Page 25 of Star Bringer
Another shock rips through theCaelestis.
Don’t puke, don’t puke. Don’t fucking puke.
He beats his fist against it again, just as I wrap my hands around the armrests and squeeze for all I’m worth. The hit must be what the ship needs, because it gives a little shake, and then the console flashes with colorful lights. The shields covering the screens lift, and all of a sudden I can see out into the chaos of the docking bay of the ISSCaelestis. The somewhat tarnished and rapidly crumbling jewel in the Empire’s crown.
The ship we’re on starts rising, hovering above the floor, and I hold onto the armrests even tighter. Beside me, Max smiles.
“Ian has got this,” he reassures me.
Then we’re moving, weaving around the detritus of the crumbling docking bay.
“Hey, you’re doing great, Ian,” Max calls after a few seconds.
“Actually, I’m doing fuck all.” He sounds bewildered. “I think I must have switched on the autopilot. She’s doing it all on her own.”
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one, but it’s too late to do anything but hold my breath and pray, considering we’re aiming for the airlock but the doors are tightly closed.
That doesn’t stop Ian—or the autopilot he says is controlling the ship. In fact, she just keeps speeding up, even though we’re heading straight for the toughest, most crash-proof metal in the Senestris System.
Apparently we’re going to put that assertion to the test.
Fear turns my insides to mush, and to keep from screaming I bite my lip until it bleeds. One of the many rules of being a princess? Never, ever scream in a spaceship crash. Instead, die with dignity.
Too bad I feel anythingbutdignified right now.
Beside me, Max mutters something vile beneath his breath. Rain gasps. Merrick merely looks ill. Gage covers his eyes with his hands while Beckett laughs, a high-pitched, wild sound that has every hair on my body standing straight up. And through it all, Ian looks straight ahead, face grim and jaw locked as if willing the doors to open through sheer grit alone.
I’m not sure if it works or if something else happens. But at the last second, the doors miraculously slide open, and we glide straight through into the airlock.
I have one second of relief before they close behind us, leaving us in total darkness.
“Come on, you son of a varnook,” Gage growls. “Open sesame.”
A few more seconds of darkness. A few more seconds of holding my breath. And then the outer doors slide open, the light of a thousand stars burning away the darkness.
For a second, we hover; then the ship shoots out into the vastness of space, leaving the burning hulk of theCaelestisbehind on its path to who knows where.
Chapter 10
Kali
My mother says,To get what you want, smile until it’s time not to.And as we cruise through space with absolutely no destination in mind, I’d like to think that I’ve legitimately reached the “time not to smile” part, but I don’t think that’s how it actually works. Mom taught me smiling has nothing to do with being happy—it’s a way to elicit a desired response. And not smiling is exactly the same.
She’s had me practicing my regal smile—not to mention my regal bored expression—in the mirror since I was four, and sometime around age ten it became second nature. She used to tell me it was building my armor because we need to be strong for the good of the system.
Except it doesn’t feel like second nature right now.
I’m trying to smile—really, I am—but my lower lip refuses to stop wobbling. I clamp it steady with my teeth and blink against the sudden, suspicious prickling behind my eyes. If emotions are off-limits, then tears are a fate worse than death.
In the rear-view screen, I can see theCaelestisimplode, smooth outer shell folding in, as all imperial space stations are set to do in case of critical error so we don’t cover the system in deadly debris. And I’m trying hard not to let my imagination loose on what must have happened to Lara and Arik and Vance and all those other poor people still on board. Maybe they all got away after we did. But I know that’s wishful thinking—which is just escapism for the masses, according to my mother, and not to be indulged. We have a responsibility to think ahead.
I guess it doesn’t matter that Lara and the others died on the ship—maybe it was actually a blessing, considering the rest of us are going to burn in the not-too-distant future. TheCaelestiswas our hope for salvation, and now she’s turning to ash.
And me? I had such high hopes that I would finally be able to be useful. To do some good.
Ha.
The Empress’s minions will all no doubt say “I told you so” as soon as they hear about what happened. More than likely, they’ll also find a way to heap all the blame for this disaster on me.
