4. A Flight to Malderin

The notebook of off-planet contacts was difficult to decipher, even for Margaret who was generally ace at cracking code. It took three days, between the three of them, to get a decent list of names, planets, and contact numbers. Once they had the list, it took another two days of combing through before they came across someone who might be able, and willing, to help them.

Jim Middleton. It was Marianne who knew him, and she was surprised to find his name in the book. Four years ago, he had kidnapped her and held her for ransom in the most obvious of hiding places: a mechanic shop not one block away from the Czar's palace. At first she had assumed he was Underground, but she soon learned (because he told her) that he was drug-runner by trade, and getting too old for the business. He was friendliest of kidnappers, and they became really quite fond of each other over the five days he held her. When Czar Dashwood at last paid the ransom, Jim had released Marianne without fuss or haggling, and had apparently used the money to set himself up on a planet less war-torn and more suited to retirement.

According to the notebook, the planet where Jim Middleton had decided to live out his golden years was Brandon Global.

Brandon Global wasn't a bad place to live. It was one of those peaceful, God-fearing planets of the Middle North solar system. If it had ever had a name other than Brandon Global, nobody knew it now. It had long since taken the name of the zillion-dollar corporation that spanned much of its surface. Christopher Brandon, famous entrepreneur who owned and ran Brandon Global Corp ("Probably owns the planet, too," said Marianne with cynicism; she bore no love for men who owned planets), had cornered the market on manufacturing spaceship hyper drives.

The notebooks listed a satellite number for Jim, and the sisters decided that this would be their best shot. Still, Elle hesitated to contact him. It seemed too final.

Meanwhile, Edward had been drawn back into his real life. Guerilla warfare in the south between Underground and Loyalists had reached a fever pitch, and he had put himself back to work to deal with this and the other endless problems facing him. They were left at the house alone most of the time now.

Elle still saw him, but she saw him at night.

She had a feeling Marianne new about this, but she kept the pretense of sneaking out of the room, once she thought her sisters were asleep. She knew she was acting recklessly—he must have known it too—and something so doomed and sad hung perpetually over their heads until it was difficult to draw the line between love and masochism. Did she love him? He was a very good man, a Great man.

She believed in him, but she worried about him. He didn't always see things clearly. He was too optimistic. She was afraid that the world would break him.

Marianne had always accused her of being too calculating, intellectualizing everything, which wasn't true. But Elle was a realist. It struck her as a bitter irony that if anyone could've helped Edward build a new Crash, it was her. Her pragmatism was the perfect balance to his sometimes blind enthusiasm. In another universe, she could have done so much for him. But in this universe, the real universe, the best she could do for him was to get off Crash.

Two nights after the discovery of Jim Middleton, she finally broached the subject.

"I think we've found somewhere to go," she said.

Edward was silent in bed beside her. The room was dark, and she could not see his face; but, a hand on his chest, she could feel his breathing, steady and slow.

"Do you want to know where?" she asked.

He still did not answer, and she felt a heavy sadness in the silence that fell between them. "I think it's best if you don't tell me," he said at last.

She leaned up and kissed him. "Are you afraid of being compromised?" she joked. She wanted to tell him, to share this last secret with him since they would never share anything else. But she had known he would say this. She had known.

"No," he said, "But it's still better if I can't be compromised. For both of us. If I just don't know."

She sighed and rolled onto her back, the two of them not touching now, a space between. She knew he was right. Sometimes it was he who saw things clearly.

"When do you want to go?" he asked. He had stopped trying to convince her to stay. If he had asked one more time, she would've said no anyway, gave him the same list of reasons as before. And yet she had wanted him to ask, one more time.

"The end of the week," she heard herself say, and it was decided. Three more days, and she would never see him again.

They had already discussed how it would happen. He would get them onto a flight to Malderin, and from there they would arrange a flight to their final destination. Malderin was one planet-wide city, and the transportation hub of the galaxy. If you wanted to smuggle anything, you smuggled it through Malderin. It was virtually impossible to trace what went in and out of the planet, and where it went to.

"Alright," he said. "I will find you a ship."


When Marianne made the call to Brandon Global from the satellite screen in Edward's safe house, it was decidedly not Jim Middleton who answered. Instead, Marianne was faced with a plump, middle-aged woman in a dressing gown, her bleached-blonde hair in curlers.

"Well, dear, who are you?" the woman asked, and it was refreshing not to be recognized. To think, there were entire worlds out there where nobody knew who Marianne Dashwood was. The prospect was exhilarating.

"I'm—" Marianne began, but then it didn't seem the best idea to say who she was until she knew who she was talking to. "I'm trying to get in touch with Jim Middleton. Are you his wife?"

"Oh goodness, no. I'm just Jenny. I do the cooking and cleaning. JIM!"

The last world was shouted over her shoulder, and Marianne reckoned all of Brandon Global must have heard it. Jenny had alarming lung capacity. She turned back to the screen and the curiosity in her eyes was evident.

She said, "I dare say, I have to wonder what a pretty young girl like you is calling Jim for. Are you his daughter?"

It was one of the moments where Marianne just did the thing that came into her head without really thinking it through. "Yes," she said.

Jenny's round face broke into a twinkling grin. "The old dog," she said delightedly. "I knew he must have a few progeny out there."

At this point, Jim himself appeared in the screen and he looked just like she remembered him except that he his hair, which had been graying, was now completely silver. "Look who it is!" he said, surprised but apparently happy to see her. "My good friend Marianne."

"You mean your daughter Marianne," she said.

He frowned in confusion. "What?"

"I'm your daughter."

"Jenny, go for a walk!" he bellowed. Jenny looked miffed, but since her position in his household was a paid one, she evidently felt some responsibility to obey his command. Marianne soon heard the faint bang of a door on Jim's side of the satellite call.

Then he said, "What do you want from me, girl?" His tone was now guarded.

"Don't you know what's going on here at all?" she asked. "My father's dead. We're in trouble."

"I guess you would be," Jim said, and she couldn't read him. She had been so sure he would help them. Her gut had told her so. Could she have been wrong? She had always felt like they were friends, kidnapping and all.

"We need to get off planet."

"And that's where I come in," he said.

She nodded. "We can get ourselves are far as Malderin. A flight from there to Brandon Global, and somewhere to live for a few months, until we get our feet under us."

She waited, and at last his face broke into a grin. "As if I would do less for my one and only daughter."

Marianne broke into smile of her own. Of course her gut had been right. It was always right.


Margaret came up the stairs again the day before they left. Edward had just gotten home. He heard the pantry door creak open and he thought, Elle. But it wasn't Elle. It was this poor, lost girl. He liked to think that he had given her a chance, that maybe on Brandon Global Margaret Dashwood would be able to be Margaret Dashwood—a normal teenager, not a girl in disguise.

But part of him thought that even if they made it off-planet, the Dashwoods would never be completely free of Crash. You couldn't grow up on a planet like this without it becoming part of you, seeping into your pores for better or worse. Usually for worse. He knew because he was the same: Crash would always be a part of him.

"Comrade," he said, and saluted her.

She offered him the slightest of smiles and slouched into a chair at his kitchen tables. He followed her lead and sat down beside her.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked.

"Nope," he said.

She nodded, arms crossed, looking not at him, not at anything in particular. "That's what Elle said."

For a moment they were both silent. Then Margaret continued, "I know I should be, like, thrilled about it. I've always hated this fucking planet. But I've also always lived here."

On impulse, he grabbed a paper and pen from the pile of things on his table, wrote down a series of numbers, and slid in front of her. "This is the number to the satellite screen downstairs, and it is very privileged information. Three weeks from today, at midnight Crash time. Call me and let me know you're safe. You should be wherever you're going by then."

Margaret's eyes widened as she took the slip of paper.

"Don't tell Elle," he added. And then, on second thought, he made another amendment: "The first day of every month, one a.m., I'll be at that screen. If any of you are in trouble—if you ever need anything—" he trailed off.

Margaret nodded. She understood. She slipped the paper into the pocket of her hoodie, and then she sighed. "We won't be Dashwoods there. We're going by some other name."

"That means you're free," he said. "You can just be Margaret. You can be whoever it is you want to be."

"I guess you're right," she said. "I never thought about it that way."

So went the first of Edward's goodbyes.


"I've been thinking, we need to start checking all the spacecraft that are heading to Malderin," Lucy Steele said to Edward the next morning at the palace, still serving as the makeshift headquarters of the fledgling government.

"What for?" he asked with apparent disinterest, not even looking up from the correspondence he was reviewing. She was watching him closely for any tell-tale signs of nervousness, but there were none. Fanny was either wrong about him, or he was a very cool customer.

Lucy had gone to see Edward's sister the day before—a social call on the surface, but with the obvious ulterior motives. She was not above ingratiating herself with Edward's sister, if it might put her in a better position with Edward, who still didn't trust her. Of course, he had good reason not to trust her. But that wasn't the point.

She had also wanted to see what information she could get out of the sister, about either of her brothers, anything that might be useful. And what she managed to pull from Fanny was so beyond anything she had expected: Fanny seemed to think that Edward knew where the Dashwoods were. She wouldn't say anything other than that. But she was very adamant about it.

"That's obviously how the Dashwoods are going to get off-planet," she answered him, still observing his body language, looking for muscle tension. "Everyone smuggles through Malderin."

He forcibly tossed the letter he was reading onto his desk, a movement of frustration. "Lucy, why does it matter?" he asked. "It's been almost a month, and clearly they're not trying to stir up a counterrevolution. If all they want to do is disappear, I say let them."

He picked his letter back up, and his eye scanned it again. He did know where they were. He knew. She could tell. Edward bloody Ferris was hiding the Dashwood sisters.

"They're a symbol," she said.

"It's a waste of resources," he said. "But do as you must."

Was he calling her bluff? Or was she calling his? The thing was, she would so prefer it if she could use Edward to get control of Crash. It was the easy way. But maybe Robert was right and they would just have to kill him. It was hopeless if she could not get him to trust her. Perhaps it was in her best interest to let the Dashwoods go. Then she and Edward would have no reason to mistrust one another. She would kill him if she had to, but it seemed easier to marry him.

She wouldn't check the ships. But she wouldn't tell him either. She would let him sweat it. She left the room without another word.


Edward waiting a full minute to feel certain that Lucy was out of hearing range, and then he made the call. Thank God he had given Elle the tracker phone. Thank God she answered, her voice nervous as she said, "Hello?"

"Get off the plane."

"Edward. What?"

"Get off the plane," he repeated. "Lucy might have someone checking it. Just get off. I'm coming." He was already standing up, grabbing his keys, pulling on his coat.

"Where are we supposed to go?" Elle asked.

"Hide. Somewhere. Stay nearby, I'll be there soon."

He hung up and headed out the door.


Stay nearby, Edward had said, so they went around the corner to a small café, ordered coffees, and sat in it like normal people. They were all nervous. Elle felt especially on edge, glances out the widow constantly, wondering when Lucy Steele's G-men would show up to execute them right there on the street.

When someone finally came, it was Edward. "It's clear," he said. "God, I think I almost had a heart attack. I'm too young for this."

She wanted to point out that he had lived through closer scrapes than this. He had a scar on his chest from a bullet that had just missed his vitals. He had once been caught and almost tortured to death before the Underground had rescued him. He had told her these and other stories in bed, and it was cruel that she had to see him again, to remember how he had shared his secrets, when they had already said goodbye.

It was Marianne who spoke.

"Come with us," she said. The words froze everyone, but Marianne continued. "Edward, you cannot save Crash. You can't. It's a lost cause. In a month, you'll be assassinated and a person just like our father will take over from where he left off. Or it will be you. You'll become the person just like our father. You love Elle. You need to come with us now, and save this." She reached forward, and put a hand on his chest, over his heart. The she dropped the hand and waited calmly, as if she knew that Edward would say yes.

Edward couldn't not seem to find his voice. He looked from Marianne to Elle. And Elle knew, so she spoke for him.

"He can't come," she said.

Marianne turned to face her sister. "He has to chose—" she began, but Elle cut her off.

"Marianne, he can't come."

Sometimes, even Marianne knew when to let something go, and this is one of those time. "Come on Marg, we have a ship to catch," she said, grabbing her younger sister and practically dragging her out of the café. Elle watched their forms retreat, until they were around the corner and she could not see them anymore from the café window. Anything to keep from looking at Edward.

"I do love you," he said, helplessly, almost desperately. Her eyes snapped back to him.

She stepped towards him, reached forward to place her hand against his cheek. "But you love your planet more," she said.

Then she kissed him for the last time, and walked away.


A/N: Sorry for all the angst in this chapter, but fun times with Brandon are on the horizon! I promise next chapter will be much less angst heavy, and involve at least one Meet Cute.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! PLEASE keep reviewing. I beg you. I need affirmation. It's my love language.

Jill: You know by giving me all these ideas, you are actually just allowing me to be lazier, but amongst the shout outs to your brilliance in this chapter: (1) Margaret being a code-cracker (because she's the strategist) (2) Fanny telling Lucy about the Dashwoods (3) Marianne's prescience about assassination attempts. Speaking of Marianne, I'm glad she finally got to contribute this chapter, something meaningful and Marianne-ish. Anyway…Happy birthday! Since every day is your birthday now.