Polaris (17 page)

Jeth leaned back, crossing one foot over the other. “So you think our situation now justifies his betrayal? You think Shady knew my mother was here before he made that call?”

“No, but . . .” She trailed off, words failing. The veins in her hands and arms popped out as she clenched and unclenched her hands held in front of her like a shield.

Jeth returned his attention to Shady, who hadn't moved, the only change in him the flush of color in his cheeks. “Pack up your personal effects and then get off my ship.”

Shady stood up so fast Jeth thought he would overbalance and fall back down again. “This is bullshit.”

Still calm, Jeth opened his mouth to repeat the command,
but Celeste cut him off. “Don't do this. You can't make Shady leave.”

Jeth turned toward her, giving her his full attention for the first time. There was something wrong here, something off in the way she sounded. She was too emotional, too defensive. Why?

The answer came to him with sudden, cruel clarity—not from intuition, but from the Axis. The information had been there; Jeth just hadn't known to ask for it. Now, it rang out like a gong, vibrating him from his head to his toes. He staggered against the shock. He never would've believed it of her, not after everything they'd been through together.

Jeth breathed in and out, his temper rising, the Axis starting to roar again. He leveled a gaze at Celeste hot enough to cut steel. “It was you. You called Dax.”

Fear swept across Celeste's face before her expression hardened into anger. “Yes, I did. But what choice did I have? We were dying out there. Vince
died
. We were all heading that way.” She glanced at Shady, searching for support, but not finding any. Not this time.

The world spun around Jeth, her words tearing through him. It was true. She had betrayed him. The Axis quaked inside his head, memories rushing out, a tidal wave dragging him under, drowning him. He fought back, desperate not to lose control now. He wanted to remove the implant but he couldn't move.

Let go!
Perry screamed through the Axis.
You were so close but still holding back. Let go and mean it this time.

Yes,
other voices combined with his.
We're here to help you. We're your brothers now. Give in and rise up.

Jeth closed his eyes.

And let go.

As before, the Axis relaxed the same moment he did. But it was different this time, deeper somehow, more certain. He opened his eyes, strength flooding into him. Something crucial seemed to slip into place inside him. It was liberating, like sloughing off the skin of his past life and all the doubt and despair that came with it.

He cleared his throat, drawing Celeste's attention back to him. His voice was ice as he spoke. “You're both out. I'll give you one hour to gather your things. Starting now.”

“But . . .” Celeste sputtered. “But I don't want to leave.”

For a second Jeth saw the younger version of her, the way she was when they'd first met. Celeste had been all spit and rage on the outside, but inside she was just a scared kid, abandoned and desperate. The way she appeared now.

For a second, pity threatened to change his mind, but Jeth reached for the surety of the Axis. The way forward was clear. Once again he remembered Hammer:
Betrayal is like a cancer.

“One hour,” Jeth said.

“I'm sorry,” Celeste sobbed, her anger shattering into desperation. “I didn't mean to go behind your back, but it turned out for the best. I can help destroy the Harvester. You need me.”

Jeth shook his head. “There's nothing you have that I
need.” He spoke in little more than a whisper, and yet Celeste recoiled as if he had screamed. As if he had slapped her.

Movement at the doorway drew Jeth's attention and he saw Lizzie entering with Sierra and Flynn close behind. He inwardly cursed. Celeste's shouting must've drawn them.

“What going on here?” Lizzie said. Confusion clouded her expression as she surveyed the room.

Celeste wheeled on her, anger flashing in her eyes that glistened with unshed tears. “Your brother is kicking us off the ship. Me and Shady.”

“What?”

All eyes turned on Jeth, waiting for him to explain, expecting him to defend his decision. He wouldn't. This was his ship. His crew.
No traitors.
He pointed to Celeste and Shady. “You two are running out of time to get your things and get out.”

This time it was Lizzie who recoiled. “Why? What did they do?”

“Celeste is the one who called Dax,” Sierra said, shock coloring her voice as she made the connection.

Celeste turned on her, eyes narrowed. “Yes, I did. And I can't believe you didn't do it first. We needed help. Vince was your brother, and you let Jeth leave him behind!”

Sierra stiffened, sucking in a breath.

Hearing the pain in it, Jeth stood up from his slouched position against the table. “Get out of here, Celeste. Before I carry you out.”

She turned toward him, her face livid. “Fine. I don't want
to follow you anymore anyway. You're nothing but Daxton's pawn now,
Brethren.
”

Her words fell like hammer strokes, and for a second, doubt rose up in Jeth. But it came and went in an instant. This was the right thing to do. He had to think about Cora, the mission. He had to do what was best, and that meant surrounding himself with a crew he could trust.

Celeste strode for the door, the others parting the way for her. Before she reached it, Jeth turned to Shady. “You go with her.” He nodded his head toward the door.

Shady looked ready to argue, to fight, but then he shrugged and followed after Celeste. “I think she has the right of it. You're not the Jeth I knew anymore.”

“And you're not the Shady.”

Shady didn't reply, but disappeared out of the common room, out of their lives.

Lizzie waited less than a second after their departure before swooping on Jeth. “Why Shady? He didn't do anything wrong!”

“He wanted to,” Jeth said, simply. “He planted the idea in Celeste's head, and he didn't deny doing it.”

“You never gave him a chance. You just assumed it was him.”

Jeth slashed his hand through the air. “I'm done talking about this.”

Lizzie's face crumpled, her eyes shiny with tears. Jeth had known the parting would be hard on her. He'd tried to spare her from seeing it go down, but there was nothing he could
do about it now. She would just have to accept it.

“I'm sorry, Liz,” he said. “But you've got to trust me that it's for the best.”

She walked up to the gaming table, glaring at him. “I'm not talking to you right now.” She scooped Viggo up and slung him over her shoulder. Then she turned and stormed out of the common room, the cat bearing a resigned look on its face as it suffered the indignity.

“That went well,” said Flynn. “Just how you want to kick off a dangerous mission.”

Jeth glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. He debated pointing out to Flynn that he didn't have to come, but instinct held him back. His crew was already down by two, three if you counted Vince. That was more than enough to lose at once.

Did I really just kick them off?

Yes, he had. For better or worse the decision had been made. Swallowing back nameless, churning emotions, Jeth headed for the door without comment.

Flynn wasn't wrong, though. It wasn't the best way to start a mission.

THEY WERE READY TO GO LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
later. Making the decision about who would fill the fifth slot proved easy once Shady and Celeste were gone, but it wasn't a welcome decision—Flynn would be taking it while Milton and Cora stayed behind at Peltraz in one of Dax's hotels. With the Wanted bulletin, they couldn't risk staying on
Avalon
.

From the start, Jeth had thought Cora would be sharing a cabin with Marian, her presence a given. But Marian disabused him of the idea at once.

“Her health is too unstable,” Marian said. “And we can't risk the damage she might do to the ship.”

Jeth knew she was right, but he hated the idea. He might have made his peace with the Axis, but that didn't mean he wanted to leave his little sister under the rule and reach of Daxton Price. Milton would be staying with Cora, of course, both to monitor her health and to watch over her, but that was hardly enough to appease Jeth's worry.

Sierra wasn't happy about the decision either, but Marian silenced her protest just as easily.

“We shouldn't bring Cora that close to First-Earth,”
Marian said while the three of them stood on
Avalon
's bridge, discussing the final arrangements. “If anything goes wrong she could end up back in the ITA's hands, and everything you've sacrificed will have been for nothing.”

Sierra paled, and Jeth knew she was thinking about Vince. He wished he had some words of comfort for her, but they did not exist, not in his mind or his heart. No words were deep enough to match what she was feeling.

Jeth touched Sierra's arm. “She's right. Even if we all die on this mission, I'd rather Cora was here, far from the ITA. At least then she'll still have a chance to escape. But if we fail and she's with us, the ITA will have her for sure.” For a moment, an old familiar vision of a cloned Cora being plugged into a metadrive like some human fuel cell flashed in Jeth's mind. He'd rather see his little sister dead than have her live in a world where an enslaved race of human-Pyrean clones existed. He knew that the ITA hadn't yet perfected the cloning technology needed to do it—the clones, although born normal enough, often developed physical and mental deficiencies, and none of them were strong enough to survive the advanced aging process the ITA needed to put them through to make them viable alternates to metadrives—but there was no telling when they would succeed. They were certainly determined enough.

“Yes, Jeth's right.” A confident expression rose to Marian's face. “And Dax will treat her like a princess while we're gone. He knows full well what will happen if he doesn't.”

Helluva choice for insurance,
Jeth thought, gritting his teeth.

But at least Cora and Milton staying at Peltraz solved the cat problem. Shortly before they were due to depart, Jeth helped Lizzie force a flailing Viggo inside a carrier Dax had provided. The cat hissed and spat as Jeth slammed the door closed, sealing him in.

“Be gentle, why don't you,” Lizzie said, hissing nearly as much as her cat. “You almost shut his paw in the door.”

Jeth rolled his eyes, but held back the comment that the stupid cat deserved it for being such a pain in the ass. Lizzie looked too close to tears. She'd barely said two words to him since Celeste and Shady had left.

“He'll be fine, Liz,” Jeth said. “Milton will take care of him, and you know that Cora will spoil him with attention.”

She scowled. “I don't see why he can't just come along. He does fine on a spaceship.”

A dozen retorts to this statement came to Jeth's mind, including all the times that he'd had to rescue the cat from mortal peril when it got stuck in places it never should've been, such as inside one of the engines, under the life support unit, and—Jeth's personal favorite—the latrine piping.

“True,” Jeth said at last, “but he'll be happy enough.” This might be an understatement. The apartment Dax had set Milton up in was in Sector 1, the nicest the spaceport had to offer. Not to mention the safest and ritziest. “Hell, by the time we get back that belly of his might actually drag on the ground,” Jeth said, tapping the top of the carrier. Viggo meowed, a pathetic little sound that made Lizzie mutter under her breath again.

Jeth carried the cat down the ladder to the cargo bay for her and then handed the carrier over. “You have everything you need moved onto
Polaris
?”

Lizzie nodded.

Jeth frowned, remembering that
Polaris
belonged to Aileen, and she couldn't be trusted not to go snooping. He lowered his voice. “You didn't leave the data crystal anywhere discoverable, did you?”

Lizzie made a face. “Of course not. I'm not entirely stupid.” She patted her pants pocket. “Come to think of it, I'm pretty much a genius.”

“You do all right.” Jeth motioned to the carrier. “Sure you don't want me to take him for you?”

“I'm sure.” She hoisted the carrier up using both arms and stepped off the ship.

Jeth watched her disappear around a corridor and then closed the door. He headed up to the passenger deck and stopped in his cabin, double-checking he'd packed everything he needed. A duffel bag stuffed with clothes and weapons sat on the bed, waiting for him to take over to
Polaris
. Like Lizzie, the others had already moved their stuff. But Jeth had waited until the last possible moment. Even if it was just for one mission, he hated abandoning
Avalon
.

Sighing, Jeth tossed the bag over his shoulder and left the cabin, shutting the door behind him. He checked the rest of the cabins and sick bay, making sure all the lights were switched off and anything prone to spoil disposed of in a proper manner. He expected to find Shady's cabin still in a
state of disarray, but to his surprise, it was utterly spotless. An outsider might find it hard to believe the place had ever been inhabited. Jeth supposed that was the point.

Celeste's cabin was clean too, but not empty. She had left a single item on the bed—a personal comm unit. Jeth picked it up, examining it while the memory of the first time he'd met Celeste played through his mind. They'd gotten in a fight when she tried to steal this very unit from him after he'd just stolen it from one of Hammer's marks. Celeste had even punched him in the face. It was fitting that their relationship had ended in a fight, too, life coming full circle. While Jeth considered it, it almost felt like it had happened to someone else.

He debated tossing the unit into the garbage, but then he tucked it into his pocket. He would dispose of it, he told himself, or maybe he would fence it. It was an old model, but still usable.

Finally he made his way to the bridge. To his surprise, it wasn't empty. Marian sat working at the comm station while Cora was sitting in the pilot's chair, her little hands gripping the control column. She made gunshot sounds, swiveling back and forth in the chair as she took out imaginary targets.

“What are you doing here?” Jeth said.

“Jeth!” Cora said, beaming. She climbed out of the chair and hurried over to him. He was glad to see her looking so much better, although he knew it was only temporary. He picked her up into a hug. She squeezed his neck, completely unalarmed by having her face in such close proximity to the
tentacles wrapped around his skull. Of all the crew, Cora was the only one not bothered by the change in his appearance. She accepted him entirely, in the way only a little kid could.

“Cora wanted to say good-bye to
Avalon
,” Marian said, not looking up from the comm screen. “I decided to shut down the nonessentials and run a final systems check while she played for a few minutes.”

“Oh,” Jeth said, setting Cora back on her feet. He ran a hand through his hair. “I was just getting ready to do that.”

A knowing smile ghosted across Marian's face. “I'm not surprised.”

Disgruntled, Jeth folded his arms and waited for her to offer to let him finish. He wanted to say his own good-byes. When more than a minute passed, he said. “Don't you think you should take Cora to the apartment? You're cutting it close.”

“I don't want to go with Uncle Milton,” Cora said, tugging on his sleeve. “I want to go with you.”

Jeth freed his arm from her grip and smiled down at her. “I know, but you can't, sweetheart.”

“Why not? I can help. I know how to fly the ship.”

Jeth laughed. “Yes, I saw.”

“It's easy. You just move that thing around.” She pointed at the control column.

“Yep, it's that simple. You'll have to show me again when we get back.”

The delight in Cora's face drained away. “What if you never come back?”

Jeth squatted down, bringing his face on level with hers. He pulled her into his arms. “Don't be silly. We'll be back before you know it.”

Cora leaned away far enough to fix a glare on him, the expression comically exaggerated on her face. It almost hid the bags under her bloodshot eyes. “Promise?”

“Promise.” He stood up again, ready to force his mother out of the chair if he had to. He walked over to the comm station and peered over her shoulder at the screen. “I thought you were running a systems check.”

Marian worried at her lower lip. “I was, but I noticed something off with the nav system. I know Lizzie has made a lot of modifications, but I'm looking at the code now and these particular lines don't feel like her work.”

Jeth tilted his head. “What do you mean?” He couldn't understand how something as clinical as computer code could have a “feel” to it.

“This coding . . . it feels more ITA to me.”

“What?” Jeth's brow furrowed.

Marian nodded. “Yes, it's definitely ITA. They have a unique structure. Only—” She looked up at him. “How did it get here? Has the ITA been on
Avalon
recently?”

“No, not recently. A couple of months ago when we were trapped on that Strata but I don't—wait. We did have a run-in with the ITA less than a week ago back at Nuvali.”

“Were they on the ship?”

“No, not on it, but they planted a tracer on
Avalon
's door. We found it right away and got rid of it. It was an outdated unit, but Sierra thought it fit the person tracking us.”

Marian arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

“It was Admiral Saar. That old war hero.” Jeth swallowed, not surprised that no one had told Marian about it. It was a sore subject for all of them. “The ITA enlisted him to capture us. He killed Sierra's brother.”

Marian's eyes went wide and she turned her attention back to the screen. “Please tell me you're joking.”

“Why?” Jeth said.

“Because you didn't take care of the tracer,” Marian said. “Whatever you found was a decoy. Saar imbedded the real tracer in
Avalon
's code. It's been here, running, the whole time.”

Jeth blinked, unable to believe it. “Are you saying Saar knows we're at Peltraz?”

“Yes!” Marian sounded frantic now. Her fingers moved across the screen. “Oh God, if I'd only known . . .”

“Known what?” Jeth gripped the back of the chair.

Marian stood up so fast Jeth nearly tumbled over. “We've got to get out of here!”

He raised his hands, ready to grab her if she bolted. “Why are you panicking?”

Marian pointed at the screen. Jeth glanced down, but it meant nothing to him. It was just a jumble of characters, what he vaguely recognized as computer command statements. All except for the lower right-hand portion of the screen where a red cursor was flashing.

“I didn't know what it was,” Marian said. “I already tried to disable it.”

“So? Mom, what's going on?” He wanted to shake her. Her fear was getting in the way of her sense.

Marian swallowed. “I triggered an alarm. The ITA knows we found the tracer.”

Jeth stared at her, trying to process the consequences of what the alarm meant. If Saar knew they were here all this time, why hadn't he closed in? A dozen reasons sprouted in Jeth's mind at once. Saar might not trust Daxton. He might be worried about trying to grab Cora in such a public, populated place. He would want to wait until Jeth either left again, or until Saar could insinuate his men into Dax's organization—not an easy or quick task.

But now that he knows we know, he'll
— His thought broke off as the door to the Axis swung open. For a second, Jeth worried he was losing control again but then he understood as an alarm began to sound inside his head, vibrating through the Axis link.

The message was simple and terrifying:

Take positions. ITA battleships are closing in.