“Easy,” I muttered. I sat with my knees on either side, gripping the control yoke tighter than necessary. I wasn’t even doing anything, yet. I didn’t know why I was so damn nervous. SOL flickered beside me, the soft glow of its screen painting the cockpit in pale blue light. The orb would have to stay behind in the shuttle, otherwise Earth’s gravity would force me to drag it uselessly across the ground, but I still needed access to its systems. I’d have to hope our connection managed across the distance, to document the possibilities.
Possible.The word that had been running my life for the last two weeks. Possible; that Solace was alive. Possible; the air wouldn’t kill her. Possible; that I wasn’t aboutto burn alive in a stolen shuttle.Possible; that we could return home soon.
The shuttle lurched as we kissed the upper atmosphere and outside the window, the first streaks of flames crawled across the hull.
I was falling now.Fast.Which happened to be my least favorite part.
“Hang on, Sol,” I whispered. “I’m coming.”The shuttle shuddered as it hit the upper edge of the expanse and for a moment the whole craft shook violently. My stomach lurched, sweat beading down my brow. “Easy—easy,” I muttered as warning lights flashed across the console. The autopilot fought the drag for a few seconds before the system chimed. MANUAL CONTROL REQUIRED.
Of course.
I flicked the switch and the controls shifted beneath my hands, the shuttle suddenly feeling less like a falling rock and more like an aircraft. Muscle memory kicked in and for the first time since stealing the damn thing, I was something close to calm. Roaring through the clouds, the ship rattled as the air thickened around us. Fire streaked across the viewport, orange light licking along the edges of the glass as Earth rushed up and fast.
What I hoped was the Olympic Peninsula spread beneath the haze like a dark open wound in the landscape—endless forest stretching toward the horizon. Somewhere in there was Solace. If my coordinates were even close.
“Hang on,” I whispered, though I had no idea who I was talking to anymore. The shuttle screamed as I forced the nose downward and fought the controls. It wasn’t exactly made for crash landings and I was really gambling at this point. The air was heavier than expected whichmeant the old transport ship handled like a brick with wings.
When the ground finally appeared through the thinning, it wasn’t as dark as I expected from nuclear winter, but it was still hard to see. Clouds hung low above the treeline as sunlight fought to filter through them.
Clouds were such a kind observation. These were more like pools of smoke that hung in the air like pockets of thick fog.
There was a wide open field on the edge of the blot of forest.
Good enough.
Wrestling the shuttle down, the landing gear slammed into the dirt hard enough to rattle my teeth and send my brain spinning. The craft skidded across the field in a spray of ash and dead soil before finally grinding to a stop with a pathetic flop. Silence swallowed the cockpit and for a moment I sat there and allowed myself to breathe, because I’d just successfully landed a space shuttle on earth after nuclear fallout. Most importantly, I was still alive and I had all my limbs and nothing was on fire.
I climbed down from the shuttle and dropped into the field, burnt stems cracking under my boots. I peeled my foot up to reveal lavender, or what used to be lavender.
“SOL, map please.”
Pulling up a map Elias had created from its thermal readings and an old National Forestry map we’d found, I turned in circles until my visor pointed south. If our math was correct, she should be roughly twenty-one klicks deep into the forest.
“Report.”
“Heart rate slightly elevated—“
“Atmosphere report, SOL.”
“Radiationexposure: 6.4 microsieverts per hour. Atmospheric oxygen: 19.2 percent. Ambient temperature: 4.1 degrees Celsius. ARS-7: harmful.”
Besides the Haze, the other levels weren’t bad. In fact, it was better than I imagined it might be this close to a blast zone. Still—I wouldn’t be taking off my helmet no matter how badly I wished to take deep lungful’s of real non-recycled air. “Alert me when it jumps higher than eight microsieverts.”
“Copy.”
The helmet HUD blinked to life, feeding me the basics—oxygen levels, radiation, a faint thermal overlay bleeding through the field. SOL’s survival package had been built into the suits years ago with just enough to keep idiots like me alive on strange planets.
Pulling the straps tight across my shoulders, I adjusted the seals to my suit and turned toward the dark line of trees waiting at the edge of the field.
The bunker was exactly where the coordinates said it would be. A concrete scar carved into the forest, half swallowed by shadow. I flicked on the flashlight mounted to my helmet and started down the ramp.
My jaw locked.
The heavy steel door hung open.No.I wasn’t losing her again.
“Fuck…” I stepped inside.
The smell hit me first, even with an air-tight helmet. It smelled damp with rot, something sour curling beneath it. From there it opened into a sealed chamber, but that door had been open too. Lights flickered overhead, and a few coats hung from hooks on the wall beside orange hazmat suits like what you might grab from a hardware store. I moved down the corridor until it opened into a wide central room, hallways branching off in every direction.
