The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6)

by Valerie J Mikles

  “Two weeks ago, a ship came into port. I was on it,” Sky said.

  “I remember,” Benedict gasped, his face going white. “You kissed Solvere.”

  “I kiss everyone,” Sky dismissed.

  “She does,” Hawk agreed, taking both of Benedict’s hands. “You don’t have to be scared of her.”

  “Is she a Guard? Are you working for Solvere?” Benedict asked, looking between Hawk and Sky.

  “That kiss was a stolen moment from our past,” Sky said wistfully. “I didn’t realize what Diana had become. Did she threaten to put you in the 5 if you didn’t agree to this date?”

  “My parents are already there. But Rhodes…” Pulling his hands free, Benedict backed away from Hawk, shaking his head. “Colonel Rhodes came to see me. He wanted to know about the people on this ship.”

  “We can take more pictures,” Sky offered, leaning over Hawk’s shoulder, pulling his jacket open suggestively.

  “Benedict, are you here for me, or are you collecting information for Rhodes?” Hawk asked, his knuckles brushing against Benedict’s. All he’d wanted was to see the world outside this ship, with a friendly guy who was nice to talk to and nicer to look at. It wasn’t meant to be. “You should go.”

  This was his last chance to say good-bye, and Hawk boldly pulled Benedict into a kiss. The electricity that he’d felt the moment they held hands surged between their lips. Benedict’s lips parted, and he kissed back, snaking his hands around Hawk’s neck. Hawk felt his skin flush, and lust overtook the sense of loss.

  Breaking the kiss, Benedict leaned his forehead against Hawk, panting. He wasn’t shaking anymore, and Hawk was glad for that. Hawk took a few deep breaths, trying to control his emotions, but as soon as the kissing stopped, the feelings of loss returned. Hawk’s stomach growled loud enough for Benedict to hear, and Hawk pressed his eyes shut, savoring the moment, committing to memory the feel of Benedict’s hands on his skin.

  “I’ll just eat here,” Hawk said. It was a crappy way to say goodbye, and he’d be kicking himself for the rest of the day.

  Benedict tapped his fingers against Hawk’s skin, leaning in when Hawk tried to pull back. Pulling Benedict’s hands off his neck, Hawk extracted himself from the embrace. Benedict’s eyes were on their joint hands, and his touch lingered.

  “I know a place a little closer… maybe we can start there and see how we feel,” Benedict said, biting his lip.

  “Are you sure?” Hawk asked. He’d never changed a man’s mind with a kiss before.

  “Yes! Go! Have a good time!” Sky interrupted, shoving them both out the door and locking it behind them.

  20

  Amanda rolled onto her back and inhaled the sweet scent of fresh cake. She was alone on the top bunk in her own room, which meant the others had some trust that she was well enough to call for help if she needed it. Considering the large gaps in her memory, that trust may have been rooted in the fact that there were bigger problems facing the crew.

  Rolling off the bed, she delighted in the easy drop that came with Terranan gravity. Her morning meds were in a pillbox on the dresser, left in plain sight so she wouldn’t forget. The fact that the Tuesday pills were gone told her the gaps in her memory were longer than the day. She checked her Virp to be sure it was morning and it was Wednesday. Her notepad was open to her frantic writings of the day before. She’d written a lot. She wanted to delete all the things the voices said, because she didn’t like the record of being crazy.

  After quickly brushing out the tangles in her hair, she hooked her Feather over her ear and vrang Morrigan. “Morning, Morri. How are you?” she asked, rooting through the drawers to find some clothes that would make her feel more sane.

  “Dying,” Morrigan croaked, sounding like she was still in bed.

  “Should I call Danny?” Amanda asked. She opted for a red vest, tight black shorts, yellow gloves and tall boots. Good for both lounging and fighting monsters.

  “He’s here,” Morrigan said. “He’s… he’s a spooner.”

  “Yes, he’s very snuggly,” Amanda agreed, wondering why the two had landed in a bed together. She checked the locator on her Virp and saw that they were in the hospital. Morrigan was going to hate that coffee.

  “He’s transferring all his worry for you and Tray onto me,” Morrigan complained.

  “You need to be worried after. You have access to a lot of meds there,” Amanda said. She recalled that conversation, because the voices were still pretty quiet then.

  “Don’t I know it,” Morrigan huffed. “Did you take your meds?”

  “Yeah. I don’t remember much of yesterday,” Amanda said.

  “It was a terrible day. Just leave it in the past,” Morrigan said tersely. “Tray’s coming out of surgery, sweetheart. Did you need something?”

  “I smell cake,” Amanda said. “Can I hallucinate smells?”

  “You can, but Sky came back yesterday, so there might actually be cake,” Morrigan said.

  “Sky,” Amanda whispered, relieved. “Thanks, Morri.”

  She rummaged through the drawer, found her knife, and tucked it into her boot. She needed to practice throwing to get herself used to Terranan gravity again. When she opened the door to her quarters, the smell of the cake intensified and she smiled. Sky stood at the cooking island, her soft, ethereal glow making her look like an angel in a dream. Her blonde hair had grown long, and she wore Danny’s bathrobe. Skipping over, Amanda gave her a hug and inhaled her sweet scent.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Sky laughed, squeezing Amanda in a one-armed hug. “Late morning. I wasn’t sure you were planning to wake up today.”

  “I completely forgot you were here,” Amanda said. The cake had a brownish tint and flecks of vegetables in it. A gooey, green-tinted glaze covered the top. Sky gave Amanda a slice and sent her to the table to enjoy it. She was still cooking something.

  Coro shuffled in from the lower deck, his eyes sunken from sleeplessness, but his clothing and hair perfectly placed. He radiated sadness, but still carried himself like an aristocrat. He sat straight, limiting the movement of his neck, and Amanda could see the marks on his neck indicating that he still wore a neck brace when no one was watching.

  “What was Janiya’s power?” Amanda asked.

  Coro ate his cake with a fork. “Mind-reading, mostly. She didn’t have to speak a language to eavesdrop on a conversation. It was very good for business.”

  “And teleporting,” Sky said.

  “She was never good at that,” Coro said, smiling wistfully. “She lived in a cage for years. Why do that if you can teleport? Unless… blank canvas. Unless she didn’t know any better.” The realization made him sad.

  “But if we can somehow tell her we’re here, she can teleport here on her own,” Amanda said.

  “Are you telepathic, girl?” Coro sniffed.

  “No, I don’t have to be,” Amanda said, remembering something she’d heard yesterday. “Galen told Parker they could connect with the Confluence and Parker’s not hybrid.”

  “Girl, you hallucinated that conversation. You’ve been on this ship, not spying on the enemy,” Coro griped.

  “I think she’s right, though. Parker wasn’t interested in my grav-gun until after he moved me to the 3. Then after he took it, I saw...” Sky’s face scrunched, signaling her distaste for talking about spirit things. “I think Confluence is the spiritual term for a Hanyu ore.”

  Coro perked up. “I have a whole crate of that in the bay.”

  “Then all you need a hybrid,” Sky said.

  Coro jumped from the table, then bent forward, rubbing his neck. He couldn’t walk straight, but he quickly found the stairs and went to get one of the stones. Amanda took a deep breath, trying to quell the fear that she’d Disappear if she tried.

  “What happens if you connect with Galen?” Sky asked.

  “Then I ask him to help us,” Amanda said. “You don’t want to leave her a prisoner do you?”

  “Peo
ple touch these rocks all the time and nothing happens,” Sky said. “Are you sure you want to lead him on like this?”

  Amanda shrugged. “Danny thinks I hear things for a reason. That’s why he makes me write it down. I know what it’s like in a Terranan prison. I don’t remember much of my past. I don’t remember the detail. But I remember that pain. Maybe she hasn’t been there yet. Maybe she’s been there too long.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t pull you to her,” Sky said.

  Sikorsky appeared in Cheoff’s office and promptly collapsed. His body was bruised from so many falls, and his legs ached, but he knew he had to work quickly. There was surveillance in this room, and even if he could pass for Cheoff, they’d send help when they saw him on the floor.

  There were two desks, and even though he knew that Parker and Cheoff shared the office, it still disgusted him to see. A leader needed their own space. Crawling to the window, Sikorsky tugged open the curtain and gazed out onto the courtyard. The dying landscape screamed the need for fresh leadership. There were children running across, playing in the field, hovering, rolling, skating, and biking. They circled the Terrana flag, blissfully ignorant of the hard-fought battle that warranted leaving the word “freedom” graffitied across the base.

  Stepping back, he searched the available teleport paths for one leading to the courtyard, but all he saw was more of the Marble. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a figurine wrapped in a long glove. He’d stolen the freedom flag statue from one of the offices downstairs, and he set it on the center of Cheoff’s desk. Under the figurine, he left a note. Why is the curtain closed? Why do you hate the cry of freedom?

  He had to make Cheoff doubt Parker, and until he had a way out of this building, he had to do it in non-threatening, annoying notes. He needed to find the smoking gun to show Cheoff, and he imagined that was in the basement. None of the outside staircases connected, but there was an elevator in the mid-section opposite security that went down. It required a handprint to open, and only Parker and Colonel Rhodes had used it thus far.

  Sikorsky’s stomach growled, and a path opened to the Marble’s cafeteria. Apparently every place in Terrana offered free basic meals, and the longer Sikorsky stayed, the more natural it seemed. The citizens didn’t pay for water or air, so why pay for food or shelter?

  Stepping through the path, he felt a wave of exhaustion and put a hand out to the wall to balance himself. It was early enough that the room wasn’t crowded, but if he collapsed, the Guard would react. He picked up a sandwich made of a combination of cricket protein and carrot bread. It was a taste he was sure he’d never come to appreciate, but he didn’t want to dawdle. It took less than five minutes for the video surveillance to flag his face, and there were very few places that weren’t covered.

  The Marble was small for a legislative building. The first level was taken up by the security checkpoint in the front, meeting rooms in the middle, and the cafeteria in the back. The cafeteria faced a private garden and across a high fence, he could see the top levels of the Governor’s mansion. Wolfing down his sandwich, Sikorsky strode purposefully toward the hall with the meeting rooms, stopping cold when he saw Parker exit the elevator lobby.

  Parker’s face was red, and he hurried up the grand staircase to the second floor. Sikorsky hustled into the elevator lobby and stood in front of that bio-locked elevator door.

  “Please work,” he murmured, pleading for path, taking a step of faith the moment he caught the hint of a shadow. He teleported through the door and landed in the lift on the other side. “Thank you,” he murmured.

  The button inside didn’t require secondary authentication, but Sikorsky pressed with the back of his knuckle. The ride seemed to take forever, and when the doors opened, it felt like he’d teleported to the 5. This level was a prison. Either Cheoff was complicit or blind.

  The corridor was unbearably uniform and over-lit. The upper half of the walls had fish-bowl windows looking into austere rooms, some with shackles on the walls, some with metal chairs and blood-stained restraints. Sikorsky guessed the windows were opaque on the inside so that the prisoners could not see out. The doors had pressure seals, but most stood open. Stepping out of the elevator, he hustled down the hall, looking for any sign of life or movement. Only one door was sealed shut, and through the window, he saw Janiya Coro locked in a cage.

  The cage was barely tall enough for Janiya to sit and her legs did not have room to stretch. Despite this, her body did not look withered or beaten. She lay on her side, her long, silver hair falling messily across her face. Sikorsky didn’t know if he teleported into the room or if something pulled him. His body felt electrified, the way it had the first time he was pulled to the Marble.

  “Janiya,” Sikorsky said, checking the room for surveillance. The first level cameras didn’t monitor down here, but he figured someone was watching.

  Janiya’s eyes lifted, but not her head. She responded in Moonspeak, and it startled him to both hear and understand. “How did you get here?” she whispered. Her body glowed and golden light surrounded her like a blanket. The light had the same ethereal appearance as the shadows showing him the way out of the room, and he realized he was seeing spirit energy. This was a strange and disturbing development.

  “Do you know Damien’s in port?” Sikorsky asked.

  Janiya nodded. “Can’t teleport. Can’t leave. But you’re here.”

  “I can’t seem to get out of the building either,” Sikorsky said, approaching her cage, searching for a lock. He found a latch, but when he touched it, felt a shock. “I can get to other places in the building. We can hide. Damien will find a way in eventually.”

  “My hands are broken,” she said.

  “You don’t need hands to run. Parker’s not going to stop until you cooperate,” Sikorsky said.

  “This is cooperating. He can’t make it work and he keeps trying more and more gravity to make it work,” she moaned. She turned her palm and held it up for him to see. There was a dark, purple circle in the middle of each palm. It seemed like a localized bruise, not consistent with the type of pain coercion Parker practiced. “How is more gravity going to get him to Elysia?”

  Janiya curled into a fetal position, keeping her hands elevated.

  “I mean to stop him, Janiya,” Sikorsky said.

  “You’re a prisoner in this building just like me,” she said.

  Sikorsky circled the room. There was a chair with restraints, but no traditional elements of torture. There were pieces of Hanyu ore next to shielded gravity sources. Then he saw Sky’s grav-gun case. He pocketed the device, sending the message to Parker that someone was here and working against him. Then he pressed his finger to a pinhead-sized chip of glowing Hanyu ore and it stuck to his skin. His vision blurred and his body tingled with spirit energy. He felt both hot and cold from the pull of the other realm.

  “You made the Confluence work,” Janiya whispered, sitting as straight as she could in the cage. “How did you do that?”

  “Someone’s on the other side,” he said, understanding surging with the connection. Confluence wasn’t a one-sided thing. It required two people, each with a stone. The stone glowed brighter, illuminating his options as he turned his head. He could finally see a way out of this building. He could see Oriana!

  “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!” Janiya begged.

  Sikorsky didn’t know if he could walk with the Hanyu stone on his finger. His eyes felt like they were vibrating in his skull. The Hanyu stone got hot in his hand and he knew his window was closing. He dove for the window leading to Oriana but the pathway collapsed, squeezing the breath from his lungs. He passed out before he could scream.

  21

  Saskia sat on the counter in the galley, munching on a piece of cake, surveying the minor catastrophe left in the wake of Amanda’s attempt to find Janiya and Sikorsky’s subsequent appearance. Things weren’t broken, but most of the supplies in the kitchen had been knocked down, as if hit by a grav
-grenade. There were bruised cheeks and bloody noses all around.

  “You should have waited for me,” Saskia said. She wasn’t cleaning this up.

  “How was I supposed to know it would work? When I left Quin, she was crazy; not magical,” Sky said, hovering an ice pack over her nose, wincing at the thought of actually applying pressure. She hugged her grav-gun to her chest, touching her chin to it in a way that belied its sentimental value.

  Chase peeked in, hanging back by the stairs. He’d called her when Sikorsky showed up and begged her to hurry back, cutting short her plan to check in with Santos.

  “Did Hawk feel that one? Is he okay?” Sky asked.

  “He’s fine,” Chase said. “He said he was already on his back and convinced Benedict he passed out from pleasure. Benedict is taking good care of him.”

  “I can’t believe you let him go on a date,” Saskia grumbled.

  “It’s better than having guests around with this happening,” Sky replied, daring to touch the ice to her nose.

  “Saskia, he’s awake,” Amanda vrang.

  “On my way,” Saskia said.

  “I’m coming. Chase, help,” Sky grunted, gingerly rolling over the arm of the chair. Saskia trotted down the stairs to help see new patient, hoping that whatever he’d gone through the past few days had convinced him to give up his vendetta against Parker. She heard his screams of pain carrying into the cargo bay and when she got to the infirmary, Amanda stood frozen next to his bed, jet in her hand. Taking the jet, Saskia checked the contents, and injected Sikorsky with the painkiller. Within a minute, the screams softened to sobs then labored panting.

  “Amanda, step outside,” Saskia ordered, touching her arm.

  Amanda shuddered and covered her ears, and Saskia wasn’t sure if it was a delayed response or if she still heard screaming in her head. “I’m okay,” she whispered, retreating to the second bed and lying down. Her arms were bruised down to the bone, as though she’d tried to stop the gravity wave with her hands. There was so much screaming going on when Saskia had first arrived back at the ship that she didn’t have an accurate picture of what had led up to the incident. But she knew Coro was somehow responsible.