Paradisi Escape: A Paradisi Chronicles novella (Paradisi Exodus Book 1)

by Cheri Lasota

  A bland “I'll see you in the morning” was all Solomon could muster. What he really wanted to do was open the Trafero's hatch and shove him out into the deep, black ocean of space. Solomon sighed instead, turning with Bouncer 1 toward the starboard staterooms. It was going to be a long night. Best he just eat something and get some sleep. He was going to need it tomorrow.

  The guard waved him into the stateroom. “You'll be locked in here until approximately 0550, Chief Reach. Have a good night.”

  Solomon nodded as the guard closed the door in his face. He thought it odd that the guard didn't take his UiComm, but then he realized it was purposefully done. They wanted him to attempt communication with anyone he might be working with. He endeavored not to use it until he could get to a tracking dampener aboard ship at the very least. If he ever made it to the Challenge . . . but he'd focus on that later. First things first. The stateroom was quite tiny and its furnishings were understated but he had always found Trafero accommodations rather comfortable. The first item of business was to unpack the standard-issue sleeping bag and strap it to the wall near the fenestella so he could drift off to sleep with a clear view of the stars.

  Next he rummaged around in the food locker for a packaged dinner. He pulled out an apple juice, a water packet, and fried rice. While he worked to rehydrate the rice by pressing a bit of water into its package, he moved over to the fenestella. He spotted the Cassiopeia constellation immediately. A quick glance down to Earth showed him that night had fallen over much of South America. A massive anvil cloud hovered over Mexico, and lightning occasionally flashed within and around it. He hurriedly finished shaking the food package and settled himself by the portal to watch the storm. Space watching never got old.

  * * *

  When Solomon entered Meeting Room Beta the next morning, the rest of Challenge Command had already arrived. SS Challenge Commander Dickson Edge floated near the far bulkhead, arm braced against the window. Executive Officer Alexandra Justice's cold blue gaze locked on Solomon. Her arms were crossed, but he could see that the fingers grasping her arm were turning white. He often saw her doing that. For the first time, it occurred to him that it probably calmed a constant anxiety she could never bear to show her colleagues.

  At the sound of Mads clearing his throat, Edge made a glacially slow turn to face Solomon. They glared at each other, and after an interminable silence of staring at his mole-ridden face and acerbic eyes, two things became clear to Solomon: Edge believed he was the saboteur, and he was going to do everything in his power to get his own plan of betrayal back on track. Edge didn't have Mads's taciturn features—he was too mercurial to be that calm—and now Solomon was kicking himself that he hadn't uncovered this betrayal long before this moment.

  “Did you sabotage the Cavitran Drive?” Edge asked him, his voice tinged with a strange sort of contempt. It couldn't have been shock, because he himself was guilty of betrayal. No, it was a kind of twisted irritation at this minor setback. Dickson Edge was about to find out this new development wasn't minor after all.

  “No, I did not. Where is Drive Ops Chief Rosado?” Solomon directed that pointed question at Mads. He said nothing. “She is a member of my crew, and I have an obligation to look after her well-being.”

  “Rosado was belligerent and gave us no information,” Edge said, his voice rising. “You need to teach your crew some respect.”

  “Where is she now?” While the commander's description of Vida didn't sound like her, Solomon silently thanked her for her bravery.

  “Back in the main compartment with the rest of your crew,” Justice said irritably, though Mads flashed her the briefest frown of disapproval.

  Ah, so that was meant to be a secret they'd use to their advantage during the proceedings. Reading between the lines, it sounded to him like Vida was safe—at least for now. Solomon offered nothing in response. He now knew they couldn't use Vida's safety as a trading card.

  “Restrain him,” Edge said to Bouncer 2.

  “I don't need restraining. Ask your questions and I will answer.”

  Bouncer 2 waited for Edge to respond. When he nodded his assent for the bouncer to proceed, it pissed Solomon off immediately. Getting manhandled by what amounted to Graversen's bodyguards was not particularly high on his list of favorite things. Solomon pushed one of them away, and the guy grabbed hold of the table bolted to the floor before he hit the opposite bulkhead.

  “Stop this, Reach. You say you want to cooperate? Then do it.”

  Solomon scowled at him, which resulted in the second bouncer punching him in the stomach. Even though the bouncer couldn't pack enough power in it to cause much pain, it pressed Sol up against the closest bulkhead. By that point, the second guy was already restraining his leg with a makeshift set of straps, which appeared to be tied to the bulkhead for just such a situation. Solomon didn't stop. He strained against the straps. No point in it, but he was now at the mercy of everyone in this room, and he could see in his Ui HUD that his pulse rate was out of control.

  “Pull that UiComm chip out of his head, O'Neal,” Edge snapped at Bouncer 2.

  Damn. Losing his comm was going to cause him serious problems later. Maybe when he met up with Vida or Kasen he could use one of theirs. Of course, then he'd be unable to communicate with them.

  He winced when O'Neal pressed his head to the bulkhead and jabbed his thumb into the UiComm's locking mechanism. It beeped twice, and Solomon felt the oddly pleasant feeling of the chip ejecting from his surgically implanted jack. His HUD disappeared instantly. He supposed not being able to see his pulse skyrocket while they questioned him would probably be a good thing in the end.

  O'Neal tossed it to the other guard, who slipped it into his pocket.

  “I'd like to speak with you both outside for a moment,” Mads said. Justice and Edge nodded and rose to follow him. One of the guards gave Mads a questioning gaze and he nodded, so they both followed the others out of the compartment as well.

  For the moment, that left Solomon alone in the compartment. He glanced out through the window in the door, but one of the bouncers paused there and stared in at Solomon, blocking his view of the stars shimmering through the window on the opposite side of the outer corridor. No matter. He remembered every constellation outside this spacecraft. He'd taken this trip so many times through the years. He remembered again that this was likely the last trip to Nautilus-11 he would ever take. As much as he wanted to leave Earth, the thought made him suddenly uncomfortable.

  Solomon heard the faint whir of the slider and instinctively jerked against the ties that bound him. Commander Edge blustered back in and slammed his foot in one of the footholds in the floor. Hard to look badass when you're floating in micro-G, but he was giving it an admirable effort. Justice pulled in after him, followed by Graversen. Whatever they discussed out there had left them all in a foul mood. Solomon hoped it wasn't hard evidence about the sabotage.

  “The evidence is beyond doubt now, Reach,” Dickson said.

  Well, damn. There goes that.

  “One of the Cav Drive parts has been removed, and all the 3D printing software has been stolen. You authorized this. Why?”

  “You know why you're here, Solomon,” Justice began, in a firm but relaxed tone. He wasn't surprised. Despite her tendency toward capitulating to Dickson Edge's every whim, she had a cool head. “Answer our questions, and we can get on with this.”

  Suddenly Solomon didn't give a shit about playing his cards right. “I know exactly why you're all here. Your spaceship is busted, and you're hoping I'll help you leave this waste of a planet—and five thousand of my crew—in two days' time.”

  Justice squeezed her arm again. “What are you talking about?”

  Solomon glared at her, knowing his anger was getting the better of him. “You know exactly what I'm talking about, Alexandra.”

  “Is this a game to you, Reach?” Edge's scowl etched deep into his aging skin, lending further ugliness to his sunken eyes and thin, m
isshapen nose. He was chosen for his skill and experience alone through special dispensation. By Paradisi Mission Regulation standards, he was far too old at age 59 for this voyage. So many of the Founders who hadn't made the initial cut had purchased or bartered skills for spots aboard the SS Challenge. Edge had had decades of experience as a NASA astronaut with a footlocker full of medals and awards for services rendered, but the psychiatrists had deemed him too “combative” to command any of the other ships. So Joint Command had dumped him on the SS Challenge crew, hoping that would shut him up. “Lives are at stake—”

  “Yes, they are, Commander Edge,” Solomon cut in. “The lives of my employees and their families.”

  “So you'd kill all of us, then?” Mads asked. “To what? Prove a point?”

  “A man is nothing but his word.” He looked pointedly back at his one-time friend. “Wouldn't you agree, Graversen?”

  Mads didn't miss the reference, but he stared back at him anyway. “You'll kill us all, Solomon. I know you well enough to know you don't want that on your conscience.”

  “And yet, by breaking your binding contract with Reach Corp—” he stared hard at each of them in turn “—you've sentenced thousands of my crew to death. A crew who unwittingly signed a breached contract with Challenge Command and originally with the ten Founding Families that guaranteed their transport off this hellhole.”

  “You don't know that Earth will die out,” Justice countered.

  Solomon raised a single eyebrow. “Terrorists wielding 3D-printed weapons own this planet. Global disasters that have plagued us for decades destroyed our climate beyond reparation. What sort of fantasy world do you live in, XO Justice?”

  “Tell us where the propulsion breach occurred, Reach,” Edge cut in. “Tell us how to fix it. Or you will find yourself—and your crew—on a one-way trip back to the ground tonight. You will no longer have our protection. God save you, then.”

  “You've already turned me into a walking dead man, Commander. I have nothing to lose.”

  “We will seek out your family, Reach. We will find them. And we will put a gun to their heads. Tell us where the breach is!”

  “I repeat, Commander Edge: I have nothing to lose.” And he damn well meant it. An image of Nisolda came to mind, her frail body sleeping, the machines beeping in the background.

  “Your crew,” Edge stated in a monotone voice, interrupting his thoughts.

  “If I do what you want, you still plan to murder five thousand Reacher souls—the people who have essentially made it possible for you to fly to a new planet to escape the destruction of your own.”

  “It's only three thousand,” Justice piped in, as if that would soothe the horror of their imminent deaths. “We would retain two thousand for critical positions on the SS Challenge Watch Crews.”

  “It doesn't matter how many you plan to retain, XO Justice.” Solomon stared at her. These people astounded him. “I'm not going to bargain for a single life. They built this ship for you. They are saving your lives. They earned this ride.”

  “We don't have time to debate ethics anymore, Solomon,” Graversen said. “You have every single life in this complex in your hands. At least save some of us.”

  “Do you mean you, Graversen? Since I am apparently going to die, friend, my ethics and my honor are all I have left. You saw to that.”

  “Dammit, Reach, you will tell us what we want to know,” Edge said.

  “And if I don't tell you?”

  “You will find your own death more imminent than you had anticipated.” His heated voice grew louder with every word. Then he touched the DOT unit behind his left ear and spoke: “O'Neal, bring in the table, the AED, and the surgery kit you prepared for us.”

  “Do not test us,” Graversen said.

  He could tell Justice was becoming uncomfortable with this turn of events. This time she tugged absently at her synth-leather uniform hat, smoothing it over her ears with the palms of her hands. Her confidence was wavering.

  Solomon needed to think. And fast. He had no doubt that Edge would torture him until he had the answers he wanted.

  Commander Edge was right. He had everything to lose: his crew.

  His Reachers were good people. When he had cherry-picked them from the elite of the elite in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, he also made sure they were ethically and psychologically—well, Kasen excluded, of course—fit. When they arrived on New Eden, they would be some of the most useful and productive of all the settlers as they worked to build a new society among the natives. They deserved to be saved. And he would do what he must to get them to New Eden.

  Solomon looked up at the commander, then, as the guard O'Neal carried in the surgical instruments and the AED that would presumably keep him alive long enough to spill his guts. He looked at Justice and Graversen in turn.

  “If you kill me, the answer will die with me. You will miss your launch window, and you will be the ones stuck on a planet you helped to destroy. What did they call that back when the workers still went to school? Oh, yes. Poetic justice.”

  “I won't need to kill you, Reach,” Edge said. “You're about to tell me everything I want to know.”

  Solomon didn't know how much he could withstand before he caved. Fortune had favored him up to this point, and in micro-G, humans don't even have so much as a backache. But Edge might well be right. He also didn't want to be so crippled that he couldn't get to his Reacher crew aboard the ship. He needed to formulate a plan. If he offered to help Challenge Command, he could buy himself some time.

  Commander Edge had a background in tactical aeronautics and apparently had a penchant for inflicting pain, but Justice and Graversen were not professional soldiers. He needed to focus this battle of wits on Edge, but underestimating Graversen would be a mistake. If his old friend could turn against him this easily, there was no telling what he was capable of doing.

  Edge detached a particularly sharp-looking scalpel from the medical kit. Then he situated himself next to Solomon, securing himself into a foothold at the base of the bulkhead. He braced his arms on either side of Solomon and leaned in to intimidate.

  “We've disabled the comm unit in this compartment, Solomon. There is no one to come to your rescue. This is your last chance. Tell us how to fix the Cavitran Drive.”

  “Why would you risk a Reacher mutiny for these people?” Solomon asked. “Who are they? What did they offer you?” He stared at Graversen. “Money? Power?”

  “You tell me when to stop, Solomon,” Commander Edge said in a low growl that gave Solomon the impression of a wolf on the hunt. “Remember that you control what I'm about to do to you.”

  “No, asshole. You control your own actions. And when my crew mutinies, I hope you remember the history of the original SS Challenge's last captain, Commander Edge. Remember it didn't turn out so well for Robert Waterman.” That little niggling reminder of the SS Challenge's namesake, the 19th century clipper ship made famous by its cruel captain and mutinous crew, made Edge's scowl turn even darker.

  “Ah, but he got away with it in the end,” Edge said with a sickening smile, taking a stronger hold of the index finger of Solomon's left hand.

  Solomon could feel his heart rate raising with every moment that scalpel got closer. At the last second, Solomon had to look away. The pain as the blade slid beneath his fingernail was exquisite. He bit his lip and dug his nails into his other palm. It didn't help at all when Edge twisted the blade back and forth under his nail bed. Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream.

  He screamed, until he was sure even the stars of the distant constellations could hear it.

  After what felt like an eon, he felt a blob of his own sticky blood smack into his face. He realized then that he had closed his eyes at some point. He opened them to see Commander Edge's sharp-angled face hovering inches from his own. Sweat beads floated off his forehead in smaller droplets around them.

  Graversen, his face unreadable, moved over to the
med kit and AED, as ready as a nurse at a sick man's bedside. Dammit if he didn't want to punch the living daylights out of that traitor. Or at least smear his blood bubbles all over the guy's face. Instead, he focused on his shaky breathing, trying to think about anything but the pain pulsing out of his vulnerable finger.

  A glance at Alexandra told him she was really getting uncomfortable now. She was alternating between digging her own fingernails into her palm and pressing her hat down even harder than before. What she wasn't doing was looking at Solomon.

  “Torture getting to you, Justice?” Solomon taunted her through heavy breaths. He certainly wasn't going to make it easy for any of them.

  She shook her head and turned even further away to look out at the stars.

  “Tell me how to fix that drive, or I'll move on to the next one,” Commander Edge yelled. “How did you sabotage it?”

  Frankly, he wasn't quite sure how it was done, but he certainly knew who did it. They ought to know that only two people could disable the Cav Drive without damaging it. The resident expert was his Drive Ops Chief Vida Rosado. She was the true wizard. But it was her right-hand man, Drive Ops Specialist Tavian Hunt, who did the honors this time around.

  And Edge wasn't going to get that useful bit of data out of his mouth, no matter how much blood was floating around this compartment. He spotted Graversen swatting several blobs of blood away from his face. If his finger wasn't throbbing in agony, he'd have found it amusing.

  “There is no sabotage,” Solomon said.

  “You bastard,” Edge yelled. “I'm going to make this one hurt.”

  Solomon sighed. “Feel free.”

  That might have been the wrong thing to say. Edge's transformation from smug satisfaction to mild insanity was swift. Up until the point where Edge slammed the scalpel through the center of Solomon's palm. He felt a pounding in his hand, as if Edge were stabbing him over and over, but it was just the waves of pain consuming him.

  Somewhere beyond the sound of his own scream echoing around the compartment, Solomon heard a commotion of slamming and shouts.