Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel (33 page)

Waverly tightened her hold on her hostage, and she pushed the muzzle of her gun into his throat.

CAT AND MOUSE

“I wish that hadn’t been necessary,” Anne Mather said to Kieran from across her desk. His eyes were on the video screen between them, which showed Waverly and her assault team in a standoff with a single armed man.

“Around the bend in the corridor are eight more men, Kieran. I hope Waverly chooses well.”

Kieran watched the way Waverly massaged the metal of her firearm as she looked at the man, who jammed his gun into Randy Ortega’s temple.
Please, Waverly, don’t do anything stupid.
He’d known something like this might happen. He’d been almost certain she would fail, but he’d capitulated to her plans because he wanted to show Mather that he was willing to fight her. Now he realized he’d only weakened his position. Never more than now did he and his crew look like a bunch of amateurish kids who had no idea what they were doing.

Anne Mather turned off the video feed. Kieran looked up from the screen to see her enjoying his expression. “Why would you risk your doctors that way?” he asked her.

“There was no real risk,” she said, shifting in her seat uncomfortably. She was lying, clearly.

“Were you hoping to get rid of a few enemies?” he spat.

“I know you must be angry,” she finally said. “I would be, in your place.”

“If you hurt them…”

“As long as they cooperate, they’ll be fine. They’re being led back to their shuttle right now,” Mather said, and picked up a delicate antique teapot to pour two cups of chamomile tea. She held one of the cups in his face until he finally took it and dropped it with a clatter on the desk between them, sending a gush of tea over the surface. “I may use little tricks here and there,” she said humbly, ignoring the spilled tea, “but I was never dishonest about what I want. Peace is my goal, and it should be yours, too.”

“Then why have you been stalling?” He slapped her desk, making his knuckles ache.

“To force your hand.” She smiled dimly. “I knew you might be planning something. I wanted to neutralize the threat before I started conceding anything to you. Now we have an even playing field.”

“No, we don’t. You’ve had all the advantages from the start.”

She looked at him appraisingly. A wisp of gray hair at her temple oscillated in the draft from the air duct behind her, distracting him with fantasies of ripping it out of her head.

She’s making me angry on purpose,
he realized.
She wants me furious so I can’t think.

“I want to see the prisoners now,” he said, and stood up from the desk. “Otherwise I’ll assume that you’ve harmed them.”

“First I want to discuss the terms of our peace agreement.”

“No,” he said, and stared at her, waiting.

“Mr. Alden, you’ve given me no reason to trust you.”

“After you kill most of our crew, hobble our ship, kidnap our girls, medically rape them, and imprison our families, you expect
trust
?”

“Trust is the backbone of peace,” she said piously.

“Then give me a reason to trust
you.
”

The air was heady with the impasse between them. Finally she slapped her palms on the desk and heaved herself up.

“Fine, Mr. Alden. I’ll take you to the prisoners now.”

And to his surprise, she walked out the door, beckoning to him over her shoulder. Before, he might have thought he’d gained some ground, but now he knew what he was dealing with, and he followed behind her, flanked by two guards, aware he was likely walking into another trap.

In the elevator, Mather pressed the intercom switch. “We’re coming down,” she said to someone, who answered, “Yes, Pastor.”

“Where are we going?” Kieran asked her. He was painfully aware of the two large men standing behind him, and even more aware of the guns they held across their chests. They did not speak or even indicate that they were listening to his conversation with Mather, but that made them all the more present and menacing.

“To the brig,” Mather said. “We’ve wanted better accommodations for them, but we can’t offer them any kind of security on the habitation levels.”

“Don’t you have that backward?” Kieran said angrily.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. There are members of my crew who are still furious about the way the Empyrean undermined our fertility. Many of them would shed blood over it. I think you’ve met one of them, haven’t you? Jacob? Is he well?”

“More or less,” Kieran said. “If you don’t count insanity.”

“Oh, he’s not crazy, Kieran,” Mather said, shaking her head prettily. “He’s a man who has been broken. There’s a difference.”

“Poor little child murderer.”

She looked at Kieran sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“He poisoned Max Brent. He was fourteen years old. And he turned Philip Grieg’s brains into spaghetti. Philip might not live to see his tenth birthday.”

Her lips formed a small almond-shaped hollow that showed the glint of her incisors. She leaned on the wall behind her, and one of the guards reached out to steady her. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, right,” Kieran said bitterly. “He was in contact with you the whole time.”

“I didn’t order any killings, Kieran.”

“But you sent him to our ship?”

“No. I promise you, I did not. He acted on his own.”

The elevator dipped to a stop, and the doors slid open. Mather beckoned Kieran down the corridor to the brig. Even yards away from the doorway, Kieran could smell a foul odor, and he heard the soft murmur of voices. He didn’t recognize any single voice, but together they sounded like home.

A couple of guards stood aside for Mather, and she walked through the doorway and gestured down the corridor. Kieran entered, and immediately a whoop and holler broke through the air. The brig was designed to hold no more than a dozen people at a time, one to a cell, but here the prisoners were crowded in four to a cell. Bedrolls littered the floors, and drying laundry was spread over every surface. The smell was dank and feral.

Kieran felt hands patting his back through the bars, jostling him, shouting questions at him, so many questions he couldn’t answer. “Have you seen my daughter?… my husband? Are my kids safe?” Endless, desperate questions from so many familiar faces, beloved faces, though haggard and graying. He wished for time to stop and kiss each hand, answer each question, but the guards prodded him along.

Regina Marshall grabbed at him halfway down the corridor. She was cadaverous, thinner and weaker than the rest, but she gripped Kieran’s hand with surprising strength. “Kieran, it’s so wonderful to see your face. How is Waverly? Did she make it back to the Empyrean?”

“Yes,” he said, bewildered by her wasted appearance.

“Give her a kiss for me,” Regina said with a needy smile. “Tell her I’ll be home soon.”

“I will,” Kieran whispered.

He saw Kalik Hassan in the next cell over, standing a little back from the crowd. Near him stood Gunther Dietrich, his beard so overgrown it brushed his barrel chest. Both men watched Kieran as he passed, and Gunther raised his eyebrows in a question. Kieran managed to call out to them, “Arthur and Sarek are fine!”

Kalik folded his hands and kissed them. Gunther seemed woozy with relief and closed his eyes as a smile brightened his face.

“Where’s my mother?” Kieran asked one of the guards, who shrugged. But then Kieran saw her bony red hands sticking through the bars at the end of the corridor, and he began to run. “Kieran!” he heard her call.

“Mom!” he answered, and ran to her, grasped her dry hands, kissed her cheek through the bars.

Her golden curls had grown out and made a high crown around her head, drooping down to brush the tops of her shoulders. Her cheeks were hollow, and her amber eyes were shadowed by blue circles. Spider veins crawled along the sides of her nose, and she had a red dot of burst vessels in the corner of her left eye that Kieran guessed must be a vestige of the decompression she’d suffered during the attack. But she was alive. She was whole.

Kieran placed a hand on either side of her face, a gesture that, before, would have seemed uncomfortably intimate. But now all he wanted was to touch her, because he could scarcely believe she was really standing before him. Her skin felt papery and dry under his fingers. She seemed so fragile.

“Why did they send
you
?” she asked him as she grasped his wrists in her hands and squeezed. “This is too dangerous for a boy your age.”

“Mom—”

“How’s Dad?” she said, cutting him off. She bit her lip with chipped front teeth. “He must be so worried.”

Kieran pulled his hands away from her. She didn’t know. None of them knew. He looked down the corridor at the eyes and hands edging from between the bars of the brig. How could he tell them? What could he say?

“Mom, Dad…” He swallowed. The words were impossible.

She watched his face, her eyes working over his features, reading them, interpreting, and she finally nodded wearily. “You don’t have to say it.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and leaned his forehead against the frigid metal bars.

“I was hoping,” she said, her voice raw. “But I knew.”

“Because he was in the shuttle bay when—”

“Shush.” She pressed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t speak.”

“Mr. Alden,” came Anne Mather’s voice from behind him. “I’ve given you what you asked for. Can we resume?”

“Pastor Mather,” Kieran’s mother said, her tone low and respectful. “Did
you
bring Kieran here?”

Kieran looked at his mother, surprised. She was gazing at Mather hopefully, a light in her eyes. He took a step away from her.

“He wanted to see you very badly,” Mather said. To Kieran’s utter amazement, she reached through the iron bars and took hold of his mother’s hand. “He’s a loyal son.”

“I know.” Lena Alden smiled bashfully. “Thank you.”

“Mom…” Kieran began, but when she looked at him, he realized the question he wanted to ask wasn’t one he could put into words. She’d changed. Something was new in her, and frightening. “I want my mom present at the talks,” Kieran said, studying his mother, who beamed at him.

“Lena,” Mather asked, “what do you say to that? Would you like to sit with your son in my office?”

“Oh yes!” Lena said eagerly. She stepped back while the guards unlocked her cell, and she slid into the corridor. Her light frame seemed infused with girlish glee as she followed Anne Mather back down the corridor. She smiled at her fellow prisoners, who smiled back at her, even as they begged Kieran for news of their kids.

On impulse, Kieran turned at the last moment and said loudly, “Your kids are safe on the Empyrean!”

The room erupted into applause, and Kieran turned to follow Mather out but was stopped by what felt like a punch to his sternum. He’d caught a glimpse of Harvard Stapleton, Samantha Stapleton’s father, sitting on the floor next to the bars of his cell, weeping with relief. Harvard had been with Kieran on the day of the attack and had called the adults to the shuttle bay, where so many of them were shot. That day he’d been so strong and brave, but now the man looked folded, and very small—frail enough that the truth about his brave daughter’s death might kill him.

Kieran slipped out of the brig behind Mather, careful not to look directly at Harvard. He didn’t want the man to see the sorrow on his face.

Lena Alden held her son’s hand the entire way back to Anne Mather’s office. She accepted a cup of tea from Mather with a deferential nod, and sat back in her chair, seeming content to listen to the conversation. Mather smiled warmly at her, and Lena smiled back, glad to be noticed.

She’s taken over Mom’s mind,
Kieran realized. For a moment the room went gray, and his lips felt numb and unusable.

“Kieran,” Mather said, picking up a portable reader. “I’ve been looking over your terms—”

He held up a hand. “I have a question first.”

“Okay,” Mather said, and set the reader down on the desk, looking at Kieran with a bland smile.

“Why are you negotiating with
me
?” Kieran said.

Mather opened her mouth in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“There are plenty of adults on board this ship you could be negotiating with, but you chose to talk to me. Why?”

“Well, because…” she blustered. “You’re acting Captain of the Empyrean! Who better? You’re obviously a very capable young man.”

He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed. He didn’t know what he expected her to say, but this paltry bit of flattery put him on edge. Waverly had tried to warn him about this woman, and she’d been right, as much as he hated to admit it. Everything that had happened today showed how profoundly outmatched he was.

“This isn’t going to work,” Kieran said, and stood up from the desk. “I’m not qualified for this.”

“Mr. Alden, you might have said something sooner.…”

“I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know the first thing about treaties, or—”

“Don’t listen to him, Pastor Mather,” Lena said with a wave of her hand. “My son is capable of anything!”

“No. I’m not. I’m too young for this.” Kieran spoke to Mather. “You need to negotiate with one of the adults.”

“Kieran.” Mather stood from her desk, exasperated. “Weeks of planning have gone into this meeting.”

“You want me to do the negotiating because you think I’m a stupid kid, and that I’ll sign anything to get our parents back.”

“You’ve shown you’re not stupid,” Mather cajoled. “You should trust yourself.”

“I do trust myself. And my judgment is that these talks can’t go on.” He was about to help his mother stand up when a flash of light blinded him, knocked him off balance, and forced him back into his chair.

FLASH

The skin of Waverly’s scalp crawled as she watched the man screw the muzzle of his gun into Randy’s head.
Don’t kill him,
were the tiny words in her mind, but she knew pleading wouldn’t work.

She pushed her gun into her hostage’s neck, and he whimpered.

“Let Randy go,” Waverly said through her teeth. Her finger tensed against the trigger of her gun. “I’ll kill your precious doctor.”