The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “I wouldn’t do that. He has a girlfriend,” Sky chuckled.

  Chase’s stomach turned and he ran up the stairs. He’d come here to escape his ex, and he couldn’t tell Sky the truth without enduring her flirtation. She’d already broken his heart once.

  Saskia sat on the hospital bed with Tray’s head in her lap and her stunner by his pillow. They’d finally wheeled the other patient out of the room, but Saskia was on edge.

  “Is he not here yet?” Morrigan asked, instinctively reaching for the curtain to give them privacy. Saskia raised her weapon and shook her head. She didn’t need privacy; she needed a clear view of the door.

  “A nurse came for a few minutes,” Saskia replied. She hadn’t expected Dr. Eislen to come himself, but she appreciated having someone Tray would trust on sight. “They took some scans and now they’re coming up with their game plan. They started fluids and talked about blood transfusion. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “Of course they don’t,” Morrigan said. “Saskia, this kind of injury doesn’t happen. The Joslin clinic has three cases of hypersensitivity to artificial gravity. Most of Draver’s work is combatting miscarriage during gravity therapy. In adults, the worst injury is a nosebleed and some bruising. You realize something’s wrong, and you get the person out. This… is unprecedented.”

  Tray gurgled and his eyelids fluttered.

  “You’re okay, baby,” Saskia reassured, hugging around his face, helping him stretch his neck.

  “I feel better already,” he murmured, squirming to get off her lap. Saskia took the hint and slid off the bed. He didn’t like public affection.

  “Yeah, it’s amazing what a little iron infusion will do for anemia,” Morrigan said, reading from her Virp.

  “They’re not done yet?” Tray asked, beating at his pillow until Saskia helped him adjust it.

  “They’re getting you strong enough to endure the surgical knitter,” Morrigan reassured, stilling his fretting with a touch. Tray scanned the room, his lips pressing together in disappointment when he didn’t see his brother.

  “Where’s Danny?” he asked.

  “He went home to get some rest,” Morrigan said. “We’re taking shifts.”

  “It’ll take that long?” Tray asked, his body twitching. Saskia wasn’t sure if he was reaching for her or if that was wishful thinking on her part.

  She heard footsteps approaching and turned to the door. Dr. Eislen skipped into the room, his oily, white hair combed to one side, his scrubs wrinkled from disuse. He had dark skin like Saskia’s, and his white teeth seemed to glow when he smiled.

  “Mr. Matthews! It has been months,” he greeted Tray, setting down a locked case of controlled meds, tapping a projection that brought Tray’s vitals on a display over the bed. He was a short man, and needed to lower the bed six inches to treat his patient. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you without a life threatening virus.”

  “Trying something new,” Tray joked, reaching for Saskia’s hand, squeezing the air when he thought he’d found it. Saskia stepped closer to offer comfort, but staying close put her back to the door.

  “I hope you tried ‘good health’ before you decided it wasn’t for you,” Eislen teased.

  “Twenty minutes, good as new?” Morrigan asked hopefully.

  “I’m afraid it’ll take multiple steps,” Eislen replied, projecting a detailed scan showing the fluid around Tray’s heart and lungs. “He presents a special challenge. We’re not repairing a single incision or even multiple wounds. Our pre-op scans show significant thinning along the arterial walls, and the whole circulatory system needs to be repaired. I called in a technician to recalibrate the machine. He should be ready to do a first trial in twenty minutes. We’re focusing on the major organs first.”

  Tray’s breath hitched and he reached for Saskia again. Relenting, she hooked his fingers. Saskia still felt the threat of the Guard beating down on them. Solvere had gotten away with this once.

  “This will work, Tray,” Morrigan said.

  “Doctor Zenzele and I have already discussed plan B,” Eislen continued. “If the auto-knitter works, you’ll be moved to recovery in three to four hours. If not, it may take a few days of smaller surgeries. But the good news is, you don’t have a virus.”

  “I don’t have a virus,” Tray repeated, rubbing his lips on Saskia’s palm. She wished she could be there just to comfort him and someone else could do the protecting. But if Danny were here, she’d be even further from the bed.

  “I know!” Eislen said excitedly. “It means I can finally cure this metabolic issue that makes you so prone to hypoglycemia!”

  “Cure?” Morrigan repeated. “There is no cure. Aside from regulated diet.”

  “Ah, you’re forgetting the benefits of living in a police state that has lost all regard for human life,” Eislen said, his tone failing to match the flippancy of his words. He shifted the projector to show a live sonogram of Tray’s abdomen. “I inject a nanobot into the pancreas, and it acts like a pacemaker, regulating insulin production.”

  “Is that safe?” Morrigan asked.

  “It is now,” Eislen said, fingering the pancreas projection and pulling back the bedcovers. “Take my word, you don’t want to see the trial research.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until he’s stronger?” Saskia asked. “You said there was fluid around the organs.”

  “The hypoglycemia is making the blood leakage worse,” Morrigan reasoned. “Also, plan B – days of surgeries – will go much smoother with this cure in place.”

  “Glad you agree,” Eislen said, opening the case he’d brought in.

  “How do we maintain the nanobot?” Morrigan asked. “Will it be affected by defibrillators? What are the side effects?”

  “We don’t have any long term data,” Eislen said. “It’s newer than grav-tech, but in my experience, if the bot doesn’t take, it’ll get filtered through the kidneys and excreted. Hold him down.”

  “What?” Morrigan cried. “Now?

  “Wait!” Saskia demanded. She couldn’t fire her stunner at Eislen without hurting Tray.

  Eislen raised a giant needle and jammed it into Tray’s belly. Tray seized, sputtering blood when he screamed.

  “Hold him!” Eislen ordered again, driving the needle deeper. Saskia grabbed Tray by the shoulders, holding him down. With a final pound of his fist, Eislen injected the syringe’s contents into Tray, and then withdrew the needle, leaving a pinprick-size dot of blood on Tray’s abdomen. Saskia grabbed Eislen by the collar and threw him to the floor. He seemed stunned by the reaction, and he stayed down when he saw her stunner.

  “Ms. Serevi, now isn’t the time for vengeance,” Eislen said. “I need to tune the device before it gets dislodged. As your doctor said, this will significantly lower the risk in his coming procedures.”

  “Saskia,” Morrigan whispered, touching her elbow but not forcing her weapon down. Tray’s body contracted and he wailed and writhed. His heart raced, but his body got weaker by the moment.

  “Tell her what to do,” Saskia said.

  “There’s a muscle relaxant in the case,” Eislen frowned, watching the stats on the screen. “We do need to work quickly.”

  Saskia looked at Morrigan and Morrigan found the jet, forcing back tears as she administered the medicine. Even after what had happened at the Joslin clinic, she hadn’t been prepared to protect Tray from his own doctor.

  18

  For the first time in weeks, Sky felt relaxed as she reclined in her blue chair in Oriana’s galley. It was not nearly as soft or luxurious as anything in the Governor’s mansion, the food was mediocre, and the room smelled, but the comfort of freedom overshadowed all of that. Her feet were propped up and the chair turned so that the footrest blocked the door to Danny’s quarters, and she lazily put ink to paper, filling in the crossword of her puzzle book. Sky loved printed puzzle books. They didn’t need batteries, there was never a glare on the screen, and if she made too many
mistakes, she could scratch out the entire page, which was significantly more cathartic than hitting a clear-all button and starting again.

  Hawk slouched at the table, his head resting on his elbow. He may not have passed out like she had, but the incident in the 1 had taken a significantly greater toll on him than her. His fingers flitted back and forth and he watched the hatch to crew hall pop open and closed in response to his hybrid power.

  “You’re getting better at feeling your way around,” Sky commented.

  “I don’t know if I’m starting to see again or just imagining I can,” Hawk replied. “But it’s so much easier here than on Aquia.”

  “Panoptica are from here,” Sky said.

  “I’m not. No one in Rocan is,” Hawk said. “Kerris and Liza weren’t.”

  “Kerris and Liza were bred to have power,” Sky pointed out. “But you’re right. Maybe hybrid powers flow easier around the Hanyu stone. It’s only found here”

  Hawk turned his wrist and chuckled at something on his Virp. “Benedict’s worried about me.”

  Sky glanced up from her puzzle, but didn’t see a picture on Hawk’s screen. “Who’s Benedict?”

  “My friend. We met yesterday,” Hawk blushed, rubbing his hands against his thighs. “I told you about him.”

  “Yes, with drool. You didn’t tell him what happened. Did you?” Sky asked.

  “I’m not stupid, Sky. Benedict James,” Hawk giggled again. The name sounded clumsy with his Rocanese accent, almost like baby talk, and Hawk kept repeating it like a song. “He’s a medic, you know. Not a pay-for-sex worker. Not like last time. Do you think the captain would let me go on a date?”

  “I think you need to worry about sitting up first,” Sky smiled, pinching his cheek.

  “Not for what I have in mind,” Hawk smirked.

  Sky laughed. “Did he seem interested?”

  “He touched my hand and our Virps vibrated. It transferred his contact information automatically,” Hawk said.

  “That’s not kismet. That’s how it’s supposed to work,” Sky said.

  “And he sent me pictures,” Hawk said.

  “Of himself?”

  “Of the inside of the machines he uses,” Hawk said, calling up a projection of a dissected medical Virp. “He says I can keep it.”

  Sky laughed out loud. “Set up the date, Hawk.”

  Hawk ran his fingers through the projection of the machine, biting his lip. Then he slipped the device out of the glove mount and pursed his lips, composing a message. The way his brows knit, she could tell he kept erasing the message to start again.

  “Do pictures of machines talk to you, or just the actual machine?” Sky asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hawk said, tugging at the strands of his long, red hair. “I already know what a medical Virp does, so it’s easy to visualize. Do you have a picture of something else?”

  “When I passed out earlier, I had a dream,” Sky said, almost choking on the memory. “I think I did. I remember seeing the inside of a machine, but I don’t know what it does.”

  “Draw it for me. I’ll build it for you,” he said eagerly.

  The door to Danny’s room opened and Sky put the footrest down. Amanda stood in the doorway with one hand on the wall for support. She wore a long t-shirt and her wet hair dampened the back. The humid air that trailed her told Sky she’d taken a hot shower.

  “No cake?” Amanda asked, keeping one hand on the wall as she crossed to the galley. Her legs and feet were bare, but she wasn’t bruised or bleeding. Whatever medication Morrigan had her on, it had tempered the violence of her episodes.

  “Not tonight, Pip. Welcome back to the land of the sane,” Sky greeted, watching to see if she needed help. Sky had thought about making a cake, but half way through gathering the ingredients, she got woozy and decided to sit down. It didn’t feel like a Spirit thing. It was probably from being tied up for two weeks and then jumping out a window.

  “I heard Galen,” Amanda said, pulling out a protein block and a bread loaf. She picked up a knife and her expression went vacant.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Sky said, springing from the chair and taking the knife. “Hawk? Sandwich?”

  Hawk mumbled something incoherent, his concentration on his Virp and Benedict James.

  “I heard him talking to Parker,” Amanda said, tugging her ear, then ringing her wet hair into the sink.

  “About?” Sky prompted.

  “I wrote it down,” she said, looking down at her hand. Realizing that her Virp wasn’t attached, she stumbled back to her room and returned with a Virclutch. “Danny said write it down.”

  She slid into the bench seat at the table and tapped at the screen. Sky brought their sandwiches to the table and peered over her shoulder. The notes were hand written, not typed, and there were drawings throughout the words. Human eyes, carnivore’s teeth, claws like a bird of prey. If Sky had drawn a picture of Spirit, it would be equally disjointed.

  “Is that Galen?” Sky asked, sliding in next to Amanda.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” she said, taking a bite of her sandwich and studying the drawing. “It’s a Panoptica. Coro asked about the Panoptica.”

  “Coro asked about his wife and she is way sexier than that,” Sky said.

  “It’s the spirit-side of one,” Amanda said, her finger tapping against the table, her brow furrowing. “I think this is what Galen looks like.”

  “His spirit side?” Sky asked.

  Amanda’s lips quirked and she scrolled up and down on her notes. There were points where the writing was illegible. “If it weren’t for my notes, I wouldn’t have made the connection. It looks crazy, all these rantings about Elysians.”

  “Sounds crazy when you go off, too,” Sky smirked, bumping Amanda’s shoulder. “What did Galen say to Parker?”

  “Galen thought he could heal Carr to make amends for the death of his partner,” Amanda said. “He tried to heal Carr. And that weakened the barrier between Elysia and here. Galen thinks that’s bad, but Parker doesn’t.”

  “Who’s Carr?” Hawk asked.

  Amanda set her sandwich down, her face getting green. “We killed her. We killed his partner.”

  “Don’t lose it. It’s okay,” Sky said, scooting off the bench, wishing she still had her grav-gun. “Lt. Carr is the Guard who put me in the 3. He’s paranoid because ever since Pip killed his partner—”

  “Galen killed,” Amanda interrupted.

  “—he’s been seeing Galen,” Sky finished.

  “Read me a story,” Amanda whimpered, crawling into Sky’s chair, panting like she was trying not to cry. “I don’t hear the voices when you read to me.”

  “What else is Galen saying? What are you hearing?” Sky asked. Schizophrenia was one of those diseases that doctors liked to catch and treat early, but being held captive by Galen, Amanda had been denied the cure that would have eased her suffering.

  “You’re evil. Murderer. You killed them,” she choked, then paused to listen again. “You’ll never remember your friends. Your parents left because they don’t love you. You drove them away. You can’t even lift your own head, you weakling.”

  “Stop,” Sky said, giving Amanda a squeeze.

  “They won’t stop,” Amanda moaned. Tension rippled through her body, but she forced herself to remain still. “They’re watching you. They’re talking about you. They hate you, spirit carrier.”

  Sky tapped her Virp, calling up the first story she could find, and began reading aloud. Her voice silenced Amanda’s, and while it calmed Amanda, it made Spirit anxious.

  Danny kicked his way up the stairs, well past his wits’ end. He’d checked his emotions for too long, and he felt powerless. He was powerless. He’d left Tray alone in the hospital for three hours, and already his brother had been attacked by the very doctor Danny had gone to for help. Morrigan said it wasn’t an attack, but he’d heard the edge in Saskia’s voice. Coro grew more restless every hour, but they had to tread caref
ully because Tray wasn’t stable enough for space travel and wouldn’t be for days.

  Storming into the engine room, Danny kicked open the locker that held Corey’s coat, and stared at the worn, purple garment. It was the only thing of hers that he had left. It was like a drug, thinking of her, and her beautiful soul. Just seeing the coat, he could breathe again, and remember that life hadn’t always looked so bleak. He couldn’t believe she’d been gone for three months.

  “This’ll never work,” Chase said. “Both of us coming here to brood.”

  Danny jumped a mile, and Chase laughed at him, pulling his knees to his chest so his legs wouldn’t get trampled. He sat on the floor under the air vent and smiled wistfully at Danny.

  “At least the Guard haven’t come after Sky,” Danny said. He looked at the locker, empty save for Corey’s coat. It felt wrong to touch it with Chase watching. “What are you brooding about?”

  He bit his tongue, praying that Chase would be vague and dismissive. There was already so much weight on his shoulders.

  Chase let out a low whistle, scratched his head, then ruffled his hair. He ran a hand over the stubble on his cheeks, and Danny tensed, knowing that meant Chase was ready to talk.

  “I didn’t need the tow. I was a little dizzy and when Tray mentioned the lunar machine, I just wanted to see something rolling around in that alien dust,” Chase said.

  Danny chuckled, then pressed his knuckles to his lips. This was not the confession he’d been expecting.

  “Then Sky mentioned Noelle,” Chase said, his voice cracking. “Was it really just five days ago that everything was going so right? I was happy. I was… engaged.”

  “Just for a minute,” Danny said, his eyes watering.

  “Maybe we can rent another grav-lift and joyride around the port and cheer ourselves up,” Chase suggested. “That taxi Tray and Morrigan took to the clinic looked fun, too. But not the ambulance.”

  “Did you see his face before he left? It was like he knew what would happen out there,” Danny whispered, closing the locker. “Something always happens.”