I stare down at the pink, round face with its eight perfect eyes and fleshy trunklike nose. I hum a few bars of the hatching song, and she nuzzles into me with a high, contented chirp. I’m not her mother—the female who laid her egg has been dead for decades—but I helped bring her into this world. Holding her fills my heart in a way I didn’t expect.
“Hi, Lele,” I say. I’m honored to share part of my name with her, I realize. Even if I’m not part of her daily life, we’ll always have a connection. It’s not her fault that she hatched under such strained circumstances. “Welcome to the outside.”
My break is over too soon, and I reluctantly hand her back to Harl before resuming my songs. When the last baby hatches, my voice is just a rasp and my throat is painfully sore. I want to help clean the nests and feed the last batch of hatchlings, but Oljin insists Rose and I both spend eight hours asleep before he’ll let us near the hatchery.
I’m too tired to argue. He’s right. We deserve rest.
I curl up in Lyro’s cloak. His citrus-and-smoke scent is fading, but I can still smell him in its folds. He’s in every one of my dreams, too, standing just behind me, one hand on the back of my neck.
An alarm drags me out of sleep. I can tell by the ache in my bones that it hasn’t been eight hours. My tablet flashes next to the bed, and I squint to read the text scrolling across the screen.
INCOMING OBJECT. BRACE FOR IMPACT.
A shudder ripples through the base, jostling me on the bed platform, and my first thought ishe’s back. The last time this happened, it was Lyro’s ship crashing into the side of the base. I sit up, breathless at the idea that he might be hurt...or worse.
But then the alarm sounds again, and adrenaline bursts through me when another crash shakes the bed, and another. Meteors. It’s scary, but at least I know what it is. There’s nothing I can do except wait it out.
Then a second alarm sounds in chorus, shriller and more insistent than the first.
FIRE IN SECTOR 4. SEAL PASSAGES FOR SUPPRESSION.
Everything in me goes cold. Sector 4 is directly adjacent to the hatchery. They share a wall. Sure enough, another message comes through immediately.
ALL FREE PERSONNEL TO SECTOR 3. EVACUATION IN PROGRESS.
Irun, deaf to the blare of competing alarms, blind to the worried faces of the new parents running alongside me. I ignore the rising temperature and acrid smoke filling the air as we get closer to the hatchery.
My babies need me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.
Lyro
AS FLUSH WITH PROUDpigment as I’ve been since my blade tasted Zomah’s blood, it all flees my channels when I swoop close to R’Hiza’s surface.
Ships of all sizes careen past me, too close together as they race to exit the atmosphere. One banks sharply an instant before a flaming meteor slices through the air, narrowly missing my bird’s right wing.
It’s only then that I look past the launching ships and notice the dark smoke that has engulfed Frathiks’ patchwork base, stark even swirled into the dense fog.
Frix. This is bad.
More ships emerge, leaving streaks of fog behind, as I near the landing zone. This isn’t a too-hasty launch after a successful Hatching. This is an exodus.
Is Lena on one of those ships? I don’t know what to hope.
The comm sounds to open a channel and I numbly press it. “Evacuation order in place. All ships cleared for launch. Manual operation only, check nav for other trajectories before setting your own. Alioth save us all.” When it repeats, it’s clear that the message is recorded and playing on a loop, the space dock unmanned.
I’m on my own and so is she.
I should never have left her with these incompetents. They can’t even keep her safe for a few days. Why did I trust them? I’m going to kill Harl, if he isn’t already dead.
“I’ll take good care of her,”he said. I’m not the only liar.
This time, my landing is neat and unobstructed. There are few other ships there. The snowy expanse of the landing area is virtually empty save my bird and the stripped carcass of another.
The hangar door is wide open to the elements, and I’ve never seen anything more ominous than the flickering glow coming from inside. It silhouettes a large transport vehicle. Dozens of figures run in and out of it with bundles in their arms.
Greenlings. It has to be. And if there are spawn to be saved, IknowLena is still inside. Goddess, she’s going to kill me with her stunning stupidity.
I’m already halfway there, the freezing, acidic air stinging the inside of my nares. Even through my filtering gills, it burns. When I finally reach the relative shelter of the open hangar,the Frathiks carrying their carefully wrapped infants barely take notice of me.
