These Broken Stars (Starbound #1)(14)

“I fastened your safety straps, Miss LaRoux,” I say. Her scowl deepens, bordering on outrage, and I can feel my own temper bubbling up to match. “Don’t worry, I kept my hands where they belong.” I’ve mostly managed bland so far, but I can hear the subtext in my tone as well as she can. And you couldn’t pay me to try anything else.

Her gaze hardens, but she offers no retort except cold silence. Over her shoulder I still see the Icarus rolling, and in my mind’s eye I see the stopping and blurring of the stars through the viewing deck window, and the books in the first-class salon falling out of their shelves as the room tips and the tables and chairs topple.

The Icarus is spinning when nothing should be able to cause her to do so, and I can’t see any other detached escape pods in the fragment of deep space beyond the viewport. Are the others out of sight? I catch a glimpse of something impossibly huge—the same thing I saw before—reflective and bright. Where is the light coming from? The next instant the pod spins and all I can see is starry darkness.

I study the metal grid on the floor, then the circuit boards overhead that the builders didn’t bother to cover, the metal plates riveted into place. Not like the rest of the escape pods, I’m sure. They’ll be cushy and expensive. I’d rather be in this sturdy, utilitarian pod than one of the others, somehow. Our pod jerks again, when it should be using sensors and thrusters to keep us floating gently in space. Something’s causing it to ignore its programming.

I look across at Miss LaRoux, and for a moment our gazes meet. She’s some combination of tired, pissed off, and just as sure as I am that something’s not right. Neither of us breaks the silence, though, or names the things it might be.

Her hair’s coming loose from the fancy loops and curls she had it up in, and in zero gravity, it’s fanning out around her face as though she’s underwater. Even with a black eye on the way, she’s beautiful.

Then a violent shudder tears through the pod, shattering that moment of peace. The metal begins to hum as the vibrations increase, shaking me through the soles of my boots. I look up to see a glow outside the viewport, and then an automatic shield slides across it, prompted by some reading from outside.

That glow. I know now what was casting that light. I know what’s shaking the pod, causing it to twist and turn and ignore its instructions to laze about in deep space waiting for the cavalry.

It’s a planet. That glow is some planet’s atmosphere reflecting a star’s light, and its gravity is dragging the pod down, interfering with its guidance systems. We’re landing, and that’s if we make it down in one piece. We’re landing if we’re lucky.

Miss LaRoux’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear her—the humming’s too loud, lifting to a rumble and then a roar as the air inside the pod heats up. I have to shout to make myself heard.

“Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth.” I’m bellowing instructions, and she’s frowning at me like I’m speaking Old Chinese. “Relax your jaw. You don’t want to break your teeth or bite your tongue. We’re crashing.” She understands now, and she’s smart enough to nod, instead of trying to shout back. I close my eyes and try, try to relax.

The gravity inside the pod falters, then slams back again, so my harness cuts into my chest and my breath is pushed out of my lungs with a hoarse shout I can’t hear.

The air outside the pod must be white-hot as we rip through the atmosphere. We’re within the pull of the planet’s gravity now, but suspended as we’re pulled up against our straps by our acceleration toward the ground below. For an instant Miss LaRoux meets my eyes—we’re both too shocked, too shaken to communicate.

I have only that instant in which to register that she’s silent, not screaming her head off like I would’ve expected. Then there’s an impact that jolts my head back against the pad behind it so hard my teeth clash together. It turns out I’m holding my chest strap, because I nearly dislocate my thumb.

The parachute’s deployed. We’re floating.

We’re both tense as the sudden silence draws out, waiting for the pod to connect with the ground, wondering if the parachute will reduce the impact enough that we won’t end up smeared across the planet.

There’s a deafening crash, and something scrabbling across the outside of the pod, and then we’re turning over, upside down. The storage locker bangs open, sending my grab bag flying. I pray to whatever might be listening that it doesn’t connect with us.

The pod jerks again, ricocheting wildly, tumbling end over end. I’m stuck in a world where I’m jerked against my straps over and over, thrown back and forth, until finally we settle. It takes me several quick breaths to realize we’ve stopped moving. Though I can barely tell which way is up, I realize I’m not hanging from my straps, so we must be upright. I feel like I’ve been trampled in a stampede, and I swim back toward reason, trying to understand what’s happened. Somehow, unimaginably, we’ve landed. Right now I couldn’t give a damn where. I’m alive.

Or else I’m dead, and I’ve ended up in hell after all, and it’s an escape pod with Lilac LaRoux.

Neither of us speaks at first, though the pod’s far from silent. I hear my own breathing, harsh and hoarse. Hers comes in little fits and gasps—I think maybe she’s trying not to cry. The pod pings audibly as it cools, the sound slowing and softening.