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

by Kalquist, Autumn

  Omar ran a hand over his shaved head and sank down on the bench, averting his eyes as Tadeo suited up. Once he zipped his suit, Omar’s shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back against the wall panel.

  “Wow,” Omar said, glancing around at Tadeo’s spacious quarters. “You have your own lav? Damn. My new cubic’s half this size. When do I get one of these?”

  “Never. Just be happy you’re not sharing with bunkmates anymore.”

  Tadeo had lived in the guard barracks for four years—until his promotion to the president’s guard. When Tadeo moved up, he’d pulled for Omar to get promoted, too. But Tadeo had gotten a better cubic because he was the heir to the Meso. And Omar… wasn’t.

  “Hurry up man, we’re gonna miss mess.”

  “You know, you don’t have to caretake me,” Tadeo said in a mocking tone. “Unless you feel like getting demoted to caretaker sector. You wanna guard the kids?”

  “Do you wanna guard kids?” Omar fired right back. “’Cause Chief wasn’t too happy with you earlier. You need to learn to answer your comm. He tried to comm you before mess, but you didn’t answer. So he commed me, and since he just happened to have me on the cuff, he ordered me to run those treason talkers down to the hangar bay. How ’bout you answer your damn cuff next time, yeah?”

  Tadeo attached his comcuff to his wrist, slipped in his earbud, and holstered his pulse gun to his belt. Omar was one of the few guards who didn’t act like he was going to piss himself whenever Tadeo talked to him. He liked that about him. That, and he didn’t ask too many questions, despite the rumors about Tadeo.

  “Are the treason talkers going somewhere?” Tadeo asked, feigning surprise.

  “The president and board decided to send ’em down to Soren.”

  “They finished questioning them?”

  “Yeah,” Omar said. “They weren’t happy. They talked kak about the president and board. Said they fight all the time, and that’s the reason the jumpgate’s not done. Doesn’t matter what they think now, though. They’re on their way to Soren.”

  Tadeo tightened his jaw. The board sometimes did stand in the way of progress, but the fleet had to follow the laws it had made for itself, or everything would disintegrate long before they reached New Earth.

  “Tough kak for them,” Tadeo said. “Let’s get to mess.”

  Omar and Tadeo headed toward command level galley, and two girls walked by, daughters of some bridge crew member or another. He should remember their names after four years on this ship, but he didn’t. They stared at him as they walked past, one whispering something to the other. Omar smiled broadly at them, but they didn’t pay attention to him, because their eyes were glued to Tadeo. Omar let out an exaggerated sigh at their disinterest, but Tadeo just frowned and kept his eyes straight ahead.

  They entered the galley, and the scents from the buffet wafted over them. Tadeo’s stomach growled in response. It was a small room, tiny compared to the guard galley or the massive main galley. A few tall, white hydropods stood at the corners of the room, and leaves hung over the edges of each ovoid pod. Rare greenery on the flagship. He suppressed a pang of homesickness. The president and command galley might have plants, but the Paragon was seriously short on green. Some considered this to be the best ship in the fleet, but it would never be that to him.

  Farida Mittal, the youngest member of the board, sat next to Nyssa at the table, as always. Farida represented the London and Perth, but her family had only held the position for one generation. A precarious position to be in. One mistake, and she could lose it. That was probably why she brown-nosed the president at every opportunity.

  Nyssa had a plate and cup before her, but she wasn’t eating. Her eyes flicked to Tadeo, and she inclined her head. She had that look, the one that said, “We share something, and I’m grateful for your discretion.”

  Tadeo’s mind shrunk from that look, tried to escape the thought of their shared secret. He nodded in return and broke eye contact, heading for the buffet. The reminder of today’s mission made him restless—energy surging through him as if he were a charged pulse gun.

  The rest of the board members and their families sat clustered at tables beside Nyssa’s. Nicolas Gonzalez, representative for the recyc deka, Seattle, and Omar’s ship, the Vancouver, sat with his son and wife sipping a flask, his fair complexion mottled.

  “Wow, drunk already and not even first shift?” Omar said, raising his voice.

  Tadeo slammed an elbow into Omar’s side to shut him up before he started ranting about how much Nic had screwed over the Vancouver.

  “Watch your mouth, Omar. We’re not on six anymore.”

  “Well, someone should say it.”

  As they waited in line, Tadeo surveyed the rest of the board members. If the flagship Paragon was the beating heart of the fleet, then the dekas were its lifeblood. Each of the ten dekas manufactured something vital to the fleet’s survival. And each of the five board members represented the interests of two of the ships.

  Nassef Yasin, representative for the Dubai and Moscow, sat with his family beside Jon Lau, representative for the Beijing and Kyoto. Nyssa had seemed impressed with how Jon had handled the Kyoto incident during the riots—when traitors had airlocked the captain and the entire crew. But Nassef was a wild card.

  Tom Nielsen, the fifth board member, sat at his own table with his family, his face a perpetual scowl. Tomas represented the Oslo and the Meso and constantly raised the quotas on water and food, which led to overworked colonists and messed up population management calculations. Tomas was the real cause of all the shortages. If there was one kak board member, it was Tomas Nielsen.

  Tadeo ground his teeth and stepped up to the buffet to grab a plate.

  The lights flickered above them, and Tadeo exchanged a worried glance with Omar. The low chatter in the galley ceased.

  Then they were plunged into darkness.

  Tadeo’s heart sped up, and his hand went to his pulse gun. He could sense Omar doing the same in the darkness. A few helios went up, and the palm-sized spheres floated beside their owners, casting a yellow glow over drawn faces.

  Everyone waited—tense, silent—to see if the bridge crew would trigger the sirens. Was it another emergency lockdown? Another terrorist attack, like the hull breach on six? Everyone here was thinking the same thing—he could see it on their faces.

  The seconds ticked by, and when it was clear the emergency sirens weren’t going to come on—that this was just another power outage—low conversation started up again.

  The lights came back on then, and Tadeo released a breath. Just a power outage. One of many in recent weeks.

  “Nicolas!” a female voice shouted. Tadeo took an alarmed step toward the board members’ tables at the sudden flurry of activity and loud voices. Farida and Jon Lau appeared in the small crowd, helping Nic Gonzalez up from the floor. The wide man wavered on his feet and slurred something to them. The drunk had passed out in the darkness.

  “Dumb kak,” Omar said.

  Tadeo shook his head and turned back to the buffet. He heaped a plate high with food, filled his cup from the water tank, and took a seat at the table where members of the president’s guard sat.

  “I owe you one for getting me up here,” Omar said. “I was gettin’ real tired of the food down in guard galley.”

  It was good food. Today they had quin flatbread, carsotts, greens, and tiny square slices of soyad. Only command level got to eat like this. The lower levels mostly ate quin and greens, which was what he and Omar had both been eating before their promotions.

  A stocky blond guard, Penta Kiva, walked up with her food and slid into a chair beside Omar. She was the Oslo transfer Omar had vouched for when McGill needed to be replaced.

  “Lieutenant Raines,” she said, inclining her head respectfully.

  “Sergeant.” Tadeo stabbed a chunk of soyad with his fork and shoved it into his mouth. The mealy fermented protein fell apart on his tongue, belying its age. Soyad was best eat
en fresh—it did not age well in the weeks after it left the Meso.

  Kiva gave Omar a sidelong glance. “Did you hear what happened?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

  “Hey to you, too,” Omar said. “What’d you hear?”

  “A pregnant tech airlocked herself during night shift.”

  The saliva dried up in Tadeo’s mouth.

  “Whoa, what?” Omar asked. “Gotta be the first airlocker on this ship in what, over a year?”

  “Nineteen months,” Tadeo said. Kiva and Omar both looked at him with surprise, but he kept his face expressionless.

  “No one knows why she did it.” Kiva continued. “But I bet her pregnancy was defective.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” a female voice said.

  Tadeo looked up to find Tesmee standing next to their table, plate in one hand, cup in the other. She was staring at Tadeo intently, her eyes bright.

  “Oh yeah? What else is there?” Omar asked, leaning toward her. But she didn’t take her eyes off Tadeo.

  “The airlocker was supposed to abort this morning,” Tesmee said. “And she found out her husband died on Soren hours before she did it.”

  Tadeo’s gut twisted like he’d eaten rot-tainted quin. He sniffed and took a sip of water. Tesmee had probably nagged Nyssa until she’d shared the same spare details about Era that the rest of the ship would know by last mess.

  “How’d you find that out?” Omar said.

  Tesmee gave Tadeo a small smile. “You know. I have my ways.”

  “Ways,” Tadeo echoed.

  “Yeah, Tadeo,” Omar said. “Girl’s got her ways.”

  Tadeo stared Tesmee down, his expression flat, until she swallowed and averted her eyes.

  “I need to eat,” she said. “Food’s getting cold.” She whirled and hurried over to her mother’s table to sit. Tadeo watched her go. She’d seen him last night with Nyssa—where he never should have been during night shift. Omar looked from Tadeo to Tesmee and back.

  “You’re an idiot.” Omar said, rolling his eyes.

  Kiva’s eyes widened, and she froze, her fork hovering above her plate. Everyone at the table had stopped eating and was watching them now.

  “Watch yourself, Sergeant.” Tadeo shot him the same flat look he’d given Tesmee. He needed to have a talk with Omar about how to address him in front of others now that they were both up here.

  “That girl… she’d do—”

  “Do what?” Tadeo asked, his voice a warning Omar didn’t receive.

  “Do you. Man, if she looked at me like that…” Omar noticed everyone staring and finally got the hint. He dropped his gaze. “Uh—what I mean to say, sir, is…”

  Tadeo released his tight grip on his fork, revealing the deep mark it had left in his palm. He shook his head and went back to eating. Everyone else around the table took that as a cue to start eating again, the moment of tension over.

  Kiva snorted, and Omar shot her a glare.

  She raised one brow and rolled her eyes. “She’s not even sixteen yet,” she said quietly, clearly trying to escape Tadeo’s notice. “Doesn’t even have her implant.”

  “And your point?” Omar asked.

  “What is wrong with you?” Kiva asked.

  “Must be something in the water,” Omar said. “After that last shipment from the Oslo, man, has it been tasting bad.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kiva said. “More like it’s these suits, cutting off circulation to your brain. Couldn’t your guys on the Vancouver make them fit a little better? I bet they’ve been cutting corners. Probably bribing someone in qual scans.”

  “Gimme a break,” Omar said. “The Oslo has one job. One job! And you can’t even clean the kak out of the water. You’d stab yourselves to death before you figured out how to thread a needle and make a suit.”

  “These zippers. Utter junk,” Kiva said. “In zero G, kak would just fly out of my pockets.”

  “Don’t blame us for that.” Omar shoved more food in his mouth and talked around it. “Blame plastics. The Dubai’s been failing qual scans for years.”

  Kiva scoffed. “They have not.”

  “They have so. Ask anyone in tech. I know people from the Kyoto.”

  “You’re so full of it,” Kiva said, her voice rising. “You wanna settle this with a game of chips?”

  “You’re terrible. Why would I even bother playing with you again?”

  “If I win, you give me your holovid credits for the month.”

  “Why would I agree to that?”

  “’Cause you’re cocky and think you can beat me.”

  “Fine,” Omar said. “I’ll play you. And you can sit in the lounge and stare at the wall while I use all your credits up.”

  Tadeo stabbed at his soyad, scraping his fork loudly across the metal plate, and Omar and Kiva fell silent. Omar might lust after the president’s daughter, but clearly he and Kiva were a pair made for Infinity.

  Was I like Omar and Kiva—so cavalier about things before the hull breach happened? Or maybe everything had changed since last night. Since he’d airlocked Era and realized one of their own guards had been a traitor.

  Chief Petroff showed up then, plate and cup in hand, and sat down a few seats from Tadeo. Talk faded at his arrival. The old man didn’t bother to greet any of them, but when he saw Tadeo, his eyes went hard.

  “Chief,” Kiva asked. “Do you know what that power outage was about?”

  The guards stilled, waiting to see if Chief would answer or snap Kiva’s head off for talking to him before he’d had his morning mess.

  Chief took a bite of food and chewed it slowly. “Same old power core issues as last time. Generator’s beat to kak down there. The subs on this ship don’t know how to keep anything running.”

  Tadeo pushed his plate away, his appetite gone. Treason-talking subs. Terrorists in the guard. The ships—old and falling apart. Any threats to the fleet needed to be removed. They had enough to worry about.

  Tadeo studied the faces around the table. Were there more traitors here—right now? The chief was from the Perth, the mining ship, and his old deka loyalties showed through in the people he promoted. Half the command level guards had been born to specialist parents on the Perth. They had the highest death rate of any deka, so everyone who was born there was desperate to get off the ship. It was dangerous work—mining meteors, fixing the equipment, dealing with explosives. Had McGill been from the Perth, too?

  His gaze went to Omar. He was the only one Tadeo could trust to help him with his investigation.

  He stood up and pushed his chair in. Omar looked up questioningly, but Tadeo ignored him and headed over to the corner of the room, toward the hydropods, to wait. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. The scent of the greens wafted over to him, clearing his head.

  Petroff finished his food fast and headed out the door. He gave Tadeo another hard look as he passed. “Better get moving, Raines.”

  Tadeo nodded and gestured to Omar. He frowned and came over to lean against the wall.

  “So what’s the mission today?” he asked. “Kiva and I placed bets. She thinks we’ll get to stand watch while they try to fix the power core.”

  “I don’t ever stand watch in the power core.”

  “Oh, right,” Omar said. “Gotta protect the heir.”

  “Sergeant Omar,” Tadeo said.

  Omar stood straighter on reflex.

  “Watch how you address me in front of the rest of the guard,” Tadeo said.

  His eyes widened. “Okay, man. I mean—Lieutenant.”

  “We’re not on patrol or watch today. You and I have a different mission. Let’s go check out some holo gear.”

  “We’re conducting an investigation?” Omar asked.

  “Everything about this is need-to-know only,” Tadeo said, his voice low. “And you don’t need to know yet.”

  Zephyr woke to laughter and light. It clashed with the sleep-soaked visions still floating through her mind. Blood.
Soren. Era. Grimp.

  The Legacy Code. A genetic modification for superimmunity… yet it created broken children—too defective to survive. She shielded her eyes against the light making its way through the crack of her bunk’s metal privacy panel. She slept in a top bunk, and the lume bar streamed right through.

  Dritan was dead.

  The memory of it all slammed into her chest, knocking her breath away. She dropped her head back onto her thin pillow. The girls below continued to laugh, and Zephyr swallowed past the lump in her throat. She grabbed her eyepiece from the shelf inside her bunk and slipped it on. A twist of her wrist activated the small black box connected to it, and the 3D holographic interface appeared. Morning mess was almost over. Kak.

  Era’s grief had been all-consuming last night. She’d been hysterical, ranting about the Defect, saying she wouldn’t go through with her abortion… Oh, no. Era was scheduled to terminate her pregnancy first shift. Zephyr had to get to her.

  She slid open the privacy panel and jumped down. The girls below fell silent as she locked her bunk. There were six halfs to a cubic, and one of her bunkmates, a blonde named Kali, sat below, next to Helice… and Paige, who thank Infinitek, lived in a different cubic. Paige had the look of a sweet girl, someone you could trust, all big eyes and bow lips. And Zephyr had trusted her once, until Paige showed her who she really was.

  Zephyr kept her face blank as she pulled her suit and boots from her locker and changed. She pocketed her holo gear, then dragged a comb through her long reddish-blond hair, trying to hurry, yet dreading Era’s grief—not sure how she could help ease it.

  “Dumb glitch,” Paige said.

  Zephyr went rigid and raised her eyes.

  All three tried to pretend they hadn’t just been staring at her, but Helice lifted a hand to her mouth to hide a smile.

  Rage lit up Zephyr’s chest, and she suppressed it like she always did. They were immature, stuck in caretaker sector mentality—hateful and jealous that Zephyr would captain the London someday, and they’d just be stuck here doing boring jobs for the rest of their lives. Better to act above them than engage them. That pissed them off even more. Era was all that mattered right now.