Chapter 28 Darren #2
Nyle held the tablet to his chest, and they boarded the elevator, leaving Bea to deal with the remaining ship checks.
“As sure as I can be without actually meeting him. The tracking software I embedded in the message has come back with one of those ‘ghost’ coordinates, but I’m not surprised.
Like us, he probably doesn’t want his whereabouts to be known. ”
With how Marcus had gone after Liu when he’d found out the billionaire was helping Darren, it made sense. Most of the people on the list Darren had were already dead, and he didn’t blame the few remaining for keeping low. It was the only way to avoid putting a target on their backs.
“What did he say?” Aiden asked, beating Darren to it.
“Hmm, he’s asked me a few things. I’m about to do the same. We are… feeling each other out,” Nyle trailed off, tapping his fingers against the wall. “He wants to know if I’m legit, just like I want to know if he is,” he mumbled to himself, lost in thought.
They reached the airlock and it opened with a low hiss. Stepping out, Darren noticed Kristen was waiting for them by the cargo racks at the ramp’s base. He wore a tight expression, worry pouring off him.
“Welcome back,” he said, looking between them. “I’m glad you are okay.”
So was Darren, but that didn’t change the reality of their failed mission.
They needed to figure out what they were going to do, how they were going to fight Marcus.
It was only a matter of time before he realized why they’d infiltrated his vault and when that happened, they would no longer have an advantage.
“Everyone. War room in five,” Darren said, tapping his earpiece so Bea could hear him too.
“These numbers make no sense…” Bea mumbled. “Can I comm in? I wanna get this cooling system sorted.”
Darren turned around, taking the Maine’s sleek form in. They were taking massive risks just leaving the hideout, so they needed the frigate at optimal performance. “Yeah, sure.”
Shortly after disembarking, everyone but Bea gathered in the war room. The holoboards came to life with the vault’s layout and the comms frequencies they’d used during the infiltration.
“I’ve checked everything ten times. I can’t pinpoint how they got us!” Nyle groaned, leaning back in his chair and letting his head hang.
Mulling over it wasn’t going to get them anywhere. They needed to regroup. To focus on something else. Darren wasn’t giving up on the ring, but they needed a win somewhere else while they came up with another plan to retrieve it.
“You need a break,” he said, meaning it.
“Focus on George. The sooner we find someone willing to help, the better.” Letting his gaze stray from Nyle, he studied the wooden box sitting next to the device hooked to Sara’s chip.
The two crowns were inside, and so was the capsule for storing Sara’s chip, which explained why it was out here.
“Kristen, are you done with the transfer?”
“Yeah. All the data’s been copied onto the hideout’s network, aside from her system files.
There is some security feature to her AI, and I couldn’t get past it,” Kristen said and walked around to the device, disconnecting the chip.
He handed it to Darren along with the wooden box containing the rest of the Valrais valuables.
“It’s not like we need a second Sara. I’ll figure out how she’s set up when I find time,” Nyle jumped in.
Darren opened the box, trying to ignore the two crowns and the royal ring.
He didn’t like to look at them because it made him miss Sara more than he could bear most days.
This time and with Aiden’s hand squeezing his thigh gently, the feeling of suffocating simply washed over him instead of settling in his chest. Panic attack under control, he placed Sara’s chip inside the storing capsule and put it back inside the wooden box.
Silence ensued, everyone seeming to need a moment to shift gears.
“Right, so George,” Rick said, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Do we have—”
“Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but, Kris, why am I getting such crazy readings from the cooling bracket?” Bea’s positively frustrated voice boomed from the earpieces, accompanied by an exasperated sigh.
“I ran full ship diagnostics three times, and that’s the only thing outside of normal operating parameters. ”
“Did you try a restart?”
“What do you think?”
“Send me the numbers.” A diagram with activity came up on the holoboard, replacing the vault’s data.
Kristen squinted at it, furrowing his brow.
“That’s strange… The temperature monitoring system seems to be working fine, but I can see a spike in the synch operator… Bea, what’s the timestamp on this?”
The slight concern in Kristen’s tone made Darren’s stomach churn. He told himself that it was probably nothing, but the bad feeling didn’t go away and just spread through the rest of him.
“Forwarded it to you.”
With a growing frown, Kristen flicked through a bunch of diagnostics screens via his tablet. Each one stayed on the holoboards for no more than a few heartbeats, and as soon as the next one came, Kristen’s jaw tensed up even more.
“Bea,” he snapped, shooting up from his chair so abruptly, he sent it sliding toward the wall partition. “I need you to go to the engine room and immediately disconnect the bracket from the ship’s systems.”
“I was just on my way back! Are you sure one of your magical calibrations won’t fix it?”
“Bea. Disconnect the bracket immediately! It isn’t faulty. It’s been rigged and it’s pinging location data to an external target host…” Kristen held Darren’s gaze, fear contorting his features. “It has been broadcasting the Maine’s coordinates since you left Martian space.”
“What?”
“Bea, disconnect the bracket!”
“I’m on my way! Shit! How did we miss something like thi—” Bea cut herself off, sucking in a sharp breath. “Rick was there just earlier doing ship checks…”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, Darren’s blood froze. He snapped his attention to Rick, feeling Aiden grow rigid on the chair next to him. This couldn’t be happening…
Swallowing hard, Rick looked between the four of them. His gaze lingered on Aiden, but it was hard to say what he was thinking. His expression remained neutral, and his posture tensed.
“Rick…” Aiden said in a weak voice that made Darren’s heart ache. “Please, tell me you had nothing to do with this. Please, tell me this is all a misunderstanding. Please.”
Rick’s eyes stirred with emotion, gleaming under the recessed lights. Sadness or guilt… it was hard to say which one. He looked at the ramp behind Darren and licked his lips, rubbing the edge of his phone. Darren’s entire body vibrated with the need to strangle him, to shout at him, to hit him.
“Rick… please,” Aiden begged, digging his hand into Darren’s thigh so hard it hurt.
Rick tapped his phone and looked at the screen, his eyebrows drawing together.
“Look, it’s over. You should’ve never gone to Horizons, Aiden.
You should’ve let Claudia go like Marcus and I kept asking you to.
” His face scrunched further, a hint of regret flicking in his hard eyes. “I’m sorry it had to get to this.”
No. This couldn’t be happening.
“No. Rick. You don’t have to do this. You are safe with us. We can fight Marcus together—”
Rick shook his head, stepping away from the table. “I tried. But you never listened. Sorry. It’s too late now and you know too much.”
“Why? You are my only friend. Why are you doing this?”
“I liked you, Aiden. You are a good guy. But we were never friends. I had a task, and I simply did it. That’s all there is to it. Sor—”
“Fuuuuuuck,” Nyle shrieked, jumping up from his chair and knocking the holomonitor in front of him as he tore the earring from the decryption device. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. They are in! Darren we nee—”
An alarm cut him off as the hideout lost power and darkness surrounded them. The perimeter alert system activated as Darren’s bad feeling turned into dread so profound he felt like he was drowning.
[Intrusion detected at Sublevel –1. Primary power supply and systems have been compromised. Please, eliminate the threat or proceed to evacu—]
A loud bang came from the direction of the elevator on the ramp above, then metal scraping against metal as if its door was being torn from its hinges. Dozens of bright red laser sights broke through the gloom, lighting up the war room.
Darren’s gaze clashed with Rick’s a moment before Rick pushed his chair back and darted in the direction of the ramp, shouting something at the intruders.
Heart hammering against his ribs, Darren acted on instinct. Grabbing the wooden box with Sara’s chip and the crowns, he yanked Aiden up. “Everyone, run!”
He didn’t wait to see what Rick did next. He didn’t wait to see if his friends did as told. He squeezed the box to his chest with one hand and Aiden’s wrist with the other, bolting for the hangar doors with one sole purpose in mind: to make it out of here alive.