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“Her dead sister?” Again, I hadn’t thought before I’d blurted out the question.
“Her sister is not dead.” Volten seemed almost dazed. “Apparently, she is being held by the Kronock, and Ariana is determined to find her.”
Kann drew himself up to his full height, his jaw tight. “When do we leave?”
Chapter
Six
Ariana
My heart raced and my palms were damp as I wiped them down the front of my pants over and over and paced the length of my compact room. Sasha was alive? It wasn’t possible, was it?
Volten had left me so he could get our ship prepared, although I was distantly aware that two flight instructors couldn’t commandeer a Drexian ship and leave the academy without a solid plan. Right now, I didn’t have the capacity to plan more than how many steps I could pace before turning and heading in the other direction.
My mind had been a messy tangle of dark thoughts and anguished scenarios since Admiral Zoran had revealed that my sister hadn’t been shot down by the Kronock. She’d somehow been taken by the enemy, and only now did the Drexians and Earth Planetary Defense realize this fact. How could that be true? How could the aliens have held my sister all this time without anyone knowing? How had I not felt it?
That was what ate me up inside. Sasha had been out there this entire time, and I hadn’t known. I hadn’t been tormented by the sense that she was alive. I hadn’t been convinced she had survived. I hadn’t held out any hope that she hadn’t blown up, like the reports had claimed.
What kind of sister did that make me?
“One who hadn’t spoken to her sister in too long.” I sank onto my bed and put my head in my hands. Now that I knew Sasha was alive, our petty differences seemed even less important. So what if we’d always competed for our father’s attention? So what if we’d always fought to beat each other in everything? It had made us both achieve great things.
I didn’t even care about our father’s attention anymore. I was long past caring about his approval. But I did care about Sasha. She was the one other person in the universe who had been there with me, who understood my past, who knew me like only a sister could.
My heart twisted in my chest as I thought of her alone in some crude alien prison. Did she believe that she was forgotten? Did she think I knew she’d been taken and didn’t care? Did she think she’d been abandoned by her fellow fighters? The idea made bile tease the back of my throat, and I jerked to my feet.
I couldn’t waste any more time. Not when Sasha was out there alone and suffering. I strode to my dresser, opened the drawers, and started pulling out clothes and tossing them onto my bed. I didn’t know how to pack for a rescue mission, or how long I’d be gone. From what the admiral had said, they had no idea where the Kronock were keeping Sasha. How long would it take to search Kronock space?
I turned to appraise the pile of clothes when my door beeped. I barely glanced at it. “It’s open.”
The door slid aside, and Fiona walked in beaming. “You’re missing the par—” She smile faded as she shifted her gaze from me to the pile of clothes. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m packing.”
Fiona nodded slowly. “Why are you packing?”
I released an exasperated breath. “Because I’m leaving, of course.”
Fiona gave a brief shake of her head, as if trying to dislodge the confusion evident in her eyes. “Why are you leaving? Is this because of the mess with the trials?”
A sob welled up in my throat. “No, I would never be scared off by something like that.”
My friend eyed me. “Good, then why—?”
“It’s Sasha,” I blurted, my voice cracking.
“Your sister?” Fiona’s tone softened as she sat on the corner of the bed.
I nodded. “She’s not dead. They thought she was, but they just discovered that she was taken captive by the Kronock.”
Fiona put a hand over her mouth. “Holy shit.” She reached her other hand to me and rested it on my arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Her touch made my knees wobble, and I sank onto the bed next to her. “Thanks, but I don’t have time to be sad. Not when Sasha is stuck in some alien prison. I have to go find her.”
“You’re going to go after her?”
“Who else?”
