As soon as I step into the meeting room, I know something is wrong. There’s a tense energy in the air, a wave of heat and anxiety much worse than when I met the Developers in the other strategy room last night. There are also a lot more people here: Cadet Waller and a number of other aids, a few scientists in lab coats, and at least ten army lieutenants and colonels. They fill most of the seats around an enormous round table, talking in hushed voices among themselves. We’re still waiting for the Developers to arrive.
A holographic map of the Surface covers the back wall of the room. I study the map as I follow Dean to a pair of empty seats on the far side of the table. I easily locate the Surface settlement—it’s the only actual city on the map, though there are other marked facilities, military outposts here and there. But there’s nothing on the map that gives me any sign of the status of the war, or why this urgent meeting was called.
Sitting in the chair next to mine is Colonel Fred, the old scientist I met in Karum prison. The designer of the bomb that killed Oliver and nearly destroyed the outer sectors. Fred is deep in conversation with one of the other scientists, wringing his hands. I interrupt the two of them.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“The Surface city,” he says. The wrinkles are deep-set around his wide, worried eyes.
My chest tightens. “It was bombed.” It’s not a question.
Fred hesitates. “Well, not exactly.”
“What happened?”
Before he can explain, the door at the front of the room opens. The Developers file in one at a time, Commander Charlie and Commander Regina at the front of the line. Two more military officers trail behind them.
“Thank you all for coming,” Commander Charlie says. “Let’s call the meeting to order.”
A hush falls over the room as the commanders take their seats across the table. They all look flustered, not well kept. Regina has a smudge of lipstick at the corner of her mouth, and her bob is lying unevenly. Charlie touches a handkerchief to his forehead to wipe off the sweat.
“As some of you have already heard, we have a grave situation on the Surface,” he says in a heavy voice. “Last night we sent five squadrons to defend the city against another attack. They were ordered to draw attention away from the settlement and the passage to the lower sectors by targeting raiders stationed a hundred miles away at six o’ clock this morning, Core time. We received reports that their initial attack was successful. They took out two swarms of raiders—at least forty ships. They captured several Mardenites and were preparing to send them here for questioning. However, shortly after their report came through, all radio contact with the Surface—including video feeds from the cam-bots—went dark. We didn’t recover contact until nearly an hour ago.”
My blood courses with worry, but also with confusion. Why am I just hearing about this now, if it started hours ago?
“Based on preliminary reports,” Commander Charlie continues, “we believe the Mardenites dropped an electrical pulse bomb on the Surface city, which effectively disabled all electricity within a fifty-mile or so radius of the settlement, including weapons, transports, and comm devices.”
If this is true, the soldiers couldn’t fire their weapons or fly their transports. They couldn’t defend themselves. But any raiders who flew in from outside the radius of the damage still would’ve been armed for war.
“We don’t know exactly what happened after the bomb went off.” Charlie pauses to press his lips together. “But as of nine o’ clock this morning, there appear to be no more humans on the Surface. The underground bunkers outside the settlement, which were occupied by Colonel Parker and his regiment, are empty. There’s been no sign of them or any of the other squadrons. And the Mardenites have taken over the city.”
Silence drenches the room as Charlie’s words sink in.
It feels like someone’s stuck a wrench through my chest. The city was our biggest defense on the Surface. All the child workers—Nellie, Hector, Grady, and Evie—are gone. And the 150 soldiers who were sent to the Surface last night are gone too, Paley and Mal among them. They were the last squadrons standing between the Mardenites and the entrance to the Pipeline, the passage to Crust, Mantle, Lower, and the Core.
Everyone around the table starts talking at once with a hundred questions.
“One at a time, please,” Commander Marshall says loudly, holding up a hand for silence. “Yes, Lieutenant Brand?”
A young soldier with slick, shoulder-length hair asks, “How do we know for sure there weren’t any survivors? Couldn’t they be up there in hiding, unable to make contact with us? Their comms could be facing interference.”
“You’re right, there may well be survivors,” Marshall says. “But as we’ve had no contact with anyone, we can’t assume that’s the case. All we know for certain is that many of our people have been captured and the city has been overrun. We’ve effectively lost control of the Surface. The lower sectors, including the Core, are at a much higher risk of facing an attack, should the Mardenites discover the Pipeline.”
People raise their hands with more questions. On my left, Dean sits in silence with his lips pressed together. On my right, Fred’s hands are still fidgeting in his lap.
I have questions I want to ask, but I’m not sure where to begin. This is all too much. I’m trying to picture what happened after the pulse bomb fell. Without power, our warships must’ve crashed. Soldiers were injured; some probably died. The child workers were suddenly trapped in dark buildings. And then the Mardenites landed and took all of them, one by one. Maybe they incapacitated them with poison gas first. The child workers weren’t the ones who were going to be given the resistance serum, not right away.
Somehow, the aliens captured them all and overran the city. Some of them could be walking the streets of the work camp right now, looking for more humans they can drag aboard their raiders.
The scientist sitting on the other side of Fred is talking now: “Do you have a count of how many people were taken?”
“Roughly seven thousand child workers, along with the five squadrons of Core soldiers we sent last night and the two that were stationed under Colonel Parker,” Commander Regina says. “We can assume most of them are dead or beyond help.”
“You don’t know that,” I cut in, my voice hard. “They were taken. You don’t know what’s happened to them.”
“We know they are in the hands of the enemy,” she says calmly. “So they aren’t in good circumstances. They’re facing tortures if they’re still alive. If you care about them, you should hope they’re dead instead of in that kind of pain.”
She’s almost smiling, as if she’s amused by the idea of all those people in pain. I want to strangle her. She doesn’t care about saving them. She just wants us to believe it’s too late. Most of the people who were captured are worthless girls and boys to her, bred for labor and an early death and nothing more. Even the soldiers aren’t anyone special.
But I’m not giving up on them. I refuse to believe they’re already dead—and if they’re not dead we can save them.
Dean clears his throat, finally speaking. His jaw is firm, his eyes serious. “Has there been any sign of Mardenites near the city’s Pipeline entrance?”
In the Surface settlement, the Pipeline is accessible through the flight port. I’d never even seen it before the day I was picked for Extraction, when I boarded a transport for the Core. But then, I was mostly confined to the work camp. I was only allowed into the city for school and on the yearly days of the Extraction ceremony.
“Not yet,” Regina says. “That entrance is currently blocked by rubble from the battle. Though if they knew what they were looking for, it wouldn’t be difficult to access. So it’s very likely they are—thankfully—still unaware of our underground cities.”
“So maybe they’ll leave now,” Brand says. “As far as they know, they’ve captured everyone on the planet. Maybe they’ll go home.”
“That was our initial hope,” Charlie says, pushing his chair back. “But it doesn’t seem to be the reality.” He stands up and walks over to the map. “The Mardenites are in the midst of building settlements around the Surface.”
He presses a series of buttons on a screen to the right of the map, and the hologram changes. Giant black dots appear in seven places on the map, marking the location of the Mardenite settlements. One in the Surface city, one in the middle of the desert, three on the edges of the biggest oceans, two in the jungle to the east of the mountains.
“By the looks of it, they won’t be leaving anytime soon,” Charlie says. “And as long as they remain on the Surface, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll discover one of the entrances to the lower sectors. Any of our citizens in their custody could easily give up the information.”
The Developers don’t care about any of the people who were captured or killed in the bombing. The only reason they care about losing the Surface at all is because it makes their precious Core more vulnerable to discovery.
“We need to figure out how we can defend the lower sectors,” Lieutenant Dean says. “And after we’ve put a strategy in motion, how we can regain control of the Surface.”
“We should set off the Strykers,” says Cadet Waller. She’s sitting with the other aides, her back straight, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. “The aliens must’ve transported the child workers they captured to their battle stations. So, we can blow up their stations from the inside. Cripple their fleet.”
There’s a murmur of agreement around the room. I can’t help panicking. A move like that would kill everyone on board—Beechy, Sandy, Nellie, and all the other prisoners. We need to get them out before we destroy the battle stations.
Luckily, Commander Charlie is shaking his head, disagreeing with the plan.
“We’ve already tried,” he says. “The electric pulse bomb seems to have damaged the devices. They’re not responding to our long-range detonators.”
“You already tried?” I repeat.
“Yes.”
His daughter could’ve been killed. He doesn’t even seem to care.
People have started talking over each other again. Dean raises his voice so he’ll be heard: “What we need to do is set up an underground security barrier close to the city’s Pipeline entrance. Place explosives there so that we can take out anyone who tries to get to Crust.”
“What about the other entrance to the Pipeline?” Brand asks.
“We should also defend it, but we need to leave it open so we can get troops on the Surface. I’d say our best strategy at this point is to bombard their settlements while they’re still building them up. Pick out the weaker ones first and work our way up to the city.”
“If we raise an army out of the ground, the lower sectors won’t be a secret anymore,” Brand says. “Besides, all the aliens will have to do is drop another pulse bomb and our flight instruments and weapons will be useless. Even more of us will be captured. We’ll lose our whole army.”
“Do you have a better suggestion, lieutenant?” Dean asks through gritted teeth.
Brand looks disgruntled, but he says nothing. Dean’s idea might not work, but it’s still the best we’ve heard so far.
My mind is racing, trying to come up with something to say. But with every possibility I think of, there remains a way the Mardenites could overpower us again. They took the Surface less than forty-eight hours after their arrival. Even with the plan we put in motion and the soldiers we sent off armed with a resistance serum against their poisons, the Mardenites still captured everyone.
We underestimated the power of their forces and their weapons. We can stay holed up in the Core pretending we’re safe here, but the reality is, as soon as they discover the Pipeline, I doubt they’ll have any difficulty invading the Core. We’ll all be captured or dead in the next forty-eight hours at this rate.
My heart is beating way too fast. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to calm down. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
There’s a solution for this, a way we can save ourselves. There has to be.
“Perhaps,” Cadet Waller says, “we should consider a surrender. Try to negotiate terms for peace. We could offer to return their god we took prisoner.”
I glance around the table, curious if everyone here knew about the Mardenite prisoner, since his existence isn’t exactly common knowledge. But no one looks shocked or confused. All the aides and military leaders are privy to such information, it seems.
“We are not returning our prisoner,” Commander Charlie says. “That creature has far too much power. He will be executed before he is released. The Mardenites are monsters that will stop at nothing to slaughter our people, until humankind is extinct. A surrender is not a solution.”
“But sir,” Waller says, “if their forces are too many for us to defeat—”
“We don’t need to defeat them,” Charlie says. “All we need to do is escape them.”
Dean frowns. “What are you proposing?”
Charlie turns back to the screen on the wall and presses another series of buttons. The holographic map of the Surface disappears, replaced by a spinning hologram of the entire planet. “We return to a previous plan. We construct a new machine to separate the Core from the rest of Kiel, and then we fly away from the Mardenites and escape them forever.”
A sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. Charlie doesn’t really mean a machine—he means a bomb. A bomb that will destroy the outer sectors, allowing the Core to function as a battle station, the way it was designed. This is exactly what Charlie tried to do a few weeks ago, but the Alliance and I managed to stop him. I should’ve known he hadn’t abandoned the idea.
There are intakes of breath around the table, and hushed voices. Not of dissent—of interest.
“Colonel Fred has been working on some updated designs for me,” Charlie continues, gesturing to Fred in the seat beside me. He looks a bit nervous as everyone’s eyes land on him.
I can’t believe he’s helping Charlie again. And this isn’t something new—Fred must’ve started working on designs days ago, as soon as he was brought back to the Core from Karum prison. As soon as the last bomb was destroyed. He’s known the Developers might put this plan into motion again, but he kept it a secret.
“With the colonel’s weapon,” Charlie says, “we’ll be able to blast away the outer sectors in a simple wave, effectively wiping out any of the Mardenites still on the Surface. Their fleet will be pummeled by debris from the planet’s ruins. They won’t survive. The Core will be free to fly away, and with our battle station in working order, we’ll have the fire power necessary to take down any of Marden’s remaining forces, should they be foolish enough to follow us. But I doubt they will.”
“Where will we go?” a scientist asks.
“We’ve been surveying local planets good for habitation, and there’s a promising one in the next galaxy. We’ll make our way there. But the Core has enough supplies and oxygen to allow us to thrive for centuries, until we find a suitable location for our new home.”
Murmurs of agreement pick up around the room. Everyone likes this idea. And these aren’t subdued, mindless citizens—these are the people who are allowed to think for themselves.
In theory, this plan could actually work. The force of the explosion should be enough to destroy all of the Mardenite forces on the Surface and on their battle stations. The Core could fly away to safety. All the citizens in this sector would survive the war. I would survive, and so would Logan.
But Beechy wouldn’t. Neither would Sandy, Uma, Paley, or all the other thousands of people imprisoned on the battle stations. This plan would kill them, unless we rescued them before we set off the bomb.
“What about the prisoners aboard the battle stations?” I ask. “Can’t we try to rescue them first?”
“It would be impractical,” Charlie says. “It would require too big of a force, and we’d run the risk of losing more citizens. We’ve already lost too many. We need to keep everyone contained in the Core.”
“So you don’t care about rescuing your daughter or her baby girl?” I ask.
Charlie looks momentarily stricken, as I’d hoped he would. He can’t have known Sandy was having a daughter, a little girl he surely would’ve doted upon. But he recovers quickly, wiping away the lines of guilt around his eyes with his handkerchief. “War requires sacrifices from all of us,” he says in a solemn voice.
“Will you transfer people from the other sectors?” Dean asks. He’s one of the only people at the table not smiling like everyone else.
“As many as we can,” Regina says. “But the Core isn’t big enough to contain Kiel’s entire population. If we take too many civilians, we run the risk of depleting our resources too quickly.”
I expected her answer. But it still makes me sick to my stomach. She and the other commanders will do what they’ve always done: Save the people with better modifications. Transfer the citizens with the highest obedience, intelligence, and strength, and abandon the rest. They’re hardly people, anyway. They’re just Mod subjects, bodies to be used and disposed of.
I look around the table at the other scientists and military leaders, urging them to speak up and propose another solution. But none of them do. They don’t care if we leave thousands of people behind to die. All they care about is saving their own skin.
“How long until the bomb will be ready?” Dean asks. His voice is calm, agreeable, but there’s a vein bulging in his neck.
“My construction team can begin as soon as the project is approved,” Fred says. “Construction should be completed in about fifteen hours.”
Fifteen hours. I have fifteen hours to find an alternative solution.