CHAPTER 17

“I have information for you, Sirantha.”

I’m in the exercise room, running in place. That seems like an unhappy reflection of our current situation, but I need the activity. March has too much on his plate to assist with the problems I’ve shouldered. Somehow I wound up in charge of enforcing discipline, and given my nature, I find it hilarious. Who am I to chastise some poor bastard for his failures? Yet we each have to bear our share of the weight or this unsteady structure collapses.

“What’s up, Vel?” I don’t stop running.

He comes alongside the machine, unfazed. “You wanted me to find out what happened to Evelyn Dasad, whether her body was ever recovered by salvage teams.”

Oh. My steps slow. It seems disrespectful to listen to the tale of a woman’s death while sweat runs down my back. I let myself cool down, then I step off the belt and head for the bench along the wall. This is a small workout room; it offers little in the way of amenities, but Farwan never expected to house so many people here at one time.

“Ready,” I say.

“It is something neither of us expected,” he tells me.

“She made it.” Not a surety so much as a hope.

“She slipped past the Morgut and launched herself in a pod, wherein she set the life support to minimal so as to appear flotsam from the pitched battle that occurred prior to boarding. She drifted until they abandoned her ship and jumped. At that point, she reengaged life support and turned on her emergency beacon. A freighter rescued her when she had but four minutes of oxygen left.”

All too clearly, I can imagine her terror, trapped in a tiny pod and barely able to breathe lest she use up too much air, wondering how long it will take for her enemies to clear off. Those hours, while waiting but not daring to hope for rescue, must have been interminable. Like me, she’s a sole survivor.

“Where is she now?”

With a few taps, Vel checks the records. “Recovering from her ordeal on what used to be Perlas Station. It was the easiest jump for the freighter in that sector.”

Then the fight took place in the Furlong galaxy, where you can also find Matins IV. That’s where my love, Kai, and all my illusions about Farwan died. So Evelyn and I both survived a catastrophe in the same galaxy—the only ones who did—and we were both transported to Perlas for recovery. I only hope she didn’t wind up in a cell, like me.

That’s just too much of a coincidence, and I don’t tend to see mystic cosmic connections, unlike my mentor on Gehenna, Adele. Now I can hear her whispering in my ear that this means something, that this is Mary’s hand on both of our lifelines, entwining their threads. Maybe I’m not ready to make that leap, but a few more questions won’t hurt.

“Who runs it now?”

“Nominally, the Conglomerate, but it is full of ex-Farwan employees,” he says.

I don’t know why that makes my flesh crawl, but it does, in a big way. Thankfully, it doesn’t take my rational brain as long as it once did to make a connection between my primitive dread and the reason behind it.

“If the Syndicate sees the Morgut as a way to provoke a war, wouldn’t Farwan loyalists feel much the same?”

Vel inclines his head. “At this time, all factions feel that unrest may strengthen their claim that their organization is best suited to govern during such difficult times.”

“So Farwan could eventually step up and say, ‘Yes, so we killed a few representatives . . . but look at the mess you’re in without us.’ And people would welcome them back with open arms.”

“It is a regrettable situation, but plausible.”

I shake my head fiercely. “No, that can’t happen. They can’t have Evelyn Dasad, after all she’s been through.”

Farwan might have some idea of what she was working on—and now they’ve got her under the pretext of sanctuary. Mary, are they subjecting her to dream therapy? No, they wouldn’t do that if she has valuable information or expertise locked in her brain. They don’t want to damage her.

“You seem to have a personal stake in this,” Vel observes.

I acknowledge that with a quirk of my lips, pointless to deny it. “If she knows anything of value, we can’t afford to let anyone else have it.” Since the former bounty hunter regards me with a tilt of his head, his claws tapping a skeptical cadence, I add, “If nothing else, her work with nanites will prove a big help to Doc. He’s researching two different problems that could be solved via their application.”

“You do not need to convince me, Sirantha.”

That’s when I realize it; he knows my plan before I do. We’re going after her. Maybe she knows something that can help us, but if not, well, I simply feel a kinship to her because of what we’ve both suffered. If she’s not a prisoner, then security shouldn’t be an issue. We’ll slip in and get her out before anyone knows why we’re there. I doubt they’ve moved on her yet. They’ll want to build a sense of trust first.

Since she was a former Farwan employee, they think she’ll jump at the chance to come back. They don’t realize Science Corps is independent now. She doesn’t have to take orders on how she goes about her research anymore, and that kind of autonomy is fiercely addictive. Mary knows, I wouldn’t want anyone telling me where to jump.

“Which ship do you wish to commandeer?”

I consider that. March can’t be spared from his work here. He’s the only one who sees the big picture, who knows what we need to do. He’s been studying old vids until his eyes look bruised from lack of sleep, assembling the Armada structure piece by piece. In addition, he needs to be here to come to terms with the smugglers, and more ships arrive every day. A certain amount of chaos is conducive to doing business; utter anarchy like we have now really eats into the profit margins.

“It’ll have to be Hon’s . . . and his crew,” I say with some regret. “They’ve been training longest. The others have work to do here. But this will be a good dry run, best if we see how far we can trust him in a less-than-dire situation. A smaller ship will draw less comment on Perlas, too. The Triumph is far too memorable.”

“Prudent,” he commends. “But I do not envy you the task of explaining this mission to the commander.”

I wince at his intentional emphasis on rank. “Can I rely on you to talk to Hon if I do the same with March?”

His faceted eyes meet mine in a cant of his head that once looked peculiar. “Sirantha, you may rely on me for anything.”

Warmth surges through me as I push to my feet. “I’ll let you take care of that. I want to leave as soon as Hon can ready the ship. Wish me luck.”

“You will not need it,” he says gravely.

Before going to see March, I stop at the comm array. Something about Evelyn’s message has been bothering me. Surge isn’t anywhere to be seen, but I remember how to queue up the vid. I watch it twice more before I put my finger on it. Because quality was poor, and there was interference, I didn’t notice the first time. But in the background . . . I spot what could be a Morgut. Watching her. I see only its reflection in her wardrober, blurred and damaged. But unquestionably, something is there.

“Constance, can you clean this up?” I touch the screen where I want her to work on the image.

“Will make the attempt, Sirantha Jax. No guarantee of success.”

A few minutes later, I have the proof I need. It’s a monster in her quarters. Why was it just watching her record? That makes no sense; I’ve never known them not to attack. To them, we are meat, nothing more. But Evelyn had stayed its hand, so to speak. Does that mean she’s the reason they have been targeting Science Corps vessels, specifically looking for her? What the hell does she know?

But she was cleverer than they gave her credit for—somehow she slipped away from them, then hid in a seemingly dead pod. We have got to get this woman before anyone else does. I call March to the comm room and reveal my findings, then explain why I think we need to make a rescue run.

He puts up a brief fight. “This is no different than my wanting to go look for my nephew.”

At that I shake my head. “He’s a child, and we don’t know where he is. That’s a waste of time and effort better served elsewhere right now. It’s wholly personal. Evelyn Dasad is a resource we can’t afford to have fall into other hands. Do you want Farwan perfecting that technology to use against us? The Morgut would be even worse. Imagine fighting them, improved by rapid nanite healing.”

“Checkmate. You talk like a commander, Jax. Want my job?”

“Not for the all the choclaste in this sector,” I reply with genuine horror. “I don’t juggle nearly as well as you. Plus, I can’t make the scary face.”

He pulls his hard face into austere lines, his eyes like chips of amber. “This one?”

“Yep.” I don’t have to fake a shiver. “That’s it. Keeps everyone in line.”

“Everyone except you,” he mutters. “You realize we’re twenty-one days from a beacon, which is why we set up here in the first place. It’s going to take you a long time to get there and—”

“Why?” I cut in.

March raises a brow. “Why what?”

“Why does it have to take so long to jump?”

By his expression, he thinks I’ve lost my mind. “Because it doesn’t work that way. The phase drive only works in certain zones, you know that, and—”

“The first thing we learn is that there is no distance in grimspace, as relates to coordinates in straight space,” I counter.

So why can’t the phase drive power up anywhere and tap a beacon?

“Evelyn Dasad said in her message: ‘The Morgut use the beacons with more precision than we can muster. This is not a known jump zone.’ Constance, what information can you find on Morgut phase-drive technology?”

“Searching, Sirantha Jax.” Several moments pass, then she says, “I can find nothing regarding recovered Morgut vessels. I can, however, offer information on their physiology. After the attack on Emry, the Conglomerate cleanup crew dissected several corpses in an attempt to devise more effective weapons to combat them.”

That strikes a chord. “Emry was an emergency station before.” I push to my feet, pacing as I think. March watches me, seeing I’m onto something, but he isn’t sure where I’m going with this. Neither am I. “That means they probably did a lot of monitoring of signals for distress calls. Constance, were there feeds from outside the station?”

A brief pause, and then: “Affirmative, Sirantha Jax.”

“Is there anything prior to the attack?”

She scans. Then a grainy image comes up on the comm screen. Before our eyes, the Morgut ship just appears at the edge of sensor range. No human vessel could do that—and no wonder they weren’t detected hauling straight space before they hit Emry.

I meet March’s worried gaze. He’s come to stand beside me, face taut with the implications. “This means they can jump from anywhere, which is why they have no trouble hitting out-of-the-way outposts.”

He looks horrified. “Places we think are safe because they aren’t near a known jump zone. That means they can strike anywhere.”

“We have to learn how, too. Now. Yesterday would be better.” I’m brooking no argument, already on the move. I hear him protesting behind me, talking about safety, but no place in the galaxy is safe, not anymore.

“Dina!” I shout, tearing through the station at a dead run. “Dina!”

“What?” the mechanic demands in irritation, coming out of the lounge.

“We have work to do.”