"Talia?" His voice is slightly tinny in my ear comm.

  "Yes?"

  "Why are we outside the Gryphon?" There's humor in his voice. "I thought you said you had a ship?"

  I slide down to face him, helmet to helmet. I just about forget what I was going to say as our eyes meet. "What?" I feel my cheeks warm.

  He laughs. "You aren't sure you have a ship?"

  I close my eyes to break the connection so I can actually think. "Yes, I have a ship. Let's go." I open my eyes and look away before I can get lost in his gaze again. "We have to go this way to avoid Kae."

  "Even if she doesn't see us get into whatever ship you have hidden, won't she see us take off?" Zayn keeps up with me as I use the built-in handholds to pull myself down toward the belly of the Gryphon.

  "Not likely. You'll see. Just trust me."

  Zayn stays blissfully quiet after that. I enjoy traveling outside the ship like this, not only because the stars are an amazing sight to see, but also because it feels so big out here. When I've been trapped not only inside the Gryphon, but also inside my own sightless mind for too long, sometimes it feels like the world is closing in. I always volunteer for the exterior repair work so I can come outside. Sometimes I have to endure one of the other fuelies' presences if it's a big job. But they know I don't like small talk.

  We reach the edge of the extended belly of the fueling tank. At the point where the tank curves upward into the Gryphon, there's an empty space big enough to squeeze into for maintenance.

  I look back to see how Zayn is doing. He's looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

  I laugh. "Don't worry, you'll fit. I have to come through here all the time with my tool bag." It's comforting being back on my own turf, even if it's only for a little while longer.

  "If not you'll be finding some grease to ease me through."

  I smile and turn to pull myself into the tunnel. I feel a hand on my leg and look back down at Zayn. He motions outward.

  I follow his hand to see the dark shape of a jump ship heading our way. "Your dad?"

  Zayn shakes his head. "It's not his. And I doubt he would do anything like this to give us away. I bet it's one of Kae's jump ships."

  And that's all it takes for my adrenaline to kick in. I grab the nearest handhold and pull myself through the maintenance tunnel. I slow just enough to peek back to make sure Zayn is keeping up with me.

  The tunnel branches off in two different directions. I head away from the engineering deck. This tunnel follows the hull of the ship. I can feel the heaters in my suit kick in as the coldness of space tries to get through.

  "Here we go." I pull open a hatch hidden in the outer tunnel wall, revealing a small tube barely wide enough for two people. I squeeze in and motion for Zayn. He squeezes in next to me until we're helmet to helmet again.

  He has a goofy grin on his face. "Are we just going to hide here?" Every time he moves we brush against each other.

  I pull one of my hands free from between our bodies, trying to not think about how close we are and what it's doing to me. I wish the tingling sensation every time we touch would stop, so I can concentrate. I depress a green button overhead and the wall in front of us slides inward to reveal another hatch. I pull myself forward a few inches and cycle the next hatch open.

  The metal door groans with disuse. The space on the other side opens up slightly revealing two padded chairs side by side. I squeeze past Zayn, trying not to touch him as I pull myself into one of the chairs. I buckle in and look up.

  Zayn is still outside, looking confused.

  "What?" I ask.

  "You really expect me to get in there? What is this?"

  "It's bigger than that tunnel we were just in." I gesture past him. "And you didn't seem to mind that very much." I blush at my bold comment.

  He half smiles at me and pulls himself in. "That was just a tunnel. This is some sort of ship. Right?"

  "Yes, it's one of our emergency pods. Since it's so small it should be barely a blip on their sensors."

  "And you expect me to pilot this ship all the way to Midpoint Station?"

  "That's where we need to take the boxes?" I pat my heavy pocket.

  He nods, his mouth pulled into a thin line.

  Gotcha.

  He looks around the tiny ship as I seal the door. The pod is shaped like a tube, just wide enough for us to sit side by side. The pilot's controls are to Zayn's right, the nav controls to my left.

  "Okay. Seems simple enough. So how do we get out of here? And how do we stay invisible?" His eyes search my face. I don't know if he's nervous about flying or being this close to me.

  "I'll eject us with this button." I point to an orange switch on the nav console. "It'll slide us out the back end of the Gryphon, underneath the engines. Kae's ship should be docking near the front."

  "And the whole way from here to Midpoint?"

  "I'm hoping Captain Reyes and your dad will keep her busy. And once we're far enough away we'll be so small in all this space we should be pretty much invisible."

  Zayn lets out a cross between a laugh and a growl. "That's your plan? A lot can go wrong with that."

  I touch the nav panel and bring up the sensors around the Gryphon. "Unless you'd rather take your chances with her." I point to where Kae's ship is docking at the front of the Gryphon.

  He actually looks like he's debating what to do. I smack his space-suited arm. "Just start the engines, Zayn. This will work."

  He hesitates only a second before bringing the little ship to life. I press the orange switch and we're launched immediately, our bodies pressed hard into the padded seats. We slide until our little ship is popped out into space coming within meters from the main engine of the Gryphon.

  As I watch the Gryphon recede in the view screen, a pang of anxiety once again strikes through my chest. I hope their schedule isn't totally messed up. The amount of work I'm going to need to do when I get back is going to be overwhelming. Not only fueling schedules will need to be caught up, but also the maintenance schedules and ship's orders will need attention. The fuelies are probably scrambling to just make what scheduled fuel stops they can in between Kae's interference.

  I slump down in my harness. Will I ever make it back to the Gryphon? And my normal life?

  "Are you all right, Talia?"

  I blink away tears and straighten back up. "Yes. I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed. I just want to go back to my familiar routine on the Gryphon and not have to deal with any of this."

  Zayn reaches over and places his gloved hand over mine. "I'm sorry. All of this is my fault."

  I want to look away because yes, it is partially his fault. But with all the secrets, and Kae's involvement, there's something else going on here. "All you did was run out of fuel. With all the secrets that everyone is so stubbornly hiding, there's no way all of this is your fault."

  "I really wish I could've told you in the beginning."

  I look past him. The view screen wraps around him like a port window. All I see are stars and empty space. "This secret has to do with the Migration, doesn't it?" I say softly.

  His eyes widen and I know I'm on to something. I smile. "There's nothing more important than getting to New Earth. We're running out of raw materials, our populations are increasing, and getting out of our habitat ships is the dream everyone across the Migration yearns for."

  Zayn keeps his mouth tightly shut.

  "After getting to know you, I can tell you're not stupid." I grin. "So the only explanation for running out of fuel the way you did is desperation. You needed to get as far as possible away from the Migration for maybe a long-range scan? Or as close as you could to link communications with Midpoint Station? Maybe you thought you could actually reach Midpoint Station?"

  Zayn hangs his head to his chest. "Our engineers had tweaked my engines to get more out of my fuel. We thought it would stretch far enough, but I didn't calculate getting hit by an asteroid."

  I think about that. If he didn't actually make it to Midpoint Station, then why would the nav boxes be so important? Then an idea hits me, and my stomach twists. "There's something wrong with Midpoint Station, isn't there?" Midpoint Station is not named that because it's the midpoint in our travel to New Earth, but rather it's the midpoint between the two galaxies. The Migration is actually more than three quarters of the way to New Earth. But Midpoint Station is very important for the data it's supposed to be collecting as the forward sensor array.

  Zayn looks back up at me. "That's partially the problem." He holds his hand up. "But the other part I can't tell you until we reach Midpoint. Even I don't know exactly what's on those boxes. I didn't have time to download and read them before I was struck."

  I clamp my mouth shut and narrow my eyes.

  "You'll see soon enough." He points to my left. "How much longer do we have until we reach Midpoint?"

  I stare at him for a few seconds. It's a good thing he's handsome and important. Otherwise, I might have jettisoned him from this ship.

  I look over to the nav console. "Looks like almost four hours."

  "And in all that time, you don't think they'll find us?"

  "I know it's a long shot, but we couldn't just stay on the Gryphon to be discovered by her. And how long could we sneak from habitat to habitat? You don't want her to have the boxes, right?"

  He gives a deep sigh and leans back deeper in his seat. "Right. She's the last person who needs to be seeing this information."

  Although I agree one hundred percent with that, I still wonder exactly why this information is so important. She has nothing to do with the navigation or decisions of the Migration. She's just the captain of one of the two fueling barges.

  I pull up maps on my nav console. I search through layers of newly created maps until I find the ones that go as far past Midpoint Station as we have in our current database. I zoom in to see that the newest ones were uploaded several months ago. I scroll out to the edge of the scan.

  I can feel Zayn leaning toward me. I glance out of the corner of my eye to see him watching my screen. I look back to the map and study it.

  Most of the long-range scans are only basic views of our future path. They show locations of the nearest stars, asteroid belts, temperatures of the nearby masses, and a handful of mineral readouts.

  The plans set in place by the Council so many years ago were to travel to our new home, New Earth, and each habitat would settle its people on a different continent. New Earth, to be renamed once we set foot on it, was reported to have more landmasses than our original Earth. So each habitat, representing a country or group of countries from Earth, would be able to keep their cultures protected although so many light years from their original home.

  Everyone aboard the habitats has a vocation, an expertise in something. We must all work together, and then once on our new planet we would all still have vocations to contribute to our new communities.

  Except for the fuelies. I frown. Sure, some of us would still be needed for the space ships that remain active. Or for water or land vehicles. But we definitely wouldn't need as many as we have now.

  My skin grows cold. This is what Kae's afraid of. Once we reach New Earth, she won't be the queen of the little empire she's created for herself. It will cease to exist or become something different, depending on New Earth's needs. She won't be important anymore.

  I still have no idea exactly what the big secret is hidden on those nav boxes, but I think I now know at least why Kae is involved. Which makes me extremely nervous, because if I'm right she will do anything to remain in control.

  14

  Flight to Midpoint Station

  I tap my screen. "Kae knows what we're going to find on those nav boxes, doesn't she, Zayn?" I grind my teeth together.

  Zayn tries to shrug but the harness makes the motion worthless. He rolls his eyes at himself. "Yes, I think she suspects."

  I count backwards from ten, clenching my gloved hands.

  "But it might not be exactly what she's expecting," he says quickly. "We think she's assuming that this new data will show that our timeline to get to New Earth will have moved up. We don't think she really wants to get to New Earth." He frowns.

  "Of course she doesn't, because she will then once again be a small fish in a big pond." I throw my hands up. "Anyone who knows her could figure that out. Why all the secrecy? We all know she's power hungry!" My suit's air conditioning kicks in as my body temp increases.

  "Can we take our helmets off? My suit is low on charge."

  I stare at him. My anger derailed makes me practically growl in frustration. "Sure."

  He pulls his helmet off and runs his hands through his sweaty hair. I look away, a fluttering sensation growing in my belly. I flip through the nav screens as I try to not to think about how good looking Zayn is, and how close he is to me right now. I try to remember I'm mad at him.

  "Are you going to stay in your helmet? Because of your sight?" he asks.

  I turn slightly toward him. How am I going to survive four hours this close to him? "No, I'll need to take it off so my suit can recharge as well." I point to a plug down by our knees. "You can plug yours in there. We don't know what condition Midpoint Station is in or whether or not it still has oxygen." The station was only designed to house a few people at a time and not for very long. If something has truly damaged it there might not be power over there at all. We'll need our suits.

  Before taking off my helmet, I enter a few commands so I'm alerted audibly if our sensors pick up any ships nearby. There's nowhere for me to hide here so I just look forward and pull my helmet off. As my sight dims once again into darkness, I push the embedded connectors back under my hair. A sigh escapes as I transition and hope Zayn doesn't notice.

  The ship feels smaller now. As my other senses sharpen, I feel Zayn's presence even more. I smell the tangy sweat from his hair and the grease from the borrowed space suit. A shiver goes up my spine.

  I lean forward and plug in my suit. My face is warm, and I'm thankful that at least he can't read my mind. I unhook and pull off my gloves, stretching my hands. I run the tips of my fingers over the nav controls just to double check the settings. Although these pods were built for the sighted, I'd made some adjustments over the years just in case I was forced to pilot one myself.

  "Your eyes are amazing, Talia."

  My brows furrow and I still my hands. "What do you mean? I'm blind. How amazing can that be?" I inhale sharply. "Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound so snarky."

  "It's all right." He chuckles. "They're amazing because they're two different colors. One is a blue so light it seems that you can see all the way through me. And the other is a shade of green I've never seen before. Were they that way before the accident?" His voice sounds deeper as he leans closer.

  I blink. "Yes, it's called heterochromia. It's one of the few genetic traits our scientists haven't engineered away."

  He lightly touches the scar above my eye, and I jerk my head back as far as I can into my seat.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." I can still feel the heat from his skin on my brow. "I always forget you can't see," he whispers.

  I've heard that comment before from new fuelies who come aboard the Gryphon. But when Zayn says it to me, it's different. When others say it, I feel pride that I've been able to not only overcome my fear of being blind but I've worked hard to become the best fuelie in the fleet. I've earned my passage on the Gryphon.

  With Zayn it feels intimate, much more fulfilling to hear than if he had told me I was beautiful.

  "It's all right." I clasp my hands together. "You just surprised me." My cheeks are on fire, and I have nowhere to hide.

  "Do the scars make you feel self-conscious?" He touches my brow again, lighting up every one of my nerves.

  Is he oblivious to what he's doing to me? I try to calm my racing pulse.

  I close my eyes a second. "It used to. In the beginning the scars were red and swollen and painful. But now that they've had several years to heal, I don't even think about them anymore." I turn away. "But no one has ever touched them."

  He pulls his hand away. "I'm sorry if it upset you."

  "Then why were you touching them?" I turn back toward him, honestly curious why he would want to touch something so hideous as my burn scars.

  "Because they're part of you, and I just can't figure you out."

  I give a quick laugh. "Why on Triton do you need to figure me out?" My brow creases as a spark of doubt comes into my mind. "Because you don't trust me?"

  I involuntarily touch the pocket containing the nav boxes.

  "No, that's not it at all, Talia." He grasps my hand and pulls it toward him, causing tingles all the way up my arm. "I've trusted you since the first time I met you in my ship. I wouldn't have let you keep the boxes this whole time if I didn't."

  His hand is warm, and he rubs his thumb across the sensitive skin of my palm.

  I don't pull my hand back. Although I should because it's causing the heat in my belly to increase.

  I swallow. "So if you trust me, then why do you need to know anything else?"

  He squeezes my hand. "Because I like you."

  "You haven't known me long enough to know if you like me," I say gruffly. I can feel my defenses encircling me like a force field.

  "It feels like we've known each other for a very long time. And it's not like we're going anywhere right now." I can hear the smile in his voice. "I've watched you over the last few days. You're calm in emergencies, you know just about every space ship we've been on inside and out, and you didn't fall completely apart when faced with the one person you should hate most in the universe."

  I snap my jaw closed. I try to think of what to say, but my mind is blank.

  "Talia?"

  "Yes," I manage to finally croak out, "she is the one person I hate most in the universe."

  "Fair enough." He chuckles.

  I relax slightly.

  "Are you all right with me asking questions about your blindness?"

  I tilt my head. "Honestly, no one asks me about it anymore. It doesn't offend me, if that's what you mean."

 

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