Empress of a Thousand Skies(26)

Dahlen walked through the circle of the holograms and fiddled with the navigational controls. With a graceful dip, the ship began to wheel in the sky. They were no longer heading toward Portiis.

“As you wish, Empress” was all he said.





EIGHT


    ALYOSHA



ALYOSHA awoke to an explosion that rocked the ship and rolled him halfway to the engine room.

Pavel was back. He extended a zipline down the ladder and clamped on to the leg of Aly’s suit.

“Fifty-three seconds out,” Pavel said, as he lifted Aly with metal hooks and dragged him down the corridor. Aly’s mind was fracturing. He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

“Save yourself,” he wanted to say, but he couldn’t make the words form.

“P, what did he say?” someone asked. That voice. He knew it. He recognized it. But the name, and the image of the guy’s face, came and went like something that passed in a rushing river.

“Undecipherable. His vocal cords have seized,” Pavel answered. “He has thirty seconds left to live.”

“What are you waiting for?” Vincent. His friend. His best friend. Vin was back.

“Positioning myself for maximum velocity,” Pavel answered. “I’ll have to puncture the chestplate—”

Vin grabbed the syringe from Pavel and drove it down into Aly’s chest, through layers of muscle and bone.

Suddenly, his heart flooded with the color purple, and the rising dawn. Every muscle spasmed, and he gasped for air. His body burned; heat came back to him in the form of a fire, coursing through his veins. Memories came back, a whole universe exploding inside of him, everything he had ever known and thought.

“Sorry, man,” Vin said. When he pulled back, his smile was rough around the edges. Aly didn’t know if Vin was about to laugh or cry.

Vin helped Aly sit up. “Where the hell did you go?”

“Hiding in the engine room.”

Aly realized it’d been too hot for Pavel to detect Vin’s heat signature down there. Why the hell hadn’t Aly thought of that? Vin stood and yanked Aly up to his feet, while Aly gripped on to Vin’s palm to make sure he was real. “I’m gone for five minutes and you inject yourself with tauri? Don’t explain,” he said, when Aly opened his mouth. “Let’s get going already, before any more of those metalheads come looking. No offense,” he added to Pavel.

“‘More of those’?” Aly repeated. His head still felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls.

Vin and Pavel had to support him to the Tin Soldier; then Pavel picked Aly up and strapped him in. Back again, but in the passenger’s seat. It was a tight fit.

“The droids aren’t the directive. They’re just following orders,” Vin said.

“The directive? What are you talking about? Who’s the directive?”

“The Regent is. Seotra killed the Princess,” Vin said. Simply. Just like that.

Aly thought of the dead Nauie, the Princess’s braid. He felt like he’d been let out of an air lock. He’d been on Kalu’s side, served in their army, been the poster child for their little TV piece of propaganda. Vin was on UniForce enlistment posters, for taejis sake. And Aly couldn’t keep his thoughts straight anyway. Everything was gumming together, and then breaking apart.

“Why would Seotra want her dead?” he asked Vincent slowly.

“Why do you think?” Vin was breathing hard, scanning left and right, as if he expected another droid to spring on them. “He wanted to stay regent. Once she took the throne, he’d lose all his power.”

“But what does that have to do with us?”

Vin made a face. “I was compromised.”

Aly stared at him. “Compromised?”

The Revolutionary and the Tin Soldier had both been taken offline so that they couldn’t fly. But almost immediately Vin started working in commands to restore the system. Aly felt a creeping sense of anxiety. Where had Vin learned to override UniForce commands?

“Back in business,” Vin said when the dash lights came on. He punched in coordinates for the Outer Belt.

Feeling was creeping back into Aly’s body, like pins and needles along his fingers and toes—and with it, a new suspicion, even a dread. Vincent was his best friend. They could talk all night or spend the whole day in silence, and either way it usually felt pretty all right, natural in a way he’d never felt with even his own family. Sometimes Vin acted differently when the cameras were on, but he knew that was just for show. He knew the difference between the real Vin and the fake Vin. At least he thought he did.

“Vincent.” He swallowed. “Who are you?”

Vin got that squinty look on his face he’d get sometimes if he had a beer too many, just before he launched into some philosophical theory. Aly waited for him to explain. But then the look melted away, his face a slate wiped clean.

Vin only said: “I’m the guy who’s going to save your sorry ass.” Then he lifted the transparent casing and pressed the red ejector button.

They jettisoned into space, and the g-force bore down on Aly’s chest. Pavel had suctioned himself low to the floor. Vin gripped the throttle and had the nerve to grin.

“Answer my question.” Blood was dripping from Aly’s forehead into his eye, and when he caught his reflection on the dash, he realized he’d split his eyebrow open again. He wiped the blood away and tried to pinch the wound shut.