by Maura Milan
He guzzled his drink and wiped the remnants of the thick brew off his lips.
“Earlier, those men, they were talking about the Armada moving in?”
She laughed. “This is Myth, my friend. Dead Space was Cōcha’s territory, but not anymore. A turf war is coming. Though really, it won’t even be a war. It’s gonna be a taking. The Armada are coming in strong.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re a slaver nation. They must have forged an alliance with someone big because they’re running around Dead Space like they own the place.”
Knives’s eyes clouded over as he thought back to the meeting with Bastian and his father. They had mentioned slavers attacking Olympus’s colonies. Could they be the same group threatening to take over Ia’s turf?
He was about to ask when the bartender’s fingertips fluttered to his neck, tracing the lines of his chin. “I don’t see your kind often.”
His eyes snapped up to hers, and she peered at him like she was hunting prey. “And what kind is that?”
She leaned in closer so that only he could hear.
“Bug,” she whispered.
“I’m not—”
“Sweetling, you’re too clean to be a Dead Spacer. Even in the dim, I can see that. But if you’d like, I can dirty you up a bit.”
Even through the sheen of sweat and dirt, he could make out the delicate curves of her lips, parted just so. She was gorgeous; there was no doubt about that. His body leaned closer, wanting to kiss her, to breathe that exhilaration into his lungs. She drifted toward him. Her hair smelled like ash and grease and life, and he flicked his eyes up to hers.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered to her as if he were in a trance, but then he shook his head. “I should get going.”
The woman slouched back into the dusty gray couch. She took a quick puff of vapor, and her voice was harsh. “Don’t tell me. You have someone waiting for you…”
“Yeah.” He got up, adjusting his jacket. “Something like that.”
Grumbling, he walked back to his Kaiken, parked out on the bustling docking bay. The landing platform was surrounded by an atmos field to protect them from the vacuum of space. The atmos field shimmered as jets came and went. Finally, there was a pause in the activity, and like a deep breath, the view became clear. Knives looked up into the All Black and buried his hands in his pockets. His fingers knocked against the cold silver metal of Ia’s heart tracker.
How strange that such a little thing would link the two of them together. If he wanted to get rid of the burden of looking after her, he could throw it away, jettison it out into the dark abyss.
But instead, he left the tracker where it was, nestled safely in the corner of his pocket.
Try all you’d like, Cōcha, he thought. I’m not letting you go that easily.
CHAPTER 17
IA
THE TEAMWORK TEST—that’s what their professors called it. The tests were semiannual examinations, simulations meant to assess each cadet’s ability to work with others in high-stress situations.
Ia was with a small group. She glanced at the names flashing on the holoscreens above their separate holding stations.
Liam Vyking. Cammo Talle. Reid Loiqo.
And then Ia’s eyes landed on Tarver, standing in her own station across the way. The assignments were random, but by a stroke of fate, Brinn Tarver was also on Ia’s team. There were dark circles underneath Tarver’s eyes, a sure sign that she wasn’t getting enough sleep in that tiny bathroom they shared. But Ia didn’t give two mifs about Tarver’s comfort. While they were in the room together, the two of them said nothing to each other. No “good night,” no “have a nice day.” And she was completely fine with that.
She glared over in Tarver’s direction, but her attention was directed at Cadet Vyking, who was standing in the station beside Ia’s. Ia grimaced. Puppy love.
What was so great about the Vyking kid? Yes, his jaw was strong, and his face was rather nice to look at. But he was almost a carbon copy of Captain Nema. A tall and younger-looking Nema.
The last time Ia got tangled up with the prolific captain, she’d left him turned about near the outer moons of Echo. She’d led him around like a mouse tempting a large and oafish cat. It all had ended when Nema forgot to calculate the gravitational pull of those oddly gargantuan moons and used all of his fuel trying to escape. She’d spent a marvelous hour watching him struggle. That was exactly what Ia liked to call fun.
This Vyking boy could be fun as well. But an annoying kind of fun. Like swatting a fly that pestered you all night.
Ia squinted up at the blinding lights. The ceiling was webbed with wires, leading from their pods to a main processing tower in the middle. From the far end of the room, a number of med borgs were making their way toward Ia’s team.
One of the women stopped at Ia’s station. Ia read the raised numbers across her neck and smiled at her, making sure to initiate eye contact. “Hello, 494.”
The borg inched up to her, so close Ia could detect the glassy sheen of her eyes.
“Greetings,” 494 replied as she placed a gentle palm on Ia’s shoulder to ease her back into the long, cylindrical holding station. As Ia leaned back, her arms rested comfortably into grooved armholds that protruded from the sides of the cylinder.
Ia put on her sweetest voice. “I am so grateful for your assistance, 494. And I can’t help but mention that your outfit looks impeccable on you.” 494 was wearing the same exact uniform as the other med borgs, but Ia was going out of her way to be complimentary. There was a way to persuade borgs to favor you. In a way, wooing borgs was a lot like charming people. All it required was a lot of eye contact and a lot of praise to trick the little bits of circuitry in their head.
The woman gave her a very pleasant but forgettable smile and pressed a button on the outer wall. The holding station tilted backward, only stopping when Ia was lying flat.
The borg held up a small piece of equipment, dangling from her dainty fingers like a mechanical worm. Glowing nodes pulsed all along the mechanism’s vertebrae. It was a neural device.
With a gentle touch, 494 laid the device upon the crown of Ia’s forehead until it curved to the back of her head.
“You Will Not Feel Any Pain.” The borg’s voice was like a lullaby as she pressed a button at the tip of the device. Ia felt a light tickle, and then she was somewhere else entirely.
Red warning lights flashed in her eyes. Alarms trilled. Electrical wires sparked as they fell from the ceiling.
She made quick note of her surroundings. They were on the captain’s deck of a battleship. A large rumble shook the floor, and she knew instantly the ship was going down. Within ten minutes, it would all be over.
The other cadets flickered into the simulation. They all took a second to collect themselves and then burst into action.
But Ia chose to hang back. To observe. Because it would be so wonderful to see them fail without her help. It enraged her that she hadn’t been picked to be a flyer. She knew she was better than everyone, and she was sure the Commonwealth knew this fact as well. They should’ve been honored to have her fly for them. They should’ve begged her to take the pilot’s seat in their name. It was a ridiculous thought to have about your enemy, but she was that good. And they refused to acknowledge it. So let them perish.
Of course, the Nema wannabe was already calling orders. “Tarver, can you access the flight logs?”
Tarver ran up to the control panels, and her fingers flew, accessing the onboard system. Ia had never seen a person sequence so quickly.
A series of numbers flashed on the holodisplays as Tarver continued to navigate the ship’s safety levels. From the screen, Ia already knew the problem.
And Tarver confirmed it. “It’s a breach…I don’t know where.”
A computerized voice echoed throughout the metal interior. “Caution. Oxygen levels are at eight percent.”
Ia knew the cabin would depressurize at five perc
ent, but she wanted to see what these tyros would do.
“How long do we have?” Vyking called out.
Two minutes.
“Around two minutes and counting,” Tarver said, echoing Ia’s thoughts.
“We have to find the hole and repair it,” Vyking ordered.
Ia crossed her arms. Way to state the obvious, kid.
She watched as Nema Jr. pointed to a female cadet with long messy braids. “Reid, put out an SOS.” Then he turned to the other cadet in their group. “Cammo, stimulate the algae baths so we can generate more oxygen.”
Wrong. This was all wrong. Everyone was doing exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time. She loved seeing Bugs suffer, but this was beyond annoying.
“Oxygen levels are at seven percent,” the computer updated them.
Ia took a deep breath. Seven percent was a good enough challenge. From her brief moments of observation, she’d scoped out the tech on everyone’s suits. They were all equipped with tasers on their belts. A nonlethal model that gently lulled the nervous system, instead of shutting it down.
Ia charged forward, her fingers clasped around the grip of her weapon. First, she needed to eliminate the unnecessary use of oxygen.
She aimed her taser at the gap-toothed kid. Then at Reid, the redheaded girl with the braids. Finally, Nema Jr., the most satisfying of all. Electrical surges flickered like tiny fireworks along their bodies. She didn’t even wait to watch as they fell to the floor.
But Tarver did. “What are you doing? That’s against the rules!”
Ia hoped she’d made the right choice by keeping her conscious. Tarver had proven herself quick-fingered at the system controls.
“They’re asleep,” Ia explained. “Sleep lowers your individual oxygen intake. With three people down, it’ll give us a couple more minutes.”
Ia’s eyes studied the monitors as she leaned on the control panel. “Scan the lavatories for breaches.”
Tarver gave her an unwilling look, a very obvious second of hesitation. “Why would I do that?”
Ia glared at her. “About ninety-seven percent of natural breaches are caused by faulty lavatory receptacles.”
Tarver’s hands were on the onboard displays, flipping through the ship’s layout. “You gotta be kidding me. Toilets? Faulty toilets?”
“More action and less chatting.”
Ia swiped the screen and watched as the image rendered a 3-D schematic, rotating and unraveling it like peeling the layers of an onion. The animatic turned a corner, and there it was: the breach. Exactly where she’d expected.
“Close down that section of the ship.”
Tarver typed. Error. She typed again. Error.
“I can’t get into the system settings,” Tarver reported. “There must be an admin lock on it.”
“Then find a back door!” Ia slammed her hand hard against the metal console. She was furious. If her own Dead Space crew was there, they would have fixed this in seconds.
“You want me to hack in? That’s a criminal offense.”
“You forget who you’re talking to. Do you want to pass this sim or not?”
Tarver turned back toward the control panel.
“Oxygen levels are at five percent.” The computerized voice reverberated straight to Ia’s spine.
She watched Tarver’s multiple attempts, her fingers writing code that was close but not quite. She typed, then deleted. Typed more, and deleted again. Something was odd about the pattern, about her moments of hesitation. Like the cadet knew exactly what she was doing and undoing.
“Are you trying to fail?” Ia asked.
Tarver swiveled her eyes at her, a glimmer of shock on her face. But why was she alarmed?
Tarver’s face changed like a chameleon. “I’m trying to—”
The word CRITICAL flashed across the screen. Ia shook her head. A Warning was doable, but in ship talk, Critical meant they were in dire circumstances.
“We’re out of time.” Ia reached for her last resort. Her fingers gripped the base of a helmet, calibrated to withstand pressure changes. Instead of bearing a crimson feather on the visor, it had the quartered shield of the Commonwealth on its helm.
She never in her wildest nightmares would have donned a Bug’s helmet, but this was her only option. It was just a sim, she reminded herself. The helmet didn’t mean anything to her. It never would.
So she slipped it on.
Tarver glanced at her, confused. “What are you doing?”
It was game over. In a few moments, this ship would self-destruct.
Ia tapped the button at her temple. Her visor slid slickly into place and balanced the pressure inside her helmet.
From the safety of her helmet, Ia looked Tarver straight in the eyes. “Thanks for trying.”
Her fingers gripped the taser at her side. Without a single moment of hesitation, she raised her arm and pulled the trigger.
From this distance, the beam spattered onto Brinn Tarver’s chest, and her body shook into unconsciousness. But Ia didn’t see any of this. She was already out of the captain’s deck, heading straight for the escape pods.
CHAPTER 18
BRINN
BRINN’S EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. The lights on the ceiling burned into her vision.
She struggled to sit up, massaging her eyes in the process.
A hand cupped her shoulder.
“Not too fast.” Liam’s voice was soft and steady. “I made that mistake and ended up vomiting.”
Brinn glanced at him. His eyes were bloodshot, like he had been up all night. However, the gold and emerald flecks circling his pupils continued to shine, even in the awful glaring light.
Liam unzipped his hoodie and tossed it at her.
That’s when she realized she was no longer in her jumpsuit. Instead of the slick polyaeriate material against her skin, she wore a loose tank top and gray cotton shorts. Her bare arms prickled with goose bumps. She glanced around and quickly realized she was no longer in the exam room—they were in the med bay.
She slipped into Liam’s sweatshirt, still warm from the heat of his body.
Liam poured her a glass of water. She took it and sipped, the water cool on her chapped lips.
As she drank, she glanced around the room. Rows of medical beds were lined up against the walls, all empty. They were the only two left in the med bay.
“Cammo and Reid left an hour ago.” Liam sat down on the edge of her bed. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
But Brinn wasn’t thinking of Cammo and Reid. Instead, Ia was the one who haunted her. The last thing Brinn had seen before she lost consciousness was the hollow end of Ia’s taser gun.
“What happened with the test?”
Liam propped his arms behind him and leaned back, his weight shifting the cushions on the medical cot. “No idea. We were all knocked out. Everyone woke up with red eyes and a splitting headache.”
A ball of anger flared her vision.
“Damn that girl.” The words came out without thinking.
The right corner of Liam’s lips tugged upward. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
A wave of embarrassment washed over Brinn. She shook her head in surprise. This wasn’t like her at all. She was angry. And she couldn’t control it, not like she controlled everything else in her life.
She jumped off the bed, her legs wobbling from the effects of the simulation. She technically hadn’t been zapped by a taser gun, but because of the neural device they’d worn, her mind was tricked into feeling like she had actually been shot.
Regaining her balance, she made her way toward the med bay doors.
“Where are you going?” Liam called after her.
Enough was enough. Brinn was through dealing with Ia’s antics. And she was completely over living with her. But there was only way out of that situation.
“There’s someone I need to see,” she said.
Brinn stalked down the hallways, the heat of anger flooding on
to her skin. She stopped in front of a large metallic door gleaming with a slight green sheen. But before her knuckles rapped right underneath the placard bearing the headmaster’s name, the door slid open. The headmaster stood on the other side of the doorway. His gray flight suit was crisp and clean, with not a wrinkle in sight, displaying the headmaster’s insignia—a laurel wreath with a star in its center—pinned prominently on his chest. He wore an even-tempered smile as if he was happy to see her.
“Cadet Tarver,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Brinn burst into the room, then waited for the door to slide closed again so they could have their conversation in private. “I refuse to room with Ia any longer.” Her voice sliced through the air. “I need a reassignment.”
Headmaster Weathers moved back to his desk and gestured toward a chair across from him. But Brinn remained standing, waiting for him to apologize, perhaps even tell her that all of this was indeed the result of some clerical mistake. That they’d never meant to force the fearsome Ia Cōcha on an unsuspecting cadet.
Instead, Bastian Weathers clasped his hands and placed them on top of his desk.
“To request a room reassignment, one would need to have a good reason. Has Ms. Cōcha harmed you in any way?”
Brinn stared at him, dumbstruck. She actually had to justify her decision? “Well, no. But she grabbed my arm really hard,” she explained.
He motioned to her arm. “Are there bruises?”
She glared at him. It had been a week since that happened, and any marks had already faded. “No.”
“Then there’s no proof that you’re in any danger.”
She paced before his desk, raking her fingers through her hair, now tangled from the chaos of her day, then sank into the seat in front of him. She stared at her knees. “I don’t think you’re listening to me.”
“I am,” he assured her. “But I’ve been headmaster to Aphelion for more than fifteen years. I’ve seen cadets who start as enemies but end their training as the best of friends. And I think you of all people should give Ia the benefit of the doubt.”