Rivers of Orion by Dana Kelly (a court of thorns and roses ebook free .TXT) 📕

For a moment, they drifted weightlessly as directional thrusters guided the shuttle to face Arsenal Bay. Mike looked at Orin, who sat with his head buried in his hands. “Hey man, are you all right?”

“I’m sure I will be,” said Orin. “I’ve never taken a life before.” He exhaled and let his arms float in front of him. “I mean, unless you count roaches and sludgel bugs.”

Images of the men Mike had slain aboard Fox Mendes flooded Mike’s thoughts. He searched for the right words to say as he relived every terrible moment. Bitterly, he remembered how good it had felt when he struck down the man with the repurposer—how angry and quenched he had felt in that instant, and a fierce wave of guilt washed over him. Taking a deep breath, he mentally placed each memory within its own piece of paper, folded them up, and shoved them far back in the desk drawer he tended in his mind. “Hang in there,” said Mike. “I’m told it gets easier to the live with over time.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Orin. “I don’t think everything gets easier, just because you have to live with it.”

Centrifugal gravity slowly returned as Casey accelerated toward the planet.

“If it gets to be too much, remember you’ve got a place in your mind to store it, now,” said Mike.

“Oh, yeah. That’s true,” said Orin. “Thank you.”

Casey’s shuttle skimmed the atmosphere, and fire roared around the hull. Pockets of turbulence rattled the shuttle as it dove through blankets of smoke, headed for the surface of Arsenal Bay. The vessel lurched, and Orin winced. He unbuckled a portion of his tactical vest and hiked up his shirt slightly, briefly. Wincing, he rubbed the ropy scar crossing his abdomen. “That’s quite enough out of you,” he said, and he set to re-buckling his vest.

“How’d you get that scar?” asked Malmoradan. “I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“I, uh… we were in an accident when I was twelve,” said Orin. “Mike, my uncle, and me. Some guy in a sky truck turned off his autopilot so he could make a delivery on time, and he plowed into us doing eighty, half a kilometer up. He killed my uncle Roy, and he almost killed Mike.” He tapped his clothing above the scar. “Part of the instrument panel impaled me just before the ejection pod snapped shut.”

“Roy was only ten years older than us,” said Mike. “Practically a kid himself when we were growing up. He used to roughhouse with us whenever I’d come over.”

“Or whenever anyone would come over,” said Orin. “He’d always let us win, and when we did, he’d always say, ‘That’s quite enough out of you!’ in this hilariously bad British accent. Then he’d mess up our hair and chase us around for a while, and we loved it.”

“He sounds like a very kind man,” said April.

“Oh, Roy was great,” said Mike. “Every chance he got, he’d take us kids camping, hiking, or target shooting. And if there was a monster truck rally, a rodeo, or a wrestling match in town, he always found a way to buy enough tickets for everyone to go, if they wanted.”

“I don’t know how he paid rent sometimes, for all the money he spent on us,” said Orin. “But the thing I’m most grateful for is how my uncle Roy taught me to believe in myself, no matter what. I miss him, and every time my scar hurts, I remember him.”

Shona smiled sadly. “He sounds like a really great guy. Gone way too soon.”

“He was,” said Orin. “You would’ve liked him.”

“I hope they nailed that truck pilot to the wall,” said Malmoradan.

Orin shook his head. “He convinced the judge it was a faulty autopilot. All the court did was order him to pay a few thousand credits to Uncle Roy’s next-of-kin and suspend his license for two years. My uncle was way too young for any next-of-kin, and the pilot appealed the suspension. That son-of-a-bitch was back in the airlanes three months later.”

Malmoradan bristled. “What’s his name? Did you get his name?”

“It’s supposed to be public record, but every request my dad or my grandparents filed got lost in the system,” said Orin. “I think someone’s protecting him.”

“That ain’t right,” said Malmoradan. “Ain’t nothing right about that.”

Orin smiled at Mike. “We got Nimbus out of it. And April, you said he’s a very special DI. Who knows? Maybe my uncle Roy’s spirit was the one who made him that way.”

◆◆◆

Alone in the cockpit, Casey glanced over the navigation data. She dropped below the cloud line, and sooty mist rushed against the canopy. Droplets shattered, leaving streaks of ashen mud as they coursed along the vessel’s hull. Embers of sunset smoldered along a fractured sandstone horizon, where midnight oceans soaked in mirrored flame.

Casey’s headphones crackled, and she negotiated with landing control for a spot to set down. She received coordinates outside the tower walls, and she adjusted course. Clouds dissipated as she drew close to the soaring structure.

Steam rolled continuously from rooftop vents, and pinpoint windows cascaded like stars. At its base, four enormous, angled girders loomed over a massive crater, shored up by dozens of smaller, crisscrossing beams. Constructed within the struts, four suspension trams shuttled workers between the residence structure and the planet’s surface. At the heart of the crater sat a hillock of ice, where an augur connected it to the atmospheric processing machinery high overhead.

A sturdy, mottled platform extended in all directions from the tops of the girders, a patchwork deck covered in graffiti art, welded plates, and braces. Upon it, weathered heating vanes glowed and creaked as they fanned the air, and sun-faded rain barrels lined its perimeter. Colorful tin awnings and plastic shear walls provided shelter to dozens of shanties and a makeshift bazaar. Narrow poles leaned over in their recesses as their banners ruffled in the intermittent breeze.

Casey set down on a circular tarmac anchored near