BA-BUMMM. BA-BUMMM. BA-BUMMM.
Marcellus was surrounded by stars. So many stars. Bigger and brighter than he’d ever seen them. They made the ones that hung in the TéléSky of Ledôme feel insignificant and futile. Like sad little replicas that would never live up to their real inspirations.
“If you grow up to become general like me, you’ll be able to visit the stars whenever you want. Would you like that, Marcellus?”
He could hear his grandfather’s voice. But he knew it was not his grandfather of now. It was his grandfather of the past. The one who hung Bastille in the sky. The one who Marcellus yearned to be exactly like, but who always managed to make him feel like a fraud.
A sad little replica that would never live up to its real inspiration.
Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm.
“Yes, please, Grand-père. I would like that very much.”
His grandfather laughed and ruffled Marcellus’s hair. “Well, if you work hard every day, train diligently, and do exactly as I tell you, I have no doubt that one day you too will be the General of the Ministère. You too will command a planet.”
Marcellus recognized the memory now. He was four years old, on his very first trip in a voyageur. His grandfather had taken him to Kaishi, where the general was scheduled to meet with the System Alliance as a delegate of Laterre.
He remembered the feeling of the supervoyage engines rumbling beneath him. The stars pulsating in the dark sky. His own wonderment as he took in everything. The whole universe laid out before his eyes.
But most of all, he remembered the want. That boiling determination to do exactly what his grandfather asked of him. To be the person his grandfather wanted him to be.
Had the general been plotting to take over the planet even then?
Which Regime had he been grooming Marcellus to govern?
The corrupt, divided one that currently resided over Laterre? Or this new, terrifying, “streamlined” version that his grandfather had been working so hard to instill?
Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm. Ba-bummm.
Slowly, Marcellus became aware of his own heartbeat, pulling him out of his memories, tugging at his consciousness. His mind scrambled to connect back with his senses. And then there it was. A tingling in his fingertips, in his palms, the soles of his feet, the tip of his scalp, the end of his nose. Every nerve felt like it was waking up, coming back online. His body, the seat under him, the floor below, began to reemerge through the nothingness to become real again.
Finally, light splintered in through his eyelids, unfurling in a mess of colors and glowing shards. He blinked once and then twice, and the fragments began to coalesce.
He saw, in front of him, not stars, but the whole world.
His world.
Great swirls and eddies of clouds enfolded themselves around the familiar, glowing planet. It spun on its axis like a great billowing ball of white and gray thread.
They’d made it. Laterre stood before them like an oasis in the sky, and they were alive.
The ship began to rumble beneath him. Gently at first, but rapidly building in intensity, until Marcellus’s whole body was shuddering.
Is that normal?
He turned toward Alouette to gauge her reaction, but he couldn’t even see her. The ship was shaking so badly now, his eyes could no longer focus on one object. Her face was jumbled and disfigured, like some of the First World paintings he’d seen hanging up in the Grand Palais—entire people reduced to nothing but colors and shapes.
She seemed to be shouting something, but he couldn’t make it out.
“What’s happening?” he tried to ask, but suddenly, something shot across his vision. A spark in the darkness. He turned back toward the window and just managed to catch the tail end of a large object hurtling through space. It almost looked like a comet.
No, Marcellus thought as a wave of panic crashed into him. It looks like a …
The voyageur pitched forward, sending Marcellus slamming into his restraints. Then a terrible sound crackled in his ears. It was blaring and violent and deafening.
A siren.
Definitely not normal.
And then a voice. Too calm to be human.
“Emergency. Primary engine critical. Emergency. Secondary reactor detached.”
Detached?
Was that what he’d seen flying past the ship?
“Emergency. Primary engine critical. Emergency …” The recorded message proceeded to loop on and on, punctuated by the screech of the alarm.
“The ship!” Cerise shouted from somewhere beside him. “It’s coming apart!”
Marcellus struggled to make sense of the words. But his head felt like it was splitting open. His brains would soon be splattered across this windshield.
Coming apart.
Another object flashed before him, and suddenly he understood. The ship was breaking.
“Oh my Sols! Look!” Cerise pointed to a monitor on the console that showed a view of the back of the ship. A great jagged gash had been torn across the voyageur’s shell, and protruding between the two silver wings was a giant mess of fiery metal, twisted antennas, and shattered solar panels.
They’d hypervoyaged right into a satellite.
“Emergency. Tertiary reactor detached.”
Marcellus finally found his voice. “We have to get to the escape pod before the hull breaches and sucks us all out into space!” He banged down on the mechanism controlling his restraints until his harness released with a low hiss. He leapt out of the seat and paused, waiting to see if he would stand or float. His feet stayed rooted to the ground, which meant the gravity simulator was still intact.
Alouette was already on the move, jumping out of her seat and rushing toward Gabriel. He was still unconscious. His head slumped against his chest.
“Help me get him out!” she cried, her fingers fiddling with the restraints.
As the ship continued to lurch back and forth, Marcellus staggered toward Gabriel’s chair, his legs feeling wobbly beneath him, like he’d drunk too much champagne. Alouette managed to get the harness unlatched, and Gabriel tipped forward with a low moan. Marcellus dove to catch him before he slid clear out of the seat.
“What’s happening, mec?” he garbled into Marcellus’s shoulder. “Is the ship going to explode?”
“Yes!” Cerise shouted. “This time, the ship is actually going to explode.”
Marcellus bent down and, with a grunt, managed to heave Gabriel over his left shoulder. He stood up, feeling the extra weight immediately.
Out the vast window, Laterre—blanketed in its thick swirl of gray and white clouds—was getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer by the second, and a fresh wave of panic slammed into Marcellus.
“Where is the escape pod?” Alouette asked.
“In the evacuation bay,” Marcellus said. “Lowest deck.”
“This way!” Cerise called out, leading them to the primary stairwell. Marcellus stumbled behind her, with Gabriel feeling like a sac of titan blocs on his shoulder. And the violent shuddering and screaming of the collapsing voyageur did not make it any easier. The alarms continued to carve permanent tunnels through Marcellus’s ear drums.
“Emergency. Primary reactor detached.”
“We get it!” Cerise shouted at the ceiling of the stairwell. “The ship is breaking!”
The voyageur jerked sideways in response, knocking Cerise off her feet. Her head smacked against the side wall, and she staggered to catch herself, pressing a hand to her right temple where there was now a bleeding gash.
“Are you all right?” Alouette called from behind Marcellus.
Cerise just let out a grunt in reply and surged forward down the last flight of steps. The evacuation bay was dim and low-ceilinged. Darker than even the cargo hold that they’d arrived in. At the end of the deck, Marcellus could see a large hexagonal hatch, locked with a single heavy lever.
The escape pod.
He allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. But it was a second too early, because just then the voyageur trembled violently. The extra weight of Gabriel on his shoulder caused him to lose his balance, and Marcellus was thrown forward. He reached out with his free hand to break his fall, and his palm slammed against the curved wall of the evacuation bay.
“Argh!” he cried, pulling back his hand. The metal was burning hot.
“It must be Laterre’s atmosphere,” Alouette called out. “We’re too close.”
Alouette’s words were swallowed up by a terrible, ear-shattering sound that shook the whole voyageur. Then a bright, scalding, blinding light roared up in front of them.
Fire!
In an instant, the huge flames seemed to fill the deck, sucking in every molecule of oxygen and choking out great puffs of heat and terrible smoke. Marcellus could barely open his eyes. Every inch of his skin felt as if it were melting into the hull around him.
“Come on!” Cerise yelled, yanking down on the lever. The hatch of the escape pod screeched open. “Get in.”
The fire licked and burned at Marcellus’s back. He lunged forward and shoved Gabriel into the pod. Together with Cerise, they lowered him into one of the jump seats, and Cerise began to strap him in. Marcellus turned back for Alouette, only to find a wall of smoke where she once stood.
His stomach flipped as he struggled to see through the thick gray plumes. “Alouette?!” he screamed.
There was no reply.
He took a step forward, toward the wild, thundering blaze. The smoke burned and clawed at his throat. His eyes watered. But then, he saw it.
A flash of dark curls in the furious glow of the flames.
“Alouette!” he called again.
But she wasn’t moving this way. She was moving back toward the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
Alouette shouted something back at him, but he couldn’t hear it over the din of the fire and the screaming ship.
The voyageur gave another terrifying jolt as the sirens blared on and the fire lashed out at him like angry talons. “Alouette!” he called again. “You have to get into the—”
Just then, out of the smoke, Alouette came hurtling toward him, her hands clasped tightly around what looked like a piece of cloth. Was that her sac? Had she really risked her life for that?
Marcellus reached out a hand to her, but a moment later, a terrible roar detonated across the hull, and he watched in horror as Alouette was sucked backward, clean off her feet, pulled toward the spiraling and spewing flames.
“Alouette!” He charged forward.
The smoke was so thick now, he had to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve. He could see nothing in front of him. He dropped to his knees and scoured the floor of the deck with outstretched hands. Until finally, his fingertips touched fabric. Then skin. Then hair. Heart pounding, he reached for her, pulling her fallen body to him. She let out a soft groan, and Marcellus nearly melted into the floor with relief.
Hooking his hands under Alouette’s shoulders, Marcellus began to drag her backward, toward the hatch. Her body was still clutched protectively around that piece of cloth in her hands. By the time they both collapsed into the escape pod, Marcellus was coughing so badly, he could barely move.
Cerise pounded her fist against the panel on the wall. The door slid shut, and the pod began to rumble. Cerise helped Alouette up and into the jump seat. Marcellus struggled to follow, his muscles barely strong enough to fasten his restraints.
The engine let out a roar and then the pod released. In one swift jolt, they were hoisted out and away from the voyageur. The force of the blast pinned Marcellus to his seat, but just as the pod banked and they began their descent toward Laterre, he was able to turn his head long enough to steal a glance behind them. At the Galactique-class voyageur that had taken them to Albion and back. At the ship that was now exploding into a million shattering and burning pieces of light.