by A. B. Keuser
Her eyes turned to him slowly, her pain apparent in the creasing around them. “Fine,” she said, looking away. “They’re in the top drawer in the bathroom.”
Lyz cast a sideways glance at her. “I looked in there.”
Shaking her head, Yella winced. “Inside the bag, black bottle.”
“That said it was an anti-inflammatory.”
Laughing harshly, Yella said, “Yeah, well I wasn’t exactly going to advertise them now was I?”
“Start applying this while I go check.” She turned back to Dani, “I will hurt you if I find out you lied to me and have another stash.”
“You and I both know the worst’s already been done. I’ll bat you away like a fly.” Her hand moved over her head as if to solidify the threat.
Lyz was already out the door by the time Dani turned her attention back to him.
“You going to help me out? If not pass the tube, because this is not getting any more fun as the seconds tick past.” She moved slowly, trying to work her shirt up.
He moved to her side and helped her sit. She bunched her shirt up underneath her breasts as he pressed out a long line of cream. Warming it before he touched her, he began to smooth it on the raw red line where the skin welder had done its job.
“You guys are still friends,” Yella said, nodding toward Adi.
“Most of the time.”
“Good.”
He returned his focus to the wound, trying not to think about the fact that his hand was slowly going numb.
She sucked in a sharp breath as she moved away from his hand. “Sorry, it’s really cold. I held out as long as I could. Give me a second.”
She closed her eyes, gripping the edge of the bed and inhaling deeply, her head bowed, almost as if she were praying… and maybe she was. He remembered her mother being religious, even after the Pääom had outlawed public meetings, Barrie had found a way to encourage others to pray. He wondered what she was praying for now… probably for him to crawl back into his tube and let her life go back to normal.
“Okay,” she said, nodding to him as he moved to cover the back half of the welder mark. “I guess, now that the rest of the crew knows you’re here, you’ll probably want your quarters back.”
Something heavy sank in his stomach as she said it. “Your crew might feel safer if you keep an eye on me. Obie might feel safer if I keep an eye on you…”
“She’s been awfully quiet since she got me shot….”
“I merely respect the need for relative quiet in facilities meant for the healing and upkeep of my crew.”
Dani smiled painfully, “Glad to know you’re still up there.”
“And I’m glad you are still among us Danielle. It was never my intention to see you leave us so soon.”
Si didn’t like the way she added the “so soon” to the end of that. “All done. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve got a branding iron up my side. You should know how this feels. I mean, now that my side matches your back, I can’t really imagine how much that one must have hurt.”
Si grimaced and tried not to think about it.
“Okay, let’s go make sure the missus is out of the asteroid field.” She slid gingerly off the bed and made her way across the room.
Si followed, feeling a sudsy bubble of anxiety welling in his stomach. If there was anyone Si didn’t want Yella talking to it was Adi. At least he’d be here to supervise the conversation… though he didn’t know what good that would do.
“Hi Adi, my name’s Danielle. Sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. Had a bit of a mixup with your other crewmate, left me in need of a mend as well.”
“So I heard.” Adi said the words quietly as Dani pressed a button and the bed slowly raised Adi into a seated position. “How’s Richter doing, by the way?”
“About as well as the woman he shot.”
She shifted toward Dani. “It seems that most of your crew is women.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“I’d be all for an exclusively female crew; it’d make things simpler.” She flashed a glare at him before turning her attention back to Yella. “So I suppose Si here has told you all about me… All the fun, gritty stuff men say about their exes.”
“He hasn’t actually,” Dani said as she tapped through some screens. “But your personnel file was quite thorough.”
Si tried not to smile as a scowl crept over Adi’s face. He had no idea when Dani would have had a chance to read the file, or if she was bluffing.
Adi turned to him, her scowl deepening.
“No matter what he says, he’s always in love with someone else… always has been. Do you want to know how I figured that out?”
“Only if it’s medically necessary that I know it.”
“I think any woman he looks at that way deserves to know the truth.” She turned back to Yella. “He gave the woman something he shouldn’t have.” Her eyes locked on Si as she spoke. “A ring. It was his grandmother’s. It was how I knew she was more than just a fling he was trying to hide…. Hell, he married me and he wouldn’t even let me wear the damn thing.”
They’d been divorced by then… he looked to Yella and saw the brief flash of panic in her eyes before she turned back to the computer.
“That seems like a far leap. How do you know he didn’t lose it?”
“Because if he lost it, he would have been pissed. That ring meant more to him than…” Her head wobbled and she let out a heavy sigh as her eyes closed and she mumbled something incoherent.
“What happened?” He turned to Dani. Her fingers still hovered over the keyboard.
“She needs another hour or two of sleep. I figured it would be easier if I sedated her.” She looked over Adi’s unconscious body at him. “She talks too much.”
“About that—”He could have said a dozen things that would have meant nothing to her. The important thing…. That rested on the tip of his tongue and wouldn’t leave his mouth.
Yella waved him off. “We’ll talk about it later. I need to sew up Mari, fix up Richter, and deal with one hundred and seven other little things.”
*
Osiris helped with Mari’s sutures, held Richter still while Dani set his arm and hooked him into a plastic brace before setting the IV. When she was done, she let out a long sigh and said, “I think we need to head up to the bridge and find out where Obie’s taking us.”
“I could tell you that just as easily down here.”
“I’d like for my pilot to hear what’s going on… since he thinks he’s flying you when he obviously isn’t.”
“If that is what you wish.”
“I don’t know why you even need a pilot.”
Si held open the hatch door for her “She doesn’t usually, but sometimes human thinking gets things done a little better.”
“Less efficiently.”
“In the end, we don’t care about efficiency, if it leads to a dead crew.”
The silent speakers above him left him a little worried.
“You think you should sass her like that?”
He snorted, “She can’t vent me. I’m family.”
“Do you really think she has the ability to emotionally attach to you?”
“What the captain is referring to is that the Makers integrated his DNA into the organic matrix in my systems. In many ways I am his daughter.”
Yella gave him a confused look. “I’m not even going to point out how creepy that is.”
“You really don’t have to.” He pulled open the hatch to the bridge and motioned for her to step inside.
Mopeña turned to them. “Welcome back, Captain, Captain.” He nodded awkwardly to them both.
“Willy, where are we headed?” Yella asked.
“Toward the inner planetary ring. We’ve got a meetup scheduled with the Mandalls in three days on Torjunta. We’ll stop off somewhere before that.”
Si frowned and glanced up at the ceiling. “Obie… where are we actua
lly headed?”
“Planetary body 9486.254. Presently classified as Roskakori, in the Epsilon Quadrant.”
“What?” Mopeña moved back to his control console, “This can’t be right. Chin!” He pressed the comm channel on his chair’s armrest. “Chin, take a gander at the charts, are we off course?”
“The Hell?”
“That’s a yes in Chin’s book.”
“It looks like we’ve been headed the wrong way since the squeaker took out José… We’re going to need to turn the boat around, chicklets.”
“Tell him you’ll take care of it,” Yella said quietly.
She waited for Mopeña to do as he was told and when the comm was off again, she returned her attention to the ceiling, setting herself into a chair and leaning back gingerly. “Why are we going to Roskakori? And don’t bother lying, I’ve got no intention of turning you around.”
“Cap I do not want to be marooned on that pile of junk.” Mopeña swallowed too loudly.
Si shook his head and looked at the floor. He would not believe that. “Obie’s not going to maroon us. I’m sure she has some plan, we just haven’t been let in on it yet.”
“Does anyone want to tell me what’s so bad about Roskakori? Si asked.
Yella sighed. “The Pääom renamed all of the dissenting planets after the war. You’d know it as Kosz.”
He felt his eyes tighten as Yella said it. “Obie, why are you taking us there?”
“It is the one place I can land where I know we have allies and where the Pääom presence is minimal. It is safe.”
“I think we need to reevaluate the relativity of the term safe.” Mopeña looked at Yella, severely upset if Si was any good at reading people.
Si pulled up the chart for their actual location. “Obie, find some place neutral to set down and let everyone else off. Then you and I will go on to Kosz and no one else has to get hurt.”
“You can’t go to Kosz alone,” Yella said behind him.
“I can, and I –”
“Captains, Quince has broken her confinement. Her quarters are empty. She is not on any of my screens. She must be in a blind spot.”
Si saw Yella’s eyebrow rise at the admission of blind spots and hoped she wouldn’t say anything.
Yella turned to Mopeña, “You can stay here, or you can go off duty, I’m sure Lyz wouldn’t mind some company right now.”
“I know when I’m not needed,” Mopeña said with a quick glance to the ceiling.
Dani moved as quickly as she could, as the lift opened for them. “Take us to deck nine, Obie.”
He stepped in beside her and pulled the gun he’d confiscated from Richter out of his belt. “Think we should issue weapons to your crew?”
“The ones that need them already have them.”
“What about you?”
Shaking her head, Yella looked at his weapon ruefully. “I can’t fire anything with even a hint of recoil for the next four hours, severe movement is going to tear this thing open… basically, you’re my weapon for the foreseeable future. I hope you’re not still suffering from frostbite anywhere important.”
“You know how to make a guy feel great.” Si shot her a halfhearted scowl.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Quince wants to kill me. And Kiori’s got Richter locked down. With his broken arm, I don’t anticipate it being too big of a—”
He followed her eyes to the Brig hatch. A body lay over the treads, holding the hatch open. “Gill?”
As she said it, Si remembered the young man in engineering, Lyz’s brother. He moved forward slowly, gun at the ready, Dani followed silently behind him.
He shouldered open the hatch, poking his head inside after sweeping with the gun. Quince had been here, but she was gone. He stuffed the gun back into his pants and helped pull Gill off the hatch tread. Kiori lay in a heap on the floor, her gun resting at an odd angle on the crate above her. Si crouched into a squat and picked up the flash-bang casing spent on the floor while Dani checked both of her crew member’s vitals. He stared into the cell, and let out a long sigh.
“I’ll check on Richter in two seconds, Kiori’s tangled up in her gun sling.”
“Don’t bother. It was a clean kill, there’s no way he’s walking away from this one.” He stood, leaning on the bars, hoping she wouldn’t want to see him. The image now burned into his brain was one he’d like to forget.
“At least she gave him that. She probably wanted to do worse, but didn’t have the time….” her hand went to her forehead as she steadied herself on the bulkhead.
“What?”
“Nothing, just got a little lightheaded. They’ll be fine in here until we deal with Quince. If she’d wanted to kill them, she would have,” Dani said. “Obie, can you make sure to keep an eye on the med bay for me? Quince might go after Adilyn next. Especially since she’s alone with Mari.”
“I will do that as I continue to search for her. She may be in an access panel where I cannot see her. If she makes no noise and does not attempt to sabotage my wiring, I may not be able to find her.”
“This is why you need us, Obie.” Si said quietly, though loud enough the ship could hear him.
Yella moved toward the cell and he stopped her, his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t. You don’t need to see him like this.”
She looked as though she was going to argue, but nodded. She smiled, reaching her hand up to wipe something from his face and then turned back to the still open hatch.
“Do you really think she’ll go after Adi?”
“She doesn’t have any reason to keep her alive as far as I know. She’ll want to take you in alive, claim you as a prize. Richter was revenge. If she goes for Adilyn….” Shaking her head, Yella pointed him toward a different corridor. “She won’t go for Adilyn, but I do think Obie should keep an eye out, just in case I’m wrong. Besides, she may double back for Mari—I don’t think anyone updated her. I didn’t think she’d be stupid enough to kill Richter.”
“Okay, so she’s not going for Adi… where would she go then?”
“Where she’s comfortable. The access panels Obie mentioned… Quince memorized the schematics once we knew we were coming for the ship, what was missing, she’s filled in since we got her. She should know the ship pretty much inside out.”
Si didn’t like the sound of that. “How’d you get the schematics? Those were classified, I couldn’t have a set until she was done and I had access to her computer banks.”
“One of the designers flipped to the Pääom towards the end. Obviously not the one in charge of the AI, though. That was still a surprise.”
She moved to a directory panel on the wall and brought up the full list of maintenance hatches. There were four close to them.
“This one,” she said, pressing her finger to the screen. “That’s my bet. It’s between the brig and her quarters, she could have stashed things in there on her way to the brig and then headed back there afterward.”
“This one’s more likely. He pointed to the furthest of the four.
“Why?”
“Gilroy. She brought him down here to get the door open so she could toss in the flash-bang before Kiori shot her. You do remember telling Kiori that she was supposed to shoot Quince, right?”
“Yeah.” She zoomed in on the map. “So she’s in the access tunnels headed back to engineering.”
“Where she’s either stashed something, or maybe…” He turned, trying to remember what exactly Adi had said when they were working on the plans. “There’s an auxiliary panel in Engineering. Most ships have their access to the bridge controls there.”
“And on Obie, what, it’s another conduit to the ship’s brain?”
“Kind of,” Si said.
Looking to the ceiling, Yella said, “Obie, are you paying attention?”
“Class five lockdown in effect.”
As she said it, flashing red lights bounced off the bulkheads.
“Subtle.” Yella said
, her hand on her side. Her breath came in labored pulls and heavy exhalations.
“You okay?”
She smiled through clenched teeth. “Yeah, just have to remind myself why I’m not being more help.”
“You pulled me out of the freezer. I think bringing me back to life leaves a pretty good gap. I’ve got to catch up. Let’s get up to engineering and see if we can’t stop her before she does something stupid.”
Yella gave him a hard side eye. “She’s already done something stupid. We need to contain this mess.”
Si took her hand and drew her gently along behind him. She was lying about the effectiveness of the numbing ointment.
The lift sagged to a stop one deck up and they stepped into the garish light of Engineering. The lockdown had no effect on the ambient lighting or the noise level inside.
“Were the flashing lights just for us?” Dani said, barely audible over the pressure valves releasing steam.
“Engineering has a different visual warning system,” Si said.
Dani shook her head. “Quince isn’t going to know about that.”
“Let’s hope we find her before Obie has to resort to her own methods.” He ducked under the a long row of pipes, avoiding the long main path through.
Dani’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Do you hear that?”
He strained to hear through the chittering of boiling water through the pipes, the screech of a new output valve. Then he heard it: two low voices arguing. He couldn’t tell who they were. Se hadn’t been around the crew anywhere near long enough to be at that point yet.
“Who is it?” he asked quickly, his lips close to her ear.
“It’s definitely Quince… and I think Stugg, he’d make the most sense anyway.”
Suddenly the unknown voice shouted, “Leave us alone, you computer cow!”
Quince tried to hush him as they got closer, and in the end, they watched Stugg storm off.
“Well so much for him stopping her,” Si said.
“He doesn’t carry a gun. If she still has whatever she used on Richter, he did the smart thing by walking away.”
Osiris tried to remind himself that, other than being a complete creep, the kid hadn’t done anything wrong. He stepped from behind the pipes and then quickly edged backward. The sharp inhalation behind him was masked by the sound of another valve releasing.
