“I’m sure if you did a biometric reading we’d be able to know for sure, but I wouldn’t doubt it. She might be the key. That’s why she was the only one able to open the box.”
As Iza looked at the sphere suspended in the machine, that particular point concerned her. “How did you get it open again?”
Raquel arched an eyebrow. “You don’t need to be conscious to open it. All we had to do was run your finger along it after you were knocked out.”
I guess having that box coded to me alone wasn’t such a safeguard after all. “So I imagine I have you to thank for the lump on my head.”
The other woman gave a non-committal shrug.
Iza was trying to make sense of Raquel’s betrayal. She’d genuinely thought they were becoming friends.
As she thought back over the past weeks, though, Raquel’s timely and coincidental appearance on Hubyria. How she’d made her way onto their ship. Her interest in the sphere and her analysis. Jovani said she’d been hiding something, but they hadn’t pressed to find out more. She’d been working for Mr. Arvonen all along. She’d been planning to get at the sphere all this time, feeding Mr. Arvonen everything she learned. When they realized the sphere wasn’t doing what they wanted it to, they grabbed Iza. She was just another piece of the experiment.
“I thought we were friends. How could you do this?” Iza spat.
“We are friends, at least we would be if you felt the way I do about our history. This artifact is more than a gateway to another world. It’s a look into our past. A view of races we may have encountered but are lost to us now. We’re on the brink of discovery here, and Mr. Arvonen has the means and the will to see it through when others would just give up.” Her eyes were shimmered with emotion, and Iza realized in that moment Raquel was willing to kill her for the sake of discovery.
“You’re murdering people to do it.”
“I know,” Raquel said with a bow of her head. “It’s a shame we’ve lost so many resources to see this to the end.”
“Is that what you’re calling the twelve before me? ‘Resources’?”
“When they write history, you’ll be so much more.”
“Enough,” Mr. Arvonen said, snatching the necklace from Iza’s neck.
Iza glared at him as he fondled the metal between his large fingers. She was about to say something more when the ship shook from a blast.
Everyone in the lab fought to keep their balance. Raquel, who’d been closest to the Gate, screamed when her arm got too close. Natanael and Elyse fell from their chairs and lay sprawled on floor.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Arvonen asked.
Natanael scrambled back up to his monitoring station and tapped at the console. “Someone’s firing on us,” he said.
“Do I look like a fool? Who is it?”
“It looks like her ship, the Verity. They followed us.”
“How? That’s impossible.”
Natanael turned with eyes wide toward Mr. Arvonen. “However they did it, they’re not alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a freighter-class ship, the Iron Dog, and an Enforcer ship,” Natanael replied.
Mr. Arvonen’s face flushed. “How are they getting through our shields?”
“I’m not sure, it’s like they have the codes.”
The ship rocked again from a blast powerful enough that the stabilizers were unable to compensate, and the artificial gravity shifted too far toward the port side. Everyone went sliding across the lab.
Iza dropped to her belly and started to crawl toward the nearest thing bolted down. She reached a stationary desk and grasped one of its leg. She smiled. Braedon must have hacked the codes. He was probably more familiar with his father’s Arvonen One than the crew themselves.
“Get me the flight deck,” Mr. Arvonen said from where he was awkwardly straddling the deck and port bulkhead. He wouldn’t leave the lab; that was unfortunate.
Iza hoped to get past everyone with all the distraction. She figured she might be able to manage the two guards and scientists, but not with Mr. Arvonen and Raquel still in the room.
“This is the flight deck, we’re a little busy, sir,” a man said over the comm. He was trying to keep his voice level and respectful but was barely succeeding.
“Fire on that ship and blow them away!” Mr. Arvonen ordered.
“Sir, we cannot fire on an Enforcer ship. They are requesting we stand down and hand over Captain Iza Sundari.”
“Then return fire on the other two.”
“Sir, your son is on board the Verity.”
Mr. Arvonen roared. His face turning from pink to red then purple. “I don’t care if the Head of a High Dynasty is on that ship, blow it up!”
There was a light rumble, and the ship steadied. They were firing back. Iza only hoped that the Verity’s shields would hold. They had Jovani, who was good at tactical. Braeden and Viper had the skills to break into anything. If Trix held on, they could use her to—
Another volley of plasma beams struck, and the ship rocked back and forth again. Iza stayed on the deck clutching the table leg; it was safer than standing and further from the Gate.
“Sir, the flight deck is reporting that they’ve breached the shields,” a guard warned.
Another explosion ripped through the ship, causing the monitoring stations to short out. All the lights in the room turned off, leaving only the illumination of the sphere, which seemed to power itself.
“We’ve lost communications,” the guard said. He helped Mr. Arvonen get back to his feet.
As soon as he had his footing, Mr. Arvonen sprinted across the room toward Iza faster than a man of his age should be able to move. Two pulse rifles pointed at her face when he reached her. He hauled her up to her feet and pushed her toward the Gate.
Red lights illuminated above the door.
The guard tensed. “Sir, those lights only come on if there’s been an airlock breach. That means they’re boarding the ship.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have an experiment to continue.”
“But, sir, the flight deck is recommending we evacuate immediately.”
“Not yet,” Mr. Arvonen said between his teeth. His grip on Iza’s arm was like a vise. Despite her kicks and struggles he held fast. With the weapons at her back and Mr. Arvonen gripping her arm, she barely registered when the door slid open and Jovani stepped inside firing.
Jovani aimed at everything moving like something out of an action movie vid. Both guards dropped in an instant. He telekinetically flung the two scientists back against the wall, an invisible force capable of leveling everyone and everything in his path.
Mr. Arvonen was yanked away from Iza, and he howled and kicked in protest. One of his legs caught Iza, tripping her forward so she bumped into Raquel. A brief look passed between Mr. Arvonen and the archaeologist. Raquel heaved with everything she had to keep Iza’s momentum moving toward the Gate.
Iza heard Jovani calling her name, but his voice along with everything else disappeared as she flew through the portal.
—
Iza closed her eyes. She had no idea what awaited her in death, but she wouldn’t go through with her eyes open.
She fought the kind of queasiness in her stomach she always experienced when looking down from a great height. After a few seconds of feeling like she was falling, she hit the cold ground on her backside with a thud.
Iza cracked open her eyes to see a cloud of blue-black dust settling around her. She patted the front of her body. One thing was certain, as she stared up at the Gate she’d just come from: she wasn’t dead.
The cool, dry air felt distinctively different from the sterile environment she’d left. Iza dusted the dirt off her pants as she stood up to examine her surroundings.
A natural light source in the distance seemed to illuminate the end of a tunnel leading away from her. No sounds reached her other than the humming from the sphere, which seemed amplified here. Iza’s eyes adjust
ed to the dark and she gazed up.
Stone walls towered above her into the shadows so far she mistook the cavern roof for night sky at first glance. Though the stone appeared to be natural, the configuration of the space had to have been constructed, carved right out of the rock. The cavern spanned at least thirty meters wide, by her estimation, distinguished only by several rows of metal railings running horizontally along one side of the room. Based on the dark dust in the room, the space hadn’t been used for some time. She couldn’t fathom what purpose the room served.
The sound of chatter or applause, like the snapping of fingers, broke the serenity of the space. It seemed to be echoing from an adjacent cavern or perhaps outside, but she couldn’t be sure.
A break in the humming behind her drew her attention to the portal behind her. She recognized a voice called her name. As she stared at the Gate, she could see Jovani in the lab with Mr. Arvonen, where she had just been—where Raquel had practically pushed her through. Iza tried to spot Raquel but she was nowhere to be seen. Jovani was fighting off the guards to get to Mr. Arvonen, who was still screaming Iza’s name.
“Hey, I’m right here. I’m fine,” Iza called out.
They didn’t look up. Her voice seemed to get drowned out by the loud humming and snapping noise around her.
She took a step closer to the Gate, and the humming energized the air all around her, lifting the hair off of her scalp and skin as it had done with necklace before. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t Taran in design.
There was a swoosh of wind behind her. She whipped around to see if she could catch whatever it was.
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
No one answered, but someone was watching her. She was sure of it. Iza peered into the shadows, unable to shake her uneasiness.
I need to get back before it’s too late. Panic gripped her chest. What if going back through the portal doesn’t work?
She took another sweeping view of the room, trying to memorize what she saw, then stepped back through the Gate.
—
Returning through the portal was not the same experience she’d had going through the first time.
Iza kept her eyes open, expecting to see something while she felt like she was falling through space. But there was nothing, just a bright flash of light as she passed from one side to the other.
She stepped through and could feel the deck beneath her, but then it took more energy to pull the rest of her body toward the Gate—like something was dragging her back into the cavern.
“Somebody, help me!” she screamed.
Elyse was the first to see her struggling when Iza started to emerge from the portal. The scientist scrambled across the floor toward her and grabbed Iza’s hands while bracing her feet against the base of the contraption housing the sphere.
“Should we remove the sphere?” Natanael asked when he came over to help her.
“No, it could rip her in half. We don’t know what it would do to her,” Elyse answered.
“Agreed, I like my legs,” Iza yelled.
Jovani sealed the lab door to keep out the other guards and ran to assist the two struggling scientists. He grabbed Iza by the waist of her pants and the three yanked her through. They all stumbled backwards and away from the Gate.
Iza realized she’d lost one boot. How did that happen? She had laced up her boots, she was sure of it, but now one foot was bare, not even covered with a sock.
She glanced over her shoulder to look back through the Gate. This time, rather than the portal being amorphous light, it had a mirror-like finish, reflecting the scene in the lab. What does that mean? She shook her head, not sure what to think of it.
“You’re alive,” Jovani said, clutching her to his chest. She inhaled the familiar scent of his soap.
“I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.” Iza tugged him toward the door.
“You passed through the gate. It’s you,” Mr. Arvonen murmured, pointing a shaky finger at her, the necklace he’d snatched from her dangling in his hand.
Iza’s head still buzzed from her travel through the Gate. Arvonen’s words meant nothing to her. Either way, she wasn’t going to leave the sphere in his hands. Whatever he had planned, keeping the sphere guarded was the key to stopping him.
The moment she snatched the artifact from its cradle, the portal closed. The humming no longer encompassed the room, fading to a dull background resonance like Iza was used to. She slipped the sphere into her pocket.
Mr. Arvonen lunged for her. “No, you can’t take it!”
Jovani telekinetically threw the old man back with a flick of his wrist. He crashed against the rear wall and collapsed into a crumpled heap on the deck, his face lifeless.
Iza’s eyes flashed to Jovani.
“He’s not dead, only unconscious,” Jovani said with his mild tone.
Iza strolled past the white-coated scientists, picked up the necklace where it had fallen from Arvonen’s hand, and slipped it into her other pocket.
“You came back. How did you come back?” Natanael asked.
“I don’t know.” Iza shrugged.
She was telling him the truth. She didn’t understand how she’d been able to go from one side of the Gate to the other and back again. More concerning, though, was whatever had tried to keep her from returning. Without the aid of the scientists and Jovani, she might not have made it all the way back. She shuddered to think what would have happened if she’d been trapped only halfway through.
“I want to go home,” Iza said.
“Take us with you,” Elyse cried out, grabbing her companion.
Natanael eagerly nodded. “Please. I’m so sorry for what we did to you. He would have killed us, we had to play along.”
Jovani looked them over. “All right, everybody grab a pulse gun. You’re going to need it.”
Iza hobbled along cold floor, one foot covered and the other bare. She grabbed a pulse rifle from one of the disabled guards.
When everyone was armed, Jovani led the way into the corridor.
The ship had been turned into one giant lab, from what Iza could make out from the rooms they passed. Mr. Arvonen seemed to have focused all of his attention on getting the sphere and figuring out how it worked. Sadly, it appeared his obsession was stronger than his attachment to his own family.
When they reached the cargo hold, Jovani led them to the waiting shuttle. The engines ignited the moment they climbed on board.
“What in the stars happened back there?” Braedon said from the cockpit. “You took so long I figured they caught you or something.”
“We had some trouble. Take us out of here,” Jovani ordered while he helped Iza into the chair behind Braedon.
Elyse took the seat beside her and Natanael rode in back of the shuttle on the bench seat.
The shuttle lifted off the deck and slipped through the force field into space.
“You hacked the system, thanks for that,” Iza said, patting Braedon on the shoulder. “You’re a real hero.”
Braedon’s ears turned pink, but he kept his eyes on the stars in front of him as they raced away from the Arvonen One. “Wait, what happened to Raquel?” he asked.
“She’s with them,” Iza said with her lips tight. “She got away when the fighting started.”
They didn’t ask her anything more about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Iza couldn’t stop replaying the events leading to her travel through the Gate and back again. Something a dozen others before her had been unable to do. What made her so different? Something Raquel said stuck with her: maybe she was a kind of key.
Jovani had stared at Iza as if she had done something miraculous. He’d been there to help her when it really mattered. In her heart, his hidden identity wasn’t enough reason to toss him off her ship anymore. He’d proven his loyalty to her.
She settled into the passenger chair on her shuttle, trying to decompress from the harrowing experience. “How’s everyone else?
”
“They’re back on the Verity. We didn’t want to risk the entire ship, just in case. We weren’t sure you were alive.” Jovani glanced over his shoulder at her again. His eyes were bright blue—her favorite—but there was a sadness she didn’t understand. He’d got her back, and despite her own shock, he should be happy.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked him.
“Nothing, it can wait.” He turned back around in the copilot seat.
“How’s Trix?”
“Actually, she’s better,” Braedon said looking from Jovani to her and back again. “As soon as we arrived, something happened to her. We’re not entirely sure what.”
Iza didn’t know how to take the news, but she gathered that she had no need to worry. As long as her closest and longest friend was okay, she could relax. After her recent experience on board the Arvonen One, she still had some questions that maybe only Trix could answer.
“As soon as we get back, gather everybody together in the galley,” Iza instructed. “I’ve got some news to share. Also, Natanael and Elyse need a place to crash until we can get them someplace safe.” Iza didn’t make eye contact with Jovani, as part of the news involved him.
When they got near the Verity, Iza was surprised to see her ship was waiting alongside an Enforcer ship and the Iron Dog.
“What are they doing here?”
“We’ll explain everything,” Jovani assured her.
The shuttle slid into its berth in the Verity’s cargo area and they disembarked. When Iza hopped down, the others greeted her with cheers and applause. Braedon threw an arm around her shoulders. Even Cierra seemed to need to be close to her. Iza wondered what they’d think if they’d seen her go through the gate like Jovani had.
She looked back and found him watching her. There was something wrong. The way he kept avoiding her eye put her on edge.
“Are you all right? Did they harm you?” Trix asked, stepping forward from the crowd. The android seemed to be back to her regular self.
“No, I’m fine. You seem well,” Iza said.
Divided Loyalties (Verity Chronicles Book 2): A Cadicle Space Opera Adventure Page 26