by Sara King
“So what does the Utopia know? How much did you tell them?”
“Nothing,” Paul said. “Species Ops never had the chance to fully interrogate us.”
“Good,” Athenais grunted. “They can’t know we’re coming. As soon as we get out of here, we need to—” She stopped when Paul reached out and touched her arm.
“Athenais, I need to tell you what I know. Now. Before it’s too late.” He glanced up through the glass ceiling, his eyes focused on the decaying body above.
It’s already too late, Athenais thought. Her innards were already mourning, her hopes long since abandoned, but she did her best to give him a confident façade. “They think I’m Ragnar. They’re not going to kill you.”
“Listen to me,” Paul insisted, his grip on her arm beginning to hurt. “They killed my father. They knew who he was, what he was, and they killed him anyway. I don’t care what they said about trying to breed more shifters, there’s something else going on here. They would never have killed him if that’s what they wanted. He was much, much too valuable.”
Smart cookie, that Paul. Athenais glanced up. “He did nothing to provoke them?”
“Nothing.” Paul let go of her arm. “They chose him deliberately.”
“And you think you’re next.”
“It’s possible. Something isn’t right.”
Athenais sighed. “You’re as paranoid as Ragnar. Fine. Tell me.” For all the good it would do.
“Anyone who goes after the Potion is playing with fire. There are some very bad people in control of Millennium, and the technology they’ve got protecting that place is the best the Utopia can afford.”
Athenais nodded curtly. “I’ve been there. Get to the point.”
“Here’s my point: Neither Morgan nor I were ever planning on going to Millennium with you. If they caught us, they could make us tell them exactly where the rest of us are on Penoi. We were planning on letting you and Ragnar go. I was going to protect my father on some nice deserted planet, somewhere he’d be safe.”
They weren’t even planning on coming along? her mind sputtered. She’d been used. Again. “And the access codes?” Athenais growled, her anger beginning to rise like a molten rush. “Were there ever any?”
Paul hesitated.
Athenais was so furious she could hardly speak. “So that was just another line of bullshit, just like the rest of it.”
“We’re shifters,” Paul said apologetically. “If we ever knew the codes, why would we have come to you?”
Athenais cursed, cursing herself for a rube. “You’ve been lying to me. All this time. All of you.”
Paul flinched. “Not Ragnar. He thought we were telling the truth.”
“You lied to your own brother?”
“He would have told you the truth, and we needed your help.”
“He would have told me the truth because it’s a suicide mission!” Athenais screamed, waving her hands at the general shitstorm they were currently in. “If we’d even made it to Millennium, there’s complexes on that planet that go all the way to the moon’s core! A hundred miles deep! Only a moron would go there without the right codes! They’ve got enough firepower to implode a galactic core! Damn it. Damn!”
“We needed your help,” Paul repeated. “The Governor turned us down.”
Athenais grabbed his collar and shoved him against the wall in an instant. Around them, shifters closed in on her in warning, but she ignored them. Her face an inch from the alien’s, she growled, “You never said anything about the Governor.” She felt like crushing his eyeballs into his alien skull with her thumbs. “What did you tell him?” She knew she was too cold, too calm. She hadn’t been this furious in years.
Paul must have seen her fury, because he recoiled into the wall. “We thought he was Rabbit,” he babbled.
Suddenly, everything made so much more sense to her, like a goddamn jigsaw puzzle falling into place. Athenais stared at him, mouth open in shock.
“He fit the description,” Paul went on quickly. “Wealthy, powerful, his hands in every pie on T-9…” Now it was his face that was going pale. “You mean he’s not Rabbit?”
“You thought Governor Black was Rabbit?”
“We only had rumors and legends to go on. We didn’t know…”
“You got my crew killed,” Athenais snarled, slamming him against the wall. “It wasn’t Fairy. It was you!”
Paul looked stricken. “Your crew was killed? I thought Stuart found Rabbit.”
“He did! And as soon as we got back to port, Governor Black blew Beetle to pieces. Fairy’s the only one who wasn’t onboard.”
He opened and closed his mouth several times, staring at her in horror. Finally, the alien started to babble, “You have to see where we were coming from…”
“No, I don’t.” Athenais released him angrily. “If I had a gun right now, I’d shoot you myself.”
Paul looked away.
“What about those colonists? Are they really dying to make more Potion?” She gave him a bitter look. “Or another lie?”
“They’re dying,” Paul said hurriedly. “They inject the unfinished Potion into a colonist, where it reproduces until there’s nothing left of the original subject except a mass of melted flesh and bones. They wait for the reproduction trigger to deactivate, then they distill the Potion to inject into Utopis. The ratio is usually two to one. Two colonists for each finished dose.”
Athenais took a deep breath. “Did you even have a plan to get us in there? Or were you just going to let Ragnar and me figure it out for ourselves?”
“We figured out the best entry point,” Paul said. “The bay where they deliver the colonists. We thought Squirrel could hack the access codes and then—”
“Squirrel’s dead!” Athenais made a disgusted gesture and stalked in a circle, just to keep from pounding his alien face into the wall. Pettily, she kicked a stone across the yard and ripped a twig off a manicured tree. Shaking the stick at him, she growled, “I can’t believe this. You were risking our lives on the off chance we could put the pieces together before Millennium security shot us out of the sky? How do you sleep at night?”
Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Same way you can, human, after massacring my people.”
Athenais took a step toward him, so furious she could barely speak. Beside her, one of the other shifters yanked the twig out of her grip and pointedly snapped it in half. She ignored him completely, her full attention on Paul. Softly, she said, “I never massacred your people, shifter. I fought for you on Wythe. I spent twelve years imprisoned on your planet because your people couldn’t believe I wanted to help them fight. Then when they let me out, I never held a grudge. I took out fifty-eight Utopian ships before I was captured.”
Paul’s eyes never left hers. “You don’t know what it’s like. You can join every rebellion you want. You’ll never know.”
“Oh quit being a goddamned martyr,” Athenais snapped. “And don’t put me on the same side as them. I’m not human. Haven’t been human since gradeschool.” At that, she turned and stalked to the other edge of the enclosure and sat down, ignoring the shifters around her.
Juno, she decided, needed to die. Really die. And then her father. And then the Potion, and then the rest of the Utopia that had been cheating the reaper for the last seven millennia. Athenais was gonna find a way to do it, and screw ‘em if they couldn’t take a joke.
Tommy returned to his room and closed his door, letting his breath out in an explosive sigh. This Juno liked to use people as leverage against one another. First Ragnar, now him. Clever girl.
Unfortunately for Juno, Tommy was just as experienced in the art of prisoner manipulation, and she had picked the wrong person as her leverage. If Tommy had a chance to get off planet, he was going to take it. Out of all of them, he was the only one who still had the ability. The mission was over. They had lost. It was time to retreat.
Tommy unzipped his coat and threw it over the peg beside the door. As he
did so, something fell from the pocket and rolled across the floor. It was the odd tinkling sound that caught his attention.
Frowning, Tommy bent to pick it up. When he did, his eyes narrowed.
The vial of blue floater liquid. Supposedly the doorway to the gods.
Scoffing, Tommy stuffed it back into his coat pocket. He disdained drugs and the people who used them. Most of his time on T-9 had been spent finding and confiscating narcotics instead of seeking out the aliens he had been trained to apprehend. It had been frustrating work—Tommy had to resist the urge to smash the vial on the stone floor in irritation.
He could give it back. Hand it to some Stranger in the docking bay, tell him he found it in the cargo hold of his ship.
Why? his rational brain demanded. So the Emperor can use it to shoot up?
Idly, Tommy wondered how many credits the little vial would be worth on the black market. Probably a lot, if it was what he thought it was. They’d called it floater wash. Very, very little of the stuff ever made it into the markets, and the few ounces that did were immediately snapped up by the Utopian elite. A whole vial…hell, it might be enough to pay for a new life on one of the colonies.
Now if only he could find a way to get past Xenith’s fleet.
The little cargo ship they gave him was not enough. It might be able to avoid the big ships, but he doubted he could make it all the way out of the Black with it. He had the feeling that Juno knew that, as well, and was teasing him, seeing if he would bolt.
Tommy would bolt, but it would be on a ship of his choosing, not some ancient junker that spent half its time down for repairs.
Sighing, he lay down and tried to sleep. Outside his window, he could hear the heavy rain thrumming against the stone and dripping into the collection barrels below. Lightning flashed almost constantly, illuminating his room like the center of a T-9 dance floor. From the bottom of the wall, he could hear wave after wave crashing into the stone, pummeling it with twenty and thirty foot swells. Despite its ferocity, however, Tommy calculated that the worst of the storm should hit in two days. It was then that he’d make his move.
Dallas was bringing her ship around the soggy walls of the main island—which the locals called ‘Paradise,’ but Dallas privately referred to as the Fort, now redubbed the Wet Fort—when she spotted Retribution. It was docked right beside Dallas’s assigned bay, unguarded and abandoned in the rain. As soon as she saw it, her fingers spasmed on the controls, but she brought the freighter into the loading area as she was supposed to.
She sat in the cockpit long after the docking clamps had taken hold, staring at her ship through the sheets of rain.
The comset crackled in front of her. Unlike most comsets, she could not turn it off.
Pilot of planetary freighter B-89, please power down so we can begin diagnostics.
Dallas ignored the command, studying Retribution. Longing tugged at her soul as she watched the water run off its sleek black hull. She knew she could make it off the planet with Retribution. She knew it. All the way home, all the way to whatever planet she wanted to go to, in whatever system, in whatever galaxy, inside the Quads or out. And the ship was right there.
How long would it be in dock? Was it about to ship out? Why was it planetside and not riding a hub? Who was driving it, nowadays? Would she ever see it again? What if this was her chance?
All these questions rolled like agonizing little rock chips through her mind.
Retribution just sat there, abandoned in the rain. It appeared unharmed, though the simpleton fools they had flying it would probably crash it into the ocean the next time they took it out. Her heart ached as she watched it.
Pilot of planetary freighter B-89, you must power down the ship for us to begin maintenance procedures.
Furious, Dallas threw off the shoulder harness, shut off the engine, and stormed from the cockpit. Outside, industrious Strangers were already unloading her freighter’s cargo—green slimy stuff that the locals used as food.
“I’m hungry,” Dallas snapped, not bothering to sound brainwashed. “I’ll be in my room, getting some food.” At that, she turned and marched down the hall, frustrated beyond all reason. Retribution was there, so close she could touch it. She glanced down at her hands and squeezed them into fists, regretting not fighting it out with Everest. So what if the ship was bigger than any warship they’d ever seen? So what if it was mounted with so many guns it looked like a porcupine? She should have fought.
That was twice she’d put down the controls because she’d been afraid, twice she’d lost her ship to people who didn’t deserve it.
Slamming her domicile door, Dallas vowed it would never happen again.
“Not in a million years!” she screamed at the woven seaweed matting that made up the door.
Someone cleared his throat behind her and Dallas spun, heart leaping into her throat. “I mean…” she babbled. “Praise the Emperor’s Will?”
Two strange men stood in the corner of her bedroom, watching her. Dallas’s heart suddenly leapt into her throat, panic tracing painful lines through her gut. Had she taken too long to get out of the cockpit? Had the boobalicious little dead-eyed ape in the karate gi been watching her? Had it really been a trap? Were they here to brainwash her a second time? Oh God, without Stuart, she was so dead…
“I’m Stuart,” the bigger of the two said, looking amused. “That’s Ragnar.”
Dallas let out the breath she’d been holding in a laugh of relief. “You scared me!” Grinning, she ran up and gave the bigger of the two men a hug. “Stuey, I sooooo missed you. I was all alone and nobody to talk to and I was scared and I kept doing things wrong and I think they might know I’m not brainwashed and—”
“I missed you too,” Stuart interrupted, pushing her back to look down at her, “You got something to eat?”
Dallas pouted. “You just got here and you want to eat?”
“Ragnar’s about to eat the seaweed in the floor matting,” Stuart said. “We were talking about it before you came in. He’s bad off. Anything you can find would really help.”
She took another look at the Warrior. He was small-boned, the size of a child. “Ragnar? How’d you lose so much weight?”
“Shifting,” Ragnar said. He was leaning against the wall, his voice sounding strained. “Please. Do you have any food?”
“They deliver it here,” Dallas said, going to the chute and pulling the drawer open. Inside, a steaming plate of green slime and fish awaited her. She wrinkled her nose and offered it to Ragnar. “You want it? I hate that stuff.”
Ragnar didn’t even talk. He simply yanked the plate out of her hands and started devouring it. The way he ate the food reminded her of a starving dog she had fed on Derkne. She took a step backwards. That same dog had attacked her when it had run out of food.
“The situation’s bad,” Stuart said as Ragnar ate. “They’ve got all the shifters locked up in a vault that it would take weeks to get into. Genetic ID. Airtight, laser resistant walls. Athenais is in there with them. I can’t find Rabbit.”
Dallas’s brows furrowed. “Athenais? I thought they dumped her off a few hundred miles from here.”
“It’s her,” Ragnar said, setting the plate on her dresser. “And they put her in with the other shifters, thinking she was me.”
“So there’s the three of us,” Dallas mused. “Stuart, have you thought about taking over that Juno bitch? She’d probably have the access to get them out of there.”
Stuart gave a wan smile. “I’ve thought about it. Problem is, I can’t find her.”
“You check out the Retribution? Maybe she’s using it as her personal limo.”
“Retribution’s abandoned. Too expensive to fly it in the atmosphere, and too complicated for these fools to put into orbit. And, thanks to Rabbit, it’s got long-range com. I’ve been doing some research and they don’t have anything in space with long-range com. They’re afraid of giving away their location.”
Dallas gr
oaned. “That’s why it’s docked? They’re removing Retribution’s com equipment?”
“No, that equipment is too expensive to waste. They’re just keeping it on Xenith for the planetary interference until they figure out a failproof damper. I have heard talk they’re going to be adding her to Everest’s fleet here in a few days. Looking for someone to pilot it.”
They’re taking my ship… Dallas straightened, lifting her chin. “I’m gonna be on that ship the next time it takes off.”
Ragnar and Stuart glanced at each other. Ragnar cleared his throat. “Listen, Dallas, I heard about Beetle and everything you went through to get that ship, but that’s a tall order. It could lift off a week from now or it could lift off tonight. We just don’t know.”
“I’m gonna be on it,” Dallas insisted. “It’s my ship.”
“Then what?” Stuart asked. “You’ll just play Ring Around the Rosie with Juno’s fleet until we’re ready for you to pick us up?”
Dallas bared her teeth. “Retribution’s mine. I’m not letting it get away from me again.”
“We know that. We’re just saying that there are more important things right now than getting back on that ship. We can’t do it until we’re absolutely ready.”
“We’re bringing about twenty passengers with us,” Ragnar added. “They’ve got a roomful of shifters and I’m not leaving them behind.”
“Fine. Great. You get the shifters and I’ll get the ship. We’ll meet in the middle.”
“Dallas…” Stuart began.
“Just shut up, Stuart!” Dallas snapped. “You’re not in my head anymore. You can’t tell me what to do. I’m not gonna let them tease me like this. I’m getting my ship back.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what Juno wants you to do,” Stuart said softly. “Have you thought about that? Maybe she wants to draw out anyone she didn’t manage to brainwash.”
Leave it to Stuart to be logical.
