Paragon

by Autumn Kalquist

  His hands shook as he ran them through his hair, pushing the long dark strands out of his face. A heavy weight grew in his chest and made it hard to breathe. He’d helped airlock colonists before. But never like this, in secret. And never a pregnant girl, though the pregnancy had been defective anyway. Why did she have to commit treason? Why did she force them to airlock her?

  Tadeo tried to banish her from his mind. He’d followed the laws, done what was necessary. If he couldn’t handle this, how would he ever lead his own ship?

  Willing his legs to strengthen, he pushed away from the wall. What he wouldn’t give for just a little grimp right now. It’d kill his roiling emotions, deaden his senses. But he’d get addicted again, and nothing was worth that.

  The corridors were silent, eerie in the low light as he made his way to the command level lounge.

  Chief Petroff was waiting for him there—a silent, heavy shadow in the dim light. He glanced up and down the empty corridor, then focused on Tadeo. “What took so long? Did you run into any problems?”

  Tadeo straightened his shoulders under the scrutiny. He’d accidentally used Dritan’s shift card, but Chief didn’t need to know that. “Emergency crew passed me by, but I wasn’t seen, sir.”

  “Good. Everything went down the chutes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The chief led Tadeo down several corridors, and despite the dim light, everything gleamed brighter the further they went. They were heading to the executive living quarters, where the president, board, and crew families lived. Tadeo lived on command level, but his quarters weren’t this new or this big. He hadn’t been in this sector in years, not since he and his mother had visited the president. The doors got further apart as the quarters grew in size, until they reached double doors at the end of the final corridor.

  When Chief knocked, the doors opened immediately, and Nyssa Sorenson stepped into the frame. She’d taken off the suit she’d worn earlier and had exchanged it for a loose-fitting, white leisure jumpsuit. Her blond hair was usually tied back in a severe bun, but now it hung in waves around her lined face, softening it, making her look far younger than her forty-five years. And making Tadeo feel like the child he’d been the last time he was here.

  But when her pale blue eyes met his, suddenly Tadeo could think of only one word to describe her.

  Ruthless.

  She’d been the one to order Era’s death. And McGill’s. She did what needed to be done. Before tonight, he’d been a loyal member of the president’s guard, the favored son of a deka captain, only addressing Nyssa in passing. But now? The entire dynamic between them had changed. What they’d all done seemed to weigh heavily in the charged silence—as if the recycled air would be poisoned by deeds better left unspoken.

  “Chief, wait outside,” Nyssa finally said, her voice low. “Come in, Lieutenant Raines.”

  Tadeo stole an uneasy glance at Petroff, and the chief narrowed his eyes at Tadeo, displeased. But he crossed his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall to wait.

  Tadeo stepped into the president’s quarters, and the doors slid closed behind them. Nyssa walked away, toward her galley nook, and got out metal glasses and a bottle of quin liquor.

  As she poured the liquid, Tadeo glanced around. Her quarters were like the captain’s quarters aboard the Meso, only larger. Like home. Despite the tension, his muscles relaxed involuntarily. The space gleamed with new metal panels on every wall. It was decorated with plush couches and well-lit by bright lume bars. A strip of glasstex ran the length of the far wall, revealing dark space beyond, and Tadeo knew that if you turned out all the lights, sometimes you could see the other ships in the fleet.

  There were ten ships out there, all smaller than the flagship Paragon, but all identical—vast cities of glinting metal. Inside each deka, the machinery and colonists worked hard to produce supplies for the fleet. Especially for the Paragon, which carried the greatest number of colonists.

  But it was the stars he’d stared at most as they’d journeyed. Any one of them might nurture life on a new Earth they hadn’t yet discovered.

  Would anyone look out a strip of glasstex this shift and see Era’s body? His stomach turned, and he ripped his eyes from the glass. He took a deep breath as Nyssa carried the drinks over, and he inhaled the clean, soothing scent of the room. Several hydropods were pushed up against the walls, their greens filling the air with the sweet smell of life, mingling with the lavender scent of executive standard soap.

  Nyssa handed him a cup and sat down on one of the deep blue couches. “You may sit,” she said, gesturing to the couch on the other side of a low, metal table.

  Tadeo walked to the couch and sank into the soft upholstery.

  Nyssa leaned back on the other couch and took a sip of her drink. “Everything went smoothly, I trust?”

  His suit felt as though it tightened around every pore in his body, suffocating him. Everything had gone smoothly, except when he’d used Dritan’s shift card. He should tell her, but… “Yes. We followed your orders.”

  “Good,” she said, her expression veiled. “No one must know the girl tampered with the archives—or anything about what happened tonight.”

  “I understand… Madame President.” Tadeo took a sip of his drink, feeling awkward. The liquid burned a trail down his throat.

  “We can drop the formalities in here, Tadeo. Call me Nyssa.”

  Tadeo nodded, unable to speak.

  “Did the traitor say anything else to you tonight?”

  He furrowed his brow. He didn’t want to think of this, relive it again already. He swallowed more of his drink, and a fire lit up in his stomach. “What do you mean?”

  The president lifted a brow. “Did she say anything that sounded like treason to you? Anything suspicious?”

  “No. She… She denied she committed a crime.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She was hysterical. She started saying…” Tadeo’s throat thickened. Whatever the traitor said was irrelevant, wasn’t it? “She said the Defect was a lie.”

  “She would have said anything to save herself.” Nyssa leaned forward, and her blue eyes locked onto his. “It had to be done this way. She erased files we needed to settle on a new Earth. That’s a crime that cannot be forgiven.”

  Tadeo slowly nodded. “I understand.”

  Era deserved her punishment. Nyssa made the hard choices when they needed to be made, which was what good leaders did—what his mother did. Which was what he would do as a leader.

  “I’ve always trusted you and your mother. But you truly proved your loyalty tonight.” Nyssa stood and walked over to the glasstex, cup in hand. She gazed out at the depths of space. “These are hard times. We don’t know who we can trust.”

  Tadeo grunted a reply and took another sip, wishing this clandestine meeting were over.

  After a moment, she turned to face him. “I believe Era may have been working with other traitors.”

  Tadeo’s pulse quickened, and he sat up straight. “More traitors on the Paragon?”

  “Yes. Era confessed knowledge that others work against us. But she didn’t have names.”

  Tadeo set his cup down on the table. “You think traitors could be planning more attacks here… like the hull breach?” Or like the attack on Tesmee? He didn’t say it but glanced toward the doors at the far end of the room. Tesmee would be asleep in one of those cubics.

  Nyssa shook her head. “We were unable to get that information. But Era’s husband did work down in the sublevels with the terrorists. Perhaps he recruited Era to his cause.”

  “But… wasn’t Dritan Corinth the one who named the terrorists—the one who turned them in? I thought he was absolved.”

  “Yes. But perhaps we were wrong about him.”

  “What about the rest of his crew—and the crews we sent to Soren?”

  Nyssa took a deep breath and slowly traced the infinity symbol engraved on the glass with one finger. It matched the one on her
wrist perfectly. “We investigated every person the terrorists worked with. And every one of them is dead. I thought the problem had been taken care of. Clearly it has not. We arrested some other sublevel workers for speaking treason, but they haven’t given us any leads. They’ll be heading down to Soren before first shift on the transport.”

  Since they’d airlocked the traitors, they’d gotten more reports of colonists speaking treason. The brig was filling up with offenders. Pretty soon, they’d run out of space. The president was smart. Sending them to Soren would shut them up and serve as a warning to the rest.

  “We need to continue our search for traitors,” Nyssa said, her voice strong. She walked back over to the couch and sat down. “We must solve this problem. Permanently.”

  Tadeo’s heart rate quickened, and he leaned toward her. “Tell me what I need to do.”

  Nyssa’s mouth turned up a little. “I’m lucky to have you in my guard, Tadeo. I knew I could trust you to take care of this. I believe Era may have stolen data from the archives and hidden it somewhere for the other traitors to find. And if she did, I need you to find it before her co-conspirators do.”

  Tadeo worked his jaw. “If she did, I’ll find it. But… what exactly am I looking for?”

  “A cube, I think, maybe more than one cube. Chief has her records. You will have access to anything you need.” Nyssa pursed her lips. “Choose another guard you trust, and search every sector Era frequented. Begin on first shift, and try not to draw attention to yourself. Search her cubic first. If you don’t find anything, search every inch of the Repository. Then move on to any other places Era visited in the past few weeks.”

  “And what about the head archivist? Is she under suspicion?”

  “Not at this time, no. But we’ll be watching her.”

  “What should I tell her?”

  “You just tell her and everyone else that it’s a confidential investigation regarding Era’s suicide.”

  A whoosh sounded from the far wall, and Tadeo turned, rigid. Tesmee stepped out of a darkened cubic wearing a loose-fitting, white leisure suit like Nyssa’s. Her earth-Asian features were nothing like Nyssa’s—she looked just like her father. She lifted a thin wrist to shield her eyes from the bright light of the lume bars.

  “Mother? Who are you talking… to?” Her dark eyes widened as noticed Tadeo, and she smoothed back her sleep-tousled hair.

  “Tesmee,” Nyssa said. “Get back in your cubic. Now.”

  Tesmee waved at Tadeo, obviously trying to show off the tear-shaped tattoo on her wrist, like usual. It was as if she wanted to remind him she was a fourteen-year-old half now and not the child of ten she’d been when he’d first arrived.

  “Lieutenant Raines. I didn’t know you were stopping by.” She glanced up at the lume bars, still at half-light, clearly confused. “Wait. What shift is it?”

  “Get back in your cubic.” Nyssa stood up. “I’ll be in to talk with you in a minute.”

  Tesmee looked like she wanted to argue, but she crossed her arms and pouted instead, looking like a kid in caretaker sector. Nyssa stared her down, and Tesmee finally relented, turning heel and heading back into her cubic. The door slid shut behind her.

  Ever since Tesmee’s father had died in a mysterious transport accident, Nyssa never really let her off command level. And since a terrorist had just tried to kill Tesmee, her confinement had only grown more restrictive. No wonder she didn’t know what shift it was. Tadeo would go insane if someone kept him locked away like that.

  Nyssa came around to him and rested a hand on his sleeve. “I promised your mother I’d allow you to contact her on the private bridge comm. You have my permission to access it. Once all of this is over.”

  “I—”

  “We have much to discuss, but now is not the time.” She guided him back to the door and opened it.

  Chief stood in the corridor, arms still crossed. “It’s all clear,” he said.

  “The second you find anything like what I described,” Nyssa said to Tadeo, “bring it straight to me or Chief Petroff.”

  “I will, Madame President.”

  Air.

  Dritan sucked in a breath and coughed. He lurched to the side, and pain shot through him. His right arm didn't work like it should, didn't feel normal. He fumbled in his suit for an emergency glow bar and pulled it out, shaking it until it illuminated his surroundings.

  Rock, all around. A bloodied arm, crushed and disembodied under a large boulder next to him. Another, up ahead, in the shadows. More blood, closer. Guts trailing from a dead man.

  Dritan’s empty stomach heaved, and he collapsed against a jagged rock wall, the scene blurring before him. What was I looking for?

  He glanced down. His mask lay beside him, crumpled—empty—oxygen packs next to it. He'd used up all his oxygen. Spots of light drifted across the packs, and he shook his head.

  You need air, Dritan. Find air.

  “Era?” Dritan sat up straighter. A weight settled in him, a terrible sense that he couldn’t save them both from this.

  No. He was on Soren. Era was safe. Up on the Paragon.

  And he was suffocating.

  He tucked his mask and canteen into his work belt and staggered toward the figure to his right. Blinding pain coursed through his injured arm, and he cried out. He stopped, panting.

  The air's bad, he heard Era say.

  Dritan shook his head and ground his teeth against the pain as he dragged himself over the sharp rocks. He was hallucinating as the poisonous air stole his life away. He had to find an oxygen pack. But there was barely enough room to crawl, and the rock walls seemed to grow closer as he moved.

  He raised his glow bar, casting a faint blue light over his immediate area. Two of his crew mates lay beneath an enormous rock, thick, viscous blood pooled beneath them, their limbs splayed at awkward angles. Pricks of light danced across Dritan’s vision as he edged around the bodies.

  Oxygen, his Era hallucination insisted again.

  “Oxygen.” His heart thudded against his chest, and he gasped, trying to suck in air. He moved closer to the crushed bodies and searched the twisted limbs for signs of a work belt. There. One still had a few oxygen packs and a helio.

  As he pulled the packs and helio from the belt, his trembling fingertips touched a cold white length of bone jutting from the man’s torso. He shuddered, and his world slid toward the black nothing of space.

  Air.

  The darkness wasn’t his glow bar dying. He was dying. He blinked against the black and rushed to twist a new oxygen pack onto his mask. He inhaled. Once, twice, three times he breathed in the metallic taste of the liquid-packed oxygen. Soon the spots of light dancing across his mangled crew faded. He tried to survey the scene, but his glow bar barely lit two feet in front of him. He picked up the helio. Please work.

  He tapped the cool, metal sphere, and it floated into the air and brightened, its yellow glow warmer than the cool sun Soren orbited. The helio illuminated a wider space, allowing him to make his way around the fallen debris. Was he the only one left? Memories tried to surface in Dritan’s mind, but everything was foggy, disjointed.

  Then he caught sight of another body, half buried in scree. A woman, her bloodied white-blond hair matted to her head. Janet Lanar. A fellow sub from the old Paragon crew. She had a mask on, but her oxygen pack was flat, nearly empty. Was it a trick of the light, or was her chest still moving? He made his way to her, wincing against the pain in his arm, and crouched before her.

  “Jan.” He replaced her oxygen pack with unsteady hands. “Jan, can you hear me?”

  Her eyelids fluttered, and he let out a breath. He used his good arm to pull the lightweight rocks off her body, then shook her again. This time, she let out a moan.

  Two survivors. Dritan sat back on his heels and took a few more breaths. His mind began to clear as he struggled to make sense of it all, fought to remember how long they’d been trapped down here. He inhaled again, taking less oxygen this t
ime.

  Jan finally opened her eyes, and Dritan offered her his good arm to help her sit up. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I… I don’t think anything’s broken,” Jan said, her voice muffled by the mask. “Is anyone else…?”

  Dritan shook his head, and Jan’s face darkened.

  “I thought I was done for in that last quake,” she said. “How’d you survive? I guess those guys you knew from the London were right. You got some kinda lucky gene.”

  Lucky.

  Dritan lifted his canteen from his belt and shook it. There was a little water left. He unscrewed the lid with one shaking hand and gave it to Jan. She lifted her mask to sip it, and he did the same.

  “I don’t remember…” he said.

  Then everything came rushing back—each moment outlined in his mind as surely being his last.

  They were expanding the subcity on Soren, just like Era had thought, and he’d been ordered to help clear tunnels for a new sector. Forty men and women—five full crews—loaded into rockcrawlers and were dropped off over a mile outside the main subcity.

  They placed a charge near the end of the massive cavern. It should have blown a small hole in the rock, but instead… something went very wrong. The explosion was bigger than they planned. There were screams, so many screams. Dritan fell beneath the rubble, dazed, sounds of the dying echoing off the high ceiling. Then the cavern collapsed, trapping them all.

  But there were a few survivors, and they worked together to find the way to the exit that led back up to the poisonous surface. Then, one of the many quakes that plagued the planet had brought down even more rock.

  He reached a hand to his head, and blood came away on his fingertips. A small gash. He was injured, but alive at least. The others…

  “It’s definitely been more than forty-eight hours,” Jan said.

  Dritan nodded and helped her to her feet. “The rescue crews might think we’re all dead, but someone’s gonna come eventually. We just need to focus on finding more oxygen and water—so we can survive until they do.”

  Jan leaned on him, and they helped each other step around the fallen rocks as they assessed their situation.