“I can try.” He pushed himself away from the wall and took her place in front of the panel. It took little effort for him to access the hatch’s settings, but altering them turned out to be a whole other challenge. “It needs an administrative code,” he muttered. “Which I don’t have.”
“Can you hack it?”
He looked at her. “You’re joking, right?” He turned back to the panel. “But I do have an idea. Give me a minute.”
As he’d suspected, the hatch’s sensor array wasn’t subject to the same level of security as its operational settings. As quickly as he could, he fed information into the control panel. Suddenly the red light of an air lock warning began to flash over the hatch, and scarlet letters appeared on the screen: EMERGENCY SEAL ACTIVATED.
“What did you do?” Ru asked.
“Convinced it that there was a vacuum on the other side. For as long as it thinks environmental controls have been compromised, it won’t open. They’ll figure that out eventually, I’m sure—I just bought us some time.”
They both looked around at the space they were in. It was little more than a Y-shaped intersection with the hatch at its base. “If we are where think we are,” Ru said, “one of those two branches should lead to the docking facilities. The other—hopefully—to a flyway.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Only we can’t use it now.”
“What do you mean? That’s what we’ve been trying to get to all along—”
“But now we know that someone on this station wants to kill us. And if Shenshido’s mastermind is involved, he probably has control over the entire station. Do you remember what Ivar told us about how Hydra was constructed?”
His eyes widened as understanding dawned. “The flyways aren’t permanent.”
She nodded. “All it would take to kill someone inside them would be to separate the segments. Our adversary wouldn’t even have to separate them completely; as soon as there was an opening, our air supply would be history. Or maybe an emergency breach program would kick in, and seal each section off, like a portable tomb. Same difference, as far as we’re concerned.” Her expression was grim as she looked toward one tunnel, then the other. “I don’t know about you, but stealing spaceships isn’t in my skill set.”
“Maybe we don’t need to do that.” His mind was racing, fitting pieces of the puzzle together with a gamemaster’s instinct. The tools you need must be present. Find them, figure out how to use them. Finally he said, “What if we could get someone to take us back to the Artemis?”
“I don’t think anyone in this place is likely to help us.”
“We have Dominic Saito’s contact information.” Seeing the look of disbelief on her face he added quickly, “You must have something on the Artemis that he’d value. Guns, artifacts, I don’t know . . . you and your partner took souvenirs from all the worlds you visited. Rich men like to collect rare things. Surely you have something he’d want.”
She started to shake her head. “I don’t . . . No, wait.” Realization seemed to dawn. “I do have something. I think. Not sure what it’s worth, though.” She looked at the two exits. “I’ll need a com panel.”
“Either flyways or docks would have that. Doesn’t matter which at this point. Flip a chit.”
She pointed to one of the tunnel branches. “That one.”
But his mind was still racing, fitting game pieces together. “Do you have any of that Seti crap left?”
She reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew what was left of the ravaged packet. There wasn’t much left inside it, but they didn’t need much. “Spill it in there,” he said, pointing to the corridor she hadn’t chosen. She understood immediately, and took a few steps into that tunnel to scatter the dust on the floor and walls. They’d been exposed to the drug’s smell for long enough that they hardly noticed it now, but with Ru’s jacket anointed by the stuff, their passage through the tunnel must have left a trail of stink behind them. Now there was a stronger trail to divert any pursuers. It might only buy them a few minutes, but everything here was about timing.
They sprinted down the other corridor together. As she’d predicted, surface construction was more compact than they’d seen in the tunnels, and they quickly reached its end point, a long, crescent-shaped room with access hatches evenly spaced along its outer curve. The entrance was an airtight hatch, and as Ru searched for the com panel, Micah closed and shut down that one as well. This time he used a different pathway, convincing the controlling program that there had been a power overload so it would shut itself down while searching for the source of the problem. Which of course it wouldn’t find.
Ru had the com panel activated and was standing in front of it, smoothing down her unruly hair. As he joined her she turned to him. “Am I good?” she asked.
He gently reached out to wipe a few spots of blood from her cheek. Her skin was surprisingly soft beneath his fingertips. “You are now.”
“All right. Cross your fingers.”
He backed up far enough to get outside the screen’s visual field, lest the sight of his battered face color the conversation. As soon as she was clear she sent the connection request, and he held his breath. If Saito did anything other than accept their call, they had no plan B to fall back on.
The screen stayed dark for a few minutes, then a familiar Saurin face appeared. “Ru, is it? I assume if you are contacting me, this is important.”
She nodded. “We find ourselves in need of a lift back to our ship, and were wondering if your people could provide it.”
He was silent for a moment. The scaled face was hard to read. “You took a flyway in. They go in both directions.”
“We have . . . access issues.”
Another long pause. “I don’t run a taxi service,” he said.
“Of course not. I was thinking of something more along the lines of . . . barter?”
A scaled brow lifted slightly. “What are you offering?”
“Ivar owes me a favor,” Ru said. “Fulfill it, and he’ll owe you instead.” What was Saito’s relationship with Ivar? Would he value having something to shift the balance of that relationship in his favor? Micah desperately hoped so.
“I assume this is urgent?”
“Speed would certainly be appreciated.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Let me ask you this—and bear in mind I have means of confirming your answer before my ship would arrive—have you breached any laws of the station?”
“We haven’t killed any locals. We haven’t stolen anything. Those were the only laws Ivar told us about.”
So many things were unasked, unrevealed. But on a station like this, that was probably business as usual. “You’re asking a rather big favor of my House. Does the value of your offering merit that?”
“He owes me for getting him off Shenshido. What do you think?”
He nodded. “I’ll send someone to your coordinates. Meet him at bay four.”
The screen went dark.
“I did steal a drink box,” Micah said.
A smile flickered. “I thought it best not to mention that.”
“Ivar won’t be happy about his.”
“I’m sure he would have done the same in my position. Or worse.”
Wait. That was all they could do now. The airtight hatch was effectively soundproof, and they had no way to know what was going on behind them. Were their pursuers scouring the flyways in search of them, or had they caught on to Micah’s ruse, and were they even now hurrying in this direction? Did Ru and Micah have minutes left before that last barrier was compromised, or seconds? He leaned against the frame of the airlock and considered letting his wellseeker feed a bit of sedative into his veins to calm his nerves. But no; he needed the animal alertness that fear provided. Ru was pacing nervously, so apparently she’d made the same decision. There were times you didn’t want your senses dulled.<
br />
The screen next to bay four lit up.
CLASS 2 VESSEL REQUESTS DOCKING RIGHTS
MOORING BAY 4
ID: SAITO CLASS B POD 44AO1
“Thank God—” Micah began. But a sudden noise from the chamber’s door stopped him. Someone was banging on the far side of the main door. “Shit,” he whispered. “They’re trying to break in.”
“That door’s designed to hold against the vacuum of space,” Ru said. But the vacuum of space didn’t know how to pry open a door’s seams.
MOORING CLAMPS SET.
CONNECTION CONFIRMED.
SEAL CONFIRMED.
The outer door shuddered. Or was that Micah’s imagination? He edged closer to the airlock. Open open open open open . . . Now the main door creaked: definitely not his imagination.
LOCK RELEASED.
The airlock hissed and began to slide open. As soon as the opening was wide enough for a person to squeeze through, Ru grabbed Micah by the arm and shoved him into it. As she followed, there was an explosion at the main door that sent shards of plasteel flying toward the bay. Ru hit the airlock control as soon as they were inside and the airlock started to shut again, muffling the noise of people yelling and the smell of smoke and the noise of charred debris skittering across the floor.
The ship’s entry hatch opened to receive them and they rushed through it, not caring what kind of ship lay beyond, or who was inside. Anything other than the naked vacuum of space would be welcome. “Cast off!” Ru cried. “Now!”
There was one woman inside the pod, and while she was clearly startled to hear Ru giving orders, their bloody and disheveled appearance must have made the need clear enough. The pod was a small one, so they stood over her shoulder as she resealed the ship, then triggered the release of the mooring clamps and began to lift off from the core—
Only the ship didn’t move.
The woman scowled and tried again. The ship jerked, but didn’t break free.
“Shit,” Ru muttered. The people on the other side of the airlock must have jammed the mooring clamps. Micah watched the pilot try to break free by sheer force. Finally, cursing in exasperation, she called up a display of the outer hull, and he and Ru watched as two short-range lasers emerged. They fired, and two of the mooring clamps became slag. “Boss will not be happy about that,” the pilot muttered, as the small ship finally broke free.
A shudder of relief passed through Micah. Were they really going to get away? He watched the display in trepidation, but no ships left the core to follow them. For the moment, at least, they appeared to be safe.
The pilot twisted back to look at them. “I don’t know what the fuck you two brought with you that smells like a ten-day-old corpse, but it needs to be ejected. The boss won’t like it if we stink up the home dock.”
Scowling, Ru shrugged out of her jacket—no small feat in the cramped confines of the small pod—then rolled it inside out so that the tainted outer layer was wrapped in the safeskin lining. She tucked the resulting package under her arm and glared at the pilot. After a moment the woman shrugged and turned back to the navigation console.
We’re safe, Micah thought. We made it. His fingers stroked the headset that was tucked into his belt. And with any luck, our adversary’s secrets are coming with us.
* * *
The lights came on as they entered the Artemis, and by the time Ru was seated in the pilot’s chair everything was up and running. “Strap in,” she said. “This could be a rough ride.”
By the time Micah was in his seat with his safety harness activated, the ship was already free of its mooring, and was turning toward the course that Ru had chosen, a channel of open space between flyways and docked ships that looked dangerously narrow to him. But he trusted that she knew what she was doing.
As of yet there was no sign of pursuit. He knew that because the row of screens high over the navigation console was now displaying a full panoramic view of the surrounding space, and nothing was moving in their direction. But that didn’t mean they were safe yet. The Artemis might be impressive, but some of the bigger vessels here could probably fly circles around it. Which was probably the reason for this route, he realized. A larger ship would be hard pressed to follow them through this narrow channel.
“Shutting down the G-field,” she told him. “Brace yourself.” A second later his stomach lurched as the ship’s faux-gravity suddenly disappeared. Inertia from a few sharp turns took its place, pressing him against the straps of his harness. The last one took them around the back of a cluster of matching ships, and then they were in the open, beyond the tentacles of the Hydra beast, with deep space a black sea before them.
“Don’t breathe easy yet,” she warned.
“Oh, I’m not, believe me.” There were two ships leaving the core now. Regular Hydran business, or something directed at them? His heart raced as he watched them on the screen, lifting from the surface as if in slow motion; in that crowded neighborhood one couldn’t afford to fly too quickly. But she would have. He glanced over at Ru, and saw her eyes were gleaming with excitement. She would have flown at full speed through that mess, and God help any ships that got in her way.
Hydra was starting to grow smaller on the screens as it slowly fell behind them. Ru reached out to adjust the display, and a sensor grid overlaid the image. The Artemis was scanning the space surrounding them for activity. No motion nearby, the readout indicated. No noteworthy mass. No energy signature, other than their own. Micah allowed himself the luxury of a deep sigh.
“Looks good so far,” she muttered. “Next stop, Harmony Station.” A proposed course appeared on one of the lower screens, and she locked it in.
“That’s pretty direct,” he said. “If anyone wants to cut us off they’ll know where to find us.”
“They’ve got the buoys, remember? Wherever and whenever we pass them, people will know it. Hopefully they don’t pay much attention to outgoing traffic.” She adjusted the display scale again; some stars grew brighter, others were swallowed by blackness. “The only ships in that place that can outrun Artemis have too much mass to get up to speed quickly. Assuming we can put enough distance between us and them to start with, we should be good.”
It didn’t take long at that speed to reach the buoys; still no signs of pursuit had been detected. When they finally got beyond the buoys’ sensor range, Ru leaned back in her seat, rubbing her neck with her good hand. “I’m setting up an alarm, so we can relax a bit. Though I think, at this point, it’s safe to say no one is following us.” She looked at Micah; her eyes narrowed in concern. “You should let the medpod check out that head injury.”
“You should let the medpod check out that hand injury.”
“Sorry.” She smiled sweetly. “Concussion trumps fracture.”
It was hard to argue with that.
But there was nothing inside his head that was worth getting alarmed about—or so the medpod told him—and as he returned to the front of the ship she opened her safety belt and let it withdraw back into the chair. “Why don’t you pull out the table and order us a couple of drinks? Here.” She adjusted a control and suddenly the G-field was back on. “Easier to pour this way.” She picked her bundled jacket up from the floor. “I’m going to dump this in the sterilizer. Hopefully that’ll get the smell out.”
As she went to open the armory he did as suggested, and by the time she returned he had the table and chairs out, and a pair of tall glasses with amber shots in them ready and waiting. “To an uneventful flight?” he said, as he handed her one.
She laughed. “Not sure I remember what that’s like.” She took a deep drink, shutting her eyes for a moment to savor it. “Much better. Now.” She put the glass aside. “Sit down, and let me clean the rest of that blood off you.”
He took another drink and then sat, while she ordered up a hand towel and a small bowl of water. Primitive bu
t intriguing. She pulled her chair nearer to him and put the bowl on the table beside her. “I’m glad we never passed a mirror, so you saw how bad this looks. Might have been discouraging.”
“As opposed to everything else that was going on?” he asked dryly.
“Smartass.” She dipped the towel’s end in the water. “If this hurts, you tell me.”
“It already hurts.”
“If it hurts more.” She wiped the moistened cloth along his uninjured cheek, tentatively at first, then, when he didn’t flinch, more confidently. Thus were ancient warriors cleansed. The water was cool against his skin and the gentle stroking motion was soothing; after a few seconds he shut his eyes, surrendering to the sensation. Periodically she would pause, and he would hear water dripping as she squeezed out the towel. He used one of those moments to take another drink, and as the warmth of the alcohol spread through his veins, it relaxed his knotted muscles.
When she was done wiping away the grime and blood on his undamaged skin, she moved to the wound itself. Her touch was so gentle, so gentle, as she probed his injury. He could barely feel it. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she murmured, as she began to wipe that area clean. When her fingers strayed to his hairline he could feel them tracing his Variant markings, leaving behind thin trails of moisture that cooled as they evaporated. She stroked his hair back from his face, combing it with her fingertips, then continued down the back of his head, until her fingers rested on the nape of his neck. He could feel his skin flush beneath her touch, and heat was beginning to stir elsewhere.
He opened his eyes. “Here.” He took the towel from her. “Your turn.” She had a cut across one cheek, and he patted it gently, wary of it bleeding anew. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?” He chuckled softly. He squeezed the cloth clean again, sending tendrils of red curling across the surface of the water, and then began to stroke her cheek with it, wiping away dirt and sweat and blood, revealing the honey-colored skin beneath. Now it was she who closed her eyes, relaxing into his touch. He wiped a dried trickle of blood from her neck, following it to the base of her throat. Then a streak of dirt led him outward to her shoulder, his fingers slipping beneath the narrow strap of her tank top. He could hear her breath quicken as he moved back again, his fingers brushing her breast. Hunger was growing in him now, causing his heart to race and his flesh to stiffen, but it was more than just a sexual heat—it was joy and desire and pain and exhaustion and relief combined, and most of all triumph. Because he was alive—alive!—despite the best efforts of Tridac and Shenshido and Hydra to make it otherwise. And now triumph was a fire inside him, demanding outlet.
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