The shuttle shook violently, and Clay spilled his water all over me. I yelped from the cold. It didn’t really matter though because the look on Tommy’s face would have made me chilled anyway.
He was, for just the briefest of seconds, scared. “I shut off the perimeter alarm when Keith came back on. Fuckin’ stupid, Thomas.” When he spoke about himself in the third person, it wasn’t a good sign either. “Report, Clay. What hit us?”
“A small shuttle that was armed with something. I’m tracing the path.”
I grabbed the comm and placed it on my ears. Three other ships were reporting similar incidents. I told Tommy as much as he turned on the view screen. Clay lifted his head. “Matthews’ ship. The one Keith was just on. He sent the armed shuttles.”
“What?” Keith shouted out at the same time Quinn yelled, “Of course.”
None of this made sense to me. What was going on? “Someone explain.”
But none of them stopped. Everyone was suddenly at their stations. Keith bumped me out of the way, giving orders into the comm. This was years of working together taking over like muscle memory. I backed away, leaving the control room. Something terrible had happened, and although I didn’t fully grasp it, I knew one thing—we’d been betrayed.
Captain Matthews, who I hadn’t been able to get rid of, had just attacked our ship.
No matter how well Tommy designed the vessels, getting hit by a bomb or crashing always overturned everything. I quickly started to clean up. A roar sounded followed by a bang. I knew the sound well. They’d released a missile. Tommy had dropped them on soft targets on the moons the day before.
What was he hitting now? I rushed to the window to look just in time to see one flying right at us. Everything in space always seemed to move slowly when I stared at it, yet I knew it was coming fast. The thing was going to hit us. Would the shield barriers hold? Had Tommy put the proximity system back on so that it wouldn’t get through? I ducked under the kitchen table. I didn’t think it would really save me if the whole ship blew up, but I couldn’t think of a single other place to go.
A loud bang sounded, and I covered my ears. I’d taken my medicine Ari prescribed for anxiety. I was thankful beyond words I’d remembered to do so. I’d had enough explosions and sounds like that one to last a lifetime.
The ship shook but held steady as I gripped onto the table leg and tried to remember to breathe. Regular noises returned to the ship. I didn’t move. If they were blowing up missiles and dodging fire, I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to wait.
Eventually, I heard footsteps. “Paloma? Seriously, Clay, I’ve looked everywhere.” Quinn called out behind him.
I could have laughed. Why would he have thought to look under the table? Only a ridiculous person would put herself there. “Quinn, I’m here.”
“Hold up, found her,” Quinn called out to the hall again before he came into the kitchen. “Where exactly?”
I still couldn’t quite bring myself to move. “Under the table.”
Quinn poked his head underneath. Without another word, he joined me. “Hey.”
“Hi. Are we okay for the moment?”
He nodded. “Yep. That was pretty dramatic, huh? Not like Tommy to make mistakes like that. He’ll be even more focused now. Forget any outside conversation in the control room.”
“That was my fault.” I’d almost gotten us all killed.
Quinn scrunched up his nose. “Doubtful. So we were betrayed. One of the captains was working for Dad. He didn’t have our plans so he didn’t know where we were going or what was going to happen. It just means Clay is going to do a thorough look-see at every captain now even more than before. We’ll hit some soft targets while we wait.”
“Sounds good.” Actually it sounded like hell, but I was on this journey with them. It was what it was. “I’m going to stay here for a bit.”
Quinn held up his tablet. “Sounds good.”
He made no indication he’d be moving. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Quinn would do anything for me. He loved me. There was nothing too big, nothing too ridiculous. He yawned and opened his arms until I climbed into them. If he was good hanging out on the floor under the kitchen table, then so was I.
Eight Months Later
Resistance Base, Earth Standard Time
* * *
Food was a necessity, yet somehow, it seemed wrong to be there, eating. How could the world go on, how could people simply continue with their days when Tommy and Quinn were dead? How could my body demand I put sustenance in it when all I wanted to do was… stop altogether? Then I looked at my sweet husbands. Their gazes were far away, their minds preoccupied like mine was. I wondered if they had the same nonsensical thoughts clawing at them that I did.
Had Quinn liked oatmeal? I didn’t know. I might never know. I could ask Keith, but it wouldn’t be the same as learning it from Quinn himself. What had been Tommy’s last thoughts? Had he known how much I loved him? Clay would say that Tommy did, but he didn’t really know. Had I told my two dead husbands enough how much they meant to me? Had I told the two who were alive how grateful I was they were here? I tried not to choke on my food.
“I love you two more than anything in this universe. You know that, right?”
Keith kissed my cheek, and Clay squeezed my leg.
“I love you like breathing, Paloma. You’re an absolute necessity. I couldn’t be upright without you.” Keith’s voice was low.
Clay quickly pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “The fact that I love you is about all I know right now. The rest of life has ceased to make any sense.”
I knew what he meant.
I chewed my food but didn’t taste it. Outside, people moved large pieces of machinery over fields in the distance. “Is this some kind of farm? Isn’t this some kind of resistance base?”
“We’ve spent most of our time in the med room watching over you, but as far as we can garner, Diana is rather insistent they are not fighting this war but trying to help people who might be affected by it. For now, her family is going along with that. Cash almost died, and it’s been a long haul for her. But the general consensus is it is only a matter of time before she acknowledges that, yes, she is leading the resistance. She’s turning a blind eye right now to the things going in the background. But this place could be turned into a base of operations in no time as soon as she gives the order. She has super-soldiers farming. Former fighters talking about seeds. They love it here, but they’re biding time.”
The idea that my best friend, the quiet and studious Diana, was going to lead a rebellion blew my mind. “Maybe someone needs to tell her that. Diana can get very focused on things. If she really doesn’t want to lead, then she shouldn’t lead. Let her mother do it. Melissa was some sort of rebel leader on the other side of the galaxy.”
Keith nodded. “In any case, thousands of us here, and no one is paying any attention because right now all we look like is a mid-sized farming community. If she wanted to hide a rebellion, she actually found the perfect way to do it.”
“My father has blinders on right now. We forced him to Sandler space for a bit, and in that time—the last month—Evander has made major headway through the hole. They’re here to challenge my father. It’s stopped his assault on Earth. His hands are full.” Clay tapped his fork on the table. “They might kill each other. Evander took over Mars Station last week.”
I didn’t want them to kill each other. I wanted to end Garrison myself. But we’d had this discussion last night, and it was clear to me Clay couldn’t handle the idea. My love for him trumped revenge. Tommy and Quinn would have understood, even if it felt like the ultimate betrayal to their memories that I wasn’t on a ship heading straight for Garrison that very second.
Rohan appeared next to our table. One second he wasn’t there, the next he stared down at us. For such a tall man, he made no noise when he moved. That had to be… useful.
Keith stared up at him. “Rohan.”
“
Sandlers. Come with me.” He stepped back.
Did he just want us to follow him?
Clay eyed Keith then Rohan again. “For what reason?”
“I have discovered something that will be of interest to you.”
Keith rose. “Okay. Sure. Why not.” He looked at me, questions in his gaze. He had no idea what was going on either.
I was finished eating, and as long as Clay and Keith were with me, I felt comfortable going anywhere on the base. The night before, I hadn’t been thinking at all. Or maybe I had. The whole thing was blurry. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to retain most of this. Was it grief or my time in the med machine? I needed to let Ari examine my head.
We followed Rohan outside and through several buildings until we stopped at a command center. There were live feeds of work going on outside, mostly centered on what had to be crops growing. But there were a few showing warehouses filled with ships and weapons, mostly covered up and not in use. Keith had been right. They could mobilize this place in seconds if they had to.
A man sat in a chair in front of a large screen. Otherwise, we were alone in the room. Keith laced his fingers with mine, and Clay nodded at the new person. “Canyon.”
“Hello,” he said, rising. “You must be Paloma. Alive and well.”
“Ah, I must be.” I pulled my hand from Keith’s and extended my hand to Canyon to shake. He was tall, as impressive a height as Rohan, and he had a completely bald head. I didn’t know if that was because he shaved it or because he didn’t have hair. Both of his ears were pierced with silver studs. There was something wrong with his eyes. They glinted a bit when the light hit them, looking as though they had mechanical devices in them. I’d been taught not to stare, so I didn’t. Instead, I waited for him to shake.
He gazed at my hand then took it, slowly. His handshake was firm but not overwhelming. He let go and raised his gaze to Rohan. “Amazing how everyone here simply gives their hands to each other. How easy it would be to end a life by simply grabbing the hand and…”
Rohan put his hand on Canyon’s arm. “Yes. But remember what Sterling said. They don’t like to hear those kinds of statements. They feel threatened by it.”
Canyon let out a loud sigh and turned back to us. “Forgive me. Where I come from, death and how to deliver it is all we talk about. It’s our job. I forget. Please be assured that were I planning to kill you, I wouldn’t discuss it with you first.”
Keith cleared his throat. “Great. Thanks.”
“Why are we here?” Clay moved slightly until he was directly on my other side. “I mean, we would like to get to know you. We might stay a while. Now that we’re not going to be in the med bay all the time, maybe we could help with things. In a bit. I think we’re adjusting to our life now. It might take some time to be okay.”
Canyon looked at Rohan. “Grief?”
“Yes.” Rohan moved to the screen and touched a button. He might as well have knocked me down. There on the screen was the hellish feed of Tommy and Quinn dying. I cried out and covered my eyes with my hand. I hadn’t been prepared for that, and since I was likely not going to kill Garrison Sandler, I didn’t see why I should ever watch it again.
I threw myself against Clay’s shoulder as though he could make the sound stop.
“Hey,” Keith and Clay said at the same time.
“What are you doing?” Clay wrapped his hand over my eyes, too. I couldn’t see the feed, but I could still hear it just fine.
“It’s a fake,” Rohan answered.
I dropped my hand from my eyes, and Clay dropped his, too. “What?”
“I am well versed in forgery. We frequently sent out fake images to places before we could invade them for Evander Corporation. That is one of the best ways to get people to not do things to make you kill them. I had no reason to watch the feed before last night. I don’t know your people. But I followed Paloma’s heartbeat. I wished to put a face to the sound I’d heard for the last month. There was a lot of pain each time she almost died,” Rohan explained.
It was so bizarre to hear him talk about my heartbeat as though it was something he could actually hear and identify. I might care to hear more about it later. He’d said the feed was fake.
“After watching it twice, I was quite certain it wasn’t real. I couldn’t have proven it to you then. That was simply… intuition. But Canyon can see things differently. I asked him to look.”
Canyon walked to the controls and paused the scene. It was right before they were about to die. “My eyes have been reworked to make me a better killer. I can spot someone who isn’t even a speck in the human eye yet, target them and kill them. Humans are shadows to me. I cannot see facial features, more like you are all heat and shadow. I can see mechanical things just fine. It’s like they removed my ability to see humans so I would not care about them. Pieces of darkness.”
He pressed another button to start the screen again. “That is not a human on the screen. Tommy and Quinn are drawings superimposed on footage from something else. I can see them. They are faked. Computer images. I can see them.”
Clay’s body shook next to me, and Keith let out a gasp. They’d lived with this for a month. For an entire month, they’d thought their brothers had been brutally killed. I’d only had one day with it and that was more than enough.
My knees threatened to give, but I stayed strong.
Keith found his voice first. “You’re sure about this. Absolutely sure?”
Canyon nodded. “Yes.”
I closed my eyes. We were going to get my other two loves back. “Thank you, Canyon, Rohan. You have given us such a gift. I will never ever be able to pay this back. If I can ever pay it forward, I will.”
“Sterling,” Rohan spoke aloud. “You can tell Diana about this. And the others. They are going to need help now.”
My lids flew open. Sterling? I looked around. Diana’s husband wasn’t here, was he?
It was Canyon who answered. “We can hear almost everything in this place if we choose to. Sterling can as well. He’s better than we are at tuning out noise. He’s lived longer with people who were not super-soldiers. Rohan heard his breathing change when Sterling tuned into this conversation. As did I. He heard what we told you.”
There was so much to do. So much to decide that I couldn’t focus on what I knew was fascinating about these two people in the room with us. Some other time, I would get to know them, figure out how to thank them. For now, all I could think about was that my guys were alive.
Wherever they were we would find them. I’m coming Tommy and Quinn. Hold on. Wherever you are, we are on our way.
I let out a breath I’d held. “Clay, where would they be?”
“I…” He shook his head. “They could be anywhere. Literally anywhere. My father has ships everywhere.”
“They’re not on a ship.” Keith rubbed his eyes. “I know where they are.”
“You do?” Clay scrunched up his face. “How do you know?”
Keith squatted down, putting his hands on the floor. “Sorry, I have to not lose my mind right now. I…”
I squatted in front of him. “That’s okay. We’ll re-center together.”
He met my gaze and gave me a small smile. “You knew it. You woke up, and you knew they weren’t dead. We told you that you were wrong.”
“What we know is they didn’t die there.” Clay strode over to the chair and then back to us. “We don’t know anything about anything else. It’s been a month.”
“You can be pessimism today, Clay, if you want. I’m going to play the role of optimism.” This was a lot for any of us to process.
He snorted. “Fair enough, honey.”
Keith finally spoke again. “Quinn told me once about Dad’s dungeon. It’s on Sandler Homeland. Under one of his summer homes of all places. He took political dissidents there. Dad used to tell Quinn shit like that. I think he believed Quinn was the closest he was ever going to get to another soul who understood him. We were already
in Sandler space. If he wanted to take them someplace where no one would find them, that’s where he would.”
Well then, we were headed back to Sandler Space.
5
An Old Friend
Six Months Earlier
Sandler Space, Earth Standard Time
Tommy pointed at the tablet. “They hit us here. Here. Then here. The traitors are gone. One of you explain to me why this is happening, how this is happening.”
Quinn shook his head. “I’ve got nothing. I would love to figure this out. I’ve been up two nights over.”
Half of the Sandler Cartel’s space fleet had surrounded our next target. It was like they knew we were coming. Tommy had immediately sent three quarters of the Earth brigade elsewhere. I wondered sometimes how the pressure of having all of those lives on his shoulders sat with him. When he was General Sandler, he didn’t worried about things like whether or not what he was doing was right.
I think this weighed on him. He passed out for three to four hours every night before getting up to do it again. I lay down with him when he did, and he held me so tight that I wondered if there was any air between us. But we didn’t talk. The whole group of us had ceased most conversation. I supposed there were times in life when there wasn’t anything to say. We’d reached that part of existence.
The console dinged, and I picked up the comm. It took me a second to realize what I heard, and then I turned toward my guys, my heart rate picking up with excitement. “It’s Wes Darby. Melissa’s husband. He’s trying to get in touch with us. He’s coming through. Light signal. Through the communication protocol.”
Tommy sat up straighter, setting down his tablet. “Put him on.”