With one hard push the hatch burst open. “Get her out,” Nigel said.
“She should have been wearing her helmet, but she said it felt claustrophobic with it on,” Mirra said as she rushed in and pulled her best friend free of the turret seat. Smoke rolled out with her.
Travis arrived with a small revitalizer and put it over her heart. He sat down beside her hard, overtaken by a coughing fit. Spin took over, activating the circular device, then opening the front of Della’s suit wide so it could have access. Tendrils poked through her skin to oxygenate her blood, massage her heart back into a beat with physical, chemical and gentle electrical stimulation.
It took over her circulation as it worked on her heart, and presented a breathing cup to place over Della’s mouth. Spin pulled the cup mask only to discover that the line was frayed.
“Old fashioned way it is,” Spin said, checking Della’s airway, straightening her neck and breathing into her. A positive triple beep sounded from the small unit, indicating that there was a regular heartbeat.
Spin kept breathing into Della, regularly. She lost count of the breaths she gave her. “Della, please,” Mirra said, picking up her friend’s hand. “I don’t want to be free and alone.” She kissed it.
The breath was suddenly sucked out of Spin’s lungs, and she leaned back, her lips still close to Della’s. “Della?” she asked.
“Thank you,” she said, coughing and wrapping her arms around Spin. “Oh my God, that was scary.” The small life-saving device fell off of Della’s bare chest. “I’m topless, aren’t I?” she whispered.
“Yup,” Spin said, making a shallow attempt at pulling the front of her suit closed, but failing.
“There are a lot of people here,” Della said.
“Yup, and they’re all impressed,” Spin said with a chuckle.
Della laughed, coughed, and let Spin go, re-sealing the top of her jumpsuit. You would have never been able to tell that anything had happened to her. Mirra brought her to her feet and embraced her closely. “Don’t do that to me,” she said.
“I’m okay,” Della said, reassuring her.
Mirra pulled her head back and kissed her soundly, and everyone looked on as Della, surprised at first, reciprocated. Sun stopped half way down the steps leading to the bridge and cocked her head, smiling. Then her expression became serious. “Travis?” she asked, rushing to his side.
He was sitting on the deck, leaning forward, passed out. Spin got down to his level and helped Sun lay him out. “He’s barely breathing,” she said.
“He fell into the swamp as soon as we got there,” Leland said. “Got a whole mouth and lung full of that stuff, I doubled his anti-fungal dose, it should be working.”
“Unless it’s too late,” Spin said, her medical training telling her that it almost certainly was. She picked up the revival device and used the medical scanner inside. Its supplies were depleted, and it couldn’t help Travis, not with what he had. “It’s grown in his lungs, the fungus is dying, but it’s causing clotting in his lungs and his bloodstream.”
“Can that save him? What can you do?” Sun asked.
The scanner revealed something Spin did not want to know, and she put it down. “There are many clots in his brain, at least twenty, a lot more near his heart. I’m sorry, he’s already gone.”
“Oh, man,” Nigel said, sitting down beside him and touching his face. “We signed on to the Cool Angel together.” He touched his friend’s hand, then withdrew, running his hand over his face. He looked at Travis with tears in his eyes, and Spin put an arm around him. “He was just bored, fuck. He wanted adventure, to get out there and see the galaxy.” In a gesture that made Spin wish she could weep, Nigel gently touched his friend’s cheek. “I’m gonna miss you, man.”
“There’s nothing?” Sun mouthed silently behind Nigel’s back.
Spin slowly shook her head. If she wasn’t medicated, she’d be in a blubbering pile beside Nigel, but all those emotions seemed just far enough away for her to keep her composure.
“He was the nicest guy,” Sun said, putting her hand on Nigel’s shoulder. “Worked hard and put other people first.”
One of the slaves approached and took the reviver quietly, reactivating the scanning tool on it. Spin didn’t stop him. He cleared his shoulder length, dark hair out of his face and checked the results, shaking his head. “It would have happened to all of us eventually if we stayed in that place, he was done for before he got on this ship,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I can tell you that he’s not feeling any of this though. I’m a Medical Technician.”
Travis’ chest stopped rising and falling. The device beeped an alert and the Medical Technician turned it off. Nigel sighed, his cheeks covered in tears. “See you in the next life, brother.”
Sun was on her feet first. “He wanted a burial in space. Is there somewhere we can put him?”
“The medbay for now,” Spin said. “There’s a stretcher there.”
“We can move him,” said a pair of rescued slaves. “If you want help.”
Mirra led them to the medbay while Spin moved Nigel to a passenger seat. “Listen, Aspen,” he said, clearing his eyes and wiping his face. “Whatever you’re doing next, if it has anything to do with bringing pain on the people who did this to us, then I’m in. Those fuckers just killed my best friend and my uncle.”
Spin had completely forgotten that Nigel was Boro’s nephew. To her, he was a friendly man whose humour was so attractive that she couldn’t help but flirt with him, but he was family to Nigel. “I can’t captain a ship,” Spin said. “But I might be able to get us one.”
“What do you mean, you can’t captain a ship?” Sun asked, her offended tone surprising. “You got free of the Countess, right?”
Della nodded. “She did, and she stole this ship, and planned your rescue on her own, we weren’t much help. Oh, she wants to be called Spin now.”
“Then you pulled that action hero shit back there to save her,” Sun continued. “And who knows what else you had to do to get through the last couple days. Hell, when I looked at the cockpit console, I couldn’t help but notice that you hacked this ship so deep that no one could prove it belonged to anyone else unless they checked the serial numbers under the dash. That’s some pro level work, Spin.”
“I can’t be the captain of a ship because I’m about to be the most wanted woman in the sector, and dolls are prohibited from owning anything,” Spin retorted. “The word is about to get out, and soon, everyone will know that I’m not a real human, I just have the same flesh and blood as one. They’ll also know that I turned on my master, and nothing is more dangerous to the slave trade than one of the most prized auction pieces going rogue. No, I can’t be a captain, and we have to dump this ship fast. What’s worse is that we’re all registered slaves now. Slave hunters won’t just be after me, they’ll have all your names on the list. Any port run by the UCA or any of their allies are off limits to us.”
Everyone in the room was quietly watching her, even Nigel, who would look ridiculous in his baggy jumpsuit if he weren’t beside the body of his best friend. “I can afford a ship if we can find someone who will sell us one without ratting on us. To be honest, it would be better to steal one, so we can pretend there’s a legitimate captain aboard until we find someone who isn’t wanted, someone with a clear name to put a new ship under. Without that, we’re stuck with the black markets, the wasted places, and the lawless systems.”
“We’ve been there before,” Sun said. “Some of us even have friends in pirate havens, we just need something to trade.”
Spin found herself smiling, really smiling for the first time since Larken was killed. She held up her wrist. “I have a download of the Countess’s entire personal and corporate database. Shipping routes, banking information waiting to be cracked, locations of operations, caches, you name it.”
“That’s a start, a good start,” Sun said. “But I was thinking we could go get the Cool Angel, and tear C
aptain White apart. He betrayed you and threw crewmembers away for a pile of cash. I can’t let him get away with that.”
“Definitely,” Spin said. “So, you’re in?”
“Sure, what’s the plan after we kill White?” she asked.
“Um, wait, wait,” the Medical Technician said. “Can anyone join in, or is this a private party?” His dark eyes were focused on Spin. “I have nothing, they found me barely surviving, scrounging in the wastes like most of these people and then put me to work whether I liked it or not. I’m a great med-tech with years of experience, and I need onto your crew if you’re going after them.”
“Me too,” said one of the rescued slaves behind him, her green eyes peering through a mask of filth and scabs. “I know I can be useful.”
All but three of the rescued slaves volunteered. “I’d like to stay too,” Della said.
“Even after that?” Spin said. “This won’t get easier.”
“I look at these people and think about what my masters do,” she said. “I want it to stop, I don’t want to see another teenager snatched from the street like I was six years ago, and I think I know where we can hit them.”
“So do I, Della,” Mirra said, setting the stretcher down beside Travis’ body. “We’re both with you, Spin.”
“You’re going to have to follow her,” Spin said, pointing at Sun. “She’s better at this than I am. I was a glorified cabin girl for her.”
“Cabin girls don’t save a compartment full of people,” one of the slaves said. “But I’ll follow her if you tell me that she’s your creature, and doing your work.”
Spin recognized the voice immediately, but couldn’t quite put a name to it. It took her several seconds to see through the dirt and scabs, but then she remembered who he was. Governor Dantor, from New Parisia, one of the richest cities in the Core Worlds. “We met right before the tragedy that led to your first escape, it is good to see you free, Aspen. I was your Countess’ captive for over a year while she tried to use me to twist governments to her will. When I stopped cooperating she sent me here, so they could put me in that swamp until I was near death, treat me, then put me back. She’s used my own position to disgrace me in the meantime, I’m sure.” He pulled his hood aside, revealing deep gouges where flesh had to be removed and scabs that looked worse than anyone’s. “You’ve ended my suffering, treated my wounds and offered free transit to a civilized port. I may be out of government, but I must still have some power, and I’ll use it to help you crush her.”
“All right,” Sun said. “Then we need to get another ship fast. Are you sure you have enough, Aspen – I mean, Spin?”
“I have enough,” Spin replied.
“How?”
“Kidnapping. I had a few extra minutes and an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Della’s emphatic nodding almost made the comment seem comical. “Best kidnapping ever,” she said.
“Okay, and I have someone we can buy one from, maybe,” Sun said.
“I can get you clean registrations, multiple transponder codes, and permits for weapons,” Governor Dantor said. “Maybe. They might not be good for more than a couple months.”
“So, this becomes clear,” Sun said. “We’re outlaws and information sellers at best, scavengers and runaways at worst.
“Wait, how do we get out of this? How can we get off this wanted slave list?” asked one of the passengers.
“We get the Countess to release us by buying our own freedom, or by killing her and anyone she willed her property to,” Sun said.
“Money doesn’t mean anything to her,” Spin said. “Killing her is our only option for freedom, it’s also the hardest. She has children, and people who would inherit her property. We can hide, try to live our lives in shadows, or we run so far that no hunter will come after us.”
“Like to the Sercil Sector?”
“No, outside civilization, where humans haven’t been before,” Spin replied.
“Hell, no,” Nigel said. “We hide until the sector gets calm and outlaws slavery everywhere, or until we see an opening and we kill the Countess at a family reunion. Slag the whole inbred bunch of fuckers.”
Spin could barely believe it, but Nigel’s idea wasn’t terrible, just next to impossible. It did lead her to an idea that rested within the realm of possibility. “We could give this away,” she said, pointing at the computer display on her skin and the database of information it held. “Take a cut from anyone who uses this information to hurt her and her companies. We make her companies such open targets that every crime lord, small government, slavery opponent and rival corporation takes a bite out of her. We do it until she either has no power left, or until she releases our slave bonds.”
“That’s genius,” Sun said. “Outlaw thinking.”
“But what about the meantime? We need cash for protection, food, ships, what about us? We’re runaways, outlaws with a mark on our backs,” Nigel said.
“We’ll take it,” Spin said. “No, let’s make sure no one sees us that way. If people have to know about us, see us, deal with us at all, let’s make sure everyone knows that we’re only one thing: pirates.”
* * *
Thank you for reading!
Here are two sample chapters from Book 2 of the Chaos Core Series: Cool Pursuit, coming in 2016!
01
The weapon had become an artefact. Objectively, it was a nice gun, with well-polished metal surfaces, a brute spinning calendar inside another atop a trigger and handle. The clip carried only fourteen rounds. It should seem like just another object in the bottom of Spin’s bag, but it was the weapon that murdered Larken.
A few of those engineered frack rounds spun from its barrel, broke apart and put great big holes in his torso. She could have put him in stasis with medication if another one hadn’t ricocheted and torn through the back of his head. That should have been the end, but he was just conscious enough to look her in the eye, tell her how much he loved her, that she should move on, and then he died in unimaginable agony, squeezing her hand and grinding his teeth together so hard that she could hear the squeak of the enamel.
That weapon reminded her of his last moments. When she thought of him, tried to reach those happy memories, those blood soaked minutes got in the way. She could only see him suffering. The weapon was an artefact, it had become something special, unique. No other thing in the universe had done what that had done.
“Retiring the shredder?” asked Sun as she leaned into the doorway of the quarters Aspen had borrowed for their two-day journey.
“Just saving it for a special occasion,” Spin replied. “I found a multiplier pistol in the arms locker. There wasn’t much else in there, a few stunners, a bandolier of EMP grenades and a dermal printer.”
“High res or?”
“High resolution enough to print new dermal computers, communication links, and whatever else. I already printed a comlink on my jaw. Can you see it?” Aspen asked.
Sun took a look at where Spin pointed at her right jawline. “I can’t see it at all, it blended right in.”
“I doubt all but the best scanners could pick it up. We’d better keep the printer away from Nigel, or he’ll burn it out adding display surfaces to his skin.”
“Good thinking, he’s already got two comlinks printed somewhere on his face, and both his forearms are stitched up with intelligent displays, so he doesn’t need any more upgrades.”
“He got the other arm done?” Spin asked.
“Yeah, and most of his back.”
“I never understood the need to get a display surface printed into your back. You’re the only one who can’t see it.”
“Ah, he’s just a modder junkie, like those people with tattoos in old holos and period flicks.”
“I guess so,” Spin said. “We’re almost in the Diori System?”
“Yeah, a few minutes from emergence,” Sun replied. “I’ve been meaning to ask, are you okay? I heard who Larken was to you, Della told
me about it last night. You never talked about him.”
“I thought I did. I thought I told you about him. Doesn’t matter, when I was on the Cool Angel, I was sure he was dead,” Spin said. “I took over a year to move on, and even then I thought about him every day. Less, you know how it is, but still, every day.”
“I don’t really know how it is, he was like your other half, wasn’t he?” Sun asked. “You’ve also been off on your own a lot, and sleeping half the day.”
“I took something, it’s taken care of, at least for another three weeks. The sleeping, well, I’ve mostly been thinking, dreaming.” More like brooding, preparing, Spin thought. “Running a lot of katas, doing a lot of yoga to clear my head.”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” Sun said. “And you shouldn’t take more of that stuff. Those drugs are for the worst cases, catatonia, constant panic attacks, hypervigilance and delusions.”
“When I took that little pill my mind had stopped. I hated everything around me so much that I almost spaced Mirra and Della along with the body of the pilot who killed Larken. Della’s tears brought me back to my senses just enough to stop me from doing something horrible, and Mirra calmed me down enough to start thinking a few minutes ahead. If it weren’t for this drug, I would be curled up in a ball right in that corner, and I bet you’d still be waist deep in toxic sludge.”
“Sounds like you owe more to Dell and Mirra than to any pill.”
“Maybe, but I’d rather take a pill every few weeks to dull my grief for Larken and be as useful as I can be for all the time I have left than spend the rest of my life suffering for the loss.” Spin closed her duffel bag and walked past her into the corridor. “I’ll be fine. Oh, and if you want to practice anything, just ask. I’m sure the whole crew could use it to clear their heads.” She continued on to the stairs leading up to the cockpit where Nigel watched the scanners.
Trapped: Chaos Core Book 1 Page 11
