Patchwork

by Elle E. Ire

  I nod, bracing myself.

  “You’re telling us that you cared so much about what we thought of you, that you wanted the approval of Kelly’s friends and family so desperately, that you learned everyone’s names, memorized our interests. You were so worried about meeting us that you made absolutely sure you would have something to talk about. And you did all that, all of it, because you wanted to please Kelly.”

  Beside me, Kelly gives a little gasp.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone else,” Lily continues, “but you need to forget about them. The ones who matter most already think you’re really terrific—me and Tonya and Rachelle and Kelly’s parents, who adore you like you’re their own daughter.”

  By now Bea and Fred have made it to us, and while they don’t understand everything that’s going on, they hear that part, and they’re nodding in agreement.

  “But beyond that, Kelly fucking loves you, and I know Kelly. No one else’s approval or disapproval will ever change that.” Lily shakes her head, staring at me with wonderment. “Jesus, Vick. I hope someday I find a partner like you.”

  Maybe I didn’t fail after all.

  “Bullshit,” says a snide voice from the shadows. Then David fucking Locher steps into the walkway lights. “She’s a machine, a device. She infiltrated private computer systems, downloaded information, and stored it to be used for her convenience, for optimal effect, because that’s what her implants calculated that she should do. She doesn’t care about Kelly or anyone else. She can’t care. She’s incapable of that kind of affection… of any affection.”

  Kelly lets go of me. In three strides, she’s across the walkway and standing in front of her former boyfriend or whatever he was to her at the Academy. In running shoes, my dinner jacket, and her ragged, sparkly, star-covered dress, she pulls back her fist and slugs him, a perfect right cross to the nose. The cartilage shatters with a satisfying crunch. Blood pours forth as he covers his face with both hands.

  I taught her how to throw an effective punch. I couldn’t be more proud.

  “You bitch!” he shouts, words muffled behind his hands. “We’re supposed to be together. I’ve seen it. We’re a team.”

  “Sometimes dreams are just dreams and visions are wishful thinking,” she says, returning to my side. She smiles up at me. “I keep saying it’s not an exact science.”

  “So you do,” I tell her. I’m leaning down to kiss her when three men come bursting out of the decorative shrubbery lining the path. Two of them move to flank Kelly’s parents, taking up a protective stance. The third approaches me fast.

  “Corren! LaSalle!”

  I recognize Carl just as he tosses two olive-green duffels at us. I snag mine out of the air, then snatch Kelly’s just before it would have hit her in the face. Well, my accelerated reflexes are back to normal. “What the hell?”

  “It’s your gear, at least everything that looked important or valuable. You two need to go. Now.” Carl catches sight of David Locher’s blood-covered face and does a double-take. “Nice punch, by the way,” he says to me.

  “Thanks,” Kelly says.

  Make that a triple-take.

  “I’m not sure how he got a message out, but he slipped one by us,” Carl says.

  Locher smirks, which would have been a lot more effective if his nose wasn’t broken.

  “What’s happening? Why is the wave racer guy telling us to go somewhere?” Kelly looks from me to Carl and back again. I pass her the bag that’s supposedly hers. “I had several pieces of luggage,” she says. “This can’t be everything.”

  “It’s not,” Carl says. “Your family can ship you the rest, assuming you live that long. I grabbed what I could.” He gives me the side-eye. “Including the weapons pouch. In a potted plant, Corren? Really? Could you be more obvious?”

  “I was hiding it from housekeeping and maintenance, not mercs,” I tell him. To Kelly I say, “He works for the Storm.” Then I blink, surprised that, one, I’m not shaking so hard anymore and my speech has evened out, and two, his silence command is allowing me to give away that much.

  “This is what you had to hide?” She’s wide-eyed and panicked, a little angry too, but there’s nothing for it now.

  “Yes, and later. I’ll explain later.” If I can goes unsaid.

  “Your ship is prepped and ready to go. There’s a Storm fighter in orbit. They’ll give you cover. Sunfires are here, Corren, and they want you, both of you. Their scouts landed about a half hour ago.”

  The shuttle that passed overhead while I was melting down. The one I knew was trouble. Shit.

  “My guys are on it, but two of them aren’t responding, so I’m guessing a couple got past them. There’s a transport of them, also in orbit. If their whole squad decides to make landfall, we’re gonna have a lot of collateral damage.”

  My gaze immediately goes to Kelly’s parents, her friends, not to mention all her school-age cousins among the other guests, none of whom are up for any kind of combat. It will be a slaughter.

  And it will be my fault.

  “We’ll get your friends and the One-World diplomat to safety, but you have to go now.” He means Kelly’s mom, and I remember just how important she is to Earth’s government. Yes, the loss will be tremendous if Kelly and I don’t draw the Sunfires away. I wonder if he’s doing this out of a sense of honor or if he expects a reward. Doesn’t matter. I take him at his word.

  “We’ve gotta go.” I step over to Lily while Kelly exchanges quick goodbyes with her parents, Rachelle, and Tonya. Quietly I say, “I need you to give me back what you… borrowed… from me.”

  Her mouth forms a hard line, but she takes my gun from her inner jacket pocket and hands it over. Before she lets go, though, she says, “When I told you nothing would stop Kelly from loving you, I was wrong.” A pause. “No, I take that back. She would still love you, but if you ever use this the way you intended, even if she knows you couldn’t help it, she’ll never forgive you or herself. I have no idea what you’re going through, only that it tears you up, but you need to fight it, Vick. You mean more to her than you will ever know.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say, pulling the pistol from her grip and slipping it into the front of my waistband. No point in hiding it now.

  “From what I’ve seen, you always do. Now go. Get our girl out of here before whatever shit’s coming hits the fan.” She claps me on the shoulder. At least this time it isn’t the one where Kelly gave me the shot.

  Fuck. The shot. The time-release sedative will be kicking in within the hour, and I’m the only one who can fly that replacement civilian space yacht. I take a deep breath.

  One problem at a time.

  There’s a scuffling behind me. I turn just as a pair of hands reaches out of the bushes, grabbing Kelly and hauling her against a broad chest in a Sunfire uniform.

  Make that two problems.

  We draw our weapons at the same moment, mine pointing at the Sunfire while he steps fully onto the path, dragging Kelly with him, his with the barrel pressed against the right side of Kelly’s skull. Carl’s hand drops to his own holster.

  “Don’t,” the Sunfire commands, jerking Kelly hard. She squeaks with pain. My jaw clenches. “I see one more weapon and I’ll take my chances on killing her.”

  What does that mean?

  “Let her go,” I say, voice low and even. A cold calm settles over me. “I thought I was the one you were after.”

  His gaze darts to Locher, then back to me. “Recent intel says we’ll need you both to make you function.”

  Fuck.

  “You should have let me kill Locher when I wanted to,” Carl mutters.

  Kelly gasps. She’s putting together everything I wasn’t allowed to say.

  “Yeah,” I mutter back, “I should have.”

  “Drop your gun, come quietly, and we’ll keep you both alive,” the Sunfire says.

  “Vick, don’t. They’ll use you or take the implants apart. And me…. Don
’t do it.” Kelly’s trembling, but her tone is firm. She doesn’t want me to become an experiment. Not again. And we both know the rumors of what Sunfires do to female prisoners. Neither of us is likely to survive the experience. Neither of us may want to.

  But if I can’t find another option…. Around us, everyone else holds their collective breaths, expectantly watching me, waiting to see what miracle I’m going to pull off next. I crash-landed a shuttle we walked away from. I battled two octosharks and lived.

  I have no idea what to do now.

  I can’t take a shot. Kelly and the Sunfire are about the same height. She’s blocking most of him. The risk of hitting her is too great, even with my implant-aided aim.

  An image of a spyglass pops up in my internal display. Then VC1 shows me a metal door. What the hell?

  Spyglass. Okay. You use a spyglass for looking. She’s telling me to look around.

  Sunfire. Kelly. Bushes. Boathouse…. The boathouse is mostly wood, but it has a metal door. The door is behind Kelly, a little off to her right. My thoughts are sluggish. I’m not getting it.

  New image: an airlock, then beside it an analysis of the composition of the metal in the boathouse door. Everything clicks into place.

  That metal will make a bullet ricochet. Like in the airlock where I died the first time.

  New image: a schematic of a bullet’s pathway from my fired weapon to the door to the back of the Sunfire’s head, animated dotted red lines marking the trajectory needed. All of this information transmits between myself and my AI counterpart within milliseconds. The Sunfire is still waiting for my answer.

  I stare at the pistol in my hand. It trembles in my grip. After my meltdown, I’m better, but I’m not completely steady.

  I can’t make this shot. But if VC1 is using imagery rather than words, she’s in no condition to take control and do it either.

  I can’t do this, but I have to.

  “What guarantees can you give us?” I ask, keeping him focused on my voice, my face, while my mind and body do other things. I consider the image VC1 sent me, then shift my aim a little lower, unnoticeably so, watching the animated lines move with my gun hand.

  The Sunfire shrugs. “In life there are no guarantees. You should know that. But it’s the only choice you two have.”

  Never breaking eye contact with the enemy, I brush my thumb over the slider on the pistol’s side, dialing back the projective force. When I fire, I don’t want the bullet passing through both their bodies. “I prefer to make my own choices.”

  Offering up a silent prayer to whomever might be listening to someone with a questionable soul, I take a breath, let it out, and pull the trigger.

  Chapter 42: Kelly—Fight or Flight

  VICK IS a target.

  I read Vick’s determination a millisecond before she fires the pistol. Everything in me wants to scream and jerk away, but I hold myself in place, putting all my trust in her.

  There’s a ping as the bullet misses both me and my captor and bounces off something to the rear, and my heart sinks. Then the Sunfire yelps and thrusts me forward. I hit the walkway on all fours, the pebbles and shells digging into my knees and palms. The enemy merc’s gun lands beside me, and I grab it and flip onto my backside to point it up and out.

  I needn’t have bothered. Carl has the Sunfire by one arm while Lily grips him by the other. Vick remains where I saw her last, bent over, hands on her knees, taking deep steadying breaths. I could use a few of those myself.

  I stand, brushing off bits of silt and sand, and pass the gun into Carl’s free hand. He stares at it with abject wonder. “Amazing precision. Pure finesse. She shot the weapon right out of his grip. I’ve heard the stories but… unbelievable. We have got to get her in our division.”

  I don’t know what his division is, and I don’t care. I move to Vick, who’s just now straightening. She’s paler than she was during her implant overload. I rest a hand on her shoulder. “You did it. I’m fine. Look at me. I’m not hurt.”

  She puts an arm around me and pulls me in close. The trembling in her body has picked up again in intensity.

  “That was an incredible shot,” I say. “You really impressed Carl over there.” He’s still staring at the Sunfire’s weapon.

  “I was aiming for his shoulder.”

  Oh. God.

  She missed her target by almost a foot. Any farther and she would have missed entirely and he would have shot me. If she’d erred in the opposite direction? She would have killed him and exposed me to every painful moment of his death, not to mention maybe shooting me as well. I swallow hard.

  “We have to go, Vick. Every second we stand here puts everyone else in danger.”

  Vick takes a breath, visibly shaking off the could-have-beens. “Right. Right. Let’s move.”

  I grab my duffel from where I dropped it by the bushes, and she snags hers off the walkway. With one last wave to my parents, Vick takes my hand and pulls me off the path, toward the landing platforms.

  We move quietly from shadow to shadow. There are other Sunfires out here somewhere, and neither of us has the energy to do battle again. When we round the resort’s main lobby building and the bright lights of the landing area come into view, we both let out a breath.

  The boarding ramp is down, the harsh interior lighting casting a wide beam across the landing platform. The yacht’s engines are humming, and a woman in a Fighting Storm uniform beckons urgently to us. “Come on, come on!” she says when we get close enough for her not to shout. “Preflight’s done. You’re good to go.”

  “Thank you,” I say. She nods and steps away, heading for the safe zone at the perimeter of the landing field.

  Vick slaps the Close control once we’re both aboard, and the ramp lifts and seals into place with a soft hiss. “Secure your gear in the sleeping compartment,” she says. “The liftoff might be bumpy, and I don’t want shit bouncing around back there. It will still take a couple of minutes to get clearance from Infinity Bay’s flight control system, assuming I have the luxury of time to wait for that.”

  I nod and hurry to the rear of the ship, finding the layout identical to the yacht we crashed when we arrived. In the cabin, I opt to swap out my party clothes for something more practical. Vick will call on the intercom if I need to hurry faster. I strip down to my undergarments, then dig through the duffel of my belongings and find tan slacks and a white silk T-shirt. Not exactly battle-ready wear, but I hadn’t packed for a war, and it’s better than the flimsier, more revealing shorts and sleeveless tops.

  The Storm soldier had the yacht’s environmental system cranking out frigid air, probably because she was in full military gear, which I know from experience is heavy and hot. I use the wall panel to dial it back, but I’m freezing, and Carl didn’t grab either my sweater or my jacket from the hooks inside the front door of our cottage. In the meantime, I snag Vick’s dinner jacket off the bed where I tossed it and put it back on. It’s warm and cozy. I lock everything else in a storage compartment.

  When I arrive in the cockpit, Vick has also changed clothes, swapping out her satin shirt and tuxedo pants for black armored tactical gear and combat boots identical to the equipment the soldier at the ramp was wearing. She’s openly armed now, her gun in a holster at her right side, knife handles protruding from each boot, and probably a number of other weapons hidden elsewhere on her person. I’ll miss the dashing, charming figure she cut in her formalwear, but seeing her like this is also more of a turn-on than I would admit to anyone but her.

  At the moment she’s pacing the tiny space behind the two seats, speaking out loud into the microphone pickups embedded into the ceiling. The readouts on the control console scroll with numerical and other coded data while the ship idles, waiting to take off.

  “—everyone to safety?” Vick asks.

  “Almost everyone.”

  I recognize Carl’s voice even with the speaker distortion. My heart sinks at the “almost.”

  “Tell me,”
Vick says, shooting me a worried glance.

  “We lost Locher,” Carl says. “He was… accidentally caught in the crossfire with a couple of the Sunfires’ scout team.”

  “Ah,” Vick says. “Of course he was.”

  Which means he wasn’t, though both mercenary organizations are good enough that we’ll never have proof to the contrary. The Storm or maybe even the Sunfires had Locher killed, either because David sold us out to them, or because the Sunfires didn’t want to pay him whatever he’d asked for in return for the information on us. Either way, he’s dead. I didn’t feel it. I must have been far enough away not to read the death with my Talent. But I should feel something: regret, sadness, maybe even guilt for letting things go so wrong between us. I don’t.

  I’m glad he’s dead. And I don’t feel guilty about that either.

  “We’ve broken through the Sunfires’ comm scrambler, so you’ll be able to monitor their communications from their ground team to their bigger ship.” Carl rattles off a series of numbers and letters that Vick doesn’t bother to write down. VC1 will remember it all.

  A set of three chimes sounds from the control panel, and Vick stops her pacing and takes a seat. I strap in next to her. “We’re clear for takeoff,” she says, tapping on the screens and bringing the engines up to full. One hand wraps around the guidance lever. “You’re still wearing my jacket.” There’s a slight shudder as we rise off the platform, then further vibrations followed by soft clangs and clanks indicating the landing gear is folding into the base of the yacht.

  I stroke the velvet material. “I kind of love this jacket.”

  Vick chuckles, low and sexy. “Yeah, I thought you might.”

  “You actually packed your combat gear?”

  We’re rising fast now, propulsion at full power to escape the planet’s gravity. Vick makes a few minor adjustments on the control console. “No,” she says in answer to my question. “This was waiting, draped over the pilot’s chair. Their undercover ops team must have left it for me. Fits perfectly, and it has all the latest upgrades, even a few bells and whistles I hadn’t heard about yet.” She frowns. “I think I’m being courted.”