Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  “Shut up.” April caught her breath, her face decorated with several cuts, mostly healed. “Son of a bitch, Drake, thank the piss ass we found you.”

  “Drake!” Voices behind her called out. “It’s the Drake!”

  “I hoped it was you.” Jess looked past her. “You bring half the Bay with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bad?”

  “Fucked up beyond belief,” April said. “Where do I start? Never mind that. Get in here so we can go back and kick some ass everyone told us you had to be with us for.”

  “What?” Jess peered past the two Interforce agents. “Jake?”

  “Jess.” Her brother Jake came out of the hatch, looking white around the eyes. “The fucking bastards shut us down. They fucking came in and shot people. What the fuck? We spilled blood for them for a dozen generations!”

  “Hold on a minute.” Jess watched Doug drag two bodies clear of the shuttle. “What’s that all about?”

  “Fucking pilots,” April spat. “Fucking sleezy bastards who were on the take from the other side and nearly fucking killed all of us.” She kicked one of the bodies viciously.

  Jess put her hands back in her pockets. “So Interforce came in and took over the Bay?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. “I can’t fucking believe it. We gave them what they asked for, and they brought a crapload of guns in and started shooting.”

  Jess suddenly got very serious. “They killed people?”

  “Two hundred.” Jake glared at her. “Two fucking hundred, Jess! Like it was nothing! What the hell!”

  “Money does things to people,” Jess said in a remote tone. She glanced at the entryway that was full of big bodies in Bay colors. “How many people ya got?”

  “Fifty,” April said. “I rounded them up, and we ambushed the shuttle when it landed. Fuckers had them all ready to load on all that plant crap and take it somewhere.”

  That sounded horrible. Dev wasn’t sure what to do or say, she was just aware that there was much uncertainty, and much incorrectness going on and that Jess was very angry.

  Doug came and stood next to Dev. “Aside from that, how’s it been Rocket?” He folded his arms over his broad chest. “Don’t mind April. She’s been upchucking since we left downside, and it’s pissing her off.”

  “It’s been really suboptimal actually,” Dev said. “I am glad to see you and April, however, and it’s excellent that you obtained a shuttle. We were going to do something highly incorrect to a working craft from here and probably be made dead in the process of returning to downside otherwise.”

  Doug pointed at the shuttle. “Can ya fly that? Cause April offed everyone inside who might have been able to.”

  “I see.” Dev studied the shuttle and hiked her eyebrows. “This could get interesting as I have absolutely no programming on that at all.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “So like I said, Drake, let’s get to getting. I can’t wait to splat those fucking bastards,” April said, “before they take off with everything on another shuttle.”

  “Right,” Jake said. “Jess, it needs you to release all the locks. Because Jimmy’s no longer around.”

  “Okay, hold it.” Jess put her hands up. “I can’t just go on there. We’ve got some civs we have to get clear.”

  “Jess, we don’t have time,” Jake said. “They’re gonna just tank the whole place.” He grabbed hold of her arm. “What here’s worth more than that?”

  “Right,” April said. “Leave ’em. What I hear everyone up here’s a fucktard anyway.”

  Jess looked at them. “I’ve got to go get Kurok out of here,” she said, seeing the protest. “He’s family.”

  “Shit.” April wiped the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. “I have no idea what that even means,” she said. “Can we just get the hell out of here?”

  “What do you care about family, Jess? You said, and the old woman said, no one was family to you anymore. I just want to save enough patch to not have to live on the beach,” Jake said bluntly. “So get your fucking ass on the shuttle and clean up your mess.”

  “My mess?” Jess’s body posture shifted. “Tayler’s here, Jake.”

  He went quiet. “Tayler?”

  “That was the price,” Jess said. “He was the merch our brother sold to this place for the green stuff. They were going to make more of me to sell the other side.”

  “For real?” One of the figures in the hatch moved forward. “The kid’s here, Drake?”

  Dev took a step forward and turned her scanner around to display the screen. It showed Tayler playing ball in the lab.

  Everyone went a little quiet. “Compounded fuckedupitness. Screw it,” April finally said. “We’re out of time.”

  “You’re wasting what time we have.” Jess motioned the crowd forward. “Everyone got a bat? Knife? Something? C’mon with me.” She started back down the accessway, guiding Doug and Dev ahead of her. “Devvie, how many people’ll fit in that thing?”

  “It’s a storage shuttle,” Dev said. “Not sure it will be comfortable for people.”

  “Better than croaked?”

  “About two-hundred.” Dev reached the hatch first and opened it, shoving it inward to clear space for the crowd behind her. “KayTee?”

  “Watch out!” the KayTee choked out. “W—”

  Dev instinctively dove for the ground as a rush of bodies came past her, swarming over the two guards holding KayTee down.

  The guards actually screamed in terror and very quickly were made dead.

  “Booya!” One of the Bay fighters laughed. “Now that’s more like it.” He twirled the large, curved knife he’d cut the guards open with and returned it to a sheath at his belt. “Good stuff.”

  “C’mon.” Jess hauled Dev up and started through the core space. “Sooner we go, sooner we leave.”

  THE SHIELDS WERE failing. Kurok knew it was a losing cause as he got another box in the way and the KayTee tacked it down with the heat torch. Half the front of the entrance was crumpled, and he heard the sound of a mech moving outside, getting ready to ram.

  A BeeAye came over to him. “Doctor Dan. There’s a hatch over there. You can escape with the little boy. We’ll make them stop long enough.”

  “Thank you, BeeAye. But I don’t want to escape, and there’s nowhere for me and young Tayler to go.” He patted BeeAye on the arm. “If things are going to go so terribly wrong and you all are in danger, I want to be here with you.”

  All around bodies paused and turned toward him, eyes in every shade of humanity focused on his face. “Well,” he said into that momentary silence. “Of course. You all are my children, after all.”

  “Kurok!” A loud and mechanical sounding voice echoed against the crumpled metal. “Surrender, and the rest of them will be allowed to go back to the crèche.”

  “No they won’t,” Kurok yelled back. “You’re going to kill all of us, so what’s the point? Keep hammering. Maybe I’ll get annoyed enough to decompress the section.”

  “I think that will cause us a lot of discomfort,” a CeeDee murmured.

  “Only for a moment,” he answered, gently. “As far as ways to die go, it’s pretty painless. I promise.” He limped over to where the cracks were starting in the edge of the doorway and then touched the comms in his ear, again without response.

  Maybe Jess and Dev had gotten hurt.

  Likely they had gotten hurt. Perhaps they’d gotten terminally hurt and they were drifting in vacuum. Kurok sighed, his face tensing in discomfort. “So damn pointless.” He put a piece of steel against the cracks. “Tack it here, would you, KayTee?”

  “Yes.” The KayTee came over, looking very discomfited. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do better work, Doctor Dan. This feels very suboptimal.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Kurok regarded the crumpled entryway, its padlock flashing a dull, repeating red. “What’s your crèche name, KayTee?”

  The KayTee put the torch down. “Kevin,” he s
aid. “I haven’t used it in a very long time, though.”

  Kurok clasped his shoulder. “Thank you, Kevin. Now all of you please go back to the back of the lab. I’m going to go outside and see if I can talk to these people who are trying to hurt us.”

  A burst of objection rose immediately. “Doctor Dan, they’ll do bad things to you,” the CeeDee said. “Don’t go.”

  He turned to face them. “Yes, they will. But I would like to try talking to them first. Please be safe here.” He gave them all a smile then went to the hatch and put his hand on it, feeling the vibration as the shielded entry started to cycle.

  THEY SQUEEZED THROUGH the central core entry hatch, the space that was already somewhat tight for bio alts becoming breathless and overwhelmed with the fifty residents of Drake’s Bay making their way through.

  “Hah. Like the eject tubes,” Dustin said as he followed Jess closely. “Sup, cuz? Major cluster, huh?”

  “Major,” Jess responded shortly. Already her mind was casting ahead, getting past the task on station, past the uncertainty of returning, past to the driving need that made her heart thunder.

  Protect the homestead. Jess knew a sense of personal horror at the knowledge that she’d, without question, brought this on them. Despite what she’d said to Jake, this was her mess.

  Her mess. Thoughtless stupid monkey brain.

  “More fun than limpet collect,” Dustin said. “S’allright.”

  Monkey brain like her cousin Dustin, who was a big, stupid, simple minded man that thankfully had a good humored personality that let him move past the taunts and jabs of his family.

  Dev was at her heels and now, and for some reason reached up and touched Jess’s arm. Just a single, simple squeeze and release as though Dev heard the thoughts going through her head.

  Could she? Jess glanced at her then went back to reviewing the ladder she was climbing. No time for that.

  Despite the crush, they all moved as quietly as they could, the rustle of Bay outerwear and the rasp of boots against the rungs of the close pinned ladders. It smelled of salt dusted cloth, and as Jess took a breath of that, it brought back a single, vivid memory of some long ago time, back in the Bay.

  A brief rumble of phantom thunder tickled her ears and the echo of her father’s voice.

  Around them, the station was in shuddering motion, a thick, uneasy vibration they could feel through the internal structure they were climbing. “Don’t kick anything,” Jess said after a few minutes. “Thing’s made of tin foil and goat spit.”

  The bio alts with them frowned a little. “That is not actually true, Agent Drake,” the BeeAye said in a timid voice. “Tin is a naturally occurring element not easily synthesized and not much used on station. We mostly use steel alloy.”

  The Bay residents rumbled in low laughter. Jess remained silent, speeding up her motion as they reached the centerpoint in the core and were near an exit. “Quiet,” she ordered in a low voice, and they all hushed.

  She reached the platform and held a hand up with her fist closed, and everyone went still behind her, either voluntarily or not, as the fighters took hold of the bios and brought them to a halt.

  Jess moved to the big hatch and put her hands against it and leaned close. Then she straightened and undid the locking mechanism, pausing before she disengaged it. “Bios are friendly. Anything else is up for grabs.”

  Dustin eased onto the platform next to her, his tall form matching hers and more in breadth. “What’re we after, Jess?” he asked as two more Bay fighters eased up next to him.

  “The doc and Tayler,” Jess said.

  He nodded.

  “Bios that are with the doc,” Jess said with a note of finality.

  Dustin looked at her. “We want bios? Don’t much think we do, cuz,” he said, his wiry, dark eyebrows contracting. “Don’t got time for that, yeah? Lot of dead to do back home.”

  “We want these,” Jess said. “Let’s go.” She yanked the hatch inward and slid out, into the bisection of passageways that was the station’s center. “There’ll be time enough for killing.”

  Jake had squirmed his way up to the front lines. “If there’s anything left.”

  “There’ll be.” Jess grabbed him and shoved him ahead of her. “If nothing else they know I’ll be coming back there and they know, better than most, about my kind of vengeance.”

  Behind her, the fifty fighters emerged and got their weapons out, forming up in an automatic squad.

  Bit of born in, bit of training as part of the domestic defense. Jess motioned them forward and took lead point, with April at her side. Doug and Dev followed with scanners out, the bio alts behind them looking intimidated and unsure.

  “Stay next to us,” Dev told them. “If loud and bad things start happening, lie down.”

  A KayTee nodded.

  The central hall was empty. They heard loud sounds from ahead, though, and Jess’s ears pricked as she caught a familiar voice. “Ah.”

  “That’s Doctor Dan,” Dev said. “He sounds mad.”

  Desperate, Jess silently disagreed. Furious, desperate, and grandstanding, and without hope of rescue.

  “We should go help him,” a KayTee said.

  Jess smiled grimly. “Oh, we will.”

  Chapter Eleven

  KUROK GOT THE entry sealed behind him before anyone in the passage beyond realized he was there.

  Two big mechanical donks were in position to smash the walls. Beyond them all the security forces the station had were poised, and with them a group of dark clad forms that made Kurok’s very blood boil.

  No taking that out of him.

  Doss was behind a shield. “Daniel! Don’t resist!”

  He took the blaster from his front pocket and took the safety off, squaring his body to the entryway and lifting his head. “Kiss my ass, Randall!”

  “We have to stop you. We know what you did.” Doss yelled back.

  “What I did?” Kurok bellowed. “Do they know what you did?”

  A blaster shot blinked into his eyes, and without thought he brought up his own weapon and fired, intersecting it and sending the energy against the nearby wall. “What you did? Randall? That you sold us out for a little boy?”

  Doss came out in the open with a repeater. “They don’t care. Daniel, you don’t understand. You never did understand. They want money. They want credit. They want things they can sell to let them build up beautiful places to live and to have good things to eat.” He took a breath. “They don’t care at all how we get it to them.”

  No, that was true. “So that makes it okay?” Kurok drew in a breath and prepared himself. It was going to be ugly and painful and hopefully, short. “Okay for you to buy a little kid to make killers? Really, Randall?”

  “Better than programming bio alts to take over.” Doss looked at him in angry triumph. “Which one of us is the bigger bastard, Daniel?”

  A moment of silence. Then Kurok smiled. “Me.” He lifted the blaster, and before Doss could even move, he targeted and shot, the energy blast hitting the director between the eyes and blowing his head off.

  Then he turned toward the defense forces. “C’mon and get me you little stinkweeds!” he roared, facing them all and feeling that wonderful, fatalistic ferocity, that rush of throwing the future to the winds.

  He’d learned that from Justin. One the hardest lessons of all.

  “Take him!” the security chief bawled. “He killed the director!”

  A surge of bodies started toward him, and he brought the blaster down and gripped it two handed, finger on the release as the roar of the security troops suddenly was intersected by a deeper roar that threw the certainty into abrupt doubt.

  He knew that yell.

  He looked to his right, to the recently empty hallway leading to central that was now filling with surrealisticly large bodies holding makeshift weapons, dressed in downside clothing. “Son of a bitch. Never thought I’d be glad to see them.”

  Them was an undisc
iplined, raw, slightly mad-eyed bunch of hulksters, each with a bludgeon to hand, all ready to create mayhem. As unexpected and outlandish a scene as ever seen on the station in its history.

  Outnumbered six to one, but it didn’t matter. Jess and April were in the lead, with mil issued blasters that came around and started targeting, leaping past the startled guards, returning shots as they moved into an attack.

  The guards really had no idea what was hitting them. Unused to the blasters they were now armed with, they didn’t have the instinct or the stomach for a hand to hand battle, and they started going down by the dozens.

  April and Dev were almost lost in the group. Jess herself looked average amongst them, her near seven foot frame just notable for the silverstrike motions and the speed, as she led troops from the Bay right into the clustered body of security.

  Rambling and ferocious, bearing bats, knives, and just the strength of their bodies, those fifty people started ripping apart the station guards with glee, savoring the conflict in an odd and very dysfunctional way.

  Fearless. Uncaring. Exulting in the violence. The legacy of Drake’s Bay Interforce had tapped into, shaped and focused and released out into the world.

  Dev and Doug raced toward him. Kurok put the gun away, setting aside the need for sacrifice for the moment. “Well, that was unexpected,” he said as they arrived. “I take it you all came on the shuttle?”

  “Something terrible happened downside, Doctor Dan,” Dev said. “People hurt a lot of the natural borns at Jess’s place.” She hesitated. “People from our assignment.”

  Kurok blinked. “People from Interforce?”

  “Yeah,” Doug said. “So we kinda need to get you and get outta here so they can go fix that.” He turned and regarded the bloodshed. “They need Jess, and she wouldn’t leave without ya.”

  Kurok clapped his hand to his forehead. “Jesus.” He turned and headed for the hatch. “I can’t just go.” A step from the entry and it opened, and bio alts started pouring out of the lab, all of them carrying some piece of structure, looking terrified yet determined, ready to fight.