Page 218 of Star Bringer
We meet up with Max and Merrick on our way down the hallway to the door. Already, I can hear guards’ footsteps behind us, and I know it’s only a matter of time before they catch up to us.
Milla steps out in front of the group. “Follow me, and we can free the others,” she says, and she’s speeding ahead, running so fast that I can’t keep up, no matter how hard I try.
This is definitely the right next step, but I’m also afraid if we do it, they’ll just get slaughtered. That army out there is not fooling around.
I say as much to Milla as we run, but she shakes her head. “Don’t count them out yet.”
“They’re not even armed,” I tell her.
“No, but they aren’t completely human anymore, either.”
“What does that—”
She flashes Max and me a mental picture of her legs—or what I think are her legs. I recognize the tattoo on the front of her upper thigh—a three-leaf clover—but the back of her leg…the back of her leg is completely mechanical. No skin, no muscles, just mechanical pieces.
It’s horrifying. “What did they do to you?”
“You’re a cyborg?” Max chimes in.“A freaking cyborg?”
“Experiments to, I quote, improve humanity.”
I struggle against a new wave of rage. This is what they’ve been doing out here? This is what those experiments on theCaelestiswere leading to? Finding people with alien DNA for Doc V’s pet heptosphere, and if that didn’t work—and they didn’t die—she’d send them out here? Make augmented humans, testing tech for the Empire and Corporation to help her torture and kill more innocent people?
I should have killed Dr. Wicked when I had the fucking chance. It’s not a mistake I’ll make a second time if I ever see that monster again.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fast,” she answers. Which isn’t the same thing as okay. At all.
But all those scars on Beckett are starting to make a lot more sense.
Still, now’s not the time to get into it, not when I can hear people racing along the corridor behind us. No use getting bogged down in rage when it’ll just slow me down. Better to get out of here and figure out how to make them all pay for what they’re doing.
We race along the staircase, and Milla stops in front of the first barred cell door. Then she grabs the second pistol out of my belt and shoots out the lock and opens the gates. “Everyone out,” she yells. “We’re under attack! You can go fight or you can hide until it’s over.” No one moves. “Out,” she shouts.
They start filing forward, and we move on to the next cell. Max, Kali, and I join her in shooting locks open, firing again and again until we hit the last one in the corridor. In it is a young man huddled up in the corner. At first, all I can see is his curly dark hair and dirty gray jumpsuit. But when he lifts his head and sees us, the look of defiance in his yellow eyes is one I immediately recognize. I saw that same look snarking at me from the pilot’s chair every day since we found theStarlight.
Jarved.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Milla is yelling at him, and he slowly gets to his feet. “You can trust them,” she continues. “This is Max and Ian.”
Recognition hits his wary gaze.
“Your sister sent us,” I add. “She gave up everything so we could find you. And we’re going to get you back to her now.”
Max helps him down the hallway as we make our way forward.
“We need to get to theStarlight,” I yell as we burst through the door to the outside. “Now!”
I can hear vehicles approaching. Worse, a bunch of shuttles are flying straight for us. I’m guessing they’ll be full of troops. And if we don’t get out of here fast, then we’re well and truly fucked.
We can’t fight the guards and the whole Corporation, however much we want to. Live to fight another day and all that shit. Hopefully we gave those people in the cells a chance to fight another day, too—or maybe we doomed them all, but I can’t think about that right now. I grab Kali’s hand, and we race toward theStarlight, which is uncloaked. She shouldn’t be uncloaked.
Plus the ramp is up and the door is closed. The heptosphere floats creepily to the side as if it’s fucking laughing at me as I press the ramp button again and again. I hit the comms unit on my wrist. “Gage, open the goddamn door.” There’s no answer, and I swear. “Gage, where the hell are you?”
Still nothing. Bastard. A sick feeling starts in my stomach as I stare at the ship, seething with frustration. She’s shut up tight, and there’s absolutely no way in.
“Call Rain,” Kali suggests.
