by F. T. Lukens
Ren bristled. “Where did you hear that?”
Darby brushed her knuckles on the fabric of her shirt and ambled around the cargo bay. Discovering the camera mounted high in the corner, she moved beneath it and stared. She winked and mouthed hi there then blew a kiss. “I hear things. I know things. Information is currency.”
“If they destroyed the object, then why are you here?”
Darby shrugged. “I don’t think they actually did. Morgan has been staying away from the main drifts for several weeks. Almost like she’s hiding but still in plain sight. She’s staying on the outskirts.”
“And?”
“And that’s what I would do if I had a weapon the Corps thought they’d destroyed but hadn’t. I’d still look like I was functioning as normal, but I wouldn’t waltz into their den.” Darby shuffled through the cargo and peered into crevices. “Nice trick with the door, by the way,” she continued. “Not many are wired to close like that with remote access. It makes them too easy to open that way as well, and that’s dangerous, especially in space. Who are you?”
Ren rubbed his forehead with his thumb; a headache thumped over his right eye. He resisted responding with the weapon. “I’m the ship.”
Darby laughed. “Yeah, right. I’m guessing you’re some poor dust bunny who’s hitched a ride with Morgan for a few stops but isn’t doing so well in transit. Space sickness? Though that’s not contagious and not limited to dusters. You sound a little like a duster. And they have been planet-side. Pick you up in a space port? Did you bat your eyelashes and tell them how you wanted to see what was beyond your dirty little world?”
“Not quite.” Ren slumped against the wall. His strength was failing. He needed the crew to return. “You talk a lot.”
“It’s how I think.”
Ren wasn’t sure who was stalling whom now. Was she waiting for him to pass out? She wouldn’t find the kind of weapon she thought she was looking for. Would she leave if he gave her an out or would she run to her friend and return?
“Last question,” he said, voice grating. “Then I’ll open the door, and you can leave and not return.”
“Sounds fair.”
“What do you know about the crew member that was taken?” He spoke around the lump in his throat. Asher. What happened to him? Was he all right? Grief sapped the rest of Ren’s strength, and he sagged.
“Nothing, really. Some rumors say it was a member of Rowan’s blood family, but if that was the case, wouldn’t their mother intervene? She holds a bit of influence, right? My theory is that it was her lover. But Rowan isn’t really known for lovers either.”
Ren shuddered.
“But who knows? When the Corps wants someone gone, they’re gone. They’ll never see that person again.”
Tears stung behind his eyes. He unlocked the door and it popped open. “Go.”
He watched through the security screen as Darby hesitated at the threshold. “Hey, are you okay, ship? You sound… I don’t know… sad? Can ships be sad?”
“Leave!” All the lights flared to life in one blinding moment. The ship filled with sound and energy and blue sparks gathered in the corners and the air went heavy with potential.
Darby ran.
Ren slammed the door behind her. Sluggish and empty and miserable, he pulled from the ship. His side throbbed, and his head ached, and, for a moment, he wished he hadn’t woken up at all. He stretched out as best he could on the deck plate and used his arm as a makeshift pillow. His eyes fluttered shut, and he passed out.
_
Blurry shapes spun around him. Outlines of shadows and bright light and indistinct globs of color swayed on the outskirts of his vision. Something darted in the corner of his eye, but Ren couldn’t chase it, couldn’t turn to figure out what was going on. A voice, distorted and slow, called to him, but Ren couldn’t decipher what it was saying. Everything was nebulous and strange: streaks of color moved with no discernible patterns and sound bumped into sound, discordant and awful.
This was a dream. Ren had been here before, confused and disoriented, but the feeling was the same, the feeling of being watched, of being compelled, of sensing someone desperate to reach him.
Slowly, impressions solidified into shapes and became objects. Ren concentrated, and his surroundings sharpened, came into focus. It was like looking through an old telescope with someone turning the lens and the soft-yellow fuzzed circle becoming the broken moon he knew from his childhood. Except he wasn’t on Erden, and he certainly wasn’t looking through a telescope he and Liam had found in a trash heap.
Liam.
The space cleared suddenly, and Ren’s stomach twisted with the quick change in clarity. He stood in a blinding white room.
“Ren? Is that you? You’re alive?”
Ren raised his hand to block the harsh light and peered into a corner.
“Liam?”
Ren reached out—
_
An ear-piercing shriek jolted Ren from his sleep. He pried his eyes open in time to watch a crate of supplies drop from Penelope’s hands and scatter across the floor. A roll of gauze tumbled past his outstretched fingers.
“Ren?”
He jerked in surprise, then groaned when pain flared from his side. Pen was on her knees in an instant, her soft hands cradled his face, and her wide, brown eyes filled his vision. Her long curls caressed his cheeks and ears. Ren turned his head away and closed his eyes, searching for the white room and Liam, but that only earned him a slap across his cheek.
“Hey!”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me, mister. Stay awake.”
“What’s going on?” Her boots banging on the deck plate, Rowan thundered into the common area. Ollie’s rapid stomps followed, as well as Lucas’s. “Pen, are you all right? What happened?”
Ren tilted his head back and caught Rowan’s eye.
She squeaked; her hands flew to her open mouth. “What the stars? Ren? How did you get in here? What’s going on?”
“Ren?” Ollie yelled as he and Lucas fought for position in the doorway.
Ren smiled weakly. “Hi.”
“Help me get him to the couch,” Penelope ordered.
Ren gritted his teeth as they lifted him and moved him the few feet to the old sofa. He protested being laid flat, and, despite Pen’s scowl, they maneuvered his body into a sitting position. Rowan handed him a glass of water, and Ren drank it down. The cool liquid felt like rain on his desert-dry throat.
Penelope pulled up his shirt and poked at the bandage.
“Are you the reason it’s a sauna in here?” Rowan asked, taking the glass from his trembling grip and setting it on the nearby table. She placed her hands on her hips. Her long blonde braid fell over her shoulder so the end tickled the indent of her waist. She wore her jacket open and a weapon strapped to her outer thigh.
Ren clutched at the blanket around his shoulders. “It’s freezing.”
“No,” Penelope said, frowning at the wound. “That’s only you. And luckily you didn’t undo any of my work.”
“You fixed me. How?”
“Cobbled together supplies. Medicine, medical glue, small antiseptic forcefields, nutrient tubes, and well, mending thread.” Her touch light, she smoothed the bandage.
“And no small amount of skill,” Lucas added.
Ren touched Penelope’s hand. “Thank you.”
Penelope’s long lashes fanned her cheeks as she blushed. “You’re lucky to be alive, Ren.”
“Yeah, and most people think you’re dead,” Lucas added. He spun one of the dining chairs around and straddled it. “Though you look good for a dead person.”
Pen cast her husband a withering glare, and Lucas grinned, cheeks dimpling.
“Thanks, I guess.” Ren picked at a thread on the hem of his shirt. “I figured we weren’t being followed or we
wouldn’t be docked at a drift.”
Penelope settled next to him on the couch. Rowan stood in front of him. Lucas stared intently from his chair. His goggles sat atop his head, contorting his light brown hair in messy spikes. Ollie stayed on the outskirts of the group with his massive arms crossed over his chest and eyed Ren as if he was a ghost. Ren didn’t mind, since he felt like one anyway.
The four of them were beautiful and Ren was lucky to know them and to be a part of their family. “What happened?” he asked.
Rowan quirked an eyebrow. “I was hoping you might be able to fill in some of the details we’re missing. Asher gave us a quick and simple version—how things went to dirt on Crei, Millicent betrayed you, and then the Corps showed up and you were injured. You died right there,” Rowan nodded to the table. “At least, that’s what we told the Corps.”
“I even showed them a vid of when you flatlined,” Penelope said. “It fooled them enough.”
Ren swallowed. He didn’t think he’d be able to eat at that table ever again.
“What Ash said was true. Millicent betrayed us. The whole time on the ship, she could pull me in and push me out. Those times when I almost hurt all of you, that was her, luring me into the systems during my nightmares.” Ren studied his hands. “She wanted me to embrace something I couldn’t be and, when I fought her, when I kept myself from hurting you all, from allowing the power to consume me, she turned on me. On us. She sided with Vos, and they escaped.”
Vos. The name was sour in Ren’s mouth. Previously baron of a fief on Ren’s home world, he was responsible for Ren’s capture from his village. He was the catalyst for Ren discovering his powers. Ren had foiled Vos’s plans of drift and planet domination once and helped make him number one on the Corps’ most-wanted list. But when they’d met again, Vos had outmaneuvered him, and Ren had lost. Ren vowed he wouldn’t lose again.
“How did the Corps find you?”
Ren blew out a harsh breath. “Asher called them when we realized Vos was on the planet. He thought he could trade—Vos for me. And that, once the Corps had him, they’d reinstate Asher and let me go.”
Rowan’s features softened. “And you were shot?”
“By Corporal Zag. He figured out on Erden at the citadel that the usual weapons wouldn’t work on me. So he used an ancient projectile and… you know that part.”
Penelope’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Yes, we know that part.”
“I remember a little from being in the ship and watching through the vid feeds. But… Asher?” he hazarded.
“Out of our reach,” Rowan said with a disgusted noise. “The Corps swept him away, and we haven’t heard from him since. He didn’t get much of a chance to talk to us before he left. He only made it clear that we must look after you.”
“We need to find him,” Ren said. He clenched his fists on his knees. “I have to find him and save him, and maybe he’ll forgive me.”
“You’re dead,” Rowan said, bending down. “Do you get that? This is your chance to leave. You can disappear. Go home. I’ll even pay your way. But if you go looking for Asher, all of his hard work, all of our deceptions, will have been for nothing.”
Ren ran a hand down his face. His eyes stung. His lips were chapped and raw. Every movement took effort. His stomach growled with intense hunger. “I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for me,” he said, voice soft. “And I understand if you’re not going to follow me into this, but I’m going to find Asher. I’m going to free him from the Corps. I don’t know what will happen after that, if they’re going to chase me the rest of my life, or if I’ll get to rest. But Asher did everything he could to save me, and I’m returning the favor. With or without you.”
The group stared in silence and the declaration fatigued Ren further. He sank into the ratty cushions. Even though he’d slept for the last six weeks, the excitement of waking up, stopping a potential thief, and proposing espionage against a major military power had sapped the little strength he had.
Rowan dropped her hands from her hips. “Let’s table this discussion. For now. You’re tired and probably hungry. And we’ve planned to stay on this little drift for at least a day.”
Ren nodded, the fight having bled out of him. “Oh, by the way, someone broke into the ship.”
Rowan’s features clouded. “What?”
Ren told them about the override and the conversation he’d had with Darby. The longer he spoke, the more upset Rowan became, and Ollie’s eyebrows inched higher.
“You told her you were the ship?” he asked with a large smile.
Ren shrugged. “She didn’t believe me, if that helps.”
Rowan pinched the bridge of her nose, an action oddly reminiscent of Asher. Ren’s heart ached. “No more leaving the ship unguarded. And no leaving the ship at all, Ren. We can’t risk Phoenix Corps finding out you’re alive. I don’t like the fact that this Darby person interacted with you at all.”
Ren perked up. “There’s Corps on a drift this small?”
“There’s Corps on every drift,” Lucas said, propping his chin on his folded arms. “A small regiment at the very least. This one has the dubious privilege of also having a recruitment center.”
Pointing in Ren’s direction, Rowan frowned. “I recognize that expression, and whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.”
“I’m not thinking anything,” Ren lied.
Rowan crossed her arms. “Right. At least get your strength back before you go running headfirst into a reckless rescue attempt. For all our sakes.”
“Yes, Captain.”
At that, Rowan finally cracked a smile. “Glad to have you back, Ren. Eat something and rest, and we’ll talk in a few hours.” She gestured to Ollie and Lucas. “You two, I want to look at the vid loop and this Darby person. I don’t like that she was on my ship and I want to know where she’s getting her information.”
The three filed out, but not before Ollie clapped a huge, dark hand on Ren’s shoulder.
Pen shook her head. “Come on, let’s change your bandages and get some food in you that’s not liquid. And then you’ll feel better, I’m sure of it.”
Ren wasn’t so sure himself, but he did know he needed his strength, especially if he planned to infiltrate the Corps and rescue Asher.
_
Ren slept fitfully on the medical cot after Penelope changed his bandage and eased the tube from his arm. He’d eaten little, and the food sat heavy in his stomach. He’d learned that the crew had bargained and bartered for supplies to keep him alive—packets of liquid nutrients that spacers used for long trips, medicines, tubes, and gauze, even heated blankets. There was nothing on the books and nothing to alert the Corps, but he found it hard to believe that the military organization bought the ruse that he was gone, though Ollie said the crew had been convincing. Ren had seen the vid of his bloody body the crew showed General VanMeerten. Maybe Asher willingly leaving, combined with Pen’s tears and Rowan’s defeated demeanor had been enough.
After a tortured rest in which he didn’t dream, didn’t try to kill the crew, and had no contact with Liam, Ren hoisted himself to standing. His body responded strangely, and he didn’t know if it was due to atrophy or living in the ship for the last weeks or a combination of both. Unfortunately, inhabiting a corporeal form that was weak and uncoordinated was cogging annoying, especially when he could traverse the length of the ship in a nanosecond using his technopathic abilities.
He washed, brushed his teeth, peeled off the medical scrubs, and dressed. Wearing his own clothes was a relief. The fabric felt familiar against his skin; the scent was comforting. Mindful of the bandages, he smoothed his shirt.
Leaning heavily on the bulkhead, he made it the short distance from his current quarters to the common area.
“Look, I want to find Asher as much as anyone,” Lucas said, as Ren slumped
against the door. “But what will happen after? Asher made his choice. Shouldn’t we honor that?”
Ollie rose from his chair at the table and stood by Ren’s side, offered his arm, and guided Ren to his spot.
“Thanks,” Ren said, cheeks hot.
Ollie smiled.
“It was a stupid decision,” Rowan said, plopping a helping of mashed tuber on her plate. She took the spoon and threw a helping onto Ren’s as well and slid it toward him. Lucas added a piece of bread, and Ollie poured water into his glass. “I love my brother, but he’s naïve. He waltzed back to the Corps thinking he could salvage his position with them, but those cogs don’t take slights lightly.”
Penelope sat beside Lucas and smoothed his hair away from his face. “Asher made a decision out of desperation and love. If it were me and you, I’d do the same thing.”
Lucas took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I know, but I wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger.”
“But you wouldn’t have a say. Ash made a choice, and now we get to make ours.”
Lucas acquiesced and took a bite of his food.
They ate in silence. Ren pushed his dinner around his plate with a bent fork. He sighed. “I can go alone. You don’t need to follow me.”
Ollie snorted. “Asher is my brother in everything but blood. I’ll go with you.”
“Not without me.” Pen reached across the table and wrapped her hand around Ren’s cold fingers. “It took a lot of work to fix you. I’m not letting you mess up my handiwork.”
Rowan and Lucas exchanged a glance. Lucas straightened his goggles. “I go where my wife goes,” Lucas said, pointing his fork in Ren’s direction, flinging bits of food. “And anyway, I’m driving.”
Rowan tugged on her blonde braid. “Well then, you have a crew at your disposal. But I’m warning you, little one, if you get yourself hurt again, Asher won’t be the only one in line to kill you. Understand?”
“I think so?”
Rowan gave a sharp nod. “One problem, we don’t know where he is.”