In the midst of so much confusion, twin ideals shone like beacons, drawing him upward.
Honor and loyalty.
I can track my brother’s every movement…
He owed Arun.
And his brother Marine was in deep shit.
— Chapter 23 —
Indiya watched in awed silence as the Marine pumped out shot after shot, each railgun dart hitting its intended target with unerring accuracy.
Her plan had been to creep up behind Arun and throw him a teasing comment when he paused in his firing. But he never stopped, and though Indiya told herself that McEwan didn’t intimidate her, the battlesuit he wore set her nerves jangling. So she hung back by the hatch she’d used to enter the firing range.
The range was a stubby section of tube with lockers and target computer access panels that terminated with a dashed yellow baseline. Beyond that, the compartment blew up into a hemispherical target zone. Arun was blasting anything in the target zone that moved.
When Indiya used this range, she placed her feet just behind the baseline where a charged ring anchored her boots to the bulkhead. Not McEwan.
He was the most dangerous thing she’d ever witnessed.
His firing position was a silvery blur of motion that used every millimeter of the area behind the baseline. Each time he fired his carbine, his suit propelled him to a new position, scattering spent rounds as he moved and leaving him momentarily in a static position. If he had a shot, he fired. If not, he moved to a fresh position anyway. And, fuck, did he move fast!
“It’s safe now,” he said via speakers mounted in his suit. “I’ve finished.” He clamped his carbine to his back and approached her at a restrained velocity. With his battlesuit set to the default pattern of gleaming silver, he looked like a medieval knight in gleaming plate armor. The sight sparked memories of romantic tales that Mamma had read long ago, of chivalrous knights who performed heroic deeds to protect the honor of fair damsels.
With a hiss of pressure seals opening, McEwan removed his helm. “Is that better?” he asked, with a cheeky, boyish grin that didn’t belong on any kind of knight: historical or romantic. “It’s just that you look, well, intimidated.”
“I wasn’t scared,” snapped Indiya.
“I was careful not to use that word. There’s no shame, Indiya. You are very small.”
Was this bonehead mocking her? She gave herself calming hormones. She wasn’t here for chitchat. There was a job to be done. Seduction.
Feeling embarrassed, she pushed off from the floor, coasting up to the halo of debris his rounds had left behind. Talking of seduction made her feel as dirty as Furn. Even with the advantage of her hormone-gifting implants, she wasn’t sure how to go about it.
“Why come here and make all this mess?” she asked. “It’s not as if you need the practice. You didn’t miss once.”
“I shoot to clear my head.”
McEwan followed. Which was just as well, because she wasn’t wearing a propulsion unit: she had no way of arresting her momentum before she eventually crashed into the opposite bulkhead. Maybe she’d pass for a maiden in distress after all.
Closer up, the spent rounds looked more like bone disks than bullet cartridges. “What are these things?” she said, bringing her arms up to protect her face as she began colliding into the debris.
McEwan appeared in front of her, bringing her into his arms, holding her there. “Sabots,” he said, flicking away one of the bone shards, pinging it out of sight. “They give optimum mechanical fit to my darts, and superconductance across the rails in my railgun.”
“They’re annoying,” said Indiya, flicking at one herself. They were incredibly light. “My pistol is far superior.”
“How come?”
“Less mess.”
“Not really,” replied McEwan, who didn’t seem to have any concept of humor on the topic of weapons. “I expect your pistol is a slug thrower – it uses chemical propellant to fire a heavy metal slug. Your spent cartridges are even more of a maneuvering hazard, and your fire rate is far lower.”
Indiya raised an eyebrow. Doubt crept over Arun’s face. Deep within that bonehead Marine skull, she imagined McEwan’s mind slapping itself with a virtual palm.
“Of course, your pistol is the superior weapon in some situations.” The Marine spoke his words grudgingly, as if betraying his best friend – which, she supposed, was precisely what he was doing. “But for a typical Marine combat situation, our carbines are better. Less recoil and far higher ammo capacity, not to mention–”
“That’s right! Not to be mentioned. That’s enough weapon spec shit. Now shut up, and take off your gauntlets.”
“Pardon? Why did you–?”
“Indulge me.”
He looked uncertain, but he did as he was instructed. Maybe that was the way with all these Marines: they obeyed orders to a fault.
McEwan opened his bare hands for inspection, his gauntlets slowly tumbling in the air nearby.
She made a play of examining his hands, drawing out the fingers and rubbing her ungloved hands over his, breaking the standing order that under pretty much any circumstances all augments must wear gloves that flared a security alert if the wearer tried exuding their nano-transports through them.
She half-expected to find his hands were callused, industrial constructions of metal, lubricants, gears and synthetic flesh. Instead… well, she couldn’t quite call the enormous slabs of meat childlike, but they were surprisingly smooth.
He closed his hand over hers, swallowing it easily, leaving just her long fingers poking out from his strong grip.
She picked this moment to rub her palm against his, wiggling inside his clutch. Subcutaneous implants under her skin launched nano-packets that infiltrated his body. She looked up into his eyes, but he showed no reaction other than a smile at her attention.
This was the reason why she had to wear gloves. The freaks were dangerous. The other crew members were scared of them. Petty Officer Lock was gruffly protective of her freaks, but without the shield of the reserve captain’s sponsorship… She shuddered to think of what their fate would be.
“You’re strong,” she said. “You Marines are so dangerous.”
“Like that, do you?”
“Life’s dangerous for a freak like me. We need you.”
“Really? Who are these freaks?” His face lost its playfulness. For a moment there he looked the same as Furn when he’d admitted his spying. For good reason. McEwan had tried to plant a bug on her too. If Heidi hadn’t nullified it, it would have launched nanospies that used the device he’d buried into her neck as a signal booster.
Indiya nearly snatched her hand away. Playacting and deceit wasn’t her style. And she had just ripped Furn to shreds for his deceit. What kind of hypocrite did that make her?
Her army of nano-packet infiltrators interrupted her thoughts, reporting that they were returning to their homes in her implants, having delivered their cargo into McEwan’s bloodstream. The cargo was a hormonal cocktail – tuned to what she knew of his body chemistry – which meant all she had to do now was give flirtatious signals and the boy-machine would fall helplessly in love with her.
“We’re weak,” she said. “My friends and I. We’re experiments the others call freaks. Teach me to be strong. For a start, I want to shoot your carbine as effectively as you.”
“Are you serious?” His eyebrows had raised. He wasn’t sure if she were joking.
“Scared I’ll show you up?” she teased.
That made her Marine laugh, all right. What started as little puffs of incredulity quickly expanded into an unstoppable belly laugh.
Indiya rolled her eyes. She couldn’t make out Arun McEwan. One moment, a lethal killing machine, the next an utter dumbchuck idiot.
“Show me up?” he said when he could finally get a grip of himself. “Hardly! But I can teach you some basics.”
Unsnapping his carbine, he came behind her and reached over to place t
he weapon in her grip, the stock against her shoulder. She’d always thought carbines were meant to be short-barreled, lighter versions of rifles, but this bugger was huge!
She remembered what she was here to do, and gave a gentle moan. Aiming for a sexual purr, the result sounded more like clearing her throat. She tried to imagine getting turned on by handling such a powerful firearm, but she’d have to be one helluva psychotic weirdo to get aroused by that kind of thing. She felt stupid even trying to think along such alien tracks.
“Problem?” he said.
“No, it’s just… Arun, I’ve never been so close to anyone so strong.”
“Except for when I saved your life. I remember wrapping you pretty tightly in my arms.”
“Okay, except for then.”
“And when I kissed you.”
“Yes. And, Arun… I know what I told you before, but…” She turned her back so McEwan wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.” She felt heat rise in her cheeks. Mader zagh! She’d never lied so blatantly, so… badly! She hoped Furn wasn’t spying on her abysmal performance.
Arun pulled his carbine away out of sight and wrapped one arm around her from behind. “I can’t forget that kiss either,” he whispered seductively in her ear, or tried to. Marine speech normally came in clipped staccato bursts. Arun’s attempt at smooth talking sounded like a robot slurring drunken packets of binary.
She tried to act as if she were nestling into his embrace. It felt like cuddling against living granite, but with all the uncertainties ahead, his hold felt strangely comforting.
“Do you find me attractive?” she asked.
“Do I?” He gave a nervous laugh. “I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do than watch and listen to you speak all day. And night. You have no idea how alluring your voice sounds to me.”
Sounds like my hormonal gift is taking effect. “I’ll hold you to that.” She squirmed around to face him. “One day, when all this is over, I’ll spend the entire day with you, and you’ll have to sit there and listen to me jabber away.” She smirked. “Maybe that will be our reward if we pick the winning side, eh?”
“We will prevail,” he said perfectly serious. “We’re allies now. Believe it.”
“It guts me to say this,” she said, “but you and I don’t have time for fun.” A feeling of emptiness in her heart told her that those words of disappointment held a core of truth. “I’ve already thought of our next move. We need evidence of foul play and we need it right now. Here’s what I want you and your comrades to do.”
She asked a lot of Arun. But now she had bound him to her, she was never in any doubt that this proud Marine would obey her every word.
— Chapter 24 —
“You done yet?” Navi asked Conduit.
“I’d have said if I was,” replied Conduit, creasing her face in annoyance. “It’s bad enough going through Puri’s data stores as it is without you on my back. It’s like we’re trying to forget him as soon as we can.”
“That’s enough such talk,” snapped Petty Officer Activation. “We’re just following regulations. We all know Purify was a good man. None of us here think otherwise, Conduit, so grit your teeth and let’s get the Old Man’s gear and data processed.”
When Conduit didn’t challenge her words, Activation went back to clearing out Deputy Chief Cryo Officer Purify’s personal locker, sorting the contents into one of three bags marked for recycling, destruction, or retention. So far everything was destined for resyk. Anything interesting would be in the drawer under the Old Man’s workstation, a workstation still covered in his blood.
Activation couldn’t put off that drawer much longer. Not after what she’d just said.
Navi had been working quietly at his own desk but now cleared his throat nervously. “I’ve done with his softscreens, petty officer. Any notes and data of interest are available on the ship’s distributed data sphere.”
Navi floated over to Activation so he could hand across the softscreens. He was unable to meet Activation’s eye, just hanging there in silence as the petty officer added the softscreens to the resyk bag.
Activation knew exactly what was making Navi nervous. It was well within Activation’s rights to order Navi to sort through Puri’s blood-spattered drawer.
The petty officer sighed. Purify had often said that good leaders knew that rights and responsibilities always came hand in hand.
She nodded at the locker. “Finish off here, Navi. Leave his drawer to me.”
Trying to look as calm as anything, Activation scooted over to the corner of Cryo Team Delta’s compartment, to the place where everyone’s gaze avoided. The room was operating in zero-g at present, but had to run just as smoothly when the main engine was thrusting. Consequently the workstation was a flat desk accessed with viewscreen monitors that tilted out from the desk top for a convenient viewing angle. They were still cycling operational status diagnostics for the pods occupied by sleeping Marines.
The self-cleaning screens were crystal clear, having wept away the blood hours ago, but the desk, and surrounding bulkhead and deck, were spattered with dried blood.
But that was nothing compared to the sea of red on his chair.
Activation sank her butt into the bloody seat, which reached up and around to grip her, unlocking its wheels when it recognized its occupant. She looked longingly over to her own vacant chair, but the chairs all ran along a limited range of travel set into the deck below each desk, and so she would have to use the dead man’s.
She set about his task as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long; Navy ships allowed only a token amount of space for personal effects, but the Old Man had managed to keep a drawer full of knickknacks, mostly hand carved by himself.
“Here! Catch!” She threw Conduit a tiny bird carved from wood, its wings outstretched. While it was still tumbling sedately across the room, she tossed Navi a starship carved from a human finger bone.
For herself, Activation pocketed a globe showing the continents of Earth etched into a ball bearing. It was a shame, but the rest would go to resyk. She started shifting everything into his bag, but paused, staring at the Old Man’s whittling tool in the palm of her hand. She pocketed that too. Puri’s niece was an augment, but the Old Man had loved her anyway. Activation had no time for freaks herself, but Puri would want Indiya to have a memento.
“He hadn’t been himself for a long while,” said Navi. “Not since Chief Officer Field died and was replaced by the current Chief Officer.”
“I don’t think he was angling for promotion himself,” said Conduit, “but bringing in an outsider from another ship… Purify took that as an affront.”
“Save it for later,” ordered Activation. “When we’re off duty over a drink in the bar. Then we can talk about it, but not now.”
Her task completed, Activation released herself from the Old Man’s bloodied chair and handed Navi the bag. “Get those over to resyk pronto.”
“Yes, petty officer.”
As soon as the junior rating had left via the hatch, Conduit glanced at Activation. Her eyes hinted at questions but Activation didn’t know the answers. She wasn’t about to hug her subordinate either. “Back to work, Ordinary Spacer,” she said gruffly. “Our passengers need us on the bad days just as much as the good ones.”
They both knew that wasn’t true. Once their passengers – as the Cryo teams liked to call their Marine cargo – were settled in their pods, there was rarely any need for intervention, but Purify had cultivated a culture of diligence that the team he left behind would not cast aside.
Caught by a sudden need, Activation looked over to the Old Man’s desk and pictured him sitting there where he belonged, rubbing his beard absent-mindedly.
She was still looking at her dead friend when Navi pushed back through the hatch.
“That was quick,” said Conduit.
“Marines are patrolling outside again,” answered Navi. “They look so creepy. In a
sane universe, they should be asleep, not marching up and down as if they own the ship. It’s ours, not theirs!”
“He’s right,” said Conduit. “When they first boarded they trained. I heard they were desperate to catch up on skills they’d missed out on in their training city.”
“Will you two lizards cut it out,” said Activation, getting angry. “There’s been a lot of weird shit going on. People have died. Bonaventure blew for no reason anyone is admitted to knowing. I expect an officer decided that we’ll sleep better at night knowing those boneheads are out there. And the officer was right. They might be cyborg monsters, but they’re our monsters.”
The lights flickered.
“For frakk’s sake. What now?” moaned Conduit.
All the viewscreens died.
“Merde!” spat Activation as the lighting went too.
Her subordinates’ faces reappeared in the demonic red glow of the emergency lighting. Both of them looked one notch away from panic.
“It’s just a power cut.”
“Another one?”
“Navi, you go up to Cryo ‘N’ and ask Leading Spacer Mounting for her status. If she’s just as ignorant as us, tell her to send a runner to CIC to report our status and return with orders.”
“Aye, aye, petty officer.”
He floated over to the door, and smacked face-first into it when it didn’t open.
“There’s a power cut, dongwit. Use the manual release.”
Navi opened the access panel and tried to turn the manual release, but it wouldn’t shift. And in zero-g there was no obvious way to anchor himself to push. “Who maintains this wretched door?” he growled.
Activation ignored him and thought through a solution.
Five minutes later they had assembled a rope from wire strands, looped it around the manual door wheel and run the rope out to Activation’s workstation, where they had anchored themselves.
“Three, two, one, pull!”
The wheel moved a fraction. Was that a crack of light that appeared at the door edge? It was difficult to tell in the emergency lighting.
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