Spectra Arise Trilogy

by Tammy Salyer

  “No porch light,” he says. “Maybe we’re early? They could still be out grocery shopping for the dinner par—”

  Before he finishes the quip, the sound of a rattling and ill-kept engine begins somewhere deep in the berm. Involuntarily, I jump a little and reach to my belt—where no weapon hangs. Muttering a curse, I back away a few paces, mirroring what the rest of the crew is also doing.

  The seam in the middle of the two gate doors begins to gape as the opening mechanism pulls them apart. I feel utterly naked and exposed. How did we think this was a good idea? How? What they failed to do with the scout is going to be laughably easy with us just standing here like idiots. My breathing starts to feel shallow, as if panic is setting in. Think of Zeta, I tell myself. This is about her and about doing what we can to help her. If we didn’t try—and Desto didn’t mow us all down for being cowards—we wouldn’t be human. We’re doing what’s right, what we have to for the sake of our existence. Survival isn’t the only thing.

  Convincing myself of this is going to take a lot more than a self–pep talk, however.

  The grating sound of the poorly maintained gate reaches into my throat and drags claws across my insides, and my vision begins to narrow. This isn’t right; something is about to go terribly, irretrievably wrong. I’m having a hard time breathing, and it’s getting worse. Like someone is squeezing my lungs.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I hear one of the children ask, but his voice sounds far off.

  I begin to turn around, ready to sprint back to the Orika and pick up the weapons Desto had left lying on the cargo deck, the feeling of dread sinking into my core and making my whole body feel heavy. And then—Why am I lying on David’s feet?—a shroud covers me.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Aly. Aly.” Karl’s voice parts through layers of cobwebs encasing my brain.

  My eyes slide open and he’s there, leaning over me, concern filling his sepia eyes and his hand cradling my neck.

  I’m fine, I try to tell him, but it comes out: “Mfffmmf.”

  “Can you sit up?”

  Wherever we are, there’s enough light to see clearly that I’m lying on a military-issue cot, like the one Venus keeps in her maintenance bay on KL’s ocean platform. The rest of the crew are scattered around me, sitting on or standing near more cots. I reach out and Karl grabs my hand to steady me as I pull myself into a sitting position.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Dunno, exactly. Some kind of school building.”

  “A school?” It’s as if he’d said we’re in a cotton candy factory; my mind is too fuzzy to process or make any sense of what he’s saying. I remember standing at the landing-field gates, panicking. Had I passed out? The two things don’t add up. “Why a school?” is all I can manage.

  “Whatever the reason, they want us alive,” Mason says from a couple of cots away.

  “What happened?”

  From the bunk next to mine, David explains. “You forgot to take out your filter. The air is good here and you didn’t need it, so you were breathing almost pure oxygen, plus your blood pressure hadn’t fully regulated after all the fancy flying Venus did. You blacked out right before our escort arrived.” He drops the offending apparatus on the cot next to me, and I stare at it as if it’s an alien that had until recently lived in my skull.

  I blink a few times and take a couple deep breaths, and the last of the fog starts to clear. “You’re saying I fainted?”

  “And scared the shit out of all of us,” Karl adds.

  David nods. “Then colony guards rounded us up and brought us here.” He smirks, but not in amusement. “You really missed out on the fun. We’ve been waiting for about ten minutes for”—he shrugs—“something.” He peers at me closely for a couple more seconds, then stands. “You’re all right. Now, let’s see what we have here.”

  Everyone has been disarmed, down to our last blades, but the locals left us alone otherwise. So the situation is simply that we’re being held inside a school gymnasium, at their mercy until they decide otherwise. So far, our improvising leaves a lot to be desired. We spread out and begin to sweep the room, leaving Vitruzzi seated with the kids while Karl moves up to the main doorway, keeping an eye out for company. Walking along the vista-screen that covers the back wall, I search for the control booth that runs the giant image player schools use to help students train for different sports. The material of the screen is hard but thin, but that doesn’t matter because it’s probably backed up by either cinder block or something equally solid. I come across the control panel at the far end, but instead of being in another room—where we might get lucky and find an exit—it’s just an interface box on the wall for loading and operating new training programs. Frustrated, I turn toward the others, hoping for different results.

  “Anything?” I call.

  Desto doesn’t respond, and I realize I’ve lost sight of Mason. As I scan the massive rectangular room for him, my eyes catch on a doorway set into the wall on my left—which Mason is coming out of.

  Immediately breaking into a jog, I stop short of him when he shakes his head. “Just a bathroom,” he says.

  “Hey! Company,” Karl shouts and starts backing toward the cots, which are all clustered a few meters from the main entryway.

  We quickly group around Vitruzzi and the kids, ready for whatever. As ready as you can be, that is, when you’re trapped in a high school gymnasium, shipless, weaponless, and until recently, unconscious.

  The doors retract smoothly, sliding into the grooves in the walls on either side, revealing three silhouettes. The light outside is much brighter, punctuating the overall dimness surrounding us and nullifying any sense of safety or protection—no matter how false—the dark might have given me.

  The three enter, one man slightly in the lead. He’s lean and tall, all angles, with sharp elbows and long, thick-jointed fingers, a pointed nose that looks like you could use the ridge of it to cut the heads off small animals, and straight, broad, but almost dainty shoulders. His whole body resembles a delicate but deadly medieval torture instrument. Even the blue of his eyes is piercing, though they are heavily bloodshot.

  Despite his thinness, nearly gauntness, his approach is deliberate and stern. He walks like a man who is used to being listened to and who never makes a move without a purpose. He walks like someone no one fucks with, and I’m utterly certain that our foray into Bogotan is not going to be dull. Hasn’t been so far, in any case.

  This man—obviously the honcho—and his two flanking musclemen plant themselves a meter in front of us. The crew stands in unison, mentally and physically alert and ready for whatever’s coming next. Before saying a word, he looks at each of us individually, and as his bloodshot blue eyes look into mine, the intelligence in them bleeds through like a strobe light on a dark night.

  Breaking the silence, he asks, “I’m glad to see everyone on their feet. Is anyone suffering from any immediate needs? Injuries, thirst, hunger? Any chronic medical issues that require tending?”

  A query about our well-being is about the last thing I had expected, especially with the amount of authentic concern in his voice. I glance at David questioningly. Did I hear that right? His raised eyebrow shows the same level of surprise.

  “Anyone? No? Okay, that’s good news.” He turns his head to the man on his left, a brawny, scowling meat sack that oozes militancy and rage like a bad skin infection. “Van Heusen, their meal, please.”

  The muscleman returns to the door and steps out, and our captor continues, “Please, everyone, let’s all sit and discuss the circumstances we find ourselves in.”

  None of us move, not about to let our guards down, and he and the other bodyguard continue to stare at us—him with calm but detached concern, the meathead with a blank gaze that could belong to a robot.

  “I see,” is all he says.

  A second later, the first guard comes back through the doorway pushing a plastic, four-wheeled cart in front of
him. The smell of warm bread nearly knocks me off my feet, the reality of how hungry I am immediate and severe. None of us has eaten a decent meal in a few days, having been worried and diligent about rationing to hopefully make it back to KL. A tsunami of saliva rushes into my mouth.

  Without waiting for the go-ahead, the four fugee children swarm the cart, ignoring Vitruzzi’s urgent “Hold it!”

  The blue-eyed one who reminds me of Cross uncovers a platter, and exclaims, “Cinnamon rolls!” Then looks inside a box: “And comic holos!” He seems more delighted about the live-action comic holographs than the cinnamon rolls. The guard whispers something to their leader.

  “We intend to provide for everyone, I assure you,” Skinny says. “We wouldn’t have fired on your ship if we’d known you had children aboard.”

  “Why did you fire on us in the first place? Who the hell are you?” Desto asks, the longevity of his patience shorter than my eyelash.

  “Desto,” Karl says and moves his hand in front of him in a calm down gesture, then he regards Skinny. “Look, we don’t know who you are, but you have some explaining to do. Firing on an unarmed transport ship without cause? What kind of people do that?”

  Vitruzzi and Mason hover over the kids protectively while Skinny takes his time responding. All four of the children have helped themselves to the rolls and dig in with fervor while watching the action holo, which they’ve set up on one of the cots.

  Skinny steps over to the cart the man he’d called Van Heusen brought in and opens up the sliding door on one side. The smell of warm bread gets stronger, and I see plates and carafes inside. He gestures to it. “Help yourselves. We’ve brought coffee, eggs, toasted bread, and, I believe, some fruit.” When none of us move toward the cart—despite what I’m certain is naked longing on our faces—he sighs and continues, “I understand your anger and confusion. That’s natural. We fired on your ship with engine phase bots that would disable you and bring you down, but not harm you. Surely you understand our need to keep our population safe?” He gestures at the food again. “Please. You don’t need to be concerned. We are all too short on allies in this new world.”

  A gurgle of hunger twists through my stomach, the noise audible to everyone in the room. Shit, if I’m going to die on this planet, I may as well do it on a full stomach. Stepping up and grabbing the cart by the handle, I pull it closer to the crew and pass them plates and forks. No one hesitates to take one.

  After we all dish ourselves up, completely emptying the food platters, Karl says around his first mouthful, “We’re here for one reason and have no intent to stay. Two weeks ago, a friend of ours was kidnapped, along with the long-range transport ship she was piloting. We think the kidnappers brought her here, so we came to find out. That’s it. Is there anything you can tell us?”

  Hanging on Karl’s words, I study our captors, hoping to read some good news in their faces. The thugs stay cool, but recognition flits over Skinny’s face.

  “You know something,” Vitruzzi says, seeing the same thing. “Tell us.”

  “Ms. Zeta Abrams, flying the Teibo,” he states, and my guts knot up. “She’s already on her way to your home. Keum Libre. She’s fine. Almost four months pregnant, too.”

  What? How would he know that?

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Desto asks, his tone betraying a confounded and barely harnessed rage.

  The guards react. Van Heusen reaches behind his back and withdraws a set of stun sticks. Thug Two does the same. Each stick is good for two loads, but the more important thing their choice of weapons tells me is that they don’t want us dead. But why should we believe Zeta had been sent back to KL if they’re holding us captive?

  The questions keep piling up. “Answers, Skinny,” I prompt. “It’s time for some goddamn answers.”

  “Yes, of course.” He smirks self-consciously and his eyes blink rapidly in a tic of some kind. Yet their focus on us never wavers. “First off, I am—or was—Port Control Authority Deputy Jim Whitmore. Now I’m just Jim, and I help keep safe and secure the last colony of consequence here on Obal 6. These men are Daimler Van Heusen, who heads Bogotan’s security crew, and Jono Zabriskie, another of the colony’s important members. I want to assure you that you are not captives here, and that we fired on your transport merely in an attempt to keep you from endangering the city.” He clasps his hands together in front of his waist, almost wringing them. “Obviously, we have much to learn.”

  “Zeta, how did you know she was pregnant?” Desto demands.

  Looking surprised, Whitmore responds, “Well, she told me. Over dinner the night before she flew home, which was three days ago. She was quite exhausted after the trip here, being one of only two pilots among the crew she arrived with, and—”

  “Quantum and the fugees. Where are they?” I break in.

  Whitmore smiles patiently. “I’ll come back to that. I think you’re all first concerned with the well-being of your friend, as anyone would be.” I have to grit my teeth at his not-quite-condescending tone. “As I said, she was quite tired but understandably in a hurry to get back to your home moon. She and the others explained the situation regarding your salvaging operation, which is quite harrowing. We gave her the resources she needed, and she went on her way. After hearing Ms. Abrams’s story, we anticipated the possibility of your arrival, but unfortunately, our airspace security team are jumpy—for good and obvious reasons. I can’t apologize enough for the way things have developed.”

  “You sent Zeta back to KL,” Desto reiterates, “on the Teibo.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “She’s on her way home—alone. On the Teibo. A ship that requires a minimum of two to crew. That what you’re saying?”

  Desto rises from his bunk and looms like a multikilo colonnade about to crumble into them. Van Heusen says, “Easy, scav. Don’t give me a reason.”

  “Desto,” Karl says quietly to get him to calm down, then turns back to Whitmore. “Answer him.” Then, as an afterthought: “Please.”

  Whitmore steps up to the cart and casually pours himself a cup of coffee while continuing. “Ms. Abrams’s crew—”

  “Kidnappers,” I cut in.

  He glances at me and sips his coffee. “Yes, if you insist. Quantum and the other men did not harm Ms. Abrams, which she was explicit about. The dynamic between them was unfortunate, of course, and this colony doesn’t tolerate that kind of aggression”—unless someone’s flying a transport ship you don’t recognize, I think—“but we did listen to their reasoning.”

  “But didn’t you try shooting them down the way you did us?” Desto inquires, reading my mind.

  For the first time, Whitmore shows signs of impatience, placing his cup down hard enough to make the coffee splash lightly over the rim and onto the cart. “No, they did not appear to be as threatening. They hailed Bogotan from several kilometers distant and landed, then waited for our security team to reach them.”

  “You can’t expect us to believe a goddamn word you have to say unless—”

  “Desto, let the man speak,” Vitruzzi cuts him off, an edge in her voice that I haven’t heard since the war.

  “This is bullshit, Vitruzzi, and you know it! Where is that sonofabitch now? This talking head is just stalling until…”

  From the corner of my eye, I catch Van Heusen aiming his stun stick at Desto. Things are about to start going much worse for us if he doesn’t cool it. For just a second, I consider letting Van Heusen take him out. Then think better of it.

  “Hold it, Bomani. Just chill.” I turn to Whitmore. “Look, we’ve been through some rough shit lately. This hemming and hawing isn’t going to get us anywhere fast, so let’s just cut to the chase, Whitmore. We need to know our friend is safe. What can you do to assure us, and when are we getting out of here?”

  Karl gives me a grateful look and his shoulders relax just slightly. Mason has stepped in front of the group of kids, who’ve stopped watching the holo and stare wide-eyed at t
he exchange. The thought flits through my mind that their adult selves are going to contribute brand-new colors to the spectrum of psychologically damaged. “So?” I prompt.

  Whitmore links his hands behind his back and steps out from behind the cart toward Desto. “You’re the father, I presume. Please believe me, I understand what you’re going through. I have two of my own. Sons.” He steps closer to the group of kids, and Mason tenses for a moment, staring hard at Whitmore. But he drops a shoulder and lets Whitmore by, where he puts a hand on the blue-eyed boy’s shoulder in a fatherly gesture. The kid doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t smile either. He just looks at the adult emotionlessly. “I wish I knew where they were.”

  No one speaks for a moment as Whitmore continues to look at the boy, and his eyelids do another series of fast-paced blinks. Finally, he turns to face the rest of us. “I understand your worries, so I’ll just give you the details you want. Ms. Abrams went back to your colony with one of our pilots and a third crewmember to assist. We plan to send a team to pick them up within the week. And they’re also going to retrieve this soil amendment compound your former colonist Quantum told us about, along with the cache of raw materials other members of your colony previously retrieved on a salvaging run. Quantum is going to assist us in recreating this world.”

  * * *

  “I’ll kill the bastard.”

  No one responds to Desto’s pronouncement. I glance at Vitruzzi to see her reaction to the news that Quantum has bought his place in this colony with the soil amendment compound, and for the first time in what seems like weeks, her expression shifts into the Vitruzzi from before the war.

  “You can’t do that,” she says.

  Whitmore looks surprised. “We can’t do what?”

  “You can’t use that compound. You don’t know how to, or what it’s capable of.”