CHAPTER 7

The station has been rehabbed from top to bottom.

As we pass through the corridors, the last trace of my unease uncoils. Though it’s not a rational fear, and I know Emry has been well guarded by Surge’s family and the skeleton crew provided by the Conglomerate, I can’t help but remember echoes of horror. Surge didn’t see the worst of it, so it’s probably not as bad for him. The former merc ran with March once; he’s a sturdy man with a rough face and a shock of curly hair.

He greets us in the mess hall, a large open space filled with tables and chairs. Even the gunmetal walls have been enlivened with swaths of color, Kora’s doing no doubt. She’s taken liberties that Farwan would never have permitted. The result is cheerful and chaotic, much like the Rodeisian female herself. She bares her teeth at us in a smile, but her incisors are blunt. For all their size, her people are herbivores, slow and peaceful, which makes the grievous offense Ambassador Fitzwilliam gave their empress so many years ago that much more inexcusable. You just don’t visit a larger-than-human race and open with a fat joke, then compound it with comparisons to Old Terran livestock. As I understand it, they objected more to his denigrating their apparent intelligence.

Kora bears her daughter, Sirina, in one arm. The baby has grown since we saw her last. Now she can propel herself around; she’s a fat little cherub with tufts of fur on her head. We exchange hugs as if this were a family reunion—and as Dina and I stand as godmothers to her child, perhaps it is. When I lean over to accept a one-armed embrace from Kora, Sirina snags her fingers in my hair and pulls, hard.

“Siri!” her mother chides, disentangling.

Ah. The unexpectedness of it blindsides me. I’m not prepared for the pain, and it tears through my chest like a metal hook. The last baby I had charge of didn’t end up so well. Quite simply, Sirina is a vivid reminder of my failure with Baby-Z, the lizardling who died on Hon’s Kingdom. March puts his hand on my shoulder, knowing without being told, and I take some comfort in that. I school my features to something bland and quiet. Conversation washes over me, blurring into one vague noise, until:

“We should take the lift up,” Surge says. “There are things you need to hear.”

Messages, most likely. And hearing them spoken will offer more impact and insight than if he tries to sum things up for us.

March nods, answering for all of us. Once, that irked me to no end. Now I simply appreciate that he is willing. “Lead on.”

We follow Surge en masse to the second deck, where he leads us to the communications center. Display screens line the walls, leaving one big console in the middle as the control. It’s a tight fit, standing room only, but nobody offers to step out. We’re all in this; we all have a stake.

“Play back relay 111647, second shift,” Surge tells the computer.

“Accessing.”

An electronic crackle slides from the terminal, then a grainy image pops up. Through the static and interference I can’t make out much more than a man’s face. It looks as though he’s injured, but the image is of such poor quality I can’t be sure.

“This is the Perseus Queen, a cargo vessel out of New Terra, en route to Venice Minor. Our shields cannot hold. We are under attack and request immediate assistance. We have no weapons on board. I repeat—”

The message ends there.

“By the time New Terra got this, they were toast,” Dina says into the silence.

Nobody looks at me, but I know what they’re thinking. Farwan’s fall left a huge gap out here. The Conglomerate doesn’t have the ships or resources to patrol and respond to cries for help as efficiently as Farwan did. The loss of this ship—and countless others—can be tracked back to me. I made the choice to take them down because they went too far in murdering a whole shipful of ambassadors, diplomats, and council representatives. My lover also died in that Farwan-engineered crash, and I couldn’t let the injustice stand, but like all major decisions, this one has had far-reaching effects.

“Do we know who did this?” Doc asks.

“Any one of the usual suspects,” Surge answers. “Pirates, raiders, Syndicate, Farwan loyalists.”

“But not the Morgut,” Vel says. “They do not blow vessels up. They board them.”

A slow shudder works its way through me. I’m not sure I can stand to see the rest of this grim collection, but Surge has more for us. In the time we’ve been gone, he’s accrued an impressive collection of bounced misery and woe.

Another plea fills the screen. The picture is slightly better this time, so I can see the young woman with the strong jaw and short, fair hair. She isn’t pretty. Most people would call her masculine. Her eyes are dark, her mouth compressed into a thin white line. She gazes at us, probably through the veil of death, determined to deliver her message.

“The captain is gone,” she says quietly. “I am the only officer left. This is Second Lieutenant Evelyn Dasad of the Science Corps, sending this as a record. At 2200 hours, a Morgut vessel came through.” The steadiness of her voice drives the horror home, more than if she wept or sobbed. There is acceptance in the face of Evelyn Dasad, too deep for grief. “They use the beacons with more precision than we can muster. This is not a known jump zone. A brief battle ensued, and our vessel was rendered dead in space. The magnetic tow cables hit our hull at 2245. It is 2304, and they are coming for me. Mary have mercy on us all.”

The message shows Evelyn reaching for her weapon, then she turns off the feed. I can hardly breathe for the ache in my throat. I fight the need to weep, which seems absurd, given that I don’t know this woman. So many personal losses, and I rarely cried, but this one is too much.

“Do you think she killed herself?” Rose asks in a small voice.

Doc’s lover has rarely been off Lachion. She has never seen the Morgut. Her terrors had been limited to what one planet offered. I don’t know if he’s done her a kindness in giving her the universe, but I do know she wouldn’t have let him fly away without her again. I understand that completely.

Kora juggles Sirina against her shoulder. Her broad face is impassive. Doubtless she has heard these messages many times, and she’s already felt everything she can feel. There comes a point when numbness is all you have left.

“No,” Vel answers. “I believe she went down fighting. It has been my experience that some human females do not give up, even when the situation seems beyond desperate and devoid of all hope.”

March flicks a look at me, smiling. “Well said.”

I turn to Vel. “See what you can find out about Evelyn and her ship. Official records, unofficial, whatever you can dig up.”

“As soon as we are finished here,” he answers.

I muster my strength, then address Surge. “Is there more?”

There is. So many cries for help went unanswered. Sometimes they tell us it’s a Syndicate hijacking before the screaming starts. In other bounces, we hear nothing but cries of anguish and despair. Final tally: twenty ships in this sector alone.

By the time we’re done, I feel battered. Nobody else looks any better than I feel. Rose cries silently against Doc’s shoulder when Surge powers the terminal down. The room feels close and warm, full of salty sweat and tears, and silence burns like a brand.

Nobody has the answers. I don’t even know where to begin. The space between tier worlds is impossibly vast. We need well-armored ships with powerful weapons and trained crews to man them. We need battle-seasoned pilots and combat jumpers who know how to handle themselves.

There haven’t been any combat jumpers since the Axis Wars.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so sorry that I didn’t just go down easy like Farwan wanted. Whatever their flaws—and they were legion—they did keep the star lanes safe. Now it’s a giant free-for-all, and the body count just keeps piling up.

“Things are seriously fragged up,” Hit says at last.

That prods a smile out of me.

“They sure are,” Surge says. “And it’s breaking my heart to listen to this shit without being able to do anything about it.”

March would be pacing if there were room. Since there isn’t, he stirs beside me restively. “We need a militia to replace Farwan’s patrols, one with access to the emergency sats, so we could relay distress calls, allowing the closest vessel to respond.”

I nod. “That’s how Farwan did it. And they destroyed all enemy vessels, even if they couldn’t save the beleaguered ship. They were big on object lessons.”

“They’d chase you to the ends of the earth,” Dina mutters.

I get the feeling she has some personal experience with that.

“An undertaking like that would require extensive capital,” Vel points out.

Surge glances at him. “You got a spare fortune lying around?”

The former bounty hunter inclines his head. “As it happens, I do. But even so, it would not be sufficient for this cause.”

“No kidding.” Argus speaks for the first time. “Ships cost a sweet bundle, and that’s just one good one. For a whole armada . . .” He trails off like he can’t, imagine the outlay.

To be honest, I can’t, either.

Before Vel can answer, Surge taps the comm array and glances over at me. “Jax, you just got a message from Chancellor Tarn. They forwarded it from the ship.”

I shrug. “I don’t care. I don’t work for him anymore.”

Hit says, “Not as an ambassador. But . . . you might want to keep your options open.”

I really don’t like the way they’re looking at me. This is how it begins. “Oh?”

“Maybe we should take a look.” March glances at Surge. “Can you play it for us?”

“Got it queued up already.”

“What the hell,” I say. “Let’s see what he wants.”