The Breaking

by Imogen Keeper

  The rest of the hall was shiny, lacquered so vibrantly yellow it hurt her eyes. Strange oblong benches rimmed one side in metallic golds and bronzes. Amorphous lights slithered across the ceiling, casting a warm glow over the pulsing space.

  She tried to keep her eyes on Ajax’s broad back, but it was impossible not to sneak glances around. So many men. None of them is Utto. None of them is Rennie. Utto is gone, and Rennie… is… dead.

  “The Seignaraglio is in a meeting,” said a secretary behind a gold desk when they asked about Quasilliaro. The secretary was nothing like anyone she had ever seen. He had a tuft of feathery hair on top of his head, and three eyes.

  She struggled not to stare. He was like a bird and a man combined, at the same time, only bottom-heavy. It was difficult to keep her mouth from dropping. Mamma would have been ashamed of her. She’d never seen any race that didn’t resemble her own people or the Argenti. There were differences, but they were usually limited to coloring or size.

  Behind the secretary’s desk, next to twin black doors, three enormous males stood with their backs against the wall. They resembled the offworlders who came to her planet so long ago. The Vestige. With smooth white skin, long black hair, and black, soulless eyes.

  One of them scented the air.

  Ajax shifted to stand in front of her. “Tell him I’m Argenti. And I’ve come to trade for a ship.”

  The secretary’s three black eyes narrowed, roaming up and down Ajax’s body.

  The bird-man rose and tapped away on feet that looked like claws. The sound echoed down the long, yellow hallway. Ajax glanced down at her. She tried to look fat and mannish even as her stomach turned at the proximity of so many massive males. One of the Vestige guards shifted his weight.

  Oh, goddess. They were all so huge. She clenched her jaw, shaking off an image of Rennie’s leering face.

  “Stay close,” Ajax breathed, lower even than a whisper. Sweat slicked her palms. She wouldn’t allow a single molecule of space between them if she could help it.

  A few moments later, the bird-man returned. “He will see you, sir. Alone.”

  “No.”

  The bird-man blinked three eyes, his gaze lingering on her face. After a long moment, he parodied a smile with his wide beak-mouth and shrugged.

  Ajax’s shoulders squared.

  She moved closer to him than would have been appropriate for a servant, and together they followed the secretary through one of the doors.

  As she passed the guards, she’d have sworn one of them sniffed the air. When the doors slid shut behind them, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  Until she saw the man behind the desk. He was huge, and his face was deformed. Something was very wrong with him. He had no nose and sunken eyes. His face looked as if it had imploded and then been rebuilt out of metal. Wide silver metal plates formed cheekbones.

  “That will be all, Ssssimmonsss. Pleassse don’t clossse the door. The guardss will be alert.”

  Ajax shifted his weight, blocking her so she couldn’t see. He was always doing that.

  She moved just a little bit, so she could see the strange mutant behind the desk.

  When Quasilliaro looked at her face, he smiled, pinched and weird, and the light shifted as he moved, the metal plate over his nose glinting.

  Her stomach roiled. She looked away, toward a blank yellow wall with a long, low fireplace. A faint light gleamed along a fine crack just to its left. A hidden doorway?

  “Quit hiding back there.” Quasilliaro’s voice was cold and sharp as knives. “Ssstep forward. I haven’t ssseen a young woman roaming free in a long time.”

  Bile rose in her throat. Her breaths were shallow, her head spun… it was just like with Rennie. She squeezed her hands into fists until her nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. I am not that scared girl.

  “I’ve already ssseeen enough of your pathetic disssguisssse in the feedsss.”

  She stepped around Ajax. He put out his arm as if he maybe wanted to stop her, but she ignored him.

  The mutant smiled again, and the blood stilled in her veins.

  “Do you know what a woman like that iss worth?”

  She glanced down at her rotund pillow belly. A chubby one with a mustache?

  “She iss yoursss?”

  Ajax’s shoulders tightened. “Yes.”

  The mutant smiled again, and when he laughed it sounded like a hiss. He steepled his hands on the desk before him. “Not anymore.”

  14

  When the world explodes,

  And there’s no air left.

  Hold on to me.

  Ajax studied the man across the desk. Quasilliaro’s face was fucked up. There was no other way to describe it. A mess of crappy surgeries piled on top of bad healers, and even worse, limited or inappropriate supplies. It was nothing short of a miracle the man lived.

  “I’ll make you a fair deal.” Quasilliaro’s hands stretched across the table, fingers spreading out like webs. “But she’s not leaving thissss station. What do you want for her?”

  Ajax shook his head. “She’s not for sale.”

  Quasilliaro slow-smiled and leaned back in his ornately carved chair. The gleaming yellow walls behind him were so damn bright it burned the eyes.

  “Yesss. She iss,” Quasilliaro hissed, and Ajax tilted his head. “You have two choicesss. You can make a fair trade and leave here with your ship. Or I can have my guardss kill you. And I can take her. Either way… she iss mine. The question iss really only if you leave here or not.”

  The man was Argenti. His accent was clearly homeworld, but the hiss was not. Not an affectation either, as the man clearly went to some effort to try to hide it by clenching his lips together.

  That’s why the smile was so creepy. It was tight, no more than a grim stretch of his lips. More grimace than smile. No teeth showed between his lips.

  Suddenly, the hiss made sense. He must constantly clench his jaw to keep from showing a mouthful of busted or missing teeth. He was speaking through a clamped jaw. Again, shitty healers.

  “Not an option. I’m not leaving her. Especially not on this shitty dump.”

  Quasilliaro clapped, but his face held no amusement. “Ah, Pilan. This place may be a hive of sssscum and villainsss. But thessse are my villainssss. I am king of thisss sscum hive.”

  Ajax raised his brows. “Sorry, what? You were talking, I mean I even saw your mouth moving, but I couldn’t focus on your words. I kept getting distracted by your mangled robot-turd of a face.”

  Quasilliaro’s cheeks turned red around the metallic plate.

  “Oh, that’s right. You were claiming to be the scum-king. But you aren’t, really. You’re co-scum-king. You need you check with the other scum-kings before we make a deal.”

  “I have no co-sc… kingsss.”

  Ajax didn’t smile, but he wanted to. Instead, he stepped a little closer, trying to get a better look at the bubbling red skin around the edges of the metal plates over Quasilliaro’s nose. “Do they have healers on Pilan?”

  Quasilliaro propped his hands behind his head. “I know what you are trying to do. There is only one exit from thisss room. You’re wassting your time.”

  “He’s lying,” Feola breathed behind him.

  He was lying all right. No one like Quasilliaro would have their office at a dead end, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off the nasty asshole behind the desk long enough to search for one.

  Quasilliaro clapped again, a slow, steady rhythm that echoed in the room.

  “Ahh, a pusssy with brainsss. Not a good combination.” A fat tongue licked along his lower lips. “I would fix that. There are certain drugsss that can remove that negative energy. Make for a ‘yesss’ woman, if you will.”

  He didn’t look back at Feola. He didn’t need to. He could hear how fast she breathed, how fast her heart pounded. Too fast. She’d faint if she didn’t relax. Calm down. “Shh.”

  Quasilliaro clearly thought Ajax was talking to him, and that w
as just fine. Feola knew who he meant. Her heart slowed.

  Good. Trust me.

  “I do need a ship,” he said. “But the woman isn’t for sale. I’ve got an Argenti ship, two years old. Fully loaded. A Stella-Scrematrice 55.0. In prime condition. A nice ship. She’s yours in exchange for any space-worthy vessel, stocked and ready.”

  Quasilliaro smirked. “Why not kill you now? You’ve certainly annoyed me enough. Take the woman and the ship?”

  Ajax nodded, stepped closer, until he was maybe twelve, eleven, ten feet away. The desk lay between them. It was bolted to the floor with great big silver clamps.

  “Because, as I said, you aren’t the only scum-king on this dump. I’m Tribe, fresh from Sierra-Six. I may not be here on official business, which you know since I want an unmarked ship.” He paused, raised his right hand to stroke along his lip, trying to look natural even though the move felt awkward as hell. “But I’m not without friends. A lot of warriors know exactly where I am. They’d cause a lot of trouble for you and your friends.”

  Quasilliaro shook his head. “Yet here you are. Alone but for a pillow-ssstuffed, epicanthu-sssmeared pusssy with a brain. No, no. I will have the woman. Not negotiable.”

  Red corrosion blistered along the edges of the metal plates. “Your face really shouldn’t look like that. It’s got to hurt.”

  Quasilliaro waved his hand in the air. “Enough with the dissstraction techniquesss. You can leave alive with your new ship. Or you can die here. Either way—I get her.”

  Ajax stepped closer. The corrosion was a deep red, oozing yellow. “What kind of painkillers do you take?”

  Quasilliaro ignored him. “Nothing short of an army of Argenti will sssave you and her—and we both know you can’t pull an army, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  He’s got a point.

  Ajax pegged him at around thirty-five years old, maybe forty. His hands were under the desk and out of sight.

  There was likely a weapon within hand’s reach, probably multiple weapons. The thing was—with nothing more than windows separating them from space, the man wouldn’t want to use a rezal. That had to be why his office was where it was. So no one else would be inclined to use one.

  Breaking that glass would mean a painful death. Fourteen seconds of exposure, and they’d lose consciousness to apoxia as their blood deoxygenated. Then ebullism, as bubbles formed in their bodily fluids, and hypocapnia as the pH of their blood changed. Ninety seconds max, and they’d all be dead. But the symptoms would be irreversible long before that.

  “I could fix your face.”

  Something moved in Quasilliaro’s sunken eyes. Hope?

  “How many surgeries have you had? Four. More? Six?” He whistled at the look on Quasilliaro’s face. “More? None by me. I’m a very good healer.”

  Quasilliaro clapped his hands. “Right. I’ll jusst kill you now.”

  The rezal also had the added negative of calling the guards.

  Eight feet between him and the desk. Feola couldn’t run very fast. He’d need to get her closer. “What kind of ship can you offer me in exchange for her?”

  “What kind of woman are you offering me?”

  The most beautiful one in the universe.

  If Quasilliaro had a rezal, he wouldn’t use it. So he had something else. Whatever he had, it wasn’t out… Ajax’s knives were. He’d be able to draw faster. And trust that the man wouldn’t hurt a woman. Not if he was willing to pay to acquire her.

  “Come here, Feola.”

  She moved up beside him, smelling like herbs and flowers and sunshine, and under that, like woman, aroused woman. How long before she would need serum too desperately to function? He didn’t ask. Long enough. They didn’t have a choice. She’d just have to hold on.

  “Take off your hat.”

  She narrowed her eyes, mouth tightening, but obeyed. Her slender fingers pulled at the black, triangular hat, and all that glorious pinkish-orange hair bounced free.

  He tried to put something reassuring in his eyes, so she’d understand. “Take out the pillows.” They’d only slow her down anyway.

  The look in her big yellow-green eyes just about broke his heart. All the while, he kept inching them a little closer to the clamped-to-the-floor desk.

  “Do it,” he said, and she nodded, but her lip trembled and his gut clenched.

  She pulled a pillow out through the top of the jumpsuit, and then another.

  The soft, black fabric bagged around her, clinging to her skin, highlighting her perfect, round breasts.

  The pillows flopped as they hit the floor.

  When she squeezed her eyes shut, a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Nice titsss,” Quasilliaro, the nasty mangled fuck, grunted. “Show me.”

  Ajax reached out a hand to stroke her waist in a slow, lazy caress. Quasilliaro’s gaze dropped to her breasts. The look Feola sent him burned like acid in Ajax’s gut. More than fear burned in her eyes. Fury. Betrayal. Whatever had happened with Utto’s cousin, she hadn’t come close to dealing with it.

  But now wasn’t the time. He wanted to pull her close, tell her he was sorry. It wasn’t her fault. Instead, he said, “Wait ‘til you taste her. Like flowers.”

  She kept her eyes on the wall in front of them, shoulders tightening, shaking with all the pent-up rage of he-could-only-imagine-what.

  “Hold onto the desk,” he breathed in her ear.

  “And cunt. I do love the tassste of cunt.” Quasilliaro leaned forward, those sunken eyes narrowing as he studied her, lingering on her vivid hair and eyes.

  She shuddered.

  “I know you.” Quasilliaro clapped his hands together like a happy child. “The blond healer who ran away with the pink-haired Trianni woman. Her mate hassss money, but more than that… his uncle hass... Power. Asss long asss the sspace between here and Argentussss. Even on Pilan. His reach iss sstrong.”

  Ajax shrugged and dropped his hand away from Feola’s warm hip. “Where’s my ship?” he asked, taking a small step closer to the desk.

  Quasilliaro’s eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips, inclining his head toward Feola. “Ssstep around the dessk, behind me.”

  Fear simmered in the air around her, but arousal too. Shit. She was getting more desperate for serum.

  Time, the horrid, capricious bitch.

  He glanced at the windows. The only type of windows thick enough to be blast-proof bowed out in the center. These were smooth and flat.

  At times like these, he wished he were more religious. It would be reassuring to believe their fate rested in the palm of some benevolent god. At least he’d have someone to implore to make sure the blast doors functioned. That was the biggest blank spot in his plan. Without functioning blast doors at both exits, they were dead. Along with every soul on Pilan.

  Feola didn’t meet his eyes but rounded the desk with small, deliberate steps to stand just beyond Quasilliaro’s reach, three feet from the escape door.

  “Where’s my ship?”

  Quasilliaro turned slightly in his chair, angling toward Feola. “Not far. Lower level. This quadrant.”

  “What type?”

  Quasilliaro shifted his chair, moving closer to Feola. She cringed but didn’t back away.

  “It’s a Parsssa. About fifty yearsss old. Red asss blood and uglier than sssin. Sssolar ssstorage for crap, but it’sss fassst. It’ll get you where you need to go. Totally untraceable.”

  “Access codes?”

  Quasilliaro glanced away, and Ajax let his gaze roam the massive piece of furniture. After a moment, Quasilliaro held the key up. “Nah, ah, ah.” He waved his hand back and forth for a moment. “Back up all the way to the doorsss, until you’re even with the guardsss, and I’ll tosss it to you.”

  That was the opposite of where he wanted to be. When shit blew up, he wanted to be close to Feola, the bolted-down desk, and the closest escape.

  Ajax nodded.

  Quasilliaro smiled.

  “That’s fair.
” Ajax turned toward those ornate black carvings that flanked the exit, ornamentation disguised as blast doors, stark against the ridiculous yellow walls. He had to hope there were blast doors at the back entrance too. His boots squeaked on the gleaming floors.

  He paused as if deep in thought, and looked over his shoulder. “Just out of curiosity, what the hell did happen to your face?”

  Quasilliaro’s smile melted away. He paused, hand mid-reach toward Feola.

  “It was a rezal blast to the face, right?” Ajax asked. “It’s okay. As you said, I’m a healer.”

  Quasilliaro nodded awkwardly.

  Ajax jerked his chin toward the man, moving slightly closer, squinting his eyes for a better look. “Who did the reconstruction? A Vestige doctor?”

  Quasilliaro shook his head, mouth tight.

  Ajax frowned, licked the corner of his mouth in thought. “Because, I have to tell you, I didn’t go toward bionics or grafting, but even I could have laid smooth skin over that. What is that? It should be solid titanium. But it’s not, is it?”

  Quasilliaro didn’t move. Ajax smiled. He rotated from the core, and on a breath, pulled one of his knives.

  “Not titanium,” he said. “Aluminum, right? That explains the corrosion.”

  Spinning and throwing at the same time, he could tell before the knife even left his hand that his aim was off. Something about the feel of it in his hand, or maybe something about the way the neurons in his brain fired in relation to the motion, but he knew before he even released it that his toss was off.

  It didn’t matter.

  Quasilliaro did what anyone would do when a knife is thrown at their face. He flinched. And brought his arms up to block.

  He wasn’t fast enough, though. The knife hit him hilt first, right in his nonexistent nose, and his head flew backward.

  That was the opening Ajax needed.

  He took off, fast, vaulted over the desk, and landed on top of the other man. Knocked over his chair.