They heard the sound of running feet.
“Oxygen.” Roystan motioned to Jacques and Carlos.
Carlos made for the cupboards. He handed out oxygen.
Men with gas masks emerged from the smoke. Ten, fifteen.
“Gas masks only,” Roystan said. “They think the smoke will be enough to stop us.”
“Lucky this is such an old ship,” Carlos said, as Josune and Roystan worked the controls. “Modern ships wouldn’t have a control center in the crewroom.”
Roystan said, “There’s no luck about it, Carlos. It’s one of the reasons I like this old lady.”
“That one is wearing a pin. Aubergine suit.” Nika squinted to get a better look. He looked familiar. “The ones with pins are the more dangerous.”
“We should cut oxygen to the bridge,” Josune said.
Roystan ran his hands through his hair. “That leaves us vulnerable. We’ll have to carry oxygen.”
“We’re carrying it now,” Carlos pointed out.
“Well, whatever we do, don’t any of us get in the way of a blaster, or there’ll be one almighty explosion.”
Their enemy reached the bridge.
Roystan slid the door closed behind them. Locked it. “It won’t hold them long.”
Indeed, it wasn’t going to hold them at all, for Aubergine Suit was issuing instructions.
They watched as more people came through the damaged airlock.
Aubergine Suit, on the bridge, shoved aside the man trying to open the door. He took out his weapon and blasted the lock.
The door didn’t open but dented enough to allow them to force it.
Carlos watched the feed, then hefted a blaster in one hand and a stunner in the other. “We’re stuck. They can destroy these doors and we have no way out. All we can do is take them out as they come in, and hope they use one door at a time.”
This was one time when Nika would have preferred fewer than three doors into the crew room. They had to survive here until Brown’s ship arrived, even after they defeated these people.
If they defeated them.
“Suits on,” Roystan said. “Keep your arms free, and helmets off for the moment, but if your suit starts beeping, let it seal. If they destroy The Road, wait until Brown’s ship arrives, then turn on your emergency beacon. And let’s hide the memory for the moment. Wouldn’t do for this lot to get them.”
“Good idea.” Josune stowed both the Hassim and the Pierre memory sticks behind separate panels, well apart.
The company men had spread out around the ship. “Find their secondary bridge,” Aubergine Suit said. “Wrap this up fast. Brown’s ship isn’t far away. I want only debris by the time it arrives.” He turned to the men working unsuccessfully to override the controls. “There’s six of them, and twenty of you. And don’t forget, we need them alive. I’m going back to the Dreadlord.”
“I can take him out before he reaches the airlock,” Josune said.
“No,” Nika and Roystan said together.
“He’s wearing a pin,” Nika said. Josune would get slaughtered.
“Those, then.” Josune tapped two men in a nearby corridor. “Open that door there.” She pointed to it.
Roystan hesitated, and Josune slipped out before he could say no.
They watched on the screen. She fired around the corner. Two men went down. She was back before the bodies stopped moving.
Roystan looked green. “You’re very good at this.”
“We learned to be, Roystan. To stay alive.”
Nika gripped her own makeshift weapon and waited. They would fight soon. She was ready.
At least, she hoped she was.
There were three exits to the crew room. Josune used another exit to surprise two more. She managed to hit one. The other was scarily fast. She only just managed to avoid being shot, and that was because Roystan had ducked out after her.
“That was too close. No games from here.”
“They’ll corner us eventually. The fewer people out there when we do, the better.”
“We don’t want fewer of us, though. We need delaying tactics. We have to give Brown time to get here.” Roystan put a hand on Josune’s arm. “Your people survived three days. We can do this, but we need you alive to show us how.”
Josune took out one of the homemade weapons. “This is how they survived, Roystan. Picking them off, one by one. Otherwise, when Brown’s ship arrives, they’ll pick us off while we load. And probably Brown’s crew as well.”
Nika watched the screen. There were so many of them. Enough to guard the stairways, enough to search the rooms. Josune was right. Doing nothing was deadly, and it wouldn’t take long to be discovered.
If she was going to die here, she would go down fighting.
She held up her mutrient pack. “Let’s at least take out the ones on the stairs. Roystan can lock any intervening doors. Josune can keep the ones on this floor occupied, while I do the stairs.”
“We don’t have time to think about it,” Josune told Roystan. “Or we’ll lose our opportunity. We can’t stay here and wait to be caught.”
“You’re both certifiable. All of us are.” Roystan slammed doors shut all over the ship. “Go. Stairs only, Nika. Don’t go down.”
Nika ducked through the exit close to the stairs. Two of the enemy turned into the passageway as she did so. Both raised their weapons. A beam of light shot over her shoulder. One of the guards went down. Nika glanced back. Josune. The second guard went down. Snow.
She ran to the stairs, aiming both nozzles, spraying liberally even before she reached the steps. Mutrient and acid splattered on the stairway and surrounding walls. The mixture started to sizzle. Someone screamed. She could hear blaster fire getting closer.
Snow grabbed her arm and pushed her back toward the crew room. “Go.”
The door slammed behind them. Josune came in another door at the same time.
“Enough.” Roystan had a greenish tinge to his mouth again. “We’ll pick off the rest as they try to get into this room.”
“It was close,” Josune agreed breathlessly. “Thanks, Snow.” She looked at the screens. “Did it work?”
Roystan pointed wordlessly to the stairway. Two men were down, both screaming, scrubbing at their faces. He put his two containers to one side. “I think I’ll stick to my blaster.”
“I am going to look at modders in an entirely different way after this,” Carlos said.
“We’re not all crazy,” Snow said.
“Glad to hear it.” Roystan indicated the men converging on the crew room. “Be prepared. I’m sorry it came to this, in the end.” He checked the locks on all doors into the crew room.
“Jacques, with me.” Jacques moved to his side, a meat cleaver held firmly in one hand, a blaster loosely in the other.
“Josune, you and Nika at door two. Snow, Carlos, door three. Be ready.”
They moved into position. “Remember, they want us alive.”
They might not be as gentle as they would have been had they given up without a fight, but none of them would go quietly. Neither would Nika. This was Eaglehawk. They gave no mercy.
The man who’d been left in charge was giving orders. “Melt the locks. Take them down.” Nika readied her mutrient sprayer.
Roystan’s door opened first. His blasts hit the two lead men in the chest. Nika’s door opened. She and Josune brought their weapons up, spraying indiscriminately, emptying their backpacks. The men clawed at their faces, howling.
Josune had her blaster out, and her sparker. She put them out of their misery.
Snow dived for the weapons on the floor, then rolled to avoid being blasted by one of the three men left standing. She scattered the weapons and rolled again to avoid another blast.
“Left, Snow, left. Roll left,” Nika yelled,
because he was about to roll into blaster fire.
Roystan aimed for the man firing at Snow.
Nika smelled burned flesh and heard a grunt of pain from Roystan. She aimed her empty mutrient weapon at one. He backed away. She needed to get to the mutrient mix Roystan had put to one side.
Snow dropped him with the stunner.
Nika pulled out her blaster, fumbled, and dropped it. She bent down to grab it.
Electricity arced beside her. Josune’s sparker.
The power went out.
Something heavy thunked over near Roystan. Fist hitting flesh. A grunt.
“Everyone all right?” Roystan asked.
A long orange beam of blaster light flared out, catching Roystan, the force of it turning him before he dropped. The light kept going. On around to Josune, who dived, but not fast enough. Snow dropped seconds later.
Nika was out the door before the beam found her. She ran. To the stairs, and up.
Exposed wire dangled at the top of the stairs.
Nika ducked under it but fell forward as a hand closed around her ankle.
“Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Come quietly now, and I may think about letting you live.” Her captor wasn’t smiling.
Nika dug her heels in, resisting the pull. Above them, the exposed wire sparked.
She had the laser, which she couldn’t get to in time, hampered as she was by the space suit.
She did have oxygen, and oxygen and sparks were a bad combination.
There was a breach door between the two of them and the rest of the ship. It would close with the explosion. If the others weren’t dead, they might have a chance. She had seconds.
She kicked out.
Her captor let her go. “We don’t need you all. Come quietly, or don’t come at all.”
Nika nodded and stood up. She pulled off her oxygen tank and aimed the nozzle at the spark above them.
She saw the moment it caught, and knew it was futile but snapped the helmet down on her suit. The force of the explosion hit her and blasted them both down the stairs.
The breach doors slammed shut in front of her, closing out the fire. Wrong way. She staggered upright.
The man beside her groaned. The only weapon she had was her helmet. She used it, bringing her head around to meet his in a hard crunch. He went down.
Alarms sounded all over the ship.
Something hit her with a force so bad she almost didn’t realize that part of the pain was the prickle of a stunner.
31
NIKA RIK TERRI
Nika regained consciousness to the sound of Jacques shouting.
She opened her eyes.
Jacques crashed against the bars. “I will kill you.”
Bars? She squinted. Honest-to-goodness bars. Wall-to-ceiling. They were in a cell.
Nika looked around. It was literally a bare space with nothing in it. The cell bars separated them from the other half of the room. Guards stood on either side of the outside doorway. Two chairs occupied center stage. A stage to view the prisoners.
Aubergine Suit sat in one of the chairs. Nika recognized him, now she saw him in the flesh. Benedict, Wickmore had called him. He’d been one of her clients, and Wickmore had waited all the time he’d been in the tank. After Nika had taken him out, Wickmore had leaned forward, taken a vial out of his pocket, and tossed it in Benedict’s face.
Acid. That was where she’d learned that acid could be a weapon.
“You made a mistake, Benedict,” Wickmore had said. “Make that your last mistake.” He’d stood up. “Don’t clean it up,” he’d told Nika as he walked out. “Or you’ll get the same.”
She shivered now, remembering. Wickmore had been charming. Like Alejandro.
The acid burn on Benedict’s face was gone. He’d found his way back into favor with Executive Wickmore. He’d also had work done. The squareness to his jaw, almost as telltale as the gleaming teeth. SaStudio.
But it wasn’t Benedict that Jacques was screaming at. It was a woman standing to one side. Dark-eyed and tired, with no expression on her face at all.
“Come over here, you coward. See how brave you are when you have to face us.”
Nika crawled to her knees. Carlos and Roystan were on the floor behind her. Neither moved. Josune sat propped up against the far wall. Her left side was burned, from the cheek down. Nika’s beautiful patterning ravaged. At least the blaster hadn’t gotten as high as the eye. She managed to smile as Nika looked at her. It must hurt.
They’d been stripped of their old clothes and were wearing uniform brown coveralls. Strangely, they’d left Nika with her pendant.
Or maybe not so strange. Expensive jewelry—and this looked expensive—was ID-chipped. If they were still inside the legal zone, and Nika could claim ownership to her “jewelry,” she could take it to the Justice Department and bring a case of theft against the company. Smaller things than that had tripped up companies before.
Not that Nika had any illusions about being allowed to go free. Not with what had happened so far, but any smart company would play it safe until they’d disposed of the bodies.
Snow had a burn across his shoulder and down his back, but it didn’t look too bad. He knelt beside Roystan.
“You’re nothing but a thief.” Jacques tore at the bars, trying to rip them out. “Let me out of here, Pol, so I can kill you.”
Pol. Nika looked at the woman again. She was as tall as Josune, but bulkier. She had a silver tint to her skin, and the curves Nika had made fashionable three seasons ago. So, a body mod, but not too recently. Pol’s hair was black, cropped short. A cheap job; a good modder would have silvered the hair to match.
Jacques rattled the bars again. “You sold us out. And now you have the cheek to stand here and gloat.”
“I’m not gloating, Jacques.” Pol pretended disinterest, but she stood tense.
Nika crawled toward Snow, using the time to catalog her own injuries. Major burns over a third of the lower half of her body, mostly down the left side. They’d turn septic if they weren’t treated. She was as bad as Josune.
She stopped at Carlos. He’d taken a full spray. Fifty percent burns. Luckily for him, most were only second-degree. But he was in a bad way. How did a blaster do that sort of damage?
She moved on to Roystan.
Snow looked at her, shook his head.
Unfortunately, she agreed with his prognosis. If Roystan didn’t get into a body tank in the next three hours there was nothing she could do for him. She nodded, glad Jacques was otherwise preoccupied, and Carlos was out.
Josune crawled over to join them. They were all in bad shape. Jacques and Snow looked to be the only two capable of standing.
Benedict stood and walked down the line of the cage. Nika waited, tense. His gaze rested on each of them in turn, cold and malevolent.
“You have put me in a very difficult situation, and I am most unhappy about that.” He walked the length of the cage again, stopping to look at Jacques. “Unfortunately, I need you alive.”
He continued his slow walk. Was that meant to unnerve them? Because if it was, it was working. Nika tried to make herself small.
Benedict fixed his gaze on Snow. “Keeping you alive does not mean keeping you whole. You will wish you were dead soon enough.” He turned his gaze back to Jacques. “I don’t mind doing this the hard way. You have caused me a lot of trouble.”
Nika bet they had. Wickmore didn’t give second chances. Benedict was dead if he didn’t deliver.
“Captain Feyodor jumped directly to your ship. I want to know why. What did she find that took her to Pisces III and caused her to send a spy to your ship?”
Nika kept her gaze on Benedict, glad Josune looked different now. Pol would have pointed her out if she’d recognized her.
Benedict turned and walked back
to stop in front of Nika. “Perhaps you can tell me.”
She shook her head.
Jacques rattled the bars one final time. “Feyodor jumped to escape your people, who were killing her. She didn’t set a course.” He had been listening. “If you haven’t worked that out, how do you expect to work anything else out?”
Josune took a deep breath. Nika was glad she kept silent. Did she know she hadn’t been recognized? Of course she did. Josune wasn’t stupid.
Benedict ignored Jacques and kept watching Nika.
Josune’s face was a mask, but her fist clenched. Nika half expected her to go for her sparker there and then. It was crazy, but they’d left her the sparker too. Another expensive piece of jewelry they worried would be ID’d. Nika pressed her lips together to prevent a smile. Two purposes for everything.
Benedict had to have seen Josune’s reaction, but he ignored her and kept his gaze on Nika.
“Feyodor found something. Something she didn’t tell her crew. Wouldn’t you call that strange?”
He was hypnotic. She couldn’t look away.
“My people spent three days on the Hassim. We hunted down the crew. We tortured them. They died slowly. They knew nothing. We recorded everything. I’ve been over those records fifty times. That was no random setting she jumped to.” His smile hardened. “There was only one thing at that location. Your ship. And Arriola.”
Jacques broke the spell. “Tell him, Pol. He’s nuts.”
“He’s telling the truth, Jacques.”
Benedict continued as if they hadn’t interrupted. “And when the Hassim arrives at that location, there you are waiting for us. You board my ship. You kill my men. You take my ship, and you sell it.”
Josune gripped the bars. “It never was your ship!” If she gripped any tighter she’d break her fingers.
Please let Josune not say anything that would make Benedict realize who she is.
This time Benedict did look at her. “Salvage law, my dear. There was no one left alive on that ship.” His smile was all teeth. “There will be no one left alive on your ship either. But we are not wasteful. As long as you answer my questions, I’m sure we can come to some other arrangement. No one needs to get hurt.”
Stars Uncharted Page 29