“He made me swear that I wouldn’t tell you. Because if I did… God, he knows you so well, Karr, it’s like Cadeknewyou wouldn’t stand for it. He made me swear I wouldn’t let you screw with the job. That I’d do what it took to stop you if you tried.”
“Bastard,”Karr hissed. The hideous word made Sonara’s insides churn. “And you chose to side with him? Like all the rest of them?”
Jameson nodded. “Of course I sided with him. He’s my captain. He gave me a home onboard this ship. A place to lay my head.”
“Then you’ll have to shoot me. Right now. If you want to stop me, Jameson… go ahead. Do it.”
The soldier released a shaking breath and dropped her gun, tears in her eyes. “I sided with himthen,Karr. I sided with him because he promised it would make a better life for you. For all of us.” Tears fell from her eyes. “But you know I’m not the kind to keep a bloody promise.I’m done. The second I saw you again, I knew I was done.”
Karr whooshed out a breath, and then he was gripping her tight by the shoulder. She returned the gesture, and suddenly her aura waspleasant, like freshly dyed silk drying on the wind.
The locked door began to buckle, as if they were hitting it with an axe.
“They’re going to break through, Jameson,” Karr said. “And you’ll have to explain why you didn’t take their side. We’re taking the escape pod, getting out of here after we shut this mission down. Come with us.”
Jameson shook her head. “I can’t. I already made mistakes, Karr. I knew it was wrong, but I stood down there beside your brother and let him do… the horrors that he and Rohtt and Geisinger planned. I won’t live the rest of my life knowing I had a hand in it.”
“So what, then?” Karr asked.
She stepped aside, motioning for them to move past her. “Go. I’ll do my best to slow them.”
“Jameson—”
“Go,kid. You’ve always been a thorn in my side. Defiant and self-glorifying, and so damn stubborn I don’t know how anyone could stand against it.” She pressed a gloved hand to his cheek. “Go. I’ll see you when the stars go dim.”
“Please,” Karr said.
She nudged him away. “You can stop him. I know you can, kid.”
Her words were final. Sonara sensed it on the woman’s aura, as much as she saw it in Karr’s slumping shoulders as he backed away.Then he was running past her, stopping before the storage-bay door as he tried to bypass the locks. Karr cursed. But then another fumble of his fingers, and the door to the storage bay hissed open.
Darkness yawned from within. A massive room, unlit.
“Inside,” Karr commanded. Sonara and Azariah dragged Markam’s limp body along, heaving against his unconscious weight.
But Karr paused on the threshold, looking back at Jameson.
“Please,” he said.
She just smiled again. “Good luck.”
The door beside Jameson blasted open with a cloud of smoke.
Cade stepped through, Rohtt beside him, along with a flood of guards.
“Karr!”Cade shouted, as Karr stepped inside and slammed the button just inside the storage bay. The door began to slide shut, sealing them inside.
Just before it closed, Sonara saw Jameson root herself in the center of the hall, her rifle held in her arms as if it was the last time she’d ever hold it.
“I can’t let you go, Captain.” She pointed her gun at him, and held it steady.
Cade lifted his own rifle. They heard a gunshot, just as the door slid closed like the lid of a casket.
Karr dropped to his knees, not knowing in whose chest the bullet had landed.
Just as Sonara turned, staring out at the dark storage bay, her eyes wide.
Because he was here.
