Page 147 of The Last Hope

It’d been frozen over and deserted by its sister planets. But Moura and the other admirals feared the challenges of blending in. There’s little knowledge surrounding the customs of Saltare-3. And being able to perfectly pick up the dialect onanySaltare planet… it seemed impossible.

Those at the summit came up with a solution. A very controversial solution.

For the best chance at survival, the spies would need to be embedded on the planet at infancy. There they would grow up. Learn Saltarian ways. Adapt seamlessly.

The admirals called for volunteers.

They needed parents to part with their newborns. Send them to this big frozen planet in hopes that one day, they’d grow old enough to serve the Republic of Gaia and bring peace to their true home.

Moura always told me that the room went into the coldest silence she’d everfelt.It was like all the air drained from the atmosphere. The risk was too big.

No one came forward.

So the admirals did the only thing they could—they gave up each of their future firstborns for the mission.

Moura told me stories about Mykal. She never named him, but she’d call him the boy she lost. The one she hadforEarth.Forhumanity. He was born first of the three. On theLucretzia,Moura gave birth in the atrium overlooking the stars.

She said he wailed and cried in her arms and only quieted when she sung him hymns.

And then she broke the law to test his deathday. Pricked the bottom of his heel with a Death Reader, and when she saw the number, she knew it wasn’t good.His deathday.The Saltarians would think he’d die when he was eight. A Babe. It was a problem, but one they would deal with in time.

Court was next.

Admiral Hull gave birth two weeks later on theLucretzia.Not more than a day old, he was swaddled in blankets with Mykal and flown to Saltare-3.

“Who flew the jet?” I asked Moura. That’s what I was most interested in. Who was this great, big, brave person that single-piloted the jet onto a Saltare planet?Hero.I always thought in my head.

“Captain Prinslo,” Moura replied. “She was pregnant at the time. With the girl.”

The girl.

The one I’d later come to know as Franny Bluecastle.

Prinslo was supposed to be the liaison between the spies andtheLucretzia.Her role seemed anything but simple. Embed the babies on Saltare-3 and then hide out in the Free Lands until the children turn eight years old. Then, she’d give each of them the details about their parentage. About Earth. The spies would remain on Saltare-3 to gather data before venturing to the bigger, more advanced Saltare planets. All the while, blending in and feeding information back to Earth.

Everything hinged on Prinslo. And when a whole operation is weighing on one person’s shoulders, there’s bound to be mistakes.

Moura let me listen to the early communication recordings that Prinslo was able to send from Saltare-3. She told me that originally it took three days to break the encryption.

In the house barge, I remove the Prinslo Tape from my shorts’ pocket. I’ve been carrying the tape and an old player with me, ever since Franny found it in the bookcase. I never meant for them to hear the recording until we were on Earth.

But here.

Right now.

I pop the tape in and press play.

“It’s Day One,” Prinslo says. Hum and static fill the background. Her voice is like gravel, and it becomes worse and worse in each recording. Until the very last, I always have to strain my ears to pick up each word.

The wind. The cold.It was painfully scarring her vocal cords.

She continues, “I’ve just landed in the Free Lands. It’s colder…muchcolder than we originally thought. I’m struggling to make it into Grenpale. But Imust.”

Originally, the plan had been to leave Mykal in Bartholo, but there was still that problem. Mykal was a Babe. He would dodge his deathday at eight years old. Too young to have that happen in a crowded city. So Prinslo did the only sensible thing: she took him to the villages where there weren’t any Influentials around.

But she faced another problem.

There aren’t any orphanages in Grenpale.