“No, I was going to delete anything relating to her or your mother. Anything that would put them in danger. Even without it, the project is still incredibly valuable. There’s enough in there to undermine the ITA’s monopoly.”
Jeth exhaled, feeling minutely better.
After a moment, Sierra went on, “I’ve asked these contacts to keep a lookout for Renford’s ship. We’ll hear something soon.”
“That’s it?” Jeth said. “We just wait around until we hear something?”
Sierra looked poised to argue, but Milton spoke up before she could say anything. “We’ll find them, Jeth. It’s just a matter of time and patience. And once we locate that ship, we’ll steal them back. This crew can handle anything.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jeth turned toward the door.
“Where’re you going?” Milton said.
“To check on Flynn’s progress.” It was a lie. Jeth didn’t know where he was going except elsewhere. He needed time alone to think. Milton was right that the crew had a lot of skills necessary for a job like this. Except they didn’t have Lizzie, and they didn’t have access to all their usual tools. Not without Hammer.
Hammer. He’s going to kill me when he finds out what happened here. That was the other thing Milton didn’t know, how determined Hammer was to make Jeth one of his men. When he found out that Jeth and his crew had imprisoned Dax and Sergei, he’d send others after them.
And if Hammer learns about Cora and Lizzie . . .
You mean, if he doesn’t know already?
A shudder racked Jeth’s body, and he almost stumbled as he took the first step up the ladder to the engineering deck. He righted himself, then froze at an odd, faint sound. It seemed to be coming from the deck below, someone shouting his name.
Jeth turned and headed downward, arriving moments later in the aft cargo bay. It was Dax, shouting from the brig. He stopped at Jeth’s approach.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Dax said, leaning against the bars and glaring. Avalon’s small brig was nothing more than a metal cage with a heavy, old-fashioned lock on the door.
“What I’ve got to,” Jeth said, screwing up his courage. “And that’s find my sister, and then get her and my crew as far away from Hammer as possible.”
Dax snorted. “Then I guess you really are as dumb as you look.”
“You’ve got a lot of room to talk, considering that implant you like to wear.”
Dax ran his hand over the base of his skull as if expecting the implant to be there. He grunted. “You might have a point. But my point is that if you want to find your sister, you need to let me out of this cage.”
Jeth snorted. “Why? So you can report to Hammer what happened here? No thanks.”
Dax rolled his eyes. “Not all of us live and breathe for Hammer.”
“Oh yeah? Doesn’t look that way to me. The big guy told me how those implants work.”
A cruel smile stretched across Dax’s face. “Oh yes, so I heard. He’s got big plans for you.”
Flinching, Jeth turned away. He was too tired and worried to be wasting time here. He would deal with Dax later.
“I can find her,” Dax said. “I know exactly where your sister is.”
Jeth stopped and swung around. “Yeah? And how’s that?”
“I marked her just before the ITA got away.”
“What do you mean, marked?”
“I shot her with a tracer. It’s what I do, you know.” Dax made a gun out of his forefinger and pretended to pull the trigger.
Jeth blinked, remembering how Dax had missed shooting that ITA soldier. It had seemed incredible that a man with his skills and reputation could miss at such close range. Now he understood. “Why did you do that? Why didn’t you shoot the men abducting her?”
Dax shook his head. “My tracer gun was the only one I had, and I figured she’d make the most worthwhile target. Besides, there was no way we were going to overtake Renford’s men. But what I want to know is why Renford wanted her in the first place.”
Jeth went still. Dax didn’t know Lizzie’s value to the Aether Project. And Hammer probably doesn’t either, Jeth realized. If he did, he would never have let her leave Peltraz. Hammer was too wise a businessman to make that kind of gamble. “I don’t know why,” Jeth said smoothly, “but tell me about the tracer.”
Dax grunted. “I started the program to run the trace on her just before your uncle knocked me out. I’m sure it’s located her by now. So long as she hasn’t gotten too far out of range.”
Jeth’s stomach flipped over. If they could pinpoint her location now, they’d have a better chance of getting her and Cora back than if they waited for word from Sierra’s contacts. “How does the program work?”
Dax laughed. “Nice try. You let me out of this cage, and I’ll show you where she is. I’ll even help you fetch her.”
Jeth folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah? In return for what?”
“Your help in retrieving the Aether Project from Renford. I still have my job to do. I’m great at tracking, but I’ve little experience pulling off a heist.”
Jeth supposed it made sense. Only . . . “How do you know Renford has it? You were unconscious.”
Dax pointed to the back of his head, a glint in his eyes. “Nah, I only looked unconscious.”
Jeth stepped nearer to the bars, watching Dax’s reactions carefully. “So, you’re saying that if we get you the Aether Project, you’ll let us go? All of us?”
Dax sighed. “It’s not so simple as that, as you well know.”
Jeth held his breath, braced for the worst.
“You’ll never be able to outrun him. Hammer must want you bad to have had you prepared for an implant before you’re even of age.”
Jeth flinched and resisted the impulse to touch the architecture.
Dax flexed his fingers around the bars. “Hammer made it quite clear that there were two things I had to bring back from this mission. The Aether Project files and you. Anything less than that, and he’ll kill me.”
Jeth gulped, unsurprised by this threat and believing it completely. “What about my crew?” he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice and failing.
Dax shrugged. “He wasn’t as specific about them. Not that he’ll be happy if the rest of them don’t come back with us, but he might get over it. You, though, well, that’s a different story. And you’re just a kid with no resources and nowhere to go.”
Desperation made Jeth’s voice strained and tinny. “Why? What does he want with me?”
A stricken look, so out of character, crossed Dax face. He let go of the bars, then turned and sat on the bench in the rear of the cell. “What I’m about to tell you is something I’ve never willingly shared with anybody. And if you repeat any of it, I’ll kill you, no matter if you are Hammer’s latest golden boy.”
Golden boy. The words bubbled and burned like acid in Jeth’s mind.
“I was once the golden boy, too,” said Dax. “Only I wasn’t an orphan like you. I had a big family. Two sisters and three brothers. All younger. My parents were coal miners, if you can believe it. On Gallant Prime, a rathole, backwoods world if there ever was one.” He chuckled, as if in fond memory. “When I turned eighteen, there wasn’t anything I wanted more than to get the hell out of that place. Not because of my family, mind you. They were great. But because of the mining. Dirty, dangerous shit. So I decided I would join Gallant Prime’s space fleet. Lucky me, I even scored so high on my entrance exam, I had my pick of jobs.”
He took a deep breath, all the good humor vanishing from his face. “And then Hammer found out how well I scored, particularly in the area of cognitive reasoning under pressure, or some such thing, and he decided he wanted me as one of his Brethren. I turned him down, but he persisted, and then he got nasty. He threatened to hurt my family, but I didn’t believe him. I mean, who takes the time to round up a bunch of harmless coal miners and torture them? I thought if I could outrun Hammer long enough, he’d give up.” Dax paused, the silence pregnant with unspoken emotion. “I was wrong.”