“I won’t do that. It’s insubordinate.”

I shook my head. What a terrible leader.

“Kid…,” Cob began.

Jerkface folded his arms. “I have to get home. I’m expected for the formal dinner with the ambassador from Highway Cavern at nineteen hundred.” Jerkface walked out to an extremely nice-looking vehicle on the street. A private hovercar, with its own small acclivity ring? I’d seen them occasionally down below.

Jerkface climbed into the vehicle and started it up. The engine purred, somehow more primal than the smooth power of a booster.

Scuuuuuuud. I thought. How rich is this guy?

His family must have tons of merits to afford something like that. And that left him too rich to bunk with the others, it seemed. He pulled away in a smooth motion. It seemed distinctly unfair that the thing I was denied, he tossed aside like it was a bad bite of rat meat.

I shouldered my pack, then trudged off. I left through the gate in the walled DDF compound, where another set of MPs marked my passing on a notepad. Then I trudged down the wide street toward the elevators. My neighborhood was at the far edge of Igneous, so I really would spend hours and hours commuting this way. Maybe I could find someplace to stay nearer the elevators below?

It still made me feel sick. I walked to the elevator complex—but there were long lines, probably because of the problems they’d been having earlier. I braced myself for a wait, but then turned and looked to my left—beyond the buildings, beyond the fields. Though Alta Base itself had a shield and wall, this improvised town—full of farmers who were Defiant in another way—didn’t have a fence. And why would it need one? The only things out there were dust, rocks… and caverns.

A thought took me. It wasn’t far…

I stepped out of the line to the elevators and walked outward, past the buildings, past the crops. Farmers working there glanced at me—but didn’t say anything as I left the town behind. This was my real home: the caverns, the rocks, and the open sky. I’d spent more time here since Father’s death than I had down in Igneous.

It was about a thirty-minute walk to the cavern with the crashed ship, but I found my way without too much trouble. The opening was smaller than I remembered, but I had my light-line and was able to lower myself.

The old ship looked more broken-down than I remembered. Perhaps it was because I’d just flown something new. Still, the cockpit was comfortable, and the seat reclined all the way.

It was a stupid idea. If debris fell above, I could get caught in a cave-in. But I was too hurt, too wrung out, and too numb to care.

So it was that—lying in the improvised bunk of a forgotten ship—I drifted off to sleep.

12

Waking up in the cockpit of a starfighter was basically the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me. Well… next to flying one.