Fractured Orbits Chapter 5
Fractured Orbits is book one in the Encoded Orbits Trilogy, It’s being released as a serial with chapters coming out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first ten chapters are free, before requiring a paid subscription.
Chapter 5
“And they all lived happily ever after.” Veena stifled a yawn. She’d read the story aloud at least a dozen times now. She let the comic rest on her lap and squeezed Molly in tight for a hug.
Molly stirred. “That’s not what it says.” She pointed to the pulp page, sounding more awake than Veena. “It says ‘The End.’”
Veena smiled and ran her hand over the soft curls on Molly’s head. Her little girl smelled like peanut butter with hints of bubblegum like she always did. A little piece of normal in their up-ended world.
“I stand corrected.” Veena closed the well-worn comic and put it back into Molly’s pink backpack with her other comics. “It’s time to sleep.” She tried not to notice the institution-white sheets on the narrow bed.
“But Mom...” Molly sat up straight and reached for the next comic in the series. “I want to know what Bubble does next. She’s trapped and needs help.”
Tired after a long day at work, Veena smiled. “Click will rescue her like they always do.” She couldn’t help thinking about the illustrated characters currently in peril—Bubble, a girl about Molly’s age, and Click, an alien that looked like an octopus. She and Molly had read the stories so many times, Mol knew exactly what would happen next.
Molly set the comic down and activated her bucket-o-stuff. The nanites emerged as a flock of tiny blue and red birds from the mug-sized container. The little birds flew around Molly’s head. She grinned, exposing her two missing front teeth.
“It’s late.” Veena stood and put the backpack on a shelf beside the few belongings they’d had on them when the bombing had begun.
That day, Molly’s pink backpack carried her Click stuffy, the comics, and her bucket-o-stuff while Veena’s messenger bag held a datapad and a pair of black satin slippers that Hwicce had given her. Other than the clothing on their backs, that was all they owned; everything else, from their toiletries to the small room they now lived in, had been issued to them by the military.
“The bucket-o-stuff, too.”
Molly stuck out her lower lip.
“Mol...”
“Fine.” Molly sent the nanites back to their container. “Can you get a Click pattern?”
“Huh?” Veena raised an eyebrow.
Molly held up her bucket. “For this.”
Veena sighed. Molly had a near endless list of patterns she wanted for the nanites. “Add it to your birthday list. We’ll be taking a trip to Jupiter Station then.”
“Can’t you just hack in and download it?” Molly put the bucket on the small shelf at the head of her bed.
“That’s illegal.”
“Please?” Molly clasped her hands together under her chin and made her cute face. “I just want to play with Click.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Veena took a deep breath. They’d been over why hacking was wrong multiple times, yet Molly kept asking her to do it. “First of all, it would be stealing, and that’s wrong. Second, the Overwatch AIs would catch me. Then I’d be put in prison, and you’d get sent to Aunt Selene. Got it?”
Molly groaned and leaned back against her pillow. “Got it.”
Veena handed Molly her Click stuffy and pulled the blanket up under her chin. “Now, you need to get to sleep.”
She yawned. “How will Daddy find us here?”
Veena sighed. Molly asked the same question every night. The biggest worry in her world was that her dad wouldn’t find her. Veena dimmed the lights and sank down onto the single chair that filled the narrow space between the two beds. She wished she could tell Molly it would all be over soon, and her dad was on his way to join them. Being stuck in a holding pattern until they could be a proper family again was tiring for both of them.
“The army told him where we are.”
Molly’s wide eyes glimmered in the low light like pools of liquid. “So, he won’t forget about us?”
“Of course not, silly.” Veena smiled as she reached over and poked Molly’s belly. “He’ll come back to us soon.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. But he loves us so much, he’ll come as soon as he can.”
Seeming to accept Veena’s explanation, Molly nodded before rolling onto her side and snuggling up against her Click stuffy. The eight arms of the pink octopus seemed to wrap themselves around the little girl.
“Goodnight, love.”
Molly mumbled something in response, and a few moments later, she started snoring softly.
Veena resisted the urge to curl up beside her daughter and go to sleep herself. Ever since the Protectorate assigned her to the code-breaking unit on Rock 13-A5, she never got enough time to hang out with Molly. Fortunately, there were plenty of other kids around, so Mol had lots of playmates.
She took a few minutes to watch her girl sleep. Part of her regretted not telling Molly that she had been in contact with her dad through non-official channels. But Molly wasn’t one to keep secrets—and Veena had a few that needed keeping.
Turning to the narrow desk, she opened her datapad. Even though she now lived in a secret military facility, she could still access the DeepNet with the protocols she’d set up on her personal drive. Hopefully, the ubiquitous Overwatch AIs remained unaware of her activities.
A dancing bear twirled across her inbox, causing her to grin. It was her lucky night; Hwicce had written her less than an hour earlier. Her world was suddenly a little bit brighter. She smiled. From Molly’s backpack, she found Bubble and Click volume 21, second edition, and she opened it to page six. Using the comic, Veena decoded the message.
His unit was currently on Candy Cane Lane—the most contested spot in the system. He expressed concern about the way the war was being fought, how even their side now resorted to tactics that resulted in excessive civilian casualties.
“Oh, please stay safe,” Veena whispered as she placed a hand on her heart. She’d decoded enemy traffic in the area. Hopefully, her efforts had kept him safe. The war had ripped her family apart, and she had no idea when they’d all be back together again. She couldn’t even remember why war had been declared in the first place.
Taking her time, she composed a response and encoded it. Using physical comics made their cypher nearly impossible to break—a decoding AI would never have the information it needed to do it. She told him about how she and Molly were settling in and how Gloria Norton, an old colleague from New Haven, had become a friend as well as co-worker.
Veena sent her message just as a message from Theo65, an old DeepNet contact, popped up. Theo65 wanted her help deciphering a newly discovered code. She opened it and stared at the strange symbols. Even though this set was new, these symbols were found when the first generation ships arrived in the system. Official channels said it wasn’t writing at all, just random mineral crystallization found in caves on the worlds next to the gates. Theo65 remained convinced it was alien writing that could be decoded, and Veena suspected they were right.
These codes used to be a fun problem, a great distraction. But Orin would expect her to perform in the morning. Military-grade codes needed breaking—work that could keep her husband safe. She sighed as she kept staring at her datapad. Yet, she wanted to work on it. She’d helped before, back when she had a stable job at the university. Now, she’d sworn an oath to keep state secrets. She glanced again to Molly and knew she couldn’t afford to dabble with them anymore.
Rubbing the back of her neck, Veena put her datapad away. Maybe she should get some sleep.
“No!” Molly shouted, and the room began to shake. Eyes still closed, she thrashed back and forth, throwing her stuffy and most of the covers to the floor. “No!” Her bucket-o-stuff flew off the shelf.
Veena’s heart began hammering in her chest. Molly was still asleep; it had to be another nightmare. Veena stood, knocking her chair over in the process. It skittered across the vibrating floor. She swallowed.
“Mol.” She sat on the bed beside Molly and put a hand on her shoulder. “Molly?” she said as calmly as she could and gathered Molly into her arms.
Rocking back and forth, Veena hummed the only lullaby she knew. Molly didn’t wake, but the shaking slowly subsided. After several more minutes, Veena set her back down onto her pillow and brushed a curl away from her face. Molly’s face relaxed, and she looked peaceful once again.
Biting her lip, Veena’s mind began to churn. Maybe the military didn’t have the capacity to detect such movement, or maybe they’d think it an earthquake? But how could there be an earthquake on a hollowed-out asteroid? She swallowed. If they had the right sensors, it would be no problem to triangulate back to their quarters.
“They won’t pinpoint you,” she whispered to Molly’s sleeping form. “I need to not worry myself silly.”
Veena needed a distraction for a few moments—a friendly voice just to chat with. She got up and went to the door. With one last glance at Molly, Veena went out into the hall, closing the door behind herself.
Gloria happened to be passing by Veena’s door. She stopped and smiled. Her blonde hair and lilac dress contrasted against the grey of the walls around them. “Veena! Did you hear the news?”
Before the bombing, she and Gloria both had jobs at the university, though they’d only become friends since arriving at Rock 13-A5. It was nice to confide in a familiar face, even if Gloria relished sharing gossip—and was constantly on the lookout for more.
“What news?” Veena ran her hands down her 3D-printed khaki pants, grateful she’d found someone to chat with. Somehow, Gloria managed to escape the bombing with a significant wardrobe. Veena didn’t envy her friend’s wardrobe exactly; she just wished she had more than one option.
“We won the war!” Gloria grinned. “People are partying so hard, even the floor’s been shaking.”
Veena blinked. “It’s really over?”
A ball of hope welled up within her. Soon, she could get Molly away from here. Hwicce would come back to them. She swallowed. Soon, they could be a family again.
With a grin, Gloria pulled Veena in for a hug. “It’s over.”
Veena pulled away and leaned against the wall next to her door. She bit her lip and met her friend’s gaze. “We’ll be able to leave this place, move on with our lives.”
“Where do you guys plan on settling?” Gloria leaned against the wall on the other side of the hall.
Exhaling, Veena let her head tip back until hit rested against the wall. “I’d like to go somewhere with open skies like we had on New Haven.”
“There’s not a lot of worlds with breathable atmospheres, even less where our plants can grow.”
Veena sighed. “I know. Maybe we’ll make one of the space stations our home.”
Further down the hall, a group exited one of the common rooms and loudly headed the other way.
Gloria grinned. “Looks like there’s going to be an epic party tonight. Let’s go join in, unwind and have some fun.”
Veena turned and looked at the door to her room.
“Mol will be fine, and we won’t be far.”
“Ever since the bombing, Molly fears being alone. I can’t risk her waking up and not find her mom nearby.” She sighed and met Gloria’s gaze.
Gloria smiled. “I get it.”
“I’ll catch you in the morning, though, and you can tell me all about the fun I missed.”
“Oh, I’ll fill you in—it’ll be like you were there.” Gloria took a step, then she turned back to Veena. “Seriously though, sometime soon, I’m dragging you out to unwind.”
Veena smiled. “That would be great.” There was no way she and Gloria would have ever become friends back on New Haven, but here, Gloria was the friendly face Veena needed right now.
to be continued…
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