Aurora Blazing

by Jessie Mihalik

  Perhaps he’d dosed himself as well.

  And I needed to stop that line of thought before it began.

  A panel opened in the smooth wall at the back of the medbay, revealing a closet-sized room with a straight-sided, hip-high rectangular tank large enough for a tall man to lie down in.

  My stomach twisted with remembered pain. This was going to be unpleasant.

  I pulled my com out of my bodice and dropped it on the diagnostic table. I needed to get in the tank before the pain meds completely wore off because the first few minutes were always the worst.

  I slid off the table with barely a twinge of pain. Now that I knew what to look for, I recognized the feeling of invincibility. I moved carefully, aware that I still had a hole in my leg, even if I couldn’t feel it.

  “I’ve set the cycle for an hour. If you need out before then, hit the emergency release,” Aoife said. “Remember, everything off, including bandages, before you get in.”

  I crossed to the open door and murmured, “Thank you, Aoife.”

  She smiled in sympathy and handed me a pair of bandage shears. “Good luck.”

  Chapter 18

  The regen room was dim and tiny, just big enough to walk along the front of the tank. The healing liquid glowed a brilliant aquamarine under the special lights. It was beautiful, but that wouldn’t make up for the fact that the next hour was going to suck.

  I unwrapped the bandages from my feet and thigh. My bodice was secured with a row of tiny hooks behind my neck. I huffed out an irritated breath as I tried to remember which side was the hook and which was the loop because neither way seemed to work.

  “Need help?” Ian asked from far too close. I froze in surprise before nodding silently. His warm fingers glided along the back of my neck as he worked his way down the short row of hooks. I shivered in pleasure.

  He let go of the fabric to trace a finger down my spine. But with nothing to hold it up, the dress slipped down my body, over my hips, and to the floor, leaving me clad in only my underwear. Ian sucked in a startled breath.

  I peeked at him over my shoulder. Mistake. His eyes blazed with heat and his expression was filled with what could only be described as yearning. A blink later, it was gone and the polite mask he usually wore was back in place. I frowned. Had I seen what I wanted to and not what was actually there?

  I cleared my throat. “Do you need help with your bandages?” I offered.

  “No, thank you,” he said, turning away. “You can go ahead and get in.”

  The rejection was not unexpected, but it still smarted. I stripped off my last piece of clothing and climbed into the tank. The liquid was tepid, a few degrees cooler than body temperature and somewhat opaque, softening the clean lines of my limbs into hazy, shadowy blobs. Maybe this wouldn’t be too awkward after all.

  I tipped my head back against the end of the tank and closed my eyes. I could offer Ian that bit of privacy, at least. A tiny ripple announced his entrance, then his feet slid against mine as he sat. The tank was big enough that we only overlapped up to our knees.

  I peeked at him from under my lashes. His mask was firmly in place, but his hands were tight on the sides of the tank. My own hands clenched as the first pulse hit. It felt a bit like a static shock, except it hit everywhere at once. The pulse passed and my feet and thigh tingled, a sure sign that pain was just around the corner.

  “I forgot how much this hurt,” Ian murmured. Gut wounds were notoriously painful.

  “You want Aoife to knock you out? I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “No, it’s not unbearable, just unpleasant.” His smile proved he knew just what an understatement he was making. “Tell me a story.”

  Another pulse hit and I tensed as the tingle flared into a burn. I decided to share one of my happiest memories. “When I was six, I convinced Benedict to run away from home with me. We waited for Mother and Father to be out of town, then we raided the kitchen for bread and jam, packed up our favorite things, and set out into the garden.”

  “How far did you make it?”

  “The park in Sector Three. We set up camp—a tarp over a shrub—and gorged on jam sandwiches. We thought we were so clever.”

  “And how many guards were hidden around the park?” Ian asked with a smile.

  I grinned at him. “Many. And Ferdinand and Hannah were in on it, too, of course. The next morning, like magic, a pot of soup showed up. We thought it was fairies.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “Two days. Until it rained and we realized camping wasn’t fun when you were soaking wet. We snuck back in only to have Ferdinand and Hannah shower us with affection because we weren’t dead and we came back. I didn’t find out until I was an adult that they knew we were fine the entire time.”

  Another pulse hit and Ian hissed. “Can I do anything?” I asked.

  “Tell me about MineCorp.”

  “They are a private company, but each of the High Houses owns a stake. They mine rare minerals from dangerous places. Their main workforce is made up of indentured servants. They employ guards to prevent worker escape as much as to prevent outside attack. Their turnover rate is high and they don’t ask too many questions when people are brought to them.”

  Ian nodded, so I continued, “I haven’t had any reason to look into them, so I don’t know much more than what’s public. But as soon as—” Another pulse stole my breath. I closed my eyes against the pain and took a deep breath. “As soon as I’m out of here, I plan to rectify that.”

  “What will they do if they find out they have Ferdinand?”

  I stared into the middle distance as I thought through the possible scenarios. “They’ll kill him,” I said flatly. “They don’t want to give the Consortium a reason to poke into their business, and explaining how they came to be in possession of the heir of House von Hasenberg would be a pretty damn big reason.”

  Another pulse hit and agony flared. I blinked away tears and sucked in a breath. This was important. “It’s also possible that if we go sniffing after his new identity in the official channels, they will dump him as fast as they can, then claim ignorance, for the same reason. Even if they don’t know who he is, just the fact that we’re interested will be enough to set off their alarms.”

  “Can you hack them? Find the information that way?”

  A dangerous smile pulled at the edges of my mouth. “It would be my pleasure.”

  Then another pulse hit, and I lost myself to the pain for a few seconds. When I came back, Ian’s voice rumbled nearby. I frowned. Was he closer than he had been? I refused to open my eyes and find out. I didn’t need any more sensory input right now.

  “Deep breath,” he murmured. “When the pain hits, you freeze, but you have to breathe through it. In. Out.”

  I let my breathing fall into the cadence of his words, slow and deep. When the next pulse hit, I clung to his instructions. The pulses were getting worse, but I didn’t black out.

  His hand slipped into mine. “Good,” he said, his voice rougher as his own pain intensified. “Now focus on your goal. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to save my brother.”

  “Set your intention. Hold it close and let it burn away everything else.”

  I was going to save my brother and neither my father nor Silva nor MineCorp nor this painful fucking tank were going to stop me. A pulse hit and my grip on Ian’s hand tightened.

  Breathe. Save my brother. Breathe. Save my brother. I breathed and silently repeated the mantra over and over until the pulse passed.

  “That’s it,” Ian murmured. His thumb glided over the back of my hand. “Remember to breathe. Remember your intention. And remember I am right here with you.”

  He was intent on helping me, even when his own pain had to be astronomical. Gratitude and affection swirled into a pleasant warmth that blunted the razor edge of pain. I squeezed his fingers. “Thank you for helping me, Ian,” I whispered.

  “I will always help you,�
�� he vowed softly.

  Then another pulse hit and the time for talking was over.

  My wounds were healed without so much as a scar. Well, without a physical scar at any rate. It would be a while before I could forget the pain of the regen tank. Ian also came out completely healed, which shouldn’t have been possible unless his wound was way less serious than it had seemed. I chalked it up as another mystery that pointed at his enhanced physiology.

  Showered and dressed in my own clothes, I felt almost normal again. Low-level anxiety still gripped me as my body waited for another wave of pain. I breathed through it as Ian had taught me. The anxiety would go away in an hour or two.

  I put on my smart glasses and set up my most secure connection. I needed to log into HIVE because I needed information on MineCorp and my network was the best place to start.

  I transferred to my safe house location and went through the verification process. It was late and the fire was burning low in the grate. I’d detailed everything about this space, from the fire to the fabric on the furniture, and it had taken me weeks to get it exactly right.

  Tonight, two people sat by the fire, a woman with shimmering red hair that rivaled my avatar’s and a man with bright blue hair. Neither of them looked anything like they did in real life. It was late in Universal Time, and Marcel, the blue-haired man, was on Earth. Alayna, the redhead, was on an out-of-the-way planet that didn’t adhere to Universal, so I wasn’t sure what her local time was.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked quietly.

  Marcel was happily married to his husband on Earth and was well on his way to running House Plitt, one of the midlevel lower houses, due to his mother’s ill health. He had been pulled into my network because he’d helped me save his niece from an unwanted marriage. Since then, he’d been an invaluable source of information.

  Alayna was his niece. She was a doctor and seemed perfectly happy to practice medicine in the middle of nowhere. The settlement she’d decided on had desperately needed a doctor, so it worked out for everyone. With a nearby gate, she was able to use HIVE to stay in touch.

  They both smiled. “Everything is fine,” Marcel said. His avatar’s voice had a pleasant lilt while Marcel himself spoke without an accent. “We are just catching up on gossip. Is everything okay with you? Have you found your brother?”

  “Not yet. I’m looking for information on MineCorp.”

  “Tori is your best bet,” Alayna said.

  I nodded. I’d helped Tori Waugh escape before she was pressured into marriage to a man who was nice enough but wasn’t who she wanted. Now she worked at MineCorp. I wouldn’t ask her to risk her job or her identity, but I hoped that she would have some idea on how I could get into their network.

  I couldn’t message her directly without potentially exposing her—even secure messages weren’t guaranteed not to be intercepted and I wouldn’t chance it—so I could only hope that she would check the messages soon. Most of the people with access to the HIVE safe house tried to check in every day or two, so my hope wasn’t too misplaced.

  “If you see her, tell her I’m looking for info, would you?”

  They both agreed and I excused myself from their conversation. I checked the note board and found a few responses to my request for info on Silva. I didn’t learn anything groundbreaking, but two more people had warned me that Riccardo Silva was an ass. Good to know we were all on the same page.

  I took down my current note and changed it to a request for information on MineCorp. I changed the exclamation point to bright pink so people would know the note was new.

  I responded to a couple of the other messages, then logged out. I’d done what I could.

  My stomach rumbled and I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten. Healing took energy and I hoped that meant I would be able to keep something down.

  In the galley, Ian was working his way through an enormous steak. He glanced up at me, then pointedly glanced at the synthesizer.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I said.

  I put in an order for a light seafood and pasta dish. As hungry as I was, I might’ve been able to get away with something heavier and more flavorful, but I didn’t want to risk it with an audience. I added a bowl of creamy raspberry mousse for dessert and a cup of apple juice.

  Ian watched me out of the corner of his eye as I set my tray down and dug in. I ate slowly, savoring the food and the lack of nausea. Sometimes I would have a week or more of good eating days and sometimes I would have to sip meal replacement shakes just to get any calories down.

  When I pushed away the half-eaten plate of food, Ian scowled. “Don’t start,” I warned, heading him off. “I know my body better than you. If I want to eat dessert, and I do, I can’t finish this.”

  “Eat both.”

  “I would if I could.” I sighed. I loved cooking and I used to love eating. Before Gregory, I’d been curvy. I missed my curves.

  I dipped my spoon in the smooth mousse and took a bite. Sweet, slightly tart raspberry flavor exploded on my tongue and I closed my eyes in delight. Maybe I would get another portion of this.

  “What did that bastard do to you?” Ian asked.

  I blinked out of my mousse-induced haze. I had to tread carefully here because I’d promised him honesty. “Which bastard?”

  “Your husband.”

  The mousse soured in my stomach. “He did many things, none of which I will discuss.”

  Ian’s eyes flashed. “Did you kill him?”

  I froze at the unexpected question. Of course Ian would’ve heard the rumors. Everyone in Serenity had heard the rumors, but no one had been brave enough to question me to my face. So I gave him the truth rather than a deflection.

  “No,” I said softly, “but I didn’t save him, either.”

  “Wha—”

  “What did Aoife learn about MineCorp while we were in the tank?” I interrupted.

  Ian let me change the subject, but not without a look that meant we’d be revisiting this conversation at some point. As far as I was concerned, it would be long after hell froze over.

  “Nothing much more than what you already told me. They pick up new ‘employees’ all over the ’verse. There was an accident recently in the Triangulam sector, but the company shut down access before the full extent of the damage could be reported.”

  “Any chance Ferdinand was there?”

  “No, it happened just before the kidnapping. But it might be a point of leverage we could use.”

  Aoife’s voice came over the speaker. “A half dozen Syndicate ships just jumped in, and I’m assuming they’re here for us since they’re not heading toward the planet. They haven’t spotted us yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Where is our next destination?”

  “APD Zero,” I said before Ian could give her other orders. “I’ll get us a landing bay in Sedition after we jump. Are you sure the Syndicate ships are searching for us?”

  “I’m sure,” she said grimly.

  I hadn’t expected Riccardo to keep his promise, but I also hadn’t expected him to try to attack this quickly. “Did they bring in Riccardo’s battle cruiser?”

  “No, these are smaller fighters,” she said.

  I frowned at Ian. “Why would he assume we were still here? If not for the time we spent in the tank, we’d be long gone already. Jumping ships here is a waste of resources.”

  “We falsified our arrival time,” Ian said. “He thinks we can’t jump for another few hours. Jumping in just prior to the party was one of the requirements. Aoife, let us know if anything changes, otherwise we’ll be on the flight deck in a few.”

  “Will do,” Aoife agreed, then the speaker clicked off.

  “Why APD Zero?” Ian asked.

  “MineCorp has a large corporate office there. Their headquarters are on Earth, but that’s too risky even for me, so Sedition was the next best option.” And I could run my suspicions about Ian past my sister in person.

  “You can’t hack them remotely?
”

  “I won’t know until I try. But they are a huge corporation with a lot of dirt to hide and plenty of people who would like to dig it up. I’m sure they have an entire division dedicated to plugging security holes. Physical access will likely be required.”

  “And you think you can just waltz in and they’ll let you into their systems?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  The Syndicate fighters hadn’t found us, but we’d had a couple of near misses while waiting for a jump point from the gate. Imagining Riccardo’s face when he realized we’d escaped brought me a great deal of malicious joy, but now I’d have to watch my back until I could deal with him. The trade-off wasn’t worth it.

  “We need a landing location,” Aoife reminded me.

  I may or may not have been dozing in the navigator’s chair. It was after midnight Universal Time and today hadn’t exactly been easy. Local time in Sedition was the opposite of Universal, so it was just after noon. At least I wouldn’t have to wake Ada up this time.

  I called her com, connecting voice-only.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” Ada said without preamble.

  “Hello, Ada, I missed you, too. I need a hangar for a small House ship. Hidden if you have it. I’m in Fortuitous. And Ian is with me.”

  “Do you want me to get rid of him?”

  “No, we’ve come to an understanding,” I said. “We’ve made some progress and our path led us to Sedition. I’ll fill you in on the ground.”

  “Are you running on Universal? Would you rather sleep on the ship or here at Rhys’s?”

  “If Rhys has room and doesn’t mind, I’ll do that. We can chat on the way because I’ll need your help while I grab some sleep.”

  “And Ian?”

  “Hold on.” I pulled the com away from my ear. “Ian, do you want to stay on the ship or join me at Rhys’s?”

  “I go where you go,” he said. “These two”—he waved at Alexander and Aoife—“can keep an eye on things here.”

  “He’s coming with me,” I told Ada.

  “I’ll see if we have room for him,” she said, her tone suspiciously mild.