The Clouded Sky

by Megan Crewe

  “Will they be able to attach the weapon as easily as if we’d had the ship we were supposed to?” I ask after a while.

  “Easier, actually,” Britta says. “These rich-kid ships are constructed to be easily customized and updated. Glad I got a chance to fly one.” She pats the console affectionately.

  It occurs to me that she may not get a chance to fly any ship for a long time after now. There’s no way anyone here can avoid having been identified by the Enforcers, when they’re the only unauthorized people who’ll have left during the lockdown. “Do you think Thlo will still be able to smooth things over for you?” I say. “You won’t get into too much trouble?”

  “She’ll find a way to spin it,” Britta says. “She’s the only one in power who’s really prepared for this, and everyone else will be looking to her for answers. And . . . even if she can’t get us out of punishment, I still think it was worth it.”

  “Thank you,” I say, and she smiles at me.

  “It’s for the best for all of us,” she says. “Anyway, there won’t be a lot of time for good-byes when we get in close enough for Win to take you home, so I should say now, it’s been great working with you.”

  “You too,” I say, returning her grin. There are a few things I’ll miss about Kemya.

  Isis’s voice drifts from Britta’s console. “Update the systems and confirm sockets six through twenty-seven are engaged.”

  “On it,” Britta replies. They go back and forth, double-checking all the ways the weapon’s internal circuitry has been integrated into the ship until Isis is satisfied.

  “We’re coming back on board,” she says.

  I spot the blip of the jet-pod blinking into view on the screen. “Emmer’s heading in.”

  Isis, Win, and Tabzi rejoin us in the navigation room as Emmer docks the jet-pod beneath the ship. A moment later, the network carries his voice into the room. He sounds grave.

  “It’s looking more complicated than we hoped, Isis.”

  “What do you mean?” Isis says.

  “I’m transferring the visuals to your screen. Take a look.”

  A moment later, the screen at the front of the room flashes to a closer view of Earth. The silvery sphere of the research satellite hovers at the fringes of the atmosphere, next to the smaller globe of the time field generator with its dappling of knobs and cones. They both look the same as in the training simulations.

  What I don’t recognize are the two small sleek ships, one hanging close to the satellite and the other lingering at a distance. My stomach tightens.

  “I don’t know what those jetters are doing here,” Emmer says. “The engines on them, they could have beat us here by a couple hours if they left right after us on a direct course. The far one looks purely recreational—I didn’t detect any weaponry except the usual maintenance beams—but the other’s got some firepower.”

  “The Enforcers, waiting for us?” I say.

  “We knew this was possible,” Isis says grimly. “They could be extra protection Earth Travel sent out ahead of time, which will at least mean they don’t know we’re on our way.”

  “We have to think they do know, don’t we?” Tabzi says, hugging herself. “We have to prepare for the worst.”

  “So we have one extra factor to worry about,” Win says. “We just need a bit more time.” But his voice is worried. It was going to be cutting it close just taking out the generator and the satellite’s weapon systems without our ship being disabled. If they have another ship taking the offensive, that could throw our plans completely off.

  “Use the jet-pod,” Britta says, standing up. “It’ll distract them, give them something to focus on while we move this ship in and get our shots off. Emmer should be the one on the controls up here. I’ll do it.”

  “No,” I murmur, thinking of the last time she was out in a jet-pod, of the shakiness she hasn’t quite cast off.

  “You won’t be able to outfly a jetter in that,” Isis says.

  “I won’t need to,” Britta says. “I’ll keep my distance. The pod’s small enough that I should be able to dodge its shots. I just need to draw it a little away from the satellite, and then you’ll get in there and take out what you need to, and it’ll go after you—once you’re ready to deal with it too.”

  Isis studies her, her shoulders tense. Britta stares back defiantly. Finally, Isis nods. “If we time it right, it’ll work.”

  “And if we don’t?” I can’t help saying.

  “Then I die for a cause worth dying for,” Britta declares.

  “Emmer, get up here.” Isis turns to the rest of us. “We need to decide how to redistribute the work here. Britta shouldn’t go alone. It’s going to take fast maneuvering to catch the jetter’s attention but not its fire, and we’ll be too occupied with our own work to monitor the pod.” Britta makes a sound of protest, but Isis cuts her off. “I wouldn’t let anyone do it alone. So. I wanted you and Emmer here, me on the laser, Win on the side beams, and Tabzi backing us all up. I suppose you can take her, which will just mean the rest of us can’t miss anything. Tabzi?”

  Or they could all die, and not even finish this mission. Before I’ve quite thought it through, I blurt out, “You’re forgetting me. I’ve piloted before. I’ll go.”

  “I have to take you home before we engage the generator,” Win says. “After we’re done, the time field will be down—you won’t be able to go back to your present.”

  “I know,” I say. I also know the only reason I left Earth at all was so I could see the mission through. So I’d be sure Earth was safe, because I couldn’t bear the uncertainty. And I see nothing but uncertainty now, if I let these five people go up against their enemies—our enemies—outnumbered and outgunned.

  “Your parents . . .”

  That guilt is already swelling inside me. If I don’t go back to my own time, if I don’t reset the events of the last seventeen years since Win whisked me away, my parents will still have lived with the pain of my disappearance. I’ll lose any chance of averting Lisa’s accident, or any other awful things that have happened in my absence. My throat tightens.

  But I don’t know that everything would have worked out well if I had been there, do I? Isn’t it more important for them, and everyone else I know—for everyone on the planet, and everyone who’ll be born for generations after—that I do everything I can to make sure the time field is destroyed?

  “Whatever pain they felt, they’ve already felt it,” I say thickly. If I go back to them instead of staying here where I’m needed, it’ll be for my own conscience and comfort more than anyone else’s. I wouldn’t be any better than Jule. “This is more important. This is what I came here to do. So I’ll turn up seventeen years late. It’s better than nothing.”

  And it’ll be in a world that’s truly free.

  30.

  Everyone’s silent for a moment. Then Emmer hustles in, spurring Isis to action.

  “Okay,” she says. “I think we’re all right then. Britta and Skylar in the jet-pod. The rest of us keeping this ship on course.” She catches Britta’s gaze. “Don’t get any closer than you absolutely have to. Try to lead them around counter-side.”

  Britta nods with a jerk. She steps toward Isis, and Isis meets her for a brief kiss. I glance at Win inadvertently. He doesn’t hesitate, just pulls me into an equally brief hug. “I’ll see you soon,” he says, and then Britta is grabbing my arm.

  We hurry out of the control room. As we step into the airlift that’ll drop us to the jet-pod level, I notice Britta’s blinking hard.

  “We’re going to do this,” I say, with all the confidence I can muster. “We’re going to make it back. I’m not letting the Enforcers get another shot at you.”

  She laughs, a little of the tension in her face breaking. “I’m sorry we couldn’t take you home the way we planned.”

  “It’s the people in those ships who should be sorry,” I say. I can’t think about that anymore, only the task ahead. If we’re going
to survive this flight, we’re going to need every ounce of concentration and skill we have. My stomach’s churning, but I’m ready. This is why I’m here. This is what all the risks and the pain have been for: to take down the time field, to bring Earth out from under Kemya’s thumb. “So let’s go make them be.”

  The pod looks like a posher version of the one I took my first flight in: a platinum glint to the walls, a pocket of air around the cushioned seat that makes me feel almost weightless. The displays blink on over the dash as we settle in. They offer a wider range of navigation data than we got in the other, but we’ll still be partly blind without Isis monitoring.

  “Ready,” Britta calls up to her.

  “We are too,” Isis says. “Give them the best chase you’ve got.”

  We power on the engines. A hatch opens below us, and the pod sinks down until it’s clear of the ship. Then we set off in a wide arc that will bring us all the way around Earth before we confront the generator’s defenders. On my display, the main ship starts to drift along behind us.

  “How close can we get before the sensors pick us up?” I ask Britta.

  “The signal alternation I programmed will start to lose effectiveness around the time we pass Mars’s orbit,” Britta says. “But if we stay on low power and keep the planet between us and them, any impressions they pick up will be fragmented. They shouldn’t be able to identify us as something Kemyate-made until we want them to—as long as they stay where they are.”

  One of Saturn’s moons looms on the edge of the screen, cold and pockmarked, and I’m abruptly reminded of how tiny this craft is in the midst of the universe. How thin the walls that separate us from the vacuum outside. It’s just Britta and me in this little bubble of air.

  I train my eyes on the controls, shutting out those thoughts. We skirt the moon’s gravity, and then Britta eases off on the speed to flit through the asteroid belt, my display a momentary mess of speckles and shifting lines. The screen dims to adjust for the intensifying glare of the sun. We swing around in our curve and veer straight toward Earth.

  My breath catches as the view of my planet expands on the screen, awe displacing my anxiety. I’ve seen pictures from space before, but they didn’t capture how beautiful Earth is when you’re seeing it at this distance with your own eyes. Delicate swirls of white cloud form a lacy veil that allows glimpses of the rich blue of the oceans, the deep green of the continents. Such a stark contrast to the gray-brown of Kemya. The sun now behind us glints off the atmosphere, as if the planet is an immense version of one of the glossy glass beads I used to spin to steady my mind.

  This is what keeps me steady now. Not number patterns or the feel of a bracelet: this world, my world that I’m helping to free.

  It’s not quite the world I left. We’re close enough that the fuzzy line marking the border of the time field appears on the display, reminding me of the seventeen years that have passed since I stepped into the time cloth with Win. I have no idea what’s waiting for me, really. The Travelers could have forced any number of changes on the places and people I knew. And I’ll be showing up as a seventeen-year-old in a world that would expect me to be thirty-four. I don’t know how I’m going to explain that.

  My throat closes up. I shut my eyes just for a second, willing my breaths to stay even.

  I’ll figure it out somehow. For that spectacular planet in front of me, for all the people living on it, for finally making all the decisions in our lives really our own. I would rather go through anything than keep living like a goldfish in the Kemyates’ bowl.

  “Are you all right?” Britta asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But I’ll be even better when the generator’s in little pieces.”

  She smiles. “Let’s get to it then.”

  At the edge of the atmosphere, we ease to the right, approaching the satellite, the generator, and the unexpected ships. A flicker passes through the display as their sensors identify us. I tense in my seat, but at first nothing happens. Then, as we follow the curve of the planet and the satellite comes into view not just on our navigation displays but also the view screen, a voice hails us.

  “Unauthorized jet-pod in quadrant 34-89, please identify yourself.”

  Britta presses the communication icon. “Why don’t you come and make me?” she hollers, and a nervous giggle escapes me.

  We reverse the propulsion to halt our forward momentum, and wait. I keep my eyes trained on the display. The more distant jetter is easing even farther away from both the satellite and us. But the other one, the one Emmer said was armed, is turning toward us. Britta braces her hands over the controls.

  “Not too fast,” she reminds me. “We don’t want them getting close enough to catch us, but they have to think we’re worth chasing, at least until the others have gotten into position.”

  A spike in the readings gives us a fleeting warning. “Here it comes,” I say, reaching for my own end of the dash. The jetter slips away from the satellite, sending a blast of energy rippling toward us. Britta hits the engines and I swing us to the left. The jet-pod only shivers as the edge of the wave tickles the hull.

  We flit back and forth, close to and farther from Earth. The jetter soars after us. My eyes flick between the view ahead and the display showing what’s happening around us. Abruptly, the jetter swings around at a sharp angle. A flare at its side makes me yelp.

  “They’ve got another weapon!”

  Britta pushes a fresh surge of speed from the engines as I yank us around. The pulse that blazes from the jetter’s side rocks us, and a warning light starts to beep. The structural integrity of the hull has been damaged.

  “Still at eighty-eight percent,” Britta says. “It’s holding.”

  My heart thumps even as I laugh, as much out of terror as triumph.

  “There it goes again.” Britta’s fingers dart over the controls as we continue zipping forward. I spin us to the left, ready to dodge. But the shape on my display is no longer chasing us. It’s slowed, swiveling away.

  “It’s heading back to the satellite. Why—oh.”

  “Someone must have spotted the main ship,” Britta says, her voice tight. “They’ve realized we’re just a distraction.”

  “Do you think we bought them enough time?”

  “I don’t know. Isis hasn’t called in.”

  Which means probably not. “Then we need to distract the jetter a bit more, don’t we?”

  Britta’s smile is hard. “However we can. We’ll . . . how would you say it? Heckle it.”

  We rotate, pursuing the jetter now. I switch on the laser meant to clear passing debris, training it on the ship ahead of us. Its range isn’t as far as the jetter’s weapons.

  “How close can we afford to get?”

  “It doesn’t look as though they’ve got any weapons on their rear,” Britta says. “Just be ready to dash if they turn.”

  We dart closer as the jetter races back toward the satellite and the time field generator. I gesture at the laser controls. Tiny bolts shoot from the aperture in the front of the pod, speckling light against the back of the jetter when they hit. The jetter’s hull is too solid for us to do any real damage, but it’ll catch their attention.

  “Turning!” I bark out as the readings shift. Britta throws us into reverse, swiveling around at the same time. Our small size gives us one advantage—we’re able to get some distance before the jetter’s finished swinging to the side. As the blast rips from its secondary weapon, we skitter out of the way. And skitter is the word for it. The pod shudders, my collarbone rattling, and another warning light blinks on. The shock’s damaged the engines. They’ve dropped to two-thirds power.

  I look at Britta. The jetter’s righted its course toward the satellite.

  “Until the generator’s in little pieces?” she says.

  I drag in a shaky breath, ignoring the chill of the sweat that’s broken over my skin. “Sounds right to me.”

  We skirt the curve of the exosphere, Britta pushin
g the engines to their limit. The jetter’s just drawn up beside the satellite when a high-pitched signal pierces through our communications equipment.

  “That’s Isis!” Britta says.

  The words have barely left her mouth when a streak of brilliant light lances through the darkness of the space beyond. It slices into the generator. A second later, another follows, and another. The mottled sphere shivers. Chunks slough off its sides, tumbling out into the atmosphere. And the fuzzy line of the time field on my display disintegrates, releasing Earth from its hold.

  A cry, wordless and victorious, breaks from my throat. They did it. We did it. All those millennia of trapped history are free from the Kemyates’ prying fingers. And nothing they can do will recapture them.

  I wish Jeanant were here to see it. His mission, his dream, finally fulfilled.

  In a way, he is here, through the technology he built. Another beam of Jeanant’s laser splits through some apparatus on the side of the satellite—one of the defensive weapons, I assume—and a fifth arcs across the front of the jetter. But the jetter’s already veering to the side, as if the crew anticipated where Isis would aim.

  “I— Shep!” I blurt out, barely remembering Isis’s code name as I jab at the dash. “The jetter, it’s got a second weapon on the right side.”

  It seems like a split second later the jetter fires. We get nothing but silence through the communication link. Did she hear us in time? The ship is still out of our view. A gleam sparks on my display as the jetter prepares to fire again.

  A laser bolt sears out, cutting through the weapon. The jetter quivers and the spark dies.

  “Thanks for the warning, jet-pod,” Isis says. “Anything else we should know?”

  “Not that we’ve seen,” Britta says.

  There’s a grin in Isis’s voice. “Then I think our job here is done. Meet us on the far side.”

  The others surround Britta and me when we stagger into the ship’s navigation room, our legs still wobbly from the flight. Win embraces me, and then Isis, and Tabzi, all of us laughing and exclaiming between breathless laughter, as if we can’t believe it’s really done.