Sea of Stars (Kricket #2)

by Amy A. Bartol

  “—monstrous,” I fill in the blank for him.

  His grasp on my chin grows tighter. “No!” He sounds almost angry. “You are without a doubt the most amazing Etharian I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”

  “Thanks, Jax.” I try to smile.

  “You’re a genetic enigma.”

  “That I am,” I agree. He lets go of my face, allowing me to stand with his hand beneath my elbow for support, but I don’t need it. I feel fine, just really thirsty. “Do you have some water, Jax?”

  “I do. I’ll get it for you.” When he returns, he hands me the water canteen. We talk about the first time I had my hair cut on Earth, how my foster mother nearly lost her mind over it.

  “Does Trey know?” Jax asks.

  I shrug. We lean against the cement tunnel wall together, out of the way from where the other Cavars are waiting by the exit. “Well, I told him on the way here about everything that happened to me after we were separated from each other. But, I don’t think he actually knows. It’s a little hard to explain it to someone. Seeing it happen kind of brings it all home, though, doesn’t it?” I ask him.

  “It does,” he agrees. “Do you know how it—” Jax is distracted by the nickering of spixes outside. It means that Trey, Wayra, and Fenton have returned from the barn. Jax pushes away from the wall. “I need to go pack my gear onto my spix. We can talk about this later. It’s a long journey and we have to get going soon.”

  I nod my head. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll be along in a minute. I’m just going to braid my hair.”

  “Don’t be long. You’re already on the naughty list,” he jokes.

  “There’s a naughty list? And I’m on it?” I ask as if scandalized.

  “You own that list,” he says with a smirk.

  As he walks away, I mutter, “Oh, Jax, that I do.”

  Swiftly plaiting my hair, I warily watch Trey when he enters the tunnel from outside. He doesn’t see me right away, searching instead the place where he’d left me on the floor. As I finish my braid, I knot the end of it.

  I move to where I’d left my bag earlier. Trey meets me near it. “You were right,” he says, reaching out to pull me into his arms for a hug. “I do feel really bad about being a total knob knocker.”

  “I know. You said that in your other apology.”

  “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  I rest my upturned chin against his chest, looking up at his face. “I know you have. You told me that while you were saddling the spixes—you saw me hit my head and you saw me almost stop breathing. Over nothing, as it turns out.”

  He takes a closer look at me, his hand stilling on my cheek where it had been swollen only a few minutes ago. Confusion clouds his eyes. “You hit your head—there was blood—”

  “Remember when I mentioned that cutting my hair causes my body to regenerate cells at a faster rate than normal?”

  He nods his head. “I remember.”

  “I had Jax cut my hair.”

  Trey’s fingers stroke my cheek for a few moments. Then, he leans down and brushes his lips to where I was hurt. “Is there anything you can’t do?” he asks me softly.

  “I can’t swim,” I remind him. He kisses me again. “I’m glad you’re not mad at me anymore. I’m sorry—I wasn’t trying to be a lurker. It’s just that I’m not used to needing someone. I don’t know how to handle it.”

  “You weren’t being a lurker. Our circumstances here are extreme. I want you to need me. I don’t ever want you to stop needing me.” He kisses me; my insides warm as if I’m drinking sunshine.

  “Gennet, we’re loaded,” Wayra says from the exit to the pasture.

  Trey and I both become aware of where we are once more. He takes my hand and leads me outside. I take off my night-vision glasses and follow him blindly, gazing at the stars. They’re far away again, not like they were when I was on the Ship of Skye. The king and queen moons are holding court among them.

  I put my glasses back on while Trey helps me mount a spix. He joins me on its back, sitting behind me. I raise my eyebrows to him. “Is your riding with me a commentary on my equestrian abilities?” I ask him.

  “Maybe, but secretly I’m always looking for any excuse to have you this close to me.” It’s not a lie, which causes me to grin like an idiot. “What shall we name this spix?”

  “Honey Badger,” I reply.

  “Why?” I can tell that he doesn’t know what that is. Maybe they don’t exist here.

  “Because the honey badger is fearless.”

  Wayra hands Trey a blanket made from the camouflage fabric that I was used to seeing them wear when they were in the Forest of O. Trey unfolds it, wrapping it around himself and covering me with it. I’m grateful for the heat it’s giving me. The weather has become decidedly colder than what I’m used to here. The shield that once covered the area is now down, allowing the natural climate to assert itself upon us.

  “This will block our heat signature. If Alameeda ships do a flyover, they’ll just see a group of riderless spixes.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  Trey leans near my ear, being deliberately quiet. I think he’s worried that one or more of the supernatural priestesses are somehow listening. “There are spix stables and training lodges several rotations, journey from here. It’s rural and close to the border of the Forest of Omnicron. That’s where we’re headed.”

  “Is it in the Valley of Thistle?” I ask. I’ve been curious about where Trey grew up since I made up our fake commitment ceremony to fool the Comantre soldiers.

  “No. It’s south of there. We can’t go to Thistle. Kyon will have patrols there searching for you.”

  “Your family!” I say in a startled tone. The spix becomes restless, throwing its head back a couple of times and scaring me more with its wicked-sharp horns.

  Trey makes hushing noises, settling the spix. “They’re already gone from Thistle. If all goes well, they’ll meet us at the lodges.”

  “You mean your parents will be there?” This information doesn’t help me get a handle on my panic.

  “They will. They’re looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I’ll bet,” I mutter sarcastically.

  As the spixes move forward, Trey murmurs, “You’ll like them, Kricket. They’re good people.”

  “I’m sure they are. You’re their son.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Trey’s cheek brushes against mine, causing my insides to quiver.

  “Good people want good things for their family.”

  “And that worries you, why? You’re a good thing, Kricket.”

  I scoff. “Uh-huh. I’m super good, Trey,” I say sarcastically. “Hopefully Charisma will be there too, so they can see what a bullet they dodged by you choosing to commit to me instead of the girl next door whom they’ve loved forever.”

  Trey is quiet behind me. I glance back at him. “What?” I ask, reading the worry on his face.

  “Charisma should be there too,” Trey admits with a cringe.

  I face forward once more. “Well, there’s still a chance we won’t make it there, right? A lot can happen.”

  “Since when are you afraid of anyone or anything?” he asks, nuzzling my neck.

  “Since I found something I don’t want to lose.”

  “There is no chance of you losing me.”

  “You must not have heard about me. I’m trouble.”

  “Oh, I know it. I’ve often said ‘There goes Trouble’ when you leave the room. Wayra,” Trey calls ahead, “what’s Kricket’s security codename?” He keeps his voice low so it won’t carry far.

  Wayra glances at us over his shoulder. With a grin, he replies, “That’d be Trouble, sir.”

  Trey squeezes me tighter. “See? Trouble.” He smiles. “You’re the navigator for my next t
hrill . . . and every thrill after that.”

  CHAPTER 13

  WORLD TURNS TO STONE

  Only the wind whispers as we move along dry riverbeds and over lush fields that go on for miles in every direction. As we come to a small knoll, I chance a glance back at the Isle of Skye behind us. The horizon is on fire. Smoke rises into the air as if the city is the chimney stack of Ethar. Soft thumps sound in the distance. Whatever is happening back there is horrific. I look to the faces of the Cavars with me. None of them looks back.

  Not too long after we leave, an Alameeda ship approaches us. Hearing the rotorless engine makes me dig my nails into my thighs. My legs tense on the spix’s flanks, causing it to dance sideways. Trey has to work hard to control it with the reins. “Relax, Kricket,” Trey whispers in my ear, “they can’t see us.”

  I think he forgot for a second that I know when he’s lying. As soon as he notices my stark-white face, he amends, “They can see us, but they won’t. They’re using infrared. The blanket hides us from them because they can’t see our heat signature; they can only see the heat of what looks like riderless spixes. Since they’re not looking for spixes, they’re looking for other modes of transport. We’re invisible to them. Trust me.”

  I relax my legs enough to make the spix less anxious. The other Cavars have let their reins go slack on their spixes, allowing them to wander haphazardly, giving them a staggered, unpurposeful gait. When the ship doesn’t notice us and slips away over the horizon, I sag back against Trey.

  But, a few minutes later, humming vibrates the ground. Trey whistles softly, waving his hand toward a small copse of trees. We just make it to them when twenty or more low-flying E-Ones move in formation over the horizon line. They’re spread out at the same velocity so that they’re aligned for miles. What’s most disturbing is that they’re so low they resemble crop dusters working the fields.

  I stare up at the canopy of leaves above my head, grateful that the trees haven’t shed them yet. For some reason, I find myself holding my breath. It’s silly, I know that, but I do it nonetheless. I don’t look at the E-Ones as they grow ever closer; it’s as if they’ll know that I’m here if I do. With the camouflage blanket draped over our heads, Trey pulls it tighter to me so that our eyes hardly show.

  The black sinkhole in my stomach eases a bit as the rotorless heli-vehicles move away, but the goose bumps covering my body don’t recede. Even when the E-Ones disappear over the far hill, no one and nothing moves for several minutes, least of all, my goose bumps.

  Trey begins to guide the spix out from the safety of the trees. I put out my hand, covering his on the reins. “Wait!” I plead. Wiggling out from under the blanket, I try to gulp in deep breaths of air, but it’s no good, I’m going to be sick. Swinging my leg over the side of our spix, I jump down from its back. Falling to my knees, I get up and stagger a few steps to the trunk of a tree where I lean my hand against it and vomit again and again.

  We’re never going to make it, I think, retching violently. Kyon is going to find us and he’s going to kill Trey and make me watch. I’m not panicking now. This isn’t panic; this is different. This is me finally grasping the reality of what’s happening. When you have nothing to lose, failing doesn’t come with the same kind of consequences. Now I have Trey. Failure in this means his death. I can’t fail.

  I think it’s the soldier in Trey who knows better than to crowd me. He allows me a little space. Dismounting from Honey Badger, he doesn’t rush over to hold my hair back for me. I prefer that. His attention is unwanted at this moment.

  When there’s nothing left in my stomach, I finally stop retching. I straighten up, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. I glance over my shoulder; Trey is facing away from me with his back leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree. Jax is next to me, handing me a canteen of water. I take it, pouring some in my mouth. I swish it around, and then spit it out. I hand it back to Jax, and he gives me a mintlike leaf that they use to refortify enamel. I take it and put it in my mouth.

  Wayra has been leaning against the trunk of the tree adjacent to mine. He pushes off it, saying, “Finally. I was starting to think you were some kind of heartless android.”

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “You finally did something normal,” Wayra replies.

  I laugh humorlessly. “Puking my guts out is normal?”

  He nods stoically. “It is. Some soldiers do it before their first battle. But the courageous ones don’t.”

  “Are you calling me a coward?” I ask him in confusion.

  He frowns. “Is this your first fight?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Wayra agrees, “No, it’s not. It’s only the soldiers with courage that puke later on—the ones who’ve been through something brutal, like being captured and tortured. They know what it means to be recaptured. It’s not the same as not knowing, is it?”

  I shake my head no again.

  “No, it’s not. But they go on anyway. They find a way to thwart the enemy. I puked my guts out before a battle; I had just returned to active duty after being shredded by a sanctum amp. I knew what it meant to be wounded. I wasn’t looking to repeat it.”

  “What did you do to get over the fear?”

  “I lived through it,” he says. “I got good at what I do. I made sure that I was the best at my job. You’re a time-traveling polar vortex, Kricket. You can make the future the shape of heartache for those knob knockers if you want to. Do you want to?”

  I nod.

  He scowls. “Was that a yes?” he barks out militantly.

  “Yes!”

  “Well, all right then! Puke and rally!” He raises his index finger and moves it in a circle in the air. “Let’s go kill something.” He turns and strides away, back to his spix. Jax follows him, shaking his head. The Cavars remount their spixes once more. Trey waits for me to join him.

  “How hard was it not to hover right then?” I ask him, as he leads me back to our spix.

  “You have no idea,” he replies. He lifts me up onto our spix before climbing on it to sit behind me. After the blanket covers me once more, Trey pulls me against his chest. He kisses my temple. “This is going to be a long night, but it will end. I’ll keep you safe.”

  He believes that.

  The night is filled with near misses and hard riding. After many long hours, I forget to be scared, because my body aches too much to worry about something that might happen. Being on a spix like this is its own special torture. I find myself praying for dawn just so we can stop. A few hours before the sun rises, we come to a wooded area. Entering between the trees, the Cavars find a decent tree-shrouded clearing in which to halt the spixes.

  Trey climbs off first and then reaches up to help me dismount. When he sets me on the ground, he continues to hold my arm under my elbow, because I’m a little wobbly. I walk around for a little bit, stretching my legs. Everyone but me begins digging a hole in the ground with mechanized shovels that do a lot of the work for the soldiers. In no time at all, the place resembles a mass burial site. As I walk up next to Hollis, who is shoulder-deep in a hole, I ask, “What are you guys, vampires?” I watch him line his grave with a waterproof foam spray before lying down in it to check its level of comfort.

  “What’s a vampire?” Hollis says, staring up at me from his supine position in the hole.

  “You don’t know what a vampire is?”

  “No. Is it as handsome as I am?” he asks.

  I frown to keep from laughing. “Er . . . not exactly. A vampire is an undead creature who feeds on human blood for survival. It sleeps in a coffin and you can only kill one by putting a wooden stake through its heart.”

  Hollis looks disturbed. “That is terrifying, Kricket. I am never visiting Earth.”

  My eyes widen as I hold up my hands and say, “No! It’s mythical—”

  He pulls a small piece of twine th
at’s looped in his camouflage blanket: the pile of blanket at the foot of his trench slides over the top of the grave. The fabric is on a chameleon setting that takes on the color and texture of its surroundings so that the hole and Hollis are completely hidden from sight beneath it. “Good night, vampire assassin,” I hear him call from within the dirt.

  Jax nudges my shoulder. “Kricket,” he says. When he has my attention, he hands me one of the personal toiletry totes, like the kind I remember from when we traveled here from Earth. “You may want to use this now. We’ll be staying down most of the daylight hours.”

  “Thanks.” Jax moves away as I rummage through it, seeing things in it that we didn’t have before, like hair remover spray and scented oils. I smile, because I know he must have packed these with me in mind. I slink off to find a private place. Hiding behind a large tree, I use the soapy sponge in the pack to clean up as best as I can, and then I use just about everything else in the tote as well.

  When I return, the spixes are wandering around free, munching on grass. All the supplies have been buried in trenches. Most of the Cavars are in their holes. Trey is waiting for me by a rather large trench. As I approach him, he jumps down into it, holding up his arms to help me in. After he lowers me in, I realize that I’ll need a leg up in order to get out of it because it’s deeper than the other trenches. The waterproof foam lining the walls and floor has hardened, giving the trench iridescent shell-like walls. Trey has spread out mats on the floor over the foam, so it’s actually comfortable inside our grave. After I lie down, Trey takes off his shirt and lies beside me, pulling the twine so that our camouflage blanket covers the mouth of the hole.

  I quickly snuggle up next to Trey. With my head on his chest, I say softly, “This is quite a burrow you’re dug for us. It’s twice as big as Hollis’s hole.”

  Trey smiles. “There’s two of us and we’ll have to stay in it for hours, so making it bigger made sense to me. But really, I was just working off some demons.”