Phoebe North - Starbreak

The aliens led us through the jostling crowds, past towering buildings that stretched like arms overhead, and through groves crowded with fragrant fruit trees. Finally we reached a fenced area, where copper links were interlaced with sheets of synthetic fabric. It was a tent, an enormous tent, with a hole at the center of the roof and smoke streaming out. An alien stood guard at the gate; he nodded to our captors.

“Xadse zhosoui, xadse zalum zhieselekh,” their leader said, and gave Aleksandra Wolff’s binding ties a fervent shake. Her eyes were wide, inflamed at the violence of his touch. But the guard only appraised us carefully.

“Ezli aum aze zasum,” he replied. Then he entered something into a keypad at the door and stepped aside to let us pass.

They didn’t come with us. They just pushed us inside and left. Metal against metal rang out like a bell.

We struggled to right ourselves. Lifting myself from the dusty ground, I appraised the situation. Under a white canopy yellow light danced and flickered. Meager lean-tos had been constructed, all around the same central point—a fire circle, not unlike the one we’d built at our own camp only days before. But this one had weeks’ worth of ash ringing the stones.

It smelled different here from how it did out in the city. There the atmosphere smelled saccharine-sweet, filled with pollen and the promise of summer to come. Here the air was as pungent as vinegar, as feral as animal musk. This smell wasn’t alien, not at all. It was the unmistakable smell of human body odor. I held my arm up to my mouth, hoping to block the scent.

The old shuttle crew crawled out of their tents on their hands and knees, scrambling to their feet to greet us. They seemed perplexed—as if they’d thought they might live and die in this city without ever seeing another human face. They were haggard, their faces gaunt, their hair frizzed back in thick ponytails that had begun to turn to dreadlocks. Some of them still wore flight suits, stained beneath the armpits, the once-white fabric gone murky and brown. The others were dressed in the worn, holey cotton they’d donned the day they’d left the ship. They drew close, removing the bindings from our hands.

I took in the gathered travelers. They were all there, all nine of them. And though I almost didn’t recognize her at first, soon my gaze caught sight of a familiar face. Dirty, her black curls lank and dust-grayed against her shoulders. But unmistakable. Hannah. My sister-in-law.

“Terra?” she shouted, laughing. She pushed past the others to reach me, then buried me within a bear hug. I staggered back, but soon was lost within her arms. It didn’t matter to me how bad she smelled, or how dirty her clothes were, or, how much she’d missed of what had transpired on the ship—the dingy council rank cord was still sewn to the shoulder of her uniform. It mattered that she was familiar, that she was safe. Living and breathing right next to me, her heart beating beside mine.

I heard Aleksandra let out a snort, as though the sight of our embrace disgusted her, or worse. But by then the others had drifted away—gone to embrace the shuttle crew, the fellows who we’d thought we’d lost. This time Aleksandra was left standing alone, her curled lip her only companion.

Hannah held me at arm’s length, appraising my condition. I examined her as well. There was a scar on her forehead, where blood, caked with hair, had been allowed to congeal. But she was alive and otherwise whole—in better condition than the other flight crew members. One had an arm in a cast, the skin all swollen and yellow beneath the bandages, the fingers uselessly limp. Another was missing the entire front row of his teeth. But that was old news to her; Hannah was used to their injuries. She brushed my hair aside, gave a sniffling smile, and said, “Terra, what happened to you?”

I grinned through my shock and exhaustion. “We crashed in the wilderness. Out in the mountains up north.”

She glanced back over her shoulder to Aleksandra. “The Council let you go? Didn’t they get our message? We can’t settle here.”

I gazed back too. Aleksandra shifted, smirking.

“The Council doesn’t rule us anymore,” she declared proudly. At her word, the rest of the flight crew turned to stare. She touched two fingers to her heart. “My mother, may her spirit rest, was murdered. I rule the ship now, with the Children of Abel at my side.”

Murmurs of dismay and confusion rose up from the crew. Hannah took me by either shoulder, her expression frantic. I’d forgotten, in my relief at seeing her, who she really was. Daughter of two Council members. Gold thread was knotted through that rank cord.

“My parents,” Hannah said, her words coming out in a rush, “are they okay? And Ronen? Alyana?” Her voice choked on the name of her daughter, the peanut of a baby girl she’d left behind.

“I—” I said, then hesitated. I’d left Ronen in the ship’s bow with the other Council members. I’d run away from them, fleeing toward the dome. At the time I’d thought I could help. Save Captain Wolff, maybe, from her daughter’s hands. But what had I forgotten in my hurry? People—people I loved—that I’d left behind. I hung my head. But not Aleksandra. She simply gripped the radio in hand and spoke right over the others.

“My men and women report that the Council-loyal have holed themselves up in the ship’s bow where the life support systems are housed,” she said. “They’re following that brat Silvan Rafferty. He’s yet to make his move, but we have reason to believe that he’s planning retaliatory attacks against those who have refused to join him.”

She paused. Her tone went icy. “Of course, if that happens, my men will have no choice but to neutralize any threats. Still eager to join your parents, Hannah? Be a good Council girl?”

Hannah’s hands dropped down.

“No,” she said quickly. “Of—of course not.”

Aleksandra turned to the closest shuttle crew member, the man whose arm was all swollen and green.

“Show me the perimeter,” she demanded. “We need to start planning our escape.”

With his good hand he rubbed his ratty beard. “Yes, ma’am,” he said at last, and led Aleksandra toward the back of the camp. Hannah turned to me. She tucked her hand under my elbow, pulling me to the circle of charred logs and spent ash.

“What’s happened up there?” she asked as she pulled me down to the hard ground beside her. I didn’t know what to say at first as the others began to gather around us. I turned pleading eyes to Rebbe Davison, but he only bowed his head.

“Tell her,” he said.

So I did. Not everything, of course. I didn’t tell her about the poison—didn’t mention that night in the Raffertys’ quarters, clouding that bottle with powdered foxglove. I didn’t yet tell her about the blood on my hands.

But it was easy—surprisingly easy—to talk about the Children of Abel. I told Hannah about the meetings in that musty library, about the librarian and how he’d once passed messages among us all. I told her about the journal that had been shared between the women of my family, all those hand-marked pages about the first rebels and how they’d resisted the Council every chance they could. And I told her about the riots. The people had flooded the dome, jubilant, drunk, their chants and shouts echoing under the ceiling of glass. They took the granaries. The fields. The shuttle bays. As I spoke, Hannah held her hands between her knees, giving her head a few forceful shakes.

“No, no,” she said softly. “They couldn’t. They couldn’t. Didn’t you get our message?”

I remembered the grainy video I’d watched with Silvan in the command center. The air around us had seemed alive, electric as I’d listened to Hannah’s words. But mostly my attention had been on the men in the background, with their translucent skin and endless black eyes.