Fouda seems irritated he didn’t think to handle that himself. But he only points to a few areas glowing orange. “Here, near their mech chambers and the baggage hold—that’s where they’re holed up. Closed-off areas with force fields.”
“Standard force fields?” Every ship has them amply distributed throughout, in case of hull breaches. When Fouda nods, Abel says, “Those are easy to activate, but just as easy to deactivate. It can’t be accomplished remotely, but a small, targeted strike team would be able to handle it—provided you have someone with sufficient knowledge of field mechanics.”
“We do now,” Fouda says. “We have you.”
Abel’s in no position to argue.
One of the consoles overhead blinks, and the Remedy fighter monitoring it (from a repair ladder) says, “We’ve got another mech patrol incoming.”
Fouda scowls. “More? How many of them can there be?”
“Quite possibly thousands, extrapolating from the size of the vessel,” Abel says. Nobody thanks him for this information.
The Remedy crew member continues, “I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like—like the mech patrol is working to clear a major corridor that would connect the passenger territory to the bridge—Corridor Theta Seven. That would give them a clear path to attack us.”
“Except that it goes straight through the theater,” Riko says, and a few people laugh. Abel’s unsure why, but at this point asking seems more risky than useful.
Fouda’s begun to grin. “Then let’s put on a show, shall we? We’ll take out their mechs, and any passengers foolish enough to be with them. And this time, we’re going to fight fire with fire.” He turns to Abel and says, “To kill a mech, we send a mech.”
Again Abel considers protesting and decides against it. He doesn’t want to protest.
Even though he disagrees with Remedy, he’s ready to take up arms against the passengers—because the passengers are the ones holding Noemi captive. Mansfield has her even now. If he believes Abel will be unable to find Haven, which would be a rational assumption, Burton Mansfield has no more need to keep Noemi alive. She’s in mortal danger, and the only things standing between her and Abel are a set of force fields and a mech patrol.
Neither will remain standing long.
Fouda says, “Do we have your oath that you’ll help us, mech?”
Abel looks up evenly at him. “Yes. You have me.”
19
NOEMI RUNS THROUGH THE FIELDS NEAR THE HOSPITAL, surrounded by the dead on every side. She has to be careful not to step on their swollen bellies or trip on their outstretched arms. Their Cobweb-streaked faces stare blankly up at the sky, searching for the God who didn’t come. Despair fills her—utter futility—and yet she has to keep running, because there’s something she could do, something vitally important that would put it all right. But she can’t think what that something is.
She stumbles and falls to the ground, between the corpses. Her revulsion turns to shock as she realizes the body lying next to her is Esther’s. Why isn’t Esther in her star? They left her in a star so she would always be warm, so she would always burn bright.
Esther turns her head to face Noemi. She is alive and dead at once, which somehow makes sense. The expression on her face is so completely, utterly Esther’s—compassionate and yet knowing, almost as if she were about to say I told you so.
Instead she whispers, “It’s your turn.”
Noemi startles awake, disoriented for the few seconds it takes her to remember where she is: lying on a pallet of evening wear and luxury pillows, in a cargo area of a shipwreck where half the people on board are trying to kill her, and the other half seem to be plotting the same. The scant few people in the entire galaxy who care about her are literally billions of miles away, while she’s stranded on a planet almost nobody else in all the worlds even knows about.
Being disoriented was better.
She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. This is the first quiet moment she’s had in days, her first chance to center herself. Probably it’s the last she’ll get for a while to come. Possibly ever. Noemi closes her eyes and tries to meditate.
What are you fighting, Noemi Vidal?
Remedy, even though I partially agree with them. The passengers, even though I’m allied with them. Gillian Shearer and Burton Mansfield. My situation on this planet—
Noemi catches herself. She’s naming trees and ignoring the forest.
I’m fighting my own powerlessness.
And what are you fighting for?
My life.
That’s not it either. Noemi accepted long ago that she might have to sacrifice herself for what was right. Saving Genesis—protecting Abel from Mansfield’s plot—those things together are worth dying for. So why is she still living?
I’m fighting for my free life. For the chance to decide how I’ll live and how I’ll die.
She’s not sure she’s ever had that power. Here, in this wreckage on Haven, she finally has it—and nothing else.
Noemi sits up and glances around. The cracked tanks hover against the walls and hang from the ceiling, tinted semi-opaque by the remnants of pink goo, strangely and unsettlingly biological. In a few intact tanks, mechs float in stasis, their silhouettes suspended above; Noemi has no idea when they’ll awake, if ever. Other passengers slumber nearby, all of them seemingly dead to the world. The hard work they’ve done the past day or two—Noemi can’t tell how long it’s been—that’s got to be the most effort they’ve put into anything, ever. They’re too exhausted to be kept awake by their unfamiliar surroundings, or by the occasional dull thud or vibration through the ship that marks Remedy’s efforts to keep their territory.
The chill in the air has deepened. Although the hull of the Osiris in this section of the ship has kept out the worst of Haven’s deep winter, the cold has begun to
