Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel

by Jacqueline Koyanagi

  So that was it. Stow away for a chance to change everything, or go back inside. Go back to the debt and the illness and the thin strand of hope that tethered me to Heliodor.

  I waited. The shaking in my hands grew worse, so I shoved them in my pockets and grabbed the Dexitek bottle with my right, fingers brushing the free Panacea sample from Dr. Shrike. If I left, there’d be no time to beep Lai first. No time to take anything with me. If I wanted this, I had to do it now.

  The engineer came back outside and did the pre-takeoff checks. I couldn’t help wondering why it was him, and not the pilot. Everything about this felt strange. Why was the medical officer the one doing all the talking? Why didn’t the pilot come outside?

  Why did my bones ache at the sight of this ship?

  At least a few minutes had to have passed. Make up your mind, Alana.

  I waited until another minute passed without anyone emerging from the cargo hold, then I moved forward and hid behind an old hull panel closer to the vessel. When I still didn’t see anyone come out, I moved from the panel to the other side of the ship in a low crouch, trying my best to hide behind molded crates and metal scrap.

  The ship’s mouth yawned in front of me. Inside, stacks of sturdy crates were belted to the hold floor. Not a crew member in sight.

  If you had dogs at your heels and all the galaxy’s glittering possibility in front of you, where do you think you’d go? Backward or forward?

  Electricity zapped one of the yard’s dissipator rods, sparks raining down on the ship, and I swore I felt her sizzle in my own veins, twining electromagnetic fingers inside me. She was calling, this ship. More than any of the other vessels I’d met, she wanted me. I felt it. All her heat and light pulsed like blood, scorching my body, urging my feet onward, toward the mouth, whether I wanted them to move or not. Seeing her close-up like this made me come unbound; my old life peeled away like shed skin, making room for her. I felt like a new soul, naïve and open.

  The ship was connecting to me through her song. Welding us together. Heat like that was bound to leave a mark.

  Only part of me was aware of my movements. The rest of my consciousness was lodged deep inside the metal of the Gartik transport, beckoned by the mind of the ship. One step after another, I headed into the cargo hold, tucked myself into an empty crate, and held my breath.

  Minutes later, the cargo door screeched and slammed shut. Hunger growled inside that sound—a crunching and gnashing of metal teeth. I couldn’t help feeling like the vessel was digesting me and turning me into a new organ, a pacemaker stitched into her heart.

  Vibrations from the takeoff threatened to shatter bone and tear ligament as I braced myself against the flat walls of the crate. My body rattled as badly as my heart while I crouched there, sweaty and scared, barely dodging a panic attack. I guess in light of my situation—and by situation, I mean crime—I figured I was doing pretty well.

  My thick locs hung heavy over my shoulders and back, rendering the heat in the crate all the more oppressive. Pills rattled in my pocket, a chattering of tiny white teeth reminding me of what was at stake if this went as badly as it could. If you run out of Dexitek . . .

  I tried ignoring the sound of the pills, focusing on the ship’s rhythm. Her engine’s pulse. Her voice. Letting her inside just as I insinuated myself into her.

  What’s your name, beautiful?

  Every ship I worked on, I got to know by learning her song. I imagined each one stringing wires through me like new arteries, connecting us until I could feel what ailed her reflected in the pain patterns of my own flesh. It was the only hint of spirit guide-like talent that had seeped its way into me. The rest had gone to my sister. When I worked, I imagined shrugging into each ship’s hull like a second skin and feeling her ailments inside myself. Getting the scent of her on me until we were more a gradient than two distinct bodies. Each job made me feel alive.

  Now, thinking about the vessel peeling up out of the atmosphere and into the silence, the last bits of Heliodor’s dirt shaking from the soles of my boots, I felt a little like I was dying. I was in a box, after all. Curled up and hurled into the Big Quiet.

  A smile crept along my lips and I pressed my fingers harder against the walls.

  I’d take it. I’d take death for a new life.

  Chapter Two

  All quiet. We were out of Orpim’s atmosphere.

  The tension that had crept into my muscles traveled into my stomach, seething there like a threat.

  I’m in the silence!

  For the first time in years, no chunk of rock hugged me to it, and the only city stink to speak of was the smell that still clung to me. Outside—beyond the box, beyond the hull—was the black.

  The sheer magnitude of what I’d done hit me. I felt dizzy.

  A new thought chewed at the edge of my mind, plucking at my nerves: Lai. I had to at least try to tell her where I was. The last thing I needed was to become a missing person, another flash on the crime ticker. You know, the one no one paid attention to except grieving parents and lovers.

  I relaxed my body against one corner of the crate—“relaxed” being relative to my previously inelegant attempt not to break my nose against the surrounding metal. My stomach still churned badly enough that I had to make a conscious effort not to throw up, but I’d manage.

  Clicking the transmit switch behind my ear, I oriented my mind toward my aunt and said her name, hoping their disabled comm system wouldn’t interfere. While I waited for the connection to take, I kept half my awareness tuned into my surroundings, listening for footfalls. Waiting for someone to find me and grab my arm, my neck, a fistful of my locs, to throw me into the brig—

  A click in my ear.

  “User offline. Send message?”

  They must have kept her late at the call center again.

  “Yes.”

  A beep.

  “Hey. Lai.” I lowered my voice. “It’s me. Look, something came up and if everything works out, I won’t be around for . . . a little while. I can’t tell you where I am, but I need you to trust me. Everything’s fine. Or it will be, if this works. Just don’t worry too much. I’ll beep you when I can.”

  Panic ebbed in my gut. Either I would succeed and give us a chance to start over, or else I’d just make life far, far worse. Living in a penal colony wouldn’t exactly be conducive to contributing to a household income. They’d probably butcher my head when they removed my neural comm implant, too. Who knew if they’d bother with the Mel’s meds; I’d be a useless bag of tremors in no time. Not to mention I was leaving Lai to run the shop alone, banking everything on instinct. Here I was trying to be adventurous while she rotted in the dust and plastic debris of a planet that outgrew us by the minute.

  Stop thinking about it. Calm down and listen.

  Other than my heartbeat, everything was quiet. I’d been in the crate, breathing hot air on myself for—how long had it been? Ten minutes? An hour? I couldn’t know for sure. The stale warmth grew more oppressive by the minute and my legs were cramping. I’d have given almost anything for a glass of water and a bathroom.

  I hadn’t thought this through. How would I know we were far enough away from the planet to reveal myself? Timing was everything. That medical officer had a good point; I needed to wait long enough that they’d be foolish to turn around and waste fuel. If she was willing to give me that information, they must have really needed my sister.

  Still, what was I going to say when they found me? Just rattle off my qualifications again? “I’m sorry, Captain, for stowing away on your vessel. Please don’t torture me for information. Let me show you all my surgeon tricks—I can sit, roll over, beg, and even balance a wrench on my nose. Aren’t I adorable? Don’t you just have to keep me?”

  Maybe I should take a nap and see how long I could stand it inside the cramped space. That had to be better than agonizing over what would happen if this didn’t work out the way the medical officer had implied. And I was so exhausted my eyes bu
rned.

  There was enough air coming in through the wide seams, discomfort aside. If I bent my neck to the left, it didn’t hurt quite so much. Sure, I’d pay for it later, but being calm enough to fall asleep might save my ass. Now if I could just get my foot out from under—

  What was that sound?

  A low rumble, soft but menacing.

  Growling?

  A shadow moved somewhere outside. Shuffling. Footsteps. More growling, and from the sound, it was coming from deep inside a thick, muscular body. Who keeps an animal in their cargo bay? Was the animal part of the cargo? I didn’t remember seeing any cages, but then I wasn’t exactly sightseeing. Still, you’d think I’d remember something like that.

  The shadow moved, looming larger. Heavy-booted footfalls drew nearer. These were unmistakably human.

  An enormous figure dwarfed my pitiful crate. Bracing myself for the inevitable confrontation, I tried ignoring the cramp pinching harder at my stomach with every step the person took.

  More growling, right next to the crate. A person—a human—was growling at me. In a ship.

  Then came the barking.

  At that point I was sure I’d slipped into a dream state, or maybe I’d overdosed on my meds. Could I even do that? Probably. Maybe I wasn’t even in a ship at all. Maybe my body was curled up in bed, sore with illness like a giant bruise, and I was hallucinating to escape from the pain. It had happened before. Surely I’d wake up when a job flew into our yard and poked me in the implant.

  “Ovie?”

  The medical officer. This time her voice lacked the hurried edge I’d heard in the shop.

  “Is something there?” she said.

  Oh, come on, I thought. Make it at least a little easy on me.

  More growling, even closer this time.

  Before I could organize myself into something other than a pile of soreness, the lid disappeared and two faces glared at me from above: the medical officer, and a man who was all hard muscle, like he’d tried to press himself into a planet but had to settle for human instead. It was the engineer I’d seen outside. Locs fell over his shoulders and into the crate, draping a strong face—bone-solid and leather-tough. Bared teeth snarled at me from between full lips. Unmistakably Heliodoran, like me. Except for the growling.

  His eyes darted to my locs, the grease on my cheeks, the dark skin we shared.

  “You?” she said, eyebrows raised in an approximation of surprise. She groaned and ran her hands through her hair as she walked away, cursing. Decent acting.

  Only the growling Heliodoran remained. Just as I was about to say something—what, I didn’t know—he dropped the lid back down onto the crate with a loud metallic crash, the sound ringing in my ears.

  Not really the reaction I’d expected. My heart hammered away at my ribs.

  “It’s Nova Quick’s sister,” the woman said. Her shadow moved back and forth as she paced. “Tev is going to kill us.”

  “She could be leverage.” His voice was more growl than speech, words rumbling like gravel in his throat. What kind of man was he?

  “Excuse me,” I said, tapping on the lid. “I’m sorry for—”

  The man peered at me through the slats on the side of the crate, growling and narrowing his eyes.

  “Um,” I said, stupidly. “I was just hoping maybe I could stand up—”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to make requests,” he grumbled, voice so low it vibrated through me.

  “I agree.” A new voice. Sonorous, female, and heavy with authority. “Open it.”

  “Don’t you think we should call an enforcement team to pick her up?” the engineer said.

  “No.”

  To me it sounded more like no-y or noer; I could never quite mimic a Wooleran accent, but the beauty of it distracted me momentarily. It was an accent that glided across the ear, rolling like Wooleran farmlands, wide like their ranches. I could hear the sun in their mouths, bronzing their words. I’d never been there, seeing as it was on the other side of Orpim, but my aunt’s first husband was Wooleran and he used to talk to me about burt-cattle droving at the dinner table on holidays. I bathed in every word, soaking in his stories until I could hear the burts’ hooves beating against packed dirt.

  The crate’s lid came off and I stood, not wanting to get caught inside again. Instantly, the engineer grabbed my arms and twisted them behind me, pinning me tight against his solid frame. A wave of pain snaked up my left arm and into my neck.

  “Hey,” I said, putting up no resistance. “Easy. Where am I going to run off to?”

  “Know your place on my ship, surgeon,” came that gorgeous, accented voice from behind. The engineer twisted around to face her, turning me with him.

  The woman sizzled in front of me—all blond hair, boots, and confidence. She tilted her head at an angle of self-important disdain, hip cocked to match. Cargo pants hung below her waist and a white tank top bared her toned arms. A metal necklace circled her neck, not quite a choker. A necklace similar to one the engineer wore, I realized.

  We locked eyes. Her barbed expression pricked at me from beneath her bangs, as if I were a spot of rust on her ship that had the audacity to sprout up when she wasn’t looking. Muscles pulled at the corner of her mouth.

  She took two steps closer. “I should throw you out the airlock. Explain yourself.”

  “I’m Alana Quick.”

  I sounded ridiculous.

  “Yes. Nova’s sister. That’s the only reason we’re even having this conversation. But it’s her I want, and my medic tells me you refuse to talk. So what exactly am I supposed to do with you? You’re not even worth keeping as a hostage. All I see is one more mouth to feed and a whole mess of liability.” Her green eyes looked me up and down, her authority unquestionable. I could feel the current of her stare energizing my nerves just like the ship, and it took all my willpower not to look away.

  The pain from my arm was making its way to my head, seeding the beginnings of a migraine. My wrists throbbed under the engineer’s tight grip.

  “Please.” I glanced at the medical officer. She shook her head just enough for me to notice. I’d get no help there.

  “I’m sorry about stowing away,” I said to the captain, “but I’m desperate. I’ll make myself useful. I’m an engineer, and I’m damn good. Give me a chance in exchange for the information you want. What’s your name?”

  The medical officer laughed and shifted her weight, shaking her head. The captain ground her jaw to the side, clenching her teeth.

  We stared at each other. While she presumably thought about what to do with me, I fought the urge to say anything else. Her eyes scanned me, jumping from my locs to my clothes and back to my eyes, while I searched her expression for anything that might be useful. All I could see was the cold intensity of her eyes, the subtle dark circles beneath them. Between that and their urgent need for my sister, I knew they had bigger problems than a stowaway.

  “Captain?” A young female voice came over the ship’s intercom.

  The captain pushed aside her hair and switched on a transmit connection behind her ear, keeping her eyes fixed on me. “Go.”

  “We’re running low on helium-3. Permission to alter course to Ouyang Outpost?”

  My heart fluttered. Ouyang Outpost orbited Adul opposite the station where my parents lived.

  “Do it,” she said.

  “If you give me a chance,” I said as soon as she switched off the transmission, “I can increase the efficiency of your propulsion system. You won’t make as many of those refueling stops. You’ll have at least a twenty-percent decrease of burn off—”

  “You don’t seriously mean to tell me you’ve trespassed onto a private vessel so you can beg for work?” She stepped closer, until her face was mere centimeters away from mine. The scent of rosemary and ozone haloed her, at once soothing and enticing. “Don’t tell me. You just want to save up some money for medicine for your dying mother. Son? Grandparent? . . . Dog?”

/>   The engineer barked a laugh and the captain bounced her eyebrow at him over my shoulder, a lopsided smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. But only for a moment. She locked eyes with me again, close enough that I could feel her breath on my face.

  “So what is it, surgeon?” She sneered the last word, then lowered her voice. “What sob story can you give me that I haven’t heard already? What makes you entitled to a place on my ship? Why should I take money from my crew, who’ve earned the right to be here, and give it to you?”

  Embarrassment and rage flushed my cheeks. I had nothing to say, nothing more to offer than my word. Now that I stood in front of this flame of a woman, well outside the atmosphere of my home planet, the whole situation just seemed ridiculous and childish. Groveling for a free ride home—or at least a safe drop-off at the Adul station—might be the best I could do at this point, but even that seemed impossible.

  The captain’s scorn rendered her otherwise soft features menacing.

  “Ovie,” she said, still lacerating me with her eyes.

  “Captain,” the engineer growled.

  “Put her in the brig.”

  The engineer—Ovie, evidently—shoved me forward. With me in his custody, he walked toward the fore of the ship, and I took in everything I could while the medical officer followed us. Observations came in flashes I would later remember. I took note of the rooms we passed and where they were in relation to each other and to the cargo bay, even if I had no idea what was behind each door. A faint, pleasantly industrial smell slithered through the hallway to greet me. Boots clanged up metal stairs, across metal floors.

  The ship—whose name I had yet to learn—hummed quietly beneath it all, singing softly to herself as she sailed through the black. The one bright spot in the middle of all this fear, this beautiful vessel protected us from the dangers of the Big Quiet. I imagined her slicing through darkness with grace while the interplanetary medium glittered invisibly around her hull.