Aetherbound - E.K. Johnston Page 0,63

even crossed my mind to calculate how much— You know you can’t leave anyway, I mean, I couldn’t let you leave, even if they offered to pay me what you were worth. Which they can’t, because your worth is beyond measure.”

It was a bit garbled, but she seemed to get the point.

“Oh,” she said. “I panicked and I forgot how things worked.”

“Understandable,” Fisher said. “What are you going to do when they come here and find out they have no legal hold on you?”

Pendt thought about it.

“Send them on their way, I suppose,” she said. “They have no hold on me, and I don’t owe them anything because they thought they could come back and claim me. Why, do you think we should try to help them? They might have trouble making the next port on the supplies they’ve wasted to get back here, but I don’t want Brannick Station complicit in their trafficking, now that we know what they’re really doing.”

“I did wonder if you’d want to help them,” Fisher said. “Or if you’d want revenge. Either would be understandable. They’re your family and they treated you like shit.”

“If we had enough evidence about the trafficking, I’d have the captain charged under station law,” Pendt said. “But we don’t. All we can do is send them on their way with no help and build the case against them when they’re gone.”

“We can do that,” Fisher said.

Pendt stared out the window of the office into the black void of space.

“You know,” she said after a long moment, “I really thought they might never come back. They told me I was worthless for so long, I guess I thought they would cut their losses with me, even now that I know what I can do.”

“They don’t know,” Fisher said. “And that might be the best revenge.”

“Yes,” Pendt said. “You might be right.”

Any other words of comfort Fisher might have given were stopped by a bright flash outside the window. There should not have been a bright flash outside the window.

“Did something explode?” Pendt said, trying to see.

“No, we would have felt it,” Fisher said.

“Then what?” Pendt said.

Fisher’s heart sank all the way to his shoes.

“It’s the Net.”

* * *

• • •

Operations was calm when they returned to it, but there was an air of panic hanging above everyone’s heads.

“Dulcie, it wasn’t Pendt,” Fisher said calmly. “I don’t know how much time we have, but I would like you to evacuate the loading docks and seal every door you can. Have the station populace return to their homes, like a lockdown drill.”

To their credit, they still didn’t panic. Dulcie announced the drill in a calm voice, while her seconds began to evacuate and seal the docks.

“Pendt—” he started, but she cut him off.

“I am staying here,” she told him. “No matter what comes through that Net, I am staying with you.”

There was only one person it could be. They knew it, even if no one was willing to say it out loud. This was how the Hegemony invaded. They used their genetic hostage to activate the Net, and then nothing could stop them from arriving at the station of their choice. Fisher’s father was coming home, and it was the very worst sort of homecoming imaginable.

The Net glimmered as a ship made contact. Instead of firing its engines and making for a dock on the pylon, it sat there. Eventually, an automatic drone was activated on the station and went to tug the ship in. The whole process was beyond Fisher’s control. In the case of station safety, getting a ship to dock was always prioritized, and stopping the drone would require more time to overwrite than they had.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Dulcie. “That’s a one-person drone. They can’t follow him through.”

She was right. The Net was already flickering out, and all of the Brannicks were on this side of it. Nothing could be caught without their say-so.

“Maybe they’re using my mother against him,” Fisher said.

It was possible, and almost too horrible to contemplate. Pendt knew what her aunt would choose, but Fisher’s father actually used his heart.

“I’ll go down,” Fisher said. “Whatever is going on, I’m the least likely to be hurt.”

“I’m coming with you,” Pendt said.

“You can’t,” Fisher said. “You are the station’s priority right now. We have to keep you safe.”

“Fisher,” she said.

“I will be all right,” he said. Physically, at least, he was pretty sure. He could already feel his heart starting to fracture. Whatever he