Iridian inhaled and spun away from the weapon he held to her back, slightly on her right side. Oarman didn’t hesitate. She staggered under the deep pain of her body telling her that what she was doing could kill her, and she should stop.
As she fell, she grabbed Oarman’s arm. When the mercs opened up on them, he took most of the hits. He didn’t have as much armor as she did, and what he had was melted in the back. Something hit her shoulder and knocked her flat on her back. Metal tiles slammed into her unprotected head.
Fugees squalled something approaching a war cry and charged out of the container. At last, a problem Iridian was prepared for: optimistic infantry officers. Good intentions didn’t block bullets. Standing set off gut-wrenching pain from the knife wound. Warm blood flowed down the back of her thigh inside the suit. Her shield kept her and the fugee to her left from losing their faces.
The fugees carried rebars, the kind used in building foundations. What they lacked in skill they made up for in number and enthusiasm. A man who’d bought her rounds at the wake hit a merc’s arms hard enough to create a long, splintered dent in the armor, though not to break the arm. The merc still howled. The armor splinters must’ve punctured the lining and the flesh underneath. Other fugees did a passable job of knocking weapons out of merc hands. But once the mercs got their bearings, the unarmed fugees went down fast beneath armored fists.
“Pick up the gods-damned weapons!” Iridian bellowed. The one Oarman took from her lay just beyond her reach. She staggered the required quarter meter. Once she got low enough to grab it, trying to stand felt like torture. She took a knee and aimed from behind her shield, forcing her throbbing lower back muscles to support her.
Fourteen. Only precise chest shots were reliably lethal. Modern armor had two cavitation chambers, not by design but by necessity, and lungs were delicate. She missed three before her fifteenth kill. At least one of her misses punched through a wall behind the merc, on its way to fuck up somebody else’s day.
Between the rebar, the losses, and the limited but persistent returned fire, the mercs took off down the corridor Iridian had just left. The fugees cheered.
She sank to both knees on the floor next to Oarman. The pain when she inhaled made her take shallower breaths, and that and the dead traitor beside her were not improving her nausea. He must’ve been hoping to keep Iridian’s helmet. Now he didn’t have much of a head to put it on. Some kind of transponder lay in pieces beside him, with pieces of him mixed in.
She peeled his fingers off the helmet. Sturm would give her that disappointed oldster look if she left it somewhere. A passing fugee accepted Oarman’s weapon when she handed it to him, and watched her retrieve the knife still wet with her blood. It was a big utility tool with a sixteen-centimeter blade. If the hair of the dog that bit you is so great, how about the blood off the blade that stabbed you? She laughed, which hurt, and resisted an impulse to lick it.
The fugee she’d handed weapons to stared at her. “Have you seen a guy named Pel?” she asked him. “He’s the only skinny blind pirate we’ve got.”
The fugee pointed at the container. “In there. He’s in a bad way.”
She forced herself upright, paused to get a handle on the pain and take a few pulls of water from her suit’s reservoir, then lurched into the container. Two dead fugees sprawled across the blood-slicked floor and over stacked construction material. “Pel?” The shout sounded hollow in the cramped space.
The container held a bulk shipment of the bars the fugees had come out swinging. She followed shallow gasps until she found him curled up behind a stack of them. She stowed the utility tool and pointed her helmet headlamp down at him. He was pale and dripping sweat. The skin around his eyes was red and swollen, especially at the corners.
She smiled wide anyway, because he was alive and in one piece. “Pel Mel, it’s Iridian.”
“I know what you sound like.” His voice was bled dry of its usual energy, the way Si Po had sounded in those last few minutes outside.
Iridian’s breath caught, but she wouldn’t let that happen again. Not this near base. “Are you hurt?”
“Not shot, if that’s what you mean.” He gripped a bound pallet of metal bars and tried to pull himself up. It shifted and clanked under his hand and he let go in a hurry. She hauled him to a standing position, putting the smallest possible amount of her radioactively contaminated armor in contact with his skin. They both groaned in pain.
“Adda’s waiting for us,” she panted. “And you know how she feels about being late.”
Pel’s hoarse voice took on a higher pitch. “Waste your own time, don’t waste mine.”
CHAPTER 29
Charges Accrued: Unauthorized Direction of Artificial Intelligence
“The interference is gone,” Adda’s mental representation of AegiSKADA said into the still workspace non-air. Even after the intelligence released all the ports it had closed, whatever the Transorbital mercenaries had carried with them had still blocked its sensor network wherever their leader went and interfered with comms signals too, until now. “Now you can speak to whomever you like,” the intelligence added, beaming in childlike glee.
Despite AegiSKADA’s creepy visualization, Adda grinned along with it. “While I do that, track the mercenaries. I don’t want them getting near the outside corner of the docking bay closest to my position.” She paused. “Do you know where I am?”
“I think you’re above Environmental Supplies Storage next to Docking Bay One.” The emphasis was particularly childlike. She’d temporarily changed AegiSKADA’s workspace representation to one of its drones, a giant spider, and an adult. The intelligence kept reverting back to the shaggy-haired child because it observed her strong reaction, and consequent vulnerability, to that form.
But this little mystery she couldn’t pass up. “Why don’t you know?”
The deadly security AI shrugged and raised its tiny hands, like it might have seen somebody do in a cartoon (like she’d seen in a cartoon). “It’s hard to get to. I can’t be there. I can only be near there.”
According to the audio and enviro sensors on the third floor between here and the refugee docking bay, Iridian was moving again, on a path back to the compound. “Can you hear me, Iri?”
“Yes, I can!” The sheer delight and love in that brassy alto voice put Adda in danger of melting into a puddle on the workspace floor. Her boots blended into one fuzzy mass.
Iridian’s voice was clearer than it had any right to be, with the nearest functioning sensor nodes several dozen meters away. The sensor amplifiers in Pel’s eyes had to be increasing mic sensitivity, and that meant he had to be somewhere near Iridian. Adda wouldn’t be sure he was all right until she saw him, either in person or through one of the station’s working cams, none of which were in range of Iridian now. “AegiSKADA has no working cams near you. Where’s Pel?”
“I’m here,” he croaked. She bit her lip to stop from crying with relief. Tears sometimes yanked her out of her workspace.
“We’re making progress,” Iridian said, “but he’s dripping so much snot we have to watch our step.” Over his protesting “Am not!” Iridian asked, “What are our guests up to?”
Without being asked, AegiSKADA fed the sensor data into the workspace. The mercenaries, much reduced in number but still organized and armed, stormed the docking bay under the pirate compound. The Charon’s Coin waited on the pad inside. “I told you to keep the intruders out of there!” she shouted at AegiSKADA.
“They kept breaking my drones.” A shadow aura grew around the child as its mouth turned down in a scowl.
“Told me to do what?” Iridian couldn’t see what Adda was sharing her workspace with.
“Nothing,” said Adda. “They’re in the docking bay below us.”
“I only have eleven Praetorian Threes and forty-one Attacos left,” AegiSKADA continued. “Something’s wrong with the printers, and I can’t make any more.” So that was why AegiSKADA hadn’t already overw
helmed the station’s human occupants. Adda shuddered.
The first merc reached the Coin and banged on its hull. She blinked in surprise as the tugboat’s passenger ramp opened. The mercenary backed up, weapon raised. When nothing emerged from the ship, he took a few tentative steps forward.
The rest of the mercenaries arrived, and the one in front shouted something AegiSKADA summarized in floating text as “. . . one of the three . . . get us past the turrets.” He pointed at the ship and shouted something else, and the other mercenaries boarded. Most of them stayed with the officer in the Coin’s passthrough, like there wasn’t room for them all in the main cabin.
Next to that image was a shot from across the docking bay in the opposite direction, facing the third floor. That was confusing, since she’d been watching the mercenaries from the first floor. The top of Iridian’s sweating scalp and Pel’s hood appeared in the broken physical window in the observation room. “Did the Coin let them on?”
Adda frowned. “Yes. I can’t believe it.”
“I can,” Iridian said. “They’re in for a short trip.” Maybe she expected the Coin to hold them in its passthrough and then release them in space, the way it had the two members of the med team who’d boarded it in their own effort to escape the station.
In the cam feed, Iridian’s head rose above the console for a second, then dropped back out of sight. “As soon as they take off, we’re making a run for it.”
The engines fired up. In the workspace, vibration and heat communicated what AegiSKADA’s sensors quantified. The interior docking bay doors slammed shut before the ZVs and Captain Sloane entered.
“Gods, be careful,” Iridian muttered. The Coin backed out of the station, then spun and whipped away, taking the mercenaries with it.
“AegiSKADA, unless someone from that group is still here somewhere, there are no more hostiles on this station,” said Adda.
“Confirmation required before engaging.” AegiSKADA’s sulky tone came from her mind. It still demanded human input, which left it incapable of feeling put-upon.
Adda let herself fall out of the workspace, unplugged, and raced across the creaking, empty tank. If AegiSKADA needed to ask her permission to start more fights, it could ping her comp. And since the mercenaries on the Coin were the last attackers healthy enough to fight back, she’d deny any further requests.
Chef stepped out of the kitchen when Adda ran past. “They back?”
“Almost!” Adda was happy to run without any more wheezing than usual. The doctors’ bacteriophages were thriving.
The entryway was deserted. Adda clambered down the ladder and dashed through the wall passage. Iridian and Pel stood under a string of orange lights. They looked haggard and exhausted. Iridian held Pel up by his arm around her shoulders, which made her Adda’s perfect heroine.
Adda wrapped them up in a hug that left them both squawking in what was probably discomfort. When they kissed, Adda finally believed the worst was over. That meant she could get Iridian out of that armor. It was digging into her ribs.
“Aw, we all need to decontaminate now,” Iridian murmured against Adda’s lips.
“Is it absolutely necessary to begin that here?” Captain Sloane shouted from the docking bay side of the passage. All three of them laughed and lined up for the long climb to the compound.
From behind Iridian, the captain muttered, “What shall Tritheist owe me now?”
* * *
With Sturm’s help, Iridian decontaminated the armor and joined the rest of the pirates in line to receive care from the med team. Adda spent the time assuring pirates that yes, it was over, and AegiSKADA reported to her. There was a great deal of fuss about why it hadn’t destroyed the base, and her explanation of the broken drone printers set off a flurry of bet settling that made no rational sense.
Tritheist kept asking, “But how can you be sure?”
She shoved her comp under his crusty nose. “Those are the gods-damned admin feeds. It’s mine.” The pirates gave her a tired cheer that sent her blushing to where Iridian sat on a table in her bra and pants while Dr. Tiwari repaired her back.
Iridian’s full lips frowned as Miria San Miguel described Grandpa Death’s last moments. San Miguel’s kid sat on the floor and leaned against her legs, droopy-eyed but breathing well.
“Si Po didn’t make it either,” Iridian said. “Radiation poisoning. I had to leave him on the surface.” The pirates swore, and Adda’s shoulders slumped. She hadn’t found him because he was on the surface of the station, where AegiSKADA had minimal cam coverage. And she’d been too busy maintaining her independence from the intelligence while she worked to get Pel and Iridian to the base to spend the time it would’ve taken to find him. He’d deserved to live to see his ships again. There was so much they could’ve done with the intelligences, together. She had so many questions she’d wanted to ask him.
Iridian grimaced and breathed hard through something Dr. Tiwari was doing behind her. The skull-and-bones tattoo and the lean, toned flesh beneath were bruised all along Iridian’s side. Some of the design’s viscera would have to be redone. The bra covered the top of the folded-back-skin design. Bloodstained armor hid the lower part of the oozing ink gore.
Adda stepped up against the table, between Iridian’s legs. She kissed her softly so she wouldn’t move Iridian out of the position Dr. Tiwari needed her to be in.
She had only seen Iridian talk to the old ZV a few times, but both of them had spent a lot of time with Si Po. Although it was rational to expect casualties, and Grandpa Death’s age had increased his chances of becoming one of them, Si Po’s loss had been unexpected. Adda turned to lean her hips on the table with Iridian at her back, comforting them both with the contact. Iridian’s hands settled firmly on her waist.
“Was that you with the big drone, earlier?” Iridian asked. “When I ran into the mercs?” Adda nodded, and Iridian pulled her closer. “Hot.” The sentiment sounded slightly forced, but determined.
The pirates were weary, but few slept. Once Tritheist entered Sloane’s quarters, most of the crew hung around the main room, where they could watch the captain’s door. Everyone was speculating about what the captain would do next, and nobody wanted to miss an announcement. Even San Miguel’s son watched, with clearer eyes and rosier cheeks. Zikri went from combatant to combatant, patching up injuries with fingers jittering from stimulants. Chef brought water.
Pel’s hood slipped off, revealing longer-than-ever curly hair. He’d lost his eyewear in the station. “Gods, my eyes hurt,” he wheezed.
The eyes he’d been born with might never heal. Even if they did, he might always have those cocked-ear expressions when he concentrated. “You. Um. Have something in them.” It took Adda several minutes to explain AegiSKADA’s sensor amplifiers, sounding awkward and overly technical even to her own ears. Pel looked paler and more horrified with each new detail, and the pirates nearby all listened in with morbid interest. “But as soon as we’re in a civilized habitat, we’ll find a surgeon who can fix this. I promise.”
Pel sat down on the floor, without even feeling around for one of the crates that served as chairs. The pirates swore and sympathized.
“Ah, shit,” he said. For several moments, Adda was afraid he was going to panic, or cry, but then he added, “If AegiSKADA was never going to kill me anyway, I could’ve gotten so much more fugee ass. I’d have been over there every day!” The pirates laughed, although Iridian didn’t. Further horrendous conversation was curtailed by Dr. Williams swooping in to give Pel one of her surprise injections, to minimize the symptoms of AegiSKADA’s bioweapon while she synthesized and administered the cure.
“Gods, what if the ZV Group fired all of us and didn’t bother to tell us until we get back?” Chato asked. “We’ll have to look for one of those cushy legal jobs like Adda’s dad’s got.” Everybody laughed. There wasn’t even a point in being bitter about that impossibility.
“Stow that,” Major O D. said. “Who’s got the
booze?”
Chef produced liquid that smelled both sweet and sour and coated the cup’s sides. She gave Iridian hers while one of the ZVs found the major a cord for his comp.
Fugee News aired triumphant music from a comp game Adda had played in college. Over it, Suhaila was mid rapid-fire commentary. “. . . that took poor Corrin and Jennika was the last drone attack. People are still coming in from the rest of the station, but every one of them say spiderbots run from them, and the big ones leave them alone!” The music reached a thumping crescendo while the pirates raised a cheer. The track changed to a pop song with “we move up, we move on” as its only lyrics. O.D. answered a summons to the captain’s cabin, though he left his comp to keep the music going.
Suhaila’s voice broke in over the music, though she faded it down rather than turning it off. “I just spoke with Mayor Van Aggelen. She says she confirmed with Captain Sloane that yes, the security system threat is past, and that means tomorrow is moving day, fugees. We’re not waiting around for the people beyond the lead cloud to figure out it’s safe to rescue us! The colony ship is fueled, and once you people report to the mayor at her office for your exit preparation assignment, we are out of here!”
Suhaila sounded close to tears. Iridian’s eyes glistened even more than usual too. Adda hugged her carefully.
“I’m so sorry I swore at you earlier,” Adda said.
Iridian’s lips were as syrupy as her drink. “You’re forgiven.” Another pop song played over the speakers. “It sounds like we have some time before we hear what we’re supposed to do next,” she murmured into the crook of Adda’s neck. Her breath was deliciously warm against Adda’s skin.
“Finished.” Dr. Tiwari twisted one of his tools by the handle to close it. “Keep clean, be careful until new growth heals.”
“Thanks, doc,” Iridian said against Adda’s throat. Dr. Tiwari chuckled and left in the direction of Zikri and the remaining ZVs.
Adda stood and caught Iridian’s hand. “I’ll show you what you’re supposed to do next.”
Barbary Station Page 39
