“No?” I say.

  “Watkins,” Kratz says. “You’re pointing your weapon at Odin Longknife. Do you understand that?”

  “I don’t care who he is,” Watkins replies. “I’ve got orders.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? He is Odin Longknife. He’s not lying about that, which probably means he’s not lying about anything else.”

  Watkins reaches up, raising the dark visor of his helmet so I can see his face. “You aren’t lying about that?”

  “I wish I were. They killed my wife and two of my daughters. And there’s a chance they’re tracking the freighter we came here in.”

  “What?” Kratz says. “Tracking it?”

  I turn back to him. “Yeah. I need to get out of here. I need to find my companion and get to the synchronizer to send a message. I don’t have time to deal with criminals and pirates and all of this garbage right now. I don’t care about the Rocklin twins and their argument except for how it affects me and everyone else in the Sphere. While they’re feuding, an alien race is draining the life out of Warrick’s sun. And they’re going to be hungry for more.”

  That statement makes Kratz truly afraid. It turns his whole face white, and leaves his hands shaking. Good. I return my attention to the guard.

  “It doesn’t matter how well he pays you or what your deal is, Watkins. When the aliens come, everyone here is going to die.”

  Watkins stares at me. There’s tension around his eyes while he tries to make his decision. That tension tells me what it’s ultimately going to be. He’s too much of a soldier to make up his own mind. I don’t blame him for that. It’s an honorable quality.

  But it also puts him directly in my way.

  I don’t wait for him to tell me no. I throw myself from the chair and lunge at him. The suddenness catches him by surprise. I smack his rifle aside as he fires, the redirection sending the energy pulse straight into Kratz, who shudders and drops to the floor.

  I’m not happy about that. Kratz was a potential ally, and now he’s out of the fight. I shove the guard into the wall, the rifle winding up pressed between us as he hits. I’m taller than him, looking down at his face as he struggles to get some leverage. He moves his mouth, going for his comm.

  I give up the pin to punch him in his exposed face. Once. Twice. Three times. Quick jabs that leave him dizzy. I back up a step, grabbing at the PEP and ripping it from his hands. I jump back as he grabs for me and spin the weapon around, turning the dial all the way up. The weapon clicks, and Watkins stiffens but doesn’t fall. A second shot might knock him out or it might kill him, and I don’t really want to kill him.

  Want versus need. I want to leave him alive. I need to get out of here.

  I pull the trigger. He drops to the floor.

  I retreat to the VR terminal, quickly unplugging my needle and reclaiming it before stepping over the downed guard. I don’t check his pulse. I hope he’s still alive.

  If not, I’ll be sorry about it later.

  Chapter 19

  I exit the compartment into a long, completely vanilla passageway. The kind that could be any one of a hundred corridors on Spindle, Naraka or any other Icho Industries station floating in the black. Everything around me is metal. The floor has small holes in it, ventilation for the bundles of wiring running underneath. There are more doors on either side, stretching into the distance, and if I want to find Rozik I need to try them all.

  But do I really want to waste time looking for Captain Commie when I have a shot at going for the synchronizer? I can leave him behind, get the word out to the Alliance and have a fleet headed for Warrick within a day or two. If they can organize quickly enough, they can reach the planet before the rapidly sinking temperatures get too low to survive. A rescue operation, not a combat mission.

  If they can get a fleet there from Bruxton in time. There are no guarantees. Even less guaranteed are my odds of making it to the synchronizer alone. Rozik seems to have some experience with places like this. He probably has a better idea where to go than I do. Not to mention, he’s much better in close combat than I am. Give me a Skirmisher and the openness of space any day.

  And, he brought us here instead of going back to the Commune. Not only for time’s sake, but because he chose some measure of loyalty to what we’re trying to accomplish together despite our differences. It’s only right that I do the same for him.

  I cross the corridor to the nearest door, pressing the control pad to open it. The room is similar to the one I was in, except it’s empty. I turn and head to the next. Empty. A third. Empty. I stop in the middle of the passage. A little less chaotic action and a little more focused consideration will do me a lot of good.

  I think I’m in a medical facility of some kind, most likely within Naraka’s core. The rooms are equipped for treating injuries and doing examinations, most of the equipment on castors so they can be run from one room to another at speed. They brought me here to remove the needle from my DCI, and I’m grateful they did. I don’t know how I would have gotten it out otherwise. But they had no reason to bring Rozik here. Or Yari, for that matter. They’ve got to be somewhere else in the station. Meeting with Amelin maybe?

  I sprint down the corridor to a T-junction, pausing at the corner to cautiously look both ways. One side leads to another corridor, the other direction goes to an elevator. There’s a guard near it, but he doesn’t notice me.

  I duck back behind the corner, checking my surroundings. Clear for the moment. I lean out again, just enough to judge the distance. It’s nearly fifty meters from me to the guard. The max range of a rifle like the one I’m holding is about a hundred, and that’s against someone who isn’t wearing hardened body armor. The pulse rifle probably doesn’t have the juice to knock him out from here. But can I stun him enough to get to him before he can fight back or raise an alarm?

  Do I have a choice?

  I lean out a third time, judging the shot. I’m wasting precious seconds while Sasha Rocklin is advising her husband to kill me. Maybe she already has a team headed down here right now. Or maybe Amelin intends to take care of me himself.

  Either way, I need to stay in motion. I need to take the risk.

  I bring the rifle to my shoulder, take three deep breaths and swing around the corner. The guard sees me right away, but I’m already squeezing the trigger on my gun. The clicks tell me it’s functional. The small blue dot on the guard’s chest tells me my aim is good. The trouble is he’s still moving, bringing his rifle up to return fire.

  I rush him, shooting as I charge. When his weapon comes level, I finally hit him and throw myself sideways, only a moment ahead of the flash of light from his gun. He’s as slow to recover as I was hoping. I bounce off the wall and close the distance, still shooting. I hit him three more times, and he finally collapses to his knees before slumping forward, face down.

  The elevator is at the corner of another junction in the corridor, and I stop before exposing myself to anyone who might be coming toward me and then I carefully lean out to look. The heat of a glancing blow from a pulse rifle scrapes across my cheek and I duck back just in time to avoid the full attack. The short look gives me a quick glimpse at Sasha Rocklin, coming my way with a man I assume is her husband and an entire squad of guards.

  I press against the wall, unsure how to proceed. This isn’t how I imagined this would go. I can’t take on a force that size by myself and there’s no other help available. I’ve got about ten seconds to decide what to do.

  I look over at the elevator. Is there any chance I can get on it before I’m shot? Or am I better off retreating and hiding in one of the empty rooms. Amelin will search the rooms for me, but maybe I can catch them by surprise?

  Or maybe I should give up. Drop the weapon. Turn myself over to him. Maybe he’ll listen to reason, or at least believe Kratz when he tells them about the fingerprint and that I’m telling the truth.

  Maybe I’m screwed no matter what.

  My eyes stay fixed on the elevator. That’s the gut move, risky as it is. I’ve always survived as a pilot by letting instinct take over. I hope it doesn’t let me down now.

  The whole thing happens in seconds. I come back out firing wildly, not bothering to aim but pulling the trigger again and again, trying to keep it trained on the corridor as I roll across the passage from right to left, hitting up against the closed door of the elevator. I reach up and slap the controls, remaining hunched there and still shooting at the Rocklins who take cover behind their goons. I’ve got them on the defensive, but it won’t last. If the cab doesn’t arrive in a hurry, I’m done for.

  I keep shooting, the rifle clicking constantly, blue dots flashing all over the place. One of the guards falls, succumbing to the pulses. But the others are recovering and training their rifles on me.

  The elevator doors slide open. I move without looking, throwing myself inside. A wave of heat washes over my leg and it immediately goes numb. I grab at my pants with my free hand, dragging my leg inside and shifting to face the open doors.

  The first guard reaches me, catching three blasts directly in the chest. He collapses and nearly falls forward to block the doors. They start to slide closed as two more guards reach me, firing into the cab at an awkward angle.

  Their shots miss, the door seals and I’m alone.

  Chapter 20

  My leg is completely numb, but I manage to crawl to the corner of the elevator cab and pull myself upright, using the pulse rifle like a cane. A glance at the control pad shows me I’m already in the main cylinder at the center of Naraka’s inner core, rising along its considerable height.

  But where the hell am I going?

  I want to use my knowledge of Spindle as a surrogate for this place. Since the stations are a similar design some of my assumptions are bound to be right. But Naraka’s core is easily twice Spindle’s size, with four habitation rings instead of two. It means there’s a lot more area to cover. Area I don’t know anything about except that none of it is friendly.

  How am I going to find Rozik in this place? How am I going to find anything? I haven’t had time to think about that. React to the circumstances. Follow your instincts. Keep moving forward. It isn’t much different than flying a Skirmisher in the heat of battle, except I don’t have a partner to share the load. Not yet, anyway.

  I let the cab continue to ascend. Whenever it passes another deck the schematic of the station blinks at the position and the designation flashes beside it. The levels are numbered from the top down, relative to the artificial gravity. Spindle had eighty decks. Naraka is over one-fifty. I’m in the mid-eighties right now.

  The cab reaches eight-zero, the exact center of the cylinder, and I tap the control to stop it there. I test my leg as it slows, trying to get the feeling back into it. It’s easier to move with the rifle helping me maintain my balance, but I can’t stop anyone from shooting me that way. I lift the weapon up, gingerly putting my weight on the limb. Thankfully, the PEP was set fairly low, and the numbing is already beginning to fade.

  The elevator doors open and I peek out, quickly surveying my surroundings. If Amelin raised any kind of alarm, it isn’t obvious. But then, they had no idea where I would stop until I stopped. I limp out onto the deck, and the elevator doors close behind me. I glance back to see it’s descending. It is—the Rocklins and their goons were on their way—so I don’t have time to linger.

  This deck is nearly identical to the one I just left. Four corridors extend from the central elevator, each at a thirty-degree angle from one another. They’ll intersect the outer ring of the cylinder, allowing access to the main functions of the level—in this case, reactor control and systems monitoring—before reaching out into space to the docking rings.

  A light hum emanates from the wall behind me, the residual sound of the large reactor I know is nearby. My destination is another two decks up, but I don’t want the Rocklins to know exactly where I’m headed.

  The emergency stairs are behind the elevator. I enter the stairwell and quickly ascend two decks, emerging into the new passageway. There are only two corridors to take from here. Each one only goes as far as the first outer ring around the primary cylinder. I choose the one on the right, hoping this is one of the areas where Naraka is nearly identical to Spindle. If it is, I might have a chance of finding Rozik. If not, it’s only a matter of time before I’m either caught or killed.

  Being as stealthy as I can, I make my way along the passage to the corridor running around the habitation ring. On Spindle, this area was off-limits to civilians, and by the lack of encounters I can only assume it’s the same here. How many people does Amelin Rocklin have on his side of this little familial war? How many are loyal to Amelia? I know from Sasha that Amelin’s the one who attacked the freighter, and she’s the one who wants me dead for it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the better pick is for the station’s new management.

  It also doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s currently winning. Amelin’s people were waiting for us in the supposedly secure hangar, and Amelia took us out into space thinking she could get somewhere her brother wouldn’t be able to spy.

  So much for that.

  There’s an underlying sense of frustration to the entire situation. Getting to a synchronizer or an Alliance base shouldn’t be this hard. I’m not sure if the fates are messing with me or if I’m so out of touch with the rest of the Sphere that I haven’t seen how things have changed. I get regular updates about happenings at the Academy from Bryce and about Earth from Pen, but in some ways those planets are as isolated as Warrick. The Academy is focused only on producing new Naval officers and Earth is neutral ground, the only place in the Sphere were Alliance and Commune co-exist in relative harmony.

  Naraka station shouldn’t be as big and powerful as it is. It shouldn’t have as many people living on it as it does. That so many have found a better life living under the rules of a pair of siblings who would rather kill one another than share is a testament to the devastation of the war.

  Which makes me think: Maybe Rozik’s right. Maybe all of this is indirectly my fault. I stopped the Commune from taking Capricorn. I refused to acknowledge the order to retreat, blaming it on a faulty comm.

  It’s the same choice I’ve had for the last twenty years. I can stop moving right now, fall to the deck and lose myself to overwhelming guilt. Or I can keep going, stay on mission, and try to do some good. I’ve always chosen the second option, and I’m not going to pick differently now.

  It takes almost twenty minutes for me to make my way from the elevator to my target, even though it’s only a quarter kilometer away. Three techs end up passing me on the way. I manage to duck behind bulkhead supports or turn away and look busy so they think I belong. I’m sure Amelin Rocklin has units looking for me, but I don’t think he’s the type to admit he lost a captive and alert the whole place. No, he’ll keep it quiet and try to neutralize me without raising a fuss. I’m sure whatever illicit scheme he’s working at the moment is too important to disrupt over chasing me down. Especially since he no doubt thinks the story I told Sasha is the biggest joke in the universe. Liars think everyone is lying. Criminals think everyone’s a crook.

  I reach the end of a passageway, smiling as I peer around the corner. Maybe if Amelin had listened to my story and believed in my identity, he might have been smarter about how he handled my escape. But he probably thinks I’m just some random thug who makes a living shooting wealthy traders in the back and stealing their ships. He probably thinks I’m running as fast as I can, more than willing to leave Rozik behind for a chance to escape.

  Of course, he’s thinking wrong. Otherwise, he would never have left the door to the core’s secondary control systems completely unguarded and unsecured.

  He’s going to be in for a hell of a surprise.

  Chapter 21

  The control room isn’t vacant when I enter. A pair of techs sit before a display that occupies the entire forward wall. Small view screens showing hundreds of camera feeds are aligned on the wall, separated by streams of data about each feed as captured by a monitoring AI. They appear to be searching for anything out of the ordinary.

  The funny thing is, because of the way I’m dressed and where I am, the AI doesn’t seem to think I’m anything out of the ordinary even though I’m carrying a gun. There’s no evidence on the displays that it’s flagged my movement through the station. The techs are leaned back in their chairs with glazed-over expressions, barely paying attention to the displays. Or to the room around them, which is their biggest mistake.

  They only react to me once I’m behind them, my rifle trained on them. “Both of you, put your hands up,” I say. “Get up and back away from the terminals.” They both turn their heads around and stare at me. Otherwise, they don’t move, as if they don’t quite believe I’m really there. “Now!” I bark.

  Their hands go up and they look back over their shoulders at me.. I notice the largest display in front of them change, the camera in the room picking me up and the AI flagging it.

  “Cancel that alarm before it gets distributed,” I say. They hesitate. “Right now!” I shoot the one on the right, the stun blast knocking him out. “Do it, or I kill you both,” I say to the other one.

  He turns his head back around taps on his control board to cancel the alert. Then he looks back over his shoulder at me as he straightens up. “Wh…what do you want?”

  I look at his display. Did he cancel the alert in time or does Rocklin know I’m here? It doesn’t matter now. “I already have what I want,” I reply. Then I shoot him too.

  He slumps over in his seat, unconscious. I pull his wheeled chair back from his control board and grab him under the arms, lowering him to the floor beside his buddy. Then I take his seat and roll up to the control board. It’s a new version of the same one that was on Spindle, with less accumulation of grime and less surface wear. But I know how to operate it.