Cadet: Star Defenders Book Two: Space Opera Adventure

by Pamela Stewart

  I mouthed thank you to Binary, who didn’t give me more than another cursory glance.

  A shout went up from the stadium, and I got another death stare from Kenzie. I wasn’t out of trouble yet. Not by a long shot.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Dax

  I climbed to the top of the train. The wind battered me, but it was better than being smashed. The tunnel pressed in, but I had enough room to lay flat on the top and grab a maintenance hook.

  In intervals, my side stabbed me. Cold sweat coated my face. Soon, it would be over. Soon.

  Finally, the train slowed.

  I stayed low as the pressure eased. I could lift my head. A stop was coming.

  Train agents and security would be examining the exterior. I needed to get off before we reached the end of the line.

  The side platform widened but not by much. Steel beams arched over the tube. Probably used for emergency stops should there be issues with the brakes.

  The bright lights from the station lit the distance like a beacon. I’d be discovered for sure once the train came out of the tunnel.

  There wasn’t an elegant way to do this.

  I crawled to the edge of the train and leaped, hoping to snag one of the steel emergency beams. My hand reached for it, arm’s stretching. The tip of my finger grazed the edge.

  I missed and crashed to the polyplastic flooring. My ribs zinged so hard, I didn’t think about rolling. The pain jolted up my ankles, shook my knees, and stole my breath.

  Voices wafted toward me, and I stiffened.

  Passengers disembarked in groups, chatting loudly. I scanned for the starred sleeves of the security team. Anyone who saw me could report me, especially since all of them came from the Mil-station. My legs wouldn’t work. Splinters of pain shot up from my feet. Especially my right ankle. When I tried to put weight on it, I collapsed.

  Damn, as if the ribs weren’t bad enough. I limped forward using the surface of the tube for support.

  The light grew brighter until I stood on the cusp of the platform.

  “Hey, you!” a booming voice yelled, and I froze.

  No, no, no. After everything, I was going to get caught, and I couldn’t even run.

  The guard was huge and had the MP star on his shoulder.

  I tried to look innocent. I’m sure I didn’t. Dirt and oil from the train coated my hands. Leaning hard to the right and clutching my side, I looked like a Hub-gang member.

  I waited for my fate, desperately trying to think of some reason I was there. If only Vega or Am were here. They both had ideas lightning fast. My best idea? I got caught doing maintenance in the tube. He might buy it.

  The man lumbered up and motioned me closer, and I limped to him, hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt.

  “Dax?”

  I frowned hard. How did the guard know my name?

  He looked like someone I used to know. “Luck? Lucky Jones is that you?”

  He closed the distance between us and clasped my hand. I struggled to keep the grimace off of my face as pain rippled down my torso like streams of acid water.

  “You okay, mate?” he asked in his slightly accented voice. His fam subscribed to the OE way of speaking to maintain their culture or something. I didn’t get it. My family didn’t care to feed their kids, let alone teach them culture. I pushed down the wave of fury that threatened. The Hub wasn’t far now, and I may yet be able to help them.

  “I got a bit banged up in training.” Luck nodded and touched his chin. He’d never been the most intelligent friend I’d had. He was good-natured and friendly.

  “I hear ya. I got conscripted six months ago, and when I started getting food on the regular, well, I guess hormones took over, and now look. Six inches!”

  He’d been below my chin before. Now he was my height but filled out with muscle.

  “Did you go to basic?”

  “Yeah, it was bad but nothing compared to the corridor. Ya know?” He nudged me in the shoulder, and I winced.

  “You don’t look good. Do you need help? I can call a med over...” That would unleash the cyber hounds on me.

  “No! It’s fine. I’m fine. Got to see my sisters. It’s an emergency.”

  He nodded, familiar with the situation. “Let me at least get a rickshaw for you.”

  The small, automated, wheeled seats blazed through the Hub at double the speed I could walk or take a tram, but I didn’t have any credits. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had. I left my wristlet at the base.

  I shook my head. “No credits. No wheels.”

  He laughed and threw back his head. We’d said that phrase to each other many times over the years. “No worries. I got it. Remember, I don’t have a fam to keep afloat, so I have some assets now. He guided me through the bustling station to the outer street. The sky had been set to evening and had darkened to purple.

  Luck lifted a finger, and a rickshaw arrowed to us. Even though I felt like jumping out of my skin, I stayed still. Sweat covered my face, and I couldn’t straighten. I fell into the unforgiving seat and exhaled hard.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Dax? I have my com. It would only take a minute to get you a medic.”

  And I’d be carted off to medical and then the brig. I pushed myself up and plastered a smile on my face. “I’m good. Thanks, Luck.”

  He made the symbol of the club we’d both been in, an X on his left breast. The military had its words and symbols, and so did the Hub kids. I copied him, a lump in my throat.

  “Sac Corridor. South End.”

  The carriage started rolling. I’d be there in minutes. I had no idea what I’d find, and that hurt worse than the injuries. The fears roiled around in my head.

  “Be okay, girls. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Amelie

  In the old days, not much was worse than getting fitted for a party dress by my mother’s favorite dressmaker.

  Now I had a list: nearly drowning in the SIM room, being beaten by my hand-to-hand instructor, watching Nanami almost die.

  And that wasn’t even counting all the things that had happened to me on the Lazarus.

  My frame of reference had changed in the last few months. Before, pain had been getting pinned by Madam Sosa while getting rapped on the top of my head by my choral instructor for not having perfect pitch.

  It was the way of things on the Sat. Perfection was the epitome of the normal Sat citizen. And I was less than perfect.

  Most of the creations could reform to fit the wearer of the dress perfectly, but the things Von Sosa’s made were unique.

  Lighted hoop skirts that changed color with your mood, a dress made of sith-silk from the glow worms of Nazarene, and pulverized precious gems pressed into a thin and flexible cloth. Her creations were known not only Axis wide, but galaxy-wide. I was sure if a Hostile fish-headed alien wanted to get married, they would see Sosa for the dress.

  The boutique was on one of the higher levels with floor-to-ceiling windows that exposed the hustle on the multi-layered streets.

  There were few shops in the lower Hub. It wasn’t a safe place, especially after the lights dimmed. But there was a guzzle bits vendor that I wanted to hit before I made the long train ride back to the barracks.

  Marianna, Sosa’s assistant, was a tall, willowy blonde and had probably been born in the Hub as she had a prominent tattoo on her left wrist, but she had the carriage of a Sat, gen-mod.

  I stood on the raised central platform with my arms up and the electric diagram tracking my body. A wave of electronic pointers traced my outline. Marianna twisted a knob on her hover clipboard, and the blue lines cinched in. I sucked in a breath.

  “Too tight!” I gritted out the words. If a quasi-physical representation squeezed me, what would the real thing do? My waist was already pretty small, as per the DNA sequencing that my parents had paid for, but the current trend was extremely cinched, like medieval-torture-device tight. I took shallow sips of b
reath, waiting for the junior designer to finish.

  “Sorry, Ms. Dupree. Your mother insisted the dress have...certain dimensions.”

  “I’ll bet she did.” Perfection was always the goal, and I was still not enough.

  I allowed her to finish and was relieved. She completed the dress almost instantly and handed me the compact package.

  I pulled up the display again and looked for a response from Dax. Had he just gone to his bunk without responding?

  A hand snatched at my heart. Not Dax. He was always kind and thoughtful. Maybe I’d scared him away with my aggressive pursuit.

  He had kissed me back.

  He had.

  Hadn’t he?

  He seemed to enjoy it too. Maybe I was projecting, and I’d messed everything up.

  The lift reached L10, and I stepped out onto the crowded conveyor path. Droves of people pushed and shoved. Even in the dim light of the evening, the streets never slowed in the Hub.

  In fact, they got busier in the depths of the Hub entertainment quarter. Only a block away, it sparked alive with street shows, Hub whiskey, and decadence of all kinds.

  My mother had warned me about being in the Hub after the evening sky appeared, but she was often wrong about things.

  I hustled through pods of young urchins begging for credit transfers. I felt terrible for them, but I couldn’t help them all. It would only encourage them to keep asking, another axiom from my mother.

  My father didn’t share any axioms, but he was very handsome. I supposed that was what my mother had gravitated to when they had married. His commission and a lordship were just icing on the satellite royalty cake.

  Flashing lights scrolled around the window of the shop that specialized in guzzle bits and only guzzle bits. And that was all they needed. The beauty of guzzle bits was that they adjusted to the user’s taste buds. If you were a salty-sweet combo person, guzzle bits had you covered, salty with a dab of hot? That was fine too. Whatever tickled your culinary fancy.

  That was why they were so ridiculously addictive.

  I snatched way too many bags. The shopbot compressed the packets into dehydrated form and tucked them into the bag with the dress, and I left the shop excited to dig in.

  “Do you have any spare guzzle bits? I can carry your bag for you.” A lanky boy of no more than eight revolutions looked up at me with small, tired eyes. He was only a child, and he’d asked for food. That triggered some instinct inside that made me want to help him.

  Sigh. I didn’t have time for this, but I couldn’t just leave a hungry child.

  “Do you have parents?”

  He shook his head. A dark tattoo etched into the skin of his left arm let me know what he was saying was probably true. “Okay. You don’t need to carry my bags.”

  His friends rushed up behind him, all looking hungry, and I was done. I pulled out the bag of guzzle bits and handed them out. The kids yelled, grabbing and shoving chips into their mouths. They looked so happy. I turned around to get another load of supplies.

  How could something so small get them so excited?

  I almost walked back into the shop when a rickshaw flew by. Dozens of vehicles flowed by, but this one caught my eye. A young man with sandy brown hair was the passenger. His head lolled to one side.

  It looked like Dax.

  I was sure. It was him, but he looked...off.

  I snapped my wristlet’s control holo closed and tapped in a few override codes. I’d noted them when I was doing some recon on admission. They really should have better shielding tech on their testing computers.

  Coms were notoriously terrible in the Hub with the millions of codes overlapping, but I boosted my signal and requested Dax’s location. He should’ve been either with Vega at the humbleball game or back in his berth.

  But his reading showed him in a different location. I double tapped the representation of the map and enlarged it. It showed him in the Axis rotator. Not near it. In it. So strange.

  I jumped on the conveyor and started running. My heart pumped, and my breath came in short, sharp pants. My cardio sucked so hard. I dashed a bit farther until the pounding of my feet slammed in my head and chest. I couldn’t see the rickshaw.

  Transports whipped by on the cross-Axis tracks. Cyber taxis and rickshaws navigated the flow as if they were ships on OE riding the waves.

  The thoroughfare wasn’t an official pedestrian area, and the direction I was taking was on a direct path to the central neighborhoods of the Hub. The bad area that most just traveled through to get to somewhere else. Few strayed there unless they were stuck or lost.

  I lifted an arm and sent out a signal from my wristlet, indicating I needed a ride.

  No takers.

  I pulled up a connection to the rickshaw site and inputted the number that was emblazoned on the side.

  I’d memorized it the moment I’d registered Dax.

  The transport company’s security was wafer-thin. I broke their code in less than a minute and found a lighted map to Dax’s destination.

  Squeezing the bag with my dress, I sucked in a big breath and eyed a cyber-taxi skating along the free drive lane...only one way to stop them if they wouldn’t stop for credits.

  I jumped in front of it.

  My heart leaped into my throat, but I kept my eyes open. If I died, I wanted to see what happened.

  The cyber-taxi slammed to a halt.

  My brain caught up to my body, and I exhaled sharply. I could have died.

  Then I reviewed the facts, calculated the distance by the speed of travel per second. The taxi was designed with an autostop switch with a three-second stopping range.

  I’d read the manual. I hadn’t been in much danger unless the taxi had a mechanical issue or hadn’t been on auto. That would’ve been a problem.

  Good thing I hadn’t thought about that before I jumped. Vega must be rubbing off on me.

  Jogging around to the side door, I threw myself in. The taxi was empty except for the dash com. A yellow light flickered then went out. “Object has been removed. Resuming ride availability.”

  I connected my wrist readout to the port in the back seat.

  “Follow that signal,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The computerized voice had an OE accented voice that was pleasant but held the right amount of enthusiasm. I just hoped it knew how to chase.

  The taxi jerked into motion and weaved through the traffic.

  Yep, the AI knew how to chase something. I tried Dax’s coms again with no response. Swallowing hard, I gripped the seat in an iron grip to center myself.

  Something was wrong. I knew it.

  Now, I just had to find out what.

  Chapter Fifty

  Dax

  The rickshaw jostled me, banging every one of my sore muscles and aching ribs. A quick forty-five-degree turn slammed me against the shoulder-high door. Hot spears of pain clawed through me. My vision darkened, and black dots swam in front of me. I fought to keep present, not to allow the pain to take me.

  What would be waiting for me at home? Dread mixed with nausea. The coach lurched to a stop and flung me forward. The door popped open, and the auto-attendant didn’t ask for credits. Luck had paid for the ride.

  I’d have to pay him back someday. He was a good guy.

  The street was depressingly familiar. The low O2 was the first thing I noticed. The air felt thin as if I needed to breathe deeper to feel satisfied and to stop the ache in my head. Had I lived in this every day?

  Auto light didn’t exist this deep in the Hub. The Ax didn’t want to invest the credits. We were the real Hub, the center of the wheel of the Axis, just something to hold the stations together and a place for the poor to live.

  The surface level looked good, livable. It was to attract tourists to spend credits on our whiskey, restaurants, and art. At least we had that. There were only a handful of ways out of the Hub, and most were based on those talents or vices.

  I’d ridden the talent mode
up. I was good at mechanics and seeing patterns, especially in engines. Ethan had also used the talent path.

  He hadn’t told me much, and some of it could have been Mil-station lies, but I felt like that part had been genuine. He had a real tat as I did, and a deeper one was given to those abandoned children who were sold young.

  At least my parents hadn’t done that.

  Sometimes I wished they had.

  I ducked under a falling steel-framed archway. The alley behind led me to a rusted staircase. Rust was still a thing, even with the polysteel, as we needed a certain amount of humidity in the atmo. Time and age always caught up with physical objects.

  The rickshaw sped away, and I was alone in the dark, waste-covered street. The structure was wide and tall. Slight indents in the wall indicated the location of garages that rented out space to Hub citizens. It had only been designed to hold scooters and inter-Axis hoppers originally then changed over the years into makeshift housing. On the side of the building, a narrow ladder was attached to the outside and tucked up after use. It was added as an afterthought.

  Using my left arm, I jumped and grabbed the lowest rung on the staircase. My weight pulled it down far enough for me to shimmy up.

  The pain in my side jabbed an unrelenting force, even when I was motionless. My breathing was worsening too. Had I also gotten used to the luxury of the Lazarus and the Academy? Had I gotten soft?

  The steps seemed like the mountain we’d climbed on the first day of training. Worse even. Dizziness engulfed me as I tried to raise my foot and place it on the first step.

  I fell to my knees and retched everything in my stomach. Mostly bile. But the nausea didn’t go away. I closed my eyes to try and stop the spinning.

  Something stirred behind me—shuffling footsteps. I should jump up. The Sac Corridor was no place to show vulnerability. My legs weakly pushed me to my feet. I didn’t have the energy to fight or to look intimidating enough to avoid a fight. Maybe if I got the jump on them, I could win.

  I turned as fast as my wounded body would allow and swung out with my working left arm. My aim was wide. My opponent jerked back but fell off balance and landed on their ass with a plunk. Amelie’s wide eyes looked up at me, and I crumpled to my knees again.