Polaris (4 page)

AVALON
MADE IT THROUGH THE JUMP CLEANLY, BUT NO ONE
celebrated when they arrived on the other side, light years away from the chaos and destruction at Nuvali. They had disintegrated those patrol ships. And while the decision to make a jump in the midst of that chaos might've been Jeth's—his call, his guilt—he knew his crew too well to believe they weren't sharing in it.

Or maybe it was just some collective, psychic sense that something was horribly, desperately wrong.

How do I tell them he's dead?

It was a task Jeth had never performed before in all his time as head of the Shades. He'd lost crew members when they had aged out, back when Hammer had been running the show, and he'd even lost current members when his sisters had been kidnapped by a rogue ITA agent. But none of them had ever died.

What do I do? What do I say?
He desperately wanted to hand off this burden to someone else. He considered Milton, the only real adult on board. Even now his uncle would be climbing out of the starboard gun station. Milton was a doctor. He'd seen death many times, likely even delivered news like this before.

Once again, he saw Vince falling. Once again the ache of leaving him behind filled his chest.
No
. Jeth steeled himself. Passing off the duty was the coward's way out, and he refused to take it. He just needed a moment to prepare himself.

“Talk to me, Flynn,” Jeth said over the comm.

“We're limping,” Flynn answered from the engineering deck. “I've got engine seven back up. But six and three are going to take longer, if I can get them running at all. It's not like I've been able to stock up on repair parts lately.”

Jeth stifled a groan, remembering the lost money, both the reserve cash and the blown deal with Wainwright.
Please let it end,
he thought, teeth gritted. This wasn't just a string of bad luck. This was the universe declaring war.

He forced his jaw to relax, remembering this was Flynn he was talking to, the Prince of Doom. “Eight out of ten engines is enough to keep us moving, right?”

Flynn huffed, the sound like rushing wind against the comm speaker. “Like I said,
limping
.”

“Good enough for now.” Jeth killed the connection.

“So where to, Boss?” Celeste said from the pilot's seat. The smile she turned on him cut him to the quick.

He stumbled over his answer. “Back to the Belgrave.”

Celeste sighed. “I knew you would say that.”

She sounded nothing more than annoyed, but he sensed something darker beneath. She hated that area of space known, among other names, as the Devil's Boneyard. The Belgrave was said to be haunted or cursed. There were hundreds of stories about disappearing ships and strange occurrences, some myth, and some truth, as Jeth and his
crew knew firsthand. But scary or not, hated or not, the Belgrave had been their only safe haven these last few months.

“We won't be in there long,” Jeth said, standing up. He switched on the main comm again. “I need everyone to meet me down in the common room in fifteen minutes. We've got . . . things . . . to discuss.”

Wincing at his stutter, Jeth switched off the comm and reluctantly faced Sierra, his heart a hard, heavy fist thumping against his breastbone.
Her brother is dead.
Why had he been so stupid? How could he have so underestimated that old man? He ought to have known better. Anyone who wore a brain implant wasn't to be taken lightly.
But I didn't see it until it was too late
.

Jeth swallowed and somehow located his voice. “Cora doesn't need to listen to this. I'll stop in and ask her to stay in her cabin.” Another lie. It wasn't that she didn't need to be there, but rather that he feared her reaction more than any other. Cora was dangerous when she became upset or angry or confused, capable of the same level of destruction as what they had just wrought on the Nuvali patrols. They would have to break the news to her carefully.

The blood leached from Sierra's face, and he knew she sensed his dread. Her mouth opened, and he raised a hand against the question rising to her lips. “I've got news, but it'll be easier for everybody to hear it at once.”

Sierra nodded, but as Jeth turned to leave she said, “Cora isn't in her cabin.”

He paused and looked over his shoulder. “Where is she?”

“The engine room.”

“Again?” Jeth exhaled and turned away before Sierra could respond. He shouldn't be surprised. Cora had been spending more and more time on the engineering deck these days. He couldn't believe she'd been up there during the firefight with the Nuvali patrols rather than buckled into a seat, but it wasn't like there had been time to check on her. And Cora wasn't the most agreeable kid in the galaxy. If she didn't want to leave the engine room, there was no making her.

Jeth exited the bridge and headed up the stairs to the engineering deck. Part of him wondered if his decision not to tell Sierra in private what happened to Vince was a cowardly one. He'd never been good at dealing with emotions, not his nor others'. Emotions were tricky, impossible things, complex and contradictory. And when they were at their height, they couldn't be reasoned with or pacified. Emotions like that—rage, hatred, grief, love—were like wildfires. They blazed out of control, impossible to stop until they burned themselves out. Jeth would rather hide, or better yet, bury the emotions so deep inside that they withered and died.

But they never truly die
.

Ignoring that inner voice, he stepped into the engine room. As usual, the place looked as if it had been ransacked by a pack of feral dogs. Loose cables were snaked over half of the floor in between the various equipment racks. At least four units in those racks were giving off sparks, and the whole place was as smoky as the Ruby Room had been. Jeth
spotted Flynn standing a few paces down, in front of one of the more theatrically sparking units.

“Hey,” Jeth said, stifling a cough. “It looks pretty bad up here.”

Flynn glanced at him, his expression murderous on his ash-smeared face. “Isn't that what I said? Limping?”

Jeth grimaced. “Words didn't do it justice.”

Flynn snorted. The food rationing they'd been under the last few weeks hadn't done his disposition any favors.

Returning his gaze to the equipment rack, Flynn said, “We were in the middle of a firefight five minutes ago. Please tell me you didn't come here to check on my progress.”

“I came to see Cora.”

“She's back there.” Flynn motioned to the far end of the engine room.

Jeth walked past Flynn, finally spotting Cora where he'd known he'd find her—in close proximity to the metadrive compartment. Today she was sitting directly in front of it, several pillows strewn under her as a makeshift sofa. She looked up as he entered, a tired grin brightening her face. Her white-blond hair hung lank around her shoulders, and her unusually large eyes, as black as soot, looked larger still thanks to the dark circles rimmed beneath them.

Jeth's smile faltered at the sight of her. It wasn't the first time of late that he'd noticed her looking ill and rundown, but it had never been this pronounced. He swallowed, hoping it was nothing more than a need for natural sunlight and a few good meals.

Soon, baby girl,
he thought.
Somehow
.

He stopped in front of her and offered a hand as she got to her feet. “Miss me?” he said, stooping over to plant a kiss on her forehead.

She bobbed her head and slid her arms around his waist, squeezing him. “Did you miss me?”

“A little bit, I suppose.” He pulled away and reached into his pocket, withdrawing the golden die. “I picked this up for you.”

Cora beamed up at him as she plucked it out of his hands. “Oh, it's so pretty.”

“I knew you'd like it.”

She rolled it across her palm, admiring the way it glittered in the light. “If you're back, does this mean we get to go get Mom now?”

“No, not yet,” Jeth said, wincing. He regretted the day Cora had learned of the plan. Although she didn't know their mother the way Jeth did—the ITA had kept Cora apart from Marian the entire time she'd been their prisoner, before Sierra, an ITA agent herself at the time, had stolen her away from them—she was eager to be reunited, obsessing about it in the way only little children could, relentless and heartbreaking.

“Why not?” Cora asked, wrinkling her nose.

Jeth sighed. “Things didn't go exactly as planned. But don't worry. We'll get her soon.”

Cora nodded and returned her gaze to the die, this time examining the dots imprinted on each side.

“Listen,” Jeth said, running a hand through his hair. As always, he scraped a finger over the hole of the brain implant architecture in the back of his skull, checking to make sure his hair was still covering it. The gesture had become a nervous tic. He could let his hair grow two feet long and he still wouldn't be able to resist doing it. The architecture, the kind designed to hold a brain implant like the silver one Saar had been wearing, had been surgically inserted against Jeth's will.

He dropped his hand. “I need you to stay in your cabin for a little while. I've got some things to discuss with the rest of the crew.”

Cora made a face. “Adult things?”

“Yeah, really adult.” His voice broke on the words, tears choking his voice.
I left him behind
. He cut off the thought before it could go any farther. He had to get his emotions in check.

“What's wrong?” Cora poked him in the stomach.

Jeth forced a smile. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
Not yet
. He drew a breath and let it out slowly. “But there might be some loud talk and shouting. I need you to just ignore it and stay in your room, okay?”

“Okay.” Cora hesitated, glancing behind her where the door to the metadrive stood open. “But please can I stay up here?”

Jeth frowned, his gaze shifting from Cora to the metadrive, visible behind the glass shielding. Roughly cylindrical in shape, the outer shell of the drive was nothing extraordinary, mere metal and wires haloed around a strange object
with a texture vaguely like ocean coral, colored in varying shades of red. That porous material was what made metaspace travel possible. Jeth, like the rest of the universe, used to believe that it was some kind of unknown tech or fuel cell, a secret invention of the ITA. That was, until he uncovered the secrets in the Aether Project.

In truth, that porous object was made up of living things, alien creatures called Pyreans. The Pyreans were a vast superorganism, one capable of accessing metaspace, the dimension beyond the perception of humans and human technology. The ITA had imprisoned them centuries ago, harvesting them to build the metatech and make faster-than-light travel possible. But now the Pyreans were dying off, their impending extinction the reason behind the metatech shortage Wainwright had been so worried about.

As he should be,
Jeth thought, feeling the familiar wave of hopelessness at this truth. Soon the Pyreans would be no more and interstellar travel would come to a halt. The idea scared him, but all he had room to care about right then was rescuing his mother and keeping Cora safe from the ITA.

He returned his gaze to his sister, wondering—not for the first time—what she saw when she looked at the Pyreans, or more precisely what she
felt
. His little sister wasn't the ordinary human child she appeared to be, not entirely. Due to the unusual and mysterious circumstances of her conception and birth, her DNA was a mix of human and Pyrean. And like the Pyreans, she too could access metaspace, an ability the ITA was willing to kill to reclaim.

We're all going to end up dead. Just like Vince.

Stifling a shiver, Jeth forced a smile. “I suppose you can stay up here. . . . How come you want to?”

“Because,” Cora said, as if this explained everything.

Jeth motioned to the metadrive. “Do you feel something when you're near that?”

Cora frowned. “What do you mean?”

Jeth searched for the words to explain it, but none came. At least not any that would make sense to a seven-year-old.
Avalon
's metadrive should've been dying the same as the others, but for months he hadn't seen any signs of withering. More than once he and Sierra had speculated it might have something to do with its proximity to Cora, and her developing ability to manipulate metaspace.

“Never mind,” he said at last.

Cora sat down on the pillows once more. “It makes me feel better. Less sleepy.” She picked up a portable viewer that Jeth hadn't noticed before and switched it on. A cartoon of a singing cat and several dancing mice appeared on the screen. “Want to watch it with me?” Cora asked, casting a hopeful look up at him.

Not having the heart to tell her no, Jeth sat down beside her. “Only for a few minutes. I've got to get downstairs.”

“Okay.” Cora leaned toward him, snuggling into the crook of his arm. He hugged her to him, glad of the weight of her against him and the warmth of her tiny body. Resting his cheek against the top of her head, he fixed his gaze on the screen, willing his troubles away if only for a few precious minutes.

Cora laughed as one of the mice bit the cat's tail and a raucous chase ensued. The sound of her enjoyment seeped into Jeth, soothing the ache in his chest. Keeping her safe made the sacrifices worth it. He clung to that as hard as he could, wishing he didn't have to get up and face the others.

But finally, Jeth knew he couldn't delay any longer. He hugged Cora one last time and got to his feet. “Promise you'll stay here.”

“Promise,” she said, not looking up. She was idly rolling the die between her palms, her gaze fixed on the screen.

Satisfied she was thoroughly distracted for the time being, Jeth turned and headed for the exit. His heart thudded against his rib cage, the beat quickening with his each step like a crescendo building toward the moment when he would deliver his news—a blow that would crush them all.