Drifters' Alliance, Book 2

by Elle Casey

  “You’d better. Be careful.”

  Tam nods and leaves the room at a jog.

  I reach out to him and try to grunt out a request, but it doesn’t work. My throat is killing me.

  “What? What do you need?”

  I tap my empty sheath, trying to show Baebong with my eyes how desperate it makes me feel not to have it with me.

  Baebong nods. “You left your knife there?”

  I nod fast.

  “And you want it back?”

  I grab his hand and nod again.

  “All right. I’ll get it when we’re done here.”

  I shake my head. I want it now. Now!

  Baebong looks over at Jeffers and then at me. “You guys okay with her? I need to go get something.”

  “Go. We’re fine,” Jeffers says, not looking back.

  Baebong nods at me. “I’m going to get your knife, and then I’m coming right back. Don’t die on me while I’m gone.”

  I try to smile, but my lips are trembling too much. More tears join the others.

  He pats me lightly on the cheek a few times before leaving.

  I lift my forearm up to cover my face. I hate crying in front of people.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  BAEBONG’S BEEN GONE TOO LONG. He was running when he left, and he said he’d be right back. The panic is rising up inside me again. He’s not dead! The pirate’s not dead! I try to push Jeffers’ hand out of my face, but he’s very persistent about cleaning my cuts. He says he has to use the cold laser if I’m going to be without scars.

  “Errrh!” I yell. My throat is too sore to help me form actual words.

  He sighs in frustration. “What? What are you trying to say?”

  Gus leans in. “I think she said, ‘Errrr.’”

  Jeffers pauses and stares at him.

  Gus is too busy focusing on me to notice. “Did he knock your teeth out or something?”

  Jeffers pushes him gently off to the side. “He choked her. Her windpipe is swollen.” He touches my jaw with a single finger. “Did he knock any teeth out?”

  I lift my hand and wiggle it in the horizontal position.

  Gus points at it. “I think that means maybe.”

  Jeffers looks at him over the magnifying glasses he’s wearing. “Don’t you think she’d know for sure if she were missing teeth?”

  Gus frowns as he stares at me. “Yeah. Probably. Are you worried some of your teeth might come out?”

  I nod, becoming exhausted just from trying to deal with Gus and his silliness. I point to the exit and slap my leg where my knife sheath is. It’s still empty, and with every second that goes by, I worry more about that.

  “She wants to slap the shit out of someone, I think,” Gus says, standing up straight and taking a step back. “Hopefully it’s not me. Heh-heh.” He smiles but then looks worried, moving his gaze between Jeffers and me.

  “It’s not you,” Jeffers says, lifting the cleaning pad and spray to my face again. “She wants her knife.”

  Gus looks out the door. “What’s going on with them? What’s taking them so long?”

  I wave at the door. “Gaaa eeee.”

  “She’s telling you to go see,” Jeffers says, putting his instruments on the tray at his left. “They’re probably moving the body to the deep freeze for storage.”

  I nod, praying he’s right. But Baebong said he’d be right back. Where is he? Where’s Tam?

  “All right. If you’re sure you don’t want me here. To help or stand guard or whatever.” Gus’s chest puffs up a little at the last part.

  “We’ll manage,” Jeffers says, taking the cold laser tool out of its case and checking the energy levels.

  Gus disappears and Jeffers levels the tool at my cheek. I stare straight ahead while the emotions generated by what happened start seeping in past the adrenaline that was keeping me level-headed until now. I start to tremble all over.

  Jeffers stops what he’s doing to reach over and take something off his tray. Putting the cold laser down, he lifts my wrist, sticking something onto it. A strip of some sort.

  “Wuuu ah?” I ask, marveling at how warm it feels.

  “It will help with the chemical imbalance you have right now. You’re coming down from your battle high and this will make it easier to equilibriate.”

  I nod as he picks up his laser. The trembling has already lessened.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  I laugh bitterly. Just a snort, really. I’d love to tell him, but my throat has other ideas. When I point to it, he nods.

  “Did he attack you?”

  I nod.

  Jeffers puts his hand on my chin. “No more nodding. I need to keep this thing focused just on the injury and not the surrounding tissue.”

  I blink once.

  “Why don’t we hold off on the question and answer session until your throat is feeling better?” He pauses to wait for my response.

  I blink twice.

  He smiles briefly before going back to the lasering.

  I sit as quietly as I can, focusing on my near future as a way of settling into the pain that comes from the sealing up of my skin. Jeffers didn’t even ask me if I wanted anesthesia, and that makes me feel warm inside. He knows I’d say no, just like he would. We have a commonality that has created a bond — a tenuous one, but it does exist. It gives me hope.

  So what’s next for me? I guess the Captain Bob problem has somewhat been resolved. I assume if there were anyone else on that ship of his, I would have heard about it by now. He attempted to take my life and failed, so I get to claim his ship. That gives us a PC to use, assuming the engineers can figure out a way to dock it on a more permanent basis. No way do I want to be night crawling with a piece of equipment that can fly off and demolish us with one hit. Many have speculated about what happens to a soul lost in a wormhole, but not me. I won’t even let my brain go there. Some idiots say you get transported back to Earth, before the End. I hate all those brainless ‘troids who always talk about the place like it was some kind of Eden. None of them have ever seen it firsthand, and if it was so great, why are we all here?

  Before I can go any further down that philosophical path, there’s a disruption at the door that makes Jeffers pull away and hold the laser down near his waist. It’s Gus and he’s in a panic.

  “You have to come! Come quick!”

  I leap off the table, dancing around when I accidentally put too much weight on my broken toes. “Merrrr ferrrr!”

  Gus’s eyes are shining with what looks like tears. I take a big step over toward him and grab his arm, shaking it, frowning at him. I need an explanation.

  “That guy wasn’t dead!” Gus’s pitch is so high, he sounds like a girl. “He’s not there and neither is Tam or Baebong! There’s blood! Too much blood!”

  I feel the warmth drain from my face, my entire body going cold with dread. Jeffers moves me to the side, grabs Gus by the arm, and speaks in a very calm voice. “Let’s go.” They run down the hall together, and I hop and limp after them as best I can. They disappear from view in seconds.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  WHEN I GET TO THE spot near the brig where I thought I’d left Captain Bob for dead, I see why Gus was so panicked. There is a lot of blood here, and it’s not mine or the pirate’s. At least, it’s not the blood we spilled together; there’s too much of it.

  Fuuuuuck.

  I fling myself up the stairs, ignoring the sharp pain coming from my broken finger. It’s not as bad off as my foot is, so I make the sacrifice, my hands acting as supports for the rest of my body as I hobble down the hallway. Like Gus and Jeffers, I’m following the trail of blood that seems to be retracing my steps back to the cold storage area.

  Of course it is. If the pirate survived, he’d want that damn disk before he got back on his ship. I stop right where I am, at a crossroads of corridors. One way will bring me to the frozen things, the other to the airlock where his ship is tethered. Assuming
the others followed the blood trail and are with the pirate and the chicken, I choose the other direction. Jeffers can handle whatever comes up there, and I’ll be waiting for Captain Bob’s fat ass at the door to his ship just in case he’s already headed in this direction. He’s going to have to go through me to get onboard.

  “Adeeeerr!” I wheeze as I limp and stumble along the pathway to the PC.

  The compubot doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t. I’m not saying her name properly, now am I? I try again. “Adddeeerrr!” The word won’t come out. My throat is totally messed up. Every breath used to speak is better suited to a gasp for air. I keep going down the hallway, hoping to come upon a keypad soon.

  Ten meters farther and I’m rewarded. I nearly fall against it as my hand comes up to make contact. “Addderrr!” I moan as my hand presses the button sequence designed to bring the computbot up manually.

  “Hello, Captain, what may I do for you today?”

  “Whaa haah gaaah…” I quit trying to express myself and just lean on the wall, my face next to the keypad.

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but I do not understand.”

  My toes are throbbing even more than before. Now that I’ve stood still for longer than three seconds, my aches and pains come out front and center, no longer ignorable.

  “Hello, Captain. How may I help you?”

  Never mind, stupid ‘bot. I’m not far from the PC. I just need to get there. And if he comes at me with my own knife, I’m just going to have to do my best to fight him off using the close-combat moves I’ve learned. I just pray that nothing too terrible has happened to Tam or Baebong. I’ll never forgive myself if either of them are … gah… I can’t even think the word inside my own head.

  I continue my limping trek to the PC Mahalo, moving as fast as I possibly can. When I finally make it to the airlock, it’s empty of any crew, but the PC is still there. There’s hope!

  I hobble through the short corridor to the other side, half tripping over the threshold that will bring me into the PC. Pausing at the entrance, I tip my head to the side, hoping I won’t hear anything but the whirring of equipment and electronics. I don’t even hear that. It’s dead silent inside.

  So far, so good. I continue on, dipping my head to fit through the small opening that leads onto the tiny flightdeck.

  This craft is similar to one I’ve been on before that my father owned and used for cruising around the installation we lived on when I was about fourteen. Taking the seat centered on the console, I press the buttons that will tell me the status of this ship’s onboard computer.

  I smile when a green light begins blinking. The panel’s output monitor indicates ready operations are on hold. Gus and Tam did a good job of sweeping this baby’s systems. The onboard computer has been wiped clean of Captain Bob’s signature and awaits an introduction to the one that was recently loaded: mine.

  I put my hand over the glassine plate and press the two buttons that I know will start the sequence of the PC’s computbot recognizing me as that pre-loaded captain. I hereby claim this bucket of junk as my own. Just try to fly her out of here now, Captain Boob. A few seconds later, the light changes from red, to yellow, and then to green as the compubot confirms my biorhythms and fingerprints. A couple seconds later, the entire dashboard lights up and a voice comes over the comm box to my right.

  “Hello, Captain Cass, I am Leilani, and I am at your service.”

  Rather than answer, I power down the system to conserve energy before getting up to check the rest of the ship. In the dim cabin lighting I explore the small back end of it. There’s a stacked bunk, a head, a clothing cleaning compartment, a minuscule galley, and a tiny shower with a sink, which looks so clean I’m sure it’s never been used for anything but storage. The entire closet-sized space is packed with boxes, the contents of which aren’t discernible through their opaque enclosures.

  Now that I know no one but I can escape on this pod, I turn to leave it. The sounds of someone coming in my direction make me hurry to get out as fast as I can. I hop on my one good leg, not wanting to be caught in this small space with no room to maneuver, just in case it’s not one of my crewmembers around the corner.

  When I get to the front of the ship where it looks out into the airlock, I’m sickened to see Captain Bob there. He’s alone, and his gun is hanging right there on a hook next to him in the airlock. I’m instantly sick to my stomach. What the hell happened to my people?

  He doesn’t give his weapon a single glance. He just moves toward me like a mindless drone, his footsteps heavy but purposeful, his gaze murderous. I become more disgusted by the second, with every centimeter that he advances through the airlock toward me. Part of this pirate-induced nausea is coming from the thought of him almost upon me; the other is coming from having to lay eyes on him in general. He’s had better days in the looks department, that’s for sure.

  His face is purple. Chunks of vomit and I don’t know what else run down the front of his beard and shirt, mingling with a whole lot of blood. A crust has formed in his mustache and beard hairs that makes my stomach flip once, twice, and then a third time.

  I put my hand on my belly and burp. “Oh gah,” I whisper as my head spins. I have to put my other hand up above me and hook it over the portal’s jamb to keep from falling over.

  The pirate growls and then starts to yell. “Thought you could just …” He trips and almost falls, but catches himself just in time by leaning on the side of the airlock. “… Steal my ship!”

  I shake my head. My crushed-throat words can’t help me here, but I wish I could tell him that’s not what I meant to do. I was never going to take this stupid PC from him. I was going to hand him and his crap ship over to the Alliance and let them decide what to do. This wasn’t my fault. He came after me first; I just defended myself. The PC is mine now only because he went too far. He tried to kill me, and he’s done something to Tam and Baebong and maybe even Gus and Jeffers too.

  I don’t even want to think about what might have happened to them right now. I have to focus. I have to survive by any means possible. No one would expect me to play nice after this, not even Jeffers.

  He takes another step in my direction putting himself at the midway point in the airlock between our ships.

  My right hand reaches up and joins the other, grabbing the small lip of metal above me that would normally seal the portal into position. My broken finger is screaming in pain, so I do my best to keep it straight while the others bend and hold the portal frame with as much force as possible. I’m probably going to die in the next sixty seconds, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go down without a fight.

  “You … bitch…” He’s having a hard time with the whole breathing thing, much like I am, or so it seems. But he’s still coming for me. It makes no sense that he could still be walking, unless he’s got some robo parts inside him. Some really screwed up individuals actually do that — enhance what they have with parts from compubots. It makes sense that this guy would be a franken-pirate. Now I don’t feel as bad about smashing his arteries. I do, however, feel like a class-one asshole for allowing my friends to go after him.

  My chest heaves in fear as he takes another two steps in my direction. Knowing that he’s probably part machine makes him ten times more dangerous and that much harder to kill. It doesn’t seem fair that a guy already that big can just go and enhance himself like that. There should be a rule against making fights so one-sided.

  “They told me to kill you first chance … I got.” He drools out the last word, leaving more shrapnel in his beard. “But I didn’t listen.” More vomit comes out. And this time, I see shiny metal pieces mixed in with his last meal.

  Oh, Jesus. What’s worse than vomit? Robo-vomit, that’s what. Pleeeease don’t let me throw up on myself. I swallow over and over, trying to keep the bile down.

  “No, I didn’t listen. Not then. But now … I’m listening.” He’s close enough that I can see red in his eyes where there should
be white. The blows I delivered to his chest and neck that should have killed him almost did, or they’re in the process of killing him now and he just won’t admit it to himself.

  I shake my head, trying to convince myself that what I’m hearing and seeing cannot possibly be real, but he just keeps coming. This is no nightmare; this is real life.

  Sounds come from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, I see a flash of movement. It’s Baebong, and he’s covered in blood. Hope nearly drowns me in joy. “Baaaaah!” I try to scream, but it comes out as a soggy, sad whisper.

  “Cass!” he yells.

  The pirate reaches for me with both arms out. He’s just two steps away.

  “Float him!” Baebong yells, right before he shuts the airlock on the Anarchy’s side.

  I grab the door jamb above me and lift my body up with my arm, back, and bicep muscles, swinging my legs out a bit forward, bent at the waist and knees. One arching swing back and then forward again, and I’m unleashing the last weapon I have at my disposal: an almighty pendulum kick, delivered right into the middle of the stupid franken-pirate’s face.

  My boots make contact with his nose, cracking it and whiplashing his head. He stands perfectly still for the few seconds it takes my legs to return to a spot under me. Then, as I drop to the floor, he falls over backward in slow motion, his body as stiff as a door. The entire airlock shakes with the force of his weight hitting the floor.

  I limp over the threshold in reverse and slam my hand on the keypad by the door, shutting the portal to the PC. Safe! I’m safe! He can’t get in anymore now that I’m the captain of this hunk of junk.

  I have to hop on one leg over to the captain’s chair because my broken toes aren’t usable anymore. Falling into the seat, I bring up comm with the Anarchy including a visual link. Jeffers’ face is there, and he looks as stern as I’ve ever seen him.

  I wave weakly. “Hah!”

  “Hello, Captain.”

  I stare and stare at him, trying to understand what’s happening. It seems almost unreal to me that I’m on this tiny PC, and this man is sitting in my chair, casting judgment on me. I won’t be surprised if he cuts off the comm and leaves this position and me to rot out here alone.