Chapter 33 Aiden
Aiden
Aiden was still reeling when Barbara and George came to the mess hall.
The coffee had helped him somewhat calm down, but he could still feel Marcus’ gaze on him.
Darren seemed to be in a similar state, his hand wrapped around Aiden’s as if the contact between them was the only thing keeping him sane.
“We should be at my safehouse in about four hours,” George said in a voice that sounded a little too flat.
That didn’t mean they would be safe there. Not after Reikhei. It was like Marcus knew their next move before they’d even made it, always one step ahead.
“Are you sure—”
George’s phone rang, cutting Darren’s question off. Smiling apologetically, the old man picked up. Whoever was on the other end sounded agitated, speaking quickly and cutting themselves off. George paled.
“George?” Barbara leaned in, rubbing his back.
Sucking in a breath, George put the phone on speakers.
“—casualties. I don’t know how many. We had to leave them behind. Fuck, the GN just stormed the warehouse! Our monitoring systems didn’t even trigger!”
Aiden’s blood froze.
“I lost contact with Anna. I’ve no idea if any of her staff made it out! George, what is going on?”
Just as Aiden was about to ask the same, Barbara’s phone rang, too. He and Darren held their breaths as she spoke to whoever was on the other side, George the only one not paying attention as he barked instructions for a rendezvous point.
“George,” Barbara said when he hung up, rubbing his shoulder as he held his head in his hands. “There’s been another hit. Two facilities on the Moon. Most of the people didn’t make it.”
George banged his fist on the table. Expression grim, he turned his attention to Darren, looking his age for the first time since they’d met.
“I’m afraid we are running out of time. I don’t know how Marcus is doing it, but someone is either feeding him information about our whereabouts, or he’s found a way to work them out himself. ”
Darren’s gaze flicked to Aiden, frustrated and aghast. He had to be thinking the same thing Aiden was—Marcus was about to corner them, and this time they would have nowhere left to run.
Another call pulled Barbara to the side, her frown and her clipped tone telling Aiden it was more bad news.
“George. It’s one of the cruisers. They shot it down with the entire crew still onboard.”
Aiden sucked in a breath. Marcus was picking them out one by one. He’d found a way to locate Liu’s people, and he was using the GN to do the cleanup.
Was it Rick? He’d seen the list of potential allies. He’d had access to Nyle’s tablet. It wouldn’t have been too hard to clone it when Nyle wasn’t looking.
“George,” Darren said, his tone authoritative and somber. His hand found Aiden’s under the table, tangling their fingers and squeezing tightly. “I need to speak to Leonard.”
George nodded, bunching his eyebrows. “I’ll patch him through.”
They moved from the mess hall to the central part of the bridge where command control was.
“George! I can’t get in touch with Anna!” Margo’s worried face popped on the main screen, just off the star map. “She was getting some equipment for us, but we lost contact!”
Her husband, Jerry, and Leonard were behind her, concern etched into their faces.
“I’m sorry, Margo,” George said, his knuckles going white from how hard he was holding onto his mug, which was still half-full with coffee. “There was an attack. I’m afraid Anna didn’t make it.” He glanced at Barbara, who was still on the phone, coordinating survivors. “I need to speak to Leonard.”
Margo pressed her lips in a line and nodded, her eyes glassing over. She stepped away and Leonard’s face filled the screen.
Next to Aiden, Darren tensed up. “Leonard, can you build the synchronization device Dr. Batbayar designed?”
Leonard nodded, his blond hair flopping in front of his face.
“Yes. I had some time and went through the rest of her explanations,” the man said, his voice excited.
“I also…” He cleared his throat. “Her team did some further testing. The schematics are for a working prototype. If we modify an engine as per her instructions and equip it with the synchronization device, that ship will be able to travel to another universe. I don’t know how the navigational bit works, but unless we have a specific universe we are targeting, then it wouldn’t matter much.
Collision avoidance has already been accounted for as well, so we don’t have to worry about crashing. ”
The hair on Aiden’s arms stood up, his heart rate elevating. Next to him, Darren vibrated, his chest rising and falling as quickly as Aiden’s. He stood silent for a while and Aiden knew that the decision he was about to make was a hard one.
Silence settled around them, Darren’s words echoing in Aiden’s head.
He wanted to fight, to expose Marcus and make him pay, to tell the world the truth about the Valrais.
But the people who could help make it happen, the allies they’d found, were dying.
At the rate Marcus was fishing them out, soon there would be no one left.
But with this… They could run. Slip under Marcus’ nose and save so many people.
Aiden still had a hard time wrapping his head around the whole multiverses thing, but…
They were at the end of their rope, weren’t they?
Liu’s people were getting picked out. The limited resources they had were vanishing. Marcus was already working on the ES-1.
In the last couple of days, something had shifted.
There was no balance anymore, they didn’t have an advantage they could use to take Marcus down.
He was always one step ahead of them. He had more people, he had more resources, more power.
He controlled most of the world already, and very soon the rest was going to fall into his hands, too.
Aiden no longer had a future here in this universe.
And neither did Darren, or any of the people who were part of this.
They could still fight, yes, they could run and hide and bide their time and live in fear, but what kind of life was that?
The simple truth was that if they stayed, they were doomed, sooner or later. But if they used Dr. Batbayar’s discovery, they could win, even if they had to forfeit this particular battle. They could start fresh. They could live. They could build a whole new world and avoid the failures of this one.
All they had to do was to let go. Like Aiden had let Claudia go so he could move on, Darren had to do the same.
“Darren,” Aiden breathed out, squeezing Darren’s arm to let him know he wasn’t alone in this. “We can do this. We might not be able to make a life here, but noting is stopping us from starting fresh somewhere else.”
What if Marcus somehow found them? But he didn’t know about the jump drive or the multiverse. By the time he figured it out and built his own jump device, if he ever did, they wouldn’t be powerless anymore. They would be ready for him.
Darren squeezed Aiden back. The atmosphere in the room turned somber and heavy, though it also crackled with anticipation. With hope.
“We’ll build the device and jump. All of us. That way, we don’t have to fight a war that we cannot win. That way, we don’t have to lose more lives. We’ll… leave this universe to Marcus and go somewhere he can’t find us.”
Darren’s voice was laced with that note of authority only true royalty possessed. It made goosebumps rise all over Aiden’s skin. Something in him settled, taking the edge off and giving him hope that the end was within sight.
Just under two months ago, his life had profoundly changed, but it felt like he’d spent years on the run. And he was exhausted. They had twice as many losses as wins, and he couldn’t imagine how despairing that had to feel for those who’d actually been living like this for more than a few weeks.
“Leonard, how long will it take you to build the jump device?” Darren asked, directing everyone’s attention Leonard’s way.
“The engine modification is straightforward. The synchronization device…” Leonard scratched his head, whispering something to himself as his eyes strayed from the camera. “We’d need one jump drive, that’s what Dr. Batbayar called it, for each of our cruisers—”
“And one for the Maine,” Darren jumped in.
Leonard nodded. “And one for the Maine.” He waved his hand at Jerry, who handed him a tablet.
He typed something, frowned, then typed something again.
“If we get enough people working on them, we can do it in a day. However…” With a swipe of his hand, he connected his tablet to the video call, loading up the device’s diagram with a list of parts under it.
The third item was highlighted in red. “This component serves as the conduit between the engine and the synchronization device… It’s a military-grade transfusion module and there are only four companies that manufacture it.
They are all subsidiaries of the DuLaurent Corporation. ”
“You’re kidding me. Are you saying we have to buy it off Marcus?” Nyle jumped in, his wide-eyed face taking center place on the screen.
“I don’t think we can simply buy it,” Kristen said, squinting at Leonard’s list that had moved to the left side.
“It’s a specialized component only used in military-grade vessels, like Leonard said.
This designation here”—he pointed at a bunch of numbers and letters at the rear end of the rectangular, jagged part—“is for experimental tech. Only GN-certified vendors are even allowed to buy these. That’s usually private weapons and vehicle manufacturers that are contracted under the government. ”
Aiden glanced at George at the same time Darren did.
“Unfortunately, none of my fronts has such a contract,” George said, his voice and expression apologetic.
Darren furrowed his brow, glaring at the screen. “We can’t build it ourselves?”