Liberty (14 page)

I slammed down the End Transmission button.

“Go change the codes, Berrett. Now. She can’t have known about the
Aventine.
She must have scanned ship codes and cold-called to find us. I’ll get us out of here, but she won’t be far behind.”

“What?”

“She was keeping us talking so she could get a lock on our location. I tried to tell you. Go!”

As Berrett stumbled out the cockpit door, I grabbed the yoke and threw the switch for the C-thrusters, the ones that would launch us as far as we could go. The communications monitor lit up over and over again, but I ignored it and focused all my efforts on getting us turned in another direction. As I predicted, Eira’s ship came up on our stern. I turned us toward Mars and took off as fast as the
Aventine
would let me, but Eira was hard on our tail right up to the enormous arch of the Martian jump gate. We sailed through, the usual nausea of being dragged through time and space exacerbated by what I had just witnessed.

We fell out of the jump gate and I held my breath, waiting to see if Eira had guessed where we were headed. Just before entering Martian orbit, I banked hard to port and pointed us toward the asteroid belt. I jerked the yoke toward me and dragged the
Aventine
up to avoid hitting one rock, only to nick the side of her on another.

An invisible wave shook the entire ship. Eira was trailing close behind, shooting asteroids out of her way. Bits of them shattered against the side of the
Aventine.

“Dix!” roared Berrett over the intercom.

“I know! How’s that code coming?” As soon as the words left my lips, the lights on the comm monitor stopped blinking. “Thank you, Berrett!”

Now Eira was almost blind. If we could get out of her physical sight, Eira couldn’t track us with any kind of instrument I knew of. We just had to find a good place to tuck the
Aventine
into.

No problem.

I turned the ship on her side and slid between two more rocks, then shot a third I couldn’t avoid into smithereens. Berrett skittered back into the cockpit. “You’re welcome. Are you sure that pilot’s license wasn’t forged?”

I raised one eyebrow at Berrett, and then stared out the shield. I had more important things to do at the moment than argue. I had to find a place to hide. The
Aventine
rattled again as Eira shot out another asteroid.

I slowed the
Aventine
down, pulled up her nose, and then jerked her up as hard as she would go.

“What are you doing?” yelled Berrett.

“Trying to save us! Hang on!”

My gut churned as we flew upside down over Eira’s ship. I shot out any and all sensors I could see on her ship as we slid sideways toward a nearby asteroid.

I saw the perfect spot. I leaned to port, headed for an asteroid, and slid into a cove just barely big enough for our ship. “Nobody aside from you and Caleb know the specs on the
Aventine,
and with any luck she’ll think you’ve figured out warp speed or something tricky like that. She’ll think she’s lost us—especially now that her codes aren’t working,” I said.

“You can’t count on luck,” said Berrett.

“You can if you make your own,” I replied. “Go to the armory and grab two suits and some air. We’re powering her down completely.”

“You’re insane. We’ll never find her again.”

“Yes we will. Go on.”

Berrett lingered in the doorway. “You think that video was a ... I mean, she could have faked it, right?”

I turned to Berrett with no words of comfort. The color drained from his cheek and his jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The second the cockpit door shut, I turned on the communications monitor screen and played back the conversation with Eira. I played the clip again and again. Each time I played it, the shock and despair plunged into me like a dagger. I couldn’t stop watching, couldn’t stop hearing Eira’s voice, couldn’t stop hoping the end of the transmission would change into something I could stand. It was no one’s fault but mine that Berrett’s shipmaster was snatched away as cruelly as his father had been. No one’s fault but mine that Mama B. was probably dead already, or if she wasn’t, she would be. It was only a matter of time.

Just like in my nightmares, every life I touched, every soul I loved, was snuffed out. My whole body trembled as I fought to hold down my emotion. The agony I felt was worsened by the fact that I knew my reverse Midas touch, my curse, had affected Berrett. He was in it up to his gorgeous brown eyeballs, and it was all on me. All he had ever done was try to help, and I had been nothing but trouble.

Eira was right.

And now, here I was, causing him more pain than he ever deserved to feel. The guilt blossomed inside me, and with it, a desire to evaporate.

To simply disappear.

I could do it.

Open a hatch and slip away into the lifeless dark of space.

It would be so easy ....

“D
IX? WAS THAT REAL? TELL ME THAT WASN’T REAL.”

I didn’t answer. I dragged my arm across my forehead and took a deep breath. I was not about to turn around and show my pain to the boy I had surely broken.

And he was broken. His eyes were red, his lips trembling, his hands wrapped tight around the handle of the door. I saw how much I had damaged him, he who had done nothing to deserve it except save my life.

“Well, Jordan Berrett, this is what happens when you try to stop fate. I was meant to die, and you’ve fiddled with the plans of the universe. Maybe I should just save you any more trouble and—”

And suddenly his strong arms wrapped around me, his tears running from his face down to mine as he held me close. We sank to our knees as our last remnants of strength failed us.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry!” I blurted out.

Berrett didn’t respond. He just shook and cried and held me. I stayed in his arms, long after I felt comfortable there.

Afraid to let him go, afraid to stay.

Drop after drop of his tears rained down on me, his ragged breaths and shallow sobs tearing my heart into a million pieces.

“Tell me it was fake,” he pleaded.

His request amplified my guilt until it screamed into the hollows in my heart. My silence seemed to span the whole of space. There was no way to answer his question in a way that would not bring him more pain.

And I could not give him any more pain.

There was only one thing left to do with so much feeling—turn off the flow. Slowly, I began to twist the valves shut.

Only cold and frozen could I begin to answer Berrett’s question.

“It wasn’t fake,” I mumbled. “I am so incredibly sorry.”

His chest rose and fell in a long sigh. Tears still streamed from his eyes as he spoke. “You didn’t kill him, she did. This isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have talked Caleb into it. I shouldn’t have let him get involved.”

“You can’t say that,” I cried. “It is one hundred percent my fault! You’re probably next! It’s this horrible, flarking vial. It’s cursed! I
’m
cursed—Eira’s right. I’ll just put you in a shuttle and launch you somewhere they won’t find you, turn myself in, and then maybe you’ll have a chance. Maybe. Unless someone decides that killing you off would be a good means of torture for me and—”

“Shhh,” he whispered. Berrett stroked my hair softly. “It’s not your fault.”

I sat back, pushing off Berrett’s chest with both hands. “Of course it’s my fault! And how can you be so nice to me? I’m the one who—”

The look in Berrett’s eyes stopped me mid-sentence. I had been searching his face for an answer, but I didn’t find what I expected.

I stared at the floor.

“I’m so sorry, Berrett. I never wanted any of this to happen.”

He couldn’t speak anymore. He nodded as the tears returned, put his arms out, and pulled me close. I curled up into his shoulder, wanting to feel his forgiveness, wanting to feel the closeness of just one other person in the universe who understood.

And, you know, didn’t want me dead.

“I don’t know what to do next,” I whispered. “Between Eira and the SUN, there’s nowhere safe for us to go. Not even the Underground can protect us now. Anyone that we know is in danger of sharing Caleb’s fate.”

Berrett was quiet for a minute. “There’s only one way forward. Get your crew, get Hobs, and get more Eternigen. Build your safe world somewhere outside the System.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I promised to get the formula back to the Underground. There is nothing about that promise that excludes me from helping you get to deep space.”

I let myself snuggle into him, insanely relieved that instead of launching me into space, Berrett was going to stay. A sudden thought hit me and I sat bolt upright.

“Venus! Berrett, we have to go now. If one of my crew dies because of—”

“Hey, easy. We just ... we just have to calm down and think.”

I stood up and pulled him with me, wiping his tears away with my sleeve. I wanted so badly to be someone he could count on to give him joy, but I knew I would never be that girl. Still, at that moment, I could at least give him comfort.

“Right. Well, we can’t take the
Aventine
to the Académie,” I said. “The news about her will be all over the System by now, and she’s too pretty, too easy to identify.”

Berrett sniffed and wiped his hand across his eyes. “She does have a couple of very nice shuttles hiding in her bay.”

“So we take one, fly to Venus, and pick up Hobson and CiCi. We can pick up some parts on Mars, and CiCi can fix up the
Aventine
like she did the
Misfit.
The ship will be safe as long as no one else decides to go sneaking around Dead Man’s Field.”

“The asteroid belt? You’re nuts.”

“It’s the only way.”

His gaze drifted out past the shield and into the stars, and it seemed for a moment that I had lost him. After a minute or two, he looked up at the communications monitor. “You sure it was real?”

I nodded.

Berrett pulled me once more into a shaky embrace.

“Let’s stay here overnight, try to get some rest, and then set out after them first thing in the morning, alright?”

I nodded. “Where’s your cabin?” I asked.

“Haven’t thought about it yet.”

I swallowed hard as I realized I did not want to spend the night in my cabin alone. “Can I ask an awkward question?”

“Sure.”

“Stay with me?”

He cocked his head to the side.

“Not like
that
. I mean, I don’t kn..... I don’t want to be alone, do you?”

He shook his head. “I’ll grab a cot from another room. Meet you in the Captain’s quarters.”

I nodded and took off down the hallway. I couldn’t believe that I was still alive, that the universe hadn’t cracked and come to a screeching halt.

Something about the attack and how quick Eira was to point to the SUN didn’t click. A flicker of fear raced up my spine as I realized Eira and the SUN might be working together to try to reclaim the Eternigen.

I pulled off my jacket, vest, and weapons with trembling fingers. The curse was closing in around me. I curled up on my cot, wanting everything and nothing and wishing the world would just go away. Before my fears could completely get the better of me, Berrett came in, dragging a cot along with him.

“So, here’s a question for you,” I said.

“What?”

“Who were you and Caleb building the
Aventine
for, anyway?”

Berrett smiled darkly before he headed into the bathroom. “President Forsythe ordered it as a surprise gift for his granddaughter, Eira Ninge.”

My jaw dropped. “Shut. Up.”

“You are a mass of contradiction, you know that?”

“You know what I mean.” I stood up and started pacing the captain’s quarters, taking in the gorgeous details with new disgust.

After a few minutes Berrett reemerged from the bathroom and flopped onto his cot.

“Dix?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to tell me something.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell me that in the end all of this will be worth it.”

I wanted to. I wanted to tell him everything would be okay, but I didn’t believe it. I had absolutely no proof, no reason to believe that anything would work out the way it was supposed to.

I forced myself to lie. “I know it will be worth it.”

“Night, Dix.”

“Night.”

I pulled the covers over myself and listened to Berrett’s breaths grow deeper and farther apart as he drifted to sleep.

Lucky.

My brain wouldn’t shut off, wouldn’t stop flashing images I wanted to forget, wouldn’t let me go numb. All I wanted was to burn like the
Misfit,
explode in a fiery burst of guilt and be done with everything. No more lies, no more trail of destruction, no more curse. I wondered who would watch over Gwen and her four children now. I wondered if they were even alive. Of course, there were punishments worse than death, but I couldn’t bear the thought. The fog rolled in again, and I curled into a ball, feeling vacant and hollow inside.

I
STARED AT THE EDGE OF MY OLD SECONDARY SCHOOL
grounds from the safety of the closest alley. Memories rained into me, soaking me with sights and smells from the four years I spent living and studying at the Académie.

The headmaster, like most of the Venus residents, had a slight French accent.

So refined.

So impressive.

So very different from the poor farmers on Titan who could barely pay their hefty taxes to the SUN each season.

“You are privileged above the rest of the young people in your generation to come here and be educated by the most brilliant minds in the system. With that privilege comes a great deal of responsibility. It is our hope that by the end of your time here, you will learn to be mindful of your responsibility.”

I remember how I stared at that marble hall we sat in during that speech, how hard Mrs. Ford had worked to convince me that this was what my parents would have wanted for me. I had felt small and alone. Who knew that just a few years later I would feel so comfortable running through all that grandeur like it belonged to me?