“Tangy,” I reply. “Like lemonade. Just the way I like it.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, Ophelia.”
“You betrayed me,” I spit out. “You made me think you were on my side. Acted like we were going to be free of IA and Saint Rita. What makes you think I won’t kill you now?”
“Because you’ve got a dud arm and no weapon.” She hitches the R-One. Cross-trained or not, she’s more comfortable behind a computer than she is with a blaster in her hands. “Besides, you would’ve sold me to Saint Rita for a snack cake if it meant winning her approval.”
“Maybe at first, but that changed when—”
“Don’t give me that sentimental, crybaby crap,” she says. “It might’ve worked on The Impossible, but I know you better now.”
“I’m not so sure you do.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why’s that?”
“Because if you knew me as well as you think you do, you would’ve seen this coming.”
I cup my hands around her calves and pull forward, yanking her feet out from under her. Her head thwacks against the hard ground. I flip over, cast the R-One aside, and crawl on top of her. When I press my thumbs against her windpipe, she struggles and gasps. I try not to look at her. This is not the Vega Major I grew up with. She’s not the same timid ten-year-old I met on the first day of training at IA’s Academy. She’s the enemy now, one more Defense officer I need to get past in order to make it off this battleship.
Yet, I can’t bring myself to kill her.
When she’s at the end of her rope, her face red and her eyes streaming, I let go. She gulps air like an alcoholic throwing back shots of moonshine after years of sobriety. I pick up her R-One.
“Ophelia,” she gasps. “Please.”
I hit her with the butt end of the blaster. She goes limp.
I roll off of Vega and stand up, assessing myself for injuries. The blaster wound in my arm isn’t as bad as I thought. The armor plates on my borrowed uniform kept most of the damage at bay. It needs a bandage though, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to swallow a Purifier pill to get rid of any opalite potentially circulating through my system. I check Vega’s shirt. Under the collar is a hidden zipper, just where I remember. Inside are three Purifiers. I pocket two and pop the third into my mouth. It tastes like charcoal.
It takes a fingerprint to get into the hull bay, so I lug Vega over to the scanner and press her index finger to it. The bay doors slide open, welcoming me to the massive cargo area where The Intrepid keeps a number of escape pods and a few speeders. Lucky me. A row of flight suits line the closest wall, so I pick one in my size. It feels so familiar to zip up the suit and climb into the cockpit of the nearest Wasp, my favorite type of Defense speeder. If I weren’t so against everything IA stood for, I wouldn’t mind doing this for a living.
The Wasp needs a print too, but since mine will likely trigger an alarm, I punch in the emergency override code instead. It works, and the Wasp rumbles beneath me as the thrusters fire up. IA’s either slacking or stupid not to update the codes in seven years. The Wasp lifts off and I pull it out of the line of speeders. The only thing between me and freedom is the hull bay hatch.
“Need a hand?” a voice calls over the bay’s monitors.
Standing on the opposite side of the glass panels of the traffic control booth suspended over the cargo bay is a stern woman with short pale hair and eyes like a hawk’s. She wears the fitted royal purple protective vest of IA’s highest-ranking individuals and a gold pin on her chest to indicate her standing as head of Intelligence.
It’s my mother, Gertrude Holmes, who I haven’t seen since I betrayed IA on my graduation day and went rogue.
2
“Those aren’t necessary,” Gertrude says, indicating the lasered handcuffs encircling my wrists as two Defense officers I didn’t knock out deliver me to the room. It’s hard thinking of my mother as Mom. She hasn’t been one since I left the Academy on Harmonia, and even while I was in school, she wasn’t particularly motherly. Too absorbed in her work.
The officers disable the handcuffs and remove them. I rub the sore spots around my wrists.
“Thanks, boys,” I say.
They both look at my mother for direction, but she waves them off. “Off you go. We’ll be fine.”
The Defense officers take their leave, and I’m alone with my mother for the first time in seven years. She doesn’t say anything, and I can’t quite make eye contact with her yet, so I take a look around the room instead. It’s a modest dormitory, complete with a space-saving cot, a desk and chair, and a private bathroom. It’s not much different from my room next to the weapons bay on The Impossible, except this one doesn’t reek of opalite.
“Decent digs,” I say. “Is this a Commander’s room or does everyone get this much space?”
“It’s a standard dormitory,” Gertrude replies. “This deck is reserved for cadets, and we believe each of them deserves a degree of privacy and personal space. The Intrepid is big enough to provide that. I guess that wasn’t the case on that pirate ship of yours?”
“It wasn’t a pirate ship,” I say of The Impossible. “It was an IA battleship, just like this one.”
Gertrude shakes her head, gold earrings reflecting light across the minty-green dormitory walls in shimmering splashes like pool water. “That ship is outdated. IA put all of its sisters in dry dock. Saint Rita’s only lasted this long because we allowed her to.”
“Is that so?” I do a perimeter check of the room, keeping my mother in sight at all times. “You just let her do all that pillaging, plundering, and murdering for the hell of it, huh? Not the best tactic for keeping crime in the galaxy to a minimum, is it?”
“I’ll admit it,” Gertrude says. “For the first five years after your disappearance, we didn’t bother to moderate piracy as much as we should have. We knew going after Saint Rita would take an enormous amount of resources. She’s a clever bitch, that one. In any case, she did us a favor every time she took down a smaller pirate ship for her own gain.”
She picks an invisible fleck of dust off her purple vest and flicks it away. I catch myself staring at her. After so long apart, I’d forgotten how much I resemble my mother. We’re built the same way. Tall, but not too tall. Lanky, but not too lanky. We have the same high cheekbones, narrow eyes, and pointed nose. The only difference between us is our irises. My mother’s are blue, but I inherited my father’s brown eyes instead.
“Two years ago, we received intel you were working aboard The Impossible,” Gertrude goes on. “So we opened a long-term mission to get you back.”
“What intel?” I demand. “Where’d you get it?”
“Saint Rita and her crew hit a luxury cruise ship,” she says. “The Premiere Extravagance. It was one of Premiere Cruise Line’s newest ships. Top-of-the-line everything, including the security system.”
“I remember,” I say. “We didn’t know about the lockdown feature. We had a hell of a time getting out of there. Thought IA was going to nail us for sure.”
“We almost did,” she says. “But Saint Rita has a way of slipping through our fingers at the last second. Anyway, it turns out your Uncle Caelum was on vacation aboard the Extravagance that day. You remember Caelum, right? Big guy? Apparently, you knocked him out cold during your little raid on Proioxis a few weeks ago.”
I disguise a flinch. The day we took Vega aboard The Impossible was a complete shit show. Saint Rita’s orders to invade the Intelligence building on my home planet was off brand compared to our usual space-contained conquests. Then, I didn’t know why Saint Rita wanted to land there. Now, I’m aware of just how much morality IA is willing to sacrifice in order to get what they want. It was all an under-the-table deal between lawbreakers and lawmakers, one meant to benefit everyone involved. Except me.
“Caelum saw you with the other pirates that day,” Gertrude continues. “He immediately contacted me to let me know you were alive. Ever since then, we’ve been working
to bring you home.”
“Two years ago,” I muse. “Vega told me you officially declared me dead two years ago.”
“We did,” Gertrude confirms. “We thought it might work to our advantage. If Saint Rita ever caught word IA was after one of her crew members, she would’ve killed you herself.”
“That’s obviously not true,” I say. “You made a deal with her. I overhead her on the comms system. You promised her the weapon on Phobos if she returned me to you.”
“After two years of chasing you down, we were running out of options,” she says. “Quite frankly, Saint Rita was beginning to get on my nerves, so I reached out to her. She eventually decided she wanted the weapon on Phobos more than her promising First Mate.”
I pace the small room and pause by the window that looks out to the hallway. IA cadets from both departments come and go, sparing no glance at my window. I realize I’m still dressed like them, in a Defense-issued flight suit.
“So you lured Saint Rita to Phobos and staged an attack there.” I shake my head with a humorless laugh. “When we got there and I saw that Patch Shield over the black hole, I knew something was up. It was too easy. Is there even a weapon on Phobos?”
My mother smirks. “That’s classified.”
“What was on the data disk?”
Her smile falters slightly. “What data disk?”
I pat my chest, where the data disk in question used to hang from a necklace. “The one you gave me as a child. Vega said that’s why you went to all this trouble to get me back. Guess I wasn’t the best hiding spot for your confidential information, was I? Not when I went off with a bunch of pirates.”
“Vega was given instructions to bring you back,” she replies. “Not the disk. This was a rescue mission, Ophelia, not a death sentence.”
Gertrude’s mask of impenetrability wavers. She’s bluffing. The IA wouldn’t go to such trouble and waste so many resources to bring back a rogue agent, and my mother wouldn’t spend so much time tracking me down for a cushiony family reunion. If that were the case, she would’ve greeted me with a hug and a kiss, not a pair of handcuffs and a round-the-clock guard team.
“I was never meant for IA,” I say. “You know that.”
“You scored highest in your class for—”
“Yeah, I know,” I snap. “I was the best, and I liked it.”
“That’s good,” my mother says. “Because you’re going back to work for us.”
I scoff. “Keep dreaming.”
“You don’t have a choice, honey.” She pulls out the desk chair and sits down, as if the discussion is exhausting her. “You’re here now, whether you like it or not, and you’re of use to us. We need people like you in IA. Talented, level-headed—”
“I lack the ability to follow orders.”
“Saint Rita would disagree.”
Fuming, I stomp as far away from her as I can. In the tiny dorm room, that’s about seven feet. “I won’t work for IA.”
“You can and you will,” she says. “The Intrepid is currently on its way to Harmonia. You’ll return to the Academy for training and live at our house near campus—”
“Whose house?”
“Ours,” she says, motioning between us. “The Holmes family. Your father and I decided it was for the best. He’s not in excellent shape anymore, and since most of my work is on Harmonia, I wanted to be able to check on him more frequently. Your brother and sister work at the Academy. Naturally, they came along. It’s a nice house. We have a pool.”
“Vegas told me Laertes started desking after he failed to put together a successful search team,” I say. “And Claudia never wanted to be a teacher.”
“Laertes was indeed heartbroken when he couldn’t find you,” she answers. “He’ll be overjoyed you’re coming home. Yes, he worked a desk job for a while before he found his calling training young Intelligence cadets. Vega trained under your brother, as a matter of fact.”
“No wonder she’s so annoying.”
“Claudia is one of our top Defense trainers,” Gertrude boasts proudly. “She has the highest pass rate for end-of-year exams. She’s exquisite. You should see her.”
Once upon a time, my sister and I were the best of friends. She was only a few years older than me, so when I arrived at the Academy for training, everyone already knew not to mess with Claudia’s little sister. As I progressed through my education, I broke every one of Claudia’s records. The competition drove a wedge between us, but we always counted on one another in the hardest of times.
“Yeah, I can’t wait for the family reunion,” I say. “Did you plan a dinner? Buy a cake?”
“I’m afraid it slipped my mind.”
“Balloons, at least?”
“Ophelia.”
I throw my hands up in mock frustration. “Does no one respect the subtle art of being estranged? It’s like you’ve never watched a soap opera.”
“Perhaps Saint Rita stood for your dry humor, but IA does not take kindly to sarcasm,” Gertrude says. “I suggest you attempt to find a little respect for the people aboard this vessel.”
I sit down on the cot, bouncing up and down to test the comfort of the supple mattress. My mother watches me from across the room.
“How are you going to keep me from defecting again?” I ask.
“By force, if necessary.”
“You think I’m going to fall in line at the Academy?” I pull back the quilt on the bed and run my hand over the sheets underneath. Silk. Classy. “I’m not a kid anymore. Demerits mean nothing to me, and I don’t care who my behavior upsets.”
“Which is why we’ve assigned you a partner,” she announces. “She’ll stay with you at all times to keep you in line and prevent you from straying beyond IA’s assignments for you.”
“Don’t tell me—”
My mother raises her voice and calls, “Major! Come in, if you please!”
The door to the dormitory opens, and Vega walks in, dressed head to toe in her IA cross-trained refinery. She plants her feet shoulder width apart, clasps her hands behind her back, and lifts her chin.
“At ease, Major,” Gertrude commands. Vega relaxes into a more comfortable stance.
I let out a long, annoyed groan. “Her? Why her? I’d like to request anyone but her.”
Vega rolls her eyes, but my mother appears amused. Her mouth twitches upward in a poorly disguised grin.
“Why, Ophelia,” she says, her tone bordering on disciplinary. “That’s no way to talk to your best friend. Apologize at once.”
I look Vega up and down. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“I thought you’d appreciate a familiar face,” Gertrude goes on. Vega doesn’t say anything. In my mother’s presence, she needs permission to speak. “Vega is one of our best officers. She’ll get you settled at the Academy, and she’ll be staying with you at the house. We have bunk beds.”
“Whoopee,” I reply without an ounce of enthusiasm. “Next question. I’ve gotten the better of Vega in every single one of our tiffs. How do you expect her to keep me in line?”
Gertrude nods to Vega, who immediately kicks the back of my knees. My legs buckle, but when I try to catch myself on the bed frame, my face meets Vega’s fist. She puts all she’s got into it, and the force of the blow sends my right eye screaming for shelter in the back of my skull. I fall to the floor, stunned, as Vega leans over me.
“I’ve been holding out on you,” she says. “Had to make you think I was weak and pathetic to get on your good side.”
“Mother of God.” I cup my palm to my ruined eye. “Can I get a cold compress?”
“You can get bruise balm if you shut up long enough,” Gertrude says. “Vega can show you the hospital wing, the part of it you didn’t completely destroy.”
“My private room is no longer available, I take it?”
“No,” my mother replies curtly.
Vega escorts me through the sterile hallways of The Intrepid. I try to lag behind, not only to annoy h
er but to get a glimpse through the various doorways and windows along our route. She scoots me along, kicking my heels like a herding dog. I can tell by the cocky sway of her shoulders she’s enjoying this. Ironically, our roles were reversed a few months ago, when it was me showing Vega around The Impossible.
“Weapons bay?” I ask, walking on my toes to peek through a high window. Through the glass, rows upon rows of unloaded R-Ones line the walls. Somewhere in there is enough opalite to take down this ship from the inside out.
“Don’t even think about it.” Vega shoves me down the hallway, digging her fingers into the blaster wound on my arm. “You won’t ever have access to a weapons bay, no matter how long you stay with IA.”
“No faith in my loyalty, huh?”
“I know exactly what you’re planning,” Vega answers. “Once we get back to Harmonia, you’ll stir up a little bit of trouble before settling into the curriculum. Then you’ll be a model student. Perfect marks, following whatever orders you’re given, et cetera. Then you’ll convince your mother and the other instructors you’ve seen the error of your ways, and you’ve reformed now. It could be months or years from now, but you’ll convince them to give you a solo mission then take the opportunity to steal as many blasters as you can carry, a backpack full of opalite, and a Wasp to get as far away from Harmonia as possible.”
“I’d steal more than a backpack of opalite,” I reply. “Some to keep and equip, some to sell on the black market. I’m disappointed in you.”
“You don’t ever shut up, do you?”
“Only when I’m sleeping.”
We reach the med bay. Vega shoulder bumps me on the way in, but it’s just for show. A hunky brunette guy sits at the white counter, peering at something through a microscope. He glances up when we walk in.
“Vega.” He grins at her, but when his gaze shifts to me, the smile drops quickly. “Is this her? Ophelia Holmes?”
“The one and only,” I answer for her.
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