Breakout

by Ann Aguirre

  “Yes,” she said, unsmiling.

  It was the last word from Dred for the rest of their watch.

  • • •

  ONCE everyone was awake, and they’d eaten, Jael mentioned what he’d remembered in the night. “Where’s Ike’s RC unit?”

  A host of blank looks met the question.

  Finally, Tam said, “I have no idea. I lost track of it in all the chaos.”

  Martine shrugged. “Is that important?”

  “Aside from the fact that the bot is handy, you mean? It is indeed, bright eyes.” He reminded everyone of Ike’s message about the supply caches.

  “Thank Mary.” That wasn’t an expression he often heard from Dred, and he appreciated the swift kiss she planted on him more. “There’s no telling what it could be. Parts, food—”

  “Both,” Calypso put in with a palpable air of excitement.

  Redmond stretched as he clambered to his feet. “What are we waiting for? We should hunt the droid down.”

  Dred shook her head before Jael could speak. “Best for all of us not to go. Too much movement, and Silence will find us for sure. You saw what she’s capable of, and now we’re certainly outnumbered . . . by what margin, I can’t even guess.”

  “So who gets the mission?” Duran wanted to know.

  “I’ll go,” Jael offered.

  “I should as well.” He was surprised to hear Keelah volunteer, but when he considered, it made sense. Her people had survived by sneaking around the ship longer and better than anyone else, and without her as a guide, he’d probably wander the ducts for days.

  Dred’s gaze met his, silently asking if he was okay with that. He inclined his head slightly. I don’t hate all aliens. It’s only Ithtorians that get under my skin.

  They left shortly thereafter.

  He didn’t speak as they moved through the walls, like ghosts or rats or the ghosts of rats, eaten long ago by Mungo’s ghastly horde. He focused on Keelah’s breathing, and listening harder, found her heartbeat. She was nervous; it came in the rapid patter of her pulse, in the musk lingering on her fur. But he would be more surprised if she were completely calm.

  That’d make me nervous.

  They paused to take a break halfway, and Keelah produced a flask from one of her many pockets. She took a sip and offered it to him. Jael wasn’t familiar with her customs, but it seemed best to assume a refusal might offend. Besides, he needed the fluids. The water was tepid and brackish, but no toxins prickled his tongue. That was a handy skill, one that had saved him from many a poisoning.

  “Are you still seeking a good death?” he asked softly.

  She’d said as much after her mate, Katur, died, but so far, she hadn’t found one. Her alien eyes were wide and glimmering, looking at him and not, somehow, at the same time. At last she said, “That’s what we’re all waiting for, ultimately, and not all of us find one.”

  He thought of the dead children on Nicu Tertius and the bodies of the cannibals still rotting on the lower levels of the station. “Disturbing yet true.”

  “Come, we have a good deal more ground to cover before we reach Queensland again.”

  It felt like hours, but in the dark, Jael couldn’t be sure. Eventually, she paused near a vent and cocked her head, ears swiveling. Her whiskers twitched.

  “Problem?” he breathed.

  She held up a small hand, motioning him to silence. A few seconds later, he heard it, too, no more than a whisper of sound. Straining, he translated it to the scrape of murderous feet, clad in grisly, real-skin slippers. He tilted his head and stared out through the slits in the metal, barely breathing. A company of five passed just in his line of sight, and from their movements, he could tell they belonged to Silence. It was unlikely there were other survivors though her men were probably sweeping the station, just in case. So this is how it feels to be hunted. He’d been chased before, but with his abilities, he’d never felt like prey. No injury had been too grievous, no stunt too insane if it offered a chance at freedom.

  Jael counted to a thousand after they disappeared from sight before risking a whisper. “Safe to move?”

  “It should be, I don’t hear anything. Stay close.”

  It was strange to travel with someone whose senses were sharper than his own; that almost never happened. But he merely nodded and followed her into the wreckage of Queensland. It seemed unlikely that—

  The attack almost caught him off guard. Almost. But he smelled the killer before he saw him and sensed the stirring air behind in time to avoid the garrote. Likewise, Keelah had her shiv out and was crouched low, a small, ferocious target. Her front teeth were long and sharp, perfectly designed for gnawing, but they’d also sink deep into an assailant’s flesh if the idiot got close enough.

  In hand-to-hand, he had the advantage. His opponent excelled in sneak attacks, but he didn’t have the strength or reflexes for a long battle. Jael rushed him and slammed him to the ground. I know, mate. I’m stronger than I look. Vicious anger rushed through him, and he crushed the asshole’s larynx with his heel. Keelah opened an artery in her attacker’s thigh, and he bled out while she darted away, whiskers flexing.

  “This is better than a good death,” she said with dark relish.

  “We gave them better than they’d have offered us.” Dead revulsion crawled over him, imagining what Silence might have in store for any captives she took. Death wasn’t always easy or quick, after all.

  “Come,” Keelah said. “We don’t have long before these two are missed. Let’s find that RC unit.”

  3

  Scavenger Hunt

  While Jael and Keelah were gone, Dred felt the walls closing in. The space they’d chosen was barely sufficient for their number, but it was well hidden and defensible. She inspected all the machines to see if there was anything worthwhile, but she didn’t know enough about ship mechanics to be sure. Plus, stripping some vital part in here might compromise the station’s systems, killing them before they were ready to take off.

  Mary, I hate feeling useless.

  So she was beyond relieved when the two returned . . . but Jael was carrying RC-17. That didn’t bode well.

  He handed it to her before climbing out of the wall panel, and she checked it for damage. The scorch marks on the casing looked like it had been shot, but she didn’t think any of the prisoners, apart from her crew, had managed to steal rifles or weapons. Dred turned an icy look onto Vost and his men. The shorter merc, Duran, shifted uneasily. Both the grunts were younger than the commander, probably by as much as ten turns. Redmond had curly black hair and medium brown skin while the other was pale and freckled. Duran seemed to be the youngest of everyone, and he exuded a boyish air that was probably what drew Calypso.

  “Something you want to tell me?” she prompted.

  “Yeah, about that . . .”

  “Spit it out,” Vost ordered.

  “Sorry, sir. When you sent us out to gather supplies a few days back, we ran across that unit. I thought it was scouting for our location, spying on us, so I blasted it.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?” Jael demanded.

  Duran gave him a dark look. “You know how many cleaning bots I’ve run across up in this orbiting scrapyard? How would I know the one I shot is the exact droid you’re looking for?”

  Tam shifted through the bodies crowded around the broken unit to take a look, and Dred handed the metal carcass to him. With Ike gone, he likely knew the most about maintenance and repair. A few minutes later, he let out a sigh. “The battery’s completely fried. I’ll need to cannibalize another unit to get this one operational again.”

  “How’s the memory core?” Martine asked.

  That was the key bit. If that was damaged, too, they could forget about ever finding Ike’s stashes. And that might mean the end of their escape plans. Dred leaned in, along with
everyone else, until Tam motioned them to get out of his light. Sheepish, she fell back a step.

  He poked around a little more before pronouncing, “It looks intact, but I won’t know for sure until 17 powers up.”

  “So before we start scavenging for ship parts,” Redmond muttered, “we have to find droid parts.”

  Calypso sighed at him. “Why is your brain so limited? There are nine of us. It makes more sense to figure out what we need, then divide into search teams.”

  “Like a scavenger hunt,” Martine said.

  Jael offered a twisted smile. “Serious sodding hunt, bright eyes. The prize is freedom, the penalty for failure is execution.”

  “I always liked a challenge,” Vost put in.

  Since the plan made sense, nobody argued with Calypso. Instead, with heavy input from Tam and Vost, she created a master list for the ship and a shorter one devoted to RC-17. Possibly fixing the bot would lead them to some caches that would tick some items off the other list, but they couldn’t count on that. Dred knew that Ike had been a genius, but he couldn’t predict the future. So his lifetime of accrued treasures would probably be random, gear he’d deemed too precious to use straightaway, but it might not help in their current circumstances.

  “There’s one small problem,” Vost said, once they finished.

  “What?” Dred tilted her head, thinking she already knew, yet she was curious if their minds worked in a similar fashion.

  “Keelah is the only one who can find this room without fail. So every team moving without her will be handicapped and might not make it back, enemies aside.”

  “It’s a problem,” Dred agreed.

  Keelah found an exceptionally dirty part of the wall and beckoned them over. “I’ll map the route. If you can’t remember later, it’s not my fault.”

  Everyone paid close attention, memorizing the turns and landmarks she gave, most of which would be glimpsed through the vents. Keelah also listed some scent tells, but they would be of limited use to anyone but herself and Jael. By the time she was done, the mercs looked nervous. They were used to having the advantage of good gear and numbers; they had less experience in hiding, sneaking, and relying on luck and timing.

  Dred decided to be blunt. “We don’t have the food stores to sit around for another down shift. Ideally, Ike has some crates of paste hidden away.”

  Vost nodded. “Since we don’t have to cook it, there’s no scent to pass through ventilation and give away our location.”

  “Now we just need to decide on teams, split up the list, and move out.”

  “Same as our watches?” Calypso asked.

  Duran grinned at her. “Fine by me.”

  Dred didn’t want to go out with Vost, and he could probably tell, because the merc commander said, “Unless you object, we’re better off together. He’s used to me and vice versa.”

  Redmond agreed, “We’ve been fighting together for a while. We won’t hide anything we find, guaranteed. Nobody’s getting out of this hellhole unless we’re square with each other.”

  “I’ll go on my own,” Keelah said quietly.

  While Dred wasn’t positive that was a good idea, she couldn’t force the female to join another team. Plus, with her experience, Keelah might be safer alone, less likely to be caught by Silence’s maniacs. So she only nodded. Unsurprisingly Tam and Martine partnered up, which left Dred and Jael.

  Exactly what I wanted.

  They staggered their departures to reduce the noise, so only Vost and Redmond were left when she and Jael slipped through the wall panel. The route back to safety burned in her mind’s eye; wondering how long she could hold it there, Dred pushed forward into the dusty dark.

  • • •

  JAEL had always been good at navigation, one of the reasons he’d survived battles that annihilated everyone else. His uncanny healing was the other, of course. But it didn’t hurt that he could glance at a map and orient himself instantly. So he led the way from the bolt-hole, with Dred close behind.

  The route took them through their old territory, above it, anyway, and he paused the instant he saw Silence’s men. Dred pressed closer, barely breathing, as they watched some kind of death ritual. Those are the two Keelah and I killed. Now they definitely know some of us survived the Queensland massacre. Five killers stood in black rags, adorning their faces with blood and ashes. In eerie quiet, they traced brow ridges and noses, mouths and chins, until their features were disfigured with the embellishment of death. Their eyes gleamed yellow at this distance, and they swayed as one, like ocean seaweed caught in a strong current. To Jael, it almost seemed as if they were dancing to unheard music, and they weren’t grieving, either. This was a kind of awful ecstasy, a celebration, even. Everything about it made his flesh creep.

  They’re not human anymore. She’s changing them somehow. It was a ridiculous, primitive thought, because Silence was not death incarnate, just a madwoman given too much power inside Perdition. But the idea rooted inside his brain, digging in like a barbed parasite to keep common sense from dislodging it.

  He glanced over at Dred, but he couldn’t read her expression in the half-light. Jael jerked his head, silently telling her they needed to move on. She agreed with a lift of her chin, and they both came away from the vent. He headed down, as they were bound for the recharge closet where the cleaning units went to power up. Their team had received the primary task of finding parts for RC-17, and in all honesty, Jael didn’t mind. He looked forward to following the bot although it would be dangerous. Droids didn’t think about opposition or danger; they just took the most direct route. So Ike’s caches would probably be the riskiest mission.

  Fine by me.

  They didn’t speak until they had put a fair amount of distance behind them, then Dred signaled her desire to pause by tapping his ankle. He couldn’t turn fully because the ducts had narrowed, but he glanced over his shoulder.

  “You all right?”

  “Just . . . spooked.” The somber tone told him he hadn’t been alone in what he felt, watching those crazy, tongueless bastards.

  “It’s different now,” he said.

  “With what she did to Queensland . . . she seems larger than life. I’ve been afraid before, but . . . not quite like this.” The words were barely a whisper, and they roused an answering prickle of gooseflesh on his arms.

  “I know. There’s run-of-the-mill evil, like Priest and Mungo. And then there’s Silence.”

  “It’s like she can do worse than kill me. Rationally, I know that’s not true—”

  “But it’s uncanny the way she’s last one still standing, moving through the carnage.” He didn’t say it out loud, but he thought, Like Death itself.

  Dred nodded. “I’m still here, too, but I’m not the Dread Queen anymore.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I don’t miss her.”

  “Me either,” she whispered.

  There was no space to touch her as he wanted to, and it wasn’t the time anyway, so Jael continued on. They slid out of the ducts near the closet, but when he opened it, there were no droids plugged in. He choked out a curse. It was impossible to predict when a bot would come back, and it was dangerous to wait out in the open. They desperately needed some intel about how many men Silence had left, how often they patrolled, and where, but with manpower as scarce as it had become on their end, recon had to wait.

  “Back up?” Dred whispered.

  He nodded. This time, they found a way in that gave them vantage over their target, so they’d know when a bot returned. He’d just finished fitting the vent panel in place behind them when he heard the familiar, shuffling sound of Silence’s men. From her expression, Dred registered it, too, and she practically stopped breathing. The fact that her killers were roving freely must signify that she believed herself the undisputed ruler of Perdition.

  When they rounded th
e corner and came into sight, he stifled a surprised sound. This group was huge, compared to the usual numbers, ten this time, and horror jolted through him like lightning when he realized they were carrying a human-sized bundle. They’d wrapped their captive in dark fabric, so he couldn’t tell anything about the person, but the worst part was, he or she was still moving, thrashing against his bonds.

  Who is that? And why the hell would Silence want someone taken alive?

  Dred’s eyes were wide with the same question. She tilted her head, asking with that gesture if they should intervene. It might be one of ours. Quickly, he calculated the odds. With a sneak attack, they could probably take them though Dred wasn’t wearing her chains since this was supposed to be a secret, bloodless run. That meant her odds of being wounded were higher, but she’d recover. So will I. And we’re far enough from our hideout that an attack here won’t draw them to us.

  Jael nodded and gestured, hoping she could figure out his meaning. We have to get ahead of them. We missed our opportunity here. When Dred fell in behind him, relief surged through. It was delicate work, scrambling alongside them light enough not to draw their notice, but the station sounds covered most of the movement though Silence’s murderers glanced up now and then. Jael made out the occasional moan from their hostage, and his determination ratcheted up.

  Silence won’t have you, whoever you are, why ever she wants you.

  Now, he mouthed at his partner. As one, he and Dred dropped out of the ceiling and onto their targets.

  4

  Must Be a Hex

  Dred landed on top of two of Silence’s men and jammed her knife in the first one’s neck before he could react. The other slashed at her, and she blocked instinctively with a forearm, half expecting her chains to mitigate the damage. Instead, the weapon sank in, almost to the bone. The pain screamed along her nerve endings as the bastard twisted; someone less accustomed to it might have folded. Instead, she clumsily tossed her weapon to her other hand while her attacker yanked the blade out for another strike.