Shades of Earth

I nod, trying to look confident. Landing the shuttle from Godspeed was automatic too, and three people died.

“When I was looking at the bridge, I discovered this,” Chris says, drawing me around the corner of the ship. “An emergency distress rocket. It’s designed as an escape for one person, in the event something malfunctions with the ship. It only has two settings—to go to the space station for aid or to go back here. If something goes wrong, just get in the distress rocket and come back.”

I look up at the escape rocket. It’s claustrophobically small, a paper airplane in comparison with the auto-shuttle. It looks like nothing more than a ridged bump under the bridge of the auto-shuttle, and I somehow doubt it could ever survive detaching from the auto-shuttle, much less a journey through space.

Chris steps back, giving Amy and me privacy again.

“Promise,” Amy says, wrapping her pinky finger around mine. “Promise to come back.”

I look her right in the eyes. “I promise.”

53: AMY

As I watch the transport shuttle roar to life and shoot away, an ominous feeling sickens my stomach. I am hollow inside. I try to shake off my worries, but all I can think is, That was the last time I’ll ever see Elder.

“Colonel Martin will be here soon,” Chris says. “He can’t have missed that.”

“Let him come,” I say. It’s too late. Elder’s already gone. I move to the communication bay, waiting for Elder to start talking to us over the radio. Chris stands by the window, waiting for Dad.

Sooner than I’d expected, Chris says, “There’s Colonel Martin.”

I squint through the glass but can’t make anything out.

“There.” Chris points, but it’s just darkness and shadows to me.

I turn back to the control panel. A warning flashes over the communication link with the auto-shuttle: Launch in Process. I don’t want to distract Elder when he needs his attention on the controls.

I glance back to the window, and I finally see what Chris is pointing at. Dad, and about ten other men, all with guns, running toward us.

“Great,” I mutter.

A moment later, I hear Dad’s voice booming, so loud that it’s like the glass and walls aren’t between us. “Come out now!” he orders. “The building’s surrounded.”

“He doesn’t know it’s us,” Chris says. There’s real fear in his voice. The glass cube is still illuminating the room, but the shadows it’s casting must have made it impossible for Dad to see inside. I go over to the door and throw it open. For a split second, I can only hear the metallic rattle of nearly a dozen guns aimed at me.

“Dad, will you put the guns away and be quiet?” I say impatiently.

“Amy?”

“Yes. Now put the guns down and come inside before the aliens see us out here!”

Dad curses roundly, and he and his men crowd into the communication room. “Do you really need everyone here?” I ask. “Wouldn’t these people be better off guarding the colony?”

Dad turns back to the military with a command, and one woman and one man break off from the rest of the unit while the others return to the colony. “Amy,” Dad says, turning to me. “What the hell are you doing here? And where did the auto-shuttle go?” He eyes Chris, and there is such furious rage in his look that I’m afraid Dad’s going to punch him—or worse. “What did you tell her? What did you do?”

“It was Elder’s idea, Dad, not Chris’s.” I can feel the fight rising within me. Dad might object, but Elder’s a leader, too, and in this case, he was right. We shouldn’t rely on weapons from the FRX. And although Dad will never admit that Elder might be able to save us, I believe he can.

Dad looks around him. “Where is Elder?”

I point out the window, toward the far-distant stars. And even though I’m proud of Elder in this moment, it’s not until now that I realize just how out of reach he is. It takes a moment for Dad to realize what I mean.

“Did he go to set off the weapon?” he asks. “That’s a damn stupid thing to do! We can operate it remotely, right here from the compound. I was only going to send a few arms specialists there to inspect it.”

“No,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “He went back to Godspeed.”

“What? Why?!”

I try my best to explain the clue, and the fact that the people on the ship need to be saved before the engine goes into full meltdown, and that they can bring back supplies for all of us. I can see that Dad thinks we’re being foolish and wasteful and that the only answer that could have brought him any happiness would have been if I’d told him that the weapon was launched and targeted at the aliens right now. He doesn’t care so much about our survival, not compared to revenge.

“That isn’t going to save us, Amy,” he says, glaring at me. “We need to get rid of the alien threat once and for all. That weapon—”

“Is something you don’t even understand,” I say, cutting him off. “All you see is the possibility of destroying the aliens. You’re not even thinking that it might hurt us too! What kind of weapon picks and chooses who it kills?”

Dad opens his mouth to protest.

“At least let Elder try to find more information,” I say. “There’s a chance he can figure out what the weapon is and how it works—then we can detonate it.”

“The aliens have killed a third of the colony already,” Dad says. He stares at me with hard eyes. “They’ve killed a third of our family.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I’m barely able to get the words out.

“How are we going to protect ourselves while that boy is up there playing the hero to the ship that should have landed with the shuttle?”

That? That I don’t know.

54: ELDER

The auto-shuttle ascends much faster than I would have thought possible. It climbs higher and higher until I’m competing with the falling suns—as they sink below the horizon, I shoot above it, leaving the whole shuttle in perpetual twilight until I break atmo. My stomach jerks and my hair lifts as I rise slightly from my seat before the grav replicator kicks on.

My heart thuds around inside my chest. I’m going back to Amy, I tell myself over and over. It’s not just a promise to her; it’s the vow I make for myself too.

The auto-shuttle slows as I hit orbit. A flat screen on the control panel lights up. A red bar of light illuminates the curve of the planet on the lower half of the screen and two blinking dots above that. This must be some sort of locator system. Interplanetary Preparation Station—Centauri—FRX flashes under one dot. Unidentified Orbiting Satellite is under the other.

That must be Godspeed. Downgraded from ship to satellite, nameless.

I peer out the window of the bridge. When the shuttle from Godspeed landed, I remember seeing a bright flash against the horizon. As I squint into the star-speckled darkness now, I see neither the space station nor Godspeed. From the looks of the locator, I’m between the two.

The control panel lights up again, flashing a message:

Manual Input Required

Beneath that, I’m given the option to direct the auto-shuttle to Godspeed or the space station. Briefly, I consider going to the station. What is the weapon there? Could it really eliminate the alien threat? It can’t be that far away, despite what Colonel Martin’s said.

But then I remember Bartie and the black patches, and I know even if I could wipe out the aliens and keep the planet for myself, I have to get to Godspeed first. But before that, I have one more task to do.

The ship is silent, and that seems appropriate. I click open the panel of controls. It still looks intimidating and complicated, but I’m looking for one thing specifically.

Finally, I find it. A tiny label. Cargo Evacuation.

I close my eyes after reading the words. Amy was once labeled as nonessential cargo, and I promised her that she was so much more than that. But the four hundred and ninety-nine dead bodies in my cargo hold cannot hear my promise now.

First, I flip the switch to undo the safety harnesses around each body, then I open the doors of the transport boxes in the hull. The grav replicator affects only the operational level of the auto-shuttle, and the bodies below deck float effortlessly into space. The release of air causes the bodies to drift, like lotus flowers floating in water, toward the cockpit. Weightless, the bodies rise from the bowels of the ship past the window before me. I recognize individual faces as they waft up before floating into the abyss of space. I try to say a silent goodbye to each of them, the Feeders who had only a few months without Phydus before being overdosed by it, the women who came here to give the babies growing inside of them a home without walls, the Shippers, the workers in the City, the engineers, all of them my people, gone. But I won’t forget them. I force myself to say their names aloud, memorize each one—Rhine and Lucien and Cessy and all the rest. I will never forget them.

Four hundred and ninety-nine people.

I lean up, pressing my face against the window as I seek out individuals, begging each person to forgive me for my part in their disastrous end.

A flash of red glints out of the corner of my eye, and my head whips around.

Amy’s mother.

Her pale skin and red hair are just like Amy’s, and though her eyes are open, she is too far away for me to see the green that lies within, though I know it’s there.

Amy almost entered the five-hundredth chamber. If she had . . .

Amy’s mother’s body moves like a dancer in the weightlessness of space. Her arms stretch out, pale skin against the blackness of the universe, and I imagine that starlight makes the golden highlights of her hair gleam.

I stand there, watching the bodies float past, until the very last one is gone, and all that’s left in the sky are stars.

My eyes are burning and watery as I sit back down in front of the control panel. I touch the Unidentified Orbiting Satellite dot on the locator screen. From the edge of the cockpit window, I see rockets burst along the right side of the auto-shuttle as it slowly turns around. More rockets kick on, and I soar closer and closer to Godspeed.

Soon I can see it.

Godspeed looks ravaged. The shuttle’s gone, of course, and the Bridge is nothing but mangled ruins. Still, my heart sings as I peer down at the ship I thought would be my home forever.

The auto-shuttle gets closer and closer—so close that I start to worry it won’t stop and I’ll just crash right into the ship. Instead, the rockets reverse thrust, and the auto-shuttle stops. I’m still several meters away from Godspeed, but I’m close enough that my window is filled with the image of it.

The red-and-white location system flashes a message: Destination Arrived. Another panel lights up. Disembarking Process Initiation.

Frex. I hadn’t thought of this. The only door to the outside of Godspeed, the hatch from which Harley threw himself, was a part of the shuttle that landed on Centauri-Earth, the same shuttle the aliens just blew up. The auto-shuttle is designed to automatically dock in the space station.

The problem?