Half the Hassim’s crew kept a watch for attacks. Josune should have known better.
Roystan said, intense, quiet, “Josune, Snow. Come back inside.”
Snow started back. Josune hesitated. “I should fix the second camera.”
“Inside. Now.”
“Can we finish—”
“No.”
In her other ear Carlos swore, violently for him. “The bastard nullspaced. Right in front of us. They’re an hour away now.”
Josune had never heard him swear before.
“The second ship nullspaced, too,” Roystan said. “It’s closer than the first. Josune.”
Josune gathered her tools. “Coming.” Had Carlos jumped with a plasma-damaged ship before? “We didn’t finish sealing out here, Carlos. If we jump, nullspace might breach it. We need to seal off the area.”
The breach was above crew quarters, which was a plus, because there were two compartments.
“That will take out cabins one to eight,” Carlos said. Roystan’s, Nika’s, Snow’s, and Josune’s cabins. “We can’t keep nullspacing, Josune. We haven’t the fuel.”
Josune didn’t plan on sticking around while two ships came close enough to fire another plasma cannon. Especially two ships that were capable of nullspacing but weren’t talking.
“We have no choice, Carlos. Those of you in cabins one to eight, go and rescue anything you can’t lose. Nika, you collect Snow’s.”
“Shall do. What do you want, Snow?”
“My gray suit.”
“You too, Roystan.” Josune caught up to Snow, slowed him while she clipped her line to his suit, then fired her suit jets in a fast sweep to get back to the airlock, and reversed just as hard. The welder, heavier than the rest, kept going, bashing into the wall beside the airlock.
“We heard that right through the ship. Don’t damage what ship we have left.”
“Sorry, Carlos.” And she was, for even though The Road was battered, Roystan loved every centimeter of her. “Coming in the airlock now.” She pushed Snow in, with the panels and welder close behind.
She watched the feed on the screens through her suit camera as she waited for the air to cycle through. Both ships had fired long jets. They were, as Carlos said, less than an hour away.
25
NIKA RIK TERRI
“I’ll jump as soon as they’re in,” Roystan told Nika, when she came back with Snow’s gray suit. “Keep the calibrator steady on my word.”
Roystan pulled up star charts and picked coordinates seemingly at random. He was sweating, the only outward sign of stress. His hair had a tiny curl when it was damp, something Nika would be careful to retain when she worked on him. Josune probably liked it.
Nika was past sweating. Being afraid was part of her life now. Ever since Alejandro had lost his temper that first time, and she realized how much trouble she was in. Or, to be honest, not the first time. The second time. The first time she’d believed him when he’d apologized, and said he’d never do it again.
Alejandro wasn’t here. Nor was Tamati Woden. That meant she was still better off than she might have been.
Josune called as soon as she was inside. “We’re both in.”
Roystan checked the cameras near the airlock. “They really are,” he told Nika, as if he hadn’t quite believed it. He set the nullspace countdown.
Jacques called him. “It’s probably a bad time to remind you, but nullspacing takes a lot of fuel, and we have no credits to buy more.”
“One jump, Jacques. If they find us again, we’ll be sure they’re chasing us.”
Josune and Snow came onto the bridge as Roystan jumped. Carlos and Jacques not far behind them. There was solidarity in numbers, safety even.
They nullspaced.
Roystan scrubbed at his face as he checked the readings on the star chart. “Right where we planned to be, anyway.” He relaxed. “Must be time for some spicy flatbread, Jacques.”
“What spices do you use, Jacques?” Nika asked. Roystan had a weak stomach, so the spices must contain trace elements his body required, given he liked it so much.
“My own secret recipe, of course.”
“Of course.” It was a wonder he’d shared that much. Nika thought back to the first time she’d eaten the bread. “It had Rendo spice in it.”
Jacques turned away huffily. “That’s part of the secret recipe.”
The ship rocked, knocking most of them down, then spun fast enough for the extra gravity to momentarily pin them where they’d fallen. Five alarms went off.
Snow was the only one who stayed upright. “We’ve been hit.”
Roystan pulled up the star chart again. His fingers flew, so they were almost a blur. “I want that calibrator on true. Now.”
Nika dragged herself up and into her seat. She nudged the calibrator with a sure hand. “On track.”
They nullspaced again. Or tried to. Everything slowed and went psychedelic, then snapped back into real space. The star charts looked the same.
Roystan’s hair curled with dampness, and when he ran a hand through it, sweat sprayed off. “Let’s not do that again.”
“They hit the nullspacer,” Josune said. “They knew where it was. We can’t run. Not without nullspace.”
“It’s always the first thing you do,” Snow said morbidly. “Disable the enemy and move in for the kill. If you can’t nullspace, you can’t hide.”
“They hit us this side of the jump,” Roystan said. “Deliberately fired on us. They knew who we were, and where we came out. What are the chances of that?”
Remote.
“They’re tracking us.”
26
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Tracking them? How was that possible? Josune had already destroyed Feyodor’s marker, and the enemy hadn’t made it on board to plant another one yet. Not as far as Josune knew.
Roystan rubbed his eyes. He looked tired, and his eyes were starting to redden. “Let’s worry later about how they got here. Let’s find them first. We need to know what we’re up against, so we can escape.” He linked his screen to the cameras Josune had recently installed, and brought up a full 360 view. Visible spectrum, infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves. “Nothing. Not a ship, a rock, not even the trace of one.”
“Maybe we hit an asteroid as we came through,” Carlos suggested.
Roystan shook his head.
Snow shook his head, too, in a silent imitation. “There’ll be a ship.”
Roystan stood. “I’ll suit up. I want to check the external casing of the nullspace drive.”
“You need an engineer,” Josune said. “Carlos can’t do it.”
“And you can?”
Snow grabbed Roystan’s sleeve, pulling him back. “Whoever goes out there will be murdered. I’ve seen these attacks before. This is a typical cattle ship attack. Hit the nullspacer, wait for someone to go out and fix it. Then pounce. They’ll kill everyone you send out. Until you eventually surrender, because that’s all you can do.”
“You’re right, Snow.” Roystan rubbed his chin. “It is characteristic of a cattle ship—although I’ll bet it’s a company ship this time.”
Snow looked surprised, as if he didn’t expect Roystan to agree with him.
“When do we stop running?” Carlos demanded.
“We don’t,” Roystan said. “Not with the ghost of Goberling behind us. Not with news of the Hassim salvage shadowing us. We keep running until either we’re dead or we reinvent ourselves.”
Josune turned to look at him. That sounded like experience.
“Let’s find the ship before we decide what to do next. Snow, where would it hide?”
“These body modders know a lot about things they couldn’t be expected to know,” Jacques said. “Like nullspace drives and ships hiding.”
“I know nothing about nullspace drives,” Snow said. “I do know covert attacks.”
Where would a body modder learn about covert attacks?
“You’re free traders. I’m sure you know about them, too.”
“We’re in the legal zone.” Roystan scanned the screens again. “We don’t get attacked.”
“What are covert attacks?” Nika asked.
“See. She doesn’t know about them,” Jacques said. “Why do you?”
“Snow spent half his life on a mercenary ship; I didn’t. Someone please tell me what is going on.”
“Which ship?” Jacques demanded.
“The Boost.”
Even Roystan winced.
“The captain of the Boost is too miserly to employ modders.”
“They employed doctors,” Nika said. “And Snow’s a registered body modder.”
Roystan didn’t speak, but he frowned—first at Jacques, then at Carlos.
“Sorry,” Jacques said gruffly to Roystan. “Nerves.”
On the Hassim everyone had their own rituals while waiting to be attacked. Feyodor paced. Josune and Reba checked the weapons. Deepak did deep breathing exercises. Here on The Road, there were no weapons to speak of, and no one except Josune—and maybe Roystan—had ever waited for an attack before.
The trick was to relax, however you could, to save your adrenaline for the fight. Josune thought she knew what might work with Jacques. “Roystan’s probably hungry,” she said.
Snow’s mouth dropped open. “We’re about to be attacked, and you want food. Josune—” It was tragic, as if he’d thought better of her.
But it relieved the tension that had nowhere else to go. “Spicy flatbread coming up,” Jacques said.
“Since we’re going into battle,” Carlos said, “you should cook something we like as well. Like cinnamon cakes.”
“You wish,” Jacques said.
He hadn’t refused outright. Josune put out a hand to stop him on his way to the galley. “Nothing you can’t leave. If you have to fight, Roystan won’t want the galley burning down.”
Josune moved over to Roystan, who was scanning the boards again.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, so only she could hear.
“You’ve good crew.” Equally quietly.
He stopped at something Josune couldn’t see. “Take a look at this.”
Josune brought it up on her own boards. Maybe. “Anomaly? Or shielding, do you think?”
They spent the next five minutes triangulating the anomaly and making sure there were no further ones. Roystan rubbed his arms, as if he was cold. “Let’s flush these beasts out. Snow, you say if we send someone out to fix the nullspacer they’ll target them. If they do that, then we’ll know they’re enemy, and we can take them out. Josune, how much damage can the nullspacer take before it breaches the ship?”
Josune checked figures. “We could contain the breach. For safety, we should block off the whole upper floor. The jets are around the circumference. They should be fine.”
“We’ve still got the crew room, here? And Jacques’s galley.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t send someone out there,” Snow said. “They’ll be killed.”
Roystan grinned. “We don’t have to send anyone out, Snow. We just have to make them think we have. We’ve a damaged suit. You and Nika can wire something up for us that’s vaguely human in shape, and the right temperature. They won’t look hard.”
“He’s as crazy as you are,” Snow told Nika.
“But it’s going to work, Snow.”
27
NIKA RIK TERRI
It took half an hour to wire up a pseudo-body. Nika and Snow worked on that, while Josune worked on a remote controller for the damaged suit. The ship didn’t attack again.
“Probably waiting for the second ship,” Roystan said. “Assuming these are the ships from Atalante. They think they have us. They won’t hurry.”
They’d fight this ship, and maybe win. Or maybe not, but it was better odds than fighting two of them together. After that? They’d sneak off into the vastness of space that was this sector and try to lose themselves for a while.
Tamati would be out of the machine in another three days. Or was that two. She was losing track of time.
Josune frowned down at the pseudo-body. “Carlos. Do you think you could control this suit?”
“Of course.”
People did what they had to do, even if they were injured. Carlos was still seeing double, but he’d manage.
“I can,” Snow said.
“We need you on the cannon, Snow. Roystan to triangulate the ship, with Nika on the calibrator if we need it, and Jacques to assist Roystan.”
“And you?”
“I have to send that bomb before you fire the cannon.”
Roystan looked up from the boards. “Bomb?”
“A havoc bomb,” Snow said. “She put it on the front of the cannon.”
“Havoc.” Roystan was noticeably paler than he had been. “I hope that’s the only one we have.”
Josune didn’t answer.
“Don’t I have any say in what comes onto my ship?”
Josune put her arm across his shoulders, halfway to a hug. “I’m in charge of weapons.” She turned away, so that only Nika saw the sweat the movement had cost her.
They were running low on nerveseal.
“Since when?” Roystan asked.
“Since Pol.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“All on the cannon?”
“Just the one.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Where are the other two? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Down in engineering.”
“He said he didn’t want to know,” Snow said.
Josune smiled. “He does, Snow. And no matter what he says, he’ll direct the other two bombs, not me. But,” she told Roystan, “I’m not altogether crazy. I pulled the filaments out of the two in engineering. They need to be assembled before we can use them. That will take time.”
“Thank gods for something.” Roystan was shaking as he turned back to the boards. “I don’t like havoc bombs, Josune. Let’s take them off any future shopping list.”
“They never were on the shopping list,” Jacques said. “Where did they come from, Josune?”
“The Hassim,” Roystan said. “Where else?”
“We didn’t pick up any bombs from the Hassim.”
“Josune and I went over later,” Carlos said. “Got the cannon. Remember?”
“Cargo master should know what’s on the ship.”
“It wasn’t cargo,” Josune said. “Can we use it, now? Please.”
“Only if we need to,” Roystan said.
Nika silently put the final touches to their warm, wired body—which was nothing more than a stick with four branches, and a circle of wire for the head. She’d ask Josune later what was so bad about havoc bombs.
No one spoke as they maneuvered the suit out to the airlock, and Josune set it free. She tested the controls, nodded to herself, and gave them to Carlos. “You can work the suit. And Carlos, don’t damage Roystan’s ship.”
“I would never do that.” He took the controller and concentrated hard, tongue between his teeth with the effort.
“What now?” Nika asked, as Snow left them to make his way down to the cannon.
“Now we wait,” Roystan said.
They watched as Carlos clumsily maneuvered the suit around to the nullspacer. Behind it all, Nika heard a faint clicking sound. Eventually, she realized it was Roystan’s teeth. He was shivering, trying to hide it. She moved over, touched him.
He was freezing.
“As soon as we get somewhere safe, you’
re going into a mod machine.”
Roystan leaned across the boards. “Firing. Coming from—”
“Got it.” Josune tapped something onto her handheld.
“Hold till they hit. We don’t want them accidentally triggering the bomb close to us.” Roystan gripped the edge of the panel. “Brace yourselves.”
The jolt was minor. The camera on the damaged suit went down.
“That’s just mean,” Carlos said. “Cold-blooded killing.”
“Bomb away,” Josune said.
They waited. Tense. Nothing happened.
“Maybe it was a dud,” Nika said, just before a sudden mini-sun lit up outside.
“Not a dud. A havoc bomb.” Roystan didn’t even try to stop his shivering. This time Nika thought it was reaction, not cold. “Let’s see what damage we’ve done. Nika, calibrator.”
He fired the engines, a long thrust. His hands were steady on the controls, despite his shivering.
One moment Nika was watching Roystan’s empty screen, with half an eye on the calibrator; the next it was filled with spinning debris.
“Snow, have you got the ionizer?”
“On it,” Snow said, and the path in front of them miraculously cleared.
The debris came closer.
Roystan glanced at Nika. “Can you control the calibrator? I need to move two degrees positive.”
She nodded.
Their new position put them into space with less debris. Slower debris, too. They gradually outran it.
“I want a sweep of the whole area,” Roystan said. “I don’t want anyone going out there and getting accidentally hit by a piece we missed. Pulverize everything close. The ionizer will work for that.”
“I’ll help Snow,” Josune said.
It wasn’t long after that Nika heard Josune say, “You all right?” through the link.
Snow muttered a reply, which might have been, “Fine.”
Roystan looked at Carlos. “Check for survivors. Nika can help.”
Carlos moved to the board next to Nika and started to scan.
Stars Uncharted Page 25