I took one last look around the bungalow, wondering if I’d ever come back to the Aisé Resort, ever watch the muddy river wind through the jungle, see a group of curious ganokos, or hike up to the waterfall where Tess had fumbled through her first swimming lesson. This departure somehow felt more permanent than the last time I’d left here. Maybe that was because I knew my life was going to be different from now on. Then, I hadn’t even imagined the unexpected and heartbreaking changes coming my way. At least this time, I’d chosen a direction rather than being blindsided by tragedy and letting everything spiral from there.
I shut the door, leaving the key card inside, and used the outdoor console to pay the final balance. Tess and Mwende waited in the cruiser, ready to go, but my feet dragged. Saying goodbye to the resort felt a little like saying goodbye to my parents. Only that was a goodbye I’d never actually gotten. It just happened. One day they were there. The next, gone.
I took a long, deep breath, let it out slowly, and went to the cruiser. There werealivepeople counting on us.
Four more days until possible intel on Shiori.
Seven days to finalize an operation to try to free the Demeter Terre scientist.
If luck was on our side, we could retrieve both of them at the same time. If it wasn’t…
I shook my head. A lot could happen. Plans needed making—the sooner the better, although now it felt like we had to wait for Bridgebane’s possible contribution to know how best to move forward.
We took off to join up with theEndeavoras the Great Star slanted warm rays of early morning sunshine over the jungle. The wide Gano River cut an unmistakable, winding path across the entire continent, and I watched it until we cleared the different spheres and left the long ribbon of water behind us. Fishing hadn’t happened. I didn’t show Tess half of what I wanted to. TheI love youhovering on the tip of my tongue was still there instead of where it should be, between us.
At least we’d accomplished what we came here to do. That was something.
With open space ahead of us and the coordinates set for just outside of Demeter Terre, I got ready to jump us to Mooncamp 1. Hopefully, theEndeavorwas already there.
Settling into my seat, I asked, “Everyone strapped in?”
Beside me, Tess nodded. Mwende confirmed that she was ready from her seat just behind me in the back section of the cruiser.
“We’re off, then.” I pushed the button to engage the hyperdrive engine.
Faster-than-light travel gripped us in its narrow tunnel. Pressure sat on my lungs with the weight of a neutron star. I hated this part. I couldn’t breathe. Up was down, down was up, and I just wanted it to be over. My mouth filled with saliva as my insides rose and dropped and tilted. Warp speed affected all but the sturdiest of stomachs, and mine was no exception. Darkness whirled and spun us into a tight, crushing cocoon, but instead of emerging as something else, we suddenly emerged elsewhere.
My navel crashed into my spine as we slowed, the shift leaving me hollowed out and dizzy. For a second, it felt as though we were traveling backward. I slowly exhaled. Blinked and swallowed. Demeter Terre dwarfed the smaller rock beside her. The huge harvest planet and her biggest moon filled most of our clear panel.
I let out a low whistle as my insides settled back into their correct positions. “Damn, that’s pretty.” Demeter Terre was vibrant, varied, and a giant of a planet with the unmistakable deep blues of vast bodies of water and the fertile greens of croplands that rolled on forever. Too bad it was contaminated. As for the moon, it looked windswept and covered in tundra. The two were like night and day, but looks could be deceiving. One seemed welcoming, but the toxins in the air would kill you. The other appeared hostile, but apparently, human beings could breathe there.
“That’s going to be a shock to the system after Reaginine,” I said of the mostly tan and red moon with what appeared to be large rocky or frozen areas. “No wonder they’re starving here. Those aren’t exactly growing conditions.”
“They have greenhouses around the Mooncamps,” Tess said. “And pockets of livestock. But it’s not enough to feed all the refugees.”
“How many are there?”
“Moons?” she asked. “Six habitable DT moons—they were terraformed ages ago to house the seasonal workers who came for the harvests—and six principal Mooncamps.”
“And population?” That’d been my actual question, although I was interested in the rest.
She shrugged. “Maybe five hundred thousand.”
I glanced at Demeter Terre again.Five hundred thousand?Of themillionsthat had once inhabited that planet? The queasiness making my stomach fold in on itself had less to do with the jump now and more to do with general disgust. I was a toddler at the time of the DT massacre, but I knew what happened here. Why had I grown up and lived my life just accepting it? Why did anyone? Tess hadn’t. The fact that I had—for thirty-two fucking years—suddenly seemed unconscionable.
I stared at that lost world. Images had been banned to dull public outrage, but I could still picture the way it went down that day. The chemical weapons simultaneously detonating over all four continents. People around the planet gasping for breath, going into convulsions, dying. The thousands of cruisers and ships shooting off DT in a panic with zero supplies and their human cargo often succumbing within minutes to the blood agents.
The poisonous cocktail the Overseer had used was slowly fading from the atmosphere, but it was still toxic enough to prevent repopulation. Still, why six Mooncamps?
“The refugees could consolidate on the largest moon. Wouldn’t that be easier to manage?” I asked.
“Farmers were kings down there.” Tess nodded to the big blue and green planet. Anger hardened her expression. “They already knew what happened to all the eggs in one basket. Then, they got to live it.”
“It’s been a generation since the Overseer attacked. My entire lifetime. Why don’t they leave? Go somewhere more hospitable? Any number of planets could absorb that few people, even if they all wanted to stay together.”
“A generation?” Tess’s cutting laugh chilled the whole front section of the cruiser. “It doesn’t matter if it’s beentengenerations. That’s their home, and they want it back. You of all people should understand fighting for something you’ve lost.”
My lower jaw jutted out. Yeah, I got that. Got it in spades, in fact.
