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She watches as I turn for the , and when I glance back before cliun steady

The girl is drea about the first time she flew There are dozens of other orphans from the war on the shuttle with her, but most of them are fro with fear, others are talking to co

The launch silencesIt isn’t until they break through Verona’s atirl hears the other children again, all gasping now, exclai up, with nothing but their harnesses to hold the the gentle, familiar blue sky fade into darkness The stars coht, each one a neorld to discover

But noPuzzled, she looks for the girl anted to be an explorer, the girl anted to learn deep-sea diving and irl anted to travel the stars But she can’t find her That girl died when her parents did, in a little shop in the slums of November And now she has no soul left to shatter

She closes the shade over the

I KEEP THE GLEIDEL TRAINED on thefor a fullto shoot him, and we both know it Maybe it’s just a res are supposed to be between us We were only ever supposed to see each other across the barrel of a gun

My heart is racing like I’m in thepainfully in my chest How dare he--how could he be so stupid as to come back, and so soon after the incident in town? I iven a description to the coht ould stand a good chance of recognizing hi the gun drop to un far too tightly An e for the canteen slung over the room’s desk chair

I don’t have the luxury of dealing with his hormones--orto ic and dramatic tale of star-crossed lovers on a war-torn planet?

I should have told him about the ident chip I found It’s proof he’s not crazy, that there was soht not be the full-blown conspiracy he clai either But the ether evenboth of us with this ridiculous notion that we’re on the sa pull froh So I splash soto rid ers against my cheek, the soft feather touch of his breath

But no a in his voice, the memory of how he looked at me

I throw the canteen down onto the bed and cross to theThere’s nothing to be seen there, only darkness No stars, nofroh the rest of the base and out into the swamp In my mind’s eye I can see the bioluht, tricking my eyes No wonder the men believe in will-o’-the-wisps

And then, abruptly, there is a light Gentle, orange, blossoainst the buildings nearestin the rain so that for an instant, I can see individual drops as they fall

Then the whole building shakes with a deafening boo shards of pain shooting up through er to et ine hi before I have ti un andtoward the fla on the other side of the base that it occurs to ht he did Maybe this is the beginning of the war

Chaos unfolds before me as I reach the site It’s one of the barracks, but I can’t stop to think about the i soldiers My eyes are used to chaos, and I shove aside a sobbing civilian in order to push closer

Half the building is gone, collapsed into rubble, and the rest is burning fiercely The stench of burned plastene and wood composite scorches the inside of my nose as I try to catch my breath I unzip my combat suit and tear a hand-width strip of material from the T-shirt underneath, then wind it around my nose and mouth There are a few bodies outside, people ere near the barracks at the time of the explosion My stomach drops painfully, but I don’t have tilow of the flames, it’s impossible to see any details that will tell otten here yet I’ve served on a first response team, and it’s drilled into me--but not everyone sprints toward the sound of an explosion No other officers I can see, except for a dazed lieutenant standing a few feet away, one sleeve soaked with blood No tiht now