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

by Kalquist, Autumn

  “I don’t see nothin’,” Fenton panted beside her, “I bet you can’t even read that thing.”

  “I can.”

  “What if that’s not even the Perth transport?”

  “It is.”

  “Yeah?” Fenton scowled at her. “Well they’re probably all dead, too.”

  “Don’t make me regret saving you.” Maeve forced herself to walk faster to leave him behind.

  She wanted Fenton to answer with his usual caustic reply, but he didn’t. Her whole world had fallen apart around her, had been turned upside down to the point where she’d saved Fenton, and now he was following her lead.

  But the worst part was that Fenton was right. What if it was the Perth transport, but there was no shelter, no supplies? What if they did find a disaster like the crash they’d just left? They could walk all that way just to run out of oxygen and die before help arrived.

  The walk seemed to go on for hours, and maybe it did. Nothing broke up their journey through endless sand. No transport beckoned to them in the distance. But, still, the red dot slowly grew closer on the grid. Something was out there.

  The pain in Maeve’s chest was coming back, a slow burn that would only get worse. She was about to stop to shoot up more painmod when the first shudder vibrated through her boots. She and Fenton both froze, and when the ground shook beneath them a second time, Fenton cried out. The third tremor ripped violently through the land beneath them, knocking them both down.

  Vibrations rattled Maeve’s bones, shook her brain as the surface danced before her. Like going through the atmo all over again. She gripped at the shifting sand on her hands and knees, teeth chattering in her skull, sour bile inching up her throat.

  Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

  “What the fuck was that? What the fuck?” Fenton’s high-pitched whine pierced her aching head, and she stumbled back to her feet and lunged at him, slamming a fist into his chest and knocking him flat on his back.

  She straddled him, pinning his shoulders to the ground. When he glared back, she saw shame in his eyes. Good.

  “I swear on the ancestors,” she growled, “I will shoot you up with grimp and painmod right now, and I will leave you here to die.”

  “Get off me, glitch.” His strained voice crackled through the comm. “I’m an enforcer.”

  She shifted her weight to his injured abdomen and dug her knee in. He let out a yelp as she leaned close, until their helmets were inches apart. “Do you see any ships? There are no enforcers on Soren. It’s just me and you. And I have the tracker.”

  She climbed off of him and grabbed another vial of painmod for herself. Another small tremor shifted the ground beneath her, but she kept her balance this time and started walking. More tremors vibrated through her boots, but as she walked, they became fewer and farther between.

  She never looked back, but Fenton’s heavy breathing filled her comm, letting her know he still followed.

  As she walked, the strange wavering look of the air before her cleared, and she glimpsed a tall rock formation up ahead. Going around it would take them off course, but those stones were too high to climb.

  And the sun's light was fading. It was blistering hot on this planet, of that she had no doubt, but as night fell, it would drop to freezing. Her suit should protect her, but how would she find her way through the dark? Maeve glanced at her oxygen levels as she reached the formation. Half-gone. Not good. She’d breathed away more than half her allotted life.

  The time for giving up and dying had passed. For some reason, she’d been spared when everyone else had died. She wasn’t about to give up and die so close to rescue, suffocating here. She took another sip of sour water and tried to push the thoughts away.

  After a long trek along the rock line, she and Fenton finally reached the end and turned the corner. They were met by a thick haze of red. Fine grains of sand whipped through the air, making it hard to see.

  She glanced down at her tracker and adjusted course. The red dot looked very close. They could be yards away… or miles.

  “Vasquez.” Fenton panted.

  The haze parted ahead for just for a moment, and she squinted, peering through the dust. A glint of metal, a small structure ahead. Metal tubes in front, drilled deep into the soil. The soil sampler. Maeve’s chest expanded, and new energy coursed through her as she hurried forward through the haze. “It’s a temp shelter! We found them.”

  “Vasquez.”

  “Come on.”

  “Maeve!” Fenton’s voice was urgent. “What the fuck is that?”

  She glanced at him in alarm and then looked up where he was pointing. In the distance, a swirling wall of solid red was quickly approaching the shelter… and them. Maeve’s throat constricted, her mind returning to what the tech had slurred. Sandstorms. A storm’ll tear us apart.

  “Run.” Adrenaline shot through Maeve, offering strength. She dropped the bulky medkit—it would only slow her down—and tapped the star pendant at her thigh for good luck. Then she tried to sprint.

  Tried. Every step was a fight against nature, a fight against the gravity on this planet, a fight to make her exhausted and injured body respond. Her eyes burned as she fought to move faster. She wouldn’t die—not this close to shelter.

  Fenton pulled alongside her, then ahead. The wall of red grew closer, red dust whirling in chaos, heading straight for them.

  Maeve’s heart raced, and she ran harder. She let out a muffled scream as the pain from her ribs suddenly reappeared, her last shot of painmod fading out.

  The sandstorm's roar permeated the glasstex of her helmet, coming to eat her alive. Fenton was yards ahead of her now, and she was all alone, dust swirling around her.

  It was so hard to breathe. Without wanting to, Maeve slowed. She doubled over in pain, sucking in breath. “I can’t…” she gasped.

  An unintelligible voice crackled through the comm. Not Fenton’s. A woman’s. Maeve lurched forward, peering through the dust, and made out a figure emerging from the structure.

  Fenton reached her, and they both disappeared inside.

  No. Maeve sucked in a breath and fought against her pain, sweat pouring down her face as she put one boot in front of the other. She’d never make it in time.

  The storm was almost on her, and the door still yards away, when two colonists emerged from the structure and ran for her.

  She nearly collapsed as their arms wrapped around her, and they dragged her through the door ahead. They bolted it shut behind them, and as she fell to her knees inside the small, dim structure, her eyes adjusted to the dark space. She nearly sobbed with relief. Solid metal panels, panels made on the London, curved above their heads, and thick rods had been driven deep into the soil to secure the shelter.

  Cases were stacked along one wall, and two helios bobbed beside colonists in spacegear, illuminating the faces of the survivors. Four. Only four survivors besides Maeve and Fenton.

  “We’re from the London transport.” Fenton’s voice crackled on the comm. “Only two of us. You it?”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Lost our transport. Tank got busted.”

  “The Kyoto transport?”

  “No sign. Burned up on the way down.”

  Silence on the line.

  The storm hit, enveloping them with its rage, rocking the structure back and forth like its only purpose was to tear it from the soil. The tiny grains buffeted them, pelting the metal.

  Please hold. It had to hold.

  “It might be a few more hours,” the woman said, talking loudly into the comms, so they could hear over the roar. “The other transports won’t come down in this.”

  She was talking about the next wave. Maeve checked her oxygen again. Two to three hours left at most. She should have recovered the packs from the colonists who had died. But she couldn’t change them out here… a transport with a functioning oxygen tank might have given them more hours than they had now.

  Maeve curled up, grunting again
st the pain in her ribs and the lesser sharp pain of the wounds on her back. She glanced at Fenton, but he was lying on the ground with his eyes closed.

  As the storm raged on, the woman and another man went to a machine at the back of the shelter.

  “Busted up. Can’t be fixed.”

  They chatted for a while longer, and Maeve listened through her haze of pain. “You guys got any painmod?” she finally asked.

  The man closest to her, the one who looked injured, fumbled in a case beside him and rolled a vial toward her. She injected herself, and as the numbness took her, she could breathe again.

  Somehow, even with the steady pelting of sand against metal, she slipped into restless sleep.

  When she woke, it was because the ground beneath her was moving again. It jolted, throwing her into the wall. The sandstorm still roared around them, and the metal structure shook even harder. This planet was a fucking nightmare.

  When the shaking stopped, voices erupted on the comms, everyone talking at once, their complaints melding together.

  Maeve sat up, her head aching as she checked her oxygen. Her stomach clenched. Less than an hour left now, and the storm was still going.

  The conversation died down, and she glanced at Fenton in his corner, hate writhing in her chest. Why had she saved him? Six survivors. Six out of forty-five. Why did it have to be him? He didn’t even deserve to live.

  Disgust made Maeve get up and stumble to the other side of the space, where the two techs still focused on the machine they’d been working on earlier.

  One of them looked up at her, his face sagging with exhaustion.

  Maeve sunk down beside him. It was a soil analysis machine like they had on the London. “Broken?”

  The other tech nodded, and Fenton walked over to them and leaned against the wall. Maeve inched away from him, wishing he’d go away.

  “If anyone can fix that, it’s Vasquez,” Fenton said.

  “Who?”

  Maeve’s brows shot up at his words, and the other two looked at her. The man shoved the workcase toward Maeve and backed away. “It’s busted. You think it can be fixed, have at it.” He sank down against the wall, giving up.

  Maeve swallowed and took another glance at her oxygen, panic rising within her. She was going to die here. After everything… this was where it ended.

  She tore at the machine’s panel with clumsy gloved hands. The task calmed her mind, steadied her hands and nerves as she assessed the damage. Crushed components—that was the issue. So she got to work, replacing the wires and substituting others from the dented workcase. The rhythm of the job soothed her, and she forced herself not to check her oxygen again.

  As she was twisting the final wires together, the pelting on the shelter ceased. Everyone exchanged glances at the sudden silence, and one of them cracked open the door. Thick dust rushed in, coating them in the stuff, but the man let out a whoop. The storm had passed and was moving away from them.

  Maeve let out a little choked laugh and finished her job. The interface activated, and the man who had been working on it earlier flashed her a tired smile. “Good work, sub.”

  The woman headed outside with the other uninjured tech, and they came back with a vial of soil, sampled from deep within the planet’s crust.

  Maeve got out of the way as the tech checked the soil sample, then slowly fed the vial into the slot for analysis. The scanner turned on, and Maeve waited, barely able to breathe. From her injury or fear, she wasn’t sure. Had any of this been worth it? Would this planet even have what the fleet needed?

  The analysis took several long minutes, and they all sank back down on the soil, exhausted, heads hanging low. Maeve kept vigil with them and tried to breathe slower, to use up less of her quickly diminishing oxygen levels.

  When the results came back, the tech read them aloud.

  Maeve’s stomach dropped with every name. A long list, all common elements.

  But then the tech stopped. They all looked up at her, and she returned her gaze to the display.

  “Martisium,” she said.

  The metal they needed to build the jump gate.

  Maeve stumbled to her feet, checking the display for herself.

  There it was, among the rest. Martisium.

  “A better world awaits,” Maeve found herself saying.

  “A better world awaits,” five voices came back.

  Maeve pushed through the door, back onto the windswept red plain. She stared up at the sky, still hazy with red dust, then fell to the soil. Breathing hard, she took a fresh handful of it in her hand, letting it run through her gloved fingers and fall back to the ground.

  Over and over, she let the fine grains fall, dancing in the air as they joined the rest.

  Martisium.

  The fleet could jump.

  She stared up into the sky just in time to see lights peeking through the haze. A transport, landing in the distance. Then more lights, in another direction.

  It was the second wave. With supplies. With oxygen.

  Maeve’s chest lightened, and she threw another handful of sand into the air and watched it fall. Tears streamed down her face as she dug both hands deep into the soil.

  Hope. Soren meant hope.

  I want to survive.

  I’m brave enough to live this life.

  A better world awaits. And Maeve believed.

  ∞

  “CRASH AND BURN” Lyrics

  A song inspired by this book

  3, 2, 1

  You are cleared for landing.

  Chorus:

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  (3, 2, 1)

  Verse 1:

  We burn so bright, we hide, and we fight.

  Fallin’ off the edge, I’m in too deep.

  We burn so bright, we hide, and we fight.

  Darkness swallows me, and I can’t breathe.

  Pre-chorus:

  Fell too far

  Laid bare, naked, and open

  Fell too hard

  Bloody, bare, and broken

  Chorus:

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  (3, 2, 1)

  Verse 2:

  We fly so high, we rise, and we lie.

  Above it all, you set me free.

  We fly so high, we rise, and we lie.

  A better world—make me believe.

  Pre-chorus:

  Fell too far

  Laid bare, naked, and open

  Fell too hard

  Bloody, bent, and broken

  Chorus:

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  (3, 2, 1)

  Bridge:

  Maybe we'll crash and burn.

  Don't matter what they say.

  On the edge, I'm falling over.

  But my world's better when you stay.

  Chorus:

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  (3, 2, 1)

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  Crash and burn

  (3, 2, 1)

  Thank you, Juan! As always, I couldn’t write these books without your unwavering love and support.

  Many thanks to my beta readers, who helped me make this story better: Alicia Porter, Freya Wolfe, Jamie Blair, and Kevin Stone.

  To my editor, Erynn Newman, thank you for being so wonderful to work with.

  And to my readers: Your support and enthusiasm for this series mean the world to me! Thank you.

  Copyright © 2014 by Autumn Kalquist

  Lyrics from the song “Artificial Gravity” copyright © 2013 by Autumn Kalquist

  Cover design by Damonza

  Editing by Erynn Newman

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any
manner without the written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Diapason Publishing

  www.AutumnKalquist.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Legacy Code / Autumn Kalquist—1st ed.

  For my husband, Juan.

  For believing in me and supporting me, even when times get tough.

  For all the evenings you come home tired, yet still find the energy to be an amazing dad.

  And for saying, “You have to do what makes you happy.”

  Era huddled against the wall and pressed her hands to her ears, blocking out the piercing sirens. The emergency lights cast a red glow over the rest of the colonists in the stairwell. One step above her, a mother held a young boy, his eyes wide in fear. Era dropped her hands and clamped them over the gentle swell of her belly.

  Where was Dritan now? First shift was over. He’d be done working. Safe.

  Today they’d finally find out if their baby had the Defect. She’d be late for her appointment, but it couldn’t be helped. The entire ship was on lockdown.

  Was it a fire? A hull breach? Another uprising? Era shivered. No. She would not let herself imagine all the things that could have gone wrong. The Paragon was the safest ship in the fleet. Whatever the problem was, they’d have it under control.

  But a maintenance crew might be called during an emergency like this. A maintenance crew like the one Dritan was on.

  Era stared at the panel across from her and began to count the rivets, one by one, pushing her terror down. When she ran out of rivets to count, she started over.

  Then the sirens cut out, and the emergency lights shut off.

  “All clear.” A voice blared from the speakers above the landing. “You may now return to your duties.”