Page 40 of Jarran

But then, he thought about the females in the training bay. Second generation. Built on Pella Rin’s research, refined by Durik’s engineers. They’d fought him and Evie in the bathroom with no hesitation and no recognition of what they were doing or why. Unhindered, Durik would keep making them. More females with different purposes. The Sifter network would grow, fed by the science Pella Rin had perfected and the infrastructure Pella Rin had built. Every one of those females was his responsibility. Every engineered female who came after them would be, too.

And there was Taron. He closed his eyes as an ache bloomed in his chest. If he ran, Taron would never get the apology he deserved or the closure he’d earned. Jarran owed him more than silence.

He opened his eyes and looked at the stars. There was room enough to disappear out there. Room enough to hide for the rest of his life, but even as he imagined it, he knew running wasn’t the path he’d choose.

He would go back to the Korath-7. Not Virilia. Durik had probably sent scouts toward that planet already, and the Coalition would have questions Jarran wasn’t ready to answer on Virilian soil. But the Baylan base ship couldn’t have been destroyed completely. Durik didn’t have that capability and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t have wasted the resources to obliterate a massive base ship for a simple abduction. It was probably being repaired right now, crews working to restore the systems the Sifter attack had damaged.

He would go there and tell them everything: The hybrid-making technology. The network locations. The supply chains, the recruitment methods, the conditioning protocols. He’d lay out in detail everything Pella Rin had known and made. The Baylans and their allies would have the tools and knowledge to dismantle the Sifters for good. They were advanced enough to know what to do with that knowledge, and they were a fair species. Inherently decent, from everything he’d observed during his time as their patient.

And afterward, he would accept whatever punishment they and the Virilian governments deemed appropriate.

He did not deserve to disappear into a quiet life. The females in that training bay deserved better. Taron deserved better. Evie deserved a male who faced what he’d done instead of running from it.

Evie shifted and made a small sound, then lifted her head. “Hey.” Her voice was rough with sleep.

“Hello.”

She blinked, then looked at him. Her eyes were puffy and her hair had flattened on one side. She looked disoriented. “How long was I out?”

“A while.” He smiled at her. “It’s okay. You needed the rest.”

“You did too.” She straightened, rolling her neck. “You should have woken me up. Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He meant it, mostly. “Are you?”

She rubbed her face with both hands. “I’m starving. And I smell like flowery bath salt.” She dropped her hands and looked at him. Really looked, the way she did when she was assessing a patient. “You are not okay.”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m fine, Evie. Really.”

She held his gaze for another beat, then let it go. He was grateful for that. She knew when to push and when to leave it alone. It was one of the things he loved about her.

“I set a course,” he said. “A small way station. Fuel depot, rental rooms. Pella Rin never visited it, and the Sifters haven’t done business there. It’s only a few Earth hours away.”

“Thank you.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “We need to eat. And sleep somewhere that isn’t a cockpit seat.”

“Agreed.”

A pause. “And we need to talk about what happens next.”

“We do.” He kept his voice steady. “When we’re there. When we’ve eaten and rested. I am tired.”

She studied him again. He could feel her turning something over, running the data, looking for the thing he wasn’t saying. She was brilliant at that.

“Okay,” she said. “We can talk later.” She leaned back in her seat and pulled her feet up under her, folding herself into the small space beside the pilot’s chair. “Wake me up when we arrive. Or if anything happens. Or if you start feeling weird.”

“Define weird.”

“You know what I mean.”

He did. She meant Pella Rin. She meant the implant. She meant the push at the edges of his mind, the pressure that never fully receded, waiting for him to crack. “I will.”

She closed her eyes. Within minutes, her breathing evened out again.

Jarran sat in the pilot’s seat and watched the stars slide past and felt the weight of the choice settle into his bones. Solid. Final. Terrifying in a way that had nothing to do with Pella Rin and everything to do with the simple fact that doing the right thing meant walking into a cage, and he’d spent enough of his life in cages to know exactly what that cost.

A light blinked on the communication panel and he held his breath as the signal, sent on the old frequency, blinked out a message. Taron had heard him.

One word, in Virilian. Where?