Pax Novis

by Erica Cameron

  “She is.” Contributing more than near-monosyllabic responses seemed impossible when zir mind was spinning so much. “She always has been.”

  “All of you are.” Cira took a breath, the furrows on her brow embedding deeper into her skin. It took her several seconds to work up to saying, “If they can’t stay to the outskirts anymore, though, maybe it’s time for them to move on. Everyone’s talents are so wasted here.”

  They, she said, but Riston knew ze was included, too. It could’ve sounded like a threat, but Cira’s tone was soft and her expression understanding. Despite that, and even though ze’d already been thinking the same thing, hearing it from Cira hit like a blast from a pulse gun.

  “I’ll talk to the others about it and let you know.” Zir voice cracked on the words.

  “It’d be difficult to the point of impossible for me to stay isolated for so long,” she continued gently, rolling her shoulder again. “That’s one of the reasons I was so reluctant to say yes when you asked if you could stay. It’s necessary for this to work, though, and all of you agreed to it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change your minds. There’s a lot of quadrant out there, and a lot of opportunities. Not all of it is consumed by war.”

  “I know. I’ll…” A lump rose in zir throat, and ze had to cough twice before ze could speak again. “I’ll talk to them. Promise.”

  And ze would. After warning them about the current situation, Riston was going to have to force every stowaway to seriously consider leaving Pax Novis behind. Ze’d almost been identified on Mitu Station, the kids were getting careless, and it seemed that something had riled up the entire Pax fleet. There were only so many signs ze could make zirself ignore.

  Leaving had been nothing but a quiet fear before, yet maybe it was time. If they were able to make a home out of service shafts and stolen space, having a whole planet or station to hide on would be easy. Together, they could survive anywhere. With them, Riston might even be able to survive ripping zir own heart out and leaving it and his dreams of legitimately joining the PSSC behind with Cira.

  Treble and Shadow were already in the usual gathering space when Riston arrived, an unusual occurrence but not one ze planned to question. The smile Treble gave zem at first faded fast. It disappeared entirely when ze dropped Tink’s toolbox onto the ground with a rattling clank.

  “Stay here,” Riston ordered before Treble could speak. “We all need to talk.”

  Since digital messages were currently out of the question, ze’d fallen back on their own emergency code. Ze’d left several signs in commonly used corridors as ze passed through, but now ze traveled farther to hit places the others came back to time and again. Then ze headed back to the junction to wait. And wait. And try not to grind his teeth as he waited more. This was the problem with sending messages via marks on metal—the delay. It took three hours for all five of them to gather in the small space. Tink was the last to arrive.

  “My tools!” Her round face lit up as she reached for the battered box.

  Riston moved it behind zirself with zir foot. “Sit down, Tinker.”

  She stopped so fast it was like an energy shield had popped up between them. Comical shock widened her upturned eyes. The others were looking at zem like ze’d ordered her to throw herself out an air lock. Tink regained control in a couple of blinks, took a couple of slow steps back, and silently lowered herself to the ground. The wary caution on everyone’s face was as unsettling as it was unsurprising. Ze was a caretaker, not an enforcer. They’d been lucky, ze supposed, that they’d never previously needed the kind of warnings ze had to deliver today. Almost none of the stowaways ever brought on board had.

  “I spoke to Cira again today.” As ze knew it would, the words made them all take notice. For everyone’s safety, in-person meetings between Riston and Cira were kept to a minimum. Two within a few days of each other had only ever happened once—when Greenie had picked up a vicious virus after a planet visit and the treatments Riston had had on hand weren’t working.

  “Again?” Greenie hesitantly asked.

  “After Mitu, she gave me supplies to pass on, but today…” Ze took a long breath. “I’m sure you all noticed the shift in the crew.”

  Treble, Tink, and Greenie nodded. Shadow didn’t move, but Riston could almost feel his attention sharpen. Slowly, Riston talked about the tension, the itch, and the emergency meeting. Remembering Cira’s strained expression and the fear-tinged frustration in her voice made the same feelings rise in Riston’s chest, but anger quickly crushed it all into one painfully solid ball, anger at himself and the four stowaways for putting Cira in this position. It came out in his tone when he said, “We’ve all gotten careless, and that stops now.”

  Laying out all the stories ze’d told Cira on their first meeting and everything Cira had told zem today, ze lit into them. Ze warned Greenie to stay away from the botany labs, scolded Tinker for leaving her toolbox in the open, told Treble to keep her distance from Yeocin Iyana, and then went back to Tink for messing around in a system as important as the power to the damn ship.

  Every time someone tried to interrupt with an excuse or an explanation, Riston raised zir voice and talked over them. Why they did it didn’t matter. Ze knew them well enough to assume they each had a logical or earnest reason for their actions; ze didn’t want to know what it was. If ze knew the why, it’d be so much more difficult to come down on them as hard as ze needed to. It’d also be harder to hold to the orders ze had to give. When ze finished censuring them, ze let silence settle for several long breaths. “We need to disappear indefinitely.”

  They glanced at one another and then back to zem, their expressions overfull and unreadable. Treble was the one who asked, “Disappear how, exactly?”

  “Together or separately, we have to find a hole to hide in and stay there. No trips through the main corridors at all except in times of dire need.”

  “Or bodily functions?” Treble arched her brow, her tone lilting as though it was a joke. It wasn’t. Her fingers pulled at a thread in her oversize sweater, and her shoulders were tense.

  “Or bodily functions,” Riston agreed. There was no second option for that. Showers would always be a risk because their only option was the stalls on the recreation level. Toilets, though, were scattered throughout the ship. “But if any of you put this ship and our place on it at risk again, I’ll tie you to my wrist and drag you off Novis at the first available dock. Cira has put everything she has on the line to help us. We will not repay her by being careless.”

  Riston let the words sink in and watched their faces. Treble looked frustrated and Greenie seemed contrite, but the furrows on Tink’s face made her look confused. Only Shadow seemed to be taking this in stride, but he’d long ago earned his nickname—unless Shadow sent out one of his gossip dialogues, Riston never knew what he spent his time doing, and that was exactly how all of them needed to live: invisibly.

  “If you don’t want to—or can’t—handle hiding indefinitely, then the five of us need to have a serious talk about looking at Novis’s flight path and picking a new place to live.” Riston’s words were quiet, but their impact was visceral. Greenie flinched, Treble’s jaw dropped, Shadow grunted in surprise, and Tink’s eyes filled with tears. “If that’s the case, I want us to stay together. I never thought I’d find another family, but you guys are it, and I don’t want us to split up if there’s any way to avoid it. So go get your things in order, decide where you’re going to lay low until the next supply drop, and think about what I said. All of it. I have a feeling we’re going to have to make a decision on this sooner than any of us would like.”

  Especially since Riston had futilely hoped ze’d never have to make this choice at all.

  It was a somber and subdued group who split up a few minutes later. Riston watched them go, feeling like the air in zir lungs was made of elements far heavier than oxygen and nitrogen, and each breath made the sensation worse. Tinker was the last one to leave because it took her
a while to fit her toolbox into the bag she usually carted it around in. Her movements were slow, and her expression was still pinched and furrowed. In a way, she looked so much older than eleven. For the first time, ze considered the possibility that even if they voted to leave Pax Novis, they might not want to do it together. Forced cohabitation was one thing. Choosing to stay when there were thousands of other options was another one entirely.

  Unless, of course, one or all of them was captured by Novis’s heightened security sweeps first. That was also quickly becoming a very real possibility.

  When her bag was slung over her shoulders, she stopped at the foot of the ladder and turned halfway back, one hand resting on the steps built into the wall.

  “Did Cira at least like her presents, Zazi Novis?” Tink spoke to the floor, and the words were so quiet Riston almost missed them.

  When the question registered, it felt like zir heart chipped. “Yeah. She’d been wanting to play with one of those for a while apparently, and she thought the frame was beautiful, so you all did good. She said thank you. And so do I.”

  She tried to smile, but it was a sad shadow of her usual bright grin. “That’s good.”

  Turning to the ladder, she took the first step up, then stopped. Stepped back down. When she turned toward him again, her eyes were still on the floor, but her mouth was parted like she had something to say. Until she changed her mind. Her thin lips disappeared into a straight line and she shook her head sharply.

  “Tink, what is it?”

  “Nothing.” And the tone in her voice made it her final answer. She turned back to the ladder and began climbing again. “Thanks for bringing my tools back, Zazi Novis.”

  Riston knew ze’d made the right choice today—the only choice—but standing alone in the junction, ze still felt like an inconsiderate, controlling dictator. Leadership had been handed to zem by seniority and circumstance, not chosen. Although it had been nearly two cycles since Treble had come on board, the first of the group, apart from Riston, to make this ship a permanent home, ze hadn’t quite gotten used to the weight of being in a position of authority. Worse, as ze rubbed zir temples and took several long, deep breaths, ze couldn’t shake the fear things were going to get a hell of a lot worse before anything got better.

  And ze hadn’t even remembered to tell Tink that Cira was proud of her.

  Excerpt from the essay “A Plan for Peace in a Time of War” by Ambassador Bashiir Dualeh from Shadhima in the Tau Ceti system

  Published on Terra-Sol date 3542.268

  …but while we wage war as a way to work through or around our political and philosophical differences, the civilians we’re meant to protect are suffering from starvation and plagues, maladies which should’ve been left in our history by now.

  To protect those who have no part in this fight, I propose a fleet of truce ships. Flown under the white flag of peace, these cargo ships would be controlled by a council made up of representatives from every system—aid workers, not politicians. They would be able to travel freely throughout the quadrant, carrying food, medicine, and aid to those most in need if all systems involved would agree to a simple policy of noninterference. It is my hope that once governments see the possibilities of open trade and begin to believe in the possibility of sharing resources instead of hoarding them, we will finally begin to make real strides toward a stable, lasting peace.

  Chapter Six

  Cira

  Terra-Sol date 3814.244

  The chime of a ship-wide alert jolted Cira from a fitful sleep.

  “This is Captain Antares. All nonessential personnel will meet in the garden today at 1000 hours. See your direct supervisor for any questions.”

  Another chime, this one softer, marked the end of the broadcast.

  The message had only lasted ten seconds and comprised twenty-three words, but it made her heart race. Or maybe the nightmare she’d been shocked out of was to blame. She hid her face in her pillow and tried to remember what the dream had been about even as she tried to forget it. There’d been an attack, she knew, and blasts had left holes in the hull that sucked half the crew into space. Including Treble, Shadow, Greenie, and Tinker. And Riston.

  Cira shuddered and rubbed her flesh hand over her face as she tried to remind her brain PCGC suspected the attacks on Feris and Amitis were digital, not physical. A virus, not missiles or bombs. The reminder didn’t help. Viruses could do a lot of damage in a system as complex and codependent as Novis’s. No one on board was safe until the threat was gone. But her mother’s announcement didn’t give her hope that was what happened. If anything, calling the whole crew together probably meant the situation had become worse. Or more complicated at least. Whatever the truth, she’d hear it for herself soon enough. The meeting was in an hour.

  As she got ready, she found herself hoping one of her stowaways had heard the captain’s orders and would find a way to spy on the meeting. What Erryla said would impact them, too, and Cira didn’t know when she’d be able to meet with Riston in person again to share the news.

  The elevator was nearly full when she got on half an hour later, and it only became more so as it stopped at almost every deck between twelve and eight. She wasn’t the only one to exhale with relief when they could finally escape the packed transport for the most open space on the ship.

  The garden on deck eight had always been Cira’s favorite spot. The roof was even higher here than it was in engineering, but the space rarely gave Cira the same sense of vertigo. The interlocking branches of the massive trees created an artificial roof, and there was too much distracting beauty everywhere else. Flora from six different systems grew in ordered chaos, the air was rich with the scent of flowers, dirt, and fresh oxygen, and a wide path led from each of the three elevators down to the open, sloped amphitheater in the center of the deck. This was the only space on Novis large enough for the entire crew to gather. Between the trunks of the trees that circled the space, rows of smaller bushes spread outward. Even the walls of the deck were covered with trellises holding vines growing multicolored flowers.

  On a normal day, Novis’s children would be running across the paths and filling the air with squeals and laughter, but today there was only the consistent shoosh of the elevators releasing more of the crew onto the deck and the buzz of whispered, overlapping conversations as everyone headed straight for the wide steps of the amphitheater as soon as they arrived. Even the kids were quiet today, all of them sticking close to their parents. It was eerie, and the images from Cira’s nightmare were so close. It was frighteningly easy to imagine the vine-covered walls of the garden exploding into the black and dragging them all out to die in vacuum. Her entire family. Gone in a flash and swallowed by silence.

  She shivered and tried to clear her mind, but it was hard. Novis had always felt safe, an impenetrable haven from the chaos and constant destruction of the quadrant’s war. But if someone really was targeting Pax ships, then war was closing in on her for the first time in her life. Apparently her subconscious didn’t know how to process that threat except for turning it into nightmares and plaguing her with waking fears.

  It took a lot of concentration to keep her internal anxieties from showing, but it was necessary—everyone assumed she had inside information, and if she looked panicked, others would begin to panic, too. It was why she didn’t do more than smile and say a brief hello to anyone she passed as she headed toward the command crew. Cira claimed one of the last empty seats in the center of the room. Erryla nodded to her daughter when their eyes met, but then her attention went back to the conversation she was having with First Lieutenant Farran Badri, Security Chief. Halver, though, strode closer when he spotted her.

  “Problems, Ensign?” He crouched and asked the question quietly.

  Lying wouldn’t help when Halver’s perceptive eyes were on her, so she shook her head and told some of the truth. “Nightmares.”

  His shoulders relaxed a little. “The times are changing a little fast for u
s all. Keep your chin up, though, Cira. We’ll figure this out.”

  She smiled, the expression far more genuine this time, and squeezed his hand before he stood and returned to the center of the circle. His gaze lingered only slightly too long on Yeocin Marlowe who was sitting on the opposite side of the amphitheater; Cira pretended not to notice. So, she realized with a faint flicker of amusement, did Malcolm Marlowe.

  A few minutes later, Captain Antares broke off her conversation with Lieutenant Badri and stepped forward. Silence rippled outward until it felt like everyone in the garden was holding their breath waiting for— Cira winced when she realized what she’d been thinking.

  It was like everyone in the room was waiting to see if a bomb was about to go off.

  “Despite the fact that it was supposed to be an alert for bridge crew only, I’m sure most of you have become aware that two ships—Feris and Amitis—have stopped communicating.” To most of the crew, Erryla probably looked as impassive as Novis itself, but Erryla was Ma to Cira cycles before she was a commanding officer. Cira could spot the tension in the line of her throat and in how she’d locked her hands together behind her back. “Many of you have friends on both ships, and it can’t have gone unnoticed when your messages stopped getting responses. I am officially confirming those rumors. No one has heard from Pax Feris since Terra-Sol date 3814.233, and Pax Amitis since 3814.242.”

  Cira pressed her flesh hand against her thigh to keep it from trembling. Across from her, Lieutenant Zafar began crying, hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. Others shifted uneasily, but no one broke the silence.

  “Early this morning, we received an update from PSSC Control.” Erryla tapped her wrist cuffs together. After a few swipes, the holo-projectors embedded in the ceiling displayed four reproductions of the official PCGC alert. Another tap of her cuffs, and the holo-controls vanished. The alert projections slowly began rotating. Cira started to read, but her mother’s next words snapped her attention away from the revolving display.