by Karen Bao
Stepping to the front of the crowd, I toss a grenade-sized firecracker upward. It spins like one of my daggers, exploding at its zenith in a small flare of black, silver, and red—the colors of the rebellion.
The girl named after the Dove star has marked Dovetail’s territory.
But after the embers float down, there aren’t cheers. No movement. Just thousands of eyes staring at the black hole statue, which is now lit.
“We are disappointed in you, Base VI.” The voice is slick, smooth, spine-chilling. The center of the black hole projects a hologram of four shadowy figures, towering above us and filling up the pitifully small space. The four faceless Committee members who aren’t here. To see them dwarf the stars drains away every bit of happiness I have.
We should’ve disabled signal transmission from Base I, the capital, as soon as we got here.
“Despite your intelligence, you have joined the side of chaos. Of increasing entropy,” Hydrus Iota, the Base I representative, goes on. “We only wanted to restore order to the Moon and bring it to the Earth—so that no climate or resource wars ever happen again. Anywhere.” What about the catastrophe happening right now? I want to interject. “But you do not want the same perfect world. And because of your astounding betrayal, we will never let you forget that you are surrounded by instruments of our power.”
He lets the words sink in, lets us picture the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons orbiting the Earth and Moon, lets us imagine the chaos if they used one here.
“I’m with you, Committee!” shouts a man’s voice from the back of the crowd. Senseless loyalist.
“We want you back!” someone else hollers. “No more hunger, no more chaos!”
Soon, other voices—those of dissent—overtake the loyalists, but their words echo in my head. They think life was better before, when they weren’t hungry and afraid of what Dovetail would bring . . . I can empathize with that. But having the Committee back? That’s the easy way out, and it’ll only lead to tyranny.
Suddenly, the entire base shudders; small dust clouds fill the air, as if in a moonquake. People drop to the ground and cover their heads, a reflex honed through many emergency drills. Fear roils through me again—a moonquake killed my father, and so many of my worst memories are associated with them. But this isn’t a moonquake. After the first tremor, there are no more.
“A mini-nuke!” people are calling. “They dropped a mini-nuke on Recreation!”
The Committee’s shadowy heads nod, once. They attacked the base, I think in horror. They attacked the base, in the spot where children play.
“That is all . . . for now,” Hydrus says.
The holograms disappear, and for many moments, the only sound I hear is the pounding of my own heart.
Afterward, there’s hardly celebration. Dovetail’s soldiers, shaken by the Committee’s threat, carry body after broken body—rebel and loyalist alike; they all look the same—to the Singularity’s Medical Department, which is both understocked and understaffed. Some loyalists manage to zip away on Pygmette speeders, and Yinha barks at us to let them go. No point in risking more lives to capture aging rich people who (we hope) can’t help the Committee much.
I help move an unconscious Militia soldier out of the way; I support her feet, while a balding man with a patchy beard and deep-set frown lifts her by the shoulders. “About time you Dovetailers arrived,” he says, cracking a smile. “You’d better start shipping water and food over here or we’ll have to visit the Free Radical and take it ourselves.”
He’s joking, but it puts me on edge. Dovetail counted on restocking our dwindling rations with this base’s supplies. Instead, it seems we’ve got to provide for them too. How many hungry mouths did we add to our ranks by taking the Singularity? Dovetail will need to capture another base, and soon. The thought makes me hang my head in exhaustion.
“I thought the Singularity would have . . . more,” I say dumbly. “More of everything.”
The man scoffs. “You think the Committee would let us keep our supplies once we started making trouble? They took the food we grew, the clothes we made, sent it all to the more obedient bases. What was left the Beetles hoarded away in the Defense Department. Took some to Earth when they fled yesterday, and they’re running away with the rest as we speak.”
Earth. I think of Saint Oda, where finding food was as simple as walking through Wes’s backyard or wading into the sea. Where clear water bubbled up from the ground. That city’s an ash heap now, but Earth is still a planet of plenty, a planet that could help us . . .
If only Battery Bay, the rival of Pacifia, the Committee’s ally, hadn’t rebuffed our every communication with either radio silence or a sharp warning not to contact them again. Messages communicating our goodwill haven’t undone decades of distrust. Friendly Lunars? To the Batterers, that’s an oxymoron.
“Sage,” the man says, lifting me out of my rumination. We’ve reached Medical and drop the Militia soldier off nearby. “Look at this base, at that flag. Isn’t she a beauty?”
Slowly, I raise my eyes. Civilians are unfurling Dovetail’s banner from the ceiling: a silver-and-red bird on black fabric. Silver represents the Moon, black the empty space surrounding it, red the blood shed by the Committee. I hook my thumbs together and spread my fingers over my heart, pride filling me up. My little sister, Anka, whose name means “phoenix,” created the banner design.
A majority of the Dovetail company will stay here to strengthen our hold—mostly new recruits and their superiors. Alex, Yinha, and I board the one Omnibus bound for home. The Dovetail leadership needs us there, and my family needs me. Or is it the other way around? The longer this war drags on, the more I depend on them to help me feel something again, especially after battle. To dissipate the numbness. I keep them safe, and they keep me human.
THE OFFICERS’ DECK OF THE OMNIBUS BUZZES with conversation. Across the aisle from me, Yinha speaks with Rose, who’s traveling home with us to the Free Radical to advance Dovetail’s espionage efforts. Yinha’s stopped taking notes; with a half-smile, she listens to Rose’s soft voice and watches her slim white hands gesticulate. Rose uses them often when she talks, more than compensating for her legs’ stillness.
Yinha’s never looked so . . . okay after a battle. Perhaps it’s Rose’s hacking pedigree, the fact that she and Singularity recruits like her give us an edge against the Committee. Or maybe it’s something else. If Rose can make Yinha smile despite recent bloodshed, then she deserves a place among us.
Nearer the flight deck, clustered in a ring of seats, several Dovetail officers send rapid-fire updates to our leaders on the Free Radical. We’ve captured the most important loyalist leader, Hopper Gamma. Some lesser ones have fled to Bases I, II, III, and V. An amazing victory, but we’d be foolish to dwell on it, lest the Committee take back lost ground while we’re distracted. Already, the Dovetail leaders are discussing our next moves.
More battle. More death. The thought of killing again sickens me.
Suddenly, I am not only alone but also devastatingly lonely.
Seeking someone—anyone—for company, I cross the narrow, low-ceilinged room, applying little downward force on the floor so that in moon-grav I don’t bounce too high and hit my head. Two-thirds of the ceiling’s lights are off to save hydrogen fuel. Alex sits alone in a dark corner, next to a window. Through it is dark, unknowable, unending space; Mars, a small dot, flashes rusty red amidst the blackness.
Alex is applying black dye from a narrow cylindrical object to a stack of bound paper: the ancient Earthbound writing method. His hands and feet are too big for his body, making him look clumsy when he’s not fighting. He’s tall, but he looks shorter sitting down because of his disproportionately long legs. He crosses them, one foot bouncing up and down.
To avoid annoying him, I sit down a meter away without saying a word.
“You know, Dove Gi
rl.” Alex doesn’t lift his eyes from his work. “I write with pen and paper to repel snooping eyes, not attract them.”
From the inflections in his voice, I know Alex is trying to amuse me. With rebels and loyalist hackers engaged in a snooping war, non-digital records are more secure than handscreen and HeRP files. Information about strategy, about leaders, soldiers, and their families—that is, information about anyone—has become more valuable than drinkable water, and both sides know it. Even though we have cut off Base IV from the Committee’s network, knocked out all their cameras, and put up multiple firewalls, Dovetail still encrypts every communication, of which there are few. Ninety-nine percent of our discussions happen face-to-face.
“What disruptive things are you putting in there?” I mean to tease Alex, but my voice sounds morbid. The Committee punishes the crime of “disruptive print” with quarantine, imprisonment, heavy fines, and execution by laser fire, as I learned a year and a half ago. After my mother penned Dovetail’s manifesto and got caught, I had to watch the government destroy her life one step at a time—and was powerless to stop it.
“I’m recording how it feels to fight.” Alex sounds downcast as well. “Sights, sounds, smells—and emotions. The conflicts beneath our skin, the ones Journalists leave out of articles, because they’re ‘subjective’ or too difficult to wrap up in words. I’ll give you an example. Medium hate feels hot, but intense hate feels cold. Did you know that?”
I’d rather avoid such emotions altogether. But, like anyone, I fail. Often.
“There’s gotta be someone you hate with all your atoms and more,” Alex says. “Even you, Dove Girl.”
Especially me. I medium-hate the Committee members, the General, Corporal Cressida Psi for tormenting my family; my head heats up when I think of them, so much that I can almost hear gray matter sizzling in my skull. But at the same time, I understand their reasons for doing what they did. In some sick way, I even empathize. They love order; they think the only way to preserve it is by holding power over countless individuals. They’re evil, but they truly believe they’re working for the common good.
The only person who turns me frigid with hate is the thing who seduced Wes’s sister, Murray; killed his teammate; and convinced Wes’s father to send me on a suicide mission after old secrets came to light. Then, because he couldn’t have me ruin his perfect reputation on the Moon, he decided to destroy me—and nearly succeeded, luring me into the Committee’s clutches under the guise of helping my brother. Remembering Lazarus Penny numbs my conscience with frostbite; hate twists my features at the mere thought. Were he around, I might slide a dagger between his ribs and not feel a thing.
Alex scoots away from me, holding his hands up in self-defense. “You see what I mean? As soon as you remembered your little devil, you went from peace ’n’ hearts Dove Girl to the scariest ice queen I ever saw.”
“‘My’ little devil is your philosopher of a former teammate.” My voice is a monotone; my tongue refuses to utter his name aloud.
Alex snorts. “Lazarus, a philosopher? He spends too much time admiring his own face to have any left for navel-gazing.” Then Alex’s face turns serious again. “He’s had a hard life, Phaet. No one taught him what love is. Not even his parents. He fled to Saint Oda looking for it—showed up covered in scars both on his skin and beneath it. But he left their abuse far too late. All he wants is to come down on the right side of history, with the Committee, and he confuses that wish for being loved by the world.”
I look away, and Alex stops talking. It’s too strange to think of Lazarus as starved for love, as having longings of his own. My ears seem to reject any sympathetic words for the charming snake who betrayed me and everyone I care about. Who has he gotten in with now? I wonder, my heart thumping with anxiety. The Committee, most likely, but he could also be hiding on a Dovetail base . . . or even on Earth.
“I understand your hypothesis about temperature dependence on hate intensity,” I snap at Alex. “We can move on.”
“Nerd,” Alex mutters.
“Recording feelings still seems . . . unnecessary. To me.”
“Even for posterity?” Alex blows on the ink to dry it and snaps his notebook shut. “Ariel Phi’s a Lunar like you, yet he thinks it’s worthwhile.” These past few months, Umbriel’s twin brother and Alex have spent hours talking in their free time. Probably about abstract, impractical issues like these.
“Someday I’ll write a story that’ll transport people into our minds and souls,” Alex continues. “They’ll live as we live by reading my words. Nitty-gritty details don’t have to be true, but the feelings do.”
I blink at him, wondering how anyone could think of posterity when day-to-day survival is so uncertain.
“Planning gives me something to live for.” Alex crosses his long legs on the bench. A stray beam of sunlight sneaks in through a window, highlighting every pinch in his facial muscles. “City’s gone, family’s dead. You still have a brother and a sister, Phaet, so you don’t know how dry and empty life is once they’ve wiped all your blood off the face of the Earth. Every last drop.”
I wince, aching for him. When Pacifia and the Militia jointly invaded Saint Oda nine months ago, the Pacifian army murdered Alex’s family. They surrounded their grain and vegetable farm, spraying fire onto the crops at the edge, and then moved in and killed survivors.
I remember those flaming fields. I took the smoke into my lungs.
And I hate that Alex’s suffering makes me feel fortunate. Will the guilt ever leave? Even if I saw the Odans settled again, and safe, I’d know that innocents—including Alex’s entire family—died due to my oversights.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Dove Girl. Before I met you, I hated you. The Lunar castaway who brought the wrath of the Committee and Pacifia down on Saint Oda? I thought it was typical selfish demon behavior, and I was going to write you off forever.”
“I’ve been wondering why you didn’t,” I whisper.
Alex shrugs. “You were an idiot, not a fiend. And on top of that, Wes cares about you, and he doesn’t care about just anybody.”
Wes . . . I must’ve meant something to him when we trained in Militia, laughed together while drunk on the stars above, traversed the Earth’s wide ocean, shared a kiss that tasted like smoke. But half a year has passed, and we’ve had more important things to do than reminisce, especially when remembering is so painful.
“Wes is the only person I have left,” Alex says. “My Astrophysics friends—and don’t tell this to Rose—they’re amazing, but they mostly just helped pass the time. They don’t know me; I couldn’t let them know me. Not like Wes. If he wanted me to help you out, by God, that’s what I’ve got to do.”
Part of me wants to change the subject, to forget Wes, at least for the time being. Another part—the masochistic part—enjoys this conversation. It proves that Wes is real, not some golden being my brain conjured up.
“I wish we could hear from him,” I say. “Even if it was computer code saying he’s all right.”
“He’d probably write us in zeroes and ones,” Alex says, a small smile on his mouth. “Using binary just to mess with our heads.”
“Or to show off,” I agree, remembering Wes’s technical brilliance and occasionally irritating jokes.
Dovetail has discontinued communication with him. The loyalists had infiltrated the Odan Earth-Moon communication system and could use anything we said as a weapon. It was for everyone’s good, but to me, it felt like sawing off an arm. Maybe he experienced the pain too, but we had to hide it. We had no choice.
“I worry all the time that he’ll bite it before I see him again,” Alex says, face serious. “Makes me almost want to die first, be the first to find peace.”
I nod, knowing the feeling.
“It gives me a real fright, every time the thought crosses my mind. I can’t go on, having one person to care
about, because when he’s gone, what’ll keep me here? But after I write this thing, the people who read it will become my people, and I won’t be alone anymore.”
Alex looks out the window, squinting into the sun. When he turns to me, the sarcastic mask is back. He adds with a yawn, “Then again, there’s that nap I want to take for the rest of today.”
As if on cue, his eyelids droop.
Reaching across him, I lower the window shade so that he doesn’t dream of fire.
WE STEP OUT INTO THE FREE RADICAL’S arched white hallways, and the Dovetailer onslaught begins—the calling of names, the frenzied gesturing, the waves of bodies surging into our ranks. A pageant of muted colors mixes with the soldiers’ uniforms. The civilians’ once-vibrant robes are tattered and faded, but the unguarded joy on their faces is as bright as anything I’ve seen.
They embrace family members and friends, eyes damp with tears of relief. As I scan the crowd for my own loved ones, I narrowly dodge the palm-sized, hand-stitched Dovetail flags they wave. They don’t need to apologize for making a ruckus or worry about saying or doing the wrong thing—not anymore. Seeing them smile and hearing them shout make me feel like everything we’ve endured together—the pain and sickness and death—was worthwhile.
After what happened three months ago, it feels strange to see people’s faces at all. Militia snuck an aerosol bomb into the Omega apartment complex’s air filters. When it exploded, mutated anthrax spores flew everywhere, infecting hundreds, killing forty-six, and necessitating Omega’s complete isolation. Everyone became feverish with either disease or fear, donning Medical face masks to avoid breathing in the spores. The quarantine has worked, but paranoia lingers. People have only recently started gathering in groups again. I still dream about the swollen scarlet lesions on the victims’ skin, their wheezing breaths, their robes soaked with sweat from stratospheric fevers. My adrenaline spikes when I see dust motes floating under the lights.
