by S. J. Bryant
"I can't believe you have one of those."
"Is everyone okay?"
The spark of excitement faded from Kari's eyes. "Ray…"
"I remember."
"And them." She jutted her chin toward the uneven opening that led to the other ship.
"What do you mean?"
"Wren."
Atticus moved the lighter away from his face so that Kari wouldn't see his expression. Wren had killed them all? How many had been on board? At least fifteen, probably more, and now they were all dead. And it was his fault. He might not have done it with his own hands, but he'd disabled their vessel within reach of a trained killer; what had he thought would happen?
He cleared his throat. "What do we do now?"
"I was hoping you'd have an idea. We've got twenty minutes before we start running out of air."
Atticus frowned and tilted his head to the side. That was why it seemed so damn quiet, the whirring engines were dead. And now that Kari mentioned it, the air was stuffy, too hot. Made worse by the smell of smoke and blood. "It should come back on," he said.
"In twenty minutes?"
Atticus fiddled with the lighter, watching the flame sway back and forth above his hand. He hadn't exactly had time to do proper measurements with the EMP, it was just what he'd had on hand at the time. What if the life support didn't return in twenty minutes?
"Yeah," he said, voice steady. If worst came to worst, he'd try to manually restart the life-support. But right now they had bigger problems—like the Imperium destroyers that were bound to be on their way.
"Where are the others?"
"Dining room." Kari held out her hand and helped Atticus to his feet.
The flame shook and trembled with his movement and pain shot through his arm. Blood glued his shirt to the flesh of his shoulder. It would probably need stitches but he pushed that thought aside for the moment.
The flame lit their way down the rubble-strewn passage and into the dining room where the glow passed over Piper's tear-streaked face, Ray's white flesh, and the bodies of the two agents.
Atticus lifted the lighter higher and it caught on Wren, her hands soaked with blood.
She took a quick step back, out of the circle of light.
"Whoa," Ryker said. "Looks like you came prepared."
Atticus sat down and rested the lighter on the table. Compared to the complete darkness of a few minutes ago it was like a shining star in the middle of the room.
"If no one else will say it, I will," Wren said. "What the hell do we do now?"
"She's right," Kari said. "The Imperium will have seen their ship go dark and they'll be coming to investigate. We've got half an hour max, and that's if they didn't have someone nearby."
Atticus rubbed his face and gazed into the dancing flame. What he wouldn't give to be as carefree as that little fire. Instead he was more like the fuel: being burned up.
It was his fault all the people on the other ship were dead, and yet they hadn't left him any choice. If the Imperium did the right thing, like not stealing children from their beds and experimenting on them, then he wouldn't have been put in this predicament. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and continued to stare.
The whole reason he'd come to Ghost in the first place was to make a difference. He'd wanted to make the Universe a better place by helping those who needed it and sharing some of the things he'd learned on his travels. But ever since he'd come on board, bad things kept happening. He could have argued that it was all coincidence, but surely there had to be a point where you couldn't blame coincidence anymore? And things had gotten so much worse. What was he supposed to do now?
"Oi, Atticus," Ryker said. "Are the engines going to come back?"
Atticus blinked, coming back to the present. "What? Oh, yes. Eventually."
"We don't have until eventually," Kari said. "We've got Imperium enforcers coming for us right now."
"You assume," Ryker said, voice low.
Kari glowered at him from across the table, her gaze fierce enough to be clear even in the dim light. "Don't you dare. Not after all this." She waved her hand to take in Ray and the two agents lying on the floor. Piper huddled next to Ray, cradling his head.
"Fine," Ryker said. "Sooner is better than later."
Atticus' eyes kept drifting to the open, staring eyes of the agent that Wren had killed and he imagined a whole ship full of them, all with the same vacant eyes.
"I can't think like this," Atticus said, springing to his feet. He strode to the first agent, grabbed his ankles, and tried to haul him across the room. Pain shot up his arm and he lost his grip. The agent's leg thudded to the floor.
"Stand aside," Ryker said, easily hoisting the agent off the floor. "Where do you want him?"
Atticus shook his head. Who was he to say where the dead man should lie?
"Put him in the other ship with the rest," Kari said.
Ryker gave a half-hearted salute and dragged the agent out of the dining room into the darkness of the corridor beyond. He returned a few moments later and took the other agent as well. When he came back, he stood in the doorway, looking at Ray.
Atticus felt his eyes drawn to the crumpled figure on the floor, his view of Ray's face partly blocked by Piper's shoulders.
"Piper," Kari said.
"You're not taking him," Piper said.
A look of pain passed over Kari's face.
Atticus could understand it. He'd seen enough of Kari to know that she was almost as unshakable as any rock. But here she was faced with the only person in the Universe she cared about, in pain. What could she do with that?
"We'll take him to his room," Kari said. "Would that be better?"
Piper drew a ragged breath, then nodded once.
Ryker leaned in and scooped Ray into his arms. Piper clutched Ray's hand and didn't let it go, all the way to the sleeping pods.
Ryker returned alone.
"What's she doing?" Kari said.
"She refused to come," Ryker said.
Kari hesitated at the door, her brows drawn.
"As much as I love family drama," Wren said. "Can we all agree that we have bigger problems?" She spoke from the shadows, staying out of the circle of light, but Atticus could imagine the red blood on her hands like two crimson gloves.
"Yes," Kari said. "You're right. Atticus, without those engines we can't move and we may as well be sitting ducks for the incoming Imperium vehicles."
"Not to mention that life support we need," Ryker said.
With the bodies gone, Atticus' head cleared some, enough for him to think. "It won't matter. We've done too much damage now. Even if we flew to the next system, they'd chase us."
"So what?" Kari said. "We're doomed?"
"The only way we live through this is if we convince them that we're already dead."
"What's your plan?" Wren said. "To lie really still when they board us?"
Atticus did his best to ignore the sarcasm in her voice. She was probably just scared and didn't know what to do about it. Although he found it hard to imagine that Wren got scared of anything. "No. We have to make a call from the other ship, convince them that the job is done."
"Whoa," Kari said. "They'll have passwords and codes. It's too risky."
"I don't see that we have any choice," Atticus said. "We either try to fool them, or we sit here and hope the engines come back in time, then spend the rest of our—no doubt, short—lives running."
"He's really selling it," Ryker said.
"Who's going to convince them?" Kari said.
"I will," Atticus said. "I spent some time in the Imperium forces. I know some things."
Kari frowned, her mind obviously racing to find a better plan but coming up with nothing.
"If I'm doing this then I have to do it now… or… at least as soon as the communication system comes back online."
"Hey, is it just me, or is it slightly less dark in here?" Ryker said.
"The emergency lights start
ed coming on four minutes and thirty seconds ago," Wren said.
"Good," Atticus said. "The comms won't be much longer. I'll prepare for transmission."
"And what are we supposed to do?" Kari said.
"Get ready to run if this doesn't work."
Atticus took the lighter from the table and carried it with him out of the dining room into the hallway. When he looked back he could just see the dull blink of a few red emergency lights near the ceiling.
His orange circle of light guided him through the debris to the door which connected to the Imperium ship. He stopped there and drew a deep breath, dreading what he'd find on the other side. What sort of hell had Wren wrought?
He braced himself and stepped through, then winced because the first body—after the two agents Ryker had taken from the dining room—belonged to a man who'd been killed in the original blast of Atticus' device. Wren hadn't been the first killer at all.
A cool sweat broke out across Atticus' forehead as he stepped over the body in the general direction of the control room.
Here he was, claiming to be making the Universe a better place, and yet he'd killed.
He passed another three bodies on the way to the control room, and all of them had bloody, gaping holes where Wren's knife had taken them by surprise. Pools of blood spread around them, drying at the edges.
Bile rose in Atticus' throat but he pushed it down. He could do this. He'd put away his disgust and his anguish and his despair and he'd make the call. He could process his emotions later.
Another three bodies lay scattered about the control room. It looked as though these had tried to put up a fight. But what chance could they have had in the pitch blackness with Wren's superhuman senses?
A few lights sparked to life on the control panel and moments later the comms came online.
Atticus made sure all video feeds were off and then accepted the emergency incoming broadcast.
"Calling Razor. Do you copy? What the hell is going on out there?" The gruff voice burst over the speakers, making Atticus jump.
He had to stifle a shout and ease his racing heart before he replied. "Sir, sorry, sir. This is Razor, we had some trouble with the target."
"Trouble? You know how Captain Jic feels about trouble."
"Yes, sir."
Atticus wiped his clammy hands on the legs of his trousers.
"So? What the hell happened? You went dead."
"Sorry, sir. They surprised us. EMP."
"Those bastards! What about the cargo. Did you get it?"
Atticus paused for the briefest second. Cargo, what cargo? But of course, he meant Piper and Ray.
"Sorry, sir. In the confusion and darkness… the assets were lost."
"You lost them?"
Atticus didn't need a video connection to imagine the man in charge. His face would be glowing red with rage by now.
A moment of silence, then the commander said in a quieter voice. "Why the cat?"
Atticus' memories raced back across the decades, to one of his first jobs on board an Imperium scout. He'd been mopping in the command center when a coded call came in.
"Because the mouse took the cheese," he said, hardly believing that the Imperium were still using that old passcode. It had probably been cracked a hundred times over by now.
"Right. Captain Jic says he wants you back to base an hour ago with a full report. Do you know the kind of hell we'll both be in now that you've lost those assets?"
"Yes, sir."
The line went dead and Atticus sagged.
They lived to see another day.
CHAPTER 20
A sudden whir shook the ship, followed by a cool breeze that rushed out of the vent above Kari, lifting wisps of hair that had been glued to her face with sweat. She drew a deep breath, relief flooding through her as oxygen replaced the stuffy atmosphere which had been pressing in on her. She blinked, focusing on the moment, and on Piper weeping beside her.
They both sat on the edge of Ray's bed, his body lying beside them. Piper clasped one of his hands and bent over it, wracked with sobs. It felt as though she'd been crying for hours. Kari wished she'd stop. Couldn't she be happy that she'd survived? Couldn't she be happy that she was out of that facility?
Kari rubbed her legs and tried to think of something—anything—to say that would make Piper stop crying. But it was hard to sympathize with Piper's grief, when all Kari felt was joy that she had Piper back. That one thought overshadowed everything else, making it all insignificant. Even the threat of the Imperium if Atticus' plan failed didn't seem too bad.
"It's okay," she said, patting Piper's shoulder. Piper didn't seem to hear. "At least you're safe."
"It's my fault he's dead," Piper said, descending into another stream of sobs. "If we'd just stayed in that place, he'd still be alive."
"But you'd be trapped," Kari said. Piper couldn't actually be saying that she would rather be back in the facility? Did she have any idea what Kari and the others had risked to get her out? Maybe she should have left Ray behind, then they'd all be better off. Kari felt a small ember of rage flicker to life in her stomach. How could Piper be so thoughtless?
But of course, that wasn't it. It was the same thing that had frustrated Kari about her sister when they were young. Piper was so eager to trust, so keen to help and care for others that she constantly left herself open to getting hurt. Here she was again. Instead of focusing on her herself, on the fact that she—Piper—was alive and free, all she could see was Ray.
Dammit, why couldn't she be selfish just once?
But that wasn't Piper. Piper was the one who gave her last scrap of food to a hungry-looking dog, even when she knew that Kari would be furious with her. Piper was the one who'd wait on a street corner for some stranger to come back with her money—because she trusted them to stick to their word. How had she not learned to be hard after all these years?
A knock at the door made Kari look up. In the dim emergency lights she could just make out Wren. Her gaze flew straight to the other woman's hands, but they were clean, absent of the blood which had stained them before.
"Just wanted to say," Wren said. "You and your friend didn't have to try and save me."
Piper glanced at Wren and then her eyes returned to Ray.
"I would have been fine," Wren said.
Piper blinked. "You might not have been."
A strange mix of emotions rushed over Wren's face. "Well. Thanks, I guess. Stupid though." Then she turned and was gone.
Kari gaped after Wren. In all the time she'd known Wren, she'd never heard her say thank you, and she'd never admitted to accepting help. So what the hell had just happened?
Piper continued to stare at Ray, letting out the occasional sob. Her hunched shoulders and tiny frame made a pathetic little shape beside Kari. How could someone like Piper possibly stand up against the world? It would crush her.
"Hey," Ryker said, his big silhouette filling the doorway.
Kari nodded to him.
He trudged into the room and sat on Piper's other side, making the mattress sag. He clasped his hands between his legs and stared at the floor without saying anything.
Piper's sobs eased.
"I know it hurts," Ryker said. "But you never know, you may see him again."
Kari frowned at him over the top of Piper's head. She knew for a fact that Ryker didn't believe in reincarnation, or afterlives, or any of the rest of it. And neither should Piper, she'd seen too much of the real Universe to believe in fairy tales. And yet the meaningless words had some effect and Piper nodded.
"You're alright," Ryker said, patting her back.
Kari scowled. She'd spent what felt like hours trying to calm Piper down, with no result, and here Ryker came—practically a stranger—and said a few meaningless words that none of them believed, and it made all the difference. How did that work? Why didn't Piper respond to Kari like that? Couldn't she see Kari was trying?
Resentment bubbled inside Kari—mostly f
rom frustration that she didn't know how to connect with her sister anymore, and fear that this incident with Ray might have ruined things forever. "Do you still think it's a splinter group?" she said, regretting the words as soon as she said them but unable to snatch them back.
Ryker frowned at her. "I don't think now's the time."
Kari scowled but managed to keep her mouth shut. He was right of course, but she was so angry and frustrated. Besides, he was the idiot who clung to the belief that the Imperium weren't corrupted and evil. "Splinter groups don't have life-sensor technology," Kari muttered. A senseless argument, anyone with enough money could buy life-sensor technology. But she couldn't say what she actually wanted, couldn't express her fear at having lost her connection with Piper.
Atticus appeared in the doorway, giving Kari a break from her thoughts. "I think it worked," he said. "It won't last forever. They're expecting that ship to report in, and when it doesn't, they'll ask questions."
"We have to run to the next system," Kari said. "There has to be money and fuel on the stealth ship. We might stand a fighting chance."
"No!" Piper said. It was the most intelligible thing she'd said since they'd brought Ray into the room.
"What?" Kari said.
"We can't leave all those people at the facility."
"What?" Kari said again. A second ago Piper had been saying that she wished she'd never left the place, now she wanted them to go back?
"We have to save them."
"Piper, it's too dangerous."
"No."
"Look what happened to Ray!" Kari said, unable to stop herself.
Piper looked up at Kari with tear-filled eyes, lips trembling. "Exactly. It all has to be worth something. He would have wanted us to go back and save them."
Kari couldn't believe what she was hearing. Didn't Piper have any idea what she was asking? "Can you talk some sense into her?" she said to Ryker.
Ryker ran a hand down his face and shrugged. "I think she's right."
"You've got to be kidding."
"We know where they are, we know what's happening there. It would be wrong for us to do nothing."
"We'll be killed before we get there."
"We have to do it carefully," Ryker said.