Page 148 of The Last Hope

There was nowhere to leave him without drawing even more suspicion.

“Day Two,” Prinslo says in the recording. Slight pain drips along her voice, and she chokes on certain words. “I had to swap the babies. Moura’s child for a little boy in the village. His own mother just died. Kickfall… was supposed to be his last name… I heard.” She sniffs, but not from the cold. “The Saltarian baby—I couldn’t… I didn’t want to take him to the city. He’ll serve a better life on Earth. My escape pod, the one I have for emergencies… for myself. He’s inside. I set the coordinates for Earth for… the cottage on the hills. M should know what that means. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

Moura’s cottage.

I arrived there.

Moura used to give me ancient comics, ones with superheroes. She’d tell me that I was like Earth’s superhero. An alien who appeared on a planet, come to save the human race. But it was something to make me feel good. Because my birth home wasn’t destroyed. My father hadn’t died. I didn’t just end up on Earth by coincidence. I was sent there.

Yet I still fell in love with the people.

Still wished to fight for them.

“Day Seven,” Prinslo says. “I’ve finally made it into the city. I dropped off Hull’s baby boy in Yamafort. On the steps of an orphanage. I waited out of sight until I saw a young woman open the door. She took him inside. He’s safe. I know he’s safe.”

After that, communications with Prinslo became less active.

“Day Ninety-two.” Her voice is hoarse. “I’m still in the Free Lands. It’s safer here. No one around. I don’t think I could last undetected in the cities or villages. But it’s cold… lesscasia.I can’t see the stars. The sky.” She cries.

Moura told me that homesickness plagued her. Among other things. Loneliness. Isolation.

“Day One hundred and thirteen. I can feel her kicking in mybelly. She’sstrong.I won’t be able to make it to Yamafort this time. I’ll have to leave her in Bartholo.”

I traced the cities on a map. A rough sketch of the Saltarian countries. Earth only had intelligence of a handful of the cities, and Moura scolded me when I embellished some of the drawings with extra trees.You don’t know that belongs there,Moura reminded me.Make it right or not at all.

I made it right.

“Day One hundred and fifty,” Prinslo rasps. “She’s beautiful. My baby girl.She’s beautiful.She’s gone.” She cries harder this time. “I left her in Bartholo… an orphanage. The birth went well. I cut the umbilical cord myself and kept her warm in the hut. She’ll be okay. I think she’ll be okay.” Static clings to the recorder, and the first time I heard it, I always thought she cut out. But minutes later, her voice is back and deeper: “Now begins the waiting. I’m going to check up on them every three hundred days. Year Eight, I’ll find Moura’s boy in Grenpale. He’ll be the first I talk to and I’ll tell him the truth. Of his purpose. Then we’ll go from there.”

It seemed easy. Hide out in the Free Lands. But I can’t even begin to imagine what she endured out there.

“Day… Two hundred… sixty-one.” Prinslo’s voice is barely distinguishable over the hoarseness and guttural rasp. “I can’t… seem to catch… it’s… so… cold.”

That was the last recording.

After a year with no communication, she was declared dead.

Court’s and Mykal’s birth fathers were both C-Jays and volunteered to carry out the rescue operation for the three children. But they never made it to the planet. A Saltare-2 battlecraft intercepted their approach, and they were shot down in the galaxy.

After that, Moura told me that too much risk was involved. No more rescues. No more attempts to even send someone else down to be a new liaison. The Earthen Fleet had already lost too much.

It was decided within days.

The three children were failed assets.

Moura said that they could have used different Death Readers when they first pricked their babies, but they purposefully used the same device on all three. Knowing this act would permanently change their kids’ body chemistry.

In the event that Prinslo died—in the event that their children would be abandoned and lost—they knew there was a chance, averysmall chance that their kids would find one another after they dodged their deathdays.

Becoming lifebloods was the last hope of their survival.

Numbers.

They needed numbers. And three was better than one.

Years went by, and I sometimes returned to the recordings to remind myself that I wasn’t alone. There were… had been… maybe still are three people who’ve experienced the same as me. Growing up on a foreign planet, surrounded by people different from me.

But most of the time, the story of the three lost children was just a forgotten memory. Something that passed by without notice. Because the chances of survival after they dodged their deathdays—it’d be too small, too inconceivable.