Drifters' Alliance, Book 1

by Elle Casey

  “Just one more thing,” I say, hoping the little bit of information I gleaned over the years about the DS fleet from my study materials and fellow bar patrons was correct. “The keycodes.”

  He keeps walking, heading for the door that will take him from the flightdeck out into the corridors that lead to the dock and his date with a woman I will personally send up a prayer for as soon as he’s gone.

  “Ain’t no keycodes for this DS,” he says.

  Is that normal? Is my information outdated? I have no way of knowing. Dammit, I hate being such a damn gloob at all this.

  “Why not?” I shout at his back, hoping I’m not revealing my complete incompetence.

  “Because you got them crazy gingers on board, that’s why.”

  And then he’s gone. No more tour guide, no more information, no more stink. I take a whiff of air and scowl. Okay, so there’s still some stink left behind. I need to put this ship on a vacuum cycle for about three hours to clear it out, assuming its vacuum system even works.

  I turn around and stare out the clearpanels of my new ship, not quite believing it’s real. Did I really win this baby in a card game or did I dream the entire thing? Beyond the clearpanels there are men and women walking around inside the dockside pedestrian tunnels, some of them working and others just loitering. It’s impossible to tell who is doing which, because so many of the dockside transactions are done with gestures, a look, or a predetermined sign of some sort.

  A lot of effort goes into avoiding the heavy tariff loads assessed by the Omega System Group. The OSG is omnipresent, but spread thin enough that a lot can slip through the cracks if you know what you’re doing and have the right connections. These are things, places, and relationships that I’ve been cultivating for a long while now, and it’s all about to pay off. The smile I’ve been fighting all day comes out to be shared with no one. I’m alone now; I can afford to be weak.

  My joy lasts all of about five seconds. When I recognize the figure of Langlade striding through one of the clear pedestrian tunnels toward my ship’s dock, my entire body goes on tense alert. The panel of buttons and touchscreens before me swims and blurs. Which one was it that closed the main airlock? My tour guide may have mentioned it, but he was in such a hurry to get to his sex-date, it was kind of hard to group his rushed words into comprehensible sentences.

  “Need a hand?” asks someone from behind me.

  I spin around, my hand going to the dagger at my thigh. I’m slipping. How did he sneak up on me so easily? My heart is pounding hard enough to flutter the black, two-part, second-skin flightsuit I’m wearing.

  An older man of sixty or so years, dark-skinned and white-afro-haired, smiles at me, his brown-stained teeth reminding me of the men I know to inhale smokeplant as a habit. His light-colored, loose-fitting pants and long tunic are about as non-threatening as a uniform can be, helping me to relax. When I am killed one day, it won’t be by a man wearing linen.

  “Perhaps I can be of service,” he says.

  I walk down two steps to reach his level and hold out my hand. “Cass. New captain.”

  He takes my cool fingers in his warm ones and grips lightly. “Jeffers Melville, at your service.” He gives a slight bow after our hands slide apart.

  Finding myself off-center in his presence, I fold my arms across my chest. He reminds me of my grandfather —a man I respected and sorely miss— and yet, at the same time, this guy moves like a warrior, swift and silent, with a confident air that comes only after a lot of training. I’m not wary enough to draw my weapon, but I’m not leaving myself exposed either.

  “And what exactly do you do around here?” I ask, using a tone of voice I imagine a captain would with his crew: strong, respectful, but not inviting any meaningless pleasantries.

  His mouth turns down as he considers his answer. “Bit o’ this, bit o’ that.” His hands rest behind him, a military gesture that mirrors the one my father used often, particularly when he was drilling me about what I had done versus what I should have done.

  My eyebrow goes up, waiting for the real answer to my question. Two can play at this game, but only one person can win. Aaaand that’ll be me.

  His smile is slow in coming, but when it does, it changes his whole face. What were sad folds become creases that bear witness to a well-shared, sunny disposition. His ears go back and his entire head of hair lifts; it’s like he’s become another person entirely. He shrugs, his hands drifting forward to hang by his sides. “I cook, I clean, I medicate. I tend to wounds both seen and unseen.”

  “So, you’re a healer and a domesticant.” A strange combination. Maybe Langlade was thrifty or something, asking his crew to double-up on their duties.

  “I’m many things.” He looks out the clearpanel, and I follow his gaze just in time to see Langlade disappear from view, getting ever closer to the ship’s airlock ramp.

  “I am sometimes a person who offers counsel to those in need,” he says mysteriously.

  When I look back at him, he nods once slowly, never breaking eye contact.

  “And I’m in need?” I ask, just to be sure I understand.

  “If you consider the fact that the man you practically stole this ship from is about to come aboard, then perhaps yes, you would be. If I were you, I’d press that blue button right there.” He nods again, this time toward the control array to my right.

  “This one?” My finger hovers over the one I think he means. The word ‘CLOSEDOOR’ glows on its surface. Duh. Probably should have noticed that one on your own, Genius.

  He nods.

  A second after I press it, a rumbling starts from somewhere deep in the belly of the ship, followed shortly by some muffled shouting. I’m pretty sure it’s Langlade and he’s watching the door close in his face. Two seconds later, the faint sound is cut off and the rumbling stops.

  “Thanks for the advice.” I grace Jeffers with one of my rare smiles.

  He makes a half bow and then once again fixes his gaze on me. “Have you made your decision about who you’re keeping and who you’re letting go?”

  Is this is a trick question? Can’t he see that I’m a complete brownshins at this captaining gig? Maybe not. Maybe I can fake it until I make it, if I can keep the crew members like him on board. “I’d like to keep anyone who wants to stay. I can’t pay much, but…”

  He waves his hand. “The Kinsblade 3 is my home. If you’ll have me, I’ll stay.”

  “Her name’s Anarchy.” My chin goes up in expectation of his criticism. It may be childish, but I picked that name three years ago, and I haven’t thought of another one since. It’s perfect. It fits my life and my personal beliefs better than any other name I could come up with.

  Another half bow comes. “As you wish.”

  I sigh loudly, not sure that what I want to say is the right thing, but knowing I’m going to say it anyway. “I really wish you’d stop bowing at me.”

  “You’re the captain, and the captain deserves my respect.”

  “Can you respect me without the bowing?” I hate that I sound so weak, but something about this old man makes me feel like I’m ten again. And ten-year-olds cannot possibly pilot drifter ships. Hell, nineteen-year-olds can’t pilot drifter ships. Who in the hell do I think I’m fooling?

  He smiles, his eyes twinkling. “I suppose I could manage it. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Disarmed again, I relax. Here I am stressing out about being old enough to own a DS, and all he’s worried about are hot drinks. Then his words hit me.

  “You have tea here?” I can’t imagine how that could be possible. Trading for tea is big business and highly regulated. That the OSG would let Langlade be a party to that network is kind of hard to believe, and it’s not like he’s the type to be having personal tea parties. Another mystery aboard the DS Anarchy.

  “We have some plants and herbs. I take it your tour did not include the biogrid?”

  “No.” I shake my head, afraid to hope for too much. “I jus
t saw the engine room, the cargo hold, a couple of the bunks, and the flightdeck.” A biogrid on a DS? He can’t mean what I’m imagining.

  It seems as if my keycode and biogrid information is outdated. Not surprising, considering the sources of the DS details I had at my disposal. Men and women who spend most of their lives sitting at the givit tables aren’t well known for their honesty or worldliness.

  “Tremblay must have been the one to show you around.”

  Tremblay, aka, Mister Stinkbomb. “He doesn’t like tea?”

  “More like he was never one to care about where his food comes from, so he wasn’t really aware of what was going on in the outer chambers.” He gestures toward the door, his voice going deeper. “I think your next stop should be the biogrid. Lucinda will be very pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

  “Lucinda?” I walk two paces in front of him off the flightdeck and out into a corridor I’ve not yet seen. They all look mostly the same, though— gray, gritty, scratched, and in need of some attention.

  “Yes. Lucinda’s our horticulturist, and, until you came along, the only female onboard.”

  “Poor girl,” I say, wondering how this Lucinda person was able to fend off the advances of her crewmates… or if she even did.

  “She managed.”

  Jeffers' answer leaves more things unspoken than said, making me anxious to meet this woman who somehow grows forbidden tea leaves and lives in the outer chambers of a DS, the area most often used for storage or housing captives, according to my research.

  Chapter Five

  THE HORRIBLE STENCH OF ROTTING flesh and acrid poisons hits me as soon as I enter the biogrid chamber. I back up a step, hitting the edge of the entry portal. My hand flies up to my face, and my eyes dart left and right, searching for a mask that will protect my lungs.

  “Lucinda, it’s me and our new captain,” Jeffers says, reaching over and tapping in some numbers and letters into a keypad near the entrance. He seems completely unconcerned about the damage to his lung tissue. The door slides shut, nearly catching my shoulder, and a light goes on above us. I glance up to see its strange blue-green orb glowing from a seam in the wall.

  A girl not much older than I am if her skin is anything to judge by comes out from behind the black panel and stops, staring at us. “What’s this?” she asks. She doesn’t sound happy.

  “This is our new captain.” Jeffers gestures at his crewmate. “Cass Kennedy, meet Lucinda.”

  Lucinda blinks a few times as she continues to stare at me. “She’s young.”

  He nods once. “Yes, she is.”

  “I expected her to be older.”

  I have the strangest sensation that there’s something else going on here besides just an introduction. Assuming I’ll figure out what it is soon enough, I step forward, holding out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Lucinda.”

  Lucinda looks to Jeffers, one eyebrow slightly arched. “Polite, too.”

  My hand continues to hang in the air between us.

  Her gaze shifts down to my offer of greeting. “How do I know you mean us no harm?”

  I can respect a girl who sticks up for herself and guards her privacy, so I don’t let her attitude put me off. But at the same time, she needs to know who the boss is in the room, and I’ve got news for her. It ain’t the horticulturist.

  I give her a tight smile. “The first step is to shake my hand and say hello. Play nice and up your chances of getting on my good side.”

  The back corners of her jaws bounce out, but then she takes my hand. Her palm is rougher in comparison to mine, which is surprising; I thought I had bad calluses.

  “Hello.” Her voice is tone dead.

  I have no idea why she’s being so bitchy, but I don’t care. This is my ship now, and she needs to accept that. Letting her hand go, I sidestep to my right, looking up to the ceiling at the pipes above our heads that are traveling all over in a maze of directions.

  “It stinks in here.” I shift my gaze to Lucinda just in time to see a tiny smile appear before it disappears again in a flash.

  “That’s a biosystem for you,” she says, shrugging.

  “That’s funny,” I say, trying to act casual, “the biodomes I worked in never smelled like this.”

  “You’ve worked in a biodome?” The implication in her tone is impossible to miss: she doesn’t believe me, maybe because I’m missing the telltale brown-stained shins that many of those workers have.

  “Yep, I’ve worked in two biodomes, as a matter of fact, and they always smelled of … earth.” The word is like magic to me. There is no other scent like the loam of our ancestors’ old world, traded like precious metals here in our time. Superstition says that only with some of it added to your biosystem will you ever have a crop worth harvesting.

  “Luce, I think we should…”

  Jeffers' statement is cut off by Lucinda walking over to halt my further progress into the chamber. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to know about our work?” She positions herself in front of a door with a light over it. The light is red.

  I nod, pointing at the closed portal behind her. “Yeah. I’d like to know what’s behind that door.”

  She shrugs. “Nothing. Just some noxious weeds. Meat-eating variety. We’re doing experiments with them. That’s what you smell in here. The off-gasses. Highly toxic if you come into direct contact.”

  “Really.” I don’t believe a word coming out of this girl’s mouth. I can spot a liar from fifty paces; it’s a special talent of mine. It’s how I got so good at givit and survived out in the Dark as long as I have.

  Reaching past her, I sweep my hand over the lock screen, but nothing happens. I grab the handle and pull. Nothing happens again.

  “It’s locked,” she says. “For crew safety.”

  Pulling myself up to my full one point six meters, I fix her with a look. My voice is soft, but my tone promises trouble if she doesn’t comply. “I’m the captain of this ship, and I have access to every square centimeter of it, seeing as how she’s mine. What’s the code to enter?” Sliding the cover to the keypad away, my fingers hover over the letters and numbers glowing out from the touchscreen, ready to input the sequence she gives me.

  “There is no code. It’s programmed for biowaves. Only Jeffers and I are permitted entry. It’s not safe for anyone else.” Her expression displays neither fear nor respect, which only pisses me off more. She’s just not getting this at all.

  I give her a smile I hope will disarm her. “Not even your former captain?” I find it very hard to believe that Langlade didn’t care to know about the crazy experiments that were taking place inside the walls of his hull. Something very strange is going on here.

  Her chin goes up in defiance. “No. He was never interested in what we did up here, so long as he had his food and medicines when he needed them.”

  I shrug casually, even though I feel anything but relaxed. “Regardless, you’ll be adding a third biowave to the list of authorized entrants. Mine. In the meantime, use yours.” I nod at the keypad.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest.

  Okay, play time is over. I don’t have time for this shit with Langlade out there on the dock making noise. Time to turn up the heat. I take a step closer and slowly slide my dagger from the sheath. It’s up next to her face before she even knows my intentions.

  “Okay, sweetness, let me be perfectly clear, so we don’t get off on the wrong foot with you thinking you run the show up here and that I’m some sort of idiot like Langlade who lets his crew do whatever the hell they please without his even knowing.” I flick my gaze to the keypad and then back to her. “Either you open that door for me willingly, or I knock your ass out and open the door with your limp body myself. You might think obeying me is a choice, and you’d be right. It is a choice.” I press harder against her throat. “Either make the right one now yourself or I’ll make the right one for you.”


  She’s shaking and now struggling to breathe too, but it doesn’t keep her from answering. “You don’t know which part of my body it is.”

  I grin evilly, loving the fact that she’s a crazy bitch too. Too bad there’s no one here crazier than me. “I’ll start with your forehead and work my way down.”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Jeffers says with a sigh from behind me. He walks over to the door, puts the heel of his palm on the pad, and the door unlocks with a click and a whoosh as it slides into its pocket in the wall.

  “Jeffers! No!” Lucinda cries, shoving past me, heedless of the knife just inches from her face. She stops in the open doorway and opens her arms. “No! You can’t enter. There’s poison in here and things that will steal the breath from your lungs.” Her hand fumbles on the wall just inside the door and she comes out with a breather mask, holding it out for me to see before pressing it to her face.

  I look from her to Jeffers. There’s shock on one face and resignation on another.

  “If you never take a risk, you never reap the reward,” he says to her.

  “If you never take a risk, you never lose anything either,” she says to him, tears in her eyes. The mask falls from her face in defeat as her hand drops to her side.

  I’m about to ask them what the hell is going on when something hits me: a scent — one that can’t have anything to do with poisons or things bad for my lungs. The odor of herbs and water washes over me first. Then something even more amazing: the perfume that can only come from real flowers. A distant memory from my childhood informs my conscious mind of what I’m sensing, but without it, I wouldn’t have a single clue what was going on. Flowers are reserved for the Haves, not the Havenots, and Langlade is definitely a member of the latter group, as am I. As of three years ago, in fact.

  I slide my knife back home in its sheath and step forward, anxious to confirm my suspicions. “It’s Eden,” I say, my voice barely above a plain breath. There are stories about places where green things grow in the earth —everything a person could need coming right from the soil at their feet— but I always assumed it was another myth, like the stories of winged dragons and nations where people actually voted for their leaders.