pounding and my hands shaking as Kal touches the device at his belt.
“… I read you, Finian,” he replies, blinking as if he’s coming out from under a spell.
“Okay, don’t all ask for my autograph at once, but I think I’ve worked out our answer. I’m in that old D-class freighter on the south end of the port, come take a look.”
“We are on our way.”
Kal smiles at me, sweet and warm. I draw a deep breath and nod. He holds out his hand to me and I take it, feeling the strength in his grip. He hefts his rifle, the warrior, the soldier in him rising to the surface once more. But now, I realize he’s something else, too.
He’s mine.
And fingers entwined, we make our way through the rolling blue.
•••••
“You two want the good news or the bad news?”
Fin’s leaning against the ancient freighter’s console, which he’s miraculously managed to crank back to life with the help of his uniglass, a screwdriver jammed between two panels, and what looks like a jury-rigged power unit. A mess of sticky blue pollen covers every surface, and growths of tendrils and vines have forced their way in through the hull and crawled over almost everything. Considering the state of this place, I’m amazed Fin could even coax it into turning on, let alone giving up any information.
“The good news,” I say.
“The bad news,” Kal says simultaneously.
Fin smirks, noting the fact that we’re holding hands.
“Well, it’s nice that you lovebirds still have some stuff to work on. The bad news is none of the ships here are going to have a core compatible with ours.” He glances at me and shrugs. “Looks like you dirtchildren were still using simple plutonium drives back in the day. But the good news is, I think I can still synthesize what we need. I just need to get the colony reactor going.”
“They sssshould not be here.”
The voice comes from behind us. We all whip around, and three figures are standing there, shrouded in the gloom. The first is a man, heavyset and broad, the second a paler, younger man about my age, and the last is a woman with dark brown skin and black hair that falls to her waist in a wild tangle. Clusters of flowers bloom from their eyes, moss grows down the sides of their faces, disappearing at their necks into the swathe of vines that clothe them, twisting along their arms, coiling around their legs. Those GIA agents on the World Ship looked infected by the same … disease, but these people look totally corrupted.
“Holy cake,” I whisper.
The woman turns toward me, head tilted.
“Aurora?” she says, sounding almost affectionate now.
Kal steps forward, putting himself between us and raising his weapon.
“Come no closer.”
The younger man takes a shuffling step forward. The vines around the woman’s arms begin twisting and writhing, but it’s her voice that catches at me. Her eyes are flowers, but I somehow know she’s looking at me, seeing me as she hisses like a snake.
“She deliversss herssself to ussss?”
“Jayla,” I say slowly, trying it out. “Jayla Williams.”
Another colonist. She’s the one who got picked for Patrice’s Cartography team the year before me. She tilts her head, as if she’s trying to make sense of me. Like I’m the last person in the galaxy she expected to see. The bigger man’s bright blue eyes are fixed on Kal, the younger one rocking back and forth on his heels and hissing. All around us, the plants and vines that cover the spaceport begin to move in concert, slow and sinuous, snaking across the deck toward us.
“They will not sssstop the ssspawning,” the woman says, shaking her head and baring black teeth. “They sssshould not be here!”
“I will not warn you again,” Kal says.
The young man looks at him quizzically. Takes one step closer.
“… What issss ‘I’?”
Quick as lightning, they lunge forward, all at once. Their speed is blinding. Kal only gets two shots off—the first taking the big man’s head off his shoulders in a spray of blue spores, the second burning a black hole through the young man’s chest and dropping him to the floor. But Jayla is on Kal now, overgrown fingers wrapping around his disruptor.
I raise my own weapon, but she’s so quick, lashing out with her foot and sending the gun flying from my hand and me skidding to my knees. She strikes at Kal, but he manages to block, seizing her wrist and locking her up.