A Pale Light in the Black Read online

  “Mama!” Gloria came back into the room holding a package almost bigger than her. Her mothers hastily wiped away their tears, then Angela bent over to help her rip the paper away.

  Her daughter’s squeals of excitement were all Rosa needed. For that sound she would move the universe itself.

  T-minus Fifteen Weeks until Prelim Boarding Games

  “Max, just call them.”

  Lieutenant Maxine Carmichael gave her oldest sister a flat look over the vid-com. “No, Ri, not this time. I’ve spent my whole life apologizing. For not being good enough. For not being Carmichael enough. I’m not the one in the wrong here. I just didn’t do what Mom and Dad wanted.” There was a weight in her chest that wouldn’t go away even in the face of her defiance, and Max wondered if this was what she would be stuck fighting her whole life. Caught between what she wanted and her family’s endless dynasty.

  It wasn’t her. She wanted more than a life trapped on Earth, or freezing in the shadow of her parents’ influence, never quite sure if her promotion had been because of her accomplishments or because of her family. She’d wanted the NeoG since she was a child, and nothing—not her brother’s abandonment, not begging or bribery or even threats from her parents—had changed that.

  “Max—”

  “Last thing Dad said was pretty clear on that front. ‘Bad enough you refused the Navy, Maxine—which I’m sure you did just to get back at me for some unknown insult of your childhood. But if you take this Interceptor course, don’t bother calling again.’” The imitation of her father’s voice was dripping with bitterness and Max spread her hands wide. “So here I am, headed for Jupiter to join my Interceptor crew, and that’s that. I won’t bother calling them again.”

  Ria Carmichael, newest president and CEO of LifeEx Industries, sighed. Her youngest sister was as stubborn as their mother, a fact Ria was sure drove both Rear Admiral Dr. Josiah Carmichael and Admiral Susanna Carmichael completely crazy. What Max didn’t realize was that all of the admirals Carmichaels’ ultimatums came from trying to keep their baby safe.

  Not that Ria agreed with them.

  Youngest child though she might be, Max was twenty-three years old and newly graduated from the NeoG’s Interceptor course. She was an adult, and their parents’ issues notwithstanding, she would be good at her new job. Ria had investigated and found that Zuma’s Ghost was the best crew out there. So she’d pulled some strings—without telling her sister, of course; she didn’t want that ire targeted at her—and gotten her assigned to Zuma. Rosa Martín was a solid, no-nonsense commander and got the job done. Max would be in good hands.

  Even better than that, something told Ria that Max would find a home with the Interceptors. Her baby sister had always been different—quiet, serious to a fault, uninterested in the military trappings of the Navy that were their family’s history or the hustling pressure of the family business. She’d done well at NeoG headquarters, but she didn’t want to be stuck on Earth.

  Ria knew that was part of the issue. Max hadn’t joined the Coalition of Human Nations Navy because she wanted a chance to stand out on her own. And she hadn’t gone into the business because life behind a desk at LifeEx wasn’t for her.

  Max had always wanted something more, so she’d joined the NeoG instead. Of course, she’d mysteriously ended up with a desk job anyway despite her excellent record at the academy. Ria couldn’t prove it, but she knew that their parents had been involved somehow—she’d been front and center for enough of their manipulations to know what they looked like.

  Instead, their parents’ attempt to keep their youngest child safe had backfired—and how—when Max had left her cushy job at headquarters and signed up for the Interceptor course. Because she was a Carmichael, or perhaps in this case despite it, she’d earned her right to fly with the best the NeoG had to offer.

  Ria could sympathize with their parents, again without ever breathing a word of it to Max. They were shit at showing it, but they did love their children. At least as much as possible for two people who lived for their jobs and very little else. Interceptor crews frequently went into dangerous situations, and she’d be lying if that didn’t make her worry about her baby sister.

  Ria sighed. “I know. They do love you. Don’t forget that. They messed up. They’ll come around and admit it. Congrats again on your graduation and your posting. Stay safe for me, okay?” She put her hand up on the lens.

  Max smiled, touching her hand to the same spot as her sister’s, pretending she could feel the warmth of Ria’s hand even though they were almost six hundred million kilometers apart. “You too. I’ll send a message once I get settled. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Max sank back in her seat and tried to ignore both the jumping of her stomach as Jupiter grew larger in her window and the moisture gathering in her eyes. “Damn it.” She swiped away the tear that slipped free and pushed to her feet to pace the private room the ship’s captain had insisted she take. “Suck it up, Carmichael.”

  She’d busted her ass for this. Defied her parents not once but twice—first by going to the Near-Earth Orbital Guard Academy and a second time by applying for the Interceptor program. Max wanted to be in space, saving lives, making a difference.

  Of course, her mother’s response to that had been “What, do you think we don’t make a difference here? We’re explorers, Maxine. We keep humanity safe.”

  Max sighed. It was always so damned difficult with her parents. It was always you were either with the family or against it, and so many times Max had found herself on the against side.

  Ria and Pax were the only two siblings she still spoke to, and they were both so busy with their jobs it was hard to find the time. Maggie was old enough that she’d graduated from the academy shortly after Max was born, and all she had were vague memories of her older sister at the rare holiday gathering when everyone was in the same solar system.

  In fact, the last time she’d seen Maggie had been that extremely public family blowout in a restaurant on Earth. Max had thought the public setting would protect her when she announced her intention to go to the NeoG Academy.

  It hadn’t.

  Instead her siblings had sided with her parents and her parents in turn had abandoned Max on Earth. “If you want to be an adult so badly, Maxine, you can start now.” Her father’s calm announcement had happened after everyone else had left.

  Max felt a tiny, familiar pang of hurt at the thought of Scott. Once upon a time she’d been close to her brother, idolized him despite the ten-year difference in their ages. But then he’d gone to the Naval Academy just after her eighth birthday and she hadn’t heard from him again except for his occasional visits when their ships happened to be in the same area. And those had been stilted and formal, a hurt she couldn’t untangle from all the other sharp wires of her childhood.

  “Suck it up, Carmichael,” she ordered a second time, shaking her head and blinking away the remaining tears. “You wanted this, you’re going to do it, and damn them for trying to stop you. You’re going to be on Zuma’s Ghost, the best Interceptor team there is. For once, they can apologize for being wrong.”

  The door chimed and Max scrubbed at her face before saying, “Come in.”

  The young woman who came through had wide eyes so pale a blue they were almost clear and a frame of silver hair haloing her heart-shaped face. “Lieutenant Carmichael, we’re coming up on Jupiter Station and Captain Banner thought you’d like to see the approach from the bridge.”

  “I would, thank you.” Max grabbed one bag and slung it over her shoulder, hefting the other with her left hand. “We ate dinner together the other night—it was Ada, right?”

  “Yes,” The woman grinned. “Don’t often see officers hitching rides with us, and the ones that do stay in their cabins rather than eat with us dirty space haulers. You’ll be talked about for a while, Lieutenant.”

  “Max.”

  Ada shook her head. “The captain would space my ass,
excuse the expression. You’re a lieutenant with the Near-Earth Orbital Guard, I’ll give you the respect you’re due.” She dropped one eyelid down in an exaggerated wink. “Besides, we like you NeoG a lot better than those naval types. They’re a bit full of themselves. Flying around in their fancy ships doing nothing at all. Not like they’ve got aliens to fight, eh?”

  Max fought to keep a straight face. On the one hand, she supposed she should defend the CHNN out of a sense of professional solidarity. On the other, the thought of how scandalized her mother would be made her want to laugh out loud.

  It wasn’t that space exploration wasn’t important and that task had fallen to the Navy out of tradition more than anything. Max was just reasonably sure sometimes Navy personnel took themselves and their mission to “protect humanity and explore the stars” more seriously than necessary.

  This was why she’d taken a room on this freighter headed for Jupiter Station instead of waiting two days for the regular naval transit. There was less fuss, fewer people fawning over her name. She could just be herself here.

  Plus, no one makes fun of the NeoG on a freighter when they all know who would come running to save their asses if something happened—which, in space, wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  Max chatted with Ada as they headed through the dimly lit but well-kept corridors of the freighter G’s Panic. Captain Evie Banner didn’t tolerate grime on her ship, of either the material or the personnel sort, and so the white walls gleamed under the cool white lights.

  Maybe I’ll do this next. Me piloting a freighter, Max thought. Wouldn’t that burn Dad’s thrusters?

  She stifled another laugh as the door to the bridge slid open, and Max followed Ada through. “Lieutenant Carmichael as requested, Captain!”

  “Thank you, Ada.” Captain Banner looked up from the console she was bent over and smiled. The crow’s feet at her eyes and the corners of her mouth were only starting to make an appearance, even though she was well into her eighty-second Sol year, thanks to LifeEx.

  Max knew it was Banner’s prior NeoG service that had afforded the woman the life-extending gene hack and telomere protection that made space travel possible, as well as the necessary follow-up treatments that were required every ten Sol years to keep the hack from shutting down. Max had technically been X’d because of her parents’ military service, but the Carmichael family could have easily afforded the expensive treatment without the benefit of signing a portion of that extended life away to the military or some other form of service to the Coalition government.

  Of course, her great-grandfather had developed the damn serum in the first place. Though she thought it was particularly inspired of him to make family members choose service to either the company or the government as a requirement for getting any part of their inheritance, even if it had been born of guilt over the decision to charge for the serum. Duty was paramount for the Carmichaels.

  It was just supposed to be the right kind of duty.

  “I’ll leave you in the captain’s capable hands.”

  Max smiled at Ada. “Thank you so much. I hope to see you again.”

  “Count on it.” Ada nodded to Max and then at Captain Banner before she sauntered out of the bridge.

  “Part of me thinks I should apologize for my crew,” Evie said, giving Max a look. “But another part says you don’t seem to mind the familiarity at all.”

  “I had enough formality growing up,” Max replied, her eyes glued to the front of the bridge as Jupiter grew steadily larger on the massive curved screen.

  The station was a speck comparatively, settled at the Lagrange point between Jupiter and its largest moon, Ganymede. The station was pulled along in Ganymede’s wake as the moon made its seven-day orbit around the massive gas giant. As they closed the distance, the gleaming gray of the station was visible against Jupiter’s rusty backdrop. It was a paradoxical visual. The station itself was massive, a giant structure with a pair of mushroom-shaped towers attached to a long central column with the hangar bays on the opposite end. The smaller tower was for H3nergy personnel and civilians; the other for CHN military members.

  Max had seen the station only once before, when her mother’s ship had stopped on a circuit while doing a border loop. Max had been ten and restricted to quarters with Pax rather than allowed to explore (“slum it,” as her mother put it).

  “There are only H3 miners and Orbital Guard,” her mother had said in the same tone of voice she’d used for talking about dirty socks and unruly children.

  “I’m right where I belong,” she murmured, and then flashed an embarrassed grin at Evie when she realized she’d said it out loud.

  “You’ll do well with the NeoG, then, Max. They’re not big on formality.” Evie chuckled. “Headquarters skews closer to the other forces, but out here in the belt? It’s a whole other world.”

  As if to prove her point, the chime signaling an incoming com sounded.

  “Docking control, Captain.”

  “Put it on-screen.”

  “Freighter G’s Panic, you are two days early.”

  Max’s DD chip gave a little ping as it tagged the handshake from the woman who appeared on the screen in front of her with the helpful details of her public profile: rank or title/name/pronouns.

  Jupiter Station’s director of orbital traffic, Farah Totah, she/her, had hair as black as the liquid sloshing over the rim of the mug she was waving in the air. Unlike the liquid, her hair stuck up in wild abandon around her head.

  “Nice to see you, too, Farah. We had an engine tune-up and I wanted to test her out. I’ve got a load of perishables for the station. You’re welcome.” Evie jerked a thumb in Max’s direction. “Also, a passenger—Lieutenant Maxine Carmichael—for Admiral Hoboins.”

  Farah raised an eyebrow. “New Interceptor?”

  Max gave a quick nod. “Yes.”

  “Farah Totah, director of orbital traffic for Jupiter, like it says on the tag.” Farah smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Lieutenant. We’ve been expecting you, though not via freighter, I’ll admit. Welcome to the station. I’ll have someone let Vice Admiral Hoboins know; since you’re early he’ll want to send a person down to collect you.” Her gaze flicked back to the captain before Max could think of a response. “Park that beast of yours in bay seventy-six, Evie—you owe me dinner and forty feds.”

  Evie grinned. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard the news all the way out here.”

  “Are you kidding me? We watched it. Granted it was two days after, but I sat right in this chair and saw the slaughter. Company HQ even cleared us for booze as long as the admiral approved it, which he did.” Farah pointed at Evie. “I’ll see you later, Captain.”

  The screen blacked out.

  “I will space the first person who laughs.” Evie’s warning did absolutely nothing to stem the tide of laughter that filled the bridge. She turned to Max, who was looking at her quizzically. Evie shrugged. “I have a notoriously bad streak of betting on the Zero-G fútbol games, but I really thought the Belize Hippos were going to win the championship this year.” She sighed and threw a mock glare around the bridge. “Oh well, if it’s only feds and dinner with Farah, that’s more than enough to make up for the loss. Take us in, Boots.”

  “Docking bay seventy-six, Captain.”

  “Gloria loved her present, huh?”

  Rosa laughed as she swung out into the tube and pushed off. “She was ecstatic. A ‘real’ jet pack just like Mommy’s. Angela messaged me at some point in the night with a photo of her passed out in her bed still wearing it.” She caught the rung and easily landed in the corridor opening. “So it was worth every extra vacation day Jenks conned out of me.”

  “Ma and I triple-checked all the wiring to make sure it wasn’t going to do anything more than light up.” Nika’s boots made a solid thud on the landing and he adjusted his shirt before nodding at Rosa. They started down the corridor.

  “Angela would have flown out here to kick my ass h
erself if that had been fully functional.” Rosa shook her head. “Which we all know Jenks probably could make happen given enough time and materials.”

  “True story.” Nika paused outside the door to Vice Admiral Hoboins’s offices. “Speaking of time, I wanted to ask before I leave if you’re going to follow that thread of Jenks’s about the jumpers?”

  Rosa smiled at him. She was going to miss Nika. She’d trained a good number of junior officers, and saying goodbye never got any easier. Nika was good at his job and would only get better with this transfer to Trappist-1e. But the reminder of Jenks made her apprehensive about their team meeting tonight, where they would break the news to the others.

  “I don’t know. It’s likely Lee,” she said, nodding at the vice admiral’s door, “will just pass it up the chain.” Rosa tapped a hand on her leg in thought. She’d learned a long time ago that trying to keep Jenks out of things she was interested in meant fighting a losing battle. Much better to put her on the track with clear instructions. “It’s not going to hurt anything to let her follow her instincts, though. Tell her if she comes up with something new to pass it along to Ma.”

  “Can do.” Nika pressed his palm to the panel on the side of the doorway and gestured for Rosa to precede him.

  “Morning, Commander.” Hoboins’s chief of staff looked up from her desk.

  “Morning, Lou.”

  The petite woman waved a hand at the open door behind her as she got to her feet. “Go on in, he’s expecting you. I have to go collect someone, I’ll be right back.”

  Rosa crossed over into the spartan office dominated by a wide curved window with an impressive view of the planet below them. Lee Hoboins, vice admiral in charge of Jupiter Station, was well into his ninth Sol decade, though LifeEx had him looking at least twenty years younger. He’d come into the program later than most, right at the edge of the NeoG Academy’s cutoff of thirty-five years, the result being more visible aging than someone like Rosa, whose civilian parents had secured the treatment for themselves and their newborn daughter through their work as CHN employees.