Jeth stared at him. He never blinked—he didn’t have eyelids—and he had a pretty serious evil eye when he put his mind to it. “Houl,” he said finally. “There’s an internment center there for political agitators. Fontisian agents, that sort of thing.” Aly had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “Brand-spanking-new and totally inescapable. You’ll know all about it soon enough, you idiot choirtoi. Walking right into a UniForce base. What the hell are you even doing here? In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re wanted for murder.” He yanked open the top button of his uniform and committed the worst of dress code violations as far as their Drill Sergeant Vedcu was concerned. If he were there he would’ve gone crazy, made them all drop down and give him fifty.
“I didn’t murder anybody,” Aly said, losing patience. He struggled against his cuffs, though he knew it would do no good. “Let us go, Jeth. You know they lied! This is the biggest pile of taejis.”
“Of course it’s a lie, Aly. But you know what? You show up to an agitator safe house—”
“They’re not agitators,” Kara interjected. “They’re scientists. They were running for their lives, and you sniffed them out like dogs. Sent them gods know where for whatever experiments—”
“Hey, talk all the taejis you want. I got the UniForce shoving Tasinn up where the sun don’t shine!”
“Shut up, Jeth,” Aly snapped.
“Look at you, so ready to jump to her defense.” Jeth spit in disgust, a wad of saliva denting the plaster of the wall. Aly and Vin had always been jealous that Chrams could do that. “What about us? Your unit, your brothers? You know what we went through once you disappeared? They wanted to make damn sure no one else was working with you.” Aly tried to interrupt, but Jeth held a finger up as he kept talking. “Bullseye, Einstein, Shrank,” he said, listing call signs of all the pilots they came up with. “They’re gone. Disappeared.”
“What?” Aly felt like Jeth had lasered him straight in the stomach. “Why? I haven’t even—I mean, I haven’t talked to any of them for years.”
“Yeah, well, tough tits for everyone. I only got sent out here as an errand boy. Rhesto’s close enough to Fontis to refuel an armada, if it came to that. But we wound up stumbling on a bunch of squatters. It’s just shitty coincidence I’m here.”
So now Aly understood why Jethezar was still stuck on Rhesto. It was punishment, for being even vaguely associated with him. “Everyone else got sent to Zubil, Yarazu, Hapecha . . .” He listed Fontisian territories. “I’m sitting on the sidelines up on this rock while the rest of the unit gets their balls handed to them.”
“They’ve already deployed?” Aly looked from Jeth to Kara.
“We’re at war,” she deadpanned. And he’d known that, hadn’t he? He’d seen announcements on the holos, martial law, armadas moving across space, Tasinn on even the farthest neutral rocks. But Kara’s mom being taken, guys he knew being deployed—it felt more real than anything else had in the past few days. It wasn’t just his life. It was everyone’s.
“Right, exactly what she said.” Jeth patted down the front pocket of his gear and pulled a face when he realized his tobacco was gone. “Swear to the ancestors, Aly, you have the worst timing.” He paced some more.
“Let us go, Jeth. What are you going to do? Turn us in?” In the silence, Aly felt his eyes sting. “Man. All those nights we shot the taejis? All those times on leave with your family? We came up together. We came up with Vincent . . .”
Aly closed his eyes as he trailed off, remembering that Vincent was dead because of him, because of what he’d done.
“Hey,” Jeth said, forcing Aly to look up. He took the cap off his funny-shaped head that narrowed toward the back like a wing. He scratched his head as he paced some more. Then he stopped suddenly, pulled out a thin metal baton, and reversed the charge on Aly’s cuffs so they fell away. “Don’t make me regret this,” he said.
“Now that that’s settled”—Kara rubbed her wrists after Jeth freed her as well—“let’s talk about how to get to the broadcast tower.”
“Kara, no.” Aly stared at her. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“What he said,” Jeth said wryly, sounding more like the boy Aly knew.
“We didn’t come all this way to have nothing to show for it. You’re innocent!” Kara said so forcefully that Aly flinched. He hadn’t heard anyone say it yet—that he was innocent. “And Nero has my mom. When everyone across eight galaxies finds out he’s a liar and a fraud, they’ll be foaming at the mouth to take him down. And when Nero goes down, then I get my mom back.”
NINETEEN
RHIANNON
ERAWAE. She’d come here seeking Dahlen’s order, though she had no idea what she’d do once she arrived. It was only a domed city, a little terraformed pocket that took up a quarter of the asteroid deep in the Bazorl Quadrant. And it was neutral territory, in theory.
In theory. Not in actual practice. Upon arriving, Rhee had seen the burnt remnants of the Fontisian embassy. The Kalusians had invaded, yet another sign of the utter disregard of the Urnew Treaty—and Nero’s growing influence. Any remaining Fontisians were being rooted out and rounded up in all the corners of the city. She’d been quick to shed her tunic for a more appropriate scarf to cover her face—though the vermillion mark was still bright as ever, a disguise that had gotten her this far.