Cardenas’ mouth curled up at the corner again. “Family….” He was staring at Zita.
Tatiana couldn’t stand it anymore. She strode over to him, pulled Zita out of his hands and carried her over to Ruh. Ruh took her. His face was pale, too.
“Keep her quiet,” Tatiana murmured.
He nodded and settled the toddler on his hip.
The soldiers at the gate had their ghostmakers back to pointing at people’s bellies. Cardenas got back to his feet and brushed off his hands. “Prepare for departure,” he said.
Three of the soldiers and one of the officers swiveled and hurried off the bridge, their boots rattling along the access corridor.
Cardenas resettled the folds of his uniform. “You are in Erium space without clearance. In times of war, such as act has natural consequences.”
All the ache and tension in her chest froze into a cold, hard pillar mixed of equal parts of fear and anger. She could blame the Karassian woman for putting her family in this position, yet it was really Tatiana’s fault. She should have assessed better, stayed on top of the doings of the two vast empires, instead of pretending they and their undeclared war didn’t exist. Her ignorance had killed her and her family.
“I understand,” she said, her lips stiff and uncooperative.
“I thought you might,” Cardenas said. He stepped over to Ruh and chucked Zita’s chin.
Tatiana held back her reaction. Sweat prickled under her arms.
Cardenas nodded at her. It was a short, stiff motion of his head that she suspected was possibly some sort of recognition of rank. She didn’t understand Eriumans well enough to know for sure.
He left, his shoulders back to square and stiff.
The bridge was silent behind him and the silence and motionlessness held until the outer hatch hissed shut and the shuttle decoupled from the ship with a heavy thud that made the Hathaway shudder.
Marisol dropped the heavy coffee tray onto the navigation table with an impact that made the remaining cups and crucibles rattle. “Move!” she cried, tearing off the thick green cap and letting her blonde, distinctive hair drop back around her shoulders. “Get out of here! Before they get back to their ship!”
“Out-run an Eriuman convoyer?” Tatiana replied. “You paid for discretion, not speed. That’s what you got.”
Marisol shot her hand out, up toward the roof, where the warship would be hanging, well within armament range. “They’re going to blow you out of the sky! They’re Eriuman. They kill everything that gets in their way!”
“I know,” Tatiana said. Calm filled her. There was nothing left to decide or do. “Elmer, track the Erium ship, please.”
Elmer wiped the back of his wrist across his eyes and turned back to his console. “Still in position above us.”
“Moving, yet?” Tatiana asked.
“They don’t have to move!” Marisol shouted. “They can kill us from where they’re sitting.”
“They won’t risk the fallout,” Tatiana replied.
“Moving off,” Elmer called.
“Do something!” Marisol cried.
Tatiana shook her head.
“Coming around,” Elmer said.
Marisol screamed. It was a wordless protest.
Everyone else was utterly silent.
Elmer made a choking sound. “They flew over us!” He turned to look at Tatiana. “They’re leaving!”
Ruh gave a shuddering groan and collapsed on the nearest stool, his arms tightening around Zita. Everyone else gave similar reactions of relief and disbelief. Tatiana didn’t indulge herself. Instead, she raced to the navigation table and crouched down next to it.
The hidden panel was open. The little space behind it was empty. The cover hung like a stunted appendage. It had been forced open.
Tatiana realized she was sitting on the deck, her head bowed. Her middle churned with watery sickness.
“You let them take the crystals?” Marisol screamed, right next to her. “How could you? Do you have any idea what you have done?”
“I do now,” Tatiana whispered.
Marisol shook the green cap at Tatiana. “All this humiliation, for nothing.”
“He would have killed you the moment he spotted you. Be thankful they only took the crystals,” Tatiana told her.
Ruh sank onto the deck next to her, putting Zita between his knees. “How did you know he wouldn’t see her?”
“Because he is an Eriuman,” Tatiana said tiredly. “They don’t see anyone who isn’t of their rank. Workers are invisible to them.”
“You know Eriumans so well?” Marisol asked heatedly. “You? A freeshipper?”
Tatiana rubbed her thigh. It was aching. “I knew that much about them. What I didn’t know almost got us killed, though. I made a mistake. I thought neutrality meant complacency. I won’t make that mistake again.” She hauled herself to her feet, using the table as an assist. “Someone get this woman off my ship.”
Marisol drew herself upright. “I paid for passage to Karassia!”
“You paid for my ignorance. I’m not ignorant anymore. I would advise you to leave before my compassion fails, Karassian.”
* * * * *
They dropped Marisol back on Rinat Prime. Ruh came to Tatiana’s quarters to give the report. He held out a glittering disk. “And I found Zita playing with this.”
Tatiana turned the golden button over and over, examining the crest on the front, the gilding, the detail around the edges and the torn scrap of purple cloth clinging to the back of it.
“He must have given it to Zita when he came over to us, just before he left,” Ruh added.
“He chucked her chin as distraction,” Tatiana added.
“But why give her a button?” Ruh asked.
Tatiana shook her head. “It’s not a button.”
“It’s not?”
“Do you remember? He said he had a big sister, just as you do.”
Ruh grimaced. “Bet his isn’t bossy like you.”
“Eriumans are patriarchal, so probably not,” Tatiana agreed calmly, making Ruh roll his eyes.
“So, if it’s not a button, what is it?” he asked.
“A favor.” She hefted the shiny disk. “Now I owe him.”
Ruh’s eyes bulged. “That’s…almost cheeky.”
“It is,” she agreed.
“He wasn’t what I expected,” Ruh admitted.
“In one way, he was as flawed as all of them. He didn’t see what was right under his nose. Neither did I, Ruh. We need to know more about the Eriumans and the Homogeny, both.”
Ruh looked a little ill. “Why?” he demanded. “Let them kill each other while the free states live their lives.”
“Because that’s what we couldn’t see,” Tatiana told him. “We keep ourselves deliberately ignorant and pretend their war has nothing to do with us, while they annex and enslave and conquer a system at a time. That is what will kill us. War is coming, Ruh. We need to prepare. We need to get to know our enemies.”
_________________________
The next book in the Indigo Report series.
New Star Rising, Book 1.
Be careful what you ask an android to do….
Bellona Cardenas Scordina de Deluca, daughter of the primary Cardenas family, went missing ten years ago. Reynard Cardenas, Bellona’s father and head of the family, receives anonymous, unsubstantiated news that she has been found. He sends the most disposable person in the family to investigate—Sang, the family android.
Sang’s investigation trips off chain reactions that shift the generations-old luke-warm war between Erium and Karassia into a galaxy-wide conflagration that will engulf the known worlds, including the neutral, fiercely independent free states…unless a hero can be found who will fight to hold the line against the two colossal forces.
New Star Rising is the first book in the Indigo Reports science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.
The Indigo Reports series:
/> 0.5 Flying Blind
1.0 New Star Rising
1.5 But Now I See
2.0 Suns Eclipsed
3.0 Worlds Beyond
Space Opera Science Fiction Series
__
Buy New Star Rising now:
https://cameroncooperauthor.com/new-star-rising/
(and also skip ahead for a preview)
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Sneak preview.
Enjoy Chapter 1 of New Star Rising, Book 1 of the Indigo Reports series, which is now available.
EXCERPT FROM NEW STAR RISING
COPYRIGHT © CAMERON COOPER 2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Chapter One
Kachmarain City, Kachmar Sodality, The Karassian Homogeny.
They had survived ten days in the Homogeny, yet Sang still found it difficult to ignore the constant attacks upon their concentration. Screens were everywhere—disposables, transluscents, impermeables for wet conditions, building-sized, thumbnail-sized, embedded in windows, luggage, shopping bags, vehicles and clouds. The spoon they used to eat breakfast had a long, narrow screen running along the handle. The faucets in the ablutions areas featured rosette screens on the activation sensors. Each and every screen offered a different data stream, a unique offering designed to seduce and hold the viewer’s attention.
The babble had been overwhelming, at first. After ten days it had evolved into merely distracting, which was why Sang failed to notice they were being observed, until the man made his move. By then it was too late to counter.
Sang held still, on alert. They put their spoon down. Regretfully, they would have to miss breakfast.
The eatery was busy, even this early. Many of the screens were displaying a show featuring a self-confessed biocomp called Chidi who mocked and disparaged the people he met. The Karassians seemed to enjoy the show, enough to train screens to focus on it. Sang did not understand how they could enjoy the derisive negativity. It made Sang uncomfortable.
Therefore, Sang did not watch the screens as so many in the eatery were. They pretended to watch, which allowed them to measure the man’s progress toward the far corner where they were sitting. The man would have to move around six long tables, with every stool occupied by noisy Karassians.
The man did not look enhanced. He did not look Karassian, either. He did not have blond hair or the pure, rich brown eyes that Karassians valued. That made him an outsider, as was Sang. Yet he was not Eriuman, either.
Was this the one? Sang waited with tense readiness.
“Will you look at the pretty one, then?” The question came from behind Sang.
“We’re going to sit down right next to you, sweet one.” A different voice. This one, female. Sang was jostled from behind, forcing them to look away from the stranger and up at the pair addressing them.
“You don’t look like a Karassian, sweet thing,” the woman said. She was native Karassian, visibly enhanced. Her bare arms featured metal sinews that sat on top of her white skin. There were plug-ins at both wrists. She would be strong, then.
The male narrowed his standard brown eyes. He had no chin and a large mouth. “That’s a thick lip you have there, little one.”
The swollen lip and the bruise on Sang’s cheek were courtesy of a scuffle two days ago, when Sang had explained physically why they did not appreciate a hand groping under their skirt when they were trying to board a carriage. Sang had assumed that the disfigurements would deflect interest. They had not.
“Move over, sweet thing,” the woman said, bumping Sang’s shoulder with her hip. Her metal enhanced hand gripped Sang’s arm, tugging them sideways and almost off the stool.
The man was pulling a third stool over to the long bench.
Sang sighed. “I do not wish to keep your company,” they said.
“We’re good company,” the woman replied. She put her hands around Sang’s waist and lifted them, then pushed the stool aside with her foot. She placed Sang on the relocated stool, her hands lingering. “Heavy,” she remarked. “You may be enhanced under that odd skin of yours?”
“I believe the lady said she did not want company.” The third voice was that of the man who had been watching Sang.
Sang was surprised to feel a sensation of relief trickle through them.
“She’s with you?” The woman was irked.
“Told you someone would have her,” the man muttered.
Sang looked at the stranger. “I am not with them.”
His nod was tiny. “She is with me. Move on.”
The woman looked at her partner. “He doesn’t look enhanced.” Her fingers curled inward, in preparation.
Sang braced for action. They were close enough to the woman, but they would have to turn to get a grip on her. It could be done, even against an enhanced.
The woman shot out her hand toward the stranger. It was very easy to pick her wrist up as she thrust it past Sang. Sang squeezed. Metal tendons bowed. The woman shrieked.
A few heads turned, though not as many as Sang would have expected.
The stranger who was not Karassian gripped Sang’s upper arm, not hard, but firmly enough for Sang to know they would not be able to dislodge the grip without causing damage. “Let her go,” the man said quietly. “You’re drawing attention.”
“We are not nearly remarkable enough to do that,” Sang said with a confidence built over the last ten days. Only Karassians like Chidi, with their extremes of social behavior, held anyone’s attention for long.
The man shook Sang. “Let go.”
Sang let the woman go. She snatched her arm back and cradled the wrist. “Freak!” she hissed.
Sang smiled. “If you insist.”
The Karassian man pulled the woman away.
Sang got to their feet and moved past the pair. The stranger held on to Sang’s arm as they threaded back through the tables. Outside, the sun was dazzling. Sang adjusted their vision.
The man hurried them through the early morning crowds. Karassians did not stay at home if they could find a reason not to. Even though the standard work day did not begin for a while yet, the footpaths were as busy as they would be for the rest of the day.
“Where are you going?” Sang asked the man.
“Somewhere private.”
“There is such a place here?”
The man glanced at Sang over his shoulder. “I suggest you not speak again until we reach that place.”
Sang remained silent. The man did not remove his hand. Sang didn’t protest. It would ward off others, if Sang was seen to be under his control. It simplified things.
The private place was one Sang should have anticipated. The day pod was the third in a row of ten sitting on the edge of the footpath between pedestrians and the occasional ground car. A retreat pod was one place where privacy would be honored, especially if the two of them were seen entering. Karassians liked their pornography, yet they still preferred a closed door for their personal couplings.
The pod accepted the man’s scan and opened. He pushed Sang inside and sealed it again.
Sang sat on the wide divan that was the only piece of furniture, while the man turned off all the screens except one. He called up the pod controls.<
br />
The sounds of the high street muted. Then the walls turned transparent, allowing bright morning sunlight into the pod.
“It’s one way only,” the man said. “I need to see if anyone is taking an interest in us.”
It was possible to make the walls transparent in both directions. The first time Sang had seen such an arrangement, they had halted, unable to look away from the pair frantically mating on the divan. Others had also stopped to watch the spectacle with mild interest, masking Sang’s surprise.
“That is sensible,” Sang said, of the man’s setting of the walls.
The man sat on the edge of the divan, then swiveled, bringing one knee up onto the thin cushioning. The flowing robe he wore spread over the divan.
“You’re an android,” he said. “Passing as a woman, which means you’re from Erium.”
Sang remained silent. This man was not a Karassian. He was not Eriuman, either. There were still too many unknowns for Sang to speak freely.
“You referred to yourself as ‘we’,” the man pointed out. “You gave yourself away.”
Sang was genuinely startled. “I did?” they said carefully. They had been diligent with their references since arriving.
“No one noticed, not with the woman caterwauling about her wrist.” The man grinned.
Sang held still, waiting.
His smile faded. He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “You’re bruised.”
“I miscalculated,” Sang admitted. “Our study of Karassia told us women were legal equals of men.”
“Legally, they are.” The man’s tone was very dry.
“The objectification of women is of an extreme I had not anticipated,” Sang added. They looked up and around the interior of the pod.
The man rolled his eyes, taking in the pod, too. “Why did you not pass as a man, then? It would have been easier.”
Flying Blind Page 2
