Breaking Point
Page 21
The laser beam scorched far overhead and burned harmlessly into a building on the other end of the alley. The woman hadn’t intended to kill them.
She lowered her rifle and ran, but before she cleared the alley, Mitsuki fired her disruptor.
The shot caught the mystery woman’s right foot. She fell but wasn’t stunned. She sat up, clearly dazed, and reached into a bag hanging from her belt. She pulled out a black cube no bigger than Siv’s fist.
Mitsuki fired again, but the woman dived aside, avoiding the blast.
“Holy ‘Nevolence, sir, look how small that drive is! I can’t believe it.”
Siv discharged his disruptor as the woman pressed a finger against one side of the cube and a thumb against another. Energy flickered around her, forming a hyperphasic bubble. Then the concentric rings of Siv’s neural disruptor shot struck home. The woman lost her grip on the cube, and the energy dissipated.
“We’ve got to get out of here and fast,” Mitsuki said as they ran toward the woman. “That rifle beam’s going to draw a lot of attention.”
“Silkster, summon my bike.”
“It’s already on the way, sir. Yours too, Wings. Capital City police just dispatched a squad car, and the World Bleeders and Star Cutters have deployed ground and air teams.”
“ETA?”
“Three minutes for the cops, four for the Cutters, six and a half for the Bleeders.”
The woman’s hood had fallen back, revealing her face, though it was hard to see anything clearly under the scant illumination from the two sodium lights posted in the alley.
“Scanning her face now, sir.”
She was younger than Siv had expected. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were large. Fang-like teeth edged onto her bottom lip. She wasn’t a child, but there was something almost childlike about her appearance.
“Her name is Tamzin Moi, sir. Age twenty-six. No citizenship. No occupation listed. No known affiliations or family members.”
The picture in his HUD showed a young woman with eyes so brown they were almost black and a shaved head except for a pink-dyed topknot.
“Criminal record?”
“Extensive, sir. Theft, assault, illegal arms possession. But she has never once served time.”
“Now that’s interesting. She obviously has inside contacts. I’m starting to distrust her the way she does us.”
“It seems she works as a bounty hunter, sir. Mostly brings in people the police want. Which explains all the dropped charges.”
Mitsuki stood over the woman and frowned. “What are the other players doing?”
“No idea,” Silky replied, "but I suspect they're closely monitoring this. Shootouts do happen in this city, a couple of times a week, so it's not as alarming and attention-grabbing as you might think. But as soon as they take a close enough look.”
“You’ve scrambled us, right?” Siv asked.
“Of course, sir. But the Reapers, Kaleeb, and the Thousand Worlders can unscramble the data well enough. And they will take a hard look once they see the Bleeders and Cutters closing in on us.”
As Siv’s bike zipped up to them, Mitsuki bent down and reached for the cube. She hesitated. “This thing can’t hurt me, can it?”
“It’s safe to touch, Wings.”
Tamzin sprang into action. With one hand she grabbed the cube. With the other, she lashed out with a shock knife. Mitsuki darted away. The blade sliced through the jacket Mitsuki was wearing over her armor.
“Sir, wrap the woman in a hug.”
“What—”
“Just do it!”
Siv threw himself onto the woman as she triggered the cube. As the energy bubble formed around them, he tried to grab the device to stop the process while she dropped her knife and grabbed her rifle by the shoulder strap.
Siv was too late.
The world turned hazy, reddish, and alien. The buildings disappeared, replaced by a barren landscape draped with mists. Everything around him vibrated as if the whole world were shaking. His knees threatened to buckle. A loud buzzing filled his ears.
His HUD went down.
“Silkster?”
No response came.
The woman threw him off, backed away a few steps, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and drew a plasma pistol, leveling it at him.
“You idiot!”
“Me?” Siv stumbled and would have fallen into her if she hadn’t backed away a few more steps. “I’m not the one firing a laser rifle in the middle of the city! You drew attention from the cops and two of the groups trying to capture the ambassador. More would have followed them.”
“You started it.”
“Seriously? What are you, twelve?”
Her eyes flared. In wraith space, they practically glowed an eerie red. "I'm twenty-six, kiddo."
Siv chuckled. “Hey, I’m an adult. And more of one than—” He stopped himself, realizing he’d almost started acting like her.
She laughed for a single second then her face hardened. “So you’re running from them all, too?”
“Because I helped the ambassador’s daughters escape the Tekk Reapers.”
“Why did you help them?”
“I was sent to capture them for the Shadowslip Guild.” A ghostly human form, the size of a child, floated toward them. He tried to ignore it. “I didn’t know what my target was until I got there and discovered I’d been hired to capture a young girl. I couldn’t do that, so I helped them escape instead.”
“So you’re a criminal?”
“Just like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she hissed.
A ghostly form in the shape of a bloated, two-headed dog swept by. Siv flinched and cried out.
“First time in wraith space?”
Shivering, Siv nodded. “I’m guessing someone hired you to capture Ambassador Vim. But when you saw what the Tekk Reapers were doing and what they wanted to know, you saved him instead.”
“Something like that.”
An intense wave of nausea tumbled through him, and he stumbled again. "I'm starting to feel ill. I'm going to sit down."
She shrugged in response then stalked around him as if she were a tiger trying to decide if he were edible. She kept the plasma pistol trained on him. “Are his girls safe?”
“Yes.”
“Are they on Titus II?”
“No.”
“You know how to rendezvous with them?”
“I do.”
“Then you’ve taken a stupid risk by coming here. If you get captured by the Tekk Reapers, they’ll torture you to find out where the girls are.”
“They can’t get anything useful from me. I have a secure way to contact the girls, but I don’t know exactly where they are located, and they’re moving around.”
Even though Silky wasn’t active right now, Siv could “hear” him: “Sir, we don’t know her purpose. She could be a bad guy. She’s getting information out of you easily.”
And then he would respond, “Yes, but it’s not information she can act on.”
“So they will use you as bait to lure them in,” Tamzin said.
“That’s exactly what they’ll try to do if they capture Ambassador Vim.”
“I’m aware of the risks I’m taking with Galen.” It was interesting that she used the ambassador’s first name.
Tamzin stopped walking and glared down at him. “Are the girls naive enough to attempt to rescue their father if bad guys use him as bait?”
“Well, they’re braver than they should be. And Oona… She has a sense of right and wrong that’s stronger than her belief in being a messiah.”
Specters swirled in the sky above him, so he focused his eyes on the ground and repeated to himself, “They aren’t real. They cannot hurt you.”
“I still don’t trust you,” Tamzin said.
“I swear this isn’t a trick. We are…” He threw his hands up and shrugged. “There’s nothing I can say that’s going to convince you.”
“Finally. Now, if you would just let me speak to the ambassador…”
“Not happening.”
“You’ve got to help us out.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why don’t you trust us to help you?”
“Because your plan is stupid. Why risk your lives to rescue him? Why not simply focus on keeping his daughters safe instead?”
"My companion, Mitsuki, she's an extraction agent. She lost her parents as a child when she lived in the Empire of a Thousand Worlds. She agreed to save Oona's father because she didn't want to see another girl lose a parent because of messiah madness."
“And you?”
“My name’s Siv Gendin,” he replied. “I lost my father, too. And…I’m dying anyway. So I figured it was worth the risk. Besides, I’m certain her father has resources that could help the girls out.”
He was not going to tell her that those reasons hadn’t been enough, that they had only continued on the mission because Oona knew her father had information that could lead them to the secret genetics facility.
“Pashta betrayed Galen, didn’t he?” Tamzin asked.
“Yes, he did.”
A ghost passed through Siv. He shivered but managed not to flinch or cry out this time. Maybe wraith space was something you could get used to, for a while. He knew too much time here would drive even a delver crazy, though.
“We should be working together,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, we shouldn’t. I am Galen’s best hope of getting out of here. And I’m a lot less likely to be noticed without the two of you tagging along.”
“We’re highly skilled at what we do. I’m one of the best procurement specialists in the sector, and you will never find anyone better at extraction than Mitsuki.”
“Maybe. But you can be skilled and have poor judgment."
He didn’t respond. She sat down across from him and said nothing. He decided to let her think.
As the minutes passed, he started to get nervous. He wasn’t used to complete silence. Silky’s voice was always there with him. The loss of the HUD, he could deal with that well enough. But not being able to consult with Silky was almost more than he could bear. He shivered. This time not because of wraith space but because he felt so lost without Silky.
“Galen does have resources that would help the girls,” Tamzin whispered.
“He told you that?” Siv asked with surprise.
“Galen and I have grown…close.”
Siv raised an eyebrow instinctively but made no comment.
“He made an important contact about two weeks before the Reapers captured him. He said it was game-changing. But the information was too sensitive to transmit, so he was going to have to deliver it to the girls in person.”
“Did he say what it was?”
She smiled crookedly. “He doesn’t trust me that much…not yet.”
“Whatever information he got from that contact probably started all of this,” Siv said, to see if he could get a reaction out of her.
Tamzin merely nodded her agreement.
Another long silence followed. Siv kept forgetting Silky was down and would periodically ask him questions. The hallucinations of wraith space felt so much more real without Silky’s voice to ground him.
“Can we go back? I’m sure Mitsuki is worried, and I’m not sure how long I can tolerate this place.”
“You’re stuck with me for a while longer.”
Silky began his boot-up sequence, and Siv breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“What’s with you?” she asked.
“My chippy just booted up.”
"Ah. I forget other people aren't used to the technical problems in wraith space. I automatically place my chippy in maintenance mode every time I enter. That's easier for us both."
“Sorry I was out of commission, sir. I really hate this dimension. Oh, and it’s good to see you alive.”
“Thanks.”
“And without a blaster pointed at your dumb face.”
“Charming, Silkster.”
“So what have I missed?”
“I’ll catch you up later.”
“How often can you jump?” Siv asked Tamzin.
“Basically, three times per hour if it’s just me. With someone else, twenty minutes must pass between each jump, for some reason. I guess it’s a built-in safety precaution. But I don’t know why it’s necessary. Using the cube has never bothered me, and it doesn’t have a power source to deplete.”
“No power source that you know of,” Siv said.
“Starships can jump up to six times in an hour, sir. But most crews get incredibly sick after the first three jumps.”
Siv relayed that information to Tamzin, putting it in his own words. She silently mulled it over.
“So how much longer do we need to wait?” Siv asked.
Tamzin didn’t answer. Instead, she stood and walked around.
Siv closed his eyes to block out the ghostly forms drifting nearby. He still felt as if everything were spinning around him. And a clawing sensation in his chest still threatened to make him throw up. He tried to focus his mind on Tamzin's footsteps so he wouldn't think about the dizziness.
“Is she circling me again?”
“She’s checking you out, sir. And not in the ‘you might get lucky tonight’ sense.”
“I got that.”
“Where did you get your sensor array and force-shield?” she asked.
“From my father. When he died.”
“Seems unlikely.”
Siv shrugged. “Where did you get your cube?”
“From my mother,” Tamzin said. “When she died.”
“That seems even less likely.”
She shrugged.
“I didn’t know a stardrive could be so small,” Siv said. She didn’t respond, so he tried again. “What was it designed for?”
Tamzin glared at him, but she answered. "It's a miniature hyperphasic cube. It can take me to wraith space but nowhere else. My mother passed it down without explanation. Now you know everything I do."
"Pretty sure she knows more about it than that, sir."
“Obviously.”
“You do realize you’re going to need us to get the ambassador back to his girls, right?”
“You and I can an arrange a rendezvous far from here,” Tamzin said.
"We're going to need to pool our resources to get passage off-world."
“I’ll find a way.”
Siv sighed. “You know, maybe this would all work better if I could talk to the ambassador in person. It’s his life and his daughters that are at risk. Maybe he should make the call.”
Tamzin stared daggers at him then stamped a foot and cursed. For a moment, Siv thought she was going to have a tantrum. Then she took a deep breath and released it.
“Fine! I’ll let Galen decide.”
“Thank you.”
“But if he doesn’t like you, I’ll strand you in wraith space.”
“Fair enough.”
“No weapons when I take you there.”
“Agreed.”
“And just you. The wakyran stays behind.”
“I would rather—”
“Not gonna happen. Two people are more dangerous.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Siv agreed.
“It is.” Tamzin scowled at him. “I find you incredibly irritating.”
“I probably shouldn’t tell her the feeling is mutual, should I?”
“Definitely not, sir. But if it makes you feel any better, she’s an oozing sore on my ass, too.”
“You don’t have an ass, Silky.”
A window opened in Siv’s HUD, and the image of an old earth animal began to load with deliberate slowness.
“Actually, sir, I do have—”
“Close out that image! That’s an order.”
The image
disappeared.
“You’re not as much fun as you used to be, sir.”
“Like when I was eleven?”
“Exactly, sir. And to be fair, you do keep setting yourself up for it.”
“So what now?” Siv asked.
Tamzin stood and started walking.
He hopped up and chased after her. “Where are we going?”
“You wanted to see Galen.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to go back to real space first, so I can rest?”
She paused and glanced him over. “You’re handling it surprisingly well. Besides, it’s much safer to travel through wraith space.”
“What if we went back into real space and took my skimmer bike part of the way? Would that be faster?”
Tamzin shook her head. “Not an option.”
“I have it programmed so that it will drive itself to me. So we don’t have to go back to where it is. We could have it meet use elsewhere.”
She closed her eyes and scratched her chin. “That would be faster. But I don’t want to reemerge where we departed or anywhere near your friend.”
“You don’t trust me, and you want to play it safe. I get that.”
She started walking again. “How do I know you won’t call your friend to join you when you summon your bike?”
“You’ll just have to take my word.”
She quickened her pace.
“So where are we heading?” Siv asked.
“A safe spot on the outskirts of the city.” She tapped her laser rifle. “From there I’ll have a good view of anyone coming for us.”
Subtle. “And then where to?”
Tamzin groaned and made no response.
Half an hour later, she stopped and wrapped her arms around him. She triggered her cube and transported them back to real space. Siv collapsed onto the ground with relief.
“I’ve summoned the bike, sir. It’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Tell Mitsuki we’re safe, and to stay where she is. I don’t need a rescue.”
“Talking with her now, sir.”
After a few breaths, Siv looked around. He flinched with surprise. They were on a high bluff overlooking the city. Behind them was flat open grassland stretching out to the faint hills in the distance. From here, she would be able to easily see anyone coming toward them. Of course, they would also be exposed to anyone searching for them.