Rogue Colony (Galaxy Mavericks Book 6) Read online

  She slid her guitar under the bed and lugged her suitcase onto the mattress.

  She checked her watch. She was supposed to meet Rudy, Ashley and Hassan in the cafeteria for dinner in an hour. Then the real work began.

  Her phone buzzed in her hand.

  A photo of her mother’s face flashed on the screen, smiling.

  Michiko didn't want to answer.

  But she hadn't answered her mother’s calls in almost three days.

  She sat on the bed.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Michiko?” her mom, Reiko, asked. “We haven't heard from you in a few days.”

  It was so good to hear her mother’s voice, like nourishment for her soul. She just wished it was under a better circumstance.

  “I had to work a double shift,” Michiko said, feigning a yawn.

  “Oh,” her mother said. “Well, how are you?”

  “Tired. How's Dad?”

  “Working late. I was worried about you, with all the news about the attacks on Coppice.”

  “I'm fine,” Michiko said. “The attacks were far away from where I was.”

  “Really?” Reiko asked. “From the news reports, they looked like they were less than a few miles away.”

  “I was in the…woods when it happened. I'm safe.”

  “The shooter—they say he was a madman. I was so worried for you.”

  Michiko could sense the worry in her mom’s voice. The realization that her mom was correct to worry stabbed at her.

  “It was scary, but there's nothing to worry about, Mom.”

  “You could've called,” her mom said sternly. “Or sent me a text message to let me know you were okay.”

  “I'm sorry. Things have just been such a whirlwind that I forgot.”

  “You still never sent me photos of yourself in your scrubs in the main atrium of the hospital. Is it as beautiful as they say, with a stream and birds and all?”

  “Yeah,” Michiko said. “I guess it's pretty nice.”

  “You guess?”

  “It is nice,” Michiko said quickly. “I've been too busy to pay much attention.”

  Silence.

  “How is your practicum?” Reiko asked. “I hear that Granthope Medical Center on Coppice is just as capable as any facility on Gargantua.”

  Michiko threw herself onto the warm sheets, rested her head on her pillow and closed her eyes.

  “I like it a lot,” she said.

  “Are they letting you work with real patients?” Reiko asked. “You know, with real problems?”

  “Not yet,” Michiko said. She pounded her fist against her forehead and winced. “But I'm thinking maybe they will give me some longer shifts next month.”

  “Do they not have enough nurses?” Reiko asked. “With such a shortage I would think they would need a nurse like you as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah,” Michiko said. “I thought so, too.”

  “You need to be more aggressive,” Reiko said. “You need to show them what you're capable of. I really wish you would let me and your father come and see you. All I need is a word with the head nurse and—”

  “Mom, I told you, I'm just fine,” Michiko said. “Like I said last time, I've got it all under control.”

  “What about your grades?” Reiko asked. “The school hasn't sent a progress report home in a few months. I thought that was strange. Did you call the business office like I asked you?”

  “I don't know what's going on, Mom,” Michiko said. “Maybe they're having system issues. But I want you to know that I'm learning a lot and all is well, okay?”

  Her mom sighed.

  “Okay,” Reiko said, her voice brightening. “Your father keeps telling me to relax, to let you be, but I just can't yet. I worry about you all alone out there. It just seems to soon for you to be doing a practicum in the field. You're only a second-year.”

  Michiko pounded her head again.

  “I love you, Mom. I have to go. I have another late shift.”

  “I love you, too. And don't wait so long before calling.”

  Michiko said a final goodbye and hung up. She let her phone drop to the floor.

  She felt a pit in her stomach open up. She wanted to vomit.

  She wanted to do anything to take her mind off the fact that she had just flat-out lied to her mother.

  If there was a hell, her spot was guaranteed.

  Feeling heavy, she unzipped her suitcase and began to unpack. She unwrapped a stack of photographs and a set of thumb tacks that went along with them. She climbed on her bed and stuck the photos on the wall.

  Her on Coppice standing in front of a waterfall with a bonnet, making a peace sign.

  Her and a sloth. She was kissing it on the nose.

  Her and her father, Arthur, playing guitar at home. Her father wore a loose t-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes. He had shaggy black hair, and despite being fifty, he didn’t have a single wrinkle. He looked just as youthful as she’d ever remembered him. What were they playing that day? Something by Milton Nascimento.

  “Nada será como antes.”

  Nothing will be as it was.

  A song about leaving the ones you love and not knowing what’s in your own future.

  They sang it together because she was going to be leaving in a few days. She was leaving for nursing school, where nothing would ever be the same. She’d never known how symbolic that song could be. In fact, she could draw a clear line in her life between that breezy day on the couch with her father, and everything that came after.

  She glanced at a photo of her and her mother standing in row of cherry blossom trees for the cherry blossom festival on the northern continent in Asiazil every year, where her mother went to pay tribute to her roots. She wore a blue floral kimono with her hair tied up. Michiko stood next to her, wearing a pink kimono with red flowers.

  Thoroughly Japanese.

  Michiko looked more like her mother than her father. She inherited her mother’s clear skin and piercing brown eyes.

  She also inherited a certain part of her mother’s personality that taught her to appreciate life and always strive for excellence.

  As she smiled back at her mother, her role model, her hero, she hated that she didn't have the courage to tell her about dropping out of nursing school.

  She didn't have the courage to tell her mother that she was a failure.

  It would dishonor her mother, rip her heart open from the inside out.

  Michiko didn't want to hurt her mother. She didn't want to let everyone down. She just wanted to live her life.

  So she lied, telling herself that she would come clean once her year with the Galaxy Corps was done.

  One year.

  One year to figure out her life and give her mother a proposal of what she was going to do next.

  One year to make a ton of mistakes and emerge triumphant in the end.

  But the truth was that it had been six months already and she wasn't any closer to figuring things out than when she dropped out.

  A knot formed in her throat.

  Would her mom be okay with it? Maybe, but that wasn't what mattered.

  It was what people would say. Already she could hear her mother’s friends talking.

  —Did you hear that Michiko dropped out of school?

  —That's a surprise. Was it the coursework?

  —No, these days the coursework is easy. I've always said that she never had the disposition for that line of work. Law suits her much better.

  —Oh, law? She can't stand up for herself. How could she be a lawyer if she can't challenge people?

  —Perhaps it's a mental issue, then?

  —It's her father’s influence, all the music and the people she hangs around. Have you heard some of the lyrics she has been singing?

  —I hear she's been dating a boy who's not from here.

  —What kind of family is he from?

  —Well, I heard that they broke up. Here's what's really wrong with Michiko…
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  Michiko looked away from her mother’s photo.

  She wasn't ready to admit that she had wasted her life.

  She threw herself on the bed and stared at the ceiling, numb and tired and hungry.

  A KNOCK on the door startled her.

  She glanced at her watch.

  It was time to eat.

  She must have dozed off.

  “One moment!” she cried, wiping her face and applying chapstick. One glance out the peephole and she sighed.

  She looked put-together compared to Ashley, who was wearing a fashionable checkered sweater over her gray uniform, and maroon lipstick that accentuated her short hair and dark skin.

  Michiko opened the door.

  “Fall asleep?” Ashley said, yawning, herself.

  “Didn't realize how tired I really was,” Michiko said.

  They walked down the narrow, hotel-like hallway, passing volunteers here and here. The whole place had a college vibe, with doors open and people waving and saying hi as the two women passed.

  They entered an elevator and it started upward.

  “What do you think it will be like?” Ashley asked.

  “What?”

  “The volunteer work,” Ashley said. “I'm only a month in and I don't know what to expect.”

  “Probably just paperwork,” Michiko said.

  “Good,” Ashley said. “Because I'm terrified of blood. I don't think I could deal with it.”

  “Then don't do nursing,” Michiko said. “Or any line of work where it's even remotely possible, actually. What was your major?”

  “Intergalactic Business, Management, and French,” Ashley said. “I've been accepted into the executive track at Princeton at Provenance.”

  “Wow,” Michiko said. “Umm, why are you here?”

  “For the same reason you are,” Ashley said.

  Michiko said nothing. Something in Ashley’s tone rubbed her the wrong way.

  As the elevator slowed, Ashley turned to her.

  “You really shouldn't lie to your mother,” Ashley said.

  Michiko gasped.

  “How—how—”

  “Thin walls,” Ashley said as the doors opened into a giant, multilevel cafeteria. She stepped out.

  “If you didn't like nursing, you should have told her.”

  Michiko followed Ashley into the cafeteria. Long picnic tables were spread out across the room. Several chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Michiko thought the place looked more like a hotel than a disaster ship. The diners all looked like hotel guests, and if she didn't know, she would have never guessed they were refugees.

  “Instead of stringing her along, you should just tell her,” Ashley said. “It's much easier, trust me.”

  “It's not that easy,” Michiko said.

  “Why not?” Ashley asked. “Where I'm from, we don't mince words.”

  “It's cultural,” Michiko said.

  “I never knew Brazilians to tiptoe around anyone’s feelings.”

  Michiko frowned. “Yeah, well I'm only half Brazilian. And the other half—well, it's all about appearances and duty.”

  “And your best duty to your mom is to be honest,” Ashley said. “Might be an east versus west thing, but I'm African so I don't really know.”

  Rudy and Hassan were eating at a table in the distance. Hassan waved to them.

  “Please don't take this as a sign of disrespect,” Ashley said. “I just tell it like it is. Hang around me long enough and I'll grow on you.”

  Ashley smiled. “Besides, I haven't told you my demons yet.”

  “Demons?” Michiko asked, letting it all go. “That sounds like a drinking invitation.”

  “Accepted,” Ashley said.

  3

  Michiko and Rudy passed through the narrow hallways of the carrier ship, toward the ship’s atrium where most people gathered during the flight.

  “I never asked you where you were from,” Michiko said.

  “Gargantua,” Rudy said, ducking under a pipe. “Aside from gorgeous sunrise vistas and the best medical centers in the galaxy, there’s not much there.”

  “Oh, you’re from Gargantua?” Michiko asked. “I would have never pegged you as being from there.”

  “Why not?” Rudy asked, grinning. “Is it because I’m not a doctor? I’m not, by the way.”

  “I was headed there about a year ago,” Michiko said, “Until I…well, dropped out of nursing school.”

  Rudy stopped.

  “Damn, you were in Gargantua’s Nursing Program? And now you’re here doing non-profit work?”

  “It’s complicated,” Michiko said, brushing her hair back.

  Rudy folded his arms. “I’m listening.”

  Was he trying to intrude? She couldn’t tell. But his direct nature took her off guard and she wished for some more people around them to take the focus off her.

  “I bet you’re probably going to tell me that the program is cutthroat, the people are assholes, and no amount of money in the world could make you endure twenty-four-hour shifts and a tired, unending cranky sleeplessness which has no name,” Rudy said.

  Michiko laughed. So he wasn’t trying to intrude.

  Rudy smiled back. “It’s cool. Just about everyone says that about the program. Don’t feel bad.”

  Rudy tapped the pipe over his head and started toward a lit hallway several yards away.

  “The fact that you dropped out just means that you have a heart, that’s all,” Rudy said. “And that’s okay in my book.”

  They passed a porthole window and Michiko looked out into the blankness of space.

  Finally, someone didn’t judge her for the biggest mistake she made in her life.

  “I’m a teacher,” Rudy said. “Spent my whole high school and college education on the teaching track.”

  “What grades?”

  “Middle school.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” he said.

  “No offense,” Michiko said. “It’s just that you’re pretty…”

  “Direct?” Rudy asked. “Yeah, with kids that age, you gotta be. To tell you the truth, I guess I burned out. Needed to do something different for a spell while I figure out my life.”

  “Ditto,” she said.

  “I think just about every Galaxy Corps member has that story,” Rudy said. “If we have nothing else in common, it’s probably that. I mean come on, who joins this gig to help people? Ha ha.”

  Michiko laughed though it was inappropriate.

  They passed two people sitting on a padded bench under a porthole window. One was a dark-skinned woman of African descent; the other was a dark-skinned man with a mustache and short, black hair. He looked to be of Middle Eastern or Central Asia descent, but she couldn’t tell. They both wore gray shirts tucked into cargo pants.

  “Galaxy Corps,” the woman said. “I was waiting all day for you guys to show up.”

  The man fixated on Michiko’s guitar slung on her back.

  “You play guitar?” he asked.

  “I’m not very good,” Michiko said.

  “Bullshit you aren’t,” Rudy said.

  “Rock on,” the man said. “I play the spoons.”

  “Stop joking, Hassan,” the woman said.

  “How can one make that up?” Hassan asked. “Let’s go to the canteen and I will show you the best spoon-playing you ever heard in your life.”

  The woman rolled her eyes and extended a hand. “I'm Ashley Momrelle. This is Hassan Babayev. He and I were on assignment together on Regina VII, so I know all about him.”

  “Hey, what's that supposed to mean?” Hassan asked. “Do you guys hear this? I am an underestimated man. The world doesn't know my potential.”

  This Hassan guy was funny. She liked him at first glance. She liked Ashley, too. She tried to figure out the group dynamic but couldn't quite guess yet.

  “I’m Michiko Lins,” she said, shaking their hands.

  “Rudy Ru
ndgren,” Rudy said. “We might as well get to know each other. Gonna be tired of each other before this is all done.”

  “Tired, but friends for life,” Ashley said. “Back home, my family has a saying.”

  She said something in an African language.

  “What does that mean?” Rudy asked.

  “It means Hassan is an angel,” Hassan said.

  “No, silly,” Ashley said. “It means, the group that suffers together stays together always.”

  “Ashley,” Hassan said, “I love you and all, but I'm not ready for that level of commitment.”

  Hassan slid next to Michiko. “Now, I could get to know you a little better…”

  “In your dreams,” Michiko said.

  “I'm just kidding,” Hassan said, showing her a photo on his phone. A pretty woman in a white hijab posed against a desert dunescape. She held a tablet in her hand and had a stethoscope around her neck.

  “I'm planning on proposing when I get out of here,” Hassan said.

  “That's so sweet!” Michiko said.

  “I hate to cut this conversation short,” Rudy said. “But we have to get ready.”

  “Lame,” Hassan said. “So you're going to be the boring one, huh?”

  The ship’s intercom chimed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the ship’s captain said, “We’re going to be making a stop near Reader IV. Passengers Rundgren, Babayev, Momrelle, and Lins: proceed to the airlock.”

  Michiko looked out the window. A police ship dashed by, its sirens blinking.

  And then she saw it.

  Reader IV lay ahead, a dusty-colored ringed planet. A fleet of warships swarmed around it, with smaller private passenger spaceships interspersed between them.

  “We’re up,” Rudy said. “And the whole galaxy’s going to be watching.”

  4

  At the end of her shift, Michiko waited for Hassan, Ashley and Rudy to finish. Slowly but surely the intake room cleared out; all the new passengers were boarded and funneled into the interior of the ship just in time for breakfast.