Drifters' Alliance, Book 1

by Elle Casey

The first slice into my back is clean, burning as promised, but I can take it. My grip on the bars below the medical table increases only slightly. Lying face down, my head turned to the side, I notice the inner-lit shelves across the chamber that house their medical supplies, all of which are lined up neatly and very possibly alphabetized. It makes me wonder if my ship is as prepared as this one is for medical emergencies. I should probably check that with Jeffers when I get back onboard.

  The chip-tracking machine beeps again.

  “Sorry,” Jens says. “Just verifying I’m in the right place.” He sounds very nervous. Maybe I should be too, but there’s no space in my world for nerves right now. I need to focus. Focus on the pain and managing it.

  Lucinda’s expression catches my eye. Her skin has gone a little pale, and her gaze moves to the ceiling as the laser knife cuts deeper into my back.

  My training kicks in without conscious effort on my part. One moment I’m feeling the fire of the cutter searing my skin, the next I’m seeing colors. The pain isn’t real. It’s merely a single color in the spectrum of many. Orange. I see orange and then yellow in place of the pain. I do not succumb to it. Allowing those negative sensations to enter my consciousness is weakness, and weakness is downfall. Weakness is downfall. Weakness is downfall…

  Deep inside myself I turn, oblivious to what’s happening around me, knowing only that I am here inside this room with two other people and they do not need my conscious thought with them right now.

  Orange tries to fill my field of vision, but I control it. I force it down into a very small square, a size no bigger than the picochip in my back. And there I leave it; insignificant, helpless in the face of my power. A color cannot hurt me anymore than a spoken word can.

  Pain can be mastered and controlled. I learned this from an early age. My training started with simple steps. First, to learn the difference between levels of pain. To appreciate them and understand how they work inside my brain and at the ends of my nerves. With help from a nerve control device and then later with mere mind control, I learned to shut off the parts of me that could feel, to numb their responses down to the point that even when my skin was being cut open, I would sense nothing more than a bit of pressure. I’m out of practice now, but in the prime of my training regimen, an enemy could have removed one of my eyeballs and I wouldn’t even have winced.

  “Hello? Hello? Are you in there?”

  A beard-prickled face is looming before mine. First its outline is fuzzy, and then it slowly comes into focus. My nose scrunches up as my other senses return.

  “Jesus, what’d you eat for lunch? Rotten chicken?” I push his face away from me, smooshing his nose sideways in the process.

  Jens smiles as he stands. “No. Schwenkbraten. You can sit up now. We’re all done here.”

  I do a push-up and then fling myself off the side of the table, landing on my feet with only a slight sway before I’m steady again. The lower half of my flight suit is undone, so I busy myself with buckling up as Jens cleans off the table I was just occupying.

  When I look up, I find Lucinda staring at me.

  “What?” I’m cranky, always a little out of sorts after withdrawing from pain like that. Coming back to reality is never my favorite thing. I used to think one day I’d stay inside my head forever and never come out. I tried it once; I lasted three days before my father had me nearly drowned to bring me back. Stupid survival instincts had my lungs burning, and then I had to return to reality. He was not happy with me that week and seemed to enjoy way too much expressing that feeling.

  “He cut really deep into your back,” Lucinda says, her voice wavering.

  “So?” I look over at the tray that holds used, bloody soak pads and shiny, metal instruments stained red. The smell of cooked flesh lingers in the room. I’m happy to know the DS Mekanika has a suturing laser. Walking around with old-school threads in my skin is not my favorite thing in the universe. They tend to pull under my tight flight suit.

  “So, it had to hurt.”

  “Not really. Nothing has to hurt if you don’t let it. Pain is all in your head.”

  Jens is busy cleaning up. “She’s been trained to manage her pain.” He looks over at me and nods in appreciation. “I thought Jacov was good, but he’s not as good as you. Very impressive.”

  I shrug. I paid a very high price for the ability to impress people like that. I wish I’d been given a choice in the matter, because I think I would have been happy using anesthetic like normal people.

  “That can’t be real,” Lucinda says, taking a small step backward, flinching when she bangs into the surgery tray and makes all the instruments on top clatter.

  “No, of course it can’t,” I say bitterly. She’s right; for her it can’t be real. She’d never understand the things I went through, the burdens people like my father insist others bear in the name of the OSG. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where are you going?” Jens asks, stopping his work at the cleaning station to stare at me.

  “Back to my ship.”

  “Don’t you want to discuss this thing?” He points at the chip clipped with a set of tweezers he must have used to pull it out of my skin.

  “What’s to discuss? Some OSG asshole put a chip in me. You took it out. It won’t work on me anymore, will it?”

  “No. It works with biorhythms. I don’t have all the details yet about how it works or what its purpose is, but I’m working on it.”

  “Incinerate it for me, would you?”

  “Actually, I’m planning to reverse engineer it.”

  I stride over before he has a chance to react and snatch it up. “Like hell you are.” I yank the clamps off it and throw the empty tool toward the tray. It clatters against the metal and falls to the floor.

  “Hey!” he shouts at my back, but I’m already headed out the door, my fist closed around that stupid chip tight enough to press its imprint into my palm.

  “Wait for me!” Lucinda shouts, squeezing through the opening to the door that’s quickly getting smaller. She’s barely through before it’s closed. Jens’s voice comes through it muffled.

  “You can’t get off the ship without Jacov escorting you!”

  “Escort my ass.” I walk at a fast clip down the corridor while I try to orient myself. I hesitate at the fork in the path before me. Am I supposed to go left here or right?

  Lucinda grabs my arm. “This way.” She yanks me to the left, and I have to take a few stumbling steps sideways before I’m upright again.

  Lifting my hand to my mouth, I simultaneously bend my thumb in toward my palm to activate the commset attached to my wrist. The small device I strapped on before we left the Anarchy is live, thank goodness; its green light glows in my hand. “We’re on our way back. Are the doors open?”

  There’s a three-second pause before Baebong’s voice comes over the frequency. “Yes, but there’s a giant mountain of a guy at your end, and he doesn’t look very friendly.”

  “Jacov.” I hiss out an annoyed breath. “Dammit.”

  “Leave him to me,” Lucinda says, walking faster as she reaches into one of the pockets of her white coat. Its sides flap against her legs, and the back flies up as her speed continues to increase. I’m almost to the point of jogging to keep up with her when she suddenly comes up short.

  “Wait,” she says. “We need that boom chuck, right? We shouldn’t leave without it.”

  “We still have Beltz on the Anarchy. If we have to, we’ll trade him and the nuts for it.”

  She grins, but it doesn’t look like a happy expression. “Fine.”

  We walk side by side, down the corridor that will take us to the airlock connecting our ships, the bottoms of our boots clanking against the metal grating below. We sound like we’re going into battle, and I’m not so sure that we’re not.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  JACOV IS WAITING THERE FOR us, and I open my mouth to tell him we’re leaving, but Lucinda gets there before me.

&nbs
p; “Step out of the way. We’re leaving your ship.” Her arms are clenched at her sides.

  “No one leaves.”

  “I do.” She puts her hand into her coat pocket and lifts something out, aiming it at his face. A hiss comes from whatever is in her hand, and a small cloud of something vaporized hits him in the eyes.

  He blinks several times as tears well up.

  She hisses her can of stuff at him a second time.

  He reaches up and yanks it out of her hand.

  “What the hell?” she asks. “That’s pure capsaicin!”

  Jacov’s eyes are blood red at this point, but he hasn’t moved other than to look at what he took from her and then throw it over his shoulder. The tiny canister clanks against the wall and then falls to the grated metal floor, rolling a few centimeters before it comes to a stop against his boot.

  Lucinda takes two steps back until she’s even with me. “He should be screaming in pain right now.” She glances at me. “What’s wrong with you people, anyway?”

  Ignoring her insult, I tilt my head as I look at Jacov more closely. Then I smile when I notice what he’s doing. His thumb is very gently tapping each of his other fingers of the same hand in turn. Over and over, he touches them as he maintains control over the pain. I’d recognize that technique anywhere. I used it myself when I was in Level 2 training.

  “I guess I’m not the only OSG reject aboard the DS Mekanika, am I?”

  Jacov’s jaw muscles clench up but he doesn’t say a word.

  Lucinda throws her arms up. “Great. We’re screwed.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” Taking three steps toward Jacov, I stop just in front of him, looking up so I can meet his eyes. “I need to get back on my ship, trade your captain for that part, and deliver him back to you. We have no fight with you.” My hand rests on my knife very casually. It’s not necessarily a threat, but I see him glance down at it and readjust his stance in response. We speak the same language, and I know he doesn’t want to mess with me.

  He stares down at me, tears breaking free to roll down his cheeks as he suffers the physical effects of the oil sprayed into them. It gives me the strangest impression of him crying over the fact that I want to leave. Flashbacks come to me of the day I disappeared from my father’s station. He never cried a single tear for me, I’m sure of that, even though I didn’t actually see him the day I left. I was in such a hurry to leave, I jumped on a garbage scow and never looked back. That chip in my back was just another means to control me. What I can’t figure out, and I’m going to have to mull it over later, is why my father never sought to use it to find me, because the thing was obviously live. Maybe it’s not used for tracking. Just the thought sends a shiver down my spine.

  Jacov blinks three times before responding. “You need a dead chicken.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. “What?”

  “What is going on with the dead chickens?” Lucinda asks, frustrated. “It’s a health hazard, not to mention disgusting.”

  His gaze never leaves me as he answers her. “Decomposition masks the signal from the revelation disk.”

  “Revelation disk?” Now I’m not as focused on getting off his ship as I am on knowing what he’s talking about. Obviously he means the disk we found in our incinerator, but how does decomposition affect it? Why does it even exist? And what exactly does it do besides make a person pass out?

  A voice comes over the comm next to the airlock.

  “Jacov? Status.” It’s Beltz.

  I speak up before Jacov can answer. “Status is I’m ready to come back to my ship. Let’s do this trade so we can get our water.”

  Beltz says something to Jacov in a language I don’t know, and Jacov responds in kind, his eyes remaining on me.

  “Very interesting,” Beltz says. I can hear a smile in his voice. “Okay, we are ready to make a trade. You come back.”

  I raise an eyebrow at Jacov, and he slowly moves out of my way. Lucinda and I waste no time walking through the first airlock, her behind me. She catches up and draws even with me shoulder to shoulder so she can whisper in my ear. Her hot breath makes me want to shove her away, but I resist. She doesn’t need any more reasons to dislike me.

  “What’s going on? Where are we going after this? What’s your plan?”

  “Why?” I ask, hesitating at the entrance to the Anarchy. “I thought you were planning on hitching a ride with Beltz.”

  Her chin goes up. “No. I never said that. And I have a right to know where the ship I’m living on is going.”

  “We’ll talk later.” With that, I step through the airlock and onto the Anarchy. Everyone is waiting there for me, including Baebong. He doesn’t look happy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  MY SHIP LOOKS DIFFERENT TO me. I don’t know if it’s the glares I’m getting from the crew or the dirt-encrusted corners I see everywhere now that I’ve been onboard a clean DS. Either way, I’m not going to stand for it. I didn’t risk being Langlade’s concubine to be downgraded to asshole of the century on my own ship.

  “Let’s get this done,” I say to Beltz.

  “Before we do that, I’d like to know what’s going on with that chip or whatever,” Baebong says, trying to sound tough. His shoulders go back and his chest puffs out, as if that’s going to intimidate me into following his orders.

  I stop right in front of him, barely hanging onto my shit. “The day you decide what happens on my ship is the day I’m floating and my blood is crystallizing in my exploding veins. You’re not the captain here, I am. You don’t like it? You’re welcome to leave.” I gesture behind me. “There’s the door.”

  He blinks a few times, expressionless.

  I shift my glare to the gingers. “You have something you want to say?”

  Tam shakes his head side to side with vigor.

  “No, Ma’am,” Gus says, “not us. We’re just the engineers. We live to serve.”

  Tam elbows his brother in the ribs, but says nothing to contradict his statement.

  “Good.” I push past them, not waiting to hear Jeffers' or Rollo’s opinions. Jeffers' penetrating stare is enough to get me saying something I’ll probably regret, and since I can’t yet read him, I’m not going to assume what he’s thinking is as bad as what Baebong obviously is. “Let’s get up on the flightdeck. I don’t like being this close to the OSG without eyes-on.” I need to see for myself that they’re nowhere around before I can settle down and think straight to come up with a plan. Right now my brain is screaming only one thing: Get away! But I’m not sure that’s the best course of action yet. I need more information about this disk and the chip that’s in my breast pocket.

  “You want me to arrange for the transport of the boom chuck?” Beltz asks.

  “No. I’d like you to follow me so we can discuss this disk.”

  “The disk you don’t have, you mean?” he asks, laughter in his tone.

  “Exactly.” I’m around the corner of the corridor before I realize Lucinda’s keeping up with me.

  “What do you want?” I practically growl.

  She talks in a hurried whisper. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m on your side.”

  A bitter laugh escapes me. “Oh yeah? Sure. For now you are.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosy.”

  I stop so quickly, she bumps into me. “I’ve never been a beggar in my life. You can go if you don’t like it here. It means nothing to me.” That’s not exactly the truth, but I don’t like being called a beggar.

  We stare each other down, and I watch as several emotions buzz past her face. The first one has me almost scratching my head. Hurt? Then I see frustration, anger, and finally, resignation.

  “I like it here just fine.” Her chin goes up a notch. “If I can live with Langlade, living with you will be nothing in comparison.”

  I smile, kind of evil-like. “We’ll see about that.” I’m not making anyone any promises. Living on my ship is not going to be like being at a station
where everything is taken care of and you just have to show up. Shit is going to change around here, starting now.

  The rest of the group is directly behind us at this point, so I continue on, stopping only to open the portal leading to the flightdeck. Taking my seat in the captain’s chair, I turn to face the small crowd below me at the bottom of the stairs. I know this is a pivotal point in our relationship, but I’m too upset to think rationally and calmly. Instinct takes over my mouth and starts running the show.

  “For those of you who don’t already know, I had a picochip in my back that Beltz’s cousin Jens removed.” I shift my focus to Beltz. “What was it?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe a locator. Maybe something else. We won’t know until my cousin reverse-engineers it.”

  I shake my head. “Sorry, but he’s not going to be doing that.” I resist the urge to pat my pocket where I’ve stashed the chip. I have plans for this little bastard, and it doesn’t include the thing remaining in existence. “Tell me about the disk.”

  “Ah, the disk.” Beltz looks down at the ground and shakes his head. “That information is for people who need to know.”

  The words come out as a growl because I’m almost out of patience. “Trust me; I need to know.”

  He shrugs and smiles at me. “Only those in the Alliance need to know. You are not in the Alliance.”

  “What alliance?” I narrow my eyes at him, wondering if he’s blowing ice crystals up my butt.

  “Again, I will say, if you do not have the disk, I cannot help you.”

  “You wanted to take that disk from us,” Baebong says, stepping forward, walking up the first stair up to the flightdeck before he turns back around.

  My heart warms when I realize he’s aligning himself with me against the rest of the group. Unconscious or not, I know his move means he’s still with me. Thank the universe for that, because I really don’t want to be on the opposite end of one of his ridiculous weapons. They have a tendency to vaporize things.

  Beltz shrugs again. “Ships that are not a part of the Alliance have no need for the disk.”