Delta Fringe Series Boxset: Books 1-3

by Heather Lee Dyer

  I turn my head slightly toward Derek. "As long as we need to keep him awake for the concussion, I might as well get as much information out of him as I can. So far I think he's making sense," I whisper.

  Zion slowly looks back up at me as Derek leans away. Zion takes a deep breath. "As I mentioned, most of it I read after she died. So I don't understand all of it." He looks quickly at Derek. "But while she was alive she would tell me bits and pieces of stories about what she hoped to accomplish."

  I swallow. She had such passion for her work and the miners here on Mars. It shouldn't surprise me that she went beyond her work as a medical examiner. Or as my mother. I nod to prompt him to keep going. I concentrate on stuffing my emotions down and concentrating on the problem. Plan the work, work the plan, Bren.

  "She would complain that the younger generations weren't as interested in the history of the mines, or developing the innate abilities down here that made the older generations so successful. She wanted to find a way to capture their brainwaves, their auto responses, and their intuitions, somehow into a passive learning situation. Kind of like our speed learning system that we had in school. The one where it plays in our ear comms at nighttime?"

  I grimace. "I hated those things. They were uncomfortable and I don't even think they worked."

  Zion laughs and then holds his head as he grins at me. "Of course they worked. Look at you. At age seventeen you can do everything a medical examiner can do, except sign death certificates. You were chosen for the most dangerous investigation in the galaxy. And your intuition is unrivaled."

  "But I also took double classes and worked my butt off to get here." I frown at him and sit back.

  He holds up a hand. "I know, B. We've had this argument too many times to count. But what I'm trying to say is that kind of learning is what your mom modeled her research after. Not plugging machines directly into miner's heads to work a digger. She wanted to create an ear comm-type learning system for the digger itself. Kind of like programming the AIs, but the ear comms somehow would be real time. Like an operator would still be at the controls of each one."

  "Like a remote control but with brain waves?"

  "Kind of. I told you I couldn't understand all her research. But there's enough that I did understand to know that whoever is after us stole her ideas." Zion's face is grim behind the layer of red-caked dust, and his shoulders slump.

  My pulse quickens and I look to Derek. He too has a glint in his eye. There's hope. "All right. So the council has my investigation notes from the other sites, and Guram will get the vid of this site to them. Now we need to get those research notes so that we can not only stop them today, but forever."

  Zion lets out a groan and I look back at him as he slides sideways.

  "Zion!" I cradle his head before he hits the ground. His eyes are closed and a sheen of sweat covers his face and neck. "He's unconscious again."

  "What can I do?" Derek asks.

  I look around the rock-strewn room. The comm console is in several pieces, but it gives me an idea. "Can you look inside that comm panel or its base and see if there is any med supplies?"

  "Med supplies in a comm console?" Derek looks doubtful.

  I shrug. "Miners are resourceful. I can't imagine they'd put a communication center here for emergencies and not think ahead about helping with those emergencies as well."

  Derek gets up and makes his way across the room, stepping over and around rocks. Red Mars dust is kicked up in his wake and soon he's just a red cloudy shadow. I hear him pulling at the metal console cover and swearing. I grin and turn my attention back to Zion.

  "Zion," I whisper. I feel around his head and neck to make sure I didn't miss anything. He groans as my fingers press gently into his skull, but he doesn't wake up. I place my backpack underneath his head and check the rest of his body for wounds. After the attack on Delta station Derek was severely injured, but in the chaos and confusion I didn't check him completely for wounds and ended up missing a nasty gash that eventually got infected. I am not going to make that mistake again.

  I don't find anything more than bruises. I breathe a sigh of relief. I watch helplessly as Zion's chest rises and falls.

  Derek returns, kicking up more dust. I take the opportunity to swap out the filters on our oxygen masks again. The last ones in my supply. I frown and look to see what Derek has brought.

  He stops to let the dust settle before kneeling down next to me. In his arms is a large bag. My heart races with hope that it's a med bag.

  Derek pushes the bag over to me. With trembling fingers I open it.

  "I don't think it's just a med bag, Bren. But maybe it has what you need to help Zion?" His voice is soft and I look up to see true compassion in his brown eyes.

  It took awhile with Markov for Derek to accept him as my friend. I see now that he's reached that point with Zion, and I'm so grateful. My belly warms as I smile back.

  The bag is a true miner's emergency kit. Rope, light strips, dried food, water, and a small med kit. I pull the kit out and spread it across Zion's chest. I grin. "Excellent, Derek. Just what I need." I pull out the medical scissors and bone laser.

  Derek makes a guttural noise and I look up to see he's gone pale underneath the splotches of red dust. "Seriously, Bren? Even down here they have one of those?"

  I smile so big my cheeks hurt. "Yes, but this time I won't be using it on a door. This time I really do need it for medical purposes."

  "You're going to use that on him?" He points down at Zion's body.

  I rummage around some more in the bag and find more gauze and sterile solution. "Yes. The concussion is swelling into his brain. I need to relieve the pressure. Here, help me roll him over." I sweep the supplies into the bag and place them aside. With Derek's help we turn Zion so I can see the nasty gash on his head. The swelling has increase so much the gauze isn't covering the whole thing anymore. I bite my lip as I carefully take the bandages off the expanding lump.

  Derek looks away.

  As quickly as I can, I sterilize the area and use the bone laser on its lowest setting to drill a small hole at the base of the lump on Zion's head. Soon a steady stream of blood flows.

  "Umm. Shouldn't we stop that?" Derek stutters as he stares wide eyed at the red liquid dripping down into the red dust underneath Zion.

  I watch the flow slow down and then take out clean bandages. Zion's breathing is ragged, but he stays asleep. "We needed to relieve some of the pressure, remember?" I place clean gauze back over the wound and wrap it securely around his head.

  Derek helps me roll Zion to his back again. We both watch as Zion's breathing evens out.

  I hang my head and allow my muscles to relax. I feel Derek's arm around my shoulders and I lean into him.

  "Now what do we do, Bren?" Derek whispers.

  I open my eyes and straighten up. "We need to get out of here and back to Mom’s research lab. I bet that's where we can find her research, and more med supplies for Zion."

  "And how are we going to do that with your friend unconscious? He's the one who knows where to find what we need, right?"

  I frown. I look at Zion, covered in blood and red Mars dust, alive but unconscious. The comm console, now that the dust has settled around it, looks to be torn in several pieces. I straighten up.

  Think, Bren. This is your home, not the pirates'. What do you know that they don't?

  A soft metallic sound comes from my right. I turn my head quickly, but there's only a rock wall there. I look at Derek, who is looking at me strangely.

  "Did you just hear that?"

  He just raises an eyebrow at me.

  "Seriously?" I stand up and step away from Zion to brush some of the dust off of me.

  I freeze when I hear the sound again. I look at Derek, who is brushing dust off his pants. He doesn't hesitate or look up. I frown. I've been a miner my whole life, there's no way that I'm getting tunnel sickness now.

  The noise is louder this time and it sounds in both d
irections. I turn in a circle only to find Derek staring at me now with his head tilted sideways.

  I don't move, waiting, listening.

  When it sounds again my pulse races and I smack my head with my palm. "Charon's ice, Derek. It's my ear comms." I point to my head. "I think Captain Fukuda is trying to reach us."

  17

  Residential Level

  I press gently on the tiny comm in my ear. The metallic sound clears slightly, enough for me to recognize Red's voice.

  "Red? Can you hear me? It's Bren." I stand up and pace among the rocks, not sure if I can find a better signal.

  I hear words, pieces of sentences. "Bren," "ship," and "attack."

  Derek comes to stand next to me.

  I look up at him. "You're relieved I'm not going crazy, aren't you?" I grin. My body is tingling and my mind is already working on how to get back up to our ship.

  "Red?" Static returns and my heart sinks.

  "I think we're too far down for our comms, Derek. We need to get up higher so we can talk to Red. We need to know what's going on up there, and we need to get Zion some help."

  Derek steps close to me and points to his ears. "I must've lost mine in the quake. How far do you think we need to go to see if yours work?"

  "I lost track of where we were going." I bite my lip and look at down at Zion. My pack is still under his head. "I was relying on Zion. But now I need to figure it out myself."

  I kneel down and gently remove my pack from under Zion's head. I note that his bandage looks good still, so the bleeding must've stopped. I use some extra gauze packs to cradle his head.

  I pull my tablet out and the pattern cube. I close my eyes for a second as I hope that they both still work after being thrown around the cavern.

  The tablet boots right up and I breath a sigh of relief. The pattern cube however doesn't show any signs of power. "The pattern cube was damaged," I say to Derek, who has kneeled down beside me.

  "But your tablet works, right? And Zion did say that these comm tunnels weren't on the pattern cube anyway."

  I stand up and program the tablet for all layers of map details. There's got to be something here that can help us.

  Although this emergency station had to have been built in the last year, I can still see on the map where we are. It's marked as an emergency evacuation station, which to non-miners would make sense. But to a real miner we know that the only safe place to evacuate in case of a cave-in is to get topside. You can hurry down tunnels as far as you want, but it's too hard to tell which direction the cave-in or the aftershocks will go. So the designation is useless.

  But now that I have an idea where I'm at, I see we need to make it up at least two levels to be above the comm band neutralizer. I look down at Zion, who's still unconscious, and I look over at Derek.

  "What?" He lowers his eyes as he studies me.

  "The good news is I've figured out where we are and where we need to go."

  Derek crosses his arms. "And the bad news?"

  I look up at the ceiling before I answer. "We're going to need to carry Zion." I slowly lower my gaze until it meets Derek's dark brown eyes.

  "We can't just leave him here and come back for him?"

  "No." I put my hands on my hips. "We don't know if the pirates are after us still. They obviously must suspect someone was in the cavern to undo their charges. It would be too dangerous to leave him here."

  "Won't it be dangerous to move him? With a head wound?" Derek points down at Zion's bandaged head.

  I bend down and shove all my stuff back into my backpack. "Yes, normally I wouldn't want to move him. He obviously has a concussion." I look back up at Derek. "But I checked and that's the only wound he has. We have to take the chance. Again, I don't think we have a choice."

  I stand up and throw my pack over my shoulders. I tighten the straps and turn toward Zion.

  "I'll carry him. You lead the way." Derek gently pushes me aside. He reaches under Zion's armpits and hefts him over one shoulder like a large sack of potatoes. Derek turns. "But if this makes him worse, it's not my fault."

  I narrow my eyes at him as I think of a smart remark but then I see the corner of his mouth twitch. I stick my tongue out at him. "You're teasing. You're probably glad he's not awake right now."

  He shrugs his free shoulder. "This way I don't have to hear him talk." Derek grins down at me.

  I roll my eyes. "So funny. Let's go before he gets too heavy for you."

  Derek makes a rude noise behind me. "I've had to carry loads heavier than this."

  I laugh but keep going. Derek's time with foster families wasn't the happiest so I don't doubt he had to do worse than carry a man's weight up two levels of uneven ground.

  The outer tunnels aren't in much better condition. In one place the route is completely blocked and we have to turn around and take an alternate tunnel.

  We were lucky to have been in that safety cavern. I shiver as I realize we could've been buried underneath these rocks and no one would've know where to look for us.

  With Zion's dead weight, I realize suddenly that we can't take the maintenance ladders, and the lifts aren't working because of the quakes. My hopeful idea of getting up two levels dissolves. I stop us in an alcove meant for storage and motion for Derek to put Zion down.

  "What's up, Bren?" Derek is barely out of breath. Again, I glare at him as I bend over my knees to catch my breath.

  "Other than the fact that you're in way better shape than I am?" I grumble at him.

  He chuckles that deep rumble that makes me smile. "Yes, besides that."

  I point to Zion. "We can't take him up the maintenance ladders. There's no way even you could carry him up those, even if the shafts weren't so narrow."

  Derek frowns. "I didn't even think that far. And I suppose the lifts are out of the question?"

  I nod. "We need him awake."

  "Want me to slap him awake?" Derek grins.

  I smack him on the arm as I straighten up. "Of course not."

  Derek just grins and leans against the wall.

  I make a face at Derek, knowing he's teasing me again. I take my pack out and rummage around in it until I find what I need. I kneel down beside Zion. First I place a pain med on his tongue, and then I push a vial underneath his nose.

  Zion's head jerks up and I have to reach out and steady him with my free hand. "Careful, Z."

  Zion looks around wildly, trying to stand up. Derek helps me keep him sitting on the ground.

  "Zion, look at me," I order.

  He blinks and looks in my direction. It takes a few seconds before his eyes focus. "Brenna?"

  I let out the breath I was holding. I place the lid back on the bottle and place it in my pack. "Yes, Z. I'm so sorry, but I needed you awake."

  With Derek helping me hold Zion still, I turn Zion's head to check the bandage. The sudden movement has started the wound bleeding again. This time I just wrap more tape around it, not wanting to remove the bandage.

  "What happened?" Zion asks, his words slurring slightly. I glance quickly at Derek and then back to Zion.

  "There was a cave-in and now we need to get back up to Mom's office."

  "Why?" Zion touches the bandage on his head.

  "We need to get up a few floors so I can communicate with my ship," I point to my ear comm, "and we can't carry you up the maintenance ladders. Also, we need that research we talked about."

  Zion squints as he fights to focus on my face. "Yes. I can climb. But we don't need to, B."

  I place a hand on his forehead to check for a fever. "What do you mean, Z. We don't need to what?" I talk slowly to make sure he understands me through whatever concussion haze he's in.

  "We don't need to go up to comm your ship. Or get your mom's research. We just need to go sideways." Zion starts listing to the side and Derek pulls him back upright.

  "Is that his concussion talking or the meds?" Derek asks.

  "He doesn't have a fever, and I didn't give him that
kind of med. Besides the vertigo and slurring of words, I think he knows what he's saying." I look back at Zion who is looking between Derek and I with a childlike expression. "Well, maybe he knows what he's saying."

  "B." Zion screams right in my face.

  "I'm right here, Z. You don't need to yell."

  "Sorry. There's a terrible ringing in my ears." He places a hand on one ear. "Stop looking at me like that. I know what I'm talking about, even if my body isn't acting like it." He pushes Derek's hand away and straightens up.

  "All right. Then tell me what are you talking about?"

  "Going up isn't the only way to get into comm range. You should remember that." Zion leans forward, staring at me.

  His familiar gaze, although a bit dopey right now, kicks my brain into gear. I mentally look at the mine design in my head again. Sideways. If I go sideways on the plan instead of up takes us to... "That's it. Sideways."

  I look over at Derek who is looking at both of us like we're crazy. "Zion really does mean sideways. As in the way over to the main dome. Up only takes us to the labs and medical floors and the docks. But sideways takes us to the residential sections of the first dome."

  "If that's true, wouldn't that lead the pirates back to the miners and the council chambers as well?" asks Derek.

  I look at Zion who is watching some unseen pattern on the ceiling. I shake my head and look back at Derek.

  "If they wanted to target the council they will already be there. We have to chance it in order to get within comm range of Captain Fukuda."

  "And we won't need to take any lifts or ladders?"

  "Nope. We just back track down this tunnel and there should be a few bio secure doors hidden and disguised."

  "And we'll find the research there." Zion flops sideways to get on his hands and knees.

  Derek and I help Zion to his feet. We each keep hold of one arm as he sways between us.

  "What does that mean, Z?"

  "Her research. It's not in her office." He leans his head toward me. "You know she wouldn't trust super important stuff to the mainframe," he whispers.