Prodigal (Tales of the Acheron Book 1)

by Rick Partlow

  Should she be mad, she wondered, for the cyborg not trusting her to take the man out, or should she be grateful that she’d been spared having to kill him? She shrugged the question off and jogged over to the man’s body, kicking the gun away from him before she reached down and turned him over. He was shivering, the last breaths going out of him along with a gout of blood that poured from his mouth. There was a blankness behind his eyes, the lack of awareness that came with deep shock, and she left him there, knowing he had minutes to live.

  The truck had shuddered to a stop, the engine still idling, and the others were converging on it, rifles shouldered, but she could see through the open passenger’s side door that the driver was dead. He hung limply from his seat restraints, half his head gone, a thin shroud of smoke drifting slowly out the shattered windshield. Donnelly took a quick look at the dead man, then jogged past the cab, pushing his carbine ahead of him as he yanked back the tarp that hung from the frame over the truck’s cargo bed.

  “Clear!” He announced, and she guessed he meant there were no enemy in the back. He looked back at the others, his expression invisible behind the faceplate of his helmet. “And jackpot.”

  Sandi shoved her pistol into its holster and ran to the back of the truck, feeling a rush of anticipation and excitement and not a little relief. Ash was beside her, face bare to the wind; he’d decided against a helmet as well, though he did have a carbine. Donnelly was still holding the tarp open, revealing three long, cylindrical containers, each nearly two meters across and about ten long, and each marked with a Space Fleet inventory number. They were proton cannons, three of them. Sandi felt a grin spreading across her face.

  “Tomlinson,” Donnelly said, sounding pleased with himself. “Get that mess out of the driver’s seat and get behind the wheel. We need to be out of here and back to the boat before these guys’ shipmates realize what happened to them.”

  “Got it,” the heavy-worlder replied, slinging his carbine and pulling off his helmet.

  “Everyone else get aboard,” Donnelly instructed, climbing into the back with the cargo. “Come on, let’s go!”

  “We did it,” Ash said softly from beside her as they waited for the others to get into the vehicle. “We actually did it.” There was disbelief in his tone, as if he’d expected the truck to be empty, or perhaps full of armed men.

  “We did,” she agreed, her hand going to his shoulder. “But this,” she reminded him, “was the easy part.”

  ***

  Sandi stared at the plastic cup, at the amber liquid that filled it to the brim, her fingers turning it carefully on the galley table but not lifting it. It seemed to her that the gravity had altered inside the ship and there was suddenly a stronger than normal pull holding the cup to the surface, that she couldn’t have lifted it even if she wanted to.

  They’d been in Transition Space for over twelve hours now and she was alone. Ash had powered the acceleration couch in the cockpit back into a prone position and decided to try sleeping in there to free up the cabins. Tomlinson and Donnelly were in one of the compartments, while Fontenot and Kan-Ten shared the other. She’d debated for a couple hours now whether she should take the other acceleration couch in the cockpit or unfold the cot Ash kept in the utility bay. She still hadn’t decided, but it had kept her from thinking about why she’d poured the glass of tequila and why she was having such a tough time drinking it.

  “If you’ve been looking at it this long, you’re not going to drink it.”

  Sandi blinked, unsure how someone who was carrying as much metal in her body as Fontenot could have snuck up on her. The cyborg was back in shorts and a tank top, not at all ashamed of the bare metal running obscenely into her flesh, the edges lost where her skin had overgrown the bionics.

  “Hi,” she said with a nod, purposefully looking away. Everyone carried scars; some were just more visible than others. “Good evening, or good morning, or whatever the hell it is.”

  “So tell me,” Fontenot stepped over to the table, ignoring the greeting, “are you that freaked out from watching a little ground combat? All that time sitting in a cockpit shooting missiles and the real thing gets to you?”

  The cyborg was baiting her, she knew that, and she wanted to snap back, but she had an idea that it was intended to pull her out of her funk.

  “I’ve seen ground combat before,” Sandi told her, trying not to sound defensive. “I’ve seen people die in front of me…all around me.”

  Fontenot didn’t sit down; Sandi hadn’t seen her sit down yet except to strap in for acceleration, and she wondered if the woman needed to sit at all. She could probably sleep standing up if she wanted to. It felt uncomfortable, the red eye gazing down at her, and she thought about getting up to talk to her face to face.

  “Guess number two, then,” Fontenot went on, expression impassive. “You’re a functional alcoholic who’s getting tired of the constant haze over reality.”

  Sandi did stare at her this time, frowning.

  “You sound like someone who’s been there.”

  Fontenot laughed at that, a sound Sandi hadn’t thought she would ever hear, something rough and jagged, and half her mouth twisted into something resembling a smile.

  “I’ve been around long enough,” the cyborg said, “that I’ve been almost everywhere.”

  “You know all about me,” Sandi said, feeling suddenly daring. “Tell me something about you. Are you one of those people I’ve read about who get bionic replacements because they want to be machines, or what?” She thought for a second that the woman was going to slam one of those big, metal fists into her face, but Fontenot’s expression didn’t change.

  “You’re talking about Skingangers,” she said, voice still calm. “No, I didn’t choose this…” She shrugged, a thing more of her head than her shoulders. “Not at the time. At the time, there was no other choice but death, and death takes away all our choices.”

  “So why?” Sandi pressed. “Why bionics instead of cloned replacements? And why not go with synthskin coverings? The only reason to go with bare metal is if you want people to know what you are.” She eyed the other woman sidelong. “Or if you want them to be afraid of you, so they’ll leave you alone.”

  “That obviously hasn’t worked with you,” Fontenot observed drily.

  “Just tell me,” Sandi urged. “You think I’m gonna’ blab it to who, exactly?”

  “Why’s it so important to you?” Fontenot wanted to know. She seemed to perversely enjoy Sandi’s thwarted curiosity.

  “Because…” She trailed off, glumly realizing the real reason. “Because I don’t have any friends other than Ash, and I keep doing my best to alienate him. Maybe it would be nice to know someone even more fucked up than I am.”

  Fontenot smiled again, gently. Then she reached down, took the cup of tequila, and tossed it back in a gulp.

  “You should go get some sleep, Hollande.”

  “Sandi,” she responded quietly, not looking up as the cyborg set the glass back on the table. “My name’s Sandi.”

  Fontenot was back in the cabin before she looked up. She sighed and pushed away from the table, finally deciding to sleep on the cot in the utility bay. It seemed like a long walk, with fatigue and exhaustion dragging at her; by the time she dragged the folding cot down from the cabinet set over the weapons locker, she wasn’t sure she’d have the energy to set it up before she fell asleep.

  That might have been why she didn’t notice Donnelly until his arm snaked around her throat. She started to thrash at the first feel of the bicep coming around her neck, started to lash out with her elbows, but the matte-finished knife blade that pressed in close to her eye made her freeze, motionless.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Donnelly warned her, his voice a breathless rasp. “Don’t make a move unless I tell you.”

  Then his other arm met the first and she felt the pressure against her carotids, felt the darkness closing in like a tunnel around her…

  It se
emed only a moment later when she came back to consciousness, but it had to have been at least a couple minutes because she wasn’t standing in the utility bay anymore…she was on her back, under the dim glow of chemical ghostlights, wedged between cargo cases in a shadowy, claustrophobic compartment with barely enough space to take a breath. She knew immediately she was in the hold, down beneath the deck, where the ship’s missile bays had once been. Donnelly stood over her, the combat knife in his right hand, and an ugly look on his ugly face.

  “Stay the fuck away from me,” she growled, scrabbling back until her shoulders came up against one of the cargo containers.

  She tried to push herself up, still groggy and unsteady, her head throbbing, but she was moving too slow. Donnelly pounced with the swiftness and ferocity of a big cat, one moment across the room, the next looming over her, his hand tangled in her hair, yanking her head back, the blade of the knife at her throat. He was rank with sweat and alcohol, and she wondered inanely, still dazed, whether he’d brought his own ration or stolen some of Ash’s.

  She grabbed his wrist, trying to force the knife away from her, still trying to get her feet beneath her, but the mercenary outmassed her by almost fifty kilos, much of that muscle. He yanked her off-balance and her legs went out from under her again, her head smacking against the cargo container, stars filling her vision. She somehow kept her grip on his knife-hand, even with the flash of pain and disorientation, desperately and blindly kicking out in front of her. Her right heel connected with something hard and unyielding that might have been his shin and he grunted and swore.

  Then he let loose of her hair and punched her, taking advantage of the fact that she couldn’t let go of the knife to block the blow. She saw it coming; it wasn’t as if he tried to avoid telegraphing it. She ducked her chin down into her chest and turned away just as it hit, but when his fist connected with the side of her head, it still felt as if someone had slammed a sledgehammer into her skull. Pain spread out like a wave from her head down through her neck and into her shoulders, washing away her strength as it did. She tried to hold onto his wrist, but her hands wouldn’t work right for some reason, and she collapsed backward, barely feeling her shoulders hitting the deck.

  He was on top of her in the space of an eyeblink, and part of her mind was screaming at her to move, to fight, but that part seemed trapped behind a hazy firewall of concussion, and she could only watch Donnelly ripping at her clothes as if it was happening to someone else. His weight pushed into her chest and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, couldn’t scream…

  “You Fleet pussies were only ever good for one thing,” he hissed in her ear, his breath hot and rancid and nauseating.

  Then he was gone, as if the whole thing had been a nightmare and she’d just woken up, and she sucked in air greedily. The sudden influx of oxygen gave her the energy to sit up, and as her vision cleared, she saw Donnelly floating above her, his feet centimeters off the deck. At first, she wondered if she was hallucinating; her second thought was that they’d come out of Transition Space prematurely and the gravity was gone along with the drive field.

  It took nearly two full seconds for her to realize that Fontenot was standing there, in the hatchway down from the utility bay, and that her right hand was wrapped around Donnelly’s throat and she’d lifted him off the deck with it. The man’s face was turning purple, and he struck desperately at Fontenot with his knife, but the blade sparked off her arm with a painful skritching sound.

  “I came back,” Fontenot said calmly, as if she wasn’t slowly choking the life out of a man, “because I decided you’re right. It’s been a long time since I had someone I could call a friend. I got the hardware in the military, during the First War with the Tahni.”

  It took a moment for that to sink into Sandi’s brain, penetrating the shock slowly, one beat at a time. The First War with the Tahni had ended over a century ago, back before the invention of the Transition Drive…

  “Yes,” Fontenot chuckled, as if she could read Sandi’s thoughts, “I’m older than I look. And you were right, I didn’t have the bionics replaced with cloned tissue or covered in synthskin, because it’s a good way to keep people…” She grinned in anticipation of the pun, locking eyes with Donnelly. “…at arm’s length.”

  Donnelly threw the knife at her in one last, desperate expenditure of his last, desperate breath. She knocked it out of the air and it clattered to the deck. The grin went off of Fontenot’s face and she twisted sideways with her choking hand. There was a sound like a green stick breaking, a sickening crackle-pop, and Donnelly’s eyes rolled back into his head, his struggle abruptly ceasing. The cyborg tossed his body against the bulkhead with casual disregard and he struck with the dull thump of dead weight, then sank bonelessly to the deck, motionless.

  Sandi swallowed hard to keep the bile in her throat down, squeezing her eyes shut for a second to get the image of the dying man out of her head. When she opened them again, she saw Fontenot’s hand hovering in front of her face, open and waiting. She grabbed it, accepting the help up to her feet. The hand was warmer than she’d thought it would be, and she wondered if that was heat transfer from Donnelly’s throat.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice quavering with adrenalin and lingering fear and rage. She realized her shirt was nearly ripped off, and she restrained a sudden, furious impulse to kick the dead man.

  “I warned him the first time I saw him,” Fontenot said, eyeing Donnelly. “I told him I’d heard about him, and if I ever caught him trying to force himself on a woman, I’d break his fucking neck for him.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble for this?”

  “Not if we get our stories straight.” She bent down and grabbed Donnelly’s ankle. “Let’s get this piece of shit to the airlock before he stinks up the place.”

  Sandi was about to offer to take the dead man’s wrists, as much as the thought twisted her stomach into knots, but Fontenot began dragging him up the steps, bouncing his head back and forth with unnatural flexibility.

  “Oh, and Sandi,” she said, pausing to fix her with a look that was half flesh and half machine. “My friends call me Korri.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Beautiful,” Brunner whispered, softly enough that Ash couldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been standing right next to her.

  He didn’t know if he would have called three Fleet-issue cargo containers beautiful, even in the golden hour of first light, but since it represented more firepower than the Rif had been able to accumulate in the last decade, he could understand how it seemed that way to her. The stevedores taking the containers down the Acheron’s ramp on a powered pallet jack were certainly handling them with extreme care, as if they would break if they looked at them cross-eyed.

  He supposed he understood that, too; he was used to treating Fleet-issue kit with brutal indifference, as you would with something paid for with someone else’s money. When you had to bleed and sweat and kill for every weapon and every piece of gear, it became precious and irreplaceable. Unlike people.

  He looked over to where Sandi was standing on the opposite side of the ramp next to Fontenot and Kan-Ten, feeling his teeth clench at the haunted look behind her eyes. He’d never killed a man, but he wished he’d been the one to kill Donnelly.

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t bring back Donnelly and Kovalev,” Brunner said, and he started, wondering if she’d read his thoughts on his face. He assumed Kovalev was Yuri; he’d never heard the man’s last name.

  “We were worried the raiders they were selling the weapons to might have more shuttles in orbit,” Ash explained, using the excuse they’d rehearsed on the way.

  As it had turned out, neither Kan-Ten nor Tomlinson had any love for Donnelly, and neither had a problem lying about how the man had died. His body had been ejected out of the airlock while they were in Transition Space, drifting out of the drive field and into nonexistence, simply ceasing to be in a reality where the laws that kept it together
didn’t apply. It was a better disposal than the piece of shit had deserved.

  “I just feel more comfortable,” the woman mused, eyeing him sidelong, “when all the facts are laid out in front of me rather than having to take anyone’s word for it.”

  “I think three proton cannons are all the facts you need, ma’am,” he countered, trying to keep his face neutral.

  “Perhaps so,” she admitted, smiling thinly. “Mr. Garces,” she turned and spoke to the short, weasel-eyed little man who was standing behind her, dressed a bit too gaudily for someone out on the edge of nowhere. “I’ll ride back in the truck with the weapons. I want you to take Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Hollande in the ground-car, get them somewhere nice and comfortable, get them a warm breakfast, and debrief them thoroughly on this operation.”

  She turned back to Ash. “Mr. Garces is my chief of intelligence, the one who collects such data as allowed you to locate the proton cannons. I’m sure he’s anxious to find out what you’ve learned of our rivals at La Sombra.”

  “Please, call me Hector,” Garces said, his smile not quite reaching to those dark eyes. The procession of cargo had passed, and Sandi was approaching. “Come with me, and we’ll have a little chat.”

  ***

  Ash tried to catch Sandi’s attention as they walked from the car into the low-slung stone building, but she just stared straight ahead, not even seeming to notice the icy wind off the sea. It had gotten colder while they were away from Cape Spartel and icicles hung off the eaves of the roofs around them, a few centimeters of snow piled near the walls, where the workers hadn’t bothered to shovel.

  Ash pulled back his jacket’s hood as they entered the building, feeling the tension go out of his shoulders as the heat pushed out the penetrating, wet cold of the winter morning. The interior was warmly lit, and decorated in deep reds and greens, half-walls separating it into several enclosed dining rooms. The building, it seemed, was a restaurant, though Ash hadn’t seen a sign outside to indicate it. He wondered if it was designed that way to keep out spacers and drifters; everyone he saw seated inside the place was dressed like a local, and well-dressed at that, nearly formal, at least as formal went on this planet.