Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Mestasis’s stom­ach sank to her knees. She’d be­come dis­trac­ted and sac­ri­ficed the ex­er­cise. Her neg­li­gence could cost TINE new in­vestors and cost her and her sis­ter their jobs.

  “The second and third ones from my right, tail num­bers EK96 and EL39.” Abysme stuck her nose up in the air. “It was a trick ques­tion. There are two.” Above their heads, the sound of en­gines roared and dis­sip­ated as the hov­er­crafts rose up and changed dir­ec­tion.

  “Ex­cel­lent, girls.” Dr. Fields’ face flushed. He could barely hold in his ex­cite­ment. Of course, he thought they’d worked in con­junc­tion. He had no idea of Mestasis’s flub. Nor would he. Abysme’s loy­al­ties lay with her and not TINE.

  “You may go back to your quar­ters and rest. That’s all we need for today.”

  “Thank you, Doc­tor.” Mestasis nod­ded to him and to the mir­ror. She could sense at least six bod­ies be­hind the glass, and she wanted them to know she sensed their pres­ence, as if de­tect­ing bombs in high-speed hov­er­crafts fifty meters away wasn’t enough. Even though Abysme had stronger tal­ents, she felt like she’d failed and had to make it up one way or an­other.

  Abysme fol­lowed her as she rushed into the hall­way.

  What were you think­ing? Her sis­ter ran to catch up. Your mind strayed and I lost you.

  I’m sorry, Bysme. I need to meet someone.

  She grabbed her arm, slow­ing her down. You’re scar­ing me. You’re the one want­ing us to pass these silly tests, re­mem­ber? Who in all of TINE would be more im­port­ant than our fu­ture?

  The per­son who’s gonna help us get out of here.

  Her sis­ter paused at her words and Mestasis yanked her arm back and sprin­ted the re­main­ing dis­tance to the el­ev­ator. Abysme glared while Mestasis pressed the el­ev­ator panel and waited for the doors to part. Who is he?

  I don’t have time to elab­or­ate. She didn’t know how long James could stand at a credit ma­chine without in­vit­ing ques­tions. And she didn’t want her sis­ter to see her de­vel­op­ing feel­ings for this man. I won’t be long.

  Her heart sped as she raced to the nearest cor­ridor join­ing the build­ings. She had re­hearsed so many sen­tences in her head, hop­ing to set things right. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you. I en­joyed our last con­ver­sa­tion. I have so much I want to ask you. None of it soun­ded right.

  She didn’t think she could speak of her mother, the thought of that day sick­en­ing her stom­ach. It had been two weeks, and the sore re­mained just as ex­posed and tender as when she first heard the news. She didn’t think it would ever com­pletely heal. Yet, to be truly hon­est with him, she’d have to bring her­self to men­tion it.

  A line snaked out from the credit ma­chine, run­ning down the hall to the next build­ing. Busi­ness­men car­ry­ing min­is­creens, wo­men with tod­dlers hanging on their arms, and a few teens lucky enough to have a keytag hold­ing cred­its in the first place shif­ted form foot to foot. She fol­lowed the string of people up a stair­case, won­der­ing why they wanted to with­draw their cred­its all at once.

  The thought of the world col­lapsing rose up again and she squashed it down. Not yet. Not un­til she found a way off this doomed planet. The line tapered off on a bal­cony on the op­pos­ite side, the last per­son an eld­erly man with a muscled body­guard painted in tat­toos. Be­hind them, James stood on the rail­ing, his black cloak flut­ter­ing in the breeze. He’d tied his mid­night hair in a pony­tail, re­veal­ing the sleek ridges of his strong cheekbones.

  He looked hand­some as ever. The mo­ment when their lips had touched came back to her in a rush. “James.” She placed her hand on his boot. “Please come down.”

  His eyes widened as he saw her, stormy-sil­ver like the clouds churn­ing in the sky be­hind him. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”

  “Non­sense. I gave you the nan­odisc, re­mem­ber?”

  He leaped down, land­ing in front of her. Ex­cite­ment flashed in his face. He reached out and pulled his hand back, as if he didn’t know how to ap­proach her.

  Mestasis grabbed his hand be­fore he jammed it in his pocket and pulled him closer. “James, I’m sorry I didn’t meet you that day.” Swal­low­ing a lump in her throat she summoned enough cour­age to tell him the truth. Be­sides Abysme, she hadn’t spoken to any­one about it, not even Dr. Fields. “My mother passed away. I learned the news after our con­ver­sa­tion.”

  His face changed from un­cer­tain to com­pas­sion­ate. “Metsy, I’m so sorry.”

  The facade she’d so care­fully con­struc­ted crumbled and her lips trembled as tears brimmed. He brought her against his chest, wrap­ping his arms around her and hold­ing her close. She heard the strong pulse of his heart beat­ing just for her. “I tried to save her, but I was too late.”

  James smoothed over her hair, his fin­gers run­ning down her braids to her shoulders. “You still have time to save your sis­ter.” He brought his head down next to hers and whispered in her ear. “I found the man in charge of one of the colony ships.”

  Mestasis pulled back to see his face. “How?”

  He shrugged, still hold­ing onto her. To the eld­erly man and his body­guard, they ap­peared as any young couple in love. The line moved up ahead and the tat­tooed man ushered his ward down the steps and into the hall. James watched them leave then con­tin­ued. “Con­nec­tions. If you listen to people talk long enough, you hear things.”

  “Is he look­ing for people to take on board?”

  “No. But he is look­ing for someone to drive it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ship it­self is so com­plic­ated, so many sys­tems must run in sync, he needs someone able to over­see all of the reg­u­la­tions, someone that could work with the main­frame to en­sure the safety of every­one on board.”

  “You’re think­ing me?”

  James nod­ded. “Thadi­ous Leg­acy’s his name, and he’s already agreed to meet with you. To save your sis­ter as well, you must con­vince him you and your sis­ter work to­gether, that he needs both of you to run the ship.”

  Mestasis thought back to the demon­stra­tion that morn­ing at TINE. “That’s easy. The hard part will be get­ting out of our con­tract at TINE.”

  “He’ll pay TINE off and guar­an­tee them a num­ber of spots on the colony ship.”

  “You’re sure of it?”

  James nod­ded once. “Pos­it­ive.”

  Mestasis’s heart fluttered as her head swam with the thought of a hope­ful fu­ture and most of all, grat­it­ude. “James, you just gave me everything I wanted. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not that easy, Metsy. It means be­ing con­nec­ted to the ship. Liv­ing as one un­til the Ex­ped­i­tion reaches Para­dise 18 in hun­dreds of years. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can, if it keeps my sis­ter safe.”

  “Good.” He pulled away from her and moved to­ward the steps. “I’ll get you that ap­point­ment.”

  Mestasis called after him. “Wait!”

  He whipped around, his face set in ex­pect­a­tion.

  “I’ll ne­go­ti­ate to get you on there as well. After all you’ve done for me, I’m not go­ing to leave you be­hind.”

  James turned to the hov­er­crafts whizz­ing by them. Her heart dropped as he ripped his gaze away. “I’m needed here. The Ra­dio­act­ive Hand of Justice’s work will never be done. Con­di­tions worsen every day. There’s talk of war between the United Fed­er­a­tion and the For­eign Union, be­sides civil un­rest. You must have heard about the Mis­sis­sippi dry­ing up?”

  Mestasis nod­ded and he con­tin­ued. “Well, there’s not enough wa­ter to go around. Ri­oters make their way here even now. Soon they’ll break through the city walls.”

  “All the more reason why you should come with me.” She took his hand. “Please let me ar­gue on your be­half.”

  James
sighed and his face closed up, “I’m not leav­ing my people be­hind.”

  Mestasis stepped to­ward him. With her and Abysme’s powers, she had the ul­ti­mate bar­gain­ing chip. Why not try? “How many people are you talk­ing about?”

  He scanned the bal­cony as if he could see to the lower levels where people scrounged while they stood un­der­neath the sun. “Ob­vi­ously, I’d like to save every­one in the city, and every other city for that mat­ter. But if I had to pick a num­ber.” He ran his hand over his long hair and pursed his lips. She’d asked him to play God, and she knew that wasn’t easy.

  Squeez­ing his hand, she gazed into his eyes and pleaded. “Just give me some­thing I can work with.”

  James gazed down her cheek to her hand as it grasped his. She brought her head closer, her face tilted just bey­ond his lips. He bowed down and al­most closed the dis­tance. His breath warmed her mouth. “I’d say about three hun­dred.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Mestasis rose up on her toes and closed the dis­tance, push­ing her lips into his in a fierce kiss. When she pulled back from him, he pulled her back in. They stood there want­ing one an­other, deaf to the tick of time.

  When she did part from him, her voice hardened. “Set up a meet­ing with Mr. Leg­acy. I’ll do my best.”

  §

  Ah Mr. Leg­acy…

  If only Mestasis had known the Leg­acys would be the bane of their ex­ist­ence for the next three hun­dred years. She hadn’t wanted to ap­point Luna to the ex­plor­at­ory team, but as part of the con­tract she’d signed with Thadi­ous Leg­acy, she had to fa­vor his des­cend­ants over the rest of the crew. She only hoped the ex­traordin­ary tal­ents of the other mem­bers out­weighed Luna’s propensity for greed.

  chapter Twenty-One

  Close Quarters

  Brent­wood shook as someone woke him, rip­ping him away from the bliss­ful fog that had claimed his mind and his heart. Luna stared at him with eyes dec­or­ated in teal shad­ows, look­ing like a galactic sor­ceress come to steal his soul.

  “Lieu­ten­ant?”

  “What is it?” He never snapped, but this came pretty close.

  She took her hand off his arm as if he’d slapped it and cush­ioned it against her chest. “Tech says there’s a massive weather front on the radar.”

  “What?” He shot up in his seat and the re­strain­ing strap pulled tight against his chest. “Holy Quas­ars.” He un­clasped the lock at his waist and pushed his head for­ward to the front seat. Gemme slept soundly, the sight of her freckled cheeks mak­ing his neck tingle with heat. Hadn’t she been in his dream?

  “Lieu­ten­ant, lookie here.” Tech waved his chubby fin­ger in the air to catch his at­ten­tion. A fluor­es­cent green and blue clump claimed the radar. “Sorry to wake you, sir, but we need to change course and look for shel­ter.”

  “How bad is it?” Judging for the grow­ing plume of color, he already knew the an­swer.

  “It’s a full-fledged bliz­zard. The snow­fall alone could smother this landrover in over four meters. Not to men­tion the wind.”

  Brent­wood’s chest tightened as ad­ren­aline shot through his limbs. He’d gone from heaven to an icy hell in seconds. “Where should we go?”

  “Those moun­tains are our best bet.” Tech poin­ted out the sight panel at a string of ridges on the right. Even if we can’t find a cave, we could blast a hole into the ice.”

  “All right. Let’s switch seats and I’ll drive. I know how to gun it and keep the vehicle in con­trol. We’ll out­run the storm and wait it out against the moun­tain range.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tech ground the wheels to a halt and they pushed by each other, switch­ing seats. Brent­wood re­gained his com­pos­ure as he se­cured the belt across his chest. He pushed the foot pedal and the vehicle gained speed. Where had that dream come from? He couldn’t re­mem­ber and he didn’t have time to think back. Flur­ries blinded the main sight panel. The storm darkened the sky above them as it pressed in.

  He watched the speedo­meter, fix­ated above a tiny sym­bol of the Ex­ped­i­tion to the mov­ing ar­row. Sev­enty kilo­met­ers per hour, sev­enty-five. He could go up to one hun­dred without los­ing trac­tion, but bey­ond that, they’d be glid­ing help­less on the ice. “Strap your­self in, Tech,” he called over his shoulder. “Ms. Leg­acy, se­cure your seat re­straint as well.”

  “Already done.” Luna called back to him, but he ig­nored her. Cast­ing a side­ways glance, he saw Gemme lean­ing out of her seat re­straint, the strap hanging loose.

  “Ms. Reiner. Ms. Reiner, wake up!”

  She didn’t move. One look at the speedo­meter told him they’d ac­cel­er­ated to max­imum per­form­ance speed. The snow­flakes had grown lar­ger, fall­ing in clumps and col­lect­ing on the corners. He had to keep go­ing.

  “Damn!”

  With one hand one the wheel and one foot press­ing the pedal to the floor, he leaned over and nudged her up, ex­pos­ing the seat lock in her lap. Heat traveled from his neck to his cheeks as his fin­gers grazed her legs. If she woke up in that in­stant, it’d look like he groped her.

  Please don’t wake up right now.

  He grabbed the lock and pulled it to­ward him, click­ing it in place. She shif­ted as the straps tightened, but her eyes stayed closed. Re­lief flowed through him un­til he settled back into his seat and watched the blob on the radar move in.

  Snow whipped around the vehicle, blur­ring into streaks. Vis­ib­il­ity lessened with each minute un­til the en­tire sight panel filled with white. Calm­ing him­self, Brent­wood turned to his con­trols. The to­po­graphy charts re­por­ted the moun­tain range ap­proach­ing in twenty kilo­met­ers on the right. They’d driven a half a kilo­meter off course. He turned slightly and the tires skid­ded, pitch­ing the landrover side­ways. The min­ing equip­ment pulled them the op­pos­ite way, strain­ing the metal lock hitch­ing the plat­form to the vehicle. Luna screamed as the tires screeched un­der the pres­sure.

  Brent­wood gripped the wheel and spun it un­til the vehicle poin­ted back on course. “We’ll make it!” he shouted, won­der­ing if he re­as­sured him­self more than the oth­ers.

  Gemme stirred in the seat next to him. “What’s go­ing on?”

  “Bliz­zard.” He gave her the most com­fort­ing smile he could pro­duce. “Hold on tight.”

  The moun­tain range popped up out of nowhere and Brent­wood ca­reened along­side it, search­ing for an out­crop­ping. A slab of sheer, un­broken ice sprawled for miles be­side them. Brent­wood watched as the ar­row on the speedo­meter moved from sixty to fifty, then twenty as the tires sunk and stuck in the newly fallen snow. The en­gines roared in protest as the vehicle stopped, lodging it­self against a drift.

  “That’s as far as we can go.” Brent­wood pressed the panel for the hatch. “Get out your lasers, we’re blast­ing a hole.”

  “We’re go­ing out in the bliz­zard?” Luna shouted as the hatch opened and the howl­ing wind barreled in, strip­ping them of warmth in seconds.

  “Yup.” Tech pushed past her and whipped out his laser, check­ing the charge on the en­ergy cell. “Ready when you are, chief.” His en­thu­si­asm didn’t sur­prise Brent­wood. Tech had come up with the idea of blast­ing a hole in the first place.

  Brent­wood looked back to check on Gemme. She had her hood up, an­gora hair cov­er­ing half her face in an ad­or­able, yet sexy way. In her hand she held her laser, poised and ready to fire. He had a sud­den urge to com­fort her, to hold her close and feel the an­gora hair tick­ling his skin.

  Shak­ing his head, he signaled to Gemme with a wave of his hand.

  By the Guide, pay at­ten­tion!

  She gave him a nod and he turned back to the rest of the team, scream­ing over the ra­ging winds. “Set your lasers to max­imum sub­sonic pulse. Third click down. Fo­cus on my stream.”

  He fired, the white light pen­et­rat­ing the
outer layer of ice. Each mem­ber of the team joined in, and to­gether their lasers re­in­forced and stead­ied his stream. Steam rose from the ice as the white shafts of light burned a hole. The wind car­ried the steam away, re­veal­ing more and more lay­ers of ice.

  “There’s no rock, it’s just gi­ant gla­ciers of ice.” Tech shouted, face drawn as if he’d opened a present and found it empty.

  “That’s why it doesn’t show up on the min­ing grid.” Gemme shouted back at him. “No min­er­als to mine.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “It will make it easier to carve out a shel­ter.” Brent­wood tried to re­as­sure them. “Rock is harder to cut through.”

  They stood while the wind whipped around them, pulling at each strand of hair on his head and numb­ing his cheeks. Brent­wood wor­ried a strong enough gale might whip one of them away. Luna’s laser dipped, slash­ing the bot­tom of the moun­tain with white light.

  “Keep your arms up,” Brent­wood shouted to her. Why couldn’t she fol­low one or­der cor­rectly? Just one?

  Luna col­lapsed on her knees. “I can’t do it any longer. I’m freez­ing to death.”

  “Go back to the vehicle,” Brent­wood ordered. “We’ll do the rest.”

  Luna scrambled away with tears in her eyes. Pity trickled through him. Lieu­ten­ant­hood wasn’t cut out for some people, but that didn’t mean they weren’t as im­port­ant. He wished he could find a way to tell her and ease the bur­den of her fam­ily’s ex­pect­a­tions.

  It took twenty minutes to melt a hole large enough to fit the vehicle, the min­ing equip­ment, and them­selves. Brent­wood’s arms ached from hold­ing the laser steady. Tech’s cheeks were red as apples, and ice coated the tips of Gemme’s hair. Yet, be­sides Luna, they held their ground. Pride surged in­side him.

  “Good work, Al­pha Blue. Now help me dig out the landrover. We’re go­ing in.”

  A thick layer of snow had covered the vehicle in the time it took for them to melt a hole in the moun­tain. He plunged into the snow, dig­ging out the tires with his gloved hands and curs­ing all their in­ex­per­i­ence. They’d brought skin re­gen­er­at­ors, high pro­tein and elec­tro­lyte bars, min­is­creens with a databank of in­form­a­tion. But no one had thought to bring a shovel. His fin­gers throbbed, but he kept dig­ging un­til he cleared the ruts of each tire.