by Ann Aguirre
But something was bothering Jael. He thought of Rebestah’s mad-faced desperation in the vid and her long turns of isolation. “Dred, you think she actually wants to leave?”
“Silence?”
“Yeah.”
Tam glanced between them, and he took the time to show the spymaster the logs. It might alter his hypothesis because for everyone else, Perdition was a life sentence, a place they’d do anything to escape. Once they finished watching, Tam tapped his fingers lightly against his knee.
“I had no idea.”
“None of us did.”
Then the spymaster came to the same conclusion. “If she accepted Vost’s offer, it’s only because she wants him to deal with us. I suspect she has no intention of ever leaving this place.”
• • •
JAEL said, “So she’ll be prepared for a double cross. You think Silence can take the two mercs?”
“Probably. Vost is injured, and Duran isn’t as brave as one might wish.”
Kind way of calling him yellow, Jael thought.
Dred appeared to come to a sudden decision. “For now, we pretend we don’t know any of this, especially that Vost murdered Keelah.”
“He’s not getting away with that,” Jael said, low.
She nodded. “You can snap his neck as soon as those docking-bay doors open.”
“But why Keelah?” Tam asked softly. “What did he stand to gain?”
“Maybe she caught him communicating with Silence?” Jael suggested.
“She was quiet. Easier for her to sneak up on someone and overhear important info.” Dred seemed to think that was the probable answer.
Possibly.
In all honesty, he wasn’t a big thinker. He’d spent so much time following orders, first in the labs, then as a merc, that analytical thinking didn’t come natural to him. Yet he wanted answers as much as they did.
Before he could say anything else, Martine slipped inside, curling up next to Tam. “Private party, or can anybody join?”
Damn. We didn’t finish talking. Are we killing Duran or not?
“You’re always welcome,” Tam said.
His eyes, however, indicated that they were done talking about treachery, murder, and secret bargains. Jael understood why. While Tam might be cold and calculating, Martine was exactly the opposite. Her temper might provoke her to stab Vost in the neck, then nobody was getting off station. Jael took the hint, as silently requested.
“We should help with the ship if we can,” Dred said.
“How’s it coming?”
“Just a few more pieces. Vost is working on it now.”
Shit, Jael thought.
He saw alarm reflected in Tam’s and Dred’s faces, too. What if he installs some kind of fail-safe? Like if he doesn’t input the code every so often, the ship goes boom. Good way to make sure we keep him around. Being around Tam was infectious, it seemed; now he had conspiracy theories popping into his head without prompting.
Martine went on, “Once it’s done, then we can start running some stress tests, make sure it’s strong enough to hold together.”
“Let’s go take a look,” Jael said.
“Aw.” Martine mock pouted. “I thought I was settling in for a long chat.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk after launch, bright eyes.”
A happy smile lit Martine’s features. “You got that right. I’m already planning to get some crowns to cover my prison dentistry, so I don’t scare the nice civilians.”
“You’re making plans for what you’ll do outside?” Tam asked.
“Definitely. Aren’t you?”
The other three traded looks, then Jael said, “I guess I’m cynical. Though I’ve been talking escape since I got here, I won’t believe it’s true until we’re actually out.”
“Well, lighten up.” Martine smacked him on the shoulder as she pushed to her feet and rushed back out to the main part of the bay.
Jael, Dred, and Tam followed at a more leisurely pace, mostly to cover the unease that had taken root. When he got to the ship, it didn’t look any different than it ever had, but admittedly it was a hodgepodge mess. He had a hard time believing the thing would actually run, but as he thought that, the engines powered up, firing a jet of superheated air toward him. Dred tackled him and knocked him away from the stream. She helped him up, wearing a fierce scowl.
“Idiot,” Calypso yelled. “You have to give us some warning.”
A few seconds later, Duran stumbled out of the shuttle. “Sorry. I thought the area was clear.” He protected his face with his arms while Calypso pummeled him.
Did they just try to kill me?
“That’s why I installed a comm system,” Vost said, stepping out.
It was hard as hell not to react, so Jael totally got why Tam hadn’t told Martine. Bide your time. Wait for the right opportunity. He even managed a half smile, hoping it looked like his usual sardonic greeting.
“How close are we?”
“Less than eight hours,” Vost said.
“We have so many spare parts.” Dred paced around the pile of leftovers wearing an innocent, questioning expression. “You overestimated?”
“It’s always better to be prepared.” The merc commander didn’t avoid her gaze or act like he’d done anything wrong.
Keelah’s corpse on the other side of the bay testified otherwise.
Instead, he slipped back into the ship, and Tam followed. It might be too late, however; there might already be a trap on board.
27
Likelihood of Catastrophic Failure
Dred could hardly bear to look at Vost or Duran. Every instinct demanded that she kill them both, but without Vost, the docking-bay doors wouldn’t open. Even if he’d betrayed them all, the mercenary commander had guaranteed safe passage, and killing Duran would only amount to a temper tantrum. With great effort, she quelled the furious throb in her head.
Jael nodded in silent approval.
Just then, the comm system crackled to life. “Warning. Warning. Monsanto systems detect the following: Overload in sectors four, six, and nine. Smoke detected in the fuel cells. Reactor-chamber breach. Emergency maintenance alert—immediate intervention required. Likelihood of catastrophic failure, 94.7%.”
Dred’s head snapped up. They were just about to begin the stress tests, and now this. “We need to launch,” she said icily.
“We can’t,” Vost snapped back. “It’s too soon, I’m not ready.”
“Then fragging get there,” Jael snarled.
“Would you rather die in vacuum? I’m not inputting the codes until I’m convinced we can survive.”
“You heard the computer,” Calypso said. “That crazy bitch sabotaged the place. We stay here, and we get blown to shit with her.”
“I say let’s risk it,” Martine added.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Dred added.
“Hey,” Duran cut in. “You think he’s yanking you about? If the man says we’re not ready, then it means the ship might fall to bits in space. Maybe we can shut the problem down.”
“Out there?” Dred laughed.
Just like Tam predicted.
“Go ahead,” Jael invited.
The merc looked startled. Yeah, looks like you didn’t think you’d be picked to lead the mission. Then he made his usual excuse. “I don’t know the station. How am I supposed to find the fuel cells, whatever sectors, or the reactor?”
“That’s your problem,” Tam said softly.
“I’m getting a strange vibe.” Vost put down the tools he was holding and came toward the others.
“It feels like you’re stalling,” Calypso told him.
Impeccable instincts, Dred thought, smiling.
The other woman went on, “Sometimes you have
to say frag preparation and take a leap. We have no idea how long it’ll take for shit to go ‘catastrophically wrong’ and yet your instinct is to send part of our group out to investigate when we should get the hell out.”
“Agreed.” Martine put a hand on Calypso’s shoulder in solidarity.
“Clearly,” Vost bit out. “You’ve never been responsible for other lives. I’ve done most of the grunt work on this ship, and I promise that I need six more hours to check the data. If you prefer to sit in the docking bay while I ensure I’m not killing you all by taking this heap into deep space, so be it. Honest to Mary, I thought better of you lot. If I could be two places at once, I’d damn sure go see if there was anything I could do to buy us the time we need.”
Good speech. If I didn’t know why you were so hot to drive us out.
“Then it seems like we should help you,” Tam said.
“The work will go faster if it’s not just you,” Martine added.
Calypso was nodding. “Sure, we may not be experts, but we can take orders, boss man. Let’s buckle down and get this done while the station explodes. It’s pretty big. If the trouble’s down by the fuel cells, it should take a while until we feel the damage.”
Duran stared at her, mouth open. “What if we lose life support?”
“That’ll be a problem,” Jael said.
Dred managed to keep from smiling. “Truth. If the gravity well goes down, we’ll find it hard as hell to finish. But I’d rather stay here. We have the blast doors, and we’re pretty far from the problem area. Like Calypso says, I feel like gambling that the bay will hold long enough.”
Vost and Duran traded looks, but she couldn’t tell what they were thinking.
“Fine.” The merc commander shrugged. “I’ll divide up the trials. Tam and Martine, you oversee this one. Calypso and Duran—” And he snapped out a series of orders.
She noticed that he didn’t assign any work to her or Jael.
“I’ll check the hardware,” Tam volunteered. “I’m not on Ike’s level, but I’m good enough to spot anything out of place.”
Did Vost look worried? Hard to say. He definitely looked spooked, especially when main power cut out, and they went to the slow red strobe of emergency lights. The floor rocked with what she guessed must be a series of lower-level explosions. Perdition is literally collapsing beneath us. At what point does he concede his original plan won’t work and take us all with him? Or will there be some “accidental” deaths first?
Not long after she thought that, someone screamed inside the ship. Dred grabbed Jael’s hand, making sure they didn’t get separated, then she dove through the open door and scrambled over the close-set seats, with him behind her. Pushing through the arch into the cargo space, she found Duran on the ground, Calypso hovering over him. Yet the former mistress of the circle wasn’t the hysterical type. With her eyes, she asked, Did Tam talk to you? Was it you? But the other woman apparently didn’t grasp the silent question.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“We were running the test Vost ordered, and something shorted out. He got blown back, and so far, he’s not getting up. I haven’t touched him. That’s a good way to get electrocuted.”
The merc commander shoved his way back from the other side of the ship, and his face whitened. “See, this is exactly why I wanted more time, Mary curse it.”
Was that supposed to take Calypso out? She stared at Vost, but he only gazed down at his fallen comrade.
“Looks like you’re the last one standing,” Jael said.
Vost glanced up, his pale green eyes icy. “Not the first time.”
“That means you’re a terrible commander,” Tam observed.
“Maybe so. Could be I’ll retire after this.” Then he jerked his head at Duran’s body. “Get him off my ship. There’s no time to mourn with the station blowing up around us.”
Another tremor shook the bay.
She nodded at her people. “You heard him. Be careful, though. Get protective equipment. And Vost, you get that circuit closed off. We don’t want to lose anyone else, do we?”
He held her gaze for a few seconds. “Not at all.”
• • •
THIS is such bullshit. Jael watched that little exchange, wanting nothing more than to pound that asshole merc into paste. But we need him. Just hold it in a little longer.
Then he shouldered Martine and Calypso aside. “I can take a little voltage better than you can. Let me.”
And he did zing a little from lifting Duran’s body, just enough to make his heart skip. It probably would’ve hurt the other two more. He strode over to where they’d stashed Keelah and dropped the merc beside her.
The comm crackled to life. “Warning. Warning. Fuel cells reaching critical temperatures. Reactor unstable. Chain reaction imminent, point of no return in 143 minutes. Probability of demolition, 96.3%. Please evacuate. Monsanto Station personnel, follow emergency protocols for a safe and orderly departure. Have a nice day.”
“Well. Now we know exactly how long we have.”
“Less than I expected,” Dred said from behind him.
“Silence knows the station. She’s been here the longest.”
“I guess the place really does belong to her,” she mused. “What do you make of the incident with Duran?”
“Calypso’s too smart for Vost.”
“Or maybe she got lucky. We need to be careful on the ship. Mary only knows what surprises Vost may have rigged up.”
“He’s got to know his odds aren’t good if he takes off with us. Five to one.”
Jael stared down at Keelah, remembering how fiercely the alien female had fought after Katur died. She’d made peace with her loss, and she might’ve built a new life, given the chance. But Vost took that from her.
“That’s why I think he has something in reserve. He admitted before that he’s been the last to walk away.”
Her words sparked something to life in him. “Me too. And you don’t outlast everyone else without doing some atrocious things.”
“Dred, Jael!” Martine called.
He turned. “What’s up, bright eyes?”
“We need you inside. Vost says that with the ship counting down, we have to work double time. Otherwise, if we’re too close when the station goes up—”
“The shock wave shakes our ship apart, and we’re spaced,” Dred finished.
Jael shivered. Given her matter-of-fact tone, she’d never felt that icy cold, the pressure and silence, and the burn of oxygen deprivation. It wasn’t as dramatic as they showed it in the holos, but it was still an ugly way to die. While wariness occupied the dominant position in his brain, he refused to go out that way. I’ve survived everything else. I’ll get through this, too.
A horrifying possibility flickered.
Yeah. You will. Not her. You think you get a happy ending, JL489? It was unquestionably Landau’s voice, the same scornful tone as when he’d repeated, You’re not a person. You’re a thing. You will obey.
If he looked at his life, it was just one giant random mess. He’d scrambled from one disaster to another, dealing enough death to make Silence envious. Pity panged through him. Those bastards had taken some role-playing scenario and made it her reality. She was normal once. But Jael couldn’t say the same.
I never had parents who wondered what became of me. Never had anyone at all who gave a shit. Oddly, he remembered when it might’ve been different—a crew that welcomed him and a woman who treated him as an equal. Sorry, Jax. He had felt . . . something. But not love. Not enough to keep him from taking the deal when her mother offered him a substantial payday to betray her. Jael recalled thinking he was better off without a family, if that was how they acted. But now he wondered if Rebestah’s father ever recovered from news of his daughter’s suicide.
It’s all random, right?
There might not be any larger scheme at work—oh, missionaries had tried to convince him otherwise over long turns—but he could never believe it. So accepting that random chance dumped him here and that everything with Dred came from coincidence, not a greater plan . . . in that moment, he made a silent vow.
No matter what it takes, I’m keeping her safe.
Peace stole over him. Always, he’d valued his own life above everything else because it was all he had. But meeting her had taught Jael the one thing that had always escaped him—being human meant weakness. It meant cherishing someone more than yourself. He’d seen those bonds, between lovers, between parents and children. He never understood.
This is what Landau thought I couldn’t learn. And maybe he was right in the beginning. I was a thing he made. But not now. Because she taught me how to be more.
The sweetest ache swelled in his chest as he watched Dred quicken her pace in response to Martine’s call. Without her hair, she was hard-faced, all sharp edges and hungry eyes, but he hadn’t been lying when he said she was beautiful. That loveliness came from the heart of her, and he was determined to make sure she got a fresh start.
With or without me.
He crouched before Keelah, fully understanding how much pain she must’ve been in for the first time. She said her people mate for life. And yet she pushed on. That seemed like real strength. Without even contemplating, he knew he didn’t have that fortitude. Now that Dred had cracked him open, there was no way he could live without her. In some ways, she’d stripped him of vital protective armor.
He cared about things in a way he never had before. Hell, once he wouldn’t have given a shit that a couple of worthless bastards ruined a young girl’s life. Sad story, everybody’s got one. So cry me a river. That indifference had sloughed right off, thanks to Dred.
She made me join the human race. Silently grieving, he touched Keelah’s head lightly, saying good-bye. Lost in reverie, for once his instincts let him down.
Jael didn’t hear the person slip up behind him.
28
All Hands on Deck
Dred stepped into the ship cautiously. Not just because the doors had low clearance, but she also bore in mind that a live, bare wire had fried Duran. Vost couldn’t have meant for that to happen. She guessed that was a result of his being rushed instead of dispatching the rest of them to “investigate” the station alarms.
