I motioned toward Theron. “Think we can trust him?”
Xavix responded. “Not enough information on him to say for sure.”
“Didn't you look him up in the database or something?” I asked. “Or whatever it is you do?”
“I did,” Xavix said. “I found the name Theron Singleton in the database, but when I examined the record more closely, I realized that the photograph and description of Air Officer Singleton does not match our passenger. But then, perhaps the Air Alliance simply input the wrong data. You know how sloppy they can be.”
“Really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, not really, Gemma. That was what you humans call sarcasm,” he replied. “It's definitely strange and something isn't adding up. But I also don't think we should talk about it here. Just in case he wakes up.”
My heart stuttered and my pulse raced as I thought about the possibilities sitting before us. If Theron wasn't really part of the Air Alliance, what did that mean? Who was he really? Did that mean he was with Boygan? If so, why did Boygan suggest I dispose of him? Did he say it because he knew I wouldn't do it and was just giving the kid some cover? I looked over at the kid, his eyes closed and his chest moving up and down with calm, steady breaths, and felt the anger surging within me again.
“I have a better idea. Let's get this all out in the open now,” I said, standing up and shaking Theron awake.
His eyes flew open and he sat up, staring at me, clearly frightened.
“What are you – ” he muttered.
I yanked him by the collar of his shirt, and managed to pull him close enough to stare deep into his eyes. I looked at him intently, doing my best to convey my anger and put the fear of God into him. He needed to believe I wasn't somebody to screw with.
“We have a problem,Theron,” I asked, stressing his voice to express my disbelief. “If that's even your real name.”
“What do you mean? Of course it's my real name.”
“Oh really? Well, we did a little digging and imagine our surprise to find that while your name is in there, the photo of Theron Singleton in the Air Alliance database doesn't match you – which means that you're obviously lying about who you are,” I snapped. “So who the fuck are you really?”
“I'm new! I just got out of training, like I told you,” he shouted, fear coloring his words. “They're not always careful about keeping their records accurate. Mixups like this happen all the time!”
“Nope, not buying it,” I said, smacking the man across the face. “They're really good about their security clearances. There's no way your record would be wrong in the system.”
“Yes, there is,” he said, flinching before I had a chance to smack him again. “If you calm down and let me talk, I can explain everything.”
I raised my hand but held it back and didn't smack him again – even though I really wanted to. Instead, I slipped my pistol out of the holster and crossed my arms in front of me, giving him a good, long view of my gun – letting him know that his explanation better be good. Damn good. He flinched, his eyes wide, as I waved it at him to encourage him to continue.
“It better be good,” I said coldly.
Theron rubbed his cheek as he stared back at me. I'd left a pretty good red mark on his skin and he had the look of a little boy who was confused and scared. As I looked at him though, I rolled my eyes, convinced that he was playing us. I wasn't buying his act – there was a lot more to this kid than he was telling. But, I was going to get it out of him.
“I'm not actually in the Air Alliance, okay? My brother is. Or rather, my half-brother.” he sighed, his eyes downcast and looked dejected. “I failed the test and they wouldn't let me in. My brother wanted to quit – said it was too hard – so I took his uniform and started coming in his place. You're right that the photos don't match because it's not me. It's my brother. He takes after his dad, and I take after our mom. We don't have the same fathers, and we look nothing alike.”
“And what, the Air Alliance hasn't figured this out yet?” I asked, my tone incredulous.
He shrugged. “They did and I told them it was their mistake,” he said. “They took a new photo and are correcting it. Apparently, they haven't had a chance to do it just yet.”
“So, what? You're just running around pretending to be your brother?” I asked, still not believing him. “And nobody has figured it out yet?”
“Not yet, no,” he said with a dry chuckle. “I'm just that good, I guess.”
“Why didn't they let a sniveling little rich boy like you in to begin with? You seem perfect for the job,” I said. “Seems that's the only kind of person they let wear their shitty little uniforms.”
“Let me guess,” he asked, his tone wry, “they didn't let you in either?”
I sat down beside him, looking at him closely. His story seemed unbelievable to me. I was having a really hard time swallowing it. But there was a sincerity in his eyes I saw that I didn't think could be faked. I was cynical and had an excellent bullshit detector. And although I wasn't sure he was telling me everything, I thought that he was being truthful about taking his brother's place.
“How did you know?” I asked, surprised that I was letting my guard down even a little bit around him.
“Because you have the bitterness of someone who was rejected. Trust me, I know how it feels,” he said. “Which is why I put on the uniform and pretended to be my brother, Theron, in the first place.”
Xavix was already at work and nodded. He pulled up an image and put it on the cabin's main screen. It showed a man with dark hair and darker eyes – a direct contrast to the man sitting before me.
“Told you, I look like my mom,” he said, shrugging.
“So if you're not Theron, who are you?”
“Just call me Theron, please? I've gotten used to it – ”
The look I gave him caused him to stop talking and look down at his hands. He sighed and shook his head.
“I'm not asking what to call you,” I said. “I'm asking for your real, legal name. The name your parents gave you when you were born.”
“So you can do a search on me too, huh?”
“I want to know who I'm sitting next to, so yes,” I said. “You lied to me once, so I don't trust you.”
“What are you going to do if you don't like what you find?”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened – and for a brief second, he made me nervous enough that I tightened my grip on my gun. But then he laughed and shook his head again.
“Seriously, it's not like you can kick me out,” he said. “We've tried that. But don't worry, I'm harmless. Just a kid from Seattle. A nobody. Kind of like you, actually.”
“If you're a nobody, then you shouldn't have a problem with us looking you up,” I said, choosing to ignore the slight.
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine. My name is Eron Wayn.”
“Eron and Theron?” I asked, trying not to chuckle – and failing. “You sure you're not twins?”
“Positive,” he said, his expression serious. “Listen, Theron is an asshole. He's entitled and condescending. I really hate him. He didn't deserve his position with the Alliance. I only stepped up to fill in for him because I had no other opportunities and he was just pissing his away. Gemma, I'm sure you understand that all too well.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you grew up on the wrong side of town – and so did I,” he said. “Which is why I'm trying to be someone else. Someone who actually had some opportunities in life like Theron did – opportunities I never had since my mom was poor.”
It was something I could relate to all too well. Growing up where I did, I'd had no opportunities. There was no bright, shiny future waiting for me. About all I was going to be able to expect was a lifetime of hardship and struggle – just like my mom. I knew if I didn't do something – anything – to pull myself out of that dark, deep pit, I was going to do nothing more than fight and scratch just to get by.
“Well, I'm not just sitting around waiting for good things to fall out of the sky for me,” Theron – or Eron – said. “I'm making my own luck. Carving out my own path and making my own opportunities. And if I have to lie, cheat, and steal – or just pretend to be somebody else – to make that happen, I'll do it. I refuse to feel bad about it. And I sure as hell won't apologize for it.”
Xavix butted in then. “It all checks out,” he said. “Theron Singleton has a younger half-brother, Eron. Different fathers – Theron's father is the one and only Derix Singleton – the wealthy businessman from Seattle. Eron has no father listed, but he's estimated to be about nineteen years old. No job, nothing else given for him – but on the bright side, no criminal records either. He's clean.”
“Because my mom isn't sure who my dad is,” he said casually, still avoiding my eyes. “She cheated on Derix and I'm apparently the reason for our family's descent into poverty and hell.”
All of this almost made me feel bad for the kid. He was, after all, still very much a kid. Nineteen years old and pretending to be someone he's not just to get ahead in life. Not the life I would have chosen, but hell, it sounded like it was going better for him than it ever had for me.
“Can you blame me for wanting to get out of the shithole I was living in? I was living in Gaad for God’s sake,” he said, running a hand through his short, trim hair.
The Alliance made everyone cut their hair down short and clean. He looked the part of an Alliance officer, I had to admit. He'd done a good job for a kid living in Gaad – which was possibly an even worse than where my family was from. Just a little bit, at least.
“From this point on, no more lies,” I said, feeling my eyes growing tired. “You need to be straight with me. I'm dealing with some pretty intense shit right now and the last thing I need is for you to be causing me trouble. Got it?”
“Got it,” he mumbled. “Sorry, I just thought you'd understand. We all know about you, Gemma. Believe it or not, you're an inspiration to a lot of us. We all know how you fought to get out of Marauders. How you went on to become an intergalactic hero and all – ”
“I'm no damn hero. This is all because the damn Alliance lured me out to Cromia and made me fight for my very existence,” I spat. “Don't think it was easy.”
“God, I know it couldn't have been,” he said. “But it was the Alliance who – ?”
“I don't want to talk about that,” I muttered, standing up and walking away.
Suddenly, I just wanted to be alone, even if I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to talk about my past with anyone, especially someone I hardly knew – somebody who'd already lied to me and I didn't trust.
“Xavix? Keep an eye on Eron or Theron or whoever the fuck he is,” I said. “I'm going to try to sleep again. Hopefully this time I can.”
“Good luck,” Xavix said.
Yeah, I needed all the luck I could get right now.
Chapter Six
I laid awake for a while, but eventually fell into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning as I drifted in and out of consciousness. I hated not being in control of my own ship, it made me feel uneasy. But mostly, I was worried about my family. I knew Boygan well enough to know that he was a monster capable of horrific things. And the thought of him holding my mom and aunt hostage made me sick to my stomach with worry and grief.
But eventually, I did doze off, convinced that sleeping was the best use of my time with all other options unavailable to me. Of course, as luck would have it, the moment I entered dreamland, I was shaken awake by what felt like an earthquake and a sound like the universe were being ripped open around me.
Except we weren't on Earth. As far as I knew, we weren't on the surface of any planet, anywhere.
I sat bolt upright and grabbed onto the first thing I could to keep myself from falling out of my bunk as theUmbra shook back and forth violently. The sound of a muffled explosion underneath the ship caused me to fear the worst – that we were going to have to abandon ship. I forced myself to stand up and made my way on unsteady legs, up to the bridge.
Xavix was working wildly at the controls and was talking to someone. At first, I assumed it was our stowaway, but then I realized the voice he was responding to was coming from the comms. And then I recognized the voice as Boygan's.
“What's going on?” I asked.
“We've hit something,” Xavix said. “Space debris of some sort. I couldn't control the ship to go around it, and we took a direct hit. There's a rupture in the hull and our engines are failing.”
I looked over at Theron, who was as pale as a ghost. He stared straight ahead, not saying anything, just gripping the armrests tightly as if that might be what kept him alive. If only it were that easy.
Boygan was giving directions, speaking calmly as he listened to Xavix. In fact, both of them seemed eerily calm. Of course, Boygan had nothing to fear since he wasn't aboard theUmbra and wouldn't die if she exploded into a billion flaming pieces. And Xavix, of course, was a robot who didn't fear things like death and dismemberment like I did.
It must be nice. I would kill to not feel like I was teetering on the edge of another goddamn panic attack.
“I'm re-routing you,” Boygan said. “You'll be landing on a nearby planet. It'll be rough, so hold on tight. But you should be on the ground in only a few minutes one way or another.”
One way or another. Meaning we'd either land or come crashing down and again, explode into a billion flaming pieces.
“Fasten your seatbelt,” I barked at Theron. “Now.”
Even though I had zero control of the ship, I quickly dropped down into the captains chair anyway and buckled myself in. Xavix was already strapped in. Now we just had to trust Boygan to get us safely onto the ground – and he had to accomplish that feat with at least one of our engines gone. He was not a man I trusted, not one little bit. But for whatever reason, he seemed determined to make sure we got to him, in one piece. I didn't trust him, which meant that I had to trust that whatever game he was playing with me was more important to him than watching us explode in space, thus ruining his fun.
There was a loud humming noise coming from underneath the ship, and Xavix looked over at me as it seemed to be growing louder by the second. If droids could have facial expressions, I would have said that the one on Xavix's face was concern. Perhaps even alarm. Maybe even outright terror. Or maybe I was just projecting that onto him. Probably was.
“Prepare for a very rough landing,” he said.
I nodded and knew this wasn't going to be easy. I braced for impact, staring straight ahead and trying not to think too much about dying. More times than I could count over the last few years, I'd faced death, and never had I been afraid. But now, I was actually scared. It was probably safe to say that I was actually terrified.
I didn't want to die like that – crashing to the ground on some strange and distant planet, erupting in a ball of fire. It was more than that, though. I knew if I died, my mom and aunt were doomed. With me dead, Boygan would have no use for them, so they'd be discarded, tossed aside and likely killed. My mother might be on her death bed, but that was not the way I wanted her to go.
My heart raced as we continued hurtling toward the ground. If Boygan was controlling our ship, it felt like he was doing a piss-poor job of it. It felt like we were free-falling – and were picking up speed.
Boygan said, “Xavix, shut down the other engine.”
“Why?” I asked.
Xavix didn't ask any questions, he did as he was told. Which caused us to fall even faster. TheUmbra had three engines, and one was gone. The other was now shut off.
“I'm shutting down the final engine now,” Xavix said.
I knew very little about the mechanics of spaceships, but I couldn't imagine losing all three engines was a good thing. Panic gripped me and I started to say something as I stared out the front window, the strange planet getting closer and closer. I saw what looked like a large landmass surrounded by water. Maybe i
f we landed in the water, we'd be safe. But if we hit the land at the speed we were currently going, there wasn't going to be anything left to identify our bodies with. I shot a quick glance over at Theron and his face was bone white, locked in an expression of absolute terror.
“Incoming,” Boygan said.
“What's incoming?” I asked, shouting at this point. “We need to point this ship toward the water!”
“We can't,” Xavix said. “Our steering mechanism is out. Even Boygan can't control the direction we're going”
So that was it. That was how we were going to die. Goddammit. That was not how I wanted to go out.
As we plummeted toward the ground, another ship swooped down in front of us unexpectedly, making both myself and Theron scream out. Xavix, of course, remained in perfect control of himself. Robotic bastard.
The sudden appearance of the ship scared me to death though. If we were going to die in a crash, I'd rather not take anyone else with us after all.
“Alert the other ship that we're losing control and that they need to get the hell out of our way!” I shouted. “Now, Xavix!”
He tried to relay the message, but they weren't budging, staying right in front of us. We were right up on them, free falling, and it looked like we were going to take another ship down with us. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my nerves. I could hear Theron whispering a prayer to himself – which wasn't helping my nerves any. I waited for the impact and explosion to follow, morbidly wondering if I'd even feel anything or if the world would just go black.
God, I hope we don't feel anything, I thought to myself.
I waited. And waited. And then came the hit.
We were all thrown forward with so much force, I was sure our seat belts were going to snap. I gripped the arm rests of my chair as tightly as I'd mocked Theron for doing earlier. Yeah, like that was going to save me.
I didn't want to look, but morbid curiosity compelled me to open my eyes – and that's when I saw what was happening in front of me. And was stunned into silence. There was no crash and we weren't erupting into a ball of flames. The other ship had – the one that had come swooping in out of nowhere – had “caught” us.
Treachery: Celestial Empires Book 2 Page 4