THE MONORAIL STATION is nearly empty before dawn. A few people wander the platforms, and even fewer wait out on the farthest one, where our train is due to arrive. We blend in well among them—most people outbound from the city at this hour are coming off night shifts.
I stretch out on a bench with Wen curled up beside me while Gal orders tickets at a kiosk. She wears a hoodie Gal loaned her, keeping the burned side of her face tucked safely in its shadow. “You watch him like he’s going to disappear,” she notes, then pulls a face when I scowl at her. “Just saying. I know from experience. Sometimes when you come up from nothing, it makes you hold on too tight.”
I purse my lips. With Gal at a distance, it’s tempting—too tempting—to let Wen know how much I understand her. How much we’ve lived along similar lines.
And she must sense it right away, because she averts her eyes and asks, “How long?”
My breath catches, and my eyes fix on the rail. Better there than on Gal, which will make the gulf between us feel wider, or on Wen, who’s already too close for comfort. “Two years. The war rolled through when I was ten and took my parents with it. Finally got taken in and cleaned up by a charity program at twelve.”
Wen lets out a low whistle. “What took them so long?”
“Reconstruction. Regime changes don’t happen overnight, especially not in bombarded cities. Social work was out the window until they wrung out Trost and let the war dry off it. The Umber Empire’s efficient about conquest, but they’re not that efficient. They couldn’t pull me out of that hell any sooner.” I break off, frowning. For five solid years, I thought I didn’t have the words to talk about this stuff. But the words came flooding out like I had them locked and loaded this entire time.
For Wen.
She reaches out, patting my arm like she’s not quite sure how to make it comforting. I close my eyes, haul in a deep breath, and release it with a deeper sigh. I don’t want her pity, but we don’t always want the things we need, and I can’t deny that something about letting even that little bit of information out has made my chest feel a thousand times lighter. It’s a scarcer luxury than any imperial metal or stone, feeling understood.
It hits me like boltfire—I’m glad she’s here. I went to that shipyard for a way off this planet, and instead I found a mirror with a half-burned face. Someone who knows what it’s like to have your life pulled out from underneath you, to scrape yourself together from what’s left and keep surviving. “Understood” is only part of it—I was alone before and never realized how much that hurt.
We hold the same burden between us, and I can’t believe how freeing it is to share the load.
“Train should be here in a few minutes,” Gal says, and my eyes snap open. He perches himself on the bench between us, handing us each a scrap of paper. My stomach twists as I see the name of our destination, something heavy and low thudding inside me like a mallet on a drum.
Henrietta Base.
They named it after our fallen empress.
I choke back my emotion before either of them can pick up on it.
I don’t relax until the monorail’s cleared the suburbs and broken out into the open far beyond Isla’s city limits. I lean my forehead against the window, watching as the greenery blurs past me and trying to soothe the unsettling feeling of traveling so fast so smoothly on a rail. Gal naps against my shoulder, and Wen’s folded in on herself in the seat across from us, pulling the strings of the hoodie so tight that nothing but her half-burned nose is visible through the opening.
I doze, but don’t sleep. Even though I’m bruised and battered, even though the only people in this car are a little old man and a mother with a baby strapped to her chest, even though I probably need it far more than either Gal or Wen. My brain keeps on churning, and the smooth hum of the monorail isn’t soothing it.
Two and a half years. Two and a half years we’ve known each other, and he’s never known the part of me that Wen was able to extract with one day and two words.
And I thought I knew Gal too. I mean, Gal loves rainy days more than sunny ones, because the noise drowns out the world around him, and it helps him clear his head. And also because he doesn’t have to fly on rainy days—the academy never wants to risk Vipers in uncertain weather. I used to be so proud, knowing that about him. That I could look to the sky when I woke up and know what he was thinking.
I thought knowing him in that way would be enough.
Now I know that the heir to the largest galactic empire history has ever seen brushed his teeth in a convenience store bathroom’s scum-ridden sink this morning. I know the storm that brews in his eyes as he dismantles his enemies. And I know that he’s never going to understand what it’s like to live on the streets. He might claim to after last night, but it’s not the same thing in the slightest. Gal’s always had a safety net. We had a plan, gear, food, clean clothes, weapons—even if one of those weapons is a suspiciously sturdy umbrella. We’re well-off, and it kills me a little knowing this is probably the most destitute Gal emp-Umber will ever be.
The more I turn it over, the more I realize that I cracked open in an instant for Wen because one look at her tells me she’s been through the same kind of hell. When I tell her that I spent two years sifting through the ashes of Trost, she doesn’t have to imagine what that might entail. She knows about the cold nights, the hard choices, the moments you have to cover your ears or close your eyes or tighten your fist around that rock and swing harder. I don’t have to worry about her judgment. I’m terrified of Gal’s.
Is it enough to make me want to push him away?
No, I decide before the thought has a chance to settle. No, I have to fight through this. Gal and I only have so much time left, and if there’s anything the streets of Trost taught me, it’s that the worlds are cruel and friends are fleeting and you’ve got to hold on to the good things as tight as you can. Maybe if I keep talking to Wen, keep working on it, I’ll figure out how to stop hiding this part of myself from Gal before we’re out of time.
Our paths were always destined to diverge, and diverge they will. Sooner rather than later.
The monorail hits a wide turn that pushes my forehead into the window and Gal into my shoulder. I shift my arm around him without looking, my gaze fixed on the line of the tracks as they carve through the landscape, speeding us closer to the moment when I lose him for good.
When the automated voice announces our arrival at the base station, Wen snaps awake all at once, clawing the hood off her face as she rolls off the seat and onto the train’s floor. Gal jerks up at the thump, blinking. “Already?”
He casts a curious glance at the arm I’ve draped around his shoulders, and I withdraw it sheepishly, bolting to my feet in time for the train to brake and nearly send me hurtling into Wen’s seat before I can grab a handhold.
We’re here, and I have no idea what we’re supposed to say to the resistance to bring them over to our side. This movement is born of the same resentment that sparked the Archon loyalists within our academy into an assassination attempt that we barely escaped. These are patriots devoted to the resurrection of an empire seven years dead.
These are my people. They made it out safe, abandoning me to a hungry ruin. They’ve had the luxury of sticking to their convictions. But the fact remains—they kept their cause alive. I let mine wither and die.
I don’t know how I can face them.
“Don’t go all wild-eyed on me, flyboy,” Wen says, popping to her feet with the assistance of her umbrella. “Gonna need you to appear calm, cool, and collected. You, too, prettyboy.” She cuffs Gal on the shoulder, and his eyes narrow at her.
I bite back a snort.
As the monorail’s speed fades, we make our way to the sliding doors, swinging from handhold to handhold until the train comes to rest. I peer out the narrow window by the door, fidgeting with the straps on my bag. We’ve arrived at the base’s support town, a strip of small businesses flanked by suburbs that house the personnel not cleared for lodging on base proper. In the gaps between buildings, I spy the fence that marks Henrietta Base’s perimeter.
The sight of the town ratchets my anxiety up another tick. It’s so developed, so large. Wen knows nothing about the resistance’s actual numbers, but from the size of its support, it’s already far more established than I anticipated. I thought there would be a ragtag army, pop-up tents, stolen shuttles.
Gal peers over my shoulder and says exactly what I’m thinking. “It looks like the academy.”
Wen leads the way off the train, through the station, and onto streets that are prickling with familiarity, lined with supply shops, groceries, and even a little cantina with its shutters down. She keeps her hood drawn, which isn’t helping my nerves. Why would she still hide her face? There’s no way Dago Korsa’s presence extends to a small town a hundred miles from Isla. But something has her on edge. Or she’s planning something.
Either way, I don’t like it. We’re drawing attention with all our attempts at not drawing attention. Gal and I are haggard and stubbly, dressed in day-old clothes, and Wen’s ragged pants and hooded face aren’t doing us any favors. None of us look like we fit in here, and as a passing man dressed in fatigues tracks me with a suspicious eye, my spine gets stiffer. “Wen?” I growl through my teeth.
She drops back, slotting herself between me and Gal. “Problem?”
“Several. How exactly do you plan to get us on the base?”
“The same way everyone gets on the base,” she mutters, leaning up so I can catch the words. “We go in a shuttle.”
Wen tips one finger toward our destination, a distant lot where rows of simple transporters are parked end-to-end—Corinthian in manufacture, judging by their iron trimmings. The ships are dusty and roughened from use, but they’re well made. Intimidatingly so. The resistance has resources. The support of the Corinthian emprex themselves. And if this is what they use for jaunts into town, I’m not sure I’m ready to face what they keep on the base.
Gal catches my eye over the top of Wen’s head. His eyebrows lift, his eyes bugging out as if to say, Seriously?
I agree. “Wen, are you saying they’ll let us hitch a ride on one of the shuttles when it goes back to the base?”
In the shadow of her hood, I catch the flash of teeth. I know exactly what it means.
“You’re kidding.”
“Give me a better plan, flyboy. The soldiers in town can’t transport anyone without ID. Base policy.”
“Hold on, are you saying you’ve tried to join up with the resistance already?”
Wen shrugs.
“And I’m guessing this was after the whole…” I motion vaguely at the left side of her face.
“Who better to shelter me from Dago Korsa than an army, right? Except, turns out this army needs a goddamn ID card just like any other potentially useful thing in this empire. But with you two in hand, if we can get onto the base…”
“Tell me we’re doing something else,” Gal groans.
Wen’s face lights up when I shake my head. “Sorry, Gal,” I say, eyes fixed on a shuttle that looks like it will handle like a god-given dream. I let my hunger devour my nervousness. Let myself dip into the mentality that makes Wen a living nightmare. “We’re jacking a ship.”
Five minutes later, Gal and I are in a full-blown argument on the edge of the shipyard. “It’s reckless,” he says. “Irresponsible. We’re better than this, Ettian.”
I cast a nervous glance at the sole pilot on the lot. He sits on the folded-out steps of his shuttle, a joint dangling from his fingers, and his eyes are fixed intently on us. “Keep it down,” I warn. “We’re drawing attention.”
“I could punch you in the face right now—how’s that for drawing attention?” he spits through his teeth.
“You like my face too much to do that.”
Gal lets out a bark of laughter, still pacing back and forth. “You asshole. I thought you were on my side.”
“First of all, I can’t be on your side for everything. Just because we’re best friends doesn’t mean we’re the same person. I think this is our best option. You disagree.”
“And you should listen to me,” Gal snarls, turning on me with so much fervor that I take a step back. He collapses the distance between us, going up on his toes to get right in my face.
“Why should I listen to you?” I give him my smuggest smile.
“Because I’m the—”
“Careful,” I warn. Gal’s eyes flick to the smoking pilot, who’s watching with even more intensity now.
“Because I’m the brains of this outfit, how about that?”
“The brains, really?”
“Someone has to be!” he shouts.
The shriek of boltfire from across the lot cuts off my retort, punctuated by a soft thud. We both glance over to where the shuttle pilot slumps in the dirt with Wen standing over him, my stolen blaster smoking in her hands. “All clear,” she says, waving us over and holstering her gun.
“How’d we do?” I ask as we jog up.
Wen grapples with the pilot’s unconscious body, dragging him up the steps by the shoulders of his fatigues. “Gal, you overact. Try to tone it down next time—you push it past the realm of the believable. Ettian, your dialogue is so generic—you’re just throwing out questions that egg him on. Not super engaging.”
I grab the pilot’s legs and help her hoist him up into the cockpit. “But we gave you the time you needed?”
“That and more. I wanted to see how far you guys would take it.”
“Can we focus?” Gal hisses, clambering up after us as he glances back across the lot. “All clear, but the noise is going to draw attention. We gotta move.”
I turn to find Wen perched in the pilot’s seat, throwing switches. The unconscious pilot’s joint is pinched in the corner of her smile, and the look in her eyes is verging on that dangerously manic glint she wore when I first met her. She glances up at me, letting out a smoky breath that clogs the air. Gods of all systems, Corinthian weed is not messing around.
“Absolutely not,” I tell her, and grab her by the shoulders, dragging her out of the seat as she kicks and twists and fights.
“Come on,” Wen yelps. “I told you—I’m a pilot.”
“I’m not taking any chances.” I shrug off my pack and dive into the pilot’s seat before she can scramble back in.
“Drove the tram fine yesterday.”
“It was on a wire. Gal, how’re we looking?”
“One second,” he says, jamming his fingers against the door controls. “We’ve got incoming—soldiers who heard the shot. All on foot. We good to go?”
I glance up at Wen, who blows another puff of noxious-smelling smoke in my face. “Rewired permissions on the landing gear, and I think I did what I needed with the engines.”
“You think?”
She gestures to the controls as if to say, Try me.
I spur the engines. A powerful rumble overtakes the ship as they spin up, and my own manic grin breaks loose. The transporter is no Viper, but it runs with smooth confidence, a far cry from the Ruttin’ Hell. I punch the thrusters, and my stomach swoops as the shuttle takes off.
Gal slips into the copilot’s seat, and a second later the navigation flickers to life. “We’re two miles away from base proper,” he says, tapping the location with a finger. “Want to see how fast we can burn them?”
I wheel our nose onto our vector. “Hey, Wen? Make sure our guest doesn’t bump his head. And put that damn thing out before you hotbox the cockpit.”
There’s shuffling behind me, followed by a vaguely affirmative grunt. I glance back to find that Wen has one hand wound in the webbing overhead meant to be used as a handhold and the other fisted in the pilot’s jacket. She lets the joint drop from her lips and drives her heel into it, giving me a nod. “Punch it,” she says.
I oblige her. The transporter leaps forward, sinking me deep into my seat as we streak over the town and toward the towering fence crowned in barbed wire that marks the border of the base’s territory. Just for fun, I let us dip down until we clear it with mere feet to spare. It’s been two days since I last flew and over a week since I last flew something good. I’m not letting this go to waste.
We’re barely forty feet past the fence when an incoming communication chimes. “Shuttle Thirty-Seven, this is Henrietta Base. Your report time was noon. Please state the reason for your unscheduled approach.”
I nod to Gal, and he picks up the line. “Base, this is Shuttle Thirty-Seven. One of our guys passed out. We’re bringing him back so medical can have a look at him.”
There’s a brief pause, the static crackle of an open line. All three of us stare intently at the dash.
“Base to Shuttle Thirty-Seven, who is this?”
“Heavens and hells,” I mutter.
“Shuttle Thirty-Seven to Base, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Gal says. “We’re out for an audience with the leadership of the Archon resistance, and I realize this isn’t the best way to start a relationship—”
“Where is the authorized pilot, Lieutenant Briggs?”
Gal glances back at the pilot, squinting at the nametag pinned to the front of his uniform. “Lieutenant Briggs is aboard, but…indisposed. Please don’t shoot anything at us. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Wen giggles, swaying. I hitch the shuttle up with a burst of the attitude thrusters, and she nearly topples over. We streak across an open plain, running parallel to a well-worn dirt road. I keep us close to the ground, but not too close.
On the horizon, I catch the distant forms of low, flat buildings. Hangars. Dormitories. The silhouette is different, but the sensation is the same. It feels like the academy.
It feels like coming home.
But the feeling doesn’t stick. Dread builds in me as we get closer and closer. This place is big. Bigger than I ever could have fathomed. This is what the Archon-loyal have been doing while I gave myself over to our conquerors and became a soldier in their hands. Seven years of work went into this establishment, and I don’t know if I’m ready to face what that means about me and my loyalty, not only to the Umber Empire but to its heir himself.
My hands fidget on the controls, my fingers tapping out a soft beat where neither Gal nor Wen can see.
“Base to Shuttle Thirty-Seven, we’re authorizing a landing pad for you. If you surrender there, we’ll take you in peacefully.”
“Understood,” Gal says, and closes the line. A moment later, the navigation flickers with a beacon laid over the resistance compound. He slumps back in the copilot’s chair, running his hands over his eyes.
Wordlessly I reach over and lay a hand on his shoulder. His fingers find mine, and my heartbeat stutters at how natural it is, how natural it shouldn’t be. With Wen in the cockpit, there’s nothing I can say to comfort Gal directly, but maybe this is enough—the quiet, unwavering reassurance that I’m here, I’m watching out for him, and no matter where he goes, I’ll be there to defend him.
Even if it’s wrapped in layers upon layers of deception.
Even if it can never last.