by E J Frost
I toss a finboard down to her, ignoring
her most recent version of I’m telling you
I’m available to piss off my sister. It’s just habit for her, since she’s seen where things
stand between me and Kez. Realizing she
can’t get beyond any man choosing someone
over her makes me feel a moment’s pity. But
I push the feeling away. Erin’s a killer, and
you don’t feel pity for predators.
I glance over my shoulder to check on
Kez. She’s fastening flight webbing down
over the gear she’s leaving behind. Given
she looked like she was barely wearing
anything, her gear makes quite a pile. Where
the fuck was she hiding it all?
“C’mon, kitten,” I encourage her. “Let’s
get out of here.” #
“Aye-firmative,” she says, but she sounds
distracted. She stands uncertainly, hands on
her hips, looking around the skimmer. Then
she moves towards the front controls and
snaps the transponder out of its socket. She
twists the little piece of mech. Flicks those
big blue eyes up at me, underlit by the
yellow glow of the transponder’s directional
image.
“We’ve got twenty-two minutes before
the second bowship passes Outniss.”
“Let’s be fashionably early.”
“Aww.” She gives me a mock pout.
“We’ve got time for a stroll on the beach.”
Under any other circumstances, I’d like
that. But here an’ now, that seems like a good
way to end up as barbeque. “Rain check.”
Her big grin. “So you owe me a double-
bag of the universe’s best flash aaaand a
walk on the beach.”
“Move your ass before someone decides
to cook it.”
She giggles and grabs one of the
finboards as she jumps out of the skimmer. I
admire the very fine view of her backside in
the shadowsuit for a moment before I toss the
skimmer’s control pad next to the throttle,
hook an arm around the last finboard and
follow Kez out onto the beach.
Erin’s already in the water, up to her
waist, her pale hair a gleaming banner
against the dark suit and darker water. The
lights on her finboard wink, and she gets a
knee up on it just in time for the board to lift
her neatly out of the water. Where did the
killer-call-girl learn to surf? Maybe her life
isn’t as different from Kez’s as she’d like us
to believe.
Chapter 22
The finboard is unwieldy out of the
water, so I twist the fin to turn it on and toss
it into the waves. It rights itself quickly and
bumps against the skimmer’s door. I shove it
out further into the surf with my foot and
glance back at Kez.
She’s standing ankle-deep in the water,
staring back at the shore. At three dark
figures who are climbing over the rocks
between our beach and the next. Fuck, I knew
we’d been here too long.
“Kezra,” I growl.
She holds up one hand. Tilts her head to
the side. I follow her line of sight and focus
on the lead figure. Big man. Hundred and
thirty kilos, maybe more. It’s not all muscle,
but he carries it well. His chest is an
imposing barrel and his arms are meaty
slabs. He’s naked to the waist and the dying
light glimmers on his sweat-streaked, deeply
tanned skin. His ears, bristling with
implanted cartilage, stand up from his shaved
head like serrated fins. No mistaking him.
Dag.
I shove the finboard toward Erin and
wade back to Kez. I don’t know what she has
in mind, but whatever it is, she’ll need
backup.
“What’s the play?” I ask her in an
undertone when I stand beside her. The
Mirrormen aren’t headed towards us.
They’ve fanned out, but they’re moving in
Banks’s general direction.
“They’ll kill Banks,” Kez says, still
watching Dag.
“Maybe we should kill them first.”
She looks at me over her shoulder and
grins, eyes and teeth gleaming in the twilight.
“I love you.”
I nearly stumble. Not what I expected her
to say. Or when. I shrug, but file it away for
later. ‘Cause maybe she does, and not just
when I’ve offered to save her friend’s ass.
And if she does, I want to hear it again.
Preferably when we’re both naked.
I stride out of the water. It’s only a few
steps, but it gets the Mirrormen’s attention.
They angle towards us. The wet sand
crunches as Kez walks up beside me. When
we’re within speaking distance of the
Mirrormen, Kez stops and smiles. It’s not her
usual mischievous grin, or even that sly, sexy
smile I’ve seen a couple of times. This is all
fangs and razors. “Hey, Dag,” she says.
The lead Mirrorman looks glazed.
Radiation exposure, Hyp, and violence.
From the streaks and spatters on his chin and
chest, I’d say he’s already had an extra
helping of all three. He stares at Kez for a
long moment while the other two Mirrormen
draw up beside him. Finally, a spark of
recognition lights his cloudy eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” he drawls. “Lightfoot. I
remember you.” His two cronies chuckle
nastily. “How’s the leg?”
Kez scratches her head, like she’s
considering his question. When her fingers
drop away from her dreads, light flickers
around her fingers.
That’s a move I recognize. Show time. I
drop, twist and pull my kukris out of their
sheaths. As I rise, Kez flicks her fingers at
Dag and one of those writhing lines of light
wiggles through the air to carve a bloody
cavity in the big Mirrorman’s face and chest.
He screams, high and thin.
“Surprise, fucker,” Kez snarls. She takes
two running steps, spins and slams a low
side-blade kick into Dag’s knee. With the
momentum from her spin and the power of
those strong, runner’s legs, she chops his
knee out from under him. He won’t be
walking any time soon.
Dag crashes to the sand with the
reverberation of a tree falling.
Before the other two Mirrormen can
react, I leap, slashing with the kukris. I take
one of the Mirrormen in the neck. The kukri’s
wicked edge severs the Mirrorman’s head. It
bounces wetly across the sand. The other
Mirrorman turns just as I leap, bringing up a
spiked baton and raising it over his head.
Bad move. His swing exposes the underside
of his arm. I reverse the sweep of my kukri
and bring it up in a long arc, slicing through
his underarm. The edge grates against bone
but doesn’t stick. Good blade. His
arm flops
uselessly; the baton clatters to the sand. Got
the nerve. A high-pressure spray of red tells
me I got the brachial artery, too. Fucker’s
already dead, even if he doesn’t know it yet.
He crumples, whimpering and clutching at
the wounded. I step back, flick blood off my
blades, and glance at Kez.
She shakes her head. Holds out her hand.
I move around the fallen Mirrormen,
transfer my kukris to my right hand and take
her hand with my left. She pulls me away,
down the beach. She’s right, time to retreat.
We’ve been here way too long. “Leg’s fine,”
she tells Dag. “Thanks for asking.”
Dag twists and kicks at us, but he’s in too
much pain to mount much of an attack. I side-
step his flailing foot. Let Kez pull me down
the beach. The crunch of the sand under our
boots changes to splashes. We’re in the
water, and although that doesn’t really make
us any safer – the Mirrormen got to Outniss
somehow, so they must have skimmers of
their own – I feel better getting off the beach.
Enough that I sheath the kukris, making a
mental note to clean them later. I don’t want
blood gumming up those very fine blades.
Kez lets out that three-note whistle she
first used to identify herself to Banks. He
waves. He’s already moving towards our
skimmer, dragging a net full of small parcels.
The smugglers he met are retreating to their
own skimmers. Good thing, too, because
more sweat-streaked, bare-chested figures
are climbing over the rocks.
I glance over my shoulder. There’s a
finboard bobbing just beyond the breakers. I
push Kez towards it. My finboard’s further
out, listing aimlessly. Erin’s abandoned it.
Bitch. The lights of her finboard have
disappeared into the darkness. Doubt she
even stuck around to see if we survived the
fight. Überbitch.
Once I’m waist-deep, I dive into the
water. Swimming’s faster than wading any
day of the week. I remember Kez’s warning
as the cold slaps my bare skin. But with the
rad dose we just picked up, whatever the
water contains probably doesn’t matter
much. We’re going to need some serious
time in a melanin tank, my kitten and me, if
we survive this run.
I kick hard through the cold, toxic surf,
feeling the drag of my wet boots. Swimming
is not my favorite thing. Negative buoyancy
is a bitch. S.A.W.L. training made me into a
decent swimmer and I’ve had to do it on a
half-dozen worlds, usually under similar
fucking circumstances. I focus on the bobbing
finboard. Avoid thinking about what might be
following me, or what might be coming up
underneath me. Keep kicking. Keep
breathing. With each kick, each stroke, I get
closer to the finboard and further away from
the beach. Then suddenly the finboard’s right
in front of me. Kez, leaning out from her own
finboard, pushes it towards me and holds it
steady.
I grab the fin just below her hand. Get a
knee up on the board and let it pull me up out
of the water. “Thanks, kitten,” I shout over
the roll of the surf.
“You’re welcome,” she shouts back.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I give her a thumbs-up as I get my
balance. She checks the transponder, the
yellow glow lighting her chin and cheeks.
“Fifty degrees west.”
“Right behind you.”
A skimmer whirrs past us. Then another,
and another. In the darkness, I can’t tell the
skimmers apart, but I hope that Banks is in
one of them, and that he gets away clean.
Kez waves at the last skimmer, so maybe
she can tell them apart, or maybe she’s just
hopeful, too. Then she cranks up her
finboard, the neg cells’ whine rising over the
roll and whush of the water. I twist the
board’s fin, hear the reassuring whine, and
follow the trail of Kez’s lights over the dark
water.
Disappointingly, we don’t manage to lose
the Überbitch. The low lights of another
finboard appear, circling back from the
north, only a klick or two from Outniss.
Erin’s quickly recognizable from the pale
banner of her hair. Too bad.
She falls in behind me like it’s her
default position. Maybe she likes having all
that open water at her back. I wouldn’t, but
I’ve lived in confined spaces most of my life.
‘Course, now that we’re out in the open
ocean and there’s no sign of pursuit from the
Mirrormen, the real danger’s probably from
below, not from behind. Aquatic predators
are more active at night, or so I’ve heard.
But I’m not a fan of having open air at my
back and although I’d prefer it was Kez
behind me, I’ll take her bitch-sister if I have
to.
‘Course she could just prefer being
behind me so she has a clear shot at my back.
That thought raises goose-bumps as I bounce
across the waves.
Kez leads us steadily away from Outniss,
the lights of her finboard appearing and
disappearing as she skims over the choppy
water. In the glow from our boards and the
hazy moonlight, the water has an iridescent,
oily sheen to it. I wonder what toxic crap it’s
full of. Kuseros as a world has plenty of
natural phenomena unfriendly to humans, but
this doesn’t look or feel natural to me. More
shit humans have dumped into the
environment. Pretty soon, Kuseros will be as
much of a cesspit as Earth.
Guess as a species, we just don’t learn.
In front of me, Kez swerves, correcting
our course westward. Where having Erin at
my back makes me tense, I’ve got no qualms
about following Kez. My kitten won’t lead us
astray.
In the distance, a dull red glare lights the
oily water. As I scan the horizon, the prongs
of a bowship rise over the edge like skeletal
fingers. Blinking safety lights outline each
finger. Our ride is here.
Kez slows and I twist the control fin to
avoid outpacing her. “What’s the score,
kitten?” I shout to her.
“We need to come up behind it.” She
shakes her head, looking down into the
transponder. “We’re only going to have one
shot at this. That’s ship’s so much faster than
these boards.”
“Let’s do it.”
Erin pulls in alongside me. “This is going
to be tricky.”
“Yeah, keep up.”
I can’t see her expression in the dark, but
I’m guessing she’s rolled her eyes. “I always
do.”
We wait in
tense silence while the ship
grows larger and larger, from a witch’s stick
fingers to a huge looming flower that takes
up a third of the horizon.
Kez suddenly shouts, “Go!” The thunder
from the bowship’s jets drowns out the noise
from the finboards, but I can see she’s
cranked her fin all the way to the right. I
follow her example and feel the little board
leap under me. I lean into it and race after
Kez as she angles towards the back of the
huge ship. Her finboard carves a tight arc
through the water. I see her fuzzy head bob as
she checks the trajectory again and again. I
don’t need the transponder. I’ll make my own
calculations once I scope the rear of the ship.
The wind and darkness and choppy water
and spray off the bowship don’t make it easy.
I shake my head, blink hard to clear my eyes.
Squint at the dark gridded sides of the huge
ship, scanning for the opening I know must
be there. As we round the bowship, a vicious
slipstream hits us. The water turns to boiling
froth. I clamp both hands onto the control fin
and lean into the fin to keep the board steady.
Strain to make out any details in the
bowship’s uniform sides.
I can’t see anything, but suddenly the
tympani of the bowship’s airjets rises to a
deafening howl. The glory hole Shaker
promised us is tucked between the two rear
vents. I crane my head to the left to try to spy
it against the ship’s curving flank. Finally
spot a shadow where a shadow shouldn’t be.
A narrow, curved darkness that reminds me
of the sweet dip between Kez’s buttocks.
“Kezra!” I bellow.
Her head snaps up. She meets my eyes. I
jerk my head to the side, towards the ship.
She nods. My kitten knows when to let me
lead. I lean hard to the right, cutting across
the rear of the bowship at the tightest angle I
can manage. The board shudders and crashes
over the bowship’s wake. I bend at the knees
to absorb the bounce, feel each impact slam
up through my thighs and spine. Worse than
the pummeling I took under the incinerator’s
conveyor when I crawled out of Tol Seng. I
push that old memory aside and focus on the
task at hand.
Glancing back, I check on the girls. Kez
is just to my left, her dreads streaming
behind her as she bounces over the waves.
She’s getting huge amounts of air, her board
lifting clear of the water at the crest of each
wave. If we survive this I’ll have her show
