This Shattered World

by Amie Kaufman

  “Get out.” My voice low with anger, I sound nothing like myself.

  He shakes Sean’s grip off his arm, then lets Mike and Turlough guide him toward the tunnel. “Make sure McBride stays out there,” I tell them, my voice shaking with adrenaline. Sean stays to help me with Jubilee. We can’t leave her here, now that McBride knows where to find her. Sean wouldn’t condemn even a trodaire to that fate.

  Jubilee is barely conscious as I untie her hands, and she’s murmuring incoherently—maybe in Chinese again, I can’t tell. There’s a storage room up closer to the harbor that’s been a cell for a long time now, for use if anyone got too trigger-happy and needed to cool their heels overnight. It was too exposed, too easy for someone to wander by and discover her, but now I wish I’d locked her there and left her unbound. No matter who she is or what she’s done, she doesn’t deserve to be tied down, unable to defend herself against a man half mad with grief and anger.

  With Sean’s help I move her up to the storeroom, ignoring the faces that watch us go. They all know now who we’ve captured—there’s no point hiding her anymore. There’s a ratty mattress in the corner, and we lower her down there. Sean shoots me a long look and, without another word, vanishes again. I know he’s going to make sure that McBride stays where he is.

  I pull a blanket over her still form before crouching beside the bed to study her face. The cavern’s bathed in the soft, eerie green glow of bioluminescence—the wispfire that grows all over Avon likes to cluster in these damp caves. But despite the poor light, I can tell her face looks ashen, her dark hair a wild tangle, so out of place on such a perfect soldier. My fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and smooth it back. Instead I run my hands down her side, keeping my fingers light. Her ribs are broken—that much is certain when her voice tangles in a sob at my touch. Her breathing is steady, so I think her lungs are okay, and she’s not coughing blood. The beating’s opened up the wound from my gun, though, and she needs treatment as soon as I make sure no one else gets the bright idea to take their rage out on her.

  My gaze lifts to find her watching me through my examination, her brown eyes grave.

  I was wrong, I want to say, my lips frozen. I scan Jubilee’s bruised face, her lips parted and brows drawn. All she’ll care about now is that the Fianna tied her down and beat her. In a single stroke, McBride has managed to destroy any chance I might have had at convincing her, at convincing any of them, to listen to me.

  I push to my feet in silence, ignoring the lead in my heart and setting the canteen down beside the bed for her. I have to get out there and try to limit the damage—I know what McBride will do if I’m not there to counter him. The light of the wispfire is dim, but at least she won’t be trapped in darkness again. Then I shut the door behind me and double-check the lock before I walk away.

  They’re already fighting in the main cavern when I walk in. Sean and McBride stand toe to toe, two dozen others crowded around.

  “And if they say yes to a trade, and we don’t have her alive?” Sean’s demanding, heated, ready to start shoving. “What then, genius?”

  But McBride’s no fool. That’s exactly what he’s hoping will happen. Standing in the doorway, I ache for my sister. She’d know what to say to them. But she’s gone, and it’s left to me.

  “We can’t kill her.” I stay in the doorway, fists clenched. “There are people here who have family in town. The last thing we need is for things to get worse, for the trodairí to start using them against us. We don’t want to break the ceasefire.”

  McBride’s gotten himself mostly under control again, but his gaze when it swings around to me carries murder in it. If he hated me before for not being my sister, he despises me now for standing between him and the trodaire.

  “What use is a ceasefire when we’re dying out here anyway?” He turns away from Sean, and the ring of onlookers parts so he can pace away a few steps. “How has our situation gotten any better in the last ten years? We never should have shied away from direct action.”

  “This isn’t just any prisoner,” I point out, forcing my voice to stay low. “She’s Captain Lee Chase. Until we know what they’ll trade for her, we have to wait.”

  “They won’t trade.” McBride’s voice is heavy with cold certainty, and I see more than a few heads nodding in response. “They’d rather see her dead than us getting what we ask for.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. We’ve never had an officer captured alive. We’ve never tried this.” I step forward and they part for me, letting me walk toward him. “What if they’ll trade medical supplies, or send back prisoners? Kill her now and we lose those options.”

  “Always dreaming. They’re not your friends, Cormac, they never will be. The trodairí are TerraDyn’s lackeys, and TerraDyn wants to hide Avon’s pain, their failure, from the rest of the galaxy. Nobody’s coming to help us. We have to help ourselves.”

  “And we will, by…” My voice dies in my throat. Behind him I can see Martha in the doorway, and I know she’s come from the radio room. The tight lines around her mouth speak for her. One by one, the others follow my gaze, and she waits until silence has fallen. There’s an apology in her eyes when she looks at me, but she can’t change her message.

  “Well?” McBride’s voice is rough. “What did they say?”

  My gut twists, and all the aches and pains and exhaustion of the last day come rushing back at me, so I barely hear her reply.

  “We don’t negotiate with rebels.”

  One of her eyes is swelling shut, and the rise and fall of her broken ribs is painfully shallow. She’s awake when I ease open the door, but she doesn’t speak. I push it closed and cross over to sink down beside her on the stone floor. Her shirt is wet with blood where the wound in her side has opened up again.

  My heart thuds as we stare at each other. The wispfire growing all over the ceiling washes her skin with blue-green light. Her dark eyes are wary, but not afraid. I’m beginning to think she doesn’t have that in her. “We’re keeping this door locked.” I break the silence, my voice rusty. “I’ve got the key, and I’m going to keep it with me at all times. That shouldn’t have happened.”

  She shifts, trying to sit up a little straighter where she’s leaning against the wall, but says nothing in return. If she’s relieved, she doesn’t show it, gaze skittering away from mine to fix on the door. “You called him McBride.” Her own voice is hoarse.

  I flinch. “Yes.” And I know why she’s asking. McBride’s been at the top of TerraDyn’s most-wanted list for the last decade. To someone like Jubilee, getting her hands on him would be like…well, like us getting our hands on her.

  “He’s got one of our guns.”

  “He likes the poetry of it.” Killing soldiers with their own weapons.

  She speaks through clenched teeth. “He’s mad.”

  No kidding, I want to say. Instead I stay silent, reaching for the meager first aid supplies I’ve brought with me. She flinches when I reach for the bottom of her shirt, but she lets me ease the bloodstained fabric up and away from her skin. The gash my bullet made when it grazed her side is oozing, and above it I can see the beginnings of the sharp, dramatic bruising across her ribs. I wish I’d brought a lantern, but I don’t want anyone to catch me using our precious first aid supplies on a trodaire. Safer to work by the dim blue light of the wispfire. I clean the worst of the blood away with a boiled rag, then reach for a small tin in the first aid kit.

  “What’s that?” There’s an edge to her voice as I prize the lid free and sniff the brown muck inside to test its freshness.

  “Microbiotic mud from TerraDyn’s seeding tanks.” I’m trying to concentrate on the wound, and not Jubilee’s bare stomach as I run my fingers across her skin and test for the heat of infection.

  “Mud.” Dubiousness cuts through the pain in her voice; she’s eyeing me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. Her face is flushed—with anger, no doubt, or pain.

  I pull my hand away and scoop out
some of our makeshift antiseptic. “Mud,” I echo. “It’ll help keep infection away.” I carefully start to smooth it over the wound as she flinches and hisses with pain. Her skin twitches under my touch, and when I glance up, she’s staring intently at the ceiling with her lip caught between her teeth.

  “The light,” she says finally, voice tense with pain, but softer now. “How do you do that?” Her eyes are on the bioluminescence lighting the cavern.

  Though her face betrays little except that she’s braced against my ministrations, her gaze is softening, eyes sweeping across the ceiling with something like wonder. In this moment she could be one of us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an outsider admire any part of Avon before.

  “It’s a kind of mushroom or fungus,” I say, trying to focus on what I’m doing; it’s hard not to watch her face. “We’ve always called it wispfire.”

  She’s silent for a long time. “It’s like a nebula,” she murmurs, almost to herself. I risk another glance at her, and though her eyes are glazed a little with pain, she’s still gazing upward.

  “A nebula’s something in the sky, right?” I reply, keeping my own voice low. The distraction is making this process easier for her, and I want to get through it as quickly as possible. Or—and I can barely admit it even to myself—perhaps it’s because this softer, quieter version of Jubilee is fascinating. “I’ve wondered before if that’s how starlight looks.”

  She blinks, refocusing with some difficulty on my face. “You’ve never been off-world before.” It’s not quite a question—but she’s surprised.

  “How would I get off-world?” Despite my good intentions, I can hear the bitterness in my voice. “Avon’s my home, anyway. Clouds or no clouds.”

  I’m bracing myself for a snapped retort, but it doesn’t come. I wipe my fingers clean without looking at her face, replacing the tin in the kit and reaching for the bandages instead.

  “I’ve always thought nebulae were beautiful,” she says finally, her voice still quiet. She sounds tired, and I can’t blame her; the injuries I’m treating make my own side ache in sympathy. “When a star dies, it explodes; a nebula is what’s left behind.” She’s still gazing up at the blue-green swirls on the ceiling. “Eventually new stars grow inside them, from what remains of the old.”

  “A pregnant star.” I smooth the adhesive bandage over her side, grimacing when she flinches. “I like that.”

  The strangeness of the conversation seems to strike her at the same time it strikes me, and she cranes her neck to look down at her freshly bandaged side. “Look, why are you doing this?”

  “Because not all of us are like him,” I reply, keeping my voice carefully even. “Some of us realize that just because it’s easier to pick up a gun and shoot than it is to talk, doesn’t make it right.”

  “And yet you work with men like McBride.”

  “You think I don’t know we’d be better off without him?” As though patching her up was keeping my frustration at bay, now it comes surging back. “If it were as simple as taking him out into the swamp one night and ending it, maybe it would already be done.”

  She’s recovering from the pain, her voice growing a bit stronger now that I’m done with my work. “So why don’t you?” she challenges.

  “The alternative to fighting will take years,” I reply, suddenly feeling the weight of it, the exhaustion from trying to keep what little control I have over my people from slipping away. “McBride has got them thinking that if they fight hard enough, they can change Avon tomorrow.”

  “That’ll never happen. You’re outnumbered. Outgunned.”

  “No, really? I hadn’t noticed.” I toss the bandage wrappers back into the kit and lock it shut with a snap. When I turn back, she’s still watching me. Her eyes are bright with pain, but clearer now—thoughtful. I sigh. “McBride’s waiting for something, anything, to give him an excuse to fight.”

  “I noticed.” Her voice is flat.

  “Anything happens to him, or he finds a reason somewhere, and his people would blame your people, and that’d be the end of the ceasefire. Your nightmares about bombs in your hospitals would become a reality.”

  She tries to sit up again, hissing between her teeth but managing to lift her head enough to look at me squarely. “Funny how kidnapping doesn’t seem to bother you, but bombs do.”

  Irritation kindles once more, too quick and sharp to be ignored. “You lock me up, and there’s nobody standing between McBride and all-out war. Look, there aren’t just two sides to this thing.”

  She doesn’t respond right away, but when she does, her voice is quiet again. “There are never just two sides to anything.”

  They’re not words I would’ve expected from a soldier—especially not one with Jubilee’s reputation. I tear my gaze away from her face and look up at the ceiling, cast into uneven shadow by the bioluminescence. “Listen. Your people won’t deal with us for you. If I can’t convince the others you can offer something in return for your passage out of here—”

  “I know,” she whispers. “Are you only just now working that out?”

  My temper snaps. “What are you doing? You’re not even going to try to save yourself? If you want to be a martyr, this isn’t the way. They’ll dump you somewhere, nobody will know. Nobody will remember you for it.”

  She lifts her chin, stubborn, her eyes flinty hard. It’s like she doesn’t understand what’s happening—like she doesn’t understand she’s signing her own death warrant.

  “Listen, don’t you have a family?” I can hear the desperation in my own voice. “You should at least try to get out of this alive, for them.”

  “Everything I do is for my family.” Her voice is sharp—I’ve hit a nerve, and it costs her. One hand presses to her side as she gulps air against the pain of her broken ribs. Looks like Captain Lee Chase has a weak spot after all.

  I don’t know what I expected her to be like, but it wasn’t this. The stories about her say she’s made of steel—she volunteered to come to Avon, the planet that drives men mad. She never runs, never hides, never loses. Stone-faced Chase, inhuman and deadly.

  But she’s lying here, half-curled up on the bare mattress, her eye swelling and her lip oozing blood. She doesn’t look like a killer—she barely looks like she’s going to survive the night. I know some of what they say about her is true. Deadly, certainly. Made of steel, probably. But inhuman?

  “Jubilee, please.” She looks at me, her jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin line. “Just give me something. A tiny, insignificant thing. Something I can bring to them to show you’re working with us. Something to keep you alive.”

  Jubilee swallows. I can see her throat move, see the way her fingers curl more tightly around her own arms. And in that moment I know I was wrong. It isn’t that she doesn’t understand. She knows she’s going to die if she doesn’t give in. She knows—and she’s choosing death. Her gaze is steady, fixed on mine. Her mouth relaxes, trembles the tiniest fraction. Even now, with that deadly grace muted by her injuries, I could watch her for hours. I was wrong, when I thought she couldn’t feel fear. She’s terrified.

  She lifts her chin. “What’s your name?”

  I have to clear my throat, my voice rasping. “I—told you. I can’t tell you—”

  “Romeo,” she interrupts gently. For all her flippant remarks about death, I can see it in her face, her dark eyes, her lips as they press together. She’s afraid. “Come on.”

  The silence of this cell is oppressive. It’s separated from the rest of the base enough that you can’t hear the sounds of life—it’s as though this tiny hole in the rock is all there is. This hole, the ratty mattress, and the girl looking death in the face. I know why she’s asking. Because it won’t matter if I tell her.

  “Flynn.” It comes out as a croak.

  She lets her head rest against the stone at her back, one corner of her mouth lifting a little in a smile.

  I try again, and this time my voice is a little steadier. �
�My name’s Flynn.”

  “Sit still, it’s your own fault you have to wear these bandages.”

  “Mama, are there ghosts here in November?”

  “Where did you get that idea? Did your father tell you that?”

  “I saw one. Right before the firecracker.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts, love. You saw the flash from the explosion, that’s all.”

  “Then why make firecrackers to scare them away?”

  “Because—because our ancestors did. Because lighting the fireworks helps us remember everyone who came before us.”

  “If I was a ghost, firecrackers wouldn’t scare me.”

  “Why were you playing with them in the first place? You could have been very badly hurt.”

  “The boys were doing it. I’m braver than them.”

  “Letting yourself get hurt isn’t brave, love. Brave is protecting others from hurt. I’m disappointed in you.”

  THE CELL THEY’VE GOT ME in isn’t that big. Only about two meters by three, and most of the floor space is taken up with a saggy mattress that smells like mildew. The door is steel, no doubt salvaged from commandeered military equipment. When I can make it to my feet I try forcing it, hard enough to make me gasp from the pain in my ribs, but it doesn’t budge.

  I spend a while stretching, testing out my muscles. I can’t do much about my abdominals, what with the broken ribs and the gunshot wound, but my arms and neck and legs all still work. Romeo might think I’ve given up, and that’s fine. When they come for me, I’ll be ready for them. Because the last thing people will say about Lee Chase after she’s gone is that she just rolled over and died without a fight.

  The bioluminescence—the wispfire—washes the cave with an eerie, soft light. Unsettling, but beautiful too. When I tilt my head back, my vision is flooded with blue-green stars, filling me with a strange, sweeping vertigo. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the stars that these seem brighter, more real. But at least I remember stars. At least I’ve seen the sky.