Two hours later, Jason had to resign himself to the inevitable: he wasn't going to meet Lucas's timetable. Jason rubbed at his eyes, inspecs bright against the darkness. "s.h.i.+t."

He was tired. Staring at command windows and the framework of a security grid he had no hope of breaking would exhaust anyone.

Right on schedule, Lucas commed him. "Finished?"

"I finished the communications you wanted, but we've got a problem."

"That's not what I want to hear."

"I managed to hack the security feed around here earlier only because it was tied into the same system Novak hacked on our flight over the Atlantic. I got lucky with the artillery, but I can't hack this last system, Lucas. It's completely separate, half of it is tied into biometrics on-site, and I'd need a week, at minimum, to build a back door."

The comm hummed softly with static. Jason winced as Lucas implanted an image directly into his mind for a visual. "Get back here."

Jason extracted himself from the hack and closed out before teleporting back to the shuttles sitting on the airfield a kilometer away. Alpha shuttle had its cargo doors open, metal ramp digging into the dirt. Lucas was standing at the edge of the ramp, bright blots of red dripping from his nose to the metal beneath his feet. Lucas might not have been hemorrhaging anymore, but nosebleeds were common while suffering through psi shock. Jason was surprised the younger man was capable of walking, much less pulling off an attack on a government outpost.

Shaking his head, Jason jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Longyearbyen. "Security grid for the island is set. The artillery on the mountain is dormant now, but the security system tied into the seed bank is something else."

Lucas wiped at the blood dripping from his nose, flicking it off his fingertips. "If we jacked Novak into the hack?"

"He's burned through all his neuroports."

"We could strip new ones onto different nerves and modify the ones in his brain."

Jason stiffened. "That will kill him."

"Most likely." Lucas turned his head to stare south at the flat-topped, small mountain that rose into the sky nearby. It was mostly white near the peak, the rest dark rock and dull green moss. "If you can't hack it, we only have one option."

Lucas headed back into the shuttle, Jason on his heels. Matron and Kerr were huddled near some of the cold-storage units, with Samantha and Kristen sitting nearby, watching them. Jason didn't see Threnody or Quinton.

"Did you scan the terrain?" Lucas asked Matron as they got closer.

"This place don't get tectonic s.h.i.+ft like other continents," Matron said, glancing up from the readouts on the unit's control screen. "That road is stable enough, but I wouldn't want to land a shuttle on it. Lucky for you, two of the shuttles that survived are carrying the gravlifts. We'll be able to transfer whatever Jason can't teleport."

"I take it I'm the stevedore," Jason said with a heavy sigh.

Matron smiled at him, showing a line of metal teeth. "You know you're worth more than that, so stop complaining."

"Is the hack finished?" Kerr said.

Jason shook his head. "No."

"Then how the h.e.l.l are we getting inside that mountain?"

"Better question would be how are we doing it without tipping off the government?" Matron said.

"They won't know what's happened up here until it's too late," Lucas said, heading for the flight deck.

"You sure about that?"

"We'll be in Antarctica by then."

"We'll be where?" Jason said. "What the h.e.l.l, Lucas? You want to go from polar day to polar night? There are other places in the world we can go to ground that are less extreme."

"And that's exactly where the government would think we'd go, except we won't be in Norway, Greenland, or Canada. There's no other place to match the Arctic except the south pole. Antarctica wasn't worth the trouble for the government to excavate after the Border Wars, which means they won't be searching for us there." Lucas glanced over his shoulder at them as he palmed open the hatch to the flight deck. "The seeds need to be kept frozen. These shuttles won't run forever."

Matron snorted. "Tell me about it. We're gonna have to refuel somewhere between here and there. Hope you've got a place in mind."

"Just stick to the plan and don't ask questions, Matron. You'll live."

"You keep saying that. I keep not believing it."

Lucas ignored her in favor of Quinton's sharp gaze. "I need Threnody."

"No." Quinton stood up from the navigator's seat. Threnody was curled up in the pilot's seat, seemingly asleep, but at the sound of Lucas's voice, she opened her eyes. She looked worse than she had before the fight.

"You don't have a choice."

Quinton put himself between her and Lucas. "She can't handle whatever it is you need her to do."

"She survived a focused lightning strike. She can survive this. Move."

Quinton's fist smashed against Lucas's jaw hard enough to knock the other man on his a.s.s. Pain stabbed through Lucas's skull from the blow, blood trickling over his tongue from where he bit it. Black dots edged his vision, telepathy slip-sliding against his shaky s.h.i.+elds. Lucas sucked in a deep breath, taking a few seconds to anchor his s.h.i.+elds before anything else. Then he propped himself up on one elbow and glared at Quinton.

"You're starting to annoy me, Stryker."

"Quinton," Threnody called out, pus.h.i.+ng herself out of the seat. "Lucas-don't."

Telekinesis yanked Quinton forward, slamming him onto the deck beside Lucas with enough force to knock him briefly unconscious. Lucas used those few seconds to roll over until he was crouched over Quinton, hands on either side of the pyrokinetic's head.

Wake up.

The older man's eyes jerked open as that harsh mental order stabbed into his mind. Blood dripped out of Lucas's nose, falling onto Quinton's cheek.

"Still a b.l.o.o.d.y telepath, even with psi shock," Lucas said, voice low and flat as he moved one hand to Quinton's throat. "I'm not powerless here."

"f.u.c.k you," Quinton forced out between lips that barely moved, telekinesis holding him down.

"We don't have time for a hack. Threnody is the only one who can get us into the seed bank. And she will. You don't get a say in the matter."

Lucas pressed his hand down hard against Quinton's throat, feeling the ridges of the other man's trachea roll against his palm. Quinton choked from the pressure, incapable of fighting back.

Cool, shaking fingers pressed against the back of Lucas's neck. He felt a faint, warning electric tingle against his skin. "Let him go, Lucas."

Be grateful Aisling needs your life, Lucas said into Threnody's and Quinton's minds. I would eradicate you if given the choice, Quinton.

Lucas stood up, his telekinesis s.h.i.+fting off the other man. Quinton dragged in a ragged breath of air, shoving himself to a sitting position. Lucas bared his teeth at Threnody around a split lip. "Ladies first."

Threnody shook her head and walked away from him. Quinton got to his feet and followed Threnody to the cargo ramp. Lucas tracked their movement, watching as Quinton supported Threnody with a care he showed no one else.

"Matron," Lucas said. "Pick half your crew to come with us up the mountain. The rest can stay here and organize the shuttles for loading."

"You psions up to the task?" Matron said, eyeing them.

"Worry about your own people."

Matron knew better than to argue and took herself out of the shuttle, yelling for Everett and Novak. Lucas focused his attention on his sisters and the other two Strykers as Quinton and Threnody argued in whispers near the cargo ramp.

"Let's go," Lucas said.

"Are you sure about this?" Kerr asked, glancing from Lucas to Threnody. "If all she's doing is frying the system, won't that trigger an alarm somewhere?"

"The alarm would have to reroute through the outpost first, and Jason has done enough damage that it won't get very far. No one outside of the highest reaches of the government knows about this place, and the government is busy dealing with the mess in Buffalo," Lucas said. "The Strykers were never informed of this location, so a teleport can't happen. The World Court won't send a team by shuttle until it's too late and we'll be long gone by then. It's still a calculated risk, but we're taking it."

"And is using Threnody up a calculated risk?" Quinton asked harshly.

"We're all taking a risk here," Threnody said. "Let it go, Quin."

Jason shook his head. "I don't know if I can save Threnody again, Lucas. My first few attempts apparently didn't take."

"Keep her breathing until we reach Antarctica, that's all I need," Lucas said. "I've got someone there who can help if it comes down to it."

Surprise flickered over Jason's face. "Don't tell me you've got black-market surgeons stashed all over the world?"

"When I find useful people, I keep them."

"I've always liked your collections," Kristen said as she skipped past them for the cargo ramp. Everyone followed her outside.

Matron and ten of her scavengers were busy hauling three gravlifts off two shuttles. The machines were capable of carrying heavy loads on the flatbed, with lifts that could deposit the cargo on any given surface. Their max was half a ton, and they would be utilized as much as Jason's telekinesis.

"These are good," Matron called out to Lucas as she hauled herself up into one of the gravlift control seats. "No damage on the flight out."

"You know how much of whatever's in those vaults you want to load?" Everett asked as he climbed onto another gravlift. He sported a quick-heal patch over his left temple, having taken a minor beating on the flight out of Buffalo.

"Half or more of everything the World Court is hiding in there," Lucas said.

"Yeah, you better hope we've got room."

"If we don't, you stay behind." Lucas climbed up onto the flatbed behind Matron and settled in for the ride. "Your scavengers need a refresher course on how to take orders."

Matron glanced at him over her shoulder. "I lost more'n half my crew getting your a.s.s out of the fire back in Buffalo. Leave them alone."

The Strykers and Lucas's sisters climbed up onto the flatbed, finding handholds along the edges where straps were coiled into shallow recesses. Kerr helped Quinton get Threnody on board, the two men working in silence to steady her and help her get comfortable. When they were ready, Matron started the gravlift and steered away from the airfield to the rarely used road.

The incline wasn't that steep, and the long, winding road seemed stable. The wedge of metal sticking out of the mountainside was covered in moss and seemed like part of the landscape. When they reached the level part of the road, they pa.s.sed by the remnants of an old-fas.h.i.+oned gate off to one side, the rusted metal still visible. Up ahead, the dirt road curved until it cut parallel to the entrance of the metal wedge. The gravlifts were locked into a hovering line behind Matron's lead when they arrived, the engines a soft hum in the chilly air.

A faded logo could be seen on the side of the metal wedge: The Svalbard Global Seed and Gene Bank.

"Why can't we teleport inside?" Everett said as everyone started to climb off the gravlifts.

"Teleporting requires a visual," Kerr said as he watched Quinton and Jason help Threnody get her feet on the ground. To his eyes, she wasn't looking too steady on her legs. "You can't teleport to some place you've never been, not unless you want to end up embedded in a solid object."

Lucas took a careful step forward, letting the rusted support ramp that linked the road and the entrance take his weight. The metal creaked, the sound a grating echo in their ears, but it held. He a.s.sumed the government had replaced it a few times over the years. Lucas looked over his shoulder. "Threnody."

"Front and center, yeah, I know," she said.

Quinton had her by the elbow as they walked across the ramp slowly, trying not to jar her too much. Jason was right behind them while everyone else waited on the road. Threnody leaned heavily against Quinton, staring at the control panel.

She swallowed thickly. "I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I'll be fast enough."

"I can have Kris turn off the pain," Lucas said.

"No. I'll lose myself that way."

"Then I'll anchor you."

Stepping forward, Lucas carefully pressed one fingertip against her temple. Threnody flinched from the pressure, skin still sensitive. She needed a biotank, but he didn't have one here to put her in. Lucas closed his eyes and concentrated on pulling his telepathy together. He hadn't lied about his ability to recover. That still didn't mean it was easy. Psi shock made it difficult to focus, and Threnody's mind was disturbingly quiet when he dipped into it.

We fixed your body, but I forgot about your mind in the aftermath, Lucas said, his words ghosting over the shadow of her thoughts. I wasn't in any shape to fix it.

Meaning?

You blocked out a good chunk of what happened in Buffalo and your mind is still reorganizing those memories.

Psions don't forget.

This isn't you forgetting. It's you rebuilding. We just need you to do it faster. I think if you have those memories as a template, you'll know how far you can push your power.

He bypa.s.sed her s.h.i.+elds, coiling his telepathy around the pulse of her personality, thoughts, and memories buried deep beneath the shock of trauma that still lingered. He dragged Threnody's mind into full awareness, steadying her as she reconnected with the memories of her fight at the power plant.

The pain wasn't something Lucas could block, and it drew a ragged sound from her, like an animal's. Quinton closed his eyes, holding himself perfectly still even though he obviously wanted to s.h.i.+eld her from Lucas's implacable drive and their current desperate need.

"Thren," Quinton whispered.

She didn't seem to hear him, face screwed up in pain, hunching in on herself when she should have been resting in Alpha shuttle.

Threnody, Lucas said. The doors.

She remembered lightning. He felt the protest in her thoughts, in some distant, primal memory that came from the mind knowing the limits of the body, but she was a Stryker and Threnody knew how to follow orders. She knew the cost of disobedience. She was here with Lucas because of it.

Blue eyes cracked open, dark with pain. Breathing harshly, she lifted one hand to the panel. Faint sparks popped around her fingers, tiny electric lines emerging from her skin. She was mere centimeters away from touching it when she stopped, hand curled like a claw.

"It's not enough," she panted. "I don't have enough power in me to do this."

"You will," Jason said.

Threnody's breath came in shallow, painful gasps as she pressed her hand against the control panel. Threnody was a Cla.s.s III electrokinetic, and her power was the only option in light of the failed hack. Electricity sparked along the tips of her fingers. The surge she was readying wouldn't be enough to do the damage they needed to fry the system before the alarm triggered.

Jason fixed that. Fixed her.