in Sector 15, where they pretty much had it all. Surral had left the day she met Mareeka, who’d been visiting there on a fund-raising trip for Starway 8.
Surral hugged me and then stepped back, scowling as well. Her stern expression clashed with the cheeriness of her rainbow-hued scrubs.
“Hey, Surral.” I fought the urge to scuff my toe against the platform and hang my head. Neither of them looked happy with me.
While Mareeka had ice-blond hair and piercing blue eyes that I’d seen make galactic officials tremble, it was Surral who knew how to make me squirm when she wanted to. To the outside world, the two of them were tall, lean, hard, and the unquestioned generals of this place. To us, the kids who grew up here, they were Mom and Mom.
To each other, they were everything—along with their kids.
Surral’s mouth turned down in a way I knew from experience meant displeasure in the extreme. “No one ever expects you to do things at the expense of yourself, Tess.”
I stood taller, even though it hurt. They were the ones who had taught me about service, about choosing others—and what was right—over myself, or the easy way out.
“Then what’s the point of living?” I asked.
At that, they both rolled their eyes, knowing any further argument was a lost cause.
“Let’s go,” Mareeka said, waving everyone forward.
Jax and Fiona each picked up a large case of the prepared injections. I carried a smaller bag, and Mareeka and Surral each took another case. That was it. That was all we had, and I hoped to the Sky Mother it would be enough.
I glanced back at the ship as we left the dock. Miko gave me a quick wave. She and Shiori were already busy trashing the old numbers and putting up new stickers on the Endeavor. Between them, they had three hands and two eyes. They could do it, although seeing them up there on that ladder was a little nerve-racking.
I heard kids calling out to me as we made our way to the medical facility on the sixteenth level. I smiled and nodded my hellos, recognizing most of the faces, even if I didn’t know everyone’s name.
In sick bay, we arrived more to moans than to greetings. I swept worried glances around, taking in the feverish eyes and dry lips in faces that had thinned too much. My heart squeezed at the sheer number of kids, all lined up in beds that stretched on for what seemed like forever under the long string of faintly humming overhead lights. From what Surral had said on the way up, I knew that other large spaces looked like this one, and that the whole floor above and below us had been commandeered for medical purposes as well.
A lump grew in my throat and stuck. I could hardly swallow. “There were no antiviral shots? Nothing?”
“We ran out eighteen months ago,” Mareeka said.
And I hadn’t found them more. I got the sudden, nearly unstoppable urge to yell in desperation. The orphanage wasn’t poor. It simply wasn’t given access to everything it needed, just like so many other places. There wasn’t enough of everything. There never had been, and there never would be. So the Overseer made choices. He chose his soldiers, his Sector 12 cronies, his political friends, and all the rich influencers across the galaxy who wanted safe, healthy planets to live on and could give him the support he craved and needed. I wanted those people to suffer for once while these kids got the medicine they needed, the medicine those people took for granted and bought so easily with a flash of universal currency and an indifferent smile.
“The sickest ones are here,” Surral said. Then she nodded to a few beds down.
Coltin.
I moved toward him, dread weighing me down. Loving one kid in particular didn’t stop me from seeing the other children, too. Some of them were so heartbreakingly small. So pale, despite their variety of skin tones. So deathly still.
“Has anyone died?” I asked softly as Mareeka followed me toward the boy who was mine in a lot of ways that counted.
“We lost the first six yesterday. Three more this morning.” She squeezed my wrist when I stopped in shock and horror. “You got here just in time.”
I shook my head. Nine little lives lost. That sounded like two days too late, not just in time.
Crushed and starting to shake, I knelt next to Coltin’s bed and touched his feverish brow. His long