Defy the Worlds (Constellation #2)
Claudia Gray
1
NOEMI VIDAL WALKS THROUGH THE TWO LONG LINES OF starfighters in the hangar, helmet under one arm, head held high. She doesn’t wave to her friends like she always used to—until six months ago.
Now no one would wave back.
Chin up, shoulders straight, she tells herself, taking what comfort she can in the familiar smells of grease and ozone, the hiss of repair torches, and the thump of boots on tarmac. If you want them to see you as a fellow soldier again, you act like one. You don’t back down from mech fire, so you won’t back down from this.
But Earth’s warrior mechs only aim at the body. Noemi has shields for that. The point between her and her fellow squadron members aims at the heart, for which no protection has ever been invented.
“Vidal!” That’s Captain Baz, striding across the hangar with a dataread in her hand. She’s wearing her uniform, a dark-patterned head scarf, and the first smile Noemi’s seen all day. “We’re putting you on close-range patrol today.”
“Yes, ma’am. Captain, if I could—”
Baz stops and comes nearer. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“I wanted to ask—” Noemi takes a deep breath. “You haven’t put me on Gate patrol in months. I’d really like to take on a shift sometime soon.”
“Gate patrol’s the most dangerous gig there is.” Baz says it matter-of-factly as she scans through her dataread. Everyone on Genesis knows that the Gate ties them to Earth and the other colony worlds on the Loop, holding one point of a wormhole in place and making instantaneous cross-galactic travel possible. It also makes possible the war that’s devastating their world. “Most pilots would be glad to stick a little closer to home.”
“I’m willing to share the danger.” More than willing—by now, Noemi’s very nearly desperate. Protecting Genesis is what gives her life meaning. She hasn’t been allowed to truly defend her world for months, not since her return.
It takes Baz a few long seconds to answer. “Listen. That day’s going to come, okay? We just have to give it time.”
The captain is on Noemi’s side, which helps a little. That doesn’t mean Captain Baz has it right. In a lower voice, Noemi says, “They won’t trust me again until I’m pulling a full load.”
Baz weighs that. “Maybe so.” After another second’s contemplation, she nods. “We’ll try it.” Her voice rises to a shout. “Ganaraj, O’Farrell, Vidal’s with you today! Let’s get up there, people—gamma shift’s ready to come home.”
The other two pilots stare at her from across the room. Noemi simply heads straight for her starfighter.
She’s going to earn their acceptance the only way she can: one flight at a time.
Wait and see, she tells herself. Soon they’ll like you just as much as they did before.
She figures it shouldn’t be hard. They never liked her that much to begin with.
Ten percent of the time, Gate patrols are the worst, most frightening duty assignment of all. At irregular, unguessable intervals, Earth sends Damocles ships full of warrior mechs—Queen and Charlie models, designed only to kill. They’ve more than decimated Genesis’s antiquated defense fleet in the past five years; every battle they win brings them closer to the day warrior mechs will land on the surface of Genesis, unleash a ground war, and begin reclaiming Noemi’s planet for Earth’s use. Every battle alarm has to be sounded as soon as possible. The starfighters on patrol are expected to engage Damocles ships immediately, without waiting for backup. Most don’t survive.
However, the other 90 percent of the time, Gate patrols are boring as hell.
In the pilot’s seat of her starfighter, Noemi circles the Gate at the outer perimeter; Arun Ganaraj and Deirdre O’Farrell stick closer. She’s still close enough to watch the monstrous thing in the sky, a massive silver ring illuminated along its various panels so that it shines in the darkness of space. It’s orbited by various bits of debris from the war, from metal shards no bigger than splinters to chunks larger than her starfighter.
An entire ship remained hidden in that debris for thirty years, until Noemi discovered it, and inside she found—
“You seeing that?” Ganaraj’s voice comes over the speaker just as her screen brings up the Gate in greater detail. The faint shimmer in the middle of the ring has taken on a familiar, ominous look—a cloudiness like a pond about to frost over.
“Yeah, I see it,” Noemi says.
“It might be nothing.” Ganaraj sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “Doesn’t always mean something’s about to come through.”
“Usually doesn’t,” Noemi agrees as she zooms in tighter on the image and sets her weapons to ready. Segments of old wreckage and shrapnel from past battles often create the illusion of incoming traffic. Even a faint hint of intrusion is danger enough to set her on edge.
“Or it could be a bunch of mechs coming through to dice us all.” O’Farrell makes herself sound happy about it, so happy the sarcasm is unmistakable. “But you’ll just want to give them milk and cookies and send them home again, won’t you, Vidal?”
“Pack it, O’Farrell,” Noemi snaps back.