Shades of Earth (25 page)

50:
ELDER

Screams and shouts erupt
around us as people rush to the transport boxes, trying to save the people strapped down.

But it's too late.

They're all already dead.

I don't need a sample of the gas to know that it was a high concentration of Phydus that killed them—and since the lab in the original shuttle is gone, we couldn't test a sample anyway. But Amy's reaction tells me all I need to know. I kneel beside her. In my head, I know there's nothing to do but wait for the effects to wear off. But my whole body is shaking with fear. She could have been inside one of the transport boxes. She could have been . . . I taste bile and swallow it down. I can't break down because of what might have been.

Colonel Martin checks Amy's mother's vital signs before collapsing at her feet, but it's as I feared. She's gone. Her mouth and eyes are open, as if she were screaming, but it's too late. She's dead, the same way Eldest died and Lorin—an overdose of Phydus.

Any doubt that the aliens on this planet have access to Phydus and know what it does evaporates.

They killed four hundred and ninety-nine people in one fell swoop.

The medical doctors who weren't packed into the transport boxes—only three left now—are racing from person to person, trying to see if anyone is alive. Some of my people, panicked by the massive death toll, race to the ruins, screaming. Some of the military dispatches, trying to keep everyone together and at a safe distance from the transport shuttle. The gas is gone now and only oxygen blows through the vents, leaving just the trace of a sticky sweet scent in the air before evaporating.

Chris moves beside me; I hadn't seen him approach. He looks stunned, and he struggles for words as he stares down at Amy's body, hardly even noticing those who actually died.

I watch her too, even as I take in the chaos that surrounds us. She stares vacantly ahead. Right at her mother.

I know exactly the moment when the drug wears off. I can see the look in her eyes change from empty idleness to dawning horror at the sight of her mother's dead body. She curls up, a gasping, choking sob escaping her lips as she clutches her father and cries. A part of me rejoices—the drug didn't kill her, didn't deaden her mind—but part of me wishes she could be spared the pain of her mother's death.

“We're too much in the open,” Chris says, looking up. The blue sky feels ominous, as if the pteros could just swoop down out of the sky or the aliens could attack us at any moment. We have to get out of here.

“The ruins?” I ask Chris. My eyes flick to Colonel Martin—he should be giving the orders now—but he's crouched in front of Amy's mother, sobbing. I am surprised by the cold, emotionless part of me that's detached itself from sympathy.

Chris frowns, thinking.

I answer my own question. “It won't be safe there,” I say. “The—aliens, whatever is attacking us—they blew up the shuttle. They're trying to kill us all, and they
must
know where the ruins are. They could be waiting for us.”

“It's that or nothing,” Chris says grimly. And he's right. Where else can we go? To the forest—where the flowers make us sleep and the pteros fly overhead? Here, in a wide, open space where already five hundred have died? The ruins aren't much, but they're the only place of security we have, and the stone walls might provide us with some cover.

It'd mean returning to walls, but what other option do we have?

I rush to the communication room and grab the voice amplifier. People have scattered already, some panicking in the woods, some just
running,
and I hope my words can reach them all.

“Everyone! Go back to the ruins! Do not stay in the open! Get to the buildings!”

Through the big glass window, I can see a shift in the group as they swerve back the way we came, toward the ruins. The military acts as one, rounding people up and herding them to the relative safety of the stone structures.

Chris is trying to talk to Colonel Martin, but none of his words are breaking through his grief.

“Amy,” I say, “we have to go.” I grab her by the elbow, but her arm slides out of my grip like water streaming through a sieve.

I seize hold of her again, sure of my grasp, and yank her up. She stumbles, but I don't let her go. “There's nothing we can do!” I shout, hoping she can hear my words through her sorrow. “We have to go.”

Colonel Martin stands too. We've made it halfway across the compound when Amy gasps and turns back. “We can't leave Mom!” she says wildly, turning her head to her father. “We can't just leave her there!”

Chris wraps his arms around her to keep her from running back to the auto-shuttle. “We have to,” he says, gasping as he struggles to hold her back.

“We can't leave her!” She reaches blindly for her mother.

“Amy.” Colonel Martin's voice is heavy and broken. “We have to go.”

She sags, the fight leaving her so suddenly that Chris staggers under her weight.

“Follow me!” I call. My heart breaks at the way Amy's entire body is limp with grief. We start out across the meadow after the group heading back to the ruins. Soon we're running, Amy's steps only occasionally tripping when her eyes, blurry with tears, don't see a root or stone.

When we reach the first building, the one that had become Amy's home with her parents, Amy collapses in one of the little camp chairs the Earthborns had packed with them, crying softly. Colonel Martin turns to Chris and me. His cheeks are sunken, dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes. He's shaped his grief into battle-ready armor; he looks more deadly and dangerous in this moment than I've ever seen him before.

“I'm sending out a group of military to scout the nearby area, to look for anyone who got lost in the panic, with orders to capture any sentient alien life-forms they can find.” He glares at Chris, a wild fierceness in his eyes. “Is there
anything
you can tell me about what attacked us, anything that can help us track them down and kill them all?”

Chris shakes his head mutely.

I narrow my eyes, unsure why Colonel Martin thinks Chris is the expert on this.

“Is there anything you're keeping hidden?” I ask. We don't have time for secrets and subterfuge. If there's any other information that can be helpful . . .

“You know what I know,” Colonel Martin replies. “Earth is sending aid. We only have to survive a few more days, a week, max.”

I snort. “Oh? Well, they killed off a third of us in one morning. A week shouldn't be too hard.”

51:
AMY

I try to look interested.

I try to care.

I
should
care.

I was prepared to say goodbye to my parents. I
did
say goodbye to Mom. And when I did, I never expected to see her again. She'd go to the space station and from there back to Earth. It was a forever sort of goodbye.

But there's a difference, isn't there? Between saying goodbye and death.

 

Dad and Chris and Elder argue about something. The weapon on the space station, the Hail Mary that's supposed to be able to wipe out the aliens and save us all. Elder and Chris don't want to use it. They say we don't know what it is, how much damage it will cause. If it kills the aliens, couldn't it kill us too?

But I don't think Dad cares about that sort of thing anymore. About casualties. Not now that Mom's become one.

At one point, Elder brings up our idea that there's something still on
Godspeed
, some sort of clue that will tell us what the aliens are and how to defeat them.

“I don't need any damn clues,” Dad growls at him. “I don't care what the aliens are. All I need is a big enough gun to kill them all. And that's what I've got on the space station.”

“You would commit genocide?” Chris asks softly.

“They would do the same to us.”

Elder tries to bring me into the conversation. Maybe I could soften Dad, make him listen.

But I just stare at the floor.

 

“I'm so sorry,” Chris tells me as Dad dismisses him and Elder.

I look right through him.

Sorry? It's just a word.

 

Elder doesn't use words. He just wraps his hand around mine and pulls me until I stand. He keeps pulling, and I stagger behind him. At the doorway, he stops.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” he says softly, not letting go of my hand.

Like I lost my mother.

“Amy,” he says, and then he waits until I meet his eyes. “I can't lose you. I can't ever . . . ”

But death doesn't work like that. It doesn't care if someone loves you, doesn't want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.

Elder seems to realize that nothing he says can penetrate the darkness that has wrapped around me. He just tugs me closer to him, and he wraps his arms around me, and he holds me up while I sag against him, biting my lip as hard as I can to keep from crying because I'm afraid if I do, I'll never ever stop.

 

After a long time, Elder says, “Do you want me to stay?” He glances past me, at Dad. “I will, no matter what he says.”

I shake my head and step back from him. Elder squeezes my hand one last time, then disappears into the night.

 

Then it's just me and Dad in this cold, stone building, made by people long dead.

Dad hugs me, and we stand together like this for a long time. And even though we hold each other tightly, it still feels as if there's something between us, something that makes us unable to really reach each other. And I realize there
is
something between us, something that will always be between us: the ghost of Mom's memory, reminding us of what we've lost.

Dad goes to talk with the military. About guns, and how many remain. And how to arm the big one on the space station.

 

And then it's just me.

I sit on the floor and pull my knees up under my chin. The .38 digs into the soft skin of my belly, and I pull it out, staring. Inside it are five hollow-point bullets . . . the only bullets I have left.

I set the gun down beside me. I wore it before because it made me feel safe and it appeased my parents' worry. But now I think about those five bullets and what they can do. It is no longer simply a precaution. I intend to use them, and I will.

I understand the part of my dad that wants to kill the aliens, even at the price of blowing up the whole planet with them.

 

I hug my knees, burying my face in my arms.

This room feels very large, and I feel very small.

52:
ELDER

I know what I have to do.

The question is: can I?

 

I wait until night falls. The entire colony has spent the day fluctuating between tension and grief, fear and panic. The military is on edge, more people than usual during each shift of patrols.

But I know I have at least one ally.

Chris.

He might not be my favorite person, but he was with me when I argued with Colonel Martin and I know that, like me, he'd do anything in his power to protect Amy.

He waits for me about an hour after the suns set. “What have you got planned?” he asks me softly as we head down the path through the colony.

“Neither of us wants Colonel Martin to play around with whatever bomb the FRX has up at the space station, right?” I ask him.

Chris nods. “I don't trust the FRX.”

“Good,” I say. “Neither do I.”

We sneak through the alleys of the colony, then I duck behind the first row of buildings so I can get to Amy's window. Chris frowns at me—Amy was too caught up in grief earlier today; how can we expect her to help now? But I can't imagine doing this without her.

“Amy,” I hiss. I think Colonel Martin is assisting with patrols, but I don't want to risk it.

Amy sits in the center of her room, her knees drawn up to her chin, her eyes sunken and hollow. But she looks up at me and, after taking a deep, shaky breath, stands and crosses the room to the window.

Her eyes spark with curiosity when she notices Chris standing nervously behind me.

“What's going on?”

“I have a plan,” I say. “Come with me?” I try to hide the hope and trepidation in my voice. Amy has every reason to say no—her mother just died, and we're all scared of whatever the aliens are planning for us next.

But a moment later she's lifting herself up on the windowsill and jumping outside.

“You okay?” I whisper.

“No,” she says simply.

It is the honesty of this statement that makes me know that although all of this has cracked her, she's not broken.

“But I want to do
something
,” she says for my ears alone. “I can't stand the thought of being alone right now.”

“That something you want to do,” I say. “It's not the same plan Colonel Martin has, to detonate whatever weapon that is up in the space station, right?”

Amy gives me a look that is wholly her. “Of
course
not,” she says. “I'm not Dad.”

“Let's go,” Chris says, looking around. Helping me now isn't exactly against Colonel Martin's orders, but getting caught would lead to questions he probably doesn't want to have to answer.

I lead them both in the direction of the probe, not bothering to sneak through the tall grass of the meadow. Two guards are on patrol on this side of the colony, but they don't dare stop us. We are the leader of the shipborns, the daughter of the colonel, and a soldier—they have no reason to doubt us. We walk straight toward the compound as if we've been ordered there, and the guards don't even stop to ask questions.

I let out a sigh of relief when I see the outline of the giant auto-shuttle on the compound—and no guards. I glance at Amy. Her eyes are glass, her face slack as she stares at the rows of boxes, each carrying a person, one holding her mother. I touch the back of her hand, and her watery eyes focus on me. “I'm okay,” she lies.

We may have made it through the colony without arousing suspicion, but if Colonel Martin or any of his people were to see us
here
under the shadow of nearly five hundred dead people, they wouldn't let us pass just because we pretended to have confidence.

“What's the plan?” Chris whispers. I pull out the glass cube Amy gave me earlier and use it to light our way to the communication room, covering it so only a dim glow escapes. I hold it so tightly my fingers ache, trying not to imagine just how much damage it could cause if I dropped it against the cement floor.

Chris stands back, looking around us nervously as if expecting Colonel Martin—or worse, the aliens—to show up. Amy presses her thumb over the biometric scanner. It flashes
HUMAN
and unlocks. It's not until the door is shut again that I feel safe to speak in a normal volume.

“Here's what we know,” I say. Our faces are lit eerily by the glass cube on the floor between us. “We know that the aliens are smart, and they have better weapons and technology than us.”

Amy stares over my shoulder toward the auto-shuttle. Chris just watches me.

“But we don't know what they are. We've never seen one. We don't know what their weaknesses are. And while the FRX has promised us a weapon that can kill them, we don't know what the weapon is.”

“Which is why it's so dangerous,” Chris adds.

“I agree,” I say. “A weapon that can wipe out an entire alien species? Why wouldn't it wipe us out too? Or destroy the whole planet? It's not safe to use something that powerful that we don't understand.”

“So—what? What are we going to do?” Amy asks.

“Not ‘we.' Me. I'm going back to
Godspeed.
”

Amy's eyes widen and her mouth drops open. Chris just stares blankly at me. “How can going back to the ship do anything?” he asks.

“I have very good reason to think that the ship holds the answers we need. First, the drug that was used to kill . . . ” My voice trails off as I glance at Amy.

“The drug used to kill my mother,” she states flatly.

“And the others, yes. I want to know how we have that same drug on the ship. And Orion's last clue that makes me think the answer to everything is still on
Godspeed.
” I pause. Outside the window, the auto-shuttle looks huge and dark. I try not to look at the hundreds of dead bodies still strapped inside the transport boxes.

I turn to Chris. I don't want to confess this to him, but I have to. “Also, I left some of my people on the ship.” I think about the video feed we saw before. I hope I'm not too late. I hope Bartie's kept the black patches to himself. “I can bring them back here, along with more supplies. We need their help. We barely have any food left.”

All of that was stored on the shuttle.

“You're going to take the auto-shuttle?” Amy asks. “What about . . . ” She swallows, and when she speaks, there's an odd tremor to her voice. “What about the people in it now?”

“I thought . . . ” I force myself to look her in the eyes, to recognize the pain I find within them. I know of no way to make her feel better about what's happened, but at least I can give her some peace. “I thought I'd release them to the stars.”

Amy bites her lip and looks down, then nods.

“But . . . how can you take the auto-shuttle?” Chris asks.

“It's automatic, right? I don't have to actually fly it.”

“Yeah,” Chris says, “but it's designed to go between here and the space station. Nowhere else.”

I nod. “I'm hoping I'll be able to reprogram it,” I say. “There is—we found live video feed of
Godspeed
being sent here. If we can manipulate the signals to reprogram the auto-shuttle to go to
Godspeed
rather than to the space station—”

“Then you can fly there, get the information you need, and return with your people,” Chris says, excitement rising in his voice. “Yeah, I think that could work!”

“And Dad won't set off the weapon, not when there's a chance your information could stop the aliens without resorting to it,” Amy adds. She pauses, determination flashing in her eyes. “We won't
let
him set off the weapon, not till you're back.”

“Let me work on the programming,” Chris says, striding toward the control panel. In a few minutes, he has the screens lit up and is typing rapidly.

“Wow, you're good at this,” Amy comments.

Chris pauses without lifting his fingers from the screens. “Oh, it's not that complicated,” he says. Soon he steps back. “Okay, I've got it! You should have no trouble getting the auto-shuttle to
Godspeed
.”

I take a deep breath. “Good. Let's do this.”

Amy looks anxious. “That's it? You're going right now?”

Chris looks at the two of us. Even though he's just triumphantly programmed the auto-shuttle and is helping us to find a way to stop the aliens without relying on some mysterious FRX bombs, he looks defeated. “I'll go prep the shuttle,” he says, leaving us behind in the control room.

Amy grabs both of my hands tightly. “You come back to me,” she says, the words fierce. “You do whatever it takes; you come back to me.”

“I will,” I say.

“I mean it.” Amy says forcefully. “I've lost nearly everything else I love; I can't lose you too.”

“I'll always come back to you,” I say, pulling her close.

She kisses me, and just as I'm about to lose myself in it, I taste salt. I step away from her and see that she's crying again. I wipe away one tear with the pad of my thumb, and she swipes her arm over her face, embarrassed.

We walk to the shuttle, Amy a few paces behind me. I can hear her sniffling, trying to cover up the tears she can't keep from falling.

Chris pushes a button on the controls embedded into the asphalt by the auto-shuttle, and the transport boxes disappear, metal panels automatically enclosing them with a reverberating slam. Next, he motions for me to follow him to the front of the shuttle, where a small metal ladder extends up into the bridge. “It looks like you're right; everything
should
be automatic,” he explains. He says this as if there's no doubt in his mind that I'll be able to fly myself into orbit around Centauri-Earth, but there are worry lines at his eyes and every muscle is tense. “There are simple flight controls in the bridge and a manual override if things go wrong.”

I nod, trying to look confident. Landing the shuttle from
Godspeed
was automatic too, and three people died.

“When I was looking at the bridge, I discovered this,” Chris says, drawing me around the corner of the ship. “An emergency distress rocket. It's designed as an escape for one person, in the event something malfunctions with the ship. It only has two settings—to go to the space station for aid or to go back here. If something goes wrong, just get in the distress rocket and come back.”

I look up at the escape rocket. It's claustrophobically small, a paper airplane in comparison with the auto-shuttle. It looks like nothing more than a ridged bump under the bridge of the auto-shuttle, and I somehow doubt it could ever survive detaching from the auto-shuttle, much less a journey through space.

Chris steps back, giving Amy and me privacy again.

“Promise,” Amy says, wrapping her pinky finger around mine. “Promise to come back.”

I look her right in the eyes. “I promise.”