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  He shook his head. “You have been in my life a long time now. Not awake, but you were here. Keeping Sienna from Evander has been the main goal. I guess that’s going to be changing.” I pulled my wall all the way back up. His words shouldn’t have made me sad, but they had. Or maybe I was just sad to begin with. When I had strong reactions to things, it was better if I wasn’t touched by others’ feelings as well. Still, as we held each other’s gazes for a long moment, I sort of wished I hadn’t. What was he thinking? He looked almost sad, but as he’d told me himself, he didn’t really do emotions or understand them. Was he? That I wouldn’t tell him, or that he’d wasted so much time carting me around? What was he thinking?

  I almost asked him, but he took my hand, and then all I could think about was how our hands looked clasped together. Were there people whose lives that were just simple? A man took a woman’s hand, and then they were allowed and able to simply like each other? To maybe fall in love? Where they didn’t have responsibilities to the whole universe to contend with?

  Internally, I sighed. I was so dramatic. There was nothing about me that influenced the whole universe. I was just a girl from a temple on a Dark Planet that no one knew about, who had the bad luck to encounter really mean people who wanted to use her. By contrast, I was lucky these strong, different-minded, unique individuals had decided to take me on as their problem. Even if it was just temporarily.

  “They’re here.” He nodded toward the window where the shuttle approached Artemis. “We should go.”

  “Okay. Hey, Anders, why did Blaze say he had to watch Artemis? Would she really blow up or something?”

  “No…” He tilted his head. “I’m just guessing, but maybe it was more about Trenton. He’s probably sitting somewhere making sure that Trenton doesn’t decide to steal a shuttle, go find what’s left of Sandler, and blow himself up taking them out.”

  I sucked in a long breath. “Makes you wonder, right? How it would feel to love someone so much that nothing could ever be the same when they were gone? I…I guess we talked about this already.”

  “Some things bear repeating. It does make me wonder. But then I think about how lucky he was to know that kind of feeling. I don’t know if I ever will, because I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

  I pointed to the device in my arm. “Seems my life is too complicated for love. Always was. It was pretty much forbidden, and now, in the aftermath of what happened, even more so.”

  He winked at me and then grabbed his eye. “That just feels weird. How does Corbin do that?”

  I laughed. Despite everything, there could still be these silly moments mixed into the mess.

  7 Permanent Goodbyes

  An alarm sounded, and Anders looked over his shoulder. “I installed that. It just tells us when people are coming and going from the ship. Artemis didn’t have that. Presumably, you could have come and gone from here with no one knowing. Now, the second a shuttle attaches, it goes off. But then, if the person piloting accepts the attachment, it shuts off.”

  That begged the question—for as little as I understood what he’d told me—about who exactly had accepted the shuttle. “Who’s piloting?”

  “Blaze. From a tablet. It’s not ideal. There’s a half second delay. When we engage, we want to actually be in the control room. But for basic everything-is-probably-fine moments? Yeah…the tablet works, and it keeps us from having to be in there all the time.”

  That made sense. “Less lonely.”

  “Less dull.” We walked together into a room I’d never been in before. It was huge, the ceiling significantly higher than anywhere else on the ship. How did that work from an engineering perspective? I ran a hand through my hair. I was like a child. A thought occurred to me. Maybe there were books that people gave to children on space travel. I could read one. Start with that.

  It would be better than nothing.

  With a click, the shuttle holding everyone opened. Noise hit my ears that Anders must have long been aware of. A man cried out in pain. I rubbed my arms. I wasn’t a doctor and had no interest in being one. Blood was really not my thing. The fact that I was actually holding out pretty well with the device in my arm was a tribute to the fact that there were a million things happening and I couldn’t obsess about that. I’d have thought I’d be puking by now from the grossness of all of it.

  Corbin leaned over to speak to the man he rolled out. Wade rushed after all of them. It was, however, the woman and small boy that followed them out that held my attention. She walked, didn’t seem hurt, and held the little boy’s hand tightly in her hand. My mouth fell open. I knew them. She used to come into the Temple sometimes.

  Right at that moment, she saw me and cried out, coming to an abrupt stop. As the man still cried out in pain, Corbin didn’t cease his pushing him on the medical table and Wade continued to run after them, but certainly, they both looked between me and the woman.

  “Sienna?” She rushed toward me, and as she did, dragging the small boy with her, I remembered her name. It was Brianne, and she hailed from the town right near the temple. I’d seen her maybe half a dozen times. “How are you here? How are you okay?”

  She threw her arms around me, and I let her. This was what people did when they knew me, when they understood what it was that I did. Doors opened and closed behind me. I hugged her back. “Are you okay? You were on a spaceship?”

  That really wasn’t something people who came from our world did all that often. I’d known one family who had left in all my life, and even then, it had been because they’d gotten into some trouble with their neighbors and had to flee.

  What was she doing here?

  She teared up as she looked at me, which made the little boy with her start to cry. Brianne hauled him up in her arms and then visibly swallowed. “Oh, we all thought you were dead. They made you so sick, and then your father…he rushed through the village to find a shuttle so that they could get you someplace and freeze you? Is that right? We never heard what happened after. Your father never came back and…we thought you were dead.”

  This was all information I hadn’t had. My father rushed me off? How did he even know there was such a thing as cryogenic sleep? And…where was he? What happened? Fear almost took me to my knees. I wasn’t close with my parents, but I didn’t like the idea of anything being wrong with them.

  “Sienna?” Anders said my name as Trenton entered the room. “You know this woman?”

  I swallowed. “They’re from home.”

  She hugged me again. People needed to touch me, and I was required to receive their contact, honor their need. In fact, what I really needed to do was drop my wall and let her in. Only, I couldn’t seem to do it. No. I just didn’t want to. Not then.

  Brianne dropped her gaze to the ground. That wasn’t surprising. On our planet, unless we were related or married to him, we didn’t make eye contact with men we didn’t know. Except for me…

  I apparently had no problem doing so, or even sleeping between two of them.

  “These men saved me. I mean, they’ve been carting my unconscious form around for a very long time.” At some point, I needed to pin down exactly how long that was. “And keeping me safe from those people who want to hurt me.”

  She let out a halting breath. “Things just went so badly after that. The whole planet freaked out. Evander was everywhere with big soldiers.” She leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Very similar to some of these men. In size. They ran through all the farms. Took everything, left us with nothing. I swear, it was like the whole planet was decimated. Not that I’ve seen the whole planet. I…I…” Letting her get it all out was hard. I could just picture what she said. “Then men came with ships. They…they sold us all ships for whatever amount of money we had left. Depending on how much we had was the kind of ship we got. They gave us quick lessons and sent us on our way.”

  I gasped. “And…and you all just left? On the ships? Now you’re attacked…how long have you been running around in
space?”

  “For a long time.” She collapsed against me. “Running out of food. People aren’t letting us land. They don’t want us. Everything is really hard out there. Lots of people without homes because of the war.”

  Trenton came over and placed his hand on my arm. “Brianne? That’s your name, right? That’s what Blaze said anyway.” He smiled. “Come on. Let’s go see your husband.”

  She wiped at her eyes. “Yes. We should do that. Thank you for saving Sienna. If she’s alive, there is a chance for the universe. She just makes everything better. She’s very special. Thank you for being here, Sienna. It’s such a gift.”

  I let her go to Trenton, who held her arm. He looked over his shoulder at me. “We didn’t do anything substantial. Her father got her off the planet and others took her in before we did. I’m just glad we got to her when and how we did.”

  Anders followed Brianne and Trenton from the room as Blaze regarded me. “You can trust me.”

  “I know that.” Or at least, I thought I did. I could trust him in the ways you could people who were new to you. I had the impression of trustworthiness. Last night, I’d had him in my bed. His men certainly thought he was worth uprooting their whole lives for. “It’s just…”

  What was it, really? It sounded like my whole world was gone. My parents missing. The locals sold some sort of ships and sent on their way.

  “You should know that when Dr. Amber Chen was given you on a space station that is now destroyed, she was visited by people who…how shall I put this…made it very clear to her that keeping you safe was pivotal to all of us. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that this woman is so attached to you. But I think there is more going on, right?”

  I breathed out a long breath. “Blaze, obviously the zapping isn’t all I can do. I think you already know that.”

  “I think that woman held onto you like you might put breath back in her tired body.” He nodded toward the door. “I think your home is destroyed. The life you had is over. And I think that if there are things that we should know about you—if every person who encounters you who knew you back there—is going to react like that, then we need to know how to keep you safe. I think you should seriously consider telling us.” He stepped back. “Soon.”

  He nodded toward the door. “Let’s go see this woman who knows you but who you don’t seem all that enthusiastic to see in the sickbay. She’s going to have a fit if Trenton doesn’t get you for her.”

  That extra hearing was a wonderful and sometimes terrible thing.

  Was he right? Was I unenthusiastic about seeing Brianne? Shouldn’t I be feeling wonderful? I needed information, she had it. And yet, it was as though I suddenly had a burden I needed to haul over a field filled with rocks.

  I stared down at my arm. The virus level still read as level one.

  That was good. I followed Blaze from the docking room to the sick bay. The closer we got, the more I could hear the poor man screaming.

  “Shouldn’t he be in the med machine by now?” Or placed in cryogenic sleep. Whatever it is that they were actually doing these days for the sick and injured.

  Blaze shook his head. “Not until Wade has him assessed. You can stick someone in the machine with no diagnosis. It doesn’t work quite as well or as quickly. But it’s better if the doctor can control the thing. And Wade is good. Better than good. The only person who doesn’t know how amazingly talented he is turns out to be Wade.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not a Super Soldier, right?” I wanted to make sure I had everyone in the right category. Trenton and Wade were like me, they were regular humans, made in the ways that people generally made babies, and not on the other side of the galaxy in a lab.

  “No, we don’t make doctors. Or they didn’t make us doctors. They had their own, and if we were injured beyond what a med machine turning on could fix, then they put us down anyway. No, there are no doctors in our midst.”

  We stepped inside, and I forced my stomach to stay steady, my anxiety about anything medical not pushing me over some edge where I puked just from thinking about it.

  Anders picked the screaming man up off the table and placed him in a med machine in the corner. “This one?”

  Wade nodded. “That’ll do. Edward,” he spoke to the screaming man. “The pain will stop now. The burns will be gone and the breaks will heal. There is nothing whatsoever that has happened to you that won’t get better. You are not going to die.”

  His words did seem to make the man stop screaming. In truth, I’d never seen a person carry on about an injury before. We had been taught to endure quietly. No one wanted to come to the temple to hear someone carrying on. I’d broken my arm and hardly said a word. Of course, I’d never been burned on a ship I barely knew how to fly.

  Brianne sniffed and held his hand. I didn’t know him, but if he had gotten a wife, that meant that someone important on our planet thought he was important.

  I looked at Corbin as he came to stand next to me. “Is it standard for Evander to give out ships like that? Sell them to people who don’t fly?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not Evander. What Evander does is go into some place and strip it of all of its resources, keeping a portion of the population alive to rework them. They don’t sell ships off the planet. Although that’s sort of ingenious. Someone figured out how to make money off people’s pain. To scare them into going up into space. On ships that are probably badly refurbished.” He tilted his head. “There’s a word for that, I think.”

  Trenton leaned against the wall. “Profiteers.”

  “Aha.” Corbin tapped his temple. “Couldn’t come up with the word.”

  Walking away from the wall, Trenton stood to my other side. “That’s okay. You guys have only been using vocabulary that wasn’t about killing for a short period of time. You probably never said profiteer before.”

  Corbin nodded. “True.”

  That was so interesting. Brianne noticed me and opened her arms, her son holding onto her leg. I steeled myself. The woman wanted another hug. Keeping my face passive, I walked toward her and hugged her again.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without you here. It’s like the temple came with you.”

  I wasn’t a building. I almost said that, but stopped myself. It was my duty because of what I could do to help her and…

  A hand touched my arm. It was Wade. He smiled at me, pulling me away. “Hey, Brianne, your husband is going to be fine. And out of here in two hours. Then he’ll be as good as new.” He turned to Anders. “Does Kellan have her ship safe enough to fly? Or safe enough for her to return to it?”

  Her eyes widened. “Couldn’t I stay here?”

  “No,” Trenton walked toward us. “Sorry, it’s not safe here. Right, Blaze?”

  Their leader nodded slowly. “Nope. Not safe.”

  Anders pulled out his tablet and pressed a button. “Kellan says it’s safe. He’s got all the fires out and the engines reset.”

  “If we would like Brianne to leave and go back, I could give her husband a lesson on flying and not blowing up the engines before they leave again. And how to best avoid space pirates or Sandler or whatever.” Trenton motioned to the doorway. “This way.”

  He took her by the arm and escorted her out. I watched until they exited. Relief flooded me. I was so glad she wasn’t in the room, and that was awful but it was the truth. At least in the temple, I had visiting hours. What would I have done if I’d had to be on all the time? Oh forget, not even all the time. I didn’t want to be on at all.

  Maybe that was a huge problem.

  “Thank you,” I nodded toward Wade. “I didn’t want to do it right now. I didn’t feel like I could.”

  Wade tilted his head. “Honestly I’m not sure what you were going to do. Hug her? Do you know her that well? Or is there a reason you had to? In any case, she’s not my patient. Her husband is, and you’re…well, you’re sort of my patient, in the sense that you could be again if that numb
er rises. You were uncomfortable. She had to go.”

  Anders scrunched up his own face. “How did you know? I mean…I didn’t get that. Tell me how you saw it.”

  As an answer, Wade shrugged. “I don’t know. I just did.”

  “Trenton did, too.” Corbin shook his head, fast. “I didn’t. But he gave Blaze some kind of signal, and you read it, Blaze.”

  Their leader shrugged. “This time I did. Next time, maybe I won’t. Okay. This is almost over. Two hours, then we’re on our way back on track. I got a coded response to the one I sent to the Farm. Diana answered me. She wants us to meet her on Mars Station. They’re headed there for a meetup with the Chens and the Sandlers. It just makes sense for us to head straight.”

  Wade groaned and hopped up on the table. “I hate meeting with the whole crew. I know I shouldn’t feel that way. They saved me, but I always feel like if I can’t find something profound or funny to say, then they all stare at me as though I have two heads or I’m not worthy to sit in the room.” He sat up straighter. “Or maybe I don’t have to go. I don’t need to be in the meeting, right?”

  Anders patted him on the back. “They like you just fine, as far as I can tell. Amber does. You’re both doctors. She thinks highly of you. You kept things afloat for her when it all went to hell during the war before you took up with us to save Sienna.”

  I tried to follow their conversation. But it was hard to learn about people I didn’t know who were all faceless to me. One fact stuck out. “Is it common for women to be doctors?”

  Wade shook his head. “Amber’s the only one I know. She really amazed me. Did it during war time.”

  I rocked back on my feet, filing Amber into the same category as Waverly. Women I hadn’t met who were extraordinary, doing things I’d never do. A doctor? I couldn’t even stand thinking about blood.

  Wade held out his hand. “Come here. Let me look at your arm.”

  “It’s still at one.” I held out my arm so he could see. He nodded and let me go. “Holding steady. Looking great.”