Table of Contents
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Jeopardy
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Recoil
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discover more Entangled Teen books… Star-Crossed
Breakout
The Vanishing Spark of Dusk
8 Souls
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Erica Cameron. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
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Entangled Teen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Lydia Sharp
Cover design by Covers by Juan
Cover photography by
Tharin kaewkanya, Vadim Sadovski, and camilkuo/Shutterstock
cemagraphics/GettyImages
ISBN 978-1-64063-663-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition November 2019
Dear Reader,
Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.
xoxo
Liz Pelletier, Publisher
For Kate, who pushed me to reach for the stars.
Author’s Note
In the 15th century, high heels were invented in Persia. For men. Their original purpose was helping soldiers keep their feet in the stirrups of their saddles. When the trend reached Europe, it became a fashion fad for male aristocrats who used the shoes to appear taller and more intimidating.
In 1918, an article in Ladies’ Home Journal said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”
The conceptions and expectations of gender change as societies shift, and I fully expect that trend to continue as humanity heads into the future. In fact, I’m hoping for it. This aspiration is one of many reasons why the Pax Archives includes an established and accepted third gender pronoun.
The “ze” pronoun set was derived from the earlier “sie and hir,” and several characters, including one of our main narrators, use these pronouns in this series. Below is not only an introduction to the grammar of the “ze” pronoun set, but also a list of terms I created as an alternative to inherently gendered terms.
Thank you for reading, and to anyone who falls outside the binary society currently holds us to…
I see you.
girl/boy/woman/man—zeran
plural of the above—zeren
girlfriend/boyfriend—zefriend
son/daughter—zirle
sister/brother—zisther
mother/father—zirazi
mommy/daddy—zazi
grandmother/grandfather—zearazi
grandma/grandpa—zeze
aunt/uncle—zaunle
wife/husband—zirali
Mr./Mrs.—Z.
mister/missus—zinis
Video Log on private databank
Excerpt from a speech during a Terra-Sol annual investors meeting at DLPRC, Weapons & Defense Systems section
Speaker: Jeminina Kolar, Executive Vice President
Terra-Sol date 3811.236
Transcript below
Now, in cycle 572 of the Intersystem War, our profits have never been higher, thanks in part to the newly available upgrades to the standard energy shielding. Every government in every system clamored for an exclusive contract, but not one of them walked away when we said no. [Jeminina raises an eyebrow] I wonder why?
[audience laughs]
The weapons and defense systems segment of the Donnager-LaForge Private Research Corporation is unique. No company in any inhabited system can offer you a safer investment. War is the only certainty in this galaxy, and the minds working in the DLPRC labs create the most devastating weapons and the most powerful defenses. Coming or going, we have everyone covered. [Jeminina smirks] For the right price, of course.
Caliber
Historical Archives, Terra-Sol System, Planet Earth
Excerpts from the Pax Treaty and Charter
Signed and ratified during the
Thirty-First Intersystem Peace Summit
Terra-Sol date 3579.128
The primary mission of this fleet is to serve the citizens of the quadrant and ensure those without any stock or stake in the outcome of war have the necessary means to survive it.
Section 1.01 Name.
The ships covered under this treaty, to be of varying types within the same class, will henceforth be referred to as Pax-Class Cargo Ships. Within this document, and in all successive legal proceedings, this fleet will be referred to as the PCCS. The body of people, stations, and resources comprising this entity as a whole shall hereafter be referred to as Pax Ships, Stations, and Citizens (PSSC).
Section 4.06 Deliberate harm.
Should any ship owned or primarily crewed by a particular system be found to have caused deliberate or preventable damage to any PCCS, the system in question will be made to replace the ship, including all registered cargo, at its own cost. Should the system’s government and military refuse to comply with this mandate, no PCCS will either buy or sell at stations and outposts controlled by that power. Additionally, all the system’s current alliances will be considered void.
Section 5.10 Crew and citizenship.
All captains and crew must disavow all ties to any planet, including citizenship. Their citizenship, and what rights, duties, and privileges such status confers, will transfer to the ship on which they serve and the Pax Class Governing Council (PCGC) based on Paxis Station.
Section 5.11 Children and citizenship.
The above transferal applies also to children born aboard a PCCS, but may only include children born planetside if all guardians are included on the crew and/or if all guardians are willing to accept the revocation of citizenship on behalf of those children. Parents or guardians remaining planetside must acknowledge both in writing and on recorded holo-vid that they are also hereafter relinquishing all guardianship claims to the child as well as any expectation of contact or communication with the child.
Section 8.06 Passengers.
No passengers shall be ca
rried aboard any PCCS except in code-locked cryopods. In the case of providing aide for those in danger of grievous bodily harm, all survivors should be immediately put into cryostasis or sequestered in a secure location until the PCCS has pulled into its next port and passengers can be unloaded to be rendered assistance by the local government. Any persons found to be in violation of this order by carrying an individual whose name does not appear on the crew registry, on a cargo manifest, or on an addendum list of rescued persons transported in cases of emergency shall be suspected guilty of treason. The captain is required by this charter and all local governmental law to either administer the appropriate trial and punishment or to immediately turn such persons over to the nearest local government to be dealt with according to the mandates of their legal system and laws.
Prologue
Riston
Terra-Sol date 3811.237
Riston never forgot the smell of burning human flesh.
It had been three Terra-Sol cycles since the fleet of first-strike ships bombed Ladadhi out of existence, but time didn’t seem to matter. Ze recoiled sharply from the odor and the memories that burst out of each particle, assaulting zir brain. It was almost like cooking animal meat, but with the addition of something metallic—the sulfurous tang that showed up once the flames hit hair. Riston hated that part of the smell the most. Of course, it was also the hardest part to erase. Even away from the source, it could cling, refusing to dissipate for days.
The smell got stronger. A new wave of desperately suppressed memories blasted through Riston’s faltering mental blockade.
Warning sirens blared through every speaker for miles and jolted Riston awake.
Hands gripped zir small frame and threw zem out the front door.
Rough stone scraped zir bare feet bloody as the whine of Araean fighter jets grew louder.
Bombs fell. Explosions shook the world. Riston tripped and crashed into the shelter.
The door slammed shut, cutting off zir brother’s screams, blocking out the sight of the fire devouring Ladadhi, and leaving zem with nothing but the smell.
Shuddering, Riston closed zir eyes and pressed zirself flat against the wall. Ze thought ze’d left this behind when ze escaped the smoldering ruins of zir home. An instant, though, was all it took to shatter all the work ze’d done in the intervening cycles to shove every bit of zir old life and the day ze lost it all into a deep mental crevice. Experience had already taught zem to fear the smell of metal and meat and sulfur. Catching a whiff of the scent now, in the quiet halls of Datax Station, sent zir heart beating dangerously fast and made zir hands shake.
Fear warred with an inescapable urge to do something. Needing more information, Riston forced zirself to take a deep breath. The scent, though it was only a whiff in the air, nearly choked zem. There was a fire nearby, and someone was caught in it, but no one was screaming. Or running. There weren’t any alarms blaring through Datax Station’s engineering level. If the fire was big, evacuations would be ordered so the level could be flooded with fire suppressant. It had to be done. There weren’t any other options when living on a fallible human construction of stone and metal orbiting a star. Heat damage to the air filtration systems would cause even more deaths than a fire.
Those alarms hadn’t been tripped, so Riston wasn’t in immediate danger. But someone else was.
Ze flicked zir hood over zir head and pushed into the main corridor, hoping the power source in the ID scrambler in the top of the hood was still working. If ze got caught in a zone ze didn’t have clearance for, ze’d be tossed out an air lock. Or at least thrown into a holding cell until they found zir real ID and shipped zem back to the planet ze’d barely escaped from alive the first time around.
But here you are, heading into trouble anyway. Why can’t you ever leave it alone?
Because the ghosts of Ladadhi had been chasing zem for three cycles and ze couldn’t stand to let someone else die the way zir family had. Not if ze could stop it.
Zir thick-soled boots thudded on the grated floor, the weight of every step shifting the metal plates slightly. Soft white light left spots in zir peripheral vision when every third stride took zem past the lights set in brackets in the walls. Ze ignored them for the info panel set between brackets. The station’s logo sat static on the display. It was a good sign. Warnings would appear on every screen on the level if the blaze was growing out of control. There was nothing, and no one ze passed seemed to have noticed the stench, not the three-body crew working in a narrow side-passage to fix the six-degree fault in the cooling system, and definitely not the officer striding down the narrow corridor too fast to see anything not directly in front of them.
Then again, the smell was probably only obvious to Riston. It couldn’t be more than a hint in the air, and it’d probably be gone in less than a minute, sucked into the scrubbers and eliminated particle by particle. It wasn’t gone yet, though. Riston breathed deep, sure that ze had to be getting closer to the source. Then, ze saw it. Outside a sealed, restricted access door was a small, twisted piece of metal on the grated floor. Blackened but not melted, it nearly blended in with the varying shades of gray and black of the corridor. These corridors were all metal on metal on metal, and it was too easy to miss inconsistencies if you weren’t looking for them.
Cursing under zir breath, Riston pulled zir stolen comm out of zir pocket, opened a hidden partition to access the program ze needed, and held it against the security sensor. Ze watched the hall out the corner of zir eye while zir program cracked the permissions of the door.
Sixteen seconds.
Twenty.
Too long. There were footsteps in the corridor, and they were getting closer. People might overlook zir existence when they simply passed zem in the hall—ze’d stolen his station-emblazoned hooded jacket from a forgetful, low-level engineer—but no one would believe ze had the clearance to enter this room. And if ze had to waste time arguing with someone about permissions, whoever was inside would probably die. If they weren’t dead already.
With a soft snick, the door opened. Ze turned to look down each side of the curving corridor. No one in sight on the left. Someone in a crisp white uniform approaching on the right.
Cursing silently, Riston forced zir shoulders back, trying to mimic the stance of Datax’s young, overconfident engineers. Zir heart was pounding too fast, and it made zir movements too jerky. Anyone paying attention would practically see the anxiety coming off zir body in visible waves. Ze could only hope the white-clad PCCS officer with the ring of tight black curls encircling their head wasn’t paying attention.
Ze rushed into the room and knelt next to an engineer lying on the floor. Ze checked for a pulse. It was there, no matter how erratic it was. Breathing a little easier, ze looked over the rest of the wounds. Their singed uniform was fused to blistering sections of skin and the side of their head was burned to the scalp—the source of the worst of the scent—but second- and third-degree burns covered their arm. Fire suppression foam was just starting to dissolve, and it was clear from the engineer’s injuries they’d dived toward the fire in order to do something. Whatever it was, Riston hoped it was worth the injuries they would have to live with.
Then ze realized there had been no electronic ding of the door sliding shut and locking behind zem. Someone else had followed zem in, and they were standing in the doorway, keeping it from closing.
Shit. A smart survivor would run, but there was an unconscious engineer in front of zem, and they were half covered with burns. Riston couldn’t be the kind of smart that meant leaving this person to suffer. Only seconds had passed since ze’d entered the room, but every second counted in situations like this. Making several decisions in quick succession, Riston scrambled to the cabinets under the main console.
“What are you looking for?” The voice was high-pitched, but it was the tone more than the words that made zem pause. There was no suspicion or threat. And then they made it more confusing by adding, “Maybe I can help.�
��
So, ze answered. “If I can find a med-pack, I might be able to save their arm.”
A click. A scrape. The person behind zem took a step. “Try this.”
Riston flinched. No blow came. The motion in zir periphery was simply a hand offering a tube of salve, and yet there was nothing simple about any of this. The salve was an incredibly powerful and expensive ointment, and the hand was a high-quality cybernetic prosthetic, far above the standard models made freely available to the general public. Surprise and curiosity made zem risk a glance up at zir unexpected assistant.
Immediately, ze wished ze hadn’t. Tall, tanned skin, and terrifyingly pretty. Brown eyes with upturned corners watched zem from under gently curved eyebrows, and the face as a whole seemed far younger than expected. Most importantly, they hadn’t moved while Riston blinked at them in shock; they were still smiling tentatively, their hand outstretched to offer zem exactly what ze needed to help the engineer, who was beginning to rock and groan with pain.
Nodding, ze carefully took the salve, grabbed the first-aid case from the cabinet, and hurried back to the patient. The carbon-reinforced ceramic knife in Riston’s boot was a little broad to be useful slicing through the uniform shirt, but ze didn’t have time to search for something better. Thankfully, instead of leaving, questioning zem, or issuing orders, the PCCS officer knelt and gently helped Riston cut and peel cloth away from burned skin. Every motion spoke of patience and practice, but Riston doubted their core expertise was in medical because they didn’t offer any advice or corrections as ze worked. Soon, ze’d cut enough of the cloth away to begin smoothing ointment over the blistered skin. The salve was even more potent than ze’d expected, seeming to ease the engineer’s pain almost instantly.
“You sure you won’t get in trouble for giving this away?” Riston asked quietly.
“No, I’m not, but being able to tell the captain I helped save one of the station’s best technicians will help. It’ll mean the station commander owes the PCCS a favor.”
Pax Novis Page 1
