by Laura Lam
“You start on the engine and I’ll inspect the interior,” Eris said aloud, keeping the strange accent and disinterested tone.
Clo nodded. She’d settle for laying her hands on that gorgeous engine.
The hangar was oddly beautiful, with high arched ceilings, the wall in front of them made of thick sheets of glass made to withstand Mors weaponry. Clo angled toward the comm hatch. There were no guards this close to the crafts when all entrances were covered. She switched off the comms to stall any outgoing messages. It wouldn’t help for long, but if things went south, a minute or two could save their lives.
Clo opened up the hatch. The engine was still warm. They couldn’t have timed this better. The inhabitants of Zelus should have just disembarked on a shuttle up to the floating buildings above. Not enough time to take out the cargo. A few minutes before or later, and this would have been much trickier. Clo thanked the gods for that flicker of luck.
Eris fell silent but kept the line open; her voice was muffled as she spoke to someone, but Clo couldn’t follow. A movement out of the corner of her eye—a guard, making a slow circuit of the space. His body language was relaxed, but Clo was aware of how closely he watched her.
No response, just more murmurs. Was Eris speaking to Legate Atkis? He was a diplomat; Eris might even have met him before she defected. Knowing that didn’t comfort Clo.
The guard drifted closer to Zelus. He might be the same one that Eris worried was desperate to prove himself. It was hard to tell. The same cohort of soldiers were engineered to look so similar.
“Hey,” she said to him, aiming for nonchalance. “You got any oil around here? The hinges on these hatches are godsawful. Wouldn’t want it taking off again like that.”
“The supply room is over there,” he said. He moved as if to show her, but his gaze caught on the comm hatch. “Those lights shouldn’t be off.” He frowned, pressing a button. Nothing.
“I can fix it for you,” Clo offered, still hoping she came across as relaxed. “It’s probably just a loose wire.” She could take it apart and fiddle with it long enough for Eris to finish.
The guard hesitated. His Oracle programming had taken over—his pupils were dilated. One overlay ran through the scenarios, statistically determining her likely motivations and the threat of danger. Clo wondered what he would have been like without it. Maybe those brown eyes would have been warm rather than cold. He was a head taller and outweighed her by a good sixty pounds. She might still be able to take him.
“Yes,” he said, eventually. “Proceed.”
“Thank you.” But as Clo bent to grab the rest of her tools, the guard bolted.
“Silt.” She’d been half-prepared for it, but still.
He sprinted for the comms unit on the other side of the hangar. Clo went back to the one by Zelus, deepening the jam so he wouldn’t be able to send anything for a mile in either direction. It was going to cause problems—any incoming passenger or freight craft would have to be redirected to different hangars, and it wouldn’t take long before the other guards realized their system was compromised.
Too late.
The guard reached the comm but realized what she’d done. He took off running in the opposite direction, shouting to the second guard, “Grab the woman!”
The other guard came after her. All Clo had to defend herself with was the wrench in her hand; her tool belt was the only thing she could get through the hangar without the Oracle’s scan immediately flagging her.
There was no time to prepare. The guard was on her, his Mors pressed against her skull. He gripped her wrist so hard he might break it. “Drop the wrench.”
“Up yer hummock,” Clo snarled. His eyes widened at her dialect before Clo kneed him in the groin and ducked just as the weapon fired. The laser blast hissed and the gun hit the metal floor.
Alarm lights flashed and blared. Silt, silt, silt.
Her Pathos beeped.
Clo shifted her weight to her good leg and slammed her wrench against the guard’s skull. He crumpled to the ground, but his enhancements would have him awake again soon. Clo took his Mors and shot him in the leg, wincing at the sizzle of flesh.
One guard down. Now the next.
Clo left the hangar. She could just make out the guard as he darted from the edges of the compound into the Snarl. He’d know her comms jam couldn’t spread far. If he reached the other side of the slum, he’d sound the alarm.
Clo sped up, grunting with effort, as she followed him into the crooked buildings of her old home.
It was as if she passed from daylight to growing dusk. The buildings were built so tall and close together that little sunlight penetrated the bottom levels. Lights flickered overhead, dangling on precarious wires. Above her were rickety rope bridges and laundry drying in between crooked windows. The ground was uneven, the cement pitted and cracked. People moved through the narrow spaces with packages balanced on their heads. It was barely wide enough for one person to pass in either direction. So many people spoke or yelled at each other that it blended into a senseless cacophony. The air smelled of human bodies, dirt, smoke, and fuel, cooking food and laundry soap.
She was home. So many memories lay in these close quarters. The tiny room she’d shared with her mother was only a few floors above her and to the right. What did it look like five years later? Who lived there?
It didn’t matter. Her mother was long gone, but the memories hadn’t died with her.
This place was in Clo’s bones.
8.
CLO
Five years ago
Clo slunk home at nightfall, lugging her bag of parts to sort and salvage in time for the markets tomorrow. She laid out her finds on the table. She didn’t like fixing weapons, but the sparked-out Mors would fetch plenty of shale if she could bring it back to life. They needed the dosh.
Mam was in the corner, wrapped up tight in a threadbare blanket, and Clo’s work was punctuated by her wracking, pained coughs. Clo winced at each one, knowing they were marking down the time her mam had left. Once someone had Snarled lungs, it was only a question of how long, how comfortable. How much medicine they could afford.
Clo’s head snapped up when someone knocked at the door.
“Let them in, Clo,” Mam wheezed. “We’re expecting them.”
Clo let out a soft swear. “Ye promised nae strays.”
More hacking coughs. No way to pretend they weren’t home. “Just open the door, Cloelia.”
Clo scowled and picked up the broken Mors for show. She was a scrawny fifteen-year-old and couldn’t scare a marsh cat, but the gun might give whoever was behind the door pause.
The flickering light in the hallway showed a hulking man, face angry as storm water, supporting a slimmer bloke drenched in sweat and blood. The hale man met her eyes, and she flinched away. She didn’t want anybody remembering her face.
He whispered to Mam and they both helped the other bloke to the bed. Mam went to work right quick—cutting off his clothing, cleaning him best she could with hot water, bad whisky, and clean scraps of cloth. The larger man shifted from foot to foot, awkward in such a small space. He had big hands that were scarred here and there. A mechanic, maybe, like Clo.
“Hey,” he said softly to her. His face was not as stormlike now.
Clo ignored him and slurped down her noodles, hunching over her bowl protectively. The man took out some nutrition bars and crammed two down his gullet before offering her one.
She snatched it from him, tore off the wrapper, and took a big bite as she headed back to her workstation. She wasn’t one to shun free food, and this tasted pure gleyed. She could snarf another half dozen, easy.
He laughed deep in his throat. “Don’t eat it too fast, kid.” He watched her tinker with the Mors. He didn’t mention she’d near brandished a broken weapon at him. “You’re soldering that part half an inch too high.”
She glared at him, but the bogging sinkhole of a man was right. She adjusted the part.
“Briggs,” he said to her, holding out his hand once she’d finished the welding. After a long pause, she took it. His hand was warm. “You do good work.”
She bent her head over the Mors with a grunt. She focused on it with all she had, never mind the curiosity about the resistance burning in her gut.
Dinnae talk to strays, she reminded herself. They dinnae stick around long and often end up bloated bodies in the bogs.
Sure enough, he left not long after. She ate more of the nutrition bar, shutting her eyes at the sweet taste. She saved half for Mam, even though her stomach still rumbled.
Clo eyed the stray in the bed. It had been months since the last one. She had started to hope Mam would stop letting them in, stop giving them food they couldn’t spare or shale that could buy medicine. Go to Petra’s, folk whispered to strangers—rebels—seeking shelter or help in the Snarl. She’ll fix ye up right proper.
Sometimes they paid her back. Often they didn’t. Mam always said this was the last one. She always promised.
Mam’s face was harsh under the swinging bulb of the lamp. Clo saw her home anew when a stray washed in, knowing how they must judge. Stained walls lined with scant possessions—boxes of spare parts, the med kit, their patchwork clothes Mam had stitched as neatly as she sewed up flesh. Teeny kitchen and bathroom. Cracked, concrete ground with threadbare rugs, the shared bed in the corner.
A bed currently full of a muscled man, his stomach bandaged, blood already soaking through the white. Clo glared at him, then at Mam.
Mam opened her mouth, but only coughs came out. She covered her mouth with a rag, and Clo wanted to snatch it from her, check if it were flecked with blood and pus. Her mam always hid it from her.
When she recovered, Mam’s voice was raspy. “Come on, Clo. Don’t give me that look.”
Mam always spoke Imperial instead of Snarl, even though it wasn’t natural for her. So formal and clipped, like speaking with your nose pinched shut. Clo’s tongue tripped when she tried.
“No’ givin’ ye any such look,” Clo countered. “What’s with the dipwell?”
Petra gave a resigned sigh. “No cursing. And he’s the last one, I promise.”
Her mother looked pale. Too thin, with bags under her eyes, wispy hair tied up in an old rag.
Clo looked away. “Dinnae believe ye.”
“Imperial, Clo.”
“Nah.”
Her mother cleared her throat, swallowing another cough. “He’s hurt; he knew this was a safe place. You know they do the gods’ work.”
“Quag a mire, mair like.”
“They don’t bring trouble; you just need to keep your head down the next few days. Now go change his dressing so I can get some food.”
Clo clenched her jaw. Didn’t bring trouble? There’d be guards all over this cesspit looking for him. “Ye ha’ shale, or no?” She glanced at the man in the bed. “Or did he nae bother bringin’ any? Didnae see his friend offer none.” She passed Mam half the nutrition bar just the same.
“Stop worrying about money, Clo. It’s not about that. Go fix him up, please.” She left the flat, her steps loud on the creaking stairs. Clo heard the coughing echoing down the corridors.
Clo groaned but did as she was told, approaching the stray. He was a tall man, muscled, but younger than she first thought. Skin a bit darker than hers, hair lighter. His eyes moved beneath closed lids, mouth hanging open like a swamp eel. He frowned in his sleep. She unwound the bandages, sliding them beneath his body.
His hand snapped out and grabbed her wrist. She startled back from him, ready to deck him if need be.
His eyes were a dark, dark brown, gaze blank until he focused on her face. “Sorry,” he said, dropping her hand.
Clo forced a shrug, heart still hammering in her ears. “Nae bother. Shoulda asked first.”
“You must be Cloelia,” he said. “I’m Sher.”
She didn’t like that he knew her name. If Mam had told him before someone battered him, she’d be getting an earful when she was back.
His accent was perfect Imperial, not stilted like her mother’s attempts. No, he was born and bred in the inner planets. Curiosity still burned in Clo like peat fire, despite herself—a man born from a vial, stronger and faster than natural-borns like her could ever be. A man programmed from birth to be loyal to the Empire, but he had smashed through it to join the resistance. She could admire that, much as it was a lost cause. Clo and her mam only escaped the same fate because Snarl was so packed full of folk, you could hide like pickled fish in a tin. Long as they seemed loyal, kept their heads down, they should be safe.
Taking in rebels wasn’t safe.
“Clo,” she corrected, dabbing the medicine on her palm. She slathered it on the wound. He hissed. Light Mors burn. Looked nasty but should heal clean. “Hold still,” she snapped.
His eyes met hers. “You don’t want me here, do you?”
“Don’ matter. Nae my decision.”
“It does. You’re protective. I’ve already given her the money I had on me. She’ll be buying a dose now. We’ll make sure your mother is well compensated for giving me shelter. But I should find somewhere else to hide. The longer I stay, the more you’re in danger.”
Clo shrugged a shoulder. “Mire always lotic here.”
“Can you speak Imperial?”
“I don’t see the point of using it in my home,” Clo said, enunciating clearly. “Can you speak Snarl?”
“If I tried, it’d be tragic.”
“Try. Needa chuckle.”
He cleared his throat. “Yer a muskeg lag.”
Clo burst out laughing despite herself. “Ye blare muskeg, so aye!”
Sher gave a rueful grin. “And that’s why I don’t. Means I can’t pose as a Myndalian when I come here. Have to pretend to be some off-world merchant. And then I get spotted.”
“What ye doin’ in Snarl, anywa’?”
“Stealing food, ships, weapons. Whatever we can.”
Like me, she thought.
“Your mother’s a friend to the resistance.”
Clo flinched, eyes darting to the window. Even here, she wouldn’t speak that word aloud. Whispers were one thing, but if the wrong ear heard, then it’d be soldiers at the door. A boot against the neck. Execution.
“Yer gonna get us fluming sunk,” Clo hissed. “Ye no care a peat fer us Snarl berms.”
Sher frowned, struggling to understand.
Clo made an impatient sound. “You’re. Going. To. Get. Her. Killed,” she said enunciating everything in insultingly slow Imperial, so he could understand her all proper-like. “You eejit.”
Sher ignored her jibe. “Your mother’s hidden me before, during the day when you were out. No one ever
knew.”
Clo scowled. So, Mam had told him her name. And Mam was supposed to tell her every time a stray came through the door.
Clo finished changing the bandage, then shuffled to her worktable. The broken Mors was still borked, and she didn’t have the patience for it. She picked up the combustor for a hoverbike. Soldiers used them to skim over the swamplands between cities. She might be able to hawk it at the market for enough food to last them a week.
Sher watched her work. She didn’t like it.
“Did you teach yourself how to fix this stuff?”
She ignored him. She sure did—plenty Snarl berms were clever, but he was discounting her like all the other vial-born. His gaze prickled the back of her neck as she unscrewed the metal plate to get at the mechanical innards. Least he was quiet. Strays usually got too chatty—like his friend, Briggs. It made her brackish.
Mam returned with stew from the market. The vegetables were only a little rotten. They ate, her mother glancing nervously between them, but smiling when Sher made a gentle joke. She didn’t cough once the whole meal.
Clo made up the spare blankets into a nest for her and Mam in the corner. She curled around Mam, feeling the knobs of her spine. For the first time in weeks, Mam slept deeply. Clo turned, knowing Sher was still awake.
He stared up at the cracked ceiling, his eyes shining in the dark.
9.
CLO
Present day
Focus, Clo. Focus.
She wasn’t fifteen anymore. Not a little girl. She wasn’t stumbling through these buildings with Sher’s hand on her arm, guiding her when she might have fallen. She wasn’t some vulnerable kid.
Now she could hurt them.
Clo caught sight of the guard’s sandy hair. He turned into another alley. Clo dove into the throngs of people, not bothering with apologies. She shoved through as if making her way into the thickest part of a peat bog.