“If she didn’t want a room at the hotel down there, she shouldn’t have stolen imperial property,” Axton added.
More guards came out of the cement dome. Dash soon found himself walking next to McCall with men on all sides, pointing rifles at them.
Dash glanced toward the dead prisoner off to the side, a sheet of snow already covering his unmoving form. Dash had no doubt that the guards would shoot him as remorselessly as they’d shot that man.
He looked at McCall, once again with the need to apologize to her. Except he hadn’t even apologized to her the last time.
She stared straight ahead, her face bleaker than the snowstorm, and didn’t look at him.
6
The sound of the wind disappeared as the guards led McCall and Dash into a dim cement stairwell that circled down and down. It grew warmer, which at first seemed a boon, but soon she was sweating. She didn’t know how the guards in their layers and layers of winter clothing didn’t melt into puddles on the steps.
“I’m sorry,” Dash whispered, descending at her side.
He wore a stricken expression.
McCall shrugged. It had been her fault, not his. She’d chosen to open her big mouth—and stick that explosive she and Scipio had made onto Axton’s armor.
When she had envisioned deploying it, she had imagined Scipio at her side, not incapacitated on the deck of the cargo hold. And she had prepared it because she’d wanted to distract the sheriff while Scipio ran off, not because she’d thought he would turn on his own pilot.
Though if Dash was truly some Alliance operative, she wasn’t surprised Axton had chosen this fate for him, especially given his record. Had he planned to dump her down here all along? McCall wasn’t sure. Maybe not. Maybe it had been a split-second decision. Whatever it had been, she had no idea how she would get out of this predicament. And get her ship back. And Scipio. And Junkyard.
She halted as fear pounded her like a mallet. What would that asshole do to Junkyard? Keep him locked up in her cabin until he starved? Shoot him as soon as he stomped on board?
“Keep moving.” One of the guards shoved her.
McCall clenched her fists, aware of the rifles pointed at her but unable to fight down the urge to punch someone. “I can’t. He’s got my dog.”
“Move.”
“You don’t understand. I—”
Someone shoved her hard enough that she pitched down the stairs. She flailed, unable to catch herself, but Dash lunged down and gripped her arm before she tumbled to the hard cement. He pulled her upright. She knew he meant to help, but she didn’t want help. She wanted to get out of there and make sure Junkyard was all right.
She turned, looking back the way they’d come, and saw nothing but darkness and more guards on the stairs behind her. Panic washed over her, and she could hear her own rapid breathing in her ears.
“Don’t fight,” Dash whispered. “Not now. Please.”
He squeezed her arm, but he also seemed to do something else. She felt a strange soothing sensation come over her, something that didn’t originate within her.
It confused her and alarmed her, but the rational part of her mind realized he was right. She couldn’t do anything with all these men around them, watching and ready to pounce.
“He’s not a pilot,” Dash said.
“What?” McCall allowed him to guide her back around, believing the guards were on the verge of cracking her on the head with their rifles if she didn’t, but she couldn’t stop railing at the idea that she was walking farther and farther away from Junkyard. And Scipio. And her ship, damn it. Would Axton think it within his rights to impound it? Or claim it for himself? A law enforcer couldn’t claim a civilian ship for himself, though. Not legally.
“Axton,” Dash said quietly. “He couldn’t fly his way out of a latrine with no walls. He doesn’t have me, so he’ll need your android.”
McCall hadn’t truly thought Scipio was in danger—not physical danger, just in danger of being returned to that wretched facility—but she realized that as long as Scipio wasn’t deactivated, he would take care of her ship. He knew how much Junkyard meant to her, and he would do his best to protect the dog from Axton.
“Assuming your android is willing to work for him,” Dash added. “I admit, I’d be tickled if he kicked Axton’s ass and left him in the snow for whatever was howling out there to eat.”
McCall sighed, her legs numb as they continued descending in circles. “He’s a personal assistant android. Despite his assurances that he’s downloaded the appropriate combat protocols to defend me and the ship, anyone with more than three brain cells could figure out how to get around his martial maneuvers. All you have to do is ask him to make copies of something or fetch coffee, and he defaults to that.”
“I promise you Axton only has two brain cells.”
McCall grunted, deciding not to point out that he’d outmaneuvered Dash well enough.
The stairs finally ended. McCall was shocked that the inmate who’d tried to escape had possessed the energy to sprint out into the snow after climbing fifty zillion levels of steps. She shuddered, remembering the cold-hearted way the guards had mowed him down. Would they do anything to protect the smaller and weaker prisoners from being preyed upon by bullies? She feared not.
Dash brushed his arm against hers, frowning at her with concern. She had no idea what expression was on her face, but she did her best to don a stoic mask.
But maybe that didn’t matter. He always seemed to hear more than she said.
As the guards propelled them down a hot cement corridor, the lightbulbs mounted in cages on the ceiling flickering off and on, McCall thought of the stories of Starseers. Not stories, she amended. It was legitimate history, how the Old Earth colonists who had settled on the now-destroyed planet of Kir had developed certain gene mutations that allowed them to survive the higher-than-anticipated radiation levels on their world, mutations that had resulted in a few strange side effects. Such as the ability to move objects with their thoughts. And read minds. But there were so few Starseers left in the system these days, it was easy to think them just the stuff of legend.
When McCall glanced at Dash again, she found him staring resolutely ahead instead of looking at her. Hmm.
She almost asked, “Can you hear what I’m thinking?” in her mind, but she would have felt silly. Besides, if he could read minds, he should have known what Axton was thinking. Though admittedly, there were also stories of cyborgs being given certain drugs and taught some mental tricks to more effectively battle against Starseers, lest the Starseers attempt to take over the system again, as they had almost done centuries ago.
Clanks and hisses came from behind closed doors they passed. Up ahead, the corridor opened into a room that glowed red. From fires burning? This place was even more antiquated than McCall had imagined, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. The whole planet supposedly ran on coal and what power their underground stations could generate from it.
She remembered some trivia that Frost Moon 3 had once been located much closer to a sun, and had been verdant with foliage, but an asteroid strike had knocked it out of its orbit, leaving it to find a new orbit around a planet much farther from the suns. The geologists who’d explored it early on had been startled to find fossils and coal underneath the permafrost.
“In case we’re about to be separated,” Dash murmured, “thank you for helping me up there.”
“I wasn’t much help.”
McCall shook her head. With Scipio out of the equation, she should have aborted her plan, but she hated seeing other people bullied. As a girl, she’d fantasized about being an android, in part because they had superior strength and no bully would dare pick on them. And in part because they didn’t have feelings so they wouldn’t care if bullies tried.
Her life had been comfortable up until the last week, and she’d almost forgotten about those fantasies, but it was amazing how quickly everything from childhood could come rushing b
ack, given the right—or wrong—situation.
She caught Dash giving her another long look, and she resolved to guard her thoughts around him. Just in case.
“I still appreciate it,” he said as they drew closer to the room, and the sounds of voices flowed out, some angry and harsh. Some laughing. “I didn’t expect you to help me when— Well, I know we didn’t hit it off from the start.”
She shrugged. What was she supposed to say to that? It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t delighted in his humor. He and his boss had taken over her ship without so much as a please.
“I’ll do my best to watch out for you down here,” Dash added. “I’m not— Believe it or not, I’m good in a fight. It’s just hard to do anything against a cyborg in combat armor.” His expression was earnest.
She never quite trusted her ability to read people, but she sensed that it mattered to him that she not think he was a schlub. She had no idea why. They had barely spoken. Though she silently admitted she was glad to know someone else down here. She didn’t like to think of herself as a person who needed anyone else’s help, not anymore, but who knew what lay ahead? She didn’t have access to her ship or her netdisc, the things that allowed her to ply her trade. All she had was her brain. Would that be enough here?
“Thanks,” she said.
Dash nodded firmly, like it meant something. Maybe it did.
Someone cried out in pain, and McCall jumped, instantly thinking of the bloodcurdling screams of the prisoner who’d died before their eyes up above.
Her guards pushed her forward, none of them reacting to the noise.
They entered a large room with the same cement walls and light bulbs in cages as the tunnel, though the ceilings were higher, and rusty machinery ran along one wall. Another wall was open to some kind of pit with a metal balcony looking out over it. The reddish-orange glow came from somewhere down below.
From the door, McCall couldn’t see what lay down there, but loud clangs and hisses came from that direction, battering at her senses. The flickering lightbulbs were already agitating her. Why wouldn’t these people fix them? Or just shut off the ones that flickered?
A groan came from the balcony. A shirtless man stood there, gripping the railing and looking down as someone cracked an e-whip at his back. The white lightning-like cord of energy snapped in the air like a real whip would, and when it landed, the man threw back his head and screamed again. Guards stood around him, these men wearing black uniforms without all the extra jackets, to keep him from escaping—as if the iron shackles around his ankles and chain between his legs wouldn’t do the job.
She looked away as the e-whip cracked again and again, the man screaming every time. She could avoid seeing the torture, but she couldn’t avoid hearing it, and the reality of her situation struck her hard in a way that it hadn’t on the stairs.
“This is why I started working for the Alliance,” Dash muttered, glancing at her. “The empire knows this goes on out here, and they don’t do anything about it. All they care about is that the three border worlds this planet supplies with coal get their shipments. The suns know they couldn’t be bothered to invest in setting up nuclear or quant generators on those planets so they wouldn’t have to burn fuels from the Dark Ages.”
“Shut up.” One of the guards shoved Dash in the back. “And enjoy the show.”
“Enjoy?” Dash growled over his shoulder. “You sadistic asshole.”
“Keep blathering and you’ll be next. Lessons get taught every day.”
“Lessons?” McCall mouthed.
The guard with the e-whip turned off his torture device, thank the suns. A gray-haired guard leaned over the railing.
“You see the price of disobedience,” he called to whoever was down there listening. Listening and watching. “Do your work, and you can avoid this fate. That’s all we ask. Your days needn’t be any more unpleasant than you make them.”
“Easy for you to say from up there,” a voice called from below.
The guard glowered down, then looked at one of the other men and jerked a thumb, as if to say, “Go take care of it.”
McCall’s stomach gave a queasy lurch. Seeing the tortured man’s back didn’t help. It was scorched with deep burn marks crisscrossing his flesh where the e-whip had struck.
“Put them in with the other newcomers,” someone said, pointing at McCall and Dash.
Their guards shoved them along again. They passed through the large room and into a smaller one with stacks of neon green uniforms stacked on shelves along one wall. An assembly line of a sort was in progress, with the prisoners from her ship being first asked questions, then pointed to the shelves where a bored-looking man handed out uniforms and directed the newcomers to one of two doorways.
McCall’s soul withered when she realized her clothing would be taken from her and she would be forced to wear one of the awful garments. She could deal with the color—though glowing like a landing light at a space port wasn’t her preference—but the starched uniforms looked scratchy. She would probably break out in hives before she even touched one.
“Occupation?” another bored-looking man asked someone ahead of McCall and Dash.
She made herself pay attention. They had to go through his station before collecting a uniform.
“Driver,” the addressed prisoner said.
“Mines. Get a uniform and go out the second door. Next.”
The line shuffled forward, the older Alliance woman going next.
“Occupation?” The man sorting people didn’t seem to have any knowledge of the prisoners. One could have said anything.
“Electrician.”
McCall arched her eyebrows. The woman—Rose Akerele, she reminded herself—had been a professor before leaving her university to join the Alliance. She had three degrees, but they had been in literature, publishing and editing, and secondary education. She either had a hobby of assembling electronics kits, or she was a better liar than McCall.
“Plant,” the man said. “Get a uniform and go out the first door. Next.”
“Construction,” the next person in line said.
“Mines. Next?”
McCall shuffled forward with Dash falling in behind her. There was only one more person ahead of them.
“Professional fence,” the fellow declared with a bow. “If you need something acquired or disposed of, I am the man to see.”
The bored sorter grunted. “You were. Mines.”
“Mines? With my skills? I—”
“Get a uniform and go out the second door. Next.”
The “fence” lifted a hand to argue further, but one of the guards jabbed him with a rifle. “Get your uniform, ass-face.”
“Occupation?” the sorter asked McCall.
“Skip tracer, but my degree is in computer science, and I took math and engineering courses in school.” She had no idea if the plant was any less onerous than the mines, but it seemed a place where she could more likely plan sabotage and escape from. “And I listen to my sister talk about her job a lot. She designs all manner of infrastructure and specializes in sewage treatment systems.”
The sorter gazed at her with the kind of bland and unimpressed expression that came standard on androids, and McCall waited for him to jerk his thumb toward the second door, the mines.
“Plant,” he said and told her to collect a uniform.
Huh. Now, she just had to hope that nobody expected her to be able to operate equipment she had no experience with. Though if everything here was as antiquated as the lightbulbs, she ought to be able to figure out most of the systems. She had taken math and engineering courses at the university, even if she had ultimately switched to programming and designing sys-net algorithms, and she could read basic schematics and understood how electricity was generated. Hopefully, that would be enough.
“Occupation?” the sorter asked Dash.
“Pilot.”
“Mines.”
Alarm surged through McCall. Dash had promise
d to protect her; she couldn’t let him get sent to the other side of the planet. Besides, he was the only person down here she even vaguely knew. The only person who might be willing to help her escape and get her ship, Scipio, and Junkyard back.
“Wait,” she blurted before Dash could be ushered away. “You’ve got all that mechanical experience repairing the ships you fly, don’t you?”
Dash opened his mouth but didn’t speak immediately.
“You’re a mechanic?” the sorter asked.
“I…” Dash nodded, though it wasn’t that convincing.
Hopefully, the sorter wasn’t an acting critic.
“Plant then. First door.”
Dash shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him either way. McCall doubted that was true, but she didn’t know for certain. She was relieved.
“I’m not a mechanic,” he whispered to her as they walked over to collect their uniforms. He sounded worried.
This time, she shrugged, hoping it would put him at ease. “I don’t really listen to my sister when she talks about her job.”
He snorted, or maybe it was a laugh.
The person who handed out uniforms didn’t say a word as he selected sizes and thrust trousers and a formless tunic into each of their hands. McCall frowned. The garments were as starched and rough as she’d feared, and a giant tag that looked like a dagger thrust out of the seam of the top. This was going to be a hell, for more reasons than one.
7
They let him keep his underwear. What a boon. He’d still had to strip naked for an invasive search that had driven home that he was now a prisoner here with no rights to privacy or anything else.
As he waited by the doorway, his back to McCall, who was being similarly forced out of her clothing and searched, he wondered how they could get out of here, cross more than a hundred miles of frigid tundra to one of the domes, and find transport off this ice ball. His best bet would be to connect with other Alliance loyalists who had been captured and thrown in here. Rose Akerele for sure—he was relieved McCall had thought to get them both sent to the plant, the same as Rose. And there had to be others who had been here longer, who, he hoped, might already have some ideas on how to escape.
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