‘No.’ The word escapes my lips. Without thinking, I go to my knees beside her. But her entire front is a mess of dark blood, and I can see one of her ribs through the sundered flesh. ‘She’s a child.’ The words tumble from me as I drag the scarf from my neck and press it to the General’s chest, trying to stem the bleeding. ‘She was dying anyway, why couldn’t you just let her live in peace?’
‘She wasn’t dying,’ the Commander says, her mouth a hard line. ‘Nor would she have lived in peace. They are too dangerous, these children, they can be turned against us as they age. It’s for the good of us all that the programme is concluded.’
‘They’re your shame,’ I spit as the General convulses. ‘You want the world to forget they ever existed—’
Commander Aline’s face creases as she raises the revolver again, levelling it at me. ‘Restrain her.’
For all their training, the soldiers hesitate, their eyes fixed on the dying General, before coming forwards to drag me away even as I fight to keep my hands on the wound. Aline takes something from a pack. The sight of it sends terror and anger through me; it’s a high security prison collar, with locking needles and embedded blades that will spring out and cut the throat during any attempt to remove it.
No, I tell them. No, not this.
They don’t answer me; nothing stops Aline from coming close and lining up the needles with my scarred flesh. How could I have been wrong?
‘Do not feel bad, Low,’ she murmurs as she works. ‘We’ll take care of you. You’re a hero, in a way. If you hadn’t stolen our formula, the FL would never have targeted Tamane and lost their support, and the war would have dragged on and on. After all,’ she says, as she pushes the needles in. ‘That’s why we let you take it.’
I meet her eyes. She’s telling the truth, I realise in horror. Thousands sacrificed to bring a quick end to a long and bloody war. Children who should not have lived killed to ensure peace. I shudder as if something – someone – is straining to get out of my skin. As the prison collar is about to click closed around my neck, I feel the scalpel in my hand.
I slash out and Aline lets go of the collar, gripping at her wrist. I try to break the soldiers’ hold on me and run, but Aline is already pulling out her revolver with bloodied hands, levelling it at my face.
A shot rings out, clean through the chaos. Commander Aline stares as blood appears on her forehead, burrowing out like a dark, shining grub. With a choke, she falls.
On the sand, the General bares her teeth in a single savage smile, before she too collapses, the pistol falling from her grip.
The soldiers draw their weapons, one of them running to the Commander. But the beating of my heart is in the air, and a roar is gathering, like an endless bellow of thunder.
I look up as – with a shriek – the first Seeker craft races across the sky, weapons blazing, sending the Accord target beams swivelling and twisting wildly. Rat and Bui throw themselves from the line of fire, scrambling for weapons, shooting at anything they can see, while Peg drags Falco towards the mare.
And they are there with me. At last, I feel them; they crowd up against every split-second decision, and every lucky shot, and every hesitation. They tear through the battlefield, revelling in the chaos, in the teeming potential of a fight.
A Seeker craft flies low overhead, firing directly into the flight deck of the Commander’s ship. Fire blooms, glass explodes. I rip the prison collar from my skin and throw it to the dirt, kicking sand over it.
Only one of the Commander’s soldiers is left standing. As I walk towards him, he fires. No use. Every shot goes wide. When his gun is empty of charge I stop, staring at him, and see myself reflected in his eyes: my bloodied hands holding a scalpel, the Seekers’ mark clear on my chest, my eyes as hard as a bird of prey’s.
‘Run,’ I tell him.
On his heels, and all around us, they dance, plucking at the tangled strings of our choices, blurring the paths between realities on this, their moon; the last stop before the Void.
* * *
The ranch house is tucked into a fold of the ragged foothills, alone and softly glowing, like a firefly cupped in a weathered palm. The surgeon steps out onto the porch and takes a deep breath of the cool, blue night. The wind whisks the smell of blood and antiseptics from his apron.
‘Quite the day’s work,’ he says.
I smile wearily. For hours I’ve helped the surgeon and his husband stitch and swab, sterilise and cauterise, dose and hope. Inside, Silas lies reeling from a concussion and four broken ribs. Falco slumps on the cot next to him, demanding morphine for the wound that almost took off her leg. And the General…
‘How is she?’ I pass over a basin of water for the surgeon to wash his hands.
He laughs dryly, rubbing at the cracked skin of his knuckles.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Just the irony of it. The Accord are spread so thin that half of these moons are falling apart, and yet, some things they built to last.’ He glances at the house. ‘Like her.’
‘She’ll live?’
‘The extra-dermal membrane they installed beneath her skin bore much of the brunt, and if she recovers from the blood loss, and the damage to her lung she may, yes.’
‘And her illness?’
He raises a shoulder. ‘Whatever they did to make her what she is, it goes deeper than blood and bone. More than I have skill to treat. It may be that, to remain stable, she will need the Accord’s drugs for the rest of her
