Sea of Stars (13 page)

“Let us in. I’ve located your escaped prisoner.” He gestures to me, swiping my hair farther away from the already fallen cowl of my red cloak. Pale strands of it spill forward to drape my shoulders, exposing my Alameeda heritage to them. “I’m being pursued by Alameeda Strikers.” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the empty tunnel behind us. “They’re attempting to recover their spy. I’ve been charged to remand her back to your custody,” he lies, trying to hide the strain in his voice from them.

“Where’d you find her?” the soldier says as he scrambles forward.

“The Beezway. The Alameeda destroyed the west end of the transfer tunnel. We just made it out,” Trey answers honestly.

The sentinel activates a hatch door beneath my feet, causing me to fall into a chute when the ground gives way beneath me. My arms are flung above my head. Air propels me rapidly through a cylindrical tube, forcing me under the barrier. I emerge on the other side of the doors, but I’m trapped within a clear gerbil-style cage. My gasping, frantic breath fogs the transparency of the walls as I press my hands against the box restraining me.

Trey is left standing on the platform outside the door. His eyes search for me immediately. “Let me in!” he insists with a troubled frown from his lone position outside the gate. “I’m dead if you leave me out here!”

“I’ve been ordered not to admit unauthorized personnel. Most of our detail has been relocated by the Amber Code,” the Brigadet explains unapologetically. “We’re operating on lockdown here.”

From behind Trey, a firework of blue light explodes. His shoulders round while his hands come up to protect his head. Laser fire ricochets off the once-steel-looking screen that separates Trey from the sanctuary of the detention area. At the other end of the tunnel behind Trey, Kyon and several other Alameeda Strikers with Riker jet packs come into view; they show no fear of the defensive guns that automatically return fire upon them. Blue bubble-shields that look to be made of light form around the Alameeda Strikers, deflecting the lethal Brigadet laser light from penetrating their targets, acting as a force field against it.

Trey turns and fires on them too. Finding his efforts useless, he backs away from the onslaught of Alameeda. Pounding his hand against the barrier, he screams at the guards, “Open the gate!”

Confusion shows on the Brigadet’s face, but he acquiesces, moving to the console on the wall again. The floor beneath Trey opens, sucking him into it before the hole evaporates once more. Next to me in a separate, transparent cage, Trey jets upward, filling the space like sausage meat. “Let me out,” Trey urges them. “You need my help to defend against them.”

The Brigadet moves to release Trey from his hollow pillar prison. The moment the tube surrounding him retracts into the floor, Trey raises the weapon in his hand and fires a shot at the Brigadet. Electricity pulses in yellow light over the guard’s body, driving him to his knees before he falls forward on his face. Trey immediately lifts his gun to the other two soldiers; before they can react, he pumps them full of energy that makes them fall to the floor, twitching like fish out of water—tased but not dead.

Running to the panel near my restraining tube, Trey deactivates it. The cage retracts into the floor, allowing me to leave its claustrophobic atmosphere. Breathing deeply, I jump down from the platform that separates me from Trey. I look toward the barrier, and Kyon is there, watching me. He lifts the mirrored visor on his navigation helmet, showing me his piercing blue eyes. I shiver at their intensity.

“Stop,” I whisper. “Please.”

No
, Kyon mouths back before he gnashes his teeth. His eyes search the barrier for a way inside.

Trey doesn’t notice our exchange. He clutches my shoulder, forcing me to turn away from Kyon and follow him out of the open door on the opposite side of the admission area.

We emerge onto a grate-floored catwalk, our footsteps echoing in the cylindrical hivelike arena surrounding us. All of the aisles join together in star formations. Amid each star, there are hundreds of mirror-reflected shiny orbs; they’re moored above an abyss of prison levels that go on for miles beneath us. Thousands upon thousands of stacked hexagon cells form a grim honeypot.

Jax, Wayra, and my other Cavar bodyguards are in those cells, but which ones?
I wonder, as we make our way over the grated bridge toward a large metallic orb. Emerging from a sliding door in the mirrored orb chamber, a soldier lifts his weapon to defend his position. Trey is a better shot; he drops the soldier with a stunning burst of electricity.

Jumping over the incapacitated soldier, Trey enters the chamber of the orb through its open door. Another Brigadet rises from his seat at a holographic panel of controls in order to ward off Trey’s attack, but he’s dropped to the floor in short order by a blow from Trey’s fist.

Once we’re inside the orb, the controls and holographic screens indicate that the orb is a craft of some kind. Trey drags the unconscious soldier out of the control room and onto the catwalk. When he returns, he goes directly to the holographic console and gazes intently at the screen of readouts in front of him. Within moments he says, “I found them.”

“How’d you do that?” I ask in awe and disbelief.

“I’m a Cavar,” he replies with hubris. “They’re on level four ipsacore in section twenty-two.”

“How do we get to them?”

Trey scans the hologram, sliding moveable icons around a gridlike screen. The door of the control orb closes. The catwalks that attach to the orb retract, unmooring it. The orb falls from its position at the top of the hive. Descending several stories, the orb slows and fits itself through a narrow, silver tunnel of light to the left. Like a silver ball in a pinball machine, we glide along to another sector. Shooting out into a separate stack of cells, I notice the mark of section 22. The orb floats to the middle of the sector and hovers there. Grated catwalks expand from bridgelike walkways that line the fronts of the cells. When the star pattern of bridges moves to connect to the orb, Trey slides the door to the orb open.

“Which ones are they in?” I ask.

His hands rapidly conduct an orchestra of information on the holographic screen, pulling out its secrets from within the control module. Wayra’s face flashes up on the screen, and then Jax’s. I feel tears sting my eyes.

“That’s them,” I exhale.

“They’re all clustered in the same area—south.” He points behind us. “You need a slipshield to help me unlock the cells. Here.” Trey finesses more holographic buttons. A small panel in the control console opens and emits a clear sticker that resembles the symbol on a USB port. He takes the small patch and peels it from the backing like one would an electrode. He grabs my hand, turning it palm up before sticking the tattoolike symbol to the skin over my wrist. I examine it: it’s created from a gel-like substance with wires embedded in it. “That slipshield will unlock the cell door when you scan it. The system will consider you a guard.”

The silver orb transport pod slows until it hovers in the open-aired space beyond the grated catwalks. After Trey manipulates more icons on the holographic screen, a docking catwalk slides out to our transport, attaching itself to the lip beneath the door. Trey rises from the control seat and takes my hand. He leads me to the door and opens it. He scans the area outside for Brigadets, but there seems to be no one about at the moment. He tugs gently on my hand, and we exit the pod through the open door. Trey takes the catwalk that leads to the southern grated walkway. I follow him, running with my face turned toward a row of empty cells as I scan them one by one, looking for my friends.

Trey comes to a halt in front of a cell. I peer into it and find Jax sitting on his cot looking forlorn. When he sees us, he jolts to his feet. He shouts something, but we can’t hear him at all through the barrier. As a bewildered smile forms on Jax’s haggard face, Trey immediately moves to the console near his cell, working the slipshield to free him.

I move around Trey to the cell next to Jax’s and find Wayra. He’s doing push-ups in the middle of the floor. His powerful back is covered in bruises and burn marks. I wince as my stomach twists. The assault against him is clear—they think he’s a traitor, because he insisted upon protecting me.

Going to the panel on the side of the cell, I square my shoulders. He’d hate any show of sympathy or remorse, so I activate the intercom and ask, “Are you done with your set? Can we go now?”

Wayra pauses in midpush; his face lifts to see me at the mouth of his cell. One eye is swollen and he has bruising around his jaw. He gets to his feet, wiping at sweat rolling down his face with his forearm as he walks unhurriedly to the clear barrier between us. “Poison, Kricket?” He shakes his head like he disapproves. “You’re not a very good assassin. This is the second time you’ve failed to kill the target. It’s becoming a pattern with you. We’re going to have to work on it.”

The Brigadets must have told him what I did—maybe while they were interrogating him?
I shrug as I swipe my wrist beneath the console’s scanner. The barrier between us disappears, freeing him. “The poison was more of a warning.”

“In that case, it was a strong message,” he remarks with approval.

“I really meant it,” I admit as I crane my neck back so that I can see his face as he steps in front of me.

He picks me up and hugs me to him. I expect him to crush me because he’s so big, but he surprises me by treating me like I’m fragile. “I thought they drowned you,” he says.

I rest my cheek against his shoulder. “I think they almost did. I need to learn how to swim soon.”

“We’ll make it a priority,” he replies, setting me back on my feet.

Trey hasn’t paused in his mission to free the other Cavars. In short order, Hollis, Drex, Dylan, Gibon, and Fenton emerge from their cells. They’re all disheveled messes, each having endured some form of abuse.

Jax grasps my chin gently, turning my face so that he can scan it. His frown makes me wary. “What?” I ask.

“You’ve been beaten.” It’s not a question. “Are you in pain?”

I’ve been beaten?
I gently pull my chin from his grasp. “No,” I answer. “I was when I woke up, but I’m not now. Why do you—why do you think I was beaten?”

“Kricket, you’re bruised and battered,” Jax replies with the kind of gentleness that I’ve never found in anyone else.

The urgency in Wayra’s voice, as he walks to Trey, distracts me from Jax. “There’s a guard pod at the end of this catwalk,” Wayra says, pointing his chin in that direction. “They have emergency evacuation protocols. If we can get in, we can infiltrate the system and open all of these cells. If we let everyone out, we’ll have a better chance of getting out of here—safety in numbers.” He looks around, his eyes rising to the hundreds of stacked cells surrounding us.

“Will they shoot us if they find us escaping?”

“On sight,” Wayra replies.

Trey hands Wayra one of the guns he’d confiscated from the Alameeda Striker on the overup. “Take this. They’ll have a stockpile of weapons there. We’ll need them to gain our release. Is everyone up for the mission?” Trey asks each of them.

In unison, they each respond, “Sir.”

Trey nods toward me. “Kricket and I will remain here with the transport and map an escape route out,” he says, indicating the silver orb that brought us here. He hands Jax his other gun. Jax takes it, running his hand over the Alameeda weapon and checking its load. “Signal me with that if you need an extraction. Otherwise, meet back here upon completion.”

“Baw-da-baw,” Wayra says with a roguish smile.

The unit of Cavars goes in the direction Wayra indicated earlier. Trey walks to my side. Gently he takes my arm, leading me over the catwalk back to the shiny silver transport pod. He stops near the opening of the transport and hands me into it. I lean against the entranceway next to him, nervously looking around for Brigadets. There aren’t any. This section is desolate. They isolated us from the general population for a reason. Now, with the Brigadets all on the surface fighting the Alameeda, the place is a tomb.

Chewing my bottom lip, I jump when Trey leans near me, murmuring, “They told me you died.” I hesitate, glancing at him. He has a hollow look. He anxiously rakes me with his eyes, as if he doesn’t believe it’s really me.

“When?” I ask. I have a desert in my mouth; I try to swallow past the lump of sand in my throat.

“When they took you from my cell. They taunted me with it—they told me you drowned.”

“Did you believe them?” I ask.

He grimaces. “No. Yes. No. I went back and forth. I don’t know which was worse.” My eyes widen as he adds, “I knew what could happen to you if you survived.” Now his look is sorrowful.

“Nothing happened,” I reply, but I know what I just said is untrue. I can’t remember the last couple of days. I woke up and it was Fitzmartin—Wednesday. I’ve lost time. A deep ache forms in the pit of my stomach.

“Something did happen, Kricket,” he replies. “It started soon after you were taken from your cell.”

“What started?”

“After I escaped, I looked for you. I hacked the Ship of Skye main systems. The location and surveillance of your interrogation was encrypted with a security code I couldn’t decipher without some of my more advanced programs. I didn’t have access to the tools I needed to find you—they were stored in my wrist communicator.” He holds up his wrist to show me his watchlike device. “I had to get it back, but it was in my apartment. I’d dropped it when they came to arrest us.” I remember him taking off his wrist communicator so he could use it to help me focus on trying to project into the future. “I couldn’t infiltrate the system to look for you until I retrieved it. It took me several parts—my apartment was being guarded—they were looking for me. When I did get it back, and I was able to scan the system for you, I found their recording of the interrogation sessions with you in the ship’s database—”

I shake my head. “I . . . I don’t remember anything—I only became conscious a few hours ago—I mean
parts
ago.”