Chapter 8

Then maybe Briscoe would still be alive. And now it was too late. A warning siren went off in the ship, rising to hysterical intensity. Bart thought, incredulously, _this is really happening_. It felt like a nightmare. His father a fugitive from the Lhari. Briscoe dead. He himself traveling, with forged papers, to a star he'd never seen. He braced himself, knowing the siren was the last warning before takeoff. First there would be the hum of great turbines deep in the ship, then the crushing surge of acceleration. …