Page 149 of The Last Hope

If someone didn’t find them and kill them for it, they’d die from the madness of not knowingwhy,or the harsh cruelty of the weather.

To find them alive.

That was the biggest surprise of all.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Franny

They left us to die on an enemy planet.

Failed assets.Chills keep nipping my body at those two words.

Failed. Assets.

I botch most every plan I’ve ever made, but gods, our parents botched this one good. I still hear Prinslo in the pit of my ears. Raspy and dying out, my mother’s voice stolen by the cold.

“She’s beautiful. My baby girl.She’s beautiful.She’s gone.”

My eyes glass and sear, not understanding if I’m sad or furious or just relieved at finally knowing the truth. And I imagine a time where we were on the same planet together. Me and her. So close, but only for a little while.

Now I understand why the admirals were scared of us learning this. Why they’d made Stork promise to keep their dying wish right before they traded their lives for ours. They were worried we’d hate them if we knew the truth, and if our loathing was strong enough, there was a chance we wouldn’t even want to save Earth.

If they’re with the gods, at least they can rest knowing those fears didn’t come to fruition.

I can’t dwell solely on the past, not now at least. What the eight of us do next will decide everything: our future, the future of the human race.

And the future of Earth.

I was a Purple Coach driver. I was a nobody to most, andnow I’m about to make a choice that affects two thousand human lives and the life of this baby and all of us.

We all know that we have two painful choices. Continue the mission as planned and bring the baby to Earth. Saving a planet and its people. But ripping a child from her parents and home.

Or we find the baby’s parents and leave her in their care, committing Earth to inevitable invasion. And possibly annihilating the human race.

We think silently on our own. We also think among each other, trying not to start a stew. And when we take a vote, the decision is made.

Not unanimously.

When everyone goes to bed, I hole up in the quiet wheelhouse of the barge. Unable to sleep, I sit on the velveteen sea-blue captain’s chair and skim my hand over the wheel’s cylindrical wooden spokes. Shaped more like fancy balusters.

Nobody on the docks can spot me. An abundance of gold-painted seashells are strung along the glass windshield as a curtain.

I look next to me at the co-captain’s chair, and I whisper, “Do you think we’ve chosen right?” A dresser drawer lies on the velveteen seat, the newborn nestled inside and wrapped in a woolen blanket that Mykal sewed.

She stretches her teeny tiny arm with a squeaky noise. I wish that were a resoundingyes.

Her empty bottle rolls on the ground as the barge gently rocks. Using the very last of our bills, Kinden and Court snuck out earlier and bought milk meant for newborns. She didn’t have a bad reaction to the Saltarian milk, and she sucked the bottle dry.

Peering over the drawer, I run my thumb over her soft cheek and tufts of green hair. “You’re beautiful,” I murmur, and then a lump knots my throat.

“She’s beautiful.”I hear my mother again.“My baby girl.She’s beautiful.She’s gone.”

I lean back and try to concentrate on Court and Mykal, who have managed to fall into a slumber.

It matters little to them. Their parentage. Their history. Because they didn’t believe it’d have a real bearing on their future.

They only wanted answers for me. So I could be at peace with the knowledge. And really, I think Court was afraid of the truth. Afraid that it’d hurt more to know, and maybe it has.