Anstractor (The New Phase Book 1) (23 page)

“Predatory eyes!” Aurora exclaimed to break the awkward silence. “I know this is not the first time you are hearing it, Marian! You are one scary cruta. You are beautiful, but you look like you’re capable of a lot of really, really mean things. Oops! Did I just say that out loud? I’m so sorry—must still be the gin—heh—but you are so interesting! I should have held my tongue.”

Marian finally laughed. It was an uncomfortable laugh that made Aurora realize that she had offended her, and she searched her mind for a way to let Marian know that she meant it as an observation and nothing more. The tea had arrived, and they took their mugs and began to drink in order to get past the awkward faux pas.

“You’re family, Aurora. You’re probably the only family I have now, since the Fels would have rounded up my parents for questioning, processing, and worse when they learned I defected to the resistance. Things are so much easier to deal with when there isn’t any uncertainty. These last few months have been a whirlwind of doubts, disappointments, and regret. Please don’t fear me—I grew up with handmaidens, servants, and a city that feared me just because of my title. I am not Baroness Laren here, that confused, blunt instrument of the Fel Empire. I am Marian VCA, a jumper agent and loving wife. That is all I want to be.”

Aurora smiled at Marian. “I didn’t aim to offend you, Ree. You are my new sister—that is who you are to me. I don’t care if you’re a queen, a baroness, or any other fancy title. To me, you are Marian, and I want you to feel comfortable talking to me. I don’t gossip.…I don’t have people to gossip with! Unless it is something that can hurt my Rafian, you can rely on me.”

It was words that put Marian’s mind at ease, and though she could not push aside the reservations she felt to trust, she could appreciate Aurora’s attempt at loyalty and wanted to return the favor in some way. She had not spent much time away from her husband since arriving on the
Helysian
. He guarded her from everyone as if she were a fragile creature, and she understood why: those piercing looks from women and hungry eyes from men. But it felt odd, being that he had never felt the need to behave that way back when they were on Tyhera. Here she found herself with an actual girlfriend. It had been a childhood dream of hers that she thought impossible due to title and duty. Now she was a young woman, barely twenty, and she had met other strong women whom she could call sister despite their different backgrounds, histories, and motivations.

Camille was always quiet and kept to herself, but the time Marian spent with her at the temple learning the jumper way led to some of the most soul-searching moments she had ever experienced. As she thought of Camille’s sad eyes and her strange golden hair, a wave of sadness crossed her mood. Try as she did with the woman, Marian’s heart was a tiny metal safe, accessible only to her husband Rafian, which served as a reminder that to Camille she was an unfortunate discovery. She had returned with the one person whom the blonde loved and was bonded to him by marriage and ceremony, forever leaving Camille to stand as the woman who got left behind.

She wondered if Camille hated her. It was more than a few nights that she slept with her knife close, worried that Camille would find her way to her quarters and slit her throat, forcing the man she loved to be freed from his nuptials. Now here was Aurora, so different in her persona and spirit. Unlike the ice that Camille radiated, Aurora was all warmth, love, and happiness. She couldn’t imagine her hurting an insect, much less being deceitful to her in any capacity, so when the tea had grown cold and their conversation began to be broken up with yawns, she reached out awkwardly and hugged her tight, allowing herself to display vulnerability. This was in hopes of Aurora understanding that for her, it was the most difficult thing to do. Aurora took gesture as it was intended and held her for a long time.

Camille YAN had not been herself for months. She felt out of body most days, and she was extremely depressed. The standard procedure for soldiers who felt the way she did was a trip to the psychiatrist, who would provide treatment and therapy to stabilize her mood. Part of her problem with seeing a psych, however, had to do with her fear of facing up to the terrible things she had done as a jumper hopeful. Rafian had become her life, and though she knew that he had no idea how important he was to her, she could not hide the feelings she had for him. She had known that their induction into the program would find a way to tear them apart, but it had never dawned on her that he would find another wife, that she would be made to sleep with random men, and that her stability as a soldier—no, as a person—would suffer in the way it did now.

How dare he not see the pain I am going through?

Perhaps he did, she thought. The time they snuck off and made love in his office was the first time she had gotten close to him in years, yet it felt so casual, so loveless, and every bit the act that the former jumper commander wanted it to be. For her, lovemaking was a sacred bond. It had always been that way for many of the races in the Anstractor universe, and only the Meluvians felt differently about it. So why was no one as outraged as she was?

The days got lonelier and lonelier for Camille. She spent most of her time in the armory, priming weapons, upgrading her favorites, and, in her mind, reminiscing about past times when it was just she and her fighter ship. The happiest days preceded Rafian and the whole jumper fiasco. The happy days were when she was “the Golden Chameleon” scourge of any enemy foolish enough to face her in air-to-air combat. She liked being respected, and while the juniors in the new wave of jumpers respected her as one of their leaders, it only paled to the respect she got as a fighter jock.

She snapped herself out of the mental journey and looked around at the barracks. There were weapons lining the gray walls of the ship, and the skylights shone down like miniature suns, giving each weapon a spectacular look, as if it were all a holo-vid.

She was alone, and she felt depressed. Although Rafian had left her over thirty personal messages, she answered only the ones related to military business and deleted the others. He was always apologizing, and it felt as if he was patronizing her. She hated the feeling of being someone’s afterthought, so she had remained on the jumper ship voluntarily when they made plans to rejoin Helysian. This was a very lonely ship, and she would never admit to anyone that she had cried to herself several times.

Her comm lit up, and there he was—Rafian, the man responsible for her misery. She stared at his face on the screen as he waited for her to answer.

“Hey, Raf.” She got past her funk long enough to touch the icon that would connect the call and breathed the greeting as if it were a sigh.

“What can I do to help, Cammy? I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself since our first jump.…”

Camille reached to hang up the comm, but for the first time in a while, she hesitated. He was being genuine, and to an outsider looking in, she was probably being unfair. Would her cold shoulder win him back, or would it hurt him enough to let him feel even a little of what she was going through? She mulled it over as she fought back the tears and the embarrassment she felt whenever he looked at her.

When she made to speak again, he had disconnected. That last move confused her. Rafian had no reason to be upset with her, and he was not the type to let his emotions spill over into petty actions like disconnecting a comm. She sent a call back to him, but there was no answer. No connection and no sign of connectivity.

Something was wrong. She removed the heavy jacket she wore for warmth, tightened the straps on her tank top, placed a heavy las-gun in her left holster, and pushed open the barracks door to make her way to the bridge. The lights in the hallway were blinking rapidly, and she couldn’t understand why the loud siren had not reached her ears while she sat there fiddling with guns, worrying about her love life. Racing down the hallway now towards the door leading to the bridge, she felt a frightening bump that let her know that her little ship was being boarded.

She was still frazzled. The whole episode with Rafian was fresh in her mind, and the cut comm from him meant that whoever was boarding her ship had disabled her satellite. She had slipped, and whoever was coming aboard knew that she had slipped and was now en route to violate her ship, the jumper archives that it held, and everything that her fellow soldiers had left for her to take care of while they were aboard the Helysian.

No, no, no, no, no! she kept saying to herself, and then the blast doors flew open from the invaders. She burst through the facing door, which connected the hallway, and let several shots fly towards them. It did not matter to her who was coming through those doors. The comm sabotage, the boarding without hailing the ship’s captain, and the outline of what appeared to be a Seryac pirate ship let her know that the invasion was not going to be a friendly one. Multiple blasts volleyed back at her, and she fell to her stomach in order to avoid being hit while returning fire rapidly. Her shots shredded the reinforced darsteel walls around the door and thumped against the armor of the four figures that were trying to gain entry. Her shots were not hurting them, and this caused a wave of panic to wash over her as she lay exposed.

With skin and clothes, she was protected only by her aggressive fire, which wouldn’t hold up for long once the intruders realized their armor was working. Rolling to the side and then springing up to flee, Camille YAN placed the gun back into her holster and dashed towards her room, where she hurriedly stripped. Nerves like steel to avoid fumbling her clips, Camille put on a 3B suit and mask and grabbed an old las-sword gifted to her by Rafian and a plasma detonator that she synched to her heartbeat (which meant that it would explode if she died). She knelt in the corner and evoked her last rites. She forgave herself and Rafian, swearing to get over it all if she made it alive out of this situation.

Once she was finished with her rituals, she cloaked into nothingness, hoping the invaders did not bother to track stealthers. She slipped back into the hallway and back to where they were boarding. The pirates were talking among themselves. It was a language she barely remembered learning in cadet class, but from what she could make out, they were surprised at her attack, since the ship looked like a standard cruiser.

The blast doors shut with eight humanoids onboard, and they scanned every corner of the deck with their large, hip-mounted guns. Camille tested their visuals by walking across the doorway in plain view, but with no stealth detection technology, she was invisible to the pirates, and this made her happy.

Slipping past them to gain the bridge, Camille hopped into the pilot’s chair and with a number of hacks, overrides, and lucky guesses removed the comm lock on the ship along with the other blocks that prevented her from defending herself. With the ship back to form and at her disposal, she first detached their bridge from the airlock, pulled up the brakes so that she began to drift, and killed the internal lights to trap them all in darkness. The invaders went ballistic and charged onto the bridge and into adjoining rooms trying to find the ones responsible.

Camille killed the onboard oxygen last and then slipped into a corner to remove the cloak and allow her suit to recharge. On several occasions, she had witnessed the demise of marines who had planned poorly, relying too heavily on cloaking only to get killed when it malfunctioned or cut off due to lack of power.

The invaders were throwing out flares, and one of them was in the pilot’s seat doing his best to repower the vessel and turn on the lights and oxygen. Noticing that he was alone, she slid behind him with her las-sword and cut the rubber that molded his helmet to his chest plate. There was nothing a las-sword couldn’t cut, and the rubber evaporated like paper when held to a flame. Black ichor spattered across the ship’s dashboard and glass as he died, and she dragged the body back to her corner and out of sight.

The other seven pirates were tearing the ship apart looking for her, and she let the body lie in a way that left his arm visible to anyone who came onto the bridge. Camille climbed to the ceiling and wedged herself in the corner to wait for the next invader who would come to check on the progress. She didn’t have long to wait, as an impatient pirate burst onto the bridge cursing, and upon seeing the pilot’s seat empty, he scanned the room and noticed the hand.

“Zola! Vas e rojan!” he announced loudly.

Camille heard the stomping footsteps coming and realized that she was about to be flushed out. The biggest invader produced a canister, which he started to unscrew, eyes set on the area where she hung. She knew that it would be her end if he got a chance to throw it. Pulling the gun from her holster in one smooth motion, Camille fell from the ceiling while firing off two precise shots. One hit the canister, causing it to explode, and the contents melted the armor of the female pirate standing too close. The second shot hit the neck of the large male who commanded them. It produced a spray of black blood, which shot out as he fell dead on top of the pilot’s chair.

Camille recloaked and dashed past them silently, her jumper training coming into action now as the other five pirates shouted angrily while looking for her. With the discovery of their necks being the vulnerable part of their suits—a common flaw in the modern design of spacer armor—Camille felt for the first time that she would make it. She knew that in time they would find a way to get out, cut their losses, and burn the ship, and she could not risk that happening. So when the pirates began anew to look for her, she slipped back onto the bridge and aimed a torpedo at the open bay port of their ship. It would be the only place that was not protected by a shield.

The torpedo did wonders, causing an explosion within the bowels of the ship. She didn’t hang around long to admire her successful destruction because as three of the remaining invaders ran out to the lock that connected their ships, they were sucked into deep space by the hole that had resulted from the other ship’s destruction. Blast doors quickly sealed off the hole, and the ship took on an eerie silence afterwards that dared not be broken.

They forced my hand! Camille Yan reassured herself as she watched the magenta flames finish off the ship with an angry implosion. The remaining pirates burst onto the bridge in disbelief, and she held up her las-gun to place them under arrest. The smaller one made the mistake of reaching for his weapon, and she let the fire loose into his throat, causing him to fall and retch about violently before dying. The other raised her hands, and Camille placed her inside a tiny holding cell at the rear of the ship.

The girl was human and had short-cropped blue hair and a scar across her eye. She watched Camille like a hawk, waiting for her to slip, but the Golden Chameleon would not give her an inch.

Jumping back into the pilot’s seat, she sat there for a time, thinking about what she had done and how absolutely crazy and impossible it was. Rafian would be proud of her, she thought. It was one of the things they shared and loved about each other. When backed against the wall, they were always at their best. She smiled a bit, thinking of her prisoner and how amazing it was that she managed to take one alive. She exhaled slowly.

“Wow!”

When the adrenaline subsided and she was back to her normal, sullen self again, she fired up the radio and dialed in the Helysian. The military guard wanted Camille to bring the pirate to them for interrogation, and while she hated having to see Rafian so soon, she knew that the girl would have to be placed inside a real jail somewhere.

“I should have just shot her,” Camille whispered coolly. Then she set the coordinates to the mother ship and sat back with a mug of Finian spice tea to let its hallucinogenic aroma bring down the adrenaline that felt like it would make her heart explode.

When she docked and brought out the blue-haired thief to turn over to the marines, Camille was met with thunderous applause and numerous accolades for what she had done. Had the pirates taken the ship, they would have been able to use its signature to dock at military posts, rob them, commandeer them—and worse! It would have meant heavy losses in supplies to the ships such as Helysian that were on the frontlines.

She appreciated the honors, and it took her back to her early years as a pilot, when praise such as this was a common occurrence whenever she would land her fighter after a good mission. Rafian was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered if he had heard about what she had done. While docking, she had steeled herself to deal with him and Marian looking at her, smiling, as they tended to do. She imagined Marian with those dark, sparkly, untrusting eyes of hers and Rafian by her side like some lost, lovesick puppy. Now she felt a bit cheated, since she had spent the time to make sure that she would play nice and they hadn’t bothered to show up at all.

She gave up the prisoner, whose name turned out to be Rhet LeFau. She was wanted on several systems for war crimes that were as scary as they were brutal. The way the intelligence read, it sounded as if Camille had stopped a crew of some of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy. She accepted the Honor Medal but turned down the invitation to party with the Helysian marines. All she wanted was a long mineral bath, one of those ice-cold ones that made pain a distant Memory, and then she would retire to a couch with a tall bottle of port and the pleasant company of herself.