Adam reached the canyon wall and stopped, fingertips splayed against the smooth stone at his back.

“Who are you?” His eyes narrowed. “I mean, who are you really?”

I held his gaze for a moment, and then shrugged and looked up at the pinpoint diamond stars.

Ah, to hell with it, I thought. We couldn’t evade our pursuers forever. This time tomorrow, the likelihood was we’d both be in puddles of our own blood. And if I had to die, I wanted to unburden myself first. I wanted Adam to understand who I was, and why he also had to die.

My mouth was dry. Even through the insulated soles of the suit and the thickness of the dead girl’s shoes, my feet were so cold I worried I might lose a toe.

“I am Annelida Deal.” My voice faltered. I had not spoken my own name aloud in years. “Captain Annelida Deal, formerly of the Conglomeration Fleet.”

His mouth gaped open and his voice quailed. “The Butcher of Pelapatarn?”

He couldn’t have looked more horrified if I’d admitted to being the Devil himself, and, for a moment, I regretted telling him the truth. I exhaled, my breath a dispersing cloud in the frigid shadow of the canyon wall. All those years of running and hiding, all that cosmetic surgery, and here I was: standing in a hole with a teenager, admitting my sins to the uncaring sky.

“Yes,” I said, resigned now to a full admission. “I ordered the jungle torched.” I kept my face raised to the stars. “I killed a world.”

Twenty-Four: Sal Konstanz

TWENTY-FOUR

SAL KONSTANZ

Alva Clay frowned. “Can we trust them?”

“Childe and Petrushka?” I shrugged. “They just helped us out in a firefight.”

“One they at least partially caused.”

We were back on the Trouble Dog’s bridge, having left our new passengers in the infirmary. I was sitting in the command couch and Clay was leaning against one of the consoles, a booted foot resting on the arm of my chair as she cleaned and reloaded her gun. She wore a red bandana and a number of pendants and charms around her neck, and a standard-issue olive-green tank top that showed off the tattoos and scars on her sinewy arms. Each commemorated a different mission or posting. My least favourite was the one that honoured the Battle of Pelapatarn. It showed a blackened, tree-covered globe surrounded by a halo of hungry sulphur-yellow flame.

Grunts came from beneath the main pilot’s console, where Nod was rummaging through bundles of optical cables, trying to trace a faulty circuit breaker.

“They’re both trained medics,” I said.

“And?”

“And we’re going to be picking up casualties at the crash site. Without these two, all we’ve got is Preston.” I lowered my voice. “And personally, I wouldn’t trust him with anything more complicated than handing out aspirin.”