by R. E. Vega
She didn’t let herself dwell on it for too long. She had her own troubles to worry about. And though she was relieved that she’d managed to secure passage out of here, she wouldn’t feel safe until they were deep into space, far away from here.
Dayna showed her to a room that was smaller than the closet she had back home. There was only enough room for a bed—and a small one at that—but she’d manage.
“Thank you,” Yuki said. “Do I pay you now or—”
“We’ll settle that later,” Dayna replied. “For now, I suggest you stay in here and lock the door. And don’t come out until I tell you to—no matter what you hear.”
Yuki swallowed and nodded.
“Hopefully, we’ll be departing within the half hour,” Dayna said. “We just want to be extra cautious while we’re here. And I don’t want you getting mixed up in our trouble. If anyone should ask you anything, just tell them you don’t know anything.”
“I don’t know anything,” Yuki pointed out.
“True. And let’s keep it that way as long as possible.” Dayna offered her a smile. “For now, just make yourself comfortable. And lock the door behind me.”
Yuki nodded and sat down on the little bed. The mattress was hard, but she’d have to get used to that.
Dayna offered her one more smile, then turned and left. Yuki leaned over and locked the door before sitting back on the bed.
For better or for worse, she was here—and a huge part of her felt relief. But another part of her wondered what the heck she’d just gotten herself into.
KAYLIN
We shouldn’t be taking on passengers. Not now.
There was too much at stake. And it was only a matter of time before the IU came calling—especially with injured raiders lurking about.
Her crew knew what to do in situations like that, and she had trained them well—shoot to disable but avoid killing whenever possible. Of course, sometimes it wasn’t possible, and her crewmembers were also trained to protect each other, even if it did cost the life of an intruder. It had only happened a few times before, and she was thankful the robbery attempt hadn’t ended in any lives lost this time.
And she was even more thankful it had ended before their real cargo had arrived.
She was going to have to do something about Barner’s hack job of a makeover since she hadn’t had time to complete it earlier. They would have to figure something out before they had to stop at their first checkpoint after leaving Castalia—and that was why she needed the information she’d sent Brax to obtain.
This was all getting a little too complicated, and she wondered for a moment why she’d agreed to take on this job at all.
The money, she remembered. We can all retire to a place far, far away from Trousso and his minions if we can get Barner to his destination.
She didn’t need to know anything more. But she did need to get Barner’s little makeover completed before someone on her crew besides her first officer saw who their other passenger really was. She didn’t love the idea of keeping her crew in the dark about Barner’s presence, but in this case, the fewer people who knew about him, the better.
And that was the main reason she hadn’t wanted the other girl buying passage on the ship. Under normal circumstances, she’d have taken a paying fare from just about anyone. But having Barner here made it infinitely more complicated.
There was something about the girl, though. Something in her eyes that Kaylin couldn’t quite place until she’d seen Dayna interact with her. It was almost exactly how Dayna had first come to be on her ship. And who knew? Maybe this new girl would prove to be just as valuable to them at some point.
Kaylin took her seat on the bridge and checked the logs—Thad still hadn’t returned with Brax. It hadn’t been that long—less than an hour, but Brax shouldn’t have been that difficult to find. He’d had only one mission, and she’d only given him the entire night to complete it as a bit of a bonus. She knew all too well how fond Brax was of the social life Castalia afforded him, and before all hell had broken loose, one night of shore leave for a single crewmember shouldn’t have been a big deal.
Hopefully, he stuck to the plan and hadn’t veered too far off course.
Dayna joined her on the bridge a few moments later and began tapping at her controls.
“Report, Jackson.” Kaylin tried not to sound too annoyed—it wasn’t Dayna she was upset with this time. It was more the delay from her other two officers who still had yet to return to their posts.
Dayna looked at the screen on her console. “We only had minor repairs, even after the intrusion, Captain.” She pushed another button. “All systems are online and we’re ready to roll out of here as soon as everyone is back on board.”
Kaylin growled under her breath. Not everyone was back on board the ship—and why the hell hadn’t Thad come back by now?
She tried to deny the twisting in her gut at the thought of something happening to her engineer. It wasn’t supposed to be like this—what they had together was only supposed to be a fling, something to pass the time. Actually caring about him in that way made things too complicated. She knew she was going to have to do something about this situation after they had successfully left Castalia and were safely past the first checkpoint.
He’ll understand, she tried to convince herself. It was never meant to be more than a diversion, anyway.
Thad chose that moment to stride onto the bridge, and it took every bit of Kaylin’s will to force down the feeling of near-joy she felt at seeing him safe. After everything that had already happened that day, she didn’t really want to admit that she’d been almost terrified that something might have happened to him.
But there was no time for any of this now.
She frowned at Thad. “Report, Hamilton.”
Thad’s brow furrowed and he mirrored her frown. “I couldn’t find him, Captain. I went to the Andromeda, and there was a man there who remembered seeing him earlier today. Thought he might have left with a lady friend, but he said he’d never seen her in the bar before today, either.”
Kaylin closed her eyes for a moment. Great. Just fucking great. Her eyes fluttered open and her attention turned to her navigator. “Any ideas, Dayna?”
Dayna nodded and fiddled again with something on her console. “I stamped him, Captain.”
Thad turned to Dayna, his lip curled in confusion. “Stamped?”
She nodded without looking back at him. “Stamped. Well, I used my STAMP tech that I developed a while ago. Strategic Tracking and Management Protocol—”
Thad interrupted her with a groan. “Dayna, you can’t be serious. When you had me look at it the last time, it wasn’t ready for active use. I mean—”
She turned to him with a glare. “It’s better than nothing, though, right? Which is what you’ve given us. So piss and moan at me all you want, but at least I do shit around here once in a while. At least I contribute—”
“Oh, you think I don’t contribute, do you? I’m sure the captain could tell you just how much I contribute to her—”
“That is enough,” Kaylin interrupted, not wanting to acknowledge the ten shades of red her engineer’s face had just turned at his unintentional declaration, which very likely mirrored the heat she could feel in her own cheeks.
The captain turned her attention back to Dayna. “Are you able to track him?”
She nodded, still poking at her screen. “Yes, Captain. But maybe the tech still isn’t right—I swear, I did test it and it’s worked every time I’ve used it for the past two months. It worked on you a little while ago, which was how I was able to tell Thad where you were.” She threw a little glare back over at the engineer. “But this…” She motioned to her screen and turned back to the captain. “This is weird.”
“You used it on me?” Kaylin clenched her teeth so tightly she might have broken a tooth. “We’ll discuss that later, Dayna.” She forced her anger back as she walked over to where her tactical officer sat, lookin
g over her shoulder at the monitor. Kaylin’s gaze narrowed as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
Dayna pointed at something on the screen, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry, Jackson, I don’t see what you’re seeing.” Kaylin looked over at Dayna. “If you could explain—”
“Someday, we’re going to earn trillions from this, Captain, but I guess not yet. Because these readings can’t be right. I mean…they can’t be.” She shook her head again, pressing at another button.
“Explain, Jackson.” Kaylin’s response was a bit more clipped than she’d intended. But if something was happening to Brax, she needed to know about it. Now.
“Well, you see this reading here?” Dayna pointed to the screen.
“Yes, but I don’t understand—”
“I know, neither do I.” Dayna shook her head again. “Castalia’s water table is really near the surface, right?” She turned her attention to Thad. “Isn’t it like three meters below the surface? And it extends several kilometers down, right?”
Thad nodded. “Yes, at least here. Near the poles, it’s even closer to the surface—only a meter in a few places.” His gaze narrowed. “Why? What difference does the water table make?”
“I’m not sure,” Dayna replied. “Maybe none. But if my tech is working the way I think it is, something is really wrong.”
Kaylin let out a breath—she still couldn’t see whatever it was Dayna was seeing. “Just…just explain, Jackson.”
Dayna nodded, and if Kaylin hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she’d seen tears in her eyes. “According to the STAMP, Brax is only about four kilometers from here.”
“That’s good news.” Kaylin couldn’t help but feel a little less discouraged at this revelation, but it didn’t explain why Dayna was so upset about it. “So what’s the problem—?”
“The problem, Captain…” Dayna interrupted, clearing her throat. It almost seemed she was trying to cover some emotion she didn’t want anyone else noticing. “The problem is that while Brax is only four kilometers away, he’s also several meters below the surface. Which means… Which means he’s underwater.”
BRAX
The first thing he noticed was how cold he was.
It started in his fingers and toes. They felt thick and stiff and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to move them. He couldn’t seem to move any part of his body.
Little by little, he became aware of other details around him—the throbbing in his head, the rough texture of rope around his wrists and my ankles, the eerie feeling of floating in space. It all probably happened in the space of a second, if that, but at the same time it felt as if time, like his body, was suspended.
As the cloudiness in his brain cleared, he told himself he should open his eyes, take stock of his surroundings. Actually doing it took more effort than he anticipated—When had it become so hard to open his eyes?—but he managed.
And he found himself looking at nothing.
Everything around him was a deep green, and the only variation in color came from a stream of light shining down from above, the beam shivering and fracturing around him. It moved, almost like it was alive. He looked up, following the beam of light, and the motion made his hair drift across his eyes, floating in the same material in which he was suspended.
Water, he mused to himself in his still-clouded mind. I’m floating in water.
All at once, the reality of his situation hit him.
I’m underwater.
Panic was sharp and sudden, like a kick right to his gut. His cry of surprise was a reflex, and water rushed into his mouth before he’d even realized what he’d done.
He had to get out of here. Now.
The light was coming from above—at least he knew which way was up. He tried to kick his way to the surface, but the binding around his ankles made that difficult. And with his wrists bound just as tightly around his back, he wasn’t going to be able to untie himself anytime soon.
This isn’t right, he thought desperately, his chest burning. At the very least, I should be able to float.
If anything, though, he seemed to be moving further and further away from the light. He kicked his legs again, desperately trying to free himself, and this time he noticed the heaviness there—the ropes had been weighted. Someone was trying to drown him.
Well, he wasn’t about to let that happen. No one drowned Braxton Locke. If he was going to die someday, then it was going to be in a proper fight, not like this.
He shifted, wiggling his arms and legs and trying to feel for any sort of looseness in the bindings. Nothing budged. His mind was growing cloudy, and his chest and throat burned with an intensity that seemed to drown out all else.
If he was going to get to the surface, he had to get these weighted bindings off of himself somehow. He bent his arms, feeling along the back of his belt. By some miracle, whoever had done this to him had left his belt around his waist, and with it, his weapons. Unfortunately, he didn’t carry a knife. The only thing that might be of any use was his blaster, which he kept on his right hip.
He reached around, practically dislocating his shoulder to get the gun out of its holster. His fingers were so numb that he could hardly grip it, but he was running out of time. His lungs were on fire and the light above him was getting further and further away. Finally, though, he managed to get his weapon free.
What next, genius?
He had the gun, but his hands were still behind his back. He certainly couldn’t shoot through the binding around his wrists—not unless he felt like breaking his wrists in the process—so he’d have to try for the one around his ankles. He couldn’t see where he was aiming, but he angled the gun down toward his feet, prayed he wasn’t about to blow his foot off, and pulled the trigger.
A pulse of white light shot out from the gun and streamed into the darkness below. He’d missed by a mile, but for a moment the force of the blast propelled him upward, back toward the light above him.
He looked up. Maybe if he kept shooting, he’d be able to propel himself all the way back to the surface—but he wasn’t sure his gun had enough charges to get him there. And even if he did, he’d still be screwed if he couldn’t get either his hands or his feet free. He was already sinking again—it was better to focus on actually hitting his bindings this time.
First, though, he needed to get his hands where he could see them. With a great effort, he lifted his feet toward his chest, curling into something like a cannon ball. It took far more strength than it should have—those weights were making all of this that much more difficult—but he finally managed to get his knees high enough to allow him to slide his bound hands beneath his ass and around his legs. He was still screwed, but at least now he could see the damn gun.
Okay, he told himself. Aim carefully this time. He needed to hit the rope without crippling himself in the process. He was a good shot—a great shot, honestly—but normally he wasn’t shooting under such unfavorable conditions. It definitely didn’t help that the edges of his vision had started to go dark, as if shadows were closing in on him.
He shot. This time the blast actually hit the rope on its way down into the darkness—but not enough to break the damn thing. It grazed the outer edge, burning and fraying it slightly, but not enough for him to get his feet free.
One more time, he told himself. If this didn’t work, he wasn’t getting out of this alive. His field of vision was rapidly decreasing now, the darkness moving in on all sides.
He aimed his gun again, pausing only long enough to be sure of the shot before pulling the trigger.
Pain exploded through his right foot, and he bit back a scream of pain. He’d hit his fucking foot. He’d hit his own fucking foot, and now he was going to die out here.
But as he writhed in pain, he realized something else—he may have hit his foot, but he must have hit the rope as well, because suddenly he seemed to be able to move his legs. He was free.
There wasn’t
time to process this. There also wasn’t time to wallow in the burning pain in his right foot. There was only time to move.
He kicked violently, propelling himself back toward the surface. It felt like someone was squeezing his chest, trying to force all of the air out of him, and between that and the agony in his foot, he could hardly put a coherent thought together. He just knew he had to go up.
The surface was farther than he anticipated. No matter how hard he swam, it never seemed to get closer. Was this really how he was going to die? Trapped underwater? What sort of cruel joke was this?
His entire body burned, but somehow he kept moving. Kept swimming toward the light. The shadows in his vision were getting closer, and everything seemed to be getting nearer, closing in on him.
And then, just when it felt like he’d never know the taste of air ever again, his head broke the surface.
He gasped in the warm air, half choking as he tried to catch his breath. He only managed one or two good gulps before he started coughing, hacking up the water he’d swallowed when he first regained consciousness. He felt dizzy, exhausted, and his foot throbbed something fierce, but right now all he could think about was how sweet and wonderful the air tasted. He was alive, by some miracle. Alive.
For a moment, he more or less floated at the surface of the water, catching his breath. The entire ordeal beneath the water had seemed to take years, but now that his brain was actually getting oxygen again, he realized it couldn’t have been more than a minute, possibly two.
The longest minutes of my blasted life.
As the panic slowly leaked out of him, he began to remember how he’d ended up in this situation in the first place. The last thing he could recall was leaving Andromeda Tavern with the beautiful Sarai, then growing disoriented in the street…
He cursed to himself. He knew better than to fall for a mysterious, beautiful woman. They were always trouble. But those tits… He sighed. Sometimes women would be down for a little action before trying to kill him. Just a few moments with those breasts of hers would have made all this trouble worth it.