Chapter 35

Cora felt like she'd been holding her breath the whole way to the refueling station. Flying around the galaxy in a stolen pod—a Jorvlen one, no less—felt like having a target painted on her back. She couldn't wait to get back into a proper ship, even though she knew the next part of their mission was just as dangerous as the last if not more so.

Something about being back in their own ship—albeit a borrowed one—she knew would put her at ease.

"For your trouble," said Levi to the dock worker who'd brought the zoomer around. It was the same one who'd parked it for them when they snuck onto the Imperial Surfer.

A small chime rang out on the worker's comm, and his eyes widened when he saw the tip Levi had sent him.

"Thank you very much, sir," the worker said, practically bowing.

"Don't mention it." Levi grinned. "And don't mention this, either," he added, jerking a thumb at the Jorvlen pod they were dumping at the refueling station.

The dock worker got the idea, nodding conspiratorially as Cora and Levi climbed aboard.

"So, you have the coordinates for the Motley factory. Right, Cora?" Levi asked as he strapped himself into the pilot's seat.

"Yep," Cora replied, pulling up the files she'd found on the Jorvlen mainframe.

With everything else they'd gone through, she'd barely had a chance to look over the documents properly. When she saw the coordinates, something tugged at the back of her mind, as though she registered something familiar but couldn't quite place it.

As soon as she typed the coordinates into the ship's control panel, though, she realized why it jogged her memory.

"Routing to the Ora'Ve star system. Planet Egshur, Sircu Island," said the AI.

"Oh my gods," said Cora, staring wide-eyed at the control panel. "That's exactly where they took me from. The precise location."

It took almost a whole day to get to Egshur, and in that time, Cora and Levi confirmed that the facility she'd wandered into by sheer chance had to be the Motley factory they were looking for. Sure enough, when they approached the small island, the AI directed them right into the wild forest behind the resort where Cora and her family had been vacationing, only now it was cloaked in the dark of night.

"I wonder if they're still here," she said as Levi brought the zoomer down softly onto the resort's landing pad. "Maybe they're sleeping right below us."

She desperately wanted to reunite with her parents and her brother, knowing they had no idea if she was even alive. Levi gave her a compassionate look as they sat for a moment in the ship.

Cora felt at once paralyzed and restless, not knowing if she should look for her family first or continue on the mission as planned. As she thought about it, though, Levi's comm rang with a strange chime—one Cora hadn't heard before.

Levi glanced down, and his face turned pale as he did.

"Oh, no," he groaned. "There's a bounty on our heads."

"What?" Cora managed to utter, incredulous.

"The Jorvlens put word out among the bounty hunters that there's a reward for our capture and the return of the stone," Levi replied. "Luckily, I know a lot of them through PAPS, and they'll leave us alone. Others aren't so friendly, though."

Cora felt her chest contract, but at least this made her decision clear. They had to finish the mission before it was too late. If they succeeded in taking down the factory, she might still be able to reunite with her family. If she saw her family first, though, they'd probably be caught before they could finish the job they came to do.

"Okay, we need to go," she said. "I just have to do one thing first."

She knew it was risky, but if anything happened to her on the mission, she'd never forgive herself for leaving her family in the dark.

She sent a quick message on her comm: Mom, Dad, Ajay, I'm safe and I love you. I'm trying to get back to you soon.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "I'm ready."

Levi squeezed her hand and gave her a compassionate smile, and then they were both out of the zoomer and sneaking off the landing pad toward the forest.

It was surreal being back here, knowing she was now willingly sneaking toward the very building that had resulted in her capture last time. Last time, though, she didn't have Levi and his presence to ease her fearful heart. With him by her side now, her biggest fear was losing him.

When the facility finally appeared through the trees, Cora saw it was busier than last time. No doubt her ingenuous entrance had alerted them to the gaping holes in their security, and now guards were everywhere. It was still a front facility, though, and that meant no external lights. Nothing would give it away from afar that it was anything other than a regular industrial building.

This wasn't just an advantage for the Jorvlens, though; it was also an advantage for Cora and Levi. They waited patiently, watching the guards' movements. Though there were many of them, they seemed to be bored. Every so often, one would wander around the corner of an assigned post and talk to another guard.

Levi and Cora had to bide their time and wait for the right opportunity.

Finally, it came. A rear door opened, and a new guard exited the building, leaving the door slightly ajar. The guard that had been on duty there had already rounded the corner to chat with another, and the new guard had looked around before realizing it was empty and searching for the guard whose duty he was meant to relieve.

Levi and Cora didn't even have to speak. The moment the new guard turned the corner, they were running toward the facility, their footsteps silent against the padded, mossy ground of the forest. They were inside within seconds, slipping through a dark hallway and down a stairwell.

They had another problem, though.

"Cameras," Cora whispered, pointing down the stairwell.

She saw it was turned away from them, and if she played it just right, she might even be able to disable it.

"Wait here," she whispered to Levi, whose bulk was a disadvantage for once.

Slowly, carefully, she crept toward the camera, crouching along the floor until she was right under it. A single cable connected the camera to a plug in the wall—the relay cable that fed the video back into the system and eventually to the surveillance room.

With a deep breath, she pulled the plug in the hopes no one would notice a temporary black screen. As quickly as she could, she plugged the cable into her comm, allowing her to access the whole camera network.

She figured they only needed an hour or so, and if she could just freeze all the cameras on their current frame, she might be able to buy them some time.

A few taps later, it was done, and again, Cora realized she'd been holding her breath for a while. She let out a deep sigh before plugging the camera back into the wall and motioning to Levi.

"Let's go," she told him. When Levi emerged from the shadows, Cora saw that he was grinning.

"You missed your calling as a private investigator," he told her as they set off.

"It's never too late, I guess," she replied with a smile that matched his. "Need anyone for PAPS?"