Crux: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 2)

by H. E. Trent

  “Answer and let them initiate the conversation. Don’t say anything.”

  She hit the button.

  The transmission connected with the typical sequence of ticks and clicks, and then a weak, faraway sounding voice came on the line. “Hello?”

  She looked at Edgar.

  He held a finger against his lips and shook his head.

  “Ship entering orbit, can you hear me? Our systems have been in low-power mode since this morning. We’re running diagnostics. No visual display down here. Please identify. Seems like there’s another ship approaching and I can’t hail you both at once.”

  Damn it.

  Edgar nodded, and then activated a secondary viewing screen that was set to display any movement approaching from the sides, top, bottom, or rear of the ship.

  “Hi, my name’s Eileen. You should be expecting us. We’re here about the Irish icicle.”

  After a long delay, the guy on the other end snorted. “You got Edgar Salehi with you? What the hell are you flying? The computer’s not recognizing what you’re in as a known vessel. Did you change the configuration somehow?”

  “Affirmative,” Edgar said. “We’re flying Reg Devlin’s ship. Former ship, rather.”

  “If you’re in that, what’s he flying now? Not something even bigger, I hope.”

  “He’ll have to fly whatever he has in storage, I suppose. I don’t doubt for a minute he doesn’t have a backup. We took this particular vessel with permission of the first owner.”

  “Well, damn. Space is a big place, but I’m sure he’ll have his eyes and ears out searching for it, so don’t do anything too reckless. I’m sending coordinates to you to land. I suggest you enter the atmosphere quickly so your signal is dispersed a little. I don’t know what’s approaching, but treaty regulations say I can’t really turn anyone away if they request to enter orbit. This is a neutral zone.”

  “I don’t see the ship in visual range, but it’s lighting up our COM panel.”

  “Probably something big coming in fast. I’d get moving if I were you. Over and out.”

  “You buckled in?” Eileen called over her shoulder to Ais as Edgar ramped up the speed of the tin can and altered trajectory.

  “Yes,” Ais said.

  “Have you ever actually landed one of these things?” Eileen asked Edgar. “Given the nature of my job, I’ve had to live through a lot of unskilled landings by hotshots who claimed they knew what they were doing.”

  “Have I landed an eighteen like this?” He grunted and slammed his palm over some sticking button on the console.

  Yeah, that’s not a good sign.

  “No,” he said, “but I’ve landed larger things well enough that they were actually able to take off again later.”

  “What’s wrong with that button you just hit? Was that button anything important?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! That was a yes or no question. Give me one or the other.”

  He cringed. “Console might just be due for maintenance. Folks in cockpits spill drinks on the buttons all the time. I wouldn’t worry.”

  “What was that button, Salehi?” Eileen clawed at the buckle of her harness, but the damned thing didn’t want to open. She’d forgotten just that quickly that it wouldn’t open until after Edgar pulled them out of the landing sequence.

  “Hover struts,” he said. “Most ships the age of this one don’t even have them. When they work, they’re good to have. They soften landings a hell of a lot, but if push comes to shove, we have wheels.”

  “Wait—those things are supposed to keep us from flying in too fast and landing too hard. It’s really damn easy to overshoot a runway with something as heavy and unwieldy as this tin can.”

  The name “Tin Can” was starting to grow on her. If she had a say in the matter, that would be Beauty’s next name. The piece of shit deserved it.

  “You don’t trust me?” he asked.

  They’d entered orbit and were descending fast toward a small landmass that looked to be the size of a postage stamp.

  “Salehi, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.” She gripped the armrests and said a prayer to the god of cowgirls and idiots, hoping she still had a little bit of grace left.

  “Edgar. Call me Edgar.”

  “Nuh-uh, you’re Salehi until I’m sure that we’re gonna touch down in one piece and not shatter on impact.”

  “If we’re in one piece, we’ll be on a first-name basis again?”

  They hit an air pocket and she spat one of the few Jekhani swear words that she actually knew. It was a reference to fissured assholes or something, and supposedly more vulgar than anything in English, and thus seemed appropriate at the moment, seeing as how she was going to die.

  Reg’s Beauty listed hard and to the right, and Ais let out a frightened yelp.

  Eileen turned in her seat to see the woman, who’d gone white as a sheet and looked to be gripping the foam armrests just as hard as Eileen.

  All right. Be the big girl, here.

  “Hey,” she called back to Ais. “We’ll be fine. When we get on the ground, we’ll get all this crap checked out before we take off again. Next trip will be smooth sailing. Isn’t that right, Salehi?”

  “I’m certain there has to be someone on the ground skilled to do maintenance on this thing.”

  “See, Ais? Smooth sailing.”

  “Don’t…like,” Ais said through clenched teeth.

  Edgar leveled out the ship, only to steer them into yet another air pocket. Eileen cut him a glare.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  She turned back to Ais. “You know, I make a living on these things.” Eileen’s belly did a flip-flop at a short, fast drop. “Jeezus, Salehi.”

  “Sorry. Thunderstorm beneath us. This is typical poor-weather flying. Not my fault.”

  “Just my luck, then. My bladder will never be the same.”

  “This’ll be just one more experience for you to journal in your scrapbook.”

  “Yeah, remind me to pick up a couple of picture postcards on the surface so I’ll have something nice to glue onto the page.”

  “I’ll even pay for them.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s offered me in months.”

  “You should keep better company.”

  “Part of the problem is I don’t keep very much company at all lately. The riots put a huge damper on my already pitiful social life.”

  He pulled back the throttle, slowing their descent, and taking them down low enough to get pelted by the rain they’d been flying over. “I don’t imagine you’d have very much of a social life on Jekh with things being how they were, anyway. Not like there was a huge nightclub scene or lots of ladies around for you to go out with.”

  “Nah.” She shook out the cramps in her fingers and let herself take a deep breath. She could handle a little rain. She’d been on plenty of rainy flights. The landings were stress inducing, but at least they were much closer to the ground than they were before. The flying seemed to have become a little more instinctual for him.

  “What’d you do for fun, anyway?” he asked.

  “What’d you do?”

  He shrugged and let the vessel pilot itself toward the landing coordinates. The bucket of junk wouldn’t land on its own, but it should have been smart enough to put them in a controlled descent. The landmass that had looked like a postage stamp before had become envelope-sized.

  “I didn’t really have much time for leisure,” he said. “I mean, I went out, but whenever I went out, I always had a dedicated mission.”

  “Like what?”

  “Gathering intelligence. Learning who the players are in certain illegal schemes.”

  “You mean the drug trade and woman trafficking.”

  “Exactly that. You’d think I would have had a much harder time getting people to tell me things. I never hid my job from anyone.”

  “They shouldn’t have trusted you.”

  “
Right, but because the vast majority of the police force in Buinet is corrupt, most citizens assumed that I was as well. Still, I did everything I could not to rouse suspicion. I didn’t go out asking questions. I just looked for answers.”

  “Probably smart. I never once heard your name come up in the rumblings about cops to watch out for, so you were obviously doing a good job staying off people’s radars.”

  “I’m good at not being noticed.”

  “Hmm.” Eileen bobbed her eyebrows at him and looked out the windshield at the landmass ahead, which had grown to the size of a football stadium. She didn’t see how anyone could not notice him, but she recognized her bias. Perhaps to the average man on the street, he looked like the typical, unassuming, middle-aged cop that a guy wouldn’t look twice at, but Eileen was the exact opposite of an average man. She was a lonelier-than-average female with a penchant for beards, brains, and black hair.

  The computer gave its warning that auto-pilot would disengage soon, so he took over the controls again, and Eileen looked away. If she didn’t see the ground coming at them, she wouldn’t have to think about when those hover struts were or weren’t engaging.

  She peeked around the side of her seat at Ais, who was looking straight forward, wide-eyed and still so pale.

  “Hey,” Eileen said. “How exactly did Reg happen to find you, anyway? You don’t seem like you’ve been on too many trips like this before.”

  “No left…before.”

  “Before what, Reg? Where were you?”

  “At lab. He stop to…have…” She narrowed her eyes and said some word Salehi translated as “delivery.”

  “He was trading with y’all?”

  “Said so. Don’t know.”

  “I think it’s more likely Reg caught wind of the lab’s outpost and decided to go on a raid,” Salehi said. “He wouldn’t have had anything worth trading. Tyneali technology is far better than anything Terrans or anyone else in this sector would have, but they probably would have been curious enough to invite him down for a chat, anyway.”

  “Their curiosity is going to get them all killed one day,” Eileen muttered.

  “I dunno. They’ve been at this for a long time. No one’s tried to wipe them out yet, and there’s probably a good reason for that.”

  “You don’t think anyone can?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want to speculate. They may seem perfectly passive and may have bred that trait into most Jekhans to the point of excess, but technology is a hell of a thing. For as long as the Tyneali have been exploring space, they’ve probably developed weapons that could knock planets out of their orbits.”

  “Probably helps that they’re so spread out, right? No one could launch a centralized attack on them because they’re not in just one place.”

  “No one really knows where they are or where their home planet is.”

  “Is no,” Ais said.

  Eileen craned her neck around to see her, and barely suppressed the cringe as the ship’s wheels deployed. Obviously, the hover struts were out of commission.

  “What do you mean?” Eileen asked.

  The ship touched down with a bounce, then another, and third before finally settling on all five wheels. Salehi hit the brakes, and the eighteen skidded petulantly.

  For fuck’s sake.

  She glared at him.

  He shrugged.

  “No planet,” Ais said. “No more. Gone very long.”

  “Huh. Then what are the stories I keep hearing about the Tyneali choosing Jekh to seed the hybrids on because the colors of the atmosphere were so similar to their home world?”

  “Perhaps that’s true,” Salehi said, “but maybe that’s just historical lore now. Or maybe it was some made-up explanation that someone threw out there, and it stuck. Lies have a way of becoming truth, given time and fuel.”

  “Hmm.”

  Edgar slowed the ship quickly as they approached the metal building that appeared to be a hangar, and the COM panel buzzed again.

  Eileen hit the connection button.

  “Welcome to the deep freezer, also known officially as Diplo 4,” came the chuckling voice, stronger than it had been when Reg’s Beauty had been on approach. “If you’ve got heavy coats, you’d best put them on. There may not be snow on the ground, but that rain is cold, and will be icing things over come nightfall. You might not be able to get back off the planetoid immediately.”

  “We’re fresh out of winter coats in here, bud,” Eileen said.

  “Pull into Bay 2, then, and hustle. That wind will take the life out of you, for sure. Most of the infrastructure here is enclosed and heated, though, kinda like a big sprawling airport with tubes connecting the terminals. Once you get inside, you’ll be warm enough.”

  “Understood,” Edgar said. “What’s the status of the ship that was coming in behind us?”

  The guy on the other end groaned. “Um, just hurry in, okay? We’ll lock up the bay behind you.”

  “Is this someone we need to worry about?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m trying to give you a good head start, just in case.”

  “Understood,” Edgar repeated. “Approaching the bay now. See you inside.”

  Eileen drummed her fingertips on her armrests until Edgar brought Reg’s Beauty to a stop inside the yellow parking zone in the oversized hangar. The door panels behind them closed automatically when he killed the engines. The ones in front of them would apparently hang open for light until they’d departed the vessel and a depot agent had a chance to inspect the ship for contraband. They were safe from that, unless Ais counted as illegal goods. Eileen hoped she didn’t.

  Edgar pointed a huge smile at Eileen and cleared his throat.

  She groaned.

  “I told you I’d get you on the ground safely. Are we back to first names again?”

  “Don’t get cocky, Mr. Know-it-All.” She depressed the button on her harness to release the buckle, and stretched her arms overhead. Then she went to free Ais from her buckle contraption. “All right, kiddo. Let’s see if we can find you something that resembles a coat. That thin gown you’re wearing isn’t worth the fabric it was cut from.”

  “Perhaps we’ll get some information about where she came from on the outpost,” Edgar said.

  Eileen pushed a fall of hair out of Ais’s eyes and gave the young woman a long stare.

  Round eyes, pupils huge with terror.

  I guess she doesn’t like that idea.

  Eileen wasn’t so sure she did, either.

  She helped Ais to her feet and guided her toward the door. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The rain hadn’t completely stopped when Erin found herself dragged into Little Gitano to play some game called “Responsible Grownup.” She’d run her mouth in bed, as she was wont to do after having her brains fucked out, and had to pay the piper.

  One day I’ll learn.

  She clutched her pile of loose notes against her chest and, sighing, took the seat Allan pushed against the backs of her legs.

  When Allan had said he’d called “a few people” to the gathering he’d arranged at the meet-shop, she’d assumed he’d meant his father-in-law along with the town’s main peacekeeper, and a handful of other respectable citizens. What was before her, instead, was a semicircle of damn near twenty Jekhan and Terran residents, including a few kids.

  They all looked at her with anticipation in their eyes and smiles on their kindly faces.

  Fuckin’ A.

  Amy, seated at her right and wearing enough ivory-colored foundation makeup to seal the crack in the Liberty Bell, leaned in and whispered, “Good turnout.”

  “There wasn’t supposed to be a turnout,” Erin spat. “This was supposed to be, like, a task force. Just a handful of folks. I was going to drop off my notes and run.”

  “My father always said that groups get things done, and that’s what happening. People are trying to get things done.”

  “I ho
pe they’re not waiting on me to do them.”

  “I think that’s exactly what they’re waiting on.”

  “They’re going to be disappointed, then.”

  Amy waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, hush.”

  “Thank you all for coming out,” Allan said. “Help yourselves to some snacks and let me know what you think of them. Those groundnuts came in from my trade guy in Halidan this morning. Kinda taste like peanuts to me. The Terrans amongst you all can see if you agree. Might be able to make nut butter out of them, or something. Anywho.” He turned to Erin. “You have the floor, lady.”

  Gripping her papers tighter, she shook her head. “Wait. Hold the he—”

  Owen, behind her, pinched some of the meat above her shoulder blade, so she swallowed down the curse she’d intended to spout.

  She tittered from the pain and cut him a dirty glower as if he hadn’t been born immune by virtue of being a McGarry.

  “Go ahead,” he said through unmoving lips. “Court’s making Mimi’s chicken chili.”

  “Which chicken is going into it?” Erin asked in a rushed whisper. “The pecker?”

  “What will it matter if there isn’t any left by the time we get there?”

  She let out a ragged breath, and turned to face the room.

  They were all still smiling, and nodding encouragingly.

  “Um.” She tidied the stack of papers, and scanned each face in the congregation.

  “You had an idea,” Amy whispered.

  “Right. I, um…had an idea. Granted, it wasn’t much of an idea—I was just shooting the shi—”

  Owen pinched her again.

  She managed again to swallow down her yelp, but vowed to knock the living daylights out of him at her earliest convenience. She didn’t care if her mother got angry when she found out. They were siblings, not saints.

  “Okay. I was having a discussion with…someone at the farm.”

  Post-coitally.

  She’d tried to use that as a last-ditch excuse as to why her suggestion shouldn’t be taken seriously. Esteben had grabbed her by the belt loops and personally handed her off to Amy, who’d been not nearly bemused enough by the ordeal. Apparently people on Jekh were held responsible for the shit they said after getting fucked into a haze.