"I suppose it's too much to hope that we landed ourselves near any sort
of civilization," Thorne said, tilting his head to one side.
Cress picked her way through debris to the nearest window. "I'm
not sure we want to be near civilization. You're a wanted criminal
in three Earthen countries, and one of the most recognizable men on
Earth."
"I am pretty famous now, aren't I?" Grinning, he waved a hand at her.
"I guess it doesn't matter what we want. What do you see out there?"
Standing on tiptoes, Cress peered into the brightness. As her eyes ad-
justed to the glare, they widened, trying to take it all in.
All at once, it dawned on her. She was on earth. Or Earth.
She'd seen pictures, of course. Thousands and thousands of photo-
graphs and vids—cities and lakes and forests and mountains, every
landscape imaginable.But she had never thought the sky could be so
impossibly blue, or that the land could hold so many hues of gold, or
cold glitter like a sea of diamonds, or could roll and swell like a breath-
ing creature.
For one moment, the reality of it all poured into her body and over-
flowed.
"Cress?"
"It's beautiful out there."
A hesitation, before, "Could you be more specific?"
"The sky is this gorgeous, intense blue color." She pressed her fingers
to the glass and traced the wavy hills on the horizon.
"Oh, good. You've really narrowed it down for me."
"I'm sorry, it's just..." She tried to stamp down the rush of emotion. "I
think we're in a desert."
"Cactuses and tumbleweeds?"
"No. Just a lot of sand. It's kind of orangish-gold, with hints of pink,
and I can see tiny clouds of it floating above the ground, like ... like
smoke."
"Piled up in lots of hills?"
"Yes, exactly! And it's beautiful."
Thorne snorted. "If this is how you feel about a desert, I can't wait
until you see your first real life. Your mind will explode."
She beamed out at the world. Trees.
"That explains the heat them," Thorne said. Cress, in her thin cotton
dress, hadn't noticed before, but the temperature did seem to be ris-
ing. The controls must have been reset in the fall, or perhaps destroyed
altogether. "A desert would not have been my first choice. Do you see
anything useful? Palm tees? Watering holes? A pair of camels out for a
stroll?"
She looked again, noting how a pattern of ripples had been carved into
the landscape, repeating for eternity. "No. There's nothing else."
"All right, here's what I need you to do." Thorne ticked off on his fin-
gers. "First, find some way to contact the Rampion. The sooner we can
get back on my ship, the better. Second, let's see if we can get that door
open. We're going to be asked alive if the temperature keeps rising like
this."
Cress studied the mess of screens and cords on the floor. "The satel-
lite was never installed with external communication abilities. The only
chance we had of contacting your crew was the D-COMM chip that Sybil
took. And even if we did have some way of contacting them, we won't be
able to give exact coordinates unless the satellite positioning system is
functioning, and even then—"
Thorne held up a hand. "One thing at a time. We have to let them
know that we're not dead, and check that they're all right too. I think
they're capable of handling two measly Lunars, but it would put my
mind at ease to be sure." He shrugged. "Once they know to start looking
for us, maybe Cinder can whip up a giant metal detector or something."
Cress scanned the wreckage. "I'm not sure anything is salvageable.
The screens are all destroyed, and judging from the loss of temperature
regulation, the generator is—oh, no. Little Cress!" She wailed and kicked
her way to the main databoard that had housed her younger self. It was
crushed on one side, bits of wire and plastic dangling from the shell.
"Oh, Little Cress..."
"Um, who's Little Cress?"
She sniffed. "Me. When I was ten. She lived in the computer and kept
me company and now she's dead." She squeezed the data board against
her chest. "Poor, sweet Little Cress."
After a long silence, Thorne cleared his throat. "Scarlet did warn me
about this. Do we need to bury Little Cress before we can move on? Want
me to say a few words for her?"
Cress glanced up, and though his expression was sympathetic, she
thought he was probably mocking her. I'm not crazy. I knew she's just
a computer. It's just ... I programmed her myself, and she was the only
friend I had. That's all."
"Hey, I'm not judging. I'm familiar with IT-relations. Just wait until
you meet our spaceship. She's a riot." His expression became thoughtful.
"Speaking of spaceships, what about that other pod, the one the guard
docked with?"
"Oh, I'd forgotten about that!" She tucked the data board beneath its
slanted desk and tripped over to the other entryway. The satellite sat
at an angle, with the second entry near the lower end of the slope, and
she had to clear away countless bits of plastic and broken equipment
before she could get to the control screen. The screen itself was down—
she couldn't get a flicker of power out of it—so she opened the panel that
housed the manual override locks instead. A series of gears and handles
had been set into the wall over the door, and while Cress had known they
were there for years, she'd never given them much thought before.
The devices were stuck from years of neglect and it took all her
strength to pull on the handle, planting one foot on the wall to gain
leverage. Finally it snapped down and the doors open, leaving a
gap. Hearing her struggle, Thorne got up and trudge toward her, care-
fully kicking debris out of his way. He kept his hands outstretched until
he bumped into her and together they pried ion the door.
The docking hatch was in worse shape than the satellite. Almost an
entire wall had been sheared off ands piles of sand had already begun to
blow in between the cracks. Wires and clamps dangled from the shat-
tered wall panels and Cress could smell smoke and the bitter scent of
burned plastic. The podship had been shoved up undo the corridor, crum-
pling the far end of the hatch like an accordion.The docking clamp had
been rammed straight through the ship's cockpit control panel, filling
the glass with hairline fractures.
"Please tell me it looks better than it smells," said Thorne, hanging on
to the door frame.
"Not really. The ship is destroyed, and it looks like the instruments
too." Cress climbed down, holding on to the wall for balance. She tried
pressing some buttons to bring the shop back to life, but it was useless.
"All right. Next plan." Thorne rubbed his eyes."We have no way of
contacting the Rampion and they have no way of knowing we're alive.
Probably won't do us much good stay here and hope someone passes
by. We're going to have to try and find some sort of civilization."
She wrapped her arms around herself, a mix of nerves and giddiness
swirling in her stomach. She was going to leave the satellite.
"It looked like the sun was setting," she said. "So at least we won't be
walking in the heat."
Thorne screwed up his lips in thought."This time of year the nights
shouldn't be too cold, no matter which hemisphere we've landed in. We
need to gather up all the supplies we can carry. Do you have anymore
blankets? And you'll want a jacket."
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Novela JuvenilTheir best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being force to work for Queen Levana, and she...
