“The gin flask that Liza made,” Kerris said, pointing to Hawk’s breast pocket. Hawk pulled the silver flask out of his pocket and shook the bottle, listening to the liquid inside. “You forgot?” Kerris asked.
“I always carry a gin flask,” Hawk frowned.
“But your flask has been empty for weeks,” Kerris said. “Liza made that one for you yesterday. You were afraid to touch it.”
Hawk nearly dropped the flask. “Do you know what else she’s done to my memory?”
“It’s not just your memory. It’s mine,” Kerris said. “I don’t know what she’s done, but the drones in the city are programmed to detect her and keep her inside. We cannot shut them down even for a second. I don’t know what else I can do, Hawk. There is no one else who can stop her.”
Tray trudged down the stairs, his eyes half-closed, sealing hatches behind him. When he got to the lower deck and sealed the hatch, he felt relief at the rush of cool air. This was the only level they had the coolers working again, and it was a good thing, too, because the cool, dry air helped alleviate the ripe smell of their clothes. At least they were dry and bug-free.
They’d dubbed the room at the end of the hall ‘the lounge’ and without Hawk around to cry about the shared bed, the rest of them found it easier to collapse on the mattresses than to worry about personal space. He toed open the door to the lounge and paused, letting his eyes adjust to the brighter light in this room. The lantern was powered by the same liquid fuel as the cooling units they’d taken from Boone.
“Tray? Is that you?” Amanda asked, her head tipping back until it thumped against the wall. Danny and Saskia were asleep in the bed, but Amanda sat by the wall, only her legs under the blanket. Her position brought into focus how small the room was for four people.
“Yep,” Tray said, stepping over his brother and sitting next to Amanda. She squinted and kept her face turned away from the light. If she had a headache, he hoped it was one that could be cured with food and water, because basic painkillers were one of the first things they’d run out of. He supposed they could have used the apple wine. He thought about pouring a pint for himself, so he could take his thoughts off his aching feet long enough to sleep.
“I smell food,” Amanda said.
“Want a taste?” Tray asked. “I prepared one of the birds. I think I cooked it hot enough to get any bacteria out.”
She held out an open palm, and he put a fork in her hand, holding the bowl between them.
“I figure we should enjoy the meat now, while Hawk isn’t here to mope about it,” Tray quipped. “Also, by the time I got the gizzards out, I was too tired to make anything else. Have you just been sitting here the whole time?”
“I guess,” Amanda said, fishing around the bowl, not aiming for anything in particular. “I was talking to Sky for a while.”
“You have a working Virp?” Tray asked.
“No. She was in here a moment ago,” Amanda said.
Tray sucked his cheeks in. “Amanda, she left hours ago with the Nelka.”
“No, I could swear… never mind,” she said, tapping her fork against the bowl. “I should have known by how clear she looked.”
“What do you mean?” Tray asked.
“I can’t find my Occ. Everything real is fuzzy,” she said, tapping her cheek.
Tray bit his lip, realizing that the reason she wasn’t loading her fork was because she couldn’t see the food. Taking her hand, he guided her to one of the larger chunks of meat and helped her skewer the piece.
“You should have told Saskia. We made you some goggles when we first realized you needed something. Saskia didn’t trust the Occ,” he said. He and Saskia had modified basic night-vision oculars for her. Of all the vision supplements, those were the lightest and could strap easily onto her face. “I bet they’re in the infirmary. Give me a few minutes off my feet and then I’ll go look.”
“It can wait until morning. My nose hurts too much to wear goggles on my face,” Amanda said, nibbling the bird, then picking it off the fork and eating with her fingers. “It’s been a long time since I couldn’t see.”
“Amanda, you’ve had that Occ for two weeks. That is not a long time,” Tray laughed, pressing another piece of meat onto her fork. Even without salt, it had a satisfying gamey taste.
“It is when you can barely remember the last two months,” Amanda retorted, pulling a piece of cartilage from her mouth and setting it on the floor next to her.
“We need a napkin,” Tray realized. They had some filthy cloth rags in the laundry, and a pot of water to rinse their hands. Both would require getting up again.
“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Amanda asked. “We don’t have enough battery power to run our own fans. We’ve been depleting one battery to charge another because the sun is never out. None of the Virps have charge. None of the Virclutches. My lovely landing job pretty much killed the transmitter on the glider.”
“Your wonderful landing job proved we still have minimal thruster power and nothing is actually wrong with that system,” Tray said, looking bitterly at the dead bird in his bowl. Danny had said Kerris sabotaged the ship to stop them from leaving, and as much as it absolved Tray from his guilt for trying to escape, it still left them stuck here with no way to fly. “We still have enough fuel to keep food stores cool. We have water and dry clothes and a warm bed with no tiny, blood-sucking mites in it.”
“I turned Nolwazi on,” Amanda said, rubbing her brow. There was a long cut where her Occ normally rested. “I know the AI is a power drain, but I needed help to fly. I forgot to turn it off.”
“You turned it on?” Tray asked, a light coming on in his brain.
“Yeah.”
“I thought the Nelka did it when they tried to take control of the ship,” Tray said. “That means the computer was active when you were flying!”
“You’re still calling it flying. That’s the wrong word,” she replied, holding out her empty fork for him to load.
“Semantics,” Tray said, handing her the bowl, reaching for a Virp that he no longer carried. “The signal search program would have activated the moment you were airborne.”
“But we detached the transmitter and put it on the glider,” Amanda said.
“We detached part of it. Oriana has two redundant receivers,” Tray said, crawling around the room, realizing that they were in a closet that didn’t have any consoles. “Nolwazi, are you still awake?”
“Nolwazi is in low power mode,” the computer replied.
“Nolwazi, were there any signals detected while Oriana was airborne?” Tray asked.
“Twelve distinct signals detected from multiple sources. One Virp signal from within Boone,” the computer replied.
“Twelve signals,” Tray repeated, smiling at Amanda. “Any with Quin’s signature?”
“Nolwazi will analyze when power levels are restored to operational levels. Recommend you deploy solar panels.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Tray pointed out, his enthusiasm deflating.
“Nolwazi can use moonlight.”
“It’s cloudy,” Tray said. “And we haven’t figured out if the Boone panels are compatible or if they’re as sensitive as the one that got struck by lightning.”
“Nolwazi does not have record of that damage.”
“Of course not,” Tray muttered. The electrical failure had caused the first issues with Nolwazi, even worse than the auto-updates they received from Quin sometimes. “Power down for now. Conserve energy.”
“Witty conversation does not require excessive energy consumption.”
“Talk to yourself then. I’m going to sleep,” Tray said, crawling onto the bed, not sure if he wanted to spoon behind Saskia or nestle between her and Danny. He opted for the outside, and when his hand came to rest on Saskia’s waist, her fingers laced with his in a way that made his heart ache with unrequited need.
“Hawk can fly the ship even without fuel. Liza believes he can,” Amanda
said, setting the bowl down.
“Do you believe it?” Tray murmured, sleep crashing in the longer his head stayed on the pillow.
“She thinks we’re abusing his power. That’s why she won’t give him back,” Amanda continued.
“Sky can get us home, too,” Tray pointed out. “She’s used the grav-drive before when we had a thruster fail. It seems all the people who can get us home are the people Liza is driving away from us.”
“Maybe you should get me those goggles. It’ll be safer if I can see when I wake up,” Amanda said, snaking under the blanket between Danny and Saskia until her head popped out the other side.
“I need to seal up these leftovers anyway,” Tray said, rolling away from Saskia, taking a moment to regain his balance when he got to his knees. If things went well, they could be home tomorrow night, which meant tonight was his last chance to sleep next to Saskia under any guise of platonic friendship. For the first time, he had second thoughts about leaving Oriana to be with his boy.
30
The lights came on in the bay, and Tray whooped for joy. The sun had finally come out and Oriana had crushed enough of the local trees so they could make use of the solar energy. Danny and Saskia had been buzzing since dawn installing the solar panels they’d harvested from the rooftops of Boone, and they finally had power! Tray skipped to the ward room, activating the consoles.
“Nolwazi, show me the comm signals we picked up yesterday!” Tray said. He’d dreamt about analyzing them, and dove right into his plans, burying himself in analysis.
“Is that Quin?” Amanda asked, coming up the stairs with a bowl full of grub-rolls. He hadn’t told her it was made of bugs, and figured it better that she not know, since she could be a picky eater. She wore the goggles Tray had made. Although designed to be compact, the yellow frames hid her green eyes, and a faint heads-up display reflected on the lens. But they probably let her read his screen from across the room.
“Yeah. Three of them look like something Quin might send, but they’re all different directions. When Sky comes with the Bobsled, maybe we can go up and see,” he said, taking the first one from the list—the one he kept coming back to. He focused on the directionality of the staticky music broadcast that Saskia insisted was real, comparing it to the newer ones. It was possible to massage noise into a fake signal with enough analysis, but the frequency jump he saw was familiar enough for him to look twice.
“What is it?” Amanda asked, sliding off the arm of the couch and onto a cushion.
“I think I just found Quin,” Tray said, calling up his calendar of old passwords and counting the days.
“It’s Liza,” Amanda said, frowning at some phantom over Tray’s shoulder. “She’s showing something to you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I know what I’m seeing,” Tray argued. “You know how Quin masks their locator signal, and changes the code every month?”
“No. Not at all.”
Tray smiled. She hadn’t been regularly making interworld trips for the past five years, so there was no reason for her to know.
“They change their signal for security purposes. Only people with an updated code can use the signal to home in,” Tray explained. “We were coming back just as a changeover occurred, which was good, because it gave us time to get back before the codes changed again. If I’m right, this signal carried the auto-update.”
Amanda gave him a doubtful look. “A signal sent yesterday during the three minutes we were airborne just happened to have the auto-update. Now I know Liza is feeding you lies.”
Tray shook his head, ignoring her pessimism. “There’s barely enough power in the carrier signal to tell it’s there. We’re not going to get tracking data from it.”
“No, of course you’re not. She’s feeding you just enough to draw us away from the city,” Amanda said. “Enough to convince us to leave Hawk behind and follow this.”
“I know it’s a long shot,” Tray griped, weaving around the table. He needed to tell Danny and Saskia. They needed the hope to go on.
A wave of dizziness hit him before he reached the door. When had he last eaten? This was no time for hypoglycemia to kick in. Then he felt pain on his wrists and saw raw, fresh rope burns on the skin.
“Are you all right?” Amanda asked, her hand on his shoulder.
“No,” Tray replied. It couldn’t be rope burn. It could be a rash. A bug bite. No time for that either.
“Lie down. I’ll get Danny,” Amanda said.
“After your mother died, Daniel tried to take you away from me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of your kidnappers,” his father’s voice echoed.
“No,” Tray whimpered, feeling a nightmare return. His father offered a confusing mixture of comfort and terror.
A gangly man forced him to his knees and looped a rough rope around his wrists. A meat hook passed through the bond, the pointed edge scraping Tray’s palm, and then his captor tossed the long end of the rope over a pulley and strung him up.
“You can’t do this to me! I’m a person!” Tray cried defiantly, although inwardly he was crying for his father’s rescue. That morning, he’d sat with his father at the breakfast table, nervously wading through conversation as he daintily nibbled on his baked flounder. His father suspected something was up, but guessed by the clothes that Tray was trying to impress a girl at school. They’d walked the ten blocks to Clover Preparatory School together and parted ways. Tray never went into the school building. Instead of schoolbooks, he carried money and a change of clothes. He never made it past the Kemah gate.
“Look at this!” one of his captors sneered, pilfering Tray’s bag. “Little Tray Hale is running away from home. I don’t think he wants to be rescued.”
“I can change his mind,” his partner huffed. He was a beefy guy with a butcher knife and a blood-soaked apron. He ran the blade down Tray’s sleeve, slicing through the fabric of the shirt, taking the top layer of skin with it.
“We could send a finger,” the gangly partner suggested, putting pressure on Tray’s bleeding palm. “That’s always fun.”
Tray clenched his fist and felt a knife slice into his palm. “No, you can’t! Let me go!” he shouted.
“Get off him!” Amanda cried. “Liza, get out of his head!”
“Amanda!” Danny hollered.
Amanda drew her knife across Tray’s palm, then whipped around to slash at Danny. Tray’s teeth chattered, and he fell back, his head hitting the stairs, his limbs flopping and twitching beyond his control.
“Tray,” Saskia said, charging into the room, hefting him under the shoulders and dragging him off the stairs so she could lie him flat. Blood soaked his hands and sleeves. “Let me see.”
“Get off me! You can’t do this to me! I’m a person!” he screeched. His skin burned and his heart raced. The past and present mixed, but in both, he knew he was under attack. “Help!”
“Tray, I am helping. It’s not fatal,” Saskia assured, holding his hand over his head to get the bleeding wound elevated, placing Tray’s other hand over the gash. “Keep pressure on this hand.”
Tray kicked and screamed. “Help!”
“Captain, I need the knitter!” Saskia hollered.
“His father’s not going to pay the ransom,” the beefy guy groused, criss-crossing his blade, making hash marks on Tray’s back. Tray’s arms were numb from being suspended overhead. His throat was dry, and he couldn’t yell or cry anymore. He wasn’t a person anymore. He was a piece of meat, hanging on a hook in a butcher shop.
Danny fought back tears, too defeated to pray. Amanda’s hand dripped with Tray’s blood, and she hollered in Moonspeak, kicking Danny’s shins, elbowing his cheek. In the old passenger area, where they’d tied up LaMark, there were restraints meant to keep the chairs stowed. Danny braced Amanda against the wall, locking her hands down with the tethers, then her torso.
Amanda threw her body against the wall, bashing her head until blood dampened her hair. Danny backed away, waiting
out the tantrum. They were out of sedatives. They were out of anything that might help her. Her screams silenced suddenly, echoing through the empty room, her eyes darting about like she was following the movements of a fly.
“Galen,” she whimpered, her voice quivering in terror. “I see you. I see your doorway. Are you Diana’s pawn?”
“Amanda?” Danny said. Amanda had been in stasis when Diana had appeared on the ship.
“I still win, Diana,” she hummed threateningly. “You can take me to the 5, but I still win.”
Danny shivered, his own experience with torture at the hands of Diana Solvere stirring in his mind. He prayed softly, pushing down the pain of the memory.
“You’re not in the 5, Amanda,” Danny said, edging closer. Amanda whipped her legs around. Danny jumped back, but she still caught his thigh. She chanted in Moonspeak, yanking her hands against the tethers. There was nothing he could do. He backed out of the room, sealing the hatch.
“Zive, don’t let her die like this,” he prayed, his hand resting on the latch, his tears splashing on his hand, cutting through the smears of Tray’s blood. Wiping his hands on his pants, he intercepted Tray and Saskia outside the infirmary.
“Why bring him here? He hates this place,” Danny said. Between Tray’s screams and Amanda’s, his ears were bleeding.
“Electrics are up. I want to use the scanner rather than knit blind,” Saskia replied, wrestling Tray into the infirmary.
“Get off me! Daddy, help!” Tray screeched, digging his heels into the floor. This was the same kind of raving they’d seen in Saskia when she was having flashbacks, but Tray was not a war veteran.
“Tray, it’s me. It’s your brother,” Danny said, clamping down on Tray’s shoulders, so that Saskia could get Tray’s hand under the scanner.
“You can’t keep me here!” Tray gasped, his legs shaking as he resisted being held down.
“This isn’t too bad,” Saskia reported, releasing Tray’s arm. “I can wait for him to calm down.”
Tray jerked free, getting dazed when his head knocked into the scanner that Saskia had used. Saskia caught his arm and sat him on the bed.
Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4) Page 27