See the world of the Lazarus War in a whole new light, in this thrilling spin-off novella from the new science fiction star Jamie Sawyer. Their family reunion will be disrupted, however, when a catastrophe strikes the space station. The crew of the Edison suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives -- and amongst the chaos, Taniya will discover that she's not the only member of the crew with a secret . . .
Release date:
November 3, 2015
Publisher:
Orbit
Print pages:
92
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The inside of a hypersleep capsule looks a lot like the inside of a car windscreen. It was the way that the condensation ran along the plastic. The curve of the canopy.
Those were my first lucid thoughts in almost nine months.
Reluctantly, I turned my head and saw that the other hypersleep capsules were open and empty. As usual, I was the last to get up. I was shivering cold and, like a petulant teenager, didn’t want to get out of bed. The monitor that hung above my sleeper flashed with a message:
COMMERCIAL STARFREIGHTER EDISON
CREW ID:
COETZER, TANIYA (DOB: 28/08/2261)
CLEARANCE TYPE: ENGINEER
THERE’S WORK TO BE DONE!
GET UP NOW, SLEEPY-HEAD
Yeah, that’d be me, I thought.
I pulled my tired body out of the capsule. As I did so, I caught my own reflection in the interior of the sleeper canopy; saw the Pen ID printed below my left cheek.
Why did they print it there? I asked myself.
“So everyone knows who you are,” I answered, testing out my own voice. It sounded too high-pitched and whiny. Nothing had changed. “Or what you are.”
I ran a finger over the faded gang tattoo on my forearm.
Next rotation, I promised myself, I’d be sure to get them removed.
I’d been saying that for a long while.
Contrary to popular belief, space isn’t dark.
It isn’t even remotely dark.
There is light everywhere in space. Starlight generated by suns near and far. Ripples of light from distant nebulae. The glow of nearby worlds and planetoids. No matter how small, no matter how negligible, all of those things generate light.
I’d grown up on the Zeta Reticuli Arcology – the Zeta Ret Arc, as it was known. The Arc was an insignificant deep-space colony, housing barely twenty million inhabitants, relevant as a footnote in the history of the Alliance only because it was the Republic of South Africa’s first and last extrasolar settlement. It wasn’t a nice place. It wasn’t even a decent place. But to me, those domed cities were home.
On the Zeta Ret Arc, you grow up appreciating naked space. The burgs aren’t always lit – there is often enforced downtime, to save energy and other resources – and I’ve never found a Zet who doesn’t respect a good view of deep-space.
While I’m no believer, the Cosmic Church is a popular sect on the burgs. The robed clerics preach the ideology of “oneness” with all living creatures. Whatever the philosophical tag, I dig the intent: I get it. You’re never really alone in space. No matter how far, there is light out there, and you are one with it. My grandmama was a paid-up member, and she’d drilled that into me since before I could talk Standard.
I stared out of the galley viewport for a long time. Watched the distant stars, the twinkle of lights out in space. No telling, at this distance, what those lights actually were: with the naked eye it was impossible to sort ships, planets, stars.
The Edison was a small commercial tug, and she wasn’t made for crew comfort. When I’d first started serving on ships like this – only a few years ago – I’d found it almost disabling. The lack of personal space is always an issue for space travellers, but for a girl grown up on Zeta Ret, the closed spaces were a problem. It had taken some practice, some real dedication, to handle my claustrophobia.
That was why the galley was my favourite module aboard the Edison. Not because it was any bigger than the rest of the ship – it was actually one of the smaller chambers – but because, other than the bridge, it was the only place where you could see out into space. That, and there was often real, human company. It was a communal room; you could usually find someone else here. If there was one thing that I hated more than being penned up, it was being alone.
I sipped at my soured milk amass. The taste of home was anchoring: small things like the feel of the metal cup between my hands, the way that the bitter fluid filled my stomach. The warmth fended off a little of the cold that permeated the ship. The floor was absolutely freezing – even through my sneakers.
We’d only dropped out of quantum-space a couple of days ago, and I’d been awake for about an hour. The trip had taken nine months of real-time: the longest starship journey that I’d ever endured. “Endured” was the only description. I felt as though the universe was punishing me for breaking the natural laws of physics – for breaking the barriers between time and space – in the aches and pains that spread throughout my limbs.
I really hoped that all of this would be worth it.
“I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.”
I roused from my thought loop and looked up. Sheldon Trivek – the ship’s medical technician – sauntered into the galley. He lingered at the automated food dispenser.
“Morning, Sheldon,” I said. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“I’ll bet,” he said. “It still stinks.”
“Sleep well?”
“I would have slept better with some company.”
“That’s not the way that hypersleep works.”
“So they tell me.” Sheldon pointed to the view-screen above the food dispenser. “You watching this? Can you believe it?”
The tri-D box was set to a low volume, the poor quality feed dancing with interference lines. The truth was that I hadn’t been watching it, but now I thought that maybe I should. There was a certain urgency to the broadcast: a newscaster in a collarless suit talking directly to the camera.
“Breaking news just in: President Andrew Francis has been assassinated during a motorcade procession through Mars Central Conurb. The report is coming in via military tightbeam from multiple sources.”
The reporter looked like he was about to break. There were tears in his eyes and his face had gone rubbery-slack. I almost wished that I could share in his grief, but the news meant very little to me.
“So Francis finally got himself capped?” I said. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Will you listen to the girl…” Sheldon said. “This is big news, darling.”
“Just turn it over.”
“Don’t you care about the Alliance? Daryl won’t be pleased.”
“Francis becomes the sixth president of the United Americas to be assassinated during his term in office, and the second president of the Alliance.”
“Daryl isn’t here,” I said.
“Early reports suggest that the Asiatic Directorate has claimed responsibility for the action. Director-General Zhang will be making an address later today. More information as we get it –”
While the news would undoubtedly have an impact on Daryl, it was bullshit as far as I was concerned. The Republic wasn’t even in the Alliance until after I was born, until after Francis’ famous “if you’re not with us, then you’re against us” speech. We made the decision to join up with a gun-muzzle at our heads; the Arcology was nominally Alliance only because we didn’t want to be Directorate.
“This shit is old anyway,” Sheldon said. “Yesterday’s news.”
More like last year’s. The broadcast had probably been sent from the Core before the Edison had even begun her journey.
Sheldon was objectively a few years older than me – at least, chronologically: given the dynamics of space travel, it’s not always easy to guess the true age of a traveller – and he liked to think that we were friends. He would’ve liked it if we were more than friends, but that was never going to happen. He wore the same black jumpsuit as the rest of the crew – the suits were De Hann Transport regulation attire – and left it open to his chest. His blond-white hair was unwashed, receding halfway across his head. He’d once told me that he was Russian Federation but I doubted that. After the Directorate bombing of the ’Stans, there were so few Russians left, and Sheldon barely spoke with any accent at all. I suspected that Sheldon’s backstory was designed to elicit sympathy or intrigue from members of the opposite sex. If that was the goal, it really didn’t work.
“So, how’s my girl this morning?” he said.
. . .
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