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His father squeezed his arm and left his side, disappearing into a waiting knot of eager aides. Kào had intended to leave immediately for New Earth, but the sight of the Talagar battleship sitting off the bow of the
Savior
stopped him cold.

Kào’s legs carried him toward the forward observation area, where he couldn’t pull his gaze from the Talagar vessel. This was the craft onto which the refugees would be taken.

He clasped his hands behind his back, controlling his respiration as he watched the vessel’s approach. There was a time when seeing a battleship such as this would have sent
his mind racing to explore avenues of its destruction. Missiles, deadly smart-dust that detonated on impact, relativistic bomblets, ion torpedoes—so many choices. In his mind, Kào had destroyed the ship several times by the time his father shouted an order that would bring the Talagar commander’s face onto the main screen.

The image of the battleship and the stars was replaced in a digital instant. A man about the age of his father came onscreen. Moray walked forward to greet him. Kào expected his father to display resentment if not open hostility; after all, the Talagars had murdered his wife and children. But, to his shock, Moray’s manner was genial. “Admiral Steeg.”

The Talagar nodded. “Commodore Moray.” In a resonant voice mellowed by the typical Talagarian burr, he stated, “Docking may commence.”

One by one, Jordan’s flight attendants assembled to see what Trist wanted. The passengers gathered, too, though at a safe distance. Everyone sensed that something was wrong. The silence stretched taut. The air itself felt ready to shatter.

Trist spoke in English, allowing Jordan to keep her translator stowed. “You must do some things for me, things you may not understand. I ask that you trust me, you and your people. You owe me, yes, but this I ask to save your lives. You are a smart woman, Captain. I know you will obey my orders if I say it will bring you home.”

Home
. “So it’s true,” Jordan dared, her heart beating hard.

“No comet destroyed your planet,” Trist confirmed. “Earth is as it was before.”

Cheers went up all around her. Jordan wasn’t sure if she wanted to whoop with joy or sob. Earth existed! Everyone was still alive. Including her family, her daughter. But her excitement only ignited her fury that they’d been lied to.
“Why did you switch the coordinates? Why weren’t we told the truth?”

Trist’s expression chilled. “Those questions. Answers will come in time. But now, you must trust me.”

Jordan bit back her impatience. If Trist was giving them the chance to go home, they’d better take it, not scrutinize it looking for holes. “What do we have to do to make this happen?”

“Obey my instructions and you go home,” Trist said cryptically. “Act rashly and you will never see your loved ones again.”

Jordan set her jaw. “It’s a no-brainer, then.”

Trist blinked at her.

“It means we’re with you,” Jordan explained. “We’ll do what you ask.” She turned to the rest of Flight 58. “Right?”

Natalie gave her a thumbs-up. “I will.”

“Me, too,” Ben said, his still-astonished gaze riveted on Trist.

One by one, everyone poked a thumb in the air until all seventeen flight attendants and two hundred and sixty-nine passengers had made their support known.

Jordan’s composure amazed her, frankly. And also theirs. The terror and grief over the last few months had strengthened them.

“This won’t be without risk,” Trist warned Jordan.

Jordan wrung her hands. Bit the inside of her lip. Tightened her stomach muscles to quell the butterflies flocking there in droves. Was this the right decision? Would she regret this day?

Courage is doing the right thing even though you are scared
.

She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. “Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

Trist nodded. “Ready your people, then. Time is short. You will go to your aircraft in cargo bay. You have a map.
Use back way. Hand-ladders. No lifts. No shuttles. This you must do. And quickly. No one must know.”

“Two hundred and eighty-seven people traveling in a group aren’t going to be easy to miss, Trist,” Jordan pointed out.

The linguist gave her head a curt shake. “It can be done. Single file. Each holds clothing of one in front. It may be cold. Bring jackets, warm clothing, blankets. Be sure no one wears ship-issued jumpsuit.” She pointed to the nape of her neck, reminding Jordan of the locaters. “Must not alert security.”

Unease coiled around Jordan’s spine and yanked tight. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. “So we get to the plane. Then what?”

“You lock doors from inside and await further instructions.”

“And then we’ll be brought home?”

“That is the plan.”

Trist’s non-answer was telling. It hinted that a plan to outwit whoever on board had lied to them was under way, but that it wasn’t going to be a simple or safe operation.

Jordan told her crew, “Everyone has five minutes to grab their medications, if they’re assigned any. If while they’re doing that they pocket some things to bring along, fine. Then get everyone into our emergency groups of twenty and form up in Town Square.” Working out the emergency groups was something she’d already accomplished early in their stay, in case they ever needed to evacuate or organize quickly. The groups had become familiar to the passengers. Some had even named their teams. It had paid off: They’d be able to mobilize quickly. “Five minutes. That’s all we have.” Jordan didn’t want to chance losing one of the kids. “Assign two people to each of the children. And make sure you do a final head count. I don’t want to leave anyone behind.

“One last thing, people!” She’d better get every advantage she could in their home court. They were going to need it. “Father Sugimoto and Pastor Earl—would you quickly bless this endeavor, please?”

As the men led the group in a rushed but heartfelt prayer, Jordan crossed herself and bowed her head, but her eyes slid to the empty hatch. It was so sudden, their move off the ship.
Kào . . . where are you?
She couldn’t bear leaving without knowing if he’d made the decision to go with her. He’d said he planned to speak to his father about leaving with her. What had happened in that conversation? Why wasn’t he here with Trist?

When she saw Trist regarding her strangely, she realized that her love for Kào burned in her face as violently as it did in her heart.

The linguist’s voice was gentler. Or was it Jordan’s imagination? “Kào was taken off this assignment by the commodore.”

“Why?”

Trist’s eyes were inscrutable. “Obligations.”

Jordan’s breath caught with a sudden wrenching in her chest.
Oh, Lord, no. Let me see him again
.

Kào wasn’t happy on the
Savior
. That fact was apparent in everything he did and said. Only his fierce loyalty to his father had kept him on the ship when he would have rather pursued his own prospects. But now it looked as if she’d have to prepare for an alternate possibility. If he’d chosen to stay with his father until his war records were cleared, it would be difficult for him to tell her that. He may have chosen to skip the step entirely.

“You must make haste, Captain. Time is short.”

Jordan forced aside thoughts of Kào. “Don’t worry. We’ll be on the airplane.” She was a professional, a leader; her duty was to keep focused on her responsibilities, not her
personal heartache. Her task was to keep her people safe and get them all home.

“I will leave you to your swift preparations,” Trist said.

As the flight attendants fanned out into Town Square, barking orders, Jordan watched Trist go. The roller coaster of her life was crawling up another long ascent. Was there a way to end the ride without a fall? She didn’t know. Loss had become such a staple of her life that it was easier to imagine a future without Kào than one with him. But the thought of a life without him broke her heart.

As the crews of both ships worked through the complicated details of the upcoming docking of two dissimilar vessels, Kào’s attention remained riveted on the Talagarian admiral. With his long white hair gathered at the back of his neck in an ornate clasp, and blood-red eyes glowing in a face that looked as if it were chiseled from ice, Steeg would have been considered a handsome man among the Talagars. And his military bearing was without fault. Undoubtedly, he’d been a favorite of the once-Emperor, to have won himself his own command. Before the war, he’d probably maintained a household with hundreds of slaves, performing duties ranging from floor sweeping to fellatio. Now he’d been forced to obey the summons of an Alliance vessel, where he’d be stripped of his power, his command, and eventually sent to Sofu to face trial.

But such was the ugly reality of defeat.

Buoyed by a surge of patriotism and pride, Kào stood taller. Steeg sized up the
Savior
’s bridge crew with disturbing keenness. That look, it must be genetic. The prison interrogators’ eyes had glinted just as eagerly when they made the rounds, selecting fresh prisoners for their attention. But this time Kào was the victor, not the vanquished.

As Steeg considered the instructions given to him by Moray, his hand rose to cup his square chin. He wore a
ring. Uncannily, at the same moment the thick gold band caught the light, the
Savior
decelerated, adding a physical jolt to Kào’s awareness of the crest. In its square center was a bird of prey with wings of fire. Involuntarily the word escaped Kào in a choked whisper, “Fire.”

Fire
. . . .

Running, terrified, the ground burning the soles of his shoes; he couldn’t find his mother, his father, couldn’t see, blinded by light that was as hot as fire and seared his eyes, his skin
. . . .

Kào sucked in a mighty breath as a memory opened to him, a rupture in his mind torn open by the sight of Steeg’s ring.

He was a small boy. His mother threw him onto a horse. Smacking its flank with the flat of her hand, she yelled, “Haiyah!” sending the horse into a gallop. But it sickened and then fell, spilling him, forcing him to run on, half blinded by the heat and smoke
.

Kào remembered how the air had seared his lungs. But the desire to survive burned hotter. He’d heard voices, and ran toward the sound.

Laughter. Gruff and deep. “What do we have here?” A hand came out of nowhere, grasping him by the collar and hoisting him off his feet. He couldn’t see the man’s face, but his skin was pink, like that of the white-haired soldiers who had descended from the sky and slaughtered the horses
.

Kào swallowed convulsively. He remembered how he’d fought wildly, convinced that Death himself had snatched him.

“Mama! Mama!” he bellowed, spurring more laughter
.

“Kill the thing,” someone had said
.

Whoever owned the hand that held him laughed along with the others. “I know someone who’ll enjoy the task more than I. In fact, there he is now.”

That was when Kào had wet his pants.

Humiliating heat streamed down his thighs. Concentrated from
dehydration, his urine stank sharply. “You wet my boots!” The hand rose up to cuff him on the side of the head, adding a new shriek to the chorus of agony that encased his body. “I have a mind to crush your head right here.” The fist remained before his eyes, taunting him. On the middle finger was a ring. Its square crest was wet with blood, his blood, soiling a bird with wings of fire
.

Steeg’s ring.

A second blow to his head nauseated him and brought about a loud humming in his ears. The man carried him swiftly away from the laughing soldiers. Kào was dropped in front of a pair of huge boots he was certain belonged to a giant
.

At three years old, he’d learned the meaning of irony. Steeg had saved him only to deliver him to his executioner. He remembered staring at the toes of those boots, scarred and dust-coated with the remains of Vantaar’s razed prairies, the ashes of his people’s livelihood.

“It’s too small. And it’s not housebroken,” the ringed man added contemptuously. “Here, put it out of our misery, Ilya.”

Ilya? Kào gripped the railing. Ilya Moray?

A metallic scrape indicated a gun being withdrawn from a holster. “Stand still, little one.” But he didn’t. He ran
.

He didn’t know in which direction he fled; he knew only that he must escape the giant. He sprinted across the charred grasslands, zigzagging as he’d seen the rabbits run when chased by prairie-lions. His breaths scraped his throat raw, tears streamed from his burning eyes. Overhead, frightening silver ships, sleek and deadly, crisscrossed the sky like giant dragonflies. They dropped objects that erupted in greenish lightning. He felt the surges of the distant explosions in his ears. Black and orange clouds boiled on the horizon, where his village had been; the stench of dead horses was so heavy that he could taste it. But he ran, hard and fast, until the sound of thundering boots hitting the hard-packed earth caught up to him
.

In his mind’s eye, Kào saw that horrible hand descend,
snatching him off his feet. “Gotcha!”
I know someone who’ll enjoy it more
. . . .

He fought the giant until every last bit of strength bled from his thin, wiry body, until he was too exhausted to raise a fist or lift a leg. He dangled like a strangled chicken from that enormous fist, drained but not defeated. “Look at me, boy.” He obeyed, half expecting the butt of the gun to come crashing down on his throbbing, bloodied skull. But the giant hadn’t the red eyes of the others. His were the color of coal smoke and unexpectedly kind. “An admirable little fighter you are. I know men who could stand to take a lesson from you.”

Only days ago at dinner Moray had expressed that same sentiment: “It was your swift feet that saved you that day. Your spirit, Kào, your will to survive, it glowed so brightly that it touched me in a way you cannot imagine.”

And it had saved Kào from dying that day.

“What’s your name, boy?” the huge man asked. “You must be old enough to know it.”