by Jake Bible
There were also the corpses of Bouln and Ezze on the ground, blood pouring from their bodies. Mees was crouched over Ezze, sobbing. Then she wasn’t as most of her head was obliterated. Coult was nowhere to be seen.
“I saw a way out back there,” Roak said to Hail.
He handed her his Flott as he pushed the rifle’s butt to his shoulder and returned fire. The plasma blasts stopped for a moment. But only for a moment.
“There’s barely any charge,” Hail said, staring at the Flott as she also tried to flatten her body into the plasticrete floor. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Pull out the magazine and reach up inside with two fingers,” Roak said. “You’ll feel a flat piece of metal. I want you to pull that piece out. It’ll probably tear the tips of your fingers open, but you have to do it.”
“Way to sell it,” Hail said.
“We’re going to overload the Flott and throw it at the assholes shooting at us,” Roak said. “You ever see an overloaded Flott go boom before?”
“No.”
“Exactly. You’d be blind for life if you did. Now pull out the magazine and mess that pistol up.”
Hail got to work as Roak continued to fire the rifle. He couldn’t see his targets, but he saw where the plasma was coming from. He fired and fired, trying to give Hail enough time to do what he’d asked while also keeping the attackers from ripping them to shreds.
He almost accomplished all his goals. A plasma blast tore into the top of his left shoulder and exited out his armpit, taking a good amount of flesh with it. His left arm went limp and useless. The agony was enough that Roak’s right hand lost its grip on his rifle.
“Roak?” Hail asked.
“Keep working,” he snarled as he struggled to get control of his weapon again.
“Okay, okay, I got it,” Hail said.
“Pull the trigger and throw it as far as you can,” Roak said, finally able to grip the rifle once more. “Now!”
Hail pulled the trigger and threw the Flott as far as she could without standing up and becoming a target. Roak gave her cover, firing until the plasma rifle powered down. Then he grabbed Hail’s arm and yanked her to the floor. He pulled her face to his chest, screaming as he rolled onto his left arm.
“Close your eyes!” Roak yelled as he took his own advice.
The tunnel became sun bright with a white hot light that threatened to burn Roak’s retinas even with his eyes squeezed shut. There were screams from down the tunnel then silence. Roak didn’t waste a moment and shoved up onto his feet, pulling Hail up with him.
“I can’t see shit,” Hail said, patting at Roak’s body.
“Neither can I,” he admitted, desperate to blink away the massive white spots that occluded his vision. “But we can still run.”
Hail laughed, but didn’t argue.
They stumble-ran back the way they had come, each of them blinking continuously as they fled. They’d gone maybe a quarter of a kilometer before the plasma fire started up again behind them. Roak flinched, but didn’t slow or stop to throw them back to the floor.
His guess was someone was firing blindly, and even if they could see the two retreating, they were well out of range of the rifles that had been used to ambush them. Roak kept them moving until his internal compass told him to stop.
His vision was better, but it wasn’t yet fully functional. He yanked Hail over close to the wall with his good arm and dropped to his knees. Roak felt around frantically with one hand until he found what he was searching for.
“You know this door?” Roak asked.
“What door?” Hail replied.
“Never mind,” Roak said as he activated the lever hidden in the seam between wall and floor.
The door popped open enough for him to squeeze his fingers through then pull it all the way open. He shoved Hail inside, followed close behind, reached back and sighed with relief when he found the handle, then shut the door and pressed himself to the door as his eyes slowly, very slowly, adjusted to the new environs, while he also waited to be killed at any moment by whoever they may have just barged in on.
The room was empty.
“Roak? What are we—?”
Roak placed a hand over her mouth and shook his head.
Dusty furniture with strange shapes piled on top. Brownish light glinting through the far off window. The smell of mold and mildew almost overpowering. An old retail shop left to rot.
No one was going to jump out at them with a gas-powered slug chunker or scatter blaster.
Roak slid to the floor and began panting heavily.
“You’re going into shock,” Hail whispered as she gingerly inspected his shoulder.
“Yeah. Been doing that lately,” Roak whispered back. He hissed hard through clenched teeth as Hail’s fingers found the edges of the wound. “Careful. It’s a through and through. Won’t be needing deodorant in that pit for a while.”
Hail gasped then clapped blood-sticky hands over her mouth and froze. Roak listened; they both listened. No one responded to the gasp that seemed to echo forever in the empty store.
“You need a med pod,” Hail said. “Now.”
“Don’t have that luxury at the moment,” Roak said. He could feel the world closing in on him and knew he needed to fight hard to stay awake. “You’ll need to cauterize the wound until I can get it taken care of the right way.”
“Cauterize…?”
“Yeah, that means burn it closed,” Roak said. “It’s not hard. I’ve done it before. More than a few times. I’ll talk you through it.”
“But…with what?” Hail asked.
“You have a fully loaded Blorta 22 in your belt that you didn’t use,” Roak said. He heard the words and shook his head. “Not judging. Fighting isn’t your job.”
“No. It’s not,” Hail said. “Okay…how do we do this?”
“First, help me away from this wall. I’m going to make some noise and we don’t want the shooters in the tunnel to hear me. There has to be another room.”
Hail glanced around and nodded towards a door. “Bathroom.”
“Good. We’ll need the water. If it’s on. Take me there.”
Hail helped Roak back to his feet and struggled to get him to the bathroom. She shoved open the door and stared at the black mold that coated every square inch.
“Toss me in there,” Roak said, nodding to a shower stall.
“In there? You see what’s growing in this room? This mold will kill you. It’ll kill both of us,” Hail said.
Roak nodded. “Probably. I can see it moving. But no choice. Get me in the shower.”
Hail helped him to the shower and Roak slid to the bottom, his back leaving a long smear on the shower wall.
“Blorta. Now,” Roak said. “But cut my armor off first. Should be easy since the blast ripped through the seam. What are the odds?”
He pulled his knife and handed it to her.
“Try not to stab me.”
Hail gulped down air and got to work. She cut the scorched armor free from Roak’s arm. Roak tried to stay still, but each time the armor’s material stabbed into the hole in his body, he shivered and pulled away.
“Sorry,” he said, panting heavier than before. “I’ll pass out when you start in with the laser. That’ll make the job easier.”
“Easier? You said you’d talk me through it,” Hail snapped at him.
“I will. You’ll have to memorize the steps,” Roak said. He started to shrug then thought better and laughed. “Trust me. You’ll want me unconscious. Get to it.”
Hail pulled her Blorta and stared at the small pistol while Roak went over the procedure with her. Roak snapped his fingers with his good arm.
“Hey. You listening?” he asked. “Don’t get weak on me now, lady. You’ve been busting my nuts since I met you, don’t quit over a little cauterizing work.”
Hail gave him a small grin and nodded.
“Do it,” Roak ordered.
Hail did it
.
The pain was not the most excruciating Roak had ever felt. Wasn’t even the worst cauterization job he’d been subjected to. But the process was still taking a laser to flesh that had been brutally mangled by a plasma blast. Normally, plasma would have cauterized most of the wound on its own, but Roak’s armor took some of the bite out on contact so the blast finished off by tearing and ripping and shredding the last layer of armor, which ended up doing the same to Roak’s flesh.
Hail was halfway done when Roak finally passed out.
23.
Gentle pat. Gentle pat. Hard slap.
“I’m awake,” Roak gasped. “Don’t hit me—”
Hail’s hand, he could tell from the smell, covered his mouth and he shut up. His eyes popped open and the woman’s face was only centimeters from his, her eyes wide with fear and panic.
Roak was not happy to wake up to that. He felt liked hammered terpigshit and having to calm down a Lipian as his first conscious act did not sound like fun. He nodded slowly and Hail removed her hand. Then his eyes went to the bathroom door where Hail had been busy.
The metal alloy toilet and metal alloy sink had been removed from their normal positions and stacked against the door. The sink was wedged so that it was braced between the door and the shower stall with the toilet on top for weight, keeping the door from being able to slide freely open. Roak nodded in approval. He figured she’d probably had to barricade herself in more than one bathroom before, considering her line of work.
Roak met Hail’s eyes and asked a silent question. Hail shook her head. She had no idea who was out in the store. Roak’s eyes kept asking and Hail held up one then two then a third finger, but quickly lowered the third finger.
Two, maybe three, outside the bathroom.
Someone tried the bathroom door. Roak glanced up at the single halogen in the ceiling and hoped to all the Eight Million Gods the bathroom door was sealed well enough that the light didn’t leak out into the other room. He was surprised there was even power to the abandoned store, but it was probably easier to keep power flowing than to have to switch it off then switch it back on again later.
Razer Station wasn’t exactly known for having a motivated maintenance staff. Like everything else on the station, maintenance was a racket, so price dictated service.
The person continued working the door then gave up and walked away, saying something to someone else. The words were impossible to make out, but the tone was easy to decipher. Whoever was out there was hunting. The sounds of the search continued for a long while then slowly, quietly eased away.
After a good fifteen minutes had passed without any noise at all, Roak nodded to Hail.
She shook her head. He sighed and rolled his eyes. She shook her head no again.
“Move,” Roak whispered as quietly as he could while also getting across that he was done waiting and it was time for her to get all the Hells out of his way. He was successful and Hail finally nodded then helped him up and out of the shower.
First thing Roak did was inspect his wound. It was a charred mess and considering the environment he was in, the flesh would turn sour within hours if he didn’t reach a med pod in time. There was a distinct risk of him losing the whole arm. Roak did not want that. He hated the comm implant in his head, so he sure as all the Hells didn’t want a cybernetic arm.
He smiled to himself at the thought of a one-armed Roak.
“What’s so funny?” Hail whispered.
“Nothing,” Roak said and frowned at the fixtures blocking their way. “Can you move those quietly?”
“Yes,” Hail said and got to work.
Roak was quickly reminded that Lipians were genetically designed to be physical beings first and foremost. Hail struggled, but she was able to lift, twist, and get the toilet then sink back to their original positions by herself; she’d obviously gotten them to the door by herself, so Roak shouldn’t have been surprised.
Once the manual labor was done, Hail slowly, so slowly, as if she was trying to stop time, slid the bathroom door open, her face scrunched up, waiting for the plasma blasts to tear her apart.
“They’re gone,” Roak said when the door was halfway open. “I can tell.”
Hail did not act like his words were a comfort. She continued to be cautious until the door was all the way open. Then she peered into the gloom and waited.
“We need to hurry,” Roak said. “Our luck ain’t gonna hold long. Where’s the closest med pod you can safely get me to?”
“What?” Hail asked. “There isn’t one. Unless you want to go back to my place. Otherwise, I have no clue.”
“Come on, there has to be a medic on the take or some backroom clinic in this sector,” Roak said.
“Backroom clinic? Medic on the take? What station do you think you’re on? People can’t be trusted, Roak,” Hail said. “If you get hurt on Razer, you better have access to a med pod or you’re dead.”
“Right. So… Where’s the closest med pod?”
“Mine, you dumbass. Mine was the one people came to,” Hail stated. “I was the backroom clinic.”
“Great,” Roak said and growled. “Then we need to find a new one on the way. If I had Hessa in my ear, she’d find one.”
Roak squeezed his eyes together and chuckled.
“Never thought I’d say that.”
“Yes, finding a med pod for you is a priority. But so is finding the others,” Hail said.
Roak opened his eyes and stared at her.
“Are you joking?” he snapped. “We aren’t finding anyone. Our only chance at staying alive is getting from here to my ship and off this station as fast as possible.”
“What? No. We aren’t leaving my friends. And what about your bounty? Don’t you want to find Pol so you can get paid?”
“That’d be great,” Roak said. “And while you’re granting wishes, I’d also like the Edgers to be moltrans’d into a black hole.”
“You’re serious?” Hail asked, staring hard at Roak. “You plan on ditching everyone.”
“Listen, and I’m only going to explain this once. There is a reason I’m still alive,” Roak said slowly. “Because I know when to cut and run. Chits do you no good if you’re dead. And I don’t need Pol for the bounty. I now have a lead on thirty million plus chits. My chits. The chits I know Bishop stole from me.”
The mention of Bishop’s name made Hail flinch.
“You’re a heartless bastard,” she said.
“No, I’m a bastard with a heart that is still beating. This bastard would like to keep it that way. We go hunting for your friends or Pol—”
“And Spickle and Sath,” Hail interrupted.
“Forget the Maglors!” Roak snarled in a hushed shout. “Forget everyone. If you want off this station, then we need to move fast. No looking for Lipian whores. No looking for monkey boys. No looking for an old tech. We look for a med pod to fix me up then we head straight for my ship.”
“How?” Hail asked after a few seconds of fuming. “How are we going to get to your ship? Even if you weren’t injured, that would be quite the trick since so far you’ve only gotten us here where we get to breathe in black mold and probably die of ten million cancers before Friday.”
Roak smirked. Hail slapped the smirk off his face.
“Ow,” he said calmly. “You done?”
She wasn’t. She smacked him twice more before he caught her hand at a third attempt. Roak was in no physical condition to fight her, and the fact she was pushing his arm back towards him proved that, so he quickly let go, took the third slap he knew was coming, and waited for Hail to calm down as he rubbed his cheek.
“Let me ask you this, okay? Where do we start looking for your friends? Huh? Where do we start looking for Pol and the Maglors? If you can answer with a solution that is less dangerous than getting me into a med pod then us to my ship, I’ll risk losing this arm and start hunting the missing members of our failed little escape party.”
Hail opened her mo
uth several times and Roak let her. He waited her out. She continued to try to vocalize a solution to her desire, but after about three minutes, she gave up and shook her head.
“Exactly. We get me healed then we go to my ship,” Roak said. “Anything else is suicide. I don’t want to commit suicide.”
“What if we find out where everyone is along the way?” Hail asked. “Do we double back for them or are they still on their own?”
Roak not answering the question was his answer.
“Eight Million Gods,” Hail whispered. “You’re as bad as they say.”
“That so? Huh,” Roak replied. “They don’t know me very well.”
“Oh, because you aren’t as bad?”
“No, because I’m worse,” Roak said flatly. “And no one ever seems to get that. You’d think by now they’d stop underestimating me.”
“Is that ego of yours working on how we find you a med pod?” Hail asked. “Because I don’t know where one is. Honest. I’d take you there now and dump your cruel ass if I did.”
Roak found a chair thick with mold and sat down, his ass squishing into the smooth carpet of fungus that had overtaken the cushion. He stared at the grimed-over storefront window for a few seconds.
“They’re everywhere,” Roak mumbled.
“Not really or I’d know where one is,” Hail replied.
Roak held up a finger and shook his head, but didn’t say anything else for a while.
“No, they’re everywhere. Even on Razer Station.” He smiled at Hail. “Where’s the closest chapel? Is there one on this level? Down the thoroughfare?”
“Chapel? You gonna pray the wound away?” Hail laughed then cut herself off. “Oh. Right. Uh… Let me think a second.”
Hessa would have gotten him out of the store and on his way in less than a second. He wanted to kick himself for realizing that she was an asset to his job, and his mortal well-being, after all.
“Yes,” Hail said, brightening considerably. “A chapel is down the way. Maybe a quarter click. Or even less. You think they’ll have a med pod in the back? One they use for the poor?”
