Light. Shadow. Light. Shadow . . .
Then the light didn’t return.
Janlin began to run . . . in the opposite direction of the Shunter. The pack and the gravity pulled at her, but she pushed on. The cottage that held her dad’s laboratory had a fine root cellar that would protect her if the storm came on too fast.
And if she came across people?
She swore at the thought, knowing full well what desperate people were capable of.
She stumbled into the clearing, memories warring with reality as she stared at the flattened building and the debris scattered everywhere. A quick check revealed the root cellar open and empty of any tools or supplies, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, really. A further look inside made her sure the place stood abandoned.
She’d been a fool. Nothing would bring her dad back here. And with little or nothing to eat, not even survivors would be here.
The wind whistled through the fractured structure, forcing her into action. She half staggered, half ran back to the Shunter, plunging out of the tiny forest and sliding down the long slope. A light sprinkle fell, drying quickly in the fierce wind, and then the wind shrieked and rain lashed her face and arms. The muggy temperature had plummeted abruptly, and with the heavy pack on she’d never had a chance to pull her jumper back over her arms and shoulders. The rain stung her skin and soaked her clothes.
Above all, she’d forgotten how much she hated the wind. It sucked at her breath, tangled her hair—
“Wait! Please . . .”
Janlin spun as the thin wail reached her over the storm’s anger. A young girl in jeans, hiking boots, and a severely distended t-shirt rushed headlong down the ridge.
Janlin stared with horror and wonder.
“Space me . . . she’s pregnant!”
Chapter Four
JANLIN STOOD STUNNED. The girl slid her way down, throwing up dust that hadn’t become soaked yet.
Janlin wiped rain from her eyes to look again. The girl’s face, her movements, told Janlin she was more than anxious, she was frantic. Was there—?
A shout, deeper this time, followed by the crack of a gun being fired. Janlin ducked, cursing. A hole in the Shunter would take time for the nanites to repair, and storm or no storm, it was time to go. Of course, a hole in her gut would be worse.
Janlin turned, her back tense with imagined imminent impact, and keyed in her code. She twisted around as the hatch cycled, trying to gauge the situation.
A man stood at the top of the ridge. A moment later, three more figures joined him, and together they plunged down the slope after the girl.
“Oh, this is not my day,” Janlin said through gritted teeth. She ripped off her rebreather, uselessly clogged with wet sand now, and continued bringing the Shunter live. If she could bring the hatch a hair’s breadth from open . . . If the girl could win this race . . . If she could take off in this wind without being battered back against the ground seconds later . . .
There were a lot of ifs.
She should be locking herself in and letting the lot of them work their own problems out. Her brain screamed at her to just go, save her friends on station. She couldn’t do anything for this girl if they were starving anyway, right?
She couldn’t chance opening the Shunter until the last possible second. The sheer amount of dirt flying through the air would be as harmful to her systems as a bullet hole. Janlin watched the tiny screen on the side of the hatch, watched the girl stumbling down the slope, watched the men barrelling after her, all of it through a barrage of rain and wind and dirt.
The girl wasn’t going to make it.
Janlin hesitated. She should just get in the Shunter, close the hatch, and get gone. The storm’s power grew with every passing moment. Men with guns bore down on her position. And the girl wouldn’t be any better off if Janlin couldn’t take off.
Besides, space didn’t have much of a life to offer anyone anyway. Did she really want to bring two more mouths to feed?
The girl floundered in the buildup of grey dirt at the slope’s bottom, giving the men a big advantage. They would be on her in moments.
“Ah, hell.” Janlin dropped the precious pack and pushed into a run. The girl glanced behind her, overbalanced, and fell, her mouth opened in a soundless cry of agony and fear. Another crack echoed through the roar of the storm, and Janlin leapt sideways as the mud and water sprayed up in front of her from the bullet’s impact.
She pushed on, fighting the wind and rain and gravity. The girl managed to get her feet under her again. Janlin watched the man with the gun, grateful that it was the only firearm she saw, grateful that he was too busy shouting orders to fire it at her again.
When Janlin was just twenty paces away, one of the men caught the girl, grappling with her to hold back her flailing arms. She screamed and fought, but another man joined the first and pinned her easily.
The other two caught up, stepping just past the struggle to face Janlin where she stood exposed and trembling in the downpour. They looked no better; worse, in fact, with matted unkempt hair and beards, and tattered clothing, to say nothing of the wild look in their eyes.
One man leered and made a comment Janlin couldn’t hear. The two holding the girl laughed. The man with the gun didn’t.
“This isn’t your business,” he shouted. Janlin could tell the others, especially the jokester, were disappointed. “Get lost, SpaceOp scum.”
“Get her food stores first!” the jokester protested.
Janlin took a step forward. “What food stores?” she shouted back at the jokester. “We’re starving, you idiot. Why do you think I’m here?”
The leader frowned, but the jokester laughed. “You expect us to believe that?”
She took another step forward. “What are you going to do to her?”
Now the jokester really did grin, his face suffused with a grim pleasure that chilled Janlin. “She’s dinner, sweetheart. I can’t figure out why you shouldn’t be breakfast.”
Janlin covered her mouth with her hand. Was he serious? A glance at the twisted expression on the leader’s face seemed to confirm it.
“Why would you do that?” she cried. “You’re so hungry you’d eat an innocent girl and her unborn child?”
The jokester laughed again, grating on her, but it was the leader who answered.
“She’s no innocent. She ate my brother.”
Janlin swallowed hard. She held herself still with some effort—the idea of turning her back to them didn’t seem like a good one, but the idea of staying was worse.
She looked at the girl, whose defiant eyes now melted in guilt. “He told me to,” she screamed. “For the baby, for our baby!”
Grateful for once of her empty stomach, Janlin took another step, and the leader raised his gun. “Just go,” he said. “This is none of your business.” He waved his free hand, and the men holding the girl began to back away.
Janlin raised her hands, palms out. “I’m unarmed,” she assured the leader. The others now fought to hold the girl while she kicked, screamed, punched, and twisted. “Can’t we talk about this? Killing her won’t bring your brother back.”
“No, but it will feed all of us for days.” The calm leadership melted away, becoming feral. “This is your last warning.”
Janlin stood, wavering, stunned by the power of their hunger and her raw need to help this girl. The leader started to back away.
“Wait! What if I did have food? I could trade for the girl . . .” She took another step. “Or maybe I have something you could use?”
The leader laughed at her. “You’re too skinny. I don’t think you lied about the food.”
The jokester leered. “Let’s eat her just for that,” he said, laughing again. Janlin recoiled from the sound. He drew a huge hunting knife from his belt and moved forward.
“No,” the leader said, holding his arm out to block the jokester’s path. “If we do that, we’ll start a war we can’t win.” He tipped his gun at t
he sky. “Our ammunition dwindles . . . what do you figure they can fire at us from above?”
All the men looked up. The girl saw her chance, kicked out at one man’s knee so hard it cracked, and struck at the other while the scream still rang through the air. Janlin surged forward, ready to join the fight, but before she’d taken two steps the leader moved, and Janlin found the gun pointed at her face.
The jokester’s knife rested on the girl’s throat.
“No,” Janlin screamed, and the storm surged again as the knife slid across flesh, opening a gruesome wound that flooded red down the front of the young woman. She tried to echo Janlin’s scream, forcing blood to bubble from her mouth.
The leader pushed Janlin backwards, his face lined with grief and despair. “Go now, before I can’t hold him back anymore.”
She fled.
Chapter Five
JANLIN SHUDDERED, SWALLOWING hard to avoid retching again.
“Okay then, luv,” Gordon said. He handed her a cup of Vita-tea, which she waved away. “What happened?”
“I don’t—you don’t want to know,” she said, refusing to meet his insistent gaze.
“You’re a dammed fool, Janlin. I’m right pissed with you for going alone.”
“I got a plant—that’s all that matters.” Janlin curled her body tighter.
“There’s no plant, no pack, and two of the tanks are missing.” Janlin jerked upright, denial flooding through her at Gordon’s words. “What you found, you didn’t bring back.”
Janlin moaned. “It has to be there.” She tried to remember the last moments, her headlong run for the Shunter, the storm maddening, her tears worse. The takeoff had been out of some crazy nightmare of sightlessness, a faint grey patch of old highway too short for a proper runway, and buffeting winds that threatened to crumple the Shunter like a station hit by an asteroid.
Did she pick up the pack she’d abandoned? She must have. Please, don’t let it still be sitting down there.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered. Gordon made soothing sounds, but she rode over his words, grabbing his arm to make sure she had his attention. “Earth is a wasteland of despair, and I’m not ever going back.” Janlin’s voice cracked.
“Kavanagh!”
Gordon’s shout brought her out of it. She stiffened, sucked a deep breath, and then gave her head a shake.
“Thanks.”
He nodded. “There’s more.”
Janlin closed her eyes for a long moment. Of course, there was more. “Might as well get it over with.”
“Stepper’s back.”
Janlin hissed, and her heart turned over. She hid her face in case the rush of emotion showed. “On the Renegade?” she managed to get out.
“No. He’s flying a Shunter.”
Janlin turned back to him, glad for the new focus, glad for the redirection of her clamouring emotions. Gordon knew just what to do to pull her around. “So, what’re people saying? Have you hacked into his file?”
“Everyone’s speculating, but there’s no meat to it. And I can’t find bugger all about why he’s here in the system.”
“Seems fishy. SpaceOp usually at least leaves you something to find.”
Gordon nodded. “The talk is that Stepper is leading some big experiment, no outside contact allowed. So maybe he didn’t leave you for just any old promotion.”
“He still slept with Fran,” she said, the old rage returning. “I don’t know what he saw in her. Her shoulders are square, and she’s got no hips at all . . .”
“Janlin!”
“What? It’s true! And I haven’t even got to her personality yet.”
Gordon just shook his head. “Whatever the case, he’s called a meeting for a chosen few, and we’re on the list. I was worried you wouldn’t make it back in time and it’d come out you’d gone dirtside without authorization.”
Janlin shuddered, the memories flooding back. She mentally pressed them down and put them away. Nothing could change what had happened. “Maybe he’s got news from Mars.” She gripped his arm. “Maybe they’re ready to let us move out there. When does the meeting start?”
“Right about now,” Gordon said, helping her up.
“Let’s check it out.”
They walked in the side door to find the briefing hall nearly full. In the front row sat the upper echelon. Tyrell Gregory was there, but the moment he saw Janlin he ducked his head, his inky black curls hiding his bronze face.
“What’s with him?”
Gordon pulled her to one side of the door so they could scan the room before finding a seat. “Not a clue. Looks like he’d rather shag the carpet than talk to us.”
People were climbing the steps, finding seats.
“Where’s Ursula?”
“She wasn’t on the list,” Gordon said, and for the first time that day Janlin came right out of her own worries to recognize another’s.
“But—”
“This looks like a crew briefing,” Gordon said before she could question further. Janlin studied the attendees, noting that there were doctors, engineers, even nanotechnology specialists, which meant she was looking at top physicists she only recognized from news vids.
Most people looked puzzled, curious, except for that front row. Some sitting there looked excited, others nervous. Tyrell still avoided her gaze.
“It’s a ship crew all right,” she replied. Her scan froze on Stepper as he entered from the far side of the room. “Shit,” she said under her breath, struggling to smother the rush she felt at the sight of him. It had been months. She turned to look up at Gordon. “I really don’t want to fly with him.”
Gordon snagged her arm. “We’re just here to find out what’s going on. We haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
Janlin grit her teeth and let Gordon lead her up the risers to a back-row seat amongst the other latecomers.
Stepper mounted the dais and faced them. The room fell silent. Janlin wondered why he wasn’t in his SpaceOp uniform, the black and gold one he was so proud of. She’d once loved how it complimented his dark looks, the gold picking up the hazel in his brown eyes, the black matching his hair. He had handsome features that hinted at traces of Italian in his bloodline, and skin that always looked tanned beside hers. She flinched from the memories.
“Thank you for coming.” He stopped, staring down at his databoard. Janlin and Gordon exchanged a glance. Stepper finally looked up and, after a deep breath, began again.
“Three months ago, we completed construction on the first ever Jumpship.”
The room caught a collective breath, and then exploded with sound. Jumpships were the biggest urban legend of the SpaceOp society.
“Bloody hell,” Gordon said. He and Janlin glanced at each other again, trying to take in the significance of the news.
“Should’ve known there was some truth to it all,” Janlin said. “Just never imagined we’d ever find a way to Jump for real, NECs or no NECs.”
Stepper waited for things to calm down, and Janlin thought he didn’t seem as triumphant as he should be with his insider information. In fact, he looked older, his face lined and his eyes sunken.
“This first Jumpship travelled to a solar system pegged as having two planets within the life zone. For the mission we assembled a crew of the best—”
“Wait a goddamn minute.” Janlin was on her feet. Heads turned. Gordon spoke her name, tried to pull her back to her seat. Stepper stared at her, his mouth pulled tight, not challenging her or ordering her to sit down. Not like she was going to shut up now anyway.
“I just risked my life dirtside . . .” This brought a gasp from some, and a groan from Gordon. “. . . where I was nearly shot and eaten by desperate men, and I watched helplessly as a pregnant girl was brutally murdered as dinner, for Christ’s sake, all in an effort to find some fresh plant life for Urse’s failing crops . . . and all this time you have a way to explore other solar systems?” Janlin threw off Gordon’s forestalling hand and glared at St
epper, wanting answers fast.
“The first Jumpship was named the Renegade,” was all he said.
Janlin’s rant diffused at this revelation, and she struggled to catch her breath. Then new hope rushed through her, and she choked on conflicting emotions. Her dad would’ve been so proud to fly the first Jumpship, so thrilled. Why didn’t he tell her?
“Here’s the thing,” Stepper said, and she sank into her seat, focusing to be sure of what he said through the rushing blood in her ears. “They Jumped, but they never came back. Now we’ve finished a second Jumpship so we can go find out what happened. Her name is Hope.”
Janlin gaped, her vision blurred. What did he mean, didn’t come back? She watched Stepper, desperate for more. Stepper didn’t disappoint.
“I want you to be her crew.”
Chapter Six
JANLIN WAITED JUST out of sight, and caught Stepper as he left the briefing room.
“Why all the secrecy?” she demanded, startling him. “What the hell is really going on, Stepper?”
It had clicked for her when Stepper swore them all to secrecy “for the safety of the mission.” Tyrell, the young helmsman, knew something, and she needed to find out what. So afterwards she’d sent Gordon to find Ursula, knowing there’d be no secrets kept there, and pulled the young helmsman aside.
“Your dad refused at first, see,” Tyrell had admitted, squirming under her glare. “I was supposed to go instead, and then I got a stupid head cold, got pulled from the mission. Those medics, you know how they are about germs and all that. They swore me to secrecy, threatened to take away my sister’s place in the next ship out to Mars if I didn’t keep my mouth shut. I can’t imagine what they threatened him with if he didn’t stay quiet about everything.” Then he frowned. “My sister made it onto the last transport Mars took in, so I guess it was worth it.”
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