The room erupted into protests, mostly from the scientists.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “You can all find another way to reach this base, wherever it is. I’ll give you all my intel, no charge.”
“I may have to accompany them,” Vakar said quietly.
Eva’s stomach seized, but she nodded. “I understand. It’s your job. But it’s not a good enough reason to put everyone else in danger.”
Pink harrumphed. “I thought this was about justice.”
“Mari and Pete can handle that without us, I’m sure.”
“My brother may be there, too,” Sue said. “Or there may be information about where they’re keeping him. Someone might know.”
“Okay, then you can go with Va—the Wraith, I guess.”
“I wouldn’t mind having my other body back,” Min said. “This one is roomy, but it feels less . . . mine.”
Min never asked her for anything. Besides those damn cats, that is. Eva couldn’t exactly tell her to suck it up; it was her body, for goodness’ sake.
All right, so everyone had axes to grind. Far be it from her to get in the way.
“Well then, I guess that settles it,” Eva said, throwing up her hands. “But I’m still ditching Pollea. No offense.”
Pollea started to protest, but Vakar put a hand on her shoulder and guided her toward the cargo bay. Eva felt a twinge of sympathy. She knew what it was like to be left out, and where that road could lead, but Pollea wasn’t going to magically sprout the required training and fortitude in the time it took to get to . . . wherever.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” she said, mostly to herself. “The hell are we going to do with all the cats?”
Chapter 24
Tumba la Casa
Vakar, with a modicum of grumbling and help from Min, was able to track Mari back to a place called Pupillae in the Black Forest system.
Min charted a new course that let them drop Pollea off at a quennian outpost, along with all the cats except Mala, who settled on Min’s lap and politely ignored pleas to leave. Min insisted she could bring Mala if necessary, so Eva left them to each other, muttering about stubborn goats.
They passed through the Gate two hours after that. The Black Forest system had only a half dozen planets, but three of them were big and had tons of moons. Iris was an ice giant with twenty-three moons of varying sizes, and Pupillae was the largest, a red ball of ice and rock and not a damn thing anyone could want. Besides privacy, of course.
“We don’t know what to expect, so stage one is assessing the situation,” Eva said. She stood in front of the holoscreen near the kitchen, which showed a rotating image of the moon. Arrayed in front of her, sitting or standing in varying stages of excitement and anxiety, were Pink, Sue, Vakar and the quennian scientists. Min was omnipresent, as usual.
“We could get there in the middle of a hot mess,” she continued, “or we could be cruising in on the tail end of things and it’s all high fives and happy hour.”
“What if we’re early?” Pink asked. She cradled her sniper rifle in the crook of one arm, the butt resting on the floor.
“They’re a solid hour in front of us, if not more, but I guess it’s possible. If so, we wait, then stroll in fashionably late, as usual.” Eva gestured at Vakar. “The Wraith will scout ahead. Sue and I are with the scientists, and Pink and Min stay here. If things get dicey, they take off and circle back to the rendezvous point later.”
“So what are we looking for?” Sue asked. She couldn’t stop bouncing on the balls of her feet. It was driving Eva nuts.
“You and I are looking for your brother and La Sirena Negra. They”—she pointed at the quennian scientists—“are looking for the artifact. If our goals overlap, great. If not, our priorities are your brother and my ship. We find them, we pick up any nearby stragglers and we jump like a flea. Worst case, we transfer Min and Pink to Sirena and leave El Cucullo at the rendezvous point so anyone left behind has an exit strategy.”
“What about Pete and the others?” Min asked.
Eva pursed her lips. “We’ll jump through that Gate if we find it.” She wanted to help Mari, certainly, because that would mean screwing with The Fridge, but she had to focus.
“Thank you again for your assistance, Captain Innocente,” First Scientist Orana said. She smelled crisp, sharp as a knife. “If we can recover the artifact, our government—and possibly the universe—will owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“I’m just the delivery girl,” Eva said. “It’s a long way from said to done. We’ll stay with you as long as it makes sense, and then you’re on your own.”
The quennians smelled excited and scared, but mostly determined. They weren’t rookies, but she didn’t want to pry about their experience in combat. They’d certainly been ready to fight back on Cavus; didn’t mean they were any good at it.
“Captain, sensors say there’s a facility broadcasting a quarantine warning,” Min said. “They’re locked down until further notice with a highly contagious strain of Florxian necrosis.”
Eva snorted. “I’ll bet.”
“Florxian necrosis is nasty,” Pink said. “It usually starts as a rash in your—”
“No thank you, rash time is over,” Eva interjected. “Any signs of other ships or activity, Min?”
“No, but they could be on the far side of the moon, or—”
Eva could hear the hitch in Min’s voice. “Or they could have been destroyed already. They might also have landed in a shielded area.”
She gave the assembled crew a last once-over. “Get your crap together and get ready to drop, everyone. Down into the cargo bay. No airlock this time; we’re going to jump out the back door, guns blazing. Gird your loins and kiss your friends. Dismissed.”
The scientists shuffled down the ramp, quiet but smelling up the place like a perfume store. Sue bounced over to Eva, eyes sparkling.
“Captain, I want to show you what I made,” she said.
Eva bit her lip. “Is it something we can use now?”
“Yes. Definitely. I mean, I think so. Probably. Yes.”
Eva followed her down to the cargo bay, where a cloth-draped hunk of something sat in the corner. With a sly grin and a flourish, Sue pulled the covering off to reveal a round-chested green bot taller than Eva, with thick arms and orange hands and what looked like a garbage can lid for a shield.
“It has no head,” Eva said. “I mean, it’s, very nice?”
“It’s not a bot, it’s a mech,” Sue said. “I call him Gustavo.”
Eva pondered the notion of a mech having a name and decided it was no different from a ship having one. “What’s it—he—do?”
“Oh my gosh, a lot,” Sue said. “He can lift up to a ton, the hands can turn into drills or an excavator bucket, he’s got a sound cannon, ooh, and a flamethrower!”
“You— Wait, how did you build this?”
“You know, from whatever scraps I found lying around.” Sue smiled brightly. “You’d be surprised how many nonessential bits a spaceship has. Plus I had time to scrounge while my bots were fixing stuff.”
“Huh.” Eva paced around it, checking out the visible components. She stuck a foot into a knee joint and hoisted herself up so she could peer inside. A pair of Sue’s little yellow-headed bots looked back at her, one of them wearing goggles and a hat. The other clutched a worn-looking teddy bear.
“You sure you’ll be able to handle this thing?” Eva asked.
“I’ve been practicing,” Sue said proudly. “I only set one thing on fire last time. By accident, I mean. I set three things on fire on purpose.”
“It could be really dangerous.”
Sue’s exuberance faded. “My brother could be in there,” she said quietly. “I have to find him if I can.”
Eva knew that song well. She banged on the mech’s big metal belly and stepped down. “Suit up, then, and get ready to roll.”
“It can do that, too!”
Shaking her head,
Eva went back up to her cabin to get her gear.
Vakar was waiting for her inside, helmet retracted. He smelled like himself, but edgy. She loaded up on the last of her flash bombs and a single grenade, all that was left of the stash she’d assembled from her old life. Whatever happened after this, she’d still have a lot of work to do rebuilding all she’d lost, one way or another.
“You are sure you cannot accompany us,” Vakar said.
“I’m not sure of anything.” She checked the charge on her gun; it was almost full. “But if we land and La Sirena Negra is sitting right there next to us . . .” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It seems unjust, after searching for you so long, to be parted again so soon.”
Eva stifled a snort. He sounded like a romance vid. “My mom always used to say, ‘Life isn’t fair.’ And I thought, ‘Well, then I’ll make it fair. I’ll be the fairest damn person who ever lived, and I’ll make other people be fair, too.’” She laughed. “It’s not even that it isn’t fair, you know? It’s that it isn’t anything. It just is. Life is people, and animals, and plants, and big chunks of mindless rock flying through space. And none of it gives a shit about anything else.”
“Is that so? I believe many things care very much for others.”
“Stop trying to ruin my foul mood by smelling delicious. Save it for the afterparty.”
“Afterparty?”
She turned in his grip, smiling at him. “Oh yeah. It’s in my pants, and you’re the only one invited.”
He smelled puzzled. “I am not sure I can fit in your pants.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to take them off.”
Now his smell shifted; he got the picture. She sighed. Bloodthirsty mood ruined. She’d have to spend at least ten minutes imagining herself punching people to get her head in the game.
They did not arrive early.
El Cucullo flew in east of the facility, dropping low quickly to avoid the kinds of big guns that tended to be pointed skyward. They needn’t have bothered; despite a few ships dogfighting overhead, the facility’s cannons were silent, assuming it had any. Clearly someone had already gotten to them.
The buildings were squat, surface-hugging affairs, so small that Eva assumed there must be sublevels. Whether they were connected or not was another question. Other questions included how many troops were currently trying to kill each other, how many civilians were huddling in terror under desks making pee, and where the high holy hell was La Sirena Negra, because she couldn’t see the damn thing anywhere.
“They must have a hangar,” she muttered. “I do not want to have to run a freaking gauntlet to find my ship.” She would if it came to that, but better would be to find it, steal it back from her dad quickly, and get the hell out of there without getting caught up in whatever was happening between The Fridge and Mari’s people. As much as she wanted to do some damage, and as eager as she had been to get in on Mari’s big mission, now didn’t seem like the best time.
“I should be able to access their network from a terminal inside,” Vakar said. “I will find any hangar locations and map them.” The sheen on his helmet reflected her face back to her, distorted.
“Fine. Min, put us down and stay alert. Take off if things get spicy.” She checked her gear again and closed her eyes, opening them to find Pink standing in front of her, lips pursed.
Pink silently held out her hands and Eva took them for the usual handshake. This time, when they bumped hips, Pink pulled her in for a rare hug.
“Stay alive, fool,” Pink said.
“A smart person told me fools are protected from themselves,” Eva replied, smirking.
Pink shook her head, dreads swaying slightly. “Vakar, watch her back, please.”
“With pleasure,” Vakar replied, smelling like vanilla and licorice.
Vakar dropped first, jumping out of the half-open cargo bay as the ship was still landing and racing toward the entrance to the closest building. By the time Eva got to him, he had the door open and was inside checking for danger.
“No guards,” he said. “They’ve probably fallen back to more defensible positions. Turrets are deactivated.”
“Got a map yet?” she asked.
“No, I am still breaching the network. We can continue moving forward in the meantime, or you can wait here for my signal.”
She huffed. “I hate waiting. Let’s go.”
The three scientists huddled up behind her, backs to each other like a chitinous rat king. How she was going to sneak them anywhere when they smelled so strongly, she didn’t know, but they didn’t have the same gear Vakar did. Then there was Sue, stomping around like a giant todyk in her exosuit.
Subtlety had never been Eva’s strong suit, anyway.
The next door Vakar opened led to a hallway, which led to another door. He positioned himself with his back to the control panel, gesturing to her that there were two guards to the right of the door and one to the left. She nodded and turned to the scientists and repeated the gestures.
“What does that mean?” Sue whispered.
Eva rolled her eyes, covering her mouth and then using the other hand to shoo them away from the door, back into the other room. She returned and took up position on the opposite side of the door from Vakar.
((On three,)) he pinged, then counted.
The door slid open and the two of them raced in, Vakar immediately taking down one of the guards on his side while Eva ducked behind a shipping container. It took her a few moments to locate her target while Vakar dealt with the second guard. She vaulted over her cover and landed right next to the poor guy, elbowed him in the throat and slammed his head into the metal wall.
Someone started screaming, and someone else clapped a hand over their mouth. It sounded like it was coming from a table near the center of the room. Eva tiptoed over and hunkered down, gun pointing at the ground.
Two people crouched underneath, probably the underwear-pissing scientists she’d been expecting. One of them was a mess, anyway, but the other, unpleasantly familiar face stared back at her with the kind of scorn she reserved for human supremacists and puppy-kickers.
“If it isn’t my old buddy Miles Erck,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”
“Well, actually, fuck you,” Miles spat. The woman gasped and hid her face.
“Strike one,” Eva said. “Three strikes and you’re out. My friends are looking for an artifact that came in recently. Ancient. Proarkhe. Stolen. Any idea where it might be?”
“Stolen?” cried the scared one.
“Shut up, Emle,” said Miles.
“Totally stolen,” Eva said. “Tell me where it is, oh wise paleotechnologist, and you can stay right here until everyone is finished killing each other. Or go somewhere safer, which I’d recommend.”
“Well, actually, I said fuck you.”
Eva yearned to break his nose.
“I’ve been well fucked recently, thanks,” she replied. “But sadly, it is you who will be fucked in an entirely figurative fashion if you don’t get polite in a hurry. And that’s strike two. Artifact. Where.”
“It’s near the central core,” Emle said.
“Emle!” Miles nudged her hard.
“She’ll kill us, Miles!”
“I will,” Eva said. “I’m very naughty. Where’s the central core?”
“Two buildings over. You have to use the tunnels on the lower sublevels to get between buildings.” The more Emle talked, the more the woman calmed down.
“And to get to the sublevels?”
“The elevator is that way.” The woman pointed.
Miles fumed. “Emle, you idiot, how could you—”
“Strike three,” Eva said, and kicked him in the face. He dropped like a sack of protein powder, and Emle shrieked again.
“Hey, hey, look at me.” Eva stared Emle in the eyes and made shushing noises until the shrieking stopped. “His mouth is too big for his fists, a
nd he’ll have a mild concussion, but he’ll be fine. Try to get out of here if you can. Get a job working for someone other than The Fridge.”
“The Fridge?” Emle said. “You mean the kidnappers? No, this is—”
“It’s The Fridge,” Eva interrupted. “You’ve been lied to. Good luck not getting dead.” She got up to leave.
“Wait,” Emle said, crawling out from under the table. “Should I get a gun?” She looked over at the dead guards.
“Your call,” Eva replied. “But if you’d had a gun when I found you, you’d look a lot like them right now.”
Emle blanched and retreated under the table. Eva left her trying to wake up Miles fucking Erck, and called the quennian scientists in now that the room was clear.
“Tunnels on the sublevels,” Eva repeated. “How many sublevels does this place have?”
“Six,” Vakar said. “I have breached their network. Would you like a schematic?”
“Hit me.” Eva’s commlink pinged and she pulled up the map of the place. Each building looked roughly like a giant screw driven into the ground, with rooms and tunnels branching out from the center. The middle screw was the largest; it had a big central room that was no doubt the core Emle had mentioned.
“Any way to confirm the artifact is where that lady says it is?” she asked.
Vakar was quiet for a few moments. “There are files for a number of active projects at this facility, but each has a code name and separate security protection.”
“Try checking where the alarms are going off right now. I’m guessing they’ll show some kind of trajectory.”
Another pause. “Interesting.”
“Secrets are for sharing, mi vida.”
“There are several places where the facility was breached, with the main bulk of the incursion centered around the middle building, which is the largest. Secondary teams were successful in buildings one and two, but another team was apparently repelled in building four.”
Eva wrinkled her nose. “The next building over?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged and punched the panel to summon the elevator. “We don’t have time for detours.” The elevator didn’t open, and she frowned. “Must be on lockdown. Vakar?”
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