Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

“A flash,” Philip said, then coughed again. “Flash of light.”

  “You’re seeing flashing lights, Philip?” Tobin asked, concerned.

  Philip rolled his head to look at Tobin, but his eyes seemed too far apart, and his pupils, Kieran noticed for the first time, were two different sizes. “The starboard side.”

  “I think he’s delirious,” Tobin said. “We should let him rest.”

  Kieran nodded and began to pull away, but Philip reached for him. Grasping his hand gently, Kieran leaned over the little boy, his mouth level with the curving shell of his ear, and whispered, “Philip, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that situation.”

  “They’re all through the starboard side,” Philip whispered. “In the ceiling.”

  “Philip. Did you hear me?”

  “Oh God.” Philip’s eyes widened, and he took in a quick, shallow breath. “They’ll never forgive us.”

  Kieran felt Tobin’s hand on his arm. “Let’s give him a chance to rest, okay?”

  “What’s he saying?” Kieran asked. He felt chilled, and his heart was pounding.

  “He’s not conscious,” Tobin said apologetically. “I read about this. It happens with coma patients sometimes. He’s talking in his sleep. It’s gibberish.”

  “Like he’s dreaming?” Kieran asked. Philip’s murmurs sounded disembodied, abandoned.

  “Kind of like dreams,” Tobin said sadly. “He’s active and breathing on his own. It’s a good sign.”

  Tobin was being gentle with Kieran. He’d heard his apology to Philip, Kieran realized.

  “If there’s any change at all, tell me, okay?”

  “Right away,” Tobin said, nodding. When he turned back to Philip, Kieran noticed that Tobin’s shoulder muscles had gotten huge. He must be lifting patients all day long, Kieran realized, to give them meds or help them adjust in bed. It’s got to be backbreaking work. He never complains.

  “I think making you medical officer has been the best decision I’ve made as Captain,” he said to Tobin.

  Embarrassed, Tobin couldn’t seem to bring himself to look at Kieran. Instead, he waved him out of the infirmary and turned his back to write something on Philip’s chart. Kieran thought he saw a tear in the corner of the boy’s eye just as he turned away. Of all people on the ship, Tobin probably understood the weight of responsibility as much as Kieran did. He made life-and-death decisions, he had to work tirelessly, and he was rarely thanked. If only there was someone on board who could tell Kieran he was doing a good job, too. He longed for some reassurance that he wasn’t doing the wrong thing at every step. But he knew by now this wasn’t something leaders got from their crew.

  Once he asked the voice that visited him if he was doing a good job, and he thought he’d heard what he wanted. But part of him wondered if he’d made it up.

  When he got back to his office, he found Waverly waiting for him outside the door.

  “We need to talk,” she said, her mouth set in a short, stubborn line. Her voice still sounded squeezed, but her bruises had faded to yellow and she seemed healthy again.

  “I don’t have time right now.”

  “It’ll only take a minute.”

  He sighed heavily but unlocked the door to his office and stood aside for her. She walked through without thanking him and sat down in the chair across from his desk. He sat in his chair and looked at her, waiting.

  “The Central Council wants to see the terrorist,” she said.

  “I can’t let that happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Security reasons.”

  “The ship’s bylaws say the council has the right to access any prisoner on the Empyrean to verify physical health and state of mind. It’s on page forty-two.”

  “So you’re worried that he misses his mommy?”

  “You can’t legally stop us, Kieran.”

  He let his eyes trail over to the volume of laws that sat on the top of the Captain’s bookshelf. Unlike Waverly, he didn’t have the time to study them.

  “I’ll have to check into this,” he said. “Can it wait for a couple days?”

  “No.”

  “You can’t just spring this on me.”

  “I just did.”

  “When did you become such a bitch?”

  It was out of his mouth before he’d even completed the thought. But it was true. She’d become demanding, unreasonable, impossible.

  “What did you call me?” Her voice sounded as though it were suspended from a heated wire.

  “You’re always going where you don’t belong, doing things that are none of your business.”

  “The running of this ship is everyone’s business.” Her voice cracked with strain. “It’s supposed to be a democracy.”

  “That doesn’t make me your errand boy.”

  “Are you going to let us past your goon squad or not, Kieran?”

  “Before you understand the situation? Before you’ve gotten any information from me about the prisoner? You just want to rush in there and stir the pot?” He was yelling now. He could feel his face heating up, turning red.

  “It’s not like you’ve gotten any results!” She swatted the air with an open hand. “Let us try.”

  “How do you know he’s said nothing?”

  “You think your guards don’t talk?”

  Harvey. He’d obviously made a report to the council. She’d managed to turn one of his most loyal guards. Kieran narrowed his eyes at her. She folded her arms over her chest. Her leg was tapping a jackrabbit rhythm on the floor, which made him grind his teeth.

  “You’re going to get even more people hurt,” he finally said to her, using his voice like a knife, probing for a soft spot.

  “What are you talking about?” She’d gone ashen, and her leg stopped its motion.

  “If it wasn’t for you, poor Philip wouldn’t be—” Kieran stopped himself.

  “What do you mean? That was random chance! You can’t blame me for—” She stopped mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open. Slowly, her eyes turned into two black pinpoints.

  He tried to think of something to say that would deflect her, painfully aware that the longer he was silent, the guiltier he seemed.

  “You had me followed,” Waverly said quietly. “Philip was reporting to you. Wasn’t he?”

  “No,” he said, but he made the mistake of trying to laugh off the suggestion. He couldn’t have seemed more inauthentic if he’d tried.

  She stood up. “You’re a liar.”

  He pointed a finger in her face. “You gave me cause.”

  “So you admit it.”

  “Are you going to stand there and try to convince me that you weren’t helping Seth Ardvale? Really, Waverly?” His voice rose to a scream. His ears rang with every word. He’d been taken over, and he couldn’t stop himself. “You were on your way to meet him! You didn’t find the terrorist! He found you!”

  “He almost killed us!” Waverly croaked. “Believe me, I’d rather I hadn’t found him!”

  “Don’t give me that! It’s the best thing that could have happened for you politically!”

  “You remind me more of Anne Mather every day!” Her voice broke on the last words, and her hand flew to her throat. “You’re using your pulpit to brainwash people!”

  “I’m keeping them aloft! They’d sink into despair otherwise!”

  “Without their messiah Kieran Alden to show them the way?” she snarled. “You’re disgusting!”

  He swung back, ready to slap her. But he stopped himself.

  She stood there, breathing through flared nostrils, her eyes red, hair askew, fists hanging at her sides as though she were ready to tackle him to the floor. They stared at each other, the air between them crackling, until she whirled around and marched out of his office.

  WILD JUSTICE

  “He said no,” Waverly said bitterly as she came back into the council chamber.

  The rest of the council accepted this
news with grim resignation. Alia and Melissa both smiled sadly at Waverly as she dropped into her seat at the large oval table.

  “I should have gone,” croaked Arthur.

  “No, we need him to trust you, Arthur,” Waverly said with a dim smile.

  She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and kick. But she could only finger the device she had secreted in her pocket. I’ll use it, she told herself. One way or another.

  Alia was looking pensively out the domed glass ceiling at the Milky Way, dense with tiny stars. Harvey and Melissa were staring at their folded hands. Tobin Ames seemed troubled by the news and chewed on a cuticle, his eyes off to the side while he thought. Sealy Arndt simply looked furious.

  “So,” Alia ventured with her velvety voice. “What you’re telling us is that we will have to go down there and force our way in.”

  Harvey shook his head. “Those guards are loyal to Kieran. They’re not going to go against his orders.”

  “So it could get violent,” Waverly said with dread. She’d had enough blood.

  “What about the Justice of the Peace? Can we appeal to Bobby?” Tobin asked. “If we have the law on our side, let’s use it.”

  “Can we call him in?” Arthur asked.

  Melissa went to the intercom and asked Sarek in Central Command to find Bobby Martin. While they waited, Waverly told them that Kieran had ordered Philip to follow her.

  “He was spying on you?” Melissa asked, her eyes round.

  “Are you really surprised?” Waverly asked.

  “Can you blame him?” Arthur croaked, and all eyes were on him. “Waverly, you were visiting Seth Ardvale in the brig. How did you expect Kieran to react to that?”

  “Reasonably. I saw him one time!”

  “And you were clearly meeting Seth in the observatory,” Harvey said, his eyebrows lowered over his wide, farm-boy eyes.

  “So we condone spying on our own crew members?” Waverly spat, then coughed. Her throat still felt scratchy and weak.

  “We are all afraid,” Alia said simply. “Fear makes people do terrible things.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t go against people’s rights,” Waverly said stubbornly.

  “Ideally it shouldn’t,” Arthur rasped quietly. “But nothing about our situation is ideal.”

  Waverly felt chastened, and dropped out of the conversation for a while, until it turned to the prisoner and interrogating him.

  “We should have a list of questions for the terrorist,” Tobin was saying. “We can’t just go in there without knowing what we want to ask.”

  “He’s been in contact with the New Horizon,” Waverly said, leaning into the conversation, making them look at her. “He might know something about what’s going on there.”

  “Yes,” Alia said. “He might know where the prisoners are being kept.”

  “And who they are,” Melissa Dickinson put in. “Maybe some of our parents…”

  “And how they’re being guarded,” said Harvey.

  Arthur pulled a portable computer from his satchel and began to type out questions. They were still working when Bobby Martin came in, looking exhausted. His white-blond hair was a messy thatch over his pale blue eyes, which made a shocking contrast with his olive-toned skin. Someday, he could be even more handsome than Seth Ardvale, Waverly thought while she watched him pull out a chair at the council table. For now, though, he was still a boy. Judging from his smell, he’d been spreading sheep manure in the potato field.

  “I bet this is about the prisoner,” he said, looking at Arthur, who he seemed to assume was the leader of the Central Council. Waverly was irritated by this, but she ignored it.

  “We want access to him,” she said, using her voice firmly so he’d know he couldn’t ignore her. “We want to interrogate him.”

  “I thought Kieran was taking the lead on that,” he said, his eyes darting from one face to another.

  “We think we could be … more effective,” Sealy said. He wove his knobby fingers together and leaned his elbows on the table. “We’ll get to the core of the matter a little faster.”

  “Why do you need me?” Bobby asked, his voice squeaking, making him sound like the young boy he was.

  “Kieran doesn’t want to grant us access,” Alia said.

  “And according to the rules of incarceration, we have the right—” Waverly began, but Bobby cut her off.

  “Hand me the bylaws,” he said, shaking his hand at Arthur, who turned to the shelf behind him and pulled down the volume.

  “Page forty-two,” Waverly said as Bobby thumbed through the book. He read the section, his pale eyes darting across the page as he sucked on his lower lip. He was silent, the whole room was, while he considered the meaning of the words.

  “He can’t legally stop you from checking on the prisoner,” he said at the end of it.

  “Then let’s go down there,” Waverly said. “Right now, before Kieran can find a way to stop us.”

  Alia stood up, looking around the room, challenging the others to follow her. Sealy went to the door and ushered Alia out ahead of him, then Harvey and Melissa followed. Tobin and Arthur seemed the most reluctant, and Waverly felt sorry for them. They were both close to Kieran, and they didn’t want to create a rift. But that would be Kieran’s doing, not theirs. She was last out of the chamber, and she jogged to catch up to Bobby, who was rubbing his grubby hands on his pants.

  “I should be cleaner for something like this,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Remember J.P. Connor?” Waverly said with a fond smile, recalling the slender man, the way he always seemed to be eating a piece of bread. He had died several years before the attack, and the whole crew attended his memorial. Waverly was sad he was gone, but maybe it was a good thing he didn’t live to see the attack. He died before, when everyone thought they were on a peaceful mission, when everyone believed they were safe. “He always had grease under his fingernails. You’re carrying on the tradition.”

  “I guess,” Bobby said doubtfully.

  The elevator ride down was grim. There was a tangy, musky scent to the close air—the scent people give off when they’re afraid. Waverly thought absently that she ought to feel afraid herself, but she didn’t. She felt eager.

  When the guards outside the brig saw the Central Council coming, they both straightened their spines, holding their rifles across their chests. So Kieran had finally resorted to the use of firearms, Waverly noted.

  “Access to the brig is restricted,” Hiro Mazumoto said, his eyes immobile in their sockets.

  Bobby Martin stepped up, pulled something from his pocket, and flashed a badge in Hiro’s face. Waverly wondered where he’d gotten it. “I’m the J.P. and I’m ordering you aside.”

  “Not without orders from Kieran Alden,” said Ali Jaffar, his hazel eyes shifting nervously from face to face.

  “If you don’t stand aside, I’ll arrest you both,” Bobby said.

  “The bylaws state we’re to be given access,” Arthur said with his gravelly voice, which was still healing. He produced the book of laws, opening it for the guards so they could see for themselves.

  Hiro took the book and read the passage, Ali leaning over his shoulder. Neither boy seemed to know what to do.

  “We’re the Central Council and the Justice of the Peace. You’ve got two branches of the ship’s government standing in front of you,” Waverly said. “Kieran’s word doesn’t stand against all of ours. He’s not our dictator.”

  Hiro sighed, shaking his head. “I wish people could just get along,” he murmured, but he stood aside and let them pass.

  The brig smelled of rancid sweat. The prisoner was lying on his cot, the crook of his elbow shielding his eyes from the light as he slept. His mouth hung open, showing a ruin of teeth, crooked and brown, as he snored. He sounded like an animal.

  “Wake him up,” Waverly said to the guards.

  Hiro banged on the iron bars of the cell with the muzzle of his gun. “Hey. You’ve got visitors.”r />
  The prisoner rubbed sleep out of his eyes, smacking his thick, stubbled lips, slow to wake, until he saw Waverly on the other side of the bars, looking at him. Instantly his face hardened, and he sat up, staring at her, murder in his eyes.

  “Cuff him,” she said, her voice low.

  Ali positioned himself outside the cage, his gun pointed at the prisoner’s head while Hiro unlocked the door and stepped in. “Stand,” Hiro said to the prisoner, who complied, never taking his ruddy eyes off Waverly’s face.

  “Now cuff his ankles to the feet of his cot,” Waverly said.

  The prisoner’s face shifted almost imperceptibly; Waverly could see he was becoming afraid. Ali handed Hiro two sets of cuffs from his belt, and Hiro fastened each of the prisoner’s ankles to the bottom legs of the metal cot, which were fastened to the floor with heavy bolts. The prisoner sat, his legs spread awkwardly, hands behind his back. He was helpless.

  “Waverly,” someone whispered, and she turned, surprised to see Seth standing in the cell right behind her.

  “I thought you were at the other end,” she said to him. She didn’t want him watching this.

  “What are you doing?” He was still hooked up to an IV, and his color wasn’t good.

  “We’re going to ask him questions,” she said. She held her chin up, defying him to say something.

  Seth cocked his head, studying her. “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”

  “Leave me alone,” she said, and turned away. She wanted to be the first one in the cell with the terrorist. She wanted to be the one asking the questions.

  She stood over the brute, close enough to smell old onions on his breath. She could see beads of sweat on his scalp between the cropped hairs on his head, and she could smell his odor, a sharp reek that stung her nostrils in the place between her eyes. She stood over the man, letting him feel her presence, letting him hate her, until she could find a way through her rage to speak.

  “We’re going to ask you some questions,” she said, her voice shaking, barely within her control. “And you’re going to answer them.”

  He laughed mockingly.

  From her pocket she pulled a Taser. She heard murmurs of surprise from the Central Council. Alia watched her searchingly. Melissa stared, her face blank. The Taser was normally used on the livestock if the herd was in a panic and injuring themselves. It had enough power to knock out a billy goat, but the shock wouldn’t be enough to knock out a man. It would cause hurt, though—a deep, physical pain in the nerves.