I scan the navigation screen, trying desperately to see where I am. They keep the hulks isolated, away from any major planets or moons, do not even tell us which sector we are in. There is nothing I recognise, just satellites and the dots of distant ships.
Life, think about the families of the victims, think how they’ll feel when they hear you tried to escape. Stop now and we’ll—
I wrench the control panel open and reach into the tangle of wires. One yank and the comms link dies. I am on my own. My body shakes, hot and cold with pain and panic and blood loss, my vision throbbing and swimming. I can’t fly, in danger of passing out at any second, but I force myself to hold on.
There, at the edge of the screen, something comes into view, a far-off planet and a cluster of moons, stuck right out on their own, and beyond them…
Nothing. I scroll further but the nav system flashes a warning: beyond that point, no other bodies, nothing as far as signals can reach. Just the Void.
A shudder runs through me, fear and longing knotted together. I flip switches, overriding programs.
Everything; I will need to divert everything into the boost, including life support systems. It will buy time, perhaps minutes only, but maybe enough to lose any scouts.
And then?
The stolen medkit is on the seat beside me. A talisman, a reminder. I close my eyes and see the walls of my cell, every inch covered with a line, a life. The tally.
I strap the medkit to my waist. Even if I make the moons, it will be a crash landing, and if I overshoot…
A laugh breaks from me. I activate the boost and send the escape craft hurtling towards the Void.
* * *
I open my eyes. How long have I been staggering, lost in time, asleep on my feet? No way to tell. The darkness is absolute. I can’t even see my hand before me. When I stretch it out into the air, all I can feel is the wind stinging my skin, twining between my fingers. The cable around my waist jerks and sways as the General forges on.
Sometimes the ground rises steeply and I feel as if we are scrambling upwards, the General’s boots kicking sand back into my face. I have given up calling out to her. What breath I have I need for myself.
My head reels with pain and exhaustion. I can’t keep going. The next thing I know, there is a gasp from ahead and the cable snaps taut, pulling me from my feet. I cry out in pain as I fall but something drags me down a slope – the General’s weight. I grab at the sand wildly, and for one heart-stopping second, I feel fingers beneath, gripping my own.
I scream.
‘Low,’ the General calls from nearby, ‘what is it?’
‘Hands,’ I splutter. ‘Something under there, pulling me down—’
‘You fell down. Why would there be hands? Come on, get up.’
She clasps my forearms and drags me to standing.
‘There.’ Her voice is urgent. ‘Look, there, can you see it too?’
I blink, before I realise I can see something: a faint, fitful grey line – like a black cloth washed too many times.
Light. There is light on the horizon.
I laugh. ‘It’s the end of the Edge, we made it.’
Together, we stagger towards the rising sun. As we walk the light increases, casting a sickly yellow-grey film over everything. The moment it is bright enough, I look over at the General.
She is holding her side, below where the cable loops her waist. Behind us, in our wandering tracks, there are bright red spatters, soaking into the sand.
‘You’re hurt,’ I croak. ‘We should stop.’
Her eyes are fixed on the horizon. ‘Not now. We are nearly there.’
Step by step, it grows hotter, night sloughing off its empty cold. I focus on walking, one foot, then another. Finally, the cable jerks taut. The General stops, staring ahead.
‘What?’ I rasp.
The pale line hasn’t moved. There is no sun on the horizon, just the same horrid yellow half-light. Fear floods my body. I have been here before.
‘We should be out by now,’ she says desperately. ‘We didn’t fly far before we crashed. If that’s east, we should be out.’
‘It’s not east.’ My voice shakes. ‘It’s nowhere. The Augur said we would have to walk to hell—’
‘The Augur is completely mad.’ Her eyes are frightened. ‘We don’t need stories. We need to keep walking.’
She pushes on, and I stagger behind. Hell, Hel, the words beat through my head. Are they one and the same? What is hell? Faces. I close my eyes, feet sliding in the sand. The faces of the dead stare back at me in their thousands and I can do nothing to escape them. People don’t care about your reasons for killing them when they’re dead. I remember the feel of the fingers, trying to drag me into the sand, and painfully swallow a noise of terror.
I’m almost glad when the General stops again, so I can look at her face, flushed and frustrated and still full of life. Not dead. Not yet.
‘This is absurd,’ she gasps.
I follow her gaze, hoping to see something, anything. But the harder I look, the less I see, until I realise that even the trail of our footsteps is gone.
‘There must be something,’ she says. ‘A base, a settlement?’
‘There is no one here. Except the Seekers.’
‘I refuse to believe that. An entire area of this moon lying empty? The Accord would have—’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
There’s something wrong here and whoever walks in never walks back out. Only the Seekers can bear it. Only Hel.
‘We have to get out,’ I say.
‘We would be out already if you had not pulled us off course.’ The General glares at me, her eyes reddened. ‘Check the compass again.’
I fumble around my neck, searching through the bag of things we snatched from the
