by Ann Aguirre
19
Shit, Meet Fan
“We’re not going directly to the repair bay?” Dred asked.
In answer, Jael slipped into the ducts. She followed him, accepting that this wasn’t the place for explanations. After all, they had been lucky to get out of the docking area without being attacked. But once they got inside, she paused and let her silence establish the fact that she wasn’t moving another step until he clarified.
“I know where Silence’s drug lab is. If we destroy it, that will weaken her significantly.”
“You’re hoping she shows up to defend it. So you can kill her.” The last part probably could’ve gone unspoken.
He didn’t deny it. “You already said we have unfinished business, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.”
“And if I hadn’t insisted on coming with you . . . did you plan on doing this on your own?” Anger cracked her tone, and it was all Dred could do to keep from shouting at him.
“If necessary,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here. I always am.”
“Sweet talk will not get you back on my good side.” Sighing, she gestured. “Lead the way. Hope you have a plan because I didn’t bring any special gear.”
“I’m versatile, don’t worry.”
Though she was still pissed, she went quiet as they traveled. She had definite reservations about this idea, but Jael seemed committed, and she’d rather accompany him into trouble than let him go alone. The way she’d felt after he was taken, Dred preferred never to experience it again.
Based on the burn in her muscles, they were near the top of the station. She had no idea Silence’s operations were so far-reaching. But with all the other factions gone, Death’s Handmaiden pretty much had the run of the place, and Dred didn’t give a shit. Her current imperative mandated that she get off the station, not rule it. Silence could have this junk heap.
Jael paused, tilting his head, then she smelled it, too. “Mary, what is that?”
“Their chem lab.”
“It’s . . .” Revolting. Unspeakable. She couldn’t decide what word worked best, but he got it, based on the face he was making.
“I know. Come on, let’s get in and out fast. She’s usually got a couple of the Silent working the lab, poor sods.”
Dred smirked. “Now that’s a shit job.”
They came out of the ducts near the foul-smelling room that Jael claimed was Silence’s chem lab. She didn’t dispute it, but she had no clue what could be processed under such conditions that wouldn’t kill a human straight off. While she pondered, Jael got out their last functional laser pistol. There was plenty of garbage in the area, plus what reeked like rotten feces. Methane? Even as she speculated, he fired.
The heat melted the synth and set the organic on fire. The flames whooshed with the gas she’d guessed must be present, and an explosion rocked the room. Before the smoke cleared, Jael grabbed her hand and raced away. She ran with him until a stitch formed in her side, feeling oddly like she’d pulled a prank instead of crippled the enemy’s operations. Something about his humor was infectious, and she doubled over laughing when they finally paused.
“I feel like I have to make the obligatory joke about the shit hitting the fan,” he gasped.
“What the hell . . .” She couldn’t even finish the question.
“She feeds that to her minions. From what I can tell, they’re fermenting human waste. Don’t ask me how she knew you could make a hallucinogen that way.”
“No shit,” Dred said.
And Jael dissolved into a fresh wave of amusement. “There’s another room where they dry it, once it’s processed. We could wreck that, too.”
“Will it make you feel better?” It was an important question, one with more layers than she let on. Dred understood more clearly than he realized how it felt to be stripped of volition and turned into a plaything by a twisted, deviant mind. Her torment lasted much longer, even if Artan hadn’t literally stripped off her skin. In some ways, the way he broke her down mentally and accustomed her to those chains—and her role as his pet—had been worse.
It would hurt more, and I would’ve died, but maybe physical wounds would’ve been better. Then I wouldn’t be left wondering, even now, if I should have fought harder. The worst part of her time with Artan was that it had turned her from a brave, cold hunter to a woman who questioned her every move . . . and blamed herself for letting it happen.
“I’m not sure. But I intended to do it even before I was taken.”
“Then let’s finish it.”
“All right, love. The next stop isn’t far.”
“It wouldn’t make sense for them to carry the fresh product very far,” she agreed.
Plus it must be disgusting to transport.
The storage room was hot and dry, perfect for the last step in the process. But Dred hesitated. These were just dried chips, basically, wafer-thin and innocuous-looking.
“Do they actually eat these?”
“Definitely. They take them like a religious offering, in fact.”
Her stomach churned. “I have no idea how she made her followers so crazy. For that matter, how did she get there?” She stared at the remaining chem chips, pondering.
“No idea,” Jael said. “What are you thinking?”
“If we took these with us, could we feed it to the Kitchen-mate, let it break this down to base organic and make more paste?”
“I’m not sure how sanitary that would be. The Kitchen-mate isn’t designed to process refuse on this scale, not like the big station recyclers.”
She sighed. “And it might contaminate the machine. Should we take this down to the recyclers, then? It could make the difference between starvation and survival later.”
“We blew the door off, remember? So we’d be exposed the whole time we’re waiting for the batch to process.” Jael didn’t look as if he wanted to guard this stuff.
“True. Then let’s destroy everything.”
• • •
THIS time, Jael started a small fire, and the station protocols kicked in. Water sprayed down from the ceiling, and a couple of maintenance units converged to spray the room with flame-retardant chem. Between the wet and the white foam, it would be impossible to salvage anything in here. Given how hard withdrawal hit, soon Silence would be fighting alone.
He smiled.
“Better?” Dred asked.
“Yeah. Let’s head for Repair.”
But before they made it more than five meters, a Silent patrol rounded the corner. Disappointed, Jael saw that Silence wasn’t with them. This wasn’t the largest group he’d seen, only five, and they looked . . . hungry. Apparently, she hadn’t been taking care of her people. He didn’t think she had a Speaker anymore, and maybe that was part of his function—not just talking to other people on station for her but also making sure that she didn’t lose sight of mundane necessities.
Like food and water.
To his surprise, the patrol didn’t attack immediately. Instead, they signed at him, and Jael cast a look at Dred, silently asking if she knew their tongue. She shook her head slightly.
“Sorry, I don’t know what you want,” he said.
In response, the apparent leader pointed at Dred, drew his finger across his throat, then beckoned. He didn’t like the implication.
“You’ll kill her and take me alive? I don’t think so.”
The communicative one gave him a dead look, then they all drew their weapons. Well, this is bizarre.
“Feel like a little bloodletting before our next stop?” Dred asked with a ferocious smile.
“It’s good exercise.”
As the Silent rushed in, she pulled her chains out of the pack Calypso had sent. Jael took a few steps back; after all this time, he knew exactly how much space she needed for maximum brutality. But it baffled h
im completely when the Silent acted like he wasn’t a hostile combatant and pushed past him trying to get at Dred.
What the hell? I’m on a no-kill list, now?
Part of him wished he could remember what had happened while he was in Silence’s hands. The rest of him was glad his brain threw up roadblocks. He only knew she’d messed him up bad, but the particulars? Not so much. And to some degree, the injuries spoke for themselves.
While Dred kept them at bay with her whipping chains, he slashed at the stupid sods from behind. One kidney shot, two. And then there were three. She cracked one in the head; he stumbled but didn’t go down. Jael finished him with a sideways slice of his blade. Blood jetted from his carotid, splattering on Dred, but she didn’t even blink.
Two left. We’re so good at this we could go into business.
But it wasn’t even a fair fight. They clearly had orders not to harm him, plus they were weak and hungry, whereas he and Dred had augmented speed and strength. Not as fast as I used to be, granted, but more than quick enough to make these assholes look like they’re standing still. He stopped playing and broke another’s neck as Dred dropped her chains and went after the last one with her bare hands. She pounded the other woman relentlessly in the chest and stomach, ending the fight with a powerful kick that snapped her spine. The final Silent soldier was down but not dead, and Dred finished her with a quick jab of her boot knife.
“Is it me, or was that too easy?”
“There’s something wrong with them,” he said softly.
She let out a shuddering breath. “That makes it worse. Feels like everything on this station is breaking down, like we’re about to be infected with the same mad disease.”
“Remember our promise—elegant clothes, posh dinner? We’re making it out.”
But she didn’t seem to hear him. “Silence can’t have many troops left. That means she’ll be feeling cornered. And trapped creatures are the most dangerous of all.”
“She doesn’t have the resources to hurt us,” Jael said. “And this is our last trip out of the docking bay. Once we have everything on Vost’s list, we bunker down and finish the ship.”
She shivered. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Right, you lifers are superstitious.”
“You would be, too, if you knew what passed for luck in Perdition.”
“Sorry, love.”
He got them back in the ducts before she could fixate on gloom-and-doom scenarios. It was a long climb to Repair, but the station—from what he could tell—was deserted. Silence would probably kill herself when the last of her minions keeled over, or hell, they might start murdering each other when they couldn’t take the blue-devils from dropping off the chem.
“It’s hard to believe everyone is dead,” she said softly. “It used to be so hard to move around the station . . .”
“Now we’re up here out of habit, pretty much.” He didn’t think they needed to be so careful, per se, but it would probably make her nervous if they got cocky.
Pride goeth before a fall, and whatnot.
And maybe she was right. Over the turns, he’d gotten so good at preemptive treachery that he lost sight of the fact that his plans could backfire or go hideously wrong. Thinking that way got him locked up for half a human lifetime in that hellhole on Ithiss-Tor. So he’d play the game by Dred’s rules this time and see how that worked out. He’d never trusted anyone enough before to put his or her judgment ahead of his own.
Strange feeling, that.
“We have to get out of here and risk the lift.”
The last time they made this trip, they were racing mercs. Now he had no idea what might be lurking. Damn, her mood’s gotten to me. Trying to shake it off, he popped the access panel and dropped to the floor. Dred came directly after him, freezing as a deep, low rumble sounded nearby.
“What the frag is that?”
20
Topsy-Turvy
“Hell if I know,” Dred said.
She swiveled her head. The emergency lights were on down here, yet another sign that the station was falling apart. Most of the maintenance units had been stolen and disassembled for parts, so without the droids who kept the place running, systems had broken down. In this part of Perdition, it was electrical, so everything had a strange red cast, swimming in shadows. She couldn’t make out the color of Jael’s eyes in this light, but she could tell he was edgy, too.
“Where’s it coming from?”
Dred shrugged. “All over?”
Answering growls came from everywhere, and she heard movement, but not human or even alien footfalls. No, these were claws skittering on the metal floor. She unwrapped her chains from her forearms; she hadn’t bothered stashing them in the pack again. Though she wasn’t positive that Silence had been rendered toothless, she did agree that stealth was pointless.
At her back, Jael braced for whatever was incoming. When the first one lumbered into sight, her eyes widened. The aliens had hunted the station scavengers, but they never bothered Queensland. Yet . . . these creatures looked nothing like the smaller carcasses she’d glimpsed occasionally while doing recon.
Not only were these bigger, they also smelled different, rank with decay. Tumors bubbled out from their necks, worse growths on back and belly. The mottled hides shedding fur, extralong yellow teeth, and red eyes made these animals look especially horrifying. And the biggest one came up to her thigh. The lead beast went up on its hind legs and sniffed the air. Two more joined it, and two more again. More claws scratched across the floor.
“How many?” she whispered. They appeared to be surrounded but from this angle she couldn’t be sure.
“Twenty? Maybe more. Fragging fast breeders. The Warren hasn’t been empty that long, and there are already this many?”
“Looks like they’re surviving on carrion. They probably have all manner of diseases.”
“They’ve mutated,” Jael said, low.
“Not surprising. There are so many spots where we’ve stripped off casing meant to prevent radiation leakage to repurpose it elsewhere. It’s a wonder we’re not mutants, too.”
“Let’s discuss that later,” he said. “When giant rodents aren’t trying to eat us.”
“At least they can be cleared of having a deeper agenda.”
He laughed as the first scavenger charged. The rest of the pack followed. With so many lunging mouths, it was hard to keep them all at bay, harder still to keep from being bitten. And these animals weren’t trying to kill, either. As one snatched a bite out of her leg, she realized they didn’t care. They’re perfectly content to eat us alive. Nausea roiled in her stomach as she swung her chains. One hit was enough to crack their spines, but it was hard to target with so many grotesque, tumor-riddled bodies frothing around her feet.
Another bite. Another. Blood trickled down both Dred’s legs.
“This isn’t working,” Jael shouted. Each time he lashed out with the blade, he took two or three bites to his arm, and even with his speed, he couldn’t kick them fast enough.
“High ground,” she panted.
Dred swept a path clear with her chains and used the wall to spring upward toward the vent they’d come out of. The metallic rim sliced her fingertips, but she managed to haul herself up, and she lowered her chain for Jael. He took a running leap, and she hauled him up, biting down on her lip to keep from showing how much her hands hurt. Winded, he landed beside her while the rodents seethed on the floor below.
“How many did we kill?”
She tried to count. “I can’t tell. Five, I think.”
Sighing, he got out the laser pistol. “I hope the power pack lasts long enough to thin them out. I don’t have a recharge.”
“Firing that thing might just bring more. Or Silence’s people.”
Jael grinned. “Then they can duke it out, an
d we’ll take winners.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She scooted back to the far wall, giving him space.
Jael braced the weapon and took aim. His first shot dropped one, but the power meter flickered. Based on what she knew of such weapons, it looked like he had six shots left. But maybe . . . Well, she’d find out if that could work once he was out of options. He killed seven before the pistol went dead. Disgusted he threw it down to the remaining animals, and one of them ate it. The beast didn’t keep it down long, though. Soon it horked the weapon back up in a pile of fetid bile and half-digested meat.
“Charming,” she muttered.
“Right? I’m thinking we should take one with us, keep it as a pet.”
“You’re mad.” But she smiled though they were trapped, had just advertised their location to anything that might be listening, and still had at least fifteen scavengers to kill.
“It’s what you love best about me.”
“In fact, it is not.” Pressing forward, she peered over the edge and found all the rodents staring up at her with hungry red eyes. The bites on her legs stung even more. With a scowl, she touched the holes in her boots. “I can’t believe they chewed right through. This is thick hide.”
“Hey now, you can’t say something like that and leave me hanging.”
Aware she was teasing him . . . and enjoying it, she smirked. “Of course I can. Now’s not the time. I’ll tell you when we’re safely back in the docking bay.”
“That’s cruel and unusual,” he complained.
“And this surprises you, why?” To compensate for her reluctance to talk, she leaned over for a light kiss.
Jael turned it into something else. And he was grinning when she sat back. “True. I’ve always known you for a heartless princess in chains. Luckily, I find your wickedness irresistible.”
“Ahem,” she said. “Giant rodents? Blocking our path to Repair.”
“It is a problem,” he agreed.
“Well, I might have a solution.”
• • •
“THAT’S crazy,” Jael said, when she finished explaining her plan.
