by Megan Derr
Bikendi smiled coldly and flourished his hands, still in the gloves Einn had put on them. "Which reputation?"
"I'm sure both are useful," Einn said, and lifted a small flap at the bottom of the cage, sliding the tray through it. "Eat up." He stood up and turned away.
"Why are you doing this?" Bikendi asked, his tone that of a scientist: curious, thoughtful, emotionless. He might have been discussing his latest experiment. "Is it for points? For pleasure?"
Einn balled his hand into a fist, but did not reply, simply walked away. Upstairs, he went into the room across from the kitchen. One side of the room held two beds, one above the other. He hated ship beds; they did not accommodate for the exaggerated build of Fornarians—but given he could count on one hand the number of other Fornarians he had seen in space, he supposed it was fair enough.
The other side of the room held a washing area, blocked off by a half wall. He stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the tiled area, using a rough pad and dry soap to get himself as clean as was possible in the middle of nowhere on a junker custom ship only just small enough for two people to manage on their own.
Why are you doing this?
Every single one of them asked that question, as though they expected the answer to make a difference. Not a one of them could offer him the only thing they needed: a way out of the prettily painted clutches that held them fast. Einn scrubbed down viciously, wishing he could wash away the past term as easily.
But he couldn't. His crew was dead, save for Lark, and they would both die as soon as they ceased to be useful. Einn wasn't stupid—there was no way that they would ever be given the antidote to the ticking time bombs in their system. They knew too much, had done too much. Once there was no one else for them to kidnap, that was the end of it.
He'd left home to do something more than climb cliffs and crawl through caves. He had wanted to see the stars. He'd wanted an adventure. If he had known he would end up a pirate, and then the kidnapping expert of an IG bastard—
Well, it didn't matter. They could not go back and change anything; they could only cling to the futile hope that they would find a way out of the mess. Until then, best only to think about reaching Helior, then on to Bangkok. They would pass Bikendi off, get their next assignment, and carry on same as they had for the past term.
One way or another, the nightmare would eventually end. They'd find a way out, they'd get carted off to Rehab, or they'd die. Einn wasn't sure how much he cared about which of those outcomes came to pass—except, if that were true, he'd let the damned poison kill him.
Swearing softly, he wiped himself down and strode to the set of storage units built into the wall beside the bunks. He took out fresh clothes and pulled them on, then sat down on the lower bunk to lace up his boots. They were slightly impractical for space, but he wasn't comfortable if he wasn't in climbing shoes of some sort. Standard bunks were not built with Fornarians in mind, but neither was anything else in space, which gave him a decided edge. No one else would have been able to take Bikendi from his room in the Imperial Tower so easily.
Dressed, he returned to the bridge and took over the controls so Lark could get cleaned up as well. He prodded without interest, tweaking their course, seeing what other ships were out and about, and making note of a couple that could possibly be threats, even though they were far enough away they weren't likely to attack his small, unremarkable ship.
Settling back, he brought up news feeds, idly scrolling through stories. His mouth tightened as he caught the headline of one, an update on the raging debate about the fate of the Draconis. It listed off scientists likely to assist on each side of the debate, political figures, lawyers, IG thoughts—
Einn dismissed the story, then shut down the feed and looked over the star course again. Satisfied all was still well, he pushed his chair over to the ship console and called up the diagnostics, because if he had actual down time, it was best to spend it on the ship. The very last thing they needed was for it to break down; they already had enough problems.
Einn really hoped that they got a breather when they reached Bangkok. Skies above! Something good had to go their way, just once. What better place than the planet where 'all dreams come true'? They could not keep going the way they were—something had to give.
Chapter Two
Planet 5118208 (Rehab), Rehabilitation center 2.2, Sector nine
"Damn it," Cyan managed, but the word turned into a choked off squeak as the Sardoran managed to get a tentacle around his throat. His head knocked hard as the bastard slammed him into the wall. Cyan fumbled for his stinger even as more tentacles came for him. Stars a-fucking-bove, he hated Sardorans.
Gritting his teeth as he was slammed to the floor and the fucking creature got too close, Cyan thumbed the stinger to its lowest setting and drove it into the Sardoran, pressing the activation button. The Sardoran snarled at the shot of pain, and Cyan managed to break free, dropping to the hard metal grating with a grunt. Twisting, he got to his knees and lunged at the retreating Sardoran, grasping the stinger and thumbing the power all the way up, before zapping the fucker again. Then he threw himself back, hands flat on the grating, flipping over in a backward handspring and landing neatly in a crouch, standing as he watched the Sardoran twitch and writhe and scream in pain.
When it finally fell still, Cyan stalked over and gave it another jolt just to be certain. After he was absolutely certain the Sardoran was unconscious, he began to roughly kick it across the grating and down into the special pool that would be its cell for the next three terms. "Stupid. Fucking. Sardorans," he muttered, punctuating each word with a hard kick and stepping hard on stray tentacles whenever they happened to get in his way until, at last, the floor was clear, and he'd locked the Sardoran up.
He rounded on Captain Waters, who stood well out of the way up the stairs. "Where the fuck were you?" he snapped.
"Watching the show," Waters replied, smoothing his mustache, brown eyes full of mirth. "Honestly. Is there some Sardoran blood in you? Or do you just wear 'Sardorans, please fuck me senseless' cologne?"
"Go to fucking hell," Cyan said in disgust, rubbing his throat. Sardoran skin always left him with a goddamn rash; something in their skin didn't like his, even if he did seem to be the hottest thing Sardorans had ever seen. "Stop fucking assigning me to 9.2.4."
Waters grinned. "And lose the best free entertainment around? No way."
"Fuck you," Cyan muttered, slinging his stinger back in its loop on his pants. He systematically went about ensuring all his other weapons were in place. He was covering 9.2.4 and 9.2.5, which meant he carried fifteen weapons instead of the usual twelve—all three additions were meant for killing, not merely restraining.
Weapons accounted for, he moved on to his keys. As a First Class Guard, he was in possession of 150 keys, and they came in a wide variety of forms. First were the chem-keys, special chemicals that needed renewing every five hours. He kept the pills in a pocket low on the front of his jacket, left-hand side—ten of those. Next were the microchips attached at the start of each shift to the heavy black fabric of his jacket—fifty of those. Fifteen clearance codes were saved to his in-lens, updated every ten hours. Twenty-five key cards and five old-fashioned metal keys that were obsolete everywhere but Rehab. The green bands he wore on his upper arm held another ten codes, twenty-five were in the microchip in his brain, and his fingerprints served as a final ten.
When he'd verified he had all his keys, Cyan took the datapad Waters held out and quickly signed it, acknowledging the newest prisoner was caged and secured. "Make the fucking newbies clean this place up. I'm hitting the showers."
"Then going on break," Waters added.
"Break?" Cyan asked, then grimaced. "Oh, yeah. Fine. Whatever. See you in a month." Heaving a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his hair, cut so short that it was only barely possible to tell it was black, and began the long walk through the wings until he finally reached the locker room.
Going to his
lockers, he quickly began to put away all his weapons, scanning each one in before hanging it up. Next went the keys, stripped off and locked up in a box that itself required six keys. He closed and locked both the box and his first locker, before throwing his keys in the security drop box and striding back to his lockers to open the second of the two. Stripping off his clothes, he tossed them toward the hamper, then grabbed a towel and walked to the shower area.
Turning on the water of the furthest shower, Cyan sighed as the pounding heat soothed his aching muscles. He stood like that for several minutes, just letting the hot water drive everything away. Several minutes later, hearing noise in the locker room, he began finally to move. Reaching for the soap, which smelled vaguely like lemons, he began to scrub away the day. Beneath the abrasive soap, traces of the Sardoran vanished, a light anesthetic healing the sting from a Hellcat cut and a bruise administered by a pissed off Telsken.
Cyan's body was all tight muscle with not a spare ounce of fat anywhere, rippling with every movement. From head to toe, he bore the scars of a life spent as a Rehab guard—one who had made it all the way to First Class: a burn along his right upper arm, Hellcat scratches down his side and one leg, and at least a dozen other marks that spelled out plainer than words the rough life led by Rehabbers. He ran his fingers over his stomach, where a livid set of five long, deep scratches were forever imprinted. Most of his scars had come from Rehab, but not all of them.
Cyan opened his eyes, pale dove gray, as he heard others spilling into the showers. Nodding to them, Cyan quickly scrubbed his hair clean, and then strode back into the locker room. Unlocking his second locker, he quickly pulled on soft denim pants and a white undershirt, then a dark green, long-sleeved shirt. Making certain one last time that all was accounted for, he sat down to tug on his socks and boots, then sealed his locker and walked out.
Out in the guard docks, he grabbed a bench and waited for a shuttle to Mars to arrive. It was, as always, almost completely silent. Only a faint hum of machinery buzzed and thrummed, a sound so familiar he barely heard it anymore. The air was thick with dark clouds that would never go away, one of many lingering results of the Last War, which had resulted in the planet being turned into a Rehabilitation Planet.
Everything was dull gray, concrete and metal, with more alarm systems than even most guards knew about scattered and cleverly hidden. No one and nothing escaped from Rehab—except one fucking Draconis after he'd matched with a stupid, fucking, magics capable human, who had never told his goddamn best friend he was magics capable. It sat heavy and bitter on Cyan, even a full term later, that Sean had never completely trusted him.
He'd told Sean his own deepest secret and Sean had not shared his. Why? Cyan knew he should let it go—Sean probably had a good reason—but it still hurt. They'd done everything together ever since they'd met, after Cyan had arrived on Mars at age eighteen. Sean had been the friend he'd never had back home, had been the reason he'd found a life on Mars he would never have had otherwise. Yet it seemed Sean had always held something back. And if he'd held one thing back…
Miserably, Cyan cut the thought off. It didn't matter—none of it mattered. What mattered was being able to punch Sean for it someday. Every damned day he hoped to hear something, and every day he heard nothing. No clue had ever turned up, only the combat ship in which the Draconis had escaped with Sean. By the time authorities had reached it, the ship had been little more than space debris. The search was still open but shunted to the very bottom of the IG to-do list.
Thankfully. On top of being angry at and worried about Sean, Cyan had feared the whole thing would reveal his own secrets and he would rather die than ever return to Zero. He wasn't doing it. When the IG had finally grown bored and wandered away to attend other matters, Cyan had nearly passed out from relief.
Stupid fucking Sean.
Cyan's thoughts broke off as a shuttle arrived, and he waited impatiently while the next shift disembarked, waving and greeting absently, nodding to the others on his shift who clambered onto the shuttle with him.
He picked a seat in the back and stared blankly out the window as the shuttle took off, wishing he were still working, because on Rehab, there was no way to think about anything other than the job. He had an entire month to kill and nothing to fill the time. There were things he could do, of course, but it wasn't the same. He wanted his best friend back, even if it seemed Sean had never entirely trusted him.
Maybe he'd take a trip like the one that had been waylaid by Sean's stupid fucking vanishing trick. Yeah, go to Bangkok, take his mind off everything.
The thought wasn't as cheering as it should have been.
Planet 1311819 (Mars), Settlement 2.1 (Canadia)
Cyan stirred from his light doze as the ship touched down, quickly regaining his senses. Throwing himself into the line of those disembarking, he chatted easily about prisoners and protocol with his fellow Rehabbers. As they entered the terminal and began to disperse, there was a slight shift in the level and tone of chatter. Cyan ignored it, as did his comrades. It didn't matter how many times people saw them, they were intimidated. Rehabbers were crazy, after all: violent, loved to fight, and never lost one.
Cyan shot a glare at an old woman when her whispers got too loud, and she guiltily dropped her hand, which had been pointing at his notably short hair. Longer hair was more fashionable; only dock laborers and Rehabbers tended to go with the cropped hair that was just short of completely shaved, and laborers did not have the 'menacing' air of Rehabbers.
Rolling his eyes, Cyan left the terminal behind and strode through the streets. Mars was divided up into hundreds of settlements, and it was said they all paralleled countries and cities, all of which had existed on Earth before the Last War. He lived on Settlement 2.1, one of the larger; its traditional name was Canadia, but most just went by the number.
Moving quickly, knowing the streets as well as he knew the wards and wings of Rehab, Cyan finally came to the little section of houses at the edge of the northeast quadrant where he'd spent the last ten years of his life when he wasn't on Rehab. Stifling a yawn, he strode past his own house and keyed open Sean's.
As miserable as he still was by Sean's departure one term later, it was Sean's mother who'd been hit hardest. Sean's father had died two terms ago, only half a term after Sean had joined Cyan on Rehab. Losing her son, her only remaining family, had been nearly too much for the poor, sweet lady to bear.
Whistling, Cyan stepped inside—and immediately stopped. Something was wrong. This time of day, Alice was usually making tea and fussing with her plants. She had a Vrill rose that had cost most of her savings, something she'd waited her entire life to purchase.
A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Cyan cut through the house to the back where it spilled into a small greenhouse. He swore softly when he saw a small heap in the very back, lying far too still. Kneeling, he checked Alice for injuries, softly calling her name. Her eyes fluttered open after a moment, dim and weak, but the very same bright blue as Sean's. "Cyan."
"Alice, what's wrong? Why didn't you call to let me know you weren't feeling well?"
"Doesn't matter," Alice whispered. "Nothing to do except wait. I'm too old."
Cyan felt cold fear wash through him. "What are you saying, Alice?"
"Dying, silly boy. Wish I could see my son…"
Biting back an angry retort, Cyan slowly got her back into the house and into bed. "Is there anything I can get you?" he asked. She pointed weakly at the door to her bathroom, and Cyan went to investigate. It didn't take him long to find the little bottles of prescribed drugs tucked behind lotions and tinctures. His mouth tightened as he examined the bottles and realized she'd been hiding her illness for a long damned time.
Returning to the bedroom, he said, "Alice, you should have said something. It's not right, keeping it to yourself. I would have helped you—I want to help you."
"Didn't want anyone worrying about me," she said with a tired smile. "I'm old;
it's about time I moved on. Just wish I could see my boy."
Cyan held her hand tight, kissing the knuckles, then one wrinkled cheek. "I wish I could bring Sean to you, Alice."
Alice stared at her hands, rubbing one thumb over his. "Would you, Cyan? I would like to tell him goodbye, though I've put off asking because I know he's in danger…" A tear slipped down one cheek.
"I don't know where to find him, Alice," Cyan said, vowing to punch Sean good and hard if he ever saw the bastard again. Letting go of his hand, Alice fumbled with a drawer of her nightstand. Gently, Cyan urged her to lie back down and opened the drawer himself. "What did you need?"
"Datapad," Alice whispered. "Diary." She whispered a long string of numbers and letters, and Cyan rapidly punched them in at the demand for a password. "Search—3765.419.28."
Cyan did as ordered and swore softly as the diary entry came up. It was simple, nothing more than a string of numbers, but he immediately understood. Once upon a time, he'd been made to memorize hundreds of planetary serial numbers—usually just called PSNs. He seldom forgot something once it was memorized, another element of his upbringing. Cyan stared at the numbers, mind already working.
03-07-11181911-3554
Quad Three, Sector Seven. The rest of the number identified the actual planet, which was Kreska. The last four numbers meant the location was actually the moon of Kreska, rather than the planet itself. Sean was on the moon of Kreska and Alice had known all along. Why hadn't Sean told him? Cyan tried not to feel hurt. Of course he should have been cautious in who he told—
With a rough sound, Cyan turned off the datapad. He kissed Alice's cheek. "I'll go get Sean for you, Alice. Stay here and rest, all right? You call Waters if anything happens."
"I will," Alice said. "Thank you, Cyan. You know I always counted you my boy, too."
"I know," Cyan said softly, a sharp pang in his chest. "Rest, now. Before you know it, I'll be back with Sean." Making certain Alice had everything she needed close to hand and shooting off a communication to Waters, he walked swiftly to his own house and began to pack.