by Amie Kaufman
Beyond them is a ring of security personnel I’d safely describe as “terrifying.” They’re Chellerian like Bianchi—big and blue, with more teeth than head. Their muscles barely fit into the suits they’re wearing, and given the quality of Bianchi’s tailors, that’s probably a deliberate choice. They stand in the crowd around their boss, four eyes apiece watching the throng, suspicious bulges in their jackets.
“Okay, kids,” I tell my team. “Bianchi’s in the northwest corner. The amount of security he’s got around him, there’s only one way you’re getting close.”
“And that is?” Goldenboy asks.
“Dance like there’s ass in your pants.”
“On it,” Ty says without hesitation, grabbing Aurora’s hand and hauling her into the crowd. I can just make out her squeak over the low thud of the music.
Scarlett and Cat stay by the aquarium a moment longer. Scarlett’s studying the others who line the wall, but on her micro-cam I can pick up the nearest fish on the periphery, and now Dariel’s got me looking at the damn things too.
Casseldon Bianchi really does have one of every species in the galaxy, as best I can tell. This fish is serpentine, two meters long, as fiery orange as Scarlett’s hair. The real party trick, though, are the huge venom sacs on either side of its face, each one bigger than its head, giving it the appearance of wildly ballooning cheeks. Its white eyes bulge, as if it’s as surprised by this development as I am.
Cat, on the other hand, is staring straight at our Alpha and our stowaway, like she has been all night.
I don’t like where this kind of fixation leads. We already saw one outburst, and even after she slunk back to Dariel’s den smelling like Larassian semptar, there’s been an uneasiness about her.
“Uh, Zero,” I say. “Can you give me a sweep of the room?”
She obliges, turning in a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree arc, giving me a good look at the crowd. There’s nothing to be seen that I couldn’t pick up through the overhead cams, but as expected, our infallible Face doesn’t miss the cue in my tone. She turns her attention back to the Ace beside her.
“Why should they have all the fun?” Scarlett asks, suddenly grabbing Cat by the hand, pulling her out into the crowd.
Cat’s spluttering, and Scarlett’s laughing, and despite the tension zinging through me, I grin too. Scarlett has a great laugh. And now she’s sweeping our pilot into her arms and dipping her over backward in an extravagant move.
There are so many different species here that everyone’s dancing in their own way. In ones and twos and tens, hands linked, bodies intertwined or not touching at all. After five years at Aurora Academy, its hallways only ever populated by Terrans, Betraskans, and recently the odd Syldrathi, I’m not as used to this kind of mixing bowl as I used to be. I grew up with my grandparents on a station like this, and I loved it.
I’ve missed it.
Scarlett and Cat have struck up the most ridiculous dance now, joined hands pushing out in front of them.
“What are you doing?” I laugh down the line.
“A tango. Traditional Terran dance, very romantic,” Scarlett tells me, though Cat’s laughter makes me wonder if they’re even close to getting it right.
Goldenboy and Aurora really don’t know how to dance together, but they’re both picking it up by sneaking looks at the crowd around them, and it’s kind of satisfying to see there’s something he’s not instantly on top of. But more importantly, they’re getting closer and closer to one Casseldon Bianchi.
“Okay, you need to get near enough for me to snatch the signal,” I tell them as I sweep the cameras again, looking for trouble. “Not so close that those goons decide to bite your head off. Remember—”
“One meter,” Ty and Auri chorus together.
“They can be taught!”
Zila speaks up on comms. “Finian, is this appropriate positioning?”
I flick my gaze across to my other screen. Crap, they’re at the grav-generators already. I gotta keep juggling, gotta keep all my balls in the air.
Heh, balls in the air.
“That looks good,” I say. “Charges need to go on the secondary buffer.”
“I am aware,” Zila agrees.
“There’s a second patrol heading in your direction,” I say. “You might wanna have a plan to deal with them in case they notice those missing guards and stick their heads into the gen room. A distraction of some kind, maybe.”
“Kal, did you brush your teeth this morning?” Tyler asks over comms.
“Thankfully, I do not think it will come to that,” Kal replies.
Tyler laughs in answer and I hear Auri ask him what’s so funny. I make a mental note to ask him myself. Later. For now, I’m busy.
“Set remote detonators and leg it back here,” I tell Zila and Kal.
I glance to my other screen to check on Goldenboy and Aurora’s progress. They’re getting close now—I can see Bianchi on their micro-cams. There’s just two rows of masked dancers between them and their quarry. They’re weaving through his security, lost in the swirl of light and color, so close now to the magical meter. The guards look wary, but not bitey. I’m guessing Ty and Auri look just the right flavor of pretty and gormless, grinning at each other like idiots.
But they might just pull this off.
My fingers are poised over my uplink, ready to jump the signal if Bianchi’s hand touches his bio-key. I dunno if I’ll manage it; there’s already a ton of traffic in that room. Snatching a specific stream is going to be like catching a knife while a thousand others are thrown at me, and I was never a very good catch in school.
Good thing we’re not in school anymore.
“Okay, just a litt—”
The door of the den bursts inward off its hinges, smashing into a stack of Dariel’s junk and flinging it in every direction. The leaves of the flic vines burst into bright light at the sudden impact around them, and a stalactite breaks off the ceiling, missing me by a hair’s breadth before it shatters on the ground.
Adrenaline kicks me in the gut, and I lunge without thinking for the cables connecting my makeshift rig, yanking them free. All my screens cut to gray static, and my view of the team is gone.
A squad of goons burst through the breach, weapons up and locked. They’re in unmarked tac armor, but it’s hard to miss the fact that every one of them is Terran. Military haircuts. The physiques of humans who spend a lot of their day lifting up heavy objects and putting them down again.
Dariel gawps like one of his damn fish.
“You’re not supposed to be here yet!” he shouts.
My stomach sinks as two figures walk in behind the thugs. Featureless gray suits, with featureless gray helmets, every possible hint of their identity hidden.
Crap, crappity, craaaap.
It’s the GIA.
I hit the Mute button on my uniglass, slide it under an empty packet of Just Like Real Noodelz!™ And then one of the figures speaks, its voice an electronic monotone.
“HELLO, LEGIONNAIRE DE SEEL.”
STUFF TO RUN AWAY FROM
▶ LIFE-FORMS
▼ ULTRASAUR (ABRAAXIS IV)
THE ULTRASAURS OF ABRAAXIS IV ARE WIDELY REGARDED AS THE MOST HOSTILE SPECIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE MILKY WAY GALAXY. POSSESSED OF MORE TEETH THAN TPHAR’S DENTURES EMPORIUM, LESS CHARM THAN THE MORIBUND SLUGBEASTS OF BANON III, AND FEWER FRIENDS THAN THE SOLITARY HERMIT OF BARR (THE ONLY INHABITANT OF HER SYSTEM), THEY WERE CREATURES OF SUCH ASTONISHINGLY BAD TEMPERAMENT THAT, IN DEFIANCE OF ALL ECOLOGICAL LAW, THEY WIPED EACH OTHER OUT IN AN ORGY OF CARNIVOROUS MAYHEM.
IT’S THE VERY GREAT FORTUNE OF EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GALAXY THAT ULTRASAURS ARE NOW ALMOST EXTINCT, BUT IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF AN ENCOUNTER, TRADITIONAL WISDOM DICTATES DYING QUICKLY AS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION.
“F
inian, we’re in position.”
Tyler’s report crackles over squad comms, almost lost under the music. I’m watching through the swirling crowd, the flashing lights, the strobing blue. The beat is thudding in my ears and my pulse is thudding in my temples as I watch Tyler and O’Malley dance. They’re close now, close enough to Bianchi for Finian to work his magic. Tyler leans in as if he’s whispering something in O’Malley’s ear. She smiles as if it was funny. My jaw clenches.
“Finian?” Tyler asks. “Do you read me?”
No answer.
I feel the butterflies in my stomach flutter then. They’ve been growing louder since the bar last night, since those G-men said their farewells and bumped my uniglass to transmit the paperwork—official documents, emblazoned with the GIA seal, signed off with my thumbprint. Words like immunity and cooperation and capture written in bold. Words I don’t want to think about right now.
“Has anyone got Finian on comms?” Tyler asks.
“Fin, do you read me?” Scarlett asks beside me.
Nothing.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
Tyler leans in close to O’Malley’s ear again to mask the motion of his lips.
“Zila, Kal, report status?”
“Charges are set,” Pixieboy replies. “We have just left Gravity Control.”
“We may have a problem. Finian is off comms. If he can’t snatch the signal, we can’t open the door to Bianchi’s office.”
“Why is he off comms?”
“That’s what I want you to find out. Head back to Dariel’s squat. Expect trouble. Scar, I want you to go with them as backup.”
“And what are you going to do?” Scarlett asks.
I look through the crowd, find Tyler’s masked face in the pulsing light. The mass of bodies is rolling and swaying around him, Bianchi and his concubines, people of all shapes and sizes moving in unity with the beat. But he stands perfectly still. Brow furrowed. Eyes narrowed. Mind racing.
“Cat, meet us near the restrooms.”
Scarlett looks at me, and I see her uncertainty. But once Ty has given an order, she’s not going to buck on him in public. She’s as loyal to him as I am.
As loyal as I am….
“Be careful, roomie,” I warn her.
“You too,” she nods.
We part ways, Scar moving off toward the exit, me diving through the crowd. Tyler and O’Malley are working their way out of Bianchi’s swarm of bodies, slowly, not attracting attention. I run my hand along the aquarium as I walk, watch a dozen luminous worm-things follow the path of my fingers across the glass. My heart is thumping. The music is so loud.
“You all right?” Tyler asks when he sees me.
“Five by five, sir,” I reply on instinct.
I try not to notice the way O’Malley is hanging on to his arm. Tell myself she’s more overwhelmed by all this than I am. That she doesn’t know. Can’t know.
“Orders, sir?”
“Zila and Kal’s explosive charges are in place.” He taps his uniglass. “Even without Fin, I can detonate them remotely. When they pop, Bianchi’s security will be in chaos. We’ll still have ourselves a window, just like we planned.”
“But without Fin, we can’t get the passcode,” O’Malley protests. “Even if we make it to Bianchi’s office, we won’t get through the security door.”
Tyler calls up the schematic from Finian’s presentation and points.
“The security door isn’t the only way in.”
“…You’re not serious?” I ask.
Tyler winks, and my heart drops into my boots.
“I’m improvising,” he grins.
A few minutes later, we’re lurking near a heavy plasteel door in a shady corner at the back of the ballroom. It’s a little quieter here, and a few couples and one triple are getting to know each other better in the gloom. Large red letters are stenciled on the door in a language I can’t read. If I was a betting girl, I’d wager the passkeys to the Longbow that it says MENAGERIE: KEEP OUT.
The door is guarded by four huge Chellerian goons, leathery blue skin gleaming in the dim light, thin black masks covering their four blood-red eyes. They’re each standing with four arms folded across their broad chests, but they’re not on high alert—there’s cams everywhere after all, almost a hundred other guards in this ballroom. And as Ty said, nobody in the ’Way is stupid enough to mess with Casseldon Bianchi.
Well, almost no one.
Tyler looks at me, the whites of his eyes aglow in the black light.
“Ready?”
“Is this a trick question?”
We all reach down, flick the switches on our boots. The electromagnets Finian installed in our heels begin to hum softly, fixing us to the metal floor. Tyler looks at O’Malley, squeezes her hand.
“Just act drunk and stupid,” he says.
“Second part should be rrrrreal easy for us,” I mutter.
We begin walking toward the guards, heels clunking on the deck. It’s a little awkward to move in the magboots, but Tyler takes the lead, pretending to be off his face. He wobbles, almost falls. I support him, trying to look embarrassed and loaded at the same time. O’Malley trails somewhere behind us. The goons look us up and down as we approach.
Tyler holds up his uniglass, slurring, “Any of you got station time?”
“Move ’long, hoo-maaan,” one growls.
And as he steps within range, Ty gives the detonation command.
There’s a second’s delay. The lights flicker overhead as Zila and Kal’s charges explode deep down in the belly of the station. And with a rush of vertigo, the sickening sensation of my insides suddenly floating free in my body, I feel the gravity aboard the World Ship die.
The Chellerians wobble, lifting gently off the ground. They reach out to the walls for balance, but their movements are too sharp, and they’re overcorrecting. I hear shouts of joy from the crowd, followed by uncertain screams as that ocean of people begins to float up off the deck toward the galaxy-clad ceiling.
Tyler moves quick, I move quicker, each of us reaching into one of the Chellerians’ jackets to draw out his disruptor. I fire once, twice, Tyler offloading into the third’s chest. The fourth manages to grab Ty’s wrist and twist it hard before I fire into his face. Red eyes roll up into his skull and the guards are drifting unconscious. The couples and triple are screaming behind us, but their cries are lost among the chaos of the ballroom. People are floating everywhere now, a sea of bodies rising into the air, the music still blasting, strobe lights bursting.
“Go!” Ty orders.
I grab a passkey off a goon’s belt, swipe it through the scanner. The door to the menagerie opens wide, and in a heartbeat, Tyler, O’Malley and I are inside, slamming the door behind us.
Tyler takes the lead, magboots clomping as he follows Fin’s schematic. O’Malley’s eyes are wide. I wonder if it was the GIA who hit Dariel’s den before they were supposed to. If some other drama took Fin out of play. How I can keep this whole thing from spinning out of control. How we’re going to get through this alive.
We round a corner, find two guards floating in midair, shouting into their commsets and trying to get a grip on the ceiling. A blast from our disruptors silences them, and we’re slipping in through a heavy door, sliding it shut behind us.
The room beyond smells like a sewer. I wince at the stench, looking around at the doe-eyed beasties in the cages surrounding us. They’re sorta like cows, gentle fuzzy quadrupeds with big brown herbivore eyes. They mewl when they see us, ears flicking back in fear.
“What is this place?” O’Malley whispers.
“A larder,” Tyler says. He’s got his uniglass held up on translate mode, scanning the Chellerian letters on the controls and searching for the right switch.
“Bianchi
eats these things?” she asks, horrified.
“Not Bianchi,” I sigh. “His baby boy.”
Ty presses a button and a section of the floor rumbles and slides away, revealing a steep ramp curving down out of sight. I smell wet earth below, the sweetness of flowers.
O’Malley has her head down, and for a moment I think it’s fear. But then she lifts her chin, and her mouth’s a straight, determined line.
“Does that lead where I think it does?”
“To Bianchi’s office?” Tyler nods. “Yeah, it does.”
I shake my head. “This is crazy, Tyler. This is every kind of stupid.”
“At least we’re being consistent,” he says, ripping off his mask and jacket.
“This bad boy killed every living thing on its planet. You really wanna go poking around its house?”
“Gravity is still down, the ultrasaur’s not going to be mobile. We move quick and quiet, we’ll be okay. We’ve come this far. There’s no backing out now.”
“And presuming we dodge that thing down there, how do we get into Bianchi’s office afterward?”
Tyler smiles. “Trust me.”
A beep sounds inside O’Malley’s belt.
“YOU REALIZE YOU’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE, RIGHT?”
“Magellan, hush,” she whispers, muting its volume.
Annoying as the little bastard is, I can’t help but agree with it. I want to protest more, but Ty has deactivated his magboots and is pushing himself down the ramp. For all her obvious fear, O’Malley throws her mask aside and follows close behind—Tyler Jones just has that effect on people, I guess. Because as pants-on-head stupid as this is, I find myself killing my magboots and floating after him too.
The ramp emerges into a broad stretch of amazing jungle—a bona fide rainforest right here in the middle of a space station. I don’t know why it surprises me after the aquarium, but this is somehow even more incredible.
I can’t imagine the creds Bianchi must have blown to put this place together, how mad he’s going to be if anything happens to his prize pet. The foliage is thick, rippling shades of red and orange and yellow, like a permanent autumn. The air smells sweet, the enclosure hung with vines and vibrant alien blooms. We push ourselves around the edge, using the twisted magenta trees to guide our movements. The space is massive, deathly still, and the sounds we make as we brush past the branches seem deafening, though they’re no more than a whisper.