I was certain Ontwenty was paranoid.
“I like this place,” Noah said as he jogged up to my side.
Although I didn't feel the burn of the run, I could see the sweat pouring off Noah's forehead by the bucketful. If he'd worn his helmet, the suit could have regulated his temperature, but I assumed he was also enamored by the environment.
“I can't get enough of the sky,” I said, keeping my gaze upward.
It changed color with the time of day. In the morning, it was orange. In the afternoon, it was indigo. In the evening, it was a dark purple with a hint of red. And the Vectin Star was so glorious I found myself glancing at it every once in a while—even though I had been yelled at nonstop to never do that.
But it was gorgeous.
“The gravity is different here,” Noah said between huffs. “Stronger. Makes everything difficult…”
Sawyer had said the gravity would be a little higher. But only a little. It was 1.1 of the standard setting we used on the starships, which would make a difference, but I couldn't feel it yet.
I stopped at the end of our track, near the wall and straight under the sunlight. Noah placed his hands on his knees and posted his arms as he took in a few deep breaths. The other enforcers who'd kept my pace walked over and pulled back their helmets.
“Wow,” one guy said through a wide smile. “You don't even look fazed.”
A woman with a crewcut nodded. “You're that starfighter, right? Endellion's new right hand? Are you really part-superhuman?”
Lysander jogged up, breaking all conversation. Without taking off his helmet, he motioned to me, and then pointed to one of the distant buildings. “Sawyer wants to speak to you,” he said. “She said you weren't answering your comms.”
I hadn't been wearing my helmet as often as I should have. I nodded. “All right.”
Noah watched me go, but ultimately stayed with his brother and the other ground enforcers as they gathered into their formations. I left him knowing nothing would happen. Why were we even there? The walls had guards, the people seemed secured, and it wasn't like there was another facility close by. Everything on Vectin-14 had room to breathe, metaphorically and literally.
I opened the door to the building Lysander had indicated, my hand on the latch for several seconds. The hinges of the door and the wood it was made from made for a lightweight object. There was nothing quite like it on a space station.
And when I stepped inside, the floor was covered in a soft carpet of woven wool and synthetic fibers. Capital Station had cushioned walkways covered in rubber and padded plastics, but those didn't compare to the fluff of a carpet.
More and more, I associated “delicate” and “soft” with “expensive luxury.” Vectin-14 seemed to be awash in decadence I hadn't even thought possible.
“There you are,” Sawyer said as she walked into the front room with a cup in hand. “I've been trying to reach you.”
“What for?” I asked, staring at my boots and marveling at how the carpet sprang back into position when I lifted my foot.
“I have a gift for you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Sawyer motioned me to another room, and I followed, bouncing along with every step. Carpets were amazing.
The posh little dwelling had four rooms, but they were bigger and more spacious than anything on the Star Marque.
“Where's Blub?” I asked.
“He's on the Star Marque. Don't worry, he's in good hands. I miss him, but he's an indoor fish that wouldn't take well to Vectin-14's environment.”
We entered the back room—a study of some sort—and I eyed the couch, chairs, and wooden desk. To my surprise, Advik waited in the corner, her back against the wall, and her long, black hair dangling over her enviro-suit without any ties or headbands.
I lifted an eyebrow. “What're you doing here? I thought you stayed behind with all the other sad sacks who have agoraphobia or whatever.”
She replied with a half-lidded glare. “I didn't want to be left behind.”
“Really? Could have fooled me.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, if you wanted to be with us, you should have come. I've known shadows more assertive than you.”
Sawyer raised a hand. “Enough. We have things to do.”
“I'll wait in the other room,” Advik said.
She pushed away from the wall but stuck close to it as she made her way across the room and out the door.
Once it clicked shut, Sawyer exhaled. “You could be a little less confrontational with your teammates.”
“C'mon. Advik is a starfighter, for fuck's sake. She pilots a death weapon in space and kills fools on command. How is she afraid of something as pathetic as a wide-open sky?”
“If I remember correctly, a certain cocky someone got paralyzed with anxiety the first time they got into a starfighter. I think it might have been because they were afraid. Afraid of space, perhaps? That's pretty irrational and pathetic.”
I walked over to Sawyer and huffed. “You're always bustin' my balls. I got over that, didn't I? I can pilot a starfighter with the best of them now.”
“And Advik joined us planetside.”
I opened my mouth but closed it before I said something stupid. Sawyer was right. Goddammit.
Sawyer took a seat at the desk and smirked, like she knew exactly what I was thinking. I should have been irritated, but I liked that she cut me down every once in a while. Her comments contained just enough truth to give me perspective.
“Here,” she said. “I refurbished this for you.”
She dragged a PAD across the top of the desk and pushed it toward me.
PADs were expensive. I'd had one once upon a time, but I'd ended up selling it to cover debts. They were great personal computers, they could be used to contact anyone, and they monitored the user's health. There was little downside, but they could easily break. The PADs kept their skin-like thickness, due to the computer components being made from graphene, a single layer of graphite with bonded carbon atoms, arranged in a hexagonal lattice.
And I only knew that because I'd sold a whole batch of knockoff PADs while on Capital Station. I'd given a speech to the buyers that I'd read straight from an MF PAD production sheet, knowing full well whatever the hell I was talking about did not describe my fake PADs.
I was a dick, but it paid the bills.
“I need to mount it to your arm,” Sawyer said.
I unfastened my enviro-suit and pulled at the collar until I got my left arm out. The PADs drew power from the internal heat produced by warm-blooded humans. No need for recharging. No need for external power sources. But that meant a power cord had to be inserted straight into my body.
I waited, but Sawyer didn't move.
“What's wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, I thought you were going to take off more of your suit.”
I let out a single laugh. “Do I need to?”
“Well, no. But I'd like you to.”
“Sawyer,” I said, smiling. “If you ever want to see me without my suit, I'm more than happy to oblige.”
With a few quick motions, I got the enviro-suit off my other arm and down to my waist. I went to take the rest off, but Sawyer held up a hand.
“No, you can stop. There are windows here, after all.”
Sure enough, the windows looked out onto the beautiful landscape of the company town. Not that I cared about my modesty, but I was sure Sawyer would be irritated if she had to explain my behavior to any of the others.
Sawyer held up the PAD and pulled a string-thin needle from the side. It didn't hurt when she inserted it into my arm, but I could tell she was distracted. She kept her eyes on me the entire time, a look of absentmindedness about her.
“You're a real tease, ya know that?” I asked.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You had me thinking you didn't want me. Now here you are, asking me to strip.”
“I neve
r said I found you repulsive.”
“But you did turn me down.”
Sawyer fitted the needle deep into my arm, and then snapped the PAD shut. Once situated, it powered on and read the identification chip nestled between my radius and ulna. With all the information it needed, the PAD greeted me with the text: Salutations, Clevon Demarco.
“I can't be with you,” Sawyer said, not bothering to meet my gaze. “But that doesn't mean I don't fantasize about it.” She pointed to the PAD. “And I don't just give these to anyone. I could have kept it for my own use.”
She was a real goddamn enigma.
“Why can't you be with me?” I asked.
“What was that?” Sawyer lifted a hand to her ear. “‘Thank you, Sawyer, for the wonderful PAD’—is that what you said? I didn't quite hear.”
“Sawyer.”
“And you should keep it on at all times. The other starfighters all have PADs, but it's hit-or-miss whether they wear it.”
“Does it have something to do with your genetics? Did the superhumans you talked about do something to you?”
My statement caused her to grimace. She swiveled her chair away from me and pulled her leg up to rest on the cushion of the seat. “Endellion needs you, Demarco. She told me to send you to her once I was done. Which is now.”
She wasn't telling me something, but now wasn't the time, either.
“What does Endellion want?” I asked. “I haven't seen her in the last two days. Not since we got planetside. She up and vanished to spend all her time with the superhumans.”
“She needs a bodyguard. Rebellion forces intend to kill her.”
“Wait, what? How would she even know that?”
Sawyer swiveled back around. “I decode rebellion messages all the time. Their encryptions are never above my level.”
“Why would they try to kill her? I know she fucked with them in the past, but—”
“She keeps in contact with rebellion turncoats. Men and women who expressed their displeasure before Endellion betrayed them. They contact her, she pays them or offers sanctuary, and a little more of the rebellion suffers every day. Since the rebellion knows of Endellion's actions, it's not hard for turncoats to reach out to her, you see.”
“She keeps in contact with people who betray the rebellion?”
“If you think Endellion ever completely severs ties with something, you're sorely mistaken. She never passes up an advantage or opportunity. Trust me.”
“So, you know there's a plot to kill her? Here on Vectin-14? I thought this place was superhuman central.”
“Who do you think works the megafarms and moves all the goods off-planet?” Sawyer asked with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Superhumans are above such menial labor. They don't do service jobs, they don't do physical construction work, and they wouldn't be caught dead hauling foodstuffs. Humans and defects get those pleasures, and some of them get resentful when there's no way to escape such a thankless existence.”
“Where is she?” I asked. “If Endellion needs a bodyguard, I'll be there.” Though I felt sorry for the assassin who tried to take her life.
“I programed the information into your PAD. Goodbye, Demarco.”
Again, Sawyer turned away from me, her stiff posture unusual. I could tell she wanted me to leave, but I took my time slipping my enviro-suit back on, hoping she would break down and talk to me. It must have had something to do with her past life, some reason she kept herself sequestered from the world.
But it was her business.
Once dressed, I left the study, still enjoying the carpet beneath my boots. Advik waited in the front room, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Forget what I said,” I said as I walked to the front door. “I was being a jackass.”
Advik smiled. “I heard everything.”
I stopped with my hand on the latch. “Everything?”
“Unlike a space station, voices carry through these walls. I'll try to act more like a killer pilot in the future.”
“No need to act like one,” I said. “You are one. I just want you to remember that when you think the sky is going to eat you.”
I opened the door, but Advik reached out and took my arm. She gave me an odd look, her brow furrowed. “Keep Endellion safe, all right?”
“Of course.”
“A lot of us would have nowhere to go if it weren't for the Star Marque. Myself included.” Advik tightened her grip before letting go.
I nodded. “I understand.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
OPERATION
I could see why Endellion spent all her time with the superhumans. Everything they did was beyond compare. Sure, space stations were a marvel of human ingenuity—the height of science and technology from Earth—but as I stared at the superhuman-designed blueprints on the screen before me, I knew the space stations would one day be a joke in polite society.
“As you can see, preparations are already underway for the Stellar Engine,” Minister Ontwenty said as she motioned to the diagram. “Construction will begin in less than a year.”
The Stellar Engine was a megastructure built around a star in a chain-link fashion, closer than a planet in the garden zone, but far enough away not to be damaged by the star's blaze. The engine captured heat, radiation, and solar flares, and then converted it all to energy. So much fucking energy. More than any generator could ever create.
According to Ontwenty, a whole host of space stations could be built off the Stellar Engine, perhaps even an artificial planet—a type of “Dyson sphere,” she'd called it—with enough power and room to accommodate the whole damn quadrant, and then some.
Trillions of people could live on it. Maybe quadrillions.
“You're sure it could generate that much power?” I asked, staring at the blueprints.
“Yes,” Ontwenty said. “While I'm currently the Minister of Medical Research, I also received doctorate degrees in plasma physics, molecular science, and energy conversion while at university. I was a member of the research team that went over the numbers for the Stellar Engine.”
“All those degrees?” I asked.
“Yes. Aerospace engineering is a hobby of mine, so I became well-versed in the matter.”
Hobby, huh? And here I was, weightlifting in my spare time.
Ontwenty smiled. “Our collective forefathers did great work with fusion reactions and ionized gases. They mimicked the energy output of stars to power their starships and create better weaponry—that's what plasma rifles are, after all—but it was a fraction of what an actual star could produce. ‘We will take it further’—that was the motto we worked under while in the developmental phases of the engine research.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
Endellion stared at the diagrams in quiet contemplation.
“My current research involves the radiation emitted from our quadrant's three stars,” Ontwenty continued, her enthusiasm and excitement almost infectious. “It's a well-established hypothesis that the exposure to these stars is the cause of the frequent genetic defects found in Homo sapiens, especially given the high rate of defect occurrences compared to Earth's numbers. I don't have a simple picture of this research to show you, but rest assured my team and I are on the verge of creating a radiation treatment that will prevent defects in the future, for all organic, DNA-based life.”
“Interesting,” Endellion said.
Interesting? I could barely keep up with it.
“With the Stellar Engine and my medicine,” Ontwenty said, “we could create a perfect utopia in our corner of space.”
She motioned for us to follow.
Minister Ontwenty's home was among the palatial penthouses that made up the gleaming skyscraper in Torinova, the capital of Vectin-14's northern hemisphere. Two whole floors were dedicated to Ontwenty's comfort and relaxation when she wasn't conducting medical research. She showed us everything with a smile and wave of her hand, including a greenhouse garden tended to by her housekee
pers.
The place was a goddamn wonderland, mixing the convenience of technology with the glory of nature.
We arrived in a sitting room, everything so soft and clean it must have been worth more than the Star Marque itself. Ontwenty took a seat across a chaise lounge, and I fell back into a chair two times larger than anything I had ever sat in before. I felt a growing bit of embarrassment when I placed my arms on the armrests. It wasn't comfortable, and I looked like a child pretending to be an adult. The chair was clearly built with the larger superhumans in mind.
“How do you like the city, Clevon?” Minister Ontwenty asked.
“It's—” I glanced out the window to the blues, grays, and glints of sunlight sparkling off the sea of glass—“fascinating.”
“Your mother worked here for a long while.”
“You knew my mother?” I blurted out, shocked.
“No. But upon Endellion's request, I had her file pulled. She was an accountant for Dr. Hillvia Lone. Your mother lived a modest life, and I assume she saved a large sum for the genetic-modification procedure. You're a lucky child.”
“R-Right.”
I didn't want to talk about my mother. It was disconcerting that everyone seemed to be rummaging around my past and a little unnerving that Endellion was one of those individuals. Endellion's history made me think she hadn't investigated my mother out of the goodness of her heart.
Ontwenty leaned back on the lounge, her planetside outfit one of glamor, not practicality. The long robe hung loose on her sleek body, exposing skin I never would have seen if she had been in an enviro-suit. Her long legs, muscled arms, and the sliver of her ribcage showcased her multi-toned skin, ranging from pale to bronze. The black dots on her neck speckled the area above her collarbone.
Well, they weren't dots. They were holes. Smaller than a fingernail. I wouldn't have even been able to see them if I hadn't been staring so intently.
“You haven't met many superhumans?” Ontwenty asked.
Endellion took a seat next to me. “Forgive his manners. He was raised on a space station.”
Star Marque Rising Page 21
