Oath Breaker (Death of Empire Book 1)

by A. B. Keuser

  The air filled into the lock slowly, and Si changed the mix in his helmet to ward of decompression sickness, breathing the less pleasant mix as deeply as he could. Yella’s helmet illumination switched of and Osiris watched her, his eyes searching for some sign of what she thought in the darkness behind the visor.

  When the interior hatch opened with the popping of its seal, he stood first and offered a hand to help her up, she refused it.

  As she stepped over the hatch tread into the exigency room she depressurized her suit and clicked the release for the helmet. Osiris was out the airlock right behind her, peeling off his marshmallow layer as quickly as possible.

  “Why is the tracker still attached?”

  Osiris hung up his suit and turned back to look at Dani as she pulled the rubbery second skin gloves from her hands and freed her boots. “It requires a delicate touch. How do the skies look?”

  “There is nothing on my sensors to indicate that they’ve begun their retrieval. Engineer Gloscht has been asking for you, Danielle.”

  “What now? Don’t tell me you’ve got another dead body hidden away in your ‘underpinnings.’”

  “Not as of yet.”

  He released the pressure seal that connected the upper and lower portions of his suit and pulled the heavy torso covering over his head. Catching Danielle’s quick,if brief, appraisal, he chuckled lightly.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t give José any ideas. I’m allowed to look, but don’t expect me to touch.”

  “Your mother would be appalled.”

  Yella shrugged.

  “So, catch me up to speed, Yella. What’s happened since I went into the popsicle maker?”

  She flinched, looking away from him as she pulled the crisp white pants to her hips and slowly buttoned them. “That is a sad story, Si. One I’m not in the mood to tell right now. Maybe Obie can prep you a tablet that has all the important historical points on it.”

  He buttoned his shirt, watching her turn sullenly toward hers, crumpled on the bench.

  “What about the Heart-Man? Is he still slinging ink?”

  She looked down to the black wings across her chest. “I think so, haven’t talked to him in five years, maybe more. He’s still on Pääoma, I think.” He noted the way her eyes flickered to his left forearm.

  They finished dressing in silence, and he waited as she checked the corridors.

  The walk to the elevator included a pause at every corner, and Osiris couldn’t help but laugh. “I have this odd feeling, like you’re trying to hide me from your father.”

  “He thought you’d abandoned everyone.” She pursed her lips and he had a feeling she’d thought so too. “Don’t worry, he forgave you in the end. Who knows, if he was still around, he might be in the same boat as José.”

  “I doubt that.” Osiris pressed gently at the holes left in his arms from the cryo unit, they itched like crazy.

  “Yeah, me too.” A small smile crept to her lips as she said it, and Osiris had to wonder if the memory that came to mind for him was floating through hers.

  It felt like he’d been there yesterday, sun shining down on Daniel’s backyard… stupid things spouting from his mouth.

  “Yella, I—”

  The door opened and yelling filled the lift as a gangly, brown-haired boy stepped in throwing his hands in the air in frustration.

  “Dani! I’ve been looking all over.” His eyes turned from Dani to Osiris and his jaw dropped.

  Dani stepped in front of him, and Si almost laughed at the seemingly protective stance. “Stugg, this is Os—”

  “Fuck me, everyone knows who that bastard is.”

  Dani looked at him, the panic in her eyes fading as she pressed her lips together. “Language. I don’t care what you say when the engines drown you out. In normal company, you’ll behave.” She turned back to him.

  “This is Steben Glosht, one of our engineers. You’ll have to excuse him, he forgets himself when he’s nervous,” Yella said, looking toward the diminutive boy with a glare that could have cracked glass.

  Osiris would not call him a man. He wasn’t nearly old enough for that, and besides, men should wash more. Only decades under a political magnifying glass kept him from wrinkling his nose in disgust and sending the boy for a shower. There was no name for the smell.

  “Everybody just calls me Stugg.” He held out his hand to Osiris, “Sorry about that.”

  As he shook the kid’s hand, Si knew they were not going to get along. “How old are you?”

  “I’m nearly sixteen. But don’t worry, I’m handy. With an automated ship, my job is easy as anything.”

  Osiris refrained from mentioning that fifteen-year-old boys should be in school, not stealing ships. He forced a smile instead, and left the talking to Yella.

  Stugg glared at him. “How are you—”

  Yella cut him off. “That doesn’t matter. What’s up?” Yella asked, taking a step away from the kid.

  He turned from Si and started talking quickly. “There’s a power suck. Gilly and I both confirmed it. Coming from Deck Ten. Lyz won’t let us down there to check on it. I was hoping to get your override to go down there and shut down whatever it is. If those junkers send someone after us….”

  “Lyz is handling that. It’s not something we can shut off. Even if we tried, the ship wouldn’t allow it. Get back to the engine room and do what you need to do, without pissing the Breaker off.”

  As he stepped off the lift at deck eight, he blathered unintelligibly into the glaring cacophony.

  “Shouldn’t he be in school?” Si asked, turning back to Yella as the doors closed.

  “Put him in school, he just runs away.” Yella shrugged. “He does his job decent and he’s loyal. Gilroy takes care of him.”

  “There’s something strange in the way he looks at you.”

  “Stugg’s just a boy with a crush. It’s harmless.”

  Osiris didn’t think so. “He’s too young to be up here, he should be back at home with his mother.”

  “His mother is a whore who sold him to an ore miner. If he hadn’t been such a quick learner, he’d still be in those mines, or more likely dead.”

  “Lots of women sold their sons during the war. That doesn’t make them whores.”

  “True,” Yella said, “but Geri is. Unless things have changed. And she didn’t send him off to be part of the military, she traded him for the highest price.” She stopped. “Don’t get me wrong, they’ve since seen each other and made amends. I’ve even met the woman, she’s not a bad person, but a brothel is no place for a fifteen-year-old boy, and she doesn’t have the income to keep him even if it was.”

  “It might be a better place than here.” Si clenched his teeth to keep from saying more.

  Obie deposited them on deck three and Dani wove her way through the corridor to his cabin’s door. “I doubt we’re going to see any contact from the junkers just yet, and spacing always makes me feel like a million mites are crawling over my skin. I’m going to take a shower. Please don’t leave the room while I’m gone. I don’t want anyone else finding out about you just yet.”

  “Who’s to say Stugg’s not going to get chatty?”

  “You’re working under the assumption anyone will believe him? Besides, Gilroy’s the only one he should have any time with right now, and I’m not worried about him.”

  “Yella, for what it’s worth… I do care about what’s happened.” He opened his quarter’s door for her. “José keeps trying to tell me something about… Any time I ask about Daniel he starts, but—”

  “We don’t talk about the past.” She swallowed and he saw the tears rimming her eyes. “If I could forget completely…. No. I wouldn’t. Someone needs to pay for what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “You disappeared and the worlds went to shit. Don’t burden yourself with the consequences of Obie’s actions.”

  “I need to know.”

  She clenched her jaw a
nd moved to the unopened bag in the corner. As she flipped it open, her hand went to a thick envelope tucked between a photo album and a tablet. Yanking it free, her hand ran over the plastic covering pensively before she tossed it to him. “That’s everything you never wanted to know about what happened to the Cholla family. I hope it doesn’t give you nightmares. I still need you around to deal with her.” She nodded to the ceiling. “Not to mention your crew if they end up being defrosted.”

  “Is it that bad?” He held the thick file in his hand, wondering what could be in it that would account for the heft.

  She paused, her face unreadable. “It could have been worse… but not much.”

  She punched open the door to the lav and looked back at him, her eyes holding a heavy mixture of regret and resignation.

  “Yella, I didn’t know.”

  “I stopped blaming you when you died, Si. What’s in that file… it’s the Pääom’s fault. Even if you were the catalyst, you’re not the one who…” She breathed out sharply and looked to the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “Read it and you’ll know what I mean. I could recite it to you, but frankly, talking about it only makes me want to break things… people”

  “If I can, I will keep you safe.”

  “It’s been fifteen years. I’ve learned how to take care of myself. Let me worry about me. You worry about Oath Breaker.”

  “I really don’t think she—”

  “She shoved you in a cryonic tube, Si. She killed Mandall. You’ve got some catching up to do and I don’t know if you’re a crier, so I’m going to leave you to look through it alone. It’s a sad tale that hasn’t found a happy ending yet, and based on what I remember about you and dad… you might want to grab a tissue.”

  He started to say something, but she cut him off. “I’ve lived with this for the past decade. I’ll be honest with you, it sucks. There’s a lot in there about me too. You want to know how I tick? Read the damn file.”

  He looked down to the envelope in his hands. “Will it tell me why you’re so mad at me?”

  “No. What’s in that file… I forgave you for that the minute I gave up hope you were alive.”

  “Then why?”

  She stared back at him, her lips parting, briefly, and he remembered the warmth of his mouth on hers.

  “I don’t have an answer you want to hear yet.”

  She punched the door access panel and escaped into the bathroom without giving him one he didn’t.

  Osiris set the file down and changed out of regulation dress. It felt awkward and out of place to be wearing the uniform of a fleet long dead.

  When he sat back down, he opened the envelope and slid out a stack of files.

  CHOLLA, DANIEL J. REDACTED/DECEASED

  CHOLLA, BARRIE H. REDACTED/DECEASED

  CHOLLA, TYRELL D. REDACTED/DECEASED

  CHOLLA, HOLLY G. DECEASED

  CHOLLA, JOSÉ T. LAST KNOWN LOC: KASVI

  Si pulled the last file from the bottom. The information immediately available on its cover stole his breath. He glanced at the closed door and questioned how she’d managed to pull these files, and why their copies were burned from the Pääom system files.

  CHOLLA, DANIELLE B. REDACTED/LAST KNOWN LOC: PÄÄOM SANATORIUM#306

  The first page of the file held a picture, somewhere between the two versions of her he knew. The picture claimed she was twenty-nine. Next to it, her vitals were spelled out followed by three lines he’d never seen in a Pääom personnel file:

  Contamination status: Redacted.

  Closest relation: Daniel Cholla Barrie Cholla Terminated

  Evaluation status: Viable, nonthreat, Dangerous (SOS)

  He couldn’t imagine what she’d done before stealing the files to get herself a Shoot on Sight tag.

  He paged through the file, noting its lack of data. Whoever Yella was, the Pääom hadn’t know much about her.

  He’d read through her mother and father’s files by the time she returned from the lav, her hair wet, but still wearing the same clothes. A bead of water ran down her crow’s head and he tried not to ogle its path.

  “Up to speed?”

  “More than I was, but not by much.” He slid the files back into the envelope. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. What does ‘Contamination Status: Redacted’ mean?”

  “The redaction is their method of population control.” She toweled at her hair as though it was going to run off on her.

  “And you’ve been redacted?” The look on her face as he asked it told him more than he needed to know about the “redaction”.

  “Listen, I really don’t want to talk about how they turned me into a genetic dead end. I’ve dealt with it in my own way, I’m okay with everything but the lack of choice. I would not want to bring a kid into this hell.”

  “Yella, I’m just trying to understand.”

  “You want to hear what a shithole the inner planets have become? They’re pristine, almost paradise. Except that only one member of your family is ever allowed to reproduce. When that law was passed, every family had to show up at the medical centers and go through a long round of tests. In the end, they tell you who gets what. My parents, my brother and I were redacted. I don’t know if you got to my little sister’s file, but Holly was the one they chose as having the optimum chance of bearing children useful to the Pääom.

  “Our family complied, the only other option was the camps or reassignment to Ruma. And when Holly was mowed down by Pääom gunfire as protesters took over the building where she worked… she was an innocent bystander, trying to get away from the conflict. When she died our family was punished for that compliance. They didn’t feel Holly’s death was enough reason for us to grieve.

  “Tyrell was drafted, died on the front after a month—one of his friends made it back missing half of his appendages, he gave us the hint that Tyrell’s death was due mostly to the fact that they had him running no man’s land as a gun scavenger. They didn’t even give him a full shield. Minimal chest shielding didn’t save him from a sniper’s head shot.

  “In the end I think my parents had it easiest. A medical officer showed up one night and informed them that their annual physicals had shown a need for antibiotics, once again they complied. They died in their sleep that night. The Pääom declared it suicide and dumped them in a nameless grave.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  I was sent to their sanitarium to ensure that I wasn’t unstable….” She trailed off closing her eyes and wincing at a memory he knew she wouldn’t share. “I became a pet project for an official who thought breaking Osiris Bowlin’s …whatever I awas was a game. Lyz kept me sane… she was in the next cell. Sometimes I wonder if they didn’t hurt her in an attempt to torture me. When I finally got away—Lyz and I broke out—there was nothing left for either of us.”

  She took the envelope from where it rested on the table and stowed it back in her bag. “What happened after that is another story just as sad and best saved for a different time. José should be here soon. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let him know I let you read that. He’s only read part of it. He doesn’t know about my redaction, and I don’t intend for him to find out. He’s still working through a lot of his own grief.”

  “Yella—”

  “As dad used to say ‘shit happens, you get past it, or you wind up sunk to your chin.’ I’ve gotten over it. But dealing with José’s reaction is not something I want to add to my pile right now.”

  “I won’t say a word.” He leaned forward as she sat to adjust one of the buckles on her boot. “Does anyone else know?”

  “Lyz knows most of it. We don’t talk about it, but she has a harder time with it than I do. Mopeña doesn’t know her story, and I don’t want to find out what he’d do if he did. He’s already made it clear he’d enlist with you if you decide to take them on again. I think if he knew half of what Lyz went through he’d kill every living soul on Pääoma.”

  Osiris closed his eyes an
d let out a long sigh. He had yet to meet either Lyz or Mopeña but he had a very good idea of what Mopeña might do. “Is there’s no way to reverse it?”

  She looked at him like he’d slapped her. “If there is, I don’t want it. There are three people I worry about, I don’t need any more.”

  “Why are you SOS?”

  A heavy knock echoed off the door and Dani stood to answer it. “Thank God, I thought this was going to turn into the hour of Yella’s failings.”

  Si clenched his jaw and forced himself to stay seated. “That’s not fair.”

  The door slid open as Yella pressed the pad next to it and José stepped in, smile ear to ear as always. “Sorry to see I’m not interrupting.”

  Yella sat down as far from Si as possible and motioned her uncle toward a chair. “We went out and checked on the tracker. Good news: we haven’t had any contact, or Willy would be raising hell.”

  “Bad news?” José asked.

  “It’s a shielded azotochitli.”

  “Ah, so you need my good old know-how.” José’s eyes traveled from Si to the unrumpled bed and Si caught the momentary disappointment that contorted his features. “Sure thing, I’ll suit up and head out once I finish checking on some strange readings from the bio units. Lyz asked me down there just before I got here… and well, I think that keeping those two on ice is something that needs to take priority at the moment. The junkers will have to work out a plan to get us back, and I have a feeling the Breaker can take care of any old pirate.”

  “Most of her weapons won’t work on their own,” Osiris said.

  “Well then I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got Goo.” José smiled at him, but the statement didn’t inspire as much faith as José seemed to think it should. Si looked to Dani for an explanation.

  “Kiori Tengu. She’s our weapons specialist.”

  “She’s small, and mildly psychotic.” José said

  Dani laughed sharply. “Aren’t we all? But if there’s anyone you want to have your back when the only weapon available to you is a stack of paper, she’s it. If she doesn’t know how to work Obie’s weapons systems by now, they’re irrevocably broken.”