Shade drank, too, only his mug was filled with some kind of fruit juice Raz had come up with. My scaredy-cat boyfriend had tried to get me to taste it first, but I’d refused. Shade swallowed with difficulty then set the mug down, sliding it away from him.
I tried not to smile. I’d told him that getting a little extra vitamin C wouldn’t be worth ingesting whatever that fruit drink was.
He cleared his throat. “Even if Daniel Ahern’s contact shuts off the plasma shield alarm on Platform 7, most people can’t just fly onto Starbase 12, hop out, and walk around.” Shade grimaced, which had less to do with the dubious fruit juice than with the fact we all agreed that Daniel Ahern’s “help” was useless. In the end, we’d decided to avoid his upcoming window of opportunity altogether and make our move two days after it. If his plan had leaked, we’d avoid a trap and hopefully lull Dark Watch security into thinking we weren’t coming. If it hadn’t leaked… Well, ours was a better plan anyway.
“We have the lieutenant,” Shade continued. “Mwende has high security clearance and is known, at least tosomepeople, as a close associate of Bridgebane’s.” Shade still seemed a bit salty about never having met Sanaa while he worked for my uncle. He wouldn’t admit it, but I thought it was because he actually liked Bridgebane well enough. Or if not liked, then at least respected. With recent revelations, we were all reluctantly moving in that direction. My uncle had truly impressed me lately, even if I hated some of his actions.
“Merrick’s cruiser is the type they use for Dark Watch fighters. It could easily be the lieutenant’s, or one she’s commandeered for herself. She flies in with me, Jax, Merrick, and Tess—all wanted criminals that she’s arrested.”
That was the other thing Shade was irritated about: me on this mission. But if Sanaa had to stay behind on the starbase to maintain her cover, they’d need my directional capabilities on a DWALSH to get us out of there quickly.
Gabe’s chair creaked under his weight as he leaned back in it. His mouth flattened. I had a second irritated man on board, but I refused to feel guilty. There was a reason he was being left behind again, even though I knew he wanted in on the action.
“We can only do this,” I said, “because now we have Gabe to fly theEndeavor. There’s no way a lot of people didn’t have eyes on her outside of Ewelock. Changing the ID stickers and hoping for the best isn’t going to cut it anymore. We can’t have her anywhere near this, or it’ll tip someone off. We can’t even have her in the Sambian System. It’s too risky.” We were taking enough risks here already. I wasnotadding to them. “Gabe takes Fiona and theEndeavorto Earth, which is the last place anyone will look for us. None of us haveanyties there. It’s not a rebel bastion. It’s barely populated. Assuming we successfully get off Starbase 12, either in Merrick’s cruiser or in something else, we’ll meet you in New Denver. That’s where we’ll regroup, hopefully with Shiori and Reena Ahern with us.”
We’d all memorized the coordinates. I even made Fiona do it, and Shade had walked her through the navigation system. He’d left notes—numbered and color-coded. Fiona was going to have to pull her weight on the bridge this time. We needed all of Sanaa’s and Merrick’s smarts, aplomb, sangfroid, and muscle on the starbase, we needed me in case we ended up in unexpected places on the spacedock without Sanaa, and there was no way I was telling Shade to stay back while I took Gabe with me. I doubted Shade would listen, and theEndeavorneeded a pilot. Possibly even a future captain.
Gabe simply nodded when I looked at him. He knew his role. Get Fiona to safety. Use theEndeavorwisely if we never showed up in New Denver. He hadn’t liked hearing me say that, but we all knew there was a chance we wouldn’t make it to Earth. And if we didn’t, then Gabe would have the ship he’d always dreamed of. I wanted him to have something good after all those years in prison.
“Once we’re in,” Shade continued, “the lieutenant will take us to the prison levels and an interrogation room. Because she doubts our cooperation, she’ll bring in known associates of ours—Shiori Takashi and Reena Ahern—toencourageus to talk about rebel operations.”
He looked at Sanaa in warning, who simply lifted an eyebrow. We all knew she would do what it took to make this look real, but it had better not involve hurting Shiori.
“But she receives fresh intel on a private channel.” Shade’s tone lowered, turning confidential. “Rebels plotting to break into Starbase 12? Coming for her prized prisoners? The lieutenant immediately decides to move us all to a different,secretlocation where she’ll continue her interrogation while Starbase 12 prepares for a break-in that’ll never happen.”
“It’ll have been a break-out,” Merrick said, getting up to clear the dishes from the table. He started loading things into the machine with a clatter. “And we’ll be in New Denver before Sanaa breaks the bad news to her boss, the general. We gave her the slip. Got away.” He smirked. “We were just too smart for her. Nearly killed her.”
Sanaa snorted.
“We’ll be in New Denver without any dishes after you’re through with them,” I teased Merrick, getting up to help him slide the plates and mugs more carefully into the dishwasher. He could toss around the forks and knives. They were hard plastic.
Merrick frowned, as if he hadn’t realized he was being so forceful. Super-soldier strength probably made it difficult to be delicate. Maybe that was one of the reasons why Sanaa kept looking at Merrick with undisguised interest. She wanted to get a little wild with someone she couldn’t accidentally break; that much was obvious. Also, Merrick was awesome.
Once the kitchen was tidied up, I dropped my hands to my hips and looked around, but no excuse to put off leaving came to me. At least, not a plausible one.
“I guess we’re ready.” I’d been avoiding thinking about our next destination. I had a feeling this location Uncle Nate was sending me to wouldn’t be dangerous—except to my emotions. I already felt all squeezed up and twisted around inside just thinking about hissecret-secretplace that he hadn’t really wanted me to see, and whatever information or help he might have stashed there.
Jax moved toward the doorway. “I’ll power up theEndeavor.”
“Thanks, partner.” My vacant murmur made him toss me a quizzical look over his shoulder. For Jax, I pulled it together. “Check the ventilation in Fiona’s lab from your console, will you? It was glitching on mine this morning.” Jax nodded as he left the kitchen, but I stayed rooted to the spot like one of Fiona’s plants, finding it impossible to put one foot in front of the other.
We’d said goodbye to Frank and his crew earlier. To Raz also. I’d written to Mareeka and Surral. All was well at the orphanage. Coltin had a new interest. He’d decided he needed muscles and was “working out.” I wasn’t sure what that meant for a severely asthmatic eleven-year-old, but I knew Surral would keep an eye on him.
Exhaling slowly, I slid my hands down my thighs, rubbing jumpy fingers over the suede-like grain of the dark-gray fabric. I’d chosen my favorite pants today for moral support. I’d worn them to the beach with Shade on Albion 5. Discounting that terrifying run-in with a flerver at the edge of the water, nothing bad had ever happened to me in them.
“Let’s go, then.” Having to mentally propel myself into motion, I headed for the bridge, scooping up Bonk first to have him with us during the jump. The rest of the crew followed. Sanaa had finally convinced me to go into the info-drop location alone with her. I didn’t like it. Shade didn’t like it. Jax didn’t like it, but hell… The way she’d looked at me, I just knew I should. It made me even more skittish about this whole thing.
“Secret-secret,” I muttered into the top of Bonk’s head. He purred.
The others wouldn’t be far—just on the rooftop docking platform of the building we were going to on Galligar Prime. I’d never been to the Sector 10 planet before, but it was supposed to be one of the nicest rocks around.
Shortly after, I stood at my console and flew us out of the hangar. TheEndeavorrose until Demeter Terre slid out of our clear panel and two of the DT moons were just reddish-brown dots in our periphery. I turned us toward open space and then nodded at Jax to engage the hyperdrive engine.
The long jump used a hefty portion of theEndeavor’s power and left my stomach in even tighter knots than before. I nearly dry heaved when we finally slowed and only managed to control my unruly insides by putting all my focus into steering us through the busy spheres over the capital city. The crowded sky distracted me from the bile rising in my throat.
We eventually landed on the rooftop corresponding to Sanaa’s coordinates. It was empty, a private platform.
I opened the ship and exited, shading my eyes and willing my stomach to settle. It looked like high noon on Galligar Prime, her sun blazing down. Sanaa followed me onto the platform.
