Page 22 of Tempting Fate

“Then we put them up in field shelters until the construction is finished. We should have done this years ago. Shaa’ith should not be held prisoner in the colonies any longer!”

“How can we deal with that many in kalidi at once?”

So many people talking over each other, deviating into multiple conversations happening at once. I didn’t know where to join in, what half of them were about, and my head spun, the noise overwhelming, everyone’s speech coalescing into a giant buzz making my ears ring, my palms growing clammy, my pulse rising.

The speech died down, but the buzz remained.

“Look!”

We raised our faces to the sky. Faster than I would have thought possible, a dark shape descended. A ship of some kind, and it was going to crash in the village. Why was nobody moving?

I glanced at Imani, whose mouth was open—in wonder or horror, I wasn’t sure—but she didn’t seek to move either.

“It looks like it will land on us,” I said, raising my voice over the distant roar.

“No, it will miss us, maybe a mile or two away,” someone said.

And yet I held my breath as the vast object plummeted to soil.

Seconds after impact, the crash rumbled through my feet. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the plume of dark smoke rising from its location, too stunned to move, grappling with my disbelief.

Daiytak was the first to rise. “Suits and boots, let’s go!”

As one, the villagers rushed into motion, running to various buildings. When they emerged, they were armour-clad and armed.

A wave of lightheadedness washed over me. They had dressed this way before. When I had been taken.

The image of Garrison, Tokki, and Daiytak entering my cottage on Orith, demanding I come with them, was seared into my brain. The day everything in my life had changed.

Imani’s calm voice cut through the fog. “Airida, are you okay?”

I swallowed my nausea. A kri’ith did not show weakness. Did not show pain. “It is nothing. What is happening?”

“It’s a salvage run,” Fenn said. They slid along the bench to sit with Imani, a slender midday to Imani’s lush midnight.

“Salvage run?”

“Happens every month or two, apparently. There’s a crash, everyone hurries to strip it of its cargo and whatever else they can.”

“Everyone?”

“Nearly everyone. For example, we’re too small,” Imani said.

Fenn huffed. “Allegedly.”

“And crashes just happen?” Surely nobody would have survived. Was space travel really this dangerous? With chills running down my ear ridges, I realised my sister was out there somewhere. I hoped she was safe.

“They’re cargo pods. Corsairs jettison them if they get into a bad fight.”

Corsairs? Real ones? I had only read about them in books. Gods, this really was a terrifying new world. “Do these corsairs ever come here?”

Imani stared into the fire. “There’s all sorts in town. But it’s… safe enough here.”

Movement caught my eye; the chiyi fluttered out of my open window, flying in a direct line towards me, and settled in my headspines. So small, she was barely any weight at all, but her presence steadied me.

“I have never been in a town,” I heard myself saying.

“Never?”