This Shattered World

She watches as I turn for the window, and when I glance back before climbing out through it, she’s still holding the gun steady.

The girl is dreaming about the first time she flew. There are dozens of other orphans from the war on the shuttle with her, but most of them are from Oscar and Sierra, and she doesn’t know them. Some are crying with fear, others are talking to combat it, and a few of them are laughing.

The launch silences most of the children, the shuttle engines roaring. It isn’t until they break through Verona’s atmosphere and the engines quiet a little that the girl hears the other children again, all gasping now, exclaiming at the way their arms and legs are floating up, with nothing but their harnesses to hold them in their seats.

The girl looks out the window, watching the gentle, familiar blue sky fade into darkness. The stars come out, slowly at first and then all together, diamond-bright, each one a new world to discover.

But no matter how long the girl looks, she feels nothing. Puzzled, she looks for the girl who wanted to be an explorer, the girl who wanted to learn deep-sea diving and mountain-climbing, the girl who wanted to travel the stars. But she can’t find her. That girl died when her parents did, in a little shop in the slums of November. And now she has no soul left to shatter.

She closes the shade over the window.

I KEEP THE GLEIDEL TRAINED on the window for a full minute after he’s gone. I don’t know why—I’m not going to shoot him, and we both know it. Maybe it’s just a reminder. Of what I am, of what he is. Of how things are supposed to be between us. We were only ever supposed to see each other across the barrel of a gun.

My heart is racing like I’m in the middle of a scramble drill, its beat wild and thumping painfully in my chest. How dare he—how could he be so stupid as to come back, and so soon after the incident in town? I may not have given a description to the commander, but there was a whole bar full of soldiers that night who would stand a good chance of recognizing him if they saw him again.

I force my arm to relax, letting the gun drop to my blanket, flexing my cramped fingers. I was gripping the gun far too tightly. An emotional response. I grimace, getting to my feet and reaching for the canteen slung over the room’s desk chair.

I don’t have the luxury of dealing with his hormones—or mine, for that matter. What, did he think I was just going to melt into his arms? Start a tragic and dramatic tale of star-crossed lovers on a war-torn planet?

I should have told him about the ident chip I found. It’s proof he’s not crazy, that there was something out there in no-man’s-land. That while it might not be the full-blown conspiracy he claims, he’s not entirely wrong either. But the moment I tell him he’s right, we’ll be bound together even more than we are now. He’d have reason to keep endangering both of us with this ridiculous notion that we’re on the same side, that we could ever be allies.

I take a long pull from the canteen. But suddenly, that’s not enough. So I splash some of the water on my face, scrubbing my hands over my cheeks, my eyes, my mouth. Trying to rid myself of the smell of him close to me, the feel of his fingers against my cheek, the soft feather touch of his breath.

But no amount of scrubbing will get rid of that tired longing in his voice, the memory of how he looked at me.

I throw the canteen down onto the bed and cross to the window. There’s nothing to be seen there, only darkness. No stars, no moons—never on Avon. Only thick blackness stretching from here through the rest of the base and out into the swamp. In my mind’s eye I can see the bioluminescent wispfire from the cave, blooming against the night, tricking my eyes. No wonder the men believe in will-o’-the-wisps.

And then, abruptly, there is a light. Gentle, orange, blossoming somewhere out of sight but reflecting against the buildings nearest me and catching in the rain so that for an instant, I can see individual drops as they fall.

Then the whole building shakes with a deafening boom that knocks me against the window frame, sending shards of pain shooting up through my ribs. Ears ringing, blinded against the darkness, I stagger to my feet. It’s an explosion.

My first thought, as I try to get my feet working: Flynn. My mind goes blank, unwilling to imagine him caught in the blast.

I’m moving before I have time for anything else, jerking my combat suit on over my clothes. I grab my gun and my boots, and lurch for the door. It isn’t until I’m sprinting toward the flames rising on the other side of the base that it occurs to me.

Maybe Cormac doesn’t know his people as well as he thought he did. Maybe this is the beginning of the war.

Chaos unfolds before me as I reach the site. It’s one of the barracks, but I can’t stop to think about the implications of a bomb going off in a building full of sleeping soldiers. My eyes are used to chaos, and I shove aside a sobbing civilian in order to push closer.

Half the building is gone, collapsed into rubble, and the rest is burning fiercely. The stench of burned plastene and wood composite scorches the inside of my nose as I try to catch my breath. I unzip my combat suit and tear a hand-width strip of material from the T-shirt underneath, then wind it around my nose and mouth. There are a few bodies outside, people who were near the barracks at the time of the explosion. My stomach drops painfully, but I don’t have time to see who’s there. In the aggressive glow of the flames, it’s impossible to see any details that will tell me if Cormac is among the dead.

Not many others have gotten here yet. I’ve served on a first response team, and it’s drilled into me—but not everyone sprints toward the sound of an explosion. No other officers I can see, except for a dazed lieutenant standing a few feet away, one sleeve soaked with blood. No time for him right now.