by K. B. Wagers
“Jenks, do you copy?” Nika’s voice was a welcome sound in her ear, but it almost distracted her from clotheslining the person who’d been right behind her.
She dropped them hard, knocking the wind from their lungs, and kicked them in the head with enough force that their neck snapped.
Take them out as fast as possible and get clear. Never get caught, never get surrounded.
“Little busy,” she managed to reply to Nika, dodging the fist of the next tough who came around the corner. She kicked them, knocking them back a step, and took off running again. “I have no fucking clue where I am, so don’t ask.”
“Turn your locator back on.”
She swore. “Right, sorry.”
“There, I’ve got her,” Sapphi said. “Jenks, take the next right.”
Jenks did what she was told, suppressing the urge to ask why Sapphi was on coms when she was in the hospital.
“Grant’s here,” Jenks managed. “Said he wanted to send the NeoG a message to back the fuck off or else.”
“Did he hurt you?” Nika’s question was issued in a startling snarl.
“Not yet, but he’ll give it a go if he catches me.”
“Grant’s got some heavies with him,” Jenks said. “I clotheslined a guy and made him a corpse. I think the others are still on my ass.” Her voice was even and Nika knew without a doubt his sister had slipped back into the survival mode of her youth.
This wasn’t going to end well, even if she got clear.
“You keep running, okay? Don’t engage unless you have to,” he replied. “Sapphi’s getting us a path to you.”
“Nika, can you get Jenks to switch to the main coms?” Stephan asked.
They’d split when the group had hit the east gate. Max and Chae had peeled off with Luis to the north. Tamago and Doge were with Nika. D’Arcy and Tivo headed back the way Tamago had come while Stephan and Scott had stayed behind to gather up more spacers in the hopes they could trap Grant and his people.
“I don’t want to distract her with too many voices in her head,” he replied.
“I need to know what’s going on.”
“And I’m keeping my sister safe, so deal with the updates,” Nika snapped. It sucks not having all the info, doesn’t it, Stephan?
“I can relay information, Commander,” Sapphi said, and the offer seemed to mollify Stephan. “Nika, take the next left and then an immediate right. You’ll have to hop the wall.”
Doge hadn’t slowed and the ROVER cleared the three-meter-high wall with ease.
“I see that. Tamago, you need a boost?”
“I got it.” They ran at the nearby building, tic-tacking off it and grabbing the top edge, pulling themself up to the top. Nika ran at it straight on; catching Tamago’s outstretched hand with his left and the top of the wall with his right, he scrambled up.
They dropped to the other side.
“Jenks, you still with me?”
“Mostly. Just took down number—what am I on? Found myself a piece of pipe. Tell Stephan I’m not sorry for leaving a trail of bodies for him to pick up.”
Nika could hear the sorrow lurking beneath the thin veneer of glee and it broke his heart a little more. These bastards didn’t have to beat on Jenks to hurt her. For all her talk and occasional violence, Jenks didn’t like killing; it reminded her too much of the near-feral person she’d once been.
“Just keep moving,” he said. “I’m headed your way.”
Jenks willed her feet to pick up the pace and ignored the pain in her side. It was hard to tell if that kick her last opponent had landed had cracked a rib or if she was just entirely shit at running.
Probably a little of both.
She forced herself to relax her grip on the pipe she’d found and the ache in her hand subsided somewhat.
Grant was still out there along with at least three others, though she was surprised they hadn’t broken off the chase. They had to know she’d get in touch with the NeoG base the first opportunity she had.
Maybe I shouldn’t be running so fast.
“Jenks, why are you slowing down?”
“Everyone’s circling around to me, right Sapphi? If Grant’s still chasing, this is the perfect opportunity to catch him. If I’m going to be used as bait, at least I can do it on my terms. There’s a dead end up ahead, let’s see if he follows me.”
“No, you keep going and turn right, you’re almost to Max and Chae.”
She went left instead.
Chae heard Sapphi’s curse loud and clear over the coms. It mingled with the one Max let loose into the air.
“What is it?” Luis demanded.
“She’s going to try to lure Grant into a fight in the hopes we can trap him.” Max looked back at Chae. “We’ll likely leave you behind, so just catch up, okay?”
“Don’t need to sprint, LT,” they said, and pointed at a gate ahead of them. “We can cut through here, get in front of the chief. The gate’s unlocked, or should be unless they’ve changed something in the last few years.”
“How do you know this?”
“Home court advantage, sorta? I used to come into Amanave with my friends in the summer. We spent a lot of time around here.”
“Okay,” Max said, waving a hand at Luis’s protest. “I trust you. Jenks, we’re almost there.”
“Good to hear,” Jenks replied. “Because four-on-one is my idea of a party only under specific exceptions.”
Chae choked back a laugh as they pulled the gate open and sprinted through. The back lot of Ouroboros Engineering was often left open by the night guard who had a soft spot for the habitat kids looking for a quiet place to hang. The kids, in turn, kept the place clean and safe and allowed the guard to catch up on his sleep for most of the night.
It was a relief to see that nothing had changed. Chae held up a finger to their lips at the first group they encountered. “We’re just passing through,” they whispered. “It’s okay.”
The teens watched them with wide eyes as Chae led Max and Luis through the maze of crates and across to the other side of the lot. They grabbed for the corner of the fence and frowned.
“They moved it over there,” a voice whispered from the shadows. “Management found that one and replaced the whole section so we used the darker corner behind that wall over there for the new exit.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, are you NeoG?”
Chae froze. “Yes?”
“Cool.”
“Chae, we need to move.”
Chae threw a quick salute toward the shadows and continued forward until they found the cutaway in the corner and slipped through. They took off running, following Sapphi’s map, knowing Max and Luis would close the distance quickly.
Chae rounded a corner and leaped over the body in their way, skidding to a halt just in time to see Jenks take a punch to the face. Her opponent wrapped their other arm around her neck, but before they could take her to the ground, Jenks reached up and grabbed for their elbow with her right hand.
She locked the hand and wrist with her left as she twisted away, pushing upward until the sharp crack of wrist and elbow bones breaking in tandem echoed in the night air.
The tough cried out and staggered away. The only remaining opponent hesitated and Chae kicked them in the back of the knee before they could finish making the choice to attack the chief.
“Hey, Chae,” Jenks said, wiping blood from her mouth with a sharp grin as the others clattered into the street. “Thanks for the assist.”
Twenty-Two
Nika arrived just in time to see his sister drop to a knee. Luis rushed forward, and he was too far away for Nika to call out a warning.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” Jenks swung on him, spitting the words with a guttural snarl.
Doge cleared the distance with a snarl of his own that shocked everyone. Luis stumbled back and Nika rushed forward, slipping between the startled man and his sister. “Back up, Luis. It’s not you. Give her space. D
oge, stand down. Max, don’t touch her.”
Max frowned, but stopped where she was. “What is it?”
“Flashback, most likely.” Nika went to a knee next to Jenks, just inside her reach. Her fists were clenched and her chest heaved with her rapid breathing. “Altandai, look at me.”
She lifted her head, but her mismatched eyes were unfocused.
“Tell me what you see.” He could hear the buzz and conversations behind him as Stephan’s reinforcements arrived on the scene.
“Lotta dead bodies.”
“No. Everyone here is alive. Refocus. Tell me what you see.”
She blinked and his heart ached at the pain on her face. “You.”
Nika exhaled. “Better, give me details. Five things you can see.”
“You. Max.” She hesitated. “Luis. Pipe on the ground. One of them had a gun, it’s over there.”
“Good, give me the next one.” Nika patiently walked his sister through the grounding process he’d learned would help her.
“Blood, unfortunately,” Jenks replied to his final question of what she could taste, and she spit to the side. “Missed a block.”
“You’re getting slow in your old age.” He grinned when she looked sharply at him. “You back?”
“Yeah.” She shuddered, rubbed both hands over her face and then swore at the tears she just managed to choke back down. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” He got to his feet and offered her a hand. She took it and Nika pulled her up and into an embrace.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed almost to the point of pain as she buried her face against his chest. “Been a while since that happened,” Jenks muttered as the shaking started. “Thanks.”
“Always got your back.”
Jenks managed to muffle the sob and Nika only heard it because he’d been waiting for it. He hugged her closer, bending his head and kissing Jenks on the top of hers. “I’m sorry, sis, for everything.”
“I don’t need your apology. I told you before, you’re my brother and I’ll love you to the heat death of the universe. I’ve always got your back, too.” She looked up at him. “You hurt Max, though, Nik. She’s the one you need to talk to.”
He’d forgotten how even more unfiltered his sister’s mouth was after an episode and winced at her honest words. “I tried. She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Then don’t use your words. Do the right thing.”
“Nika, can I check her?” Tamago asked softly before Nika could reply.
“You good with Tamago touching you?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He passed her off to Tamago and nodded to Max’s silent question if she could join them, but he took Luis’s arm and tugged the big man in the opposite direction, toward Stephan. “I know you’re worried, but you need to give her space.”
“She’s had a few bad dreams over the years, but nothing like that.” Luis clenched a fist. “What happened to her, Nika?”
“I don’t know,” Nika replied. “She talks to her therapist about it, and she’s told me bits and pieces. What it amounts to is she spent most of her childhood on the street, Luis, fighting to survive. That leaves scars. She had a few pretty bad flashbacks right after we met. Baba had been good at helping her manage them. I didn’t know how, so I got help from a local clinic.”
He glanced over at his sister. Jenks was leaning against Max while Tamago examined her split lip, Doge hovering nearby.
“I told myself I’d never hurt her,” Luis said softly. He swallowed and because Nika could see the man’s heart in his eyes when he looked at Jenks, he reached out and put a hand on the man’s arm.
“She cares about you or she wouldn’t be mad. We messed up here, Luis. You saw how easily, how willingly, she put herself on the line. Jenks would die for this crew—in her mind, it’s all she has.”
“And we put them at risk, yeah.” Luis sighed. “She said as much, along with not wanting to see us again. That she couldn’t trust us.”
“I’m not going to bullshit you, Luis: she might mean it,” Nika said. “You love her enough to give her the space she needs, no matter how this ends?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Good.” Nika patted his arm. “I’d hate to have to kick your ass.” He ignored Luis’s snort and said, “Let’s go see what we can get out of these people.”
Max escorted Jenks, Tamago, and Chae back to base, leaving the others to deal with the cleanup. Grant had vanished, but they had two in custody and it was going to be a long night for Stephan trying to get information out of them.
She’d sent them all ahead to their quarters once back on base and slipped out to the shops right outside the gate. When she returned, Chae was curled up on the corner of the couch while Tamago cleaned up Jenks’s split knuckles at the bar.
Jenks had messaged her about the fight between the two enlisted Neos this morning, but it seemed at least for the moment as if tempers had been put aside.
“Here, brought you a present.” Max handed the bottle of synth-whiskey over to Jenks.
“Did you steal that?”
“Yes.”
“Max!”
She laughed. “Of course I didn’t steal it. I bought it.”
“It would have tasted better if you stole it,” Jenks muttered, but she unscrewed the cap and took a drink. Her shaky exhale didn’t go unnoticed.
“Are you okay?” Max asked.
Jenks sat still while Tamago smoothed a heal patch over her knuckles, but her eyes stayed on Max. “Yeah. I think the shock has mostly worn off. Or maybe it’s the whiskey.” She wiggled the bottle in her hand and Max reached for it. “I’ll apologize now if I’m snappish for the next few days—those flashbacks fuck me up.”
“It’s understandable. We’re here for you, whatever you need.”
“You could have been killed,” Tamago whispered.
Jenks pulled them into a hug with her free arm. “They’d have to bring more guys than that,” she said. “Besides, they weren’t there to kill me, just to send a message.”
Max took a quick drink, wincing at the unfamiliar burn. “I’d like to not tempt fate, but Jenks is right. They’re going to have to bring more than that if they’re going up against us.”
“Well, this is serious if LT is drinking.” Jenks dragged out the last word.
Max grinned and sat down next to Chae, handing them the bottle. “Just the one. Would you like to hear the uncensored version of how Zuma’s Ghost took down an illegal LifeEx manufacturing operation?”
“A what?”
Max smiled at the spacer’s obvious confusion and held the bottle out until they took it. “I’d just joined Zuma’s Ghost and—”
“By ‘uncensored’ she means the story that none of us really get to tell because of how fast the CHN and LifeEx Industries locked it down in NDA limbo.”
“To be fair,” Tamago said, packing their med kit back up, “they weren’t wrong about the whole ‘eroding public confidence’ line.”
“People get worked up about fake LifeEx that could potentially kill you. For good reason.” It surprised Max a little that she could joke about it now. A number of people had been hurt by the dupe, and her sister was still hard at work trying to find a way to undo the damage from the product that had been slipped into the supply chain.
“A disclaimer, kid,” Jenks announced as she hopped off the stool. “You can’t talk about this to anyone. It really will cause a bit of a panic.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because you’re family,” Jenks said, looking at Chae with an amused expression.
“Oh.”
“So anyway, it started when we found an old system jumper out by the belt . . .”
The next morning Jenks stood in the back of the conference room and watched as the others discussed the information they’d gotten from Grant’s people. Grant himself was gone like a hastily chugged pint of beer at closing time. Jenks knew part of her rest
lessness was due to the fact that she hadn’t gotten to face him down after all.
We’re not done, you and me.
She didn’t engage in the conversation, just cradled the mug of subpar coffee Tamago had pressed into her hands when she’d come into the room, and listened.
It had been so long since her last episode that she’d almost forgotten the aftermath and how much she hated this sharp-edged feeling gnawing on her nerves.
Even worse was that she couldn’t just lean into Luis and let his solid warmth ground her. He’d looked away from his work, nodded once with sadness in his eyes, and left her alone.
“You want company?”
Jenks smiled up at D’Arcy. “You got some?”
“I might know a guy.” He grinned and leaned on the wall next to her. “Sounds like they got at least one of your attackers to talk, though there’s no sign of Grant. Fucking ghost.”
“Max mentioned you tangled with him on Mars?” she asked.
D’Arcy shook his head. “Not personally. But I knew of him. He’s dangerous, Jenks. Don’t get some wild idea to go after him yourself.”
“You my dad now?”
“Not even remotely.” His grin widened and he shifted, bending slightly to press a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m your friend. I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”
“Part of the job, isn’t it?”
“Wasn’t talking about that.”
Jenks hummed and let herself lean into D’Arcy because she knew he wouldn’t mind. D’Arcy wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“Sigund—the guy whose arm you broke—apparently had some recordings he was keeping as insurance in case something like this happened.” D’Arcy pointed over at Stephan. “They’re cuing one of them up now.”
Jenks listened as an unfamiliar feminine voice issued from the speaker.
“They’ll fix the ship and the investigation into why it crashed may draw more attention than we want. But we’ll keep an eye on Chae for now, and maybe we can head things off with a message.”