Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

“So I guess you know what I’m going through.”

Saunders nodded. He pulled her even further away from the blanket and the crowds forming around the supplies.

“I know why you need to go,” he said. “I imagine if I were in your shoes, I’d be doing the exact same thing, and it would be a greater sin for me to do it. It would be my duty to stay here and help these people. It would be my duty to fight, even if it was futile. Hell, I absolved you of any of that responsibility the day I kicked you out of the Academy, didn’t I?”

Saunders smiled, but it was laden with sadness.

“I was wrong about that,” he said. “You might be the best damn pilot that ever set foot in that Academy.”

“It’s okay,” Molly said.

Saunders shook his head. “It wasn’t okay. It was part my fear of you, part my over-protectiveness, but mostly my love for those boys and how you made them feel about themselves.”

“It’s okay,” Molly said. “I forgive you.”

Saunders looked away and wiped at his eyes. “I better see to my people. You be good, okay?”

Molly stepped close and wrapped her arms around his waist. Saunders froze for a moment, then draped his own arms across her back. He squeezed her gently, and she could hear him sniffle. She pressed her cheek into his chest before pulling away. Without making eye contact again—for fear of becoming a mess as well—she spun around and hurried toward Parsona.

“Hey,” someone said to her side.

Molly turned to find Cat emerging from the supply line. She handed a large jug of water to another Callite and stepped out of the queue. “You weren’t leaving without saying goodbye, were you?”

Molly shook her head and fought back the tears welling up in the bottoms of her eyes. “Never,” she croaked.

“C’mere.”

Cat pulled her close and wrapped her arms around Molly’s shoulders. Molly kept one arm in front of herself so she could wipe the tears from her eyes.

“You’re a good kid. You be sure and tell your pops I said that when you see him.”

Molly nodded. “Watch over Urg’s family for me, okay?”

“Hey. Stop that. You saved a lot of people, girl. Don’t you go beating yourself up over the things you couldn’t control. Take that from an expert.”

Molly nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Alright. You go on, now.” Cat let go and pushed her away. Molly practically ran back to the ship, past the long line of Navy crewmembers and Callites working together to prepare for whatever befell them next.

••••

Cat stood in place and watched her go. She marveled at how young the girl seemed as Molly stomped up the loading ramp and disappeared into that great starship. She thought about what she had just told her, and all the myriad more things she wished she had said.

“Among those you saved was me,” Cat whispered to nobody.

••••

“You ready?” Parsona asked.

Molly checked the indicators. Everything was green. She had her welding goggles on her forehead, ready to slip down. The hyperdrive was cycled and the tank showed full. She looked over at Walter, who already had his goggles pulled into place. He was waving his hands in front of himself, hissing at the complete blackness.

“I guess,” Molly said. She banked over the woods and did a low fly-by. It was getting dark, but she knew the survivors below could see her silhouette against the stars—the stars and the glimmer of the menacing fleet that had brought the two groups together. She looked out her side porthole as Parsona leaned over, and she could see the strobe of so many small fires flashing through the leaves below. She pictured Saunders, Scottie, and Cat sitting around one of those fires, catching each other up as much as they dared. She hoped all the survivors could dig deep and find something to smile about, perhaps even dare laugh about. Most of all, she hoped they wouldn’t try anything crazy while she was gone—or blame her too much for leaving them.

“Anytime you’re ready, then,” her mom said.

Molly lifted the cover that shields the hyperdrive switch. She rested her finger under the toggle and glanced at the destination coordinates. Any mass would do, but they weren’t taking any chances and had chosen the center of Lok. It felt strange to ignore the various warning lights and alarms, but the sickness Molly felt inside about leaving the groups below made it tolerable. Deep down, she felt completely resigned to the worst that could possibly happen.

Before lowering her goggles, she took one last look up through the canopy. The scourge responsible for all her recent miseries hung overhead, the density of the constellation growing with each passing hour. Molly longed to strike at them, to morph her love for Cole into a rage, to transform her longing to see her father into an ability to lash out. She thought about what she would do with a cargo bay full of bombs and the special powers of her hyperdrive. She imagined how great it would be if all the survivors around those campfires below could harness their own enmity and somehow direct it toward their mutual foe—inflicting damage.

Molly ground her teeth together and lowered her goggles. She wished so many things were possible all at once.

“Is everything okay?” her mother asked.

Molly sat in the blackness provided by the goggles and held the ship level by her internal compass, by instinct. She felt the cool metal of the switch against the soreness in her scabbed fingertip. She thought about the hyperdrive it was linked to and how many people had risked their lives in trying to keep it secure. She thought about how many more would gladly do the same if they knew about its existence. She thought about Lucin and how desperate he had seemed to seize control of Parsona. Desperate enough to threaten her life. He had thought her father’s ship, or something within it, could end a pan-galactic war.

Thinking of the war diverted her thoughts to the people below and to what she could really do with a full tank of the fusion fuel. Fusion fuel so many countless Humans and Callites had bled for. And what was she about to spend it on? Rushing off, sad and desperate, to be with the only men in her life that ever made her feel safe?

“Sweetheart, what are you waiting for?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Activate the hyperdrive,” Parsona said. “Sweetheart, hit the switch.”

Molly put some pressure against the metal toggle and braced to jump to the middle of the planet, to purposefully whisk herself off to hyperspace. She felt the switch begin to give way—then she let it go. She rubbed the pads of her fingers together, the sensation deadened by her wounds.

“Molly, what in the galaxy are you doing?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I’m sorry, I just don’t know…”

“Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

She pulled her hand away from the switch and lifted her goggles, dispelling the blackness. All around her was the flashing of indicators and alarms, the twinkling of stars overhead, the lambent flames from those huddled in the forest below. She felt in the middle of it all—surrounded by points of light each with their own messages: warning, pleading, threatening, begging, flanking her with indecision.

But there was no decision.

Despite her agonizing longing to be with Cole, the impossible thrill of reuniting with her father, she was bound by something stronger than military duty. Something Saunders could never absolve her from by expelling her, something the universe could not cull from her spirit.

It was her nature.

Molly grabbed the control stick and banked to starboard, back around to the clearing in the woods. Walter threw off his own goggles and hissed some question, but Molly didn’t hear. She was too busy formulating a plan. Too busy dreaming of saving the universe…