But there’d be time to worry about that once they got back to her ship. Let’s go find out. She grabbed Sherin’s hand and squeezed it. Part of her wanted to kiss the other woman’s icy cold fingers, but that felt too vulnerable, too exposed. Later. Once they were back on her ship, she’d kiss every millimeter of Sherin’s body.
She released Sherin’s hand and pulled her knife from its hidden sheath in her boot. Its alloy material had passed the security scan, but it wouldn’t help them much against lazers. Still, just holding it made TiCara feel better and it might prove useful, as long as she could surprise any attackers.
They loped carefully down the corridors in the direction that TiCara had come, pausing at every branch and turn to check for whatever might be on the other side. TiCara was desperate to plug in, to find out what they were up against. With a medusa connection, she could probably even hack into the security channels, given some time. It would take too long if she didn’t plug in, and something told her that time was going to be critical for them.
But there didn’t seem to be much in the way of open terminals of any kind in this station and she didn’t know where the Electra personnel hid the others. It wasn’t as if she’d seen any other medusa pilots in the brief time they’d been here so maybe they didn’t have medusa connections. Even if she could find one, plugging in would probably alert station security and bring them back again.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling her implants swirl around her head in confused spirals and her thoughts with them. Bet that looks great on the secur cams. Be handy to be able to turn them to stone right around now. She grimaced at her own attempt at a joke and opened her eyes again to look around.
As if she was reading TiCara’s mind, Sherin paused, her fingers flying over her handheld’s virtual pad. I think I can get into the station’s broadcast system. Not as good as wired, but better than running with no tell. TiCara jerked her head in acknowledgment and stepped up carefully to peer down the next corridor. It was empty, at least for now, and that alone was worrisome, given how many station personnel and others she’d passed getting to Sherin. Where had they all gone?
Behind her, Sherin’s handheld crackled to life. Phrases like attack and emergency lockdown echoed against the corridor walls and Sherin grimaced. Tell us what we don’t know. Where are they? She shook the handheld a little, like that was going to make the tell more informative.
And who are they? TiCara murmured. It could be the pirates, but why pick now to attack the asteroid? If any of the stories were true, it had been here for many revolutions around Gathwaite. Nothing they had seen made it look especially vulnerable to a sudden attack by what had to be former allies or trading partners.
There were other possibilities. Zig’s face rose in her mind and she shuddered. If the Ear had followed them to the asteroid, and his ship had been shot down too, he had nothing but reasons to attack the station if his ship had been shot down and he thought he would get something out of it.
A dreadful certainty filled her the more she thought about it, even as she tried to deny it. It was him, had to be him. Erol had told her he was the one tracking their flight, the one who got her Second to betray her.
As for Vahn, he had only mentioned rivals in general, not any specific corp. Not anyone else with resources and a personal vendetta against the medusa pilot flying Vahn to his destination. But then, she hadn’t asked if he knew Zig. She wondered if their orbits had intersected before and if Zig had some reason to hate him too.
She choked out her words, It’s Zig, that’s who was on that ship. Maybe he has bots or had an entire crew in cryo or something to attack the station now. But it’s got to be him. She could hear the rising panic in her voice, and winced. Sherin gave her a wide-eyed look, followed up with a reassuring arm squeeze.
TiCara leaned against the wall and closed her eyes as she fought for control of her racing heart. When her pulse had slowed a bit, she realized that she was holding the knife hilt so tightly that her fingers were achingly white. She loosened her grip and drew a trembling breath, letting her medusas drop down to her neck and send out a few reassuring pulses.
Her impulse to find somewhere to hide gradually faded, leaving her aware of Sherin’s proximity. The other woman was watching the surrounding corridors for danger while she pressed up against TiCara, letting the warmth of her body bring whatever reassurance it could. TiCara reveled in the comfort for a moment.
Then the touch of Sherin’s body brought other thoughts, too, and TiCara felt herself flush with heat. She imagined pressing Sherin against the corridor wall and letting her hands and mouth convey everything that she was feeling. Maybe Sherin was ready for the touch of her medusas now. Maybe...she clamped down on her fantasy and her libido at the same time with a wry smile, hoping that she wouldn’t regret that choice later.
Sherin gestured with her handheld. Well, Zig or not, it sounds like whoever they are, they’re down by the loading bay. If it’s him, that’s where he must have come in. I think we can avoid that area and get back to the lockers if we go this way. She pointed down another corridor and began walking at TiCara’s head jerk of agreement.
They kept moving, occasionally passing station personnel as they got to the lower levels. Apart from a quick threat assessment, no one paid much attention to them, which TiCara took as a good sign. They know who they’re fighting. He must have brought bots, not human or cyborg mercs or crew. Otherwise, they’d be shooting at us. She muttered the comment to Sherin, who responded with a head jerk of agreement.
The confirmation for that found them much sooner than either of them hoped or wanted. They were outside the canteen and nearly at the door to the lockers where they’d left their suits when Zig came around the corner, two military grade robots at his heels. Both women froze.
Zig smiled when he saw TiCara, then turned to the robot on his left. Kill the unwired one first. He gestured at Sherin.
TiCara knocked Sherin aside and lunged for him, knife in hand. The other bot stepped forward on a signal from Zig, and raised its blaster. She dodged and rolled to avoid running into the blast range. The heat seared the wall and floor behind her.
The other bot was firing at Sherin now and TiCara glanced over in time to see her lover roll across the floor into the canteen and begin tossing around the tables and chairs together to make a barricade between her and the bot. TiCara hoped that she could find a weapon too. Now to try and gain the other woman some time.
With that thought, she slashed her knife across the leg of the robot reaching for her, aiming for some exposed wiring, and it lurched, its balance mechanism sending it backward. She rolled forward and past it, trying to get around its metal bulk to attack Zig. A whir of electronics warned her that the robot had turned and was arming, about to fire on her, and she spun up from her roll and jumped, using its armored body to brace her feet against as she leapt clear of it.
A hurled seat shot past, smacking into the faceplate of the other robot. TiCara wished that she had the breathing room to grin at Sherin as the robot staggered before re-aiming and firing into the canteen. But she had her hands full with its companion. Zig had not given it a kill order for her, not yet, so it was still trying to catch her. What Zig would do with her once his robots had her immobilized wasn’t something she was willing to think about.
But it was enough to remind her of a long-forgotten piece of her training. She couldn’t outrun this thing for long and she couldn’t count on Sherin being able to do so either, so it was time for a new tactic. This half-remembered maneuver might be their best, or perhaps, their only chance.
When the robot reached for her, she let it pick her up. Then she shoved her face into its featureless head and sent her medusas into the gap between its faceplate and helmet. The resulting pain was agonizing and she screamed, barely able to control herself enough not to pull away. Dimly, through a cloud of red, she saw, rather than felt, her medusas connect with its wiring.
She could hear Zig yelling
something, see the bright flash of the other bot firing, as she sent a wave of commands through her medusas. The effort made her black out for a moment, but she came to in a wave of heat and light that emanated from the robot that still held her. She sent the command, Drop through her implants with everything she had and yanked her implants free with a final self-destruct message. After another wrenching couple of moments, she felt its claws release her.
TiCara dropped to the floor in a shower of sparks and crawled as fast she could away from the robot. She could see Zig realize what she’d done and lunge in the other direction, trying to get clear before it blew itself up, possibly taking all of them with it.
The explosion, when it came, was sudden, filling the corridor with a brilliant, white flash. As she buried her face in her arms, TiCara hoped with everything she had that Sherin was doing the same, that she had seen what was happening and been able to avoid being blinded or worse. The air was full of metal, plastic and wire, showering down on the floor around TiCara and she shuddered every time a burning fragment landed too close.
It felt like the entire station was evaporating in a cloud of burning air. She sent out a fervent hope that anything vital that the station needed, like life support, wouldn’t get damaged. Where was station security when they actually needed them?
Finally, everything slowed down and after a long moment of quiet, she looked up cautiously. There were two molten hunks of metal and plastic where the robot had been and the corridor was filled with dust and fine particulates. She squinted through the haze, looking for the second bot. There had only been time to tell it to blow itself up, not to ensure that it destroyed its companion as well.
Her medusas were limp now and she could tell that several had shorted out. The resulting headache was blinding, leaving her struggling for control. She wouldn’t be able to do the same thing to the other bot. She needed a new weapon. With a huge effort, she crawled forward through the debris, looking for her knife or whatever else she could use.
Motion caught her eye: Zig was trying to stand up. She could see blood seeping from his wounds through the dust, but if he could stand, then he was still a threat. That sent a bolt of adrenaline through her and she lurched to her feet, using the wall for support.
TiCara risked a quick glance at the canteen as she stood up. She couldn’t see Sherin from where she stood. But Zig seemed relatively undamaged and she had to deal with him first. She scrambled forward, grabbing the robot’s lazer as she went. If she had any good fortune left, it was still working and the burns and damage to the casing were only cosmetic.
Zig started laughing, a hollow, eerie sound that echoed off the corridor walls and made TiCara want to cover her ears. Or shoot him. What was there to laugh about? One of them, maybe both of them were going to die. Sherin might already be dead. She wasted an instant wondering if Vahn had gotten his cure and was on his way down to the bay, or if he, too, had died in the attack. How long had they been here?
TiCara swayed on her feet from pain and exhaustion as she watched Zig, trying to force her feet to move her closer to him, to close the distance and ensure that the damaged lazer would do enough damage to kill him. He was grinning at her now, sharp white teeth shining under the shattered lights like the predator he was. His dark eyes were cold and dead, belying any joy that his laughter suggested, a cold ruthlessness emphasized by the weapon in his hand.
Why did you land here? Her voice sounded distant in her own ears. You could have waited off planet or just registered the coordinates and gone back to Kyrin. None of this, she gestured around them, was necessary.
At first, I thought I’d reclaim you, he said and the statement hung in the air between them, like a cloud of toxic meteorite dust. That was what I planned to do after I killed your crew and destroyed that tub of bolts you flew here in. We’d be just like we were before. Better, even. He laughed again, a dry, humorless bark, punctuated with a gasp of pain. Then they shot my ship down and wouldn’t let me to bargain for repairs.
TiCara began to shake as her memories threatened to flood back in. Somehow, she had always known this day would come. Had always known that he would find a way to possess her again. She could feel her hand holding the robot’s lazer drop to her side. It was hopeless; why had she thought that she would ever be able to escape him?
From behind her, she heard the scrape of metal on metal that told her that the other robot was still there, might still be a threat. One of her still-functioning medusas sent a light spark into her neck, trying to rouse her, but she only shook her head, spinning it away from her. The walls around her tilted as the pain in her head increased.
What did it matter if the robot killed her or Zig did? Everyone she cared about betrayed her in the end. Her fingers loosened on the lazer as she prepared to meet her fate, whichever it turned out to be. The hall turned gray around her and a distant portion of her brain realized that she was gasping for air as the overwhelming smell of burning plasticene filled her lungs. Alarms clanged around them, the sound nearly drowning out everything else.
TiCara, no! Blast him! Sherin’s voice echoed around them, despite the alarms. She said something else, but TiCara didn’t catch it. There was a crash behind her as something big hit the floor. Please let it be the bot, she thought.
The sound of Sherin’s voice gave TiCara a lifeline, something to pull her back from the dark wave of despair that was threatening to swallow her whole. Her fingers tightened on the lazer and she drew in a slow, shuddering breath.
She returned to herself just in time to register Zig’s sudden motion. TiCara threw herself to one side, dodging the blast that he fired. Don’t want me back so bad, then. Don’t think it’ll be that starshine, she snarled through gritted teeth. She dodged behind a portion of melted robot, using it for the small amount of cover it provided while she took aim at the Ear.
A well-timed tossed chunk of melted seat whizzed past his head and he flinched away. TiCara fired, then screamed as the damaged weapon she was holding melted, burning her hand. She got rid of it by heaving it at Zig as she jumped forward, her knife in her other hand.
The pistol struck him in the face and he jerked away, raising his arms instinctively to avoid the sparks from the disintegrating gun. Then TiCara was on him, slicing upward into his shoulder to force him to drop his own lazer. The scent of his blood and the echo of his scream of pain maddened her and she drove the blade into his torso, looking for whatever the Ear used for a heart.
There was a blinding flash as her damaged pistol exploded, leaving TiCara sightless. She rolled free of the Ear in a panic; where was Zig? What was he doing? She thrust out again and again with the knife, hoping that the blade would find its mark without her eyes to guide it.
Strong arms wrapped themselves tightly around her and from a galactic distance, she heard a voice murmuring in her ear. Zig? She struggled, trying to break free. Some part of her realized that it couldn’t be him, as her medusas did their best to calm her. Sherin, it had to be Sherin. But what was she saying? TiCara couldn’t hear a thing and felt another moment of utter panic before her medusas kicked in with a soothing wave of pheromones.
She forgot about Zig in a dim rush of horror. What if she was seriously hurt? She didn’t have the credits for tech healing, not after what she’d paid to get Sherin into the station. A shudder shook her entire body, sending shooting pains in its wake. She could feel rare tears trickle down her cheeks as her body and mind warred with her medusas.
Sherin kissed her forehead and TiCara could feel her fingers gently stroke her cheeks. She tried to speak, but she still couldn’t hear so she had no idea if she could be heard by anyone else. Experimentally, she flexed the hand that didn’t hurt as much; her fingers moved with only minimal agony so she reached up and touched Sherin’s face. But her fingers came away wet and she began running her hand over Sherin’s face and head, checking for wounds. Was the other woman injured too?
Despite her panic, she forced a trembling breath into her lun
gs, then another. She made herself stop grasping at Sherin and let her medusas take over, using them as rudimentary senses as she imposed control on her wounded body and mind. They couldn’t replace her sight or her hearing but they could read her lover’s body and assess her condition, given enough time. They could also tell her that she and Sherin weren’t alone.
Sherin’s body stiffened against hers. Was there a new threat? TiCara wanted with all her heart to believe that she had killed Zig. Wanted to, but couldn’t. If he was still alive, they were both blackholed. But if it was him, why were they still alive? Was he stopping to gloat?
A faint yet familiar voice cut through the velvet silence and the buzzing which all that she’d heard since the explosion: Vahn. It seems that you will be unable to fly me home, after all, Pilot-Captain. What a shame. Is the damage permanent?
Another pair of hands touched her face, the fingers rougher and bigger than Sherin’s. She could feel Sherin trying to push someone away, feel rather than hear her swear at someone she couldn’t see, but who must be Sammo or some other security personnel that came with Vahn. Zig must be dead if they were spending time on checking on her instead of fighting him. But she couldn’t even begin to make herself hope for that, not until she had seen his corpse. Perhaps not even then. Death was too easily faked, especially for Ears.
Maybe. The new voice was cold, indifferent. There are some burns, but she should recover from those. But she can’t see, might be just until she gets the tech to fix it, might not be fixable. The implants could still plug in if you want her to pilot. No need for eyes then. Sammo. At least she could hear him now, though the ringing in her ears made his voice sound like she was listening to a faulty speaker.
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