by Audrey Grey
Now that the sun had risen and people had eaten breakfast, the town was bustling. She slipped down an alley and paused on the other side. The door to the building said this was a credit exchanger. But as soon as she opened the glass door and saw the line inside—every one of them mocks—she darted down the street.
She tugged the shawl down to her eyebrows, even though she looked foolish and was probably only bringing more attention to herself. Her heart skipped along her ribs. Most people would have their mock attendants out running errands, so she was bound to see a few. But how could she know which ones were rebel sympathizers?
Near the shores of the frozen lake, a ramshackle fish market was set up. The tang of the oily scales cleaned from flesh permeated the air, and Talia doubled over to catch her breath. Why couldn’t she have chosen a cleaner place to suck in air?
Ignoring the repeated offers of a lovely street dish made with fish guts and eyeballs, she worked to clear her mind. Her current don’t-get-shot plan wasn’t going to cut it. Obviously rebels were entrenched here, so she couldn’t ask just anyone for help. But nearly all the residents were bundled against the morning chill, their necks hidden. If she’d been smarter, she would have already found the rescue ship.
She doubled back around the north side of town, panting from the exertion, despite the chilly air. A few residents cast curious glances at her snowsuit. No one inside the habitat wore anything heavier than a wool cardigan. As soon as she found a deserted alleyway, she slipped inside. The zipper made it to her waist when a sound stopped her. She strained to listen. In the distance, a soft whir filled the sky.
Something about it sent shivers scraping down her spine. At the corner of the alleyway, she held a hand over her eyes to shield against the solar lights and peered up.
Five metallic spheres the size of winter melons glinted across the crisp blue holo-sky. The buzzing grew louder as the drones dove in a concerted formation, hovering just above the streets.
Hunters. Drake’s voice on the com replayed in her head. They tracked using spotter-drones and . . . what? He hadn’t finished his sentence.
One of the spotter-drones dipped low. The residents parted beneath it, some trying to hide, others covering their mouths with their hands. They were terrified. Red lasers shot from the drone over the people, scanning their faces. Whenever the lasers fell over someone, the person would freeze, trembling.
A metallic flash near the corner of the opposite street caught Talia’s eye. A moment passed before she made sense of what she saw. The gunmetal-gray droid was taller than any human, its body warped to resemble a hulking man. Muscles of carbon and steel twisted as the droid walked, each footstep like thunder. And instead of eyes, one red circle glowed in the middle of its black head.
The way its humanoid head tilted, it seemed the droid was somehow connected to the drones flying above.
“Hunter,” she whispered in a voice part awe part terror. Everything about it was created to inspire fear.
Stars. Leo was right. The Coalition would never use these monstrosities. Meaning the starship chasing the Odysseus wasn’t here to rescue her.
They were here to kill her.
Skittering noises, like metal on metal, drew Talia’s attention back to the hunter. She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth to muzzle a scream as spiderlike metal creatures the size of dogs swarmed from the hunter’s chest and overran the streets. One creature stood on its back four legs, two legs held in the air, and sniffed.
Her father used to hunt in the dense woods of the winter planet where they spent their holidays. Because of those precious few moments with her family, she knew hunters always had two things: spotters and trackers.
The other piece to that puzzle was the prey.
Of course, she was the prey.
The spider-dogs sniffing the air froze and then dropped down into a rigid stance, one leg pointed up in her direction.
Crap. She spun around and darted through the alleyway. Time for a new plan.
Talia had always been remarkably good at thinking under pressure, and by the time she burst into the street on the other side of the alley, knocking down a reedy man selling fruit, she remembered seeing crafts parked at some of the larger houses near the mountain. If she could make it there, perhaps one would be space-worthy.
Bright-green apples tumbled across the cobblestone streets, and the man she’d knocked down cursed at her.
“Sorry,” she huffed, launching over him and straight into a crowd of people.
A wooden stage full of people milling about stood before her. The first thing she noticed were the thick, corroded chains circling their ankles. The very idea incensed her. Why were they chained? A man stood at the podium, whacking his gavel the way she’d seen some toddlers do their toys.
She should have been fleeing the hunters. But something about this spectacle seemed important. Like the answer to a puzzle in the back of her mind.
Were they selling mocks? Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. The poor things had been ill-treated, by the look of their shabby clothes and dirty faces.
A proper mock auction would be held behind closed doors, allotting them dignity.
“All right, on to the next one.” The announcer’s voice poured from the drone amplifiers flitting around the heads of the spectators. “Flesher B57215.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. Humans are on the stage? As the pieces began falling into place, she scoured the necks of the crowd. Many had removed their jackets and scarves, exposing ports.
Mocks were selling humans?
Behind her, metallic clacks sounded off the buildings. She glanced back and immediately wished she hadn’t.
The spider-dogs were scampering after her over the walls of the buildings.
Breaking out of her fog, she plunged through the crowd. A woman cried out, and someone yelled, “One’s escaped!”
Everything after that was a blur of buildings and people. Yells and the occasional scream marked the location of the hunters and their creatures, but the crowded slave market must have masked her trail.
Slave market. She pushed the words deep, deep down to ponder later when she wasn’t running for her life. In a stupid, heavy-as-sin snowsuit.
She pushed on. Her breaths became ragged gasps, her footfalls in time with her racing heart. Fire burned through her lungs and into her arteries.
You’re a Starchaser. You welcome pain.
Her body disagreed, but it wasn’t her master. Keep pushing!
Circles of gold flashed across the pavement around her feet—light reflecting off the drones. She could feel them right behind her. Closing in. The buzzing grew louder until it seemed to vibrate inside her bones.
No matter how scared she was, how close the sounds got, she didn’t look back.
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
The houses near the base of the mountain came into view. The first several were smaller ramshackle homes surrounded by collapsing stone fences and junked-out hovers. She scanned the yards as she ran, looking for a star-worthy vessel. A few cloud-gliders, lower atmosphere vessels unprotected against the extremes of the upper atmospheres, appeared beneath their corrugated tin ports. Once she broke 70,000 feet in altitude, the lack of a proper oxygen supply in the ship would kill her within minutes. If she wore an oxygen pack, the cold would take her out.
Space was an unforgiving host.
All at once, her body felt too heavy, filled with rocks and lead. Her muscles trembled, her lungs burning. The Starchaser motto and her adrenaline could only do so much for her body, still weak from time in the pod.
Something streaked past, as fast as lightning, and a shudder ran through her as she faced what she first thought was a drone that had fallen to the ground. The thing was curled into a circle, rolling impossibly fast. It stopped with the quickness of a machine, transforming back into its original, terrifying arachnid shape. Spider-dog. Calling it that felt silly, but the machine’s face was canine shaped, with a
long metal snout. Four red eyes, two on each side, watched her with a look of intelligence that clenched her gut.
Without a second thought, she whipped out her gun, pulled back the hammer, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The spider-dog cocked its head; she swore realization dawned on its robotic face. Then she pulled the trigger again. This time, it did what it should have done in the first place.
Blew the bastard’s head off.
It also bruised her eardrums and recoiled so hard she nearly dropped the gun.
An unearthly shriek pierced the air. Still holding the weapon out like a bomb, she turned to see the pack of spider-dogs closing in, followed by a hunter. Each giant step he took gobbled up ten feet. Above, the drones had converged into a tight unit barreling down on her—a shiny spear of death.
If the hunter had spoken, perhaps commanded her to give herself up, she might have done it. But the thing just kept coming. A machine hell-bent on capturing its prey. And its lack of humanity sent waves of terror washing over her.
The two little bullets left in her gun might as well have been duds at this point. Panicked, she pocketed the revolver and leapt over the stone fence, ducking behind one of the houses. The backyards were naturally fenced in by hedges and lemon trees, and she wound through the maze with a desperation unbefitting a princess. But her grandmother had never been hunted by spider-dogs and giant androids.
Through a patch of heavy foliage, she spied something silver. Further inspection found a long, cylindrical craft. An older model D-Class hauler.
Totally space-worthy.
Her throat was tight with hope as she approached the vessel. Some of the silver paint had chipped off, and the windshield could do with a good washing, but otherwise the craft looked in good condition. The door creaked open, and she almost kissed the cracked, dusty console as she spied the keys inside. Wiping the layer of muck off the dials, she said a silent prayer and turned the keys.
By the looks of her, Talia thought the ship would give her problems, but the cruiser started on the first try. “Someone loves you very much, don’t they?”
A silver flash drew her eyes to the huge, curving windshield that wrapped around the front end. One of the spider-dogs had pounced on the glass, its pointed metal legs hooked into the surface. Tiny cracks spider-webbed out from the points. She swore the beast smiled at her as it slammed its head into the glass like a battering ram. Each loud thud made her flinch backward.
Airborne, Talia!
Thank the stars this part of her training was rote memory, because otherwise panic would have made it hard to remember the sequence of switches and buttons to engage. She jerked the cruiser up, her movements too choppy. Easy. Just like you practiced.
Her breathing stabilized as muscle memory took over, gliding the cruiser up in a smooth arc. Just as she cleared the lemon trees, the hunter burst through them, snapping four-foot limbs with explosive cracks that made her jump. The over-muscled droid looked a bit less intimidating with leaves and lemons dropping on its head. But only a little.
The spider-dogs on the ground leapt into the air, their enraged screeches making the hair on her arms stand on end. Those beasts would never lose their creepiness.
She grinned at the spider-dog still attached to her window, banging its idiotic head against the thick, translucent glass. Finally, it stopped and watched her with eyes too intelligent for comfort.
“You streaming this to all your buddies?” she yelled over the engine, glaring into its four eyes.
The beast cocked its head.
She flashed a grandmother-inappropriate gesture. “Send them this!”
Except Talia didn’t need to send them anything, because the drones had caught up. Sunlight danced across their smooth shells as they formed a circle around her craft.
She needed to shake her new friends. Clenching her jaw, she dove into a steep dive, the metal steering wheel vibrating so hard her whole body shook. The alleyways between the buildings were just wide enough for her to scrape through, leaving an inch on either side of her wings.
Her instructors at the academy would have been proud of the way she threaded through alley after alley with the precision of a master seamstress. She lost the first drone as she banked right, beneath a stone bridge. The orange explosion the drone made reflected off the frozen river below.
“Gotcha!”
Another drone crashed into the corner of a bakery as she maneuvered a ninety-degree turn to the left. That’s two.
Lifting to the skies, she set a path to the silver-blue frozen waters of the lake. A church stood smack in the middle of the lake, reminding her of some of the older castles she’d studied from Earth. She aimed the nose of her cruiser for just above the spires. On the other side more mountains rose up and kissed the sky, a good place as any to lose the last of her unwanted guests.
She was crossing over the pale, sandy shores of the lake when, on some signal she couldn’t hear, all the drones fired at once.
Flashes of blue seared her eyes. The craft rocked and shuddered. Alarms pierced the din of explosions and splitting metal. She tried to maneuver away, but the drones shadowed her, half-hidden inside the oily-black smoke spewing from her engine. A well-placed shot cracked the windshield, somehow missing spider-dog still clinging to the center.
Not somehow—on purpose. These were machines thinking in tandem. Spider-dog smashed its head against the crack, each blow a splintering sound that settled in her gut. The steering wheel went loose in her hands. She no longer had control of the cruiser.
For a moment that seemed an eternity, they glided over the open skies on some invisible hand. And she thought maybe—maybe she would get out of this okay. Just glide to the ground and pop out unharmed. Then her belly hollowed out as the craft lost momentum and dropped, spiraling toward the icy waters.
The startling realization that she couldn’t swim came just before she understood that fact was inconsequential. Most likely she’d be knocked unconscious or killed by the fall.
As the white ice closed in to meet her, spider-dog broke through the windshield and leapt.
Chapter 21
Will
The second Will broke through the doors of the church and glimpsed the craft partially submerged in the lake, he knew it had to do with the princess masquerading as an escort. Talia. Trouble followed her everywhere.
But he wasn’t expecting to actually spot her inside the mangled cruiser, fighting with something dark and quick that thrashed inside the cockpit. Other than a few bright pops of her auburn hair, and the occasional curse, he couldn’t tell who was winning.
Just as he adjusted his eyesight for binocular mode, a gunshot split the air, and the movement inside stopped. The princess was tougher than she looked.
Lux put up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Is that . . . our princess?”
“So it’s our princess now?” he muttered as he took off across the lake, his boots slipping on the ice. From his quick calculations, they had a minute before she sank. No more than two.
Beneath the glazed surface was blackness, like a watery version of space. The vessel was half-submerged inside a near-perfect circle, chunks of white ice scraping off the hull. Fissures shot out from the hole, making the ice near the crash unstable.
He adjusted his vision to zoom in on the cruiser. The mangled body of some type of robot creature lay half outside the hole in the windshield. He focused on the long, animalistic face. As the analysis in his programming ran a diagnostic on the creature, he looked deeper into the cockpit. Talia stood completely still, her eyes wide and white as snow, a ribbon of blood unspooling down her forehead. Her body trembled with shivers.
She was in shock. And trapped, judging by the way she struggled against the harness.
The diagnostic came back, a name and description flashing across his vision. Spotter Canis, belonging to a galaxy hunter.
Shit. Since when were hunters after her?
Lux caught
up with Will, gracefully skipping across the ice and making his careful steps look clumsy in comparison. “What’s the plan?”
“Plan?” he shot back. “I thought you had one.”
“You’re the captain!”
A crack sounded beneath their boots, and the ice split a foot ahead. They both dropped low and flat, crawling on their hands and knees to spread their weight. Shadows streaked across the ice, and Will’s heart sunk as he looked up.
Drones.
“What are drones doing here?” Lux growled from ahead. She moved much quicker than he could.
“Hunters.”
All it took was that one word, and she froze. Up until this moment, he could count on one hand how many times he’d seen Lux daunted. Her dark skin paled to match the gray of the ice, her breaths coming out in short puffs as she scrambled ahead. Afraid or not, she wouldn’t back down.
The drones descended. They seemed unconcerned with mocks lurking about the crashed cruiser, instead flitting around the wreckage and scanning the vessel. The hunter—or hunters, if they were unlucky—wouldn’t be far behind. One of the drones finally seemed to notice Will and Lux, and it buzzed over, hovering just above Lux’s head.
“Aw, hell, no!” she yelled, lifting to one knee. She had two blasters, one for each hand. The drone moved to zip away, but she clipped it with two blasts. It hit the ice and skidded fifty feet across the lake, nothing left of it but a hunk of billowing smoke and metal.
Lux turned her blasters on the others, and red fire lit the sky. They swarmed around her, dodging her shots as they returned fire. She ducked and rolled, barely missing a volley of blasts. The ice where she’d been a second ago exploded into crystalline shards, dark water mushrooming up into the air.
“Not the best place for a fire-fight,” Will scolded, dodging a blast so close it singed his skin. Then he brandished his own blaster. Lux had two because she liked to show off. But a true marksman only needs one.
Will took out two drones in less than a minute. Both hit the ice, hard, and smoldered, sending dark slivers of smoke into the air.
