Attention: ALL
Subject: Evening Menu
Entrees: Spaghetti with marinara, tofu-pesto meatballs
Sides: Ciabatta and olives, microgreens salad
*Dessert* Cannoli
“Formal charges aren’t set,” my dad told me the next morning. “But the ones ops floated are treason, felony theft, conspiracy to commit theft, withholding evidence, felony hacking, and—” he gulped “—espionage.”
Mom couldn’t look at me, let alone talk. Neither of them seemed like they’d rested.
“Who gets which charges and to what degree also isn’t set yet, but as you three are the first crime ring of lunar citizens, it’s difficult to predict much about what your trials will be like, or the range of sentencing you might face.”
I waited for him to continue.
“For certain, capital punishment’s off the table. Our constitution makes that clear. As is isolated confinement. That’s all I can say for now. Catherine?”
Mom was still speechless. And since I was trying to practice what Dr. Fromme said in group last time, about only assigning emotional meaning to our own known reactions, I didn’t try to figure out what was on Mom’s mind.
I knew my own mind. And my feelings. I was a dense, frozen droplet of fear.
But maybe that was what the moon was too, and it managed to find its orbit and participate and inspire dreams of life.
I didn’t exactly shove my fear from my attention, as much as I moved my thoughts to what was further out.
That took a while because I was afraid of so many things. The RC. Brand Masters himself. Failing my sister. Proving my mother right. Disappointing my father.
Losing Andrek or anyone else ever again.
Hurting V or Joule.
I had this slim layer of wishes way past all that, and I held onto it and breathed deep through my feet, reaching for that far away warmth and light. No matter how distant, it was real.
More than anything, I wished for a chance to turn all this around somehow. It had to be possible, had to be, because for all that Commander Han had accused us of, and for all we were facing, she had not said “the five of you.”
Three, not five.
There was still a chance.
“Can I go to work now?” I asked.
Dad grimaced, the lower half of his face wrinkling into stubble. “You have memorial planning first, Han said. She’ll inform Chef Maria. It seems you’re the only one permitted to continue work shifts.”
First? “Did she say where?”
“In comms,” he said.
I thought I said, “Great, thanks,” but who knew? I was throwing all in with my wish and the prize it had already granted.
This wouldn’t be where our mission ended. It was where a slim wish went to get super-powered by the Meat Team.
A wish put us on this rock after all. And Milo and their crew, even Commander Han herself, were the ones my sister handpicked to carry out that wish. Maybe they didn’t trust me yet, but I was choosing to trust them.
It was what my sister had done.
Maybe it was reckless, but I marched that wish four steps ahead of my security detail all the way to comms, where my guard posted beside the door and handed me my tablet.
But still, I wasn’t my sister. Nobody had elected me president or signed on to trust me with their lives. So before I barreled ahead with my wish, I needed to check in with my four fellow conspirators, each of whom happened to be looking pretty defeated as they greeted me with loose hugs at the bottom of the ramp.
“Cheer up!” I told them, putting on my most natural smile. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but this is the best thing that could have happened, and the best place for us to be.” When nobody responded, aside from rolling their eyes or looking away, I pushed on. “We all trusted Faraday, right? Can you trust me now?”
V’s attention snapped to me, and I wondered if she understood what I meant. She must have noticed the bad math already. Andrek and Joule nodded, and Halle only shrugged, but I’d take it.
“I don’t think transparency will work this time,” V said.
“I’m almost positive it will.” Then I added, “but I won’t go through with it if you say not to.”
“What are you planning to do?” Halle asked.
“She wants to tell them.” V gestured to Milo’s crew.
“Oh!” Halle’s eyes widened. “Ohhhhh!”
I looked between V and Andrek, who had the most at risk if I was wrong, waiting for some kind of answer. “Are we all in?”
Andrek sighed but nodded again, this time with more certainty, and V, however reluctantly, did too. Then, with their approval driving me forward, I walked right over to Milo, with Cheese at their side, and I spilled.
Every detail.
No matter how minor it seemed or whether it was supposed to be a secret.
I admitted to all the things we’d been accused of and more—from Halle’s stash of explosives to Joule’s reconfiguring of our tablets. But I was most careful to explain why we’d done it, and why we couldn’t stop yet.
Not yet.
“Except when we couldn’t find the spy,” I said, rushing my words to be sure I got through everything, “we tried to talk to people Andrek knew from his time in the RC, trying to find out what they could tell us to help us revive the war crimes accord. All we’ve found out so far is that the spy was a second wave applicant and works first shift. Oh, and they’re white. But the trust is next after Mirage, and we have to get that accord signed before it’s too late for it to help. If our president surrenders first, the accord won’t apply to us even if we want it to.”
I stared at my boots and Milo’s, worried that if I looked up at anyone’s faces even for a moment, I might lose my nerve. “You knew my sister before me. You believed in her, in this trust. You’ve got to know what it means to me. You have to know I’ll never betray it. None of us would! It’s all I have left of her, and she was my whole world. You followed her all the way here, so you must understand. Everything we’ve done has been to save us from the RC before they do here what they’ve done everywhere else. And maybe with your help, if you’ll help us, we can move all our plans a lot farther.”
I finally raised my gaze, and I held my wish as tightly as I could manage and begged reality to keep bending our way.
Milo snorted.
So did Cheese.
Soon the entire comms department had surrounded us, all wild with laughter.
“Stop it,” I demanded. “I’m not joking!”
“We know,” Milo said. “Why do you think you’re here?”
“What?” It was what I wanted to hear, but was I really hearing it, or was I so far gone in my head that I was imagining words in their mouth?
“That’s why you’re here, Ms. Tanner,” someone said from behind the curtain separating this side of the room from the lunar model.
Turkey pulled the curtain back, and I peered behind Milo and Cheese to see who had spoken.
It was freaking Han. On a freaking bean bag.
She’d heard every word I said.
Why had no one mentioned she was here? Why didn’t anyone shut me up?
“Y-yes, Commander?” I squeaked.
“You sound a lot like her once you let yourself get going,” Han said. “And while I appreciate your rather specific confession and for catching us up on all your schemes together, we have work to do and no more time to waste.”
“We do?” Andrek managed weakly.
“Prime ministers to convince and armies to infiltrate, as you said. So far as ops is concerned, you three are valuable assets now under the mentorship of my best intelligence team.”
“But... But they’re the comms department!” Joule exclaimed, obviously stuck on this single point rather than how miraculous it was that my gamble hadn’t backfired.
“Same thing,” Milo told him.
Han narrowed her gaze on Andrek and V, both of whom still had worry etched across their faces. “Just so you kids know, the only thing Lane said that’s news to me is about the explosives. That’s quite unexpected. The rest I’ve known all along.”
“If you already knew, then...” V’s face changed at least three times as she processed Han’s revelations. “Then yesterday at Lane’s—that whole tirade at us was a performance! You think one of your guards is a spy.”
“I know one of them is, just not which one yet. I would apologize for scaring you, though I believe you all understand I did what was necessary for the sake of us all, playing whatever role I must.” Han didn’t sound apologetic, but I didn’t see why she should. She was doing her job better than any of us had expected. Just like Danny last night, her priorities were exactly in the right place.
“But the fact that you five trusted each other with your histories, and that you worked through them—that stands out to me most,” Han went on. “I now understand why Faraday urged me to approve Andrek and Viveca’s selections despite your pasts, and why she believed you both belonged here in our trust, perhaps because of your pasts. None of us would ever have gotten this far without knowing when to hide information and when to be transparent.”
She patted her bean bag, settling into it deeper. “Sit close to me. I want you all near enough to join these calls if it comes to it. Unlike you, I don’t need help cutting through low level diplomatic channels, but there’s no telling how fast we’ll need to adapt our persuasion tactics once we begin.”
“No, wait!” Halle gasped. “It was you the others were talking to!”
Han chuckled lightly. “Not only me, but Marshall and Barre. In fact, Viveca’s ‘contact’ is my niece. I honestly thought you would have guessed that. Her name is Han, after all.”
“It’s a common name,” V said defensively, but then she laughed too, her voice cracking with relief. “It didn’t ever occur to me we were being watched and encouraged all the while.”
“Welcome to Faraday’s trust at last,” Han said. “That’s how we operate.”
Five calls later, my throat was raw from speaking. I hadn’t expected any of the state leaders to want to talk to me, of all people, but it seemed mine was the voice they wanted to hear. Not because I had answers or any power, but because I sounded the most like my sister. Because I was the closest human connection to the dream she’d sold them. So I kept telling the truth, no matter what I was asked.
“My parents? Dad’s looking pretty ragged lately. I think he’s trying so hard to hold my mom together that he’s not taking care of himself. And if you knew my mom, you know how she is. Worried and trying to fix everything that’s broken,” I told the president of Free France. “And we’ve got my sister’s remains in an urn. It’s purple, did you know that? And a sphere, of course. Her favorite shape.”
This president spoke English fluently, so we didn’t have to wait for a translator.
“What about you?” the president asked. “Tell me about your life there.”
“I’m just a lunch lady. But I’ve been helping plan a memorial for my sister, to celebrate her life and vision for humanity, not only those of us who made it to the moon.”
“My grandmother was a lunch lady at my university. A fierce matriarch she was, besides being a terrific cook. I would love to hear more about the memorial. Perhaps some other time. You sound so tired. How are you, aside from work?”
I breathed out a half-laugh, and I heard the weariness in the noise. “It’s been hard,” I admitted, not bothering to hide the feelings swelling in my chest and leaking through my words. “I’m so scared, you know? We all are all the time now. I’ve been trying to grieve and doing therapy for my panic attacks, from when I saw Faraday killed. But it’s kind of impossible to move past trauma that’s going to repeat itself any day. Like, how can anyone move on when the pain’s promising to get worse?”
“Oh, you poor dear,” she said, and maybe it was only her politician voice, but she sounded genuine.
Commander Han took over. “That’s why we’re reaching out to you again personally, Madame President. We understand why you had to pull support from the accord, but that was months ago and under different circumstances. Can we count on you? Will you help us stop the RC’s terror and hold Brand Masters to account?”
“I…” the president’s transmission muffled for a few seconds while all of us in comms waited in silent hope. “Yes. Free France will sign. And do let me know if there’s more we can do to encourage the others to return.”
Halle whooped, and Cheese joined her in a dance. The rest of us though, we kept breathing deeply. Carefully. We had a lot more calls to make.