Derelict: Halcyone Space, Book 1 (15 page)

Jem hiccupped softly in the silence. "I need your ghost program."

"Fine." If Ro's father were here, he would give her his variant of told-you-so. If that was the price of his silence and his safety, she'd gladly pay it.

His indrawn breath seemed to fill the room. "I'm sorry, Ro."

"So am I."

She accessed the environmental controls and turned the lights on. The drones had continued their work, oblivious to the drama unfolding around them. The bridge floor had been completely cleared of debris and so had the consoles. "Give me your micro," Ro said, not even looking over at him.

He walked toward her and handed it over, neither of them exchanging a word.

She paired the devices and pushed over the code. It beeped once, softly. Jem took his micro back and walked out, his head and shoulders slumped. Ro frowned at the door, long after he'd gone.

He held back tears as he left the broken ship, knowing his brother would never know what it cost Jem to help him.
Ro didn't understand and he wondered if he would ever be able to explain it to her.

Could he even believe her anymore? Threading his way between crowded corridors and waiting for his turn in the nexus, all he could think about was the guns. If all those crates contained weapons, the contents of that cargo bay could support a small war. He shuddered, calculating the plasma energy all those guns represented.

It was easier to focus on the simple math problem than to think about the destruction waiting in that room to be unleashed.

Jem slipped back into their quarters. His father had kicked off his shoes and leaned back in the chaise, micro on his lap, his eyes closed. Barre lay sprawled across his bed, headphones leaking music. For a moment, Jem thought he had walked back in time and he had to blink, clearing away the memory of finding Barre, his body in a similar position, unresponsive. He grabbed his brother's ankle hard, harder than he meant to judging by how fast Barre leaped out of bed, ripping the headphones from his head, and cursing.

"Shh!" Jem warned, glancing towards their father. He didn't stir.

"So what's the plan, little brother?" Barre's bleary eyes could have been the after-effects of bittergreen, but Jem knew defeat when he saw it.

"What can't you live without?" Jem asked, looking around the room. A fortune in instruments and audio equipment lined the room. There was no way Barre could take it with him.

Barre frowned as he searched the small space. He must have made the same calculation, because he grabbed the headphones, his micro, and a few changes of clothes. "You don't really think this is going to work, right? Where am I going to hide where they can't find me?"

"We just need a few days until they call off the search." Jem set his micro on Barre's desk and opened Ro's ghost program. "Damn, she's good," he said, drawing his lips into a thin line. "Damn."

"Something wrong?"

Nothing he would tell Barre. "I can confuse Daedalus and make it think you're somewhere you're not."

Barre whistled his appreciation. "I could have used that on Hadria."

"If we were still on Hadria you wouldn't be in this mess." Jem couldn't help snapping at his brother, even if it wasn't really him he was furious with.

"Point taken," Barre said quietly. "Where did you get the program?"

"It doesn't matter." He turned to the display, pulling up a station plan. If he set Daedalus to ping Barre in any specific place, once his parents didn't find him, they would know something was wrong with the localization programming. Scanning Ro's interface, he found the option to set up a moving target and have the program shuffle among random locations.

"Damn," he said. That wouldn't work either. The more shifts, the higher the chance of Daedalus reporting ghost-Barre in a crowded location that would be too easy to double-check.

"Jem?"

"Shh." He kept his concentration on the display.

"Look, I appreciate your willingness to help. I just don't see this working."

Why couldn't his brother just shut up? "Go jump out an airlock," Jem muttered, his gaze shifting from one side of the station schematic to the other. "Airlock. Wait." Looking up, he smiled at Barre. "I've got it."

Jem found the station exit the furthest away from the derelict ship. It was a simple matter to get the door to log an unauthorized egress for one Durbin, Barre. "If anyone tries to look for you, Daedalus will report you as out of range, off station."

Barre's eyes widened. "How'd you … never mind." He whistled softly. "You're something else, you know?"

"Not me. Ro," Jem said, a sour taste in his mouth. "We should go now. Before Mom shows up and while Dad's still out cold."

"So you've bought me some time. Then what?"

"I'm not sure. But maybe some time is all they'll need to come around."

Barre quirked his lips into a wry smile. "Do you really believe that?"

"No," he said, not looking he brother in the eye. "But it's worth a try."

"Whatever happens," Barre said, pausing to look around his room, "I owe you."

Jem waited as Barre slipped a bag across his chest. He hadn't even asked where Jem was taking him, not that it mattered. If their parents couldn't let Barre have his music, then maybe there was a way off Daedalus. Fixing Barre's ident to make him an adult wouldn't be easy or legal but neither was this. Not really. And then there were the guns in the hold of the ship. "Ready?"

"Not much choice even if I'm not."

"No."

Barre put his hand on Jem's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. They walked out of their quarters, past their sleeping father and into the station's corridors. Jem could feel the skin on his back crawling and struggled to shake off the sense of being watched. Keeping his breathing even, he led Barre through the station. Hardly anyone noticed them, but then again, as far as anyone on Daedalus knew, there was nothing unusual about the Durbin brothers. All their discord stayed behind sealed doors.

His brother remained silent until they reached the deserted corridor that led to the ship. "You've got to be kidding," Barre said. "Does it even have air?"

"Would you rather camp out on the bare rock?" Jem lifted his chin towards the external airlock. "We're not the only ones here, so you need to stay out of sight. I can bring you some food later."

"Others? Who?"

"Rotherwood and Ro." Jem winced. He wouldn't be on either of their short lists.

"The senator?"

"No. Micah."

"I guess I owe Ro a thank you, too."

"Well, she didn't do it for you," Jem said, nearly spitting out the words. "And if she finds you're here, she'll report you, so stay out of sight."

"Whoa, cool your afterburners," Barre said. "I though you and Ro were friends."

Jem frowned and looked at the floor. So did he. "I need to check something before I get you settled," he said, pulling out his micro, accessing his link to the drones. He exhaled, letting his shoulders relax. Ro hadn't shut him out. Driving the little robot like it was his avatar in a 3-d game, he had the drone scout out the ship's main corridor.

He parked it at the junction that led to the bridge and the forward storage area so it could warn him if either Ro or Micah entered the corridor. "All clear. Let's go." Jem led Barre down the ship's central corridor and into what had been crew barracks.

"You've got to be kidding me," Barre said, standing just inside the room.

The rectangular space might have been the size of Jem's and Barre's rooms put together, but it looked like it was meant to house twenty-one. The walls were lined with metal bunks, stacked three high, each covered with a thin mattress. The material had been some kind of white foam in its past life. Flecks of it coated the floor like artificial snow. A small metal box hung on the end of each frame; otherwise the room was utterly bare.

"So sorry. Would you rather go back to the comforts of house arrest?" Jem bit his lip to keep from apologizing for real. He wasn't the one who screwed up. "Look, I'll try to bring you a blanket or something, okay?"

"No, it's fine. It's just for a few days anyway."

"At least there's light. And oxygen."

"Oh, joy," Barre said. "What about a head?"

"Must be one here somewhere." Jem looked around and spied a door on the far side of the room. "It should be there," he said. "If it works."

"Great."

"Don't worry, I'll bring you a bucket."

Barre wrinkled his nose. "You're all heart, Jem."

***

Micah walked back to the forward hold. When had his father turned into someone who could run guns without even a twinge of conscience?
You're growing drugs, man
, he thought,
how different are the two of you
?

"Different enough," he said aloud to his silent lab. Bittergreen didn't kill, even if the cartel would. The door opened. Micah didn't bother to turn around. "Did you find him?"

"Yes." Ro sighed. "He's gone."

Micah logged into his terminal. Whatever data could be saved, he'd save. Ro drifted to stand behind him.

"What are you doing?"

"Shutting it down."

"Then what?"

Why couldn't she'd leave him alone? "Pack and get ready to move again."

"I could use your help."

"That's funny," Micah said, pivoting in his chair to face her. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with me." He flashed her a wry smile. "It's mutual, by the way."

"So you're just going to let your father disintegrate your life all over again?"

Micah's mind flashed on the image of all those guns. Anger pulsed through his chest, a pounding wave of heat that rose though his throat and into his face. "No."

"Then help me," she begged, a desperation in her voice that he'd never heard before.

He barked out a harsh laugh. If their fathers could work together, he guessed the two of them could, too. And if anyone could sabotage the ship, it would be Ro Maldonado.

He canceled the commands to end the artificial climate program. At least for a few more weeks he would let his plants have a chance to live and keep growing. If they were successful in keeping the ship grounded, maybe he'd buy himself a little more time. Would that be enough to keep his father from delivering the weapons? Would he and Ro have to go further? The thought of getting his father arrested made him queasy, but letting those guns out was worse. His mother would have been horrified.

"So, what do we disassemble first?"

***

"What are you talking about?" Ro asked, staring at him.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about? We have to keep this ship from ever taking off."

His expression was as open and as intensely focused as she'd ever seen.

"She won't fly until the AI is fixed and my father isn't capable of doing that." She might not be, either, but she wouldn't know for sure until she could check on the progress of her program. Without Jem, the work would be harder. Micah was no eager assistant, but he was competent. With his help, maybe they could get the ship fully functional again before her father and the senator needed to finish their deadly transaction.

"Then it's okay." Micah met her gaze, looking as earnest and as naïve as Jem. "If they can't take the guns off station, we have a chance to figure out what to do."

Ro laughed, an uncomfortable echo of her father's mockery in her mind. "This ship represents simple convenience for our fathers. Do you doubt they would find another way?"

"Then what are we going to do?"

"I'm going to take control of the ship. Figure out a way to lock them out." She turned to her monitor. The guns weren't her concern; the AI was. If she wanted to finally escape her father, she had no other options. In a weird way, the guns and his partnership with the senator helped her. Getting the AI on line would give her powerful leverage.

"You can't be serious."

Micah grabbed her forearm, trying to turn her around. Her arm burned with the memory of her father's hand pressing into the same place. Heat burst up from the pit of her stomach. She twisted until Micah's arm torqued and his fingers sprang open. "Don't ever touch me again," she warned.

He raised his hands and stepped back. "We … I can't let my father do this."

"If you're not going to help me, figure out a way to delay him and leave me to my work."

"Damn it, what do you want me to do? Tell Mendez?"

"And what happens when she sees your little farm?" Maybe they'd do a two-fer deal — a father and son special.

"Fuck the bittergreen, Ro, this is serious."

The guns frightened her, too. How could she explain to him that her way was the only way she knew to fight back? "Do what you have to do."

Jem grabbed a few blankets from central supply, charging them to his parents' account
. By the time they looked at their bill, he hoped this would be long over. Food would be more problematic. Walking around with meals to go would definitely raise suspicions. Barre would have to be grateful for the protein bars Jem nicked from the commissary. Not very tasty and with a texture that could crack teeth, they would sustain him for a few days.

He checked with his snooping drone again and sneaked back onto the ship.

***

The room's illumination slowly warmed from darkness to twilight to full daylight. Nomi blinked awake and reached for her micro. She had an hour before her shift. "Ro?" she called, not really expecting an answer.

Standing, she stretched, letting her blanket pool to the floor, her bare skin shivering in the cool air. "Daedalus, set temperature to twenty-one degrees, please." The room heated quickly and she walked around the bed toward the empty sitting area.

The pillow and blanket she'd given Ro were neatly folded on the sofa. Nomi leaned down and picked up the blanket, raising it to breathe in Ro's scent.
Well, it was a start
, she thought.

Humming to herself, she washed up and dressed for work, wondering what Ro was doing. Maybe they could meet for breakfast when her shift was done.

***

Barre paced the empty barracks, his footfalls making percussive sounds against the hard floor. The metallic surfaces made the space extremely live. It would create some interesting overlapping echoes. Even now, the possibility of music was everywhere. How could his parents do this to him?