I’d just left a hole in Starbase 12.
The vacuum of space was claiming goons, alive and dead.
Would tomorrow dawn better for it?I hope so.
I lifted my chin and looked back at Shade and Sanaa. “With any luck, the Dark is sucking out the Galactic Overseer right now and turning him into a chunk of frozen space trash.”
Because he was garbage. I was done letting that man have power over me. I refused to take the blame any longer for the things he’d pinned on me, or the things I’d pinned on myself because of him. I didn’t make that psychopath hunt down A1 blood, or start the GIN Project, or obliterate the Fold. I didn’t help him find a way to destroy life as we know it, or maybe get a second chance to destroy Mom’s.
I did, however, try to shoot him, strangle him, and hopefully end his life with that Keeler blast. And I was fine with that.
Epilogue
SHADE
I stood behind Tess, holding her around the waist and watching the rocky peaks get closer through the clear panel as Jax steered the Overseer’s escape cruiser toward New Denver. She’d finally stopped shaking. The long jump to Earth without sitting down or strapping in was an experience neither of us wanted to repeat. We’d both collapsed in the antechamber, our hands clasped. When we came out of warp speed, we picked ourselves up and joined the others, finding Mwende still wrapped protectively around Merrick.
Now, Merrick lay on the floor of the bridge, Shiori, Mwende, and Ahern each applying pressure to a different gunshot wound. Despite three bullet holes, he was holding up okay. He kept saying he’d been through worse, but when Mwende finally rolled her eyes, said, “Fine, then,” and got up to leave him, he groaned low and long, getting her to come back to him with a worried frown.
“It’s a shame we can’t stay.” I breathed against the back of Tess’s head, soaking in her scent, her solidness,her. She was still with me. Terror had a new face for me—Tess in a battle for her life without me. It would never happen again, no matter what she wanted or thought was best.
“Hmm?” She sounded tired. The adrenaline drop was hard on everyone.
“Now that we’re here, I kind of want to explore Earth.” These mountains looked like they held secrets. We’d passed lakes the size of oceans. There was so muchnothing, but instead of feeling lonely and intimidating, it burst with potential. A clean slate. New Denver was tiny, hardly a speck on the horizon. Staying and helping to build it up held sudden appeal. Maybe it was the engineer in me. Or maybe it was just the man who wanted to make something.
“If the Overseer survived my hole in his box, I give him ten minutes to swear his head off, kill some people out of rage, and then track this ship to wherever we are.” Tess leaned against me. “The second we touch down next to theEndeavor, we transfer everyone onto her, and get the hell out of here.”
She sighed, reluctance in the little gust of air she let out as she watched the landscape slide by. Did she like these purple-hued peaks as much as I did? There was magic in the sunset colors. A sky on fire.
I gripped her a little tighter. “We’ll come back.”
“We’ll come back.” Tess’s parroted answer seemed oddly robotic. I turned her toward me, worry worming into my chest at her glazed-over expression. I knew what happened in the control room. The injection. Was it doing something to her already?
“Careful,” Mwende said softly from the floor next to Merrick. “She’s very susceptible to suggestion.”
I nodded, acknowledging the lieutenant’s caution.
“So if I tell her to bark like a dog, she will?” Reena Ahern asked.
Tess instantly barked like a dog.
I gaped at her. My heart banged against my ribs. Reena Ahern’s jaw dropped, anOh shit!look freezing on her face.
Tess cracked up. “Just kidding. But yeah, that was weird before.” She sobered. Her gaze dropped to the floor, the picturesque world outside not holding her attention anymore.
I wrapped her in my arms again from behind, my chin beside her ear and my eyes on the painted landscape. A dusk-hued brushstroke swept across the mountains.
“I can’t help Merrick if he needs a transfusion,” Tess said, folding her hands on top of mine. “I can’t risk contaminating him with the final injection.”
“It’ll work out of your bloodstream,” Mwende said, glancing up from her patient. “There are no chemicals for it to bind to.”
“You’re sure about that?” Tess asked. We both turned to Mwende. Beside her, Merrick blinked heavily, barely keeping his eyes open.
“It’s an educated guess,” the lieutenant answered.
Tess bit her lip, nodding. Her eyes stayed focused on Merrick.
“You’ll be okay, partner,” Jax said, decelerating as New Denver got closer. “Merrick, too.”
