by R. C. Lewis
Copyright © 2014 by R.C. Lewis
Cover design by Marci Senders
Cover illustration © 2014 by I Love Dust
All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-4231-8797-4
Visit www.hyperionteens.com
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
FOR PAIGE AND MJ,
AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO
DEFIES THE ODDS
IT TOOK ME SEVENTEEN seconds to decide Jarom Thacker’s reputation as the sharpest fighter on Thanda had been exaggerated. At twice my size—and age—he was quick, forcing me to move or risk getting pinned against the cage, but he made a rookie mistake. Like everyone else who came through Mining Settlement Forty-Two, he aimed for my gut. So predictable.
Wouldn’t want to botch the pretty girl’s face, right? Idiot.
I blocked him on the left, but sweat stinging my eyes blinded me to his fist slamming into my right side. Pain flared through my ribs. The fire spurred me on, and I slipped Thacker’s grip when he grabbed at my arm.
Unlike him, I had no qualms about uglifying him further. The heel of my palm slammed into his nose with a satisfying crunch despite the cushioning of my shock-fiber hand-wraps, drawing a chorus of sympathetic grunts from the crowd. He staggered back as the coppery smell of blood wove into the usual stench of the cage.
Thacker’s broken nose didn’t stop him. He lunged blindly, grabbing for any part of me he could reach. An easy dodge, and I took the opening to knee his groin. When he doubled over, I kicked his legs from under him. He dropped and I followed, bracing my legs against his while my upper body pinned his shoulders. The shouts surrounding the cage crested as Thacker pushed against the threadbare mat. Before he could throw me off, I grabbed a fistful of his sweaty hair and slammed his head down.
“Three…two…one…” began Petey. “Fight goes to Forty-Two’s own Essie!”
A mix of cheers and groans met Petey’s announcement. I liked to think the men in Forty-Two knew better than to bet against me, but it sounded like Thacker’s reputation had tempted more than a few. The free-flowing jack-ale probably hadn’t helped.
Their problem, not mine.
Once Petey released the gate latch, I swung myself out of the cage and walked straight to one of the washrooms at the back of the tavern. Jeers and shouts followed, but I didn’t listen. Petey would offer another glass of jack-ale on the house to ease the pain, and after sleeping it off, they’d remember why it was better all around if they didn’t throw me down a mine shaft.
Same story as last week.
I threw the lock on the washroom door and started patching myself up. Even with a relatively quick match, I never got away clean. The hand-wraps kept me from breaking a finger, but they were all the safety equipment we got in cage fights. A gash on my upper arm bled freely, thanks to a loose bit of cage wire. I rubbed a sani-swipe over the cut and slapped a smart-plaster on it. It’d probably still leave a scar. Wouldn’t be the first.
Next I checked on my ribs. A nice bruise was gearing up, but nothing felt broken. Not like that time two years ago—one of my more memorable losses. Memorable, except for the part where I’d been knocked out.
Knocked out, helpless in a room full of drunk men.
I splashed icy water on my face, forcing deep breaths to keep both the memory and the panic attack at bay. Nothing had happened. Not then, and not today.
“You should stop, Essie,” I muttered. “You’re not blazing invincible.”
Rational talk wouldn’t change my mind. It never did. The part of me that liked lashing out in the cage, liked taking down men bigger and stronger than I’d ever be…that part always won.
Besides, I needed the winnings.
Once I finished patching, I settled myself on a stack of old boxes in the corner and pulled a digital slate from my coat pocket. I loaded the latest drone program and let it scroll across the screen before noting a few tweaks I wanted to try. My body relaxed as my mind drifted away into schematics and machine code, logic and order, cause and effect.
When I surfaced, the noise outside the washroom was gone. Safe to go.
The Station wasn’t empty yet, but the handful of men left were three sniffs from passing out, too far gone to notice me. By the smell of things, nearly as much jack-ale had been spilled as drunk. Petey looked up from polishing the bar and gave me a nod.
“There yeh are. Good fight, that one. Didn’t expect Thacker to go down so easy.”
“Doubt he expected a girl to give him so much trouble,” I countered.
“We’ll see how long that lasts. Yer reputation’s spreadin’, Essie.”
A reputation wasn’t what I needed—not beyond the one that kept the men in Forty-Two from getting foolish ideas—but there was nothing for it. People would talk.
I tapped the MineNet computer terminal built into the counter, bringing the lights around the touch-panel to life. “My shares?”
Petey logged in and executed the transfer. “There yeh go. Want to put in an order for anythin’ while yeh’re here? Spare optic lines for the drones, maybe?”
“I’m set with all that. Saving up for some ready-made components so I don’t have to stitch every blazing thing from scratch. Maybe a new processing module for my computer so I can get some real work done.”
“Well, I’m sure we can’t wait to see what magic yeh weave next, once yeh’ve got everything. Might take the sting out for some of the men who lost tonight.”
The frayed edge of my sleeve caught my eye. Maybe I should spend a few shares. “A lot of them lost?”
“Fair number thought Thacker’d be a sure thing. Hawkins said you could make it up to them by fixin’ the transmission on the old pulverizer.”
I grunted. “Aye, well, I assume you reminded him that it’s not my job, and I would sooner bring the sun a sniff closer than waste my time on the mining equipment. They have the mech-bots for that.”
“Whatever the mechs are doin’ gives out after a day or two.”
“Fine, I’ll download the specs to one of my drones, see what it comes up with. But you can tell Hawkins to stop thinking he’ll get me to set foot in that mine.”
“That I will. Lemme walk yeh out. Grayson, keep an eye on things.” Once his assistant nodded an acknowledgment, Petey took his coat from the hook and turned back to me. “Bundle up, now. It’s a cold one.”
He said that every time I left the Station. Every second on Thanda was a “cold one.” The obviousness never kept him from watching to ensure I followed the advice. I pulled up the hood of my own coat, tucked in my scarf, and accepted his smile as he ushered me out.
An electronic voice greeted me on the other side of the door. “Essie Essie Essie.”
I wasn’
t surprised to see the little robot lurking nearby, but I sighed anyway. “Didn’t I tell you to go home?”
“Home Essie home.”
“Right, got it.”
Petey chuckled. “At least ol’ Dimwit’s stopped tryin’ to follow yeh in.”
That was true enough. The men weren’t fond of the drone’s squealing and squawking throughout the fights.
“I can make it home on my own, Petey,” I said.
“I know yeh can. But I have a delivery to make down the way.”
“Suit yourself.”
We walked to the street, and I enjoyed the quiet while Dimwit scurried amongst some empty supply crates. The drone’s four spider-legs made it faster and more agile than I’d ever be, but it lagged behind like a distracted puppy, its optic lenses swiveling to take in scenery that never changed. Its arms moved endlessly, ready to make mischief, which meant I had to keep half an eye on it. Nothing new there.
Both moons were out, their light glinting off the stark metal structures lining Forty-Two’s main drag. The shacks closest to the Station were in high demand, with easier access to supplies, entertainment, and jack-ale; I was more than happy with mine at the edge of the settlement, even if it meant I had a fifteen-minute walk ahead of me.
Fifteen uneventful minutes…usually.
As I turned to tell Dimwit to get moving, a streak of light approached over the eastern edge of the settlement, bringing with it a bone-grinding whine.
“What in blazes…?”
Petey’s question was a good one. As the object passed over, I got enough of a look to answer. It was a shuttle of some kind. Not like the usual carriers that took merinium from the mine to a spaceport. No, this was more elegant, carefully designed, with massive engines.
Interplanetary. The kind of shuttle that wasn’t supposed to come directly to the settlements.
And judging by the way it careened past, it was completely out of control. Not long after it disappeared beyond the scraggy forest, the ground shuddered.
Petey was on the move before the vibrations stopped, running back to the Station and shouting for Grayson to grab a medical kit and anyone sober enough to see straight. When Petey got back to my side, I was still frozen, staring.
“What do yeh think, Essie?” he asked. “The flats?”
His tone told me we needed to help, but something in me resisted. Something that lured me to the comfort of my routine here, to things that didn’t change.
Mother would’ve been halfway there already. That thought sparked me into motion.
“Aye, the flats. Let’s go. Dimwit, move!” I broke into a run with Petey on my heels and jabbed the transmitter I wore on my wrist. “Whirligig, you hear me?”
A faint electronic voice replied through the tiny speaker. “Affirmative, Essie.”
“You and the others get out to the flats beyond the forest. A ship has crashed. Find it and report back.”
Two beeps were all the response I got. ’Gig and the other five drones were well ahead of us at my shack and would cover ground more quickly than Petey and I could. So could Dimwit, but it lingered at my side.
“Don’t suppose you want to pick up the pace and help the others?” I asked.
“Run Essie help Essie.”
“Right, whatever.”
We passed my shack and kept going into the forest that bordered that side of the settlement farthest from the mine. The moonlight didn’t help much among the trees, shadows disguising the roots and stubborn undergrowth, but I didn’t slow down. Petey fell a step or two back, but I knew he’d keep up well enough. Even with his age, the man was still fighting-fit.
Halfway to the flats, the receiver on my wrist pinged. I punched it as I ran. “Did you find it, ’Gig?”
“Affirmative, Essie.”
“What do you see?”
Ticktock’s voice cut in. “Garamite design, Class Three intra-system shuttle.”
Garamite. Two orbits away from home and coming to the wrong part of Thanda. That made no sense.
“Condition?”
“Significant damage, specifics unknown,” ’Gig said. “Infrared indicates possible fires in command and engine compartments. Instructions?”
“Try to get inside and pull out any people on board. Use medical protocols. And put out the fires!”
My muscles burned, but I ran harder, cursing the weight of my coat. If I dropped it, I’d have bigger problems. At least the snows hadn’t come yet.
With the adrenaline pushing me, the eight links I could walk in an hour took under twenty minutes. But it felt like days. The drones could only do so much for the people on board; for all I knew, we were eighteen minutes too late.
I stopped at the edge of the woods to assess the scene. The flats spread before me, and the shuttle lay dead center. Not as bad a crash as I’d feared—it was still in one right-side-up piece. The sparks and smoke, however, didn’t bode well.
Neither did the lack of people outside. A hatch gaped open at the rear of the shuttle, so the drones had made it in.
Petey caught up, along with Grayson and one of the miners. Just one. With Petey’s stipulation of “sober enough to see straight,” I wasn’t surprised.
“Essie, I…I don’t like the look of that smoke,” Petey said.
I caught the look in his eyes. Worry, but also fear. He’d told me stories about a mine fire when he was younger, how he’d lost friends down there. Grayson was the kind of man who could only unpack jack-ale if Petey gave him bottle-by-bottle instructions, and the miner he’d brought wasn’t one of the sharpest, either.
The people inside the shuttle didn’t have time for this.
“The drones’ll manage it,” I said. “Come on!”
I forced more air into my lungs, ignoring the protest of my bruised ribs, and pushed on across the flats. The three men followed. “Got those fires out, ’Gig?” I said into my wrist transmitter.
“Affirmative, Essie. Secondary fire ignited in rear compartment…now extinguished.”
True enough, the plume of smoke eased up as we approached. Still no sign of people. “Survivors?”
“One human male, command compartment.”
Blazes, just one?
Petey cut in. “Well, why haven’t you brought him out?”
“Medical protocol. Do not move humans with possible spinal or cranial trauma.”
I clambered through the hatch into the engine compartment, coughing on the acrid smoke lingering in the air. It was the last thing I needed after a hard run, and I gripped my aching ribs with one arm. The drones didn’t have the same problem. Clank and Clunk worked on locking down the electrical overloads sparking all over the ship, and Zippy put out a minor fire behind a control panel.
“Make sure the drones didn’t miss other survivors,” I told Petey and the other two men, taking the medical kit from Grayson. “I’ll get the pilot.”
I left them to it, hurrying past two lateral rooms to the command compartment at the front, half expecting to find a dead body or two to climb over.
No bodies. The pilot slumped over the main console, his safety harness unfastened. All I could see injurywise was a nasty burn on the back of his right hand. Whirligig stood nearby as though unsure what to do, so I sent it to help the others. I pulled a scanner from the medical kit, and it gave me the details ’Gig couldn’t.
Definite concussion, smoke inhalation, plenty of serious contusions, and several burns, but nothing to prevent him from being moved.
Before I could say as much, the console erupted in a new cascade of sparks, along with the panels to either side of me. I grabbed the pilot around the chest and pulled him back, hauling him out of the chair.
“Petey, a little help!”
The old man ducked in and took the pilot’s legs, helping me carry him to the rear of the ship, electrical discharges showering every step. Grayson and the miner met us at the hatch and lent a hand getting us out.
“Cut the power—just cut it!” I shouted at the dron
es. “Anyone else alive?”
Petey had to cough three times before his voice could answer. “No, but no one dead, either. He was the only one on board.”
We laid the pilot on the frozen ground, and I finally got a good look at him.
He was young, around my age.
“What in blazes is a kid from Garam doin’ all the way out here?” Petey said.
I was thinking the same thing. Shuttle pilots were usually cantankerous and old, especially the types who traveled alone. And when they bothered coming to our planet at all, even black-market pilots went down to the Bands, not the mines.
The boy was also beautiful in a way that didn’t make sense on a rock like Thanda. Golden skin that saw more sun in a day than we saw in a whole cycle, strong cheekbones and jaw like an artist had drawn him, and brown hair with just the slightest curl. The one less-than-beautiful feature was a bloody gash on his forehead.
I couldn’t breathe. He was terrifying.
One of the drones swore, breaking my spell.
“You said it, Cusser. Come on, boys, let’s rig something to get him back to town.”
WHEN I’D SAID “back to town,” I hadn’t meant my own shack, yet that’s where the men left the strange Garamite boy. Petey gave two reasons: it was closest to the wreck, and it kept our visitor farthest from the mine. Good reasons.
We’d sedated him to keep him out for the journey, but I’d seen plenty of worse injuries in Forty-Two. A smart-plaster on his forehead, regenerative wraps on his burns…The boy would be good as new soon enough.
And then what?
I would have been happy if he stayed asleep looking pretty for a few decades, but I doubted that would happen. Eventually, I’d have to deal with him.
A tap on the door signaled Petey’s return from a quick stop at the Station. The no-good-news look on his face didn’t improve my mood.
“Immigration officials on their way?” I asked.
“No, and that’s the thing. There aren’t any alerts about a sanctioned shuttle crashin’, but there aren’t any about a nonsanctioned shuttle crossin’ the perimeter, either.”
Hearing that Immigration wasn’t on the way was a relief, but not enough to balance the new questions. “Scan-scrambler?”