Empaths (Pyreans Book 1)

by S. H. Jucha

  “Understood, Belinda. I’ll be a good student. I promise you.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that. Your suit is the one with the Spryte emblem on the sleeve. Do you know your suit’s name?” Belinda asked.

  “Yes, but I wish to change it.”

  “Okay, we’ll make that your first command lesson, once we get through basic orientation. The most important lesson this morning is how to don a vac suit by yourself and do it quickly. If there’s a decompression accident, fire, or some other emergency, how quickly you can get into your suit will be the difference between you living or dying. You copy?”

  “Copy that.”

  Belinda regarded Aurelia for a moment. For a teen, the girl had a serious demeanor, which boded well for the potential to successfully train her. “One more thing, newbie, your exam is a combination of questions and demonstrations. I can teach you the answers, but when it comes to the practical, you’ll have to demonstrate the skills. I’ll show you the tricks of getting into a vac suit quickly, but you’ll need to practice it until you can do it blindfolded.”

  “Blindfolded?” Aurelia asked.

  “Emergencies can stir the air so thick with debris, sucking all sorts of loose items up, or maybe it will be thick with acrid smoke. The idea is the more you handicap yourself when you practice, the better you’ll be in an emergency. And here’s the truth of being a spacer, Rules. We depend on one another. You screw up getting into your vac suit and someone stops to help you, you might both be dead.”

  “Likewise, if I’m quick, I can help another or assist in emergency repairs.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, newbie,” Belinda replied, slapping Aurelia lightly on the shoulder.

  Aurelia saw the third mate freeze, and she detected her fear, and Aurelia assumed a deep scowl. A few seconds later, Aurelia broke into a grin and said, “Teasing you, Belinda. I don’t break,” and she tapped the woman on her shoulder.

  Belinda swore, before breathing a sigh of relief. “Don’t do that, newbie,” she said.

  When Aurelia chuckled, Belinda joined in. “You might just fit in to this collection of space rats, newbie. Let’s get started. We’ll lay out the suit, and I’ll take you through the basics.”

  The women worked up to lunch break before Rules tried donning the suit unaided. It took her more than six minutes.

  Aurelia took in Belinda’s frown. “Too long?”

  “According to our practical’s minimum time, you died three times.”

  “Only three?”

  “Yeah, newbie. Actually, not too bad for a first time. I’ve seen trainees take fifteen minutes. It looked like a wrestling match that they kept losing. Before we take a break, let’s rename your suit.”

  Aurelia tapped the power button on her chest, waited until she felt air flow, and then donned and locked her helmet. She ran Frances through the suit check. Receiving a report of 100 percent on the systems, Aurelia said, “Frances, name change.”

  “Vac suit rename. Please state name,” Frances replied.

  “Jessie.”

  “New name accepted.”

  “Power off, Jessie.”

  “Powering down. Please detach helmet.”

  Belinda hid her smile from Aurelia when she heard the vac suit’s new name, but she forgot that her newbie could sense her mirth.

  When Aurelia pulled off her helmet, she regarded Belinda, who was surprised at the intensity of the girl’s stare. “I like the captain,” Aurelia stated firmly. “He’s the first man who cared about me.”

  Belinda held her hands up in surrender. “It’s your suit, newbie. You can call it what you want. Okay, strip out of it, hang it up, and let’s get some lunch.”

  After the women collected food trays and found a free table, Belinda decided to ask the questions that had burned in her since first meeting Aurelia.

  “Does it bother you, Rules, that the crew constantly stare at you, but, when you look their way, they duck their eyes?” Belinda asked. “I mean because of what you are?”

  “And here I thought they were staring at me because I’m considered pretty,” Aurelia replied, straight-faced, as she bit into a roll stuffed with cooked, spicy peppers, onions, and protein-cultured beef.

  “Seriously?” Belinda asked.

  “No,” Aurelia replied, grinning, but she quickly sobered. “I know I frighten them. They’re probably wondering who I’m going to kill next.”

  “Rules,” Belinda said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’ve got a really strange sense of humor.”

  “Aren’t you frightened of me, Belinda?”

  “More this morning than now, but I’ve got bigger worries. C’mon, newbie. Lunch is over; back to training.”

  If there was one thing that Belinda emphasized repeatedly to her trainee, it was, “In vacuum, newbie, the integrity and performance of your suit is your life. Ignore it, and you’re dead.”

  At the end of the first day of training, the women were in Belinda’s cabin talking late into the night. Aurelia yawned, and she sensed a spike of fear from Belinda, and the empath wondered why the third mate would have a dread of the night. It wasn’t the first time Aurelia had felt an underlying anxiety that would peak when the subjects of tomorrow or the next morning were mentioned.

  “Bunk time, newbie,” Belinda ordered firmly.

  Aurelia heard her words, but her lack of emotional conviction belied the words.

  The next morning Aurelia rose early and sought out the first mate and found her talking to a crew member. Aurelia waited patiently until their conversation finished.

  “How can I help you, Rules?” Angelina asked.

  “What’s wrong with Belinda?” Aurelia asked, without preamble.

  “What do you mean? Is the training going poorly?”

  “I mean what’s wrong?” Aurelia repeated, tapping her temple with a finger.

  “Oh, that. Come with me,” Angelina replied and led Aurelia to her cabin for some privacy. Once the door closed, Angelina said, “Belinda is showing early signs of space dementia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Over time, but sometimes quickly, a spacer feels the bulkheads are closing in on them. The first indication of trouble is that they request more and more vac suit time. Being outside the ship and working the mining equipment on the moon’s surface gives them some relief. But when the dementia gets bad, even that doesn’t help. Then their outside work makes them feel … I don’t know … unanchored somehow.”

  “What happens to them when the dementia gets bad?”

  “The captain puts them off on the JOS, but the station isn’t any help to them. They usually get worse and end up incarcerated for some offense. Once closed up in a cell, the end comes quickly, usually by their own hands. Sometimes, they’re fortunate and Harbour picks them up to work on the Belle. The tough cases have to remain with her. They need support from the empaths for the rest of their life.”

  “Why don’t they go downside?”

  Angelina stared at Aurelia, her eyes narrowing. “They said you didn’t get out of the governor’s house much.”

  “I never got out,” Aurelia replied. “I wasn’t a guest; I was a prisoner.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Rules. But, know this: The families who govern the domes are not fond of stationers, and they like spacers even less. There’s no way the families would let a mentally unbalanced spacer, least of all, live downside.”

  “Why don’t the stationers and spacers do something about that?”

  “Rules, for a bright girl, you don’t know too much. Tell you what, go talk to the captain about politics and power. Right now, you’re late for vac suit training.”

  Aurelia snatched her comm unit, a gift from Captain Hastings, and checked the time. Then she excused herself and hurried to the vac suit room.

  Belinda was waiting for her and gave her a jaundiced eye, and Aurelia mumbled an apology.

  In what Aurelia considered disciplining for showing up late, Belinda timed her getting in
to and out of her suit ten times. With the ship underway, gravity had been returned to the ship’s wheel, which held the operational decks, and Aurelia was overheated and close to exhaustion from the weight of the gear. She activated the neck tab on the skins, which separated the garment down the back, and then she peeled off the top half down to her waist.

  “What are you doing? Are you trying to start a riot?” Belinda said aghast.

  “What’s a riot?” Aurelia asked.

  “It’s the fight among the men that’s going to take place to be first to get to that youthful body of yours.”

  “And do you think any of them has the courage to bother me?”

  “You have a point there, newbie. Suit up, anyway. I don’t want to be placed on report for you walking around half-naked.”

  Aurelia was hot, and she did want to cool off, but her primary purpose in stripping was to distract Belinda, making it easier to influence her emotions. She’d done the same thing for Sasha, inventing techniques to get her little sister’s attention and then using the opportunities to calm Sasha’s anger.

  * * *

  Seeking out the captain, who was on the bridge, Angelina was about to enter when she heard Aurelia’s voice say, “I’m prepared for my first lesson in power and politics, sir.”

  “And you’re requesting these lessons, why?” Leonard replied.

  “I asked the first mate why spacers suffering from space dementia weren’t allowed to move downside, and she suggested that I ask you about these subjects,” Aurelia replied.

  “She did, did she? I’ll have to remember to thank Angelina for the recommendation.”

  On that note, Angelina hurried away from the bridge, wondering how this would play out.

  “Well, we have several more days before we rendezvous with the Annie, Rules, but I need you to complete your basic vac suit training.”

  “I finished my first practical yesterday, Captain. Angelina entered the results in the ship’s logs.”

  Leonard spun around in his chair, accessed his monitor, and requested the personnel log on Rules. On the screen, he saw:

  Personnel: Rules

  Crew Status: Trainee

  Practical: Vac Suit Level I

  Reviewer: Angelina Mendoza, First Mate, the Unruly Pearl

  Result: Superlative

  Systems Operations Test: No errors

  Suit Test: Donned in 1.46 minutes, while blindfolded; done at trainee’s insistence.

  “Well done, Aurelia,” Leonard said. “Meet me in my captain’s cabin for lunch, and we’ll start your lessons in Pyrean politics.”

  After Aurelia left the bridge, Leonard picked up his comm unit and called Angelina. “Keep Belinda on Rules’ training.”

  “Turns out you were wily, not suicidal, Captain,” Angelina replied. “We’re seeing success on both sides.”

  Angelina stopped in Belinda’s cabin to give her the news. “Captain has you continuing to train our newbie.”

  “Message received,” Belinda replied.

  “That’s it? No objections; no fight?”

  “The newbie’s an empath, and the Pearl needs a qualified officer to ensure Rules is trained properly. With me in charge of her training, she’s less likely to kill anybody.”

  Angelina stared openmouthed at Belinda. “I swear you’re beginning to sound like Rules,” she said, and left the cabin shaking her head in disbelief.

  Once Angelina was out of sight, Belinda smiled.

  * * *

  Toby listened to the commandant’s public announcement about Aurelia, the girl he knew as Rules. Later, he played it several times on his comm unit. The more he listened to it, the more certain he was that he had to talk to Captain Cinders before his BRC operation. The problem was Toby was frightened that security would see him talking to the captain, if he waited on the JOS side of the terminal arm. So, he hatched a plan, which would start with the Spryte’s navigator, who was doing a great deal of shopping lately.

  “Captain,” Jeremy said, handing off a note to Jessie. “A freckled-face kid of about ten or eleven with a leg cast says he knows you and asked me to pass this note to you.”

  Jessie opened the note. Scrawled in poor handwriting, it read: “Need to talk to you about you know who. The Miners’ Pit at noon.”

  There was still time to make the appointment, and Jessie thought there was no harm in having lunch at the Pit today. Ten minutes later, Jessie was striking the palm-sized actuator at the Pit’s hatch and striding into the cantina.

  “Captain, good to see you,” Maggie said. “You have a table guest,” she added, indicating a far corner table where Toby waited.

  “Still waiting for your BRC?” Jessie asked, when he sat across the table from the boy.

  “In two days, Captain Cinders.”

  “Good luck to you, son,” Jessie said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Security hauled me in to their administration offices.”

  “I imagine they offered you the reward.”

  “That was the first thing the sergeant said. That twenty-five thousand is a whole lot of coin. Do you think someone will turn her in to collect it?”

  Jessie hid his smile. Toby glossed over the idea that he would be interested in the reward. “It’s been days since the commandant announced the reward. If no one’s come forward by now, then I think she’s found a safe place to hide.”

  “I hope so,” Toby replied wistfully, and then he added, “Captain, the lieutenant kept calling the girl Aurelia, but she called herself Rules.”

  “And what did you call her?”

  Toby grinned. “I didn’t call her anything. I told the lieutenant that she never gave me her name.”

  “Now, why would you do that, son?”

  “The name’s —”

  Jessie cut Toby off with a wave of his hand. “Better I don’t know your name, son.”

  “Understood, Captain. I didn’t tell the lieutenant Rules’ name because of that announcement. It doesn’t make sense to me. They say Rules is a killer, but the girl who helped me and played freefall with me couldn’t be the same one, could it?”

  “You saw her photo on the announcement, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Same girl, right?

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you tell security that the girl who helped you into the terminal arm was the same one?”

  “Of course, I did, Captain. I’m young, but I’m not stupid. They would have Rules and me on security vids.”

  “Yes, they would.”

  “Did you talk to her, Captain?”

  Jessie wanted to allay Toby’s concerns, but the details of his contact with Aurelia were too dangerous to share with a young boy. “Son, I think what’s important in life is that we make our own judgments about the people we meet and don’t accept the opinions of others about them. You often don’t know the reason people say the things they do.”

  Toby thought that through for a minute and then nodded his head in agreement. “Aye, Captain,” he said.

  Jessie ruffled the boy’s head. “Open your comm unit, son.”

  Toby thumbed his device open, and Jessie entered a comm number on the projected screen. “Let’s say that you and I met, and I asked you to call me and tell me how your BRC operation went,” Jessie said and winked at Toby.

  “Aye, aye, Captain Cinders,” Toby replied excitedly and returned the wink.

  “You had lunch yet, son?”

  “Don’t have the coin, Captain.”

  Jessie signaled Maggie over to the table.

  “You two ready to order?” Maggie asked.

  “I can’t stay, Maggie, but the boy is having lunch on the house. Anything he wants.”

  “Understood, Captain,” Maggie replied.

  Jessie touched Toby’s head and winked at him again before he made for the exit.

  -12-

  Stalked

  Corporal Terrell McKenzie haunted security’s monitoring suite, spending hours eac
h day tracking the Spryte’s crew the moment they exited the terminal arm where the ship was docked. He quietly cursed the screens when vid cams lost the crew, which frequently happened when they penetrated deeper into the station’s interior or moved up or down to less-traveled levels.

  The usual complement of monitoring personnel quietly ignored the corporal’s whispered, angry comments and expletives, which littered his time in the suite.

  However, Terrell’s demeanor changed drastically one day. He’d tracked a young, Spryte crew member, he’d identified as Jeremy Kinsman, to a shop. That, in itself was nothing unusual, but Terrell recalled seeing Jeremy shopping the day before. While keeping an eye on the present cam, which was stationed outside a spacer’s supply shop, Terrell ran a search for Jeremy from the previous two days. His search pulled up the navigator purchasing skins one day and deck shoes the next.

  Rocking his chair slowly in anticipation, Terrell waited for Jeremy to exit the shop. When the spacer left, the corporal was sadly disappointed to see that the spacer carried nothing in his arms. Unwilling to let go of a niggling thought, Terrell jumped up and raced from the monitoring suite.

  Minutes later, Terrell walked into the Latched On and approached the man behind the counter. From the disgusted look on the man’s face, Terrell knew he didn’t have to identify himself.

  “You had a customer in here minutes ago,” Terrell announced, showing the man Jeremy’s photo on his comm unit.

  “You have a warrant for our customer information?” Gabriel shot back.

  “Not at this time. But I’m prepared to hang out at the front of your store until I’m ready to go on shift,” Terrell replied, “which is in about four hours,” he added, consulting his comm unit.

  “You can hang by any part you want to, Corporal,” Gabriel ground out. “Spacers won’t be intimidated by you.”

  Terrell was about to retort when he felt a bump against his shoulder blade. Glancing behind him, Terrell found three spacers had closed in on him.

  “Help you, boys?” Gabriel asked congenially.

  “No hurry, Gabriel; you finish your business with Terror here. We’re happy to keep the corporal company, while you see to his needs,” said the largest of the spacers, and the group pressed a little closer to Terrell.