Page 86 of Shades of Earth (Across the Universe 3)

“Where’s Amy?” I ask, panicked and breathless.

Colonel Martin stares at me as if he doesn’t understand my words. “Amy?”

“Yeah, is she okay?”

“Amy’s fine. She’s not here. ”

My knees go weak at his words. Thank the stars! Colonel Martin shoves past me, not bothering to waste the time it would take to send me back to the colony, and I get a hold of myself enough to follow him toward the site of the explosion. We move forward, the acrid smell of smoke burning our noses and blurring our eyes.

We continue as a tight group, me in the center. Everyone except me has a gun out, and they use the guns like eyes, always pointed forward.

When we reach the blast zone, the smoke billows around us, making it almost impossible to see. My eyes water as we creep forward, and I’ve never been more grateful for wind than when a breeze dilutes the smoke, making the world visible again. The trees are nothing but charred, blackened sticks in the ground. The ground itself is lumpy, like freshly plowed soil, but scorched and marred.

We stop when we see the shuttle.

The elegant, smooth lines of the shuttle have been ripped into three sections. The bridge is the farthest away but least damaged, as if a child snapped it off and tossed it into the trees. The rest of the shuttle is split in half longwise, the roof blown apart like a blossoming flower made of burnt, smoking metal.

“Spread out. Look for casualties. Look for perpetrators. Look for evidence,” Colonel Martin orders.

The ground directly under the shuttle—the blackened, burnt sand that was turned into glass by the rockets of the shuttle landing—is cracked open and shattered, little beads of charred glass no longer with a trace of the suns’ light in them. I wonder if the explosion made the glass break or if the aliens used the glass already here to set off the explosion.

I avoid the empty shell of the shuttle. It is ragged metal edges and burning aftermath. The cryo chambers are all blown apart, the glass boxes shattered and strewn everywhere. The gen lab is split nearly evenly in half. The embryos of animals from Sol-Earth are gone. I can see the heavy cylinders cracked open, leaking yellow goop and little beans of fetuses on the burning ground. The incubators—the scientists had started making horses and dogs—are burnt to a crisp.

Most of our food supplies were there. Irreplaceable equipment. And—the realization hits me like a punch in the gut—Harley’s last painting, the one he made for Amy. Amy had brought it with her but kept it in the shuttle. For safety. Nothing but ash now.

I stumble and nearly fall over a heavy metal plaque. A double-winged eagle and the word Godspeed engraved on one side. The nameplate of the shuttle. Scorch marks along one side, making it illegible.

It wasn’t much, but the shuttle was my last tie to Godspeed. It was the last piece of the ship I had. The last remnant of the place I called home.

And now it’s gone.

I flip the nameplate over with my foot. Under it is a perfectly curved piece of glass.

I pick up the glass carefully. Once it’s out of the debris, I can see that it’s a globe. I don’t remember anything on the shuttle in this spherical shape.

The light catches it just right, and I see the swirling liquid gold inside. The solar energy.

Shite.

“Colonel Martin?” I call nervously.

One of the other military men looks up at me. When he sees what’s in my hand, he shouts for Colonel Martin and races to fetch him.

The ball of glass in my hand is about the same size as my head, but I can tell that it’s made of thinner glass than the cube Amy has. I have no doubt in my mind that it will break—it’s a miracle it hasn’t broken already.

“Son of a—” Colonel Martin curses when he sees me. “Why did you pick that up?”

“I didn’t know what it was . . . ” I say. My hands are slick with sweat, making the glass ball even harder to hold.

“Put it down . . . gently . . . gently . . . ” Colonel Martin says. “Back up, everyone. ”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see everyone else nervously moving back, looking for cover. I bend at my knees, bringing the glass ball down as carefully as possible. An inch above the ground, I hesitate. My face is less than a foot away from a glass bomb, the same kind that must have been used to blow up the entire shuttle.

“Careful,” Colonel Martin calls.

“I know,” I snap.

The glass ball makes a soft clink! when it touches the ground.