Heretics (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 4)

by V. S. Holmes

  Sure enough, Lin was already in repose, eyes fluttering with relaxation. Her lidded gaze caught Nel’s and her fingers fluttered in a wave. “Sweet dreams, love.”

  Nel offered a numb smile and climbed shakily into the neighboring pod. Fuck all of this. Next time I’m pacing the ship’s length for two years instead of this nonsense. Jem’s deft fingers had already hooked Nel up and were fiddling with dials and buttons.

  Nel glanced up. “Shouldn’t I be feeling something? Sleepy?”

  Jem shrugged. “Hits each of us a little different. Your adrenaline is fighting it, though. Can you think of ways to relax? Any history of anxiety?”

  “Nah. Usually pretty chill under stress. I can try the breathing thing.” She forced her eyes closed and thought of Chile.

  Soft air whispered from the tiny holes lining the pod. Thick tepid fluid dribbled into the bottom, enveloping her in an utter lack of sensation. Her heart pounded faster. Beeping increased and her eyes fixed on the glowing readouts that, based on her limited understanding of human physiology, seemed too high for someone minutes from chemically forced unconsciousness.

  “Dr. Bently—”

  Beeping. Static screaming turned up to eleven. The suit’s warning trill moments before Paul ripped his helmet off.

  Get your shit together, Bently!

  “Nel!” Jem’s voice left no room for argument, but Nel’s rampaging fear barreled onward, the tech’s voice fading in the face of flashbacks. Their voice rose. “I need a doctor at unit 34.”

  Thirty-four. How old was she, again? By Earth standards? Weight pressed on her chest, squeezing the will to struggle from her muscles. Still, her breath heaved and her stomach threatened to vomit up the breakfast she hadn’t eaten. Would she forever be keeping track of her perceived age in parallel with how many years she’d technically lived? How wide would that gap be when she eventually died? What happens if you die in cryo?

  “Does she have an assigned psych?” The new voice was low and deep.

  “Yeah, but he’s about to go under too, unit 75. And audio-comms are locked for safety. We launch in T-10.”

  “Pull up her chart.”

  “Doctor, that’s against—”

  “Excuse me, Doctor.”

  Nel’s blurred vision settled on a new smooth, long face. “Hars,” she slurred.

  “Yeah, it’s Harris. Nel, I’d like you to just focus on me. You’re having a panic response. The human system can only panic for twenty minutes. Just ride it for another five, alright? It might feel like you’re dying, but you’re perfectly safe. Your body is just being an overachiever. Based on what I’ve heard that’s pretty on-brand for you.” His face curved in a smile. “You’ve got your girl right over there too—just picture your hands clasped. She’ll anchor you here.”

  Blaring alarms made her eyes fly open, but his face still hovered in the shadows over hers. “Just preparing for launch. By the time we take off, you’ll be asleep. It’ll be summer in the northern hemisphere when we arrive. Can you remember summer at home for me?”

  “Cicada,” Nel rasped. Her eyes felt heavy now too, and her lungs slowed, exhausted. “Fucking bugs everywhere. Sunburn. Dirt. Beer.”

  “I can smell it already,” he murmured. “I’ve always been an IPA man.”

  “From Earth?”

  His smile warped, swam. “Indeed. Just another minute more and you’ll be in dreamland.”

  Darkness encroached, but this time it was a soft descent into twilight. Rushing air was replaced by the slow billow of her own breath. “Dream in cryo?”

  “You’ll have to tell me when you wake up. They say it’s impossible,” he patted the glass and stepped back, “but I always have.”

  Darkness became the rich indigo of the forest at night. Soft soil cradled her bare feet as she padded to the edge of the meandering river. It was the Connecticut, or maybe the Susquehanna. A canoe ghosted by, a single hulking silhouette in its hull. Water burbled along its fiberglass sides. The man leaned against the oar, pushing his craft upriver in the darkness. Nel edged to the crest of the embankment. Rocks skittered down the slope in her wake, plinking into the brown bathwater warmth.

  His shoulders bunched as he heaved against the current. The wooden paddle groaned with the effort. He did not turn, but she knew those arms, those battered hands. She knew the hang of his short, fuzzy locs.

  “Mikey?”

  Her heart hammered and somewhere in the rearmost corner of her skull, wailing rose. Sharp rocks exposed in the eroding bank bit into the meat of her palm. She ignored the sting and stumbled into the churning water. “Mikey!”

  It was only at the river’s bend that he turned back. His face was shadowed, but she saw shattered cheekbones and torn flesh where a crowbar had cracked features better suited to smiles than screaming. His full lips parted, and river water tumbled from his putrefied mouth.

  FOUR

  Decay coated Nel’s tongue. She grimaced and probed her teeth. Hopefully whoever was warming her back wouldn’t judge her for the worst morning breath in human history. Air eased from her chest in a groan as she stretched. Her arms hit hard, smooth warmth. Her eyes flew open, blinking against the dim orange lights flickering over the glassy surface inches from her face.

  Muffled chiming drifted through and bubbles rose around her skin. Fluid drained and the scent of clean air replaced its warmth. Above, familiar features swam into focus. Lin’s face broke into a beaming smile. A beige palm pressed to the glass.

  Nel choked back a sob that dreamed of laughter and lifted her hand to push it against Lin’s. “Morning,” she rasped.

  Lin’s words were faint, but Nel caught enough. “How’d you sleep?”

  Her nose wrinkled. It was odd to pretend something so alien, so unnatural, was akin to being tucked in by a parent, but Nel supposed it was what kept most cryo-hoppers sane. “I think I had weird dreams. Don’t remember them, though. Can I get out?”

  “Almost. One more step.”

  Figures milled about behind the woman, and air rushed in. Nel winced as her ears popped. Her memories were blurry, but images filtered back in. A funeral. Dar’s glare. Buzzing insects—or was that her dream? The lid bounced up as it unlocked, then rose slowly. She sat up, half expecting dry ice vapor to billow out, a theater geek’s imagining of a lesbian space Dracula. Laughter bubbled from her throat, followed by burning bile as she vomited.

  Lin’s soft hand wiped her mouth. Portable, opaque screens provided privacy. Nel perched on the edge of her cryo bed, wishing her deep breaths drew in more than the bright stench of emesis or the dry, powered scent of medical equipment.

  Jem handed her a foil blanket, then held up a small syringe with an apologetic smile. “Helps with the sick.”

  Nel shuddered as cool fluid spurted into her vein. “How about you? Sleep okay?”

  Lin smiled. “Good. Always feel refreshed afterward. Looking forward to a proper shower, though.”

  Nel groaned. “Me too, now.”

  “I’ll get your suit if you want to clean up.”

  “Please.” She fumbled with the damp cloth Jem folded over the pod’s side, grateful her nerves hadn’t allowed her to eat before going under. Maybe our stomachs are always empty when we wake. Did people digest in cryo?

  “Here, babe.”

  Nel took the suit from Lin with a wan smile. A memory nagged at her, another pet name as Lin went under. She shifted with discomfort. Babe’s preferable. The suit was looser, barely. “We gonna wear these down there too?”

  Lin snorted and shook her head. “Depends. Just another few hours and you’ll be back to your tank tops and cargos.”

  Nel’s fingers stilled at the throat of her suit. Hours. The reality of where she was exploded what remained of her groggy state. “Windows. Now.”

  Lin’s deceptively thin arms levered Nel up. It was then she realized gravity no longer existed. Rather, everything drifted, in stasis until its course was altered. She
finished fastening her suit and nudged off of the cryo pod after Lin.

  “Can’t you hear it? Screaming!” A naked man flailed into them, babbling in a half-woken panic.

  Nel’s pulse spiked, but Lin squeezed her hand. “Just woke up on the wrong side of the pod.”

  Nel averted her eyes, backing up until the medics retrieved him. He said screaming. She shuddered and followed Lin through a doorway. Neither spoke as they wound through the milling techs and doctors. A far more organized throng of officers and engineers filled the ship’s main bay. Lin’s fingers laced with Nel’s to keep them from losing one another as she propelled them along the edge of the room.

  “Oi! Sci-nerds!”

  Lin paused halfway up the obsolete stairs at the voice booming from the gangway above.

  “Back to the med bay. You’ve seen the vids of zero-G yak. Don’t need cryo sick gumming up my ship.”

  Nel’s face flushed and her mouth opened to snap back, but a tan hand pressed on the officer’s shoulder. Emilio shot her a wink and muttered something in the man’s ear.

  The officer’s jaw worked but his sneer parted enough for his amendment. “Make it quick, eh?”

  “Yessir.” Lin glided the rest of the way up to the next level. Two turns and a narrow, grease-stained passageway later, they drifted into what Nel assumed was a tiny emergency pod. The view pitched Nel’s balance to the left and up and she threw a hand out to steady herself. Her teeth clenched. She’d be damned if she proved Officer Barked Order’s concerns right.

  “Man, gravity is underrated.”

  Lin laughed, sliding the door closed behind them. It muffled all but the loudest machinery.

  Nel slipped closer to the window. She spread her fingers on the window, peering up at the swath of tan and marbled white that was Saudi Arabia. Except there were no borders. Just a smattering of earth grounding nine billion feet as they all rocketed through the void. Perhaps it was a delayed reaction to waking, but tears sprang to her eyes. “What day is it?”

  “Early August, I think. We’ll touch down at Bakjeeri spaceport at 3:45 p.m. local time. I’m told it’s a nice day.”

  Hopefully tears didn’t damage spaceships. Home. She could live a thousand cryo-lengthened years and never grow sick of seeing the precious marble. She could live a thousand more and never want to leave again. Somewhere down there was her mother. Her friends. Everyone she had ever known for the first thirty-odd years of her life. I’m coming, she vowed. I’ll fix this, somehow.

  A heavy clunk shook the ship and a distant alarm began.

  “We ought to get back.”

  “Yeah, thanks for humoring me,” Nel agreed, backing up, but unable to look away just yet. Lin’s thumb brushed moisture from Nel’s cheek. “Bit woozy is all. Delayed reaction to waking up, I think.”

  “I get it.” At Nel’s skeptical glance, Lin clarified. “I have a home too, you know.”

  “Right.” But you were raised knowing there were thousands of you scattered across the sky. Knowing there was a contingency if it all went belly-up. Nel shot a final look over her shoulder at the brilliant blue ball. She wouldn’t let her home be amputated in some galactic fight for a healthy humanity. Or whatever IDH claimed this was.

  “Nalawangsa, Bently!” Harris floated in the mouth of a service corridor. A gleaming officer’s robe drifted over his meticulous suit. “Get settled. Docking is in T-15 minutes!”

  “Sorry, sir!” Lin called.

  “I knew he was an officer,” Nel muttered, aloud this time, as Lin towed her into the passenger area. “So, how long until we can wander around? I have no memory of being on the ISS from before.”

  Lin blushed. “I doubt we’ll be able to wander much. We have nine hours here. Usually they try to give us at least twenty-four to recover from cryo sick, if we need to. Weather and timing made them cut it short though. Going from the stasis of cryo to the G-force of reentry can really—”

  “I don’t need the details, thanks though,” Nel interjected. As much as she enjoyed traveling to a dig or back home after a summer abroad, the added danger of space travel—even when conducted by people raised there—just pissed off her empty stomach.

  Lin looked down, apologetic as they waited for a train of cargo bins to drift by, propelled by a tech with propulsion boots. “Sorry, I find research and knowing all the facts helps me when I’m nervous.”

  “Me, not so much. At least with this stuff. Maybe you can distract me in other ways,” Nel amended, running her finger up the inside of Lin’s forearm.

  The other woman jumped but smiled. “These things are ticklish, you know, when paired.”

  “Oh, I hoped so.”

  Lin grabbed her hand and pushed off, turning back toward the med bay. At some point during their flight it had been converted into bunks. The flimsy 3D printed walls were more a suggestion of privacy but were better than nothing. A flashing sign on the wall cycled through various bulletins, including the time until the shuttle for Earth launched and the location of the space station’s medical wing, which would replace the makeshift one used prior to launch.

  “Shouldn’t we be suited up or something?” Nel asked. “In case something goes wrong?”

  “I thought you didn’t want to know the details,” Lin teased.

  “Well, I guess just the most important ones.”

  “No, this is a sealed compartment. All the airlock doors are closed for docking. If a hatch blows, the liner melts and seals us in this self-contained life support—” Lin stopped herself. “No, we’re alright here. We’re just not supposed to be drifting about.” She paused outside one of the cubicles. “This is me. You’ve your own.”

  As friendly as Lin had been over the last few hours—okay, few weeks, technically—slippery anxiety still dampened the intimacy they had found on Samsara. She hesitated, then all her exes rolled over in their metaphorical graves at her next words: “Do you think we could talk?”

  Lin’s smile may have been small, but its warmth was genuine. “I wouldn’t mind company while everything gets settled.”

  When the door had shut behind them, Nel made to sit in the folding chair clipped to the floor before realizing there was really no point in sitting anywhere without gravity.

  “Hey, I don’t bite.” Lin gestured to the space beside where she hovered just above the cot.

  Nel moved closer, heart pounding. “I want to apologize. For the briefing. For not keeping my mouth shut.”

  “You already did.”

  “I know, but still. Dr. Ndebele is your mentor, right?”

  “She is. She headed my mission in Chile when you and I first met.”

  “Right. Well, I don’t want to start burning bridges you still need to cross, you know? But I’m a lot better at burning bridges than I am at repairing them. Working on it. And my temper.”

  Lin’s expression softened. “I get why you’re angry. I’ve spent a lot of my life angry too—mostly at Dar’s aloofness and how close he and my mom are. The Samsari connection was much stronger with them.”

  “Wasn’t that by design?”

  “Yeah, but when you’re a kid it feels more like favoritism.” She shrugged. “I know IDH screwed up a lot, especially with you. I know you don’t trust them—and to be clear, I don’t either. But I trust this mission and the officers leading it. I trust their goals and their concern. And I also know that we’ll get a lot further with them if we don’t piss off every commanding officer within the first few days.”

  “Bit late on that one for me, I’m afraid,” Nel muttered with a dark laugh.

  “It’s not—the fact that you woke up in a cryo pod orbiting Earth today instead of on Odyssey is proof they’re giving you another chance. Or, at least, Harris is.”

  Nel nodded. “Not sure what he sees. I’m starting to worry the reason IDH chose me was as much to do with the reputation of my shitty temper as my curriculum vitae. Hot temperaments make fantastic scapegoats.”
/>   Lin shrugged. “Just give them a chance, okay? I really want this to work—not just IDH, but us too, you know?”

  Fear zinged through Nel’s body. She wanted this to work too. Badly. More than she could admit. But she wasn’t used to having something other than her fear of commitment standing in the way of happily for now. In an attempt to calm her nerves, she flipped open her tablet and pulled up the mission details.

  “Hey,” Lin’s soft voice cut through her frown, “what’re you looking for?”

  She sighed. “There’s a lot to catch up on. Feel like this hasty alliance is gonna crumble the minute we set foot on Earth.”

  “I think you’re not giving any of us enough credit.”

  Nel snorted. “I dunno, I just keep remembering you and Bas’s firefight across my fucking site.”

  Lin’s mouth thinned. “So much for you working on trust.”

  Nel’s gut got cold. “I do trust you. It’s not about you. Just how nervous all of this makes me feel.”

  “All of this meaning IDH? Space?”

  Nel chuckled. “Honestly? The feelings I have for you are scarier.” She fiddled with the sheets.

  “What’s so scary?” Lin asked, hand brushing over Nel’s fingers. “You’re fiddling.”

  “Trying to keep myself from running out the airlock.” Her eyes were fixed on the dim lamp overhead, picking out every imperfection in the 3D printed ceiling.

  “It’s that bad that death-by-vacuum is better?”

  The memory of Lin, naked, in the hull of the Thunder-bump seconds away from rescuing Nel from death by massive space gate flashed through her mind. “No, more like it’s the realest thing ever and you’re this colossus of grace and I’m over here not knowing what to do with my hands.”

  “That’s good, though.”

  Nel snorted. This was the longest she had stayed after a hookup. Sure, physically she stayed, but she never mentally stayed. She dared not relax, but she could unclench her death grip on the bedding, maybe. So far nothing had exploded. “Why, you like me scared? That your kink?”