Chapter 23
Each passing day, Nia’s spirit shriveled more inside of her. The reality of her situation pounded into her brain with every breath she took. The tracker in the locket wasn’t working, either because it was a dud to begin with, or she was too far away, or the shielding on this station was too sophisticated.
She wasn’t going to be rescued.
When she finally accepted the truth, a numbness settled over her body she couldn’t shake. The urge to reach for a suppressant disappeared because she no longer experienced high emotions. She understood she could make a life for herself here, make friends, a career, but she couldn’t force herself to crave it, to look forward to something. She just wanted to go home.
The only emotion to sometimes surface through the fog was a seething sort of resentment when she thought of Mace.
He’d abandoned her.
Of course, she wasn’t really ever on her own except in his quarters, but she’d never felt hollower. Her shifts in the med bay were completed robotically. She never spoke to Elec as he walked her to and from the bay and stopped wondering if he hated babysitting her—stopped wondering because she knew he hated it. Who wouldn’t?
Another day off, and she found herself on the second level of the atrium, leaning against the railing with Elec a short distance away. She stared at the slowly shifting groups of people below on the main deck but had no urge to join the mass.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, lost in her numbness, when a voice rang out behind her.
“I can’t take it anymore.”
Nia straightened away from the railing and turned to find Dee with her hands on her hips and a frown furrowing her brow. Her yellow and orange dress was extremely short in the front and incredibly long in the back, the whole thing only supported by one strap over her left shoulder. The fashion bruised Nia’s sensibilities in every way, but she couldn’t find it in her to dislike it.
After staring at each other a long minute, Nia returned her focus to the crowd below.
Dee moved closer, joining her at the railing. “Look, I know you hate me—”
“I don’t hate anyone.” She didn’t have the energy to hate anymore.
“And I’ve been trying to give you space,” Dee went on like she hadn’t spoken, “But I can’t stand by and watch you wither away.”
Why not?She didn’t voice the question. Didn’t care enough to do so.
“Has someone suggested you speak to the captive psychologist?”
I don’t need a psychologist, I need to go home. And she didn’t trust anyone here enough to spill her guts to them.“Did Mace ask you to come?” At least it would mean he thought of her once in a while, though she didn’t know how he couldn’t when she’d taken over his quarters. Where did he sleep?
There were indicators he visited while she was on her shifts: a different towel in the bathroom, things being move around in the refrigeration unit, but she hadn’t seen him in at least two weeks. Maybe longer? She wasn’t even sure how much time had passed since she’d been brought to Orion.
“No. He didn’t ask me to come.” She leaned an elbow against the railing. “I keep seeing you around, moping, on your days off, and I needed to do something before all the plants in the arboretum shriveled away by association.”
“I don’t mope,” she denied in a flat voice even though she knew it was the truth.
“If it’s any consolation, Mace seems to be moping about as much as you are.”
It should have elicited some reaction from her, but it didn’t. Maybe I should go back to his quarters and nap. The loathsome nature of the thought made it through her brain fog. She wouldn’t willfully confine herself.
“And if I didn’t know any better,” Dee went on, “I would have thought you two were going through a breakup or something similar.”
There was nothing about her current mood because of a “breakup,” whether they’d kissed or not, but Nia saw no point in voicing the opinion. Her brain was too sluggish to argue.
“But I do know better. It’s completely ridiculous, right?”
“Right,” she agreed, wanting Dee to stop talking and go away. Out of principle, she’d decided to stay here for her full six hours, people watching, then she’d return to his quarters.
“Anyway,” Dee said after exhaling a frustrated breath. “I’m stealing you away from your pity fest for the day.”
Nia didn’t even have the energy to protest against the way Dee grabbed her arm and pulled her along. But alarm swept through her numbness when Dee pulled her on the lift—without Elec. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere new. You can’t see the rest of the station, so I’m going to show you neat stuff in this quad.”
The lift descended a clipped pace, then the door opened into a plain corridor devoid of people. Nia’s nervousness grew. Hand still holding her arm, Dee took her through a narrow corridor. It widened into a space vaster than the arboretum. Nia’s disinterest shed from her body like a uniform worn too long. When Dee dropped her arm, she kept walking forward until she gripped the railing tightly.
A helix of rotating metal filled her vision, a pinkish white energy twisting around it—a power source, but she’d never seen an engine core like it. Looking upward, the reactor chamber seemed to go on forever, looking down it was the same. She’d known the station was massive. This only confirmed it.
She leaned forward to see better, and Dee settled a hand on her arm. “Watch yourself. There’s no coming back from a fall like that.”
Truth. Nia couldn’t see the bottom from here.
“Is this the only one?” Nia had tried to obtain a schematic of Orion on Mace’s terminal but had been unsuccessful because of her limited clearance.
“No. There are four of them, one for each section of the station.”
“What are they doing?” Nia asked, pointing to the four people in brown. One was hanging off the edge, inside the cylinder of the construction, making her stomach lurch.
Dee followed where she pointed. “Maintenance.”
Another team of four worked farther down. She’d seen similar groupings when she’d wandered on her days off, always four or more together.
“What about radiation?”
“I’ve been told it’s only an issue in the lower decks, where people don’t go.” Dee shrugged.
Movement behind them made Nia turn. It was Elec, and a look of utter relief crossed his face when he saw them. He braced a hand against the bulkhead and inhaled a deep breath. “Don’t do that to me again.”
Frowning, Nia turned away. Dee wore the same look of confusion, then she shrugged and rolled her eyes. The comical expression made Nia snort. She focused on the helix in front of her.
The engine core hummed and spun, a strange thing to infuse her with new life, but now she’d begun to emerge from her haze, returning to it didn’t hold any appeal.
It became a routine. On Nia’s days off, Dee would find her and show her something new. Slowly, ever so slowly, Nia felt the fog around her body lift. A couple weeks later, she realized Elec wouldn’t tail her as long as she was with Dee. A tentative friendship bloomed between them.
And in those quiet moments when she and Dee would lay on the grass in the arboretum or stare at the crowd in the atrium, Nia would ask questions—the things the terminal in Mace’s quarters wouldn’t reveal to her.
It was one of those times, where they leaned over the railing of the red bridge in the arboretum to see who could spot the most fish, when Nia asked, “What can you tell me about the old laws?”
Dee straightened, her light pink sheath dress catching the light from above. “Oh.” Nia stood tall as well, meeting her eyes. “Well, let’s see, where to begin.” She stared at the stream, outlined eyes narrowed in thought. “Before modern law, most everything was based in instinct and aggression.”
“How long ago are we talking about?”
Dee tipped her head to the side. “Two hundred years? More? But the old laws weren’t abolished completely. They can be invoked in extreme circumstances like during wartimes and such. One I know about is the Mutiny Law. If a warrior feels their commanding officer is unfit for duty and they have the majority of the crew behind them, they can take leadership by killing the current CO.” Then she shrugged like it was no big deal.
There were laws in CORE society to gain the same results and no one got killed. “What about captives? This Take and Keep law the processor told me about?”
Dee’s brow puckered. “Well, that one’s a bit trickier. It had a couple different meanings. Any weapons, raw materials, or valuables seized in a raid were kept by the warrior who takes them. In modern law, all this pooled into the resources for the whole colony and shared. Makes more sense, really.”
Nia’s hands tightened on the railing. “And what of captives?”
“Well, even back then, it wasn’t like a warrior would keep ten captives in his quarters. There was still the common holding and labor distribution.”
“So why would a warrior keep a captive in his quarters, then?”
A rosy hue splashed Dee’s cheeks. “Um, I’m not sure I should get into this.”
“Spit it out.” Nia refused to be brushed aside.
Dee grimaced, closing her eyes. “A warrior would keep a captive when there was a low or unbalanced population count so he could procreate.” Dee said it all in a rush, keeping her eyes closed the entire time.
Nia couldn’t speak for a minute. “This was okay with everyone?” Her question came out a squeak. That had to be where all the sex slave stories she’d learned about came from—truth to the rumors but from a long time ago.
“I know you’re thinking really badly of us right now,” Dee said, meeting Nia’s eyes. “But seriously, this hasn’t been done in centuries. I mean, it’s barbaric. We’re not like that anymore.”
“So all this time I’ve been in Mace’s quarters, people thought—”
“No, I wouldn’t think that. I mean, it’s Mace we’re talking about. Yeah, it’s a bit shocking, because he’s so against people farming.”
The way she said it made Nia zero in on her again. “What aren’t you telling me? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Dee caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Um, I’m not sure how it applies now, I haven’t studied any laws of late, but in the old laws, if a warrior kept a captive, it sort of meant—it did mean, I should say—they were legally bound together.”
Nia blinked. “Legally bound.”
“Yeah. You know—”
“Married?” The word came out in a shriek.
“Um, yeah, back then it did. I’m not really sure how it works these days.” Dee’s cheeks blazed pink.
Nia pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I’m not married.”
“Right. Definitely not married. I totally agree with you.” Dee emphasized her statement with a nod. “Wait. Were you married before you came here? Had someone special?”
Nia shook her head. “No. Too busy to concentrate on that.”
Her mind went to Calvin, the last person she’d dated. It was strange, but she hadn’t thought of him in days, weeks even. Her old, CORE life seemed so far away. But now she was so removed from it, she thought of their interactions and shuddered. How had she stayed with him for so long? Why had she accepted it, taking enhancers to make it more bearable? The whole concept seemed absurd.
Nia rubbed her forehead, a headache pulsing in her frontal bone. “I’m not married,” she said again. She couldn’t get married without knowing it, right?
It was completely ridiculous, and she needed to know the truth. “Where would he be right now?”
“Who?”
“Mace,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Oh. Ah.” Dee swallowed, turning to get a good look at Nia. The pink hue of her cheeks disappeared as the color drained from her face. “Either training or the command center I would guess. The command center is off limits to civilians, so we can’t—”
“Then we’ll check this training place first.”
When Dee didn’t move, Nia gestured with her hands. “Now.”