Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  “Then, you know where the ship is going?”

  “Nope,” Etienne said, and when Chatine extended her hand toward a large blue dial, he swiped it away and cried, “I swear! I don’t know. The Vangarde didn’t give us the location up front. We were just ordered to fly their operatives to Bastille, pick up their precious cargo, and fly back to Laterre. We were told they would direct the extraction ship to a destination once the cargo was aboard.”

  “By cargo, you mean Citizen Rousseau, right?” Chatine asked.

  “Yeah, sure, whoever. Don’t know. Don’t care. We try not to get involved with matters of the Regime.”

  “But isn’t that exactly what you just did? Get involved? I mean, breaking out Citizen Rousseau is an act of war against the Regime.”

  “Maybe for them. But for us, it was a simple business deal.” He tapped on the view of the cargo hold.

  “So you’re mercenaries?”

  Etienne cocked his head, looking unsettled. “No. We try to keep to ourselves most of the time. Until we need something that we can’t make or grow ourselves—like zyttrium—and then we sell our services.”

  “That’s a mercenary.”

  “And here we go again with the labels. What’s up with that?”

  “You’re the one who called me a gridder.”

  “That’s …”—he hesitated, quirking his lips—“… different.”

  “Uh-huh. So you have no idea where the other ship is going?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Can’t you AirLink them or something?”

  “We don’t do AirLinks. And the Vangarde specifically requested no communication. As an extra precaution.”

  Chatine felt frustration swell in her chest. “But I need to know. My brother is on that ship.”

  A chill splintered through her at the sound of that word. It was the first time she’d said it aloud in years.

  My brother.

  My brother.

  Etienne shrugged. “Sorry. I can’t help you.”

  With a huff, Chatine turned her gaze out the window, checking to see how far away from Laterre they were. Once they landed, she would just have to go looking for Henri herself. She knew where the Vangarde base was. She’d found it just before she was sent to Bastille. She would start there. And she would not stop until she found him again.

  “When are we landing?” she asked.

  Etienne swiveled his chair back toward the control console and glanced at one of the monitors. “One minute until atmosphere break.”

  “Great,” Chatine said tightly.

  Etienne jabbed at a switch on the console.

  “Autopilote disabled,” the ship said.

  Etienne took hold of the throttle and yanked it back. The engines made a hiccupping noise and then roared to life. Grabbing the contrôleur, he began to steer the ship down toward the great blanket of clouds that encompassed Laterre. As they descended, the ship’s dials and switches wobbled in their plates and the small metal cabinets built into the cockpit’s hull rattled like a mouthful of loose teeth.

  Hobbling as fast as she could back to her seat, Chatine quickly buckled her restraints and stared out at the approaching planet. The clouds came closer and closer until, with a slam and judder, the ship was diving into them. Through them. White and gray consumed every window while the engines whinnied and revved under their seats.

  And then, in a burst of light and rain, she was back. Back beneath the canopy of clouds and soaring above a vast, dark ocean.

  The Secana Sea, Chatine thought, a bubble of nostalgia rising up inside of her.

  She’d only been gone from Laterre for two weeks. She couldn’t believe she’d actually missed it, but she had.

  Chatine stared out the cockpit window as Etienne guided the ship over swells of choppy water that seemed to go on forever. Morning had just started to push its way through the night, and the ocean was beginning to glimmer and brighten. Before long, Chatine could see land coming into view. She spotted the vast green mass of the Forest Verdure first. A seemingly endless expanse of trees, hugging every hill and mountain, with the lumber town of Bûcheron almost hidden at its center. To the left, she saw the Frets, huddled around each other like a group of rusting beasts at a watering hole. And, off in the distance, Chatine could see Ledôme up on its hill, twinkling and glowing amid the heavy dawn mist.

  Vallonay, she thought to herself.

  She’d made it.

  She grabbed hold of her seat restraints, bracing herself for another sharp turn. But then, a second later, she realized that the ship was not banking. It was not even slowing. Etienne continued to fly over the trees, past the Frets, Ledôme, and the low-lying ferme-lands.

  “Where are we going?” Chatine asked warily.

  Etienne shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t tell you. Top secret.” He leaned over, opened one of the metal cabinets next to Chatine, and pulled out a long strip of fabric. “Which reminds me, you’ll have to put this blindfold on.”

  “What? No.”

  “Those are the rules.”

  “I thought there was only one rule.”

  “Which you’ve already broken, like, three times.”

  Chatine let out an exasperated sigh. “Just drop me off in Vallonay, please.”

  This made Etienne cackle. “Sure, right, right. Me, a member of a community that the Ministère doesn’t even know exists, I’ll just land my ship, which the Ministère doesn’t know I have, in the middle of Laterre’s capital. Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

  Chatine threw up her hands. “I thought this ship had stealth mode.”

  “Yeah, stealth mode. Not stupidity override mode.”

  “Well, then just drop me off at the edge of the city. In the Forest Verdure or something. I’ll find my way back.”

  “Brilliant plan,” Etienne commended, steering the ship into a sharp left turn. “Now, tell me, will you be walking on that wounded leg of yours? Or crawling? Just wondering.”

  Chatine balled her fists, trying to keep her temper under control. “I have to find him!”

  “Look,” Etienne said, his voice softening with what sounded like sympathy. “We’re nearly there. As soon as the other ship gets back, you can ask Faustine about your brother, okay?”

  Chatine froze, a debilitating shiver running down her spine. “Nearly where?”

  “Just put on the blindfold please so I can land.”

  “Still don’t trust me, huh?”

  “Trust is a two-way street, Gridder.”

  With a grunt, Chatine snatched the fabric from Etienne and tied it around the back of her head. She could feel Etienne’s hand waving in front of her face. “I can’t see anything,” she muttered.

  A moment later, Chatine felt a familiar tug in her stomach. The pressure building behind her ears, threatening to pop. They were descending.

  “Where are you taking me?” Chatine asked.

  “To the camp.”

  “A Défecteur camp?” she screeched.

  The pilote huffed at the word but ignored her.

  With the blindfold on, Chatine felt vulnerable and disoriented. She had a hard time tracking the ship’s sharp turns and deceleration. Then, finally, the engine settled into a low hum and Etienne removed the fabric from her eyes.

  Desperately, Chatine searched the horizon for any sign of civilization, but there was nothing in front of them, behind them, or to either side of them except vast stretches of ice and frozen grass, punctuated by craggy outcrops of rock.

  “Um,” she said anxiously, glancing around at the unforgiving landscape, “This is the Terrain Perdu.”

  Etienne shrugged, as though this were an insignificant detail. As though it weren’t a well-known fact that no one had ever survived a single night out here in this frozen tundra.

  “You call it the Terrain Perdu,” he said nonchalantly. “We just call it home.”

  - CHAPTER 27 - MARCELLUS

  OVER THE SPAN OF HIS nineteen years of life, Marcellus had seen man
y things and visited many places. He’d circled this planet countless times. He’d flown billions of kilomètres amongst the stars. He’d traveled to every planet in the System Divine.

  Except Albion.

  Because no one from Laterre ever visited Albion.

  Marcellus had heard plenty of stories about its picturesque blue skies and flawless weather. Being the most similar in landscape and climate to the First World, the families of the Human Conservation Commission had squabbled ruthlessly over the planet when the System Divine had first been discovered. But no two families had fought harder than the Paresse family and the Bellingham family. It had been the start of a five-century-long feud that still waged to this day, marking Albion the number-one enemy of Laterre.

  And now, Marcellus had just volunteered to go there.

  “Are you insane?” Gabriel shouted. “You can’t go to Albion.”

  “Didn’t you hear him?” Cerise fired back. “The general is building a weapon that will be delivered in two weeks. He must be stopped!”

  They were standing in the middle of the Tourbay, with Cerise’s cruiseur idling nearby. Even though the Sols were rising and the skies were slowly brightening, the abundant mist of the boglands provided an effective cover. Just as it once had for Mabelle and her Montfer cell of the Vangarde. Before her life was snuffed out in an instant.

  Marcellus hastily pushed the thought from his mind. He had to compartmentalize. He could not find the courage to do what he’d just sworn to do and grieve at the same time.

  “But you can’t just go to Albion!” Gabriel said, exasperated. “It’s an enemy planet. You’ll get shot right out of space before you even get close! It’s a suicide mission.”

  Marcellus kneaded his hands together, his heart pounding in his chest.

  Was he insane?

  Was this a suicide mission?

  “Maybe so,” Marcellus admitted. “But I have no other choice. This has to be done.”

  Gabriel scoffed. “Oh, so you’re just going to waltz right onto Albion and be like, ‘Hey! I hear you’re making a weapon for General Bonnefaçon. Any idea who’s working on that, because I’d like to talk to them.’ ”

  “No, genius,” Cerise snapped. “I can send a message back to the source through the probe. Alouette can code it, right?” She looked at Alouette who nodded. “We’ll pretend to be this Denise person, because clearly the source trusts her, and we’ll ask the source where to meet.”

  Marcellus gaped at Cerise, thoroughly impressed.

  “Are you all insane?” Gabriel screeched. “Even if you do somehow miraculously manage to get into Albion airspace, have you not heard the rumors about the Albion Royal Guard? Plucked out of their houses as infants and trained to be killers?”

  “No one is asking you to come with us,” Cerise snapped.

  Marcellus blinked and reeled on Cerise. “Wait a minute, us?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Cerise said, as though this had already been decided and the detail had simply slipped Marcellus’s mind.

  “You absolutely are not coming with me.”

  “Yes, I am,” she declared. “You’re going to need my help.”

  “No, I won’t. Just go back to Ledôme and—”

  “I can’t go back to Ledôme!” she shouted, startling Marcellus.

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” She took a breath, steadying herself. “Because I just can’t, okay? I’m going with you, Marcellus, and that’s the end of it. You’re going to need a good hacker. And you’re going to need someone who can get you a voyageur. Have you already forgotten about this?”

  Cerise tapped on her TéléCom and turned it around so everyone could see Marcellus’s arrest warrant glowing on the screen.

  Marcellus felt like he was being sucked right into the marshy ground beneath his feet. He had almost forgotten about that. The entire planet would be out looking for him. He couldn’t just walk into the Vallonay spaceport and order a voyageur.

  “And you’re not the only one who’s wanted,” Cerise shot a pointed look at Alouette and Gabriel.

  “What?” Alouette asked.

  Cerise sighed, like she was growing impatient with being the smartest person in the group. She flicked her finger across the screen of the TéléCom again. The image of Marcellus’s face grew smaller, and then, beside it, two more faces appeared: Alouette and Gabriel.

  “Arrest warrant for Gabriel Courfey and Unknown Female, last seen escaping from the Montfer Policier Precinct. Female is considered a high-priority fugitive. Any information leading to her whereabouts should be AirLinked directly to the Ministère headquarters.”

  Alouette sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Don’t worry,” Gabriel whispered to her. “I’ve got, like, a hundred of those. And they haven’t caught me yet.” He stopped, a thought just occurring to him. “ ‘Unknown Female’? Wait, how are you not in the Communiqué?”

  “In fact,” Cerise said, ignoring Gabriel. “I seem to be the only person here who’s not wanted by the Policier.” She narrowed her eyes at Marcellus. “Which, right now, makes me your greatest asset.”

  Surrendering a sigh, Marcellus looked from the TéléCom to Cerise. “Okay, how do you propose we do this?”

  Cerise beamed triumphantly as she flipped her TéléCom back around. “I’m glad you asked. Once we’re out of Laterrian airspace, I can place a cloaking code on the ship and override the navigation system to reroute us to Albion.”

  “You can do that?” Marcellus asked.

  “Like I said before,” Cerise flashed him a pointed look. “I’m an expert hacker. One could even say I’m soop.”

  “Don’t say ‘soop,’ ” Gabriel said warningly.

  “Why not? It’s Third Estate slang meaning ‘the best.’ ”

  “I know what it means,” Gabriel said. “But you can’t wear that hat and say ‘soop.’ ”

  Cerise huffed and straightened her rhinestone-studded beret. “I told you, it’s not a hat—”

  “Just order the voyageur,” Marcellus cut her off before another argument could break out between them.

  “On it!” Cerise chirped. She bounded back toward the cruiseur and disappeared inside.

  “It’s confirmed. You are all insane.” Gabriel threw up his hands and, with a sigh, followed after Cerise.

  Marcellus turned to reboard the cruiseur but was stopped by a gentle hand on his arm. “Wait.” Alouette’s kind, compassionate face almost seemed to glow in the mist. “I think Gabriel might be right. I think you should take a breath and really think this through.”

  “I don’t have time to take a breath,” Marcellus said. “You heard the message. This source knows how to stop the weapon. Someone has to go to Albion. Now. Or the general wins.”

  “Yes, but have you considered your other options?” Alouette asked reasonably.

  “What other options?”

  “Don’t you think you should try to …”—Alouette paused, looking like the next words were difficult for her to say—“contact the Vangarde? They might be able to help. Or, at the very least, shouldn’t you tell them about the message? If Albion is delivering a weapon to the general in two weeks, they should know about it.”

  Marcellus felt a stab of guilt as he looked into Alouette’s large, dark eyes, and the realization hit him. “You don’t know.”

  Of course she didn’t know. She’d left the Vangarde. And she didn’t have a Skin, so she couldn’t have seen the Universal Alert from earlier tonight.

  “Don’t know what?” she asked.

  Marcellus rubbed at the stubble that was forming on his jaw. He’d barely slept a full hour in the Renards’ couchette and the fatigue was starting to creep in. How could he possibly break this news to her? He glanced anxiously around the Tourbay, as though searching for help.

  “Last night,” he began hesitantly, “the Vangarde tried to break Citizen Rousseau out of Bastille.”

  Something flickered in Alouette’s eyes that Marcell
us couldn’t identify. For a moment, he wondered if she even knew who Citizen Rousseau was. Last time he’d seen her, she didn’t even seem to know who the Vangarde was.

  But then, in a tentative voice, she asked, “Did they— Did they succeed? Did they get her out?”

  Marcellus let out a heavy sigh as the memory of that ship vanishing in a deadly flash of light replayed in his mind. “No. My grandfather discovered the Vangarde’s plan. He sent in a fleet of combatteurs, and they shot down her ship as it was taking off.” He lowered his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  Alouette stood motionless next to him, her face gaunt, her breathing shallow. Then, as though remembering something, she reached into the bag strapped around her chest and pulled out a long string of metallic beads. Marcellus recognized them as the same ones she’d been wearing that day in the Forest Verdure, when they’d sat around the fire and she’d helped him remember how to read the Forgotten Word. The ones with the metal tag that said: LITTLE LARK.

  “Who else was on the ship?” she asked vacantly as she ran the beads through her fingers in a slow, methodical rhythm. “How many others are …” her voice broke off. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

  “I don’t know,” Marcellus said hastily, once again trying to push that dreadful memory of Mabelle’s face from his mind. “I’m sorry. All I know is that”—he dragged the toe of his boot anxiously through the mud—“I haven’t been able to make contact with the Vangarde since.”

  A small sound escaped Alouette’s lips, almost like a hiccup. And for a long time, she just stood there, unblinking and unseeing, her eyes locked on the mist, her mind somewhere far, far away from here.

  “What does that mean?” she managed to say at last, her voice a cracked whisper.

  Marcellus shook his head. He didn’t want to say it. Up until now, he hadn’t said it. He’d barely managed to think it. But he had a feeling he needed to say it. For Alouette. For himself. For Laterre.

  He shuddered out a breath. “I think it means that I’m on my own.”

  He closed his eyes, letting the truth sink in like heavy fog in his bones. He felt something slip into his hand, and he was certain it was the mist. But when he opened his eyes, he saw Alouette’s fingers interlaced with his own.