13They left us.
I’m not even aware my legs have buckled until my knees hit the hot metal of the platform. Heat sizzles across my skin, but I hardly feel it. My eyes are fixed on that glowing blue web above us, one thought spiraling over and over in my mind.
They left us.
They came to Iolanthe, answered my call, sent a shuttle all the way down through the Rainforest, only to abandon us at the eleventh hour with nothing but a terse apology and a vague explanation about changed orders. Though what orders are more important that evacuating a group of survivors—of students, no less!—I can’t imagine. All I know is that now the net’s laid, there’s absolutely no way out.
In other words: we’re slagged.
Zane drops to the platform beside me. I finally spare a glance for him, his silent presence somehow garnering my attention more than all his repeated hails did. He rests one arm on his knee, staring intently at me through expressionless eyes. Only when he has my full attention does he speak.
“Now what?”
I cast my eyes out over the platform. Everyone is in total shock. Students shout and scream at the sky, arms waving frantically in empty summons, while some swear, others cry, and the rest huddle together in small groups, voices in whispers and eyes turned to the sky as if hoping that by some miracle, the net will drop and the shuttle will return. Jovan is so loud I can hear him clear across the platform as, egged on by his buddies, he alternately curses and pleads to stars know who, and not far from them, Mario does her best to soothe a disconsolate Divya even as ribbons of tears run down her own cheeks. Vida stands silently at the edge of the platform, arms crossed protectively over her chest as she stares out into the forest. I wonder if she’s thinking about her family.
For a long moment, I watch them, their actions a physical embodiment of all five stages of grief playing out at once, and it suddenly hits me—
We’re never getting off this planet again.
Fear washes over me in a sudden rush. Zane’s words still hang in the air—Now what?—the terse sentiment both a question and a prayer, and I can’t help shaking my head. As though I have any idea! My plan began and ended with us getting a lift off this stars-forsaken rock. Now that we’re stuck here permanently, there isn’t much we can do, except—
“Retreat, regroup, restrategize.” The vagaries come to my lips without thought—my naval captain mother’s words, not mine—and more than anything, I wish she were here. Or Gran, or Michael, or—
Dad.
At the thought of him, a sharp pang stabs through my chest. I force myself to continue. “Try not to die”—my voice cracks slightly on the word—“or get infected.”
“And then?”
“Then what?”
“What’s our endgame?” he presses. “We’ve been quarantined on a planet with the enemy. The Navy has already been and gone; there’s no one coming to help us. Surely we need more of a plan than to simply stay alive.”
Irritation flares up in me—not at his asking the question, but in his expecting me to know the answer. I abruptly push up to my feet.
“How should I know?” I demand, hands thrown up in exasperation. “This whole invasion has been completely preposterous from the get-go! I mean, look at this place! Iolanthe has no resources, no strategic value, no military presence, and a population so low as to be practically nonexistent in the scheme of the Expanse. There isn’t a single other planet within a dozen jump paths that’s been hit, so proximity clearly isn’t a factor, nor are there any other possible targets in the vicinity that they could have been aiming for. Even allowing for a generous margin of error, the odds of the Specs invading Iolanthe before they came were infinitesimal. From a statistical standpoint, they shouldn’t even be here at all!”
“So why are they?”
I take a breath, already prepared to roll over any and every objection that might be offered—and stop. I blink, then blink again, the cogs in my mind doing an abrupt one-eighty as his question slowly sinks in. Why did the Spectres invade? It’s the most glaring question in this whole debacle, and yet ever since the sirens went off in the middle of the night three days ago, I’ve been so focused on escaping that it never once occurred to me to wonder why the enemy ever showed up in the first place. Is it possible my calculations were that much off the mark?
Even as I ask myself the question, I’m already shaking my head no, and yet if it wasn’t an error in calculation, how did the Specs end up here against all odds? Bad luck? Accident? Random chance? None of those answers sit right with me.
Wrapping my arms around my chest, I look out into the forest. Chirps and twitters and trills rise up from the trees, the exotic songs only enhancing the jungle’s untamed beauty, and yet somewhere beyond that paradisiacal façade lies the enemy—an enemy we’re now permanently marooned with, whether we like it or not. What purpose they could possibly have for this misbegotten ball of rock at the edge of the Expanse is beyond me, but whatever it is, it will almost certainly require human hosts—hosts like us. Grim reality settles over me as I realize that the trials we faced getting here are nothing compared to the ones that await us.
Dropping my arms, I turn back to Zane with a shake of my head. “I don’t know why they came,” I finally admit, the words drawn out of me with only the greatest reluctance, “but now that they’re here, does it really matter anymore?”
Zane stares at me for a long moment, his hooded eyes impenetrable and dark, and for a split second I get the strangest feeling, like he’s almost disappointed in me, though I couldn’t for the universe say why. At last, he shakes his head. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looks out into the forest and answers, “No, I guess it doesn’t.”
The rain starts up soon after, and the arguments start up soon after that. I sit alone under a tree at the edge of the platform, trying to make sense of the last eighty-one hours. Water drips down through the leaves above, trickling down my forehead and rolling off my chin to fall into my waiting hands below. I watch the drops strike, one after another—plip, plop, plip—almost supernaturally loud against the cadence of voices echoing across the platform.
“—never should have come. Now we’re stranded in the middle of stars know where with nothing! No food, no shelter, not so much as a change of clothes!”
“So what are you saying? We should have stayed at the academy and waited for the ghouls to come infect us all?”
“No, but anywhere would’ve been better than here!”
A soft breeze blows, and a spray of droplets sprinkles across my palms. They scatter and trickle off the ends of my fingers, save for one perfect drop that lingers, glistening and pulsing on the tip of my index finger. I watch it breathe, in and out, eyes focused in on that one small drop even as my mind combs over the last couple of days, trying futilely to figure out where I could have possibly gone wrong. It just doesn’t make any sense! Everything was going to plan—our trek to the bunker, the Navy’s arrival, and our call for help, followed by their seemingly affirming answer. Escape was within our grasp . . . until it wasn’t.
“—died and made you Chairman?”
“Hey, someone has to be in charge!”
“Oh yeah? And what is it you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know—raid a homestead, steal a spaceship? Anything but sit here in this slaggin’ rain!”
“Hell-o? It’s the Rainforest; it’s all rain!”
More drops fall, dripping down over my forehead, my nose, my chin, my chest. I tilt my face up to the rain, and my eyes go to the break in the canopy above the platform. An image of the StarTamer, descending through that hole only to rise up again, suddenly flashes through my mind, and I recall those final words right before they disappeared. We’ve received new orders. We can’t complete the evacuation.
I’m sorry.
A strange sort of futility settles over me. That all our collective efforts to survive could, in the end, be reduced down to two token words . . . !
“—be if we just wait, the Navy will come ba—”
“Don’t you get it? They’re not coming back! They had their chance, and instead of rescuing us like they were supposed to, they left! They laid the net, and then left us to die in the middle of the slaggin’ jungle! And now that they’re gone, they’re never coming back.”
Silence falls, and then a tiny voice says:
“But I just want to go home.”
Another pause, then—
“Face it. None of us is ever going home again.”
The words ring out like a death knell, cold and crisp and clear, and in the ensuing silence, all I can hear is the whisper of the rain drizzling across the platform even as Gupta’s last words—I’m sorry—reverberate over and over in my mind.
Time passes, morning inching into afternoon with the greatest reluctance. The patter turns into a deluge, and the arguments finally peter out, tempers temporarily doused by the sheer demoralization that only comes from being soaked to the skin from head to toe. We retreat a little ways into the jungle, far enough to find some cover but still close enough to keep eyes on the platform. Though we know without a doubt the Navy is gone, still by unspoken agreement we stay, tied to its presence by some slender thread of hope no one can quite bear to cut. We split the last of the ration paks, one for every two people. Then, with half-light coming on, there’s nothing left to do but crouch in the shadows like a pack of injured animals, quietly licking our wounds while overhead the suns slowly sink down into the trees.
We pass our fourth night in the jungle only to awaken sweating, soaked, and sore on the forest floor the next morning. Though the planetary net remains, a glowing blue cage stretching doggedly across the sky, still we return to the platform, scanning the skies once again in hope that some miracle may yet descend upon us. But if anyone is listening, we see no sign of it. As the hours pass with no answer, hope turns to dismay, and then outright despair and even anger, and by mid-morning, the first fight—a scuffle over what looks to be a Galaxy Bar—breaks out. One thing leads to another, and before long, half a dozen minor disputes have blown up across the platform.
I watch it all unfold with growing exasperation—as if we don’t have problems enough!—until finally I can’t take it anymore. Rising to my feet, I stomp past a knot of squabblers, jump off the side of the platform, and stalk off into the forest.
As irritated as I am, I don’t get far before common sense reasserts itself, and I slow to a halt. Out of eyeshot though unfortunately not earshot, I put my hands on my hips and listen as the muted bickering continues to waft through the trees.
“. . . says you . . . have it—”
“Well, why . . . ould you—”
My exasperation swells again, and for a minute I’m tempted to start walking again, to just keep going until the others, the platform, and this whole impossible nightmare have disappeared from sight—and sound—forever! But no. This is the Rainforest, after all. If I go too far, stars know if I’ll ever find my way back.
Not, I amend sourly as another chorus of arguments swell, that losing the others would exactly be the worst fate in the universe.
Still hot under the collar both literally and figuratively, I dunk my hands into a pool of water caught in a nearby leaf and splash it on my face. The cool water is a mercy against my hot skin, and I splash my face again, too hot to wonder, let alone care, if this leaf might actually be poisonous. At last, I stop, fingers brushing the leaf’s edges as I stare down into the water. Haggard eyes, both fearful and foreboding, stare back at me, a window to a truth I can no longer ignore.
We’re falling apart. Self-destructing right before my very eyes, and yet for all the world, I have no idea how to stop it. Our food is mostly gone, everyone is at each other’s throats, and there aren’t two people in this entire camp who can agree on where to go or what to do. The only thing everyone does seem to agree on is that we need to do something. Staying here just isn’t an option. We have no food, no shelter—nothing, really, that could enable us to survive in the jungle—and yet we can’t go back to town. Or can we? On impulse, I pull up the force fence grid for the settlements. Maybe, just maybe . . .
Red lights bleed across the town from end to end, and any hope I might have held that some small part of town might have been spared are dashed in an instant. Spaceport, shops, academy, even the outlying homesteads burn crimson with infection. I stare at those lights, so final in their unbrokenness, and once again I can’t help wondering at the sheer scope of their attack. I would expect such an all-encompassing attack on a heavily populated colony like Everest Prime or Travistar, but Iolanthe? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Though I told Zane only hours ago that the enemy’s reason for invading didn’t matter anymore, I find myself queuing up the force fence records for the night of the invasion anyway. I saw bits and pieces during our frantic escape, but I’ve never once watched the whole invasion from beginning to end. I queue it up now, watching in real time as the Specs tear through the town with ruthless efficiency, surrounding the spaceports before spreading first north, then west and south almost simultaneously. Fences activate almost on top of each other, one lighting only to have the next go red seconds later, and though I can only guess at the enemy’s numbers, the extent of their assault suggests a lot. In less than an hour, the entire town is red from end to end.
Sitting back on my heels, I let out a low whistle. Zane was right to question why they came; the enemy’s attack was no accident. They came in force, blocked off all escape routes, and once they had the ’ports secure, they struck—but for what? Not hosts, surely—not at the speed they were moving. So what were they looking for?
I consider the question for a minute, and then run the feed again, slower this time, so that I might see the individual movements within the larger sweep. Something catches my eye, and I pause. The spaceports weren’t their first target. I’d assumed they were—since they’re our only avenues for escape, it makes sense—but the first place they headed was north, almost in the opposite direction of the auxiliary port.
Reducing the speed even more, I continue the feed, eyes glued to that initial advance as it makes a beeline through the chaos, straight for a single facility at the north of town. Nearly abandoned after decades of disuse, but still standing nonetheless—
TruCon.
A bad feeling seeps into the pit of my stomach. There’s absolutely no reason in the universe why the Specs should be interested in a neglected administration building on a forgotten planetoid at the edge of the Expanse, any more than they should be interested in Iolanthe herself, and yet . . .
Here they are.
For a long time, I stare at those glowing lights frozen over my hand, wondering just what the enemy could possibly have been seeking at that little-used building. Clearly, TruCon was up to more than simple planetary administration—their attempts to buy out the Original Settlers not to mention the recently abandoned terraforming bunker we’re currently crouched on are proof of that—but what? What were the Specs seeking when they descended en masse upon Iolanthe? And perhaps even more importantly:
Did they find it?
“—ck! Ev . . . yone . . . me! They’re . . . ck! Th . . . back!”
At the muted shout, my reverie breaks. Dropping my hand, I twist my head around, peering this way and that as I try to figure out what’s going on. Voices rise from the direction of the platform, their excited babbling different from the usual spate of arguments. Drawn by a sense of urgency, I de-ack my chit and make for the platform. When I arrive, the scene isn’t pretty.
“. . . it, then where? Where is it, Divya?” Jovan demands, hand flung out toward the sky.
“I thought . . . I mean, I saw . . . I was sure . . .” Divya’s voice trails off at the angry rumble from the others. “I swear, I did see it! It was a ship, right up there in the sky!”
A ship? Sudden hope swells up in me, and I glance toward the sky, but there’s nothing there. Only the net, its distant beams faintly webbing the pale blue sky. Hope evaporates as quickly as it came.
“If there’s a ship, then where is it?” Vida demands, arms crossed over her chest.
“No one else saw anything,” Mario says gently. “Is it possible you just mistook something in the canopy?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Div finishes sadly. “Maybe.”
A wave of disgusted muttering fans out through the group.
“Figures. I mean, they laid the net already.”
“I told you they weren’t coming back!”
“Stars, Divya! Could you be any more defective?”
At the harsh words, tears pool in Divya’s eyes. She bites her lip, but several tears streak down her face anyway.
Mario immediately wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Be kind, Jov. It was an honest mistake.”
“Yeah, it’s hardly Divya’s fault we’re marooned out in the jungle,” Trey agrees.
“No, it’s hers!”
All heads swivel in my direction, drawn by Djen’s accusatory tone and pointing finger.
I involuntarily take a half step back, startled by the unexpected attack. “Me?”
“You’re the one who dragged us into this place with all these bugs and trees and mud and slag! Now we’re stuck out here—starving, being forced to sleep on the ground, and for what? Nothing! That’s what.” Out of breath, she pauses, staring expectantly at me. When I don’t answer, she huffs, “Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
Resentment spikes in me at this unjust attack, and I can feel my cheeks beginning to heat despite the cool breeze ghosting in from the east. Putting my hands on my hips, I draw myself up to my full height. “Something to say?” I ask, disdain dripping from every word. “You mean about not leaving you all behind at the academy to get infected by ghouls? Oh, I don’t know? You’re welcome, maybe?”
Murmurs break out, not all of them angry, and I know my point hasn’t gone untaken. Djen’s mouth falls open. “You . . . you . . .”
I savor her discomfort for several seconds, then shake my head. “This is ridiculous. We can’t keep—”
The breeze comes again, tickling over my nose and mouth, and I stop. Any contentions I might’ve raised slip from my mind as all the little hairs on my arms stand on end. Slowly, I turn my head to the east.
“Can’t keep what?” Djen demands, finally finding her voice again. “Dying of starvation? Getting poisoned by giant jungle spiders? Drowning in all this endless rain?”
Eyes still fixed on the jungle, I shush her with a raised hand. Not that she takes the hint. Ignoring her continued complaints, I search the forest, eyes sliding over rocks and trees and brush as I attempt to find the source of my disquiet. But I find nothing. At least, not with my eyes . . .
All senses on alert, I turn on one heel and take a step toward the forest. Behind me, the others have fallen silent, even Djen’s diatribe dying out as she finally realizes something isn’t right. Flaring my nostrils wide, I take a deep breath. Warm air, heavy with humidity, flows up my nasal passages, carrying with it the wild scents of the forest—citrus and spice, earth and rain, rotting leaves and—
Oooooh-weeeee! Ooooh-weeeeee! Oooooh-weeeeee!
The force fence goes off, the shrill siren piercing my ears just an instant before the sharp scent of sour-and-sweet drills straight up my nostrils and into my sinuses. I stumble back, my whole body recoiling from the onslaught even as my mind screams one thing.
Ghouls!