“Has Gianne sent you?” Navan asked.
Aurelius smiled. “My valiant leader has a purpose for the pair of you, which shall become clear in due course. All you need to know is that you are safe in my hands, and that the remainder of your crew shall be safe, also.”
As I stared hard at his face, it was impossible to read anything in his expression. It shifted with the usual mix of disgust, amusement, and loathing, but there was something else in there too… He looked smug, as though he had a secret. I knew, from experience, that Aurelius was at his most dangerous when he thought victory was on the horizon. Did he know something about Gianne that we didn’t?
“Look, how about we stop messing around, and you just tell us what you want?” Navan barked impatiently.
Aurelius tilted his head in a weird nod. “It is not about what I want, necessarily, but more about what may serve you best. The truth is, I am offering you a choice.”
“A choice?” I hadn’t expected that.
“I can ensure that coldbloods—rebel and otherwise—never set another foot on Earth again. This is within my power, I promise you that,” he said, his rheumy gaze never leaving mine. “In exchange for this generous gift, I need both of you to come with me. As a gesture of goodwill, I will even permit your crew to live. I will release them, where they may return to whatever Fed rock you all crept out of.”
“You realize we can’t believe a word you say, don’t you?” I said pointedly, glancing at Navan out of the corner of my eye. He was reaching behind his back for the blades he’d hidden there, and I was about to do the same.
Aurelius sighed again. “Can’t we just let bygones be bygones?”
“Afraid not!” I shouted, ducking low as I pulled two knives out of my waistband and hurled them at Aurelius. One blade skimmed his cheek, where a deep welt opened, his blackish blood trickling down into his mouth.
Aurelius staggered back, his hand flying to his cheek. “You vile wretches!” he roared, dodging to the side as a knife flew from Navan’s hand, narrowly missing the wormy coldblood’s neck. He moved farther back into the belly of the ship, seeking cover behind a metal pillar.
“Detach the ship!” I shouted to Navan. “Leave him to me!”
Navan nodded, sprinting down the hallway toward the cockpit of the vessel, while I stood my ground against Aurelius. The airlock door had already closed behind us, blocking our way back, but we could steal his ship, just as Xiphio had suggested. Dispensing with the knives, I took the pistol out of my waistband and fired at the pillar, wanting to keep him trapped behind it until the Fed ship had been released.
“You didn’t think I’d planned for this?” he screeched, his words sending a shiver of fear up my spine. A gun appeared in his hands, the barrel facing straight at me, forcing me to dive behind a stack of crates. From around the corner of the boxes, I tried to get a better look at what he was doing, but he was tucked into the side. The only things I could make out were his hands—one holding the gun, the other fiddling with a device he held on his lap.
I’d just stood to investigate further when a sudden jerk of the ship jolted me forward, making me stumble to the ground. Through the airlock glass, I saw the Fed ship drifting away. At least the other three could escape unharmed.
“Riley!” Angie’s panicked voice crackled through my comms device.
“We set you loose. We’re just dealing with something,” I said back, while firing down on Aurelius, who tucked farther into the side of the ship, returning fire with his gun.
“No, Riley, it’s not that. You’re moving away from us really fast!” Angie replied. “What’s going on? Why are you flying away from us so quickly?”
I looked to see what she meant. Sure enough, the little vessel was shooting away from the Fed ship with unexpected force, zipping through the darkness of space. Already, my friends were shrinking through the airlock window.
“We’re coming after you!” Angie squeaked. “Just hold on—we’re coming after you!”
I flashed a look toward Aurelius, who was still hidden from view. Two choices lay ahead of me: I could let my friends chase after us, on a risky venture that might lead to everyone’s deaths, especially with the windshield covered only by a protective membrane. Or, Navan and I could try to deal with this ourselves and keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Actually, it wasn’t really a choice at all. It was all too obvious what I had to do.
Grimacing, I pressed down on the transmitter. “No, Angie, with the windshield it’s too risky. Don’t follow us. Get back to Fed HQ!” I said desperately, knowing they’d do anything to defend us. “Earth needs you more than we do, right now. Keep her protected, keep her safe, and we’ll come back to you as soon as we figure out what Aurelius is up to. I promise, Ange. I promise we’ll come back.”
“Riley, no! We’re coming for you!” I could hear other voices in the background. “What are you talking about, Bash? Of course we have to go after them!”
“Ange, listen to him. You’re in no state to follow us anywhere. I swear I’ll make it back to you. I swear I’ll make it back to all of you. Navan will, too.” I gasped in a lungful of air. “I’m so sorry… Go back without us, tell them what happened. Keep Earth safe, okay?”
“Riley… Riley, we can’t leave you out there! Stop telling me to calm down, Xiphio! We have to go after them. Why am I the only one talking any sense here? We have to—they’re our friends!” Her voice was fading more the farther away we got. Evidently, whatever Aurelius was doing, he was controlling the ship remotely, taking us farther and farther away from the Fed vessel… and safety.
I sighed, feeling tears prickle. “We have to go now, Ange. I’m sorry.”
“NO!”
“Goodbye, okay? I’ll see you again soon, I promise you.”
“Riley, NO! Don’t you dare!”
My voice caught in my throat. “I love you, Ange. I love all of you.”
“Riley… I love you… Don’t go… Just hang on!”
“Listen to the others. It’s for the best. Goodbye… I’m sorry.” I shut off the transmission, unable to bear the sound of her broken voice. Besides, I still had Aurelius to deal with. If we could commandeer his ship and take the controls out of his hands, then we could get back to our friends in no time. Yes, the vessel was shooting away at an alarming speed, and the Fed ship was no longer visible, but that kind of distance wouldn’t take long to retrace.
Scrambling to my feet, I sprinted for the cockpit, knowing there would be strength in numbers. Aurelius was the only one on board this ship. If the two of us couldn’t take him down together, then we didn’t deserve to be soldiers.
As soon as I entered the room, I knew something was wrong. Navan was standing at the controls, but he wasn’t moving. I edged closer to him, wondering what the hell was going on, when it all became clear. This was a trap within a trap. Aurelius had known what we would do, and where we would go, and he had plotted it all out to perfection. Navan’s hands were frozen to the control panel, and a shimmering silver sheen was slithering up his arms and across his neck, moving up over his chin to cover his mouth, so he couldn’t have called out a warning to me. Whatever the shimmering light was, it had frozen him in place, rendering him immobile. The controls themselves weren’t even real, I noticed, dipping my head closer to inspect the monitors. They were just a bunch of flashing lights and images, designed to look like a working panel.
“Navan, I—” I reached out to touch him, but his eyes went wide in fear. The shimmering sheen flicked out a tongue of silver, attempting to draw me into its immobilizing barrier. I staggered back, out of its way, turning in time to see the cockpit hatch slide down with a mechanical thud.
Aurelius peered through the rectangular window, a pleased look on his face.
“Let us out of here!” I roared, throwing myself at the cockpit door and slamming my fists against the reinforced window.
He stared at me calmly, before walking over to a bench in the hallway beyond the cockpit. Fro
m his robe, he retrieved a book of some kind, opening it out onto his lap as he leaned back in an infuriatingly relaxed manner. He didn’t even bother to look at me glaring at him through the window. In the dim light of the corridor, I saw the familiar leather of the book’s cover. Aurelius wasn’t just reading any old book… He had Yorrek’s notebook.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I paced the floor of the fake cockpit as Aurelius’s ship rocketed through space. We’d gone way past the familiar planets of my solar system, leaving Earth far behind. I’d done it again—found myself on a ship leaving Earth, headed for who knows where, under the instruction of coldbloods.
The shimmering barrier of light around Navan kept reaching for me whenever I got too close, as though it were sentient. I hated that Aurelius was sitting out there in the hallway with a smirk on his face, reading through Yorrek’s notebook. More than anything, I hated that he’d done this to Navan, so neither of us could speak to one another. Presumably, that was the point.
“You know he’s sitting out there, right this minute, reading Yorrek’s notebook?” I said aloud, wanting to at least fill Navan in on what was happening. He couldn’t respond, but it wouldn’t stop me from talking to him.
Navan frowned in confusion.
“Yeah, he’s got it. How he has it, I’ve got no idea,” I muttered. “Ezra was the last person to have it, so Gianne or Aurelius must have stolen it. Although, if that’s the case, surely he’d have taken Ezra as a prisoner.” It was hard musing out loud, with no one responding.
Navan gave his head a tiny shake.
“You don’t think Aurelius intercepted Ezra?”
He shook his head again.
“You think it’s Gianne?”
He tilted his head from side to side.
“Or do you think it’s more likely that Ezra gave the book to him?”
He shrugged, leaving us both back at square one.
Feeling sad at the thought of Earth, and what she might endure while I was gone, I moved closer to the boobytrapped control panel. I sat on the floor, scooting as close as I dared. I just wanted to be close to Navan, but that shimmering silver light was making it impossible. Part of me wondered if I should just put my arms around him and get frozen in his embrace, but I thought of what we might face on the other end of this journey. One of us was going to have to have their limbs free to fight, and I guessed that fell to me. I still had several knives tucked about my person, and the pistol, too. No matter what came at us, I’d take them on.
After what felt like forever, my mind slowly going mad with nobody to talk to, the ship jolted violently. It was a familiar sensation—we’d connected with another vessel. I jumped to my feet and hurried to the exterior window, trying to see what kind of ship we’d linked up to, but whatever it was, it was cloaked. Annoyed, I strode back across the room and took out the pistol, positioning myself by the control panel, standing between the cockpit door and Navan.
I braced myself for a fight. Come at me, you bastards.
Five minutes later, I heard heavy boots in the corridor beyond the cockpit door. Through the small, rectangular window I saw vague shapes approaching, their faces getting clearer as they neared. Aurelius was leading the troop, that smug smile still plastered across his scarred face. Oh, how I wanted to punch it off.
The hatch slid up. Aurelius stood in the doorway with the brazen confidence of a man who knew his victims were outnumbered and outgunned. Guards with half-masked faces, dressed all in dark gray, flanked him. My finger trembled on the gun’s trigger. It seemed my body knew before my mind that I couldn’t win this fight.
If you’ve got to die today, you might as well go down fighting, right? I thought to myself, but a lingering doubt remained. Maybe today wasn’t the day I died, but if I pulled the trigger and opened fire on these soldiers, I was pretty sure it would be.
“Riley, there is no need for such violence, is there?” Aurelius purred. “Why waste perfectly good ammunition?”
“I wouldn’t say my ammunition would be wasted,” I said coldly. A flicker of fear passed across his face.
“Empty threats, my dear girl, empty threats.” He cleared his throat. “Now, would you like to make the walk to the main ship while conscious or unconscious?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, standing my ground. “What main ship? Is it Gianne’s?”
“All will be revealed once you are on board. Now, I repeat, would you like to make the walk while conscious or unconscious? I might even let you walk freely if you promise to behave.” A smile of cold amusement turned up the corners of his lips.
With a reluctant sigh, I held my hands up in surrender, pointing the gun at the ceiling. The guards swarmed me immediately, taking the pistol away and patting me down. To my annoyance, they found all the knives, removing each one and throwing them all across the room. Meanwhile, Aurelius stepped forward and released Navan from the grips of his shimmering trap.
Navan gasped in a lungful of air, shaking out the stiffness in his muscles, which had been held in one place for hours. I tried to reach him, but the guards pulled me back.
“I thought you said we could walk freely. I wouldn’t call this free,” I hissed at Aurelius, who turned with an amused look on his face.
“Release her,” he instructed. I shoved past the intrusive soldiers to reach Navan, feeling his arms slip around me like a safety net, pulling me close.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he whispered. It was so good to hear his voice again; I just wished the circumstances could’ve been happier.
I kissed him gently on the lips, lowering my voice so only he could hear. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. He tricked us, like we knew he would. We underestimated him, that’s all. It’s not a mistake we’ll make again.”
“What is that thing, anyway?” Navan asked Aurelius, gesturing down at the control panel that had ensnared him.
Aurelius flashed a dark grin. “Let’s call it… experimental technology. I do so love it when a trial run goes smoothly, don’t you? Now, enough chattering. Follow me.”
In stubborn silence, we followed him through the hallway of the small ship, surrounded by guards, before reaching the same airlock door we’d come through from our vessel. I pictured Angie’s and Xiphio’s faces staring at us through the opposite window, only there was no one standing there. An umbilical tunnel had been connected between this airlock and the one belonging to the other ship. With the vessel cloaked, it looked weird, just a gaping hole in the side of nothingness. Judging by the door alone, I guessed the other ship was massive.
With both doorways open, we made our way through the connecting tunnel, into the waiting ship. It was colder between the vessels, and my teeth started chattering immediately. As soon as I entered the other side, however, a blast of heat hit me in the face—I knew this was no ordinary vessel. The ceilings were cavernous, and corridors branched off in every direction. Ahead of us stood an elevator with at least thirty buttons on the side. The thrum of machinery clanked and clanged through the ducts above and below us.
“Are we on a space station?” I whispered.
Navan nodded. “I think so, though it’s rare to see a station cloaked like this. It takes an enormous amount of energy to cloak something this size.”
A shudder of realization pulsed through me. “The rebel base—that was huge, but they managed to cloak it. Do you think that means… No, Gianne and Brisha have that kind of technology too, right?”
“It’s possible.”
Aurelius and his guards pushed us on through several hallways, their boots thudding on the metal walkways. The heat was overwhelming, sweat beading on my forehead and trickling down my spine as we made a never-ending series of twists and turns through the vast network of corridors. Open pipes and cables ran over our heads, evidently connecting to some enormous generator that was responsible for the sweltering heat. It reminded me of the inside of an oil rig, or the engine room of a huge tanker, the mechanical buzz going on forever.
At last, we came to a halt in front of a seemingly innocuous door. Aurelius had two guards escort us through the metal doorway, which had one circular window in the center, though anything we could’ve seen through it was covered by an interior curtain of black velvet. The reason became clear as we were pushed into the room beyond. It was an auditorium, with raked seating and a curving balcony that peered over onto a stage. There was more seating below us, like stalls, under the lip of the balcony. Every single chair in those stalls was filled, with fierce lights silhouetting the backs of countless spectators’ heads. In our tiered circle, the seats were empty. Aurelius seemed eager for us to hang back in the shadows, where the speaker and his audience couldn’t see us.
“Chief Orion’s death must not be in vain!” a familiar voice roared, the spotlight blazing down on his face. Ezra stood at the front of the stage. My stomach twisted.
Aurelius and Ezra had banded together—a match made in hell.
“The Fed killed him and betrayed our trust,” Ezra continued. “We were supposed to be making a fair exchange, our leader for their prisoners, and they shot him down in front of my very eyes. They never intended to uphold their end of the bargain. They’re liars and deceivers, and we can’t live in fear of them!”
My cheeks burned with anger at his blatant lies. He was the one who’d deliberately killed Orion, using that hideous bomb. Now, I understood why he’d come in such a small ship, with barely anyone on board. It meant there were very few witnesses to the truth of his crime. I imagined those few who had seen what really happened were too frightened to speak out. Either that, or he’d already done away with them.
“We’ve got to fight back against them. We’ve got to make them pay for what they did to our almighty leader, when all we wanted was a fair exchange,” Ezra shouted.
Get out the tiny violins, I thought bitterly, despising every moment of his “rousing” speech. There was nothing as pathetic as a self-serving liar trying to gain a vote of confidence. Evidently, this whole charade was intended to gain followers without inciting even more rebel factions to break off. If they knew what he’d really done, they’d start a mutiny, baying for his blood for openly murdering their beloved leader.