“Down! Get down!” Anders ushered us inside a low-lit spice tent as they neared. Elio took his order literally, tripping to the ground, and I dragged him backward, his heels leaving two long grooves in the soil.
“Don’t mind us,” Wren said to the merchant manning the stall. She pulled a handful of the tent’s fabric around us, leaving a slit just large enough to peer through. “We’re playing hide-and-seek. It’s an Earthan thing.”
He stared at us over the top of a spice rack, then shrugged and returned to his wares.
The guards entered the center of the market, their heavy boots and thick, dark jackets immediately marking them as foreigners in the desert heat. The crowd parted for them automatically, Andilly’s reputation preceding them. I tracked them as they neared. Four men, two women—all six weighed down by weapons strapped to their waists and chests. Anders pulled out his blaster, his stance sure as he lined up his shot through the gap in the tent.
“Come on,” he muttered. “A little closer.”
But he didn’t have a clear shot. The market was too full, the auction too rowdy. Digging into my pack, I removed a stun grenade and ran my thumb across the pin.
One of the guards tapped his friend on the shoulder and pointed ahead. They all started running in our direction, quicker, louder. Anders sighted down the barrel of his blaster. Wren raised hers. I dug my nail under the grenade’s pin and started to pull. And then …
They blew right past us.
Wait. What?
“What just happened?” I brought my mouth close to Anders’s ear. “Why aren’t we dead?”
“I’m not sure. I—” He jerked his blaster up as one of the guards started to double back. A girl, not much older than us, smiling with exhilaration, red skin dotted with sweat.
She held up her comm and located us easily. As I’d suspected, they’d known where we were all along.
Wren tried tugging the tent flap down to conceal us, but it was too late. The guard’s lips pulled open into a smile so sharp it felt like a blade was being shoved into my chest.
Pointing at Anders, she spoke a few words of Andillian. Then, with a wave, she turned and joined her friends as they ran around the bend in the path and vanished from sight.
Wren, Elio, and I stared at Anders. “What did she say to you?” Wren asked.
Anders’s claws came out, shredding the edge of the tent flap. “She said, ‘Thanks for the head start.’”
I sank to the ground. The sharp combination of spices in the tent made my head ache. “So that means…”
“They found the key,” Wren finished. “It was here.”
“And now it’s with them,” said Anders. “I should have taken the shot. But I couldn’t.” Ripples of shame surrounded him. “Not again.”
Wren shook her head. “It wouldn’t have made a difference either way.”
“How? Please share.”
“Because.” She pushed aside the tent flap, and the four of us stumbled back into the sunlight. “If they have the key, they wouldn’t carry it into the market knowing we were down here. No, it’s hidden somewhere else.”
She nodded toward the edge of the valley. “It’s on the ship. So, in turn, we have to get on the ship.” The cloud of colors around her lit up like a firework display when she smiled at me. “Can you unlock the doors?”
“Well, breaking and entering is my specialty. Shouldn’t be too hard.” The doors would be simple; it was any aura-less guards left behind that would be tough. “You think you can nab the key?”
“Cora, I once stole a three-hundred-pound manhole cover and used it as a wall hanging in my bedroom.” And with that, she turned and took off for the north mountain.
22
Now this was a ship.
Twelve levels tall, a pristine paint job, and not a speck of rust in sight. With no guards to be found, I had my comm link hacked into the ship’s wireless interface, the security monitors off, and the bolt on the door cracked in under thirty seconds.
For a military ship, the Andillians sure did travel in style. We crept forward slowly, hyper-aware of any shift in the shadows that signaled an incoming threat, and entered the ship’s circular atrium. Copper ramps and walkways connected dozens of balconies on each level, all of them overlooking the main floor, which contained lounge chairs, a juice bar, and a double-paned glass lift that shimmered like a waterfall. I stepped closer, my dusty boots mucking up the spotless mosaic floor. This thing wasn’t a ship—it was a star-forsaken hotel with wings.
“They’ve really upgraded since they kicked me out,” Anders said, studying a screen on the wall that pointed in the direction of the ship’s fitness center, galley, cabins, and many other options for a key to hide. We needed to do this fast. The market could only occupy the guards for so long, and I had a strong suspicion that we weren’t the only four in here.
Wren returned from the bar with a glass full of bubbling blue juice. “We need to split up.”
Snatching my comm, Elio typed out: Horor moovies say not to do that.
“Sorry, little guy, but we need to cover more ground.” Wren nodded at us. “Me and Cora, Anders and Elio?”
Beep!
“It’s okay, Elio.” I nudged him closer to Anders. “He’ll protect you.”
“Come on.” Anders hoisted him up. “We’ll take the bottom six levels. You two take the top. Crew lockers are usually found in the fitness wing and in every cabin. The bridge is a good place to search too. You have weapons?” We nodded. “Good. Comm me if you find anything.”
As we watched him walk away, it struck me how much had changed in the short time I’d known him. When we met, I never would have left him alone with Elio, and I would have been worried he was using splitting up as an excuse to contact his fellow Andillians and send them after us. Now, I knew better.
The lift in the atrium launched off the ground like a rocket as soon as Wren and I boarded. I leaned against the side of the cabin, ignoring the floor falling away beneath us, as I monitored my comm link. There was no sign of motion on any of the levels I could see. Likely none I would be able to feel either. But that didn’t mean no one was there.
“Let’s start on level twelve,” I said, quickly hacking into the ship’s floor plan on my comm. “It looks like the bridge is at the end of the portside corridor. Starboard side is weapons training and waste management.”
“Portside it is,” said Wren as the doors slid open with a ding. In the silence of the ship, it sounded more like a blaster shot. We had just taken our first steps down the wide corridor when the sound of real blaster fire echoed from one of the levels below. I stopped dead. A scream carried through the atrium, followed by three large bangs, and then … silence.
Anders.
Elio.
Wren pulled at my wrist. “Come on. Quickly. The sooner we find the key, the better.”
As we started to run, I sent a comm to Anders.
Are you okay?
His response took a minute, by which time we had reached the doorway into the bridge, and I had started to sweat.
Elio is fine. I would welcome a large bandage, but I’m mostly unharmed.
Mostly was about as good as we would get right now. I bent toward the door, ready to hack into the ship’s interface and pop the lock, but Wren and I both paused when we noticed the door wasn’t automatic like all the rest. There was no holopanel, no keypad, no sensors. A heavy bar was screwed into the door, attached to a deadbolt that required a physical key to open.
“What year do they think this is?” Wren groaned. “Twenty-twenty?” She examined the lock, pulling out a knife and trying to twist it inside. “Can you pick things manually?”
“It’s been a while. I need two pins.”
“I have two shoelaces. That’s about all you’ll get from me.”
“Hang on.” I pulled out my blaster as two more loud bangs sounded from below. After twisting apart the barrel, I extricated two sturdy wires to weave into the lock. I was now weaponless e
xcept for a handful of stun grenades. And the spoons Wren had gifted me, I guess.
Kneeling on the floor, I pressed my cheek to the door and listened to the tumblers in the lock turn. The first one clicked after a minute. Then the second. The third one was almost there …
The lift opened, stopping my progress.
Wren’s head snapped up. “Anders?” she whispered, but when we heard another crash from below, we had our answer.
“Are we shooting or are we hiding?” she asked me. I could hear someone’s heavy footsteps cross the walkway off the lift and head this way, although I couldn’t sense them. Was that one set of boots hitting the floor or two?
“Just a second.” I crouched at the door. Lock picking was a skill of finesse, and it was nearly impossible to do it when my adrenaline levels were spiking, causing my hands to shake. I twisted the wire in my left hand, scraping the one in my right down toward the ground. The third tumbler miraculously clicked into place. “Just one more…”
The footsteps stilled with a squeak.
“… second,” I finished dully. The electric buzz of multiple blasters hummed in the air. I had none. Wren had a blaster, but she hadn’t powered it up for some reason. I turned toward her and—
Gone. She was gone.
“On your feet,” the guard commanded. He turned to his partner, his voice a hiss. “I suppose we should feel honored to be robbed by a member of such an esteemed crime family. Although your mother would have been more impressive.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” I didn’t even have the brain capacity to feel offended. Where was Wren? I pushed out with my mind, seeing past the dead space of the two guards to find the colorful prickle of an aura. There! A lilac plume coming from … Oh stars.
“I said on your feet!” the guard yelled. He fired his blaster, aiming just above my head. The wall exploded in a burst of flaming metal, and I ducked. When the smoke cleared, I raised my own blaster, obviously out of commission with half the barrel missing, the wires inside swinging out like intestines. The guards barked out a laugh. I really hoped Wren knew what she was doing.
“Pew-pew!” I jabbed my sad excuse for a blaster at the guards. This was like distracting the porci on Cadrolla all over again. “Pew!”
The first guard turned to his friend. “What … is she doing?”
His friend shrugged.
Wren’s aura was growing deeper. Whatever she was up to, she was almost ready.
“Pew!”
Guard Two frowned. “Why are you making that noise?”
“Why not? I can’t shoot you, so I might as well pretend.”
“I … you are a horrible thief.”
“I’ll admit I’m not the best. But…” The entire corridor filled with Wren’s purple glow. It was time. “I’m really good at providing distractions. I’m surprised you don’t know one when you see it.”
Guard One doubled over, laughing. “A distraction from what?”
I smiled sweetly. “Her.”
Wren swung down from the rafters, landing on the shoulders of the first guard. He spun, trying to throw her, but she responded by digging her fingers into his eyes. He howled, stumbling into the wall. Wren finally pushed off him when he was far enough down the corridor, and then she fired her blaster at the ceiling.
Tiles and plaster and metal beams rained down, knocking the guard to the floor and encasing him in a tomb of debris. He was either really, really unconscious or really, really dead.
His friend looked on, frozen in place, eyes bulging out of his head. I easily plucked the blaster from his limp fingers.
“How did you get up there?” I asked Wren when she stumbled back to the bridge door.
She shrugged. “There was a chair down the hall. I pulled myself up. Quick and painless. Well…” She looked at the buried guard. “Not painless for him.”
Guard Two finally snapped out of it and ran to dig the barely breathing body of Guard One out of the wreckage. “You killed him!”
Wren rolled her eyes. “No I didn’t. He’ll live to be annoying another day, I promise.”
“D-don’t hurt me too! Take whatever you want!”
“Wow,” I said to Wren. “The quality of soldiers on Andilly has seriously gone downhill since Anders left.”
“Agreed. Hey, you! Guard boy! How about getting us through this door?”
He froze again. His friend slipped from his grasp and crashed back to the floor. “You can’t go in there.”
I crossed my arms. “Big words from someone who doesn’t want to get buried alive.” I raised my dismantled blaster, taunting, “Pew-pew.”
He hesitated for a breath. “Fine! Just don’t shoot.”
He plucked a key from the breast pocket of his jacket and then the door was swinging open, revealing a wide cockpit full of flashing screens and a panoramic view. A conference table took up the middle of the floor, covered in diagrams, a small model of the Starchaser, and an overturned glass spilling water.
“Where’s Teolia’s key?” I asked the guard. He may have been taller than us, but he was unarmed. Wren and I each jammed a blaster under his chin.
“I said don’t shoot,” he protested weakly.
“Tell me where the key is and we won’t,” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“Do your friends in the village know we’re up here?”
“I don’t know.”
“When are they coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you say anything other than ‘I don’t know’?”
“I—yes, of course.”
“Excellent. Okay, listen up.” Tightening my finger on the trigger, I watched a few beads of sweat drip down the tattoos on the guard’s forehead. “Either you tell us where the key is, or this one”—I nodded to Wren—“is going to rip your intestines out through your eyes.”
“It’s true,” Wren said. “I’m really good at that.”
“And then after that, we’re going to drag your dead body to the warden so he can string your insides around his office like party streamers. Does that sound like fun?”
The guard’s eyes narrowed, but still he shook with fear. “You cannot intimidate me—”
“BOO!” Wren screamed in his face. The guard jolted, whimpering. “Yeah, I think we can.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Does that sound like fun? Yes or no?”
“No! Obviously no!”
“A compromise, then? Grab your friend, grab the others on the floors below, and get off this ship. If you don’t, then you should know I have a bunch of grenades in my pocket that I’m growing tired of carting around. I’ve blown up an entire outpost, so don’t think I won’t blow up this ship too. Leave us alone.”
“But the key—”
“BOO!” Wren screamed again. The guard jumped almost a foot in the air, but miraculously he listened, leaving a trail of dust and debris as he dragged Guard One through the wreckage and around the corner. Wren shot after them once, missing on purpose. Guard Two yelped, picking up the pace. I didn’t release the tension from my body until I heard the lift doors slide shut at the end of the corridor. Then I rushed to the viewport in the cockpit to watch.
As instructed, Guard Two was dragging Guard One and leading a group of three others from the ship, toward the cart path into the village. I knew we wouldn’t have much time before he told the rest of his friends that the ship had been compromised.
“As fun as that was,” said Wren, peering over my shoulder, “he didn’t tell us where to find the key.”
“No. I doubted he would.” Sighing, I started tearing through drawers on the wall behind the captain’s chair. “Should we try another floor? I don’t know if it’s in here.”
A sudden crash from the corridor outside had us both powering up our blasters. But it was just Anders, clutching his ribs as they leaked blood around his fingertips. Elio flitted around him with a rag, trying to clean the mess.
I
helped him into a seat at the conference table. “What happened to you?”
He winced. “They tried shoving us down the incinerator shaft. Elio was great though. He ran into the galley and started throwing cans of pon at their heads. I was able to knock one of them out. The others ran for the door once a group of their friends came through.” He looked at me strangely, silently questioning what I had done to get our guards to leave us alone.
Oh, you know, just threatened to cause an explosion and rip out a man’s large and small intestines. No big deal.
Elio pulled at my arm and showed me Anders’s comm link. On it, he wrote: I’m x-lent in a crisis.
“Good job, friend.” I patted him on the head before going to the wall where Wren was wrestling with the door of a massive safe.
“How do you do this?” She spun the dial and tapped a series of numbers on the keypad. A light flashed red, an alarm ringing out.
Pushing her aside, I quickly hacked into the safe, my fingers trembling as the door creaked open. Hiding the key directly behind the captain’s chair was rather obvious, but most Andilly guards I’d encountered so far didn’t exactly scream evil geniuses.
“Hello, money!” Wren scooped a handful of ritles into her bag. My chest deflated. There wasn’t much else hidden in the safe. A few piles of paperwork, a gold watch (which Wren also stole), and a bowl of frozen red food that had Anders jumping from his seat, even with his injured ribs.
“That’s pon!” He elbowed me out of the way. “Give it here!”
“It looks disgusting,” I said.
“If by disgusting you mean delicious, then yes, it is quite revolting.”
Beep! Elio screeched. He pulled my hand, dragging me back to the viewport. Beep-beep-beep! He thrust his finger at the glass.
Incoming.
I’d hoped they would stay away a bit longer. The warden’s guards were running up the mountain path. Only this time they weren’t alone. The entire market was following them. Word must have gotten out about who we really were.
The Good for Nothings Page 25
