by Matt Levin
Landed on Calimor 12 hours ago, Nadia typed. Mason and Gage dead. Junta hostile. Working with Horde. It felt woefully—hilariously—inadequate, but that didn’t stop Nadia from pressing the send button. She figured she’d have time to write a full report when they had resolved the situation on Calimor.
Derek shuffled into the cockpit after she had finished transmitting the dispatch. He stooped over their array of terminals and consoles. “So this is Boyd’s plan for taking control of the settlement?” he asked. Nadia couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or snarky.
“This ship contains the same computer code as the refugees’ cryo ship, and their chief engineer rigged it to interface with Arcena’s tech,” Boyd said, exasperated, emerging from the maintenance hallway. “If we upload a fragment of the Exemplar’s operating code into the power mainframe, it’ll set up an uplink directly with the Preserver and jump-start the dead power network. That means we control the entire settlement. We could put up energy barriers to trap Junta forces, threaten to cut off life support...it’s basically our ace in the hole.”
Derek crossed his arms. “My people are out there risking their lives on the assumption that this will work. You mean to tell me it’s as simple as plugging a code into the computer back in those tunnels? What prevents the Junta from doing the same thing?”
“Nothing, theoretically,” Boyd said. “But Junta ships would have to be calibrated to interface with Arcena tech, and I doubt they know how. Plus, the Exemplar is designed to link up with the Preserver. That’s not exactly standard ship design. And the Junta’s positioning suggests they’re focused on holding the physical settlement, not the power tunnels. Which,” he added with a smirk, “would make sense. If you never lived here, that is.”
“I think it should work,” Nadia said, mostly meaning it. She was relatively confident, and she had learned to leave little room for doubt in her newfound authority role. It was one of the things she had picked up from Isadora: never let ‘em see you sweat.
“Then it should be simple: Nadia and I head back to the power station and uplink the settlement’s systems with the Exemplar. Your raiders will provide the distraction to keep the Junta from figuring out what we’re up to,” Boyd said.
“Hardly,” Derek grunted. “I’m coming with the two of you. Just to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“Or to shoot us in the back,” Boyd said. Then he turned to Nadia. “Why are we even trusting them? It doesn’t make sense why they’re helping us unless they have an angle.”
“Like I explained earlier, my people cannot survive in the long run cut off from the rest of the system,” Derek said. “More young people like me will find themselves forced into joining a raiding party if they want to get off-world. We know we need trade access to the other side of the asteroid belt. And right now, the biggest gateway to the core worlds is Enther, which is controlled by a hostile government. If your people set up shop here,” he said, turning to face Nadia, “it could be a game changer for my people. Every one of us knows that.”
Nadia looked back and forth between the two men. “It’s not about strategic interests,” she said at last. “Not really. Or at least, not at the heart of it. They’re like us.”
Both arched their eyebrows.
“The Ikkren settlers,” Nadia clarified. “I remember enough of the primers the Union gave us to know that Derek’s people migrated to Ikkren from the core worlds due to a combination of economic and population pressure,” she said. “We’re all refugees from something.”
Boyd frowned, but he offered no further objections. Whatever Derek thought about her theory hid behind a face of stony contemplation. She’d take it.
“All right, let’s take five, suit up, and head back into the tunnels,” Nadia said, heading back down to her gear locker. Better not to let them get into another argument. They had a world to win.
. . .
The power tunnels were just as grand a spectacle as the first time, but now they also carried an air of danger. Nadia was constantly checking her corners, handgun raised, fearing the worst. Even if Derek’s companions had spread out across the settlement to draw the Junta troops’ attention, there were no guarantees. Mason and Gage’s deaths were a testament to that.
It surprised her how easily Boyd and Derek had put aside their differences once the three of them were back in the field. The two men had grown up with plenty of experience in squad tactics—more than she had, clearly—and naturally fell into a pattern of covering each other’s backs and moving rapidly as a unit.
Every time they approached a T-intersection, the member of the trio on point held position at the edge of the corridor, carefully but deliberately widening their angle of the intersecting corridor while the other two bounded down the hallway.
It really felt like they were a team, unlike when Mason and Gage had gone out ahead of Nadia and Boyd. The two soldiers had wanted to keep her out of harm’s way, of course, and she knew fully well that she would be dead if not for the two men. But she couldn’t help but prefer the current trio’s dynamic. She liked moving alongside Boyd and Derek. Despite their divergent beliefs, all three were working toward a common goal.
Their methodical advance down the tunnels ultimately proved needless, however. Not a single Junta soldier came into view. They rounded a corner leading to a sheer drop-off a few feet ahead. “That’ll be the power center,” Boyd said over their shared comm channel.
Derek’s wrister buzzed before Nadia could respond. The man cursed under his breath. “One of our teams had to fall back to a position nearby. As in, one of the adjacent hallways to the power center.”
“If they had to fall back, that means Junta presence is heavy,” Nadia said, gritting her teeth. Just like before, she figured the Junta would shoot at her and Boyd as if they were raiders. A surge of fear slithered up her spine.
“We’re almost to the primary power control,” Boyd said. “We can make it.”
The three sprinted ahead, coming to an abrupt stop as the hallway narrowed to a single catwalk leading to the Arcena power generator. A massive cylinder ran the length of the chamber, extending deep into the darkness below. Maintenance footpaths crisscrossed the room, yielding various access points to the physical generator cylinder as well as the terminal stations at the top.
At the center of the power node was a large, circular console right on top of the generator. Just an easy few dozen feet down the catwalk. But immediately after the first clank of Nadia’s boots hitting the grating, they heard frantic footsteps and the burst of plasma rounds.
To their right, a small squad of Horde raiders burst out of another access tunnel, making their way to the nearest console station for cover. A large group of Junta soldiers—at least a dozen, Nadia estimated—charged in on their heels.
Nadia realized too late that it would’ve been smarter to have her team disable their headlamps before heading into the power node. Otherwise, the Junta squad might have been too focused on the Horde raiders to even notice the trio on the other side of the room. But their headlamps gave them away, and plasma fire rained down on them.
Nadia used the mini-thrusters on her suit to jet away from the incoming barrage of fire. The maneuver kept her safe, but only temporarily. The plasma bolts that had missed her instead ripped through the grating of the catwalk. With an awful screech, the footpath bent in the middle and ripped loose from its connectors to the central station. The catwalk tumbled toward the unseeable ground, with Nadia and her two companions still on it.
Frantically, Nadia’s head shot in both directions as her body went into free fall. Her suit’s lights illuminated a nearby maintenance catwalk. She activated her suit’s thrusters again and sped toward it.
She landed awkwardly, with one leg slung over the catwalk while the other dangled in thin air. Shifting all of her weight onto her palm, she let out a grunt and pushed herself up onto the grating. Preparing herself for the worst, she checked to see whether Boyd and Derek had managed to es
cape the downed catwalk.
The two men had made it to safety on another footpath on the other side of the room from her. Derek had taken a knee, allowing Boyd to fire off a few rounds from his handgun over Derek’s shoulder at the Junta squad. Caught in the crossfire between Derek, Boyd, and the other surviving raiders, the Junta backed up.
“That’s your chance!” Boyd shouted over their comm channel. “Go!”
Nadia needed no encouragement. She ran down the catwalk as fast as her legs would take her, her heart beating faster than she even expected it to. Right when she was underneath the central power station, she used her suit to shoot herself onto the main platform.
That put her directly back in the line of fire. A dozen soldiers faced her from the mouth of the access tunnel. They fired almost immediately. Nadia still had time to duck, and the plasma fire struck the concrete walls behind her. Showers of rubble trickled down the chamber.
She pulled her own weapon out of her holster, waited for the firing to stop, and shot blindly over the top of the terminal she was using for cover. Even if her adrenaline was spiking, she hoped she didn’t hit anyone. She was determined not to lose sight of who she was despite the heat of battle.
Nadia then listened for the next salvo of fire from the Horde raiders and her two teammates. Once she heard the report of their guns, she leapt over the terminal, rolled, and arrived at the main control console for the entire power station. Almost breathless, she withdrew the uplink chip from her utility belt.
Her team’s covering fire had forced the Junta squad back, but they were regrouping for another attack. With at least five rifle butts leveled at her, Nadia jammed the uplink chip into the console’s receptacle.
There was an uncomfortable pause—Nadia didn’t dare wonder what might happen if it didn’t work—and then a deep hum reverberated through the chamber. All around her, the firing stopped. A glowing green orb of energy in the middle of the cylinder beneath them attracted the attention of raiders and soldiers alike. Another second later, the entire generator came to life. Emergency fluorescent lights, dead for nearly a decade, suddenly shot to life. The same power lines that ran along the access tunnels glowed green.
The humming of the generator and the fizzling of energy as it ran through the connecting tubes formed a stark contrast with both the Horde and Junta forces, silent and frozen in awe of what had just happened.
The first one to react was Boyd. Out of the corner of her eye, Nadia saw him use his wrister to tap into the newly activated power grid. A second later, a four-sided energy barrier shot up around the Junta squad. Their adversaries were trapped. Even if they wanted to fire their weapons at Nadia or her allies, their plasma bolts would fizzle harmlessly against the barrier.
The Horde raiders let out a collective whoop while the soldiers, glancing at each other in confusion, slowly lowered their weapons to the floor and raised their hands. “I’ll make sure we do the same thing across the entire settlement,” Boyd said over the radio. “Arcena was built to contain integrity breaches quickly. I can use the same safeguards to wall in each Junta detachment.”
That meant they were effectively in control of Arcena. The only way for the Junta to dislodge them would be through a massive military endeavor, which seemed unlikely since they had only committed a small ground force to the operation.
Nadia felt her pounding heartbeat finally settle down to normal, and a grin crept across her face. She used her wrister to search for the Junta comm frequency. One of the soldiers patched her in immediately.
“Who are you? What just happened?” the soldier said.
“I’m Nadia Jibor, emissary of the refugee fleet.” She lingered on the word refugee, hoping that the realization of who, exactly, they were dealing with might clue the Junta in to just how badly they had miscalculated.
Some part of her wanted to leave the door open for future cooperation with the Junta. Logically, their soldiers probably had no idea who she was. And even if they had planned on trying to extort Nadia’s people, that didn’t make the entire faction forever irredeemable.
But they had shot Mason and Gage, and shot at her, Boyd, and Derek. The adrenaline was still pumping in her veins in what was probably the longest flight-or-fight episode she had ever experienced. Maybe it was healthy to acknowledge and accept the small bit of wrath lingering within her.
“And by the way,” she continued, “I’d like to ask you all to get off our planet.”
CHAPTER 15
* * *
When Tricia tried to think back to her first encounter with the refugees, it was hard to believe it had already been about three months. She had eight months to prepare for that initial meeting, and most of the time it was all she had thought about.
But then the meeting came and went. The settlement charter vote failed, and the refugees turned their attention elsewhere. Slowly, the demands of running the day-to-day affairs of a government that represented millions and controlled nearly an entire star system overshadowed the refugee question. Life went on.
The leaves on the precious few trees left in the sprawl of Obrigan City had started changing, and what had once been refreshingly cool summer breezes fashioned themselves into frosty fall mornings. Obrigan continued lumbering on its journey around the Natonus sun, spinning on its axial tilt.
She might have enjoyed a meandering stroll through a nearby park, but as with almost every other public appearance, it was a huge security risk. Government agents would have to go over any park she wanted to visit and close it off to the public beforehand. Sniper teams would have to nest up in the overlooking skyscrapers. Too much effort for a simple walk.
She contented herself with the embrace of her cardigan and the small pasture on the balcony outside her office. She let the tingling warmth of her coffee mug keep her hands from going numb as she looked out over the city.
Tricia’s hair was still damp at the roots. She liked getting to the office early, before any of her staff showed up to shove some datapad in her face. The view from the balcony beat anything in the residential suite she had lived in for the past thirteen years.
The gentle slide of the door behind her indicated that her morning routine was coming to a close. “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” one of her aides said timidly, his hand lingering on the doorframe.
Not nearly sorry enough, Tricia wanted to say. “That’s okay,” she chose instead. “What’s gone wrong this time?”
The aide stifled a grin. “Nothing wrong, exactly. General Azkon wanted to speak with you.”
General Michael Azkon: head chairman of the Enther Junta. Tricia had never been particularly fond of him, even relative to other politicians. Who she also wasn’t particularly fond of either.
“You mean, he sent a diplomatic message?” Tricia asked, sipping the last of her coffee.
“No, as in, he wanted to have a private chat with you. I’ve cleared your schedule, ma’am.”
Tricia had known that Michael Azkon was planetside, since her security services were always careful to track the movements of major foreign dignitaries. But he hadn’t scheduled an official state visit. Tricia had figured he was just doing a periodic check-up on his people’s embassy.
She nodded appreciatively. Meeting with a foreign head of state took priority over whatever other mind-numbing activities she would have been obligated to attend. “Very good, thank you. Is there anything else?”
“No ma’am.”
“Well okay then,” she said with a wave of her hand. The aide nodded and made himself scarce.
Tricia took one last longing look out at the cityscape. Air traffic was starting up for the day, the Natonus sun’s rays were turning from orange-pink to plain yellow, and the pleasant chill was fading.
“Until tomorrow,” she muttered, and entered the open door to her office. The prime minister’s workspace had a quiet dignity that she had grown fond of. Two black, synthetic-leather couches faced each other on the right side of the room, with a set of comfor
table recliners on the left.
And in the center was her mahogany desk, lit only by two subtle, minimalist lamp units. Insulated from the sound of the constant bustle outside, the only thing she could hear was the gentle flow of a water stream over a small rock garden off in the corner. Two well-manicured ferns adorned either side of her desk.
It was as nice of a prison as she had ever been in.
Blinking her eyes awake, she checked her personal terminal at her desk to see if the Junta general had sent any relevant information about their sudden meeting. There was nothing. She might have predicted that Michael Azkon would prefer to explain everything in person. He had that obnoxious love of gusto.
Her terminal buzzed, informing her that the general would arrive in about three minutes. She poured herself another cup of coffee, as well as a second cup for Michael, and set both mugs on the small round table next to the recliners. Chuckling to herself, she poured in three spoonfuls of sugar into Michael’s drink.
She knew that, had she wanted, her staff could have easily made coffee for her and set the room for a meeting. But for Tricia, making her own drink was a small act of defiant agency in this world where she constantly had people ready to give her whatever she needed at a moment’s notice. Power had its advantages, but they could get infantilizing quickly.
After she had finished setting the table, Michael Azkon walked through the door, clad in a stiff military uniform that made him look bigger than he really was, she suspected, with dozens of medals slapped on his breast that she was fairly certain were entirely made up.
Back when Enther was under control of the Ashkagi Theocracy, Michael had supported an insurgency as soon as it had become politically expedient to do so. But as soon as they ousted the corrupt king of the Theocracy, he and the rest of the military brass turned on the insurgents and forced them into the Enther countryside. The Junta had been engaged in a protracted war with the insurgents they betrayed ever since.