The beast sunk un­til only its black eyes cres­ted the wa­ter and Striver cursed un­der his breath. What was it wait­ing for?

  Leaves rustled across the bog. Striver spot­ted the boar’s quarry. A weasel worm poked its head from the shoreline, whiskers twitch­ing. The swamp boar stilled.

  No, no, no. Not now.

  Maybe the weasel worm would squiggle back into the log?

  Luck was not on Striver’s side. The small mam­mal slithered across the shoreline in his dir­ec­tion.

  His father’s teach­ings came back to him. Wait for op­por­tun­ity to show it­self. Don’t run from fear.

  The swamp boar took off, wa­ter rip­pling as it swam across the bog and ree­m­erged on Striver’s side, chas­ing after the weasel worm. Sludge dripped from its jaw and hefty flanks as it climbed ashore and gained mo­mentum. Then its black eyes locked on his. He aimed and re­leased the ar­row faster than his heart could beat.

  The beast charged as the ar­row slipped through the air like a si­lent secret and plunged into its chest. Striver fell side­ways as the boar roared in pain and slid across the ground, its massive body flat­ten­ing all the ve­get­a­tion in its path. Swil­low wisps launched in flight, and the weasel worm dar­ted into the un­der­growth as if us­ing Striver as a dis­trac­tion had been its plan all along.

  Up­turned leaves drif­ted back to the forest floor. Striver waited un­til si­lence fell be­fore emer­ging from the ferns. He ap­proached the beast from be­hind, walk­ing through the up­turned brush without a sound. It stared into the trees, bleak and un­re­spons­ive. He watched the chest for move­ment, but the boar had re­leased its last breath. Re­lieved and humbled, he tied the feet with a rope and dragged it away from the shore. He could not bear its weight on his own, so he’d have to ask the vil­la­gers to help. Us­ing a few palm leaves, he hid the boar from other pred­at­ors.

  Not­ing his cur­rent co­ordin­ates, he slipped the dis­guise off his arms and circled the bog, us­ing the sun pok­ing through the can­opy as a guide. He’d traveled far track­ing the beast.

  Al­most to the bor­der.

  Striver paused, leaves rust­ling around him as a breeze cooled his tense muscles. It would only take a few more steps to reach the wall. The odds of any sign of Weaver were slim, but he’d prom­ised his mother. He had to try. Turn­ing back, he circled the bog and headed to the wall.

  The stone for­ti­fic­a­tion rose from the trees like an im­pen­et­rable wall sur­round­ing his vil­lage’s ter­rit­ory in a semi­circle from the moun­tains in the north to the sea in the south. The stone cast an omin­ous shadow in the forest. As he ap­proached, the un­der­growth tapered off, the dark­ness too ab­so­lute for much growth. Only the tallest trees rivaled the con­crete. He touched the cool sur­face, feel­ing a mix of won­der and dis­gust at the only sign of tech­no­logy in an oth­er­wise nat­ural world. Built by his an­cest­ors, it was meant to se­greg­ate the law-abid­ing from those who wished to fol­low the pir­ate leg­acy.

  Metal rungs led to the top, where knife-sharp shards of wood and flint pro­truded like the hairs on the boar’s back. Striver hung his bow around his chest and climbed, hop­ing the Guard­i­ans didn’t no­tice his de­tour. He reached the top and peered through the sharpened pricks. A façade of slick con­crete fell to a moat so deep, the wa­ter churned black. The tail of a leecher swept up, slap­ping the sur­face, and dis­ap­peared. But Striver wasn’t in­ter­ested in the moat wa­ters. He looked bey­ond the dense trunks, temp­ted to call out his brother’s name.

  “He won’t come.” The voice came from the sky. Striver turned as a ten-foot wing­span blocked the sun.

  Phoenix. Had he been watch­ing the en­tire time?

  The Guard­ian spiraled down, land­ing on the branches of a nearby tree. He fol­ded his winged arms, iri­des­cent feath­ers set­tling be­hind him, and re­garded Striver with pale, opaque eyes. His beaked mouth chirped once, a mel­an­choly sound. “You must let him go.”

  Ig­nor­ing him, Striver grit­ted his teeth and climbed down. “I’m never go­ing to give up on him.”

  “His life path is his own choice.” The words lil­ted like sweet bird­song, but to Striver they soured in his stom­ach.

  “I know the rules.” Striver jumped the re­main­ing meter to the ground. The Guard­ian flew from the tree­top and joined him on the forest floor.

  Striver res­isted meet­ing his gaze. Phoenix’s con­trolled emo­tions frus­trated him. Some­times he wondered if the Guard­i­ans felt any­thing at all.

  “I mourn Weaver’s loss as well,” Phoenix said.

  Striver pulled his bow over his head and se­cured his ar­row bag closer to his shoulder. “He’s not your brother.”

  “We are all broth­ers here.”

  “Of course.” As if he’d for­got­ten. He knew very well the colony’s unity, taught by the Guard­i­ans, was their strength. He just didn’t want to hear it now.

  Striver ges­tured to­ward the bog. “I felled a boar. Will you help me carry it back?”

  “That’s why I came to get you.” Phoenix’s large eyes glistened in a patch of sun­light and, for a mo­ment, he looked amused.

  “Must you fol­low me every­where I go?”

  “The chosen leader of the people has to re­main safe. You take risks, just like your father did. Be­sides, I was guard­ing the bor­der. I only spot­ted you when the swil­low wisps rose from the trees.”

  Striver quieted with the men­tion of his father. They walked the re­mainder of the way in si­lence, listen­ing to the calls of den micers and the pat­ter­ing feet of weasel worms. The pu­trid bog air turned to the crisp smell of fresh leaves.

  A horn wailed over the forest, and they paused, search­ing the shad­ows around them. Striver whispered, “Which dir­ec­tion did it come from?”

  Phoenix craned his head. “South. By the S.P. Nautilus.”

  “Of course.”

  Clutch­ing his bow, Striver dar­ted through the un­der­growth as Phoenix rose to the sky. The Guard­ian flew swiftly, but he’d be damned if he let the bird­man beat him to the call. Jump­ing over a brook, he landed on the other side and his boots slid along the em­bank­ment. He re­gained his foot­ing and sped for­ward, fol­low­ing oth­ers as they rushed along the bor­der.

  When he reached the south­ern por­tion of the wall, men perched along the ridge, fir­ing ar­rows across the moat on the other side.

  Weaver. I hope he’s all right.

  Scram­bling two at a time, Striver climbed the rungs. He reached the top just as Carven re­leased an ar­row. Law­less men and wo­men braved the moat, car­ry­ing lengths of rope to storm the wall. They wore boots made from thick boar hide up to their waists to pro­tect against the sharp teeth of the leech­ers.

  “Damn pir­ates have come for the ship,” Carven growled, reach­ing be­hind him to pull an­other ar­row from his bag.

  Striver let an ar­row fly as a warn­ing and turned to Carven, won­der­ing how a father of four could look so fierce. “They’ll never make it across. The wa­ter’s too deep.”

  Carven shook his head, streaks of gray hair mak­ing him look older than his years. “They don’t have to.”

  “But their ar­rows will never reach—”

  One man waded into the wa­ters and held up a black bow, made from bray wood and strung with swamp thick­ets. He raised it to the top of the ridge and let an ar­row fly with a rope at­tached. The ar­row hit Thrift, the pot­ter from their vil­lage, and he fell back­ward off the wall un­til the rope pulled taut. Law­less hooted in tri­umph.

  Striver’s heart sank. I know that bow.

  Weaver had equipped the army with Striver’s latest in­ven­tion, the Death Stalker. They’d made them to­gether for the last hunt­ing sea­son. He’d been so proud of his brother for help­ing him design it. Never did he think Weaver would use the great reach of the bows to scale the other side of the wall.

  Never did he think his brother would side with the en­emy.

  As he gawked, Law­less flooded the wall with ar­rows, se­cur­ing ropes. Three men dangled from the first rope, climb­ing closer to the top of the wall, hand over hand. A team of men on the banks covered them. Guard­i­ans flew above the mass, drop­ping nets to con­fuse and con­tain the horde. At a time like this, Striver wished their cul­ture al­lowed them to act more ag­gress­ively.

  “There’s too many; I can’t keep them all back.” Carven’s voice wavered.

  “Hold your po­s­i­tion. Fo­cus on the banks.” Striver shouted the or­ders to the oth­ers on the fence and grabbed an ar­row from his bag. The chaos around him muted as he fo­cused on the rope. He saw every twine of fiber and the bulge of the three-part braid.

  Now.

  His ar­row sailed across the moat and severed one of the braids. The men on the rope held on as their life­line bounced but didn’t break.

  Damn!

  An ar­row whizzed by his cheek. A mo­ment later he stood, aim­ing for the same spot. The men hung only a meter away from the un­guarded part of the wall where Thrift had been sta­tioned. Striver swore he could smell their un­washed clothes and fresh sweat.

  Carven grit­ted his teeth as he ducked be­hind the wall. “They’re com­ing.”

  “I got ’em.” Striver pulled the bow taut, feel­ing the fa­mil­iar stretch of his arms. He re­leased the ten­sion and the ar­row flew a mil­li­meter lower than the first one, sli­cing the rope in two. The men writhed in the air as they fell to the moat. The leech­ers swarmed, and the wa­ter boiled with their wrath.

  Block­ing their screams, he turned to the other ropes and raised his bow. This time his ar­row sliced two at once, each rope send­ing more men and wo­men into the murky wa­ters. Carven hollered in tri­umph by his side, but Striver felt no ac­com­plish­ment in send­ing men to their deaths.

  Carven shouted over the wall. “Take that, you Law­less pir­ates!”

  Dis­heartened by their com­rades’ plunge, and writh­ing in the nets the Guard­i­ans had dropped from the sky, the Law­less re­treated to the wa­ter’s edge and into the safety of the dense forest, pur­sued by the Guard­i­ans above.

  “Well done, Striver.” Carven sa­luted him. “You’ve driven them back.”

  Dis­gust over­whelmed him as he watched the leech­ers swim in and out of the pile of empty clothes float­ing along the sur­face. “If only they’d stay in their own lands and stop both­er­ing us. No blood would be shed.”

  Carven put a hand on his shoulder. “As long as we have the S.P. Nautilus, they’re go­ing to keep com­ing.”

  “I’m temp­ted to des­troy it. As much as it is a re­minder of where we came from, it holds too many secrets. If the Law­less got their hands on that tech­no­logy…”

  “They won’t. We’ll pro­tect it like we al­ways have.”

  Striver sighed, the ad­ren­aline rush wear­ing off. “I hope so.”

  As the last few men dis­ap­peared into the forest, Striver spot­ted a head of chest­nut hair a shade lighter than his own.

  Was it him?

  “Weaver!” He picked his way through the razor-sharp pro­tru­sions on the ledge.

  Carven called after him, “Striver, wait! It’s too dan­ger­ous with Law­less still out there.”

  The older man grasped his pants leg, but Striver pulled away, a razor edge sli­cing his pants cuff. “I have to see if it’s him.”

  Just as he dangled over the fence, the man’s head of chest­nut hair turned back. Green eyes bright as his own glimmered over a tight­lipped scowl that sank Striver’s heart in swamp sludge. Weaver ducked un­der a moss-laden branch and dis­ap­peared.

  Chapter Three

  Secret Spunk

  Eri paced out­side Aquaria’s new fam­ily cell, her red­headed halo re­flect­ing in the dull chrome.

  Should I dis­obey the com­mander and tell Aquaria about my mis­sion?

  She could trust her. Only her sis­ter knew of her pair­ing re­quests, and she’d never spoken a word of it to any­one. But could Aquaria keep the in­form­a­tion from Litus? Lifemates didn’t have secrets. Eri didn’t want to stand in the way of her sis­ter and Litus. But she also didn’t want to leave without say­ing good-bye.

  Eri buzzed and her sis­ter’s heart-shaped face flashed on the hail­ing screen. Tears streaked her cheeks and she wiped red, blot­ted eyes. “Eri, I was hop­ing you’d stop by.”

  Thoughts of her new mis­sion fell away.

  Her voice quivered, and Eri leaned to­ward the screen. “Aquaria? Are you okay?”

  The screen flashed off and the particles of the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized. Aquaria ducked out and checked both ends of the cor­ridor be­fore pulling her in. “Come and sit with me on the couch.”

  The smell of brew­ing ve­get­able stew made Eri’s stom­ach gurgle. Passing by a wall­screen of daises bow­ing and lift­ing in a si­lent wind, Eri settled into the cy­ber-green plastic couch, won­der­ing if the fur­niture had come with the apart­ment. Aquaria favored blue. “Is everything okay?”

  “No.”

  Her sis­ter sat be­side her and took a deep breath. “Com­mander Grier as­signed Litus to the ex­plor­at­ory team.”

  “Oh.” Of course. It made per­fect sense she’d cry for Litus. Eri put an arm around her shoulders. Maybe today isn’t the best time to tell her of my as­sign­ment. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not all. He said you’re on the team, too.” Aquaria stared at her, as if dar­ing her to deny it.

  Eri frowned and watched the dais­ies. “I saw tree huts. The in­hab­it­ants are hardly any­thing to worry about. I’m just so ex­cited Com­mander Grier asked me to be a part of the team.”

  “It makes per­fect sense. You’re an ex­cel­lent lin­guist, the best that’s ever lived on this ship.”

  “It’s a galactic­ally spec­tac­u­lar op­por­tun­ity to ad­vance my ca­reer.”

  Aquaria sniffed. “This is it—your chance to make a dif­fer­ence. Your des­tiny—everything you’ve been pre­par­ing for your en­tire life. You have to go out there and live it. I only wish it wasn’t so dan­ger­ous.”

  “Dan­ger­ous?” Eri hadn’t even thought of it that way. More like ad­vant­age­ous.

  Aquaria took her hand. “She didn’t tell you about Delta Slip?”

  Eri leaned for­ward, denial block­ing any open thoughts. “Yes, she did. I’m sup­posed to gather in­form­a­tion and root my­self in the ali­ens’ cul­ture. Be­friend them.”

  Aquaria’s fea­tures grew sol­emn. “I don’t think that’s all she means to do.”

  “What are you say­ing?”

  “Litus hasn’t told me everything—he can’t.” Aquaria’s gaze dar­ted to a holop­ic­ture of their wed­ding on the far wall. “He shouldn’t have even men­tioned the fact that Haven 6 was in­hab­ited, but I pressed him. I mean, what’s a mar­riage if you can’t even tell your spouse what’s go­ing on?”

  Aquaria clenched her hand into a fist and jut­ted out her chin.

  Eri wanted to help, but she wasn’t a mar­riage ther­ap­ist. She needed to fig­ure out what Aquaria was try­ing to tell her about the mis­sion. “What did you learn?”

  Aquaria took a deep breath like she was re­press­ing feel­ings Eri shouldn’t know of. “From the cryptic an­swers he gave me, I got the im­pres­sion that you’ll be col­lect­ing in­form­a­tion to use against the in­hab­it­ants.”

  Acid burned Eri’s stom­ach. “The com­mander said I was to be­friend them…learn their lan­guage…”

  “Think about it, Eri. What kind of in­form­a­tion did she want from you?”

  Here was the red flag Eri had blatantly ig­nored. “She did men­tion weapons, but I thought it was only to pro­tect us.” Even as Eri de­fen­ded the com­mander, doubts crept in. “Her mis­sion is to look out for us. Not any other spe­cies. If they did present a threat…”

  Aquaria nod­ded con­spir­at­ori­ally. “Com­mander Grier would make sure they wouldn’t get in the way. In the most thor­ough man­ner she could.”

  Eri ran her hands through her curls. “Which puts me in quite the pre­dic­a­ment.”

  Aquaria shrugged, her in­tense gaze turn­ing to the blow­ing dais­ies. “Maybe we’re wor­ry­ing over noth­ing. You said you saw thatched trees huts. Maybe they’re not a threat at all. I don’t mean to be­little your mis­sion. In fact, it’s prob­ably the most im­port­ant mis­sion in all of this ship’s his­tory. I’m just ask­ing you to keep your eyes open.” Her voice fell to a whis­per. “I snuck a look at the mis­sion’s sup­plies. They’re bring­ing gal­lium crys­tal void rays.”

  Gal­lium crys­tal void rays hardly soun­ded dip­lo­matic. Eri covered her face with her hands. “I don’t want to be a spy.”

  Aquaria grabbed her hand, squeez­ing so hard, her fin­ger­nails dug into Eri’s skin. “Listen to me. You’re go­ing to have to find out if these creatures are peace­ful. If they are, you’re go­ing to need to de­cide.”

  “De­cide what?”

  “Whether or not to warn them.”

  Eri froze. Blas­phemy leaked from her sis­ter’s mouth.

  “I can’t go against the com­mander or the Guide.”

  Aquaria nod­ded and looked away. “That’s a de­cision only you can make.” She spread her hand over the lay­out of her new fam­ily cell. “Look at me—I’m hardly one to speak. I fol­low the Guide to the let­ter, and what has it got­ten me? A cy­ber-green couch and a wall­screen full of dais­ies.”

  “And hand­some Litus.”

  Aquaria’s gaze roamed to a dis­tant place Eri couldn’t see or un­der­stand. “How could I for­get? I just wish I knew more about him. I want to know who he is in­side, not the façade he puts on for every­one else.”

  Eri’s mouth snapped shut. Maybe the façade was the real him. For Aquaria’s sake, she hoped not.

  The wall­screen beeped and a smooth-toned voice sung out, “Four­teen hun­dred.”

  Aquaria dabbed at her eyes, brushed off her pants legs like she had crumbs all over her, and stood up. “Litus will be home soon. Come, I’ll make you a cup of tea.” The change in her voice and her com­pos­ure was a shock, like walk­ing from the rainy biod­ome into the fluor­es­cent halls.

 

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