He had to get this away from the power core. The further away he got it, the more people might survive. Where was the closest airlock? There was no time. Anywhere on this ship, hundreds or thousands of people would die. Including him.
Tadeo reached the ladder and started down it, his legs still shaking. He gripped the insert with one hand while lowering his body with the other.
“There’ll be another cycle soon,” Lanar said, his voice cracking.
The combined weight of Tadeo’s suit and the insert made hanging on to the ladder difficult, but he held on with everything he had, slowly working his way back to the main platform.
When he reached the last rung, the ladder began to vibrate. He stepped onto the platform and gripped the guardrail with one hand as the entire platform and scaffolding shook.
They were waiting for him on the platform, all of them, faces drawn. Omar stood beside the main doors as they creaked open.
Kiva ran in from the corridor. “I commed Chief,” she said, breathless. “He’s coming—but he’s on zero deck.”
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. His body felt heavy, like he was sinking in a vat of uncured soyad.
“No time,” he said. “Are the president and board away?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at the glowing Zenith crystals. Where should he take it? He had minutes. But how many? His gaze moved to the corridor beyond Kiva. If he sprinted, he might make it to the airlock at the other end of the core. The one where they’d airlocked Era.
Tadeo strode past everyone, the stuck feeling fading. “Kiva, Omar—clear the sublevels. Get everyone to safety. I’m sending this fucker out an airlock. Go!”
Tadeo ran down the corridor. How long did he have? Two minutes? Three? It had already been at least five minutes since Wes had hit the bomb with the laser. At least. Maybe longer.
The suit and the heavy insert made him slow, and he pushed against the extra weight, trying to move faster. But the harder he ran, the farther away the other end of the corridor seemed. His legs were shaking too hard, slowing him down. This thing was going to blow up in his hands.
It would kill a lot of people if it went off now. And it might destroy the Repository—end any hope of ever rebuilding civilization on a new Earth. Even if he didn’t survive, the archives had to.
Tadeo blinked against the sting of sweat running into his eyes. He glanced down at the bomb, his breath catching painfully. Were the crystals glowing more brightly than before? Or was it a trick of the flickering lumes here?
He raised his eyes and stared down the corridor. This isn’t a bomb. I’m not in space gear. I’m just on a planet with real gravity.
He tried to picture a new Earth, like he had so many times while running the levels on the Meso, like he’d imagined while running the treadmill on the Paragon.
A new world. Blue skies. Open fields. Green trees. Dirt paths. Life.
His legs strengthened beneath him, and he sprinted toward the end of the corridor. He was running fast now, his body under his control again, and the end grew closer, until he was there.
Breathing hard, his side stitching up, he fumbled for his shift card on the loop around his waist. He ripped it off, scanned it, and pushed into the control room before the door finished opening.
He ran to open the door that led to the airlock. It seemed to take forever to open, but once it did, he stumbled inside and laid the bomb gently on the metal floor of the airlock. Then he scanned his card to get back into the control cubic.
As the door slid closed behind him, he took two steps to the control panel and typed in the same code he’d typed in two nights before, when he’d airlocked Era. Red lights began to flash in the airlock. He could barely hear the sirens through his helmet, but he knew they’d started up on the other side.
The black powder mocked him from the other side of the airlock, and the crystals appeared to glow red beneath the lights.
The countdown had begun. One minute. Too long. How long had it been? How long did he have? Tadeo backed away from the glasstex separating him from the bomb. Soon the airlock would open, and the bomb would be swept into space. But would it be soon enough?
He couldn’t leave without seeing it go, and even if he did leave now—if it went off, he’d be dead anyway, and it would probably take off the entire side of the ship. At least the Repository was on the opposite end. The Paragon might be crippled, and thousands would die, but the dekas could salvage the archives and keep going. And not under new leadership like the terrorists wanted—like Wes had wanted. The board and president were safely away.
Tadeo kept his eyes glued to the countdown. Thirty seconds. The bomb had to be seconds from exploding. He should be terrified right now, but he only felt high. High on danger—exactly how he’d felt all those times he’d snuck down to the sublevels on the Meso. All those times he met Kit in secret.
Kit’s laugh. Her green eyes. The way she’d sounded when they’d moved together, two hungry bodies in the dark. In unused stairwells, in helio sector during night shift, in sublevel storage, in places they never should have been.
She would have gotten her implant in a month. But he’d convinced her to break the rules, and she’d paid the ultimate price.
It only took a few times before he’d gotten her pregnant. Tadeo’s eyes burned beneath closed lids. His mother had tried to protect them—had kept people from finding out the child was his. But Kit refused to talk to him after the day she found out.
It was an illegal pregnancy—set to be terminated whether it was defective or not. In truth, it was treason. He and Kit had committed treason when they’d had sex before she’d gotten her implant. They’d disobeyed the population laws.
And the day before Kit been scheduled to abort, she airlocked herself. Just like Era.
Except he’d airlocked Era.
Tadeo opened his eyes and looked down at the teardrop tattoo on his wrist, one-half of an infinity symbol.
Quin crops failed from rot if the right balance of nutrients wasn’t maintained. Maybe the universe had a balance, too. And maybe he was on the wrong side of it. Maybe this was his sacrifice. Maybe this was the way he needed to atone for all he’d done wrong.
Tadeo looked back at the countdown.
00:10
00:09
00:08
The outer door would be opening now.
00:07
00:06
00:05
00:04
Tadeo wiped the sweat from his brow, and the tightness in his chest let up.
00:03
00:02
00:01
00:00
The inner door cracked open, revealing space beyond, and the bomb was sucked out.
His muscles relaxed, and the heaviness lifted, leaving him giddy. He’d done it. He’d saved the ship.
Bright light exploded around him, and all sound died. A force slammed him backward into something hard and unyielding. It knocked the air from his lungs, and he felt his bones snapping.
Had Kit thought of him before she died? He gave in and let the darkness carry him away.
Dritan woke, feverish, in the darkness. Burning pain tore through his arm and radiated down his body, crippling him. Sweat soaked his clothes, his brow, and he reached out blindly atop the rock pile, seeking his helio.
His hand found the familiar cool sphere, and he tapped it. It floated beside him, illuminating his progress. He’d cleared an enormous pile of stone, but there was still no sign of a door, or the corridor that should lie beyond here.
The painmod was gone, he’d drunk the last of the water hours ago, and McGill still lived, but kept going in and out of consciousness. Dritan was on his own.
He checked the line on his oxygen pack. Red.
The helio started to bob and weave unevenly through the air. It was about to die. And so was he.
Dritan snatched the sphere from the air and turned it off, gasping as another surge of pain ripped through him.
He lay on the rocks, panting in the pitch-black. Hazy memories drifted through his mind, brief fragments, moments in time.
His mother, smelling of lavender soap. Era’s scent. Where had his mother—a sublevel worker—gotten exec standard soap?
When he was small, he heard a story and went to ask his mother about it. She held him in her lap, cuddling him close. “Do you know what ‘A Better World Awaits’ means?” she asked him.
“No, Mama.”
“Well, see, that scary story you heard wasn’t the whole truth. Our ancestors did destroy our home planet. Some people say the old gods of Earth cursed us to roam space until we could be forgiven. And if we all do our part—work to ensure the fleet survives—one day we’ll be redeemed—and then we’ll find our better world. And so we say ‘A Better World Awaits.’”
“What are gods?”
Mama’s eyes widened playfully, and she kissed his forehead. “Beings. Like us, only more powerful. But, buddy… that story was wrong. The old gods didn’t curse us. And they didn’t forget us, either. You’re my proof. You’re blessed.”
“Blessed?”
“The gods made you lucky, Dritan.”
He fought back the haze, fought against the memories or dreams, or whatever they were. Exhaustion threatened to overcome him, but sleep would only mean death. He couldn’t give up. He had to fight till his last breath.
“Haven’t I proven myself?” he said into darkness. The air felt thin, and he coughed. “Everything I’ve ever done has been for the good of the fleet—for the good of my family. What else do you want from me?”
Dritan reactivated the dying helio and hauled himself higher on the rocks, closer to the top—to try to clear more there—to try one last time to find the exit. It took every bit of strength he had to reach the top, and when he did, he collapsed again.
Then the ground shook. The damn planet was determined to end him.
He clutched the rocks around him, desperately trying not to fall, as the entire pile shifted. Pain screamed through him, razing up and down his arm, and tears ran down his cheeks in response.
Then it ended, leaving Dritan lower than where he’d been.
He ground his teeth and moved to the top once more. One hand after the other. Each time he gripped a rock with his bad arm, flashes of light danced across his vision.
When he reached the top of the rubble, he was shaking, and sweat poured down his brow. He reached for a rock with his good arm and pried at it, willing it to move. And when it did, his helio glinted off… something.
Dritan’s heart thudded faster. There, at the top edge. Metal. He’d been near here earlier, but it had looked like layers of rock between him and the corridor. But the quake had shifted things. If that was the corridor…
His breath came in shaky gulps, and new hope sprung up within him. He dug into a rock and pried at it. It didn’t budge. He gripped it with both hands, and with a guttural scream, tore the rock away and let it fall to the ground below.
Black crowded his vision, and he nearly passed out. He reached up and touched the spot where he’d seen the gleam, running his hand along it. He choked back a sob and remembered the shape and feel of every scar and burn he’d gotten in the metalworks on his home deka.
Home. He’d recognize the surface he touched anywhere. His hand ran along the edge of a panel, rivets under his fingertips—metal forged on the London.
He pulled at another rock with all his might, gasping from the pain. It rolled toward him and bounced down the rubble to the ground. Metal glinted back at him, dusty, dinged, full of promise. He worked faster, pulling at the smallest rocks, trying to gain purchase to move larger ones.
Each breath he took grew thinner, the oxygen pack nearly gone. After a few fevered minutes, Dritan reached in and found nothing. He lifted his body higher, trying to see. A deep hole of blackness stared back at him. He had to risk testing the air beyond.
He lifted his mask and pressed his face to the gap to take a tentative, small breath. If it was Soren air, his lungs would burn with the plasma of a thousand cores. But they didn’t. Instead, stale air flooded his nostrils. He took another breath and another. Blackness didn’t close in, dizziness didn’t overcome him. The air was sweet, if dusty.
The corridor beyond this wall still held oxygen. He tore off his mask, throwing it away from him with the empty oxygen pack, and poked his head and arm through the hole at the top of the doorway. He threw his helio down into the shaft. It illuminated more rock below and the dusty panels of the corridor.
Excitement flooded him, and he inched forward, twisting as he went, squeezing through the hole he’d made to the other side. But his arm gave out, refusing to work, and he lost his grip.
He rolled down the pile of rocks, each one like a bolt of steel going through him, until he hit the bottom. A horrible, heavy coldness smashed into his skull, and a new warmth dripped down his brow. His helio winked out, leaving him again in pitch-black.
He took shallow breaths and tasted the salty metallic tang of blood as it dripped down his cheek and found his lips.
His lungs ached, and the agony of his mangled arm flooded his mind with pain and nothing else, making it hard to think. Had he been wrong about the fresh air in here? Did he get this far just to die anyway?
The haze washed over him, more memories flitting past. He was hallucinating.
The warmth of Era’s lips on his.
Gentle pressure on his good hand, squeezing three times.
I. Love. You.
Tears gathered in Dritan’s eyes as the deep thrum of the power core rumbled through him. He was dying. There was an accident in the sublevels. But he’d sacrificed himself for the good of the fleet.
A bright light came to take him into death. Soren’s sun—gone supernova. His eyes fluttered shut, but the light only grew stronger.
Voices.
Dritan forced his eyes open as a globe of light resolved into a helio above him.
A masked, blue-suited woman crouched beside Dritan and held a new oxygen mask to his mouth. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She turned around and shouted back up the shaft. “We found a survivor!”
∞ ∞ ∞
A Better World Awaits. The journey will continue in Subversion (Legacy Code Book Four). Did you enjoy this book? If you'd like to post an honest review of this bundle on Amazon, it would mean a lot to me. Reviews don't have to be long. A simple sentence about what you liked is great and will help other readers find the books.
Are you interested in the source of the Defect and what happened before the fleet left Earth? Defective is a prequel story my readers asked for because they were curious about what happened on Earth before the events in my Legacy Code series. Legacy Code #4 is on my publishing schedule, but the Defective trilogy will be released first. To find out when all the latest books are released and to claim a free copy of my short story prequel "318" (which takes place months before Defective) sign up here: http://www.autumnkalquist.com/your-free-story/
Thank you for reading!
~Autumn
Wanna stay here with my dreams
Don’t wanna face the day
’Cause this reality's my nightmare since you went away
And everywhere I see your face
In every song I hear your voice
Like a phantom melody
Why'd you make that choice?
I wanna believe I’ll see you again
I wanna believe that this isn’t the end
Wanna believe that there’s a better world,
A better world awaiting
Better world waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Wish I could find faith in what they call lies
Since the day we lost it all, and the old gods died
And everywhere I see your face
In every song I hear your voice
Never got the chance to say good-bye
Before you made that choice.
I
wanna believe I’ll see you again
I wanna believe that this isn’t the end
Wanna believe that there’s a better world,
A better world awaiting
Better world waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Need hope the dead religions give me
Want a reason, not a chaos theory
Wanna believe
I’ll see you again
Wanna believe
That this isn’t the end
Wanna believe that there's a better world.
A better world waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Thanks to my dad, mom, step-dad, and sister, as well as all my family and friends, for your love and support. It means a lot to me that you’re right here with me, wanting to see the fleet get to its destination!
To Erynn Newman and Bethany Kaczmarek, I love working with you both! I’m so happy to have such wonderful editors.
Thanks to Jamie Blair and Freya Wolfe, for the many hours you spent helping me make this book what it is.
A special thanks to my beta readers: Alicia Porter, Emmanuelle Pensa, and Sita Payne Romero.
And, of course, I couldn’t have written this book without the unwavering love and support of my husband and daughter. I love you both, and you help keep me grounded lest I lose myself in my worlds.
Table of Contents
Better World
Fractured Era Series
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Crash and Burn Lyrics
Acknowledgments
Legacy Code
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle (Books 1-3) (Fractured Era Series) Page 35
