The Orpheus Plot

by Christopher Swiedler

  Maria stepped forward. “If you’re going to be discussing what to do with us, it’s only fair that we have a representative who can make our case.”

  “So everyone seems to think,” Mai said. She sighed and nodded at Lucas. “Which is why they’re inviting him to speak.”

  Lucas blinked in surprise. The merchants wanted him to speak at this council meeting?

  “Lucas?” Maria asked. “Are you serious? He’s just a little kid.”

  “Maybe,” Jo said. “But he’s a Belter. Which you should be glad for, because it means there’s a chance the council will believe what he says.”

  “They shouldn’t,” Maria said darkly. “He’s a liar and a—”

  Hanako put her hand on Maria’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stop.”

  “We’ll come get all of you in thirty minutes,” Mai said. She turned toward Lucas. “I suggest you spend that time coming up with an argument for why we shouldn’t just turn you over.”

  21

  LUCAS SAT AGAINST the wall with his arms folded and stared blankly at the floor in front of him. The other cadets gave him a wide berth. Once in a while one of them would glance at him, but mostly they just pretended he wasn’t there. That was fine with him. He wasn’t in a mood to talk to anyone right now.

  Oliver was dead. This wasn’t a game of capture the flag where he’d be back in sixty seconds. He was gone forever. And now it was up to Lucas to make sure that the rest of the cadets didn’t end up stretched out under white sheets.

  It was too much. How was he supposed to convince the merchants not to hand them right back to Stockton and the miners? What would he even say? Part of him wanted to tell everyone that this wasn’t his responsibility. He was just a kid from the Belt. Some of the cadets and officers on the Orpheus hadn’t even wanted him to be there. Why was it his job to try to save them all now?

  He could hear Sanchez’s voice in his head. Because you are a leader now, whether you like it or not. Jo was right. Belter merchants weren’t going to listen to a kid from the inner planets. But maybe they would listen to Lucas—if he could figure out what to say.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elena and Rahul whispering to each other and looking in his direction. After a few minutes, they came over and sat down in a little semicircle around him. Elena cleared her throat.

  “So, Lucas,” she said. “What exactly happened back on the Orpheus?”

  “You told Maria you didn’t know what they were planning to do,” Rahul said. “But that means you knew something.”

  Lucas had been half expecting this conversation ever since they’d gotten back to the bazaar. He took a deep breath and explained how the miners had given him the data chip. “It wasn’t until later that I found out they’d given Tali an identical chip.”

  “So she was the one who planted it on the backup bridge?” Elena asked. “Why didn’t you turn her in?”

  “Because she’s his sister,” Rahul said.

  Lucas stared at him in shock. “You knew?”

  “Sure,” Rahul said, waving his hand. “That wasn’t too hard to work out. The records are all public if you know what to look for. Didn’t anyone else notice how they were always off talking by themselves?”

  “So she’s the person you were protecting,” Elena said to Lucas.

  Lucas nodded. “I thought I could stop her before she did any harm. I didn’t expect . . . any of this.”

  “It did kind of come out of left field,” Rahul agreed. “The question is, what did she expect? And why did she help them? Was it blackmail?”

  “Or maybe she got something she wanted out of it,” Elena said.

  “It was a little of both,” Lucas said. “She was paying off a debt. Stockton—the leader of those miners—helped her get into the Navy. But then once she was here, they started threatening to expose her.”

  “So she let them hijack the ship just so she wouldn’t get expelled?” Elena asked.

  “She didn’t know what they were going to do,” Lucas insisted.

  “Maybe. Or maybe she’s not as noble as you think she is. Isn’t it kind of convenient that she disappeared when you rescued us? She could have decided that it was better to be in with the miners after all.”

  Rahul frowned. “Elena!”

  “He’s blinded by the fact that Tali is his sister,” Elena said, shrugging. “But just because someone is family doesn’t mean they can’t betray you.”

  “No,” Lucas said. He could feel his temper rising. “She didn’t run away, and she didn’t join up with the Belters. If she didn’t come back, it was because she was captured. And I’m going to find a way to rescue her.”

  “How?” Rahul asked. “Getting into the base through an airlock isn’t going to work a second time. They’ll have every entrance guarded from now on. And even if you’re right, you don’t have any idea where she’s being kept.”

  “I don’t know,” Lucas said. “I’ll think of something.”

  He jumped up and strode off toward the other side of the room. Maybe Elena meant well, but she was wrong. He knew his sister better than anyone else did. She’d made mistakes, and she was going to have to take responsibility for them. But he wasn’t going to abandon her, no matter how many mistakes she made.

  As he came around the corner of a large stack of boxes, he nearly ran into Britta coming the other way. “Oh . . . hi, Lucas,” she said.

  “Hi,” he mumbled.

  “I was kind of looking for you, actually,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for coming back for all of us. It was pretty amazing, rescuing us like that.”

  Lucas glanced at where Oliver still lay under a white blanket. “I didn’t rescue all of you.”

  Britta was quiet for a moment. “I already miss him . . . even though at the same time I’m expecting him to pop around the corner at any minute and tell one of his stupid jokes.”

  A lump formed in Lucas’s throat. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

  “You know, after we won that capture-the-flag game, he talked for days about what a great match it was. He thought your plan was absolute genius. I think if he could, he’d tell that story all over again, right now.”

  “I guess,” Lucas said.

  “But he’d also tell you that it wasn’t your fault he was killed. Because if you hadn’t done what you did, the rest of us would still be locked up, and we’d have no chance at all of freeing the colony or taking back the Orpheus. It was heroic.”

  Lucas didn’t feel at all like a hero. He felt like someone who had broken something priceless and was now trying to fit all the pieces back together. Except that some pieces could never be repaired.

  The door to the storage room opened, revealing Smythe, Jo, and Mai, all wearing colorful Belter robes. “Follow us,” Smythe said to the assembled cadets. “The council wants all of you there. Keep your mouths shut and stay in line.”

  Britta reached out and squeezed Lucas’s hand. “You can do this. You got all of us out of there. Compared to that, a bunch of Belter merchants is nothing. Right?”

  She leaned toward him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, and then she jogged off toward her friends before he could react. He reached up and touched his cheek, replaying the moment in his mind. Had that really just happened? Or had it just been his imagination?

  Rahul came over and grabbed his arm. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, pulling Lucas toward the exit. “You’re the star attraction.”

  “Did you see that?” Lucas asked.

  “See what?”

  Lucas sighed. “Nothing . . . forget it.”

  They followed along behind the other cadets as Smythe, Jo, and Mai led them out of the warehouse and into an alley. Instead of turning toward the main boulevard that ran down the center of the bazaar, they followed a side street that curved along the edge of the dome. On one side of the street, two-story houses had been built directly against the dome so that the residents had views of the Vestan surface outside. Opposite the houses was a series of tall
tenement buildings dotted with small fake-granite balconies. Men, women, and a few children stood on some of the balconies, looking down at the long line of cadets being led down the street. A young kid at a first-floor window stared openmouthed at Lucas as he passed. As soon as he saw Lucas looking back at him, he ducked down as if he was afraid.

  Smythe led them into the back entrance of a large building. They followed a narrow tunnel that sloped down and then back up again before coming out into an oval-shaped amphitheater. About a quarter of the seats were filled with Belters talking quietly with each other. As soon as the cadets entered, a buzz went through the audience, and the men and women leaned forward and craned their necks to get a better view.

  “It’s the Janusarium,” Elena whispered, looking around.

  She was right, Lucas realized. He hadn’t recognized it without the stylized lighting and hazy smoke. Someone had removed the mat and ring where the judo bouts had taken place, leaving a wide-open space at the center of the amphitheater. Smythe led the cadets up to an empty section of seats. Jo and Mai sat down at a control panel a few rows in front of them.

  “Last time I was here, this place looked a lot different,” Elena remarked.

  Mai turned and glared at her. “Maybe when this is all over, we can settle that score.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Elena said politely.

  Smythe stood at the center of the floor and held up his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. He glanced at Jo, who flipped a switch on the control panel. This time, when he spoke, hidden acoustic sensors picked up his voice and amplified it through speakers in the walls.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. We are here to decide what we will do with these naval cadets who, either through chance or design, have ended up in our custody—”

  A tall woman in a red robe stood up in her seat. “Last I heard it was two cadets we had to worry about!” she shouted. “How’d we end up with the whole damn crew?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” Smythe said smoothly. “One that I’m sure the cadets themselves will answer when it’s time. However, we will first hear testimony from one of the miners who have occupied the Vestan naval base.”

  Smythe turned toward a tunnel opposite the one that the cadets had entered through. Lucas froze as he saw McKinley leaning against the wall, half hidden in shadows.

  “Him,” Rahul muttered.

  McKinley gave a broad smile and stepped out into the light. “Hello and greetings, my fellow Belters,” he said in a loud voice that barely needed any amplification. “My name is Abbott McKinley. I’ve made my living same as all of you, makin’ eat as best I could. I’ve been a miner, a pilot, and an engineer, on everything from dusters to freighters.”

  “Don’t forget bosun’s mate on the Orpheus,” Maria shouted.

  McKinley’s smile faltered, but only for a moment. “That’s true! I can’t forget that. When times got particularly hard, I took a job in the Navy, where every day I saw how the muskrats treat hardworking people like yourselves.”

  He waved his arms at the audience. “Some of them treated me like dirt, just like you’d expect. But what was worse was how they treated all of you. Time and time again I saw fine, upstanding citizens thrown in jail for the tiniest of offenses. Permits hours out of date: locked up. One measly item missing an import stamp: locked up. Men, women, and children of all types: locked up, locked up, locked up!”

  “Baloney,” Maria said from the row behind Lucas. “That’s pure baloney.”

  But true or not, McKinley’s words were having an effect on the Belter audience. The crowd was nodding in agreement, and people were muttering under their breath.

  “We don’t want to hurt anyone,” McKinley said. “We took those children hostage for our protection. For your protection. Because when the muskrat admirals come calling, with their cruisers and destroyers, the first thing they’re going to want to do is bomb this whole place until it’s nothing more than a black hole in space. If we have those cadets, we can negotiate. We can convince Earth that all the Free State of Vesta wants is to be left in peace.”

  McKinley looked around at the audience. “I want what you want, friends. I want your safety. And that’s why I need you to turn over those cadets.”

  He bowed deeply. There were cheers and scattered clapping from the audience. Smythe stood up and raised his arms. “Before we decide, we’re going to hear from one of the naval cadets.”

  Smythe nodded at Lucas. Elena squeezed his shoulder. “Good luck,” she whispered.

  Lucas walked to the center of the arena floor. Everyone in the amphitheater was looking at him expectantly. He wiped his palms on his uniform jacket and took a deep breath to try to slow his racing heartbeat. How was he supposed to do this? He was barely comfortable talking to a few people at once, and now he was here in front of a hundred. And he still hadn’t even figured out what he was going to say.

  You can’t persuade someone if you don’t know how they see things, Sanchez had told him. He looked around at the colonists. He’d grown up with these people. He recognized more than a few of them. If anyone in the Navy understood their perspective, it was him.

  Then you make them understand what you need them to understand. That was the hard part. But he’d started out where they were now, hadn’t he? Being on the Orpheus had taught him a lot. And now his job was to somehow distill two months of experience into a two-minute speech.

  “Hello,” he said, and cleared his throat. His voice, amplified through the speakers, echoed around the room. “My name is Lucas Adebayo. I’m a Belter, like all of you. I can run an ore loader. For three years in a row, I spent a month here learning to code at Magus Finney’s camp. My favorite flavor of ice treat at Roja’s is indigo dream.”

  “Bollocks,” a woman called. “Cherry incarnate is far superior.”

  The crowd laughed, and Lucas relaxed a little. “But I’m also a Navy cadet. I joined up just a couple of months ago. I’ve seen the way they do things. I’ve watched intercepts and investigations.”

  “Ambushes, more like it!” someone shouted.

  “Yes,” Lucas said, nodding as if the woman had just agreed with him. “Not everything I saw was fair. But the people I worked with were all good people, trying to do a job that they thought was right.”

  The crowd muttered and he raised his hands, palms upward. “Something has to change! Something is broken. I know why McKinley and his miners did what they did. But this isn’t the right way to do it. Fighting isn’t the answer.

  “The Navy doesn’t understand Belters. But when someone doesn’t understand you, do you punch them in the face? Or do you talk to them?”

  Lucas looked around the room. There were a few nods of agreement, but they were outnumbered by the skeptical expressions. On the other hand, at least nobody was shouting at him.

  “Ever since I joined up as a cadet, everyone has seemed to want me to choose: am I a Belter kid or a Navy cadet? But that whole question is wrong. As soon as you believe you have to be on one side or another, then you’ve already cut yourself off. The entire reason for this fight is because all everyone sees are divisions and separations and differences.

  “Well, I’m Navy, and I’m Belter. I’m both. I’m not giving up on either one.”

  Lucas paused. The crowd was listening intently. His words were having some effect—but would it be enough? He took a deep breath and tried to keep his momentum going.

  “I’m not asking you to like the Navy. Maybe it’s hard for you to trust them right now. But I’m asking you to work with them. Figure out a solution that doesn’t involve hurting people, and say no to people who tell you that the only way to fix problems is with violence. Because—”

  “This meeting is over!” a voice shouted. Lucas turned and saw Stockton standing in front of the tunnel on the other side of the amphitheater floor, pointing a mining laser up into the air. “We’re taking the kids.”

  He waved his hand, and a dozen miners with weapons appeared at t
he top level of the amphitheater. They moved carefully down the steps, swiveling their weapons around as if they were afraid of being attacked at any moment. The audience muttered in anger.

  “Stockton, you idiot,” McKinley said. “I told you to wait!”

  “I’m done waiting,” Stockton snarled. “We tried it your way. Now we’re taking the kids, like we should have done from the start.”

  Instinctively, Lucas backed up until he was standing next to the control panel. Stockton waved his weapon at Lucas. “Don’t move. Or come to think of it, please do move. It’d be a pleasure to blast that smirk off your face, just like I did with that little—”

  Before he could finish, Maria howled in fury and leaped down from her seat to the amphitheater floor. Startled, Stockton turned toward her, but Maria crossed the distance between them before he could fire. She bent her shoulder and tackled him at waist level, driving him to the floor.

  All at once, the cadets from the Orpheus jumped to their feet and surged after Maria. Rahul vaulted toward the miners, screaming at the top of his lungs, with Elena right behind him.

  For a moment the Belters didn’t seem to understand what was going on. A few of them raised their weapons, but before they could fire, four enormous pillars of smoke burst out from the floor, swallowing both the miners and the cadets. A moment later, the entire amphitheater went dark except for the faint yellow glow of emergency lamps on the stairs. Lucas looked around in confusion and saw Mai and Jo bent over the control board, flipping switches rapidly.

  “Get them!” Stockton screamed. Mining lasers flashed in the haze, and someone cried out in pain. Through the swirling smoke, Lucas caught a glimpse of Stockton pulling away from Maria and struggling to his feet. Lucas rushed at him and grabbed his arm as he raised his laser to fire. Stockton slugged Lucas in the gut with his free hand, but Lucas kept his grip on his arm. Maria grabbed at the weapon and twisted it away from Stockton. In response, Stockton kicked savagely at Maria’s knee. She cried out in pain and collapsed on the ground.