Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2)

by J. S. Collyer

  Haven

  Book II of theOrbit Series

  For Andy & Anna.

  Thanks for helping me keep it unreal.

  Copyright J.S. Collyer 2015

  Edited by R.J. Davey

  J.S. Collyer has asserted her moral right to be identified as the original author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced and disseminated in any form, electronic or physical, by any means of copying or recording, except for the purposes of critical review or academic comment.

  This eBook is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any persons, living, dead or yet to be born are purely coincidental and unintended.

  Dagda Publishing, Nottingham, UK

  www.dagdapublishing.co.uk

  Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  Epilogue

  ‘Feeding us with violence, we face the fall of man.

  Believe me and catch me if you can.’

  - Apoptygma Berzerk

  I

  Habit made Hugo stand to attention as the officers filed out of Colonel Hudson’s office. None of them looked at him as they passed.

  Hudson’s aide had to call him twice from the office doorway before he registered he was being summoned. Hugo unclenched his fists and made his body move. The colonel's office was very ordered. A distant part of his mind remembered that he’d always approved of that. It used to comfort him, but now it only seemed to emphasise the chaos in his head.

  Hugo attempted to focus as Hudson started speaking. She was young for a colonel. Younger than him. Better at her job, too. He remembered her as Colonel Luscombe’s aide, sorting the older man’s life in more ways than he even realised before he retired, and knew she was even more of a force to be reckoned with now she was making her own decisions. Good decisions, most of the time.

  “Commodore,” she said again after a pause he hadn’t noticed. “Are you listening?”

  Hugo didn’t answer. His heart was pounding and his fingernails were digging into his palms.

  “Hugo,” Hudson said, standing from behind her desk. “This is serious.”

  “What was the outcome?” Hugo’s voice sounded low and distant in his own ears.

  Heat flared in Hudson’s face as she visibly controlled her temper. “Suspension. Effective immediately.”

  “That’s not acceptable.”

  “I don’t care if you think its acceptable. You were this close to a formal court martial. I don’t even want to admit to myself the favours I’ve had to call in to stop formal charges being filed.”

  “I don’t care about formal charges. I need access to my team and equipment.”

  “They’re not your team any more.”

  Hugo felt something ripple over his skin, something that was almost feeling. “Ma’am, the culprits are at large.”

  “And they will be apprehended by the appropriate teams.”

  “They captured and tortured my officer. I can’t - ”

  “No, Hugo,” Hudson’s brow clouded. “This is not a negotiation. You are suspended from the Eclipse unit and hereby removed as overseeing officer from all its missions. You are to turn in your pips and weapon and return home to await further instruction.”

  “Ma’am…” he managed to keep his voice from shaking, but only just. “I can’t…I can’t leave this.”

  “You’re going to have to.”

  “Eclipse - ”

  “Eclipse should never have taken on that insane mission. You don’t have the resources or the influence to pull off investigating Haven smugglers. It’s no wonder it ended in disaster. It will be passed on to the Analysts.”

  “Ma’am,” Hugo said again. “The Analysts can’t follow the trail. They have no jurisdiction on Haven.”

  “I am aware of this. But you were reckless, Hugo. You risked too much, too soon. You know Command is looking for any chance to shut Eclipse down. And you gave them a reason.”

  Hugo clenched his jaw. “That team have earned their right to revenge.”

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Hudson said, voice rising. “We cannot have officers using Eclipse for personal vendettas. You got too close to this. You got cocky, soldier, and Marilyn Harvey paid for it. You’ve lost us this mission. You were lucky you didn’t lose us the unit.”

  Hudson’s clouded face swam as he watched everything crumble away. “We’d named him,” he said, not knowing why. He couldn’t see the office any more, just a dark, swirling hole he was ready to fall into and drown in. “She’d chosen a name for our son.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hudson said after a pause. She sounded it, too. But Hugo could barely hear anything over the rushing in his ears. “But there’s nothing can be done. Go home, Hugo. Go home and rest.”

  *

  He knew he could do neither. He found himself in an express lift in the Medic Centre after a blurred flyer ride from Headquarters. On some level, he knew it felt peculiar to not have the familiar weight of his gun at his hip but he couldn’t summon the energy to care.

  Early spring sunshine was streaming through the hospital room window when he walked in, making it seem almost peaceful. The soundproof plexiglass looked out on the crowded skyways and towering buildings of central Sydney but kept the tumultuous noise at bay. The only sound in the room was the soft hush of Harvey’s sleeping breaths and the single monitor she was still hooked to that purred in the corner.

  He sat in a plastic chair next to the bed, keeping his hands clasped together in his lap because he was afraid his touch would wake her. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it hurt. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, on the light eyelashes resting on her cheeks, the curl of her yellow hair on the pillow and the calmness that relaxed the new lines in her forehead and around her mouth. But his gaze always slid to the laser burns under her eyebrows where they’d managed to remove some of the scarring, or the bandaging that still swathed her neck and arms, and he’d have to shut his eyes and breathe through another internal assault.

  “Kale?”

  He hadn’t heard the door. He let out his breath and opened his eyes. His brother Giles stood in the doorway, slight frown of concern creasing his lined forehead. Hugo got up and gestured him back out of the room, clicking the door shut behind them.

  “Are they still keeping her under?”

  “No,” Hugo said. “She’s just sleeping.”

  “That’s good,” Giles prompted, searching Hugo’s face.

  “What do you want?”

  Giles sighed, glanced through the window at the sleeping figure, then took his elbow to steer him away from the door.

  “I heard about the decision today,” Giles began. Hugo kept in step, not replying. “Look, Kale…I just…you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

  “No.”

  Giles sighed and stepped in front of his younger brother to halt their progress. A medic shuffled by with a panel. Giles waited until she was out of sight again before continuing. “I’m serious about this. Eclipse is on the verge of breaking into the inner ring of the West Desert Movement. We need that intel, Kale. They’re pressing in on the Eurasian boarders and we don’t have enough landed manpower to push back a full-scale assault.”

  “How do you know about Eclipse’s missions?”

  Giles sighed. “Hudson drafted me in to review the caseload when you were…taken off
duty.”

  “You?”

  Giles frowned. “Yes. Me. I’ve been commanding dirt-side insurgent resistance for the last four years. The colonel wanted my take on things.”

  “You have no underground ops training - ”

  “My training is not the point here,” Giles interrupted. “Eclipse is doing good work. I don’t want to see it compromised. And you shouldn’t either.”

  “I don’t know what you think I’m planning to do, but you’re wrong.”

  “Dana contacted me.”

  “Dana? What about?”

  “She said you’d been talking to Anita Rami.”

  Hugo bristled. “How does Dana even know about any of this?”

  “Rami called her at the academy. They’re Marilyn’s friends too, you know.”

  “This is none of Dana’s business. Or Captain Rami’s either.”

  “They are worried about you. We all are.”

  “Well don’t be.”

  “I know you,” Giles said, voice lowering as another medic passed by with two Service officers that glanced at the brothers as they passed. “I know what you’re like when it’s…personal.”

  “Personal?” Hugo heard the word leave his mouth and it sounded someone else’s voice. “Marilyn was tortured. Our baby died. That’s more than personal.”

  Giles rubbed his mouth, glancing back toward Harvey’s hospital room. “You can’t use the Eclipse team for revenge,” he said, drawing himself up. “I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. But tracking down the blade that worked on her and bringing him in has to be left to the Analysts. You can’t get onto Haven without a Sponsor and no right-minded Havenite is going to Sponsor any Service officer after one of their own. You try and sneak onboard and get caught, there would be outcry. All our manufacturing contracts with their shipyards would be cancelled and we’d be set back years on the Mars project.” Despite everything else careening round his brain, Hugo was struck by how much Giles looked like their mother when he was commanding. Special Commander Erica Hugo had exactly the same set to her brow and hardness to her eyes when she would tolerate no argument. “Not to mention it would be the last nail in Eclipse’s coffin lid. We can’t afford that. The Service, despite what some of Command think, can’t afford it either. This New Age of Service Command has fostered more hatred then you and I even know about. We need Eclipse. We need those recruits from the underground, possibly even more than we need our increased unit numbers or the new flagship.”

  Hugo felt himself start to shake. He stared into his brother’s face without blinking. “If you think I would compromise that team after everything that’s happened, you don’t know me at all.”

  He shouldered past Giles and strode away down the corridor, ignoring his brother calling him back.

  *

  He sat in his armchair in the living room of his apartment. He was hunched forward with his head in his hands, staring at the streaks of sunlight that warmed the carpet Harvey hadn’t liked. He tried to fight it but just like always, the memory came through so clearly it was like she was in the room with him.

  Harvey was handing him a glass of blask and laughing at him as she tended to do when he told her no.

  “It makes sense, you know it does,” she had said, her green eyes glinting with determination. “I finally have some names. We have a chance to take them down.”

  “Bloodgrease trafficking is a political minefield,” he’d said, sipping the blask and leaning back in the chair. He remembered how his back and head ached from the long day bent over command consoles with his lieutenants, planning the next West Desert reconnaissance mission. “Our team’s not got the background or training to take on any Haven-based organisations.”

  “I do,” she smiled wider. “Seriously, Kaleb…” she’d perched on the arm of his chair, not letting herself touch him which she did when she wanted him to pay attention. “Bloodgrease traders are parasites. Even by Haven standards. We find out enough to cut off their buyers in the Orbit, the trade will wither. Haven needs its legitimate contracts and credit flow. These slimy bottom-feeders should be labouring in the shipyards or trading official produce. But they line their own pockets with credit from illegal Orbit buyers and look to their own gain and not Haven’s.”

  He’d sipped his drink and reached up to put his hand on her stomach, but she leaned back. He remembered with a stab of pain this distance in her eyes then as she looked at him.

  “I need my own missions, Kaleb. It’s bad enough our relationship means no one takes me seriously.”

  “They do take you seriously.”

  She looked away. “You’re not around the research room enough to notice. I want fieldwork. And I want the smugglers stopped. Just think about it, ok?”

  He shook his head, slamming back into the present. His breath went out of him in a rush and he pressed his hands over his eyes to force away the visions of Harvey a few months later after the blade had done his work.

  Slowly, he calmed down. His head swirled but he wiped away the wetness on his eyes and leant back in the chair staring at the ceiling. The apartment was silent around him. His Service-issue computer panels and workstation with links to the Eclipse databanks had been confiscated. The whole place felt very empty, like him. Empty and powerless.

  He got up and booted up his personal comm station. He punched in the secure code he’d memorised. After the connecting screen had buzzed for a few minutes a woman’s face appeared, dark hair cut into a sharp bob and dark brown eyes smiling though her face was serious.

  “Commodore. I’m glad you called.”

  “Captain Rami,” he said, voice steady for the first time in days. “I want to take you up on your offer.”

  Now she really did smile. “What changed your mind?”

  “I can’t use Eclipse. If I do they’ll shut it down.”

  Rami nodded. “Ok then. I’ll help, sir. When do you want to get started?”

  He paused. “What exactly did you tell my sister?”

  Rami blinked then composed herself. “Nothing. I promise.”

  “She knows you talked to me.”

  “I contacted her to tell her about Harvey. She asked how you were so I said I’d spoken to you, but nothing more.”

  “She asked how I was?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “We’re not exactly close.”

  Rami shrugged through that. “Well I just said you were…well. Angry.”

  Hugo nodded. The word wasn’t big enough but he could tell by the look on her face that they both knew it.

  “I’ll meet you tonight,” he said. “I want to leave on the next shuttle. You really know where I can find him?”

  *

  The shuttle ride felt like the longest Hugo had ever known. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone and so determined at the same time. He clutched at the cold metal of Harvey’s dog tags that he’d slung round his neck under his clothes, knuckles aching with the tightness of the grip, for the whole trip.

  He spent the four-hour layover in Tranquility spaceport slumped in a plastic chair with his cap pulled down low on his face staring at the floor, turning his fake ID over and over in his hands. He told himself over and over that he’d know what to say when he saw him. He didn’t let himself think about what he would do if he said no.

  Somehow, he fell asleep on the shuttle transfer from Tranquility to Lunar 3. He woke when the attendant shook him. She had an alarmed look on her face and the other passengers were looking his way.

  “Are you alright, sir?”

  He shouldered himself upright. His shoulders were tight and his throat raw. He took a shuddering breath and glared out the porthole. The attendant took the hint and left him alone. He kept himself from falling asleep again by staring out at the stars and clinging to the dog tags.

  When the huge ring-shaped space station that was Lunar 3 finally came into view, something lurched inside him. For the first time since they’d rescued Harvey and he’d seen what they’d d
one to her, he felt a flicker of doubt.

  Then he remembered that she’d wanted to call their son Thomas after the chief engineer of the Zero who’d lost his life in the last Lunar Uprising, and fire burned through him again, incinerating the fear and uncertainty.

  He filed along behind the other passengers, out of the shuttle and into the civilian arrivals port, pack on his shoulder and head down. He handed over his ID for scanning whilst keeping his breath even. It bleeped and the customs agent waved him through. He found himself on the raised pedestrian walkway spanning the curved levels of Lunar 3’s busy port.

  Pulling out his panel, he checked the address Rami had given him again and turned his feet toward the lifts that would take him to the commercial levels. He drifted along the walkways and through the foot traffic in a kind of fog of numbness. It might have been one hour or it might have been four he spent floating on and off countless public shuttles and sliding walkways, before he pulled himself together to find himself staring at the door of a boarding pod. The minutes stretched on as he stared at the number on the door, aware of nothing over the slow slug of his pulse in his ears and the roll in his gut.

  Finally, he pushed the buzzer.

  There was muffled movement from inside, a long pause, then door slid open.

  “Hugo,” Webb said after staring for several moments. The clone of his one-time commander looked alarmingly unchanged from when he’d last seen him three years previously, when they’d parted ways on the roof of the Memorial Music Hall in Sydney. Hugo’s own hair held more grey than then, but Webb’s hair, which he’d let grow out to the length it had been when they had first met, was still an even, midnight-black. He was still lean, although now a little on the thin side, his vest and cargo trousers hanging a little loose. There were new scars on his arms and face. He’d also re-done a lot of his predecessor’s tattoos, with the addition of an original one on his right bicep: stark black lines of the Roman numeral for the number two.