Paragon

by Autumn Kalquist

  She watched the message again, slicing angrily through the air with her finger, deleting chunks of speech and moving others. With grim satisfaction, she moved the segments around until the thick feeling in her windpipe vanished and she could breathe again. After a few minutes of work, she played Paige’s new message.

  “Hey, Gerry, I got your last message,” Paige said. “I’m all alone. I have no real friends. I sure hope you’re trying to get another term over here. You’ll be stuck working with me again. I’m going to be waiting for you! If you don’t come back to me, I’ll be an airlocker.”

  She took out Paige’s message cube and shoved her handheld and eyepiece back into her suit. So what if it was immature? Maybe she was giving in to caretaker sector mentality, but Paige deserved worse. Far, far worse.

  As Zephyr brought Paige’s new message to Henry, she felt Helice, Paige, and Kali all staring at her. She glanced across the room as she walked, and her pulse quickened. Tadeo was exiting a cubic on the other side of the Repository.

  Who cares, Zephyr? You hate him. And he deserves to be hated.

  Zephyr dropped Paige’s message into Henry’s hand. “Dubai,” she said.

  Paige walked by her at that moment and sidestepped, shoving Zephyr into the table.

  “Oops. Sorry,” Paige said quietly, too low for anyone but Zephyr to hear. “I’ve got to go talk to Tadeo. If he’s matching up with you, he must be desperate.” She started to walk away.

  Rage bolted through Zephyr, and she shoved Paige hard in the back. Paige stumbled and whirled around, a shocked look on her face.

  “Don’t touch me again,” Zephyr said in a low growl.

  Paige’s shock faded, and her eyes crinkled in amusement. “You know, at least Era could take a hint,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Go airlock yourself.”

  Zephyr let out a guttural scream and lunged at Paige, tackling her to the hard tiles. Paige tried to twist away, but Zephyr had her pinned to the floor.

  She swung at Paige’s face, and as her fist connected with bone, something cracked beneath her knuckles. Blood gushed from Paige’s nose, but Zephyr kept going, pummeling her face, her nose, her cheeks, slamming her head into the tiles again and again. Paige took a few weak swings back, but Zephyr blocked them all.

  Shouts rose around them, and Paige managed to wrap a hand around Zephyr’s long hair. She pulled, ripping a chunk out, but Zephyr didn’t even feel the pain. She squeezed Paige’s arm until Paige gasped in pain, and her fist relented, opening to let the clump of red-blonde hair drift to the floor. Zephyr tore a chunk of hair from Paige’s head in retribution, then punched her again.

  Blood spread across her knuckles, and she didn’t know and didn’t care if any of it was her own. There was only black rage and nothing else.

  Paige’s face was obscured by slick red when someone grabbed Zephyr from behind and dragged her to her feet. She tried to push the person off as Paige escaped, sliding her broken body across the red-splattered tiles.

  “Let me go,” Zephyr yelled, flailing her arms, kicking her legs in Paige’s direction. Then she saw the navy cloth, the silver infinity symbols printed on the sleeves of the man who held her.

  He pinned her arms against her body so tightly she cried out.

  “Stop it, Zephyr.”

  Tadeo.

  Tadeo pinned Zephyr’s arms tight against her ribs, and she went rigid in his grasp. She turned her head to look at him, revealing the spray of blood arcing across her fair cheek. He met her light blue eyes, and his shoulders tightened even as his body warmed against the feel of hers.

  “Let go of me,” Zephyr said through gritted teeth.

  Tadeo broke eye contact. A crowd had gathered around the bloodied girl and Zephyr, and they stood, silent, waiting to see what he would do. He hadn’t seen it all, but everyone else here had. And from the looks of it, Zephyr was at fault. He’d have to take her to the brig for this.

  The head archivist and a medic who had been waiting to record a message showed up with a medkit.

  “Everyone…” Mali said. “Everyone back to your seats. We’re handling this.”

  The crowd reluctantly moved back toward the waiting area, but they remained quiet, watching and listening. A few halfs trailed behind, staying close to the scene.

  Mali and the medic knelt beside the injured girl and began tending her bloodied face, wiping it clean. They murmured to her in low voices, and she spoke back, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  Zephyr tried to shake Tadeo off again, but he kept his grip on her. Her skin must have been warm, heated beneath her black tech suit. He shifted, not wanting to be this close to her, not enjoying the sensation she awoke in him.

  “Assaulting another colonist is twenty-four hours in the brig. Minimum.” He spoke low, in her ear, but his voice came out strained. He cleared his throat.

  “What?” Zephyr spoke loudly, and all eyes went to her and Tadeo. “I didn’t do—”

  “Stop. Talking.”

  Zephyr slammed her mouth shut, and Tadeo pulled cuffs from his belt and connected them around her wrists.

  “Stay put.” He released Zephyr and strode over to the girl she’d attacked. Her nose looked broken, and one of her eyes was swollen shut, but he recognized her. It was the girl who had waved at him earlier.

  He sent a glare back at Zephyr, and the glare she had waiting for him was equal in its intensity. Zephyr was a captain’s daughter. It was her responsibility to set a good example for the rest of the fleet. Not attack those from the levels beneath her. After all the kak that had just been dropped on him from his mother and everything with the terrorists and the explosives—he didn’t need this right now.

  He looked back at the injured girl. “Your information?”

  She sniffed and pushed her tangled brown hair out of her face. “Paige Narula,” she said in a pinched voice, “Age 16, singles sector. I’m a tech apprentice in the Repository.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Zephyr just snapped. I used to work with the girl who airlocked herself. Era. We were good friends. I’m just as sad about this as Zephyr is—”

  “Lying glitch,” Zephyr said.

  Paige winced away from Zephyr and grabbed Tadeo’s sleeve. She offered him a small smile and tried to wipe the remaining blood off her cheek with her other hand, spreading it further.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Raines,” she said, her voice weak. “You saved me. If you hadn’t pulled her off of me… I don’t know what she would’ve done to me.”

  Mali lifted a handheld and an eyepiece off the floor. The casing was crushed, and a crack ran through it, so a bundle of exposed wires hung out. Zephyr gasped.

  “Who checked this gear out?” Mali asked. “This isn’t one of ours. It shouldn’t be in here.”

  “It’s mine,” Zephyr said, her voice shaking. “Give those back.”

  Mali frowned and handed Tadeo the broken handheld and eyepiece. “I assume Zephyr will be spending plenty of time in the brig?”

  Tadeo ground his teeth and pocketed the evidence. Then he turned back to Zephyr. “Why did you attack her?”

  “She said…” Zephyr pressed her lips together and tried to move her arms, but the cuffs kept them locked behind her back. “Does it really matter what she said? Just let me go. I won’t punch her again. Even if she does deserve it.”

  Tadeo scanned the crowd and stopped at the halfs who had stayed nearby. Tadeo focused on a frightened, narrow-faced girl. “What’s your name?”

  “My name’s Helice.” The name came out in a whisper.

  “What happened here?”

  Helice looked at Paige, and her shoulders sunk lower. “Zephyr attacked Paige. Paige didn’t do anything.”

  Murmurs of agreement came from the benches, and the blonde beside Helice nodded vigorously.

  Tadeo sighed and turned back to Zephyr. She set her jaw and stared at the broken handheld in his grasp, her expression hard, her eyes like pale blue sparks. When was the
last time he’d thrown a girl in the brig? His eyes ran down Zephyr’s body. She looked so… feminine. Delicate, not at all like she could deliver the kind of damage Paige’s face had taken.

  Enough of this. He was wasting precious time. Tadeo blew out a breath. “Okay. Medic, get Paige up to medlevel to get checked. Zephyr’s heading to the brig.”

  Paige gave Tadeo another grateful smile, and Tadeo gave her a slight nod. He grabbed Zephyr harshly, his muscles tense, and steered her out the doors and into the stairwell.

  As a future captain, she was an embarrassment to the fleet, tearing up a tech’s face like this—in public, no less. Zephyr arched her neck to try to look at him. “I can walk to the brig myself. You don’t have to push.”

  Tadeo kept his hand on her back and guided her up the near-empty stairwell. “You’re a future captain.”

  “So are you.”

  “Well, act like one,” Tadeo said gruffly. “You’re supposed to set a good example.”

  “You think you set a good example?”

  “I’m a Paragon guard.”

  “Oh, right,” Zephyr let out a broken laugh. “Well, at least the deka captains don’t need pulseguns to keep their colonists in line.”

  “Oh—they don’t? This fleet would be safer if there were guards like me on every ship.”

  “The deka captains have their Enforcers. They don’t want you on their ships.”

  “The Kyoto wanted us.”

  “The Kyoto captain couldn’t exactly give his permission.”

  Tadeo ground his teeth. “Because rioters airlocked him. See? You just proved my point. The ships need us. There has not been a single event on the Kyoto since we sent guards over there. A good leader keeps his colonists in line.”

  Zephyr raised her brows. “Okay, wise leader. Train me. Which leadership method works better for you? Pointing your pulsegun at colonists or threatening to airlock them?”

  Tadeo felt the color drain from his face, and his throat thickened. He took a moment before responding. “Either one works,” he said, tightening his hold on Zephyr’s arms. “Of course, you could always just beat all the colonists who don’t agree with you.”

  Zephyr went rigid and pulled away to try to face him. “Is it true what they say about you? That you made a girl disappear on the Meso? Or were you just such a horrible person that she did whatever she could to get away from you?”

  Nausea hit Tadeo full force. He took a few quick breaths, balling his hands into fists, and met her angry gaze. “Careful, Zephyr. You don’t know anything.”

  “And you don’t know me.” She stared him down. “And to think we were matching up. Thanks for showing me who you really are. Guess I dodged a meteor on that one.”

  He held her gaze, his jaw clenched tight, but all he could think of was Era. Zephyr’s friend. A traitor. Pregnant and naked in the airlock. Tadeo broke eye contact first. “Walk.”

  Zephyr tossed her head and kept walking up the stairs, her hips moving back and forth, her head held high. Heat flared within him again.

  Woe to the London. They were screwed if Zephyr was to be their future captain. He’d made a mistake ever saying he’d match up with her. During the few hours they’d spent together, she’d been polite, boring even, her personality as plain as unsalted quin. Obviously she’d been hiding her true nature. This girl was trouble. And he did not have time for more trouble right now.

  Squads of guards clogged the corridors of level six, standing in front of the holo screens on the wall, seeking their patrol schedule for second shift. They moved out of the way when they caught sight of Tadeo and Zephyr heading to the brig.

  The brig was the size of the command galley but looked like something that had been thrown together after the ship had been built. Like they’d knocked down the walls of a few storage cubics to cobble together holding cells. The bars didn’t even open with a shift card—they had locks and took an old-fashioned metal key. It was as if Infinitek—the corporation that had built this fleet—hadn’t planned on needing a brig.

  Since the treason talkers they’d arrested had gone out on the transport early yesterday, the cells were empty, except for the one on the end. Nora Faust lay on the bunk sleeping.

  Officer Holt, the gangly, orange-haired brig guard, looked up from his metal counter. “Lieutenant Raines.”

  “Holt, I need to book this one. And I need you to release the medic to me.”

  Holt’s face paled. “The medic just took a sedative.”

  “What?” he snapped. “Who told you to give her that?”

  “I… I’m sorry Lieutenant. Medics came up with her hourly dose. I thought—”

  “Don’t allow it again. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Holt said, swallowing.

  Tadeo shoved Zephyr toward the high counter. “This one assaulted another colonist. She gets the twenty-four hour minimum. Unless I decide she needs some more time in holding.”

  “Information, sir?” Holt asked, activating his eyepiece.

  “Zephyr Kerrigan, of the London,” Tadeo said. “Repository apprentice tech.”

  Zephyr narrowed her eyes at Tadeo. “Repository apprentice tech. And future captain of the London,” she said, biting off each word.

  Holt’s brows lifted, but he kept gesturing, logging her information.

  Tadeo rolled his shoulders, his suit suddenly feeling too tight. Much like the suit Zephyr was wearing. It was like someone over on the Vancouver had her exact measurements and had manufactured it to hug her everywhere. Tadeo adjusted the sleeves of his suit as Holt moved around the counter and opened the cell next to Nora Faust’s.

  “Give me my handheld,” Zephyr said.

  “Can’t have it in there.”

  “Give it to me. It’s mine.”

  Tadeo ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “You can apply to get it back from evidence in a few days. Then maybe I’ll release it to you.”

  Tadeo removed Zephyr’s cuffs, and she shook him off and stalked into the cell. She sank down on the bunk inside and continued to glare at him as Holt closed the barred door.

  “This goes to evidence,” Tadeo said, handing Holt the holo gear.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Comm me the minute the other prisoner wakes up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tadeo felt Zephyr’s eyes boring into him, but he didn’t look at her again.

  His comcuff buzzed. Omar was calling. He answered as he exited the brig.

  “We found more,” Omar’s voice came through Tadeo’s earbud—and he sounded afraid, breathless.

  Tadeo froze. “More of what?”

  “More empty containers of explosives—behind a wall panel in paired sector.”

  “I’ll comm Chief.”

  “Wait—there’s something else. One of the canisters says Zenith.”

  “Zenith—”

  “Finnegan here’s from the Perth, and he says Zenith is used to intensify explosions…” Omar paused. “The terrorists had at least five canisters of Artex powder. Zenith could make an explosion a hundred times stronger.”

  Darkness and dirt. Sweat and pain.

  The metallic-taste of the oxygen pack reminded Dritan with every breath that he was living on borrowed time. The rock pile seemed to waver before him, as if he stood in the center of a blistering hot power core. They’d barely made a dent in it—if they’d come any closer to the exit, he couldn’t tell. His painmod was wearing off, and they only had four shots and twelve hours of oxygen left. That was it.

  My life is numbered in hours.

  A sharp burst of fear turned his saliva bitter, and he swallowed it back. He’d been in tough spots before. When you looked into the face of death, you had to keep your kak together. A clear mind and determination keep men alive. That’s what his first crew leader had taught him. And Dritan had seen men survive terrible accidents before. But he’d seen more of them die.

  Dritan wedged his fingers beneath another rock and pulled. Dar
kness swam across his vision as he dropped the stone to the ground. Pain raced up his arm and left him gasping. The shock of it was worse than any cut he’d endured, worse than any of the times he’d been burned on the London. The sharp ache radiated from his fingertips to his chest, screaming at him to stop moving.

  Then the world disappeared. When he opened his eyes, he was flat on his back, panting, pain raging through him.

  “Corinth.” McGill was standing over to him, medkit in hand. “Here.” He took out a shot and plunged it into Dritan’s arm.

  The pain faded until Dritan could breathe again. He was messing up his arm, and it might never be right again. But he couldn’t stop. If he had to choose between his arm and his life with Era, he’d choose life—even if that meant becoming a sublevel outcast, scorned like the other maimed Soren survivors.

  He stumbled to his feet. “I’m going to check on Jan. She’s probably almost out of oxygen.”

  “And what? You gonna give her one of ours?” McGill lifted the canteen to take a sip, and when he remembered it was dry, he threw the empty container down in disgust. “Does she have water, too? I say if she has anything left, you take it. You’ve wasted enough on her.”

  Anger stirred in Dritan, surfaced above his exhaustion. He’d checked on Jan once already since he’d found McGill, and she’d been hanging on just fine.

  “You think your life is worth more than hers?” Dritan asked, his voice rough. “Must be your exec sector mindset. Say it again, and I’ll be giving your packs to her. I’d save her before I’d save you.”

  Dritan walked off with the last charged helio, leaving McGill to fumble in the dark for a glow bar.

  “You know I’m right,” McGill called out as Dritan reached the crevice.

  Dritan deactivated the helio and pushed his body into the space between the rocks. He began inching forward, back toward Jan. McGill wasn’t right. As long as he and McGill kept working, they all had a chance of surviving this.