“Yeah, but you said so yourself, that’s their job—to serve and protect, especially less-developed planets like ours,” I pressed.
Xiphio sighed. “Everyone fears the coldbloods, and retribution from the Vysanthean queens. Even if the rebels are clearly working against their own leaders, it doesn’t lessen the fear. Vysantheans will always defend their own, above anyone else.”
“So, you’re saying the Feds are cowards?”
“No, I am saying that I will do what I can to help you, under the circumstances,” he reiterated, his eyes flitting toward me. “I may be able to persuade them that it is worth taking on the Vysantheans, just this once.”
The door sounded suddenly, with the typed-in tone that indicated there was a friend outside. I broke away from Xiphio and ran for the door, turning on the cameras to see who stood outside. I already knew it was Navan, but I wanted to be sure. He stood there at the top of the cloaked gangway, peering into the camera, his face a blank canvas, showing nothing.
I yanked the door open, letting him inside. I was eager to tell him all about the new dot on the compass, and our potential alliance with Xiphio. It wasn’t all good news, given that we had no idea whether the Fed would cooperate, but it was a definite start. A much-needed boost to our confidence.
“Good morning!” I said, throwing my arms around him.
He chuckled, pulling me to him. “Good morning to you.”
I squealed as he picked me up, bridal-style, and carried me across the main space, the hatch closing behind us. He dipped to kiss me, and my whole body felt safe in his grasp. I looped my arms around his neck and smiled against his mouth as we kissed, my heart fluttering with excitement as he held me close.
“Where’d you go, anyway?” I asked. “Should I be worried about you being in such a good mood? You didn’t make an early morning trip to the brothel, did you?” I grinned up at him, although I was still anxious to know where he’d really gone.
“Not a chance, considering I left everything I could ever want in my bed,” he assured me. “I just headed to the weapons market to check for invisibility suits. I hoped they might have had a shipment, but there weren’t any.”
His excuse seemed a little off, as Bashrik had already picked up everything we needed while Angie and I were enjoying our first taste of the casino. There hadn’t been many weapons available, but he’d come back with a few guns, blades, arm shields, and a retractable spear to match the other one we still had. Plus, I could tell Navan was lying to me—he couldn’t meet my eyes.
“Did we really need more weapons?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly looking for weapons, just the suits,” he replied, kissing my forehead. “Hey, you don’t need to be nervous about Stone. We’ll get him, and we’ll get Lauren. You’ll see.” Evidently, he’d interpreted my suspicion as anxiety.
Navan carried me all the way through to the bedroom, not bothering to stop and talk to the others. He kicked the door closed and threw me onto the bed, where he’d abandoned me that morning.
“I just want to hold you for a minute,” he murmured.
I smiled up at him. “Ha! I knew you were addicted to my cuddles.”
Chuckling, he scooped me into his arms, and my head rested against his chest. Ordinarily, sinking into his embrace would’ve brought me a sense of peace and contentment, but there were too many thoughts racing through my mind. Most of all, I couldn’t stop wondering what he was lying about.
Chapter Eighteen
All that morning, the green dot seemed to hover in the atmosphere, pausing on its diagonal trajectory, making no further motion to approach the Junkyard. A few hours later, with the day stretching into afternoon, three blue dots appeared on the compass, coming in the opposite direction of the green flashing dot. Bashrik put the locations into the navigation system, mapping the suspected trajectory of both—it appeared that the green and blue dots were headed for the same location. The Salty Siren Inn.
“Grab your weapons and get ready to go! We’ve got Ezra and two more coldbloods on the map!” Navan shouted. It wouldn’t be long before the two ships landed, and we needed to make sure we were there when they did. We’d forged a haphazard plan to try to get into Stone’s ship, one way or another, to snatch Lauren and the notebook in one fell swoop. However, we knew we might have to think on the fly, since we had no way of knowing how the two sides would make their exchange. Still, that was the goal: get Lauren and the notebook, any way we could.
I holstered a gun and grabbed a bandolier of knives that Bashrik had picked up for me, before taking a jar of the blinding dust that Xiphio had brought for us, to throw in Stone’s eye. I also had the small vial of strengthening serum that Kaido had made for me stowed away in the pocket of my pants, just in case the need arose. I prayed it wouldn’t, but there was no telling what kind of mess we’d get into with this gang of thugs. The scavengers would’ve been difficult on their own, but adding Ezra to the mix was a different story entirely.
“Green dot is about to land! ETA fifteen minutes!” Ronad yelled, going into elite corps mode.
I ran to the hatch, where everyone else was gathering. We were armed to the teeth, though most of our arsenal was buried under layers of clothing. After all, we still had to get through the labyrinth of the Junkyard streets before we reached the Salty Siren Inn, which was ten minutes away, and none of us wanted to end up in an accidental brawl. With the green dot landing in fifteen minutes, it didn’t give us much time to breathe, but that was probably for the best, driving us along on pure adrenaline.
Ronad passed the compass to me and paused beside the locking controls, taking them off the inside-only rig we’d put in place, before the hatch went up and our group sprinted from the ship. I stayed at the back with Navan, though my eyes were drawn to the sight of our motley crew, working together at last: Navan, Bashrik, Ronad, Angie, Mort, and Xiphio. It was an eclectic bunch, but I was glad everyone was pitching in. Nobody was staying with the cruiser this time, given that Ezra was going to be there, and we’d need all hands on deck to overcome him.
My heart thundered in my chest as we ran and tried to stay as incognito as possible. The streets weren’t as busy as they’d been the previous day, but we still got a few funny looks as we hurried along. Fortunately, nobody felt like stopping us and asking what we were up to. It seemed pirates and criminals knew when to keep to themselves.
Just under ten minutes later, we arrived outside the Salty Siren, having followed a different route than the ones we’d taken before. The inn was beside another of the sludgy canals, though a treacherous footbridge crossed this stretch of browned water. It looked rickety, barely held together, but I knew it might serve as an escape route for Stone and his crew. It would have to be covered by someone, as would the rest of the potential exits and hideaways. We had planned our course of action using the zoomed-in map of the compass, and from the reconnaissance that some of the others had done the previous day, but there was no telling what tricks Stone might have up his sleeve. He’d survived this long without capture, after all.
“Which dot is arriving first?” Bashrik asked nervously as we gathered in a shady archway, facing the inn. A few unsavory characters loitered by the entrance to the ramshackle building, but nobody was paying us any attention. Undoubtedly, we looked like just another gang of thieves, scheming within the lawless realm of the Junkyard.
I peered down at the compass. “Hard to say. They both seem to be coming in at the same time.”
“I was worried they might do that,” Ronad chimed in. “It’s typical divide and conquer tactics, in case someone has caught on to the supply drop.”
We’d been hoping that Stone would arrive first so we could take him out before Ezra. However, it seemed like they had other plans, as I watched the dots getting closer and closer, matching each other’s speed and course, though they were coming from opposite sides of the visible map. I supposed we’d been foolish to think we could plot their plan of action. Now, we’d have to fight both
Stone’s crew and Ezra, plus the crew he had brought with him, simultaneously. We could see two more coldbloods on the compass; we just had to hope that was all Ezra had brought with him. It definitely wasn’t ideal, but if we wanted to get Lauren and the notebook back, we’d have to fight hard.
“What do you suggest?” I wondered, knowing Ronad had intimate knowledge of these kinds of situations.
“We can match their tactics,” he explained. “We need to split into teams, all of us with a focused task. I’d say Xiphio, Riley, Angie, and Mort—you guys should stick to rescuing Lauren. Navan, Bashrik, and I will go for Ezra, and focus our efforts on taking him down.”
Navan nodded. “I’ll send up a flare to briefly distract our targets. This will be your signal to attack, regardless of who your target is.”
“We should review the escape routes we need to cover,” Ronad continued, pointing them out as discreetly as possible. He gestured to the footbridge, an alleyway that ran down the side of the inn, and to the two archways that led into the clearing where the inn stood. “Try and attack from those positions if possible, and do what you can to prevent anyone escaping down those routes. If our pirate allies happen to show up, we can use them to our advantage, ensuring they block the exits so we can focus on the fight.”
“Everyone understand?” Navan asked. A murmur of agreement ran around the gathered group, and we separated into our teams.
Angie and I hurried across the clearing and ducked behind a stack of rusting metal barrels next to the alleyway. To our surprise, Kirin was already waiting there, her big eyes bulging as she saw us.
“How did you know we’d be here?” I whispered.
Kirin grinned. “We’ve been staking out the place for days, waiting for Stone to pop up. He always hangs out here, without fail. I’m guessing, since you’re here, that he’s on his way?”
I showed her the compass, where the dots were about to converge. “Green is Stone, we hope, and blue is someone else.”
“Nice!” she said. “There are a bunch of us here, hiding all over the place. It’s turned into a bit of a competition. Ten thousand credits is nothing to sniff at!”
I looked up at the churning clouds above our heads, expecting the two ships to appear in the expansive clearing. The compass said they were due any moment, but the dense, gloomy cloud cover concealed most of what was going on overhead. My heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, my throat dry with anxiety. This was probably our one shot to get Lauren back, and I was going to fight with everything I had.
“Here he comes,” Kirin hissed, pointing at an emerging shadow.
A split second later, Stone’s familiar ship landed beside the first archway, where I knew Xiphio and Mort were hiding. It looked as scrappy and patched-together as it had the last time I’d seen it, though there seemed to be a few new panels and a fresh infection of rust running across the hull. I held my breath, watching it settle on the ground, hearing the clunk and rattle of the engine as it came to a standstill.
One of Orion’s deep-space ships landed deftly beside it, taking us all by surprise. I’d known it was coming, from the blue dots on the locator compass, but it had sped down from the cloud cover like a specter, appearing as if from nowhere. I wasn’t sure which ship scared me more, though I knew we had all our bases covered when it came to our enemies trying to make a run for it on foot.
The hatch of the scavenger ship wheezed upward, revealing the familiar members of Stone’s crew. They strode down the gangway without a care in the world, walking with a swagger that made me certain they had no idea what kind of trouble they were in. First came the Rexombra, whose name I remembered was Alfa. Next came the Darian, then the lycan, then the Carokian, but I could only recall the Rexombra’s name—well, his and Stone’s.
Speak of the devil, I thought as Stone appeared in the hatch of the patchwork ship. He paused for a moment, turning to talk to someone inside the ship. I held my breath as Lauren walked up beside him. I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to stop a gasp from escaping. She looked totally badass, dressed all in black, wearing heavy-duty boots, with a bandana tied across her head, her hair held back in two braids, and her glasses gone.
I reached down and gripped Angie’s hand, internally cheering at the sight of our best friend, even if she barely resembled the girl who’d been snatched all those weeks ago. We exchanged a glance, both of us elated, as Lauren walked down the gangway at Stone’s side, her boots clomping on the metal ramp.
From the deep-space ship, another hatch opened and Ezra stepped out, descending his gangway toward the junk-scattered ground. There were two rebel coldbloods with him, as we’d expected, and a shifter in tow. Neither of the two parties seemed particularly glad to see the other, but then, this was just business to them. A simple case of supply and demand.
“A pleasure, as always,” Ezra said coldly. I could just about hear their conversation from where I crouched behind the metal barrels.
“How ‘bout we skip over the niceties, boss,” Stone replied, his tone amused. “I got the goods. You want ‘em or not? ‘Tis a simple state o’ affairs.”
“That depends. Are the weapons really made of pure serrantium?” Ezra asked.
I hadn’t even realized that weapons could be forged from serrantium, but it made for a bleak picture. If the rebels managed to figure out the key to the immortality elixir, they’d end up with indestructible weapons for their indestructible soldiers. An all-powerful force that could destroy anything and everything in its path. We had to hope that Stone hadn’t figured out what was in Yorrek’s notebook.
“’Course they are. What d’you take me for?” Stone said coolly. “I always deliver what’s promised.”
“Can I see them?”
Stone nodded. “So long as yer don’t try before you buy. I don’t want ‘em scuffed up before you take ‘em, so you can turn round and blame me for the scuffs, then try and get me to knock the price down. I been in that situation afore.”
“I wouldn’t cheat you out of your hard-earned credits, scavenger.” A cruel smile twisted up the corners of Ezra’s mouth. I could already picture him thinking about using those weapons on poor, unsuspecting victims, relishing every life he took and planet he conquered.
“In that case, I got something else to tickle yer fancy,” Stone said. “I got an alchemist’s notebook, nicked from Northern Vysanthe. Came from the brainiest one of them alchemists, by all accounts.”
Ezra looked positively ravenous at the news. “Toss it in with the rest of the goods. I’m sure it won’t be of any use to you. I’ll pay extra,” he replied, seeming to physically force the excitement out of his voice. “Show me the notebook.”
Stone grinned, folding his arms across his chest. “You think I was born yesterday? How ‘bout we settle on a price, then I’ll show you round your goods.”
Suddenly, Ezra’s eyes flickered toward Lauren, who was standing a short distance behind Stone. Until then, she’d been obscured by Stone. Now, however, she was exposed, and Ezra had seen something he didn’t like. His entire body language changed in a split second, his hands balling into fists, two protrusions appearing in the back of his coat, though his wings didn’t fully emerge.
“A human?” he hissed, stepping toward Lauren. Stone moved in front of her, blocking Ezra.
“Those what travel in my crew are no business of yours,” Stone said.
“You sly little creep,” Ezra spat. “You followed me there, didn’t you? You followed me to the rebel base—you’ve been trying to disrupt the rebels’ plans, haven’t you?” I noticed he didn’t say the word “Earth” out loud, in case anyone was listening in. I was pretty sure he had absolutely no idea just how many people were eavesdropping at that very moment.
“I care nowt for politics, coldblood. Rebel or not, it makes no matter to me,” Stone said calmly. “I follow no one, ‘cept my crew. You want the goods or not? I can find another seller quicker than you can say ‘Orion.’”
I wai
ted for the flare, knowing it was the prime moment to set it off. Stone’s hatch was open, and Lauren was out in the open. If we had a distraction, it would be the perfect time for us to get inside and find the notebook, while the other half of us snatched Lauren. A bristle of tension was extending between the buyer and supplier, but it wouldn’t last much longer. It was clear enough that Stone hadn’t intervened with anyone on Earth, and Ezra’s anger would soon pass. I guessed Navan wasn’t setting it off because he wanted to see what else Ezra and Stone said about Orion, in conjunction with this trade, but the hiding pirates had other ideas.
Before Navan had the chance to set the flare off, Kirin and the other pirates surged from their hideaways, racing forward to take Ezra and Stone by surprise. Stone was the only one with a bounty on his head, but I knew Ezra would likely get caught in the crossfire, which could only work in our favor.
The time for lurking in the shadows was over. Now, everyone would have to fight.
Chapter Nineteen
Angie and I sprinted toward Lauren, skirting around the side of the parked ships. Xiphio had been hiding inside the archway closest to Stone, and he surged forward with the rest, trying to put himself between Stone and Lauren.
The pirates, Navan, and the others were all a blur in my peripheral vision. I knew they were running alongside us, but I couldn’t pinpoint any particular direction or target. I could barely even see Ezra and his three crew members, but I knew they were trapped amidst the chaos, unable to seek out an escape route. The path up to their ship was blocked, and so were the exits.
My priority was Lauren.
Stone’s crew members were preoccupied trying to fight their way through the pirates. As we hurried around the back of Stone’s ship and emerged on the other side, the ambaka whipped off his bandana, freezing the battle in mid-action. Everyone in the line of his vision stopped, except for his crew, who seemed unaffected. I wondered if he could pick and choose whom he held in his third eye’s gaze, in much the same way he could freeze and unfreeze people at will. Some of the pirates were fixed in humorous positions, while others seemed trapped in painful combat. However, I couldn’t see any of our people in the crowd.