by King, Sara
“There!” Milar released his hold on her neck and backed away. “You think you’re the first coaler bastard we’ve operated on, Princess?”
Patrick released her head and withdrew, allowing her a good look of the thing they’d removed from her. Tatiana could only stare at the object in shock. Milar held the government chip out triumphantly before her, grasped in a pair of multi-tool pliers, the four foot-long filaments glistening pink with blood, twitching like legs and feelers on an insect. As she watched, he squeezed the pliers and crushed the circuitry. She saw little crackles of electricity sizzle down the coppery wires before they went still. Staring at it, she could only manage, “That’s programmed to kill me if it’s removed before my enlistment is up.”
“Just a myth,” Patrick said. He wiped away the blood that was now running down her backbone from Milar’s ministrations. Then he hesitated. “Well, sorta. It could’ve killed you, but we’ve done it enough times we pretty much got the hang of it. Gotta knock out the battery cap before you start pulling anything out, otherwise it’ll start frying neurons.”
“You actually pulled out my lifeline?” Tatiana had never been so unnerved in her life. “Are you the reason Coalition fighters keep disappearing on Fortune? What are you doing with them? Using them for sick experiments? What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you know the Coalition’s gonna hunt you down and make you scream like little babies?” Then she blinked. “You’re the rebel brothers they just put out the bulletin on.”
Milar’s sneer—followed by the re-application of his beetle-green sunglasses—was all she needed to confirm her assessment.
Oh crap. Send Aunt Cherry a good form-letter, try not to mess up her eulogy, pick her a pretty casket with some purple in it, ‘cause she was toast, baby. Tatiana could see it in his eyes. They were gonna kill her. Or worse.
Milar grunted and wrapped big fingers around the insectlike chip. He sheathed his knife. “Take her back to the ship. I’ll take care of things here.”
Tatiana’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘take care of things?’”
For all his reverential staring earlier, Milar’s bow was now filled with harsh sarcasm. His ridiculously long leather coat brushed at his ankles as he bent at the waist. “To stage your heroic and tragic death, of course.” His eyes caught on the lapel of her emergency jumpsuit and his face contorted in a sneer. “Captain.”
“Easy,” Patrick said, though if it was meant for Milar or, Tatiana, she couldn’t be sure. Then it hit her. Her death? Tatiana froze. “Oh, you are not that stupid.” Was he? A soldier was worth a fortune, but on the other hand, an operator was worth a pretty penny too, just for the tech she carried in her body. Besides, if they blew up her soldier, nobody would know what happened to her…
Straightening, Gigantor smiled. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we, sweetie.”
Tatiana’s eyes narrowed. “Who wears sunglasses at night, anyway? You look like a lobotomized space monkey who found fashion in a cheap adventure mag. Where’d you get the leather jacket, knucker? A dead walrus?”
Behind the sunglasses, Milar’s face was flat. “Off a dead Nephyr.”
Tatiana laughed in his face. “Yeah, right. You? A Nephyr? Next you’ll be telling me collies bathe regularly and power cores crawl outta your ass.”
“All right,” Patrick said much too quickly, tugging her away from the bristling leather-clad thug. “Let’s go before you get yourself scalped, okay?” Then, despite Tatiana’s frantic kicks and struggles, the big man began to push her into the darkness of the sticky alien forest, away from her soldier.
“Let go of me!” Tatiana cried. “I am one of the best Coalition operators in my Pod. If I go missing…” They’ll what? she thought, verging on despair. Train a new one? There were over sixty operators in this section of space. Not many, but not irreplaceable, either. Tatiana’s supreme ability to mesh with metal and AI would be missed, but not mourned.
Especially when they discovered she freaked out again.
No!
“Let go!” When she landed another good kick to his shin, Patrick’s breath hissed between his teeth and he stopped, spinning her to face him. They were well out of sight of the fire and there was no sound but the buzzing of alien insects. Tatiana went utterly still as he glared down at her, every molecule of her being suddenly aware that she was Coalition and he was a colonist and they were four thousand miles from any authorities. Even in the cities, Coalition fighters who ran afoul of the locals went missing at night and their bodies washed up in the Shrieker lakes, or they were uncovered in the bog pits, or were simply never found at all.
“Listen,” Patrick said, squeezing her shoulder, “No offense, lady, but if you kick me again, I’m gonna sock ya one.” He provided a sizeable fist at eye-level, for her careful consideration.
“Take me back to my soldier,” she said, locking gazes with him, pointedly avoiding the fist hovering near her nose.
“No. I’m taking you to see Wideman Joe.”
“Wiseman who? Listen, knucker, do you have any idea of the kind of deep shit you’re getting yourself into? Removing a lifeline’s a federal crime. They’ll come down on you so hard it’ll make your head spin.” She glared up at him, but was distracted by the constant, nagging dribble of blood down her back. “And I’m bleeding, jackass. Fix it.”
“I got some nanostrips on the ship,” Patrick said. He grabbed her elbow and started walking again, tugging her with him.
Tatiana had the choice to follow or have the metal bands cut deeper into her wrists. She struggled over the alien landscape, her small size and bare feet making it difficult to keep up.
She froze when she saw the ship. A colonial ultralight cargo ship, it was nevertheless capable of transporting her across the globe. And, with the Coalition only having thirty six Yolk factories and four major cities on a planet larger than Old Earth, Patrick was quite literally telling the truth—the Coalition would never find her.
“Come on,” Patrick said, giving her a gentle tug on her arm. “It’ll work out.”
“You are so dead,” she whispered, but she followed him up the steps.
Inside, Patrick motioned her over to one corner of the cramped and cluttered cargo bay, then pressed the button to shut the door and seal them inside.
“Might as well get comfortable,” Patrick said, dragging a heavy metal chair between her and the door. He sat down and reached under his grungy leather jacket to pull out an age-worn, rectangular—
“Is that a book?” Tatiana asked, a bit shocked. Never in a million years would she have guessed that a colonist would have carted something as clumsy as a book across five years of space. Even back in the Inner Bounds, it was a rare find. The last printing press had gone out of business many centuries ago.
Patrick grunted.
“Why?” Tatiana demanded. “They’re so…” Useless, bulky, old…
“The Coalition banned the great philosophers on electronic media,” Patrick said. He held it up. The cover read, The Life and Works of Ghani Klyde. He smiled. “This is one of the only copies left, though a friend of mine has been translating them back onto electronic formats.”
Tatiana realized her mouth was hanging open. “You’ve got Ghani…Klyde? In your hands?” Never mind that a two-bit colonist on some nowhere planet in the Outer Bounds could even read Ne’vanthi. Tatiana herself could barely read it, and she’d spent two years stationed outside the Ne’vanthi capital during the Pauper Rebellion.
“Yep.” Patrick proceeded to crack open the ancient tome and his golden-brown eyes started to scan the words upon the aged pages.
Tatiana was so shocked by this new development that she didn’t know whether to laugh at his bluff or run away screaming. It had to be the former, she decided. Colonists were not that smart. If her briefings were any indications, they were spear-toting Neanderthals who threw rocks at soldiers when they were hungry.
“Ghani Klyde was a traitor,” Tatiana blurted. “He brainwashed the Circle
’s children into rebellion just by writing a few lines in his blog.” It made the fact that Patrick was holding his words as they were meant to be read all that more unbelievable. A bluff, she decided. He’s bluffing.
“Uh-huh,” Patrick said, nodding. “He was a traitor. He was also a tactical genius. He masterminded one of the most efficient war machines in the known universe.”
Mercy of the Phage, Tatiana thought, in horror, He’s actually read the damn thing.
When she could only stare at him, Patrick returned his attention to the book.
Still, Tatiana was suspicious. “Where did you learn Ne’vanthi?”
“Friend taught me,” Patrick said.
She estimated that maybe ten people on Fortune, aside from Tatiana, had actually been to the slave-trading nowhere-planet of Ne’vanth. Tatiana narrowed her eyes, once more beginning to suspect that this was somehow a ruse. “What friend?”
“You wouldn’t know her.”
Deciding to call his bluff, Tatiana said, “Miserable gakeii.”
Patrick jerked his head up, raising a brow. “I always liked that one,” he said, in Ne’vanthi. “The Ne’vanthi have such…colorful…curses.” While his Coalition New Common had about as much refinement as her Fleet Admiral’s gangrenous toenails, Patrick’s Ne’vanthi was flawless. It made her Ne’vanthi look like the random hooting of an inbred chimpanzee. Tatiana stared at him, jaw agape.
Patrick went back to his book.
Tatiana’s curiosity piqued despite herself. She eased herself around Patrick’s chair and glanced over his shoulder, wondering if she could bite out a jugular before he beat her to death with his big metal chair…
Patrick snapped the book shut and scowled. “Like hell I’m letting you get behind me, coaler.” He jabbed a meaty finger across the room. “Go. Now.”
Glaring, Tatiana began to trudge back and forth along the far wall, eying the exit, wondering if she could press the unlock switch and get outside before the brute caught her. Damned little chance of that, with her hands trussed behind her like a Troop-Day turkey. She could still feel blood dripping down her fingers, and it was getting worse, despite how much she tried to keep her hands still.
“Pacing isn’t going to get you out of here.”
“Screw you, knucker.” She paced harder.
Patrick sighed, “Well, at least have the decency to bleed in one place.” He motioned at the line of ruby droplets she had spread across the floor of his ship, squished and smeared by her bare feet.
Seeing that much blood, Tatiana suddenly felt nauseous. She stopped pacing.
“Thank you,” he said. He looked like he was going to say more, but the sound of an explosion made him jerk.
Tatiana grinned. “My cavalry,” she said. “I hope you’re ready to expand your horizons, rebel, because the Nephyrs are gonna tear you a new hole.”
“Naw,” he said, turning back to the book he was reading. “Milar just killed you.”
Tatiana froze. “My soldier…” Its loss was like a pang of ice, stabbing her in the stomach.
He grunted. Didn’t look up from the book.
“You bastard!” she stammered. “That’s a billion-dollar machine! You could’ve…sold it or something! Why’d you have to blow it up?!”
“One less coaler war-machine to worry about.” He kept reading.
Scowling, Tatiana went back to pacing. As the minutes ticked by, her soldier burning, the chances of rescue by the Coalition growing increasingly slimmer by the second, Tatiana struggled for something to say that would somehow change his mind.
“I can pay you,” she muttered.
“Not enough, pumpkin.” Patrick turned another page.
Irritated by his distinct lack of concern, Tatiana narrowed her eyes and forgot her attempts to negotiate. “There’s nowhere on this planet that you can hide from the Coalition. It’s got the fastest ships, the biggest guns, and the most brains. When the Nephyrs get you, they’re gonna make you scream for days before they let you die.”
“Uh-huh.” He sounded bored, but she could tell by the sudden tightness in the colonist’s face that some aspect of what she had said had gotten through to him.
He is afraid of Nephyrs, Tatiana realized with delight. Most people were, she reasoned. Psychotic bastards that they were. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use them to her advantage. She continued on gleefully, “The last treason correction I saw, the guy lasted four weeks. A rebel. The Nephyrs strung him up and tore off skin until you couldn’t see anything but muscle underneath. They had him in a sealed room, see. Everything was sterilized. Humidified. IV fluids. No chance of infection. It was friggin’ awesome.”
She was lying, of course—Tatiana had never been able to find the stomach to watch a correction, any correction, but her fellow operators had raved about them enough that she had a pretty good idea of what went on.
“I have tapes if you want to see it,” she prodded. “It’ll give you a good idea of what’s coming to you, collie bastard.”
Patrick slammed his book shut and scowled at her. “You talk a lot, for something I could squish with my pinkie.”
Tatiana narrowed her eyes. “Skinned alive.” She showed her teeth. “That’s what’s gonna happen to you if you don’t let me—”
Patrick was out of his chair in an instant, and Tatiana gulped as he strode forward and forced her into the wall.
With one hand planted on either side of her head, he leaned forward, until their faces were almost touching. “You wanna talk about torture? Let me tell you about torture. It happened to my sister. A regiment of Coalition forces kidnapped her when she was working ryegrass in the fields. We found her corpse buried a mile from their campsite, once the regiment moved on.”
Tatiana met his gaze stare-for stare. “Shouldn’t have been a rebel.”
He gave her a mirthless grin. “Yeah.” He reached up and picked a sticky twig off the dark blue fabric of her all-purpose soldier’s jumpsuit, then flicked it off to the side. When he met her gaze, his amber-brown eyes were hard. “See, only thing was Carol wasn’t a rebel. Never had a bad thought toward the Coalition in her life. That regiment took fourteen women from our settlement that day, all pretty girls. Hauled them from their homes, calling them traitors, but it weren’t no secret why they took ‘em. They were bored and they were Coalition, so they could do whatever the hell they wanted. Called it a ‘correction’ and all was right with the world.”
Tatiana swallowed, hard, and looked away, a sick feeling forming in her gut. “You’re lying,” she muttered. Yet she’d heard the rumors, read the logs, listened to the dark confessions over too much drink…
Patrick grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “Of the eight that came home alive, all but two were pregnant.” His smile was bitter, now. “Only reason they weren’t pregnant was ‘cause they were too young.”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He scanned her face, his eyes still hard. “Just cut the bullshit, okay? Milar would return the favor in a heartbeat, if he heard you talking about torturing folks like that.” His face tightened in a wry grimace. “Knowing what you bastards did to her, sometimes I think I would, too.”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Patrick released her roughly. “Whatever.” With a parting scowl, he went back to his chair.
Tatiana licked her lips. “I really didn’t—”
“Just shut up.” He picked up his book again. “You open your mouth again and I’ll gag you.”
Feeling cold, Tatiana slid down the wall and drew her knees up under her chin. “Sorry,” she said again. “Really.”
Patrick gave her a dark scowl, but stayed in his seat.
Milar strode onto the ship almost twenty minutes later.
“What the hell took so long?” Patrick demanded as soon as he saw his brother.
Milar glanced at Tatiana, who hadn’t moved from the wall, then glanced at Patrick, still in his chair, then grunted and pushed the
button to shut the door and seal them inside. As he did, the sleeve of his black leather overcoat slid back far enough to expose the glistening scarlet and ebony scales of dual dragons, twining up his arm.
They must cover most of his chest, Tatiana thought, eying the dragons’ limbs that peeked above his shirt, clawing up his neck, locked in perpetual battle across his throat.
Then Milar turned from the hatch, took off his sunglasses, and locked eyes with her. In that instant, Tatiana forgot to breathe. There was such malevolence in his gaze that she felt like she was going to puke. He looks like he wants to kill me, Tatiana thought, sinking into the wall under the stare. She saw his dragony fist clench once.
“Miles?” Patrick asked, tentative, now.
Milar held Tatiana’s gaze for what seemed like an eternity. In that time, Tatiana felt the cold metal of the wall behind her pressing into her spine as she shrank backwards, trying to avoid the sheer hatred she found in his gaze. Suddenly, saying nothing, Milar jammed his shades into his pocket, stalked across the room, climbed the scaffolding to the upper deck, and disappeared through the hatch above, slamming his fist on the airlock panel to seal himself inside the cockpit.
Patrick frowned at the cockpit, then at Tatiana, then, after a moment, stood up and walked over to the scaffolding. “Miles?” he called up the stairs.
He got no response. After a few minutes, the ship jolted and she felt her stomach lurch as they took to the air. Patrick frowned up at the cockpit, but didn’t leave Tatiana alone in the hold. Pity.
“What are you going to do with me?” Tatiana asked, after it was clear Milar wasn’t coming back. On an alien planet, on an enemy ship, away from the safety of her soldier, she felt more alone than ever before. It hadn’t truly hit her how much danger she was in until she felt the thrust of the engines lift her away from her last known whereabouts, destined for some unknown part of a planet filled with uneducated barbarians who hated her on sight.
Patrick turned away from his brother’s abrupt and moody disappearance—probably another mineral deficiency, she thought with glee—with a scowl. Tatiana froze, remembering what he had promised should she continue to speak. “I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet.”