Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  Dev put her hand on the panel of the accommodation next to the one Jess ended up in front of, watching as it turned purple, then blue again as she felt that deep itch in the chip under her skin. A moment later, the door opened and she proceeded inside.

  The walls inside, as outside, were squared and smoothed. There was a small sanitary unit in a recessed area, a space to hold things carved into the stone and, to her surprise and mild delight, a hammock swung on the other side of the door instead of a bed.

  Very plain and very utilitarian. Dev nodded in approval as she removed her pack and set it on the rock shelf, divesting herself of her jacket before she removed her scanner and tuned it, glancing around as it started up.

  There was inset lighting in the roof and a comms panel was set in the wall near the sanitary unit.

  It wasn’t different, really, than the transient quarters she’d spent the night before leaving the crèche in, and she spared a smile for that now distant time, and the hours she’d spent unable to sleep, wondering what her new contract would be like.

  Her scanner beeped gently, and she went back to it, hitting the key to let it start its work as she turned slowly in a circle.

  It picked up the four of them at once, already keyed, already marked as friendly. She caught the blip that was Doug doing the same thing she was as their scanners saw each other and then went past.

  The level they were on didn’t have much to tell. A lot of voids in the rock that were shaped like the chamber she was standing in, then onward past that to other levels and larger returns.

  Dev’s brows lifted as the scanner passed over large energy returns that refused to resolve and then security rings of what she recognized as the kind she was used to in the Citadel, protecting spaces deep inside.

  Then a brief blast of power as a scan came back at her, and she felt the tickle against her skin before it disappeared.

  Interesting. Dev put the scanner down on the flat surface and then sorted out her things, leaving most of them in the pack but removing the small sanitary kit she usually took in the carrier with her. She went to the unit and inspected it, a little surprised to find a square shower area virtually identical to the one in her Citadel quarters.

  She even found hollows in the stone with fabric in them. She picked up a piece of the fabric and sniffed it, the scent matched the sea foam spiciness she knew from there as well.

  Well, Jess said a lot of people at Interforce had come from here. Perhaps they’d brought these things with them.

  She heard a faint knock at the door and returned to her pack. She picked up her scanner and jacket and moved toward the entrance, pausing a moment to make sure the person outside her quarters was Jess before she pushed the unlock.

  It seemed this place was somewhat incorrect. She poked her head outside the door to find Jess and April there, packs still on their backs. “Hello.”

  “See anything?” Jess asked.

  “Many things,” Dev replied. She reversed the scanner and handed it over. “I sorted them by relative correctness.”

  Jess inspected the scanner and April edged around to look at it, while the other door opened and Doug emerged, rubbing his head. “Did they do this just to piss you off, Jess? Smacked my noggin twice already.”

  Jess glanced at him with a smile. “Something like that,” she said. “Most of the time visitors were shorter than we are. The ceilings are higher where the family sleeps and on the lower levels.”

  “So at least half of us are safe here,” April remarked. “I noticed in the entrance there you have a lot of tall people around.” She looked at Dev. “Right?”

  Dev made a little face. “Pretty much everyone’s taller than me. I didn’t actually notice that.”

  “Mmm.” Jess handed back the scanner. “Let’s go take a walk.” She pushed the door open to Dev’s space. “I’m going to drop my stuff in here. That okay, Devvie?”

  “Of course.” Dev got out of her way and reset the scanner, restricting it to near in readings, mostly standard returns moving around but not approaching them. After a moment, she retrieved the stored record that was her partner and applied it as a filter.

  Doug peered over her shoulder. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Figuring out which persons share bio with Jess,” Dev said. “It’s interesting.”

  April emerged from her assigned space and a moment later Jess joined them. “We’ll start at the top,” Jess said. “Might as well climb those long ass stairs to start with.” She led the way back toward the landing.

  “No elevators?” Doug asked.

  “Only to move freight. Everyone else is expected to use the steps.” Jess seemed mildly amused. “Old customs.” She started the climb upwards. “Family quarters were on the second level though. The higher you ended up the lowlier you were considered.”

  April chuckled.

  Dev admired the iron railing on the steps they were climbing, sturdy, but decorative in whorls and shapes that gave her something to look at while they were walking. The exercise itself didn’t bother her and it was interesting as they got higher and higher, closer to the roof.

  “How long did it take them to build all this?” April asked, after a moment or two of silence. “Generations must have.”

  “A lot. They started off below and built up.” Jess reached the top landing and looked up at the hazy view of clouds overhead through plexi so thick it was taller than she was. “Story was, someone back in the day said they did this so when the rain finally stopped and the sun came out again, we’d see it.”

  They all looked up at the sky light in pensive silence. “Can’t even imagine what that would be like,” April finally said. “The sun I mean.”

  “I think I saw a vid once,” Doug said. “Or maybe that was a bonfire. I don’t remember.”

  Dev, being the only one present who had actually seen the sun, remained quiet.

  “Anyway,” Jess said, indicating the level. “This is actually storage. They don’t hate anyone enough to make them live up here. The big lifts are along the west backbone.” She led them over to a large, central opening and looked inside.

  Doug stared at the huge space with it’s arched ceiling. Inside were barrels and crates and bags of pretty much everything, all stacked in areas, all marked. In the distance, two men were moving a floating pallet along, with boxes on it. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Jess said. “I used to play up here.” She turned and started back down. “Then they finally roped the stairs off so my little punk self couldn’t get to it.”

  “Jess, I can’t imagine—” Dev started.

  “Me as a little punk?” Jess seemed amused. “You’ve seen pictures, Devvie.” She paused on the next level. “Want to see the armory?”

  April perked up. “For sure. Got any old timey stuff there?”

  “Oh yeah.” Jess started down another hall. “Think they even have some cavalry sabers.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah.”

  IT WAS DARK by the time the tour was over, and Dev had swapped out her scanner memory twice to capture all of it. They’d used the cover of Jess’s apparently random showing off of her birth home to poke and pry and inspect, ending up in the food hall, almost full at that hour.

  There were no food dispensers, Dev noticed as they claimed a back table. Just a big island in the center of the hall with basins of edibles in them, attended by workers who cycled back and forth into an inner chamber, taking out empty basins and bringing them back full.

  It smelled good. She slung the scanner around to her back and followed Jess to the island, aware of her stomach rumbling. Jess handed her a plate and she took it, aware suddenly of the workers all watching her.

  It went quiet, a little.

  Jess seemed to realize it and paused, resting her wrist on Dev’s shoulder as she let her eyes travel from worker to worker in a grim, silent threat. They dropped their gaze and started back into motion, grabbing some empty pans from the other side of the island.


  “Try this.” Jess went on as though nothing had happened. She reached over and scooped up a thick, stewy substance and deposited it on Dev’s plate. “Clam stew. One of the only places on the seaboard you’ll find it.”

  “Thank you,” Dev said. Jess pointed out this and that, and Dev ended up with a full plate as they made their way back to the table.

  “If you could sell that look,” April said, as she put her plate down and sat. “You’d be able to buy Interforce, y’know.”

  Jess chuckled humorlessly.

  “What’s their problem?” Doug asked, lowering his voice. “They’ve got a problem with Rocket?” He glanced at his fellow tech in some puzzlement.

  “Yes,” Dev answered before Jess could. “Doctor Dan explained to me that this location doesn’t approve of bio alts.” She paused to ingest a mouthful of the stew, chewing it curiously and swallowing. “Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about that since I can’t stop being one.”

  “Neither can they, so they better get over it,” Jess added, raising her voice a bit so it would carry. “Unless they want to go scrape rocks.”

  When she looked back up and across the table at the crowd, no one looked back. Jess grunted in satisfaction and went back to her plate, hoping that would be the end of it.

  THERE WAS A small area just past their assigned quarters where the hallway opened up and provided a space to gather in. There were some chairs around a heater, with a utilitarian drink dispenser on one side and a water tap.

  Dev and Doug were seated side by side, comparing notes. Jess was reviewing the scans with April, and they all had hot cups of tea by them as they worked along in relative silence. The lamps in the walls gave them decent light, and far off they could hear the faintest rumble of thunder.

  The rasp of bootsteps made them all look up, and both Jess and April got up and faced the opening. After a moment though, Jess relaxed. “Hello, Jimmy.”

  James Drake entered and pushed back a hood of waxed fabric from his head covered in rain. “Jess,” he said, and gave the rest of them a brief nod. “Just got back. Sorry about the quarters.” He looked around. “If you’d have given us a few days notice—”

  “Shut up, Jimmy,” Jess said, in a mild voice. “There are a half dozen rooms free down on two. Someone decided to be petty enough to irritate me but not enough to make me snap their neck.” She went back to regarding the notes from the scanners. “Next subject?”

  Jimmy visibly reddened.

  “Get everyone in the business office tomorrow after first chow.” Jess looked up at him again. “I’ve got questions, since I’ve got some time and I’m here.”

  “Jess, look—”

  “Look nothing.” She cut him off. “Until Legal sorts this, it’s my gig. I know someone’s running scams so get everyone in there, let’s get it on the table.”

  “Jess.”

  “Yes?” She folded her hands and stared at him.

  Her brother sighed. “I came over here to ask you to come talk to us,” he said. “Just family.”

  She studied him in silence for a long moment, then shrugged. “Sure.” She turned to regard her little group, all of whom had the same more or less identical noncommittal look on their faces that told volumes about what they thought about the idea.

  Jess actually found it sort of charming and she smiled a little at them. “Keep an eye on things,” she said. “Call me if you need me.” She touched the comms clipped to her jacket and then she turned back and gestured at Jimmy. “Lead on.”

  He waited until they were on the stairs before looking at her. “You could have let us know you were coming.”

  “I could have,” Jess said. “But I’m under ops and it was a better idea not to.” She let her eyes scan the hall as they descended. “So what was up at the processors?”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Not much. They were just asking if we could up our output. Two of the uprange homesteads died out.”

  “Just left?”

  “Something like that. They stopped sending product and when we went to go find out why the places were empty, they weren’t there.” They reached the second level landings and Jimmy turned, making her stop walking. “The whole rooms thing wasn’t on purpose, Jess.”

  She gave him a sardonic look.

  “If it was just you, wouldn’t have been a problem,” he said. “Don’t blame Brion. He did the best he could. No one wanted strangers in the family area.”

  “No one wanted a bio alt there,” Jess countered. “Even one with Interforce creds.”

  Jimmy looked away and half shrugged. “You said it, I didn’t.”

  “Jimmy, it’s fine.” Jess took a step toward him, forcing him forward. “I’m a lot happier bunking with them where we are. As I told Brion, this isn’t my home. Move. I’ve got dockets to review.”

  “You’re really going to go through with this? You’re going to the conclave?” Jimmy didn’t move. “Really Jess? It’s not your home, but you’re going to screw us all over whose home it is?”

  Jess shoved him hard, sending him flying against the wall. She walked across the landing after him and grabbed him as he bounced back. “Listen, moron.” She held him against the rock surface. “Get it through your thick skull that I’m just following the damned law. I have no choice. Until Interforce Legal gets it’s head out of it’s ass and figures out how to get me out of this, I’m in it. You want to blame someone? Blame Dad.”

  “You can just turn it over, Jess.” He squirmed against her hold.

  “I can’t.” Jess thumped her forehead against his. “I’m not civ, you idiot.”

  He went still. “What?”

  “I. Am. Not. Civ,” Jess repeated. “I’m active duty Interforce. I won’t have access to my civ profile until I retire.” She thumped him in the head again. “It was a fluke, Jimmy. No one planned this.”

  “Ow. Stop it,” he muttered. “Shit. Are you kidding me? The legal comp here said...you really can’t do anything?”

  Jess sighed, and shoved him down the tunnel that led to what she’d once called home.

  “CAN YOU SEE her?” April perched on the arm of the chair Dev was sitting in.

  Dev watched the wireframe. “Yes, she’s in the second level area we identified. It seems relatively nominal,” she added, evaluating the speed of Jess’s motion.

  “Mmm.” April got up. “I remember where the chow hall was. I’m going to see if I can get a fishroll out of them. C’mon, Doug.” She glanced at Dev. “You want to stay here?”

  Dev nodded. “Jess is expecting me to remain in this location. Please be careful. There are many areas we couldn’t fully scan here.”

  “Right.” April motioned to Doug. “Bring your rig.” She waited for him to gather his scanner up before she led the way up the passage toward the stairs.

  “I’ll bring you back a snack, Rocket,” Doug called over his shoulder. “Hang tight.”

  Dev watched them go. “Hang tight to what?” she murmured under her breath, going back to her scanner and its readouts. She was relaying through the carrier so she had that system’s far greater range and storage, but even that couldn’t get through some of the security. “Very interesting.”

  She adjusted a setting and reviewed the results, flipping back and forth to the wireframe to keep an eye on Jess. She seemed to have stopped in one area now, and the wireframes in the space seemed to also be stopped and seated.

  “Hm.” She shifted the sensors, and regarded Jess’s outline. Her skin seemed cool and she appeared quiescent, so Dev decided all seemed well and she went back to her bio scan, tracking April and Doug as they climbed up to where the food place was.

  A soft scuffing made her look up, and she retargeted the scanner in close and found a wiremap moving toward her. It wasn’t doing anything to hide its presence, and she detected no energy based weapons on it, so she closed the scanner and waited.

  It didn’t occur to her to call Jess.

  Yet.

  JIMMY
LEFT JESS in the family room and went to get the others. She walked over to the structure that had once been a fireplace, and still had a mantel and heating element inside it. She looked up at the wall it was set into.

  The memory wall, they called it. All the generations of her family who had died were listed on it. On one side those in the cause, on the other those outside it. Hand hammered metal, the Interforce dead including their rank and accomplishments.

  Last of all on that side, her father’s. She stood quietly, studying it.

  “Hey there, Jessie.”

  Jess turned her head. “Hey, Uncle Max. Didn’t know you were in port.”

  He chuckled and ambled over to her. He was a tall man with a limp and snow white hair, a full beard and moustache to go with it. “Came in yesterday. Hella catch. Needed an offload.”

  “Nice.”

  “So.” Max hitched up one strap of the waxed overalls he was wearing. “Justin cocked us up some bad, hah? Make you the Drake? What the hell?”

  “I don’t think he did that on purpose.” Jess demurred.

  “Fishballs. Of course he did.” Max shook his head. “Too smart for his own damn good, always said that. Wasted his ass all those years in service. But now what?”

  “Legals trying to sort it out.” Jess knew there wasn’t much point in arguing with Max. Her father’s eldest brother, with a full share of Drake assholery and the independence that came with being a ship captain to go with it. “Meantime I’ve got to do the dance.”

  Max laughed. “Bet they’re all pissing.” He poked her. “What’s I hear you brought a jelly bag here? Didja? Piss ’em off all the more?”

  Max had been at sea during their last very brief visit, Jess recalled. “My tech partner.” She said, succinctly. “So yes.”

  “Say what?” Max stared wide eyed at her. “Those people over the hill out of their minds? You out of yours?” He put his gnarled hands on his hips. “The hell?”

  Jess heard footsteps approaching. “It’s a longer story than we’ve got time for right now, unk. I’ll introduce you later. It’s not what you think.”