Liberty
Page 23
I ran full speed down the halls toward Hobs’s lab. I skidded to a stop in front of his door. It looked like someone had held a blowtorch to the lock.
“They couldn’t have gotten inside, even if they’d broken the lock,” said Rivera, sauntering casually down the hall.
I whirled around to face him. “What?” I asked. “How would you know?”
“Remember when he threw me the key?”
“Threw you the ...”
My mind faded back to Hobs’s last moments. Gunshots. A silver key flying through the air.
I stared at Rivera.
“It wasn’t your average key. He knew we’d be captured, and that they’d find that key on me. As soon as they tried to use it on the lab doors, a security program engaged and nothing short of the ship being blown to bits would open that room.”
Berrett let out a low whistle. “Wish Caleb and I had thought of something that clever. When did he install that?”
“Probably while we were on Mars,” I replied. “How are we supposed to open it now?”
Rivera smiled and looked at me. “Biometric key. Only one person can open it once it’s like this.” He pointed to a scanner to the right of the torched door.
“Me?” I asked.
“No, the Easter Bunny,” said Rivera.
I looked into the scanner. Nothing happened.
“Hmph. That should have worked,” said Rivera.
“Captain?” asked Bell.
“What?”
“Remove your contacts.”
I pursed my lips together. “Look, I don’t know if I can—”
“Yes, that is what you said about the asteroids, do you remember?”
I nodded. “Okay, gimme a sec.”
I turned away and popped my purple lenses out. I hesitated before turning around. My crew had never seen my real eyes. It felt strange, even after everything we had gone through, to be so naked, so myself with them. I took a deep breath and faced them with my own eyes.
“Wow,” said Berrett.
“What?” I cried.
“Nothing.”
“Something!”
“Y..... ha..... your eyes, they’re pretty, that’s all.”
“Really?” said Rivera. “Flirt later. Right now, scan your pretty eyes and open Hobs’s lab.”
“How did you know about this, anyway?” I asked.
“Oh, Captain. There is so much you don’t know about me.”
I tried to read him, but I couldn’t. “You made so much more sense before Neptune.”
Rivera laughed. “Trust me, this version is better. Now look in the scanner.”
The door popped open and the four of us stepped inside.
Scattered across his lab table were beakers, ingredients, random piles of junk, and one thick, leather-bound journal with papers and notes sticking out of it at odd angles.
I picked up the journal, let it fall open, and started reading.
Spent most of the day thinking about temperature. It has to play a role ... and when I wasn’t thinking about that, I was thinking about Dix’s eyes. I saw them once when she didn’t have her contacts in. She has incredibly beautiful eyes.
I blushed.
“You okay?” asked Berrett.
I slammed the book shut. “Fine. It’s mostly just talking about experiments.”
“Come look at this,” said Berrett.
With the journal in my hands, I walked over to Berrett, who was facing a wall of shelves. On one shelf was a whole row of beakers, filled to the brim with a swirling, silver liquid.
“Oh, my... he didn’t ...” I picked up a beaker and held it in my hands. My throat tightened and the strength threatened to leave my legs. “This was his surprise,” I whispered.
Berrett took the journal from me and starting flipping through pages. “Berrett! Give it back!”
“I just want to see what it says about—”
“Give it back!”
He held it as high as he could, well beyond my reach. I jumped up anyway, determined to retrieve it.
Rivera intervened and plucked the journal out of Berrett’s hands. “You two are such infants. Look, the last ten pages is where the important skud is. The whole process, everything we need and every step we have to take ... he wrote it all here. He finished that batch maybe fifteen minutes before Eira attacked.”
The shock overwhelmed me and I stumbled to the nearest chair. I heard Rivera yell for Miriam and CiCi. The crew danced and laughed and hugged each other. I sat in my chair, stared at the silver liquid in my hands, and thought of Hobs.
As I ran back to the cockpit, my crew on my heels, the sight of the sleek, black ship tailing us in the distance didn’t faze me one bit. Not even Max could ruin my day now.
Hobs had given me one last gift.
A chance at life.
A chance for freedom.
I swore by every star in the System I wouldn’t waste it.
Annie Laurie Cechini is a connoisseur of every type of geekery. She writes with a sonic screwdriver pen, owns a Tribble named Nimoy, and often threatens in all seriousness to name a child after a character from the Star Wars lexicon. Liberty is her first novel. You can learn more at her website, www.annielauriecechini.com.
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Title Image
Dedication
Title Page
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Dust to Dust
Chapter 2: Family of Misfits
Chapter 3: Fired Up
Chapter 4: Infernal Boy
Chapter 5: Parked
Chapter 6: Nasty Old Bars and Other Grossness
Chapter 7: Getting Better
Chapter 8: In Which Tabitha is Renamed. Again.
Chapter 9: Hiding Out
Chapter 10: Master and Apprentice
Chapter 11: Blatant Thievery
Chapter 12: Massacre
Chapter 13: Picking Up the Kids
Chapter 14: Diversion
Chapter 15: Maxwell
Chapter 16: Cue Sparks
Chapter 17: In Which Things Are Awkward
Chapter 18: City of Lights
Chapter 19: Lost and Found
Chapter 20: Reunited
Chapter 21: Escape Artists
Chapter 22: Return of the Eyeroll
Chapter 23: Ripping Off the Band-Aid
Chapter 24: Taken
Chapter 25: Shattered
Chapter 26: Gone But Not Forgotten
Chapter 27: Unexpected Ally
Chapter 28: Justice: Check
Chapter 29: Freedom
About the Author