by Erica Rue
Zane and Lithia headed down the corridor to the cargo bay access ladder, and Bel led the way to the next access panel. What was Zane’s problem? Dione might not like him very much, but she didn’t think she’d been rude to him. Bel might know, but Dione didn’t know how to ask her. Bel was obviously close to Zane, and Dione didn’t know how much Bel would be willing to tell her.
Dione was halfway through the first calibration when she spoke up. “What’s going on with you and Zane? Are you a couple?”
“No,” Bel hesitated. “It’s complicated.” Bel resumed the work where Dione had left off.
Clearly Bel didn’t want to talk about it, which meant Dione wasn’t going to get any information about Zane. The two continued working in uncomfortable silence for a while until Bel asked about the next step. After that, they talked about more innocuous subjects to pass the time, like Bel’s research project.
An hour later, Lithia showed up.
“Hey, Bel. Ready to switch?” she said. “I’ll take over with Dione now that I’ve gotten the hang of it.”
Bel stood up and stretched. “Sure, thanks,” she said, disappearing down the corridor.
Once Dione was sure Bel was out of earshot, she said, “What, did you get sick of Zane?”
“No, I just figured if I joined you, you’d do all the work.” Lithia grinned. “You should give Zane a chance, Di. He’s not that bad.”
“He just shut me down when I was trying to be helpful!”
“Well, you might have thought you were being helpful, but you sounded like a know-it-all. He doesn’t know you well enough to tell the difference.”
Dione sighed. “What did you two even talk about?”
Lithia shrugged. “Nothing much. Holos, food, the usual. He’s not especially chatty, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“You seemed to know him when we met him at the space port. Did you spend any time with him at StellAcademy.”
“A little.”
Dione leaned back a moment. Lithia wasn’t telling her something. “How did you meet Zane? Did you have a class with him?”
“I met him through Bel,” Lithia said, picking up the tool needed for the next step.
Dione raised her eyebrows. That was suspicious. “So you’re helping now?” she asked.
“You look a little tired.” Lithia winked.
“What are you not telling me?” Dione asked.
Lithia sighed. “Look, I don’t want to cause problems, but don’t take Zane’s comment earlier personally. He’s just not a fan of the Alliance.”
“What does that—” Dione stopped mid-sentence. “Is this about my father? Because he works for the Alliance?”
“Your dad practically is the Alliance.”
Dione’s face grew hot. “No, he’s not. He has orders to follow, just like everyone else. The Alliance isn’t perfect, but they’re just trying to help.”
“I know, Di. I’ve met your dad. He’s not a bad person. Neither is Zane. He’s had some rough experiences, but he’s actually pretty cool. He just needs to get to know you, that’s all.” Lithia turned back to the open panel. Before Dione could press her, Lithia asked for directions on the next step. And the next one. And the one after that. She had to be doing this on purpose. Finally, Dione gave in.
“I’ll take over,” she said. “Why don’t you check in with the professor and see how your jump-plotting turned out.”
“Thanks!” Lithia placed the tool in Dione’s outstretched hand and headed off to the cockpit.
The work went more quickly now that she was alone, and by the time Bel and Zane returned, she’d already finished. She handed her packed-up toolkit to Zane and smiled her sincerest smile. “Thanks for the lesson, Zane. Sorry if I was out of line earlier.”
Dione returned to her cabin and sprawled out as much as possible on her small bed. This whole situation was ridiculous. Zane disliked her for no good reason, yet she had to be the one to smooth things over? If it meant keeping the peace, she would give it a try.
3. DIONE
Dione’s experiment was going perfectly. So far, all of her data matched the accepted norms. She unfastened each specimen from its bindings and moved it to the table where she could inspect it at eye level. She made a few annotations about the appearance of each, noting the color and other general observations before she got into more specific measurements. All of the plants were ready, but when she looked around, she realized that her measuring tool, the one she’d brought from home for added consistency, was still in her cabin.
She paused and looked at all the plants on the table. She’d only be gone two minutes, and the Calypso was stationary, currently recharging. In fact, they had just jumped, so there was no danger of a jump interrupting her recordings. It would be fine.
Dione hurried to her cabin and grabbed the digital measuring tool, but when she stepped outside, Lithia was already there.
“You have to come see this.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“Your plants will be there in five minutes. Come on.”
Dione looked back toward the lab, but followed Lithia to the common area where a large monitor displayed the view outside. In the distance, Dione could see a brilliant red nebula, no doubt enhanced by the external cameras for the human eye.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Lithia said.
“Yeah, it is,” Dione replied. Lithia got this way about space sometimes.
“I modified our jump schedule just a little so we could see it.”
“Nerd.”
“Nah, that’s all you. Just thought as long as we were out here, we might as well see the sights.”
“I’ve never been this close to a nebula before,” Dione said. It truly was spectacular.
“I wanted to jump inside it, but Oberon said it wouldn’t look like much up close. So here we are.”
That was true. From inside a nebula, there would not be enough light to illuminate the gas and dust. At a distance, however, the light would be more concentrated and the nebula would be visible.
The two girls stood in silence, staring at the screen for another few minutes before Dione looked away.
“I’ve got to finish up with my plants. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Dione walked back down the corridor and entered the lab.
Inside was an absolute mess of dirt and broken stems. No plants were left standing. On the ground, Zane was trying to scoop dirt back into a pot. He looked up when she entered.
“Dione, I’m so sorry. Oberon asked me to bring these boxes here on my way, but I tripped, and…” He broke off, looking at the mess around him.
Dione blinked hard. “Professor Oberon.” She had been planning this for months, and one moment of carelessness had destroyed it all.
“I think this one might be okay,” he said, holding up a plant with only a few broken stems.
She felt a knot tighten in her stomach. It was just a replication experiment. She was about to do her own original research on Barusia. It was fine.
Then she saw the mantis plant snapped clean in two, and the rational part of her brain stopped working. She took the plant from Zane’s hands and threw it in the trash. She picked up the next one and did the same.
“Isn’t there some way to salvage them?” Zane said.
“No.” At least not any way she cared to try.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” An unconvincing lie. He was just staring at her, and she wanted him to stop. “What are you even doing in here?”
“I’ve been working on a translation program, and I was going to use the interface in here to work on it.”
“That doesn’t sound like a biology research project.”
“It’s not, but—”
“Then why are you even on this trip?” Dione was tired of playing nice. “You don’t even like Professor Oberon’s class. Having you on this trip is a waste when someone else with a real project could have come.”
“I didn
’t mean to mess up your experiment.” Zane’s voice was cold. “It was an accident.”
Dione was picking up the last specimen, her mantis plant. She held it up. “Just leave me alone while I clean this up. It’s the least you could do.”
Zane left without argument or further apology.
Good. She could clean this mess up in peace now. Dione was usually pretty mellow, but to have Zane screw up her experiment had set her off. She’d been spending too much time with Lithia, the queen of overreactions. Now Dione would have to avoid Zane for the remainder of the trip. At least keeping to herself would get easier when they arrived at Barusia.
Dione tossed the mantis plant into the trash. In the corner she saw the boxes Zane had brought in. Why had he been working on a translation program instead of his research project? She shook her head and began to clean up loose dirt and leaves.
4. DIONE
Dione tapped her fingers on the table and gazed at the screen on the bulkhead. It was cycling through the video. The viewports that would have lined a space cruiser were absent on this small science vessel, and she had only the extremely well-calibrated external cameras. She thought she had seen something—a blur of color—but it was probably nothing. She wasn’t surprised. After a week in space, jumping tens of thousands of light years in seconds, the initial excitement had worn off. She felt a little crazy. Just a few more jumps to go. As she drummed her fingers, the residual crumbs from their most recent meal danced to her beat.
Lithia slid into the seat across from her. She was wearing the same uniform as Dione: fitted navy leggings, a white, tucked-in tank top, and an unzipped navy jacket, displaying her cleavage. The StellAcademy logo, a capital A turned into a shooting star, shone in brilliant gold on the left side. Lithia, summoned by her drumming fingers, couldn’t help getting involved.
“Still mad?” Lithia asked.
“I was never mad,” Dione said. “It’s not like it was groundbreaking research. I know that. It’s just frustrating.” It had been days since the plant apocalypse, and she’d been pretty successful at avoiding Zane.
“Is that why you won’t talk to Zane?”
“Well, I’m not sure what exactly he’s doing on this trip with us. He’s only here because of a fluke. He doesn’t even have a research experiment planned out.”
Lithia raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
“He didn’t bring along any materials or samples.”
“Maybe he doesn’t need them. I didn’t exactly come along for the research opportunities either,” Lithia said.
“I know you’re logging hours for a pilot’s license, but you’re interested in the research, too. I thought you were doing something with serpentines.” At least that’s the experiment Dione had helped her write up and propose.
“That’s what I submitted with my application, but I feel like serpentines are overdone. Now I’m thinking something with amphibians.”
Dione shook her head. “You always change your mind at the last second. Just do serpentines. What about amphibious serpentines? There are a few species in the marshes I’ll be working in.”
“I’ll think it over. You still doing menu choices of carnivorous plants?”
“If by menu choices you mean how they adapt their scents to lure different prey based on their current nutrient deficiencies and needs, then yeah, menu choices.”
Lithia grinned. “I bet Oberon’s impressed.”
“Professor Oberon.” Dione hoped so. “He’s going to meet with me in a few minutes to look over the changes to my proposal. I can help you brainstorm later if you want.”
“Maybe you could help Zane, if he really doesn’t have a project,” Lithia said.
“I don’t think he wants my help after earlier,” Dione said. Zane had apologized, but that didn’t stop her from getting angry. Messing up an experiment she had planned carefully and thoroughly was one of the few things that could really set her off.
Lithia leaned forward. “Look, I understand why you don’t like him. You feel like he didn’t earn his place here, but Belen did. And she vouched for him, so I think he at least deserves a chance. It’s not his fault that Kal’s parents pulled him from the trip. We’ve got two months to spend on Barusia working on these projects, and it would be nice if we at least started out on good terms. So root around the plant samples you brought, find the olive branch you packed, and go offer it to him.” Lithia smiled at her own joke.
Dione hated that Lithia was right, especially since she was usually the one telling Lithia to apologize. After her meeting with the professor, she would go make amends. She didn’t want Belen mad at her, and she probably shouldn’t have said those things to Zane, but he still had no business being here. She didn’t even think he liked biology, let alone hyperadaptive terraforming-driven evolution.
Lithia leaned in close and whispered. “When we get there, I’ve got a surprise to show you. As long as you promise you won’t tell Oberon.”
“Professor Oberon. And if your surprise is the holo interface for your manumed you sneaked into your bag, I have bad news. Your mom unpacked it, last minute. Told me to tell you once you figured out it was missing.”
“What? How could she—? What am I supposed to do for the next two months? What kind of cruel sadist bans holos?” Dione smiled as Lithia examined her face for signs of deception. “You’re lying. She wouldn’t.”
“You can always go check,” Dione laughed. Poor Lithia might actually have to work on her research project, because Dr. Min really did take her holo interface.
In Lithia’s absence, Dione was imagining how the conversation with Zane would go when the professor joined her.
“What do you have for me today?” he said by way of greeting.
“It’s similar to my initial proposal, but I want to expand the number of species. I want to work in Highwater Marsh and Anders Bog looking at a pitcher plant and a flytrap in two different areas. Highwater and Anders have different nutrient contents, and I want to see if that affects the type of prey these plants prefer, and if so, how they modify their scent to attract certain prey.”
“All right, how does the salinity compare? Are you controlling for that?”
Dione nodded. “I’m not sure. Highwater has a higher salinity, but I’m still working on ideas for controlling that variable.”
“You might read Kyra Jonsin’s paper about dragonfrog larvae. She had to address some of those same issues in her study. It might give you some ideas.”
“Okay, thanks. I was trying to decide on the best species, and I was thinking that the best ones would…” Dione trailed off. The professor was staring at the view screen. “Professor Oberon? Is everything okay?”
He turned back to her and relaxed. “I’m sorry, Dione. I thought I saw something, but it couldn’t be.”
“Me, too. Earlier I saw a flash of green, but then it was gone.”
His lips tightened. “A flash of green? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, but it was just a camera malfunction,” Dione said. “I think Lithia must have messed something up when we did the calibrations.”
“When?”
“Maybe twenty minutes ago. It was nothing.”
“I hope so.” He pulled up the ship’s data on his tablet and started swiping through icons: their location, energy consumption, time to next jump, until he stopped on sensor and camera feeds. He selected this last one and reviewed the footage from two minutes ago. She watched this time as the same flash of green blurred across the screen.
“That’s what I saw,” she confirmed.
“You said twenty minutes ago?”
“I think. Right before our meeting.”
Professor Oberon muttered under his breath. “Then there isn’t much time. But why are they here?”
Dione could feel her forehead crease. “Time for what? What’s going on?”
The professor didn’t answer, but his expression grew serious. He was back on his manumed calling Lithia, Zane, and Bele
n to the cockpit.
Lithia’s voice came from the speaker on his wrist. “On my way.”
“I’m already there,” Zane said.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m just going to put away my bug collection,” Bel said.
“Leave them, Bel. Venatorians are going to make an attack. We don’t have much time,” the professor replied.
“Shit.”
“Venatorians? Inside the Bubble? That’s ridiculous!” Dione was running to keep up with the professor as he jogged toward the cockpit.
“The Bubble is only as strong as we make it, and we are extremely close to its border. One jump, and we could be outside. I’ve been doing this trip for almost a decade, and I’ve only heard of one report in this area, outside the Bubble. It’s so sparsely populated out here that an attack would be of little interest to them. The Dappled Rim has these kinds of issues because it’s more densely populated.” Then, almost to himself, he said, “What could be luring them here?”
Dione could see the scientist in him taking over, questioning everything, but soon his urgency returned and his pace quickened.
They arrived before Bel, but Zane and Lithia were already there.
“What’s the ruckus?” Lithia asked.
“Venatorians are going to attack. In this ship, we are an easy target, so you can expect that it’s a smaller crew, probably only twenty or so, maybe a scout class vessel. Any more, and we wouldn’t be an appealing target.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lithia said.
“They like the challenge of the hunt, and they’ve scanned our vessel. Dione and I both saw their drones. They know there are only five of us and that our ship is not armed. Lithia, look for a safe jump location. We’re not fully charged, so take the limited range into consideration. See if Campos is currently in our jump radius. That would be our best bet.”
Lithia turned immediately to the controls to follow orders.
Dione heard running steps. Bel burst in, breathing hard. Her words were hard to make out.
“When they attack, take the engines offline, vent some atmosphere, anything to make the ship look worse off than it is,” Bel said.
