Page 156 of Stardusted

“It became pretty obvious we weren’t going to win,” he said, finally lifting his face again. His gaze grew distant. As lost in his story as I was. “We were down to one ship, and it was falling apart. So…” He blinked once, like he was resurfacing, and he fiddled with his wiper setting, kicking it up a notch to battle the downpour. “So our leaders came up with a last-ditch plan. An attack meant to fry the Enil mothership’s onboard computers—and hopefully disable their drones long enough for us to get away. And it worked. Kind of.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow, and he dropped his chin, staring out at the storm. For some reason, I braced myself, some instinct telling me we were coming to the story’s culmination.

I wasn’t wrong.

He spoke quietly but clearly. “But the attack also friedouronboard computer and almost destroyed our ship. We were able to salvage basic systems, but we lost all the long-distance commsand nav data. Everything. All the logs. All our past jump points and everything we’d used to map routes through the stars…”

A stone landed in my stomach. I dug my fingers into my thighs as he slowly turned back to me.

“Including,” he said, his eyes boring into mine, voice steady, “the location of Pladia.”

Holy. Crap.

There was no saliva left in my mouth. Or air in my lungs. “So you’re saying…you don’t know how to get home. You don’t know where Pladia is. And the map in the halix is— Andyouthink…”

Sky nodded gravely. He’d stopped fidgeting. Like now that he’d gotten the words out and it was done—his oath broken—he’d receded into that calm again.

That made one of us. I felt anything but calm.

Because what he was saying…what he wasimplying…

“Space is huge,” he said, in that same soft, even tone. “It’s not as easy as just pointing your ship in the right direction and hitting the gas. And the mothership—the last Pladian ship, the one I’m from—wasn’t built for long-term deep-space travel. Let alone decades of war. It’s barely holding together.”

“So…” I flattened my marked hand to my sternum. Underneath it, my insides were writhing. “That’s why you’re looking for these halix things.”

“Yes. Because the info caches hold the coordinates to Pladia. Coordinates we need.”

Which meant—oh God—he thoughtIwas the key.

The key to getting home. And not just for him, but forallof them. Every single Pladian stranded on that ship.

No wonder he didn’t want to let me out of his sight.

And just like that, I was back to wanting to throw up again.

Chapter 36

TO FLORIDA AND BEYOND

Igulped a deep breathand leaned forward to flatten my hands on the dashboard. Mainly to stop myself from sliding limply right down onto Sky’s floorboards.

“Holyshit,” I managed to force out.

Sky thought I was the key to saving his people.

Lightning flickered blue through the watery sheen and condensation gathering inside the windows. We’d been sitting here long enough for the car to grow stuffy. Hot.

Or maybe that was the gravitas of his confession.

Suddenly, that icy cold rain beating down outside was looking real good again.

“You think I can get you home,” I whispered, staring at the smeared, fogged-up glass.

“I’m sorry.” I could feel Sky looking at me, and his quiet tone was just as apologetic. Like he knew what he’d just thrown my way. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I know it’s a lot.”

A lot.Somuch. Swallowing hard, I twisted my head to look at him, wide-eyed. “And the Enil? Why are they chasing the halix?”

“That one is a little more complicated,” Sky said, leaning back against the door. He was still watching me closely, likehe, too, was wondering if I was going to throw myself out of the car and run screaming into the night. A distinct possibility. “We aren’t entirely sure why they’re chasing it. We think they’ve figured out we’re after it—clearly, since they’re scanning for its signal—but we’re not sure if they knowwhy. The Enil aren’t stupid machines. There’s a chance they’ve put it together, and they’re hoping to get their hands on the info cache first.” He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, biting the inside of his cheek. “Which would be very, very bad. Right now, they don’t know where our home world is. And if they did, if they found Pladia first, after how brutal this war has been and howwetechnically started it…”