Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

“I’m a captain,” Riggs continued, “and you’re not even a navigator anymore.”

“Drop the Navy crap,” Cole said. “It means nothing right now.”

One of the emergency kits fell to the glass. Riggs pushed past Cole and started unstrapping the other one. “To you , maybe, but just because the Navy dropped you doesn’t mean I need to drop the Navy crap .”

Cole reached into the soft case and felt for the cylindrical biosticks; they would last a lot longer than the older lightsticks from whatever era Molly’s parents had salvaged them from. He gave one of them a half-twist, lining up the two inner chambers with each other. The cockpit filled with a soft, blue glow as bioluminescent creatures came out of hibernation and began to feed.

Cole held up the stick—and the first thing he saw in the new glow was Riggs turning to punch him in the nose.

New flashes of light sparked in his vision to join the dull, persistent ones. Cole threw his hands up to fend off the next attack, but it didn’t come.

“ That’s for tying my ass up,” Riggs said. “When I kill you later, it’ll be for what you did to Lucin.”

Cole didn’t dare defend himself and get that argument raging again. Besides, he had shot their old Academy instructor in the back. No point in trying to explain why . He reached up and felt his nose. It was sore, but not broken. Pulling his hand away, he saw he wasn’t bleeding, either, just stunned.

The ambient blue light doubled in intensity as Riggs pulled a second biostick from the other kit and activated it. Cole nearly chastised him for not rationing the supplies, but the lines in Riggs’s brow suggested it might be a bad idea. Instead, Cole peered down at the canopy, their only exit. The entire bubble of glass was buried in the ground, blocking off the crazy light outside, but also their chance of escape. Cole couldn’t believe the carboglass had held. If that was solid ground they’d hit, the entire nose should’ve crumpled up around them. He lowered the biostick toward the glass, but he couldn’t see anything through the cockpit—just a dark mass pressing against the clear shield.

“Is there any point in trying to slide the canopy back?” Cole asked.

“Only if it kills you before it kills me.”

Cole swung his biostick around to illuminate the space between them. He studied Riggs’s face intently. “Listen, man, I’m serious. We need to put this aside and think . Be rational.”

“Fine.” Riggs looked around the cockpit, and Cole did the same. The two flight seats hung overhead, and the canopy rose up to the inverted dash, where every control was blank and dark. At the rear of the cockpit stood the flat wall separating the crew from the flight systems: the life-support, engines, and hyperdrive.

“The landing gear,” Riggs suggested.

“Yeah? What about them?”

“Did you lower them?”

“No. Why? What are you thinking?”

Riggs pointed with his biostick toward the metal panel bolted aft of the seats. “We go out through the landing gear shafts. There’s a maintenance tunnel that runs the length of the ship big enough for the grease monkeys to crawl through. We just need to unscrew that panel—” Riggs fumbled in his kit. “Should be a multi-tool in here.”

“Good thinking.”

“Thanks,” Riggs said. “It isn’t something you can learn from a simulator. Hell, if you hadn’t tied me up, I betcha I could’ve landed this thing with my left hand.”

Cole bit down on what he wanted to say; there was no room in the tight confines of their predicament for making Riggs angrier. He’d rather take more blows right on his nose and keep smiling, wearing out Riggs’s rage with a bit of patience.

“Lower the gear with the manual crank while I work on the panel,” Riggs instructed.

“Okay,” Cole said, as pleasantly as he could muster his voice. If they were going to survive this together, he was going to have to build up some trust.

He would start by carefully and meticulously restraining himself for a change.

Following her controversial speech before the Circle, Anlyn travels to the Great Rift, accompanied by Edison and an escort of volunteers.

They hope to be present for the invasion foretold by prophecy.

They don’t yet know they are at the wrong rift.

“What are you doing ?” Rend asked. He yanked Dor’s hand away from the weapons rack.

“I was just going to touch it!” Dor insisted.

“Are you crazy?” Rend eyed the lance warily. The large weapon stood upright in a padded harness parallel to a dozen others. It rested there as if it were no different than its neighbors, but he knew better. “That’s Lord Campton’s lance,” he said in a hushed whisper, never taking his eyes off it. “The Lance of a Thousand Suns.”

“A thousand suns? That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, I heard it was forged from the magma of Hori I and Hori II and pounded into shape on the coldest corner of Drenard’s dark side.”

Dor narrowed his eyes. “Those are fairy tales, like flying Wadi. How old are you?”

“Same age as you, hot-head, but my dad was there when the lance was wielded for the first time. He said it went off with the power of a thousand suns, and that it made a noise like the universe coming alive.”

“Your dad’s been in the Wadi juice, sounds like.”

“No he hasn’t, my dad—”

Anlyn cleared her throat behind the bickering boys before the argument could get personal. The volunteer peacemakers spun around, and she took as much pleasure in their shocked expressions as she had amusement in their whispered delusions.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked.

“Princess Hooo,” Rend said—

“ Lady Hooo,” Dor whispered, elbowing his friend. He shrugged for Anlyn, as if he couldn’t be held responsible for his crewmate’s imprecise knowledge of royal etiquette.

“I’m sorry, Lady Hooo,” Rend said, “I forget you’re engaged. We were just talking about Lord Campton and his lance. My father was there for the speech. He saw—well…” The poor kid glanced at the lance, seemingly miserable with nerves. His hands squeezed fistfuls of his outer tunic as he fidgeted in place.

Anlyn gave each of the boys a serious look as she walked around them and approached the weapons rack. She rested a hand reverently on Edison’s lance. “It belonged to one of my uncles,” she said. She turned to Rend and Dor. “A guard once used it to cut a friend of mine in two. Lord Campton later turned it into a symbol of peace , not war.”

“Told you,” Dor said to Rend.

Rend ignored him. “I heard it was you who used it in the Pinnacle, that the great speech came about because of…” Rend gazed at the lance.

Anlyn could sense he wanted to touch it. She pressed the pad of her finger to the security harness and the clamps clacked open. Pulling it from the rack, she turned around and held it out to the two lads.

Dor reached for it eagerly. Rend grasped the other half as if the lance were as fragile as Thooo eggs.

“Don’t touch the trigger,” she warned them.

Neither boy looked up; they just nodded and turned the large device over and over, inspecting the royal markings and the electrical modifications Edison had made. Rend ran his hand down to the Wadi hook on the one end while Dor tested the point on the other side with a cautious finger.

“I would let you inspect it further,” Anlyn said, “but I actually came to retrieve it before our meeting with the Rift Commander.”

“It was an honor, Lady Hooo,” Rend said. He pulled the lance away from Dor and extended it to her. “I would love to speak with you sometime, perhaps hear more of your interpretations of the prophecy.”