The Initiative: Book One of the Jannah Cycle

by D. Brumbley

  Larissa nodded and looked at her plate again. “Anna? Do you think…Could I have Cory’s communicator contact?”

  Anna smiled, since she figured that Larissa would want to talk to Cory sooner rather than later. “Of course, Larissa. I’m sure he would be glad to hear from you.”

  “I’ll start working on cleaning the southwest wing.” Larissa said after that, then looked at Logan again. “And we’ll need a large order from St. Louis for your wedding. Our food stores aren’t right for a party. The stores of alcohol either.”

  “We’re running out of alcohol?” Liam had a sudden note of panic in his voice.

  “Calm your tits, Liam. We’ll be fine.” Logan rolled his eyes before looking back at Larissa. “Whatever you think we’ll need, especially planning for…six to eight people from now on, instead of three or four. You can use my account. I’ve got plenty of surplus left from the first part of the year, just leave me enough for my usual fourth quarter. Should be more than enough for an order to St. Louis.”

  “I can take the truck out there this weekend.” Liam offered with a look at Brianne. “You’re free on Saturday, right?”

  “For you? Always, baby.” Brianne grinned and finished off the glass of wine in front of her. “Weddings are so much fun! I’m excited.” One of her hands snaked under the table and gripped his thigh. Brianne was head over heels for Liam in such a short time, and she was actually glad that he was willing to consider her even though he already had two girlfriends. She didn’t care about the other girls, and actually, she knew Rachel and liked her. As long as she got to spend time with Liam, she was happy.

  “Actually, I think Anna and I will take this trip.” Logan said quietly, rubbing at Anna’s shoulder to share their own secret as to why they would need to go to St. Louis. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on. And now that you’ve gotten started with the harvest processing, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your flow.”

  “Yeah, well, my flow is pretty annoyed with your flow right this second.” Liam glared, but he nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Margo’s got a couple little brothers who are always looking for some work, I’ll grab those two for a few days. You’re better at negotiating than I am anyway. I’ll have a final count of harvest for you by the time you leave to go to St. Louis, so you can go see the brokers and see what kind of magic trick you can pull off this year. Looks like it’s gonna be roughly a metric fuck-ton, though. I’ve never seen productivity this high.”

  “Hopefully it’ll be that good for us too.” Anna said about her family’s farm, but she realized after that when she said ‘us’ she should be thinking of her new family. Her and Logan. “I mean, my family. My dad is getting worse, so we’ll need extra funds to pay for his care.” She put a hand on top of Logan’s hand on her shoulder. “Do you think we can drive over there? They’ll want to make sure I’m still alive. A phone call is only so convincing.”

  “Yeah, we can head down there tonight.” He said immediately, leaning over to give her a quick kiss between bites of mashed potatoes. They had both been starving after the day they’d had of each other, but it was an excellent kind of starvation and exhaustion. “How sturdy is your bed? Still that old twin with the squeaky frame?” He grinned as he said so, and took another sip of his beer as he saw Liam and Larissa roll their eyes at him in unison out of the corner of his eye.

  “Yeah, still that old thing. I don’t think it can handle you and your bulk. Or how rough you are.” Anna said with a grin as Brianne giggled and Larissa let out a noise of disgust.

  “I’m leaving now.” Larissa got up from her chair and went to take her plate to the sink. “And I’m going to text Cory. This kind of talk is making me queasy.”

  “Not for long, it’s not.” Liam joined in on the laughter, and raised his beer to Larissa with a grin. “Give it a couple months of this supposed ‘work ethic’ Cory’s got, and you’ll feel differently.”

  Larissa turned red again and tossed a piece of ice from her water at Liam. “Shut up. You’re making it sound so dirty!” She walked over to Anna to get the number from her and glared at Liam again. “I’m beginning to wonder if you think about anything other than sex.”

  Liam sighed in contented amusement, not buckling at all under his sister’s criticisms. “Kids are so cute. They still think there’s something important in the world besides sex.” He shook his head and finished off his beer as everyone else in the room laughed and Larissa beat a hasty exit.

  9

  It was late by the time they reached the Prince farm, but she could see from the house lights that everyone was still awake except for the little girls. Anna hesitated to get out of the car, though, when she saw a car she didn’t recognize. There was a Jannah insignia on the side of the car, and her stomach dropped. Did someone show up to talk to her? She hadn’t even told her family yet. “Who the fuck is that?”

  Logan’s look had turned dark when he saw the car. “I guess they want an answer to the acceptance in person.” He sighed and looked over at her, clearly worried about the repercussions of someone from Jannah coming through to speak to her family without her present.

  “That’s not what the email said! You saw it!” She scrambled to get out of the car, because she was sure her family would be angry. More than angry. Furious. The news should have come from her, not some stranger. When Anna ran into the house and saw half her family sitting around the kitchen table, she was confused when she saw relief on their faces. “Dad? Ben?”

  “Anna. Come on in, baby girl, have a seat. Mr. Bickford.” Her father was in his usual seat at the head of the table, leaned back with his old, worn hands resting on the older, even more worn arms of the chair. Ben and Susan were off in a far corner of the room, leaning against part of the countertop. Cory and Danny were sitting to either side of their father as if to guard him, and the strangers were sitting across the long table from their father. “This is Mr. Emmanuel Garcia and Ms. Orisa…Kalu?” He hesitated a long time on the woman’s name, but he got a nod from her, so he must have pronounced it at least somewhat correctly. “They actually just arrived, you have good timing. They’d like to ask some questions about the crash, since the two of you were first on the scene afterward and the Reeves are in no position to comment on things right now.” It took a lot of effort for Joseph to get through the entire speech without coughing, but she could tell he was trying his best not to show any signs of sickness or weakness in front of the strangers, for all the good it did.

  Anna felt relief of her own when she heard that all they wanted to do was ask her some questions. As long as they didn’t mention her acceptance, she didn’t care what they asked her. “There isn’t much to talk about. We didn’t see much since we had to rush the Reeves to Doc Weber.” She went and sat down anyway, but only as long as Logan stayed beside her. “What, um, what does the crash have to do with Jannah?” She gestured toward the insignia on their uniforms and looked up into their faces.

  They were both clearly confused by her confusion, but the man cleared his throat and began anyway. “The arm that suffered structural failure was a piece of Station Nine, which is home to the Jannah Initiative’s headquarters. The majority of those who were in it when it fell were civilians assigned to other projects, but there were a few labs and offices on the arm with data specific to the Initiative. It’s been a difficult few days, for everyone.” The man had significant signs of strain on his face, but he was controlling his emotions as well as he could for the meeting. “Our people arrived at the crash site a few hours after it came down, but by then most of the wreckage had fallen in on itself and been destroyed in the fires. We had hoped that if there was any possibility of survivors, you two would have been the ones to see it.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She said quickly before she glanced over at Logan and back again at the strangers. “When I tried to see if anyone was alive, I cut my arm pretty bad and twisted my ankle. I lost a lot of blood, so I was out of it for a while. I don’t pay much attention
to the news anyway.” She looked down at her mostly-healed arm and her voice lowered almost instinctively. “I didn’t see anyone alive. What I saw was…the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Things from nightmares. I didn’t know people could die like that.”

  Logan took her hand and eyed both of the investigators coldly. “She’s right, it was hell. Or the closest thing to it I’ve ever seen. Looked like the arm came right down on one end and got itself pulverized through a few hundred meters of decks, like somebody crushing a mile-long beer can. There was a lot of debris around, bits and pieces of the station that had broken up on the way down, and a few pods with people in them. I don’t know if they were ships or meant for some kind of compacted sleeping compartments. The people I saw in them were mostly puddles of goo and broken bone. So no, I don’t think it’s likely that there were any survivors.”

  Anna shuddered when she remembered what she saw and then shook her head. “We didn’t see anything that would have made us think that the arm was connected to Jannah. Just a lot of dead people and busted up space station.”

  “So you didn’t see anything suspicious? There was a lot of equipment that has gone unaccounted for, but we know that it was likely all destroyed. We want to make sure everything that can be recovered, will be.” Ms. Kalu spoke up, but she looked just as tired and stressed as her partner. “We were hoping you would have some good news for us. This can set back our hopes of getting to Jannah soon.” She gave them a knowing look, but she didn’t say anything else.

  Logan jumped in and shook his head in vehemence before Anna had a chance to. “We went there with a pickup truck and some emergency supplies, and left with a truck full of wounded and dying. I didn’t show up with some kind of intent to commit technological espionage while my neighbor’s house was on fire.”

  “Can you give us a description of who else lives close to the crash site who might not have had your particular kind of charitable intentions?”

  “Sure, let me run down the list of my neighbors who I think would look in the sky, see a space station crash, and immediately think about how they can turn a profit off it.” His glare turned even colder. “Clearly you’re not from around here. We’re good people.”

  “Of course, Mr. Bickford. Please understand, we’re here to investigate everything that we can. It’s still unclear what caused the accident, exactly, though it has been called a tragic structural failure. Just in case, though, we want to make sure that we cover all avenues.” Ms. Kalu gave Logan a polite smile. “We want station Nine to be a safe place for all those involved with Jannah. Especially when we have a new group of people joining the Initiative soon.”

  Anna didn’t like the woman’s smile, since it revealed too much, and clearly the woman knew that Anna hadn’t told her family about her acceptance. It was like the woman enjoyed knowing that she could hurt Anna by revealing the news before she was ready. It was more than a little unsettling. “Look, we told you what we saw and what we know. It was brief and it was horrifying. You’d be better off moving on to your next location.”

  “I understand.” Garcia pushed himself up from his seat. “We’re very sorry for what you witnessed the other day, and the terror it must have put you through. Ms. Kalu and I were in our offices in St. Louis at the time, and the impact registered on seismometers even there. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be so close to such a tragedy.” He reached into a folder he’d been carrying and pulled out an embossed card with their names and the logo of the Jannah Initiative on it, together with a plethora of contact options. “Please reach out if anything comes to mind or if there’s anything at all we can do for you. We’ll be in the area for the next few days working with our crews at the crash site and visiting with others in the vicinity, before heading back to St. Louis this weekend.”

  Anna felt a chill run down her spine as she thought about seeing the pair when she and Logan went to St. Louis, but they would figure that out later. “We’ll let you know if there’s anything more, but don’t count on it.”

  Garcia nodded without breaking eye contact, and shook her hand and Logan’s before stepping back toward the door. “Thank you also for the tea and for your time, Mr. Prince.” They waved at Anna’s father on their way out, but nobody in the kitchen said a word or even breathed audibly until the car had backed away from the house and was on its way back to the main road.

  “No way those two are here just to ask questions.” Danny said to break the silence, standing by the window to watch the lights disappear in the distance. Danny was a nice kid most of the time, but he took more after Ben than Anna, and he had a mean and suspicious streak a mile wide when he got properly riled up. He turned around to look back at Logan and Anna, a tiny bit of suspicion on his face. “They really thought you had something of theirs. Otherwise they don’t look like the type that would come this far out of their way to ask questions.”

  Anna looked over at Logan as well but she shrugged when she looked back at her brother. She did have something of theirs, but she wondered if even Logan would remember she had taken it. Now that two people had come to question her about it, she was certain that it was probably valuable in one way or another. Since she wasn’t completely sure what to think about the Jannah Initiative, she wasn’t going to hand it over quickly. Maybe not even at all. Not until she felt like she had more answers. “I’m not sure what they think could be left after a crash like that.”

  “We saw the pictures.” Cory said as he came up and gave Anna a one-armed hug, gingerly, without asking much permission. He hadn’t been wearing his sling during the visit from the Jannah officials, but he held his arm against his chest to make sure he didn’t put himself through too much more pain. “I’m glad you’re okay. We felt it all the way down here, so I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like right next door to it.”

  “Logan was my shield.” She smiled quietly at Logan and looked over Cory in concern. “Are you alright? You can’t be all banged up when Larissa comes calling.”

  “Doc told me I’d be fine in a few days. She knows it’s harvest time, so she gave me the good stuff. It hurts like a cranky bitch, but I can already feel it healing. It’s weird.” Cory had never broken anything before, unlike Anna and Ben and most of the rest of the family, and it was his first experience with some of Doc Weber’s more potent solutions.

  “Won’t be the last time you need some of it, I’m sure.” Anna hugged Cory tighter and looked back at the rest of the family. “I’m glad you’re all still awake, even though I’m not happy about the reason. I didn’t expect to see Jannah officials when we got here.”

  “Neither did we. Half of us were already on our way to bed.” Ben said with a suspicious look back and forth between her and Logan. “They hadn’t been here long when you got in. They were mostly asking questions about you. Finding ways not to answer them was getting interesting.”

  “I’ll worry about them if they come around again.” Anna said with a dismissive wave. “We have news for you all, Logan and I.” She actually smiled in spite of how angry she still was about the Initiative officials sniffing around her home.

  Her father stood on the far end of the table and raised an eyebrow at them both, looking back and forth between them in confusion. “Do you?”

  Anna didn’t know if Logan had intended to ask her father for permission, but she didn’t have the patience to wait. She wanted to tell everyone. She smiled even brighter as she looked around. “Logan and I are getting married next weekend.”

  Stunned silence fell on the room for a solid ten seconds after that announcement, as Cory and Ben and Susan and Danny looked back and forth at each other and at the two of them in shock. Their father broke the silence of the room by launching into a brief coughing fit, steadying himself on the table as he worked it out of his lungs and looked back up at the two of them. “I’m sorry, I’m going to need to hear that one more time.”

  Her first reaction was to rush to her father to make sure he was alright, and once s
he was close enough to put her hand on his arm, she finally repeated herself. “I said I’m getting married. To Logan. Next weekend.”

  He managed to stand up mostly on his own, and he looked back and forth between the two of them with a smile that he couldn’t hide. He put an arm around Anna’s shoulders to hold her close, and playfully glared over at Logan. “Well what if I don’t think he’s good enough for you?”

  “I’d say you’re a good judge of character.” Logan agreed with a smile from across the room.

  Anna rolled her eyes, but she kissed her father’s cheek. “Even if he wasn’t, though he is, I’d still want to marry him. I love him.” She looked over at Logan as she said it, since she never wanted to pass up a chance to let him know.

  “And even if she didn’t want to, I’d have to steal her and take her back by force.” Logan said with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Just the way it’s gotta be. But I love her too, Mr. Prince.” Everyone in the room knew Logan, had known him for either their entire lives or since Logan himself was an infant. If he said something, he meant it. “Took us a while to get out of our own way to figure it out, both of us, but there’s nothing like the sky quite literally caving in on you to make you say everything that’s on your mind, no matter how crazy it sounds. I love her, and I hope to have your blessing on it.”

  Joseph didn’t want to make either of them suffer through waiting for his approval after everything else they’d been through in the last few days. “She makes her own choices, so if you’re it, then god bless and god help you. Treat her half as well as your old man did your mother and I’ll have nothing sour to say about it.”

  Anna squeezed her father’s arm gently and she kissed his cheek again. “I bet you thought you’d never get rid of me, huh?” She laughed softly before her smile faded slightly. It was more and more likely by the time she actually got around to having a baby that he wouldn’t be alive to see it. At the very least, though, he would be able to see her get married.