech were small, I’d just have to be quick in patching it up.

  I knew what to do.

  Jaw clenched, I spun back to the control panel. Found the code, activated it. Another giant barrier slammed into place, sealing me off from the rest of the med bay. Now, whatever was on the other side, I’d only be risking myself.

  I went back to the first barrier. I pounded again, looking for any weak spot. Near the bottom left corner, a different sort of sound. Light, more hollow. Maybe it’d be enough.

  I slipped the gun out, stepped back, and fired. The metal curled back, just a smidge. I tried to peek through, but the angle was wrong and the smoke too much. I didn’t feel any tugging on my body. Which at least meant the hull wall wasn’t gone.

  A sprig of hope blossomed.

  Maybe she was alive.

  I took turns kicking and shooting and pulsing, slowly carving a hole between metal and wall big enough to crawl through. Smoke stung my eyes. An emergency light flooded the room, warning the occupants of a breech. A red bullseye encircled the hole. Good, it was pretty tiny. The air was thin and stale. The section I had sealed off was now feeding both areas.

  But where was—

  My heart seized.

  There.

  On the floor by the window. Surrounded by overturned buckets.

  Tahnya, body bent into an impossible position. Tahnya, lying in a pool of her own blood.

  Chapter 55

  MALANI

  Falling. I was falling. Spinning out of control, lands and trees tumbling over firing ships and mountain ranges. Shades surged. Stars streaked. Smells smashed.

  Whipping wind gnashed my cheeks.

  My wings tugged to and fro. Stinging pain as my calves hit my feathers.

  Wake up, Malani, wake up.

  What was this whirlpool of senses around me?

  You’re falling, Malani. WAKE UP.

  The blurriness formed into a shape—

  The ground was a wall hurtling toward my face.

  Astook—

  I struggled to straighten out my wings. Their breadth caught the wind, and my muscles tugged as I was yanked from my free-fall. My shoes skimmed the tops of the crimson trees as my wings soared along the updraft. My dreads waggled back and forth as my body finished righting itself.

  I blinked as I adjusted to my surroundings.

  I was at the farthest point north in the valley, where Breaker and I had just traveled from the tower. The valley was still bathed with darkness and shadow. I glided back toward the east, toward the tunnel, a flap here, a flap there, my thoughts still dizzy.

  What was I doing? Something important. Something about—

  My core tightened. The asteroid!

  Suddenly, sunslight pierced the valley. I careened off-course in the searing brightness. My palms slammed over my eyes as tears smarted. I opened my eyes behind the safety of my palms. A glowy redness illuminated my flesh. Slowly, I removed my hands.

  The shadows had been ripped off the valley like a scab torn from a wound, leaving a sharp startling sting in its wake. All the color flooded back into the valley, all the grays washed away, even the charcoal scourges showed hints of apricot from the soil’s minerals.

  I turned to the source of the brightness. Where Astook once hung as a revered ornament was only a pink expanse of sky. The light was the twin suns, fully exposed to the valley without any blockade, flooding Scarlatti with light.

  Oh.

  The asteroid had completely vanished.

  Chapter 56

  JUPE

  I rushed to Tahnya. My exhausted muscles locked up and I stumbled with every step. My parents’ charred bodies in our burning house. That puff of dust and Kev’s lost cry. ShuShu’s featureless face, his chest not moving. The memories overlay with reality, blurring the edges so I couldn’t see straight.

  No, por favor, Angel, no.

  Not again not again not again.

  Wait. THINK, JUPE.

  The voice cut through my chaos. A voice honed by cycles of starship protocol forged into instinct. I halted, hovering above Tahnya’s body. The pool of blood lapped at my shoes.

  You know better than this. THINK.

  First, seal the breech. No good if she’s alive if all your air gets sucked out.

  I spun around for the sealant panels. They hung in a glasstic emergency box on the wall next to the door. A high-kick to the lock bust it open. I found a patch, but where was the actual sealant?

  Angel. How the hell was this regulation?

  There. I grabbed the clear tube.

  The bullseye was just within reach if I stood on my toes. I popped off the tube top with my teeth and squeezed. Nothing came out. Dried. I tossed it to the side.

  I cursed, think, think, think, pulse! I flipped the setting on my pulsars, pressed the seal to the bullseye. The color immediately turned from red to yellow. Bueno. I pulsed along the edges of the metal patch. Heating it to meld the patch to the wall. Took three times before the bullseye turned from yellow to green.

  Now we had a chance.

  I threw myself beside Tahnya. My knees skidded as I slid right through her blood to her side. One foot was still submerged into a bucket. The other had caught on another bucket’s lip, tipping it over. A third bucket propped on a chair, the sides smeared as though her hand had fallen free. Her arms were outstretched as though she tried to hold the entire planet below.

  I could fix her. I scooped a handful of blood, looking for the hole to shove it back into. There was no obvious wound.

  Don’t check. Don’t check. Don’t check.

  Her face was a lighter shade than normal. Her lips tinged with an otherworldly color.

  I had to check.

  My hand shook as bad as that night on Miaoli. I held the back of the pulsar right underneath her nose and mouth so it’d fog with her breath. Pressed my hand into her neck.

  No heartbeat.

  I switched the setting on my pulsars again, locked my wrists together, and slammed them over her chest, releasing a charge. Her body arched like a dancer’s.

  Por favor. Por favor, please.

  I pulsed her heart again. Again, her body flailed, arms flung back. Checked for a pulse. The smell of burnt skin and scorched blood filled the air.

  One more time.

  I waited, chest heaving, as she slumped back into the coagulating blood. Waited for her heart to start beating. Waited for her eyes to flutter open.

  Waited as nothing happened.

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing.

  She was dead.

  My grip on her relaxed.

  Tahnya was dead.

  Like all the others.

  I waited for the rip in my chest. Waited for the singularity of despair to swallow me whole. There was the hollowness, sí, the stretch of infinite silence that could only be filled by a voice I’d never hear again.

  Deep down, I’d known she was already dead before I’d stepped into the room. I’d known even before I burrowe
d onto the ship. The silence had been there the entire time.

  I moved the pulsar to the side, unwilling to stop touching the soft brown skin that reminded me of my lost home. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to face this loneliness.

  The window outside showed the still-flaming clouds on Carmesi. Behind the burning orange lay the splatter of useless stars. Was the soldier still sitting on his step, trapped in his thoughts?

  I wasn’t alone like him anymore, was I? I still had Raelyn, Scorpia, Levi, the factions that for some unholy reason looked to me for direction, ShuShu’s name and vision to uphold. I still had memories of Kev’s jokes, of my uncle’s laughter, of my papá’s harvesting lectures, of the ruins of Miaoli begging to be rebuilt. Of Tahnya’s kind smile and the way she understood where I had come from without ever seeing the moon’s surface.

  All these things burned within and gave me life. All these things filled and shaped me. Run run run toward.

  I wrapped my arms around Tahnya and squeezed.

  The chasm finally opened in my chest. I groaned and the chasm opened wider, big enough for me to fall into. And I would fall. Fall for cycles. But there was a bottom. Eventually, I knew I’d find it.

  “You were right, you know. I needed to make a choice,” I whispered into the tangle of hair on her neck. “I can live without you, but I don’t want to. I’m so sorry we didn’t have more time. You would’ve loved Miaoli.” My lips quivered. I pressed a soft kiss into her blood-soaked hair. My eyes burned as though exposed to acid. The tears came free. “Goodbye, Tahnya.”

  I let go.

  Wait.

  Was that—

  Her eyes. They . . . fluttered?

  I leaned back, shoved my finger to her vein. A heartbeat. Faint, so terribly faint.

  She was alive.

  Joy burst through me. I ran toward the cabinets in the back of the room. I unlocked and flung open each section. Tools, tools, more tools. IV. Check. Another drawer, blood pump, bueno bueno. But where was the estupido injection? This was a med bay! Should be an entire cabinet full. I flung open the last drawer. There! A container filled with transfusion shots.

  I grabbed one and rushed back, nearly slipping on the blood. The shot in her arm released the antibodies that allowed cross-blood transfusion. My fingers fumbled for my vein. I’d gone to the classes several times in Leader’s faction. Just in case we needed to save a life. Took two stabs, but I got it. Linked the IV through the blood pump. Ran it over to her. Two more stabs before I found her vein.

  Red-purple blood traveled along the tube and into her body.

  I laid flat on the ground and took her hand, laced my fingers with her limp ones. Turned to face the window and watched. The ship had rotated, giving us a new view. What remained of the faction ships flooded the remnants of the Queen’s like sand pouring through the gaps of boulders. Those who were hacked were probably still coming to and wrestling with what they had done. If there were any more like the man in the stairwell, they’d surrender to Scorpia without any trouble.

  I squeezed Tahnya’s hand as the scene played out in front of me, as shuttle ships and med vessels spread across the atmosphere and as the wails of the horrified reverberated, unheard, into the silent galaxy.

  How much blood did she lose? How much did she need from me?

  Didn’t matter.

  I’d give it all.

  Chapter 57

  LUKA

  By the time the first wave of dust from Houtiri finally cleared, the Queen was dead. Her body lay glistening on the platform as an Extrat sacrifice.

  Then the sky erupted with light. As though we were the tip of a match just struck with flame. It burned our eyes, smarting. By the time the daze faded, ships descended. Great monstrosities the size of apartment buildings with no regard for the landscaping. They flattened the forest, even landing way down by the village, ejecting people to come and fight for us.

  The Extrats were like loosened bullets, rattling without direction. Whatever commands the Queen gave them turned worthless after her death and they scattered before the newcomers.

  Scorpia’s people kept shooting at them, kept getting slaughtered in the frenzied escape as claws scratched out their eyes if not their faces.

  We fought out of the tunnel, since we now had to save them because Scorpia couldn’t be bothered to hire people with actual functioning brains to fight with her. The Elik sung even more weapons into being and we passed them out. Others had hand weapons modified.

  Eventually, Scorpia’s people got the message. Kill Extrats with dark matter.

  Could’ve been avoided if they actually used their ears and listened to us hollering at them, but not my problem.

  The battle for Scarlatti was over.

  From my perch at the tunnel mouth, I directed groups to fan out over the valley, sending several into the mountains to hunt for the remaining Extrats. Someone had brought me a map, and I marked off the places we had covered. Most of their ships had been captured or shot down, but some managed to launch. They’d be a pain to hunt down.

  Again, not my problem.

  Eventually, the valley seemed to calm and the stream of people coming to talk to me had slowed. The survivors grabbed supplies from Scorpia’s people and those who were willing were being loaded into shuttles for more extreme medical attention. Breaker left with the first lot, along with a stricken Malani when she’d seen the injured state he was in.

  I checked on my calf, my deltoid. Already the searing stopped. If this dark metal energy were anything like Malani’s, I knew my muscles were slowly being knit back together even though I couldn’t see the process.

  Then I lifted my tunic hem and stared at the dark matter. It had flattened against my side again, covering almost half my torso. I pictured it reaching out and making a hand hold, something to hang a dagger on. It didn’t budge.

  Breaker’s cap took a long time to respond to him. This was prolly the same.

  What did it mean now that so many of us had dark matter additions? Or maybe it would be viewed as nothing more than fancy body mod and nothing would change. Instinct said that wasn’t going to be the case.

  I removed a ration of meat and sliced off a gripful. I almost couldn’t taste the salt around the copper. I worked up a mouthful of blood and spat. Held out the meat to Cal, who stood above me watching the last dredges of the battle. “Want some deercorn?”

  He looked at me as though I spoke Heron. He’d been the one organizing the groups of people wanting to leave. About a hundred or so still hung back, unwilling to leave the planet. Cal was a walking ghost.

  Couldn’t help but have a shimmer of pride underneath all my tired. He’d done nova.

  I pulled down on his tunic and his legs collapsed under him. Shoved the meat into his hand. “Eat, ya khaim. Now’s the time to breathe.”

  He automatically shoveled the food in his mouth and chewed. I kept funneling him rations until he didn’t look quite as dazed.

  That banging light though. Who knew the suns could be so bright without the asteroid? I didn’t care where it went. Another problem that wasn’t mine. At least there was no more throbbing in the back of my head.

  I shaded my face. “Scorpia’s coming.”

  She hiked to the tunnel with three guards. Her hair had been tied back with a violet scarf. Raelyn and Levi were at her side. Black blood splattered her uniform, but her kpinga was also now edged in dark matter. Her mother’s Extrat body had not been taken out of the clearing yet. Scorpia paused over it, the lines of her body curving tight. She looked pissed. Not that her mother had died, but that she wasn’t able to land in time to do it herself.

  “So?” Cal said.

  I pushed his ass off the rock, so he was forced to stand. Poor khaim didn’t know how to read moments like these. He’d learn. />
  When Scorpia arrived, I held out meat. “Food?”

  She accepted it. More a gesture of respect than desire, since she didn’t do more than nibble at it. “Who speaks for your planet?”

  I thumbed at Cal. “He does. He’s the chief.”

  Cal still looked like he’d been zapped, but he schooled his features together. “I’m Chief Callum. I take it you are Princess Scorpia?”

  “I am. I have issues to discuss with you about the dark matter. Is now a convenient time?”

  Cal straightened, and a resolute expression crossed his face. This conversation wasn’t a surprise. “Now is perfect.” He offered his arm and Scorpia took it. “You should know the dark matter traditionally belongs to the Elik. Any productive conversations will have to include them.” They walked down the hill together.

  I tugged at the leftover meat, watching them go. I’d wanted to be chief once. I once wanted to be part of those conversations—the ones that shaped and moved planets. To my surprise, I was quite content sitting and watching the change happen without me. Malvyn wouldn’t ever have been—

  Malvyn.

  I swore a litany of curses. I’d completely forgotten about Malvyn.

  I swiveled around. Everything seemed under control for now.

  I ran to where I’d last seen him. Facing off the Queen. I wasn’t used to tracking with this much chaos, but I tried. There was too much rubble and dust and mud to read anything clear. I tried to place myself in his situation. Since the Extrats advanced from the west, there was a chance he had slipped through undetected if he’d run for the place Breaker had been hiding.

  I moved along, keeping low to the ground, searching for any tracking signs, listening for any sound. There was none. He couldn’t have run far, though. There was nowhere for him to run to. Unless . . .

  He tried to leave the planet again.

  I headed toward where the nearest ships had landed. A handful hadn’t been able to take off. If he hadn’t been able to sneak onboard, chances were he was nearby.