Arden glanced at their wristpad at the mention of the board, then went pale. “Uh. Guys. Silverfang is pinging me.”
“Who’s that?” Nox asked.
Arden shrugged. “Don’t know, really. Could be one of our two factions, I guess. Could be a totally different third party. Before things went to tits, Jules asked me to fence whatever was on the board for her. Silverfang was the only interested buyer I had in mind.”
“What’s she say?” Jules peered over Arden’s shoulder.
SF: Price irrelevant if the data’s good. Meet?
“Not exactly a conversationalist,” Nox muttered.
“No, this is good,” Jules said. “Tell her I’ll meet her—uh, don’t use my name, just say the dealer will meet her.”
“Most definitely a trap,” Nox warned.
“Of course it is.” Jules met his gaze. “But that doesn’t have to be a one-way affair, does it?”
He grinned. “No. No, it does not.”
Arden typed back: Yes to the meet. Elequatorial Cultural Center, tomorrow, 0800 hours.
SF: Deal.
A: How will I recognize you?
SF: Shouldn’t be hard.
The connection cut.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Nox asked.
Arden shrugged. “Probably has, like, a necklace with a silver fang on it or something. Not too hard to figure that out.”
“Right. We should plan the op perimeter and execution.” Jules held her wristpad out for all to see as she pulled up a map of the cultural center.
“You do that,” Nox said. “I’m going out to score us some food.”
She grabbed his arm as he turned toward the door, his muscles going tight as steel cables under her touch. “Careful.”
“Please.” He flashed her a grin. “Just going to the café around the corner.”
She nodded, and he patted the blaster strapped under his coat to reassure her further before stepping out the door.
“You sure you should be the one for the meet?” Arden asked, nodding to the plastiskin patch on her leg.
She peeled up the edge of the bandage, peering under the gel to the deep gash beneath. Her blood had mingled with the medication, creating a pink-brown slurry, so it took a moment to realize what she was looking at. Not a wound, not anymore. Just fresh, pink skin, and even that was turning the coffee shade of her flesh at the edges. No way the plastiskin patch was that good at healing. She swallowed once, hard, remembering the flash of silver as the Keeper drug had evaporated into her skin.
“Yeah,” she said, pressing the patch back down and faking a pained grimace. “I’m sure.”
CHAPTER 47
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
CAPTIVITY. AGAIN.
Sanda lay on foam-encased metal, shivering in her fresh jumpsuit, and tried to focus on the swaying ceiling.
“I know you’re not moving,” she told the ceiling. The vents continued to skew drunkenly left and right, despite her remonstrations.
“Hell,” she muttered, and dug the heels of her hands into both eyes, squeezing until little starlights danced behind them. The first time she’d woken from coldsleep, her vision had cleared quickly. But then, she didn’t really know, did she? She’d gone straight into the NutriBath cocoon. She could have popped out just as screw-eyed as she was now, and the gel had fixed all that up for her, just as it had her leg, and she’d been too bashed up to remember any of it.
She scowled at the nub where her prosthetic had been, then closed her eyes quickly as it appeared to smear to the side. They’d taken it, rolled up the leg of her jumpsuit and pinned it in place instead. Couldn’t trust her not to use it as a weapon, they’d said, but they’d been happy as cats in the cream to give her a shoddy excuse for a crutch. She resolved to hit one of them with it, just on principle.
A soft beep warned her someone was messing with the access panel on her door, then the whoosh of it dilating. She kept her eyes resolutely closed. If they couldn’t afford her the dignity of her leg, she sure as shit wasn’t going to risk puking on her own shoe to look them in the eye.
“Ms. Greeve?” a woman asked.
“Sergeant Greeve,” she corrected.
“Of course, forgive me. May I sit down?”
She waved an arm expansively. “Mi casa es su casa. Have at it.”
A squeak of wheels as she dragged a stool alongside Sanda’s bed. A click, and then light shone into Sanda’s shut eyes, casting bloody sunset colors over her vision.
“Are you experiencing any discomfort?” the doctor asked.
“Aside from being a prisoner, without my prosthetic?”
A rustle of cloth as the doctor shifted. “If you’ll allow me, I can measure you for another prosthetic. It won’t be a perfect fit, but my superiors can’t object to an Icarion-made object.”
“Really. Your warships troll around with a collection of prosthetic limbs of all sizes?”
A sigh. “No. But I can requisition something. Our supplies—” She cut herself off, no doubt to keep from accidentally revealing any sensitive information. “I can have it for you soon. A few days, maybe.”
“Do you really think they’ll keep me alive that long?”
“We’re not butchers.”
“Funny, your spaceship disagrees.”
Sanda risked cracking her eyes open. The doctor had gone still, her penlight pointed at the wall. Though Sanda’s vision still smeared and blurred, she forced herself to focus on the familiar lines of the woman’s face. Her oval cheeks, her pin-straight hair. AnnLee Yu. The woman who had raised Bero. Not dead after all. She wondered if that was because Bero had spared her, or because she hadn’t been on board in that terrible moment. Maybe Icarion had decided to leave Bero’s momma behind when they pulled the trigger.
Yu cleared her throat and returned the penlight to the pocket of her lab coat. “You spoke with The Light of Berossus?”
All clinical cool as if she hadn’t read Bero children’s stories before sending him out to murder a world. “I did. There weren’t exactly a lot of conversational options.”
“Surely you were more comfortable talking with that man, the Nazca. I know how you Primes feel about personality-emergent AI.”
Sanda skipped over the fact that Tomas had arrived much later, not knowing what he’d tell them and frankly not willing to divulge any more information than she needed to survive. “I found Bero charming.”
“He was well-mannered?” The doctor took Sanda’s wrist and made a cursory attempt at checking her pulse. Sanda wondered if she’d lied to her superiors to see Sanda, claiming she needed medical attention, or if they knew what she was doing—that she was in here fishing for clues to Bero’s mental state. It must be the former, she decided. If they thought Tomas was on their side, they wouldn’t bother probing Sanda for information, they’d just ask their trusted source. The good doctor had been left in the dark.
“Polite as an abuse survivor can be.”
Yu winced, set Sanda’s wrist down, and swiveled around to examine her halved leg. “The Light was well cared for, he had the finest crew we had to offer. He was not abused.”
“Your saying so doesn’t make it true. Bero—that’s what he prefers to be called as you, of all people, should know—was suffering the clearest case of PTSD I’ve ever seen. We train soldiers years to be able to pull the trigger. I was a gunnery sergeant, I picked the targets my crew fired at. Mandatory therapy twice a month, and all the training leading up to the position. That can’t be replaced, even if you’ve got a big brain like Bero’s. I’d bet that big brain means he needs the help even more.”
The room had settled, the incessant sway resolving back into plain geometry. Icarion kept everything so white, so crisp. Hard lines and smooth curves, everything with purpose, everything disciplined. Her cell was a sparse cabin, one bed lining the wall and a set of drawers built into the opposite. She could see no hint of a lavatory. Only the radial lines of the door’s aperture hovered over Yu’s shou
lder.
Yu herself fit the Icarion aesthetic. White lab coat, standard-issue jumpsuit lurking beneath it. She’d cut her hair to follow the line of her chin, not a strand out of place, her expression shut down into a professional mask. But there was tension in the corners of her eyes, little wrinkles, and she’d been running the sensation probe against Sanda’s thigh, over and over, for a good minute without speaking or altering method.
Yu may fit like a glove into the mold Icarion had cast for her, but she was troubled. Bristling at the edges. Lying her way into a prisoner’s room to hear word of a spaceship she once tutored.
Sanda said, “Bero spoke fondly of you, AnnLee Yu.”
She jerked back, fumbled the sensation tester and shoved it hastily into a sagging breast pocket. “I’m glad to hear it.” Yu stood, knocking the stool back. “If you have no health complaints…?”
“I have enough of those to last all night.” Sanda forced herself to sit up and swung her foot to the ground, rubbing the nub of flesh at the end of her thigh as if it hurt. It didn’t, but she watched Yu’s eyes track to the movement, watched a flicker of concern cross her expression. The good doctor had a soft spot for all sentient life, it seemed. Even Ada Prime scum.
The door dilated, and Yu flinched, hunching down guiltily. Sanda’s mouth soured. A young soldier in Icarion standard-issue poked his head into the room and gestured at them with his chin. “Clear out, Dr. Yu. Negassi wants the prisoner.”
“I have a name,” Sanda said.
“The prisoner is under my medical care,” Yu said with brisk annoyance, clearing away any sympathy Sanda had for her by failing to use Sanda’s name.
The soldier rolled his eyes. “Take it up with Negassi.”
He stepped to the side and snapped his fingers, marking himself as target number one for Sanda to whack with her crutch. Shoving the padded bridge of the crutch in her armpit, she wobbled upright and shrugged off Yu’s half-hearted attempt to assist. She’d rambled around a spaceship alone for weeks. She sure as shit didn’t need tender loving care from her captors.
The soldier eyed her as she hobbled into the hall. “I’ve been assured you’re too weak to cause any trouble, so I’ll keep the cuffs off.”
“I’m bowled over by your generosity.”
He scowled and jabbed one finger in the direction she was meant to precede him. She didn’t bother putting any hustle into her step. If he was going to be an ass, he was about to find out she was far more practiced at assholery.
The halls of this ship were a mirror of Bero’s, sterile white with all the corners rounded off, but vitality pumped through this ship. People crossed their path, heads bent over wristpads, barely flicking the prisoner and her entourage a glance as they went about their business. The press of humanity unsettled Sanda. Going from thinking you were the last woman left alive in light-years, to being tacitly ignored by a whole gaggle of your fellow Homo stellaris sapiens was a bit of a mindfuck.
The guard pressed his wristpad to a smartlock and the door dilated, revealing a conference room just like the one she’d found in Bero. Just as boring, too. Something about the presence of humans in a conference room made the decor even worse. At least there was a sense of potential in an empty room. Here, the bored faces confirmed the tedium.
Negassi sat at the head of the table, a smartscreen black on the wall behind him. To his right sat an adviser, to his left Tomas, his arm bound up in a sling. Despite the shadows under his eyes, he lounged, one ankle kicked up on the opposing knee as he leaned back in his seat and scratched at the stubble darkening his chin. When the door opened, he and Negassi were chatting like old pals. He didn’t so much as flick her a glance. Jerk.
“Get the lady a chair,” Negassi said, “then get out of here, both of you. This meeting is classified.”
The guard stepped smartly forward and pulled out a chair for Sanda, which she took, then he retreated without so much as a simper. AnnLee was having a harder time accepting orders.
“This woman is my patient,” she insisted, digging her fingers into the backrest of Sanda’s chair. “And The Light is my project.”
“And this is my ship.” Negassi leaned forward, fingers interlaced. Sanda felt the incoming pissing match burgeoning on the horizon and sighed loud enough to make them all cut her a look.
“Look,” she said, “I know I’m the prisoner here, but if you want your ship back, we don’t have time for cock-wagging. Dr. Yu has insight into Bero’s psyche. I’m just about on my last leg—no pun intended—and may need her medical help if you all insist on continuing to bore me to death. Can we move the fuck on?”
Tomas hid a smirk by turning his head toward the wall. AnnLee moved purposefully around the table, yanked a chair out, and sat. The adviser raised some overplucked brows at her but said nothing. Bunch of Icarion pushovers. Insubordination like that would have been well and thoroughly slapped down by the Primes.
She figured that was the difference between a single-planet government and the galaxy-spanning reach of the Primes. For the Primes, organization and clear codes of conduct were vital for smooth workings across outposts. The Icarions only had one measly planet to look after. The Primes had the whole universe.
“Time is, as Sergeant Greeve paraphrased, tight. Piracy is a crime punishable by execution. Please explain why I shouldn’t space you immediately, instead of spending my ship’s resources on keeping you breathing.”
“Maybe because I didn’t steal your fucking ship. It stole me.”
Negassi scowled. “That language is inappropriate in this office, Sergeant.”
“I do not see,” the adviser said, “why we are wasting our time with this woman. We have The Light’s last known location and a bead on its trajectory. We do not need her.”
The adviser’s breath stank of stale coffee and heavy cream. Sanda wrinkled her nose and bit back an urge to stick her proverbial foot deeper in the shit. She had no doubt General Greybeard would space her without so much as a twinge of remorse. He’d probably use words like expedient and best course of action in his report about the incident.
“Look,” she said, but Tomas cleared his throat to cut her off.
“What Sergeant Greeve is unwilling to tell you, gentlemen, is that The Light has forged a deep bond with her, and her with him. If she calls, he will come.” He turned toward her, everything about his posture laconic, verging on sinister in his lack of interest. It reminded her of how easily he’d lied to Bero, even knowing what he did about Bero’s deceits. How simple it had been for him to force a cheery facade and pretend camaraderie with the ship that was their de facto jailer.
Trouble was, she couldn’t puzzle out who he was trying to fool this time around.
“Is that correct?” Negassi asked.
Sanda made a show of pressing her lips shut as she got the feeling that the relationship Tomas was trying to sell these men on meant she would be reticent to put her dear old buddy Bero in any peril. He wasn’t wrong. Bero in Icarion’s hands was the worst-case scenario.
A vicious little part of her wanted to see the ship broken apart and sold for scrap, considering what he’d done to her. But that wasn’t how Icarion worked. They’d rip his brain out, but they’d leave the big guns in place, and Bero’s body wasn’t a weapon she was willing to let them get their hands on.
“I see.” Negassi leaned back. “I’m inclined to believe you, Cepko.”
AnnLee snorted. Her superiors shared a startled look. “Anything to say, Doctor?” Negassi asked.
“I share a deep bond with The Light,” she insisted. “If you had allowed me to send a tightbeam directly to the ship when it first jettisoned its crew, then—”
“His name is Bero.” Sanda gripped the edge of the table so hard her knuckles ached. If this self-assured mess of a woman had realized the damage she’d done in forging a bond with Bero, then betraying him, Sanda might not have spent the last few weeks grieving everything she’d ever known and loved. She’d never wanted to slap someon
e so hard in her life.
AnnLee sat back, a hateful scowl pointed straight at Sanda, but something had settled in Negassi’s expression. He’d reached a conclusion, and Sanda was pretty sure she wasn’t going to like it.
“I see,” he said. “Dr. Yu, please keep your thoughts directed on your next project. While I respect your expertise, our superiors will not allow for another disaster. In fact”—he nodded to the adviser—“make arrangements for Dr. Yu’s transfer at the next available moment. It’s time she return to Station Beta.”
“The Light is my project,” Yu began, but Negassi cut her off with a slash of the hand.
“Enough. You have new orders. Prepare for transfer. Immediately.”
Yu’s chair scraped as she stood and stomped from the room. If the ship had been equipped with old-fashioned doors, she probably would have slammed them, but she made do with hitting her heels hard against the floor as she strode off. Pissy woman. Too bad she’d been the one to wake Bero up.
“As for you, Greeve. I’ll see that you’re suitably cared for until we can set up a tightbeam from you recalling Bero. If you are unsuccessful in returning the ship to us within seventy-two hours, I will be forced to space you.”
Tomas’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing. Just picked up a stray stylus and spun it between his fingers as if he’d find anywhere else more interesting in this moment. Sanda swallowed and nodded.
“I understand. What will happen to Bero if he does not return?”
The adviser leaned back, lacing his fingers over a slight belly, and smirked. Negassi at least had the grace to look grave. “You and I may disagree on many things, Greeve, but on this I think we can agree: A ship with planet-busting capabilities gone rogue is a situation neither Icarion, nor the Primes, can allow to stand. If he does not return to our care of his own volition, I will give the order for his destruction.”
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