Flame: A Sky Chasers Novel

  And to add to the unreality, Waverly was about to speak to the man who had killed her father and whose policies led to the destruction of everything she’d ever loved. The elevator doors opened, and she and Jared stepped off. They walked down the long hallway toward the admittance desk for the bridge. Now that she was about to see Captain Jones, she realized she had no idea what to say.

  Jared and she stood at the desk, and the flabby guard sitting behind it looked at them as thought he’d been expecting them. He waved them in with a languid hand. “Twenty minutes,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Surveillance?” Jared asked with a glance at the camera above.

  “Darnedest thing,” the guard said with a smirk. “Stopped working a couple minutes ago.”

  “Thanks,” Jared said.

  The brig held a stale odor of food and ancient human sweat. Jared led her into the first cell to the left. Waverly looked around and gasped.

  Standing shackled in the corner was a skeletal, stooped, ancient man who couldn’t be Captain Jones.

  But it was.

  The Captain had always been paunchy and physically substantial, but this man’s stomach was a concave, and his wrists were bony and frail looking. His beard had gone completely white, and his hair had grown past his shoulders. His hands shook with palsy, and he smacked his lips together as though he were terribly thirsty. His eyes danced over the cell as if he were expecting some kind of animal to jump at him from above, but then they landed on Waverly, and he blinked as a man waking.

  “Captain?” she asked tentatively. She felt the wrongness of addressing him by his formal title. Calling him liar or murderer would be more fitting. But he was so pathetic, she couldn’t find it within herself to attack.

  “Waverly Marshall,” the man said. Even his voice had lost weight, become wispy and weakened. “God, it’s good to see you.” His knees knocked, and the chains around his ankles trembled and clacked. Slowly, the Captain approached her and sat down at the end of the cot. “They wouldn’t tell me why they were shackling me,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I thought my time had finally come. I never thought I might have a visitor! How are you?” the Captain asked eagerly. “How are the rest of the children?”

  “All right,” she said, meek and unsure.

  “We’ve been so worried for them.” He seemed to be holding back tears.

  “We?” Waverly asked in a whisper.

  The Captain pulled himself together enough to look over at Jared, who stepped out to give them privacy.

  “Gunther Dietrich, Kahlil Hassan,” the Captain whispered. “I know for sure they’re here. They’re still resisting the deal.”

  “Deal?” Waverly shook her head.

  “They refused the pills.” The Captain looked around furtively, then leaned in close. His breath was unbearably rank. “Your mother took them so that she could be with you. Almost all the parents took the deal.”

  “Did they say whether the pills do permanent damage?” Waverly asked as she sat down on the cot next to him, suppressing tears. “Or what kind of drug it was?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” the Captain said. “I just know it’s bad. Bad,” he repeated. “It’s been very hard being here, unable to see anyone or know what’s going on.”

  “I—” Waverly began, but he interrupted her.

  “And your parents?” he asked, lunging toward her, grasping for her hand. She pulled away from him, scooted to the edge of the cot. “How are they?”

  “My parents?” Waverly shook her head, and finally her rage surfaced. “You mean my father? Who you killed twelve years ago?”

  The Captain’s face fell. “Galen,” he said, as though just learning his friend had died. Was he senile? “Oh, Galen.”

  “You sent him out an air lock with Seth’s mother and Dr. McAvoy!” Waverly pointed a finger in his face. He shielded his eyes. “You killed them to cover up what you did!”

  The Captain studied the webbed skin over his palms, looking as though he were trying to recollect what she was talking about. “I’m sorry,” he finally muttered. “Tell your mother I’m sorry.”

  “For killing her husband?” Waverly spat at him. “You’re sorry?”

  “I couldn’t let him go!” the Captain pleaded. “Not after what he’d done!”

  “You killed him to protect yourself!” Waverly said. She stood up, her hands stretched toward the Captain’s face as if to scratch, but she backed away until she felt the cold metal of the iron bars against her hip. “Tell me why.” The desperation in her voice alarmed her; she’d begun to cry. “Why did it have to be my dad?”

  He blinked at her. “We can’t choose our parents, dear,” he said. He reached toward her, but the chains around his wrists stopped him. “You must remember him as your daddy. Try to forget what he did.”

  “Forget? He discovered phyto-lutein!”

  The Captain stared at her, reading her expression, then nodded emphatically. “That’s right. He was a hero. That’s right.”

  “And you killed him.”

  He nodded. “Right. Right.”

  She shook her head, flummoxed. She’d expected some defense, some rationalization, or more lies. This … it didn’t make sense.

  “What are you not telling me?” she said slowly.

  He waved his palsied hands in the air. “Ask your mother. This isn’t my place.”

  “Tell me what happened!” Waverly flew at the Captain, but a firm hand closed around her arm. Jared must have been listening just outside the door, and now he held her back, folding himself around her until she dropped her hands, and he finally let go. “I want to know the truth.”

  The decrepit, ruined man looked at her with pity. “I’m sorry, child. You were never meant to know.”

  “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  “Your mother and I. We only lied to protect you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He studied her from beneath bushy white eyebrows, then reached a hand toward her shoulder. “I suppose you had to find out sometime,” he said wistfully. “We tried.”

  “Please.” Waverly breathed. She didn’t have the strength to make her voice work. “Just tell me.”

  He shuffled back to the corner, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in a kind of nervous dance. “Ask your mother, Waverly. Ask her.”

  “Time’s up,” Jared said in her ear, and she realized he was holding her again. “We have to go or Mather will find out we were here.”

  She let Jared pull her out of the cell, but her gaze never left Captain Jones’s confused, wandering eyes.

  Jared led her back to the elevator and pushed a button—she hardly cared where they were headed. Why had she thought seeing the Captain would bring her anything but regret? When had she ever gotten what she wanted since this dreadful turn in her life began?

  In a daze of disappointment and sorrow, she followed Jared off the elevator and down a corridor at the midship level. He seemed to understand she didn’t want to talk and didn’t push her. In silence they walked back to her apartment. Waverly watched her feet take one step, and another, hardly aware of where she was going until they arrived at her door.

  “What is this?” she heard Jared say sharply.

  She looked up to see he was addressing the guard outside her door—the pudgy one was back, recovered from his fight with Jared except for a bruise on his forehead. An insolent smile pasted across his face, he stood with his hands behind his back, his chest swelling with smug pride. To his right, just over his shoulder, was a picture of Waverly. It was a black-and-white drawing of her, all in bold lines and dark shadows, and underneath in huge black letters was written a single word: LIAR.

  Fear coiled in Waverly’s stomach. She wrung her hands, squeezing her fingers to calm their trembling. “What is that?”

  “You weren’t meant to see this,” Jared said, shaking his head angrily as he ripped it off the wall. He shot an angry look at the guard, who’s face fell
in confusion. Jared moved to tear the drawing in half, but Waverly ripped it out of his hands to look closer. It wasn’t a drawing. It was a printed copy. “How many are there?”

  “Oh…,” Jared stalled.

  “Jared!”

  He sighed regretfully. “They’re hanging all over the ship, I’m sorry to tell you.”

  “Mather?”

  “I think so. The Pastor has publicly ordered that they be taken down, but they keep reappearing. I think she’s trying to create the illusion of popular condemnation against you.”

  “People hate you,” the guard said to Waverly with an ugly grin.

  Jared stuck his finger in the man’s face. “You shut up.”

  The guard’s face went blank with fear, and he stared at the wall opposite him.

  Jared pushed her through the door to her apartment, pulled her into her bedroom, and closed the door. She sat on the foot of her bed, her legs too unsteady to support her.

  “Some people believe me. Right?” Her voice sounded puny.

  “Yes,” Jared said with a nod. “But … Mather is charging you, me, the doctor, and the rest of the elders with attempted mutiny.”

  “Mutiny,” Waverly whispered. That could bring the death penalty, she knew. “What about the trial?”

  “There’ll be a hearing,” Jared said with an apologetic smile, “in front of the whole crew.”

  “Will I have to testify?”

  “We’re hoping your video testimony will be enough because…” He trailed off.

  “Because,” she prodded.

  “Mather’s attack dog is quite good at pulling witnesses apart.”

  Waverly remembered the large man with the dove insignia on his shoulder. The thought of facing him in an interrogation chilled her blood.

  “Be alert,” Jared said to Waverly as he opened the door of her room. “Don’t talk to anyone. Anyone. That comes straight from the doctor.” He bowed his head to make hooded eye contact with her. “The safety of all the elders is in your hands. Understand?”

  Waverly nodded, breaking eye contact with him too soon, knowing she was giving the impression of weakening resolve but unable to help herself. I’m not strong anymore, she realized as he closed the door behind him. I’m starting to be nothing at all.

  CONJUGAL

  Kieran watched, annoyed, as Mather picked up a mug from the tea tray his mother had prepared and poured herself a cup, making herself perfectly at home in Kieran’s apartment. She’d shown up just as he and his mother were putting away the dinner dishes, unapologetic about the late hour. Now she huddled her fingers against the hot stoneware, tipping her nose into the steam, breathing it in before saying, “Something has happened. The church elders—” She scoffed. “What a joke to call them that now, after what they’ve done.”

  “What?”

  “They’re using Waverly against us.”

  Us. Inwardly, Kieran cringed, but it was crucial that Mather tell him everything, so he raised his eyebrows in a show of interest.

  “They’ve released a video of an interview they conducted with her, and it has caused quite a stir with my crew.” She pivoted the com unit toward him and flicked a button with her index finger. Waverly’s face appeared on the screen. Her cheeks were ruddy, her hair disheveled, and she looked confused and exhausted.

  A voice came from off camera: “You say you heard Anne Mather give the order to start shooting Empyrean crew members as they tried to save you girls?” The speaker sounded sickly, but the tone was forceful and angry.

  Waverly nodded. “She was inside the shuttle, behind her crew, and she was shouting, ‘Shoot to kill.’” Kieran detected something unnatural in Waverly’s monotone.

  “Did you see her giving orders to kill people?” the interviewer asked.

  “Yes,” Waverly said firmly.

  Mather furiously turned off the com station. Her cheeks flared bright pink, and her breath sounded ragged and shaky. “She’s lying, Kieran. None of that is true. I have an audio recording of my transmissions to my crew through their headsets during the gun battle.” Mather tapped some commands into the com station and Mather’s voice came over the speakers. “Please! Come aboard! Stop shooting and come aboard!”

  In the background of the recording was gunfire, and people shouting or crying out in pain. Very faintly, Kieran heard his own panicked voice calling, “Waverly! Waverly!”

  He remembered all of it—every gunshot, every scream, his own cries, begging Waverly not to get on the enemy shuttle. He was shaking with the reality of it.

  “Kieran,” Mather said, and waited until he could look at her face. “I’ll release this to the public, and it will help, but as you may know, Waverly’s testimony could be quite damning for me.”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  “That’s your voice on the recording, calling her name. I know it. You could help me prove this recording is real.”

  “I…,” Kieran stumbled. “I don’t remember that day.”

  Mather studied him for a long, uncomfortable span of time, letting him know she saw through his lie. “Then can you at least appeal to Waverly? Get her to recant her false testimony? I know you’re not together anymore…”

  “How do you know?” Kieran asked, suspicious.

  “It’s obvious. Forgive me, but neither of you has even asked to see the other. It’s clear you’ve split, but…” She leaned toward him, her eyes betraying a deeply buried anxiety. “You were once very close. You might be able to influence her.”

  Kieran made a sweaty fist, letting his chewed-up fingernails dig into his palm.

  “Remember the future, Kieran. We’ve got one ship.” Mather held up a finger. “We have one chance to make it to New Earth. If this crew erupts into civil war, we won’t survive.”

  He hated her in that instant, because he knew she was right. The survival of everyone depended on peace. Kieran didn’t think Waverly’s lies would lead to anything but more violence.

  “Walk me to the door,” Mather said, standing up from the com station. “Will you?”

  He laughed, amazed at her presumption, but he still found himself following her. The rules of decorum were hard to abandon, especially around someone like her—a grandmotherly woman with a careworn face.

  “Kieran, I can see you’re torn by your feelings for Waverly. I understand that. But right now she’s perjuring herself. Once I prove she’s lying, she’ll be charged with attempted mutiny.”

  Kieran regarded Mather with deep anxiety. She’s implying that Waverly could be executed for this.

  “There is another option,” Mather said slowly. “If you told Waverly you plan to testify that she’s lying, that would give her good reason to withdraw her testimony now, before I’m forced to pursue legal actions against her.”

  They’d reached the door. Mather turned to wait for his reply.

  He could never do that. He’d hate himself forever.

  Mather saw his hesitation. “Then convince Waverly to recant however you can, and I won’t have to put you on the witness stand.”

  He saw the trap she was setting: If he lied to protect Waverly, he could be charged with attempted mutiny, too.

  “Or you could simply step down,” he said quietly, hoping there was some core of decency still left in her. “Save everyone by retiring.”

  “You think it’s so simple? I have a strong and loyal core of followers.” Mather clenched her jaw as she stared at Kieran. “Many of them would die for me.”

  “You’d let them start a civil war? Compromise the mission to defend yourself?”

  This made her angry, and she jutted her jaw at him, but when she spoke her words were slow and cold. “I’ve had to choose between assuming the personal pain of difficult choices, or letting my flock suffer the anguish of knowing that their happiness depended on the destruction of other people. It might not seem it, Kieran, but everything I’ve done has been a personal sacrifice.”

  “Oh. So you’re a martyr.?
??

  “That’s right,” she said, her gray eyes flickering with a warning. “And the only thing more dangerous than a living saint is a dead one.”

  Kieran was taken aback and remembered the fervor of her congregation, how they’d taken up her battle cry at the mere suggestion their faith was threatened, and he shuddered.

  If their prophet were killed, they might never stop fighting.

  “Will you talk to her, Kieran? Try to convince her?” Mather prodded. “This can only end in blood.”

  “Yes,” he finally whispered, “I’ll talk to her.”

  Mather smiled at him, opened the door, and stepped aside to reveal Waverly standing in the hallway, looking dazed. She was thin and pale as she stood back from Mather, her expression wary. Two armed men stood on either side of her, and the big one with the dove insignia on his shoulder held her by the elbow, looking like a giant. When Waverly shifted her weight, he watched her with unmistakable menace, and for one panicky moment, Kieran was afraid the man would break her arm.

  He could, Kieran thought. He could snap her bones with a flick of his wrist.

  “Come, Waverly,” Mather said. “You’re among friends here.”

  The man let go of her arm, and Waverly stepped into the apartment, looking around furtively.

  “You can wait out in the corridor for Waverly, can’t you, Thomas?” Mather asked him. With a nod, he placed himself just outside the door, his back to the corridor wall. Mather followed him out and reached to close the door behind her. She knew better than to exchange even a glance with Kieran, lest she give away the meeting’s true purpose.