33
Aiden
Aiden was still reelingwhen Barbara and George came to the mess hall. The coffee had helped him somewhat calm down, but he could still feel Marcus’ gaze on him. Darren seemed to be in a similar state, his hand wrapped around Aiden’s as if the contact between them was the only thing keeping him sane.
“We should be at my safehouse in about four hours,” George said in a voice that sounded a little too flat.
That didn’t mean they would be safe there. Not after Reikhei. It was like Marcus knew their next move before they’d even made it, always one step ahead.
“Are you sure—”
George’s phone rang, cutting Darren’s question off. Smiling apologetically, the old man picked up. Whoever was on the other end sounded agitated, speaking quickly and cutting themselves off. George paled.
“George?” Barbara leaned in, rubbing his back.
Sucking in a breath, George put the phone on speakers.
“—casualties. I don’t know how many. We had to leave them behind.Fuck, the GN just stormed the warehouse! Our monitoring systems didn’t even trigger!”
Aiden’s blood froze.
“I lost contact with Anna. I’ve no idea if any of her staff made it out! George, what is going on?”
Just as Aiden was about to ask the same, Barbara’s phone rang, too. He and Darren held their breaths as she spoke to whoever was on the other side, George the only one not paying attention as he barked instructions for a rendezvous point.
“George,” Barbara said when he hung up, rubbing his shoulder as he held his head in his hands. “There’s been another hit. Two facilities on the Moon. Most of the people didn’t make it.”
George banged his fist on the table. Expression grim, he turned his attention to Darren, looking his age for the first time since they’d met. “I’m afraid we are running out of time. I don’t know how Marcus is doing it, but someone is either feeding him information about our whereabouts, or he’s found a way to work them out himself.”
Darren’s gaze flicked to Aiden, frustrated and aghast. He had to be thinking the same thing Aiden was—Marcus was about to corner them, and this time they would have nowhere left to run.
Another call pulled Barbara to the side, her frown and her clipped tone telling Aiden it was more bad news.
“George. It’s one of the cruisers. They shot it down with the entire crew still onboard.”
Aiden sucked in a breath. Marcus was picking them out one by one. He’d found a way to locate Liu’s people, and he was using the GN to do the cleanup.
Was it Rick?He’d seen the list of potential allies. He’d had access to Nyle’s tablet. It wouldn’t have been too hard to clone it when Nyle wasn’t looking.
“George,” Darren said, his tone authoritative and somber. His hand found Aiden’s under the table, tangling their fingers and squeezing tightly. “I need to speak to Leonard.”
George nodded, bunching his eyebrows. “I’ll patch him through.”
They moved from the mess hall to the central part of the bridge where command control was.
“George! I can’t get in touch with Anna!” Margo’s worried face popped on the main screen, just off the star map. “She was getting some equipment for us, but we lost contact!”
Her husband, Jerry, and Leonard were behind her, concern etched into their faces.
“I’m sorry, Margo,” George said, his knuckles going white from how hard he was holding onto his mug, which was still half-full with coffee. “There was an attack. I’m afraid Anna didn’t make it.” He glanced at Barbara, who was still on the phone, coordinating survivors. “I need to speak to Leonard.”
Margo pressed her lips in a line and nodded, her eyes glassing over. She stepped away and Leonard’s face filled the screen.
Next to Aiden, Darren tensed up. “Leonard, can you build the synchronization device Dr. Batbayar designed?”
Leonard nodded, his blond hair flopping in front of his face. “Yes. I had some time and went through the rest of her explanations,” the man said, his voice excited. “I also…” He cleared his throat. “Her team did some further testing. The schematics are for a working prototype. If we modify an engine as per her instructions and equip it with the synchronization device, that shipwillbe able to travel to another universe. I don’t know how the navigational bit works, but unless we have aspecific universe we are targeting, then it wouldn’t matter much. Collision avoidance has already been accounted for as well, so we don’t have to worry about crashing.”
The hair on Aiden’s arms stood up, his heart rate elevating. Next to him, Darren vibrated, his chest rising and falling as quickly as Aiden’s. He stood silent for a while and Aiden knew that the decision he was about to make was a hard one.
