The Renegat Read online

  130 Years Ago

  The Brazza Two

  They assembled in the Third Level Mess Hall, the one designed for first-years. The furniture was tiny, built for small bodies, and the walls had painted murals of cats and dogs, the comfort animals kept in the arboretum wing, and not allowed on this level. Still, Nadim Crowe knew, a lot of tears got shed beneath those murals, hiccoughy tears, the kind that little kids couldn’t hold back even if they wanted to.

  He thought the murals cruel, but then, he thought sending little kids to boarding school while their parents gallivanted across the universe equally cruel. Last year, he’d volunteered down here until the sobs got to him. Then he requested a transfer, which had sent him to the medical wing, and that turned out to be infinitely worse.

  Why he’d decided on the Third Level Mess as a meeting site for the two teams was beyond him. It went into that category of his existence that he filed under It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.

  Of course, he hadn’t thought that through until tonight, while he was waiting for the others to arrive. Before that, he’d only thought about the competition. He had had a lot of prep to do, and that meant doing some of the prep here, in the Third Level Mess.

  A week ago, he’d tampered with the Third Level Mess’s security system, shutting down the audio and video tracking just to see if anyone noticed the system had been tampered with. He kept the environmental controls on and boosted the emergency warnings, just in case something bad happened here while the security system was off. The Mess was all about little kids, after all.

  He had chosen the middle of Ship Night, when (in theory) no little kids were using the Mess. He’d kept the system down for three hours just to see if anyone noticed.

  No one did notice, which disturbed him and relieved him in equal measures. He didn’t like that it was so easy to tamper with the security systems on the Brazza Two, but at the same time, it made this little dare easier.

  And, he knew, that the systems in other parts of the ship, systems that monitored kids his age, were better designed. The adults didn’t think that little-little kids would meddle with security systems, but the adults knew that teens did. Crowe supposed if any of the little-littles had successfully screwed with a security system, they would have moved to the gifted track immediately.

  He had no idea how the gifted track worked for the littlest of kids. He hadn’t been on this ship when he was really little. He had arrived on the ship at age nine. Unlike most kids, he’d actually requested his berth. He’d already been old enough to know that anywhere in the universe was better than a landlocked life with his parents, so why not go to the best possible school which had the added bonus of being in space as well.

  The fading bruises, two broken ribs, and evidence of other badly healed broken bones had convinced the Fleet’s school administrators that Crowe had been right about his parents. His tests—off the charts when it came to mathematics, science, and technical aptitude—convinced the administrators to send him to the most prestigious school ship in the Fleet.

  He never would have cried underneath these murals if he had arrived here when he was young enough to eat in the Third Level Mess Hall. He would have celebrated.

  He wasn’t celebrating now. He was jittery.

  He’d been the first to arrive in the Third Level Mess, and it was mostly dark. Five dim overhead lights failed to properly illuminate the space. Four of the lights were in the Mess’s four corners, leaving pools of darkness over the tables and the back area.

  The fifth light—the brightest light—was off to his right. It shone over the long rectangular counter designed for the adult staff to serve the little kids their food. When he volunteered here, he wondered why there was a serving station. After all, in the other messes, the students were monitored by computer and actually informed when they took a food item that didn’t fit into their regulation diet.

  He asked his question, and was told that computer diet controls caused most of the little-littles to melt down. Instead, it was better to have adult assistance, so when a child did break down, he did so with someone nearby who could soothe him.

  Crowe had seen a lot of soothing here, more than he had experienced at home. He’d also seen a lot of unhappy children. Because of that, he knew, most people on the Brazza Two avoided the Third Level Mess.

  No one monitored this section of the ship after dinner either. He had double- and triple-checked that himself when he had come here in preparation for the competition. He had gotten the idea, and before he had even told Tessa about it, he had gone to the three main competition sites—the Mess and two different ship bays—to see if the competition was even possible.

  It was—just barely. It would take some luck and a whole bunch of skill. That was what he loved about it, and that was why he was so very excited.

  In the last fifteen minutes, his team had started to arrive. Ten of his friends, sliding in one at a time, some of them fist-bumping him as they passed, others just hovering near the bench beneath the mural, which provided the only truly comfortable seating. The bench was at adult height, probably because whoever built it had had some kind of brain fart, and had forgotten that this room was for little-littles.

  As the team arrived, Crowe stood with his hands behind his back, deliberately mimicking Captain Mbue’s favorite posture. She impressed him. She had been the captain since he started here. She was no-nonsense. When she gave her annual do-your-best speech to the various classes, she meant it. Some of the other teachers and staff on the ship treated the students with barely concealed condescension, but Captain Mbue seemed to believe each word she said.

  When Crowe became captain—a real captain, a captain of a DV-Class vessel—he would treat his entire crew with respect, from the oldest to the youngest. He would do his best to be exactly like Captain Mbue.

  And tonight, he was going to captain a ship. If he pulled this off, no one on the Brazza Two would be the wiser. Or if they found out, they would think him brazen but brilliant. He hoped for the first, but he would take the second.

  The question was whether or not he would still run the mission if Tessa failed to show up.

  Tessa Linley, the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen. She was luminescent, with dark brown eyes that perfectly matched her smooth unblemished skin. She wore her long hair in dozens of tiny braids that fell down her back most of the time, but when she was working hard on something delicate, she would wrap those braids around the top of her head like a crown.

  He had no idea if she knew that half of the competitions and challenges he had thrown at her had been because he wanted to see her marvelous brain at work and because he wanted to spend more time with her. He had yet to impress her, although he had won two of the past three challenges he had made to her.

  None had been as elaborate as this one. They had come up with it together. They had found some redundant systems in the Brazza Two’s security protocols. Thinking they had happened on something the more experienced engineers had missed, Tessa and Crowe had asked one of their instructors if they could begin the process of removing the redundant systems.

  The instructor had laughed, which surprised both of them. And then he had complimented them on their observations.

  But, he had said, those systems exist for a reason. This is a school ship with the best and brightest in the Fleet on board. We’ve learned over the years that no matter how hard we try to keep you students intellectually stimulated, you’ll still venture out on your own. And one of the things you’ll do is tamper with the systems. The redundancies make sure that the tampering and the damage from it are at a minimum.

  Crowe and Tessa said nothing to each other for days after that, but slowly they realized that they both had come to the same conclusion: they both decided to investigate the redundancies, to see what the “best and brightest” had tried before Crowe and Tessa had even thought of boarding the Brazza Two.

  That, combined with the fact that the Brazza Two had followed a part of t
he Fleet to a nearby Scrapheap for some major learning opportunity for the officer candidates, had captured Crowe’s imagination. Not only did he want to best the students who had come before him in the accelerated youth program, he also wanted to visit that Scrapheap, and he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to.

  Only the officer candidates—those in their twenties or older, with decades of schooling and experience beneath them—were allowed to go. And they would be supervised every moment of the visit, which sounded like torture to Crowe.

  He loved working on his own. And that, combined with the other strictures, had given him an idea.

  Tessa then refined it.

  And like almost everything they came up with, they decided to turn it into a competition.

  Unlike their other competitions, though, this one required the help of others. Together, Tessa and Crowe recruited half of their class.

  Tessa sidled up beside him. He knew she was there before he saw her. The scent of her jasmine soap always preceded her. She leaned against him, her soft skin warm against his, and he felt a jolt of lust.

  He took one step away. He didn’t want to be distracted by his body right now.

  “Wasn’t sure you were going to come,” he said softly.

  “And miss this? Are you kidding?” She stepped forward just a bit, probably so that she could see his face in the dim light.

  He could see hers, bright and eager and shining with excitement.

  “You do a head count?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”

  She punched his arm lightly. “We don’t have a lot of time. You should’ve been ahead of this.”

  “You’re the one who’s late,” he said.

  “I’m not late,” she said. “You were early.”

  “Still want to do this?” he asked, deflecting. Or maybe just deflecting the thoughts from his brain.

  Maybe that was why he didn’t win every contest he had with Tessa. Part of his brain was always busy controlling his body so that she wouldn’t know just how much she affected him. Another part of his brain monitored his every word so that he wouldn’t say something stupid. That part of his brain usually failed, especially as he got deeper into the contest and focused on the task at hand instead of his mouth.

  Fortunately, Tessa didn’t insult easily.

  She didn’t forget, though, either, and she often brought those comments back up, usually in a teasing way, but still. He found his missteps horribly embarrassing.

  “If I didn’t want to do this,” she said, “I wouldn’t be here. What I’m not sure about is whether or not we can finish before everyone gets up. I don’t want to come back to a welcoming committee.”

  He bit his lower lip. They had discussed this problem earlier, and then she had said it didn’t bother her.

  “It’s a possibility,” he said. “A good one. That’s why I’m asking you if you want to back out.”

  She let out a half laugh, and her eyes sparkled. She was so beautiful when she was smiling that it took his breath away.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “It’s been ages since we’ve done anything remotely exciting. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”

  “So have I,” he said, feeling a spike of energy running through him. “So let’s get to it.”

  She nodded, then started a head count, whispering the numbers under her breath. He counted with her, mentally making note of which team the people present were on.

  His team had gathered together near the mural wall. Hers was scattered around the room, huddling together in twos and threes. That one simple fact buoyed him. It meant his team was more cohesive than hers.

  “Looks like everyone’s here,” she said.

  Not only were both teams in place, but each member was the correct member. Once, he’d initiated a competition with Tessa, and half the people he’d handpicked to participate had sent someone else in their place. It had been a last-minute competition, though, and he really hadn’t prepped anyone.

  This time, he’d been running virtual drills with his team. He’d designed a three-part program that simulated what he thought would happen. The first part got the team to the docking bay. The second part was stolen from the flight simulator that first-year pilot training instructors used, and the third part was sheer guesswork.

  Tessa had warned him not to do anything like that—you’ll get caught and then what will you say? she asked; I’ll say that I was using my imagination just like they encourage, he replied. But he hadn’t gotten caught. And not only had he maintained the interest of his team in the adventure, he had also made sure they were as prepared as they could be.

  “Okay.” Tessa clapped her hands together to get everyone’s attention. It was ten-thirty p.m. ship time. They weren’t even supposed to start until eleven.

  But Crowe had no problem with starting early. The earlier they left, the sooner they would return. If they managed to get back before four a.m., they were less likely to be caught.

  Tessa had probably impressed that on her team; he certainly had on his.

  “This is your last chance if you want to back out,” Tessa was saying—to everyone, which kinda annoyed him. He didn’t want anyone to back out and he didn’t want to remind them that backing out was an option.

  Everyone was watching her. He could see faces half-illuminated in the dim light, all of them focused on her with great intensity, which also irritated him. She was his friend, not theirs—although that wasn’t true. Tessa somehow managed to be everyone’s friend, even though she was closest to him—or so he hoped.

  “There’s a chance we could get caught,” she said. “A good chance, really. But as I told you, or rather, as I told my team, there’s safety in numbers. They might punish all of us, but not as severely as they’d punish one of us. So you’d be helping out in more ways than one if you stay. Besides, this’ll be fun!”

  Her voice rose with that last bit, and it actually sounded like fun instead of something scary and dangerous.

  A bunch of people closest to Crowe smiled. He couldn’t see the other faces clearly enough to know if they were smiling too.

  He needed to take this over, though, before she scared them all to death.

  He said, “Those of you who’ve been in competitions before with me and Tessa know the drill. We’re going to have the computer start a thirty-second countdown. As soon as it hits zero, it’ll say Go! and you go. You know where you’re supposed to be, so you run there.”

  Or, he thought, his team knew where they were supposed to be. He had no idea if hers knew.

  “You should have instructions from me or Tessa, so you should know what to do.” He didn’t look at her in case she failed at this for the first time ever. She used to be the most organized one of the two of them. She wasn’t anymore—he had learned that lesson soundly and had started to beat her at her own game.

  “If you don’t know exactly,” Tessa said, lending credence to the idea that she hadn’t prepared as much as he had, “follow the other members of your team. My team is wearing a slash of lime green along one cheek tonight, so if you see someone with a slash across their face and you’re part of my team, follow that person. Someone will put you to work.”

  He hadn’t thought about color-coding his team, but that was only necessary for this part of the competition anyway. He had hardly given the front part of this any thought at all, because that wasn’t the part that interested him.

  The competition really didn’t start until the teams got on board their respective ships.

  “Remember,” Tessa said, “the point of this is to have fun, and maybe learn something along the way.”

  Crowe disagreed: he thought the point was to learn something and maybe have fun along the way, but he stayed quiet. Tessa was better at rousing the troops than he was.

  “So, ready?” Tessa asked. “The countdown starts…now!”

  Apparently that was her computer command, because the androgynous voice s
tarted counting backwards from thirty.

  Crowe moved slightly away from the door. He had instructed his team to let Tessa’s go first. A few competitions ago, some of the team members had gotten trampled in the opening stampede, and that had cost him precious time (not to mention a long and convoluted explanation in the medical wing).

  Besides, he hadn’t just tampered with the security systems here; he’d also tampered with the door commands on the docking bay entrance his team was going to use.

  The tampering wasn’t as extreme as the tampering here—ship security would definitely have noticed any major changes to the systems in the docking bay.

  All he had done was prep the redundant systems to operate more efficiently if given certain commands. He had figured, if he had gotten caught, that he would tell his teachers or security that he had been trying to improve the system. He’d been given permission to investigate the redundant systems after all.

  The computer countdown hit three…two…one…Go! and Tessa’s team took off so fast that they nearly trampled each other.

  “See ya, sucker!” Tessa said to him as she raced by. He just smiled. She should have seen that as a warning that he had done some prep, but she hadn’t.

  Or maybe she just didn’t care.

  She was on her way to the secondary docking bay. It was closer to the Third Level Mess than the docking bay he had chosen. She probably thought the proximity would give her team an advantage.

  But there was a lot that could eat up that advantage, including getting in, working the ship, and getting the bay doors to open. His team had worked through all of the scenarios he could think of, and he still worried that those hadn’t been enough.

  The sound of her team’s shoes, slapping against the floor, receded. There was no laughing and giggling and catcalls, like there had been on some previous competitions, so she had done some work with her team.

  “Okay,” he said when he could no longer hear Tessa’s team. “Let’s go.”

  His team gathered around him, and they walked to the docking bay. No running at all. They even took the Third Level elevator to the First Level. Nothing wrong with students touring the public area of the ship. He’d learned that long ago. And if they weren’t acting like they were doing something wrong, then no one would think they were.