Chapter 11
Ten minutes later (After I’ve swapped my pajamas for something a little less bedtime-y), we’re stepping off the elevator onto the Sixth’s flight deck.
Lament’s movements are purposeful—eager, even—as he guides us across the main floor into an enclosed workroom, which is large and crammed with stuff.
There are tools hanging on the wall (arranged in order of size), a worktable covered in pens and paper diagrams (set at right angles), and a bunch of cardboard boxes (neatly stacked and meticulously labeled).
It looks like a hoarder met a neat freak and opened a repair shop.
What draws my eye most, though, isn’t the workroom’s scrupulous organization, but rather a spacecraft-size lump at its center, which is hidden under a tarp.
Lament pulls the cover away to reveal a fixed-wing fighter craft.
What used to be a fighter craft.
The body is completely mangled. The left wing is smashed like a soda can, the boosters burned to cinders, power packs hanging sadly by their cords.
Even the gun slot (which looks about the right size to fit a Halobringer) is crushed, the gun missing.
I walk around the spacecraft, repressing the urge to whistle.
The right side is slightly more intact, and it gives me an idea of what this bird used to look like: sleek and beautiful, with a narrow nose and a long frame, its wings arched like a hawk on a dive.
Even more stunning is the craft’s color, which isn’t the usual silver or black like most of the Legion’s other flyers, but a shimmering emerald green.
I tap the wing. The sound rings pure.
My brows fly up. “Lament.”
He’s been watching me, gauging my reaction in a way that makes me feel both jumpy and a little bit greedy. “Yes?”
“Want to tell me why you’ve got a spacecraft made of zurillium—as in, lifestone zurillium—hidden in your workshop?”
The wing is still ringing. I touch the metal to cut the vibration, then instantly wish I hadn’t. The sound was soothing. Ethereal. A sound you hear with your entire body, skin and lungs and heart and fingers.
“Her name,” Lament says in reply, “is Moon Dancer.”
I continue my slow perusal around Moon Dancer’s body, taking in more details: the landing gear, the connection pipes, the tail and delta wings.
There’s a backup engine, which looks like it might be vacuum-powered, and two interior seats, one for a pilot and one for a gunner.
These, too, are crushed, the metal walls of the nose and side pushed roughly inward.
Lament didn’t answer my earlier question about the origin of this spacecraft, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
“This is the flyer you were in,” I say, “the day Bast died.”
Lament gives a single nod.
I take a few steps back, setting my hands on my hips and trying to wrap my head around it.
Lament was here. He was in this craft when it went down, in that seat that’s hardly even still a seat—just ripped leather and stuffing and no room at all—and somehow he survived.
I was skeptical when Vera first told me the story, but seeing the damage, seeing what’s left …
“She’s a custom build,” Lament explains. “Sized to our measurements. The gun was made to order. Bast was left-handed, so all the interior controls are flipped.”
“The Legion really doesn’t hold back, do they? She must have cost a fortune.”
“She was a gift from Bast’s family, actually.”
I shoot him a look. “Seriously?”
“The Vinicchis can swing it.”
It’s only then that it clicks. “Wait. Bast Vinicchi. You’re not saying he’s one of those Vinicchis? As in, Vinicchi Power?”
“His family invented the Grid.”
The system most planets use to collect energy and power their cities.
The Vinicchi family is old, large, impossibly wealthy.
They live on a hybrid spaceship-moon separated from the rest of society and tend to stay out of the public eye, interacting only with each other and their closest allies.
Rumor has it that the Vinicchis have been secluded for so long, they’ve evolved into an entirely separate species, with their own genetic code and language and lifespan.
I knew Bast’s last name was Vinicchi, but I had no idea he was a Vinicchi.
I’m burning with a million questions. “Why did Bast become a gunner? His family founded, like, the wealthiest empire in the galaxy.”
Lament’s face is perfectly expressionless when he says, “He did it for me.”
“Oh.” I fumble. “I didn’t…”
“It’s okay.” Lament runs his palm along Moon Dancer’s body like it’s a living creature.
“Bast and my parents were close friends. The Vinicchis don’t really mix with outsiders, but my dad owns the tethium mines on Planet Urporator, and the Vinicchis need tethium to make their Grid chips.
They were business partners first, and they have nothing in common, but you know what they say about opposites.
Bast and I were born in the same year. We grew up together.
I’m not just talking holidays and joint family vacations.
I mean, I spent as much time at his house as I did at my own.
When I said I wanted to join the Legion, he tried to talk me out of it.
We didn’t have to work for a living—his inheritance would have taken care of us—but I never could have been happy living an idle life, and the Vinicchis are… ”
“Intimidating?” I offer.
“Oppressive,” he corrects. “Accepting their money—their lifestyle— would have come at a cost I wasn’t willing to pay.
But Bast didn’t want me to join the Legion alone.
He said if I was going to be one of those idiots fighting for the galaxy, I might as well have a good gunner to protect me.
We attended a private prep school together, one for underage recruits who want to fast-track to the Legion.
It was competitive, it cost a fortune, and it was hard.
But we had each other. We graduated a year early. ”
“Were you two, um … you know.” I flap my hand around, wishing I could learn how to think before opening my stupid mouth.
“Were we what?”
“Together?” I squeak.
“No.” His eyes are faraway. “We weren’t together.”
Which kind of makes it sound like Lament wanted them to be together.
Also, he said Bast’s inheritance would have taken care of them.
So, like, what, as friends? But I’ve already reached my daily allotment for insensitive questions, so I change the subject.
“Why aren’t the Vinicchis investigating Bast’s death? ”
“They’re Determinists,” he replies without inflection. “They believe his death was written.”
“That’s … wow.”
“I tried asking for their help, but they’re worse than Sergeant Forst. It’s like their wealth has completely detached them from reality.
They don’t feel things like normal people do.
I’m not even sure they really understand what death means.
What Bast’s death means. It’s too abstract.
They had—” He grimaces. “They had a hologram of Bast installed in their home after his death. It walks around, looking and talking just like the real-life Bast, and it’s just, it’s so… ”
“Fucked-up,” I supply, with vehemence. “It’s completely fucked-up.”
“Yes.”
We fall quiet. I tap the wing again to bring back that deep ringing. Something to fill the silence. “It’s a shame about Moon Dancer,” I say. “Since, you know, she’s destroyed.”
“Not for much longer.” Some of his eagerness seems to return. “The damage is extensive, but it’s mainly body work. I’ve been studying up on repairs. She’s fixable.”
“No shit?”
“I ordered a compounder from a body shop in The Hub. The owner, Archmon, is an old friend, and I trust him to get it to me discreetly. That’s the tool I’ll need to re-form the zurillium body.
As for the interior mechanics, I’ve already made good progress.
She runs, and the safety systems are back in place.
Now it’s just a matter of finishing her exterior and getting her off the ground. ”
I like Lament when he’s like this. Voice quick, hands moving with his words, a little bit of sun breaking through the clouds. Lament is usually so buttoned up—so utterly composed—it makes me want to see more of what he looks like when he lets go. Comes undone. Lights up with pleasure.
Which is not the kind of thing I’m supposed to be thinking about my new partner.
Not at fucking all.
“Once I get her flying,” Lament is saying as I haul my thoughts back in line, “she’ll be ours to use however we want.”
I slant another look at him. “This is how you learned to fix a spacecraft, isn’t it?” I narrow my eyes. “And also what you were doing the night you found me in the library. You were awake because you were working on repairs.”
“I have to work at night. There isn’t time during the day.”
“Are you a vampire or something?”
He tenses. “Because I’m pale?”
“Because you don’t sleep.”
“I sleep.”
Enough, though? I want to ask, but instead I say, “When?”
“During mission briefings, mostly. Sometimes on missions.”
“You seriously sleep during—?” I catch the twitch of his mouth. “You’re messing with me.”
He shoots me a half smile.
It’s incredibly distracting.
“So.” I take another step backward, as much to put some space between us as to get a better look at Moon Dancer. “Your plan is to use an out-of-commission spacecraft to hunt for the source of the deadly space mist. And you’re telling me the Legion won’t mind?”
“The Legion won’t know. They wrote Moon Dancer off as a total loss. They aren’t even aware we hauled her back.”
“You’ve managed to keep her hidden?”
“The other Sixers know she’s here, obviously. They’re the ones who helped with her recovery. And Archmon knows, since he’s sending me the compounder, but like I said, I trust him. Other than that, this workroom is private. No one has any reason to come…”
He trails off at the sound of approaching footsteps.
I glance at the door, which opens out onto the main flight deck. There’s a little round window in its center, but from this angle, I can’t see through. “You were saying?”
His eyes dart to mine. “Help me with the tarp.”
We hurriedly cover Moon Dancer. My pulse is rising, my palms sweating like they do when I’ve reached the final level of a video game and am down to my last life.
And maybe those footsteps belong to another Sixer, maybe we’re reacting this way for nothing, but Lament looks like how I feel right now, skittish and a little bit wild.
Once Moon Dancer is hidden, we exit the workroom and try to put some distance between ourselves and the door without outright running or acting in any way suspicious.
Which would be easier if Lament didn’t keep glancing at me, and I didn’t feel compelled to glance back, our gazes hooking and holding, sparking with the energy of our shared escape.
We’ve almost made it to the elevator when a figure steps out from behind one of the spacecraft. Lament flings an arm across my chest, and I stutter to a halt. It’s the Director from Sergeant Forst’s office. Tweed-jacket guy. The one who announced my red card.
“Hello, Mr. Bringer. Mr. Hartman.”
So here’s the thing. I get that this person has every reason to know my name.
He’s involved with the Legion, and he did recently champion my punishment for Purvuva.
But it’s the way he says it that raises my hackles.
Like he knows me. Or knows … things about me.
It’s the second time since I’ve arrived on Skyhub that someone’s spoken my name like that, addressing me as if they know me when they shouldn’t.
Lament’s voice is tight when he says, “Professor Trey Morton.” Then he does that thing again, moving his body slightly in front of mine. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The professor gives a faint smile. “Am I interrupting something?”
“This flight deck is for Sixers only.”
“I need to speak to your partner.”
“Whatever you have to say—”
“I have a message,” Professor Morton tells me, interrupting Lament, “about Master Ira.”
My heart goes into free fall. “What?” I clear my throat and try to do what Lament does, shutting himself down, locking it all up, but I’ve never been good at hiding, and I can feel the distress all over my face. “What do you mean? How do you know Master Ira?”
“Ran Doc Min has predicted his demise.”
The world goes dark at the edges.
“Hartman.” Lament’s fingers close around my wrist. “Come on. We don’t have to listen to this.”
“You have not spoken to Master Ira in three years,” Professor Morton continues, “not since you ran away to join the Academy. He was so disappointed in you. So heartbroken by your betrayal. But that wasn’t fair of him, was it?
Who was he to disown you, just because you chose the Legion over the Order?
Who was he to cut off communication when you’d once been so close?
Your life is not his life, your dreams are not his dreams. He should have been more understanding of your goals, but instead he cast you out. Just like your mother did.”
My throat is a desert. My ears are roaring. “How—how do you know all that?”
“Ran Doc Min knows many things.”
“You’re a Determinist?”
“Hartman.” That’s Lament again, his fingers tightening around my wrist, tugging now. I hear the urgency in his voice, but I can’t focus, not with this stranger standing before me, digging up my past and spouting doom. Not with the floor crumbling beneath my feet.
“It is my duty,” says the professor, “to deliver this prediction, and in doing so spread Ran Doc Min’s knowledge.
And yet, I must admit I have a personal interest in this matter.
Master Ira and I, too, share a history. I’ve seen firsthand what a hypocrite he can be.
I thought you would be pleased to hear that the man who gave up on you will soon reach his own end.
The universe has a way of righting wrongs, does it not? ”
“Enough,” Lament practically snarls. “That’s enough. We don’t want to hear your predictions. You shouldn’t even be here. Hartman, let’s go.”
This time, Lament’s anger is enough to shake me out of my stupor. When he pulls at my wrist a third time, my knees unlock. We march away, and I tell myself not to look back, to be strong enough to just keep walking.
I’m not strong enough. As we step into the elevator, I glance over my shoulder to see Professor Morton wearing a strange, satisfied smile.