Haven 6 Read online

  Haven 6

  A New Dawn, Book 3

  Au­brie Di­onne

  Chapter One

  Unexpected Calling

  MATCH­ING RE­QUEST DENIED.

  Eri stared at the re­sponse on her com­puter screen as real­ity prickled the hairs on her arms and then sunk like a bomb in her stom­ach.

  ALEA IACTA EST.

  The die has been cast.

  She thought of all the ways to ex­press dis­ap­point­ment in the lan­guages of Old Earth: apo­goitefsi in Greek, rozczarow­anie in Pol­ish, die Enttäuschung in Ger­man, and dés­ap­pointe­ment in French. Such use­less know­ledge. Her lin­guist mind teemed with words, mak­ing her the most ar­chaic and im­prac­tical col­on­ist on the Her­it­age.

  Not only was her job ob­sol­ete, but now she’d never have a com­puter-des­ig­nated match.

  An os­cil­lat­ing holop­ic­ture of her par­ents’ faces drew her at­ten­tion. She re­fused to blame them for her pre­dic­a­ment. As an il­legal DNA cross­ing res­ult­ing from an un­re­cog­nized pair­ing, she knew the com­puter would never con­sider her DNA ac­cept­able for lifemate pair­ing, es­pe­cially at her ripe age of twenty-five. Her pro­file had too many ques­tion marks, plus a few propensit­ies for dis­ease.

  She should have known from the start. She shouldn’t have per­severed, press­ing the Match­maker for a de­cision she couldn’t make be­cause of the rules. How could the Match­maker ar­gue with a sys­tem that had worked suc­cess­fully for hun­dreds of years? Eri’s de­term­in­a­tion raised her own hopes only to crash them down in the end each time she sent a re­quest.

  Well, this was the last time, wasn’t it? She clicked off the screen. All of the men her age were taken, and the age dis­crep­ancy between her and the gradu­at­ing class was scan­dal­ous. She wiped her eyes. If I can’t work within the sys­tem, then there must be some way to beat it by hack­ing into the match­ing pro­gram or chan­ging my ge­netic re­port. Would the Match­maker catch it? How em­bar­rass­ing would that be? What would the pun­ish­ment be?

  Her com­puter alarm beeped.

  Fif­teen hun­dred.

  Aquaria’s pair­ing ce­re­mony.

  Damn!

  She scrambled through her desk, over­turn­ing broken light sticks and soy­bean wafer wrap­pers to find some­thing to tame her hair. Us­ing the black com­puter screen as a mir­ror, she clipped her frizzy straw­berry curls with tiny plastic clips. How could she let so many hours slip away?

  Day­dream­ing about hav­ing her own pair­ing, that’s how. She shot up from her desk and pulled her arms through the ce­re­mo­nial blazer of her uni­form. The Her­it­age’s coat of arms badge dec­or­ated her left breast pocket. Press­ing the portal panel, she watched the particles dis­solve like her dreams.

  The cor­ridors lay as empty and si­lent as a bar­ren world. The Guide dic­tated that all col­on­ists must at­tend each pair­ing ce­re­mony.

  Eri shook her head. She had lamen­ted her own lack of pair­ing to the point of dis­obedi­ence. Her boots clunked on the chrome as she rushed through the clear glass cor­ridor con­nect­ing her small bubble of of­fices to the belly of the ship. Stars sparkled like pin­pricks all around her. One point in par­tic­u­lar glittered like a gi­ant dia­mond, out­shin­ing all the oth­ers. The sparkle wasn’t a star.

  Haven 6.

  Des­pite her tardi­ness, she stopped halfway down the walk­way to trace Haven’s cir­cum­fer­ence with her fin­ger on the glass. Yes­ter­day, it was the size of her fin­ger­nail, but now it glowed bey­ond her en­tire fin­ger­print.

  Soon we’ll all leave this ship be­hind.

  A wave of mel­an­choly tinged with hope washed over her. Maybe the com­puter would re­as­sign her a more mean­ing­ful job. With plenty of re­sources, and couples al­lowed to have as many chil­dren as they wanted, maybe Com­mander Grier would deem the pair­ing sys­tem ob­sol­ete. Maybe.

  Eri wanted to stay and fan­tas­ize, but she’d already wasted enough time. Would her sis­ter no­tice if she rushed in ten minutes late with puffy skin around her eyes? Prob­ably. Aquaria noted every new freckle on her arm, as if skin can­cer were a prob­lem when they had no sun. It will be a prob­lem soon enough on Haven, though.

  She tore her­self away from her fu­ture and entered the main cor­ridor con­nect­ing to the ce­re­mo­nial view­ing deck.

  Rows of uni­formed col­on­ists sat on either side of the aisle. Aquaria stood at the po­dium, hold­ing hands with Litus Muller, her per­fectly chosen lifemate. She re­minded Eri of the an­cient beau­ties in her trans­la­tion texts. A lacy ce­re­mo­nial gown that Eri would never get to wear flowed to the last steps of the stage. Aquaria’s long black hair shone dark as deep space and her skin glowed in the sim­u­lated candle­light. While Aquaria in­her­ited their mom’s love­li­ness, Eri had her dad’s Ir­ish her­it­age, and with that, his way­ward radish-colored hair and blush­ing, freckled skin. If it wasn’t for the in­famy of the scan­dal, no one would know they were half sis­ters.

  She spot­ted a va­cant seat in the last row and tip­toed over as Aquaria and Litus re­cited their vows. Eri switched the sound off the loc­ator em­bed­ded in her arm. The thought of press­ing a but­ton by ac­ci­dent, caus­ing a shriek­ing alarm to go off, made her al­ways check twice.

  “I pledge my loy­alty to you and the Guide…” Aquaria kept her gaze on the po­dium, as if strain­ing to re­mem­ber her lines.

  “I’ll up­hold all cus­toms…” Litus’s voice rang out, strong and cer­tain.

  Yada, yada. Eri blocked their words and fo­cused on the pair. Aquaria’s mys­ter­i­ous blue eyes con­tras­ted with Litus’s per­fect curls of blond hair. They were two op­pos­ites, like a moon and a sun, and yet they com­ple­men­ted each other.

  Eri shif­ted as they re­cited their fi­nal vows. The con­greg­a­tion ap­plauded, a roar of sound chan­ging the sol­emn at­mo­sphere of the room. People stood from their seats as if Com­mander Grier’d had them glued there all day. Ush­ers car­ried plat­ters of food from a dwind­ling biod­ome har­vest. The sweet scent of fresh fruit filled the room. Eri slipped through the spaces in between groups to grab an apple and con­grat­u­late Aquaria be­fore the re­ceiv­ing line grew too long.

  “Eri! There you are! I kept look­ing for you in the crowd.”

  Aquaria threw her arms around her and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Aquaria, I came in late and had to sit in the back.”

  “What’s wrong?” Her sis­ter’s eyes shone so bright, Eri saw her disheveled ap­pear­ance re­flec­ted in them.

  “Noth­ing. I wanted to con­grat­u­late you.”

  “Non­sense.” Aquaria waved away the ce­re­mony like she was shak­ing off a chore. “Some­thing happened. Are you sick?”

  “No. You should be with Litus. I’ll tell you about it later.” Shin­ing the apple with her fin­ger, Eri sup­pressed a wave of guilt. Her sis­ter shouldn’t spend her re­cep­tion wor­ry­ing.

  Aquaria took her hand in a vise­like grip, her lacy sleeve tick­ling Eri’s arm. “I’m not go­ing any­where.” Aquaria tugged her away from the crowd, and they ducked be­hind the po­dium. “Not un­til you tell me what’s got you so up­set.”

  The scent of ar­ti­fi­cial lilac tickled Eri’s nose as they stood over the vent. She struggled to keep her com­pos­ure. She was the older sis­ter by two years, after all. Swal­low­ing a lump in her throat, she met her sis­ter’s pen­et­rat­ing gaze.

  “The Match­maker turned down my pair­ing re­quest again.”

  Aquaria’s mouth fell open. “That’s not noth­ing. That’s everything you’ve been work­ing for. And to have to come to my ce­re­mony af­ter­ward…Eri, I’m so sorry.”


  “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m wor­ry­ing you on what should be the hap­pi­est day of your life.”

  “Litus is im­port­ant, yes, but so are you. My re­la­tion­ship with him doesn’t di­min­ish what we have, and it never will.” Her voice fell to a whis­per. “And you de­serve to have a lifemate just like every­one else, es­pe­cially if you want one. I don’t care what the com­puters say.”

  Eri stepped back, shoot­ing a look across the room to make sure no one was eaves­drop­ping. She’d never heard her sis­ter talk blas­phemy against the Guide.

  The loc­ator on her arm vi­brated, and she checked the sender, re­lieved to have some­thing else to look at other than her sis­ter’s overly com­pas­sion­ate face.

  A single mes­sage scrolled across the min­is­creen.

  RE­PORT TO THE MAIN CON­TROL DECK IM­ME­DI­ATELY.

  Eri al­most choked when she saw the sender.

  Aquaria grabbed her arm. “What is it?”

  Eri began to shake, and her knees weakened. “It’s a mes­sage from Com­mander Grier. She wants me to re­port to her. Now.”

  Be­cause I showed up late? Im­possible. How could the com­mander over­see every op­er­a­tion on the ship and keep track of each col­on­ist at all times? Com­mander Grier had never ac­know­ledged her in any way, not even a stray flick from her com­pu­ter­ized eyes.

  She’s just a brain con­nec­ted to the main­frame. Maybe she has noth­ing bet­ter to do.

  Aquaria blinked in sur­prise. “Well, you’d bet­ter go now, you lucky star. It’s not every gen­er­a­tion someone of our status gets to meet the com­mander.”

  Wouldn’t Aquaria rather en­joy her pair­ing ce­re­mony than meet the com­mander?

  Eri shook the thought off and gave her a quick hug. “You’re right.”

  …

  The cor­ridors to the main con­trol deck stretched be­fore Eri like a for­bid­den land. No one passed bey­ond the row of guards without suf­fi­cient clear­ance. People wor­shipped the com­mander like some demi­god be­cause she was the last of the Earth gen­er­a­tion. She couldn’t have all her de­voted fol­low­ers kneel­ing at the main con­trol deck’s portal.

  Eri would much rather sneak back to her of­fice and read an­cient Greek plays. But in a ship sur­roun­ded by deep space, she had nowhere to hide. No one dis­obeyed the com­mander.

  A guard three heads taller than her scanned her loc­ator and al­lowed her through with a nar­row­ing of his eyes. Eri re­turned his stare as she passed. After the denied match­ing re­quest, hav­ing someone ques­tion her im­port­ance churned her stom­ach.

  The portal to the main con­trol deck fell away like a mil­lion swirl­ing stars, and she stepped onto a view­ing plat­form that spanned the en­tire length of the front hull. Galax­ies stretched out in smears of cos­mic dust, and neb­u­las swirled in bright reds and blues. Haven 6 glittered at the cen­ter, like a dia­mond stuck on a painter’s easel.

  A gi­ant screen lowered in front of her. The pixels flashed to life, and the com­mander’s sharp fea­tures and bright green gaze stud­ied her.

  Eri wasn’t fooled. The im­age was only a re­cre­ation of who Ur­sula Grier used to be. In real­ity, the com­mander’s brain floated in pink em­bryonic li­quid in a locked glass tank be­hind the screen.

  She bowed be­fore the pixels. “Erid­ani Smith at your ser­vice, Com­mander.”

  “Ex­cel­lent.” The com­mander’s eyes moved from Eri’s scuffed space boots to the clips in her ra­ging hair. Did her cheek twitch, or did the pixels just flash?

  “I need to know the ex­tent of your ded­ic­a­tion to our mis­sion on Haven 6.”

  Eri swal­lowed hard. Was the com­mander ques­tion­ing her be­cause of one tardi­ness in all her his­tory? Stick to the truth, and your voice will come out strong. “I’m look­ing for­ward to land­ing more than any­thing.”

  The com­mander’s eyes nar­rowed. Eri res­isted the urge to squirm, feel­ing like an in­sig­ni­fic­ant fly. Can she see my in­ten­tions to hack into the match­ing sys­tem? My con­tinual curs­ing of my ar­chaic job?

  The im­age of the com­mander’s face grew so large, her eyes took up the whole screen. “Would you do any­thing to en­sure the sur­vival of the mis­sion?” Her voice boomed, echo­ing over the glass sight panel.

  The com­mander’s gaze simmered, sear­ing Eri’s mind, and Eri straightened up, stand­ing as tall as a five foot two wo­man could. She thought of Aquaria, her par­ents, even Litus. “Of course.”

  The com­mander’s face re­turned to its nor­mal size. “Good. I have a mis­sion for you.”

  Eri dropped her jaw, and then snapped it back up. Did Ur­sula Grier want to learn French?

  “I know this comes as a shock. Sit down be­fore you pass out. Let me ex­plain.”

  The com­mander flicked her gaze to a row of stools against the sight panel. Not want­ing to seem in­sub­or­din­ate, Eri nod­ded and climbed onto the nearest one, push­ing off a film of dust.

  Not many guests for the com­mander.

  Eri’s short legs dangled, and she tensed her muscles to hold them in place. Now was not the time to look child­ish.

  The com­mander’s im­age fizzled for a second, then blinked back on. “We reach Haven 6 in a week. As you know, scouts sent out hun­dreds of years be­fore we left Earth re­por­ted it un­in­hab­ited by hu­manoids or any other in­tel­li­gent spe­cies.”

  Eri nod­ded.

  “Last night we rees­tab­lished con­tact with the scout droid sent to Haven 6 hun­dreds of years ago. Us­ing its in­ter­face, we re­booted the satel­lite or­bit­ing the planet. The satel­lite picked up im­ages that would sug­gest the ini­tial scout read­ings were wrong.”

  The com­mander’s lips set in a grim line of dis­ap­proval be­fore her face dis­ap­peared. Blurred im­ages of a forest with brown thatched roofs pok­ing out from the can­opy filled the screen.

  Eri leaned for­ward, eyes wide. In­tel­li­gent life? Not one scout ship had ever picked up even a sliver of proof they weren’t alone in the uni­verse. Since the space pir­ates severed all com­mu­nic­a­tion among the colony ships, there was no way to tell what any other colony ship had en­countered. The com­mander’s im­age re­appeared be­fore Eri could get a bet­ter look at the alien set­tle­ment. “Which leads me to al­ter my plans. I’ve ap­poin­ted you part of an ad­vance mis­sion be­fore col­on­iz­a­tion. A re­search ground crew.”

  Eri steeled her knees so she wouldn’t col­lapse off the stool into a puddle of mush on the floor. “Why me?”

  “You’re our only lin­guist, Ms. Smith. You must de­cipher the alien lan­guage and root your­self into their so­ci­ety. Only then can you es­tim­ate their abil­it­ies and any im­min­ent threat to us.”

  Did the com­mander choose her be­cause she was ex­pend­able, or truly be­cause of her lin­guist skills? She shot down the first thought and con­tin­ued to listen. Maybe for once I’ll be im­port­ant.

  “We’re not go­ing to land on a planet that may en­danger the lives of the people on this mis­sion. You, along with a small team, are to be­friend whatever creatures reside on Haven 6.”

  Eri’s heart al­most burst with pride. “You want me to rep­res­ent the Her­it­age?”

  Grier’s lips tightened like she was mildly an­noyed. “This is pre­cisely why all colony ships have at least one lin­guist—in case they en­counter ex­tra­ter­restrial life.”

  “Of course. I-I knew that.” Eri stuttered over her words. “It’s just—I’m so shocked. I’m honored and humbled you’ve chosen—”

  Grier in­ter­rup­ted her. “Re­port all of your ob­ser­va­tions to me dir­ectly. I need to know their in­tel­li­gence level, their ad­vance­ments, and any weaponry these ali­ens pos­sess.”

  Eri sa­luted. “Yes sir, Com­mander.”

  …

  The men­tion of weapons did raise a red flag,
but Eri squashed the con­cern down. The com­mander was just pro­tect­ing all of them, mak­ing sure no one from the ship would get hurt. Be­sides, this was the first time she’d been as­signed a task that would make a dif­fer­ence, and she wanted to prove her­self and make the com­mander proud at the same time. By the time I’m done, they’ll be beg­ging to pro­mote me. Then, I’ll have my choice of a lifemate…gor­geous eyes, chest­nut hair…someone to talk to, grow old with…

  The com­mander’s ri­gid voice startled Eri out of her day­dream. “Re­port to the brief­ing at sev­en­teen hun­dred in Bay 6. Don’t re­peat this to any­one without code nine clear­ance. Pro­ject ref­er­ence: Delta Slip.”

  Eri bowed, her curls fall­ing on either side of her face. She snapped up and turned on her heel, think­ing of all the lan­guage syn­tax re­fresh­ing she had to do.

  Chapter Two

  Matching Eyes

  The breeze raised every hair on Striver’s arms as he crouched be­hind a fern cluster, down­wind of a bathing swamp boar. The smell of wet hair and mold as­saul­ted his nos­trils. The beast stank when it was alive, but roas­ted on a spit, the smoked meat tan­tal­ized his taste buds. He ran his tongue along the tips of the feath­ers on his ar­row for a slight spin when launched.

  The boar rose from the wa­ter, its hairy hide, over a meter long, prick­ling the sur­face. Striver lif­ted the ar­row and cocked his bow.

  Holy Refuge, this beast is huge.

  Tak­ing a deep breath, he calmed his nerves and sharpened his fo­cus. The boar would feed the en­tire vil­lage for two days, but if it sensed him and charged, its sheer weight alone could crush him. Never mind the cloven hooves. Its snout wiggled, wrink­ling up between its curved tusks as it sniffed the air.

  No way it’ll sniff me out.

  Striver had wrapped swamp weed around his bi­ceps, streaked mud across his fore­head and cheeks, and wore a vel­vety mire leaf on his back. He reeked so much like a swamp rat, he wouldn’t be sur­prised if one nes­ted in his hair.

  Just a little higher and he’d have a dir­ect shot.