Page 156 of Sky Song
“Yeah, I got that part,” Paloma said tightly. “The records you erased.”
“I’m sorry. It was the only plan I could come up with to convince them that Lyle has to stay alive.”
“Oh, Cricket…”
Suddenly, the floor tilted under their feet, and a smooth vibration spread along all surfaces, a sign of engines quietly revving up.
“What’s going on?” Ren ran back, only to come up hard against the sealed hatch. “We’re moving! Where are they taking us? Hey, what’s your name, Commander!”
They shouted as they all ran down a short passageway and bumped into several Rix defenders who looked stony and radiated questionable energy that was a cross between curiosity and disgust. None of them understood Universal. But the noise their motley crew was generating was sufficiently loud to warrant an appearance of Phex, the most stony-faced of them all.
“Are we taking off?” Ren asked, frantic.
“Not yet.” Phex put up a hand as if to prevent Ren from coming any closer. “We’re moving to a different area where it’s safer to execute a take off.”
“What area?”
“It’s called Rectar.”
Ren’s jaw went slack. “It’s a different continent!”
“Correct. We’ll take off from there.”
Paloma squeezed his eyes shut. “Rosamma.”
Cricket grabbed Phex’s coat in both hands. In the process, she had to let go of hers, and it opened, revealing her body. “There are others! Tell Simon… Tell Aeshac that we can’t leave without the others!”
“We can’t take more passengers onboard. In my opinion, we shouldn’t have taken any. We aren’t a passenger shuttle, if you haven’t noticed.” Phex squirmed, trying to shake her off without touching her.
“His sister! She has to come with us, she won’t survive without Ren.”
“I don’t owe humans any concessions.” He finally sidestepped hard enough to yank the smooth fabric out of Cricket’s hands.
Cricket wasn’t sure what they would have done if Simon hadn’t chosen this moment to appear next to Phex.
“There are others who were supposed to go, it’s all been planned out,” Cricket rambled in Universal.
The skin around Simon’s eyes tightened. He turned to Cricket sharply, his braid sliding. “What was your plan?”
“Lyle was going to commandeer a ship.”
“Imagine that.”
“He promised to fly them away from Meeus! You know he couldn’t fly with the implant,” Cricket said accusingly.
“That was rather the point of it. He wasn’t supposed to be flying.”
Cricket closed her eyes briefly, the pale, alien face of Rosamma flashing behind her eyelids. “The ship is all charged and the security breach is ready to happen. The people are camped near the spaceship depot with the bare minimum of possessions. They are desperate, Simon. Please, let them come with us.”
“Out of curiosity, are those people women?”
“Yes, women and some kids. Does it matter?”
There was a long silence that followed. Their cruiser continued to move.
“Phex.” The lieutenant took a step forward. “Change of course. We’re cruising by the spaceship depot.”
“Yes, Commander.”
