I nodded as I read. The message was mostly bluster, going on about how I should bring the ship in because it was my duty as a von Hasenberg and not because I wanted something from him. But under the bluster was a thread of reluctant respect—he was impressed that I’d captured an enemy ship.
I opened the contract. He’d modified a few minor wording issues but largely left it unchanged. He’d signed the contract with every request I’d asked for, even the ones I thought I wouldn’t get. I double-checked that it truly was his signature, both physical and electronic. Both checked out.
He must be desperate to get his hands on Polaris.
“He agreed to everything I asked,” I said. “I can get you all diplomatic immunity. He’ll let me choose my own spouse and come and go freely.” I looked up and met Loch’s eyes. “He’ll vote however I ask on one case of clemency.”
“What did you agree to in return?” Rhys asked.
“Access to the ship for three months. All the alcubium on board. Which reminds me . . . could you store four containers of it for me? I’ll swing back by and pick it up in about three months.”
“Oh, that’s clever,” Rhys said. “And here I was starting to think you weren’t living up to your House roots. Of course I will. What else?”
“I also promised him a week of debriefings on everything I know about the drive, XAD Six, and alcubium.”
“That’s it?” he asked.
“I know, right? It’s unlike him not to at least try to negotiate terms. But the contract is legally binding and will stand up in the Consortium courts. I’d like you all to look it over, see if I’m missing something obvious.”
I brought up the vid screen in the wall and transferred the contract to it, large enough that everyone could read it at once. They read in silence while I looked for anything that would invalidate the contract. Father was sneaky, after all.
“Everything looks fine to me,” Rhys said.
“Me, too,” Loch and Veronica agreed.
I turned to Veronica. She met my eyes and then glanced away. “Did Rhys persuade you to stay?” I asked gently.
“I can be very persuasive when I put my mind to it,” Rhys said with a grin.
Veronica’s face flushed with color. “Yes, I’ve decided to stay. However, when your father sends you to war, I want to go with you.” She cut me off before I could do more than utter a syllable. “I know it will be dangerous. But I owe you. I know you say I don’t, but I do. And besides that, I like you and don’t want you to die. So I will go with you and keep you out of trouble.”
“Good luck,” Loch muttered. I elbowed him in the side.
“And I’m going, too,” Rhys said. “So don’t think about leaving me out of the loop. And if Albrecht even thinks about going back on his word, you know we’ll bust you out.”
Loch sighed and ran a hand over his head. “Rhys is right; your father better not try any shit. And I suppose I won’t mind sharing a ship with these two again.”
“You don’t know how much your support means to me,” I said. I hugged each of them. “I’m going to miss you. I will try to visit even before I get my ship back.”
Rhys and Veronica left a little while later. They were trying to convert back to local time and it was already deep into the night. Loch stayed but we both knew our time was limited.
I signed the contract and sent it to Father, along with a note that I would arrive tomorrow, barring any trouble. Postponing my departure would just make it harder. Besides, the sooner I left, the sooner I could return.
I found Loch on the flight deck, going through the maintenance records for the ship. “Find anything interesting?” I asked.
“Just ensuring everything is ready for you,” he said. “I know it’s only one jump, but I won’t be there if anything goes wrong. It’s making me crazy.”
I bent down and pressed a kiss to his neck. “How about I distract you?”
He made a sound low in his chest. “I could be persuaded,” he said.
I swung his chair away from the console and straddled his lap, facing him. Then, with a grin, I proceeded to show him just how persuasive I could be.
Chapter 26
The next morning I found Loch back on the flight deck, staring moodily into a steaming cup of coffee. As far as I could tell, neither of us had slept well.
Loch met my gaze and his jaw clenched. He looked like a man getting ready to impart bad news. Nervousness settled into my belly as I imagined what he was going to say. Had he decided I was too much trouble for a relationship after all? What if this was truly goodbye?
“I’m going with you,” he said, his voice hard.
I blinked, sure I’d heard him wrong.
“If you won’t take me on Polaris, I’ll follow on my own. But either way, I’m going with you. I know it’s not safe and I don’t care.”
Relief and joy surprised a laugh out of me. “Okay,” I said.
Now he was the one who looked blindsided. “You’re going to agree, just like that?”
“Yes. In fact, I was going to ask you to come. I couldn’t sleep last night, so I spent the night thinking. I have a plan, but it’s dangerous.”
His smirk was sharp enough to cut. “I’m dangerous,” he said. “It’s time the Consortium figured that out firsthand.”
I shook my head. “If you go in as a threat, they’ll treat you like one and eliminate you. This is my area of expertise. You have to be willing to trust me and follow my lead, even when it seems what I’m doing is counterintuitive.”
I held my breath as his eyes raked over my face. Finally, he sighed and nodded. “I’ll defer to your expertise. But if things get dicey, I’ll get us out by whatever means necessary. Let’s hear your plan.”
“I’ll bring you with me as my bodyguard. Thanks to the contract with Father, I can get you diplomatic immunity. It won’t prevent the other Houses from attempting to capture you if they realize who you truly are, but it will give you some cover. Do you have a secondary identity chip and a clean identity?”
Loch nodded. “I contacted Rhys this morning to make sure it was still good.”
“That will make things easier. I’m going to have to let my sister Bianca know your real identity because I need her help. We’ll use your secondary identity for everyone else.” I sighed. “It’s still going to be risky. It would be much safer for you to stay here.”
“I’m going. And going as your bodyguard is a lot less risky than sneaking in, which was my other plan.”
I stared. “You’re kidding, right?”
His grin did not reassure me.
I sent Bianca a priority message while we waited for a jump point. I’d need her help as soon as I landed, so it was better to give her at least a little warning. Loch had clipped into the navigator’s chair while I wrote the message. I slid into the captain’s chair and tried to ignore my nerves.
After we received the jump point, I triggered the hangar’s roof door to open, then let Polaris take off under autopilot. The route to Earth was already programmed.
I was going home.
The thought didn’t fill me with the warmth I thought it would. I felt vaguely uneasy. I’d changed a lot in the last two years. I wasn’t as naive or trusting, and while I was still loyal to House von Hasenberg, I’d lost the rose-colored glasses. I wasn’t sure my family would appreciate the changes, especially when they arrived along with a convicted murderer/bodyguard and a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Genesis Project.
APD Zero dropped away and the sky opened up. As soon as we’d cleared the atmosphere and put enough distance between us and the other ships in the area, the FTL kicked in and we jumped.
I hadn’t swapped out the alcubium, so this was a conventional FTL jump. I kept an eye on the systems as we popped out the other side, but the time in Sedition meant the drive had had plenty of time to cool down. The ship slid neatly back into normal space and Earth glowed blue in front of us.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Loch asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. It was hard to imagine that the entirety of the Consortium’s vast power flowed from this little sphere of blue and green.