Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  Kurok calculated the relative risks. Then he shook his head and went back to the panel. “Let’s keep that as a bad second choice. With my luck today it’s high tide.”

  The kid grinned in acknowledgment. “Got caught once and broke my leg coming back out here. But it’s a good ride sometimes.”

  “Good ride,” the other kid next to him agreed, shifting the harness he was wearing that held Tayler to his back. “Right Tay? You done that, huh?”

  Tayler nodded silently, looking around at the dark, death filled cavern with an uncomfortable expression. “Stuff’s bad.”

  “Yes, it is, lad,” Kurok said, tuning the scanner carefully. “Just try to keep steady, will you? We’ll try to get everyone out of this.”

  No real hope of that, and he knew it. Likely they’d all end up dying in some massive pointless crossfire. There was no compassion here. No one would care about any of them because that was the nature of who they were.

  No win situation. Kurok sighed. And yet, here he was hotwiring a door that would let them right into it. All the justification he’d ever convinced himself of was as bogus as he’d always suspected it to be. With a shake of his head he bent his attention over the boards.

  A sudden explosive shock rumbled underfoot and threw them against the wall. He grabbed the scanner with one hand and caught his balance on the panel with the other, by chance hitting his palm on the center of it. “What the hell was that?”

  “Dunno, Doc, but good job!” Dustin pointed at the hatch which was creaking open. “Something big went boom.” He peeked through the widening opening. “Hope it was them!”

  Kurok looked in bemusement at the now green lock panel. Around him the Bay kids were already slipping through the opening ahead of him, into an open space full of sounds and reverberations, holding arms over their heads to ward off falling shards of rock.

  He squared his shoulders and followed, a long line of bio alts hastening after him.

  JESS REACHED THE bottom of the shaft and released the bottom rung. She landed on a slick rock surface that jarred every bone in her body. She swept around and pressed her back against the nearby wall, stooping to retrieve the spear lying nearby.

  She was in an irregularly shaped tunnel that sloped downward to her left and upward to her right. She started downward, reaching up to touch her head as she heard a distinct ringing in her ears. Concussed, probably. She resisted the urge to shake her noggin and hoped the ringing would stop.

  Hard to hear past it. Hard to concentrate on what she was doing with all that noise, and the nausea, and the pain elsewhere. Though she’d been trained well to ignore all that, right now she was finding it rough. It was even hard for her to remember the last time she’d...

  Oh, no. She remembered now her brief rest up in the shuttle, trusting Dev not to drive into something catastrophic.

  Dev. Who took on that shuttle and sweated it down, and who must be even more tired than Jess was. She leaned against the wall and considered that then focused her intent on finding Dev and getting a nap. Screw everything and everyone else.

  This far down the noise from the fighting had faded, and she shoved off against the wall only to pause again as a brief spell of dizziness almost made her stumble.

  Not good. She took a breath and forced her body to settle then started off again more confidently in the direction she knew would lead her to where she’d seen the carrier disappear.

  Ahead of her she heard the sound of the sea. That and the salt smell drew her insistently, speeding up her steps as she reached the end of the ramp and entered the ship cavern.

  There she halted and stared, her eyes widening at the destruction in front of her.

  Six ships were half sunk in the harbor, overturned and full of holes while dead bodies floated nearby. The edge of the cavern was still dropping debris into the water, and one side of the space looked like a bomb had hit it.

  Between two granite columns, a little sideways, was an Interforce carrier where no such thing belonged. Jess looked at the angle and then at the carrier. “Son of a bitch.”

  If she’d had any doubt, now she didn’t. No other pilot on the planet could have landed that damn brick where it was in one piece, and in fact she had no real idea how they were going to get it back out because there wasn’t even clearance to turn.

  She made her way along the edge of the ship dock and came up to the carrier, circling it and leaning against the engine, cowling long enough to look at the painted names on the outside of the craft.

  Her carrier.

  Their carrier. She went up next to the skin and bumped it with her shoulder, leaning over and kissing it where the block letters DEV were stenciled then resting her head against the cool surface for a long moment.

  Then she unlocked the door and stepped inside, letting it close behind her.

  She could still smell Dev’s presence, and she stood a moment, taking in a breath of the air inside and tasting it on the back of her tongue as she set the spear down. What now? She was aware that thoughts were coming more slowly to her than usual, but bangs on the noggin did that.

  She wished she could sit down for a while in her nice, padded chair, but she forced herself to keep standing, as she removed the jumpsuit she was wearing and traded it for her half armored battle suit that would at least give her a small bit of protection that her duty suit hadn’t.

  She took a wipe from the dispenser and ran it over her face. It came back covered in soot and blood and bits of bone. She carefully avoided looking at her reflection in any shiny surface after she dropped the wipe into the garbage bag.

  Damn, her head hurt. Jess finished fastening up her battle suit and peered around the carrier. She reached into the drink dispenser and removing a container of kack that she opened and drained. It didn’t do much for her roiling stomach but at least brought a flicker of energy behind it.

  Dev’s pack was gone, she noted.

  The med kit was also gone.

  Jess finished the kack and tossed it then went to the arming rack, noting her long blaster was slightly out of place. She studied it for a minute then lifted it up and examined it before she seated it along her leg on it’s hard points.

  She added two more heavy blasters and a long dagger then turned to the hatch and put her hands on the edges of it, waiting for the dizziness to fade again before she hit the hatch to let it open.

  Salt air hit her in the face and then death almost did as a flicker of motion made her half turn. Facing her were two blue clad security guards. Before she could react they fired at her point blank.

  She twisted and lunged to one side as one blast hit her half armor. It spun her around enough to miss the second and she slammed into the side of the carrier and then headed for the rock floor.

  Ow.

  She got her hand blaster out and fired back as she hit the ground, a bump in the rock giving her enough cover to survive to shoot again and then again. Instinct took over in a wash of relief, and she stopped trying to think and just gave over to it.

  One of them dove behind the engine and took a shot then as she watched him aim at her, in almost slow motion, something hit him in the side of the head and blew his skull apart.

  The other guard dove for the ground, glancing around frantically. Jess got a line on him and shot him, and then she scrambled to her feet and ducked behind the engine, glad of its solid bulk under her hands.

  “Drake!”

  “Here.” She kept the blaster in her hand as a tall figure came around the carrier and spotted her, and they looked at each other for a very long moment. “Mike.”

  “Fuckin A.” The Drake’s Bay security chief wiped his forehead off. “Ops ops,” he said into a comms. “Found the Drake. Secure.”

  Jess pushed herself upright. “What’s the deal?”

  “Got carriers coming in,” Mike said. “Saw this one come in the cavern. Son of a fucking bitch.”

  Jess patted the skin of the carrier. “Dev,” she said. “You know where she
went?”

  Mike shook his head. “Fighting’s up near the stairs. We got ’em pinned down. Maybe she went that way to all the noise? Figure she’s looking for you.”

  “Probably,” Jess said. “Got my bell rung.”

  “Looks it,” Mike said. “Got a lot of blood there.” He took a step back. “Maybe you should stick here in that crate? Safest place in the joint at the mo.”

  Jess moved past him toward the long sloping rampway that led from the cavern up to the processing rooms where fish became food, or items to sell. Here the rock never really lost the scent of that, and she circled the carrier and started upwards.

  Mike caught up with her. “Okay, so not.” He fell silent and kept pace with her. There were far off sounds of shots and yells and, more distant, the scream of the wind. “Storm’s comin. Ground those bastards.”

  Jess nodded. “Until reinforcements get here from the west. We can only do this so long. They got more and bigger bombs than we do.”

  “We’s we now?”

  “Yeah. Maybe always was,” Jess muttered.

  Mike smiled grimly and just nodded.

  They heard running steps coming at them and they drew apart, going to the walls of the passage and bracing, Jess with her blaster and Mike with an old style rocket launcher he lifted to his shoulder.

  A running body came around the corner and spotted them, skidding to a halt. She threw her hands up. “For fucks sake I surrender. Don’t shoot me! I’m done!”

  Red cropped hair and security blue. Jess stepped away from the wall but kept the blaster in focus. “Rusty,” she said. “No shooting yet.”

  The woman stared at her. “Drake?” She took a very cautious step forward. “Holy shit.” She looked surprisingly relieved. “Listen, I’m null. I’m not under orders. I just want to stay alive.” She got the words out quickly. “Don’t kill me.”

  “Okay,” Jess said after a moment. “Who’s in charge now?”

  “No clue.” Rusty slowly lowered her hands to her sides. She was unarmed and had blood over the front of her uniform, now visible to Jess. “There’s an insanity here, Drake,” she said. “We walked into a buzz saw.”

  Jess almost smiled. “Insanity that Interforce has been tapping for a long time now.” She pointed back the way Rusty had come from. “We’re going that way.”

  Rusty stared at her. “Are you good guys or bad guys, Drake? What side am I on if I go with you?”

  Jess shrugged. “Side that probably lives. But no guarantees.”

  She moved past the security guard and picked up the pace, hearing echoing sounds and shots ahead of her.

  DEV PRESSED HER back against the wall and felt both salt and moisture as she carefully peered around the corner. She heard screaming and a quick check of her scan showed a lot of people, mostly Interforce ahead of her. She swept around and behind her, searching for Jess’s bio.

  Hard with so many people around that had that. But she persisted and after a moment the wiremap resolved and she spotted Jess on the move heading... “Ah.”

  Dev blinked and looked behind her, a moment later spotting a familiar figure stalking her way. She stepped out away from the wall and into the dim light from the overhead. Jess’s eyes tracked to her and they locked on.

  Jess looked horrible. She had blood all over her head and she was limping, almost staggering with one hand lightly brushing the wall. But when her eyes met Dev’s her face broke into a grin, and Dev knew a brief sensation of floating on air as she exhaled in relief.

  It made her knees weak.

  “Devvviiieee!” Jess warbled softly as they met and without hesitation pulled Dev into a hug. “Nice landing back there, you Rocket Raccoon you.”

  Dev gently hugged her back, noting the odd stare from the short figure behind her and the brief nod from the tall man. “Hello,” she said. “I’m really glad I found you. There’s so much incorrectness here I don’t know where to start.”

  A loud roar interrupted their reunion, and they threw themselves against the corridor wall as rocks started coming down from the ceiling.

  “What the hell!” Mike bawled. “They get so pissed of they blew themselves up?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past ’em,” Rusty said. “End game.” She braced next to him. “No real thinking going on.” She shielded her head with an arm. “Is that a rocket launcher?”

  “Yeah.” He ducked a thick blanket of stone that detached from the ceiling and covered them. “Real Bay issue.”

  “Holy crap. Last time I saw one was in history class at Rainier Island.”

  Jess closed her eyes, her body braced and arms lifted over both of them to shield them from the debris. Dev reached up to touch her face. “You are not well.”

  One blood shot blue eye opened and peered down at her. “I’m absolutely fan-fucking-tastic right now,” Jess said. “I thought you croaked. I was really bummed there for a minute.”

  Dev gave her a brief smile. “I felt the same way. I was thinking if that was true, and you were not here anymore, that it would be okay if they made me dead, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes of course,” Dev said. “You’re my reason for being here.”

  Jess felt a little prickling against her skin, and it got very quiet in her head, just for a minute there as those words echoed through her ears and traveled down to her heart in a spread of warmth she could actually feel.

  It felt so amazing. It made the headache, and the pain, and all the crap they were dealing with just a secondary consideration. She got an insight into herself she hadn’t really expected. Amoral sociopaths weren’t supposed to give a shit about anyone else, and right up to now, this one hadn’t.

  Not really. Not even for her father, who she’d liked as much as someone like her could.

  Jess looked past Dev’s head and saw a cloud of dust heading their way, most likely full of vaporized relatives. So maybe there was a little bit of her that wasn’t all that craziness. “Thanks, Dev. I was kinda feeling the same way, too.”

  “Excellent,” Dev said. “I hope everyone can stop shooting now.”

  “Me too.” Jess almost chuckled. “Let’s go see what blew up,” she finally said, aware of the stares and the discomfort of it all. “And see if there’s anyone left to surrender.”

  She put her arm across Dev’s shoulders and shifted her gun to her other side, starting forward as the cloud hit them and peppered them with stench, stone, and dust that made her slit her eyes and clamp her lips shut as her black half armor was covered in debris.

  Dev ducked her head and pressed her face against Jess’s side, allowing the suit she was wearing to block some of the dust.

  It was suboptimal, stinky, dangerous, horrible, and yet, absolutely excellent, all at the same time. Crazy and sad and good. And in that moment, with Jess’s arm around her, for the very first time Dev felt a sense of herself as a person.

  It felt strange but awesome.

  They made their way through the cloud and at the end of the hallway, where Dev had first paused, they found utter destruction. The arch had collapsed and the spot Dev had been standing was gone, the hallway half obscured with rubble.

  Mike climbed up the rubble and sprawled across the top of it, peering past. “Hey!” he yelled into the darkness beyond.

  “Mike?” A voice yelled back. “Holy shit, man! Whole fucking mountain fell down in here!”

  Jess sighed.

  Mike squirmed up through the open space at the top of the debris and slid down the other side. Jess reluctantly released Dev in order to follow him. Rusty brought up the rear and they carefully climbed up and over the rubble and emerged into the large central hall of Drake’s Bay.

  Ghostly figures were everywhere. Lights started to come up, highlighting lumps and piles of bodies and stone on the floor. As they came to the center with the overhead plas opening above them, lighting blasted overhead and lit everything in tarnished silver.

  “We give up,” a quiet, dark clad figure came ove
r, hands up, exhausted. “Drake, you win.” It was one of the Western Interforce seniors, barely known to Jess except as a face in the hallways just before she’d left Base Ten. “Please just stop killing people.”

  “Get the bats going!” a voice called out. “We beat their asses!”

  Jess looked around and saw all the bodies, all the death, the destruction of her stakehold, and knew it all for a lie. “Tell everyone left to put their weapons down,” she said to the senior. “Let’s see what we can salvage from this.”

  The man nodded. “I’m sorry, Drake,” he said. “We should have refused orders.” His face was white and creased in pain. “We didn’t know what we were getting into.”

  The boom of thunder rolled through the rock. “Yeah.” Jess sighed. “Me either.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THEY MANAGED TO get inside one of the service corridors. Kurok was in the lead, the kids from the Bay at his heels, and the bio alts clustering behind them. It was an outer pathway he vaguely remembered from years past that wound its way through the storage areas in the lower levels of the stakehold.

  “That one there,” Dustin said. “That’ll come up through the mess and we can get to central ops from there.”

  “Yah. We take the garbage out this way. To the grinder,” another youth said. “Damn, I’m hungry.”

  “Maybe later, lads,” Kurok said. “Let’s get out of some trouble first, hmm?”

  They entered a niche that held a doorway, and Dustin took hold of the latch and hauled it backwards. Before Kurok could react, six of the Bay kids were inside, sticks, rocks, and random weapons held at the ready. He got inside with the next group, glad he’d left Cathy, Taylor, and Jake back in the shuttle.

  No argument from Jake. “Might end up being the last Drake after all,” he’d said.

  And well he might. Kurok could smell gunpowder and flash, and yes, the cloying scent of death as he shouldered his way through the moving crowd and got to the front. He remembered this room. He remembered walking through it at Justin’s side and sitting at table surrounded by members of the homestead amidst the smell of fish stew and beer. Accepted because to not would be risking Justin’s hair trigger wrath, and they all knew it.