Variant: A science fiction thriller (The Predictive: Deep Space Fringe Wars Book 2)

by L. V. Lane

  The recovery cell door opened, and a smiling Riley entered. She had a data tablet in one hand and a projector cube in the other. People were a necessary part of life I endured at best, except for Riley, who despite her terrible experiences at the hands of the Federation, was the most uncomplicated person I knew.

  She leaned in to speak to the medic, her voice hushed, and after a brief discussion, Brent left us alone.

  I indicated the chair beside my pod, settled back into my temporary bed in a quest for greater comfort, and said, “Tell me everything.”

  Riley grinned as she sat, not at all put off by my terse demand. “I will start by showing you.” She placed the holo-pod on the table and tapped on the viewer. An image displayed of a planet. I caught my breath at the swirling rotation of green, blue, white, and gray. “It’s beautiful.” I glanced toward Riley.

  “Yes, Coulter-416 has been quite a surprise. The Commander is proposing we name it Serenity.” She gave a crooked grin. “A little premature perhaps, but it has a far more pleasing ring than Coulter-416. I don’t believe anyone will dispute the claim or offer a better alternative.”

  Delight shone from Riley’s face. Aterran faces were always symmetrical, but there was a slight asymmetry to Riley’s. It made her unconventional; it made her unique. I loved the subtle imperfections and found them both fascinating and attractive.

  My eyes narrowed in thought as I returned her attention to the holograph. The time-lapsed rotation revealed what appeared to be unnaturally symmetrical. “It’s too perfect.”

  “Yes, you are correct.” Riley smiled again. “I wondered if you would pick up on that. Most people observe there is something odd about it without knowing what.”

  “Please elaborate.” Riley was being circumspect with the details. I didn’t doubt she had her reasons. If it were anyone else, I would be expressing my displeasure by now, but I had come to trust Riley.

  I was supremely cognizant of manipulation. During my early adolescence, I learned to exploit my skills and manipulate people. It was not a period I was proud of, and it was my only source of shame. Not that much shame, I admitted. I still abused my power on occasion.

  “It has been terraformed—comprehensively so. The biodiversity is exceptional. Our initial assessment suggests ten to fifteen thousand years of stability.”

  “After the probe?” The Aterran conglomeration had mapped thousands of worlds over many a millennium. Worlds we never bothered with because there were so many more viable opportunities closer at hand—and a war to be waged. Only developments in stasis, coupled with the escalating conflict that had risen to genocidal levels and dragged every colonized planet into its vortex, changed our desire to seek more distant star systems.

  “Yes, several thousand years after the original search probe identified it as habitable.”

  “Who did this?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t know. The city is small, and although it’s hard to distinguish the details from here, it’s not a familiar design.” She made a couple of gestures and the image rotated to show a glistening city with several soaring towers rising out of the lush vegetation. “The odds of finding a previously mapped planet inhabited are remote enough to be considered statistically impossible.”

  Yet someone had been here. “It’s not Federation,” I said.

  Trigger.

  “No, not Federation.”

  There was the slightest inflection and my attention shifted to find Riley’s haunted eyes staring without focus at the holo-view of the planet. The bloodiest phase of the war had seen the extinction of many subgroups within the Federation; be it at the hands of the Aterrans or their own. In the final push, known as the Mad Wars for good reason, dire acts of genocide had been commonplace. But that was the Federation’s history, and not ours.

  Riley’s pain settled around me like a barbed cloak that instilled a sharp echo of what she felt. As a Hota, she had been at the bottom of the caste pile. Her only use to them was in her skills with technology. I had heard from Eric about the forced breeding programs her people had endured as the top caste sought to enhance docility and technology skills. “It’s not Federation,” I reiterated.

  Riley returned a lopsided grin again and the pulse of pain eased a notch. “You can’t know that yet, Eva.”

  “I can if you do.”

  “I don’t know what to think yet.” The young technologist rubbed a tired hand over her face.

  “Yes, you do,” I said softly.

  Riley’s sensitive gray eyes found mine. “I’ve let my emotions get in the way of true judgment.”

  I felt my face soften with compassion for the young woman who had suffered so much.

  “You know, you still disturb me at times with your premonitions, but for once, I’m glad you have them,” Riley said.

  “They are not premonitions, Riley. I’ve just learned to trust my subconscious mind to process facts better than the conscious part can.” I reached for her hand, taking comfort from the connection. “I’m tiring.”

  “Okay, Eva,” Riley said. “I’ll be waiting when you wake up.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Eric

  LIGHT FROM THE wall viewer suffused the operations room of the transit ship Intrepid in a pale glow as it displayed a live stream of Coulter-416, most recently named Serenity. We were facing the side predominated by sea and the image had been zoomed to show a swirling blue and white expanse.

  “How are the revivals going?” I asked the medic, Brent, who had just joined me.

  “We’re making good progress,” Brent said. “A total of fifteen individuals are experiencing extended periods of fatigue. We will continue to monitor them, but these numbers are within normal range, and we expect them to make a full recovery.”

  “Good,” I replied. “How about Eva?” I didn’t normally dedicate time to worrying about Eva, and she sure as fuck wouldn’t appreciate it.

  Enquiring didn’t mean I was turning soft. I was just being a diligent 2IC.

  The medic smiled, which I thought a bit odd in relation to a discussion about Eva. Maybe she was still too groggy to give him a hard time?

  “Fatigued, but the scans indicated nothing to concern us, and she has been released for active duty.”

  “So, she wasn’t too confrontational, then?” She’d definitely seemed a bit cranky when I was there earlier, although I had pushed a couple of buttons. In my defense, it was hard to resist. And payback was a form of therapy, right?

  The medic’s smile faltered. “I read extensively on predictives when I learned of her inclusion, so I was prepared.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  The medic’s face scrunched in a wry grin. “Not very well prepared, if you must know. But the Technologist’s visit helped her mood immensely.”

  Yes, Eva’s attachment to Riley was a surprise, but I wasn’t complaining, far from it. I would salute whatever planetary alignment or ancient voodoo magic was at work. Still, Riley was uniquely sweet if a little fatalistic at times. And she had a nice ass, which I was still mentally scarred about given I thought she was a man at the time when I first noticed.

  “Okay, keep me updated.”

  Taking his cue, Brent exited the operations room.

  Alone for a rare moment in the madness, I made my way over to the seating area and let my focus rest on that unexpected planetary bounty. I wondered what would become of us. This was a one-way trip, after all. Everyone we knew would be long dead and the worlds we left behind could have found peace or utterly destroyed one another in war.

  There had been no communications to confirm or dispute these options—that there should have been a communication worried me. It made me glad Eva had joined the expedition.

  I still wondered how I hadn’t killed Eva during our childhood, particularly the ‘over-sharing’ phase, where she had offered up my failings and misdeeds to our parents with a guileless sweetness that made me contemplate her accidental, and not-so-accidental, death in rich and elaborate de
tail. Yes, some of the plots had been extremely detailed.

  The post ‘over-sharing’ phase was worse. I then received her censorious glares that no amount of torture could extract the meaning behind. I had spent far too much time wondering if she was predicting my imminent demise. It wasn’t a great way to go through childhood and I had packed up and enlisted at the first opportunity.

  Since then, I had seen little of Eva, barring our brief reunions. When she had informed me, in her imperious way, that she was joining me on this colonization venture, I had burst out laughing. Later, after the shock had settled, a sense of rightness had prevailed. Of course, Nammu had changed things too.

  Still, I firmly believed there would be days to come when I would revisit those childhood death-plots.

  “We’ve completed the analysis and the probes are ready for launch.” A woman’s voice shook me from my thoughts. I’d been so focused on the viewer and Serenity that I hadn’t noticed the doors open.

  I’m losing my edge. “What are the predictions?” I asked.

  She blinked in confusion.

  “The system predictions.” No one could mention the word prediction without assuming Eva could offer some sort of insight. You’d think she was some sort of bloody oracle the way people carried on.

  “Less than one percent within an acceptable timeline.”

  “That good, huh?”

  The technical expert shrugged. Her name was Cathy, and she bore the strong features of a multi-generation Aterran in a way that made her more handsome than classically beautiful. “Searching for new planetary opportunities was a secondary consideration. We have used valuable resources to produce the interplanetary probes; resources some might argue were better spent elsewhere.”

  “Some?”

  Her lips were tight and her smile cool. “My background is military. I’ve seen too much to be impartial in this. Serenity is ours. Someone took it. We should take it back.”

  I smiled, finding it difficult to find an argument against her aggressive approach. Still, I was confident, for all of Landon’s outward precautions, the Commander would be doing everything in his power to see us settled on the beautiful planet. Peacefully, if possible…

  “It might not come to that.” I gestured at the viewer. “No hostile moves, and this could work out fine without spilling blood. You heard what Riley said. Their technology is unknown, better if we don’t provoke a response we can’t handle. This isn’t exactly a military vessel. Sure, we have a few options, but not many. The search probes need to go if for no other reason than to keep our future colonists hopeful for a less bloody future.” That last gem of diplomacy came courtesy of Landon’s earlier prep talk with the military leadership team.

  “Lie to them.”

  I chuckled. “Military to the core.”

  “I’m okay with lies,” Cathy stated. “I dare say the Commander may be lying to me, too. I know more than most as a person working in the technical field. Many times, I’ve wished I knew less… I’m also wary where I lay my trust. Riley has yet to gain mine. She knows too much.” Cathy’s lips twisted into a grimace as she nudged her head at the viewer. “Perhaps she knew about this before we left?”

  My eyes widened, and Cathy’s return smile held triumph.

  “Riley is a Technologist who defected. She’s been broken by the horrors or by her masters. Either way, she should be watched. I would think less of our Commander if he were not doing exactly that. It’s possible Riley is loyal to us now, or perhaps she has plans in play.” Cathy’s eyes settled on the viewer. “This is irregular, and she could be involved. Did we select this planet? Or was our selection guided, I wonder? It’s a conundrum, I’ll admit.”

  “Be careful where you whisper such opinions, Cathy.”

  Her lips tightened, but she otherwise displayed no remorse.

  “Send the probes out,” I said. The conversation made me uncomfortable. I wanted to trust Riley and I didn’t like well-meaning, if suspicious, crew members spreading rumors. “The Commander has asked for a briefing at twelve-hundred hours.”

  Inclining her head in acquiescence, Cathy left.

  I watched her go with troubled eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Eva

  AFTER THE STANDARD twenty hours post stasis awakening, I was reinstated with a communicator and allowed out of the recovery cell. Free from the constant poking, prodding, and medical checks, I returned to my allocated quarters where I showered, changed, and felt almost human.

  For the masses, the accommodation consisted of basic sleeping dormitories and common rooms. By contrast, my suite was spacious and fitted with every modern luxury.

  And I still didn’t want to stay here, floating around a planet we could look at but not touch.

  It felt a lot like we were on the brink of spinning out of control again. This wasn’t a prediction, but a natural human dread of taking a one-way ticket to a destination only to find it had already been claimed.

  I believed myself to be altruistic. I had dedicated my life to the war and the defense of the Aterran people, but the decision to abandon the Empire still brought a terrible guilt.

  I knew I couldn’t save them because I predicted it. I made the right decision. Right decisions were often the hardest ones. The Edson incident remained a black mark of failure. Then Nammu came along and that was another wild ride.

  The crazy events surrounding the loss of the research station Edson-46, and the subsequent chaos at Nammu was forever emblazoned on my mind. The technology race was over—it was the beginning of the end of the war. And despite escaping Nammu, we were not on the winning side. That attack had signified much, and I would not wait around to witness the future terrors I’d predicted.

  The infamous business mogul, Victor Loire, had approached me many months earlier about the colonization venture, but I’d delayed making a commitment. Edson was pivotal, and it confirmed my decision to leave as the right one. I recognized the downward descent of humanity, and whatever badass came out on top of the two former great civilizations’ death-throes was no one I wanted to meet and a society I had no desire to be part of.

  Now, I was here as a last hope to escape the endless war only to find a different, but no less compelling, kind of trouble.

  I left my quarters in a somber mood. There were several key experts Landon asked me to speak with, of which Lai, our climatologist, was the first.

  As soon as I entered the research station, Lai greeted me with a smile.

  “Landon wanted me to show you what we have on Serenity,” she said.

  The remark about Landon carried a hint of awe; Lai had developed a fixation with the Commander that bordered on hero-worship during the month-long preparation. It wasn’t like I was with Landon, the pair of us were treading tentatively around one another like we hadn’t got all hot over a desk where anyone might have walked in. Lai’s interest still stung. I couldn’t work out how things had become so awkward between Landon and me.

  My mind skipped back a few beats. “Serenity?”

  “Yes, the Commander has recommended the name.” There was the slightest pinkening of her cheeks.

  I mentally rolled my eyes before a sense of puzzlement took over. Riley had said something about the planet naming, I recalled, and then I’d been distracted, and after, I had fallen asleep. The stasis had taken its toll.

  Oblivious to my distraction, Lai sourced a holo-image of the planet.

  I had seen it several times now, but my breath still caught whenever I studied that impossible beauty.

  “It looks so peaceful, doesn’t it?” Lai zoomed in on the image. “Not quite so peaceful underneath, watch this.” She indicated a section of the image showing several huge swirling cloud formations. “Hurricanes are forming over the ocean. The whole planet is subject to unusual weather.”

  She brought a time-lapsed version to the display. Swirling clouds transitioned across both land and sea with alarming regularity. “The biologists believe the terraforming is com
plete, however, the climate is violent and unpredictable. We have limited data, but the planet life appears to be coping. The main issue is the rain.”

  My brows drew together. “Please explain.”

  “The planet has a single landmass with climate ranging from temperate to tropical. I would best describe it as a monsoon season, except I’ve never seen a monsoon this extreme.”

  “Habitable?”

  “Yes, it’s habitable; but not comfortably so. The city is in a temperate region, which has a preferable climate. Perhaps it’s to do with their method of terraforming? Who knows. It’s far too early for conclusions and we’re witnessing a tiny snapshot. The planet rotation is three standard years long, and I’m recommending we study for this period before committing to more than reconnaissance on the surface… assuming we do colonize.” Her eyes searched mine. “Will we colonize, do you think?”

  I shrugged because I had nothing predictive yet. “That’s Landon’s decision.”

  “But you will influence his decision?”

  I nodded reluctantly.

  Lai’s face turned down before her troubled gaze settled on the image of Serenity. “We’ve come all this way, and have given up so much to escape an endless war. It seems bitter luck to find it again here.” She gestured at the viewer. “We left everything for this.”

  “We left nothing,” I corrected.

  “Is that what you really believe, Eva? That there is nothing left? That our people and our civilization are gone? That they destroyed themselves absolutely? That we, and the few ships that follow, are all that’s left?”

  A sudden tiredness gripped me, a residual effect of the stasis, or my vivid prediction of all those deaths. I had never made a wrong prediction and the consequences rarely changed. Maybe there was some hope for the people we had left behind. I liked to think there might be. “We are here. We must face our challenges; not look behind.”

  “Another nine ships full of colonists are following,” Lai said. “It was coming apart when we left… anything might have happened.”