Category Archives: Kaosaam System

The resistance gathered at the airlock to release Macnelia’s body into space. Jyra wasn’t sure how long everyone stood in silent vigil. Another Mourning Mark smudged Jyra’s forehead. Beneath her sadness, she felt anger festering. She glanced sideways at Craig and her jaw tightened.

“Peace for now and always,” Leonick said. Everyone repeated the words and Berk pressed the button to open the airlock.

Neeka clutched Derek’s arm and shook with grief where she stood. Shandra wrapped her arms around Craig and the two of them held each other in silence against the wall of the corridor.

Jyra left the group. It was easier to feel alone in solitude rather than in company. She followed the corridor back to the main hangar. The next thing she knew, she had returned to Macnelia’s quarters. Chairs were still drawn around the bed. The blanket was missing from the mattress; Berk had wrapped it around Macnelia’s body before carrying her back to the airlock.

Jyra crossed to the bedside table and looked in the open drawer. She saw two more bottles, but neither bore any clues about what ailment the contents were supposed to treat. At the very bottom of the drawer, Jyra found something far more interesting. She pulled out a framed picture of her brother. It had been taken around the time Dario began working at TF. His dark hair hung across his forehead, hiding his eyebrows. His eyes, however, gleamed against his suntanned face. Jyra pulled the picture against herself, as though it would bring her closer to her departed brother.

Macnelia had rejoined him somewhere. Jyra remembered when Leonick discussed the idea of galaxies parallel to Kaosaam. In one of them, perhaps Dario, Macnelia, and her parents still existed. The thought provided Jyra little comfort, because it only reinforced how terrible things had become in her galaxy.

Jyra caught herself thinking about Craig again and tried to push him out of her mind, but for all the good it did, she might as well try to bring her family back from the dead. She hated herself for letting thoughts of Craig distract her in a time of grief. She knew she had been at odds with Macnelia lately, but she was positive it wasn’t all her fault. Something had happened to Macnelia before the bullet hit, but even her behavior in her last moments had been odd.

Jyra remembered her discussion with Berk and her own words filled her head. “The way Macnelia’s been talking about this assault, it’s as though she wants it to be the final one. It seems she doesn’t care if it kills her.” Unrest on Tyrorken and an inability to assess conditions on the planet had prevented the initiation of the assault. Even now, Jyra wondered how Macnelia planned to attack the TF fleet with two ships, one of them unarmed.

The sound of footsteps interrupted Jyra’s obsessive analysis of the feasibility of the assault. She tucked the picture into her jacket then turned to see Leonick in the doorway. His expression forlorn, he entered and sat in a chair on the opposite wall of the room. Seeing him reminded Jyra of the way Macnelia looked at him with her smile as she lay in Orasten’s hangar, her life leaking away. Jyra felt tears searing her cheeks as she spoke, but her voice was quite even.

“She seemed relieved,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t understand why.”

“I can,” Leonick said without hesitation.

He picked up one of the bottles from the edge of the bed where he’d left it.

“Berk was not the only one who ran out of a remedy,” Leonick said. “This bottle held a nerve anti-degenerative. This pill is manufactured to treat a specific disease. Being from Tyrorken, I assume you are familiar with the illness.”

Jyra drew a blank until she remembered Craig’s parents.

“Somasteria,” she said, wiping her face dry as a chill swept over her.

“Correct,” Leonick said.

“Did you know?”

“Not until I saw the bottles when I treated her right before she died,” Leonick said. “I too believe she was relieved, but it does not minimize the sadness.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jyra said. “I can’t imagine living with a disease like that.”

Leonick drew out his flask, and took a long sip. He offered it to Jyra and she accepted, thinking of her father drinking from his flask after Dario’s funeral.

“When did she get sick?” Jyra asked, cringing as the liquor burned her throat.

“It is difficult to say,” Leonick said. “Not everyone sufferers from the illness in the exact same manner. Some symptoms last longer, shorter, or do not occur at all. The only way to know is if she gave someone that information.”

Jyra immediately thought Berk might have known. Although, when she had asked him directly about Macnelia’s strange behavior, he didn’t mention anything besides stress as a possible cause. Jyra didn’t think he would have lied to her. She felt her mind starting to analyze again and she struggled to ignore it, wanting to hold Macnelia in her thoughts.

As though he sensed Jyra’s mental conflict, Leonick asked a question, which helped to center her.

“What is the significance of the Mark?”

Jyra stared at the two fingertips that still bore the dark stain of charcoal. She could feel the powder sticking to forehead.

“It’s a tradition on Tyrorken,” she said. “The idea is we come from darkness and we must return to it eventually. The Mark makes the feeling into something visual. It helps keep memories alive of those we’ve lost, but who we still love and care for.”

Leonick considered the information for a moment and nodded slowly.

“Wear it well,” he said, pushing himself out of the chair. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Me too,” Jyra said, following Leonick from Macnelia’s room.

Alone in her bunk, Jyra stared into the darkness, wondering when she might follow her family into it. She rolled over, willing herself not to think about it. Before she fell asleep, she wondered if Leonick practiced any customs for the death of a friend.

Jyra still smelled the smoke from the gunfire when she awoke; the odor had settled in her clothes and hair. As her grogginess subsided, she remembered Macnelia had been killed and it became harder to sit up. Hurried footsteps outside her door stoked her curiosity, though. She dressed quickly and made for the bridge, certain that’s where the person had been headed.

Neeka was looking over Berk’s shoulder at Berk’s computer. Berk smelled strongly of whiskey (more so than usual) and his hair stuck out in all directions. The skin beneath Neeka’s eyes sagged and she looked exhausted. It appeared as though both of them had dressed quickly.

“What’s going on?” Jyra asked, striding toward them.

Neeka glared at her, but Berk answered, not taking his eyes off the monitor.

“We’re losing the planet,” he said.

“What?” Jyra said. Did he mean TF was gaining the upper hand against the Nilcyns?

“I should have seen it earlier when I was planning the assault,” Berk said. “I studied all those weather maps and didn’t make the connections. The wind readings threw me off.”

“What?” Jyra repeated.

Neeka left Berk’s side and walked toward the exit ladder.

“Tyrorken’s dying,” Neeka said, her voice hollow and strained. “The pollution’s overwhelming the atmosphere.”

“How?” Jyra demanded, grabbing a chair and sitting next to Berk. “How can you tell?”

“Projection,” Berk said. “Look at the temperature history. It’s been climbing for months. TF has access to this information, but I’ll bet there are few souls on Tyrorken who can map weather so precisely. The temperatures are increasing much faster now. Soon, you might only be able to survive on the surface with a protective suit, and not for long even then.”

Jyra placed her head in her hands and stared at the floor. She remembered looking at her fragile world through the sight on the laser cannon. She couldn’t save Tyrorken any more than she could save her family. Then words, thoughts, and feelings failed her. TF had taken her family, Macnelia, and her home planet. She stood up, and placed a hand on the back of Berk’s chair to steady herself.

“There’s…no way to reverse it, is there?” she said, realizing Berk probably expected her to say something.

“I don’t think so,” Berk said gently. “I’m sorry.”

Jyra felt her hand slip from the chair. Her mind went blank again and the next thing she knew, she was stepping off the bottom of the ladder into the main passage. Given all the hardships Jyra faced—losing her brother, fleeing her home planet, hiding mere feet from her parents when they were shot, to watching Macnelia die—for the first time, she felt hopeless. She would have preferred to feel nothing.

Jyra heard someone coming up the passage and Craig appeared, walking at a brisk pace.

“I just saw Neeka,” he said. “She said Tyrorken won’t be habitable much longer.”

Jyra gave a dull nod.

“What’s going on?” Craig asked.

“Nothing,” Jyra said. “My family’s dead along with my home world and Macnelia too.” She walked past him.

“Don’t say that,” he said. Jyra looked at him over her shoulder.

“I’ll say what I please,” she said, her mind working fast as she recalled the food supply run she and Craig had made on Drometica. “It’s just like the man said when he had the gun on you in the stock room. You struggle to make decisions, and even when you do, the consequences of the decision haunt you. Is that why you froze in Orasten’s hangar? Is that why you couldn’t take the shot that might have saved—”

“Stop!” Craig shouted advancing on Jyra, who fell silent.

“I’d advise that you quit verbally attacking resistance members,” Craig said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done it, and I can promise you it will be one of the last if you keep it up. This resistance doesn’t need help from traitors.”

Craig spun on his heel and climbed up the ladder before Jyra could say another word.

*

Jyra had fallen asleep fuming from the latest interaction with Craig. She knew she shouldn’t have provoked him, but she couldn’t help feeling justified that it showed what he thought of her. How had she fallen out of favor with him so quickly? She remembered when she told him that she questioned whether Macnelia was fit to lead the resistance. Once she had convinced Craig she was only concerned for Macnelia’s welfare, he mentioned the difficulties she might have encountered if the conversation had been with another member of the resistance.

“You’d really be in trouble then,” Craig had said. Though his tone was lighthearted, it sounded more foreboding in Jyra’s memory.

A knock on her door roused her. Berk waited in the passage. He had done nothing to tame his hair and looked as haggard as before.

“We’re meeting in the main hangar in ten minutes,” he said, after taking a swig from his flask. “The resistance needs to get its bearings.”

“Do you feel well enough to meet?” Jyra asked, hoping she didn’t sound rude.

“My head’s killing me,” Berk said, clamping his palm to his forehead. “I had to…overindulge to rebalance my body. Sorry if I scared you during the fight.”

“Not at all,” Jyra said. “You just surprised me. I didn’t know you could fight like that.”

“I don’t know where the strength comes from,” Berk said. “I can’t do it all the time. You’ll have to ask the hospital, I suppose.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Jyra said, her spirits slightly elevated by Berk’s presence. She could see the impact of Macnelia’s death in his slumped shoulders and drooping eyelids. Even so, she gave Berk a small smile and assured him she would be at the meeting. Berk set off down the corridor, leaving Jyra to wonder how she would handle being in the main hangar with the rest of the resistance, particularly Craig.

Jyra assumed everyone had slept after Macnelia’s memorial, but, like Berk, they all looked spent. Neeka was trembling. Derek tried to comfort her, but his arm seemed strained just by supporting its own weight. Shandra’s skin was paler than usual and Craig stared at the floor, unwilling to lift his chin above his shoulders. Leonick sat down on the floor of the hangar, barely hiding a heavy sigh. Everyone else followed his example, forming a small circle on the floor.

“I thought it would be a good idea to gather and discuss what’s happening now and what we’re doing next,” Berk began. “Hopefully, we’ll establish our future actions and goals by the time this meeting’s over.”

He paused. Jyra wasn’t even sure he had completed his thought, but Neeka spoke up.

“Don’t we already know what we’re doing?” she said. “We’re going after TF ships.”

An uncomfortable silence followed and Berk spoke again.

“Recent discoveries suggest that may no longer be a wise course of action,” he said. “According to the weather instruments aboard this ship, which are some of the most accurate you can get anywhere in the galaxy, Tyrorken is succumbing to the high levels of pollution in its atmosphere. A general estimate gives the planet about two months before it becomes uninhabitable.

“The second discovery,” Berk said, lowering his head for a moment, “is Leonick found medication in Macnelia’s quarters that indicate she’s been suffering from Somasteria.”

Jyra saw Craig look up, his eyes narrowed. She wasn’t sure what caused it, but Jyra suddenly realized she didn’t want to hear anything Craig had to say, so she spoke before he could.

“I’ve been concerned about Macnelia’s behavior,” she said, suddenly aware of how insensitive she sounded. “She was a strong leader, but it might be worthwhile to revisit her plans and discuss whether we should pursue them.”

“If I understand you correctly,” Craig said, and Jyra heard the anger in his voice, “it sounds like you’re saying if someone has Somasteria, their ideas are subject to more scrutiny or should be discredited entirely.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Jyra said. She cast about in her mind for a way to direct the group’s attention elsewhere. “But I will say I think it’s a concern when a couple people destroy another ship without consulting the rest of the resistance.”

“An enemy ship!” Neeka cut in sharply.

“TF and the Nilcyns kill without a second thought!” Jyra yelled. “What you did shows we’re no better than them!”

“Careful,” Craig said sarcastically. “I can’t tell if it’s you or an illness talking.”

“Enough!” Berk roared, his voice echoing around the hangar. “No more pointless bickering. I’m sure we all have the best intentions for the survival of the resistance.”

Jyra heard the words, but realized she couldn’t agree with them. The resistance was all she knew, but her last statement replayed again and again in her head.

Why was the resistance any better than TF or the Nilcyns? The resistance had taken out the TF complex on Tyrorken, saved Derek, and acquired a TF ship. But it hadn’t been able to save Tyrorken or Macnelia, the leader of the resistance. The moment Macnelia had been wounded, Neeka had taken it upon herself to destroy the enemy ship and Craig joined her.

It was too reckless, Jyra thought. That was the difference. Bombing the TF complex had been planned for a long time. She knew innocent people had been killed, but at least that consequence had been considered. We had time to come to terms with what we were doing. We did it as a group, Jyra reflected. Shooting Orasten was nothing but a thoughtless act of revenge.

Jyra shifted her focus back to the meeting, though she regretted it immediately. Craig was discussing Somasteria and Macnelia.

“You can’t just assume the disease compromised the plans she crafted,” he said. “My parents kept their mental faculties until the very end.”

Jyra bit her tongue, self-conscious of how the group would react if she challenged Craig. But she wanted to because he lied. When he talked to her about how Somasteria affected his parents, Craig told Jyra in the early stages of the illness, his parents had issues with their memories and sleeping.

Her mind drew a parallel so quickly, Jyra felt as though the thought ricocheted inside her skull. When the resistance left Drometica, the time bomb Macnelia set to destroy the base went off much sooner than expected; the blast nearly took out the whole resistance. Jyra found out later Macnelia hadn’t been able to recall exactly what she did that might have triggered the bomb.

Craig’s voice jolted Jyra back to the hangar.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t keep hunting down TF ships,” Craig said. “Or does everyone want to quit that easily?”

Shandra put a hand on Craig’s arm, but he only returned his gaze to the floor and fell silent.

“This isn’t about dishonoring Macnelia’s intentions,” Berk said. “We’re here to make a new plan of action. Going after TF ships isn’t the most practical approach. We have one armed ship so I think it’s too risky to launch a full-scale offensive.”

“Why didn’t you raise this concern before?” Neeka asked.

Berk took a deep breath before he replied.

“I admit that I didn’t like the plan from beginning, but I didn’t want to dampen Macnelia’s spirits at the time,” Berk said. “I’m not proud of it.”

“It may be risky, but I think Macnelia’s vision is still the best way forward,” Craig said. “TF ships are still under siege by Nilcyn forces. They’re distracted, which means now is the perfect time to strike.”

“Do you know why I sent you to stop Neeka from shooting Orasten?” Leonick asked Craig. He didn’t wait for a reply.

“Most TF vessels are equipped with cameras on their hulls. In the event of rapid decompression resulting from laser blasts or the impact of other heavy ammunition, the cameras snap images that generate a complete picture of the surroundings. One camera usually captures the identification key on the attacking ship. These images are beamed along with a distress signal to nearby TF ships. If Orasten was close enough to them, those TF ships will now know this ship fired on a friendly vessel. I know that a distress package from Orasten went out, because we received it on one of the bridge computers. I meant what I said to that captain about betrayal. TF ships will turn guns locked onto Nilcyn targets toward us if they have the slightest chance of shooting us down.”

Craig shifted uncomfortably on the floor. Jyra didn’t realize she had been holding her breath the moment Leonick began speaking.

“I suggest we take a break,” Leonick said. “We are not making any progress. I think everyone needs to relax for a moment. Agitated minds do not create sound plans.”

*

Jyra lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t clear one thought from her head. Of all the uncomfortable moments in the meeting, she couldn’t get past the realization that she wasn’t sure how she felt about the resistance. Craig and Neeka seemed determined to follow Macnelia’s desire to destroy the TF fleet. As far as Jyra could tell, both Craig and Neeka had ignored Leonick at the end of the meeting.

Jyra stood up and paced in her quarters as memories of the meeting cascaded over her. She hated how she had characterized Macnelia and her illness. She wondered what everyone thought of her now. Jyra didn’t mean to insult Macnelia’s memory, but as she thought about it, Craig was guiltier of that than anyone.

Nearly all his arguments were based on carrying Macnelia’s vision forward, which looked fine on the surface. The more Jyra thought about it, the more worried she became. Craig was very driven. He’d been that way at the garage. Sometimes he would work late into the night, desperate to complete a project. Nothing else mattered until he finished. He’d latched onto a part of Macnelia’s vision and wanted to achieve it, even if it meant ignoring significant warnings from members of the resistance and lying to them.

Jyra stopped pacing and faced the door. She couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself. She had to tell someone. The door to her room, however, wouldn’t open. She tried several times, but it didn’t budge. Jyra pounded on it and called for help. The beats of her fists faded into silence. She slumped against the door, quite certain she knew who locked her in.

Craig is up to something. He must be telling the others about how I doubted Macnelia. Never mind that he didn’t take the shot that might have saved her. The man on Drometica was right about Craig: “You’re not the type who shoots and moves on. You agonize over the decision.” If he hadn’t hesitated, Macnelia might still be alive.

Jyra’s stomach contracted, interrupting her stream of thought. The memory of the guard Berk shot in Mastranada’s engine room took command of her focus. The guard’s body must be buried under the shattered mountain, a tumble of broken rock, all that remained of the resistance base on Drometica.

How many guards did we kill on Orasten? But they were attacking. They wanted to kill us. And they got one of us.

Jyra sat up on her bunk, shaking her head and staring around her dimly lit room that had become a cell. The door refused to open and no one came to unlock it. The air vents were too small to accommodate her. She could do nothing but wait. Her thoughts returned to her home world. Jyra hoped to save it through her involvement in the resistance, but the heat on Tyrorken was rising and there was no way to stop it. In a few months, no one would be able to survive on its surface.

“How did I end up here?” she said aloud, pushing herself off her mattress to resume pacing. She swept her hair out of her eyes as her face split into an incredulous smile. There was no other way to acknowledge her peculiar circumstances. She had spent her life on Tyrorken dreaming of exploring space while working as an apprentice mechanic. She had never thought of killing anyone, let alone rationalizing such an action. And now here she was on an enemy ship the resistance commandeered (by chance), locked up by a former friend, with no explicit reason given for her imprisonment.

What do I do when they let me out? Jyra wondered. No matter the explanation, how can I properly serve some cause when, at any moment, someone might decide to lock me up? Jyra realized it was possible others had been sealed in their quarters too. Except Berk. If he ran out of whiskey, he’d smash his way out. He could probably manage it even if he had plenty to drink to keep him in check.

Jyra knelt on the floor and pressed her fingertips to the cold metal. She didn’t feel any vibration and supposed the engines were silent. For now, it seemed the resistance wasn’t rushing back to destroy TF ships. Jyra returned to her bunk and huddled under her blanket. She stared at the picture of Dario she had retrieved from Macnelia’s room. The frame had several deep scratches and some of the paint had chipped away.

Without thinking, Jyra stretched out her hand and picked up the picture. She turned it around and bent open the backing tabs. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but she certainly didn’t think a piece of paper and another photo would fall onto her mattress. The back of the photo of Dario was blank along with the backing. Jyra set the frame aside and picked up the loose photo. It was the picture Macnelia had taken of Jyra and Craig together in front of Mastranada before the bomb run. The smell of her neighborhood burning filled Jyra’s nose through memory. She half crumpled the photo and threw it aside onto her blanket. Her attitude toward Craig now couldn’t be more different from the moment Macnelia snapped the picture. It captured another time, not long past, though it felt as if years intervened.

Jyra turned her attention to the piece of paper and turned it over with trembling fingers. Jyra couldn’t even read for a moment, overwhelmed with the joy of seeing her brother’s words again.

The feeling didn’t last long as she began reading:

My dear Macnelia,

I hope the mountains are treating you well. My parents and I are looking into employment opportunities for me at TF. It looks like I might be working out on the rigs. It’s not the safest thing to do, but it will get me into the company. My sister’s worried enough for both of us, so don’t you get nervous either.

I talked to Dad about the drilling compounds for the Drometica mission. He’s not sure why the containers aren’t identified. Normally they’re clearly marked. He told me some of them are likely more aggressive than the usual solvents, so be careful with them.

They’ve finally got the supply ship crash site mostly cleaned up. Even so, I went into town today and there are still lines of people outside the medical clinics.

Stay safe. Next time you see me, maybe we’ll be coworkers.

All my love,

Dario

Jyra got to the end of the letter and recognized how much she marveled at her brother’s handwriting; she had been too distracted to absorb any of the content. She reread the letter and folded the paper in half, realizing Macnelia must have contracted her illness during her work for TF on Drometica. Dario was trying to protect her by identifying the chemicals she had to use. For some reason, as evidenced by Dario’s words, they weren’t labeled.

Until she saw it in the letter, Jyra had completely forgotten about the TF ship that crashed on Tyrorken, carrying drums of drilling solvents. Flames burned for days at the crash site, belching smoke the color of crude oil into the sky. The ship had gone down near a small suburb and within few weeks, every resident reported to medical clinics. After hearing about Craig’s parents and living through Macnelia’s death, Jyra was sure she knew what illness they had caught.

Maybe in the wake of the ship crash and the resulting threat to public health, TF started removing the labels so workers wouldn’t know if they were using harmful substances. Jyra rolled over, resting her head on her pillow and allowing her thoughts carry her to sleep.

She woke up, aware of a fading dream of the black smoke from the ship crash billowing upward. It mixed with the clouds and spread across the sky, moving with the wind. Even when a part of TF literally crashed and burned, it still brought the planet closer to death. Jyra hadn’t been able to accept the reality that Tyrorken was beyond saving. Even before Berk confirmed it, Macnelia had told Jyra TF was killing the planet. It seemed farfetched at the time, but it was happening and Jyra could do nothing to stop it. Until she could leave her room, she had no way to even know what was going on. She kicked the blanket off, her dream replaced by questions she couldn’t answer.

*

A muted clicking noise caught Jyra’s attention. She was sorting through her duffel bag on the floor and turned around, looking for the source of the sound. The door to her room slid back halfway and Leonick entered hastily. He immediately slid the door shut and let out a long breath.

“What’s happening?” Jyra asked, keeping her voice low.

“Craig,” Leonick said. “He had you sealed in your quarters. He has made some serious accusations against you.”

“Do they involve anything about how I thought Macnelia wasn’t fit to lead the resistance?” Jyra asked.

“Yes,” Leonick said. As usual, his face was impossible to read. “He also said you accused him of letting one of the ship guards shoot Macnelia.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Jyra said. “I told him I was worried about Macnelia. As it turned out, I was right to be worried. Am I the only one locked up and does he intend to keep me here while we try to wipe out the TF fleet with one ship?”

 

“Yes. Craig seems to have assumed the role of leader,” Leonick said.

“How? Why? I’ve never understood how that role is determined,” Jyra said, aware that her voice was growing louder. “Did he just claim it? Did everyone vote to grant him that position?”

“Things are certainly more charged than usual,” Leonick said. “He is telling people what they want to hear.”

“But you can see through it,” Jyra said. “We both can. There’s a difference between taking a wise path forward and waging a reckless attack. You’re opinion matters, too. What does Berk think?”

“I do not know what Berk thinks.”

“But you two are friends,” Jyra said.

“Sometimes,” Leonick said. “We have traveled together awhile, but Berk is not always himself. I believe he is more vulnerable now and more willing to follow orders.”

“What are they? What does Craig want to do?”

“He wants to head toward Tyrorken and, depending on the risks, start firing on TF ships.”

“What about the cameras?” Jyra asked. “You told everyone about them. Whatever ship you destroy makes you the next target.”

“Craig wants me to build a device that will send out a frequency that disrupts the cameras.”

“Can you do that?”

Leonick shrugged.

“Until I get something built, we cannot begin the assault,” he said.

“The attack still seems like a bad idea,” Jyra said, dropping back onto her bunk. “It’s like you said: agitated minds do not create sound plans.”

“I think I am underestimating how the loss of Macnelia is affecting the others,” Leonick said. “It could be the reason Craig and his plans appeal to them now.”

Jyra took a deep breath before she asked her next question.

“Do you believe what Craig said about me?”

“I do not,” Leonick said. “But I was struck by you comparing the resistance to the enemy we face. You are the only person aboard this ship who seems to have recognized the importance of distinguishing us from them. Craig’s desire to fight is a consequence of a general loss of focus.”

Jyra leaned against the wall. Although she had been cooped up in her room, she felt exhausted. She remembered how she felt after hearing that her home planet was lost. Never had she been so gripped by despair. Even following the deaths of those closest to her, Jyra had been able to act, to somehow respond to the atrocities.

“The resistance failed me,” Jyra muttered.

“I understand,” Leonick said. Jyra wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, but rather than find out, she asked a broader question.

“Why are you here?” she said.

Leonick crept back to the door and placed his ear against it for a moment. Then he walked across the room to stand in front of Jyra. He stared squarely into her eyes as he spoke.

“I am here to give you choice.”

*

Jyra didn’t know what to say in the wake of Leonick’s elaboration. One thing was clear: if Craig held his position as the leader, Jyra couldn’t hope to be involved in the resistance.

“I have no certainty about his long-term plan,” Leonick said. “That said, I would not be surprised if Craig tries to leave you at the next port, whenever or wherever that may be.”

Every time I think about the resistance, I think about its futility and weakness, Jyra thought. The idea didn’t trigger the usual mental misgivings or rationalizations. She accepted it and took a deep breath.

“I joined the resistance to bring down TF,” she said. “We destroyed their main complex, but wiping them out completely will take much longer unless we recruit more members. I don’t see that happening if we launch an attack we’re not ready for. The resistance won’t survive if Craig doesn’t make that a priority.

“I got into the resistance following my brother’s death. During the mission to rescue Derek, I heard my parents die. Now Macnelia’s dead. I can’t be surrounded by loss anymore, especially if I’m a subordinate to someone who wants to lock me in my room.”

“I understand,” Leonick repeated. “And I agree with you. Death is not easy to cope with, but I hope you find your way to the peace you need. You have a strong spirit and when TF eventually falls, I expect you will have a part in its demise.”

“If I had my way, I wouldn’t kill anyone ever again,” Jyra said. “I can’t imagine passing such misery to others.”

“I do not speak of taking the lives of people,” Leonick said. “I do not do that myself, but I have no qualms about ending an immoral organization that is responsible for thousands of deaths.”

“So my choice is to stay here or leave,” Jyra said heavily. “Are you suggesting I wait for Craig to pitch me out on another planet?”

“I figured you would rather choose your time of departure, which means you can leave whenever you wish.”

“You told me Craig is retrofitting Mastranada with one of the laser cannons,” Jyra said. “I can’t take that ship.”

“Nor would I advise it,” Leonick said. “No need to make Craig any angrier with you.”

“Well I don’t want to throw open a door and go for a walk in space. It’s cold out there and there’s nothing to stand on.”

“I thought a crisis capsule might serve as a better way to exit the vessel,” Leonick said.

Jyra hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense. She could fit everything she needed in one and, for the second time in her life, leave everything she knew behind.

“I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head. “How come you aren’t leading the resistance?”

Leonick smiled his small smile.

“I am too smart for that,” he said.

“No seriously,” Jyra said. “Why aren’t you?”

“The position has been filled,” Leonick said, then his smile disappeared. “More to the point, I am not equipped to be an effective leader of this resistance. I would have to give orders to take lives. I have only chosen to kill once. That experience changed me, not for the better, and I do not plan to ever do anything like it again. Pack your things.”

*

Ten minutes later, they met in the corridor that led to the crisis capsules. Leonick presented Jyra with a heavy package wrapped in paper.

“Put it in your duffel if you can,” he whispered. “And be careful where you use it.”

“What is it?” Jyra asked.

“You will find out later,” he said. “We must hurry.”

They moved down the corridor, their ears straining to hear anything besides two pairs of footsteps. Once they rounded the first corner, Leonick spoke in the same whisper.

“Do you have any weapons?”

“A dagger.”

“Better than nothing,” Leonick said. “All the guns are secured now so I could not get one for you. Remember, there is no telling where you might land. It could be in a city or the wilderness. Take time to get your bearings.”

He pulled a bottle and small box from inside his coat and handed them to her as they walked side by side.

“Food and water,” he continued briskly. “If you run out of water and you are outside civilization, finding fresh water is your top priority. If there is an ocean nearby, do not drink from it.”

Jyra nodded stiffly. Each step she took toward the capsules reinforced what she was about to do.

“What planet am I likely to land on?” she asked.

“Silanpre I think,” Leonick replied. “It happens to be orbiting about as close as it gets to Tyrorken.”

“Isn’t that where Berk is from?” Jyra asked.

“It is,” Leonick said shortly.

“Does everyone believe what Craig said about me?”

Leonick didn’t answer immediately. At that moment, the crisis capsules appeared as the rounded the next corner.

“Neeka and Shandra seem to agree with his point of view,” Leonick said as Jyra set her duffel on the floor. “Derek defended you a few times but ultimately fell silent. I could not figure out what Berk was thinking. I suspect he still respects you.”

“I wish I could say good-bye to him,” Jyra said.

Leonick nodded and bowed his head ever so slightly.

“Too risky,” he said. “But I will pass the word along.”

“At least I can tell you good-bye,” Jyra said. “And thank you. We both know where I’d be if you didn’t come along. Why did you?”

Leonick paused again, but his face betrayed nothing about what went on behind his eyes.

“I do not know what Craig intended to do with you,” he said. “Locking you in your room was not a promising start. The way I see it, if someone is working against TF in any capacity, that grander cause is better served by keeping such a person out of confinement. Besides that, I think you are persistent and your ambition is bigger than this resistance. That is why I gave you a choice.”

“Persistent?” Jyra asked, raising her eyebrows.

“You are still here,” Leonick said. Jyra remembered telling herself that, but a ship wide broadcast interrupted the memory.

“Jyra, I know you can hear me,” Craig’s voice blared out of the nearest speaker. “I need to speak with you in the main hangar. Please meet me there in five minutes.”

“All significant choices have tests,” Leonick said, uncharacteristically rolling his eyes at the speaker. “But you haven’t lost focus,” he added as Jyra approached the nearest crisis capsule.

She pulled the access lever. The door dropped down and revealed the inside of the tiny spacecraft. The interior was painted gray. The small control console lit up beneath a porthole filled with far away stars. A single seat complete with a built-in safety harness, sat in the middle of the capsule. A small storage locker had been framed into the wall next to the door and Jyra managed to stuff her duffel inside it and secure the latch.

“You can figure out how to control it,” Leonick said. Jyra wasn’t sure if it was a statement or question.

“I can’t exactly navigate, can I?” Jyra said.

“A couple thrusters can push you left or right to avoid obstacles during landing. Aside from that, the capsule falls where it falls.”

“Why overcomplicate something like falling?” Jyra said, hoping the sarcasm would settle her nerves. She placed the food and water on the floor next to the seat, and noticed the water rippling in the bottle. She stepped back into the corridor for a final good-bye.

“If I land in the ocean, what do I do?” she asked.

“There is a raft in the locker with your duffel,” Leonick said. “The capsule should come to the surface and remain there for about fifteen minutes before it sinks so get out as fast as you can.”

Without another word, Leonick opened his arms and pulled Jyra into a brief hug. She felt his greasy shirt and caught the aroma of stale whiskey, suddenly struck by how much she was going to miss it.

“Thank you again,” she said. “Good luck with the time machine.”

Leonick only smiled. Jyra turned her back to climb into the capsule. She cinched the harness around her and took a deep breath. She almost forgot about the provisions next to her on the floor; she scooped up her water and food and secured them in a compartment next to the console.

Jyra placed her palm over a yellow button, its blinking light throwing an amber glow onto the walls, and dropped her hand. The capsule began to vibrate and Jyra heard the launch drive winding up. The door hissed shut, the cabin pressurized, and the dynamo roared, spitting the capsule from the ship and taking Jyra into space with it.

The capsule jostled around her. Jyra rubbed her eyes and felt her stomach churning, forcefully contracting to retain its contents. The darkness of space no longer dominated the view from the porthole. White clouds flashed by as the capsule hurtled toward the surface of a planet Jyra couldn’t see. Almost as soon as she registered the sky, the capsule plunged into a sea of gray vapor that darkened until it seemed as though she were reentering space.

Spatters of rain struck the porthole and turned immediately into steam. Jyra tried to focus on the console in front of her. All the buttons were backlit; some flashed while others held a steady glow. She pushed one marked with an arrow pointing left. Jyra’s right side crushed into the safety harness as a thruster blew the capsule left.

She locked her teeth together as though afraid they might be shaken free of her gums. The rain lashed against the capsule, but the roar of air rose above all other noises. A dull clunking sound told Jyra her water and food were taking a beating in their storage compartment.

Although she knew full well it was necessary to flee the resistance, Jyra couldn’t help but wonder if this had been the best way to do it. Her doubt only increased when a monotonous voice (that showed no emotional regard for the situation) made an announcement above the noise of the falling capsule.

“Surface contact in two minutes. Prepare to fire thrusters and eject parachute.”

Jyra jerked her head down, trying to get a clear look at the console. The capsule vibration worsened, but a few moments after the voice spoke, the buttons stopped flashing, leaving only one control blinking. Jyra pressed it and heard the thrusters bellowing outside. The capsule continued to shake, but the action felt calculated and deliberate.

The moment of relief didn’t last. Although the capsule gained control of itself, Jyra’s body increased its protest. It felt as though her stomach rolled on top of itself from the sudden braking. Mere seconds after that sensation, every organ in her body hammered against her skin from the inside. They struck again and again, all of them desperate and aching. Jyra clenched her eyes closed along with her teeth, waiting for the misery to end.

“Surface contact in one minute. Eject parachute immediately.” The voice had a distinctive edge to it now.

Jyra cracked an eyelid. A different button was flashing now against its static fellows. Jyra had her arms wrapped around her body, hoping they would protect her. She extended her hand toward the button, but became immobilized by nausea. She realized she must be on the cusp of losing consciousness. The capsule lurched forward and Jyra fell with the motion. The harness caught her body, but her arm continued onward and crashed onto the flashing button.

The thruster braking had been nothing compared to what happened next. When the parachute inflated behind the capsule, Jyra’s eyes bulged, the straps of the harness cut deeper into her skin, and her entire skull throbbed; it felt like as though her brain had been slammed through her forehead. For as much speed as the capsule lost in an instant, it may as well have crashed into a wall.

Though the steady vibration had all but disappeared, the ride hadn’t ended yet. While the parachute had served its primary function, the capsule now hung beneath it by cables. The winds of the storm couldn’t get a purchase on the smooth hull, but they began to torment the parachute.

Jyra had to endure swinging back and forth like a pendulum with a bent arm. Parts of the parachute collapsed and fluttered and the capsule continued to fall in a series of haphazard jerks.

“Prepare for surface contact,” the voice said. Except for the howling wind outside, the landing had become quieter and it was easier for Jyra to register the words around her.

Acting on the information was not so easy. Should I unclip and gather what I need? It didn’t sound like a good idea based on what Jyra went through moments ago. The capsule swung ahead suddenly as the wind attempted to fold the parachute in half.

“Ten seconds to landing. Conditions require raft deployment.”

The voice sounded far away. Jyra’s hands shook, but she couldn’t feel them. Her body hurt. She told herself parts of her were unharmed, but all she felt was the pain, the pulsing ache that accompanied every heartbeat.

Her fingers turned inward as she pulled them toward the strap latches. Her nails brushed the release clips and Jyra fumbled to disengage them.

The raft, she thought. Fifteen minutes. Leonick said something about that.

The harness loosened just as the capsule tipped porthole-first onto the surface. Into the surface. A wave broke against the porthole. White froth remained on the glass once the water disappeared. Jyra leaned forward and exterior lights clicked on automatically, blinding her as the white beams fell upon the surroundings.

The capsule bobbed in place, but the wind continued tugging on the parachute. Most of it had settled in the water and currents dragged it under. An air pocket opened in the parachute and it began pulling the capsule across the waves, driven by the wind.

Jyra tried to stand, but the floor rolled beneath her. She remembered Leonick’s words and a feeling of panic joined her physical pain. The capsule was going to sink in fifteen minutes. She needed to get out.

A wave crashed over the inflated pocket of the parachute, at last pushing it out of the wind’s command. The capsule held position now. Despite the pitch of the floor, Jyra could finally stand. The chair was soaked with sweat. She staggered to the locker to retrieve her duffel. It tumbled onto her when she opened the door.

Food and water. She pulled them out of storage near the console. The bundle of food was misshapen; it looked as though the container of water had been bouncing on it repeatedly during the landing.

Jyra tried to sit down on the floor and fell instead. She made to unzip her duffel, but it proved to be as challenging as unhitching the harness. Once she managed to get it open, she tossed the food and water inside.

“Ten minutes to exit the capsule,” the voice reported.

“Raft,” Jyra said to herself. She grabbed the seat and pulled herself upright. “In the locker.”

The door still stood ajar but the locker was empty. She looked for a button on the console but saw none were flashing. Jyra looked in the locker again and noticed a red button toward the back, but it wasn’t lit. That changed when she pressed it.

“Press again to deploy raft,” the voice said. Jyra complied and the button blinked.

Air rushed past Jyra’s face and she tumbled to the floor again as the entire rear of the locker burst outward, opening the cabin to the outside. An orange skiff inflated upon the heaving waves, complete with several running lights, an outboard jet, and two lines tethering it to the capsule. Jyra seized her duffel and crawled toward the locker, gulping the moist and heavy air into her sore lungs. A wave crashed against the capsule and water splashed inside. Jyra pulled herself back to her feet using the locker door for support. She eased into the locker as another wave broke on the threshold, drenching her feet in icy water.

Jyra slipped and fell out of the capsule into the skiff. She clutched her duffel to her chest, despite the pain and tried to sit up. Roiling clouds of steam rose from the capsule, lit up by the bright lights. The hull had to still be cooling from passing through the atmosphere. Jyra realized the skiff material might melt against the capsule. The thought made her sit up, but the designers had planned ahead; metal bumpers kept the skiff away from the warmth of the hull.

Over the howl of the wind, rain, and waves, Jyra heard the voice give its last words.

“The capsule lights point toward a major landmass.”

As though they had been listening, too, all but three lights on the front of the capsule went dark. The skiff was already pointed in the correct direction. Jyra unclipped the lines and began to drift away from the capsule. She secured her duffel in place with another line and crawled to the stern to turn on the outboard.

The rain continued to fall as the skiff rode the waves on its journey toward land. The capsule became lost in the stormy waters and Jyra could only hope that she held the vessel on course. The rain and wind turned her aches into bruises and stiff joints. She kept one hand locked onto the tiller and the other clutched to the side of the skiff.

As she crested another wave, she saw lighter clouds sitting on the horizon. They weren’t much different than the forbidding black thunderheads high above, but Jyra suspected they were hanging low over land.

She was so focused on the wide swath of cowering clouds, Jyra didn’t realize the wave breaking under the skiff until it was happening. The vessel fell onto the rushing water that surged upon a sandy beach. Jyra killed the motor and stumbled forward, eager to leave the skiff. She grabbed at her duffel before remembering she’d tied it in. Another wave crashed nearby, setting the skiff afloat again and swirling around Jyra’s waist. The knot in the line wouldn’t give.

 

Summoning what strength and concentration she had left, Jyra wrenched the duffel open, found Dario’s dagger, and slashed the line and skiff with one stroke. She pulled her belongings free as air hissed out of the vessel. It washed off the beach, already half deflated as Jyra shouldered her duffel and, keeping the blade in hand, staggered up the beach.

*

Jyra woke up, feeling the moist earth beneath her. Her cheek rested on her duffel and her fingers were still wrapped around the dagger. The sky was bright and free of clouds. Jyra stared at it through trees she had never seen before. Their green leaves shimmered in the gentle breeze. Lichen, still saturated with rainwater, grew in patches on the trunks.

Jyra locked her arm to push herself off the ground, but she couldn’t do it. If the pain had been excruciating before, it had at least doubled overnight. She remained on her back, feeling like a bug that had flipped over and couldn’t right itself. Jyra let go of the dagger and, with great effort, opened several buttons of her shirt. A quick glance showed a pattern of bruises on her body left by the safety harness. It brought to mind the lattice-top pies her mother used to bake when she had enough fruit for the recipe.

Jyra fought thinking about her mother. It wouldn’t serve her well here. She had to get moving, but she couldn’t even sit up. Her body almost felt lighter. Her hand found a small rock in the damp grass. Jyra picked it up and rotated it in front of her face.

The rock was smooth and tinged with blue hues. Though it felt comforting in her palm, Jyra tossed it toward a tree. The stone sailed through the air and landed in the grass. Its performance set Jyra to searching for another rock to throw. The next stone arced from her hand and hung just a moment too long before plummeting.

Jyra found something to distract her from the pain. She still had to ease herself up cautiously, but from a sitting position, she was able to find more stones. It took launching a dozen more pebbles for Jyra to convince herself it wasn’t an illusion caused by her weariness. The gravity was weaker here than it had been on Tyrorken.

The moment she came to the conclusion, Jyra heard something moving in the underbrush. She grabbed the dagger and turned around, crouching behind her duffel, her muscles tense and alert. A woman stepped out from behind a tree and looked right at Jyra.

“There you are,” she said, as though she and Jyra were playing hide-and-seek. “I figured you’d be somewhere around here. My name is Eldred. I’ve come to help you.”

“How did you find me?” Jyra said, wondering if this woman carried a weapon.

“We noticed your ship,” Eldred said. “We’ve had some trouble pinpointing unmarked vessel locations recently, but obviously we had yours narrowed down sufficiently.”

Like the voice in the capsule, Eldred’s high, familiar tone seemed entirely at odds with both the wild surroundings and Eldred herself. She was dressed in an olive green jumpsuit with matching gloves. The color brought TF to mind at once. She had a wide smile that seemed to distort the rest of her features; her nose flared and her eyes bulged. Her eyebrows were almost comically arched as though they desired to climb into her blond bangs. She took several steps closer and Jyra lifted the dagger into view, which made Eldred pause. Her smile faltered momentarily, but she recovered quickly.

“Why did you find me?” Jyra said.

“As I said, I’ve come to help you,” Eldred said. “You’ve been out here all night. I imagine you could use some dry clothes and a warm meal, maybe even a proper bed. There’s no need for weapons. I have none.”

She raised her hands from behind her hips to indicate she had nothing to hide.

“Who do you work for?” Jyra said. Eldred’s answers did nothing to put her at ease.

“A care center,” Eldred replied.

“That sends envoys into the wilderness to assist lost travelers?” Jyra said.

“We care,” Eldred said.

“What if I refuse to go with you?”

“You’ll die,” Eldred said. Her tone remained the same.

“Is that a threat?”

“No,” Eldred said. “However, as a trained professional, I can tell those bruises on your chest must be painful.”

Jyra pulled her shirt collar closed with one hand and glared at Eldred, who continued to smile, though her eyes narrowed with concern.

“Tell you what,” she continued. “If you can stand up on your own right now, I’ll turn around and walk away. Can you do that?”

Jyra bit her lip and her fists tightened. Never in her life would she have thought she couldn’t do something so simple, especially when challenged by someone as obnoxious as Eldred.

“If you can’t stand up, you can’t survive out here,” Eldred said. “That’s an ocean behind you. An ocean of salt water. Drinking from that would be one of the quicker ways to die.”

“Stop talking,” Jyra said. “I suggest you walk away now or I guarantee you won’t survive out here.” She raised the dagger higher.

Eldred strode forward faster than Jyra would have thought possible. She seized the duffel strap and shouldered the bag in one smooth motion, keeping herself out of stabbing range.

“Put down your blade and come with me,” Eldred said. “Please. I would hate to die in the wilderness alone. I’m sure you would, too.”

Jyra realized she had lost. If she didn’t comply now, Eldred would leave with her duffel, everything she had left.

“Fine.” Jyra couldn’t help wincing as she stuck the dagger into her belt. “Help me up.”

*

The two women walked through the trees, Jyra clinging to Eldred for support. Eldred had tried to make conversation, but Jyra was too busy clenching her teeth and fighting to ignore the pain of her wounds to respond. She had plenty of questions, but was in no condition to ask them. Eldred resorted to babbling words of encouragement every few minutes, which only annoyed Jyra further.

“Nearly there.” “Keep it up, you’re doing great.” “We’re almost back to the ship.”

“What planet is this?” Jyra finally gasped, interrupting Eldred’s insufferable commentary.

“Silanpre,” Eldred replied.

Jyra’s head was spinning again or maybe it never stopped. Whatever trauma she had experienced during the landing, the walking made it worse. The name of the planet reminded her of something. It had to do with the resistance, but Jyra wished she could forget. The automatic process of trying to summon the mental connection wasn’t worth the effort.

“Stop,” Jyra breathed, groping for a large fallen tree nearby. Her free hand scrabbled at the decomposing bark and she leaned on the soft moss.

“Are you all right?” Eldred asked, taking a seat next to her.

“No I’m not all right,” Jyra snapped. “As a trained professional, you should be able to tell.”

“Several bruised or cracked ribs at least,” Eldred said, nodding. “The clearing is just ahead and then you can lie on a proper bed while on the way to the care center.”

“Will you…could you just drop me off in some town?” Jyra said. “I’d like to adjust to this planet before I get treatment.”

“By the look of you, you’ll have plenty of time to adjust to Silanpre,” Eldred said. She set Jyra’s duffel on the forest floor and stretched her arms upward. Then she leaned toward Jyra and gave her arm a gentle pat.

“You have nothing to worry about. Silanpre has the best medical centers in the Kaosaam System.”

The last phrase echoed in Jyra’s mind and she remembered Berk saying almost exactly the same words.

The sound of a cracking stick distracted both women.

“What was that?” Jyra asked, hoping her confusion masked the surge of anxiety building beneath her bruised chest.

Eldred slid off the fallen tree and took several steps in the direction of the noise. A gunshot shattered the silence of the forest. Jyra let out a strangled cry of surprise and toppled to the ground, moaning from the pain of yelling and falling. A rush of adrenaline gave her the strength to stand and she clung to a branch for support. Another woman appeared out of the forest, her large handgun held steady in her outstretched hand.

Her long hair was as dark as her clothing. She wore a black tank top and black trousers. Eyeliner ringed her brown eyes. Jyra thought the woman might be about her age, but a dry gasp redirected her attention.

Eldred lay sprawled on the ground, facing the sky, all traces of her smile gone. She hyperventilated as her hands prodded around the growing bloodstain on the chest of her jumpsuit. The shooter rounded the far end of the fallen tree and aimed her gun at Eldred.

“Hunting for another prize?” she sneered at Eldred, then glanced at Jyra. “Almost got away with it, too.”

“Please,” Eldred wheezed. “Help me.”

“I know of plenty of hospitals eager to have you as a patient,” the shooter said. “I’ve tried their care before so trust me when I say I’m doing you a favor.”

Eldred raised her palms toward the gun, but the second bullet passed through one of her hands and Eldred screamed.

“Do you need help out of here?” the shooter asked Jyra, tucking the gun into her belt.

Jyra nodded, too stunned to speak or resist. The shooter picked up the duffel and offered her other arm to Jyra. The underside of her wrist moved out of shadow and Jyra saw a tattoo there that looked familiar.

The two women walked past the one who lay dying. Jyra didn’t look back, but she heard Eldred’s words in her head: “I would hate to die in the wilderness alone.”

The windswept trees along the coastline swayed in the afternoon breeze. Several birds took wing from the branches, soaring inland on the air currents. The further they traveled from the ocean, the thicker the forest became. Firs, cedars, and maples clustered together, forcing earthbound animals to find paths between them. The birds dove through the canopy and landed under a thorn bush, where they searched for worms and bugs in the soggy dirt.

They hadn’t been pecking for more than a minute, when a shrill scream blared through the forest. The noise grew deeper until the earth under the birds began to shudder from the low tone. A deer bounded by on a familiar trail, desperate to escape the imposing roar. The birds abandoned foraging and flew back the way they had come. As they cleared the treetops, the noise followed them upward. A vehicle launched out of a nearby clearing, sunlight glaring off its shiny exterior.

Jyra found herself in another cockpit, in another seat, but she had never been more uncomfortable while flying. The pain of her injuries worsened; the very vibration of the transport brought nothing short of agony.

The shooter now acted as pilot. She hadn’t said a word once she took Jyra’s arm and helped her get to the ship. Jyra couldn’t make sense of what happened in the forest. She had no idea if she should fear or thank the woman next her. Both might be in order. Eldred had talked a lot and said nothing. Despite their brief encounter, Jyra never trusted her.

The shooter, on the other hand, seemed to support claims Berk had once made about hospitals on Silanpre. She even bore a similar mark Berk had on his wrist. Jyra reminded herself that although she was here to escape the resistance, she had no cause to think ill of Berk. He didn’t play a role in locking the door to her quarters. Then again, he didn’t help her escape.

A spasm of pain shot across Jyra’s scalp and she clamped her head with a hand, wishing she hadn’t because her shoulder was so sore. Her mouth tightened into a grimace.

The ship suddenly leveled out and the shooter sat back in her seat, her thin frame relaxed and her arms spilled over the armrests.

“Serana,” she said. “I’d shake your hand, but I think it’s best you don’t move too much. You’ve got a name?”

“Jyra,” Jyra said. “I assume you have some use for me since I’m not bleeding out in a grove of trees.”

“Grove?” Serana raised one of her dark eyebrows accompanied by an incredulous smile. “That’s a whole forest, not some minor stand of trees.”

“There weren’t many trees where I was from.”

Jyra realized she unconsciously referred to Tyrorken in the past tense, reminding herself that it was truly gone. Serana nodded, but ignored the invitation to inquire about her passenger’s home planet. They sat in silence, save for the purring engine behind them.

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but that woman deserved what she got,” Serana said as she adjusted the settings on the flight computer. “Most people we rescue around the world have no idea what’s happening on Silanpre.”

“What do you mean? About the hospitals?” Jyra asked, struggling to ignore the shooting ache in her back. Serana glanced at her. Jyra never forgot the piercing calculation of Serana’s eyes in that moment.

“It’s a long story,” she said. “It can wait until you get some treatment.”

“You’re not part of the corrupt hospitals, are you?” Jyra said, sitting up and instantly regretting it.

“No,” Serana said quickly. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Then tell me all about it,” Jyra said. “The longer the story, the less time I have to focus on everything that hurts.”

“We’ll be landing shortly, but the quick version is I’m part of an underground group working to shut down the hospitals and hold the medical administration on Silanpre responsible for what they’ve done.”

“So, you work in a resistance movement?” Jyra asked. Serana nodded and Jyra felt a crack of laughter in her throat.

“What?” Serana asked.

“I just fled another resistance,” Jyra said. Even as she spoke, she wondered how much she should tell Serana. The gun remained in the pilot’s belt near her hip and Jyra didn’t want it aimed at her for saying the wrong thing.

“They locked me up with no credible cause,” she said, knowing it was a poor explanation. “Change of management.”

Again, Serana made no effort to further the conversation. Instead, she banked the ship hard to the right. Jyra gazed out of the cockpit and saw another forest below. Perhaps it was the same forest. Gray mountains stretched toward the blue sky in the distance. The trees never seemed to end. The sunlight reflected off the green foliage below, breaking the canopy into pockets of light and shadow.

Serana brought the ship lower and cruised straight toward one mountain that towered above its fellows. It reminded Jyra of the resistance base on Drometica. Even from her vantage point, it was easy to identify the jagged ridges and outcroppings on the rocky cliffs that collected white snowdrifts. Near the foot of the mountain, Jyra noticed fingers of mist drifting out into the trees. It looked as though the vapor sprung from the mountain itself.

Within minutes, the ship reached the mist and Serana banked to the left this time.

“Hang on,” she warned. Jyra did with a numb sense of foreboding. She’d had enough rough landings for a while.

The ship plunged into the mist and Jyra noticed the computer and other screens on the console clicked off.

As though anticipating Jyra’s question, Serana shot a half-smile across the cockpit.

“It always happens,” she said. “The mist disrupts computer calibration. That’s what makes this a perfect location for our base.”

Once they dropped through the mist, Jyra observed the nose of the ship had been oriented into full landing position. The forest greeted them again below but now Jyra saw several clearings full of ships, most of which looked like the one around her.

“Where did you get all these ships?” she asked. The pair of spacecraft the previous resistance had managed to get seemed insignificant compared to the whole fleet below.

“If I tell you they’re reclaimed medical transport vessels, can you figure the rest of it out?” Serana said, now wearing a full smile. It softened her features and left Jyra marveling that the woman sitting next to her was the same one who had shot Eldred in the forest.

“Here’s the fun part,” Serana said. She yanked back on two levers and the ship lurched. Jyra gave a small cry as the engine ground in protest. The ship descended into a clearing, the landing thrusters slowing it at the last moment to settle softly on the grass.

“That takes me back,” Serana said. “Sorry,” she added, as Jyra grimaced again.

They left the ship in the same manner they had entered with Jyra leaning on Serana who also carried the duffel. The air didn’t feel as heavy anymore, but the novelty of its purity still hadn’t worn off. Jyra took deep breaths and tried to remember the path Serana took through the trees. They walked out of the clearing and were once again sheltered by the forest. The lush, leaf-bearing trees had been replaced by tall evergreens. Jyra felt the cushion of the fallen brown needles beneath her.

Suddenly, Serana stopped next to a cedar tree. The main trunk split into four different leaders that looped out like knobby elbows before ascending again.

“Hold onto the tree,” Serana said, after glancing in all directions, her sharp eyes piercing the gloom. Jyra did as she was told and Serana swung the duffel off her shoulder and followed it to the ground. Her hands glided over the dry bed of the needles then her fingers disappeared into them. She rooted in the decaying ground cover for several moments before pulling up a metal ring.

Serana got back to her feet and tugged while walking backward. A square sheet of steel swung out of the earth, scattering needles to the sides and into a lit passage beneath. Jyra forgot her wounds in the moment of disbelief. She too checked the surrounding forest, but immediately realized she was searching for something that would explain this concealed entrance. If such a hint existed, the trees kept the secret well.

She limped toward the opening and saw a ladder leading down into the passage.

“You can go first if think you can make it,” Serana said. “Or we can set up rigging to lower you down.”

Jyra awkwardly got to her hands and knees and managed to swing her legs onto the ladder. Her shoulder threatened to give out from the strain. She descended several rungs and had to rest. She couldn’t ignore the burning in her left shin much longer.

“You’re nearly halfway,” Serana said, with an encouraging smile.

“I didn’t realize this resistance was literally underground,” Jyra panted.

“It’s the safest way to operate,” Serana said. “So hurry up and get down there.”

Jyra had to clutch the ladder even after her feet reached the floor of the passage. Her brain spun inside her skull and she felt sweat beading on her forehead.

A dull thud sounded above her and Serana appeared at her side. The hatch had been swung shut and the moment Jyra looked, a steel rod jutted out of a box near the hatch frame and slid into a bracket welded on the underside of the door.

“Why wasn’t it locked before?” Jyra asked.

“Control knew I was approaching,” Serana said. “Groomers will be by within an hour to spread the needles over the hatch. By that time, hopefully you’ll be feeling better.”

The two women pressed into the passage. Jyra couldn’t help comparing this tunnel to the ones in the mountain on Drometica. As far as she could tell, this passage only served the hatch she’d used. Despite its elementary purpose, sconce lights had been mounted every fifteen feet and an air duct took up about a quarter of the ceiling for the entire length of the passage. Steel banding ran along the walls and crisscrossed over Jyra’s head to keep the dirt from collapsing into the tunnel. Heavy I-beam buttresses secured the banding in place.

Jyra wanted to tell Serana about the base on Drometica, but it hurt to talk. The passage sloped upward and curved to the left.

“There’s a care facility on this end of the base,” Serana said. She could tell Jyra was nearly out of energy.

The light of another passage spilled on Jyra’s shuffling feet. Serana steered her in a new direction. This passage was wider and better lit. Strangers passed Jyra, who marveled at how quickly they walked. Though she could have moved with the same speed and grace a day ago, Jyra wondered if she would ever be able to manage it again.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, she thought. All I know is what hurts. Serana guided her through a door that didn’t lead to another passage. A medical exam table took up most of the small room. Lights hung from the ceiling and a bank of cabinets occupied the wall opposite the door. An empty IV rack stood near the left wall, like a forgotten hat stand.

Jyra sat on the medical table and Serana’s voice sounded far away. Jyra watched her press a red button on the wall before she left, closing the door as she went. The activity of people in the hallway was hardly audible.

Jyra rubbed her trousers. She examined the fingertips and saw small white crystals on the skin. She touched them to her tongue and recognized the taste of salt. From the ocean, she told herself. She recalled the time Macnelia told her history as a kite racer on Jiranthem. At the time, Jyra could only imagine a body of water large enough to contain a racecourse. After Macnelia’s story, Jyra had been lost in thought, wondering what it might be like touch an ocean, to be immersed in something so vast.

Now I have and I hardly remember it, Jyra thought, staring at the white lights overhead. Or maybe I do remember it and I’d rather not. Her introduction to an ocean could not have been less like the romanticized meeting she’d pictured in her mind. Jyra swallowed hard, but the taste of salt lingered in her mouth.

The door opened and a man entered. The silvery gray frames of his glasses matched the color of his long coat and even his hair. His eyes caught the light and his smile elevated his cheeks, making his face appear rounder.

“My name’s Drenal,” he said in a rushed professional tone. “Normally we’d have some intake information for you to fill out, but Serana mentioned that the sooner I start treating you, the better. Can you tell me what happened?” Drenal’s smile never left his face and Jyra had no doubt that he wanted to help her.

She explained about the rough landing and spending the night in the forest. Drenal nodded as she spoke and opened a tall cabinet door. He reached in and extracted a white box, about the size of the computer monitors on Valiant Conductor II, which extended outward on a spring-loaded metal arm. Drenal aimed a lens on the box at the points where Jyra indicated feeling pain. He frowned a few times, but made no comments.

Next, Drenal opened a drawer, selected several IV bags, and set them on their rack. He whistled as he unwound the tubes, but said nothing about Jyra’s condition. After fussing at the cabinet station, he returned to Jyra’s side.

“Can I have your left wrist, please?”

The tattoo on Berk’s wrist flew into her mind and she brought her arms tight to her sides.

“Are you going to mark me?” she asked. Her voice sounded shallow and weak.

The sparkle disappeared from Drenal’s eyes in an instant.

“We do no such things here,” he said stiffly. “That shame belongs to the hospitals above us.”

Jyra nodded taken aback by Drenal’s sudden change in character. He, too, frowned and rubbed his glasses on his coat even though the lenses were quite clean.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I just need to insert a needle in your underarm. That’s all.”

Jyra didn’t feel the poke of the cold point as it entered her flesh. Soon afterward, a wave of drowsiness struck her. Drenal cleaned off the cabinet station and said he’d be back soon. As Jyra felt her consciousness fleeing, she remembered that she had been drugged almost as soon as she met the previous resistance as well. At least this time, she could tell it was happening.

*

Jyra blinked against a piercing glare. Her stomach fluttered the way it had after she and Dario had shared a bottle of Wistful Prairie Whiskey years ago. She felt groggy, but the pounding sensation in her head would not subside.

“What!” she shouted. Her hands clutched bars on either side of her bed. Her clothes had been replaced with a light medical gown. Her chest still hurt. Serana stared back at her along with a woman Jyra assumed was a nurse.

Serana muttered something and the nurse left the room. The lights overhead had changed, which meant Jyra was in a different room.

“What happened?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

“Life-saving surgery,” Serana said. “Patched up some internal bleeding. You’re lucky Drenal caught it. It’s easy to overlook it on the scan. Were that the case, we might be burying you right now.”

Jyra tried to sit up but Serana gestured for her to remain where she was. Jyra couldn’t help checking her wrist and a smile crept across Serana’s face.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “No tattoos for you here. Drenal told me about your concern.”

Serana raised her own arm and pushed the sleeve back.

“No one deserves this,” she said, exposing the inked lines on her left wrist. “Most of the people in the resistance were branded by a hospital at some point.”

Jyra relaxed her grip on the bars and felt her head sink back into the soft pillow. Her shoulder still felt sore, but certainly not as bad as it had been. Her left leg felt stiff and she saw a cast poking out from under the covers near the foot of the bed.

“A fracture,” Serana said. “Drenal said it should heal in about two months.”

“Where is he?” Jyra asked. “And how do you know all about my treatment?”

“He’s helping another patient, but he’ll be here shortly,” Serana said. “As for your second question, I’m responsible for you. That’s how it works here. Those you bring in, you look after.”

That seemed clear enough and Jyra made no reply. She glanced around the room. The walls and ceiling were constructed and stabilized like the passages. The steel bands glimmered, bearing the weight of the earth.

Jyra shifted and felt the IV needle tug uncomfortably under her skin. She leaned over the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.

“Where are my clothes and bag?” she asked.

“In your recovery room,” Serana said. “Once Drenal gives the word, I’ll take you there.”

“And do I stay in recovery until my leg’s better?” Jyra asked bitterly.

“I’ll be able to show you around,” Serana said. “But you need to trust me. Once you’re healthy again, you can either stay here or make your way elsewhere. Rest in a resistance is often just as vital as the resistance itself.”

If Neeka had gotten more sleep, maybe she wouldn’t have fired on Orasten, Jyra thought. She wouldn’t have been so irrational, kept herself under control. The door opened and Drenal appeared.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked, hitching his glasses higher on his nose.

“Better,” Jyra said.

“Excellent,” Drenal said, surveying a monitor behind Jyra. “So you suffered some internal trauma, a minor leg fracture, a few bruised ribs, a concussion, dehydration, plenty of contusions especially from the safety harness, but you ought to heal just fine in good time.”

“What about my shoulder?” Jyra asked. “It still feels sore.”

“It has some minor muscle tears, likely caused by the harness. Try to keep it as still as you can. Healing will come in time.”

“Is she ready for the recovery ward?” Serana asked. Drenal nodded.

“Just get the wheels in here and you can take her there,” he said, turning to leave.

“Thank you,” Jyra said. Drenal paused and inclined his head, giving Jyra a warm smile before he departed.

“He’ll check up on you periodically,” Serana said. “I’ll be back in a moment with the wheels.”

Jyra lifted her right arm across her chest to rub her shoulder. A lock had kept her in her quarters before. Now her injuries replaced the lock, immobilizing her in another room. Two months, she thought. Plenty of time to remind myself that coming here was a bad idea.

*

Serana pushed Jyra into her new quarters. They weren’t as dismal as Jyra expected. The walls had been paneled with rough wooden planks and the lighting wasn’t as stark as it had been in the treatment areas. A single steel buttress spanned the width of the rectangular room. The bed was tucked in a corner opposite the door. The mattress looked comfy enough, but Jyra released a heavy sigh when she saw what was on the bed.

The clothes she had worn when she entered the base were washed, dried, and folded next to her duffel, which was still zipped shut.

“I put your belt and dagger back in your bag,” Serana said, as she pushed Jyra over to the bed. “One of the nurses almost cut herself on the blade when they were preparing you for surgery. I’m surprised I didn’t see it earlier.”

“It belonged to my brother,” Jyra said, accepting Serana’s assistance to move from the wheeled chair to the mattress. Serana moved the IV bags from their bracket on the chair to the hook on the wall above the headboard.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“He’s dead,” Jyra said, sinking onto the bed, feeling much heavier as she thought of Dario.

“I’m sorry,” Serana said. Jyra rested her arm on her duffel, desperate to steer the conversation elsewhere.

“Why are you doing this?” she said bluntly.

“Doing what?” Serana said.

“I know you found me and you’re responsible for me and all that, but why are you helping me in the first place? I am grateful for all you’ve done, but what do you get out of it? That’s what I don’t understand.”

Serana sat in the wheeled chair and pushed herself back and forth with her feet, staring at her hands in her lap. Jyra then noticed she was actually looking at her tattooed wrist.

“I’m here to make sure no one suffers the way I suffered,” Serana said. “Nothing I could do outside of this resistance would be as effective. If I’m not doing all that I can to protect others, how can I face myself? The Allied Hospitals are imprisoning patients, experimenting on them, and preying on their families.

“When it comes to you, I’m upholding my personal promise. You might be a stranger, but now you won’t be branded and entered into the hospital database. Had that woman got you to her ship, you’d be locked in a ward by now.”

“It sounds like I’ll be stuck in this ward for some time, too,” Jyra said. Serana shook her head.

“No. Like I said, I’ll be showing you around the base,” she said. “You’ve got a lot to learn. It’ll come in handy when you’re better.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and stood up to leave.

“What makes you think I’ll be so useful?”

“You were active in another resistance and managed to escape after being wrongfully incarcerated,” she said. “That means you’re capable and so you’re useful. I’ll be back with some food.”

Serana swept out of the room and Jyra’s unease with her surroundings ebbed. She thought of what sort of meal might be coming her way. Only then did she remember she already had food. She opened her duffel and extracted her belt and dagger, then rooted around for the food and water.

She grasped the other package Leonick had given her and realized she had no idea what it contained. It took up about a fourth of the space in her duffel. It wasn’t easy to wrestle free onto the bed because of her IV tubes. She tore the paper off and used the dagger to slice open the top flap of the blank box within.

Her breath stuck in her chest, provoking spasms of pain from the bruises over her lungs. The entire box was stacked full of bundled bills, no doubt part of the bounty the resistance had taken from Orasten’s cargo bay. Inside the top flap, Leonick had scribbled a brief message.

Not quite all of your share, but it is the best I could do. Be careful where you spend it. Agents are likely already searching for their property. Good luck.

The skin beneath the cast was intolerably warm and moist. Jyra kicked the bedspread back with her good leg. She sat up in the darkness and dug her fingers beneath the rigid armor that kept her tibia immobilized.

It had taken several weeks underground before Jyra was used to the absolute darkness while she slept. The brown clouds of Tyrorken had been visible, night and day, except during dust storms. Even the evenings in the mountain on Drometica hadn’t prepared Jyra for the utter solitude she experienced in her recovery room. The noise of traffic in the hallway rarely reached her ears.

Serana had shown her around the base as promised. It was far larger than Jyra could have imagined. Tunnels extended into the very foot of the mountain for miles. Excavation never stopped; additional space for equipment and people was always needed. The resistance on Silanpre had been active for twenty years, recruiting members, expanding their base, and fighting the Allied Hospitals.

“What exactly does the resistance target?” Jyra had asked, as Serana wheeled her out of one of the main control rooms.

“We use a number of tactical strikes and, depending on the circumstances, we can rescue certain patients,” Serana said.

“How do you determine which patients to rescue?”

“Usually we just need enough information. For example, if someone has a friend or family member taken into the hospital, they can provide details about the patient’s condition and location in a facility. If the patient’s room is above the ground, we can assemble a team to break them out.”

“A ground force?”

“By air,” Serana said. “Fly in, blow open the wall or, if we’re lucky, a window gives us access. Get the patient onboard and get out. It’s getting trickier though. The last time we tried, the hospital shot the team down.”

“The hospital has that kind of the artillery?”

“When I say they’ve taken over, I mean it. The hospital security force dominates local police all over Silanpre. We’re up against a private entity with unlimited resources and its own army.”

Jyra rubbed her leg in the darkness, thinking about the conversation. Despite the daunting challenge of opposing the hospitals, everyone she saw in the corridors moved with purpose, smiling at people they recognized and even laughing.

This is what Tyrorken needed, she thought. This many people to fight for it that believed they could succeed. She stared at the ceiling she couldn’t see. Somewhere above, her home world still spun. Jyra relaxed back onto her pillow, wondering if Tyrorken still supported life.

Sleep came and went. Jyra rolled over, smelling the food before she saw it. Once she turned on her lamp, she saw the chicken sandwich waiting on her beside table. A handful of deep purple grapes and a jug of water accompanied the sandwich.

Jyra sat up too quickly and felt the pain course between her shoulder and ribs. She ate one-handed, relishing each bite. The chicken was tender and seasoned with rosemary. The grapes were sweet and their thin skins split between her teeth. Until she came here, Jyra never had memorable meals. Now she found herself reminiscing about yesterday’s breakfast of wheat cakes and strips of bacon.

Once she finished her meal, she slid off the bed into her wheeled chair and tucked the plate on the rack underneath the seat. She clicked her lamp off at the door, remembering Serana’s request to minimize power consumption. Keeping the lights on throughout the base while protecting the location from the hospitals was no easy feat. Electrical surges had to be directed toward different parts of the base to mimic tectonic activity.

“Does that really work?” Jyra asked, after Serana explained it.

“We haven’t been discovered yet,” Serana had said.

Jyra wheeled through the corridor, leaving her plate in the same collection bin she visited after every meal. She knew her way through the passages, turning left, then right, staying close to the wall. Her wounded shoulder throbbed gently as she pushed the wheels. Drenal confirmed during her last visit that the muscles were healing well, but residual soreness could persist for the rest of her life.

Jyra braked next to a door and knocked. She scratched her leg near the top of the cast while she waited. Serana opened the door and greeted Jyra with a smile.

She wore a gray flight suit and a pair of worn leather boots. Her hair was pulled back and her eyes, framed with eyeliner, gleamed in the light of the corridor. Jyra hadn’t ever seen Serana without makeup and they’d spent nearly every day together since she arrived.

The walls and floor of Serana’s room were covered in clothes, sheets of paper, and an assortment of greasy ship parts. Jyra hadn’t been able to examine any of it in detail since her chair couldn’t fit in the narrow aisle that wound through the clutter.

She rolled backward as Serana stepped into the passage and shut the door behind her.

“Thanks for the sandwich,” Jyra said.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Serana replied. “It’s one of my favorites. We just got an order of chicken and some fresh produce, so I thought I’d take advantage of it.”

“Who supplies the food?” Jyra asked, as they set off toward the center of the base.

“We work with a variety of outlets,” Serana said, tucking her hands into the waist pockets of her suit. “We try to rotate through different vendors to keep the hospitals off our trail. Sometimes, of course, we take what we can get.”

“Stealing?”

Serana’s smile reappeared. “We think of it as redirecting,” she said. “The hospitals stopped transporting their goods in marked ships, but we can still identify their encrypted signal. If conditions are in our favor, our forces will take down a hospital ship and put their supplies to better uses.”

Serana’s smile widened as she fell silent. Jyra noticed then how Serana’s eyes maintained their sharp appearance, regardless of what the rest of her face expressed. They remained the same shape, never squinting or crinkling at the edges. She’s always determined to get what she wants, Jyra thought, as the passage floor became a descending incline. An unbidden thought of how the TF resistance might have operated if Serana had been in charge borrowed Jyra’s attention as she coasted deeper underground.

The lights in the corridor grew brighter as they approached the center of the resistance base. Jyra slowed down as the passage walls leaned away to either side, opening into the vast central cavern. Control panels and cubicles spread across the floor and onto rocky outcroppings on the walls. The metal banding used to brace the earth in the hallways had been reinforced with a network of steel mesh and beams all around the cavern to keep it from collapsing. Jyra couldn’t even see the ceiling of the massive chamber. Lights, power cables, data lines, and signs hung far below it, shrouding the top of the cavern in dust and shadow. The main vessel control center for routine operations sat in the middle of the cavern beneath the large banner that read Allied Resistance. The first time Jyra saw it, Serana had told her it hung in the room of the first meeting of the resistance. In such a large space it looked rather diminutive. Serana plunged into the crowd, clearing a path for Jyra, who never wished to be able to walk as much as when she entered the central cavern. Navigating through the throng of bodies was often tedious and always stressful.

Once they pressed into the first ring of cubicles, the congestion relaxed, but Jyra still had to fight the floor incline, working her wheels to keep from striking cubicles and thick cables that spilled over the dirt before rising toward the distant ceiling. They finally reached the commander’s post.

“Where are we today?” Serana asked loudly to announce her presence.

Jyra could barely see over the console in front of her but everyone behind it looked heavily absorbed in their work. One of the women pushed back from a screen, stood up, and crossed to where Serana waited. Her hair was pulled back so tightly, Jyra was surprised the woman could still blink. Her tone was no warmer than her expression.

“Hangar B,” she said brusquely. “Survey the damage to the vehicle involved in last night’s mission. Report major damage and repair minor damage as encountered. That is all.”

“Understood,” Serana said, inclining her head in acknowledgment. She clapped Jyra on the uninjured shoulder and they made for the nearest elevator on the edge of the cavern.

“She’s wound a little tight today,” Jyra said.

“She is,” Serana said, clearing a path for Jyra again. “Her brother was on last night’s mission.”

Jyra forgot about her pain as she pushed herself the rest of the way to the elevator. She immediately thought of Dario, imagining herself as the curt woman in command.

“What went wrong?” Jyra asked as they entered the elevator.

Serana didn’t speak until the doors closed, blocking the sight and sounds of the cavern.

Serana stared at the dirt smudges on the floor. “Something wrong with a mission is almost always worse than it sounds.”

Once she was strong enough after her procedures, Jyra had been working with Serana around the base. After the extensive tour, she had started helping with ship repair. Though she often couldn’t physically make repairs, Jyra found she had a knack for troubleshooting, even from her chair.

The elevator doors parted to reveal Hangar B. The smells of overheated electronics, scorched metal, acrid smoke, fuel fumes, and spent shells rushed into Jyra’s nostrils and her head swam immediately. Her fingers dug onto her wheels. Serana had cupped a hand around her own face as they stepped into the smoky room.

The bright lights pierced through the haze and Jyra felt sick for the woman in command. She pressed herself back into her chair, hoping it would bolster her resolve. The ship before her seemed more nothing than anything.

It was larger than a skiff, a simple twin-engine transport for ten people or so. Most of the fuselage sheathing had been consumed by fire. The cowling on both engines was charred and, when Jyra rolled closer, she saw they were both hollow. The turbines had been torn out. The seats in the small cabin were all battered and warped by flames. Jyra jerked her eyes away when she saw the bones of a severed hand wedged in a cracked rib of the fuselage.

The leader of the crew surveying the wreck met Serana near the cockpit to give his report. The crew was dressed in hazard suits. The helmet muffled the leader’s voice.

“We’ve been over it twice,” he said when Jyra moved closer to listen. “The reserve fuel tank was leaking everywhere. I can’t believe it didn’t ignite. The main tank fried half the ship when it went. Multiple rib fractures and deck damage are prevalent throughout.”

He paused and pulled off his helmet and gloves and set them on a nearby work table. The leader was middle aged, similar to Drenal. Jyra saw only a couple patches of silver in his otherwise light brown hair. He pushed his short bangs off his sweaty forehead and fixed Serana with his gray eyes, which were round and somber.

“Conduct your evaluation by all means, but I think we’re looking at minimal salvage here,” the leader said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his smudged suit.

“Thanks Graze,” Serana said, turning to stare into the cockpit. “I’m like to agree with you on this. Any idea what hit them?”

Graze shook his head and pointed at an empty and warped cannon mount on one of the fuselage ribs.

“The discharged shells were all onboard,” he said. “Unless an enemy projectile shot in and out of the fuselage, which is highly unlikely. All the powder traces match our ammunition. The cannon itself was gone. Nowhere near the crash site.”

Jyra rolled past Serana, circling around the front of the cockpit. The spars that had supported the reinforced glass over the pilots were still intact, but were bent and twisted. From her vantage point, Jyra was able to see the undersides of the spars, just as if she were sitting in the cockpit staring straight up. Despite the soot from the fire, she noticed a dull silver cut shining against the black on both spars. It looked as if the pilots had taken a file to the spars, but why hadn’t the fire scorched the bare metal?

“Did your crew make these marks?” Jyra asked. Both Graze and Serana came to her side.

“What was that?” Graze said. Jyra pointed at the spars.

Graze didn’t say a word but leaned up against the nose of the ship and stretched his arms inside the cockpit, placing a hand near each cut to approximate the measurement.

“Del, bring that cable we found on the cockpit floor,” he called. One of his crewmembers shuffled over. Graze pulled his gloves on again and Del handed him the cable. It was about an inch thick, and both ends were frayed from where it split from another piece. Soot covered the cable as well, except for two places where the dull gray strands still showed under the bright lights.

Graze held it up near the spars. The marks lined up with the bare parts of the cable.

“Good eyes,” Graze said. “This was the only thing we found that wasn’t part of our ship.” He shook the cable once and handed it back to Del.

“So the attackers fired a cable through the cockpit and were able to pull the ship where they pleased,” Serana said.

“Looks like Del was onto something,” Graze said. Del blinked behind the shield of his helmet and nodded.

“Damage this severe is what you’d expect from reentry stress,” he said.

“This ship is only rated for local travel, though,” Serana said. “It’s not spaceworthy.”

“I think the attackers knew that,” Del said. “This used to be a hospital transport.”

“You think they spent the time and energy to hijack this ship, pull it past the atmosphere with one of their space cruisers, and tow it back just to let the burn up destroy it?” Jyra said.

“It sounds sadistic enough for the hospital,” Serana said, before Del could answer.

“Blowing it out of the sky would have been a quick death,” Graze said. “Reentry burn up, though, isn’t necessarily so fast. Heat, pressure, asphyxiation, and organ ruptures are just a few of the ways you might die. It’s a long way back to the ground, especially when you can feel the hair burning off your arms and scalp.”

“The pilots sealed the cockpit,” Del said through his helmet. He pointed at the thick door that isolated the cockpit from the cabin. “The cockpit would have lost pressure when the cable shot through the glass.”

“I don’t know if we should salvage anything,” Serana said. “If this ship went through reentry, it’s impossible to guarantee the integrity of any part since the entire craft isn’t designed to withstand such temperatures. And anyone aboard during burn up will not have survived.”

Silence met these words. Jyra thought of the woman in command. She had no idea what happened. Her brother is dead like mine, Jyra thought.

She leaned on her wheels and began moving away from the ruined ship, absentmindedly following Serana and Graze. The sound of their voices interrupted her thoughts about Dario.

“I heard the response team initiated family protection from the site before even beginning vehicle recovery,” Graze said, pressing the button to summon the elevator.

“It takes time for the hospital to analyze remains but if they visited the wreck, they’ll have all the samples they need,” Serana said.

“What are you talking about?” Jyra asked.

“Next steps,” Serana said. “Whenever something like this happens and our people are either killed or captured, we have to move quickly to protect those closest to them who aren’t part of the resistance.”

“The hospital only needs to cross reference a few tissue samples before it can identify family members,” Graze added. “Once they have that information, the extortion, blackmail, and forcible commitment begins.”

“The stakes are higher when the hospital detains resistance members. Their families could betray us. We have to deploy missions to get family members to safe locations where the hospitals won’t look for them.”

“So the hospital knows that if it destroys one of our ships, we’ll send more out to protect family members?” Jyra said. “Wouldn’t all those extra missions from the base give away our position?”

Serana shook her head as they stepped back into the main cavern.

“We have ships stationed all over the planet,” she said. “Nearly all of them can be mobilized at a moment’s notice.”

The noise in the cavern had increased. People rushed in and out of central command, carrying folders of reports. The sound of hundreds of voices rose toward the hanging lights, echoing throughout the cavern. The footsteps of those around Jyra erased the tracks of her wheels moments after she created them.

“Tell them,” Serana said.

Graze nodded and pushed away through the crowd. Serana drew back toward the wall and Jyra followed her.

“What’s happening?”

“The name’s of the dead are about to be released,” Serana said.

Jyra couldn’t see Graze anymore, but he must have found who he was looking for, because a deep bell chimed over the speaker system, silencing the noise in the cavern immediately. The names came next, each spoken with a solemn professional tone, but each name had a different voice.

“Grant Bast.”

“Lasset Culver.”

“Colvin Fine.”

“Mitra Roke.”

“Tram Sipstron.”

“Krand Solveil.”

“Olia Tinder.”

“Tony Verral.”

Halfway through, Jyra realized each person must have made the recording at an earlier date for this specific purpose. The bell tolled after each name. When the last voice spoke through the speaker, a single wail followed, rising from central command. It was the woman, realizing she would never see her brother again. A final chime of the bell cued a moment of silence. Some people fell to their knees and placed their hands upon the dirt. Others bowed their heads in prayer, but remained on their feet. Many of them, like Serana, stared straight ahead, their eyes hard and unblinking.

The silence didn’t last more than a few minutes, but time disappeared with the bell. Jyra’s shoulder throbbed, but she did nothing to soothe it. She sat motionless in her chair, repeating the names in her head. Thoughts of Macnelia, her parents, Dario, and even Jed tried to enter her mind. She saw their faces and heard their voices in her memory, but she forced it all aside. Others need my attention now, she thought, mentally running through the list of eight again.

*

Jyra hoisted herself onto her bed that evening. Her joints ached from exhaustion and the weight of her head threatened to overwhelm her neck. She had spent the rest of the day with Serana monitoring the missions to relocate family members of the slain resistance members. Jyra was completely exhausted by the time she left the control room . It wasn’t even the main vessel command center in the central cavern. The control room organized rescue missions and surveillance runs.

The goals of the relocation work were easy enough to understand, but fulfilling them was nothing short of excruciating. The thrill of completing a mission was tempered by the crisis of another ship heading toward an ambush or other perils.

One moment, Jyra remembered Serana throwing an arm around her as many in the control room celebrated when the largest mission of the day safely reached its drop point. The laughter came easily. The cheers buoyed the mood. Then, Jyra recalled how it felt as if her stomach fell through her chair. Three transports came under fire almost simultaneously. The joy evaporated. Tight lips and frowns replaced smiles.

The wheeled chair rarely bothered Jyra as a means to travel except inside the central cavern. It was easy to move around the base by rolling and, once she got used to it, being chair-bound wasn’t that bad. That changed today.

Jyra knew that her ability to stand wouldn’t have altered the outcome of the menaced transports. Even so, the chair only compounded her sense of helplessness. Even when two of the transports arrived with no casualties reported, many in the control room, including Jyra, remained shaken. The third transport had lost radio contact. The resistance still didn’t know what happened to it. A few of its passengers had been receiving undercover medical attention, keen to avoid the Allied Hospitals.

Her leg itched. Jyra sat up to run her nails over her skin near the top of the cast. Another few weeks and Drenal would finally cut it free. She dropped the wounded leg over the side of the bed and inadvertently kicked her duffel. Jyra looked up to make sure she’d closed the door and leaned over to unzip her bag.

The blanket that had been in her quarters on Valiant Conductor II caught her attention. She had bunched it up and stuffed it in her duffel in the haste of packing. Jyra pulled the blanket out for the first time since her escape and a crumpled photo fell out. Without so much as a glance, Jyra picked it up and threw it back in her bag. She pulled out the picture of Dario and gazed at it for a moment before setting it on the bed next to her. She selected the dagger and her mother’s locket next. They sat on top of “Ships of the Kaosaam System.” She extracted the book as well, but opened the locket first.

Her parents and brother, as well as her younger self, appeared in the light of the lamp. Jyra noticed one of her teeth was missing. Her hair was much shorter in the photo. She remembered that Dario had cut her hair to look like his a few months before the pictures were taken. Sherlia wasn’t pleased, but Dario insisted Jyra had wanted him to do it. Jyra backed him up, but Sherlia didn’t believe it and had tried to alter the cut to, as Jyra remembered it, “suit your face better.”

We were siblings, Jyra thought, smiling at the part in Dario’s hair, imagining how it would have looked on her. What suited him should have suited me just fine. Without thinking, she opened the clasp and attached the locket around her own neck.

The topcoat from the mission to rescue Derek and her changes of clothes were all that remained in the duffel aside, of course, from Leonick’s gift. Jyra remembered her parents used to joke they kept their money under their mattress rather that deposit it in the TF employee bank. At least I can keep up the tradition of sleeping over my cash, Jyra thought. She pushed back a flap of the box to ensure the funds were still there.

Satisfied, Jyra returned the dagger, the photo of Dario, and the blanket to the duffel, taking care to drape the blanket over her money. She moved her tin of charcoal and toothbrush aside on her beside table to make room for her book. Jyra used her good foot to slide her duffel under the bed.

Without her money to worry her, the control room memories stole her attention instead. The moment the scene came back to her, Jyra felt her stomach clench and a chill shoot from the back of her neck to her feet. The fear came without warning. Jyra focused on taking several deep breaths, noting that she wouldn’t heal any faster if she felt stressed all the time.

Jyra had gained some confidence helping Serana analyze damaged ships for salvage and repair possibilities. Even so, she wasn’t quite sure what Serana saw in her. She placed value on Jyra for escaping from another resistance. There had to be more to it than that. She didn’t feel like a particularly valuable person to the Allied Resistance. The image of the severed hand made Jyra close her eyes, but it only brought the bones into sharper detail, so she opened her eyes again. I’ll have to develop a stronger stomach if I’m going to make it here, she thought. I need to be stronger.

If she continued to react to the atmosphere of the control room like she did today, Jyra knew she would have to avoid it. But what if other areas of the base started to trigger her, too? Her emotions had never interfered with her life in such a significant way. Her misery in the wake of her brother’s death made sense. Her feelings in the control room did not. The stress had nearly paralyzed her, preventing her lungs from filling with air and threatening to freeze her heart in her chest. Tadwin had told her to get a grip on herself when she upset as a child. Tadwin rarely discussed feelings, but Jyra wondered now if he’d been trying to suggest that she master her emotions.

She sat up with a heavy sigh. Jyra seized the back of her wheeled chair and stood, placing most of her weight on her healthy leg. Her eyes focused on the steel banding on the ceiling. The light glinting off the metal reminded her of the stars, which were scattered in the sky above her, like the tree needles blanketing the ground.

“Grant Bast, Lasset Culver, Colvin Fine, Mitra Roke, Tram Sipstron, Krand Solveil, Olia Tinder, and Tony Verral,” she spoke to the ceiling. If the Allied Hospitals had killed them as Del supposed—using reentry to tear apart a local transport—it seemed the hospitals on Silanpre were as wicked as TF. As she came to the conclusion, Jyra realized her eyes had dried out; she’d been staring at the door across the room.

The moment she blinked, someone knocked.

“Come in,” she said automatically. Serana threw the door open in a rush and crossed to Jyra in five hurried strides.

“We found the third transport,” she said breathlessly.

“Where?”

“Nearby,” Serana said. “Do you think you can come with me?”

“Where?” Jyra said again.

“To the transport,” Serana said. “You and I need to fix it.”

Jyra clutched the wheeled chair harder, half excited, half convinced Serana was joking.

“My leg…”

“I think you can use a crutch now,” Serana said. “Drenal will understand.”

“Will he?” Jyra said, raising an eyebrow. “He has to approve it first, doesn’t he?”

“He can’t. He’s stranded with the transport.”

Jyra felt an instant surge of panic, but fought against it, determined to maintain rational thinking, even though her hands shook.

“It’s dark, though.”

“We have lights,” Serana said. “We need to go now. Two hospital patrols are closing in on the crash site.”

Jyra didn’t even think as she hobbled in front of her chair and sat down.

“Take me to the ship,” she said.

“Always a woman of action,” Serana said with a small smile.

“Don’t you have other people you’re responsible for who could help you?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the only person I’ve saved from a hospital patrol,” Serana said, pushing Jyra into the hall. “Maybe we can change that tonight. There are a few others who are coming, but I need someone who can get the transport in the air again in a hurry.”

Jyra nodded and stared straight ahead. Her hand rose to close around her mother’s locket. She gripped it until they turned the corner before tucking it inside her shirt.

“Jyra Kyzen.” Serana switched off the microphone and replaced it on the hangar wall. Jyra sank further into her chair, hoping no one would ever hear her voice played back.

This hangar was much larger than the one she had visited that morning. It wasn’t much wider but at least four times the length. The center of the hangar was kept clear for service traffic. At this hour, many mechanics had retired for the evening. Four ships were parked on the left wall while three stood on the right.

“This way,” Serana said.

Jyra followed her toward the mouth of the hangar past the line of four ships. Her breaths were short and her heartbeats seemed to echo all around her, reverberating through the cavernous room. Serana glanced back at Jyra and saw her knuckles locked around her wheels, the color draining beneath the skin.

“This ship made it back today,” Serana said, knocking a fist against its hull as she passed it. “We’ll return, too.”

Jyra nodded. She had been through so much. What was different about this mission? Flying into a forest to rescue people seemed much more straightforward than bombing the TF complex.

“I know,” Jyra muttered thickly. Her tongue didn’t want to leave the base of her mouth. This would be easier if I wasn’t in this chair, she thought. Between her feelings in the control room earlier and departing for the mission, Jyra felt more inconvenienced than ever by her wounded leg.

As they neared the end of the hangar, voices obscured the tromp of Serana’s boots.

Three people stood next to a ship that, compared to the others in the hangar, seemed rather small.

“We’re taking this?” Jyra said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her doubt and fear.

“I wouldn’t take anything else,” Serana said with her usual smile before turning to the group.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. Jyra circled around to join the others, two men and one woman. She parked next to a man who glanced down at her. He was dressed in a black flight suit. The color matched his short hair and eyebrows. His eyes were wide set, but his endearing smile eased Jyra’s fears.

“Ditch the wheels,” he said. Though Jyra hadn’t seen his face before, she recognized his voice.

“Del?” Jyra said, staring at him. His voice sounded different without the hazard helmet altering it.

“Kip Deleanor,” he said, extending a hand. “That’s my full name.”

“Jyra Kyzen,” Jyra said. “That’s my full name.”

Kip nodded and lifted something from behind his back.

“Serana thought you’d want this.”

He passed her a crutch. Jyra couldn’t help but laugh. She accepted it and placed it under her arm. Kip helped her out of the chair and Jyra stood with the rest of the team. She was still nervous, but most of her fears remained with the chair that sat empty on the hangar floor.

“Everyone, this is Jyra,” Serana said. “You’ve met Kip and this is Rina and Fritz.”

They exchanged brief nods before Serana pressed on in a much more serious tone.

“We are initiating a mission to recover all passengers and crew of transport Emarand Liberation. A report indicates enemy rounds damaged the ship and forced an emergency landing. No casualties, though several passengers have medical conditions that require constant treatment. Drenal went with the mission and is doing all he can to assist passengers, but they’ve been on the ground for seven hours at this point. Two hospital scouts are sweeping an area fifty miles north of Emarand Liberation’s location as I speak. They’re closing in.”

“I assume the scouts are too close to send in a ship to collect everyone and abandon Liberation,” Rina said. Jyra noticed one of her fingers compulsively twisting through the ends of her blonde hair.

“Correct,” Serana said. “We can fly in undetected, but the closer the scouts get, the easier it is for them to see us. And because they are scouts, you can bet they’ll investigate any abnormal reading they detect. Liberation has to get out on her own. The scouts will see her, but that’s where we come in.”

“Radar knockout?” Fritz grunted. He was larger than Kip and the deep lines on his cheeks made it look like his frown never left his face.

“Indeed,” Serana continued. “Liberation will get beyond our blast zone and we ensure the scouts get close enough then we can disable their navigation and radar.”

“Any details on what’s wrong with Liberation?” Jyra asked.

“One of the pilots hiked an hour or so away from the crash site to contact us so the signal wouldn’t give away his position to the enemy,” Serana said. “He only got a quick look before he left, but the control lines to the starboard engine were definitely blown away. They lost a stabilizer as well. Aside from that, we don’t know. Any other questions?”

Everyone shrugged or shook their heads.

“All right,” Serana said. “Let’s load up.”

“You’ve got repair parts?” Jyra said, limping up beside Serana.

“Everything we know we’ll need,” Serana said.

“Where’d you store it?” Jyra asked, giving the ship a skeptical look.

The top of the ship curved down toward the cockpit and sloped to the two exhaust ports at the rear. The twin engines attached to pivoting brackets on either side of the ship. A pair of stabilizer fins attached above each engine. The cabin door slid back into the hull, revealing a cramped hold with four chairs and a narrow passage to the cockpit.

“You can say the ship’s small if you want to,” Serana said.

“It just doesn’t look like it’s right for the mission.”

“It was designed for it,” Serana said. “She’s a modified stunt skiff called Detritan. Some of the other ex stunt pilots and I came up with the idea. Stunt skiffs are ideal for gathering intelligence and evading pursuers. Detritan is built a little larger to accommodate crew and supplies. She’s not quite as nimble as a true stunt skiff, but she’s still one of the fastest planet-bound ships we have.”

Jyra managed to clamber into the cabin with some assistance.

“You’re in the cockpit with me. Injured person’s privilege,” Serana said. The others had already taken their places in the compact cabin on the small chairs complete with bulky harnesses. Fritz took up more room than anyone and looked twice as uncomfortable. Jyra wondered if he’d volunteered for this mission or if Serana had coerced him into it.

Jyra limped and ducked into the cockpit. She glared at the harness on her seat as a spasm of pain seared through her shoulder. It won’t happen again, she thought.

Serana flipped three switches and the low whine of the engines coughed to life from the stern. Jyra studied the cockpit, partly to figure out the controls and partly to find a place to stow her crutch. This cockpit looked similar to the ship she had inspected with Serana, Graze, and Kip.

“Sorry,” she said. Serana gave her a curious look as Jyra wedged the crutch between the foot of the console and the rear wall and took her seat. “I have only a general idea of what a stunt skiff is.” It seemed a lifetime ago Berk had explained many stunt pilots lived on Silanpre.

Jyra decided nerves must trigger Serana’s smile. Ever since they entered the hangar, the corners of Serana’s mouth were upturned. They twitched now and then, but it seemed as though she had no choice but to keep grinning.

“It’s smaller than this,” Serana said, taking the cyclic between her knees. She eased the lever away from her and the engines roared. The howl filled the hangar and Jyra was sure the noise would wake half the base. How is this considered a stealth vessel?

Jyra’s skepticism must have registered on her face, because Serana laughed and leaned toward her.

“Don’t worry,” she hollered. “It quiets down once the engines heat up.”

Black smoke billowed around Detritan, coiling and twisting in thick clouds.

Jyra coughed on the smell of the fumes as she identified the nav computer and brought it online. Serana continued preflight procedures and handed Jyra a scrap of paper.

“Punch that in,” she said.

Jyra glanced at the paper and chuckled.

“These don’t look like coordinates.”

“Encrypted,” Serana said. “Standard coordinates in a nav system are easy to hack. Just enter them as they’re written. The ship knows what to do once we’re clear of base interference.”

Jyra tapped the appropriate keys, green lit up the monitor, and the computer set a course.

The engine noise disappeared so abruptly, it seemed as though the whole ship shut down.

“Close the door!” Serana commanded. Kip obliged and Serana glanced at Jyra.

“Now we’re ready,” she said. “Hang on. You’ll never have more fun flying in anything else.”

She pulled two levers back and Detritan shuddered as the launch thrusters fired. Jyra watched the floor of the hangar fall away from the cockpit as the ship rose toward the steel ceiling trusses.

“Watch that beam!” Jyra shouted, stiffening in her seat.

The words had hardly left her mouth before Serana leaned forward. The launch thrusters cut out and Detritan lurched ahead, dropping away from the ceiling and tearing toward the hangar exit.

The floor filled the view from the cockpit. Jyra plunged her fingers into the armrests, certain she was about to rip the upholstery loose.

Serana leaned back, taking the cyclic with her. Detritan leveled out, its belly nearly skimming the last stretch of the hangar floor. Serana brought the ship under the rollup door into a dark cave beyond.

Detritan’s lights reflected off jagged slippery boulders below. The dingy walls and roof of the cave huddled in shadow. Jyra only caught glimpses of what lay beyond. She couldn’t believe Serana was flying at such speed in close quarters. Jyra tried to keep her eyes shut. Flying Berk’s pod out of the mountain on Drometica had taken seconds. This cave never seemed to end.

“All clear,” Serana said.

Jyra opened her eyes to see damp walls no longer surrounded them. The congregation of stars arranged themselves overhead, casual observers of the forest and mountains below Detritan.

“How did we leave the base?” Jyra asked.

“Through an old lava tube in one of the mountains,” Serana said. “Detritan’s too valuable to be left outside.”

Jyra could barely see the trees beneath them. In the open air, Jyra saw what Serana meant about the near total silence of the engines. Kip and Rina were chatting and their voices alone made it hard to hear the purr of the ship.

“How long until we get there?” Serana asked, keeping the cyclic locked in place.

Jyra checked the monitor.

“Just under an hour,” she said. The number suddenly dropped, then increased. “Hold on.”

“It’s the mist,” Serana said. “Sorry. We need to wait for a moment.”

She glanced to the south. The sky was even darker there, but a distant flash of lightning illuminated the thunderheads.

“The clouds are coming in from the ocean,” Serana said. “Hopefully we don’t get caught in that.”

As Detritan flew west, however, the storm hastened its approach. Jyra didn’t like the prospect of fixing Emarand Liberation in a downpour.

“Couldn’t we shoot down the scouts to gain enough time to get a rescue ship to fly everyone off Liberation?” she asked. Serana shook her head.

“We’ve crossed swords with the enemy too much for one day,” she said. “Every interaction is a risk. The hospital might acquire something that leads them to us. We blow them out of the sky, other ships will take their place. It’s time to give stealth a shot.”

Serana descended until they cruised two hundred feet above the forest. The nav computer finally generated an accurate reading.

“Forty minutes away,” Jyra said. “How fast are the scouts moving?”

“Depends how thoroughly they’re scanning,” Serana said with a shrug. “We might get a visual on them before we land.”

“How close are we?” Kip called from the cabin.

“Forty minutes,” Serana replied.

“I suppose my leg can stay asleep that long,” Rina said.

Fritz only coughed.

*

“Looks like we’re beating the storm,” Jyra said.

“We’d better be,” Serana said. “If we weren’t traveling across its path, we’d have left it behind long ago.

Jyra tapped the monitor as a wave of interference passed across it. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, but before she could say a word, Serana spoke, her voice tense and sharp.

“Hold on everyone!”

Jyra gripped her seat as Serana sent Detritan into a steep dive. The trees below stood still in the tranquility that preceded the storm. Serana brought the nose of the ship up, returning to a cruising course less than fifty feet above the forest canopy.

“Over there,” Serana said, pointing.

Jyra stared toward the hills that replaced the mountains. She had to scan the ridgeline for a few moments before she saw them. Under the stars, two ships each cast a bright white beam of light. They moved methodically, crossing back and forth in front of the other, combing the ground below.

“Liberation is on this side of those hills, right?” Jyra asked.

“It’d better be,” Serana said. “What’s the computer say?”

“Five minutes from the crash site,” Jyra said. “And we need to turn further north.”

“Perfect,” Serana said warily. “That brings us closer to the scouts.”

“Does anyone on Liberation have a radio we can use to reach them?” Jyra said.

“Even if they do, we can’t use it,” Serana said. “Those scouts are already too close. They might hack the signal. Speaking of that, kill the computer.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Serana said. “Take it offline. They might detect it.”

She nodded toward the patrolling beams of light.

“We have to finish the search by sight?” Jyra said, as she shut down the nav software and prepared to switch off the computer. Serana only nodded, her face grim in the dim lighting of the cockpit.

“I plan on being the finder, not the found tonight,” she said.

Detritan decreased speed as Serana limited the fuel supply to the engines. Nearly all the navigation functions were mechanically controlled on stunt skiffs. The cyclic repositioned the engines by way of the pivoting brackets. Tugging a cable activated a set of flaps on the larger pair of stabilizers. Cutting fuel to one engine, while flooding the other allowed the pilot to make sharper turns.

Jyra leaned forward, the better to survey the forest slipping by beneath her. Both she and Serana saw breaks in the forest ahead, but they proved to be either empty clearings or lakes.

“Anything yet?” Kip asked.

“Negative,” Serana replied.

Based on the speed with which the flight began, Jyra didn’t think she would ever have to worry about Serana flying too slowly. Now, however, Detritan’s nose bucked several times, as the ship fought gravity.

Serana gunned the engines enough to turn to the left to sweep over the forest in a new direction.

“Doesn’t hurt to look around,” she muttered. “The computer only gets us in the general area.”

They changed direction again. Jyra realized they were circling back to where they broke off from their original trajectory. Fritz coughed again.

“Keep your eyes open,” Serana said.

A gust of wind surged from the south, bending the trees and pushing Detritan toward the scouts.

“There!” Jyra said, pointing. She couldn’t tell how the trees shifted, but several red lights had been visible beneath the foliage for a moment. Serana brought the ship even lower. Jyra felt the treetops brushing the belly of the skiff. Detritan glided sideways, and the crash site appeared below.

“They must have dropped straight down,” Serana said. “They didn’t leave a landing trail through the forest.”

She took her ship into the clearing, drifted over a small patch of clear ground, and cut the engines. Detritan fell and the launch thrusters caught the skiff at the last moment so that it settled lightly on the forest floor. As the crew assembled outside, they saw two people approaching from Liberation.

A few emergency beacons on the crashed ship were the only source of light, save the stars. From a distance, the ship looked like most of the hospital transports the resistance had stolen.

Rina jumped up and down several times, trying to normalize her circulation. Fritz had an arm inside his jacket. For a moment, Jyra thought she saw a muted red flash reflect off his jacket sleeve. Kip saw it, too.

“What are you hiding?” he asked. Jyra couldn’t tell if he meant the question to be sarcastic or serious, but Fritz didn’t answer.

Instead, his arm lashed from his side, punching Kip to the ground as he wrenched his other arm from his jacket. Jyra’s eyes went wide as she staggered on her crutch. The object in Fritz’s jacket was only a little larger than his hand. A small red light flashed on one end with a frequency Jyra recognized as the rate of a transmission. Fritz was sending his position to someone.

Both Rina and Serana charged at him. Fritz lobbed the transmitter across the clearing. Rina turned, mid-sprint, and planted her feet. Simultaneously, her hand flashed to her hip, pulling her gun loose. The transmitter flipped end over end, the edges glittering in the starlight. Rina fired once. Just before the transmitter plunged into the trees, the bullet blew through it. The red light went dark.

Fritz seized Serana as she plowed into him. He exploited her momentum, using it to flip her over his shoulder and throw her to the ground. Kip kicked from where he lay; his boot crunched into Fritz’s knee. Fritz grunted as he collapsed. His hand caught a nearby tree and he started to pull himself back up, but Jyra had closed in on him by then.

Careful to keep her weight off her injured leg, she gripped her crutch like a sword and struck Fritz in the face once, then twice. His arm clutching the tree went limp from the second blow and he fell face first onto the grass.

Rina helped Serana to her feet. Jyra replaced the crutch under her arm before offering Kip her hand. His cheek was already swollen and he looked dazed as she pulled him up.

“Another spy,” Rina said and Serana nodded, rubbing her back.

“My fault,” Serana said. “I was in a hurry. He didn’t show undue eagerness or fear. They’re getting too good at fooling us. Nice shot,” she added, nodding at Rina. “By the time we located the tracker in forest, the scouts would be on us. If they aren’t here in thirty seconds they didn’t get our location.”

“Is everyone okay?” a voice called. The adrenaline from the struggle had pushed the Liberation crew from Jyra’s mind.

“All clear now,” Serana called. “Approach.”

A flashlight beam flared as two men stepped into view behind Detritan’s engines.

“Pilot Terrance Higgs,” the first man said before indicating the shorter man with the light. “This is my copilot, Dirk Mallard.”

“Serana Makrinn, pilot of your rescue mission,” Serana said. “This is Jyra Kyzen, mechanic, Kip Deleanor, mechanic, and Rina Dranas, security.

“Who’s the ground man?” Dirk asked, aiming the flashlight at Fritz’s body.

“Spy,” Rina said. “I blew his tracker to pieces, hopefully before it beamed our entire position. Cover your ears.”

She stepped forward, gun in hand, and put two bullets into Fritz’s back.

“If his tracker did give us away, they weren’t listening. Let’s get to work,” Serana said, after the last echo of the gunfire faded. “We don’t have much time. Jyra, you can’t carry much of anything. Head to the ship now and begin assessing the damage. Everyone else grab supplies.”

Liberation was ten times larger than Detritan. The moment she limped around the skiff, Jyra could see the dents and smeared soot on the hull of the fallen ship from across the clearing. Once she stood beside it, she saw the engine control lines hung loose as reported, mangled just forward of the cowling. Only the twisted stabilizer mount remained. The emergency beacons didn’t provide enough light for Jyra to examine much else.

The voices from the main cabin distracted her. The door was ajar. She considered looking inside, but she heard the others approaching. Serana and Kip dropped a refurbished stabilizer on the grass.

“We’ll need a ladder,” Kip said.

“Or two,” Jyra said, looking at the stabilizer. It wasn’t heavy, but it would be rather ungainly for one person to handle. Except for Fritz, Jyra thought. Why did he have to be a spy? And why did Rina say “another spy?” What did Serana mean by them fooling us?

The blast of Rina’s gun sounded in her memory. It gave way to the voice of the guard in the shipyard on Drometica. “Converge on number nine’s position! Intruders! Repeat, intruders!” Despite the professional tone, Jyra still heard fear in the guard’s voice. The crack of Berk’s shotgun shook her skull. Even in her thoughts, it drowned out the sound of Rina’s pistol. Jyra clamped a hand to her temple, reacting to the dull thud of the guard’s lifeless body landing on the floor of the engine room.

I wonder how Berk is doing, she thought, trying to push the memories away. She didn’t have time to be thinking these things. Her thoughts about Rina killing Fritz as he lay unconscious threatened to overwhelm her, but she clenched her hand on her crutch with such force it felt like her palm would blister.

A drop of rain struck her face. Rina dumped two toolboxes on the grass and passed Jyra a headlamp.

“You’ll have this ship flying in about ten minutes, right?” she said. She smiled and returned to Detritan to haul more supplies. How is she able to joke right now? Jyra thought, pushing her hair back while strapping the lamp around her head.

One toolbox contained tools and a variety of ship parts filled the other. Jyra dug through the parts box as the sparse raindrops struck her arms and the back of her neck. Despite the storm she experienced when she arrived on Silanpre, the feeling of rain had lost none of its novelty.

At the bottom of the box, her hand closed on a tin canister. She unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers.

“Control lines,” she said, pulling the end of the armored flexible tubing from its package.

“Excellent,” Serana said, falling to her knees as she set a supply crate down. She crawled forward eagerly, shining her headlamp into the parts box.

“Those should be the right diameter,” she said. “We’ll still need the splice couplings. They’re in there somewhere. I’m going to check out the bottom of the ship.”

Serana flopped onto the ground, facing the sky. As she prepared to pull herself under Liberation, she winced. When Fritz deflected her attack, she had landed squarely on her back.

“You all right?” Jyra asked. The glow from her headlamp reminded her of the white beams of lights from the scouts and she fought to ignore a sudden jolt of nerves.

Serana’s eyes gleamed against her eyeliner in the light of Jyra’s headlamp.

“Just another day,” she said, before sliding under the ship. “Get those lines hooked together!” she added just before her feet disappeared.

Jyra uncoiled the roll of control line tubing. It felt as though her hands were pulsing with her heart. Her fingers felt warmer than usual as she cut the lines to length. She caught sight of the scar on the back of her hand in her peripheral vision. First day of work, Jyra thought. That’s what I get for rushing.

Kip set the last supply crate on the grass behind her with Rina’s assistance.

“Give me a hand,” Jyra said, crouching awkwardly on the ground as she slid the splice couplings onto the control lines.

Rina strode forward from the crate toward the ship. She tugged the door back and curious faces poked into view. Several children held their hands out to feel the rain. Thunder echoed in the distance.

“We’ll get you on your way soon,” Rina said, as the people near the door began murmuring questions. Jyra saw most of them surveying the sky. The trees hid the scouts for now. Once they were visible from the crash site, it would be too late.

“Are you in charge of this mission?” a voice asked, but Jyra recognized it.

“Drenal?”

His face came into view, his eyes twinkling in the dull light of the emergency beacons, his smile as wide as ever. When he turned toward her, Jyra saw a deep gash on his forehead. Streaks of dried blood congealed above his eyebrow.

“Are you all right?” Jyra asked, abandoning the last control line on the grass.

“I’m a doctor,” Drenal said. “I can deal with it. How’s the leg?”

Jyra glanced at it and shrugged.

“Feels better since you rewrapped it,” she said.

“That’s my specialty,” Drenal said. “No one knows wound dressings better than me.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Jrya saw someone tugging Drenal’s sleeve and he retreated inside the cabin with a small smile.

“Wrenches,” Jyra said, talking herself back to the task. Kip had already trimmed the ends of the mangled lines so they were ready to bond with the couplings. They tightened the compression fittings over the splices to reconnect the lines.

“Ready to check engine control,” she said. “We need to start on the stabilizer.”

“Hold off on power up tests!” Serana called. “We’ve got trouble under here and we don’t need any circuits getting fried.”

“Not too much trouble, right?” Rina said, jumping out of the cabin. “Those scouts will pick up their sonar waves bouncing off the hull if they get much closer.”

“Hard to say,” Serana said. “We’ve got exposed and severed wires.”

Jyra’s leg prevented her from scurrying under the ship to check the damage herself.

Just as well, she thought, holding one of the lines while Kip tightened it in place. One thing at a time. Finish this and move on.

Kip stepped off the ladder to pick up the next control line. His forehead crinkled as he twisted the couplings. He gave Jyra a small smile, his black eyebrows lifting slightly.

“Once you’ve got that last connection tightened, you can prepare this last line here,” he said.

“How much time do we have?” Jyra asked.

“Not much,” Rina said from above. “They’re moving to the east.”

Rina had been checking the ship’s cabin moments ago. Now, she stood on top of Liberation, her eyes fixed to the north. Her blonde hair shimmered against the gathering gray clouds.

“The east?” Dirk the copilot asked. He walked around the nose of his crashed ship.

“Correct,” Rina said.

“Good,” Dirk said. “I left a distraction behind.”

“What is it?” Rina said, refusing to break eye contact with the scouts.

“I hiked away from the crash site before contacting base,” Dirk explained. “After reporting our position, I dropped a transmitter when I headed back to the ship. That’s probably what they’re tracking.”

“Fritz almost did the same thing to us,” Kip said. “Except he was on the wrong side. Good thinking, though,” he added to Dirk. “You bought us some time.”

Dirk nodded, then turned away when Terrance called him from inside Liberation.

At the mention of Fritz’s name, Jyra heard the gunshots that killed him again.

“How many spies make it into base?” she asked.

“Couldn’t say,” Kip said. “Once they’re in, though, the mist scrambles any transmitters or locators they might try to use. We have stations near the base outside the dead zone to boost our radio traffic in and out. They are mobile and moved often to avoid detection. It’s an isolated system only a few people can access. If a spy is caught trying to contact the Allied Hospitals from base, they get treated much worse than Fritz.”

“Wouldn’t the hospital notice all their equipment losing contact in the area around the base?” Jyra asked.

Kip shrugged as he secured the control line to the hull.

“Most of them would enter the dead zone in ships with shielded cabins in transports like this,” he said, knocking a fist against Liberation and tucking his ratchet into one of his many pockets. “They can’t transmit from inside them either.”

“What if the Allied Hospitals locate base?” Jyra said.

Kip bit his lip then beckoned for the control line Jyra had fitted with the splice couplings.

“If they find it, they’d better have the wisdom to keep their distance,” Kip said. “We have no record of any enemy ships getting anywhere close to us.”

Jyra suspected Kip didn’t want to discuss the matter further. Serana reappeared from under the ship. Thunder growled with a low, extended note. Serana eyed the sky and shook her head.

“Seems I’d be happier under the ship in a couple minutes,” she said, brushing dirt and grass off her legs.

“Really?” Jyra said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s better down there than out here?”

“Not a chance,” Serana said. “I need to grab fluid to refill these lines. There’s a light at the work area down there. Soldering iron and solder should be in one of the toolboxes. Get busy.”

By the time Jyra located supplies, the rain had started in earnest. Jyra didn’t realize she’d paused to feel the drops, until Rina reported the scouts were returning to their standard course.

Jyra crawled under the ship, pushing her tools before her. The glare of the work light negated the need for a headlamp. The smell of smeared grass and dirt mixed with the acrid stench of overheated steel and scorched wires.

Jyra reached the work area and saw what Serana meant. Three panel covers were missing, which allowed several low voltage cables to spill from the confines of the ship like entrails. Liberation had landed on a fallen tree. Unfortunately, the ship hadn’t made a perfect vertical landing as Serana had supposed; it had skidded on the trunk, dragging its wiring right through the pinch point between bark and hull. Jyra noticed insulation from the wires clinging to the lichen in the downed tree.

With a heavy sigh, she rolled onto her back, switched on the soldering iron, and got to work. She could hardly hear the shuffling footsteps in the cabin over the rain drumming on Liberation’s hull.

A plume of smoke billowed from where the tip of the solder touched the heated wire. The smoke coiled and spread against the underside of the ship. Jyra remembered walking into the shed behind her parent’s house to find Dario bent over circuit boards with a soldering iron. The smell in her memory mingled with that of the cooling solder before her.

Jyra worked fast, clutching the two severed ends of a wire together, heating the conductors, and applying the silver bond. Despite her speed, she had only repaired a quarter of the cables when the cuffs of her trousers grew damp as the rainwater advanced under the ship.

Something heavy hit the ground with a splash beside Liberation. Several curses followed the sound and Jyra realized Kip and Serana must have dropped the stabilizer.

“At least it’s waterproof,” Kip said, as he bent to retrieve it.

By the time Jyra moved onto another cluster of small wires, both of her calves were soaked. A cramp developed in her wounded leg. Thunder roared again. The smell of the heated solder filled Jyra’s nose. Water pooled around her elbows, running in from the opposite side of the ship. The grinding noise of an impact gun rose over the thunder and rain.

The moment Jyra started on the last wire, something heavy hit the ground again. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Rina scramble out of the mud. She must have jumped from the top of the ship.

“They’re heading right for us!” she yelled, as another round of thunder covered her words.

Two pairs of feet struck the mud next to the legs of the ladders positioned near the aft end of Liberation. Adrenaline drove its icy knife through Jyra, colder than the water soaking into her clothes.

“Jyra!” Serana shouted. “Tape up what you’ve soldered and get out of there!”

Jyra dropped the iron, which hissed in protest then shorted in a puddle.

“I don’t have anything to reattach the panel covers!” she yelled. Serana fell to her hands and knees to look at Jyra. Her eyeliner streaked her cheeks and her wet hair swung around her face.

“Don’t worry about that!” she said. “You’ve done enough to get this piece of junk in the air. Just tape everything up so no wires get crossed!”

Jyra began binding up the soldered joints as Serana commanded. While wrapping the second to last connection, her skin brushed a bare conductor and her muscles locked. The wire carried live current.

Her head and slipped sideways and a puddle was rising around her lips. The first thing Jyra registered was the soldering iron, half submerged next to her nose.

Then a hand closed around her good leg. That’s right, one of my legs still hurts, she thought numbly. Kip’s voice returned her to reality.

“WE NEED TO MOVE!” he bellowed.

Jyra was drenched. She opened her mouth to speak, but only coughed, spewing muddy water. Kip tugged on her leg and she slid a few feet.

I almost drowned in a puddle, she mused to herself. No one had to worry about that on Tyrorken.

Then she regained full comprehension of what was happening. Rina’s warning about the scouts and Serana’s command echoed in her ears.

“I didn’t finish yet!” Jyra protested.

“It doesn’t matter!” Kip replied. “We’re under attack!”

Jyra felt him dragging her from beneath Liberation. The work light remained behind. In its fading glow, Jyra saw a white burn on her index finger. They powered up the ship without telling me, she realized with a surge of anger. The electrical shock could have killed her.

Suddenly, the hull began to vibrate and a roar, louder than the thunder overhead, filled the clearing.

“What’s happening?” Jyra shouted, feeling another rush of adrenaline course through her.

She couldn’t hear Kip’s reply but read his lips just before the work light blew sideways, shattering its filament: “They’re taking off!”

Liberation lifted into the air. The launch thrusters pinned Jyra to the grass and made it feel as though her eardrums were about to burst.

A missile streaked above the trees faster than the shooting stars Jyra used to watch from her parent’s porch on Tyrorken. It missed Liberation, but Jyra noticed sparks flying from the cables she’d partially repaired. Just make it to base, she thought fiercely.

“Move!” Kip said. Her stood over Jyra with a hand outstretched. He pulled her upright and held her arm around his shoulder. They ran for Detritan, but couldn’t see it through the downpour, nor could they see the second missile.

A cloud of fire, water, and mud materialized as the projectile detonated on impact with the ground. Jyra screamed and Kip automatically collapsed, pulling her down with him, knocking her headlamp free. Metal and soggy earth tumbled around them. Jyra never heard the explosion, but the whine of Detritan’s engines filled her ears instead.

“Wait!” she shrieked, but Serana and Rina were already in the air. Another missile struck where the modified stunt skiff had just been. Jyra struggled to her feet, waving her arms at the departing ship.

“Get down!” Kip shouted, but it was too late. The same beam of light Jyra had seen from afar fell upon her.

She sank onto the mud, shielding her eyes against the glare, which grew brighter. Jyra tried to crawl, but bullets struck the earth right in front of her. Kip seized her leg again and she turned to see him shaking his bruised and mud-spattered face.

“It’s no use,” he said, his eyes blinking away the rain. “They’ve got us.”