“Within limits. Evie gave me permission because of all the help I’ve given her.”
The coded messages. Right. “Find out anything useful?”
“I’ve heard back from my house. I think I convinced them that someone is deliberately spreading chaos. They’ve been getting transmissions that seem to be coming from near our outer holdings, but when the homeworld dug a little, they discovered that the transmissions originated from the wrong part of space.” She frowned hard in what Judit had come to think of as her natural expression. “And all the rumors they’ve heard about various attacks can’t be true.”
Judit had no doubt that many of them were false. Each house had its own news agencies, its own ways of gathering intel and data. Vids and transmissions were easily faked, and it took someone picking through them to discover what was real and what wasn’t. The more easily intercepted a news story was, the greater the chance that it was designed to mislead. Nocturna’s anti-Meridian propaganda was legendary.
“Which reports have they deemed false?” Annika asked.
Elidia smiled. “One attack supposedly involved this ship, and since I’ve been aboard the whole time, I could guarantee that one didn’t happen. Once I did that, my house looked harder into the others.”
Judit rubbed her temples, her anger spiking. Now people were spreading lies about her ship, her crew? Did she even want to know what they’d claimed she’d done? “Well, either it’s a complete fabrication, or someone thought we were going to be somewhere else. Maybe Feric hoped to lure us into a fight.” She sighed. “Annika, do you still think this is your house stirring up trouble?”
“Sparking rebellion, sneaking around, and shady transmissions?” Annika said. “It sure sounds like us.”
“Makes me think it isn’t,” Elidia said. “It’s too obvious now.”
“But most people will think it is Nocturna,” Annika said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Nocturna saw major backlash whether they’re behind the chaos or not.”
Judit groaned. First, the kidnapping put Nocturna and Meridian at each other’s throats, then the agitation of the lesser houses put lesser against greater. Now whoever was behind this would try to turn more of the greater houses on one another.
They needed what they always did: more information. “If I spoke to my family,” Judit said, “I don’t think they’d tell me anything more than yours did. They’d demand I come back.”
Elidia shrugged. “Even with the information I gave them, mine ordered me back, too. Though they knew they’d been manipulated, there was an air of ‘we can take advantage of this.’”
“And that’s not something you want?” Annika asked, her tone disbelieving.
Elidia gave her a long look. “As much as I despise your houses, I know that if they unite, they will eventually annihilate the smaller houses. Worse still, houses like Munn could get trapped between the houses and the unaffiliated that will rise up against you. Besides, you two and Noal don’t seem as if you’re trying to burn everything to the ground.”
“I didn’t think the galaxy would ever come to this,” Judit said. “I thought the marriage would solve everything.”
Annika shook her head as if she couldn’t believe such a thing. “But surely, the history—”
“Hoping the marriage wouldn’t happen, fantasizing that you might be mine instead?” Judit shook her head. “That was too painful.”
Annika took a step toward her, but after a glance at Elidia, she stopped.
Elidia chuckled. “You two are pretty cute.”
Judit rolled her eyes. Of all the things she’d ever endeavored to be, cute hadn’t been one of them. “Do you think House Munn will spread the word and get others to see the truth?”
“As I said, I think they mean to take advantage of it. And some other small houses might think the same, but we can try. If we send out a broad transmission with all we’ve discovered, someone might listen. Maybe other people will start looking for whoever is behind this mayhem, someone with more resources than we have.”
That was true enough.
“In the meantime,” Elidia said. “I think I should go back. I can keep working on this from my own household.”
Annika gave Judit a cautious glance. As Noal had said, though, she tended toward paranoia. Elidia had never hidden her contempt for the galaxy’s largest houses. Judit saw no reason why she’d stop being honest now.
She led the way to the bridge. “Bea, locate Munn’s nearest holding.” She turned to Elidia. “We can’t take you to your homeworld, sorry.”
“No, that’s smart,” Elidia said. “I can get a ride.”
Judit nodded. They wouldn’t announce they were coming, either. Not only did they not want a Meridian or a Nocturna warship waiting for them, they didn’t want an unscrupulous Munn to see them as a ship of convenient hostages.
They made for a smaller system with an asteroid mining camp held by House Munn. The director was a cousin of Elidia’s, and she was certain he could get her where she wanted to go. Even folding between gates, it took two days to get there. Munn probably liked staying out of the major traffic lanes. It made them less of a target.
Judit took the opportunity to spend some time with Annika and Noal. Noal had been seeing a lot of Spartan and seemed closer to his jovial self. Maybe the chance to flirt was doing him some good. Annika seemed distracted when she and Judit weren’t intimately connected. Judit knew she had to be thinking of her mother, had to be working out a plan or pondering their predicament. Judit pondered it, too, all the possibilities whirling through her mind. When they were together, she tried to serve as a distraction.
She was worried for her house, for the future of the galaxy, but even as they took reports of further unrest, it felt good to be out with the people she cared about the most. They didn’t know everything, but they were doing something, and she was the chosen one! She wondered what rank she’d be when she went home again, what her new uniform would look like. She shouldn’t have been worried about such things, but after so many years of occupying an unidentified space in her house, she finally had a real purpose. Even if she had no real idea what that purpose was!
The thought made her laugh. It couldn’t restrain this new giddiness. She was more than the guardian of the chosen one; she was the chosen one herself. Surely she could get something done back home now. She could learn from her mistakes, get Meridian to stop trying to push people around. Maybe that would help with some of the resentment she saw in people like Elidia. And she was her own guardian. Unlike Noal, she’d never need a shepherd. Surely after all this chaos was done, her family would finally listen to her. With Annika by her side, they could create peace.
First step, end this chaos. And the more houses on their side, the easier that would go. To get Munn on their side, they needed to get Elidia home, and that would soon be done. As they approached the mining station, Judit waited on the bridge, looking to Roberts to alert her to the first sign of chatter.
When he caught her eye, he shook his head. “I’m not getting anything. There should at least be a repeating signal warning about mining ships in the area.”
Elidia frowned so hard Judit almost expected her to bare her teeth. “What’s happened?”
“Ships?” Judit asked.
Beatrice shook her head. “None that I can see, but there are plenty of places to hide.”
“A power failure?” Annika asked.
Judit hoped not, for the miners’ sakes. Maybe their comm was the only thing down, but Beatrice should have detected their ships. Maybe they’d abandoned the station. “Take us closer.”
The mining station had been built inside a huge asteroid, itself mined clear, leaving large gaping holes that Munn had filled or blocked off, creating a livable habitat inside a ball of rock. Judit expected to see the winking lights of the station as they came closer, but all was dark. The drifting asteroid field blocked the light of the nearest stars in flickers and starts, casting dark shadows over the station,
and no guiding lights welcomed them in.
“I’m detecting plenty of organics, but there’s no way to tell what’s alive,” Beatrice said. “There’s some movement.”
Roberts looked up from his console. “Still no signals of any kind.”
“If they had power, there’d be lights,” Elidia said.
“We need to go look.” Judit gestured for Beatrice and Evie to follow and headed for the shuttle bay.
Annika caught her arm. “Are you sure? This could be a trap.”
“Who knew we’d come here?” Judit said.
Elidia paused by the door, irritation on her face. “Are we going or not?”
“I’m coming with you,” Annika said. “I’m good in zero-G, and if the power’s off, that’s what they’ll have.” When Judit paused, Annika leaned close. “I’m not going to let you get into trouble without me.”
Judit breathed a sigh, happy to have her along and fearful for her at the same time. But after everything Noal had said about Annika’s survival skills, Judit was curious to see them for herself.
They suited up in pressure suits, thin enough to maneuver inside a station and protective enough to keep them warm for a few hours. The suits wouldn’t work long in the cold of deep space, but they’d do for an exploratory mission. The docking cables to the station weren’t functioning, so they were forced to cram into the shuttle for the ride over. The huge airlock doors were open, but nothing moved inside the cavernous dock. Shuttles had been heaped in the corner as if swatted by a giant hand. Some were floating against the wall as if pulled by the asteroid’s slight gravity. Judit’s breath caught as she spied several scorched patches of rock: weapons fire or an engine explosion. What the dark had happened here?
Beatrice set the shuttle down near the airlock into the station. As Judit stepped out, engaging the maglocks on her boots, she missed the hum of artificial gravity or the vibration of air reclamators. The whole place felt as dead as the rock surrounding them.
They moved slowly toward the airlock, Judit conscious of the gulf of space behind her. Annika seemed at ease, skating along, engaging her magboots enough for her to half float on the ground. One push too hard, and she would come off the floor and float away, and they might never get her back. Judit opened her mouth to warn against that, but Annika turned and grinned through her helmet, and Judit couldn’t tell her to cut it out.
They paused at the airlock. The scanners were dead, as were the cameras. Judit peeked through the window in the middle of the heavy door. A dark shape lay on the floor, something that could have been a person. She brightened the lights on her helmet and saw clothing, but whoever it was had their back to the window.
Elidia stepped up beside her, shining her own light through. “I can’t tell who it is. I didn’t know everybody here.”
“Are they alive?” Annika asked.
“That doesn’t look like a pressure suit,” Judit said. “And without getting in there, we can’t know if there’s air.” She banged on the door. No movement, not even breathing as far as she could tell. “If we want to get in, we have to get through. Bea, bring the shuttle closer.”
They moved the shuttle as close as they could and readied its airlock. If the person was alive, they could whisk them into the shuttle far faster than they could force open the doors into the station. “Ready, Annika?” Judit asked.
Annika nodded. As the fastest, she’d dart inside, grab the person, and leap to the shuttle.
Evie and Judit pulled the lever to manually open the airlock door. Annika dashed inside as soon as it was wide enough to admit her, but when she didn’t come out, Judit slipped in behind her.
Annika held a body in her arms, but the tattered clothes were only the beginning. The skin had nasty holes along the torso. Someone had shot him, and as Annika let go, he went floating, his liquefied insides trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.
Elidia turned away, and even Judit couldn’t stand to look. “Did you see his face?”
“He’s not my cousin.” Elidia put her hand up as if she might cover her mouth, but when it bumped into the helmet, she seemed to come to her senses.
“You don’t want to throw up inside that helmet,” Annika warned her.
Elidia gave her a black look. “Thanks for the tip.”
Evie took the body and left it in the shuttle bay. They didn’t know how many corpses they might find, so they couldn’t start stacking them in the shuttle. Beatrice joined them, lugging a portable battery. Judit felt safer having her along for her computer skills than waiting in the shuttle in case they had to make a quick escape.
They sealed themselves inside the station’s airlock, but there was no hiss of pressurized air from the inside. The power was still off, and Beatrice read no atmosphere inside the station either. Even if the life support systems had been down for hours, there should have been some atmosphere left inside, even if it was toxic.
“There must be a breach,” Evie said. “Probably from whoever shot up the shuttle bay.”
They forced the interior door, and a long hallway stretched in front of them. Evie clomped forward first, gun at the ready. “The security doors haven’t come down,” she said. “So the power went out before any breaches.”
Judit wanted to take it slow, but Annika bounded up with Evie. “Easy,” Judit said through the comm. “If you encounter the breach, you could get sucked outside.”
“All the atmosphere is gone, so nothing can get sucked out.” Annika glanced over her shoulder. “But thanks for checking.” Her tone was teasing, but every time she bounded through the halls, Judit’s stomach fluttered. She was right about the atmosphere, but Judit kept seeing her floating into space. Of course, they’d be in the shuttle and after her at once, but once outside, it was easy for something small to get lost very quickly.
Evie gave Judit a look that asked, “Want me to grab her?”
Judit shook her head. Those two getting into a fight was the last thing she wanted.
When they passed the first body floating in the corridor, Annika slowed anyway. A woman, no one Elidia knew, probably one of the workers. She’d also been hit by a pistol, but they didn’t have time to linger. They turned the corner and pulled up short. The corridor ahead was filled with floating bodies, all of them still, all of them slaughtered.
“You all right?” Judit asked, looking to Elidia.
After a moment, she nodded, and they continued, brushing past the bodies. Elidia’s breathing carried through the helmet comm, and Judit put a hand on her shoulder. Her own heart thudded, and she tried not to look at the ruined husks that used to be people. She’d seen dead bodies before, but never so many at one time. She knew she wasn’t supposed to care for those outside of Meridian, not beyond how they could serve her, but so much death and destruction seemed…evil.
Rooms led off this new corridor along with a staircase leading down. A few empty rooms held beds or tables, the flotsam of people’s lives floating unattended. They finally came to a closed hatch. Beatrice said it looked as if it’d been shut manually; whoever did it hadn’t been able to save the group of people they’d passed, hadn’t been able to get the airtight seals in place.
Beyond the door, a jagged hole marred one wall, and sharp pieces of metal bent outward into space. From the looks of a blackened conduit, something had exploded from the inside, but whether it was sabotage, an accident, or an unfortunate coincidence, Beatrice couldn’t say.
Many people had probably been blown into space along with the atmosphere. Judit thought it a blessing they had at least died quickly. They found other bodies caught on pieces of metal or conduit. No doubt there were some trapped behind closed doors, but they didn’t hear anyone banging to get out. At each door, Elidia knocked but heard no response. When they reached the nerve center of the station, maybe they could restart the power in some sections and contact anyone who might be alive.
The nerve center had been sealed, but someone had cut the bolts keeping the door shut after the powe
r outage. The scene inside was much like the hall. Bodies were hung up on every surface, all of them with those same liquefied holes. Beatrice moved to the main console and affixed her battery, trying to boot up so they could see what the dark had gone on.
The console blinked sluggishly and put up a flickering display. The surface had been cracked, but it was in better shape than most. A hulk of a console in the corner looked as if it had blown completely. Maybe the power had been cut via surge rather than sabotage.
“Okay, looks as if the station has a few closed doors.” Beatrice pulled up a locator designed to find employees by the ID chips implanted in their skin. “I’ve got idents…one is moving!”
“Can you ping their comm?” Elidia asked, moving up beside her.
“Not from here.” She clacked her jaw. “Roberts, I’m sending you a signal.” She played with the display for a few moments. “Roberts is pinging them. A response!” She turned to Elidia with a hesitant smile.
Elidia breathed a sigh of relief. At least they could save one life. It might even be her cousin. “Where?”
“Roberts says he’s trapped in the pantry. We better hurry. He’s running out of air.”
“Bea,” Judit said, “stay here and see what you can piece together. Elidia and Evie, let’s go get your man. Annika…”
“I’m so happy you paused before barking orders at me,” Annika said with only a slight bit of sarcasm. “I’ll stay with Bea.”
* * *
Annika watched with amusement as Judit left to save the poor soul trapped in the pantry. She was out to save the whole galaxy, it seemed, but self-sacrifice was one of the things that made Annika love her as well as fear for her. She was so darking noble, and someday, it was going to get her killed.
She turned her attention back to the console as Beatrice pulled together the logs of the station, trying to sift through damaged information. The stationmaster liked to drone on about mining schedules and repairs, logging every minor accident and cataloguing the day’s ore supplies.
House of Fate Page 14