“Oh, I want you, too, Arriola. You’re a nice little bonus for collecting Snowshoe. Pol’s told me a lot about you. Including your penchant for sparkers. Keep your hands well above your head.”
Snowshoe sighed. “What is it with people thinking other people—”
“Snow,” Rik Terri cautioned.
Alistair glanced at her. Did Snow’s comment mean she was or she wasn’t Arriola?
“Kill those two,” the captain ordered, indicating Alistair and Cam.
Four men raised their weapons. Alistair grabbed his fire-breather, pressed the controls. Blue lightning spurted in a sheet; molten-red beams flared from the other side.
Cam went down. Four of the men with Norris went down. Norris was already moving, diving out the door, out of the way. The edge of the sheet of fire caught his left side.
Rik Terri and Snowshoe fired seconds after. Six down.
It was a sickening waste of life. “Let’s get out of here,” but Alistair dropped down to check Cam’s inert body. He couldn’t be dead.
“Not without this.” Rik Terri turned and grabbed the antigrav trolley holding the Songyan.
“Leave it. There’s more coming.”
They were too late. Ten guards stormed the Songyan foyer and fanned out, the heat signature of a further ten visible behind them. Alistair couldn’t have got to them all before someone else got hurt.
Twenty armed mercenaries surrounded them.
“Don’t kill anyone,” Norris said through gritted teeth. One of them had hit him, at least. “I want that weapon. I want to know where he got it.”
One of the newcomers aimed straight for Rik Terri.
Alistair pushed her aside.
A hot, searing pain lanced down his left side. That was all he knew.
20
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Josune had taken the aircar up as soon as she saw the mercenaries outside the Songyan office. She took it four blocks away, just in case they watched her, then circled back and landed a block over.
She made her way silently to the end of the street, keeping away from any streetlights.
The orange flare of blaster fire, and the crackling blue-white light of something that sounded like a sparker but wasn’t, stopped her. A familiar voice—Captain Norris, from the Boost—yelled, “Don’t kill anyone. I want that weapon. I want to know where he got it.” She saw him lurch to his feet. He’d been injured. “And if anyone has killed Arriola, I’ll personally find them and kill them too.”
Josune stayed frozen. Did they know where she was?
There were mercenaries everywhere.
“Load them into the aircar. Take the big guy too. I have questions for him about this weapon.” Norris picked up a tube that was like no weapon Josune had seen before. “Now move, before someone comes to see what the problem is.”
There were too many for Josune to take on.
Snow saw her as the mercenaries dragged him past. He’d been watching for her. But he didn’t look to her for help. Instead he glanced away, quickly, to a dark object floating on an antigrav trolley. It had been pushed into a recess, wasn’t part of the fighting.
She got it. Modders and their Songyans. It was the least she could do. She would have nodded, but the movement would have drawn attention.
At least they didn’t plan to kill Nika and Snow just yet. It gave them time. But how did a small group of people take on a mercenary ship? They’d work it out.
They had to.
* * *
• • •
Josune waited ten minutes after they’d gone before she moved.
The carnage was sickening. Bodies everywhere.
“Please.”
It was a whisper of sound. She almost missed it. Dark eyes stared up at her from a body fallen too awkwardly to be anything but damaged.
She couldn’t leave them to die.
She called emergency while collecting the antigrav trolley. “There’s been a shooting at Songyan Engineering. People are hurt. One man looks as if he’s dying.”
Without the modders it was the only thing she could do to keep them alive.
“You’ll be fine,” Josune said. “An ambulance will be here soon.”
She heard the clop of the big rotary blades that signified a heavy-duty engine. “Here it comes now,” and ran for her own aircar, guiding the Songyan in front of her.
She took off horizontally, the way she’d arrived, and exited four streets over.
Now to get back to Another Road, where they could come up with a plan to rescue Nika and Snow.
* * *
• • •
Back on ship Roystan greeted her with a hug. She could feel the heat of him, felt his bones through her jacket. He’d had more flesh than that before, she was sure of it.
“We’re tracking the Boost. They’re moving, but they’ve requested a flight path for the moment, so they’re not planning to nullspace soon. We’ll get them.”
Provided they didn’t nullspace away. If that happened, they’d have to rely on Nika or Snow to let them know where the Boost had gone.
“Good.” She leaned back from Roystan to look at him properly. “You look terrible.” He’d lost weight. How much weight could a body lose in such a short time?
“That’s what I’ve been telling him,” Jacques said. “And he brings his food back up. All the time.”
“Too much detail, Jacques. I haven’t—”
“You don’t have to say. We know.” Jacques threw his hands out theatrically. “Years of working with the man, and he still thinks we don’t know him. You’re starving.”
Jacques had made it his mission to keep Roystan healthy.
Looking at Roystan, Josune thought he was right to be worried. “How fast did Nika speed up your metabolism?”
“Nika didn’t speed it up, I did.”
“We’re not laying blame, Roystan,” Josune said. “If we did, we’d lay it fair and square at Brand and Norris’s feet.” She brightened. “It looks like Brand did one dirty job too many, anyway. She’s in jail.”
“This is a tale I want to hear.”
“Let me tell you what happened.”
All four settled around the crew table, with some of Jacques’s spicy flatbread. It would have been comfortable if Nika and Snow had been there.
“Well, we got to the Songyan factory—”
Roystan’s eyes rolled up, and he fell facedown onto the table.
21
NIKA RIK TERRI
Nika came around to find a giant bending over her. She backed away, realized she was on a stretcher when she almost fell off it.
“It’s okay,” the giant said soothingly. “You’ve been injured with a blaster. We’re prepping you for a fix, but there are others in front of you. You might feel like you’re dying, but you’re not.”
He turned out not to be a giant at all, just a big man in her space. His face had dark planes and flat cheeks. His hair was short, black, and curled tightly around his head. His well-modded body was muscular, with a heavy bone structure. She’d bet, before he modded it, it had been chunky as well, with muscle that easily ran to fat.
Nika sat up, pushed him away, inspected her own injuries. Blaster burn, down one side. It hurt, but pain was starting to feel familiar. Not something she wanted to get used to. “Please don’t put me into a Dietel.”
“We don’t have a Dietel. Only the Netanyu.”
She looked around the room. Most of it was bare, with fastenings in the floor to clip stretcher beds into. There were seven stretchers. She hoped some of them were people they’d injured at Songyan Engineering. Still, one genemod machine for a merc ship. What did they do when two people were badly injured?
The man moved over to check the machine readings. A doctor or a modder.
Nika realized who h
e must be. “You’re Gramps.”
“Gram Pines, at your service. But most people call me Gramps.”
“You are nothing like I imagined.”
Gramps glanced at another bed down the ward. “What did you expect me to be like?”
Nika followed his gaze. “Snow.” She pushed herself off the bed, painful as it was.
He grabbed her good arm. “Why did you bring him back here? He was safe. He was away.”
“We didn’t choose to come. Norris chased us. Where is Norris, by the way?”
“In the Netanyu. Where else. When the captain gets injured, he gets priority.” Gramps scowled. “Even over my boy.”
Based on the scowl, Norris might want to check his mod this time.
Nika pulled herself free and went to check on Snow.
“Excuse me,” Gramps said. “This is my hospital. You’re a patient.”
“This is my apprentice.”
“And my boy.”
They stared at each other. After a moment Nika inclined her head. “Apologies. But he is my apprentice, and I have a duty of care.”
“I never heard of a modder who doctors.”
“Snow does.” She nearly said, “You do too,” but bit it off at the last moment.
“Snow’s learned some bad habits over the years. That’s why he went to college. To learn how to mod properly.”
“You taught him well.”
“And if he’s your apprentice, what happened to that duty of care you talked about? Why is he back here?”
Yes. Modders were supposed to look after their apprentices. “I failed.” For the moment, but they would escape.
The Netanyu pinged then. Job completed. That was Norris in there. Nika didn’t need Gramps’s gaze toward the genemod machine to know what to do. She lay back on the bed she’d come from and closed her eyes.
Norris didn’t comment on being healed. “I want that one next.” Nika couldn’t see which one he pointed to, but it didn’t sound like it was in Snow’s direction.
“He’ll take a while,” Gramps said. “He’s got hu-skin all down his back. He’s been injured before.”
“How long?”
“Twelve hours.”
“Do it.”
“Not the best use of my time.” A pause. “It’s your choice.”
“I’m glad you understand that. It’ll be good for young Snowshoe to spend time in pain.”
“As you say.” Gramps’s voice was wooden.
Norris made toward the door. Stopped. Nika risked a peek through closed lashes.
“Don’t forget, Gramps. We have two doctors on board now. You’re no longer indispensable.” He walked out briskly, smiling.
Nika sat up.
“Lie down,” Gramps said. “He’ll be back to check.”
Nika lay down again. Gramps moved over to another stretcher, this one in the direction of where Norris had seemed to be speaking. He began prepping the body, moved it over to the Netanyu, and started to clean the machine. Two minutes later Norris came back. “By the way, that mutrient you ordered has arrived. I’ll have someone send it up.”
Gramps just grunted.
After Norris had gone, he said, “You can move now.” He shoved the stretcher out of the way, strode down to Snow’s. “Nobody tells me who goes first. Not when my boy’s hurt.”
Nika followed and read the machine as keenly as Gramps did. Snow had burner damage down one side. Gramps harrumphed, moved on. “You got old fast, boy.”
He looked accusingly at Nika.
“It was a quick repair. He was injured.” She didn’t bother going through the why of that fight. “We were in a hurry; it was the best we could do at the time. It’s his own design. What he used when he first opened the studio, to make himself look more experienced.”
“That’s a lot of fighting when he’s only running away from Captain Norris.”
“It is.”
“Why? It seems to me, Nika—” He stopped. “It is Nika, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but how—”
“My boy can be one-track sometimes. He wouldn’t apprentice to anyone else. If you say he’s your apprentice, then that’s who you are. Although”—he looked at her consideringly—“I thought you’d look better than that. Different. I mean, my boy worshipped you.”
“I was trying to look like someone else. She had a bad mod.” It felt strange to be defending her own mod to someone else.
“But a Rik Terri design.”
He recognized it.
“She got it secondhand, and certainly not from me. I would never have put her body with that head.”
“Glad to hear it. So who attacked you before Norris did? And why?”
Nika glanced around. No one seemed to be listening, but she lowered her voice anyway. Gramps would find out, because even if she didn’t tell him, Snow would. “We have a couple of people after us. Norris after Snow, a company man after me.” Everyone after Josune and Roystan, maybe.
She moved over to the other stretcher. The one she presumed didn’t require hu-skin, even though Gramps had claimed it did. Snow’s fix would take around five hours. This man’s another four, maybe six. He’d given himself enough time to do Snow’s first.
Gramps joined her. “Alistair Laughton. His ID says he’s from the Justice Department.”
The infamous Alistair Laughton. Who’d stolen their Songyan from them and then caused it to be burned. Nika planned to have words with Laughton. If he survived his visit to Norris.
“Won’t do him any good here,” Gramps said. “Captain Norris will kill him once he gets what he wants. Sorry.”
For a moment she wondered what he was apologizing for. Of course he thought Laughton was with them. He wasn’t wearing a mercenary uniform.
“Right now I’d happily kill him myself.”
If he hadn’t interfered, they’d be fixing Roystan by now, not imprisoned in Norris’s hospital, and Snow would be healthy and helping her. Or maybe not. Norris had been at the Songyan office the first time they’d gone. They would probably still be here, but at least their Songyan would be whole.
“Shouldn’t he have come around by now?”
“Some people don’t,” Gramps said. “Some people fake it.”
“He’s faking it?” He didn’t look the sort.
Gramps shook his head. “Some people take a little help staying asleep. After all, we wouldn’t want him coming around, knowing he wasn’t done first, accidentally spilling that to certain people, would we? I heard the captain wanted to talk to him, so I knew he’d want him done first.”
Nika laughed. “I have no idea how you and Snow turned out so different.”
Gramps smiled fondly at the Netanyu. “My boy came fully formed, already with opinions. Even so young, even half-starved like he was. He knew what he knew, and mostly thought he was right.”
Nika bumped her arm against the edge of a door. She grabbed the door as dizziness swept over her. The blaster burn. She tried to push it to the back of her mind. “I don’t suppose you have any nerveseal.”
“I do, but I’m not giving you any.”
“Why not?” It was the first thing hospitals gave patients when they arrived, before they went into a genemod machine.
“Because then I’d have to explain what I’d used it for.”
“But you gave him—” Whatever he used to keep Laughton asleep would have been counted too.
“I keep a little up my sleeve. You’re not desperate enough, and despite you being in pain, it won’t kill you. Or me.” Gramps smiled at her. “Easy, see.”
“How old was Snow when you met him?” Nika had always thought he was around eight or nine, but he’d never specifically said. Nor had he said why Gramps had taken him in.
“Some stories are not mine to tell.” Gramps blew out
a long breath. “With luck, he doesn’t remember much of it anyway.”
* * *
• • •
Nika reluctantly allowed Gramps to help Snow out of the genemod machine, but her fingers twitched. She was not going to get into an argument over whose job it was to take care of Snow. She wasn’t. Josune would have called her on her possessiveness, and she would have been right. Snow was her apprentice, but in a small part of her mind, she allowed that Gramps did have first rights. Gramps would always have first rights.
She busied herself reading the screen to make sure Snow was fully healed, giving Snow and his Gramps time to themselves.
Snow finally turned to her. “Nika, this is Gramps. Gramps, this is Nika.”
“We’ve met,” Nika said. “How do you feel, Snow?”
“If you mean do I hurt, then no, I’m okay. If you mean how do I feel, then that is a dumb question considering where we are.” He said to Gramps, “She’s crazy, you know.”
Calling her crazy wouldn’t help Nika’s relationship with Snow’s foster father. She turned toward Alistair. “Do we need to get him in now?”
“We do.” Gramps glanced at a clock on the wall. “Captain will check on us again in about two hours. Be prepared, both of you, to get onto those stretchers.”
“Why not heal Nika first?” Snow asked.
“Captain’s orders. Besides, she needs to be injured. Have you forgotten the rules already, Snow?”
“Sorry, no. It’s just . . . You should have put Nika in instead of me. After all, she’s my—”
Nika laughed. “I’m not that badly hurt, Snow. Besides, I wouldn’t have allowed it.” Neither would have Gramps.
Once Alistair was settled in the genemod machine, all three studied the diagnostics. Until Snow, Nika hadn’t worked with other modders since Hannah Tan. Sometimes it was good to talk shop and share mods.
The reading for Laughton’s eyes was wrong. So badly, blatantly wrong that Nika asked, “Are you sure your Netanyu is working?” She peered closer to make sure she hadn’t misread it.
Stars Beyond Page 22
