Free Starglass by Phoebe North

knife against the soft underside of his jaw.
    “The names! Give them to me!” the man on his left shouted.
    But it was Mar Jacobi’s student who answered.
    “Leave him alone!”
    I watched as he struggled toward his teacher, stepping into the feeble light. He was hardly even an adult. Though his compact body was covered in lean muscle, there was a curve of adolescent softness to his features.
    “Get back, Hofstadter!” Aleksandra snarled. “This isn’t your business!”
    And then I heard Mar Jacobi’s voice. It was soft, gentle. “Van, it’s all right.”
    The boy gave an uncertain nod. But then his gaze ambled up through the dark. His eyes were green, and they seemed to glow even in the dim light. He’d seen me watching in the shadows. He mouthed words to me, forming the syllables silently with his trembling lips: “Run. Now.”
    Before I could obey, I heard Mar Jacobi’s gentle voice rise up one last time.
    “Liberty on Earth,” he said. I saw the guard’s blade glint as it lifted. “Liberty on Zehava!”
    The knife came down.
    Red. Blood.
    I did my best to ignore the strange gargle of sound that followed me as I raced down the twisting hallway. When I reached the lift, I jammed my hand against the panel over and over again. But before the door could shudder open, I heard Van Hofstadter’s voice barrel toward me through the silent corridors.
    “Ben!” he sobbed. “Benjamin!”
    •  •  •
    I was still shaking when I stumbled through the front door of my house. The sound of  Van’s anguished cries kept echoing through my head. I didn’t even see my father sitting stone-still at the table, waiting for me.
    “Terra. You’re late.”
    I jumped, nearly dropping my bag on Pepper. There was my father, hands flat on the tabletop, a series of covered dishes laid out before him. And he wasn’t alone. Koen Maxwell sat across from him, his brown eyes wide. He seemed afraid to speak or even breathe. I knew that feeling.
    “I know.” I shook my head. “Something happened—”
    “I don’t care what happened. I made supper for you so we could eat like a family for once. I expect you to come home at a reasonable time.”
    I was doing my best to keep my cool, but I could hear the emotion cresting in my voice already. “Mara kept me late, and then I came home through the engine rooms and—”
    “Don’t talk to me about Mara Stone. And the engine rooms are no place for a girl to go off walking alone!” He slammed the flat of his hand against the table. The dishes shook. Koen’s eyes got even bigger. I wondered if he regretted his vocation. But that wasn’t my problem.
    “I’m not a girl ! I’m fifteen years old—”
    “I don’t care, Terra!” He pushed up from the table. As his chair came crashing to the floor behind him, Pepper darted up the stairs. My father towered over me. He was still so much taller than I was. “So long as you live in my quarters, what I say goes, and I won’t have you roaming the ship like some hooligan!”
    As if he didn’t roam the ship alone all the time !
    “Abba—” I clamped my hands over my mouth. The syllables had squeaked out like a baby’s cry. Beneath my fingers my face burned with shame. My gaze shifted to Koen, who was staring down at the tabletop, pretending he was somewhere else.
    My father didn’t notice my embarrassment. He was still caught upin our argument. “Don’t ‘Abba’ me! I won’t have you roaming the ship like some worthless little slut!”
    I’d heard those words before, of course. They always hit me just as hard as any blow. Between my clamped-down fingers I let out a small noise. A cry. I fought it. I didn’t want to cry in front of Koen. I didn’t want to let him see the way things were in our house.
    So I took off running for the stairs and locked my bedroom door behind me.
    I stood there for a moment, trembling. I wasn’t sure if I was angry, or hurt, or terrified, or all of those things; the only thing I knew for