Leroy managed to get a handhold on the bottom of Eva’s shirt and yanked, the material digging painfully into her neck. She fought to keep her arms locked, unsure which would break first, her skin or her clothes.
“Leroy, stop!” Vakar yelled.
Leroy reached up this time, grabbing Eva’s shoulders to pull her off. Vakar tried to pry Leroy’s fingers open from the back, but the man’s grip was too tight.
If she could hang on for a little longer, get her arms into the right position—
Now Leroy went for her forearms, and there was no chance of her beating him in a pure strength contest. She released him before he could break her wrists, landing awkwardly on one foot and stumbling into a pile of broken pumps and inducers.
“Move!” Pink strode in like a pissed-off lady Moses about to part some shit.
Leroy spun to face her, giving Eva the opportunity to kick him hard. In the junk. It barely fazed him, but all it had to do was buy Pink the time to jab him in the neck with a sedative. He took a swing at Pink anyway, which she ducked smoothly.
Within seconds, Leroy’s color dialed back from ripe tomato to guayaba, and he slid to the ground with a grumpy, mumbled “Owies.”
The Crash Sisters song cut off and silence settled on the cargo bay. Even the cats had the good sense to keep their opinions to themselves. Pink held up her injector, Eva rubbed at the raw skin on her neck, and Vakar pressed a hand to his side, smelling pained.
Fuck, Eva thought. Leroy was dancing a minute ago. Everything was great, and now . . .
“What did you do?” Pink asked Eva, who responded with a look that could have melted steel beams.
“It wasn’t her fault,” Min chimed in over the speakers. “It was the passenger.”
Miles Erck emerged from behind the cat container, his thin blond hair in disarray. He surveyed the situation and cleared his throat nervously. Eva was already crossing the room before he had opened his mouth.
“Well, actually—”
Eva grabbed his face with both hands, firmly but gently, and stared straight into his eyes as if she were preparing to kiss him.
“Well, actually,” she said, “if you say ‘well, actually’ one more time, I will actually throw you out the actual airlock and you will actually die before you can say ‘well, actually’ with your bloated, frozen tongue.”
He stared at her. His jaw moved, so she gave it an extra squeeze for emphasis, smiling with closed lips and raising her eyebrows.
His eyes widened. Hers narrowed.
He swallowed, his lower lip trembling. She tilted her head.
A bead of sweat formed on his forehead near his hairline and slid down, down, between his eyebrows and off to the side of his nose, nestling in the small fold of flesh next to his left nostril.
“Wellactuallyitwouldtakemelongertodiethanthat,” he said in a rush.
Eva sighed and closed her eyes, a feeling of deep serenity flooding her body. “Pink,” she said, “get his legs.”
Miles Erck spent the rest of his journey locked in the cat container, which the cats weren’t too pleased about. At this point Eva figured they owed her one. It wasn’t quite big enough to fit him comfortably, but once the cats had done their hypnosis thing, he was in too good a mood to care.
Eva, meanwhile, sat with Pink in the mess and watched with envy as the medic enjoyed some of her brother’s secret stash of bourbon. Eventually Min joined them, and Eva took over piloting duties for a while so the two could share a little free time before Leroy awoke from his medicated slumber.
Eight hours later, Eva landed La Sirena Negra on Suatera, sixth planet from the yellow star Fugit, which Eva was familiar with only because everyone pronounced it hilariously wrong. Twin moons watched like giant googly eyes as she and Vakar used an antigrav belt to carry one hypnotized paleotechnologist toward their drop point. Their destination was the only structure on the whole world, though Min’s sensors had picked up a few random debris sites that Eva had neither the time nor the inclination to explore.
The door to the squat, round shelter was locked, so Eva kicked it until an intercom near the door whined to life.
“Who is that?” a voice rasped. “Is that Miles Erck?”
“Yeah,” she replied, rolling a shoulder to stretch the muscle.
“Is he damaged?”
“Not yet, but there’s still time.”
The door slid open and they stepped inside, Eva walking backward so they could fit through the narrow opening.
The antechamber was filled with cargo containers, stacked two high in most places. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made from uniform gray panels, probably flash-welded together by the kind of robot that cheerfully disassembled itself when it was finished. An old computer interface was bolted to a far wall, hardline only to make hacking harder—from the outside, at least. Eva itched to see how fast Vakar could bust it open like a piñata.
Another door in the left-hand wall slid open, revealing an older woman wearing a red-and-white tunic, dark pants, and a deep frown. Two guards flanked her, carrying rifles Eva had only ever seen in the hands of top-tier merc outfits. Behind them was a hallway with another door at the end, beyond which lay mysteries someone would no doubt pay a pretty penny for, if she could figure out who the hell that someone was.
“What did you do to him?” the woman asked. She sounded like she ate carbon and shit diamonds.
“Hypnotic cats,” Eva said. “He’ll be fine soon.”
“Well, actually,” Miles mumbled. He smelled vaguely of fish.
With a disgusted noise, Eva dropped his feet and tucked her hands into her armpits to keep them from involuntary violence. Vakar lowered the rest of Miles gently to the ground, then removed the antigrav belt.
“This is unacceptable,” the woman said. “I am on a strict timetable, Ms. . . . ?”
“Captain. Innocente. And you are?”
“Dr. Lambert.”
“A pleasure.” Eva cast a sour look at Miles. “Dr. Lambert, frankly, I’m not responsible for his comemierdería or your timetable. You want me to leave him here, or does he have a bunk?”
“The rest of this facility is off-limits to unauthorized personnel.”
“So here, then. Great. Enjoy.”
As she spoke, the door behind the doctor opened and a younger man in the same outfit rushed out. Eva caught a glimpse of the room at the other end of the hallway beyond—more computer terminals, people bustling about. In the center, some kind of tank or stasis field containing a large metal object, rectangular like a box. Then the far door slid shut.
Eva raised an eyebrow.
“Dr. Lambert, you’re needed urgently,” the young man said. “The artifact appears to have activ—” He stared at Eva and Vakar, then down at Miles, then back up at the doctor, eyes wide.
“Why didn’t you— Ping silence, of course.” Dr. Lambert scowled at Eva. “Go on, then, Captain. Our business is concluded.”
Without another word, Eva left, Vakar close behind.
A herd of cow-like critters ambled down from a nearby hillside, apparently oblivious to the strangers in their territory. Eva wondered idly whether they were edible, and if so, delicious.
“Did you see that thing in there?” Eva asked.
“Which one?” Vakar replied.
“Nothing, never mind.” She shouldn’t have said anything, not when it might make him curious, or suspicious. As it was, he started to exude a light incense aroma.
“Artifact,” the man had said. And Miles Erck was a specialist in Proarkhe stuff. It wasn’t hard to do the math on that one. But it had activated, whatever it was—what did that mean? What had they found and what could it do?
A ping came in from Min. ((BOFA ship.))
Eva swore under her breath and turned her leisurely stroll into a hustle. BOFA must have figured out The Fridge had found Proarkhe tech, unless there was something else going on that she didn’t know about. Something even worse . . .
“Is there a probl
em?” Vakar asked.
“Not sure, don’t want to find out.” She made a beeline for the bottom hatch, climbing up into the decontamination tube as fast as her clunky boots would allow.
“They’ve dropped a baby recon vehicle,” Min said through the speakers.
“Is it armed?” Eva asked, gesturing at Vakar to hurry.
“For sure.”
“And you’re good to fly?”
Min scoffed. “Pink gave me a thing. You know she wouldn’t let me pilot drunk.”
“Bottle us in and get out of here, then.” The last thing she needed was to end up on BOFA’s shit list, especially in connection with The Fridge.
The hatch closed beneath Vakar, trapping the two of them in the small space as the chemical scrubbers did their work. Eva looped one arm around the ladder and turned on her boots, securing them to the side of the tube so she wouldn’t fall on the quennian below her. He swung a leg through the rungs and clung tight, smelling uncomfortable.
“Just you and me until we hit the black,” Eva said, shooting him a smile that she hoped his translators would parse as reassuring. “I’ll try not to fart.”
His smell went all nervous, with a weird, spicy undercurrent. She sighed.
“Are our BOFA friends giving us the stink eye?” she asked Min.
“No incoming transmissions yet, Cap. Should I be worried about pew-pew happening?”
“I certainly hope not.” BOFA agents tended to shoot first and ask questions later, assuming they had any questions. And given her circumstances, any answers she might have for them would put Mari in worse danger.
Eva pictured Miles Erck staring down the barrel of an assault rifle. She was glad to be rid of him, but the idea of delivering him to an impending combat zone didn’t sit well with her.
You have bigger fish to fry, she told herself. Like making sure Leroy is okay. And getting paid. And getting your damn sister away from these sinvergüenzas resingados before she ends up on the wrong end of a BOFA raid. She glanced down at Vakar, who was staring at his own feet, apparently lost in thought.
“Everything is fine,” she said. She wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him or to herself.
Chapter 6
Just Ignore It
The next assignment from The Fridge came in as they approached the nearest Gate a few hours later. After the last one, Eva wasn’t sure what to make of it. She called everyone into the mess to share the news, including Leroy, who was recovered but chastened after his involuntary nap. She made a mental note to assure him that what had happened with Miles was not remotely his fault; she’d been ready to throw something at the comemierda as well.
“Cap, this location is on the planet Dalnulara,” Min said. “These coordinates will land us just outside their monastery in about a cycle and a half.”
Eva nodded, petting the cat that she hadn’t realized was on her lap until that moment. It purred as it gazed up at her with slitted eyes, and she scowled.
Meanwhile, Pink had brought her sniper rifle with her and was field-stripping and cleaning it, the sharp mineral tang of the chemicals making it harder to smell Vakar. Eva couldn’t remember the last time the affectionately nicknamed Anthia had been fired, but she suspected Pink was sending her a message: the medic expected trouble.
“That’s pretty fringe territory, even for us,” Pink said, pensively sliding the bore brush in and out. “Even BOFA doesn’t bother sending patrols to the Hyova system unless they’re short on their arrest quota.”
“That’s because the Dalnularan monks try to convert anything sapient once they hit comm range,” Eva said. “If it weren’t for the ridiculous alcohol they make, nobody would go there.”
Leroy whistled, blue eyes gleaming. “We’re going to pick up booze?”
“Pure and unfiltered,” Eva said. “You’ll have nightmares for cycles while you sober up, but for a half cycle you’ll be able to speak just about any language, even ones that don’t exist. No translator nanites needed. And they don’t give it to just anyone, so we need to be extra careful with it.” What did The Fridge want with the stuff? Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t good.
“You are aware of what the monks do to visitors?” Vakar asked slowly, smelling concerned.
Eva waved dismissively. “That’s a myth.”
“I do not believe it is.”
“How do you know?” Eva shot back, regretting it as his smell turned sour. He didn’t respond, but Pink laid her brush on the table and looked down the bore at Eva, eyebrow raised.
“What do they do?” Leroy asked.
“Nothing,” Eva said. “Don’t even worry about it.” She hated keeping anything from Leroy after what had set him off earlier, but he was the last person who needed to hear this particular rumor. With any luck, they wouldn’t be planetside long enough to find out whether it was true.
The Righteous Sanctuary of the Eternally Echoing Warble, the only structure on the otherwise abandoned planet Dalnulara, was, to be blunt, kind of a shithole. Mostly on account of the enormous hole nearby, through which a semisolid brown substance was being slowly but constantly ejected by an unknown source. The mucus-tinged material was then collected by what Eva presumed were monks, who were using it to build a monument that, when completed, would hopefully look—and smell—like something other than a huge pile of poop.
Sadly, that wasn’t the most unsettling thing Dalnulara had to offer.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Eva said, staring at the thin-tentacled ahirk in front of her.
“All visitors to the monastery must tolerate our ministrations,” the Dalnularan monk replied. As they spoke, tendrils waved on the left side of their round body.
“I warned you,” Vakar said. He smelled like lavender and cigarettes—smug, but not happy about it.
“Tu madre,” Eva muttered. Bad enough Vakar had been right; now she had to deal with Leroy knowing precisely the thing she had hoped to avoid.
“I’m not letting them stick that thing on my neck,” Leroy said. Whatever excitement he’d had for this glorified beer run had vanished as soon as he saw the creatures the monks brought out with them.
The monk held an egg-shaped white critter, about the size of one of the kittens in her cargo hold. The underside was presumably where its suckers or talons or whatever were located. It seemed to be vibrating, pulsing, like it was taking rapid breaths through some unseen nose.
“No harm is intended,” the monk said. It might have been soothing if they didn’t have a voice like a mosquito pitched low enough to hear.
Eva tried to consider the situation logically: The Fridge wouldn’t have sent her to do this if they really expected her to fail, because they presumably needed the booze for something, so this couldn’t be a suicide mission. The stories of this place had gotten around, which meant someone must have survived. Ergo, it was likely that this . . . parasite could be removed later, as they claimed.
“All right, let’s be done with this,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she turned around and lifted her hair.
“Captain, no!” Vakar said, reaching out a gloved hand to intercept the ahirk monk as they slid over to her.
Eva brushed him off. “I’ll be fine. You and Leroy wait for me on the ship.”
“You cannot go in there alone,” Vakar said. Now he smelled like suppressed anxiety, which was weirdly minty.
“And you can’t come with. You’re still not fully recovered from Omicron and saving Miles Erck from his own stupidity, and I’m not having Pink bust out the expensive nanotech for this.”
“I am completely capable of—”
“I’ll go,” Leroy said.
She studied his face, the nervous way he bit his lip, then followed his gaze to the monk wriggling their tendrils and to the egg-creature they held. For a moment, she could have sworn it flexed a row of tiny legs like a centipede’s.
Leroy had probably seen worse—killed worse—during his time as a corporate merc, cleaning out worlds for coloniza
tion even if those worlds were already settled, but she didn’t want to add another nightmare to his screaming menagerie. Meat puppets usually died in a war zone or flamed out and landed in fight clubs, punching other broken soldiers in exchange for enough drugs to forget all the shit their controllers had made them do. Hell, Leroy had washed out of one ship’s crew after another for years before Eva hired him, because no one else gave enough of a shit to try to help him get his angry outbursts and nightmares under control. And the corporations cared exactly as much as they were legally obligated to, less if they could get away with it.
Regardless, once they left the service, meat puppets tended to get really antsy about connecting anything to their spinal columns. Leroy was no exception.
“Fuck no,” Eva said. “Get back on the ship.”
Another monk, this time a muk, appeared from nowhere with a second creature held in their oversize lobster-claw hands.
“Vakar is right,” Leroy said finally. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got two perfectly good fists and boots that can break bones.”
He cocked a weak grin. “I owe you, anyway, after what happened with the passenger.”
“Not even. I was ready to mangle him myself.” This was a terrible idea. Leroy didn’t need to make amends or prove anything to her. But maybe he wanted to prove something to himself? Sometimes you fucked up and you wouldn’t feel better until you did something right to balance it out.
“Please?” he asked.
Eva sighed. “Fine. Vakar, go prep the cargo bay.” She gestured at the monk to hurry up, bracing herself for the shock of pain she was sure would come when the thing latched on with its . . . whatever it had.
There was a gentle pressure as it was placed on her neck. Then—nothing.
“Huh,” she said. “That wasn’t so—”
A rush of images hit her like a bad dream. Ocean as yellow as a dandelion; still, glassy surface unbroken by movement above or below. The taste of brine, then air, thick and murky. Something warm, like blood.
Chilling Effect_A Novel Page 8
