Chapter 3
Grey knew she’d find her sister outside with the animals. She jogged through the battleship until she arrived at Cargo Hold 1. Somehow Rin had managed to talk Mrs. March into allowing her to bring their two zorses Tram and Trif to Jupiter, and the crew had put her in charge of feeding not only them but the two Belgian tigers one of the officers had brought along for security.
“Halt,” a voice ordered from behind her.
Grey stopped near a wire crate stacked with jugs labeled “potable water” and held back a groan. Did she really have to answer to everyone?
She turned to face yet another drone before she realized the young man was human. His tan face was almost too handsome to belong to a soldier and reminded her of Jet Yien. If she’d met this soldier in the Preserve she would’ve guessed he was one of the wealthy elite who paid to trophy hunt in the wilderness and spend most of the trip riding in luxurious hovercrafts while the hired guide did all the leg work.
“Last time I checked, I’m allowed to be here,” Grey said.
“Name,” the soldier said.
“I don’t have to—”
“Your name.”
Grey bristled at his curt order. She’d lived alone with Rin for so long it didn’t come easily to submit to authority, but she knew she needed to get used to it if she was to help Yien defeat Mazdaar. She remembered all too well the cruelty of Mazdaar, and she would do whatever she could to keep them from claiming Jupiter.
“Grey Alexander,” she finally said, straightening her shoulders.
The soldier paused, as if listening to someone giving him orders through an earpiece.
“Thank you,” the soldier finally said with a slight tip of his head.
“If you need to know, I’m going out to talk to my sister at the animal pens.”
His stare bore through her in a way that made her want to put another meter between them.
“May I ask you a personal question?” he said.
A grinding noise came from behind them, and Grey turned to watch the cargo door crank open and reveal the surface of Jupiter. She couldn’t help gawking. The sky was a swirling mass of orange clouds which only accentuated the multi-colored soil she and Rin called rainbow dirt. It was as hard to get used to as the drones.
“If you’ll tell me why the dirt’s that color,” Grey said.
The soldier didn’t even crack a smile. “Minerals.”
She could imagine iron creating red or cobalt coloring the blues, but the minerals on Jupiter were probably completely different.
“It’s beautiful,” Grey said.
“But not home, correct?”
She nodded. She couldn’t deny she missed Earth with an intensity she hadn’t expected.
“I’m Corporal Lennox,” the soldier added.
Was she supposed to salute him? Grey wasn’t above it, but Mrs. March was right. She knew nothing about Yien military protocol.
“I heard what you did,” Lennox said before she could decide.
Grey had done a lot of things in her short time here, some of them stupid. Which one was the soldier talking about?
“I knew Dana Yurkutz,” Lennox added.
“You say it as if she’s dead.”
“She should be.”
Grey met his eyes. They looked brighter with the door open. Two soldiers marched past them, rifles slung across their backs, but Grey couldn’t take her gaze off Lennox.
“Dana saved my life,” she said.
“And could’ve cost us many others.” Lennox touched the butt of the weapon strapped to his thigh. Probably a violetflare, like most military-issued handguns. The same kind that had nearly killed Dana when she’d thrown herself in front of Grey and taken the hit General Evangeline Yurkutz had intended for her.
Grey wished she’d been issued a weapon of her own. Back home she hadn’t gone anywhere without her coilgun. Archaic as it was, it could still put a hole through someone.
“You said you had a question.”
Corporal Lennox put himself in front of her. He was at least six inches taller, and she caught a whiff of oil or fuel on his clothes.
He lowered his voice. “Why didn’t you kill that traitor when you had the chance?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Grey resisted the urge to back away from him, feeling the heat of anger rising up her neck.
“You didn’t have the guts, did you?”
She pictured herself only a week ago back on Earth, pulling the trigger on what she thought was a border patrol drone threatening her sister. She found out later she’d killed a man. Would she have fired if she’d known he was human?
“Leave her alone, Lennox.”
A female soldier stepped between them. Her raven hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“This is my post,” Lennox responded, looking like he wanted to shove the woman away, but Grey saw the silver bar on the woman’s sleeve. She definitely outranked Lennox.
“Then get back to it.”
Lennox saluted and retreated, and the lieutenant held out her hand to Grey. She was probably in her thirties.
“Lieutenant Marie Johansson,” she said, shaking Grey’s hand.
Grey introduced herself.
“I know who you are,” the lieutenant said with a smile. “I apologize for Lennox’s actions. He gets a little . . . zealous.”
“It’s okay.”
“Actually it’s not, but we shall give him the benefit of the doubt this time.”
“I was just going outside,” Grey said.
“Then don’t let me stop you.” Lieutenant Johansson gestured toward the cargo door.
Grey walked down the gangplank and breathed in and out to calm her nerves, still amazed she could do so on the surface of a planet scientists had claimed was uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
She found Rin exactly where she expected, shoveling manure out of Tram and Trif’s pen. They’d cordoned off the area with rope and a few polymer posts. When Rin saw her big sister she dropped her shovel and ran over. Grey opened her arms and gently hugged her.
“Ouch,” Rin said. Yien medicine had healed the worst of their injuries from the battle they’d survived here at Orion Settlement a few days ago, but they were both still sore.
“Sorry,” Grey said. “How are you feeling?”
“Achy.”
“Yeah, me too.” Grey gave her little sister a squeeze and let her go.
“What’s that for?” Rin asked.
“I missed you.”
“Are you getting mushy on me?”
“What, me?” Grey playfully pushed Rin away.
“Mom told me we’re leaving.”
Grey walked over to the fence surrounding Tram and Trif and rested her hands on a post. “They want all civilians out of the battle zone. To protect us.”
“But Mom’s a captain, and you’re a specialist.”
“Almost the lowest rank. I don’t think I count.”
“They asked you to enlist, and now they’re sending you away?”
Grey watched Tram paw at the rainbow dirt then drop to the ground and roll. The zorses seemed to roll twice as often here as they did on Earth, and they were coated with sparkly colors on top of their stripes.
“Maybe it’s for the better,” Grey said.
“They won’t separate us, will they?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Rin ran her fingers through her short, dark hair, leaving streaks of color in the locks. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Grey knew exactly what she was talking about. Five years was a long time to think your parents were dead. Having Mom and Dad back was the best thing that had ever happened to them, but things would never be the same. They weren’t the innocent kids Tanner and Sue Alexander left behind.
She elbowed Rin. “Mom’s a pilot.”
“And Dad’s a genius.”
“We have good genes.”
“Don’t you want to fight in this war?”
Grey glanced over at her sister. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because I do.”
“You’re fourteen.”
“And I hate Mazdaar.”
“Careful, Rinny.”
“They almost killed you.”
Grey glanced at the battleship hulking behind them. Widest in the center, it reminded her of a giant black beetle, minus the legs and pincers. Soldiers rushed about readying for the fight to hold Orion Settlement, checking weapons and watching the swirling sky for signs of their enemy. If anyone should hate Mazdaar it was her.
“Not all of Mazdaar is evil,” Grey said.
“They sure seem like it.”
“What about Dana?”
“I thought she was my friend, and then she kidnapped me.” Rin kicked at the dirt with her boot.
“Then think of Dr. Lenoir. Or the soldier who helped me escape from Mazdaar. I’m sure there are others too.” Grey hoped her words sounded convincing, but she wasn’t all that sure herself. “The point is there are people within Mazdaar who are good. The same way there are people within Yien who aren’t.”
Rin crossed her arms. She was rail-thin and shorter than Grey, but the fire that drove her to follow her sister all the way to Jupiter on the slim chance she could save her flamed in Rin’s eyes now.
“I want to stay here with Mrs. March and fight with everyone else,” Rin said.
“No you don’t.”
Rin rolled her eyes, and Grey reminded herself for the millionth time not to boss her little sister around. But she’d been protecting Rin for years now, and it wouldn’t be easy to relax that instinct.
“We don’t have a choice either way,” Grey said.
“Did you see Dana?”
“I did.”
“How is she?”
“She woke up.”
Rin’s mouth gaped. “She’s awake? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you talk to her?”
“I didn’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t know about her mother, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell her.”
Before she could explain any more, a distinctive smell hit Grey’s nose. Like the pungent zing of ozone before a storm in the Preserve, the aroma was the only warning they had that the Jupiter winds were coming, and they knew they had less than a minute to take cover.
Instantly, what had been an orderly, packing-up-to-move-out military operation around them turned chaotic. Men and women ran in every direction, some back into the ship, others hunkering down outside next to the containers and covering their eyes with their sleeves.
Grey pulled Rin into the zorses’ makeshift lean-to shelter, and they crouched in the corner. Tram and Trif darted about snorting and pawing at the ground with their tails flying high, but they followed the girls inside the shelter, smart enough to keep their rears facing the opening so any flying debris wouldn’t strike their faces.
“They don’t call it a run-in for nothing, right?” Rin said with a grin.
The rush of warm, sticky air hit the shelter and shook it, the roar so loud Grey didn’t bother trying to answer. Even Dad had no explanation for what caused the winds. They seemed to be a Jupiter phenomenon that held to some random schedule and pattern. Sometimes a ten-hour day would pass with no hint of the winds. Then blasts would come back-to-back within minutes of each other. But one thing was always true. As fast as they came, they left just as quickly.
Grey held her hands over her eyes and listened to the pings of fine dirt striking the shelter. Once, in the Preserve, she’d been caught unprotected in a storm. She found herself clutching a saguaro cactus as a desert cyclone stirred sand into a massive funnel less than fifty feet from her. The Jupiter winds sounded like that. It was as if God Himself took in a deep gulp of air and blasted the surface of the planet with His breath.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” Grey shouted above the roar.
“I don’t know!”
And then the wind became a whisper, and the sisters slowly stood up. Tram and Trif shook and nudged around in their pile of hay as if nothing had happened.
A strange buzzing hummed in the distance.
“Look!” Rin pointed up at the swirling sky, and Grey saw a dark cloud coming toward them. She grabbed Rin by the arm ready to shield her, but as the cloud got closer Grey realized it wasn’t a cloud at all but a swarm of yellow, winged insects.
“What in the world . . . get back down!”
But Rin didn’t. She stared up at the mass in awe. “Wait. I think I’ve seen these before. I don’t think they’re dangerous.”
At that moment one of the buzzing creatures dove toward them, and Grey nearly screamed. It looked like a dragonfly but was the size of an eagle. “Do you want to wait and find out?”
Tram and Trif spooked, diving back into the lean-to, and Grey wanted to join them but Rin was undeterred.
Within seconds the swarm was directly above them, their wings buzzing so loudly Grey didn’t try to speak. She craned her neck backward. There had to be hundreds—no, thousands of them. The winds always seemed to stir up the animals.
“Meganeura,” Rin said.
“Mega what?” Grey took a step backward as another flew right past her. It had the body of a bee and four translucent wings, each the size of her forearm. Two green, fly-like eyes seemed to stare right at her.
“The Giant Dragonfly.” Rin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Grey. “Mrs. March gave me a book about extinct animals. I looked them up. Meganeura means large-veined. See the way the veins spread through their wings? Some say they’ve been extinct on Earth for millions of years.”
Rin pointed up at the creatures still spilling through the sky. “Relax, Grey. I know they look gross, but they’re harmless to humans.”
“Are you sure?”
She’d never forget the cosmoship-sized birds she’d seen with her mother. Rin had told her those were giant teratorns, which also lived on Earth years ago, but all Grey cared about was that Mom had said they could carry off a person in their talons.
“Grey, if I tell you something, will you promise not to think I’m crazy?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“I’m serious.”
Grey focused on her sister. “I’ll never think you’re crazy.”
“I might be.”
She touched Rin’s arm. “What’s going on?”
Rin glanced over at the zorses then back up at the sky, worry lines appearing on her forehead. The insects had thinned slightly but were still overhead.
“Sometimes . . .” Rin looked down at her dusty boots. “I think I can hear the animals.”
Grey nearly laughed, but Rin wasn’t smiling.
“I mean literally hear the animals thinking.” Rin held her fingers to her temples. “It’s only after the winds, and sometimes only for a second, but it’s happened twice now.”
“You’re serious? That’s—”
“Crazy?”
“No, but maybe it’s a good thing we’re getting out of here.”
“You don’t believe me.” Rin crossed her arms.
“What did you hear?”
“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad. Not until I figure it out.”
“Let me guess.” Grey leaned toward Rin’s ear. “Tram asked for more food.”
Rin picked up her shovel. She got to work again, her back to Grey.
Grey decided not to press her for a response.
Chapter 4
Through the virtual privacy curtain surrounding her bed Dana could decipher the outline of the soldiers. Distorted as they were, she still recognized Commander Fleur March’s willowy form.
Dana tried to scoot herself up to a sitting position, nearly impossible with her left wrist cuffed to the bed rail. She would never forget the first time as a girl she’d seen March’s face as a holographic image in Mazdaar City’s Hall of Justice. The woman had been wanted dead or alive twenty years ago.
“Raise the screen.”
It fizzled then disappeared, and Dana stared up at Mazdaar’s most notorious outlaw, now a Yien officer. Her black uniform contrasted her silver hair, the same color of the stripes running down her sleeves.
“Dana,” Commander March said with a nod.
She grabbed a fistful of sheet with her free hand and jutted out her chin. She was the daughter of a Mazdaar general. Her education rivaled the Mazdaar chancellor’s. She’d been groomed to succeed her mother in a seat of power since she was born. She would not cower in front of a criminal.
Commander March glanced at the wire cuff digging into her wrist and spun to face one of the MPs flanking her. “How long has she been restrained?”
“Since she awoke, Commander. We thought it wise.”
“Undo it.”
“But she is a prisoner.”
“Must I repeat myself?”
He straightened and swiftly obeyed. Dana pulled herself up in the bed, rubbing her bruised wrist. The soldier had laughed earlier when he tightened it enough to make her wince.
“You may leave us now,” Commander March said.
The MP hesitated.
“And lower the curtain.”
Dana caught the MPs glancing at each other, but they did as they were told and saluted when they left. As the privacy screen dropped again leaving her alone with Commander March, Dana panicked. She’d been taught to withstand interrogation, but in her foggy state she wasn’t sure if she’d last long.
“I spoke with Dr. Lenoir,” March said. “I’m very sorry to hear about your condition.”
Dana silently screamed at her legs to move so she could stand and face March, but they responded with only a slight jerk.
“I don’t regret what I did,” Dana said.
Commander March approached the bed. “Which act of treason do you mean? Threatening to murder Tanner Alexander? Kidnapping his daughter? Consorting with the enemy?”
“Mazdaar is not the enemy.”
Crossing her arms, March stared down at her. “Where did we go wrong? You were free from their control. Finally free.”
“Was I?” Dana twisted the sheet in her fingers, readying a verbal arrow she knew would hurt. “You used me as much as my mother did.”
A slight twitch flickered around March’s eyes, indicating she’d hit her mark.
Jupiter Storm (Jupiter Winds series Book 2) Page 2