by E J Frost
She’s right. With the absence of that
killing pressure, I feel better moment by
moment. My stomach settles into its rightful
place. My muscles unknot. The sensation of
my brain trying to push its way out through
my sinuses subsides to a dull thumping.
When Kez finishes cleaning my face, I open
my eyes and slowly sit up.
She hands me a couple of clean wipes
and reaches around to wash the back of my
head.
“She awake?” I ask, tipping my chin at
the motionless pile of limbs and bags on the
floor while I wipe my hands and the front of
my shadowsuit.
“No, but she’s breathing.”
“You got anything in your magic bag to
wake her up?”
Kez shrugs. “An adrenaline sniffer. I’ve
never had to use it. You don’t think it will
hurt her, do you?”
Erin’s long-term health is not my main
concern. Just getting her limp ass up off the
grid. My mind’s moving on, now that I’m
thinking clearly again, to getting us off this
love boat. By the chrono in my eye, it’ll dock
in Tiv in less than twenty minutes. All that’s
left of our finboards are splinters bobbing in
the bowship’s wake, so we need to find
another way off the boat, unless we want to
get wet again. That means having a poke
around to find an exit, and I’m not toting the
Überbitch’s limp ass while I do it.
I hold out my hand and Kez fishes a
rolled-up emergency kit out of her backpack.
I sort through it until I find the bright blue
sniffer, hand it to Kez, and set aside three
small derms before closing up the case and
tossing it into her backpack.
“Give her a squirt of that.” If it doesn’t
work, there’s always slapping her. Which
would be satisfying in its own way, except
that I’ve never hit a woman other than
spanking Kez and a couple of hookers who
let me play rough. I don’t want to start with
Erin. She might mistake it for foreplay.
Kez busies herself with her sister while I
open my suit, set the three little derms on my
shoulder, and finish wiping myself off.
There’s a certain cache to roaming around
covered in blood, but Cloudlanders are
paranoid to start with and I don’t want
anyone calling the C.P. over a nosebleed.
When I can’t find any more sticky
blotches, I spend a moment checking my
knives – all where they should be – before I
roll to my feet. The analgesic derms dull the
pain in my shoulder to a tolerable ache.
Everything else hurts about the same. I’m
bored with the pain now, and ignore it.
Erin’s less stoic, and begins whimpering
as she comes ‘round. I move a few meters
away and listen. Not to her pain-filled
noises, but for anything they attract. All I can
hear is the distant whoosh of the airjets,
muffled by thick ceramsteel. No footsteps.
No clanging of hatches. No mechanical
noises. The ship’s too quiet, in fact.
Kez shushes Erin the same way she did
me, and whether it’s her sister’s warning or
her own predatory instincts kicking in, Erin
muffles her groans. It takes her a couple of
minutes to get on her feet, during which I
orient myself and plot out the route I want to
take through the ship, avoiding areas where
we’ll be more likely to bump into crew. Erin
eventually shuffles down the passageway,
supported by Kez. I wait until they draw up
beside me.
“We’re heading to the front of the ship.
Try to be as quiet as you can. We come up
against anyone, hang back, let me take care
of ‘em.”
“Aye-firmative,” Kez whispers. Erin
doesn’t say anything, but when I turn my head
to look at her, she nods. I meet her eyes. Her
right eye’s swollen closed and partially
covered by a big, pale derm plastered over
her cheek. In the yellow-red light from Kez’s
hair, she’s a sickly green color that I’m
betting is not all a trick of the light.
Big Bad Assassin. All banged up.
“I saved your ass,” I tell her. “You owe
me.”
She nods again. Swallows with effort. “I
pay my debts.”
“I want my ship back.”
“When we get to the Cloudlands.”
“Deal,” I say. I don’t really care whether
she gives me back the master control,
although it’d be convenient not to have to
hack into my own ship. What matters is she’s
got no more claim on me, or Kez. When we
get back on dry land, she’s on her fucking
own. “Let’s move.”
Chapter 23
I lead. The girls trail me by a couple of
meters. Erin’s got her right arm looped over
Kez’s shoulders. Kez is carrying one of
Erin’s equipment bags in addition to her own
backpack. Neither of them is going to be
much use if we run into trouble.
Better be stealthy then.
Stealth ain’t easy in wet boots, on a
gimpy knee, with the clangy metal grid
underfoot and the girls shuffling along behind
me. But as much noise as we’re making, no
one comes to investigate. The ship remains
eerily quiet beyond the rhythmic rush of the
airjets.
The corridor runs straight. There are
hatches along it, but they’re all closed and
I’ve got no urge to explore. I want the bow of
the ship, and a way off. We reach a T-
junction and I pause, turning my head from
side to side, listening. Light flow of air
against my face. Cooler to my right. To my
left, the faint scent of lubricants.
I turn to the right.
“How do you know where you’re
going?” The Überbitch hisses behind me.
“I don’t. You want to go that way, be my
guest.”
I don’t look back, but I can feel Kez’s
split-second hesitation before she pushes
Erin’s arm off her shoulders and follows me.
My kitten. Still committed to her family, no
matter how fucked up that family’s become.
But after that one moment of hesitation, she
comes after me. Chooses me. Again.
“Fine, fine!” Erin’s hiss is strident,
maybe a little panicked. Kez blows out an
irritated breath and goes back to support her
sister.
Another empty corridor. But now, there’s
a sound. A distant, deep asthmatic wheeze.
Like heavy breathing over a speaker.
I lift my right hand. Ball it into a fist.
Hear the girls shuffle-stop behind me. I wait.
Watch the seconds tick in the corner of my
eye. After thirty seconds, there’s no
movement. No voices. No footsteps. Just that
faint breathing.
I lower my hand. Pull a kukri out of my
right boot and hold it against my side as I
begin moving again. Slow, light steps,
echoed by the soft shuffling behind me.
The corridor ends in a set of stairs and a
hatch to the left. The hatch is closed, but
fresh, sea-scented air streams through vents
on the upper half of the hatch. I peer through
the vents. Nothing but darkness even my eyes
can’t penetrate; must be louvered.
I rest my hand against the vents. Faint
dampness against my palm. Sea-spray.
“This is it,” I whisper to the girls. With
any luck, the hatch will open onto the front
cargo deck. From there, it shouldn’t be hard
to exit the ship as it docks. Only problem is,
once we’re out on that deck, we’ll be visible
to anyone and everything. Still seven minutes
before the ship docks. That’s a long time to
be exposed. Really, a second is too long to
be exposed. We’ve got to get off the ship
without being seen.
I rest my forehead against the cool metal
while I work a finger through the vent. Then
the tip of my kukri. Neither shifts the metal
louver. Fuck. I can’t take the chance that
anyone’s looking when I open the hatch.
I turn the problem over a couple of times
in my head; examining the different angles. It
doesn’t really matter if we’re seen, so long
as no alarm is raised. Invisibility isn’t the
issue. It’s making sure no one’s alive to
press the panic button.
I draw the other kukri and step back from
the door. Glance up the stairs. The control
room will be high up in the ship, where
there’s good visibility. That means the right
way to go is up.
“Six minutes, I’m not back, you open this
hatch and get off this ship any way you can.
Got it?” I say to the girls.
Erin looks dazed. It takes her a moment to
nod. While she’s focusing, Kez gently pushes
her against the wall. Slides out from under
her arm. Erin reaches for her crutch,
frowning, but Kez steps away. Kez drops
Erin’s equipment bag at her feet, shrugs out
of the backpack, rolls her shoulders, and
looks up at me expectantly. “Lead the way,”
she says.
“Where d’you think you’re goin’?”
“With you.”
I shake my head. “Stay with your sister.
Get off this ship. Finish the run.”
Kez puts her hands on her hips. Her little
kitten chin juts. “You said you wouldn’t let
me out of your sight until this was done,
remember?”
I remember. And I meant it.
“You’re on your own,” I tell Erin.
Without waiting for her response, I vault
the handrail and take the stairs two at a time,
moving as fast as I can without letting my
wet, heavy boots clang on the ceramsteel
risers. The deep, asthmatic breathing gets
louder as I reach the top of the stairs,
drowning out the noise of my movement, and
the soft squeaking of Kez’s shadowsuit.
At the top of the stairs, a landing and
another fucking T-junction. I go in low,
kukris ready, and tilt my head just enough to
see around the corner. An empty corridor.
Both directions. Corridor stretches to the
right. To the left, an open hatch. That’s the
source of the breathing.
I glance over my shoulder at Kez, who is
waiting on the step below me. Her back
brushing my back. “My left,” I whisper to
her.
“Got it.”
I move fast and low around the corner.
Arms up; kukris leading the way. Kez is a
light pressure against my back as she
matches me, step for step. Covering my ass.
My kitten.
I clear the hatch and get a view of the
room beyond. Empty. I straighten and take a
slow look around. There’s movement. Lights
flickering on the control panels. Codes
streaming down several screens. But there’s
no one reading them. The deep, asthmatic
breathing comes from a pump in the far
corner of the control room. Sounds like it
needs a seal replacing. No other breathing in
the room but Kez’s and my own. Out of the
huge windows, moonlight silvers sea-spray
and the tips of waves. Water, water and
more water. There’s no sign of any crew. On
the horizon, a long, low black ridge. The
Northern Island. A silver diamond of light on
the shore pinpoints Tiv’s dock. The
bowship’s neatly lined up with that gleaming
diamond, but it’s not being steered by any
human hand.
I move across the control room, checking
the monitors. No alarms. One shows the
ship’s course. Right on schedule. A couple
show interiors of the ship. All empty. A flash
of yellow on the central screen tells me the
pre-docking sequence has been initiated.
Movement out on the deck snaps my head up.
But it’s mechanical movement: the
bowship’s massive prongs unfolding as they
ready to dock and unload the cargo.
Behind me, Kez whispers, “It’s a ghost
ship.”
“Maybe.” I flick a finger at the monitors.
“Lotta displays for a roboboat.” I lean over
the bank of monitors, peer out the central
viewer and scan the deck carefully. It’s not
easy to see anything. The deck’s a maze of
huge ceramsteel containers, stacked in neat
rows. The bridge is about fifteen meters
above the deck, just a few meters higher than
the tops of the largest containers, so I’m
peering across the top of a metal maze. I
watch for a full minute, and just as I’m about
to turn away, the shadows between two huge
crates shiver the way no shadows should,
and peel apart. A finger of brilliant white
light reaches across the wet deck, then a
crawler appears out of the actinic halo. Two
low arms extend from the crawler, running
along the bases of the containers, popping the
maglocks attaching the containers to the
deck. The crawler turns and disappears
behind a stack of containers, only a rime of
white light creeping above the containers’
upper edges marking its passage.
“Fuck,” Kez says from beside me.
“Yeah.” I track the crawler’s progress.
It’s definitely following a pattern as it moves
between the containers. I watch it for a
moment; extrapolate the pattern. The crawler
will end up in the starboard forecastle as the
ship docks. If we come up the port side of
the deck, hugging the shadows of the bigger
containers, we might be able to slip off the
ship unnoticed. I beckon Kez to my side with
two fing
ers. Point out the route to the bow.
Kez nods.
“Memorize it in case we get separated.”
“Aye-firmative,” Kez responds, her
voice distant with concentration. “But we’re
not. Getting separated.”
I smile at her. Give her another moment
to track the twists and turns between the
containers. When she nods, I lead the way
back to the Überbitch.
Erin’s bloodshot eye tracks us sullenly as
we descend the stairs. There’s no need for
silence now, so half-way down, I vault over
the handrail and land in a Parkour-style
crouch next to the hatch. Immediately regret
it when my knee grumbles and threatens to
give. Gonna have to watch that.
“You’re cutting it fine,” the Überbitch
snipes at me.
I shrug off her criticism. “Stay low. Stay
left. Don’t be seen.”
Her red-red mouth, its perfect shape and
color marred by several cuts, opens to frame
a question, but she’s forestalled by Kez, who
returns to crutch position with my kitten’s
usual efficiency. Ignoring her sister’s
curiosity, Kez pulls Erin along just a step
behind me as I crack the hatch and step out
onto the deck.
It’s not quite the same assault as riding
the finboard, or the maelstrom below-decks,
but after the quiet interior, the wind and
spray and darkness are a slap against my
senses. From the bridge, there was no sense
of the howl of the wind through the branching
tunnels of the containers. No sting of spray. I
let my eyes adjust while I take in the small
details my senses feed me and integrate them
into the mental map I developed on the
bridge. I spin it out around me like a holo.
The distant popping of maglocks pinpoints
the crawler on my mental map. As it makes
its next turn, those harsh lights will sweep
right across where we’re standing.
Better not be here then.
I beckon the girls after me as I move left,
avoiding a wide corridor – too exposed –
and thread my way between two smaller
stacks of containers.
Left, right, left and left again. Creeping
along, step by careful step, I lead the girls
through the chasms created by the containers.
Through wind and spray and darkness broken
only by the probing light of the crawler. I
keep the girls carefully out of that light. In
our shadowsuits, we’ll be hard to see, but
Kez is so pale she’ll fucking fluoresce if the
crawler’s lights hit her. Finally, we stand in