Starbound (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 0) Read online

  Still Jas hung back. What did he want from her? To beat her. That was what he wanted. He wanted to defeat her, to hurt the filthy Martian. He knew she’d been pulling punches and throwing her matches. He wanted to show her she had something to be scared of.

  Her gaze flicked to the watching students. Some were looking on sympathetically. Did they realize Trankle’s intentions too? But there was nothing any of them could do to help. They had to obey him as much as she did.

  “Harrington,” the instructor barked, making Jas jump. “I gave you an order. Or do you only fight people weaker than you?”

  Anger flared up in Jas, and without thinking, she rushed in and kicked upward, trying to reach the man’s head. He deftly caught her ankle one-handed. Grabbing her foot with the other hand, he twisted her leg cruelly around. Jas’ body followed. She cried out in pain, and suddenly she was face downward on the mat, her knee and hip agonized.

  The students gasped.

  Jas was still, waiting for the pain in her leg to dissipate. Her face smarted where it had slid along the mat.

  “Get up, Harrington,” Trankle said. “Quit faking. I didn’t hurt you that bad.”

  Wincing, Jas stood up, wobbling. She limped to the back of the audience, the students parting silently to let her through.

  “Harrington provided us with a great example of what not to do,” said Trankle. “Now we’re gonna look at some effective ways you can beat a stronger opponent.”

  ***

  “Wow, tough class today?” Sergei asked when he met Jas for dinner in the cafeteria that evening. He was referring to the bright red abrasion on Jas’ face from its encounter with the training mat. He put down his tray and sat opposite her.

  “Tough instructor,” Jas replied and went on to explain what had happened.

  “What an asshole,” Sergei exclaimed. “Did you report him?”

  “No point,” Jas said. “I can’t prove he was doing anything other than a normal training exercise.”

  “Jas, you can’t let him treat you like that. Some of the other students will back you up. They saw what happened.”

  Jas sighed. “It’s okay. Really, I can deal with it.”

  “No. For krat’s sake, Jas, listen to yourself. The misborn assaulted you. You have to do something about it. You can’t go through the rest of your life letting people push you around. You’re in security,” he exclaimed. “What are you going to do if you get attacked by aliens? Run away? Tell the people you’re supposed to be protecting that you couldn’t prove the aliens were attacking?”

  “Hey,” Jas replied defensively. “Of course I won’t. I’ll do my job. This is different.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting, it isn’t.”

  Jas’ lips thinned to a line. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t make waves. I can’t afford to get kicked out of school. If I don’t get through this, I’m not going to get another chance. I’m not like you. I can’t just drift from college to college because I’m too lazy to do the work.”

  Sergei put down his fork and sat back, staring at Jas.

  She closed her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  He shook his head and resumed eating, silently.

  Jas sighed. She reached out and took his hand. “I went over this with Tamara months ago. There really isn’t anything I can do. I just have to suck it up and hope he doesn’t teach any of my classes next year.”

  “You mean this has been going on for a while?”

  “A little. Off and on.”

  Sergei looked at her gravely.

  “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t get it. You’re from Earth. You aren’t different from everyone else. You don’t stand out wherever you go. People aren’t constantly asking about your background. They don’t treat you differently. You’re accepted for who you are. It isn’t like that with me. To everyone else, I’m not Jas, I’m The Martian. Maybe the administration would believe me. I don’t know. But I get too much attention as it is. I don’t want any more.”

  “Jas, most people don’t give a krat where you’re from. This isn’t the children’s home,” Sergei said. “Most people aren’t like your instructor. You don’t have to put up with his behavior.”

  Jas remembered being jumped in the stairwell by the children’s home kids, having things thrown at the back of her head in class while the teacher’s back was turned, and being the victim of subtle ostracizing. “Sergei, I know you think what you’re saying is true, but you don’t get it, and you never will. So let’s just not talk about it, huh?”

  He looked hurt, but he didn’t press the issue. They tried to talk about other things, but their conversation was dry and forced. Ever since she’d told Sergei of her passion to travel the stars, a distance seemed to be developing between them that broke Jas’ heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was early summer, and the Great Antarctic Melt had begun. Every year, more and more of the deep layers of ice that covered and surrounded the continent were lost to the sea. In years past, massive icebergs had calved, shrinking and altering the shoreline, which in turn hastened the decimation of penguins and other species whose breeding strategies were dependent upon the landscape’s stability. Freed of the weight of the ice, the landmass was rising to a higher elevation.

  One element of the leadership skills class was regular excursions, when the students would conduct staged battles. Each team would try to defeat the others in order to attain a prize. Each team had a leader, and the rest of the team had to obey his or her orders. Afterward, the teams would analyze their leader’s strategies as well as the reasons for their success or failure.

  Everyone had taken their turn at playing the leader except for Jas and two others. The instructor had informed the class that they had one more opportunity for an excursion before the Melt made it impossible to travel over the ice.

  When the evening of the final excursion that year arrived, Clements assigned team members to Jas and the other leaders. They weren’t allowed to choose their own teams. The instructor had pointed out in the beginning of the class that only rarely would they be able to choose who they would have working under them in real life.

  As they prepared to set out to the battle site, Clements called out the team members. Sergei wasn’t on Jas’ team. She was sadly relieved. He went over to his leader while the four students she was to command that day approached her.

  A transport took them a few kilometers away, out on the bare, windy landscape. Dusk was quickly falling. The vehicle stopped around four hundred meters from the ocean, where there were huge ice blocks for the students to hide behind. The blocks not only provided cover for the teams as they staged their battle, but they also offered variability in the routes to the target, which the leaders were supposed to figure into their strategies. The class had been at that place before, and by the time they alighted the transport Jas had already figured out what she thought was the best route to the prize.

  She waited at the back of the line of students who were retrieving their packs from the underbelly of the vehicle. Their equipment consisted of suits of light-sensitive material in team colors and true laser guns. A beam of light from the weapons would register on the suits if it hit. They also had helmets they could communicate through.

  Most of her team had retrieved their packs, and they were waiting for her on the other side of the vehicle. She couldn’t see Sergei. Looking round, she saw he was right behind her. The students in front of Jas took their packs and left, and then it was just the two of them. Sergei touched her back, and a familiar spreading warmth and sweet ache radiated through her, dispelling the uncomfortable prickles that had been tickling her spine.

  He leaned in for a brief kiss. “I love you,” he murmured as he drew back. She stood there in surprise while he took his pack and left, casting a smile at her over his shoulder.

  Jas’ mind spun. Sergei had never said those words to her. Why had he chosen there and then to tell her that?

/>   She was slow getting her pack and joining the rest of her team. They had only minutes before the exercise began. Her team was looking at her expectantly. A short distance away on the uneven ground, Sergei stood with his group, toeing a shard of broken ice that was quickly melting to slush. The darkness was deepening by the minute.

  She cleared her throat. “Okay, over there.” She pointed to an outcrop that was far from their goal. She received some distrustful looks, but her team jogged over as she’d ordered. Clements was standing to one side, whistle in hand and checking the time.

  They put on their light-sensitive suits. If a laser beam hit them, their suits would vibrate and sound an alarm. If they were hit in a vital part of the body, a 'death’ alarm would sound, and they had to cease firing and stay where they were. A hit in a less-vulnerable spot would trigger a 'wound’ alarm. After three wounds, they had to act as though dead. The suits recorded if any student disobeyed the rules.

  Behind the outcrop, Jas drew the team together and explained her plan.

  “But we’re the furthest away,” one of them complained. “The others will get there minutes before us.”

  “No, they won’t,” Jas said. “They’re going to be fighting it out between them. If we stay at the back for a while, the others will take each other out along the way. They won’t be firing at us. We can pick them off from behind. If we stay out of sight, they’re going to think it’s the other side who’s firing, and they’ll shoot at them, not us. When we’ve taken out the opposition as best we can, Richard can do his stuff.”

  Her team’s expressions changed at her explanation.

  “Okay,” one said. “Let’s do it.”

  The whistle blew, and the teams began to move. Almost immediately, an alarm sounded. Someone had tried to make a quick dash for the prize. The alarm was a high-pitched burst of sound. They’d been fatally hit. The 'dead’ student sat down disconsolately. More students appeared briefly among the ice blocks. Another alarm sounded, and another. Wound alarms.

  “Milas, go left,” Jas said into her mic. She’d caught sight of a member of another team who had figured out her strategy. The student was doubling back to sneak up on them from behind. Milas hadn’t seen the approaching student. He was running for cover, but he wouldn’t make it. Jas lifted her gun to her shoulder to take aim. The high-pitched alarm sounded again, and the attacking student threw down his gun in anger. Someone had shot him. Jas glanced around to find Milas’ savior. Sergei was behind her, pretending to blow smoke from the muzzle of his weapon.

  What was he doing? He wasn’t even on her team. “Why’d you do that?”

  “You don’t always have to play by the rules, Jas,” he said.

  She was vaguely annoyed. It was only a game, but if everyone messed around, no one would learn anything. She turned away, then immediately felt guilty. This was the man who loved her, and she loved him. She looked back to give him a smile, but he’d gone.

  The other two teams were down to two people each. Milas’ head popped out from around a chunk of ice. He shot and took out another student. Everyone was only fifty meters or so from the prize.

  “Final stage,” Jas said into her mic.

  Richard started his run. He was the fastest of all of them. Jas knew where one of the other team members was, and she was waiting. As the woman peeped out, she shot her. A death alarm sounded, and the woman stood up. Richard was still running. A wound alarm rang out. Was he hit? Where was his assailant? Milas and another student rolled into view, throwing punches.

  Another wound alarm. Someone was shooting at Richard. Jas desperately scanned the ice blocks in the deep twilight. Who was still left to shoot? Jas saw her. It was the smallest student, curled into a ball behind a small ice boulder that didn’t look large enough to hide anyone.

  Richard was almost at the prize. The small student raised her weapon to take another shot, and Jas fired. As Richard put his hand on the prize, two alarms sounded. Death alarms. Jas had hit the student square in the back. There was no doubt that she was dead. But had she managed to kill Richard before he’d gotten to the prize?

  Everyone who was hiding revealed themselves, and the dead students stood up. Clements would tell them the outcome and give a brief breakdown of events before they completed a more thorough analysis the next morning.

  As Jas was going over to join the others, a faint rumble seemed to come from nowhere. She paused, confused, and looked up. Was there a storm coming? The sky was starry and clear. The rumble grew louder. Vibration ran up Jas’ legs, and she realized that the sound was coming from the ground.

  The instructor was shouting, ordering them to run to the transport. Jas froze for a moment, wondering what was going on. The vibration got stronger, rocking her and almost throwing her off her feet. Then she understood. The ice they were standing on was breaking free of the land. They were on a newly calving, massive iceberg.

  She sprinted for the vehicle, joining the other students who were speeding across the ice, slipping and stumbling in their haste. The driver had started the engine by the time they arrived. The students piled in. The instructor climbed aboard last, made a quick survey of the dark, empty landscape, and told the driver to go.

  Most of the students hadn’t had time to take seats. They were thrown backward into a jumble of bodies as the transport flew from the scene.

  Jas was crushed against a window at the back. Behind them, a fissure yawned blackly in the shimmering surface. It quickly grew, exposing sheer walls of fresh ice. Jas’ mouth fell open. The area where they’d just been standing was moving. It was crumbling, shifting. Millions of tons of ice was drifting, slipping away, out to sea. Huge waves rose up in the fissure and smashed down. A tidal wave of sea water rushed toward them, catching up to them even though the transport was tearing away from the scene. Jas’ heart rose into her mouth.

  The water seemed to rear up and reach out to the vehicle, but when it crashed down, it fell short. Only its feeble fingertips scrabbled at the transport’s sleds.

  Most of the other students had gotten into their seats while the scene was playing out behind them. They were oblivious to what had just happened. When Jas was unpinned from the window, she turned and saw Clements looking back, white-faced.

  Jas found an empty seat and sat down, washed over with relief at their narrow escape. She took off her helmet and unzipped her suit. Her pulse began to slow, but something niggled at her. Something was wrong.

  A terrible dread clutched her. She whipped around in her seat, looking for a face among the students in front and behind. Sergei. Where was Sergei?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jas was in a starjump. She was nowhere. She didn’t exist. She lay on her bed, unmoving. At times, Tamara came to her, talked to her, fed her. In between her friend’s visits, sights and sounds entered her consciousness. The movements of her roommate, shadows that fell as she blocked the light. Noises from outside. Wind, and the hum of drones passing. Daylight filled the room, then darkness. Light, dark. How many times?

  Jas was in a pit. She was at the bottom of a well, underwater. Somewhere above her, life carried on as normal, but she couldn’t reach it. She couldn’t climb out. Or was it that she didn’t want to?

  Murmuring in her room. “How long?” asked a voice. “It’s been too long.”

  The college medic came. He checked her over, took her pulse, listened to her breathing, looked into her eyes, tested her reflexes. He asked her questions, but it was like he was speaking through wool. Jas heard the words, but as soon as she thought she understood, the meaning would slip away like threads of silk in the wind.

  He left her. Pills arrived in Tamara’s hands. She pushed Jas up, put them in her mouth, and made her drink water. She slept.

  As she woke, she heard her roommate say, “She doesn’t even cry. It’s weird.”

  Jas opened her eyes. Tamara was there too. Jas moved, and her friend noticed. “Jas, you’re awake,” she said, coming over and squatting down. “How are yo
u feeling?”

  Her jaw muscles were strangely weak. “Groggy,” Jas mumbled.

  Tamara exhaled and touched Jas’ head. “That’s the first thing you’ve said in days.”

  Jas thought this information was probably significant, but she didn’t know why.

  “Becca and I were thinking it would be a good idea if we swapped rooms for the rest of the semester. I’ll look after you until you’re feeling better.”

  Was she sick? Yes, that had to be it. She had to be sick.

  “Is that okay?” Tamara asked.

  Jas forced her neck down, giving a slight nod.

  ***

  It was weeks before she could mention the accident, and then she couldn’t say his name. One evening, as Tamara was doing her homework and Jas was looking sightlessly out of the window, she said, “What happened after?”

  “Hmm?” Tamara said absently. When Jas didn’t reply, she looked up. She registered what Jas had said, and her face crumpled in sorrow. “Jas, I’m so sorry. After...after it happened, as soon as it was safe, you all went back to look for him. The police sent out a search party. They had boats out, and helis. Everyone looked for days. Don’t you remember?”

  Jas shook her head. “All I remember is...” The last thing she recalled was the tendrils of seawater slipping from the tracks of the transport and the dark, frozen landscape retreating behind her. That, and a figure of a man pretending to blow smoke from a gun. Then he was gone.

  ***

  The next day, she got up and checked her interface for the classes she had that day. Battle tactics, weapons, survival, hand-to-hand. She went to take a shower, but Tamara was in the shower room. She waited outside until her friend came out, toweling her hair.

  “You’re up already?” Tamara asked. “Do you want some breakfast? I could make us both some. I still have time.”