“I assume,” he said once they reached the edge of town, “that we’re going somewhere.”
“Yeah. To the Earthrise. She’s parked a few minutes out of town,” Reese said. She stopped to pant, propping her hands on her knees. “Our ride out.”
“And then?” Hirianthial asked.
The beads on the end of her hair clicked as she whipped her head up to glare at him. “Providing we get out of here alive, I’m dropping you off at the nearest starbase. You’re way too much trouble for me.”
Hirianthial laughed. “Alas, lady. I hope it’s that simple.”
“Yeah, me too.” She straightened. “On we go!”
They ran. Leaving the town pleased Hirianthial greatly. He could almost forget they were fleeing and enjoy the run. He hadn’t been able to stretch his legs for days, and the expanse of the world around him, rolling away to the horizon in every direction, restored some of his tattered equilibrium. Enough of it, in fact, that when he saw their ride off-world he didn’t immediately fall into despair. The squat ovoid balanced on its landing stilts looked as much like the sleek Alliance ships Hirianthial had seen as an axe resembled a laser scalpel. He couldn’t imagine it outrunning a barge, much less a slaver’s ship.
Reese hobbled the last few yards to one of the stilts and whacked a panel with the heel of her hand.
“Kis’eh’t! Get us out of this system, and now!”
A ramp descended from the belly of the ship, too slowly for the twins who jumped onto it before it had fully extended. They scampered up it, followed by Bryer.
“Up,” Reese said.
Hirianthial stared up into the dark and wondered just what kind of future the Queen had planned for him to tangle him up with this human and her strange people.
But he went up the ramp. He was, he thought, short on choices.
The engines changed pitch. Reese didn’t hear it as much as feel it through the soles of her feet in the rattle of the deck-plates.
“Where to, Captain?” Sascha’d made it to the pilot’s chair already.
“The nearest starbase in civilized space. And move it, Stripes.”
“Starbase Kappa it is, boss!”
The floor beneath her jumped as the Earthrise lifted. Reese steadied herself against the wall and felt the faintest relief from the churn in her stomach. Maybe they’d get out of this one unscathed. She toggled the comm to all-hands. “Irine? Where are you?”
A striped head popped into view from up-corridor. “Err... right here?”
Reese jerked a thumb at Hirianthial, who hadn’t moved since coming up the ramp. “See that he finds a place to sleep.”
“Right, Captain. You there, you’re with me.”
Reese watched them long enough for them to turn the corner, the solid and curvy tigraine girl and the willowy man. She wondered how he kept so much hair so healthy... nearly two weeks in captivity and he still looked like he belonged on the cover of a novel. It boggled the mind.
Reese jogged to the bridge, swaying as the ship rose through a few bumpy winds and rocking as the stabilizers balanced. The pressure exacerbated her headache; she’d never gotten used to gravities higher than Mars’s, and high accelerations always made things worse. When the lift ejected her onto the cramped bridge, she was only too glad to slide into a chair and buckle on the safety harness. Kis’eh’t was at the exterior sensor control panel, her own harness binding her centauroid lower body to the floor and Allacazam cradled between her forelegs. Sascha was in the pilot’s seat.
“Did we succeed?” the Glaseahn asked, glancing at Reese.
“We got him, yes,” Reese said.
“We’re clear of the atmosphere,” Sascha interrupted.
Reese slid her hand over the engineering display, scrutinizing the stress analyses as they scrolled past with a grim face. The ride smoothed out as the Earthrise rose, the transition from atmospheric night to the void-black of space invisible save for the glowing blue sensor data and the steadying of the starlight. Reese breathed a sigh of relief as the internal gravity evened to something approaching normal.
“We might even make it to Kappa in time to save the rooderberries,” Kis’eh’t said.
Most Pelted revealed their skin and its flushes at their ears. Humans, of course, suffered from whole-body blushes—most of them anyway. Reese had been blessed with skin dark enough to keep her embarrassment or upsets to herself, most of the time. But only a tiny corner of skin around Kis’eh’t’s eyelids was exposed. Reese was nevertheless startled by how stark a gray it turned.
“Uh... we’ve got a ship up our tail.”
“I see it,” Sascha said, voice distracted.
Reese twisted, staring at the sensor data. Her eyes rose to the aft windows where a gray splotch occluded part of the planet, growing even as she watched. “ID?” she asked hoarsely.
“It isn’t running a beacon,” Kis’eh’t said, bending over her panel.
Reese’s stomach screamed for chalk.
“What’s going on?” Irine asked, popping out of the lift with Hirianthial.
“We’ve got a tail, and it’s heading straight for us,” Reese said, fingers playing hopscotch over the keypad. “And it’s pulling a higher acceleration than we are.”
“They’ll overhaul us in fifteen minutes,” Kis’eh’t reported.
“Not if I can help it,” Sascha said.
“I thought I told you to put him in a room?” Reese said to Irine.
The tigraine shrugged. “You said to find him a place to sleep, not trap him there. He wanted to come with me, so I said ‘sure.’”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Reese said. Providing there was a later. “Buckle up if you’re going to stay.”
Irine wedged herself into the space next to the pilot’s chair and tied on a spare harness, then clamped herself to her brother’s leg. Hirianthial stayed in the back. Smart man.
“Reese, they aren’t exceeding our maximum limit,” Kis’eh’t said.
“She’s right,” Sascha said, “but we can’t go our max unless we—”
“Dump the berries,” Reese said, covering her eyes. “Blood and Freedom.”
“Captain, that boat is crammed with weapons. Half of them look like they’re going to fall off, but our one laser isn’t going to do much good,” Kis’eh’t said, still punching buttons.
Reese stared at the oncoming pirate: obviously jury-rigged, operating with only shoddy, low-level navigational shields, but with engines well a match for theirs and weapons all out of proportion to its size. It required effort to move her hand to the comm panel and twitch it.
“Lowerdeck.”
“Bryer, I want you to jettison the cargo. And make sure the clamps don’t go this time.”
The silence was eloquent.
“Just do it,” Reese said. She pressed a hand to her stomach, massaging it. “Damn rooderberries,” she said. “Last time I’m ever taking on any fruit. You guys are my witnesses.”
“Heard and witnessed,” Kis’eh’t said with a laugh.
“Here, here!” Irine added. Then said, “Does this mean we get to have rooderberry sorbet tonight?”
“This is not funny,” Reese said, glaring at the pirate ship. It seemed like a better idea than glaring at Hirianthial, who’d been the indirect cause of all this. Bad enough that he was responsible for the loss of her investment, but did he have to actually be on the bridge where he could remind her of just how much she didn’t want to be here?
The floor shivered and a muffled series of clunks followed as the bay doors opened. The loading collars sucking the pins from the spindles and ejecting the cargo bins resulted in much louder clangs, one for each bin. Reese counted them, flinching at each one, until the first bin tumbled end over end into view on the aft windows.
“Look at them go!” Sascha said.
Kis’eh’t said, “They’re gaining on us.”
“Do something about that, Sascha,” Reese said.
“Maximum power on all engines
,” the tigraine said. “We’re opening the distance.”
“How long before we shake them loose entirely?” Reese asked.
“I don’t know. Ten, fifteen minutes maybe.”
Fifteen minutes of staring at each of those bins, trying not to count how many fin each represented as they fell down the drain of the planet’s gravity well. Reese rubbed her burning throat as the long minutes hobbled on. The tension was interminable, and yet she was as bored as she was edgy. Her stomach did not approve. Her throbbing temple agreed, reminding her that she hadn’t even stopped to look for any medicaments before rushing to the bridge. No chalk tablets, no headache elixir, nothing. She regretted the lack of both.
Hirianthial’s baritone interrupted her reverie. “Do they always burn that way?”
Reese straightened, stared at the windows where tiny flares of fire erupted like miniature bombs. “What...?”
Kis’eh’t was already checking the sensors. “I...” The Glaseahn’s head dropped onto the console, her shoulders shaking. Between her forelegs, Allacazam turned a lurid shade of plum purple.
“Kis’eh’t?” Reese asked.
“Yeah, manylegs, give us the score here,” Sascha said. “Some of us are too busy to look for ourselves.”
The Glaseahn lifted her head, her demi-muzzle parted in laughter so intense she couldn’t even squeak.
Irine unbuckled her harness and straddled Kis’eh’t’s second back in front of her wings. The tigraine looked over Kis’eh’t’s shoulders and choked on a laugh. “Captain, it’s the rooderberries.”
“I know it’s the rooderberries! What’s going on with them? Are they hitting atmosphere?”
“No... they’re hitting the slaver.”
With her mouth already open to speak, Reese found herself abruptly deprived of words to say.
“Do you mean to say that the bins are striking the pirate vessel?” Hirianthial asked Irine politely.
“That’s exactly it.”
“Like... say, a grenade. Or a torpedo.”
“Exactly like that,” Irine said around her giggle.
“And... the odds of this?”
Sascha interrupted, “Well, if they’re right on our tails, and the bins are falling along our trajectory—”
Reese couldn’t handle any more. “What are you saying? That some of the cargo bins are—”
“There goes number four!” Irine crowed. “Ke-poom! Look at that!”
In the rear windows the pirate ship bucked beneath a brief, blinding splotch of fire; cheap cargo containers were only partially air-tight, but this evidence of just how partially left Reese with the absent thought that perhaps she should invest in better cargo bins.
“Captain, they’re... they’re decelerating.”
“They’re what?” Reese wheeled from the window to gawk at the sensor display as the pirate vessel dropped speed. “Blood! I think they’re damaged!”
“I’d confirm that,” Kis’eh’t said. “They’re definitely losing speed. And—yes, I’m seeing life pods.”
Sascha grinned, displaying white fangs. “Guess they’re not much for jam.”
“Life pods?”
Hirianthial’s question doused the wildfire merriment on the bridge. Reese barely heard it, staring at the pirate, trying to convince herself that all this was happening.
Kis’eh’t cleared her throat. “Captain? Reese?”
She shook herself. “No. Keep going.” And before Hirianthial could say another word, she said, “No. Not only are they floating above a pirate safehouse which can very well rescue its own maniacs, but those people want us dead. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“They’re not going to catch us now,” Sascha said.
“No, but—”
And then the ship bucked and the soothing hum beneath the deck-plates faltered. “What the?”
“They just shot us!” Kis’eh’t exclaimed.
“Are they still coming for us?” Reese asked. “Can we still get away?”
“Engines are at half power,” Sascha said with a growl. He punched the comm. “Bryer!”
“Can’t talk. Much repair-work.”
“What did they get?”
“In-systems. Also Well drive.”
“We can’t get out of here?” Irine squeaked.
“You can coast but you can’t ride,” Bryer said. “Bother me later. Or come down and help.”
“Damn,” Sascha said, unstrapping himself. “I’ll be below-decks with Bryer. If we can’t use the Well Drive we’re slavebait. They’ll send someone new after us while we limp out of here.”
“And here we’re out of rooderberries to fire at them,” Kis’eh’t said as Irine slid into her brother’s place.
“Where now?” Irine asked.
“There’s an asteroid belt,” Kis’eh’t offered, studying her display. “We could hide there while we do repairs.”
“Do it,” Reese said. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“I’ll give you an estimate once I get down there,” Sascha said, and vanished into the lift.
“This is not our lucky day,” Irine muttered.
Reese stood up. “Don’t say that until it’s over, unless you really want to jinx us.”
“Sorry. Say, Boss?”
“What?”
“My ability to concentrate on keeping us hidden would greatly improve if you went somewhere else. It’s not like anything’s going to happen in the next hour or so.”
“How can you be sure?”
Kis’eh’t said, “I’ll call you if something happens.”
Reese looked from one to the other, torn.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing what passes for a clinic on this ship,” Hirianthial said from behind her.
She wasn’t sure what infuriated her more, his assumption that she could afford a ship with a clinic or his assumption that the one she could afford could only “pass” for a clinic. Her stomach churned as she stared at him, trying to decide what to say.
“We don’t have much of a ship’s clinic,” Kis’eh’t said, interrupting her thoughts. “There’s a combination clinic-lab that I converted next to my room... I use it for experiments sometimes. Reese knows where it is.”
Of course she did! It was her ship! She’d approved the change!
“And you could take Allacazam,” the Glaseahn continued. “I think he wants to be with you.” The woman offered her the Flitzbe, and Reese took it by reflex. Instantly she felt a touch of sparkling concern at the edge of her mind, and she sighed, holding him against her stomach.
“Is that a real Flitzbe?” Hirianthial asked, and even Reese could read the wonder in his voice.
“It is,” Kis’eh’t answered for Reese. “Why don’t the two of you talk about it somewhere else?”
Reese opened her mouth to complain, but Allacazam’s sad violin trill distracted her. She sighed. “All right. I’m leaving. But if anything changes—”
“—we’ll tell you right then,” Irine said.
“We’re going to talk about this gross insubordination later,” Reese added, heading for the lift.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Kis’eh’t.
“Just so long as you whip me good,” Irine added.
Reese rolled her eyes. “Come on, Prince Charming. Into the lift with us, before Irine starts whining about how I never let her have any fun.”
“You don’t!”
The lift door closed.
“A real Flitzbe,” Hirianthial prompted again.
“Would you like to hold him?” Reese asked, wondering why she was offering.
“May I?” he said.
Reese held Allacazam out to him, wondering if Hirianthial would take him directly from her hands and risk touching her, or if she’d have to set the Flitzbe on the floor and let him roll to the man’s boots. But no, the Eldritch didn’t flinch at the transfer, though his hands never touched hers.
“You’ve never seen one?” Reese asked.
“In textbooks,”
Hirianthial replied. He set Allacazam against his ribs, tucked against his elbow, and rested his opposite hand on top of the Flitzbe. It was a tender hold, and in it Allacazam blossomed all sorts of calming colors. Pastel purple. Shimmery silver. Touches of rose and peach and blue. Reese stared, mesmerized, until the lift door opened.
“I didn’t think you’d want to touch him,” she said. “He emotes a lot.”
“I didn’t think I would either,” Hirianthial said. “But it seems rude not to, given he can’t communicate any other way.”
“The clinic’s this way,” Reese said, glancing one more time at the supreme contentment of the Flitzbe before heading down the hall. She heard the soft whisper of the Eldritch behind her, wished that the Earthrise would at least oblige her by sounding noisy under the man’s feet. Naturally, the ship wouldn’t. Did anyone dislike an Eldritch? Except her? She’d liked them fine as mythical characters, but meeting one in person... no one had told her how infuriatingly perfect they’d be.
Reese opened the door on the small room Kis’eh’t used as a lab. The Glaseahn had studied some sort of fancy chemistry and with Reese’s permission installed some enigmatic lab equipment. Since she occasionally donated money to the ship when her articles earned any, Reese didn’t complain. The things took power, but they were Kis’eh’t’s romance novels, her escape to something else. Somewhere better. Why the Glaseahn didn’t do her chemistry as a formal job Reese didn’t understand; Kis’eh’t had only ever said that she and academia had had a difference of opinion.
“Larger than I expected,” Hirianthial said, sitting on a stool. He was petting Allacazam now. They seemed well-suited. Reese wondered if the Flitzbe would take to sleeping with him from now on.
“Captain?”
Reese tapped the comm, glad for the distraction. “Go ahead, Sascha.”
“We’re looking at at least three hours of repair. Maybe four.”
“Four hours!” Reese said.
“Just be glad we’ve got the parts on hand.”
Reese sighed. “All right. Get us out of this, Sascha, and I’ll buy you and Bryer dinner at Starbase Kappa.”
Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) Page 5
