by Matt Levin
For now, we’re just focused on expanding. I’ll let you know, but you probably wouldn’t have real responsibilities for several months.
I’d like to think about it, Tanner typed.
I understand. If you give me your wrist terminal’s unique ID, we can communicate directly in the future. That way you won’t have to break into Jake’s apartment every time you want to reach me.
Tanner hesitated again. But Onyx seemed inviting, and learning more about the Offspring intrigued him. He kind of liked the idea that maybe they had ties to the Syndicate. The thought of being involved in some kind of secret organization sent another surge of adrenaline through his body.
He inputted his own device’s frequency into the input terminal, said goodbye to Onyx, and left Jake’s apartment as quietly as he had entered. He had gone out that evening trying to clear his head and wind down for the evening. That had been a miserable failure. His head was racing, and he felt an almost childlike giddiness bubbling up inside of him.
He hoped the anticipation of his next conversation with Onyx and learning more about the secretive Natonus Offspring might finally wear him out enough to get some sleep.
CHAPTER 13
* * *
It had gone well so far. So well, in fact, that Russ’ paranoia was all the greater. He and the companion he had brought out of cryo for the Zoledo operation—a quiet, dutiful combat medic named Riley Tago who had been one of the few survivors from the front lines during the Hegemony assault on Mars—had taken two of the Preserver’s shuttles to a major commercial transit hub in the asteroid belt.
There, they sold one shuttle to a spacecraft vendor for more than enough currency to buy commercial flight tickets to Zoledo, plus daily nourishment. After over a week in the cramped confines of the shuttle, Russ was more than happy to see it go.
They sent the second shuttle back on autopilot to the Preserver. From the perspective of a Union scanner, it would look like the same people who sold the first shuttle had returned on the second one. That meant they were off the Union’s radar.
With their flight leaving the next morning, Russ and Riley had booked cheap motel rooms aboard the asteroid base for the night, and eaten a filling breakfast of toasted bread, roasted potatoes, and sliced avocado.
He had figured they would have to make connections with the local black market to forge ID passes for him and Riley. Finding someone desperate and sleazy enough to sell them fake ID badges wasn’t particularly hard, although it made a dent in their funds.
But now, observing the ticket purchasing stalls revealed that no such credentials were, in fact, necessary. What was a lucky break for them was also, in Russ’ mind, incredibly stupid. At the terminal for their flight, full and satiated from the first real meal Russ had eaten since waking up over two months ago, he couldn’t help but scrutinize the security procedures at the transit hub. Or rather, the lack thereof.
It wasn’t apparent to him if there were procedures in place to prevent suspicious individuals from buying transit tickets. There was no evidence of a system-wide ID system, which seemed especially egregious considering where they were. Russ saw the outer rim as mostly populated by bloodthirsty raiders, desperate settlers, or religious fanatics. Not the kind of person you wanted to let aboard a high-value target like a commercial spaceliner.
“I swear,” he murmured, making sure that no one besides Riley could hear him, “it wouldn’t be hard for an armed group to seize one of these commercial liners.”
After buying their tickets, Russ and Riley had to be screened for weapons. He thought he recognized some of the machines from back on Earth, meaning they were well out-of-date by now. Still, the machine chirped when Russ and Riley’s bags went through.
One of the security guards approached them. Without saying anything, Russ pressed a handful of natons into the man’s hand. The guard eyed the cash, looked at them, and retreated to his post. They picked up their bags unimpeded.
“I don’t think the Union has the authority to operate a transit station this far out,” Riley said. “I bet things would look pretty different if we were at one of the transit hubs in the core.”
Russ was impressed with his companion’s conscientiousness. She had dutifully accepted both her situation and the importance of the mission to Zoledo, and had spent most of the shuttle flight studying up on the same primers Russ had taken two months to learn. Already, he could tell Riley had a good handle on how the Natonus System operated.
“That’s fair,” he said. “But that wouldn’t do anything if a group of militants took over one of these spaceliners and flew it back to Union space. And I wouldn’t put it past some of these groups out here.”
Riley shrugged. “Maybe, but space is big. Even if someone hijacked a spaceliner, the Union would have weeks to figure out how to respond before the ship got anywhere important.”
Russ opened his mouth to respond, but he realized that Riley had a decent point. Back on Earth, if terrorists or armed militants seized an airplane, most governments had an extremely limited time window to figure out how to respond.
A gate attendant informed the crowds gathered at the terminal that they had completed final inspections, and that passengers were clear to board. Their spaceliner would depart for the city of Nen Fatha on Zoledo in half an hour.
What followed was a mad rush as passengers sprinted for the spaceliner airlock. Russ and Riley held back, and he subtly tried to observe the crowds as they ran past their seats. Not that he knew what to look for, exactly—it would have been all too easy to mistake crazed desperation to get a priority seat aboard the spaceliner as the crazed desperation of a violent fanatic—but it still made him feel better.
After the initial wave had died down, Russ and Riley stood up with their baggage and proceeded to the airlock.
Even despite missing the first wave, it wasn’t hard for the two of them to find empty bunks in one of the sleeper sections. The compartments were cramped, six bunks to a room. Russ tossed his baggage in a locker beneath his cot, checked to make sure no one was around, and pulled his handgun out and stashed it beneath his waistband.
“Want to check out the observatory?” Riley asked after they were situated.
Russ shrugged. It would probably be almost a month before they touched down on Zoledo, located at the far end of the Natonus System. He anticipated getting plenty bored with staring out the observation deck. Might as well get the process started now.
In the hallway outside the sleeping compartments, uniformed, armed guards were checking everyone’s ID. Sounds like the spaceliner has its shit together better than the transit hub, he thought. When they reached one of the guards, Russ held his breath as she swiped their fake credentials. Luckily, the top of the guard’s device flashed green, and she handed back their fake IDs.
The two of them continued down the narrow corridor, passing sleeping cabins on either side, until they got to a large windowed area near the front of the spaceliner. Already, plenty of other passengers had gathered to watch the ship disembark.
On cue, Russ felt the thrusters at the rear of their craft fire gently. It only took the gentlest of pushes for their vessel to escape the minimal gravitational pull of the asteroid. Strapping in was hardly necessary.
Once the asteroid was no longer in view, he turned to face his companion. Riley had chestnut-brown hair and sported a warm, coral complexion. Like Nadia, Riley’s hair naturally fell in curls. Unlike their settlement expert, Riley wore her hair back in a ponytail. EDF discipline had kept her body trim and her shoulder muscles visible through her suit.
Riley seemed to take it all in stride: being woken up, immediately preparing to travel across the system, learning everything about the new predicament their people had found themselves in. From her subjective sense of time, Russ realized, she had only boarded the Preserver a little over a week earlier.
And here she was blasting off again across space. She bore it all with a quiet acceptance that Russ liked to see from hi
s comrades-in-arms. “Feeling okay?” he asked gruffly.
Riley blinked several times and looked at her feet. “I’m ready and able, sir,” she said quietly.
Russ certainly wasn’t a psychologist, but he could hear that there was a lot Riley wasn’t saying. He was fully aware of his own limited abilities at helping others, but if he was going to be working with Riley for the foreseeable future, he figured he needed to address whatever was bothering her.
“If there’s something on your mind, I think I should hear about it. Especially if it could affect the mission,” Russ said.
Riley stood silently for a few moments, still looking out the window into the great, enveloping void of space. Russ thought he could see a dozen conflicting thoughts battle for supremacy across the reflection of her face in the mirror.
“My squad was part of the force we sent to Mars during the Hegemony invasion,” Riley said.
“Your dossier said as much,” Russ said. “I figured that experience ought to come in handy.”
He had originally wondered why the computer hadn’t selected Riley to be Isadora’s security adviser instead of him, given that she was an actual veteran of the conflict with the Hegemony. But since Russ had squad leadership experience, he figured that’s why the computer picked him instead.
“My husband died,” Riley said. “Along with the rest of our squad. I couldn’t save them.” Her voice sounded dull and dead, as though her capacity for sorrow had long since been depleted.
Shit. Russ remembered that the dossier had listed Riley as unmarried, without any relatives in cryo. That was partly why he had chosen her to accompany him. He figured someone without emotional attachments would be more effective than someone who still had friends or family on ice. He had never considered the possibility that she had loved ones who had perished in the Hegemony attack.
“I, um, I don’t know what to say,” Russ said, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.” He had never been in a full-scale war before—a few counterinsurgency campaigns hardly counted, and the Hegemony assault counted even less, given how quickly their defense lines had gotten decimated—and had no experience comforting fellow soldiers who had lost people close to them. And losing one’s spouse had to be even worse.
Inwardly, Russ wished he had Isadora’s social graces or, hell, even Nadia’s raw emotionality. Either of them could probably comfort Riley far better than he could. “I don’t know what to say,” was all he could manage.
“I don’t either,” Riley said quietly.
Russ frowned and looked at his feet. Neither of them said anything for another minute. It was far from the most comfortable silence Russ had ever experienced.
“Honestly, I think being occupied is the best thing for me,” Riley continued. “That’s why I’m happy to be off on a mission. I just don’t want to think about it.”
He admired that resolve. “Well, there will be plenty to do. You’ll get your wish.”
“I hope so.”
“Is there...anything I can get you?” Russ asked. “I was thinking of grabbing a bottle of water from the vendor deck.”
“Water sounds nice,” Riley said softly.
“All right. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Thankful for the opportunity to set off on his own, Russ took one of the spaceliner’s turbolifts down two decks, where there were a dozen or more small market shops and a handful of restaurants. He wondered how long it would take for him to get sick of the same few food options. After two months’ worth of nutra, probably never, he thought.
He headed for one of the convenience shops, decked out with a variety of vacuum-sealed sandwich packages, snacks, and drinks. He grabbed two water bottles and took them to the counter.
An annoyingly cheery attendant charged him nine natons, which Russ figured must’ve been an insane markup. But with almost two thousand passengers aboard the spaceliner with limited options for food and drink, he figured the shops could get away with unreasonably inflated prices.
He and Riley still had about nine hundred natons left from selling the Preserver shuttle. He figured they could make the journey if they were careful. The ship provided free recycled water at its hydration stations, which hopefully meant that this would be the last time they’d have to pay for water. They could ration the rest of their funds on food.
Heading out of the shop, Russ decided to walk a lap around the vendor’s deck before heading back. Already, the restaurants were filling up with passengers. He glanced across all their faces as he passed by. He figured they probably had no inkling he wasn’t one of them.
The Natonese people had visibly gone through several generations of intermixing, with each restaurant table home to a rainbow’s worth of shades of brown. Russ had a hard time spotting anyone on either ends of the skin color spectrum, but there were a few with either very pale or very dark skin. It was virtually impossible to guess where any of them might have come from, originally, on Earth.
Both Russ and Riley were on the lighter end, but they hadn’t drawn any funny looks so far. They could seamlessly blend in with the crowds, Russ hoped. He didn’t like the thought of being trapped on a ship with thousands of Natonese who knew they were outsiders.
His thoughts then drifted to the Calimor expedition. It had been over a week since his last communication from Mason and Gage, whom he had asked to send progress reports, since he knew Nadia would do nothing of the sort. They had dutifully kept him abreast of the actions of the outsider Nadia had brought along. Russ still had a hard time trusting Nadia’s judgment on that particular matter.
Russ could access his confidential files with his wrister, but he didn’t dare do so out in the open like this. He’d need to find time when he was alone in the cabin.
Completing his lap around the deck, Russ took the lift back to the observation area. Riley had stopped staring out the window. Instead, she was reading a pamphlet. When he got closer, he could make out the words A Guide to Ashkagi Theology on the front.
“What’s that?” he asked immediately.
“Some missionary was coming by, trying to hand these out to everyone. I figured I might as well snag a copy.”
Russ thought back to the primers. Ashkagiism was the only real major, organized religion in the system. He hadn’t concerned himself with all the half-baked details of their belief system, but he certainly had paid attention to the parts that described the cells of Ashkagi militants engaged in a protracted civil war with the Junta on Enther.
What’s one of them doing on this ship? he thought immediately. A litany of fears and paranoias rushed anew through his mind.
“You should be careful with that kind of stuff,” Russ said. “It could be dangerous.”
“I...okay, sir. I’ll keep that in mind.” Riley stuffed the pamphlet in one of her back pockets.
He handed her the bottle of water and she drank gratefully. Russ’ previous desire to check his wrister for updates from the Calimor expedition reared its head again. “Say, would you mind if I checked on some stuff in our cabin? I’d like to review some intelligence while our bunkmates are out. Hopefully,” Russ said.
Riley nodded. “Of course, sir. I think I’m going to enjoy the view for a little longer.”
Russ gave her a dampened smile and headed back to their room. He couldn’t help but notice her looking over the Ashkagi pamphlet out of the corner of his eye as he left.
He’d worry about the implications of that later. For now, he was hoping for some good news from Calimor.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
Seeing the Exemplar was a shot of warm relief through Nadia’s veins. They might not have even seen their ship again if it hadn’t been for the aid of Derek’s people. While the trio of them sped for the Exemplar, Horde raiders opened up attacks on several points around the massive settlement, forcing any Junta soldiers out of their path.
She still felt strange at just how quickly and comprehensively she and Boyd had fallen into cooperating with the
Horde. But Derek seemed perfectly happy to let the refugees settle on Calimor, and the Junta was angling to take over the colony so they could use it as a bartering chip in negotiations with Nadia’s people. So there was a clear winner in her view.
Judging by the dark looks Boyd gave Derek every chance he got, Nadia guessed he was less enthused. But the assistance from the raiders had tempered some of Boyd’s skepticism. At least for now.
After just a few months working aboard the Preserver, Nadia had learned to love the hiss of flowing oxygen. After the Exemplar’s seals fastened, she slipped her suit’s helmet off and took in an exhilarating breath of air. Other than the recyclers, the only thing she could hear was the low murmur of the missile scrambler in the back room.
Boyd and Derek copied her, finally giving Nadia a better view of the latter’s face. The man had dark, sepia skin with undertones of red clay, and black eyes and hair to match. He wore his hair long, spilling messily out of his suit and down to his shoulders. He was about as muscular as Boyd, but shorter and more square-bodied.
Boyd immediately headed to the ship’s maintenance station to make sure the air filtering systems were functioning properly. Nadia went to the cockpit, wondering what information she had missed from the Preserver. Derek waited at the mouth of the aft staircase, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“Welcome to our ship, by the way!” Nadia shouted over her shoulder. “Make yourself at home!”
The Exemplar’s terminal had logged several dispatches from Isadora. Russ had left for Zoledo—the message didn’t indicate why—and Isadora was preparing a team to travel to the system’s capital city. Nadia’s eyes widened. She had missed a lot during her initial foray planetside.
Then came the hard part. So much had happened at almost breakneck speed. How could a single dispatch do justice to the promise of Arcena? The deaths of Mason and Gage? The budding cooperation with the Horde?