“It doesn’t matter,” Doran said. “This isn’t a lawful takeover. The mafia’s trying to cause chaos by killing the Brethren leadership. And I’m next on the list.”
Kane gave his friend a reassuring nudge across the table. “No one knows who you really are. Lay off the hair dye and the eyeliner, and Necktie won’t recognize you if he passes you on the street.”
“Stay off the streets anyway,” Cassia told Doran. “New Haven is a big planet, but there’s no reason to tempt fate.”
Speaking of big planets, Kane wondered how they were going to find Necktie Fleece and capture him without earning permanent neckties of their own. Any man with the strength and skill to use a piece of wire to strangle a pirate lord was no one to underestimate. “How do we take him?”
“My soldiers are on the way,” Cassia said. “General Jordan is tracking Fleece’s ship. It’s a passenger craft called the Origin. We’ll know exactly when and where he lands, and as soon as his ship touches down, my troops will be there to hobble the landing gear and thrusters. Then we’ll take him someplace secure for questioning and see if our hunch is right. With any luck, I’ll have a cure to take back to Eturia, and the pirate lords can stop sleeping with one eye open.”
“Two birds, one stone,” Doran said. “Nice plan.”
Kane agreed. He would die before saying so, but he had to admit this whole trip would be a bust without Jordan and his technical team.
“Hey, Kane,” Renny called over the intercom. “There’s an incoming transmission for you. Some guy who calls himself a badger.”
“That’s Norton, a friend of mine,” he called back. He stuffed in one more bite of porridge as he stood from the table, then shouted with one cheek full, “Tell him I’m on my way.”
He jogged up the stairs to the bridge, but by the time he reached the com center, the transmission had dropped. He was about to ping Badger back when Renny spoke to him from the pilothouse. “He couldn’t wait. He asked me to deliver a message.”
“What’d he say?”
“Come sit down.”
Kane’s stomach dipped. Everyone knew sit down was code for bad news. His mind raced with possibilities until it landed on the most likely outcome. “It’s my mom, isn’t it? Something happened to her.”
“Come—”
“Don’t make me sit down. Just say it.”
But of course Renny didn’t do that. First he set the autopilot; then he took the time to walk to the com center and settle a hand on Kane’s shoulder. “She took a turn for the worse. She hasn’t held anything down all week. Your friend doesn’t think she’ll last the night.” Renny’s eyes shone with so much sympathy it weakened Kane’s knees. “He wants you to know so you can call home and talk to her before…”
“Before it’s too late.” Kane reached out to steady himself on the wall. Maybe he should’ve listened and sat down, because now his limbs seemed to have disconnected from his torso. “But she was okay when I talked to her the other day.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Kane nodded at the blur of dials and knobs. “Can you set the frequency?”
“Of course.” Renny entered the code and delivered one final pat on the shoulder. “I’ll give you some privacy. If you need me, just say the word. I’ll be right downstairs.”
Renny left the bridge, and it suddenly occurred to Kane that he wasn’t ready for this. He wanted to stop the call—it was happening too fast—but he couldn’t remember how to operate the equipment. He felt a sick sensation of spinning, as though he’d climbed aboard a carnival ride and couldn’t get off.
The transmission connected, and a man’s rough voice answered. Kane recognized it as the farmer’s. The man sounded like he’d been crying, and that made Kane’s throat squeeze.
“I want to talk to Rena. Tell her it’s Ka—” He cut off and said instead, “Tell her it’s Doodlebug.”
Sometime later, he sat alone on the bottom bunk of the quarters he shared with Renny, slouched over with his head in his hands and staring blankly at the floor. He pulled in a breath and let it go. That was all he could do. His mind was as empty as a broken barrel. It seemed he should be crying or hurting or at least feeling guilty for leaving his mother behind, but more than anything, he felt numb.
His mom would be dead before morning.
He couldn’t absorb it.
Cassia knocked on the door in three soft raps. He knew it was her because she always delivered two taps with a long rest before the third. He also knew he wouldn’t have to tell her to come in. Her knocks were more of a warning than a request.
He didn’t look up when she stepped inside, or when she shut the door and sat next to him on the cot. He felt the mattress sink and then the heat of her arm pressed against his. They sat that way for a while, just leaning on each other, until she dug in her pocket for something and held it in his line of vision. It was the prayer necklace he’d bought for her.
“I was thinking,” she said, and brushed a thumb over the blue stone pendant. “I’ve had this necklace for months and I never really used it.” She linked an arm through his. “Want to help me break it in?”
He watched her caress the marbled gem. He had never used a prayer stone, either. He wasn’t religious. He’d only visited the temple when his mother had made him go, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d chanted a requiem. But despite that, he opened his palm and let Cassia sandwich the stone between their hands. Somehow, this felt like the right thing to do.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
He did as she asked and visualized his mother, not the way she looked now, but with her cheeks full and smiling. That was how he wanted to remember her. Then he focused on channeling his energy into the stone and imagined that energy multiplying and reaching out to his mother while Cassia recited a traditional prayer for the dying.
“Spirits of our kin, greet your sister Rena and aid her in passing beyond the veil between our worlds. Take her in your arms and give her peace. Guide her into paradise and grant her rest from her labors. Comfort her until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again,” Kane dutifully repeated.
The prayer ended, and he released Cassia’s hand. He couldn’t say he felt any different. If anything, the hollowness within him had grown deeper—so deep he imagined he could swallow a pebble and never hear it hit the bottom of his stomach.
Cassia stroked his arm. “Talk to me.”
“The way you talked to me?”
“That’s fair,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t have shut you out because of Shanna. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You shut me out long before then.”
“All right, I should have told you about my nightmares, too. I still have them sometimes, but not as often. I’m sleeping a lot better now.”
“I know. The circles under your eyes are gone.”
“Maybe they would have left sooner if I’d let you help me. Let me help you. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He wanted to, but his head swirled with clouded thoughts that were hard to verbalize. Everything was changing so fast. His home didn’t feel like home anymore. The only girl he’d ever loved was slipping away, and once his mother left him, he would lose his family.
“It’s all going sideways.” His voice sounded empty to his own ears. “I want to stop it, but I can’t. Nothing is the same as it used to be.”
She made a noise of understanding and twirled a finger at the base of his head to comfort him, just like she’d done a thousand times in the past. But his hair was too short to wrap around her finger. That had changed, too.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, he glanced her way.
She gazed at him with softness in her honey-brown eyes, but not pity, and he finally understood why she had wanted him to treat her normally after the kidnapping. The only thing that could make this situation worse was knowing she felt sorry for him. As she stroked his hair, she didn’t fill the silence with platitudes like Eve
rything happens for a reason or It’ll be all right. She was simply present. That was more important than words, and she knew it. Somehow she always understood what he needed.
Maybe that was what prompted her to climb onto his lap.
Ducking beneath the top bunk, she straddled his thighs and scooted forward until their hips sat flush. His breath locked in anticipation of what might happen next. He knew from prior experience that things could end here, or they could go much further. A surge of blood rushed through his veins, and suddenly he didn’t feel so numb anymore.
She watched him as she cupped his face and explored the length of stubble along his jaw. He looked back at her in silence, afraid to say or do anything to ruin the moment. The floral scent of her skin was more familiar to him than his own heartbeat, and he didn’t think he could stand it if she pulled away now.
When she slid her arms over his shoulders and drew an inch nearer, he took a chance and settled both hands on her lower back. Still holding her gaze, he slipped his thumbs beneath her shirt and brushed the slope of her spine—just a feather graze to test her mood, to see if she’d missed his touch as much as he’d missed hers. She rewarded him with a shiver, and soon her eyelids grew heavy. Though it nearly killed him, he stayed still and used nothing but his thumbs as he let her make the next move.
She strained the limits of his control by kissing a trail from his temple, down the side of his cheek, ending at the corner of his mouth. Chills rose along the back of his neck, and when her lips finally brushed his, all the empty spaces inside him filled with heat. He tried to hold himself in check, but then the tip of her tongue curled inside his mouth, and he was lost.
He tightened both arms around her, crushing their bodies so close there wasn’t space to draw more than a gasp. He didn’t care. Air didn’t matter, only Cassia. It’d been so long since she’d let him hold her like this, and he would willingly suffocate if that was what it took to keep her in his arms. He tasted her mouth while squeezing her in a furious compulsion to pull her inside him. He wondered if he could ever feel close enough to her, even if they went all the way for once. Somehow he doubted it, but he desperately wanted to find out.
He kissed her hard, maybe too hard, because she broke away and panted against his lips. For a moment, he worried she might change her mind, but then she arched her hips and made a noise that said she didn’t want this to end any more than he did.
She licked her lips and whispered, “Last time, okay?”
Kane nodded eagerly. Anything she said was fine with him. He repeated what he’d told her on a dozen breathless afternoons just like this, and what he hoped to keep telling her again and again for years to come.
“One more time.”
The next morning was business as usual in every way that mattered.
Cassia wasn’t cold to him. She didn’t deliver the silent treatment. In fact, she’d woken up an hour early to take over his breakfast duty, which was a nice gesture for her. But when they sat down to eat and he finally caught her eye, there was nothing in her expression to reflect what they’d done the day before.
She simply smiled at him and asked, “Did you sleep all right?”
He blinked at her. How could she be so flippant about this? Okay, so maybe they hadn’t gone all the way—she’d said no to that—but they’d done…other things. Things they hadn’t tried before. “Like a stone,” he said. But tonight’s sleep wouldn’t come as easily unless he could get certain things off his mind. “Thanks for making the porridge.”
“No problem.”
The conversation lulled after that, allowing dread to settle over him as he forced down his breakfast and wondered what was happening at home. Minutes later, Renny called his name through the overhead speaker.
“Report to the bridge for a video transmission,” Renny said. “And hurry. You’re going to want to see this.”
Kane didn’t have to ask Cassia to come with him. They both scrambled from the table and ran up the stairs to the pilothouse level. He paused at the threshold to brace himself for the worst. Only when he felt the warmth of Cassia’s hand did he take a step inside the bridge.
He stopped short.
There at the com center, grinning at him in full holographic definition, was his mother, very much alive and sitting beside her farmer friend as though nothing had happened. Kane stared at her in confusion. Her eyes shone with happiness, no longer shrouded by dark circles. She didn’t seem to be in pain. She wasn’t even sweating or trembling.
“It’s okay, Doodlebug,” she told him, and for the first time since Kane turned eleven, he wasn’t embarrassed by his nickname. “I feel better.”
His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. It took a few tries to unglue it. “But how?”
“A miracle,” the farmer said. “Last night she asked me to carry her outside so she could see the stars. We spent the night in the pasture, and when I woke up this morning, I thought she would be—” Emotion choked him, and he stopped to plant a kiss on her temple. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. He gripped her shoulders, stroked her hair, cupped the back of her neck.
Then Kane understood. The man was in love.
His mother pressed a hand to her heart. “The spirits heard my prayers and healed me. I can eat again, anything I want.”
“It’s true,” the farmer said. “She’s a bottomless pit today. Six eggs so far.”
Kane shared a sideways glance with Cassia, who touched the Eturian prayer necklace tucked beneath her shirt. As grateful as he was for his mother’s recovery, he didn’t believe in miracles. There had to be a connection between the night air and her sudden revival.
“What about the others who are sick?” he asked. “Are they better, too?”
The farmer considered for a moment. “A few of my field hands look healthier today. Less shaky. I can’t speak for anyone else, though.”
“Spread the word that anyone with symptoms should spend the day outside,” Kane said. “Let’s see if that helps.”
Cassia spoke up from beside him. “And tell them to keep track of where it’s making a difference. I’d like to know if refugees in the city are seeing the same effects.”
The farmer agreed to radio the next day with an update. Before they ended the transmission, Kane told the man, “Wait. I never asked your name.”
“I’m Meichael,” he said. “Meichael Stark.”
Kane couldn’t shake hands with a holograph, so he did his best to convey a look of respect. He didn’t know whether his mother loved this man, but he knew she was in good hands. “Thank you, Meichael.”
When the transmission ended, he turned to Cassia. “I want to talk to your general.” His instincts warned that his mother’s “miracle” was only temporary, and there would soon come a day when fresh air wouldn’t revive her. “We need to go over the plan and make sure it’s airtight.”
“It is airtight.”
“There might be an angle we missed. If Necktie slips through our fingers, we won’t get another shot at him.”
“But you and Jordan don’t play nice.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“Fine.” She held up a warning finger. “But one snarky word and I’m cutting off the transmission.”
“If anyone pokes the bear, it won’t be me,” Kane promised. As they made their way out of the bridge, he gave her a playful shoulder bump. “He’s our general now.”
“Our intelligence was right,” Jordan said. “Fleece’s ship requested permission to land this afternoon near a cattle ranch on New Haven. My troops will be in position before he touches down, so there’s no reason for you to be there.”
Cassia watched his boots while he spoke. Ever since her slipup with Kane last week, she didn’t know how to act when she was together with both of them.
“I’ll be there anyway,” Kane said.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” The general’s boots widened in stance, and Cassia could picture him with his arms folded, his head cock
ed, shooting daggers with his eyes. It was no secret that he still didn’t trust the newest member of their strategy sessions. She peeked up and found she was right. “I would feel better if you stayed where you are. I’ll radio you when we have Fleece in custody. You can join us during questioning.”
She shook her head. “He thinks I’m buying weapons from him, remember? I don’t want to give him any reason to doubt my story. I need to be there.” And she wanted to be there. She had no intention of staying in the abandoned quarry where Renny had hidden the ship. When her troops brought Necktie Fleece to his knees, she would stand over him and make him feel like the cockroach he was. “Send the coordinates and I’ll meet you.”
Kane elbowed her.
“We’ll meet you.”
Jordan frowned but didn’t argue. “If you insist.”
As soon as his image vanished, Kane heaved a breath and slouched over as if two minutes of polite conversation had exhausted him. “Did the military issue the pole that’s wedged up his ass, or was he born with it?”
Cassia turned on her heel and strode out of the common room. She would never say so, but Kane could take a lesson from Jordan. While Kane flirted his way through life with a perpetual wisecrack on his tongue, Jordan plotted a smooth and steady course guided by duty. There was something to be said for that.
Kane hurried after her. “Is Renny coming with us?”
“No, he won’t leave Arabelle while Fleece is on the loose.”
Kane made a noise of doubt. “Am I the only one who still thinks there’s something off about her?”
“She’s been through a lot. Besides, we scanned her twice and she came up clean.”
“But the timing’s suspicious, don’t you think?”
“Maybe I thought so at first,” Cassia admitted. “But the mafia kept her in the outer realm for two years, right? We made hundreds of deliveries all over the fringe during that time. Renny was bound to cross her path sooner or later. I’m surprised it took this long.”
Starfall: A Starflight Novel Page 13
