Liberty (19 page)

Now they had my DNA.

“Thank you both,” said the Governor. He pocketed the letter and meandered over to another group of guests, natural and easy as pie.

“Berrett, we gotta get out of here,” I whispered.

“What? Everything went fine. Only you could turn that around and make it a bad thing,” said Berrett.

“No, you don’t understand, there was this guy with the papers and he—oh!”

I froze. Someone was holding a cold, round object against my back.

It felt horribly like a gun.

“Not a word, Miss Dixon. You will come quietly with me to the exit. If you obey me, I will spare your friend here.”

I looked up at Berrett, whose eyes were the size of saucers. Regrettably, my knife hadn’t matched my ensemble, but I had another trick up my sleeve. I mouthed one word to Berrett.
Run.

At this point, three things happened at once.

First, Berrett bolted across the dance floor.

Second, which happened at almost the same time as the first, I ducked.

Third, as loud as I possibly could, I screamed.

“Stop touching me there!”

“What?” cried the man.

I tried not to smile as I screamed again for effect. “Have you no
decency?
Help! Help!”

Immediately, my would-be assailant was surrounded by five large men, giving me ample time to make a break for it. As I burst through the double doors of the ballroom, I heard him yelling.

“That’s Tabitha Dixon, you bungling idiots! I’m a SUN agent,
let me
go!”

I caught up with Berrett in the kitchen, dodging chefs and steaming pots.

“He’s right behind me!” I yelled.

“What?”

“Run faster!”

We zipped around pillars, in and out of small receiving rooms, and through large, ornate doors.

“How do we get out of here?” yelled Berrett.

“There! The big open window!”

A shot rang out and a glass sculpture shattered on a side table to my right. Just then, I stumbled over the stupid heels.

“Flarking skud!”

I ripped off the shoes, hitched my skirt up to my knees, and grabbed for the holster strapped around my thigh.

“What are you doing?” cried Berrett.

“It’s a gun, genius.”

“Are you kidding me? How long has
that
been there?”

A pane in an upper window ahead of us exploded.

“Never mind,” said Berrett. “You do what you gotta do.”

I stopped and took cover behind a large porcelain vase. “Call CiCi on your Cuff and get her over here, now. I’ll cover you!”

I turned around and aimed at the chain holding up a crystal chandelier. My hand was steady as I fired, but the bullet only broke one link, missed the cords, and ricocheted around the room, landing in the plush cushions of a red velvet couch. I could see my attacker racing for the double doors.

“Skud!”

I aimed carefully once more, took a deep breath, and fired again.

The chandelier came crashing down on my assailant. Outside the open window, I could hear the whirring of the shuttle’s engine. I could also hear other guests heading my direction.

I climbed out the window and ran for the shuttle.

“CiCi wants to know if she should land!” yelled Berrett.

“Go!
Go-go-go!
I’ll jump!” I cried.

CiCi started pulling the shuttle away. I ran full speed for the open hatch. Berrett held out his hand.

“Faster, Dix, they’re coming!”

A bullet kicked up dust beside me and another whizzed past my ear. I was pretty sure one even shot through the flowing fabric of my dress. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as I ran faster than I ever had in my entire life. I spun back to shoot at my attackers, only to hear the empty click of the hammer. “You’ve gotta be
kidding
me!”

I whipped back around and reached for Berrett’s hand. He pulled me in, slamming the door shut as a round of bullets peppered the space where I had been a moment before.

“No more bullets?” he asked.

I glowered, and he grinned.

“You have a serious problem, Dix.”

“Shut up.” I stuffed myself into the cockpit, yards of tulle and fabric sticking out everywhere and getting in my way. CiCi sat in the co-pilot’s chair and tried to avoid getting buried alive.

“Thanks, Ceese.”

“No prob, Cap. What the ... what happened to you? Are your ey.....
purple
?”

I smiled. “I can take the wheel if you want.”

“Sure, sure. Should I go take a look at the damage?”

“No time. We gotta get out of here.”

“S
HE’S DONE!”

“You take care of installing the EMP system, Ceese?” I asked.

She nodded. “Just like you wanted, Cap. All I have to do is hit this shiny red button, and blam! Goodbye electrical systems, hello frozen bad guys.”

“Aces.”

“I still don’t like it, though,” said CiCi. “I mean, it’s nifty, of course, but if you hit that thing we’re all jailbirds.”

“Like we aren’t anyway?” muttered Hobs.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “I promise, CiCi, we won’t hit it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Promise?”

“I just said I did! You get Max’s tags attached too?”

“Aye, Cap. Now can I please—”

“Don’t even say it.”

Four days had passed, and CiCi had spent her time wisely. The
Aventine
wasn’t even remotely recognizable. The “battle damage” CiCi had inflicted sounded truly awful going on, but the end result was incredible. She had turned a sleek and coveted ship into what appeared to be nothing more than a junky cargo carrier. However, she had also become obsessed about the bullet wounds in the side of the shuttle. She kept asking me over and over to take a look at and repair the damage to make sure everything was normal.

“Ceese. Let it go,” I had told her. “Focus on the ship right now. We can worry about shining up a shuttle later.”

“But I—”

“That’s an order, CiCi.”

Still, my orders didn’t seem to stop her from asking.

Hobson had also been hard at work on the Eternigen formula, each day drawing one step nearer to unlocking the door to freedom. We could usually smell how close he was getting on any given day. Fortunately, the
Aventine
had an excellent air circulation unit, or we would have died before we ever left the asteroid.

Berrett and I were on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I had packed and unpacked all the supplies on board so many times it would make a healer squirm. Berrett had labeled and alphabetized everything.

Twice.

We were both
extremely
relieved to hear CiCi’s announcement.

“All she needs is a name, and we can go get Bell and Rivera and Miriam!” she cried.

“I think we should ditch Miriam,” I said.

“You’re evil,” said Hobson. “You just don’t like her fiddling with your psyche. And that’s illegal, anyway. We have to fly with a healer. We can’t afford to do anything that might raise a red flag during an inspection.”

“Yeah, well, you’re secretly a mad scientist, which means you find my evilness insanely attractive,” I quipped.

Hobson gave me one of his coy little half-smiles. “Yeah, that’s it.”

I patted him on the back. “What are we going to call her?”

“I think we should call her
Mián Qiú”
said CiCi.

“What does that mean?” asked Berrett.

“Lint ball.”

Berrett raised his eyebrows at me. I just shrugged.

“Maybe we should think of something a little more ... intimidating, Ceese,” I said.

“How about ... the
Cyclotron!”
cried Hobson.

“The what now?” I asked.

Hobson sighed. “Atom smasher? You can’t get more intimidating than that!”

“Um ... nope,” I replied. “Maybe intimidating was the wrong word.”

“Aw, come on! Explain to me how an atom smasher is anything but intimidating.”

“Liberty,” said Berrett. “You should name her
The Liberty.
You’re always chasing her, so you might as well name your ship after her.”

Nobody could argue with that. We donned our space suits and took a walk on the floating side.

Walking in space was one of the best perks of being a pilot. Everything about me felt lighter, and the immediacy of normal steps forward was swept away by the total lack of gravity. It seemed to me that was nature’s way of trying to get me to slow down and take in the System. Even though we were nestled into an asteroid, we could still see the stars and the immensity of space around us. That view was one of the few things that consistently blew my brain. The beauty and enormity of space was spiritual and electrifying all at the same time.

Trying to get paint on the side of a ship in zero gravity? Not so much.

Fortunately, CiCi had the foresight to pick up compressed oil paint sticks on Mars. We each took a couple of letters and started to go to work. I had T, I, and R. Slowly and painstakingly, I crafted my T, making sure that everything was even and straight. By the time I got ready to do the I, we noticed a problem. We each had done totally different letter styles.

“Aw, you guys, this looks terrible!” I cried.

“Isn’t that kind of the point?” asked Berrett.

“I like it,” said Hobs. “Gives her character.”

I frowned. I supposed they were both right, but I liked Hobson’s point better. I went back to painting the I.

We were out there for a good six hours. The letters were large, and everything moves slower in zero gravity. By the end, we were tired and hungry, anxiously waiting on CiCi to finish a very swirly letter Y

“A..... done!” cried CiCi. “Captain?”

I examined our handiwork and shook my head.

Aces
.

CiCi handed me a juice box.

“..... thanks?”

“You’re supposed to slam it into the side.”

Hobson laughed. “Ceese, that only works if you are using a glass bottle and working
with
gravity, not without it.”

CiCi frowned. I put a hand on her shoulder and then threw the juice box as hard as I could toward the hull.

I was the last one back inside after our christening ceremony. I unzipped my space suit and shimmied out of it. As I was pulling my boots on, I overheard Berrett and Hobson talking in the chamber next door.

“No, she’s always been like that. Well, almost always. She was pretty quiet our freshman year,” said Hobson.

“I have a really hard time imagining Dix being quiet,” replied Berrett.

I felt my temperature rise, but I held my tongue. Interrupting would stop their conversation, and I was
dying
to hear what else they had to say.

“Heh, yeah. Well, she’s been through a lot. I mean, on top of the stuff with her family. There was this one guy at the Académie, a soccer player a year older than us who really broke her heart halfway through our freshman year. Kid named Riley.”

My breath caught when I heard that name. I didn’t want to waste a single second thinking about Riley, but I wanted to hear what Hobs had to say about him, so I kept listening anyway.

“I couldn’t understand why she liked him so much, but she’s smart,” Hobs continued. “He was a total jerk, and she figured it out in the end. Still, it was kinda the straw that broke her back, you know. One more loss she couldn’t handle. After that, she wasn’t quiet. Very much the tough, brash Dix you know.”

“How’d you guys meet?”

Hobson laughed. “The first time I saw Dix was in our Intro to System History class. She always sat with one leg curled up under her and she always knew the answers to every question. She was kind of annoying, actually.”

Berrett laughed. “Why does that not surprise me?”

I bit down on my lip to repress a response.

Hobson continued. “Dix and Liz Bell, the first mate, were roommates. They hated each other at first, but eventually they became really good friends. I think reconciliation arrived after a fight involving who got top marks on our first semester exams. If I remember right, the brawl ended with large quantities of flour being hurled about.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah. Covered the girls’ dorms with it. It took them a week to clean it up.”