“How is the leg serving you?”
The topic change made her blink, but she reached down to give the rubber cap a squeeze and nodded. “Well enough. There are improvements I’d like to make, but I should be able to get around all right for now. Why?”
“Do you believe it would hold up to the stress of an EVA?”
“Aren’t we under thrust?”
“I am braking now. We should arrive within a safe distance of the debris field in thirty minutes.”
“So soon?” Sanda yanked her harness off and pushed upward, floating to grab the ceiling grips. Now that she’d been told, she was aware of a subtle shift in the gravity of the command deck. The slight drag she had felt that pushed her toward the “back” of the room had lifted now.
“It has been twenty days, as expected.”
She winced. How easy it’d been to lose track of time while she’d been tinkering away on her new prosthetic. Just as she’d been avoiding all thought of her family, she’d been avoiding so much as glancing at a calendar. She’d even blanked the date from all the smartscreens in her room, and the wristpad she’d claimed as her own from the captain’s things.
“Bring us in close, I’ll be ready in a moment.”
She dragged herself up the ladder, heart pounding. Whatever supplies she could find in that debris field, they would spell the possibility of her survival.
“Stars smile on me,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 14
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3541
FIGHTING IN THE WAR ROOM
Biran walked into the hall a free man. That interpretation ignored the figurative leash the Protectorate had fashioned to him, but he was desperate enough for a win to allow himself that mental indulgence. Freedom always felt good, even when it was a false one.
The hallway had been a blur to him as the guardcore marched him in—thoughts that this might be the last building he ever saw turning the details into a fuzzy mess—and now, he realized, he didn’t know where to go next. Back the way they’d dragged him in, or through the front doors? If there was a protocol for what to do after barely escaping a summary execution, he’d never been briefed.
“Brave words in there.”
Keeper Lavaux was last out of the interrogation room, his easy smile and slow stroll making him appear shorter than he was, though the man would tower over Biran if he were to straighten his spine. Clear posturing. Biran could learn a lot from a man like Lavaux.
“They were the only words I had, sir.”
“Sir?” Lavaux shook his head. “We’re peers, Keeper Greeve. A fact that saved your hide just now, if you remember.”
“Sorry. It’s all been rather… much.”
“Get used to it.” Lavaux fiddled with his wristpad, flicking through a series of notifications with growing irritation. “You kicked the hornet’s nest. You should be prepared for what flies out.”
“I only wanted to see the lost crew members rescued.”
“Your sister. You wanted to see Sanda Greeve rescued.”
Biran flushed as red as the recording symbol. “Yes, I make no excuses for it. But there’s no guarantee any of those green lights are her. I accept that, too.”
Lavaux glanced up from his pad, a perplexed look dancing across his features. “You believe those lights really are evac pods?”
“You said yourself that the director had ordered the jamming of their emergency beacon signals.”
“Yes. So why wouldn’t he have blocked out the lights?”
“The difficulty—”
“Is not so high as you would think.”
Lavaux studied him. Really studied him, the kind of eye-scraping scrutiny that made Biran’s skin crawl. “You believe in it all. Everything you said. It’s not maneuvering.”
“Of course I do. Of course it’s not—how could it be?”
“Oh my, Speaker Greeve.” He clucked his tongue against his teeth. “You are young.”
“You came to my defense. You must believe what I had to say.”
“You’ll find that I did not so much come to your defense as that, for a moment, our interests were aligned.”
“And that means?”
Lavaux sighed, tapped at his wristpad, and cocked his head to the side as he absorbed whatever information he found there. “I’m not from here, Speaker. Did you know that?”
“No, but I don’t see—”
“I come from the Ordinal system. Political powerhouse, center of the universe, all that nonsense. Where I come from, being sent to a backwater system like Ada—a dead-end system that cannot support more than one Casimir Gate—is a political punishment worse than death.”
Biran crossed his arms. “What did you do to get sent here?”
He grinned. “I requested the post, actually. I’m here only as long as I choose to be. My point is, your director is not here by choice. He, and his confidants—Hitton and the rest—grew up on this insignificant rock, and they’re old enough they won’t be transferred out even if Prime builds a gate in a nearby system that isn’t useless.
“You and your generation—you’re the next ones who have a shot at leaving this hole. They’ll die here. Unimportant, impotent. Just another name in the long annals of the Keepers. Important to the civilians, while alive, but ultimately not worth remembering. They’re jealous of you and your cohort, but they’re not stupid.
“They understand that Icarion’s dissent is a problem for them on a larger scale. So long as that little planet keeps kicking up a fuss and making them look bad, the people in the systems that matter will get annoyed with them for failing to contain the problem. I, currently, disagree with their methods of dealing with Icarion. My interests, temporarily, aligned with yours.
“If you learned one thing from that meeting, make it this—interests diverge. The director was once interested in making you his biggest and brightest. Now that you’ve embarrassed him, he’d like nothing more than to see you fall on your sword. My interests, too, may diverge in the future.”
“May I ask you a personal question?”
“You may.”
“If this system is such a pointless backwater, why did you request to come here?”
He burst into a smile. “Ah! You are paying attention. I was wondering if that whole experience had frozen your brain.”
Lavaux threw a convivial arm around Biran’s shoulders and steered him in the direction Biran hoped was the exit. “You’ve jumped headfirst into deep waters, my friend. It’s time you learned to swim with the sharks.”
“The director doesn’t frighten me.”
“Don’t lie. And he should. He should frighten me, too, but I’m too daft to be afraid half the time.”
“Why should he frighten you, if you’re able to escape to a better system at a moment’s notice?”
“Because he is uninterested.”
“In?”
“War, Speaker. War. For that is what Icarion’s declared, though the director drags his feet over the word. Insists on calling the military action a dissent, as if slapping a gentle word on reality will file off its sharper edges. Luckily for us all, security is not the director’s primary duty. It is this woman’s—”
Lavaux swung open a door and turned Biran to face inside. General Jessa Anford stood with her back to them as her fingertips danced over a map projected against the wall. The standard-issue Prime jumpsuit hugging her body revealed a thick sheet of muscle across her back. The twin orbital lines of the planet Ada and its Casimir Gate—and a tiny dot for Keep Station—spun in cyan across her shoulder blades, as if the general held the entire system up with the strength of her body, and her will.
She turned, appraised Biran with a glance, then looked to Lavaux without a flicker of expression. “Are you certain?”
“He is the Speaker.”
“Then sit. And welcome to the war room.”
She turned her back to them again and began her litany, speaking of coordinates and positions of both Icarion and Ada Prime asse
ts out in the system. Biran found a seat near the door while Lavaux cozied himself up as close as he could to the general. Biran tried to keep a low profile, but the others gathered in the room—Keeper Vladsen plus nine military officials—kept shooting him wary glances. Biran kept his trap shut and tapped notes on his wristpad, trying to make sense of what Anford was saying, too embarrassed to ask questions to catch himself up. He’d thrown enough wrenches in perfectly functional systems for the day.
“The green lights,” Anford said, snapping him out of his scramble to understand. “Appear to be decoys. My analysts have plotted their locations, velocities, and reversed those from the last known locations of our ships—and the current locations of the black boxes we know are broadcasting. The light distribution has some fudging, but it’s too regular. Buoys, we think, nothing Prime-originated.”
“The lights aren’t pods?” Biran asked, the words bursting forth before he’d had the chance to think them through all the way.
Jessa Anford turned her ice-blue, designer eyes, on him. Though she did not scowl, didn’t so much as twitch a corner of a lip outside the neutral position, Biran had never felt such disdain in his life.
“No, Speaker Greeve. They are not. And the beacons Director Olver jammed went offline last night. Our intelligence confirmed everything this morning just before your announcement to the contrary.”
“I—” All eyes in the room were on him, and while the general was careful enough to hide her displeasure, her colleagues didn’t bother. His stunt had severely compromised their position. Not only did he reveal data still being confirmed, he’d been wrong.
There were no green lights of evac pods blinking in the dark around Dralee.
“Why,” he changed tack, clearing his throat even as numb terror soaked through his every nerve, “would Icarion want us to believe otherwise?”
“To lure us there,” Anford said.
“An ambush?”
“No. That’s what Dralee was.”
The general turned from her glowing map and leaned both of her palms on the table in front of her, ash-blond hair cut into a long fringe hanging in a shaggy line around cheeks that, Biran just realized, were sallow with lack of sleep. The projector’s light cut across her face, carving deep shadows under her eyes.
“This first volley was a test. The Icarions have been working on a weapon, one capable of more than taking us by surprise. A planet-busting weapon. They’re not interested in ambushes anymore, Speaker Greeve. They seek our annihilation.”
And Biran had baited the trap for all of Ada.
He licked his lips. With everyone watching him, the pressure to earn his place at this table almost crushed the breath out of his chest.
“That would be suicide for them, as well,” he said carefully, letting his tone of voice sound confident, even though his palms sweat. “They cannot mean to cut themselves off from the rest of the universe. I understand past dialogues regarding the gate tariffs have broken down, but they have a bargaining chip now. The time might be right to offer diplomacy again.”
“You suggest we open negotiations while they have the upper hand?” Jessa asked. “They refused us before. I deem it highly unlikely they’ll be more receptive now.”
“They refused us because they had nothing to bring to the table to force our hand. Whether or not this weapon exists, they have our people. If you find our position is weak now, wait to see how weak it becomes once we tuck tail and refuse to even ask for the return of our soldiers.”
“You speak of the respect of the common citizen,” Vladsen said.
Biran pressed his palms against his thighs. “I do. Prime is rarely forced to do battle, and Ada has seen no serious conflict until Icarion’s dissent. We must have the support of our people. And that is the first thing we will lose if we do not return their heroes to them.”
“Heroes?” General Anford mused. She leaned back and crossed her arms over chest, shooting Vladsen and Lavaux a sideways glance. “Nice to hear someone else at this table has a healthy respect for our military.”
Biran curled his fingers until he crushed the fabric of his slacks beneath his hands. “I do not mean the word lightly. But as citizens of Prime it is easy to forget that our military is active in other ways than policing the gate shipping lines and protecting the knowledge of the Keepers. Your people”—he inclined his head to Anford and the members of her council—“are our first, and last, line of defense. Even in times of peace, risk remains. Those who sign up for your ranks do not do so for a UBI bonus. They do so to protect their friends and families. We must send a diplomatic convoy.”
Gotta look out for my little brother. He’d resented the sentiment at the time, had been desperate to break free of his older sister’s shadow. Now the ghost of her words, the day she’d signed her squiggly signature across the tablet to confirm her enlistment to the fleet, echoed through his mind. Clawed at his heart. He pushed them back.
“I believe you’re earnest,” Anford said. “And I also believe Lavaux knew what he was doing in recommending you for Speaker.”
Lavaux leaned back in his seat. “I’ve had a great deal of time to hone my instincts for certain personalities. But what if you are wrong, dear boy, and the convoy is denied treaty with our angry cousins on Icarion?”
“Then at least we’ll have tried.” Shit. Wrong thing to say. Anford’s light smile curled down. Lavaux’s gaze drifted to the door, bored.
“And the manner of their refusal will tell us something about their present state,” he added quickly.
Anford perked up, a slow smile returning to her lips. “Information. Now that’s what we need. You’ll have your convoy, Speaker Greeve.”
His fingers relaxed, a slow breath hissing between his teeth. “Thank you. You won’t regret giving me the opportunity.”
“But you won’t be on it.”
CHAPTER 15
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3771
TWENTY-ONE DAYS IS A LONG TIME TO STAY INSIDE
The ’lock hissed around her. FitFlex shivered against her skin, forming itself to the contours of her body and adjusting its internal pressure as she prepared to step out into space. Sanda had always had a love-hate relationship with this moment. The jumpsuit’s boa constrictor motion raised her pulse, made her itch to rip the thing off. But it was a small price to pay for the beauty she knew awaited her out there just beyond the ’lock’s exterior door.
“Your heart rate is registering quite high.” Bero’s voice filled her helmet.
“Normal for me, nothing to worry about.”
“It did not reach this high when you repaired the gasket. Are you sure you haven’t developed a pulmonary anomaly? Perhaps we should bring you back to the medibay for a scan.”
“Fixing the gasket gave me something to focus on. Don’t worry, Big B, you’ll get used to it. My heart will settle right down the moment I step outside, I promise.”
“If you insist.”
Bero didn’t sound convinced, but she didn’t really care. Just as long as he went through with the cycling and popped that door open, she was happy. More than happy, she was elated.
Yes, nerves tingled all along her spine and clenched her stomach. But, for the first time since she’d awoken in Bero’s medibay, she had control over her fate. She wasn’t a marooned passenger along for the ride. She was an active agent, reaching out into the universe and grasping what she could to ensure her survival.
This was the kind of thing she’d trained for in the military. This was the kind of thing she knew she was good at. Bero may be worried, but she wasn’t. She was bursting with excitement.
The hissing stopped; the ’lock door swung open. Sanda gripped a handle and pushed herself into empty space.
Dios, but it was beautiful. The view never failed to take her breath away. Smartscreen projections just didn’t do it justice. She turned down the HUD schematics laid over her vision with a controlled eye flick, rendering them near enough to transparent that they wouldn’t detrac
t from her view. Bero grumbled something about her cranking them down below safe parameters, but she ignored him. She was getting pretty good at ignoring Bero when he grumbled at her. She’d come to think of him as a well-meaning, albeit grumpy, older brother.
She told herself it wasn’t because she missed Biran. That her relationship with Bero had shaped that way naturally, all on its own. She almost believed it.
The star system splayed before her. Black so dark it appeared wet draped across her vision like silk. Bright points of stars, far and close, studded the view as diamonds, burning bright, sustaining life somewhere, perhaps. She’d never been great at spotting the inhabited systems from a distance.
The massive, russet curve of Kalcus hid her own star. As she pushed off into the emptiness, she let herself drift, trusting in the cable tethering her to Bero and the airjets in her lifepack. She turned to get a look at Bero, her new home and friend, from the outside.
She hadn’t expected him to be beautiful.
The result of Icarion research, she’d expected him to look like all their other experiments. Blunt, functional. Maybe painted with grey and orange, as was their government’s wont. But Bero was anything but a brute, anything but simple and pragmatic. Some Icarion engineer in the distant past had put a lot of love into Bero’s clean lines, into the sinuous fins of his radiators. Even the habs were constructed with an eye toward a sleek aesthetic—their corners curved, their bodies tucked behind the safety of Bero’s ramscoop.
The technology that created Bero had also led to the end of both of their worlds. But she couldn’t hate it. It had only been an idea, tested and put to use. The nature of that use had been Icarion’s doing. Not Bero’s. Not the idea’s.
“You are one fine-looking ship, my friend.”
“I… Thank you,” he stammered, making her laugh.
“Learn how to take a compliment. You’re in amazing shape, considering the time passed. I can’t see any serious external damage.” She hit the jets, rising above Bero, inspecting his body near the command deck. “I’d need to do a focused EVA to give you a full rundown, but at first glance you look solid. There’s some denting and paint scuffing by ’lock two, more than I’d expect for a blown hatch, but the hull’s integrity seems intact. Any spots you want me to get eyes on before I move to the debris?”
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