Eradicate (Manipulate, Book 3)

Chapter 19

Basher's ship

In transit

Claire had to watch the videos of the executions. How could she not? She couldn't just abandon Sage to his fate. That would be killing him in her thoughts before he was even dead.

When the ship was done jumping, she brought her tablet to Basher. He was still by the tiny table, fixing himself some coffee.

"How do I... Where are the videos?" She felt no need to be specific. What other videos would she want to find?

Basher didn't say anything. He took the tablet from her hand, and typed in a few things, dragged something to the corner, then typed one more thing.

"The icon in the corner is the Merith Prime news feed. It'll update automatically when they release the next video."

She nodded and felt him watch her as she left. She curled up on her bed, pulling her new blanket all around her before touching the small, ominous icon in the corner of her tablet. It was a Merith symbol of a skull, a bird skull.

A list of videos appeared, in reverse chronological order, so the most recent execution was at the top of the list. She wanted to know how long Sage had been captured, but she didn't think she could handle watching all the videos it would take to figure that out. So she settled for touching the most recent on the list.

It started abruptly, showing the amphitheater she'd seen on the first few videos. A smattering of Merith sat in the tiered benches, and the low stage was scattered with worse devices than she remembered from the first video she'd seen several weeks ago. Her eyes skittered off strange blades and ropes and fixed on the ragged group of humans – Rik actually – that waited on the side. She tried to zoom in the video so she could see them more clearly, but it didn't zoom. There were more men than women in the group, and it was hard to tell for sure which one was Sage.

Then the guards started selecting prisoners, and the view switched to a close camera. And there was Sage.

Claire caught her breath and paused the video. She knew Sage didn't die in this video; Basher would have told her, but that didn't help. He would die, if not today then tomorrow or the next day, and she wasn't prepared for it. There was no way to prepare herself. Claire started it again, and watched Sage as he stared forward, his jaw clenched in either anger or disgust.

When the video was over, she lay still for a long time. When she got up, Basher was in the piloting room. He stood behind his partner, watching the screens.

He looked at her cautiously, but didn't say anything.

"I – I'm glad you told me," Claire said. "I know it's not your fault that he's there... but, well, I needed to know."

Basher nodded. "I can at least tell you that Francois is alright. He was released nearly a week ago."

Claire nodded and started to turn away and then froze. "Wait, he was released a week ago? So how long have they been there?"

"A while... you didn't ask..."

"I didn't ask? Are you kidding me? Of course I want to know if any of my friends are caught! I didn't think I needed to spell that out."

"You don't. But you seemed... so sure that everything was fine... I didn't know if I should ruin that for you, when you can't change the situation anyway."

Claire took a deep breath and Basher started to speak again, but she held up her hand to stop him. She took another breath, and forced herself to relax her shoulders as she exhaled. She was furious with Basher right now, but it wasn't entirely his fault. She'd thought everything was fine because she received that letter from Sage. If she'd told Basher about the letter, he would have been forced to tell her about Sage. She respected him enough to believe that he wouldn't have lied to her.