Stars Uncharted

by S. K. Dunstall

  “They’re a softener.”

  The only softening Josune understood was softening water. Water from different worlds, different stations, came in varying degrees of hardness. Water that was too hard left scale in the pipes. “Lime? Citric acid?”

  “Either of those.” Nika took both.

  They walked back in silence to the engineering workshop, detouring on the way to the crew room, where Nika begged a steak from Jacques. And a knife.

  The steak was easy, but getting a knife was like asking Jacques to part with his firstborn.

  “I’ll take an image of the knife if you like,” Josune offered. “Make sure it’s returned in the same condition.”

  “It’s not the look of it that’s important. It’s the feel of it.”

  She didn’t point out that they might not be alive in three hours for him to use it.

  In the workshop Nika measured out careful samples of mutrient and phosphoric acid.

  “Alejandro was everything I wanted. Someone who cared about how he looked. Someone who—” She stared at the ingredients she’d laid out. “I don’t know what that makes me. Because I care what I look like.”

  Josune laid the weapons on a workbench. Started at the Mark 27 Skol. The fuel gauge on the Skol was almost empty. She put it on the reject pile and picked up the next one. “You’re a modder. It’s your job.”

  Nika diced meat without seeming to see it. Josune watched to make sure she didn’t cut herself. “I can’t imagine you putting up with—”

  “I can’t imagine me doing that either. By the time I realized what he was like, it was too late. By the time I knew how bad . . . I was in too deep.”

  “You killed him?” That was what Josune would have done, but for all Nika’s toughness, she wasn’t a killer.

  “I wanted to. You can’t imagine how badly I wanted to sometimes, but no.” She tipped mutrient onto the first cube of meat. Then tipped phosphoric acid on top of it. The liquids combined, sizzled a little.

  “I set up an escape plan. New identity. Credits stored away. I was ready, just couldn’t take that final step.” Nika tipped mutrient onto the next piece of meat. Then a larger amount of phosphoric acid. This one sizzled louder.

  Was this a weapon Josune had the stomach to use?

  More mutrient. More acid. A lot more sizzle. Nika scraped away the liquid. Half the meat was gone. She nodded. “Just a little more phosphoric acid.”

  First, she mixed up a salt and lime solution, although Josune wondered how much attention she was paying to it, for she stared at the wall a lot. “I didn’t use the escape plan. Not then, because Alejandro’s boss, Leonard Wickmore, offered to send him off-world. Provided I helped them out occasionally.”

  She turned back to the meat. This time, when she scraped the mix away, the meat was mostly gone.

  Josune shuddered. “Why not just the acid? It will burn.”

  “Mutrient has an affinity for the skin. That’s what it’s for. It binds with both the skin and the acid, takes it right into the skin, not just onto the surface. If you let it go, it will work its way through your body.

  Josune hadn’t known mutrient was so dangerous. She put the blaster she’d been checking down onto the okay pile and picked up the next weapon. “What did helping out Wickmore involve?”

  “Repairing people who couldn’t go to the hospital because someone might ask questions. I don’t know why they bothered to hide it. The police couldn’t do anything.”

  That sounded like the bitter voice of experience.

  “My patients worked for Eaglehawk. Most wore those pins.”

  Maybe Josune could use Nika’s knowledge in her attempt to avenge her crew.

  “The worst of the worst of them was a man called Tamati Woden. He had this scar.” Nika shuddered. “It was supposed to be the last thing you saw before you died. Everyone in Wickmore’s team was terrified of him.” She shuddered again. “He was Alejandro’s hero, so I heard a lot about him, long before I met him.

  “Anyway, Tamati got injured before he could finish a job. He’s an assassin. He came to me because Alejandro had told him I’d made a body exchanger.” She looked at Josune, eyes veiled. “It’s a device that allows your brain to swap bodies for a short time.”

  “Impressive.” Only Nika could casually say she’d made a device that allowed people to switch bodies.

  “It was.”

  Josune nodded.

  “Tamati forced me to swap bodies with him.”

  “He did a job using your body?”

  “While I cured his, yes.”

  “So now you’re wanted for murder?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes, probably.” Nika scooped up the experiment and tossed it into the recycler. Josune wasn’t sure she wanted that corrosive combination in The Road’s recycler. “I’m running from Tamati. He never leaves witnesses.”

  “You think he’ll chase you down and kill you.”

  “I know he will.”

  “I see.” Josune was a realist. She thought Nika might be, too. “You know that one day you might have to kill him.” Because if Nika thought he would chase her till he caught up, he probably would. “And he can mod his body to change his appearance, so even you won’t know what he looks like until he’s about to kill you.”

  “I’ll recognize him.”

  “Nika, anyone can get rid of a scar.” She was a body modder, for goodness’ sakes. She knew that.

  Nika smiled. “He doesn’t have the scar anymore.”

  She was playing with fire. She’d taken away the one advantage she’d had. The scar, which would identify Tamati. “That makes him more—”

  “Distinct. I know what he looks like, Josune, and he can’t change those looks. Not anymore.” She looked around. “Now. Something to neutralize this.”

  She prepared another meat sample and took it over to the Dekker to measure the pH. Then measured the pH of the solution she’d prepared.

  Josune held the beaker for her.

  “He doesn’t blend in, Josune. He’s the best mod I ever did. No one will ever know except me. The body took two years to design. And an hour to redesign it so he can’t hide.” Nika put mutrient on the meat, then the phosphoric acid, and finally the salt solution. The sizzling stopped instantly. “That will work. Now, all we have to do is set up a weapon to spray it.”

  Poor Roystan’s ship if they ever did spray it. “Just don’t shoot it anywhere near a containing wall.” With luck, Brown would come through and they wouldn’t need to use these weapons at all, because they’d never catch every bit of acid spilled.

  Still, if things got that bad, it wouldn’t matter what happened to the ship, would it. Roystan would be devastated.

  She linked in. “Have we heard from Brown’s ship?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We’ve got our solution down here. We’re about to build containers to put them in. How’s everything else?”

  “Quiet.”

  She nodded, and clicked off. “Two containers,” she suggested to Nika. “Each with a nozzle. Spray the mutrient first. Then the acid. And a sprinkle can of the salt solution hanging at our side, ready to grab and spray if this stuff gets past the enemy and falls onto the ship.”

  Add a safety, tuned to the firer’s iris, so that only those from The Road could fire them.

  Nika nodded.

  Josune assembled the makings quickly. She’d watched Nika work, already had an idea of what she needed to contain each liquid. The containers were acid-proof. “What will you do if Tamati comes for you?”

  “I don’t know, Josune. I don’t know.”

  Sometimes, fighting back was the best defense. People like Nika, like Roystan, thought they could run forever. But running was the stupidest thing to do. Ten years on the Hassim had taught her that.

 
* * *

  • • •

  Roystan joined them in engineering as they finished the third makeshift weapon. “I’ll take the Pierre’s memory, in case Brown tries to double-cross us. Josune, you take the Hassim’s memory. It’s rightfully yours anyway. Don’t hand it over until we’re safe on station. Grab a bag of essentials. That’s all we can take.”

  He looked around the engineering workshop. “She’s been a good little ship. The best I’ve ever had. I’ll miss her.”

  “We’ll get you another.”

  “Josune.” He looked around. Looked back at her.

  She was aware of Nika, moving quietly out of the workshop.

  Roystan brushed a gentle finger over her cheek. “I’m sorry about everything. I wish—” He looked into her eyes. “I wish things could have been different for us.”

  Josune stared back into his gaze, not daring to breathe.

  “I’d hoped—” She saw the moment he changed his mind, changed what he was going to say. “I’m asking a lot, but if anything happens. Carlos. He’s been with me years. I—”

  She’d hoped too, but that was stupid, especially in the middle of potential danger. It made her angry. “That’s not very optimistic, Roystan.” What had he been going to say?

  He smiled his crooked smile. “Sometimes you have to think of worst-case scenarios.”

  Sometimes you did. And sometimes all you could do was concentrate on the words. Otherwise you’d be crushed that the other person hadn’t said what you wanted them to say.

  “Jacques might stay with Brown and cook for him. He’d be safe there.”

  Worst-case scenario. “You’re very confident of Brown.”

  “Jed Brown always said Jerome was the best of his offspring.”

  “You’re too soft, Roystan.” She looked at the weapons in front of her. A belt for the Pierre weapons. Nika’s homemade device would fit into a backpack. And Josune’s sparker. “We’re going armed, regardless.”

  No matter what Roystan thought.

  * * *

  • • •

  Brown’s ship arrived twenty-seven minutes later.

  “That’s fast.” Roystan chewed his bottom lip. “I suppose it would be rude to ask them to confirm identification.”

  “It’s never rude when lives are at stake,” Josune said.

  But she hadn’t needed to, for Roystan was already saying, politely, to the captain on-screen, “This is a valuable artifact we’re bringing on board. You understand we need to be sure you are who you say you are. We require proof.”

  “Of course,” the captain agreed, equally politely. “Captain Miles Darcy, of Brown Combine, ship XD-237-Y.” He permitted himself a smile. “Otherwise known as the Dreadlord. Pushing the details through to you now.”

  “Thank you. If you will give us a moment to confirm your credentials.”

  “Of course.”

  Roystan ran the checks. “It’s definitely the Dreadlord.” He tapped the table and frowned. “They’re too early. I don’t like it.”

  Each ship had its own signature. Theoretically, you linked into the ship registry, plugged in the signature, and the registry confirmed or denied the registration. It also sent back public details of the ship. Make, model, registration number. But there were lots of ways to claim to be a ship you weren’t. The easiest was to switch the feed that was returned to the person making the query.

  That sort of switch took company-level hacking skills.

  Josune checked her blaster.

  They were all armed. Nika had three weapons. A stunner, her mutrient, and the triangular class five laser. She’d ducked back to the engineering workshop for wire and glass and spent five minutes working the whole of it into a striking piece of jewelry, which she then fashioned into a pendant.

  Now that was a way to wear a weapon. Publicly, and Josune bet no one would notice it for what it was; they’d be too busy admiring it as a work of art.

  “Two purposes for everything,” Nika had said, when Josune had nodded approvingly. “This one is beauty and function. I hope Snow is right about which way to point the thing.”

  “Aim it low enough and a good modder can put your body back together anyway,” Carlos said. “Isn’t that what you say?”

  “I’m the best modder around here, Carlos. That’s the problem. Who’s going to put me back together?”

  “Hey,” Snow said, but without much force.

  Nika ignored him and looked at Josune. “Your sparker is a slim rod. I can make it a hairpin if you like. No one will recognize it then, either.”

  Josune handed it over. “Just remember, I need to be able to press this button.” She pointed to the small depression that was the sparker control.

  “I’ll angle it so that when you’ve got your hands stuck above your head, you can press down, and zap, bad guy electrocuted.”

  They grinned at each other.

  Nika finished converting the sparker and knotted it into a coil of Josune’s hair at the same time as the two ships connected.

  30

  NIKA RIK TERRI

  Ten days. Or was that eleven? Tamati would be out of the Songyan soon. Nika fingered the laser pendant she wore. A weapon like this might be enough to save her life when Tamati did find her.

  In another few hours, that was all she’d have to worry about again. If they lived that long.

  That, and helping Snow set up a modding studio. She doubted he’d appreciate her help.

  She’d get him another Netanyu. The Songyan wasn’t a machine you bought to learn on. You earned the right to use one, learned the basic machines first.

  Josune and Roystan would go exploring, with Jacques to feed them and Carlos tagging along. Roystan wouldn’t go back to his run, not while Eaglehawk was after him. But before he went anywhere, Nika was going to fix his DNA.

  If he’d let her near him.

  Roystan paced.

  “I’ll be glad to see Josune looking like herself again,” Carlos said.

  Some people clung to the past. “She looks better than she ever has.”

  “She doesn’t look like Josune, that’s all.”

  Nika shrugged. It was unlikely that Josune would ever again look like the Josune that Carlos knew. He’d get used to it.

  Jacques said, “I might offer to cook Brown a meal.”

  “Make sure it’s something we can all eat,” Carlos said. “Not just porridge that Roystan can.”

  “If I’m cooking it for Brown—”

  Roystan cut across Jacques. “If Brown said his ship would be ninety-five minutes, they’ll be ninety-five minutes.”

  Both he and Josune jumped as the linking passage hit the outside of the ship. Their unease was infectious. Nika took out her stunner and made sure her backpack was easily accessible.

  “Both ends secure,” Captain Darcy said. “Dreadlord lock opening.”

  Roystan pulled the handheld from his pocket and opened a link. He keyed in numbers. “I hope I remember the code. I’ve forgotten so much.”

  A startled Jerome Brown came up on-screen. “Where did you get this code?”

  “Your grandfather gave it to me. Apologies for using it, but you said the ship would take ninety-five minutes.”

  “Roystan, I can’t get it to you any faster.”

  “That’s what I thought. It appears to be early. I’m wondering who else you mentioned our deal to. Or if your security is not as secure as you think it is. Would you mind checking where your captain is right now?”

  “It’s not possible. She’s coming from the Antares system. About that code—”

  The airlock clanged as Jacques and Carlos opened it from their end.

  “Jacques. Carlos.” The sudden authority in Roystan’s voice stopped them. “Don’t. It’s a trap. Close the lock.”

  Josune mo
ved before they did. Slammed the door shut. Sealed it.

  “What’s going on?” Brown demanded. “Roystan, are you accusing me of something?”

  Josune jumped to one side.

  The airlock glowed red, started to melt.

  Nika holstered her stunner and reached for the mutrient mix. She felt more comfortable with mutrient.

  Roystan dropped the communicator, grabbed his stunner, and fired as the first suited man came through.

  * * *

  • • •

  The company man went down under Roystan’s stunner, the second under Josune’s blaster.

  Snow took the third one down.

  Silence.

  “They’ll throw something through to gas us,” Roystan said. “Or they’ll take off and leave us open to space.” The airlock was destroyed. “Time to retreat.”

  “Roystan?” The voice came from Roystan’s communicator on the ground. Roystan scooped it up as he went and turned off the link.

  “Split up?” Josune suggested.

  Roystan’s gaze swept them all. Lingered, Nika thought, on herself, Carlos, and Jacques. “It’s safer if we stick together.”

  They backed away, watching the entry.

  No one came through.

  Roystan—the last person out—locked the door behind him.

  “Bridge?” Josune asked.

  “Crew room. We can do everything from there except pilot the ship. The first place they’ll head for is the bridge. There are more weapons in the crew room.”

  Nika looked at him.

  “Jacques’s knives.”

  Jacques’s knives were in the kitbag on Jacques’s back. Including the one Nika had returned.

  “Pots. Things to throw.”

  Jacques’s best pots were dangling from the bottom of his kitbag.

  Josune locked the doors to the crew room. “Locking down the lifts as well.”

  Roystan opened a link and set it to display the airlock and the corridors. “Smoke,” he said, because the airlock was hidden under a thick, slow-moving cloud.

  “Closing down nearby vents,” Josune said, and did, but the first acrid tendrils were already starting to drift into the crew room.