Novum: Exile: (Book 2) Read online

  NOVUM: EXILE

  By Joseph Rhea

  NOVUM: EXILE Copyright © 2014 by Joseph Rhea. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this eBook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author, who can be contacted by email at: [email protected]

  Book cover by David Rhea

  (DaveRhea.net)

  Also available in print worldwide.

  Learn more at JosephRhea.com

  Contents

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About the Author

  Books by Joseph Rhea

  Chapter 01

  A man and woman ran single-file through the darkened cornfield, their faces concealed by black, hooded overcoats. They had been changing direction every few minutes and were beginning to think they had thrown off any pursuers. Then an ear of corn exploded right in front of the man, forcing him to stop in his tracks. The woman following tried to swerve around him but tripped, taking out several stalks before sprawling face-first into the moist dirt.

  The man dropped to his hands and knees and crawled over to her, trying to stay as low as possible. “Got to keep moving,” he whispered, out of breath. He was in decent shape for forty-five, but three hours at a constant run had worn him out. His poor wife was far less prepared for this kind of activity, so he let her rest a moment while he caught his breath. “It’s getting dark, and I think they’re just firing randomly into the…” Even in the faint evening light, he could see that something was wrong. “Are you hurt, sweetheart?” he asked as he gently turned her over. Blood covered her face or what was left of it.

  He put his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs. A moment passed, then he heard a bullet whiz past him, and then a dozen more in rapid succession, but he didn’t care. He was ready to give up, just fall down next to his beautiful wife, and let his blood mingle with hers in the soil, fertilizing the plants around them. But something made him stand up and start running again. It felt like her hand on his wrist, pulling him forward.

  Blinded by sweat and tears, he ran on for uncounted minutes, stopping only when the field ended abruptly, and he was face-to-face with the curved wall of the dome. He almost panicked, but then he saw it in the dirt off to his left: the maintenance hatch he and his wife had been trying to locate. How he had managed to reach it while running aimlessly through the cornfield could only be explained as sheer luck. Or perhaps he had been guided there. He looked down at his arm and felt her invisible hand let go.

  “Time to leave,” he whispered just before a bullet struck him in the back.

  Chapter 02

  “To the Rogue Wave,” AJ said, then tossed back her drink, and reached for another. A dozen small glasses were lined up on the rough-hewn metal table between them like two rows of ships waiting to dock. The odd part was that they hadn’t paid for a single one; people kept stopping by and dropping them off.

  “Slow down,” Jake said. It was her fourth drink, and he hadn’t even touched his yet. “I want to get an early start tomorrow, and I don’t want my first mate guiding my boat out of the dock with a hangover.”

  “Yes sir, Captain Stone, sir,” she said, making an exaggerated salute with her free hand. She swallowed another drink and put the empty shot glass down. “You need to learn to relax,” she added. “This is a Guild bar. We’re safe here.”

  He picked up one of the glasses and stared at her distorted image in the brown liquid inside. Andrea Juno was smart, strong, and tough as deck plating. The columns of small tattoos on her temples, he had learned, were the Shippers Guild’s way of showing rank, in or out of uniform. They gave her otherwise attractive face a harsh edge, which fit her personality. He had known her for about three months, but had never seen this side of her. Drunk, she was almost friendly.

  “You seem to have a lot of acquaintances here,” he said, glancing at the glasses between them.

  She shook her head, making her black ponytail whip behind her. “The drinks aren’t for me.”

  He looked at her. “Then who are they for?”

  She sat her empty glass on the table. “You.” Before he could ask why, she added, “You’re not a Guild member, Jake, so I had to vouch for you in order for them to let you in.”

  Just then, an older man with a nearly white beard walked over and placed two more filled glasses on the table. “Good to see you again, Alex,” he said to his first mate, then nodded to Jake before walking back to his table.

  “Alex?” he asked. “How come everyone here calls you something different? I thought your name was Andrea Juno. I get ‘AJ’ as a nickname, but where does ‘Alex’ come from?”

  She tossed back another drink. “Can we drop it?”

  “All right, Alex, but you must have vouched really well, considering I’ve only been a captain for three months. What the bilge kind of lie did you make up to get these people to buy me so many drinks?”

  She turned and stared at him, her face becoming more serious. “I told them the truth. I told them that you disobeyed a direct order from your former captain and sacrificed his daughter—your girlfriend—to save your ship and its crew.” She raised her next glass to him. “That makes you a heck of a sailor in their eyes.” She downed the drink and then turned back to face the room.

  He just sat there, unable to breathe, let alone speak. Everything she told them, the same story he once believed, was a complete lie. His girlfriend’s death had brought him to the brink of suicide, and only after meeting this crew did he discover that he hadn’t been the cause of it. Stacy killed herself to save her father’s ship and crew. She was the one everyone should be toasting.

  He picked up his glass and swallowed the contents, then tried to control his grimace as the alcohol burned a slow path down to his stomach. “What the bilge is this, anyway?” he asked when his voice returned.

  “Corn mash whiskey,” she replied, before downing another.

  Of course, it would be corn, he thought to himself. They were in New Braska after all, the biggest corn producer in the colony. In the three days he had been stuck there looking for cargo to haul, he had been subjected to meals of corn on the cob, fried corn, boiled corn, roasted corn, corn salad, corn fritters, corn flakes, corn tortillas, corn chips, corn muffins, corn bread, and who knew what else?

  She picked up another glass. “To things made out of corn.”

  “Oh, please,” he groaned. “I can go the rest of my life and never see another ear of corn.”

  “What’d you eat in Capitol City? Seaweed?”

  “It’s called algae, and you can make a lot more things out of algae than corn. My parents were growers, so I ought to know.”

  She sneered. “Upper class, huh?”

  “No. The hydroponics levels in Capitol City are actually down near the bottom of the dome, not that far from sewage treatment. It was a crappy job for my parents, but it meant we got some privileges.”

  “To privileges,” she said, picking up her glass again.

 
Jake grabbed her arm before she could drink. “By ‘privileges,’ I mean getting to breathe clean air in the upper dome for an extra hour every couple of days.”

  She pulled her arm away from his grip and glared at him. “Are you ever not serious?”

  “You think I’m the one who’s too serious? At least you know the chip I carry on my shoulder. I don’t know a damn thing about yours.”

  She looked away quickly but then tried to cover it with a smile. “Who says I have a chip on my shoulder?”

  He shook his head. Pulling information from her was like trying to open a hatch under pressure—a waste of effort. He surveyed the bar. “Tell me something, AJ. Do you ever feel like just giving all of this up?”

  She stared at him. “What? Drinking in outpost bars like this, or sailing in general?”

  “Sailing. Being a shipper. Living your life inside a metal box.”

  “Everyone lives in a metal box,” she said. “Some are just bigger than others and don’t move around as much.”

  “Capitol City was big,” he said, remembering his life growing up in Civica Colony’s largest dome—the one place that was now off limits to him. “I never appreciated it until I left.”

  “Most people don’t,” she said as she reached for another glass. She held it there until Jake picked one up too. Apparently, the small talk was over. “To good cargo!” she said.

  “Now that’s one thing I definitely won’t drink to,” he said, sitting his glass back down on the table. “You promised me that we could get the best cargo by hanging out in this dive.” He glanced around cautiously before continuing in a more subdued tone. “What you got us is not exactly what I’d call a gem of a job.”

  “Gem?” she asked, then downed the drink. “Hazardous cargo pay, plus a full recharge is guaranteed.”

  “Don’t forget provisions,” he said with a mocking seriousness. “All the corn we can carry.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Full batteries,” she repeated. “When was the last time you heard those words? That much power will take us anywhere in the colony, if we don’t burn it up trying to get there fast.”

  The thought of leaving and not coming back was suddenly appealing. “So, I guess I’ll drink to our cargo after all, just as long as it doesn’t blow up before we can unload it.” He reached for his drink, but someone bumped into the table, knocking all of the remaining glasses over.

  AJ jumped up from her chair, but then sat back down just as quickly and grabbed the sides of the table. “Why the bilge is the room spinning?” she asked with a slur.

  Jake looked up at the man standing next to them. He was wearing a large, hooded overcoat, even though the bar was overly hot, like most of New Braska.

  “Sorry,” the man blurted out. He was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was leaning on AJ’s chair, obviously suffering from too much corn mash. “I’m looking for Captain Stone of the Rogue Wave,” he said in a hushed voice. “I…I require passage.”

  “The Wave is not a passenger ship,” AJ said, pushing the man’s hand off her chair, but not bothering to stand up or face him.

  The man almost fell over. “Please, I’ll…I’ll pay you whatever you want. I don’t even care where you’re going. I just need—”

  “Take a walk,” AJ said, her voice growing sterner.

  Jake could see desperation in the man’s eyes, and it reminded him of the time he spent trying to get out of Capitol City without success. It had been three months since his luck had changed, but it felt like just yesterday. He stood up and pulled the man to the side, away from AJ’s earshot. “We’re loading cargo in the morning and aiming for an oh-six-hundred departure,” he whispered. “Dock seventeen. Clean yourself up a bit and have your bags packed and whatever money or barter items you have ready by then, and we’ll talk.”

  The man nodded and then turned and walked away without a word. Jake sat back down. “Where were we?”

  AJ picked up an empty glass and stared at it. “You need to grow up, Jake,” she said, her voice suddenly calm and sober.

  “Excuse me?” he asked, taken back by her brasher-than-usual statement.

  She sat the glass on the table. “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

  Jake put a hand up. “Stop right there. I’ve found that whenever someone starts a sentence with, ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ they usually follow it with something that’s pretty damn rude.”

  Her face softened a bit. “Sorry, Captain. It’s just that you asked me to teach you the rules of the Shippers Guild, and one of them is that you never invite a stranger onto your boat without a background check.”

  “So, that rule certainly worked well back when I first met you, didn’t it? The Range brothers just about killed all of us, remember?”

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t my fault. Nia vouched for them. It was her responsibility as acting captain—”

  “Well, I’m captain now, and I’ll accept responsibility for that guy. He needs help.”

  She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Everybody needs help, remember? We live in a cesspool of a colony that’s running low on power and food, and every day it seems like it’s getting worse. Soon there are going to be riots, and then, as Nia said, maybe civil war. We can’t help everyone.”

  Jake sighed. He hated it when she was right, which was most of the time. “The guy seemed pretty drunk,” he admitted. “He probably won’t show up tomorrow anyway.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If he does show up, I’ll talk to him. When I’m sober, I’m pretty good at reading people. If he passes my scrutiny, we can maybe discuss giving him passage.”

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugged then stood up. “Let’s get back to the ship. I need sleep, and I don’t like leaving Ash in charge for very long.”

  Jake smiled as he stood up. “Worried he’ll take over the ship while we’re gone? Change all the door codes?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You laugh, but it’s happened on other ships. The title, ‘Acting Captain,’ even in port, has a way of going to a person’s head.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure he’s doing fine.”

  Chapter 03

  On the bridge of the Rogue Wave, Captain Ash Fields stood facing his new crew. At helm, Vienna Raines, or “Vee,” was probably the best-looking woman he had ever worked with. With her dark skin and fit body, only his experience as a command officer kept him from visiting her quarters during off hours. His First Mate, Andrea “AJ” Juno, was at navigation. She was no less attractive than Vee, but her hard edge and no-nonsense attitude made her more of a challenge, and therefore, more desirable.

  As usual, his adopted little sister, Jessie, sat at the rear Acoustics station. She was born with a number of mental defects, which was why her original family dumped her, but one of those defects gave her the unique ability to “see” sound waves in her head, which meant that she could distinguish sonar returns better than most programs. She still needed her big brother’s help to get jobs, of course, which was why she was on his bridge.

  The final crewmember was a fresh-out-of-the-dome recruit named Jacob Stone. His parents were wealthy ship builders, and currently held the paperwork on the Wave, which was the only reason he made the cut. He was sitting across from Jessie, trying to figure out the Engineering console, when the call came through.

  “Mayday! Mayday! This is Aquarius seeking immediate assistance. Mayday! Mayday!”

  Ash turned to his command console. “This is Captain Fields of the Rescue Vessel, Rogue Wave. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Thank Goodness, Captain. Our engines are down, and life support is failing. We need—”

  “What can I do?” a woman’s voice said from the back. Ash turned and saw Jane, his new cook, rising up from the rear stairwell, her red hair shimmering in the overhead lights.

  Ash turned back to his station and said, “Freeze it.” Everything around him stopped moving; even the lights on the forward dashboard stoppe
d blinking. “I had a specific schedule set up,” he said as he stared out the forward viewport. “Jane wasn’t supposed to come up until—” A hand on his shoulder made him jump. He turned to see Jane standing right next to him.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked innocently.

  “Computer,” he said more sternly, “I said freeze everything.” When Jane continued to move towards him, he yelled, “End program!”

  As the bridge and everyone else dissolved into a swarm of barely-visible utility-fog particles and began funneling themselves towards the corner storage units, Ash realized that the woman still standing before him was not part of the simulation after all.

  “What are you doing in here, Jane?” he asked. “You know the rec room is off limits when someone else is using it. How do you keep getting past the door lockout?”

  She turned and headed towards the now-visible exit. “I’m sorry,” she whispered over her shoulder as she reached for the door.

  “Jane!” he yelled when he saw what she was doing. “I… Um… I don’t know what to say.” He pointed at the all-white, empty room. “What you saw here was a fantasy. It’s just something from my imagination.”

  “Fantasy?” she repeated. “So you’re saying that you don’t actually want to be the captain of this ship?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, it’s sort of like a training program, for when…” He let out a sigh. “Listen, Jane, can you just forget what you saw here? We’re not allowed to simulate crew members, and if the captain found out how I rendered him, he would—”

  “I can’t,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “It’s not possible for me to forget this, or anything else I have learned since you found me. It’s why I’m here.”

  He was about to repeat himself, when it dawned on him that he might have just discovered something important about her. Jane was a mystery, even, supposedly, to herself. They had rescued her from an abandoned dome on the far side of the colony about three months back, and when they brought her aboard, they discovered that she could barely speak and had no memory of her past, or even her own name. Someone called her “Jane Doe,” as sort of a joke, but the name stuck.