I pull on the clean clothes and study Vega’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
She sniffles. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Can you just get the fuck up?” She throws my boots at me. “We’re only on day two of this partnership, and I’m already getting sick of you. Just move, alright?”
“Okay. Fine. Relax.” I yank on my pants, throw the clinical gown in the nearby hamper, and pull on my boots. “I’m ready. Let’s go. Where to next?”
“Home,” Vega says. She doesn’t wait for me to follow before she starts heading out of the hospital wing. “Claudia told me she doesn’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Can you do me a favor and try not to mess up tomorrow? I’m due for a promotion and I’d like to make a good impression.”
“A promotion, huh? To what? Head Bitch?”
Vega glares at me as we leave the hospital wing and head to the pickup loop outside the Academy’s main building. I’m a bit wobbly, but I try not to slow Vega down. Even I can tell she’s not in the mood to be messed with. She ushers me into the automated car, and we whiz away from the Academy’s lawns. Vega avoids my scrutinizing gaze. She stares through the window instead, occasionally wiping a wayward tear from her eye before it has the opportunity to drop.
“Seriously, Vega,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” I stretch out, placing my feet on the empty seat between us until the toes of my boots rest against her thighs. “Think of it this way. You’re stuck with me indefinitely, so we can either try to make the most of it and lean on each other or keep acting like we were never friends. Honestly, the second option sounds tiring, and I could use someone to bounce everyday complaints off of. I’m guessing you could too.”
Vega dabs at another tear. “My mother’s getting worse.”
“Her illness? How do you know?”
“They told me today,” she says, jerking her head toward the rear window of the car to indicate the Academy behind us. “While you were knocked out in the hospital wing.”
“What’d they say?” I ask. “Did they give you any details?”
Vega shakes her head. “They wouldn’t tell me much else. All I heard is that her health is declining and she probably won’t make it.”
“Well, what the hell are you still doing here?” I demand. “Go to Palioxis! Vega, if she doesn’t have much longer, you should see her.”
“I can’t,” Vega says. “IA won’t let me.”
“Why? Because of me?”
She nods.
“That’s bullshit!” I put my feet down and slide across to sit closer to her. “You have to go see your mother. I’ll have Laertes watch me. I’m not going to be the reason you miss out on this.”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Vega says. “I practically begged them to let me go.”
“Who did you ask?”
She wipes a final tear as the car pulls up to the house. “Your mother.”
I get out of the car and round to her side before she can open her door all the way. “My mother is a bully. This is ridiculous. You are going to see your mother. I’m going to make it happen.”
She lets me give her a hand out of the car. “How?”
“Do you trust me?”
“About as far as I can throw you.”
“That’ll do.”
Shortly after midnight, Vega and I sneak out of the house. Both of us are well-trained in the art of keeping quiet, and the brand-new construction is all concrete and metal. No creaky wooden steps like in our old house on Proioxis that thwarted me almost every time I tried to sneak out during summer vacation. Sometimes, during those breaks, I went out to meet Vega. As we tiptoe through the kitchen and out the front door, I can’t help but feel fifteen again.
We forego the automatic car. Though its engine is quiet, we can’t guarantee it won’t wake up the rest of the house. Instead, Vega leads me to the garage hidden amongst the shrubbery. Inside are a few more cars. Sandwiched between Claudia’s monster and a sleek sports car that looks like it hasn’t seen the light of day in several years is a matte-black motorbike.
“Who’s is that?” I ask when Vega hands me a helmet.
“It used to belong to Laertes,” she replies, strapping on her own helmet. “He gave it to me when he realized how much I liked it. His condition makes it hard for him to ride.”
“How gracious,” I say. “The two of you seem pretty close.”
She rolls the motorbike out of the garage. “My first assignment as an Intelligence cadet was to help track you down. Laertes headed the investigation. We worked well together.”
“You’d think they’d assign that case to people who weren’t personally connected to it,” I remark, following Vega beyond the shrubs and down the street. I check to see how far we are from the house. “We should be good here. What are you doing?”
She swings a leg over the bike and pats the seat behind her. “Hop on.”
“No way. I’m driving.”
“You’re a criminal, remember?”
“This whole thing was my idea!” I protest.
Vega checks her watch. “We’re running out of time. Do you want to help me or not?”
With a grumble, I get on behind her and wrap my arms around her. Her torso clenches as she kicks the bike to life. It’s an antique. It still runs on gas. Even though I don’t get to drive, it’s as fun as I remember. We race to the Academy, and when we pull up to the bay that houses the training speeders, I’m almost sorry the ride is over. Vega parks the bike in a dark corner of the bay.
“I’ve got access to most of the trainee speeders,” she says, approaching one of the Wasps parked in the bay. “Upper-level agents are permitted to use them at our leisure, so we technically aren’t breaking any rules.”
When she uses her print to pop open the cockpit, I hop in and adjust the seat. “I don’t suppose any of those rules mentioned flying with a reformed criminal.”
“Can’t say I recall.”
Vega gets into the seat and straps herself in without any issue. I watch her out of the side of my eye as I flick the switches to get the Wasp in the air.
“You were faking your ineptitude on The Impossible,” I say. “Letting me strap you in and pretending you’ve never flown. I bet you’re a class A pilot.”
“I’ve flown plenty,” Vega says. “But I’d rather not steer.”
The Wasp lifts off, and I throw Vega a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry. I got you covered.”
What a difference it makes to fly with a member of IA at your side. We lift out of the Academy without raising any alarms, and before I know it, we’re beyond Harmonia’s atmosphere. My racing pulse slows as we ascend into the dark abyss of space. Though it’s only been a few days since I landed on the ground, it feels like the sky is welcoming me home. I take the Wasp through a few gratifying loops, making Vega laugh as we shoot away from the supposed utopia of a planet behind us.
We make the jump to hyperspeed. We don’t have time to get to Palioxis at a normal pace. This is a quick trip to see Vega’s mother and return to Harmonia before anyone realizes we’re gone. I watch the Wasp’s Monitor with extra caution. In hyperspeed, it’s easy to overshoot your destination, and I don’t want to waste time going farther than we need. When Palioxis appears on the map, I yank back on the thruster, and the ship drops out of warp conditions. It’s perfect timing. Palioxis sits right in front of us, all blue and green as we cross through the atmosphere.
Vega gets us permission to land at the port nearest her mother’s house. IA’s night watch on Palioxis is run by a complex computer system. One sleepy guard dozes in the watch tower as we land on the dock and power off the Wasp. The guard snores on, oblivious as we disembark and sneak past him. At the port exit, we break into a jog.
“Where does your mother live?” I ask Vega.
“Close by.” She points up the road to the modest neighborhood where a lot of the port
workers live. “We’re heading that way.”
“You got the meds?”
She lifts her backpack. The contents clink together. Before we left, we swiped a few vials of medication to help Vega’s mother’s condition. Hopefully it’s enough.
Vega’s mother’s home is in the middle of a connected line of row houses. From what I remember from Vega’s stories, it’s a huge step up from where they used to live when Vega was a child. Vega pauses on the doorstep, her finger hovering over the print reader to get inside.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
“What if it’s too late?”
“Don’t think like that.”
She shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. “I have to at least consider the possibility.”
I take her hand and press her finger to the reader. The door unlocks and swings open. Inside, the house is dark except for the dim lights that line the floor of the entrance hallway. I step in first, pulling Vega along with me.
“The bedroom’s through there,” Vega whispers, pointing through the kitchen. We inch along, across the tile, and enter the room.
It smells like opalite, as if there might be a pile of the space rocks sitting in the corner of the room, but it’s coming from Vega’s mother. She’s tucked into bed, either asleep or unconscious. Her skin glows like indigo glitter, a side effect of the opalite poisoning that’s killing her.
“Mom!” Vega rushes to her mother’s side and pulls the blankets off her. Her head lolls. Vega catches her mother’s cheeks between her palms. “Mom, it’s Vega. Please wake up.”
Her mother’s eyelids flutter open. She murmurs something unintelligible. Her eyes can’t focus on anything, not even her daughter.
“No,” she mumbles, almost incoherently. “No… more…”
“Mom, look at me,” Vega begs. “It’s your daughter.”
“Here.” I set the backpack on the bed and rifle through it, extracting a vile of Purifier liquid and a syringe. Carefully, I attach a needle and fill the syringe with Purifier. “Give me her arm.”
Vega uncovers her mother’s arm and stretches it out so I can see the vein. It’s shrunken underneath her skin, as if she’s had one too many injections. When I push the needle in, the vein rolls off to the side. I try again. This time, it sticks. I depress the plunger and shoot the Purifier liquid into her bloodstream.
The indigo glow steadily fades, starting at the inside of Vega’s mother’s elbow and spreading outward. The glittery effect of her skin is still present, but it’s not as prominent with the medication circling through her body. No amount of Purifier will save Vega’s mother now. Her opalite poisoning is like a virus that won’t let go.
Vega gasps as her mother takes her face in her hands.
“Vega?”
“Mom.” Vega folds herself over her mother, sobbing into the bedsheets. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been doing my best, but I should’ve checked to make sure they were taking better care of you.”
Her mother’s feeble fingers comb through Vega’s hair. “My beautiful girl… Look at me.”
Vega peels her face from the sheets, her eyes red and wet with tears. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Stop,” her mother says. Her voice cracks and whispers, like the opalite has ruined her airways. She may be awake and aware, but she’s bordering on the edge of lucid. “Listen… important… don’t trust…”
She fades, her head tipping. Vega gently pats her cheek. “Mom, what? Don’t trust who?”
“IA,” her mother whispers. “Don’t trust IA.”
“Well, duh,” I say.
Vega hushes me, never taking her eyes off her mother. “Why not, Mom? What’s wrong with IA?”
Her mother pats her chest as a hacking cough takes over her body. Eyes streaming, she struggles to say, “IA corrupt…Veritas… rising.”
“Veritas?” Vega glances up at me. “That’s the second time we’ve heard about them in the last couple days. Your dad mentioned them too.”
“He didn’t so much mention them as he handed me a scrap of paper,” I say. I kneel next to the bed. “Miss Major? Do you know anything else about IA or Veritas? Anything that can help us?”
“I’m not a traitor,” Vega hisses at me. “And neither is my mother.”
“You don’t know that,” I reply. “When was the last time you spent more than fifteen minutes with her?”
Vega shoves me away from the bed, and I stumble into a nightstand. The lamp topples over and hits the floor. The light bulb explodes.
“Way to go,” I hiss.
“Shut up, Ophelia—”
The windows shatter. I hit the floor and cover my head with my arms to protect myself from flying glass, but Vega launches herself across her mother. Razor-sharp shards nick my ears and neck as two IA Defense agents roll in through the windows. One of them yanks Vega off of her mother.
“No!” she screams, scrambling for freedom as another officer approaches her mother with a syringe full of neon-green liquid. “Get away from her!”
I tackle the agent to the ground, and the syringe goes spinning across the floor. The agent pulls his pistol from his belt and takes aim at my head. I duck to the side, and the opalite bullet shoots past me and lodges itself in the wall.
“Are you an idiot?” I ask the agent. “Do you see how much opalite is in the air here? If you get one too many shots off, you’re going to blow the entire place to the ground.”
“At least I’ll have had the pleasure of killing Ophelia Holmes before I go,” the agent spits back. “Say goodbye.”
He rolls in my grip, grabs the syringe, and attempts to plunge it into my arm. The second agent tosses Vega aside and seizes his partner’s wrist before he can plant the needle.
“De la Cruz!” he hisses. “Don’t forget the mission. She’s not it.”
De la Cruz growls but obeys. He abandons his attempt at murdering me and shoots to his feet. In a flash, he injects Vega’s mother with the green liquid. It lights up her veins like a glow stick. Her body begins to seize. Vega screams and lunges at De la Cruz, but her fury oppresses her judgement. De la Cruz throws a sharp right hook that catches Vega right on the temple. She slumps to the floor, moaning.
“You’re next,” De la Cruz says, shaking off his partner as he approaches me. “How do you want to die, Holmes?”
I back up toward the wall. With no weapon, the chances I’ve got of taking both agents down are slim. “If you kill me, you’ll have to report to my mother.”
“I’m not scared of that Intelligence bitch,” De la Cruz says. “I don’t answer to her. Chetri, are you with me or not?”
The other agent—Chetri—checks on Vega’s mother. She’s stopped moving entirely, her hand limp over the edge of the bed. Chetri checks her pulse.
“She’s dead,” he reports. From the floor, Vega sobs. “I guess our mission is complete. No harm in continuing to make the galaxy a better place.”
They square off, advancing toward me with identical grins beneath the face shields of their helmets. I have nowhere to go, and Vega’s not helping.
“Just so you know,” I say, “I won’t go down easy.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” De la Cruz replies.
6
I kick out as the agents lunge toward me. My boot glances off De la Cruz’s body armor. He picks me up under the armpits and pins me against the wall. His hot breath smells like garlic and onions, like they’d stopped for a street kabob near the port on their way to attack us. Chetri holds back, making sure Vega doesn’t summon up a defense. She’s not a threat though. She crawls to the bed and holds her mother’s limp hand, her tears staining the sheets.
“You can’t help her anymore, Vega,” I gasp against De la Cruz’s forearm. “But you could totally pitch in to help me. Just saying.”
Vega’s unreachable, drowning in her sorrow. Chetri looks uncomfortable as De la Cruz presses himself against me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I hiss in his ear.
>
“Like you have a choice,” he spits back. “Can’t let a body like yours go to waste.”
His hand reaches down to caress my inner thigh. I wait until he thinks I’ve relaxed, then I drive my knee into his crotch. He doubles over with a strangled yell, cupping himself between his hands. While he’s down, I aim a kick to his head. He dodges at the last second and tackles me to the ground.
A third stranger launches himself into the bedroom through the window. Armed with a blaster and a face mask, he fires twice, taking out De la Cruz first then Chetri. The IA agents slump to the floor, and the stranger yanks off the black bandana obscuring his face.
He’s about the same age as Vega’s mother. His chiseled jaw is dusted with salt-and-pepper scruff, and his soft blue eyes contradict the intensity of his gaze. He holsters his blaster and raises his hands at eye level for us to see he’s no longer armed. The Veritas insignia is embroidered on the palm of his glove.
“Come with me,” he says. “I can return you to your speeder safely.”
Vega automatically turns her pistol on him. He doesn’t move when I cross the room and stay her weapon. She sits on the bed, shaking like a leaf.
“Who are you?” I ask the man, my voice hoarse. “You killed two IA officers. That’s treason.”
“Orion Saint James,” he says, offering his hand to shake. “I’m a member of the rebel group, Veritas.” He gently taps Vega’s knee. “So was your mother.”
Vega’s gaze snaps up. “My mother was not a rebel.”
“She was,” Orion insists. He leans over Vega’s mother, his eyes tearing up as he pushes a wayward strand of hair away from her face. “A damn good one too. The council won’t be happy about this loss.”
“She was telling the truth then,” I say. “Veritas is back?”
Orion pulls off his gloves and tucks them in the back pocket of his well-worn jeans. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing the best job of explaining my role in all of this. I’ve been waiting for you to show up here.”
The Impossible Book 1 Page 5
