Aetherbound - E.K. Johnston Page 0,24

longer the Hegemony doesn’t know that, the better.”

Their parents had been a good team too. Ned Brannick the Elder, husband of Catrin, had held the station to higher standards of operating than a Brannick had done in decades. They were efficient, respected, and the Hegemony had summoned them through the Well eight months ago to be the new genetic hostage. With Ned the Younger to hold the gene-lock, they had no excuse to refuse, and so they had gone.

It took a few days to get from Brannick Station to the Stavenger system, even if you didn’t pause at the other stations along the way. Centuries ago, the ruling class of Stavenger’s main planet had built the stations as a way to reach the Maritech system. Having more or less expanded as much as they could in their own solar range, they wanted to plunder someone else’s. The stations—and more important: the Wells—allowed them to ricochet through the vast empty blackness between the two systems. Unfortunately, for them, the inhabitants of the Maritech planets had been less than welcoming, and had driven them back out into space.

The original Stavenger Empire was long gone, fractured into pieces that the Hegemony tried to keep in line, but the stations remained. They were mostly a dead end, with Brannick Station at the end of the line. A few explorers came to use the Brannick Well, but no one knew if the Maritech Net was still intact, and the lack of returning travelers seemed to indicate it wasn’t. If a ship used a Well and missed the Net, there wasn’t enough rocket fuel in the galaxy to slow the ship down before the crew ran out of food. Fisher’s parents would have had adequate supplies and a known route through the Wells, but none of them had expected a happy ending when the family separated. Either they would never see each other again, or their return would herald an invasion.

The burden fell hardest on Ned, who was responsible for keeping the station alive. Fisher knew he wanted revenge, wanted to join the fight that had been picking up speed since they’d been born, but until there was another Brannick on the station with the right chromosomes, there was nothing either of them could do.

So they compromised. Fisher tried to keep their parents’ hard work from falling apart and Ned supported the rebellion in whatever way he could. It wasn’t enough for either of them, and it wouldn’t be enough for Brannick Station in the long run, but right now it was all they had. And while they held the line, Brannick Station bled out slowly: losing loyal people to the front and resources to the various criminals who moved in to take their places.

The Stavenger Empire had gone to Maritech for resources and failed to establish a foothold when they invaded, but the space around the stations wasn’t as empty as they’d first thought. There were asteroids to mine and gasses to trap. Moreover, there were creatures in the void, drawn to the wells, and those creatures were a resource too. As long as there was something to exploit, the stations were worth holding on to. And as long as there had been stations, they had been trying to break free.

This was the true cruelty of the Hegemony’s gene-lock. It affected only one or two people directly, but it gave those few incredible power over the lives of thousands, and some were not suited to bear that weight. The cost of open rebellion was simply too high. The network of Wells wasn’t much, in the face of the Hegemony’s power, but it was absolutely necessary for the survival of the stations, and it couldn’t afford to lose another link. The whole station hung on Ned’s every inhalation, and Fisher both envied and pitied him for it. It was a balance. A stalemate. And they both did the best they could, refusing to let the Hegemony push them apart.

Stalemates were never good for people like Ned Brannick. Which meant they weren’t good for people like Fisher Brannick either, because for good or ill, they came as a pair. Ned was too smart to risk the station in an open fight, especially with the open wound that was their missing parents, but Fisher wasn’t sure how much longer Ned would be able to control himself, and if the station would be ready for whatever Ned tried.

So: mining ships. Some with ore, some with rebels. A middle ground