Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  I cleared my throat. “Jax, you’ve got control.”

  He nodded, and my brain started storming for answers again about where we could go—in a radius we could actually reach.

  “Air. Water. Sunlight. Supplies. New parts,” I muttered. What had everything we needed to get us rolling again?

  “Albion 5,” Big Guy said.

  I tilted my head back to look at him. The colossus was still right next to me, all big and bushy and weirdly reassuring.

  Albion 5… I closed my eyes, trying to picture a map of Sector 2 in my head. One system stood out from the rest as having at least two planets the right distance from their sun to sustain life. The smaller rock had required terraforming and was still a work in progress. The larger one had been inhabited practically since the first Earth exoduses had begun. It would have everything we needed, including anonymity.

  I opened my eyes again. “It could work.” I looked at my crew for their opinions. “What do you think?”

  “I think we can get there.” Miko immediately searched for and then started typing in the coordinates. Once they were actually set, though, she winced. “It’s going to be close.”

  That was what I’d feared.

  “I’ll redirect all power to the engines,” Jax said, his big hands moving rapidly over his console.

  A moment later, the bridge went dark except for the main control panels that were still functioning. Even the low hum of the air recycling system stopped, and Jax’s console beeped out an oxygen-levels warning.

  “Even if we don’t make it all the way,” Jax said, “we should still get close enough to Albion 5’s sun to recharge.”

  Fiona huffed a little sourly. “Let’s hope so,” she said under her breath.

  I was hoping for better than that. For the first time in five years, I was desperate to land, get off my ship, and breathe air that hadn’t been filtered and recycled a thousand times over. And then I wanted to get the Endeavor repaired while I figured out what the hell to do next.

  My father thought the battle was over. For all intents and purposes, he’d imposed his science and his law across the 18 Sectors, but there were still insurgencies to crush all over the Dark. The human spirit was not so easily controlled. For many, the conflict was ongoing and would be until they either won or died. What could those rebels do if I gave them the serum? Turn the tide of war?

  But there were already places hovering on the edge of survival, where extinction was a word to fear. Could I live with myself, knowing I might be launching the galaxy into a whole new generation of rampant bloodshed? Knowing I could be changing people’s bodies? Knowing they could evolve into something else, like those giant carnivorous spiders had?

  For all the sterile labs, careful experimentation, and strict controls, science was still just a big guessing game. Sometimes, you guessed wrong. And I only knew one thing about those false vaccines: if they were based on my blood, then they were built around whatever was genetically wrong with me. And the more people who found out I was an anomaly, the more hunted I’d be.

  “Tess?” Jax questioned.

  His voice brought me out of my brooding thoughts. I may have been eleven years his junior and a few inches shorter, but I was the captain, and he waited for my orders.

  “Brace yourselves for hyperspace.” I sat in my locked chair and gripped the armrests. Big Guy, who now knew half my secrets, stood next to me. When everyone else looked stable, I nodded to Jaxon. “And go.”

  Chapter 4

  Our crazy luck held a little longer, and we made it to Albion 5’s exosphere with half a power bar to spare. Jax turned all our solar panels in the right direction the second we came out of warp speed. We still might fall apart, but at least we were recharging.

  After a rattling and frankly terrifying descent toward the capital city on the planet’s surface, we called in and were offered a docking port in exchange for a small fortune on the bizarrely named Squirrel Tree. I doubted there was a squirrel within a hundred-mile radius of Albion City—if there were any at all on this overpopulated rock.

  We landed on our designated platform on the immense docking tower and then powered down, all of us drooping a little in relief. It had been a hell of a day. After a moment, though, the quiet became almost as nerve-racking as listening to the Endeavor whine and groan about the holes in her walls. Tension snapped through me. I hated being confined when we weren’t moving.

  I popped out of my chair and left the bridge. The second I could slap my palm down on the interior lock, I opened what was left of the starboard doors and breathed. A few deep inhales and long exhales helped settle my nerves. Seeing my mangled air lock nearly undid the good the fresh air was doing me, though. The outer door was utterly destroyed.

  Despite the obvious and extensive damage, it was surprisingly easy to refocus. I’d worry about repairs—and how much they were going to cost us—soon. Right now, I was just happy to be alive. Once again, and against all odds, the five of us had somehow made it through.

  I leaned out of the ship and looked around. The view from the high-up platform was spectacular—if you liked glass and metal and rock. Sprawling, spire-filled cityscapes were fine with me; I wasn’t much for green. Flora and fauna were about a million miles out of my comfort zone. I did like healthy, breathable atmospheres, though, and the sky here was clear and blue, with hints of pink and purple hazing the horizon. Three visible moons hung over the city, and a small planet hovered in the distance—the one that was undergoing terraforming, I presumed.

  I sniffed a few times, savoring the mix of freshness and warmth as faint sounds from street level drifted up to blend with the low hum of crafts and transports flying around and above the maze of docks. The sunny, midday air seemed free of heavy smog and gritty particles. They must have been doing something right in Sector 2, if the lack of pollution was any indication. Not all early colonists had been concerned with sustainable development, thinking there were infinite planets out there to appropriate. There weren’t, but some people hadn’t figured that out before driving their new homes into the ground.

  The crew and Big Guy came up behind me, taking their turn at relishing having an open door—inhaling, testing out the atmosphere on their senses, taking in the view, and squinting against the brightness reflected off Albion City’s countless windows.

  Fiona sucked down air until her chest lifted and expanded so much that even Jax had to look. “Well, that does a body good,” she announced.

  I nodded. The air on Albion 5 didn’t smell bad at all. Not as good as anywhere in Sector 12. Better than on Hourglass Mile. About like Starway 8, thanks to the orphanage’s first-rate ventilation system.

  Behind us, the Endeavor belched out the recycled air we’d been breathing for months. My lungs felt different already, expanded. It was time to renew. Rebuild. Figure out life. I rolled my shoulders to relieve some of the tension. Maybe I’d even understand myself one of these days.

  I left the others to enjoy their first taste of Albion 5 while I ducked back into the ship to change out of my flight suit and wash my face. What I found in my room was even more of a mess than the ruined starboard door. There was a big hole in the wall, and many of my belongings had been sucked out into space. I’d lost bedding, books, and a lot of clothes. Anything that hadn’t been screwed down or locked in the closet was gone.

  I pieced together a decent outfit from what was left and then turned my back on the shambles of my once-tidy living space. I refused to mutter even a single curse. We’d survived. Period.

  We needed to know what we were dealing with in terms of time and cost, so I steeled myself for a thorough look around the Endeavor. An hour later, I couldn’t fathom how we’d survived. Shot full of holes, we’d traveled at warp speed and then put the ship through the heat and pressure of atmospheric entry. Not to mention the fact that we’d jumped right into a black hole.

&nbs
p; The repair budget was going kill us, even if the Black Widow hadn’t.

  From Jaxon’s colorful language as he inspected the inside and outside of the ship along with me, I was pretty sure he agreed. Big Guy came along, too, looking stoic. He grunted every now and then. He seemed to know his way around electronics and fixed a few things while Jax and I took inventory of the more significant problems.

  I limited the list of issues to actual structural damage on the Endeavor, although it seemed as though it should have included a lot more, like how to take back having revealed my true identity, and what the hell to do with the stolen lab.

  Miko found us finishing up in Cargo Bay 3 and insisted that the Endeavor wasn’t the only one that needed recharging. We ate a quick meal all together and formed a plan. I would head into the city immediately to see about parts and repairs while Jax got busy on the damaged circuits. No matter how exhausted I was, there was no waiting until tomorrow to find a repair person for the Endeavor. Whether we stayed a while or left Albion 5 quickly was fluid and would depend on how things went. Being able to go was a must, which meant patching holes and fixing the electrical problems.

  Fiona opted to stay on board and set her lab to rights after all the hard bumps we’d just experienced, and Miko and Shiori almost never left the ship. The Endeavor, or right next to her, was where they felt the safest.

  Everyone came to see me off after lunch, even Big Guy, who’d declined to eat with us. Anxious to get going, I hopped down onto the platform and then bounced a little, getting used to the gravity level here. It wasn’t far from the universal standard used on ships, but there was a slight drag on my weight that would take some getting used to.

  The heat from the dock’s dark surface rammed into me from the feet up as I reached into the shadowed doorway to grab the go-pack I’d snagged from my closet. I double-checked the pack for essentials as I squinted against the early-afternoon sunlight, both bothered by and enjoying the rare-for-me sensations of planet-dwelling life.

  Big Guy jumped down next to me while I rummaged in my bag, my eyes watering and my skin already feeling baked. I knew from experience that the impression of being shoved into a big, bright oven would pass. Objectively, Albion 5 wasn’t that hot. It was reputed to have a pleasant climate overall, and I’d seen forests and an intriguing large body of water as we’d dropped down from the Dark. It was simply that I’d been a space rat for so long that being on the ground again took some getting used to.

  We made occasional stops, usually in big cities, and there was always an adjustment period to get used to the inevitable variances from one place to another. I didn’t long for a planet home, but I did enjoy coming down. Being on the ground reminded me of my mother.

  “You got everything you need?” Jax asked.

  I nodded, zipping up my pack again on the bottle of water, snacks, a sweater, a few implements for basic hygiene, a fold-up multitool that looked harmless enough but actually contained a very sharp knife, and some universal currency. Everything I needed in case I couldn’t come home tonight.

  There wasn’t anything conspicuous about me now that I’d ditched my all-gray, full-length flight suit for more typical civilian clothing. My fitted black pants, ankle boots, and pale-yellow tank top were more weather-appropriate anyway. I figured I’d be fine, despite the Dark Watch’s chilling propensity to arrest people for little or no reason.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Jax asked, crouching in the sawed-open doorway. He rubbed the back of his neck in that way he had when he was torn about something.

  “No, thanks,” I answered, meaning it. I was competent in any huge galactic city full of tech and crawling with anonymous faces. It was anywhere natural that freaked me out. “Just work on whatever’s wrong with those electrical circuits, like we said—especially anything leading to the bridge. And guard the ship,” I added.

  Jax nodded. He never argued with that last part. It wasn’t so much the ship he’d worry about if he left it unprotected by either me or him; it was the people on it, people he thought of as his own. It left deep, invisible scars when you came back from a battle that had really only been a diversion to find your home burned and your family incinerated inside it. Wife. Kids. Everyone and everything—gone. There had been nothing left, except for a trap. That was when they’d taken Jax and locked him up.

  Huge, scarred, been-to-the-other-side-and-back-of-just-about-everything—that was Jax. He wasn’t paranoid. He was vigilant with the people he loved.

  “So, Big Guy…” I turned to the not-so-stranger who was more of a big beast of a man than even Jax. “You got a name?”

  “I do.” He clapped me on the shoulder so hard I might have shrunk an inch or two. He squeezed, and my shoulder went numb. If it hadn’t been for his friendly smile, I’d have thought he was trying to break my bones. “It’s See-You-Around.”

  With that, he sauntered toward the elevator tube that would take him down the many levels of the massive Squirrel Tree to the streets of Albion City.

  I stared after him without a blink. A moment later, he was gone.

  Shit. A man full of my secrets had just walked away, and short of gunning him down, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I glanced up at Jax, who now stood leaning against the doorframe. He shrugged, not seeming too worried.

  “That was abrupt,” I said, my words making me realize that worry wasn’t my primary feeling, either. I was stung.

  I’d gotten used to having Big Guy around. He was clearly no fan of the Dark Watch, and I’d been about to offer him a spot on our crew. He’d stuck with us when the going got more than tough, and that meant something to me. Truly scary and adversarial situations were the sieve through which real friendships were formed, where the watery and weak washed through and away and those left standing beside you were the solid units a person could count on for life.

  Or in Big Guy’s case, for a few harrowing days.

  “He was weird,” Fiona announced from alongside Jax in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder. Well, more like head to triceps. Fiona was a foot shorter.

  “He was awesome,” I argued. He’d gone into the Black Widow with us. He’d kept me on my feet. He’d fixed the lights in the central cargo bay. And I had a feeling he’d keep my secrets. “He had no bodily functions. How cool is that?”

  Miko’s brow wrinkled in thought as she leaned against the other side of the open doorframe. “Maybe he was a cyborg or something.”

  “My vote’s for super soldier,” I said. “They must have tested that enhancer on someone.”

  “If that’s the case, I don’t think he was a willing lab rat,” Fiona said. “One time when I checked on him in the lab, he was glaring at those syringes like he wanted to destroy them.”

  Odd then, that he’d just walked away from them.

  “Maybe the Sky Mother sent him to us,” Jax said in a low voice.

  My immediate denial died on my tongue. Jax was the spiritual one of the two of us, although he’d never tried to convert me or anything. I still usually naysaid him right away. This time, I couldn’t. There had been a lot of inexplicable things about Big Guy. Still, I had trouble believing the Sky Mother was anything other than a big fat sun.

  “Sent him for what?” I asked.

  Jaxon looked at me, a challenge in his coffee-dark eyes. He rarely pressed these points, but I could tell he wanted to now. “Maybe to keep the Black Widow from crushing us into nothing.”

  There was no denying that something strange had happened in Sector 14. Going into the Widow, I’d fully expected to become less than dust. And yet here we all were—alive. I was more likely to look for a scientific explanation, though. Something involving physics, not religion.

  “The Sky Mother is all-powerful,” Shiori said from just behind Miko in the shadows of the ship. Stepping forward, she emerged into the sunlight next to
the others, turning her sightless eyes toward its warmth.

  Miko stopped her grandmother when Shiori got too close to the edge, the blunt end of her severed hand crossing the older woman’s middle as she cautioned her to be careful.

  Shiori clearly wanted off the ship, if only for a few minutes, so Jaxon jumped down and then lifted her to the platform. We almost never put down the stairs. Waiting for them to fold and unfold never seemed worth it.

  As soon as she was steady, Jax let go of her, and Shiori lifted her face to the sun. She breathed deeply through her small, somewhat flat nose. The white hair that had escaped the bun at her nape fluttered on a breeze I’d hardly noticed before, reminding me of the images I’d seen of the tattered flags of the old nations as they’d been ripped down and the galaxy burned into one.

  Shiori spoke again, her soft, musical accent lending an almost prophetess quality to her words. “The Sky Mother balances everything. From the center of the galaxy, She sends out Her rays of light.”

  Yeah. That’s because it’s a freaking star, and they’re bright.

  And if She and Her Powers really balanced anything, they would have kicked my father off his throne a long time ago—maybe before he’d murdered millions in the night.

  “I’m off, then,” I said, slicing through a conversation I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Besides, there were more pressing matters than debating theology—like finding someone to repair the Endeavor. And I loved both Jax and Shiori too much to try to rattle their faith with my own bitterness and doubt.

  “Watch your back out there, partner,” Jax said with a single, solemn nod.