CHAPTER 31

Eli was woken from a pleasant dream in which he was sitting by a pool, dappled sun shining through waving trees as a breeze ruffled his hair. And someone was delivering a cocktail right to him on a silver tray, one that smelled like summer and freshness and…

Then he was looking up into Andres’s impassive face. “Time to go.”

“Don’t go into the wake-up call business,” grumbled Eli, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, still gummy from sleep.

He’d slept on the couch in the tiny apartment, a fact that his neck made known as he levered himself into a sitting position. Under the guise of scratching his ear he made sure he hadn’t lost the earbud Gwen had given him.

Prentiss was already up, drinking coffee while leaning against the counter. She didn’t look particularly happy to be awake either. Or maybe that was directed at Eli. Or the world. Hard to tell.

“Can I get a cup of that?” he asked.

“Go fuck yourself,” she said.

“So, that’s not a ‘no’, then.” His knee popped as he stood up. Used to be I could roll out of a shipboard bunk and double-time it to a hangar bay in two minutes. But those days were long gone and he’d put on a lot of mileage since. He ambled over to the kitchenette, where Prentiss grudgingly slid aside and let him pour a half cup of the dregs. “Cheers,” he said, raising it in her direction.

It was awful, but at least it was lukewarm. On second thought, that doesn’t make it better.

Andres might as well have been an impatient parent, tapping his foot and checking his wrist for the time, but they were all out the door and piled into the hovercar within five minutes, retracing the path they’d taken from the spaceport.

Eli resisted the urge to tap the earbud and make sure it was still working. Neither Andres nor Prentiss seemed to be paying him any mind, but who knew what sort of monitoring they had in place.

At the spaceport, Andres parked the hovercar but didn’t return it to the rental agency. They’re planning on coming back here. Eli filed that away, just in case.

They passed quickly through the security checkpoints – nobody pulled him aside this time, which was a mixed blessing – and within ten minutes were out on the tarmac, walking towards a familiar shape on a landing pad.

The flat, squat sight of the Cavalier washed over Eli like a soothing balm. He found himself straightening up almost unconsciously, his muscles relaxing. You have no idea how good it is to see you. He ran his hand over the undercarriage, half-expecting to see dings or dents incurred in his absence, but nothing seemed obviously out of place.

“Open ‘er up,” grunted Andres.

Eli gave him a sour look. Some people have no appreciation for the bond between a pilot and their ship. But he tapped his entry code on the access panel, and the ramp lowered to the ground with a whine of hydraulics.

Their footsteps echoed eerily throughout the hold as they climbed onboard. Eli had been on the ship by himself plenty of times in the past nine months, checking this or that system, tweaking performance, or even occasionally taking the odd nap. But this felt different – not just empty, but vacant. Like a part of the ship was missing.

As outside, nothing was obviously missing or out of place, though if anything, it was a bit too clean. Usually there was a fraction more clutter or mess about the place – the detritus of a space that was not just their workplace but, more often than not, their home. It didn’t look like any of the secret compartments where they’d cached their money and equipment had been disturbed, so Xi and her goons hadn’t done a stem-to-stern search or anything.

Which was just as well, because the one thought burning a hole in Eli’s brain at this very moment was the pistol that Tapper had secured beneath the pilot console. His pulse quickened at the thought. Even if it’s still there, then what?

All too cognizant of Andres and Prentiss trailing impatiently behind him, Eli made his way into the cockpit and was about to plop down in the worn comfort of his seat – and maybe do a surreptitious check beneath for the hidden sidearm – when a meaty hand descended on his shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin, convinced that Xi’s goons knew exactly what he was thinking. Even I don’t know what I’m thinking half the time!

“Not there,” said Andres. “Just get it started up. She’ll handle the rest.” He jerked his head at Prentiss, who had come in behind them, and was surveying the cockpit with a look of distaste.

“This is all non-standard,” she said, scowling. “What the hell did you do to this thing?”

Eli moved to the co-pilot seat, forcing himself to swallow the lump in his throat, and started bringing the Cav’s systems online. “Started out as a standard Kestrel-class light transport, but we made some special modifications,” he said, trying to sound casual as he flipped the engine ignition switches and felt the thrum reverberate through the deckplates like a heartbeat. “You sure you can handle it?”

The look she gave him could have vaporized steel. “A ship’s a ship.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then just shrugged. Her funeral. Well, potentially all our funerals, I guess.

“OK, systems coming up,” said Eli, leaning back in the co-pilot chair and crossing his arms. “We’ll be ready for liftoff in two minutes.”

Prentiss sat down in Eli’s own seat, grimaced, and then started yanking levers to tweak the height and distance from the controls. It took every bit of self-control for him not to lunge at her. Taking their ship was one thing, but adjusting his seat? No jury would convict him.

Andres disappeared into the cargo hold. Eli watched the gauges and readouts as the Cav finished its boot-up sequence, but whenever he leaned forward to so much as peer at a display, he earned a warning look from Prentiss. “Don’t touch anything.”

Eli put his hands up. “I was just going to tell you that the intermix runs a little hot, but clearly you know what you’re doing.”

She glowered at him, but her eyes did dart to the relevant monitor.

A minute later, the board showed green and Prentiss took the yoke for liftoff. The moment the ship floated upward on its repulsors, Eli realized he was gripping the edges of his seat like they were doing barrel rolls. They say doctors make the worst patients – I wonder if there’s a corollary for pilots.

The ship bobbed, sliding to one side as Prentiss tried to correct for the slightly weaker output on the portside repulsor; Eli had long ago internalized that, among the Cav’s many quirks. This flight is going to be interminable.

And then they were off and away, the ground disappearing beneath them at a rapid rate as they climbed, and Eli was pressed back against his seat.

“Shit, what kind of thrust ratio does this thing have?” said Prentiss as she eased back on the throttle.

“We’re usually in a hurry,” said Eli.

There was a weird disconnect for Eli as the ship maneuvered through the atmosphere: the sounds, the motions, everything around him was as familiar as his own body, and yet it was somehow wrong, like remembering a dream while waking.

Or a nightmare.

After a few excruciating minutes, they reached cruising altitude, and settled into what Eli recognized as a holding pattern. He glanced down at the navigation readouts, or at least what he could see without reaching out to touch the controls.

The Burns Expanse.

Every kid born on Caledonia knew it: the huge desert that dominated the planet’s southern continent, barren and inhospitable. Gwen hadn’t been in touch to brief him on Xi’s plan, and Andres and Prentiss certainly weren’t the sharing type. He racked his brain for what else he could remember from his primary school geography lessons, but it wasn’t much. There was something though, that he vaguely recalled–

An alarm blared and he shot forward, hands instinctively reaching for the co-pilot yoke.

“I’ve got it,” said Prentiss sharply, banking the ship against the crosswind that had threatened to push them out of pattern.

“What the fuck was th…” The words died in Eli’s mouth as he peered out the canopy and saw the whirling wall of brown to their port side.

Oh, right. That was the other thing. “Sandstorm.”

They weren’t exclusive to the Burns Expanse by any means; much of Caledonia, or at least the regions where settlers had ended up, was rocky and arid, without a lot of vegetation to keep the soil rooted.

But the ones here were a little more… intense.

“That must be hundreds of klicks across,” he muttered, shaking his head. What the hell is the rest of the team doing down there in that? His hand drifted towards his ear again, but the earbud was still there, just silent.

Sticking his twitching fingers in his armpits, he forced himself back in the chair. Part of him wondered if he wouldn’t be better off leaving the cockpit altogether, but every time he tried to get up and go, he felt rooted to the seat. I can’t help them from back there. If something was going to happen, he’d need to be here.

Not that he could do much with Prentiss and Andres floating around. He needed to even the odds somehow.

A crowd of voices piled into his head, offering suggestions.

“Take the fight to them,” said one, that sounded suspiciously like Addy.

“Watch and wait,” advised another in Commander Taylor’s even tones.

“When all you’ve got is a hammer, break the shit out of some stuff.” No need to wonder who that was.

“You’ve got this, Brody. Use your head.”

Kovalic. It had only been a couple days since Eli had last seen the major, but he missed the man’s quiet confidence. He’d always been a steady presence, someone Eli could rely on, which he privately thought was because Kovalic believed himself responsible for getting Eli into this whole life. Which, to be fair, was true, but Eli had chosen to stay in it and, much as he’d struggled to adjust, he’d come to the conclusion that he enjoyed it. There were terrifying moments, to be sure, and if he never got kidnapped again it would be too soon, but overall he felt like he was doing something important. Making a difference.

And into this meditative moment came the reminder that not only was there a gun underneath the piloting console, but more important – much more important – this was his ship. His home-field advantage. All he had to do was just pick the right moment to act.

Thanks, team.

As if on cue, Prentiss cocked her head to one side, listening to something that Eli couldn’t hear, then reached over to the comm panel and flipped on the loudspeaker. A voice crackled through, instantly recognizable as Commander Taylor’s. “All stations green?”

“Green,” came Gwen’s lilt.

“As grass,” said Tapper.

“Ready,” said Addy, and Eli felt his heart skip a beat at her voice. They’re OK. They’re all OK.

Eli’s mouth twitched, threatening a smile. The team was still here, even if they weren’t here, and that was all he needed to know.

Prentiss toggled to a separate channel before transmitting back, Eli noted. “This is overwatch. Confirming we are in holding position and waiting for your mark.”

That makes two of us.