Nightchaser

by Amanda Bouchet

  I forced the slight tremor from my hand. If I was going to do this, there was no sense in mucking it up with the jitters. I’d seen my blood drawn often enough to have the right idea about technique, and I went straight for the vein I knew worked the best. Maybe it was more the feel of the process I knew by heart? In any case, I got blood flowing into the syringe on only the second try and then filled up a whole blood bag before calling it quits.

  Sliding the needle out of my vein, I held a sterile compress to my arm until blood stopped welling from the tiny hole I’d made. I wondered if I felt a little woozy. I couldn’t tell. It might have been my memory supplying everything about how I thought I should feel after something like this—how I often had.

  In the end, I decided it was just the ghost of the past haunting my imagination. I stood and felt fine. I pulled my sleeve down, not bothering with any kind of bandage, and then threw the used needle and syringe into the covered biohazard trash.

  The clear plastic bag full of my blood lay on the metal lab table. I picked it up and held it away from me a little warily. With all his wealth, resources, and experiments, I wondered if my father had ever figured out what was different about me.

  Actually, what probably wasn’t an issue at this point. The questions that remained were why? And how?

  I started toward the series of doors that would lead me out of this airless trap, powering down the lights in the lab attachment when I reached the exit.

  The problem was, even if dear old Dad knew the answers to any of those questions, I still didn’t.

  * * *

  After giving the blood sufficient time to cool down in one of our cargo bay refrigerators, I made my way to Fiona’s lab and called out a greeting to her. She turned, her goggles and mask in place and a tiny eyedropper in one hand. Rows of test tubes sat lined up in front of her, all color-coded and carefully labeled. Floral-toned liquids bubbled in beakers behind them.

  “Are you back to distilling essential oils?” I asked. She’d been working on naturopathic cures for Starway 8 since we hadn’t found anything pharmaceutical to give them in ages. I’d thought our luckless streak had finally ended, but taking the lab didn’t exactly work out like I’d hoped.

  She nodded. “They’re pungent. You might want to stay back.”

  Taking her word for it, I hovered near the doorway to Fiona’s leafy green domain. Her plants had a significantly larger living space than I did. The strong, almost overpowering odor of whatever she was working on reached me a moment later, and my eyes started to water.

  “Wow. What is that?” My nose already felt burned up and hollowed out.

  “Celioptolix. It’ll clear up a stuffy nose like that.” She tried to snap her fingers but just produced a slight rubbing sound because of her latex gloves.

  “A drop of that in the ventilation system might help everyone breathe better,” I said.

  Fiona nodded. “The most direct method for dealing with the sniffles is a small dose of this in very hot water and then inhale the steam.”

  I’d seen Jax and the others do that, and it seemed to bring them some relief, although only temporarily. Despite progress in medicine and science every day, some of the most basic infections had no cure. The common cold was still a huge pain in the neck, but at least here on the Endeavor, and thanks to Fiona, the crew could suck up some highly concentrated celioptolix and at least be able to breathe more easily while they waited out the virus.

  Fiona set aside her equipment and took off her mask and gloves. I seriously doubted they were dealing with a common cold on Starway 8. Not if there was a possible quarantine in sight. Whatever had hit the orphanage must have been far more dangerous and highly infectious.

  I wondered what could have brought on a virus like that. Mareeka kept her ventilation system cleaner than anyone else in the galaxy, Surral was a top-notch doctor, and a good portion of the kids had already been inoculated against the really bad stuff.

  Unfortunately, viruses mutated, and vaccines had to be updated annually. The crew and I hadn’t always found the most recent inoculations—or had enough for everyone.

  “What’ve you got there?” Fiona asked, eyeing the blood bag in my hands.

  I held it out. “I found this in a hidden refrigerated unit in the lab. It was labeled Point Zero, so I think it could be the base ingredient in the super soldier serum.” I did my best to ignore the guilt dragging my heart toward my feet. I hated lying to Fiona, especially now that she knew more of the truth about me than ever before.

  Her eyes seemed to brighten as she took the bag and studied it. “Blood. I knew it. Usually serums are a saline and chemical cocktail, but there was so much organic in that one that I knew it had to be different.”

  “Looks like you were right,” I said, starting to feel sick to my stomach. The psychosomatic symptoms of lying to your only friends really sucked.

  She glanced up from the bag. “I thought you’d searched the lab and found nothing but the serum?”

  I shrugged. “Big Guy must have distracted me. And everything was such a panic and a rush with the Dark Watch chasing us that I obviously didn’t look carefully enough.” All that was true, at least. “This time, I found that.”

  “Do you want me to study it?” she asked hopefully, microscopes practically dancing in her eyes.

  I nodded, almost wishing that Fiona wasn’t so easily taking my word for everything. I was already a liar. Her faith in me made me feel like a real jerk, too.

  But there was a reason for all this. A good one, I thought.

  “The kids on Starway 8 are getting sick. Some kind of really bad virus. Didn’t you say the super soldier serum could boost healing?”

  “Yeeesss.” She dragged the word out, looking at me strangely. “But it could also turn them into huge battering rams that no one can control. Don’t really know,” she said, frowning.

  “I’m not talking about giving the kids those false vaccines,” I hastened to assure her. “I’m wondering if this organic component—point zero—could be useful to boost healing, though.” I’d never been sick, ever, not once. There had to be a reason for that. “What if you mixed it with some of your medicinal plants? Maybe it wouldn’t even have to be a shot. Just ingested or something.”

  Fiona looked skeptical. She turned the blood bag over in her hands. “I’ve already got a few purifying herbs distilled in fairly high quantities. Detox stuff. I could do some experimenting, but without an actual sick person to test anything on, I’m not really sure what it’ll be worth.”

  I nodded. “I get it. I won’t get my hopes up. Just see what you think of that ingredient by itself and then think about what might help slow or stop a viral infection.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, trying to look casual and probably failing. I never put my hands in my pockets. What a time to start.

  “Sound good?” I asked.

  “I’ll get right on it,” Fiona said, starting to seem eager, despite her warning about the chances of success.

  Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but I added, “There’s more where that came from. Just let me know what you need, and I can get it.”

  “Okay. Great.” She moved toward her lab station and put the blood into a small cooling unit before using an antiseptic wipe to clean off the shiny metallic surface of her worktable.

  “Did you ever think that if there’s an outbreak on Starway 8, it’s to draw you there?” she asked without turning around.

  Unfortunately, the thought had crossed my mind. I was trying not to let it stop me. “Bridgebane thinks I’m dead.”

  “Bridgebane knows you were after large quantities of vaccines. He also knows where you grew up, because he’s the one who put you there.”

  I rubbed my arms, feeling chilled. “Could anyone really do that? To children?” It was despicable.

  Fiona turned, her brows lifting in question. “You kn
ow him better than I do. Could he?”

  Infect thousands of kids with something awful just to draw me out on the off chance I hadn’t been squashed by the Black Widow?

  My last meal churned in my stomach. “Yeah. I think he could.”

  Funny how I still remembered a time when he hadn’t seemed like such a terrible person. He’d brought me toys. Played with me. Talked with Mom. Maybe it had taken a while for my father to brainwash him.

  “Then going there is a bad idea,” Fiona said.

  A bad idea had rarely stopped me. My only fantastic idea had gotten me caught and locked up.

  “Just see what you find, and then we’ll discuss,” I said.

  Fiona nodded, already setting up her most powerful microscope. “I’ll let you know if anything looks promising.” She straightened, her face brightening again. “And once the Endeavor is up and running again, we could always slip into the Fold and then get someone else to take the solution over to Starway 8. Someone no one is looking for.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. I hated sending anyone else into danger, but I also knew that a lot of rebels lived for this kind of thing—the daring deed that made them feel as though they’d accomplished something in the endless fight against the Overseer’s regime.

  But who could get into the orphanage more easily and safely than I could? I knew the gigantic structure like the back of my hand and could run through the whole place blindfolded. Also, I wouldn’t get sick with whatever was raging through the children.

  “Asher. Frank. Macey…” Fiona looked at me over her shoulder again. “Caeryssa’s always up for anything.”

  When they weren’t out wreaking havoc, Fiona’s old friends from 17 would lie low in the Fold, popping in and out, just like we did. They were Nightchasers, too, moving food, weapons, equipment, sometimes people. Undertaking anything on a deadline was incredibly stressful, though, because you never knew if you’d find the Fold quickly, or if it would take days and days of searching. But the Fold’s random movements were part of what made it so safe, one of its inexplicable self-defense mechanisms.

  “Coltin is Asher’s nephew,” I said. Coltin’s health as a young child had been really iffy, which was why Asher hadn’t adopted him. He’d wanted to, but things had been so touch and go at first that he’d known Coltin had a better chance of survival with Surral looking after him.

  Surral had done the doctoring, but I’d ended up doing a lot of the rest. That was how things worked on Starway 8—the older kids stepped in when and where they were needed. I’d been helping out in the orphanage’s sick bay and had seen a young man dropping off an infant. He’d looked so devastated about it that I hadn’t been able to walk away. From the day Coltin had arrived at six weeks old to the time I’d left when he was nearly three, I’d spent more time with him than with anyone else, even Gabe. He’d just seemed to need me. I’d fed him. Rocked him. Heard his first words. Seen his first steps. It had almost been like being a mother.

  “Asher could go to Starway 8, then,” Fiona said. “If a patrol stopped him and things started to get sticky, they could verify the connection—no problem.”

  That was if Asher was around and easily found. And thinking about Coltin in a box full of sick people made me nervous enough to want to check on him myself. He was healthy enough now, but his breathing was always a bit labored, even when he was just sitting still and listening to a story.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, touching my hand to the panel that would open the door.

  For some reason, Shade Ganavan also came to mind. Mr. Space Rogue Phenom was probably pretty good at getting in and out of sticky situations without getting himself stuck.

  Chapter 12

  Shade wondered what the hell he was doing when he went back to the Squirrel Tree before he had Tess’s parts. He also wondered why the hell he was even getting Tess’s parts. He kept telling himself it was a waste of time to fix her ship. He didn’t mind hard labor, but it was a pain in the ass to do it for no reason.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite been able to slap the cuffs on this one yet. It was more than just having met Tess before he saw the job. That first day of repairs, he’d been willing to put in some work just to scope out her ship, her crew, and how things were on the three-hundred-and-fourteenth level of the fucking rip-off Squirrel Tree. He’d wanted to see if he could figure out anything about the stolen goods. But then she’d brought him coffee, and they’d talked.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an interesting conversation with anyone. Maybe with Susan, but she was more like an eccentric aunt, fluttery and easily distracted. Tess made his blood heat and his mind soar back to the things he used to dream about before he’d gotten himself into a situation where he needed to make a lot of money. His legacy was falling apart in the hands of Scarabin White, and he needed to buy it back before the asshole ruined everything his family had built. Some of the older docking towers were barely safe at this point. Without repairs, people’s lives could be at stake.

  Shade zoomed up to the Endeavor in the elevator tube. He stepped out when the lift opened and looked around the platform. No one on watch. The ship’s door wide open.

  How the fuck did these people stay alive?

  At least the stairs weren’t down, as usual. He knew the crew hardly used them, because he’d been keeping watch. He’d started to feel like a stalker by the fourth flyby of Tess’s platform today, but he’d needed to make sure things were still quiet, and that none of the other bounty hunters had sniffed her out.

  A scowl pulling at his face, Shade walked to the open cargo cruiser and rapped hard on the metal floor, calling out a hello as he did.

  A small woman showed up a moment later, her long black hair swinging when she leaped back at the sight of him.

  Was he that scary?

  She set her jaw, looking almost like she was gearing up for a do-over, and then stepped forward again.

  “Is Tess around?” Shade asked.

  “Name, please,” she said like some clerk at a reception desk. Her hand hovered over the panel that would slide the inner door shut, leaving him closed out on the dock.

  “Shade Ganavan.”

  He thought she relaxed. “Do you have something for the ship?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No, just a question for Tess.” He’d decided that instead of just watching her, he should try to talk to her. Maybe it would help him figure out what to do next.

  The woman pursed her lips, not moving. What was she? The damn gatekeeper?

  “Wait here.” She finally turned on the ball of her foot, not inviting him in as she left.

  She came back with Jax. The big man didn’t look happy.

  Nerves suddenly bunched in Shade’s belly. “Tess isn’t here?” Had she gone out when he hadn’t been looking and not come back?

  Jax answered with a question of his own. “You got some parts to drop off?”

  “Not tonight. As I told…” He looked in question at the woman, whom he now realized was missing a hand.

  “Miko,” she supplied.

  “…Miko, I’m looking for Tess.”

  Jax glared at him, then around at the fading light. Dusk was falling fast. “Why?” he asked.

  Well, this was going well. Jax had seemed a lot friendlier when they’d been working together. But that hadn’t been about Tess.

  “I thought I’d show her around the city.” Actually, getting out of the city sounded better right now. He felt stifled. Having nothing but bad choices always made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.

  Jax’s eyes narrowed.

  “If she wants,” Shade added.

  What he wanted was to get to know her better. He needed to make a decision. His damn docks were on the line. What had been a slow work in progress only two days ago could turn into tomorrow’s reality with just a bit of rope and
a call to Bridgebane.

  “Oh, it’s SRP,” a new woman said, showing up in the doorway and crossing her arms as she looked down at him. She had spitfire written all over her.

  Shade felt heat rise up his neck. Tess had talked to her about him?

  Jax turned to the brunette, looking incredulous. “Now is when you leave your lab, Fiona?”

  She shrugged, but Shade could see the humor in her green eyes. “Since you two are the perpetual wall of no, I guess I’ll go get Tess myself.” She turned, her high ponytail swinging as she strode away.

  Miko’s mouth flattened into a line. She trailed Fiona into the ship, not looking like a happy gatekeeper.

  Jax followed the women with his eyes before turning back to him. “Could you get that door you promised?” he asked.

  Shade nodded. “Ordered it yesterday.”

  “Half-priced is half-priced,” Jax said with a low growl in his voice. “I hope you’re not expecting extra payment.”

  What was he talking about? “A deal’s a deal,” Shade said.

  Unless he turned Tess in and ruined their lives.

  A bitter taste flooded his mouth. He doubted any of them would be worrying about a new door after that.

  “Shade.” Tess arrived in the ruined doorway, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking slightly flushed. “Did you bring something for the ship?”

  He supposed it was normal for them all to think he was here about the Endeavor, but couldn’t a guy just show up?

  “No. I thought you might want to explore for a bit. If you have time,” he said.

  Her face brightened. “That sounds like fun.”

  “The city? You sure about that?” Jax asked.

  Tess seemed to waver. “Actually, I should probably stay in.”

  Disappointment squeezed Shade’s lungs, jarring him.