Page 21 of Reformation
Jonah struggled to his feet, feeling unaccountably woozy before he remembered that he hadn’t eaten in god only knew how long. He dug a ration bar out of the locker by the defunct Regen unit and bit into it as he rummaged around for the map of the area. They were old-fashioned, these maps, pretty much useless when you were in a working shuttle, but that was another thing that had been included as a “just in case” measure since the planet was so unpredictable.
“C’mon,” he muttered, pawing through the flight log—printed out and stored by the shuttle itself, so it was nice and easy to maintain. The map had to be in here somewhere … “Gotcha!”
At the back, of course. Jonah spread it out on the ground and squinted at it in the dim light of the emergency beacon. There they were, the bunkers marked as little circles along the edge of the cliffs. Two of them had Xs through them, a sign that they were now defunct and hadn’t been maintained. Neither of those were the closest to him, though … were they?
Jonah racked his aching brain, trying to come up with the answer. He knew where they’d crashed, he could see the display burned onto the backs of his eyelids. They were about twenty klicks out from the Box, north thirty-four degrees, west seventy-five or close enough; he could get into the fractions if he needed to but … Jonah followed the course in his mind and found their likely landing spot, then looked for the closest bunker.
There it was. Less than two kilometers away if he was right.Ifhe was right. If he could get there through this storm?or should he wait it out, then go? And should he go by himself first, to make sure he was right, or should he bring Lacey along right away? He’d have to carry her, rig up some sort of sled to drag her along. It wasn’t gonna be easy, and he was tired. Jonah didn’t know if he had the energy in him for more than one trip, much less dragging Lacey along behind him, but he didn’t know what other choice he had. The ship was still wriggling like a living thing, and if they went into the sea after all the goddamn work he’d done to keep them in one place, he’d never forgive himself. Orlive, but that was another issue.
He’d need to bring food. Sanitizers. As much power as possible in the form of batteries. The beacon … no, not that. The bunker might have its own, and given that he didn’t know who was listening, well … it was just safer this way.
Not safe. What was safe anymore? Butsafer.
Jonah didn’t let himself think about it too much, just packed as quickly and methodically as he could, trying to remember all the things he’d been told were important back when he’d taken that outdoor survival class. It had been a requirement for every colonist of Pandora, but Jonah had never re-upped it after the first time. Call it the Drifter in him, but he was more comfortable inside—a home, a ship, a city—than he ever was outside. All that space, all that strange openness … frankly, it gave him chills. Garrett had never teased him about it, sweetheart that he was, and after the first few camping expeditions he and Robbie had organized, he’d taken Jonah’s reluctance to heart and not tried to talk him into any more.
And Jonah had been glad.Glad.
Fuck. He was a goddamn selfish son of a bitch, was what he was. And now he was going to trek across rocky, unstable terrain in the middle of a downpour, trying to navigate under a pitch-black sky. Robbie could have done it blindfolded. Hell, Garrett could probably do it with both hands tied behind his back, for all that he was a city boy at heart.
“Next time I see you, we’re going camping,” he promised his absent husband. “Sleeping outside, starting fires withmatches, all that crap. We can take the kids.” Cody and Ten, Darrel and Grennson … Jonah couldn’t let himself think about them, not right now. “Anything you want, darlin’.”Anything as long as we’re together.
He glanced out the porthole at the back of the shuttle. The grinding wasn’t so bad now, and he could actually see through the rain. It was an ebb, he knew, not an end, but Jonah would take it.
He knelt down over Lacey. “Okay, honey. Sorry in advance about the cold, but if this goes right, I’ll have you warm again soon.” Warm and better taken care of. He shifted her onto the stretcher he’d cobbled together, bundled the both of them up inall the weatherproof equipment he had, then made sure the rest of the supplies were tied securely to the base.
“All right, then.” He slung the fabric supports over his shoulders, then knotted them around his waist. “Time to get out of here.” Opening the back door manually was a pain, but he managed it and was greeted by a blast of icy rain right to the face.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the puddle in front of the shuttle and the thin, jerking tether that looked frailer and frailer by the second.
“Great,” Jonah said with a sigh, then started their descent, the route fixed firmly in his mind.
He’d get them to the bunker if it was the last thing he did.
Chapter eleven
Cody
Sometimes in dreams, Cody thought he relived parts of his early childhood on a Drifter ship. He would walk down endless, twisting corridors made from mottled patches of metal, rusty scraps scraped just clean enough to catch a bond with newer polymers. Sometimes he was running toward his father, sometimes he was running away from other people, but Cody was never still when he dreamt of Drifting. He and his dad had left the clan when he was only five, but occasionally he would catch a whiff of burning solvent or thick, ancient oil and stop in his tracks, his head turning to track the smell despite himself.
Cody knew that leaving had been better. He’d been a liability on a Drifter ship; his dad had never said it, but Jack had uncomfortably intimated as much more than once. Kids who couldn’t heal fast were burdens, and nobody had time to take care of a burden when you were expected to start working as soon as you could walk. Instead, Cody and Jonah had madea new family with Garrett, and Cody wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Still, there were times when he felt like a bird trapped not in a cage, but underwater, in a place it shouldn’t be able to survive. He couldn’t be a Drifter because he was a natural, but for the same reason, he would never really fit in with the glitz and glamour that came with Garrett’s lifestyle.
Ten, on the other hand, would thrive anywhere. It was evident from the moment they caught sight of the enormous Drifter ship, well beyond the orbit of Olympus, where it would have had to pay docking fees. Jack eased them in toward what sort of, kind of looked like a port that would work for a little skip ship like his, and Ten actually twisted hir head to follow the motion. “How will we—oh, of course, at an angle. So you can cluster ships around a central intake. Clever. Very ungainly but clever.”
“Don’t matter how elegant you look when all you’ve gotta worry about’s livin’ in space,” Jack muttered as he delicately guided his craft into the cradle. “No gravity to break you down. Now look, this skipper’s mine, but that don’t mean other people ain’t gonna come in here. You got a way of locking that bike?”
“Why don’t we just stay in here?” Cody said. He already felt like his skin was crawling at the thought of going onto the enormous ship. So many people who he didn’t know, who hadn’twantedhim …
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, we can make our quarters here, can’t we? So we’re out of the way?”
“Can’t contribute as easy when you’re out of the way,” Jack said. “’Sides, everyone’s gonna want to see you. I’ve been talkin’ you up for a while now.”
“Even to Grandma?”
Jack clapped Cody on the shoulder. “Let me worry about your grandma.” The little ship docked with a faintclunk. “Sheshouldn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Like I said, we’re headed there anyway. Just makes sense to take you with us.”
