The Approach (Courage Colony Book 1)

by Holly Ice

  ‘Is it not better to give in to their demands?’ Ksenia asked. ‘I’d rather not see anyone else injured.’

  ‘They’re demanding a vulnerable, untrained and untreated team,’ Rima said.

  ‘I don’t want to be tending another candidate over this.’

  ‘I feel the same way, but we can’t set a precedent for violence.’

  ‘What can we do to help?’ Yara asked.

  ‘Stock the lander. Techs have been tinkering with the engine. In that, you can accelerate ahead of us and be maybe five months from Ristar. You’d be stuck in the lander longer than we’d like, but we have enough supplies stockpiled to get you there.’

  Yara glanced at Ratan, who nodded. ‘We’re on it.’

  Ashoka and the other dismissed applicants offered to help, leaving Quinn and me to deal with the vote. The last vote had been years earlier. It was rare to have the best minds on board the ship return such a close decision. When it was so marginal, it made sense to appeal to other minds for confirmation, but that didn’t stop it being an ordeal.

  ‘When’s the vote announcement?’ I asked.

  ‘This evening, as soon as you’re ready. Kuba will set you up in navigation for your part.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell them.’

  Rima smiled. ‘Ask for their support and let them know why you want to be on the team. That’s enough for today. They’ll have plenty to digest once they receive your training reports. You can write your first campaign speech tomorrow.’

  I’d forgotten that. The crew would get the same data the committee had when they’d made their decision, as well as the committee’s recommendation. That meant access to every correct answer and mistake. Could that be good? It might finally stop the cheating rumours if they saw, question for question, how I’d earned my place. And waiting till tomorrow for the speech gave me time to talk to Siti and my parents. They’d know how other decks would react to me, issues I needed to avoid or answer. Mum would love to be involved. Her daughter, a finalist. I smiled. She’d be overjoyed.

  Kuba pushed back his chair and led me into navigation’s side room. He ran through the standard speech Rima would go through, pointed out the recording equipment, made sure I knew how to delete a bad recording, and left me to it.

  I stared at the screen, trying to formulate the words that might tell the crew who I was, help them accept me and what I could do, but everything I thought of fell flat.

  ‘You look like you want help.’

  ‘That would be amazing.’

  Quinn took the chair beside me. ‘What do you have so far?’

  * * *

  We were finalising my short statement, a word crossed out here or there with alternatives in the comments, when the lights went off, blue, off, blue, and back to normal. The screens lit up, focused on Meri’s stern, weathered face. She stood in front of the lockers, a long corridor of rooms in the lower decks. Her brown-and-black security coveralls were creaseless, her hair scraped back, and her gaze pierced the camera, threatening anyone who dared defy her team.

  ‘Armed security and colonial patrols are on every deck.’ She tapped her baton and stunner. ‘For those that haven’t heard, this is because a candidate for the exploration team was brutally beaten this evening. James Romano was found in a terrible condition on the floor of C-15, where he’d been left for dead. As far as we can ascertain, he was attacked because he’d taken system nanites for the exploration team training. He suffered multiple broken bones, extensive bruising, and a punctured lung. Thankfully he is stable, but I stress that even with nanites in his system, health tell me he almost didn’t make it. Research have tentatively identified five people involved in this brutal attack after examining James. They have been found and are detained in the lockers behind me.’ Meri paused, eyes narrowing. ‘We’ve also identified and detained six people involved in a separate fight with security and the man we believe to be the leader of this nanite-hating group: Ludis Rubenis. If you have any information about James’s attack or this group, please contact your nearest patrol. Whatever you think about nanites, this was a serious assault, one that should never have happened on this ship.’

  The screen cut to a picture of James’s swollen face and panned to his many bandages.

  Meri spoke over the top. ‘No one wants to see another crew member in this state. I hope we can agree on that and get back to life as normal as soon as possible. Patrols are happy to take questions and information.’

  The screens cut to black. I pushed my statement away. ‘Feels anticlimactic to worry about a few sentences when James looks worse than earlier.’

  Quinn rubbed his neck. ‘I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was almost fatal.’

  ‘Feels wrong to put my statement out now. Tonight should be about him.’ I closed my eyes, James’s injuries coming to mind all too easily. I hoped he woke soon.

  Chapter 14

  The vote announcement went better than I’d feared thanks to Quinn’s help. For the most part, it was overshadowed by news of the attack, but I had a lot of work to do if I was to have any chance of winning a place on the team.

  Quinn and my parents had helped shape my main speech since first shift had started, but Siti wasn’t answering her comm. She was either mid-pursuit or something was wrong, and since Ludis’s group had been brought into the open, I’d had a bad feeling. She’d never replied to my request to meet yesterday, or me saying I’d be late. She should have checked in. I would have asked Ludis, but he was in lockers under guard.

  I shared my concerns with Quinn and we rattled down the decks to her door. When we got to C-14, her door was closed but unlocked. I let myself in.

  No one was in the main room, the bathroom, or the small food prep area, so where was she? She knew I was looking for her. Could I have missed her?

  Quinn waited in the doorway. I brushed past him, toward the two-person patrol sweeping the deck. ‘Have either of you seen Siti?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She isn’t in her room. Did you see her leave?’

  The woman sighed. ‘She’s probably in the food hall, or on her way to see someone. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Siti took the nanites. She’s not just anyone. I’m worried.’

  Her partner frowned. ‘You think they targeted her?’

  ‘I’ve not heard from her for a day and a half. What should I think?’

  ‘That’s unusual?’

  ‘Recently, yes. Last time I spoke to her… oh no.’ My last message had asked her to meet me in my parents’ cabin. She hadn’t messaged back, probably because she had been taken.

  ‘What?’ the man asked.

  ‘I asked her to meet me yesterday.’

  ‘She didn’t make it?’

  ‘I got called to the committee before she arrived.’

  ‘Did you tell her the meet was cancelled?’

  ‘I said I’d be late but never got a reply.’ I swallowed. There were seven floors between Siti’s room and my parents’. She could be on any one of them, or somewhere else entirely. ‘She didn’t make it there.’ My parents would have told me if she had, and she’d gone silent since around the time James had been found. Something wasn’t right.

  The woman spoke into her comm. ‘Siti Liu is thought to be missing. Last known whereabouts somewhere between C-14 and… which deck was she headed to?’

  ‘C-7.’

  ‘And C-7. Keep an eye out. Report back if you find her.’

  I turned to the man. ‘I forgot to tell Sabine or Rima. Question Raj from maintenance. He’s been recruiting for this group. He might know where she is.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on,’ he said.

  ‘Ask research to scan the ship for her,’ Quinn said, tapping his comm.

  That’s right, Siti should have both her comm signal and her nanites relaying information through her comm to the main hub. ‘Thanks, Quinn.’

  The patrolwoman called research and relayed the request. She got approval for a track f
rom the committee almost immediately, and research responded within minutes of the green light.

  ‘Siti Liu’s comm is offline. It was last online on deck C-15 yesterday afternoon.’

  I cursed and glanced at her cabin door. If it was unlocked, she must have thought she wouldn’t be gone long… or they’d taken her before she’d locked it. If her comm was broken or switched off on C-15, they’d likely taken her down. Fewer people below C-14, and fewer cameras. Raj and Ludis talked with people below decks too and knew the decks well enough to lose us in them.

  ‘What about the cameras?’ I asked. ‘When did they last see her?’

  ‘Cameras last showed Siti on C-14, leaving her cabin. She was alone and her comm was still on her wrist,’ the tech said.

  The air whooshed out of me. Someone had hidden their tracks, just like they had for the attack on James. But if she’d had her comm between C-14 and C-15, we should have her nanite data for that period. ‘What did her nanites report before the comm was removed? Was she okay?’

  The tech looked up the nanite data and hesitated. ‘We have no data for that time period.’

  ‘What? Check again. Her nanites would have been sending data via the comm. They’re almost constantly transmitting.’

  The patrol woman passed on the request.

  ‘Same result,’ the tech said. ‘I tried four times, but they cut off all contact just after the cameras. It’s either a fault or…’ He spoke off mic, slightly muted. ‘Have you checked yet?’ They cursed. ‘Someone stole the chemical we use to deactivate nanites.’

  I cursed along with them. That was kept under lock and key because it could deactivate any nanites on board mid-task, including those fixing the hull. It should have been one of the most difficult things to commandeer on the whole ship. Was this what Ludis had been planning? If it was, I didn’t even recognise him anymore.

  ‘They wiped her nanites.’ I bit my tongue, hard enough to draw blood. If she was in as bad a state as James, that could mean she hadn’t made it.

  The tech must have heard me. ‘You’ll need to find her the old-fashioned way. I’ll inform the committee.’

  The guard thanked them and shut off her comm.

  ‘You think she’s in the lower levels?’ the woman asked.

  She clearly wasn’t in security for her brains. ‘The comm cut out one deck down from here, so yeah, I think they went down.’

  ‘Could be a misdirect.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Though I doubted it. Going down made the most sense.

  Her partner pulled her away to continue their rotation, but I couldn’t go back to writing my speech, not with Siti missing and her life at risk. I signalled Quinn to follow me downstairs. We’d do our own search. I knew all too well what it was like to be missing and have no idea if someone was coming for you. She needed to be found. Soon.

  * * *

  Two hours passed and we were no closer to finding Siti. I was wearing down my enamel with stress. I knew what it was like to be her. I’d faced three hours alone in a cramped space and I still had nightmares. We were running out of ideas. Security and colonial patrols had checked every deck in all the obvious places she could be hidden, but that left spaces between the walls. I bit my tongue, the memory of that cold metal box settling into my bones.

  ‘We should pause, get food,’ Quinn said.

  ‘No, I’m not stopping until we find her.’

  ‘Okay. Where should we look next?’ He spread his arms, taking in the whole of the algae farm deck. It had been a reasonable guess since I’d seen Ludis here, but it was empty.

  Quinn’s question was meant to be rhetorical, a plea for a break, but I wasn’t ready to eat or rest. I had to find her, and I had to be more logical about it. If I were Ludis or one of his half-crazy group, where would I put someone ‘infected’ with nanites? They’d left James in the open as a statement, but this seemed different, more spontaneous. Knowing how they felt about us, I doubted she’d be left near food, which discounted this deck. It wouldn’t be near the inhabited decks, if Ludis’s reaction to me seeing Aina was any clue. No, they had to have put her deep within the ship. Even after giving her the nanite chemical, they’d still see her as a threat.

  ‘We need to concentrate on decks 20 through 24.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘It’s away from food and people. Where else would they hide her?’

  Quinn commed the patrols to say where we’d be, and we headed down, into the bowels of the ship. After the farms and gardens, it grew darker the deeper we went, no need for bright lighting since these decks were rarely travelled. The journey reminded me of the day I’d run from Quinn and the crew, all the way to C-24. No one had bothered me there, and I had a hunch that was where we’d find her.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘Let’s start on C-24.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we start on C-20?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. A feeling.’

  Quinn didn’t question it. He followed, turning at the stairs as we’d done for so many of Sabine’s runs. Our footsteps echoed through the decks, with the patrols giving us a wave or a nod as we passed. There was no way someone could be down there with Siti, not with this heavy patrol presence, but that meant she was trapped, or too injured to move. Or worse. I moved faster, not slowing until the final deck.

  When I got there, I called her name, stopping to listen at various points along the walls. The passing patrol squinted and stopped to watch, but I ignored them. A knock on pipes or a clang or a whimper could tell me where she was.

  ‘What is she doing?’

  I glared at the patrolman. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘We searched the deck. The girl isn’t here.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  I closed my eyes, concentrating on every scuff of sound. It wasn’t enough. I heard nothing beyond the ordinary creaks of the ship and the two guards huffing, but something told me she was here. I just needed to listen hard enough.

  ‘Quinn?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you have any chargers?’

  ‘You want to charge up?’ the guard asked. ‘This is no time to be charged. If this group finds and beats you, you’d go straight into shock.’

  I tapped Quinn’s arm. ‘Please?’ He’d always had a stash before.

  He fished one out his pocket and passed it to me. I dusted off fluff and placed it on my tongue, my eyes closed as the smallest sounds increased in volume.

  I ignored the cool air, the warmth of Quinn’s breath over my head, and focused on sound to the expense of all else. The creaks of metal from feet on decks high above, the breath of the nearby patrol, the clank of a rattling pipe, and then a soft, shaky breath, in and out, in and out. I walked towards it, hands in front of me, all my concentration focused on the sound. My hands hit cold metal and I opened up my sense of touch to feel minute vibrations through my hands. Someone was in there. It sent my heart to my knees at what she must have been through, but I was sure.

  ‘Here,’ I said, opening my eyes. My hands were placed over the bolted entrance to an old access shaft. It was flat to the wall and long unused. No one would have thought to check it.

  ‘Siti is in there?’ Quinn asked. He eyed the dust on the small panel. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘It’s faint, but I can hear someone breathing.’

  The patrolman narrowed his eyes but called for an engineer to open the panel. I willed them to hurry. If she wasn’t yelling my name or banging on the walls, she had to be as bad as James. With the shakiness of her breath, I hoped the engineer hurried before it was snuffed out.

  A long fifteen minutes later, my dad was with us. He grunted at the dusty panel and switched tools. ‘It’s bolted when it should be heat sealed.’

  He unscrewed the first bolt. It crashed to the floor. Then came the next. I couldn’t wait. I prised the metal back and peered through the gap, but it was too dark to see inside. Then the last bolt wa
s pulled free. The breathing was louder, too fast for rest, and the dim light hit Siti’s curled-up body. She was purple and green with bruises and hiding her face in her knees.

  ‘Siti?’ I reached in but stopped short of touching her, knowing that by now she would feel uncomfortable near another person. ‘You can come out. You’re safe.’

  She blinked hard and peered up from her knees, her lips tinged blueish pink.

  Tears streaked down her face, running through grime from the shaft. ‘You found me.’ Her voice was a raw whisper, as if they’d beaten her voice from her bruised body. Red and purple marks covered her neck, deeper than the others. Had they tried to strangle her?

  ‘I’m sorry it took so long.’

  She half fell out the hole. She winced as her limbs stretched and stumbled into my arms. I held her as tight as I dared and did my best to avoid the bruises, but she didn’t seem to care. The patrol gaped at the scene. The younger man was the quickest to recover. He called it in.

  Dad hovered by my side. ‘Anything else I can do?’

  ‘Reseal that panel tighter than before, and help me get Siti to health.’ I glanced at the space she’d been stuffed into. It was small, almost too small. She’d come out clammy and breathing fast. She was lucky to have found enough oxygen. Maybe the tiny gap the screws left had helped.

  ‘Happy to.’ Dad picked up the first screw and put it in place.

  Siti shook in my arms. My vision blurred as I held her, remembering my sheer joy to see my dad’s face after three hours inside a tiny black hole. I could only guess how much worse it was after a day or a day and a half, depending when they’d snatched her.

  ‘Who did this to you?’

  She sniffed against my shoulder. ‘Raj, and some people from research.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘They were angry about Ludis. Said he’d been caught and locked up, and they kept saying I was infected, that I needed to be cleansed. They forced a liquid down my throat. After that the punches hurt worse and stopped healing.’

  ‘I should have found you sooner.’

  She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t leave me in there. I bet you didn’t even know I was gone.’