“And you think he’ll still help us?”
“Yes.”
“Even though he’ll be acting against the government?”
Elissa bit her thumbnail. That was the fear, wasn’t it? That was the risk. That she’d tell him, and then she’d have to watch while his expression turned to shock and distaste. You broke the law, Elissa? You’re on the run from our own planet’s police? You’re using property that’s been confiscated from criminals? And the money—oh God, the fake money she’d given him.
But at the same time she remembered the argument he’d had with Stewart. Stewart couldn’t believe they had a traitor on board—they’re handpicked, he’d said, as if SFI’s judgment were all the guarantee needed. But Cadan—Cadan might want things to be black and white, but he knew they couldn’t always be that way. He knew that SFI crew could be in league with pirates. He knew SFI wasn’t infallible.
And he promised to keep us safe.
She looked steadily at Lin. “Yes,” she said. “He does stick to the rules, because it’s worth it, and because he agrees with them. Like the rule not to communicate with pirates? You could see, he was sticking to the protocol because it works, because it makes sense. But if there’s a rule he doesn’t agree with—if he thinks it’s wrong—I don’t think he’ll feel bound to keep to that, too.”
“You don’t think.”
“I can’t know. Not until I do it. But yes.”
A long pause, then Lin drew herself up, straightened her shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “You think he’ll break rules he thinks are wrong. Then let’s convince him this one’s wrong.”
The door slid open, the quiet sound making them both jump. Cadan came in.
His eyes went straight to Elissa. “I need a word.”
Her heart thumped. “We were coming to see you. We—”
“No.” His voice was polite but definite. “Just you, Elissa. I need a word with just you.”
Her heart thumped again, knocking some of the breath from her lungs. Now it came to it, admitting to the lies she’d told him, trying to explain who—what—Lin really was . . . Oh, I don’t want to.
Cadan had his hand on the door, preventing it from closing. “Elissa.”
“I’m coming.” She cast one look at Lin, then went out of the tiny sitting room into the even tinier entrance lobby.
Cadan followed her. As the door clamped shut behind him, he spoke immediately, with no preamble. “I have to ask, Elissa. Before I destroy my crew’s morale by asking them. Is it Lynette?”
For a moment she just stared at him, blank. Then what he was asking registered. “No. No, Cadan. Lin’s not in league with the pirates. No, I swear.”
“You’re sure, right? Her story—her boyfriend breaking up with her, needing to go home right away—it’s not just something she’s told you? You know for a fact that it’s true?”
Oh God. Elissa’s hands were shaking. She shoved them into her pockets. “Cadan, listen. I have to tell you something.”
“Lis, I’m sorry, I don’t have time. Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait. Please, just tell me if Lynette’s a danger to my ship.”
In her pockets Elissa’s hands clenched. She gulped in one last too-shallow breath and forced herself to meet his eyes. “We both are,” she said. “The pirates—I’m pretty sure they’re bounty hunters. They’re coming after us.”
She stopped there automatically, expecting him to say What? or Why? But he didn’t. He neither moved nor spoke, waiting expressionless for her to give him the rest of the information.
She dragged in another breath and told him. Told him what Lin was, told him how she’d found her, about how they’d both become fugitives. About the news alert, the chase in the mall, about how her father had told her to run.
Cadan’s expression didn’t change. He watched her as she told him everything that had happened over the last three days, listening to her voice as it stumbled over the details—the wound at the back of Lin’s head, Elissa’s own conviction that if she was caught, the doctors meant to burn the link out from her brain.
She reached the end of her account and paused, but he didn’t say anything, and after a nervously silent moment she found herself talking again, repeating things she’d already told him, backtracking over justifications for what she’d done, using the words to fill the space and the silence, because anything was better than just waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to hate her—
“Okay,” he said, cutting her off, and she stopped, feeling sick, unable to look at him, cringing from the expression she didn’t want to see on his face. “You’re saying, back home, it was law enforcement agents chasing you?”
She nodded. “My—my mother called them, and I saw the symbol on their flyer.”
“And at the mall as well?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure? You saw the symbol there, too?”
“Yes—” She broke off. She hadn’t questioned that they were Sekoian law enforcement, but now as she looked back at that twenty minutes’ blur of flight and terror, she couldn’t remember if she’d even seen the flyers clearly enough to see their symbols. “I—they must have been. That’s who was after us—after Lin. It’s some kind of secret government facility—”
“Elissa.” His voice was very calm, and it was that calmness that made her throat close up. He didn’t believe her. He was going to insist she’d gotten it wrong, that the right thing to do was give Lin up. I was wrong. Oh God, I told Lin we could trust him and I was wrong again. I’ve thrown her into danger again, and all for nothing.
She looked at him, cold with despair.
“Elissa, it can’t really be government agents, you know that. The Sekoian government would never be involved in something like this. And as for thinking SFI is helping bounty hunters track the Phoenix, come on, now!”
“Then who else would it be? The place she was in—the facility—it’s huge, it’s completely equipped.”
“It’s something pretty big,” said Cadan. “You’ve got that right, I’m sure. Equipment, money—”
“Cadan, the doctor was involved!”
“Elissa, this is illegal. This has nothing to do with any legitimate government.” He looked steadily at her, full of experience and expertise and the complete, unshakable assurance that he was right. The look he’d been giving her for years. The look that had made her hate him.
She didn’t have the energy to hate him now. She let herself slump back against the lobby wall, miserable and defeated. “Please,” she said. “Don’t hand us over. Don’t take us back. If there’s just another planet you can drop us on—any kind, it doesn’t matter, even if it’s completely third-grade—”
His eyebrows went up. “Drop you on a third-grade planet? What do you take me for?”
Okay, maybe she did have enough energy to hate him. “If you’re going to hand us over to those butchers who carved a hole in her skull, you don’t want to know what I freaking take you for! God, Cadan, for once can’t you just accept I might know what I’m talking about?”
“And for once can’t you listen to me instead of reacting to what you think I’m saying?” Cadan snapped. “For God’s sake, Elissa, I’m not going to ‘hand you over’ to anyone. Just because I don’t agree with your interpretation of who’s doing it doesn’t mean I’m going to refuse to help you!”
For a moment she stared into angry blue eyes, then her own gaze dropped. As easy as that? Shame swept over her, scalding hot. If I’d asked him for help back on Sekoia, the way I was going to ask Bruce . . . would he have helped us then? Lying to him, cheating him—did I even need to do it?
“So,” said Cadan. His voice was still clipped, impatient. “You and Lynette—Lin—are both fugitives from some very powerful organization. One that, given that they are tracking us somehow, obviously has access to some very high-quality tech.”
“It’s the government, honestly. I just know it is.”
“I can’t accept that, Elissa.” She wasn�
�t looking at him, but she sensed him flick a glance at her, and his voice took on the heavy tone of enforced patience. “I’m sorry, it simply makes no sense. But whoever they are, I can well believe they’ve accessed technology that has no place outside official government use. Even with that, though, we took a long enough hop that they’ll have hard work catching up with us. Whatever their hyperdrives are like, they won’t be up to the speed of ours. We’re going to land on the nearest planet available and make some repairs so we can safely start using it again.”
But if they’re from SFI . . . It was no use. Even if she kept arguing, she wasn’t going to convince him, and as long as he was going to help her and Lin anyway, there was no point freaking out about it now.
“Lissa.”
She looked up.
“I don’t think you’ve got all the facts right,” Cadan said, “but you’ve dealt with a hell of a lot in an incredibly short space of time.” He smiled at her, a tiny lift of the corner of his mouth. “Color me impressed.”
She wasn’t thirteen anymore. It didn’t matter that she’d impressed him, that he was smiling at her with more approval in his face than she’d seen in years. It didn’t matter. But all the same she found herself responding to him, her own mouth relaxing into a smile.
The look of helplessness, of the fear of being out of control, had gone from his face. He was dealing with a situation that, while it might be unexpected, unwelcome—and just as dangerous as it had been before—didn’t make him feel out of his depth. It was a crisis, but, after all, he was trained to deal with crises.
He turned briskly to the door. “I have to get back to the bridge and explain this to Stew. Get Lynette—Lin—and come up too. I’d like to get a fuller picture of the story.” He half-raised his hand to open the door, then stopped. “Lissa?”
“Yes?”
“Do I have all the details I need for now? I realize there will be all kinds of minor things you haven’t been able to tell me yet, but what you have told me, is that basically it? There’s nothing else I should know?”
There were. Two things. Two things she hadn’t been able to bring herself to say during the account she’d given him. One of which he definitely needed to know. One of which . . . he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to know it, not now, not yet, not while he’s got all this to deal with. He’s probably worked it out for himself already anyway. And if he hasn’t, and I tell him, and I have to watch his face change . . .
“There’s one thing,” she said.
“Okay.” He took his hand down from the door panel and stood, watching her, waiting.
It was hard to say. It felt like a betrayal of Lin, unfairly exposing her to someone who couldn’t understand the way she’d grown up, didn’t understand the fear she was living with still.
“It’s Lin,” Elissa said. “I’m afraid they’ve . . . damaged her, kind of. The electrokinesis—it’s not like she can’t control it, but she panics sometimes, and then she doesn’t see why she should control it if it will help her—or me—escape.”
“That’s what you were afraid of, on the bridge.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He nodded, frowning, assimilating the new information. Crisis-management mode, Elissa thought. It would take an awful lot to shake him right now. I should tell him. I should tell him and then it’ll be done and he’ll deal with it and then—
“Cadan.”
He looked at her.
“There’s another thing.”
“Okay.” This time something in her expression must have caught at him. His eyes flickered with something like apprehension. “Go on.”
“When we came on board ship, the money we paid you . . .”
His face froze as her meaning hit him. “It was stolen.”
She shook her head, shutting her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him while she said it. “It was fake. The cards—they’re not real. We can wipe our IDs off them, and as soon as we do—”
“The money will disappear.” His voice was as heavy as lead.
She nodded, eyes screwed shut.
“And you knew that when you did it?”
“Yes.” Her voice came out as a whisper.
“You didn’t think to—” His voice jumped, anger sparking through it. “For God’s sake, Elissa, have the decency to look at me! It didn’t cross your mind to just ask me for help?”
She’d opened her eyes, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. She focused instead on the shiny silver bar on his uniform jacket. It winked in the lobby’s overhead light, blurring a little at the edges. “That’s why I was looking for Bruce.”
“But once you found his full-scholarship buddy instead? Oh, don’t bother. Money talks, right? And who am I to act like it’s an insult? I took it, didn’t I?”
She had nothing to say. He had taken it, the way she’d gambled on him doing. She’d known he needed money in a way that Bruce didn’t . . . in a way that most of the cadets on the training course didn’t. She’d known his weakness, and she’d used it.
His voice had hardened. “Did it even take an effort to lie to me? Or was that a foregone conclusion? It’s not worth wasting the truth on someone like me, is it? Not when you can just throw some money at them and tell them to jump?”
Elissa bit her lip. She’d never heard him so angry—not with her, not with anyone. Like she’d told Lin, she’d known his family didn’t have the money hers did, but she’d never realized he felt like this. And it wasn’t fair, what he was saying to her. He hadn’t offered to help her, he had done it for the money, so acting as if she’d deliberately insulted him was just unreasonable.
But even as she thought that, realization came to her. She’d dumped a major crisis on his shoulders, she’d put his ship and his crew and everything at risk, and he was dealing with it way better than she could ever have expected. But on top of all of that, he’d just found out she’d lied to and manipulated him, and he wasn’t even any closer to paying off his debt to SFI.
There was anger in his voice, lending every word an edge sharp enough to cut. But there was also a whole mess of disappointment and hurt. And whether it was fair or not for him to blame her, she had created it.
She bit her lip harder, then forced herself to meet his eyes. They met hers with a shock like a blow that she felt in the pit of her stomach. “It did take an effort,” she said. “I hated lying to you, and I felt really bad about the money. I was desperate, that’s all. I was only going to tell Bruce the truth ’cause Lin’s his sister too. But with everyone else—anyone else I might have found to help me—all I had was the money. And”—she swallowed—“and I’m sorry.”
He looked away. For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her apology, but then he lifted one shoulder in a shrug that was a sort-of acknowledgment. “Okay.”
“Cadan—” A couple of days ago she’d have been able to tell herself she didn’t care if he hated her. She couldn’t do that anymore.
He hit the door panel to open the door. “It’s okay. Just . . . give me a few minutes to process it, all right? Bring Lin up to the bridge—she can help me explain this to Stew.” He paused a minute, head down. “I can’t even imagine what he’s going to say.”
TO BEGIN WITH, Stewart said nothing. He sat silently while Cadan repeated what Elissa had told him, his gaze moving between both sisters, although it remained longer on Lin. Taking in, Elissa assumed, the similarities they’d done their best to hide. His face didn’t stay as blank as Cadan’s had, but although she saw his lips tighten, saw a muscle jump in his jaw, she didn’t know him well enough to be able to read his expression. He’s been really nice to us—mostly me, but Lin, too. And it was Cadan I lied to, and he doesn’t hate me—I don’t think—so there’s no reason for Stewart to . . .
But as he continued to sit there, unspeaking, listening to what Cadan was saying, tension wound itself tightly inside her. If he wants to turn us in, if he won’t even believe as much of the story as Cadan did . . .
“That’
s the situation as far as I have it,” Cadan finished. “Elissa is convinced it’s actually the Sekoian government involved in this, but I strongly disagree. However, it’s more than obvious that whoever’s behind it has got some high-up contacts and some pretty sophisticated tracking technology. It’s also more than obvious that Lissa and Lin need our help. I’m thinking our best bet, once we’ve patched up the Phoenix, is to get them to the Interplanetary League’s headquarters on Sanctuary so they can claim refugee status under the Humane Treatment Act. It’s going to take some major evasive action, if what’s been happening so far is anything to go by, and we’ll have to use the hyperdrive more than I like, to ensure we’re not in one place long enough for anyone to get a lock on us—”
Which was when Stewart spoke. He’d been staring at Elissa and Lin—mostly Lin—for the last minute, but at this his head snapped back toward Cadan. And now Elissa could read his expression. It was anger—sheer, incredulous anger.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he said. “Have you gone freaking insane?”
“I have not.” Cadan’s voice was suddenly coldly polite. “If there’s a flaw in my plan, then I suggest you let me know in a more reasoned manner.”
“A flaw in your plan?” Stewart gave a bark of laughter. “By her own admission the girl’s on the run with stolen government property, she’s lied her way onto our ship, and you’re planning on helping her? I would say that’s a pretty big freaking flaw!”
“Hang on a moment there,” said Cadan. “Did you listen to what I was telling you?”
“I listened.” Stewart pushed himself out of his seat so that he and Cadan were standing face-to-face across the safety rail. “I just couldn’t believe you were really saying it. Sure, she’s a pretty girl, but do you not get what she’s asking of you?”
All at once there was a nasty twist to his voice, and Elissa flinched. Cadan didn’t seem to have noticed, though. He was frowning, intent on what Stewart was saying, not the tone he was saying it in.
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