The man had slumped to the ground, his body on its side, curled in a tight ball. He struggled to sit up but collapsed back against the earth. Dane reached down to help, then somehow pushed, heaved, and shoved the weak body up toward the open space in the cockpit doorway.
A drooping arm caught in the strap of the oxygen mask, pulling the cover out of position. Acrid smoke invaded Dane’s lungs. Gagging, he thrust the body into the passenger seat and slammed shut the door, then raced around the plane’s nose, fingers tearing at his mask but only managing to tangle the strap. He gave up, needing his hands to climb into the pilot’s seat.
Within seconds, the plane lifted off the ground. The cockpit had filled with smoke, and Dane’s eyes watered as he steered the aircraft out of the fog.
He tried to switch the radio back on to no avail. No response, not even static. The radar remained blank. Either it too was failing or the extra planes had never arrived.
Harsh coughing echoed from the man in the other seat. Soot coated his skin, making age and facial features hard to discern, but the pain was easy to read. Dane finally wrenched off his own mask and slipped it around the man’s head.
Then he set the coordinates for the hospital on base and shifted into a higher gear. Zhzhzh! They were soaring. Way, way over the speed limit, but the hell with that. The passenger had slumped over, his head upside down at an odd angle against the door, and there was no telling if he was still breathing.
The outskirts of the city drifted into focus—rectangular shapes, straight walls, and pointed pyramids littering the horizon. Dane swerved to the left, hoping to avoid the traffic and the city flight patrol. He veered around the city’s rim.
The sterile gray-green structures of the Alliance Air Force Base stretched out to the west. Dane ripped into military airspace without missing a beat, eased up on the power as he spotted the hospital landing pad, and touched down with a precision that would make any pilot cringe in envy. Even his father.
But there was no time to savor the moment. Figures rushed toward the plane. Coughing himself now, Dane wrapped his arms around the passenger’s sooty chest and lowered the listless body into the outstretched arms of a medic.
He scrambled down to answer questions, but a heavy arm shoved him up against the side of the plane.
“Dane Madousin?” The harsh voice grated in his ear.
Dane coughed. “Y-yes.”
Cold steel closed around his wrists. “You’re under arrest.”
Chapter Two
THE INVITATION
THE HATCH TO AERIN’S COMPARTMENT ON THE Envoy opened with a cold, sucking sound. Four weeks she had been on board this ship, and still she could not accustom herself to that sound. It seemed to scrape into the recesses of her brain.
She stiffened but remained seated on the narrow bench of the tight personal quarters. They could not quite be defined as a room since, aside from the bench and the mirror on the opposite wall, the compartment’s only furniture consisted of the retractable bed which, had it been folded down, would have filled the entire six-by-four-foot space.
The rising hatch revealed the black boots, dark uniform, and gray head of the captain. He crossed swiftly under the low entryway without needing to duck. She knew better by now than to judge him by his small size. No slight personality could have run such a huge vessel and earned the respect of the massive crew. And he had done so. How he had done it, she did not know, but she had seen the way the men and women under his command watched his every move, leaping to obey, even when it meant halting a major voyage to answer a distress call from a broken trade ship.
Aerin still could not believe he had answered. She kept checking her shadow, waiting for the whip to fall or the deadbolt to slide into place, but she had been subjected to nothing other than an array of physical and mental tests upon the first week of her arrival. Still, this might be the time.
Goose bumps rose on her flesh.
The captain cracked a crooked grin and handed her a heavy, tightly sealed white box. “A package arrived for you from the Council.”
Council? Her tongue remained flat on the bottom of her mouth as she set the box on the bench and ran her hands over the package’s smooth surface to see if she could find an opening. Nothing, but then maybe she was doing something wrong.
The captain reached down and pulled a thin, black-handled knife from his boot.
She felt her pulse quicken and backed away, slamming her spine and shoulders against the wall.
He did not react except to turn the handle around until it faced her, then held it out in her direction.
An extended moment passed before she realized he wanted her to take the knife and use it to open the box. With darting quickness, she grabbed the weapon and held it secure.
The captain remained still, watching her.
With a single, agile slice, she split open the package. Out onto the bench tumbled a blue packet and black clothing: boots, slacks, socks, and a shirt with ebony buttons. Such fine fabric. She reached out a tentative finger, then drew back.
“Go ahead; it’s yours,” said the captain, retrieving the knife and returning it to his boot. “Standard-issue uniform. Means the Alliance has placed you in a school.” He peered into the box at its remaining contents. “An academic one, judging by the thickness of those textbooks.” One eyebrow lifted in curiosity as he handed her a sealed letter. “This came as well. Read it and see where you’re headed.”
Aerin obeyed, but the written words made little sense.
Prying her tongue off the base of her mouth, she forced herself to speak for the first time since boarding the giant vessel, not to tell him the name of the school listed in the letter, but to ask one of the hundreds of questions battering her mind. “What is the Alliance?”
The captain’s eyes widened. He rocked back on the heels of his polished boots and for one panicked, heart-stopping moment, Aerin feared she had made a severe error. Then he chuckled, taking a seat on the edge of the bench, several feet away. She tensed at this nearness but forced herself to remain still. “Well, there’s a hard question. Not sure I’ve ever had to answer it before, but then I don’t often travel this far outside the boundary.”
She waited, uncomfortable with his laughter.
“I suppose the simplest response is to say the Alliance is the largest government in the universe,” he said, “composed of five central star systems. Delegates from every member planet run the government.”
“Delegates?” she asked.
“Yeees.” He scratched his head as if having trouble deciding how to explain. “The people on the planet pick someone to represent them. All those on the planet must have a say.”
Imagine if all the people on Vizhan had a say in who their leaders were. Life would be very different then.
The captain went on, his curved fingers tapping restlessly on the muscle of his thigh. “Of course there are too many delegates to work quickly or smoothly, so there is also a Council made up of four respected leaders. The Council listens to the delegates and makes decisions.”
“And what does this Council have to do with my attending school?” she asked.
“Education is the backbone of the Alliance. In fact, one of the council members is also the principal of Academy 7, the most prestigious school in the universe.”
Aerin lifted her head, but the captain kept talking, the tapping of his boots now moving in sync with his restless fingers. “Every young citizen between the ages of sixteen and seventeen is given the A.E.E., Academy Entrance Exam. That’s the test I gave you after you boarded this vessel. Not like any other exam you’ve taken, is it?”
“No.” The word test had other meanings to her. It meant using the skills she had to survive. It did not refer to solving problems or running for a length of time. The questions she had struggled with the most on the A.E.E. were the opening ones. Parents’ names: she had left her mother’s blank. Schools attended: the captain had filled that in for her with the word homeschooled, th
ough he could not have known he was partly correct.
“What are the scores used for?” she asked.
“To place you in an academy. There are schools all over the Alliance now, in addition to the original seven. Test scores place you in the one most likely to suit your skill level.”
Aerin’s mind whirled. A government that not only allowed everyone to learn but actually wanted them to? The idea sounded far-fetched, but the captain did not look like he was teasing.
His eyes were sober, staring at the dyed design on her gray headband. He had done that enough that she knew he recognized the mark of Vizhan. He could not know the story of her past, but between that mark and her ragged appearance, he must have some idea of what she had been through.
His gaze dropped to the clothes at her side. “I should leave you to try those on.” But he did not move. Instead, he glanced toward the textbooks, then stretched his right hand and closed it in a fist. “You might want to begin to study. As I said, the Alliance funds the education of all its citizens.”
And then she understood what this man had done: thrown her a chance, a single chance at a future, in the form of a test she should never have been allowed to take. Could she do what he was implying? Pretend to be a citizen of a world she had never known existed? But what other choice was there? She had no one, and nowhere else to go. If this was her chance, she must take it.
Her chin lifted.
And he stood, unfurling his fist against the smooth surface of the wall. “You have a month to prepare before your arrival.” He waited a moment, as if expecting her to say something, perhaps the name of the school for which she had been selected.
But Aerin was not yet ready to share.
The captain turned away, the hatch door sliding down behind him.
She remained seated for a minute, then moved to the wide glass hanging on the wall. The face she saw in the reflection was already a stranger. Her sun-bleached hair had darkened, its natural brown strands brushed clean and straight. Her once bronze skin had paled around her high cheekbones and pointed chin, and though her ragged dress revealed the sharp points of her shoulders, elbows, and ribs, already the meals on board had begun to fill in the flesh around her bones.
She looked back at the black shirt, slacks, and boots on the bench. What person would she be when she changed into them?
Slowly her fingers reached up to slide the gray headband off her forehead. Even as she gazed down at the dyed V on the front of the band, she could still feel its imprint. Could she truly slip out of her past so easily? Relinquish it with the tattered rags?
Then her eyes flitted to the folded letter on the bench. She picked it up and tucked it into the bottom corner of the mirror. Could she brush off her memories and the last six years for a future thick with the unknown? Nothing could be worse than what she knew already. She wanted nothing left to remind her of the fields, the platforms, and the lasers. She would scrub them all away like she had the dirt from her bare feet. When she was done, there would not be a single sign of where she was from. Except for the brand on her shoulder, dark bars showing now where her wide neckline dropped down.
Dane awoke to the harsh creak of cell bars sliding across one another. He rolled slowly over onto his back, the hard springs of the dusty cot digging into his spine. His muscles ached from the long night at the police station, and his mouth tasted like smoke.
He had dreamed of fire: white-hot flames licking his face and eyebrows, heat burning his chest, smoke dousing his nostrils and clotting his air passages. The same smell now filled his pores, his clothes, and the uncomfortable jail cell mattress.
“Guess it helps having friends in high places.” A mocking voice propelled him up off the bed. Outside the doorway stood a sallow-faced guard, a wide smirk on his lips.
“What do you know about it?” Dane replied.
The man twined a hand around a bar and rattled the open door. “You’re outta here,” he said.
With deliberate slowness, Dane stood, rubbing his knuckles along the side of his face. Soot as dark as his hair smeared the backs of his tan fingers. “What’s wrong? You guys can’t afford the soap to clean me up?” he cracked, then slid past the guard, sidestepping a stain on the cement floor, and sidled down the hall.
The waiting room greeted him with a display of smug police photos and the scent of burned coffee. Between the row of empty chairs and the front desk stood a familiar figure: a slouched sixty-year-old man in greasy coveralls, hands buried in wide pockets. Dane smiled.
“I don’t know,” the overweight cop at the front desk was saying. “Mr.?”
“Pete,” replied the figure, dismissing the need for a surname.
“It’s against policy to release a juvenile to someone other than a parent or legal guardian.” Beefy arms crossed over a bulging stomach, and the cop leaned back in his padded chair.
Dane opened his mouth to protest that he had known Pete all his life. The aged mechanic had taught him to fly, checked in on him when his father was gone. And had been there for Dane when things got tough. Really tough.
But Pete held up a hand, halting the protest before it began, then straightened and gave the cop a hard stare. “His father is not on planet, as you well know. He won’t return from his mission for another six weeks. But by all means, wait. See how he reacts when he hears his son has been locked up without any formal charges.”
“Without—?” Dane started to ask.
“Sit down and shut up,” ordered Pete.
Dane sat.
The cop’s face bloomed red, a double chin jutting forward. “All right, but this is the last time I make an exception. The man redirected his gaze at Dane. “You hear that, Madousin? Show up here again after your seventeenth birthday, and we won’t cut you another break, no matter what your last name is.”
Dane gritted his teeth but let Pete’s firm grip guide him out through the grimy station doors before he could word a comeback. The heat outside assaulted him. He banged his thigh on a rusty railing and glared with annoyance around the Gray Zone. No one else stirred amid the cramped trio of buildings designated for both city and base use, and not a single aircraft rested on the empty gravel landing pad.
“Gold Dust?” Dane questioned, suddenly worried about his new plane.
“You know you’ve been fired, right?” Pete growled.
Dane shrugged. Firefighting was not exactly his dream job. He knew better than to dream.
But damn it! he thought. “I earned that plane.”
“It’s back in the hangar,” said Pete. “You’re walking home, and you’re lucky the police didn’t impound her.”
“They had no right. You know I didn’t deserve to be—”
“Oh, I know all right. I know I’ve seen you in that place too many times.” Pete marched his charge through the gate in the barbed-wire fence that separated the Gray Zone from the rest of Chivalry Military Base.
“For what? Reckless endangerment?” Dane argued, without sparing a glance for the armed patrol members lining the fence. “Come on, there’s no way they could make that stick, not when the plane belonged to me instead of the fire company.”
“This isn’t about the plane.” Pete’s grip clenched on Dane’s shoulder as they headed down a narrow passage. The high walls of the Allied Air Force facility rose up on the left. On the right, a ball game stood frozen, its young players absorbed with watching the passersby. Pete ignored the stares. “You’d still be sitting in that cell if the man you saved hadn’t been a retired colonel.”
“Because most people who save lives are treated as criminals.” Sarcasm filled Dane’s voice.
“Most people don’t fly into a hot zone after being ordered out of it.”
“So what if I am a few days underage to fight a level four? I’m a better flyer than most of those guys.”
“You didn’t go into that fire to save someone’s life,” Pete said, “and you know it. Reckless endangerment is an apt term whether or not the charges were d
ropped. Stop trying to kill yourself, or one of these days you’re going to succeed.”
Maybe, Dane thought. There were worse things. Like living under his father’s control.
An uneasy pause stalled the conversation.
Even at this early hour, the base was never silent. The shouts of personnel, whirr of running motors, and beeping of traffic signals filled the air. And the cement surface did little to absorb the sound or the flashing lights from the spinning security tower at the heart of the action. Dane had a flashback to the wilderness he had flown over the previous day and felt a sudden urge to escape. He pulled away.
“Wait.” Pete let out a slow sigh, the muscles on his worn face easing as he dug a hand into his pocket and held out an envelope. “This came for you. The housekeeper gave it to me when I stopped by to tell her I was picking you up. There’s a package that goes with it.” The gold seal gleamed at Dane.
Without taking the envelope, he began to walk down the long slanted edge of the airstrip. The glaring sun formed visions of deep puddles floating on the wide diagonal runway, and a solid wall of wire fencing loomed in the foreground.
Pete came up behind him, pointing at the envelope. “You know what this is?”
“The letter with my A.E.E. scores,” Dane said, stepping purposefully on a crack. “Only the Council cares enough about secrecy to use traditional post.”
“You plan to open it?”
Again Dane’s eyes flew to the security seal. He couldn’t open it, couldn’t let himself care. “No.”
“Then you won’t mind if I do?” The words were a request.
“It’s not as if some test has anything to say about me.”
Pete retrieved the envelope’s contents. His head jolted back slightly as he began to read; then his shoulders relaxed and he handed Dane the letter. “If the test isn’t worth anything, why put forth the effort to place well?”
The name of the school curled its way through Dane’s mental defense system, and he had to struggle a moment to regain his shield of disdain. “Paul,” he answered. “When he took the A.E.E. two years ago, he failed to earn a spot in Father’s alma mater.”
Academy 7 Page 2
