I gave him my best female GPS voice—as much like the one on my phone as I could. “Please make a U-turn.”
Phox didn’t get the joke. Not that I expected him to, but using that tone got me a strange look from my cranky co-pilot. Totally worth it. That look, with one eyebrow arched in a what-the-heck-are-you-doing-why-are-you-so-weird kind of way, was quickly becoming my favorite.
“Proceed to the route,” I mimicked again.
“What does that even mean?”
I laughed. “I dunno, but my GPS on Earth used to say it all the time.”
32
CRYSTAL PERSUASION
“Wait, wait, wait—there are how many planets?” I had to be sure I was hearing this correctly.
Phox made an annoyed groan. “Five in the Elder system, which is where we are now, and seven in the Mother and Cradle systems. So that’s nineteen planets in the Alzumarian system total. Er, well, not counting the three inorganic worlds, which aren’t attached to any star-centric system in particular.”
It took a second to wrap my mind around that. “That’s … incredible. And there’s life on all of them?”
“Shit, no. Planets that can sustain life aren’t that easy to come by. Out of nineteen planets, only four are considered habitable,” he continued. “Gas giants and dead planets make up the rest.”
“And Thermax is considerable habitable?” Gazing out at the dark tunnel ahead, I couldn’t help but wonder how. We hadn’t seen a single sign of civilization anywhere, even down here away from the scorching heat of the suns. I mean, sure, Phox had said they were mostly underground. But there had to be some structures on the surface somewhere, right? Or ruins from before all the oceans had been scorched away?
“Relatively. Habitable doesn’t mean hospitable. Like I said before, there are still cities around, but most are subterranean, probably built in caverns and tunnels a lot like this. But not anywhere near here. They always chart the Renegade Run race courses far away from civilization for obvious reasons. They don’t want spectators getting caught in the crossfire.”
I flicked him a quick, curious glance. “So … how many of the other planets have you been to?”
“Not many, I guess,” he replied. “I spent quite a while on Noctis, a habitable world in the Cradle system, after I left Olset. But apart from that, I’ve pretty much spent most of my life on ships going from system to system, stopping over on the jump-gate ports between runs.”
“And the jump-gates are how Alzumarians can cross from one side of the galaxy to another,” I guessed. That part hadn’t been hard to work out.
Phox nodded. “Yeah. There are three of them. Those inorganic worlds I mentioned are all built around the jump-gates because a lot of traffic moves through there for commerce and whatnot. Keeps things lively. Good place for a guy with no citizenship license to find work. Or trouble. Or both.”
“Oh.” I sank back into my seat, turning my focus back to the little blip that marked our destination. So he’d spent most of his life as a nomad? I wondered if that was why he seemed so focused on getting that license. Being recognized as a citizen would mean he could find himself a nice alien girl and settle down somewhere to build a life. If that was even what he wanted, anyway.
Hours dragged by, each more grueling than the last, as we wound our way through the rat-maze of tunnels, chasing that little bright spot on the map. More than a few times, we came to a dead end or a place where the caverns became too narrow to fly through. Then we had to turn back and try another route. All the while, my skin prickled with a cold, tingly sweat as I sat wondering how much power that’d cost us. How much did we have left?
Were we going to make it?
I didn’t dare ask, though. Not with Phox gripping those steering joysticks and leaning in toward the windshield to carefully maneuver us through the twisting, winding pathways. He obviously had enough on his mind right now, although getting him to make small talk seemed to be the only thing keeping that angry, throbbing vein from pulsing out against the side of his neck again. Maybe the distraction helped?
Then again, maybe not.
His head cocked to the side, his body tensing as he swung our nose around, barely skirting around a sharp turn. I braced against the armrests, sucking in a breath as one of our wingtips grazed the edge of the stony wall with a loud SCRAAAPE and a shower of sparks. Phox cursed and it took everything I had not to let out a yelp of alarm.
“S-Sorry,” he panted as he pulled back on the throttles long enough to wipe away the streams of sweat that were trickling down his forehead and cheeks.
“Don’t be. You’ve been at this for hours. Want me to take a turn?” Not that I would be much better, probably, but I’d spent hours sitting here watching him fly. I had a pretty good idea how it all worked. At least enough to manage while he took a breather.
“No,” he barked quickly. “I’m fine.”
Riiiight. I licked my lips, a thousand snappy retorts simmering in my brain as I kept my grip on the armrests. Stubborn idiot. “We’re getting close.” I tried to at least sound reassuring.
“About freaking time.” His voice deepened into a focused growl of concentration. “How far?”
“It’s probably not precise, but the map is reading about ten miles.” Of course, that was a direct-route estimation. It didn’t account for all the zigzagging turns, backtracking, and roundabout paths we’d have to take.
Still. Close was close.
We surged through the dark and Phox turned up the lights, gambling on a bit more power usage so we could see farther ahead. Through curtains of dangling crystals that sparkled like diamonds, the path ahead delved on seemingly without end. God. Phox had said all the cities on Thermax were under the surface,
