Polaris (19 page)

“If you do not surrender,” Saar continued, “I will hurt you in all the ways that matter most. Hurt you until you beg me for the mercy of your death.”

“Yeah, I'd like to see you try, asshole,” Jeth muttered, even as his heart pounded harder still, the faces of Lizzie, Milton, Celeste, and Shady all flashing through his mind. But there was nothing he could do to protect them now. He would have to trust Dax to keep them safe.

Jeth killed the power to the video screen and Saar's face disappeared.

“Are we ready yet, Sierra?” he said through the comm.

“Almost. I— Oh God, Jeth. Saar's ship. It's getting ready to fire missiles.”

“At what?” He shifted to the right, locating the flagship
easily. They were close enough to it that he could read the name painted on its side:
Regret
. A chill lanced across Jeth's back, the sensation amplified when he saw Sierra was right. The gun ports on
Regret
's prow were opened, a red glow building. But it didn't make sense. The ship wasn't facing them at all, but was still pointed toward the spaceport.

Toward
Avalon
.

Jeth saw it at once, following the trajectory. They had scanned
Avalon
and found her empty, their prize not in any danger. No, the only danger was of Jeth and his crew trying to escape the same way they'd done so many times before.

I will hurt you where it matters most . . . until you beg for death.

“No.” The word caught in Jet's throat, and afterward, he wasn't sure if he'd spoken at all. But inside, his heart and mind were screaming it.

He tightened his grip on the crow guns, taking aim. He even opened fire, but it didn't matter.

The blast of the flagship's missiles launching flashed red before his eyes. Three of them, all at once. Direct target. Direct hit.

With his heart quivering near his throat like a fish stranded on land, Jeth watched as the missiles struck
Avalon
. For a second, nothing seemed to happen at all, but then fire filled his vision.

He watched his ship burn until she was no more.

THE MOMENTS THAT FOLLOWED AFTER DID NOT EXIST. NOT
for Jeth. He was not aware of the metadrive engaging. He did not register the jump as metaspace swallowed them whole while biting through the three cruisers surrounding them.

He didn't know how long he stayed in the gun chair before Sierra finally climbed the ladder up to him. She didn't say anything, just stood there, her body half in and half out of the crow's nest, which didn't have enough room for two.

He waited for her to say something, a dozen responses going through his mind, all of them rage-filled and bitter.

But Sierra didn't say anything. She just reached out and touched his knee. Tears stood in her eyes, making them glisten like wet river rock. He sensed her pain, but he didn't feel it. He couldn't feel it, not through his own. The hurt pulsed inside him like a fever.
Avalon
was gone. She was
gone
. The knowledge spun through his head, over and over, leaving him dizzy and sick.

She'd been so much more than a ship, even more than a home.
Avalon
was everything. She had been for as long as he could remember. Back when both of his parents had been alive, she was a symbol of their homecoming, her
appearance a sign that they had returned from whatever weeks- or months-long journey they had taken. Later, she became a symbol of his freedom, his shining white horse that he would ride away on. She was his hope, his purpose. He'd built his life around her.

And now she was gone forever.

Sierra's hand moved on his knee. “Will you be okay?”

It wasn't the question he'd been expecting, and it disarmed his anger, preventing the tirade he'd prepared from exploding out from him. He swallowed, bile and despair burning his throat. When he didn't answer, Sierra squeezed him just once and said, “I'm so sorry.” Then she descended the ladder. He heard her tell someone below to leave him be. That he would come down when he was ready.

But he wouldn't be ready. He was never getting over this.

After a while, Jeth felt Perry calling him through the Axis link, insisting he needed to come down. They still had a mission ahead of them; they needed to prepare. Eric seconded him, his mind a stronger force than Perry's, harder to ignore. Eric was higher up on the Axis hierarchy, it seemed.

Jeth yanked the implant out, and for once he didn't regret its absence. In that moment, there was nothing he hated more than this black, rubbery intruder that held so much sway over him. If he hadn't been wearing it he could've ignored Dax's command and taken
Avalon
instead. He would've gotten past the cruisers the same way they had with
Polaris,
even without the stealth drive, and he would've found a way to resupply and refuel. He always did.

Dax will give you a new ship when you finish the job,
some distant voice spoke in his head.

I don't want another ship. I want
Avalon.
Always.

Finally, with the loss making him restless, he stowed the implant in his pocket. He felt something else in there and took it out; it was Celeste's personal comm. He climbed down from the crow's nest and hurled it against the wall opposite the bridge.

No one spoke. They all watched him, their expressions wary or curious or indifferent. Jeth ignored them and headed for the door. He'd almost made his escape when his mother called his name.

Jeth froze and closed his eyes, trying to summon the will to leave. To just ignore her. But even after all these years, he couldn't resist his mother's voice. He spun toward her, his lips pressed together as he struggled to keep his anger inside.

Her expression was soft, but her voice cut. “It was just a ship, Jeth.”

Her words acted as a catalyst, igniting his fury. Jeth took a step toward her, fists clenched. “Don't you ever say that. Not ever.” He raised a hand, index finger extended. “That
ship
was all I had. All you and Dad left when you started this, whatever this shit is you've gotten us caught in.
Avalon
was there when you weren't. You left and never came back, never contacted us, even when you could've. That ship did more for us than you ever did. And now she's gone.”

Jeth was trembling all over. He felt his control slipping. He turned, spinning hard enough that the sole of his boot
shrieked against the floor. Then he strode off the bridge and down the ladder of this ship that was so familiar and yet so alien. The sensation was acid in an open wound.

Habit urged him to hang right at the bottom of the ladder, toward the captain's cabin, but that wasn't his. Not on this ship. He turned left instead, down the crew corridor. He entered the first cabin on the left, the one Aileen had assigned to him. The smell of Sierra, the unique combination of her soaps and perfumes and just herself, greeted him. But he didn't welcome it. He wanted to be alone. He wanted escape.

Jeth fell onto the bed, which was far narrower than what he was used to, and crushed his face against the single hard pillow. The rough material scraped against the stubble on his chin.
Avalon is gone.
A part of him hoped that if he kept thinking it to himself it would somehow hurt less. The rest of him knew better.

And so he closed his eyes, seeking the darkness of sleep, the only respite from his grief. But he didn't fall asleep, not for hours, the time between a long, bitter mourning.

When he finally slept, that abandoned state came upon him like a thief, striking before he knew it. But the pain followed him into his dreams, cultivating nightmares.

Sierra came in sometime later and lay beside him. He didn't hold her, but the press of her body against his brought a small measure of comfort.

She slept fitfully beside him for several hours, and then
sometime later she left again, whispering to him in the darkness that they were three days away from First-Earth. They had to avoid the ITA-owned metagates, and that meant making smaller jumps with
Polaris
's metadrive.

First-Earth.

Jeth lay on his back after she left, staring at the ceiling.
Finish the job.
Dax had commanded. The job. They were to destroy the Harvester on First-Earth. Before, the mission had been about saving Cora, and the Pyreans. It was also supposed to be a means to an end, a way out from this life he'd been trying to break free from for so long—the escape hatch to a new life, the one he'd always dreamed about. The dream of that life, though had been wrapped up and bound to
Avalon.

What was left to hope for now? To survive, he supposed, to succeed. And—

Vengeance.

The idea seemed to pour into him, filling the hole the loss of
Avalon
had left. Or if not filling it, coating it like a salve, numbing it. The motivation was a simple one—and powerful.

Going to First-Earth and destroying the Harvester would bring down the ITA. Even more, Jeth knew it would hurt Saar, the righteous warlord, the hero who'd brought honor and glory to his beloved ITA for so long. And Jeth wanted to hurt him.
I will hurt you where it matters most.
Destroying
Avalon
had been a punishment. Jeth understood that. He would return the favor tenfold.

Jeth's anger simmered inside him in a slow steady burn. Soon it outweighed his despair, or perhaps that despair was just the strong foundation for this renewed focus. It restored in him the will to see this through to the end.

Sitting up, Jeth retrieved the implant from his pocket and slid it into place. The Axis would help focus his anger, keep it under control, point it where it needed to go. As Jeth stood, though, he found there was something wrong with the Axis. It was utterly still and silent, almost as if it didn't exist at all. As he reached out, he felt the connection to Perry and Eric, but no one else. Disoriented by the change, Jeth left the cabin and headed for the deck below.

He found Eric in the common room, cleaning his gun. Jeth stared at the lines drawn on the butt of it, but this time they didn't bother him. He might have to draw a line in his own gun soon—when he put a bullet through Saar's heart.

“What's going on with the Axis?” Jeth said. Eric hadn't looked up as he entered, but Jeth knew he was aware of his arrival, the Axis making stealth impossible.

Eric shrugged. “Nothing to worry your pretty head about.”

Jeth glowered, and as he spoke, he put the force of his mind behind it, sending it out through the link. “Tell me what's going on.”

Eric looked up, his mouth curling into a snarl, and Jeth felt him pushing back. “Dax has us in isolation mode. Standard protocol for all off-site Brethren in the event Peltraz is compromised.”

“But what does that mean?”

“It means,” said Eric, dropping his gaze back to the gun, “that we're on our own for now. The three of us will still be able to communicate, but we have no connection to the Axis or to Daxton.”

“For how long?” Jeth gritted his teeth. He'd hoped to be in regular contact with Dax. He wanted to know everything that was happening. Not just with Lizzie and Milton, but with Saar. How long would the war admiral stay at Peltraz once he realized his target wasn't there? Even more important, where would Saar go next? If Jeth could just talk to Lizzie she might be able to use Saar's trick against him and plant a tracer in his flagship's code.

Eric grunted. “As long as necessary. But you'll want to keep your implant in. Dax might open the connection at any time to send us updates and instructions. He'll have to be careful about it. The ITA might be monitoring the Axis.”

Jeth's stomach wrenched at the thought. “I see,” Jeth said. “I'll keep it in.” Then having no further comment, he walked past Eric and into the galley.

Just like everything else on this ship, the galley felt sterile. There were no personal touches anywhere, not even of the unintentional variety, like the stains that peppered the wall behind the stove on
Avalon.
Jeth wondered if maybe Flynn was right and Remi was a cyborg with no need to eat.

Jeth helped himself to a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table, eating with a mechanical slowness. The common room beyond began to fill up. First Perry and then Flynn,
Sierra, and Cora. Aileen and Remi followed shortly after and then finally his mother.

Marian didn't stop in the common room but approached the door into the galley, fixing Jeth with an inscrutable stare. For a moment she was all ice and hardness again, but then her expression softened. “I'm sorry for what I said about
Avalon
.”

Jeth nodded, teeth clenched.

A few seconds passed between them. Then Marian said, “We need to go over the plan. If you're ready.”

She spoke it as if he had the option to decline, but Jeth knew his mother well enough to know that wasn't true. “I'm ready.”

Keeping his emotions at bay, he stood up from the table and placed the bowl in the sink, not sparing a moment of guilt at leaving it there. He wasn't captain here, and until someone said otherwise, he wasn't going to take a turn at washing the dishes. Let Aileen figure those problems out.

Marian turned and headed into the common room. Jeth followed after her and sat down in the empty seat beside Sierra. This room, more than any of the others Jeth had seen so far, was the least like
Avalon
. The layout was the same, furniture roughly arranged in a circle around a large table, but there was nothing personal here. Nothing to make it feel like a home. That was all right with him.

Sierra reached over and took his hand. He laced his fingers through hers, his gaze sweeping the others. Flynn sat nearest them, and Jeth could tell at a glance that he hadn't slept well either, if at all. Across from the three of them,
Aileen and Remi had taken the sofa, and to Jeth's dismay, Cora sat in between them. This was a strange, unwelcome development. At least Aileen looked uncomfortable about it, her body turned away from Cora and her head lifted high as if she feared letting the girl into her line of sight.

With no other seats left, Eric and Perry had taken positions behind the sofa, the latter leaning against the wall. He gave Jeth a sad smile, and Jeth turned away at once, shutting down the link before he sensed the man's sympathy. He focused his attention on Marian, who approached the table and slid a data crystal into the main port. A moment later, a 3D image of First-Earth appeared above the table.

“In approximately sixty-seven hours, we will enter the patrolled zone around First-Earth,” said Marian, facing the room at large. “From there it might take several more hours to navigate past the patrols, depending on the congestion and security level. We will have to go slow to stay off the radar, but the cloak drive should prove equal to the task this time. Once through, we'll land
Polaris
here, in the Atlantic Ocean, just outside the bay into this city—New Boston.” Marian indicated the area on the projection, and the image zoomed in to show the bay and surrounding coastline to the west.

“Why?” Sierra said, a strange tremor in her voice. “That's far from the Hive.”

“Hive?” asked Flynn.

Sierra glanced at him. “That's the name of the facility where the Harvester is kept.”

“We're landing here,” Marian said, “because we have to
secure the means to destroy the Harvester first.”

“Wait a minute,” Flynn said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “What about the explosives on board? Aren't those supposed to do the job?”

Marian pursed her lips and swept a glower over the room. “Those are only to be used as a last resort. Conventional tools of destruction could cause as much damage to the Pyreans as the Harvester. We must avoid that at all cost.”

“How?” Jeth said, unable to keep skepticism out of his voice. “Is there a bomb smart enough to discriminate between them?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Marian said. “The Harvester and a good portion of the Hive itself is made of plasinum.”