One Giant Leap

by Heather Kaczynski

  “What the hell does it say?” Mitsuko muttered.

  Luka was too busy reading to respond.

  “It’s probably like a bee trying to describe the color of ultraviolet light to a human. You know, if bees could talk, I guess,” Emilio said.

  The light show blinked off suddenly and Luka pulled away from the group, turning his back to us.

  I went to him and he pulled away from me, a hand riffling his hair. His other hand clenched, as though he were restraining himself from punching something. “My family died retrieving this. They wanted to bring it back here because they thought it was our only hope. But we would have been better off leaving it behind.”

  “It’s not a weapon?” Mitsuko demanded.

  “It doesn’t work?” Hanna asked at the same time.

  His shoulders tensed, his breathing erratic. “It is a weapon. It does work. And if we turn it on, it will kill every living thing on this planet.”

  Twenty-Six

  “THEY MADE SKYFALL hoping to stop the war,” Luka began. “To drop it on the vrag home world and detonate it remotely, rendering their planet sterilized and uninhabitable.” He looked as though his spirit had left his body, eyes empty. “They never apparently got a chance to use it.”

  I squeezed his shoulder, but he might as well have been made of marble for how much it seemed to help.

  “Our very own doomsday device,” Mitsuko said.

  Luka explained a little further. It worked the way all megobari tech worked: a direct neural link. Either via touch, or remote connection with the help of their implants, using some kind of password or code to overcome the firewall. That’s what I got out of it, anyway. He didn’t understand the exact mechanism; the technology was beyond his experience. The megobari scientists who developed it had reached deep into theoretical physics, motivated by desperation. “The result is some kind of catastrophic destruction of the planet’s atmosphere, something destabilizing enough that the entire biosphere collapses.”

  It was Emilio who gave it its name: Skyfall. Because it was about to bring all hell raining down on us.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, hands ripping at my hair. “It’s a planet-killer. And we brought it here.”

  We’d come back to save Earth. And we were the ones who’d destroy it.

  “Unless it’s detonated in space, yes. Then it may only affect a small area, depending on how far away from life-forms it is used,” Luka said. He wasn’t looking at any of us as he spoke, but focusing somewhere on the middle of the table. His fingertips traced the wood grain absently.

  “So . . . we should destroy it. Or should we leave it in the desert and hope nobody finds it? Hide it? Bury it?” I asked. The flame of panic had been relit inside me. We had brought this threat back. We had put Earth in the crosshairs.

  Luka was glaring into an untouched cup of herbal tea at the kitchen table, away and apart from the rest of us. “We can’t destroy it without igniting it.”

  Emilio was leaning over, elbows on his knees, legs bouncing, brow furrowed. Mitsuko kept glancing at her phone, swiping it unlocked and then clicking it off again. Hanna was the only one who appeared to be listening to me.

  But this was on us—on Luka and me. Not them. This solution was my responsibility. Luka was lost in the mire of his own guilt, so I had to deal with mine alone, assuming I had the luxury to work it out later.

  Three hours left until the vrag blew up a city because I couldn’t figure out what to do. Turn myself in, leave the weapon for the coming megobari to use? Turn myself in, leave my friends to clean up our mess by getting rid of the most dangerous weapon on Earth? Turn myself in, hope for the best?

  Doomsday device.

  I had to fix this. “So what do we do? Can we turn it against the vrag without hurting ourselves?”

  “We cannot aim it—it is not a gun,” Luka said. “It would explode like a dying star, throwing radiation in every direction.” He met my eyes only for a moment. “However . . . it is possible we could still use it. If it’s inside the vrag ship, and we could get it far enough away from Earth, it might be possible to detonate it remotely while leaving Earth intact.”

  “I vote for that option,” Emilio broke in, leaning back and drumming his fingers on the empty chair beside him. “If anyone’s asking.”

  “But the vrag ship’s in orbit. Would low Earth orbit be far enough away?” I asked.

  “No. Not if you wanted to ensure there would be no casualties. If it explodes in orbit, the vrag ship would rain debris down on the surface, likely in pieces too large to burn up on reentry.”

  “So . . . you are saying we’d have to basically trick the vrag into taking it, without them knowing we were just handing it over, and also make them get out of town, and yet still somehow detonate it. How do you expect that to happen?” Luka’s eyes locked with mine, and I knew suddenly what he meant to do. “You . . . just want to give it to them.”

  “No!” Emilio almost laughed, thinking I was telling a joke, and then slowly realized I was not. “That’s—dude, that’s the exact opposite of what we’ve been trying to do.”

  “I will turn myself in,” Luka said calmly, still not looking away from me. “I will fly the droneship into orbit, taking the weapon with me. They should not have reason to stay here once they have me. When I am inside the ship, I can detonate the weapon. If I am unable to do so . . . Cassie can do it for me from here.”

  “Um, no?” Mitsuko said, grabbing Luka’s shoulder so that he was forced to turn toward her. “Even if we forget that either one of those successful outcomes leads to you being on the vrag ship when it explodes, what happens if neither of you are able to detonate it? Then you’ve given the vrag our only weapon and it’s all over.”

  Luka didn’t speak.

  “No. Gotta be a better way.” Emilio riffled his hand through his hair. “I just—give me a minute, I’ll think of something.”

  Luka’s family believed this weapon was the only thing that could save us.

  But did we have another option? I tried to think of any human organization that I trusted to give this weapon to and came up empty. Human beings as a rule did not have a great track record with weapons of mass destruction. No one person should have the power to wipe out so much life at once.

  “We can’t take the risk of giving Skyfall to the vrag,” I said decisively. “And we don’t have the luxury of time right now to think of an alternative way to use it. Our main priority is to prevent the vrag from attacking us.” I bit my lip; all my limbs were trembling with the knowledge of what I would have to do. “The only way we can do that is to give in to their demands.”

  “What?” Emilio and Mitsuko screeched at the same time, both jumping to their feet.

  “Can you think of another way to prevent them from killing more innocent people?” They were silent. “Look, I don’t intend on this being a suicide mission. We’ve survived two encounters with them before. We can do it again.” That was stretching the truth, but they didn’t have to know that.

  “How are you going to get away, Cassie?” Mitsuko asked quietly. “Once they have you, then what?”

  I smiled halfheartedly. “We don’t know what they want us for. Maybe they just want to talk?” It was as brazen a lie as I’d ever told. I felt Hanna’s laser stare, seeing right through me. “But we leave the weapon here. Okay? You guys are the only ones we can trust with Skyfall. If . . . something happens to us, Hanna can fly it into orbit and trigger it. Whether we are up there or not, understand me? She has Pinnacle; I think it works the same way.” Hanna’s eyes flashed, surprised.

  “How will we know if you’re okay?” Emilio asked.

  I reached in my pocket for the communication device that Luka had given me, opened it, and tossed it to him. “Luka has the other. If we’re able to communicate, we’ll let you know what’s happening. If you don’t hear from us . . .”

  Hanna nodded, her face solemn. “I’ll do what is necessary.”

  “I can’t believe we’
re having this conversation,” Emilio muttered darkly.

  “It’s either this or we leave Skyfall in the desert.”

  Luka stood, his chair scraping loudly against the tile. “No.”

  Our eyes locked. Hurt swam beneath the surface of anger and cold determination on his face. I hadn’t anticipated this reaction. “You can’t tell me it’d be better to give it to Crane. Or the government. Your people wanted to use it against the vrag. Isn’t this what they wanted?”

  “That weapon doesn’t belong to you.” And what trickled cold down my chest wasn’t the anger in his voice, it was the lack of emotion. He was drawing himself back. The way he’d been trained to do around humans.

  I felt suddenly as though he and I were on opposite sides of a wide gulf, an insurmountable distance, even though we were only feet apart. “If we do not use the weapon, it must be given back to my people when they arrive. Megobari technology. Megobari only should decide what to do with it.”

  There was such force in his words that I felt my cheeks heat. “But it affects humans. It’s on our planet. It could kill all of us. We should get a say in what happens to us, shouldn’t we?”

  “What makes you think you can trust these aliens more than you can trust humans?” Hanna asked archly. She was still standing over the chair beside me, Oracle now deactivated on the table in front of her.

  Mitsuko had been across from me, anxiously biting her thumbnail, but suddenly pushed her chair out and went to the kitchen to wash dishes.

  Luka shot a look of venom over my head at Hanna. “My people are the only hope your people have of survival.”

  “From how I understand it, your people are the only reason my people are in danger to begin with.”

  He took the blow and gave it right back to her. “Humans have been killing this planet since they arrived at the top of the food chain. You pumped poison into the air and increased the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere within a hundred years of your civilization discovering industry. Your leaders demonize and ignore scientific evidence so they can line their own pockets. People in your own country die from hunger and disease because your government blames them for being poor. You turn away innocent people escaping poverty, persecution, and war. I don’t know why my father thought you might accept our people, but for the fact that we sought to help you in return. You can’t even reproduce now without the intervention of science. Your species is dying out. How are your people equipped to deal with this decision of life and death better than mine?”

  “My people didn’t invent that weapon in the first place.”

  A loud metallic crash split the air, making everyone jump—Mitsuko, dropping a frying pan into the sink. “That’s enough. You two—take a break. Go to your rooms and cool off.”

  “You have no authority over me,” Luka said, his hands clenched over the back of the kitchen chair.

  “What he said,” Hanna retorted.

  “We’re all under a lot of pressure here, and you’re not helping. Don’t come back until you can learn to get along like the highly evolved life-forms you are.”

  With a final scrape of the kitchen chair as he jerked it out of his way, Luka left the room without another word.

  Hanna picked up her things, calm and collected, and also left without so much as a parting word.

  “So much for human-alien relations,” Emilio muttered.

  “If this is the best we can do, we won’t even need an alien invasion. We’ll tear each other apart before a single bomb is ever dropped.” Mitsuko’s voice was dripping disgust, and she was scrubbing the kitchen counters with a vengeance.

  “Do you think Luka was right? Should we give the weapon to the megobari?” I felt suddenly like the ground I was standing on might crumble beneath my feet at any moment.

  Mitsuko came in from the kitchen, still drying her hands with a dishcloth like she wanted to wring its neck. “It’s too early to make decisions. This is bigger than all of us. Right now we have to focus on what we can do to stop the vrag from hurting anyone. The megobari aren’t here yet; we can deal with them when, and if, they become an issue.”

  “You guys—you know I have to do this.”

  Emilio shook his head vehemently. “No, I don’t know that,” he said, voice breaking.

  “I can’t be a coward and risk innocent people,” I said gently, feeling the deep well of regret and sorrow threatening to swallow me. “I have to go.”

  Emilio nodded and swiped at his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he cleared his throat. “Yeah . . . so, who elected us to be in charge again, exactly? Because I’d like to abdicate.”

  “Me first,” I whispered, swallowing back tears.

  Luka was pulling away from me—and, I felt, from humanity as a whole.

  But he’d just lost his family and he was alone. That would do a number on anyone.

  I just didn’t know what to do to help him. Maybe there was nothing I could do.

  Except that wasn’t a concept I could accept. And we didn’t have much time left.

  I opened the door to his room without knocking. He was standing in front of a bookshelf in the far corner, and startled at my entrance.

  I closed the door behind me and stepped into the room.

  “We have to turn ourselves in to the vrag,” I said, adamant. “Soon. Now. Emilio’s out there putting together the footage of the Adastra mission so that he can broadcast it worldwide. Mitsuko’s going to figure out how to secure the transmission so that it’s anonymous. Everyone will know what happened on that moon, and what the vrag are capable of. That should, hopefully, mobilize everyone against them. We just need to figure out what to do with that weapon when we leave, because I’m not so sure we’ll be coming back.”

  He watched me steadily with that same expression he always wore, neutral but with engaged interest, like a concerned doctor listening to a patient. Then a slight furrow creased his brow.

  We were dancing a strange, distant dance now. What we used to be, what we might have been a million years ago seemed to hover in the air like a ghost between us.

  “Cassie, I am going to turn myself in. Not you.” He crossed the room and caught my shoulders in his hands, and released me almost immediately, as if he regretted the action. “You have endangered yourself enough on my account. And Hanna is correct. My people were the ones who brought this danger to your doorstep. Let me try to fix it. You need to stay here. Find a way to use Skyfall.”

  I was the fail-safe. Again.

  “Some part of me feels like you never came back,” I whispered. “Like you’re still back on that moon.”

  I knew they were the wrong words, as his face changed into something dark and troubled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “A large part of me never left that moon, Cassie.” His eyes were storm gray, clouded. “A large part of me died on that moon.”

  “I’m sorry. I keep thinking I could’ve . . .”

  “Don’t.” He reached out, hand gripping my fingers as if to physically stop me.

  “Part of all this is my fault.”

  “Why? I was the one who pushed you into the escape hatch.”

  “Exactly. If I hadn’t been there, you could’ve stayed with your family—helped them to escape, instead of me.”

  His hand released mine, head tilting. “You think that? My father ordered us to abandon ship. Not because we were in the way, but because he wanted to save us. He would’ve remained on that ship regardless of what you or I would have done. There was nothing else we could’ve done except die with them. He didn’t want that. Our ultimate mission was too important.”

  “You’re remarkably composed about it.”

  “It’s the only way I can make it right. Make it matter. We’re alive right now to accomplish something.”

  “To save Earth?”

  “And get revenge.”

  I knew Luka was conflicted. He viewed the vrag as monsters to be eradicated. I knew revenge motivated him—I wasn’t exactly on their s
ide, either, but if push came to shove, which would he choose? Avenging his family or saving Earth? What if there was a way to do one without the other?

  Unlike Luka, I couldn’t think of revenge.

  He lingered before me, both of us caught in something, as the storm in my chest grew stronger, a ball of repressed emotion filling my lungs until I thought they might burst.

  “Cassie.” He said my name again, except this time it was gentle, softer, and the entire mood of the conversation shifted into unfamiliar territory. “You know that I care about you.”

  I sucked in a breath. Focused on the hollow of his throat, because I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  I wanted to say it back to him—if this was truth-telling time, it was my last chance. But would he feel deceived if I told him I cared about him, too, but didn’t feel a pressing need to make out with him? Would we even have enough time together for it to matter?

  Unable to find the right words, I reached for his hand and held it tight, hoping the gesture would say enough.

  He squeezed my hand in response. “Please, Cassie. This all began with my people. I feel responsible to end it.”

  “They put a price on both our heads,” I said quietly.

  “They will be content with only mine. Trust me.”

  “I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. You know that.”

  He shook his head. Then, with a moment’s hesitation, he closed the narrow space between us and pulled me into him. “You can’t pilot Penelope.”

  I circled my arms around him and squeezed my eyes shut, reveling in the comfort of the embrace. But it felt like an ending, not a beginning. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  His arms tensed over my shoulders. “Cassie, please. Let me go.”

  I clenched my fists and leaned away to look him in the eye. “But they’ll kill you!”

  “Perhaps not right away. I think it’s more likely they’ll use me as bait or a bargaining chip for the megobari that are coming.”

  Panic, fear, helplessness rose in my throat, choking me. I laid my head on his shoulder and tried to seal the feel of him in my memory forever. “I don’t like this.”