Polaris (8 page)

Polaris
didn't fly away, but stopped rotating once its cargo bay door was aligned with
Avalon
's prow. A moment later, the rear hatch slid open and two space-suit-clad figures emerged. They disconnected the towlines and then flew across the gap between the ships. Jeth watched them, stunned and helpless to stop the impending invasion.

“Are they going to tow our dead bodies back to the ITA?” Lizzie said.

“Dead bodies?” said Cora.

Sierra made a hissing noise. “Lizzie was joking, Cora,” she said. “Nobody is going to die.”

“Are they here to help us?” Cora stood up and came forward.

“Yes,” Lizzie said, shooing her back to her seat. “Probably.”

Jeth returned his attention to the window, not that he could see anything now that the two figures were out of view, attaching the towlines to
Avalon
's prow. He wanted to
hit something. Each second he sat here helpless was torture.

The others arrived, Flynn leading the way with his sad little candles. None of them spoke. The seconds passed like hours as they waited in the dark for something to happen.

Jeth was just about to ask Lizzie if she had any brilliant ideas brewing in her genius brain, when the ship's systems buzzed back into life. He blinked against the sudden light, breathless with shock and relief.
We're not dead,
Avalon
's not dead!

“What was that weapon?” Sierra said, awe in her voice.

“Something like an EMP. But if there's one that can penetrate standard shielding like that, I've never seen it before.” Jeth leaned forward and pressed the button to release the anchor. It didn't respond. He pressed it again and again, stabbing it with his finger.

“It's no use,” Sierra said from the copilot's chair where she too had been trying buttons. “They've overridden all the systems.”

Jeth glanced over his shoulder at Lizzie. “Think you can override the override?”

Lizzie bit her lip and sat down at the comm station. “I'll try.”

Despising the doubt in her voice, Jeth turned back to the control panel and stabbed the buttons a few more times, a dissatisfying target for his frustration. He should've felt better knowing this was a capture and not an execution, but he didn't. Caught was caught.

“How did they find us out here?” Jeth said through gritted teeth.

The main viewer flicked into life and a woman's face appeared on the screen. No, not a woman, but a girl, one
Jeth's age. Recognition and disbelief collided inside him, and he stared stupidly at the screen, his jaw slackening. Of all the people who could've caught him.

“Hello there, Peacock,” the girl said, her smirk filling the screen. “Still preening your feathers, I see.”

Jeth cleared his throat, trying to gather his wits. “And you're still causing trouble, Trouble.”

“Not as much as you,” she replied. “Let's see. According to this Wanted bulletin, you're guilty of extortion, murder, acts of terrorism.” She whistled. “And here I thought you were just a common criminal.”

Jeth grunted. “Well, at least
you
haven't changed at all. Still trying to use me to score big. But if I remember correctly, that didn't work out so well for you last time. I ended up with the ruby and you ended up getting shot. By me.”

She grinned. “True, but not before I left you trapped in a glass cage. And the way I heard it, you got lucky, getting out. Somehow, I don't think you'll be so lucky this time.”

Jeth couldn't help the scowl that flashed across his face. It had been two years since the Grakkus job when he'd first collided with this beautiful terror in front of him, the leader of a rival gang. She looked the same as she had then—shiny brown hair, amber eyes that held a perpetual impish glint, and lips far too pretty for a girl he despised so much. She'd gone by the name Aileen back then, and he had no reason to suspect she'd changed it, but he preferred his chosen nickname for her.

Jeth twisted his lips into a smile. At least Trouble worked for a crime lord. Soleil Marcel was as ruthless as Hammer
had been, but Jeth knew how to speak their language, and he knew how to get them to deal.

He cupped his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. “We'll see about that. I do have a way with women, after all. And from what I hear, Soleil likes her boys young and hard to handle.”

Aileen laughed, the sound of it all kinds of wrong to Jeth's ears. It was far too certain and sure, even for her.

He waited, keeping his expression masked. Beside him, Sierra smoldered with hostility.

Aileen's laughter finally died away. “You silly boy. Whatever makes you think I still work for Soleil?”

A tremor of panic went through Jeth.
She's bluffing
. You didn't just quit on a crime lord.

“Who
do
you work for?” Sierra asked when Jeth failed to respond.

Aileen's gaze moved to Sierra for the first time, her eyes appraising, but the grin lingered on her face. “Oh, my employer is someone you all know well, to my understanding. He sent me to fetch you after he got the call you sent him yesterday. I must say the coordinates of where to find you were surprisingly accurate considering where we are. Then again,
Polaris
here is equipped with an exceptional navigation system.”

Jeth's mouth slid open, blood pounding in his ears so hard that starbursts crossed his vision. “Who is your employer now?”

Aileen's grin widened. “Daxton Price, of course. Who else?”

DAXTON PRICE. DAXTON PRICE. DAXTON. PRICE. THE NAME
seemed to reverberate throughout the bridge as loudly as the proximity alarm had moments before.

Understanding snapped inside Jeth's brain like the pull of a trigger.
He got your call,
Aileen had said.
The coordinates on where to find you . . .

Jeth stood up from the pilot's chair, pivoted on one foot, and charged toward Shady, who was standing a few feet from the nav station.

He didn't slow down, but leaped forward, fist swinging. “You traitorous son of a bitch.” The punch landed square against Shady's jaw with the distinctive hard, wet sound of meat striking meat. Shady stumbled backward and fell to the floor with a loud crash. Too late Jeth realized he'd used his right hand, the cybernetic one as hard as the plasinum used to construct spaceships. Shady never went down on the first punch.

Regret tried to battle its way to the front of Jeth's emotions, but his fury refused to give way. “Get up and fight, you coward.”

“Stop it, Jeth,” Sierra shouted from behind him.

Shady struggled into a sitting position and spat out blood and at least one shattered tooth, maybe more. “
I'm
the traitor? The coward? What about you? You promised us a better life, the freedom to do what the hell we wanted, and all we got was starvation and a dead friend.” Shady lunged to his feet, fist swinging.

Jeth stepped back, just dodging the blow. Frantic hands grabbed his arms and shoulders, but none were strong enough to hold him. He reared back, ready to throw another punch even as Flynn stepped in between him and Shady.

“Don't do this,” Flynn said. “You don't know that Shady gave Dax our position.”

“The hell I don't,” Jeth said, his breath coming in hard pants. He turned back to Shady. “What, you weren't man enough to come talk to me? You had to call Dax to come pick you up, like a little girl who got scared at a sleepover?”

As Shady tried to push past Flynn, Jeth swung again. Flynn managed to shove Jeth just enough that the punch went wild and his fist struck the nav station instead with a loud smack. The dent it left was a near perfect circle.

Jeth stumbled, then recovered. The hands grabbed him again, Milton and Lizzie helping Sierra to restrain him.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Cora shrieked louder than the rest. Jeth felt her scream more than heard it. The sound struck him like a physical force, and the memory of what might follow broke through his fury. Body trembling, Jeth lowered his hands. The moment he did so, Shady swung, the punch connecting easily with Jeth's face. Pain lit up the side
of his head and blood filled his mouth as teeth cut cheek.

“This is just you getting what's coming to you,” Shady spat.

Jeth ran a hand over his throbbing face, somehow managing not to fight back. Anger vibrated in his voice as he said, “You're a traitor and a coward, and you're off my crew.”

“Fine by me. Looks like I've got better prospects on the horizon.” Shady glanced at the viewscreen, where Aileen was watching them with that infuriating, impish expression, utterly delighted by the free entertainment. Shady gave her a little salute and then strode off the bridge.

The silence this time was worse than any before. Jeth avoided the others' gazes as he headed back to the cockpit and faced the viewscreen. His outrage at Shady's betrayal throbbed like an open wound, but he ignored it. This wasn't over yet. Not while a pulse still beat inside him.

“So,” he said, willing the breathlessness out of his voice. “You're working for Dax now. How did that happen?”

Aileen shrugged. “He's the new Hammer, yeah? I guess you could say me and my crew are the new Malleus Shades.”

Jeth narrowed his gaze at her. “You took our place?”

“Don't look so surprised. Dax knows how useful you were to Hammer. I'm even more useful.”

“Sure you are.” Jeth pursed his lips. “You're taking us back to Peltraz then?” The spaceport had been his home for almost ten years, but the idea of returning to it filled him with dread. Hammer was gone now, but he doubted much had changed. Daxton might've been a good man once, but he'd been under Hammer's control for a long stretch of years,
and now he had Hammer's power. Jeth didn't think there was any coming back from that.

“Yes,” Aileen said, matter-of-factly. “Should take less than a day from here.” Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “Might I suggest you make yourselves comfortable for the trip? And I do mean
really
comfortable.”

Jeth's eyebrows inched up his face. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” Aileen waved at the screen. “Just want to make sure you arrive rested and in good shape.”

“Why wouldn't we be?” Sierra said, stepping up beside Jeth.

This time Aileen completely ignored her. “We'll be talking again soon. Bye-bye.”

The screen went blank.

“Who
was
that girl?” demanded Sierra.

“Trouble,” Jeth said, his unease building. “We ran afoul of her on a job we worked for Hammer about two years back. She's a liar and a leech.”

“So I gathered. You say she used to work for Soleil Marcel?”

“Yeah,” Jeth said, unable to keep the worry from his voice. Aileen was one of the best thieves he'd ever encountered, and she'd very nearly bested him back on Grakkus. Not that he would ever admit it.

“Then how is she working for Dax?”

“No idea. But I'd rather not find out.” Jeth spun around and motioned at Lizzie who still stood by the nav station, not far from the new dent left by his fist. “See if you can get us some control back.”

Lizzie nodded and returned to the comm station. Within
seconds her fingers began to do their dance across the screen. Jeth took a deep breath, expecting the best from his little sister. There was nothing she couldn't do with a computer.

But mere seconds later she began to curse.

“What is it?” Jeth crossed the bridge to her and stared down at the screen over her shoulder.

“I can't even get a connection.”

“What does that
mean
?” he said, his temper inches from breaking the surface of his control.

Lizzie didn't raise her eyes from the screen. “It means that this is going to take a lot of time, if I can get through at all.”

Jeth wrapped his fingers around the back of her chair, squeezing. “How much time?”

“I don't know.” She didn't snap, but Jeth could tell she wanted to. He let go of the chair and ran his hands over his head, his fingers brushing against the hole of the implant architecture in the back of his skull. He barely felt it.

“It'll be okay, Jeth,” Celeste said.

He wrenched his head around to look at her. She stood with her back to the comm station. Her expression was as strange as her tone had been, weirdly pacifying. Such behavior in Celeste was as out of place as Flynn sharing his secret chocolate stash or Shady committing such a betrayal. Shady. Loyal, steady, Shady.
How could he have done it?

Celeste shifted her weight, uneasy beneath his glare. “Dax has helped us before. He might do it again.”

Jeth turned away from her, unable to get the memory of how she'd stood by Shady out of his mind. But her words
lingered as he returned to the pilot's chair and sat down. Dax had let them go after they'd helped him defeat Hammer. And he'd done it even knowing how much Cora was worth.

“I'm afraid it's unlikely his interests are in helping us this time,” Milton said, easing himself down into the one of the empty chairs. “Not with this sort of welcome.” He motioned toward
Polaris.

Gritting his teeth Jeth said, “What's he after now, though?”

“It could still be the Aether Project,” Sierra offered. “Hammer didn't have his own copy, I'm sure.”

“Or it might be about the reward,” said Flynn. “We've been hearing those rumors about how Dax is struggling to maintain Hammer's enterprise.”

“Yes,” said Milton, “and if there's truth to those rumors, capturing us might be as much about reasserting his power as anything.”

A chill shot down Jeth's back, starting at the base of his neck and ending at the tip of his spine.

“Oh my God,” Lizzie said.

Jeth spun in his chair to look at her. “What is it?”

She glanced up, her mouth open in a grimace of fear. “They're messing with the life support system. Pumping something into the oxygen supply.”

Wordlessly, Sierra jumped up and rushed over to Lizzie. Jeth followed two steps behind her. Sierra's eyes moved over the screen, wide and panic-filled. “We're already breathing it in.”

“What—” Jeth broke off as Aileen's words came back to him.
Make yourselves comfortable
, she had said,
really comfortable
.

The bitter taste of the gas filled his mouth and burned his nostrils. Jeth held his breath, but it was too late. A wave of dizziness went through him, and he felt his knees giving way.

This is going to be painful,
he thought as his body met the floor.

Then he thought no more as black curtains closed over his eyes, plunging him into a sleep too deep for dreams. Or nightmares.