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 myhelmet, 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.
