Chapter 37
KIT
SFS POLARIS
“Thank Aaris you’re alright,” Finn says, rushing towards Kit and wrapping her in a hug.
She used to love his hugs, felt safe and warm in his arms, her body pressed into his.
She still does, but it doesn’t feel to her how it used to.
She used to feel a spark of electricity every time they touched.
But now, all she can think about is the way Task felt under her, around her; the hard planes of his body, the jagged scar she’d run her fingers over on his back.
She has to take a breath to get ahold of herself, remember whose arms she’s actually in.
She’s surprised he’s hugging her, actually, after the conversation she’d abruptly ended the other week.
But then, Finn was always so easygoing. It was something that bothered her back then.
His perennial ability to remain unfazed, even with her, was infuriating at times.
“Hey, Finn,” she says into his chest, her arms around his back, scanning the room for Knox.
She catches sight of his tousled blonde hair, lounging in a chair with what looks like a glass of whiskey in his hand. She steps back from Finn immediately and storms over to Knox, eyes on fire. “Knox Hart!”
He looks up at her through long lashes, sheepish. She tugs the glass from his hand, smelling it. “Are you drinking?”
“Relax,” he says, looking the picture of relaxation himself, one ankle crossed over his leg.
“Knox,” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest.
He rolls his eyes. “It was one glass. Don’t I deserve to have a little fun after nearly dying?”
He has a point, she supposes. There was a moment where she wasn’t sure he was going to make it.
“Fine,” Kit sighs, handing the glass back to Knox.
She sits across from him, folding herself into another large armchair, while Finn drops onto the unoccupied couch between them, shaking his head at Knox before turning back to Kit.
“How are the others?” Finn asks.
News of the attack had made its way around the Polaris quickly, gossip amongst the citizens aboard warping the story until it was unrecognizable to Kit.
In all of them, though, she was the hero.
She didn’t feel like the hero. She’d managed not to kill the final attacker, though she has no idea how she stopped herself.
Once she was pulling the life from him, it had rushed through her like a hose that’d been unkinked, and she almost couldn’t stop herself.
She saved the day, but she also interfered when she shouldn’t have. It had been stupid of her.
“The colonel is fine,” Kit says. “He’s back on duty today. Major Canmore is still in the infirmary.” She feels her cheeks color, hopes Finn doesn’t see. She wonders if he’s managed to piece together what kept her from getting back together with him.
“And the attacker?” Finn raises his eyebrows, and Knox leans forward eagerly.
“In the brig,” Kit replies. “He’s…not well.
” She’d nearly husked him, and the man was but a frail shell of himself now.
Alive, but Kit wasn’t sure if he would make it.
She supposed she could help him, try to reinfuse his life force from some other living thing, but some small part of her wants him to suffer still.
He’d tried to kill Task and Voss, kidnap her.
She presses her fingers to her lips, struggling with the mess of anger, fear, and guilt. She’s meant to save people.
“Did you find out what they were after? Why they attacked the ship?” Knox asks, drumming his fingers on his knee as he takes another sip of the whiskey Kit had tried to confiscate.
“Colonel Walther is on it,” Kit says. “We should know more soon.” She’s not lying, exactly, but she also hasn’t shared her secret with anyone besides Amaltheia and Nevis. And now, she supposes, Task and Voss. She doesn’t want to worry Knox by explaining that the attackers were after her.
“Are we safe now?” Knox asks.
Kit doesn’t know how to answer that question. They aren’t safe, really. They’ve been attacked, Crimson Fever is potentially still permeating the air throughout the Polaris, and they’re still approximately a month away from Nexarium, where she doesn’t know what awaits them.
Task
The three men huddle in Task’s room, away from Alexander’s watchful eye.
After the education they’d received by his hand, Task is wary of him.
He’d known Caden was power-hungry and arrogant, but he’d assumed, perhaps naively, that Caden wouldn’t be one to get his hands dirty.
It would seem, though, Caden’s desire to perform for Draven, to please Draven, knows no bounds.
A feeling that Task is all too familiar with.
Caelinus sprawls in Task’s desk chair, looking entirely too large for it. Voss sits on Task’s bed, fingering the tip of a lumi-dagger. Task paces back and forth across the small patch of carpet near his door.
“What do we know?” Task says. He should let Voss lead this debrief, but Task is too agitated, too stuck on the memory of what could have happened.
“It was definitely mercenaries,” Voss says. “The guy we captured confirmed it. Part of the Falcons. He was useless otherwise. Didn’t know how they got on board. Didn’t have any information about who hired them.”
“They do it on purpose,” Task says. He winces as he reaches for his surge-saber, the still-healing wound in his side tugging.
He doesn’t need the saber now, but he feels naked without it and wants something in his hand.
“Keep each mercenary in the dark so they can’t implicate anybody. It’s smart, really.”
“But why were they here?” Caelinus says from his perch on Task’s chair, running a dagger beneath his fingernails.
“And how did they get on board without tripping any alarms?” Task asks. “We’ve got security protocols in place, cameras everywhere, alarm systems armed across the ship.”
“Do you have the footage?” Voss looks to Caelinus.
“Of course,” he says. He pulls a Prism from his uniform pocket, tapping through until he finds what he’s looking for. “We’ve already reviewed it a hundred times, though.”
“I haven’t,” Task says, stepping forward. He was wounded, drugged, and half-delirious with pain just after the attack, only let out of the medical bay a few days ago.
He stands behind Caelinus, narrowing his eyes as the footage begins to play.
Nothing, initially, just the darkened hanger, shadowy Hoppers illuminated by the single purple sconce near the sealed doorway.
And then, a minute later, a hooded figure appears, quickly walking towards the exit.
Task squints trying to make out anything identifiable.
The figure obviously knows where the cameras are, is careful to stay out of view for almost the entire way.
But the figure comes into view again near the doorway, stepping quickly to the left, a hand reaching out to press the release button for the airlock.
“Rewind it,” Task demands. He tilts his head, watching the same series of events unfold. There’s something familiar about this person. The gait… and there — there’s a hint of a braid spooling from underneath the hood.
“Do you recognize them?” Voss asks. He’s hovering nearby, trying not to crowd them but also clearly anxious.
“It’s hard to make anything out,” Task replies.
“But it’s a woman. And her walk… I’ve seen it before.
It’s someone on board this ship.” He thinks it through, trying to put his finger on who this could be.
There’s four hundred other Lumarian citizens aboard this ship and yet, he thinks it’s someone he knows.
Not Nevis — her hair isn’t that color. Can’t be Amaltheia — she’s blonde. “Do you have anything else?”
“Just here,” Caelinus says, fast-forwarding a few seconds until the cameras capture the figure retreating, casting a glance over her shoulder into the hangar, as if expecting someone.
Task watches her walk, and his mind lights on it for a second.
Tullia. If he looks closely, he can see the faintly outturned feet, the slight shuffle of the left one.
It’s hard to be certain, of course, without any other identifying features, but it could be.
“I think it’s Tullia,” he says, testing the theory.
“Tullia?” Voss asks, then shakes his head. “She’s one of ours. She wouldn’t let them in.”
Caelinus frowns, also unconvinced. “No, man, I don’t think so. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” Task asks. “There are Revs on board this ship. How are we to know if we’ve identified them all?”
“She’s helping Kit heal the ambassador, and she’s been at Xaria for almost a decade. She would have been found out already. I can’t see it.” Caelinus shakes his head again.
Task looks at Voss, who’s taken to pacing the small room. “I don’t know,” Voss says, shaking his head again. “I think the Revs on board have made us all overly suspicious.”
“It’s hard not to be,” Task says, sighing. He’s been looking over his shoulder for weeks, waiting for someone to lurch from the shadows with a broadsword. Just last night, he’d woken up breathless, convinced someone was hovering over him with a lumi-dagger.
“Let’s see what else we can find out, before doing anything drastic.” Voss raises his eyebrows at Task as his says this, as if primarily directing this message to him. Task supposes he has been known, on occasion, to use the nuclear option.
“They were after Kit,” Task says.
“Yes,” Voss says. “The only other thing that guy was useful for.”
“But why?” Caelinus asks.
Task knows why. Someone else must have learned what she is, that she holds a powerful secret.
But he keeps his mouth shut. Draven swore him to secrecy, and even if Voss knows because he saw her use it, Caelinus doesn’t.
And the less people that know right now, the better.
He looks up at Voss from beneath his lashes, shaking his head once.
“Who knows,” Voss says. “Probably something to do with the Fever. She’s working on the cure. Maybe it’s a rich Lumarian with sick loved ones.”
Task is quiet, thinking again about how close he came to losing her.
His hands clench into fists. He needs to keep her safe, and he increasingly feels like he can’t.
He doesn’t trust anyone aboard this ship, not when someone clearly let these people on board, when the Rev attack still lingers in everyone’s mind.
He wonders whether it’s possible the Revs had anything to do with this, as well.
Whether they could have possibly hired the mercenaries to get Kit.
She’s a useful weapon, after all, no matter what side of the war you’re on.
“We’ll try to find out more this week,” Voss says. “Castor, can you do some more digging?”
“Certainly,” he says, grinning. “My favorite extracurricular activity.” He heads toward the door, mock saluting as he leaves. “Evening, gentlemen.”
Voss turns to Task, reaches out a hand as if to touch him, but stops himself just in time. It’s always like this — a moment where someone forgets what he is, what he’s capable of. And then, Voss touches his forearm anyway, eyes filled with worry.
Task feels it for a flicker of a second, Voss’ anxiety, but he ignores it, trying to appreciate the gesture.
“We’ll protect her,” Voss says, quietly. “I know how much she means to you.”
At that, Task steps back, closing himself off again. The words startle him, even as he knows they’re true. That she is starting to mean too much to him, and that he can’t proceed with this delusion he’s managed to keep himself locked in. “She doesn’t.”
Voss raises an eyebrow, smiling and shaking his head. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, Shadow.”