by Jen Greyson
THE PEARL
Jen Greyson
BOOK DESCRIPTION
THE Hunger Games are over.
Divergent is no longer a choice.
Ender is in charge of peace talks.
Heroes are a daily occurrence in every galaxy.
Until Lility.
She is nothing like we expected and everything we need.
We have no way to stop her.
And no way to save her.
She is
The Pearl.
Book 1
Lility spent a decade training to be The Pearl. One final date with an ineligible Samarian and then she can announce her decision to mate the Hemperklu in the 642nd Union. First Assignment for the new couple: trade routes through the Pai Galaxy.
But the Samarians have a surprise.
One that changes everything.
The Pearl is a sci-fi romance adventure and the first book in a 5-part series releasing throughout 2016.
pearl |purl|
noun
a precious thing; the finest example of anything
CHAPTER 1
I NUDGED THE dead man’s body, just to be sure. Another wave of blue blood flowed from his wound, neon in the overhead streetlights as his fluids activated with this world’s air mixture, making me think he might be an alien to this planet, as we’d suspected. Chatter splintered in my earpiece, squealing and forcing one eye closed as I fought through the high pitch of the commander’s voice.
The ambush had come swift and fast, taking out half our team. This guy had underestimated me, seeing a woman and thinking I wouldn’t shoot. It had been a weird reaction but then he’d taken a step closer and said I’d looked like his wife. That was when I’d fired. Nothing about tonight had gone as planned; we’d gone into this exercise unprepared as it was, but the commander had forced us forward, believing the experience would cement our training. He’d been right on that account but it had come at a premium.
The weapon heated my skin where it was imbedded in my forearm, the arm of my suit rolled back to account for the oversized metal canon, eyepiece welded to my temple. I’d been one of the “lucky” ones able to breathe the native air, so I’d forgone the helmet in lieu of the better weapon. For all that it was stupidly accurate, I still hadn’t gotten the hang of its weight and caught myself flinging my arm too hard and having to overcorrect. I hadn’t meant to kill the man who lay at my feet, only wound him; the weapon had sliced through my hesitation and did our job.
I concentrated on the voices in my ear, tried to make out commands between the static and panic. If we didn’t get out of here in the next few minutes, we’d all be on the ground cover in our own blood. Today wasn’t really a good day to die. I had a date tonight.
“Lility!” Fransín’s voice came through clearly and I jumped, searching around for her and wary of another ambush. Steaming piles of metal hulked along the broken street. Above me, crumbling bits of building rained down in the aftermath of the war. In all fairness, nothing could have truly prepared us for today. The stench was overwhelming and every time I tried breathing through my mouth, the stale air lanced through my tastebuds and made me choke. If I’d have had cover I’d have taken a drink from my canteen to wash the taste, but I couldn’t hide until I was back with my unit…if we ever made our way through this desolate terrain alive.
“Fransín, where are you?” I whispered, lowering to a crouch and lifting the weaponized arm like they’d taught me. As a precaution, I surveyed the heat signatures of everything in front of me. Heaps of bodies cooled, their red centers reducing to orange, some already a dull gray of death.
“I’m in the building behind and to your left. I’m coming down—”
“Wait! It’s not safe down here. I’ll come up.”
“Don’t argue with me. This building’s barely standing. It’s no safer in here.”
I rotated slowly, focused on every blip on my screen. The enemy had known everything about our weapons—and how could they not, they’d designed them.
Scanning the building holding Fransín, I noted all the dangerous spots in the foundation and let the computer calculate the structure’s viability. It would hold for another ten minutes, long enough for us to huddle up and make a plan. No surprise that Fransín was still alive; she’d survived everything life had thrown at her and had given it right back. When we were safe and time returned to being a luxury, I’d kick myself for leaving her side. “I’m coming up.”
“Damm—” Static claimed the last half of her curse and I double-timed it to the blasted entrance of the building, scanning everything along the way. Still over nine minutes of structural integrity, plenty of time. I met her on the third flight of stairs and we crashed together, hugging each other tight. Her petite grip was strong, lashing around my arms and pinning them against my suit, the heavy weapon dragging at my shoulder socket. “I thought you were dead.”
“—I’m sorry I left you.”
She shook her head, her green skin eerily aglow in the temple lights of her helmet. “You should be, but it was an order.”
“Still.”
She shushed me. “No time for regrets, right? Let’s figure out a way home.”
I swallowed and pulled up the holographic display of the area, tapping buttons to force it to reset and take into account the current destruction and blocked paths. It added the last known locations of the enemy strikers in orange and the remaining pockets of our own team in blue. More blue dots would have been great.
“Do we try to lay down cover or do we retreat and save ourselves?” she twisted my arm, making the display shift and change.
“You really have to ask?”
“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t chickening out.” She nudged my shoulder with hers, still her jovial self, even in the midst of such dire odds. Beneath our feet, the building rumbled and I switched the view over; still seven minutes. While the calculations were supposed to be accurate to within a microsecond, I wasn’t willing to bet our lives on them. One thing to be on the ground, quite another to be in the building when it toppled. Plus I wanted us far enough away that it wouldn’t land on us.
I pointed at the team closest to us, six dots huddled in the base of another crumbled apartment building. “Let’s see if we can raise this team and tell them we’re coming. If we can get with them that gives us better odds to pick up the solo before he’s surrounded.” I dragged a line from the cluster of dots to the lone one a half mile from us. “We grab everyone in time, we can double-time it to that farthest extraction point.”
“Let’s go.” She spun on her heel and started down the stairs, her foot hitting the last tread as it fell away beneath her feet. I dove toward her, my fingers sliding off her pack as we tumbled into air and the building collapsed five minutes too early. My attempt to yell for her only filled my lungs with concrete dust and soot from last night’s airstrikes. The searing pain and coughing fit made me wish I’d have chosen the helmet and it’s protection. Fransín didn’t answer and the darkness swallowed us whole.
“Fransín. Fran.” I couldn’t lose her, better I die here than go on without her. I should have defied orders and stayed with her instead of splitting our team in two. More of us would be alive if we’d have done what we’d trained for instead of following the commander’s last minute panicked choice. Fransín had remained cool-headed and deliberate and she’d take tonight’s deaths personally. As would I. We’d trained too long to let a single death go. We would not die here tonight, not another body count among hundreds.
I landed hard on my back and rubble crashed on every side, landing heavy on my shin and pinning me in place. A shock of pain raced along every nerve in my leg and
I clenched my teeth, struggling to free myself but the rebar had driven through the muscle of my calf and I’d have to find something to lever it off my body. “Fransín! Answer me!” I needed to know she was okay. I lifted my arm and pulled up the building’s new footprint. Neither of our blue dots showed beneath the flickering readout.
Another massive concrete pillar fell away from the floor above and toppled toward me. I curled on my side and covered my head, hoping against hope that somehow one of the other teams had broken free and were coming for us. They’d have been alerted on their devices the moment the building started to go. Maybe the damage to my readout caused our monitors to fail, but the other teams would see us, they had to. We couldn’t die down here. And why the hell wasn’t Fran answering? A million scenarios rushed to my imagination, her cracked helmet forcing poison air into her lungs, a massive pillar slowly crushing her lungs so she couldn’t take another breath to reply. I gulped air and coughed, shaking away the thoughts. She was just unconscious, taking a headfirst dive off the stairs. She was fine. I’d get free and find her before I bled out. We’d get home.
I pushed my face deeper into the rubble as blocks rained down on me. The new avalanche of stone freed the one trapping me, yanking the metal from my leg. I screamed and a warm rush of blood ran into my boot, starting the timer on how long I had to find her and get us out of here. On the plus side, blood would show up on the other team’s readout, hurrying them closer if they were on the way.
Please be on the way.
The odds of anyone being able to pull us out without becoming a target themselves dwindled with each tumble of stone. I opened my eyes a crack, surprised to see Fransín’s gloved hand less than a few feet away, the leather peeled away from her first two digits, revealing her pale green skin. Debris barely concealed her fingers, but I couldn’t see the rest of her. I stretched closer, hoping there wasn’t too much rubble burying her and that I could free her before the team arrived. Pillars and jagged beams of steel hung at precarious angles and I didn’t dare make a sound, badly as I wanted to cry out for her and tell her everything was going to be okay.
I tugged and moved her hand closer. It was still warm and didn’t curl around mine, confirming that she’d been knocked out. Tears stung my eyes and I fought them away, needing to stay strong for both of us. I tugged again and slid her entire arm and hopefully some of her upper body even though I couldn’t make her out in the clouds of rubble as the building settled. Another coughing fit stole my breath and sent a fresh wave of rubble crashing around us. I stopped moving, praying it wouldn’t bury us further. Somewhere beyond our prison of stone, gunfire erupted and my heart leapt. They were here! Now they just needed to push back the enemy long enough to dig through a mile of rubble with no equipment and little to no confirmation that we were still alive and get us out of here. Before I bled to death.
I tugged once more and rocked backward as Fransín’s arm came free.
Free of her body.
I screamed and clung to the dismembered limb, cradling it to my chest. “No. Nonononoooo.” My wail echoed off the sharp angles of my coffin. Stone crashed and tumbled around me and I didn’t bother covering my head. Small and large stones pelted my face, a few drawing blood. What had I done?
This had been my fault and I should have listened to her when she’d said the building was unsafe. I knew she’d allow my decision to be final—no matter how fatal. We could have covered each other out in the open. Neither of us would be dying now. I’d been a fool for trusting the program. I always trusted the program instead of listening to my gut. And now I would pay the ultimate price. A sob tore my chest open and dust filled my lungs.
“Lility!”
I jerked upright in my chair and swiped the screen left fast as I could, my fingertips raking through the air as the code disappeared. The simulation dissolved around me, fading quickly from the war-torn desolation that had trapped me into the gray and white training room where I’d spent the last decade of my life—essentially a coffin of a different ilk. Fransín smirked and switched her own monitor. My gaze flicked to her arm, dark evergreen with the flush of embarrassment at getting us busted, and now it lay atop her desk perfectly in place. Both my brain and my pounding heart tried to catch up with reality after being so immersed in the sim.
While we’d mostly been approved to recreate a historic war mission, the clearance had been for next week, after we’d finished all our other studies. I cleared my throat and pretended to be absorbed in the upcoming legislative session of the Pai Galaxy and the vote regarding the trade routes.
“I saw you.” The gravelly voice said over my shoulder. My tutor had a knack for the obvious since she’d walked straight into the climax of the sim. Of course she’d seen us. But I couldn’t exactly go after her for it without getting a demerit. I was too close to the end and my allowance for attitude credits was dwindling. There were a lot of things they’d been able to train out of me, but my fiery temperament hadn’t been one.
I blinked and pasted on my most serene smile before turning. I’d been a star student for the last decade but this was the final week before they christened me Pearl, Fransín as my designated cohort. Focusing on things I knew by rote was as stimulating as watching a Spiznwix grow new tentacles. I wanted to be out there on our own ship, the two of us headed out to our mission, doing all the exciting and universe-changing events a Pearl was destined for.
“We were just getting the sim set up for next week.” I rapidly typed commands into the unit still open to the spot in the lesson where Fransín had suggested the jump. I’d barely protested, wanting something, anything more exiting than learning about politics. Not that I wasn’t interested in politics, you couldn’t accept the position as pearl and not be devoted to a life of policies and galaxy affecting laws, but I wanted to be involved, not read about it.
“Since you girls are obviously not devoted to learning, you can spend all night researching the history of the Zyldish war and write me a seven-twelve policy on how you’d manage the details differently.
Yes! Fransín’s foot bounced up and down in excitement and I bit my lip to keep from grinning so she wouldn’t rethink the punishment. This was the first time she’d given us a single task resembling actual pearl duties. We’d spent nearly our entire lives in school since the choosing and I would spend another three years as the Pearl discussing these matters with available candidates across the galaxies, but the time had finally come for our tutors to turn us loose.
If I was lucky, Fransín would write a sim to go along with the policy and we’d give it a test-run before turning it in.
CHAPTER 2
TWO YEARS, ELEVEN Months, and Twenty-seven Human Days Later
A hiss released the airlock, popping my ears. I adjusted to the harsh onslaught of sensory overload, noting each of the ship’s groans and whistles, allowing my brain to catalogue them spatially and reset my equilibrium. Steadied, I tossed my helmet and gloves onto the rounded metal bench that separated the transporter from the bridge. “That’s a no for the Spiznwix.” I shuddered, still feeling his clammy touch and fighting the urge to consider tonight a waste. Productive or not, I’d fulfilled the scheduled obligation.
Fransín laughed from her chair below the window overlooking the wide expanse of space beyond the ship, swiftly tapping a sequence into her console and putting us on autopilot. Blue lights flashed, confirming the command. Satisfied we wouldn’t spin away into an errant timegate, she spun and teased, “Come on, Lility, did you really think a guy with seven tentacles wouldn’t want to use a couple?” Her sing-song voice undermined her chastising. “I told you about the time I ran into that one in a bar off the Pai Galaxy.” She grimaced in a pale jumpsuit that accentuated her emerald hair and matching skin. “Are you going to report him?”
“No. I could, I guess, but he seemed harmless.” My nape tingled remembering the tips of his tentacles brushing my arm, my thigh, my fingers the entire time we’d talked. At first, I’d thought he was
making a move, but by the end, it had been no more than a nervous tic. “Annoying, but not worth all the paperwork.” I tugged the pins from my intricate updo, freeing the purple-tinted tresses Fransín had dyed to match the Spiznwix’s flag. I scrubbed my fingertips against my scalp, sighing. “I don’t get it. He was nice. And smart. We talked for hours on the intercommunicator. His ideas for an intergalactic highway were fantastic and I’d wanted to hear more about how he’d configured the system to manage the differing time zones and air quality on each side of the time gate so traffic passed seamlessly. It was going to be a huge fix for the troubles they’re seeing between Carbin and Twilip.”
“You always were a sucker for the talkers.” Fransín teased, crossing one leg over the other, her boot swinging through the oxygenated air of our ship. Not only was she my consort, but my best friend and my constant companion since preschool. Good thing we were tight and I could take her teasing since we’d been on this ship for a Samarian moon—three human years. “Spiznwix, Twilip, Foley, Mercev...” She ticked her fingers, counting the galaxies sending this month’s candidates for the 642nd Union. “Not one of them has been as impressive as they portrayed.”
“Same tonight,” I said. “It was like he forgot how to interact once we shared airspace.” I stared across the glittering sky and touched my breastbone, my aching heart thumping beneath. It hurt for hours after the letdown of these presentations. I’d tried to lower my expectations, failing again tonight. “Because I’m human?” The question excused both the males’ odd behavior and my heartache, we hadn’t figured out either issue.
