Triorion: Awakening (Book One)

by L. J. Hachmeister

  There are so many other cadets, she thought, scanning the mess hall packed with tables full of chattering, blue-uniformed pre-teens. Four different meal stations popped out tray after tray for scores of hungry children in a never-ending cycle. Everyone is fed. Nobody’s fighting.

  (I don’t understand this world.)

  “Jetta,” her sister said, interrupting her thoughts as they reached their turn in line to use the food administrator. “Why do you think the teachers are so interested in our tattoos?” Out of the corner of Jetta’s eye, she saw her sister’s left hand automatically going to the inner part of her right arm. “One of them—Rogman—he questioned me about it for an hour.”

  Jetta pressed the dispense button. The scanner attached to the food administrator identified her fingerprint, and the chute dropped a prepackaged meal. The other kids complained that the food tasted funny, but neither Jetta nor her siblings cared. This is so great.

  “I don’t know. The customary defacement of unwanted offspring by Fiorahian streetwalkers must be a hot topic,” Jetta replied, peeling back the plastic covering on her meal to inspect its contents. A pleasant odor of roast chicken and spices wafted up, along with a hint of something sharp, almost medicinal, reminding her of the smell of Galm’s old pill bottles. She stirred the bright yellow potato mixture with her finger. It must be the artificial additives.

  “Don’t be sarcastic,” Jaeia said with a frown. Her sister twisted her foot in her boot, not yet used to their rigid and confining feel. “I don’t like the way they look at it.”

  I don’t like the way they look at me, Jaeia added silently. I can’t read any of the Dominion personnel. We should be able to glean something from them, at least passively.

  To Jetta, their tattoo was a dead topic. Yahmen told them years ago that the symbol inked by their whore mother on the inner aspect of their right arms was some kind of price tag for the Underground Block. Neither Galm nor Lohien would answer anything more about the tattoo, or the triplets’ origins; they just radiated shame and embarrassment. That meant that for once, Yahmen told the truth, but only because it brought pain.

  But the unreadable Dominion personnel is a problem, Jetta thought to herself. How are we supposed to stay one step ahead?

  Lohien’s last words to her leaked through locked-down memories: You will find a way. You will survive.

  Yes, Jetta told herself. I will not fail my brother and sister.

  “Look around. Almost all these chumps are from one of the Nine Homeworlds,” Jetta said, waving her hand at the scores of humanoid variants. “I’m sure plain-looking, tattooed five-year-old kids from unregulated space are a lot more interesting than the privileged brats they get from the interior.”

  “Yeah,” Jaeia said as a kid with polychromatic eyes and a prehensile tail walked by. “I guess we lack exotic flare.”

  “Let’s catch up to Jahx,” Jetta said, nudging her twin and picking up her meal.

  We’re coming, she projected to her brother. She reached out through their bond, feeling his frustration as he tried to find a place for them to sit in the packed mess hall.

  A lot of the cadets are watching us, Jahx said as she and Jaeia joined his side.

  Why? Jetta asked as they moved through the crowd.

  “No one loves a rat,” Jahx said, quoting part of the Fiorahian slum song.

  “Skucheka,” Jetta muttered, sensing the surrounding tension as they directed themselves toward an open table.

  “Gross—launnies!” one of the older kids said, turning around in his chair and sticking his foot out in front of Jetta.

  “Be careful, Stempton,” someone shouted. “They’re probably diseased!”

  Stempton, Jetta grumbled, hackles raising. She imprinted the face of her new enemy, from his red hair to the smear of brown freckles across his nose and cheeks. Don’t mess with me.

  “Move your foot,” Jetta said.

  “A launnie doesn’t talk to a Crexan like that,” he said, spitting dangerously close to her boots.

  “Crexan?” Jetta said, rolling her eyes. Aside from mustard-colored eyes and nictitating membranes, Stempton looked like any other twelve-year-old human boy. Who does he think he’s fooling?

  Jahx’s calm voice entered her head. He’s embarrassed of his human heritage, so he’s targeting us because we’re “lesser” humans.

  Screw the psychology, Jetta snapped at her brother. He needs to check himself!

  “You got something to say to me, launnie?” Stempton said, rising from his seat.

  Jahx grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in the other direction before she had a chance to react. Don’t even think about. We can’t stick out, remember?

  “Are you kidding? If we don’t establish ourselves we’ll be killed,” Jetta said, yanking herself away.

  “That’s right, just walk away, rat!” Stempton called after, rejoining his table full of cronies.

  I could take him, she thought, looking back and sizing up her adversary. All of the other children at the table, including Stempton, outsized them, even the ones closer to their age. Then again, she had never been around well-nourished children before.

  Jahx entered her mind, continuing to talk her down. This is not Fiorah. There are different rules here.

  Fine. Whatever, Jetta relented, slamming her meal down on the nearest table.

  Shiggla, one of the older cadet girls, turned up her nose when Jaeia took the seat next to her. “There’s no room for little launnies here,” she sneered, pushing away her sister’s tray with her elbow.

  Jetta hated them all. Why did they look at her with such disgust? The three of them had been on Core Starbase for less than a week, and already the other children had targeted them, even those who were in their same class level.

  “Come on, let’s find another table,” Jahx said.

  “The only thing you should find is the ejection hatch,” Shiggla said, pointing her finger at Jaeia. “Since when did they let launnies from Fiorah into the Core? This is an elite academy, not a chakking shelter. I don’t want some slum disease because I had to share the bunks with a Fiorahian.”

  “Yeah, you rotten street rats!” one of Shiggla’s cronies said.

  Other kids at their table joined in the haranguing, laughing and making faces:

  “Scabs!”

  “Lurchins!”

  “Deadskins!”

  Jetta clenched her teeth. Calling her a launnie or a street rat sparked anger, but being labeled a Deadskin boiled her blood. I’m no fourth-class human, she seethed.

  Deadskins. The lowest of the low on the Sentient spectrum, nearly worthless if not for the price of their skin. Even if they had some remote human ancestry mixed with their telepathic bloodline, Jetta didn’t think her or her siblings looked like the human detritus found in labor colonies, community projects and flesh farms.

  Jahx looked at her, a warning in his eyes. Jetta, he called silently, I hate it too, but we just have to let it go.

  But she couldn’t. What if Jahx is in a different class than me? What if Jaeia has to use the lavatories in the middle of the night? I have to make a stand now, before things get out of control.

  “I’ll take on any one of you passyes right now,” Jetta said, too angry to remember the Common word for “coward.” She shoved her meal aside and stepped into the aisle, drawing the attention of the surrounding tables.

  “Whoa!” Stempton laughed from the next table over. “Please, don’t hurt me little rat! If you bite me I’ll get the plague!”

  This isn’t right, Jaeia said across their bond as Stempton made gurgling sounds and pretended to keel over.

  He’s a lot stronger than you are, Jahx added. He has too many friends, and fighting is strictly forbidden.

  Jetta didn’t care. She growled, staring the Stempton down.

  “Please, don’t do this,” Jahx whispered.

  When she saw the steadfast look in her brother’s eyes, her retort died in her throat. In the back of her mind she fel
t his stabilizing thoughts trickling in, combining with Jaeia’s and diluting her anger. Unwillingly, her fists relaxed and her jaw unclenched. The realization that her brother and sister controlled her temper gave rise to one final wave of anger, but her siblings soothed the last of her tension with their own sensibilities until it became no more than a shade of resentment. A part of her knew they were right, and having sobered, she backed off.

  “Go sit back down, launnie, before you mess your pants,” Shiggla chuckled.

  Stempton, Shiggla and their friends continued the taunts as they watched Jetta and her siblings pick up their trays and move to the table in the furthest corner of the mess hall. Jetta kept her brother and sister’s presence at the forefront of her mind as food flew in their direction.

  “You’ll get your chance in basic training, you know,” Jaeia said, wiping a noodle off her cheek.

  “Won’t be soon enough,” Jetta mumbled, plucking a frensco leaf from her hair.

  After a few minutes the other kids went back to their food and their previous conversations. Having entered the mess hall hungry, Jetta now stared at her food while her siblings ate.

  Eat something, Jaeia called out to her. You’ll feel better.

  With a grumble, Jetta forked a meat cube. I’ll feel better when I can fight back.

  Listen, Jahx said, pulling her and Jaeia deeper into his head. Through his senses, Jetta eavesdropped on the conversations at Stempton’s table.

  “Yeah? Well, my dad brought twenty-two leeches into the registration office. He’s a legacy now, can you believe it? No one has ever nabbed that many,” Stempton said.

  “Maybe he’s got the ‘talent,’ too,” somebody said.

  “Hey—watch your mouth!”

  “I’m just sayin’. I mean, how did he know they were leeches unless he was one himself?”

  “‘Cause they’re weasels. If you’re smart,” Stempton said, tapping his head, “you can see ‘em a light year away.”

  “Gods, I just want to see every last leech burn.”

  Stempton made a slicing motion across his neck. “I’d like to carve them up myself.”

  Jetta withdrew from her brother’s mind to find that Jaeia and Jahx had stopped eating, their eyes cast downward, hearts hammering in their chests.

  “I’ve never heard kids talk like that before,” Jaeia said, fiddling with her utensils.

  These aren’t child laborers, Jetta shared across their bond. They’re not just concerned about day-to-day survival.

  No, the other recruits are something else entirely, she decided, scanning the mess hall. Behind every cream-smooth, cherub face hid a new enemy, one she had never encountered before.

  “Let’s go,” Jahx said, taking her hand. Jetta dumped the contents of her meal into the waste disposal system. The light sensor blinked twice, processing how much she had consumed. She hated the thought of having a double-portion at the next meal to make up for this one, but at least someone actually kept them fed.

  As she walked with her siblings back to their bunks, Jetta fought to keep her emotions in check. I can’t feel afraid, not when my siblings are struggling with their own fears. She wanted to tell them she would keep them safe, but the words stuck in her throat.

  “How long until we have to go to class?” Jaeia asked as Jahx pulled some datapads out of the storage unit at the end of his bunk.

  “We have about fifteen minutes,” Jahx said. “Want to go over this chemistry lesson with me?”

  Jetta looked around the barracks. The kids milling around the long and narrow aisle between bunks seemed disinterested in their conversation. Most were catching a few extra minutes of rest or study time while others crowded around the more popular kids’ beds, listening to the tales of their simulated battle victories.

  “Ugh,” Jetta said, waving her hand in front of her face as a cadet closed the door to the lavatories and walked past them. “I don’t know if I can concentrate.”

  “These were the best bunks we could get,” Jahx reminded her.

  “At least we’re all together,” Jaeia said, sitting next to Jahx on his bunk.

  Yeah, I guess, Jetta thought, eyeing the unoccupied bunk above Jahx. No one wants to bunk with a rat.

  “Come on, Jetta,” Jahx said, propping the interactive datapad on his knees. “I could use your help.”

  Jetta sat on the other side of Jahx, passing over his words and listening to his thoughts as he talked about the assignment.

  We have to be forgettable. We have to be mediocre at best. Whatever happens, we have to be able to slip away unnoticed.

  Jahx, Jetta thought, is there any way that you could figure out what they’re after—why they’re going through all this trouble to register and screen the telepaths? If we don’t figure out how they’re doing it we’re screwed.

  It’ll be hard, Jahx conceded. Everything’s been classified, so it can’t be accessed on the Dominion educational database. If we want to know more we’ll have to watch the newsreels.

  But they’re controlled by the Dominion media, Jetta groaned inwardly.

  Exactly, Jahx replied. I can still try the mainframe. They keep a tight watch on everything we do, so it’ll take some time before I can circumvent their security measures.

  Jetta raised a brow. When did you become such a techno-geek?

  Jahx raised one back at her. One of the terminals broke down in my physics class. It took three techs to fix it.

  You gleaned from Dominion personnel? Jaeia and Jetta exclaimed in unison.

  Yes, but only because they focused on repairs. All I could steal was that skill set, Jahx said. Otherwise it was like trying to look through a brick wall.

  Well, at least we have some edge, Jetta remarked. Lucky dig.

  “Not really,” Jahx said aloud, voice paper-thin.

  Jetta looked into Jahx’s memory of the dig. Two of the technicians were completely incompetent, and copying their employed skill was about as useful as a broken thumbtack. However, the third, a Trigonian with a hawk nose and flinty eyes, had what Jahx needed, but his technical knowledge came with a price.

  Vibrating algorithms of computer code and advanced programming concepts whizzed through Jetta’s mind. At first Jetta didn’t understand her brother’s issue. Gleaning from another Sentient was never a clean imprint, and this man’s essence was no worse than any of the Fiorahians they had stolen from. The man’s hatred for women heated up her limbs, his appetite for greasy foods soured her stomach. The delight after framing another co-worker for data theft coated her insides with something slick and slimy.

  “Elements in the same group tend to show patterns in atomic radius, ionization energy, and electronegativity,” Jahx said. He paused, blue eyes flicking up to meet her gaze. Without moving, he redirected Jetta’s sights, pulling her down and into his inner world.

  Deeper than she had tread before, Jetta felt the undercurrent of her brother’s psyche as he stole from the hawk-nosed technician. It was not this man’s seediness, but the cesspool of Sentient ills Jahx had accumulated over the years.

  There are some things I never wanted to know, Jahx whispered across their bond.

  “I know,” Jetta said, touching his hand and sharing his pain. “Me too.”

  Jaeia sighed, pulling her knees up to her chin. “Me three.”

  Clearing his throat, Jahx resumed his chemistry review and their internal conversation. I will figure out why the Dominion is after telepaths. That will keep us one step ahead.

  I just don’t understand, Jaeia thought. Why are telepathic people so hated?

  Our abilities are hard for non-telepaths to understand, Jahx replied.

  Or control, Jetta growled. They envy our talents, so they spread lies to keep us under their thumb.

  Neither of her siblings could disagree.

  Look, Jetta said, her inner voice firm and definitive, we’re getting out of here as soon as possible. I say we pass our classes but look for a way to escape. Jaeia, you and I will work on crac
king their flight database and vehicle access codes while Jahx figures out what the hell is going on.

  That means we’ll have to find a pilot to steal from, Jaeia said.

  There are a couple pilots teaching a basic flight class down by the physics wing. We can hang out there after class. If you get one of them talking about launch protocols, I’ll dig for something useful, Jetta said.

  No way are you flying us out of here, Jaeia said. You couldn’t even reach the controls. You’d crash a ship in an empty dock!

  “Hey!” Jetta exclaimed, punching her lightly in the shoulder. You were the one that crashed that towing cart in the mines, not me.

  Jaeia giggled and put her hands up. Uh, yeah, if my name is Jetta.

  Jetta lunged for another attack, but Jaeia grabbed the pillow at the head of the bed and blocked her. They wrestled for only a few seconds before another cadet threw a datapad at them.

  “Cut it out, ratchaks!”

  Jetta grabbed the datapad and threw it back at the cadet a few bunks down. Ready for a fight, she jumped to her feet and put up her fists. The other cadet chuckled and turned back to talk with his friends.

  “I miss Galm,” Jahx whispered, closing his eyes and leaning against the bunk post. Jetta’s fists uncurled, and she sat back down on the bunk.

  “Me too,” Jaeia said, pulling the pillow close to her body.

  “I just wish we could tell him we were okay.”

  Jetta agreed with her brother. The Dominion Core forbade any contact with anyone outside the Academy for the first five years of training. Even if they could contact Galm sooner, Jetta didn’t know what she would say.

  “I’m going to be late to class. Gaming strategy is clear cross the base,” Jaeia sighed, sitting up.

  “Be careful,” Jetta whispered. Jaeia managed a smile as she grabbed her datafiles, then exited the barracks to catch one of the flatbed, anti-grav lifts to her class.

  “I’ve got to get to chemistry. Shouldn’t you be getting ready, too?” Jahx said as he stuffed a few more supplies into his uniform pockets.

  “It’s an unfair trade, you know,” she whispered as she passed him the pad. She projected her thoughts to him, sharing all the things she couldn’t say with words. How happy she was that they could finally eat all they wanted—that they didn’t have to fight for their food or search out water. How good it felt to be rid of that coarse tepper-cloth and the rucken worm infections that came with it. And the beds—they had never slept on real beds before, much less in a room with climate control and no infestations.