by Ann Aguirre
Like we could undo whatever Silence did. If Ike were still around, maybe. But without him, it was just an invitation to divide and conquer.
“Where do you need me?” she called.
“Come aft,” Vost answered.
Martine was in the bow pilot’s seat, fiddling with the instruments as Dred slid past into the cargo space in the middle of the craft, where Calypso was working to fix the electrical problem. She navigated past the coil of wires and popped her head into the secondary seating area. This vessel was the strangest patchwork monster she’d ever seen, with dueling cockpits and hung together with hope.
“I’m here.”
“Hold this for me.”
“How’s that?” She covered his hands with hers.
Vost pulled back. “Good. We have to get the engines firing in sequence, or we’re fragged. I’m nearly there, but it’s hard to concentrate knowing the station could blow any minute.” The merc’s hands shook as he adjusted something.
“We have a couple of hours before the whole station goes boom,” she joked.
He cut her a daggered look. “You think that’s amusing? I suspect you haven’t studied physics, or you’d be worried about the impact of the shrapnel wave on our little raft.”
“Like a backdraft, you mean?”
“I hope you don’t see it firsthand. We need to put some distance between us and Perdition, ASAP.” He raised his voice. “Try it now, Martine!”
A roar came from the front of the ship. The gauges showed numbers Dred couldn’t interpret, and Vost studied them before letting out a whoop. The excitement was so boyish that, for a few seconds, he looked utterly unlike himself. “All right, we’re golden.”
“That means we can take off?”
“This is as ready as we can be. I’ll fine-tune once we’re out of danger.”
“We’re just missing Tam and Jael. I’ll find them.”
“You have five minutes,” he said flatly.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m taking off in three hundred seconds. So round up the survivors and get them on board because I’m not dying today.” Vost didn’t look at Dred as he settled into the pilot’s chair.
She ground her teeth as she let go of the lever and whirled to locate the other two. But when she got to midship, she paused by Calypso. “If he tries to leave us, stop him.”
The other woman glanced toward Vost. “You got it. Don’t care if he’s holding our exit pass, he tries to bail, and he can die with us convicts.”
“Seems fair,” she muttered. “Sit tight, I’ll be back soon.”
But before she could exit, a boom rocked the whole room. Dred stumbled into Calypso, who caught her and braced both of them against the shuddering walls. “What the hell?”
Dred shook her head, but she was already moving. That explosion sounded way too close to be random station damage. Martine jumped out ahead of her and spun in a slow circle.
“Shit,” the smaller woman said. “The blast door’s down.”
“Force field?” Dred asked, hopping out of the craft.
“Gone, too. We’re on emergency power now, all over the station. It won’t be long before we lose life support.”
“Must be Silence,” Calypso yelled. “There’s nobody else.”
There was smoke everywhere. Whatever Silence had used to take down the blast door, it wasn’t clean-burning.
“Where the hell did she get the gear?” Martine asked.
“She raided one of Ike’s caches,” Dred said, swearing. “I thought she just destroyed it, but she must’ve taken whatever Ike left and blown the container.”
“Mary curse it,” Calypso snarled.
“Guard the ship,” she told the tall woman. “Martine, help me find Jael and Tam. They have to be in the bay somewhere.”
“Let’s hope Silence doesn’t get to them first.”
Dred ignored Calypso’s grim mutterings and raced toward the doors. If she knew Jael, he’d have gone to investigate the damage. Assuming he can. The smoke was thicker this way, with smoldering piles of rags littering the floor on the way to the exit. She coughed and ran on, covering her face with a forearm. Her heart thumped a warning, telling her to prepare for the worst. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.
And Vost won’t wait.
In all honesty, she wouldn’t blame Calypso if she made a deal with the merc. Why should she die for some random assholes she met in a max-sec hole? Same with Tam and Martine, really. None of them had anything in common once you removed the fact that they had been sentenced to die in the same place.
“Jael,” she shouted, giving up on stealth.
If that crazy bitch comes at me, we’ll have it out. Actually, she welcomed that prospect. What the Monsanto bastards had done to Rebestah was beyond wrong, but Silence had hurt Jael in ways that could never be forgiven. I’d love an hour with her and a really sharp knife. But with the station disintegrating below them, it looked like Silence would be getting a swift death.
More than she deserves.
“Jael! Where are you, love?” The endearment slipped out.
When a pair of hands grabbed her, she knocked them away and came up in fighting stance, but Martine’s face resolved in the smoke, pressing close to hers, and Dred nearly punched her. She let out a breath and was sorry when she sucked in smoke. Dred doubled over, and Martine led her away from the worst of it. She sucked in mouthfuls of clean air with a desperation that gave her some sense how bad it would be to die in vacuum.
“Have you seen Jael?” she gasped out.
“I checked near the bodies, where I saw him last, but I can’t find him or Tam. They’re not answering when I call, either.” The other woman didn’t say she was worried, but Dred heard it in her voice, in the flex of her jaw.
Silence.
• • •
“LOVE is a fearsome thing,” Tam said.
Jael stood up and whipped around, his heart pounding like mad. “Good thing you didn’t want me dead.”
The other man smiled. “I wouldn’t live long if I did. Dred’s rather fond of you.”
“Maybe a bit. I was just . . . saying good-bye. To Keelah, not Duran.”
“He wasn’t the most endearing soul. I suspect Calypso only bedded him to assert some control.”
“I’ve slept with people for worse reasons,” Jael muttered.
“As have I.”
“We’ll probably be leaving soon. Want to take a last walk, make sure we didn’t leave anything vital in the dormitory or control room?”
“Sounds good.”
They left the bay floor and went to the dorm first. He checked the mattresses while Tam peered into the footlockers. In the bottom of one he found the entertainment console that Keelah had taken apart and put back together. He tapped the power button and found that she’d fixed it. This might make the time pass faster. Which was probably what Keelah was thinking when she worked on it. Sighing, Jael pocketed the unit.
“Anything?” he asked Tam.
The other man shook his head.
Then a massive detonation rocked everything. He slammed into the bed frame, and the world went sideways. Jael didn’t think he was out long; he tended not to lose consciousness, so it was more like being stunned. He shoved to his hands and knees, smelling smoke. Cocking his head, he located Tam by zeroing in on his heartbeat, a feat that required blotting out the rest of the world. He didn’t use that selective focus a lot, but time mattered.
When he got to Tam, he found him out cold, blood trickling from a head wound. Cursing, he lifted him and picked a path over the toppled furniture. In the smoke, he could only make out the vague shape of the ship. There we go. Jael took two steps in that direction, and a more localized explosion took out part of the ship.
He went down in the back blast, and he threw himself on t
op of Tam as debris rained down. Shock numbed him. That was one of the engines. Silence’s plan became transparent then. She didn’t need to kill them in combat; it wasn’t like she cared about that anyway. All she had to do was harry, sabotage, strike, and retreat. If she delayed them long enough, they’d all die with her, and that must be what she wanted. She wanted the grand finale, one last offering to Death.
In hindsight, he wished they’d put guards on the door, as soon as the force field went down, but then again, that person probably would’ve been killed outright when she took out the blast door. He strained to see through the smoke and saw a couple of murky shapes trying to put out the fire at the bow of the vessel. Stumbling to his feet, he picked Tam up again and headed in that direction.
It turned out to be Vost and Calypso. The merc had soot smeared all over his face, and he snapped, “Where the hell have you two idiots been? If not for you, we’d already be gone.”
He ignored the insult. “How bad is the damage?”
“I can’t tell. Can’t fragging see.”
Calypso produced a light and flashed it across the affected area. “We have to patch the hull. Now.”
“Let me put Tam inside, and I’ll find the parts. You get the soldering kit.”
The other woman nodded. Once he’d strapped Tam into a seat, Jael raced out. Need a strong panel, something that won’t tear loose at the least resistance. Silence was probably around here, but he wanted to live more than he wanted to kill her. As he laid hands on a scrap of metal the right size, Dred shouted his name, her voice hoarse with smoke inhalation.
“Over here,” he yelled back.
It took a few back-and-forth calls for her to locate him, then Dred raced up with Martine hot on her heels. She almost knocked the sheeting out of his hand when she grabbed him around the neck in a death-love strangle-hug. Jael patted her back gently while mouthing, What’s wrong? at Martine.
“She thought Silence got you.”
“Oh.” He exhaled slowly. “I’m fine, love. She’s slinking around, and it makes my skin crawl. But we have to fix the ship.”
Martine let out a string of curses. “Swear to Mary, I can’t live in peace until I stick a knife in that woman’s eye.”
“That makes two of us.” Dred’s green eyes glinted with a martial light. “You three work on repairs with Vost. Martine and I are going hunting.”
He grabbed her arm before she could take off. “That’s a stupid move, queenie.”
Jael hadn’t called her that in ages, and it registered on Dred with a flare of aggravation. She shook off his hand. “She’s got to die. For what she did to you, and now the ship. It’s just . . . that’s what needs to happen.”
Cupping her face in his hands, he shook his head. “That’s what she wants. For us to choose revenge over life. She’ll ghost around this place, and if you two aren’t helping, we might not make it out of here. Choose me instead. Choose life.”
For a long moment, she held his gaze, trying to stare him down. But Jael didn’t waver. He gave two fucks for Silence. She’ll die anyway. She’ll die alone. He intended to rob her of what she wanted most; that would be the most awful penance. Even now, a small part of him wished he could save the hopeful, idealistic girl Silence had been.
Sorry, Rebestah. If any of those bastards are still alive, I’ll hunt them down for you.
Dred snarled. “Fine. Let’s go. But you understand, I’m doing this for you, no other reason. My knife hand is so stabby right now.”
“Mine too,” Martine muttered. “But all hands on deck and whatnot. Let’s fix our piece of shit and get gone before it’s too late.”
A distant explosion shook the docking bay; the comm issued another polite alert.
Frag. We have to hurry.
29
Fly or Die
Dred held the metal in place while Jael did the soldering. Calypso was inside helping Vost add struts to the damaged part of the ship. Martine had gone to see if Tam was awake, but they didn’t have time to administer first aid. Jael had said he wasn’t gushing blood, so hopefully it wasn’t serious.
“How’s it coming?” Vost yelled.
“Halfway,” she called back.
Wild laughter echoed all around them, and all the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Jael paused to check the area, but when he didn’t see Silence, he went right back to work. She’d never heard of Death’s Handmaiden uttering a sound before, but desperate times called for desperate measures apparently. Her arms ached with the weight of the panel, but she couldn’t falter. If she slipped, Jael might burn one of them with the kit. The scent of hot metal blazed into her sinuses, mingling with the low-grade irritation already bothering her from the fires earlier.
Throat hurts. So tired. But she wouldn’t let Perdition—or Silence—win.
“If she goes after the ship again, I’ll kill her,” Jael said quietly. “You keep working. We’re running out of time.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. The air didn’t seem to be filtering anymore, so the smoke wasn’t clearing out. It hung in the bay, polluting the air and making it hard to get enough oxygen. A station the size of Perdition took a while to blow itself to pieces; it only remained to be seen if Silence had crippled them as completely as she intended.
Jael worked the welder to the other side, and Dred slid over, trying to stay out of his way. The inside of the ship vibrated from whatever Calypso and Vost were doing. Finally, he finished the first circuit, but it needed time to cool and lock together. Time they didn’t have. Jael revealed his awareness of how half-assed this patch job was as he lowered his tools.
“Let’s get inside. That’s all we can do out here.”
With a quiet nod, she followed him into the craft. This shit bucket literally had a shit bucket, nothing like even the basic amenities they were leaving behind, but when those bay doors opened, all kinds of possibilities did, too. Finally. We’re down to the wire, fly or die. Instead of fear, the strongest exultation rocketed through her. Dred slammed an open palm against the ceiling.
“Are we doing this or what?” There was no time to think about Silence now, or why Vost had killed Keelah.
Everything else can wait. But there will be a reckoning.
“Ready on my end,” Vost said.
He was already strapped into the pilot’s chair on the damaged end. Martine headed aft; presumably she had some experience flying, too. Not the time to ask for a license. Tam was conscious in the seat next to Vost, so Calypso went with the other woman, leaving Dred and Jael to scramble into the cargo space in the middle. The area was piled with all of their supplies—all the water they could find containers for and every last packet of paste. For one or two people, this would last a very long time. Six, however, might make for a chancy voyage. But there were more immediate dangers than dehydration or malnourishment.
We don’t have suits. Hull breach means instant death.
“We don’t have seat belts,” she said ridiculously.
Jael smirked. “Here. This is my handiwork. Didn’t I tell you I’d build us a love nest?”
“You never said that.”
He pulled down some netting and wrapped them both in it, then reattached it to the wall. It was like being trapped in a web, but since he was close enough to hold her, there was comfort in it as well. She put her arms around his waist and leaned, breathing him in. We’re alive. We’re together. And we’re leaving. From her vantage, she could see the bow cockpit while Jael was looking to the back, and she watched Vost adjust the instruments.
Then he shouted at Martine, “Time to go!”
Both engines fired simultaneously, but Dred could tell that there was a problem in the one Vost was manning; it alternately roared and dropped, unlike the steady purr coming from the aft section. Silence hadn’t taken it out entirely, but it was no longer running at peak efficiency. Nothing we can d
o now. There’s no time to replace parts or make a salvage run. Something slammed the outside of the ship, and Dred jumped.
“Easy,” Jael whispered. “She’s just a sad, crazy woman. She can’t pull this thing apart with her bare hands.”
“No, but she could blow the ship with us in it. You know she wouldn’t care if she got caught in the blast radius.”
“True.” Jael raised his voice. “Move! We’ve got incoming.”
Vost yelled back, “On it. Silence is circling, four o’clock. Not letting her mess with my ride again. Martine, can you take us out while I input the codes?” His hands moved furiously on the control panel.
“Roger that,” she said.
The ship juddered. Calypso shouted something, but Dred couldn’t make it out. Martine yelled, “I never said I was good at this. I just said I’ve done some flying.”
“Shit,” Tam mumbled.
A red light flashed. Vost spat a curse and went at the console again, slower this time. The silent prayer formed without her volition. Please, Mary. Guide his hands. He wants out, too.
“If you don’t know the codes,” Tam said icily, “I will cut your throat myself.”
“They’ll work,” Vost snapped.
The craft bucked, distracting her. It had been so damn long since she’d been in a moving vehicle. At first, Dred thought this one would crack apart just lifting off, but it wobbled, then Martine seemed to get the hang of the stabilizers. A couple of test swoops, and they were off. Mary, dear holy Mary, we’re actually moving. Dred swiveled her head and saw the back wall receding behind her.
Jael tightened his arms around her. “Here’s to freedom, love.”
• • •
THE small craft raced toward the bay doors, and just when Jael thought they’d slam into them, the huge slabs of metal shifted upward in a slow grind of long-untended machinery. Thank Mary, they aren’t fused shut, and Vost wasn’t lying. Since they’d taken no safety precautions, loose debris slammed past, thumping along the hull and out into the void. The drop off the platform was a little rocky, but Martine leveled them out.
