Ashes in the Sky Read online

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “We’re lucky this is a small ship. We could have been killed.”

  Small? The Eiffel Tower was small. Dang.

  He looked over the edge. “And the grassen carried you onto this shelf when you fell. That was one of the strangest thing’s I’ve ever seen.”

  I cringed. “The spiders put me up here?”

  He nodded.

  The lights swirling through the darkness seemed to chase each other and separate—sometimes moving as one, other times moving in miscellaneous directions. Was that the glowing eyes of the grassen way out there in the dark?

  “Why didn’t they hurt me?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea. This is their world, not ours. They instinctively attack anyone entering the center of the ship. It’s one of the reasons no one ventures into the heights. Normally the grassen would protect this place as fiercely as you’d protect your own home.” He inched out. “There is another alcove below us. I think we can swing down.”

  My eyes widened. “Swing down? Are you crazy?”

  He reached for me. “We have to get moving. It’s either up, or down.”

  Sure. Easy to say when you’re freaking Spider-Man.

  David slithered over the edge and hung down before dropping onto the next platform of goo. His feet squished as if he’d splatted into a mucky mud puddle. “It’s not that far. Hop down.”

  Hop down, he says. Who did he think I was, the Easter Bunny?

  Stinking, stupid, athletic alien.

  My hands slipped as I groped for a hold in the peachy-pink goo, but slid right off the ledge. I gasped and jerked to a stop in David’s arms. Panting, I clung to him, my heart thumping through my ribcage.

  Ground. I needed safe ground, but for now, I pulled deeper into his arms. “How come whenever we get together someone is always chasing us?”

  David smiled. “I’m just a lowly scientist. It must be you.” He set me down and looked into the abyss. All I wanted to do was crawl back into his arms and pretend everything was okay.

  “The next one is a little farther,” he said,

  Farther? “Great. Can’t wait.”

  He eased off the ledge and swung down, but his hands still gripped the shelf.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  David heaved back onto the platform, the muscles in his arms nearly burst through his white shirt. He rolled onto his back, sinking an inch into the goo, and looked toward the ceiling.

  I eased beside him. “What is it?”

  He turned to me. “We’re on top of the entaligran. It’s attached directly underneath this step.”

  “In-telegram? What does that mean?”

  “Consider it the brain of the ship.” His gaze traveled back to the ceiling.

  “Is that bad?”

  “No.” He sat up and tapped his fingers on his lips. “There is a child’s story about a boy named Champlier Ebon. He was on a ship that was taken over by a being that had infused itself into the ship’s biological systems.”

  “Kind of like the Brother’s Grimm for outer space?”

  He tilted his head in that condescending you make no sense sort of a way before continuing. “Champlier Ebon climbed the ship’s spine, battling grassen to get to the entaligran.”

  He scooted around me and dug his fingers into the goo, pulling out a blob and setting it to the side. After three more fistfuls, he motioned me to join him. The goo squashed between my fingers, warm, wet, and puke-worthy. Yuck. I pulled out a pile and placed it beside us.

  “There it is,” David said.

  Within the strawberry-lemon JELL-O laid a soccer ball-sized magenta sphere.

  “Is that the in-telegram?”

  David nodded. “Champlier Ebon punched the entaligran, damaged it enough to start a slow, unnoticeable chain reaction.” He turned to me. “It gave him just enough time to climb down and get off the ship before complete systems degradation.”

  My eyes widened. “Are you talking about a self-destruct button? What about all the people on the ship? What about Nematali?”

  He leaned back. “It won’t happen that quickly. Once the reaction starts, the security systems will trigger an evacuation to make sure everyone gets off.”

  “And what, we sneak out with everyone else?”

  “Exactly. What’s even better is that every escape ship will be scanned, and all contents and passengers accounted for. If anyone tries to smuggle off the mustard powder or any of its components, the elements will be found and neutralized.” He pointed at my backpack. “And we can give them the existing powder. Anything that’s left on the ship will be destroyed when the ship loses cohesion. It’s perfect, and no-one gets hurt.” He looked away and nodded, almost as if he were trying to convince himself.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “The histories teach that we had nearly a million passenger ships when we first left Erescopia. There are only several thousand left.” He glanced up toward the moving lights in the distance. “This cruiser is not large, but it’s not small either. Our ships are precious commodities. Purposely damaging one is unthinkable.”

  “Then let’s do something else.”

  “Like what?” He ran his fingers through his raven locks. “That’s why they probably chose this powder. The only way we have to demolecularize colotia is a cataclysmic explosion, and the only way to trigger that kind of energy is to sacrifice a ship. No one in his right mind would destroy one of our vessels.”

  The muscles in his neck contracted as he gulped. I guess there was no assembly line building liquidic ships out here in space. “David, you need to decide what to do. I can’t make this decision for you.”

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and returned his gaze to me. “My people are going to inhabit Mars. We won’t need to live on ships anymore. This cruiser is a small price to pay to keep Earth safe.”

  The conviction in his voice startled me: firm and resolute, despite the anxiety in his eyes. He was about to do something unthinkable, and all to save Earth. To save me.

  I choked down the painful ball building in my throat and inched toward the edge. Darkness and flittering firefly lights sank into oblivion. Damn, that was a long way down.

  “How long will we have to get away?”

  David shrugged. “It depends on how hard I punch it. They don’t exactly give you directions on how to destroy a ship in flight school.”

  I crinkled my brow. “So you are going off a fable. You don’t even know if this will work?”

  “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  “What if we … ”

  David made a fist and hit the magenta ball. His knuckles shot back toward him. “Ouch.” He shook his hand.

  So much for fairytales. “Now what?”

  He grimaced, gazing into the swirling magenta orb. “They’re supposed to be incredibly delicate. That’s why they’re covered by developing tissue, and guarded by the grassen.”

  “But if we can’t break it … ”

  He punched again. And again. And again.

  The glowing staircase winked out, leaving us in darkness.

  Oh, shi …

  The staircase slowly regained its glow. Pinkish vapor rose from the in-telegram as the stench of copper and garlic-coated fish surrounded us.

  “Ugh.” I waved near my nose. “What … ”

  A deep, bellowing tone like a whale dying echoed through the chamber. In the distance, the grassen’s shiny, lighted eyes froze, shimmied in place, and then started heading in our direction. The sounds of thousands of chittering bugs filled the air.

  That couldn’t be good.

  David took my hand. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  He grabbed my waist, and we dove off the platform. The stench deepened and assaulted my tongue as I screamed.

  We squished onto the next shelf and the next. The chittering behind us increa
sed in intensity. Yellow light flew into my face. Hairy legs scratched at my arms.

  Grassen. Hundreds of grassen. Hundreds of hundreds.

  The creatures swarmed over us like a legion of hornets. I skidded from David’s arms as he struggled to beat the giant spiders off his shoulders. He cried out, and I leaped toward him. But something wrapped around my ankle, pulling me back. Three shimmering opal eyes looked back at me from the edge of my jeans. I froze as one gray leg inched up from its purplish-black counterparts and pointed at me. Huge jaws chittered.

  “Yuck!”

  I kicked the giant spider off and made my way toward David, only to be pulled back. Bony, hairy legs wrapped around my wrists, raising me into the air. I screamed, helpless and floating.

  David’s growl echoed through the chamber, overcoming the chatter of the spiders. He struck the gross, hairy bugs, throwing them off one at a time, but they had hundreds of friends.

  My bugs plopped me back on the platform above David. My butt sank deep into the goo. The sticky surface slurped as I scrambled to the edge and peered over.

  Thousands of spiders amassed on the ledge where David and I had been.

  “David!” He was hidden, swarmed, lost beneath the gigantic, rampaging bugs.

  My voice echoed through the chamber, and the pile froze. Thousands of beady, glowing eyes turned toward me.

  Shoot!

  The spiders flew straight up, filling the chamber with chitters and glowing light. I gasped as the last bug left the platform. David was gone.

  “David!”

  I shielded my eyes as scads of bony fingers clutched at my torso and dragged me off the platform. Wind slapped my cheeks as I flew into the darkness. Helpless, I cried out as they pitched my body against a wall. My breath fled from my lungs.

  I gasped and slid down a slippery wall. My knees smashed against the first solid surface I’d met in the immense chamber. Standing, I backed away as the swirling bugs formed a tornado-like funnel.

  That couldn’t be good.

  My shoulder brushed a cold surface as my backpack disappeared into the wall behind me. A liquid door?

  Someone yanked the straps, drawing me through the frigid wall and back into the stifling heat.

  I sprawled to the floor and stared straight up into the eyes of the Good Will Ambassador. His nose twisted like he’d sniffed rotten chicken.

  You gotta be kidding me.

  17

  A scuffle started to my right.

  “Jess, run!”

  David?

  The ambassador’s goons wrestled David to the floor and pulled him between Poseidon-guy and me. My heart ricocheted from joy to horror as our gazes met. Seeing David alive almost made it okay that we’d been caught.

  The ambassador’s features melted from disgust to the snarl of a homicidal maniac. He spoke softly in Erescopian, nearly hissing at David.

  David grunted, not looking up.

  Poseidon’s knuckles tangled in my hair as he pulled me to my knees. “Maybe I’ll just slit her throat. Have you seen what happens to a human when you cut them here?” He ran his scorching fingers across my neck.

  David’s gaze rose, his eyes full of fire and death. “Conadlasea emenda, est.”

  A short laugh puffed from the ambassador’s lips. “We’ll see.”

  Someone unzipped my backpack and handed Poseidon the canister of powder. The mustard dust shifted within as he tilted the container to the side. “Last chance, little boy. I am more than happy to release this entire container over Mars. Destroy it forever. A simple splice. That is all I am asking.”

  David sneered. “You ask too much.”

  Poseidon jostled my head. “I think not.”

  “Oa seben ayat, est,” David said, flinging the aliens holding him backward.

  He snatched the doomsday powder from Poseidon and grabbed my wrist. My feet didn’t touch the floor again until we were down the hall and around a corner.

  A cacophony of angry-sounding Erescopian words spewed behind us. Poseidon’s feet landed heavily on the floor.

  I clung to David’s arm as we whisked through a wall and to the right, slamming smack-dab into a violescent wall of Erescopian bodies.

  They drew us apart. One held me from behind, his hand easily encompassing my wrists and wrenching my arms behind my back.

  Take pictures of the news, Jess. Don’t become the news.

  Dad knew there would be trouble.

  Of course there was. I was involved.

  When in God’s name would I ever learn to listen to him?

  Poseidon sauntered toward us. A triumphant leer stitched to his lips. “You are on my ship, Tirran Coud. There is nowhere you can go that I cannot see. Nothing you can do that I would not know.”

  The lights flickered.

  The proud smirk slipped from Poseidon’s lips onto David’s.

  The ambassador’s eyes narrowed. “What have you done?”

  “This ends now. I’m not using this powder,” David said, shifting the canister in his hand. “One thing you were right about is that our race is dying. We need allies. Not more enemies.”

  Poseidon’s face became an unreadable mask. He glanced at the alien holding me and pointed at David. “Atate, est.”

  The pressure on my wrists released. I ran to David. He gathered me in his arms as the goons released him. I collapsed into his warmth.

  An alien to our left snickered as Poseidon spat several words in Erescopian. The dude on the other side of David reached for the canister.

  “No!” David said, twirling me away from their reaching arms.

  We ran back several steps before meeting another purple wall of guards.

  Trapped.

  David’s grip on me tightened. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

  Oh, God. The last time he said that we jumped off a moving train!

  The goons advanced, and the floor fell out beneath us. I curled into David. My pulse charged as frigid cold stung my skin.

  We rematerialized into oven-like heat. My lungs seized, filling with humid, stifling air.

  David shoved something into my backpack and zipped. “Stay with me. I know it’s hot.”

  We ran, David nearly dragging me the last several feet toward a huge, glistening opal. My head pounded in rhythm with a thundering alarm echoing from the surrounding corridors.

  The room fuzzed around me. The heat pressed on all sides. I stumbled.

  “I’ve got you.” David boosted me up.

  The heat ceded to a chill as we passed through the outer wall of the opal orb, but returned to Sahara-hot as we stepped inside.

  “Caluonte atades,” David shouted, and the temperature plunged to a chilly-feeling eighty or so.

  I took a deep breath as the humidity ebbed away.

  David lifted my chin. “Are you okay?” I nodded. “Good.”

  He sprinted through a small break in the wall. When my heart stopped trying to leap out of my chest, I followed.

  David sat before a blank surface, his hands within the liquid wall.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The fastest pre-flight ever.” He glanced toward a dull patch in the wall and grumbled something in Erescopian.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “No time to call a grassen.”

  “You want one of those homicidal bugs?”

  He murmured something that sounded like “if we want the ship to run” and sunk his arms deeper into the wall. The floor shimmied under my sneakers. I gasped as my feet left the ground. Pressure trounced me from all angles, like a million hands pushed from all sides and then disappeared.

  I tucked back my hair as my sneakers returned to the floor. “What the heck was that?”

  “Compression.” His arms waved frantically through the liquid console, his stare intense, as if he could see past the silvery fluid before him.

  His shoulders relaxed, and he pulled his arms from th
e liquid. I gaped as his hands came out of the gray muck clean. Not even wet.

  David stood. “We’re heading back to my father’s ship. We’ll be safe there.” He looked over his shoulder. “Elebia.”

  The walls shimmered, faded, and disappeared, leaving a million stars sparkling around me like a planetarium from all angles.

  “That blob we got on was a spaceship?”

  David nodded. “Short-range communications conveyor vessel.”

  I flinched. “Like the one you crashed on Earth?”

  He glanced at me, and back to the console. “Very funny.”

  I reached into the space where the wall had been. Frigid cold met my fingertips. The stars shifted like blowing on a window curtain. “This is amazing.”

  David rubbed my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Someday I’d love to take you for a ride, show you the galaxy, but we need to get this powder to the Caretakers.”

  He unzipped my backpack and plucked out the cylinder. He raised the can to eye-level and stared into the powder as if it concealed the secrets to the universe.

  “But the Caretakers are the ones who tried to have us executed on Earth. Aren’t they the bad guys?”

  “They are our government.” He lowered the canister. “My people were dying. The Caretakers took us in. Helped us. We’d be extinct without them. We owe them a great deal.” His jaw twitched.

  “You don’t sound certain about that.”

  Daggers shot out of his eyes. I stepped back, frightened of him for the first time. Damn. I must have hit a sore spot.

  A silvery-black dot in the distance enlarged. Apparently, we were moving, but it felt like we were standing still.

  David placed the canister on the console and sunk his hands back into the wall. “All that matters right now is destroying this powder. We need to—”

  His gaze shot up. The walls on all sides re-solidified, leaving only one window in front of David, and several smaller screens showing different clusters of stars.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  He looked to his right and a seat appeared. “Sit down.”

  “Why?”