Bitter Angels

by C. L. Anderson

  “Shit,” I said flatly. “Get me…”

  Leda was ahead of me, her fingers rapidly tapping keys. A string of letters and numbers spilled across the bottom of the screen.

  “Says it’s with the water authority,” Leda told me. “But we’ve got no routing for it.”

  “If it’s a smuggler, they’re fuckless idiots to be running where we can see them,” Ceshame muttered.

  “We didn’t exactly give Flight a lot of warning,” Leda reminded him. “Maybe they’d already started out.”

  I knuckled my eyes. Flight and the Clerks had been waiting for a month for a ship to come and snatch the cargo from that rig on Fortress. Why’d it have to be passing through under my nose?

  “Let’s hope they’ll see reason.” Most smugglers didn’t want to die. Most of them gave up when they were spotted, preferring an indenture they had a chance to escape to being blown to bits in the black sky.

  I turned the intercom over to an active frequency. “This is the Iphigenia III to ship ID string 614780J. Identify yourself. We don’t have a registered flight path for you.”

  There was silence, then static, then, “Hey, Brother Amerand.”

  Kapa. I froze, my heart beating hard at the base of my throat.

  “Kapa! I see you, you stoneless pirate.” With a tanker ship, smuggling water.

  When his voice came back, it was the kind of smooth that makes your skin crawl. “You see nothing, Captain. Nothing at all.”

  A faint voice in the background was less sure. “You said no hassle. You said…”

  “Shut it!” hissed Kapa.

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m not playing games, Kapa. You’ve got a load of water you’re not authorized to carry. Reverse burn and park your ass. We’re coming to get you.”

  “If I was you, Captain, I’d check with Fortress, see what they say.”

  I stared at Ceshame, and he stared back at me. He moved his hand toward the keypad, his eyebrows raised in question.

  Was it possible that Kapa had permission from Fortress? If he did, it was because he’d worked a deal with somebody at Flight; otherwise, there’d be an open plan. What the hell kind of smuggler didn’t think to manufacture a flight plan?

  “Reverse burn, Kapa. We’re carrying and we’ve got you spotted. Don’t make me shoot you.”

  Shoot you. Hull the ship, maybe too badly for a rescue. Maybe not. I’d try not to, but I didn’t actually have a lot of choice. I wasn’t carrying small arms.

  Don’t make me kill you. My gorge rose and I had to force it back down. It hadn’t come to that. Nothing had happened yet.

  “I’m telling you to call Fortress, you dumb screw!” shouted Kapa. “You think I’d be out here where everybody can see if I didn’t have the word?”

  “I’m looking at the run specs, Kapa, and you are not there. For the last time, reverse and park it. We’re loaded and aiming right at you.” Leda had the ship in her sights, and the screens in front of me showed how she was tracking him, and how she had already alerted Flight that we had a shooting situation, getting the authority before she had to pull the trigger.

  Silence. A cold sweat prickling my scalp. Park it, park it, park it, I silently willed the idiot on the other side of the void. Not worth it. Not worth your life. You can get out of this as long as you’re still alive.

  “Fuckless!” shouted Kapa, and a fresh burst of static flooded the speakers a minute later. Through the window, I watched the other ship turn swiftly on its axis. I saw the burn flash from its rear jets, but it was too long, too bright, and too hard to be just finding a parking orbit. The ship shot out of our view.

  I didn’t even have to order Leda to swing our head around with a short, sharp burst. We were all shoved back hard into our seats for about four seconds before Kapa’s ship was centered in the view again, blazing bright over Dazzle’s curve of mottled bronze.

  Something was wrong with the burn. It wasn’t a smooth flame anymore. It was shattered somehow, sharp and sparkling.

  “What are they doing?” Ceshame squinted at the screen.

  I felt the blood leave my face. “They’re burning the water. They’re using the water for extra fuel to speed up their run!”

  If I’d gone white, Ceshame flushed red. Wasting lives, I saw him thinking. Lives burning out in the vacuum.

  “I’ve got them targeted,” announced Leda.

  I should shoot him down. He’d not only stolen the water, he’d wasted it. He’d completely and utterly wasted it.

  And if I did, I might just be setting Emiliya free from whatever hold he still had on her.

  “Kapa, you can’t outrun us. You’ve burned the damn cargo. Stop this right now.”

  The silence on the other side stretched out endlessly. Don’t be an idiot, Kapa. You were always the smart one. You were the one who could work the angles. You were the one who had the nerve to get out. Have the nerve to stay alive.

  You should never have come back.

  At last the silence on the other end broke. “Okay. Okay.” I could hear swearing and yelling in the background. Kapa ignored it. “What do you need us to do?”

  I eyed my screens, my lists, and my permissions, and all the back-and-forth between Leda and Flight. “Cut your acceleration, let us catch up and dock. And Kapa…”

  “Yeah?”

  I leaned close. I wanted to be sure he heard me. “Flight’s got you pinned now. If you try anything, they’ll shoot us all down.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I bet they would.”

  “Just so we understand each other.”

  “Oh, I understand you.”

  “He’s slowing down,” said Ceshame. Our thrusters rumbled and the ship slipped sideways, lowered, and banked. I checked the rate of our fuel burn. We were going to have to coast most of the way home at this rate.

  “Got ’em!” Leda cried happily. “Bonus time all around!”

  Then she saw my face and swallowed thoughts of extra pay. She turned back around with a shrug.

  Out the window, Kapa’s ship looked like it was sitting still. Ceshame and Leda had their eyes pinned on it, and every scanner was up and open, looking for weapons or traps.

  “Can’t get an internal scan,” muttered Ceshame.

  “No weapons ports,” said Leda. “They got some serious crypto coming and going though. I can’t make out anything but static.”

  “Keep listening, in case they’re bringing in friends.” I got out of my chair. “Or in case he wasn’t bluffing about Fortress. Ceshame, you’re with me. Leda, dead man’s switch on the clamps. If that ship so much as twitches, drop us back.”

  “Yes, Cap’n.”

  “Yes, Cap’n.”

  I climbed down with Ceshame behind me. As we stepped over the threshold to the connecting passage, the door to the passenger cabin swung open. Terese Drajeske, wearing nothing but black leggings and a skintight black top, said, “What’ve we got?”

  I hesitated. She was a trained soldier, but she was not allowed to kill, and I didn’t think that would slow Kapa down for a second if he decided to put up a fight.

  “We have to take a smuggler into custody,” I said. Over her shoulder, I could see Siri Baijahn, dressed like Terese was, and Emiliya, looking pale, thin, and haggard next to the other two, still in her medical whites with her shoes on her feet.

  “I’m going to ask you to remain in the passenger cabin,” I told them all.

  I half expected Commander Drajeske to protest. But her eyes flicked from me, to Ceshame, to the closed air lock.

  “It’s your ship,” she said.

  I met Emiliya’s eyes. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. Something very close to panic tightened her face.

  Commander Drajeske closed the door.

  I pulled my pellet gun from its holster and worked the action. “Have we got a picture yet?”

  Ceshame hit the switch on the pad by the door with his left hand while he drew his sidearm with his right. “Not yet. He probably disa
bled the camera systems as soon as he got his hands on the ship.”

  “Probably. Stay sharp.”

  Ceshame took up his position to cover me. I tapped out the ID and authorization codes. With a grind and a hiss, the air lock opened to reveal Kapa standing in the frame of the threshold. I pointed my sidearm straight at him and he spread his clean hands to show them empty. Kapa smiled, flashing his shining, lavender tooth. At the same moment, I heard a shrill whine coming from somewhere in the belly of his ship.

  I grabbed Kapa’s arm, swinging him through the hatch into my ship and hurling him across to Ceshame.

  The world lurched and shook and the bottom dropped out.

  My head hit the ceiling, and I saw stars.

  FOURTEEN

  AMERAND

  I cursed and tried to roll myself onto my knees, but the gravity was gone and I slammed off the wall instead.

  Kapa was ready for it and we weren’t. He had his knife out and he drove it straight into Ceshame’s guts.

  Ceshame screamed. Red bubbles of blood exploded into the air. Kapa took a faceful and choked. I grabbed the edge of the threshold and forced myself to see straight. Leda swam headfirst down the ladder in time to see Ceshame curl in on himself, clutching his stomach.

  Kapa kicked off the wall toward Leda, knife first. Leda, the fool, yanked out her pellet gun and took a shot, which, of course, went wild. The kick drove her back into the wall, knocking what was left of her breath out of her.

  I launched myself, slamming my shoulder into Kapa, shoving us both against the wall. I got my hand around his wrist and twisted hard. Bone snapped and he screamed and the knife was loose and floating away. I reached for it with my free hand.

  Which was when the rest of Kapa’s crew flew through the air lock. The deadman’s switch had failed, or they’d been ready for it, and they still had hold of us.

  A noose looped around my neck before I could get my hand up. My momentum slammed the line against my throat and pain blinded me. I gasped and gagged, and got a mouthful of Ceshame’s blood.

  “For fuck’s sake, get the acceleration on!” shouted Kapa.

  I tried to flip myself over, but the noose choked me. I couldn’t reach my captor. A rumble vibrated through the hull, and we all dropped to the floor. My captor missed his footing and fell. I fell with him, landing on top of him. I dug my fingers under the noose as I rolled. It came loose and I jerked it away, forcing myself to my feet, coming up to face Kapa, who pointed my sidearm at me.

  “I’d rather not do it, Brother,” he said.

  Ceshame was on the deck, spattered with his own blood and not moving. Leda had collapsed on the deck beside him. Pain hazed her eyes and she tried to get up, but only fell back panting. Kapa had two men and a woman behind him, and out of the corner of my eye I could see two more of his crew just waiting for the room to fit themselves in.

  I held very, very still. I caught Leda’s pain-wracked gaze, and prayed she’d understand she should be still too. She panted hard, and spat and curled more tightly in on herself. Gradually, her breath slowed. Then it stopped.

  Her sightless eyes rolled open.

  I could do nothing at all.

  Kapa just turned to his crew. “Go get the saints,” he ordered. “If they’ve locked themselves in, tell them I’ll shoot their minder if they don’t come out.” He winked at me. “Don’t worry. They won’t let it come to that. Against their codes.”

  Disbelief surged through me. “You are not talking about kidnapping a pair of saints, Kapa.”

  He shrugged. “You pick your hole, I’ll pick mine.”

  “Either way, we both go down.”

  That only made him grin wider. “Unless you change your mind. Door’s open for about sixty seconds longer, Brother. Put in and we can go get Emiliya out too. Be just like the old days.”

  He didn’t know she was with us. I licked my lips. Would it make a difference if he knew we had Emiliya? Probably not. He’d find out soon enough anyway.

  I felt sick. I had screwed up, utterly and completely, and now Kapa was trying to recruit me over Leda’s corpse.

  “Shut it,” I croaked. My throat burned like fire from the noose. “Even if they didn’t have my parents, you’d be asking me to turn on my own people.”

  Kapa shrugged. “Well, at least you get to go out on a clear conscience.”

  One of the women had gone to the door. Had Emiliya and the saints locked it in time? I had no way of knowing. I had no way of moving without getting shot. Kapa was not going to miss me at that range, and he wouldn’t give a damn if he pinholed the ship doing it. After all, he had another ship. An internal drive ship. That whine I’d heard was the jump engine ramping up.

  Where did Kapa get an ID ship?

  Kapa’s crew member was banging on the passenger compartment door. “Come on out!” she yelled into the intercom grille. “And you won’t have anything to be sorry for!”

  I thought about Terese Drajeske and Siri Baijahn, and the weapons they had stashed in the lockers. I thought about the fact that they were forbidden to kill, and that Emiliya was in there and I had absolutely no idea what any of them could, or would, do.

  “Okay, okay,” came Terese’s voice over the intercom. “I’ve unlocked the door.”

  “Good girl,” sneered the pirate, and she cranked the latch.

  “No!” yelled Kapa.

  Too late. The door pulled back and Terese, fully dressed, slammed the muzzle of her gun directly in the pirate’s solar plexus. The blow doubled the woman over and dropped her to the deck. Terese hit the deck full length, giving me a perfect view of Siri kneeling in a firing position and taking a bead on Kapa. Kapa swung my pellet gun around and I raised my fists, but there was a sharp crack, and the gun vanished out of his hand, and Kapa was knocked back against the wall.

  From her position on the floor, Terese rolled, swinging her gun out to sweep the woman pirate’s feet out from under her. I spotted the gun Kapa had dropped and darted for it. I heard the firing crack behind me. Kapa was swearing and shouting. Another crack, and I turned, gun up. Kapa was struggling to pull himself from the wall. He couldn’t seem to move his good hand. A massive blob of shiny mucus covered his fist and wrist.

  Glue. She’d glued him to the wall. His broken hand dangled uselessly. The pain had to be intense. Hate distorted his features.

  The last pirate still standing struggled to pull his feet free from the deck. Glue covered his boots.

  A rush of wind told me the air lock had closed. I whirled around in time to see the warning light blink over to yellow. I dodged over to the panel. That wasn’t our door. Whoever was still on board Kapa’s ship had cut us off from their side.

  I spun again to face Kapa. Death had slackened all of Ceshame’s features, and his corpse slumped across Leda’s. I swore, bitterly and silently.

  Terese was breathing hard and she and Siri had their guns up, covering all three of the pirates: the one glued to the deck, the one groaning in pain between Ceshame’s and Leda’s corpses, and Kapa, glued to the wall.

  Emiliya was nowhere to be seen. And the door to the internal drive ship was shut and locked.

  “You got us,” said Kapa, his grin firmly in place. “And we look like pretty good chumps, too. Now listen to me. You’re in the middle of fuckless nowhere right now. If my ship leaves, you’ve only got a slower-than-light engine and a slower-than-light transmitter and we’ll be left with the choice of suffocation and starvation, if my guy doesn’t decide to be nice and put us all out of our misery.”

  “He’d be killing you too,” Terese pointed out.

  “What makes you think he’d give a damn? You think I hired a bunch of Guardians?” He sneered the last word. “Make your decision now, Lady Saint. Play tough and you’re killing us all.”

  “Is he bluffing?” Terese asked me.

  Kapa met my gaze without blinking. I expected his expression to be cold, but it wasn’t. His face was warm and open, absolutely sincere, like a friend’s.r />
  “Kapa,” I said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He shrugged and winced as his broken hand flopped. “And I’m going to tell you now? Answer the seña’s question.”

  My jaw worked back and forth a few times before answering.

  “No, he’s not bluffing,” I said. “He’s gambled everything on this. If it doesn’t work, he’s dead anyway and he knows it.”

  Where’s Emiliya?

  “Make up your mind fast, Lady Saint,” said Kapa. “I did not leave a patient man over there.”

  Terese looked at me. I looked at her. Siri was still kneeling in her firing position, waiting. A bead of sweat ran down her brow.

  Where’s Emiliya?

  “Stand down,” said Terese hoarsely. She laid her gun on the floor, but I thought I saw her finger make an extra tweak on the trigger. She met my eyes, but I saw no fear, only grim determination. As far as she was concerned, this fight was a long way from over.

  Anger rushed through me, together with a hot, ferocious adrenaline wave, and I had to suppress the most bizarre urge to smile.

  “Up to you now, Brother Amerand,” said Kapa. “You gonna shoot, or give Isha there your gun?” He nodded toward the woman pirate between my dead crew. She’d risen to her knees, gritting her teeth against the pain. The look she sent toward Terese was pure hate.

  I could stop this now, but I would end as a corpsicle, and I wanted to live. I wanted revenge for the death of my crew.

  I laid my gun on the deck and kicked it over to Isha. Moving slow and lopsided, she scooped it up, checking the trigger and the load.

  “Now get me out of this.” Kapa jerked his chin toward his glue-covered hand.

  Terese shrugged. “I don’t have the release.”

  “I don’t believe you,” answered Kapa, and Isha pointed my gun at Terese’s face. Isha’s arm shook. Her finger on the trigger shook.

  Terese met the woman’s eyes, letting Isha see she was not afraid. She shrugged again and nodded to her second. The Field Coordinator had also laid down her weapon. Moving slowly, Siri Baijahn crossed the deck to Kapa.