Undying Read online

  If only telling myself that would stop me feeling like I’m about to throw up in my helmet.

  My legs are moving anyway, and I stride up to the pair like I mean business, causing both their heads to turn my way.

  “Atlanta?” I ask, pointing a finger at her, leaning back from my vowels to keep them sharp, making it a question. “Dex?”

  “Yeh?” Atlanta says, speaking slowly.

  I throw my hands up like I’m praising the lord that I’ve found them. “Talk about hassle. My partner’ll be thisways any minute.”

  Neither of them immediately expresses the relief and understanding I’m fishing for. Dex remains in the doorway, watching me, and Atlanta blinks slowly.

  “Who are you?”

  I know what Mia would do. She’d lean in, she’d completely commit. Deus, I wish I was Mia right now.

  “I’m Jules,” I say, contriving to sound like this is just a little bit obvious, and I’m surprised they haven’t already been briefed. I think I’m better sticking to my own name—from what I’ve observed, theirs are mainly traditional human names, but shortened, as in Dex’s case, or things or places, as in Atlanta’s.

  “We’re not waiting on you,” says Atlanta, with her customary bluntness. She’ll be the harder sell, I know that.

  “I compren,” I agree. “But it’s all shuffled now, yeh? I was told to meet up with Prime-One.” I’m praying that Atlanta got her way, and that she and Dex got the beno destin she’d been hoping for.

  Atlanta’s still squinting at me. I know I’m close enough for her to see through my faceplate, so I keep my expression serious. “What destin you got?”

  “Prime-Two,” I answer, wishing I had Mia’s glibness.

  Atlanta’s squint turns to a frown. “Prime-Two’s on the flipside of the planet down there, Jules, why you landing on Europe with us?”

  Europe, I think, my heart throwing in an extra beat. Where home is. Where Neal is. Where my father is. I scramble for words. “We were Prime-Two, but in the shuffle someone else got it.” I throw every ounce of irritation and frustration I have into my voice, channeling the tutors back at Oxford when forced to deal with undergrads—the ultimate indignity. “Now we’re support for Prime-One, like they think we can’t all handle the destin we got first time round.”

  But before she can interrogate me further, Dex peers down from his place above us in the doorway to the shuttle. “I don’t see us,” he points out, though he sounds slightly more friendly. “Where’s your partner?”

  I roll my eyes. “She’s coming. I pledge, I told her to check her suit again, but no, and now the piece-of-lixo seal …” I wave one hand in a what-can-you-do type gesture, because while I’m fairly sure a seal would be part of even an alien spacesuit, I certainly don’t know what would go wrong with it.

  Atlanta shakes her head. “We’re shifting with Keats and Nakry,” she insists.

  I shrug. “I’m pretty sure they’re already mostways to planetside, they got shuffled too—they’re the ones that got Prime-Two.”

  Exactly what I’m going to do if Keats and Nakry show up before Mia does, I have no idea.

  The pair of them exchange a long look, and some kind of unspoken communication—he tilts his head slightly, she lifts her brow. For all Atlanta’s outward bluster, they’re deciding together whether they need to go seek clarification from someone higher up the tree.

  “Sirsly,” I say, wishing I were half as good at bluffing as I am at getting these sharp vowel sounds and truncated words right. “It’s beno. You’re Dex”—I point first at him, then swing my finger across—“and you’re Atlanta. Those are the names I got. It’s all hassle, all day long without the—” I’m about to say “headsets,” when I realize I have no idea what the Undying call them. So I tap my finger to the temple where the glass would rest instead. “I pledge, you’re my new destin.”

  They exchange another long look, as I wonder how much slang is too much. My chest is still tight, and I know my words are tumbling out too fast, and my palms are sweating, and I still have no idea where Mia is, or how long she’ll be. But I can’t push the two of them—even I, in all my inexperience, can sense that. If I press too hard, the bluff will fail.

  I have their names. Double-checking the instructions would mean trekking around the ship in search of an authority figure, without their headsets. I just need to wait this out.

  Dex speaks casually, tucking a stray strand of hair back into place. “You from the Cortes squadron, Jules?”

  One heartbeat stretches to an eternity. Is he trying to figure out why he doesn’t know my face, or is this a trap? Does the Cortes squadron exist?

  “Yeh,” I say, pushing all my metaphorical chips to the center of the table. Betting on Cortes existing at all. On it being a place I might have trained without meeting them.

  Atlanta huffs. “Well, your training better match up with ours,” she says, frustration evident. “If this goes to lixo because—”

  “It won’t,” I tell her, too quickly. “We’re dying to get planetside. We’re your backup, we’ll take your lead. We’re ready. This is what we’ve lived until now to do.” I’m parroting her own enthusiasm back at her, the readiness I’ve heard her talk about to Dex a dozen times, and her shoulders drop, relaxing just a fraction.

  Then Dex’s voice sounds from above us again. “Forget the destin, the launch is gonna go to lixo if your partner doesn’t show up.”

  I glance across at the line, and my heart, which had only restarted a couple of beats before, speeds up to double time. We’re not tenth in the queue anymore.

  We’re fourth, and Mia’s nowhere to be seen.

  There’s a gap between our shuttle and the one in front, and Dex braces against the door frame with both hands as it suddenly lurches forward—it’s on some sort of conveyor belt, and Atlanta and I keep pace, walking along beside it. Ahead, I can see the first shuttle in the queue—alongside four other shuttles from the heads of four other queues—move forward into the airlock.

  Once all five shuttles are in position, the airlock doors close behind them. In a moment the outer doors will open, and the five shuttles will launch. Then the airlock will repressurize, and the inner doors will open to admit the next five.

  We’re third in the queue.

  “Where’s your partner?” Atlanta says again, and I crane my neck, looking at the entrance through which I’m desperately hoping I’ll see Mia appear.

  Trust me, Atlanta, I’m more worried than you are.

  “She’ll be here,” I say. “No hassle.”

  Hopefully she’ll be here before Keats and Nakry show up.

  “What do we do if she doesn’t show?” Dex says from the doorway, anxious. “We’ve got our launch slot, we can’t just give it up. We could land mostways across the planet from our site, if we don’t get out on time.”

  Atlanta’s mouth firms to a thin line. “If she doesn’t show, then us three go,” she replies. “I’m not gonna miss the landing site we prepped for. We fought for this destin, and I’m not losing it.”

  The shuttle abruptly shifts again, trundling along its own length, as another five disappear into the airlock.

  We’re second in the queue.

  Perfututi, Mia, what do I do?

  I abandon that question as quickly as I ask it, because I know Mia’s answer—I climb into the shuttle and I go, and I try to bluff them until I can get away from them and warn somebody. Because our families are down there, because billions of people are down there, and all of them outweigh one girl left behind in orbit. But just because I know what answer she’d give doesn’t mean I like it.

  Because she’s just one girl against billions to them—but not to me.

  Dex pulls on his helmet, and Atlanta climbs up onto the step beside him to check the seals at the back, then dons her own.

  “Jules,” she calls. “We gotta strap in, we’re next.”

  My heart’s hammering. I’m staring at the entrance, the voice in my head chanti
ng a rhythmic command, over and over, lost for anything else to do. Hurry, Mia. Hurry, Mia. Hurry, Mia.

  I try for a slow breath, to convince my body for even a few seconds that everything’s all right. To force myself to think. But this isn’t a water polo match, this isn’t a final exam, and my body’s having none of it. My head’s pounding.

  “Jules,” Atlanta calls again, impatient, then ducks into the shuttle to take her seat.

  I can’t do this. I can’t leave her.

  “Jules,” Dex says, gentler, still on the steps. “We have orders. Prime-One—we can’t risk that destin. I compren you want to share it with your partner—I wouldn’t want to do this anyways but with Atlanta—but this is bigger than any one of us.”

  It’s like he’s echoing my own thoughts.

  I force myself to take one step backward toward the shuttle.

  One girl left behind in orbit.

  Warn Earth, and maybe they can get to her before the Undying do.

  One girl left behind.

  Mia … I don’t think I can do this.

  And then I see her. One figure in a suit, shorter than everyone else, racing in through the door and stopping short, helmeted head swinging around as she hunts for me in the crowd.

  “There she is,” I tell Dex, even as I raise my hand to catch her attention. “Strap in, she’s coming thisways.”

  I don’t want Dex to see how short she is, but a moment later he’s inside, and I’m jumping, waving. I can tell the instant she spots me. She shoves past a group of ground crew in jumpsuits to race toward me. She’s so obviously smaller than everyone around her, but she’s moving so quickly, and amid so much chaos, that nobody has the chance to do anything about it. I see a few heads turn, I see the moment when they realize something’s not quite right, but before any of them can reach out, she’s past.

  I can see her grin through her faceplate as she reaches me, and I reach out to grab her hand, squeezing tight. She squeezes right back, eyes a little wild, though whether it’s at the near miss or the chase she just provoked, I don’t know.

  “Atlanta and Dex are inside,” I tell her, nodding to the shuttle, keeping my accent up. “They’re the ones we were ordered to join. Our destin.”

  “I compren,” she says simply, picking up on my reminder to use their slang without skipping a beat. She hurries up the steps, eager to get out of sight.

  I climb up into the shuttle after her, and I turn to reach up for the door, grabbing the thick handle on the inside and preparing to tug it down.

  That’s when I spot a pair of Undying running straight toward us, one waving urgently. I know without question that they’re Keats and Nakry, the pair we’re replacing.

  I yank at the handle, slamming the door shut behind me.

  The interior of the shuttle is small, not much larger than a private vehicle at home. Atlanta and Dex are strapped into the two front seats, and she must be the pilot, because she’s running her hands over controls that glimmer on the dashboard before her.

  Mia and I throw ourselves into the seats behind Atlanta and Dex, trying not to look baffled by the configuration of restraints and straps. I yank the harness down over my shoulders, fumbling until I find the place to click it home.

  “Dex?” Atlanta barks, as a jolt tells me we’re moving up into the airlock, the conveyor belt shuffling us forward.

  “Beno,” he says, as a shield slides down to cover the front windscreen, and protect us on reentry.

  “Jules?” she says.

  “Beno,” I choke out, pressing my foot against Mia’s, then shoving it back into the padded groove cut in the base of my seat for it, to keep it from moving as we’re jostled around. Deus, we’re about to take this tiny thing all the way through Earth’s atmosphere, to land who-knows-where, with two Undying who’ll do who-knows-what once they figure out who we are.

  “Other girl,” she snaps.

  “Mia,” she supplies, following my lead in giving her own name. “Beno.”

  “Launch sequence,” Atlanta says, all business, flipping another switch and running her finger over a dial that lights up in response. A panel pulses expectantly, and Atlanta places her palm against it until it gives a pleasant chime of acceptance. I glance at Mia, who’s watching me, grim-faced. If we’d tried to steal a shuttle, we wouldn’t have gotten past the palm scanner.

  “Here we go, Peaches,” Dex says, low and excited.

  Mia’s eyes are still on mine. “Onward, if you dare,” I murmur.

  It’s the last line of the Undying broadcast. It’s the challenge they issued us, that led to everything that’s happened. It’s the way Mia and I have operated since the moment we met.

  And maybe it’s my voice, or my choice of words, or maybe it’s just instinct, but that’s the moment Dex leans forward in his seat, straining at his straps, and twisting to try and get a better look at us both.

  And just for an instant, he sees Mia’s noticeably smaller frame strapped into her seat, her face, clearly white and freckled even through her faceplate, completely unfamiliar.

  His eyes widen, and his mouth opens like he’s been punched in the gut, forced to suck in a quick breath of air. And then the whole shuttle gives a teeth-rattling jolt, and he’s forced back into position.

  “Here we go,” Atlanta says, a kind of grim pleasure in her tone. “Ours for the taking. Brace in three, two, one …”

  THE FORCE OF THE LAUNCH THROWS US ALL BACK AGAINST OUR SEATS. My internal organs are trying to shove their way out around my spine, and all I can think is how glad I am I haven’t eaten much of anything in the last two days, or I’d be upchucking all the way from here to Earth. When I close my eyes, I can feel tears pooling, cold and unfeeling, along my lashes.

  And then it all stops.

  This isn’t like the rocket launch that got me up through the Gaia portal and to that space station—the initial force came from the launch bay we just left behind, some kind of rail system or slingshot that pushed this spacecraft out into the black. No shuddering, gut-wrenching vibrations, no crushing weight of G-forces compressing your lungs. And this time I’m not hidden away in cargo, lost in blackness, blinded to the experience of going up into space.

  I can hear my breath, strangely artificial in the confines of my helmet, and yet quivering and unsteady with adrenaline. I open my eyes, and something flickers past my vision, making me jerk away until my gaze focuses.

  It’s a teardrop, floating just beyond my eyes.

  My arms rise, and automatically I try to pull them down again, my body struggling to understand why my shoulders have to work to stay in my seat, and as a faint blue glow appears at the edge of the viewscreen ahead, upside down, I’m flailing for the armrests, trying desperately to find something to hold on to.

  Then my mind catches up with my instincts, and I remember I’m strapped down, that I’m not falling, that this is weightlessness. This is space.

  Unable to resist, I lean forward until I can see out a little triangular viewport to my left. All I can see is stars. More stars than I’ve ever imagined, more stars even than I could see on Gaia, which had the darkest, blackest nights I’d ever known. My breathing quickens until a touch at my elbow drags my eyes away from the view.

  Jules is watching me, his face difficult to read behind his helmet. He can only brush the edge of my arm with his fingertips from where he sits, but I can read his worry in the tautness of his frame as he strains to reach me. But as soon as he sees my face, the taut muscles relax and let his arms float as carelessly as mine are.

  I never got to see this, the first time.

  Jules did, though. Still, his face doesn’t wear a smile like mine. Little jets kick in at intervals around the exterior of the craft, tilting us at an angle, intensifying the glow of light still out of view. But it’s enough to see his face. His head turns forward, and I know what he would say, if we could risk speaking.

  Dex.

  My mind plays the moment over and over. The intense gaze, the stiffe
ning body, the flash of recognition mixed with confusion and horror. He saw us. I don’t know if it was my voice that gave us away, or my height or face, or if something Jules said had raised his suspicions already, but he saw us. He knows we’re not Undying.

  And he hasn’t said a word.

  “We’re right on target,” comes Atlanta’s voice, tinny and artificial, but crystal clear within my helmet—we must be miked, with speakers in the helmets, wirelessly connected to each other. “Trajectory at ninety-nine point eight—hah! And you said we’d be scrambling to readjust.”

  Dex shifts, and I stiffen, but he’s only reaching out to tap at some display I can’t read from back here. “The lixo heap does a better job at launches than I guessed.”

  I glance at Jules, who’s listening and staring as intently as I am, and wearing an expression of such bafflement I’d laugh if I wasn’t so frightened. I can’t think what will happen to us once they’re secure enough in their “trajectory” to deal with stowaways.

  Is there an airlock on this thing?

  An image flashes before me: two spacesuited bodies, spinning out of control, surrounded by inky darkness and stars, just a breath away from each other but without a way to close that distance.

  I choke on my own breath as I try to bury that image. Don’t even think it.

  In front of us, the spacesuit on the right moves, helmet twisting a fraction. “Okay back there, Mia?” Dex’s voice is mild.

  For a moment, I can’t speak—a genial question about my well-being was not what I expected. “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Yeh. Beno.” I want to look at Jules, but with Dex eyeing me sidelong, I can’t risk it.

  Was I wrong? Had I mistaken something else for recognition? Except that Jules saw it too, I know he did.

  Abruptly, the thoughts that had been suppressed by the sheer strangeness of spaceflight kick into overdrive. I don’t know how long we’ve got until we get far enough into the atmosphere for the weightlessness to vanish—long enough for me to get out of my seat, incapacitate the other two somehow, and get back? But even if I could, we’ve got no idea how much of the controls are automated. We can’t hijack a spaceship we don’t know how to fly.