Off Planet

by Aileen Erin

  A court officer stepped through the doorway beside the raised judge’s dais. “All rise.” A ripple of motion moved through the courtroom as everyone followed his order. When I moved too slowly, my shirt collar was yanked up from behind.

  “Up you go,” Jim said.

  No witty retort came to me. All my energy was focused on not throwing up.

  “The Thirteenth Court, Judge Parson, presiding,” the court officer said as the judge entered the room.

  The judge’s black robes billowed behind him, a nod to times that had long since left Earth. Some traditions kept the people passive. This was one of them. The illusion that there was a justice system. That people were innocent until proven guilty, but that wasn’t true. Not anymore. Anyone who was arrested was guilty. SpaceTech had decided that long before anyone ever stepped foot inside the courtroom.

  The judge sat, his chair groaning under his extreme girth. The company’s silver logo was backlit with a blue light behind him—the angular font “ST” for SpaceTech. It hung over the judge as a reminder in case anyone ever forgot who was really in charge.

  The judge looked down at us from his high-up chair, making me feel mouse-size. He popped a hard candy into his mouth before tapping his gavel. “Case number 34532, SpaceTech versus Maité Martinez is called to order.” The candy rattled in his mouth as he spoke, garbling his words.

  Everyone sat down, and I followed, thankful that I hadn’t fainted yet.

  “Your Honor, the State charges that Ms. Martinez attacked Jason Murtagh, Head of Security for SpaceTech Corporation, breaking his nose and causing both extreme physical and mental trauma.”

  Yup. I definitely beat the crap out of Jason. Not that anyone would know now. He’d probably shot up with nanos before he left the diner that night. He’d have been back to normal in a few hours or less.

  The judge’s hand waved through the air, and I wondered if he was scanning my file through his lace. “The penalty requested is one year of service on Abaddon.”

  I gripped the wooden chair, nails digging grooves into the wax layer.

  Abaddon? That wasn’t a prison sentence. Murtagh was sending me off to do work detail? Why?

  SpaceTech needed their powerful lucole mined and refined to keep their space fleet operational, and that took a whole base of people working on Abbadon to keep production up. It wasn’t just people working with the lucole, but also a large support staff—doctors, cooks, janitors. But who would want to scrub toilets on a volcano planet that could blow up any second when you could do it safely on Earth? So, SpaceTech filled the base with prisoners and called it a work camp.

  Convicts usually served out a shorter term on Abaddon than they would on Earth, but some of the jobs were beyond dangerous. A lot of them didn’t survive their term, no matter how short it was.

  “Defense, how do you plead?” the judge asked.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor. Mr. Murtagh placed his hands on Ms. Martinez’s person and inside her underwear, which—as Your Honor knows—is sexual assault by Mr. Murtagh.”

  I went cold at my lawyer’s words. Yes, it was sexual assault, but was it wise to point fingers at Jason right now?

  “She was protecting herself from the unwanted advances of Mr. Murtagh, the initiating party. Her actions should, therefore, be ruled as self-defense. We have witnesses—”

  The shiny lawyer stood up. “Your Honor, these witnesses’ backgrounds are not—”

  Mr. Waterson shot out of his chair. “Objection!”

  The lawyers started arguing back and forth—each turning red in the face—but I had my eyes on the judge. He wasn’t listening to either of them. He was too busy rifling through a bag of candy, searching for the right flavor.

  This was a full-on farce. My anger was ramping up, and I was doing my best to keep it from showing on my skin, but it was hard—a real struggle—as I watched the judge ignore everything being said. Every argument went unheard.

  The judge pulled out a neon green one.

  Green apple? That was the worst. This man was the worst.

  After he carefully unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth, the judge banged his gavel three times. With each slam, I jerked in my seat. The sound was too final. My heart started hammering in my chest as I waited to hear what was going to come next. I spared a quick glance at Declan, but he was leaning forward, staring hard at the judge. His white-knuckled grip on the arms of his chair showed me that he was just as anxious as I was.

  “I’ve heard enough. I find in favor of the prosecution. Guilty as charged.”

  My breath came in quick pants.

  “The Court finds the Prosecution’s request as to sentencing appropriate. One year at the work camp at Base STC-498, also known as the Abaddon Station.”

  The room spun, and I put my head between my knees. No. No. Fucking no. This had to be a mistake.

  I lifted up just a bit and glanced over to Declan, begging him to do something, but he gave me a small shake of his head.

  I was so screwed. If there was one thing worse than signing up for those suicidal lucole mining runs on Abaddon, it was being sent to work off a prison sentence there.

  Going to Abaddon was always the worst option. How was I going to get out of this?

  Jim placed his hand on my shoulder, and I twisted to look at him. “I don’t understand. Why does he want me there?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know why exactly. This wasn’t where we thought you were headed…”

  “What?” That made this so much worse. If Declan didn’t even think this was a possibility, then I was truly screwed. He was supposed to know his brother, but apparently I wasn’t the only one in the dark here. It made me wonder if Declan’s cover was already blown.

  “I have to talk to your friends. We need to get a plan ready before…” He must’ve seen something through his neural lace because he froze and his skin grew pale.

  “Before what?”

  Declan got up, shoving his chair away and stormed over to us. He grabbed the collar of my jumpsuit and twisted it, lifting me from my chair.

  “What the hell?!” I yelled, trying to shove him away. What the hell kind of game was he playing?

  “You listen here, you little bitch. You fucked with the wrong fucking family.” He screamed the words in my face, spit flying. He gave me a sharp shake, and then lifted me off the ground by my jumpsuit. My feet weren’t even grazing the ground as he leaned into my ear. “You stay alive.” His words were so quiet, I could just barely hear him. “I don’t care what it fucking takes. You do what you have to do, but you make sure you stay alive.”

  I started to cry. “How?”

  He gave me another shake. “Give me three weeks. Four max. I’ll have you out of there. I promise, but you have to stay alive for me.” He pressed a soft kiss against my neck. “I’m so, so sorry. You’re going to have to make this look good.”

  I was about to ask what he was talking about, but I didn’t have to. He threw me down, and I crashed into the chair hard enough that it wobbled. Declan looked at me like I was the lowest scum in the universe and then slapped me across the face.

  I didn’t have to fake it. My face felt hot, and I could feel the shape of his hand like a brand against my skin. I’d been hit harder before, but not like that. Not when I was barely hanging on. Tears streamed down my face. I’d never felt more alone than I did in that moment.

  I knew that he only did it because he was being watched. My neck was still warm from the soft kiss. But the look he gave me was worse than the slap, even if it was just as fake.

  I watched Declan as he disappeared from the courtroom. The doors swung shut behind him, and he never looked back.

  The judge started banging his gavel again.

  “The court is remanding Ms. Martinez into the custody of SpaceTech Officer Ahiga for immediate departure to Abaddon.” The judge slammed the gavel a final time.

  Of course. The asshole who interrogated me. That just made my day.

 
I watched him approach me with a small med-gun in his hand. He grabbed my arm before I could move and placed the med-gun against my arm. A tiny chip floated in saline solution inside the chamber.

  A tracker. “Shit.” I glared at Jim. “I—” I couldn’t have a tracker. It’d drive me crazy before the week was up. I tried to free my arm, but Ahiga’s fingers dug in.

  “Hold still or it’ll hurt worse,” Ahiga said. “Don’t make another scene.”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed down the cry of panic that was threatening to break free. My former life was gone. As crappy as it was, it’d been mine. Fighting with the Crew. Teaching. Even the shitty job at the diner. It might not have been much, but it was mine.

  “Son of a spacebat!” Pain radiated, numbing my arm. “What? No count to three?”

  He grinned, showing his full set of perfectly straight white teeth. “Easier when it’s a surprise.”

  I waited for the tracker’s onslaught to my system but oddly felt only the tiniest of blips. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the implant in my finger had been, which made no sense. It had to have been modified for Aunare. I didn’t even know that was possible.

  I stared at the doors Declan had disappeared through. Was the tracker his doing?

  Ahiga yanked me to my feet before I could think too hard. “Let’s move.”

  This was actually happening. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I was going to be alone up there. Completely under SpaceTech’s control. In that moment, loneliness and dread threatened to swallow me whole. Only Ahiga physically dragging me down the hallway kept me upright.

  When we got outside, a black SpaceTech-issued armored hover vehicle sat at the curb. Ahiga shut off the alarm with a swipe of his finger and opened the back passenger-side door. “Get in,” he said.

  The last twenty-four hours of my life had been surreal, but this just seemed off. I was walking out into the daylight wearing a shitty orange prisoner jumpsuit, and no one was stopping me. No officers were watching. It was just Ahiga and me standing beside a car. “Don’t I need to be, like, processed or something? Or handcuffed? Or—”

  “Do you want to be handcuffed?”

  “No!” I sighed. “I just… Is this how this normally happens? I thought it’d be more—”

  “Traumatic?” Ahiga grunted. “No. This isn’t how it’s done, but Declan personally requested you be remanded into my custody. That means I decide how I handle you. It’d be best if you never, ever questioned me again.” His words held a whole hell of a lot more than a hint of threat. “Get in the car.”

  The words had a bit of a snap to them, making me think I was pushing his patience level, but he mentioned Declan putting me in his custody. Declan’s move, not Jason’s. Did that mean that he was an ally? I wasn’t sure. Maybe the interrogation was clouding my judgment. Maybe Ahiga was a good actor. He’d have to be to play both sides.

  I climbed into the car and took a deep breath to steady myself. Three out. Three in. Six out. Four in.

  He passed me a packet of wipes and a protein bar as soon as he got in the driver’s seat. “You’re getting my ride dirty.” He pushed the power button, and we lifted three feet in the air.

  My back slammed into the seat as he weaved the AHV through traffic.

  I stared out the window as the Albuquerque sights blurred by. It’d been my home for a long time. Not anymore. If I had anything to say about it, this would be the last time I’d be on Earth. Hopefully, Abaddon would be a short stop on the way to somewhere better, and this wasn’t the beginning of the end, but I knew better than most that hoping for something wasn’t going to make it happen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ahiga was all business once we got to the SpacePort. He dropped me off at a cryo processing center, where I was given clean clothes and taken to a bathroom to shower. I got the feeling that it was mostly to get ready for the cryo chamber, but it also seemed like the nurse who was logging me thought I was diseased. She walked behind me, disinfecting everything I touched. Her muttering as she cleaned up would’ve normally bugged me, but not today. No. Today had already gotten as bad as it could get.

  Abaddon. I was getting sent to Abaddon.

  As I stepped under the hot spray of the shower, my body felt like it belonged to someone else. I wished that I could be anyone else or that this was a dream that I could wake up from. But I could only be Maité Martinez right now, and this was my life.

  I wanted to believe that everything would be okay, that I was going to somehow survive on my own, but my nerves kept bubbling up inside of me and I couldn’t let them take over. I needed to be able to think straight if I was going to honor Declan’s demand that I stay alive until he could find a way to get me to Sel’Ani.

  I scrubbed myself down with soap, trying to wash the fear and prison stink down the drain. When I’d scrubbed so much that my skin turned red, I started on my hair.

  Declan had said a lot of things in the courtroom, but he’d also kissed my neck and slapped me. Both were massively distracting. My face was still sore from the slap, and the spot on my neck was so hot it was like I’d been branded. I knew the slap had all been for show—he had a cover to maintain—but the kiss?

  What the hell was that kiss about?

  I pressed my hand to my neck. The feel of Declan’s lips against my neck had me wondering so many things, but none of them were important. Not when I had to focus on surviving.

  Declan said he needed four weeks. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t very long, but I didn’t know what Abaddon was going to be like. The only way to survive was by shoving that kiss out of my mind and focusing on little wins. I switched the shower off and wrapped myself in a towel.

  For now, I’d count the shower as my first win. It might not be a big deal, but it was a start. The water had been perfectly hot and steamy. It didn’t stink of the chemicals they used to scrub all the pollution out of the water. I had soap, shampoo, and conditioner. The fake floral scent wasn’t my favorite, but anything was better than what I’d smelled like before my shower.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a start to thinking positive. I was going to do this. I was going to survive. Jason Murtagh was going to regret messing with me by the time this was all said and done.

  The pajamas the nurse gave me were softer than silk compared to the scratchy orange prison jumpsuit. I almost didn’t mind the SpaceTech logo above my left breast. Almost. The pants were loose, but not too baggy. I pulled the drawstring and double-knotted it. The tank top was fitted, but thankfully not as thin as the pants. Otherwise, it might have been indecent. They’d given me a pair of slip-on running shoes that had papery soles with the lightest touch of rubber coating. I wasn’t sure they’d hold up for anything but walking to the cryo chamber, but all in all it was way better than I was expecting for a convict.

  When I exited the changing area, Ahiga was sitting in one of the cushy white chairs sprinkled throughout the mostly empty room. He was wearing a pair of navy sweatpants and a gray tank top with a SpaceTech logo on the left chest. It showed every inch of his arms. He had muscles piled on muscles. Not that I was particularly surprised. The man was massive.

  I wasn’t sure what to think of Ahiga. I was leaning toward him being an ally, but he was big and scary and looked like even the fires of hell wouldn’t thaw the ice in his heart. The tribal tattoo that covered the right side of his face might have scared off most people, but I was in the Crew. Everyone in the Crew had tattoos, even me. Mine was a tiny little thing, just on the inside of my hip bone, but it counted.

  One of Ahiga’s giant hands nearly concealed the glass he was drinking from. He placed it down next to him absently. His gaze was fixed on the vidscreens across the room from him, and I could see his jaw ticcing.

  The news was showing footage of one of the colonies. Ships were taking off from a massive spaceport. The reporter was yammering about IAF being ordered to a system I’d never heard of.

  I glanced back at Ahiga, and his jaw was
still tight. I wasn’t sure what he was upset about. It looked like business as usual to me, but there was a lot I didn’t know. My resistance sites had a hard time confirming their stories, and I was never sure who or what to believe.

  I took another step into the room to find a place to sit, and that was enough to catch Ahiga’s attention. He waved me over, and I went to stand next to him.

  “Why are we the only ones here?” I figured that there would be more people waiting, but it felt like a ghost town. A way too clean ghost town.

  “With the gala and everything that was going on, most ships left a few days ago. It’ll be a week or so before travel resumes to normal. This flight was specifically booked to be the only one leaving from this cryo processing terminal.”

  “Okay, but where are the people going on this flight? It can’t be just us.” That would be a crazy waste of fuel and definitely not something that SpaceTech would ever consider doing.

  “It’s only us and the ship’s crew. We’re catching a ride on a supply run.”

  “Supply run?” I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, but I just assumed that every flight out had passengers.

  “Not a lot of people choose to go to Abaddon,” he said as if reading my mind. “And everything has to be shipped to the base, so this one’s probably loaded down with food and meds and whatever else they need up on the base right now. Takes two weeks in cryo to get there, so they have to send a lot in one go. Someone else was supposed to join us—a sign-up for mining runs—but he bailed at the last minute.”

  “That happen a lot?” I didn’t even realize you could back out after signing up.

  He shrugged. “It happens. Especially after a few people bite it in a row.”

  The news didn’t really talk about how many people made it or didn’t. The ads SpaceTech ran were all about the benefits if you finished all five runs. I’d figured if someone did that, then it’d be newsworthy, but maybe I was wrong. “How many miners actually complete their mining runs?” Since he was being so forthcoming, I figured I’d ask him questions until he stopped answering.