by C. Gockel
Cursing, she pushed the covers away and bolted for the door, tripping over the sandals she had left on the floor next to her bed. She paused just long enough to gather them up and half-skip, half-run as she slid her feet into first one, then the other, even as she pounded down the hallway to the staircase that led to the ground floor of the compound. As Miala passed the landing to the second floor, she heard a loud crash from the vicinity of the med unit and looked back, startled, only to see Eryk Thorn stagger out into the hallway, pulling at the bandages on his hands even as he headed toward her with grim determination.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, stopping to let him catch up to her.
“Is that the perimeter alert?” he asked.
She scowled at him, provoked that he was out of bed at all, and even more irritated that he had so obviously brushed off her first question. “Yes,” she said shortly. “I can handle it.”
“You?” he asked, and raised an eyebrow. Before she could reply, he went on, “Are the main defensive controls in the security station?”
“Yes, but—”
He didn’t bother to wait. Limping a little, he hurried down the stairs as Miala trailed in his wake, desperately racking her brains for any argument that would be effective at getting him back into bed and finding none. Not for the first time she mentally cursed the monks who had built the place—they had deemed elevators a worldly indulgence, instead building stairs everywhere. Mast had a private lift that went to his suite, but it was locked down, and she’d had better things to do than break the code just to avoid a little exercise.
At this hour the compound was dark; no one was around, after all, to see that proper illumination was provided. Thorn seemed to have very good night vision—he must have eyes like a Stacian, she thought—but even he accidentally collided with some low-hanging chimes in one doorway, the sound a sweet discordance against the continued shrilling of the siren.
She wondered how he was able to find his way to the security station so easily. It was not as if he had been a regular inhabitant of the compound, after all, but perhaps it was his practice to familiarize himself with his surroundings wherever he went. Again she thought of his murderous career, and of all the survival skills he would have been forced to develop along the way.
Light flooded out of the security station into the dark hallway. Miala wasn’t sure whether she had forgotten to shut it down when she had retired for the evening or whether the overhead lighting came on automatically once the perimeter security system was activated.
Thorn pushed on ahead of her into the room, heading automatically for the main security console. The viewscreens revealed only dark desert, broken here and there by the bluish glow of the perimeter wards—all screens except the one that showed the rear approach to the compound.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the dark bulk that seemed to fill the screen. In shape it recalled vaguely the ore processors that moved over Iradia’s surface, harvesting any trace minerals they happened to come across, but otherwise it resembled those slow, lumbering vehicles about as much as the local boys’ hopped-up skimmers resembled a GDF attack cruiser. The unknown vehicle had an oily, gunmetal finish that shimmered oddly in the glare of the activated defense field; its outline seemed to be spiked with a number of strategically placed cannons.
“Get me into the system,” Thorn commanded, once again ignoring her question, but Miala knew better than to argue. She hastened to the console, tapped in the code, then stepped aside.
Thorn lifted his bandaged hands to the controls and paused. Then he seemed to shake his head slightly, and pulled at the wrappings that covered his fingers. One by one they came away, revealing mottled, half-healed skin still marked by livid bruises, angry red abrasions, and burns.
Swallowing slightly, Miala forced herself not to look away. If his hands were still that bad after healing for almost a week, she hated to think what his wounds must have looked like when the mech first treated him.
Now unencumbered, Thorn’s hands flew over the controls. Miala watched as he poured extra power into the shields that protected the rear of the compound and activated the pulse cannons mounted to either side of the massive front gates.
“But why—” she began. She couldn’t understand why he was bothering with the cannons if the attackers were coming from the rear. As she spoke, however, the forward perimeter defenses flared as small dark figures came out of the night, guns firing.
“Take the controls,” Thorn said, and she hurried to take his place at the keyboard even as he moved to the right, grasping the heavy console-mounted cannon grips.
The compound’s defenses were good against most types of gunfire, whether pulse or projectile, but no defense field could keep out biological attackers, which was why Thorn had increased power to the shields guarding the rear of the facility. Somehow he had known ground forces would be attacking the main gates, and that increasing the force field there would have been of no use.
He had pushed as much power as he could to the rear shields, but he didn’t know the system the way she did. Miala had spent hours working through its subroutines and codes and knew where she could steal the power they needed—from the back-up generators, the underutilized environmental controls, even the power-cell chargers in the garage. She was but dimly aware of Thorn working beside her as she hacked away at the computer system, shunting power to the rear defense fields. The only systems she considered sacrosanct were the weapons controls, of course, and the environmental support systems for the ground floor of the compound. The last thing she needed was for either her or Thorn to overheat and collapse in the thick of battle.
No sooner had she completed the first pass through the system than the pulse cannons on the massive vehicle threatening the rear of the compound let loose, bombarding the shields with a barrage of coruscating energy. The ground shook beneath them, but the shields held.
“Take that,” she muttered, but she didn’t have time to enjoy her victory for very long. Again the cannons opened up, and this time they knocked the shields back by a good twenty percent.
“Can you hold them?” Thorn asked, not taking his eyes off the viewscreen in front of him. His fingers seemed to move on their own, working the cannon controls. She could see from a quick glance at the screen that the ground in front of the compound’s gates was already thick with bodies.
“You hold yours, I’ll hold mine,” she replied, fingers pounding away at the keyboard. She could steal some power from the environmental systems on the upper floors of the building, as no one was up there to care how hot it got. And of course—the refrigeration units in the kitchens. Several days ago Miala had transferred all the remaining edible food to one unit instead of having it scattered amongst four, but she hadn’t bothered to shut down the power to the three that were now empty. That would do nicely.
The attacking vehicle fired again, and again, but once more the shields held. Beside her Thorn paused, and the endless firing of the defensive cannons ceased.
“What—” she began, lifting her gaze once again to the screen that showed the front gates. Whoever the attackers were, she couldn’t think there were very many of them left. Mast had probably lost more people at the Malverdine Cliffs, but not that many more, and she guessed there weren’t a lot of crime lords in the area who could afford to sacrifice so many men.
“Watch out,” Thorn said, and sure enough the vehicle fired again. This time there seemed something almost petulant in its attack, as if those manning the controls knew all too well that their ground forces had just been decimated.
Miala pushed the back-up power she had just located into the shields, and although they lost a few percentage points, they were still holding just fine. “Why don’t we fire back?” she asked. “There are gun emplacements to the rear of the compound as well!”
“No point,” he said. “We’d have to drop the shields, and right now the shields are doing better for us than the guns would.
I’m not sure they’d even be enough to punch through the shielding on that thing.”
He was probably right, but part of her was still annoyed that they couldn’t fire at the invaders, blow a hole in the huge unwieldy machine that continued to fire at them. Now that Thorn had stopped firing the forward guns, she did steal a little power from the cannons to bolster the shields. That seemed to have done it, for after one last shot the firing abruptly ceased, and the bulky vehicle slowly lumbered back into the inky blackness of the Iradian night.
For a moment she watched the viewscreen, unbelieving, certain that reinforcements were just around the next dune. But all she could see was the restored bluish glow of the perimeter wards, as the security system reestablished itself now that the interlopers were gone. “We did it?” she asked finally.
“Looks like it,” Thorn replied, easing himself down into one of the oversized chairs. Unlike her, he almost fit. Then he turned his hands over, looking down at the newly bloodied palms with mild interest.
Despite herself, Miala let out a sound of shocked dismay. “Your hands!”
“It’s nothing,” he said, closing his fists. “Guess I should have kept the bandages on.”
Miala stared at him for a moment. His face was calm enough, but she could see from the tightness of his jaw that he was probably in considerable pain. Then, a little amazed by her own boldness, she went to him and reached out, forcing one of his hands open with both of hers. His skin felt rough and warm under her cold fingers.
“You’ll be lucky if that doesn’t get infected,” she said. “I’m surprised the mech let you get up at all.”
He kept his fingers outstretched under hers even as the dark eyes crinkled a bit at the corners. Was he laughing at her, at her feeble attempts to play nursemaid?
“Let’s just say that the mech and I had a difference of opinion.”
She recalled suddenly the crash she had heard as Thorn left the med unit. “You didn’t—”
“I’m sure it can be repaired.” Again that swift, dark look from beneath the level black brows. “Are you any good with mechs?”
Miala dropped his hand, wishing she had the courage to tell him to go to hell then and there. “We couldn’t afford any,” she snapped. “But I guess you’d better hope I am, since I doubt I’d be any better at fixing you if that gets infected because I couldn’t get the mech back together.”
“You might surprise yourself.”
And you might get stuffed, she thought, but said only, “Do you think they’ll come back?”
He looked over at the viewscreens, head cocked slightly. “Probably. But we’ve earned some breathing room. I don’t think they were expecting to meet quite this much resistance. So now they’ll go back and plan and regroup.”
Hopefully we’ll be out of here before they get to that stage, was Miala’s next thought, but she only nodded. “Then we’d better get some rest—and we’d better do what we can with your hands.”
Thorn seemed to be in agreement, for he stood and left the security station after a final quick glance at the perimeter. She followed him back up to the med unit, where indeed the hapless mech had been knocked into a corner, its head askew and one arm completely broken off.
Miala wondered where she would ever find the time to fix the machine and continue hacking the security on Mast’s vault. Oh, well, sleep is highly overrated, I hear, she thought wryly, moving to the cupboards and pulling out a disinfectant wash and several unopened bandage packs.
“Get back into bed,” she instructed, and to her surprise Thorn did as he was told, climbing under the covers and laying his head back down on the pillow. Perhaps even he had had enough by this point. She couldn’t begin to imagine how painful it must have been for him to continue firing those cannons as the skin on his hands broke and bled.
So it was with more gentleness than she had first intended that she swabbed at his abraded palms, feeling herself tense as the antiseptic surely stung on the open wounds. Of course Thorn made no sound throughout these operations, but she thought he looked a little pale, and once or twice he shut his eyes as if to better cope with the pain.
Finally she was done, Thorn’s hands newly covered in clean bandages. Miala hoped that she’d gotten the wounds clean enough, since she shuddered to think what kind of microbes could have been left behind by the last person to grip the handles of the cannons’ firing mechanisms. Mast’s personal security contingent weren’t generally known for their hygiene. Still, without the assistance of the mech, she was left with only the rough first aid she had learned growing up, tending her father’s occasional cuts and bruises as well as her own. Until her father’s heart attack, neither one of them had ever been ill enough to require the services of the local clinic.
She gathered up the empty packaging and was dropping it into the waste receptacle when Thorn spoke.
“You did well down there.”
She looked over at him, startled. Was that actually a compliment? “Excuse me?”
He looked at her steadily, expressionless as usual. “You do well in a crisis. Better than I had thought.”
Trust Thorn to neatly undercut any words of praise in such a fashion. Miala felt the color flood to her cheeks. “Well, I know I’m just a girl,” she replied, her tone mocking. Better than he had thought? Nice to know that his expectations had been so low!
“Precisely,” he said, completely ignoring her jab. “How old are you?”
“Twenty standard,” she said. “As if that should make any difference!”
Thorn moved his head on the pillow so he looked directly up at the ceiling and then shut his eyes before replying. “I don’t know many twenty-year-olds who could have handled themselves as well. So don’t argue with me, Miala,” he added.
It was the first time he had ever called her by her given name. There was something oddly intimate about hearing “Miala” on his lips—as if this were the first time he had actually thought of her as a real person with feelings and thoughts of her own and not simply an unwelcome and unnecessary intrusion, or at best a tool to be used and discarded.
“Thank you, Thorn,” she said at last, when she thought she could trust her own voice. She told herself she was just tired and overcome by the aftermath of the adrenaline rush of the battle. The warning sirens had pulled her out of deep sleep, after all—who wouldn’t be shaky after something like that?
“You’re welcome,” he said, and again she could see the little quirk at the corner of his mouth that bespoke a secret amusement.
After an awkward pause, she said quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed the uncomfortable silence, “Well, I’d better be off to sleep, too. I’ll try to come back and check on you in a few hours.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”
She supposed he probably would be—how long did it take for an infection to develop, anyway? More than just a few hours at least, and she knew she needed to get some sleep or she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone. Without the mech to alert her if Thorn’s condition took a sudden turn for the worse, she knew she didn’t have many options.
“Good night, then,” she replied, and turned and left the chamber.
It seemed as if there were far more stairs going back up to the slave girls’ dormitory than there had been when she had hurried down them only a few hours ago. Miala pulled herself up the long, weary climb step by step, fumbling her way in the darkness. Only when she finally returned to the narrow cot she had claimed as her own and laid her head down on the lumpy pillow did she feel herself begin to tremble with reaction.
It hadn’t been enough to be attacked by unknown enemies. That had been frightening, of course, but she had mentally prepared for it as best she could. Also, somehow, she couldn’t feel as frightened as she knew she should have been, not when she had gone into battle with Eryk Thorn at her side. There was something strangely reassuring having someone next to her who had probably faced down much worse throughout his life. He had lived to fight another
day, and so she’d been confident she would survive as well.
No, that wasn’t it. What made Miala shiver now was the sudden wave of emotion that had passed over her when Thorn had spoken kind words to her—when he had said her name and looked at her with a new respect. She didn’t know exactly what that emotion was. All she knew was that when she finally wished him a good night, she’d had to fight a sudden urge to reach out and run her fingers through his wavy dark hair, to gently touch the bandaged hands that lay crossed on his chest.
It was impossible. She didn’t even like Thorn very much. Was she so pathetic, so starved for human contact, that only a few kind words from him were enough to turn her into the sort of girl she had always despised, the ones who trailed after the boys in Aldis Nova, giggling and flirting and trading stolen kisses behind old Nala’s coffee house?
You’re just tired, she told herself. It will all be better in the morning.
But when she shut her eyes, all she could see was that tiny smile at the corner of Eryk Thorn’s mouth, and all her traitor mind seemed capable of was wondering what that mouth would feel like pressed against hers.
Biology was a crazy thing. She much preferred the cool logic of computers, but logic seemed to have deserted her for the moment.
Sleep was a long time coming.
5
The hospital bed was empty when Miala finally returned to check on Thorn late the next morning. Again she had overslept, although it was difficult to say whether her reluctance to get up that morning could be attributed to the disruptions of the previous night or a natural disinclination to avoid seeing the mercenary after such unwelcome feelings about him had surfaced.
