"Satellite AR817. 3 ... deflect tracker ... set alternating timer ... and
check. Which should just leave Satellite AR944. I ... and ... that ...
should ... do it." Cress paused, breathed, and slowly lifted her fingers
away from the cockpit's main screen, where she'd spent the last
three hours ensuring that any satellite's in their path would be convenient
turned away from them as they passed. As long as the Rampion's orbital
path held, they shouldn't be detected.
At least, not by satellite or radar.
There was still the problem of visual sightings, and as the Eastern
Commonwealth had announced twenty minutes ago that an enormous
monetary reward would go to anyone who found the stolen Rampion,
every ship between here and mars would be on the lookout.
They had to be prepared to run if anyone did spot them, which was
made extra difficult now that they no longer had a trained pilot onboard.
At least, not one who could see. Thorne had managed to talk Cinder
through the liftoff procedures, with vast amounts of help from the
Rampion's new auto-control system, but it had been a rocky takeoff followed
by an immediate switch to neutral orbit. If they were faced with
anything requiring more complicated maneuvers before Thorne got his
eyesight back, they'd be in trouble.
According to have they'd be in trouble even when he did have his
eyesight back.
Cress massaged her neck, attempting to get her thoughts to stop spinning.
When she was in the middle of a hack, it tended to fill up her brain
until her vision hummed with coding and mathematics, skipping ahead
to each necessary task faster than she could complete them. It tended to
leave her in state of drained euphoria.
But for now, at least, the Rampion was safe.
She turned her attention to a yellow light at the base of the screen
that had been annoying her since she'd begun, but that she'd been
too preoccupied to deal with. As expected, when she promoted the ejection,
a small shimmering D-COMM chip popped out from the screen.
The match to the chip that Sybil had taken from her satellite, cutting
of any hope that Cress and Thorne had off contacting their friends.
Friends.
She squinted at the chip as she held it up, wondering if that the
right word. It felt lie having friends, especially after they'd survived
the mission together. But then, she didn't have anything to compare this
friendship too.
One thing she knew for sure, though, was that she no longer
needed to be rescued.
She looked around for something she could use to destroy the chip,
and caught the ghost of a reflection in the cockpit window. Thorne stood
in the doorway behind her, hands tucked into his pockets.
She gasped and spun to face him, her full skirt twisting around the
chair's base. Though it was dirty and torn in places, she hadn't had the
time to change yet, and wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. The gown
made her feel like she was still living in a drama, and was perhaps keeping
her from going into shock at all that had happened that day. "You
scared me!"
Thorne flashed a moderately embarrassed grin. "Sorry?"
"How long have you been standing there?"
He shrugged. "I was listening to you work. It's kind of relaxing. And I
like it when you sing."
She flushed. She didn't realize she'd been singing.
Feeling his way forward, Thorne took the copilot's seat, setting the
cane across his lap and kicking his boots up on the dash. "Are we invisible
again?"
"To radars, for now." She tucked some hair behind her ear. "Could I see
your cane?"
He raised an eyebrow, but handed it to her without question. Cress
dropped the D-COMM chip to the ground and crushed it beneath the
canes tip. A shiver of empowerment ran through her.
"What was that?" Thorne asked.
"The D-COMM chip you used to contact me before. We won't be needing
it again."
"Seems like that was ages ago." Thorne ran his finger along the blindfold.
"I'm sorry that you didn't get to see much of Earth while we were
down there. And now you're stuck up here again."
"I'm happy to be stuck up here." She twirled the cane absently between
her palms. "It's a great ship. Far more spacious than the satellite.
And ... much better company."
I can't live with that." Griming, Thorne pulled a small bottle from
his pocket. "I came in here to ask if you would help me with this.
These are the mystical eyedrops the doctor made. We're supposed to
put three to four drops in each eye, twice a day ... or was it two drops,
three times? ... I don't remember. He wrote down the obstructions on the
portscreen." Thorne unclipped the port from his belt and handed it to
her.
Cress propped the cane against the panel of instruments. "He was
probably worried you'd forget, after such a high-stress..." She trailed off,
her eye catching on the portscreen text.
Thorne cocked his head. "What's wrong?"
The port had opened to a screen containing obstructions for the eyedrops,
and also a detailed account of why Dr. Erland believed the plague
was a manufactured weapon being used as biological warfare.
But at the top of all that...
"There's a tab labeled with my name." Not Cress. Crescent Moon Darnel.
"Oh. It was the doctor's port."
Cress's fingers glided over the screen, and she'd opened the tab before
her mind could decide whether it wanted to know what was in it or not.
"A DNA analysis." She said, "and ... a paternity confirmation." Standing,
she set the port on the control panel. Let's do your eyedrops."
"Cress." He reached for her his fingers gathering up the folds of her
skirt. "Are you all right?"
"Not really." She looked down at him. Thorne had pulled the blindfold
around his neck, revealing a faint tan line around his eyes. Gulping,
Cress sank into the pilot's chair again. "I should have told him I loved
him. He was dying, and he was right there, and I knew I would never see
him again. But I couldn't say it. Am I horrible?"
"Of course not. He may have been your biological father but you still
barely knew him. How could you have loved him?"
"Does it matter? He said he loved me. He was dying, and now he's gone,
and I'll never..."
"Cress, hey, stop it." Thorne swiveled his chair to face her. He found
her wrists, before sliding his hands down to intertwine with her fingers.
"You didn't do anything wrong. It all happened so fast, and there was
nothing you could do."
She bit her lip. "He took my blood that first day, in Farafrah."
She squeezed her eyes shut. "He knew all this time—almost a whole
week. Why didn't he tell me sooner?"
"He knew there was a chance we were all going to die." Her next
breath shook inside her diaphragm, and as the tears started, she felt herself
being pulled toward Thorne. He drew her into his lap, scooping one
arm beneath her legs to keep the enormous skirt from tangling around
her. Sobbing, Cress buried her face against his chest and let the tears
come. She cried hard at first, the release pouring out of her all at once.
But she almost felt guilty when, minutes later, the tears already started
to dry up. Her sadness wasn't enough. Her mourning wasn't enough. But
it was all she had.
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Teen FictionTheir 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...
