Page 3

THREE

Cerani

Cerani kept her hands locked behind her back as the mech guided her down the lower corridor. It moved fast for a clunky thing, metal legs clicking against the grated floor while she hustled to keep up. She kept her questions to herself. She’d learned by now that answers came on the administrator’s time, not the miners’.

The mech had pulled her from lineup after second check-in, just before food allocation. One second, she’d been with the others going toward the rations. The next, a mech had scanned her wrist and ordered her to follow it.

A few fellow miners looked at her with worried eyes as she left. They were likely wondering if she’d be coming back.

The tunnel narrowed the farther they went. The noisy overhead lights sputtered and popped. Passageways snaked off into even deeper parts of the structure. Miners never came down this far. This area was for processing and shipping, which were all automated. It would be a good place to take someone if you wanted to make them disappear. Cerani swallowed and kept walking.

They turned twice, passed a stairwell that smelled like fuel, then stopped in front of a thick steel door. A scan clicked, the door hissed open, and the mech waved her inside without a word.

The circular room beyond was colder than the tunnels. She felt it even through the suit. The lights were dim, and the air stirred with the hum of powered stations. Three wall-mounted consoles blinked soft green from open system screens. One terminal sat in the far center, lit with a pulsing blue glow.

He sat behind it.

Stavian looked different behind a screen in a room barely larger than the lift she’d just ridden on. No guards. No mechs.

Cerani took one step inside and stopped. “Didn’t think your office would be this small,” she said, then instantly regretted it. She couldn’t have blurted out a worse way to greet the controller of the mine.

Stavian didn’t smile, but his expression shifted like he wanted to. “This is the smallest of my five administrative spaces.”

“Ah. Five. Well, that’s nice for you.” She hovered at the threshold before reluctantly stepping inside the room fully. Her lungs felt tight, but not because of the air. “Why am I here?”

“Because I sent for you.”

“Okay.” She bit her tongue and sighed. Cerani was tired and hungry, and both of those things made her prone to spouting her mouth off. She wasn’t like her friend Lilas, who said what she thought no matter what and actually enjoyed getting under others’ skin. Cerani was older than her friends, except for Nena. She had learned restraint and knew that this was an unwise place to be lacking in it. “Why did you send for me?”

The controller stood. There was almost no sound to his movements, which somehow made it worse. She watched him cross the room and enter something into the panel nearest the door. He was awfully close. If not for the helmet, she’d be able to smell him. Her gaze moved over the fine scales of his jaw. The dark arch of his brow. The door hissed shut behind her.

Stavian returned to his console and Cerani moved her gaze to his. She wouldn’t show fear. She hadn’t shown fear when she’d been given as a bondmate to a cruel Terian male back at the settlement, and she wouldn’t show it now, even though she felt it.

Cerani pressed her fingers into her palms. Her nails dug into the inside of her gloves. “Would you please explain why I’m here? I don’t know what rule I broke that requires a personal conversation.”

“You didn’t break any rules.”

“Oh,” she said, then drew a blank. “Is it because of my quota? Because I’m not—”

“It’s not your quota,” Stavian said. “You’re not being punished.”

She raised both eyebrows. “So what is this?”

“I’m trying to make sense of something,” he said with a frown. “I think you can help me.”

Oh, no. If he wanted her to be an informant or monitor the other miners, she wouldn’t. There was no way. “I don’t know anything,” she said quickly.

“I think you do,” he said.

The lights on the consoles blinked in slow sync. One of the overhead panels flickered again. Cerani looked up, then back to him.

“I don’t. I’m just a miner, like everyone else,” she said.

That got a reaction—just a flick of his eyes. He didn’t move from the console. Just stood there, like he was thinking through what came next. “You are not like anyone else here,” he said. “And you know it.”

Cerani pressed her lips together. She didn’t answer.

He walked to the other side of the room and gestured toward a second console where a swivel seat sat empty. “Come here.”

She didn’t move. “I’ll stand”

“I didn’t ask you to sit,” he said with the slightest twitch of his lips.

She followed him only because curiosity had started outweighing her fear. This could be about her lack of sickness, and that was something she wanted to understand, too. He tapped the screen. A log opened. She saw a lot of red symbols, which looked like something urgent, but couldn’t make out any of it, of course.

“These are reports from tunnel set E, your mining section,” he said. “Everyone on your level has higher sickness levels from radiation exposure.”

This was news? Cerani stared at him, not sure what she was supposed to say.

“Unfortunately, level E also has the highest concentration of crystals. You’ve been down there longer than any other prisoner and have extracted more crystals than anyone. Yet, you’ve never logged a single health flag,” he said.

“Lucky, I guess.”

“Luck has nothing to do with your body’s resistance to radiation.”

She pressed her lips together. “How do you know I’m resistant to the radiation? Maybe I was issued a suit with a good seal.”

“Your suit is the same as everyone else’s,” he said, arching one brow. “You know that.”

Yes, she did know that. Cerani shrugged one shoulder.

“But scans aside, your vitality and good health are clear by looking at you.”

“If you’re so curious, why didn’t you bring me to Med Command?” she asked.

Stavian paused like he didn’t want to say the next thing. “Because I don’t trust them not to gut you in the name of science.”

That landed harder than she expected. She blinked, once, then again, trying to decide if she misheard him. But there wasn’t any sarcasm in his voice. No threat. Just truth, plain and sharp.

Cerani stepped back, far enough to feel the wall behind her with her heel. “You think they’d cut me open?”

He didn’t flinch. “Possibly.”

That…wasn’t the answer she needed right now.

Her mind darted. She hadn’t thought her resistance to the psiak radiation was something that would interest the Axis, other than squeezing more shifts from her. Maybe she needed to rethink that. Her throat tightened and her left fist clenched. “I’m not someone the Axis would find interesting,” she said, hoping to diffuse some of his curiosity. Her voice came out lower than she meant, steadier too. “I’m just a designation. Like the others. Like everyone back home.”

“That’s something I wanted to ask you,” he said. “Where exactly are you from, Cerani? Not the number on your intake record. The real place.”

Cerani watched him for a long second. He hadn’t used her designation. Just her name, like it meant something. Like she had a say in what happened next. But her fist stayed clenched. “I’m from settlement 112-1,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a farming world.” She paused. “Now I know it’s a prison.”

Stavian didn’t look surprised. “And before that?”

“There was nothing before that,” she replied. “I received my neck designation symbols as a newborn, like everyone else born at the settlements. I’d never been off the settlements until the day my friends and I were taken.”

He stepped closer to the console, like he was thinking again. “There were more of you?”

“Yes. Six of us,” she said, then shook her head. “No. Five. The overseer was able to talk the raiders into leaving Turi. But the Axis had given them permission to take us. As payment for something. They even had a contract.” She muttered the last part through her teeth.

“And where were you taken after you were abducted?” he asked.

She stared at him for a moment, confused. “Isn’t all this in my records?”

“If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Fine. We were taken to an auction of some sort.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself as memories struck fresh. “They said I didn’t…present well.” She remembered curling into a ball in that tube she was shoved into—basically naked—and burying her face in her arms. “So I was sold to you for mining.” Her eyes were hot when she looked up at him again.

His brows rose. “I didn’t purchase you. The Axis did. Or rather, they reacquired you, since you had always been in Axis custody.” A twist of his lips. Something rueful passed over his face.

It was interesting to see a flicker of…what? Regret? No, certainly not that. Cerani rubbed her upper arms and stared at him. “Either way. Here I am.”

“The records don’t state what species you are,” he said, tapping fingers on the surface of his console. “I’ve cross-matched your genetic scan. Nothing. Not even a partial tag. That’s not common.”

“I’m Terian,” she replied with a shrug. “That’s not a secret. At the auction, they called us by our species name and everyone seemed to know what we were.”

He looked at her. That same unreadable stare, sharp and too quiet.

“I want the truth,” he said. “Because either you’re someone very rare or you’re not supposed to exist at all.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she said, getting annoyed. Had he just called her in here to question her history? It wasn’t her fault if records were lost. “If Terians aren’t in your system, maybe you need to run an update. There aren’t massive numbers of us, but we do exist.”

Cerani dropped her arms and dropped into the seat by the console. The metal was cold through her suit. She didn’t care. She was hungry. Her legs were shaking, and if this interrogation was going to run long, she might as well stop pretending she wasn’t exhausted.

He didn’t tell her to sit, but when she did, he watched. Not in a harsh way, just…watching. Like he was waiting to see what she’d do next. He didn’t speak. Just moved to lean against the console across from her, ankles crossed, arms relaxed at his sides. His wings stretched briefly, then settled on his back again.

Cerani studied him, her eyes narrowing. He didn’t look like someone who sent workers into deadly tunnels. Or ignored failing equipment. He didn’t move like a warden, or talk like one either. But that was exactly what he was. No matter how quiet he stood, how clean his uniform stayed, dying bodies piled up under his orders.

“Why do you think it isn’t affecting you?” he asked. “The radiation. The mining conditions. The exposure rate for your sector is lethal.”

“If I knew, I’d have said already,” she said. “I breathe the same air, use the same equipment. I don’t get it, either.”

“No pain? No fatigue? No cellular decay?”

“I’m tired,” she said. “But who wouldn’t be? I’ve missed meal rotation, and I’ve worked extended shifts for the past four cycles.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, it’s what I meant,” Cerani snapped. She leaned forward and locked her elbows on her knees. “You want to stand here and talk about how strange it is that my lungs aren’t collapsing, but you didn’t seem this concerned when Jorr was dragging himself out of the shaft, choking, two shifts ago.”

“I saw that.”

“Great. You saw it,” she said. “Did you do anything about it?”

“I pulled him from rotation this cycle.”

“That’s one,” she said, glaring. “What about Elba? She has lesions on her throat. What about Toval? He can’t pick up his tool kit without taking a stim tab before a shift. It doesn’t take a data stream to see they’re dying.”

Stavian didn’t respond right away. His jaw worked. His eyes stayed locked on hers.

“I’m not the one you should be asking questions about,” she said, softer now, but not gentler. “You’re curious why I’m not falling apart? I’m more curious why you let everyone else work until they collapse.”

“May I remind you that the miners here are convicted criminals,” he said. “Jorr murdered an Axis official. Toval was a spy.”

“I’ve done nothing,” she said quietly. “Aside from having the poor sense to be born into a penal colony.”

Stavian pushed off the console. His pace was slow and steady as he walked to the side of the room. He hit a switch and one of the wall displays blinked dark, then pulled up a rotating feed of more data. It was obvious that he expected her to know what she was looking at. Was he unaware that she couldn’t read any of it?

“I know the system is broken,” he said. “I’m trying to hold it together with repairs that barely hold past one shift rotation.”

“At least you’re making quota,” she said dryly. “The Axis must be pleased.”

He turned to her, silver eyes hot and molten. “Do you think this is the job I wanted? All of this?”

Cerani tilted her head. “I think it’s the one you chose to keep. Every cycle.”

That landed. She saw it in the flex of his jaw. He didn’t argue. Just moved until he stood across from her again.

“I was raised by the Axis. My duty is to them,” he said.

Cerani let out a breath like a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “The riests at my old settlements worshipped the Axis. We bowed to Axis guards when they arrived to take our food. We weren’t allowed to read, of course, but we sang Axis prayers and if we questioned the Axis, the riests would punish us.” Her gaze locked onto his. “You sound like those riests.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t forget your place, Cerani.”

“Oh, I know my place.” Her voice rose as anger bubbled up. “Did you know that under the Axis rule, we didn’t have enough food to adequately feed every child? The Axis took most of the harvest, kept us rationed and starved. My bondmate died from a fever because we didn’t have even the simplest of medicines. You talk about duty while you watch people suffer.” She missed the surprise that moved over his features at mention of her bondmate, as she threw up her hands. “ Fek . Why am I even bothering?”

Silence stretched between them. The only sounds left were the low hum of equipment in the room and the crackle of a nearby power relay.

“I care more than you know, Cerani,” he said.

She stood, meeting his gaze without fear. “My designation is 630-I,” she said. “Do not pretend I’m anything more.”

They stared at each other. Long enough that her stomach growled.

Stavian reached behind the central console and pulled something out—compact, gray, unmarked. A ration square. He held it out.

Cerani didn’t take it. “Think that fixes something?”

“No,” he said. “But you’re hungry.”

She was. With an annoyed growl, she reached out and snatched it from his hand. Her gloved fingers brushed his bare ones. Big. Strong. “If only I could eat it with this fekking suit on.”

Stavian didn’t say anything else. He went back to the console and keyed something in. One of the lights beside the door turned green. “You’re clear to return to the barracks,” he said without looking at her. “I’ll summon you again if I have more questions.”

Cerani held back the words fek you, but just barely. She wasn’t even sure why. She had nothing to lose. The radiation might not kill her, but something here would. The Axis had her and she saw no way that they would ever let her go.