Monthly Archives: June 2014

Jyra had no idea how long she had slept before Berk awakened her to give the news about the fleet cruising ahead of them. While the work with Leonick hadn’t been physically demanding, it left her wanting nothing more than to lie down for another few hours. Instead Jyra’s mind was back in action as she sat on her cot, considering Neeka’s information.

Why would a Nilcyn fleet be heading for Tyrorken? TF owned the only valuable assets on Jyra’s home world and they were well protected. What if the fleet fired on the resistance ship? Berk said Mastranada didn’t have any projectile weapons on board. Fleeing an attack was their only defense.

Jyra put her forehead in her palms and rubbed her scalp with her fingers. The moment she left Tyrorken, she no longer recognized the pace of her life. It felt as though no time had passed since she left her planet. Despite the risk of an attack, Jyra felt a sense of relief for the presence of the Nilcyn fleet. Were it not for the enemy ships, Mastranada would still be flying toward Tyrorken at top speed and there would be no opportunity for rest.

The comfort of this idea lasted mere moments because Derek entered her thoughts next. Neeka was right. Every delay extended Derek’s imprisonment. Jyra tried not to think about what the TF agents might have done to him, but she hoped they at least had the kindness to treat his leg. She imagined helping Derek limp down one of the stark corridors of the TF complex, guiding him to safety. She had only been to the building a few times to visit her parents at work. The hallway she envisioned resembled the one that led to her father’s office. Jyra remembered then that they didn’t know exactly where Derek was imprisoned.

Ignoring the urge to lie down, Jyra left her room for the cockpit. She couldn’t sit doing nothing while the ship sat motionless in space and Derek languished in a cell. Neeka was still in Berk’s seat, her elbows on the console and her hands clamping her head, forcing her eyes to remain on the monitor.

“Everything all right?” Jyra asked, taking her seat. Neeka didn’t break her gaze with the screen even as she replied.

“Yeah.” The sound of her voice contradicted the word. Jyra glanced at Neeka’s monitor and saw the red of the code characters marching across it.

“What are they saying?” Jyra said.

“I don’t know,” Neeka said. “I’m trying to remember where I’ve seen this code. It’s bothering me so much, I can’t get to sleep.”

“Would it help if we got moving again?” Jyra said.

Neeka finally looked away from the screen.

“It might,” she said. “If you think it won’t upset Berk too much.”

“The Nilcyns are beyond eyesight now,” Jyra said, surveying the star-studded canvas ahead. She powered up the engine thrusters and felt the vibration climb out of the floor into her boots.

Neeka smiled, switched off her monitor, and stood up.

“Time to give sleep another try,” she said, walking toward the exit. “Thanks,” she added.

“Get some rest,” Jyra said. “We’ll be there soon, I expect.” She transferred to Berk’s seat, turned the monitor back on, and pulled up the coordinates Berk entered into the nav computer. They had at least four hours of the journey left. Jyra flipped a switch and the proximity radar map filled the screen. The pulsing destination dot flickered over Tyrorken. The Nilcyn fleet was about halfway between Mastranada and Jyra’s home world.

Jyra swallowed hard, unable to keep from thinking about her parents. What would they do after their daughter destroyed their office? Would they come with her or remain on Tyrorken to make a new life?

She could not deny she missed their faces and the comfort of their embrace. The feelings didn’t warm Jyra as they once did. Thoughts of her parents were now overshadowed by Dario’s death, his funeral, and how Jyra had been contracted to follow the same line of work. Her parents had set it all up and though she knew she played a role in fracturing the relationship with her mother and father, she thought they were more responsible. She tried to control her breathing, which became more uneven as she reflected on her home life.

“One thing at a time,” she told herself. Jyra switched the monitor input again and saw their arrival estimate had increased. She remembered what Berk had said about the Drometica and Tyrorken rotating in opposite directions. Whatever coordinates had been entered, the planet would likely make another full turn on its axis and bring the destination closer to Mastranada.

The sound of boots thudding on the steel floor announced Berk’s arrival. Jyra turned to face him as he filled the cockpit entrance.

“Why are we moving?” he said.

“The fleet’s far enough ahead,” Jyra replied. “And Neeka’s right. The longer we sit out here, the longer Derek is at the mercy of TF.”

“I gave the order to cut the engines,” Berk said.

“And I followed that order. Now I’ve restarted the engines.”

“Because of Derek,” Berk said, taking a seat in Jyra’s usual chair. “You’re afraid of what’s happening to him.”

“Aren’t you?” Jyra said.

“Yes,” Berk said. “But I don’t let that fear dictate my decisions. You start acting on feeling alone and you’ll lose focus.”

“I’m also trying to carry out the plan, which is to get to Tyrorken,” Jyra said.

“What matters more?” Berk said, unscrewing the cap on a flask. “Reaching our destination or rescuing Derek?”

“Why does it matter?” Jyra snapped. “How long were you planning to have us wait out here? Come to think of it, who put you in charge? I thought Macnelia was leading this attack.”

Jyra felt a surge of satisfaction to see Berk swelling, as though preparing to shout a reply. Her irritation blocked out any fear or consideration of Berk’s size or possible temper. His face contorted and he turned away, hunching his shoulders. Jyra stifled a cry of surprise as Berk grunted and punched the wall, sinking his fist into the metal. Berk raised his head to gulp whiskey from his open flask, which he set on the console. He swiveled toward Jyra and stared at his knees.

“Macnelia is the leader of the resistance,” Berk said. “But she’s had a rough few weeks. As I said, too much emotional influence can interfere with one’s actions.” He opened and closed the fingers he had just rammed into the panel.

“That’s what’s happening to Macnelia right now,” he continued. “It’s happened to me and I don’t want it to happen to you.”

He paused again, but finally lifted his head and Jyra saw Berk’s glittering eyes staring into hers.

“Feel what you are going to feel, but don’t let it lead you to do anything irrational,” Berk said. “When I drink, it dulls the rash actions my emotions command. Something leftover from my hospital days.”

Jyra felt an urge to cut the engines again. She glanced at Berk’s injured hand and saw dark bruises forming on his knuckles. Still shaken by his physical outburst, Jyra tried to take the conversation in a new direction.

“How do you know Macnelia’s upset?” she said.

“I talked to her,” Berk said. “It turns out—” he paused once more and Jyra could tell he was deciding whether he should share the information.

“She’s obviously angry about the time bomb,” he said.

“She was angry at you for accusing her of setting it incorrectly and sabotaging the resistance,” Jyra said.

“That’s how it appeared,” Berk said, nodding. “But after discussing it with her, she believes she made a mistake. Macnelia’s mad at herself and the anger is compounded because her error nearly destroyed all of us. Add in her personal turmoil and it’s enough to unhinge anyone.”

Jyra wasn’t sure what to think. She was getting used to the bombardment of questions that tended to rush into her mind, as though the words she heard shattered a dam holding back the thoughts.

“What happened when she set the bomb?” she said.

“She doesn’t remember,” Berk said. “All she can recall is taking pictures of the main cavern and walking to and from the battery bank.”

“There’s a gap in her memory?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t you had times when you wanted to recall something specific, but all you can remember is something that took place around the time of what you’re seeking in your memory?”

“I guess so,” Jyra said. “I wonder if Neeka’s going through something like that right now.”

“What do you mean?”

Jyra explained about the code Neeka swore she recognized, but that she couldn’t recall where she had seen it before or what it meant.

“Maybe her worries about Derek are interfering,” Berk suggested. “Macnelia is also upset about what might happen to him.”

“She hasn’t seemed that concerned about Derek,” Jyra said.

“Because she hasn’t shown it,” Berk said. “She didn’t let the weight of it get to her until now. The simplest way to describe Macnelia at the moment is she’s dealing with a lot of repressed sadness. She’s been too busy to feel, but the impact finally broke through and overwhelmed her.”

Jyra thought of the bomb riding underneath the ship. She hoped Macnelia had been of sound mind whenever she worked on the explosive. Leonick had helped out, too Jyra reminded herself, and the brief worry passed.

She was about to inquire if Macnelia had mentioned anything to Berk that referenced her comment about being left behind on Drometica, but Berk pointed at the screen by Jyra.

“What’re they doing?” he said, leaving his chair to crouch beside Jyra, who swiveled to stare at the monitor.

The radar map showed the Nilcyn fleet had reached Tyrorken. The ships remained visible, which meant they weren’t penetrating the atmosphere. During the next ten minutes, the fleet moved into a different formation, becoming a tight crescent that spun with Tyrorken’s rotation.

“They’re targeting something,” Berk said. “If they hold that position, we just need enter the planet from the side opposite them. Keep the engines at full and we can get there before the fleet comes around again.”

A fresh thought of her parents’ safety replaced the flood of questions about Macnelia in Jyra’s mind.

*

Mastranada glided onward, closing in on Tyrorken. Berk and Jyra delved into the ship’s computer, pretending to be interested in running more diagnostics. Instead, they both sought work to block out their real concerns. Jyra could only stand twenty minutes of the mindless search on the monitor before her curiosity got the better of her and she left the cockpit hoping to talk with Macnelia.

“We’ll need to fill up the water tanks soon,” Berk said, as Jyra crossed to the exit. She caught sight of the Berk’s knuckles that struck the wall. The bruising had disappeared.

“I wouldn’t trust the water in them now given how long this ship was likely in the yard,” Jyra replied. “Then again, I wouldn’t trust the water on Tyrorken either.”

She passed the galley and, out of the corner of her eye, saw a shadow moving on a wall inside the room. Jyra stepped over the threshold and saw Shandra crouched by a crate, unloading the food from it and stacking the goods in a lower cupboard. Though she wore a long-sleeve shirt, one of the sleeves was pushed back, revealing the scars on her arms. She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Can I help?” Jyra asked. Shandra nodded. Jyra knelt down and began pulling cans of soup from the crate.

“What’s this?” she said, staring at the unfamiliar label.

“Tomato soup,” Shandra said.

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people I meet haven’t,” Shandra said. She yawned as she took the can out of Jyra’s hand to place it in the cupboard.

“Can’t sleep?” Jyra said. Shandra dropped her arms to her sides, tugging the crumpled sleeve down over her skin and crossing her arms.

“No, I can’t,” she snapped. “Does it matter?”

Jyra pushed herself off the floor and opened her mouth with no idea what she was about to say.

“What is with everyone?” she demanded. Shandra’s eyes grew wide with shock and she leaned back toward the crate like a cowering pet.

Jyra turned on her heel and stalked out of the galley, wishing she’d bypassed it in the first place. She wasn’t sure if Macnelia wanted to talk, but she had to try. Jyra knocked on her door and waited. When the door didn’t open, she knocked again.

After a minute or two, the door slid back and Macnelia stood behind it, her hair tangled and the skin under her eyes sagged.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The Nilcyn fleet ahead of us has moved into an attack formation around Tyrorken,” Jyra said. “We’re heading at full speed to enter the planet opposite the Nilcyns.”

“What Nilcyn fleet?” Macnelia said, rubbing the back of her head. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought—” Jyra realized right then that Berk hadn’t actually told Macnelia about the enemy ships.

“May I come in?” Jyra asked. Macnelia turned away from the door and sat on her cot. Jyra closed the door and sat in the nearby chair, a much sturdier counterpart than the one in her room. Macnelia looked sickly in the light reflecting off the pale green walls.

“There is a Nilcyn fleet ahead, likely the same one that hit Horbson,” Jyra said. “If all goes according to plan, we’ll be through Tyrorken’s atmosphere before they can detect us.”

“That’s a big ‘if,’” Macnelia said. She held up her hand with the tips of her thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “I’m this close to calling this whole thing off.”

“What do you mean?” Jyra said. “We can’t. Derek needs our help.”

Macnelia seemed to be deflating where she sat. Jyra hardly recognized the vibrant woman she had talked to in the presence of the bomb she designed.

“We can do this,” Jyra said firmly. “We’ve done so much and gotten this far.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this mission since I got the news,” Macnelia said. Jyra didn’t have to ask; she knew “the news” referred to Dario’s death.

“I’m wondering what good can come of more carnage,” Macnelia continued. “When we drop the bomb on those TF people, they have families and loved ones who care about them and who are going to miss them as much as I miss Dario.”

A sudden surge of comprehension coursed through Jyra as she realized Macnelia struggled with guilt similar to her own regarding the death of the shipyard guard. For a moment, it was impossible to see any distinction, but the difference emerged.

“That may be true,” Jyra said. “But as you told me, this is about more than that. TF threatens the future of the entire planet. It’s on the cusp of compromising every human life on Tyrorken. The families of the TF employees might have to mourn their loved ones from the comfort of a transport as they fly away from the dying world, but at least they’ll be alive. This resistance represents a last stand for Tyrorken.”

“You sound like you should be in charge of this campaign,” Macnelia said, finally allowing a small smile to creep across her face.

“Berk said you were leader,” Jyra said.

“I suppose,” Macnelia said vaguely.

Jyra took a deep breath, realizing she was about to reveal that Berk shared information from his conversation with Macnelia.

“Do you remember what you were thinking about when you set the time bomb?”

Macnelia’s smile vanished and her expression became cold. She glared at Jyra, but then directed her gaze at the floor, squinting.

“I was thinking about Dario,” she said. “I was thinking that I was about to avenge his death. But I had competing thoughts that were quite similar to the ones I just shared. Would this mission get back at those responsible for Dario’s death? I still can’t answer that question and I keep expecting a definitive reply to present itself. While I’m waiting, we’re on our way to fulfill the mission anyway. So it sounds like I’ve already decided. But of course I haven’t. These thoughts keep going around, like a ship circling a planet and they distract me. That very distraction nearly took out this ship and everyone on it.”

“Why did you tell me you wouldn’t have been surprised if we left you behind?” Jyra said.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Macnelia said. Her lips curved into a wry smile. “I thought I was going crazy. No resistance needs someone in that state because they make mistakes. There’s a big difference between planning an attack and carrying it out. I can handle the slow buildup, but the rushing execution brings out the worst in me. During the planning stage lives generally aren’t put on the line. Now we’re on our way to destroy who knows how many.”

“It’s worth it,” Jyra said. Macnelia wiped her eyes and pushed her hair back with one hand.

“I’m glad you think so,” she said.

*

Jyra wished she could keep working on the energy cores in order to ease her mind. As she wandered through the ship, she thought about the question she’d blurted after the frosty exchange with Shandra. It was easy to understand Neeka’s concern for Derek. Jyra found it harder to pinpoint the trigger of Macnelia’s misery, but Berk’s idea of repressed feelings seemed likely. Of course, Berk was also distressed, but Jyra figured he was more agitated over Macnelia’s wellbeing. She couldn’t determine the source of Shandra’s irritation and wondered if anyone aboard might offer some clues. As far as Jyra could tell, neither Craig nor Leonick were affected by the gloom that had spread throughout Mastranada.

Still absorbed in her pondering, Jyra returned to the cockpit and saw Berk sitting in front of his console.

“Any more news about our water supplies?” Jyra said.

“It’s more fascinating than you can imagine,” Berk replied. He threw back his head and drained his flask, which he dropped to the floor. Jyra noticed three others scattered around his boots.

“How many flasks do you own?” she asked, scooping them up from under him. She screwed all the caps on and dumped the collection on the console.

“Six,” Berk said. “Why? Do you have one you want to give me?”

“No,” Jyra said, taking her seat while trying to ignore the dented panel next to her. “It just looks like you’ve been drinking more than usual, though there’s nothing usual about it.”

“That’s reminds me of something unusual I found,” Berk said, sitting up in his chair. “Apparently, the air mixture in here is higher in 02 than most ships. I know Leonick was using a torch in the engine room and I think the air in there is probably balanced enough for that. However, open flame elsewhere might be a bit risky.”

“Does anyone aboard smoke?” Jyra asked.

“If they do, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”

“I’m serious.”

“I haven’t seen anyone with cigarettes,” Berk said. “I think we’re safe.”

Jyra saw Tyrorken looming before them and leaned back to check Berk’s screen, but it was too far away to see clearly.

“What’s our arrival status?” she asked.

“We’re about two hours from the new coordinates,” Berk said. “They’ll be moving away from us soon, though. That said, I think we’ll be on the ground in no more than three hours.”

“I might get some more sleep if you’ve got things squared away here,” Jyra said, standing and stretching her arms behind her head.

Berk reached across the console to access the air processor controls and his sleeve brushed the empty flasks. They clattered to the floor and he sat back to stare at the mess. Then Berk glanced at Jyra over his shoulder.

“I’m all right,” he said. Jyra raised her eyebrows in reply and left the cockpit.

She settled on her cot, surrendering to the fatigue that crept in from her extremities. The barrage of thoughts lost their distinction and entwined with each other. As she closed her eyes, Jyra envisioned the ideas coalescing in a long, shining rope that stretched into the depths of her mind. Sleep switched off her consciousness and she murmured to herself in the darkness of her room.

“I’m more than these thoughts.”

*

The cot slid sideways and Jyra rolled off of it. Though disoriented and still half asleep, she threw out her arms and braced herself as she was pitched into a corner of her room. The gentle vibration had been replaced by a constant lurching of the ship. Jyra retrieved her boots, which had migrated to another corner, and pulled them on. Clinging to the wall of the passage, she made her way to the cockpit. Berk was where she had left him. Macnelia clung to the back of his chair and a dusty glaring light flooded over the consoles. A particularly wild jerk threw Jyra into the cockpit and she caught herself on her chair. She hastily took her seat and clipped into the safety harness. The roar of air rushing over the exterior of the ship filled their ears.

“What’s going on?” Jyra shouted, as though she were speaking in the middle of a hurricane.

“Local air pressure’s too thin to support us!” Berk shouted. “We keep hitting rough patches that slow us down, but aside from those, we’re in a freefall toward the planet.”

Jyra did her best to review the gravity data, but her fingers keep slamming the incorrect keys on the keyboard, which shook as violently as the rest of Mastranada. The ship’s haphazard descent flummoxed the G sensors. Jyra saw the artificial gravity system actuator clicking on and off because the readings on Tyrorken’s gravity kept fluctuating.

“Altitude?” Jyra said.

“Can’t say!” Berk hollered. “No reading!”

Mastranada plunged through clouds, all various shades of brown. Despite the flashing warning lights and intermittent blaring of alarms, Jyra couldn’t block out the churning feeling in her stomach. A dull tan haze was all she could see through the cockpit glass. The ship suddenly flipped forward as the aft launch thruster caught a dense patch of air the front thruster missed. The stern-over-bow tumbling caused the engines to speed the ship toward the ground and then immediately counteract that trajectory.

“Get out of here!” Berk shouted to Macnelia as her body fell over his; she managed to maintain a grip on the back of his seat.

“It’s not safe!” Jyra said, jerking her head toward the exit. “Go!”

Macnelia slid off the seat and clambered free of the cockpit as the ship began the rotation of its second flip.

“We need a blast from the engines!” Jyra said. “Break the rolling momentum!”

Berk raised a thumb from his fist and nodded.

“At negative one hundred and ten!” Jyra said. She stared at the brown haze through the cockpit glass as she hung upside down in her harness.

As Berk fired the engines and Mastranada shot toward the ground, Jyra felt the pressure in her ears relax. Her body also eased off the back of her seat, indicating the speed of the ship’s descent decreased.

“Altitude?” she shouted.

“We have a reading!” Berk said. “Twenty thousand and we’re stabilizing.”

The rushing sound of air faded and the computer reoriented the launch thrusters to correct Mastranada’s landing position. The ship dropped through the haze and Jyra finally glimpsed the surface of her home world again. She ignored the thought of her parents that threatened to push into her mind and focused instead on landing procedures.

“Any read on where we are relative to TF headquarters?” Jyra said. Berk shook his head.

“The computer’s still calibrating,” he said. “We should extend the legs, though. We’ll be on the ground soon.”

Mastranada landed in a vast plain under a caramel colored sky. The few trees in sight had twisted trunks and the punishing climate had long since sucked away their moisture.

Jyra unclipped from the harness and stood up, hoping her stomach would settle.

“Until the computer catches up, we won’t know much,” Berk said.

Jyra left the cockpit and headed to the cargo bay. The straps had held most of the supplies in place. A few loose crates had been tossed about the room during the landing, but the damage appeared minimal. Jyra stepped into the passageway, preferring to use the smaller door, rather than empty most of the fresh air from the ship out of the cargo bay. She was about to open the door, when she heard a voice behind her.

“Watch out for the hull plates. They’re still too hot to touch.”

Jyra turned and saw Shandra leaning against the wall. She looked disheveled, likely caused by the tumultuous landing.

“I will,” Jyra said. “I’m not even sure why I want to go out there. The air’s horrible.”

Shandra approached, rubbing her right arm with her left hand.

“Sorry about earlier,” she said. “Sometimes my anger gets the better of me.”

“Happens to all of us,” Jyra said, hoping she sounded both nonchalant and sincere.

“It’s just—” Shandra paused. Jyra was suddenly reminded of when Berk had hesitated before sharing the information about the causes of Macnelia’s frustration.

“I used to be a metalworker,” Shandra said. “All the scars on my arms were from regular work, except for one.”

She stopped talking again at the sound of hurried footsteps. Neeka appeared at the end of the passage.

“Is the computer up yet?” she asked, rushing toward Shandra and Jyra. Her eyes were wide and her hands were clenched near her stomach.

“What is it?” Jyra said.

“I remember,” Neeka said. “The Nilcyn code. I remember where I’ve seen it before!”

The vast frontier of space appeared through the cockpit glass. Jyra leaned back in her seat, searching for Tyrorken amid the stars. Though she scanned the depthless view, her tan-colored home world eluded her eyes.

“You won’t see it yet,” Berk said, entering data for a course to Tyrorken into Mastranada’s nav computer. “Drometica’s facing the opposite direction and both planets have orbited away from each other.”

Jyra realized he must be right. Her ears and toes sensed the gentle hum of the engines. She only noticed it when she focused on the vibration. Berk pushed his matted hair back with his thick fingers and released an agitated sigh. Jyra didn’t have to ask what bothered him; it became apparent when Macnelia stepped into the cockpit behind them.

“She flies well,” Macnelia said, running her fingers up and down her camera strap.

“For a ship that escaped being crushed by a mountain,” Berk said. “When did you program the battery bomb to detonate?”

“What?” Macnelia said. Jyra watched her reaction closely. Her hand stopped on the camera strap, but her eyes widened with genuine concern.

“The countdown on the bomb,” Berk said. “You seemed to think it was set to go off in eight hours. Did you feel the blast when we took off? If we had been there a moment longer, the explosion would have swallowed this ship and all of us.”

Macnelia glanced briefly at Jyra, expecting to see some clue regarding Berk’s outburst.

“You think I deliberately tried to sabotage the entire resistance?” she said, bristling and taking a few steps into the cockpit.

“I think you haven’t answered my question,” Berk said.

“I set the bomb for eight hours,” Macnelia said, gritting her even teeth. “When we took off I felt a pulse in the air, but I thought it had something to do with the engines.”

“When did you start the time ticking?” Berk said.

“When you were flying the ship to clear the snow to simplify the hull inspection,” Macnelia replied. Berk fixed her with a scrutinizing look then turned back to his monitor.

“You don’t believe me?” Macnelia said.

“Unless you took a photo of the timer after you set it, no I don’t,” Berk said. He finished inputting the coordinates to the nav computer, stood up, and continued speaking as though the exchange with Macnelia hadn’t happened. “At least we’re heading in the right direction now. The ship’s on autopilot.”

“Everyone’s picking out rooms,” Macnelia said. “I want you both to get some shuteye during the trip. I think you need it,” she added, glaring at Berk.

Jyra left her seat and tried not to exit the cockpit too quickly, though she was eager to be out of the middle of the bickering. Berk’s boots tromped behind her.

The excess heat from the engines finally began circulating through the ship, but the large cargo bay still held the chill of the mountain air. Jyra only spent the amount of time necessary amid the crates to locate her duffel in the cold surroundings. As she moved down the main corridor, she could tell most of the rooms were occupied based on the scuffling sounds behind the closed doors.

She tapped on a promising door and heard no reply. The room behind it was almost entirely empty, except for an old wooden chair in one corner and a cot in the other. Jyra stepped inside, wishing she had grabbed a heavy coat or blanket from the cargo bay. Before she could shut the door, Craig whispered her name. He was in the room directly aft from hers. She stepped out of the way so Craig could enter her quarters.

“All these rooms are rather uninspired,” he said, taking a seat in the chair, which creaked under his weight.

“Just like the crew in some ways,” Jyra said, setting her duffel down. She explained the argument between Berk and Macnelia.

“Berk thinks Macnelia set the bomb to go off sooner on purpose?” Craig said, after hearing about the exchange.

“Seems that way,” Jyra said. “It’s hard to believe Macnelia would go as far as killing everyone, including herself, but she was acting weird. When I met her in the main cavern before we brought her luggage up she was taking pictures and she mentioned that she wouldn’t blame us if we left her behind.”

Craig leaned back in the chair and rubbed the whiskers sprouting around his mouth, considering the significance of Jyra’s revelation about Macnelia.

“This is a difficult time,” he said, dropping his hands into his lap. “You know me. I’ve known about the resistance plan for a while, but I’m still questioning the course of action. We’re taking the resistance to the next step, but bombing TF headquarters makes me uneasy simply because of the risk. On the other hand, I feel like we’re avenging Dario’s death as well as saving the lives of everyone on Tyrorken who can’t escape when the planet can no longer sustain them.”

Jyra felt her stomach muscles clench at the sound of her brother’s name.

“That’s…strange,” she said, speaking as the thought entered her mind. “Macnelia said something similar. She tried to explain how what happened to Dario changed her outlook on the resistance.”

Jyra stopped talking as the force of emotion constricted her voice. It wasn’t sadness, but rather a fierce sense of bitterness. If only Dario had talked about the resistance. How had he really felt about it? It wasn’t something she could bear to hear from Macnelia, Craig, or, if they rescued him, Derek. She wanted the answer from her brother’s mouth and she couldn’t have that anymore. Craig watched her out of the corner of his eye and Jyra sensed his gaze.

“I wish I knew,” she began, urging her mind to jump ahead of her crawling speech. “I wish I knew if TF deliberately caused his death and what he thought the resistance should do.”

“How would that help?” Craig said gently.

“What happened to him has shaken those in the resistance,” Jyra said. “I understand better than anyone wanting to avenge his death, but without knowing what he wanted, it’s selfish. I feel like it undermines his memory.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Craig said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Jyra said. “No one does because they don’t know how he felt. That’s the point. I think Macnelia’s realizing that. Why are we doing what we’re doing if our motivation for doing so is fractured?”

“Because there’s a greater need and time isn’t on our side,” Craig said. “And I agree that’s what we should be focused on. It’s hard. I’m still stuck on trying to talk Dario out of the oil work in the first place. Then there’s my own guilt of what we’re about to do. Even so, it’s much bigger than all that now. Our planet is in jeopardy.”

Jyra nodded and Craig sat back in the chair again, which creaked into the lengthy silence in the room.

“I just remembered something,” Craig said, adopting a new tone. “You said you’d tell me about Berk and his bullet wound.”

“I’ll tell you on the condition that you get me a blanket then let me get some sleep,” Jyra said.

Craig got up, went to his room, and returned with a blanket.

“Here you go,” he said. “What’s the story?”

Jyra explained Berk’s history on Silanpre and how he’d been held prisoner in a medical center.

“So his arm healed up that fast because of experimental chemicals they gave him in a corrupt hospital?” Craig said.

“That’s what he told me,” Jyra said. “And most people don’t have that kind of physique.”

“That’s true,” he said, standing up to leave. “Thanks for the update. See you in a few hours.”

“See you then,” Jyra said, settling back onto the cot.

*

It didn’t take long before Jyra awoke to a knock on the door. She sat up, coaxing her dull muscles in action.

“What is it?” she said.

“We’ve got a problem,” Berk said through the door. “Get up to the bridge as soon as you can.”

Jyra kicked the blanket off and retied her hair. Her head felt twice as heavy as she shuffled into the corridor. She reached the cockpit and dropped into her seat.

Neeka crouched next to Berk’s monitor and Berk was in his seat, draining a flask into his mouth.

“What’s going on?” Jyra said, gazing at the stars, letting the dazzling scene banish the residual feelings of sleepiness.

“There’s a fleet up ahead,” Berk said. Jyra sat straight up at the news and stared intently into space. The gray hulls of ships and the glow of their engines were impossible to miss.

“They’re so exposed,” Jyra said. “What are they doing?”

“They seem to be heading the same way we’re going,” Berk said. “The catch is there’s only one group I can think of that would flaunt their unity so openly in this system.”

“You think that’s the Nilcyn fleet that attacked Horbson?” Jyra said.

“Positive,” Berk said.

“We can’t know that,” Neeka said.

“No we can’t,” Berk said. “If your radar had been working properly back at the base, we would have detected the arrival of Craig and Jyra’s ship as well as identified the Nilcyn strike force.”

“Not that it would have mattered,” Neeka said heatedly. “I told you already. They’ve changed their com frequency so it wouldn’t have been picked up anyway.”

Berk took another swig from his flask and threw it behind him.

“Cut engines,” he said.

“What?” Jyra said.

“I said cut the engines!” Berk said. “I don’t want to catch up to a whole enemy fleet.”

“We don’t know what they are yet,” Neeka said.

“I don’t see any other fleets around here,” Berk said, standing up so he towered over Neeka. “You can confirm what they are later. For now, I’m ordering to stop engines so we don’t get any closer to them now. We have no projectiles on this ship to defend ourselves.”

Jyra leaned forward to switch off the engine thrusters, but paused.

“If they are Nilcyns, where’s the renegade fleet to destroy them?”

“No other ships to assemble this deep in space to challenge them, unless you suggest I take the pod out and we can take them on together with no artillery,” Berk said.

“Cut,” Jyra said, flipping the switches.

“And Derek keeps waiting,” Neeka said in an undertone. Berk strode out of the cockpit, his boots thumping on the steel floor.

“How’s progress?” Jyra said.

“Slow going,” Neeka said. “Easier without him chugging whiskey next to me. I’ve got their com frequency isolated, but they’ve got layers of protection on it.”

Neeka stood up and sat in Berk’s vacant seat. Almost immediately she leaned back, staring at the code scrolling across the screen in front of her.

“Funny,” she murmured.

“What’s that?” Jyra said, moving over to stand behind Neeka’s chair.

“I feel like I’ve seen this code before somewhere,” Neeka said. Jyra couldn’t make any sense of the red digits flying from one side of the monitor to the other.

“How do you remember something like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, part of being a programmer I suppose,” Neeka said. “A couple more years and I’m sure all code will look the same, making as much sense as ink spilled on a tablecloth.”

Jyra directed her attention to the fleet, which continued to move away from them. Beyond the gray ships she could now see her home world, a tiny sphere floating in space like a speck of dust.

“You all right here?” Jyra said, walking toward the exit. Neeka nodded with a half a glance at Jyra. She bent over the keyboard and began typing. Jyra headed aft and saw Shandra walking toward her, wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms.

“I heard Berk and Macnelia talking,” Shandra said. “Something about a fleet up ahead?”

“Yeah, it’s there,” Jyra said. “Heading away from us, though.”

“Well that’s much less exciting,” Shandra said. Her arms dropped to her sides and Jyra realized she had never seen Shandra in short sleeves. Scars and burns covered her exposed skin.

“What happened?” Jyra asked, pointing at the damage. Shandra folded her arms automatically and didn’t meet Jyra’s eyes.

“Work injuries,” Shandra said and immediately turned and walked back toward her room.

Jyra stood in the passage, processing Shandra’s behavior. Where had she worked before? Her reaction had been so strong that it couldn’t just be shame of the scars.

The visual presence of Nilcyns, coupled with the encounter with Shandra, erased any desire for Jyra to go to sleep. She descended the ladder into the lower corridor and decided to visit the engine room rather than return to her quarters. It was brighter and much warmer than before, owing to the heat from the engines and additional lights that blazed through the catwalks and the overhead machinery.

It only took a couple footsteps over the threshold before the mixed feelings reared in Jyra’s mind. On Tyrorken, her work at the garage had always been a place to leave her worries behind. The opportunity to focus on mechanical tasks promised to clear her mind of anxiety. Sometimes projects were challenging and painful, such as when she cut her hand on the fuel tank, but the solutions were always within her reach. Beneath the garage roof, she had the tools required to rectify all kinds of damage to a variety of vehicles. Jyra found herself wishing that she could pull out the contents of her mind to sort through them on the workbench, tweaking and adjusting the broken pieces one at a time.

Standing in the presence of the engines, Jyra felt some of the clarity that came from the garage work, but only for a moment. Another feeling rose over the peaceful one like a shadow climbing on a wall, shrouding other sensations from existence. As she sensed the feeling, her eyes snapped to the ladder on the far wall. The bright lights made the floor under the bottom rung impossible to ignore; she had wiped away the even layer of dust that settled over the rest of the room from that spot.

Jyra remembered when she and Berk had taken off and the beverage had spilled. She could smell the tangy odor that emanated from the smashed mug. What if that guard had a sister? She lost him just as quickly as Jyra lost Dario. Death for nothing. Jyra felt her feet falling sluggishly as she began backing out of the room. Sparks flashed nearby and Jyra jumped and stumbled into the wall.

Leonick emerged from behind one of the energy cores. He wore a pair of enormous tinted welding goggles that made his already small face appear even more diminutive. The strap of the goggles also pushed most of his hair upward. Jyra wondered if perhaps he had just been electrocuted. He held a small torch in one gloved hand, a pair of pliers in the other, and his mouth formed an earnest smile.

“Good morning,” he said.

“You startled me,” Jyra said. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

“Did I startle you or was it the sparks?”

“Both.”

“Excellent because this is startling work,” Leonick said, ducking out of sight. “It means I am doing it right.”

Jyra had never seen him so willing to interact, or indeed, so excited. She came around to where Leonick had opened a panel at the base of the portside energy core. Wires, as thin as the strands of a spider web, glistened like shards of glass in sunlight. Jyra sensed the anticipation kindling in her chest. It was a familiar feeling from her days of working at the garage. The sensation of nervous excitement that crept in, imposing on her lungs, whenever she began taking apart a vehicle, discovering how it all fit together.

Jyra leaned over Leonick’s shoulder to peer into the crisscrossed network of wires, but she couldn’t make any more sense of how the core actually functioned.

She remembered Leonick had mentioned something about corrosion, as he switched off the torch and pulled off the gloves.

“What’s damaged about the cores?” she asked. Leonick swiveled on his heels and spoke, filling Jyra’s nose with the stench of whiskey.

“Most of these wires are corroded,” he said, gesturing at the exposed silver conductors.

“Where’s the corrosion?”

“Right here.” Leonick pushed the goggles onto his forehead and brought one of his smooth fingernails right up to the edge of a wire. Jyra tilted her head and, for an instant, saw a clear buildup clinging to the strand near Leonick’s pinky. She repeated the brief duck of her head and again only saw the corrosion for a moment.

“I can barely see it,” she said.

“I can see it better than you can,” Leonick said. “But it is still difficult. You have to learn how to see it.”

“How do you learn that?” Jyra said.

“I did not learn how. I just know how,” Leonick said. “What you look for is what you see.”

“When did you first see corrosion in energy cores?”

“Twenty-two Jekka years ago,” Leonick said.

“Were you a metalworker?” Jyra said. She knew Jekka was home to most of the metalworkers in the galaxy. Spaceports covered the planet because nearly all ships in the Kaosaam System went there to have their hull plates resealed by metalworkers. Apprentice metalworkers had to go through a rigorous training program, but once certified, they had a plenty of work for the rest of their lives.

“I do not have the hands of a metalworker,” Leonick said, holding them up to the light to advertise their smooth skin. “That job is respected throughout the system, but I chose a more interesting path once I understood myself. When I was younger, I discovered that I intuit machines. I started working as a mechanic, but I did not like it. My mind was always elsewhere and it dawned on me that my comprehension of machines was more advanced than others.”

Leonick stopped talking abruptly to redirect his attention to the energy core. Jyra watched as his hands—each wielding a miniature toothbrush—darted among the silver wires. The bristles grazed the translucent deposits, rubbing them loose. Leonick’s precise movements reminded Jyra of an old flipbook of a flying spaceship she used to own. Overtime, some pages grew limp, while others remained stiff. When she tried to use it, clusters of pages skipped over her thumb and the spaceship seemed to jump from one side of the book to the other instead of smoothly flying the distance. Leonick’s hands moved like that spaceship. The action seemed sporadic, but it was undoubtedly controlled because each stroke with the brushes scrubbed off more corrosion.

The smell of alcohol rose from Leonick again and Jyra leaned back, the odor breaking her concentration.

“Why do you drink so much?” she said before she could stop herself. Leonick’s hands stopped and he withdrew them from the energy core. He began spinning both brushes with his fingers.

“Do you ever get an idea fixed in your head?” he said. “You try to think about other ideas, but the fixed thought remains, no matter what you do?”

Jyra nodded.

“That is how my mind works all the time,” Leonick said. “My brain is inventing. I intuit that which exists and that which is yet to exist. My body cannot match the speed of my mind. If it could, I would know peace. If it could, I would relax.”

“Drinking makes you forget,” Jyra said.

“Alcohol interrupts the neural activity, which provides the clarity I need to construct my ideas in the world around me. There are two ways I can put an idea to rest. I drink until I can no longer process it or I build it so the thought becomes reality and stares back at me.”

Jyra wondered what it would be like to constantly be bombarded with information she herself kept creating. She didn’t think she could stand the chaos.

“What’s something you know of that doesn’t exist yet?” Jyra said.

“A time machine,” Leonick said. “Of course, time traveling already happens to some degree within the galaxy.”

“You mean when someone travels between two planets?”

“Exactly. A day on one world is not the same length as a day on another. A greater difference can be found between galaxies, such as the one I am from. The time machine I have planned would allow true time travel, such as to your childhood, for example. The only way to get there now is by discovering a galaxy parallel to this one in every way, same planets, same people, except it is thirty years behind.”

“You’re from a different galaxy?” Jyra said, partly shocked that she hadn’t considered the existence of other galaxies, despite her interest in space travel. The rest of the shock came from knowing she was talking to someone from another system.

“I am,” Leonick said. “The universe is a big place.”

“How old are you by your galaxy’s time?”

“Eighty-three,” Leonick said, smiling his small smile as Jyra’s eyebrows jerked upward. “Time moves faster back home.”

Jyra certainly had never considered the time differences in the whole universe. Questions from the new information she learned replaced the clarity she felt watching Leonick work on the energy core.

“How old are you in this system?” Jyra said.

“Thirty-seven,” he replied.

“But you were inventing in your home galaxy?”

Leonick nodded.

“What’s your favorite invention?”

“That I have built or that is in my head?”

“That you’ve built,” Jyra said.

Leonick turned toward the energy core and laid a hand on the cowling.

“This,” he said.

Jyra stared at him and Leonick’s cheeks lifted as he gave a wide smile.

“You invented energy cores?” Jyra said.

“I did,” Leonick said. “Much of the time I spent on Jekka involved manufacturing them, but they are harder to market than you think.”

“But they’re an ingenious power source,” Jyra said.

“You flatter me,” Leonick said. “The fact remains, as you can see, they are challenging to maintain. I have to use these brushes to clean the conduction wires, otherwise I might bend one out of place. That is all it takes to compromise an energy core. I developed them assuming mechanics that serviced them would do so with my level of patience. I was wrong.”

“You said I could learn to see,” Jyra said. “Couldn’t others learn to maintain energy cores? You can instruct them.”

“Even you should be able to understand my brain is not wired to teach people such depth of understanding,” Leonick said. “As long as simpler forms of energy and locomotion exist, people will seek the easier approach.”

“But other forms of energy cost more on the front end,” Jyra said. “Mining and refining. I grew up around that. Now we’re on our way to drop a bomb to end those activities that threaten the survival of my home planet.”

“I should say people will seek what they believe to be the easier approach,” Leonick said with a heavy sigh. “I speak not just of seeing, but also of the depth of seeing. You have experienced challenging truths that most people know of only in their fears. Your depth of sight is greater for it. Would you like to scrub the wires?”

Leonick lifted one of the brushes he twirled toward Jyra. She took it while processing what she had just heard. Jyra sank to her knees next to Leonick, ignoring his smell as she moved toward the open panel.

“Focus on the brush,” Leonick said, his voice dropping to a growling whisper. “Let it guide you.”

Jyra extended her arm to direct the brush through the open hatch at the base of the core. Sweat ran off her fingers onto the thin handle. She stared at the wires, trying to see the corrosion. The head of the brush rotated as she spun the handle between her thumb and forefinger.

“You found some,” Leonick said. The bristles scraped on a wire, wiping a deposit free. Jyra didn’t remember seeing it before she started spinning the handle, but the falling remnants beneath the wire proved she succeeded.

“I still can’t really see the corrosion,” Jyra said.

“You need more practice,” Leonick said. “But first, you need more sleep.”

He stood up and pulled a flask from his overshirt pocket. Jyra continued staring into the energy core, listening to the gurgling noise as the liquor rushed into Leonick’s mouth.

She remembered watching Leonick as he worked on the explosive in Macnelia’s room.

“Did you envision the bomb in your mind?” Jyra said. Leonick lowered the flask and wiped his dirty sleeve across his mouth.

“Macnelia had it mostly figured out. I assisted with the detail work,” Leonick said.

“Do you feel—” Jyra paused to search for the right word “—responsible, at all, for what we’re about to do?”

“I have a difficult time feeling emotional extremes,” Leonick said. “Too much going on already.” He pointed to his head and rolled his eyes. “She asked me to help and I helped. I feel justified destroying part of a fuel industry that lobbied against energy cores.”

“What do you mean?” Jyra said.

“On Jekka, the liquid fuel companies fought the energy core project. They did all they could to block my funding proposals. I do not hold any anger toward them, but it is something I considered while building the bomb,” Leonick said.

Leonick knelt down to refit the panel cover on the energy core. He and Jyra rose together and he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you for finding a core-powered ship,” he said. Leonick dropped his arm, set the goggles with the other tools, and walked out of the engine room. Jyra followed him into the corridor and told him to sleep well as he entered his quarters. She headed for her own room, but saw Neeka coming toward her.

“What’s going on?” Jyra asked.

“I decoded the signal,” Neeka said. “It’s a Nilcyn fleet.”

“Are they holding their course?” Jyra said. Neeka nodded.

“In fact,” she said, “I think they are heading for Tyrorken as well.”

The Mastranada launch thrusters blew snow off the ledge outside the resistance cave as the ship touched down. Jyra and Berk made their way to the cargo bay where they discovered the pod had skidded into the door. A rope, one end still lashed around a steel wall stud, lay tangled on the floor.

“Glad I didn’t have to climb back up,” Berk said, nodding at his wound. He untied the rope, coiled it neatly, and threw it into a battered supply crate that was bolted in place. Jyra headed for the cargo door controls.

“Wait, we need to move the pod,” Berk said. “It might knock the door off its track if we try to open it now.”

“This one slides?” Jyra said, impressed again by their luck of finding such a well-equipped transport.

“Like a puck,” Berk said. “Give me a hand.”

They both leaned against the pod and it moved easily away from the door.

“If I had more time, I’d have tied it down,” Berk said. “Go ahead.” He nodded at the controls.

Jyra flipped the dusty hatch cover open and pressed the button. The motors behind the wall whined and the door shuddered as it slid back on squeaking bearings.

Berk stood in the doorway and gestured for Jyra to come to his side. The ledge appeared before them as the door glided out of sight. The cliffs of the mountain jutted toward the clear sky of early morning. Jyra stared at the icy granite and noticed Macnelia and Craig, clad in fur coats, walking down to greet them. She remembered picking her face out of the snow when she arrived on Drometica to see the cave for the first time. Jyra jumped onto the ledge, remembering she had only been on the planet for two nights; it seemed much longer than that.

Craig gave her hug and she felt the sweat on his cheek.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Jyra said.

“Packing,” Craig said, stepping aside and pushing his hair off his forehead.

“Welcome back,” Macnelia said. “Excellent find.” She gazed at the ship before Berk approached and threw an arm around Macnelia, almost knocking her over.

“Berk’s wounded,” Jyra said.

“Makes two of us,” Macnelia said, prying away from Berk and rubbing her ribs. “Doesn’t seem too bad,” she added, looking at Berk’s bloody sleeve.

“Nick from a bullet,” Berk said, while he pulled out his flask. As he sipped the contents, Jyra saw his eyes flick back at the ship as though something had just occurred to him. “I’ll get a bandage on it. Got a quick bit of business to attend to.” He climbed back into the ship.

The others headed toward the cave. Though the breeze was gentle, it pushed Jyra’s cold trousers against her skin as she led the group into the mountain.

The fire pit was empty except for cold ash and a few charred logs. The surrounding cavern was no longer vacant. Boxes and crates took up most of the floor and some stacks of supplies stretched to the ceiling.

“We’re still working in the main cavern,” Craig told Jyra, laying his fur coat across a crate. “Taking the consoles apart is slow work.”

“Took a while to install, too,” Macnelia said.

“Where’d they come from?” Jyra asked.

“The ship Derek brought here,” Macnelia said. “Wasn’t much left after it landed, but we were able to use quite a lot of it. Let’s stack some of these crates to make a better path between the exit and the main passage.”

By the time, they widened the path through the cavern, Berk came in, blowing on his hands and wiping them on his jacket. They all started down the passage to the main cavern. Macnelia tapped one of the buttresses as she passed it.

“Berk made these from the ship’s frame,” she said.

Jyra looked over her shoulder at Berk who lumbered behind the group, his heavy coat and wild hair brushing the sides of the passage.

“You two should go have some breakfast and then lend a hand,” Macnelia said.

“Another ship fell out of the sky,” Jyra said. “The remains had a large letter ‘N’ on the side. We flew over it.”

Macnelia considered the news in silence until they reached the main cavern.

“We’ll be out of the Nilcyn’s reach soon I expect,” she said. “It’s unlikely they know we’re here anyway. Thanks for the report.” Macnelia picked up a wrench and set to work dismantling the remainder of the central console. Neeka, Shandra, and Leonick were untwisting cables that led to the radar controls.

Craig followed Jyra and Berk to the kitchen area.

“Didn’t you eat yet?” Jyra said. Craig shook his head.

“I’ve been loading cables into crates and carefully unhooking the generator. We’re running on a couple battery banks that we’ll blow up once we leave.”

“This whole place is getting destroyed?” Jyra said. Berk, who was already cracking eggs into the skillet at the stove, nodded.

“Cover our tracks,” he said, tossing the shells aside and tearing a package of sausages open with his teeth.

“You were gone a long time,” Craig said. “How’d Berk get shot?”

“With a gun,” Berk said.

“Will you please clean and bandage your arm?” Jyra said. Berk shrugged his jacket off and pulled his overshirt over his head and set it on his jacket. Blood surrounded the bullet tear in the sleeve. Even though he wore his undershirt, Jyra couldn’t help but gape at the definition of his muscles. They were so developed, it didn’t seem like his undershirt, let alone his skin, could possibly contain them.

Berk opened a cabinet and pulled out a sanitizing pad and a bandage. Jyra got up to help and saw the bare wound on his arm for the first time. She stared as Berk dragged the sanitizer wipe across it.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

“No,” Jyra said slowly. “Did that guard shoot you with a BB?”

“What?”

“That’s a small wound even for a graze isn’t it?” Jyra said. She grabbed the overshirt off the back of the chair and looked at the tear in the fabric. “I mean, the cut in the sleeve is twice the size of the one on your skin.”

Berk put the bandage in place and took his overshirt out of Jyra’s hands and pulled it over his head. He swung his coat back on and continued making breakfast.

The explanation came to Jyra and she saw her fleeting curiosity reflected in Craig’s expression. I’ll tell you later, she mouthed.

“So a guard shot you,” Craig said, continuing his inquiry.

“Just as we were leaving,” Berk said over the noise of the skillet.

Jyra told Craig about the further destruction she witnessed in the city and the long search in the shipyard for a decent transport. Craig smiled when Jyra got to the part about scaling the supply ship to get a better look and how that led to the discovery of Mastranada. She explained to the point when she and Berk were about to enter the engine room before she remembered the guard. The body must still be in the engine room, dead at the bottom of the ladder. She paused.

“Breakfast’s ready,” Berk announced. He sat down with a full plate and began shoveling eggs into his mouth with a fork.

Jyra ate as fast as she could and started toward Macnelia as soon as she stood up. Berk followed for a few paces, called her back, and spoke so Craig couldn’t hear.

“I’ve already taken care of the body, it’s what I went back in for.”

“Where did you put it?” Jyra whispered.

“Over the cliff.” He ignored Jyra’s revolted expression. “I’ll tell Macnelia and the others about it. Go ahead and get to work. Shall I tell him the rest of the story?”

Jyra nodded, partly relieved she didn’t need to describe her role in killing the guard, but thinking about the incident made her sick, especially right after breakfast.

She wondered why killing the old man in the market didn’t bother her as much. He’d had Craig at gunpoint, but the guard had been shooting at her. Perhaps it was because the old man was already injured and appeared to be dying anyway. He made a choice to threaten Craig. Maybe the guard fired automatically to scare off intruders. He was only doing his job. The last thought stuck. Jyra felt her shoulders fall under the weight of the guilt. The old man didn’t need to harass them and pull out a gun. The guard didn’t have to die.

“Can you give me a hand?” Jyra had to open her eyes, unaware they were closed, and saw Macnelia watching her from the central console.

“Sure,” she said, glad for the distraction.

*

Hours passed before the consoles were completely broken down. They began loading empty crates Berk brought up from the lower passage. After a quick lunch, Jyra prepared to head out to assist with a more thorough internal inspection of Mastranada, but Macnelia called her back.

“I’m sorry about the tea and that I haven’t been as direct with you about this operation,” Macnelia said, motioning for Jyra to follow her out of the cavern. “Old habit I can’t quite get rid of.”

Jyra nodded to show she understood. In fact, she already assumed odd habits were at the root of Macnelia’s mysterious behavior. They stopped in the passage and entered another room that turned out to be Macnelia’s. The most obvious feature in the room occupied the middle of the floor. It was shaped like a diamond that had been stretched—two longer sides finished in a point that faced the door. The two shorter sides also came to a point, giving the device a kite shape. It wasn’t flat; it had another kite shape, with equal dimensions, but turned ninety degrees to the horizontal plane of the first kite. If a laser cut across and through the widest part of device, the cross-section would be a perfect square. It looked to Jyra like an enormous model of an ancient arrowhead.

“Something you’ve been working on in your spare time?” Jyra said, feeling the black metal plating.

“I’ve been doing everything else in my spare time,” Macnelia said. “I’ve been building this bomb for about four months with some help from Leonick. I scavenged parts from the old ship and stole everything else from Horbson. It should destroy the main TF complex.”

“It’s not armed is it?”

Macnelia pointed to a pair of half spheres made of the same metal near the wide part of the bomb.

“I need to slide those open and pull two pins from each one to arm it,” Macnelia said. She went to her cluttered desk and held up what Jyra quickly identified as the bomb detonator. The function of the large red button on it was self-explanatory.

“Will it fit out the door?” Jyra said, stepping back to compare the width of the bomb and the doorframe.

“It should,” Macnelia said, returning the detonator to the desk as she took a seat on her bed. “Showing you this is one reason I brought you to my room, but I also want to tell you what I know about the resistance and how I came to be here.”

She extended a hand to indicate the empty chair at the desk. Jyra crossed to it and sat down.

“Neeka and I joined TF together a few years ago. Things weren’t going well on Jiranthem and we were both desperate to find work so we were easily talked into the TF job. Derek was working in the career department at the time and he was there with the hiring team. He and Neeka started talking about open jobs, but their conversation didn’t stop there. They were together by the end of the three-day visit. Needless to say, we were both hired as programmers and taken to Tyrorken.

“It took only a few weeks after we arrived to discover TF wasn’t what it seemed. Upper management officials isolated themselves from the rest of the company. Nearly communication had been cut off and the absence of facts led to rumors. Derek did his best to not draw attention to himself. He figured it was best to stay with TF to operate from the inside. His diligence paid off and he was promoted to lead scouting missions to find fuel deposits on other planets.

“A few weeks passed after his promotion when Neeka and I learned the entire career office had been dissolved. TF had deprived Tyrorken’s people economic opportunity to the point that most had to come and beg for a job at TF.”

“If communication was cut off, how did you find out the career program was gone?” Jyra said.

“Neeka and I engaged in some light hacking,” Macnelia said, entwining her thin fingers. “We regularly monitored the department database, just in case management set up new ones that might provide clues about what they were up to. One day, the career department was missing from the list and we knew. Neeka told me most of Derek’s concerns. He didn’t see as many familiar faces as he used to. Even as a scouting leader, there were soon entire parts of TF headquarters he wasn’t permitted to enter. The crackdown got worse. Derek thought of quitting when he was told he needed to manage a miner team in addition to scouting. When he showed up the first day for that, he saw people that had worked above him on his team.

“Again, Derek’s keen management of his behavior fooled the higher-ups. Many other employees had been fired or demoted all around him and he knew it, but he hadn’t said anything. Neeka and I didn’t find out much by hacking the TF system. Soon we were both moved to work on the rig platforms. It was there I met your brother.”

“You met him?” Jyra said and felt her stomach clench with surprise.

“About two years ago,” Macnelia said. “We trained together and he asked if I wanted to get a drink at the end of our first shift. We’ve been together since then.”

“That’s why he came home so late that first day,” Jyra said. The feelings came and went inside so quickly she couldn’t focus on them. It hurt that Dario never mentioned Macnelia and even though she was his sister, Jyra felt threatened by the love he shared with someone else. At the same time, she was happy Dario had found Macnelia.

“We spent as much time together as possible, but TF duties interfered,” Macnelia said. She had been talking in soft voice that sounded almost indifferent, but Jyra caught the sudden bitter tone. “Another mission to Drometica had been ordered and Derek, Neeka, Dario, and I were supposed to go. Derek knew of some promising deposits and the rest of us were some of the best rig workers TF had. Dario mentioned something about his parents wanting to keep him at home and, sure enough, he was taken off the mission.

“We worked in these mountains for a few months,” Macnelia said. “We weren’t alone, of course, and so we didn’t talk about resistance efforts much in case other workers heard. In fact, Derek was summoned back to the planet so often, I began to doubt his loyalty. Maybe something about the Drometica mine work fiddled with our minds because working here seemed to attack the relationships we’d built. To trust was to risk it all. Eventually, that’s what I had to do.

“Derek found this place and rigged up some explosives at the TF worksite. After faking my death and Neeka’s, he brought us here. Of course, he had to go back to Tyrorken, report the accident, and return with supplies and other workers. Not only that, he was able to tell Dario what was going on, namely that I wasn’t dead and that we’d started a resistance to overthrow TF.”

“Dario never told me a word,” Jyra said.

“That was part of the deal,” Macnelia said. “Even though Derek and Neeka were seeing each other and we all knew we shared a common purpose, it took a long time to build mutual trust. Once I heard Dario knew of the resistance, I stayed awake most nights, worrying he might tell.”

“You didn’t really know him, then,” Jyra said, stiffening in the chair.

“People disappeared for far more trivial reasons than for planning to destroy TF,” Macnelia said. “I loved Dario and my base instincts always won over the anxiety and worry my mind created. Once I learned to control the hypothetical, I became more dynamic and I started seeking out others to swell our ranks. Neeka and I spent some time in Horbson. We met Berk and Leonick in a bar there if you can imagine that.”

“I can.”

“Neeka and I were a few drinks in and the guys sat down at our table,” Macnelia continued. “I told them we couldn’t talk to them because we had nothing but secrets to tell. Berk thought that was fine and went ahead and told us his story, which I gather he’s told you. After hearing that and drinking a little more, Neeka and I realized Berk might be willing to get behind our resistance, be part of something he wished he’d started on his own planet. So we told them what we were up to. An hour later, Neeka was on my lap in the pod as Berk flew us back to here. Then he went back for Leonick.

“We had some equipment here to expand the passages and to keep us warm. Derek periodically brought us supplies and food. Once we had the pod, it was easy for us to get to town and obtain what we needed. TF officials might have suspected Derek of some odd behavior, but he always assuaged them in the end. Then he crashed the ship he flew in from Tyrorken to take the crew and drill equipment home. TF sent another transport and kept Derek confined to Tyrorken after that. He’d been back there a few weeks when he met Craig through Dario. The three of them began planning a strike on TF. Derek suspected TF was monitoring their activities so they didn’t meet often.

“But you know what comes next,” Macnelia said. She made an effort to swallow. “Derek sent me a message about what happened to Dario. I didn’t want to believe it. I wondered if Derek’s com had been hacked and maybe TF knew I was alive. Then, on the same frequency, he told me he was going to deliver a letter to you and tell his team they didn’t have to work that day out of respect for Dario’s memory. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he wouldn’t go back on it. I thought it would be too obvious and he was putting himself and Dario’s family in danger, as well as the lives of his team.”

Macnelia wiped her eyes and directed her gaze to the faded Mourning Mark on Jyra’s forehead.

“It’s a Tyrorken custom,” Jyra said, touching the Mark and checking the smudge on her fingertip. “It’s about the only tradition TF hasn’t sullied.”

“Derek told me about the funeral scam. It’s sick.”

“Did he tell you it was my mom’s idea?” Jyra said. Macnelia inhaled sharply and frowned. “I always thought my family was normal enough,” Jyra said. “I couldn’t complain about my parents that much and Dario…I mean he was the brother any sister could hope for. Part of me still can’t believe I’m here. I never thought I’d walk out on my parents, let alone run away from my planet.”

“I didn’t think of myself as an extreme person either,” Macnelia said. “I never thought I’d become someone I’d hear about on the news feeds. But I believe in stopping TF before its murders go global.”

“What do you mean?” Jyra said.

“You lived there, you should know,” Macnelia said, shaking her head. “TF has turned Tyrorken into a wasteland. The heat and pollution are going to overwhelm the planet. I don’t care how advanced the air processors are; they still need to take in some oxygen to function. If we don’t act soon, TF is going to destroy Tyrorken and everyone on it. Why do you think they’re scouting for deposits on other planets?”

“Destroy it?” Jyra repeated and raised her eyebrows.

“Near enough. You won’t be able to set foot on it without a climate suit. Derek heard a rumor that some TF managers already have survival gear stockpiled in case things go wrong before they can escape. Are they going to provide everyone on the planet with a suit or let the air kill half the people first?”

“Those people are their workers!” Jyra said, appalled at the idea of TF allowing the air quality to degrade further. She thought of her parents.

“Not for much longer,” Macnelia said, placing a hand on the detonator. “There won’t be any place to work soon.”

Jyra imagined the bomb plunging into the TF complex, shattering the glass domes and tearing through floors into the heart of the building. She saw people scrambling for the exits before the harsh white light of the explosion erased the vision. Jyra watched Macnelia handling the detonator, rotating it between her hands. Jyra realized those hands had worked along with Dario’s on the oil platforms. Why hadn’t he ever mentioned Macnelia? It didn’t seem appropriate to ask Macnelia such a question, but Jyra remembered another.

“Was Derek trying to recruit others besides Craig and me?”

“What’s that?” Macnelia said, tearing her eyes from the detonator.

“This mission that got Craig and me here,” Jyra said. “Were others supposed to come too?”

“Derek wanted to see if anyone on his rig team wanted to join,” Macnelia said. “That’s all I know, though. Obviously, it didn’t work out or he was captured before he could carry out those plans.”

Someone knocked on the door. Macnelia stood up, opened it, and stepped back to let Leonick pass. He smiled at Jyra and knelt next to the bomb.

“How’re you doing?” she asked. Leonick didn’t look at her as he pulled out a screwdriver. He started to remove a plate on the underside of the explosive then paused.

“I do not know how I am doing,” he said, slowly. “I know I am doing. I am always doing something just like everyone else. Right now, I am removing one screw of four that secure a cover plate over the guide system relays.”

By the time he finished speaking, the smell of alcohol filled Macnelia’s room and Jyra resisted the urge to bury her nose in her sleeve. Leonick finished with the screws and he set the hatch aside. Despite the smell, Jyra walked toward the door and stood behind him to watch him work.

His hands slid into the compartment. His fingers fluttered over exposed wiring, finding their own way as if Leonick were blind. Jyra glanced at her own hands. Even as an apprentice with Craig at the garage, she had injured herself on the job; a large scar crossed the back of her right hand from when her palm slipped off a wrench and her skin hit a sharp seam on a fuel tank. Despite his obvious mastery and involvement with machining and creating the explosive, Leonick’s hands were unmarked and moved with a grace Jyra didn’t expect. She noticed Macnelia watching her.

“Aces,” Leonick said. “The bomb can be directed within five feet of its target.”

“Thank you,” Macnelia said. She came to Jyra’s side.

They both watched Leonick replace the cover plate and spin the screws back in place.

“What project are you working on next?” Macnelia asked.

“Packing the things in my room that I am taking with me,” Leonick said. He gave a small smile and walked back into the hallway, twirling the screwdriver between his fingers.

“Berk says he knows how to work on energy cores,” Jyra said.

“I believe it,” Macnelia said. “I wouldn’t call Leonick normal, but he certainly has a way with, well, just about anything he puts his mind to.”

“Is he an alcoholic?”

“Probably. He claims whiskey clears the chatter in his brain and makes it easier to focus. I suspect it’s why he and Berk became friends in the first place. Alcohol brings some sort of order to their worlds.”

“What are we working on next?” Jyra said.

“If the new ship’s passed the test, I think we’ll begin loading it.”

*

Jyra walked up the passage with Macnelia, thinking about everything they discussed. Questions appeared in her mind like exploding fireworks, but it was impossible to follow each bursting flare. What had Macnelia and Dario talked about besides the resistance? Where had Leonick come from and how was he so capable? How had Derek managed to keep such a low profile at TF? What would happen to all the TF employees once Jyra helped destroy where they worked?

As they entered the cavern full of supplies waiting to be loaded, Jyra noticed an open crate full of rags. She grabbed a couple along with some aerosol cleaner. Macnelia, who was pulling two of the heavy coats off a stack of boxes, narrowed her eyes at Jyra.

“The ship’s pretty dusty inside,” Jyra said, accepting one of the coats.

They shuffled out of the passage and discovered the sky was no longer clear; gray clouds had collected above the mountains and snowflakes tumbled around them. Jyra followed Macnelia to the ship. They discovered Berk and Shandra in the cargo bay wearing identical coats. Jyra wasn’t sure why she expected the ship to be warmer, especially with the large door open to the elements. She couldn’t contain her surprise when she saw the clouds of her breath after climbing aboard.

“It’ll be pretty chilly in here until we fire up the engines and fly away,” Berk said.

“How’s it look?” Macnelia said, walking in a small circle while taking in the size of the cargo bay.

“It’ll do,” Shandra said. “We’ve only done a quick check, but I saw no obvious deal-breakers.”

“I still think Leonick should check the cores and have Neeka run a full diagnostic of the systems,” Berk said.

“What about the hull?” Macnelia said.

“What about it?” Shandra said. Jyra thought she saw Macnelia’s expression soften toward Shandra before she addressed her next question to Berk.

“Is it sound?”

“It’s not in the best shape,” Berk said. “But it should hold for our journey.”

“I’d like to do the most thorough visual check possible of the entire hull before we leave,” Macnelia said. “That ruptured hull on the TF wreck he flew here nearly killed him.”

Jyra realized that must have been the ship Derek crashed. She wondered if TF had given him that transport on purpose. How easy it would be to make him disappear by providing compromised equipment that would lead to almost certain death. Even as she thought of that, her hand closed on the aerosol can in her pocket and she moved toward the passage out of the cargo bay.

“Where’re you headed?” Macnelia asked, cutting across Berk who was explaining the challenges of a visual hull inspection.

“Just a quick spot clean,” Jyra said. “Won’t be long.” She departed hastily before Macnelia could call her back. Jyra made her way down the corridor and headed toward the engine room. She pushed the door open and saw the marks of the bullets in the floor plating. The smell of grease filled her nose. The dim glow of the lights overhead filtered through the catwalks above.

Jyra pulled the rag and cleaner from her pocket with a clammy hand. The rag and can still felt cold and, despite the coat, she did too. The wall-mounted ladder was just ahead. Even from here, Jyra could see the bloodstained floor. She caught herself feeling both repulsed and intrigued by the idea that the red smear before her had pounded in the guard’s ears moments before his death.

She shook the can and sprayed the solution over the blood. The fumes burned her nostrils. Jyra dropped the rag to the floor and began wiping, staining the cloth a gritty red. It didn’t take long to finish the job. Jyra tried to steady her shaking hands as she straightened up and proceeded to leave. Her eyes caught the energy cores. She pushed the can of cleaner into her pocket and approached the cylinders. Except knowing they produced enough power for the entire ship, the energy cores were a complete mystery to Jyra. After seeing what people had to go through to manufacture liquid, oil-based fuel for transports, it seemed odd that energy core technology wasn’t used more often.

Jyra stared into each cylinder again, mesmerized by their unknown qualities. If she could stand his strong whiskey odor, Jyra found herself wanting to work alongside Leonick when he evaluated the energy cores. She turned to leave and faced the plated wall of the engine room. Even from where she stood, Jyra noticed a couple fissures between the plates. Gaps that size on the exterior hull plates could threaten the whole ship. Jyra had seen a few cases of transports she’d worked on with compromised hull plates. If the breaches became too severe, the stress of passing through the atmosphere of a planet could destroy a ship.

Jyra left the engine room and traveled back to the cargo bay, determined not to look at the rag in her hand. The others had left the bay. Jyra jumped onto the gathering pack of snow and walked toward the stern. Mastranada took up almost the entire width of the ledge. She managed to duck around one of the massive engines and when she stood next to the second engine on the other side of the ship, Jyra threw the rag into the air. It fell from the ledge amid the snowflakes and the wind carried it toward the center of the valley.

*

“Where’ve you been?” Craig said. He yanked the last of the cables from the generator, which sat in a large alcove off the main cavern.

“Talking with Macnelia and doing a little work on the ship,” Jyra said.

“How’s the ship?” Craig asked.

“Should do well as long as the hull plates are sound.”

“They’d better be.”

Jyra turned to check that the cavern was empty. Neeka had left to look over the computers on the ship.

“Did you know Macnelia and Dario were a couple?” Jyra said. Craig’s hand slipped on the ratchet he was using to unbolt the generator from the wall.

“They were?” he said. “I had no idea.”

“He never mentioned her,” Jyra said.

“You think Macnelia’s lying?” Craig said, twisting the ratchet. Jyra shook her head. She had just talked to Macnelia at length and it made no sense that she would have made any of it up.

“It’s hard, I guess,” Jyra said, processing the information slowly. “I can’t help wondering what else Dario knew that he didn’t share with me. Derek met you through Dario, right? Derek was organizing the resistance and neither you nor Dario mentioned anything to me.”

Jyra fixed Craig with a cold stare that he noticed once he turned around.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the resistance sooner?”

Craig stared at the finger he ran around the edge of the socket for a moment. Jyra took a few steps closer. Craig met her gaze with an apologetic expression.

“Derek wouldn’t allow it. He already suspected TF was watching him,” Craig said. “It was too dangerous.”

“And that’s why Dario didn’t tell me either?” Jyra said, feeling the heat rise in her face.

“He agreed to keep silent,” Craig said. “I’m sorry, but that’s how we had to operate for our safety.”

“I know,” Jyra said. “It’s just somehow Dario isn’t who I thought he was. That’s why I’m upset.”

Craig set the ratchet on top of the generator and faced Jyra. She didn’t want to look at him, so she stared into the alcove.

“Dario was the same person you knew him to be,” Craig said. “Don’t use his involvement in this resistance to tarnish his memory. It’s hard to get off that ship once you’re on it.”

“How do you know?” Jyra said, still avoiding eye contact and biting her lip.

“I know because that old man we met in the stockroom was right,” Craig said. “The tough decisions in my life stay with me. Whatever choices I made, I second-guess them. I tried to talk Dario out of the oil work. For the sake of the resistance, we already had Derek as our inside man. We didn’t need another, but Dario refused to leave. I let him off the hook too easily. I know I could have convinced him otherwise. Now it’s too late.”

Jyra met Craig’s gaze briefly and nodded before turning away. She strode out of the cavern and returned to her room. Her duffel remained open on the floor and she could see the book Dario gave her. Jyra sat on the cot and retied her hair, pulling it back harder than intended. She wrapped her arms around her knees and dropped her head onto her wrist. She couldn’t stop thinking about Dario and that he’d kept such significant parts of his life secret.

Someone walked by in the passage and Jyra lifted her head. The Mourning Mark had smudged her wrist. Craig’s warning filled her mind. She wished Dario could have remained perfect in her memory.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jyra told herself through gritted teeth. She closed her eyes, hoping to open them to see the dusty street from the porch where she and Dario had spent their time reading as children.

Jyra leaned forward and lifted “Ships of the Kaosaam System” from her duffel. She looked at Dario’s signature on the title page, remembering how he always dotted the “i” before writing the last letter in his name. She wondered what Craig had said to discourage her brother from working on the platforms. It hadn’t been right to be upset with Craig. He wasn’t the only one who held back information. Jyra noticed the parallel between Derek and Dario. Each had a friend who had tried to interfere with their actions to protect them. Craig had told Dario to abandon the rig work and Macnelia had begged Derek to avoid any rash action after Dario’s death.

As a wave of sadness broke inside her chest, Jyra stood up and tossed the book back into her duffel. She cursed herself for wasting time. The secrets were no more and she was part of the resistance that needed to first rescue Derek and then destroy the evil that had hurt her. Jyra threw her dirty clothes into her duffel, zipped it shut, and hauled it out of the room. She took it up the passage to the supply cavern and saw Shandra working amid the crates.

Jyra realized she hadn’t heard how Shandra came to join the resistance. Except that he’d been with Berk, she didn’t know much of Leonick’s story either. She reminded herself not to ask any more questions unless they were related to accelerating the departure.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

“Berk went down to the main cavern a moment ago to bring up the generator,” Shandra said. “He just rigged a convenient way to get our supplies from here to the ship. You can go assist Berk and Craig.”

Jyra had been wondering how they were going to move the multiple crates over the icy rocks and snowdrifts to the cargo bay on Mastranada. In addition to the smaller items, they also had to get the generator and bomb onto the ship. She walked down the passage and found Craig and Berk tipping the generator onto a small dolly.

“We could use a hand pushing,” Berk said.

“That’s why I’m here,” Jyra said.

With the help of a winch, the dolly, and lots of muscle, the three managed to move the generator up the passage. They parked it in the cavern with the crates then reset the winch to pull the bomb up from Macnelia’s room. The explosive was much easier to handle compared to the cumbersome generator. Jyra took greater care while pushing bomb, even though the safety pins were still in place. Once it was stored next to the generator, Berk turned their attention to the piles of boxes.

“I think everything is ordered based on need,” he said. “The stuff we load in first will be the most inaccessible. Crates closest to the exit right now are supposed to be low priority.”

He seized a large box and walked toward the mouth of the cave. Craig and Jyra picked up a heavy crate together and followed Berk. Once they were outside, they saw what Berk had rigged to simplify the loading process. A thick cable was fixed around an exposed steel wall stud in the cargo bay and the other end was anchored to the mountain right by the cave. A pallet hung from four cables that all attached to a burly pulley, which rolled freely on the line between cliff and ship.

A tow line tied to the pulley allowed a controlled descent, so the pallet didn’t slam into the cargo bay wall.

Jyra couldn’t help smiling when she realized how much time and energy the suspended pallet would save.

“It’s fantastic,” Jyra said. “What a relief.”

“Load it up,” Berk said gruffly, but Jyra saw through his whiskers that he was smiling, too.

They did have to take care to balance the loads on the pallet. Shandra, Macnelia, and Leonick worked in the cargo bay, stacking the crates and supplies. The pulley squeaked as it glided down toward the ship and jumped on the jerking cable as Berk pulled the empty pallet back to the cave with the line.

It hadn’t stopped snowing and the drifts were nearly level with the cargo bay floor. The wind increased and the pallet swung so much, one load overbalanced and the crates toppled free. They plunged into the swath of white below and new snowflakes began covering them. The workers in the cargo bay, all clad in heavy coats, jumped outside to retrieve the supplies. By the time they rescued everything from the tipped pallet, the snow was spilling into the cargo bay and sheets of it that gathered on the hull were sliding off and piling up around the ship.

Craig, Jyra, and Berk were all sweating from the effort of loading, but they only had a few more piles to go. Macnelia shrugged off her coat and gave it to Neeka who appeared in the cargo bay. Macnelia helped unload the next pallet and then rode it back to the cave.

“I’d better go pack,” she said, stepping off the pallet and shivering. Berk tied off the line and the four of them walked into the storage cavern.

“Nearly there,” Macnelia said, glancing around. “Just a couple more stacks. Neeka’s got the Nilcyn com recognition programmed into Mastranada’s computers so we’re set there.” She disappeared into the passage.

Craig, Jyra, and Berk finished with the crates and now faced the two largest items. Berk picked up another coil of cable and began wrapping it around the generator as though tying a ribbon around a gift.

“Won’t fit on the pallet, but we can clip this onto the pulley,” he said. “I’ll need you two helping me with the rope for this one.”

Pushing it to the mouth of the cave was quite simple. Once they had it out on the mountainside, Berk unclipped the pallet and let it freely crash upon the rocks. He pulled the loose cable around the generator and tried to attach it to the pulley, but the hook was too far away.

Craig and Jyra pushed against the load and the dolly slid out onto a treacherous patch of ice.

“A little more!” Berk said. They pushed one last time and one of the casters skidded off a rock and whole dolly high-centered in place.

Berk yanked on the pulley and stretched the generator cable toward it. Jyra watched as he grunted with the effort and the generator began to tip. It was falling toward the pallet.

“Grab the rope!” Berk shouted.

It had happened so fast, Jyra didn’t even see that he had succeeded. Now the generator swung on the pulley, which was picking up speed as it headed for the ship. They all grabbed the line to arrest the generator, which gathered momentum as it glided on the pulley cable. The weight of the load pulled Craig right off the cliff. He let go of the rope and landed, face first, on the snow-covered ledge.

Jyra and Berk tugged as hard they could and managed to slow the generator so the others could control it and unclip it from the pulley.

“Send the cable back!” Berk said over the wind, as Jyra climbed down to help Craig back up.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that thing was heavy,” Craig said, shivering as they scrambled back toward the cave.

They used the same cable to secure the bomb to the pulley. The explosive proved much easier to transfer to the ship.

“Someone’s got a chilly job ahead of them,” Berk said. “They need to get under the ship and get that bomb in one of the mounts.”

“Now?” Jyra said. “Why?”

“It’s better to put a bomb where it belongs the first time,” Berk said. “We’ve still got to inspect the hull, too.”

Jyra wasn’t smiling anymore. The largest obstacle to their departure seemed to be packing and loading, which they had finished. Now, they had to dig out the snow underneath the ship and brush all the snow off the hull to make sure it was sound.

“Wait,” Jyra said. “Why waste time digging and sweeping when we can just take the ship up and do a quick circle? During landing, the launch thrusters will blow most of the snow on the ledge out of the way.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Berk said. “We’ll still have to do an inspection of the hull once it’s clean, but overall it’s still a faster plan.”

Within half an hour, everyone aboard had strapped the crates and boxes in place in the cargo bay. Once Berk unhooked the pulley cable from the wall stud, he and Jyra headed to the cockpit. The cargo door closed and Mastranada awoke. The cores were heating and on standby to fire the engines.

The launch thrusters roared and loose ice and rock struck the belly of the ship. Mastranada lifted and dived into the valley, leaving a trail of ice and snow in its wake.

“She flies fine with the load,” Jyra said, checking the cargo weight report on her monitor.

Berk pulled up and made a wide circle around a nearby peak before coming back toward the ledge.

“Bring us in at thirty-five degrees to the cliff,” Berk said. Mastranada rotated so her belly aimed at the snowdrifts in the landing area. Berk increased the power flow to the launch thrusters and Jyra held the ship’s position for a few moments.

“That should do the trick,” she said.

The two pilots leveled the transport and lowered it onto the ledge.

“Extending the landing pads the maximum length,” Jyra said. “It’ll make it easier to get the bomb into the mount.”

Berk nodded as the noise of the engines and launch thrusters faded. They made their way back to the cargo bay. Shandra had already opened the door. Everyone pulled on coats and jumped onto the ledge. The snow had been cleared down to the rock. Most of it had been blown against the mountain.

“Get the bomb out of its straps and let’s get it under here,” Berk said. He, Jyra, Craig, and Shandra all lifted the explosive out of the cargo bay. They crept under the ship, muscled the bomb over to the forward incendiary mount, and placed it beneath the three steel arms. Berk opened them to the proper dimensions. While the rest held the bomb in place, he tightened the mount and the bomb hung in its cradle.

“Hull inspection,” Berk said once they crawled out from under the ship. Leonick and Neeka had unhooked the other end of the pulley cable from the mountain and wound it up. Berk lifted the coil and pulley easily into the cargo bay and he clapped Leonick on the shoulder.

“How do the cores look during operation?” Berk asked.

“They look as they always do,” Leonick said. “As for their operation while the ship is running, they could use maintenance. Corrosion in the lower sectors reduces overall output.”

“Can you do that work while we’re flying?” Berk said.

Leonick nodded and took a swig of whiskey. Craig lowered a stepladder out of the cargo bay and Berk grabbed it.

“Great,” Berk said. “Craig and I will take the roof while the rest of you start checking the sides.”

“I’m going to find Macnelia,” Jyra said, realizing she must still be packing.

Jyra clambered up the slippery snow bank and crept into the cave. The benches were still clustered around the fire pit. Jyra walked down the passage. Macnelia’s door was open, but she wasn’t in the room. The bed had been stripped and the desk cleared. Two large bags sat on the floor. Jyra heard a clicking sound coming from the main cavern.

When she reached it, she saw the source of the noise. Macnelia had a camera pressed to her eye as she took photos of the main cavern. Jyra emerged from the passage and made an effort to increase the sound of her footsteps. Macnelia looked over her shoulder and smiled.

“Memories,” she said, tilting the camera in her hand.

“The cavern looks bigger without all the equipment,” Jyra said.

“It’ll look a lot different once the bomb on the battery bank goes off,” Macnelia said.

“Is it ticking?”

“Eight hours,” Macnelia said.

“The hull inspection’s happening now,” Jyra said.

“Then we’ll get the bomb mounted,” Macnelia said.

“That’s already done.”

“You all worked fast.”

Jyra explained how they had cleared the snow from both the ship and the ledge.

“I was down at the batteries,” Macnelia said. “That’s why I couldn’t hear the ship. I’m glad you didn’t leave me here.”

Jyra laughed but stopped when she saw Macnelia’s grave expression.

“What? We wouldn’t desert you here. You’re the master planner of this whole strike,” Jyra said.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Macnelia said.

Even during their discussion about Dario’s death, Jyra hadn’t heard Macnelia sound so despondent.

“What’s the matter?” Jyra asked. “We’re ready to launch the attack. Your bomb is waiting. Let’s go.” She started walking toward the passage and Macnelia followed a few paces behind.

“It’s a funny feeling,” Macnelia said, letting her camera hang on the strap around her neck. “I’ve been planning this for so long. I sought vengeance against TF for those who couldn’t seek it themselves. Then I heard about Dario and now my personal stake in this—”

She trailed off as they walked into her room. Each woman grabbed one of the bags and proceeded up the passage.

They stepped out into the snowstorm. Jyra could see the snowflakes already reclaiming the blast zone from the launch thrusters. Both Craig and Berk were on top of the ship checking the hull. Shandra stood on the ladder near the stern, running her fingers over the cold seams that fastened the plates together.

“Berk’s loading system saved a lot time,” Jyra said, hauling Macnelia’s luggage down the snow bank.

“Ship’s good so far!” Berk called out.

“Keep looking!” Macnelia replied, with her usual air of authority. She and Jyra heaved the bags up into the cargo bay.

“Can the pod get out of there easily?” Berk said. Jyra checked and saw only a few crates blocking it.

“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

“The other side of the ship hangs over the cliff. If someone hangs onto the pod supply rack, they can check the hull without moving the ship again.”

“Let’s do it,” Macnelia said, motioning to Jyra.

After pushing the crates aside, Macnelia donned a coat and clung to the rack while Jyra piloted the pod around to the starboard side of the ship. She brought it in as close to the hull as she dared. The wind made it hard to hold the pod steady. When she was ready to move ahead, Macnelia knocked her fist on the cockpit dome. By the time the pod returned to the cargo bay behind the crates, the others had finished their inspections.

“Clear?” Macnelia said, once everyone had gathered in the cargo bay and they all nodded.

“Neeka, any Nilcyns around?” Macnelia said. Neeka shook her head.

“Derek’s waiting,” she said.

“We’ve all been waiting for Derek,” Macnelia said. “Let’s go get him and complete our mission. I made these a few months ago once I finalized the design for the bomb.”

She pulled squares of fabric from inside her coat and handed them out. Jyra looked at hers and realized it was a badge. The shape of the bomb, complete with the safety chambers, had been embroidered in green onto a black background.

“Why green?” Berk said, holding his badge up to his chest.

“Green symbolizes life. I figured it’s the bomb that’s making life possible again on Tyrorken,” Macnelia said. “Which reminds me, I don’t suppose anyone pulled the pins yet.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before she jumped out of the cargo bay and crawled under the ship. Berk and Shandra helped lift her back in and Macnelia held up the pins.

“Ready to go,” Macnelia said. “Berk and Jyra, are you our pilots?”

They both nodded.

“Take us to the enemy,” Macnelia said. “Everyone prepare for takeoff.”

Minutes later, Jyra and Berk took their seats in the cockpit.

“Was Macnelia ever in a military?” Jyra said. Berk shrugged.

“She told me she took a public speaking class in school,” he said.

“How did that come up?”

“The night Leonick and I met Neeka and Macnelia at a bar in Horbson,” Berk said. “She spoke with an eloquence that completely disguised her inebriation. I asked her where she learned her talent with words.”

“If she was so eloquent, how could you tell she was drunk?” Jyra said.

“Tripping on the same table twice while trying to leave gave her away,” Berk said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask, which was empty. He replaced it and drew out another.

“How many of those do you have?” Jyra said, as she threw the switches to prime the energy cores.

“Enough to keep me stable and happy,” Berk said. “Let’s get out of here.”

As Mastranada lifted from the ledge for the final time, Jyra heard and felt the low frequency drone of a powerful explosion.

“Gun the engines now!” she shouted. The ship lurched forward and leapt across the valley in seconds. “Turn one-eighty,” Berk said. Mastranada spun around so the pilots could look back through the snowflakes at their abandoned base.

The mountain eroded before their eyes in an avalanche of ice and rock. Entire facades broke loose from the peak as fire and smoke spewed from below the ledge where the ship just launched. Moments later, great slabs of granite from above crashed onto ledge as the upper part of the mountain imploded from the blast. Neither Jyra nor Berk said a word as the remains of the peak toppled into the valley. The swish of liquid sounded from a flask as Berk took another swig.

“She said it wasn’t going to go off for eight hours,” Jyra said.

“What?”

“Macnelia said she’d set the time on the bomb at eight hours,” Jyra said.

“When did she start it counting, seven hours and forty-five minutes ago?” Berk said. “That bomb nearly killed all of us!”

“She seemed distracted when she mentioned it,” Jyra said. “Maybe she entered the time wrong or started it earlier than she meant to. Although she said she didn’t hear the ship when we flew it to clear the snow. She was down at the batteries.”

“That’s where the bomb was,” Berk said. “She must have either set it then or checked on it. We all get distracted sometimes, but that nearly ended everything.”

Shaking his head, he engaged the engines and Jyra steered the ship to face the sky.

After the short flight out of the mountains, Berk leaned back, letting go of the power regulator levers. He ran a hand through his tangled hair.

“We’ll get there before I can finish the story,” he said, nodding toward the city.

“You better start then,” Jyra said, anxious both to hear about the tattoo and to have something to take her mind off another trip into a battle zone.

“The tattoo was put on my wrist in a hospital on Silanpre,” Berk said. “All their patients get ‘em. Doctors scan the lines and it’s a convenient way to access information about medical updates for that patient. However, it also makes it easy to track all the patients.”

“Do the patients like to hide?” Jyra said, feeling her lips twitch toward the beginnings of a smile.

“The patients like to escape,” Berk said, jerking his head to stare at her. His eyes had the serious gleam again and Jyra hastily turned her laugh into a cough.

“How do they…why do they escape?” she asked, eyes watering.

“Do you know much about Silanpre?” Berk said.

“Not a thing.”

“It’s home to the best medical centers in the Kaosaam System. It doesn’t matter how small a city is there; each one has a hospital that can deal with pretty much any injury. Peradian, where I grew up, is one of the largest cities. It’s rumored to be where the corruption began. The hospitals were all managed by local governments, which made them accountable to the communities they served. An agency, however, managed to get control of the medical centers. First came privatization, then came chaos.

“The most immediate change was how few patients were released. Then reports started cropping up about high profile doctors who’d been forced out, professionals who’d been working in the medical field for decades. New staffs were hired by the private agency for all the hospitals. Then there were more complaints from patient’s families. On the increasingly rare occasion when patients were released, they were to return for a check up. I got news from one of my friends the last time I saw him. He came to visit me in the hospital. According to him, our neighbors had a young kid who’d been taken in and released. The family had been told to bring her back in a week. ‘Course at that point, people were getting suspicious. They didn’t take her back. A week went by and the kid’s screams woke my friend up in the middle of the night.”

“What happened?” Jyra said. She was unaware that her hands were clenched together and her fingers had turned white.

“She died and the family took the body to a doctor friend of theirs, one who wasn’t affiliated with the hospitals. He’d been let go from the hospital himself but no longer practiced publicly. He opened the kid up and discovered her stomach was hardly there. It was like a leaf after bugs have chewed at it. He was able to realize the presence of some foreign chemicals present in her body, but didn’t have the equipment to tell what they were.”

Jyra’s hands went numb and she pulled them apart, momentarily silenced by the story. She took a deep breath and prompted Berk.

“So if she’d gone back, the hospital would have been able to reverse whatever caused that?”

“I have no doubt,” Berk said. “They knew what they were doing. After a few more cases like what happened to that kid, those who were on leave started showing up again on time.”

“But why did they do all this in the first place?”

“Money. That was all. You can imagine. Medical costs destroyed livelihoods. Some people sold everything but the clothes they wore. Most couldn’t afford transport off Silanpre and so they had to turn to the one employer left.”

“They had to work for the hospital?” Jyra said. The parallel between the behaviors of the agency and TF made her stomach contract. She began spinning her hair around one of her fingers, tighter and tighter until the strands dug into the skin.

“They did and it got them no closer to loved ones in there,” Berk said. “Employees and patients were monitored so no relatives were ever in close contact. It didn’t take long before visitors were banned altogether. The hospitals owned Silanpre and the agency owned the hospitals. I don’t know how long it all took to happen. Sooner than you’d think, though, to bring an entire planet’s population to its knees.”

Berk fell silent as Horbson loomed before them. A massive fire lit up the city and the night. Jyra was sure it was the fallen battleship. She wondered how many people had been aboard, how many of them knew they were about to die. Before she could ask her next question, Berk answered it.

“I told you where I got the tattoo, but you’re probably curious how I got in the hospital in the first place,” he said. Jyra nodded. “A transport crash in the city. My family, parents, brother, two sisters were all admitted. I was the only one who fled the crash site. I thought they were right behind me. I tried to go back and help them but none of them were in a condition to escape. Responders were there soon after and took them in. The eventual cooperation people showed toward the hospital, the compliance, only made my anger worse.”

“But the public didn’t have a choice,” Jyra interrupted.

“I spent too much time wondering why no one resisted instead of starting a movement of my own. At one point, I thought of assassinating the responders who brought people to hospitals, but what would that achieve? The injured would likely die. It took me a long time to realize two things, which were people would’ve had a choice if I’d given them another way and there are things worse than death. By the time I had that figured out, the hospital had me.”

“How did you get injured?” Jyra said.

“I didn’t,” Berk growled. “I had wondered what the extra employees were up to. Think of all the staff they had once entire families showed up to work off their debts. We’re talking tens of thousands of people. But I found out for myself. A couple responders grabbed me off the street.”

“Are responders people?” Jyra said.

“Well, yeah,” Berk said. “What’d you think they were? That was one role the hospital was able to fill with all its manpower.”

“I have a hard time believing you didn’t put up much of a fight against two of them.”

“I didn’t used to be this way,” Berk said, staring at his bulk. “The agency workers had some formulas they cooked up and they needed human subjects, another good use of patients and disposable employees alike.”

“What sort of formulas?” Jyra said.

“No idea,” Berk said. “I don’t remember much about the beginning. I had quite a few tubes running into me. The lights on the console actually remind me of the fluids. Lots of different colors.”

“You—you have no idea what they put into you?” Jyra said, staring at Berk.

He shook his head. “Lots of steroids, I imagine. Have you felt my arm?”

“That’s not funny!” Jyra said. “How can you joke about something like that?”

“It’s my experience and I choose to treat it how I wish.”

“But don’t you want to get tested somewhere and figure out what they did to you?”

“Where should I get tested? If you think I’ve any desire to go near a medical center, you haven’t been listening.”

“I don’t know, I just…” Jyra wasn’t sure where her thought was headed. “If it were me, I’d want to know.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s not you then,” Berk said. “In the interest of continuing to live, I’m going to turn my attention outside and see what I can do about getting us safely delivered to the shipyard.”

He brought the pod over the buildings, flying close to the rooftops. White and orange flares filled the sky. Some spiraled through the air; others took the most direct path to the ground. As one shot passed the pod, Jyra saw the rivets on the steel plate. The flares were burning debris from the battle above returning to Drometica, as the man in the store predicted.

The fallen battleship in the middle of the city upstaged the storm of tumbling steel. The buildings that still stood near the ship burst into flames from the heat emanating from the carcass. Jyra couldn’t look directly at it; it was like staring at a sun. She witnessed the flames feeding upon the broken hull in her peripheral vision.

“We’ll need to divert around,” Berk said.

“What?” Jyra said, mesmerized by the spectacle out of the corner of her eye.

“If we get any closer to that thing, it’ll cook us.”

The pod jerked sideways and nearly crashed onto the roof of an apartment complex.

“Heat wave,” Berk said, opening the regulators and lifting them away from the roofs. “It’s messing with the air currents out there.”

Debris littered the streets. Shards of glass, cracked timbers, and chipped bricks blocked roads. Dust that accumulated for years on buildings resettled on rubble. Several more pieces of battle wreckage whizzed by the pod, trailing tails of fire.

“How far?” Jyra asked, taking in a sharp breath each time another projectile barely missed them.

“It’s coming up,” Berk said. He squinted and put his tongue between his teeth. “It looks dark up there so the yard’s not on fire.”

Just after they flew over another roof, part of a ventilator assembly crashed into the shingles. Jyra stifled her scream.

“What’s the matter?” Berk said.

“Things are falling all around us and it only takes one to finish us off,” Jyra said, scanning the skies through the cockpit, as though hunting for an obnoxious insect.

“They have to catch us first,” Berk said. “Hold on!”

He jammed the left pedal to the floor and the pod swerved. Jyra heard the whistling noise as the projectile raced by before it hit the street below.

“Just get us on the ground,” she said, closing her eyes and clasping her hands together again.

“Stop worrying. We’re here,” Berk said.

The roads became wider and buildings were no longer close together. They seemed to be following a main street up a small hill. At the top, Jyra could see the outlines of ships parked behind a tall fence. The angular and sheer design of the hulls made them easy to spot against the backdrop of the sky and the distant hills. Berk eased off on the engines as they soared over the fence. He flipped a switch and beams from the pod’s landing lights flooded the yard. The ships were parked so densely, Jyra didn’t see an opening for a pod half the size of theirs.

“There,” Berk said. He brought the pod lower and Jyra realized part of a gap had been hidden by the large tail fin of a cruiser. “We can squeeze in.” Berk guided the pod down to the shadow and began a vertical descent. The starboard engine knocked against the cruiser and Berk grimaced. They sank into darkness until the pod settled on its legs with a gentle bump.

“Shall we look around?” Berk said, rubbing his hands together.

“I want to do this as fast as we can,” Jyra said, lifting the cockpit dome up and climbing out onto the gravel.

“Me too, but we’ve got to make sure it’s decent. We don’t need to find out we’re flying a wreck the hard way,” Berk said, jumping onto the gravel. His boots crushed into the rock. The dull grinding noise echoed between the parked transports. Jyra couldn’t help but notice Berk’s size again following his story. She wondered what he looked like before the hospital changed him. He clicked on his light.

“This way,” Berk said. “Turn on your light. Oh wait. You can’t.” He smiled as he walked out of sight. Jyra jogged after him.

They walked down a row of ships. It was like hiking in a canyon. The view of the sky had been reduced to the narrow space between the contours of the transports on either side. Even as Craig’s apprentice at the repair shop on Tyrorken, Jyra had never seen so many ships in her life, certainly not all in one place.

Berk stopped and turned to face a pair of doors. Jyra stepped back, trying to take in the size of the vessel, but there wasn’t enough room. She could see reflections of explosions in the city reflecting off the high extremities of the surrounding hulls. Berk, meanwhile, tapped around the doors. Nothing happened.

“Hold this,” he said, passing the flashlight to Jyra. Berk began pounding on the hull near the hinges of one door and then the other. The thud of the contact reverberated in the aisle, but Berk found what he was looking for. A small hatch cover, about the size of the playing card, had fallen open. He pressed the button inside and the doors swung open on squealing hinges.

They stepped into the cargo bay. Another pair of doors on the opposite wall was even larger than the ones they had entered. The ship Jyra and Craig had flown to Drometica could fit in this bay.

“It’s definitely roomy,” Jyra said. They began exploring the ship. The dust and cobwebs drifted in the beam of the flashlight. They checked the cockpit and confirmed the ship required two pilots to fly. On the third level, they found quarters for the crew. Jyra thought she smelled mold. Even after they’d left that level, she thought she could still smell it.

They made their way back to the engine room. Ladders ran up the walls to the transmissions and drive shafts overhead. As they entered the room, Jyra saw two cylindrical devices, about as tall as she was, standing in the middle of the floor.

“Energy cores,” she said. “I’ve never seen those. This is an old ship.”

“Yeah,” Berk said. “The good news is Leonick can handle energy cores.”

“He can?” Jyra hadn’t intended to be as disbelieving as she sounded.

“You’d be surprised,” Berk said with a sideways glance. “He doesn’t say much, but Leonick’s a details guy. He’ll recall the strangest stuff. Drinking doesn’t even affect his memory.”

“Why do you drink?” Jyra said.

“Keep myself in check,” Berk said gruffly. “To finish what I was saying and to announce our leave, the bad news is this ship doesn’t have what we need. Time to keep looking.”

“What’s the matter?”

“We need an exterior incendiary mount,” Berk said. “For something Macnelia’s been working on.”

They walked down the passage from the engine room and up several stairs toward the cargo bay.

“An incendiary mount?” she said.

“For the bomb,” Berk said.

“We’re bombing TF?” Jyra said.

“Yeah, but not before we get Derek.”

“What if my parents are there?”

“Believe me, we’ll figure that out. We won’t drop the bomb until we know they’re clear of the building.”

They jumped back onto the gravel and Berk heaved the doors closed. He pushed his hair back and turned to find Jyra with her arms folded across her chest.

“Why wasn’t I told we had a bomb?” she said.

“Macnelia thought it best and I agree with her,” Berk said.

“Even after drugging the tea, it’s still not enough to trust me?”

“No,” Berk said. “It’s not. If it makes you feel better, I only found out about the bomb a couple days ago.”

“She keeps you all in the dark. That sounds like an excellent way to run a resistance,” Jyra said. “And, no, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“I didn’t think it would, but you know why she’s holding back the information.”

“Because Craig and I are new?” Jyra said. She glanced up at the visible sliver of sky to avoid looking at Berk, who shook his head.

“She’s doing it because you both are angry and we all know what that’s like,” he said.

“I lost my brother!” Jyra shouted. “None of you know how that feels!” Berk stepped forward and Jyra automatically retreated until she bumped into the hull of the ship across the aisle.

“I do know,” he growled. “And in the pain of losing my entire family, in the rage, I considered killing innocent people if you remember my story. I’m not saying I know exactly how you’re dealing with your misery, but I have some idea of the feeling. For the sake of those who are no longer with us, I suggest you remember that of everyone in the resistance. We’re not competing to see who has the harder past, we’re trying to cooperate to make sure others don’t have to endure what we have faced.”

Jyra wiped her eyes with the back of her arm, thankful for the cover of darkness, as Berk turned and continued down the aisle.

“So, I’m too angry to be trusted with some information?” Jyra said.

“Not anymore,” Berk said over his shoulder. “You completed the food mission and proven yourself a worthy addition to the team, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s keep looking.”

Jyra tromped after him, unsure how to feel. Although it seemed Berk had just offered to answer any of her questions about the resistance, she couldn’t think of one now. After passing a few unsuitable ships, Jyra privately scolded herself for delaying the mission with her outburst. They were working on borrowed time. If another ship came down on top of them, not only would it destroy the whole shipyard, neither Jyra or Berk could see it in time to escape.

Berk stopped at another promising pair of doors. They toured the ship and agreed it met the needs of the resistance. Berk crawled underneath it and emerged, rolling up a tape measure.

“The incendiary mount is on the small side, but it might work,” he said. They returned to the cockpit and spent half an hour working out the starting sequence. After warming up, however, the engines refused to fire. Another half an hour in the engine room uncovered the reason.

From the top of a ladder with the flashlight, Jyra called down to Berk.

“Game over. The thrust calibrators are missing.” She shined the light on the six thick cables on opposite walls that hung uselessly where the calibrators should have been.

“Even if we found others, we don’t have the tools or machines to move some in from another ship,” Berk said as they headed for the exit. “Shame. This would have been perfect.”

They pressed on, crossing into another aisle to check on other prospects. Jyra tried to ignore her nerves. The more anxious she became, the colder the air seemed and she shivered. She thought they should have found a ship by now. Berk glanced at Jyra as she yawned.

“Told you sleep was important,” he said. Jyra suddenly crouched and pulled Berk down with her.

“Put out the light,” she whispered. Just as Berk switched it off, a beam crawled along the hull opposite them.

“Under here,” Berk said. Jyra was certain the sound of every piece of gravel they turned as they crawled into hiding would give them away. The noise of the approaching footsteps grew louder. A pair of boots marched past them. Jyra exhaled slowly when she could no longer hear the guard.

“Let’s be quicker about this,” Berk said in a much quieter voice than he’d been using once they were standing in the aisle again. “That fellow’s got a stronger sense of duty than I imagined. The whole city’s burning and he’s still here.”

“Down the hill, let’s go,” Jyra said.“If he’s here, there’s got to be something worth stealing.”

After two more ship examinations, they were still without a viable transport. The ground had leveled and the ships at the bottom of the hill were clearly in no condition to fly.

“Give me a boost,” Jyra said.

“What for?”

“I want to get up on this ship and see if I can spot anything nearby.”

“The guard might see you,” Berk said.

“He’s going to find us soon if we don’t get out of here. If he stumbles on the pod, he’ll know for sure people are here who shouldn’t be.”

Berk lifted Jyra onto a small stabilizer and she was able to clamber up the chilly hull of the small supply ship. She looked up the hill for the guard’s light, but saw only darkness. Jyra clicked on the flashlight and moved the beam slowly over the surrounding ships. This area looked more like a graveyard. The totaled transports weren’t just at the bottom of the hill; a freighter nearby was missing its stern. She was about to give up when her light stopped on a ship four rows over. Jyra climbed down and led the way.

It was another small freighter, but in far better condition than the other one down the hill. Berk walked around it with the flashlight while Jyra waited by a crew door.

“It looks good from the outside,” Berk said as he sank to his knees and pointed the light under the ship. “Trouble is a freighter likely won’t have a—”

He stopped talking as he peered at the belly of the ship. “I don’t believe it. Someone’s customized this. It has two incendiary mounts down here!”

Once again, Berk managed to find the concealed door control hatch using his fist. The passage inside the door was wide enough for them to walk shoulder to shoulder. Berk handed Jyra the flashlight as he pushed the button to close the door. The first door they came to on the left led into the cargo bay. It was twice the size of the one in the first ship they checked.

“This will do well,” Berk said, looking through the window into the bay. “Let’s check the engine room first before we waste time in the cockpit.” They headed aft. The lenses of the emergency track lights in the floor caught the flashlight beam and cast reflections on the walls. Jyra pressed the button on the engine room door and nothing happened.

“Dead circuit,” Berk muttered. “The ship’s entrance hatch has probably got a battery backup. You should be able to slide it.”

Jyra placed her hands on the cold metal and pushed. The door began moving on its track into the wall.

She jumped as a voice burst out of the engine room.

“Converge on number nine’s position! Intruders! Repeat, intruders!”

“Been here too long to let this one go!” Berk said. “Get him in the light.” They heard hurried footsteps on steel grating. Jyra shined the light into the room and saw a pair of energy cores mounted on the floor. She tried to get the beam on the guard, but couldn’t tell where he was. The sound of two gunshots filled the room and bullets kicked up sparks to Jyra’s left.

“On the firewall,” Berk grunted. Jyra’s knees shook as she aimed the light and caught the guard scampering down a ladder.

“Keep him in sight,” Berk said as he walked to her side. Jyra watched him draw a shotgun from inside his coat and hold it in his right hand at arm’s length.

Berk’s trigger finger contracted, the gun cracked and recoiled. Jyra directed the light at her feet. Both of them heard the guard’s body hit the floor at the base of the ladder.

Jyra bit her lip. She felt as though she had just woken up without a part of herself. She saw the barrel of the gun drop toward the floor and wished she couldn’t smell the acrid stench of the weapon.

“We have to move,” Berk said. “They’re coming for us. He replaced the gun in his coat and walked into the middle of the engine room.

“Can you bring the light?” he asked. Jyra walked to his side and they examined the cores together.

“I’m sorry,” Berk said, with a quick glance toward the body. “It had to be done.”

Jyra pretended to understand by nodding. She decided that if they didn’t work fast now, more guards would arrive and there would be more killing.

“Check the walls,” Berk said. “No obvious damage?” Jyra guided the light around the room and didn’t see anything problematic.

“I think we’re set here,” she said. “We should make sure all the doors are sealed.”

“Agreed.”

They jogged down the passage and both headed for the door they’d entered. Berk tried to lock it, but the mechanism didn’t function.

“No power,” he said. “Go to the cockpit and fire up the main power units. Then get back here.”

Jyra dashed off with the flashlight. She ran up the passage and climbed three flights of stairs. Another door blocked her way and she had to push it open. The room on the other side certainly wasn’t the bridge. Jyra doubled back, found another passage and scaled a ladder. At last she found what she was after. She took a seat at the starboard console.

The engine room had looked similar to the first ship they explored. She thought hard about the book, recalling images of freighter controls. Power panels were usually installed on the wall. Several likely boxes were mounted nearby. She opened the covers and saw rows of switches, none of which were big enough to be the main units. Frustrated, she sat back in the pilot seat, watching the dust fly in the beam of the flashlight. Then she noticed another panel above the others.

Jyra pulled off its cover and saw five red levers. She grabbed all of them with both hands and forced them upward. Lights flickered to life around her and she heard the groan of machinery throughout the ship. She grabbed the light and rushed back the way she came, but Berk’s voice stopped her.

“I’m coming! Doors are sealed! Let’s go!”

Jyra returned to the bridge where Berk soon joined her.

“How’s it look?” he said, taking the other pilot seat.

“Hard to say,” Jyra said. “Are they out there?”

“Someone was banging on the door,” Berk said. He flipped several switches. “Okay, the cores are heating up.”

“Launch thrusters, too,” Jyra said. “We just need to get the main engines going.”

Berk looked into the sky through the steel frame that supported the reinforced glass over the bridge.

“Sooner rather than later,” he said and Jyra saw his eyes widen. She gazed up and nodded. Another dead ship was falling toward them. Even though it had hardly cleared the clouds, the massive explosions tearing through its hull were already visible. A new report flashed on Jyra’s console screen.

“Mains are ready!” she said. “Engaging launch thrusters.”

The ship shook as it lifted off. The thrusters spat gravel at the other transports parked nearby. The stern of the ship rose faster than the bow, which allowed Jyra and Berk to see the guards running up the hill.

“Back to the pod!” Berk said. They piloted the ship forward. Jyra kept the launch thrusters at full power. A mug shattered on the floor and the contents rushed toward the front of the bridge.

“Where’d that come from?” Berk said.

Jyra didn’t answer but she knew. Steam rose from the streaks of the warm beverage that must have belonged to the guard who lay dead in the engine room.

“Where are the landing lights?” she said. “We’ll need them in a moment.”

“Check the right side of the console,” Berk said. “I’ve got to get ready.” The ship’s forward momentum suddenly slowed.

“What’s happening?” Jyra said, hastily checking the screen for any damage reports. A door ajar warning appeared.

“Nothing. I just opened the cargo door so that’s added to the drag,” Berk said, standing up. “Get as close as you can to the other ships above where we parked. I’m going down to the pod on a rope out of the cargo door and flying back in the same door.”

“All right,” Jyra said. “Go, we’re almost there.” Berk slid on the spilled drink and his boots squeaked as he pivoted on the floor before descending the ladder. Jyra reached forward, flipped a likely switch, and the landing lights illuminated the rows of transports beneath her.

A flash overhead drew Jyra’s attention back to the sky. The wounded ship was closing in. She looked back at the shipyard and saw the cruiser tail fin ahead. She cut forward thrust and the bridge passed over the location of the pod. She applied reverse thrust and the ship held position. Jyra rolled the transport to the left so she could see the ground. After a couple minutes, she saw a flash that had to belong to a gun and she suddenly found it hard to swallow. The lights of the pod flared in the darkness, the vehicle rose up, and headed for the ship. Another minute passed and the cargo door ajar warning disappeared from the screen.

Jyra revved the engines and the ship shot forward, leaving the shipyard and the guards behind. The doomed vessel had changed course and Jyra kept it in view. It glided toward the plains. A plume of fire jutted from the wreck and it split in half; the bow headed for the city, the stern kept a rough trajectory for the plains.

Berk returned to the bridge as the stern hit the ground in front of them, raising dirt and sparks. Jyra felt the ship shudder around her from the shockwave.

“Don’t fly over it,” Berk said.

“I won’t,” Jyra assured him. She flew around the wreck. Even as they passed, Jyra felt her mouth go dry as she saw, through the scorch marks and flames, a jagged-shaped “N” on the side of the hull. Berk noticed it, too.

“Another confirmed sighting,” he said as he took his seat and began running diagnostics. “At least we got a ship.”

“Yeah,” Jyra said absently. The mountains loomed before them and Jyra remembered the flash of gunfire before Berk flew the pod up to the ship.

“You didn’t kill another guard, did you?”

“Wounded,” Berk grunted.

“With a shotgun?” Jyra said, raising her eyebrows.

“Shotgun wounds are usually serious,” Berk said. “No. Don’t you remember what I told Craig before we left?”

“You throw harder than guns can,” Jyra said.

“Punch harder than they can, too,” Berk said and raised his fist to show bruised knuckles.

Jyra noticed the wet floor under Berk and thought it was the spilled drink again until she remembered someone had fired a gun during the pod retrieval.

“Little more than a graze,” Berk admitted. “Thankfully not carrying the bullet. I hate digging those out.”

He turned so Jyra could see the hole in the sleeve of his coat and the blood around it.

“Berk, you’re crazy!” Jyra couldn’t believe he didn’t tell her at once. “That needs to be cleaned and bandaged.”

“Will do once we’re back,” Berk said. “You’ll understand if I object to using the on board aid kit. Might be…expired. Also, I’m not crazy. They called me Berk the Berserk in the hospital. Call me anything other than that or my real name, we might have a problem.”

Jyra was sure the way Berk clenched his bruised fist as he spoke was no coincidence. He sat up and began studying an overview of the ship’s information.

“This ship’s registered name is Mastranada. What do you think?”

“Sounds good,” Jyra said. “What do you think?”

Berk, who had pulled his flask free, was preoccupied with a long swig and didn’t answer.

Jyra and Craig took a seat at the table, which was now covered by a map.

“You’re looking at a settlement to the northeast of here,” Berk said. “It’s called Horbson, about thirty miles away.”

“It’s been an essential and convenient source for us,” Shandra said. “It’s a perfectly functional city on its own, but has some vulnerabilities.”

“The police aren’t very organized. In fact, it’s challenging for them to form a basic perimeter,” Berk said. “Even after one patrol had me nearly cornered in a food storehouse, other units failed to cover all the exits. I made it out and escaped with the goods.”

“How long have you been operating here?” Jyra said.

“About eight months,” Shandra said. “We need to work faster, though. Each mission into Horbson is another risk. Just because the authorities haven’t followed us back here yet doesn’t mean they won’t. But we’ve got to eat and food supplies are getting low. Let’s go over the food theft first. Then we’ll start talking about hitting the shipyard.”

“Why are you sending us on the food mission? We don’t know anything about the town,” Craig said.

“Exactly,” Berk said. “Which means no officer has seen you there, nor anyone else, so you can’t be identified.”

“Shouldn’t our anonymity be preserved for the ship mission?” Jyra said.

“Food comes first,” Shandra said, exhaling heavily through her nose. “Once we steal a ship, we’ll need to move fast and procuring food won’t be possible. When did you two become so doubtful?”

“I want to make sure we’re thinking everything through,” Craig said.

“That’s been seen to,” Shandra said. “So here’s what you do.”

She explained the plan with constant input from Berk.

“This market will receive a shipment in about six hours,” Shandra said, pointing.

“It’ll be dark by then,” Berk added with an assuring nod.

Leonick only stared and took sips of Nova from a flask that, as far as Jyra could tell, had appeared out of nowhere in his hand.

After reviewing the location of the market’s loading dock, Shandra moved onto describing the vehicle.

“It’s a standard mid-range pod. We’ll go see it in a moment.”

“Either of you ever flown one?” Berk asked. He leaned forward and through the shaggy hair about his face, Jyra noticed his eyes gleamed with a serious gaze.

She shook her head.

“I’ve flown a pod before,” Craig said, also put off by the sudden shift in Berk’s demeanor.

“I’ve hit people before,” Berk growled. In a pleading tone he added, “Shan, you’ve got to let me fly.”

“Macnelia wants the two of them to go,” Shandra hissed. “The pod belonged to Berk before he donated it to our cause,” she explained. “Instinctive protection of such a machine dies hard.”

“I want as much time as possible to go over the pod with each of them,” Berk said, sitting back with a scowl.

“It’s fine if you want to just show Craig,” Jyra said. “He’d be better at it—”

“Not if he’s been shot,” Berk said. “I don’t mean to say that will happen, but if it does, it’s up to you to get him back here.”

Jyra gulped.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Craig said, keen to divert the conversation away from even a hypothetical gunshot wound. “I mean, we’re not supposed to grab random boxes, are we?”

“They should be labeled,” Shandra said. “A couple floodlights above the dock should make them easy to read. Of course, they’ll also make you more visible.”

“Will we be armed?” Jyra said.

“You’ll each have a gun, but hopefully you won’t have to use them. Remember, you’re dealing with innocent people,” Shandra said. “No kill shots.”

Jyra wasn’t sure she could hit any target with a gun; she’d never even held a firearm. She was so preoccupied thinking about the consequences of possessing such a weapon, it took the sounds of chairs scraping back from the table and the map rolling up to bring her attention back to the cavern.

“Berk will show you the pod,” Shandra said.

Jyra and Craig followed Berk toward a passage across the cavern. Jyra watched Shandra walk over and take a seat next to Neeka. The two of them began talking in hushed voices. Soon, the cavern disappeared around a sharp curve in the corridor as the newcomers trailed after Berk farther into the mountain.

*

The passage was dimmer than the first. Lights were spaced at greater intervals. Some flickered as the trio passed them. Jyra ran her fingers along the rough, damp walls. She remembered the rocks on Tyrorken. She and Dario discovered a pile of gritty stones near a pit mine when they were children. They made a game of seeing who could throw the farthest. Even at the narrowest point of the pit, none of their rocks made it even halfway to the opposite side. They stopped when Jyra’s coughing fits from the bad air forced them to return home.

Jyra stumbled on the uneven ground and Dario’s smile as he lobbed a dirty stone vanished from her mind. The passage floor had become even steeper.

“Might want to use your hands from here,” Berk said over his shoulder. Jyra watched as he spread his arms to brace his body. The sleeves of his jacket pulled back to reveal his wrists. Though she couldn’t see it, Jyra thought of his tattoo and before she considered it, she blurted the question.

“What’s the tattoo on your wrist for?”

Berk stopped and fumbled in his jacket with one hand. He took a swig of whiskey and then continued on.

“From a hospital on Silanpre where I’m from,” he grunted. “If you make it back, maybe I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

None of them spoke again until they came to a fork in the passage.

“This way,” Berk said, taking the right corridor. “Nearly there.”

Jyra’s feet were clammy and cold, but her face was hot from the effort of keeping herself upright while navigating the steep path.

After another ten minutes, Jyra heard a loud snap and light spilled into the passage ahead of Berk—he had thrown a switch on the wall. The trio stepped into a cavern that was about the size of the one with the fire pit.

The pod was parked in the middle of the room. The twin engines faced the passage.

“Take a look at her,” Berk said. “I’m going to check outside. Make sure a test run is all right.”

He strode across the cavern and up the ramp of granite. Jyra followed him to the base of the ramp. Instead of the sky, she looked up to see a sheet of ice hanging over the opening. Berk stepped out of sight between the crest of the ramp and the overhead glacier that shielded the cavern.

She turned her attention to the pod. Craig was already pacing around it, eyeing the small cockpit with two seats arranged side by side. The main body was rather thin. A rack took up most of the space behind the enclosed cockpit. The engines sat just aft of the rack. The nose swept off of the cockpit and finished in a fine point. Three retractable legs held the pod upright. The dull gray cowling on the machine reflected the lights on the cavern ceiling.

Jyra stared into the cockpit and the diagrams from the book Dario gave her surfaced in her mind. Toward the front of the book, she remembered the simpler flying machines.

Footsteps announced Berk’s return. Jyra broke her gaze with the cockpit.

“Is this a custom build?” she asked.

“Did most it myself,” Berk said.

“The controls are from a Class B stunt flyer, right?”

Both Craig and Berk seemed taken aback, but Berk nodded.

“Correct, I salvaged nearly the entire console from a wreckage yard. Lots of stunt pilots on Silanpre. I had to patch the right side back together.”

Jyra had already noticed the fine welded line that snaked evenly between the controls on her side of the pod.

“I think you and I should take her out first,” Berk said, walking up to Jyra.

“Yeah,” Craig said. “I was only going to ask where the ropes for the rack are stored.”

“Compartment on the side there,” Berk said, pointing at a hatch as he twisted the release lever that allowed the cockpit enclosure to swing open.

Jyra wasn’t sure where her confidence came from, but she caught her reflection in the clear cockpit dome. The Mourning Mark remained smudged on her forehead. She retied her hair and stepped into the cockpit, settling in the pilot’s seat. She heard her words from the night before, demanding action. She felt like she knew this cockpit, this machine, and all about how it worked. Her feet found the rudder pedals. Her nerves settled, replacing the feelings of recklessness and anger from the previous night. Jyra heard Berk talking to Craig, but didn’t understand a word he said.

Berk took the empty seat and pulled the dome over the cockpit. It latched with a loud click.

“He’s clear,” Berk said. “You know how to start her?”

His voice sounded distant, like he was speaking to her through the cockpit dome from outside. Jyra nodded and she reached down near her knee and pressed the starter. One click and then another echoed through the body of the pod and Jyra knew the engines were on standby. Then a roar filled the cavern. She heard the whirring of the motors over the bellowing engines that angled the dynamos to send the pod up the ramp. She eased back the lever with her left hand to retract the legs. Then she increased the engine power and they crept out of the cavern. At the top of the ramp, she reduced thrust and the pod dropped neatly down a steep slope. Then Jyra gunned the engines and they burst out into a long valley, surrounded by mountains.

“Why didn’t you want to fly?” Berk hollered over the noise. “I’ve never seen anyone take to her so fast!”

Jyra stepped on the left pedal and the pod curved in that direction. The sheer cliffs of the mountains rushed at her, but she steered with ease and kept her hand on the engine power regulators.

 

“Let’s head back,” Berk said. “Give Craig a chance, but I already know who I want flying on this mission.”

In the back of her mind, Jyra knew getting back into the cavern would be tricky, but her body didn’t seem to listen. The pod soared up to the top of the ramp and glided forward, missing the glacier and the top of the ramp. Jyra rotated the machine and dropped the legs before landing.

“I guess I need to take her out for a flight in case you get shot,” Craig told Jyra.

“Shandra should be down with supplies soon,” Berk told Jyra. “Head up the passage a bit. You don’t want to be in here when we take off.”

Jyra covered her ears as the pod roared out of the cavern. She wasn’t sure what to make of her skill at the controls. The challenges necessary to complete her goals, the reasons she was on Drometica in the first place, tempered the lightness in her chest and the exhilaration from flying.

Before the pod returned, she heard scuffling in the passage and Shandra and Neeka appeared carrying gear for the mission. Even in the dim light of the passage, Jyra saw the shining barrels of the guns, emerging from their holsters. The sight erased all thoughts of the pod and the mission itself.

“You all right?” Shandra said.

“Yeah,” Jyra said.

“No you’re not,” Neeka said. “None of us are all right. You’ll learn to forget it, though.”

“I’m sorry about Derek,” Jyra said.

“We all are,” Shandra said. Jyra wanted to look Neeka in the eyes, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“He’s more than new motivation,” Neeka said and Jyra could tell by her voice that she was fighting to keep a level tone. “He’s more than that to me.”

“I know,” Jyra said. The roar of the pod ended the conversation and as the noise began to fade, the women entered the cavern.

Craig and Jyra were each given a gun. Jyra strapped the holster belt around her hips, hoping the firearm would never leave its snug position next to her left thigh. As though she could read her mind, Shandra said, “you’ll be pulling a trigger when we take on TF.”

Jyra didn’t respond but accepted the map of Horbson. They were given a bag that contained a couple of sandwiches and a large canteen of water.

“Here’re a couple flashlights,” Neeka said, pulling them from the deep thigh pockets of her trousers.

“Make sure you don’t take too much stuff,” Berk said. “She won’t fly if the load’s too heavy. You probably can’t tie that much stuff on anyway. As long as you’re doing everything right, do it as fast as you can, too.”

Jyra realized she expected to see him take a sip of whiskey, but his hands remained at his sides.

“Head down the valley and you’ll almost be able to see Horbson once you’re clear of the foothills,” Shandra said.

“It’s probably getting dark out there,” Neeka said.

“Are you suggesting we go?” Craig said.

“We aren’t the subtle type,” Berk said. “Go get us some food so we can make the push to get out of here. Ropes are under the passenger seat.”

Jyra and Craig climbed into the cockpit and stowed their supplies behind the seats. They waved at the others as they retreated up the passage.

“I can’t quite believe they’re trusting us to do this,” Craig said.

“Macnelia’s got an interesting way of building trust,” Jyra said, but her mind was already clearing as she leaned down to start the pod. Moments later, they burst into the darkening valley. Jyra stepped on the right pedal and the pod careened toward the plains beyond the foothills.

“Everyone back there’s a little strange,” Craig said once they left the mountains. “Still, it sounds like we’re heading right back where we came from.”

“Which makes me wonder why Macnelia wanted Derek to come back so soon,” Jyra said, as she pressed on the left pedal. “If they’re heading to Tyrorken anyway, why go to the trouble of getting you and I here?”

“I don’t know what TF planned to do with you, but we had to make sure you were beyond their reach,” Craig said. “As I said before we left, you might have been sent into a mine already. As for Derek, I don’t know exactly how he kept TF from knowing about his activity with the resistance. I think he convinced them he was running prospecting missions to Drometica, which he could do in addition to checking in with the resistance.”

“When Derek delivered the letter to me, he made it sound like he worked on the rigs with Dario,” Jyra said. “He said his team was taking the day off to mourn.”

“Could be true.”

“Derek was in charge of a team of workers and ran prospecting missions? That’s an awful lot for one person to manage.”

“I don’t know anymore than you do,” Craig said. “Until we rescue Derek, we won’t really know.”

Jyra took the hint that he didn’t want to discuss uncertainties. Instead, she asked Craig something she’d been wondering about from when she met him in his living room the night of their departure from Tyrorken.

“Why did you make me promise not to tell anyone all the stuff you told me about the resistance? We were about to leave the only planet and people I’ve ever known.”

“Secrecy,” Craig said after a brief pause. “When I made that request, we were still in a dangerous position. Had you been captured when we took off, I had done all I could to make sure you didn’t reveal any sensitive information to the enemy.”

Jyra had a sudden vision of sitting in an interrogation room, fighting to withhold what she knew. The glare of the lights bore into her eyes and anonymous agents screamed questions at her. She shook herself, trying to jostle the scene from her mind.

The clouds in the mountains followed the pod toward Horbson. An unbroken mat of gray blocked the stars. The lights of the city were visible in front of the hills on the horizon.

“Might want to drop a little lower,” Craig advised. From this distance, they could see the lights of only two vessels in the air near Horbson. The police could lock onto the pod easily, especially without other flying vehicles to interfere with tracking.

“A custom build like this won’t have a standard ID chip,” Jyra said.

“They’ve been using it for supply runs since they’ve been here,” Craig said. “I’m sure the police can track us even if we don’t have a chip. They can still see us.”

“I’m surprised they’ve managed so many getaways,” Jyra said as they cruised lower. She could see the black outlines of boulders and other features on the ground now. “How did the police manage to lose them over plains this size?”

By the time they reached the outskirts of Horbson, the two airborne vehicles had disappeared. Jyra slowed to a reasonable speed and glided by row after row of boarded-up windows. The pod flew over multiple broken streetlights. The first working one illuminated an unpaved road and someone lying facedown at the base of the pole.

“I don’t think I’d like the sort of food we’ll be getting from a place like this,” Craig said.

“Can you find where we are on the map?” Jyra said. Craig unfolded the map and crumpled the sides down so it would fit in the cramped cockpit.

“Let’s see we came in from the northeast,” Craig said, tracing a finger in from the plains. “Do you see an opera house?”

“Do you see an opera house or anything like one around here?” Jyra snapped.

“Just jump a little above the buildings so we can check.”

Jyra guided the pod upward. About eight blocks straight ahead they saw, through the gloom, a dome jutting above the other broken buildings. As they drew nearer, it was obvious the opera house was as decrepit as the rest of the neighborhood. Pieces of the dome had caved in and large timbers and buttresses had broken loose and fallen on the dirt roads below.

“Please tell me the market is far from here,” Jyra said dropping the pod below the rooflines. Craig searched the map, crumpling it more as he went.

“It is,” he said with relief. “Head southwest. It’s more central than I thought.” Jyra cruised through the streets and the buildings began to change. Fresh paint and flashing billboards replaced cracking walls and blocked windows. The streetlights were all on and although the roads were now paved, they were still empty.

“What’s that smell?” Craig said. Jyra had already noticed the odd acrid aroma. Her immediate thought was something happened to the pod. Maybe a motor overheated or a circuit shorted? No warning lights appeared before her and the pod sailed onward with no apparent trouble.

As they traveled farther into the city, they could see more of the skyline, which was nearly obscured in a thick haze.

“We’re almost there,” Craig confirmed with a quick glance at the map. He and Jyra could hardly take their eyes off the city. Both of them could tell something wasn’t right, but like Jyra’s thought that something might be wrong with the pod, they chose to deny the feeling.

“What’s all over the street?” Craig said suddenly. White sheets of paper covered the pavement. The moment Craig spoke, Jyra realized the haze was actually smoke. They flew another few blocks and the pristine buildings were burning or leveled. Bodies lay in the street and people were running frantically through rubble, floods from ruptured water mains, and leaping flames.

“Head right!” Craig shouted. Jyra jammed the pedal and the pod swung down another street.

“Two more blocks!”

“You’re crazy!” Jyra yelled. “We can’t land here! This place has just been bombed!”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about completing a mission,” Craig said. “Now land! There’s a fenced lot right there!”

Seething, Jyra lowered the legs and brought the pod down, landing harder than she intended. Craig unlatched the cockpit and pushed the dome back. He sprang onto the pavement with his gun and flashlight already clutched in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Jyra said. With the cockpit open, the din of the crisis unfolding beyond the lot couldn’t be ignored.

“The mission,” Craig said, stalking over to the fence. Jyra followed him.

“Put the gun away,” she said.

“Jyra, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

“We shouldn’t have to!”

“This is an outstanding situation. I’m not going to shoot anyone, but we have a job to do. Clearly, we’re going to need another plan than stealing a delivery. I’ve never been here before, but I can guarantee that shipment won’t come in tonight.”

“So why don’t we just walk into the store and take what we need?” Jyra said, scowling at the gun in Craig’s hand.

“That’s the new plan,” Craig said. “But we don’t know what’s in there, which is why we’ve got weapons. That market could hold a couple hundred people. They might have sought shelter in there during an attack. Let’s move!”

Craig pushed through the gate and crept up behind the empty loading dock. Jyra followed with her flashlight in hand. Her gun remained holstered at her hip. An explosion echoed across the city as Craig and Jyra scrambled onto the dock.

“Against the wall, quick!” Craig whispered. As they shrank into the shadows, two men ran by on the street, each armed with a rifle.

The large cargo door wouldn’t open, but the latch on the nearby the conventional door retracted when Jyra tried the knob. Just before they walked inside, the outdoor lighting on the block lost power. Had it not been for their flashlights, Jyra wouldn’t have been able distinguish inside from outside—both were equally dark.

The echo of their footsteps told them they were in a small room. Jyra half expected Craig to tell her to quiet the noise of her thumping heart. She had never thought about being afraid of the dark and the flashlights provided limited comfort in the eerie stockroom. One of their beams caught a long light fixture swinging on its cord; they could see the mounts where it had been attached to the ceiling.

“A…bomb blast might have knocked it loose,” Craig said. After a couple tense minutes, they found a few boxes of canned goods stacked on a hand truck.

“Let’s make a pile of things to take,” Jyra suggested.

She placed a box of bagged loaves of bread near the hand truck. Craig discovered a carton of juice at the same time Jyra found several stacks of boxes that had been knocked over. A dozen eggs were broken on the floor. She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she spoke.

“We’re not the first ones here.”

“Keep looking,” Craig said as though he hadn’t heard her. “We’ll load up and get out of here soon.”

Something crashed on the other side of the stockroom. Jyra yelped and fumbled for her gun.

“Who’s there?” Craig said. He tried to make his voice sound deeper, but failed to quell the quivering tone.

A man stumbled out of the darkness. Streaks of dried blood ran from his bald scalp down his cheek.

“Stay where you are!” Craig warned, raising his gun.

“I’m not afraid of you,” the man said. Jyra glanced at Craig, whose arms were shaking. She wished Berk had come on the mission.

“What happened to the city?” Jyra said.

“Nilcyns hit us,” the man said, leaning back on a crate that creaked as it took his weight. “Lower your gun, boy.”

Sweat reflected on Craig’s forehead beneath his brown bangs. He lowered the gun to his stomach, but kept it aimed at the man.

“Nilcyns?” Jyra said. “What are those?”

“Trouble’s what they are,” the man said. “You don’t find interplanetary militias in this galaxy. Maybe on individual planets, but not between them. If you combine all the ships in this system, you get a lot of firepower, probably enough to tear the galaxy a new black hole.”

The man laughed but his guffaws became coughs. Jyra was sure the hand he’d used to cover his mouth had fresh blood on it when he returned it to his knee.

“Thing is, any alliance of ships, any formation flying in open space is considered hostile. There’s an unwritten rule in the galaxy that if surrounding ships witness that kind of unity, they can blast the offenders into dust. ‘Course, if a few ships team up to do that, the moment they neutralize a threat, they’d best go their separate ways. Fast.”

“I think we should probably take that advice right now,” Craig interrupted.

“If you’re ever thinking of going into space again, ‘cause I can tell you’re not from around here,” the man said, “you’ll want to watch out for the Nilcyns. They are the only renegade group that’s managed to remain over time. A battle here, a battle there, their ships are destroyed and people think they’re gone. Like disease, though, they keep coming back. So does the proof. Right now, every available ship capable of fighting is attacking the Nilcyns up in space. The carcasses of ships will come back to the ground and some will be marked with the Nilcyn’s insignia.”

“What’s it look like?” Jyra asked.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” the man said. He clapped his hands; the noise made Craig and Jyra jump. “Now, before the defeated wrecks come thundering down around us, how about if you help a dying man get out of here?”

“Sir, I’m sorry but we’ve got to be going,” Craig said, bending down to pick up another box.

A loud, dry click made Jyra jump again. The man had whipped out a revolver and aimed it at Craig.

“You can go, but you need to take me with you,” he snarled. “I’m not going to die in the back of a grocery store!”

“I’m not keen on helping someone who’s pointing a gun at me,” Craig said.

“If you’d kept yours on me, you wouldn’t be in this mess. But when it came down to it, you probably wouldn’t have shot me anyway.”

The man stood up and walked toward Craig, keeping the revolver on target. “You’re not the type who shoots and moves on. You agonize over the decision. It haunts you, does it not? You’ll carry all the pain of your days till the last one.”

The flare of the light distracted the man just enough for him to turn and catch the butt of Jyra’s flashlight in his forehead. He groaned as he crumpled, his weapon clattering to the concrete before him.

Craig pivoted his light to Jyra, who stood unsteadily on the spot, her arm still extended.

“Nice throw,” Craig said, kicking the man’s weapon under a set of shelves across the room. He directed his light at the man’s body and they saw his dark shirt had a large fresh bloodstain on it. “Looked like he was dying, after all,” Craig said. He picked up Jyra’s light and clicked the button. “I think you broke it.”

“I’m sure they’ll forgive me. Let’s get out of here.”

They stacked their boxes on the hand truck and wheeled them outside. The light from distant explosions reflected off tall buildings nearby, but it was too dark to even think of loading cargo on the pod.

“Let’s get everything out of there first and stack it in the lot,” Craig said. “If anyone comes along, we can barricade the gate.”

They made three more trips with the hand truck. Jyra used a short cord from under the seat to lash the gate shut. Craig began untangling the thicker ropes.

“Little boxes on first so the big ones hold them on the rack,” Craig said when Jyra returned from tying the gate closed. They stacked the boxes neatly, but their nerves and the semidarkness interfered. Twice they had to pull a large container from the bottom of the pile, while keeping the unstable load upright until they could rebuild the base.

Once the cargo was on the pod, Craig and Jyra stood on opposite sides of the load and threw ropes over the boxes, cinching them to the rack. A sudden blast a few blocks away shook dust loose from the buildings across the street and caused the fence around them to rattle.

“Fire it up!” Craig shouted. “Time to go!”

Jyra leapt into the cockpit and Craig yanked on the ropes a final time, triple-checking their strength. He clambered into his seat and prepared to pull the dome in place. He hesitated as another noise climbed above the peripheral chaos. A small skiff shot overhead and the police markings on it were unmistakable. Craig slammed the dome and locked it. Jyra angled the engines, fired them and the pod burst from the ground. Craig looked in the direction of the last explosion. A large fire crackled in the middle of the street.

“What is that?” Jyra cried, staring at the sky.

Craig followed her gaze. The gray clouds were no longer invisible in the night. Something lit them from the behind and the source grew brighter. Transfixed, Craig and Jyra watched the enormous mystery behind the clouds. A flash of light closer at hand and an amplified voice redirected their attention.

“Unknown transport pod, you are ordered to land immediately and prepare to be searched.”

The police patrol that had flown over them had a spotlight trained on the cargo behind the cockpit.

“What’s to search?” Craig said with a grim smile. “It’s obvious what we’ve got.”

“The man was right,” Jyra breathed. “It’s a toasted ship.”

Craig, already preoccupied with the law upon them, took a few moments to redirect his gaze. Sure enough, the clouds were still lit up, but the source was no longer a mystery. An enormous ship was tumbling through them. The battered hull glowed a fierce orange from the stress of atmospheric reentry.

“Comply with orders or we will shoot you down!” the amplified voice said. Berk had been right about the police and their ineptitude; the officers in the skiff hadn’t even seen the remains of a battleship hurtling toward them.

“It’s breaking up,” Jyra said.

“We should move,” Craig said.

Jyra gunned the engines and the pod blasted forward before the officers could react.

“Now they’re chasing us!” Craig said.

“It’s okay,” Jyra said, “We can outrun them.” Even as she spoke, she could tell the pod was not as fast as before.

“The load’s slowing us down,” Craig said. “The police are on our tail! Get us down into the streets!”

Jyra steered the pod into a dive, but something flashed by the window and distracted her.

“Pull up!” Craig yelped. Jyra lifted the nose of the pod up just before she buried it in the pavement.

“What was that?” she said.

“What was what?”

Something else fell on Craig’s side of the cockpit and stuck in the road. He identified it before Jyra launched the pod forward as the police closed in.

“It’s debris from the falling ship!” Craig said. “Get above the buildings and get us out of here!”

“The cops will get us then!”

“We’ll be crushed by the ship otherwise! Go! Go!”

Craig was right. The ship fell with such speed the air beneath it couldn’t displace quickly enough; the sheer force of compression blew entire blocks to pieces. Jyra took the pod above the buildings in time to see a massive engine from the doomed giant pulverize the police skiff behind them.

“No one in pursuit!” she said. “Let’s get back to the mountain!”

They flew over the plains, staring at the destruction of Horbson. The crippled battleship landed in the middle of the city, shooting a column of white flame and dust into the air. As a spectacle, Jyra would have thought it a beautiful sight, but the death and pain it must have caused weighed on her conscience.

“I suppose it’s good we’re planning to leave this planet soon,” Craig said.

“Unless all the potential ships have been destroyed,” Jyra said, her spirits falling further at the thought. “The plan was to steal a decent ship from there.”

Jyra had always marveled that when traveling some place for the first time, the return journey never seemed to last as long. The trip back to the mountain was no exception. She guided the pod easily back into the cavern and parked it. The moment they opened the cockpit dome, they heard voices. Craig and Jyra jumped free of the pod and saw Berk, Shandra, Neeka, and, surprisingly, both Leonick and Macnelia.

“I got the radar working moments after you left,” Neeka said. “What’s happening over there?”

“It sounds like the Nilcyns are the attackers,” Craig said. “A huge battleship crashed into the middle of the city when we were flying home.”

“How do you know it was the Nilcyns?” Macnelia said.

“We met a man at the market. He told us,” Jyra said.

“He told you the Nilcyns were attacking Horbson?” Macnelia said. Jyra sensed Macnelia didn’t believe her.

“He didn’t know what other force in the galaxy could be capable of such destruction,” Jyra said.

“I suppose we’ll see,” Macnelia said. “It’s a mystery how the Nilcyns continue to survive. Countless others have attempted to copy them, but they all meet their end by the cannons of flash alliances.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see?’” Neeka said.

“Well, our plans seemed straightforward. First we needed food for the journey to Tyrorken, and now we need a transport to get there. We must go to Horbson, procure a functional ship, fly it back here, and load up all the provisions we can take.”

“How many people are going to get the ship?” Jyra asked.

“Not all of us now,” Shandra said. “Most people over there have other things to worry about besides ship thieves, especially if that’s a Nilcyn attack. No need for an entire group to distract those who might stop us. Berk and Jyra, how about you?”

“Why me?” Jyra said automatically.

“The size of the ship we want will likely require two pilots to fly it, especially so close to a planet’s surface,” Macnelia said. “It’s not like the rest of us will be sitting around waiting for you to get back. We’ve all got a lot of work ahead of us so let’s get to it.”

Leonick was already making his way up the passage with a box of food. Macnelia, Neeka, and Shandra followed with their own box. As Berk and Jyra headed back toward the pod, Craig came jogging up behind them.

“I just want to grab my sandwich and some water,” he said.

“I forgot about that,” Jyra said. “Now I want mine.”

They dug them out from behind the seat. Berk walked around his pod, inspecting it as well as the cargo. “Once you two have finished eating and drinking, you can help me unload the rest of the boxes.”

Craig and Jyra ate quickly, but Berk already had half the load on the cavern floor. They finished the rest of the lifting and stacking.

“Where’s the other flashlight?” Berk said. He’d started cleaning out the cockpit.

“I threw it at the man who told us about the Nilcyns,” Jyra said sheepishly. “He had Craig at gunpoint.”

“Got confused?” Berk said. “That thing throws harder than you can.” He pointed at the gun at her hip. Craig looked at his own weapon and began loosening the belt.

“I suppose you’ll want this?” he said.

“No, I’m fine,” Berk grunted. He threw back his head and emptied his flask into his mouth. “I can throw harder than those things.”

They all chuckled and Craig finished taking the holster off and held it out.

“No, seriously, I’m all right,” Berk said. “Keep it for now.”

“See you soon,” Jyra said.

“Good flying,” Craig replied. “And mission accomplished.” He leaned forward and pulled Jyra into a one-armed hug and whispered, “you better come back.”

“I will,” she said, feeling a familiar sense of denial. “I wouldn’t want to miss going back to the home world.”

“Let’s go before I crack open my next flask!” Berk said. Craig and Jyra turned and saw Berk already seated in the pilot’s seat. Jyra gave Craig’s arm a squeeze before jogging to the pod and jumping into the seat. Craig waved and retreated into the passage as the engines began to roar. Berk’s massive hands glided over the console, tapping and pulling the necessary controls. He brought the pod smoothly out of the cavern and into the dark valley. By the glow of the instrument panel, Jyra caught sight of his bare wrists and she remembered.

“I made it back. You have to tell me about your tattoo.”

“I reckon I do,” Berk said.

Sound disappeared. Jyra felt the penetrating chill of snow soaking through her clothes. She lay still; if she didn’t move maybe the creeping cold would retreat, maybe the ice would forget she was there. Her ears registered a noise. It seemed like it should have been louder: a muted explosion that caused the ground to shudder beneath her. Or maybe she was just shivering.

Jyra rolled over and stared past the towering mountains at the clouds she had been above moments ago. She had never seen clouds like them. Tyrorken’s sky had always been choked with sand and soot-colored vapors created by the oil extraction industry. Jyra felt her body shaking and pushed herself out of the snowdrift. The feeling of the cold was utterly unfamiliar, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. She thought of when she had a fever when she was fifteen and how the chills had swept through her limbs, freezing her joints and muscles. She had imagined then that her blood was freezing and thawing as her sickness persisted, warping her tissue and waking her, crying, from sleep. Then Dario had laid the cool washcloth across her forehead.

Jyra shivered and surveyed her immediate surroundings. She was on the ledge they had been aiming for. The level patch of snow stretched two hundred feet either side of her before the cliffs of the mountain interrupted it. From her position, it looked like the edge of the ledge was about six feet in front of her. The snow had been disturbed there, likely from the ship as it passed. A deep valley stretched below and the four peaks that formed it rose up before Jyra. Now that she was out of the open ship cabin, the air wasn’t as harsh—a crisp breeze lifted her hair in passing.

Jyra pulled her hands out of the drift. They were pink and the gentle wind made them sting. She stood up and couldn’t tell if it made her feel warmer. She could now see two dark shapes to the left of where she’d been sitting. It only took a couple steps toward them to see the straps. Both of the duffels had made it. But Craig had jumped after Jyra threw the bags. He should have landed between her and the luggage unless—

The snow on the edge of cliff had a hole, like a row of teeth with one missing, right where Craig should be. Jyra waded toward the spot, fighting the pulsing panic in her shaking limbs. She dropped to her hands and knees and crept the last three feet to keep from falling through the unsupported snow. She peered over the edge and saw Craig. He was standing on a craggy outcropping, too small to even sit on. His foothold was one of the few on an otherwise sheer face that offered a fall no one could survive. Based on the marks in the snow near the edge, Jyra guessed what had happened.

“Close one,” she said through chattering teeth. Craig looked up and smiled wearily.

“I needed to be about a foot closer to the mountain,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m lucky to be here at all. Check around. There’s a cave nearby. Derek’s friends likely heard the ship when it blew. They’ll be out soon. I had a good view of the explosion.”

Jyra stood up and gazed in the ship’s direction of travel. Cinders and black debris covered a large snow bank on an adjacent mountain. Scanning down the cliff, she could see smoldering remains of the ship. She shuddered as another chill combined with panic motivated her to search for help. Jyra never thought that she would die from the cold. For the first time, she realized how far she was from home.

The snow deepened as she walked away from the edge. The warmth of her blood faded, her legs seized, and she fell forward into the snow. She lifted her head and saw figures emerging from an unseen opening in the face of the mountain.

Two pairs of hands, protected by thick furry gloves, grabbed Jyra’s shoulders and pulled her out of the snow. She staggered out of their grasp when she was upright and got a better look at the people she hoped were Derek’s friends. They were all similarly dressed in long fur coats and their trousers disappeared into tall boots that began just below their knees.

“I’m Jyra from Tyrorken,” she gasped. “My friend, Craig…he needs a rope…help getting up the cliff.”

Jyra nearly fell forward again and one of the people stepped forward to catch her.

“We’ll get him,” the person said. “But I’ve got to get you inside now.”

“The bags…”

“They’ll get them.” The voice sounded feminine. “Come with me.”

Jyra walked through the snow, following the path the group had made from the cave. Her guide helped her up the rocky ledge. Once through the narrow mouth of the cave, the chill of the wind subsided. A flickering glow on the wall and the smell of smoke indicated a fire nearby. Jyra glanced over her shoulder and saw Craig safely upon the ledge and moving toward the cave with assistance. She rounded a bend and saw a large fire, surrounded by benches, crackling in the middle of the cavern.

 

“Take a seat,” the woman said. “My name’s Macnelia. I’ll be back in a moment.” She removed her heavy coat and disappeared into another passage. Jyra sat on one of the benches and felt the heat of the flames rush through her clothes with the swiftness of the wind. She turned around and saw Craig, assisted by two figures, staggering into the cavern. Jyra made to stand up, but the larger man gripping Craig below the shoulder waved her back.

“Keep warm,” he said. Jyra thought his voice should have been much lower to match his size.

Two more people followed Craig’s escorts, one of them coiling a rope with gloved hands, the other dropped the bags inside the cavern. Jyra slid sideways on her bench to give Craig space. He sat and looked into the shadowy faces of those who saved him.

“Thank you—” both the men above him belatedly realized it was an opportunity for introductions.

“Berk,” the larger man grunted.

“Leonick,” the second man said.

They pulled off their furs and hung them on the wall. Berk shook his shaggy black hair from in front of his eyes. Leonick pulled a wool hat off his blond hair, which looked bronze in the firelight. The men walked by their guests back to a bench. As they passed, Jyra recognized new smells: smoky clothes and stale alcohol. The fur coats must have concealed the odors.

Craig rubbed his legs and moved them closer to the fire. Though Macnelia still hadn’t returned, the last two people joined the group. They were both women.

“Where’d Macnelia go?” one of them said. Though her coat was gone, she kept a scarf around her neck.

“Probably getting tea,” Berk said.

“Good guess,” Macnelia said, returning from the passage with a large tray of steaming mugs.

Berk and Leonick, who had their backs to Macnelia, twisted where they sat to look at her. Jyra noticed a tattoo on the inside of Berk’s left wrist. It was composed of vertical lines, equal in length. Macnelia set the tray next to Craig and took a seat on the only unoccupied bench on Jyra’s right.

“You meet everyone?” Macnelia said, directing the guests to help themselves to tea.

“Shandra,” the woman with the scarf said on cue.

“Neeka,” the last woman said.

“Now we have,” Craig said with a nervous smile over his mug.

“I think we can tell who’s Craig and who’s Jyra,” Macnelia said. “Are you two all right? Looks like you had a rough landing.”

“Not as rough as the ship,” Jyra said.

“You’d have been warmer in the ship before it fried you in the explosion,” Berk said.

“I’ll show you where you’ll stay and then you two should probably get some sleep,” Macnelia said. “Start getting used to the routine here.”

Jyra hadn’t thought about rest. Despite the smoke in the cavern, the air still seemed as fresh as it had in the ship and it gave her a sense of renewed strength. It was hard to believe only two Tyrorken nights had passed since the funeral. As her thoughts returned to Dario and then to Derek, she felt a hot surge crackle under her skin, a fierce desire to do something to oppose TF. It was too late to save her brother, but what was happening to Derek right now?

“How can we wait?” Jyra said, spilling tea over her hands; she didn’t realize her hand holding the mug shook. “We don’t have time.”

 

“You two need to recuperate,” Shandra said. “We can’t get you working on the efforts here and have your bodies give up halfway into the tasks.”

“They’re right,” Craig said. “I’m exhausted. It’ll hit you soon.” Jyra wanted to argue, but Neeka diverted the conversation.

“What happened to Derek?”

It took a moment for Jyra to realize that of course no one here would know why a member of the party was missing.

“He was shot in the leg before he could get on the ship,” Jyra said. She didn’t recognize her own voice, but felt her tears gathering.

“TF agents got him,” Craig added. “We don’t know anything after that.”

Neeka’s expression made Jyra wish she had been the one left behind, wounded and captured.

“I thought he was going to try and get more people,” Neeka said, her words distorted by her quivering throat.

Jyra wondered why no one had mentioned Derek’s absence earlier. It seemed like they should have asked about him. Maybe he had told them he was looking for more people. It would have kept them from worrying if he was gone for a long time. But he certainly had been planning on traveling with Craig and Jyra to Drometica.

When Jyra refocused on the room, she sensed a shift in the mood of those in the cavern. Every face showed concern or anger. Only the gentle pops and whistles of the fire spoke into the silence, which lasted until Jyra drained her cup of tea.

“New motivation to execute our plan,” Macnelia said with a tone of finality. “Let’s get you two to bed. We need your help and Shandra’s right. You’ll be useless without rest.”

They all stood together, leaving their mugs on the benches. Macnelia stepped forward and clasped Craig’s hands briefly, then repeated the gesture with Jyra. Then she raised her right hand and touched her fingertips to her forehead and her eyes fixed on Jyra’s Mourning Mark.

“Welcome,” she said. “May your efforts speed the downfall of Tyrorken Fuels.” Jyra saw the others tap their fingers to their foreheads in her peripheral vision.

“Sleep well,” Macnelia added. Jyra thought she might have been imagining the tears in Macnelia’s eyes.

The guests collected their bags and followed Shandra down the passage into the rest of the cave. A string of blue lights hung near the craggy ceiling. The floor was uneven but the rock was smooth.

“This is you,” Shandra indicated a narrow opening in the wall for Craig. “Don’t worry. The room itself is pretty large.”

“Night,” Craig said.

Jyra followed Shandra around a bend in the passage and stopped outside her quarters.

“If you need anything, just keep going down the passage and you’ll find the rest of us,” Shandra said. Jyra felt a little claustrophobic as she looked at the ceiling of passage, which seemed to be getting closer to the floor the longer it ran. How did Berk navigate this?

She thanked Shandra and stumbled into her room, dropping her duffel almost immediately. A washbasin stood in a corner and cot, complete with a thick blanket and soft pillow, had been set up near the opposite wall. Suddenly drowsy, Jyra dropped onto the cot and pulled off her boots, listening to the sound of Shandra retreating in the passage. She wrapped herself in the blanket and took several conscious deep breaths before falling asleep.

*

Jyra woke from her dreamless slumber. The light overhead glared through her eyelids. She sat up and stared around the room. Everything was much clearer than she remembered it. The ceiling was low and thin fissures spread in the granite as though it were a pane of cracked class. The floor was rough and cold. The washbasin was where she remembered it. A dresser of dark wood sat next to the towel rack. Though the room had no door, the entrance from the main passage joggled so Jyra was invisible to those walking by. The controls for the light must be somewhere else, because there was no switch. Jyra rolled over and reached for clothes, but realized her duffel was across the room.

She got up and brushed her hair from her face. The clothes in her bag were cold as if the duffel had soaked the chill from the snow and hadn’t had a chance to warm up again. She pulled on a clean pair of trousers and a button-up shirt. Once she had her boots tied, Jyra ventured into the main passage.

Like her room, she saw details out here that had escaped her the night before. The sides of the passage had been chiseled to widen it: white marks scuffed the stone. She had somehow missed the metallic buttresses placed every few yards. Even when she saw the main cavern, it was as though this was the first time she saw it.

The entire room sloped up toward the entrance passage. Jyra observed how the smoke from the smoldering fire gathered on the ceiling and moved toward the mouth of the cave. The benches were made of some sort of metal, the same that had been used to make the buttresses. The mugs had been cleared away. Two racks on the either side of the room held the fur coats. Jyra felt one of the sleeves. The fur was coarse and thick.

She walked back toward the passage and found Macnelia emerging from it.

“Sleep well?” Macnelia said.

“I did, thank you. It must have been the air here.”

“It’s much better than what you breathe on Tyrorken, I know.”

“You’ve been there?” Jyra asked.

“I used to work for TF,” Macnelia said. “I’m from Jiranthem. A recruiter came to my planet and I thought it sounded like a good job. My mistake.”

“How did you escape?”

“Ran off during a mission to this planet. If I hadn’t known Derek and Neeka, I wouldn’t have survived.”

They began walking down the passage. Macnelia explained how she and Derek had plotted their escape. They had kept their conversations brief and didn’t discuss details at first. Each had been wary of the other exposing the plan.

“TF agents would tell stories of employees who were caught trying to desert the company,” Macnelia said. “I never knew if they were true, but it made one thing clear: I’d only share my plan with one person and only after I had their trust. Up you get, Craig!” she added as they passed his room.

“I don’t remember whether Derek or I noticed the other’s intentions first, but luckily neither of us was going to alert authorities.”

At that moment, the passage opened up onto a cavern three times the size of the one with the fire pit. It reminded Jyra of the pictures in the book Dario had given her of different ship cockpits. Consoles and control panels filled the middle of the room. Neeka sat at one, typing energetically on a keyboard. She shot a cold look in Macnelia’s direction. Jyra blinked and Neeka had returned her attention to a large screen while pushing her blond hair behind her shoulders. The lights of the buttons and panels added a colorful glow in cavern compared to the stark glare of the overhead fixtures. The variety of hues flickered on the granite and reflected back to the floor.

 

“Morning,” Berk said, raising a mug in greeting. He was standing next to a table in a dim corner where Shandra and Leonick were eating. Both of them waved and Jyra realized they had their mouths full.

“Breakfast?” Berk asked.

“That sounds great,” Jyra said. She hadn’t eaten for hours and now that food was on her mind, all she wanted to do was eat.

“I’ve got some work to do,” Macnelia said. “Go ahead.”

Jyra walked to the corner alone and Shandra handed her a platter of toast and eggs.

“Dig in,” she said.

“Care for a sip?” Berk said, offering his mug.

Jyra accepted, not catching Shandra’s half-hearted interjection, and nearly choked on the stinging drink that had a familiar flavor.

“It’s tea mixed with Nova whiskey,” Berk said. “Sorry.”

“More like Nova whiskey with a drop of tea,” Shandra said.

“It’s fine,” Jyra said. “I could do with a drink, but I need some food first.”

She devoured the toast and was shaking salt on her eggs when Craig appeared from the passage.

“Morning,” Berk repeated. Craig stared at the instruments in the cavern, obviously impressed and surprised to see all the equipment.

“Was there something in the tea last night?” he asked with a yawn as he approached the table. “I don’t remember the last time I slept so well.”

“Yeah,” Berk admitted. “Why do you think the mugs were already poured when Macnelia brought them out?”

“You drugged us?” Jyra said.

Berk replied with another swig from his mug. Having already seen his tattoo, the rest of his arms caught her attention. The veins bulged beneath the skin, as though yearning to burst through.

“Needed you fresh for today,” Berk said. “Didn’t need you asking questions and lying awake wondering what was in store half the night. Plus we’re up against an interplanetary corporation with plenty of influence and money to make us all disappear if they knew where to find us, so we take precautions.”

Jyra didn’t know what to think. She kept eating her eggs, noticing Shandra consuming the remainder of them from the skillet on the stove. Right before she entered this cavern, Macnelia had spoke of the importance of trust and she had deliberately drugged Jyra and Craig.

“They did it to me when Leonick and I got here, too,” Berk said. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

“All I can do is hope it won’t,” Craig said as he filled a plate from the platter. “We’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“That won’t be true for long,” Shandra said. “We’ve got some missions for supplies that have to be carried out in the next day or two.”

Jyra couldn’t ignore Macnelia’s deception with the tea. And how could Berk be so cavalier about it? Security made sense, but they could have been told right after they emptied their mugs. She looked over at Neeka and thought of the expression she had aimed at Macnelia earlier.

“Why’s Neeka angry?”

 

“Derek, of course,” Berk said, draining the last of the whiskey in the mug. He produced a flask from a pocket near the knee is his trousers. He tipped it over and refilled the mug.

“Why not just drink from the flask?” Craig said, scooping up eggs with his fork.

“Why don’t you eat your eggs with your knife?” Berk shot back. Then he leaned in and continued speaking with such directness, keeping his eyes fixed on Craig, Jyra couldn’t tell if he was serious. “I’ll tell you why. It’s slower.” With that, he threw back the mug and swallowed the contents in one gulp.

“Macnelia’s got her way of doing things,” he said. “So far, she’s held us all together. This lapse with Derek is the first time something serious has gone wrong.”

“Is drugging newcomers part of her way?” Jyra said. She didn’t mean for her tone to be so bitter. She was well aware that without Macnelia, she would likely have frozen to death on the ledge.

“We’ve already established that it is,” Berk said. “Point is, she won’t always tell the whole truth, but she’s got good reasons for it generally. Take Neeka for example. Macnelia knew something happened to Derek ‘cause he sent a distress signal. At the time, Neeka was crunching numbers, running necessary calculations for a ship to head for Tyrorken from here. Rather than distract her with the bad news about her man, Macnelia told Neeka that something had come up and Derek would be delayed. In the conversation, all Macnelia suggested was maybe Derek was recruiting more people.”

“But he wasn’t. He’d been shot,” Jyra said. “Macnelia was lying outright.”

“Do you know that Derek is not recruiting others?” Leonick said. He was staring at the ceiling and didn’t seem to care whether his question was answered.

“We didn’t know he’d been shot,” Berk said. “In fact, we didn’t even know if your ship was en route. Had it not exploded, we might not have come out looking. A distress signal from Derek could have meant anything, including that the ship hadn’t or couldn’t launch.”

“You didn’t see us come in on radar?” Craig asked, pushing his empty plate away. He nodded toward Neeka’s console and Jyra recognized two locator scopes.

“Neeka’s working on getting our radar system up and running again,” Shandra said. “She’s also prone to anxiety attacks. She’s a brilliant programmer, but she gets too emotional for her own good, especially while working under someone like Macnelia.”

Jyra looked across the room again and watched Neeka, whose fingers twitched over the keys as she stared the monitor while her lower lip trembled. Jyra knew who Neeka was thinking about and doubted the radar would be fixed soon. Macnelia had said without Derek and Neeka, she wouldn’t have survived. Jyra wasn’t sure what such commitment meant to Macnelia if she treated Neeka in such a misleading manner. Perhaps Macnelia was so accomplished at holding back parts of the truth, she wasn’t even aware of when she did it. She recalled how easily her hostess had suggested the fresh air had allowed Jyra to sleep so well.

“Did you say Neeka had been making calculations to send a ship back to Tyrorken?” Jyra asked Berk.

“Yep.”

“So you have a ship?”

“Nope.”

Shandra pulled up an empty chair and sat between Jyra and Craig at the table.

“Since you two are new here, it’s best to get acquainted with the kitchen area. Why don’t you start by doing the dishes? After that, we can sit down and figure out how we’re going to steal a ship.”