Hand of Steel

by Jessi L Roberts

  Reva leaned against the wall of the prison. The bag sat beside her where she’d tossed Klate’s numerous weapons. Klate’s and Tenned’s datsheets would be there.

  A cold wind blew across the spaceport. I pulled my shirt tighter around my neck.

  Reva folded her arms across her chest.

  I waited and shivered. Any action I took would be going against the Ordained. In small ways, Dad had gone against them before by looking the other way for low-end criminals, but I’d be doing something huge. God, give me wisdom, I prayed.

  “I’m going to get my coat.” Reva hurried to the hover, her feet kicking up dust as she went.

  I ran to the bag of weapons and grabbed the first datsheet I found.

  Reva dug her jacket out of the hover and put it on.

  I stuffed the datsheet in my pocket and stepped away from the bag.

  Reva’s eyes narrowed. She leaned against the wall and watched the horizon.

  I thought of Melsha. What had she ever done to deserve the pits? The Ordained had made her into a criminal. My mind turned back to the Bible and what it said about following the law. Something within told me Klate’s version was the right one. A just God wouldn’t want me to serve evil.

  I hurried to the hover and dug through it, pretending to look for my jacket. Instead, I pulled out the datsheet and flicked it to what I guessed was the Deathhorn’s code.

  “Krys to Deathhorn,” I hissed. I turned on the video so whoever answered could see me.

  “Krys, why are you using Tenned’s datsheet?” The voice was a Human male, probably Ralkom, the mechanic.

  “What are you doing?” Reva stomped toward the hover.

  “The Hunters are—”

  Reva grabbed my shoulder and yanked me from the hover. She threw me on the dusty ground and picked up the datsheet.

  “Krys? What happened? Where’s Klate?” the voice said.

  Reva held up the datsheet. “You traitor.” Her words were cold. She threw the datsheet in the dirt and brought her heel down on it.

  I drew my pistol.

  Reva kicked it out of my hand. “I suggest you surrender now, brat.” Reva put her hands on her hips.

  She didn’t even consider me worth shooting. Rage built up in my chest. I sprang to my feet and slashed my claws at her head. She dodged backward, but I connected with her cheek.

  A bolt of electricity shot through me. My muscles seized. I writhed in the dirt as sparks filled my vision.

  Reva kicked me in the stomach. “I don’t care if you are blood kin, you are dead.” She holstered her pistol and sauntered to the hover, blood dripping from her cheek.

  I lay still, the paralysis serum coursing through my body.

  Reva came back with a collar. She tightened it around my neck. The needle plunged through my skin. I couldn’t even whimper.

  After she disarmed me, Reva grabbed my arms and dragged me into the prison. She dumped me next to Klate and locked the barred door to our cell. “Have a good time with your friends.” She stalked outside but still within earshot.

  “Akar, our little niece is a turncoat,” Reva snarled. She paused, waiting for a reply from the datsheet. “No, I didn’t kill her. I locked that pitbait with our prisoners. Don’t tell Qwalm.”

  I lay helpless on the floor, unable to even turn my head to see my fellow prisoners. God, please let the crew get the message. They had to know something was up. They’d have a better chance than I had.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cyborg

  I lay on the hard floor and listened to Klate’s and Tenned’s breathing. Klate breathed slowly while Tenned’s breaths came in ragged gasps. He was fighting the serum, not that it would do him any good. We were helpless, unable to do anything but wait for hunters to return and haul us away.

  A hover hummed outside. Reva talked to someone, probably Urkot. The hover left, but the voices remained. So we were dealing with at least two hunters.

  My neck throbbed from where the needle pierced it.

  I clenched my cybernetic fist. This was so wrong.

  I’d clenched my fist.

  I unclenched it and tested my cybernetics. They moved easily, but my real body parts refused to respond. Somehow, my cybernetics had made it around the serum’s neurological blockage.

  I inched my cybernetic hand to the collar and ripped it off. The needle pulled loose. Warm blood trickled down my neck.

  I rolled myself over so I could see Klate and Tenned. They were both facing away from me.

  Using my cybernetic leg and arm, I inched across the floor. Bits of rock dug into my stomach and face, but I ignored the grit. I couldn’t lift my head to escape it or use my real limbs.

  I reached for Klate’s collar. From my angle, I couldn’t rip it off. I pushed the button that retracted the needle.

  Klate’s body blocked my path to Tenned. With only two working limbs, I couldn’t make it over him.

  I relaxed and waited for the serum to wear off. Blood dripped from my neck while my scrapes from crawling across the floor stung.

  My life is over, I realized. I could never be a hunter, not now, after what I’d done.

  Tears streamed from my eye. Even if I escaped, even if I saved the crew, I had nothing, no job, no family, no real friends. All I’d have was a bounty on my head.

  After half an hour, my real limbs began responding though they were weak and sluggish. I crawled over Klate and to Tenned and then removed his collar.

  I couldn’t salvage my life, but I could repay Klate.

  Klate rolled over. “Krys, check the door. See if you can get it open.”

  I crawled to the door. Bars ran up and down and braces ran across. They weren’t overly thick. They hadn’t been designed with an Elba in mind, but they’d most likely hold one. The hinges were old and rusted, probably a remnant from before the Tupra war.

  I crawled back to Klate. “I doubt you could break it down. It looks pretty strong. If you try, Reva will realize we messed with the collars.”

  Klate closed his eyes. “We’ll have to wait for them to take us out. We can get the jump on them then.”

  “Akar’s got a bunch of hunters after your crew.”

  Klate’s eyes widened. “How many?”

  “At least ten.”

  Klate struggled to his feet and stumbled to the door.

  I stood too. No need to pretend I was paralyzed with a huge Elba tromping around.

  Tenned tried to rise but slumped back to the floor. “What side you on?” he slurred.

  I opened my mouth to answer then closed it. I didn’t have a side, not now.

  Klate slammed into the cell door. It rattled but held.

  Twice more, Klate slammed into the door.

  “Hold on.” I knelt at the base of the door and examined the hinges. “The hinges seem to be the weakest point.” I reached through the bars and grabbed one in my cybernetic fist.

  Using my cybernetics as leverage, I pulled on the hinge. Rust fell from it.

  I jerked. The hinge bent. A slight crack ran through it.

  “Reva, I hear something,” Urkot whined.

  Klate barreled past me and slammed into the cell door.

  The bottom hinge sprang loose in a shower of rust.

  Klate hit the door again. The two remaining hinges snapped. The door flew to the floor with a clang of metal.

  Klate erupted through the hole, his hands upraised

  Urkot charged into the room with Reva close behind. Urkot fired his stunner pistol.

  Klate’s huge hand slammed into Urkot’s chest. He flew into the wall and slumped in a heap.

  I charged Reva. She drew her killing pistol. A shot echoed off the walls of the prison. Something slammed into my upper leg.

  Reva ducked around the doorway and ran.

  I paused at the doorway. If I tried to go after her, she’d kill me for sure.

  My leg throbbed. I reached down and felt the wound, expecting a small shrapnel wound or a bruise. My hand came back cover
ed in blood. The bullet had hit me.

  A hover revved up.

  My injury could wait. I ran to Urkot. He moaned and opened his eyes. Blood soaked through four claw marks across his chest.

  I relieved him of both his pistols. The killing pistol felt heavy in my cybernetic hand. I handed it to Klate.

  Klate leaned against the cell, his body loose. He’d been hit by one stunner round, but it wasn’t enough to take him down. “You okay?” he slurred.

  I glanced down at the wound. More blood covered my pant leg. “I think it went straight through. I can walk.”

  Tenned climbed to his feet. He stumbled and fell on his side. “I don’t recover like I used to,” he grumbled.

  Klate sank to the floor and crawled to Urkot’s datsheet. He pushed it a few times then threw it to the floor. “Looks like they’ve jammed the whole region. We need to contact the Deathhorn.” He looked at my leg wound. “Can you travel?”

  “Yes.” I peered outside. Reva was gone with the only hover. Could we get one from the city in time?

  Klate glanced at Urkot’s first aid kit. “Get your wound bandaged.”

  I grabbed Urkot’s first aid kit and bandaged my leg. Without taking off my pants, I couldn’t do a very good job, but I did squirt a little salve into it. The wound didn’t hurt that much, but it did bleed quite a bit.

  Urkot watched. From the way he clutched his shoulder, I guessed it was dislocated. The wounds on his chest bled, but not enough to kill him. He’d live.

  “I hope you die in the dark,” he gasped.

  “You know Reva only keeps you around to draw fire?” I snapped. I didn’t know if it was true, but considering how inept he was, I wouldn’t put it past her. I turned to Klate. “What do I need to do?”

  Klate pulled himself to his feet. “I want you to head due east. You need to warn my crew there’s a whole army of hunters after them. They’re by three peaks that stick out of the desert. They’ll have their ships covered with camotarps.”

  I’d never known the pirates had access to the expensive tarps that could hide almost anything. Those didn’t come cheap.

  “Anything else?” I glanced toward the door.

  “No. Go now. We’ll make it out.”

  “Look for an antidote,” I said. “Urkot probably has one.” My leg throbbed. Maybe it was worse than I’d thought. “Be ready if they come back,” I told Klate.

  He nodded to me.

  I limped out of the building and into the open. There were no hovers around. I jogged out of the spaceport and toward the cold desert.

  After jogging for a few minutes, I spotted the peaks.

  I headed toward them. They seemed to stay the same size, no matter how far I ran.

  A rock caught my real toe. I fell in a heap. My head swam. Why was I tired already? I climbed to my feet and staggered. My leg throbbed, worse than before. I looked down at the bandage.

  Blood soaked through and ran down my pants.

  I ran on. If I didn’t get medical attention soon, I could bleed out. Reva had taken my first aid kit, and I hadn’t thought to keep Urkot’s with me.

  I pushed myself harder. I couldn’t die without sounding the alarm. The crew depended on me.

  By the time I made it to the peaks, they were only blurry outlines in my vision.

  “Halt!” a distant voice shouted.

  My real leg folded under me. Lying down felt better.

  A humanoid shadow appeared over me. “What are you doing here?” It was Ralkom.

  “Klate sent me. Hunters are after you, dozens of them.” Darkness clouded my vision.

  “She’s losing blood. Get her to the infirmary now!” Melsha shouted.

  My vision went black.

  I awoke in the infirmary. Doc perched at my side.

  Slowly, I pushed myself into a sitting position. My pant leg had been cut off and the wound on my leg now bore a bandage. Otherwise, my clothes were intact.

  “I thought about giving you a matching pair, but the wound wasn’t bad,” Doc said. “Two cybernetic legs would be easier to deal with than one.”

  I shuddered. “If you’re going to cut anything else off me, get my permission first.”

  Doc’s tail twitched. “Fine, but keep it in mind.”

  I swung my legs over the bed and stood. The floor hummed underneath my feet, telling me we were in space.

  “How are you feeling?” Doc asked. “I gave you a transfusion. You almost bled out. Don’t ignore bleeding wounds like that.” His tail twitched for emphasis.

  “I’m fine.” I tested my leg. It ached but held. “Are Klate and Tenned okay?”

  “They’re here. We picked them up, but the hunters are after us. They’ve set up ambushes. We’re not sure where.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in orbit over Lokostwa. They’re narrowing down our location as we speak. Lucky for us, the ship detection tech here is pretty basic, so we’re okay, until we take the engines past an idle, but we can’t hide forever. We didn’t get the Deathhorn restocked.”

  I gazed at the walls of the Deathhorn. If it came down to a fight, the old ship wouldn’t hold out. “What are you going to do?”

  Doc’s tail twitched downward. “Klate’s calling in favors, trying to see if others will help.”

  I hobbled from the infirmary, not sure where I’d go. I limped to the cockpit where Amellia sat. Klate stood next to her.

  “You did well, Krys.” Klate turned and crouched so his head was my level. “Thank you.”

  “We’re being pinged,” Amellia said. “I’ll make a run for Tupra.”

  The ship’s vibrations increased. We were on the run.

  “Isn’t Tupra the place they’ll expect you to go?” I asked. My hunter training told me there’d be ambushes all along the routes to Tupra, and with the ship low on supplies and most likely, fuel, we couldn’t afford to slow and turn, meaning we’d have to take a straight path.

  “They will.” Klate stood. “If we get close enough to Tupra, we’ll have allies. I’ll take the risk.”

  Was he gambling on the theory that we’d be boarded? It’d be better than getting blown up, but we’d be sent to the pits. I clenched my cybernetic fist. Maybe dying in an explosion would be a better way to go.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Showdown

  I sat in my alcove and read some of the Free Kin Bible on my datsheet. We’d been traveling for two weeks without incident. Almost everyone but Klate and Amellia were trying to sleep.

  This part of space was a sort of bottleneck between asteroid fields, the perfect place for an ambush. We didn’t have the fuel to go the long way around, so we had to go through. The Deathhorn was already traveling at half-speed, in hopes the hunters would lose interest or assume we’d gone another direction. That was the only defense we had.

  The ship jerked. I slammed into the front of my alcove and bounced around. The gravity glitched and the ship shuddered. We were coming to a fast stop, jerked from lightspeed by the reverse thrusters. The lights dimmed, then went out, leaving only glowing strips of paint to show our location. The gravity went completely down, but the ship seemed to have slowed.

  I braced myself against the walls of my alcove so I didn’t drift.

  “Hirami, follow me.” Ralkom flew from his alcove and grabbed a rail on the wall. He pulled himself from the room and through the hatch toward the cockpit.

  Hirami bounded after him. The young Chix did a good job of navigating in zero-g. Had the crew been training him in my absence, or was he a natural?

  Two of the other Torfs on the crew floated out too. I guessed they were the gunners.

  The ship’s vibrations were weak, not a solid hum like they should have been. Most likely, the hunters had used the pirate tactic of dumping debris in the ship’s path, which overwhelmed the lightshielding and forced the ship to slow or be torn to pieces by space dust. Now, the engines had to cool down from the overexertion they’d gone through.

  Tenned peere
d from his alcove. “Everyone, stay in your alcoves and keep the slides shut.” He watched me as he said it, probably because the rest of the crew knew what to do.

  Klate’s voice came through Tenned’s borrowed datsheet. “We’ll be doing sub-light evasive maneuvers.”

  I braced myself in the alcove. The ship shuddered a few times, but with no gravity, I didn’t get hurt.

  The gravity flashed on. Klate’s voice came through the speakers. “They’ve hit us with a hijacker. Get ready.”

  “How many?” Tenned demanded.

  “A major Saddat bullet fighter and two more minors waiting.”

  I did a quick estimate. The major bullet fighters tended to have a crew of about thirty. The minors had around half that. The Deathhorn only had twenty, so we were going against three times our number if they all chose to board. Most likely, the minors would hang back and guard the major fighter from attack by enemy ships. If we were lucky, only one crew would board. Two ships trying to board a hijacked vessel at the same time was a risky proposition.

  “Krys, stay in your alcove,” Tenned ordered. “If things get bad, go for the ventilation ducts. They’re designed to double as escape tunnels.”

  If the hunters won, they’d crawl into the ducts and drag me out, but it would be better than being in the alcove and getting hit by a fire grenade again.

  “Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  If we lost, I’d be sent to the pits, same as the pirates. I climbed from the alcove. I needed to fight for my freedom.

  Klate strode down the hallway, his ears flipped backward. He nodded to me and stepped through the hatch.

  I took it as a sign and followed after him. I wouldn’t cower in a hole, not this time.

  Tenned glared at me but kept his mouth shut.

  Doc crouched low. He knew better than to get shot when the crew needed a doctor.

  Tapping echoed through the hold.

  I drew my pistol.

  “Stay in the hallway,” Tenned snapped. Did he not trust me, or was he trying to keep someone he considered inexperienced from getting killed?

  I stopped near the hatch leading to the hold and let the other crew members hurry past me. They spread out in the hold, using the cargo for cover, some hiding at the top of the stacks of supplies. The cargo had been arranged to give the pirates cover, a clever move on Klate’s part. From my vantage point, I was above the hold, able to see down somewhat well.