“Cass.” I lean toward her. “He might be safer here. Who knows what we’re flying into?”
Cassia clutches Tibbet tighter. He squirms in her arms and jumps to the floor with a soft thump, then looks at all of us as if we’ve offended him. I’m not sure if he was hallucinating like we were, but his pupils are smaller and he’s only vomited once since Cassia managed to get his nose into one of the oxygen canister face masks for a few minutes.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Rubio jokes. “Maybe you should have asked him.”
“Maybe you should shut up and put your mask back on,” Cassia snaps.
I’ve found the crack in the secondary fuel shroud that’s leaking poison into our air supply, but it’s not an easy fix. We’re still carrying around our oxygen canisters and breathers, only taking them off to speak.
“We would like a companion.” Isha licks her lips. “Especially one that catches rats.”
“I said no!” Cassia shouts, and bursts into tears. She throws off the blanket covering her legs, scoops up Tibbet, and runs from the room.
Rubio and I stare at each other for a moment, too shocked to move.
“Better go after her,” he says at last.
I sigh and nod. I get that Cassia loves that chirkut cat, but why can’t she see this is best for everyone? What good is Tibbet going to be when it comes to rescuing her brother?
I find the two of them in the cockpit, Cassia in the copilot’s chair feeding Tibbet a pat of bean paste from her fingers. She looks up with me at red eyes as I enter.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey.” She rubs the back of her hand over her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know what else to do but bring her here.”
“I know.” She scratches at her bandaged arm absentmindedly. “It’s just . . .” Her eyes well with tears.
“Oh, Cass.” As unreasonable as she’s being, I can’t stand to see her sad.
“He’s the only family I have left,” she says. “I know it’s stupid. I know he’s only a cat, but . . .”
I wince at the way my own thoughts sound coming from her mouth.
“I’ve never been away from them before. I didn’t know it would be like this. I didn’t know this part would be hard.”
I don’t know what to say, so I hug her instead. My whole life, I’ve floated at a distance from everyone else. I love Soraya and Ava, no question, but I’ve kept my tethers loose. Everyone leaves someday. Everyone dies. And isn’t it easier if you leave first? Isn’t it easier to hide away inside equations and term papers or ship yourself off to the far side of the Deep when you feel those tethers start to anchor you? Why be there when the inevitable happens?
“It’s not stupid.” I kneel beside her. I want to tell her it’s beautiful, and I wish I could feel the same way, only there’s something wrong with me. But the words stick inside, so I repeat. “It’s not stupid at all.”
“I know it would be better for him to stay here,” she says. “Even if we never get him back. You’re right.”
“No—” An alarm interrupts me.
It echoes in from the station itself, long whooping waves of sound, and then a voice, polite and civilized as Advani-ji. “Caution. Vessel approaching. Please clear docking bay for landing. Caution. Vessel approaching . . .”
“What’s that?” I sit up straight.
Cassia hits our telemetry display and links with the station’s external eyes. An image appears—an angular gray ship with a full tail of engines and artillery batteries spiking from every surface, like a particularly nasty durian fruit, glides into view.
“Chaila,” I curse, because I’ve seen the ship before.
I look at Cassia. Her face has gone still and pale, and I know why. She’s seen it before, too, the night she lost her brother and her ship, the night we pulled her from the burning wreckage. The dakait are here, and this time, there’s no one to save us.
Chapter 16
Bootfalls on the floor overhead. We hold our breath, crammed together in the access vent—Cassia, Rubio, Isha, me, and Tibbet. I squeeze my eyes shut and listen closely. The dakait who left me cowering in the Ranganathan’s utility passage, the one I let get away, is he one of them?
“. . . can’t have been here long.” A woman’s voice. The floor buckles lightly under her step as she passes over us. “No dust, and the secondary power’s still working. They must have seen us coming.”
“They won’t get far,” a man answers. Not him. “There’s no way off this station except through us.”
A whoop echoes from deeper inside the ship. “Förbannat!” A younger man this time, his reedy voice full of unchecked excitement. Not him, either. “You’re never gonna believe this.”
“You found something?” The older man’s words recede with his footsteps, followed by the woman’s.
I frown up at the underside of the floor. What could the Mendicant possibly have aboard that—and then it hits me. Chaila. I share a glance with Rubio. Sweetie’s cryatine.
The woman lets out a long, low whistle above us. “I got to give it to you, Warume. I never thought you’d suss out something good here.”
“It’s the pearl in the clam,” he says proudly.
“Oysters,” the older man says. “It’s oysters have pearls.”
“Oysters are high-class.” Their voices move back toward us. “This here’s plain clam.”
“Will you two manuke shut up about sea meat?” the woman snaps. “The sooner we find the ones that brought this hulk here, the sooner we can leave this shithole of a station.”
Isha jerks up and hisses.
“Hush.” Rubio wraps a hand over her mouth, and she bites him.
He chokes down a cry and somehow manages to leave his hand where it is, with Isha’s teeth stuck in him and a thin line of blood running down his palm. We all freeze, acutely aware of every small sound we’ve made.
“Did you hear that?” the young dakait asks.
“Probably just gas in the pipes. These old hybrid ships are noisy,” the older man says.
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. And at that moment, Tibbet begins to growl. It starts low in his throat, an uneasy animal noise that raises the hair on the back of my neck. I glance over at him, crouched on Cassia’s shoulder. His pupils dilate to full, death-dealing black, his hackles rise, and his ears fold flat against his head.
I shoot a worried look at Cassia.
“It’s okay, little guy. Shhh,” Cassia whispers, stroking the back of his neck, but the rumbling sound in him only grows.
“There,” the woman says, directly above us.
The access panel shrieks open. The dakait stare down at us, all three of them holding slug guns, the younger man wearing an expression as stunned as our own. Tibbet leaps as if he’s spring-loaded, launching himself at the older man’s face. The gun discharges as the man falls back, punching an ugly hole in the floor and filling the hall with its deafening report.
The woman fires at Tibbet, misses, and then hits the floor as Isha leaps on her with a wild scream. Her gun goes spinning and crashes into the access shaft beside me. The youngest dakait stumbles back a step, looking for all the world like a little boy despite the web of tattoos covering the left side of his face.
Rubio vaults out and charges him, and suddenly I remember that he’s a soldier. The dakait boy takes one look at Rubio and bolts for the open door leading to the dock. Rubio barrels after him.
The oldest dakait rips Tibbet from his face and throws him across the room. The cat’s body hits the wall with a heavy thump.
Cassia screams, and she’s on the man, clawing at his already-bleeding face and cursing. From the corner of my eye, I see Tibbet skitter to his feet, shake off the blow, and flee. The dakait flips Cassia off him and gropes for his gun through the veil of blood dripping over his right eye.
I lunge for the woman’s gun and bring it up exactly as the oldest dakait wheels his own on Cassia.
“Don’t,” I say.
He freezes, the muzzle of his slug gun trained on Cassia, who lies furious and panting on the floor, propped up on one elbow. Blood flushes her cheeks and her eyes are bright.
The dakait chuckles. “You’re going to use that thing on me, are you, lillflicka?”
“Not if you let her go.” I try to sound menacing, but my voice cracks on the last word.
His shoulders relax like a snake uncoiling. He chambers a round and turns slowly, a grin playing over his lips. “Nah, you’re not going to use it. You know why?” His gaze skips over to Isha and the dakait woman, still scuffling on the floor. He doesn’t wait for me to answer.
“You’re too civilized. Not enough wild left in you.” He nods over his shoulder at Cassia. “Now that one, she’s got fire still. Lot of men would pay a good price for some of that.”
I raise the gun. “Chup kar, jaan var fattu.”
His smile widens. “An educated miss. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’ll double my sale. Or maybe I’ll keep you for myself.” He reaches for my gun.
A film passes before my eyes—memory overlaid with the present. My mother is crouched beside me, wrapping my small hands around a pistol’s grip, guiding my movements as I cock back the hammer . . . and the dakait is reaching for me, a cruel smile on his lips . . . I’m in a dark room, crouched behind the old sea chest where my mother kept our clothes, the pistol in my hand. A man is hurting my manman . . . the dakait’s hand closes over mine . . . I struggle with the hammer—I’m so clumsy, and the gun was made for hands much bigger than mine—and in the struggle I forget what my manman said about not touching the trigger unless I mean to shoot, and when the hammer finally comes back, the air cracks open, an explosion of light and sound in my hand, and the force of it nearly kicks the gun from my grip . . . and my finger moves beneath the dakait’s grip.
The sound breaks through from that past, that dark room with the man hurting my manman, and echoes down the Mendicant’s halls. The dakait collapses on the floor. His hand is a bloody mess and he’s clutching his shin, but all I can see is that other man long ago.
He lay at the foot of my manman’s bed, wheezing in pain as a dark stain spread across his belly. Manman hit the light and his eyes went wild. His skin was a lighter brown than mine and my mother’s, but those eyes of his, they were the same deep amber I saw when I looked at myself in my manman’s hand mirror.
My mother hobbled to me, her whole leg wet and red with blood, and took the gun from my hands. “Well done, ma chère.” She kissed the top of my head softly, then pulled back the hammer to chamber another round.
“Don’t look now,” she said, and I hid my face against her side as she turned on the man.
“You bitch,” the dakait howls, rocking in pain.
I blink and flinch as someone touches my trigger hand. Cassia stands beside me, holding the older dakait’s gun. Behind us, Isha has finally wrestled the woman’s hands behind her back and holds a knife at her throat.
“I didn’t mean to,” I half-whisper. There’s so much blood.
Cassia looks at me as if I’m mental. “I’m glad you did.”
She steps up to the dakait and kicks him. “Hey!” she shouts over his moans. “Dog face. Remember me?”
Pain glazes his eyes, but he looks her over without any spark of recognition. He shakes his head.
Her mouth narrows to a line. “Three weeks ago you took a Rover ship outside Ceres. You remember?”
He closes his eyes, cradles his ruined hand, and keeps rocking. “Fitta,” he mutters. “Heartless bitches.”
Cassia kicks his leg again. “Do you remember?”
He gasps. “Rover ship. Yes, a Rover ship.”
“My brother.” Cassia’s eyes water, but she blinks furiously. “Nethanel Kaldero. You took him from that ship. Where is he now?”
The dakait shakes his head.
“Answer me.” Cassia levels the gun at him.
“How should I know?” Spit flies from the dakait’s mouth. His eyes are wide with shock and he begins to shake. “You think I care about some koitsu?”
“Cassia.” He’s going to black out if he keeps losing blood.
“You know who I’m talking about.” Cassia says. “Look at me.”
“Shinjimae, fitta.”
“Look at me!” she screams. “You know where he is. He looks just like me.”
A half-hysterical laugh escapes the older man. “Maybe.”
She raises the gun. “Son of a—”
I catch Cassia’s arm. “Let me try,” I murmur.
Our eyes lock for a moment. I wrinkle my brow. Trust me.
Cassia huffs and steps back. “Fine.”
“Listen.” I crouch down eye level with the dakait. “You’re bleeding out. You can feel it, right? You’re cold all over?”
A small edge of fear creeps into his scowl.
“I’m a medic,” I say. “I can fix you up, stop the bleeding. All you have to do is answer her questions.” I nod up at Cassia.
“Don’t do it, Kol,” the dakait woman bursts out. “Don’t give that yariman the satisfaction.”
“Hush,” Isha hisses, and presses her knife closer to the woman’s throat.
“You’re going to shoot me either way.” Kol looks from me to Cassia. “Why drag it out?”
“Maybe I will.” Cassia’s eyes are cold. “But like you said, my girl here is the civilized one. Maybe she won’t let me.”
“Right.” I swallow. “So tell us what we want to know. Where’s her brother?”
His eyes dart between us and he wets his lips nervously. “He looked like you, right?” He looks at Cassia. “Curly hair? Speckles on the face? Kilt wearers?”
Cassia nods once.
He closes his eyes. “He was in the parcel we dropped on Enceladus.”
The dakait woman moans in defeat.
“Parcel?” I frown.
He nods. “Five hundred kilos of salt, couple hundred of taurine, five females, two males, and five barrels of cryatine.”
“Who did you sell him to?” Cassia’s voice is cold as the air around us.
The dakait shrugs. “Highest bidder.”
Cassia’s jaw tightens. “A name, rövhål.”
He laughs, a short, nervous bark. “It don’t work that way, lillflicka. It was a blind bid. We did it from orbit.”
Cassia makes a show of turning to me. “I guess we won’t need your services after all, Miyole.”
“Herregud. Wait,” the dakait cuts in. His eyes have begun to glaze over. “I can tell you the port where we dropped him. I can tell you that.”
“Cassia,” I mutter, my eyes on the growing pool of blood. The dakait blinks. We’re losing him.
But we don’t even need him to tell us, I realize. His ship’s log will have the coordinates. “Cass—”
She follows my gaze to the blood. “Not yet.”
“Ny Karlskrona,” the dakait says. He glares from Cassia to his hand and shakes his head in disbelief. “Fitta.”
“Ny Karlskrona.” Cassia smiles sweetly. “Thank you.”
And she pulls the trigger.
Chapter 17
The dakait woman utters a scream of rage that dissolves into a wet gurgle. I turn in time to see Isha draw her knife across the struggling woman’s throat. Her eyes roll black with a mix of terror, fury, and confusion. A second later, they dull, and Isha lets her drop.
I blink from Isha to Cassia in disbelief. “What did you do?” My own voice rings high in my ears. I can understand Isha—she’s plain mad—but Cassia?
“What did you do?” I say again.
Cassia crouches down over the first dakait’s body. She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. “What I had to,” she says. “For Nethanel.”
“Carajo.”
I turn. Rubio holds the youngest dakait by his collar. The boy’s eyes go wide, taking in the corpses, and then he doubles over and vomits. Rubio lets go of his shirt and backs against the bulkhead.
; The solid click of another slug chambering brings me wheeling back around.
Cassia stands looking at me. “What should we do with him?”
A sick feeling creeps over me. “What do you mean?”
“Not many options.” Cassia examines the gun in her hands.
“No.” My mouth is dry. “No. Look at him, Cassia. He’s not any older than we are.”
Cassia regards him coldly. “So?”
“I . . . we . . . ,” I stammer. What did I expect? To turn the dakait over to the DSRI or the Satellite Authority? I haven’t been thinking beyond each crisis as it unfolds—steal the shuttle, deal with Sweetie, keep Cassia alive, keep the ship running, keep all of us alive.
“No one is coming to help us out here, Miyole,” Cassia says. “We’re the only justice there is.”
“This isn’t justice.” I glance at the boy. Warume, I remember. That’s what the woman called him. “It’s vengeance.”
Cassia scowls. “Splitting hairs.”
“How much blood do you want on your hands?” I plant myself between her and the boy. “Nethanel could still be alive. Killing a bunch of dakait isn’t going to keep him that way.”
Cassia waves the gun in the boy’s direction. “We can’t take him with us.”
“So the only other choice is to kill him?”
Cassia turns up her hands. “What do you suggest?”
I look from her to Rubio, who has gone as green as I feel, and then to Isha, cleaning her knife with the hem of her skirt. A profoundly bad idea comes to me.
“Maybe . . .” I try to swallow. “Isha, you want company, right?”
“Company.” She repeats the word as if it’s foreign to her. “Yes. The cat. Good company.”
“What if you could have something better than a cat?”
Isha cricks her head to the side, listening.
“What if you could have someone to talk to?” I spare a glance at Cassia. “What if you had someone who could talk back?”
Cassia and Isha look at the dakait boy. He stares back at them, face slick with sweat.
“What do you say?” My heart pounds. I don’t know if this is justice, but it’s better than murder. “Wouldn’t you rather have him than Tibbet?”
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