Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(70)

“This is Ara Azar on Ketch,” she tried. “Who is this?”

“Ari?” Merlin’s voice crackled with static and hope. “Is that truly you?”

“Merlin!” She pressed a knuckle against her tearing eye, holding back a windstorm of sudden emotions. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“We’re… adrift. Lionel was taken over. I couldn’t stop it, Ari. We all tried, but we’ve nowhere to go, and Mercer won’t permit us to land anywhere.”

So it was time. Ari had been placing the jigsaw pieces of a plan together since she’d fallen like an angel into the remains of her destroyed home. Arthur, in all his absent wisdom, had been pressing her toward this, as well. Preparing, training, readying for battle.

One step at a time. No impulsive decisions.

After all, this was the Administrator’s game of chess. And Ari was taking back the offense. That’s what her time on Ketch had taught her. You don’t ride a taneen in one day. You spend months getting them to simply eat out of your hand. And you couldn’t bring Mercer down in one accusation, but with a few well-placed moves, you could change the game.

“I have a plan, Merlin. Listen close.” Ari gave him instructions for what to do with the Lionelian refugees—and then where they would meet. She tried to remain as unemotional as possible and hung up. She managed to stop herself from asking about her friends. How Gwen was. Why her brother hadn’t come on the line. All those things had to be pushed aside for now.

“Check, Administrator,” Ari said, finally pressing Send on the file she’d been compiling for months. A tell-all about what had happened to Ketch, sending it out on all open channels, for the great, wide universe to see.





The second step of the plan was a whirlwind of action. The generation ship—the fucking castle—stunned the hell out of Ari, falling through Ketch’s atmosphere and into the sandy desert like a barely-reined-in meteor. She helped the several thousand Lionelians into the least known city on the planet, the one built into the sandstone mountains in the south, where the taneens didn’t tend to venture. She made sure the refugees were stocked with food, water, medicine.

And she left.

Piloting the only working emergency life pod from Lionel’s castle, she powered, full throttle, to the very solar system that first sent humans into the cosmos like a constellation of consequences. From Mars, she caught a glimpse of Heritage: skulking, watching, unnerved no doubt by the space waves alight with anti-Mercer chatter. The communications coming through her console were a gratifying tangle of discussion about Ari’s video.

She hadn’t held back. She’d shown the collections of human bones, piled high by the taneens who’d feasted when the planet went lifeless. And she’d shown the excruciating death of the hatchling. The one that drank from a Mercer barrel of “water” from the shipment that had poisoned everyone. Big Mama had lost her mind that day, and that was on the video, too. The enormous grieving mother howled into the desert wind as the seizing little one finally went limp. She’d knocked her own head into a stone wall and bitten Ari three times before they’d both collapsed in a pile of misery.

Of understanding.

That’s how Ari had learned how Mercer did it. They’d waited for the dry season—and then struck. A cowardly, spineless move. But they hadn’t just murdered Ketch; they’d swept their crime under that barrier. Ari was pleased to hear so much speculation across so many worlds about what else Mercer might have covered up.

Ari kept her eye trained on the swiftly approaching, gaudy moon, and requested a docking space. Then she began the—honestly exhausting—decision of picking out what to wear. Something to blend in but, obviously, also look nice. She took in her appearance in one of the silver walls in the pod. Her skin had darkened under the Ketchan skies. Her hair was nearly twice as long, the ends gracing her hips, and her muscles were banging from the constant training.

What would Gwen think of her now?

Ari’s heart did an embarrassing drop beat as she straightened her clothes. “Be cool. She’s been with someone else. No big deal. Maybe several people. Maybe even… probably… huge, muscular, perfect, ridiculous fucking Jordan.” Ari pulled her belt tight as she imagined the black knight with her impeccable chivalry and gleaming armor—and had to unhook the leather and start again. She narrowed her eyes on her reflection. “You’re in trouble, Ara.”

“Permission to dock in Dodge Colony LK-189,” a docking guard voice floated in from the console. “You aren’t a Mercer affiliate, are you?”

Ari squinted and hit the com. “Do I look like a Mercer affiliate? This ship is barely running.”

“Have to ask. We kicked the bastards out.”

What did that mean? Good news, maybe? Well, it was good for this secret meet-up, although Ari still wasn’t going to flash her face around. She used the controls to drop the pod through the pinhole in the thermal shades. Then she docked and brought the drape of her shirt over her head and tucked her long hair in.

Setting off across the colony, Ari noted that Dodge had a brand-new dome, even if the town didn’t seem to have changed an iota otherwise. There was still the loud market full of incessant peddling of used Mercer goods at slashed prices. Still the flicker of caustic neon signs. The air was too slim on oxygen, while the gravel was too ashy to be any kind of soil. All the same. Apart from one thing.