Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(110)

He doesn’t move. I wait, let everyone see he’s afraid to back up his words with actions.

I hold out my hand.

“If you won’t do yourself what you ask others to do for you, then give me back my godsdamned spear, you murdering bastard.”

We stare at each other. The universe fades away: there is only the two of us.

Infinite moments pass by.

Aramovsky breaks. He looks away. Without another word, he tilts the spear toward me.

I take it. The cool wood feels nice in my hand.

“Remove that bracelet, Aramovsky—and get off my spider. I’ll deal with you later.”

He slides the bracelet from his arm, lets it clatter to the spider’s metal deck.

As I watch him descend the rungs, I hear sounds of surprise and alarm from my people.

While Aramovsky and I faced off, the Springers—thousands of them—quietly closed in. Their line runs under the shuttle, winding around the landing gear, spreading out wide on either side. Some of them stare at the shuttle in open amazement, gawking at something their kind hasn’t seen in generations. Far more stare at us, muskets leveled, enough that one volley would probably kill everyone.



My people reply in kind, leveling bracelets, climbing to spiderback and manning cannons or crouching low with hoes and picks and axes and shovels. Even if all of us die in that first salvo, Spingate and Gaston remain safe inside the shuttle. If the Springers attack, I know she will unleash the shuttle’s weapons, try to wipe out this violent species so that her unborn child may someday live safe and free.

If I don’t do something now, I haven’t stopped the slaughter, I’ve only delayed it.

“Lower your weapons,” I shout at my people. “This fight is over!”

Some comply, some don’t.

Barkah yells at his kind, loud and commanding. I don’t know what he’s saying, but the result is immediate: most of the Springers lower their musket barrels. They haven’t put their guns down, but they aren’t aiming them at us, either.

We’re doing it. Barkah and I, together, we’re going to stop this.

Then, a bark of command from behind the Springer lines. The muskets snap up again, each one dead-level, aimed at me, at Bishop, at the spider riders, at the children holding tools. My people do the same: we’re one trigger twitch shy of a bloodbath.

Another bark from behind the lines, somewhere under the shuttle. Straight out from my spider, the Springer line splits.

Four of the biggest Springers I’ve seen yet hop forward, their muskets aimed at me. Bluish-red skin marked with scars, weapons strapped to their bodies: axes, knives, swords. Any one of them looks like a match for Bishop when Bishop is at his best.



Two of them move slightly to the right, two slightly to the left.

From between them hops forward an old Springer, one whose blue skin is turning ashen and gray. Hanging from his neck is an ornate copper plate.

Barkah’s parent: the Springer king.

I angle my spear toward the Springer prince.

Barkah looks at it. After watching Aramovsky give it to me, I think he understands the weapon’s significance.

“Your turn,” I say. “I’m afraid I can’t do the talking here.” I give the spear a little shake. “Together. We do this together.”

His two good eyes—two alert, pain-filled eyes—look at me.

“Hem…peace.”

I nod. “Peace.”

His right hand reaches out, grips the spear. As one, we raise my people’s symbol of leadership.

Barkah talks. I don’t understand a word he says. I see Springers’ guns waver, see the aliens looking at each other, looking at their ruler. Perhaps some emotions are constant in any intelligent species—these Springers are confused, they are being told two things and don’t know which is true.

The Springer king’s entire body contorts. His eyes widen, his lips angrily curl back, show teeth. He screams at Barkah. He turns and screams at his people, first to the left, then repeating the same thing to the right.

And then I hear something soft, something nearly silent. If I wasn’t standing right next to Barkah, our arms together raising the spear, I wouldn’t have heard it at all. The sound sends a chill up my spine, tells me that something is horribly wrong.

It is the sound of broken glass.

Quietly, to himself, Barkah is laughing—laughing like a person who is watching a plan unfold, like someone who knew exactly what was going to happen.



The Springer king turns to face us. He says something, and the bodyguard on his right hands over his musket. The Springer king puts the butt to his thin shoulder: he aims it at us.

He says something else, something angry, definitive and commanding.

I again hear Barkah’s tiny broken-glass laugh. The prince raises his left arm.

He’s wearing Aramovsky’s bracelet.

I freeze. I didn’t even see him pick it up.

I stare. So does the king. That sense of command, of absolute authority, it leaves his eyes. For a horrible moment, I can read his emotions: shock, disbelief…betrayal.

Barkah flicks his two fingers forward.

The beam lashes out. White fire engulfs the king. The alien scream—a sound I will never be able to forget—lasts only a split second, then ends forever as his body rips into a hundred pieces. Blue blood and meat chunks splatter on the Springers behind him, splash his bodyguards with charred gore.