The Caverns of Mare Cetus (61 page)

   "Alexa," said Devon. "Please call her Alexa."

   "Well, just who the hell is Alexa then?"

   "She's head of MCIO," said Devon. "Under ARC."

   Renata folded her arms in front of her. "Which is?"

   "Mendrax Counterintelligence Operations. She hunts down women like me—and she kills them."

   Renata put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my God. I didn't…"

   "It's okay," said Devon. "I've known her since I was twelve. We're on the same side—against EPAC."

   Renata was still aghast. "She hunts down women and kills them? That's horrible! It's no wonder she threatened to cut out my eyes if I hurt you."

   "My God, you didn't take her seriously, did you?" Devon put her hands up in front of her. "I know she didn't mean that. She would never harm you. She was the one who helped me find you—why would she hurt you?"

   "She helped you find me?" asked Renata in surprise. "Why me? And why come this far? There aren't any other suitable women on Earth?"

   "No," said Devon. "There aren't."

   Renata eyed her with suspicion.

   "You have no idea how unique you are. There are only two women we know of who are capable of being my Sister. You're one of them."

   Chills immediately hit Renata. "And who's the other?"

   "She was my Sister…Angela," said Devon, looking down. "But she was brutally murdered about four months ago…Earth months. I tried to save her, but I couldn't."

   "I'm sorry that happened…"

   Devon looked up. There were tears in her eyes. "I never asked to be who I am. I'm a Mendrax, but I'm 5 Generation. I'm the pinnacle—with that comes a price. You're the perfect match for me. The only match. Without you, I can't survive."

   "But again I ask, why me?"

   "Because of our brain patterns. They're almost exactly opposite." She lowered her head again. "This is really a dreadful way to put this, but I need you for recharging."

   Renata's voice rose an octave. "I'm a battery?"

   "No. You're my Sister."

   "Then how come Richelle connected with me?"

   Edison had just come down the steps, a plate of Novian delicacies in one hand, a bottle of juice in the other.

   "Left-Handed Logicals like you are Sisters," said Devon. "Richelle sensed that in you, and because of her naiveté, she nailed you. It's instinctive. We want to thrive just as much as you do."

   "Renata," said Edison timidly. "We're waiting for you. We need…"

   "But I can only warn you," said Devon, "you can't provide for me and provide for her too. You can't do both of us without paying a terrible price. You have to promise me right now that you'll never let Richelle inside of you—ever! No matter what she tells you, no matter what she does."

   "Oh, my stars!" exclaimed Edison, the plate dropping from his hand. "Here. Here's your j-j-juice." He shoved the bottle of juice in Renata's hand, then tromped up the steps, his hands over his ears.

   "I promise I'll never let that happen," said Renata. She picked up some of the jerky-like staraloni meats, bean-shaped tillet nuts, and cubes of white Elyno cheese that had fallen on the ground and began stuffing them in her mouth, following them with sips of juice.

   "In return I can promise you this," said Devon. "I will never let anyone hurt you—I will kill for you if I have to. And I will never meddle in your life. If you accept Hunter's proposal, I won't get in the way."

   Renata shuddered. The killing—Devon meant that, didn't she? But how did she know Hunter had asked her to marry him? Had she overheard?

   "But if you still want to walk away from me now, I won't stop you." The look of devotion in Devon's eyes was like that of a young girl's toward her mother—absolute, indissoluble.

   Devon was breaking Renata's heart. "I don't like how all this went down," said Renata, "but I can tell you I will always be your Sister."

   Devon smiled, picked up the food, putting it back on the plate, then gave the plate to Renata. When they entered the ship, Renata began immediately running pre-flight diagnostics on the pilot's console. Devon, who had sat down in the copilot's seat, was looking on with awe. Renata glanced back at Hunter. He was wearing a gray medical helmet Trent must have jerry-rigged for him, making Hunter look like a football player. As he smiled at her, she smiled back, wondering if he would ever believe what had just transpired between her and Devon. She had just pledged her life to a young woman, and in some ways she still had no idea what that meant.

   When everyone had secured themselves in their seats, Renata hit the vertical lift thrusters and pulled the ship off the cavern floor. Then she rotated the ship in place using the horizontal thrusters, the wide passage giving her ample clearance to perform that maneuver. Once she had the ship's nose pointing down the passage, she punched the ship forward, preparing herself for another harrowing ride—but it wasn't. During the five-minute flight, Renata only clipped the walls and rock formations about a half dozen times. Had she cleared the passage of obstacles when she came barreling in the first time? Was she more prepared because she knew what to expect? Or was it actually just a new confidence Devon had given her?

   When Renata reached the hole at the top of the passage, she began pushing the ship through it using its vertical thrusters. Once out of the passage, she continued using the thrusters to climb as she extended the wings, canards, and vertical stabilizer. Then she ran a systems check to make certain the ship hadn't sustained additional damage. "Prepare for takeoff," she said when the PRA ran green and she had the ship pointed east.

   "What the hell?" exclaimed Hunter. "There's a ship."

   "Uh, oh," said Renata, her eyes looking up from her console and through the cockpit windshield. "It's a government ship. A Medium Attack Cruiser."

   Directly in front of them, about two kilometers away, was a huge orange and white military cruiser that was often dubbed the "Horned A" or "The Horn" because of its unusual "A-like" shape. The MAC had a dual fuselage that was linked together near the front of the vessel by the ship's Command Center, forming the outline of the "A" itself. There were two blunt-tipped intakes—the "horns"—just in front of and on each side of the Command Center crosspiece, and if one viewed the ship from above, it indeed looked like a rounded-top "A" with horns. The dual fuselage was additionally connected by three evenly spaced "tunnels" that looked like slightly upwardbowed rungs of a ladder. Six massive engines powered the ship, each fuselage section supporting three engines in tandem across the rear. What showcased the MAC's preeminence in the Novian military fleet was its enormous swept-back retractable wings that extended out from the rear half of each fuselage section, its two large orange canards that jutted out on each side of the "A" slightly behind the Command Center, and its two tall vertical stabilizers that towered over the rear fuselage sections. In atmospheric maneuverability tests, the MAC's ungainly appearance was no shortcoming as its wingcanard-stabilizer design allowed it to match or surpass the performance of many of Novia's jet-shaped spacecraft.

   If the MAC was equipped for standard military operations, Renata knew it had quite an arsenal of weapons—everything from kinetic energy missiles and cannons to particle pulse guns and dreaded Wave Front Annihilators. Though the MAC wasn't the largest of the government's attack spacecraft, it was the mainstay of its fleet— Novia had seventeen of them, most of them reluctantly built when Novia came within a hair of going to war with Earth many years earlier. The ship could carry several hundred troops, but Renata felt it would likely have less than one hundred onboard, which was typical for Novian military exercises. The ship was directly facing the Jumper now, hovering in place at about the same altitude as the Jumper.

   Suddenly Renata's com screen sprang to life, the image of a woman's upper body forming on the screen. Her youthful face was dotted with freckles; her feathered, short auburn hair had brilliant golden-blond highlights streaked through it. She was wearing a gray uniform with Novian military insignias. "Canopus One! This is Captain Erica Gray of the Novian Cruiser NV47E—the Harpy Eagle. Under order of the Novian Government, you are requested to immediately set your ship down and prepare to be boarded. You are in direct violation of Novian Code 1013A."

   "What's 1013A?" asked Trent who was sitting behind Devon.

   Renata began studying the ship through one of the Jumper's camera viewscreens as she began a slow, wide circle, the nose of the Canopus slightly angled toward the ground.

   After a moment, the captain repeated her broadcast.

   "What's a MAC doing here?" asked Richelle, seeming flustered. "That's a death machine. What have we done wrong? We haven't done anything wrong."

   "This is Renata Stone, pilot of the Canopus," said Renata into the ship's com. "What is Code 1013A? And how are we in violation of it?"

   Captain Gray looked left and had a short conversation with someone off-screen. Then she turned forward. "We know Devon Victoria Snow is onboard your ship. We're here to take her into custody."

   "Snow?" asked Renata. "N-n-no. She's dead. She died in the caves."

   "We've already scanned your ship," said Gray, appearing perturbed. "Don't play games with me."

   Devon jumped into the transmission. "Yes. I'm here. Couldn't fool you, could we? So, why are you looking for me?"

   Renata sighed loudly. "Devon. Why did you…"

   "You're presence on Mare and in the Tau System is in violation of Novian Code 1013A," said Gray.

   "What is Code 1013A?" Renata flipped three black switches on her control panel. Immediately a low hum could be heard at the back of the ship, coming from the engines. Her fingers began racing over her keyboard as a series of flight paths and probability statistics popped up on the screen to her left.

   Hunter nudged her shoulder. "You have the ion engines pumping up. Why?"

   Gray again talked to someone off-screen, then turned forward. "Code 1013A also prohibits the harboring of—or association with a Mendrax in the Tau Ceti System. You are in direct violation of that code."

   At once an olive-skinned man with large brown eyes stepped into view and stood beside Gray, towering over her. He had a short, thick beard hiding a prominent chin. "Renata Stone. I am Commander Yosef Marcian. You must give up Devon Snow. Now. There can be no negotiations. We don't desire to take her by force, but we will if we have to."

   "You?" asked Devon, raising her voice to get it over the rising hum of the engines. "You are going to take me? Take me where?"

   "You will be returned to Earth," said Marcian. "In the interim, you will be placed under house arrest on Novia. No harm will come to you or the others in your party. You have my word."

   Devon put her face right up to her com screen. "Well, let me give you my word. You're not taking me anywhere I don't want to go."

   "You're risking this entire operation by communicating with her," said Gray, glancing at Marcian. "Let me handle this."

   "Why don't you handle this—Captain," said Devon. "Go fuck yourself!"

   "Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Renata. "Don't taunt them!"

   "Set us down!" shouted Devon. The hum of the Jumper's engines had become quite loud, the ship vibrating heavily. "Let them take me! If you're going to be my Sister, then it's time for you to trust me! Completely!"

   "Rene!" cried Trent. "You can't pump much more! You're going to cause an overload!"

   "She's pumping ions!" shouted Gray, anxiety flooding her face. "They're going to run! Scan them! Lock on now!"

   Commander Marcian hurried out of the view screen.

   "No!" shouted Renata as rows of red lights began flashing along the top of her pilot's console. "I won't let them take you because
I am
your Sister!" She punched the engines full throttle. The ship shot forward, throwing everyone back in their seats.

   Cries of panic spilled from the group as the Jumper began rocketing toward the MAC with an astonishing acceleration. Piercing alarms from the MAC came through the Jumper's com screens; Gray was shouting orders in a frenzy.

   Renata was pressed back in her seat under tremendous G-force, the cruiser all she could see now in the cockpit windshield. Praying she wouldn't send the Jumper spiraling out of control, she hit all the vertical thrusters max force and punched the Canopus down with not a second to spare. The Jumper, slightly nose down, skimmed beneath the gigantic cruiser, its vertical stabilizer almost clipping a massive docking boom that projected down from the cruiser's lower fuselage plates. In an instant they were clear of the MAC. She pulled up a view from the Jumper's rear cameras—the cruiser, still hovering in place, was getting smaller by the second. The tremendous hum from the Jumper's engines began to diminish as it continued to accelerate.

   Renata looked at her com screen. "Don't think you can outrun us…" shouted Gray. Renata cut the transmission. She pulled the ship hard to the right and started a dive toward the surface, then leveled out.

   Trent began analyzing a screen that he had called out of the seatback in front of him. "They've started to move!"

   Renata rolled the Jumper left, then pulled it into a steep climb.

   "Here she comes," said Trent, his eyes fixed on his screen.

   Renata banked to the right as she continued to climb. Then she leveled out and headed toward the Kallana Alba Mountains, a long, rugged, snow-covered chain with high peaks and deep valleys. She banked wide left toward some of the loftiest peaks. Everyone cried out as Renata rolled the Jumper left, then pulled right, missing some craggy mountaintops by the slimmest of margins. Seeing an opening in the mountains, she put the Jumper into a steep dive, then began running along a long valley floor.

   As Renata's eyes danced between her console screens, she pulled hard right as she climbed out of the valley. Then she banked left, hoping to get the cruiser to follow her between some high mountain peaks, but the cruiser remained above them and out of harms way.