ANDERS

I lay perfectly still, trying to fall asleep. If I couldn’t become unconscious, I would be satisfied with the illusion of sleep. I just didn’t want to look into Gwen’s eyes and see disappointment.

I had failed everyone. Their fate was in my hands. People had trusted me to get one thing right, but I couldn’t do it.

When she started crying, I rolled over onto my other side so she wouldn’t see my reaction. How had things gotten so bad this quickly? I thought we had everything figured out. We created a good plan. Now we were stuck in a cell. The Markans would arrive, but we wouldn’t be able to meet them. The women were doomed.

There was nothing I could do about any of it. I felt frustrated and helpless. I curled myself into a ball, but nothing could soothe my internal struggle which was somehow worse than anything I ever felt from my wings.

I had let down my family, and the people counting on me, but worst of all I had let down Gwen. She might not love me, but she never stopped believing in me. Now, even she had given up on me. I forgot about reassignment. I forgot that I didn’t want to be around her. All I remembered was that nothing could ever make me the person I wanted to be.

Eventually, I drifted off into a restless slumber.

* * *

I was back on Auxem, in a cave where my brothers and I used to play in before the dark times. How did I get there?

My mother was next to me, drinking from a glass. I had no idea what was in the green liquid.

“Anders, when are you going to start believing in yourself?” She looked exactly how I remembered her from my childhood.

My heart broke all over again when I saw her because I knew what I was seeing wasn’t real. “I’ve totally screwed everything up, Mom. People are going to suffer because of me.”

She shook her head. “It’s not over unless you give up.”

I sat beside her. I was wearing blue pajamas with yellow birds on them. They were my favorite pair when I was a child.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of willpower. Gwen and I are locked up, and we can’t get out. They’re going to sell the women and kill the men. I can’t do anything about it.”

“Anders, complaining doesn’t accomplish anything. Take control of your destiny and be the man I know you are inside.”

“What if I can’t do it?” I stared at the yellow birds.

“Don’t blame the pirates. If you try, you have the possibility of success. But you will definitely fail if you start from a losing mindset.”

I remember that was something she used to say. A ball appeared and started bouncing off the walls of the cave.

“I think you should wake up now. Go and do what’s right, Anders. I believe in you, and I love you.” Her eyes looked just the way they used to when she tucked me in at night.

“I love you too, Mom.”

She smiled. “Don’t give up on Gwen. I have a feeling she’ll come around.”

“I don’t think so, Mom.” I stood up. “She doesn’t love me. People usually don’t change their minds about that.”

“That might be true, but only if she didn’t love you. It’s time to wake up now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wake up.” I heard the words come from outside. “Wake up, Anders.”

* * *

GWEN

Anders was in such a deep sleep that he wasn’t stirring.

Priya looked nervous. “I don’t know how much time we have left. The pirates were dumb enough to fall for our distraction, but they’ll come back eventually.”

Anders finally opened his eyes. He was groggy, but after seeing the expressions on our faces, he realized it was urgent for him to get up. We followed Priya out the cell door.

“Did you manage to bring the women safely to the fifth wing?” I had to know right away.

She nodded. “Allex came looking for us and led us back. We even managed to find the ones missing from before. Everyone is secure and accounted for.”

“How did you get the entry code for our cell?”

“The doors open for him because he’s a royal. He’s waiting for us in the tunnels. The hardest part was luring away the pirates. Fortunately, most of them are stupid, sex-deprived males. We had some of the girls flash them, and they lost their minds like wolves after rabbits.”

We followed her, running softly down the hall. “Allex gave me a stun gun from the armory, and I was waiting around the corner.” She grinned. “Those bastards are tied up in a closet right now.” She opened the tunnel door, and we dashed inside. “It would be bad if one of the princes got caught. But I’m just a stowaway. There are no consequences if something happens to me.”

“It would matter to me.” Allex’s voice came from the shadows. He stepped forward, swept Priya into his arms, and they kissed until I had to look away. I noticed Anders’ eyes on me. I shivered involuntarily. When they finally came up for air, Allex was all business again.

“The Markans have arrived and are fighting the pirates. Hacking into their tractor beam is out of the question, so we’re going to have to use brute force. Do you happen to know any pilots crazy enough to try and blow up their generator?”

I glanced at Anders. “We might.”

“Good. I think your ship is ready to go now. The Markans can only keep them busy for so long. They need your help.”

* * *

ANDERS

“This is suspiciously similar to landing on an asteroid.” I looked at the specifications for the pirate ship holding ours in a tractor beam.

“If we just landed on one, how hard can this be?” I thought I saw admiration in her eyes. Something had changed in her attitude toward me, but I wasn’t sure what had happened. I only knew that she seemed different. I didn’t have time to analyze it thoroughly. We had more urgent issues.

“I don’t think we’re going to get more than one chance. And look at all those obstacles sticking out on the route. Do you think you can handle it?”

She nodded. “We better get it right the first time.”

“That’s easy for you to say. All you have to do is fly us inside.”

She traced a finger down the path through the maintenance corridor running along the ship’s exterior. “Well, all you have to do is press a button. Your job’s easier than mine.”

* * *

We needed a ship. The only one available wasn’t flightworthy — it was one of the fighters I had damaged. Fortunately, it was an easy repair. One of the women was part of the flight crew and had finished fixing the fighter. She had replaced a small chunk of a missing wing, and it was ready to go again.

Gwen and I did our flight preparations, said goodbye, and entered the ship. The pirates and the Markans were already in the heat of battle. Both sides had managed to destroy ships. We needed to use the diversion to distract the pirates while we attacked the generator.

When we were alone on the ship, I gazed deeply into Gwen’s blue eyes, wishing that things were different. But there was nothing left to say.

“Be careful, Gwen.”

She nodded, and I thought I saw disappointment. “I will. You too.”

The slightest mistake could cost our lives. We strapped into our seats. Gwen was at the front piloting the ship, and I was manning the weapons systems.

“Anders, are you ready?”

“Not really. Does it matter?” I flexed my hands and shifted in my seat.

“Prepare to launch.” She lifted the fighter off the deck. “It’s your time to shine. Go blow up something.”

I squeezed the trigger, and the door in front of us exploded. We flew out the hole, immediately heading for the pirate mothership. A Markan ship began following us right away. I sent an encrypted message to the craft identifying ourselves. A few moments later, a pirate vessel appeared next to us, intent on attacking the Markan ship. We shot them down before they knew who we were.

After we took out the first ship, the pirates figured out our identity quickly. “We’ve got two on our tail.” Gwen never took her hands off the console or her eyes from the monitors. I watched as she expertly dodged around both pirate and Markan ships before I turned back to my screens.

We went straight up to avoid a collision. I tried to fire on the closest ship, but Gwen was moving too erratically. “I can’t get a lock when you fly like this.”

“That means they can’t lock onto us either.” Gwen sounded like she was gritting her teeth. She went into a series of maneuvers that took us within a few feet of some other ships, leaving our pursuers behind. The next minute was uneventful as we started to get out of the combat area.

“We’ve got another one following us.”

“If you can fly straight for ten seconds in a row, I’ll get a lock on it.”

“Like straight into another ship?” Gwen gave a mirthless chuckle. “Sure. No problem.”

“I could shoot them if I had a lock.”

“Quit your complaining. It takes three seconds to get a lock, not ten. You’ve had plenty of time. The computers could do better than this. If you can’t get one, it’s your fault, not mine.”

She had a point. I focused all my attention on the ship following us, moving the crosshairs on my screen and trying to target the bastard calmly. After a deep breath and a moment of intense concentration, the monitor beeped.

“There we go,” I muttered under my breath. I fired before I lost him, aiming to disable the enemy ship. It was a direct hit, and the ship fell back and stopped. With luck, we could turn the tables on the pirates and capture some of their ships. “We got him.”

“Wonderful. Now comes the hard part. We have two minutes until we reach the maintenance corridor. Let’s hope you can do it again when it counts.”

“I can do it again any time you want. I’m good at four things. Don’t worry about me.”

Gwen’s cheeks flushed as she stared at the monitor.