Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3

by Amy J. Murphy

  She’d grown to like Maeve and in honesty felt a little sorry for her, although she was certain the woman would have handed her ass to her if she ever said that aloud in earshot. Maybe there was a little bit of kinship there. Neither of them really had a place to call home left. Anyone they’d ever cared about was long gone.

  With a growl, Maeve retrieved the panel from the deck and, staggering slightly, maneuvered it back into place. She turned her attention to some other set of panels. It had all the earmarks of busy work like Rachel was being dismissed.

  “How would you like a chance to make all that worthwhile?” she prodded, stepping into Maeve’s line of sight.

  With a sneer, Maeve jabbed a finger at the symbol affixed to the front of Rachel’s jacket. “You here for them? Ironvale. Or you here for you?”

  “Not Ironvale. Erelah Veradin,” Rachel said. “I’m here for her. She needs strong allies. People like you.”

  Maeve appeared to chew the inside of her mouth. Narrowed her eyes. “What guild does she serve then?”

  “None. She’s her own…I guess.” Rachel shrugged.

  Maeve erupted in laughter. It had a dangerous quality to it.

  “What? I’m not joking.” Rachel felt the blood build in her face. She rubbed her neck and tried to dismiss the feeling that this whole conversation was going off the rails. There was a reason she was a doctor and not a recruiter.

  Maeve stepped past her, stopping long enough to dig through a mesh sack affixed to a wall. She gave a victorious grunt as she seized a familiar looking metal cylinder that sloshed. The scorch-rum stuff. Not the best thing for someone with the DTs to be doing. Rachel frowned.

  “Go back to your Ironvale, dok-tor.”

  Fifty-Five

  Maeve folded into the shadows cast by the stanchions of the landing platform, confident that Northway had not spotted her. The Human woman was brash and arrogant, two of her more attractive qualities. But she seemed to have the street smarts of an addlepated Trelgin. Maeve liked her, perhaps a little more than she should. Although she felt it was unlikely the healer returned the sentiment, Maeve would not want to see harm come to her. That’s what she told herself as she’d crept from Wedge after Northway’s departure.

  “Amazon warrior,” Maeve muttered under her breath, watching as Northway picked her way down the gangway. She had no idea what it meant but had very much enjoyed the sound of it. It sounded vengeful and bloody.

  At this time of the duty shift, there was only a skeleton crew working the docking bays. And the few Ironvale workers that had this section had been sure to keep clear of Wedge, a notion that sat just fine with Maeve.

  A new figure slid from behind the cargo containers near the caution rails. Maeve squinted, missing the enhanced optics of her Splitdawn armor. With a thought, she could have learned body temp, mass, recorded a visual. Now all she had was her simple Eugenes vision. And her instincts.

  Those told her that the figure that’d fallen into step at Northway’s wake was trouble.

  With an irritated grunt, Maeve sprinted down the gangway, trying to keep her moves quiet. She caught up quickly, ducking behind the same container the stranger had just used for cover. This much closer, her view was better. She saw Northway’s slender form. The woman seemed distracted by the vox device affixed to her collar. The stranger was no more than twenty feet behind her. This much closer, Maeve could make out the details: male, dressed in dockworker coveralls, shaven head—an oddity for any Ironvale citizen.

  Maeve followed.

  She could hear the stranger’s breathing now. He kept his eyes forward, intent on Northway’s oblivious back as she tinkered still with the vox device.

  There, under the cast of light of the station marker, a glint of metal slid into the stranger’s hand: a blade.

  Now!

  Maeve lunged, drawing the knife sheathed at the small of her back. She felt a thick body crumple under the momentum of her weight. Heard a wounded grunt. They hit the deck, tangling under the station lights. His blade clattered away into the dark. Maeve rolled aside, quickly going to one knee, bringing her knife down and into the man.

  She heard Rachel offer a surprised yelp. “Whathehell?”

  The man under Maeve’s knife was stocky. The blade pinned him through the clavicle and into the deck. Dark blood pooled from the wound. He writhed in agony, trying to rip himself free. Maeve shifted her weight, pinning him down and twisting the blade at the same time. He hissed through clenched teeth but did not try to move again.

  “Holy shit,” Rachel announced. “Who the hell is that?”

  “A dead man,” Maeve snarled down into his face. “Stalking you with a blade.”

  She felt Rachel’s hand on her shoulder. “Hang on.” Northway knelt over the opposite side. “Were you…following me, Maeve?”

  “No.” Maeve rolled her eyes. Then, sighed. “Yes. Docks aren’t always safe. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “That’s sweet,” she replied. “And a little creepy.”

  The Human’s next move was a complete surprise, and wonderful. She leaned across the squirming man and planted a kiss squarely on Maeve’s mouth. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

  Maeve grinned, feeling foolish and happy. Her face grew hot, but she ignored Northway’s appraising grin and turned her attention to her would-be assailant. Up close, she could see the coveralls were ill-fitting, likely stolen. And he smelled…different. It was not the usual oily chemical tart of cesium fuel vapors and hydraulics fluids that she would expect from a dock worker. His skin was far too clean.

  The details took a new shape and crawled over her earlier anger. This was no ordinary thug.

  “Who are you?” Maeve growled into his face.

  He turned his face away, staring out with such intensity to the edge of the dock that Maeve had the urge to look in that direction as well.

  Maeve twisted the knife, evoking a choked scream.

  “What’re you doing?” Rachel’s hand stilled Maeve’s wrist.

  “Something not right.” Maeve plopped down on his chest, settling most of her weight against his diaphragm. “Check him.”

  “What?” Rachel blinked at her.

  “Look in his pockets.”

  Rachel fished through the pockets of his overalls. Her search produced a small chip with a number written on it, one that Maeve recognized immediately as the berth number assigned to Wedge. And nothing else.

  She pulled the collar away from his throat. Under the chem lights of the station, she saw the hateful icon a hand engulfed in vines. “Poisoncry. That’s their sigil. He’s one of their guildsworn.”

  “Poisoncry?” Rachel asked. “Why would Poisoncry be after me? I don’t know them from Adam.”

  “Don’t stop them from knowing you.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Rachel asked.

  Another twist of the knife when he did not answer. He gave a panting growl. She pressed her thumb against his eye. “Talk. Maybe I take one of your eyes as a trophy.”

  He panted, tossing his head, trying to shake free.

  “Hey…hey. Easy on the whole torture thing, right?” Rachel said, looking around the deserted docks. “How ’bout a little human decency?”

  “You think he deserves decency?” Maeve spat. “You think Poisoncry worries on decency? They take babies from mothers. Steal limbs and eyes and organs. You and me are just crops to be harvested for a Resource Center. Does that sound like decency?”

  “For real?” Northway’s eyes widened. She swallowed. “Well, when you put it like that.” She breathed. “Just keep the torture to a minimum, okay?”

  Fifty-Six

  Rachel wasn’t sure what made her feel more queasy, watching Maeve essentially torture someone or knowing that she didn’t do more to stop it.

  It’s this place. The Reaches changes people. I’m a doctor. I should be better than this.

  The excuse felt brittle, weak.

  She paced back to the spot along the
cargo hold, feeling the stare of the Poisoncry assassin on her. He was trussed up like a prize turkey and secured to the Wedge’s bulkhead with a pair of metal shackles. Rachel found it mildly disturbing that Maeve owned them in the first place, but decided not to ask for elaboration. In the end, he divulged things that Rachel found at their core chilling, but unsurprising. He spoke in weird, halting sentences, like an interface with poor diction software, bloodless expressions of mathematical probability and calculated outcomes. She pictured his thoughts as long strings of zeros and ones.

  Poisoncry had an operative in Hirano’s house that had identified Erelah Veradin as the creator of a powerful technology which would be a game changer (Rachel’s words, not the prisoner’s) for everyone in the Reaches. It threatened Poisoncry’s control over flexpoint travel. Therefore the tech and its creator needed to be captured by any means possible. Although attempts to locate Veradin had been unsuccessful, there was an eighty-eight percent possibility that abducting her closest associates would result in Veradin offering herself in exchange. (The prisoner’s words, not Rachel’s.)

  “What’d you do with me if that didn’t work?” Rachel asked, thinking of the remaining twelve percent.

  His face was that of a benign Buddha when he gave the chilling reply: “Termination or resourcing, of course.”

  That was the part that seemed to drive Maeve over a barely held imaginary line. She flew into a rage and started outright pummeling him. In the end, Rachel pulled her away, accidentally earning herself a bruise or two in the process.

  Maeve calmed down enough to listen to her and accepted her direction to try the ship’s coms to warn Erelah.

  Meanwhile, certain that Maeve would have fought her on it, Rachel used the medkit to shore up his wounds. The man was silent the entire time, watching her with detached curiosity. It didn’t make Rachel feel much better, but it gave her something to do.

  Once he was tended to, Rachel gave another look in the direction of the cockpit and settled onto the cargo bin opposite their prisoner. Her mind kept skipping over the word. Across her lap, she settled the sidearm Maeve had forced her to take. She itched to be rid of its queer murderous weight but thought better of it.

  “You are not Eugenes.” He tilted his head, a childlike move. Weird to see on someone who’d just explained there was a twelve percent chance that his bosses would likely kill her or use her for spare parts.

  A metallic buzz had entered his voice, making him sound like a speaker on the fritz. It was more noticeable on inflections. Rachel suspected that Maeve had knocked something loose.

  “No. I’m not,” Rachel replied. She didn’t see the harm in answering. But she was curious as hell how he knew. There were dark-skinned Eugenes, but they were few and far between. He watched her, or rather the air around her. Weird.

  “How—”

  “There’s a forty-seven percent variation in mass density, resulting in surface temperature patterning that’s inconsistent with Eugenes physiology. Your skull shape differs at the base and frontal plates.”

  “Okay. Ew.”

  She leaned forward, sliding to the edge of the box, finding it difficult to shake the sense that he was studying her. This was her first hostage situation, but she was pretty certain they were meant to act more like prisoners than he was. His pale ocher eyes flitted over her then to the side, as if he were reading things only he could see.

  “What are you? Some kind of cyborg? Or a robot?”

  His split, bruised lips twisted into a wry grin. “Both descriptions suggest a lack of autonomy. I am autonomous.”

  “So no one’s actually making you be a dick. It’s a lifestyle choice for you.”

  “Sarcasm.” He blinked, studied the derma-bandage she’d affixed to his shoulder. “You possess higher medical training than a field medic. Although your techniques are primitive, you are proficient. And you possess a high compassion motivation drive. There’s a very high probability that you would not permit your Splitdawn compatriot to terminate me.”

  “You sure do sound like a robot.”

  He continued without a pause. “And a thirteen percent chance that you would terminate me if you were under considerable duress.”

  “I’m gonna name you Kevin,” Rachel spoke over him. “I’ve always wanted a robot named Kevin. Even since I was a kid.”

  “Agitated verbal response. Elevated heart rate. Pupillary dilation,” Kevin replied. Again, another twist of the head. “Do I make you anxious?”

  Rachel swallowed, gripped the gun tighter. What the hell is Maeve doing up there? How long does it take to send a message?

  It was obvious he was trying to head-trip her, but there was a huge difference between knowing it and actually being able to ignore it.

  “I don’t get it. What’s the grand plan?” she said, marveling at how nonchalant it sounded.

  “Grand plan?” he asked.

  “Why bother with all of this cloak and dagger stuff? Kidnap me. Go after Erelah.” She gestured to the empty hold. “Erelah told me her plan was to share this tech with everyone. So no one would fight over it. It’d be a level playing field. Everyone in the Reaches would benefit.”

  “Acquisition of Veradin’s jdrive enhancement—and our improvements thereof—would ensure Poisoncry domination of all territories of the Reaches in short order.” The bruised and broken mouth twitched into another smile. “Origin would fall thereafter.”

  Gooseflesh prickled the back of her neck. Rachel stood over him, unaware that she’d automatically drawn the gun up. “You’re playing the long game.”

  Kevin said nothing. His stare snapped away.

  Maeve thundered into the room, her face flushed. She muttered a string of syllables under her breath like a curse. “They won’t listen!” She gestured at the direction of the cockpit. “Muckers keep ordering me off the vox. Say it’s for official business only. Shut me off all the bands.”

  “We have to warn Erelah,” Rachel said, keeping her gaze on Kevin. “She went to meet with Hirano. It was her idea to go to him.”

  “Looks like the dockmaster will get his way.” Maeve’s smirk was of the dangerous variety. “Guess I move Wedge after all.”

  Part Seven

  Fifty-Seven

  She was aware of the universe trying to reinsert itself into her mind as a series of unimportant images: the flicker of fire, the semi-sweet smell of fuel vapor, something slick and wet running down the side of her face.

  Up. Get up. Move, or you’re dead.

  She felt a perfunctory drive to heed that voice. It was the trunk of light at the center of her aching brain.

  She lifted a head swollen with hot sand, forced her eyes open. Hands that belonged to her but on limbs a mile long pushed up against the blood-soaked plating. White-hot pain shot up her wrist. She blinked at the metal shackle there. Its mate was missing.

  The discovery meant nothing, connected to nothing. There was no Before this moment. It was terrifying and cleansing. Purging, in a sense.

  Move. Now!

  She nodded in agreement.

  Voices called out to each other. Jubilant, victorious. They’re searching for you. The thought came from that same place in her head as the voice that told her to move, to run.

  She pushed up on her elbows and brought one knee up under her, but the other leg was a lazy beast. It was a surreal sight: a twisted finger of metal stood out from the meat of her thigh.

  It didn’t hurt. It seemed to belong to someone else, this leg.

  The voices drew closer. Quick! They’ll catch you.

  She gritted her teeth and pulled at the metal. It dropped free. Fresh blood welled up from the hole it left behind. She stood, tested her weight. The leg was still numb, but she found she could move it. She blinked around the liquid warmth that ran into her eyes. Pain throbbed at her left temple to keep time with her heart.

  The spot she stood in could have been a gruesome crater left by a scutter mine. Large pieces of wreckage dotted the area: a stun
ted wing, the twisted skeleton of a cargo hatch frame. A vessel had crashed.

  She’d been on it. Of that, she was certain. But from where?

  Through the billowing columns of smoke, she glimpsed dark figures moving. They called to each other. Their words were indistinct, but it was apparent from their movements that they were searching. For me?

  One remaining shackle encircled her wrist. Sweat glued the remains of paper clothing to her body. That bright trunk of light at the center of her brain told her to run. She could find answers later, but she needed to go. Now!

  She took labored, hobbling steps to pick her way around the worst of the fires. A buzzing noise filled her ears. When she shook her head to clear it, vertigo threatened to steal her balance.

  She found her way to a crumbled wall. Something about its age told her that this was not a result of the vessel’s crash. The horizon was dotted with similar remains, all in competing stages of decay. An unfamiliar moon hung in the purpling sky. Streaks of light, the trails of ships breaching atmosphere, fluttered past. Small pops of light flashed in her vision. There was a firefight up there, high above this world.

  It was important.

  “This way! Blood. Think we nicked one.”

  “See the trail.”

  She snapped out of the daze, realizing she’d sunk down the wall. Her leg was wet with blood. She clamped a hand over the wound. There was no way to staunch the bleeding. They’d follow her blood trail.

  She lurched upright. Her breath came in labored gulps as she shambled along, keeping to the shadows. A narrow alley offered better cover. She turned down it.

  Push, drag. Push, drag. The voices drew closer.

  A thunderous protest of engines bellowed overhead.

  She leaned back to follow the sound. Where she had expected to find a wall, her shoulder met nothing. She fell sideways, landing far lower than her point of origin.

  It was a stairwell that led into the ground. She lay on her back, feet facing the top stairs, head at the bottom. In the skies overhead, something else erupted in flame. Dark shapes traipsed past the open mouth of the alley above her. She held her breath, watching them. They need only look down and see her sprawled in the open, like a gaping landed fish, and just as vulnerable. In the light of another explosion, she saw hulking bodies outlined in the gear of infantry: soldiers.