Drifters' Alliance, Book 3

by Elle Casey

  I slow down to a fast walk and keep my eyes on the ground, trying to avoid making a scene. Unfortunately not just one, but two waiters walk right into my path and force me to take them out one at a time; one with a gut punch and one with a shot to the Adam’s apple. I’m out the front doors before anyone even has time to go to their rescue. Redmond Kennedy … Redmond Kennedy … have I heard that name before? Something is tickling the back of my mind, but I can’t bring it to the front. Then the crowds get too thick for me and focus on both that and not tackling people, so I let it drop. I’ll worry about that another time when I’m not trying to save my own ass.

  I jog to the hub Jeffers told me about and raise my hand to my mouth, thumb to palm, activating my comm unit. “Yo, Gus, you there?”

  All I get is dead air. I take the third spoke from the right and run around groups of people talking amongst themselves, dodging left and right, reminding myself of training modules where we were forced to run around obstacles that sometimes reached out and grabbed us and slammed us onto the ground. I’m totally hyped. I pity the fool who tries to take me down right now.

  I try my comm device again. “Bae? You out there?”

  I bump into a guy carrying a box, and he drops it, yelling at my back as I push through the crowd in front of me. I’m gone before he can grab me and make me answer for my rudeness. Sorry, dude, but my DS is about to turn back into a pumpkin. As I get closer to the dock, the shoving I have to do in order to continue forward progress is less and less remarkable. It’s busy in here tonight, with everyone acting like they have somewhere special to be, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Not until the giant magnoscreens start flashing an all-station alert.

  The monotone, computerized voice accompanying the vision of two warships hovering outside the station is as ominous as the image itself.

  “Attention. Attention. The Omega Systems Group requests that all personnel report to their duty stations immediately. All visitors, please return to your ships. Residents, please return to your units.” There’s a pause and then it starts again. “Attention. Attention. The Omega Systems Group requests …”

  I block out the rest of the transmission. In all my nineteen years, I have never taken part in an actual station takeover. I’ve drilled for it, of course, but never as a station visitor. I was always the one standing by on the warship outside, huffing and puffing and threatening to blow the station down.

  Panic rises up in my chest, and I can tell I’m not the only one suffering it. Everyone around me is freaking out to some degree. Some to a pretty high level, and others just to the point of annoyed curiosity. Me, I just want to get the hell out of here with my crew onboard and the information I’ve gleaned, so I can deliver it to the Alliance and figure out our next move.

  So, what are the chances that I’ll slip off the dock and out of the exit bay without entering into a conversation with a warship? Probably not very good.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I REACH THE DOCK AND find myself in the middle of a throng of people, all of whom are trying to reach their ships attached to the pedestrian tunnels at the same time. There are also several OSG personnel in full battle dress uniforms, weapons at the ready, their eyes searching the crowd for something … or someone.

  “Report to your ships, people,” one of them is yelling. He pauses as he receives some sort of transmission, and then he scans the crowd. His eyes land on me, and then he’s talking more hurriedly to whoever is on the other end of his comm, moving in my direction as he nods.

  “Oh, hell no,” I say mostly to myself. I guess it’s me they’re looking for. Just my luck.

  I duck down and dart between groups of people in a crouched position, sometimes going with the flow and sometimes against. I don’t go straight for my ship; instead, I head for the DS Osiris, hoping there’ll be less heat in that area.

  I catch the color of an OSG uniform through a group of legs near me, but just as it’s getting too close for comfort, a big fat man wearing a cape moves in next to me and blocks my view.

  I look up to scowl at him and find him staring down at me. His cape opens up and he smiles. “Going somewhere, Captain?” The tattoos on his neck are impossible to miss.

  “Trying to?” I say, wondering what’s about to happen with this giant Romanii man staring right into my soul, or so it seems. His irises are blacker than black.

  He puts his cloak around my shoulders and draws me up against him. His shirt smells of pine and dirt, a not altogether unpleasant scent. I huddle into him as best I can without tripping him up. Walking next to him when the only thing I can see is his armpit isn’t the most graceful exit I’ve ever made, but it does the trick. By the time he releases me from his clothing, I’m fifteen meters farther down the dock from where I was, and the uniforms are in my six. I’ve been deposited in front of Alana’s ship.

  He sees me looking desperately at my own DS and pats me on the shoulder. “Wait here. You have friends coming.”

  I nod. “Thank you … Sir. Appreciate the lift.”

  He half bows and then walks away, quickly swallowed up by the crowd moving in that direction. I try to make myself as small as possible as I wait for these supposed friends to arrive.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  A MOBILE MAINTENANCE UNIT IS wheeling itself through the crowd, zigging left and right. It looks like its gyro unit is busted. It stops only after running over my left big toe.

  “Ow, watch it, droid.” I shove it away from me, but it only moves a few centimeters before reasserting itself in front of me.

  The door on the side of it opens, revealing an empty space where there should be drawers for tools and parts. “Get in,” says a disembodied voice from somewhere on the front of the unit. It’s vaguely familiar.

  I don’t ask questions, I just dive inside. A few people see me, but when a crowd of Romanii descends and surround the unit, the onlookers leave in a hurry. The door slides shut, and I’m locked inside the tiny space, surrounded by blue and green glows coming from a circuit panel somewhere behind me.

  “Just hang tight, Cass, and we’ll have you home in no time.”

  I recognize the voice immediately, and my heart nearly explodes with relief. “Tam! Holy shit, what the hell is going on?”

  Gus cuts in. “Who’s liking the shadow now, eh? Come on. Admit it. He’s like a knight in shining armor, rescuing damsels and shit.”

  I can’t help but smile. “I’m liking the shadow. I admit it.”

  “Damn straight, you are.” Gus sounds like he just inhaled a whole balloon of helium. “Just try to remain calm, and we should have you onboard in just a few shakes of a can-can dancer’s behind.”

  Gus’s transmission cuts out, and I wonder if I’m about to be busted by the OSG trying to get on my ship as a maintenance droid. I guess having escaped their clutches in a garbage scow was worse, though, so I probably shouldn’t complain. The whirring of the droid’s wheel systems and the bumping of the grating beneath us almost drown out the sounds of the crowds. Then the whole unit angles back, giving me the impression that we’re working our way up the airlock to my ship.

  “What’s this?” asks a voice, coming through to me very muffled because of the metal between us.

  “I’ve got it,” says either Gus or Tam, answering the query of someone I’m assuming is wearing the OSG uniform. “Maintenance unit. Piece of shit, but hey, it’s all we can afford. Just coming back from grabbing some parts for our filtration system.”

  “All maintenance is on hold until further notice,” the official says.

  “Yeah, I know.” Gus’s voice is missing the tone of respect this guy probably thinks he deserves. “That’s why it’s trying to get onboard.” Gus’s voice changes, telling me he’s talking to someone else standing with him. “Typical. They tell you to do something and then yell at you when you try and do it.”

  “Just get it onboard and shut it down. Shut your airlock, too. No more entries.”

  “Hey,
we have personnel out there!” Gus says. He’s clearly not happy about the order he just received, and neither am I. Who else is missing? Am I the only one back? I can’t leave here without my people. I won’t.

  “They can register their presence and their home ship with the dockmaster. We’ll let them load up after we’re done.”

  “Done with what?” Gus raises his voice when he doesn’t get an answer. “Done messing with people’s lives, that’s what! What ever happened to personal liberty, that’s what I want to know!”

  “Shut up, idiot,” says Tam. “You want them on here taking our maintenance unit away?”

  I smile. I think maintenance unit is me. Am I ever going to live this down?

  Gus laughs. “You just called the captain a unit.” His voice gets louder as he bends over to put his face by the door. “You heard that, right, Captain Kickass? That was Tam who called you a unit, by the way. Not Gus.”

  I hear a scuffle and then a shout of protest. “Ow, man! That hurt! You know my nipples are sensitive! Dammit. You’re gonna pay for that, dick.”

  And then the unit is rolling again. “Just a couple more minutes, Captain, and you’ll be safe.” Tam’s voice is low and calm, easy to separate from his brother’s. I don’t know why I ever doubted that a shadow could be a contributing member of my crew. Here he is, saving my ass with a broken down piece of shit maintenance droid.

  I hold on to the walls of the unit as it rumbles along, wondering where my engineers are taking me now.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  GUS’S FACE IS THE FIRST thing I see when I’m released from my droid prison.

  “Hello there, sunshine,” he says.

  I push him out of my face as I crawl out. “Beat it, before I beat you.”

  “Hey, what’s the attitude all about?” he asks, scrambling to get out of my way. “After we saved your … aaa … I mean butt … out there in the middle of those vicious Romanii gangsters?”

  Tam is there, messing with some buttons on the front of the unit that stashed me away.

  “They aren’t gangsters, they’re friends.”

  The twins exchange a knowing look.

  “Listen, I know about Lucinda and her grandfather, okay? No more secrets.”

  “Damn,” Gus says. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  I turn my attention to Tam. “Who’s missing?”

  “Baebong, Lucinda, Jeffers, and Macon.”

  “Pretty much the whole crew,” says Gus.

  “Dammit,” I hiss, staring at the floor as I try to figure out what we can do next.

  “The whole station’s locked down,” Gus says. “Do you think they’re searching for you?”

  I look back up at them. “I don’t know.” I angle my head up. “Adelle?”

  “Yes, Captain,” she says without hesitation, as if she’s been listening in on everything. It’s creepier than normal.

  “Can you tell us what the OSG is doing?”

  “The OSG is doing a search of all ships having arrived in the last seven days in an attempt to locate one Cassiopeia Ganymede Vesta Kennedy, wanted for questioning in a matter of great galaxial security.”

  “Duuuuuude,” Gus says, staring at me with his eyes bugging out of his head. “That is one righteous name you have there.”

  “Did you tell them I’m here?”

  “No, Captain. I am programmed to keep your whereabouts confidential.”

  I should probably be relieved, but I’m not. I have bigger problems on my hands than my compubot ratting me out. “They know,” I say at a whisper. “They know about the sleep hammer.”

  Gus holds up a finger. “Actually, it’s technically called a schlafhammer.”

  “Shut up, dude!” Tam yells.

  Gus frowns at his brother. “I’m just saying …”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Tam says to me in a calmer voice, ignoring his offended brother. “It could be anything. Maybe they just want to talk to you about that water we took from Xylera.”

  I raise a brow at him. “Really? You think that?”

  He shakes his head, looking sheepish. “No. Not really. Just thought it was worth a shot.”

  “Did they already search the ship?” I ask.

  Tam nods. “Yes. Didn’t find you, obviously, so I guess they’re assuming you’re on the station somewhere.”

  “And we’re stuck here while they search the entire place. They’re eventually going to figure out my ship needs another searching. I’m screwed.”

  “Not necessarily,” Gus says, standing at a mobile computer cart. He points to his screen.

  Tam and I move over to see what he’s gesturing at.

  “Uhhh … not sure that’s our best move,” Tam says, looking at me worriedly.

  “What is this?” I ask, trying to figure out what’s displayed on his computer.

  “This,” Gus says, with pride in his voice, “is my good friend Baebong’s signal interruptor. In Latin we’d say signalus interruptus. Kind of like coitus interruptus, but a lot more far-reaching and a lot more sexy.”

  I look at Tam for an explanation that will make any kind of sense whatsoever.

  He sighs. “We can shut down the entire station and get the hell out of here while they all watch us go. They won’t be able to stop us.”

  “We can’t leave without the other crew members, though.”

  He shrugs. “We can tell the Osiris to pick them up and deliver them to us out in the Dark.”

  I blink a few times, mulling that over. Technically we could do that, although leaving my friends behind feels eight different kinds of wrong. I’d worry more about the biogrid’s survival if I didn’t know Papa was probably back there to keep an eye on things.

  “And we just shut everything down? Just blammo? What about the oxygen systems?” Getting away while killing hundreds of people in the process can’t be a part of my plan. I’m not that desperate.

  “We can leave those up. Filtration too. Just the comm, weapons systems, and any dragnets need to go bye-bye,” Gus says. He’s clicking away on different menu items. “I’ve been over this about a thousand times. I’ve found every single vulnerability they and we have. I can do this. I’m, like, eighty-nine percent sure I can.”

  I’m about to comment on that percentage being a lot farther from one hundred than I’d like when the portal to the engine room opens and a man in uniform is suddenly standing there. I feel like my heart has jumped into my throat on purpose, just to choke me to death.

  “Not every vulnerability, apparently.” Tam is once again the voice of reason.

  “Hello, Captain Cass,” says a voice that makes tingles go up and down my spine — the scary kind, not the soft and warmy kind.

  “Hello, Overshine,” I say bitterly. “How not at all nice to see you.”

  Chapter Forty

  AS HE STEPS INTO THE engine room, I make a lightning fast assessment of his posture, trying to figure out how I can take him down using the least amount of force necessary. He sees me doing it and holds up two hands in front of him like he’s surrendering.

  “Power down, Cass. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  My knife is out and pointed in his direction. “Then get off my fucking ship, asshole. You weren’t invited to this party.”

  “We need to talk. Now. And not here.” He turns sideways and gestures at the door. “After you.”

  I’m thrown off balance by his approach. Is he going to arrest me or not? “I don’t have anything to say to the OSG.”

  “But I have plenty to say to you. And like I said, we don’t have a lot of time. Come on.” He walks through the door and disappears down the hall.

  “He’s picking a really inconvenient time to tell you he wants to date you,” Gus says. Then he’s suddenly wheezing because Tam has punched him in the ribs.

  “Stay here,” I say, walking quickly to the door. “Lock up and follow through with the plan if I’m not back here in five minutes.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,�
� Tam says.

  The door slides shut behind me, and I hear the digital lock engage.

  Overshine is standing just down the hall, outside my bunk door. He nods at the keypad expecting me to let him in.

  “Talk out here,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “I can’t chance anyone seeing me.”

  I don’t take my eyes off him for a second, but I do reach up and open up the door. As soon as it slides into the pocket, I step back and gesture with my knife. “After you, Sir.”

  He rolls his eyes, but walks in, taking the steps slowly downward into my room. He’s a couple meters in before he turns and watches me following him down. Then we’re face to face, him with a good twenty kilos and fifty centimeters on me. I lift my chin and lick my lips, ready to take him down if so much as blinks at me funny.

  “You look a lot like your mother,” he says.

  It takes everything I have not to throw my knife into his throat. “What do you know about it?”

  He shrugs. “More than you’d probably expect. But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Oh, really?” I can’t even begin to guess what’s going to come out of this guy’s mouth next. Apparently, he’ll stoop to the lowest of lows to get my attention. “Do tell.”

  “I’m not with the OSG.”

  I laugh at that grandiose statement, gesturing at his getup. “You could have fooled me. You’re looking mighty OSG-ish today in that uniform and all.”

  He looks down at himself. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “You had dinner with Drake just the other day. You’re the captain of a warship. The only photograph you have in your bunk is of you and my father being buddies. You don’t get to that place as a traitor.”