by E J Frost
the lee of the last stack of containers on the
forecastle. Once the two front prongs unfold
and connect us with the dock, it’s just a
handful of strides off the ship. We just have
to wait for the right moment to escape
without being seen.
I step back away from the corner of the
container stack as the crawler’s lights sweep
it. Reach behind me and tuck Kez a little
further into the shadows. I like having her
against my back. She rests against me, her
cheek against my shoulder, her hand in the
small of my back. Warm, reassuring points of
connection. I can feel her trembling.
Adrenaline, fatigue, and maybe a little fear. I
find her hip with my hand and give her a
gentle squeeze.
A hydraulic cacophony thunders over the
wind and water as the bowship’s prongs
grapple with the dock. The fresh assault on
my ears makes me wince. No wonder these
ships are so heavily automated if they make
this much fucking racket every time they
unload.
A high, thin noise joins the mechanical
din. That’s coming from behind me. I glance
over my shoulder. Erin’s taken a step away
from Kez and is searching the shadows. The
noise is her screaming something at her
sister. I lean into Kez and shout into her ear,
“What the fuck is wrong?”
“Her equipment bag!” Kez shouts back.
I sweep the two of them with my eyes.
Kez has her backpack and one of Erin’s
equipment bags over her shoulders. I don’t
see the other one anywhere. And I distinctly
remember two when I pushed the Überbitch
up the wall.
I grab Erin by the arm. Haul her up so I
can shout in her ear. “Leave it!”
She shoves at my chest with surprising
strength. “Fuck you!”
I glance at Kez, expecting her to roll her
eyes or otherwise express her disdain, but
she doesn’t. She’s watching Erin, concern
stamped around across her face. “Where did
you last see it?” she shouts to her sister.
Erin shakes her head. I open my mouth to
tell them to forget about going back for it,
when the ship stops moving with a bump.
The noise ends abruptly. Then there’s a new
noise: the whir of neg cells as the first stack
of containers rises off the deck. With a soft
whump, the crawler attaches a cable to the
stack of containers and tows them down the
ramp and off the ship.
“Forget it,” I whisper to the girls.
“C’mon, we’re gone.”
Erin shakes her head so hard her hair
slaps against my shadowsuit. “I have to have
what’s in that bag.” She hisses. “Kez. Kez,
please—”
Kez frowns, closes her eyes for a
moment. When she opens them, she looks up
at me. In the dark, her eyes are black holes in
the gray oval of her face. I can still see the
fear in them. “Tyng said a person and her
equipment.”
I shake my head. I don’t give a fuck what
he said. I’ve seen bowships unload. Takes
less than ten minutes. We need to be off this
ship by then, or we’ve got a one-way ticket
back to wherever this ship came from.
Probably Ykimo, on the North Shore. Home
of Kez’s buddies, the NoBos, the punks who
put that big hole in her back.
“I think I know where the bag is.” She
shrugs out of her backpack. “I’ll go.”
“You, stay here,” I tell Erin.
Kez puts her palm flat against my chest.
“You’re hurt. I’m okay. I can run.”
“What happened to not getting
separated?”
She sighs. Glances to the front of the ship
where stack after stack of containers are
trooping down the ramp and onto the dock.
“How long do you think we have?”
“Six minutes, tops.” More like seven, but
I want a little margin.
She nods. “I’ll make it.” She stretches,
rolls her neck until it pops. Gives her sister a
hard glare that I’m not sure Erin can see in
the dark, but even a blind man could feel.
“Get her off the ship.”
“Kitten—”
“Do this for me? Please? We’re so
close.”
That’s when it all goes to hell, in my
experience. “Five minutes. Then I’m comin’
after you. Move.”
Kez nods and takes off at a sprint. I watch
her for a moment, appreciating the beauty of
her movement. It’s not quite as effortless as
that day I saw her run in Eddle, but she’s
been through a lot since then. Her stride is
still long and loose. Her arms pumping;
dreads swinging. I can’t see her face, but I
can guess at her expression. She loves this
freedom, the sense of flight.
I can’t let Tyng take that beauty away
from her.
A flicker of white light over my shoulder
drags my attention back to where it should
be. The crawler’s back, hooking up to the
stack of containers two over from the ones
we’re hiding behind. Fuck, the bastard
unloading is not wasting any time. If Kez
doesn’t hurry, she’s not going to have
anything to hide behind when she gets back. I
turn to call to her, but she’s out of sight
already.
Turning back to the bow, I watch another
line of containers troop down the dock. It’s
maybe twenty meters off the ship, and
another twenty meters before a pair of
mechanical arms clamp the containers and
lift them off the crawler’s tether. Once freed,
the crawler turns and rolls back up the ramp
to the ship. As it turns, its lights sweep
across a pool of darkness between the ship’s
lights and the dock’s.
“Sweet spot,” I whisper.
Erin pulls herself forward, holding the
container for support, and peers around me.
“Here’s how it’s gonna go,” I tell her.
“When the crawler hooks up to this
container, we’re gonna run alongside it to
that sweet spot. Then we’re going to get out
of sight until the bowship leaves and we can
find a way out of the port without being seen.
Got it?”
“Yes,” she hisses. Sounds like she’s in a
lot of pain. Guess the derms Kez had in her
little first aid kit don’t come in super-
strength.
“Can you run?”
“With help.”
Great. Looks like I get to tote the
Überbitch after all.
The crawler hooks up to the adjacent
stack of containers in a series of mechanical
clunks. Neg cells whirring, the containers lift
off the deck and follow the crawler down the
ramp, like a string of baby ducks following
mama. Only these baby ducks are the size of
; an industrial hovercraft.
The port’s mechanical arms reach out.
Gather the containers. The crawler turns and
makes its way back up the ramp.
“This is it,” I tell Erin. Still no sign of
Kez. She asked me to get her sister off the
ship, and that’s what I’m going to do. Then
I’m going back for her. I sling Kez’s
backpack over my shoulders. Pick up Erin’s
equipment bag and settle the carrier strap
across my chest. Makes it awkward to get
Erin’s arm around my shoulders, but Kez
managed it somehow and so do I. I grip her
waist and get ready to run.
A mechanical whump about a centimeter
from my ear announces the crawler hooking
up to the container. The neg cells at the
bottom of the container whir, blowing a puff
of dust around my feet. There’s a second
while everything around me is in motion and
I’m the only still point. Then I’m moving,
pacing the container as it shifts against my
shoulder. Dragging Erin with me. One meter.
Two. She stumbles and I pull her hard
against my side, despite the protest of my
shoulder. Drag her at a fast trot.
The sweet spot welcomes me like Kez’s
arms. I leave the thin safety of the shadows
cast by the container to sink into that deep
blackness. Once I’m within it, my eyes adjust
and I can see the collection of low buildings
that cluster along the side of the dock.
Machinery hutches, or maybe housings for
the big magnets that hold the bowship
motionless. None of them are lit and the only
movement I see is something small and furry
that disappears between two hutches with an
irritated flick of its tail. I follow it, dragging
Erin, and deposit her in the deep shadows
between two hutches. Crouching down, so
whoever is manning the crawler doesn’t see
me when he swings around, I consult the
chrono in my eye. Kez has been gone for four
minutes.
I wait until the crawler’s lights pass our
hiding place, then rise. The crawler trundles
up the ramp, washing the bowship’s bare
forecastle with its spotlights. There are still
two blocks of containers sitting on the deck.
They’ll provide Kez with some cover as she
emerges. But there’s a thirty-meter gap
between the last container and the ramp.
She’ll never cross that without being spotted.
She needs a distraction.
I shuck off Erin’s equipment bag and then
Kez’s backpack. Pull open her backpack and
rummage around in it until I find the pair of
laze-sticks strung on monofilament. I
wouldn’t want to use them in a fight without
some practice, but against a stationary
opponent, like one of the bowship’s big
spotlights, I should be fine.
I move away from Erin, sliding along the
row of hutches until I reach the first one on
the dock. I don’t want to be near her when I
crack the laze-sticks, in case they light up
like a supernova.
When I reach the first hutch, I crouch
down, grip the laze-sticks in my right hand
and check the deck again, searching the
shadows between the containers for any sign
of my kitten.
The crawler’s lights sweep across the
deck. It turns, backing into an alcove beneath
one of the starboard prongs. More
mechanical thunks. Magnets engaging, or
disengaging. I can’t tell which. I grip the
laze-sticks hard, ready to crack them. Then,
in the arc of the crawler’s lights, I see a
gleam between the port containers. A flash of
pale skin? Wide blue eyes? I can’t tell in the
shifting light.
I stand. Take a step out of the shadows.
The lights are fucking with my night vision,
but Kez should be able to see me.
The dock shifts without warning,
knocking me off balance. I fall into a crouch.
Grip the rough permacrete with my
fingertips. The hydraulic cacophony that
heralded the ship docking starts again. I
grimace and focus through the banging filling
my ears. The ship’s leaving. And Kez is still
on it.
The ship’s two front prongs uncouple
from the dock with a thunderous clang.
Mighty neg cells add their whine to the
chorus of the ship’s departure. The bowship
slides back from the dock. A meter. Two.
Movement on the deck, half-obscured by
the rising prongs. Kez streaks across the
gunmetal ceramsteel. She’s sprinting, flat
out. Arms pumping. Dreads streaming behind
her. Fifteen meters. Ten. I meet her eyes.
They’re wide, panicked.
The docking prongs lock into their
upright position with a clang. The water
around the bowship’s float cushion churns.
The gap between the ship and the dock
widens. Three meters. Four.
Kez leaps to the wide rail of the
bowship. She claws Erin’s bag off her back,
twists like a shot-putter and slings it at the
dock. It skitters past me as I drop the laze-
sticks and rush to the edge of the dock.
“Kezra!” I roar at her.
Five meters separate us. Six. Seven. The
ship’s picking up speed.
She shakes her head. She’s going to ride
the bowship back. Back to Ykimo. Straight
into the hands of the fuckers who nearly
killed her. With nothing but flesh to buy her
way out.
“Kezra! Jump!”
She bites her lower lip. Gauges the
distance. Backs up a couple of steps along
the rail.
I mirror her. Calculating her trajectory as
I move. She takes three running steps and
leaps off the rail of the ship. I match her,
kicking hard as I throw myself off the end of
the dock.
I aim just to the right of where Kez will
hit. Stretch out my left arm and snag her
around the waist as the water swallows both
of us. It’s fucking cold. Knocks the breath out
of me. Silences the sound of the two shots
that tear through the water and slam into my
right shoulder.
I jerk backwards, dragging Kez with me.
She struggles toward the surface, but I drag
her further under. It’s dark; the water’s
murky. As long as we don’t surface, we’ll be
hard to spot.
Kez is struggling wildly, but I keep her
under for the last meter, until the absence of
light tells me we’re under the dock. Then I
clamp my hand over her mouth and push her
towards the surface. I follow her up; keep my
hand over her mouth while she snorts air
through her nose.
I tread water, holding Kez tight to my
chest, straining to hear over the lapping
water and the mechanical noises of the dock.
A b
lur of movement off the end of the dock.
A splash.
Kez’s backpack. That fucking bitch.
The backpack’s heavy. It’ll sink like a
stone. I’ve got no idea how deep the water is
here and even if I could get down to the
bottom, I won’t be able to see anything in the
murk. There goes all of Kez’s gear. All our
credits. I’m going to split that bitch from
nose to navel when I catch her.
I tread water, trying to think through my
fury. Move on to the next thing. Feels like
I’ve got lead weights on my feet. I cast
around, see a support pillar outlined by the
port’s lights, and drag Kez to it. Find a slimy
handhold. Hold Kez against my chest and
take my hand off her mouth, let her take a
deep breath.
“Quiet, kitten,” I whisper to her.
She gasps shallowly. “What happened?”
“I think your fucking sister shot me.”
She reaches out to the pillar, digs her
fingers into the slime and grips it while she
gets her breath. I support her and wonder
about the absence of pain. There’s a faint
stinging in my shoulder, but nothing like the
pain I’ve felt before when I’ve been shot.
Maybe whatever she hit me with didn’t
penetrate the shadowsuit.
That hope’s squashed when I notice how
dark the water around us is getting. Kez
notices it too. She holds her hand out, just
under the surface. The water washing over
her palm is noticeably red.
“We’ve got to get out of the water,” she
hisses.
“Yeah, okay.” Too bad, being in the
water is probably why I’m not feeling much
pain.
“Right now! There are tegli in this water.
Go! Go!”
She pushes me away from the pillar. I
look around, orient myself. Find the low,
dark shore a quarter klick away. I glance
back to make sure she’s following me, when
something slams into my upper back.
I go under, struggling, reaching for a
kukri with my left hand. Groping back over
my shoulder with my right. Both shoulders
erupt into white-hot agony. I kick hard, feel
my right boot impact with something rubbery.
My head pops to the surface and I gasp a
lungful of air before the weight on my upper
back drags me under again. Something bumps
hard against my left leg.
White light spears through the murky
water. Sizzles across my vision to explode in
a cloud of bubbles and blood below me. A
dark, sinuous shape twists away from the
light, slapping my leg with a huge tail as it
