Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Vincent
Cover art copyright © 2018 by Sammy Yuen. Cover design by Marcie Lawrence. Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gray, Claudia, author.
Title: Defy the worlds / Claudia Gray.
Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2018. | Series: Defy the stars ; 2 | Summary: “Sophisticated robot Abel must save teenaged soldier Noemi from capture on a hidden planet, while outwitting armies of deranged service robots and securing medical aid for a plague on Noemi’s home world”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034001| ISBN 9780316394109 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316394086 (ebook library edition)
Subjects: | CYAC: Soldiers—Fiction. | Robots—Fiction. | Plague—Fiction. |
Immortality—Fiction. | Interstellar travel—Fiction. | Orphans—Fiction. | Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.G77625 Dej 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034001
ISBNs: 978-0-316-39410-9 (hardcover), 978-0-316-39409-3 (ebook)
E3-20180222-JV-PC
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
NOEMI VIDAL WALKS THROUGH THE TWO LONG LINES OF starfighters in the hangar, helmet under one arm, head held high. She doesn’t wave to her friends like she always used to—until six months ago.
Now no one would wave back.
Chin up, shoulders straight, she tells herself, taking what comfort she can in the familiar smells of grease and ozone, the hiss of repair torches, and the thump of boots on tarmac. If you want them to see you as a fellow soldier again, you act like one. You don’t back down from mech fire, so you won’t back down from this.
But Earth’s warrior mechs only aim at the body. Noemi has shields for that. The point between her and her fellow squadron members aims at the heart, for which no protection has ever been invented.
“Vidal!” That’s Captain Baz, striding across the hangar with a dataread in her hand. She’s wearing her uniform, a dark-patterned head scarf, and the first smile Noemi’s seen all day. “We’re putting you on close-range patrol today.”
“Yes, ma’am. Captain, if I could—”
Baz stops and comes nearer. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“I wanted to ask—” Noemi takes a deep breath. “You haven’t put me on Gate patrol in months. I’d really like to take on a shift sometime soon.”
“Gate patrol’s the most dangerous gig there is.” Baz says it matter-of-factly as she scans through her dataread. Everyone on Genesis knows that the Gate ties them to Earth and the other colony worlds on the Loop, holding one point of a wormhole in place and making instantaneous cross-galactic travel possible. It also makes possible the war that’s devastating their world. “Most pilots would be glad to stick a little closer to home.”
“I’m willing to share the danger.” More than willing—by now, Noemi’s very nearly desperate. Protecting Genesis is what gives her life meaning. She hasn’t been allowed to truly defend her world for months, not since her return.
It takes Baz a few long seconds to answer. “Listen. That day’s going to come, okay? We just have to give it time.”
The captain is on Noemi’s side, which helps a little. That doesn’t mean Captain Baz has it right. In a lower voice, Noemi says, “They won’t trust me again until I’m pulling a full load.”
Baz weighs that. “Maybe so.” After another second’s contemplation, she nods. “We’ll try it.” Her voice rises to a shout. “Ganaraj, O’Farrell, Vidal’s with you today! Let’s get up there, people—gamma shift’s ready to come home.”
The other two pilots stare at her from across the room. Noemi simply heads straight for her starfighter.
She’s going to earn their acceptance the only way she can: one flight at a time.
Wait and see, she tells herself. Soon they’ll like you just as much as they did before.
She figures it shouldn’t be hard. They never liked her that much to begin with.
Ten percent of the time, Gate patrols are the worst, most frightening duty assignment of all. At irregular, unguessable intervals, Earth sends Damocles ships full of warrior mechs—Queen and Charlie models, designed only to kill. They’ve more than decimated Genesis’s antiquated defense fleet in the past five years; every battle they win brings them closer to the day warrior mechs will land on the surface of Genesis, unleash a ground war, and begin reclaiming Noemi’s planet for Earth’s use. Every battle alarm has to be sounded as soon as possible. The starfighters on patrol are expected to engage Damocles ships immediately, without waiting for backup. Most don’t survive.
However, the other 90 percent of the time, Gate patrols are boring as hell.
In the pilot’s seat of her starfighter, Noemi circles the Gate at the outer perimeter; Arun Ganaraj and Deirdre O’Farrell stick closer. She’s still close enough to watch the monstrous thing in the sky, a massive silver ring illuminated along its various panels so that it shines in the darkness
