Blood sprayed out of the Skaine’s chest as one of the drones ripped through it and sped on its way, painting Nickie like an ancient Pollock canvas. She rolled out of the way as the body toppled, and she dragged the back of one arm over her mouth. Mostly she just succeeded in smearing the blood across the bottom half of her face, but she could worry about that later. She got back to her feet and took a quick look around, assessing her situation.
Her drones were still doing their job like busily buzzing bees. Over half of the Skaines were dead.
Over half plus one a second later, as Nickie aimed her gun and fired and another one pitched to the ground with a hole through his guts.
There were steps approaching from behind her, and she could smell the plasma and ozone stink of a laser gun priming. She turned on her heel and lashed out, her fist meeting a Skaine’s nose. With her other hand, she slammed her knife through his forearm, and he screamed as he dropped his gun on the ground. Nickie pulled her knife free with a bloody spray, flipped it over, and guided it upwards. It sank into the Skaine’s chin, and he gurgled around the blade for a few seconds until Nickie pulled it out.
She kicked his body aside when it nearly landed on her shoes and took another quick look around, assessing and reassessing the situation to see how many Skaines were left. It didn’t even occur to her to make sure that the girls hadn’t been hurt or caught in the crossfire. She had barely even thought about them since her knife had cut the throat of that first Skaine.
There were few enough Skaines left that she could afford to take a few seconds and catch her breath. She watched her drones work. A Skaine tried to catch one of them, only for it to rip through his fingers like tissue paper. As he screamed over his shredded fingers, Nickie lifted her gun and put him out of his misery.
Of course, that only drew attention to her. Two more Skaines rushed her. She pirouetted out of the way of the initial charge and caught one of them by the back of his neck as he passed. With a grin, she tossed him into the air, and he flailed until all three drones found him. Like a pack of metallic piranha, they ripped him apart, blood falling like rain until the body hit the ground. Nickie fingered a loose strand of her hair distastefully. It was going to take her days to get all of it out of her hair, and she was probably going to look like a strawberry blonde for a week.
Her break had gone on long enough. She checked her gun and her knife with a cursory glance before looking around for the most convenient target. There were only a few left.
But she had let her guard down. There were only a few Skaines left, and her drones were so efficient. It seemed like she hardly had anything to worry about now—at least until one of the last Skaines, bigger than most of the others, even if that didn’t mean much where Skaines were concerned, tackled her around the middle.
They hit the ground in a heap, scuffling as they fell. Nickie planted her foot against his chest and kicked him away, but he was on her again in an instant. She held him at bay with one of her knees, her shin against his chest and her knee just under his chin as he reached for her face with greedy, grasping claws. It looked like he wanted to rip her face off, and knowing what she did about the Skaines, that probably wasn’t too far off the mark.
His claws came within a few millimeters of her nose before she kicked up and out, launching him over her head like a catapult. He hit the ground with a thump, and she could hear him scrabbling back to his feet. She had no plans to let him do anything else to her, though.
She rolled onto her stomach, stretched her gun out in front of her, and fired. The Skaine dropped to all fours as the shot ripped through one of his knees, and Nickie hopped back to her feet. With a deep breath, she kicked out, the heel of her boot slamming into his chin. His head snapped back with a crunch and a crack, and he toppled over backward. He didn’t get back up.
Nickie lowered her leg until her boot was on the ground once more.
Chest heaving, she stood rigidly in the center of the mess, glancing around with quick, sharp jerks. It took a few seconds for her to realize that she had run out of Skaines. She was standing in a field of bodies, with nothing left to fight. Moving like a wind-up doll that had been wound too far, she put her gun back into its holster and her knife back into her boot sheath.
She held a hand up and her drones returned like loyal retrievers, clinking together in her palm. She tucked them back into her belt pouch and gave it a pat, then finally turned to take a step toward the girls.
She froze in place before she could make her way over to them. They were all staring at her, all six of them, like they thought she was going to turn on them next. The youngest had started crying. They were covered in nearly as much blood as Nickie was.
With a jerk, Nickie took a step toward them, and they cringed and huddled together like cats in a storm. The youngest hid her face against the girl beside her, mumbling a steady stream of, “Please, please, please…”
“But—“ Whatever Nickie was going to say never emerged, the rest of the words staying behind her teeth. Her expression went blank and she stepped forward, ignoring the way they cowered from her. She grabbed a length of the chain holding them and ripped it apart before moving on to the next length. Soon enough, the chain was lying in pieces on the ground.
The girls didn’t thank her, simply stumbled to their feet and ran back toward their village as soon as they could. Nickie watched them go for a long moment, until their backs vanished in the darkness. Then she rounded on the Skaine ship, punching it hard enough that the metal dented inwards and one of her knuckles broke. She ignored the pain. Like the nearly healed laser blast on her leg, it would be fine soon enough.
She took off into the trees at a sprint. At that moment, she wanted to be on her ship and away from the entire planet.
Chapter 10
Nickie
Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Bridge
A trail of blood marked Nickie’s path back through the ship and onto the bridge, in footprints and droplets that fell from her hair and her clothing and dripped off her chin. She really was coated. It was like she had decided to bathe in it.
Those girls were looking at me like I was a monster.
She dropped into the command chair. It was going to get filthy, and who knew what kinds of germs and diseases were in Skaine blood?
They were scared. They’ve been through a lot.
Nickie grunted in acknowledgment, but she didn’t offer a response. Instead, she just stared at the main viewing screen as the ship took off once again. It didn’t show anything unexpected, just the village and the grove of trees shrinking rapidly as the ship ascended.
It wasn’t until the ship broke through the atmosphere and began building speed away from the colony that the door onto the bridge opened and Grim stepped into the room. Nickie had a very vivid recollection of the last conversation they’d had. Grim didn’t look angry, though.
“You’re filthy,” he observed instead, coming to a halt beside her chair. “It’s impressive.”
“They took a few girls as…toys, I guess? I don’t know.” Nickie shrugged halfheartedly. “One of them was still a teenager. I set them free.” She gestured as if that explained the mess perfectly. “None of those girls seemed impressed,” she mumbled, picking half-dried blood out from beneath one of her thumbnails. “Based on how they looked at me, you’d think I was the monster.”
Grim didn’t say anything, and her thoughts kept churning until she offered quietly, “Maybe I am. I kind of feel like I might be.”
Grim drew in a slow breath and sighed it out. “You’re angry,” he replied. “And you’re hurt. Those things don’t make you a monster.”
Nickie nodded without looking at him, instead watching a drop of blood wind its way down the side of her boot until it reached the floor. Grim was apparently trying to put the words together to say something without saying it wrong, and Nickie was content to let him do the talking.
“You would have wound up in the same place no matt
er what,” he said eventually, folding his arms over his chest. “The Skaines still would have attacked Themis and Swapayama, and you would still have fought them to stop them. Those Skaines would be dead regardless of what happened in the rest of the galaxy.”
He was silent after that. Nickie finally slid him a sidelong glance.
“The real difference is in you,” he told her, gently but matter-of-factly. “If you’re fighting because you have to—because it needs to happen and there’s no other choice—it’s a very different thing than fighting because you hate your target.”
He gave her a moment to ponder his words, turning them over silently in her head and inspecting them from every angle. Once that moment passed, he told her, “Dinner’s cooking. I figure you’re hungry after today. I’ll let you know when it’s ready, but I’m not feeding you until you get cleaned up.” He gave her a slightly pointed once-over before he turned and headed toward the door again, leaving her alone with that pearl of wisdom.
There was probably something she wanted to say about it, but in the end, it wasn’t a conversation she needed to have with him. It was a conversation she needed to have with herself. He was happy enough to give her the tools to start it, but he wasn’t going to hold her hand through it or have that conversation for her.
Alone with her thoughts, Nickie stared at the main viewing screen, watching space pass. It wasn’t much to look at, but just then Nickie could appreciate the visual equivalent of white noise.
Hatred versus necessity.
But wasn’t it all right to hate the Skaines? Didn’t it make sense? They made hobbies and businesses out of murder and enslavement. What kind of person would she be she if she didn’t hate them? What kind of monster was she if she decided she was okay with it?
She dragged one hand through her hair, cringing slightly when her fingers got caught in a blood-coated tangle. She carefully worked them free as she emerged from her fugue state.
She didn’t really understand any more now than she had a few hours ago. She just felt even more conflicted.
Hey, Meredith?
Yes?
I have no idea what my brain’s doing or what I think or feel about any of this.
From what I know of human history and having access to the Archives, that seems to be the default state of humanity. I don’t think it’s cause for concern.
I guess not, but it means I need to figure it out.
One would assume so, yes.
Not really looking forward to that.
Those girls on Swapayama had looked at her as if she were a rabid wolf savaging their grandfather. Even as she had untied them, they had looked at her with naked fear.
She knew that she never wanted that to happen again. She never wanted to feel like that again, and a quieter part of her insisted she never wanted to make someone else feel like that again either.
She supposed that was at least a first step.
She took a breath and switched the main viewing screen to the rear cameras, watching Swapayama get smaller as they got farther away. It looked so quiet, but she knew what had happened there over the last few hours. Everything the Skaines had done.
Everything she had done, too, she supposed.
But all of that had already happened. At that moment, Swapayama was, at least for a moment, finally quiet.
She heaved a sigh, then got to her feet and headed for the door. Before the door could finish closing behind her, the bots were already cleaning up the mess she had tracked through the room.
Rebus Quadrant, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter, Nickie’s Quarters
As lacking as the luxuries on the former Skaine ship were, there was at least one definite perk to having taken over the captain’s quarters—there was a bathroom attached. Granted, with only three people on the ship it wasn’t much of a concern, but Nickie appreciated not having to worry about anyone else coming into the room as she washed blood out of her hair.
She kept her thoughts tracing along aimless paths. The way those girls had looked at her—like they couldn’t tell her from the monsters under their beds—was still fresh in her mind. She kept her thoughts racing busily to avoid thinking back to them.
But what did they know? They didn’t know what she had been through. They didn’t know what it was like to have to fight like that. They didn’t know her.
Their first impression of her had been that she was a monster. That she was just as scary as the Skaines who had snatched them away and chained them up.
She shook her head sharply as she pushed the thoughts away, spattering the walls of the shower with red droplets that soon got lost in the rest of the spray.
Her earlier guess had been correct. She sort of looked like a strawberry blonde. She used the rest of her time in the shower grumbling about it incoherently as she lathered and rinsed her hair a fourth time.
She turned off the shower with a final surly, “Fucking iron, never going to rinse out.” She wrapped a towel around herself and stepped out of the shower, fingering a strand of her hair as she did.
She left the bathroom and went back into her room, but her thoughts were still churning in circles. Even so, she at least felt less like she was some sort of muck monster.
Still wrapped in a towel and with her hair dripping down her back, she sprawled on her bed. It didn’t matter if it got wet. She was still about fifty percent sure it was actually made of concrete and would dry again in no time.
She stretched her arms over her head before letting them go lax, fingers pressed to the wall behind the bed. She was half-asleep when Meredith interrupted her.
Now that everything is quiet again, it seems like a good opportunity to mention that another of your aunt’s diary entries has unlocked. Would you like to read it?
Nickie took a breath, drawing herself out of her daze, and she sat up just enough to fold her arms under her head. Maybe Tabitha would tell her something that could help her wrap her thoughts around everything racing through her head. Her aunt could at least distract her for a little while.
Chapter 11
Tabitha
Planet Flex, Outside City of Karkat
“We are setting down outside Karkat,” Achronyx announced. “If any further missiles are launched, they should be unable to reach us, and we can easily respond if necessary without harming civilians.”
“Good,” Tabitha replied. “Ryu, get ready. We’re going into town.”
She trotted off to her room to retrieve her favorite toys from her personal armory. It had been made to look like a jewelry case in an upscale closet. Black drawers slid out automatically, lit to show every weapon inside.
Achronyx’s voice came over the speaker system. Tabitha was busy humming the tune to Rawhide. “Ranger Tabitha, I have some concerns about the addition to the bounty.”
“You and Ryu should go talk about that, so you don’t keep bothering me.” Tabitha selected the little wand that would read a suspect’s genetic code and match it to any known information on her end. She slipped it into one pocket of her jacket.
“My concern is not strategic. Eighty-five thousand credits is a considerable sum of money. Where do we propose to get it?”
“Oh, now I see what you mean.” Tabitha chewed on her lip, remembering Bethany Anne’s call. “Well, the way I see it, you don’t have to pay assassins. It’s blood money. That’s beyond the rules of etiquette.”
“The system required a deposit to post the offer.”
“You should get that back.”
“I anticipate that it will be difficult.”
“Psht. Banking systems are easy.” Tabitha blew a raspberry at the nearest speaker. “But if you really don’t think you can do it, I’ll handle that, and you go into town with Ryu to take out our targets.”
The EI’s voice was monotone. “I suppose you are making a joke of some sort?”
“Damn, you two are a tough crowd.” Tabitha took out a pair of climbing gloves and slipped them into her pockets, then selected three of the
pick-activated target-lock bombs. Almost as flat as paper, they were stickers that she could affix to a surface and activate for targeting.
She decided she probably didn’t need more than three of them. “That would be a bad omen for the mission,” she muttered.
“I will attempt to retrieve the money, then, so that we are not on the hook for the rest.”
“Hey, wait a second!” Tabitha glared at the speaker. “That would mean I was dead! You’re planning for if I die! That is not very supportive.”
She left the room in a huff and met Ryu near the Pod bay.
“Problem?” he asked mildly, her eyes flashing red.
“Damn skippy, there’s a problem. Achronyx is talking about where we’ll get the money for the bounty, like we’re going to die! And don’t say you told me this was a risk. I don’t want to hear it.” She strode over to one corner of the Pod bay and pushed a button.
The lights came on over two motorcycles—or rather, antigrav bikes with flaring at both ends that looked almost like wheel-hubs.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Tabitha suggested happily.
“So these are the antigrav bikes. I wondered what they looked like.”
“Just like Star Wars,” Tabitha explained, in satisfaction. “Except aerodynamic. I guess Bobcat had some concerns.”
She waited as the Pod bay door came down, then shot off toward Karkat with Ryu behind her.
City of Karkat, West Bar Side
“Okay, what are we looking for, exactly?” Ryu frowned. “I assumed you have found Walce, but Achronyx said—”
“We haven’t found Walce.” Tabitha looked at him, enjoying the way her ponytail swished behind her. “Yet,” she added, a finger in the air. “But we will. We just have to get some information first.”
“We should probably have changed, Kemosabe. I don’t think, after what happened in the lounge, that people will be too eager to speak to us. Well, any of the people who could be useful.”
Deuces Wild Boxed Set: Books 1-4: Beyond the Frontiers, Rampage, Labyrinth, Birthright Page 29
