Shades of Allegiance

by Sandy Williams

  He snapped his comm-cuff around his wrist and stood. “This place is restricted.”

  “We’re here to check out a small craft,” she said.

  “I wasn’t told anything ’bout that.”

  “That’s because we plan to steal it.”

  The guy blinked. His gaze shifted from her to Rykus, who stood slightly behind and to her left.

  “But not today,” Ash added. “Today is recon only.”

  “It’s off-limits.” He tried to sound authoritative. It wasn’t working.

  “If your boss really wanted to keep people out, wouldn’t he have posted more than one guard here? It’s practically an invitation.”

  “Mel owns this warehouse.”

  Ash laughed. “Well, Seeker’s shit. She’s certainly not worth dying for.”

  It was some kind of twisted miracle that Mel was still alive. She was a scavenger, a dreg who hung around waiting for others’ schemes to go to hell so she could profit from the fallout. She was also a little crazy.

  “I have a pulse-pistol and a thousand untraceable credits,” Ash said. “Give us an hour. Mel won’t ever know we’re here.”

  He shifted his weight, not rejecting the idea outright. That was a good sign.

  “I have a job to do,” he said.

  “It will look like you’re doing it.” Most people recovered from a pulse hit within twenty minutes. An hour was stretching believability, but some people had a sensitivity to the shock. Plus he could hit his head.

  He scratched at the frayed collar of his shirt. When he dropped his hand, it rested on his gun.

  “Look,” Ash said. “I’m going to drop you either way. You give us some time, you get paid. You try to shoot me, you get dead. It’s an easy decision.”

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m bored, kid. Make a decision.”

  He looked at Rykus, then back to her, probably realizing he wouldn’t have time to take both of them out.

  “A thousand credits?” he said. “Just to look?”

  “You’re right. That’s too much. Five hundred.”

  His face darkened. “Five hundred now. Five afterward.”

  “Done.” She drew the pulse-pistol—

  “Hold on—”

  —and fired.

  He fell hard, his shoulder hitting his chair before tipping him face-first onto the asphalt.

  Ash slipped her pulse-pistol back into its holster under her longcoat, righted the chair, then hefted the guard back into it.

  He started to fall to the left.

  She recentered him.

  Then he started to fall to the right. When he listed again, she shoved the whole chair backward a half meter so she could prop him against the guard shack.

  “I can feel you scowling,” she said.

  “You could have given him a warning.”

  “I gave him half a dozen warnings.”

  “If he wakes up pissed, he’ll call us in.”

  “Oh, he’s going to wake up pissed.” She unlatched his comm-cuff and stuffed it in her pocket. “But he’s going to have to flag someone down to make the call. We shouldn’t need more than twenty minutes to check out the 220.”

  Gravel crunched when he moved closer.

  She turned. She was just short enough to make out the lower half of his bearded face. His mouth was a flat line.

  “I have the money,” she said. “I’ll send the credits, but he’d snitch the second he woke up no matter how much I offered. Come on. We should hurry.”

  “I hate this planet,” Rykus muttered, falling in step beside her.

  They strode toward the warehouse. Faded graffiti covered the lower portion of the metal wall, constantly at war with the elements and with the waste oils that invaded everything along the coastline. The door, a badly cut rectangle with creaking hinges, flapped in the wind.

  “It doesn’t make sense for this place to be deserted,” Rykus said.

  “A few people will be inside. They’ll mind their business.” She opened the door. Rykus entered first, his hand close to the weapon hidden beneath his longcoat.

  A steady, industrial racket wound its way through the warehouse. Three small craft sat in its center. One was in an uncountable number of pieces, the second looked to be deep in repairs, and the third—the SG-220 they were after—was technically intact but covered in so much rust it shouldn’t be capable of flying.

  About a dozen men and women worked on the first two crafts. Few glanced at her and Rykus, and when they did, they quickly returned their attention back to their tasks. Still, she waited until the 220 separated them from the workers before she pushed back her hood and stared up at the rust bucket.

  “If Emmit wasn’t a Devout, I’d say he set us up.”

  Rykus pushed back his hood too. “Maybe he thinks you can fly this.”

  She snorted. “He’s overestimating my abilities.”

  “You did fly an SRG in low atmo with holes in its fuselage and its cargo door wide open.”

  “That didn’t end optimally.” She approached the 220 and slammed her fist against its side. A cloud of rust rained to the ground. No obvious breaches appeared in the panel’s surface though.

  Rykus grabbed a wire brush from a broken-wheeled cart. He ran it across the fuselage, scrubbing hard. More rust and chipped paint sprinkled the floor.

  “It’s covered in a stealth varnish,” he said. “A bad one. How old is this thing?”

  “Probably not that old.” She walked toward its back, scanning the craft again. “Someone conned the owner.”

  “Profitable scheme while it lasted,” a voice said behind her.

  Ash knew that voice. It belonged to the dreg who, according to the guard, owned this warehouse.

  “I was hoping you would stop by,” Ash said, turning. Standing a good five meters away was Mel. The woman wore a dilapidated longcoat and heeled boots that gave her a few centimeters of extra height. She needed it. Even with tangled hair piled on top of her head in a messy nest, she barely reached to Ash’s chin. She compensated for her height with muscle, bravado, and her domesticated dreg, who was undoubtedly lurking somewhere nearby.

  Discreetly Ash signaled to Rykus, telling him to watch for another threat.

  Mel gave her a toothy smile and took a step closer. “I liked you better dead.”

  “I’m getting that a lot lately.”

  “I should kill you right now.” Another step, almost within Ash’s striking range.

  “Funny that you haven’t.”

  Mel’s eyes tightened. “Chace promised your health and well-being would be worth putting up with your mouth.”

  Chace. Fucking dreg. He’d contacted Mel. The timetable made more sense than the guard waking up quick enough to drag Mel out of whatever shanty she’d been holed up in.

  “It’s also funny you haven’t killed him,” Ash said. Beside her, Rykus shifted slightly. A second later, Toman, Mel’s pet dreg, stepped into her peripheral vision.

  Ash didn’t have to look to remember his fire-burned flesh. Half his face was pink and wrinkled. Half his body too. He was a huge man, bigger than both Hauch and Rykus, and his eyes were the coldest, emptiest orbs she’d ever seen. Unless something had changed while Ash had been gone, Toman hadn’t spoken to anyone other than Mel in the decade since he’d danced with the flames.

  “Chace has proved to be useful,” Mel said with a shrug. “But I forgot how much I hate your face.” She drew her gun and took aim. “I need a reason not to put a hole in that pretty head of yours.”

  One more step and Ash would be close enough to disarm Mel.

  “She’s worth more alive,” Rykus said.

  Mel’s gaze flickered his way. Lingered. She kept her weapon aimed at Ash but let her gaze freely travel over Rip’s body.

  “Where did you find this?” Mel asked, appreciation saturating her tone.

  “He’s hired muscle.” Ash shifted her weight, cutting the distance to Mel by a few centimeters.

&
nbsp; “She’s not paying you enough, is she?” Mel grinned. “You should ditch her and join me. She might have the looks, but I have everything else.”

  “Oh yes,” Ash said. “Everything else. This warehouse and the half-starved dregs you con into working for you are real impressive.”

  Mel’s smirk flattened. She looked back at Ash. “You still haven’t learned when to keep your mouth shut.”

  “No,” Rykus rumbled, his gaze piercing hers. “She hasn’t.”

  “I lost everything because of you!” Mel’s face shaded red.

  “You’re still holding Toman’s leash.” It took an effort to say those words without a hint of regret. Ash used to be an expert at not giving a damn. It was strange being back on Glory with that talent stripped away.

  Mel entered her striking range. “Scius kept me in his cages for months.”

  “Yet you’re free and here now.”

  “So. Are. You.”

  Ash deserved that scathing tone, the accusing glare, the way Mel was barely holding herself back. Ash had made promises she hadn’t been able to keep. Promises that had led dozens of dregs to their deaths.

  Mel’s face twitched. She should have pulled the trigger, probably would have if there wasn’t a bounty out for Ash. Predictably, Scius wanted her alive.

  “Ash,” Rykus said, his tone tightly controlled. He was worried, impatient, or aggravated. Probably all three. He didn’t need to be.

  The thing about Mel was that she was easy to play and over-the-top paranoid. Ash’s gaze shot to the right and her eyes widened. She flinched backward a little, which allowed her to turn the movement into a kick when Mel spun to look behind her.

  Ash slammed the blade of her hand into Mel’s wrist, knocking her weapon free. Ash caught it and aimed at Toman.

  Rykus had his Covar out and aimed too.

  “No need to worry,” Ash said. “Toman doesn’t blink unless Mel orders him to, and you’re not going to do that, are you, Mel?”

  “You’re still an overconfident kentsa.”

  Ash grinned. “It’s not overconfidence if I always—”

  An alarm blared. It took her a moment to recognize its pitch and rhythm.

  “Well, shit,” Ash said. She lowered the confiscated weapon, hesitated a moment, then held it out to Mel. “I guess we won’t screw each other over today.”

  “Explain,” Rip barked beside her.

  Ash tried to hide the hitch in her stride, the little pause that indicated his order had tugged on the loyalty training.

  “It’s the EDA,” she said. “The Errant Descent Alarm. Some piece of shit ship is coming in too fast or off course. If it hits the ocean wrong, it’ll cause a tsunami and might wipe out the break yards.”

  It might wipe them out if it was bad enough.

  “This happens often?” Rykus asked.

  “Often enough the bosses installed alarms. Wouldn’t want all the cheap labor to die off.” She led the way to the exit. Mel and Toman were just ahead, cutting off the warehouse workers who were scrambling to the door. Fortunately, there weren’t many of them, and she and Rip were the last out the door.

  The humid, putrid air clung to her skin. To the east, the Old Seawall separated the warehouse behind them and other semipermanent buildings from the black beach. It was usually enough to stop errant descent tsunamis, but not always, and the dregs knew it. They sprinted to the west where a second wall had been built decades ago.

  Thick, dark clouds oppressed the sky. The spaceship dropped through them, its angle all wrong and going much too fast to slow its descent in time.

  It was one of those disasters you couldn’t not watch. The ship hit the ocean a few kilometers behind the break yards. Water and steam exploded out and up. Before the white cloud dissipated, a wave burst through it. It sped toward the dying ships parked against the giant scaffolds.

  One of the smaller vessels tore loose from its anchors and knocked against the break yard’s scaffold. Metal bent and snapped. The entire structure listed left. Workers who hadn’t already abandoned their posts clung to the beams. Others slipped off, falling into the waves below.

  “Shit,” Rykus muttered.

  The tsunami approached, swallowing the dregs who were running for the seawall.

  “Hey!” Mel shouted. “You two going to stand around or do you want out of here?”

  She jabbed her thumb toward a skimmer. The old Ash wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have hauled ass out of there, but Rykus had taken a few steps toward the ocean, and those new habits that were carved into her consciousness on Caruth made her feet move that way too. Instinct told her to take the risk, to help, to save lives.

  “Hey!” Mel yelled again. “What are you doing?”

  Ash’s strides grew longer. She reached Rykus’s side, and they both broke into a run, leaving Mel behind.

  The ocean continued racing toward them. When it was fifty meters away, the tsunami hit the Old Seawall.

  The water turned white as it burst high into the air. It rained back down and the ocean poured forth, covering the ground and picking up trash and debris. This wasn’t the worst tsunami she’d seen though. The water didn’t pass her knees, and she and Rykus were both able to stay upright by grabbing hold of a utility pole.

  She held on, resisting the ocean’s pull. A beam of metal, probably a piece from a scaffold, slammed into her hip. She took the blow and reached out, aiming to grab the arm of a girl struggling to swim.

  She missed. Rykus didn’t. He grabbed the girl and hauled her toward the pole.

  The water began to recede. It had already done its damage though. Most of the workers who had been running for the seawall were gone, their bodies mixed in with the debris or already pulled back out into the ocean.

  A few had managed to survive. They fought the current and the wreckage. If they could stay afloat a little longer, they might last long enough for the beach to reappear.

  The girl between her and Rykus coughed up lungfuls of water.

  Ash let go of the pole. Mud sucked at her boots when she took a step toward the seawall. She took another step. It was a slow slog. For her, at least. A vehicle passed by, driving over the muck and debris. The charity-blue paint job was a bright spot against the polluted wreckage.

  She changed trajectory and headed for it. By the time she reached the Seeker’s vehicle, it had stopped near the seawall and opened its door.

  More than a dozen men and women were crammed inside its passenger bay. They didn’t exit yet; they faced the front of the transport, quiet and listening.

  Someone shifted, and Ash could just make out a grim-looking Bian.

  “The med-tent is being set up outside the Rafni Building,” he said. “We will treat the critically injured on the spot and help them and others to the tent. Emmit, Jrake. Set up the pyre. Logan—”

  Bian spotted her. His face darkened. “Go.”

  With the amount of disdain in his voice, that could have been a directive meant just for her, but the Seekers began disembarking.

  Emmit hopped to the ground beside her. “How did you get here?”

  “Hired skimmer,” she said, looking at Bian. “If you have extra supplies, we’ll help.”

  “If you’re here to steal scrap metal, you will not be welcome back at the House.”

  Ouch, but she probably deserved that.

  “I wasn’t exactly welcome to begin with,” she said smoothly.

  “I’ll have you arrested.”

  She squashed her rebellious instinct and said, “I’m not here to scrap.”

  His expression didn’t soften. “I don’t trust you.”

  Probably deserved that too. “I’m here to help, Bian.”

  He was going to break his teeth, he was gritting them so hard. But she was being nice. Cordial. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever called him by his name before. It was basically an apology. At least, it was the closest thing to an apology he would get.

  “Dad,” Emmit said, an odd note to his t
one.

  Bian followed his line of sight to the largest break yard.

  Ash looked that way, too, and took in the beached ship that was connected to the listing metal monstrosity. The vessel couldn’t have been there longer than a few weeks. The workers had been in the process of removing a section of its hull, but instead of a relatively small, easier-to-manage strip of metal, nearly a quarter of the visible hull had peeled off, revealing the interior like a child’s toy space station. The ship tilted toward the flooded beach, and on a middle deck toward the stern, almost a dozen workers gathered, waiting for a rescue they knew no one would provide.

  “Where’s aerial support?” Rykus asked.

  “The bosses won’t send any,” Emmit said. “Those workers are as good as dead.”

  Ash walked toward the seawall. There had to be a way to get to them, to save those workers on the listing vessel and the others still scrambling down from the scaffolding or swimming away from it.

  She spotted the answer at the same time Rykus said, “Pendulum.”

  He pointed to the beam Ash had focused on. It rose from the middle of the mangled mess, cutting at a sharp angle toward the ship. The top had crashed into an upper deck, out of reach of the trapped workers. But if she and Rykus had a long enough rope, they could climb that beam and drop it down. They could swing it across the gap, then one by one, the workers could pendulum to safety.

  “Ash.” Emmit caught her arm. “We can help at another yard.”

  “We can do this,” she said, pulling free. There was almost a bounce in her step. It felt good to have an objective to achieve. It was a little dangerous, yes, but this was nothing compared to the risks she’d taken in her past, both here and in the Fighting Corps.

  “We need a rope,” Rykus said.

  Bian shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “We’ll get it done.”

  “And if we don’t, it’s a good way to get rid of me,” Ash said brightly.

  Bian glared at her, and she could practically hear Rip gritting his teeth.

  “Your hands will be clean,” she continued, “and—”