For all the relief in his voice, my own heart hasn’t slowed. I feel as if I’ve been thrown into a river, swept along by a current too strong to fight.
A flicker of movement, and I see Moloney’s eyes, reflected in the cockpit glass.
‘You’re too quiet,’ he says. ‘If you got a plan to cut my throat you can forget it.’
‘She reckons her invisible friends will save her,’ the General calls, mocking.
To my surprise, Moloney only grunts. ‘You mean the Ifs? You seen them?’
‘I’ve felt them.’
‘You and that mad Augur both.’ He shakes his head. ‘Charlatan predicted my death once, you know. With a dead bird.’
He looks at me in the glass. Something – wordless – passes between us.
‘What’s that?’ the General’s voice is sharp. On the radar screen, a moving point appears, closing in on us from above.
‘Shit,’ Moloney swears.
He stabs at the controls, preparing to boost the ship, but there’s a high shrilling noise.
‘They’re hailing us.’ The General peers up through the roof. ‘Binoculars?’
‘They can hail all they like,’ Moloney yells, throwing a pair back to her. ‘I ain’t answering.’
‘Then they’ll open fire after three attempts, that’s protocol.’ The General trains the binoculars on the sky. ‘There, I see it. A mark-seven Swift. They’re fast ships—’
‘Fast? That bucket?’ Moloney barks a laugh. ‘Hold on!’
He smashes the booster, throwing us back against the seat. The General disentangles herself from me, trying to see through the rear window.
‘They’re following!’ she cries.
‘They can’t be.’ Moloney glances at the radar, where the point is closing in once again. ‘What the fuck?’
The craft roars above us, the noise of its engines deafening.
‘Wait,’ the General yells. ‘Wait, I can see the insignia. It’s not a normal scout. It’s Air Fleet. Company Four, the Spindigo Drift…’
Her voice falters, and something within me lurches. Spindigo. I stare in horror through the fibreglass roof at the dark shadow of the ship, like a huge bird of prey. Spindigo. Hell.
Realisation strikes.
‘Hel,’ I murmur.
‘I don’t give a shit which company they are,’ Moloney is bellowing, ‘we got to lose them.’
‘You don’t understand,’ the General shouts back, ‘when I was at Landfall I saw the notice: Company Four have been missing in action for over a year. They’re dead.’
‘That’s not the Accord,’ I call. ‘It’s the Seekers.’
* * *
We hurtle across the sky, burning with fear-heat, with the quickness of a hunted beast, sinews straining an inch away from death. Bullets and charges strafe the darkness, sending the Rook wheeling crazily.
‘What do they want?’ the General yells.
‘They want your heart, your guts, your tongue.’ Moloney’s face runs with sweat. ‘Mine too, and they won’t stop there—’
He lets out a cry as a blast shakes the ship, and we plummet rapidly, before he rights us again.
‘We can’t outrun them,’ I shout over the roaring of the engine, the shrilling of the instrument panel, ‘they’ll push the engines until they burst.’
The bandit’s face is livid. ‘Then we have to outfly them.’
He sends the Rook into a nose-dive, hurtling towards the earth.
‘They’re still coming!’
A hail of charges rains down, and this time there’s a sickening explosion, a hissing of smoke.
‘We’re hit!’ the General yells. ‘Damage to the starboard wing spars.’
Moloney swears over and over again, trying desperately to stabilise the craft. I stare into the darkness, lit by the flash of charges.
You and the dead General must walk to hell.
‘Bastards!’ Moloney screams as something shatters. In the reflection, I see his eyes open to the whites. ‘Quick, one of you.’ He stabs a thick finger at the nav screen. ‘See a bank of interference to the right?’
I scramble forwards with bound hands. ‘Yes.’
‘How far off?’
Fear shoots cold through me as I realise what I’m looking at. ‘But that’s the Edge.’
‘How far dammit!’
‘Twenty klicks.’ I’m shaking, the cords around my wrists slick with sweat. ‘You can’t.’
‘I can.’
His fingers are white around the craft’s yoke. I see his pulse beneath the grimy skin of his neck, beating, beating. ‘One more boost,’ he yells. ‘Then we black out and dive.’
‘Moloney—’ I grab his shoulder.
For one brief second, he meets my eyes. Whatever he sees there, it makes his face blanch, his pupils contract. Then he lets out a curse and shoulders me back, wrenching at the yoke and slamming his palm onto the control panel.
‘No!’ I scream, too late; we are diving, the craft breaking up around us as it tears through the air. And then I see it, a bank of gloom ahead, where even the stars are blotted out. The Edge: the place no one comes out of alive.
Dust and sand splinter the glass of the windshield. We plummet towards the earth, but there is no earth, only whirling sand in the craft’s lights and we are tossed and spun as the wind claws metal from the craft’s wings, shredding it to bone.
Beside me, the General screams, but I can’t hear words. I look up and – for a heartbeat – see the ground, hurtling towards us.
I throw my arms across the General as the world is torn apart.
THREE
THE
BOOK
OF
LIFE
IN THE RED light blood looks black, shining terribly bright, like oil. There is so much of it. Too much. It means I have minutes, perhaps seconds.
I drop the scalpel, but do not hear it hit the floor. The alarm is too loud, bouncing from the metal walls. In the red light nothing looks real. I trip, sprawling over the examination table, blood spattering in great dark pools. Across the room Darius the medic lies unconscious, his eyes rolled back, the saliva of the last word he uttered still fresh in his mouth, the needle in his neck where I plunged it. Poor Darius. Too young for this assignment. Too trusting.
I fall against the counter, sending the broken halves of the collar skittering across the floor.
My
