Queen of Swords (14 page)

“No need. I know which one you’re talking about.” Papa swore. “You know better than to get twisted up in that business. We only interfere indirectly. It’s how we stay alive.”

She
did
know. If she had a single brain cell in her head, she would demand Jenny take her home. But then Boone’s face flashed in her mind’s eye, his voice deep with passion as he asked her to trust him. The man got under her skin and made her crazy, but she couldn’t leave him to be tortured and killed by monsters.

Ophelia swallowed a string of curses that would make even her father blush—barely—and played the card Papa couldn’t refuse. “He’s family—our pilot’s big brother. We can’t leave him to die just because you’d rather I was home and safe.”

Papa sighed. “How long do you have before you reach Sanctus?”

“A few days. We’re just inside the nearest warp point to Keiluna.”

He cursed again, but she could already see the wheels turning in his head. “Give me two minutes. I have a faster route for you.” Papa disappeared long enough that Ophelia began to fidget, but then he was back. “I’m patching the information through now. It’s not going to be easy but if your pilot’s worth his shit, there should be no problems.”

Ophelia didn’t bother to correct him. “Okay.”

“I have to go. There are still some who will talk to me. Keep your link open and I’ll contact you when I have information you can use.”

She nodded, inexplicable tears forming in her eyes. “Thank you, Papa.”

“Thank me by getting out of that hellhole alive, baby girl.”

The connection cut off and Ophelia sank onto her bed. That had been hard, harder than she anticipated. The siren call of home was almost more than she could bear. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. They could do this, could get in and rescue Boone and get out before anyone knew they were there. It was just a matter of timing and knowledge. They had the former on their side, now it was up to Papa to bring them the latter. He would come through, she was sure of it. Her father never let her down.

Ophelia took a deep breath and shoved off her bed, heading back to the cockpit. She found Jenny staring at the wall of monitors. “Why do I have a new set of coordinates that send me in the wrong direction?”

“I talked to my father. He knows of a warp point that can get us to Sanctus faster.”

Jenny brought up a map of the Quadrant and glared at it. “It comes out in the middle of a damned asteroid belt.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” She’d never actually seen either Jenny or her brother under this kind of stress. Hopefully they were as good at flying as they were at talking shit.

“Hells no. I just can’t believe I never knew about this warp point before.” She turned the map this way and that. “No wonder those douchenozzles get around so quickly—they know about warp lanes we don’t.”

Ophelia couldn’t really argue. “How long until we warp?”

“On this ship? Six hours.” Jenny ran a hand lovingly down a metal beam. “But we’re going to need all of it.” She hit a button and the intercom screeched. “Godsdamned machine. Okay, crew, listen up. We’re six hours out of a jump and I need all systems on point. Get to it.”

“That’s mighty specific.”

Jenny shrugged. “They know what they need to. And we don’t have much onboard besides the engine and basic lasers.”

Ophelia had noticed as much, but she just assumed they had weapons secreted away. The thought of going against Sanctify’s warships with only lasers and speed made her sick. Literally.

Jenny held her hair back as she crouched over the waste chute. “What the hell is your deal, anyways?”

“Gee poisoned me.” Ophelia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She really, really needed to clean her teeth.

“No way.” Jenny held up a finger. “One, Gee would never poison anyone. Two, according to Boone, that was over a week ago. Even if you were poisoned—which you weren’t—it would be out of you system by now.”

A tingle of cold swept down her spine. “I’ve thrown up more in the last week than I have in my entire life. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t.” Jenny shrugged. “Maybe you caught an exotic killer bug or something and it’s slowly eating its way out of your stomach.”

Ophelia’s stomach lurched at the thought, but she didn’t dare think of the alternative. If Gee didn’t poison her and she hadn’t caught an exotic bug…

Nope. Absolutely not. No way was she going
there
.

“Are you okay now, or are you going to upchuck some more?”

“I’m fine.” Ophelia pushed to her feet, staggering a little when her head spun. Dizziness was a symptom too, wasn’t it? “Is there anything you need from me right now?”

“Nah. Get a few hours of sleep.”

“I’ll be back as soon as my father comes through with his information.”

“Yeah, yeah, get out of my hair.” Jenny crossed over and dropped back into her chair.

Ophelia made her way to her cabin, her mind awhirl. The truth pressed like a band around her chest, as inevitable as the tide. But she couldn’t face it now, couldn’t face it until she knew Boone was safe.

Chapter Sixteen

When the warships towed
Boreas
to Sanctus, Boone knew he wasn’t getting out of this alive. They’d even kept two ships at his back, forcing him to give up any plans of fighting or escape.

And, really, as much as he liked to think so, the rebellion didn’t need him. Jenny was qualified to be heir, since her mother had been the old man’s wife, too. The loss of
Boreas
wouldn’t be easy to cope with, but Jenny would be a good leader if she could rein in her impulsive nature.

Five men in white robes boarded his ship and Boone reluctantly got out of the captain’s chair, wincing when the movement pulled at his still-healing ass. The pain inevitably made him think of his hellcat, pissed as hells and ready to take him on in the middle of a blizzard, armed with only her shoe. Gods, he wasn’t sure when she’d made the transition to being
his
hellcat, only that she had. Must be his impending death by torture making his mind fuzzy.

He opened the door to find two lasers leveled at his head. The man on the left, tall and nearly as pale as Sadie, said, “You’re not going to do something stupid and heroic, are you?”

Boone stared at him until the larger man looked away.

The man on the right, a few inches shorter than Boone and as dark as the other was pale, laughed. The sound was high and scratchy, setting Boone’s teeth on edge. “We have a fighter. Oh goody.”

“Come on. No funny business or I let Smithy have you.” The pale man stepped back, motioning with his laser. “And you really don’t want that.”

Judging from the excitement glittering in the dark man’s eyes, he was right. Boone preceded them through the halls and out the hatch, where he found another five men waiting, all looking ready to shoot him at the slightest provocation. He met each of their gazes in turn, wondering if this was the end, but they merely herded him into the low white building directly across from the ships.

He didn’t get a chance to examine the landscape, just a blur of green and blue on the other side of the shipyard, and then he was inside. The building was just as white on the inside as on the outside. Did they ever get tired of it? Being around such uniform decorating would drive him insane rather quickly. Hells, what an idea. Sanctify didn’t have to torture him—they just needed to lock him in a white room for a few days.

They led him down so many stairs he felt the press of the earth over his head, sending goose bumps rising along his arms and making the scar running down his back ache. Posters depicting the High Priest of Ba’al covered the wall at regular intervals. Being forced to stare at that ugly face for any length of time was even worse than the white walls. They finally took a left turn, revealing a dead end with four doors. Cells.

He stopped just in front of the farthest door. “My crew?”

The dark man—Smithy—started to say something, but the pale one cut him off. “They’ll be occupying the other cells for now.”

“Until when?”

Smithy poked Boone in the back with his laser. “Stop asking questions and get in there.”

Boone strode into the cell and looked around. Unsurprisingly, it was a plain, white room with no windows. He’d have plenty of opportunity to go insane while waiting to be tortured and burned. Fantastic.

…

Ophelia tried to sleep but she was too wound up. She needed to do something, and pacing the room wasn’t an option. Not enough space.

With a resigned sigh, she pulled out her cards and sat on the bunk. For a long time she just shuffled them, finding comfort in the familiar motion. She hadn’t intended on doing a reading, had only wanted to calm down, but she couldn’t resist the urge to lay down a single card.

Oh hells.

The Wheel of Fortune.

There was something about this rescue attempt that would change the balance of her life, possibly the balance of the universe as a whole.

Talk about pressure.

Ophelia picked up the card and stared at it for a long moment before she slipped it back into the deck. It would have been nice to sit there and continue to shuffle them, but Lady knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to do another reading.

And Ophelia was suddenly terrified her cards would tell her Boone was dead.

Her link chimed. Ophelia slid her cards back into their bag, grateful for the interruption. She got up and pushed the button to receive the transmission. Her father’s face appeared in the screen, his brown eyes serious. “I would rather you didn’t do this.”

“Hello to you too, Papa.” When he merely stared, she sighed. “I wish I could walk away, but I…I just can’t.”

He nodded as if he hadn’t expected her to say anything else. “Fine. There’s an outpost on the island, manned by twenty-five men. It’s where they store the most dangerous and valuable prisoners.” He hesitated. “They also perform purifications there.”

That was bad. Really bad. It would be hard enough to get Boone out of an armed outpost without having to carry him because he was too damaged to walk. Ophelia rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It’s so odd, Papa. Why would they take him in the first place? He’s human.” If they’d wanted his ship, they could have easily killed him. But they didn’t.

“I don’t know, baby girl.”

“I need him to be okay.” Crap. She’d said that out loud.

Her father’s eyes were far too knowing. “There are no guarantees. You need to think long and hard on if this man is worth risking your life.”

She didn’t have to think about it, which only served to terrify her more. “I have to save him.”

“If anyone can do it, you can.” He sighed, a weary sound that broke her heart. “There’s more.”

Ice slipped beneath her skin, and it was everything Ophelia could do not the rub her hands over her arms in an attempt to get warm. Something was going on here and she had the nasty feeling she wasn’t going to like it. “More?”

“I’m pinging over the entrance codes to Sanctus’ Control and the outpost.”

“The entrance codes…” Ophelia blinked. Well, that would certainly make things easier. “How did you manage that?”

“Come now, baby girl. I may be an old dog, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“I can see that,” she said faintly, her mind reeling from the implications. Her father still had contacts within Sanctify. Pretty high up, too, if this level of knowledge was any indication.

How closely did Papa follow the practices of Ba’al? It wasn’t a comfortable question. She knew he lost most of his hate, but he hadn’t renounced his beliefs completely, still holding vigil on the solstices and equinoxes.

“Be safe.”

Ophelia forced herself to snap out of it. “As much as I can. I love you, Papa.”

“I love you too, baby girl.” His transmission cut off.

…

“Jumping in three, two, one. Here we go!”

Ophelia wrapped her arms around her harness, hanging on so tightly, there were sure to be permanent marks on her palms. The cold invaded her body, going straight for her bones, and her stomach took up residence somewhere north of her heart. Then it was over, the ship lurching back into straight space. Her sigh was more than a little shaky, but it was lost under the static of the intercom coming on. “Stay strapped in, people. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

The ship swerved sideways, banging Ophelia’s head into the wall behind her. She cursed, but it swerved again before she could react. The most she could do was hang on and pray Jenny wouldn’t get them killed.

An eternity later, the ride smoothed out and the intercom crackled again. “We’re less than four hours out. I need everyone at their stations. Diviner, you’re with me.”

Ophelia unbuckled herself, her fingers not quite working properly. By the time she stood, Gee and the triplets had already filed out of the hub. Jenny was busy in the cockpit, her fingers flying over the controls. “Sit.”

Ophelia took the empty chair next to her. “Why don’t you have a cocaptain?”

“Don’t need one on a ship this small.” When Ophelia snorted, Jenny slanted her a look. “And I don’t play well with others. Hadriel can fly if something happens to me, but he’s got more important things to do than double-check every step I take.”

“I suppose.” It sounded like a personal issue, but as long as Jenny could get them on and off Sanctus alive, she wasn’t going to say anything. Maybe she should ask Gee which triplet was Hadriel, though. Just in case. “How close do we have to be to put in the codes for Control?”

“Within long-distance sensor range. About a half hour.” Jenny flipped a few switches, making the screens behind them go dark. “Okay, stealth-mode activated. We have a little time and I want you to know the plan before we go in.”

“I figured we’d go in, shoot everyone, and save the day.”

Jenny looked up long enough to grin. “Yeah, well, that’s basically what we’re doing. Gee will stay on the ship, keep it up and running for when we have Boone. We go in two teams—you, Shadrach, and Hadriel, and me and Caeden.”

“Which ones are Shadrach and Hadriel again?”

Another grin. “The two darker-haired ones. Caeden is the one who gets all red and twitchy whenever a pretty woman looks at him too long. Shadrach can decode damn near anything. Hadriel is just a gigantic pain in my ass. He can talk, you know. He just fakes being mute because his brothers are.” She waved a hand carelessly through the air as if her proclamation made perfect sense. “Which is why you get him. I can’t stand all that chatter.”

“Good to know.” The irony of the statement was not lost on Ophelia, but she didn’t think Jenny would appreciate her thoughts when they had more important things to accomplish. She looked at the screens over the console, all showing space, lots and lots of space. There weren’t many planets in the outer Fourth Quadrant, just Sanctus and one other, so all she could see was blackness, interwoven with bright pinpricks. It was beautiful and made her feel so wonderfully small.

“I have a question.”

Ophelia started, turning to find Jenny watching her closely, her expression serious. “What?”

“You say you were poisoned, but there is one other option that would fit your symptoms.”

She realized where the other woman was going and slashed her hand through the air. “No.” Ophelia jerked backward, hitting the chair and shaking her head. “Not talking about it.”

“Ophelia—”

No
. No way was she going there. Even if the truth was whispering through her, its warmth a direct counterpoint to the chill coating her bones. “Shut it, Jenny.”

“But—”

Ophelia closed her eyes. “If you don’t stop talking right now, I’m going to punch you. We can’t afford to be distracted. By anything. Do you understand me?”

Jenny was silent for a long time, but Ophelia refused to open her eyes. “Yeah, okay. I got you.” A pause. “But we are so going to discuss this later.”

Ophelia concentrated on keeping her mind perfectly still. She couldn’t worry about something so huge right now, not when Boone needed her.

And if she were—hells, she couldn’t even bring herself to think the word—if she were
that
, it was just one more reason Boone had to live. Because if he had the nerve to die when she was having his baby, she’d hunt the rat bastard through the deepest reaches of the seven hells just so she could bring him back and kill him again.