Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising

by King, Sara

  I should give him the gun, she thought, panic a hard lump in her throat. At least if she gave him the gun, he wouldn’t hurt her.

  “That’s right,” he said softly, like he was talking to a wild animal. He held out his hand, still inching forward. “Gimme the gun, darling. That’s it.”

  Magali felt the wall end behind her, leaving her stuck in a rocky niche with no way out. The big man continued to close, murmuring soothing sounds.

  He’s not going to stop, she thought, horror racing through her veins. More than half of her wanted to throw the gun down at his feet and collapse into a terrified ball against the wall. The other half was screaming at her to pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull it now. There were too many similarities to Anna in Martin’s flat, dead eyes that managed, despite the smile, to carry a cold threat within them.

  Recognizing this, Magali’s terror grew. If he was anything like Anna, she would pay dearly for bruising his pride. Anna did not take slights to her pride gracefully. Cruelty was second nature.

  And, looking into his eyes, Magali saw that same intellect, that same utter psychopathic confidence.

  “Please don’t come any closer,” Magali whispered. “I’ll shoot you if you come any closer.” Instinct was warring with dread, and it was all she could do not to drop the weapon in the slime. She squeezed her finger on the trigger just to the point of firing.

  Seeing that, Martin paused. The grin faded from his face, replaced with wariness. “Okay, I’ll stop,” he said, holding up his big hands. “Easy.”

  Seeing his feet had stopped moving, Magali let out the breath she had been holding. “Thank you.”

  “I just want us to be friends,” he said, watching her anxiously. “We know you ain’t gonna shoot me, else you wouldn’t look like a terrified starlope. Just put the gun down and we’ll talk, okay?”

  Reluctantly, she lowered the barrel.

  Martin grinned at her. “There. See? Friends. That’s all I wanted. Nothin’ nefarious. You can keep the gun, if it’ll make you feel better. I just wanted to instill some reason, that’s all. You seem like a nice enough gal. I’ve got a ship nearby and I’d be happy to let you hitch a ride outta the Yolk camp.”

  Magali’s relief was so great she was shaking. “You’ll help me escape?”

  Martin’s response was a grin.

  Her eyes fell to the smuggler. “What about Joel? If we leave him here, the Nephyrs are going to kill him.”

  Martin’s face twisted in a grimace. “Frankly, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings none.”

  “I want to take him with us,” Magali said. “Is there room on your ship for two?”

  Martin gave her a long, analyzing look. “Is that a request or an order, little girl?”

  Under his glare, she cringed. “A request.” Then she quickly babbled, “But I am the one with the gun.”

  He laughed, but his eyes were cold black diamonds. “Yeah. I see that. Kind of funny that you ain’t dead yet, eh?”

  …that you ain’t dead yet? Then, as Magali began to frown at that, Martin lunged.

  Reflex drove Magali’s arm up, and instinct did the rest. Just as she’d been taught on countless paper targets, she squeezed off four beams in a tight, smoky cluster over Martin’s heart. One after the other, each with a three second recharge delay. Martin’s eyes were wide with confusion and, as the fourth shot hit home, as his knees buckled under him, blood pumping down the front of his shirt in scarlet waves. An instant later, he was face-down in the slime, motionless, the deep red of his lifeblood making ruby puddles in the transparent Shrieker mucus.

  Killer, Wideman’s voice whispered to her.

  Horrified, Magali threw the gun across the room, sucking in huge, gasping breaths of disbelief. Then, as the full implications of what she had done dawned upon her, she slid to the floor and emptied her lungs in a sob.

  Chapter 29

  Escape from Rath

  It had been easier than Tatiana had thought. Milar had just tapped the Nephyr guarding the compound with the wand when he reached for him, and the Nephyr had collapsed in a blubbery mass of circuitry.

  Milar had dragged the Nephyr all the way back to his cell and made Tatiana shut the door. “This way, squid,” he whispered, leading them out the back, deeper into the Nephyr block.

  “Where are you going?” Tatiana hissed back at him. “We should be going the other way!”

  “I’ve gotten out of here before,” Milar reminded her. “Just keep quiet and stay with me.”

  “But there’s nothing but barracks rooms—” she started, confused.

  “Shhh,” Milar said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  He didn’t, as it turned out.

  After blundering through thirty different hallways, narrowly avoiding getting caught by Nephyrs going to and from their barracks rooms and the chow hall, Milar finally stopped, face torn in confusion. “There used to be a trash terminal here.”

  “Yeah,” Tatiana said, fuming. “I’ve been trying to tell you that, dweeb.”

  He peered down at her, clearly confused. “What?”

  “This section of the base got an overhaul last year. Somebody decided the trash depot wasn’t secure, so they replaced it with a barracks unit.”

  Milar cursed. “That was the only way out. The spaceport’s so tightly locked down you couldn’t get a mouse in there, much less a ship. There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s not true,” Tatiana said.

  “It is true,” Milar growled. “Anna studied this place for two weeks before she found a way out.”

  “I don’t know who Anna is,” Tatiana said, “But there’s gotta be another way.”

  Milar snorted.

  Then, suddenly, the base alarm began to blaze around them, lighting up the walls with flashes of red, raising goosebumps along Tatiana’s arms with the screeching wail. Behind them, someone raised a shout. They heard footsteps running in another hall, going the other direction.

  Milar’s entire body, however, had gone as stiff as if the Nephyrs had burst into the hall with them and charged. Every ounce of amusement in him was gone. His gaze flickered back and forth, and his breathing had become strained. He was beginning to act like a cornered animal.

  “They’re going to catch us both,” he whispered.

  The way Milar was looking at her, his knuckles white on the EMP wand, Tatiana realized it was time to take things into her own hands before the bastard decided they were both safer dead.

  “We can still get out of this,” Tatiana said.

  “I’ve backed us into a corner,” Milar said. “I should’ve listened to you. Now we’re both going to die, if not here, then back in the cells with the Nephyrs.”

  He’s going to do it, Tatiana thought, horrified. If she didn’t stop him, Milar was going to EMP her and slit her throat.

  Though she didn’t have a plan, Tatiana forced as much calm into her voice and said, “Would you stop being stupid for just one minute, collie? That Colonel was on the night shift. That is the base alarm, not the section alarm. Those Nephyrs are probably off to chase some smuggler or something. Nobody knows I rescued you, else they would’ve fried my brain by now.”

  The panic in Milar’s eyes cleared a bit.

  “Now,” Tatiana said with as much firm authority and calm derision as she could fit into her voice, “if you’re done blubbering, maybe we could try out my plan?”

  His eyes narrowed as he glanced down at her. “I thought you didn’t have a plan.”

  “I didn’t,” Tatiana snorted. “But you sure as Hell gave me enough time to form one, while I was spending the last twenty minutes following you around in circles. Give me the wand.”

  “Coaler, don’t play with me,” he growled. “I’m going to need it.”

  “To use it on me?” she demanded.

  His eyes flickered away. He’s scared, Tatiana thought.

  “Come on,” she said, throwing her hand out between them insistently. “Give.”

  S
he saw his fist tighten on it as he cast a look down the corridor ahead of them. For a moment, it looked like he was going to use the wand on her anyway. Then, reluctantly, Milar handed it over. “Good,” Tatiana said, collapsing it and closing her fist over it. “I just stopped you from doing something really stupid. You can thank me later.” She turned on heel and started walking, having no idea what she was going to do next.

  Behind her, Milar hesitated a moment, then she heard him jog to catch up. “Where we going, coaler?”

  “You don’t want to know.” In truth, she didn’t even know. It was the base alarm, true, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t for them. The fact that base security hadn’t crispified her brain yet could have simply been because the Nephyrs wanted her alive when they caught her.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Milar growled.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Gimme back the wand, squid.”

  “Screw you, crawler.”

  She led him to a service corridor and, lifting the lockdown code with a quick AI override, let them inside.

  “I’m not gonna use it on you,” Milar said.

  “Bugger off,” Tatiana said, closing the service door, keeping the wand tightly in a fist, out of reach.

  Then, with the door to the passageway shut, she took a moment to think. “What about the Yolk drops?”

  Milar snorted. “More security than the Emperor’s cruise ship.”

  “Prisoner intake?”

  “We’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

  Trying to think of all the places where they could get into a ship or get over the base fence, she said, “Civilian housing?”

  “And you think we’re somehow gonna make it two miles all the way across the base so we can boost ourselves over a razor-wire fence in some engineer’s backyard while Nephyrs and soldiers are boiling around us like ants?”

  Soldiers.

  Tatiana froze. Eying Milar, she said, “How much do you weigh?”

  “More than you,” Milar growled, stepping menacingly toward her. “Now gimme back that wand.”

  “What’s your body displacement? A hundred and fifteen liters?”

  Milar frowned. “Maybe a little less.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Tatiana said. “I’m fifty-one liters, and you add a hundred fifteen to that and you get one-sixty-six. The belly of my soldier holds two hundred and twenty, max.”

  Milar’s eyes went wide. “You can’t be serious.”

  “You rather die in here, collie?” she demanded, waving at the walls that were resounding with the shriek of the base alarm. “Because I can leave you here sucking your thumb, if that’s what you want.”

  “How would I breathe?” he demanded.

  “I’ll put a hole in the air-tube, let you suck on it.” She turned and started walking.

  The colonist didn’t follow her. When she looked, his face was a funny shade of white.

  “Oh don’t worry about it,” Tatiana said, “I won’t let you choke too much.”

  She heard the colonist reluctantly follow her. “You realize,” he said, coming abreast of her as she took the first flight of stairs, “That this sounds like a damned good way to get us both crushed when your soldier bounces a little too hard and there’s no goop to cushion us.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she said, cresting the steps.

  “Careful’s got nothing to do with it,” Milar growled. “You put even a bit too many Gs into a landing and we’ll both be squished.”

  Tatiana shrugged. “So they say.” She turned down the narrow south corridor and started leading them toward the soldier hangar.

  “Squid,” Milar warned, grabbing her by the shoulder. “There ain’t an operator on Fortune who could do what you’re planning without killing us both.”

  Tatiana gave him a beaming smile. “Guess it’s a good thing I’m the best operator in the sector, then, eh?”

  Milar snorted. “Sure you are.” He didn’t release her shoulder. “I want a different plan.”

  Smiling sweetly, she said, “Chicken?”

  Milar’s eyes narrowed.

  Chapter 30

  The Ferryman’s Dilemma

  Joel groaned and rolled over, the tingling, metallic taste of blood overwhelming even the throbbing in his face. Blood…or something else.

  He winced when he realized his face had been mashed into a cluster of ruined nodules, the grublike larvae wriggling against the insides of his cheeks and teeth as their life-fluids spilled into the slime around them, prodding their way through his lips as they sought refuge from the air.

  Horrified, Joel sat up and gagged, shoving the larvae from his mouth with his tongue.

  Yolk. That overpowering acrid taste of metal was raw Yolk.

  Disgusted, Joel wiped the blood-red sludge off of his lips and spat. His tongue and inside of his mouth was numb with the taste of Yolk. He rubbed the top of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to rid it of the overwhelming metallic burn. He was still busy spitting when Magali said, “Wideman was right.”

  Joel froze, turning to her.

  Magali was slumped in the slime, her back against the wall, cheeks wet, her eyes red and inflamed. She was dressed in clothes that were much too big for her, with a bloody cluster of burn-holes centered around her belly. Defeat was clear in her posture. “I’m a killer. All he ever said about me. ‘Killer.’ He was right.” She gave a miserable laugh. “I’m even wearing his clothes. Like skinning a starlope.”

  Joel turned and saw Martin’s naked corpse sprawled out in the Shrieker mucus, face-down, blood puddling around him.

  She killed him, Joel thought, stunned. He hadn’t thought she had it in her. The little sister, sure, but Magali? Even after pounding in Gayle Hunter’s temple and kicking Yvonne in the face and breaking Rachel’s finger, it had never occurred to him that she could pull the trigger. Threaten, yes. Pull the trigger, no.

  Not for the first time, he was absolutely delighted to be proven wrong. Absolutely delighted…and probably still breathing because of it.

  Then something else occurred to him. Why am I understanding what she’s saying? Had Martin jogged something loose when he rearranged his teeth? He opened his mouth to ask.

  “Not that you understand a goddamn word I’m saying, you useless smuggler asshole,” Magali said.

  Joel shut his mouth with a frown.

  “Not even that psychotic bastard Milar was just, ‘killer.’ He got odes written about him. He got his essence put in those goddamn zucchini a thousand times. He got to see his future. Everybody in that damn town got more than just one word. Everyone but me and Anna.” Magali paused, giving Joel a wry, pinched smile. “But I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. All Anna got was screaming. Every time he saw her, the little old fart would go apeshit. Eyes would bulge out and he’d empty his lungs like they were on fire. You could always tell when Anna got too close to the little bastard. The whole village would hear it.”

  Joel frowned. He had heard whispers of a legendary oracle hidden somewhere north of the Snake. Geo had offered twelve mil to anyone who could capture the bastard and bring him back to the Junkyard. Was Wideman in Deaddrunk? It made sense, considering all of the rumors he had heard of the colonists and their war-games. He thought they were just creeps with a death wish. But maybe they were creeps with a death wish and an oracle.

  Magali laughed. “You know, when Wideman first saw me, I was just a baby in my Daddy’s arms. Wideman pointed at me and said ‘killer.’ Most of the people there actually thought he’d said ‘Kill her,’ and if my Daddy weren’t so good at punching people in the face, they’d’ve thrown me down an abandoned mineshaft, quicker than spit.”

  Joel nodded, frowning as he thought about David Landborn’s infamous war games. The man had scared the crap out of him, talking about independence from the Coalition. Just staying in Deaddrunk had always made Joel uneasy. The whole town was armed to the teeth, funded by David’s cultivation of a secret Yolk mine. The whole lot of t
hem were dead-set on starting a war.

  David Landborn…her father.

  Suddenly, everything snapped into place for him. There was a girl, born in Deaddrunk, who was rumored couldn’t miss. Anything she shot at, she hit. Like better than a robot. The colonists had kept her name to themselves, not really trusting a smuggler with that kind of information, because in their eyes, with his background in the Coalition, Joel was just one step away from being a Nephyr himself, but he was pretty sure he had heard ‘Deaddrunk’ somewhere along the way.

  Maybe her shooting Martin wasn’t as much of a long-shot as Joel had imagined. In that town, anyone with the last name ‘Landborn’ had given him goosebumps when he’d stood next to them for too long. His eyes fell once again to the neat cluster of holes over Magali’s belly. It wasn’t the grouping of a terrified egger. It was the grouping of a killer.

  A cold tingle worked its way down his spine as he once again met her eyes. This was the ‘Killer?’ Magali?

  Magali hefted her gun, looking at it, seemingly in her own thoughts. “All that old bastard saw was ‘killer’ when he looked at me. Not ‘mother’ or ‘sister’ or ‘artist’ or a dozen other things I want to be. Just ‘killer.’ I spent every moment of my life waiting to get out of Deaddrunk. I hated that place. All they cared about was war. My dad had the whole town doing war games twice a week, and he’d force me to play along.”

  She took a deep breath, half shudder, and said, “I’d always make a mistake early and Anna would delight in killing me. Anna or Milar. They liked to work together. Team from Hell. Undefeated. Once took out our entire village, just the two of them. Could read the rest of us like a book, knew what we were gonna do before we did it.” Magali sniffled, and tears were once more leaking down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to kill anybody,” she whimpered. “I hated those stupid games. I let them find me on purpose so I didn’t have to shoot people.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Even when it was just paint and lasers, I couldn’t shoot people. Thought I could change my future by studying art and trying to get pregnant. Would’ve succeeded, too, if my bitch of a sister had stayed out of things. Patrick was gonna give up the war for me. We were gonna move across the Snake, somewhere we could have kids and a normal life.”