She held it firmly for a moment, but finally relented.
“She was trying to delete the footage, Hawk,” Jinx said. “Before I stopped her.”
“That was an accident,” Aster pleaded.
“Luther, what do you think?” I asked.
“You trusted her to join our mission, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Sure, but I don’t have a good track record.” I went closer to Aster. “Did you ever hear Bello or Grid talking about a takeover?”
“Of course I did. Liberty had already assured everyone we’d be freeing Earth from the Corporations when we gathered at Saturn,” Aster admitted. She handed her weapon to Luther.
“If Eclipse was in contact with the Velibar, why did she think she could…” I tried to make sense of it, but Jinx spoke over me.
“Eclipse probably wasn’t positive what would happen. When the Velibar came, she went with it, expecting them to invade through the opened gateway. We shut it off, and she was forced to pivot,” Jinx said.
“And when we flew to Refuge, Liberty made their move,” Aster finished. “Damn it. I hope Bello didn’t have anything to do with this.”
I tried to tell myself that Bello would never side with a maniacal leader that would turn on her own people, but Eclipse had attacked Primary City during team introductions. The only reason we’d accepted her into the fold was the threat of the Velibar, and the fact that she admitted her mistakes to her sister, Octavia Post.
“We have to go.” Luther passed Aster her gun. “You’d better not be lying to us.”
She gave him a nod and hurried from the mines.
Holland had the Racer primed when we entered it, and we sped from Titan.
We had a new mission.
Find Eclipse.
Stop Liberty.
____________
Octavia was regaining a fraction of her previous confidence when we slowed near Mars. “Elise wouldn’t have done this.”
“You saw the footage. Focus on the task,” I told the Lead Chair. Her tough visage had been cracked, and I worried all her strength was seeping through the openings.
Mars was clearly the aftermath of a warzone. A space station was still intact, but we received no response from it. The manufacturing plants were also off, and we flew toward the surface, checking the cities. We surveyed the Sage district but couldn’t find signs of people. They must have evacuated. That was a small saving grace.
I flew the Racer over the region at Lotus where the Pod Sprint from Space Race had taken place. There were a few crashed ships in the area, some clearly Liberty vessels. I took solace in the fact that our side had had the means to defend themselves.
“R11, leave a beacon. If anyone is alive and responds, tell them to contact us. We’ll send help later,” I ordered the robot.
“Captain, it is done,” he replied.
Barnes was hovering near me, unwilling to leave the cockpit. “Liberty. What kind of maniac are we dealing with? We’re under the threat of invasion from the Velibar and these other beings from Refuge, and Eclipse takes a chance on a revolt of this magnitude?”
“It was obviously Liberty behind the pirates at the Belt Station when they went for the Defenders,” I told Major Barnes.
“Makes sense.” Barnes gripped the head of my chair. “I’m going to kill that woman.”
“Not if I do first,” Octavia said softly. “My own sister. I should have known a leopard can’t change her spots. She’s always hated the way things were run, and despised me for being part of it.”
“We’ll have to find her,” Jade added.
“I think I know where she is,” I told them.
“Where?” Octavia asked.
“I’ll tell you when it’s necessary. I don’t want to risk anything getting out.” I might have been overreacting, but I couldn’t take the chance. Not after all the deceit. I only trusted myself one hundred percent.
“Fine, but we’d better hurry to Venus,” Octavia said.
We made the trip at FTL, and it looked quiet. There was no evidence of a struggle. No space stations, no hull debris. Just space and the planet.
“Was anyone in the bunker?” I asked them.
“Only the workers.” Octavia gave me the coordinates, and Varn led us there in his Racer. The surface of Venus was marred with craters on this side, and smoke rose from an active volcano. “We heat and power the bunker using the geological nature of the planet. It’s one of our greatest achievements.”
“I see that,” Jade said. “This is fascinating.”
“The bunker was meant to be a closed circuit, meaning no one could detect it unless they were directly on top. No dirty energy, which also meant no communication.”
I dropped to the rocky ground landing at the bunker’s fake hillside entrance.
“You should be able to access their comms from here,” Barnes told me, and Jade attempted it.
The viewscreen showed a familiar face. “Erik Trevors?” Octavia sounded surprised to see the man.
“Octavia? Barnes? We thought you were dead!” Erik’s face was covered with two weeks of stubble. “Is that Jade?”
She was at my side, waving to her uncle. “We’re here to help. What happened?”
“Thank God. Tell me you’ve dealt with Eclipse and her band of trigger-happy fools,” Erik said.
“Not quite.” I told him about our experiences at the Belt Station, then Titan and Mars, and he appeared to shrink from sight.
“Once Saturn went dark, we began to worry. At first, we believed it was a glitch with our new software, then Mars sent a message about an invasion. They were more prepared than the Belt, it seems. Or Titan. This is bad.”
“They hit the Moon?” Holland asked. I could tell he was worried about his father at SeaTech, but he didn’t ask yet.
Erik nodded, and a few other people filed into the room behind the Luna Corp CEO. “We saw them coming. Liberty didn’t have a foothold at my Corporation, and the moment their fleet started to arrive, under the guise of orders from Belt Station and you, Octavia, I sensed trouble. I sent evacuation notices,
