Well, maybe Shade could, but sweetening and creaming my coffee with Dark Watch earnings might ruin my favorite drink.
Ahern picked up a spoon and stirred in a bit of both milk and sugar.
He smiled at me again, seeming to sense my anxiety and wanting to put me at ease, but a bleakness remained in his features, somehow etched in. I knew enough about the DT survivors to know they didn’t sing lullabies to their children. They sang songs of revenge. But while I relished the idea of the Overseer toppling from his imperial throne probably more than just about anyone in the galaxy, I hated the idea of another generation drowning in bloodshed. That reservation had made it very hard to turn over the lab full of enhancers to the rebel leaders, despite wanting to give my friends and allies an edge in this seemingly endless fight.
“How’s the soup?” Ahern asked.
I frowned at the bowl of congealing food. What a mundane question. It seemed out of place. “Cold.”
He chuckled, erasing a decade from his face. “I apologize for being late.”
“It’s fine.” It totally wasn’t. I was a nervous wreck.
He tipped his head to one side, studying me. “My sister has three children. They’re alive thanks to you.”
My brows drew together in question. “I’m sorry… I don’t know what you mean.”
Ahern leaned forward, lowering his voice until the din of the restaurant nearly swallowed up his words. “That first haul you brought in? About five years ago? You had a few dozen cure-alls, too. You passed them over to the food coordinator on Mooncamp 1 along with a huge supply of canned goods. Said to give the shots to whoever needed them most. Said you were sorry you didn’t have more.”
I nodded. I remembered. Who forgot their first heist? It was a big one. The DT Mooncampers couldn’t believe their eyes when the never-before-seenEndeavorsuddenly showed up with three cargo holds’ worth of food. With that delivery, we became Nightchasers in more than just name. I had a ship, a crew, and a purpose—everything I’d dreamed about while hacking unstable minerals from the disgusting bowels of a prison mine.
“The kids were in bad shape. My sister, too. Some kind of lung infection had gone around the DT moons and hit their household harder than most. Those vaccines saved them. Four people are still in my life thanks to you.”
The shock of heat that seared my eyes from behind took me by surprise. I blinked away the burn. I didn’t know what to say, but I was glad Jax and Fiona could hear this. “I’ve got a great crew. It’s a team effort—every time.”
Ahern acknowledged my words with a slight dip of his chin. “Then you can thank them for me also.”
A white-hot stab of grief speared me. If only I could. Half my crew was gone. Miko and Shiori weren’t listening in from the ship. Miko would never hear anything again, and we had no idea where the Overseer had locked up Shiori, or if she even lived.
I inhaled and exhaled with deliberate evenness. Emotion in. Carbon dioxide out. We needed to get to the point of all this. “I hear I can maybe help you again.”
Ahern’s cautious green gaze darted around the restaurant. No one was paying attention to us, but his voice stayed barely audible in pitch. “It’s not a transfer, like I thought. That already happened days ago, and I just found out. That’s why I was late. But I know where she’s being held. I’ve got someone on the inside who can help.”
A bad feeling sank through me. Interrupting a transfer would be easier than breaking into a prison. There was potential chaos in movement. It didn’t require sneaking into a lion’s den. “Where?”
His features tensed. Lines bracketed his mouth. “Starbase 12. Somewhere on the lower prison levels.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. He couldn’t be serious.
In my ear, the tiny com transmitted someone’s soft curse. Jax’s maybe. Shade’s eyes met mine for a startled split second. Both of us looked away fast. Reena Ahern was in the most secure place in the known universe. This was an impossible task. A death sentence. No one broke into Imperial Headquarters andlived.
I’d been there before. Of course I had. It orbited my birth planet, and the Overseer had shuttled us back and forth between Alpha Sambian and Starbase 12 all the time. Mom had hated it—said the place stank like doom. At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. I’d liked the trips up. They got me out of our prison of a home with the basement lab where the man who was supposed to love and protect me strapped me down and stole my blood.
A boulder of sheer dread pinned me to my chair. For the first time in about eighty minutes, I stopped fidgeting and stared. “We’re supposed to break her out. How?”
Ahern drifted closer, his crisp white shirt nearly hitting the rim of his untouched coffee mug. He drummed long fingers against the table—a sound that went straight to my nervous system and exploded there. “Ten days from now, my contact will deactivate the plasma shield alarm on Landing Platform 7 at nineteen hundred hours, universal time. Slip in, slip out. The alarm will reactivate three hours later. Be out, or you’re done for.”
I gaped at him. We ran stolen food around the Dark. We pilfered cure-all vaccines from the military to give to children. Sometimes, I stole books. We’d rescued a few rebel prisoners from the Dark Watch, but that had mostly been dumb luck!
Panic surged up with an acid burn of half-digested soup. I’d made the decision to bring the enhancers to the Fold. I’d spouted off about free will and choices, trying to make sure the rebel leaders didn’t force the body-altering serum on anyone like the Overseer had. A few days later, they handed us a suicide mission.What the fuck?
My voice shook. “There must be a crew more qualified for this.”
“You’re here. I’m here.” Daniel Ahern dropped a few coins on the table for his coffee and stood. “Someone chose you, and I’m counting on you to get my wife back.”
I stared at him in utter shock. Had I condemned us all? Were the people I’d believed shared my values and ideals really no better than Simon Novalight? Ready to flatten any bump in their road without a second thought?
Ahern adjusted his suit jacket, his back to the room, his voice hushed, and his grass-green eyes cutting into me like chips of glass. “Break into Starbase 12. Bring Reena back to me. She’ll save Demeter Terre, and the Outer Zones will be free again.”
