by Zoe York
Ying planted her feet firmly on the floor, resisting the downward pressure and squirming against him, trying to keep him from noticing her hand. Her fingers had brushed something metallic in his pocket.
Wolf smashed his mouth against hers, his fingers digging into her neck harder, daring her to resist. Though she wanted to show him nothing but toughness and defiance, the pain made tears spring to her eyes despite her best efforts to deny them. Wolf bit down, slicing through her bottom lip and groaning into her throat as he tasted her blood.
A comm whistled, but he did not seem to hear it. Ying tried to pull her head back, to escape his cruel grip and his crueler teeth, but the pole and his hand around her neck kept her in place.
The comm whistled again, and he growled and pulled back. He released her and stomped to the dresser, hitting a button next to one of the terrariums. “What?”
“We’re having a problem, Captain.”
“Yeah? Deal with it.”
“There’s an alarm that’s going off in engineering, saying we have a fire somewhere on the ship. We can’t find anything, but some firefighters are here from the station. They say they can see our ship venting smoke, and that if we can’t put it out, we’ll have to leave the dock.”
Ying was careful to keep her expression blank, but her mind was racing. Firefighters? It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Had Marat found a way to escape Striker and come to help her? As much as she didn’t want to have to rely on anyone, she would be idiotic to refuse help at this instant.
Wolf gritted his teeth, and for a second, Ying thought he would ignore his man and continue what he had been doing. Instead, he grabbed his boots and stalked out of the room. After the door slid shut, a faint thunk reached her ear. A lock engaging?
Ying looked down at her free hand, which was balled into a fist. She uncurled her fingers carefully so she would not drop what she had dug out of his pocket. She feared she had gotten nothing except a tin of quick-chew or gum, but two tiny lights blinked on the end of the compact oval shape, and a clip hung from the end, so it could be secured to a belt.
She smiled slowly, ignoring the blood dripping from her lip. She didn’t know if the key to the cuffs would let her escape his room, but she vowed to be ready for him when he returned.
• • • • •
Striker hustled to the corner and elbowed Marat. “You know how you said androids were good at resisting bullets and lasers?”
“Yes,” Marat murmured, barely hearing him. His attention was focused on the six men crouched in the defensive alcoves built into the sides of the straight corridor that lay around the corner. The corridor led to the bridge, to engineering, and eventually to the crew cabins—the captain’s cabin—where he assumed Ying had been imprisoned. He knew the layout of the ship well enough to know it was the only route that led to their destination from here.
“They’re not so good at resisting fire and explosives.”
“Got any more explosives?” Marat tilted his head toward the corridor.
Before Striker could ready a grenade, a soft tink-tink-plunk sounded, something bouncing toward them. Marat’s instincts almost told him to look, but he caught himself at the same time as Striker growled, “Back up,” and grabbed his arm.
As they skittered backward, whatever the pirates had thrown exploded, and bluish-green smoke billowed around the corner. That hadn’t been a large enough boom to imply destruction had been the primary purpose of the bomb. Tear gas? Knockout gas? He held his breath, since he had already smelled smoke earlier and knew his suit wasn’t as self-contained as it should be.
Marat’s foot caught on one of the bodies, reminding him that he had killed people here and that these pirates would do the same if they got the chance. He did not like that they were being forced backward, but he didn’t know what else to do. They hadn’t found their way into the ship through subterfuge, as he had wanted, and they weren’t anywhere close to the cabins. Even with Striker’s arsenal, how could they plow their way through the entire crew?
A clatter arose behind them, coming from the airlock tube.
“Shit,” Striker growled. He spun in that direction and threw the grenade he had been readying. “Didn’t expect any to come in from the station behind us. Watch the—”
The roar of his grenade drowned out the words, but Marat had no trouble guessing them. He dropped to one knee beside the wall and faced the smoke, his pistol and the one he had taken from the dead pirate raised and ready. Even though they had put some space between themselves and the corner, the smoke wafted toward them, and Marat’s nostrils itched.
A blast door slammed shut at the mouth of the airlock tube, and an alarm started wailing. Laser fire screamed behind him, not just from Striker’s gun, but from someone else’s, too, someone who was approaching them from the other end of the corridor they were in.
“Good news and bad news,” Striker announced.
“Yeah?”
“Bad news is we’re surrounded, and I had to blow up the tube to keep people from coming in from that direction. So we can’t get out.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I’ve got lots of grenades left.” Striker flashed a grin that was visible even through the reflection of his faceplate.
Maniac. If he was considering surrendering, he didn’t mention it. Maybe because he had already come to the same conclusion Marat had, that surrender would only result in their executions. Marat grimaced. He had led his comrade into this, into certain death, and for what? Ying hadn’t even asked for his help.
Striker armed another grenade and hurled it toward the newcomers.
Two figures came around the corner, barely visible in the smoke. Marat did not hesitate to fire, but the laser beams splashed harmlessly off combat armor, the gleaming white metal far more sleek, modern, and impenetrable than his fire suit. He backed up until he almost bumped Striker and grabbed one of the grenades out of his bandolier. He threw it, but not before lasers streaked out of the smoke.
“Down,” Marat yelled, dropping to his belly.
Striker ignored him and continuing shooting at his adversaries. He took two crimson bolts in the back of his suit. It smoldered, but he didn’t cry out with pain.
Marat’s grenade went off, flinging shrapnel and some kind of droplets that sizzled when they struck the wall. The two figures in combat armor had ducked back around the corner before it exploded. He hoped they were catching some of that acid.
Marat tried to rise to his feet, but the heavy suit made the attempt cumbersome. He had only reached his knees when four more men in armor charged around the corner he was supposed to be guarding. He fired at them, but knew the lasers would do nothing to slow them down. Stopping them would take a weapon with a lot more punch. He glanced back, hoping to steal another grenade, but Striker had advanced several feet, shooting at a knot of men coming down the corridor from that direction.
The flamethrower lay on the ground behind him. Marat didn’t know if it was out of fuel, but had a vague notion that fire might scare the armored men more than lasers. He grabbed the weapon and lunged to his feet.
A laser bolt nailed him in the shoulder. It had plenty of bite even through the suit, and he gritted his teeth and braced himself to keep from being knocked back. Instead, he fired up the flamethrower and advanced toward the pirates. He boosted it to maximum and sent gouts of flames streaming at the armored men. They hesitated, but lasers still streaked through the fire at Marat.
Knowing his suit couldn’t take much more damage, he yelled and charged at the pirates. He bathed the corridor in flames, trying to catch the walls on fire, even if he couldn’t bake the men. A yell came from one of the helmets. Marat had no idea if the fire had hurt the man, or if one of his comrades had stepped on his foot, but he would take any victory.
An unexpected shudder wracked the ship, and he faltered.
“Now what?” Marat groaned, envisioning some damage that Striker’s grenade might have done to the ext
erior of the ship. Maybe the explosion had not only knocked out the airlock tube but had been powerful enough to impact the docking clamps too. He imagined the ship bumping into the side of the station before Wolf’s pilot woke up and realized they had been set adrift.
Striker didn’t answer. He was too busy backing up. “Incoming,” he barked.
Marat continued to spray flames at the men in the corridor, but he didn’t know what else to do. More armored pirates had gathered at the corner, and several rifles and pistols were pointed in his direction.
Striker threw a grenade toward them, something different this time. Blue smoke exploded from it, and Marat’s flames ignited. The air turned into an orange inferno around the pirates.
An alarm blared, the fire alarm. Marat would have laughed if there had been time. But an explosion roared behind him. The shockwave slammed into the back of his suit so hard that it knocked his forehead against the faceplate. He was hurled into the wall, and blackness encroached on his vision. He felt himself falling but could do nothing to catch himself. His last thought was to wish he had said goodbye to Ying. It was too late now.
— TEN —
As soon as the cuffs fell to the floor, Ying strode to the terrarium. She squinted at the spider, checking the markings on its back up close to make sure she had identified it correctly. The big arachnid reared back and hissed at her.
“I see you’re as friendly as your captain,” she muttered, rethinking what she had told Marat about spiders being lucky. “Hope you’re not attached to your master.”
She dug through the drawers, hunting for any useful implements she could use to extract the venom. Normally, she would have to sedate a spider and remove the part of the creature that contained the venom glands, but the web-slinger was so large, she thought she could milk it like a snake. Alas, she could not trust the creature to bite the right person if she simply laid it on the bed.
“Come on,” she muttered, abandoning the dresser and hunting in a closet. Running footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Ying worried that Wolf would return before she had time to do anything.
As she rooted through clothing and a pile of weapons so bizarre and exotic that she couldn’t name them, she worried she wouldn’t find anything useful. She did grab one of the small daggers. If nothing else, she might get a chance to jab it into him.
She paused as a new thought came to her. Since Wolf liked his sex rough, he might keep a medical kit in his lavatory, if only because he could receive wounds he would be embarrassed to show to his doctor. That might have a few useful tools.
More footsteps charged past in the corridor. Something was definitely going on. It occurred to her that she hadn’t checked to make sure the door was locked. Even if it was, maybe she could find a way to override it and escape. But she didn’t want to simply escape. More than ever, she wanted to kill that man.
She ducked into the lavatory to look for the medical kit. But when she poked through the drawers in there, she did not find one. Desperate, she grabbed a drinking glass by the sink. It was a clunky tool for the job, but she ran back to the terrarium. She almost snatched up the spider and started right away, but she didn’t need to paralyze herself. She pulled out a thin shirt and wrapped it around her hand, making as much of a protective barrier as she could without losing her ability to grab the creature. She pushed the lid off the terrarium and lowered the glass, so the spider would have something besides her hand to look at. She grabbed the hairy carapace from behind. It hissed at her again. She lowered it to the glass, trying to get it to bite the rim. It latched on with alarming vigor. She would not want this beast biting her.
“This would be easier if you were a snake,” she muttered, chagrined by how little venom appeared on the rim. “I don’t suppose you could ooze that stuff out more vigorously?”
Usually, spider eyes weren’t the most expressive things, but these beady black ones managed to seethe with loathing. Maybe Wolf kept it hungry so it would be irate with his slaves when he wanted it to be.
A clank came from the corridor, and the outer door opened. Cursing to herself, Ying dropped the spider. There was no time to put the lid back on the terrarium. All she could do was grab the glass and the dagger, then lunge for the pole she had been tied to. She just managed to kick the flex-cuffs under the drape of the bedspread and put her back to the pole before Wolf appeared in the doorway to the bedroom.
He scowled at her as he strode for the closet. Ying turned so he wouldn’t see that she was no longer bound. At the same time, she slid the edge of the dagger along the top of the glass. Without being able to see what she was doing, it would be sheer luck if she managed to smear the venom on the blade without cutting herself.
“No time for fun.” Wolf pulled out a case of combat armor along with two heavy assault rifles. “Your mercenary boyfriend is here. I don’t know how much you promised to get Mandrake Company involved with your little scheme, but their pathetic grunts won’t live to see their payday.” He snarled at her, lashing out with his free hand as he headed back for the door.
It was a half-hearted attack, and Ying ducked it. He would have kept going, but she threw the glass at the floor in front of his feet. Unfortunately, it was glastica and didn’t shatter as the real thing would have. It did cause him to glance down, and that was all Ying needed.
She had no idea if she had managed to smear any of the venom on the dagger, but the weapon could kill him by itself. She pushed off the top of the bed and sprang. He dropped his case and started to turn toward her, but she landed on his back first, locking her legs around him and wrapping one arm around his neck. She jabbed the dagger downward, aiming for his jugular.
He whipped his arm up. Her blade jammed into flesh, as she’d hoped, but his forearm instead of his throat. Before she had the satisfaction of seeing blood, his powerful hand tore her away from him. She lost her grip with her legs and fell, slamming against his case of armor.
When she hit the floor, she rolled away, trying to put space between them. A good thing because he stomped down hard enough that he would have crushed ribs if she had been there. Ying jumped to her feet, holding the dagger in front of her, as if it would be enough to shield her from his wrath. He grabbed one of his rifles, and she froze. Would he simply shoot her? After all of his plans to torment her?
He paused, the weapon pointed at her chest. Maybe he was wondering the same question.
Ying thought about hurling the knife at him, but he could shoot her in an instant, much more quickly than she could raise the blade to throw.
An indistinguishable shout came from the corridor outside. The floor shuddered. No, the entire ship shuddered.
“Now what?” Wolf growled. His voice slurred.
Hope rose in Ying’s breast. The venom. Had enough slipped into his blood to affect him?
He snarled again, his finger flexing on the trigger. He fired and turned toward the door, or at least that was what it looked like he meant to do. His finger moved slowly, and Ying had time to drop to the floor before the laser beam scorched the air where she had been. Wolf grew tangled in his own feet and toppled, smashing against the corner of his armor case before landing in an ungainly pile.
When her opportunity came, Ying did not hesitate. She leaped onto him and drove the dagger into the back of his neck.
• • • • •
When awareness returned, Marat realized two things. First, that he was flat on his back with the fire alarm still blaring. Second, that he couldn’t move, because a very heavy combat boot stood on his chest.
The owner could have crushed him, but he was merely standing there, as if he were claiming Marat as he gazed across some newly discovered terrain, a massive wide-barreled rifle in his arms. The armored figure wore a helmet, so Marat couldn’t have identified the occupant even if the figure had been looking down. Was it one of Wolf’s men? That gray armor looked similar to what Mandrake Company used in space battles. But how could the mercenaries have gotten in with the airlock
tube blown? They would have had to send over one of the combat shuttles with the capability to cut a hole in the hull for boarding. A new jolt of alarm went through Marat as he realized that alarm might be wailing about more than fire, if the ship had been breached and was losing its atmosphere.
From his back, Marat couldn’t see much of the corridor, but in his peripheral vision, he could see that several bodies lay on the ground all around him. There were more than the two that he had taken down at the beginning. The rest were armored, their suits blasted open by some heavy anti-armor weapons.
Aside from the alarm, the corridor wasn’t nearly as chaotic and noisy as it had been earlier. In fact, if he focused, Marat could hear voices.
“...wasn’t my idea, Captain,” Striker said from somewhere nearby.
Marat’s first thought was that he was talking to Captain Wolf, but the figure atop him looked down.
“Oh, I am fully aware that Azarov is the mastermind here,” Captain Mandrake said, his voice cold.
The chill and the disappointment in that voice made Marat wish he had woken up chained in some pirate torture chamber. Mastermind. More like master idiot. And Mandrake knew that fully well.
Heavy footsteps came from somewhere behind Marat’s head. “Corridor’s secure, sir. We’re still looking for Wolf.”
“Understood, Hazel. Take alpha squad and secure the bridge. Bravo squad, secure engineering.” Mandrake removed his boot from Marat’s chest. Before Marat could feel any relief, Mandrake reached down and grabbed him by the front of his suit. He hauled Marat up, not bothered by his weight or the extra hundred-odd pounds the suit gave him. “I’ll take my fire-flinging heroes to the crew quarters,” Mandrake finished, spinning Marat around none-to-gently.
“Yes, sir,” several figures in combat armor said, then disappeared around the corner, weapons at the ready.
Now that Marat was standing and had a view of the corridor, the carnage amazed him. The deck was a tangle of charred armor and warped paneling that had been blown off the walls and ceiling. Pockmarks dotted the walls and deck underneath the dead men. For his sake and Striker’s, Marat hoped the company hadn’t lost anyone. Mandrake was rightfully pissed, but if he had gained a ship and killed a nemesis, might he be more lenient with his punishment?
