Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle (Books 1-3) (Fractured Era Series)
Page 19
The voices grew louder. Tadeo dropped Era’s belongings over the divide and took one more look down the empty corridor. Then he leapt over the barrier sideways, wedging his body in the tight space.
Every muscle tensed as he peered out between the slats, and sweat burned his eyes. Would they come this way? Would they see him? His navy blue guard uniform might blend in with the dirty gray color of the pipes behind him. Maybe.
He should be afraid, worried, but all he felt was a thrill at the thought of getting caught. Then he saw it.
Kak.
His shift card lay on the floor, bright white against the grease-stained tiles. His throat constricted, and the thrill faded. His card must have been knocked off his suit when he dove over the barrier. If the subs saw it and picked it up, they’d know he was down here when Era died.
“The maintenance airlock,” one of them called.
They were close. Too close for him to get to the card in time.
“Sector seven,” yelled another.
Tadeo held his breath and counted the sets of boots as they pounded past. Four sets. The sublevel emergency crew.
Not a single boot touched his card.
When their voices receded, he let out a breath, waited several more seconds, then hauled himself over the divide. He grabbed Era’s gear, shoved his card in his pocket, and took off down the corridor.
His chest lightened, and a giddy feeling overtook him, the old feeling of doing something wrong and getting away with it.
He sprinted faster, pushing himself, and his muscles responded, remembering what it was like when he had free run of the Meso. How he’d run the open levels of the deka he grew up on for miles and miles.
He didn’t slow down until he reached stairwell C.
Tadeo bounded up the stairs, the only sound his own boots echoing through the shaft. No one should be moving through here at this hour, not during night shift—since the president had instituted a mandatory curfew.
As he rounded each landing, his gaze hit the numbers engraved in the metal doors. When he reached level seven, command level, his legs ached from his rapid ascent. He rested his hands on his knees and took deep breaths. There would normally be guards standing here, but not tonight. Chief had made sure of that. He almost smiled at his success.
I just airlocked a girl.
A sick feeling raced through him, killing his buzz. He wiped his brow and unzipped his pocket to draw out his shift card.
When he passed it over the scanner, a red light came on. The scanner beeped a warning.
Bloody piece of kak. He ran the card again. Another beep, and the red light blinked, insistent he didn’t have the clearance to access this level.
Tadeo stiffened and slowly looked down at the card in his hand. It was scuffed, dirt and grease embedded in the scratched surface. It was far too filthy for the brief moment it had been on the sublevel floor. Tadeo turned it over, and his heart rate sped up again as he saw the name stamped on the card.
DRITAN CORINTH.
Era’s husband’s shift card. He fought the urge to drop the thing. Dritan had died on mining duty on Soren, but before that, he’d worked in the sublevels. They’d used his card to access the airlock, so it would look like Era had taken advantage of her husband’s access to kill herself.
Now it would be logged into the system after Era had supposedly used it to commit suicide out a maintenance airlock. He’d fucked up. Majorly.
Tadeo shoved the card back in his pocket and clutched Era’s boots and suit closer, hands trembling as he patted his other pockets for his own card. He briefly considered going back down a level and taking a different route.
If anyone checked the records…
But they wouldn’t. No one would check. They had no reason to. Chief gave the orders, and he knew what really happened. There’d be no real investigation. And if there was, Chief would take care of it. Everyone would believe Era went out the airlock with that card.
He found his own and took a deep breath as he passed it over the scanner. This time the light turned green.
Fresh air filled Tadeo’s lungs as he entered command level. The lume bars gleamed at quarter-power, as they had in the stairwell, but they all worked, unlike in the sublevels. The tiles were scuffed, but still white and uncracked. Everything was newer, cleaner up here—here where he really belonged. Tadeo’s boots squeaked against the tiles; the only other sound was the life support fans whirring in the night.
Dritan’s card seemed to heat up and give off a glow in his pocket. If anyone chose that moment to open their cubic, make their way to the shared lavs… they’d wonder what he was doing, in full guard uniform, carrying a tech suit and boots in the dead of night shift. He needed to do this fast, get it over with, and go meet Chief and the president.
He hurried through the level, listening for the whoosh of doors opening in the corridors, but soon he was past living quarters, and he reached recyc at the back of the level.
Chutes lined the far wall, each labeled with the type of recyc they accommodated. Tadeo breathed hard as he tossed Era’s boots down the textile chute and then opened all the pockets on her suit, checking for her shift card or anything else that could identify the ex-owner. But her pockets were empty. He tossed the suit down after the boots.
A series of shredders and compactors stood against the opposite wall, and Tadeo worked fast, shredding Dritan’s card in the machine designed to break down plastic. As the tiny flecks dropped into the bin, his shoulders relaxed, the tight knot in his gut dissipated. He sent the chips down the plastic recyc chute.
As the last of the evidence disappeared, the dregs of Tadeo’s adrenaline drained from his system and left his legs wobbly.
He grunted, sinking against the wall to support himself, and stared blankly at the recyc chutes.
Era’s wide brown eyes leaking tears, one palm over her swollen stomach, that damn infinity tattoo on her wrist.
He glanced down at his own wrist, at the teardrop shape there—one-half of an infinity symbol. He’d get the whole thing—like Era’s—when he paired.
Zephyr. What would he tell her? He’d been spending time with her lately… acting like they were matching up. She’d seemed close to Era. But Zephyr was the future captain of the London. There was no way she could have known what Era was really into.
I killed her.
His hands shook as he ran them through his hair, pushing the long dark strands out of his face. A heavy weight grew in his chest and made it hard to breathe. He’d helped airlock colonists before. But never like this, in secret. And never a pregnant girl, though the pregnancy had been defective anyway. Why did she have to commit treason? Why did she force them to airlock her?
Tadeo tried to banish her from his mind. He’d followed the laws, done what was necessary. If he couldn’t handle this, how would he ever lead his own ship?
Willing his legs to strengthen, he pushed away from the wall. What he wouldn’t give for just a little grimp right now. It’d kill his roiling emotions, deaden his senses. But he’d get addicted again, and nothing was worth that.
The corridors were silent, eerie in the low light as he made his way to the command level lounge.
Chief Petroff was waiting for him there—a silent, heavy shadow in the dim light. He glanced up and down the empty corridor, then focused on Tadeo. “What took so long? Did you run into any problems?”
Tadeo straightened his shoulders under the scrutiny. He’d accidentally used Dritan’s shift card, but Chief didn’t need to know that. “Emergency crew passed me by, but I wasn’t seen, sir.”
“Good. Everything went down the chutes?”
“Yes, sir.”
The chief led Tadeo down several corridors, and despite the dim light, everything gleamed brighter the further they went. They were heading to the executive living quarters, where the president, board, and crew families lived. Tadeo lived on command level, but his quarters weren’t this new or this big. He hadn’t been in this sector
in years, not since he and his mother had visited the president. The doors got further apart as the quarters grew in size, until they reached double doors at the end of the final corridor.
When Chief knocked, the doors opened immediately, and Nyssa Sorenson stepped into the frame. She’d taken off the suit she’d worn earlier and had exchanged it for a loose-fitting, white leisure jumpsuit. Her blond hair was usually tied back in a severe bun, but now it hung in waves around her lined face, softening it, making her look far younger than her forty-five years. And making Tadeo feel like the child he’d been the last time he was here.
But when her pale blue eyes met his, suddenly Tadeo could think of only one word to describe her.
Ruthless.
She’d been the one to order Era’s death. And McGill’s. She did what needed to be done. Before tonight, he’d been a loyal member of the president’s guard, the favored son of a deka captain, only addressing Nyssa in passing. But now? The entire dynamic between them had changed. What they’d all done seemed to weigh heavily in the charged silence—as if the recycled air would be poisoned by deeds better left unspoken.
“Chief, wait outside,” Nyssa finally said, her voice low. “Come in, Lieutenant Raines.”
Tadeo stole an uneasy glance at Petroff, and the chief narrowed his eyes at Tadeo, displeased. But he crossed his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall to wait.
Tadeo stepped into the president’s quarters, and the doors slid closed behind them. Nyssa walked away, toward her galley nook, and got out metal glasses and a bottle of quin liquor.
As she poured the liquid, Tadeo glanced around. Her quarters were like the captain’s quarters aboard the Meso, only larger. Like home. Despite the tension, his muscles relaxed involuntarily. The space gleamed with new metal panels on every wall. It was decorated with plush couches and well-lit by bright lume bars. A strip of glasstex ran the length of the far wall, revealing dark space beyond, and Tadeo knew that if you turned out all the lights, sometimes you could see the other ships in the fleet.
There were ten ships out there, all smaller than the flagship Paragon, but all identical—vast cities of glinting metal. Inside each deka, the machinery and colonists worked hard to produce supplies for the fleet. Especially for the Paragon, which carried the greatest number of colonists.
But it was the stars he’d stared at most as they’d journeyed. Any one of them might nurture life on a new Earth they hadn’t yet discovered.
Would anyone look out a strip of glasstex this shift and see Era’s body? His stomach turned, and he ripped his eyes from the glass. He took a deep breath as Nyssa carried the drinks over, and he inhaled the clean, soothing scent of the room. Several hydropods were pushed up against the walls, their greens filling the air with the sweet smell of life, mingling with the lavender scent of executive standard soap.
Nyssa handed him a cup and sat down on one of the deep blue couches. “You may sit,” she said, gesturing to the couch on the other side of a low, metal table.
Tadeo walked to the couch and sank into the soft upholstery.
Nyssa leaned back on the other couch and took a sip of her drink. “Everything went smoothly, I trust?”
His suit felt as though it tightened around every pore in his body, suffocating him. Everything had gone smoothly, except when he’d used Dritan’s shift card. He should tell her, but… “Yes. We followed your orders.”
“Good,” she said, her expression veiled. “No one must know the girl tampered with the archives—or anything about what happened tonight.”
“I understand… Madame President.” Tadeo took a sip of his drink, feeling awkward. The liquid burned a trail down his throat.
“We can drop the formalities in here, Tadeo. Call me Nyssa.”
Tadeo nodded, unable to speak.
“Did the traitor say anything else to you tonight?”
He furrowed his brow. He didn’t want to think of this, relive it again already. He swallowed more of his drink, and a fire lit up in his stomach. “What do you mean?”
The president lifted a brow. “Did she say anything that sounded like treason to you? Anything suspicious?”
“No. She… She denied she committed a crime.”
“Anything else?”
“She was hysterical. She started saying…” Tadeo’s throat thickened. Whatever the traitor said was irrelevant, wasn’t it? “She said the Defect was a lie.”
“She would have said anything to save herself.” Nyssa leaned forward, and her blue eyes locked onto his. “It had to be done this way. She erased files we needed to settle on a new Earth. That’s a crime that cannot be forgiven.”
Tadeo slowly nodded. “I understand.”
Era deserved her punishment. Nyssa made the hard choices when they needed to be made, which was what good leaders did—what his mother did. Which was what he would do as a leader.
“I’ve always trusted you and your mother. But you truly proved your loyalty tonight.” Nyssa stood and walked over to the glasstex, cup in hand. She gazed out at the depths of space. “These are hard times. We don’t know who we can trust.”
Tadeo grunted a reply and took another sip, wishing this clandestine meeting were over.
After a moment, she turned to face him. “I believe Era may have been working with other traitors.”
Tadeo’s pulse quickened, and he sat up straight. “More traitors on the Paragon?”
“Yes. Era confessed knowledge that others work against us. But she didn’t have names.”
Tadeo set his cup down on the table. “You think traitors could be planning more attacks here… like the hull breach?” Or like the attack on Tesmee? He didn’t say it but glanced toward the doors at the far end of the room. Tesmee would be asleep in one of those cubics.
Nyssa shook her head. “We were unable to get that information. But Era’s husband did work down in the sublevels with the terrorists. Perhaps he recruited Era to his cause.”
“But… wasn’t Dritan Corinth the one who named the terrorists—the one who turned them in? I thought he was absolved.”
“Yes. But perhaps we were wrong about him.”
“What about the rest of his crew—and the crews we sent to Soren?”
Nyssa took a deep breath and slowly traced the infinity symbol engraved on the glass with one finger. It matched the one on her wrist perfectly. “We investigated every person the terrorists worked with. And every one of them is dead. I thought the problem had been taken care of. Clearly it has not. We arrested some other sublevel workers for speaking treason, but they haven’t given us any leads. They’ll be heading down to Soren before first shift on the transport.”
Since they’d airlocked the traitors, they’d gotten more reports of colonists speaking treason. The brig was filling up with offenders. Pretty soon, they’d run out of space. The president was smart. Sending them to Soren would shut them up and serve as a warning to the rest.
“We need to continue our search for traitors,” Nyssa said, her voice strong. She walked back over to the couch and sat down. “We must solve this problem. Permanently.”
Tadeo’s heart rate quickened, and he leaned toward her. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Nyssa’s mouth turned up a little. “I’m lucky to have you in my guard, Tadeo. I knew I could trust you to take care of this. I believe Era may have stolen data from the archives and hidden it somewhere for the other traitors to find. And if she did, I need you to find it before her co-conspirators do.”
Tadeo worked his jaw. “If she did, I’ll find it. But… what exactly am I looking for?”
“A cube, I think, maybe more than one cube. Chief has her records. You will have access to anything you need.” Nyssa pursed her lips. “Choose another guard you trust, and search every sector Era frequented. Begin on first shift, and try not to draw attention to yourself. Search her cubic first. If you don’t find anything, search every inch of the Repository. Then move on to any other places Era visited in the past fe
w weeks.”
“And what about the head archivist? Is she under suspicion?”
“Not at this time, no. But we’ll be watching her.”
“What should I tell her?”
“You just tell her and everyone else that it’s a confidential investigation regarding Era’s suicide.”
A whoosh sounded from the far wall, and Tadeo turned, rigid. Tesmee stepped out of a darkened cubic wearing a loose-fitting, white leisure suit like Nyssa’s. Her earth-Asian features were nothing like Nyssa’s—she looked just like her father. She lifted a thin wrist to shield her eyes from the bright light of the lume bars.
“Mother? Who are you talking… to?” Her dark eyes widened as noticed Tadeo, and she smoothed back her sleep-tousled hair.
“Tesmee,” Nyssa said. “Get back in your cubic. Now.”
Tesmee waved at Tadeo, obviously trying to show off the tear-shaped tattoo on her wrist, like usual. It was as if she wanted to remind him she was a fourteen-year-old half now and not the child of ten she’d been when he’d first arrived.
“Lieutenant Raines. I didn’t know you were stopping by.” She glanced up at the lume bars, still at half-light, clearly confused. “Wait. What shift is it?”
“Get back in your cubic.” Nyssa stood up. “I’ll be in to talk with you in a minute.”
Tesmee looked like she wanted to argue, but she crossed her arms and pouted instead, looking like a kid in caretaker sector. Nyssa stared her down, and Tesmee finally relented, turning heel and heading back into her cubic. The door slid shut behind her.
Ever since Tesmee’s father had died in a mysterious transport accident, Nyssa never really let her off command level. And since a terrorist had just tried to kill Tesmee, her confinement had only grown more restrictive. No wonder she didn’t know what shift it was. Tadeo would go insane if someone kept him locked away like that.
Nyssa came around to him and rested a hand on his sleeve. “I promised your mother I’d allow you to contact her on the private bridge comm. You have my permission to access it. Once all of this is over.”
“I—”