The idea of being stuck in here made me want to climb the walls, but I’d only just gotten out of solitary confinement. Apparently, even my short stay in jail made a big impression on me. I hadn’t enjoyed being locked up. Not even a little bit.

The doors finally opened, and I barely stifled a gasp. No wonder it took forever to get up here. We’d been indoors until then—with no windows—but now I could finally see the hangar. We were at least one hundred and fifty meters from the ground—easily fifty stories.

There were three ships inside the hangar, noses pointing to the sky. A symphony of beeps and clangs and whirring of drills filled the massive space as crews of mechanics rushed below the one farthest from us. The workers looked like little ants swarming around the bottom in a chaotic frenzy. The fact that they hustled me quickly through the court proceedings to this catwalk made me think that all of the craziness below was to rush me off planet. But not everything was about me. That could be their everyday kind of frenzy, and I could be totally wrong about which ship we were heading to.

“What’s the holdup? You afraid of heights, too?” I’d stopped just outside of the elevator, blocking Ahiga from exiting.

“No.” I knew that one for a fact.

Mom said my father, whenever he had time, liked to free climb up the tallest scraper in DC to watch the sunset. He’d apparently sit up there, dangling his feet off the edge like it was no big deal, waiting for the moon to rise and the stars to shine. After I was born, he’d strap me to his chest and take me with him. But I didn’t know if that meant all Aunare were this way, or if that was just how my father and I were.

“But I’m not in a rush to get to Abaddon.” I moved to the side so Ahiga could get around me.

Ahiga grunted, telling me with that one sound that he wasn’t looking forward to it either. “We gotta walk across a few of these catwalks to get to the ship.” He pointed at the ship I’d been staring at. The catwalks zigzagged between the ships, creating walkways at different levels across the hangar. There were lower levels of catwalks where workers were accessing panels on the ships, middle levels with more workers, and then the one with just me and Ahiga nearest the ceiling.

I started down the catwalk and winced at the feel of the sharp metal against my papery shoes. The grating was probably meant to grip shoes, but the things I had on were less than slippers.