26Stunners flash under the rising suns, bleeding crimson through the pale morning light. High-pitched and sharp, their incessant whines cut through the air, slicing through the sounds of the Rainforest to mingle with the distant whoosh of aero-launchers firing one after another. Chargers hum and repressurizers hiss, their quiet sounds a reassuring presence as they refill launcher carts and recharge power cells. Escape craft bob atop the river, solid and steady, while around the camp surveillance drones circle, noiseless and invisible as they keep watch over our border.

It’s been nearly four weeks since that fateful day I followed Shar into the woods, in pursuit of a girl I’d thought long lost, only to end up finding myself instead. Something changed in me that day. The answers I’d sought were not what I found, and the ones I found made me question everything I knew. They stirred something inside me, arousing new passion where once only lurked dormancy, and by the time I emerged from the woods, my transformation was complete. Like the phoenix of legend, I was reborn from the ashes of my old life, my prior indecision reforged into a keen-edged resolve and my heart replaced by a drum of war that never ceases.

It’s a drum that beats even now, thrumming through my chest as I stroll through the grounds to survey the camp. We moved the tents back from the center of the clearing, lining up the girls’ shelters against the cliffs to the north and setting up the boys’ along the tree line to the south, and now the center of the camp has become one huge training ground. Students burn stunner bolts into wooden targets, hone their launcher technique using colored practice smoke, and work out in our “gym” area with its makeshift weights and hand-to-hand weapons. Over by the tents, Kieran is gathering up a group for a run around the camp, while at the river, Divya is stocking our escape crafts with emergency food and supplies. Everywhere I look, the students appear sharp, prepared, ready for war.

And a war is exactly what I’m going to give them.

Pivoting on one heel, I make a second round through the camp, barking orders as I go. “Nice shooting, guys. Just remember to recharge all the stunners as soon as practice is over. Kieran, I need the inventory list from yesterday’s supply run. Link it to me as soon as you’ve got it. Divs, make sure everything is wrapped up in waterproof bags. We don’t want all our emergency supplies getting ruined the next time it rains.”

A slew of affirmatives rings out in answer. Convinced everything is well in hand, at least for the moment, I swing back around toward the shelters.

Off to my right, distant movement catches my eye. I glance over. Just beyond the kitchen tree, Mario is helping Megumi set up a makeshift infirmary. She catches sight of me and stops, a wad of bandages clutched to her chest. Her arms tighten around the bundle, and for a long moment, she simply stares at me, eyes saying what her lips do not. Then Megumi says something and, ducking her head, Mario drops her eyes and turns away.

For a split second, I hesitate, keenly aware of the distance between us—a distance measured, not in meters but in words—then with a shake of my head, I return to my tent.

While once it housed four other girls, my shelter, aka the Command Tent, is now just me along with a slew of war supplies in desperate need of a home. I lift the flap and step inside, careful to avoid the cans of launcher oil sitting by the entrance. Though I’m the only one left here, it’s more crowded than ever. My desk still sits in the center of the tent, but now there are three rows of crates pushed up against the back and side walls, each filled with a panoply of supplies. Yet more gear is stashed around the crates, everything from repair tools to navigation equipment to outdoor paraphernalia, while a small sleeping mat and pillow lie off in a corner, half obscured by my backpack and a map of the settlements. As if that weren’t enough, a slew of tip-pads in various sizes perch atop the crates, all projecting various feeds—camera images, force fence grids, and surveillance drone footage.

I’ve barely finished checking my feeds when my inner circle begins to arrive for our first strategy meeting. Vida and Jovan, of course—as social leaders, their cooperation is essential no matter what my feelings about them—plus Mercury and Hegit for their technical expertise, our medic, Megumi, Zane, and Trey, who has impressed me with his general ability to stay calm and competent under pressure.

In true Queen B style, Vida is the last to arrive. She takes up a spot on the opposite side of the desk, crosses her arms over her chest, and cocks one hip. “All right, we’re all here,” she declares, acting for all the world as though it was she who was waiting for us all this time. “Tell us your big plan. Tell us how we’re going to defeat an invisible army ten times our size.”

At Vida’s challenge, I take a deep breath. Though this is what I’ve been working toward ever since I entered the shed in the woods a four-square ago, now that I have everyone here, the enormity of what we’re about to attempt hits me like a meteorite. Ignoring the sudden flutter in my stomach, I drop my hands to the desk with a loud thump.

“Air. Water. Power. Supplies.” With each word, my eyes move from one person to the next. “That’s how we’ll hit them. That’s how we’ll win.”

I activate the tip-pad on my desk. Immediately, a three-dimensional holo-feed of the settlements springs up over my desk. The spaceport sprawls across the eastern edge, a massive circular platform flanked directly to the north and south by Settlements 1 and 5 while Settlements 2, 3, and 4 fan out to the west.

I zoom in on the platform. On the surface, it seems like any other spaceport, but I know better. Just below it, buried half a klick beneath the ground, is the enemy. I nod to the ’port.

“This is our target: a seventy-year-old terraforming bunker buried beneath the spaceport at the heart of town.” I queue up a schematic I managed to cobble together from my digital trip underground. “As you can see, the bunker is vast, and over the years, TruCon has only expanded it even more. Though the original terraforming had a skeleton crew of fifty at its height, I estimate that there are now at least five hundred people underground, all working to create a single substance—a mind control weapon called Sinesensu.”

I pause, looking at each person in turn. “The Specs have already produced massive quantities of this bioweapon. If they can manage to get it off-planet and disseminate it across colonies and stations, whole cities could go down in minutes without a single uninfected survivor. It could shorten the invasion, not by months, but years.”

At my mention of bioweapons, everyone fidgets and turns away, their tension palpable in the humid jungle air. Only Vida holds my gaze. Only Vida refuses to look away.

Out of everyone in the camp, Vida was the first to truly take this war to heart. As the only native Iolanthian, she’s been the one most acutely affected by the invasion, and though I would never dare offer her pity, I can only imagine the agony she must feel when she thinks of her family. Her desire for revenge runs as deep as mine, and it was that, more than anything, that won her over to my cause. While everyone else was still reeling from my revelations when I first told them about the bioweapons four weeks ago, it was she who faced me down, hands on her hips and eyes like thunder. When she finally spoke, it was clear her decision was made.

“Just so you know, I’m not doing this for you.”

“I know.”

Our bargain was struck in the woods that day, in a little glen just outside of camp. A bargain born, not out of trust or friendship, but a shared agony made only sharper by its forced secrecy.

Together we brought the others into the fight, using a combination of patriotism, manipulation, and peer pressure to win the others over one at a time. Even just the promise of a break from the everyday monotony that’s crept into our lives was enough to deliver some to our cause. Once we got Jovan on our side, the rest were easy. Jovan’s pull over the guys is undeniable, and few girls dare defy Vida. As we began prepping for battle, anticipation began to rise, and it soon became clear that Vida and I weren’t the only ones hungering to strike a blow against the enemy. Though there are still a few holdouts—notably Mario, along with a half dozen others—their voices are weak and easily overridden. Now, after a month of preparation—weapons training, supply raids, research, and planning—the time has come for our first strike. Assuming I can get the others in my inner circle to sign off on the plan, that is.

I switch over to the map of town again. “With no way to get a message out or call for help, we are the only ones who can stop the Spectres, but we can’t attack them directly. The ghouls are invincible, and killing squatters would only create more ghouls. We certainly can’t imprison five hundred people, not with only thirty-five of us.”

“No?” Megumi asks shrewdly. “They’re already bottled up in bunkers under the ground, aren’t they? Seems to me they’ve mostly done our job for us.”

I shake my head. “The underground network is a vast warren of bunkers and tunnels. Even if we could find all the routes in and out and effectively block them, they could always get out through the spaceport, which we can’t currently touch due to the security shield around it.”

“What do we do, then?” Vida asks.

“We don’t attack the enemy; we attack their operation.”

“Go after the bioweapons themselves,” Trey says, catching on. “Makes sense.”

“Impossible!” Mercury blurts out. “Hacking academy or low-level town security is one thing, but TruCon security? That’s an entirely different story. We’re no more getting into that bunker than we’re getting through that spaceport shield.”

“That’s why we’re not even going to try.”

“You know what? This is ridiculous!” Jovan explodes. “There’s, like, thirty of us and five hundred of them. We can’t even get into the bunker. How could we possibly attack an operation this big?”

At Jovan’s objections, I smile. “Ah, but you see, their size is also their biggest weakness.” I switch the tip-pad over to a real-time feed of the bunkers’ power grid. “See that?”

It’s Hegit who catches on first. “Holy stars, look at all the power they’re sucking! There’s no way they could be getting all that from the bunker, even if they did add extra generators belowground.”

“Exactly,” I confirm with a pleased smile. “The terraforming bunker was mainly used to house equipment. Its life support systems were only meant to support maybe fifty people. They’ve got five hundred down there, plus a massive bioweapons operation requiring large amounts of power.”

“So how are they doing it?” Megumi asks. “How can they possibly support all that?”

“By co-opting the settlements’ own support facilities—power production, water treatment, air recycling. They’re drawing directly from the town’s own resources, allowing them to essentially hide in plain sight.”

“And no one noticed?” Trey asks, incredulous.

“Who do you think runs the utilities?” Vida counters. “TruCon owns the planet. Besides, most of the facilities are automated anyway. They only have a handful of employees, and they mostly do routine maintenance and repairs.”

“She’s right,” I agree, “and since the infrastructure was created back before the plague, when TruCon still believed this place would grow to be a large and thriving colony, the existing facilities are more than adequate to maintain both the bioweapons operation and the town, with minimal modifications and none the wiser. But for all its advantages, this system has one big flaw. Namely, that all of the town’s support structures are aboveground, making them vulnerable to attack.” I switch back to the map of town, zooming in on each target in turn, starting with the main ventilation shaft. “Air.”

The water treatment facility. “Water.”

The solar fields. “Power.”

The emergency shelters. “Food.”

Heads start nodding as the others catch on, and I use the moment to press my advantage. “TruCon has managed to expand their operation tenfold, and all because these structures are supplementing their underground systems.”

A gleam of a smile appears on Jovan’s face as he finally gets it. “So if we take out the support structures . . .”

“We’ll take out the enemy.”

An astounded silence fills the tent as everyone takes in my plan. I wait with bated breath, hoping beyond hope that they don’t get overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of it all and turn tail. Then to my relief, Jovan lets out an exuberant whoop. Trey laughs, his head bobbing in approval, and suddenly everyone’s talking at once, pointing out various structures on the holo-map as they discuss our new offensive campaign.

A smile spreads over my lips. I’ve got them.

We spend the next hour huddled around my desk, going over schematics, inspecting possible targets, and brainstorming tactics. As we confer, I assess the others’ capabilities, quizzing Mercury and Hegit relentlessly on which types of tech they can crack and which they can’t, and using Vida’s knowledge of the area to shape my ideas. Jovan, though no strategist, has surprisingly good insight into the talents and capabilities of the others, especially the guys, and both Megumi and Trey chime in at random intervals with useful thoughts and ideas. By the time we’re finished, my list of potential targets for our first offensive has been narrowed down to three, and my confidence has only grown.

Marking one last target on the town map, I finally dismiss the others for the night, but even before they’ve finished filing out of the tent, I’m already going back over my tip-pad, reviewing my notes from the meeting and jotting down a few more. Lost in thought, it’s only when a slight shadow falls over me that I become aware of one final presence lingering across the table.

I don’t even have to look up to know who it is. Head still bent over my pad, I pause, waiting for him to speak.

“So. You’re really going to do this.”

A beat passes. My fingers curl around the sides of my tip-pad, and then relax. “Do what?” I ask after a moment.

“This.” Though his voice is soft, there’s no mistaking the edge in Zane’s tone. “Targeting the squatters, going after their operations, attacking the utilities—

“Starting a war with the Spectres.”

I take a breath, caught off guard by the blunt assertion. Though Zane barely spoke a word the entire meeting, I should’ve known better than to mistake his silence for lack of opinion. More than anyone, Zane has always had a way of cutting directly to the chase while everyone else is still beating mindlessly around the bush ten klicks back.

Letting out a sigh, I put down my pad and turn to face him. “It seems to me that it was the Spectres who started the war with us.”

“Maybe they did in the world out there, but not here. Not now.”

“A fact that could change at any given moment.”

“It could,” Zane acknowledges with a slight lift of his head, “but if it did, would it be because they suddenly decided to attack us or because we did something to provoke them?”

Silence is my initial answer. I flick my eyes away, not quite able to match his penetrating stare, and finally ask, “So what are you saying? You think we shouldn’t go through with the attack?”

“Not necessarily,” he hedges. “It’s just, in my experience . . .”

“Your experience?” I prompt when he fails to continue.

Zane stares off into the distance for a long moment, then finally shakes his head. “You know I believe in you—I wouldn’t have stood up for you at the lazaretto if I didn’t—but don’t make the mistake of underestimating the enemy. The Specs are dangerous. Like hornets, they may seem content to simply buzz about the hive, but if you kick the nest too hard, they’ll come swarming over you before you even know what’s happening. You should be careful, even more than you think. If you stir up something you can’t handle, it’s not just you but the others who will pay the price.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I ask, indignation whipping up in spite of myself. “I lived on a station full of Specs for months! I know exactly what they’re capable of.”

At my declaration, Zane frowns quizzically. That’s right, I belatedly realize. He wasn’t there when I told the others about New Sol. I don’t bother to fill him in, just push on. “You know what? You’re right. The Specs are dangerous, and like those hornets, they’ve already come swarming over us—not just here, but everywhere! If we don’t act, and soon, it’ll be too late—not just for us, but for the human species. That’s why we have to stop them here and now. We have one chance, and I’m going to take it, even if I have to do it by myself.”

I shake my head in resignation. “You want out of this war?” I ask. “Just say so. We both know that not everyone in this camp is willing or able to take on this fight. If you’re truly against this, just say the word, and you can sit this one out. You can help Mario run the camp or something. I won’t make you fight. You can stay behind.”

At my offer, all the blood drains from Zane’s face at once. His eyes widen, and it’s clear I’ve hit a nerve. I eye him curiously, watching the minute play of emotion over his serious face. Fear and loss and loneliness flicker over his features, a collage of feeling not unlike what I might expect from an orphaned ward of the Expanse during wartime, and yet underneath it all, I see something else, something very different, something I wouldn’t have expected to find at all.

Guilt.

Flickering across his face so quickly I might have missed it if I didn’t already carry the onus of my own crimes like an albatross around my neck.

A wave of surprise rolls over me. What could he have possibly done to make him feel such remorse?

Or perhaps, I reconsider after a moment, the real question isn’t what did he do, but what didn’t he do?

Zane’s jaw sets, and it suddenly occurs to me that whatever the answer to that question, he’s not going to make the same mistake twice. Eyes hard, he nods at me once. “I go where you go.”

A strange sense of relief trickles over me at his answer. I didn’t realize how worried I was that he’d say no until he said yes. I return his nod with one of my own. “Okay.”

He motions to the tip-pad in my hand. “So where do we start?”

A wicked smile flashes through my eyes. Activating the holo-map on my chit, I point to a small facility just north of Settlement 1. “Right here, at Power Distribution Hub E3.”