Page 16 of Only Cold Depths
Isteppedoutofthe cargo bay, entered the long corridor that made up the center of the blitzer, and went to the flight deck at the front of the ship. I dropped into the pilot’s seat, fired up the engines, and took off from the spaceport. A few minutes later, theDream Worldwas rocketing through space, on course for Sygnustern. No proximity alarms sounded, and no other ships were tracking us. Good.
I left the flight deck and headed into the kitchen. I put away the food Vesper had bought in the marketplace, then entered a room I’d turned into a miniature version of my library at Castle Caldaren. A large table stood in the center, while wooden cases flanked the walls, each shelf filled with real paper books, which Vesper loved to smell for some strange reason. Comfortable chairs were stuffed into the corners, and a window in the far wall offered a view of the glimmering stars in the distance.
I might be expecting the galaxy to take Vesper away, but until the worst happened, I was going to do my best to protect her, especially from Callus Holloway. The greedy bastard wanted to siphon off our truebond power and take it for his own, just as he’d done to my parents. Holloway had eventually taken too much of my mother’s power, causing Desdemona’s wasting sickness and death. My father, Chauncey, had gone mad with grief at the loss of my mother, and he had attacked me in a drunken rage, forcing me to kill him in self-defense.
Cold fury flooded my body, drowning out the faint echoes of Adria’s mocking laughter. My inner monster roared with determination, and I slapped Vesper’s ruined jacket and the Techwave cannon down onto the table hard enough to scatter some plastipaper schematics lying there.
We werenotgoing to end up like my parents.
I waved my hand over the table, activating the embedded holoscreen. While it downloaded the battle footage from the camera in Vesper’s jacket, I called upCelestial Stars, a popular gossipcast that covered the Imperium. I flicked through one story and video after another, tracking the sightings of the Arrows, but none of them were close to Tropics 44. A small but welcome favor. Right now, I would take every single favor and scrap of luck the galactic gods deigned to toss my way.
After I mapped out the Arrows’ latest locations, I searched for information on another enemy: Nerezza Blackwell.
During the midnight ball, Vesper had outed Nerezza as a Techwave spy, thus ruining her mother’s standing among the Regals. No one had seen Nerezza since she had fled from Corios, but according to the gossipcast reports, she had emptied out the House Blackwell accounts, which meant she had more than enough credits to go anywhere she wanted.
Since there was no news on Nerezza, I moved on to yet another enemy: the Techwave.
A few weeks ago, several of the Techwave’s mechanized Black Scarabs had rampaged through the summer solstice celebration at Castle Rojillo in the Corios countryside. None of the Regals, servants, or guards had been killed, but a Techwaver named Silas had infiltrated the castle, stolen some temperature-shielding technology created by Lord Jorge Rojillo, and sent the data to General Orion Ocnus.
Asterin Armas, an Erzton lady, had been at the solstice celebration, along with Tivona Winslow and Leandra Ferrum, our other friends. Asterin had snuck into the main research-and-development lab inside the castle, and she had sent us copies of the temperature-shielding technology, which was designed for people to wear like an old-fashioned wristwatch to cool and heat the air around them. Vesper had studied the schematics, but so far, she hadn’t figured out what the Techwave wanted with something so seemingly simple—or how they were planning to weaponize it.
I watched one gossipcast after another, but each theory was wilder than the last, and no one had any concrete intelligence about Nerezza or the Techwave. I let out a frustrated growl and swiped my hand across the holoscreen, cutting off the feeds.
A softdingsounded. The battle footage from Vesper’s jacket was ready, so I watched it, grimacing when Vesper was shot. The footage rewound and started playing again, but this time, I froze it, stuck my fingers into the hologram, and focused on Esmina and Pollux.
As an Arrow, I’d dealt with scores of terrorists and criminals, but neither one of them was familiar. I’d been taking cover behind a pile of junk, so I hadn’t gotten a good look at the pair. My throwing a ball of explosives at them had been a lucky break—or perhaps an unlucky one, since it hadn’t killed them.
I flicked my fingers, unfreezing the footage and studying how Esmina and Pollux moved, communicated, and attacked.
Pollux was obviously a psion like me, and I was willing to bet he also had strength and speed enhancements. You didn’t carry around big, heavy weapons unless you had the skill to wield them to their fullest, deadliest potential.
I froze the footage again and zoomed in on one of his war hammers. Long hilt, flat head, spike on one side, razor-sharp edges all around. The lunarium weapon matched those used by the Hammers, the elite warriors of the Erzton, although Pollux’s weapons were larger than normal. With his psion power and strength enhancements, bashing in skulls was child’s play, and he could probably crack open a mountain with those hammers if he wanted to.
Being the head of the Arrows meant spying on the Hammers, but Pollux’s face had never appeared on any rosters or missions I’d reviewed. Still, I was willing to bet he either had been part of the Hammers at one time or had been trained by the warriors. Either way, Pollux was just as dangerous with his war hammers as I was with my stormsword.
Next, I focused on Esmina, who was also obviously a psion. I couldn’t figure out what powers she had, but she was definitely the leader, and thus more dangerous. An alpha warrior like Pollux wouldn’t follow anyone who wasn’t stronger than himself.
I watched the footage a few more times, but no more clues presented themselves. Two new enemies had just dropped out of the sky and landed on top of the mountain of people already chasing us. Terrific. Just bloody terrific.
I swiped my hand across the holoscreen, cutting off the battle footage. For several seconds, I glared at the empty air where the hologram had been. Then I raked a hand through my hair, exhaled, and bent down over the table.
I sent Daichi the footage, then straightened up. I needed to check on Vesper—
A softpingsounded, then repeated itself in rapid succession.
Ping-ping-ping.
I glanced back down at the table, but the alert wasn’t coming from the encrypted group channel that Vesper and I used with our friends. No, thepingswere emanating from a channel used on an Arrow mission last year, and only one other person knew about it.
If I ignored the alert, the cocky bastard would just keep trying to make contact. He could be annoyingly persistent, so I waved my hand, activating the holoscreen again. I hit a few buttons, and a man popped into view.
Longish blond hair, ice-blue eyes, and skin that was somehow always perfectly tan, despite the amount of time he spent in the black void of space. An ice-blue jacket stretched across his broad shoulders, and the curlicuedZof House Zimmer was stitched on the fabric, right over his rotten heart, if he even possessed such an organ.
“Finally,” Zane Zimmer drawled. “I was starting to think you werenevergoing to answer.”
I glowered at him, but Zane grinned, laced his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair.
I studied the hologram, but there wasn’t much to see. Just Zane, a desk, a chair, and a small, round window in the background. I squinted. What were those flickers of light rushing by in the distance? I couldn’t tell, but the Arrow wasn’t in his tower library in Castle Zimmer on Corios.
