Immunity

by Erin Bowman

  A half dozen guards, all in full gear. Stun guns at the ready. One carried the hot cap and collar. Another a tranquilizer.

  “I’m going to inject you with a sedative now,” he said, moving slowly into the room. “We’ve been told to use deadly force if necessary.”

  Thea’s gaze flicked back to the guards. She’d been wrong about their weapons. They shot bullets, not electric shocks. Coen nudged at her mind, anxious. Where’s Farraday? I thought he was coming back to get you.

  Thea didn’t know, and she just wanted Coen quiet. With the static of the hosts blaring in her mind, she could barely think as it was.

  Thea hooked her hands behind her head and let the guard enter the room. The needle sank into the flesh below her ear. She felt the collar latch around her neck, but things went blurry after that, darkness overtaking her.

  When the drug’s hold on her began to slip, she pried her eyes open. She was strapped to a table in Paramount’s medbay. The military crest plastered on the wall glistened beneath the harsh lighting.

  “Ah, she’s coming around. That didn’t take long.”

  Thea flinched toward the voice. Lieutenant Burke was standing beside the table, Dr. Farraday behind him. They were both blurry, hazy around the edges.

  “I told you it wouldn’t,” the doctor said. “Her body metabolizes at nearly twice the average human rate.”

  Panic shot through Thea’s limbs. Farraday had betrayed her, told Burke everything. Coen’s thoughts echoed the same concerns.

  There were two other medics in the room and . . . Thea craned her neck. Aldric Vasteneur sat in a chair in the corner, legs crossed and fingers thumbing lazily through a Tab. Barely a meter away, there was a second version of him. Both were hazy. Thea shook her head, blinked. The images slid together, converging as one.

  “She’s still sluggish, though, correct?” Burke asked.

  “Yes,” the doctor replied.

  “Then do it.”

  “It’s a risk I don’t want to take, sir. We agreed it’s best to perfect the implants, design them so they don’t need a remote computer system for logic functions. If there were a problem with upgrades, if anything went wrong . . .” The doctor frowned. “Well, then you’d be ruining our only unaltered host.”

  Thea’s eyelids were heavy. She struggled to keep them open, sockets burning from the effort.

  “We have plenty of her blood stockpiled on Kanna7,” Burke argued. “I can create a new host at any time.”

  “You can’t play god with this, Christoph. I won’t do it.”

  Burke edged closer to the doctor, towering over him.

  “I’ve been watching you, Farraday,” the lieutenant crooned. “I know you don’t think I have. It’s why you’ve grown so sloppy this past week. It was bad enough to give her info, but to visit her just earlier, on my ship, to make promises to my property.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to give you a chance to explain yourself, but Vasteneur said it was only fair. So show us. Show us right now that your loyalties lie with the Radicals over your daughter.”

  Burke held something out to Dr. Farraday. A scalpel. Thea caught the surgical tray out of the corner of her eye, the implant gleaming. It was a curved bit of tech, no bigger than her forefinger. A bone saw sat beside it.

  Sensing her apprehension, Coen’s fear crackled in the back of her mind, sharp and wired.

  Thea stretched, grappling for the restraints. They were buckled over her wrists and ankles, too far out of reach. She didn’t have the strength to break them with sheer force. Not yet.

  “You have no proof,” the doctor said, staring at the scalpel. “And as the leading expert on hosts of Psychrobacter achli, I urge you to take my advice. It would not be wise to implant Althea Sadik. I won’t do it and you can’t make—”

  Lieutenant Burke thrust his hand forward, shoving the blade into Farraday’s stomach. The doctor’s eyes bulged with shock. His grabbed for the scalpel, but his hands came up against Burke’s, still wrapped around the handle.

  “I can’t make you?” Burke sneered. “Is that what you were going to say?” He twisted the knife. The doctor groaned. “No, I don’t suppose I can. Which makes you worthless to me.”

  Run! Coen shouted to her. Get out of there!

  But she couldn’t even sit.

  Burke pulled his handgun from his holster and fired a bullet into Farraday’s chest. The doctor dropped to the floor, gasping. Another bullet, and the noises stopped.

  Farraday’s pulse slowed in Thea’s ears, then blipped out entirely.

  Thea, now!

  She tugged uselessly against the restraints.

  “Your connection is still working with Coen Rivli, isn’t it?” Burke said, smiling down on Thea. “There’s no use denying it. I’ve seen you confirm it via video feeds. You explained it all to Dr. Farraday during a blood draw.”

  “I will die before I tell you where to find them,” she grunted out.

  “Unlike Dr. Farraday, you’re no good to me dead. But you’re not much use like this, either.” He raised his gaze to the other two medics in the room. “Finish up here. I want her implanted and ready for interrogation by the time I’m back from the summit. Come now, Aldric,” he said, waving a hand at Hevetz’s CEO. “We’ll be docking shortly.”

  The horror didn’t truly hit Thea until Burke and Vasteneur had left the room and the medics were pulling on surgical gloves.

  Coen was a fury in her head. Get up, Thea! You have to fight back.

  I can’t. I can barely keep my eyes open. They drugged me. My legs feel like lead.

  Too bad. You have to figure out a way. Farraday said you’ll metabolize it faster. Maybe you’re stronger than you feel, but you won’t know unless you try.

  The ship thudded lightly, items jingling on the surgical tray.

  “That’ll be them docking,” one of the medics said. “We better get started.” He tapped at a syringe. Thea would be paralyzed in a matter of seconds, her head anchored in place, her eyes stuck staring at the overhead lights as they cut open her skull.

  Come on, Thea. Get up!

  The medic stepped nearer, and as his gloved hand brought the syringe closer, Thea thrust upward with her arms with as much force as possible, attempting to sit at the same time. The restraints cracked open, heat flaring at her wrists, and the man jumped back in surprise. The second medic grabbed Thea’s shoulders from behind, using his weight to force her back to the table.

  She fought like a feral animal. Desperate. Wild. But the original sedative still had a hold on her and she didn’t feel like herself. She was sloppy, weak. The men were too strong.

  She lashed out in desperation, whipping her legs free of their restraints and knocking the surgical tray to the floor. Tools went clattering. The man with the syringe dove at Thea again, and she kicked at his chest, prying the other man’s hands from her shoulders. When his grip loosened, she slipped from the table. Her legs buckled like jelly. Hands flying over the tools on the floor, her fingers closed over a spare scalpel. She turned on the men, holding it out in defense as she stood.

  “She clawed me,” the medic said, panting. “Like a damn cat.”

  The man with the syringe simply stared at his bloodied partner.

  Thea glanced at her front. There was blood on her ankles and wrists from when she’d broken free of the restraints. Her cuts were only just beginning to close. Her body might have metabolized the sedative quickly, but there’d been a trade-off. Her healing had been slowed. The blood was still moist, sliding between her fingers when she rubbed them together.

  Her blood, wet on her fingers.

  The medic, who she’d clawed in the escape.

  Thea, you need to contain them, Coen said urgently.

  She was still holding the scalpel out, the blade trembling in her grasp.

  Thea, now!

  She raced for Dr. Farraday’s dead body, fishing his key card from his lab coat pocket. Then she flew to the door.

  “Don’t leave me
with him!” the uninfected medic screamed behind her. “Don’t lock the door.”

  Thea sprinted from the medical bay and toggled the control on the other side, hitting a lock button on the unit. The medic slammed into the glass doors behind her, banging, pleading. He was young, but not young enough.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and ran down the hall with his screams burning in her ears.

  The programmer knew something had gone wrong before Coen even spoke. The boy’s face was ashen, all color having drained from his cheeks.

  The contagion was loose on the Paramount, he explained. The ship was already docked on Xenia, with Burke on his way to the meeting chambers, and the contagion was bound to spread to the rest of the station.

  It had been Thea’s doing.

  She’d contained it, temporarily, but Coen feared it wouldn’t last. Someone would hear the man yelling and come to his aid. They’d open the door and it would get out. And if they were smart enough to keep the medics in isolation, it wouldn’t matter. In time, the men would figure out how to open the doors—with logic or with force.

  “I have to jump right to her,” Coen said. “Straight into Xenia. It’s more important than ever that we power down the logic unit, but it requires two people. I can help her do it, and the hosts will be able to help us protect the summit attendees. They will be the only way to keep everyone on that station safe as the contagion spreads. Just like how I kept Thea safe on Achlys.”

  “Coen . . .” Sol was giving a speech behind Naree, speaking to the Paradox flight crew. They were set to jump in half an hour.

  “It’s the only way to bypass Xenia’s security,” Coen insisted. “Nova can jump me straight into Docking. Thea and I can turn off the logic unit. The rest of the plan can unfold as discussed.”

  She looked at this boy, so young to her eyes, so hopelessly in love. Every time he spoke of Thea, the programmer knew his feelings were sincere. It was strange to know someone else loved her daughter. For so long it had been just Naree. Even stranger was the envy that roiled in her stomach. That this boy had seen Thea most recently. That this boy had held her in his arms when Naree had not touched her own daughter in well over a decade.

  “Please, you have to create a distraction for me. I need a window where Nova and I can fly out ahead of the fleet to make the jump.”

  “We never tested jumping into closed spaces,” Naree said. “Not with the AltCor-powered reactor and certainly not with something as large as a Python. The amount of radiation displaced when you appear in Docking would be massive. There’s no telling what sort of damage it could cause to the station, and that’s if you manage to plot your jump perfectly and actually end up in Docking rather than embedded in a wall.” Naree almost couldn’t believe her words. All she wanted was to save Thea. How could she be advising against it?

  “I don’t care how dangerous it is. I’ve watched an entire drilling operation fall to this contagion in a matter of hours. No one on that station stands a chance if I don’t do this.”

  Naree swallowed. Coen seemed to know where her brain was headed because when he spoke again, it was to use her biggest fear against her.

  “Galactic Disease Control will condemn the whole station when they find out what’s happened. They’ll blow it into stardust. You are damning your daughter.”

  And that’s what did it. She folded immediately. Maybe it made Naree Sadik a coward. She was willing to sacrifice hundreds of lives, but she could not sacrifice her daughter. Everything she’d done for Sol, every day she’d spent dutiful and submissive, had been to get back to Thea. She wouldn’t stand by and let the girl die.

  “His key card is in the pocket of his suit jacket,” she said, nodding to a service cart where Sol had slung his jacket before climbing onto the stage to deliver his talk.

  Coen followed her gaze. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means.”

  “Oh, I do. You better pray I’m wrong about the displacement effects. The results won’t be pretty otherwise.”

  He said nothing else. The programmer watched him leave, lifting the card seamlessly from the jacket as he brushed by.

  The trouble was, Naree knew she wasn’t wrong. The radiation released by the jump would be disastrous, but Coen might be able to save Thea before it caused any structural damage to the station. She wished him luck, sincerely and wholeheartedly. How could she wish him anything else, when he was doing what she hadn’t been able to all these years?

  Saving Thea had always been—and would always be—her priority.

  IX

  The Summit

  Xenia Station

  Orbiting Eutheria, Trios System

  NOVA WAS CHEERING WITH THE other pilots when Coen brushed into her shoulder and whispered, “I need a word.”

  Amber raised a brow, her freakishly good hearing not missing a beat. “What was that about?” She’d been standing beside Nova for the entirety of Sol’s speech, much to Nova’s dismay. They’d spoken rarely in the past week; Nova had been busy getting a crash course in the flux drive and was still trying to forget the things she’d said in the infirmary. Having Amber so close just made her worried she’d say something else stupid.

  “No idea. Let’s find out.”

  With Amber on her heels, Nova peeled away from the crowd and followed Coen deeper into the hangar. He rounded the battlecarrier that would jump Paradox’s pilots to Xenia, climbed the gangplank, and waited in the shadows.

  “What’s up?” Nova asked, scrambling to meet him.

  “You’re really good, right? You got kicked out of the Academy for something that shouldn’t have even mattered.”

  “My peripheral vision isn’t perfect, but I can still fly a fighter with the best of them, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Right. So you’d be able to jump me directly into Xenia Station.”

  “That would be like threading a needle with my eyes closed. We’ll jump to Xenia and go from there.”

  Coen shook his head. “I need to get inside. This is the only way.”

  “I’m clearly missing something,” Amber interjected. “The plan was for the fleet to appear outside of Xenia. Put pressure on the Radicals, make sure the contagion didn’t get loose.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s too late for that.”

  Coen told them everything—how Thea had attacked a medic to avoid getting implanted. How she was currently hiding on Paramount, but worried the contagion might spread, first through the ship, then to the station. How she needed the hosts’ help to protect the civilians aboard the station but couldn’t turn off the logic unit without Dr. Farraday, who was now dead.

  Nova glanced at Amber. The girl stood stoically until Coen delved into details about a scalpel and multiple fired shots. Tears began to glisten in her eyes.

  “Coen, enough!” Nova spat. “This is her dad you’re talking about.”

  He shot Amber a sympathetic look before turning back to Nova. “You can do it, though, right?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “So is letting the contagion spread.”

  “The drive’s never been tested like this.”

  “It would be a leap of faith.”

  “I don’t know, Coen. We should just talk to Weet so he can move the jump up and alert Xenia’s staff.”

  “If we hail the station, they’ll go investigate Paramount, get themselves infected, and just spread things quicker. And that’s assuming there isn’t already a Radical on Xenia’s staff who will hear the transmission and intervene. I ran through our options a hundred times already. This is our best shot. And just think”—Coen cocked up an eyebrow—“if this works, you’ll be considered the most skilled flux drive pilot in the galaxy. Can you think of a better way to stick it to the Academy?”

  He was appealing to her ego, and even still Nova thought it sounded good. Most of the jump’s plotting had already been done. She’d only need to alter a few things. Of course, they were the most dangerous of the bunch.

  Xenia St
ation was a giant cube, with docking stations encircling it and accessible from four sides. Bays were nearly two hundred meters tall. It would still be threading a needle, but at least a fairly spacious needle. If she pulled it off, there wouldn’t be a corps in the Union foolish enough to bar her from flying for them.

  “Maybe you should think about sticking it to the Radicals instead,” Amber said sullenly. “For what they did to you. To Coen and Thea. To my father.”

  “To all of Black Quarry. To your Odyssey crew,” Coen added, eyeing Nova.

  Her cousin flashed before her. Sullivan had died at her hands on Achlys, but he hadn’t needed to die at all. If not for Hevetz’s collusion with the Radicals, he wouldn’t have even been on that damn rock. Same for Dylan Lowe or Lisbeth Tarlow, or even Toby, who Nova had hated. No one deserved the fate he’d gotten. And if she didn’t try this, if the contagion got loose and everyone on Xenia Station died, she’d have to live with the knowledge that those deaths were partially her fault.

  “Nova, we’re kinda running out of time,” Coen urged.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. How do we get out of here without anyone noticing?”

  Coen smiled crookedly and waved a key card. The name Solomon Weet was on its front.

  Thea was barely hanging on. Coen could sense her guilt like a lead blanket, weighing on her shoulders, dragging her down. She’d fled deep into the Paramount and was now hiding in engineering. We’re on our way, he assured her. Her only response was a frantic nod.

  As Sol’s speech continued at the other end of the hangar, Nova backed a PythonII from the battlecarrier and turned it to face the exit. A 360-degree window enveloped the cockpit, and she popped it open.

  “I’m coming with you guys,” Amber announced.

  “It’s gonna be dangerous,” Coen warned.

  “If you’re right about everything, you’re gonna need me. I can track down Burke and the hosts while you and Thea see to the logic unit. That way, as soon as it’s down, there’s someone nearby to communicate with them, give orders.”