Jaxar Read online

  “True, but the Judgment was designed to be self-contained, to hold generations in one vessel and last for generations more.” And the ship had, outlasting the very people who built her.

  Jaxar scrubbed a hand over his face to hide his frown. Now Fennec had him referring to the ship as female. Ridiculous. “There were a handful of Sotet females on board when I was a child,” he said. “The planet orbited a red dwarf sun that produced little light and even less heat. This is the environment that suited them.”

  The now-empty corridors were once filled with children running to greet their Mahdfel fathers, and females calling after the children, imploring them not to run. As silent as the level was, it had once been a riot of noise and crowded with strange, glowing plants.

  The Night Garden.

  Jaxar’s father often brought him to the Night Garden to practice tracking in low light. Fragrant flowers that bloomed only in the darkness left a potent perfume. Plants that produced their own soft light crowded meticulously maintained beds. Orbs spun from a thin material hung in the air, the gas produced from the algae within the orbs kept them aloft. Glowing softly from bioluminescence, the orbs drifted through the air, like stars. The part of his mind that craved order and understanding recognized that the ventilation system manipulated the orbs, but that did not detract from the wonder of it.

  “I don’t know why we keep life support functioning on this level,” Fennec said, dragging Jaxar abruptly away from his recollections.

  The Night Garden had been abandoned long ago, the plants withered from neglect, and the orbs broken on the ground. Jaxar wanted to lay the blame on the previous warlord, Omas, who let so much of the ship fall into disrepair, but Jaxar knew the truth. The Suhlik raid that took his father and mother took many more lives from the Judgment. The Night Garden and this entire level had been abandoned because the inhabitants died.

  Every last one of them.

  The battle had been a disaster.

  Jaxar paused and placed a hand on the wall. A discolored line marked where new materials had been patched in as a repair. The sirens echoed in his memory, followed by the rush of atmosphere venting into the vacuum of space, then silence. Endless silence.

  He had been too young at the time to care for anything other than the immediate loss of his parents but now understood that the warlord had been challenged and executed, and the entire clan had been thrown into turmoil. The clan simply could not care for an orphaned child and sent him to his mother’s people on Sangrin.

  Traversing the abandoned corridors was a walk back in time.

  “What a remarkable observation,” Jaxar said and Fennec puffed up with pride. “Your short-sightedness has surprised me. Well done.” The younger male’s shoulders slumped. “You just told me how the Judgment is a relic from a previous age, built for a different purpose. Why do we maintain life support on an abandoned level? Think it through.”

  “I do not appreciate you speaking to me as if I am a child,” Fennec grumbled.

  “And I choose my team for their intellect, not their brawn. Do not embarrass me.” Jaxar did not look at the male. Instead, he focused on the corridor’s walls. His flashlight swept across the floor, from side to side, as he searched for a distinct panel.

  “Equal distribution of heat is better for the engines,” Fennec said, reluctantly.

  “And what else?”

  “A youngling or mate may wander where they shouldn’t.”

  “Access to the level can be restricted.”

  “A person determined to make mischief will find a way.”

  “How so?” Jaxar asked, knowing Fennec was close to the correct answer. He did value intellect when selecting warriors to serve in Engineering, but he considered their physical strength as well. Engineering was vital to the Judgment. If the battlecruiser were to be boarded, it was a prime target. He needed fierce warriors to defend the heart of the ship and demanded those same warriors not be dumb as a box of rocks.

  Jaxar had a harder time training quality crew members than he wanted to admit. He selected warriors with aptitude in both brains and brawn and honed them into perfection. Fennec, as much as Jaxar acted as if the male were a stumbling fool, had proved himself to be adept at thinking quickly and finding multiple solutions to a problem. A warrior who could fix a busted injection chamber three different ways with the wrong parts was a warrior who kept his clan alive.

  “Access from below,” Fennec said, his voice confident.

  “Yes, exactly. The ship is old. Every system has been retrofitted or replaced. Access tubes are not always available where we require, or large enough.” Jaxar recalled crawling through the narrow shafts when he had only a handful of years, acting as the hands for the old chief of Engineering who talked him through basic repairs. The ship’s population did not currently have any youths old enough to shimmy through the maintenance shafts. The eldest were the twin sons of the warlord and he might frown upon Jaxar pressing his twin sons into service. Probably. Perhaps if he framed it as a learning experience for the youths—

  A marking at the base of the walls caught his eye. “Here we are,” he said, crouching down.

  He lifted the floor panels. The manual shut-off was corroded with age but turned after a liberal application of oil. He let the younger warrior expend his energy on that task.

  “I know why the life support shut-off is manual, but I don’t appreciate it,” Fennec complained.

  “You’ll appreciate it when an invading force hacks the computer systems and can’t take away our air. Sometimes the old ways are best. Come. There is one more valve.”

  Their footsteps echoed down the empty corridors. Strange how the people in Jaxar’s life changed so rapidly, leaving him behind, but the ship remained timeless.

  “Do you think about being matched to a mate?” Fennec asked when they reached the second shut-off valve. “Or worry?” The younger male reached to scratch the base of his horns but jerked his hand away.

  “Not particularly. Explain to me why you asked.” Jaxar removed the floor paneling, finding the valve in worse condition than the previous one. He rolled his shoulders, determined not to be frustrated. The ship was massive and in disrepair. He did what he could, but without a major influx of resources and labor, he could only do so much. Patch, repair, and make do. The engineer’s motto.

  “Many males are finding their mates now. Don’t you think about what female you will be matched to? What she likes?” Fennec said. Then, in a quiet voice, “If she’ll like you.”

  “If I were going to be matched, it would have happened by now. Hand me the omnitool and oil.” He considered the valve. If he managed to turn the corroded valve, it might not turn again. “Mark this valve down as needing a replacement. We won’t be able to turn it back on without the handle snapping.”

  “But if you were matched—”

  Jaxar sat back on his heels and considered his assistant. The male was young, fresh out of the academy on Sangrin. “You are young. Do not cause yourself undue stress playing what-if.”

  “But what if I am matched and she doesn’t like me?” Another touch to his horns. They were underdeveloped for a male his age but not unusually so.

  “Liking your mate has nothing to do with being matched,” Jaxar said. Fennec’s shoulders drooped. Jaxar knew his statement had been true, but if he were mated—in seventy years it had not happened so he highly doubted it ever would—he would prefer a mate whose company he enjoyed. “A male is more than his horns. Look at the warlord.”

  “He lost a horn in battle. That’s different.”

  “And old Rohn. His mate loves him, even half-blind and with a defective horn.”

  “They’re different. They were normal… before,” Fennec whispered.

  Jaxar sighed. Fennec clearly had been working himself up to the subject, but why he felt that his commanding officer was the one to assuage his fears and doubts, Jaxar had no idea. “You should ask one of the mated warriors.”

  “I do not
wish to bother them, and they do not know me.”

  “Ah.” The valve turned slowly. “I am not an expert on females, but I am an expert on Fennecs.” Jaxar gave his minion an assessing look. “A bit scrawny, true, but a useful quality in certain situations.”

  “I’m still growing!”

  “Interrupts frequently.” Jaxar paused, but Fennec kept his lips pressed together, as if struggling to refrain from adding his no doubt enlightening commentary. “Slow to learn but asks good questions. Hmm. You are not entirely unlikable,” he pronounced.

  “Thanks.” Fennec made a sour face, then grinned. “More likable than you.”

  “Impossible. I am immensely charming.”

  “Pfft. Not according to Rohn. He says you do not have a serious bone in your body.”

  “Which has nothing to do with my likeability.”

  Jaxar allowed the younger male to list his flaws—a short list because he was basically flawless—while they finished their task.

  That night, alone in his cabin, he wondered about the kind of female he would be matched to and if she even existed. If he had a match, it would have happened by now. If she did exist, where was she?

  Chapter 3

  Vanessa

  Three days.

  Three days of intermittent bombing, the ground shaking, and holding her breath, waiting to see if the building would collapse or hold, scrambling to repair high-priority targets in the brief window between bombings, and no chance for anything more than a few minutes of shut-eye—unless you could sleep through a raid—had Van exhausted. There was work, coffee, sometimes she fell asleep with her head on the breakroom table, and more coffee. Her back hurt, her eyes felt dry and scratchy, and she needed a shower. Badly.

  Three days since the colony sent the distress call and no sign of the Mahdfel. What was the point of them? This was supposed to be protected territory.

  This held a disturbing familiarity. She had done this before as a kid during the Suhlik Invasion on Earth. Well, not the working nonstop, but the waiting during a raid, followed by the frantic scramble to do what needed to be done.

  A quick glance around the breakroom informed Van that the other human personnel were having the same thoughts. She wondered if anyone had an anxiety or panic disorder. She didn’t know the rest of the staff well, but she wouldn’t wish a poorly timed panic attack on anyone.

  How much longer before she had her own panic attack?

  In the first years after the Invasion, flickering lights during a thunderstorm made Van jumpy. And why shouldn’t she be? It wasn’t like the state-run orphanage was full of compassion or comfort. She was just a kid, on her own, hiding under the scratchy blankets in her bed and trying not to freak out with moderate success.

  If she had any kind of luck, it was shit, and the Invasion drove home that point. Nothing panned out. The bunker her survivalist grandpa built? It might have made it through just fine and dandy, but Van would never know. Snarled traffic kept her family trapped in the city. Her mother wanted to leave days before, but her dad insisted that people were panicking for no good reason and they couldn’t believe everything they saw on TV.

  Only there was no more TV. Or cell phones. There was barely radio and what little information Van heard over the radio, she didn’t want to believe but knew they couldn’t close their eyes and wish the aliens away.

  The Acostas never made it off the freeway. A whoosh of aircraft overhead was all the warning they had before the bombs dropped. The shrill wail of twisting metal crowded Van’s senses.

  By the time she pushed her way out of the desperate mob fleeing the wreckage, she’d been separated from her parents. Van bounced from survivor camp to survivor camp, unable to locate any member of her family. Separated from her parents, she ended up in an orphanage with all the other Invasion orphans. Eventually, she learned that her mother perished and her father had been hellbent on drinking himself to death and unable to care for her, but she didn’t find that out until years later.

  Life didn’t magically become easy once the aliens left. People were gone. Families destroyed. Infrastructure had to be rebuilt. Food was rationed, as were utilities and fuel. Those were lean years, especially for the forgotten children stashed away in institutions.

  But she wasn’t that lost little girl anymore.

  She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to determine if her racing pulse was caffeine, anxiety or exhaustion.

  Some had it worse.

  Wasn’t that the mantra of her generation? Her mother either died on that freeway or succumbed to disease in a camp. Her father abandoned her. But she made it out in one piece and some people had it worse. The Suhliks murdered a large chunk of the population, but they injured so many more with raids and gas attacks. Long-term effects from exposure—cancer and all the fun that brought—were still being discovered. Van was just an average Invasion orphan, absolutely nothing special, who only got a little jumpy at loud noises and enjoyed all her limbs and good health.

  A bitter smile settled on her lips. Messing up her health didn’t happen until the Mahdfel got involved.

  A quick shower helped revive her and ease the tension knotting her neck. The shower in the locker room didn’t allow for much privacy and the water pressure sputtered, but it had hot water and industrial-smelling soap, the harsh kind that chapped your skin but scrubbed away any trace of grime. Van needed to be grime-free, if only for an hour or two.

  Hair still wet, she returned to the breakroom. Hopefully, there would be real food. She had enough of gnawing on ration bars that tasted like sawdust.

  The lower levels of the municipal service building doubled as a shelter and hub for essential personnel. It had a communication center, enough food and water for a month, cots—ha ha, like anyone got to actually sleep—a break room, locker room, and showers. Maintenance tunnels also connected the hub to nearly every building in the complex. The areas without tunnel access had a supply depot and all-terrain rovers waiting nearby. Naturally occurring deposits of hellstone interfered with teleportation technology, making going underground the smartest option.

  It was all orderly and efficient on paper, only no one had used the shelter as a shelter or tested the accessibility of the tunnels. Turns out there weren’t enough cots to go around and people made do with the floor or leaning against walls. Water pressure was nonexistent.

  Whatever. Those were small quibbles.

  Van dumped artificial sweetener into her coffee. The packets of real sugar had gotten damp at some point and turned into a useless brick of sugar and paper, so all they had was the fake stuff.

  “Acosta,” a voice barked.

  Van only jumped slightly, sloshing hot coffee over her hand, but that was okay. Her blood was mostly caffeine at this point, so she was jumpy. They were all jumpy. “Yeah, boss,” she said, wiping up the spill.

  “A Breathe-Rite went offline in the last attack. I need you to go out there and get it operational.” Her boss, Gabe, had maps spread across a table. He traced a route on the paper. “This one. You can use Access Tunnel C-9 until it hits A-10, then follow that to the surface.”

  “They don’t share a junction.” A-level tunnels were small, originally built for carts moving ore, and now used to move supplies, not people. “There’s no lighting in them.”

  She wasn’t even the most qualified person to repair a Breathe-Rite. She grabbed a mishmash of certifications on the long trip from Earth. The air filtration units were straightforward and idiot-proof, so she took the course to be certified.

  “Get a pair of night-vision goggles.” He waved off her concern. “The tunnel is collapsed further on so we have to be creative, and you’re the only one small enough to ride in a cart.” He looked up at her sharply. “Unless you want to hoof it over the surface.”

  “Not even a little bit,” she said quickly.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did you sleep?”

  “A little.” Maybe thirty minutes, but she didn’t elaborate.

 
Gabe huffed. He was a decent boss and didn’t ask too many questions about life back on Earth. If he ever got confused about an employee’s gender being listed as male when they presented as female, he kept his mouth shut. Weren’t anyone’s business, anyway. “Getting the air filtration back is important, but the other towers are still working. We’re not going to suffocate if you take a nap.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll get suited up and head out.”

  “Take a nap, Acosta,” he said. “And eat something. How’s your hydration levels?”

  “Fine.” She clutched the coffee cup. “I’ve been popping water cubes.” Chewy and filled with a thick gel center, water cubes were gross, but they were easy to stash in a pocket when you were deep in the tunnels.

  “Food. Nap. Then take care of the Breathe-Rite. Got it?”

  She ate a packet of freeze-dried chicken and dumplings that had to be reconstituted with water. The packet self-heated and tasted like you would expect a self-heating reconstituted meal to taste. Still better than a sawdust ration bar.

  The nap didn’t come easily. She took an empty cot and stared at the ceiling. Dust drifted down. No one talked about how deep underground they were or how many hits the shelter could take before it collapsed. Three days was too long to be waiting out a raid, even if the bombings were intermittent. At least she had her work to keep her mind busy.

  She wondered how Esme was doing.

  Van pushed herself off the cot, not understanding how anyone could rest. The raids, the uncertainty, the waiting—it all curled tight in her gut. At least she had her work.

  The non-essential personnel were stashed in shelters deep in abandoned mine shafts. They had plenty of food, water, hopefully cots and blankets, and all the medical supplies they needed. They also had nothing to do but wait. Three days was too long to sit in a dark mine shaft and wait.

  In the locker room, she suited up in the highly fashionable safety-orange work coveralls. She wore a tank top and did not wear the upper portion of the suit, tying the arms around her waist. Her respirator and toolbox sat at the bottom of the locker.