by Jessica Gunn
“Captain,” I shouted, standing and rushing toward him. “You can’t.”
He wanted to go out, to face the rest and save the crew. He was already grasping the door handle when he said, “I’m not letting this happen again.”
I shot out my own hand to cover his. “Sir, that’s not the way. You’re not going to gain anything by going out, guns blazing, into a situation you know nothing about.” I paused a beat. “With all due respect, sir, that didn’t work last time.”
His face hardened.
I gestured toward his desk. “Help me barricade the door.”
“That won’t keep them from teleporting inside the room,” he pointed out, even as we moved the desk.
“No, but Chelsea can’t just teleport places. She needs connections and I don’t know how easy those are to make.” Whoever these people were, they must have boarded the ship from the outside first. Hummingbird’s shield would have kept them from teleporting on board. But once they were inside… the rest was free game.
He pointed to the spot where the two previous Atlanteans had teleported in. “They did.”
“I don’t know, Captain.” Door barricaded, I shut the privacy screen. “Where’s your personal tablet?” His computer had fallen as collateral damage to the Atlanteans’ entry.
Captain Marks trailed into his quarters and returned with the tablet. “What are you going to do?”
I took it from him and put it on the desk so I could type with both hands. “Screw up our hijacker’s day. Chelsea and I created a virus without telling anyone.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’ll scramble the station’s systems in a way only Chelsea and I can decipher and fix, using our communications system with her band’s song lyrics.” Like how she’d passed that message to me through Contents to Burn three months ago. Certain lyrics, certain ways in which the song was delivered, even the color of Chelsea’s shoes and shirt, it had all meant something. It was all one big paranoid mess of a system, but it worked. And it had to work now.
“When you say scramble, what do you mean?” Captain Marks asked.
“Communications will be completely offline,” I answered. “If they touch Life Support, the weapons systems will die. If they try to load a missile, the power will turn off and the generators will kick in.”
“Also rendering Weapons useless,” Captain Marks commented.
I nodded. “Chelsea and I can still get things to work properly and reset the system. I’m not doing anything but shutting the power off until we know whether or not someone made it to the panic room.”
“If they do, the safest plan is to call for help and wait this out until it arrives,” Captain Marks said.
“Yeah. Exactly.” I typed in a ton of commands, working as quickly as I could, and started Babel. The lights flickered overhead, heralding the system’s initiation. “It’s done.”
“Good work,” Captain Marks commended, right as an Atlantean teleport lit up the room like the dark blue stage lights of a rock concert. Captain Marks aimed his weapon and I tensed. How many more Atlanteans had connections to the Captain’s Quarters?
But instead of another random Atlantean, Weyland stepped out of the waterfall.
The Captain released his held breath and dropped his weapon. “Lieutenant. What’s going on?”
Weyland glanced between us, the door, and behind him. “Not sure. My first thought was secure the station, my second was to get to the Captain quicker this time around.”
“You teleported again,” I said.
Weyland nodded. “I think these guys are Atlantean.”
“They are. We knew they’d come for the station eventually.”
“Okay, but I don’t think they’re working alone,” Weyland said as he lifted up the arm of his shirt. It wasn’t clear what he was trying to show us. The only thing out of the ordinary was a red bump. He pointed to the redness. “They’re drawing vials of blood from people. Roughly. Mine’s already healing. Atlanteans wouldn’t do that I don’t think.” His expression darkened. “But there is one person who was looking for certain people.”
My stomach dropped. Could it be? No.
They were looking for Atlantean super soldiers, to take them back to Atlantis and have them join their army. But was it possible they didn’t know who on board was one?
“What’d they do with it after?” I asked Weyland. “Did you see?”
He shook his head and started pacing. “I didn’t stick around to find out. I managed to break free, run around a corner, and teleport here. But if they’ve seen the camera footage at all and start looking around… they’ll be here soon.” Weyland’s fists clenched. He shoved them behind his back to hide his anger. “I wish I had more control. I’d teleport out and return with back-up.”
With the wild look in his eyes, I was surprised he hadn’t grabbed Erin and tried that already just to get her to safety. That meant he must have put her somewhere safe for now if he’d come here.
I exchanged a look with the captain before saying, “You won’t have to. With any luck, someone made it to the panic room. Hopefully Chelsea.”
Eyes narrowing, Weyland asked, “Panic room? What panic room?”
“We built an insurance policy only a select number of individuals knew about, for this very purpose,” Captain Marks said. “And yes, it was my decision not to inform you.”
Weyland turned to him. “With all due respect, Captain, I told you I wasn’t with TruGates anymore. They dumped me like they had Chelsea. At least now we all know why.”
Captain Marks’s mouth formed a hard line. “It doesn’t matter right now. What does is that we do what we can to end this situation.” He looked to me. “You said your virus will keep them busy, right?”
The door to the Captain’s Quarters burst off its hinges and flew into the room, narrowly missing Lieutenant Weyland. He dove out of the way at the last second, rolled, and came up short of a shock of fire the color of bright green grass.
Green fire. No, energy like fire, life flaming on the inside, but the wave moved with the fluidity of water. I’d never seen anything like it before. Except when those lights had enveloped Dave. The dark green lights.
The White City. Its soldiers, garbed in verdant tunic uniforms and leather boots, stomped into the room even as a low, thumping bass pulsed through the air. The walls swam as my vision twisted, roiling my stomach.
What’s happening?
The Waterstar map flashed before my eyes with all the strength it used to have before Butch’s medicine. It was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out.
Everything hurt. Hurt like it had after I woke up to find myself recovering from the bubonic plague. Ached like after that telepathically-charged argument Chelsea and I’d had before rescuing SeaSat5.
I opened my eyes, but all I saw was the Waterstar map, that trusty topaz haze that encompassed everything and through which lines and dates and time periods slid by like a ski lift over a mountain. An old, painful friend.
A headache bore into me, made worse by the lights overhead. I slammed my eyes shut, but still the blue mist lingered in my mind. Always there, waiting. Previously kept at bay by medicine, now back—somehow—with full force.
“He’s awake,” someone whispered.
“Trevor?” Weyland sat on my left, peering down at me. “You okay? You’ve been out for almost ten minutes.”
“Not opening my eyes,” I grunted. God, even talking hurt. What the hell did they do to me?
“Good enough,” Weyland said.
“Shut up!” someone shouted. It echoed between my ears like a gong had been rung. “Back against the wall!”
I risked the pain to open my eyes. We were on the Bridge, tucked in the back corner by the blast doors—all twenty or thirty of SeaSat5’s bridge crew. I forced my eyes to stay open for five seconds. Six. Seven. Long enough to get the full picture.
Captain Marks stood in the center of the space, cuffed to a railing on top of the Command Platfo
rm. His sleeve had been rolled up, blood drawn. Obviously the Captain of a once-classified Navy vessel wasn’t an Atlantean super soldier. That would be far too freaking obvious. But these White City soldiers weren’t taking chances. The real question was: why did they have Atlantean soldiers working with them?
“The Lemurian’s awake!” one of the White City soldiers shouted. He wore a dark green tunic and tan pants, like he’d stepped right out of their time-place and onto the station.
Right out of Germay’s time-place.
The tunics were unmistakable. Germay’s people had once forced Chelsea and I to play a puzzle game, to use the Altern Device, in order to build a Link Piece from scratch that’d Link to SeaSatellite5. Or replace the Link that SeaSat5 had to wherever it went to.
That was another thing—no matter how much access anyone had to the Waterstar map, no one could see where SeaSat5 went. Maybe that’s why these guys were after Atlantean super soldiers. Maybe the White City thought Chelsea and the others could see it, even though they couldn’t, and once they’d fulfilled their usefulness, they’d be killed.
“Come here,” said the man in the green tunic.
Weyland moved to intercept, but someone knocked him aside. I closed my eyes as I was yanked off the floor and dragged toward the Command Platform by my arms. I struggled to open my eyes again, forced them to remain open to face this guy.
“Which of the crew are Atlantean?” demanded tunic man.
“The only Atlanteans on board are your dead crew,” I snapped.
Bad idea.
He reeled back and dragged his fist across my face. The hit stung and sent my head spinning almost as fast as the Link Pieces in the Waterstar map.
“Who are they?” the man asked.
I clamped my mouth shut. Chelsea had taken worse defending me. I’d do whatever necessary to keep her safe. Hopefully she was in the panic room, readying to get troops and bring them here to save the station. All I had to do was hold out and try not to let Weyland or Dr. Gordon get caught up in this at the same time.
“Doubt he’d be friendly with them if he’s Lemurian, wouldn’t you say?” said a familiar voice. But it didn’t compute with the current situation.
I glanced up at the newcomer… and saw Josh Turner. As in Chelsea’s ex-boyfriend and Weyland’s best friend. The man who’d dumped Chelsea alone and unconscious on Castle Island months ago. The man who should be dead.
I tried to make eye contact with him, but the lights seared my vision. This Waterstar map regression would be the death of me, I was sure of it.
“What’s wrong?” Josh asked the man in the tunic. “You’re supposed to be questioning him, not beating the shit out of them.”
At least I don’t leave the girl I love in the sand.
“He’s not cooperating,” tunic-man said.
Josh ripped me out of other man’s grip and swung me around. The next thing I knew, he’d pressed a gun to my face. “Last chance. Someone on this bridge is an Atlantean super soldier. If you do not step forward, I will kill him.”
Panic lit another round of adrenaline through my veins. I tried to fight him; I tugged on his hands, kicked at his feet, but somehow Josh managed to keep me under control.
No one stepped forward. Josh’s threat had to be a bluff. He wouldn’t kill me, would he? Not on SeaSat5 in front of the people he’d risked his own life to help save not six months ago.
“No one?” Josh asked, inching the gun closer to my head. Close enough that the metal’s coolness whisked onto my skin, chilling the area to gooseflesh.
No way in hell he’d kill me. I was sure of it. If any part of Josh was still there, any small piece, he wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t like he didn’t know who I was. This was all a game, likely part of General Allen’s secret agenda. He was the only common denominator in all of this: Weyland’s exile from TruGates, Josh’s appearance here. The White City making a move for SeaSat5.
But still the question remained: why?
“Okay then.” He cocked the gun, a movement I was barely able to watch out of the corner of my eye.
I gulped. Son of a bitch.
My breath came in shallow breaths. Heat flushed my neck and hands. This was it, how I would die—at the hands of the love of my life’s ex-boyfriend.
Figures.
“Don’t!” Weyland shouted, standing. All guns in the room trained on him. He threw his hands up in the air. “It’s me, Josh. It’s me. I’m an Atlantean super soldier.”
Josh’s expression softened, but not for long. It was the only indication that the real Josh, not some brain-washed puppet of General Allen’s, might still be in there. That I’d gotten through to him.
“Good,” Josh’s eyes narrowed. “Normally we’d save you, but we know there’s a second one on board. For taking so long, your prize is this.”
He re-aimed the gun away from me. Toward Weyland.
I flinched as a gunshot erupted in the room, echoing in my ears with pain. My hands flew up of their own accord to cover them as a second shot pierced through the ringing. The Water-star map swam in my vision again as adrenaline coursed through my body.
The sound of a heavy thud made it through the haze. I fought against the pull of the map, searching through the topaz to find where Weyland had fallen. I needed to see if he was okay, to see if Josh had actually done the unthinkable.
Weyland couldn’t be dead. There was no way Josh, the real Josh, would kill his best friend, orders or not.
At least, I hoped.
19
Chelsea
“No!” I shouted, throat hoarse, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me. My fists clenched along with my stomach as I stood there, helpless.
“D-dammit.” Freddy watched the security camera feed from the panic room floor. He hadn’t moved since we’d bandaged his leg.
I wrapped my fingers around the computer screen, staring into the crowd of people. Josh—that asshole—had almost shot Trevor before firing into the crowd. Almost all of SeaSatellite5’s senior staff was in that group.
And Josh was here. Alive. Walking around like nothing had happened at all.
Nothing except for a betrayal that ran so bitterly deep I felt it even in the smallest of my bones. It tore tiny holes into me that bled all the trust I’d put in him. In them. Josh had shot Weyland, his friend. My lungs seized and all breathing stopped for too many long, silent moments.
“Chelsea,” Freddy’s croaked. “Snap out of it.”
Bile slicked my throat as I watched Trevor surge forward. Josh knocked him back. It was impossible, nearly killed me, but I tore my eyes from Trevor and focused on the group of people on the floor. Forced myself to take a deep breath. I tapped the screen and zoomed in on the scene, terrified but needing to know. Maybe I could teleport in, grab them, and teleport out.
People crowded around one person, hovering over them, until Trevor shoved them all away. Then I saw—it was Weyland. With the way he was sitting, the hijackers couldn’t possibly have seen him behind Trevor. And the only reason Freddy and I saw anything was because of the camera’s high angle. Weyland held up his hand, half-open, for Trevor to see. Two dark objects rested inside.
He’d caught both bullets. Which made no sense… unless he’d stopped it with telekinesis.
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed.
“What?” Freddy asked.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “I think Weyland caught the bullets and is faking being hurt.”
“Caught?”
I nodded quickly. “Yeah, he’s got powers too. They’ll take him if they find out.”
“Is-isn’t that your ex?” Freddy asked, pointing to the screen. “Josh?”
I spun back to the monitor, heaving deep breaths. Focus. Don’t lose it. Sweat dripped down my neck despite the cold temperatures. “Yes.”
“But I thought Weyland said—”
“I know what Weyland said,” I snapped. “Josh is supposed to be dead. I don’t know why he’s here. I don’t
know—” A sob escaped me. Just one. I swallowed down the rest and pointed to the screen, rage surging within me like a geyser ready to blow. “I don’t care what excuse they have or why they’re here, or what the hell is actually going on. Whatever this mission is that they’re on, I’m willing to bet it’s the real reason I was kicked out of TruGates. Weyland too.”
I turned and reached overhead for a hidden compartment. This. Ended. Now.
Shifting sounds echoed from Freddy’s corner. He pulled himself up the wall and leaned against it. “What are you doing?”
“Ending this,” I grunted as I put in the code and stuck my thumb against the weapons locker. A handful of nine millimeters sat inside, fully loaded. “We’re going to call TAO and then I’m going in.”
“You can’t, the procedures say—”
“I know what they say!” I snapped, turning on Freddy. He didn’t look good—pale, with pain crinkling his drawn eyes despite the Ibuprofen in his system. Not to mention the cold air. His shoulders shook uncontrollably. If I didn’t get him out of here soon, if this takeover attempt didn’t end, I wasn’t sure what would happen to Freddy. “I’m tired of people walking onto this station and threatening—killing—my friends, and I’m certainly over whatever the hell is happening with Josh and his team. I’m done, Freddy. This ends today, however that happens.”
I made my way to the computer and waded through Trevor’s Babel code until the system let me in. We’d separated this room’s systems from the main ones for security purposes, but Babel was built to take over everything. Luckily, we’d banked on one or both of us being in here to initiate Babel. I had no idea where Trevor had initiated Babel from, but it was working. That was all that mattered.
I dialed up TAO and waited. It only rang once. “General Holt.”
“Sir, this is Chelsea.”