“Me?” I can’t help feeling a little outraged. “What did I ever do to them?”
And then I remember. Much like everything else in my life to date, it’s not what I’ve done. It’s what my mother’s done. Good thing I’m ready to start changing that, because so far, she’s done a pretty crappy job with my life.
“They want to kill us both,” Rain says slowly, like the answer is just starting to dawn on her. I lean forward, interested in what she has to say and if it’s the same idea percolating in my head now.
“If they kill Kali, the high priestess will be reborn. But the optics of that won’t work if I’m still alive.” She looks at Merrick. “So they have to kill us both, and that will start everything over again. And they think they’ll finally get their Star Bringer.”
“Except they’ve already got her,” Merrick says, and he’s grinning at me just like a proud cousin would.
“I wouldn’t go that far as to say they have me. I’m still not sure I know how to use that thing,” I tell him.
“Pretty sure the heptosphere just proved you wrong,” Ian replies.
And I can’t help remembering what it felt like to touch it, to feel the warmth and power of it pulsing against my palms. Maybe they’re right. Too bad I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do about it.
“I hate to be the harbinger of doom,” Max says, “but it occurs to me that we’ve got another problem.”
“No you don’t,” Milla teases him. “You do love your problems.”
“Well, with no Gage and no Beckett…” He trails off and waits for it.
“Well, shit,” Ian grumbles from where he is now banging on the console of the captain’s chair to no avail. He stops abruptly and turns to look at me with an odd glint in his eye.
“Why are you looking at me?” I ask. And then it dawns on me. “No way. I’m not ready. Beckett didn’t really teach me that much. I just sort of listened in while she taught Rain. Maybe she—”
“No way,” Rain interrupts with a knowing grin. “I just got shot. No flying for me. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to be the new mechanic.”
“Can you actually fix things?” Ian asks, sounding skeptical.
“Well, I know better than to just bang on them, so I feel like I’m already a step ahead of you.” As if to prove it, she reaches over with her good arm and tightens something under his console. Seconds later, his HUD rises smoothly.
“Point made,” Max says.
“Thanks,” Ian tells her, then grins at me. “I’m the captain, and the captain’s orders are to get your butt in that pilot’s chair.”
I’ll admit I’ve never been so nervous in my life…but also a little excited as I do as he asks and slide into Beckett’s chair.
Once there, I take a moment and press my hand to the yellow hair tie Beckett left wrapped around the armrest. Then I lean forward and press the Starlight’s ignition.
The ship comes to life around us, and I grin. “Where to, Captain?”
“Anywhere but this fucking asteroid,” Ian answers.
“Yes, sir,” I tease, trying to concentrate on him instead of the weird feeling inside me that seems to be getting stronger. Surely it will ease once we’re away from this evil place.
Seconds later, we’re clearing the atmosphere and flying straight into space, the entire solar system spread out in front of us.
Freedom has never looked so good.
But twenty minutes later, with a long-term course set for Serati—we’ve got some wanted posters to deal with—the feeling is so bad it’s all I can do to stay in my seat. And that’s before something else strange happens.
Ian’s HUD lights up, and the screen shows a perfect view of the heptosphere, which is still following behind us. But it looks different. It’s all lit up, with a red light coming out of the top and a bunch of numbers running across its black center.
“What is that?” I ask, changing the front right viewing screen to show the image so we can all get a better look.
30 – 07 – 10 – 15
As we watch, it changes.
30 – 07 – 10 – 14
30 – 07 – 10 – 13
30 – 07 – 10 – 12
“It’s a countdown,” Max says.
30 – 07 – 10 – 11
“But to what?” Rain wonders.
“Oh, fuck no,” Milla says, coming to stand next to me, her eyes glued to the heptosphere. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”
She looks down at me then, and our eyes meet. “Depends on what you think it is?”
“Out in the Wilds, people talk. Lots of it is just rumors, but there was one thing I kept hearing over and over again, and you just don’t hear the same story that many times without a little bit of truth. That there was a large device the Empire was trying to use to save us, but in reality it’s dangerous. Dangerous to humans in a way we might never fully understand before it’s too late.”
Something about the way she says it turns all the blood in my veins to ice. Because what could be more dangerous to humans than a sun about to explode?
Before I can ask Milla for an explanation, more lights flash on the heptosphere, all different colors shining into space.
“What the hell is it doing now?” Max asks.
I don’t know. But the more those lights flash on the heptosphere, the more impossible the compulsion inside me is to ignore, until finally I can’t resist anymore. While everyone else crowds around the screen, waiting to see what happens next, I unbuckle my harness, stand, and walk down the hall.
For the first time since we’ve been on board the Starlight, the locked door is open. Wide open.
“What the hell?” Ian says from behind me. Turns out he and the others have followed me from the bridge. “You finally figured out how to open it?”
I shake my head, because I had nothing to do with this.
“Well, the Starlight obviously wants us to see something.” Rain gives us an impatient look before squeezing past me and walking in.
Despite the hollowness inside me—and the compulsion all but screaming at me—I don’t want to go in that room. But staying out here won’t change whatever’s in there, so I exchange an oh-shit glance with Ian and then walk inside.
It’s not as bad as I feared. I don’t know what I was thinking we’d find, but it’s not the giant rectangular display that takes up an entire wall of the room.
“What does it do?” Max asks as we get closer to it.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Maybe Gage—” I break off as it hits me, really hits me, that he’ll never fix another problem on the Starlight again.
No matter how angry I am at him for what he did back there on the asteroid, there’s a part of me that grieves for him and what could have been, too.
Ian rubs a comforting hand down my back, but before I can tell him I’m okay, a laser shoots out of a tiny device above the display and scans Rain, who is standing closest to it.
“What the—” Max breaks off as it scans him, too.