Aurora (36 page)

‘Thought we’d surprise you.’ Kitsune gives the soft laugh that has kept Fox grounded and calm in so many tense moments. ‘Didn’t want to get your hopes up in case I didn’t make it. And then you nearly didn’t. And Pan . . .’

His eyes meet Fox’s in wordless sympathy.

Fox focuses on the moment to keep his grief at bay. ‘You’ve flown all the way from New Jing? But
how
. . . ?’

‘When you’re commander of the eastern sky fleet, many things are possible,’ says Kitsune breezily. ‘
Make maximum use of mobility
, as Lawrence of Arabia would say.’

Fox bursts out laughing. Kitsune always refused to discuss in any detail the plans to hijack a fleet of sky ships. That was his job and Fox must trust him, he said; and because he had to, Fox did.

‘It was best to keep all of that top secret and out of the ether, just in case. But here I am.’ Kitsune steers the ships out of the turbulence and turns to his old friend with a gentler smile. ‘And here you are.’

Kitsune and Steerpike exchange glances.

‘We always thought you’d be here, in the end,’ Steerpike confides. ‘There was always a back-up plan. There are Surgents in New Mungo all ready to take over the reins should anything happen to you. Or,’ she smiles, ‘should
you
happen to veer off-plan.’

‘Lawrence of Arabia’s top tip,’ Kitsune declares. ‘
Make a virtue of rebel individuality, irregularity and unpredictability
.’

‘The best laid plans of mice and men,’ Fox admits with a wry smile, ‘often go askew.’

And in so many unexpected ways
, he thinks, silently blessing his mother who has rebelled in the most unpredictable way of all.

‘Let the Surgency know that Sarah Stone, my mother, has taken over my fight in New Mungo,’ he tells Kitsune who absorbs this news in rapt wonderment. ‘Tell them to trust her and – and to keep her safe.’

One of the co-pilots turns from the controls. ‘We’ve made radio contact with the Atlantic Surge and located a mountain city called Ilira, a trade port famed for its bridges, deep in the east-coast fjords.’

Fox feels his spirit leap.

‘Ilira’s fleets will join the Surge,’ adds the other co-pilot. ‘That’s the message coming through. And there’s a gypsea fleet at Atlan point, south of Ilira.’

‘The Arctic Pirates,’ says Steerpike. ‘Under the command of the Vulture of the North. With a name like that,’ she grins, ‘I’m glad he’s on our side.’

‘Our nearest landing platform is at Fort Aurora, some distance north of Ilira. We’re about to begin our descent,’ Kitsune announces. He turns to Fox. ‘The new settlement at Aurora seems
far
from settled. There are signs that people there will join us, if we give them the choice. We have a chance of taking a major stronghold of the empire, perhaps without too much of a fight. Here’s a bit of irregularity and unpredictability that wasn’t planned for by your father and his cohorts, Fox! Our people are fascinated by the real world. They’re beginning to feel and act in ways the empire didn’t foresee now they’ve been set free from their cages in the sky. We spoke to the command unit at Fort Aurora earlier – from the noise they were making I thought they’d an uprising on their hands, but they were in raptures over the spectacle of an aurora storm.’ Kitsune chuckles. ‘The empire doesn’t know what it’s unleashed.’

Fox remembers what he glimpsed as the airship soared away from the sky tower. Some of the unwilling police guards who couldn’t bring themselves to fire on their own people were turning on their superiors, while others joined the exodus from the rooftop. All those rebels unleashed themselves from the empire in that moment and chose the risk of the unknown.

‘You have Midnight listeners at Aurora,’ says Steerpike. ‘I tracked their Nooswave in the midnight login. Tell them we have the Storyteller on board,’ she suggests to Kitsune. ‘That’ll cause more excitement than an aurora storm.’

Fox winces with pain as the ship shudders in descent, but his hopes are rising. ‘If the Earth itself has stirred the people in the new fortresses of the Northlands and the Midnight stories have awoken their dreams, maybe this war is already half won.’

‘Maybe,’ says Steerpike. ‘But too many still have dreams,’ she looks away, ‘like your father’s. There’s a battle ahead yet.’

The airship’s tremors deepen. Fox’s ears pop and his stomach flips as they lose height rapidly to follow the ragged line of the coast where the edges of the vast island fragment into sea fjords. And now they are flying over an astonishing thing: a network of glistening pathways woven between the mountains, across a winding path of sea.

Fox’s heart jolts painfully as if tied to an anchor that has just plummeted down to the miraculous world below.

Look for the shining bridges of Ilira
, Lily said.
Find me there.

Fox stares down through the starboard window. In his mind’s eye he remembers a dark-haired girl on a broken bridge.

‘You need to upgrade that ancient junk,’ Steerpike scoffs, as he takes the emerald mindgem and tiny godbox from his pocket.

‘Never!’ says Fox, as he connects up the trusty old godgem. ‘Where would I be without this?’

The sizzling green curtains of the aurora tear apart. A pandemonium of colour rips through, erupting all around the airship, as if the universe has cracked open and a glorious chaos of tomorrows can’t wait to tumble into today.

The world is full of tomorrows
, thinks Fox.

And the world is all before him now.

ON A WING OF MAYBE

Mara shields her eyes against the sun, stalled mid-throw by what looks like a silver fish swimming across the blue ocean of sky. A shining shoal follows and she pauses to watch the fleet of airships flying up from the south.

The globe tingles in her hand, charged and ready. She feels dizzy, full of dread at what she must do. What’s she waiting for?
Get rid of it, now
. Throw the globe, the whole cyberwizz, into the sea and be done with it all for good.

But Mara’s fingers grip the globe as she feels the deep, raw tug inside that always leads her into trouble – and keeps her alive. It’s the same impulse that once made her peer beyond the horizon and leap into the unknown – to the Weave where she first found Fox, then out on to the world’s ocean where she lost almost everything. But the tug is her internal compass, always pointing to her true north. It brought her here to the top of the world, to a new life on a changed Earth. It’s that same magnetic tug that must have brought Lily through the mountains to Ilira and led her, as it led Mara, to Fox.

None of it would have happened without the cyberwizz she is about to hurl into the ocean. Would she even be alive? She would never have known Fox and he would not have begun the revolution to save the future from the sky empire. Lily would never have been born.

Mara takes the halo and wand from her pocket. Barely thinking, barely able to breathe, she slips on the halo, flips open the globe

Just once more. Just for a moment. Just to see.

The strange language of the cyberwizz is etched in her memory like ancient carvings on stone. Diving into the Weave is as easy as surfacing from the ocean and knowing how to breathe.

The real world fades.

The magnificent bridges and thundering waterfalls of Ilira all feel far, far away.

The wind of a homecoming tide wraps around Mara and seems to sweep her towards a broken bridge in a place where anything felt possible, once upon a time.

Mara’s island home is drowning as the ice caps melt and Earth loses its land to the ocean. But one night, in the ruined virtual world of the Weave, Mara meets the mysterious Fox – a fiery-eyed boy who tells her of sky cities that rise from the sea. Mara sets sail on a daring journey to find a new life for herself and her friends – instead she discovers a love that threatens to tear her apart . . .

As the ice caps melt and the world drowns Mara stands at the bow of her ship, determined to believe that somewhere there is land still. But a floating city is about to throw her off course . . .

And in the ruins beneath the towers of a sky city, the boy Mara loves plots a lonely revolution of his own and hopes for the day when they will be together again.

A
SHIP HEADING FOR
N
EW
E
ARTH IS HALFWAY THROUGH ITS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY ACROSS THE GALAXY
.

O
N
BOARD, SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLDS
W
AVERLY AND
K
IERAN ARE PART OF THE FIRST GENERATION BORN IN SPACE
.

T
HEY ARE IN LOVE
.

T
HEY BELIEVE THEIR FUTURE IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS
.

T
HEY HAVE NEVER SEEN A STRANGER BEFORE
. . .

. . .
UNTIL THE DAY THEY ARE WRENCHED APART AND SUDDENLY FIND THEMSELVES FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES
.