Trade Circle: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 3)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “Sit,” Danny told Amanda again. “You don’t want to be standing when I give you this.”

  Amanda saw the needle and her soft whining escalated to hysterics. She bowed her body, keening as she struggled to escape. Danny braced her head and Saskia stuck the needle into Amanda’s neck. Almost immediately, Amanda collapsed in Danny’s arms and he lowered her to the floor, rocking her soothingly.

  “Why are we here?” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face, leaving pale tracks on her dirt-smudged cheeks. “Why can’t I go home?”

  Danny stroked her hair, encouraging her to lay her head in his lap until her blood pressure returned to normal.

  “Zive, help us,” he prayed, not sure what else to ask for. There were only so many times in a week he could pray for healing before it felt pointless.

  Tray directed the others where to take the food crates for cleaning. When he came back for Danny’s crate, Danny nodded to the door where he’d dropped it. Taking the crate under one arm, Tray squatted next to Danny and Amanda, his face screwed up like he wanted to apologize, but couldn’t muster the words. Then his expression softened and he pinched Amanda’s chin sympathetically.

  “Twice the moons, twice the tears,” Tray said. “Earth is new—”

  “When the Moon is full,” Amanda said.

  “We can fill two moons if we try,” Tray grinned.

  “There are plenty more in the sky,” Amanda finished, humming and closing her eyes. They were quoting a song, but it wasn’t one he recognized. Danny and Tray had disparate tastes in music, and it was easy to forget that Amanda was part of Tray’s musical generation.

  “Sky and Saskia picked blackberries for us,” Tray hinted.

  “Are they good?” Amanda asked, peeking one eye open.

  “Sky says they’re sweet, and knowing her, that probably means toxically so,” Tray said, his eyes twinkling. “Why don’t you get washed up and we can taste test while we’re making dinner.”

  Amanda reached out a hand. “Help.”

  “My hands are full. Let Danny help you,” Tray said, hefting the food crate like it weighed a ton.

  “Help?” Amanda asked Danny. Her eyes were misty and her hands trembled, but the flush in her cheeks had faded.

  “Thank you,” Danny mouthed the words to Tray.

  Tray just smiled and walked away.

  The forest became louder as the night grew darker and Douglas lay on his bunk, miserable. Tray had made him sick with disgusting stories of gutting and deboning birds, not stopping until Douglas threw-up on his shoes.

  Douglas couldn’t figure it out. Sometimes Tray went out of his way to be nice and courteous; he saw to every need and attended to every cut. Other times, Tray lashed out, taunted, and belittled, until Douglas felt like nothing. It made Douglas homesick . . . for a place that he could never go back to. Things would never be as they were in Rocan.

  “You missed dinner,” Danny said, folding his elbows on the side of the bed and peeking over Douglas’ shoulder. “You need to eat something,” he said, holding up a small, red thermos. “Try this.”

  “Is it made from birds?” Douglas asked warily. “Please don’t make me. Not tonight.”

  “There’re no birds in it at all. It’s tomato soup,” Danny assured, twisting open the lid and showing off the smooth, hot liquid that looked like spilled blood. Douglas dry heaved, but his stomach was too empty to surrender what little acid was left in it. Danny smelled the soup, then waved the thermos under Douglas’ nose so he could smell too. “It’s made from tomatoes. I think we have a few dried tomatoes left; I can show you what they look like if you want.”

  Danny had wide brown eyes and a sweet smile, and whatever memory the soup invoked, it made him happy. Only modestly encouraged, Douglas accepted the thermos. Tray had shown him the fresh tomatoes before they ran out and gone on for hours about tomato-based recipes. They were a staple in Quin. It was one of those hours when Douglas and Tray had gotten along. Testing the soup on his tongue first, Douglas took a sip and made a face. The soup was salty and bland.

  “Well I don’t hate it,” Douglas shrugged, figuring he’d try anything at this point. His father always spoke of how amazing it’d be to taste food from other Domes, but he’d clearly missed the caveat of alien palates making him sick to his stomach.

  “This one’s my favorite, so don’t go wasting it,” Danny said, reaching up and screwing the lid on the thermos, then tipping open a flap for drinking.

  “Yes, sir,” Douglas mumbled mechanically, startling himself. Sometimes Danny reminded him of his adoptive father, and it made Douglas feel like a child. Danny laughed at him and Douglas smiled, the momentary mirth settling his frayed nerves. The moment was interrupted by the click of the mechanical door latch.

  Sky breezed into the room, hair damp, towel draped haphazardly around her middle. She dropped the towel almost immediately, and leaned against the wall, absently combing her fingers through her hair. The post-shower ritual had become so familiar to Douglas that he found it restful, and he’d known to avert his eyes as soon as the door opened. Danny’s jaw tightened and his muscles twitched as he tried not to stare.

  “Sky,” Danny finally said, picking up the towel and holding it out to her.

  “Hmm?” Sky smiled slyly and sauntered closer to the captain, bypassing the towel and brushing her bare breasts against his fingers. “Ooh, I was wondering when you’d finally come to your senses.”

  Cringing, Danny closed his eyes and wrapped the towel around Sky’s body. “I don’t suppose I can expect modesty from you.”

  “Not likely,” Sky crooned, caressing the captain’s temple. The overt flirtation made Douglas bitter, like he was watching her cheat on John, even though given the circumstances, he had no right to expect fidelity. He was starting to doubt that his father had been anything more to Sky than a convenient bedmate.

  Danny swatted Sky’s hand away, trying to maintain his composure. Twisting away from her, he turned to Douglas and said: “Rinse that cup out when you’re done. I’ll talk to Tray. He won’t do this again.” Then he flew out like his feet were on fire.

  Sky dropped the towel again, resuming her post-shower ritual, and then pulled on some coveralls instead of her usual white shirt. She never slept here at night.

  “Where are you going?”

  “This is my time,” she answered and Douglas assumed that meant she was fixing her Bobsled. It was a slender ship that could fit four passengers with no gear. She’d stolen it so that she could travel, and she’d crashed it near Rocan. The captain always insisted the Bobsled was his, but Sky said that it never flew until she modified it with gravity propulsion. The arguments got the captain red-faced, and he always looked a hairsbreadth from kissing Sky before he stomped off. Douglas figured it was one of their alien flirting rituals.

  “Sky,” Douglas called, biting his lip and turning the thermos in his hands. She’d changed so much since leaving Rocan, and it was hard to know what to expect. “Is Cordova real?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll make sure the captain gets us there?”

  Sky raised an eyebrow, and Douglas shifted uncomfortably, covering the silence by drinking more soup.

  “He’ll take you there,” Sky said evenly, hopping onto the top bunk and kneeling next to him. “You can help your people, I promise.”

  There was something behind her words that undercut the assurances—like she thought he wouldn’t survive long enough to know the difference. Douglas’ skin was sunburned from exposure and he was working himself hard in an environment where the food made him sick and he had no immunity to anything.

  “The captain—”

  “Is not trying to kill you,” Sky finished, smiling in amusement. “You can trust him.”

  “You don’t trust him,” Douglas pointed out.

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “You trust me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Sky chuckled, kissing his forehead. She
made a face when she felt the fever on his skin, but she didn’t make a fuss this time. It felt like she’d already given up on him.

  6

  Oriana never became quiet at night. Every time Danny told himself he was the last one up and he started making a final round of the ship, he ran into someone else—Corey running a landing simulation or Tray having a midnight snack. In space, the conventional day lost meaning; they took six hour shifts and “morning” was set by the next port time. Danny had assumed that their rhythms would settle once they’d been on Aquia a few days, but stress and fear made sleep difficult. Danny found Tray in the dry food stores on the lower deck, pulling meal packets and boxes of non-perishables off the shelf.

  “Haven’t you done that twice today?” Danny asked.

  Tray looked at him without seeing, his attention focused on the task.

  “I boosted the power on our beacon. When Terrana rises, we can power it up, but I think next time we take to air, someone should get the signal,” Danny said. They were limping along well enough with the ship, and the urgency of their need for rescue had died with Corey. “I never realized how narrow the directional receiver in Quin was. It’s no wonder we never detected other Domes. It’s almost like we don’t want to . . .”

  Terrana had begun a search for surviving Domes before they ever decided to break from Quin. Their dependence on Quin’s manufacturing, coupled with the dense Kessler cloud of satellite debris obscuring the planet’s surface made it a challenge. The political upheaval turned it into a secret mission. Quin’s hesitance to look outward stemmed from the fact that there seemed more charity than profit in the venture to find new Domes. Pear—the poorest of Quin’s cities—had been on the brink of extinction when they first connected with Kemah, and had little to contribute to the economy aside from a low-wage, uneducated work force.

  “Tray, put that stuff down. Come on.” Danny shoved the boxes back on the shelf in no particular order. It was a terrible time to pull Tray aside for a one-on-one talk, but Danny didn’t have the luxury of waiting until things settled down.

  “I have work,” Tray said, pulling the boxes off the shelf again, moving mechanically like he was sleep walking.

  “It’ll still be here in the morning. Come on,” Danny said. Taking Tray by the wrist, Danny dragged his brother to the upper deck and into the engine room.

  “We’re setting aside my work for yours?” Tray carped, twisting free and massaging his wrist like it hurt. It probably did. The skin was still scabbed from being tied up in the Rocanese prison. Before that, he’d sprained a wrist, and although he wasn’t wearing a splint anymore, he’d certainly taxed the joint climbing all those trees earlier.

  “Sit,” Danny ordered, pointing to the spot on the floor just underneath the air vent. He hadn’t intended to work; this was where he came when he wanted to think clearly.

  Tray slumped broodingly, arms wrapped around his knees. Danny reclined next to him, leaning against the wall, legs extended. After a few minutes, the fan came on, blowing warm air over their faces. Danny used to sit here for hours, shooting the breeze with Corey, talking freely about anything that came to mind, never worried that she didn’t want to hear. Talking with Tray was never so simple. They danced around sensitive topics, avoiding the subject of family altogether.

  “I guess we’re not feeding Hawk any meat,” Tray said, breaking the silence with ship’s business. It was a semi-safe topic—safer now because Danny didn’t care to make any more decisions tonight.

  “We won’t feed him eggs. Or chicken. But he’s going to have to eat something,” Danny said. “I gave him some tomato soup.”

  “He can eat the raw protein from the packs. That doesn’t make him sick. Except now he knows there’s chicken in the one,” Tray said.

  “Why do you tear down Hawk so much?” Danny blurted out. It was critical and tactless, typical of their dialogues, but it felt less confrontational since they were having the conversation in private. Tray shrugged and hugged his knees a little tighter looking small and defenseless. A few ringlets fell loose from his ponytail, curtaining his face. The silence dragged so long Danny thought maybe his brother had fallen asleep.

  “I don’t like having him here,” Tray mumbled.

  “You don’t like having anyone here,” Danny huffed, giving his brother a nudge.

  “He makes creepy eyes at me.”

  “You used to say the same thing about Saskia,” Danny chuckled, glad to find a familiar dilemma among Tray’s list. It was only recently that Tray stopped thinking Saskia was creepy. Maybe he still did. The difference was that Saskia didn’t care what Tray thought; she could hold her own. Hawk had just been ripped away from his family, and he needed Tray’s acceptance.

  “He follows me everywhere! Can’t you use your Captainy powers to make him not follow me?” Tray grumbled, sitting his chin on his knees again. So long as Tray was hugging his knees, he was still protecting a part of himself. They hadn’t even touched the deeper issue souring his mood.

  “Sure. Fine,” Danny said, rolling his eyes. Then he put his fingers to the sides of his head and closed his eyes, pretending to send out mind-control vibes. Tray laughed and bumped Danny’s shoulder affectionately. Releasing one knee, Tray stretched his leg, still hugging the second knee close and using it as a chin rest. With the ice was broken, talking became a little easier. They mostly stuck to the weird plants they’d found and theories about what had caused this Dome’s walls to crumble.

  “The trees are old here. The Dome must have crumbled ages ago,” Danny said. He loved history, and Tray had the education to keep up.

  “I thought Rocan was beat up, but I think the wildlife here has worked hard to reclaim the land,” Tray added. “Some of the trees have moonslate wall protruding out of them. They just grew around it.”

  “I bet this lakebed is a meteor crash site,” Danny theorized. “Just blasted the Dome to smithereens. Sky seems to think this is part of old Lanvaria.”

  “Old Lanvaria took up a third of the continent,” Tray pointed out. In pre-Dome society, Lanvaria was one of the largest regions with a uniform language. “The plants here are so different.”

  “It’s real forest land. Quin is dry grassland on one side and swamp on the other,” Danny pointed out. The trees around Quin, though plentiful, were short and too flimsy to climb.

  “This is natural farm land. Can you imagine if Quin expanded into this region again?” Tray mused. “The timber resources alone—”

  “Always the businessman,” Danny chuckled. “We should look toward the ecology first. The environment, the history. There has to be something here that will hint at who these people were and how they lived. If you blast in and chop down all the trees—”

  “The birds would scatter and die. I’m not stupid enough to destroy a forest,” Tray carped. “When you open a business venture, you don’t always stay in control,” Danny sighed.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Tray said, releasing his second knee, letting his hands drop into his lap. “I was looking forward to Quin. I was supposed to meet someone.”

  “You had a date?” Danny teased.

  Tray grimaced, fidgeted, then shook his head. “Not exactly.”

  “New girlfriend or old?” Danny asked.

  Tray clammed up and Danny fell quiet, realizing that Tray needed a little less lip from him to get through the confession. Tray often met up with old business acquaintances in Quin, and it seemed strange that he was torn up about missing one meeting. But his walls had come down and Danny was just getting to the heart of what troubled him, so he tried to be patient.

  “Mikayla.”

  Danny cringed at the revelation. “Right. The ex. She had you riled up last week. Are you expecting some fallout for standing her up?”

  “That’s an understatement,” Tray said.

  Danny shook his head. “Tray, we nearly died. She’ll understand.”

  “If you don’t want me to see her again—” Tray froze, his b
ody going stiff, his eyes locking on the door behind Danny.

  “I never said that,” Danny said.

  “Danny? Can I help?” Amanda asked. Help most likely meant ‘fall asleep in the corner,’ and her timing could not have been worse.

  “Not now,” Danny hissed, motioning sharply for her to leave. She cocked her head and turned to go, leaving a bloody palm print on the door. “Wait!”

  Muttering a quick apology to Tray, Danny leapt to his feet and grabbed Amanda by the elbow, checking for the source of the blood. She had a jagged cut across the palm of her hand that was new since the sticker bush attack.

  “It was an accident,” she insisted, trying to pull her hand free. Shushing her, Danny grabbed the first aid kit from the hall and cleaned the wound. He needed a knitter from the infirmary, but he didn’t want to leave Tray. Gauze would do for now.

  “You were saying,” Danny prompted Tray, doing his best to wrap Amanda’s hand quickly without hurting her. He was too late.

  “You should knit that,” Tray said, crossing his arms and making a beeline for the door.

  “Sit down, Tray! We are not done talking,” Danny ordered, his frustration boiling into anger. Amanda jerked free, frightened and ready to run, but he hooked his arm around her torso. She kicked and whined, her face getting redder, but her protests melted into tears when Danny pressed her ear to his heart. Danny sucked his cheeks in, scanning for his brother, not sure is he’d ducked out in the commotion. Tray sat obediently on the floor, legs crossed, spine stiff, chin up, eyes down. It amazed Danny how defiant his brother could look while following an order.

  Wincing, Danny sat next to his brother, trying to settle Amanda at his side and keep her calm. He’d promised himself he’d stop yelling at Tray.