Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle (Books 1-3) (Fractured Era Series)

by Kalquist, Autumn

  “So what does this section do when we make the jumpgate?” she asked Fenton, voice full of wonder.

  Everyone was staring at her, then at Fenton, who looked like he’d just eaten a rotten bite of quin. “You call me Enforcer Fenton, half. This section makes a part of the jump gate.”

  Gilly’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “I know that, Enforcer Fenton, but which part?”

  Maeve wanted to slap a hand across Gilly’s mouth to shut her up. Fenton acted like every question was a challenge, and they needed him to go away and sneak hooch like usual, not hover around mucking things up.

  “But how does the gate work, Sir?” Gilly ran a hand down the panel and looked at the grime it had left on her palm.

  Couldn’t she tell how tense her line of questioning was making the whole crew?

  Fenton grasped the stunner looped through his belt and shot Gilly a dark look. “We need to work, half. Not ask stupid questions.”

  “Let’s try starting it,” Kevan said quickly.

  They all stepped back as he tried flipping the switch.

  Nothing happened even after several tries, as expected. Kevan dragged the workcase over to the panel and started assessing the components. Fenton asked for a report, and Kevan explained the sorry state of the control panel.

  Gilly frowned. “How are we supposed to know how to fix this when our enforcer doesn’t even know what it does?”

  “Shh.” Maeve lifted her brows meaningfully. “The components are all interchangeable… even here. We can get it online, even if he can’t.”

  Gilly let out a giggle, and Dritan leaned closer to them both. “I think this is where they shape the metal,” he said kindly, pointing at the press. “The whole process probably starts at that holding tank we saw near the entrance. That’s where the metal will be forged before we shape it.”

  Fenton and Kevan had finished their conversation and caught the tail-end of Dritan’s explanation. Fenton’s expression soured, and his eyes took on a nasty glint.

  He detached a helio from his workbelt and tossed it to Dritan. “You get to start on this panel, Corinth. Alone. You can fix it, can’t ya?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dritan took the helio to the panel, and Kevan stepped back, looking grim. Fenton leaned against the nearest wall, a smirk on his face, watching Dritan intently.

  Maeve tried to keep her expression neutral as she moved closer to watch Dritan work, but inside she was seething. Assigning jobs was Kevan’s duty, not Fenton’s, but Kevan wouldn’t go against an enforcer’s orders, and no one would risk reporting Fenton. You got one enforcer in trouble, the rest of them would make sure you paid for it.

  The control components looked positively ancient, unreliable. Dangerous. They should be handling this as a team.

  Dritan opened the workcase, exposing the motley assortment of tools and plastic, metal, and wire components. He assessed the components in the panel, looking for the main power source and for any burnt out sections. When he located the source, he ripped a few wires out and replaced them with newer ones from the case.

  The low hum of the power core ran through Maeve as she watched, and voices drifted across the space from where other crews worked. But otherwise, the dead machines made it eerily silent.

  After a few tense minutes, Dritan strode over to the switch and hit it.

  The press shuddered to life, and Maeve jumped at the sound and the vibrations beneath her boots. The press’s inner walls expanded and contracted as the center rod rotated. Pride surged through her at Dritan’s success. That’d show Fenton.

  But Dritan looked worried for some reason, and then the gears ground to a screeching halt, the whole tube shuddering. He quickly flipped the switch and went back to the panel.

  Concentrating, he gingerly touched the components, nodded to himself, and bent to change out one of the wires.

  When he pulled it out, sparks flew. Dritan flew backward and slammed into the wall.

  Maeve’s heart seemed to stop beating as she ran to his unmoving body. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

  He wouldn’t be the first sub to be electrocuted by faulty components. In her peripheral vision, Fenton yelled something to Vinay. The panel had caught fire, and flames leapt high as they scrambled to get an extinguisher on it. Biting smoke filled her nostrils and stung her eyes, but she couldn’t focus on anything but Dritan.

  She knelt beside him and gently squeezed his arm, nearly crying with relief when his eyes opened. He looked dazed but otherwise uninjured.

  Alive. “You and your damn lucky genes,” Maeve murmured.

  Dritan cracked a pained smile. “I’d hardly call that lucky. Fuck! That hurt.”

  She lightly smacked his arm. “You’ve survived kak that’d kill another sub. Yeah, I call it lucky.”

  Hyun shook her head at Maeve as she helped Dritan to his feet. “Lucky genes.”

  “I told him,” Maeve said.

  Everyone said it. He’d been shuffled from ship to ship as a child—no couple wanted an orphan if it meant losing their spot in the Population lottery. But that’s where his ill luck ended. This wasn’t his first near miss with faulty machinery. He’d had deep wounds that barely missed vital organs, and before he’d been placed on Maeve’s crew, there’d been hull breaches and fatal accidents that happened on jobs he’d just been rotated from… Kak, he even won most games of chips.

  Maeve helped Dritan stand, holding his arm tight so he could lean on her.

  The rest of the crew was checking the damage to the components, but Fenton was watching Maeve help Dritan with an odd expression on his face. It made her skin prickle the same way it always did, and she let go of Dritan’s arm. Fucking Fenton. His insistence that Dritan work alone could have gotten him killed.

  “Gotta replace all of this now,” Kevan said from the panel.

  “Head enforcer wants it working.” Fenton said sharply. “Use the manual restart.”

  Kevan shook his head. “Sir, I think… I know we can fix this from out here. Might be we didn’t get the press offline in time. It could still be live when we get it working. It’s not safe in there.”

  Fenton’s face reddened. “You questioning my orders, Sarkis?”

  Kevan narrowed his eyes like he wanted to do just that, but when Fenton tapped his finger against his electric baton in open threat, Kevan stepped back, raising both hands.

  “No, Sir. I’m not questioning your orders.”

  “Someone’s going in there and fixing this. Now.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  They all glanced back into the press. The inner walls of the pipe had narrowed further, even closer to the rod than before, leaving hardly any space. None of them would fit through there. Well, no one except Maeve. Or Gilly, who was even smaller. But they wouldn’t send a new half to do this job. She didn’t have the training yet.

  Adrenaline coursed through Maeve’s veins as she realized what that meant, and she looked toward the outer doors, contemplating running. She wasn’t gonna die like this. That thing would eat her alive if it turned on with her inside it. Dritan exchanged a worried glance with Maeve, obviously thinking the same thing.

  Then everyone was looking at her, and her shoulders slumped.

  “One of us has to go in there,” Kevan said. “And—”

  “I’ll do it,” Dritan said. “I think I can squeeze in there.”

  Fenton let out a harsh laugh. “So you can fuck it up again? You won’t fit in there. Nah.” He sniffed, and his creepy gaze fell on Maeve. “Vasquez. You.”

  They all looked at her, and her heart pounded so fast she forgot to breathe. Every cell in her body screamed at her, told her if she went in that tube she’d never come out alive. But she couldn’t get her legs to move, couldn’t find the strength to run.

  Bile rose in her throat as she met Fenton’s hard eyes. “No.”

  Gilly audibly gasped, and the rest of them went still.

  Fenton’s brows went up. “That was an order.”

&n
bsp; “No.” Maeve said it more forcefully. “You want it restarted? Do it yourself.”

  Fenton’s eyes took on the gleam they always did when he got a chance to lash one of them. She clenched her hands into fists and prepared to fight back.

  His mouth twisted cruelly as he removed his stunner and extended the baton, activating it. Blue light crackled along its length, and Maeve’s brain begged her to get away. But her legs were rooted in place.

  “Ten lashes for that. On your knees.”

  “You first.”

  His eyes lit up, and he lunged for her, violently shoving her sideways so his baton connected with the back of her knees.

  The shock of electricity made every muscle in Maeve’s body seize, stealing her control. She sank to the floor, eyes watering, trying to suck oxygen into her lungs.

  Fenton put even more force behind the next hit. The metal rod slammed across her back, the current paralyzing her muscles again. Maeve stayed with the pain, not trying to escape it. Just breathe in between the strikes.

  Another lash. Then another. They seemed to go on forever, but when Maeve counted ten, Fenton stopped.

  “You ready to work, Vasquez?” Fenton was breathing hard, and he pulled her around, forced her to look up at him.

  Her raw back screamed at the movement, and she glared up at him, her hate even stronger than the pain. “Fuck. You.”

  “Ten more for that.” He kicked her down so he could strike her back again.

  Her heart beat an erratic rhythm, threatening to explode.

  Each strike was worse than the last. Every time her muscles stopped seizing, she tried to suck air in and failed before the next strike fell. Black swam around the edges of her vision. I’m going to suffocate.

  But she didn’t. Somehow she held onto consciousness, and at twenty, he stopped. Wetness trickled down Maeve’s back, stinging like fire along her wounds. She panted hard, sucking in gulps of air, her heart thumping wildly.

  Dritan came to help her up, and Maeve kept her eyes on him, unable to look at anyone else.

  “In the tube, Vasquez.”

  Maeve met Fenton’s eyes and let her hate show, determined to refuse until he threw her in the brig. Nothing he could do would break her, not now.

  He couldn’t break her when she was already broken.

  “I’m small enough,” Gilly said. Her face was pale, and she gave Maeve a concerned look before grabbing a helio from the air. “I can do this.”

  “No!” Maeve pushed Dritan away. “I’ll go. I’ll go.” Maeve said it without thinking, but the second she did, she realized her mistake.

  Fenton smiled like he’d won something. “The coward can sit this one out. I have a volunteer. We don’t turn down volunteers.”

  Dritan squeezed Maeve’s arm and gave her a warning look.

  Kevan walked with Gilly to the tube. “I’ll talk you through it.”

  He helped Gilly climb up, and Maeve tried to ignore the stinging flesh on her back as she stumbled over to the switch, ready to hit it at the first sign of trouble.

  Gilly crawled into the narrow tube, the helio lighting the inside so they could see her progress. When she reached the panel and popped it off, Kevan guided her, telling her what to look for, which switches to pull. When they didn’t work, he told her how to find the right wires to adjust so the machine would start with a delay.

  Maeve’s pulse roared in her head, making her dizzy as Gilly finished the job.

  “I think I did it!” Gilly’s proud voice echoed down the tube.

  Maeve breathed again as Gilly crawled toward the exit, and the rest of the crew seemed to sigh with the same shared relief.

  Gilly was nearly to the end when the machine groaned to life. Time stopped. The grind of each gear reverberated through Maeve’s skull, and the ground shuddered in slow motion beneath her boots.

  No! Her hand slammed down on the switch. Please don’t be too late.

  The walls constricted inside the pipe, trapping Gilly’s tiny body between them and the rotating center rod. Her screams pierced the air as her arm caught on the rod, rotating with it. Blood spattered the inside of the tube, and Gilly’s screams got louder, and more and more desperate.

  The scene before Maeve seemed filtered through smoke, everything disjointed, voices disconnected from moving bodies.

  Dritan and Kevan dragging Gilly the rest of the way out of the pipe.

  Vinay disappearing with a single word. “Medics.”

  Slick red blood dripped from the rod and formed a rivulet down the center of the pipe. Maeve swayed to the side, leaning against the wall as she watched drops of blood fall to the floor. She fought the urge to puke.

  Everything abruptly sped up again to normal time, and her eyes jumped from person to person. Hyun had the emergency medkit open, and red still spurted from Gilly’s clawed-up arm. Her hand was mangled beyond recognition, her arm twisted unnaturally. As Hyun shot her up with painmod, her small face went slack, mouth open, tears still trailing down her cheeks. Tiny drops fell to the floor, mingling with the blood there.

  And instead of going to her, Maeve turned her head and refused to look.

  Coward.

  Fenton emerged in Maeve’s line of sight, and she threw up her arms to protect her face just as his fist slammed into her.

  He shoved Maeve into the wall, eyes blazing. “This is your fuckin’ fault, Deev,” he hissed. “I’m not taking the blame for this. It should have been you.”

  Red swam before her, rage and grief mingling together as she lowered her arms and stared back defiantly.

  “No,” her voice nearly broke, and she put more force behind it. “You made a bad call. Next time, listen to subs who actually know how to do the work.” She couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, and Fenton clearly couldn’t either.

  He slammed her into the metal wall again, and the lashes on her back screamed. “You’ll regret that.”

  The head enforcer showed up, and Fenton released Maeve to go report the accident.

  Maeve’s breath caught as the head enforcer moved out of the way to let the medics run past.

  Cassia. Her deep blue eyes, high cheekbones, delicate chin… she looked out of place down here in the depths of the ship. Too beautiful for all the pain and suffering. She didn’t belong here, and she never had.

  Maeve’s heart twisted, and she pressed herself against the wall, knowing she should go to Gilly but unable to face Cassia. Not here. Not now, like this. Cassia had told her in no uncertain terms that their friendship was over.

  The medics worked quickly, binding Gilly’s arm and lifting her thin body onto the stretcher.

  Cassia swiped a strand of dark brown hair off her cheek, leaving a smear of blood behind, and directed her medics back up to the medbay. Maeve averted her eyes, heart pounding, guilt tearing through her as they hurried past.

  If Maeve had been the one to go in the press, she’d be dead right now or close to. And it would have been an excruciatingly painful way to go.

  Lucky. Maeve felt lucky, even as Gilly suffered.

  Not lucky. She was a coward, like Fenton had said.

  The blackness inside Maeve rose up, suffocating her. Fenton was right.

  It should’ve been me.

  Gilly’s work had gotten their press up and running again, and the crew spent the rest of the shift cleaning her sticky blood from the press and identifying components that needed replacing in the main control panel.

  No one talked about what had happened, and Maeve ignored all Dritan’s attempts to corner her in private. She just counted down the minutes until midbreak, knowing what she needed to do. Going to medbay meant possibly seeing Cassia again, but she had to see Gilly. She needed to face what she’d done.

  When midbreak arrived, she shot out of the sector, leaving Dritan and the rest of them behind. As she hurried up the stairs, weaving past techs and subs on their way to midmess, she tried to work up her courage.

  Cassia’s father was lead medic,
so she lived on exec level—so far above Maeve’s station, it was a wonder they’d ever become friends. But they had, and for the past three years, they’d spent hours together during free time, meeting on Observation and finding private places where they could get drunk off bootleg and dream about what New Earth would look like.

  But those days were over. Cassia had been quite clear on that. Infinitek willing, she’d be at the galley right now.

  The medbay was a huge cubic with more than two dozen cots. They were packed full of subs, as usual, with injuries ranging from the mild to the possibly fatal. But Maeve didn’t see Gilly anywhere. She stepped out of the way as a medic bustled past, and she found herself rooted in place, transfixed by the helix and triquetra patch on his sleeve.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to keep walking to the back of the cubic. Cassia was there, and Maeve’s stupid heart started fluttering the second she caught sight of her standing behind the station. Maeve’s nails bit into her palms, and she forced herself to continue on.

  When Cassia finally looked up and saw Maeve, her full lips parted. “What’s wrong?” She came around the desk abruptly, searching Maeve for injury. “What happened?”

  Maeve’s cheeks warmed. “Not me. Gilly, a half on my crew.”

  Cassia just stared at her, the things they’d said the last time a sharp and awful thing between them. “You shouldn’t be here without a chit.”

  “Well I am.” Maeve forced her voice to come out strong. “And I want to see Gilly.”

  Cassia hesitated, watching the medic closest to them as he prepped painmod. When he disappeared behind the curtain to treat his next patient, Cassia grabbed Maeve’s sleeve and dragged her to the door behind the station.

  As they slipped through, Maeve’s stomach churned. The cubic back here was reserved for surgery—for the worst injuries. This didn’t bode well, but what had she really expected? A series of curtains split up the room, and Cassia led her through the first one.

  Gilly was lying there in a deep sleep, looking so damn small. Maeve went to examine her, pulling the sheet back lightly, and the room spun around her as her worst fears were confirmed. Amputated.

  Gilly’s right arm was gone up to her elbow.