Except Cade already knew.
“Hey!” Kira yelled, crisscrossing through the people that stood between her and Cade. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Cade’s gaze remained fixed on the projector screen, even though the image of the Qel’s companion had been replaced with a message telling everyone the fights were over, so get out.
Kira jostled Cade’s right shoulder, catching his attention. “You with me?”
“Yeah,” Cade responded, his voice cracking as he gave his head a sobering shake. “Just thought I saw someone I used to know.”
“And?” Kira asked as both of them turned and joined the sea of people who’d begun to shuffle out of the arena.
“And nothing,” Cade said, turning his head one last time to scan the other side of the arena. All he saw there was a bunch of drunk spectators leaving the pits. “It wasn’t who I thought it was.”
* * *
There was no peace and quiet to be had on Kyysring, not even in the spaceport. Not even in the middle of the night.
Wrapped in a blanket on the Rubicon’s cold floor, Cade’s mind went back and forth: Should he or shouldn’t he? Should he or shouldn’t he? As tired as he was, his Rai training let him keep his mind awake while his body drifted into a restful state. Which was useful on the occasional lengthy mission he was allowed to go on but a pain in the ass when he couldn’t turn the skill off and let the sweet embrace of sleep take away all of his problems. As much as he convinced himself it was the right thing to do, Cade was conflicted about abandoning Kira. They’d been through a lot in a short amount of time, and that made leaving her feel personal. Plotting to destroy the Rokura was one thing; the galaxy was just a faceless mass, and Cade hadn’t even met, like, 99 percent of it. But sneaking off like a thief in the night and rejecting Kira and her plan—which he still believed would work if she somehow found the shielding material—was hurtful. She’d never let him leave, though. The only useful thing about the Rokura, in Kira’s mind, was that it helped her put her plan in motion. Otherwise, the weapon and all the mystical, magical suppositions it was laden with weren’t even worth her time. And as torn as Cade was about going his own way, it’s not like the option Valis presented to him was any less of a sure thing than Kira’s plan. If this former Paragon actually existed, Cade harbored some serious questions about his character. After all, this was someone who, allegedly, either screwed up so badly that the mantle was taken from him, or who decided to give it up. At least Cade had an excuse for freaking out—being the Paragon wasn’t his destiny. But the Rokura was this guy’s birthright, and if he had blown it, who knew what he had to offer all these years later?
Still, Cade had to know. Even if this alleged Paragon turned out to be a total washout, maybe he could at least reinforce Cade’s decision to destroy the Rokura. Cade reminded himself that torching the Rokura wasn’t just about unburdening himself of its hold over him; it was about ensuring it never, ever fell into the wrong hands. Like Praxis’s. And if this Paragon wasn’t going to take the weapon from Cade, then he must have a good reason why not. Cade could only assume that it would have something to do with him realizing that the Rokura didn’t live up to its hype, but he had to know for sure. What did this person know about the Rokura that scared him away from his destiny?
So, Cade waited. With his eyes shut, he waited for Kira to drift off to sleep on her bunk. When he knew she was out cold, he crept out of the ship and into the humid night air that hung over the spaceport like a dampened sieve filtering every breath of air he took. He could only hope that he was making the right choice.
Unlike so many planets—thanks to Praxis’s rabid need for control—there was no curfew or docking regulations on Kyysring. Visitors came and went for dealings that were, for the most part, unplanned, unpredictable, and unfriendly. And in their downtime, these pillars of the galactic community bided their time by indulging in Kyysring’s vice-happy nightlife. When Cade arrived back at the city center, he was quickly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds all around him. Having spent most of his adolescent years in the shelter—which was locked down by nightfall—Cade never had the chance to know Kyysring after hours, and he felt almost claustrophobic in the face of the frenzied vitality that was totally unique from anything he’d ever known. If the Well was a place of tranquility, Kyysring was its antithesis. From one corner to the next, the district bustled with countless species from any number of systems. On Kyysring, nobody cared about class, rank, or race; all that mattered was taking care of business and indulging in good times, which were becoming more and more scarce under Praxis’s oppressive watch. Wide-eyed, Cade walked the city’s narrow streets, which were aglow with the sheen from neon lights and filled with the sound of bellowing promoters who enticed passersby into their establishments with offers of who-knows-what. The energy—which Cade understood was aided by plenty of root—kept the crowd moving and ensured Kyysring never, ever rested.
“Lonely?” a scantily clad, blue-skinned Roshan whispered in Cade’s ear as her orange and silver claws placed a flyer in his hands. “You don’t have to be.”
Cade let out an awkward, juvenile laugh as he shuffled away. He crumbled up the flyer, knowing it was best not to even look, not to even know, and tossed it over his shoulder. He surveyed his surroundings, making sure he wasn’t being followed. The last thing he needed was another ghost of Kyysring creeping up on him the way Valis did in the fighting pit. On a nearby corner, Cade eyed a man examining a firebrand rifle—outlawed in nearly every system for the part it played in the Gesling massacre—before settling on his purchase. It was one of a half dozen that a fur-covered Lokany was selling out of a crate. Nearby, Cade spotted a zep deal. Elsewhere, he saw a man pick another man’s wallet. Any other Rai would’ve jumped in and, regardless of how stupid it was, done something noble. But Cade was too much of a pragmatist. Because, really, what was he going to do? Tell everyone on the planet he was very disappointed in them? There was a reason why the Galactic Alliance and its upright allies turned a blind eye to Kyysring. After all, there were only so many resources you could expend saving people from themselves. And it’s not like Cade had room to talk—he was about to break at least three Galactic Alliance laws, and his justification was probably similar to the lawbreakers he saw all around him: You do what you gotta do.
Careful no one was watching him, Cade worked his way through the crowded main drag and ducked into an alleyway just past the Koga Club, the most notorious gambling house in the galaxy. At the end of the tight, dark alley, he came to a large corrugated door—twenty feet high and at least the same across, made of reinforced steel—that was sealed with a magnetic lock. Cade was glad to see the lock still in place; with any luck, what was on the other side of the door was still there as well.
Cade kicked open a small sewage cover that stuck out just above ground. Below the cover, though, wasn’t a drainage pipe; instead, there was a keypad. Cade was amazed that he still remembered the code. Though Cade also remembered the cheat code for infinite lives in his favorite childhood video game, so maybe hording useless information was simply a gift he’d been born with.
He punched in the numbers and winced at the sound of the door as it rolled aside, thumping and rattling as it went.
“Shhhh,” Cade whispered to the door, but it wouldn’t listen.
Cade smiled as he stepped inside the private launchpad and caught sight of the starjumper that was parked there. It looked like it hadn’t been touched since he was a kid. Cade was taken back to all the times he, Tristan, and Mig smuggled their way onto this vintage ship and took turns manning the captain and cannon chairs. They shared a fantasy of abandoning Kyysring and embarking on adventures as pirates of the stars, until Krag—a cranky old Boxton who had a mechanical right arm and was missing his left ear—chased them away and warned them to never return. Late nights in the shelter, Cade, Tristan, and Mig relived their adventures in the starjumper, all longing for the day they assumed would never come, the
day they’d have the means to make real adventures of their own.
But in all the times Cade boarded the starjumper, he never dreamed of actually flying it. He assumed it didn’t even work. Now he prayed that it would.
Starjumpers, which were no longer manufactured due to their penchant for occasionally erupting into flames during takeoff, had two unique features: First was its vertical takeoff, made possible by its propulsive thrust system—which was designed after supply rocket vessels—and the cause of its pesky takeoff fires. Second was its exterior powering unit, which allowed easier access to the ship’s most common repairs. Cade worked at the powering unit as quickly and quietly as he could, using whatever knowledge he had to hot-wire its engine.
After a few mistakenly crossed wires—one that started a small fire dangerously close to the fuel line—Cade spliced the right combination of power cords together and a spark popped within the control panel followed by a whirring noise at the starjumper’s nose. Cade popped his head out from the rear and watched as the ship’s lights flickered on and its systems came online. The starjumper was alive.
Cade had to suppress a victorious hoot for fear of waking Krag, but that didn’t diminish his excitement as his childhood fantasy was coming true right before his eyes.
Unfortunately, none of Cade’s fantasies had him staring down the barrel of a rusty tempest rifle. That pleasure was reserved for his reality.
“Goin’ somewhere?” Krag grumbled as he spat a gooey wad of yellow phlegm at Cade’s feet.
Life is full of surprises, Cade bitterly thought, the least of which wasn’t Krag catching him, but the fact that Krag was still alive. Boxtons weren’t exactly known for having a passionate regard for their health and hygiene. They drank to excess, rarely bathed, and with the time saved from not bathing, they drank some more. And Krag, by all appearances, was a sterling example of his species’ disregard for self-preservation. Cade could see the oil and dirt caked in his olive-green skin; he could smell the decay on his breath. His sweat-stained clothes hung loosely on his frame, run gaunt by years of hard living. While Cade wasn’t too concerned about Krag’s welfare, he was worried about how little Krag valued the continuation of anyone else’s life, especially when considering how well he regarded his own. Training his rifle on Cade wasn’t just for show; he would splatter Cade all over the hangar and then probably just let nature take its course with his remains.
“I know this looks bad,” Cade started, “but I need this ship for official Galactic Alliance business—”
“Galaxy politics don’t mean squat to me, boy. You’re a thief trespassin’ on ma property, and I don’t like that.”
Krag took two steps forward, using his rifle to shove Cade back against the ship.
“Hey, hey, come on,” Cade said as he threw his arms in the air. “You know me. Me and my brother, we used to break in here and play with this ship all the time. Remember?”
Krag squinted at Cade, and a low rumbling noise came from his throat. It seemed like he was either thinking or about to fall asleep.
“That might be familiar,” Krag admitted.
Cade let out a giant sigh of relief. “See? I wasn’t stealing your ship, I was just reliving old times and—”
“It’s familiar,” Krag grunted, “but that don’t mean Ah care.”
“A trade—how about a trade?” Cade nervously blurted, feeling a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. “I have a rare, very valuable weapon. I bet that someone with your connections can make a lot of coin off it.”
“Ain’t interested,” Krag replied, and Cade wondered if anything would make the old credit launderer happy. Other than watching Cade bleed out on the floor of his hangar.
“Let me just show it to you,” Cade said, slowly reaching over his shoulder to grab his shido. “I think, once you see it—”
“Move that ahrm another inch, and it’ll be the first part of you ta go.”
“Just take a look, it might change your—”
“You just achin’ to do this the hard way, ain’t you boy?” Krag said, and Cade could see the glint in his eye that telegraphed what was going to happen next. Cade redirected his hand away from his shido and thought to swat the rifle and make errant any shot Krag fired. But Cade hardly had time to finish his thought before he heard blaster fire echo throughout the hangar. Electrical currents jolted Krag, and his body spasmed uncontrollably before he drunkenly swayed on the balls of his feet and then dropped, facedown, on the ground.
Cade looked up from Krag’s unconscious body and saw Kira standing just a few paces in front of him, sidewinder in hand.
“You know, for a brief moment, you had me convinced that you’re not a total idiot.”
“The performance of a lifetime,” Cade said. “How are you here? How did you know I—”
“The Rubicon’s security system,” Kira said, holstering her weapon. “I set it as protection against him being touched, sneezed on, even looked at funny while we’re on this foul planet.”
“Wait—the Rubicon is a guy?”
“You got a problem with that? What, every pilot bro in the galaxy can pretend that his ship is some obedient shrew, but one woman makes her ship a guy and—”
“Okay, okay—no judgment from me.”
Cade took a long look at Kira, who folded her arms across her chest, waiting. He knew he had to say something, but he also knew that a half-assed apology wouldn’t cut it.
“Look,” Cade said, kicking away Krag’s rifle, just in case. “I didn’t want to leave you, but—”
“But what? You assumed I wouldn’t listen to you because you have some sob story about no one at the Well taking you seriously?”
Cade swallowed his uneasiness down hard. “Well, kinda.”
“Seriously, Cade, do you really think you’re the only person the Masters disregard?”
“Oh, please,” Cade said with a smirk. “You’re the rock star of the Well. Don’t even try to act like you understand how the Masters treat me.”
Kira shook her head, pitying Cade. “No, Cade. No. You hear me because I’m loud, but the Masters, or my commanders, have no interest in dealing with me or anyone else in my squadron. I’ve told them my idea for the bomb, I’ve told them over and over again, and they’ve never so much as given it a second thought. I’m just a blunt instrument to them—they point me in a direction and tell me which bad guys to fight. That’s all they’ll ever see me as.”
Cade broke his lips apart to speak, but he couldn’t grasp the words to say. All that came out was a frustrated sigh; even so many miles away from Ticus, the Masters still had a way of making Cade feel like garbage. “I didn’t know, Kira. I just thought that if I tried to tell you the reason why I was leaving, you wouldn’t let me go.”
“Try me.”
Shame burned Cade’s ears, but he divulged everything—his meeting with Valis, the other Paragon, Mithlador, and his plan to either rid himself of the Rokura or destroy it. Cade noticed Kira’s disposition shift from agitation to exasperation; hearing his story, she seemed to pity him more and, hopefully, wanted to punch him less.
“Look, I can’t stop you from going. You’re an adult and you can make your own decisions,” Kira said. “But I would be doing a disservice to, well, the entire galaxy if I didn’t try to convince you not to do this. And it’s not because I don’t believe what this infomerchant told you, but because your plan is terrible.”
Cade smirked. “Um, it’s not that much worse than hedging our bets on a bomb that, most likely, is impossible to build. My plan at least has a weapon; it just needs the right user.”
“Oooooh, now I get it,” Kira said, hamming up her sarcasm. “So, let me get this straight: This Paragon, whoever he is, refused his calling back when things were decent in the galaxy, but now—but now—when we’re on the brink of being taken over by a totalitarian regime, he’s going to hop into his role with open arms?”
Cade was quiet. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Yeah, Cade, there’s a lot you’re not thinking about.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cade asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Kira sighed and rubbed her forehead. “It means if you dump the Rokura, you’ll never get revenge against whoever’s responsible for Tristan’s death.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cade said, his voice shaking. He didn’t want to talk about what happened in the spire; he didn’t want to think about what happened in the spire. “I got my revenge for Tristan—the Fatebreaker who killed him is dead. I killed him.”
“Yeah?” Kira said, stepping into Cade’s face. “And what about the person who put the Fatebreaker there?”
Cade’s blood went cold, and he became overwhelmed with anger and anxiety. Anger over what happened; anxiety over how it happened. Because he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew. He just wasn’t prepared to face the truth Kira was throwing in his face.
“Finally sinking in?” Kira continued, pacing around Cade. “Your trip to Quarry, it wasn’t broadcasted to the galaxy, Cade. It wasn’t even shared with everyone at the Well. Only a few people knew where you were going and what for. You said the Fatebreaker was waiting for you. Well, how do you think he got there?” Kira stopped in front of Cade, drilling her finger into his chest with every word. “You. Were. Sold. Out.”
Cade turned his back on Kira and smothered his face in his hands. His chest burst with every stuttered breath, and he felt burning hot tears forming at the corners of his eyes. The hangar began to spin, and Cade reached out to brace himself on the starjumper’s wing. But his hand slowly wrapped into a fist.
“GAAAAHH,” he bellowed as he brought his fist down on the grimy, dusty metal again and again, shouting his pain and anger until he exhausted himself.
Even with his eyes closed, he felt Kira taking cautious steps toward him. She clasped her hand on Cade’s bicep and slowly pulled him away from the starjumper. “I’m sorry, Cade, I really am,” she said. “You are going through some terrible, crazy stuff right now, and the last thing you need is for things to get worse. But I know that, when everything is at its worst, it’s hard to think straight. And I just, I thought you should know.”
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