Seach frowned at the hologram. Europa military base, ironically named Fort Rorry for Jo’s father, shimmered green and red above the central table, its walls and offices giving him an ulcer the longer he stared at them. Jo was stuck in there, likely being interrogated, and for the life of him he couldn’t determine which of the eight hundred rooms she might be in. Anger ate at him, growling in the back of his mind the more he thought about what they might be doing to her at that exact moment.

He pressed his fist to his mouth, willing the hologram to tell him where she was.

Zephyr had intercepted a communication confirming that a prisoner had been moved from the station to the base, and Zoe had managed to get the holographic blueprints swirling in front of him. And now it was his job to find a way in.

Well, getting in was the easy part.

Europa itself provided that information. The moon relied on harmonic pipes running beneath its surface for its atmosphere and gravity. Maintenance tunnels webbed throughout the moon and one of them passed right by the fort’s basement.

Easy in, he thought again and scowled.

Once they got in things would be tricky. These blueprints were new but the building itself was old. He’d been stationed here early in his military career and could remember several ventilation shafts that were not present in the schematics before him. He hoped they would still be there. He didn’t want to be roaming the hallways in the open.

Seach glanced at the little hacking device he’d found in the weapons cache. Zoe promised she could remote hack into the fort’s mainframe if he snapped the thing onto any nearby console, but something in him couldn’t stomach it.

Could he really trust the girl? And even if he could, did he want to watch her commit a felony at twelve years old?

He groaned and rubbed his face. Sighing, he looked up at Zephyr’s smooth ceiling and prayed. He didn’t know why he looked up to do it, he knew better than to believe God existed above him, but it felt right just the same. Besides, he was kind of begging and he knew it.

“I don’t know how this works,” he said.

His voice sounded small and quiet in the central hub and he felt awkward hearing it. He glanced at the security feed, half afraid someone would walk in on him. But Devon and Paul were off ship, investigating a nearby bunker and Zoe was sitting outside Kenzie’s containment room.

He was alone.

Seach took a steadying breath. Everything was quiet, still, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

Not quite alone, he thought.

“I know you’re there,” he said, resuming the prayer. “I don’t understand you and I’m sure as hell not going to try defining you … But I know.”

His gaze caught on the hologram and his chest squeezed tight with grief. He didn’t know how they might be keeping Jo subdued but he would bet Zephyr itself it wasn’t pleasant. He wanted to blame Kenzie, to focus all of his rage on her, but he knew he couldn’t. Kenzie wasn’t to blame here. She hadn’t made the Consulate what it was, hadn’t lived long enough to fully understand the oppression she was living in.

No, he couldn’t blame Kenzie.

“I want to be angry with you,” he muttered, no longer thinking of Kenzie. He glared up at the ceiling again. He didn’t know why but somehow saying it out loud helped. “I want to hate you for standing by and watching all this shit happen. Billions of people died in the war and you did nothing.”

You let us win, he thought.

What kind of God lets an organization like the Consulate win?

“You had to know what they would do,” he said. “You had to know the Consulate would suppress every form of religion regardless of its origins. Doesn’t that bother you? Doesn’t any of this shit bother you?”

He paused, realizing he’d raised his voice and self-consciously checked the security feed again.

Nothing had changed.

Seach sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He frowned at the hologram again, remembering his purpose in starting this conversation. It was awkward as hell to talk to thin air, to rely on faith that anyone or anything was listening. He wondered how other people did this. They didn’t have the benefit of actually seeing that there was something out there and yet they seemed to communicate with God just fine.

How did they ask for miracles?

He frowned down at his boots and tried to form the words. A part of him laughed at the fact that he was attempting this. Of all the people in the universe Seach Barlow was the least deserving of a miracle. Hadn’t he fought to bring the Consulate into its place of power? Hadn’t he killed countless men and women based solely on the fact that he’d been given orders?

No, he thought. He didn’t deserve this. But he was going to ask anyway.

“Help me get her back,” he said, his voice a rough whisper in the chamber. He closed his eyes and thought of Jorry. “Please, God, help me get her back.”

“Incoming communication from Master Devon,” Zephyr announced, startling him.

Seach straightened, bringing his mind back to the situation. “Put him through.”

“You’ll never guess what we found,” Devon’s voice called through the speakers. “Get Zoe, we’re going to need some help lugging all this in.”

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“Fuel,” Devon said and he could hear his son’s grin. “And lots of it.”

Seach felt the hair on his arms stand stiff.

Fuel? Who had left fuel canisters in an abandoned bunker?

He glanced at the ceiling.

Nobody good, he thought, finally catching up to the conversation. Pirates or smugglers or some other form of shady profession had used the bunker as a storehouse and it was probably a bad idea to steal from them. Seach frowned, debating just how much trouble they would be in if they took it, but his mind snagged on Jo again and he stopped.

What use was it if they got Jo back but couldn’t jump?

He turned and left the central chamber, heading for the docking bay. It didn’t matter who they were taking it from. All that mattered was Jo and getting the hell away from Consulate space. Besides, it was just possible the fuel belonged to one of Movax’s contacts, and Seach was more than happy to throw a wrench in Movax’s day.

~*~*~

Relo stood at parade rest near a console scrolling through her vitals. He slid out of focus twice before she squeezed her eyes shut and fought for coherency. Her taps were magnetized to a cold steel table and they’d stripped her of her uniform. She was in her underwear and tank-top, could feel the press of chilled steel on her bare arms and legs. Interrogation tactics, she knew. The near nakedness was supposed to make her feel more vulnerable.

She opened her eyes again. Relo was still there, still silent, and she felt anger coil in her belly. If they thought using Relo would somehow make her more amenable then they thought wrong.

The details of the room came into focus. Three consoles took up the right wall, each of them powered on and monitoring different aspects of the table she was attached to. If she didn’t know better she’d have thought it was a hospital room, or the secondary nest on Zephyr.

The air cycle vent powered on overhead and she shivered, gooseflesh pimpling over her skin.

“Hey, Captain,” she said, watching as he tilted his head at her. God, he even moved like a robot. “Don’t suppose you can turn the heater on for me? I’m kinda cold.”

“Funny,” Movax said from behind her and her stomach clenched. “I’ll give you this much, Johanna Rorry, you’ve got bravado.”

She tried to turn her head but it was strapped down. The table hummed to life, tilting her up to a near standing position as he walked into view. He looked far too proud of himself. A stub of half-burnt cigar hung from his grinning mouth and his eyes crinkled at the corners with real mirth. For half a second she thought of Devon and Seach and heard a nearby console beep with her increased heart rate.

Movax glanced at the console. “Now, now, Johanna. I think you should calm down a bit. Your blood pressure is a little high.”

He’d used her real name she realized and ground her teeth, forcing herself not to look at Relo.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Movax asked. “Or am I obliged to explain?”

Jorry felt her taps, sensed them going to work on her body, mending broken bits and bruises and she narrowed her eyes at him. When she had enough strength she was going to take that cigar and shove it in his eye. Relo would be on her in an instant but it would be worth it.

“This was never about Zoe,” she said at last, half hissing the words at him.

“No, not really.” Movax turned to lean against the console, his immaculate suit goading her from afar. “Though I’ll admit, handing her over to you was a gamble. When those customs agents jumped the gun on Neptune I was afraid I’d lost you all.”

So the Consulate really did want Zoe. They just wanted their two errant Tapped more.

She breathed a rueful laugh and closed her eyes, the pieces coming together in her mind. “You were just waiting on a transport for them, weren’t you? And then I showed up.”

“Bigger fish,” Movax said with a rakish grin. “You can’t really blame me, can you?”

Of course she could. The bastard had meant to give his niece to the Consulate, and likely for a tidy sum, too. She imagined the only reason they hadn’t been caught on Neptune was because they couldn’t verify what docking bay they’d been in.

“How’d you know who I was?” She asked.

“That was not without its difficulty,” he said cheerfully. “You’re very good at hiding, Lieutenant-Commander Rorry. I almost didn’t believe it at first. I mean, it’s been over thirty years since the war ended and you haven’t aged a day.”

She opened her eyes again and smirked at him. “A girl doesn’t like to be reminded of her age, Movax.”

“Then again,” he said, turning to the console and inputting a command. Her service records suddenly illuminated the room, glowing blue and white in the space between them. “Birthdate April 22, 4293. You really haven’t aged a day have you, Johanna?”

Jorry stared at the image of her own face. She looked harsher back then, she thought. Her face was all sharp bones and shallow angles, and the military haircut made her eyebrows look big. Still, there was no denying it was her. Movax must have hunted for those records for a while, she was fairly certain they weren’t out for the public to see. The Consulate liked its secrets.

“How long did it take you to dig that up?” she asked.

“About a year and a half,” he said, giving her a small, mocking bow.

She blinked at him. He’d been waiting for her since the moment she’d arranged paperwork for Devon?

A chill crawled up her spine. Somehow she’d never pegged him for the patient sort. Black market dealers were almost always hunting for the quickest means to riches, but Movax had held onto this information for nearly two decades. She watched him, remembering his chess games and his conversations, and realized she had severely underestimated him.

Something blipped in the console and he shut off her records.

“Seems you’ve got enough adrenaline in you now to start repairing yourself,” he said. “Can’t have that now, can we?”

She was so distracted by his revelation she didn’t realize what he was saying. He swiped something across the console screen and several thousand volts buzzed through her taps. Jorry grunted in surprise, she’d forgotten what her taps had been doing, forgotten that her strength had been returning. Electrical energy pulsed into her and she had to concentrate on reallocating. It was too much too soon, her taps weren’t ready for it.

She felt her discs heating again, felt her body ache and strain against the flow. The ache sunk deep into her bones, splintering out from each tap until all she could do was scream. She couldn’t keep up, couldn’t think around the agony to try anything beyond absorbing the energy and pushing it back out again.

He finally turned it off and Jo slumped against the straps holding her down, blinding pain simmering through her body. She opened her eyes, had to blink several times as her vision swam, but finally saw Movax again.

“You Tapped are remarkable,” Movax said. He moved to circle Relo, gazing with admiration at Johnny’s straight-backed stance. “I honestly didn’t know if you could be defeated until Relo took you down.”

Jo struggled to breathe again, struggled to concentrate. Her bones throbbed and she felt stiff and unmovable. Every shallow breath hurt, like somehow her lungs were pushed tight against her ribs, flaring them up in protest. Her head rested heavily on the table, canted to the left and she couldn’t find the strength or the will to straighten it.

Was this how they’d taken Johnny down?

She stared at Relo, a familiar guilty pang stabbing through her.

She thought of apologizing to him, telling him she should have fought harder for him or come to his rescue or something. He’d told her to run but if she’d disobeyed, if she’d torn through the Consulate, maybe she could have spared him this pain.

Or maybe she’d be standing right beside him, blank and ready to be commanded by the likes of Alexander Movax.

She shuddered and because the movement hurt, gasped.

“As it turns out, you’re not the first Tapped soldiers the Consulate has had to hunt. Did you know that?”

Yes, she knew. Of course she knew. She and Seach had sent an emergency beacon to all remaining Tapped soldiers, warning them away from Gliese, away from the Consulate. Five had responded.

“I’m sure you probably did,” Movax answered his own question. “A clever girl like you would have anticipated as much.”

Jorry smirked. Obviously he hadn’t been filled in on all her transgressions yet. That meant there was someone else above him, someone pulling his strings.

“Tell me, Movax,” she said, forcing her head upright. Dizzy sparks lit her vision and for a second she had to concentrate on breathing. “What sort of deal did you strike with the Consulate?”

“Oh, you know me,” he said with a wide grin, “An extremely lucrative one.”

“Do I get to know the price on my head?”

“Thirty million.”

That was impressive, she thought.

“I tried to start at fifty but they refused. Sent me Relo for backup instead.” Movax sighed and cocked his head, eyeing Relo with curiosity. “They really can’t feel a thing, you know that? You broke one of his ribs and look at him … completely rigid. Like nothing ever happened.”

Jorry swallowed and focused on Relo. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be turned into a Grey Man, she thought. No more emotions. No decisions. No more guilt or anxiety. She’d be free of all responsibility. Or at least she’d be free of caring about that responsibility.

“Not like you,” Movax said. His tone hadn’t changed but Jorry could sense that they’d finally reached the interrogation moment of the confrontation. “You can feel all sorts of pain.”

He moved to stand directly in front of her and smiled. She knew what he wanted, knew what he was going to try torturing out of her, and scowled back at him. He reached out and touched her collarbone; a light touch, creepier than anything she’d felt in her life, but she held his gaze. He slid his palm over her shoulder and down her arm, stopping once he found her pinky finger.

The vulnerable little finger still ached from the overload he’d forced on her and she tensed, trying to prepare herself for a new kind of pain. A heartbeat later he snapped the finger to the side, breaking it right at the base of the knuckle and her body screamed with the sudden agony. She jerked in response, strained against the bindings, but the cursed table was programmed for that. Another round of electricity slammed hard into her taps, overwhelming her with a tide of heat that seemed to go on forever.

When it finally let up she gasped for air, hung limp against the table and prayed Seach had gotten Devon away. They had to get away. All of this pain would be worth it if they were safe.

“That was just to show you that I’m not making idle threats,” Movax said, sounding professional and calm. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know I will break every bone in your body. That’s a promise, Johanna.”

“Screw you.”

He clucked his tongue at her. “Now, now, Johanna. No need to be crude.”

He wanted Zephyr. She knew it. He knew she knew it, and there didn’t seem to be a need for clarification. Whatever deal he’d made with the Consulate gave him enough power to convert this little rom into an interrogation center, and that was more chilling than the impassive gaze on Relo’s face. It meant he had reach.

But as long as he was questioning her she knew Seach and Devon were safe. All she had to do now was hang on. She battled past the pain, willed herself to ignore Relo’s presence, and focused on Movax.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Break me. It won’t help. They’re already gone.”

“Oh, you’re clever, Johanna, but even I know they didn’t get enough fuel to go.”

“Is that what you know?” She asked, summoning a smile. “Tell me then … how’d we bust out of Neptune?”

He paused and for a second Movax seemed genuinely surprised. “I’m actually quite curious about that.”

“I’ll bet you are.” She said with a goading grin.

His face contorted into a scowl and he grabbed the next finger, wrenching it to the side. She heard the unpleasant pop of bone as it broke under pressure and pain licked through her hand. Jo shouted and hissed, trying hard not to strain against the bindings again. If she wasn’t careful the table itself could melt her taps right into her bones.

Or maybe her skin would melt first, she wasn’t certain.

It could kill her, that much she knew. She panted and stared at Relo’s uniformed chest. He hadn’t moved from parade rest, hadn’t so much as twitched since the questioning started.

“So tell me … how’d you get out of Neptune?”

“Zephyr …” she had to pause to breathe, to deliberately ignore the throbbing in her hand. “Zephyr can get to cruising speed without a Jumper. They got all the gas they need. They’re long gone.”

“That’s impossible,” Movax said, but she knew by the tone of his voice that he’d seen their escape. He had seen Zephyr take off without a jumper.

“Is it?” She asked, mocking him.

“How?”

If she didn’t hurt so much she might have shrugged, but her body felt swollen all over, incapable of the smallest gestures. She settled for a smile, meeting his gaze with as much defiance as she could muster while strapped to the table. She had a feeling he couldn’t outright kill her, not if he still wanted to get paid, so she resigned herself to the fact that there was going to be a lot more pain.

“How?” He asked again, this time clenching his teeth.

“I feed it Wheaties,” she said and winked at him.

Anger flashed in his eyes and he grabbed her middle finger, yanking it up toward her wrist. Her mangled hand throbbed to life and she shut her eyes, biting down hard on her lip as she choked on another shout. She heard her voice, heard the torment in it, and tried to force her mind somewhere else.

He really was going to break every bone he could find.

Relo’s head cocked to the side. She saw the movement and focused on him, trying to drown out the ache of her body. His liquid dark eyes met hers and for half a second she thought she read sympathy there. Or maybe it was concern. A flash of anger, perhaps?

Hope flared in her chest.

“Tell me how the Zephyr jumped,” Movax asked.

She ignored him, concentrating everything she had on her former Captain. If the table didn’t kill her or if they made her into a Grey Man there was something she had to say to Relo first, something that had been eating away at her for thirty years. The romantic, irrational side of her believed if she said it he would wake up, as though just the words could touch him and bring the real man out of the gray.

“Johnny,” she said, staring straight at him. He didn’t react, didn’t move, but she went on anyway. “Johnny, I am so sorry. I should have come back for you.”

Relo blinked once, slowly, almost mechanically, and his head straightened. Whatever emotion she thought she’d read in those eyes was gone and Jorry felt grief swarm through her again. She’d imagined it. In her delirium she’d actually mistaken the Grey Man for Johnny, and for some reason that hurt far worse. She closed her eyes, exhaustion and misery beating at her as she realized that Johnathan Relo would never be coming back.

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