by C. Gockel
Sela sighed heavily and looked at the man who had sidled up to her as she stood against the far wall of Phex’s tavern.
Moments before, she had watched him weave through the crowd, obviously trying not to be obvious in his approach. She was reluctant to leave her position. It offered an unobstructed view of both the exit and the doorway to Phex’s lounge.
This Eugenes was her height, but he appeared older by a decade. His eyes carried an open lust that provoked a primitive loathing in her. It reminded her of her days as a booter, before the males figured out she would neuter them for even looking at her like that.
This misstep did not have the benefit of that education.
He planted a thick arm against the doorway over her shoulder, eclipsing everything.
“Buy you a drink, pretty?” he leered, using Commonspeak.
Sela looked him up and down. His features were sallow from untold years of ship-side living. Tattoos dominated the left side of his face, competing with a thick layer of scars at his chin. Silver lined his front incisors in what was, she guessed, the fashion among the dispossessed. He smelled of the same dank shadows of this place.
“You don’t want any trouble,” she warned through clenched teeth. “Move on.”
“Maybe I like trouble.”
Sela was about to reply but stopped when she saw the dim glint of metal within the shadow of his coat. It was the evident outline of an A6 compression pistol, a fairly new Regime issue.
She looked down at the weapon and up at him.
No way a scav like this could possess such a weapon. The A6 pistols were hard coded and could be fired only by the user who had the matching implanted tracer. Expensive tech.
At her expression, his silver smile evaporated.
He grabbed for his weapon. She seized his wrist. He got it as far as shoulder height. Sela threw her weight against his arm and kicked away from the wall. On reflex, his grip tightened, finger jerked against the trigger. The round struck the floor near the toe of his boot. The report was punishing in the small alcove. Sela threw the point of an elbow into his thick neck. The gun clattered from his grip.
Even if he knew she was a deserter, Sela realized she looked like an easy target. Her appearance had often garnered her an unwanted type of attention. Men like this one were always surprised when she turned out to be the opposite. She had come to rely on that.
There was a smattering of screams and a few shouts. Over the ringing in her ears caused by the close report of the A6, she heard a throaty metallic blatting. An automated announcement, in an oddly calm pitch of Commonspeak, competed with the din:
“Your attention, please. Weapon discharge detected. Level four. Section twelve. Lockdown initiated. Thank you for your cooperation.”
The damned energy weapon alert. It seemed the dock agents hadn’t lied.
“Damn it all,” Sela grunted, moving in time to block his retaliatory strike. She squeezed out of the alcove. No longer boxed in, she reached for the knife in her sleeve just as he grabbed a fistful of her hair.
She threw her weight to her left and swung her right arm over his. His balance teetered. She drove a palm into his nose and felt a fleshy snap.
“Breeder bitch!” he spouted with a plume of blood and spittle.
She squared off to face him, knife slipping into her hand.
Around them, the tavern had dissolved into chaos.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Your attention, please. Weapon discharge detected. Level four. Section twelve. Lockdown initiated. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Lockdown. Got it,” Sela panted, scowling down at the still figure on the floor. Her knuckles throbbed. Her injured shoulder ached. She was fairly certain she had bruised ribs, but, damn, this was invigorating. It hardly felt fair to her would-be assailant. She tapped his side with her boot. Her knife was buried between his ribs, yet he still managed a low grunt.
The tavern was empty, populated only by overturned benches and abandoned drinks.
She knelt on his chest, robbing him of leverage although it was highly unlikely he would ever get back up. His hand weakly gripped her upper arm. She shifted her weight and crushed his hand to the deck beneath her boot.
“Way too grabby for a dead man.”
Sela ripped open the front of his artfully careworn duster to expose a neat black tunic and trousers devoid of Regimental insignia. As she suspected, he was a Seeker, a well-trained fugitive hunter. They were known to work in packs, like razor-wolves.
She looked around for the displaced A6. It had become wedged beneath an overturned bench. The thing was brand new too. A Seeker with all-new Regime tech. She didn’t know whether to be worried or flattered.
The knife came out more easily than it had gone in. He barely moved when she sliced open his forearm and dug his tracer out. The A6 would be useless without it.
“I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”
“Captain.” She gaped up at Jon.
“What happened to low profile?” He pulled her up by the elbow.
“Seeker. There could be more Regime here.”
“Definitely more,” he said grimly, his attention swiveling to the front of the tavern. Sela turned.
A sudden rush of panicked screams flooded the marketplace outside. She saw the gleam of EE trooper helmets in the garish glow of the tavern’s multicolored sign.
“This way.” Jon steered her in the direction of Phex’s private office. Sela paused long enough to scoop up the A6 from the floor.
Inside, they leaned against the heavy metal door and cycled the lock closed. She took in the smaller room: incongruously tidy with some nice-looking appointments. But no Phex.
“Where’s the slug?” she asked.
Veradin shoved the table onto its side to reveal the open mouth of a trap door in the floor.
“It’s like he knew we were coming. I was about to grab him when the weapons alarm sounded. Figured you had something to do with that.”
“The other guy started it.” Sela looked away guiltily.
A coordinated barrage shook the office door’s frame. The troopers had arrived. Sela sat on the edge of the opening, feet dangling into the space. Yellow chem lights offered weak illumination below. They exchanged a look across Phex’s secret passage.
“Looks like maintenance access.” As she leaned down, her voice echoed back from the dimness.
“Ty, wait!” Jon barked.
Without hesitation, she pushed away from the edge and slipped down into the passage. Jon followed, colliding with her as he landed. The space was tight. The passage only allowed them to stand at an awkward stoop. Moving about would have been easier for the oddly shaped little Phex.
A crash echoed in the room above. The EE troopers had gotten through the office door.
“They’re wearing full turnout gear. Can’t fit down here,” she said. “But that won’t keep them long, sir.”
“Let’s move then.” Jon forced his way past her.
They managed a scurrying stooped run. Around a curve, the conduit emptied into a tiny square room that was blessedly tall enough to allow them to stand.
There was a distinct clatter behind her in the shaft. Sela did not give Jon time to pause.
“Down!” She shoved him behind the bulkhead and covered him with her body.
There was a blue-white pop, and a wave of vertigo knocked both of them to their knees. Ears ringing, she climbed back to her feet. The pulse wave had clipped them. Not enough to render them unconscious, but sufficient to disorient. Just because the troopers couldn’t fit did not mean they would give up. The grenade had been their solution.
Sela would have done the same.
“Sir! Are you injured?” she yelled over the ringing in her ears.
Hands on knees, Jon doubled over. He nodded, holding up a staying hand.
“Concussion grenade?” he wheezed. Then he puked.
Sela shrank back. What a booter.
“Back in
the kennels, one of the drillers used to throw them into the middle of the mess hall at random.”
“Charming.” He wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve. “You and I had vastly different childhoods.”
Sela looked around. Three corridors led away in different directions from the room.
“Which way?” she asked.
“We have to get back to the ship.”
“But the nav charts.” Sela stepped to the doorway to her right. Phex couldn’t be that far ahead. They could still complete their objective and elude capture.
“No…Ty. I mean now ,” he called with renewed urgency.
Sela turned. He was peering down at the handheld interface she had linked up with the Cass. A new alert pinged on its screen.
“On-board motion detector is active. She’s attempting to open the outer hatch.”
She cursed. The kid had enough tranq in her to knock me out for a week. “How?”
“Does it matter? We have to go.”
“Then which way?”
“Here.” Veradin lunged for the left passage.
Her arm shot out, barring him. “No!”
Sela stooped, gesturing to what she had just noticed. “Tripwire.”
Delicately, she traced the slender silver wire up and around the frame. Flat packets of thermaline lined the space in neat rows. A fine layer of dust coated the floor of the passage, undisturbed. No one had been that way for quite some time.
“Explosive. Low yield. Meant to injure,” Sela explained.
“Phex doesn’t trust himself, it seems,” Veradin said, scanning the center passage. Well-lit, it canted up and to the right, suggesting it led to the upper levels.
“Narrows the choices then.” Sela turned back to the passage on her right. Unlit by chem lights, it was impossible to see beyond the first few paces.
“This way,” they said in unison, both gesturing in different directions.
“Ty—“
“That’s the way he wants us to go, sir.” She jerked her thumb at the center corridor.
“It’s in the direction of the docking bays. It’s faster.”
“No doubt. But not that way.”
He took two purposeful strides before she could stop him.
The metal gate slid shut quickly. Had he hesitated, Jon would have been sliced in two.
“What did I just say?” she scolded through the bars. A hectic bout of pulling and pushing at the barricade revealed what she already feared. The thing would not budge. “I told you—”
His hand shot up. “Not another word!”
With a snarl, Sela kicked the gate. With growing desperation, she searched its edges. There was no release on her side.
Veradin examined the interior and turned back to her. “There’s no getting this open. I’ll have to take the passage the rest of the way.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Get to the Cass, Ty. If you get there first, secure Erelah. Get out of here.”
Sela did not answer.
“That’s an order.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t give me orders anymore.”
“Ty. Look at me.” She stepped closer, curling her fingers through the mesh of the gate to fold against his hand.
“You know I’m right.” He held her gaze. “You can’t fight them all off.”
He was right. Of course, he was right. But it did not stop the hollow blossom of fear. To die here, like this would mean nothing. There was a distant hope that they could still emerge from this intact.
She shut her eyes, releasing a low sigh. “Fine.”
Erelah should pray that he beats me back to the ship. Somehow, this was her fault. Had to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Phex was surprisingly fast for his stature and build. But then his speed was probably also motivated by an intense desire to evade capture.
She caught up with him nearing an access corridor. When he saw her, he launched into a wobbling sprint. The passage widened out into a storage facility for spent fuel casings. The walls were emblazoned with poison and rad warnings with, thankfully, no sign of the former contents.
If I one day grow a third arm, I’ll hunt down Phex and pummel him with that too.
He was mere strides ahead now. She could hear his winded breathing as he crossed the room to a door. As he threw it open, the brilliance of a marketplace corridor pierced the gloom. With it came the full-on bray of the warning klaxon, accompanied by frightened shouts of Merx’s fleeing residents.
Sela lunged, wrapping Phex in a tackle. She pulled him back inside and shut the door. He spun around, arms flailing. She pressed a boot into his pendulous yellow abdomen. He swung the sawed-off scatter gun in a ponderous arc, with no real force or ability to aim. Just as he pulled the trigger, she batted the muzzle aside. The round in the space was concussive.
“May I?” She seized the barrel.
Phex grunted, still pinned beneath her foot.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She twisted the weapon from his grip and propped its barrel against his neck. Sela shook her head. The ringing in her left ear drowned out all sound on that side. Through the vibration of the deck, she could still feel the panicked footfalls of the station dwellers in the corridors beyond.
With her free hand, she rummaged his food-stained coat. In a hidden pocket was a tiny dat drive, no larger than a child’s finger. It was important enough for Phex to keep it on his disgusting person.
“Is this what I think it is?” She jammed the device into his face. “The nav charts on this?”
His mouth flopped wordlessly.
“Well?” She pressed the primer on the rifle.
He nodded, jowls wiggling. “Only copy.”
“Too bad,” she mocked with a pout and jammed the dat file into the pouch on her thigh.
“Breeder bitch,” he grumbled.
“Can’t trust us. Remember?” She straightened, her aim trained on Phex. “Bay four. Fastest way there.”
“This level. Second corridor past the market.”
“When did the Regime get here?”
“Half a sol,” he grunted, rolling from side to side in an attempt to get to his feet. “They sent Seekers to cull the map dealers.”
Something more than fear of being blown away by his own weapon paraded behind his beady-eyed gaze.
“Go on.” Sela prodded his thick belly with the muzzle, throwing him off balance again.
“Big payoff for whoever helped catch you.”
“From Ravstar?” she scoffed. “They don’t pay. They take what they want.”
“Not if they wants things quiet, see?” He licked his lips.
“Why do they want us?”
When he took too long to answer, she jabbed him again. Harder. He squealed.
“Not you. They were looking for someone named Veradin. And it ain’t in my conjuring as to the why.” It was an amused snort.
“Something funny?”
“You’re just byproduct , pet.”
“But they’re Kindred.”
“You say that like it makes a difference. It don’t none. Not to the likes of her.”
“Her? Who’s that?”
Phex said nothing. His eyes rolled up, looking over her shoulder.
Sela realized her mistake too late. Her hearing, temporarily deafened by the sawed-off’s blast on one side, had not detected an approach. Whirling, she caught the brunt of the trooper’s rifle in her injured shoulder. Her grip on the sawed-off failed.
She charged, hoping to push the trooper back and make room in the small space to slip past. His armor would have made hand-to-hand foolish on her part, but he could not move as quickly under its burdensome weight. Her best chance was to make space and slip by.
But that was not how things happened.
Just as she reached for the A6, staggering pain raced down both hamstrings. A second trooper got her with a stunner. She staggered forward to meet the stock of the first trooper’s weapon under her ch
in. The A6 clattered to the deck. Orbs of light dazzled her vision as she crashed down beside Phex. An armored knee landed squarely between her shoulder blades, and the air rushed from her lungs in a wounded bellow. A hand on the back of her head rammed her cheekbone into the deck. A boot stepped into her limited view. Straining, she turned her gaze up to its owner, then regretted it.
A misshapen freak of pallid, scaled skin dressed as a Defensor loomed over her. Metallic stitching at the high collar bore the Ravstar emblem. Although its face was partially obscured by the heavy hood, she caught enough details to help her realize what she was looking at.
A Sceeloid half-breed.
“Commander Tyron. How terribly disappointing you are in the flesh,” it said.
The Defensor’s hand tightened around her throat. Sela heard and felt something pop. A zinging sensation ran along her shoulders and into her fingers. She clawed at the closing fist. With incredible strength, the half-breed lifted her up and thrust her back against the wall.
She found herself unable to tear her gaze from the Defensor’s. Despite the strange mongrel appearance, the eyes on this thing were the worst. They were purely Eugenes and the perfect shade of dark brown.
“Erelah Veradin.” The voice had an odd metallic edge.
“Never…heard of…her.”
The fist squeezed. Beyond the pain, Sela realized with relief: the captain was most likely still free. It emboldened her.
“I know she accompanied you to this station. Where is she?”
“No idea,” she grunted. Her lungs were burning wings trapped in her chest.
“She is here. I can feel her. Very close.” The Defensor’s eyelids fluttered. Its cruel mouth curved into something like a smile.
“You’d make a cute couple.”
Sela’s comment seemed to bring her back from some little mental trip.
“Erelah utilized a stryker to depart my facility. Where is it?”
“Up his ass.” She flicked her gaze at the tense bundle of nerves dressed in a lieutenant’s uniform that stood at the Defense’s elbow. He was a slender, pinch-faced Eugenes. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you look.”