Ariston_Star Guardians

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “Related to the position you were in next to my dining table earlier,” Mick said, and wiggled her eyebrows at him so he couldn’t miss the innuendo.

  “Ah.” He sounded relieved, though she had no idea if that was because he was excited about doing such favors or if he was simply happy she wasn’t trying to use him.

  As Mick headed for the rear of the shuttle, Ariston spoke again to his two prisoners.

  “If you return all the skulls and if you assist me in getting aboard the Pleasant Journey without Eryx knowing, I will testify on your behalf in court.”

  The woman started to repeat her favorite phrase regarding screwing, but the man stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

  “How about this?” he suggested. “We help you get in, then you tie us up in the back so it’s clear we were forced to help against our wishes, and then you forget you ever saw us.”

  “Leaving you to return to the ruins and scavenge again or to join the crew of another criminal?”

  “We’ve learned our lesson and would faithfully follow the law if given a second chance,” Teia said.

  She sounded as sincere as a used car salesman passing off a lemon.

  The corridor narrowed as Mick headed toward an open hatchway that led to the engineering compartment in the rear. She paused to peek through two side doors. The opening to the left led to a stack of bunks with so little room next to them that she couldn’t rightfully call the space a cabin. More like a glorified coffin.

  She paused long enough to peek under the bottom one and above the top to make sure there weren’t any bulging sacks of skulls hidden inside. She grimaced at the gruesome task she’d been given, but reminded herself that she’d seen death numerous times. Two-thousand-year-old skulls were relics of the past, nothing more. They might have been gruesome millennia ago, but they were only bones now.

  The door on the opposite side led to a lavatory that wasn’t any larger than one on an airplane back home. Maybe smaller. One would have been hard-pressed to hide a roll of toilet paper in there, much less a bag of skulls. A compact first-aid kit mounted on the wall was definitely too small to store skulls in.

  Engineering was also compact—there was no way a chubby engineer could have plied his trade there. Her armor clunked against protrusions and corners as she eased around machinery and computers occupying the space. The shuttle was clearly meant for short-term voyages.

  Engineering held more potential hiding spots, so she made herself search slowly.

  The shuttle shuddered, and Mick gripped a console. Apparently, the storm wasn’t quite finished. Or maybe, with nobody actively manning the helm, the shuttle was hitting every bit of turbulence out there. She could hear Ariston still trying to persuade the pilots to do as he wanted without using force.

  A snap came from the left, and Mick whirled. But whatever had broken had happened behind a panel. She stared at the spot, now more disturbed by the shudders reverberating through the craft.

  This shuttle hadn’t been under fire, so it shouldn’t have any internal or structural damage. Unless some stray en-bolts from her battle had struck something important. She grimaced, now eyeing the consoles and bulkheads for scorch marks as well as sacks of skulls.

  And she spotted a few. A freshly melted hole in a back bulkhead added to her unease.

  As she continued snaking through the minuscule aisles, bumping her boobs and butt on equipment, Mick thought she heard more noises. Faint creaks and groans. Was it her imagination, or was some structural failure imminent?

  Surely, alarms would flash in the cockpit if that were so. But were those pilots paying any attention to the helm? Mick could no longer make out the words of the conversation, but Ariston and the woman were arguing now.

  “Just find those skulls,” she whispered to herself. After that, she could go up there and fly if needed.

  But when she completed her search of engineering, she hadn’t found anything. Was it possible the relic thieves hadn’t brought their booty aboard the shuttle? Maybe they’d stashed the skulls in the ruins, planning to get a ship of their own and come back one day. But they would have risked someone else stumbling across them in the meantime, and it couldn’t be easy to get a ride out to a planet in a system nobody had a reason to visit.

  Mick propped her fist on her hip, looking around once more from the hatchway. Those two wouldn’t have had much time to hide them if they had brought them on board. She was surprised she hadn’t found them yet.

  Then her gaze snagged on a square panel in the ceiling that was darker than the others. No, not a panel. A door. It was similar to an attic door with a small latch tucked into a hollow.

  “Do shuttles have attics?” she muttered.

  A storage area, perhaps. Skull storage?

  Mick clambered up on a console so she could reach the latch. She half-expected it to be locked, but it released easily, and she pulled downward, lowering the trapdoor. A dark space opened up above her.

  From her spot, she couldn’t tell if it was only above engineering or if it extended all the way to the front. She reached up to pull herself through but paused as another snap came from the back of engineering.

  “Ariston?” she asked over the comm.

  “Yes?” he answered promptly.

  “Are there any alarms on the console up there?”

  “Nothing. We’ve adjusted our flight path, and we’re heading up to orbit.”

  “Does that mean they agreed to help us?”

  “Not exactly.” His tone turned dry. “We’re still negotiating.”

  “How much power do you actually have to negotiate?”

  “Mm,” was all he said in reply.

  Mick supposed they were listening to his half of the conversation, and it wouldn’t behoove him to admit anything out loud, especially if he was bluffing. She hoped he wasn’t bluffing since he was awful at that. She wondered how high up he was in his organization. He seemed to be at least forty, so he must be of a respectable rank, but she had no idea if he had any sway over his superiors or what the courts did after he testified. That was another reason she shouldn’t depend on him speaking on her behalf. She would have to find her own way out of her mess. And that was fine.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Still looking for the skulls.”

  “It would be helpful to find them,” he murmured, his words almost too low to hear.

  She took that to mean that having them as evidence would do more to condemn those two than whatever video he’d recorded.

  “Doing my best.” Mick placed her hands to either side of the trapdoor entrance and pulled herself up for a better look.

  It was too dark to see anything. Her helmet had a headlamp but not night vision like some of the fancier—and more expensive—models. She activated the light.

  Her guess of a storage area was correct. Crates had been haphazardly shoved into a space about four feet high, leaving crooked aisles between them. Here and there, dusty engine parts stuck out into those aisles.

  She shone her lamp downward. A layer of dust on the floor had been disturbed recently.

  “On the right track,” she muttered, then pulled herself the rest of the way up, coming to rest on her hands and knees.

  As she rose to a crouch, another shudder wracked the shuttle. She wobbled and caught herself, almost asking Ariston what was happening. But he was busy. He would let her know if they were truly in trouble.

  Walking in a crouch, she followed the path of disturbed dust down a narrow aisle between stacks of crates.

  A groan drifted up from engineering. It sounded like the pained dying of a machine.

  Mick reminded herself—firmly—that her mind had been playing tricks on her ever since they’d landed.

  She grimaced and kept going. The groans grew louder, seeming to come from all around her.

  A snap sounded, and she imagined the wind ripping away an exterior panel and sending it hurtling back down to the planet.

  “Not happening,
” she whispered, though she couldn’t help but have doubts.

  The medical AI hadn’t found anything in their scans to explain this. A little extra brain activity? Would that truly mean seeing and hearing things? Headaches? Seizures? What if all she’d ever believed was wrong, and restless spirits could reach out from the afterworld to affect the living? Or the shuttles the living were riding in?

  She imagined the long-dead owners of those skulls being pissed that they’d been disturbed, stolen away so somebody could profit from them.

  Mick growled at her darting—and ridiculous—thoughts and pressed forward. She peered into the gaps between the crates. Nothing but dust.

  The area grew less cluttered up ahead. She had to be over the passenger compartment now. There wasn’t much more area to search. She—

  Her headlamp went out.

  Mick halted, her heart suddenly pounding in her ears.

  “Light,” she croaked, her voice dry.

  It was the command to turn on the headlamp, but nothing happened.

  She continued forward, anyway. She would search by hand in the dark if she had to.

  The shuttle shifted, tilting toward the starboard side, and a faint clunk and thump came from up ahead. Was it possible someone was up here? Hiding?

  She had left her bolt bow propped against the bulkhead in engineering. She was on the verge of scrambling back to get it when something bumped her hand.

  Mick gasped—it was all she could do not to scream—and jerked her hand back.

  “Light,” she ordered again, harshly.

  The headlamp turned on.

  Light shone over dozens of skulls rolling around the dusty deck, a sack tipped over and open to the side.

  Even though it was exactly what she’d been looking for, Mick reeled back at all those sightless eyes staring at her. One rolled up against her boot, and she looked down at it.

  Abruptly, the dimness of the shuttle disappeared, and harsh desert light flared all around her. She was back in the village market, the boy strolling casually through the crowded street, her fellow Marines chatting and smiling as they enjoyed a drink.

  “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out of there!”

  They turned and looked at her, faces puzzled, as if she were speaking a different language. They waved for her to join them. The boy smiled knowingly at her.

  She ran toward him, determined to stop him. She had never been able to try that before, never been able to do anything but watch the dream—the memory—play out.

  His eyes widened as she sprang toward him. She landed atop him, bringing him to the ground and trying to pull away the bomb she knew lay under his clothing, trying to stop it from going off.

  But it blew up right under her. The world exploded in light, her body flying upward.

  Oddly, she felt no pain. She looked down on the market from above, saw the smoke clearing, saw her body land next to the boy’s. They were both dead, as were the people to either side of them, her comrades included.

  Nothing had changed. She’d given her life, but nothing had changed.

  17

  “Mick? Mick?”

  Ariston shook her armored shoulder. She crouched utterly still, her helmet brushing the low ceiling as she stared at the skulls on the floor. She didn’t react, didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  “Mick?” he repeated, pulling her around.

  He’d raced up here as soon as he’d heard her scream. Busy negotiating with Eryx’s rogue thieves, he hadn’t been paying much attention to her whispers and mutters—they’d mostly seemed comments about the search—but the scream had made him think she had stumbled across hidden enemies and was locked in battle up here.

  He shined his light through her faceplate, frowning at her glassy eyes, at the way they didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t seem to register anything at all. Was it possible she’d had some kind of seizure, the way Dev had?

  Ariston hadn’t realized how lively and expressive her eyes were, so quick to sparkle with humor when she shared quips, until they were staring ahead, completely empty.

  “Mick, are you with me?” he whispered, well aware that the shuttle didn’t have a medical AI or anything besides a meager first-aid kit. What if she didn’t snap out of it? “If you come back to me now, I’ll assume any position you like.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath and blinked. He smiled, thinking she’d heard his comment and would smile back, but when her eyes shifted to meet his, they held the most haunted expression.

  His smile evaporated.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Mick inhaled again, almost a gasp, and he remembered his thought that she hadn’t been breathing when he first came up. She bent over, hands clasping her knees, her body swaying with the tremors running through the shuttle. Or maybe that was her trembling.

  He worried that Teia and her buddy were down there, comming Eryx or conspiring, since there hadn’t been time to restrain them in any way, but he didn’t want to rush Mick. Besides, there wasn’t room for him to stand up fully, toss her over his shoulder, and carry her down.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  Whatever she was, he was certain it was not fine.

  “Stay there, and breathe,” he said. “I’ll get those.”

  He scrambled around, trying not to clunk his head on the ceiling as he hurried to pluck up the skulls and tuck them back into the sack. No, there were two sacks stashed back there, the other still tied shut and upright. In the dim lighting, he glimpsed the black gems—the Wanderer chips—embedded in their temples. Why hadn’t Teia simply chiseled those chips out instead of dragging all these skulls away?

  He thumbed one, and it didn’t come loose. Maybe that was why.

  Ariston returned to Mick, dragging the two sacks behind him. He gripped her shoulder. “We need to get back down there.”

  “I hate this god-forsaken planet,” she said.

  “What happened?” He still wondered if she’d had some seizure and would need medical attention.

  “I don’t know. Hearing things, seeing things. Nightmare. Day-mare. Whatever.” She flicked her hand, as if to shrug it all off, but her face remained pale, her eyes haunted.

  “I’m not sure why it isn’t affecting me as strongly as you and some of the others, but I think I’m glad.”

  He didn’t know what she’d seen, but he’d had plenty of nightmares in his life, including the one where he’d lost Zya. Any one of them could haunt him here and wreck him.

  It worried him that Mick hadn’t been sleeping this time, that she’d been in the grip of some nightmare while fully awake. What if that happened while they were in battle on the salvage ship?

  He could only hope that whatever was affecting her would lose its grip once they were in orbit above the planet instead of down on its surface. Except that they’d already almost left its atmosphere. If some virus or bacteria was causing this, it would remain within her, within all of them, until they figured out a way to eradicate it.

  “I keep reliving this day in the desert,” Mick said, her voice low, hollow. “We were in town, relaxing a little because it was a day off. But this boy walked down the street toward us. We didn’t know he had a bomb under his shirt. He blew himself up, and he blew up a bunch of the guys in my unit. Guys I was close to after all we’d been through. Friends. We’d been caught totally off guard.”

  Ariston wrapped his arm around her shoulder, cursing the armor between them. She needed a real hug.

  “Who’d think a boy?” she whispered, barely seeming to notice him. “He was maybe nine, ten. I only survived because I’d stopped on a whim a few minutes earlier. Afterward, I always felt that I should have reacted sooner, that maybe I could have changed the outcome. I failed. And I couldn’t accept that. It’s why I got out of the military. And I’ve wondered ever since if I did the right thing.”

  Mick turned toward him, returning his hug, and letting her faceplate fall against his shoulder.

&nbs
p; “It’s hard to accept that we don’t always control our own fates, and we hardly ever control the fates of others. I know. I know it well.” Ariston wrapped his arms around her, hating that they needed to get back to the pilots, hating that he couldn’t simply stand there and hold her.

  She sniffed and pulled away. “Sorry, I’m okay. I can hold it together.”

  “I know you can.” He lowered his arms, lamenting that she needed to hold it together, and led the way back down into engineering.

  She stayed close, so close she kept bumping him. He could tell she couldn’t wait to get out of that storage area. To get out of the entire star system, probably.

  Teia and the male pilot were sitting at the helm, talking quietly about getting jobs for a legitimate salvage operation once this was all over.

  Ariston didn’t buy it. Maybe he’d made a mistake in not offering them more, but there was a limit to how much he could offer without compromising his word or forcing himself into a position where, in order to keep his word, he would have to do something against the regulations or the orders of his superiors. And that was something he had not done in twenty-five years of service. When he’d been thinking of retirement, he had been imagining it an honorable retirement, not being kicked out of the Star Guardians.

  He glanced at the comm, worried that these two had warned the Pleasant Journey.

  Mick followed his gaze and must have guessed what he was thinking.

  “Sorry,” she whispered again, sounding so miserable and frustrated with herself and everything going on that she seemed on the verge of tears.

  He gripped her shoulder, again wishing they weren’t wearing armor so she would feel the gesture. “Not your fault.”

  Teia and her buddy exchanged long glances, and he suspected they knew that he knew they’d been up to something. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a way that could be remedied now. They’d just have to deal with the situation that waited for them. Maybe some brilliant inspiration would come to him.