Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(104)
Don’t worry about what’s to come, she tells herself. Go back to Abel. Live in the moment. Kiss him every chance you get. As soon as she gets within range, she signals the Persephone.
No response.
Noemi straightens in her seat and tries again. Nothing. A chill sweeps through her as she accelerates. He pushed too hard. Controlling the mechs did something terrible to him. Or maybe one of the mechs got inside the Persephone to stop him? Abel can defend himself, of course, but then he ought to be answering her, and he’s not.
She doesn’t become truly afraid until the corsair slides into the Persephone’s launching bay and she sees the Genesis transport pod.
Someone came up here to see Abel, and that someone must be responsible for his silence.
The second the air lock’s done cycling, she springs the cockpit, yanks off her helmet, and goes for the weapons locker. Blaster in hand, Noemi walks slowly into the corridor. Every nerve is on edge. Her ears prick at every small noise, but it’s just the usual sounds of a spaceship—air filtration, the faint buzz of the mag engines, and—
Wait.
She listens closer and hears it again: The faint clink of metal on metal ahead, somewhere around the sick bay.
Noemi gets her back to the wall and keeps her weapon at the ready as she inches closer. The fear inside her as she ducks behind each strut, straining to hear what lies ahead—it reminds her of her first day on this ship. She was headed to the sick bay then, too. The doors on board close automatically, so there’s no way she can get in there without giving away her presence. But she can at least listen and figure out as much as possible about what she’ll face when she goes inside.
Even before she can make out words with any clarity, she recognizes Abel’s voice, and she recognizes that something’s badly wrong. Even his tone sounds… groggy, not quite right. Leaning her head against the nearest panel, the best conduit for sound, she finally understands a bit of what he’s saying. “—impossible for you to be sure.”
“We only learn through experimentation.”
Wait, is that—Professor Akide?
Astonishment boils into fury. Noemi doesn’t know how he overpowered Abel or exactly what kind of experiment he plans to run, but she’s putting a stop to this, now.
She goes through the door, weapon raised, to see Abel lying flat on one of the biobeds and Akide above him, frowning at a scanner. “Back off!” she shouts. “Get away from Abel this second, or I swear to God I’ll fire.”
“No, you won’t,” Akide answers. He doesn’t budge.
“Do you think I don’t believe in God? So the promise doesn’t count?” Noemi feels like her stare alone could kill him where he stands. “Trust me, I do, and it does.”
“I believe in God, too.” With that—quick as a flash—Akide pulls a weapon of his own.
No mech would ever have gotten away with that. She would’ve blown it to bits before it could even get its hand on its blaster. But she’s so used to thinking of this man as a member of the Elder Council—as her protector, even her friend. Her fighting instincts didn’t kick in fast enough.
“Noemi?” Abel turns his head toward her. He’s visibly weak and dazed, even more than he was in his exhaustion on Haven. Whatever Akide did has turned him into a shadow of himself.
With his free hand, Akide activates some small device. Instantly Abel goes unconscious. Noemi remembers the fail-safe used to capture him months ago; Akide must have his own methods of shutting Abel down.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” she says.
“And you’re not going to shoot me.” Akide looks disappointed, the same way adults look at little children who have let them down. “We’re only going through these motions because you’ve never accepted what Abel really is. What he’s for.”
She wishes she could shake him. “Did you happen to notice that we just won the biggest battle of the Liberty War? That we have a brand-new war fleet, one Abel helped bring here?”
“We’re grateful for that. But gratitude isn’t worth much, compared with the safety of our world.”
Noemi doesn’t agree, but that’s beside the point. “We don’t have to destroy the Gate. Don’t you see? We can use that Gate now. Make contact with the other worlds of the Loop, force Earth to be the one on the defense for a while. Everything’s changed. We can turn this uprising into victory.”
“You don’t understand war.” Akide sounds sorrowful, but his expression is hard. “They’ll send humans after us this time, and the fighters of Genesis will have to take the sin of murder on their souls. And in the end, if Earth doesn’t succeed in taking our planet, the other colony worlds will decide to claim it themselves. They’ve seen our prosperity now; they won’t be content to merely help us. No, they’ll come after us next—unless we destroy the Gate now.”
“We don’t know that.” She thinks Darius Akide has a lot of nerve telling her—someone who’s trained to fight for almost a third of her young life, who’s gone into countless battles—that she doesn’t understand war. He’s the one who’s forgotten. “Are you really going to strand all the Vagabonds here, and all the Remedy members who came to help us?”
If he cares about their volunteer fleet, he gives no sign. “I’m willing to sacrifice one mech to ensure that Genesis remains safe. You’re willing to endanger millions in the hopes the war has changed. That’s not enough, Noemi. We have one more chance at ensuring the security of Genesis forever, and we’re not going to waste it.”