allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

  Like the time she locked you out of the ship…for six hours.

  Satisfied with her inspection, she holstered the A6. “When this is over.”

  “Is this because I asked you—”

  “We’ll talk when all this is over, Jon.” Her amber gaze held his. There was fresh damage there, just under the surface. During his admittedly stupid stunt at the tavern, he’d missed something important. He knew from experience that she would let it eat her soul before she said a thing, especially if it meant compromising a “mission” or disappointing him.

  She will put you first every time, Jon.

  He felt a stronger surge of guilt at this. I don’t deserve her. “We’ll get Erelah. Help her. Things will be right. It will be all right. You’ll see.”

  “I wasn’t aware things weren’t.” Sela pivoted out the door. This time moving in the direction of the command loft.

  The rungs of the ladder sounded beneath her boots. “I suggest you bathe before we leave. You smell like a wasterec. Might as well use the water reserves.”

  Jon climbed to his feet. He lifted an arm and sniffed experimentally. He cringed. In fact, a shower sounded like bliss.

  “What’re you doing?” He leaned against the corner bulkhead. She was a dark shape moving in the interior of the loft. They’d agreed to take Corsair’s vessel. Any belongings left in the Cass, the ship itself, would be forfeit to scavs.

  There was a deadly glee in her voice. “Leaving a gift for Koenii.”

  86

  Corsair’s vessel was a Cassandra.

  The fact that it was in far better repair spurred a jealous twinge and worsened the odd pang of leaving their Cass behind.

  Sela wondered how long before Koenii found her. Or the surprise she had left for him.

  The sense of satisfaction was almost worth seeing her destroyed. Realistically she knew the Cass was on her last legs. The primary nodes were held together with patience and good intentions. The ancient cesium manifold was well past any safe limit for compression. It was a matter of time before a catastrophic failure.

  But it had been home—hers and Jon’s.

  Foolish. It’s just a ship.

  There were more pressing matters.

  “How did you locate us?” She watched Corsair prod through the screens of the navsys with an efficiency that seemed unmatched by his hulking appearance. “Hadelia is a large planet. Searching should have taken a considerable amount of time.”

  “It did. Too much.” He paused, gave her a proud grin. “Got lucky when I heard about this crazy Volunteer and a crester castoff taking jobs. I knew it was my girl…Ty.”

  He seemed to enjoy his adoption of her name. No one but Jon called her Ty. Most certainly not this miscreant.

  Sela lunged, grabbing a handful of his jacket and leaning down into his thick face in one quick move.

  He frowned, no doubt surprised by her speed. Good.

  “You will call me Tyron. If that’s too hard to remember, you call me ‘sir.’ Got it?” She jabbed his collar for emphasis.

  “Fair enough.” The frown stretched into that annoying grin again. It failed to match the predatory wariness in his maroon gaze. A Binait mongrel as well. How appropriate. Then, all respect absent: “Sir.”

  She released his jacket. He leaned back into the bench. She returned to her spot.

  It would be infinitely satisfying to remove that insolent smirk from his face, but Jon’s orders had been rather specific. Watch him. Don’t kill him.

  He probably thought himself handsome, but Sela found nothing attractive about him. He was just a big mound of muscle, possessing none of Jon’s refinements. Granted, he spoke High Eugenes, barely.

  Was this the behavior that had won Erelah’s trust? Perhaps the girl had suffered some sort of head trauma…

  The Erelah in the wav was far frailer than even the waif-like creature Jon had pulled from the stryker in the Cassandra’s bay two years ago. The air of composure was still there. She did not gibber nonsense about the Sight or monsters. In fact, she spoke in that same refined High Eugenes that made Sela’s hands instinctively curl into fists.

  Erelah told of the unraveling of her very genetics. It was the result of the tampering done by Tristic to prepare her as a host. A splicer had a means to remedy this, but required a blood relative. Sela had listened with increasing incredulity to the explanation Erelah had given of her missing two years. It was vague enough for Sela to suspect that the girl did not truly understand how this “chrono displacement” had occurred.

  Moving slowly, hands outstretched in a mocking movement as if to say he feared another attack from her, Corsair reached for the navsys and began tabbing through the screens. If her constant glare bothered him, he didn’t let it show. During her time as Commander, if Sela had a man in her unit like this one, she wouldn’t have needed to lift a finger to fix it. The others would have straightened him out soon enough.

  Narasmina was deep within the Reaches, as best as Sela could tell that the Reaches had a beginning, middle or end. The jealously guarded flexer near Hadelia was problematic.

  A glance at the telem showed her the fat-bellied cargo tugs and darting shapes of a dozen other vessels, all near in age to the Cassandra or older. They were cued up for the Poisoncry flexer, obediently waiting their turn to pay the creds to be released. Nothing happened here without their say so.

  Soon one of the Guild’s security skiffs would demand their tithe or blast sizeable holes in their hull. Perhaps even Fisk was watching from somewhere in Hadelia’s vast network of orbiting platforms. At any moment, he’d alert everyone to their presence, order their arrest.

  Yet, Corsair seemed unconcerned.

  She was careful to keep her body at an angle to him and swung the interface screen to her side. “The flexer will put us in at Narasmina. Are you sure? The picket will expect the tithe—”

  “That’s not how this works.” He pulled the screen back. “Erelah trusted me with this. I’ll do the charting.”

  “Which will be extremely difficult with broken fingers.” Sela swung the frame away.

  “This is my ship. My rules,” he countered.

  “I doubt you legally own this vessel.”

  “Your kind are all the same aren’t you? Giant stick up your—”

  “There a problem?” Jon hunched over the railing.

  He seemed less pale, but hurting. She could tell by the stiffness of his moves. The moment they’d breached atmo, Jon had disappeared into the waste rec where he had undoubtedly been heaving his guts out like a booter during null grav training. Whatever the barkeep had given him had yet to work its way out of his system. A smug, small-minded part of her felt vindicated, as if he had somehow earned his lesson about going off to taverns on his own.

  “He refuses to relinquish the navigational criteria for the conduit travel,” Sela blurted before Corsair could say a word. The brigand had somehow influenced Jon, or at least earned a short-sighted trust from him. In his compromised state, Jon was far less wary of the man than was prudent.

  “Who talks like that?” Corsair rolled his eyes.

  “I talk like that,” Sela snapped.

  “Enough.” Jon held his hands out, gesturing for calm. He winced as if his head stung. “Let’s start over.”

  Sela drew in breath to speak. Jon held a hand up to her. He regarded Corsair. “What’s this about? I thought we had an agreement.”

  Corsair flashed her a smug grin. “Still do. But here’s the lay of it. Erelah made a change to this ship. Used the jdrive. Won’t need the flexers.”

  Jon peered at the screen over their shoulders. “My sister trusted you with the device from the Jocosta.”

  “Trusts me with more than that.”

  Revolted, Sela scoffed. How long would Jon allow this farce to continue?

  Corsair regarded Jon. “What’s it gonna be, cap’n?”

  “What about the Poisoncry picket? They can still track a departure,” Sela urged. She thought of Fi
sk hunched like a funnel spider stalking its prey.

  Corsair’s chuckle was a low rumble.

  “What.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about them.”

  “Friends of yours?” Jon asked.

  “Poisoncry? They hate me…or any Ironvale Guild.”

  “That’s so hard to imagine.” Sela glared.

  Jon expelled an impatient breath. “I take it you have a way around that, then?”

  “It won’t matter. Not with the jdrive tech. We don’t need the flexer. Just need to stay clear of velo drive fields of other vessels.”

  Jon watched him for a measuring moment. Sela shook her head slightly. This whole operation was too risky. We don’t know this man. We have no reason to trust him. What are you doing?

  The simpler solution would be to neutralize Corsair and assume control of the vessel. Certainly if this primate could operate the tech, then they could as well.

  Jon blew out beleaguered sigh. “Ty, let him do the plotting.”

  Sela clenched her jaw. There was no talking him out of this. He had closed up.

  “Fine.” With quiet anger, she pushed the navsys back to face Corsair. “But I watch all of it.”

  “Sweetling, you can watch anything you want.” His lecherous tone made her wonder what breaking his jaw would sound like. “It’s only fair after I saw yours.”

  Of course, he was still fixated on having seen her partially clothed. Raised in a gender-mixed group since birth, Sela held none of the concerns on modesty that the conscripts or Kindred held. In fact, it seemed to bother Jon more that another man had seen her shirtless. Ridiculous. Did he think her squad had showered with their utilities on?

  Jon placed a hand on Corsair’s shoulder: “I wouldn’t talk to her like that. Not a good idea.”

  Sela stretched a vulpine grin at him.

  87

  Jon, the things that I do for you.

  Sela leaned against the doorway to what would have been the bunkroom on their own Cass. She recognized something like a homesick twinge.

  The darkened room inside had been reconfigured. There was a wide pallet-style bed on a raised platform. Jon slept sprawled across the covers. The moment they were underway, slipping into the strange space created by the jdrive device, Jon had wandered in here to collapse.

  She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. The light picked out the perfect angle of his jaw and the handsome profile she had committed to memory. A simple nameless warmth flooded out all reason when it came to him.

  The coincidental appearance of Corsair perturbed her. He had intervened on Jon’s behalf. It was very likely that Koenii’s play would have been to hold Jon hostage for the return of the funds or to ensure Sela’s compliance. To Corsair, she felt no gratitude or sense of obligation. Only hostility. The half-breed was far too pleased with himself. He would bear watching. Her impulse was to eliminate him. Even if he were not a threat now, she had seen little evidence that his motivations were entirely noble. Corsair told her that the jdrive reduced a weeklong trip with multiple flexer changes to a journey of just over sixteen hours. Sela would keep watch during every moment of that.

  Erelah. Even resurrected, you do more damage.

  The girl reemerged like a collapsed star, invisible, but exuding an undeniable force on everything that wandered too close to it. It was her involvement with Ravstar that had been the catalyst for Jon’s branding as traitor and Sela’s subsequent defection.

  Erelah. Always Erelah. Even when she was presumed dead, she had a way of being the third person in the room. Her silent ghost witnessed every argument, every loving exchange.

  And now, magically resurrected, she exuded her influence from the other end of the Reaches. Again, she pulled them in a new and reckless direction.

  Hope had found a means to infect Jon once more. That old Jon of strange buoyancy and ready laughter had begun to resurface in pieces, delicate as the new flesh over a wound. Sela feared what was on the horizon would crush it. In turn, she would destroy anything that threatened this man.

  Let the bad things come. Let them try. They will have to deal with me.

  PART X

  88

  Erelah faced the flat gray sky and tried to imagine summer’s warmth. After Asher’s departure, autumn had settled into the region insidiously, the days growing cooler and shorter.

  A gust of wind charged her. She shrank deeper into the heavy folds of his jacket. It was enormous on her. It smelled of him; somehow that made it warmer.

  She was not supposed to leave the bunker. Picus would rail at her when she returned—about being exposed out in the weather, genetics barely stitched together. Degradation held in check with his patient doctoring.

  Erelah wanted—needed—to get out of that cave with its thick metal walls and flat, recycled air. Especially this morning. She did not intend to go far. She felt too tired to venture past the small clearing at the mouth of the bunker’s entrance.

  The place, for all of the homey touches and decadent foods supplied by Kelta, was a prison, and Erelah had seen her fill of that. At first, her trips to the splicer’s secure keep were supposed to be periodic, to receive the treatments. However, news had spread of a bounty placed on a young woman bearing her description and the sighting of mercs had become nearly a daily occurrence. Kelta’s home was no longer a safe harbor. Therefore, in the bunker Erelah remained, counting more days of feeling her illness grow than fade.

  Picus was a reluctant host. It was no secret he preferred being on his own. For all of his respect and perhaps poorly veiled affection for Kelta, he was an inept to all others. Erelah’s presence made him nervous, which resulted in his withdrawing to various “projects” that required his attention. When they did interact, he had an unnatural and annoying knack of telling her exactly what she did not want to hear. His observations were seldom restricted to less volatile subjects. Picus often launched into conversations without preamble. It made it easier for Erelah to understand why he was the recluse he was; no one would willingly seek out his company.

  In the early days of her confinement, Erelah had explored the overflowing workbenches of his sanctum. Only half of the equipment she understood; the remainder was eerily familiar from the time she had spent in Tristic’s medlabs. She avoided those spaces.

  Perhaps he knew.

  He was always examining specimens of her blood. Asking all manner of prying questions.

  He had been especially callous this morning.

  “How can such a bright girl hold such misguided faith in that boy?” he muttered, leaning over the contents of a cargo bin, digging through the chaotic piles of junked tech. A comment meant to be overheard. By boy he meant Asher, of course.

  Erelah did not look up from the centuries-old schematics of an atmospheric runner. It was a beautiful vessel, classic design, and a discovery that would have ordinarily elated her. But her head pounded. That morning’s meal, like the others of the past few days, did not want to simply stay down. His latest provocation was not helping her mood.

  “I trust him. That is sufficient, Mr. Picus.” She tried to be polite to him, for Kelta’s sake. He was so tiresome and curmudgeonly.

  Picus grunted to himself and stopped rummaging. There was a victorious rattle as he found whatever he’d been seeking. “Your brave hero is already three weeks overdue.”

  Not the only thing overdue.

  “He’ll return. I know it.” Erelah kept her voice even. “Any day. Hadelia has many large settlements.”

  “You’ve been saying that since Kelta moved you in here.” He gestured randomly with the broken tech device in hand. “Lady Veradin, it’s quite possible he will not return.”

  “What makes you think you can judge him?” she shot back, suddenly furious.

  “It’s not a judgment. It is fact. Send a man, alone, out there amid that black and death. All the best intentions in the Known Worlds mean nothing to the reality of the matter.”

  “When I wish your insights
, Mr. Picus, I will ask them,” Erelah hissed. “Excuse me.”

  She did not wait for more of a response. Rising swiftly enough to upset her chair, she stalked back to the tiny room she had been using as a bedroom. She held her anger in check and did not slam the door. When she came back out, he was gone. This past week, he had taken to shutting himself away with some engrossing project in one of the side rooms. The door to it was always locked. This suited Erelah just fine.

  For now, she just wanted a sky above her head instead of the overhanging press of rock. The anxiousness was still there, the worry. Picus’s needling had not helped it.

  Black and death.

  Asher, please be safe. I need you here, especially now.

  She shut her eyes, feeling the tears build. It was easier to do this out here. There was no way she was going to cry in front of Picus. When she opened them, she nearly collided with a tiny blond shape.

  Mim. Erelah made a stumbling side step. “What are you doing here?”

  The girl did nothing in the way of offering an apology. She turned her maroon eyes up at Erelah. Dressed in a thin tunic over leggings, the child did not seem bothered by the new onset of cold weather.

  “You’re not ‘posed to be outside without no one.” Mim folded her arms and sank her weight onto one foot.

  Erelah stooped to the girl’s-eye view. “And I thought I told you not to follow me. It’s not polite.”

  Mim raised a delicate eyebrow. “Miss Kelta said this was special circus…circle…”

  “Circumstance?” Erelah finished, sighing.

  The girl gave an enthusiastic nod.

  Mim canted her head, tiny mouth puckered in thought. She looked her up and down.

  “What is it?”

  “Your colors look all funny…wrong-like.” She waved her hands, fingers wriggling.