Chapters (48)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Copyright
His devil-may-care attitude settled back into place. “Far enough that I can’t find it on any of your maps. You know how many stars there are, sweetheart? Lots. It’s anyone’s guess which one is mine. Anyone’s guess for the zemdyut, too. We never did figure out where they’d come from. I tried to guess where my planet was, but . . . well, if I showed you a map of a random star system, do you think you could point to the pinprick that was Earth?”
Alexei’s eyes narrowed. “Five years on Obsidian,” he said in a conversational tone I recognized as his most dangerous. “Doing work that earned you a flashy ship and the freedom to come and go as you please. You must rank very high.”
Liam scowled in response. “Yeah, I know what you’re getting at, Alexei Danshov. And believe me, I damn near left you on Mars because of it.”
Alexei Danshov. Did these two know each other somehow? I glanced at Mia, but she was staring at the floor. Cage, the only other person Alexei might have confided in, shook his head in confusion. Liam, meanwhile, drew himself up and faced off against Alexei, ignoring the bigger boy’s clear malice.
Why had Liam pulled us off Mars? Trying to make up for abandoning his family? And where had he come from? How far away? How fast did the aliens travel? Rune and I hadn’t uncovered anything faster than our typical engines on the alien ship, but that didn’t mean much. We hadn’t been on it long enough to decode all its secrets. “Hey,” I said, before Alexei and Liam started chest thumping or something, “you still haven’t explained the most important thing.”
For a moment I didn’t think it would work, but then Liam shook his head and broke Alexei’s stare. “What’s that?” he asked, gathering the remnants of his persona around him like a cloak.
“Why are you dressed like a nineteenth-century pirate?”
Liam burst into laughter. “I’m a fashion icon,” he said, grinning.
“You have a cutlass,” replied Imani pointedly.
“It’s useful.”
At that moment, Alexei shot to his feet and stomped up the staircase. Liam moved as if to follow, but Mia rose at the same time. “I wouldn’t,” she advised, chasing after Alexei.
Liam scowled after them. “What if they wreck something?”
“They won’t,” Cage assured him. “I mean, probably. Almost definitely.” He hesitated, taking in our dubious expressions, and raised his hands in defeat. “All right. Maybe I’d better go too.”
SIXTEEN
AN HOUR LATER, I SAT with Rune, Jasper, and Imani in a lounge on the main level of the ship. Creature comforts surrounded us: VR games, prepackaged snacks, holoscreens, and just about everything else. But the closest we’d come to using any of them was grabbing a few sodas from a fridge.