Page 115 of Last of Her Name

“This is bad,” says Riyan.

“I know it’s bad! You think Iwantedthem to tie me to a table and steal my DNA?”

“Easy!” The tensor puts his hands behind his back. “I’m agreeing with you here.”

“Sorry. It’s been a long day.” I sigh and rub my eyes. “So Volkov’s going for the Prismata, but we could get there first. Now that the Firebird is activated, I know the coordinates.”

Come and find me. Clio’s voice echoes in my thoughts. She’s out there in the darkness, waiting for me. Needing me.

“You’re forgetting we have only one Prism,” says Pol, “while Volkov probably has thousands he could burn through. He could leave a week after us and still beat us there.”

“Not if we give theValentinaeverything we’ve got,” I counter. “We could be there in less than a day, probably, if we drained the Prism dry.”

They fall quiet, staring at me.

Then Mara nods. “We don’t have a choice.”

“Of course we have a choice,” Pol interjects. “If we burn through our one Prism, we’ll be stranded.”

“At thesourceof all Prisms,” I point out.

“Even if we could scavenge a new crystal, we’d have no way to evade the vityaze ships if they arrived on our tail. We’d be floating like a dead rock, the perfect target.”

“Like Mara said, we don’t have a choice.” I look at Riyan. “It’s your ship, your Prism. What do you think?”

He glances at Natalya. “Whatever it takes to stop that man, we have to do it.”

“I’m in too,” Mara adds. “If the Prismata falls, we all go down, anyway. It must be defended.”

Not just for that reason, I think. To some extent, the Prismata is Clio. My life’s instinct to protect her may have been a warped manifestation of the Firebird code, but it’s still at the center of who I am. Her form has changed, but she’s still mine to protect.

“How would we do it?” Riyan asks.

I shrug. “When we get there, I can … I don’t know,talkto it. Try to get it to move or something. Or to fight back and defend itself. I’m not exactly an expert on it, okay? I onlyjustgot dumped into all this.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Pol growls, “we’ll be target practice for the Union ships that are probably already prepping for flight. I can’t let you walk into the middle of a firefight, Stace.”

“Or maybe you’re just a coward,” snaps Mara.

“He’s not!” I say. “Stop it. Both of you.”

“I’m not going to let you die.” With that, Pol stands and storms into the back cabins.

Sighing, I turn to the others. “Let me talk to him.”

“I can chart the course,” Mara says. “Just tell me where to go.”

I nod and touch my fingertip to the control board, letting the coordinates flow into the ship’s navigational system.

As I climb down from the control deck, I watch the triangles of light glow and fade on my hands. The lights must be like the dark mask the tensors get when they use their abilities. They seem harmless enough, even pretty, but they make me feel like an alien in my own skin.

I find Pol bent over a tabletka in his bunk, looking at planet schematics. He sees me walk in and flings a holo my way—a small ringed planet springs up between us.

“Obsidiath,” he says. “It’s not on the fringe, not in the center, but tucked nicely in between. It’s riddled with caves and tunnels, and I’ve heard entire colonies live under its surface, completely off the grid.”

“Pol.”

“Don’t like it? How about this one?” He throws up another planet. “Rubyat, my father’s homeworld. You like sand, don’t you? We could become desert smugglers. Change our names and our faces.”