Janlin shuddered at the blunt truth. “I really don’t know,” she said in a harsh whisper. Only four words, and her throat felt raw, her tongue thick. She dropped the young woman’s hand and ran.
She reached the assignment deck and fell into line beside Stepper just in time. She wanted to tell him about Brendan, but he grunted a warning as the Imag came through the opposite door. The alien carried his work pad in one hand and his nerve whip in the other. Fran followed him, her limp more pronounced than ever.
She looked like the walking dead.
“You, you, and you, replacing scrubber filters on deck two, lines fifteen through nineteen,” she translated.
They turned and left.
“You and you, lavatory duty, deck five.”
That left Stepper and Janlin. Fran stopped in front of them but did not look up. “You and you, report to outer hull deck for repair duties.”
They’d wanted an assignment at the hub, where ships would dock, not the outer hull. The grav-pull would be crippling. Still, they had no intel on that area. Janlin grasped at this straw, hoping they might learn something new, hoping they were inching closer to some glimpse of freedom.
In the service lift, Stepper stared at the door as if she wasn’t even there. Janlin choked on her despair. Anything they’d tried, failed, resulting in a whipping. Her gaze raked over the vidlens and jerked away.
Vibrations rattled the floor of the lift as they neared the hull deck. When the lift door opened, the stench of burnt oil washed over them. She struggled to move, each step taking immense effort.
The waiting Imag handed them a beat-up work pad uncannily similar to human datasheets and gestured at two toolboxes on the floor. This Imag wore a dirty coverall instead of a uniform, but he still carried a whip on his belt. Janlin noticed his work pad showed multiple views of the engine room. They would be watched every moment.
Janlin picked up a toolbox with a grunt and followed Stepper, who studied the work pad best he could while still slogging through the ill-lit area. Janlin scanned the room, searching for its meaning.
Metal screeched and pistons plunged in the gloom. Two orange lights, one at each end of the massive engine room, offered little guidance. Wheels with polished teeth spun wildly, flashing raw steel illumination into the shadows. Janlin saw parts on a rack that poked at her memory, but they were past it before she could place what they were for.
Stepper’s face looked ghoulish in the glow of the workpad as he compared what he saw on the screen to what he saw around them. Janlin waited, the toolbox pulling on her arm and the stench and heat and noise of the room assaulting her. Finally, he turned and led her deeper yet.
The machine they were to fix was obvious, its pistons jammed, its growl a tortured whine. Stepper indicated what he needed from her, and she moved into position. She wrenched on the bolts, sweat beading until it grew too heavy and ran in rivulets into her eyes. Stepper reached into the machine to pull away the bent metal part. When sudden motion made Janlin leap back, instincts taking over, Stepper had no chance.
He screamed. The sound pierced her with terror. He was launched backwards, and fell hard. Janlin saw that the arm of his coveralls was torn above the elbow. A thick red stream of blood pulsed from the opening again and again. A fresh, sharp smell overpowered her.
Medics would already be dispatched. That is what gave the optimists hope, the fact that injuries were treated, even if sometimes the injured disappeared afterwards. It meant they were valuable alive, but they did not know if it was for something better than what they survived or not.
The Imag would have seen everything, but they would never arrive in time to save him if she didn’t act now.
She dropped to her knees, instantly soaking them in oily blood, and grabbed a rag from the toolbox to press to the wound. The cloth grew dark too quickly. Stepper bared his teeth.
“Let me die,” he said.
Janlin hesitated. If she did not try to save him, she would be punished. If he died, she would lose her leader, her last hope, the man who had once loved her.
If she let him go, he would be free.
She took another rag, fumbled, and twisted it until she had a makeshift tourniquet. She lifted his arm and slipped it under. He hissed, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Blood flooded his sleeve. Janlin panicked, thinking him dead, until she realized he had passed out.
She took up the ends of the tourniquet and wound them together, tighter and tighter, while pressing the other rag to the wound with all her strength. Her hands became slick; her mind slid away, everything stained black-red.
What life was this? What kind of fool was she to believe there was any hope left to them?
She let out a wordless cry and loosened the tourniquet.
“Be free,” she said, hunched over him so her lips moved only inches from his ear. She sat back on her heels, chest constricted, and watched as his lifeblood drained out of his arm.
Rough hands pulled her away. Imag lifted Stepper, shouting and manhandling him onto a gurney while others applied strange medical devices to both the wound and Stepper’s whole arm. The medics barked at those that pushed the gurney, and they growled back. Stepper’s face, pale and drawn, was slack, eyes staring. Janlin, chest heaving, turned away. She wished they’d leave him be. It was too late to help him, why argue over his body?
Without warning she was shoved forward against a machine, and the hum of a whip charged the air. In that flash of a moment Janlin’s mind broke. The Imag still didn’t understand the technology, but they weren’t giving up either. Those parts were probably from the Hope, now, and if they dismantled both ships, there would never be a way home. And someday the Imag would be successful. Someday they would Jump to Earth’s system.
Janlin eyed the spinning wheels, the glint of danger, and wondered if there was time enough to die. She lunged and thrust her arm into the same churning pit of steel, clenching her teeth against the anticipated agony. The guard knocked her aside before she could complete her desperate act, and a nerve whip sang in her ear. Janlin closed her eyes and rolled.
Her open hand landed on a pipe wrench, and she swung blindly in the direction of the whip. It connected with a satisfying thump, followed by a cry of outrage. The electric whine arced through the air and clanged out into the darkness, so she swung again on the backhand.
That, too, connected, but the guard grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip. She gasped, her hand went numb, and the wrench fell to the floor. Janlin twisted, using the alien’s momentum against him and hoping to force the brute into letting go. She spun, completing the move with another twist to his arm, and continued his direction of motion with a little shove.
What happened then was more than she could’ve wished for. Slipping on the slick floor, the guard was unable to recover from her move, and he fell headlong into a steel support post with a ringing thud. He slid down the pole with agonizing slowness and lay still at the bottom.
Janlin backed away. A moan escaped her lips, startling her from her shock. Others would be coming. This was her chance.
She looked at the machine that had killed Stepper. Just one thrust of an arm, and it would be over but for the pain. Today was a good day to die.
She ran from her temptation, her despair, her grief. She stumbled against walls, bounced around corners, sobbing as she went. Stepper was dead, and she didn’t have the guts to kill herself. She wished they’d never come here, wished they’d never built Jumpships, wished the Imag had never been born.
She wished she’d never been born.
Janlin slammed along the corridor, gasping for air, always knowing the vast array of vidlens would track her progress, and she would be caught and whipped for her actions today.
The bowels of the ship were lit in eerie red and strangely empty of guards. She guessed guards weren’t necessary in an area where slaves usually didn’t go.
Lift doors stood open, and she fell into the small space. Scanning the controls, she chose what she gue
ssed was the opposite of where she was now, and slumped against the back wall as the doors slid shut. Who knew what would greet her when they opened again?
The pressure of gravity lessened by degrees. The lift stopped, and the doors split. Janlin let out a whoosh of held breath when all that greeted her was another empty corridor. She stumbled out and half ran, choosing a direction without thought.
A large metal shelf on wheels loomed before her, half blocking the way. Again, she saw the familiar parts, either from the Renegade or the Hope, there was no way to know which anymore. With vigour she didn’t know she had in her, she began to demolish everything on that shelf, smashing them to the floor, standing on them to bend metal, breaking off essential parts. Whatever it took to keep the aliens from using what they had stolen.
A thump echoed through the hull below her feet, and she felt the shudder of the after-effect. She paused in her destruction. No sound followed, and there was no movement within sight.
Janlin scooped up a hunk of bent metal pipe and ran towards the sound instead of away. She would take whatever lives she could in payment for Stepper, and her father, and all the rest. She would go down fighting. Enough was enough.
Hatchways now lined the hall, and she put her ear to each one, listening. Based on the controls, flashing warning lights, and tight seals, these were airlocks, and the thud could be a ship docking.
She hefted the steel bar in her hand. Something on it pinched her, and she looked down at her hand. For the first time she noticed the blood caked on her arms and smeared over her fingers.
The steel fell to the floor with a clang that echoed down the long hall. Everything spun around her. Janlin shook her head, clearing it, and found herself on her hands and knees staring at the floor.
Stepper.
A few steps down the hall an alarm sounded, and the airlock door began to cycle. She gritted her teeth and reached for the makeshift weapon. It was time to die, and she planned to take as many of the enemy with her as possible.
Chapter Sixteen
AS SHE ROSE into a predatory crouch, Janlin realized she was about to act out of despair and grief instead of thinking things through. Stepper might be dead, but she wasn’t. Gordon and Tyrell and the woman with the scar, they all deserved better from her. Whoever was about to come through that hatch came through an airlock, which meant there was a ship docked on the other side.
A ship.
With only microseconds left, Janlin ran back to the shelves and hid herself the best she could.
Rough grunts echoed from the now-open hatch, and Janlin peered from her hiding place. Three aliens stepped into the hall, each carrying weapons ready. They scanned up and down the hall as if expecting to be attacked at any moment. Janlin frowned, even as she ducked into hiding. Why would they be so on guard?
Maybe she’d been missed, and now a ship-wide warrant for her arrest brought in even the surrounding shuttles. Was she really that important?
She shook off the speculation. She had to get on that docked ship. To her great relief, the three newcomers went the opposite way, leaving the hatch dialled open. Too convenient, said her gut, but there wasn’t much else to do but try and take advantage of it.
Janlin crept down the hall, her chunk of steel slipping in her sweaty palm. She switched hands, wiped one on her leg, and took a firmer grip. Once she reached the opening, she dared a quick glance in and ducked back out again.
It was a simple airlock, smaller than she expected. Did she really just see the hatch to the shuttle open as well?
She took another quick glance. Sure enough, open, and apparently empty. Goosebumps prickled up her arms. Taking a deep breath, she dove through the hatchway and over to the opposite side of the airlock. There was nothing to hide behind in an airlock, but she flattened herself against the wall and sidled up to the outer door.
Lights flashed on the lock, showing green and orange. Why did green always mean good to go? She recognized her exhaustion and shock coming out in one distracting thought after another, so she sucked in three deep breaths and listened with all her being, poised to fight—or flee—at the smallest sound.
Nothing.
Janlin slipped into the airlock of the shuttle. The ship could be called nothing else, based on its size and the gear she saw stowed there. Some kind of supply vehicle maybe, or transport shuttle, she figured. They had speculated about an Imag home base somewhere . . . the steel factory couldn’t be it. But if she could figure out how to fly this machine, she would go where, exactly?
Again, she shook off the distraction. She could not pass up such an opportunity. Focus on getting the ship first, then on where to take it, she told herself. She would figure it out as she went.
She crept along a short passage that led into a circular room she hoped was the command centre of the ship.
Five aliens stared at her from various stations around the room.
Janlin roared a challenge as she ran headlong at the closest one, her hunk of steel swung back in readiness. She used their amazed shock to her advantage, feeling somewhat guilty, but this was no time to be holding back . . . especially since he was drawing something from his belt even as she swung.
The bar connected with the Imag’s raised arm and slid to bounce off his skull. Unfortunately, that deflection cost some momentum, and did little to hurt him. The alien’s weapon was brought to bear, and Janlin realized the others were shouting at him. It was no nerve whip, either, definitely a gun. The nose had a hole, undoubtedly where the projectile would emerge to splatter through her chest.
He paused, and she backed away, arms raised. Apparently, she didn’t want to die as badly as she had thought, or she would simply lunge at him.
The one with the weapon gurgled and gestured at her, clearly angry, but the others continued to grunt and bark. Janlin got the impression they were attempting to keep him from shooting her.
She bent slowly, letting the pipe fall to the floor. “I’m really sorry, I must have taken a wrong turn,” she said. She almost laughed with the absurdity of it. But she was on a ship, a different ship than the factory, and for some reason that gave her hope.
One of the Imag gurgled into his commlink. “Well, there goes that idea,” she muttered. Soon the guards would be here to pick her up, nerve whips at the ready.
A reply rang out through a speaker somewhere, and the words were frantic and combined with the sound of . . . weapons fire?
All of them turned, eyes wide with concern, and again she questioned her perceptions. These Imag just didn’t act right . . . and who was shooting at them? Janlin considered taking up her pipe and rolling into position to strike again, but too many things told her that was a bad idea. For one, there were four others who wore the same weapon on their belts as the one she’d hit. For another, she didn’t feel like she was in immediate danger, nor did these aliens carry nerve whips . . . and their uniforms were deep red with grey patterns crisscrossing, instead of green and black like the guards. The strange trickle of hope swelled and ran around in her belly.
The sound of fighting came through the open hatchway. One alien called out orders, two more took up larger weapons and ran for the hatch, and another began punching buttons that brought a rumble beneath her feet.
That left the one she’d hit. He clearly hadn’t forgotten about her, and still held his sidearm at the ready, but instead of anything Janlin could predict, he gestured at a seat with his gun.
Janlin hesitated only for the briefest of seconds. The ship, alive under her feet . . . the firefight . . . the fact they didn’t shoot her . . . it all added up to more than she could’ve wished for. She dropped into the seat, and the Imag bent over to strap her in. She reached up to touch his head where she’d hit him—already a lump was forming—and he flinched. She gave him a sheepish smile.
“Sorry.”
The Imag firmly pushed her arm down and strapped her in so that she was completely immobile.
“Yeah, I guess I deserve that,” she said as
he turned away. She was as much a prisoner as ever, but somehow it didn’t hold the same sense of despair as before.
Before Janlin could follow this thought into reasoning, the two Imag returned, bursting into the control room, and the floor shook with power and the sounds of fighting were cut off. A grinding screech filled the ship. Each individual in the room struggled with buckles while still manipulating controls at their individual stations.
Three more aliens came in, one being carried by the other two. He bled a viscous fluid much pinker than human blood.
They secured him against one wall where straps were available for cargo—or perhaps this was a common occurrence that required just such a spot for the injured. One companion rushed to his own seat, but the other stayed with the downed man as the crew prepared for a rough launch. A few questions were grunted in this Imag’s direction, and were answered with confidence and appeared to satisfy every query. Then Janlin watched in amazement as the crew flew under fire and what she surmised as their leader continued to administer care to the wounded alien.
Finally, the impacts that rocked the ship and made the hull shudder under her feet ended, and after a few more moments of exchange between crew and captain, gravity returned. Apparently satisfied with the injured one’s condition, the captain stood, stretched, and turned to look at Janlin.
“Be no afraid,” the alien said.
Chapter Seventeen
JANLIN CHOKED ON her surprise, her mouth working without sound for a long moment. Hope blossomed and spread like fire in her veins, yet she fought the surging rise of optimism.
“How the hell did you learn my language?” she finally blurted. “How is that possible?”
Janlin stared at the alien standing over her. The being looked away, face twitching and lips pursed.
“You come, new ’ip,” the leader said. Clearly a statement, not a question. Janlin tried to keep any revealing information from her face. She wasn’t answering any questions without some answers of her own.
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