There was a sort of symmetry to it, she supposed. Maybe this was why she had survived the catastrophe on theLetowhen no one else had. After the attack, they had said she was cursed. That particular rumor had grown in proportion when someone had leaked her mission history. Maybe they were right—after all, everything was about to go up in flames again.
Or maybe they were wrong. Perhaps fate had only spared her life that day so she could spend it when it would matter. God knew she had thought about wasting it often enough. At least this way, her death would count for something. A strange sense of relief swept over her at the thought.
No more pain, no more guilt. She could finally rest.
She could only pray that they would find some way to survive, that a planet that could host sentient alien life would be hospitable to them, that they wouldn’t be found and captured.
Sentient alien life.
It was too much to think about. She pressed the racing questions in her mind aside, focusing on her flight path. She punctured the planet’s mesosphere. Flames streaked around the ship as the force of entry flattened her back against her seat. Every breath was a battle against an elephant sitting on her chest.
They’d practiced this a hundred times before launch, stuffed into a machine that spun them so fast they couldn’t lift their heads off their seats until they could make it out without puking or panicking. Yet, even knowing she would survive, a part of her mind churned with fear at the strangling force.
The alien voice returned as she struggled to focus through the pressure, repeating the same phrase several times, growing more frantic.
“I get it,” she whispered, watching the planet come hurtling toward her. “I’m about to blow it. I already know.”
She managed to level off somehow as she dropped into the stratosphere, decelerating enough to scope out a place to drop the pods. They were programmed to try to remain within a kilometer of one another. If she could find a safe spot for them all to land, the women within should be able to join up afterwards. They would need each other to survive.
The interior of the ship was bright red, alarms blaring, her screen a never-ending scroll of angry red text.
Below her was open ocean, churning with whitecaps. She pushed the ship further, ignoring the threatening rattle of metal, trying not to wince when something peeled off the nose of the ship and went hurtling overhead. The ocean gave way to a beach with silver sands—literally silver, gleaming so bright it threatened to blind her. She squinted, pushing further from the water, wanting to be sure none of the pods would drift into those restless depths.
When a forest began to cover the ground beneath her, she forced her arm out, shoved the plastic cover off the emergency evacuation button, and brought her fist down hard.
There was a loud hiss and a series of clangs as the pods deployed. The air on the ship was suddenly too thin to breathe. A mask dropped down from overhead and she pulled it over her face with shaking hands, sucking down what was likely her final breath. She watched on the screen as the pods descended, her heart in her throat as she waited for something to go wrong.
The alien voice on the intercom turned angry, ranting.
The thrusters were failing. The landing gear was jammed. Even if she’d been able to find a clear strip of land, she wouldn’t have been able to set theCassandradown in the state she was in.
Cordelia looked over her shoulder at the empty space where her pod had once been.
Too late for regrets.
She turned her gaze back to the window, allowing herself to enjoy her last few moments of existence. It was beautiful, this planet. Soaring mountains of purple stone grew larger in the distance, flanked on all sides by a forest of green and purple trees.
Felix would have loved this.She could imagine the wonder in his dark, twinkling eyes as he took it all in, could imagine the wheels turning in his head as he tried to think of some clever quip to deliver and ruin the moment.
I’m sorry, his voice whispered from deep in her memory.
Her hands slipped from the controls, falling into her lap.
I’m coming, Felix.
The nose of the ship began to dip, and she closed her eyes, tensing, waiting for the release of impact.
CHAPTER 2
She didn’t knowhow much time passed between the moment when she closed her eyes to await her death and the instant when she realized it wasn’t coming. Her stomach lurched oddly as the ship pulled up hard once more. The harness bit into her as theCassandratwisted sharply, pulling her to one side with such force that she briefly lost consciousness.
When she came back to herself, the ship was skimming low over the ocean, moving significantly slower than it had been. A moment later, it skipped over the water, rattling her so hard she thought her teeth might crack. She cringed into her seat, gripping the straps of her harness.
She skipped like a stone a few times, water surging in through the holes left by the absent pods, swirling around her ankles as the scent of brine filtered through the mask. The ship was sinking even before it had come to a full stop, listing to the side where the pods had been.
I’m alive?
Water swept up over the window, revealing the flashing metallic bodies of a school of small fish.
