Mordjan snorted.
“Really. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have it. And I’ll be happy to part with a small amount as a thank-you for freeing us. You can synthesize your own from it to save your world.”
All eyes turned to Aria.
“All right.” She nodded. “But after Simban. I . . . like him.”
Roihan’s chest constricted.
And that’s why I love my wife.
She turned and sprinted down the corridor, and they all followed, Mordjan and Valdjan behind him, Tristin and Corin behind them.
She led them toward the back of the ship.
“Where is my brother?” Valdjan asked. “Isn’t he in medical?”
“No. The Ardaks fixed him back to his broken state but couldn’t get him beyond it. So they dosed him with a drug and threw him into the garbage bay. It’s about to be released, which is why I had to free you now.”
Valdjan cursed, his eyes bleak. “No one . . . tells my brother . . . about this,” Valdjan said, piercing each of them with his gaze as they ran.
Roihan met Mordjan’s eyes, and they both nodded. Simban didn’t need to know he’d just been thrown away for a second time.
Aria stopped in front of a wide metal door and pointed down the center. “He’s very close to the door. Run straight to him and straight back. We are cutting it close to the scheduled dump.”
She opened the doors, and Valdjan and Mordjan sprinted inside, heading straight for Simban. His brother hefted him up under his shoulders, and Mordjan got his legs.
“What are you looking for?” Aria called from the door.
Roihan turned to see Tristin and Corin frantically searching the trash pile. Roihan scanned it with his infrared and found a heat signature. “Over there,” he pointed, and all three of them sprinted toward it.
They uncovered another man with blond hair who looked exactly like the first. The man with dark braids heaved him up over his shoulder and they all began to run back toward the door.
“Hurry!” Aria shouted, and a red light came on above the door.
“Fuck!” Roihan ran faster.
They were almost there, and his cyborg legs were pushing him ahead of the others. He arrived just as the doors were about to shut, jumping through and then joining Mordjan, Valdjan, and Aria, who were holding them open.
He joined the others, straining as hard as he could to hold the doors and give the other three time to make it through.
“Thank you,” the first blond man said while gasping for air, his eyes bright. “Thank you. My twin brother. Casin.”
Aria suddenly gasped. “No time.” She sprinted down the corridor again, and they all followed, Roihan bringing up the rear.
Just before the docking bay, she stopped by a door and nodded to Tristin. “Cargo. This way. The rest of you get to the ships.”
The dark-haired man handed over the blond to his brother and then followed her.
Roihan also stayed behind. He wasn’t leaving without his wife.
Tristin wasted no time. “I see it. Over there.” He sprinted toward a large silver case and grabbed it from the metal shelving unit. His long braids fell forward as he punched some numbers into a keypad on the side of the case and waited for a click. He opened it, revealing vials and bags of white powder inside.
He handed a vial to Aria. “I need the rest to cure the other planets they’ve infected, but this should allow you to synthesize your own.” Then he sighed. “Here.” He picked up a small device and handed it to her. “This is the technical information we have on how to synthesize more of the cure. And the frequencies to contact my ship.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough. You might have just turned the tide for us in this war.”
Aria swallowed, and Tristin sprinted for the door.
His chest swelled with pride in his wife, and he also put a hand on her shoulder. “Good job.”
Their eyes met briefly, and she nodded once, handing him the vial and the small information device before sprinting after the first man, who was already clearing the door.
Once they exited the cargo hold, Roihan turned toward the ship. He ran several steps but then realized he didn’t hear footsteps behind him. He turned back to see Aria at a monitor.
She waved him away. “Get going. I’ll meet you there.”
“No. That isn’t how this works.”
Her eyes turned bright. “I have to stay. They’re going to put me to work on other Ardak ships. I can help you more from here.”
Roihan’s heart stopped and then he stalked toward her. “They’re going to know who did this.” He gestured toward the bay where several other ships were leaving. “And tomorrow night, it will be you who goes out with the trash, and that’s if you’re lucky.”
Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. “I have to try.”
“The only thing you have to do is get your ass on that ship, baby. You might not remember it, but you’re still my wife. And if you make me chase you? When we get there, I’m going to make sure you don’t forget it. Ever. Again.” His voice was loud, too loud as he tried to control his emotions.
She eyed him, looking ready to run. But which way, he wasn’t certain.
He took a chance, holding out a hand. “Come on, baby. You know you don’t want us to leave you with these fucking cats. Plus you’re the one who can fly our ship, and you’re probably the only one who can figure out how to synthesize this.” He held up the little white vial, knowing it would be the chink in her armor.
She glanced over her shoulder before tugging her bottom lip between her teeth and nodding.
She didn’t take his hand, so he waited until she was well in front of him before he started for the ship.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He’d almost lost her too many times for comfort.
For better or for worse, they needed to get her memories back.
He glanced back at the Ardak ship one last time as the docking bay door began to close.
"What do we do now?" Aria asked as she closed the entrance to the docking bay behind them.
"Now, we get the hell out of here. Once we are safely away, we are going to set up labs and start synthesizing as much of this white powder as we can. Then we get our asses back home and cure everyone.”
Chapter Seventeen
Aria
Once they were safely out of Ardak airspace, Aria plugged in the small device and uploaded it to the computer.
“Here goes.” She plugged herself in at the first computer, Mordjan at the second. He’d just finished downloading background files on medicine and chemistry—files she’d finally been able to unlock.
Roihan was in the med lab with Valdjan, setting up the monitors on Simban, but she would get to them next.
“This compound is very unusual,” Aria commented. “It appears they’ve broken it down chemically into its components, but the procedure for synthesis is going to be extremely difficult. Not to mention acquiring the materials for synthesis. . . including carbon, magnesium, oxygen, hydrogen, potassium, calcium, synchisite, sucrose, and a number of trace minerals. It appears that they’ve had difficulty discovering the last few trace elements. I can work on that.”
“We have to build a special device to synthesize it.” Mordjan’s deep voice was angry. “Assuming we can even do it.”
Aria didn’t look at Roihan, actively avoiding his gaze. A fine shiver went through her every time she remembered what he’d said.
Get your ass on that ship, baby. You might not remember it, but you’re still my wife.
She had no idea how to deal with that.
“What’s going on?” Roihan asked her.
“Is your brother still unconscious?” she asked Valdjan.
“Yes. It will be a few hours yet.”
“All right. We’ve downloaded the information from Tristin on the white powder. We need to boot up DeathWatch’s science lab.”
“Mordjan and I can start building this device,” Roihan offer
ed.
The offer earned him a dark look from Mordjan. “Wait until you view the files.”
“Do you think the Ardaks found Tanis? Because I thought I might look for him,” Valdjan said.
“Was he the one who sabotaged the ship?” Mordjan asked. “Because if he was, I’ll find him myself.”
“We don’t know,” Roihan replied. “Either he was in league with the Ardaks or they took him prisoner somewhere, because he isn’t popping up on any of the motion scanners.”
Aria turned to Mordjan. “We need you to start on that device. I will try to reverse engineer this white powder and find the last couple of elements while Roihan downloads all the files we have. Follow me.”
She led them out into the corridor and then yowled into the voice recognition scanner two doors down from her lab. The door opened to reveal a lab that was completely different from her own. “Those are microscopes, centrifuges, extractors, and analyzers.” She stopped and faced Roihan. “I’m going to work on the device schematics with Mordjan. Go back to my lab and sit at my terminal. Download everything you can on chemistry, biology, and medicine. Then download everything we learned from the other Ardak ship and meet us back here.”
Then she turned to Mordjan, and for the next thirty minutes, they discussed what type of device they would need to synthesize the powder.
When she returned to her lab, Roihan was still connected to her terminal.
She began setting out each of the instruments she would need to test more of the white powder. Her body performed the tasks quickly and efficiently, but her mind was filled with confusion. She kept glancing over at him as she worked.
Roihan was her husband, but she didn’t remember him. A small part of her wanted to believe he had been lying, but then, what would have been the point? He gained nothing by claiming they were married. In fact, it probably caused him more grief with the others.
As for her husband, it was true that he was attractive. He radiated intensity and power, and she shivered every time his eyes landed on her. Everything about him put her senses on high alert.
She divvied up about a quarter of the minute particles from the vial into one hundred different beakers and five slides, started a few preliminary tests, and then hooked herself up to the computer and uploaded the files for the others.
By the time these tests were finished, they would have only two-thirds of the white powder left. It occurred to her then that maybe they should take the cure themselves. After all, if they died, who would make more of it?
But aside from more fatigue than usual, neither she nor the others were exhibiting signs of Red Death sickness; usually fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. It was something to keep in mind, though.
When she was finished, Aria sifted through the information she’d acquired from the device. Their techniques were very advanced, and they’d used chemistry to break down the white powder into its base components. But the powder they created wasn’t as effective as the original. In fact, one needed to ingest about ten times as much for it to cure them.
There was still something missing.
By the time Roihan’s eyes opened, she had done about fifty tests that weren’t already in the database.
He strode across the lab toward her, but at that moment Valdjan returned, and her heart warmed when she saw Simban behind him.
“How are you doing?” she asked Simban.
His jaw worked as he tried to answer. “Same shit. Different day.” He gave her his too-wide grin.
They all laughed, and Valdjan clapped his brother on the back.
“Any luck finding Tanis?”
Valdjan shook his head. “No. I walked part of the ship myself, the rest with Simban. We didn’t find anything, so we thought we’d come and help you. Five heads are better than two, right?”
She pointed back toward her lab. “You’ll need to download the files, but only one of you can use my connection at a time. Don’t use the one Simban used before.” She glanced pointedly at Valdjan. “Yowl like an Ardak.”
Valdjan’s eyes grew wide, and he glanced at Roihan.
He couldn’t resist the urge to smirk. “That’s what you get for laughing at me.”
Aria huffed. “It wasn’t a request. Yowl like an Ardak right now if you want to be useful to this mission.”
Valdjan yowled, and then Simban followed suit.
“Valdjan, you go first.” She glanced at Simban. “Sorry, Simban, your chip just takes too long to download files. When you get there, just download the files for flight and the ship’s weapons. You can help us knock Ardaks out of the sky.”
“All right,” Simban replied dejectedly, running a hand through his dark curly hair. Without further ado he followed the other two out the door toward her lab.
When they’d gone, Roihan focused on Aria. “So the other scientists were having difficulty synthesizing the white powder.”
“Yes,” she replied, staring into a microscope. “They can do it, but their cure is much less powerful than the original substance. So while one standard pound of the original substance can cure a thousand beings, one standard pound of the weaker substance can cure only one hundred.” She looked up. “And there’s a problem obtaining that much raw material to make it.”
“It appears they tried everything chemically to break it down,” Roihan mused. “What about looking at it biologically?”
Aria paused, impressed by his line of thinking. “That’s a good idea. The poison and the cure are actually from the nectar, and crushing it gives it the color.”
“So the question is . . . what would make the nectar in those flowers more potent than most other flowers in the known universe?”
“Soil composition? Maybe a different set of minerals?” Her mind began to race. “Or what about rainfall? Air composition or quality could be a factor.”
“Or sunlight.” Roihan looked back at the computer. “The Ardaks are from a double star system . . . maybe having two stars made the flowers stronger.”
“Most planets have a double star system, but there may be something special about their stars. Check out all of those options in the database and keep digging. I think we may be on to something.”
Sixty standard minutes later, Mordjan returned, and Aria put him to work on another set of tests.
“Are we going to have problems if we run out of the material that Tristin gave us?” Mordjan perused the vial, which was only three-quarters full.
Aria took the vial from him and set it carefully back in a stand on the metal table. “I thought about that, but none of us are exhibiting symptoms of the Red Death illness yet. However, I am going to keep half untouched in case we need it.”
By the time Valdjan came back, Aria was frustrated. “I don’t understand what made the original substance so potent. Nothing I try yields the secret of the differential.” She sighed. “Let’s perform one more set of tests, this time trying temperature and electricity.”
“What about magnetism?” Roihan asked.
“I’ve already tried that.” She huffed back. But instead of becoming upset, Roihan simply nodded and turned back to the computer.
“What are you looking for?” Valdjan eventually asked him.
“I don’t know,” Roihan admitted. “Remember how the smartest people in our society used to be the philosophers and the scientists? We have all the science but none of the philosophy.”
Aria pushed her experiments away. “That’s because this isn’t a philosophical problem. It’s a physical problem, and there should be an experimental answer. We’re just missing something.”
She looked over at Roihan as Simban walked in. “Do you have another one of those food packets?”
“I’m hungry, too,” Simban said, rubbing his stomach.
“Maybe it’s time to raid the Ardak kitchen,” Valdjan said.
“We could,” Aria offered, placing the last vial in the differentiator. “But I doubt you’d like the contents.”
“What is it?”
Simban asked.
“The only things in the kitchen are boxes of huge, squishy plastic bags. I believe it’s blood and bone meal,” Aria answered. “With organs thrown in. The closest to raw prey that Ardaks can get in space.”
Simban turned a little green. “I’ll wait.”
“I’m definitely not eating that,” Mordjan agreed.
“They keep most of them in deep freeze near the back of the ship so they can last for years. If you get desperate, you’re welcome to try it.”
“That must be why we were only allowed to eat once a day,” Valdjan commented. “I wouldn’t even want to eat one of those once a week.
“Actually, the Ardaks only ate them once every three to five days.” Aria informed them. “That’s why the bags are so large.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else? No fruit or nuts? Nothing they collected from the planet?”
That sparked a memory in her. “There might be something in storage if they were collecting samples from planets they visited.”
They left the lab and were almost to the Ardak food storage room when the ship sent her a signal.
“Fire!” she cried, rushing out into the corridor, pushing her legs as fast as she could. “Fire in the lab!”
Chapter Eighteen
Roihan
Roihan sprinted down the hall behind Aria, a sinking feeling entering his gut as soon as they encountered the smoke that was billowing out from under the laboratory door. The others were right behind him.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Aria repeated, her voice rising until it was a shriek.
The door slid open in front of her, revealing the devastation inside. All of the beakers and experiments, as well as much of the equipment, had been destroyed.
She rushed into the lab, heedless of the smoke and flames, searching for the vial, but things were already exploding, the slides melting and beakers boiling over.
When they found it, all that was left was a blackened pile of ash and glass fragments. “All of the white powder is gone!” She spun, taking in the destruction. “Who would do this?!”
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