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

by Valerie J Mikles

  “He’s gone,” Damien assured. “I’ll make sure he gets back to Quin. I’ll keep you safe, my love.”

  Janiya took the stone again and backed away from her husband, hiding behind the Guard who had run in to help her.

  “Janiya, talk to me, please. Tell me what you need,” Damien urged.

  “I need to be away from you right now,” she replied. She’d come here to find her people, and with Parker gone, she had a chance to try again.

  36

  The port felt quiet, despite the flurry of workers prepping ships. The shift in power on Terrana had brought an end to the embargo. The spaceport was bustling with preparations. Divided families would soon reunite, and fresh water would soon be on the way. Danny huddled in the back seat of the Bobsled, holding Amanda in his arms, watching the activity outside. His stomach ached and he worried he’d throw up on her, but he’d talked Tray through the landing and Oriana was coming back for him.

  Amanda sat forward and reached for her blood-dampened coat. He’d rushed to get her out of the hospital, and blotted her clean in a public restroom, but he didn’t have clothes for her.

  “No, sweetheart,” Danny said, tightening his arms around her waist. “You’ll trigger yourself.”

  “Time for meds,” she said, fishing a pillbox out of one of the pockets. The box was cracked up one side, with one corner completely crushed. The pills inside weren’t doing much better. She cobbled together a few pink pieces and rubbed the crackled remnants on her tongue.

  “Is that going to work?” Danny asked.

  “I saw Galen, Danny,” she replied. “He was really there in front of us. Saskia saw him, too.”

  “And Sky,” Danny said. He was relieved to have confirmation, but also terrified by the interaction Sky had described. “You wanted him to take you back to Elysia.”

  “He won’t take me,” she said. “I think that means he doesn’t have Jo.”

  “Where else would Johann have disappeared to?” Danny asked. “Do you think Santos lied to us?”

  “Galen knows how important Jo is to me. Every memory I have is something he knew about me, and that is one thing Galen knew for sure,” Amanda said. “If he had Jo, he would have found a way to bring us together.”

  “Galen wasn’t there by choice, Amanda,” Danny reminded her. “Parker forced him there. He was a prisoner, too.”

  “Then why did Galen save him?” Amanda asked. She nestled into Danny’s arms again and wiped her tears on his sleeves. “At least no one else is going to suffer in those interrogation rooms.”

  Danny nodded, but until he saw a stream of rovers bringing prisoners back from the 5, he wasn’t going to believe they’d ended suffering on Terrana.

  “They’re back,” he said, climbing over Amanda into the cockpit area. Oriana came to a sudden halt the moment it passed through the airlock in the 4.

  “Is everything all right in there?” Danny vrang.

  “No medical emergencies,” Morrigan replied. “Just a lot of people who don’t want to drive a spaceship.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Danny smiled. The ship inched forward enough for the rear hatch to open without hitting anything, and Danny rolled the Bobsled into the bay. It was clear nothing had been properly stowed for their flight. Coro’s Hanyu shipment was the greatest offender. The box had been secured, but not the lid, and chunks of Hanyu ore had collided with Hawk’s glider. Nothing they couldn’t fix, as soon as Hawk got better.

  “I take it no one’s walking yet,” Danny said, climbing out of the ‘sled and helping Amanda down. They were only in micro-gravity a few hours, but none of them had gone in at full health.

  “We’re having a party on the bridge,” Tray said. “Go see Chase in the infirmary. He stopped talking when we hit gravity. We don’t know if he’s okay.”

  “Can you hit the shower on your own, or do you need to stay with me?” Danny asked Amanda.

  “I see lots of spiders,” she said.

  “Stay with me,” Danny decided, hooking her elbow and leading the way to the infirmary. “Morrigan, is there something I can give Amanda for hallucinations?”

  “Coffee and conversation,” she suggested. “If you’re making coffee, I want some.”

  Danny coughed when he laughed, his lungs still aching from the smoke and debris of the Marble’s collapse. Running to the infirmary, he grabbed a towel and hacked until gritty black mucus came up. His issues were nothing next to the sight of Chase lying in the infirmary. He reached for Chase’s hand.

  “Left hand,” Amanda warned, wetting a rag in the sink and cleaning her skin. Chase’s left hand was buried under the pillow. The hand on top of the pillow had been purple and mangled earlier. It didn’t look too bad now, but Danny didn’t want to hurt him again. He fished Chase’s other hand out from under the pillow, and Chase shuddered.

  “Hey, you,” Danny greeted, pressing his lips to Chase’s knuckles. “How was your orbit?”

  “I have crush syndrome. Not because I have a crush on you or anything. It’s some kind of shock and kidney failure because I got crushed. Otherwise they would have floated me to the engine room for landing,” Chase said in a drug-addled ramble. “How was your coup?”

  “Brought down the government. But I wouldn’t say we won,” Danny said.

  Chase lifted his head and pulled Danny’s hand under his cheek. The injured hand hadn’t moved or even twitched, and Danny worried it was paralyzed. Chase lived and worked with his hands. They had to fix this.

  “I love you so much,” Danny whispered. If he’d just waited instead of moving the grav-disk, Chase would be okay.

  “You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” Chase quipped.

  Danny laughed, then coughed. It felt like his lungs were going to collapse, but it amazed him that Chase could still make a joke.

  “It hurts to laugh,” Danny said.

  “Hurts more not to,” Chase said, tilting his head so that his eyelashes tickled Danny’s skin. They alternated making pained, awkward chuckles, passing the little bit of humor back and forth between them, until the pain dissipated, and all that was left was the comfort of each other’s company.

  Tray felt helpless, sitting alone in the ward room, watching the unwavering trackers on everyone’s Virps. Everyone except Saskia. Hawk had proven he could send signals out, but he couldn’t bring them in. Someone would have had to teleport to Saskia, and no one seemed willing to try. Janiya said it didn’t work that way. Sikorsky swore he was looking at every path that presented itself, but he did not see Saskia on the other side. Tray sipped the tea that Morrigan had brought him, hoping to settle his empty stomach. It was weird, feeling an empty stomach without feeling hunger. The tea felt like liquid mercury in his belly, heavy and unpleasant. His typing grew slower. Maybe this was what hunger felt like now—lethargy.

  “Matthews, I promise we will find her,” Santos said, coming into the ward room and sitting in the second chair. The threat over his family was gone, and they weren’t going to Aquia anymore. He’d stayed at the Marble watching the rescue workers for the first six hours, but now he was here, getting ready to take his family home. That resignation told Tray that all Santos expected to find of Saskia was a body.

  Reaching into his pants pocket, Tray pulled out a piece of candy and popped it into his mouth. The little apple-ginger pieces used to give him a good twenty minute boost, so he could keep his wits long enough to make a proper meal. Right now, the only thing it brought into clarity was his worry. Unlike Santos, Tray wasn’t ready to give in to grief.

  There was an active public feed of Marble employees being marked safe. There were announcements of new food pick-up locations and new Guard offices. The Governor’s mansion and the legislative building adjacent to the Marble had been declared uninhabitable. Cheoff and Parker had been reported missing, and the rescue workers excavating the Marble were supposedly looking for them. ‘The public won’t care about Saskia. She’s a deserter,’ Santos had said. He wouldn’t even right h
er reputation.

  “I’ve made arrangements for Chase and Danny to be treated here,” Santos said. “There aren’t enough beds in the hospital.”

  “Hawk?” Tray asked.

  “He, um.” Santos’ cheeks turned red. “He and Mr. James took a taxi to the 3 about an hour ago. I imagine they’re saying good-bye. They have youth on their side, so it may take days.”

  Tray nodded and rested his chin on his hands. He refused to let the pain in his stomach be grief. He slapped the console and vrang Hawk.

  “Hawk, I need you to stop messing around and help me find her,” Tray pleaded. “Hawk, we have to find her.”

  “Working on it,” Hawk replied. “There was this farm machine in the 3 that can distinguish ripe berries from the rest of the plant, and we’re driving it to the 1 now. It’s better than looking for heat signatures and it can distinguish types of organic matter. If my modification works, we’ll know where she is in fifteen minutes. The engineers already have the load mapped out. They just need to know the destination.”

  “Really?” Tray asked, looking back at Santos.

  “This is the first I’m hearing of it,” he said. “But Secretary Venton is the go-to for anything coming out of the 3.”

  “Hawk—”

  “Stay there, Tray,” Hawk said. “Bad things happen to you out here. Bad things happen.”

  Tray pushed back from the chair anyway and stumbled down the stairs, grabbing his cane when he found it by the door. He hobbled to the galley and tripped on the threshold, falling into Danny’s waiting arms.

  “Did you come to make lunch?” Danny asked.

  He’d tried cooking, but it was hard to be in the kitchen when he couldn’t gauge his own cravings. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Are you sick?” Danny asked, propping Tray against the counter and stirring the simple soup he was warming over the stove.

  “Doctor fixed me so I don’t get sick if I don’t eat,” Tray shrugged, shying back from the scrutiny and crossing his arms.

  “Doesn’t mean you should stop eating,” Danny said. “How about soup?”

  “Hawk’s rigged some machine to find Saskia,” Tray said. “I need to be there.”

  “Eat first. I’ll call Sikorsky. If Hawk knows where she is, and we know there’s space for him to be there with her, we can speed up the rescue,” Danny said, pouring the tomato soup into a cup and taking a sip. Danny struggled with guilt over Chase’s injury, and he worried that Saskia had been crushed to death. But if he ever said it out loud, Tray was going to punch him.

  37

  Saskia caught a brief glimpse of Sikorsky before the medics surrounded her and the oxygen mask was strapped to her face. One moment, she was over-heated, about to be poisoned by carbon dioxide, the next she passed through a sheet of ice, and then there was light and air again. Her body ached as her limbs were forced flat, and then she felt nothing.

  In the hospital, she caught glimpses of guards. She never saw Sikorsky again, but she saw Hawk and Sky and even General Santos. It all swam together, and left her thinking back to the days of the Revolution, when she couldn’t walk. Her body was laid next to the rest of the refugees, and no one from her family came to claim her. This last trip to Quin, she’d seen her sister, but not her dad. Was it too much to ask for her mother to claim her? She wondered what the Guard had done to her parents, and why joining made them hate her.

  When she opened her eyes again, Tray sat next to the bed, holding her hand. He looked terrified, but he’d braved his demons, and he’d come for her. Tray didn’t notice her eyes open, and maybe she’d failed to open them properly because he looked blurry. But he rambled on about paint swatches and the debate about whether mauve or taupe was more soothing, and after presenting both sides, declared both wrong in favor of sky blue. He let his voice fill the room to keep her company and assuage his own fears, and she closed her eyes and listened until she fell asleep again.

  The next time she woke, Tray was on the other side of her bed, critiquing a sandwich.

  “The difference is the grain milling process,” Sky said. “Rocan is better at milling.”

  Saskia smiled. She’d heard them have that conversation before. Tray noticed her this time and he tickled her chin to let her know.

  “Let me taste,” Saskia croaked, gagging at the dryness in her mouth.

  “Not today, baby,” Tray said. “But we’ll get you something drinkable.”

  “I’m on Hawk duty. She’s all yours,” Sky said, raising her hands. She had her grav-gun in one hand and a weird tool in the other. Her satchel sat open on her lap.

  Tray snatched his cane and shot Sky a look before going into the hall to flag down a nurse.

  “How’s Hawk?” Saskia asked.

  “In good shape, thanks to you,” Sky said. “He’s walking today. Benedict is testing to see how long he can stay on his feet. They’re taking full advantage of all this recovery time.”

  “And you?” Saskia asked.

  “I talked to Diana,” she said. “I thanked her for saving us. I kissed her good-bye. Galen said he could heal her, but he didn’t do a damn thing, and she’s… they’re not sure she’s going to live. I’m not sure she wants to.”

  It was strange seeing her torn up about someone Saskia had learned to despise, so Saskia kept her mouth shut.

  “Oh, I thought you were alone,” Santos said, coming halfway through the door, then stepping out again.

  “She can be. I have to collect Hawk,” Sky said, dropping her gun into her satchel. Her hand brushed his shoulder, her touch lingering as their eyes met. Santos blushed and shuffled into the room, shoving his hands deep into his pockets to check if he’d left his composure there.

  “You gave us a scare,” he said, running his fingers along Saskia’s bed. “I thought I lost you. Again. My brain kept saying “third time’s a charm.” I’m glad it wasn’t.”

  Saskia didn’t know how to respond, and her throat hurt too much to make small talk.

  “Walter really likes your ship,” he continued. “But if we ever decide to leave again, I think we have to go on a ship with gravity. He broke his arm with the landing. Not bad. Just a minor fracture. The same place Solvere broke it. The doctors suggested a surgery to reinforce it, but he has so much growing left to do first. It’s going to break a lot.”

  “So you’re not defecting?” Saskia asked.

  “Can’t now. I’m the interim Lieutenant Governor, thanks to you,” he said, smiling despite himself. “Elections are next month. Your citizen status has been restored if you want to vote.”

  “Voting is for residents,” Saskia said. It had always been a point of contention that the votes of those with the option to leave had the same weight as those of the people who had no choice but to stay.

  “You’ll always have a home here, Saskia,” he said, his voice softening when he used her name. He kissed her forehead, like a father would, then he left her bedside, nodding to Tray as they passed at the door.

  Tray came next to her bed, seeming stunned by the interaction he’d witnessed. He kept looking at the door, like a teenager worried about the intrusion of his girlfriend’s father.

  “Tray,” Saskia whispered, tapping his hand. He had a cup with a straw and she was parched. He held the straw to her lips and she placed her hands over his, trying to keep steady enough to suck down the vegetable juice.

  “Baby, I will follow you many places, but I’m never living here,” Tray said. Her heart soared at the promise of a future with him.

  “Me neither,” Saskia said between sips. “But I have family here.”

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  Premonition: The New Dawn Book 7

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  The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the damp, green fields outside of Nola. Mold grew up the sides of the low, stone fences that covered the countryside for miles. The sheep were grazing in the highlands, soon to be herded downhill for shearing. The town went about its business of producing more wool than food and the Council of Princes met again to fruitlessly discuss methods of protecting the sheep from hungry vagrants.

  The mountain springs fed rivers that threaded the plains and circled Nola. The Lilac River had eroded the foundation at the eastern wall of the dome, but the air outside was pure enough, and the Nolans had built a boardwalk and canopy taking a part of the river into their protected city. The mixed glass and ceramic canopy filtered the sunlight and made the river look purple. A boardwalk paced the river for nearly three miles, and every half mile a pier went out into the river. At the edge of the docks were vending machines filled with fish food, turtle food, bird food, and fruit-shaped candy. It was a popular jogging path, and the Prince of Wildlife worked hard to keep the larger predators from entering the river along the protected walkway. The gators always seemed to find a way in.

  Magistrate Collette Toulane wished she were jogging the path with her daughter, but Regine was heavily pregnant and toting three other children. So they were walking and letting the kids run circles around them. The river walk was the best place to see the open sky, and Collette had been having premonitions lately of something falling out of it.