CHAPTER FOURTEEN

VESPER

I sprinted through the shipping yard, heading toward the crane I'd spotted earlier.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

More blaster fire zinged through the air. I ducked my head, but no bolts came close to me. The mercenaries must still be fighting the House Collier guards inside the mineral exchange.

I skidded to a stop beside the crane. Up close, the machine was much, much larger than I'd realized, and the metal crawler tracks alone were more than twenty feet tall. My gaze roamed over the crane for several seconds before I spotted a ladder that stretched up to the operator's cab.

I glanced back over my shoulder, but I didn't hear or see any more blaster fire. The mercenaries must have already overpowered the guards, which meant I was running out of time.

I hurried over to the ladder and started climbing. The rungs stretched up and up . . . while the ground got farther and farther away. Maybe Kyrion was right about heights not being the best thing in the galaxy. I shuddered and forced myself to climb faster.

A few seconds later, I reached the final rung of the ladder and swung my body into the cab that topped this part of the machine. I dropped into the operator's seat and stared at the holoscreens, levers, and buttons on the dashboard. The workers in the Quill Corp production plants used similar cranes to move large pieces of metal, especially when building spaceships, but as a lab rat, I had never operated such a machine.

Frustration simmered in my chest. I couldn't use the crane to stop the mercenaries if I couldn't even turn the blasted thing on, and the seconds just kept ticking by.

Think, Vesper, think!

I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then I leaned forward and stared at the numbers and letters next to the holoscreens, levers, and buttons, trying to figure out what each one controlled . . .

My gaze snagged on a large green button on the right side of the dashboard. Green almost always meant go or start, so I punched the button.

One after another, the holoscreens powered up, and an engine rumbled to life deep inside the crane. I pumped my fist in the air in triumph, then swiped through screens and menus until I found a hologram that showed the dashboard. I stuck my fingers into the hologram, enlarging it, then flicked it off to one side and studied the information.

Next, I started pulling levers and punching buttons. Slowly, the operator's cab swung around, and the long arm of the crane came into view in front of me. I leaned to the side, making sure the enormous magnet was still attached to the bottom of the arm. Then I hit some more levers and buttons, and the cab, arm, and magnet all started moving.

After about fifteen seconds of slow, steady turning, I was facing the mercenaries' blitzer, which was still parked close to the mineral exchange. I studied the dashboard hologram again, making sure I knew which button I should use next, but I didn't do anything else. Not yet.

Thirty seconds later, the Serpens Corp mercenaries ran out of the mineral exchange. Each man was still armed with a blaster, and heavy, bulging packs were now strapped to their backs, although I couldn't see what they had stolen.

Pollux appeared, still clutching his hand cannon, with a large pack strapped to his own back. Esmina followed him, and the two of them headed toward the blitzer at a more leisurely pace than the running mercenaries.

My eyes narrowed. Come on, you thieving bastards. Get on your transport and try to fly away, just like you planned.

Esmina abruptly stopped and lifted her hand. Pollux also stopped, but the other mercenaries kept hurrying forward.

I ground my teeth. Esmina had heard my thoughts. That was the only reason the psion had stopped moving.

Stupid, stupid, Vesper!

I grimaced and cut off the rest of my chiding words. That had been stupid too.

Esmina's head snapped up, and she spotted me in the operator's cab. "Stop!" she yelled. "Stop running! Get away from the transport!"

The other mercenaries skidded to a halt and whipped around, not sure what was happening.

Esmina stabbed her finger up at me. "Shoot her! Shoot her now!"

The mercs raised their blasters, but Pollux was quicker, and he lifted his hand cannon, aimed it at the crane, and pulled the trigger. I ducked down.

Boom!

The permaglass windshield shattered, and chunks of safety glass cascaded all around the operator's cab in a tinkling, musical rain.

Boom!

Another blast of cannon fire zipped through the shattered windshield and punched into the wall behind me, scorching the metal. Hot sparks and noxious smoke boiled up, stinging my skin and eyes and making me cough. Tears streamed down my face, but I blinked them away, leaned forward, and punched the green button on the dashboard again.

With a loud snap, the magnet broke free of the cable attaching it to the arm of the crane. The magnet plummeted downward like a meteor barreling toward the earth . . .

BOOM!

The magnet smashed into the top of the blitzer, crumpling the ship and pinning it to the ground like an aluminum can. I grinned. The mercenaries weren't getting away so easily now.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Blaster bolts pinged into the sides of the operator's cab, making me duck down again. I was an easy target up here, so I hit another button, and the cab swung around, turning away from Pollux and the other mercenaries who were still firing at me.

The instant the cab stopped, I slid out of the operator's seat and quickly climbed down the ladder to the ground. Then I plucked my stormsword off my belt and ran to the end of the crane, heading toward the spot where I'd last seen Esmina, Pollux, and their men.

I might be outnumbered, but I couldn't let them escape. I wanted— needed —answers about why the mercenaries were here and what, if anything, stealing from House Collier had to do with me.

"Vesper!" a voice yelled.

I skidded to a halt and glanced to my right. Asterin was crouching down beside a metal bin. A small, compact silver blaster glinted in her right hand, and she was clutching a tablet in her left hand.

"Attack!" Asterin yelled into the tablet. "We are under attack at the shipping yard! At the back of the mineral exchange!"

She shoved the tablet into her pocket, then ran over to my position. A grim expression filled her face. "We have to keep the thieves in the shipping yard until Siya, Rigel, and the Hammers arrive. We can't let the thieves escape into a public area and start targeting civilians."

The two of us crept to the end of the metal crawler tracks. Asterin looked at me, and I nodded back. Together the two of us moved around the tracks and sprinted forward, heading toward the mercenaries.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Red blaster bolts zipped through the air as the mercenaries fired at us. Asterin returned fire with her own blaster, while I snapped up my stormsword and whipped it back and forth in the rapid patterns Kyrion and Leandra Ferrum had taught me. Using the lunarium blade, I managed to deflect some of the blaster bolts back at the mercenaries.

One of my rebound bolts punched into a merc's chest, and he screamed and tumbled to the ground. Beside me, Asterin kept firing her blaster, and she dropped another merc. The others broke ranks and scrambled for cover.

I rushed forward, with Asterin running along beside me. We moved from one bin and stack of metal rods to another, using them for cover as we kept attacking the mercenaries.

Pollux backed up, firing his hand cannon at us, but his shots went wide. Esmina shook her head in disgust, then spun around on her bootheel and strode away.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Asterin fired her blaster at the psions. Pollux ducked one of the bolts, but Esmina never turned around. Instead, she stepped to one side, then the other, smoothly and easily avoiding the deadly bursts of electricity just as she had during the battle with the bounty hunters. Once again, she knew exactly where the bolts were going even before they were fired.

I snarled and gripped my sword even tighter, and hot blue sparks sizzled off the lunarium blade, mirroring my frustration. If I didn't do something drastic, Esmina and Pollux were going to escape again, just like they had on Tropics 44.

"I'm going after the leaders!" I yelled at Asterin. "Cover me!"

She nodded, rose up from behind the bin, and fired her blaster. While the other mercenaries were distracted, I skirted around the far side of the container, then darted across an open space and behind another container. I hurried along the side and rounded the corner, still chasing after Esmina and Pollux—

A mercenary lunged forward, his fist whistling toward my head. I ducked the blow, then spun around and lashed out with my stormsword. The lunarium blade easily sheared through the merc's polyplastic armor and ripped into his stomach, and he screamed and staggered back against the bin. I drove my sword into his chest, and he grunted and flopped to the ground, already more dead than alive.

The mercenary landed on his stomach, his bulging backpack sticking up into the air. I crouched down and used my sword to slice through the thick fabric. Several large chunks of blackish stone spilled out and landed at my feet. I grabbed one and held it up to the afternoon sunlight, and the warm rays brought out the stone's true dark blue color.

"Sapphsidian?" I muttered.

Why would the mercenaries steal sapphsidian when far more valuable things were stored inside the mineral exchange? I didn't know, but I shoved the stone into my pocket to study later. Then I eased up to the container and peered around the side.

Several mercs had taken cover behind some forklifts. Every few seconds, a merc would pop out and fire their blaster at Asterin, who returned fire, but I didn't see Esmina or Pollux.

More frustration filled me, but I kept scanning the shipping yard. In the distance, a ripple of green caught my eye, and I spotted Esmina entering a building I hadn't noticed before.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Asterin fired at the mercs again, making them duck down, then scurried over to me.

I stabbed my finger at the mystery building. "The leaders went that way. What's in there?"

"The refinery," she replied. "Where the raw ores are melted down and shaped for shipping."

"Why would they go in there? The mercenaries should be trying to get out of the shipping yard, not moving deeper into it."

Asterin let out a curse. "There's an exit on the far side of the refinery that comes out close to the antiques emporium. If the mercs get into the emporium, they could go out several different exits and get lost in the city streets." Worry creased her face. "Or they could start taking the emporium shoppers hostage and use them for human shields."

My hand tightened around my stormsword, and the lunarium blade glowed a little brighter in response. "Then let's stop them."

Asterin hesitated. "Are you sure? The thieves obviously don't care about collateral damage, including us."

I nodded. "I'm sure."

Asterin nodded back at me. We both lifted our weapons a little higher, stepped around the container, and ran toward the refinery.

T o my surprise, no blaster bolts zinged in our direction, and Asterin and I made it to the refinery without encountering any resistance.

The enormous double doors were standing wide open, so Asterin and I slowed our pace, softened our steps, and cautiously crept inside.

In many ways, the refinery reminded me of the Techwave facility where I'd been held on Magma 3, and the first floor was basically a giant factory with humming machinery and conveyor belts running in all directions. Along the walls, a metal grate opened and closed like the jaws of some massive monster, swallowing one chunk of ore after the other and gulping them all down into red-hot furnaces and smelters. The acrid stench of melted metal filled the air, and the intense heat made sweat bead on my forehead and trickle down my spine.

Asterin and I moved quickly and quietly, but we didn't spot Esmina and Pollux among the machinery and conveyor belts. A minute later, we reached another set of double doors at the opposite end of the refinery. They too were standing wide open.

"The thieves must already be outside," Asterin said.

Together we stepped through the opening. This part of the shipping yard was filled with neat stacks of metal rods and other materials fresh from the furnaces, and they all gleamed like newly minted coins. Asterin and I crept from one stack of materials to another. In the distance, the emerald-green dome of the antiques emporium jutted up like an enormous hill a couple of streets over.

"They're not here," Asterin muttered. "They must have already slipped out of the shipping yard and headed into the emporium."

She moved forward, rounding some cement blocks, and a silver light exploded around her. For an instant, time slowed down—or maybe it sped up. I wasn't quite sure. But suddenly, I could see a blast of green cannon fire zinging through the air, slamming into Asterin's chest and knocking her backward even though she was still moving forward right beside me. Even worse, I could smell the sizzle of her fried flesh and see the light leaking out of her eyes . . .

In the next heartbeat, time snapped back to its normal flow, and the images vanished, although not the dread they left behind.

"No!" I yelled. "Asterin, stop!"

I lunged forward, dug my hand into Asterin's coveralls, and yanked her back behind the blocks—

Boom!

Green cannon fire zipped through the air where Asterin had been and slammed into a pile of pipes behind us, scorching the metal's shiny finish.

Asterin's eyes widened, and her face went white with shock. "How did you know they were going to fire at me?"

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. I just knew something bad was going to happen."

I'd never had that kind of sudden, screaming warning from my magic before. Was my power growing? Or was this another sign of my unstable truebond with Kyrion?

Boom! Boom! Boom!

More cannon fire erupted, causing Asterin and me to hunker down.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Blaster bolts joined the cannon fire, coming from different directions. In an instant, we were pinned down.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Pew! Pew! Pew!

The cannon and blaster fire continued, and each bolt obliterated a little bit more of our cover. Just when I thought the mercs were going to shoot right through the cement blocks, and us too, the shots abruptly stopped, although the electric aroma of the bolts lingered in the air like a smoky, suffocating cloud.

"Come out!" Pollux commanded. "Or we'll blast those blocks to pieces, and you along with them!"

Asterin and I slowly stood up, weapons still in our hands, and stepped around the broken blocks.

More than a dozen mercenaries armed with blasters were standing in front of us. Esmina was in the center of the men, with Pollux by her side.

Esmina glanced at Asterin a moment, then focused on me. The gold flecks in her green eyes shimmered, and her magic curled through the air, slithered around me like a boa constrictor, and slowly tightened, as though each twist around my body was squeezing out more of my secrets.

"Did you follow me and Kyrion here?" I demanded.

Asterin looked back and forth between me and the mercenaries, clearly confused about what was happening.

Esmina let out an amused laugh. "I have no need to follow you and Kyrion anywhere. I told you before, Vesper, I know everything you're going to do before you even do it. Even without my psion power, I still would have known you were coming here. Truebonded couples always come to Sygnustern for refuge." She shook her head. "What a bloody joke."

Bitterness colored her last few words. My magic surged up, and suddenly, I was seeing another image of Esmina. This younger version looked to be in her early twenties and was a bedraggled mess, with long, dirty hair, a grimy face, and torn, tattered clothes, as though she had tumbled down a cliff.

I blinked, and the image vanished, although questions crowded into my mind.

"Oh, yes," Esmina said in snide voice. "I was once just like you, Vesper. Trapped in a truebond."

I blinked again. Had she just seen what I had seen? But how was that possible? Was Esmina using her seer magic to tap into my own power?

"Why are you stealing from my family?" Asterin asked.

Esmina clucked her tongue. "They're not really your family, are they, Asterin? You're just a poor relation when it comes to House Collier. A castoff from your own once-great House now dependent on others' generosity."

An angry flush stained Asterin's cheeks. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"You don't recognize me? If you did, then you would know exactly what I want."

Confusion creased Asterin's face. She had no idea what Esmina was talking about. Well, that made two of us.

"I suppose your ignorance is to be expected, since you've always been much more concerned with other things." Esmina tilted her head to the side, and the gold flecks in her eyes glimmered again. "Like finding out what really happened to your father. Poor little lost girl, trying to restore her dead daddy's honor."

A muscle twitched in Asterin's jaw, but she didn't respond to the other woman's taunt.

Esmina smirked at Asterin a moment longer, then crooked her finger at me. "Come along quietly, Vesper, and I'll let your friend live."

Pollux aimed his hand cannon at Asterin. His finger curled around the trigger, and his dark eyes gleamed with anticipation.

"Okay!" I said, sliding my stormsword into its slot on my belt. "Okay! I'll come with you, but you let Asterin go first."

"No!" Asterin said. "I'm not leaving you, Vesper."

"You don't have a choice. Besides, they're not going to kill me. They've gone to too much trouble to capture me. Go."

Asterin wavered, torn between staying with me and escaping to find help—

"Fuck!" Esmina snarled. "We need to leave. Now!"

She whirled around and sprinted toward the part of the shipping yard that butted up against the street. Pollux immediately spun around and followed her, but the rest of the mercenaries hesitated, clearly confused about why their bosses were fleeing when they had captured Asterin and me.

An engine roared, and a transport zoomed into view, dropped down, and hovered over the shipping yard. The door on the side slid back, and a series of ropes unspooled out of the dark depths. Several figures stepped out of the transport and slid down the ropes, firing blasters as they zoomed toward the ground.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Kyrion fired his blaster over and over, as did Siya, Rigel, and the other Hammers. By the time their feet touched the ground, several of the mercenaries were dead, and the remaining men were running for cover.

"Hammers!" Siya yelled, exchanging her blaster for the war hammer on her belt. "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

The Hammers rushed forward, taking the fight to the mercenaries. Kyrion cut down a couple of enemies with his stormsword, then hurried over to me, wrapped his arm around my waist, and yanked me close. The sticky cobweb of him in my mind bristled with worry, although the sharp, spiky edges quickly smoothed out into cool relief. I curled my fingers into his jacket, soaking up the warmth and strength of his physical body, along with his nearness through the bond.

"Vesper! Are you okay?" Kyrion asked, his concerned gaze locking with mine. "I heard you call out, and I came as fast as I could."

More of his relief surged through the bond, along with softer emotions that made a knot of answering feelings clog my throat. I basked in the sensations a moment, then released his jacket.

"Esmina and Pollux are here. We have to find them!" I said, heading in the direction the other two psions had gone.

Kyrion let out a loud curse, but his footsteps pounded on the ground behind me.

I sprinted through the shipping yard, moving past one pile of metal after another. Even though I couldn't see Esmina and Pollux, I knew I was going in the right direction. Maybe it was weird, but I could have sworn that I could actually see Esmina's magic, and every time I thought I'd lost her, another spark of green would flare in my field of vision, as though her power was a trail of psionic breadcrumbs only I could see and follow.

To my surprise, Esmina and Pollux had veered away from the street that would take them to the antiques emporium and had doubled back around to the middle of the shipping yard where I'd used the giant magnet to crush the mercenaries' transport. My steps slowed, and my head whipped around, but I didn't see Esmina or Pollux anywhere. The feel of her magic had also vanished.

Anger and frustration beat through my body in a sharp staccato rhythm. Once again, the mercenaries had escaped.

A flutter of movement caught my eye, and I whirled in that direction. One of the mercenaries wasn't as dead as I thought. He staggered up and onto his feet and aimed his blaster at Kyrion. Once again, that strange slow motion filled my eyes, and I saw the merc firing and the bolt punching into Kyrion's back . . .

I opened my mouth to scream a warning, but I felt like I was deep underwater, and everything was moving slowly . . . so damn slowly . . .

Kyrion spun toward me, sensing my distress through the bond. I snapped up my hand and focused on the mercenary, trying to use Kyrion's telekinesis to knock the blaster out of his hand, but once again, my magic—our magic?—wouldn't cooperate, and it all trickled through my fingers like raindrops.

Desperate, I sprinted forward to shove Kyrion out of the way, even though I already knew I was going to be too late to stop the mercenary from shooting him—

Pew!

A pale blue bolt zinged through the air, slammed into the mercenary, and knocked him back five feet. Smoke boiled up from the merc's chest, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Asterin lowered her blaster and hurried over to Kyrion and me. "Are you both okay?"

Before I could answer her, footsteps pounded in this direction, and Siya and the other Hammers appeared.

Siya's gaze flicked from one dead mercenary to another, then her eyes widened as she noticed the smashed transport with the giant magnet still sticking out of the top.

A loud groan sounded, along with a screech of metal, and the round magnet teetered off the top of the transport, landed on its side, and rolled away like an oversize coin before finally stopping and clattering to the ground.

Silence descended over the shipping yard. Then Siya slowly turned to me, anger darkening her face.

"What in all the bloody moons happened here?" she snarled.

I sighed and looked at Asterin, who grimaced. We had a lot of explaining to do.