Athena's Ashes (19 page)

Renna’s heart clenched as emotions flooded through her, emotions she thought she’d buried long ago. But being with Finn had awakened them, had opened her to them again. And this time she wasn’t going to deny them.

Beneath her, Finn began to move again, his eyes never leaving hers. The pressure built inside her like a glowing star, and with one last thrust, it went supernova, shattering her from the inside out. She let out a low cry and shuddered as wave after wave of pleasure flowed through her. Finn’s gaze wavered as his own release neared, and a moment later he went stiff, groaning as he came.

Renna collapsed, draping herself over Finn’s body. She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Her eyelids drifted shut, despite wanting to caress every plane of his body and then begin again.

Finn brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead. “I missed you, Renna.”

“I missed you, too, Nick.”

She felt him smile against her skin. “I like hearing you say my name. Knowing that you’re the only one who uses it. It’s like a secret.”

“I like it, too.” She slid off him, nestling herself against his body, snuggled securely under the covers with her head still on his shoulder. “Don’t go anywhere. Just need a few minutes to rest my eyes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, pulling her even closer.

Renna smiled as she drifted off. She felt content for the first time since this whole thing had begun.

TWENTY-TWO

Renna jerked awake the next morning as Jayla’s voice filled the room.

“Crew, we’ll be landing on Hera III in an hour. Please prep for landing.”

The intercom snapped off, and Renna snuggled her cheek against Finn’s bare chest. His arm tightened around her.

“Just think,” she said. “We get the drug from Wall, Dr. Aldani does his thing, and I’ll be back to normal. And then we can get on with hunting down Samil.”

“I’m going to enjoy making her pay for all of this,” Finn said. “I trusted the doctor. I thought we were friends. For her do to this…”

“I don’t understand it,” Renna said, tracing a finger through the dark hair that dusted Finn’s chest. “She has everything. What could MYTH possibly have taken from her?”

Finn shook his head. “I wish I knew. Samil kept to herself when she served on the
Athena
. She was always friendly, but never gave any indication she wanted to get personal, so I left her alone. Now I wish I’d made the effort to get to know her.”

“We’ll figure it out. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. She’s evil and has to be stopped. Simple as that.”

“Fair enough,” he said, voice rumbling beneath her ear. “I’ll be happy to put this all behind us.”

“I think we all will.” She raised her head to look at him. “In the meantime, I think we have a better way to spend the next hour than talking about her, don’t you?”

Finn grinned. “I certainly do.”

When the
Eris
landed at the spaceport in New Queensland, the crew immediately started the prep for a quick take-off. Commander Jayla and Lieutenant Blake stayed on board, while Renna, Viktis, and Finn trekked to the edge of the city to find a speeder.

Wall had agreed to meet them in his new compound and had sent the coordinates to Viktis through a secure comm channel. When the spaceport on Lenue was destroyed in Navang’s attack, Wall had relocated his drug production facility to Hera III, a tiny planet on the edge of Coalition space.

The government had tried terraforming it, to bring in settlers from Earth, but the planet was as stubborn as its indigenous species—a willowy group of aliens who called themselves the F’Obon. They towered over the humans at seven feet, with long thin necks and perfectly round heads. Their leathery skin protected them from the harsh winds that blew across the dusty terrain.

The humans who stayed behind when the Coalition left formed a settlement in a protected valley, where they harvested the spindly cactus-like plants to use in medical dispensaries. New Queensland had roughly fifty-thousand residents, squished into apartments and adobe houses, who spent their days either searching for or processing the plants for shipment off-world.

It was the perfect place for Wall to retreat to.

“What the hell is taking so long?” Finn growled, crossing his arms.

Viktis lounged against the crumbling rock wall that marked the edge of the dusty plain and the beginning of civilization. He shrugged. “The settlers on this world run on their own time. No sense in getting impatient.”

Renna scanned the dirt-streaked dockworkers who were taking a break nearby. “Speak for yourself.” Her skin pricked with unease, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, hand on the handle of her blaster. “I sent the order half an hour ago. I don’t like this.” At least Keva and the
Athena
had already left to take Aldani and Myka to the safe house. They’d be safe, no matter what happened here.

“Just a busy day.” Viktis yawned. “It’ll show up soon.”

Before she could complain again, the hum of an approaching speeder filled the air and Viktis raised his eyebrow in an I-told-you-so smirk.

Finn’s hand twitched near his holster, and Viktis pushed himself off the wall. He stayed relaxed, but the set of his shoulders told her he was still on guard.

The speeder pulled to a stop in front of them, and the driver’s door opened with a hiss. The driver grinned at them, his left front tooth missing. “Speeder as ordered. Bring it back by the end of the day or you’ll be charged double.”

“And you’ll be taking off an hour from our bill, since you’re late, right?” Renna asked.

“Not my fault. Traffic jam on the other side of town.” He slid from the car and headed toward the seedy bar at the end of the street. “Have a nice day.”

“Traffic jam, my ass,” she muttered, heading for the driver’s seat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Viktis asked. “I’m the pilot here.”

Renna smirked. “You haven’t piloted a ship in five years. Besides, I already have the map of the city in my head. You know, crazy implant and all.”

Viktis’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need an implant to help me find my way around. You know, my impeccable sense of direction and all.”

Both Finn and Renna burst out laughing. “You keep telling yourself that,” she said, climbing into the speeder.

Viktis huffed. “Fine. But I’m not sitting in back.”

They sped through the shit-hole of a town, passing slums and tenements on the way to the more wealthy part of the city. A thin layer of yellow sediment coated the buildings and streets, giving it an odd, dusty glow. Even the skin of the humans living there was tinged yellow.

Renna parked the speeder. When they got out, they approached Wall’s compound, a rambling set of buildings hidden behind a high steel wall. She eyed the barbed wire with a frown. The security measures seemed a bit excessive.

“You sure he’s waiting for us?” she asked, pressing the buzzer on the gate. There was no answer.

Viktis stared through the bars of the gate into the silent compound. “When I spoke with him on the holo earlier, he said he’d have a man on point to let us in. Try again.”

Renna leaned on the buzzer for a good thirty seconds before letting go. The shrill scream of the bell echoed through the courtyard, but there was no sign of movement. The skin between her shoulder blades prickled, and she unsnapped her holster. On either side of her, Finn and Viktis pulled out their blasters.

“I’m going to hack into the system,” she said, crouching in front of the lock. “Watch my back.”

The two men nodded, and Renna went to work on the gate. With a quick glance she could tell it was Rege Rail model—but this one was different.

“Schematics,” she ordered her implant. Her pulse jumped with excitement as the holo image of the lock appeared in her vision, the plans pulling apart to show her the various components.

When this implant thing worked like it was supposed to, it was amazing.

As her gaze switched between the real lock and the virtual one, her frown deepened. Wall had altered his lock in some way. This was going to take longer than she planned.

Renna pulled her tools out of the small case she carried on her belt and inserted a probe into one of the chip slots. There was a soft beep as her program ran through the system.

While she waited, she peered through the gate into the dirty courtyard. A long, low building sat directly in front, guarded by a thick wooden door. Two larger buildings flanked the main building, long and low. Warehouses, she’d guess.

A gust of wind blew down the street, bringing with it the arid scent of dust and smoke. Her hacking tool beeped again, and Renna glanced down. A few tweaks in the code and the gate clicked as it unlocked.

“We’re in,” she said, pocketing her tools and grabbing her blaster.

Finn readied his gun as he pushed open the gate. He took several tentative steps into the courtyard, sweeping the space for anything unusual. Viktis and Renna followed close behind.

“What the hell is going on?” Viktis muttered. “Where is everyone?”

“Wish I knew.” The prickling of her skin was getting worse by the second, and she forced herself to take a calming breath as she pointed to a thick metal door in the interior wall of the courtyard. “I think Wall’s lab is through here.”

It opened immediately, the heavy lock already disengaged. She glanced at Viktis, whose eyebrows had furrowed until they were almost touching.

He shook his head and shifted his blaster in his hand. “That door should have been locked. On your guard.”

Renna nodded and stared down the long, narrow corridor made from rugged stone. Her skin erupted into full-fledged goose bumps as the trio crept down the corridor. There were still no signs of life or movement from anywhere.

“Show heat signatures,” she ordered. Why did she keep speaking out loud? Her implant responded to thoughts as well as words now. Old habits die hard evidently.

“Anything?” Finn asked.

She shook her head as they moved farther down the corridor. At the far end she spotted another heavy door, this one slightly ajar. Finn pushed it open and Renna slipped past him into what looked like a kitchen.

Or, at least, it had been before someone had ransacked it. The cupboard doors had been ripped from their hinges and broken terracotta plates were smashed on the floor in piles of orange dust. Dry goods and food were scattered everywhere, leaving a trail of white powder and shattered eggs. She took a step farther into the room and grimaced as her feet squelched in some sort of slick cooking oil.

Renna clutched her gun tightly. Beside her, Viktis’s amber skin had turned pale, and the bone plates in his head quivered with anger.

What had happened here?

“Through there?” She pointed at the door across the room. Her hand shook as she pushed it open onto another long room.

“Gods,” Viktis whispered.

Electronics and machinery were smashed and scattered across the floor like someone had taken a sledge hammer to the entire contents of the room. Holovids and communicators were barely recognizable pieces dusting the floor. Electrical chips and shards of glass crunched under Renna’s boots as she approached the center of the space.

Her unease was at full force now, like an icy hand pressed against her spine. Where was everyone?

“His lab’s got to be through there,” Viktis said, gesturing at the final door.

“There could be anything waiting for us behind there,” Finn said softly. “Whoever did this could still be here.”

“I hope they are,” Viktis growled.

Renna ordered her implant to scan for heat signatures. “There’s nothing alive behind that door,” she said with the shake of her head.

Finn’s hand tightened on his blaster. “Still doesn’t mean there can’t be danger. Are you both ready?”

Renna and Viktis nodded.

“Let’s do this,” Viktis said. He kicked the door open, and Renna and Finn burst into the room, guns sweeping the space. She froze at the utter destruction that had turned Wall’s neat lab into an apocalyptic scene. The space was cavernous, built of steel and cement. Fluorescent lights glowed overhead, casting stark shadows over the rows of smoking machinery Wall had used to produce the black market drug, clay. The drug that had destroyed Renna’s childhood