Chapter 8
Nia’s heart pounded, the threat of discovery fogging her vision. It was a foolish reaction. If enforcers hadn’t come running already, then no one knew she’d signaled her position to the CORE.
Dee stepped away. “Oh. I didn’t mean to pry.” When it looked like she was about to say something else, she shook her head and forced a smile. “I have some other stuff for you to try, but I’ll get this one in green too. Be back in a moment.”
When the door closed, Nia’s heart rate lowered. She opened her palm and realized she’d squeezed the locket so tight, an impression remained where her PALM should have been.
Dee threw more garments at her, most too bold or bright, too revealing. Nia approved the ones in darker colors that covered most of her skin.
After forty minutes, Nia called a halt to the fashion show, exhaustion setting in.
“You’ve picked some great stuff.” Dee smiled, tilting her head. “Get yourself changed, and I’ll package everything to be delivered.”
Left alone, Nia chose the first purple outfit to wear. Dee had new black flats waiting for her beside the counter. Nia slid into them easily, her feet cushioned on what felt like pillows. She cleared her throat. “May I ask you something?”
“Just ask.” Dee’s eyes crinkled in mirth. “You don’t have to ask if you can ask.”
Nia’s face heated. “Why were you so shocked when I came in here?”
Dee seemed to consider her answer for a moment before saying, “Well, Mace is quite outspoken against people farming. Taking you pretty much contradicts anything he’s said since he took his command post here.”
Nia frowned. Tellusians against people farming? Wasn’t it what they lived for?
The door to the shop slid open, and Mace stepped in, pausing mid-step. It looked like he’d run for a good distance, his skin tone brightened by exertion, a fiery light in his eyes.
“You ladies finished?” he asked, entering the shop fully.
“Yep!” Dee replied. “Everything will be delivered to common holding within the hour.”
“No,” he contradicted her. ”To my quarters.”
Dee opened her mouth, eyes wide. She slowly nodded, her jaw still hanging wide.
“Thanks Dee, I owe you one.”
She snapped her mouth closed. “Nah. You paid plenty. How’s the orange tree doing?”
“Could be better.”
“Mace! I told you it needed care and attention. You can’t ignore the thing, or it’ll die.” Dee shook her head at him.
Cheeks heating, Nia focused on the versatile fabrics changing color next to her. There’d only been one plant in his quarters, and she’d mangled it. She held her breath, waiting for him to say what she’d done, but he gestured toward the exit.
Nia moved closer, aware of how her clothes clung to her body. The urge to pull the fabric away from her skin, to make it bulkier, gave her a full-body flush. She should have gotten Dee to design something similar to her unisex CORE uniform, a garment she practically lived in.
When she glanced up at Mace, he touched his vambrace without looking at her. Her wrists snapped together.
Blast, she hated that.
With one last glance at Dee and the disbelief underlaying her expression, Mace followed Nia out, but kept his distance. His ward kept walking until she overlooked the common space of the atrium. A strange sensation rolled through his gut at seeing her out of her uniform.
She leaned over the railing, the fabric of her new shirt stretching over her shoulders. Mace nodded to a warrior under his command who walked past, before taking a breath and closing the gap between them.
He leaned forward to see what Nia was seeing. If he concentrated on the people below, then maybe he wouldn’t stare at her. Her uniform had been formless and unflattering. This new top and leggings were anything but.
Straightening, he strangled the railing like it was his own neck, then cleared his throat. “You’ve been placed in a medical bay.”
She stiffened and shot him a side-glance. “To work at.” Her tone flat, she refocused on the people sitting around tables below.
“To work at,” he agreed.
A breath shuddered through her. “And if I refuse?”
“Then you can’t earn any creds.” He couldn’t force her to work.
“And I could earn enough creds to buy my way off this place?” Bitterness coated her words.
If only.“It doesn’t work that way,” he replied.
Nia narrowed her eyes at him. “Then tell me how it works.”
How could he even begin to explain the intricacies of the processing system centuries in the making? So convoluted, laws within law, especially for new captives. The old laws he’d invoked to keep her with him were barbaric—and that was a kind word for them.
At his silence, she returned to watching the crowd below. “When would I start?”
“Now, if you like. You’ve been placed in a bay manned with medics only, no doctors. We currently have a shortage.”
“And that explains why your farming pods were attached to Elara Five.” She spoke between gritted teeth.
“Yes.” There was no disputing it. Every warrior who took captives would earn a percentage of their income—an incentive that needed to be abolished and one he’d waived.
“But it doesn’t explain its destruction.” This time her voice had gone soft.
His chest squeezed. Cache had sent the raid to rescue him. It was Mace’s fault her people died.
A sharp beep emitted from his vambrace, distracting him form the weakness of his guilt. Cache’s command insignia flashed at the top of the communique. He swiped the message away, not wanting to rush Nia through her decision.
She took a deep breath and stood straighter to meet his eyes. “I will work.”
Unwarranted pride swelled in his chest at her determined expression. She might be tiny, but there was fire inside her. It would have been easy for her to stay in his quarters and give up. But her spirit wouldn’t be quelled—perhaps one of the reasons he hadn’t been able to leave her on Elara Five to die.
Mace pushed away from the railing, muscles rigid. “This way,” he said, cocking his head toward the lift.
The medical bay was located towards the docking bay where they’d arrived. Nia buried her disappointment. It would have been nice to be close to the welcoming light of the atrium.
Stopping in front of the door, she read the words printed in Common below a script she couldn’t read. She stiffened. “Family medicine?” She met Mace’s gaze.
A frown pinched his brows. “Is there a problem?”
Nia closed her eyes briefly. Her family medicine rotation at the Lunar Medical Academy had been the longest of her entire medical training process, rivaled only by her stint in pediatrics. She didn’t understand young people, was always awkward around them, and had been relieved when she’d completed that chapter of her life. Children smelled funny and had sticky fingers.
“I’m a surgeon,” she said, voice hoarse. “Post me where my skills are useful.” She tugged against her bonds, stepping aside when someone needed to pass them in the corridor. “How do you know I won’t hurt someone in there?” This was beyond ridiculous.
“Will you?”
“Of course not!” She winced at her honesty. “Just—” She stepped to the side again, allowing another person by, then glanced down the corridor. “Put me somewhere else.” Anywhere else.
“This is where you’re needed.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “You’ll have a four-hour shift to start.” Pressing the side panel, the door slid open. He all but pushed her inside, hand on the small of her back.
All activity stilled at their entrance. Every head turned in her direction. Three medics stared at her, their white jackets standing out in the against the gray of the bulkheads. She heard the beeping of Mace’s vambrace and her hands parted.
The medics resumed their tasks, but the patients, both child-sized and not, remained focused on her.
Nia forced a smile. “Get me another post,” she said, trying not to move her lips.
“You’re good. I’ve seen your work. You’ll be fine here.” His words made her break the staring contest she was having with a toddler sitting on their mother’s lap.
She ignored the rush the compliment gave her and turned her back to the room “No. I won’t,” she said under her breath.
Head tilted slightly, he stared at her. For a second, she believed he would give in, then he shook his head. “I’ll return for you at the end of your shift.”
She wanted to throw something at his retreating back. When he paused at the door, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then he said, “Don’t try to leave.”
“Why not?”
He kept his voice low. “Your bonds will shock you once you cross the threshold.”
She stared at her wrists, unsurprised.
But he continued, “They increase in intensity with each attempt. Could eventually kill you if you kept at it.”
Nia inhaled sharply as the door closed behind him. She looked at her bonds, then at the door, then at her bonds—a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The voice of her basic training instructor pounded in her brain. Better to kill yourself than to be used and abused by Tells. If you have an out, take it.
Her stomach rolled. The suicide option had never sat well with her. She turned around, and a medic stopped in front of her, looking her up and down.
“You’re a doctor?” His tone held derision.
Nia tensed. “Yes, a surgeon.”
He threw a short white jacket and a scanner at her. “Get to work or get out of the way.”
Her spine snapped straight, jaw going slack. What an asshole. That sort of insubordination would have earned him a reprimand where she’d come from. Her eyes followed him as he returned to the woman he’d been tending.
Trying to put her wounded sense of hierarchy aside, she donned the jacket, zipping it closed, and noticed how the sleeves stopped short of her bonds, making sure they would be exposed at all times.
Hand clenched around the scanner, she approached the first unattended person—a child. He sat on a med bed, face flushed, his mother beside her. Nia stopped in front of them, and he sneezed.
She stepped back.
When Mace entered the command center, he knew something was wrong. All the commanders and sub-commanders were already there, one for each section of the station for a total of eight. At the head of the holotable, the commodore threw him a displeased expression. The rest stared at him with raised eyebrows.
Ignoring them, he took his place beside Grey, and homed in on Foley across the table. Narrow face, long nose, and his muddy-colored hair swooping over his pale forehead, Foley appeared as self-satisfied as he always did.
Mace clenched his fists, ready to call him out, but Cache touched the holotable, retrieving three-dimensional images of a decimated ship. A tense hush settled over them.
“We’ve lost another Destroyer,” she began without preamble. A rumble of unease passed between the commanders. “Three Guardians attacked the Bellicose while it escorted five transports to Saturn.”
His lungs lost air like he’d been punched. He’d had many friends on the Bellicose. Snippets of recordings streamed across the table’s surface, one where the Destroyer exploded. Fury seared through him, hot, escalating his need to lash out.
Retaliation.The CORE had done this because of the attack on Elara Five. Mace’s eyes went to Foley again. The other commander kept his eyes on the recordings, arms crossed, and had more to answer for than the destruction of a medical station.
“Survivors, sir?” Commander Poole asked from beside Foley, his features wide where Foley’s were narrow.
Cache took a breath. “They kept a few to make an example of and executed the rest.” Grumbles of anger and unease rippled across the surface of the table. “The ones who survived are scheduled for the airlock in two days’ time. The CORE didn’t seize the transports caught in the crossfire. Some are being diverted here for medical attention and should arrive by tomorrow.”
Tension cascaded off the commanders around the table, the mood shifting from alert to volatile. Everyone wanted to fight, to get even. Blood for blood. Mace kept his eyes on Foley, waiting for Cache to call him out for his misstep. The reprimand never came.
“Do we have a target in mind, sir?” Grey asked from beside him.
“No.”
Everyone’s gazes snapped to hers.
She raised her hand. “I know. We all want to take action, but my orders came from the top. Admiral Krispin and the others want us to focus on Sector Four. If we retaliate now, we lose our chances of finding out what’s going on there. We need to stay focused even if it kills us.”
Distracted from his need to put a knife through Foley’s eyeball, Mace raised his eyebrows at her.
“I’m serious.” Everything in her posture said she spoke the truth.
He nodded, knowing if the admirals were breathing down her neck to stay out of the way, they meant it.
“What about those who are going to be executed?” Grey asked. “Are retrievals scheduled?”
Cache didn’t answer right away, and a hard knot settled in Mace’s stomach.
“We’ve been told to stay out of that as well.” A stunned silence fell over the table. Cache kept her eyes fixed to the images hovering above the table. “We’ll reconvene when I have something new to report. Dismissed.”
Mace wanted to argue, to demand a way to make the CORE pay for what they’d done. His focus shifted when Foley pushed away from the table and headed toward the exit.
Before he could follow, Cache stepped in his path. “You were late.”
She might be itching for a fight, but she wasn’t the one he needed to confront. He stepped around her and kept walking, then felt her eyes boring in his spine. It didn’t stop him.
There was blood he needed to spill.