The pressure in his head came without warning and Jadis was looking out of eyes that were not his own.
There were no words to describe the feeling of despair that stifled all others. Again and again the cry came up from Res Dai. When she reached out to draw him in, there was only an alien mind that masked the call from her selected drone. Now she was close enough that she could take in the alien mind, take in Res Dai, but there was a barrier between. She could feel him watching, attempting to control her. She refused.
“I am Queen of the Five. You are an abomination. I am the mother of billions of Antogin. You are nothing and you will never be strong enough. Come to me, Jadis Ter. Let me release Res Dai.”
Jadis shook his head to clear his mind. Li’em’s image was moving again. “Manager Tylen has always moved against the tide. I have informed the princess and the federal entity. They have updated their approach, but I do not have an E.T.A. How would you like to proceed?”
“Start with a search of the station. I want every employee accounted for and every corner searched. All docking areas on lock and no traffic in or out unless I personally authorize it.” That was enough, right? He felt like he was forgetting something important.
“As you say, Sal’um Pe. Should I inform Miss Reganta’s employees?”
“I’ll inform Teena. In fact, I’ll be headed to her ship now. I’m revoking all of Tylen’s access to the station.” Why move now? Tylen could have taken weeks to make a move. Was having Betta there too convenient? He’d never known his former manager to be that sloppy or quick to judgement. It could only mean one thing. “I think we’ll need to prepare ourselves for another attack. The Queen has to be closer than we thought.”
Li’em sat considering him for some time. “Legend does not do you justice. Conflict is drawn to you no matter the form. I will gather those that can fight. Those that cannot, I will order to hide in the more fortified areas.”
Nearly twenty minutes later, Jadis was dressed and standing on the bridge of one of Betta’s Station’s Commuter Ships. The clothes felt strange, as if they weren’t his own. He missed his new outfit and promised himself that once he had Betta they would go to Gabriel’s together. The thumping in his chest threatened to cloud his focus.
“And you have no idea where she is?” Teena demanded. It was the first time that Jadis had ever seen a Human face turn that color. He thought it might be a shade of purple, though he couldn’t identify it.
“I can go through a list of reasons why or we can focus on trying to find any trace of them. The station’s database isn’t trustworthy. Tylen had enough access he could rewrite it. What he doesn’t have, is access to your systems.” Jadis met the fierce gaze of Friz straight on. He thought that if he showed any weakness she’d probably break something on him.
Sadly, her response was an even more intense stare that he wasn’t prepared to combat. He turned back to Teena. “I don’t need access. You can access your own monitors and look to see if a ship arrived or departed while you were in dock.”
Teena immediately went to a silver console. Every surface of the ship was covered in a glossy finish that made Jadis miss Betta all the more. The guilt in the pit of his stomach churned away, combining with the pain of not having her close by. He’d expected it to hit, prepared himself mentally, and still he lost his focus. He was consumed by the memory of their last touch and it took a soft hand on his shoulder to bring him back to the present.
“There,” Teena said again, pointing to the Antogin vessel that shot into an expanse of stars.
“Follow it,” Jadis managed to grunt.
“Inform the feds and set a course, Friz.”
“This is only a Commuter Ship. There’s not a chance we’d catch them.”
“We don’t have to catch them. We just have to get Jadis close. Right?”
Jadis nodded, not trusting his voice.
The ship ahead of them had a two-hour head-start. Not to mention, the small engines of the Commuter Ship did nothing to close the gap. If anything, the gap widened. More than once, Jadis cursed himself for not retrieving his own ship and following. Teena and Friz grew more cautious of him as the distance grew. Hours passed into a full day and Jadis hovered still over the sensor view of the declining speck in the distance.
While Friz and Teena ate, slept, used the waste room, and communicated their position to the feds, Jadis stood in the same position, hardly moving. Near the end of the second day, Friz cleared her throat.
“We’re burning through our reserves. The feds are about an hour out.”
“We don’t stop!” Jadis’s gravelly voice was met with silence.
“We don’t stop,” Teena repeated in agreement. “We dock with the feds and let their faster and more powerful cruiser take us to Betta. And you need to rest.”
Jadis grinned, hiding his second-to-last injection of stimulant beneath his heavy coat. His hearts warned with each searing throb that any more would probably cause permanent damage. “Today’s the day.”
Neither woman responded.
An hour later, the feds were docked. Jadis moved stiffly to the airlock. Both Teena and Friz were paces ahead of him. There were nearly two forms of his consciousness inhabiting the ship by now, monitoring communications, accessing federal markers and breaking any law that impeded his devouring of classified knowledge. He knew all of Betta’s access code and he knew exactly where to look for the information he needed.
By the time he entered the federal cruiser he had control of the agents and the ship itself. They connected to him like nodes of consciousness that added to his ability to process and control. From there, he could link to other ships and other agents aboard those vessels. When he stepped onto the bridge, he knew exactly where the renegade cruiser was headed. He had five ships en route and thirty-four armed and combat-ready agents prepared for insurgency.
Now, he had his own hive, and the Queen of Five would pay for taking his mate.
Gylmus One was a planet of acidic rain and igneous rock. Navigating the storms was difficult for a single pilot, but to follow the ship that held Betta, Jadis navigated five vessels without hesitation. The area where the Antogin landed was obviously chosen because of the flat expanse and the series of caves that lay a kilometer distant. The first ships to land detected the heat signatures of lifeforms scurrying into those caves in the perpetual drizzle that kept the surface slick and eroded the rock over time.
Jadis sent his first wave of agents to follow until the ship that carried him arrived. Two agents were offline near the cave’s edge. Five others were proceeding with caution, having subdued one of the two signatures that moved.
What lay beyond the cave was a mystery and Jadis panicked when he couldn’t feel the five agents that entered the cave, ordering the remaining agents to stand guard.
Teena and Friz sat quietly at opposite ends of the bridge, each guarded by two agents whose black eyes watched them completely devoid of emotion. They had tried speaking to the agents and once they realized Jadis controlled them, they had tried reasoning with him, but his focus was so narrowed by now that he hardly recalled that they existed.
The ship touched the surface and Jadis was running. There were no space suits onboard that would fit his awkward body. There was nothing but his clothing to protect him from the acidic rain or the freezing atmosphere. He carried no form of oxygen to replenish his supply. Instead, he took a deep breath following the airlock pressurization. When the doors opened, he was running again, pumping his thick and heavy legs in the slight gravity all the way to the caves.