by J. M. Page
With blinding speed, he whirled on her, his eyes dark and accusatory. “You should start talking now,” he said, his voice empty and hollow.
“What? Talking about what?” Celine’s pulse raced. What had changed in such a short period of time? She still didn’t have a clue.
Ben growled; actually growled at her, a guttural animalistic threat. “Was this your plan all along? Get me out of the city so I can’t protect or warn any of them? Who are you working for? Who put you up to it?”
It seemed her entire body vibrated with nerves, anxiety, and pure shock-laced affront. “What are you talking about? I have no idea what’s going on. Besides, you’re the one that took me out of the city! How could it have been my plan?”
He studied her for a long moment and Celine wondered again what was happening. Finally, Ben sighed, his face falling into defeat, though somewhere the dark anger still lurked.
“Please tell me what’s going on, Ben.”
With eyes still narrowed, he turned to the panel in front of him, pointing at the navigation.
“The city, it’s right over there,” he said with a gesture towards the windscreen.
Celine followed his gesture and saw only clouds. She thought back to when they left the city, how the force field left a hole in the clouds large enough to see from some distance, let alone as close as they were now. But when she looked down, there was no hole. No city. Just endless swirling orange clouds.
“What do you mean? Your navigation must be off, there’s nothing there.”
Ben’s face drained of all color, his expression solemn. “The force field’s been disarmed.”
His words rang through her mind like echoing chimes. Disarmed. The force field’s been disarmed.
How? Why? By whom? A million questions whizzed through her mind and Celine realized why Ben had been so suspicious of her just a moment before. The coincidence was uncanny. The force field operated without interference for thousands of years and within a day of her arrival from the Wastelands, it was disarmed.
She’d be suspicious too.
“Who would want to do that? And why? And how?” she asked the questions out loud, hoping for some insight from the Prince, but Ben just shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
The coincidence was too much, even for Celine. Somehow, she knew this had to do with her, though she didn’t know how.
“Jubilation to Terra-3, come in,” Ben said into his comms. “Terra-3, do you read?”
Only static answered them.
“The dust must have taken down communications,” he said, all business now.
“What do we do?” Bile rose in Celine’s throat, burning and caustic. She bit back the bitterness on her tongue and tried her best to keep calm. Ben could handle this. He could handle anything.
“You don’t do anything, just sit there and stay strapped in. I’m going to land us blind.”
Chapter Ten
Ben
He didn’t have any choice. With comms down and the city under siege from dust, he needed to land, he needed to land fast, and he’d have to do it on his own. Undoubtedly, his father was looking for him. As were countless dignitaries and advisors. All wasting resources looking for him instead of solving the problem, he was sure.
Of all the disastrous things he’d imagined when he snuck Celine out of the palace, this wasn’t one of them. The force field going down was ominous and unnerving. Terranys couldn’t survive the never ending dust storms. Not even for a day.
Something had to be done.
“Blind? What do you mean blind? Can you do that? Have you ever done that?” Celine was understandably worried.
Ben felt a pang of guilt for being so quick to accuse her. He knew better than to think Celine capable of something so heinous, though the evidence was damning. What were the odds of the first arrival from the Wastelands and the first failure of the force field coinciding?
Not very good. That was for sure.
Still, if Celine did have something to do with it, they’d have to address that later. Until then, he couldn’t let her out of his sight, just in case.
“I haven’t, and we’re going to find out if I can,” he said, trying to inject a little humor into the situation. Neither of them cracked a smile.
He guided the craft lower, through the clouds, pushing harder than he normally would, urgency making his hand heavy.
They broke through the bottom of the clouds, and still, the walled city wasn’t there. Or, it was, but they could see nothing of it.
He eased down further, dust wiping out visibility in all directions. Suddenly, giant shadowy buildings rushed up around them, crowding in on them from nowhere. If he wasn’t careful, he could collide with one of the monolithic towers before he ever even saw it coming.
Ben strained to see through the blanket of dust, his gut twisting with every movement on the controls. One wrong move and…
He couldn’t think about that. He had to land them safely, both for the sake of keeping them alive, and because he was needed to fix whatever had happened. Were they being invaded? Had the whispers of a coup finally come to fruition? What is just a malfunction? He’d never know until he got into the palace.
The craft drifted lower and lower, dust-covered roofs rushing past as he narrowly avoided them. And finally, the ground came into view, people running and scattering through the deadly dust like scurrying insects. His heart clenched. It was chaos.
They both let out a huge sigh as the ship touched down and stilled in the middle of a wide street. Ben knew he’d never find his way to the hangar in all of this commotion. He just needed to be on the ground.
Celine had barely finished unbuckling her restraints when Ben grabbed her by the hand and yanked her out of the ship, out into the streets filled with panicked Terrans.
The wall blocked out some of the dust, enough to see on ground level, but the wind still howled and pushed dust over their heads until it rained down on them.
All around there was screaming, crying, and sounds of panic. Sirens Ben had never heard wailed and pierced through the cacophony. After the long siren, a calm voice sounded throughout the city.
“Seek shelter and remain indoors until you’ve been instructed to evacuate,” the calm voice said in clipped enunciated syllables.
They were evacuating? It was worse than he thought.
“What is going on?” Ben murmured to no one in particular as he dragged Celine along behind him.
All the while, he kept wondering if she had some connection to all of this. If this beguiling girl from the Wastelands was the harbinger of destruction for his entire kingdom.
Was it possible?
He didn’t want to think it was. He didn’t want to think ill of Celine at all. But he couldn’t be naive, either. She hadn’t been forthcoming or honest with him and now this. Were the two things related?
They made it to the palace through the panicking mobs outside and Ben paused only a moment to take a deep breath, coughing up fine particles of dust.
He looked over to Celine, who’d managed to cover her face with fabric she ripped off her pretty pink dress. She looked down at the dust-coated garment with remorse in her eyes.
“Sorry about the dress,” she said, her emerald eyes sparkling. Ben squeezed her hand.
“There are a million more where that one came from, though it was quite flattering.” It still was, ripped at the midpoint of her thigh, revealing more of her golden skin to his hungry gaze.
He couldn’t let his eyes linger for longer than a heartbeat, though. There was no time.
He dragged her along with him through vast hallways and empty rooms, searching for… well anyone at this point.
“Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing throughout the gilded chamber.
“Do you think they’ve already evacuated?” Celine asked, voicing the fears Ben avoided acknowledging.
He swallowed a lump in his throat, thinking of the disconnected aristocrats and diplom
ats thumbing their nose at the Grounding to escape. He wondered how many were gone for good, never to set foot on Terran soil again.
“I don’t know,” he said, scrunching his eyes up tight, trying to think this through.
They didn’t exactly have a plan in place for this sort of thing. The force field never wavered, never faltered and never failed. It was unthinkable… Impossible.
“What about the safe rooms you mentioned? Could they be there?”
Ben pinched the bridge of his nose, Celine’s questions mingling with the billion others racing through his mind like dust devils, stirring up strange new suspicions and paranoia.
“I don’t know,” he grumbled.
Celine chewed on her inner lip, rocking on her heels. “Who could possibly have the means to do this? Surely if they could turn it off, someone else can turn it back on?”
Ben growled. “I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know anything more than you do. No one should be able to disarm it. No one can even access the control room. It’s been sealed for so long I don’t even think our best engineers could get through panel. It’s not our technology, it’s…”
“What did you say?” Celine asked, breathless, her voice soft, distant, and...frightened? Was she only just now realizing the danger they were in?
“It’s not our technology. The first settlers found it already here, I told you—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, long ebony tresses brushing her shoulders, her face pale as the moon in comparison. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she’d seen a ghost. “Before that… Not even your best engineers could get through it?”
Ben shrugged, not seeing the relevance. “So? It worked just fine for thousands of years until sometime in the last hours.”
“But what if you had a better engineer? Someone that could fix anything, regardless of origin. Could they get through the panel? Is the control room guarded? Surveilled in anyway?”
Ben frowned. “There’s no need. What are you getting at?”
Still her face was pale, green-tinged like she was going to be sick. He’d half expected it during launch, but now, he didn’t know what to make of it.
Celine reached into her pocket and Ben watched her slim fingers close around something and squeeze tight. At the same time, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.
“I think this is my fault.”
Chapter Eleven
Celine
Ben didn’t just release her hand, he flung it away from him, taking long strides backwards as she stared at the ground, razor-toothed guilt eating her from the inside.
Betrayal was written all over his face and Celine felt true soul-shattering remorse for the first time.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t have any idea that it was going to be like this…”
“What. Are you. Saying?” Ben ground out through clenched teeth, his hands balled into fists at his side. Just below his hairline, a vein pulsed and throbbed with the effort of holding in his anger. Celine wanted nothing more than to back away, run back to the Wastelands, and forget that any of this happened.
But she couldn’t.
She made this mess and she needed to fix it, even if it meant Ben would never forgive her.
Even if it meant they decided to execute her. She hung her head in shame and pulled the shiny silver coin from her pocket, extending it toward him.
“Here, this belongs to you,” she said.
Ben took the coin from her grasp and for the briefest moment his fingertips brushed over hers, sending a tremor of excitement and longing through every synapse. She pushed it far far away. He’d never look at her the same after this. Better to divest herself of those fantasies now, while she still could. Before she fell any harder than she already had.
He turned it over, looking at both sides before raising his eyes to her, his brows pushed low on his forehead. “How did you...Where did you—”
Celine sighed. “It was me. You were right all along. I saw you crash. I saw you going off into the desert and I followed you. When you fell in the sand and didn’t get up, I helped you to shelter and gave you my water.”
His eyes grew wide.
“Then I dragged you to the wall and alerted them to your presence.”
His eyes drifted from her face, to her shoulder and lingered down her arm. He didn’t have to ask the question. She knew what he wanted to know before he had a chance to say anything.
Without a word, she peeled back the thick strap of the now-ruined dress and displayed her scar, nothing more than a thin white line circling the point where her arm met her shoulder.
“There is a native in the Wastelands. She traded this arm for mine. I wondered how it could possibly match me so perfectly but… Now I wonder if she wasn’t planning this all along. For decades maybe.”
“Planning what? I still don’t get what your arm has to do with any of this,” Ben said, his frown deepening even as he allowed her to take a step closer.
“My arm — my other arm — it never fails to repair something. I wasn’t lying when I said my father’s a brilliant engineer. He’s the Parts Master for all the modders in the Wastelands. He built my arm and it never fails. If Scorpia used it to open the control room, I’m sure it worked. I didn’t see it before, but she’s been here since before the first settlers—”
“And she’s bitter about the colonization, I assume?”
Celine shrugged. “Maybe it’s a stretch.”
“It’s something, and that’s more than we have now. I imagine she’s long gone— What?” He stopped himself mid-sentence as if he sensed Celine had something to interject. Maybe it was written on her face.
“Do you think you could find the control room? Take me there?” Celine chewed on her lip some more, still not sure it was the right thing. Maybe if they went after her right away they could catch her. Get her to reverse the damage she’d done.
But Scorpia was thousands of years old, this was her home planet — more her home than anyone else’s. If she wanted to stay hidden, she would and there would be no hope of Celine, Ben, or anyone else ever finding her.
“I… Maybe,” Ben threw his hands up into the air. “It’s been lost in the palace for who knows how long… Unless…”
It seemed hopeless, but then he stroked that sturdy chin of his, lost deep in thought and Celine felt her pulse quicken.
Don’t fool yourself. He’s only trying to save the city.
“Bora might be able to sniff it out. Assuming she can isolate the non-human scent trail.”
Celine’s heart skipped and stuttered. “Worth a shot?”
Ben nodded, curt and formal and started a near-sprint off down one corridor, his long legs carrying him quickly.
“Ben?” she called after him, her legs heavy as she followed. He stopped and turned, hearing the plea in her voice.
Face-to-face with him again, she lost her nerve. Celine expelled a great sigh. “I’m really truly sorry. I didn’t have any idea… My motives were selfish. I just wanted to…” She failed to utter the right words. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. Escape? Get back at her father? See Ben again? The Celine that made the bargain with Scorpia seemed to be a different person entirely. Trying to explain herself in any way she could, she waved her hands skyward towards the heavens.
His face revealed nothing of his feelings and Celine felt even more deflated. “I know what it’s like to want something else. I can’t fault you for that. As for the rest of it… Now isn’t the time to address it. We have a city of five million to save from a savage incursion of dust.”
Celine’s chest constricted and finally the shame and guilt loosened its grip on her. He was right of course. They had bigger things to worry about. More important things than her feeling sorry for herself.
She straightened her spine, lifted her chin and nodded. “Well, let’s get to saving then.”
In a move that made her stomach somersault, Ben quirked one corner of his mouth upwards, lifted tw
o spread fingers to his lips, and whistled, long, piercing, and loud. Celine’s hands flew to her ears.
The whistle ended and they waited in silence. And waited. Just as Celine was about to open her mouth to suggest he whistle again, or they go looking, the sound of claws on mirror-polished floors came clacking toward them.
Bora nearly toppled Ben in her excitement, and clinging desperately to the dog’s violet fur was Rufus. He dropped to the ground with a shudder and a curse, but Celine could tell he’d grown a little fond of Bora.
Ben bent down, getting to eye level with his dog and whispered something to her that Celine couldn’t hear over Rufus regaling the horrors he’d endured in the ‘beast’s company. He said a sharp command in a language Celine didn’t recognize and Bora gave a hearty bark and bounded back the way she’d come.
They followed her through twists and turns until the corridors started to look familiar. Before she knew how they’d done it, they were back at the tapestry and Bora was barking at the large starscape.
Ben pulled back the corner and Celine suppressed a little shiver. They’d done this very thing only hours ago, but it felt like worlds ago. Before she’d seen the stars, before she kissed Ben…
She shook her head, trying to stay focused.
“So you think you’ll be able to operate the control panel?” he asked after another series of dizzying turns.
Celine suppressed a shudder, hoping he didn’t see it. What if she couldn’t? What if this was all for nothing and they’d made the wrong choice by not chasing after Scorpia?
“Celine can fix anything,” Rufus said, pride oozing in his tone.
She patted him lightly and the little bot nuzzled into the crook of her neck. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy.”
“I hope so,” she finally muttered, making no real effort to project over Bora’s exuberant barking.
Ben shot a look over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in an Are you ready for this? look. Celine just shrugged. No time like the present.
When they caught up to Bora, she was on her hind legs, both front paws on the wall in front of her, sniffing non-stop, her tail whipping back and forth fast enough to do serious damage to anyone nearby.
