Tadeo’s eyes flickered from her swollen belly to the chief. “We can’t…” he said, his voice rough.
“It’s Defective,” the chief said. “Set to be aborted tomorrow. She tampered with the archives, erased data we need to settle on a new Earth. She knew the penalty.”
“No! I didn’t erase anything. I didn’t mean to. I just had to know the truth.” Era’s voice shook. “My baby—”
The barrel pressed harder into Era’s skin, silencing her.
“But Chief, sir—”
“Raines.” The chief’s voice was hard, edged with unspoken threat.
Tadeo threw his shoulders back in the conditioned response of one trained to respond to commands without thought. But his eyes darted, wary, between Era and the chief, and his hands were balled into tight fists. A glimmer of hope burgeoned in Era’s chest. Tadeo took a step forward.
The chief dropped the pulse gun from Era’s neck and pushed her away. She stumbled to the side and hit her arm hard on the control panel. She cradled it against her bare breasts as the chief walked up to Tadeo and stopped an inch from his face. Tadeo didn’t back down.
“Remember McGill?” the chief asked. “They told you all he went back to his home deka. Sent back ‘cause he couldn’t handle the shame of a traitor nearly killing Tesmee with his pulse gun.”
Tadeo stood straighter, his jaw working.
The chief lifted the pulse gun and gestured with it. “McGill was in on it…He was working with that traitor to kill Tesmee.” His voice rose. “He gave that traitor his pulse gun. I airlocked him myself. Fleet doesn’t need to know we had a traitor in the guard. I’d do it again if I thought, even for a second, we had other traitors in the guard. Do you understand?”
Tadeo’s eye twitched, and he slowly nodded.
Era let out a small moan and looked toward the door. She had to get away. The chief pointed the pulse gun at her and gestured to the door that led into the airlock. Era took a few hesitant steps toward it, her gaze shifting between Tadeo and the chief.
“Activate it. It’s got to look like she did it,” Petroff said.
Era’s lips parted as Tadeo passed Dritan’s shift card over the control panel. Zephyr will believe I committed suicide. She won’t even question it. She’ll think I killed myself because Dritan died and because they were taking my baby.
The fail-safe might’ve worked. Why didn’t I try harder to get her to listen?
Tadeo pressed a button, and the alarms sounded.
Era reached toward Tadeo. “They’re lying to all of us about the Defect.”
The chief pressed the pulse gun into her temple. “Open the door.”
Tadeo hesitated, but swiped Dritan’s shift card across the scanner.
“No, wait. My baby can survive. Please, let me have the baby. I don’t care what you do with me after that. I have proof. I can show you. They can save the baby—”
Chief Petroff shoved Era into the airlock. She twisted, trying to get back into the control room, but the door slid closed, nearly trapping her fingers.
She straightened, teeth chattering from the frigid air, and turned to face them. The alarms blared, deafening, echoing off the metal walls of the airlock. She held one hand over the swell of her belly and banged the other against the glass. “Don’t do this! My baby can be saved. I won’t tell anyone!”
The chief watched her with his arms crossed, an impassive expression on his face. Tadeo stood beside him, clenching and unclenching his fists, but didn’t move to help her.
The grimp was gone.
Era began to hyperventilate as she banged the glass, over and over, until Tadeo turned his face away.
Would she feel herself dying?
When the airlock opened, she’d be swept into space, the air stolen from her lungs. Her bones would crack in the cold, and she’d spend her last moments of consciousness with nothing between her and the angry red planet that had stolen so much. Soren.
Chief Petroff and Tadeo blurred before her, and she used one hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
She rested both palms against the swell of her belly.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.
The old Earth religions taught about life after death. But those gods never existed. There was only alive or dead. Breathing or not breathing. At least now she wouldn’t have to live without Dritan and their baby.
She began to count the rivets in the floor, pushing down her panic. How long until the airlock opened?
The alarm blared louder, and its pace quickened.
No. Her last image could not be of this ship.
Era lifted her wrist and focused on her infinity tattoo. She took a deep sputtering breath and closed her eyes.
Dritan. The curves of his well-muscled body, his high cheekbones, his full lips. The feeling of his strong, warm arms around her, and his hazel eyes looking into hers. Safe.
He’d come to her after his shift that day, two weeks after the riots. He’d washed and pressed his grease-stained sublevel suit, had tried to clean up, look good for her.
He’d run a hand through his dark curls, pulling on them, so nervous to ask the question he’d come to ask.
“I want to come back to you every night,” he’d said. “I want to be paired with you. Do you want that, too?”
Yes.
The portal groaned behind her.
Era swept into space, the air stolen from her lungs, her bones cracking in pain from the frigid cold.
Her eyes adjusted, and she saw the stars.
Beautiful, twinkling against the vast expanse. Sparkling promises of a better world waiting.
Darkness closed in around the edges of her vision, and the stars blinked out.
Book Two of the Legacy Code Saga—Coming Summer 2014
The dangers in the fleet are growing, and the Paragon Guard is called upon to keep the colonists safe. Tadeo Raines struggles with his role in recent events and must finally come to terms with the dark secret he’s been running from…
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Thank you!
A straight line from first breath to last.
This recycled air remembers all the lies told in its past.
Sins of the father, that’s what they say.
That’s how life goes, what we’re living today.
There’s more than this; I feel it.
Drifting through this useless existence,
Held down
Held down
Held down
By artificial gravity.
Blinded by tradition, I slept, like those before.
But now I see the truth, I’m awake, and I want more.
There’s more than this; I feel it.
Drifting through this useless existence,
Held down
Held down
Held down
By artificial gravity.
Hope’s a dying star.
We need a supernova.
To wipe space clean,
And just start over.
There’s more than this; I feel it.
Drifting through this useless existence,
Held down
Held down
Held down
By artificial gravity.
So many people helped make this story what it is. I’d like to thank all my friends and family who jumped in and brainstormed with me or offered opinions about this book when I asked. Your support means a lot to me, and this book is better because of you.
&
nbsp; Thanks to my beta readers, who gave me amazing feedback every step of the way: Jennifer Nelson, Marcos Romero, David Heringer, Kristen Ervin, MJ Colucci, and Scott Pritchard.
Erynn Newman, thank you for being an awesome editor and a joy to work with.
To Freya Wolfe, thank you for all those hours spent analyzing my plot, managing “the talent”, and for believing in my vision and seeing it too.
A special thanks to Sita Payne Romero, Jamie Blair, and my husband, Juan, for the many hours you spent in my world with me. You’re my brainstorming team, my alphas and betas, and you help me shape my stories in ways I could never do on my own.
And to my dad, Gregory Nelson, thank you for always believing in me and supporting me, no matter what.
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
SUMMARY
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SUBSCRIBE
REVIEW
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SUBSCRIBE
REVIEW
ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
Legacy Code (Legacy Code Saga) Page 11
