Defying Mars (Saving Mars Series-2) (29 page)

Deeply, she inhaled her first breath. Her nose remembered the metal-tang of Earth’s oceans. The moisture, the salt, even the cold of the air struck her as tiny miracles of delight.

She laughed aloud and then groaned, her abdominal muscles cramping into a charley horse. But what did pain matter? Pain meant she was
alive
. She leaned back to ease her stomach muscles. The pod, already tossing on the waves, bobbed in response to the shifting of her weight. It was a strange sensation, such motion when she knew she’d landed.

“I made it,” she shouted, cackling gleefully. “It was impossible, but I did it! I made it!”

She stood, abruptly curious to observe the ocean outside. Pressing her face against the pod’s porthole window, she saw kilometer after kilometer of water. Water as far as the eye could see. She had a strong notion it wasn’t drinkable, but the wonder of it struck her mute. So much, so much. How could there be so much water?

She felt her unnatural heaviness as another wave struck the tiny craft, and she sank back down to rest. Her craft tipped again and she floundered forward into the wall before her. She ought to have adjusted the
Galleon
’s artificial gravity with more regularity.

The
Galleon
.

A wave of utter horror passed over her, more incapacitating, more powerful than the ocean swells. Her brave, beautiful ship was no more. The
Red Galleon
lay in pieces, scattered over the waves, and Jessamyn felt her heart squeeze tight in anguish.

Why could she never save what she cared for most?

This, she thought, was why the captain always went down with her ship. Because it hurt too much to live on when your bonny ship was no more. Tears welled up in her eyes.

She heard Harpreet’s gentle voice in her mind, telling her, “Tears are a gift from the Divine, child.” But these tears did not feel like a gift. They felt like failure.

What did it matter that she’d survived her landing if she’d destroyed her ship? She’d stolen Mars’s last raiding ship and then obliterated it. She could never make up for what she’d done, for what she’d taken from her world. She deserved to die, miserable and alone on the waves.

And die alone, she would. She’d cut communication to Pavel and her brother before choosing to eject. They would never know she’d left the
Galleon
. And the thought of her brother’s grief wove itself together with the thought that she would never, ever tell Pavel she loved him, and Jessamyn felt as though the weight of her sorrow would surely press down upon her and destroy her, millibars of woe to crush her heart.

She wept and wept, gulping for air as heaving sobs stole her breath away. And when at last she could cry no more, she did not open her eyes to gaze upon the wondrous ocean. She did not see the shadow over the water growing closer and closer. She did not register the ship as it approached at all.

39

AMONG THE WRECKAGE

Lucca Brezhnaya’s military cruisers were custom built for her comfort and to enable her to remain at all times in communication with her network of minions. She left the flying to others; her own time was too valuable for such mean labor.

“How much farther?” she asked her driver, red nails tapping upon a mahogany desk.

“Less than eight minutes, Chancellor.”

She scowled, but then saw a call coming through from the crash site of the main Martian ship.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“A small airborne vessel approached the wreckage and then fled,” said the caller. “Shall we pursue? The vessel is Hercules class. Small and fast.”

Lucca hesitated. What was more valuable to her? The crew among the wreckage or possible collaborators?

“What is the status of your search for crew?” she asked.

“The debris is widely scattered,” came the response. “We anticipate several hours—”

“Stay with the wreckage,” Lucca said, cutting off the dull response. “Chancellor out.”

She placed another call to Ops at Pearl Harbor. “Status update? When will you reach the crash site?”

“Seventeen minutes, Madam Chancellor.”

“There’s nothing for you to do there,” said Lucca. “I want all forces re-routed in pursuit of a Hercules class vessel that attempted to rendezvous with the downed vessel.”

“Heading?” asked the crisp voice on the other end.

“That’s
your
job to figure out,” barked Lucca. “Examine the data from the recovery team on site. I want that ship found immediately!”

“With all due respect, Chancellor, the Pacific is very … large.”

Lucca slammed her palm against her desk. “We’ve got satellites watching the Pacific. Use them. Re-aim them. Find me that ship!”

“Yes, Chancellor. At once.”

“Chancellor out.” She turned to her pilot. “How much longer now?”

“Four minutes, Ma’am.”

Lucca smiled.

40

BETTER SUITED

Pavel’s ship screamed to a halt beside the bobbing escape pod. Passing the ship’s helm to Wallace, Pavel extended the stairs leading out the back hatch, his heart pounding with cold fear. As they’d fled the wreckage, Pavel had realized that if Ethan could track Marsian ships, so could his aunt. She’d made it to the
Galleon
ahead of them.

It all came down to these next moments. Would the pod be empty? And if it was empty, would there be any sign to show whether the emergency craft had been Jessamyn’s means of surviving?

Testing the single safety rope that secured him to his vessel, Pavel reached one foot across the gap between the bottom stair and the roof of the pod.

“You mind holding it still?” he hollered to Wallace, now at the helm.

Wallace did not respond.

“He is attempting to hold a steady position,” called Ethan, “But the surge of the waves makes this very difficult.”

Pavel nodded. Ethan hovered his chair toward the aft exit, eyeing Pavel’s tenuous grip upon both stair and pod roof. And then it happened—a mighty swell spread the gap wider than Pavel’s legs could stretch. The would-be rescuer was plunged under the waves. He came up coughing and choking a moment later.

“Haul me up?” shouted Pavel.

Ethan pulled the drenched Terran back inside the ship.

“Okay,” said Pavel, shivering with cold, “That didn’t go as well as I would have liked.”

“Were you able to establish visual contact inside the pod?” asked Ethan.

Pavel shook his head, scattering salty drops. “Not possible. Window on wrong side. Give me a minute. I’ll try again.”

Ethan reached for the blanket Elsa normally used for bedding. “Take this.”

Pavel nodded thanks, shivering convulsively. “Unbelievably … cold,” he said.

“I believe I might be better suited to undertake this rescue,” said Ethan. “Using my hoverchair, I can get much closer to the roof-seal than can our ship. Also, I am familiar with the procedure of disengaging the seal and you are not.”

Pavel frowned. He would learn the truth more quickly if Ethan went instead of him.

“Go,” Pavel said to Ethan.

~ ~ ~

When Jessamyn heard the low thrumming of a craft outside, some instinctual desire to survive kicked in, sending her grief scurrying for cover. She looked out the porthole and saw the craft hovering beside her. She had no idea if she was looking at friend or foe.

“Weapons,” she muttered aloud, adding to the list of things escape pods Really Ought to Have Inside.

She heard something upon the roof. Someone was definitely removing the outer hatch. Awash in adrenaline, Jess looked about the craft for anything she might use to defend herself. She had a suit and a helmet. And a seat harness. She kicked at the suit, toppling herself in the process. She landed hard on the canister that had provided oxygen to her suit. It was made of metal, which she supposed might be used as a sort of weapon.

“The most pathetic weapon in the entire history of combat,” she muttered, digging frantically to remove the metal cylinder from the suit.

Gazing fiercely at the hatch, she gripped the canister and assumed a loose, ready stance.

The outer hatch seal was definitely open now. Was it friend or foe? Jessamyn felt her heart skipping beats, careening wildly to a rhythm born of fear and hope that collided like smashed atoms. She watched as the inner hull-seal shifted off center and rose. A man she’d never seen before gazed inside, his eyes locking upon hers.

“Jessamyn,” he said.

Nothing more.

Just, “
Jessamyn
.”

And she knew. Even before he reached a hand down to take hers. Even before she saw the stumps where his body had once had legs. She knew it was Ethan.

“Eth—” Her voice betrayed her, catching on his name. And she just smiled, shaking her head in joy and disbelief. When at last she could speak again, she said simply, “You found me.”

41

PROMISE

The citizens of Yucca held another bonfire to welcome Jessamyn Jaarda, rogue pilot and deserter of Mars Colonial. The cellist declined to bring his instrument out from its climate-controlled case, but the fiddler played merrily and Pavel got his wish to dance with the young men and women of Yucca, and most especially, with Jessamyn. In twos and threes, the people of the small enclave bid their newest guest welcome and then goodnight until only a handful swayed by the embers of the fire to fiddle melodies that grew sadder and sadder as the stars wheeled across the night sky.

Ethan and Kazuko had said their goodnights early, with Brian and Harpreet not far behind. But Pavel remained with Jessamyn, never too far away. He was a favorite with several of the village’s children, Jess noted. At last, even the fiddler packed up his instrument and the remaining dancers shifted off in pairs under the watchful moon.

Jessamyn settled by the flames, thinking sometimes of the Rations Storage fire, other times only of the beauty of the glowing embers. And then Pavel came to sit beside her and she told him of her days upon Mars and her sixty-four and one-half days upon the
Galleon
.

She didn’t tell him what she’d written to him or how often she’d thought of him, how often she’d dwelt on her half-memories of the very real boy beside her. They were gathered here before her now, all the things she recalled about the Terran boy: Pavel’s long fingers, one just touching hers; his eyes so dark and solemn; his lips.

His lips.

Something inside her sighed. She felt her skin warming in spite of the near-dawn chill. It started at her heart and crept slowly up her chest, past her neck, along her jaw and up to her cheeks until she was a thing of flame and desire.

“Where will you live?” Pavel asked.

She pulled her gaze from the lips that had spoken those words. What had he asked? Where she planned to live?

“Um,” she said, trying to find her way back to her rational self.

“Because Yucca’s amazing,” he said. “Your brother’s happier here than I’ve ever seen him.”

Jess smiled. “He is.” And then, more quietly, she asked, “Where are you going next?”

“Me?” Pavel’s mouth curved to half a smile and he grabbed a stone from the sand, turning it over and over with his beautiful hands. “Aw, Jess … I don’t know. I don’t have a home anymore.”

“Me neither,” she said, placing one of her hands upon his.

Their fingers interlaced as naturally as helmet and suit, and latched just as securely.

Jessamyn leaned back upon the desert floor and Pavel followed, sighing.

“We missed seeing Mars set,” he said.

Jess’s eyes scanned the heavens. “Mars is patently missing,” she agreed.

“I’m glad you’re not,” whispered Pavel, turning his head to hers.

Her skin suffused once more with warmth, and she turned as well, smiling. Their foreheads bumped softly.

“Me, too,” said Jess.

She could feel the warmth of his breath, sense its moisture.

She inched her face toward his so that their noses touched. And then Jess murmured softly, “I’m going to kiss you.”

Stars sparked overhead and the sky to the east glowed as Pavel laughed softly. A moment’s hesitation, a rearrangement of noses, and Jess felt his lips upon hers once more.

Salt, wet, longing, home.

Home
.

Pavel’s mouth on hers felt like
home
.

She felt a single tear sliding across the bridge of her nose.

“What?” asked Pavel.

She closed her eyes. “I’ll never see Mars again.”

“You’ve lost your home,” he said, a sadness in his voice that mirrored hers. “But I promise you won’t be alone. Whatever your plans, wherever you go, I’ll stand by you, Jessamyn.”

Jessamyn smiled, thinking of the vows people took back home in the Crystal Pavilion. “Where I come from, that’s a big promise,” she said. And then she kissed him again.

End of Book Two

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DEFYING MARS
. If you enjoyed it, please consider loaning it to a friend. If you are a blogger or post reviews to Amazon and would like to receive a complimentary review copy of another Cidney Swanson title, just email your request along with a link to your review to cidneyswanson at gmail dot com. Free Review Copies available for a limited time.

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Acknowledgements

I am filled with gratitude when I think of my readers. And whether you spell it
verklempt
or
verklemmt
, please know that overcome is exactly what I feel when I consider how readers have made it possible for me to do what I love. All day. For a living. Thank you.

I couldn’t make it without the help of beta readers and ARC readers. Thank you! Errors would abound were it not for the assistance of the divine Alexis Arendt of wordvagabond.com editing services. Rachael, Kate, Isabel, and Toby: thanks for asking and/or hinting about the next book!