Midnight Wings: Rove City, #1

This book is dedicated to my two

fairy-godmothers:

DEIDRE PRESCOTT

and

JANE MCGARRY

CHAPTER 1

AROUND AND AROUND her fighter jet spun, completely out of control. The background stars created elegant patterns as their light blurred into lines and swirls. El mashed on the controls, desperately trying to regain control, but the alien mothership grew nearer and nearer, and with only one functioning thruster, there was little she could do about it.

She took a deep breath and shifted her attention away from the fact that she was losing control of the ship, and back on her main strategy—bringing down the mothership’s shield. Was there anything she could do to further that objective, despite the fact that she was going to die any second now? Yes, possibly there was.

El activated the last functioning thruster, which increased the speed of her spin and changed the trajectory just enough that it headed straight for the ship’s control room. She had spent most of the game trying to weaken this one spot—this was her last chance to make an impact. It probably wouldn’t work, but she wouldn’t know unless she tried.

Her fighter jet blasted through the remaining shield and crashed into the window of the mothership. The words YOU HAVE DIED appeared on the screen, but as she watched, a series of smaller explosions began to erupt all over the alien ship, and the next thing she knew, it blossomed into a ball of fire.

The words, YOU HAVE DIED were suddenly replaced with YOU HAVE WON!

El leaped from her seat, hands in the air, and let out a brief whoop of delight. She clapped her hand over her mouth—she didn’t want to wake up anyone else in the house, or no doubt she would be subjected to no end of ruthless torment in the morning.

I’m tired. Make me coffee, eggs, bacon, and muffins, Lottie would say.

I didn’t sleep a wink! Bree would exclaim. I won’t be able to do any of my errands or homework or mending today—you do them, El.

Worst of all, her stepmother, Patricia, would no doubt subject her to some new horror—have her remodel her bedroom for example, including sound-proofing the walls, repainting, refurnishing, and who knew what else. In addition, she would make El do it all by hand, in the few moments eL had between her job, cooking, cleaning, and managing everything else that went on in the house.

But she had been trying to beat this simulator game for months, in the few spare hours she had between chores each week—often sacrificing sleep to do it. She frequently played on her stepsisters’ accounts, because she had figured out that they would leave her alone for a few hours at a time, since her high scores would increase their rankings in the social grid, which all of their friends and peers could see. Hopefully, Lottie would see the win in the morning and decide to be a bit nicer to El.

El’s simulator rankings were great, but her social rankings were about as low as they could get, and not only because she preferred to interact with as few other people as possible. Rather, a few years earlier, her stepsisters had organized their friends and spammed her with bad reviews. She probably would never recover from that. It didn’t matter though. She lived off of the hospitality of her stepfamily, not a cent or a property to her name. Her options in life included: staying with her stepfamily to cook, clean, and repeat, or moving out with friends or a spouse—things her rankings didn’t allow. Stuck, that’s what she was. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

She stretched and sighed. It was already almost midnight. She should go to bed, since she had to be up by six to make coffee and breakfast for her stepmother, but evenings were the only time she ever had to herself. Plus, if she planned it right, she could probably fit in a nap or two during the afternoon. Patricia didn’t keep an eye on her every moment of every day, and she could always get Theo, the butler, to stand watch for her while she snuck a nap.

Grabbing the light jacket she kept by the door, she slipped out of their house and into the corridor. The city had already shifted into night mode, so only dim floor-level lights shone on the metal walls around her. Rove City was an intergalactic spaceship, made from hundreds of smaller pods all connected by tunnels, which ultimately led back to the center Tower. Each pod housed over a thousand people and operated like a small town with everything from houses, to greenhouses, to markets, to bars, to restaurants, tailors, bakers, cobblers, machinery, and gravity pumps, all self-contained.

The entire city was run by what was essentially a queen, and though she liked to refer to their govern-ment as a democracy, it was really more of an elected monarchy.

Queen Amina, less of a sociopath than their last monarch, Queen Dern, had a lot of opinions on a lot of things, and never hesitated to share them. Thanks to incubation technology, Queen Amina had already borne over a dozen sons and daughters, some from her husband, and others from her various consorts. There was no telling which one of the children would ultimately gain the throne—according to custom, they were all eligible. El was hoping for Helena. She was the least psychotic of the bunch, and actually had useful skills—electrical engineering, primarily.

El strode down the hallway, her soft boots making only slight scuffing noises on the metal floors. The halls were quiet; only a few people ventured out this late, usually those intent on drinking at one of the pod bars, or artists, gazing at the stars. She wandered toward the greenhouse on the outer edge of the pod, one of her favorite places to sit and think. There were cameras everywhere and strict penalties for anyone that snagged food without permission, but the air there smelled clean, and had a clear glass ceiling that opened up to the stars.

She pushed open the door and took a deep breath. In a few hours, bright artificial lights would blaze on, but right now, everything slept in darkness except for the stars, sharp white points of light, shining through the darkness of space. El took a deep breath. It always smelled good in here, so fresh, so clean. She had thought about trying to work here, but it was a dream job—everyone’s dream job. No one would choose a poor, family-less girl like her, especially with such a horrible social grid ranking. Just another way her stepfamily kept her trapped.

She turned left. Plants in hydroponic wheels filled most of the greenhouse, but on the far side, the gardener had planted roses in raised beds filled with soil. A camera behind her buzzed as it followed her movements, but she ignored it. As long as she didn’t steal anything, break anything, or do anything she wasn’t supposed to, no one would care that she was here.

As she rounded the largest bed of roses, her favorite bench came into view. She sank down on it, lying flat, and gazed up at the stars, breathing the scent of the flowers deeply. Several of the herbs nearby were in bloom, the mixture of scents powerful and comforting. She could fall asleep here if she wasn’t careful. But that was a bad idea. The gardeners wouldn’t be too happy to find her here in the morning—and her stepmother would be even less happy to discover breakfast hadn’t been cooked when she awoke.

El took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. Then another. And another. She counted: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...

Couldn’t sleep? A voice interrupted her calming meditation.

She sat abruptly upright on the bench, heart racing, and gasped. Who’s there? Why would you do that?

The voice chuckled, and a figure stepped out of the shadows into the dim light of the stars that shone overhead.

He was tall, probably not much older than she was, dark hair, square jaw. The shadows made his face difficult to see.

Why would you do that? she asked again, frowning at him. He was intruding on her alone time, and she didn’t like it.

Do what? he asked innocently. Your eyes were open. He stepped closer and plopped down on the bench beside her. Great, now she couldn’t lay down to look at the stars. She would have a crick in her neck instead.

You startled me, she replied, feeling irritated. This was her time. Her time to breathe. Her time to spend away from her stepsisters and mother. Her time to be alone. What are you doing here anyway?

Better question, he countered. What are you doing here?

She frowned at him. Trying to get some alone time.

You’re not doing a very good job. He chuckled at his own joke, then leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and stared at the stars.

I would be, if you would go away, she answered. A tide of anxious thoughts began to rise to the surface of her mind. On one hand, she wanted to be alone and wished he would go away—after all, this was the only time of day she really got to be on her own. On the other hand, it was rare that anyone bothered to talk to her. She spent most of her time alone, and while she preferred it, it was also nice when someone took the time to be pleasant. But she almost always drove them off by being irate—or in this case, by literally telling them to go away.

Grouchy tonight? he asked.

She didn’t reply, but gazed up at the stars and began counting them, one by one.

How did we get here? he asked after a few moments of silence. Rove City, I mean. It was a common topic of conversation. Rove City, in the form of a spaceship, had left their home world so