Aberrant

Chapter 34

Jinx's nerves wound as she disembarked the surface-to-orbit shuttle. A vast cavern of tech opened up around her. An in-ship docking bay. Beyond the plex and force fields that protected the shuttle dock from the bay's thin atmosphere, landing and departing shuttles moved in a computer-controlled dance, along with two squadrons of sleek drone fighters. A class three Night Viper cruiser, a ship designed for a crew of around one hundred, crouched by one massive bulkhead, a giant bird of prey submitting to the indignity of maintenance.

And insignificant next to the vessel housing it.

The Silver Dawn. A class eight military population ship; the base for multiple Coalition battleships, political leaders, and diplomats. Home to over a hundred thousand souls.

A slick metal and polymer world.

Jinx drew in a breath, tasted air disinfectants and aviation by-products. Those, at least, were familiar. But little else was. The tech around her gleamed, and the bay's operations were as polished. Nothing like the controlled chaos of Tirus 7's port or any of the pop ships she'd lived on. For the first time on a vessel, she felt like she was inside a massive machine, not a crate filled with sentient livestock.

Following Kaplan and his team, she moved through the dock's passageway and out into the arrivals terminal. The organic machinery of the ship became apparent: busy military personnel and ship operations staff. Elegant civilians strutted among them, moving through transit checks, luggage bots nipping at their heels. Many weren't human. Vok, Throls, and more obscure life forms. Ogleans—carpets of black tentacles. Guodoans or 'Gooies', slug-like amphibians with red, bulging eyes.

Jinx skirted their designer luggage, gripping the strap of her cheap duffle. On this ship, she was the alien, not the Gooies and Ogs. She should've stuck to her original plan for the evening: cruising the port bars for outgoing crews. Accompanying Kaplan would no doubt turn out to be a mistake. Instead of vodka shots and bawdy propositions, she'd get more elitist attitude and pain-in-the-arse questions.

But one look at Kaplan's face after he'd seen the blood analysis had shut down her protests.

Tension, even now, hampered his movements as he ordered his team to deal with transit documents and gear. When he signalled for her to head through a security checkpoint, she didn't argue, just let herself get scanned and stripped of her bag and tech. The warning look he shot his cousin Sun as she joined him on the other side of the checkpoint wound more nerves. Sun clearly had reservations and questions about what was going on, but Kaplan was in no mood to explain himself.

Not until he'd had someone confirm his suspicions.

Whatever they were.

Stifling her own need for answers, Jinx moved to the checkpoint's scanner to gather up her com and bag. Kaplan beat her to it. With a curt glance her way, he dumped her belongings onto a carrier bot with his own. She bit her tongue again. No com. That most likely meant a high-security area. What exactly had she got herself into?

Kaplan signalled for her to accompany him. Leaving Sun with the luggage, they headed to an intra-ship travel station. Glossy white IST—'istee'—pods arrived to the left to release their passengers then joined the queue of pods waiting to slot back into the ship's transport network.

Jinx followed Kaplan into one. The roomy pod reflected the military ship's affluent civilian heart: purple padded seats, piped-in bird song, and walls that gracefully transitioned between travel and onboard shopping adverts. All three-sixty-degree, floor-to-ceiling visuals. All reminders of how the elite lived.

As the doors closed with a polite hiss, Kaplan entered the location he wanted. A demand for security clearance lit up the console. He submitted to a biometric and password protocol then leaned against the opposite wall.