Page 50 of Bound by Stars

Jupiter

Six days to Mars

“Step aside and let him through.” Gianna waves her weapon, parting the crowd.

The bay goes quiet. People slowly split, their attention shifting between me and my mother’s armed guard.

“Jupiter, thank the universe. Come.” Mom’s voice is at a normal volume, but she might as well be shouting compared to the silent bystanders.

I frown at the onlookers, their expressions an array of hatred and fear. “What’s going on?”

Dad steps forward, waving me on to join them. “Hurry.”

Without looking down, I find Weslie’s hand beside me and lace my fingers through hers.

“You can’t just take the last pod for yourself like you do everything else,” someone shouts from the back of the pack.

The pod is built for twelve. Tar estimated they could hold double long enough to make it to the Mars station.

Most of these people could fit, but my mother would have them die before she was packed into a pod with any of them.

I don’t want to believe it. I thought when it really mattered, when lives were at stake, she’d have the capacity to care. To be better than this.

Cries of agreement and disdain run through the spectators as they close in around us.

I shake my head slowly. “This isn’t right. We could all fit if…”

Marching up the cleared path, Gianna grabs my arm and drags me through the crowd.

I tighten my grip on Weslie’s hand, pulling her along.

Gianna shoves me toward the pod door, training her gun over the angry mob again. “If any of you step closer, I promise I will shoot. No matter where I aim, I’m either taking one of you down or ripping another hole through this ship.”

A deep rumble rolls through the pod bay. The floor tilts sideways. People grab hold of the walls, knocking into each other.

Gianna catches me by my shirt before I fall, backing toward the door as the artificial gravity shifts. Moving her gun back and forth, she warns off the crowd.

“Get in, Jupe!” Dad strains against his harness to peer out at me.

Weslie loosens her grip.

I catch her fingers, looking back over my shoulder.

Lips pressed together, she smiles like she’s silently granting me permission to leave her behind.

I shake my head. She’s not sacrificing herself. No way I’m getting off this ship without her.

A high-pitched sound tears through the bay. Everyone winces, covering their ears. There isn’t much time left.

I pull Weslie with me and sprint for the pod door, but Gianna catches my shoulder.

Wes tears her hand from my grip, and I turn back. The muzzle of the gun is pressed against her chest.

My heart drops into my stomach. “Gianna, what are you doing? Lower the gun.”

Her throat bobs as she swallows, but her expression stays blank and focused.

Hands raised, Weslie steps farther away, backing toward the crowd.

“No.” I follow her away from the pod.

“I have to get ILSA and the others. We’ll find another way.”

I reach for her. “I’m not going without you.”

The creaking and tearing grow louder. She presses her cheek against mine and brings her lips close to my ear, whispering, “There are extra pods near the bridge. I’ll go there. Without you, that’s one less we have to fit. Don’t worry about me.”

She pulls at my hand, but I don’t let go.

“Please, Jupe. You have to go.”

Gianna rips us apart, yanking me back and shoving Weslie into the crowd as they surge forward around her.

“No!” The word tears through my throat.

Her smile is false as the angry mob engulfs her.

She wants me to believe what she said, that she’ll make it off the ship, that there’s a good reason for me to go and her to stay, but we both know she was lying.

She turns away, swallowed up by the chaos.

My rib cage caves in around my heart, cutting through my insides, ripping me apart.

Gianna carries me halfway through the pod door, but I catch the edge with both hands. “I can’t leave her!”

The crew pods are probably long gone. She’ll be stuck on a sinking ship.

I stare at my mother. “You could let these people on and save them all.”

“You know exactly why that is not possible, Jupiter. Fewer bodies give us a better chance of survival. Who knows how long rescue efforts will take?”

“Bodies? These are people!” I sweep my hand back toward the faces of parents and children and friends and companions. People who are loved. Who will leave others behind to grieve for them. Who matter, no matter where they were born.

“If one of us doesn’t make it, more people will suffer under the collapse of the company.” Her voice is so emotionless, so callous.

My stomach twists. “You have to—”

“You are getting in this pod whether you want to or not!” She pinches her eyes shut, her jaw tight and posture rigid. Taking a seat, she smooths her dress over her thighs like she’s sitting down to dinner. “Now, take your seat, or Gianna will put you in it.”

Gianna grabs at the front of my shirt, but I block her with my open palm.

She meets my gaze. The resolve in her expression loosens like she’s torn between what she’s ordered to do and what she wants to do.

Her shoulders rise and fall heavily. She’s an Earther like Weslie, like most of these people.

I’ve never considered the emotional toll working for my mother must have on her.

A man lunges for her.

“Back off!” She whips around, and he freezes with the muzzle of her gun pressed to his forehead before she kicks him back into the crowd.

“Jupe, please…” my father begs.

I can see what he doesn’t say in his eyes. I can’t lose you, too.

Andi’s death broke my family. Or maybe I just didn’t realize how fragile our connections were until she was gone. Like she was the part that kept us functioning. The missing piece that meant without her we’d never run right again.

Dad tries to stand, but the straps catch him. He starts to unclamp the complicated harness holding him in his seat.

I look to where Weslie disappeared into the crowd.

A tugging sensation in the pit of my stomach draws me back like an invisible thread still connecting us.

And somehow, I know it’s permanent. That no matter what happened to either of us, it would always be pulling me toward her, even if I got on that escape pod and she didn’t make it out.

My chest is suddenly painfully hollow at the thought.

“That’s it! I’m getting my kids on that pod,” a woman shrieks, charging toward us with a small child in each arm.

Gianna fires at the ceiling, stepping through the door and reaching for me, but I duck out of her grip, opening a path for the mother and twins to dive into the pod.

I turn back to my parents, my eyes flicking from one to the other. “I’m sorry.”

I barrel into the crowd, fighting against the rush for the escape pod.

Their last hope for survival. Possibly mine.

But I have to get to Weslie. I turn back, watching as the passengers pass their children toward the front, forcing them into the pod with my parents.

Gianna brandishes her gun, holding back the tide until the last of the children is thrust inside.

She dips her head to me and ducks through the doorway.

“Nooo—” My mom’s scream is cut off by the sealing door as Gianna hits the release button and they’re catapulted into space.

The current of the remaining crowd shifts like crashing water, pushing me in every direction.

“We’re all going to die!” a woman screams.

Hands grab at my shirt. A shoulder slams into my chest. Fingernails claw at my bare forearm. I search the sea of faces, but she’s not here. I’m knocked backward, losing ground, and grab a handful of someone’s jacket before I fall.

“Let go!” the man next to me shouts.

Barely keeping my footing, I duck under swinging arms, trip over moving feet. I pull myself through the chaos until I break through. “Weslie!”

Next to the row of abandoned docking stations, she spins back, and I envelop her.

Tears stream down her face. “What are you doing? You should have gone. I told you to go!”

“Too late now.” I hold her wet face in my hands.

“I thought you were smart, Jupe. Why the hell would you—”

I kiss her like I almost lost her again. Like it’s the only way I can say I can’t live without her. Then, gasping for air, I touch my forehead to hers. “We’ll figure it out.”

A thundering boom shakes the floor underneath us. Another explosion.

Over the speakers in the bay, a robotic voice, the tone dipping and crackling, announces, “ Escape … escape p-pod release initiat-ted.”

I scan the row of sealed doors. All the pods have left. If those doors open, there’s only space behind them.

We stumble and run for the stairwell. I pass the threshold behind Weslie as two beep s sound.

The doors where pods are no longer attached twist open, sucking air and people out of the ship.

I grip the wall. We’re pinned to either side of the door, air streaming past us.

I hit the control and seal us in. On the other side, there are no screams, no more tearing, no sound at all.

I slip down the wall, hugging my knees.

They’re all dead. My parents could have saved all of those people and now they’re just gone.

My chest heaves with panting breaths.

Weslie cups my face in her cold palms.

I can’t get enough oxygen. There’s not enough oxygen.

Her voice sounds far away. “Jupiter. Breathe with me.”

I follow her lead, finally taking a full breath. The stabbing ache in my chest dulls.

“The ship is malfunctioning. And it’s only going to get worse.” She pulls me up off the floor. “We have to move. Now.”

I nod and we race up the stairs.

On the next level, the doorway is still crammed with angry people, but the platform is no longer packed.

Most of the other passengers must have got through or given up.

Or worse. My eyes flick toward the cavern between the stairs, the scream of the person who fell trying to follow me across echoing in my head.

We squeeze by to get to the next flight of stairs. At the back of the landing, Skye and Asha are trying to shove through.

“It’s no use.” I grab Skye’s shoulder as she hurtles toward the congestion for a second time.

We all race up the abandoned stairs. Another level above the pod bay, Curran is propped against ILSA with Tar under his free arm. He smiles at me, but his face goes even grayer when he looks at Weslie.

She pauses in front of them, staring into Curran’s face and clenching her jaw.

“What’s going on?” I look between the two.

“Nothing. Let’s keep moving.” Without dropping my hand, Weslie heads up the next set of steps, taking them two at a time.

I follow, and the rest trail behind me.

We all file out into the bottom first-class level.

A little way down the hall, the main stairway is cast in shadows.

Nothing like the gleaming display of polished wood it was just hours ago.

I wonder if the clock is still running. Counting down to the end of the ship, the end of our lives, instead of our arrival on Mars.

Weslie stops, and I bump into her. She meets my gaze with a serious expression, trying to hide the worry in her eyes, and then scans the group. “There aren’t any escape pods left down there.”

Asha’s expression falls.

Tar and Curran lock eyes.

Skye presses a hand to her forehead, pacing once before she stops in front of Weslie. “What about ILSA? She’s a life-sustaining bot, right?”

Everyone watches her hopefully. But I’ve spent hours with Weslie learning all about ILSA. Skye’s answer is in her name— Individualized Life Support Assistant.

“I am right here, Skye. I can speak to my own capabilities.”

“I’m sorry, ILSA.”

Weslie’s voice is hollow and quiet. “She can only carry one. And the Mars station would have to send rescue fas—”

“Two could be feasible,” ILSA interjects.

Wes glares at her. “Still doesn’t help the six of us.”

I turn to her. “The ILSA stock in the cargo bay.”

Weslie shakes her head. “Even if they’re still here and they weren’t locked up, they’re unfinished.”

We all go quiet, listening to the far-off sounds of our life support breaking down around us. Everyone exchanges glances. No one wants to volunteer to die. No one has the nerve to insist on being one of the two to live.

It’s not over. We’re not out of options. There’s got to be another way off. Something we haven’t considered. I take a slow breath.

The bridge. That’s it. On our tour, they mentioned there are pods for the bridge crew. Maybe Weslie’s false promise wasn’t a dead end. The murdered crew members. Without them, there could be space for us. “The pods near the bridge.”

Weslie grimaces. She knows it’s a long shot, but right now, it’s the only hope we have.

Rapid footsteps echo through the hall. Someone races around the corner, and we all turn.

Reve freezes, locking eyes with Weslie.