Page 54 of The Last Hope

“Are they not allowed to answer without your permission?” I question.

“There’s a hierarchy, dove. Certain information is classified.” To the C-Jays, he adds, “The human rescues are being granted two-stripe clearance.” He explains that a two-stripe clearance is equivalent to a combat pilot, the same as Daybreak, Shipwreck, and Hopscotch.

So if they want, they can tell me anything they know. He spoke true when he said that the crew had nothing to hide from us. I prod Stork for more. “How many people are above you, then? Fifty? A hundred?”

“Four,” he says, a gloating smile on the rise. “Venus Squadron is a first-defender. Mine is second. I’m a rank below Captain Venita.”

Still plugging her nose, Nia says nasally, “And the three admirals of the Earthen Fleet.”

Stork takes the biggest swig yet.

To save the C-Jays from my smell, I shuffle backward. Until my hip bumps into the railing next to Mykal, and I rotate to discover more and more bodies on balconies, fretful whispers and nervous eyes.

No one is dressed in regal gowns or classic suits. Here, people either wear tunics, the military skirt and armor, or draped linens with an Earthen brooch: three concentric circles with a leaf in the middle.

Stork approaches me.

I think he has something to say, but he bypasses me with a knowing once-over and he clamps a hand on the railing. Dangerously, he hikes his leg over the banister and straddles it. One more swing of the other leg, and he faces forward, both limbs dangling carelessly off the observational deck.

Four stories off the ground.

One wrong move and he’ll plummet.Not to his death.Gods, what I’d do to be certain that I wouldn’t die if I mimicked him.

I hang back, loosely holding the railing. Once upon an era, I would’ve been just as fearless, and that change inside me stings bitterly. I loved who I was as a Fast-Tracker, and I want to love who I am as a human.

But I’m not sure how.

Stork pats the railing. “Hop up if you want.”

Court and Mykal are whispering to one another. Hugging close, but both eye Stork skeptically.

They’re not why I falter. My belly up against the banister, I hone in on the terrifying plunge, and who knows? Maybe Stork will push me just for kicks.

I keep my boots on the deck, but more brazenly, I peel off the tiny EI disc so we can speak in private. “You don’t act like an Influential,” I tell him.

Sharp glances pierce us since I just spoke Saltarian.

Stork pays them no mind. “That’s because I was raised by humans.” Voice clipped at the end, he downs another gulp. Knowing the day he’ll die, that has to change him. He has no hands on the railing and such little regard for personal injury. Willingly hanging off the balcony.

FTs would love the thrill.

“You’re more like a Fast-Tracker,” I mention.

He tips his head in thought, but then he gestures his bottle to the other balconies. “I reckon they are too.”

Handfuls of people sit leisurely on the railings. Some even lounge across the banisters, backs propped up against the columns. Legs dangling everywhere. Hardly batting an eye at the death they could meet below.

“These are humans?” I ask in disbelief.

He soaks in my reaction before nodding, “Yeah. All of them.”

I blink back maddened tears.

Why aren’t they afraid to die? And why am I sopetrified? Shame weighs my head down.

I only look up again when whispering escalates. Placing the disc behind my ear, I translate a nearby conversation. Someone says that the entire crew is here.

Only about two hundred bodies have spilled into the courtyard, which seems so small in comparison to StarDust. There, we roomed with over a thousand candidates.