Polaris (14 page)

Jeth tilted his head, mulling over the idea. As with everything else connected to the tree symbolism, he supposed it made sense. And if she was right, destroying the First-Earth Harvester would certainly be a critical blow to the ITA. It would be the ultimate revenge, and he suddenly wanted it to be true. Only— “How do you know it's part of the trunk? I've been through the Aether Project and there's no mention of it anywhere.”

Marian turned back to the counter and resumed her slicing. “That's because the ITA doesn't understand what exactly they've trapped. Oh, they have theories, some of them are
even close, but most fall far from the reality of what the Pyreans actually are.”

Jeth folded his arms across his chest. “You've really been there, haven't you?”

Marian shot him a puzzled look. “Of course. Cora and I didn't get this way by magic.” As if to emphasize the point, she waved a hand at the discarded tomato bits on the counter and they vanished into metaspace with a loud crack.

Flinching, Jeth returned his attention to the gravy he was supposed to be stirring. A thick crust had coated the bottom of the pan, and he grimaced, hoping like hell he wouldn't get stuck with dish duty afterward. He wanted to ask her what Empyria had been like, but once again he remembered time was short.

“What about Dax?” he said, dread pulsing inside him.

“Excuse me?” Marian looked up.

Jeth sighed at her defensiveness. “Do you really intend to give him the location of Empyria?”

Marian's nostrils flared and she pointed the knife at him. “You have grown entirely too clever and devious for your own good, young man.” She set down the knife, picked up the cutting board, and added the tomatoes to the bowl with the onions. “No, I don't intend to give him the coordinates.”

“Mom—” Jeth began.

Marian cut him off with a look. “I intend to take him there personally.”

Jeth's eyes widened, surprise freezing him in place. “Take him there? What are you talking about?”

“Dax wants Empyria for the same reason the ITA does,” Marian said, a coldness creeping into her voice. “He sees it as a way to gain power and wealth and all the things that you'd expect a typical human to want since the dawn of our creation.”

“Yes, but won't taking him there give him those things anyway?”

Marian pinned him with her gaze, her expression full of that alien hardness. “No. The Pyreans will change his mind about things.”

Jeth closed his mouth, biting off the automatic response. Mystical trees or not, the Pyreans hardly seemed capable of anything other than moving objects through metaspace.
She really has gone mad,
he realized. He didn't know if it was a consistent madness—she seemed so lucid, so normal most of the time—but this, the idea that a trip to Empyria would change Dax's mind about wanting to claim it for his own gain was insanity. Nothing could do that.

“You look doubtful,” Marian said.

Jeth slowly nodded.

“Don't be, Jeth. The Pyreans aren't a lower life-form made to fuel these machines the humans have built. They are
sentient
. They have a mind, a consciousness that exceeds even our own.”

An alien life-form,
Jeth thought.
As smart as humans? Smarter?
He couldn't imagine it. He decided he didn't want to. If it was true, if the Pyreans were sentient, then that meant they had a purpose, a sense of self, and with that came the ability
to have moral constructs like good and evil. Who was to say their intent was the former and not the latter? How could he be certain he could trust them? Maybe they had manipulated Marian's mind. Maybe the Pyreans themselves and not the trip to Empyria had altered her DNA. They might have remade her as they wanted her to be. A chill spread across his body, and he shivered.

Marian sighed. “I can tell you don't believe me, but that's all right. All you have to do is trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Yes, Jeth. I'm your mother.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that for a second Jeth almost did. But then all the doubt came rushing in. Sudden resentment flared up inside him as he remembered that she had turned down the opportunity to see him and Lizzie. That she had decided her secrets were more important than her family. He might've trusted her before, but he wasn't certain anymore. He couldn't pretend that she hadn't changed, and he couldn't ignore the possibility that she was no longer rational.

“Okay, Mom. Whatever you say,” he said, pacifying her. But inwardly he refused to support the plan. Go to Empyria? If the Pyreans could change Dax, they could change all of them. He wasn't about to take her word on it that the Pyreans could be trusted. And he couldn't take the situation on faith either. He was too experienced with how the real world worked—a world without magic trees and the unicorns from the stories she once read him. Faith like that didn't have a
place here. Here all that mattered was what you could see and what you could do. And right now, he needed to talk to Lizzie. She had to finish cracking the code. He needed an ace up his sleeve. One he would play if and when his mother's questionable plan went bust.

ALTHOUGH JETH WAS DESPERATE TO TALK TO LIZZIE AND
Sierra both, there was still breakfast to attend to. The smells wafting up from the galley had worked like a homing beacon on the crew. Nearly en masse they appeared, first Flynn—naturally—and then Milton, Lizzie, and Cora, followed by Sierra. She cast him a look, asking with her eyes how he was doing. He shrugged. The architecture was itching, impatient to be reconnected with the implant.

Celeste and Shady came in last, both looking bleary eyed. Jeth got the feeling that neither had spent much of the night in their cabins. Honestly, he was surprised to see Celeste at all. He figured she would've opted to spend her time with one of her old boyfriends here at the space station. There were so many, and it had been a while since she'd been able to engage in her favorite pastime. The only reason he could think of why she wouldn't have was because of Vince, his death still fresh for her as it was for him, for all of them. He wondered what Saar had done with Vince's body. But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he shut it down as too painful to contemplate.

He focused on Saar instead. In the overload of the last few
days, he'd almost forgotten the ITA General was still after them. It was a complication he would like to forget forever, but he couldn't. The situation with Dax was tricky enough, but it didn't scare him the way Saar did.
I am the Storm that Rises,
the old man had said. He'd been so certain of himself, that capturing Jeth was just a matter of time—his time, his choice.

Jeth supposed he ought to tell Dax about Saar, especially with the looming First-Earth mission, but that would mean contacting him. He wasn't ready for another face-to-face.

You could use the Axis
.

He wasn't ready for that either.

At the thought of the Axis, the ache in the back of his head grew more pronounced. Jeth scanned the faces of the people around him, just tucking into the breakfast feast he and his mother had prepared. For a second it all seemed so normal. Lizzie was talking animatedly to Marian and Milton; Cora was trying to engage all three of them at once. Flynn was eating with the kind of enthusiasm more appropriate for a ravenous feral cat than a grown man, only half listening to the joke Shady was telling next to him.

The sight of Shady telling a joke, acting as if nothing was wrong, made Jeth's stomach clench. Shady had no right to be so normal, not when the back of Jeth's head felt like it was on fire and close to bursting.

I'll show him the new normal
.

A vindictive pleasure came over Jeth as he reached inside his pocket and withdrew the implant. He'd planned on
waiting until after he'd fully adjusted to it before showing the implant to the crew, but now seemed the better time. Lizzie noticed it first, breaking off mid-sentence. The others followed seconds later. Jeth waited just long enough to have everyone's attention. Then he raised the implant to the back of his skull and slid it home with an ease that scared him nearly as much as it did the others.

“What the hell?” Celeste said, her mouth falling open. Shady had gone unnaturally still, his face bleaching of color.

Sierra spoke first, speaking with a dead calm that was impossible to ignore. “Jeth has been made one of the Brethren. Dax forced the implant on him when we arrived.” She paused. “That is, when he captured us in the Belgrave and had us hauled back here.”

Silence fell, and Jeth wondered which of them would break it first. But when someone finally spoke, it wasn't the person he would have expected.

“To be more specific,” a musical voice intoned, “I hauled you all back here, not Dax.”

Jeth turned to see Aileen standing in the doorway—Trouble in the flesh. He hid his surprise with a scowl.

She stepped into the galley, the tail of the long gray coat she wore trailing behind her like folded wings. Her snug black pants only emphasized her birdlike appearance, revealing petite, slender legs. “Sorry, am I intruding?” She reached over Celeste, sitting at the end of the table, and grabbed a blueberry off her plate, popping it into her mouth.

Sierra stood up, her chair scraping the floor with a loud screech. “What are you doing here?” She was considerably
taller than Aileen but it didn't make much difference. Aileen seemed to take up the whole room.

“
How
did you get here?” Lizzie added, her fork clutched in her hand as if she intended to use it a weapon.

Aileen flashed a smile. “There are few locks that can keep me out. But my apologies. We haven't been properly introduced. My name is Aileen Stock, and I'm here to welcome you to my crew.”

Disbelief pounded in Jeth's ears, making them ring. The Axis buzzed into life, threatening to drag him under. He got to his feet and cleared his throat. “Your crew?”

“Mmmm.” Aileen's eyes seemed to twinkle, her smile tightlipped as if she were holding back a laugh. “But we can talk about that as soon as you're done eating. No hurry. I'll be waiting outside.”

She swung around, her coat fanning out behind her, and disappeared back through the doorway. Sierra glanced at Jeth, a silent question on her face. Jeth ignored it. He couldn't have answered even if he wanted to. The Axis was roaring inside his head, spurred by his rising anger and the dawning realization of why Aileen was here.

You didn't think I was going to let you lead this mission, did you?
The thought thrummed in Jeth's mind, the voice behind it one he had no trouble recognizing.

Dax,
he thought back, his hatred a visceral thing inside him.

Now, now, Jeth. Watch yourself.

Jeth raised a hand to the implant at the back of his head, ready to pull it out. But he stopped at the look on Celeste's face. She was watching him with her mouth open, disgust in
her expression. Jeth shifted his gaze to the right and saw that Shady wore a similar look.

This is your fault,
he thought, wishing that Shady were enslaved to the Axis as well, if only so he could feel Jeth's anger in such an intimate, inescapable way. Laughter seemed to vibrate through the link, the minds of the Axis amused by Jeth's turmoil.

He pulled away from it, trying to close the door on the link without terminating the connection physically—he didn't want Shady to see him struggling.

Dammit, Jeth, just give in, then close the door,
Perry spoke through the link.

Steeling himself against the mental invasion, Jeth forced his feet to engage and headed into the common room. Sierra followed right behind, and seconds later the others came as well, breakfast forgotten.

Aileen had made herself comfortable in the same armchair Marian had been in earlier. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, the top one swinging back and forth slightly. She beamed at Jeth as he entered, but he wasn't paying her any attention.

Aileen wasn't alone. A man stood just inside the common room across the way. He was so large he seemed to fill the doorway completely, although he carried not an ounce of fat on his body. Jeth recognized him at once. He'd been with Aileen the first time Jeth had met her, a trusted member of her crew.

And a dangerous one. Jeth hadn't forgotten the way Celeste had looked after a brief confrontation with the man,
one that left her bruised and shaken. He glanced at her now, wondering about her reaction. As he had anticipated, she gazed on the man with palpable fear in her eyes.

“Oh, hello again,” Aileen said, standing up. “This is Remi, my first mate.” She motioned to the man, but he didn't respond, not so much as a finger twitch. He might as well have been a statue carved in human flesh. “Some of you might know him, already,” Aileen said, winking.

“Whoa,” said Flynn, whistling through his teeth. “Are you a cyborg?”

Remi turned toward Flynn, his face expressionless, but the way he cocked his head sent chills racing down Jeth's spine. Cyborg indeed. A regular Frankenstein's monster in a perfectly chiseled body.

“You will refer to him as Remi and Remi only,” said Aileen, her voice suddenly acid and her eyes cutting as she addressed Flynn.

Flynn shifted his weight and withdrew a fresh piece of candy from his pocket, stuffing it into his mouth.

His hackles rising, Jeth glowered at Aileen. “Why are you here?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Aileen said. “No? And here I thought you were supposed to be clever.”

“You're awfully brazen for someone outnumbered nine to two,” Sierra said, tapping the toe of her boot against the floor.

Aileen arched a slender, angular eyebrow. “Nine? You count the little girl”—she nodded toward Cora—“as a threat?”

A deadly smile turned up the edges of Sierra's lips. “I
should've counted her double.”

Aileen grinned back. “Yes, well, don't miscount Remi. He's worth a couple at least, as I believe one of you already knows.” She cast Celeste a significant look.

Jeth's hands clenched into fists, and for a second he thought his head would split in two as the Axis leveraged its hold over him, trying to suck him into it.

“I believe,” Marian said, her smooth, hard voice commanding the attention of the room, “that you should get on with your business and leave the sniping for a more appropriate time.”

If Aileen had been thrown by Marian's words, it didn't register in her expression. “I'm here to discuss crew assignments for the First-Earth mission. As Miss Blondie pointed out, there are nine of you. However, there's only room for five on this job. Obviously, some of the slots are already set. But someone—presumably Jeth here—will need to determine the final roster.”

Jeth gritted his teeth, the truth of the situation striking him in the face. He couldn't understand why Dax was making her a part of this, but then Aileen dropped another bomb and the answer came clear. “Oh, and we'll be taking my ship for the mission,
Polaris
.”

Now the truth struck Jeth like a blow to the back of the head. The room spun around him, and the Axis roared.

Let go!
he heard Perry screaming.
Let go and it'll all be so easy.

No.

Yes. So easy. The Axis is a door, ready to open and shut at your will. Once you surrender to it
.

Jeth closed his eyes, on the verge of passing out.
It can't be true. It can't be that easy
. And yet—he sucked in a breath, held it, held it. And then he let go, freeing his hold on the Axis with it.

At once a steady calm spread over him. The change was so alarming he nearly swayed on his feet. The feeling passed a second later, and he was fine. Better than fine. He felt freshly awake and strong, as if he'd spent the last few days hunched over and was finally able to stand tall and straight again. He inhaled then exhaled. The Axis was there, the door open, but nothing was going in or out of it. It was just there, dormant—and a part of him.

“You've got to be kidding,” Lizzie was saying, hands on hips. “Why would we take that crappy ship when we have
Avalon
?”

Aileen's lips, usually all fluff and pout, pressed into a thin line as she turned her attention to Lizzie. “Crappy ship? Compared to what?” She glanced around the common room, letting her gaze linger on the run-down furniture and the water stains and bullet holes in the walls. She shrugged. “Never mind. Somehow I imagine you'll survive.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Lizzie said.

Aileen started to respond but froze as a newcomer joined their ranks, this one yellow and hairy. Viggo strode into the common room, tail twitching back and forth, belly close to dragging on the floor. “What is that?” Aileen said, eyeing the cat like some four-legged monster.

“A robot. With hair.” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “It's a cat.”

Aileen cleared her throat. “I've officially seen it all. Okay
then.” She ran her gaze over the crew once more. “As I said, we'll be taking
Polaris
.”

“Yes, you did,” Sierra said. “But you failed to explain why.”

“Because
Avalon
is too recognizable with the ITA's Wanted bulletin,” Jeth said, the answer coming to him from the Axis. Only this time it wasn't an invasion, just a download of data. Now that he knew the truth, it made sense. At the moment Dax had
Avalon
moored between two of his largest cargo ships, the best cover available to hide her from bounty hunters. But taking her would be an unnecessary complication. They needed a ship for this mission that could get them where they needed to go without drawing attention, and
Polaris
was a Black Devil same as
Avalon.
It would have to do.

“Yes, that's right,” Aileen said, some of the smirk leaving her face. “I hope there won't be any problems with us working as a team. So long as you follow my rules, at least while aboard my ship, we'll get along fine.”

Jeth bared his teeth in a smile, his anger present but not controlling him for once, just like the Axis. He realized that Aileen was bluffing a bit. They weren't joining her crew; she wasn't leading this mission. They were just using her ship. True, it gave her some rights to make decisions that affected them all, but ultimately Marian would be leading them. He could live with that. “Yes,” he said. “Absolutely fine. Sounds like it'll be an interesting mission. Looking forward to it.”

Aileen blinked at him, unsure if he was being sincere or not. “How reassuring.”

“When do we leave exactly?” Sierra asked. Outwardly she was all calm, but Jeth sensed concern beneath.

Aileen faced Sierra and for once the attitude wasn't present in her voice. “Tomorrow sometime. Not early. I don't do mornings. And we still need a few supplies. But you're welcome to start moving into your cabins today. I'll assign rooms as soon as I get the final list.”

Jeth nodded, aware of the way Shady was standing ramrod straight. Again, that vindictive pleasure came over him. The Axis gave a pleasant hum. “I'll send it to you as soon as I've decided who stays and who goes.”