Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Patience was nothing like her name. For one, the ship had a jump drive, which worked on a completely different set of principles to Equinox. Rather than using dark energy and never running out of a fuel source, Patience’s drive would eventually fail. And unlike Equinox, the stolen ship could “jump” through space, from one set of coordinates to another. Like, one second it was there, and the next, someplace else. It boggled her mind.
“These drives are always temperamental, though,” Stein had told her when they made it past Liider’s security range. “So we’ll only use it as much as we need to. Besides, I don’t know how many jumps the drive has left before it’s toast.”
He calculated that the distance between Liider and Aurelis would take them about nine days to cross at top speed, and after a thorough scan of the surrounding space, decided to punch it while they rested for a full sleep cycle. Patience had several cabins, though none were as nice as Equinox’s had been, but they did the trick. Leda and Stein picked cabins near the bridge.
A small part of her almost asked Stein if they could share a double-bunk cabin, but she realized he’d need his space as much as she did. They’d been living in each other’s pockets since they left Tuva’s ship. A little time apart couldn’t hurt.
Unlike her cabin on Equinox, the showers were shared here, and she’d probably run into Stein during the night. Before going to bed, Leda showered with a proper water system and dried her hair under a monster of a machine on the wall. She still had no crutches, but Stein found some pipes and bent them to resemble a pair of canes. It worked better than relying on her own legs, and when she woke up, she’d have the suit to keep her upright.
The upside to stealing a long-haul ship was that there were clothes already on board. Leda rifled through the other cabins until she found something suitable for sleeping in—a long T-shirt with no holes or stains. It smelled clean, too. Just in case, she ran it through a clean cycle in the machine in the hall just in case. A minute later, the shirt came out smelling fresh. With nothing left to do, she went to her cabin, changed for bed, and fell into her bunk, exhaustion weighing on her like a mantle.
But sleep wouldn’t come.
Thoughts of Roar swarmed her, eyes open or shut, not giving her a moment’s peace. Since Charlie shot her, Roar had spent every night at her side. She’d gotten used to someone always being there.
After a while, she gave up and lay on her side, staring at the bunk across from her. Most of the memories she had of Roar were verbal sparring and the warm press of his mouth against hers, his arms folded around her. Once, before they left Earth, he told her about his parents. Leda realized that, even though her mom turned out to be a back-stabbing traitor, she had been alive and around for a lot longer than Roar had either of his parents in his life.
She thought of everything he’d missed. Sure, they were raised in completely different worlds, and under opposite circumstances, but Roar never had his father teach him how to play catch or kick a ball. At least he had a little time with his mom before her execution.
It felt like Leda had just drifted off when she woke to a god-awful sound, like metal rubbing against metal, with a bag of gigantic, screaming space-crickets stuck in the middle. She tumbled out of bed and landed on the hard floor. That’ll leave a bruise. Leda groaned and pushed herself up, then, grabbing the homemade canes, she hurried out into the hall. Stein was already there, bleary-eyed in a pair of shorts, his unmoving Dravu on display.
Leda noticed it wasn’t moving, like Roar’s. She pushed that to the back of her mind. “What is that sound?”
“Annoying,” he replied on his way to the bridge.
She followed and dropped into the pilot’s chair to read the panel. “It’s an emergency beacon.”
Stein leaned in close, his shoulder brushing Leda’s cheek. “Coming a few days’ from here. An Aurelite ship.” He sucked in a breath and fixed a hopeful look on Leda. “Do you think…?”
She didn’t dare hope. If Equinox had raised the alarms, that could only mean one thing: they were under attack. “If we use the jump drive, how soon can we reach them?”
He was silent for a minute, working out the distance. “Twelve seconds in a direct jump.”
Leda gaped. “Well, that’s fast.”
Stein hit a button on the dash and the alarm shut down. “You’d better go get suited up. Who knows what we’ll be dropping into over there?”
With that warning, Leda hurried back to her cabin. She didn’t have time to run her clothes through the cleaner but if someone was in trouble, it didn’t matter if she smelled a little. By the time Leda made it back to the bridge, Stein had gotten his suit on as well, and took the pilot’s chair. She dropped into the co-pilot seat and strapped in.
“We’re jumping now?” she said, clicking the harness in place.
Stein leaned forward and flicked a switch at the top of the dash. “Yup. Get ready.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Different.”
“Different how?”
He fitted his gloved hands over the controls. “It’s difficult to explain. You’ll see what I mean, though. Don’t hold your breath when we jump.”
And then Stein hit the jump drive button.
Blackness drowned out everything, and Leda was tempted to reach out beside her to see if Stein was still there. There was no sound, no light. Nothing.
Leda didn’t know how long they were stuck that way. She couldn’t even hear the sound of her own breathing. A brilliant flash of white blinded her, and Leda squished her eyes shut. She almost held her breath but at the last second remembered Stein’s words and filled her lungs. It felt like a heavy weight had been dropped onto her chest, and each breath became more difficult to draw.
Then, in an instant, the flash of light dimmed to normal, the weight vanished, and the world came back in sharp focus. They had jumped right into the thick of it—a battle between a massive black ship with long legs like a spider, and numerous others of varying size, all firing at Equinox.
Boarding pods were everywhere, swarming around Equinox. Several looked close to breaking through the hull, and they kept pouring from the main ship without end. Leda’s mind whirred. How can we stop them?
She went over the weapons on Patience. Much the same as on Equinox, with a few exceptions. Whoever owned the small ship must have expected trouble. There were two newly installed turrets with precision canons, and if the user manuals were correct, they’d blow a small ship into stardust.
“After-market add-ons,” Stein said, seeing her wide eyes. “Who knows what you’ll encounter among the stars.”
Leda jumped to her feet. “I’ll take the starboard turret and get some of these pods off their backs.”
Stein shook his head. “Won’t work on the pods.” He filled her in on the pods’ nearly indestructible shells, except a small weak spot on the bottom. “But I know what will. Can you take the controls?”
Leda wasn’t the sore loser type, but she did feel a pang at not being the one to take out those Woede creeps. At least if she was steering, she’d be doing something. “Sure,” she said and slid into his seat when he vacated it. “Where are you going?”
Stein pulled his helmet on and sealed the connection. “You’ll see. Send them a hail so they know we’re friendly. Then bring us around Equinox’s stern. Tell me when you’re in position.” He ran off the bridge so fast Leda felt a breeze.
For a second, she stared at Equinox surrounded by black pods, then remembered the first of two tasks Stein doled out. Right, hail. Locating the communications program, she dialed up Equinox’s frequency and spoke into the mic.
“Equinox, this is Patience. Friendly vessel in the area. Do you read?” She felt a little stupid, but couldn’t think what else to say. She’d been concise and to the point.
“Patience, this is Equinox. We read you.” It was Uncle Arne.
She gave a yelp and grabbed the controls, steering the ship into position. “It’s Leda! Guys, we’re here to help.”
“Leda?”
The sound of Roar’s voice brought a delicious warmth to her belly. “Yeah, it’s me. And Stein.”
“How…?”
“There’ll be plenty of time to explain when these guys are gone. For now, just don’t shoot at us, okay?”
A pause stretched over the airway.
Then Grams spoke. “Leda, you know what you have to do.”
“Can’t you tell me?”
Silence.
“Grams?”
When Grams didn’t answer, Leda ran a scan of Equinox. A Woede boarding pod had taken out communications. You’re on your own for now. Leda shut her eyes.
I’m the weapon. But how does it work? She thought there’d be more time. Now, in the thick of battle with the Woede, Leda came face-to-face with her biggest challenge to date.
She squeezed her hands into fists. Think! How would a biological weapon work? By thought? Emotion?
This is a lot harder than it should be. Why didn’t I come with an instruction manual or something?
“Leda,” called Stein through the ship’s comm. “Did you get through?”
“Yeah, and they’re shocked but happy to hear from us.” She flashed her eyes open. “Hey, Stein?”
Patience shuddered and Stein’s voice screeched through the speakers in a joyous cheer. “Hell yeah! Take that, you slimy bastards.”
“What was that?”
“That,” Stein said, “was Patience’s guided laser system. My own design. Only three were made, and that’s why I needed this ship.”
Leda switched the cameras just in time to see a couple dozen Woede boarding pods exploding. She had to admit, the weapon was effective. “You designed it?”
He fired again, a buzz this time. “Sure did. Takes a little warming up, then she shoots like a dream. Soon you won’t feel a thing when I fire.”
“That’s great, really. But I need some help.”
“What with?”
Leda bit her lip. “This whole weapon thing. I could probably use it now, right?”
“The way Roar explained it to me was this: we bring you to Aurelis, and all the Woede would be obliterated. No one said how.”
She clenched her teeth. “Why can’t anything be simple?”
His laughter echoed from the speakers. “The only simple thing in life is death. Which, you know, we’re kind of trying to avoid here.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Leda slumped in her seat, defeated. She had to come up with something, but what?
She aimed her gaze at the battle on screen. So far the Woede ship seemed to be focusing all of its energy on Equinox. Patience didn’t have a cloak, but their shields were strong, and the generator virtually indestructible.
“I need you to stay on Equinox’s tail,” said Stein. “The longer we can avoid detection by the Woede battleship, the better.”
Sure. I just have to hide a spaceship and figure out how I’m supposed to work as this weapon thing, all at the same time.
Squaring her shoulders, Leda took the controls again and followed the dips and sways of Equinox’s evasive maneuvers. Ideas flicked in her head and she dismissed them all, except one. A brief search of Patience’s systems revealed a short anchor system. She hoped Roar and everyone else on Equinox would know she was behind the tether. It was worth a shot. Leda hit the switch and the anchor shot out, a direct hit on Equinox’s hull. The tether locked on and secured itself.
Perfect.
Now to figure out how the weapon worked.
Eerie stillness hung in the ship’s air, dulled by the constant hum from the engines and Stein’s cheers when he hit a target. Patience’s shield absorbed each blast with efficiency, stealing power from the enemy’s weapons to regenerate itself. A perfect design. Kind of like a genetic weapon—passed down from generation to generation naturally, without ever needing to mention a secret location or risk the weapon falling into the wrong hands and being used for selfish purposes. All great ideas, but that didn’t help her now. If only she came with instructions.
Leda closed her eyes and zeroed her focus in search of any possible hints that might exist in her chaotic, tumbled mess of a brain. As she concentrated, her fingers closed around the pendant from Dad, warm to the touch like always.
I miss you, she thought, tears spilling down her cheeks. I need you right now, more than ever. How does it work, Dad? What do I do?
“How very touching.”
Every cell in Leda’s body turned to ice. Tears froze midway to her chin. Only the locket burned its constant, comforting heat. Slowly, so slowly, she lifted her lashes, already knowing what she’d see. Who she’d see.
Standing in the middle of Patience’s bridge, flickering like a holographic projection, was a tall figure covered in black from head to toe. A large cloak draped low over his face, shrouding his features. She could have picked him out of any video game line-up of evil overlords. Toorn. Nils’s grandfather. He didn’t seem all that terrifying to her. Then again, she probably hit her head and was suffering from heroic delusions.
“Have I come at a bad time?” A black arm indicated the battle on screen. “How very impolite of me.”
His “Captain Picard” voice grated on her last nerve. “You can cut the act. We both know your manners are non-existent.”
“Ah, so she does speak.”
Leda mimicked him, even as a voice inside her head warned her not to poke the bear with the bigger army. “She speaks, she walks, she even wipes her own ass.”
Toorn scowled, at least, it sounded like he scowled. “Vulgar.”
“I thought you liked vulgar. Didn’t you create those greasy, disgusting slime balls in the boarding pods? Do you give them names, too? Like, Fluffy and Lucky and Steve?”
“I’m hearing a lot of talk,” Toorn said, boredom a sharp edge in his voice, “and seeing very little action on your part. Isn’t there something you’re supposed to do?” He motioned to the screen again. “Look at all your little friends, each waiting for you to perform the one task you were born to accomplish.”
The weapon. He knows it’s me.
“I wonder if you’ve been made aware of the circumstances surrounding your purpose and my existence.” He waited for her response. Leda had none, and it seemed he expected this. “No, I didn’t think the Elders were brave enough to tell the truth.”
Truth about what?
“After everything you’ve been through, leaving your home and flying across the universe, they didn’t tell you…?” Toorn clicked his tongue. “Dear me, now that just isn’t fair.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why, the price of using the weapon, of course! Activating the weapon doesn’t simply destroy the Woede, you know. Or perhaps no one mentioned that? Aurelites and Woede, we are connected in ways you might never imagine. Are you prepared to make that kind of sacrifice?”
He let that sink in. Leda’s head spun in a hundred directions, wondering exactly what he meant. Connected how? Something in their physiology?
Toorn continued. “We’re not so different, you and I. Speaking of connections, I wonder if you even know how to access the weapon. But, ah! You can’t walk without support. What if you can’t complete your mission? What if you’re too…” He paused, tapping at his cloaked chin with a long, black finger. “What’s the word I’m thinking of? Ah yes, that’s right: broken.”
Leda felt the word pierce her heart. Broken. Broken. Broken.
“You’re hardly worth fighting at all. Why expend my forces on this weak, pathetic excuse of a girl? You’re useless, Leda. Just a useless, broken, cripple.”
The words echoed inside her, twisting and scratching and tearing her confidence down until there was nothing left. Toorn’s vicious laugh replaced the echo. She’d failed everybody. Failed Dad, failed Grams and Arne, failed Roar. She’d failed all of Aurelis. Just like Mom had said she would. Leda held on to the pendant, needing its warmth in her final moments. She thought of all the times she’d felt loved: always with Dad; when she’d moved in with Grams and Uncle Arne; when Roar had held her hand; when Roar had said her name; when Roar had kissed her.
Oline wasn’t dead. Roar felt for her pulse—weak, but there—and lifted her frail body up from the controls. He turned to Nils’s mother and felt so much hate inside him, like a plague, making him sick. Then he paused at her expression. Eren Kvellich was staring at Oline with wide, frightened eyes, unaware of her surroundings.
Arne broke the silence first. “Eren says she doesn’t know how she got to the bridge, and she doesn’t remember what she did.”
“Yeah?” Roar snapped. “What does she remember?”
Eren swiped a few tears with a skeletal hand. “I remember dreaming,” she murmured. “It was cold and dark, and I was alone. Then…I woke up. And I was here, and she”—Eren sniffled as she motioned to Oline—“was like that.” Eren turned and spotted Nils, unconscious and propped up in a chair near auxiliary systems. Her mouth fell open in slow motion, as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“What happened to him?” Eren said.
“Nils will be fine,” Rika said from Roar’s side. She tore a strip from her shirt and tied it tight around Oline’s wrist and tucked the ends over the wound. “He just has a bump on his head and a mild concussion. But we need to get Oline to sick bay.”
Roar opened his mouth to respond when another proximity alarm sounded. Another Woede vessel—maybe Toorn himself had shown up. They just couldn’t get a break.
Defeat bore an icy hole through his chest. Even if Rika managed to keep Oline stable until she healed, they weren’t going to make it out of here alive. It’s time to give up.
“I don’t recognize this ship,” Arne said. “It doesn’t look like a Woede vessel, does it, Roar?”
He spun around and examined the screen. The ship wasn’t Woede at all. It looked almost…
“Equinox, this is Patience. Friendly vessel in the area. Do you read?”
Arne ran to communications. “Patience, this is Equinox. We read you.”
“It’s Leda! Guys, we’re here to help.”
Roar’s heart thundered as he stepped up next to Arne. “Leda?”
“Yeah, it’s me. And Stein.”
“How…?” He stared at the ship on screen, hardly believing Leda was inside it.
“There’ll be plenty of time to explain when these guys are gone. For now, just don’t shoot at us, okay?”
Inger pushed Arne away and grabbed the mic. “Leda, you know what you have to do.”
When Leda spoke, her voice sounded so fragile. “Can’t you tell me?”
A charge hit the ship, knocking Roar back. Equinox’s stabilizers kept him from falling onto his butt. Inger shouted into the comm system, but he knew the system was obliterated in the last blast. A brief glance at the panel covered in Oline’s blood told him they still had many systems, including weapons, but the communications array had been sheared clean off.
Thinking on his feet, Roar set Oline in what Leda had called the captain’s chair. “Rika,” he said, “you and Arne take her to sick bay and get her patched up. Arne.” Roar fixed a grave look on Leda’s uncle. “When you’re finished, get to the main tactical center and let me know you’re there via the internal messaging system. I have an idea, but it’s going to take a few steps to get it done.” When Arne and Rika had left the bridge, taking Oline with them, Roar turned to Inger. “I need you to watch over Eren.”
A sound like ripping metal filled Roar’s brain. The ship jerked then settled. Another alarm sounded, this time, to let the crew know shields were down to 70 percent. The shields were holding, but for how long?
Eren shook her head. “Posting sentries on me won’t do any good. Neither will the pod I woke up in. You need to kill me.”
He did a double take. “But I thought—Nils said you guys can’t die.”
“A common misconception spread by my father. We can die,” Eren said. “We just need the right circumstances.”
Another blast rent the ship. Roar grabbed the nearest surface for support. “I still don’t understand why this is so important.”
“Because I think what happened to Oline was partly my fault.”
Roar stilled. “What do you mean?”
Eren faced the screen. “He can control me here. On Earth I was far enough away that he couldn’t reach me. But out here”—she waved an arm—“we’re close enough to the Woede collective that he can get inside my head and control my body. Who knows what I might do next?”
“But how? How does it work?”
Eren shook her head. “I’m not sure. Every Woede alive today was created from him. The vat-grown, the natural-born. Maybe it’s something in his physiology that allows him to control us. But Roar, I swear to you, those soldiers out there in the ships? Half of them don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Did you ever wonder why they don’t answer hails or try to initiate any contact?”
He had, back on Aurelis when the Woede ships came and the Elders sent him and three others to Earth, but pushed it aside in favor of staying alive. “So you’re saying they’re being used, just like you were?”
“Yes.” She turned to Nils. “I don’t think he can control my son, though.”
Roar noticed how articulate Eren sounded, unlike the time he met with her before. “When you were on Earth, you seemed almost out of it.”
“Yes. I was on quite the tranquilizer cocktail, thinking that, if my father ever showed up on Earth, it might give me some time to figure a way off the planet before he broke through the fog and controlled me.”
“Why?”
Eren looked to Inger, who nodded, her eyes clouded with sadness. Eren turned back to Roar. “That’s the only way to kill us,” she said. “It will be slow and painful, but compared to the alternative, the choice is clear. You must push me out of an airlock and leave me to die.”