Flame: A Sky Chasers Novel

  “Waverly, I want to start over with you.”

  “Take me to the brig,” Waverly said distantly. “I want to be with my mother.”

  “I have a better idea,” Mather said. Waverly heard the whisper of the woman’s clothing as she moved toward the copilot’s seat and sat down, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair. “Naturally I can’t leave you loose on the ship,” Mather said carefully. “But I could let you and your mother have one of the empty apartments. How would that be?”

  “Where did you take Sarah and Randy?”

  “Your friends are safe. They’ll be well treated.”

  “What did you do to Amanda?” Waverly asked. Amanda, the woman Waverly had lived with her first time on the New Horizon, had taken up arms against Mather and her guards to help Waverly escape the ship. Waverly had worried Mather might have thrown her in the brig, or worse. “Did you hurt her?”

  “For what?” Mather said with a disingenuous smirk. “You took her hostage. She had no choice but to help you escape. Isn’t that so?”

  Waverly studied Mather’s composed expression and saw the truth. Amanda had told a lie to protect herself and her unborn baby, and Anne Mather had chosen to believe her friend’s lie—or at least to pretend she believed. Mather was capable of loyalty, Waverly supposed, and even love, but that only made her crimes all the more monstrous.

  “Waverly.” Mather had the audacity to lean across the aisle and place a hand on Waverly’s knee. Waverly looked at it, seething, and Mather removed her hand before Waverly could claw the bones out of it. “What we did to you was wrong. Absolutely wrong. I knew it then and I acknowledge it now. I wish I could explain to you my mind-set.” Mather shook her head as she gathered her thoughts. “Every last woman on board this ship was premenopausal. We had to harvest your ova and make them pregnant as quickly as possible. If I’d tried to win you over first—”

  “Stop talking to me!” Waverly screamed at the top of her lungs. Instantly she heard heavy boots stomping up the ramp of the shuttle and into the cockpit. Two men squeezed themselves through the doorway, aiming their guns at Waverly. She ignored them. “You got your way. The Empyrean is destroyed and we’re all yours.”

  Saying these words finally broke her. Sobs shredded her, and she collapsed against her chair. Mather reached for her hands, but Waverly jerked away. She thought if that woman touched her again she might go crazy.

  “Waverly,” Mather pleaded. “I know how it looks, but I never ordered anyone to blow up the Empyrean. I’d never endanger the mission like that! Or children! Jacob and his wife acted alone.”

  “Stop talking to me,” Waverly said again, and she sagged. It was all hitting her now. Her home was gone. How many kids must have died? Where was Serafina, the deaf little girl she used to babysit? She wouldn’t have heard the explosions. She might never have known there was any danger! “Where are the kids? How many…” She gagged on the words, forced them out, “How many died?”

  “Very few,” Mather said. “Almost all of them were in the central bunker, waiting for word about their parents.”

  Waverly could imagine them huddled in groups on the bunks, holding hands, waiting for Sarek to come in from Central Command to tell them their parents had been found on the New Horizon and their families would be whole again. When will we learn to stop hoping?

  “Come on,” Mather said. “Let’s get you settled.”

  Mather reached again to take her hand, but Waverly ignored her and got up from her seat. The guards backed up the aisle of the shuttle, keeping their guns trained on her as she walked down the spiral staircase to the cargo hold, then down the ramp where the rest of the guards were waiting.

  They walked her through the corridors of the New Horizon in a parade with Mather and Waverly at the head, followed by a small army of men. They met no one. Waverly supposed they’d cleared this part of the ship to deal with the Empyrean evacuees. As they walked, the big guard massaged the wooden grip on his gun, crushing his teeth together as though he were chewing on something that angered him. Unlike the other guards, who wore plain tunics, he had a gold insignia on his shoulder in the shape of a dove. Waverly had no idea what it meant, but she knew he must have some authority.

  “Here,” Mather said to Waverly, indicating an apartment door in the middle of the hallway. “We’ll have guards outside round the clock.”

  “So I’m under house arrest?”

  “Until we know what we’re dealing with,” Mather said with a nod.

  “Where is my mother?” Waverly asked.

  “Inside,” Mather said and went to the keypad to unlock the door.

  The door slid open, and there was Regina Marshall standing in the living room, emaciated and grayed but whole and alive, and she opened her arms to Waverly, who ran to her.

  “Mom!” Waverly sobbed and couldn’t say any more.

  “I’m here, honey,” Regina Marshall said. She combed her fingers through Waverly’s hair. “Your hair got long!”

  Waverly tried to smile, but her face dissolved into tears.

  “Oh, there now, Waverly, everything is fine!” Waverly leaned into her mother, letting herself be held up. It felt good to be a kid again, so amazingly wonderful to have her mother take care of her. She hadn’t realized how much she missed this.

  “What a beautiful sight!” Anne Mather exclaimed from behind Waverly.

  Waverly whirled, furious.

  “Thank you so much, Pastor Mather,” Waverly’s mother said with a serene smile. “We’re so grateful.”

  “Grateful!” Waverly sputtered. “Mom!”

  “You two have a lot to talk about, I’m sure,” Mather said with a smile for Regina Marshall. “I’ll leave you to it. You have a stocked refrigerator.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Regina said. “Thank you.”

  Anne Mather backed out of the room, saintly eyes averted.

  When they were finally alone, Waverly studied her mother. Regina met her daughter’s gaze uncertainly, as though she were eager to please but wasn’t sure how. “You know who that is, right, Mom?”

  “That’s Pastor Mather,” Regina said with a strange pride. “Who would have thought a woman would captain a ship like the Empyrean?”

  “We’re on the New Horizon, Mom. She led the attack on the Empyrean,” Waverly said. She felt faint.

  “That was a rescue mission,” Regina said, shaking her head as though she were clearing up some minor point.

  “No, Mom, it was an attack.”

  “Oh, Waverly,” Regina tsked.

  “That woman attacked the Empyrean and kidnapped me and all the rest of the girls! Most of the crew died in that attack!” Her mother’s eyes trained on Waverly’s lips, as though she were learning a lesson by rote. “She’s kept you and the rest of the parents on this ship for months, holding you hostage—”

  Regina interrupted with a knowing chuckle. “You’re seeing all this in a very negative light, dear.”

  “Mom!” Waverly stared at her mother, horrified.

  Regina started toward the kitchen, smiling as though enjoying some pleasant daydream. “Pastor Mather explained the whole thing,” Regina said as she turned on the kitchen light. “It was all a misunderstanding.”

  “Did the Pastor tell you how she drugged me and harvested my eggs to make babies for her crew? The other girls, too!” Waverly pressed a hand against her abdomen, feeling the surgical scars under her thumb like wires. “Mom?”

  Regina did not seem to hear her.

  The apartment had the same layout as the home Waverly and her mother had shared on the Empyrean, and the kitchen was identical down to the blue and yellow color scheme, but there were no baskets on the countertop, no scratches on the table from when Waverly was a toddler, no handwoven place mats, no scuffmarks on the floor.

  Regina opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “Oh! There’s a chicken! And fresh herbs. I’ll make a roast for supper, sound good?”

  “The Empyrean has been destroyed,
Mom,” Waverly said. “Our whole lives, up in smoke.”

  “Nonsense,” Regina said with a patronizing smile as she turned back to the refrigerator, rooting through the basket of herbs. “Those are things, Waverly.”

  Regina hummed an old song Waverly remembered from childhood, a faraway look in her eyes as she carried the food to the countertop. Regina carefully set the chicken right on the counter, then arranged onions and potatoes in a circle around it as though designing a still life. She appeared unsure what to do with the bunch of fresh parsley she held in her hand and considered for a moment before placing it parallel to the edge of the countertop, tilting her head as she nudged the stems into order with her fingertip.

  “What did they do to you?” Waverly whispered. “You’re acting so—”

  “How would you like me to act?” Regina said, bemused. “I think I’ll make a nice spice rub.”

  Eyes fastened to her mother’s face, Waverly crept closer and studied her. Had she been drugged? “Don’t you have any questions for me, Mom?” Waverly asked.

  “How’s Kieran?” Regina asked as she ground up garlic, sage, and rosemary with a stone pestle and mortar. The familiar aromas inundated the room with memories of home. Waverly limped to the table against the wall and collapsed into a chair.

  “I don’t know. Mather has him,” Waverly said, only now realizing how much danger Kieran might be in. She wished she could get a message to him.

  “He was always such a wonderful boy,” Regina said. “I’m sure he’s just fine.”

  “Yeah,” Waverly said miserably. “Everything’s great.”

  DAMAGE

  “What have you done with my crew?” Kieran demanded when Anne Mather came back into her office. He was still tied up on her chaise, guarded by an armed man who watched him with flinty eyes. “Where’s Waverly?”

  “I’ll show you.” Anne Mather held up the com screen for him. His eyesight was still spotty from the bright flashing explosions on the Empyrean that had blinded him through the porthole, but he could make out the dim images of Waverly and her mother. Regina was standing at the stove, stirring a pot, and Waverly was sitting slumped at the table. “I want you to understand that I’m true to my word,” Mather said. “I said no harm would come to her, and I meant it.”

  “So you’re letting the kids be with their parents?”

  Anne Mather turned to Kieran’s mother, Lena, who sat primly in a chair in front of Mather’s desk, a bland smile creasing her face. “Those we can trust, like Regina Marshall and your mother.”

  “How dare you speak of trust?” Kieran snarled.

  Mather blinked mechanically. “Kieran, I did not order Jacob Pauley and his wife to plant bombs on the Empyrean. I would never do that.”

  “You tried to destroy the Empyrean before!” Kieran spat. “You caused a nuclear meltdown in your first attack. You almost killed everyone on the ship!”

  “Now, Kieran,” his mother said disapprovingly. “We’re guests here.”

  Kieran couldn’t even bring himself to look at her.

  “The Empyrean’s reactor failure was an accident,” Mather said.

  “You’re lying,” Kieran said coldly. He wriggled his hands in their restraints, trying to get more blood into his numb fingers.

  “You look uncomfortable,” Mather said and nodded at the guard standing by the door. “Untie him.”

  “He tried to choke you,” the man said, but he knelt to untie Kieran’s wrists.

  “My legs, too,” Kieran said, massaging his hands. “I want to see the Empyrean.”

  Mather nodded at the guard, who untied the cord around Kieran’s ankles.

  Kieran staggered to the porthole and stared out, aghast. The Empyrean was a ruin. A gash half the length of its hull gaped into the black sky, running from the shuttle bay, through the habitation levels, the schools, the family gardens, the corn and wheat granaries, the fish hatchery, to end at the lower levels, and the brig, where Seth had been trapped.

  So he’s dead, Kieran thought, surprised to feel so much hurt over the end of his old enemy. He’d grown up with Seth, after all.

  “Do you have a count of survivors yet?” he asked, his voice unrecognizable in his own ears.

  “I have a list of missing persons, if you’d like to see it.” She pushed the list at him. “It’s remarkable more lives weren’t lost.”

  Kieran picked up the paper and read: Arthur Dietrich, Tobin Ames, Sarek Hassan, Austen Hand, Philip Grieg … His dear friends.

  “They might be trapped!” Kieran sucked in air, choked on his words. “You have to find them!”

  “I’ve got several teams searching the ship, Kieran. If anyone is there, he or she will be found.” She smiled reassuringly, but he heard a hesitation in her voice.

  “What?”

  Her face fell. “They’ve searched all the areas where people are likely to have survived. They’re just not there.”

  “They have to be. Sarek was in Central Command and Arthur was on Waverly’s shuttle, on the way back from trying to rescue our parents! He wasn’t even on the Empyrean when the bombs went off! He’d have gone straight to Central Command to help Sarek with the evacuation. Tobin and Philip were in the infirmary … They were nowhere near the bombs!”

  “The bombs we can see from here,” Mather corrected him. “The infirmary lost power soon after the explosions. They’d have been totally cut off from the com system and life support. My crew is checking, but right now their survival looks doubtful. And the two boys in Central Command—Arthur and Sarek, was it?—could they have tried to rescue someone else? Perhaps they were trying to get to the infirmary to help and got caught in a depressurized compartment.”

  Kieran closed his mouth. If anyone was likely to get himself killed doing something heroic, it would be those two. And Tobin and Austen would have stayed with the sick ones in the infirmary, unable to ask for help. They probably waited too long, trying to keep their mothers and little Philip and the rest of them alive.

  He turned to the porthole again and watched his bleeding ship. I did this, he thought bitterly. I was acting Captain. I should have protected them. But he’d failed, and now his friends were gone, along with the only world he’d ever known. He couldn’t make himself believe it, even though the Empyrean was dying right in front of him.

  “I think you need a rest, am I right?” Anne Mather said, the picture of concern. To Kieran’s mother, she said, “I’ve found a beautiful outer apartment for you to enjoy. Usually these coveted apartments are occupied by senior staff—”

  “Hey!” Kieran cut in, disgusted. “I want to see my crew, now.”

  “It’s late, Kieran,” Mather said. “The young ones are getting ready for bed.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” Kieran said, digging his heels in for a fight.

  To Kieran’s surprise, Mather nodded. “I’ll contact the host families and arrange for something soon. Now let me show you to your quarters,” she said with a sweeping gesture toward the door.

  Kieran looked at her warily. She wants something from me, he realized. Mather ushered his mother down the corridor, making pleasant conversation. He had no choice but to follow.

  FIRST THINGS

  The first thing is not to get caught, Seth told himself as he pressed his body into the soft rain forest soil, cradling his mangled hand on his chest. He pressed the back of his head into the ground beneath him. It was spongy with moss, moist with dew, and it accepted his aching limbs lovingly. The air was heavy and close like a blanket. He closed his eyes, and when he tried to open them again, they felt stuck together with sleep. Maybe I should just rest, he told himself. This is as safe a place as any.

  He was drifting off when an alarm blared through the bay, making the ferns over his face tremble. It was a single loud blast, like a clarion call, so different from the repetitive bursts on the Empyrean. A tinny voice came over the loudspeaker: “Attention: Inform Central Command immediately if you see an unaccompanied young man.”

&nb
sp; Seth heard a quick intake of breath from someone close by.

  “Poor thing!” said a woman off to Seth’s right. Seth dared to shift his head to peer through the undergrowth. He couldn’t see the speakers’ faces, but he saw a petite woman’s brown hands about fifteen feet away. She had a basket over her arm, and it was full of star fruit and papaya. He couldn’t see the man. “They’re searching for him like a common criminal.”

  “He might be a criminal, Maya,” the man said. “He must be up to something if he didn’t come with the rest of the survivors.”

  “He’s just a kid, Anthony!”

  “I know,” the man said, his tone softened.

  “Poor boy,” the woman said sorrowfully. “He must be so afraid.”

  Am I afraid? Seth wondered. He was suddenly aware of his laboring heart, his dry mouth and jangled limbs.

  The conversation between the man and woman subsided. Seth knew he was well concealed, but he felt pinned by their proximity. He heard the door he’d come through open and the sound of heavy boots on the path—at least four or five people, moving fast.

  “Have you seen a stranger today?” asked a man, his tone forceful.

  “No,” said the man called Anthony. “Nobody came through here.”

  “Really? Because we’ve got video of a fugitive entering the rain forest bay.”

  Seth kicked himself. Of course they’d have video of him coming here! How could he have forgotten that?

  I’m tired, that’s how, he thought grimly. Can’t think straight.

  “Well, Thomas, we haven’t seen him,” Maya said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. Seth squinted through the brush and saw her cross her arms.

  “I haven’t seen you at services for the past few Sundays,” the man said. “That doesn’t exactly vouch for your attitude.”

  “There’s no reason to attend services anymore,” she said. “Not when the Pastor is such a hypocrite.”