Legacy Code (5 page)

“I remember this from the last time you showed me,” Zephyr said softly as she gestured and brought up the code.

Era’s eyes filled as Zephyr worked. When the riot leaders were airlocked, Zephyr said the president and board were just trying to pin the uprising on someone, make an example of them. Era had brushed off Zephyr’s theory.

Those rioters
had
been guilty. The president and board had no choice but to airlock them for the safety of the fleet.

This thing with Dritan, the personnel records—it wasn’t like
that
. The president was just doing an investigation into the hull breach. But still. Why had Dritan hidden the truth?

Zephyr re-booted the handheld, and the infinity symbol rotated in the air and faded into the mantra of the fleet.

A Better World Awaits.

But will we ever get there?

Era stepped into the loud din of the galley and followed Zephyr to the mess line. The scent of hot quin grain turned her stomach. She’d thrown it up more times than she could count in the early weeks of her pregnancy. It might never smell good to her again.

She scanned the end of the galley, where the sublevel workers sat. Dritan leaned over a table, hands on the shoulders of two of his crewmates. He broke into a wide grin at something one of them said, and Era’s heart grew heavy. Why had he kept the truth from her?

The line moved, and Era took her metal plate and water cup from the galley worker.

“Reduced rations. Again,” Zephyr said, through gritted teeth.

Era looked down at the small pile of sticky brown quin grain on her plate. A few anemic greens poked out from it. Her stomach flipped.

This was how it had all started a year ago. The riots. The
Meso
had lost some of its crop to the rot, and the shortage seemed to break something in the fleet. Was it happening again?

Era looked back at Zephyr, but her somber expression was gone.

“I’m getting really sick of plain quin, anyway,” Zephyr said. “How can the lower levels eat this every single day?

Era shrugged. Command level life on the
London
did have its benefits, not the least of which was a more varied menu. And quin liquor. She and Zephyr had gotten drunk on it while the ship rioted. Era pushed the memory down.

Dritan caught sight of them and pointed to an empty table in their usual spot in the middle of the galley.

Zephyr and Era had tried to sit with his crew once, but the table had fallen silent when they showed up, and a few of his crew members had even shot Zephyr dirty looks.
Never again.
They stuck to the tech tables now.

They walked to the table Dritan had picked for them, and Era dropped down next to him.

Zephyr slid onto the bench across from them and dug her fork into the small pile of grain. “How do they expect us to survive on these rations? The
Meso
’s sure been doing a kak job lately.”

Dritan tilted his head to the side and squinted at her. “Yeah, I guess that’s what happens when ya send ten sublevel crews down to Soren and only two come back.”

Zephyr pursed her lips and folded her hands on the table. “If the
Meso
needs to recruit, they should put out a notice to the other dekas. That’s the proper procedure.”

Era usually mediated this sort of thing between them, but not today. She kept her eyes on Dritan, stomach churning. How could he lie to her?

“You volunteering to transfer to the
Meso
?” Dritan took a swig of his water. “Then you can let’em know what a kak job they’re doing. Or help out. You know how to grow quin, right?”

“I don’t see—”

“Nope. You don’t.”

Zephyr sniffed and shoved a forkful of quin into her mouth.

Dritan exhaled and turned to Era. “So how was your shift?” He leaned in to kiss her but paused an inch from her face. “What’s wrong?”

“You lied to me.” She kept her voice too low for anyone else to hear.

Dritan glanced toward the sublevel tables, and he took a deep breath.

“The president ordered personnel records,” Era said. “How could you not tell me you worked executive sector?”

“I didn’t want you to worry, Er.”

“I can’t believe you never told me you had hull duty…”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What if…what if they’re trying to find someone to blame for the breach?”

“They’re not.” Dritan bit his lower lip and rubbed Era’s leg. “My crew does good work. And they’ll see that.”

He cleared his throat and turned away to eat. Zephyr was staring at them.

Era pushed her plate toward Zephyr. “You can have mine if you want it.”

Zephyr raised her brows, questioning, but Era shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. Dritan had sounded so sure of himself. Was she overreacting?

The lights in the galley flickered and went out. Conversation died down. Dritan wrapped an arm around Era and drew her close, their argument forgotten. Forgiven.

The scent of boiled quin seemed to intensify. Every murmur, every scrape of a plate, every rustle of a suit seemed louder in the darkness.

“Just another power outage,” Dritan murmured. “They’ll get it back on soon.”

Several minutes passed, and the sirens didn’t kick on. She relaxed into Dritan and inhaled his clean scent. The
London
had fewer outages than the
Paragon
, but that was just a perk of being on the deka that manufactured most of fleet’s power components.

The lights blinked on, and the entire galley seemed to exhale. Conversation started up again, louder than before.

The shift buzzer sounded, calling an end to last mess and the beginning of night shift.

Dritan kissed Era’s neck and held his mouth to her ear. His warm breath sent a pleasant shiver through her body. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll see.”

“Just don’t keep things from me,” Era whispered. “Tell me next time.”

“I will. I promise.”

The ship is on lockdown.

Sirens. Emergency lights. I race up the deserted stairwell to the first set of doors and swipe my shift card, but the doors won’t open.

I rip the panel from the wall. All that’s there is a jumble of singed wires, the components around them blackened. But I can fix this. Can’t I?

I drop my hands to my waist, seeking my work belt, and my heart drops. My stomach is flat. Empty.

They’ve aborted my baby.

I choke back a scream and run up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Dritan’s on level six. He’ll help me. I reach the landing and slip in a pool of dark, viscous liquid.

I crash to the floor. The pool is deep red, sticky, half-dry. The thick metallic scent of it fills my lungs, and bile rises in my throat.

An arc of spattered blood coats the doors and drips down the number six. I try to lift my palms, but they stick to it. “Dritan—”

The door slides open and steals my breath. My body lifts off the landing, and the corridors of level six flash by.

There’s a hull breach.

And I’m being sucked into space.

Era’s eyes fluttered open in the pitch dark, and she sat up straight, gasping for air, one hand on her still swollen belly.

Just a nightmare.
She hadn’t had one like that since after her father died.

She reached out a hand and found Dritan’s warm body at the edge of the bunk, against the wall.

She cuddled up to him, and he groaned and rolled over in his sleep to wrap her in an embrace. Her body relaxed, and she closed her eyes. Dritan had a way of keeping the nightmares at bay.

Era leaned against the sink and stretched her legs. Her hips ached, no matter what she did. She chose a helio sector suit from the rack and set it down on the bench.

Zephyr already had her suit on, and the white fabric made her skin look even paler. “Dritan doesn’t like me.”

Era sighed and slowly unzipped her suit, trying the whole time to think of a good response. “He does like you. He just takes a while to get to know.”

“Funny, he seemed to get to know you pretty fast.”

“It’s just—sometimes you say things.”

“What?” Zephyr placed her hands on her hips. “The things I say never bothered you before.”

“They don’t bother me…”

“Ha. Told you he doesn’t like me.” Zephyr faced the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair, working out tangles.

Era frowned and tucked her short brown hair behind her ears. Much more practical. So maybe Zeph wasn’t Dritan’s favorite person in the fleet. But he knew Era cared for her, and that was enough for him.

Era finished removing her boots and suit and placed them in a locker. She was stepping into the helio suit when a young woman left the showers. The woman scowled at Era’s bare belly.

Era’s cheeks warmed, and she zipped up the suit. Not like it covered anything. It was sleeveless, ended mid-thigh, and hugged her curves, accentuating her growing bump in a way her regular suits didn’t.

She walked to the sink and tapped it to rinse her hands in the small trickle of water that came out. Then she grabbed a rag from the bin of suit scraps and dried her hands.

“You ever gonna tell me what the big deal was last night at mess?” Zephyr asked.

“If I do, it won’t be here.” Era eyed the woman again in the mirror. The woman caught Era looking, frowned, and turned away to finish dressing.

Zephyr adjusted her too-tight suit and struck a pose in front of the mirror. She danced around Era to get to the door. “Can’t keep my lover waiting. Wouldn’t wanna ruin his whole midbreak.”

Era rolled her eyes and followed.

Dritan had eased her mind about the hull breach investigation last night, but she’d still half-expected guards to storm the cubic and arrest him. She’d been wrong, though. Only her nightmare had interrupted her sleep.

Era and Zephyr turned the corner and hit the wave of heat emanating from helio sector’s open doorway. The tension fled Era’s body, and her skin tingled in response to the warmth. She picked up her pace. Unlike the burn Zephyr would get, the super helio would give Era’s skin a warm glow and energize her. It always did. If only they opened helio sector for recreation every day.

A guard, his face coated in sweat, stood next to the scanner. He nodded to them as they swiped their shift cards.

They stepped into the vast space, and Era took a deep breath, relishing the sweet air. A new Earth would smell like this, infused with the clean air plants make.

The super helio hovered near the high ceiling, too bright to look at, and a crowd of colonists basked beneath it.

Helio sector’s tall, white hydropods had been moved to the edges of the space. The
Paragon
had hundreds of them—more than Era had ever seen in one place. Probably nowhere near the number the
Meso
had, but still more than any of the other dekas. And this wasn’t even all of them. There were more hydropods on Zero Deck. Other sectors that were off-limits—where they grew and made medicine.

Greens poked out of each pod, creating an effect like the trees Zephyr had images of on her family’s cubes. Tough to believe these lush greens were the same wilted fare turned out by the galley cooks.

A few colonists strolled the edge of the massive space, and Era and Zephyr dropped in behind them.

Zephyr gripped Era’s hand. “He’s here.”

Tadeo sat near some pods ahead, alone, his arms crossed over his knees, staring out at the crowd gathered in the center of the room. His straight black hair had fallen into his eyes, but he seemed oblivious to it.

“Well, go talk to him,” Era said.

“Come with me,” Zephyr said, dragging Era toward Tadeo.

He glanced up as they approached, and Zephyr dropped Era’s hand. His gaze went straight to Zephyr, and his brown eyes brightened.

“Why you sitting by yourself?” Zephyr asked. “Everyone’s over there.”

“I’m not here to see everyone.”

Zephyr looked like she was about to swoon right into Tadeo’s waiting lap.

Someone really needed to file an image of this boy’s face in the archives, under the word ‘enigma’. “I’m going to go wait for Dritan.”

Zephyr nodded without looking at Era and dropped down next to Tadeo on the floor.

Era continued walking the space and kept her eye on the entrance.

She’d walked half the sector when she saw the guards up ahead. Her stomach clenched, and she slowed her pace.

The guard closest to her stood straight, sweat dripping down his face, and watched the crowd. One hand rested on his pulse gun, as if he thought he might actually need to use it here.

Behind the guards, President Nyssa Sorenson and her fourteen-year-old daughter Tesmee sat on a blanket. Instead of standard helio suits, they wore sleeveless beige suits that looked new.

Era let out a breath and tried not to stare as she walked past, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d been here months and had only caught a few glimpses of the president and Tesmee.

The president wore her hair styled in a perfect blond bun kept in place by shiny metal pins. But her well-groomed appearance was marred by the deep lines creasing her face and the dark circles under her eyes. She shifted on the blanket and glanced toward the exit.