Polaris (28 page)

Only it wasn't, not really. The implant had given him something, but it hadn't taken anything away. He was still Jeth Seagrave. Still the same person he'd always been, defined by the same memories and life path that had led him to this present.

“I took Remi with me, too,” Aileen added after a moment. “He was the first Aileen's bodyguard before me. And I suppose this is obvious, but he's the result of one of Stock's experiments as well. He's not a clone, but his genes have been modified.”

Jeth nodded, realizing it was obvious, now that Aileen had connected the dots. “How did he end up like that, if he isn't a clone?”

“He was a convict,” Aileen said, her eyes glistening. “It was either volunteer for ITA experimentation or be executed.”

Despite his anger, Jeth felt pity rising up in him. In the end, Aileen and Remi were just two more of the ITA's victims. Even worse, Jeth realized that according to interstellar law, Aileen was subhuman and therefore not entitled to even the most basic of human rights. A clone would be treated worse than a convict. She'd taken an awful risk going in to Hanov.

But how had she smuggled in the gun?

“Does being a clone give you . . . superpowers?”

“You mean like fooling the scanners on the subway?” asked Aileen.

“And at Hanov,” Sierra added. “Only one of us should've been able to go through those doors.”

Aileen shook her head. “I don't know if it's specifically because of the cloning stuff or not, but there's something off about my bioelectricity. It's enough to fool scanners, including metal detectors.” She looked at Jeth, a tiny smile passing over her face. “It's that special skill I told you about.”

“Oh, it's special all right.” Jeth ran his hands through his hair. “So tell us about the medicine. Why do you need it?”

Aileen shifted in her seat, her eyes falling to the floor. “It seems I'm a clone with an expiration date.”

“How do you mean?” asked Sierra, and for the first time, the hardness in her voice was absent.

“Cellular degeneration,” Aileen said, assuming a mock clinical tone. “My cells are breaking down. Some kind of internal necrosis. I don't know what or why. I just know that whatever is in that canister we stole will cure me. Or at least delay the condition for a while.”

“
How
do you know that?” said Sierra.

Aileen rolled her eyes. “Lots of careful, expensive research. As soon as I realized there was something wrong with me, I put everything I could into finding the cure and stealing it.”

Sierra scoffed. “Clearly, your efforts weren't good enough. That medicine was obviously a trap meant for you.”

Aileen glowered. “Yes, I realize that now. But I swear I didn't know about the silent alarm. The trap was buried even deeper in the ITA's files than I could find, and that's saying something.”

“You don't except us to believe that, do you?” Jeth said, his doubt rising up hard. “Sounds to me like you walked into that trap blind and my mother paid the price.”

He expected her to respond with anger, but her voice was pleading. “I am sorry about your mother, but I did as much as I could to ensure the plan would work. As much as I could without giving myself away. The truth of my identity is still entirely secret. Or it was. Stock couldn't let the ITA know
what he'd done. He wanted me to continue on pretending I was his precious little princess. But I couldn't. Not once I learned the truth.”

Jeth felt his resentment toward her ease its grip at the underlying hurt in her voice. He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the vials. “Just for the record, I'd rather shoot you and be done with it. It's no less than you deserve for what you did.”

A look of panic appeared on Aileen's face, her eyes wide and fixed on the vial. “I'm sorry. I was desperate. This was my one shot to get that medicine. The bio clearance in the lab is impenetrable. Sierra was the only way in. It's why I signed on with Dax.”

Sierra's eyes narrowed on Aileen's face. “You could've just asked me to get it, you know.”

Aileen's mouth fell open. “Are you joking? Like any of you would've agreed to go in there on my behalf. Why would you take that risk just to help me?”

The question gave Jeth pause. She had a point, at least as far as how he would've initially reacted. But the moment Lizzie had gotten wind of this, her bleeding heart sentimentality would've insisted they help, and Jeth would have eventually relented.

Lizzie. Worry over the long silence began to eat away at him. He hadn't checked his messages in hours. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the ache of the implant's absence.

“We might have,” Sierra said. “If you'd just been willing
to work with us instead of playing lone wolf.”

Aileen pursed her lips. “Maybe. But it hardly matters now, does it?”

Jeth shook his head.
You would've done the same,
he heard his mother saying. But that wasn't true. His position was so very different from Aileen's. She was alone, friendless aside from Remi, and with no one but herself to depend on; he had help and people he could trust. He'd always had his crew and his sister and uncle. They weren't perfect, but they had his back.

Most of the time.
His thoughts turned toward Celeste and Shady, a twinge of regret going through him. Maybe he shouldn't have cast them out, not when they wanted to stay. Celeste had been distraught over Vince's death. Loss and despair could lead one to do terrible things, a fact Jeth knew well.

“You're right,” Jeth said. “It doesn't matter now, but this does.” He tossed the vial, and Aileen caught it with both hands, mouth agape. “I need you to finish this mission. And you're no good in that capacity if you're dead.”

Relief shining on her face, Aileen snorted. She pulled a syringe out of her pocket. Jeth arched an eyebrow at it, and Aileen smiled guiltily. “So maybe I was planning on stealing it back.”

He sighed, amused despite himself. Maybe killing her would have been overreacting.

Aileen plunged the needle into the top of the vial, filled the syringe to capacity, and then pulled up her sleeve.

“Here,” Sierra said. “Let me do it.”

“I'm fine.” Aileen took a step back from her. “I remember how to take a shot.”

Sierra reached her and grabbed the syringe from her hand. “Giving it is a different set of skills, and you don't want to waste any of the medicine. Now hold out your arm.”

Begrudgingly, Aileen did so, and Sierra stuck the needle in, far harder than necessary.

“Ouch,” Aileen hissed.

“Just be glad you get to keep feeling pain. That makes you the lucky one.”

Aileen bowed her head and didn't utter so much as a sound of complaint as Sierra finished.

“Are you sure this is even going to work?” Jeth asked.

Aileen started to respond but broke off as
Polaris
's proximity alarm began to sound. Jeth turned toward the window, scanning the horizon for sign of a ship headed their way, but not seeing any.

He stepped up to the pilot's seat and looked down at the scanner. His heart plummeted to his knees. He hadn't spotted the incoming ship because it wasn't at sea level—and it wasn't just one.

Nearly twenty ships were closing in on them from above in a locked formation. ITA cruisers, according to the readout.

Somehow, the ITA had found them.

“IT'S IMPOSSIBLE,” JETH SAID, HIS WORDS COMING OUT
too high-pitched. “We're still cloaked. We're not moving.”

Nevertheless the ITA ships knew exactly where they were. And there was nowhere to go. They were trapped between the sea and the ship-filled sky.

“Oh God,” Sierra said. Jeth looked back at her. She was staring down at the medicine vial still in her hand. “I'm so stupid. We're all so stupid.” She turned toward to the bridge's garbage port, a small airlock hatch. She tossed the vial inside, closed the lid then pressed the eject button, sending the vial out into the sea.

“What is it?” Jeth said.

“The medicine must've been tagged.” Sierra wheeled on Aileen, her eyes alight with her fury. “I guess you overlooked
that
in your research, too.”

Aileen took a step back. “I'm sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” Sierra charged her, fists raised. The punch landed clean against Aileen's jaw with a meaty smack, her head careening to the side. Jeth gaped in surprise. He'd rarely seen Sierra lose it on anyone. The stress and heartache of the last few weeks had taken its toll.

Aileen stumbled, but recovered quickly and made to fight back.

“Stop it, both of you!” Jeth shouted. “We've got bigger problems.” He waved at the window in front of him where some of the ships were coming into view.

By now, the others were piling onto the bridge, the sound of the proximity alarm drawing them in. All except Perry and Eric, but Jeth didn't have time to wonder at their absence. All his focus was on the incoming ships.

“What's going on?” said Flynn, hurrying over to the comm station, the easiest within reach. “Whoa, that's bad.”

“Thanks for the helpful assessment,” Jeth huffed, turning his attention back to the screen in front of him.

“They're broadcasting a general message,” Flynn said.

“They know we're here, but they can't see us,” said Sierra, coming to stand behind Jeth.

He waved at Flynn. “Put it on the main comm.”

Flynn switched it on, and a man's voice echoed through the ship: “Attention, unidentified vessel. We know you are holding a wanted fugitive. Disengage your cloaking device, hand over Aileen Stock, and we will ensure your cooperation is noted on your arrest record.”

“Cooperation?” Jeth's eyebrows climbed his forehead.

Flynn snorted. “They don't know us very well.”

Then again, Jeth realized, it was only Aileen they were after. Maybe they could push her out the airlock and get away in the confusion. He wasn't entirely serious about the thought, but Sierra quashed it anyway. “If they capture us,
it's all over. Everything we've fought for.”

“I know.” Jeth glared over his shoulder at her, panic igniting his temper. They were already caught.

“No, Jeth, it's worse than you realize.” Sierra touched his back as if to steady herself. “Aileen is the key to the cloning formula. If the ITA gets her and Cora both, they've won. They won't need the Pyreans. They'll have clones.”

The nightmare image of Cora plugged into a metadrive like a living battery flashed in Jeth's mind again. He shoved it away. “I need solutions right now, not consequences.”

A stormy look crossed Sierra's face, and for a moment Jeth thought she might hit him, too.

“Can't we make a metaspace jump?” Aileen said. “Jailbreak the proximity sensors again like we did back at Peltraz?”

“I don't know.” Sierra turned and pushed Aileen out of the way as she sat down at the nav station. “We're anchored for a water landing. In that mode, I don't know if I can even bring the metadrive system online. I'll have to turn off the anchor system first, if it'll even work while we're still on the water.”

Jeth glanced back at the window, running alternatives through his head in case Sierra couldn't bypass the security. The shuttles were out—the cloak drive wasn't a networked system. As soon as they disconnected from the main ship, they would be visible.

A wild idea occurred to him, and he turned to Flynn. “Can
Polaris
go under the water like the shuttles?”

Flynn gaped then blinked a couple of times. “Not if you
want to fly her ever again. The water could damage the hull integrity and pretty much everything else. We've already been parked on it longer than we're supposed to.”

“Do it anyway,” Aileen said. “She's tough. She can take it for a little while.”

“You might damage your ship permanently,” said Flynn.

Aileen shrugged. “So what? I'll get another. And it beats getting caught.”

Jeth's anger sparked again. No one who truly loved a ship could be so cavalier about destroying it. He felt sorry for
Polaris
. She deserved better. Even if she wasn't
Avalon
.

Still, if damaging the ship meant escaping, he would take it. He gripped the control column, ready to head down. He would have to do it slowly so as not to disturb the water too much and give away their exit strategy.

“Don't, Jeth,” Sierra said as he gripped the control column. “I've almost got this.”

He stilled his hands and waited.

The sound of heavy footsteps drew his attention to the bridge entrance, where Perry and Eric had just arrived. Both of them held stunners in their hands. But that wasn't the only thing off about them. There was something wrong with their faces—they stared blankly ahead, as if they were sleepwalking. Their movements were off too, weirdly jerky and mechanical. Jeth only had a second to realize what he was seeing when stunner blasts lit up the bridge. They took out Remi first, then turned the guns on Jeth.

He reached for the Luke, a brief flicker of relief that he
wasn't wearing his implant going through the mind. But he wasn't fast enough. The stunner blasts struck him in the chest and the world went dark.

He woke inside the brig of an unknown spacecraft. The cell walls were electrified glass, allowing him easy view of his surroundings. Sierra was in the cell to his right and Flynn to his left. Remi was in the cell across from him. The giant man had been chained to the floor as an extra precaution. There was no sign of Aileen or Cora.

Or Eric and Perry,
Jeth realized with a stab of fury as the memory of their betrayal came swooping down on him. Only it hadn't been betrayal. Not exactly. He'd seen someone move like that before—Dax had looked that way when Hammer had used his master implant to force him to act against his will.

Jeth felt certain the same had happened to Perry and Eric. But he couldn't understand it. Why would Dax betray them to the ITA?

Unless it wasn't Dax
. Could someone else have seized the master implant and taken control of the Axis? Jeth searched his pocket for his own black implant, but found it empty. He felt its absence as a physical ache, the loss of a limb, but for once, he was glad of that ache. If he'd been wearing it when the coup took place, he might have been the one betraying his friends.

Jeth stood up from the bench and saw that Sierra was awake as well. Spotting him too, she got up and approached
the glass but was careful not to touch it. She began to speak, but Jeth shook his head. He couldn't hear her through the glass. Sierra wrung her hands in frustration. The sight of her at such a loss twisted his gut. They were well and truly caught this time.

He glanced away, focusing on the control panel on the front of his cell. It was so close. Only an inch of glass and a couple of hundred volts of electricity separating it from his reach. It might as well be the entire expanse of time and space.

The minutes crawled by as Jeth sat and paced, sat and paced. The dull throb in his head, the aftereffect of the stunners, lingered on. He supposed the absence of the implant made it worse. The restless need to have it back made him want to climb the walls. If something didn't happen soon, he was going to do something desperate, like try and punch his way out of there. But not even Remi, who was conscious now as well, could do that.

Finally, determined to draw the attention of their unseen guards, Jeth closed his eyes and laid the palm of his cybernetic hand against the glass. The shock was instant and monumental, knocking him back half a meter. He stumbled and almost went down. Starbursts danced across his vision, and the smell of burnt hair filled his nose.

He did it again, and again. The third one nearly knocked him unconscious. Beside him, Sierra was waving at him to stop, but he ignored her, going in for a fourth try. Before he did, an ITA soldier appeared in the doorway to the brig. She
saw Jeth about to place his hand against the glass once more and approached his cell.

She pressed a comm button on the control panel. “That's enough. All you're doing is dirtying the glass.”

“It passes the time.” Jeth flashed his most charming smile. “Unless you'd like to help me pass it.”

The woman rolled her eyes, placing a hand on the butt of her standard issue ITA rifle, but Jeth could tell she was listening.

“Mind telling me where we're headed?”

The soldier considered the question then shook her head. “You don't need to know that information.”

Jeth widened his smile. “Please. Either that or I can just keep on cleaning the window.”

She scoffed. “Do that and you'll end up unconscious.”

“At least it might get me out of here,” Jeth muttered with more venom than he intended.

The woman seemed to take pity on him. She sighed. “We're headed for the Hive. Should be there any minute.”

Jeth's smile faltered as surprise struck him. Why were they heading for the Hive, and not some other ITA facility? “What's the Hive?” he said, keeping up the act.

The soldier shook her head. “You'll see.” Then she turned and left without another glance at him.

Jeth exchanged a look with Sierra. There were headed for the Hive, the home of the Harvester. They were captured, but all was not lost. Not yet.

As the soldier had predicted, they arrived at the Hive a
short while later. Jeth felt the ship's engines slowing down and then eventually the telltale bump of the landing. After another long wait the brig filled with soldiers. Two approached each cell, except for Remi's, where four stopped. The soldiers who came for Jeth shoved his wrists into heavy manacles that nipped at his flesh, then dragged him from his cell and out of the brig.

He considered making a break for it, but knew it would be pointless. Even if he could wrench himself free of their grip, there were too many soldiers to get through and the ship's corridors were too small.

The soldiers led their prisoners down to the cargo bay and then out the main door. The dim gray light outside was still strong enough to make Jeth blink. Several seconds later, his vision adjusted and he saw the wide expanse of a flight deck before him, one that stood several stories above sea level. He could just barely see the ocean over the nearest edge. From here the Hive resembled a small spaceport on water. Every surface was sleek, shiny plasinum.

He understood at once why this place was called the Hive. It was shaped like a honeycomb, the landing pads at its top circling around a wide gaping hole in the center. At first Jeth didn't understand the point of the opening, but then he saw the giant beams rising up at even intervals around the perimeter. The Harvester. It was right there, in the middle of the Hive. That made sense. The Pyreans had appeared stretching up from the ocean, reaching out toward the sky. Perhaps they needed the sun and air to live.

He couldn't see the Pyreans, not from here, but he knew they were waiting somewhere down in that hole. For a second, he thought he could even sense them, a faint buzzing in the atmosphere around him. Not electricity but some raw, subtle energy.

With hope stirring inside him, despite the odds, he studied the beams, trying to fix the size and layout of the Hive in his mind as they crossed the flight deck toward the single control tower. Overhead, storm clouds were rolling in, churning the waves. Sea spray struck Jeth's face, and he blinked away the sting of salt water in his eyes.

As they moved nearer, the view across the way opened up, revealing a massive ship. Jeth's heart seized in his chest as he spotted the name painted on its prow:

Regret
.

Admiral Saar was waiting for them.