3

An hour later, her hair freshly cut, Hwa Young lifted her kinetic rifle to her shoulder at the outdoor firing range and peered through the sight at the target. She breathed calmly, in and out, knowing that she’d accounted for everything. Earlier this training session, she’d zeroed her rifle so its aim was true in local gravity on the world of Serpentine. The Empire claimed it had standardized gravity within its territory, but everyone knew that the values fluctuated from place to place, time to time.

Most of her classmates zeroed their rifles only when Instructor Kim reminded them. Hwa Young took the training more seriously because of her ambitions. The rest of them could coast on their family connections. She didn’t have that option.

In a way, Hwa Young regretted that the readiness class, the one place where she was number one, would end today. She enjoyed being outdoors, learning how to distinguish poisonous mushrooms from safe ones, or the nighttime sessions when they navigated by the local constellations. Regular boarding school classes, on the other hand, promised the drudgery of memorizing poetry and mathematical formulas while being stuck inside.

“Fire on three,” Instructor Kim said to the row of twelve students. All of them wore pale blue student uniforms consisting of crisp button-down shirts and slacks. The instructor herself stood out due to her black jacket. “One, two…three.”

Hwa Young inhaled once and pulled the trigger at the top of her breath. She did it the same way every time, the best way to ensure consistent aim. The bullet flew true, leaving a neat black hole in the center of the target.

Instructor Kim walked from one end of the line to the other, critiquing as she went, as though the placement of the bullet holes weren’t chastisement enough. Hwa Young was the only one who had hit the bull’s-eye dead center, although Bae had come close. One area where I can beat you, Hwa Young thought.

The instructor paused next to Hwa Young and inspected her stance. “Acceptable.” That was all she ever said to Hwa Young. At least it wasn’t animosity. Some of the other instructors were openly hostile, assigning her to clean up the classroom after hours or run errands.

Everyone in the boarding school knew Hwa Young’s status as a ward of the state. Hard not to, when she’d shown up in a shirt that had the orphanage’s name embroidered on it. They might as well have branded her.

She’d worked hard to keep her identity as a former clanner a secret, at least. Thanks to the orphanage director’s lax computer security and chaotic recordkeeping—a great way to line his pockets with extra money intended for the orphans—Hwa Young had foxed her own file to make it look like she came from an Imperial family near the border that had run afoul of raiders.

At least she’d had those months at the orphanage to learn Imperial customs and get used to her new name. Hwa Young meant “beautiful flower,” although she knew herself to share Mother Aera’s raptor features. She would never be a rival for Bae in that department.

A few of the others shot Hwa Young annoyed glances, while absent-minded Seong Su merely whistled and stared off into the violet-tinged sky. She told herself it wasn’t important what the others did. They might consider the class a mere formality, but she knew better than most how much it mattered.

“Turn in your rifles at the depot,” Instructor Kim said. “Hae Sun, watch where you’re pointing that.” She addressed the rest of her remarks to the whole class. “Remember, always treat your piece as if it’s loaded. And march in cadence. It will be good practice.”

Seong Su, who on top of everything had terrible muzzle discipline, nodded overemphatically. Hwa Young flinched when, for a moment, he had his muzzle pointed at his own chin.

The instructor noticed too. “It doesn’t matter whether the safety is on or off,” she said, unsmiling. “Never point your piece at anything you don’t want to kill.”

“Sorry, Instructor,” Seong Su said, and this time managed to get it right.

The instructor oversaw their efforts to get into rhythm as they began marching, but there was only so much even she could do. Most of the students had dreams other than the military. Ha Yoon, for instance, spoke openly of hoping for a cushy posting with the planetary government one day, while Hae Sun planned on working at the Transportation Ministry like his father.

A career in the military promised Hwa Young a chance to win prestige on her own merits. It was a place where even the lowliest recruit could rise to glory. After all, the second-highest-ranking lancer pilot in the Empire, glamorous, amber-eyed Mi Cha, had come from humble origins. Her parent had been a sewage worker.

The military’s legendary willingness to offer anyone a chance turned off Hwa Young’s classmates…except Bae. Just her luck that her archrival, too, wanted to become a lancer pilot, and made no secret of it. Hwa Young was willing to do anything to come out ahead.

As they headed toward the depot, Hwa Young lost herself in the natural beauty that her classmates took for granted. The Empire’s geomancers and gardeners had a tyrannical idea of what a standard Imperial planet should look like. The instructors were at pains to tell them that every world in New Joseon featured the same pine trees, the same mountains, the same raucous flocks of magpies and cranes. At least it was an aesthetic tyranny.

At this time of year, the forsythias for which the city was named were still bright yellow, with newly budding leaves. The magnolias bloomed white and succulent, and the winds out of the north brought with them the promise of a fragrant spring. Hwa Young thought of Carnelian and its carpets of starblooms, absent here. She sometimes caught herself doodling their five-petaled flowers in the margins of her notes, and always scribbled over them. After all, no one knew the secrets of her past, not even Geum.

Hwa Young turned in her rifle to the unsmiling clerk and joined the others on the way to the hover-shuttle that would convey them back to the city proper. She’d always found it amusing that New Joseon was so averse to admitting that its citizens might ever be in danger that even military training courses like this one took place at training grounds outside the city limits—out of sight, out of mind. But even as a ten-year-old, when she’d first been placed with the orphanage, Hwa Young had rapidly picked up on the fact that, at least on a periphery world that hadn’t yet attained core world status, the Imperials weren’t as united as they liked to boast. Citizens observed the daily prayers to the Empress and meditated on statuettes depicting her upon the Chrysanthemum Throne, and as a result, up stayed up and down stayed down. That didn’t mean they never disagreed, or that political quarrels ceased to exist.

Bae had lingered at the depot so that Hwa Young had to pass her to get to the shuttle. She caught Hwa Young’s eye, smiled too sweetly at her, and whispered, “Acceptable. You’re catching up!”

Hwa Young stiffened. No matter how many times she hardened herself against the insults, they pierced her every time. She looked straight ahead, pretending she hadn’t heard. Pretending the coolness of the air on the back of her neck, formerly covered by the long hair she’d clung to for so long, didn’t sting so badly.

Still, heat rushed to her face. From behind her, she heard Bae’s sniff. Hwa Young knew she wasn’t fooling anyone, however much she wished she had a visage like ice, cold and impenetrable.

During her first days on Serpentine, at the orphanage, she’d gotten into trouble by flying into rages and fighting with the other children. The orphanage’s director had lectured her on thinking before she acted. Telling her that she needed to fit in, even if the others didn’t accept her as one of them.

Eventually the message got through. Hwa Young learned to suppress her anger, transforming it into determination. She prayed to the Empress for guidance, and guidance came. Remember the lancers, she thought every night, visualizing her idol Mi Cha and her green-and-gold lancer Summer Thorn. I will be a lancer pilot. She was one of the Empress’s children—not literally, but in the way that every citizen was—and deserved the Empress’s protection.

If she proved herself, the Empress would reward her hard work. She was counting on it.

Hwa Young shook off her thoughts and clambered into the shuttle. Geum had saved a seat for her. Zir elegant face was framed by careful asymmetric curls today. “Hey,” zie said, smiling. “You did great.”

Hwa Young flushed guiltily. She hadn’t been paying attention to Geum’s performance because she’d been fixated on Bae. “Thanks,” she said. “Did you hit the target?”

“Two rings out,” Geum admitted. “I never get any closer. Up, down, sideways—anywhere but the bull’s-eye.”

“Try to pull the trigger either at the top or bottom of your breath. Pick one and stick to it. Doing it differently each time is why your aim is inconsistent.”

“There goes Hwa Young again,” Bae remarked from the back of the shuttle. “Can’t even stop criticizing her only friend.”

Hwa Young flushed again. “I didn’t mean it like—”

Geum patted her hand. “It’s all right.” Still, zie didn’t look directly at her—a sign zir feelings were hurt.

Hwa Young swallowed and squeezed Geum’s hand back. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. One of these days she’d learn to hold her tongue.

The instructor powered up the shuttle. Its blank gray control surface lit up as it connected to her neural implant. Everyone in New Joseon was fitted with one when they turned fourteen. The shuttle’s controls morphed into an interface customized to the instructor’s preferences, white rectangular panels and buttons with all the personality of a shipping crate.

The hour-long ride back to the city always felt as though it dragged on much longer. Hwa Young dreaded going back to the boarding school’s campus as much as she enjoyed the weekend excursions—and the chance to defeat Bae.

Hwa Young had tuned out the gossip of Bae and her cronies, which concerned the latest gifts—bribes, really—Bae’s mom had sent to the crownworld. Instead, Hwa Young racked her brain for the best places to sniff out a New Year’s gift for Geum. She looked over at Geum, who had pulled out zir phone and was, to all appearances, in the process of hacking into Ha Yoon’s phone to draw fox ears on her user portrait.

Suddenly, Geum dropped the phone in zir lap and grabbed Hwa Young’s arm, fingers gouging her painfully. Zie was staring out the front window.

Hwa Young hissed in pain, then said, “What—”

“They wouldn’t start New Year’s fireworks a couple months early, would they?” Geum asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

Hwa Young’s gaze was dragged upward toward the red flash that effloresced across the horizon, the red stars that sped toward Forsythia City’s protective dome. Her heart jackhammered.

Missiles.

The shuttle screeched to a halt, jolting its passengers. The seatbelt dug into Hwa Young’s shoulder. Bae let out an undignified squawk.

“Quiet,” Instructor Kim barked from the driver’s seat, the first time she’d spoken since the drive began. A tinny voice crackled from the comm unit, only to dissolve into static.

Hwa Young tried, and failed, to suppress a flare of alarm. Maybe she was wrong; maybe someone had just messed up the fireworks, though it didn’t make any sense. But Hwa Young knew what missiles looked like, could recall the signs of attack from that day six years ago.

Surely not on Serpentine, which had known peace during the six years she’d lived here.

Maybe it’s a drill?

But what kind of drill would knock out communications as well?

Moments later, they heard the boom, felt it through the shuttle’s walls and floor. Geum’s grip on her arm tightened. At this rate Hwa Young was going to lose circulation in that arm. A petty concern when something much bigger was happening.

We’re under attack. We’re really under attack.

Violet-blue afterimages from the red falling stars—missiles—flared before her eyes. Only practice from a childhood she’d left behind kept her taking deep, steady breaths, rather than hyperventilating in panic. As much as she disliked most of her twelve classmates, she was suddenly glad to be with them, rather than facing this alone.

“The city,” Bae said, small and stunned, in the brief stillness that followed. “What if my family…”

It was the first indication Hwa Young had ever gotten that Bae cared about anything but being number one.

Hwa Young flashed back to the day when she’d lost her own family, felt the weight of Mother Aera’s knife. She didn’t want that for anyone else, not even Bae. “Your folks will be fine,” she said quietly.

Bae shot Hwa Young a startled glance. Ha Yoon had her arm around Bae’s shoulders and was saying something in a comforting undertone. For once Ha Yoon’s expression was gentle instead of snotty.

They’ll take care of each other. Hwa Young wondered why she had bothered to say anything. A cold snake of dread coiled around her heart.

She didn’t have parents to worry about, not anymore, but what about Geum’s family, who had shown her such kindness? Geum brought her home with zir on holidays. Zir fathers always asked about her favorite foods and made sure to include them at the family table. One of Geum’s little cousins gave her a lucky coin pendant, which she still had. And the care packages the family sent included sesame cookies for her, because they knew she loved them. They have to be safe, she told herself. The Empress will keep them safe.

But here, on a planet far from the crownworld, the words felt hollow.

Hwa Young had memorized the location of every one of Forsythia City’s bomb shelters, a precaution that even Geum had teased her about. The memory of Carnelian’s destruction drove her to prepare like this, although even she had thought it was unlikely that the knowledge would ever come in useful. She would have preferred to have memorized useless trivia than to live through another bombardment. But it didn’t matter anyway; Hwa Young didn’t know where to find shelter outside the city.

Another shock wave caused the shuttle to tremble. Instructor Kim hit the brakes hard, then U-turned the vehicle, which emitted a high-pitched shriek.

“What are you doing?” Ha Yoon asked in a shrill voice. The other students were white-faced, unable even to speak.

“New plan,” the instructor said crisply. “We’re getting to shelter. Anyone who didn’t buckle up earlier, now’s the time.”

Bae cried, “But the city’s the other way!” She pressed her hands to the window as if she could drag the receding city back into reach.

“Exactly,” the instructor snapped. “And the city’s under attack. Now quiet.”

Bae spat a curse, her face twisting in mixed fury and despair.

Similar emotions churned in Hwa Young’s gut. But she knew the credo. On Carnelian it had been Do as others do. Stay where others are. Unity is survival. New Joseon used different words: Trust the Empress. Move at her will. Act as her hands. Still, the intent was similar.

A hush fell over the group at first. Then one of the boys started sniffling, and set off his seatmate. Their sobs were unnaturally loud in the confined space of the shuttle. One kid recited the Imperial credo under zir breath in a rapid, pinched monotone. Hwa Young shut the noise out. It wasn’t as if they’d accept comfort from her, anyway.

“Clanners,” Geum muttered. “It’s got to be clanners.”

Hwa Young flinched, and hoped zie misread the reason for her reaction. “What makes you say that?”

Geum looked at her strangely. “Who else could it be?” Reluctantly, zie added, “I guess it could be bandits, but what kind of bandits would be that well-organized?”

Empress, please let it be bandits, Hwa Young thought. She didn’t want the ugly ghosts of her past to rear up in real life.

Instructor Kim paid no attention to the students as she drove off the road, headed for—where? Hwa Young knew better than to voice her misgivings. The shuttle’s levitators operated best over level ground or slight inclines, not heavy terrain. Still, what choice did they have? They could hide from the attackers more readily away from civilization.

The others already had their phones out. Geum had retrieved zirs. Hwa Young didn’t have anyone to check in with, so she peered at Geum’s.

Zie messaged zir fathers: Saw the attack. Are you okay?

NO CONNECTION, zir phone said.

Geum squeezed zir eyes shut. “This can’t be happening this can’t be happening this can’t be happening.”

I have to be the calm one, Hwa Young thought, because if she fell apart, Geum would really lose it, and then where would they be?

“I bet the attackers knocked out the communication towers and satellites first thing,” she said, her voice trembling even though she willed it to be steady. “That would explain why the instructor hasn’t been able to contact anyone, either. I bet your dads are fine.”

Still, Geum continued jabbing at zir phone as if zie could make the NO CONNECTION message go away by sheer force of will. Luckily, Hwa Young had downloaded a local map on her phone, just in case, which she pulled up now. She had never forgotten the terror of drifting in the starry aether, not knowing where she was in a world fallen to kaleidoscope pieces.

The shuttle accelerated suddenly, smashing Hwa Young back against her seat. She looked up from her phone and out the window, trying to get her bearings. They were in the hills well outside the city. Early spring blossoms freckled the tall grasses; leaves swirled in the shuttle’s wake. In the distance, Hwa Young saw the rising mountains and their dark cloak of pine trees—sacred grounds that were sculpted and maintained to bring prosperity and good fortune to the city in the south.

Hwa Young raised her voice: “Instructor! We can’t go there. They’ll bomb geomantic sites next.” Any attackers would know they could gain an advantage by disrupting the flow of good fortune, with consequences like vehicles breaking down unexpectedly or missed communications.

“That’s already understood,” Instructor Kim said, her voice revealing no more emotion than ever. Hwa Young glimpsed the side of her face like a crescent moon, blade-keen and dangerous. “There’s a bunker—”

“Watch out!” Geum shouted.

A deer bounded out from the grasses. It was a massive buck with antlers worthy of any crown. Hwa Young would have sworn it came out of nowhere. It careened into the side of the shuttle, then fell, bellowing.

In the city or on a road, this would have been survivable. But the shuttle hadn’t been designed for off-road travel, and they had reached rockier ground. The shuttle jolted against an outcropping and flipped.

Hwa Young’s stomach churned, as the shuttle landed upside down with a heart-stopping thump. The impact reverberated through the vehicle, vibrating through her teeth. The seat harness dug punishingly into her shoulder and torso.

Several people screamed. Geum’s fingernails were going to leave permanent bruises in Hwa Young’s arm.

Hwa Young blinked, dizzy from the rush of blood to her head, the coppery taste in her mouth. What now?

A student in the front gasped. It was Dong Hyun, the one who’d started sobbing earlier. “The instructor,” he said shakily. “Is she—is she okay?”

Hwa Young refocused on the front seat.

Instructor Kim did not remotely look okay. Blood dripped from a cut in her scalp. Her head hung from her neck at an angle that made Hwa Young’s stomach roil. Worst of all, her seat belt dangled uselessly: a safety failure at the worst possible time.

“Check the instructor’s pulse,” Hwa Young said, although she knew. She knew.

Dong Hyun gaped. “What—?” The word was swallowed by his useless snuffling.

The first priority was to see if there was any hope of saving the instructor. The Empress wants us to respect authority. Hard to do that if the authority figure was dead. Then they needed to make sure all the students were okay.

Someone had to take charge—especially if the instructor was dead—and that was going to be her, apparently, because everyone else was too frozen with shock to do anything useful.

Before Geum could protest, Hwa Young braced herself against the shuttle’s side and unbuckled herself. She landed in an ungainly heap, but managed to untangle her limbs and scramble right side up. Then she shoved past Geum and Dong Hyun to press her fingers against Instructor Kim’s neck, silently apologizing for the liberty.

Empress, please—

No such luck. “No pulse,” Hwa Young said flatly.

Someone shrieked. After a moment’s shocked silence, the other students began to babble in panic.

“What now?” Bae asked, raising her voice.

On any other day, Hwa Young would have shot back a chilly retort. Today, their rivalry seemed petty and far away. “We have to right the shuttle and get to that bunker. First that means we need to exit the shuttle, and then one of us will need to drive.”

“I can drive,” Bae said. “But it’s not like either of us knows where the bunker is.”

Hwa Young tapped her phone and checked the map for directions. But the bunker wasn’t on it. She kicked herself inwardly for downloading a map available to the general public, which was apparently missing some details.

Feeling like a ghoul, Hwa Young leaned over Instructor Kim’s body. The shuttle’s navigation system had reverted back to its dull, featureless gray when the instructor died and the connection to her neural implant snapped. “Nav might still be working. You’ll have to connect to it to find out. I’ll take shotgun and keep an eye out for any more deer.” She didn’t mention that deer weren’t the only creatures who lived out here.

“Everyone okay?” Hwa Young called out. “Roll call.”

One by one, everyone called out their names, even Bae, in the accustomed order. The classroom ritual seemed to steady the others, despite the fact that they were still upside down, buckled into a vehicle that had turned turtle.

“Out,” Hwa Young said. For a moment she wasn’t sure they would listen to her.

Bae glanced at her, then nodded. “Do what she says.”

The students clumsily piled out of the shuttle, yelping as people elbowed or kicked one another in their haste to get out.

The deer was still thrashing beneath the vehicle by the time everyone had emerged. It seemed to have broken a leg. “Stay clear,” Bae said, high and sharp. “One kick and it’ll shatter your skull.”

The vehicle was light for its size, but it took their combined strength to push it away from the deer, even with the aid of levitators in emergency mode, then roll it right side up. The deer screamed in panic, attempting futilely to stand up and bolt.

Thankfully, two of the students—Seong Su and Min Kyung—were large and strong, even if Hwa Young had to glare at Seong Su to keep him from cracking inappropriate jokes about roadkill.

“Where…what do we do with the instructor?” Geum asked. Zie opened the door and swept zir fingers over her face to close her staring eyes.

In normal times, there would be special rites, and the body would be given some dignity. There was no time for either. Hwa Young peered back the way they’d come. While the city was no longer visible, red light glowed from the horizon. Fire, or things worse than fire.

First things first. Hwa Young muttered an apology once more as she relieved the instructor of her sidearm, a pistol.

“Seong Su, Min Kyung, move the body into the trunk,” Hwa Young said. She stood looking at the deer, wishing there were some way to save it. While she’d hunted small game back on Carnelian, she had made sure none of her prey suffered more than necessary.

“What are you going to do?” Geum asked.

“The necessary thing.” Hwa Young approached the deer as closely as she dared, then thumbed off the safety and fired.

None of us asked for this, she thought, unsure whether she was addressing herself, the other students, the deer, or the luckless Instructor Kim.

After Seong Su and Min Kyung relocated the instructor’s body, the students reentered the shuttle one by one. Bae took the driver’s seat without flinching from the splash of blood. Hwa Young claimed shotgun next to her, determined that they wouldn’t have a second accident. She didn’t trust Bae, but she didn’t wish the other girl dead, either.

Hwa Young glanced back at the horizon. The red glow had brightened. That couldn’t be good news.

Bae started the shuttle. The interface flowered awake for her, the buttons and display panels decorated with subtle filigree and barbs. There was a sharp beauty to it that fit Bae’s personality perfectly.

Bae drove more slowly than the instructor had. Hwa Young scanned the rocky landscape and its shrubbery, looking for more hazards. She could hear Instructor Kim’s body thumping in the back as it rolled or slid each time Bae made a course correction, and Hwa Young had to suppress a shudder.

Her heartbeat had slowed down for the first time since the attack began when a shadow engulfed the shuttle, too big, too sudden, to be a cloud crossing the sun. Beside her, Bae cursed violently.

Hwa Young’s breath seized in her throat.

Someone had found them.