Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,182

this was suicide. At first the autopilote hadn’t even allowed them to activate the hypervoyage engines. Cerise had been forced to hack the safety override.

Now all Alouette could do was pray that she was wrong. That they would safely make it back to Laterre. That Alouette could get Gabriel to the Refuge, and that Marcellus and Cerise could get the inhibitor into the water supply before the general tore the planet apart.

“Where’s Dr. Collins’s canister?” Alouette asked, just now noticing that Marcellus didn’t have it with him.

“I wrapped it in a thick blanket and secured it in a storage locker in the cargo hold,” he told her. “I figured it would be safe from any turbulence there.”

“Final checks complete,” a calm robotic voice announced. “Commencing hypervoyage in fifteen … fourteen … thirteen …”

Alouette wished she could steal a smidgen of that calm and inject it straight into her veins.

There was a loud rumbling sound, followed by a cacophony of short, staccato beeps. Then the whole voyageur seemed to buck beneath them, like a giant animal scraping the ground, getting ready to pounce.

“Ten … nine … eight …”

Alouette opened her eyes and stared straight ahead of her, out of the bridge’s front window. Stars hung everywhere in the vast sky, and somewhere among them was Laterre. And Vallonay. And the Frets. And the Refuge.

Home.

The word echoed in the far, deep corners of Alouette’s mind. Ominous and impossible and hopeful all at the same time.

When the Lark flies home …

There was no more doubt behind Sister Denise’s words now. No more bitterness festering inside her. There was only determination.

Yes, Sister Denise, she whispered into those far, deep corners of her mind. I’m finally flying home.

“Four … three … two …”

The ship was rumbling so hard now, Alouette’s teeth were chattering and her spine began to ache. Her eyes darted to the left, to Marcellus’s jump seat. He was looking at her, too, and when their gazes connected, it appeared that he was about to say something.

Au revoir?

Good luck?

I’ll see you on the other side of space?

But he never got the chance.

“One.”

The voyageur let out a boom and a roar. The world around Alouette shook violently. The stars outside the window blurred into a single infinite glow. Then, as if a switch had been flicked inside of her, every molecule of Alouette’s body seemed to ignite and blast off. Backward, forward, downward, and outward, into the giant abyss of space.

Everything went dark.

Everything turned to nothing.

Alouette couldn’t see anything or feel anything. And the only thing she could hear was a fast and rhythmic whooshing in her ears.

Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm.

At first, she wondered if this was what hypervoyage sounded like. If this was what bending space sounded like. It wasn’t until the last shred of consciousness had deserted her body that she realized it was the sound of her own solitary and terrified heart.

- CHAPTER 52 - MARCELLUS

BA-BUMMM. BA-BUMMM. BA-BUMMM.

Marcellus was surrounded by stars. So many stars. Bigger and brighter than he’d ever seen them. They made the ones that hung in the TéléSky of Ledôme feel insignificant and futile. Like sad little replicas that would never live up to their real inspirations.

“If you grow up to become general like me, you’ll be able to visit the stars whenever you want. Would you like that, Marcellus?”

He could hear his grandfather’s voice. But he knew it was not his grandfather of now. It was his grandfather of the past. The one who hung Bastille in the sky. The one who Marcellus yearned to be exactly like, but who always managed to make him feel like a fraud.

A sad little replica that would never live up to its real inspiration.

Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm.

“Yes, please, Grand-père. I would like that very much.”

His grandfather laughed and ruffled Marcellus’s hair. “Well, if you work hard every day, train diligently, and do exactly as I tell you, I have no doubt that one day you too will be the General of the Ministère. You too will command a planet.”

Marcellus recognized the memory now. He was four years old, on his very first trip in a voyageur. His grandfather had taken him to Kaishi, where the general was scheduled to meet with the System Alliance as a delegate of Laterre.

He remembered the feeling of the supervoyage engines rumbling beneath him. The stars pulsating in the dark sky. His own wonderment as he took in everything. The whole universe laid out before his eyes.

But most of all, he remembered the want. That boiling