Empress of a Thousand Skies(45)

FOURTEEN


    ALYOSHA



ALY was on his way to Portiis because it was what Vin had wanted them to do, and because he had nowhere else to go. He thought of this one time he, Jeth, and Vin had been on leave there. They had spent their last night staying up way too late and drinking in Jeth’s backyard, talking about nothing and everything—about the things they’d do, the places they’d see, how none of them were going to be anything like their fathers . . .

They were due back to duty the next day, and they nearly fell asleep in formation they were so damn tired. Sergeant Vedcu made them clean the squad bay for half a day—scrubbing floors that were already spotless, thinking that maybe they’d die on their hands and knees with a washrag as their only witness.

“Worth it,” Vin had said.

Vin never had any regrets. Never let anything stop him. What was that expression, for the kind of guy who went big?

He knows how to live.

And now Vin was dead while Aly hid out in the cargo hold of an interquadrant zeppelin. It was as terrible as it sounded—hours trying to spot your own hands in the dark; a crinkly tarp on the cold ground for a bed; storage containers as bathrooms, placed all over like he had to mark his territory.

But the worst part? Having all the time to think. To wonder, a million times over, why he was the one who’d survived. Aly had never killed anyone before, and he’d thought that if it came down to it, it would be in a face-off against an enemy on the battlefield. Instead, Aly had killed his best friend to get a stupid apology he didn’t even deserve.

The crash on Naidoz had left him weak. Sometimes, when he started to fall asleep, he felt himself tumbling toward icy dark water again and woke up with a start. Pavel had had a surprisingly effective floating mechanism, but Aly had had to drag Vin to the surface. By then he wasn’t moving on his own, but his eyebrows remained arched in surprise, like maybe even in death he was thinking, For real?

Pavel had helped him bury Vin, there on that cold, rocky planet. Aly had left the hammer on his chest.

Now metal wire sparked at Aly’s fingertips as he tried to rig the door open. He dropped it with a curse and looked at his throbbing hand. It wasn’t the first time he’d electrocuted himself learning this system. His fingers were cold, clumsy. Distractions weren’t helping him any either. Stop thinking about Vin.

“Soldering iron,” Aly whispered to Pavel, who wordlessly passed him an attachment shaped like a stylus. You couldn’t get the system open without a barcode—so this was Aly’s only option. After a few more adjustments, the door slid open. The sound of compressed air had never been so sweet. The lightbulb outside in the hallway was unscrewed, just as he’d left it—which meant he would be invisible. He counted off a few seconds—enough so that anyone watching or listening would assume he’d slipped out into the hallway—then moved into a crouch again.

Time to catch the choirtoi who’d been stealing from him.

After the crash, Aly had walked for a whole day to the nearest town, where he stole a pod outside an oxygen bar and booked it to the neighboring planet of Fannah. He felt bad about the pod, but he had to get the hell out of the Kalusian territories, fast. Besides, he was sure it would be recovered practically as soon as he ditched it. Then the holos would be on fire with all the Revolutionary Boys conspiracy theories. If and when they found Vincent’s body, Aly would be on the hook for another murder.

From Fannah, he’d hitched a ride on a freighter headed for the Outer Belt. With a stolen ID, a head scarf, and a fake Chram accent, Aly had managed to sneak on board alongside thousands of refugees fleeing Kalu’s newly declared “military zones”—code for places that would get wiped as soon as they started dropping em-stones that rendered anything that ran on electricity useless.

He was a refugee, twice over.

At least during the forced evac of Wraeta he hadn’t been alone. Even as they’d walked for seven days to the nearest port, there were entire families alongside them, babies they all took turns holding, other kids to make up games with. It had been the most arid season in decades during that exodus. They’d arrive at each stop covered in a layer of dust so thick, people joked they couldn’t be told apart. It’s why they’d called them dusties.

Now Aly had nowhere to go and no one to walk beside him. He thought about calling Jeth, but if he powered on his cube, he might as well surrender: Half the Kalu army would be on both of them like white on rice. A part of him wanted to hustle to a far-off planet and just disappear, but Vincent’s voice kept coming back to him. But if one of us doesn’t make it, he’d yelled as they burned through the atmosphere. His dying wish was for Aly to go to the United Planets; he’d been sure that they would help. Then again, he’d also believed Princess Josselyn might still be alive, so he was probably out of his mind.

Still, with no money, no plan, and no other options, Aly was headed to Portiis, to find Vin’s contact. Aly had no idea how he was supposed to find Lancer, or where he would even start, but he’d have to figure it out on the fly.

It had been almost a week since the Elieido exploded, though he’d been hoping that Princess Rhiannon might resurface at any point, miraculously alive. He’d had daydreams of official pardons, of receiving an apology from the Regent himself and the DroneVision producers of that damned awful show.