by King, Sara
Tatiana let out another babble of terror and crawled across the room, away from him.
“Now remember. Be a good girl. Kill enough coalers for me and maybe I’ll let you live after it’s over.” Her tiny face had twisted into a violent smile. “Then again, if you touch him again, maybe I’ll just have to re-visit my little lab-rat and make some adjustments. It’s got a tracking device in it. I will know exactly where you are, so don’t think you can hide from me, you retarded little monkey.”
Tatiana’s whine built into a chest-deep moan as she crawled on her hands and knees through the doctor’s entry and into the sterile white service hallway. A nurse was collapsed on the floor a few meters down the hall, a clipboard in her hand.
Seeing the body, Tatiana whimpered and struggled to her feet. She had to hold herself on the wall, her knees going weak, her vision blurry.
“Now, you’ll probably be dizzy from blood-loss for a couple days, so drink plenty of orange juice and take your vitamins. Oh, and there’s a soldier prepped in Hangar 3, if you can make it that far. Don’t worry about getting gel in the wound. I sealed it up nice and good. Reinforced it with titanium bands and screws, but then again, you already saw all that, after I peeled away your face. Why bring up bad memories?”
Tatiana stumbled forward, the whine once again building in her throat. Two blue-coated lab technicians stepped from around a corridor and hesitated. Dear Lord, what is that?
“Are you looking for someone?” the closest asked gently.
“Please help me,” Tatiana whispered. “Please.”
They glanced at each other. She’s wearing a prisoner jumpsuit. “Are you here for surgery?” one of them demanded, his tone becoming more aggressive.
Surgery… Tatiana felt her heartbeat skip in a sudden, uncontrollable surge of panic. Both of the technicians groaned and crumpled forward, clutching their heads. One of them, the taller one, whimpered on her knees. Hurts, oh God it hurts so— The technician folded forward and her body started to tremor on the floor.
Tatiana let out a terrified cry and bolted down the corridor, teetering as she stumbled, trying to keep her balance.
“Now the neat part about this thing is that it runs on solar energy. I could’ve made it nuclear, but that would’ve taken away half the fun. So every few days, you’ve gotta go outside and let it recharge. If you look close, there’s ten little green lights around the edge. Each light represents ten percent battery. If a light turns red, you’ve got ninety percent. If two go red, you’ve got eighty, and so on. If you don’t recharge it, at ten percent charge it’ll trigger the nuclear-powered motor and we’ll have scrambled operator brain, won’t we, Dobie?”
Tatiana stumbled onward, ignoring the startled cries of doctors and technicians as she bolted past them.
That’s her. The escaped operator.
“Stop!”
Tatiana let out an animal wail and bolted faster.
“Now, I could’ve just put something simple in there, like an explosive, but that shows a distinct lack of creativity. Hell, a robot could think of something like that. This, now, this is a thing of beauty. A work of art. You hear that, cupcake? You’re my latest work of art.”
“I said stop!” Booted feet ran up behind her and something grabbed her by the back of the jumpsuit. Someone strong yanked her around, and suddenly, Tatiana was looking up into the masked face of a surgeon.
Tatiana screamed and flailed and kicked, shoving him away from her even as his eyes went wide and his grip weakened. He slid to his knees, groaning. Tatiana kicked him in the mask and ran.
Babbling incoherently, Tatiana ducked through another door and drew it shut behind her, gasping in the darkness, trying to think. She had to get away. She had to escape.
All she could think, however, was that she had motorized blades lodged in her brain, waiting on the press of a button. Whimpering, she slid back down the wall and dragged her knees back to her chest. “Please,” Tatiana whispered. “God, please…”
“Oh, and don’t try to EMP it. Just…don’t. I will spare you the details of exactly what will happen because my time is precious and I’m starting to get bored, but let it suffice to say if you do, it involves your brain on the wall.”
With a moan, Tatiana scrunched further in on herself, her chest shuddering in a sob.
“Now, you’ll have to be fast. Gotta get back to your soldier before they figure out what happened. If you’re too slow, they’ll just catch you and put you back on this nice table, here, and do it all over again. You wouldn’t want that, would you, cupcake?”
Shaking, Tatiana stared into the darkness, rocking back and forth, trying to ignore the pounding in her head. God help me, she whimpered to herself. Please…
She had only the warning of the slow click of the surgery doorknob turning before someone opened the door and stepped into the darkened room with her. Her breath caught and she choked on a scream. Tatiana heard the door close, but the light never came on.
For long moments, there was a deep, profound silence in which she was afraid to breathe. Tears burned her cheeks, and her heart tore ragged streaks through her chest. Then, with the calm, precise voice she had come to dread, the kid’s robot said, “I did not fully understand what she was planning to do until after she’d already begun, and I realize what happened to you was partially inspired by my own actions. I feel the need to apologize and make amends.”
From across the room, the robot flipped the light on, and Tatiana whimpered and cringed away from him. He lifted a small, oval device that Tatiana had last seen in the little girl’s hand. “This is the only control to the device in your head.”
Tatiana let out a wail of terror, seeing it.
The robot then pinched it between his fingers, crushing the circuitry, pulverizing the plastic into tiny pieces. He dropped the pieces on the floor between them. “You’ll still need to keep it charged to stay alive,” he added, his face twisting in a grimace, “but she does not ‘own’ you.” Then, without another word, the robot turned and disappeared into the surgery, flipping the light off behind him.
Chapter 44
Incentive
“Really, Jeanne,” Joel said, as his ship sped towards the Tear, “you can put the shotgun away now. I’m finding it hard to concentrate with a gun aimed at my spine.”
Jeanne kept the weapon slung across her lap at him, glaring at him from the tiny, fold-in passenger seat that she’d pulled out of the wall. She had also buckled in. Damn.
“I’m thinking you need the reminder, Joel,” Jeanne said.
“C’mon, Jeanne,” Joel protested, for the eightieth time, “I just wanted to see if she was still alive. That’s all.”
Jeanne gave him a long, flat look. “I don’t care who you’re trying to save,” she said. “You do something like that again and you’re a dead man.”
Joel believed her. Despite Jeanne’s wishes—and her screaming at him and shoving her gun in his face, once she’d figured out what he was doing—Joel had taken them to the Snake looking for Magali. All they’d found was the tiny, twisted corpse of a child before Jeanne had put a round through the tinselly red teddy-bear, to get his attention.
So he’d switched off the inertial dampeners and done a little fancy flying. So what? It wasn’t like he’d tried to kill her or anything. He’d just wanted a few more minutes to look for Magali before he had to scurry off to the Tear like a good errand-boy. “We’re at eighty thousand feet and you don’t know how to fly this thing. Really, Jeanne. What are you gonna do?” Joel demanded. “Shoot me?”
She gave him that unnervingly wicked smile she was so good at.
Joel groaned. Horrible luck with women…
“You know,” he said, adjusting the fuel supply, “this is not really the right way to get a guy like me to cooperate.” He checked his gauges, then, satisfied he’d found the right mixture, set the ship into cruise.
“Oh?” she asked, sounding only half-interested.
“Yeah,” Joel said. “I mean, a
guy like me, I don’t got much to fight for, right? I got a ship, but that’s it. No family, no kiddos, no pets… I got girls fawning over me, but they don’t want anything more than one-night stands. Maybe a weekend, if we’re both feeling frisky. Nobody likes a smuggler. Not really. They’re cheesy. Lame.”
“Sounds about right,” Jeanne said.
“I had lots of goals in life,” Joel said, “before Geo got his hooks in me. Wanted to find a girl, start a family… All of it kinda dissolved in the grind. I just became another cog in the system. Just one of the links in the chain of black market Yolk.”
“Sounds to me,” Jeanne said, “that you don’t have much to live for, Runaway. Would ending your miserable existence for you now spare you the need to commiserate?”
“Pirates, on the other hand,” Joel went on, “now they got flair. Flash. Finesse.” He glanced behind him at her necklace and made a face. “Well, flash.”
“Do you want me to kill you, Joel?”
“Not especially,” Joel said. He checked a regulator, then sighed. “I mean, imagine it. Forty-five years old, probably had upwards of six, seven hundred women, and I still don’t have a kid. And I’ve checked.”
“Sounds like divine mercy,” Jeanne said.
“I mean, you had fun, right?” Joel continued. “Hell, sounded to me like you had a blast.”
“Fly the ship, Joel.”
“I do this thing,” Joel said, “I want a date.”
Utter silence descended in the back of the cockpit. Joel adjusted throttle, then turned to look.
Jeanne was glaring at him with a deadly scowl. “Not in your lonely, pathetic dreams.”
“C’mon, Jeanne, it would be fun,” Joel said. “When was the last time someone romanced you properly? You know, wine and roses? A good massage? Dancing? I’d wager it was a helluva long time, considering the pretty little mementos you’ve got warning everyone off with half a brain.”
“What does that make you?” Jeanne growled. “Brainless? I said no date.”
“Babe,” Joel laughed, “I’ve sampled the wares. I know what they’re missing.” He could feel her scowling at him as he continued, “So that’s my proposition. I win your little dogfight for you, I get a date.”
“I’ve got a shotgun aimed at your kidneys. You don’t win the dogfight, I pull the trigger. That is your date.”
“Incentive, Jeanne,” Joel reminded her. “You gotta give a guy like me incentive.”
“Blow it out your ass, Joel.”
“Fine, dinner,” Joel compromised. “Someplace fancy, with a dance-floor. An entire night with you.”
“Do you want to get shot? Oh my God, I think you want to get shot.”
“You’ll have to ditch the necklace for the date,” Joel added thoughtfully. “Don’t want to startle the maître d'. And we’ll get you in something fancy. Red. I get to pick.”
“You are this close, Joel.”
“A dress, I think,” Joel said. He glanced over his shoulder. “You ever worn a dress, Jeanne? You know, strut your stuff? You’d blow people away.”
“I’ll tell you who I’m about to blow away, Joel. And it isn’t the Easter Bunny.”
“Why Jeanne,” Joel said, grinning, “I do believe you’re blushing. You like that idea, don’t you?”
Jeanne’s face purpled and she found something to inspect on the wall beside her.
“So,” Joel said. “Dinner, dancing, a dress.”
For several minutes, the cockpit was silent. “I have a condition,” Jeanne said. It was a gruff mutter.
“Oh?” Joel said, glancing at her.
“We go in my ride,” she said. “And you pay.”
Joel felt himself grin. “I think we can manage that. Should I schedule you for six? Six-thirty?”
“You still gotta win the dogfight,” she muttered.
“Babe,” Joel laughed, patting the console. “Please. This is me we’re talking about, here. Runaway Joel. The guy who spent two decades running the entire Coalition Space Force in circles. I’m gonna make whoever that ham-fisted idiot was that stole my baby back in Deaddrunk look like the incompetent moron he was.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” But she set the shotgun aside.
Joel grinned, feeling a flutter of excitement. Jeanne had always been…interesting. He actually hadn’t thought he’d get a dress out of the deal. Hell, it was a little shocking she’d given in on the dinner and dancing. He’d expected more of an argument, or at least a counter-proposal involving a twelve-gauge catheter.
“We’re coming up on the Tear,” Jeanne growled. “Here’s your chance to earn that dress.”
Feeling quite happy that he hadn’t lost his charm, Joel turned just in time to see the hornet’s-nest popping up on radar. He blinked and leaned into the screen, counting the little black dots. “Holy shit, Jeanne!” he cried, pointing. “There’s hundreds of them.”
She gave him a sly little grin and shrugged.
No wonder she had capitulated so easily. She didn’t intend for the two of them to make it out of this alive.
“What the hell, Jeanne?” Joel cried, as a dozen Bouncers veered upwards from their patrol, headed right at them. “What’s going on down there?!”
“Miles and Patty’ve got Wideman,” Jeanne said. “Somehow, the Coalition found out about him. They’re throwing everything they’ve got at finding him. We’ve been throwing all we’ve got at keeping them off the ground.”
Joel swept to the side, avoiding the Bouncers and coming in a wide, sweeping turn to give himself more time to assess the situation. “Jeanne,” he said carefully, “that’s not a dogfight. That’s a warzone.”
“You did say a dress,” she said, giving him a smug look.
Joel glared at the pirate over his shoulder a long moment, then heaved a huge sigh and glanced back at the screen. He studied the scene a moment, watching the hundreds of ships in their explosive merry-go-round, then shook his head. “Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “God hates a coward.” He nudged the joystick downward and ducked Honor into the fray.
“You mind running the com for me, Jeanne?” Joel said, sweeping into the mess. He caught a soldier from behind, setting it ablaze as he passed. He hit the full-screen, giving him a bug’s-eye view of the surrounding battle. Making a mental lock on a Bouncer in his general trajectory, he started pushing on the throttle to catch up. Verdant alien jungle slid underneath them at Mach 6. Joel hit the Bouncer going about twice the speed of his quarry, then spun upwards and out, rocking the world in a spin of glory that had them at a hundred thousand feet in the span of a couple of heartbeats. Behind him, there was nothing fast enough to keep up. Joel brought Honor to the apogee of its arc just as it was starting to break free of gravity, then hammered the controls forward and went spinning downward with all the grace of a stooping hawk.
He came in from above, peppering two soldiers that were chasing a colonial scout ship, then yanked back the stick with a foot or two to spare, grazing the jungle with his backblast.
“You got us patched in yet, Jeanne?” Joel called over his shoulder, flipping the ship onto its side and swinging wide, chasing after a couple of Bouncers following a colonial ship. He didn’t reach them before they hit their quarry, and Joel had to twist and pull up and over the dying ship as it plummeted to the alien forest. As soon as he was clear, he dropped back into an arc to catch up with the Bouncers. The Bouncers split up, one going east, the other going up. Joel followed the latter, hitting enough Gs to make the dampeners sputter. He nailed it, then spun through the rubble as it exploded around him.
“Yeehaw!” Joel shouted at the console, spinning back down for another go. “I forgot how much fun this was!” When he got no response, he glanced behind him.
Clinging to the passenger seat, Jeanne was looking pale.
Joel frowned and tapped the com unit. “Patch us in, Jeanne,” he said. “I’d like to hear what our good friends are saying out there.” He frowned at her. “You do know th
eir bands, don’t you?”
“You almost hit the ground,” Jeanne said. “At Mach 6.”
“Meh,” Joel said, waving disinterestedly. “It would’ve been quick.”
Jeanne slid a shaking hand over to the communications console and started setting the bands. Almost immediately, he heard, “—that freakin’ TAG!”
“It’s back?! Where the hell does this guy keep coming from?!”
Joel grinned. “Music to my ears, Jeanne. Turn it up. Time for a pre-dinner mood piece.”
“They’ve been at this for three days already. There’s no way we’re gonna be done in time for dinner.”
“Watch me,” Joel said.
She gave him a green grimace, but spun up the volume dial.
“Louder!” Joel shouted, over the booming of his stereo system.
“Are you nuts?!” Jeanne shouted back. But she twisted the dial.
Listening to the chaos around him reverberating like an old friend in his lungs, Joel once more relaxed into that trance of the sky. “All right, you pups,” he said, grinning, “time to take you back to flight school…”
Chapter 45
Milar’s Experiment
Patrick watched the soldier hurtle up the Tear, shaking the trees behind it as it broke the sound barrier. Behind it, four more soldiers were right on its tail, weaving in and around boulders at speeds that perplexed the human eye.
“Got five more incoming,” Patrick said over his shoulder.
“I see ‘em,” Milar said. He grabbed the radio. “You see ‘em, guys?”
A moment later, Jeanne replied. “Got ‘em. Joel’s taking us in now.”
But Patrick was frowning at the way the soldiers were weaving around the debris of the Tear. It was almost as if they were chasing each other. “Hold up a sec,” he said, lowering the scope. Sure enough, the lead soldier spun suddenly, kicked off of the wall of the cliff, and used its sudden change in course to fire at the closest vessel trailing it. The second soldier exploded in a blinding white-hot ball of flame and went careening into the Tear in pieces. The remaining three began returning fire, but the first was already spinning up and away, heading skyward.