The Last Hope

by Krista Ritchie

  “You didn’t answer her question,” Court snaps.

  “I didn’t,” Stork agrees. “I don’t answer many of your questions, and I’ve also realized that doesn’t stop you from asking them a billion and one times. But we all have our flaws.” Not letting us edge in a word, he adds, “I told Hopscotch to pull this stack of books from our archive. If you prefer digital, I’ll flag a folder in the digital library that covers the topic.”

  Court shoots me a look that says, keep pressing. When we awoke this morning, I mentioned how I’d try to interrogate Stork more. Or as Court called it—irritating Stork.

  “But you know,” I prod further. “You know what the date means for humans?”

  A quarter of a smile lifts his lips and he shakes his head slowly. “You’re incorrigible.”

  I should be grating on him, but he looks amused. Pressing my lips together, I stare at him openly, trying to find a crack I can wiggle through.

  He studies me just as freely. And then suddenly, piercing sirens blare. We all turn. My hands fly to my ears, and blue lights strobe aggressively.

  Stork’s face folds into seriousness. Swiftly, he’s on his feet and running to the door.

  We’re all quick to follow. Storming after, I yell over the sirens, “What’s going on?!” I’m not sure he can hear me.

  Stork shoves into the courtyard. More blue lights blink along balconies, and the caustic siren wails more.

  I wince and distinguish an automated voice.

  “East Wing Lockdown. West Wing Lockdown. North Wing Lockdown. South Wing C-Jays to the Docking Bay. Code Blue. Code Blue.”

  Stork peers back at us. “Saltarians are on the ship.”

  FIFTEEN

  Court

  Stork instructs us to stay put in our barracks. For our safety. He leaves us in the atrium.

  Pure chaos, sirens blaring, blue lights flashing and glistening off the plunge pool, Lucretzia’s crew rushes forward and backward. Some seek solace in their rooms, others prepare for a confrontation. Armoring their chests and heads, their hurried footsteps descend a spiral staircase.

  Nothing inside me says to listen to Stork.

  To wait.

  I’ve never been good at waiting. Logic, reason, they beckon me to see the fight firsthand. To not remain in darkness in this room. The only interaction between Saltarians and humans that I’ve witnessed has been an execution of the fleet admirals.

  I’d like to see more. To understand more.

  Knowledge has always been my greatest asset, and denying myself of that is like purposefully wedging my body in a suffocating cage.

  It’s settled. Just like that. I can’t—I can’t wait.

  But it’s a risk, one that I’m not so willing to pull Franny and Mykal into. “You two stay here—”

  “No,” Mykal growls, eyes darkening. He understands what I’m about to do.

  “I need to see both sides,” I tell him, conviction in my voice. “I need to see the differences.” I need to see what we’re fighting for.

  Mykal’s nose flares. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

  “We’re coming along,” Franny says heatedly, “thank you very much.”

  There is no time to weigh options and dangers and lives. Hastily, I say, “Then we have to be quick.” I hurry.

  Sprinting, I chase after the clamoring C-Jays in military garb. We pass through the first silver-curtained archway and descend the spiral staircase in dizzying turn after turn, Franny and then Mykal right behind me.

  No crew flinches at our presence, all engrossed in this mad dash. All focused on the threat at large.

  As soon as we touch the flat tarmac—combat jets and various starcrafts parked in endless rows—I easily spot the C-Jays. Nearly one hundred of them block something from view on the docking bay. They stand at the ready. Sporting bronze helmets and leather skirts, weapons are unsheathed and aimed straight ahead.

  I can’t see the Saltarians, and my only plan is to remain on the outskirts. Get a better vantage, but try and stay unseen. My wish is to watch, not interfere.

  Screams ravage from the Saltarian enemies. And then I hear something more distinguishable between the garbled yells.

  It’s muffled at first.

  I can’t be sure.

  Franny reaches out for my hand and I meet her widened, confused eyes.

  I hear it now. A desperate last attempt. A plea.

  “ETIAN!”

  Heart in throat, I run.

  SIXTEEN

  Court

  “Etian!” he screams again. Gutturally. Pleadingly.

  Kinden has found us? Impossible, illogical—and yet, my older brother once believed in the unbelievable. He believed that I could be alive when I was supposed to be dead.

  I hear him and his unfailing honesty in my mind, as children.

  I see him just before we headed to bed, as he said, “Wake me before you leave.”

  Wake me before you leave.

  Crushing sadness builds on top of me and somehow my feet carry me ahead. I run.

  Kinden can’t die for me, but at StarDust, he committed a crime worth a life sentence in Vorkter, so we could fly off the planet. So I could be free.

  There is no bigger sacrifice he could’ve made.

  “BROTHER!” His voice is louder, more caustic and urgent.

  Kinden.

  His name claws tooth-and-nail to reach my lips.

  I run faster.

  Coming upon the horde of C-Jays, I push through. Swiftly, I slip between armored bodies and create a pathway.

  Mykal is wider and bumps into shoulders. Every whack of muscle on muscle, bone to bone, almost ropes me backward. Like the force is from me, but I blink hard out of the sensation.

  Franny shoves her way forward.

  We draw suspicion and gazes, but no one gropes for Mykal. No one seizes Franny. No one lays a hand on us, and as we race toward the screams, C-Jays begin to call out, “Knave!”

  Stork is the only one allowed to touch us.

  A few try to barricade me from the scene. “You shouldn’t be here!” a man yells, puffing his chest out. “These are Saltarians; they want to murder you, mate!”

  He won’t.

  I’m tall, but their helmets shield my view.

  Screams are mangled with curses and threats—and I imagine my brother beneath the tip of a blade. My chest ignites on fire, blazing with more than just my rampant emotion.

  Eyes burnt and neck strained, I yell out, “KINDEN!”

  “BROTHER!” His voice is muffled but distinctly who I remember. Who I know.

  Every tendon in my body snaps into action. Not slowing, I slip past another shoulder. The Knave Squadron is on the front line. Their backs to us, Arden still wears his weapon.

  With unseen hands, I pluck an arrow out of his quiver and unbuckle a strap. Able to slip off the bow. I glide around his towering frame.

  Barrett catches sight of me—and then Mykal rams his weight into him. The C-Jay barrels forward and crashes onto his knees.

  I breach the barricade.

  And like a whip of wind, I spin onto the side. Kinden, the Soarcastle sisters, and Zimmer are kneeling, gagged with cloth, wrists bound with rope, and I place the arrow to the bow and draw the string back.

  I aim the iron point at the C-Jays. Almost a hundred wary gazes dart to leaders.

  I grit down, “He’s my brother!”

  “He’s Saltarian!” more than one person shouts.

  Several vehement exclamations follow.

  “He’s not your brother!”

  “He doesn’t bloody care about you!”

  “He’ll kill you!”

  Kinden is on his knees, unable to understand their human language, and even so, he’s only staring at me. Glassy-eyed, like he discovered I came back to life for a second time.

  “Stand down, Court!” Stork yells, rushing through the nearly arm-locked C-Jays to reach Franny. She struggles to bypass Captain Venita, who uses a metal shield to obst
ruct her passage.

  “They’re our friends!” Franny screams. “You can trust them! Let them go; let them go!”

  Mykal has already stormed ahead. On my side, he drops to his knees and unbinds my brother first. I sense the knotted and frayed rope between his rough fingers.

  Padgett Soarcastle has her back to her younger sister. Attempting to untie one another’s rope.

  Zimmer stays still. Scrawny and shaggy-haired, he looks untroubled. Like he’s on a leisure adventure.

  “First, lower your weapons,” I demand, not raising my voice. Taut string is pressed tensely against my nose and lips, fingers beneath my chin.

  I only know archery because of Mykal.

  He taught me in the winter wood.

  C-Jays protest, yelling, “Don’t be dim! They’ll hurt you!”

  “We know these Saltarians,” I say smoothly. “Drop your weapons. They will not harm anyone on the Lucretzia.”

  “He’s dehydrated!” a C-Jay shouts. “Messed up in the head.”

  “This is what happens when they’ve been starved for thirty-one days.”

  “It’s not their fault.”

  Gods dammit.

  I refuse to question my sanity. These people have none of my memories. None of my history. I’m a boy of eighteen years, but I’ve lived beyond anything they can possibly comprehend.

  Mykal unravels Kinden’s rope and runs to help Zimmer.

  Hands free, Kinden yanks off his gag and picks himself up to a self-important stance. Unafraid. Confidence still ringing out in every fiber of his being, my brother saunters over to me.

  C-Jays scream so forcefully. Faces reddening and voices cracking in desperate pleas. Begging me to move, to look out.

  To protect myself.

  Understanding hits me all at once.

  I blink back brutal emotion. Choked on a raw feeling.

  Humanity.

  I always dreamed about a world where people try to save other people. Now I’m aiming an arrow at what I fought for. What I went to prison for. What I would’ve died for.

  My chin quakes, my arms tremble.

  Kinden nears, seeing them. Seeing me. And he cups my bicep. “This is breaking you, little brother.” He guides my arm down with my weapon. “I’ll survive their anger.”

  I inhale, lashes wet as I blink. And I release my grip on the bow and arrow. Weapon clattering to the ground.

  A hush sweeps over the C-Jays. Whispering, their wide eyes drift from Kinden to me and me to Kinden.

  My chest hits the ground—no, I’m standing. I’m upright.

  Franny.

  It’s Franny.

  She just dove beneath Venita’s shield. Crawling out toward us, she shimmies her elbows on the tarmac until she rises to her feet.

  Stork catches her around the waist—his grip is loose. I sense just how little he holds on, and Franny does too. Questions furrow her brows, and her boil dies to a simmer.

  Mykal only halfway unties Zimmer before shooting upward. Fists clenched, he’s about to charge—

  “Mykal, wait,” I call.

  Nose flaring, he fumes and treks over to me, concentrating more on her senses.

  Kinden asks me, “You trust the one with the earring?”

  “Somewhat,” I admit.

  Mykal splays his arm over my stiffened shoulders and hugs me tight to his side—I breathe deeper in his embrace.

  Gently, Stork eases Franny back into his chest. “No one approach or hurt the Saltarians,” he tells the C-Jays, and to the three of us, he says in the same human language, “Trust me. The fleet needs to trust them before we can move forward in unison.”

  He’s aware the Saga 4 can’t understand this conversation.

  He plans to test their loyalty, and Franny comprehends this as well. Still, I worry. Mykal worries, but then she nods fiercely to me. To him.

  She’s fine.

  I hang on to the words. Letting them sink in until my concern recedes little by little.

  She’s fine.

  I nod back.

  Our pulses sync in an assured rhythm.

  “On the count of three,” Venita bellows to the fleet. “One.”

  Gem and Padgett untangle themselves and wrench their gags to their necks.

  “Two.”

  Gem—the younger and chattier sister—whips her head to me, blond hair frizzed and sticking up. “What are they saying?” Gem pants for breath.

  “Court?” Padgett questions.

  I have to lie. For their sake. “I’m unsure.”

  “Three!” Venita yells and launches a spiked club to Stork.

  Effortlessly clasping the handle, he lifts the spikes against Franny’s throat.

  “Heya! You don’t know what you’re doing!” Zimmer struggles to his feet, tearing at the last shreds of rope on his wrists in alarm. “She can die! She’s not one of us! She’s not one of us!”

  A pang of hurt rocks Franny back.

  In perfect Saltarian, Stork tells my brother and friends, “You want to save her, come fight for her. Otherwise, watch her die.”

  Zimmer curses at Stork, yelling obscenities, and he races forward, slipping on rope that falls off his wrist. He catches his balance and keeps pace. “Are you mad?!”

  Stork moves Franny into Venita’s arms, and wearing a protective breastplate but no helmet, he confronts Zimmer.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Franny shouts at Stork, fear ratcheting her voice.

  He drops the club.

  Zimmer slams a fist into his jaw, and Stork hardly flinches before returning a blow to his gut. The Fast-Tracker doubles over, and while they both tussle, I look to my right.

  The Soarcastle sisters are more methodical. Devising a strategy, Padgett runs to my fallen weapon. “Take this.” She scrambles to pick up the bow and arrow. “You know how to use it.” She tries to push the weapon to my chest, but I raise my hands.

  She freezes. “What am I missing, Court?”

  “Release your grip!” Gem yells, sprinting her fastest to Venita, who curves her bicep around Franny’s neck.

  “Gem!” Padgett shouts, taking one step toward her sister—and then Stork pushes Zimmer hard and he staggers back.

  Stork narrows his gaze at the youngest Soarcastle. Probably thinking the same as me. What is she going to do without a weapon?

  Gem dives.

  For Venita’s legs.

  The Earthen captain is quicker. She kicks Gem, sandaled foot meeting cheek in a hard thwack.

  Padgett forgets about my unknown intentions, and she lifts the bow and arrow—now aimed for Venita. “Let Franny go. Lest you want a hole in your head.”

  Stork holds out a hand. “There’s no need for that.” His voice is casual, unconcerned. “How about we just go with a deal?” His Saltarian is fluent and crisp and the other C-Jays glance to him with utter confusion.

  “What kind of deal?” Kinden asks.

  My nerves shift, unsettled. Not my nerves … Mykal.

  He doesn’t know if this is another ploy.

  It has to be.

  “We’ll let Franny go,” Stork says. “If all four of you agree to spend the same time in our brig that your friends spent in yours.” Thirty-one-days.

  No …

  Kinden glares. “That wasn’t our brig.”

  “I need an answer,” Stork says. “Five seconds.”

  This better be another ruse. I won’t have my brother imprisoned on any starcraft. But my stomach twists, sickened. This time Franny is the origin. Her eyes ping from Zimmer to Gem. She wouldn’t wish what we went through on anyone, least of all them.

  “Two,” Stork counts down.

  “We’ll do it,” Gem says first. “Padgett and I. We’ll go to your brig. As long as you don’t hurt Franny.”

  “Me too.” Zimmer nods.

  Kinden glances at me, wary. He doesn’t want to leave me. I don’t want him to either.

  Stork sees this. “It’s all four of you or no deal.”

  “Go,” I tell
Kinden. “I’ll see you later.” It’s a ruse, I remind myself. He’s not going anywhere.

  Kinden pats a hand on my shoulder before he looks to Stork. “Thirty-one days. Not a day more.”

  “It’s a deal,” Stork says and then nods to Venita. In the human language, he says, “Release Franny. Take these four to the brig.”

  Everything moves too quickly.

  Color drains from Mykal’s cheeks. Bile rises to my throat. Franny is frozen in shock. All three of us, rooted to the ground in confusion. Hands grab at my brother. Hands grab at Gem and Padgett. Hands grab at Zimmer. And all four of them are compliant as they’re dragged away.

  My head only floats back to my body when I lose sight of Kinden. The remaining C-Jays disperse, leaving a barren docking bay.

  Stork is my first thought. “You bastard,” I growl.

  “You have to trust me,” Stork says, worry cinching his blue eyes.

  “You’re making it rather fucking difficult,” I sneer.

  “They’re not really headed for the brig … right?” Mykal asks.

  Stork takes a tight breath. “Just for a day—”

  “You lying wart,” Franny curses.

  “I couldn’t mention this part,” Stork explains. “The fleet needs to trust them. And a piss-poor fistfight from that scrawny one won’t cut it. One voluntary day in the brig should do the job, and it’ll be enough to prove that your Saltarian friends care about humans. That we’re all on the same side.”

  But Kinden, the Soarcastle sisters, and Zimmer all think their imprisonment will last thirty-one days.

  That’s the test.

  “How do we know you won’t keep them in the brig longer?” I ask.

  “You don’t,” Stork says. “That’s why it’s called trust, mate.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Court

  One day passes, and Stork proves he’s not a complete liar. My brother. My friends. The four of them are allowed to leave the Lucretzia brig.

  Stork had also spoken honestly when he said that the Romulus released the Saga 4 on the first day. Over food and drink, Kinden explains that they were tagged as bludraders and forced to vacate the premises. Before they left, they were told that Franny, Mykal, and I were humans. They spent thirty-some days trying to intercept Romulus communications.