Shades of Earth (Across the Universe 3)

I bite my lip.

“I’m going,” he repeats.

“Then I’m going too. ” I say this immediately, without thought, but as soon as the words are out, my eyes flick to the cryo chambers. It will be soon now.

Elder notices. He touches my arm. “You should stay,” he says. I think he’s only saying this so I don’t feel guilty. “I have to go. ”

When I look into his eyes, I know that his sense of responsibility outweighs every fear I have.

“Well,” I say, “at least go armed. ”

6: ELDER

“I don’t know how to shoot,” I remind Amy as she roots around in the armory.

“It’s easy,” she says. She thrusts a heavy metal gun into my hands. “I’ve already loaded it. Point this end at whatever’s out there and pull the trigger. Bang. That’s all there is to it. ”

She drops two small, green, egg-shaped objects in my hand. “Impact grenades,” she says at my curious look. “If the gun doesn’t work, just throw these. They’ll explode once they hit something. ”

My eyes widen. The grenades don’t seem fragile, but the idea of them exploding doesn’t fill me with ease.

“And take this—” Amy adds, reaching for a large weapon with a tube the size of my arm.

“Enough!” I say. “I can barely carry these. I’m only going outside to look. ”

Another piercing cry cuts through the air.

“Wait,” Amy says, her eyes pleading with me. Her fingers curl around my arm, gripping my wrist, holding me back with more strength than I knew she had. “Please. Just wait for my dad to wake up. The military can take care of whatever that is out there. That’s their job. ”

“And what’s my job?” I ask, gently breaking free of her grasp. “To protect my people. I have to do this. ” My people need to see me facing the world and whatever dangers it might hold. If I do, then they can too. But if I stay here, cowering, waiting for the frozens to save us, that will become their first instinct.

“Be safe. ” Amy says the words like a prayer. Her eyes don’t meet mine, then she leans in, quick, and pecks me on the lips. Her cheeks flame up in a blush. All I want to do is grab her and crush her against me, to give her a kiss that’s worthy of that blush.

“I’ll be fine. ” It’s not until I say this that I realize it’s probably not true. My first reaction when I heard the screeching sound outside was to look, to calm the fear on my people’s faces. But now my mouth is dry and my stomach twists as if the fear inside it was poisonous acid. I think it’s the armory. Being surrounded by this many weapons reminds me that there’s a reason why we have them.

My hand goes to the wi-com embedded behind my left ear, and I press the button down. Instead of the usual beep, beep-beep, there’s nothing but a click as the button’s depressed and released. I frown and push the button again, so forcefully that I wince in pain.

Shite. The wi-com network was on the ship. My fingers run over the edge of the button, a perfectly circular bump that has been a part of my body for as long as I can remember. Now useless. The frexing thing is useless. It’s implanted into my flesh, its wires creep beside my veins, and it will never work again.

Amy grabs my hand, pulls it away from the button under my skin. “You don’t need to tell them anything,” she says. “They all know what you’re about to do for them. ”

I’ve never felt so disconnected from . . . everything. It’s one thing to know that the ship’s unreachable, but now the connection I’ve had with my people who are here is gone too.

I wait until Amy’s back in the cryo room before I turn toward the bridge. I don’t think I could have kept my fear hidden from her as I opened the door, and I didn’t want her to see me hesitate. I don’t have a military authorization code, but Shelby showed me how to override the system for emergencies. I can’t do much, but I could put the shuttle in lockdown, set an alarm sequence, or start the sprinklers in the event of a fire. And I can open the doors.

I stand, leaning against the control panel, staring through the thick glass of the honeycombed window. It’s foggy now with condensation, but I can stil

l make out the world that is ours. I touch the thick glass, surprised at the warmth it offers.

I know from pictures of Sol-Earth that the super-tall bushes are called trees and that the wood from them is the same kind of wood that made the table I used when working on assignments from Eldest. I know the dirt, although blackened from our descent, will not be the smooth, clay-like, evenly processed soil that filled the Feeder Level.

But I’m not looking at any of that.

I’m looking out, past the burnt ground and the broken trees, their limbs twisting and turning like tangled yarn, past the horizon and to the sky.

And no matter how much my eyes strain, there isn’t a wall. Not a single frexing wall.

Something dark flashes in the blue sky, something unnatural, and my grip around the gun Amy gave me tightens.