Polaris (7 page)

“Can't sleep?” she whispered against his ear.

“Not yet.” He ran his fingers down her bare arm. “But soon, I think.” It might've been his imagination, but he sensed a smile pass through her. She squeezed him once, and then her body relaxed toward sleep.

Although he knew he should let her be, he drew a breath and spoke into the darkness “I've decided to let them go. Shady and Celeste and whoever else wants to.” He paused, hyperaware of Sierra's stillness. She might not be there at all except for the heat of her skin warming his. “I mean, I'm going to give them a real chance to leave.” He let his voice trail off and then waited for her response. He wanted her to tell him it was stupid, that he was overreacting, but Sierra was not the kind of girl to appease his hurt with a lie.

“Where will we land?”

Jeth sighed. “I was thinking Benfold Minor.” Sierra shifted against him, and when too many seconds passed without a response he asked, “You don't think that's a good idea?”

“No, it's fine.” She paused. “I was just thinking about
how we're going to get our hands on a stealth drive now.”

Jeth tensed at her words, resisting the urge to hug her tighter. He couldn't believe it. Even now, after losing her brother, she was still devoted to the plan to rescue his mother. She had more right than anyone else on board to want to walk away from all this, and yet here she was, worrying about the stealth drive.

He cleared his throat. “Any ideas?”

“One.”

“Really?” He'd been kidding, but he should've known better than to be surprised that Sierra already had something in mind.

“Yes,” she said, her voice solemn now. “I think we should consider selling the Aether Project.”

“What?” Jeth rolled toward her, trying to read her expression in the darkness. The idea had crossed his mind before—of course it had—but he'd never voiced it out loud. There was too much risk involved. The Aether Project was full of information about Cora, Lizzie, and Jeth's mother. Like Cora, Marian Seagrave was no longer strictly human. Her DNA had been irreversibly altered when she discovered the Pyreans' home world, a mysterious planet known as Empyria. She'd been pregnant with Cora at the time, and something about the planet had changed them both. Sure, they could cleanse the data of anything to do with his family before handing it over, but there was no way to guarantee the path of information wouldn't eventually lead back to Cora again in the end.

“It's risky, I know,” Sierra said. “But it's the most valuable object in our possession. It makes the ITA's bounty look like a drop of water in the ocean by comparison.”

Jeth didn't say anything as he felt the walls pressing in on him.
The bounty will force us into a corner
, Sierra had said. As usual she was right. He adjusted his position on the bed, trying to get his mind comfortable with the new idea. It was better than giving up. “Do you have a buyer in mind?”

“When we were looking for jobs to get money for the stealth drive,” Sierra said, “you mentioned an Enanti contact.”

“Yeah, I did.” Jeth shot her a puzzled look that she had no chance of seeing in the dark. “And you mentioned that you would rather saw off your own body parts and feed them to Viggo rather than deal with them.”

Sierra made a disgusted noise. “I still would. But our situation has changed. With the ITA bounty, we can't trust any of your crime lord contacts not to turn us in. But the Enanti are fanatics. They won't be tempted by ITA money.”

“No, they probably won't,” Jeth said, mulling it over. The Enanti were a group of freedom fighters from the planet Tiglath. They'd been regular customers of Hammer's, spending millions to secure weapons and supplies to support their mission to overthrow the central government of Tiglath. The ruling regime was actively pursuing membership in the United Confederation of Planets, an act that would put the planet under the control of the ITA. The Enanti were determined to stop it by any means possible.
“You know they're terrorists, right?”

Sierra smacked his bare shoulder. “You are so tactless. Of course I know it, but do you have to remind me? I'm trying to get us out of this mess.”

“Sorry,” Jeth said, resisting the temptation to rub his stinging shoulder. “Does it help that I think you might be right? The Enanti would be a good choice. The safest.”

“Less unsafe,” Sierra corrected him. “We should probably discuss it with Milton first, but I really don't see any other option.”

“Me either.” A few seconds of silence passed between them. “What do you think the ITA will do when they learn we've sold the project?”

Sierra sighed. “They won't stop pursuing us, if that's what you're hoping.”

“I wasn't.” He knew better. The ITA still knew Cora existed, and would want her back with or without the Aether Project.

“I imagine they'll increase the security around the Harvesters for one thing.”

Jeth considered the idea, supposing it made sense. The Aether Project contained the location of all the Harvesters, those places in metaspace where the Pyreans' dimension intersected with the one humans could perceive. Jeth struggled to wrap his mind around the strangeness of their state of being. The way Sierra described it to him, the Pyreans were like a giant tree that existed primarily within the dimension of metaspace—except for the Harvest sites. At those places, the very tips of the hidden tree branched out of metaspace
into the human dimension. For years the ITA had drawn the material for their metadrives from these hidden places, and the Pyreans had continued to “grow back,” so to speak. Until recently.

“Sure they will,” Jeth said. “If they haven't already. With their impending extinction, what Pyreans they can still harvest are more valuable than ever.” His stomach twisted at the thought.

“So the world turns,” Sierra said, her tone bitter.

An idea sprouted in Jeth's mind, one that made his stomach twist even harder. What if they didn't sell the Aether Project to the Enanti alone? There was nothing to stop them from making dozens of copies of the data. Hundreds even. Once they rescued Marian from the ITA, they could sell the copies to all the ITA's enemies, or maybe just upload the data to the net. The Enanti alone stood no chance of using the data to dismantle the ITA, but if all the Independent Planets had access to the truth about the Pyreans and metatechnology that would be a different story.

War,
he thought.
Intergalactic war
. War on a scale so large that the ITA would be too busy defending itself and its precious Harvest sites to worry about chasing Jeth. It could be the solution to everything, the ultimate play to get him all he'd ever wanted: freedom for him and his family. They could fly away and disappear among the chaos.

But then the images he'd recalled earlier from the Emet Insurgence came back to him. Did he really want to be responsible for something like that? For so much death and destruction?

“Anyway,” Sierra said, derailing his thoughts. “Tiglath is as good a place to land as Benfold Minor. Sectors of Tiglath are safe enough that whoever wants to leave can do so without too much trouble.”

Jeth slowly nodded, trying to ignore the sting of her words. For a few moments he'd almost forgotten about Shady's discontent. “Good point. I'll send out a feeler to my Enanti contact as soon as Flynn finishes the repair on the engines. Then we can figure out how to tell everyone.”

Sierra's breath tickled his neck. “Okay.” She fell silent again, and he almost let it go at that, but doubt refused to release its grip on him.

“Do you think letting them go is the right thing to do?”

She answered at once, her certainty absolute. “Yes. Everyone should get to choose to live how they want to live.”

“Do you think they'll actually leave?”

Now she hesitated, and he could hear his heart beating in the intervening seconds. “I don't know, Jeth. But I'm staying. No matter what happens.”

Feeling childish and stupid, and yet better, Jeth ran his hand down her arm once more, then went still. This time sleep came upon him at once.

HALF A DAY LATER, FLYNN FINISHED HIS REPAIRS ON THE
engines. Jeth joined him in the engine room, wanting to see it for himself. The place wasn't much improved, but at least the smoke and sparking were gone.

“It's not perfect,” Flynn said, casting a suspicious look at Jeth as he climbed out from behind one of the equipment racks. “But it's good enough to keep us going. I didn't have all the parts I needed, but I was able to use some of the fifteen-x plasinum-coated fiber-optic cable instead of the twelve-x by splicing it with—”

Jeth cut him off with a raised hand. “You worked your usual magic. I get it.”

Flynn grinned. “Yeah, I suppose I did.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of chocolate wrapped in shiny silver paper. From the crumpled look of it, Jeth guessed it might very well be his last piece. Flynn held it out to him.

Jeth stared back, wondering who this strange person was before him. Flynn part with his last piece of chocolate? That cold day in hell had arrived. “What's that for?”

Flynn shrugged. “Thought you could use some. But if you don't want it . . .”

“No, I do.” Jeth took the candy, peeled off the wrapper, and slid the chocolate into his mouth. “This is poisoned, isn't it?” he said, biting into it.

A grin snaked across Flynn's face. “Not sure you warrant such a good death as one by chocolate.”

Jeth didn't reply as the taste exploded over his tongue, making him gasp. All he'd had to eat today was half a protein stick. The flavor of the chocolate made his stomach burn. He'd never tasted anything so good.

“Like it?”

Jeth nodded and wiped saliva from his lips. “Think I understand why it's a death you would prefer.”

“Yep. But don't expect any more. And be warned, I've got my stash well hidden.”

Jeth didn't doubt it. “Don't worry. I'll be able to get my own here soon,” he said. Then he filled Flynn in on the plan to head to Tiglath. He and Sierra had discussed things with Milton, and, as they expected, he'd agreed that selling the Aether Project was their only course of action. Jeth didn't mention to Flynn his plan to let anyone who wanted to get off for good once they landed. That was a speech he only wanted to give once, with everyone around to hear it.

If Flynn suspected that part of the plan, his face didn't show it. Instead he looked relieved at the prospect of a payday—and more chocolate, no doubt.

Jeth left the engine room a few minutes later and headed for the bridge. He needed to move them out of the Belgrave to send a clear transmission to his Enanti contact. But the sound of loud, angry music echoing up from the corridor
below stopped him.
Uh-oh
, Jeth thought. Lizzie had always had an annoying habit of expressing her feelings through her music selection, but lately she'd begun emphasizing those feelings by the level of volume. Right now, the entire ship was vibrating with the sound of her unhappiness.

Jeth puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly as he headed down the ladder to the passenger deck. If he ignored her, it would only get worse. Lizzie's door was shut, but not locked, and he pulled it open and stepped inside. She was sitting behind the pullout desk on the opposite wall with her gaze fixed on the screen of one of the portable maintenance computers. She didn't look up as he entered. With the way his eardrums were about to start bleeding, it was no surprise she hadn't heard him come in.

He stomped over to the desk and turned down the volume on her music player with one swipe of his finger across the control screen. Silence descended like a bomb, and Lizzie jumped. She stared up at him, the surprise on her face quickly transforming into a glower.

“Do you mind?” She reached toward the player, and he slapped her hand away.

“Yes, I do mind. Don't you think things are tense enough around here without adding angry, kill-everybody-and-die music?”

“It's not angry, kill-everybody-and-die music.”

“Oh really?” Jeth folded his arms across his chest.

“That's right. It's angry, let's-start-a-revolution-and-kick-some-ass music.” She thrust a fist into the air.

Despite himself, Jeth felt his lips twitch as a smile
threatened. Lizzie had a way of getting to him like nobody else—one minute he was ready to strangle her, and the next he wanted to pick her up and tickle her until she cried like he used to do when they were little.

“What revolution are you hoping to start, exactly?”

“How about the let's-not-ditch-our-friends-on-some-random-planet one?”

Jeth closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. The smell of chocolate lingered on his fingertips, and he dropped his hand away, his stomach rumbling. He stared down at her. “Sierra told you the plan.”

“Yes, and I think it's awful.”

Jeth contemplated a dozen or so responses, but he couldn't muster the energy for the argument. He settled on the plain, harsh truth. “The Enanti are our best chance of getting the money we need for the stealth drive and not getting handed over to the ITA in the process. And I'm not ditching our friends. I'm letting them leave.”

Lizzie clapped her hands. “That's my point. Don't
let
them.”

“I can't make them stay. I never could.” He shook his head. “They're only leaving now because they want something better than I can offer them here.”

Lizzie bit her lip, her eyes flashing to the computer screen. “That's just it. What if . . . what if I have a way of making things better, for all of us?”

Frowning, Jeth shifted his gaze to the screen as well. He realized at once that she'd been examining the contents
of the data crystal their mother had left hidden on
Avalon
shortly before she was captured by the ITA, nearly eight years before. The crystal was a log of the last trip she and Jeth's father had made into the Belgrave, the trip where they had finally found Empyria, the mysterious planet that was the origin of the Pyreans. If the Harvest sites were the tips of the tree branches, Empyria was the trunk and root. Marian and Robert Seagrave had worked as space explorers for the ITA, but for some unknown reason, they refused to disclose the location of Empyria. Robert had died protecting the information, and Marian had endured years of torture.

Jeth sighed. While the data crystal contained some photos and video streams of his parents, there wasn't much of concrete value to anyone other than them. “Why are you looking at this again? We've been through it hundreds of times. I thought you'd finally given it up as pointless.”

“I had. But then something new occurred to me.”

“Like what, Liz?” he said, not bothering to disguise his skepticism.

She scowled at him. “The file names. We always assumed they were gibberish, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jeth frowned, examining the screen again. The file names were the strangest aspect of the data crystal. The randomness of them went against everything Jeth knew about his mother. He remembered a woman who alphabetized the cans of food in the kitchen and who would create resource-loaded school schedules for him that detailed everything from what percentage of time he needed to spend on
homework each night compared to time spent on sports and video games. The mother he'd known would never have used such a nonsensical naming system for her files. He and Lizzie had never come up with a good explanation for why she had.

“Well,” Lizzie said, “I think we were wrong.”

“How do you mean?” Jeth said, returning his gaze to her.

She ran a hand through her auburn hair, her fingers snagging on curls. “I think it's a code.”

Jeth's breath caught, hope rising up in him despite himself. “A code to what?”

“I don't know for sure yet,” Lizzie said. “I've only just started translating it. Took me forever to figure out the key. Mom hid it really well. But—” Lizzie paused, as if to draw out the suspense. Jeth resisted the urge to holler at her. “I think when I'm done it will reveal the location of Empyria.”

Jeth blinked once, twice, the world seeming to slip into slow motion around him. “Empyria,” he repeated, the word hardly more than vapor on his lips. That was where all the troubles that had plagued his family had started. “Empyria.” He couldn't believe it.

“I know how you feel,” Lizzie said, sticking out her tongue. “And if I am right, then this is the solution to everything.” Her voice began to rise. “Finding Empyria is what the ITA wants more than anything, more than Cora and definitely more than more Mom, right?”

“Yes.”

“So we offer them Empyria in exchange for Mom and a blank slate for the rest of us.”

Jeth opened his mouth to respond, but Lizzie continued. “Picture it, Jeth. We could go anywhere we want without worrying about crime lords and bounty hunters. We could be free. And a family again. You know Mom will love the crew.” Lizzie broke off, her face beaming with her mounting excitement.

For one brief, blissful moment Jeth almost allowed himself to hope that such a deal was possible. He shook his head. “I can't believe you, of all people, are saying this. Dad died to protect this information. Mom endured torture and imprisonment. And now you want to trade their secret?”

Lizzie looked crestfallen for a second, but then thrust out her chin. “Desperate times and all that. Besides, you've seen the video journals. Mom went a little crazy after she found Empyria. Maybe Dad did too. Do you think we can completely trust their judgment?”

Jeth frowned. He didn't disagree with her logic, but he hated hearing her say it, hated what it meant. Lizzie had always believed in the best of everyone. She was always hopeful, always willing to take the high road even if the low one was more practical, more useful.
Now she sounds like you
. Jeth gritted his teeth, searching for a response. “I don't know, Liz. I—”

A loud wail erupted around them, and Jeth flinched in surprise. For a second he thought it was her music player turning back on by itself, but then he recognized the proximity alarm.

Lizzie gaped up at him. “The ITA. They've found us.”

Jeth pointed at the screen. “Hide that. Then get up to the bridge.”

He spun and raced out the door and up the ladder, catching a glimpse of Flynn coming down from the Engineering deck. The bridge was empty as he ran inside, but the view beyond the main windows was filled with a sleek black spaceship, its shape as familiar to him as his own face. A Black Devil, same class as
Avalon
.

What the hell?
Jeth hadn't seen another Black Devil in years. The model was out of production, but this ship looked brand new. Pushing the confusion away, he leaped into the pilot's chair. He double-checked that he'd left the shields activated, and some of his alarm dissipated when he saw that he had. No matter who was on that ship, a direct assault would be useless. He just needed to pilot them out of here.

Except, as he reached for the control column, a bright burst of blue light filled the window, obscuring the sight of the foreign ship. Jeth braced for impact, but none came. Instead when the beam reached the ship, Jeth felt an electrical charge pass through his body, like touching his finger to an open circuit, and then every system on
Avalon
—every light, every source of power—went dead.

Darkness wrapped around him, broken only by the view through the front window, where the blue light had gone and the Black Devil returned. Jeth gaped, his hair standing on end and his nerve endings tingling. His lifeless ship groaned around him, all the metal parts of her settling into permanent stop.

“What the hell was that?” Flynn said from his right.

“I don't know.” Jeth pounded on the control column before him, desperate for a response, some sign of power.
There was none.
We're dead
, he thought, mind reeling. Already the air was turning cool and thin. It wouldn't be long before they suffocated. Whatever that beam had been, it had reduced
Avalon
to a lifeless metal shell. Their home had become their tomb.

Bile and rage clawed up Jeth's throat, and he swallowed it back, afraid of inducing panic. Already he could hear shouts and bangs from the rest of the crew as they struggled to find their way in the darkness.

“See if you can help them,” Jeth said, turning to Flynn. He could just make out his shape next to the comm station.

“What would you like me to do? Use my superhero night vision to light the way?”

Jeth ignored him, and a second later Flynn moved toward the entrance and began shouting down the corridor for the others to follow the sound of his voice.

Despite knowing it was pointless, Jeth tried the buttons on the control column again. He pressed and pressed then pounded it with his fist.

He looked up at the other ship, hating its familiar shape.
Any way but this
. Who were these people to attack them without provocation? They hadn't even attempted to negotiate a surrender. It didn't make sense. The bounty was clear: Jeth and his crew were to be taken alive. They were completely worthless to the ITA dead.

A light flickered behind Jeth, and he turned to see Sierra and Lizzie coming onto the bridge, both carrying lit birthday candles in their hands, the tiny flames pathetic wards against the darkness. Sierra must've been near the galley
when the power went out. Finding the candles and matches was some sort of miracle.

Cora was with them, her eyes wide with wonderment.

“Give me those and I'll go get the others,” Flynn said, holding out his hand for the candles.

“What's happening?” Lizzie said as she guided Cora into a chair.

Jeth shook his head and turned back to the window. Beyond it, the Black Devil was swinging around, as if to leave. Jeth glimpsed the name painted on its side:
Polaris.
He didn't recognize it.

“What are they doing?” Sierra said, taking the copilot seat.