Chapter 2

“Riots in Pahalial Square again?”, Marek shouted over the tumult. Lewis shrugged. Riots had become commonplace on Prime ever since E-day, the day the attacks started and the day that they lost their home.

“Food shortage”, Linden mouthed. The three stood poised on the edge of a roiling mob, all armed with empty sacks and picket signs. Fuel people, not ships. Hunger is lune-acy. Feed the workers, starve the shirkers.

“More convoys attacked?” Marek yelled back.

Linden nodded sadly. Prime relied on regular food shipments from the outer colonies. And lately, these shipments had not been regular. The Ghosts had seen to that.

Lewis patted Marek and Linden on the shoulder, and motioned them onwards, inclining his head towards the nearly empty walkway skirting the Square. They continued on in a deafened silence alongside the protests, at last reaching Pahalial’s Last Stand, monument to the first leviathan to be produced and the Northern border of the Square. The immensity of the structure served not only to emphasize the dominance of the ruling League housed within, but buffered the Northern limits from the noise of the riot.

As the sounds from the Square lessened to a dull rumble, the turmoil within Marek boiled to the surface, “Why do they have to blame us? What did they lose? What do they know? The only reason they weren’t hit was because the allied fleet arrived in time for them. But not for us.” Marek ground to a halt and let his gaze drift skyward. A perpetual green haze from the planetary shields permeated the atmosphere of Prime and shadows of distant defensive rings strobed across the subdued blaze of the sun. “Do they really think any of this would have stopped the Ghosts? It barely slowed them on Ur…”

Marek was vaguely aware of Lewis speaking. “Who are they gonna blame? The Ghosts? None of them has ever seen one. Irkalla take them, only a handful of us have either.”

But Marek heard nothing of this. He was already far away, in a place with the sun calmly shining in a green sky. A different green sky. It was clearer. He was alone. On a hillside overlooking the city. And there were stars, gradually growing in the sky. In the middle of the day. Millions of stars. Except not stars, because they were everywhere and they were moving. There were so many of them moving and weaving that the sun seemed to disappear. But strangely, the sky remained bright, brighter in fact than ever before. And the green began to change. The top of the sky became imbued with orange and blue and red and yellow. An aurora. A sunset. A symphony of fire. It was beautiful. And then suddenly he had a feeling. Something had changed in the air. And as he felt this, the light passed through to the city. And burned up everything that it touched.

Blue eyes. Marek blinked. His own eyes felt wet. And Lewis was staring at him with intent blue eyes. His arms on his shoulders. “Sorry Lewis. I was just… remembering…”

Lewis gave his shoulders a squeeze. “Yeah. I know. It’s alright. You good to get going again?”

Marek glanced over at Linden, who was hunched over, chewing on his fingernails and looking at him. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.”