Starfall (Starflight #2)(70)
Kane clenched and unclenched his fists. If he could use one of his theoretical wishes right now, it would be the power to strangle a hologram.
“That’s right,” Marius said with barely contained glee. “Our neighbors to the south. And for each day my queen refuses to come home and face me, I’ll allow my scientists free rein to find out exactly how lethal this product can be.”
“But I’m nowhere near Eturia,” Cassia argued. “It’ll take weeks to get there.”
“Then I suggest you don’t make any stops, or you’ll have no one but corpses to greet you. When you arrive, return all my missiles—deactivated, of course—on an open barge with no hiding places for your troops. Pilot the craft yourself and come alone. Anyone who follows you will die.”
With that, his image vanished.
Cassia hissed a swear. “How did he escape?”
“Let’s worry about that later.” Kane verified that the link had closed, then pointed at Cassia’s band. “Call your general. Tell him to spread the word that everyone should stay inside on days when the wind comes from the north. Whatever this sickness is, it’s airborne. If we can limit their exposure, it’ll buy us some time.”
While she flew into action, he sat on the edge of the lower cot and tried to brainstorm a way out of this mess. Assuming Marius wasn’t bluffing, he had three weapons at his disposal: water contaminants, a legion of troops unaffected by sickness, and his father’s twisted science experiment. Jordan’s men could reassemble the confiscated missiles and threaten to use them against Marius, but that would take time, and half the population might be dead by then. Somehow they had to find a cure for the sickness; otherwise Marius would hold it over their heads for generations to come.
Kane thought back to the inhalers Fleece had given the infected hatchery workers. If he could get his hands on one of those inhalers, the Rose lab could replicate its contents and distribute it throughout the colony.
An idea struck.
Kane bolted upright, hitting his head on the top bunk. He rubbed his skull and tapped the com-link pinned to his shirt. “Captain, I need a favor. Put your ear to the ground and find the nearest settlement outbreak. I want to take the shuttle there while you have Belle’s implant removed.”
The answer had been in front of him all along. To find the cure, all he had to do was embrace the sickness.
“This is the most pinheaded idea of your existence,” Cassia snapped a few hours later as she stood beside him, seething at his reflection in the washroom mirror. “And that includes the time you licked a neutron battery to see if it had a charge.”
He smiled at the memory. The battery had had a charge, something he’d discovered when it sent a surge of power through him and stopped his heart. Luckily, one of Cassia’s tutors had already taught her cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“This isn’t funny, you idiot canker knob!”
“Who’s laughing?” he asked, and turned his head from side to side in the mirror. The ancient bottle of black dye he’d scrounged from the depths of the storage closet had done its job better than he’d expected. Now if he could score a pair of cosmetic lenses, his own mother wouldn’t recognize him, let alone Fleece. “Maybe I don’t need the lenses,” he mused.
Cassia growled and slugged his upper arm. He rubbed the spot while giving himself another once-over, and then decided he looked fine the way he was.
“Listen to me,” she demanded. “You can’t do this. It’s too risky.”
He shifted her a sideways glance. “Riskier than handing yourself over to Marius? What’ll that solve? He’ll just kill you and use his father’s poison to control the whole planet. We have to find an antidote. There’s no solution without it.”
She glared at him while releasing a long breath through her nose. She had to know he was right. “Fine. Then I’m going with you.”
Kane hid a smile. Sharp as the demand was, it hinted at progress between them. “Does that mean you trust me now?”
“To pull this off on your own? Hell no.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m going, and that’s final.”
He didn’t try to talk her out of it, partly because it was easier to change the weather than Cassia’s mind, and in part because he needed her help. Someone would have to pilot the shuttle and pick him up after he snatched an inhaler from Fleece and made a run for it. But he couldn’t tell her that. If she knew his whole “pinheaded idea” hinged on her involvement, she might not come with him.
“I’ll let you come on one condition,” he said, holding an index finger in front of her nose. “You have to promise—”
She cut him off by grabbing that finger and bending it backward, forcing him to his knees. It was a move she’d used a dozen times on him when they were kids, back before he’d learned better than to wave his finger in her face.
“You won’t let me do anything.” She released him and strode toward the exit. “I’ll be waiting for you in the shuttle.”
Cassia couldn’t believe it had come to this.
“There’s stupid, and then there’s stupid,” she told Kane as he landed the shuttle near the outskirts of a settlement so new she couldn’t remember its name. “We’re operating three levels below that. What’s this place called again?”