Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  To each other, they were everything—along with their kids.

  Surral’s mouth turned down in a way I knew from experience meant displeasure in the extreme. “No one ever expects you to do things at the expense of yourself, Tess.”

  I stood taller, even though it hurt. They were the ones who had taught me about service, about choosing others—and what was right—over myself, or the easy way out.

  “Then what’s the point of living?” I asked.

  At that, they both rolled their eyes, knowing any further argument was a lost cause.

  “Let’s go,” Mareeka said, waving everyone forward.

  Jax and Fiona each picked up a large case of the prepared injections. I carried a smaller bag, and Mareeka and Surral each took another case. That was it. That was all we had, and I hoped to the Sky Mother it would be enough.

  I glanced back at the ship as we left the dock. Miko gave me a quick wave. She and Shiori were already busy trashing the old numbers and putting up new stickers on the Endeavor. Between them, they had three hands and two eyes. They could do it, although seeing them up there on that ladder was a little nerve-racking.

  I heard kids calling out to me as we made our way to the medical facility on the sixteenth level. I smiled and nodded my hellos, recognizing most of the faces, even if I didn’t know everyone’s name.

  In sick bay, we arrived more to moans than to greetings. I swept worried glances around, taking in the feverish eyes and dry lips in faces that had thinned too much. My heart squeezed at the sheer number of kids, all lined up in beds that stretched on for what seemed like forever under the long string of faintly humming overhead lights. From what Surral had said on the way up, I knew that other large spaces looked like this one, and that the whole floor above and below us had been commandeered for medical purposes as well.

  A lump grew in my throat and stuck. I could hardly swallow. “There were no antiviral shots? Nothing?”

  “We ran out eighteen months ago,” Mareeka said.

  And I hadn’t found them more. I got the sudden, nearly unstoppable urge to yell in desperation. The orphanage wasn’t poor. It simply wasn’t given access to everything it needed, just like so many other places. There wasn’t enough of everything. There never had been, and there never would be. So the Overseer made choices. He chose his soldiers, his Sector 12 cronies, his political friends, and all the rich influencers across the galaxy who wanted safe, healthy planets to live on and could give him the support he craved and needed. I wanted those people to suffer for once while these kids got the medicine they needed, the medicine those people took for granted and bought so easily with a flash of universal currency and an indifferent smile.

  “The sickest ones are here,” Surral said. Then she nodded to a few beds down.

  Coltin.

  I moved toward him, dread weighing me down. Loving one kid in particular didn’t stop me from seeing the other children, too. Some of them were so heartbreakingly small. So pale, despite their variety of skin tones. So deathly still.

  “Has anyone died?” I asked softly as Mareeka followed me toward the boy who was mine in a lot of ways that counted.

  “We lost the first six yesterday. Three more this morning.” She squeezed my wrist when I stopped in shock and horror. “You got here just in time.”

  I shook my head. Nine little lives lost. That sounded like two days too late, not just in time.

  Crushed and starting to shake, I knelt next to Coltin’s bed and touched his feverish brow. His long lashes looked like dark fans against his pallid skin. His too-shallow breaths wheezed in and out.

  “Hey, sweet bee.” I brushed his sandy-blond hair back from his forehead. “It’s me, Tess.”

  Slowly, Coltin’s eyes opened. They were blue, like mine.

  “I knew you’d come.” His words cracked and scratched, his voice so weak I could hardly hear him.

  I bit my lip, fighting tears. “Nowhere I’d rather be than with you.”

  “I think…I might’ve…seen…my mom.” He panted between words, and I could hear the rattle in his lungs. That rattle had terrified me when he was a baby. It still did.

  My voice thickened. “Your mom’s a star, sweet bee. You see her in every sunbeam.”

  “No.” Coltin’s swallow clicked in his dry throat. “I just saw her. Just like the picture I have. But then”—he stopped, trying to catch his breath—“I opened my eyes, and it was you.”

  Tears sprang up and overflowed. I was glad Coltin didn’t see them. He drifted back to sleep, exhausted from just a few words. I held his hand, and the agitated twitching of his fingers was the only thing keeping me from falling apart, because it meant he was still there, still alive, still fighting.

  Around me, no one spoke, and the pall-like silence haunted me until a slew of nurses converged on us, jarring me back to my feet. Without needing specific directions from Surral, they organized their attack on the virus like a team of scrub-wearing soldiers, a candy-colored brigade leading their charge. There was no Overseer brown here, no washing out of life. This was where life was injected back into people, and not only through hard-fought-for and scarce medicine and shots.

  But then we grew up and left, adults seeing in brilliant color, and nothing else in the galaxy ever lived up to what we’d had on Starway 8.

  For a bright, flashing second, the thought of Shade punched right through my ribs and hit my heart like a fist. He’d been colorful. If he hadn’t been the enemy, he might have lived up.

  I let out a slow breath, banishing Shade from my thoughts. My devastation over Starway 8’s recent deaths lingered, as did the dark cloud of loss and worry for the sick, but the nurses’ efficiency left little room for standing around and wallowing. They were already on to the next step.

  Mareeka put everyone and everything on pause with a single raised hand and the slight clearing of her throat. “Every nurse and adult present gets an injection first.” She speared the three of us from the Endeavor with a hard look, especially me. “It’s highly contagious. No arguments, please.”

  Jax and Fiona obediently rolled up their sleeves and held out their arms. I hated to let anyone waste a shot on me, so I pretended to do it myself, surreptitiously giving the injection to Coltin instead. He didn’t even move when I stuck him in the upper arm, but I gained slight comfort in the midst of all this fragility—the beeping monitors, wheezing lungs, and droning track lighting—knowing he’d get a double dose.

  I made sure Surral saw my empty syringe as I threw it out and then pressed on my arm as if it stung.

  Liberated as soon as they were vaccinated, the nurses dispersed with the cases of injections. Surral gave one to Coltin herself and then checked his vitals, scribbling numbers on his chart. Jax, Fiona, and I stayed out of the way. They would go back to the Endeavor, and we’d leave as soon as I could.

  Mareeka swept out an arm, motioning Jax and Fiona forward and shepherding them as though they’d always been a part of her flock. “Let’s get you back to your ship. Our security cameras are undergoing maintenance, and we wouldn’t want anyone sneaking up on you while you’re here. As soon as Tess is ready, as usual, a quick departure is for the best.”

  Security was down? Great. I knew these checks only lasted a few hours and came at irregular intervals, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Shade knew where I was. He’d be on his way. With any luck, though, it would take him a while to shake off whatever had sent him reeling like a drunkard across the Squirrel Tree dock.

  I nodded for Jax and Fiona to go. We wouldn’t linger, no matter how much I longed to curl up under the watchful blanket of this institution and its keepers, read, dance, and eat ridiculous amounts of liquid gold with kids who were never told that it wasn’t okay to put their sticky fingers on the walls after dipping them into the honey pots.

  For our own sakes as well as to preserve Starway 8, to
preserve all of that, we would leave the second we could.

  I waved my companions off. “Be ready to go. Set coordinates for the last known location of you-know-where.” I had a lab chock-full of serum to get off my hands once and for all. The problem was, I still didn’t know what to do with it. “I’ll just get fixed up, and then I’ll be right down.”

  Jax looked twitchy about leaving me, especially after what we’d just been through, but he also recognized that I knew this place like the back of my hand and had nothing but allies here.

  Of course, that was assuming I’d taken all the hunters’ bugs off. And that Shade was still in a stupor. And that Bridgebane hadn’t orchestrated this whole epidemic just to get me to Starway 8.

  Yeah, it was entirely possible we were fucked.

  I gave Jax a reassuring smile. He glowered back, probably knowing exactly what I was thinking.

  That was as much of a goodbye as we got. Surral, who’d personally doctored my every scrape since I was eight years old, dragged me over to a private cubicle. She swept the curtain closed behind us, cutting us off as Jax and Fiona left for the ship in the company of Mareeka, and the nursing team started administering shots.

  Her profile to me, Surral snapped on a pair of gloves. The sound was oddly comforting when it was her tugging them on, even though I’d heard the same tight, elastic noises repeatedly under traumatic circumstances before she’d come into my life.

  She turned to me, all medical efficiency to try to mask the worry I saw sinking delicate lines into her face. “I can’t say I wish you hadn’t risked yourself for all of us, but that’s only because you’re here with me and clearly not dead.”

  “I’d die for this place.” And for the people in it.

  “Please don’t,” she said stiffly.

  “Surral…”

  “Mareeka and I try not to have favorites,” she cut in. She breathed deeply, fighting the emotion I saw abruptly glaring out of her like a too-bright light that suddenly hit me square in the eyes.

  Tears burned behind my lids again, and I blinked. She blinked, too.

  “I’ve never spanked a child, but sometimes I want to spank you.”

  I laughed in surprise, the movement tugging on my injury. “Really?”

  Surral smiled as well, a wobbly little thing that made my chest ache. “Oddly enough, the itch grows, the older you get.”

  “I’m not sure you could catch me or hold me down. I’m bigger than you are.”

  She gave me a look that quelled both our tears and made me feel as though I was about to get sentenced to cleaning the air ducts again. Besides, I probably only had two inches on her, and one on Mareeka, and I hadn’t gotten that tall until I was sixteen and went through a painfully fast, late growth spurt. Part of their easy command of this place was almost always being able to see over everyone else’s head.

  Back to business, Surral said, “I’m not asking you what’s in those injections or how you got them.”

  Gingerly, I got myself up onto the examination table. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” She trusted me and knew I had Starway 8’s best interests at heart.

  Her sour look was somehow filled with love. She was good at that. My sour look was just sour.

  “If I had more time, I’d check it out first. But this has gone on too long, and there are too many children hovering between life and death.”

  And none of us wanted more kids to go the wrong way.

  “I think it’ll work. But if it doesn’t…” That lump rose up in my throat again, and Coltin’s sweet face flashed before my eyes. “It won’t hurt, anyway.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” Surral asked, spearing me with eyes that were such a deep brown they were almost black, like the hair she always kept pulled back. That neat twist was a part of her. I’d never seen her hair loose in my life.

  “Have you ever heard of the Mornavail?” I asked in lieu of answering—and trying to distract.

  She nodded. “Can’t ever get sick. Not subject to the illness or disease that would normally corrupt the body.”

  A new framework of thought clicked into place. The Incorruptible Mornavail.

  Shit. I had to reread that book.

  Realizing I hadn’t changed the subject at all or even remotely diverted her from the truth, I forced out a croaked, “Can’t ever get sick?”

  Surral shrugged. “It’s a myth.”

  “What if it’s not?” I whispered, suddenly light-headed.

  What the hell did Susan know that I didn’t? Was it a coincidence? Or had she somehow set this up?

  “Not a myth?” Surral looked at me and understood all too quickly from what must have been my huge eyes and probably ghostly pale face. She dropped the pair of scissors in her hand, this woman who had never fumbled anything in her life.

  She stared at me. “Are you telling me that my nurses are currently shooting my kids up with Mornavail blood?”

  My heart thudded. I didn’t know. Was that bad? “Maybe?”

  Surral bent down and picked up her scissors.

  “Would that be okay?” I asked, my upper lip starting to prickle with sweat.

  “Okay? It’s brilliant!” She threw her head back and whooped. As far as I knew, she’d never done that in her life before, either.

  Holy shit, this was huge.

  “But what if it really is just a myth?” Or something else entirely, as I’d thought from the book?

  “I assume you tested it in some way.” Her dark eyes shone with excitement, glittering with hope. “Why else would you think it would cure the kids?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” It had been a lifelong test in this case. And a few incidents had proven just how well it worked.

  My mind raced with a thousand questions as I stretched out on the examination table, bringing my legs up with a wince. Wiggling to get more comfortable, I kept my arms at my sides and turned a little inward to hide any lingering needle marks.

  “Where did you find it? Them? What are they like?” Surral asked.

  “Um…” Nervous heat stole over me. “Can I not answer any of those questions?” This was a safe place for everyone. She wouldn’t push.

  Surral nodded, respecting my wishes despite her curiosity.

  With her scissors, she cut my undersuit in half from my right thigh straight up to my neck. She peeled the material away from me, leaving me in only a bra and underpants. I must have looked pretty bad, because her mouth pinched, and she started grumbling.

  “You just came off a spacewalk?” Clearly, she recognized the now-ruined garment for what it was.

  I nodded, lifting a little to help her get the undersuit out from beneath me. Surral tossed it in the garbage.

  “With a…” She bent over and examined me for a moment, gently prodding my bruised and bloodied side with her gloved fingers. “Massive contusion and hastily stitched-up gunshot wound?”

  “Well, the bruise really only happened after. During the spacewalk.”

  Her stink eye was spectacular. “How many times am I going to have to patch you up?”

  “Probably until I’m dead,” I answered.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  Frowning, she took my messed-up stitches out. She didn’t offer me any numbshot, probably because she was pissed I hadn’t taken better care of myself.

  Mareeka’s voice came through the communications bracelet on Surral’s wrist. “They’re settled at their ship, and I’m back in my office. Have Tess swing by here quickly before she goes.”

  Surral confirmed through the link.

  Not looking up from her work again, she said, “Don’t break Mareeka’s heart.”

  I swallowed, knowing she really meant both their hearts. For a second, I felt guilty, because I loved them both more than I loved my actua
l mother, who was just a distant memory now. She was a good memory, though, which was what mattered, and what I would always hold on to.

  Surral unlocked an expensive-looking laser-healer thing from a rolling cabinet and started patching me up with what I liked to call magic medicine. It worked, but I didn’t know how. Other than a slightly uncomfortable heat, it was much less painful than good old-fashioned stitches—and worked a lot faster, too. In mere minutes, I was as good as new.

  “We pray for you daily,” Surral said, running a warm, wet cloth over my now-healed side to clean off the dried blood.

  I smiled, despite my own lack of spirituality. I could just imagine those who chose to pray bending their little heads over their dinner plates and chanting out thanks to the Sky Mother, Her Powers, and to Tess.

  “You’re giving me too much credit,” I said.

  “You bring health, and no one here forgets that.”

  “I haven’t brought much of anything lately, and I was almost too late.” For nine kids, I had been too late. I didn’t dare ask who we’d lost. Right now, I didn’t think I could deal with knowing. For some things, it was better to wait.

  “You’ve always seen the bigger picture, Tess.” Surral trashed the bloody cloth. “Don’t lose that now, or every failure will drive you insane.”

  I didn’t want any failures at all, especially where dying kids were concerned. “You know I think praying is just a comfort for your own ears.”

  “So does Mareeka, but I don’t.” Surral moved her attention to the cold burn on my lower leg. “And the kids can decide whatever they want, just like you did.”

  That was part of what I loved about this place. Diversity of opinion was celebrated. Beliefs were presented but never imposed.

  “We pray for all our benefactors,” Surral added, flashing me a smile.

  I chuckled. “The bees still getting a good mention, then?”

  “Oh, yes.” She set down her medical instrument. “They keep us in food and clothes.”

  Honey was pure gold. Too bad it reminded me of Shade’s light-brown eyes. I’d probably never want it again.

  I sat up without a twinge of pain.