Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2)
Page 23
The woman stiffened. Her hand went to her weapon again. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She looked to Hugo. “If you want my help, I suggest she keeps her mouth shut from now on.”
Dana’s face contorted but Hugo cut her off.
“Dana, quiet. We’ve got no choice. Webb needs her. What’s your name?”
A corner of a smile pulled at the stranger’s cruel mouth. “Webb. Nam Webb.”
“Lunar 1?”
She nodded. “As is your friend?”
“Yes,” Hugo said, checking his wrist panel for directions back the way he’d come. “And he’s badly hurt. We have to hurry.”
*
“I don’t trust her as far as I can spit,” Dana hissed in his ear.
Hugo winced but Nam’s brooding silence remained unbroken. “We have no choice, Dana. And besides…” He glanced over this shoulder at the tall woman pacing a few feet behind them, eyes fixed ahead and blank. “She’s after the Ghosts. She might know something that can help us.”
Dana shook her head and increased her pace. “Webb better live through this,” she mumbled, almost to herself. “If she hurts him -”
“I won’t hurt him.” Nam’s voice wasn’t loud but it shut Dana up mid-mutter.
Hugo increased their pace. When they finally found the room again, Hugo pushed the rusted hatch open, calling Webb’s name.
There was a groan and shuffle in the gloom and then the lenslight flicked on and pointed at them.
“Shit,” Webb said, trying to get up, eyes riveted on Nam’s face paint. “Christ, Hugo, look out.”
Hugo glanced back at Nam as she straightened inside the room, blank eyes staring about from under her paint.
“Calm down,” Hugo said, going to him and taking the light off him. “She’s going to help us.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Her? She’s the killer…”
“What’s the damage?” Nam said, coming forward and kneeling next to Webb, taking in his blood-soaked coveralls with an empty glance.
“Stab wound to the side,” Dana said, voice clipped and reached to peel Webb’s hands and saturated fabric from his hip.
“Are you all shitting me?” Webb panted, voice thin with pain and panic. “Get the psycho the hell away from me.”
“Be still, you’re pulling on it,” Nam said as she started taking things out of her belt.
“Hugo, what’s going on here?” Webb spluttered.
“Your enemy is my enemy,” Nam said, unfolding a light pole she’d pulled from one of her deep pockets, setting it on the floor and flicking it on. They all cursed and blinked in the sudden light. Hugo felt his throat tighten when he saw how pale Webb was. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he was soaked with sweat. “Keep still,” Nam ordered again then laid out sterilising pads, a surgical stapler and syringes.
“Oh good Christ in Heaven,” Webb moaned.
“You,” Nam said to Dana as she loaded a syringe from a vial. “Hold his head. Keep him still.”
“Oh, Holy Mother,” Webb said. “Not me, why me? Why is it always me?”
“Shut up and grow a pair,” Dana grumbled as she shuffled up to Webb’s head, but Hugo could see the strain in her face. She ignored his protest and shifted him into her lap so she could support his head and shoulders.
“What should I do?” Hugo said.
“Thread a needle,” Nam said as she dragged the lighting pole closer and started wiping blood away with the sterilising pads. Hugo found the needle and thread in sealed pouches in the medkit and set about trying to thread the needle with shaking hands.
“Hugo, I’m going to kill you,” Webb growled. “You too, Dana. If she doesn’t kill me first, I’m killing you both.”
“Shush,” Nam said and injected him in the hip as he muttered incomprehensible curses. “Hold him,” she instructed Dana as Webb’s mumblings quietened and his eyes fluttered. Then she took up the surgical stapler. “Commodore. Hold it closed.”
Hugo winced as he shuffled closer and attempted to press the edges of the wound together. Webb whimpered but Nam reached around Hugo and stapled the injury in three places. Webb cried out and Dana cursed and held his head, brushing hair out of his face even as she mumbled to him to grow up.
The staples held the wound shut. She waved Hugo away and took up the needle.
Hugo stared, belly threatening to heave, as the woman stitched the torn flesh together. The stitches were fine and even and she called for a pad every few seconds to wipe the skin clean. When she was done, she dressed the wound with bandage and gauze. Webb had gone still.
“Webb?”
“He’s fine,” Nam said after a quick glance at his face and a check of his pulse. “Keep the wound clean. He will need to rest a few days and make sure he eats. There’s a supply bunker under a yard office three blocks hubwards that’s not well guarded.”
“Thank you,” Hugo said and Nam nodded. She glanced at Webb again and reached up. Dana tensed but all Nam did was turn back his collar to expose more of the thin scar that ran from behind his ear down to his collar bone.
“This Ariel’s work?”
Hugo nodded. Dana was staring at the scar like it was the first time she’d noticed it.
Nam sat back on her heels, wiping the blood off her hands with more pads.
“Maybe we’re even more alike than I thought. We’re all after people who have hurt us. Good luck to you.”
“Nam, wait,” Hugo said, getting to his feet as Nam did. “We should work together.”
Nam shook her head. “I’m not after this blade. You’ll only get in my way.”
“Hey,” Dana said, shifting a moaning Webb back onto the sacking and standing. “You’re the one who came after us.”
“When I thought you were Ghosts,” Nam said. “You turned up at both their places, I know I was watching.”
“You were the one following us…” Hugo said, realisation dawning.
Nam nodded. “I wasn’t sure. But then you turned up at the broker’s apartment too.”
“You killed Celeste?”
“She was a Ghost,” Nam said. “They will all die by my hand, under a Black Cross. The world will know that they were evil.”
“Nam,” Hugo said, taking a step toward her. She stiffened and stepped away but he moved between her and the hatch. “At least let’s exchange information. Tell us what you know about the Ghosts.”
“I know nothing about them except what they took from me.” Her voice was thick with emotion and the blankness of her face shifted a second to reveal a twisted mask of fury and pain that she looked down to hide.
“That sister you mentioned. They killed her, didn’t they?” Dana’s statement was not voiced kindly and she stood with her arms folded and her gaze watchful.
Nam looked back up. The burning agony was now only evident in the thin press of her white mouth. “No. Much worse.”
“We are not going to stand in the way of you avenging the wrong done to you but…” Hugo took a breath. Dana was wary and Nam was staring at the wall like she could blast a hole through it with her look alone. “But if you tell us all you know, it might help us. And, in exchange, we will tell you where their lab is.”
Webb blinked his eyes open, dazed, winced and muttered something. Dana just took on a frozen look but didn’t say anything.
Nam tore her gaze from the wall and it hit Hugo like a blow. “They have a lab?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me. You tell me now.” She advanced a step and Hugo took a step back.
“Kale,” Dana warned but Hugo held up a hand.
“Dana, be quiet. Nam. We will tell you -”
“Hugo,” Webb started to protest from the floor, voice thick from the drugs.
“Quiet,” Hugo snapped again. The woman stood over him, hand on her machete handle again, her other fingers twitching. “We will tell you what we know, if you do the same.”
Her jaw worked, her eyes burned and the knuckles around the
handle of her weapon were white. The edge of madness was bright in her eyes again and Hugo found himself glancing over his shoulder to check how far he was from the hatch should he need to make a move.
When she still didn’t say anything, he took a breath, closed his eyes and the words fell out of him. “They didn’t kill my fiancée either. They set Ariel on her.” He opened his eyes. “She lost our child. But she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember anything. I was supposed to marry her and now she doesn’t know who I am.”
The woman started to tremble. Something went out of her eyes then she covered her face with her hands and stepped back, out of the pool of light from the lighting pole and crumpled to her knees, shoulders shaking though she made no noise.
Webb grunted as he tried to sit up. Dana threw a wary glance at Nam then went to help him. Hugo stayed where he was until Nam dropped her hands. She had chased all emotion from her face: it was set under the smudged black paint. Wetness stood in her eyes but when she spoke her voice was steady and hard, like it had never known laughter.
“I’ll tell you what I know, though I don’t see how it can help you.”
“Anything might help,” Hugo encouraged.
Nam stared at the wall, hands clenched together and eyes far away. “My sister and I scavenged wreck sites on Lunar 1 for scrap but we weren’t turning a profit any more. We were desperate and Magdalena grew reckless. She went the sites that were still dangerous.”
“She did?” Webb said.
Nam looked at him as if suddenly remembering he was there. “You’re a Webb too,” she said. Webb nodded. “You know then. I knew, too. Even Magdalena knew about the chemicals left from the war, even if she called it lies. She said the nuns were just clinging to the past, that the older generations just wanted an excuse not to have to revisit those places. So she went.”
“She got the wasting sickness?” Webb said softly.
Nam nodded. “Her liver was failing. The clinic kept her sedated. They said it was only a matter of days.”
“I’m sorry,” Webb said.
“Don’t be,” Nam said, pointing at him, eyes flashing. “Not for that. That was Magdalena’s fault. She knew it might end her but she went anyway. She didn’t care about leaving me alone.”
“What happened?” Dana’s voice was hushed now.
Nam took a few deep breaths, like she was trying to contain something inside her. “I was in her clinic room, screaming at her for being stupid and selfish.”
“Wasn’t she sedated?” Dana said with a sardonic look.
The look Nam threw back at her was black. “She could hear me. I know she heard me. But…” she closed her eyes and bit her lip. She crossed herself, a gesture that made Webb flinch. “So did someone else.”
“Who?” Hugo asked.
Nam’s eyes swung his way but looked right through him. “He had one arm and a nice smile. A smart suit. A panel full of diagrams. He said he knew someone who could save her. Someone that could give her a new liver and new blood and flush the wasting sickness away.”
“One arm?” Webb asked. Hugo looked at him. His face was grave under the sheen of pain.
Nam nodded, not looking up. “I signed over my trading post as collateral. My ship too.
“She disappeared from her room that night. The medics didn’t know where she’d gone. All the surveillance footage was wiped. I searched on the solarnet for days, trying to find out who the man was. Then I went to my trading booth in Houston Block and it was locked and barred. The level manager showed me the exchange papers with my signature on. My storage units in the basement levels were locked too and my ship had gone from its berth. They’d taken everything.”
“What about Magdalena?” Hugo asked.
“Her screams woke me one morning a few days later. She’d been dumped at the doorway of my boarding pod.” Nam started rocking back and forth, hands clasped round her knees. “I don’t know what they did to her. I still don’t know. She had incisions in her back but she didn’t know how they got there. She wasn’t dying any more, but she was in agony. I tried to take her back to the clinic but she just screamed and screamed and wouldn’t go near anyone in a medic tunic. I stole some sedatives to try and keep her calm but she never truly stopped hurting, moaning and whimpering all night and day. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t cry. She begged me to end her suffering, begged and begged until…”
“Until you did,” Webb finished after the pause had stretched on painfully long. His face was grim.
Nam stared into space again. When she spoke her voice was hard again. “I finally found out who the one-armed man was. I found out he came from Haven. I found out he worked with a gang called the Ghosts. Then I came here… searching.”
“For him?” Hugo asked, voice far-away sounding in his own ears.
“For him and them. For his organisation. For everyone involved in making me have to kill my sister.”
“And how exactly did you do that?” Dana said, still disdainful though there was a catch in her voice. “It’s next to impossible to get information on this damned colony.”
Nam’s wide, empty eyes turned her way. “You need to know your enemy’s rivals.”
“Catiline?” Webb ventured.
Nam nodded. “They know more than they let on. They gave me names. And now, all the Ghosts are mine.”
Silence filled the room like a vacuum. Hugo felt heat in his face but his body was chilled. He tried to rope together a coherent thought but his mind was a cold, aching blank.
Nam broke the spell by sweeping to her feet. “Where’s the lab?”
“Sorry?” Hugo blinked, shaking himself.
“You said there was a lab. Where is it?”
“Hugo,” Webb warned.
“I’m not leaving until you answer me,” Nam said, drawing her machete again. “I can always re-open his flesh if you need convincing.”
Dana scrambled to her feet and moved between the tall woman and Webb though the clone did nothing more than keep his warning glare on Hugo.
“She has a right to know,” Hugo said. He turned to Nam, ignoring the doubt that had started his nerves twitching. “It’s on the Service flagship being constructed by Sector 4’s shipyard. The Ghosts are on the work crew and they’ve modified a shuttle on the aft deck. They probably plan to steal it and make a getaway once the ship is launched and through the blockade.”
“They want their lab mobile,” Nam said, face darkening. “To trade in the whole Orbit.”
“Don’t let them,” Hugo said.
Nam blinked in vague surprise and for a moment, looking almost normal. Then she shifted, sheathed her machete and the mask was back in place. “Keep the lighting pole. Make sure he eats and rests. Good luck to you.”
“And you,” Hugo said, surprising himself with the sincerity in the words.
Nam held his gaze a long moment whilst Dana and Webb were silent. “We’ve helped each other today. But I repeat: I will not stand anyone getting in my way.”
“Neither will we,” Dana replied. The two women looked at each other, two sets of eyes blazing. Then the red-haired woman turned and left through the hatch. Hugo bolted it after her, then leant his forehead against it.
“Ok…so maybe Yoshida isn’t as harmless as I thought. But I still don’t know if telling her about the lab that was the best idea.”
Hugo ignored Webb, keeping his forehead pressed against the pitted metal. He could smell the rust, coppery like blood.
“Kale?” Dana’s voice held just a hint of concern.
Hugo turned on them both, mastering himself with a deep breath. “She has her way of making sure no one else gets hurt. We have our own.”
“We know that,” Webb said, wincing as he propped himself higher up on one elbow.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I just thought you’d prefer Yoshida in a court facing a Service judge, not having his throat hacked open in the shuttle bay of the Perseverance. My mist
ake.”
“Yoshida is not the target here.”
“So it’s ok for that crank to get served Nam’s brand of personal justice, but I’m not to lay a hand on the man that tortured me?”
“When we find Ariel, which we will,” Hugo said, voice like ice, “he will be taken back to Headquarters to stand trial. Not because I wouldn’t rather put a bullet in his head myself. But what he might know is too valuable.”
Webb rolled his eyes and looked at the wall. Hugo strode across the room and dropped beside him. Webb flinched away, but Hugo put his hand behind his friend’s head and pulled him forward to press their foreheads together.
He’d last done this when they’d stood on the command deck of the Resolution as it plummeted towards the moon’s surface. If anything, the fear and desperation that pumped through Hugo’s veins now was even more intense.
“Please,” he breathed. “I’ve failed at everything else. Help me do this and do it right.”
Webb let out a shuddering breath. “Ok, Hugo. I’m sorry.” Hugo felt him pat him on the shoulder. “You can let go of me now.”
Hugo broke away then rocked back on his heels, angrily swiping at his stinging eyes.
“Jesus, it’s no wonder people think we’re sleeping together,” Webb muttered.
“What?” Hugo and Dana said at the same time.
Webb laughed. It was a weak and tired sound but it gladdened Hugo to hear it all the same. “Never mind. Can I go to sleep now?”
XIII
Webb had never known exhaustion like it, in either of his lives. It sucked at him like a black hole. And yet even as he lay there in the darkness and the quiet, he did not sleep. He drifted between awareness of the raging wound in his side and a place where he forgot what that feeling meant, but he never truly slept.
Nam’s words went round and round in his head. When he shut his eyes he saw her sister as he imagined her, crawling over the Lunar 1 blast sites, scavenging for anything that might make a sale. Then he saw her with her skin clammy and yellowish, eyes red and hair coming out in chunks. Webb had seen people with the wasting sickness before. The thought of being denied the release of death but still having to live with the symptoms made him go cold.