Marked (20 page)

WE LAND NOT FAR FROM RAUPANG. I'M TOLD IT'
S A BEAUTIFUL
city, the glittering, ice-kissed heart of Cyan, a citadel built of three-thousand-year-old stone and timber. But we see next to none of it. Our vac touches down in the lowlands, south of the Cyanese capital, which towers above the fjords. From a distance, looking up, all we see is a glimmer of polished gray—the very tip of the Skal.

No. We won't be visiting Larken's snow-capped home during this trip. Instead, we're prepping for launch, in the foothills far from Raupang's gates. In a matter of hours, my team and I will buckle in, blast off, then drift toward a giant calibrated ring—a gateway through folded space. In an eye-blink, we'll charge it, hurtling out of our galaxy and into Earth's orbit. Then, millions of light-years from
here, we'll find a different kind of ring. A forgotten space station. The U.S.S.
Sweetwater.

For now I sit alone in the flight master's office planted on one end of the yard. It's cozy and spare, a glorified glassed-in box that trembles at every takeoff. Through the windows, I watch the many vacs in the yard, launching and landing in the shadow of the not-so-distant peaks. The Cyanese Mountains are cold and strange. But the ice and snow are beautiful enough. In a way, their endlessness speaks to me the way the Castran Desert does. One hand on the windowpane, and the chill bites my fingertips. The frost reminds me: I'm a long way from home.

I shiver as the side door swings open. It's Hal. Windblown, he walks in and it clangs shut again. I know why he's here. We're squeezing in one last session before the rescue mission.

He sits down in the opposite chair. A heating vent grumbles between us.

There's no space to run a sim. Here, at the end of the road, there's only room for quiet talk.

Finally, Hal takes both my hands.

Mine are trembling.

“It's going to be difficult up there, Phee,” Hal says at last. “You're going to have a hard time.”

My gaze drops, but it's not a dodge. It's a giant, gut-swooping nod.

“And that's all right. Whatever happens . . .” he adds. “It's okay to bug out and lose it and be afraid. It's okay to fall down.”

“I . . .” I trail off, uncertain. But Hal jumps into the gap, squeezing hard. There is no more softness in him now, only unfailing strength.

“Every time, all we have to do is get back up.”

We launch.

Hal gives me something to ease the trip, and mercifully, I doze off. Now there's a split second of disorientation as I finally wake. I look up. Fahra's still sitting across from me, and he's saying something, but I can't make it out. The sound is low and sluggish like syrup in my ears. And then my hair slithers by, and everything spins back into place.

We're in an unlicensed, obsolete orbital shuttle. I'm still buckled in, weightless under my seat restraint.

We made it through the gateway.

The last time I ripped through folded space like this, I was in one of Benroyal's vacs, jaunting from Castra to Cyan-Bisera for my final race.
That
ship was state-of-the-art, with inertial dampers, gravity drivers, and a mass-condensing core. Then, I made the trip in air-conditioned
luxury, and still threw up. So now? In this zero-g tin can?

Even with Hal's best meds, I don't have a prayer.

I look out the tiny side window. There is no sideways, or up or down; there is only spinning. Lots and lots of spinning. Ugh . . .

“Take it,” Fahra says. “Take!” He thrusts something in my face. And just in time too. Before he can shout a third command, I latch on to the valved air-sickness bag.

After . . . well, I'm sure we're all thankful the bag's opaque. I rock against my tethers, limp as a wrung-out rag. Fahra laughs.

“You know what that is?” Fahra says to Hank, pointing at me. “Freshly squeezed gan-gan.”

I think my face must turn a deeper shade of green, because Fahra quits grinning. He reaches under Hank's seat. “You need another one?” he asks.

Slowly, I shake my head. I try to answer, but burp instead. The belch clears my head, and the past twenty-four hours slam back into it. I see everything in rapid playback mode, and marvel: We're finally here, in another galaxy.
Here
being something like eight hundred kilometers above my ancestors' burned-out planet. I angle toward our window again, and there it is, slowly crawling below us, a sun-rimmed swirl of churning gray storms.

Earth.

I am mesmerized by the light, the way it hugs the surface of the planet, slicing through the surrounding darkness like an unstoppable glimmer. There's no end to the shine, no matter how far the shadows reach.

Hal passes me the necessities. A dose of motion anti-sickness meds, mouthwash, and a small bottle of water. Eager, I take them. By the time I look up again, there's another patch of Earth meeting the dawn. The gray storms still swirl here and there, looming like threats, but there are pockets of dull blue and deep brown and even a bit of green scattered in the gloom.

Up here, in orbit, the stars belong to IP ships and bloodthirsty smugglers. Below us, on Earth, I'm guessing it's worse. There are two kinds of folk down there. First, the people who were left behind, after Castra was colonized. Second, all the criminals Castra's dumped here over the years—the worst sorts, the ones they won't even put to work in the sap mines. To these luckless herds belongs a half-shadowed planet. The burned-out, used-up world my father once called his home.

I turn away from the window. We wait.

Finally, Miyu touches my arm. “Almost there. Feeling better?”

“I'm okay. How much longer?”

“I see it,” Hank says, looking out. “Come look.”

We all unbuckle, then float toward the glass. Weightless and jostling, we crowd around the tiny window. And sure enough, there it is. Our ride to the space station. A big black decommissioned IP vac, its bay doors yawning wider by the second. The crew manning it does business with Benroyal, but they aren't soldiers. This outfit? Apparently, they were recommended to James by a friend of a friend of a nefarious friend. Because there are no legal ways to get out here.

“Buckle in and gear up,” Hank says. “Docking in five.”

He doesn't need to repeat the warning. We know the score. That fast-looming freighter's our ticket to Cash. Our last hope? A ship full of no-account, credit-stealing, vac-hijacking, black-marketeering, antiquities-hauling, independently contracted space pirates.

We dock inside the pirate freighter.

The first thing I notice is how awkward and off-balance I feel lumbering out of our vac. The moment we touch down and depressurize our doors, the free-floating sense of weightlessness . . . gone. Now I can't quite adjust to the artificial gravity of this new ship. It's as if I have lead in my bones, and more in my boots.

Second, there's no escaping the gray, grimy dim of the industrial space, or the low-grade static of wall-to-wall
chatter. Inside the landing bay, the burly freighter crew stare us down. A second later, they flash their weapons. I read the warning.
Easy now. Don't do anything stupid and we'll all get along just fine.

Cautiously, my eyes search the bay. But the smugglers don't make a move. They just stare. Casually they grumble and snicker amongst themselves.

I touch my right arm. I'm prepared to fire at will, ready to tap the trigger pad of my glove. My thumb hovers over it, just in case. I can stun the first sap-hole who makes the wrong move. One of the crew—a hulk of a man with silvered dreadlocks and matching whiskers—leans against a half-shadowed stack of crates, his arms folded. After sizing me up, he damn near laughs. When Fahra answers with a fast draw of his dagger, he whistles.

At his signal, the rest of his mates back away. As they part, I see who's standing behind them.

One look and I gasp. I know those sly, deep-set eyes and that gold-toothed, sap-eating grin. I've faced down his ugly mug a thousand times in his own tin-roofed garage, and rust all if he hasn't cussed me out half as much. Here comes bad luck and trouble.

Benny Eno.

Or Fat Benny, if you're asking for him on the street. Toughest crew boss in Capitoline. The fierce hard-nosed
crook who was inexplicably kind to me. The muscle-brained tough guy who gave me my first rig and backed me on the streets. At the sight of him, Bear's eyes flare in anger, and I can't even try to hide the mixed-up grimace on my face.

“Got nothing to say to your old boss?” Benny huffs, his hands up and his shoulders bunched in mock surprise. He walks my way. Short, thundering steps, just like always.

A jolt of nostalgia tempers the shock. “Benny,” I say, clumsy and a little breathless. “What are you . . .”

Then it occurs to me. I'm standing here, looking at the man who sold me out. Who set me up to race the night Benroyal first had me arrested. And now he's probably selling me out again. In my mind, I see it all slip away. Our plans. The rescue. Cash's life. Selling us all out, right now. I should be bugging out. I should be wetting my exo.

I should be landing a punch.

Instinct kicks in. My right hand curls into a tight, trembling fist.

“You know this man?” Fahra asks.

I ignore him, closing in on Benny. My old boss doesn't even flinch. He looks me up and down, appraising me as usual. It's a familiar tic; he measures every knuckle-cracking, bone-breaking, odds-making move. When his eyes narrow, I can't tell what he's thinking. The uncertainty's enough to
raise the hair on the back of my neck, and if I were wiser, this one tingling whiff of caution would stop me.

“You snake,”
I hiss.
“You slithering, two-faced, double-
dealing
—
”

Bear lunges at Benny, but a handful of freighter crew jump in. They look to Benny, who tosses a dismissive wave. “Bear's a good kid. Keep him off me; don't rough him up.”

The smugglers laugh. Bear struggles against them.

“Benny, you're a clown,” I spit. “And I will make you pay for this. For everything you've done.”

He looks at me, drinking in my alarm. His mouth goes a little slack, as if he's actually surprised.

“Hey now,” he says.

I'm still shaking. “When my uncle finds out you're here, and that you've double-crossed us, he will spend every last credit he's got to hunt you down and—”

His hands fly up again. “Wait a second. If you think I'm here to sell you out . . . Look, I took this job to help you. I'm not here to double-deal you.”

I can't believe what I'm hearing.

“I'm not heartless, am I?” he pleads. “Sure, I gave you up to Benroyal. I had to. But hey, I figured King Charlie'd make you famous. How was I supposed to know he had it in for you?”

“You betrayed me,” I growl.

He looks away for a moment, then jerks his chin at the gray-haired smuggler. The man answers with a nod, and the whole room seems to relax. The rest of the crew—they back off and holster their guns. A little less than gently, they let go of Bear. Without so much as a stumble, he shakes them off and moves back to my side.

Benny looks back at me. “Didn't I give you a start? A spot in my garage and a shot on the circuit? Don't you remember nothing about the good I did for you?”

A little hand-wringing—that sparkle in his beady eyes—and it's like I can't help it. Already the scorch in my cheeks is fading. “Benny,” I say, sighing. “What are you doing up here?”

“I'm here because I said I'd be here. I promised I'd get you to the station.”

“Right,” Bear snaps. “I'm sure that's the only reason.”

“Promised who?” Hal squints at Benny. “You made a deal with James?”

“Hey,” Benny answers. “Mr. Anderssen came to me, thank you very much. I know the guys who run antiques for King Charlie, and he hit me up to broker the deal.” Benny scratches his left eyebrow. Another tic. “So I'm involved in a lot of . . . enterprises. What can I say? I got a lot of connections.”