Page 124 of Shades of Earth (Across the Universe 3)

Just light.

And then it’s gone.

And then he’s gone.

71: AMY

I am numb, inside and out.

I stare up at the cold night sky until it is as empty as I am.

Behind me, the hybrids talk. I suppress a shudder. I am a hybrid now too. My eyes see far better in the dark than they’ve ever been able to before. I notice each leaf of the trees in shadow, I hear the tiniest sounds distinctly.

I hear the hybrids talking.

“The threat is eliminated; our communication specialists confirm it,” one of the hybrids says.

“Elder saved us all,” Chris says.

The rogue leader grumbles something.

I turn. I have lost everything I have ever loved. But in the absence of love, a resolve made of steel fills me up. I stride toward the rogue leader. Chris halfheartedly raises his gun—my gun—the gun used to kill my father—toward me, but I knock his hand aside as if he held nothing more dangerous than a flower. I stand directly in front of the rogue leader and look him straight in the eyes. I’m uncomfortably close to him; I’ve invaded his personal space, and he doesn’t like it, but he’s unwilling to step back.

“I believe,” I say flatly, “that we have a peace treaty to negotiate. And I think we can start with the release of my colony, the people you are currently holding in captivity. ”

“That can wait until—” the leader starts to say.

I cut him off. “It will not wait. You have imprisoned my people, abused us, and killed us. You’re going to start by letting them go. Now. And then we can talk about the rest of the retribution you owe my colony. ”

The rogue leader cocks his head, looking down at me. Finally, he extends his hand. When I take it and we shake, he adds, “My name is Zane. And now that the FRX is out of the equation, I think both of our people can learn to live together very well. ”

Zane has some sort of communication device that is far beyond the radios and even wi-coms that we had. He calls for trucks to come to us while at the same time sending information to release the colony and bring the people back to the ruins to live.

“How many of the buildings still stand?” I ask. When I escaped, at least three of the buildings—including the one I had lived in with my family—were destroyed.

“We tried to keep damage minimal,” Zane says. “And whether you believe it or not, we tried to keep deaths at a minimum, too. ”

I don’t believe that, not at all. They could have destroyed the auto-shuttle rather than kill everyone inside it when my mom was leaving. But they didn’t. They wanted to intimidate us, take us by force so we could surrender. Or maybe killing us was just simpler.

I narrow my eyes. Killing us would have been simpler. “You tried to wreck the shuttle before we even landed,” I say, remembering the way we were knocked off course.

Zane nods slowly, watching me as if he’s afraid I’m about to attack him. But I’m too busy lining up all the pieces. The hacked communication Dad and Elder heard when we first arrived. The shuttle lockdown. Every stumbling block and miscommunication. All because of the rogue hybrids.

“You know,” I say bitterly, “if you’d just been honest with us from the start, we could have worked together. ”

Zane raises his eyebrow. “Colonel Martin did not seem the kind of man to abandon his mission. ”

I force myself to look at my father’s body, and I can’t seem to quiet the part of myself that realizes Zane might be right. Maybe my dad wouldn’t have negotiated with the rogue hybrids. I don’t think he agreed with the FRX and their program of forced slavery, but it is possible that my father, who was in the military all his life and whose first instinct upon landing on Centauri-Earth was to get his orders from the FRX, would not have been able to think about peace without first seeing bloodshed.

I tell that annoying—but truthful—part of myself to shut up.

Trucks arrive, and even though they’re larger than the biggest gas-guzzlers on Sol-Earth, they move across the rough terrain silently. Cubes of solar glass line the roof of each truck. I suspect the hybrids have figured out a way to use the suns’ energy to fuel the vehicles, but I don’t bother asking about it as Chris and Zane usher me into the first one. Zane leaves the other at the communication building with orders that, when the auto-shuttle lands, they are to take Bartie and the formula for the Inhibitor medicine to a secure location.

“I want to take you to the city first,” Zane says eventually. When I don’t respond, he shifts uncomfortably, looking out the window at the passing landscape. He and Chris are both nervous around me—they’re waiting for me to break down.

But I won’t.

Not in front of them.