Blowback

by Lyn Gala

  “The Kratos?”

  She nodded.

  Tom could feel relief rush through him. He could deal with her getting stranger by the minute as long as he knew they were headed for the ship. She reached out to him, curling long fingers around his arm and pulling him close.

  “Only to Ramsay. Little mice chew holes in the words. Only Ramsay.” Her fingers dug into his arm. “My leash.” She tugged at the leash hard enough to pull at Tom’s collar. He swallowed as emotions he couldn’t even identify surged up. “Get us to Ramsay,” she whispered. Using her free hand, she caught Tom’s leash up near his shoulder blades.

  “To Ramsay,” Tom agreed. Turning, he headed into the crowd. The pressure at his collar was a constant now, just enough to remind him that he was towing her. In Hou’s office, she’d been a formidable opponent, but now she was lost and Tom couldn’t reconcile the two sides. He probably never would. Right now, he needed to get back to Ramsay and let him figure this whole mess out. With one arm on the bag and the other hand on his gun, Tom shouldered his way through the crowds and headed for the shuttle that would take them out to the docks.

  They were to the level where ship workers crowded the streets looking for drugs and doxies when the collar tightened and Da’shay pulled Tom to a stop. He turned and looked at her, fully prepared to be annoyed, but her body language warned of danger. Her elbows were bent and her head lowered like an animal about to attack. Before, her gaze had wandered from place to place without reason; now she kept her eyes focused on a parts store—the sort that bought and sold bits for engines that should have been scrapped decades ago.

  Tom backed up, pushing Da’shay toward the side of the street. A clothing store stuck out farther than the bar next to it, creating a handy little corner that offered some cover, and that’s where Tom steered them.

  “Who’s there?” Tom asked, not really expecting a simple answer. He pulled his gun and waited. Times like this he almost wished that he carried those fancy guns, the ones with scanners that let people see through walls. The only problem with those fancy-ass guns is that they broke too damn often and they weren’t something a man could fix himself. That was a bad combination in the field.

  If there was danger here, he didn’t have much in the way of backup. Based on the vids he’d seen, Da’shay could fight like a demon, but that was only if she managed to concentrate long enough to get the job done.

  Without warning, Da’shay stepped out from their cover and started walking toward the parts store. “Damn it, get back here,” Tom called. She ignored him and the leash started pulling tight. Well shit. No fucking way was he going to get hauled around like some stubborn dog. With his gun still out and held at his side, Tom trotted until he was in front of Da’shay and closing in on the store. This was a bad idea, but Da’shay wasn’t giving him a whole lot of options.

  Tom pulled the door open, but he stayed behind the wall for a couple of seconds, long enough to confuse any trouble inside. But no one came to see what was up, so hopefully he wasn’t walking into a room full of enemies. Edging around the corner, Tom spotted two men who had a third cornered by a shelf with compression valves lined up like art.

  “Pretend you might know,” a voice said.

  Abandoning caution, Tom stepped into the room and looked around. A clerk was standing behind the counter, but he had a panicked expression, so he wasn’t likely to have a weapon. Tom slid his own gun back into its holster.

  “Captain,” Tom said.

  The man who’d been talking spun around and Captain Ramsay was standing there with Eli at his side. The two of them had Messa Tyles backed up against the shelf.

  “Tom.” Ramsay stepped forward. “What the hell are you wearing?” Tom gritted his teeth as he realized his stupid outfit was even more out of place down here. Not only did he look like a rentboy, but he looked like an out-of-place, expensive one.

  Da’shay stepped out from behind him. “Searching. Lost the captain in all the maze,” Da’shay said. Rumor was genta didn’t lie, but that did seem to imply they’d gotten lost in that maze of a prison and Tom knew that to be wrong. However, he didn’t really want to get into that with eyes watching them.

  Messa Tyles inched sideways. “You have your man. I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything,” he said. He seemed to have gotten his last wound fixed, but he had the wild-eyed look of panic that meant he truly believed he was about to get another hole in his hide.

  “He holding out on you?” Tom asked. He wasn’t sure what the captain had come back to ask about.

  “Nope, can’t say he is. Da’shay, you’ve had Tom this whole time?”

  Da’shay started wandering around the shop, letting her fingers trail over the parts lined up for sale. “Yep, she’s been with me since the law took me,” Tom answered for her.

  “That her mark?” Eli kept looking over, his eyes going to the mark that Tom’s shirt did nothing to hide.

  Tom crossed his arms. “Ain’t you got a prisoner to look to?” he asked. Eli might be his superior, but Tom didn’t put up with anyone’s shit.

  Ramsay sighed. “Tyles, I suppose I should thank you for your help.”

  “I’d prefer it if you just never asked for it again,” Tyles answered, and then he headed out the door, leaving behind the faint smell of booze and fear.

  Ramsay watched him leave and then he turned his attention to Tom. “I swear, you’re a hard one to keep out of trouble, Tom Frieden.” Ramsay stepped close and slapped Tom on the arm, his eyes carefully focused on Tom’s face, as though if he looked somewhere else he might end up staring at the slave mark by accident. “Where did they get you?”

  The collar pulled tight and Tom looked over toward Da’shay, but she was wandering around and he couldn’t tell if she had pulled on the collar or simply lost track of how long it was.

  “Didn’t get far from where we split up,” Tom said carefully. Da’shay seemed to smile and that right there was enough to put Tom on edge. She wanted him to speak carefully and it sure as hell wasn’t because of Ramsay; she’d said they needed to get to the captain, but in these port towns, a person never did know who was listening. Da’shay’s fucking crazy people might have the whole lower town bugged. From a security standpoint, that meant for a lot of footage to try to pick through looking for what you wanted, but they might just be keeping an eye on Da’shay. After all, she was the one with the information they didn’t want told.

  “You let her mark you?” Eli sounded as if he might be ill at the thought and Tom glared at the man.

  “There weren’t much ‘letting’ going on. Law caught me, so it was her mark or getting sold at auction, and that was not going to happen.”

  “Tom’s mine,” Da’shay offered as she ran her fingers over a display of octagonal drive shafts.

  “I’m not in favor of slaving.” Ramsay frowned, looking from one of them to the other. “I just came to get money for the deal we lost, so don’t think I’m going to let you keep Tom on the leash when we go back to running the border.” Tom could feel his guts start to ease up. Ramsay understood. There was something going on that Tom didn’t understand and Da’shay couldn’t explain, but Ramsay was going to stick to their cover story until they could get back to the ship.

  “And I’m really not in favor of how you’re dressing, Tom.” Ramsay looked to Tom and got a mean smile on his face. “Not unless you’ve decided to take a second job as one of those men in the vids that’s always walking on the beach having sex with women.” Ramsay headed for the door.

  Tom snorted. “Would rather cut off my balls.” Tom frowned. Wait. That might not be such a bad job to have, he thought. Da’shay’s head whipped around and she stared at him for a long moment before she went for the door. Ramsay and Eli had to chase after them.

  “I would have thought you would cut your own balls off already before dressing like that,” Ramsay said as he walked at Tom’s side and looked at the crowd on the dark streets. The cave-like feeling made Tom want to
run for the ship, but Da’shay had slowed considerably and now they all strolled toward the train station where the shuttle-train took people between town and the docks. Tom kept pace with him.

  “It was this or no shirt at all.” Tom might have said more, only Da’shay came over and rested her hand on Tom’s shoulder and leaned into him, bringing their whole group to a stop. Tom looked at her, trying to understand her expression. Her eyes were half closed and she was swaying slightly. “You all right?”

  She closed her eyes. “Pretty colors,” she whispered. Ramsay’s eyebrows went up.

  “She hasn’t gotten any more sane in the last few days,” Tom said without mentioning their night in the desert.

  Ramsay took a step closer. “I don’t expect she ever will. Did you ever wonder whether something could go really wrong with someone engineered by a full-genta?” Ramsay asked. Instead of getting insulted by the suggestion she’d been made wrong, Da’shay laid her head on Tom’s shoulder and blinked at Ramsay with her most innocent expression.

  “I had considered it,” Tom agreed. The fact was that Da’shay was starting to make a little too much sense to him, though. She had something mighty smart going on in her brain, but her mouth just wasn’t letting it come out right. That left her about as tangled and trapped as Tom was. Da’shay fingers tightened around his arm. “But right now, I just want to get back to the ship and get some of my old clothes on.”

  “I like these clothes. Pretty mark warns everyone to look to me because Tom’s mine,” Da’shay said.

  Ramsay made a face. “That is truly disquieting. Nearly as disquieting as having Tom run around half-naked.”

  “Ain’t my fault. You want to put someone on deck-scrubbing duty for that, you blame Da’shay.”

  “Think she would scrub my deck?” Ramsay asked with a smile. The familiar banter made the knots in Tom’s back start to loosen. Ramsay turned toward the shuttle, but he watched over his shoulder to see if Tom and Da’shay were following.

  “Hell, no,” Tom answered. He frowned when his collar tightened the second he tried to take a step. Da’shay was looking at him with a frown, her hand wrapped around his leash. “Something wrong, princess?” Tom asked.

  “Princess?” Ramsay’s laugh was tight and uncomfortable. “Maybe slavery taught you a thing or two.”

  “Seemed better than calling her pea-brain,” Tom said vaguely. This wasn’t the time to get into the fact that someone had gone operating on her brain to pull pieces out and making fun of her, for that seemed flat out mean. Tom looked over and Ramsay was still staring at him. “At least until we’re off a slave-planet. Once we’re back to free space, I figure I can safely call her whatever I want.”

  Ramsay smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. After a second, Da’shay stroked a hand down his arm and then started walking toward the shuttle so fast that Tom had to hurry to keep the leash from pulling.

  “Well, shit,” Ramsay said as he hurried after. “She’s even stranger than before. Either that or you pissed her off.”

  “So, what are you two doing threatening Tyles?” Tom asked, changing the topic once Da’shay had slowed a bit. They were still walking a little too fast for Tom’s liking—it made it hard to really check all the possible vantage points for an attack. At least this system of caves and tunnels carved out of rock made it more difficult for snipers.

  “Looking for you,” Ramsay said. “Law says the person you wronged has first right when it comes slaving and we thought Hou had you somewhere.”

  Tom frowned as he thought of Hou getting him, either after the explosion or when he’d offered Da’shay good money. Tom had no idea what a genta like that would want with a gun hand, but if he tried to turn Tom into a sniveling little thing like that secretary, Tom would kill Hou and then himself.

  “Da’shay paid the fines. You know most folks won’t get in an argument with a genta unless they have to.”

  “And for a man who reportedly blew us up, Hou didn’t seem interested in us,” Ramsay finished. “Eli, have you called home, told Becca that we found her wayward boy?”

  “Yes sir,” Eli agreed, lifting his handheld. “I never thought a woman could squeal through text, but she did.”

  “She’s been unnaturally unpleasant ever since I lost you,” Ramsay admitted. “Is there something that I should know about?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like are you sleeping with my engineer?”

  Tom stopped. His collar pulled tight as Da’shay didn’t stop quite fast enough, but then she turned and came back toward him. She rested her hands on his shoulder and leaned her weight into him again. “You think I’m sleeping with Becca?”

  Ramsay took a step back. “I have some evidence to suggest it. You do spend a lot of time trying to get her to go places with you, enough that I’m wondering if I should worry about the fraternization rule or the harassment rule.”

  Reaching down, Tom grabbed his crotch. “Seems that she likes women. I got the wrong equipment for her.”

  Da’shay smiled. “Tom’s genitalia rank in the top two percent for size within his genetic profile,” she offered.

  “His—?” Ramsay blushed.

  “Damn right,” Tom said. He was many things, but he was not a small man.

  With a little hum, Da’shay turned back toward the shuttle and started walking. Tom frowned. It seemed as if she’d suddenly turned a whole lot more rational. While he certainly appreciated having some version of Da’shay that made sense, these constant changes were a mite unsettling.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Tom!” Becca rushed the hatch, barely letting Tom get in the door before she was on him. “Oh my heavenly saints and gods, what happened?” Her hand brushed over his slave mark.

  “Went and got slaved out,” Tom answered. “I didn’t get some mark put on me just for stupidity.”

  “I didn’t—” She stopped and punched him in the arm. “Don’t go doing that again,” she ordered him.

  That was a dumb order. Da’shay came up behind Tom, pressing close to his back. “Didn’t do it on purpose this time,” Tom pointed out.

  “Will you two get out of our way?” Ramsay called from behind.

  “Captain’s getting irritable, but after he went and lost you, he can stay irritable,” Becca said, but she started moving back toward the galley.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me you preferred to bed girls?” Tom asked.

  Becca stopped. “Why didn’t I… What? Who told you that?”

  “I did,” Da’shay offered while still hanging on Tom’s shoulder.

  Becca’s mouth fell open.

  “Seems a little mean to never mention that considering that I was putting some of my best efforts into getting in your…good graces.” Tom had very nearly said something that even he knew would get him in deep shit.

  “And I appreciated your best efforts,” Becca said, then she leaned over and glared at Da’shay, “but I don’t think it was really any of your business.”

  “You could have saved me a whole lot of grief by telling me anyway,” Tom said before he headed toward the galley. The collar forced him to stop by nearly choking him. “Hey!” Tom complained as he turned back to see what Da’shay thought she was doing. She was glaring at him and Becca had her arms crossed. Tom gritted his teeth as life went back to the same old pattern of other people taking offense when he just spoke the truth.

  “Do you not like Becca now?” Da’shay asked. From her expression, that thought wasn’t making her happy at all.

  “It ain’t that I don’t like her. She’s still a beautiful woman—all curves and soft bits—and smarter than any three other people I know put together. But if she’s looking for another woman, at least I know why she won’t look at me. Hell, I should have spent more time asking her to hit the doxy houses with me if she was looking for female company. Maybe we could’ve shared.” If Tom wasn’t going to get Becca, sharing a doxy would have been the next best thing.

  B
ecca was slowly turning beet red and seemed to have stopped breathing.

  “That really is the single most horrifying thing you could have said,” Ramsay complained as he squeezed past them in the hall and headed for the galley. “And as the captain, I am not listening to any of it because there were about a hundred harassment regulations that just got broken.”

  “If I can’t touch, I wouldn’t mind seeing, that’s all I’m saying. There’s nothing wrong with that,” Tom defended himself. “I wouldn’t mind if she expressed an interest in looking at me. Hell, in this shirt, she’s seeing a whole lot of me already.”

  “That I am,” Becca said softly. “Maybe we can just pretend that this conversation never happened.”

  “I’ll second that,” Eli agreed.

  Tom might have said something, but Da’shay darted past with a cheerful, “Everyone likes everyone,” before the leash pulled tight and Tom had to hurry after her. Crazy genta.

  “So here’s our status,” Ramsay was sitting at the galley table when Tom reached the room. “We know that Hou sent the embryos that exploded, so technically our mission is complete and we can report back to Command. The problem is that our permission to take off keeps running into trouble.”

  “You’ve been trying to take off?” Tom didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  “We’ve been trying to get papers so we were ready to take off as soon as we found you two,” Ramsay answered. He gestured toward one of the other chairs and Tom walked over and sat down. The metal was cool against his back because the stupid shirt wasn’t thick enough to do its job. “Trouble being that we’re getting one excuse after another. Either I’m getting paranoid in my old age or someone has taken a special dislike to us.”

  Becca slipped into a third chair and Da’shay came over and plopped herself down in Tom’s lap. Ramsay’s neck started to turn red against his white beard, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’d call you two cute, but that collar is actually kinda creepy,” Becca offered. “And as much as I’m normally a glass half-full kind of woman, the captain’s right. It’s starting to feel unfriendly around here. Unfortunately, I’m just not real sure what to do about it because there’s no way for me to get the Kratos into the air without using one of their launching decks.”