His voice is so warm I feel sick. They have such affection for each other, these two soldiers in the army come to wrest our planet from us. And they look no older than we are, despite the enormity of what they’re doing.
At first I thought it was just something to do with their appearance—as I hurried through the shuttle bay, my first thought was that they all looked like teenagers because that was the image they copied when they altered themselves to look like us. But now … the way they speak, with bravado and fear all at once, the way they move, the affection between them—theyactlike teenagers, albeit exceptional ones.
It was easy to think of them as enemies when we were crouching inside the walls, eavesdropping, stealing food when we could. It’s a lot harder now, watching Dex reach out and brush Atlanta’s arm in exactly the way Jules tried to touch me.
“Oh chill, look—it’s a storm!” Dex’s voice is quick with boyish excitement, and he gestures at a seemingly stationary spiral of clouds hovering over a cobalt expanse of sea.
Atlanta’s body jerks as she twists to follow the line of his hand, gasping in delight. “Clouds! I can’t believe how easy they are to see—water vapor! On Hestia you can be mostways to the middle of an electrical storm and not know it until your suit kicks out.”
But as she’s speaking, Dex’s other hand moves, smooth with stealth, toward a control on the panel before them. A tiny touch, that’s all—but an indicator light winks out on the panel.
Atlanta’s leaning back again, tipping her helmet our way and asking cheerfully, “Did Cortes do surface training on Hestia?”
It takes me a moment to realize the question’s directed at us. I have no idea what Cortes is, aside from some vague memory of history class in fourth grade, and somehow I doubt that’s what this invader from an ancient alien race is talking about.
I glance at Jules, only to see him wide-eyed and frozen, mouth half-open. He recognizes the question, but doesn’t know how to answer.
“Don’t hassle them, Peaches,” replies Dex, as lightly as ever, his hand gliding over the controls, fingers stealthily touching a few more buttons. “Not everybody wants to chatter while fulfilling their life’s purpose.”
Jules’s mouth closes, and I hear him exhale—loud enough for the mics to pick it up. His eyes meet mine, and he lifts both eyebrows in a helpless shrug of an expression.
If it were any other situation, if the boy in the front seat wasn’t an alien wearing a human face—I’d think Dex wascoveringfor us.
The arc of Earth’s horizon is gone, above the edge of the viewscreen now, giving us a rectangular cutout of sea, cloud, and land. It’s even more impossible to tell now what part of the planet we’re seeing. The colors seem strangely muted, and as I narrow my eyes in an attempt to clear my vision, I realize my arms aren’t floating anymore. They’ve settled gently back against the armrests, and the rest of my body is no longer pressed against the harness but rather cradled once more in the embrace of the seat.
The landscape below is tinted a rosy orange now, and it’s not until I lean out to look through the side port again that I realizeeverythingis that same pinky-tangerine color, and that the stars have vanished. It’s not that the Earth is glowing red—we’re in the atmosphere, and it’s burning.
The drag pushes us down into our seats all the more, the plasma outside glowing hotter and hotter until, with an innocuous little beep at the console, some automatic system kicks in and all the windows go black. Some kind of heat shield, I hope—I’m trying not to think about it, but I can feel sweat pooling at my throat.
You’re imagining the heat, I tell myself furiously.If you could actually feel it, you’d be dead.
The pressure against my body keeps growing, long past the point of normal gravity, until drawing a simple breath is an effort, and my vision starts to sparkle warningly. My peripheral vision starts to narrow, and when I realize I can’t see Jules anymore, even out of the corner of my eye, I lose even the ability to breathe.
“Brace for chute deployment,” comes a voice through my helmet. In the crush of G-forces and the jolting and shuddering of the craft, I can’t tell who’s speaking.
I only have a moment to drag in a little air before my harness grabs me by the shoulders and yanks me backward. The heat shielding has vanished, and through the screen I see a wild jumble of colors and shapes zigzagging every which way. Someone gurgles something—maybe it’s me—and then the shifting scenery settles a little. We’re swinging side to side, the horizon tipping one way and then the other. I see a city in the far distance, nothing more than a jagged skyline at the edge of a distant expanse of ocean. Trees, or a plain, below. Clouds. Sky.
The Undying seem more irritated by the violence of reentry than utterly destroyed, like I feel. Atlanta’s the first to speak, and she gives a gusty sigh and mutters, “Only think, this is how they all made planetfall just a couple hundred years ago. Primitive.”
Dex chuckles, though his voice is a little shaky and he’s slower to move, uncurling his hands from the armrests. “Primitive but tough, our founders.”
Atlanta snorts, and when she answers, her voice is much darker. “Gods, compared to the protos.”
Dex doesn’t answer. Nor does he turn and look at us. But as we dangle from the parachute, basking in the sudden calm, he’s far more tense than Atlanta—she just seems eager. Excited, like a kid on Christmas morning.
Until she stiffens, examining something on their dashboard. “Dex—Dex, this is all wrong. We’re off course.”
Dex makes a good show of alarm, but I saw his surreptitious use of the controls. If we’re off course, he’s the one who made it happen. “Sirsly? This lixo shuttle—it must have something wrong with one of the thrusters.”
Atlanta’s poring over the dashboard, movements frantic. “We’ve gotta do something—”
“The chute’s already out,” Dex protests, flashing her a helplesslook. “We’ll land where we land. If we’re off course, we’ll find a way to shift to our assignment.” He pauses, watching her stricken face. “I pledge, Peaches. We’ll make it.”
The horizon swells slowly against the view screen, like a line of water rising in a fish tank, until I can no longer see the sky. There are mountains all around, but different from anything I’ve seen—bulbous, swollen stone instead of the sharp, crisp peaks in the Rocky Desert back home, or the gentle rolls of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m half expecting a burst of panic from Atlanta or Dex, for surely this can’t be a safe place to land—and then the soft green of a valley comes into view.
Choking back my panic, hoping none of it was audible over the mics, I watch the ground rushing up toward us with rising certainty that this is going tohurt.
We’re going home, I tell myself, chanting the words over and over in my mind. More often than not over the past few weeks, I thought I’d never get to say those words again. I try as hard as I can to concentrate on that.
