Snowburn

by Frost, E J

  “Her equipment bag!” Kez shouts back.

  I sweep the two of them with my eyes. Kez has her backpack and one of Erin’s equipment bags over her shoulders. I don’t see the other one anywhere. And I distinctly remember two when I pushed the Überbitch up the wall.

  I grab Erin by the arm. Haul her up so I can shout in her ear. “Leave it!”

  She shoves at my chest with surprising strength. “Fuck you!”

  I glance at Kez, expecting her to roll her eyes or otherwise express her disdain, but she doesn’t. She’s watching Erin, concern stamped around across her face. “Where did you last see it?” she shouts to her sister.

  Erin shakes her head. I open my mouth to tell them to forget about going back for it, when the ship stops moving with a bump. The noise ends abruptly. Then there’s a new noise: the whir of neg cells as the first stack of containers rises off the deck. With a soft whump, the crawler attaches a cable to the stack of containers and tows them down the ramp and off the ship.

  “Forget it,” I whisper to the girls. “C’mon, we’re gone.”

  Erin shakes her head so hard her hair slaps against my shadowsuit. “I have to have what’s in that bag.” She hisses. “Kez. Kez, please—”

  Kez frowns, closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, she looks up at me. In the dark, her eyes are black holes in the gray oval of her face. I can still see the fear in them. “Tyng said a person and her equipment.”

  I shake my head. I don’t give a fuck what he said. I’ve seen bowships unload. Takes less than ten minutes. We need to be off this ship by then, or we’ve got a one-way ticket back to wherever this ship came from. Probably Ykimo, on the North Shore. Home of Kez’s buddies, the NoBos, the punks who put that big hole in her back.

  “I think I know where the bag is.” She shrugs out of her backpack. “I’ll go.”

  “You, stay here,” I tell Erin.

  Kez puts her palm flat against my chest. “You’re hurt. I’m okay. I can run.”

  “What happened to not getting separated?”

  She sighs. Glances to the front of the ship where stack after stack of containers are trooping down the ramp and onto the dock. “How long do you think we have?”

  “Six minutes, tops.” More like seven, but I want a little margin.

  She nods. “I’ll make it.” She stretches, rolls her neck until it pops. Gives her sister a hard glare that I’m not sure Erin can see in the dark, but even a blind man could feel. “Get her off the ship.”

  “Kitten—”

  “Do this for me? Please? We’re so close.”

  That’s when it all goes to hell, in my experience. “Five minutes. Then I’m comin’ after you. Move.”

  Kez nods and takes off at a sprint. I watch her for a moment, appreciating the beauty of her movement. It’s not quite as effortless as that day I saw her run in Eddle, but she’s been through a lot since then. Her stride is still long and loose. Her arms pumping; dreads swinging. I can’t see her face, but I can guess at her expression. She loves this freedom, the sense of flight.

  I can’t let Tyng take that beauty away from her.

  A flicker of white light over my shoulder drags my attention back to where it should be. The crawler’s back, hooking up to the stack of containers two over from the ones we’re hiding behind. Fuck, the bastard unloading is not wasting any time. If Kez doesn’t hurry, she’s not going to have anything to hide behind when she gets back. I turn to call to her, but she’s out of sight already.

  Turning back to the bow, I watch another line of containers troop down the dock. It’s maybe twenty meters off the ship, and another twenty meters before a pair of mechanical arms clamp the containers and lift them off the crawler’s tether. Once freed, the crawler turns and rolls back up the ramp to the ship. As it turns, its lights sweep across a pool of darkness between the ship’s lights and the dock’s.

  “Sweet spot,” I whisper.

  Erin pulls herself forward, holding the container for support, and peers around me.

  “Here’s how it’s gonna go,” I tell her. “When the crawler hooks up to this container, we’re gonna run alongside it to that sweet spot. Then we’re going to get out of sight until the bowship leaves and we can find a way out of the port without being seen. Got it?”

  “Yes,” she hisses. Sounds like she’s in a lot of pain. Guess the derms Kez had in her little first aid kit don’t come in super-strength.

  “Can you run?”

  “With help.”

  Great. Looks like I get to tote the Überbitch after all.

  The crawler hooks up to the adjacent stack of containers in a series of mechanical clunks. Neg cells whirring, the containers lift off the deck and follow the crawler down the ramp, like a string of baby ducks following mama. Only these baby ducks are the size of an industrial hovercraft.

  The port’s mechanical arms reach out. Gather the containers. The crawler turns and makes its way back up the ramp.

  “This is it,” I tell Erin. Still no sign of Kez. She asked me to get her sister off the ship, and that’s what I’m going to do. Then I’m going back for her. I sling Kez’s backpack over my shoulders. Pick up Erin’s equipment bag and settle the carrier strap across my chest. Makes it awkward to get Erin’s arm around my shoulders, but Kez managed it somehow and so do I. I grip her waist and get ready to run.

  A mechanical whump about a centimeter from my ear announces the crawler hooking up to the container. The neg cells at the bottom of the container whir, blowing a puff of dust around my feet. There’s a second while everything around me is in motion and I’m the only still point. Then I’m moving, pacing the container as it shifts against my shoulder. Dragging Erin with me. One meter. Two. She stumbles and I pull her hard against my side, despite the protest of my shoulder. Drag her at a fast trot.

  The sweet spot welcomes me like Kez’s arms. I leave the thin safety of the shadows cast by the container to sink into that deep blackness. Once I’m within it, my eyes adjust and I can see the collection of low buildings that cluster along the side of the dock. Machinery hutches, or maybe housings for the big magnets that hold the bowship motionless. None of them are lit and the only movement I see is something small and furry that disappears between two hutches with an irritated flick of its tail. I follow it, dragging Erin, and deposit her in the deep shadows between two hutches. Crouching down, so whoever is manning the crawler doesn’t see me when he swings around, I consult the chrono in my eye. Kez has been gone for four minutes.

  I wait until the crawler’s lights pass our hiding place, then rise. The crawler trundles up the ramp, washing the bowship’s bare forecastle with its spotlights. There are still two blocks of containers sitting on the deck. They’ll provide Kez with some cover as she emerges. But there’s a thirty-meter gap between the last container and the ramp. She’ll never cross that without being spotted.

  She needs a distraction.

  I shuck off Erin’s equipment bag and then Kez’s backpack. Pull open her backpack and rummage around in it until I find the pair of laze-sticks strung on monofilament. I wouldn’t want to use them in a fight without some practice, but against a stationary opponent, like one of the bowship’s big spotlights, I should be fine.

  I move away from Erin, sliding along the row of hutches until I reach the first one on the dock. I don’t want to be near her when I crack the laze-sticks, in case they light up like a supernova.

  When I reach the first hutch, I crouch down, grip the laze-sticks in my right hand and check the deck again, searching the shadows between the containers for any sign of my kitten.

  The crawler’s lights sweep across the deck. It turns, backing into an alcove beneath one of the starboard prongs. More mechanical thunks. Magnets engaging, or disengaging. I can’t tell which. I grip the laze-sticks hard, ready to crack them. Then, in the arc of the crawler’s lights, I see a gleam between the port containers. A flash of pale skin? Wide blue eyes? I can’t tell in the shifting light.

&
nbsp; I stand. Take a step out of the shadows. The lights are fucking with my night vision, but Kez should be able to see me.

  The dock shifts without warning, knocking me off balance. I fall into a crouch. Grip the rough permacrete with my fingertips. The hydraulic cacophony that heralded the ship docking starts again. I grimace and focus through the banging filling my ears. The ship’s leaving. And Kez is still on it.

  The ship’s two front prongs uncouple from the dock with a thunderous clang. Mighty neg cells add their whine to the chorus of the ship’s departure. The bowship slides back from the dock. A meter. Two.

  Movement on the deck, half-obscured by the rising prongs. Kez streaks across the gunmetal ceramsteel. She’s sprinting, flat out. Arms pumping. Dreads streaming behind her. Fifteen meters. Ten. I meet her eyes. They’re wide, panicked.

  The docking prongs lock into their upright position with a clang. The water around the bowship’s float cushion churns. The gap between the ship and the dock widens. Three meters. Four.

  Kez leaps to the wide rail of the bowship. She claws Erin’s bag off her back, twists like a shot-putter and slings it at the dock. It skitters past me as I drop the laze-sticks and rush to the edge of the dock.

  “Kezra!” I roar at her.

  Five meters separate us. Six. Seven. The ship’s picking up speed.

  She shakes her head. She’s going to ride the bowship back. Back to Ykimo. Straight into the hands of the fuckers who nearly killed her. With nothing but flesh to buy her way out.

  “Kezra! Jump!”

  She bites her lower lip. Gauges the distance. Backs up a couple of steps along the rail.

  I mirror her. Calculating her trajectory as I move. She takes three running steps and leaps off the rail of the ship. I match her, kicking hard as I throw myself off the end of the dock.

  I aim just to the right of where Kez will hit. Stretch out my left arm and snag her around the waist as the water swallows both of us. It’s fucking cold. Knocks the breath out of me. Silences the sound of the two shots that tear through the water and slam into my right shoulder.

  I jerk backwards, dragging Kez with me. She struggles toward the surface, but I drag her further under. It’s dark; the water’s murky. As long as we don’t surface, we’ll be hard to spot.

  Kez is struggling wildly, but I keep her under for the last meter, until the absence of light tells me we’re under the dock. Then I clamp my hand over her mouth and push her towards the surface. I follow her up; keep my hand over her mouth while she snorts air through her nose.

  I tread water, holding Kez tight to my chest, straining to hear over the lapping water and the mechanical noises of the dock. A blur of movement off the end of the dock. A splash.

  Kez’s backpack. That fucking bitch.

  The backpack’s heavy. It’ll sink like a stone. I’ve got no idea how deep the water is here and even if I could get down to the bottom, I won’t be able to see anything in the murk. There goes all of Kez’s gear. All our credits. I’m going to split that bitch from nose to navel when I catch her.

  I tread water, trying to think through my fury. Move on to the next thing. Feels like I’ve got lead weights on my feet. I cast around, see a support pillar outlined by the port’s lights, and drag Kez to it. Find a slimy handhold. Hold Kez against my chest and take my hand off her mouth, let her take a deep breath.

  “Quiet, kitten,” I whisper to her.

  She gasps shallowly. “What happened?”

  “I think your fucking sister shot me.”

  She reaches out to the pillar, digs her fingers into the slime and grips it while she gets her breath. I support her and wonder about the absence of pain. There’s a faint stinging in my shoulder, but nothing like the pain I’ve felt before when I’ve been shot. Maybe whatever she hit me with didn’t penetrate the shadowsuit.

  That hope’s squashed when I notice how dark the water around us is getting. Kez notices it too. She holds her hand out, just under the surface. The water washing over her palm is noticeably red.

  “We’ve got to get out of the water,” she hisses.

  “Yeah, okay.” Too bad, being in the water is probably why I’m not feeling much pain.

  “Right now! There are tegli in this water. Go! Go!”

  She pushes me away from the pillar. I look around, orient myself. Find the low, dark shore a quarter klick away. I glance back to make sure she’s following me, when something slams into my upper back.

  I go under, struggling, reaching for a kukri with my left hand. Groping back over my shoulder with my right. Both shoulders erupt into white-hot agony. I kick hard, feel my right boot impact with something rubbery. My head pops to the surface and I gasp a lungful of air before the weight on my upper back drags me under again. Something bumps hard against my left leg.

  White light spears through the murky water. Sizzles across my vision to explode in a cloud of bubbles and blood below me. A dark, sinuous shape twists away from the light, slapping my leg with a huge tail as it brushes by me. A vise closes tight around my left wrist and drags me upwards. Kez is screaming as we surface. “It’s an orclas! Get to shore! Go! Go!”

  I stop worrying about whatever’s on my back. Ignore the pain and hideous sense of movement inside my right shoulder. Strike out with my arms and legs. Stab the water with my hands. Pummel it with my feet. Swim harder than I ever have before. The idea of becoming some sea monster’s supper motivates me like nothing else.

  Kez keeps pace with me, whether because she’s a better swimmer than I am or because she’s got the strength of fear, I don’t know. Her frantic splashes and gasps for breath match my own. She comes out of the water a step ahead of me as we reach the gravel beach. Reaches back and grabs my wrist again. Drags me after her as she struggles through the shallows to collapse onto the wet sand.

  I sink to my knees beside her. My head’s spinning. Everything feels disconnected. There’s pain and that weird sense of movement inside my shoulder but it’s distant. Fuzzy. Like the wheeze of my breathing and the shush of water over the gravel.

  Kez sits up slowly, pale skin showing through rents in her shadowsuit. Looks like she’s been through a shredder. What the hell happened? She puts her hand out, lets it rest on my thigh. Skin on skin. I look down in vague surprise. My suit’s torn open from my hip to the top of my boot. The skin beneath is dotted with blood, streaked with abrasions that I never felt.

  “Snow,” Kez whispers. My good kitten. My careful kitten, who said she’d never slip up and never has.

  I meet her eyes. They’re full of tears. As I watch, one spills. Another line of salt water dotting her cheek. I reach out to wipe it away, but nothing happens. My right arm hangs at my side like a lump of wood. Useless.

  “Kitten,” I say. My voice sounds odd. High and far away.

  “Just stay still.” She climbs to her knees. Moves her hand from my thigh to my left shoulder and uses it as leverage as she peers behind me. I hear her breath catch. Her whispered, “Oh, God.”

  I grope behind me with my left hand. Find that I’m still clutching my kukri and set it down before I slice myself open.

  As I drop the blade, something flops wetly by my thigh. The end of a tentacle; suckers gripping at the air. Dark blood oozes from the severed end onto the gravel.

  “Kitten?”

  She sits back on her heels. Cups my face with her hands. “There’s a tegli attached to your back. I can’t see its head.”

  I nod numbly. Nothing she’s saying makes sense.

  “Snow,” she says. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah.” I can hear her fine. Understanding her, that’s something else.

  “We need to get you to a medcen. Right now. You’re bleeding a lot.”

  I nod, then shake my head. No medcen. “DNA,” I say slowly. Try to force my thoughts into a straight line. “One way trip. Back to slam.”

  “Fuck. Right, let’s go.” She grabs my left arm and yanks on it as she climbs to her feet, sliding in the loose gravel
. I grunt. What she’s doing hurts. But it’s still a distant, disconnected pain. So I pick up my kukri and rock slowly up from my knees to my feet. Stare blankly across the dark beach. Then I’m on my knees again without understanding how or why.

  “Snow!” Kez shouts and I want to tell her to be quiet, careful. The way she’s been with my name. Until we’re far away from the dock and Erin and anyone else who might do us harm. But I can’t seem to get the words out, and she’s pulling at me again, yanking on my arm, until I struggle to my feet. She drags my left arm over her shoulders and the distant pain focuses into a hot knife that twists round and round in my shoulder.

  “Fuck, kitten—”

  “Come on! Stay with me. We have to get to the night market. It’s just on the other side of the port. Come on!”

  I stumble after her. One foot in front of the other. One step after another. The pain in my shoulder spreads until it’s everywhere. Working out from my bones. Working in from my skin. A solid white-hot inferno. I can’t keep my eyes open against it anymore. Then there’s blackness and a sense of falling and Kez’s voice harsh and high with fear and then there’s nothing. Not even pain.

  Chapter 24

  Why is it that beauty never lasts, but pain, that bitch’ll come back for round two every time?

  Pain wakes me. Sharp, hot, piercing. I’m back in K-G. The needles and the nausea and the blank-eyed men in their chameleon suits, never the same from day to day. Different interrogators but the same questions. Over and over. But I don’t know the right answers. I tell them the truth, but it’s not what they want to hear. I went where I was told to go. I fought when I was told to fight. I killed who I was told to kill. That’s all I know. That’s all I ever knew.

  Pressure joins the pain.

  Clamps? Vises? No, this is soft. Pressure on my cheeks. Against my mouth.

  I open my eyes.

  Kez’s big blues stare back. She blinks, her eyelashes so close I’m surprised they don’t brush my corneas.

  “Shh,” she says. Kisses me again.

  I lick my lips. Taste her. And the sharp copper of fresh blood.