Page 61

Dallin settled in the pilot seat and waited impatiently for a slot to leave the waystation. He needed to get out of here fast, or Sloane would be back, and she’d want answers.

Ten minutes later, and Dallin was on his way. He sent off a short message containing the information needed for the antidote to Angel, along with everyone else on the Apocalypse, to make sure it got through.

Then he opened a message to Sloane. His fingers hovered over the keypad. What should he say to her? That he was sorry for leaving without saying goodbye? He wasn’t sorry about doing this. Once this crucial element of the poison was taken out of the equation, the Siblet would be powerless.

Dallin started the message several times, but kept deleting it. Nothing felt right. He should have told her goodbye to her face, but Sloane wouldn’t have let him leave, and he wasn’t sure he could stand to see the sadness in her eyes as he walked away from her.

He was attempting to compose the message for the tenth time, when a signal blipped on his screen. He studied it for several moments. It looked like a ship was following him.

Dallin monitored it for several minutes, making small changes to his course to see how they’d respond.

The ship matched his trajectory. It wasn’t a Siblet ship, but maybe it was one of their allies heading to Irla.

“Let’s see what your game is.” Dallin diverted his course and killed the engines. He activated the cloaking device on the shuttle and waited. There’d still be a faint heat signature if the pilot knew what to look for, but with a bit of luck, the ship would lose sight of him.

Dallin continued to monitor the ship.

It suddenly vanished. He waited another few minutes before activating the engines and continuing his journey. Maybe he was being paranoid, and they hadn’t been following him after all.

He continued on, his thoughts full of Sloane. He couldn’t have regrets about what he was about to do. This was for her and the crew. But damn, he’d messed up when it came to telling her how he felt. That was his one regret.

But this would keep her alive. She’d get the antidote, move on with her life, and be happy. Without him.

***

Sloane petted Brutus’shead as she continued to tail Dallin. She was torn between being hugely ticked off at him for sneaking away and terrified about what he was going to do.

“He thinks he’s so clever, Brutus, but Dallin has forgotten that I know what one of our cloaked ships looks like. I even helped design the basic mechanism to make the cloaking work.”

Brutus grunted and shook his head, as if he too considered Dallin to be a moron.

Sloane had been lucky. She’d lost Dallin for a while as she’d been tailing him on the waystation, but when he’d made that call to her, she’d realized he was about to make his move. Then she’d spotted him heading into the docking bay and boarding their shuttle.

She’d dashed to the rentals desk and secured herself the last single seater shuttle available for that day.

Sloane wasn’t a hundred percent sure where Dallin was going, but she was determined to find out. And most importantly, why he thought it was okay to go without her.

Brutus grumbled and leaned against her hand, wanting more pets.

“I know! For someone who claims to be such a genius, he can be a dunderhead. He forgets that other aliens can fix problems, too. He’s always charging around thinking he’s the only one who knows how to solve things. But not this time. He might have tried to hide in space, but we’re onto him. I just wish I knew what he was doing. If he keeps lying to me, this thing is over, no matter how much I like him.” Sloane’s fear overrode her anger, along with a hard stab of rejection. Dallin had left without saying goodbye, and she had no idea why. It must be something bad, something he considered dangerous, and that he didn’t want to risk exposing her to.

Brutus bumped her with his head.

She gave a soft sigh as she tickled behind his ears. “If Dallin gives up on me, at least I have you, cutie pie.”

Sloane checked the direction they were flying. “It must be one of half a dozen planets he’s heading to. Most of these are uninhabited, or have no breathable atmosphere, and there’s a mining colony on Irla. There won’t be anything there but dirt, dust, and unrefined mineral rocks.”

She made sure to keep her flying smooth, so as not to draw Dallin’s attention again. He’d definitely noticed her, so she needed to be careful.

They went past three potential landing sites, leaving only the uninhabited planets and Irla. It didn’t take long before Sloane realized that was exactly where they were heading.

Dallin’s ship slowly lowered through the mining planet’s atmosphere, and she sped up, making sure to keep him in sight, while alternating her ship’s signature so she wouldn’t be so easy to notice.

With one eye on the scanner, Sloane flipped open the portable analyzer she’d stuffed in a bag, along with a few drops of liquid she’d collected off the floor after Dallin had dropped the vial. It had been running ever since she’d left the waystation.

She checked the results, and her eyes narrowed. It was that same odd looking mineral spike Dallin hadn’t been able to figure out. Did he think the source of the mineral was here?

Sloane ran a ground scan of the area. There were a surprising number of settlements. Mining planets typically consisted of a few temporary bases for the workers, and a couple of processing plants, but the operation down there was huge. Had they discovered some new mineral they were extracting?