Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (30 page)

She’s still barefoot, I realize—she had her shoes off to play the rumpled party guest if we were caught, and she must have dropped them during the shooting. Blood paints her right foot red, but I can’t stop to check if it’s serious. As we correct course and head for the docking corner once more the whole ship quivers, a shock wave running along the floor toward us. Sofia stumbles again, and I twist to catch her, but as her arms wrap around me I lose my footing, and next thing we’re down, slamming into the ground hard enough to drive the air from my lungs.

Is this what it was like for the fifty thousand who died on the
Icarus
?

I push to my elbows, dragging in a breath. The door to the docking port emerges from the gloom, the others nearly there, and just a few meters ahead of us.

Flynn looks back again, and his arm goes flying up, his mouth open in horror. I tip my head back in time to see one of the huge claws built to hold part of the engine in place coming straight at us. I scream my own warning, and Sofia and I work as one—she tucks in against me as I wrap my arms around her, rolling hard to my left so we slam against a fallen desk, lying on its side. The claw slams into it an instant later, but though it crumples, it’s just high enough that its edge protects us. The desk’s displays short-circuit, spewing sparks down on top of us.

As I glance up, the desk starts to bend in half, and I throw myself over Sofia, pressing her into the ground as the wreckage pins us into the gap between it and the floor, as if we’re in a tiny metal tent. She cries out, and I realize her injured hand is trapped between us—the whites of her eyes are showing, and I brace against the metal grille of the floor, shoving as hard as I can to try and shift the weight off of us.

Then two strong hands are grabbing me under my arms, and Jubilee’s there, gritting her teeth as she pulls us free of the pile. I keep Sofia pinned against me, and we scramble the last few meters on hands and knees, falling through the open shuttle door, where Flynn’s waiting to help us through it. Chase is running back to Merendsen’s side now, holding him back as the shuttle doors close—she’s talking in his ear, but I can’t hear what she’s saying over the noise of the
Daedalus
falling apart around us.

“Jubilee,” Flynn shouts from up by the cockpit, “unless you want me flying this thing, you’d better get up here!”

Jubilee spares one more agonized look for Merendsen, and then she’s scrambling free to run for the pilot’s seat. “Right.”

Sofia and I lie tangled together on the floor as the engine pitch rises, and with a soft rumble, the shuttle breaks free of the
Daedalus
. Sofia’s breath is coming in soft moans, but slowly she’s falling silent, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a good sign. When I force my eyes open, the first thing I see is her hand—blistered red from where her plas-pistol exploded, wounds weeping a glistening fluid.

When I lift my head to look past her, Merendsen’s bracing himself against a chair, eyes closed as Flynn works to pop his shoulder back in with a grunt of effort. Somehow, Cormac looks as put-together as he did at the start of the evening, tux still perfect, one curl falling down over his forehead. By contrast, Merendsen’s missing the jacket he tore up for Lilac, his white shirt bloodstained.

“Brace,” Jubilee shouts from the pilot’s seat, and Merendsen doesn’t even react—Flynn shoves him back against the wall, ignoring his wince of pain, and straps him into the seat. He grabs at another chair to steady himself, and I hunker down next to Sofia. I brace my feet against the bottom of a row of seats as the shuttle banks sharp left, tilting at a forty-five-degree angle, engine screaming a protest.

“There’re shuttles all over the place, and debris coming free,” Jubilee warns us. “Keep hold of something, I’m getting clear of the field.”

We all hold our places as she does, and I curl my arm over Sofia where we lie together, closing my eyes. I start to count silently, trying to distract myself as we swoop and dive, my stomach surging up into my throat, the frame of the shuttle itself quivering under the tension. I reach one hundred and twenty-seven before we level out, and Jubilee punches the autopilot commands, peeling out of her chair. “Should be safe to move,” she says, eyes going first to Flynn and then to Tarver, who’s staring now out his window, his whole body sagging in his harness.

“Please,” he’s whispering. “Please, no.”

As one we’re scrambling from our seats to the windows lining one side of the shuttle.

I can think of a dozen things he might have been pleading for, but one glance is enough to tell me that none of them are coming true.

The
Daedalus
is falling.

Sheering in on an angle, she’s disintegrating in the sky, sections the size of skyscrapers wrenching away from her hull to plummet toward the city below. She’s impossibly huge, and yet my mind keeps seeing a model ship breaking into pieces, as if the enormity of what’s happening can’t be real.

The first chunks of debris are hitting the city below, now, and all the breath leaves my body as I watch one cut a swath four blocks wide through the suburbs of Corinth, cartwheeling in to land and cutting through apartment complexes like a knife through butter. Flames bloom far below us, black clouds of smoke obscuring the ruins. The next piece falls, metal gleaming in the light for an instant before it’s buried in flame and smoke.

I’m watching thousands of people die, and when the bulk of the
Daedalus
hits, I’m going to watch hundreds of thousands of people die. I can say the words to myself, but though they circle in my head in a horrified chant, I can’t understand it. Corinth is invincible. Corinth is always there. Corinth will always be there.

Corinth is burning.

“Please, no,” Tarver’s whispering again beside me, resting his forehead against the window, tears streaming down his cheeks as the
Daedalus
screams down toward the city.

It’s like watching a stone land in water—debris goes flying up in the wake of the huge ruin of a ship, whole buildings disintegrating, sending up showers of dust and smoke, twisted metal and flames.

Corinth is burning.

I spin away from the window, and Sofia comes with me. She throws her arms around me, and I pull her in close, burying my face in her hair, and I breathe in her warmth, her
life
, trying desperately to block out the images of the dying city I can see even with my eyes closed. For this moment we’re not the Knave and the con artist, and there’s no artifice when she pulls me close. When I lift my head, Flynn has his arms around Jubilee, and she’s whispering something in his ear that only has him squeezing her tighter.

And Tarver Merendsen’s alone, still watching at the window, white as a sheet in his bloodstained shirt, as though he’s watching his own execution.

And in that moment, whatever I held against him, whatever part of me blamed him for taking my brother’s place—that part dissolves into nothing. This is a man Simon would have wanted for Lilac. I see that now.

He loves her. Watching the death and destruction below, knowing the creature capable of this has stolen her from him, I know he does.

“Tarver.” My voice is hoarse, and I don’t bother trying to clear my throat. I think my cheeks are wet as well, and they should be. My world is bleeding below us.

He turns his head slowly, and his gaze is haunted.

“We’re not done yet,” I say quietly.

Still leaning against me, Sofia lifts her head. “Damn straight we’re not,” she says, steel in her voice, daring anyone to contradict her.

Nobody does.

“We need to find somewhere to land,” Jubilee says, moving past us to check the autopilot. Beyond her, I see another cluster of debris disappear into the thick cloud of smoke now covering the swath of destruction in the north of the city. “This shuttle was only meant for maintenance, and supply runs to the ship—it’s not fueled to stay up here for long.”

“Where should we be aiming for? Where’s safe? We have no idea if Lilac can find us,” Flynn says quietly, running one hand through his curls and finally looking something less than put-together.

I look across at Jubilee—soldier or not these days, she’s got her soldier’s face on now, gazing at the four of us with no hint of her feelings showing. “Stone-faced Chase,” they used to call her on Avon. I read that in her file. It’s still impressive, in person. And perhaps it’s because I’m staring at her, thinking about the soldier that still lives inside her, that the idea comes. But suddenly, I know where we should go. “I have a place.”

Four heads turn toward me.

“I know a woman, her name’s Kumiko. She’s ex-military.”

“Can we trust her?” Finally, Jubilee speaks.

Sofia asked me that same question about Mae, and I can feel her eyes on me. This time, I swallow hard. “I don’t know. I can’t promise. But you and Merendsen are ex-military, that’ll mean something to her. And she was posted on Avon. She knows what LaRoux’s capable of. I’ve dealt with her before, as the Knave. She trusts him, as much as she trusts anyone. Her place has security, it’s practically a fortress. And she’ll have a medical kit.” I’m trying not to look at Sofia’s hand, at her face where a piece of the plas-pistol cut her chin.

“We can’t stay up here.” Sofia sounds exhausted, and when I wrap my arm around her, she simply leans in against me, head on my shoulder. “We have to use the—the confusion to land.”

The confusion.
The hundreds of thousands of lives that were just snuffed out, right below us. The millions of people who just lost a child, or a parent, or a partner. There’s nothing we could call it that would do it justice, and the crack in her voice tells me how close she is to breaking. I’m no better, myself.

Jubilee looks across at Flynn, then meets Sofia’s eyes—she doesn’t try for Merendsen, who’s leaning forward now, his head in his hands. Then, slowly, she nods. “Give me the coordinates.”

We land on the roof of Kumiko’s complex, and as the shuttle settles on the painted
X
of the landing pad, half a dozen guns appear in the windows of the stairwell, trained on us.

“Are we going to get a chance to introduce ourselves before we’re shot?” Flynn asks, eyeing them through a window. The view is only dimly visible in the glow of the shuttle’s emergency lighting.

“We’ll get a chance,” I say. “They’d have fired on our underside while we were landing, if that’s what Kumiko intended.”

“Comforting,” Flynn mutters.

“Good thing she didn’t,” Merendsen says, joining him at the window. “This is a maintenance shuttle, no armor.”

We’ve only got Jubilee’s weapon between us, and Sofia’s plas-pistol is long gone. I’ve shoved my hacking kit into my pockets and strapped it against my body under my clothes. If I’ve completely misjudged this, and I’m going to be locked up somewhere, I’ll have my weapons of choice. Assuming Kumiko’s people don’t just shoot me.

I raise my hands into clear view and make my way down the shuttle steps, Jubilee covering me from the doorway with her pistol.

A stocky figure appears in the doorway leading up from below, carrying an emergency lantern, lifting it high in one hand to illuminate the landing pad. She’s clad in black with a kerchief tied over her face, and if we’re short on weapons, Kumiko certainly isn’t. She’s carrying a gun as thick as her forearm, and she jerks the barrel to signal that I should halt a few steps from the shuttle. “You can stay right there, thanks.”

I suck in a slow breath, let it out. “Kumiko, it’s me—”

“You got a name,
me
?” she snaps, hefting her gun. She does something that makes a clicking sound, and I’m pretty sure it’s the safety coming off.

Oh, hell.
“The Knave,” I say, arms twitching with the urge to drop them, protect myself. “The Knave of Hearts.”

Her mouth falls open. “Password,” she snaps, recovering, and for a moment I’m lost.
Password?
My mind scrambles, flailing for some memory to attach that word to, and just as I’m starting to panic, there it is. When I set up the forum I host for her troop, we chose a password together that would allow either of us to crash it, in the event they were about to be discovered. I mostly thought I was catering to her paranoia, back then. “Trodaire,” I stammer.

Slowly, she lowers her weapon. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s an incredibly long story,” I start. “I’m here with…” I pause, not sure what to say.
Friends? That’s a stretch.

But she’s not listening. In fact, she’s staring past me at the doorway of the shuttle. “Captain?” Kumiko’s voice has dropped, uncertain, softer now. “Captain Chase?” She reaches up to pull her kerchief down, revealing the lower half of her face.

Jubilee Chase walks slowly down the steps to stand by my side, her gun lowering. I hold still, silently willing Kumiko not to freak out and start firing.

But it turns out I don’t need to worry, because Kumiko’s just staring at Jubilee like she’s seen a ghost, shaking her head slowly.

And Jubilee just stares right back. “Corporal Mori? What the
hell
are you doing here?”

We watch them grow. The three of us are alone, and we do not know if the others can see what we see, but we press on with our mission, seek the answer to our question.

The girl whose dreams so fascinated us is a soldier now, and though she is younger than the others and smaller, she trains harder than any of them. Already she’s showing the steel that will draw her so to the poet. A change of a few symbols on a military document flying through our universe sends her to serve with him.

They will become friends. She will learn what she needs from him, but his path is not with her. She will stay here, with us, on the gray world.

And we will protect her.