Chapter One
Diana Mallory, all grown up.
If there was a way to get my twelve-year-old brother to pay attention to what he was doing, I had yet to find it. Asher sung to himself and daydreamed. He couldn’t have cared less about doing the job we’d been sent to do. I wasn’t even angry with him. Asher was a musician at heart, not an engineer. Unfortunately, in the world we lived in, none of us were going to get to play music for a living.
We had to know how to fix what broke, and right now what needed our attention was the remote alert system keeping zombies from getting through our black hole and killing us all.
Around us, machines buzzed and clicked. I loved the noise. I understood electronics. Digital systems never wanted anything from me except to be fixed and updated. I was the perfect engineer. When I repaired, I wasn’t the sometimes glitchy daughter of the president of the Mars station. I was Diana Mallory, goddess of lasers, or Diana Mallory, queen of the engine room.
My twelve-year-old brother, Asher Jackson, danced himself straight into the tool closet and knocked over every water wrench I had in the place. He jumped back, his eyes wide and terrified. He turned slowly toward me. Asher really didn’t like when anyone yelled at him. Luckily for him, I wasn’t a yeller by nature.
We didn’t particularly look alike, except for our brown hair, and even then our different fathers were both brunettes so our genetic similarity didn’t rely on our having the same mother. Asher had his father’s curls and our mother’s expressive blue eyes, which he often used to his advantage. Being cute had always been his most dangerous weapon of manipulation; people simply wanted to give him what he wanted. Including me.
He smiled sheepishly. “Whoops.”
I pointed at the mess, and he shrugged before he bent over to start picking up the wrenches.
“Sorry, Diana.”
I nodded before I rubbed his hair out of his eyes. His curls got in his face all the time, and there was no taming them except for the time we’d shaved his hair all off. He’d hated the look. Even at six years old he’d been vain about his curls.
“It’s okay.” I bent over to help him. Asher didn’t want to be here. I knew it, and he knew I knew it. He’d gotten into trouble for missing curfew on the Mars’ station when he’d gone to hear a band play, and Uncle Cooper, his father and one of my mom’s six husbands, punished him by making him come out on Artemis, one of their ships, to help me repair the alert beacons.
The alert systems had been sending out false positives to the station, making us gear up for upcoming battles that never happened. For obvious reasons, we needed that to stop. The expense of sending out a shuttle every time one of the beacons went off was getting out of hand, and our war ship captains didn’t know which way was up anymore. Or so the council, led by Mother, said all the time.
Asher’s gaze rose to meet mine. “How many more of these do we have to do?”
Was he serious? He couldn’t be. I put the last wrench back in the case and closed the closet. Beacon A2TFH was okay. I noted the lack of a problem in the log and moved on to the next one. So far only two showed any errors at all. What was happening here? They weren’t even part of the same system.
“Diana,” Asher tugged on my arm. “I asked you a question.”
I turned to look at him. The day he’d been born, two days after my tenth birthday, I’d fallen hopelessly in love with his baby blue eyes. There were seven children in the family now, including myself, and I adored them all. Hopelessly. I’d do anything for any of them anytime. And they all knew it.
There were two hundred more sensors to look at. “You should go into the gaming room and write your music. I want to hear it.”
My statement should settle it. He didn’t want to check the systems with me, and I didn’t want to be his punishment. He should want to be with me— or go somewhere else.
Asher didn’t move. “I’m supposed to help you. Dad says I need to know how to do this stuff or no one will ever let me on their ship. He also said I broke the rules, so now I have to do the punishment. And that it’s good for you to have someone to talk to.”
I felt the burn of Uncle Cooper’s not so subtle criticism as much as I ever did. Not only did he think spending time with me constituted a punishment for Asher, but he’d also sent my twelve-year-old brother to babysit me so I wouldn’t get so lost again in my own head that I forgot to talk.
They needed their twenty-two-year-old daughter to be presentable on the station. Not weird. Not off putting. Not too odd to be the daughter of the president.
Asher’s face fell. “What did I say to make you upset?”
“Nothing, darling.” I ruffled his hair. He still let me do that even though he resisted with everyone else. “Write your music before it makes you nuts. I won’t tell.”
He threw his arms around me. “You’re always the best.” He turned and then stopped. I wasn’t sure why. Had I not been clear? Did he not understand he didn’t have to do this with me? What more was I supposed to say?
Finally, he spoke. “Mom says you’re going to have to take a job soon. One that’s not with the family. You’re coming of age.”
Work or marriage by twenty-three—yes, she was correct. No one could ever make me get married—in either the single or plural version of the institution the laws were clear: it was always the woman’s choice. Only if I didn’t, I had to get a job and be useful. Staying in the arms of my family and working on their ships and equipment would be too easy. I had to go out on my own and help society. Or the third option, which felt like no option at all, I had to join the Sisters of the Universe and never be seen again outside of their protected walls. My family didn’t bring up that potential outcome, and I was glad for it. I didn’t think I was built for constant self-deprivation, meditation, and never seeing the outside world again.
Asher knew the rules as well as I did. Why did he stand there and wait? After a moment, he ran to me again and hugged me tightly. He’d always been a hugger, particularly when he was sad or upset. When he was two years old and my mother had been pregnant with our half-brother Colin, the Sandler Cartel had attacked the station for the first time.
We’d hidden in an air duct together. He’d held onto me like I was the only thing keeping him alive. He squeezed me like that again. In a family where our parents played politics to keep us all alive, Asher and I understood each other to be the resident oddballs.
Or at least I understood him as much as I did anyone. People weren’t like machines. I couldn’t always figure them out. I couldn’t fix them.
“Thanks.” He let go then scurried down the corridor of Artemis to the game room, where I knew he’d hidden his sheet music. Later, he’d enter them into the computer where he could listen to what he composed.
I got back to the matter at hand. These beacons had become the difference between life and death. For years, Mars Station had left the Black Hole open for travel. No one here wanted to return. The other side of the universe, the world humans had travelled so many years ago to escape Earth when it had been nearly destroyed by disease and war, had become hell. I’d been born on the other side.
When I was five, my father and uncles had come back from where we now lived to rescue us. I’d spent a year in the black hole traveling to the Mars Station and then the rest of my life on this side. Nothing was perfect. Not machines. Not love. Not people. Not dreams. Not hopes. But things were better here. That much I knew. Sometimes at night, I could still hear the drones from so long ago looking for us, coming to take us to the bad place where the woman with crazy eyes would hurt us. I pushed away those thoughts. They did no one any good.
As the years went on, the ships making it through the hole were more and more destitute. The las
t few had really sick people aboard, people who had eventually started to behave not like people at all. They wanted to eat human flesh. Uncle Dane, who headed up the medical unions, had them locked in cells in the bottom of the station as he studied them and tried to help. Uncle Dane had never seen anything like them. He called them Zombies and the name stuck.
Zombies couldn’t be allowed to come through or, worse, couldn’t be allowed to not be caught before they spread their condition. There was even talk of closing the hole altogether so we could stop the creatures from coming through at all.
My mother didn’t want a permanent closure, but she didn’t have the votes. She could have them … if only I’d agree to let Argus Lapidus court me. Or so Uncle Nolan had said to my father two weeks ago. They didn’t know I’d heard them, and it was better they didn’t. I might have to address the issue verbally if they learned I knew the truth.
Not that I was at all surprised.
Argus and his three brothers wanted me. I’d have to be an idiot to not know. His gaze followed me whenever I passed him from where he sat by O’Grady’s pub, the king on his perch. I was no great beauty like my mother. His craving wasn’t for my body, although there were so few women in the universe I’m sure he wouldn’t complain about getting to see me naked. That wasn’t, however, his main concern. No, he wanted the power that an alliance with the Alexander crew would give him on the Mars Station. The same alliance would get my mother what she wanted. He’d vote the way she wanted if she gave him her daughter. She’d never brought up the idea to me directly. My mother didn’t take threats and ultimatums well. She might tell him to go fuck himself on principal alone.
I leaned my head against the wall. I didn’t think I could handle one husband, let alone the four I would get with Lapidus. Maybe a single husband I could deal with—if he didn’t want to talk too much at night. If he understood my brain allotted me a certain amount of words per week, and if I used them all up on a Monday, I was done until they circled back around the following week.
Who was I kidding? I couldn’t have a husband. I was twenty-two, and I knew I wasn’t marriage material. Why didn’t everyone else?
The alarm on Artemis went off, jarring me from my thoughts. It wasn’t the beacons setting the alert off. The one I worked on was perfectly fine. I ran from the room to check the sensor in the corridor. Oh no. I took a deep breath to swallow. It was the Sandler Cartel. They were here. And before I could even digest that startling notion, one of their ships fired at us. Artemis jerked starboard.
Our ship was old. Decades past being able to handle this kind of battle. And I was alone onboard with my twelve-year-old brother.
“Diana.” Asher rushed into the hall and grabbed me. “What’s going on?”
The boy had never seen battle off of the station where we had sub-routines after sub-routines to protect us if our own security forces failed. Utter terror crossed his face and made me focus. I took his hand then ran with him to the control room so I could see a live view beyond the basic run down the computer outside the engine room relayed.
The ship jolted again. The one good thing Artemis had going for her was that her shields could take some pretty good hits before they got into trouble. My Uncle C.J. had done a great job back in the day with making the armor strong. Still, the scene in front of me did nothing to make me feel any better. We weren’t just facing one ship attacking us. No, there were four.
“What’s happening?” Asher’s voice shook, and his hand in mine was ice cold.
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to think. I had to figure out how …
“Diana.” He jarred my arm. My brother needed me. I had to reassure him even though there was no easing statement I could say to make this better.
I pulled him against me. “If Sandler has come with this many ships just to the black hole, then he has ten times that many aimed at the station. Don’t be scared. Uncle Nolan loves a good battle. He’s been prepping for this kind of assault a long time. Sandler Cartel might finally get it through their thick heads they aren’t ever getting Mars Station from us.” I forced more words from my mouth. My tongue felt heavy, itchy. I hated when this happened. The alarms going off were playing havoc with my nervous system. We never knew why I reacted the way I did to things. There was no medical reason to be found. Yet here it was again. My voice threatened to stop working.
I kept talking, pushing through. I’d fall apart later. For now, Asher needed me to communicate, not just act. “We have to get safe. Come.”
I pulled him along. The weapons were not as great as the shields. To protect the station, my father had taken most of his bombs off Artemis and put them on the station where his family lived so he could shoot them off as he saw fit. We weren’t entirely without resources on Artemis, but getting away would be better. Artemis couldn’t run away. She was too big, too bulky, and Sandler had us blocked. There were, however, escape pods. Tiny enough not to be noticed on their own, they had the right kind of alloy to distract the other ships’ sensors and let us make a go for it.
They fit one person each. Ash was going to hate it. I didn’t care. Alive was better than dead or captured by Sandler.
I shuddered at the thought.
The escape pod room had once been the hydroponics bay. I remembered growing vegetables with Cooper, learning how every small detail played a part when you made something from scratch. When we’d gotten to Earth and then promptly left it to go to Mars Station, my Uncles redesigned the ship. Food wasn’t as much of an issue as getting away. The Station, Mars itself, and Earth grew enough food so that Cooper moved his design off Artemis and C.J. and Wes installed the pods.
“Hold onto the wall in case we jar again.” I turned on the computers and quickly typed the pass codes to turn on the escape ships. One immediately lit up, but the other nine remained off. I hit the trigger again. They were broken. I couldn’t understand how this happened. Uncle C.J. would never have let Artemis remain damaged like this. He would have at least sent me to fix them, and he ran periodic scans of the ship to check her maintenance. We still used Artemis regularly for small things like beacon repairs.
The ship got slammed into, veering portside. Okay, we didn’t have a lot of time. Sandler wanted Artemis dead in space. Or they at least wanted us away from the black hole. I couldn’t worry about why the pods didn’t activate. I had to deal with now.
“Diana,” Asher cried in heaving sobs. I squeezed his hand. There wasn’t any time. We only had one escape pod, and there wouldn’t be enough air in it to let both of us breathe. I had no time to alter the settings.
I pushed him into the pod. The second it registered in his brain what was happening, he fought me. Fortunately, I was still bigger than him, although not by much.
“What are you doing? There’s only one. We can’t both go in this.”
I kissed his forehead. “I know. Be good. Be safe. Be brave. I love you.”
I shut the pod and turned on the gas. It wouldn’t put him to sleep, but it would make him loopy and relaxed. With a button on the ship’s computer, I sent him out into space. He’d be okay. It was programmed to take him home. For good measure and to calm my beating heart, I checked the screen. He made it past the ships without any indication they saw him.
I rushed to the com and dialed Mars. Artemis was going to break soon. I could feel it start to rattle. My Uncle Wes picked up. My family had to know what was going on. “Diana? All okay?”
“No. We’re under attack.”
His eyes got wide, and he poked at his monitors. “I don’t see that.”
“Somethings wrong with your monitors then. Only one pod worked. I sent Asher in it. He’s on his way to you.”
Artemis groaned, and Wes heard the sound. He stood from his seat. “Tell me what’s happening. Nolan, Geoff, I need you now.”
“Too late.” I shook my head. Only minutes had passed since the first explosion, and they felt like hours. “I have one shot left. I’m going to push into the black hole.
Maybe they won’t follow me.”
“Baby.” My father rushed into the screen. “What’s happening?”
They all spoke off screen, and I ignored them. Taking control of the ship from the pod bay, I maneuvered it as best I could. It wasn’t enough. My propulsion engines were broken.
“Diana,” my father shouted. “Report.”
“Engines are down.”
He pointed at me. “Use the bomb. The one left. It’ll push you. Check your com. I’m sending the directions for where to aim it and when to tell it to blow. It’ll move you. We’ll come get you from the hole, tug you out. Do it. Now.”
I couldn’t think about what I was doing. Bombs terrified me. Even using them from the computer made me want to puke. Still, I had no time to worry. I had to get it done. The Station alarms went off. My family would have no time to hold my hand through this.
I did as he wanted, and the force of the explosion pushed me into the hole. I watched as the view changed on the monitors. The black hole seemed thicker than normal space. I couldn’t reconcile what I saw with any science I understood. Maybe I was losing my mind. Soon I couldn’t see much of what was on the other side. Wes shouted something to me, but he looked like a talking head. The view screen went black. I sat back in my chair. All I had to do was wait. I’d sit on the edge of the black hole, and when they were done with their battle, they’d come and get me and …
No.
With what little stellar cartography I had available in the thick black nothingness, I could see two of the Sandler ships fire. I wouldn’t be able to withstand a direct hit. The shields were down. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted more out of life than I’d had. But I wasn’t surprised it would end this way. My whole life had been surviving one disaster after another. It had always been a matter of time until it all went to complete hell. I braced, ready for it. Somehow, I’d always known I would die in violence and not old in my bed with loved ones around me. I’d been born in an explosion, and apparently that was how I would go out too.